THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

BY

CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

New York

W. J. WATT & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1915, by

W. J. WATT & COMPANY

Published May

PRESS OF

BRAUNWORTH 8l CO.

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER I

THIS morning the boy from the forks of

Troublesome Creek had back his name once

more. It was not a distinguished name, nor

one to be flaunted in pride of race or achievement.

On the contrary, it was a synonym for violent law-

breaking and in the homely parlance of the Cumber-

land ridges, where certain infractions are condoned,

it stood for " pizen meanness." Generations of

Spooners before him had taken up the surname and

carried it like runners in a relay race — often into

evil ways. Many had laid down their lives and

name with abruptness and violence.

When the pioneers first set their feet into the

Wilderness trail out of Virginia, some left because

the vague hinterland west of the ridges placed them

" beyond the law's pursuing."

Tradition said that of the latter class were the

Spooners, but Newt Spooner had no occasion to

probe the remote past for a record of turpitude. It

lay before him inscribed in a round clerical hand

on the ledger which the warden of the Frankfort

Penitentiary was just closing. Though the Gov-

2 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

ernor's clemency had expunged the red charge of

murder set against his name at the tender age of

eighteen, there was another record which the Gov-

ernor could not erase. A sunken grave bore testi-

mony In a steep mountainside burial-ground back in

'' Bloody Breathitt," where dead weed stalks rat-

tled and tangled ropes of fox-grapes bore their fruit

in due season.

However, even the name of Newt Spooner Is a

better thing than the Number 813," which for two

years had been his designation within those gray and

fortressed walls along whose tops sentry-boxes punc-

tuated the angles.

This morning he wore a suit of black clothes, the

gift of the commonwealth, and his eyes were fixed

rather avidly on a five-dollar note which the warden

held tightly between his thumb and forefinger.

Newt knew that the bill, too, was to be his. Yet the

warden seemed needlessly deliberate in making the

presentation. That functionary intended first to

have something to say; something meant in all kind-

liness, but as Newt waited, shifting his bulk uneasily

from foot to foot, his narrowed eyes traveled with

restlessness, and his thin lips clamped themselves Into

a line indicative of neither gratitude nor penitence.

The convict's thoughts for two years had been cir-

cling with uncomplicated directness about one focus.

Newt Spooner had a fixed idea.

The ofl'ice of the warden was not a cheery place.

Its walls and desk and key-racks spoke suggestively

of the business administered there. The warden

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 3

tilted back in his swivel chair, and gazed at the

forgiven, but unforgiving prisoner.

" Spooner," he began In that tone which all

homilies have In common; " Spooner, you have been

luckier than you had any reason to expect. It's

up to you to see that I don't get you back here

again."

He gazed sternly at the boy, for he was still a boy,

despite the chalky and aged pallor of his face, de-

spite the tight-clenched line of the thin lips, despite

the stooping and emaciated shoulders. The Ken-

tucky mountaineer withers into quick decay between

prison walls, and, unless appearances were deceitful,

this one was already being beckoned to by the specter

of tuberculosis.

" You have been pardoned and restored to all civil

rights by the Governor," went on the official.

" Your youth and 111 health appealed to some ladies

who went through the prison. You are the young-

est homicide we have here. They Interceded be-

cause you were only an Ignorant kid when you were

drawn into this murder conspiracy."

Newt's eyes blazed evilly at the words, but he only

clamped his mouth tighter. He would not have

called It a murder conspiracy. To him It was merely

" kiUIn' a feller that needed klllln'." " Since," con-

tinued the warden quietly, " you were full of white

liquor, and since you had never had a chance to know

much anyhow, those ladles got busy, and you have

another chance. You ought to feel very grateful to

them. It's up to you to prove that the experiment

4 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

was worth the risk It involves — the risk of turning

an assassin loose on society.'*

The boy from Troublesome said nothing. From

his thin chest came a deep, racking cough. He spat

on the floor, and v/ondered how long this man would

hold back the five-dollar bill and prolong the inter-

view.

"Well?'* The warden's voice was impatient.

** Don't you hear me talking to you? Haven't you

got any sense of decent gratitude? "

A fiercely baleful wrath shot instinctively through

Newt's gray hawk-like eyes and smoldered in their

deep sockets, but there still was need to leash his

anger — and conceal his purpose.

'' I'm obleeged ter ye," he answered in a dead

voice of mock humility, though his tongue ached to

burst into profane denunciation, " but I hain't axed

nobody ter do nothin'. I didn't 'low ter be beholden

ter nobody."

" You are ' beholden ' to everybody who has be-

friended you," retorted the warden with rising as-

perity. " Do you mean to go back to the moun-

tains?"

At once there leaped into the released convict's

mind a vision of being spied upon and thwarted in

his purpose — a purpose which the law could not

countenance. To cover his anger he fell into a fit

of violent coughing, and, when he answered, it was

with the crafty semblance of indecision.

'' I 'lowed I mout go back an' see my kinfolks fer

a spell."

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 5

"And after that?"

" I 'lowed," lied Spooner cautiously, *' thet atter

thet I'd go West."

*' Now take a tip from me," commanded the v/ar-

den, and, since he still held the five-dollar bill, the

boy from Troublesome was forced to accord unwill-

ing attention. " Every mountain man that goes

away drifts eventually back to the mountains. God

knows why they do it, but they do. You have just

one chance of salvation. I had that in mind when I

spoke to the Governor and asked him to include in

your pardon a restoration of civil rights. If you get

well enough to stand the physical examination, enlist

In the army. Once In, you'll have to stay three years

— and In three years a fellow can do a lot of think-

ing. It may make a man of you. If you don't take

that tip I'll have you back here again — as sure as

God made you — unless you get hanged instead."

The warden extended his hand containing the pro-

vision with which the commonwealth of Kentucky in-

vited this human brandling to rehabilitate his life.

The mountaineer bent eagerly forward and clutched

at the money with a wolfish haste of greed. Ten

minutes later the prison gates swung outward.

The Frankfort Penitentiary sits on a hill looking

down to a ragged town which straddles the Kentucky

River. In the basin below somnolent streets spread

away and lose themselves In glistening turnpikes be-

tween blue-grass farms where velvet lawns and

shaded woodlands surround old mansions that mir-

ror the charm and flavor of rural England. The

6 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

state capital Is a large village rather than a city, but

to this boy who had known only the wild Isolation

of the Cumberlands, where sky-high ramparts have

caught and arrested human development, Frankfort

seemed a baffling metropolis. In the lumber-yards

and distilleries that cluttered the steep river banks

he saw only bewilderment and In the dome of the cap-

Itol the symbol of a power that had jailed him; that

except for his youth would have hanged him.

One thing only he saw which struck a note of the

nostalgic and brought a catch to his throat. That

river had Its headwaters In his own country. One

branch flowed through his own county seat, and those

knobs that hugged Its banks and framed the strag-

gling town under the singing June skies, were the lit-

tle cousins of the mountains where his forefathers

had lived their lives and fought their battles for a

hundred years.

If he followed them long enough, they would

mount from knobs to foothills and from foothills to

peaks. The metaled turnpikes would dwindle and

end In clay roads. These roads would in time give

way to rougher trails, rock-strewn and licked by the

little, whispering waters that make rivers, and he

would travel by creek-bed ways over which wagons,

if they go at all, must strain their axles and where

men ride mules with their luggage In saddle-bags.

There forests of age-old oaks and spruce, pines and

poplars and hickory and ash would troop down and

smother In the hillsides, and the rhododendron would

be in bloom just now. The laurel bushes would be

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 7

all a-glisten and the elder tops would be tossing

sprays of foam-like blossom between towering senti-

nels of rock.

But the beauties of the rugged home country had

for him another meaning. At the roots of the laurel

a man can crouch unseen with his rifle cradled against

his shoulder to " lay-way " an enemy who has over-

lived his time.

When he had a certain man in rifle-range, the rest

would be elementally simple. He had spent more

than two years thinking of that and evolving every

needful plan in detail. There was now no need of

haste. After all this thinking he could afford to con-

sult his leisure and enjoy the pleasures of anticipa-

tion. When once the deed was done, as the warder

had reminded him, there was the probable shadow

of the gallows. But it should be said for the late

Number 813 that in his reflections was no germ of

vacillation or indecision. His one definite motive

in life was what he deemed just reprisal. He was

willing to pay for that without haggling over the

cost, but he was not willing to defeat his end by hasty

incaution.

He had been in prison over two years and was still

very weak. He recognized with contempt the

tremor of his hand. Once that hand had been so

steady that all his squirrels fell from the hickories

pierced through the head. It would be a little time

before he could again command that nicety of rifle-

craft. But now he must get home and home lay

about a hundred and fifteen miles '' over yon." He

8 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

could reach Jackson by rail, but that would cost

money, and there was ammunition to be bought and

other matters of importance, and his capital was pre-

cisely five dollars. Besides, railroad trains were

luxurious and effete; they were not for him. He

would *' jest natcherly take his foot in his hand and

light out " — pausing only for a little ^* snack " to

eat and a flask to cheer his journey.

He made his way slowly down into the center of

the town: a town which had come to recognize at a

glance these prison-given suits of black; these faces

pasHiy with the pallor of confinement; this shamble

fathered by the slouchy swing of the lock-step. For

the June morning when No. 813 became again Newt

Spooner was in the year 1897, and the ancient rigors

of prison life still held.

Eyes turned curiously on the shambling derelict,

but the only expression on Newt's face was one of

surly defiance to the world. The only sentiment that

stirred in his breast w^as such as might have brooded

in the narrow and poisoned brain of a rattle-snake,

lying close-coiled by the laurel roots along his native

creek-beds.

Prisons are to reform and teach lessons of law.

Newt Spooner had been In prison and was now out.

He had already known how to hate, but now he knew

how to hate with a greater tensity. Also, he had

learned to cloak his animosity behind a craftier con-

cealment.

He had grown up as a cub among wolflike men,

running with the pack. From his mother's shrunken

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 9

breast he had drawn bitterness toward his foes and

" meanness."

He remembered his boyhood surprise at the

shocked face of the circuit rider when his father had

laconically announced: "Stranger, thet thar boy's

dene drunk hcker sence he was a baby. We weaned

him on hit. Hit's good hcker, 'cause we made hit

ourselves — an' we hain't paid no damn' Gov'ment

tax on hit, neither." But before him no Spooner

had worn felon stripes, though many had been

felons. That he had done so branded him with dis-

grace, and until he should remove that stigma by

punishing the witness upon whose sworn word his

conviction had been based, he must face the scorn

of the battle-scarred members of the man-pack that

still ranged free. So, as Newt Spooner turned his

face homeward between sunny pasture lands and soft

woodlands and golden grain fields and set his feet

into the Lexington turnpike, young Henry Falkins

became a man marked down for death.

CHAPTER II

COURTS can not enforce laws upon which pub-

lic opinion sets its embargo. The men of

the mountains have lived isolated lives for

a hundred years. They inhabit an island of medie^

valism entirely surrounded by civilization, but the

civilization is no more a" part of them than the water

that surrounds an island is part of the island.

*' Leave us alone " has been the word of the hills to

the gift-bearing Greeks of innovation. The right

of men to settle their own quarrels after the method

of the Scottish clans from whom they sprang, has

been a thing which local courts have made only per-

functory efforts to deny — and which juries of the

vicinage stubbornly refused to deny. Among their

crude cabins one still hears phrases bequeathed by

word of mouth from the England of Elizabeth and

the Scotland of Mary Stuart. Immured behind their

walls of sandstone, they have lived ignorantly — and

fiercely.

Their peaks are heaped against the skies, and their

fields are tilled with the hoe when mules and plows

might fall down to destruction. With nature Itself

they pursue a constant and desperate quarrel for sub-

sistence, and through generations of battle they have

grown morose and sullen and vengeful and have lost

all sense of life's humor.

10

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS ii

But slowly the tide of outside Influence is creeping

in upon them and at the contact-points strangely

anomalous conditions arise: the clash of incongruous

centuries; the war between a stubborn old order and

an Inevitable new. In such a life there are here and

there far-sighted men who, standing like great trees

among stunted brethren, look out across a wider per-

spective with a surer vie ' :n.

The house of McAll;. er Falkins stands twenty

miles from a railroad and Is, for this crude environ-

ment, a mansion. It was built In the days when the

first tide of pioneer life swept out of Virginia, and

because It was, in that remote day, nearer kin to the

culture of the Old Dominion than to the wilderness,

it bore a strange blending of compromises between

luxury and the exigency of the frontier.

The head of the house of Falkins, generation after

generation, had clung to the old standards and old

ideals. The children of this household had been

reared like their cousins of Virginia and the blue-

grass. Other branches of the family bearing the

surname had gone to seed and lapsed Into illiteracy.

There were cousins who had to sign their names with

cross-marks and who had been embroiled in savage

animosities until the " Spooner-Falkins War " had

become one of the sanguinary chapters of feudal his-

tory, but the head of the house had always stood

apart and denounced the godless code of the ven-

detta.

And now the time was come when old McAllister

Falkins could look ahead and begin to see the pale

12 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

glow of a coming dawn. The railroad?, whose sur-

veyors and chain-bearers his neighbors had fought,

were piercing and developing the hills. Here and

there rose a circuit judge or a prosecuting attorney

who dared to talk from an unterrlfied soul to grand

and petit juries, and occasionally a panel barkened.

District schools began to pass into the hands of

teachers who could teach. In this place and that

rose small colleges and t\z flickering blaze of en-

lightenment was struggling Into a semblance of

steadiness. McAllister Falklns had sent his son

Henry away to school and college, and had had the

satisfaction of seeing him return unspoiled.

The life of young Henry Falklns, therefore, had

been cast both In and out of the Cumberlands, and

he had reached the age of twenty-five with a mini-

mum of enemies and a maximum of friends. His

was the breadth of the lowlands and the unflinching

strength of the hills. Then the lurking and Inevi-

table shadow of that life had Impalpably and sud-

denly fallen upon him.

When Bud Mortimer, a " marked man," riding

home from Jackson, had slid from his horse and died

in a creek-bed with a rifle-hole drilled through his

chest, Falklns had been unlucky enough to have been

squirrel-shooting near by and to have recognized one

of three figures that left the open road and took cover

In the laurel. By one of the strange chances of fate,

Falklns, who was tramping the woods with no idea

of concealment, had been unobserved, while the three

assassins, crouching along with all their covert art

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 13

of hiding out, had not quite escaped his eye. He

had not heard the volley because the murder had

taken place at a distance. He would not have sus-

pected the men who passed casually below him with

their rifles cradled in their elbows, had not a word

or two, in the staccato voice of a youth v/ho walked

third In the single file, come to his ears. These

words were profanely triumphant and boastful of

marksmanship. The other two men, the squirrel-

hunter did not recognize. Still, Henry Falkins

might not have known that the bull's-eye alluded to

had been a human breast, and he did not know it till

later.

When the dead man's friends had carried the mat-

ter to the courts, with no better evidence perhaps than

the bad blood which they knew existed, and when

young Newt Spooner, aged eighteen, but precocious

In crime, stood at the bar, charged with murder,

Henry Falkins told the prosecutor what he had seen.

The prosecutor instructed him to keep his secret until

he was called as a v/itness. He knew the conditions

and recognized that, should this evidence come pre-

maturely to the ears of the Spooners, he should prob-

ably not only lose valuable evidence, but also be sad-

dled with another prosecution for murder — and

just now his homicide docket was burdensomely

heavy.

When their cub was indicted, the Spooner pack

laughed. When he was haled into court, despite his

callow years, he came with insolent confidence, as

one above the law. He might have escaped and hid-

14 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

den out, since the court had allowed him bond, but

that would have hampered his future freedom of ac-

tion, so he preferred to go through the farce of a

trial, and afterward be free.

He testified, and his alibi corps testified as one

man, that he had been at Hazard, forty miles away,

when Mortimer fell. The defense closed in san-

guine trustfulness. Then, in rebuttal, the prosecu-

tion sprung a surprise — a sensation — a bomb.

The surprise was Henry Falkins, and when he took

the stand, the hand-made alibi collapsed. Even

then Newt Spooner had not been able to realize that

the convincing story of one witness could destroy his

carefully fabricated tissue of lies. But sundry un-

expected things were happening in this dingy court-

room. A new spirit reigned there. Vaguely the

sullen lad, crouching back in the prisoner's chair, was

aware of a hardening and petrifying resolve on the

rugged faces in the jury-box. Heretofore the aver-

age venireman had thought there was no health in

incurring the wrath of a family of terrorists like the

Spooners. Heretofore Spooners had always " come

cl'ar." Heretofore prosecutors had made only per-

functory attempts to convict them. Not so with the

Honorable Cale Floyd. From opening statement to

closing argument he leaped savagely at the throat of

the defense. His cross-examination was a merciless

hail of verbal rifle-fire. As he defied all the vicious

animosities of the Spooner tribe, the court-room held

its breath, and young Newt waited vainly for his

kinsmen to rise en masse and silence his anathemas

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 15

with a volley. Each night in his cell, young Newt

Spooner wondered why he did not hear a sound out-

side the brick " jail-house," and see the doors go

down before the wrath of his rescuers. It was in-

credible that the clan should sta id by and permit him

to be " penitentiaried." Yet it finally dawned upon

him that precisely this thing was happening. The

realization had dazed and embittered him. He

knew that even among his own he was not accounted

as of great importance, but he bore the name of

Spooner, and In the old days that would have been

enough. He was the first sacrifice to the changing

order. He felt no resentment against the prose-

cutor In spite of his philippics. The prosecutor was

paid to do it. He even rather admired the courage

which gave strength to the attack, when every prec-

edent told the lawyer that he was inviting death for

his pains. But for the man who had volunteered to

testify; who belonged to the family which his family

had hated and fought; who had come back to the

mountains with " fotched-on " ideas and attacked

him with the despised weapon of the law; for that

man he felt such hatred as can only come of fester-

ing and venomous brooding, which lasts while life

lasts.

These thoughts Newt Spooner carried as compan-

ions as he tramped the first leg of his homeward

journey. Until he had come to Frankfort, hand-

cuffed to a deputy sheriff, he had never seen this land

of " down below." Its softly billowing landscape

was to him unfamiliar and unpleasing. The great

1 6 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

columned mansions of time-stained brick set deep in

parklike woodlands; the smoothness of velvet lawns;

rippling acres of grain ripening into gold under the

June sun; all these things wore on his nerves. He

was accustomed to a country shut in and sequestered

between eternal hills; of roads where footfalls were

silenced; of ragged patches of cultivation pocketed

in surrounding forests. In such places a man could

step aside and be hidden. Here he felt exposed; his

very thoughts seemed naked. That men should live

in such great houses and drive such smooth roads

seemed monstrous and incredible. He hated the

" highfalutin " bearing of these " furriners," who

carried their chins aloft like masters of creation. He

hated the sight of the " niggers " who served them.

He hated all the orderly smoothness and opulence of

this level land where no ridges broke the sky. So he

stalked along, his face set toward the far horizon,

beyond which lay his mountains and his purpose.

It was a slow journey, for he was weak, but as he

breathed the June air into his cramped lungs, his

shoulders began to lose their slouch and his gait be-

gan to discard its prison shuffle for the long space-

eating stride of the mountaineer.

At twihght, he came to a small house by the road-

side. He had made a poor day's journey and, since

night was falling, he turned in at the gate, as though

it had been that of his own cabin. The place was

shabby and its residents would have been character-

ized by the negroes as " po' white trash," but of so-

cial values the late Number 813 was ignorant. He

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 17

saw only n roof and to the hills-man a roof is a shel-

ter for V, hosoever may need it. Over the white-

washed fence clambering roses hung in profuse in-

vitation, spicing the air with their fragrance.

Newt made his way to the door where a slatternly

woman confronted him. She stared with disapprov-

ing eyes as she wiped her hands on her apron.

"Well, what do you want?" she challenged.

"I 'lowed ye'd let me stay all night — I'm a

travelin'," replied the boy from Troublesome. He

spoke simply and without cumbersome explanation.

At home it would have been enough. But this

woman only stared at him disapprovingly and as she

took in his sullen visage and dusty suit of black, she

recognized in him the erstwhile convict. With a

suppressed scream she disappeared indoors.

Newt stood gazing without comprehension. That

he might be turned away had not at first occurred to

him. He had not yet grasped the essential differ-

ences between highland and lowland etiquette. He

accordingly mounted the steps, crossed the porch and

entered the door without knocking. In the moun-

tains no one knocks on a door.

But at the threshold he met a tall man, who thrust

him violently backward and squared himself across

the opening. As Newt staggered backward and

brought himself up against one of the porch sup-

ports, the householder surveyed him from crown to

toe, and then, waving a hand outward, ordered

briefly:

" Get the hell out of here, you damned jail-bird! "

1 8 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

For an instant the pardoned prisoner stood rigidly

at gaze, while his eyes gathered wrath and his ugly

snarl became wolf-like. Never had he been so

greeted when claiming the traveler's prerogative of

shelter from the night. But he was unarmed; more-

over, he had a mission. He was going to kill one

man. Killing men was expensive. It cost liberty

and sometimes more. He could not waste animosity.

So he veiled his anger and turned away. " I didn't

'low hit war a-goin' ter make ye mad," he mumbled

as he went out again to the road. But he had

learned his lesson. The mountaineer is as proud as,

he is Ignorant, and, rather than risk another rebuff,

he spent the night in a haystack, and the first rosy

kindling of dawn found him again on his way; hun-

gry, but setting his face stonily against the tempta-

tion to ask food.

• ••••••

The town of Winchester, like all the county seats

of central Kentucky, breaks from its drowsy somno-

lence into a brief activity on court-day. On one

Monday in each month the roads fill with an unac-

customed caravan of trade. Then under the ham-

mer of the street auctioneer farm gear and live stock

change hands; saloons and eating-houses do a ban-

ner business; politicians often harangue In the court-

house square; friends renew old acquaintanceships

and sometimes enemies renew old quarrels. But

Winchester differs In one respect from Its sister towns.

The savor of a soil rich In chllvaric traditions hangs

here as it does over neighboring counties, and yet

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 19

there is a difference. For Winchester Is the nearest

town of consequence to that foothllled borderland

where the opulent bluegrass ends and the Illiterate

Cumberlands pile their grim ramparts. Here come

the farther-wandering traders from the mountains;

gaunt men with steady-gazing eyes and lean sinews

and noiseless tread, to mingle with the louder-spoken

and fuller-nourished brothers of the lowlands.

It is on court-day that they come in greatest numbers.

Here, too, live some of their own kin whom the

menace of feudal reprisal has driven from their na-

tive slopes and " coves." With the mountaineer's

strong yearning to remain as near as possible to his

birthplace, these refugees have made new homes and

new lives at the edge of the bluegrass v/here on oc-

casion they can again see familiar faces. From

Frankfort to Winchester is a matter of almost fifty

miles, and Newt Spooner, who had taken up his

homeward journey on a Saturday morning, saw its

court-house cupola and church spires pierce the screen

of foliage on the forenoon of Monday, which

chanced to be the Monday allotted to Clark County

for its court.

Newt was very tired and very hungry. His re-

buff at the farmhouse had festered and rankled in his

mind, and he had refused to ask hospitality again or

to speak to any man, save for the curt asking of neces-

sary directions. In Lexington he had bought him-

self a " snack," but because he was penuriously

hoarding his small capital, he spent with a stinting

hand and pushed onward unsatisfied.

20 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

Now, as he trudged wearily, he saw a figure by

the roadside at his front. The figure was that of

a negro, who sat on a rock pile In the sun, hammer-

ing limestone chunks Into road metal. As the boy

came nearer, he saw another detail. The black man,

though unguarded, was a prisoner and he sat safe

against the chance of escape by reason of the huge

iron ball fastened to one ankle by a padlocked chain.

The white man, himself so lately released from the

penitentiary, halted. He had the mountaineer's

chronic aversion to " niggers," but here was some-

one whom he could question and who was in no posi-

tion to insult him.

^' How fur mout hit be ter Winchester? " he de-

manded.

The negro, welcoming interruption and conversa-

tion, turned with his granite-headed hammer poised

over a piece of limestone.

" It's a right-smart piece. If a man's leg-weary.

It's about a mile, boss," he said.

A mile to the hills-man is nothing; a mere " whoop

and a holler," yet now it seemed to the ex-convict as

his informant said, " a right-smart piece." The

glow which spotted his pallid face at the cheekbones

told of a temperature. Through his limbs went a

dull ache. From time to time he coughed. Finally

the negro laid aside his rock-hammer, and gazed long

and inquiringly at his silent visitor. He, too, recog-

nized the state-bestowed clothing and its meaning.

" 'Scuse me, boss," he suggested, " but yer done

come from Frankfort, ain't yer?"

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 21

Newt Spooner nodded, but his eyes narrowed, dis-

couraging interrogation.

*' Was yer — was yer in de pen'tenshery, boss?"

The man chained to his rock pile doubted the wis-

dom of his question, but African inquisitiveness had

mastered his better judgment.

Instantly he recognized his mistake. The boy

from Troublesome was at once on his feet and his

sallow face was distorted with anger. From his lips

came profane volleys of abuse. Transported by

rage, he took a step forward with clenched fists.

The negro clambered to his feet, and, since he was

anchored against flight, backed away defensively,

waving his rock hammer.

Newt Spooner selected a huge fragment of the

scaly limestone, and withdrew just beyond the range

of hammer and chain ; but as the negro, in a paroxysm

of terror, fell pleadingly to his knees, he dropped the

missile at his side.

" I hain't a-goin' ter bust In yore damned black

head," he said in slow wrath, " because I got another

job ter do. Thet's ther only reason why I hain't

a-goln' ter kill ye." Then he turned into the road

and took up his journey again.

• • • • • • •

Back there In the fastnesses o-f the hills, toward

which he was making his way, the leaven of change

was beginning to work, yeast-like. When he reached

his destination he was to learn with surprise that he

could not take up without Interruption the story of

his life: the story out of which pages standing for

22 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

two years had been torn. Births and deaths and the

giving In marriage were not the only things that had

happened. Quietly a new agent had entered In; the

agent of a patient spirit of education. This spirit

came burning In the hearts of men and women from

below, who reahzed that they must breast stubborn

opposition and that they must adapt their methods

to the Hfe they sought to change. They must plant

and nourish the new Idea In the younger minds and

they must not seek to alter In a twinkling a regime

that had long been Immutable.

But buried deep In the forestry of the tangled hills,

far back from a railroad stood a group of buildings

that seemed miracle-reared. They were stanch

buildings of square-hewn logs, which In contrast to

the ramshackle huts about them appeared to have

been lifted from another world and transported on

the winds of some benevolent cyclone. It was diffi-

cult to think of these houses as having been raised

from solid foundation to level ridgepole so far from

the facilities of transportation. Yet here In the wil-

derness stood the " college."

It was no vaunting boastfulness that had Inspired

the almost fanatical men and women who stood as

sponsors for the enterprise to give so high-sounding

a name to the Institution which taught kindergarten

and primary classes. Some day, they hoped. It might

grow up to Its title, and meanwhile there were gray-

beards and wrinkled women who sought to study

primer and multiplication-table, but whose pride

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 23

would bar them from advantages undignified by the

name of college.

On the spring morning when Newt Spooner was

trudging homeward, Doctor Murray, who had slowly

and courageously turned his dream into a reality,

sat in the study of the college. There was a smile

on his lips, and the square-jawed face, which escaped

all trace of the pedagogic, was contented. The sun

streamed in through his windows and lighted a room

finished in wainscoting of oak and maple — sawed at

the mill, which was part of the institution and which

he could see from his window, when he looked down.

Above, when he cast his eyes in that direction

through another window, nestled the small hospital,

where barbaric methods of local surgery were being

altered. But, best of all, there came to his ears

laughter and shouts from the trim campus where

boys and girls were at play: boys and girls who until

they had come here, had known little about laughter

and much about drudgery. And every peal of mirth

was a challenge to the old order of hatred and the

ancient thraldom of sullenness.

A girl came into the room and laid some papers

on his desk, and the doctor nodded at her with a

smile.

" Minerva," he said, '' I'm afraid you are working

too hard. One doesn't have to learn everything at

once, you know."

The pupil flushed and stood for a moment silent.

She was straight and lithe, and under the blue calico

24 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

dress that was turned down at her neck, her throat

was brown with a tan through which a petal-like

color glowed. Her brown hair glistened with the

glint of polished mahogany, and her eyes struck the

doctor as eyes meant for mirth, though they had

hardly learned to laugh. The deadly seriousness of

the hills and the Calvinistic seriousness that makes

martyrs, seemed to hold in bondage a spirit that na-

ture had intended to radiate gaiety. Her fingers

drew themselves together into fists, and after a mo-

ment she spoke slowly, and her speech was a strange

blending of the illiterate argot of the hills and a con-

scious effort to speak in the phrases dictated by the

education which she coveted.

*' I reckon ye don't hardly know how much I've

got to learn," she said. " I reckon ye don't realize

how plumb ign'rant I am."

Suddenly her voice became passionate.

" Maybe ye don't know how I hate it all — how

I want to get away from ign'rance an' dirt an'

wickedness. I've been wonderin' if I didn't err in

comin' here. It's just makin' me hate that cabin

over yon — I mean over there — on Troublesome.

Sometimes I think it can't hardly do nothin' — do

anything — but make me dissatisfied."

The head of the school looked up, and his face

grew grave.

" There are times," he said, " when that thought

comes to me, too. I don't mean as to you, Minerva,

alone, but as to all those we take here and teach. At

first it was all a dream of bringing a light to a place

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 25

that was dark. That was the only phase I saw.

But later I saw more. One can't make a dream a

reality without struggle. Dissatisfaction Is the price

we must pay for regeneration — and people like you

and myself must be among the first to pay It."

'' Over there," she went on, as though talking to

herself, " they only hates me for It. They says I'm

'Stuck on myself an' that what's been good enough for

my folks for all time ain't good enough for me no

more — I mean any more."

" It takes time," the man reassured her. " In

the place of Ignorance, we offer education. In the

place of lawlessness, we offer law. In the place of

squalor, we offer thrift. Are those things not worth

what they cost? "

The girl stood silent for a moment, then nodded

her head.

" I reckon so," she answered simply, and turned

to leave the library. After she had gone, the teacher

sat for a time with his book open before him, but his

eyes were contemplative, and It was from memory

and not from the printed page that he was reading.

He was thinking back and seeing over again a

day shortly after his school had opened. In those

times there had been fewer buildings, and of the many

pupils who came, hungry to learn, only a few could

be taken in. Among the first had been Minerva.

She had come exhausted and tired because she had

come on foot, and her mean calico dress had been

briar-torn, and her feet, which were bare, had been

bruised. But In her eyes was gleaming a passion of

26 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

hunger and resolve for the food which the school of-

fered the mind. She had presented herself, a ragged

little mendicant asking the alms of education, carry-

ing what belongings she had in such a bundle as

tramps carry.

Back in her unlighted and windowless cabin, she

had heard of this " new-fangled " institution where

was to be dispensed the pabulum of " larnin' " — and

she had made her pilgrimage. Now Doctor Mur-

ray was recalling that day. He had been down by

the stile which gave entrance from the creek-^bed

road, when he had seen the slight figure trudging

along, and the girl had stopped and eyed him shyly.

" Air ye the feller frum down below what aims ter

give folks larnin'? " she had demanded, as her large

eyes held his with a tense directness, untinged by any

humor.

*' To give folks learning is a large contract," he

had answered with a quizzical smile; " but we hope

to give to as many as we can, at least its rudiments."

*' What's them?"

*' The start. Have you ever been to school at

all?"

*' Tve done been ter the blab-school. I kin read

an' write an' figger."

Dr. Murray had stood there looking at her, and

it had come to him that she made a very pathetic

picture, with the yearning In her eyes and the dust of

travel on her calico, so he denied her with a heavy

heart.

*' Just now," he said regretfully, *' we can only

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 27

take In a f .w pupils and we are already overcrowded.

Tm afraM we can't make room for you." Suddenly

he added, "How far have you come?"

" The rise of twenty mile, sence sun-up," she in-

formed him simply, then tears welled rebelliously

into her eyes. Her voice broke from her lips with

a fierce passionateness.

" YeVe got ter take me," she cried out. " Ye've

jest simply got ter take me. Tve done been prayin'

ter God Almighty ter give me a chanst. Fve done

heerd that ye war a preacher of ther Gospel, an' I

reckon God hain't a-goin' ter suffer ye ter turn me

away."

Doctor Murray had then been new to the hills.

The storm-like intensity of the mountain character

was bringing him its revelations. He stood there by

the road, watching the ox-teams that were bringing

logs In to his saw-mill and made rapid calculations

and as he did so he heard the new candidate for

matriculation rushing on:

*' Ther Scripters says thet God's servant won't

turn away sich as comes to him seeking light — an'

Tve done come."

" At all events," he answered gently, " come up

and have something to eat, and Til talk It over with

my wife."

Mrs. Murray had spent a half-hour with the girl,

and then had come back to her husband.

" She is as wild as a squirrel," was her announce-

ment, " but I have never seen such a starving heart

or brain. I don't know what we shall do with her,

28 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

but we must let her stay." And so Minerva had

stayed.

Now she went out of the library, and made her

way to a favorite spot up on the hillside. It was a

study hour, and she carried a book with her. The

time she had spent here had wrought a transforma-

tion. The brain had unfolded and the heart had

become unplaced. The terms of this school adapted

themselves to the needs of the environment. They

did not conflict with the nearer demands of farm

work, but accommodated themselves to necessity.

When the frequent vacations came, Minerva went

back to the cabin which she called her home. Each

of these visits she dreaded.

Mountain reserve is hard to break. Even In her

tempestuous appeal to the head of the school, she

had not told her full story. Now she was think-

ing of It.

Mountain women grow old while they are yet

young, but her mother had seemed to her different.

Mountain women are grave with a gravity which Is

more than half sullen, but she remembered a mother

who had laughed and whose voice had been often

raised in song. Then when she was still very small,

she remembered one of those rude mountain funerals

where those who come raise their voices in a weird

incantation of " mourning," which they leave off for

gossip as soon as the period set aside for the clamor

comes to its end. After that she had been mother-

less and had kept house for a shiftless and surly

father. That house-keeping had been simple

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 29,

enough In the shack of one room, but It had been un-

relieved drudgery, and because she was one of those

human beings who are less near of kinship to the

members of the family with whom they live than

with some far-off ancestor whose nature is strangely

duplicated, Minerva had always had longings for

things which were to her undefined dreams. Her

nature had always been In Insurrection against the

squalid facts of her life. Her inclinations and

thoughts struck back, by one of Nature's practical

jokes, to some woman who had been a lady In the

courtly life of Virginia a century, or maybe two cen-

turies, ago, before her ancestors became stranded

pioneers and lapsed Into Illiteracy, degeneracy and

venal sloth here in the hard hills. What this all

meant she had not known, but she knew that one

memory alone was sweet to her thoughts, and that

that was the memory of her mother. She knew,

too, that even before they had taught her at the

college how perverted it all was, this whole scheme

of mountain feudalism and black Ignorance and bit-

terness had seemed to her wrong and repugnant.

Something had told her that somewhere there must

be something different and that somehow she must

find it and weave It Into the pattern of her life. Of

these things she had thought as she sat In the sum-

mer evenings on the slab bench before the cabin door.

In summer there was a great pine, which, just after

twilight had faded Into velvet blackness In the sky,

pointed an Index upward beyond the valley; and over

it, before the other stars came out there always ap-

30 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

peared a tiny point of light, which she chose to call

her star. Somehow, it seemed that in some vague

future day that star would lead her.

She was often alone, for her father would leave

her there and go his own ways, but a day came when

he returned and began throwing his few possessions

into a bundle.

" M'nervy," he said with a sullen sort of em-

barrassment, '' I reckon thar's times when ye gits

right-smart lonesome way up hyar, hain't thar? "

A catch had come into her voice as she said:

" Right often, Pappy."

He nodded, then added abruptly:

" Waal, we're ergwine ter nail up thet door ter-

night an' quit this-hyar place."

'' Whar air we a-goin' ter?"

" I done got myarried terday," he announced. " I

reckon we'll go down an' dwell with my wife's

folks."

The sun was nearing the western peaks and the

afternoon was well spent. The girl had had no in-

timation in advance of this contemplated change of

order. She stood there stunned. Life had been

empty enough, but here at least she had been in a

fashion mistress of the wretched house, and here she

had had her pine tree and her star, which were the

emblems of her dreams.

A long, low moan escaped her, and her father's

face reddened in anger. He turned away and left

her, going into the house, and she fled precipitately

to the heights above and sobbed out her misery at

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 31

the roots of the pine to which she was bidding fare-

well.

Then they had moved, and life had meant fitting

herself into a new family, no member of which liked

her, and submitting to the shrewish heckling of a

step-mother, who seemed to her a hideous libel upon

the miemory of the woman who had been lucky

enough to die young.

Now, as she sat with her book in her lap, because

In a few days she must go back to that cabin, the

past was parading in review before her eyes, and

though she was very hungry for " larnin' " she was

neglecting her books.

CHAPTER III

THE late convict had wasted his strength.

His violent paroxysm of anger had ex-

hausted him more than his laborious tramp.

It had sent his temperature up and brought a sicken-

ing weakness to his muscles. He wavered as he

plodded and once or twice even stumbled to his

knees, until at last, with only three-quarters of a

mile left, he turned aside to the bank of the road-

side and sat down with the sweat of weakness drip-

ping from his face.

It was such a day as must have set poets to mak-

ing jeweled phrases out of words. The air and

skies held that radiance which can make of a Ken-

tucky June morning a miracle of beauty. The hori-

zons were dreamily soft and warm. In the field at

Newt Spooner's back a meadow-lark was madly try-

ing to burst his pulsating throat with the flood of

golden joy. In Newt Spooner's mind was a somber

picture; a picture of the mountains which a few days

more would throw across the eastern sky-line, and

of a man who lived there and who was to die. He

was to die without opportunity to defend himself

and without benefit of clergy. It was not to be a

fight, but an execution. In the entire mental range

of the young man panting by the roadside was no

32

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 33

reflex of any other thing than brute bitterness and

'* pizen meanness."

A buggy and horse rose into view over the crest

of the hill. It had only one occupant and the occu-

pant was a girl. She was unlike any woman Newt

Spooner had ever known; unlike any of the " gals "

back in the mountains. Her lithe figure had all the

fresh charm of the spa;!ding morning and all the

spirited quality of the the 3ughbred. And just as to

Newt Spooner the world held only gall, so to her it

held only fragrance and music and starshine — and

an abiding faith in men and women.

She was happy because she had not yet discovered

any unhappiness and because she was young . . .

and because to-day she would see in Winchester a

certain member of the opposite sex in whom her in-

terest was direct and personal. Meantime, June

was softly glowing around the whole circle of the

sky's embrace and the trees w^ere rustling their fresh

greenery and the birds were singing.

She was singing, too, but suddenly she stopped as

her eyes fell on the young man by the roadside.

Her quick gaze discerned that he was desperately

thin and that the color in his face burned only In hec-

tic spots against a chalky pallor. She saw, too, that

as he wiped his forehead on his sleeve his forearm

and hand trembled. His clothes proclaimed him

lately released from the penitentiary, but her ideas

on the subject of prisons were vaguely confined to a

compassionate regret that they existed. Quite prob-

ably had she found him there looking weak and sick

34 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

even had he worn stripes, she would still have offered

him help.. She drew the horse to a slindstill, and

called out cheerfully in a voice as tuneful as the lark

over yonder in the field:

"Good-morning. Can't I give you a lift?"

Newt Spooner gazed back at her sullenly and de-

fiantly. The dog that has only been kicked dis-

trusts the hand thrust oi : in kindness. It is un-

known to his experience.

" Naw," he declined, with as surly an utterance

as possible.

The girl flushed and her lips tightened. She flung

back her head with a gesture that set truant curls

tantalizingly astir and flapped the reins on the

horse's back, but in quick afterthought she drew him

down again. This boy's rudeness did not alter the

fact that he was sick. He looked like a mountain^

eer and could hardly be expected to measure up to

the bluegrass requirements of courtesy.

" You're about as polite as — as a mud-turtle,"

she calmly informed the traveler, holding his eyes

with an unflinching gaze, before which they shame-

facedly drooped; "but that doesn't make any dif-

ference. I'm going into Winchester, and you don't

look very well. Hadn't you better get In and ride

to town? '*

The boy from Troublesome stared his incredu-

lity. She seemed to him a marvelous sort of being.

Her simple dress was to his eyes extravagantly ele-

gant and her patrician delicacy of feature belonged

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 35

to an order which neither the drudgery of the hills

nor that of the state prison had given him oppor-

tunity to study.

" I reckon," he said slowly and diffidently, but no

longer with a note of bitterness, " hit hain't wuth

while to pester ye."

*' That's all right," she commanded. " Climb

In." Slowly he rose and obeyed, the whiskey-flask

protruding from his coat-pocket, and when they had

gone a quarter of a mile. Newt made his sole volun-

tary contribution to the conversation.

" I'm obleeged ter ye," he said.

She did not question him unduly, nor ply him with

conversation, but she smiled, and in some subtle

fashion there broke through the storm-wrack of the

boy's bitterness a thin ray of light and glow of gra-

clousness. She let him out at the court-house square,

where buggies stood In rows and traders jostled and

the auctioneer's shout resounded, and there he lost

himself In the crowd; but first he stood looking after

her until her buggy turned a corner, and then he re-

membered that she had nodded with a friendly smile

of farewell. It was rather wonderful to be treated

like a human being.

Newt Spooner wanted food and he wanted it to

be cheap, so he foraged up and down Main Street

until he came upon that lower section where several

shabby eating-houses were sandwiched between

equally shabby saloons.

And while he stood on the pavement undecided

26 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

which way to turn, a hand was laid on his shoulder,

and he wheeled, startled, to find himself gazing into

the face of his kinsman, Red Newton.

" Come hyar," commanded the older man. " I

done heered thet ye was pardoned out, an' I sorter

'lowed ye'd be making tracks fer ther mountings. I

wants ter have talk with ye afore ye goes back."

" I aims ter git a snack ter eat," demurred Newt.

'* I hain't a-goin' ter talk ter no man afore I eats."

The other nodded.

*' I knows a place whar we kin eat an' talk, too.

Fult Cawsler hes done moved hyar from over on

Squabble Creek, an' opened a resteraw. All our

folks eats thar."

The youth, who had three days before been Num-

ber 813, permitted himself to be led through an un-

inviting doorway around which stood several gaunt

men in mud-spattered clothes. But Red Newton did

not suffer him to halt at any of those tables, covered

with red oilcloth, where several taciturn pilgrims

from the hills were feeding themselves from the

blades of their knives. Instead he whispered some-

thing to Fult Cawsler himself, and was permitted to

climb a narrow stairway at the back. At Its head

they traversed a narrow hall and came into a sepa-

rate room where around a private table were seated

a group of men whom the boy knew. Old Jason

Dode was, as usual, tipsy and, even as the new-

comers entered, was tilting the bottle of " red

licker " which he unwillingly substituted for the

white and sweetish moonshine of his native stills.

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 37

But the important thing was that Black Pete Spooner

stood gazing out of the open window, though he

stood back far enough to escape the eyes of pass-

ers-by below. His hands were thrust deep in* his

pockets and on his face was the same expression that

always sat there. Few people passed Black Pete by

without turning to look again. He stood somewhat

upward of six feet and his broad shoulders tapered

to a gauntness of waist and leg which gave him the

suggestion of a timber wedge. He was as tough as

that lumberman's implement and wedgelike, too, in

his power of disrupting the dividing elements which,

but for him, might have hung together in harmony.

His dark head he carried high-flung with a swing

of independence, and that head, even more than the

physique, caught and challenged attention.

Black Pete's face was rather narrow and rather

long, but its brow was high, its nose strong and

regular, and its chin had that square-blocked declara-

tion of resoluteness which commands respect. Un-

der brows black and bushy gazed out eyes that were

the dominating feature. They were as clear and

penetrating as crystal lenses, and in them dwelt a

sober, almost sad contemplativeness as though the

brain behind them were habitually gazing off beyond

horizons that limited other visions. They were

eyes that seemed able to pierce the opaque things of

life. The hair curled crisply in glistening black,

about the forehead and neck, and over the firm mouth

a black mustache fell drooping in long ends. It

was a face that hinted at no violence, though at great

38 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

strength and determination. Rather was It sugges-

tive of melancholy thought, and It had won for him

the satiric title of the " Deacon.''

As Red Newton and Newt Spooner came Into the

room, Black Pete turned his glance for a moment

upon them, then wheeled again to the window with

no apparent Interest in their presence or existence.

His face remained as wistfully distracted as though

he were a minister preparing a discourse, on a text

which lay very near his heart. But Newt, having

seen him, continued to stare. His eyes narrowed.

He knew that several years ago, before he had him-

self become a felon, the Deacon had gone West —

where he did not know. But he did know that only

so long as this man remained away from the county

could there be hope of even comparative peace be-

tween the Spooners and the Falklnses. So dreaded

was the quiet-vlsaged Intriguer, so unalterably given

to violence and the taking of lives, that his exile had

been the condition precedent to all negotiations for

truces and peace. Now Black Pete was back. Ob-

viously, the meeting In Cawsler's '* resteraw," seventy

miles from home, held some portent beyond the

casual.

They brought the newest prodigal food, and, while

he devoured it, bolting It with wolfish hunger, he

also picked up the loose ends of talk and began to

understand the situation. There had been an elec-

tion down In his section since Newt's conviction —

an election and some other things, which Red New-

ton briefly summarized as " merry hell." The

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 39'

*' penltentlarying " of Newt himself had been only

the inaugural of more sweeping and hateful innova-

tions. Three times the old blood-feud had broken

into sporadic outbursts, and three men had been shot.

But what most galled was the fact that the common-

wealth's attorney had shown a hound-like nose for

evidence and that all of the accused clansmen had

been viciously prosecuted.

A truce had been patched, by the terms of which

Jake Falerin, a cousin of McAllister Falkins and the

leader of the militant Falkinses, had agreed to leave

the hills and remove the menace of his disturbing

influence. He had gone only as far as Winchester,

and, from councils held there with visiting Falkinses,

was as dangerous as though he had remained at

home, even while his own life was safer. The

Spooners had decided that this half-compliance was

a practical breach of the truce, and In accordance

with that theory the Deacon had come home. At

least, he had come this far. In the meanwhile, the

Honorable Cale Floyd, commonwealth's attorney,

had reaped the gratitude of his constituency. Be-

cause he had waged relentless war on lawlessness and

had begun to show Incipient symptoms of victory,

he was defeated for reelection. Sick of the futility

of such endeavor, he had closed the bare law-office

before which his shingle had swung In Jackson, and

had come to Winchester, where the field was larger

and where men were more appreciative of the quali-

ties and principles for which he stood. He was the

man who had put stripes on Newt, and who, had he

40 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

remained in office long enough, would have made the

pattern a family apparel for other Spooners.

" That's how things stands, Newt," summarized

Red, turning to the new arrival, " an' that's what I

'lowed ye'd better know about afore ye went back

home."

" An' them damned fellers, Jake Falerin an' Cale

Floyd, is a settin' over thar somewhars in this-hyar

town right now, a-brewin' of more deviltry," enlight-

ened old Jason Dode in a hiccupy voice, " an' be-

cause they hain't in the mountings, they 'lows they

kin go right on with hit. We don't 'low they

kin."

The " Deacon " turned from the window, and

strolled toward the table. Newt, having appeased

his hunger, was wiping his mouth on the spotted

tablecloth. The dark giant fixed him with thought-

ful eyes. When he spoke, his voice was in contrast

with those of his fellows, for his life in the West

had almost freed it from drawl and vernacular, and

he spoke with a quiet graveness.

" Son, this Cale Floyd is the same lawyer that

sent you to prison." ^

Newt's eyes flashed.

" I reckon I hain't fergot thet," he said shortly.

Black Pete nodded sympathetically, and went on

with the same grave intonation.

/' I reckon you wouldn't mind much if he got his

dues?"

" He's ergwine ter git his'n," asserted old Jason,

his bloodshot eyes wickedly aflare. " He's ergwine

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 41

ter git hls^n this day afore sundown. An' Jake

Falerln's ergwine ter git his'n, too. Them two fel-

lers'll be in hell ternight."

'' Shut the old fool up," suggested the Deacon

passively; *' he'll be shouting that out in the street

after one more swig of liquor." Then he turned to

Newt again.

" If Floyd isn't taken care of, son, the next com-

monwealth's attorney will follow right after him.

We've got to give a lesson an' a warning. Do you

understand? "

*' I reckon I do," replied the ex-convict, but he

spoke without ardor.

" This evenin' about half-past four o'clock," pro-

ceeded Black Pete, " Mister Lawyer Floyd is going

to make a speech in front of the court-house.

There'll be a crowd, and we figure that Falerin will

be there, too. Our boys will get up close. Some

of them will start a fight amongst themselves, and

I reckon they'll pull guns. Mr. Floyd an' Mr.

Falerin are apt to get accidentally shot."

Newt Spooner rose, and stretched his arms. His

food and rest had refreshed him, and the red spots

had gone out of his cheeks.

*' What for," he inquired coolly, " air ye a-tellin'

me all this-hyar business? "

The Deacon's grave eyes clouded, but otherwise

his expression did not change.

" We figured you'd be interested, son. You were

the first Spooner they ever put behind penitentiary

bars. This man did it. We figured that when we

42 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

came to punish these fellers — " He broke off with

a shrug of his shoulders.

" Ye 'lowed ye mout git me ter kill 'em? " Newt

spoke with absolutely no betrayal of interest.

" Jest the lawyer, Newt," interpolated Red New-

ton ingratiatingly. " He's your'n. Hit's yore right

ter punish him."

The late convict wheeled on the speaker, and his

face blackened and lowered.

'* The hell hit is!" he screamed. "I hain't a-

holden nothin' 'g'inst ther lawyer. He didn't do

nothin' but what he had a license ter do. I knows

who I'm atter. You folks wants two men killed, an'

you wants me ter be ther feller ter go ter the peniten-

tiary fer doin' hit. What the hell did any of ye

do fer me last time? What the hell do I owe any of

ye, wuth goin' back thar fer? "

For a moment, a general silence of dazed astonish-

ment followed the outburst. It was the Deacon who

broke it at last.

** All right, son," he said almost gently. " Every

man accordin' to his lights. I reckon you ain't goin'

to tell anybody what you've heard? "

Newt snorted contemptuously.

" I reckon ye knows thar hain't no danger of thet.'*

" Hit 'pears like," interposed Red Newton with

an apologetic shrug to the others, " hit 'pears like

the penitenshery hes done broke ther boy's sperit.

Some folks is thet-away, but hit don't hardly seem

like no Spooner."

Newt wheeled on him.

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 43

*' Thet's a low-down He," he stormed. " Nothln^

hain't broke my sperit. I hain't scalrt of them, ner

of you, ner of hell! I knows what I'm atter.

Thar's a feller I'm ergwine ter kill, but hit hain't

this one. I'm tendin' ter my own business — not

your'n. You-all got me inter one killin', an' not a

blame one of ye stood by me atterwards. Now all

of ye kin go ter hell ! "

He glared around the group for a moment and

left the house, and no one made an effort to stop

him. Newt meant to take up his journey within an

hour or two. He, too, had a vengeance planned,

but the man he sought was back there in the moun-

tains, and there was no use in " foolin' away time an'

money here."

Yet an hour later he walked past the court-house

and the large hotel just beyond it, and abruptly, op-

posite the hotel door, he halted. He had seen a

buggy drive up and stop, and In the buggy was the

girl who had brought him to town. He had for-

gotten her, but now he paused across the street and

stood gazing. He gazed simply because she was the

first living soul who had ever been kind or gracious

to him, and, precisely as the blind man may feel the

sunlight and know that it Is pleasant, he glowed

dumbly under the remembrance of her smile.

Then as he stood looking, a young man came out

of the hotel with his hat lifted and his face smiling.

In his eyes was an expression easy to read, an eager,

glad welcome as he crossed the pavement with ex-

tended hand and climbed Into the buggy beside the

44 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

girl. The young man was well dressed and bore

himself like a gentleman, yet he was a mountaineer

by parentage and birth.

Newt's posture stiffened into rigidity. The color

left his face and his eyes began to burn balefully.

. . . He had just recognized Henry Falkins.

For an instant, the erstwhile convict stood

paralyzed with astonishment, then the blood in his

arteries began pounding a fanfare of triumph.

Wheeling, he went rapidly toward the restaurant of

Mr. Cawsler. There he would find some of the

clansmen, and one of them could lend him a pistol.

If they refused, he would ravish a weapon from them

with his bare hands. After that, if they let him have

ten minutes for his own, he would join them in any

schemes, conspiracies or crimes that interested them.

For him, ten minutes would be sufficient. His walk

broke into a trot at which the passers-by laughed. A

yokel in a hurry is always amusing.

CHAPTER IV

A GROUP of shabby men lounging in front of

Fult Cawsler's restaurant paid scant at-

tention to a wild-eyed youth who came

down the street at a run and dashed into the door.

Newt found the dining-room on the main floor empty

save for a weary and untidy woman who was clear-

ing away the china of the mid-day trade, and Fult

Cawsler himself, whose bulky figure was just then

disappearing up the stairs. The boy stood for a

moment anxiously gazing about the place with its oil-

cloth table-covers and its gaudy wall calendars, then

dashed pell-mell after the climbing restaurateur.

The woman called to him in high-pitched and rau-

cous prohibition, but Newt Spooner went heedlessly

on his way. At the head of the stairs in the murky

hallway Cawsler turned, and without at once recog-

nizing the on-rushing invader wheeled belligerently

to face him.

The plans which had been hatched in his place that

day were not such as would enhance his reputation

as a law-abiding tradesman should they come to gen-

eral knowledge. As the proprietor blocked the way,

his voice carried the ring of asperity.

" What in hell air ye makin' such a furss about? "

" Hit's me, hit's Newt Spooner," volleyed the un-

45

46 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

armed avenger. *' Whar's Red? Whar's the Dea-

con? I hain't got no time ter fool round. I'm

in hell's own haste ! "

" They've done gone — all of 'em," responded

Cawsler calmly, as he recognized the ex-convict. " I

don't know whar they're at." He paused, and then

admonished coldly, " Ye'd better set down and calm

yoreself. Ef ye runs around town so distracted-like,

they'll put ye in the jail-house fer shore."

Newt only snarled. Here was a situation upon

which he had not counted. He had unexpectedly

found his quarry, and he was unarmed. By the time

he remedied his deficiency his victim might have es-

caped. For an instant he stood in a futile and silent

transport of rage, his entire body In a tremor of

blood-lust and excitement. Then with an oath he

pushed Cawsler aside and entered the room where he

had left his clansmen. It, too, was empty, except

for a figure breathing with drunken and stertorous

stupor In a chair at one corner.

The one man was old Jason Dode. Newt rushed

across, and unceremoniously catching him by the

shoulders, twisted his sagging figure until it lay chest

upward. The old drunkard mumbled and raised

balky hands against the Indignity, but consciousness

flitted only spasmodically across his face, and he sank

back again with an Incoherent murmur. Newt tore

open his coat and vest, and ran his hand under the

left armpit, but he found there only an empty holster.

Old Jason was drunk and Ineffective, and lest In his

maudlin condition he might wander out and disturb

THE CODE OE THE MOUNTAINS 47

the equilibrium of their plans, the clan had disarmed

him. Newt rose and faced Cawsler.

*' I've got ter have a gun," he exploded. ^' Git

me a gun I "

But Cawsler, gazing into the wild face and burn-

ing eyes, judged that Newt, too, had been " hittin' up

the red licker," and that a gun was just what he least

needed. Accordingly he shrugged the fat shoulders

under his dirty shirt, and shook his head in negation.

" I hain't got no gun," he lied; " I done loaned

mine out." With another wild oath, the would-be

assassin dashed down the steps and out into the

street. He would search the town until he found a

kinsman, and Incidentally he would try to keep an

eye of sufficient watchfulness on Henry Falkins to

remain familiar with his movements. It did not oc-

cur to him that Henry Falkins might be unsuspicious.

To his mind Henry Falkins must know, if he had

heard of the pardon, that, straight as a homing pig-

eon, Newt would come to him for reprisal. Such

was the code of the Cumberlands. So his task was

threefold: to arm himself; to find Henry Falkins;

and to conceal himself from Henry Falkins.

The Spooner aggregation meant to make its ap-

pearance at the psychological moment, and until that

moment to remain as invisible as a covey of quail in

close brush. Newt, no longer excited of guise, but

quiet, almost feline in his alert movements, slunk

from saloon to saloon, and scanned the length of

the streets with a purposeful glitter in his eye — and

his search for a kinsman was vain.

48 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

The afternoon was well advanced when the boy,

lurking in a side street, saw a buggy pass at a rapid

trot, and recognized its occupants. The vehicle was

going out Main Street, and in it were a girl and a

man. For the second time that day, he had sighted

his quarry, and, turning into Main Street, he began

to follow. It was merely reconnaissance, but, if he

could hold the vehicle in sight long enough, he might

know where later to take up his watch. A man on

foot is poorly equipped to follow a standard-bred

trotter between the shafts of a light buggy, but the

streets of Winchester lie over gradual and rolling

hills, and the girl who held the reins was a humane

driver. A square ahead, she drew her horse to a

walk for the climb, so the man could keep them in

sight as far as the next ridge, and he strode along

at a* rapid distance-devouring walk, forgetting his

weariness as a hunter forgets it when a covey rises

whirring from the stubble.

Then for a while he lost them, and so, losmg and

regaining his view, he followed them up and down

hill till the town dwindled into outskirts and the

street became a smooth turnpike between farms and

woodlands. But, at last, the difference in speed told,

and the boy reluctantly abandoned the chase. Not,

however, until he had glimpsed through stretches of

velvet woodland a thing which he did not understand,

and which he paused in perplexity to study. Back

In the patriarchal grove of oaks and walnuts and

hickories was a frame platform, and men were work*

ing on their hands and knees, polishing its floors.

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 49.

About it were strung long lines of paper lanterns of

bright and varied colors and fantastic shapes. Still

farther back, but close of access to the platform, rose

the front of an ancient and vine-covered mansion with

its little village of barns and servants' quarters, peep-

ing out between lilac bushes and cedars. But it was

the platform that puzzled the mountain traveler, and

he perched himself on the fence to " study " about

it.

A negro boy, riding a colt and carrying an empty

basket, came jogging down the avenue and into the

pike, where he drew rein In response to Newt

Spooner's signal.

" What mout thet contraption be over yon? " de-

manded the mountaineer in a surly voice, as he in-

dicated with a jerk of his head the object of his curi-

osity.

The servant laughed long and loud. He was a

young negro and mounted. By putting spurs to his

steed he could escape any penalty of insolence, and

If the mountaineer dislikes the negro It Is with no

greater scorn than that which the negro feels for

the poor white. When he had finished laughing his

white teeth continued to gleam In a wide grin.

*' Thet-thar contraption," he mimicked with an ex-

cellent Impersonation of the nasal drawl In which he

had been questioned, '^ Is a platfawm. It's shorely

an' p'intedly a platfawm. Our folks Is gwlne ter

have a platfawm dance ternlght. Saxton's band's

coming frum Lexin'ton ter play de music, and all de

quality folks'U be hyar."

50 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

At the sneer of the servant^s manner, Newt

Spooner had slipped down from the place he had as-

sumed on the fence, and stalked menacingly out into

the road. The negro had moved his horse a little

to the side and waited. But, at the information re-

ceived, Newt forgot his wrath in the engrossment of

a sudden idea. A dance ! The young people would

be there in force. Perhaps among them would be

the one he sought. In his country where round

dances are unknown, special invitations are not re-

quired. Word goes out that so-and-so is giving a

dance at such-and-such a point, and the countryside

troops thither for shuffle and jig and wassail.

" I reckon," said Newt slowly, " I reckon I'll be

thar."

The black boy let out a loud guffaw. He leaned

back with one hand supporting his weight on the

haunches of his mount, and whooped his mirthful de-

rision to the open heavens. Newt gazed at him, first

in astonishment; then in passion.

" What air ye a-laughin' at, nigger? " he inquired

with low-pitched ferocity of voice.

The boy gathered up his reins, and, under the pres-

sure of his spurred heel, the colt was away in a gal-

lop.

" I may be a nigger," he flung back over his shoul-

der, " but I ain't no po' white trash. The likes of

you comin' to our dance! Good Gawd I " A roar

of ironical laughter followed in the wake of clatter-

ing hoofs, while Newt Spooner, his thin face working

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 51

with a positive mania of fury, hurled rocic after rock

at the retreating figure.

Slowly the mountain boy walked back toward

town, his black suit already whitened with a fine coat-

ing of turnpike dust.

As he neared the court-house, he quickened his

step, for a dense crowd was gathered at its front,

and he knew that the speaking must be in progress.

His people would be in the throng and they would

be armed. If he were going to the dance to-night,

he needed a gun, and yet his craftiness automatically

set a restraint on his impatient haste. Should he

rush headlong into that crowd just on the verge of

trouble, he might rush also into arrest. The applause

and laughter with which the crowd just now jostled

shoulders told him that nothing had yet occurred to

break the peace or equipoise of the occasion; but that

something was to happen he knew, and the knowl-

edge made him cautious. A distinguished-looking

gentleman with white hair was speaking from an im-

provised stand, and, as the ex-convict drew near the

outskirts of the crowd, he found himself standing

near a man who wore a blue coat, and leaned on a

stout hickory staff. The partial uniform of this in-

dividual proclaimed a town marshal, and the badge

on the breast corroborated the proclamation. It oc-

curred to Newt that to be talking with an officer of

the law when the shooting began would constitute

an excellent alibi. So he stopped, and touching the

officer on the elbow, inquired:

(52 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

" Stranger, who mout thet man be, thet's

a-talkln' ? "

The policeman turned and regarded him out of a

broad, good-humored face, In which shrewd, but

merry eyes twinkled.

Newt wanted that officer to know him the next

time they met, and to remember him definitely, so he

returned the gaze with one frank and unblinking.

" That's General Braden, sonny," the town mar-

shal amiably enlightened; "he's just introducin' the

Honorable Cale Floyd. That's Floyd now."

"I hain't In yore way, am I, stranger?" ques-

tioned Newt humbly by way of further emphasizing

his presence. " I 'low ef I hain't, I'll jest stay right

hyar an' listen at him speak."

The officer laughed.

"Stay right where you are, sonny," he Invited;

" I expect It's as good a place as any." And then,

to the boy's delight, the other laid a hand lightly on

his shoulder.

The young man from the waters of Troublesome

wore a blank face, although It was difficult. He had

told himself that he felt no hostility for this prose-

cutor who had convicted him. Yet, now, as he saw

the tall man step forward to take his place on the

platform, remove his felt hat and shake back the

black hair which fell, mane-like, over his forehead,

Newt acknowledged a sense of gladness that he was

to be killed.

The Honorable Cale Floyd had fought a bitter

battle back there in the lawless hills for the vindica-

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 53

tlon of law. He had walked In the shadow of death

and had been deprived of office; ostracized like Aris-

tides because he was " too just a man."

Now, he had come down here to the cultured bluev.-

grass, and was being pointed out as something of a

hero. Clients with well-filled purses brought their

litigation to his office. And it came to pass that In

the glow^ of unwonted recognition, the simplicity with

which he had faced peril back there in his own coun-

try was slipping from him.. He felt the theatric

quality of the moment, and struck something of a

pose as the crowd took in his tall figure and broad

shoulders and country lawyer's make-up of frock coat

and black string tie. He had recognized that it was

more effective to appear the backwoods lawyer than

the well-groomed attorney. His mentality would

flash more startlingly from six feet of rugged moun-

taineer, and his attainments would limn themselves

forth in a more Impressive forcefulness. In short,

the Honorable Cale Floyd was not now averse to

capitalizing his past vicissitudes.

So he shook back his hair, and stood smiling with

the June sun slanting to his fearlessly rugged fea-

tures and touching them like a face cast in bronze.

Then he began to talk. He warmed into his subject,

gathering a wine-like thrill from the Interested at-

tention of the upturned faces; faces which long jury

experience made as readable to him as clear type, and

he threw more and more fire into his utterance, until

he was borne out of himself and Into a realm of elo-

quence. With a characteristic gesture, he leaned

'54 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

far outward and stretched his hand, Index-like, to-

ward the edge of the crowd. Thus had he turned

often from the jury-box and scourged with figure and

invective the man in the prisoner's dock. It chanced

that all unconsciously the finger went like an aimed

weapon to the face of Newt Spooner, and straight-

way the boy saw red. From his mind passed the

white brick facade of the bluegrass court-house, the

sea of hats and the field of shoulders, and in their

stead there rose again before him the dingy Interior

in Jackson, where he sat beside his counsel, while

this same man, with this same gesture, loosed on his

head all the bolts of the law's castigatlon. And at

that same moment, playing with hypnotic Intensity

on his audience, the Honorable Cale Floyd fell in-

stantly and suddenly silent, holding his bronze-like

pose of outstretched arm and hand. It was only for

a momentary pause: an oratorical trick of contrast

and emphasis, out of which his voice would presently

ring again In compelling tones. But In that instant

of quiet there rose from the center of the crowd a

sudden shufile and a mufHed outcry accompanied by

a swaying of bodies. It was so close to the stand

that the speaker, looking off more widely, was con-

scious of it only with annoyance for a marred effect.

But, as he drew himself erect once more, to the unde-

fined disturbance was added an outbreak of oaths,

and, before they had died away, several close pistol

reports came spitting sharply from the front, and lit-

tle wisps of blue smoke twisted upward above the

hats. At once there followed a general pande-

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 55

monium, shoving, shouting, the shrill screams of

women; an effort among the panic-stricken to get

away by climbing over those who obstructed them.

With an oath, and an eloquent sweep of the hand

to his pistol-pocket, the town marshal left Newt, who

stood with an enigmatical smile on his lips, and went

ploughing through the scattering mob toward the cen-

ter of the disturbance. For a breathing space, the

speaker stood leaning on the rail of the platform and

looking out with no expression on his face save one

of chagrined Interruption.

Newt Spooner suppressed a snarl of contempt.

*' By God," he muttered to himself. " ef they

didn't go an' plumb miss him ! "

But, as he was still growling inwardly with dis-

gust, the attorney started to step back, reeled and

crumpled limply to the floor of the platform.

CHAPTER V

AFTER the momentary shock of sudden panic

the scattered auditors began shamefacedly

drifting back for inquiry and a solution.

Newt Spooner saw General Braden and a com-

panion carrying the limp figure of the mountain law-

yer down the stairway of the platform and heard

them cursing the lawlessness of the mountaineers

who, " having made an excursion from their own

shambles were waging their damnable war on the

streets of a civilized town."

He saw the crowd opening to let out several men

who bore another prostrate figure, and, as they

passed, one glance at the face, which had fallen back,

loose-jawed, between the supporting arms, told him

that some one had " gotten " Jake Falerln. Then

he saw the town marshal, supported by half-dozen

volunteer deputies, fighting for a passage through the

throng with the prisoners, whose bodies they shielded

with their own. This group made its way up the

stairs, and flattened Itself against the court-house

wall.

Behind the drawn revolvers of the guard, the late

convict recognized the faces of Red Newton and his

accomplice. Already the crowd, which had a mo-

ment before been in panic-stricken flight, was pressing

56

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 57

menacingly forward, and talk of lynching ran like

wildfire from mouth to mouth. The officer was

brandishing his pistol, and two of the volunteers

were holding aloft, in show of force, the revolvers

they had taken from the captives, whom they were

waiting to slip through the court-house halls to the

jail. Someone had gone around to unlock the doors.

The prisoners themselves stood stoically enough

with mask-like faces, and if the roar of bluegrass

wrath Intimidated them, their eyes and lips showed

no trace.

The countenance of Red Newton even wore a sa-

tirical smile as he commented to the other Spooner,

loudly enough to be heard around a wide radius:

" These-here furriners air shore hell-bent on law

an' order, hain't they? They're bounden fer ter

have hit, even if they has ter lynch folks ter git hit."

Then the door opened, and the officer with his

prisoners backed swiftly through It and slammed If

In the faces of the crowd. Newt calmly walked

down the stairs, and strolled along the street. At a

corner, he saw Black Pete leaning nonchalantly

against the wall In conversation with a farmer, who

was roundly berating the violence of the mountain-

eers. The Deacon was chewing a wooden tooth-

pick and regarding his chance companion with grave

and respectful attention, nodding his head In ap-

proval of the sentiments expressed, but, as Newt

passed him, he fell into step, and the two walked to-

gether toward Mr. Cawsler's restaurant.

" Son," suggested the quiet giant who had ar-

58 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

ranged the little tragedy of the afternoon, " this

town's going to be a right-bad place for us mountain

men for a time. If I was you, I'd dig out.'*

" Thet's my business," retorted the other sullenly.

" I've got a matter ter settle up, fust — besides I

reckon I kin prove I didn't have no hand In these

doin's. I was havin' speech with the policeman

when hit busted loose."

The Deacon came as near smiling as he ever came.

One side of his long mustache tilted up, but his eyes

remained sadly grave.

" I reckon I can prove that I didn't have no part

in It, either," he said easily. " But some of these

Falerins have seen me around town, and I reckon

they'll try to get me implicated. That Falkins

crowd suspects everybody. Come in here with me

a minute, son."

The Deacon turned and led the way Into a saloon,

already noisy with excited men having recourse to

drink and discussion.

They passed through the place and Into the yard

at the rear, where, after a look around to assure him-

self that they were alone, the older man drew a heavy

revolver from under his coat.

*' If they try to get me Into It," he said calmly,

*' I'm going to make them search me. Keep my

gun for me a while, If you don't mind. You were

with the policeman, and they won't suspicion you."

For a moment Newt hesitated, then came the

thought of his own affairs. A weapon was what,

above all other things, he needed. Accordingly, he

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 59

took it silently, and slipped it inside his coat, and

without a word or a nod turned and walked back

through the saloon, to disappear beyond its swinging

screens.

When night came a two-thirds moon rode high and

paled the summer stars into pin-points. Newt

Spooner knew from talk on the streets that the law-

yer would recover to reap greater reputation from

the affair in which, even after leaving the storm of

his own country, he had fallen under a mountain

hand. But Jake Falerin would reap nothing from

the afternoon's doings beyond an obituary in the

newspapers : an obituary which would recount a san-

guinary career closed with a sanguinary climax.

These matters, however, gave Newt only minor

concern. He was not to be shaken from a fixed re-

solve by other men's hopes or disappointments.

Nightfall found him trudging out the moon-bathed

turnpike between the blue and silver mists of the

fields; because, though uninvited, he was going to a

party. He was not going as a guest, nor yet wholly

as an onlooker. If one man was not among the

guests, he would turn back from the fringe of the

festivity, touching it no further. If that one man

was there, Newt Spooner meant to break up the

party, and add a sequel to the shocking transpirings

of the afternoon.

Many buggies passed him, driving slowly, for the

night was gracious with the sweet fragrance of the

young summer, and the occupants of the vehicles were

young, too, and no part of a summer dance is bet-

Bo THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

ter than the going thither and the coming home.

From this caravan came the music of much laughter,

and now and then the Hlting of a song: sounds as un-

accustomed to Newt Spooner as grand opera. But

the only impression made on him was the realization

that he was too early; so, when he found a thick

grove flanking the road, he climbed the fence and lay

down under a hedge and rested. While he was

stretched there in the dewy grass, he cocked and un-

cocked the revolver to make sure that, when he

needed it, it would not fail him.

It was a night for lovers and lovers were availing

themselves of it, but to Newt Spooner the seductive

whispers through the upper branches of the oaks

carried no message of peace or minstrelsy. Yet,

even to him, there was a dumb sense that life here in

the great " down below " was a different thing, and,

as he lay there fingering the mechanism of his revol-

ver, he could not escape a large and disturbing won-

derment. The breadth of the sky made him feel

small and alone in the center of vastness. At home,

mountain walls rose confiningly on all sides and one

looked up at a narrowed patch of stars as if from

the depth of a great well. But here one could gaze

away on the level of the eyes and watch the wonder-

ful phenomenon of a heaven coming down with its

stars to meet the edge of the flattened earth. At

home, one would ride the dirt roads on muleback

and in silence, save where the hoofs splashed along

the creek-beds. But here the horses beat a sharp

rat-tat with metal shoes on a metaled road, and the

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 6i

rubber-tired wheels ran noiselessly. These people,

too, reversed the order of things even as their coun-

try reversed them. At home, almost every one was

poor; here every one seemed rich, and the women,

whom every mountaineer knows should be treated as

inferiors, suited only to the tasks of housework and

child-rearing, were treated by the men as equals.

That he knew from the chatter and laughter of those

who passed In earshot, driving two and two. And

what fools they all were, for surely no people who

were not fools could chatter and laugh and sing !

After an hour, the buggies passed less frequently,

leaving the road free of travel, except for town-far-

ing negroes on foot and singing. Then Newt

Spooner came out from behind his hedge and made

his way once more along the turnpike. What his

eyes had once seen his memory retained with photo-

graphic distinctness, and as soon as he reached the

beginning of the low stone fence, which he had noted

that afternoon, he knew that he was drawing near

the dance.

But Newt would have known that he was near his

destination without the fence, for already, though

blurred by the distance Into an Indistinct and formless

spot of brightness and color, he could make out the

Illumination of the Chinese lanterns and there came

to his ears across the softness of the night the merry

strains of a band playing a two-step.

The mountain boy made a rapid survey. The

house sat deeply back In the woodland, some five

hundred yards from the road, but the platform,

62 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

though almost directly at Its front, lay nearer the

farther side. The lateral fences of the woodland

were lined with locust groves, giving a band of

shadow along the edges. He might have crossed

the fence at the nearest corner and worked his way

back, but time was not an object, and so, before se-

lecting his route, he went along the turnpike to the

other side of the place for fuller reconnaissance, and

found there even better and more continuous cover.

Also, by taking that side, he was further from the

driveway and would arrive closer to the platform

without leaving the shadow. As Newt crossed into

the woodland, he became invisible, thanks to the inky

shade of the locusts, just now heavy with fragrance

of bloom. The thickets of his own rhododendron

and laurel could not have availed him more service-

ably. At his left were acres of undulating bluegrass,

broken generously with forest trees, and between the

trees lay a silver lake of open moonlight, dotted with

Islands of shadow. But, by following the fence line

back, he could Invisibly draw near to the platform,

and creep still closer under the shelter of a heavy

growth of lilac bushes.

Suddenly, the mountain boy's heart began to

pound in a strange way. He had never been afraid

of anything and he was not afraid now, but as he

crept, like a woodland animal, close enough to take In

details, he felt as a man might feel who finds himself

pursuing an enemy on Mars. He was In a new

world and one so strange to him that its very differ-

ence brought a sense of misgiving. He had been

^THE CODE OF THE iMOUNTAINS 63

born and reared In a windowless mountain cabin of

one room. His light at night had been that of

crackhng logs on a stone hearth and a single lamp

without a chimney. He had heard hatred of ene-

mies preached before he could talk himself. That

his present purpose was righteous, he passionately

believed; that one should pay his blood-debt seemed

axiomatic. Yet, as he looked out, he could not

shake off that sense of strange uneasiness. Some-

thing was wrong. Perhaps it was simply the inar-

ticulate realization that the scene was set for merry-

making and not for tragedy. At home, it was dif-

ferent. The mountains were sterner and bred

sterner emotions. The darkness there seemed grim-

mer, 100. This was not the night or place for a mur-

der.

Criss crossed about the platform and between the

trees swayed the vivid color splashes of the lanterns,

like magnified and luminous confetti. Sifting and

eddying on the swaying floor went the rhythmic

whirlpool of dancers. The soft colors of evening

gowns, the ivory flashes of girlish shoulders and the

floating of filmy scarfs dizzied the boy, who by the

iron dictate of heredity and upbringing was a human

rattle-snake. The strange sight of men in evening

dress, their shirt-fronts gleaming like conspicuous

targets, added to his bewilderment.

Between the trees passed strolling couples whose

laughter lilted musically, and, as he crept nearer in

the shadow of the lilac bushes, he saw a queer little

affair which was also new to him, only a few yards

'64 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

away. It was a rustic summer-house, over the tim-

bers of which trailed masses of honey-suckle, and into

it, as he lay there peering sharply ahead, went a man

and a girl. The man was dutifully wielding a fan

after the flush of the dance and talking earnestly in

a low tone, and the girl was laughing up into his face

with a silvery softness so unlike the nasal voices of

his own kind that Newt could make nothing of it.

Nowhere was the hint of hardship: the hardship

which was in his country life's dominant note.

Back at the rear in the moonlight, the whitewashed

barns and fences gleamed like structures of ivory.

He lay there on his stomach, his elbows on the

ground and his chin in his hands, trying to search the

faces of the dancers. But the dancers shifted and

sifted In so bewildering a maze that even had they

been nearer at hand he could hardly have Identified

familiar features. Then the music stopped, and he

drew a breath of relief, for the platform partly

emptied Itself, and, as the couples came down and

strolled under the lanterns, it was easier to search for

the face he wanted to see.

Newt Spooner had been there perhaps an hour

while waltz and two-step alternated to set the human

mass he was trying to sift into fresh and maddening

puzzles of rapid movement and vagueness. At the

distance he had decided It was hopeless, and though

the summer-house under the honey-suckle seemed a

favorite retreat to which couple after couple came

for a moment of rest and Innocent flirtation, It had

not proved a Mecca for his victim, if Indeed his vie-

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 65

tim were there at all. Of this possibility he now

felt a diminishing credulity. He would, neverthe-

less, try to slip closer for a final scrutiny and then go

back to town, admitting temporary defeat. Then,

as with snake-like movements he was hitching him-

self forward, he suddenly stopped and crouched

closer to the ground and held his intaken breath in

his throbbing throat.

A new couple came out of the shadow and strolled

across the patch of open moonlight toward the sum-

mer-house. The girl was she who had picked him

up on the road, and the man was Henry Falkins.

Even in evening dress, there was no mistaking the

features, and that shirt-front was a target to even

an amateur's taste.

The girl wore a filmy gown and about her bare

shoulders was thrown some silky thing as iridescent

as gossamer. But, unlike those others who had

come there, she was not laughing.

Instead, she was looking up with a very direct

gaze into the man's face, and her eyes and lips bore

a somewhat wistful seriousness.

At the front of the summer-house, her companion

stopped and broke a spray of bloom from the vine.

" It always reminds me of you," he told her in a

soft voice. " There may be sweeter fragrances, but

I doubt it. I guess that's why."

He lifted a drooping branch of leaf and bloom,

and she passed under his arm.

Newt Spooner was lying only a few yards away,

but he must be closer. The mass of vine obscured

U THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

his line of vision, and he had no wish to kill the girl.

Behind his ambuscade of trellised supports, he could

come near enough to reach his hand through and

touch his victim if he chose. It was almost too sim-

ple — too easy. Yet, after all, it was a bad ar-

rangement, though that he could not remedy. He

must announce himself to the man he meant to kill,

or defeat the satisfaction of revenge. To let him

die without realizing why would rob the punishment

of its sting. Then the woman would doubtless make

an outcry, and his chance of escape would end. Be-

sides that there was a second objection: the girl had

befriended him. He was to some extent " beholden

to her." He wished now that he had refused to

drive with her; but, when he had accepted her invi-

tation, he had had no idea that his purpose could

concern her, and his purpose came first.

Newt Spooner drew very near. He cautiously

pulled back a branch of the honey-suckle, and looked

through. The girl was sitting with her eyes down-

cast, and the man standing with one knee on the

rough bench. He was leaning forward and his

voice, though tense with earnestness, was almost a

whisper. Newt might at that moment have been

noisy instead of noiseless without danger of distract-

ing the attention of that man and woman.

At home in the mountains, Henry Falklns would

have been more wary, but here in the bluegrass he

had laid aside all thoughts of danger, as he had laid

aside his high-laced boots and corduroys. He was

standing at the other side of life's gamut. Enmity,

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 67

for him, did not exist. The universe was filled, he

believed at that moment, to the boundary of the last

sentinel star with love. The night breathed it. He

was breathing it, the girl's eyes were just then raised

to meet his, brimming with a light that set his pulses

bounding.

" Back there in the hills," he said, " there Is a

place high up the mountainside that looks down on

such a night as this over an ocean of silver mists in the

valley. I have often gone there alone and listened

to the nightingale talking about you. After this,"

he added joyously, " all nights will be moonlight and

starlight for me, dear, if — " But there he broke

off and became silent.

Newt Spooner advanced one knee a few inches,

and steadied his position. He drew the vine back a

little further with his left hand, and slowly thrust

his right into his coat pocket. When It came back,

it held the pistol, and this Newt placed at his back,

that the soft click of Its cocking might be muffled by

his intervening body.

The stars were as bright and the moon as serene

that night back in the broken ramparts of the moun-

tains as here in the lowlands. No hint of brewing

tragedy disturbed the majesty of the summits that

raised their crests Into the cobalt, or marred the sil-

very flood that bathed the valleys.

Where the college buildings nestled In a tidy vil-

lage near the waters of Fist-fight Creek, the picture

was a nocturne that must have brought joy to the

68 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

heart of a painter whose soul responds to the beau-

tiful.

Already, in the dormitories, most of the children

were asleep, but one girl, who was half child and half

woman, crept noiselessly down the stairs of the build-

ing where she had her room, and made her way to

the creek-bank.

She had spent a longer time over her studies than

had her fellow pupils, because in her serious little

breast burned a hunger for that education which

might open new ways and make for her a life beyond

the imprisonment of her environment.

In years, Minerva Rawlins was a child, but the

life of her people brings early maturity and into her

little brain had recently been creeping the restless-

ness of new things — and of womanhood. To-night,

the plaintive call of the whippoorwills from the deep

shadows of the timber was a call to be under open

skies, where the thoughts that assailed her might not

feel cramped within walls. There were many things

of which she must think — and it happened that the

subject uppermost in her mind was Henry Falkins.

She went with lithe tread and pliant carriage down

beyond the saw-mill to a spot where the sycamores

hung low by the waters that swirled in a cascade over

a litter of huge rocks. On the steep mountainside

beyond, the flowering laurel and rhododendron were

thick, and the forests hardly showed a scar from the

axes that had claimed the timber for the buildings.

She had discovered that here through a gap between

two summits she could see the same pale star to which

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 69

the single pine had pointed back there from the front

door of the cabin, which, wretched as it was, had

been her only idea of home. In the silvers and grays

and cobalts of the picture, and in the night song of

the whippoorwills and booming frogs, there was

solace, and to-night she wanted solace.

She told herself that this restlessness which would

not let her sleep was loneliness; but beyond that sin-

gle feeling were others more complex for which she

had no analysis.

There was the starving eagerness for something

very different from what wares life had ever spread

to her gaze, some yearning that had crept down

through lapsed generations from an ancestor or an-

cestress who had known the courtly life of Old Vir-

ginia before the pioneer tide swept them westward

to their stranding. This hunger was a fiery thing,

which made the eagerness to learn blaze hotly be-

cause its attainment meant struggle.

Then there was the conflict between that loyalty

which the code of the Cumberlands Impresses as a

cardinal duty upon its children, and an insurgent

hatred for the squalid family into which her father's

second marriage had thrown her.

The law of feudalism and of the clan writes at

the head of its decalogue, " Kith and kin above all."

Minerva would have resented an implication of

wanted stanchness, and yet as she sat with her small

and well-chiseled chin cradled in the hands, which

drudgery must soon make hard and shapeless, her

eyes filled with tears and her slender body trembled

70 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

with instinctive repulsion at the thought of return

to the cabin where the razor-backed hogs would

scratch their backs under the gaping floor timbers,

and where darkness hung day-long between smoke-

blackened rafters.

And though she did not admit that either, a part

of the restlessness was the awakening of woman-

hood, and the woman's hunger for love. She

thought of all the young men she knew back there;

of the boorish creatures whose breath reeked with

moonshine whiskey, and whose thoughts were as

coarse as their brogans, and once more a shiver ran

through her.

It all made her feel very wicked. She had come

to the college and learned a little, and she had

learned above all a fastidious discontent, which was

poisoning her thoughts.

She told herself she ought to be very happy.

Then a smile stole across her face as she sat there

in the moonlight, and she drew from the collar of

her calico dress a small medal on a string. It was

a medal that had a few days before been awarded her

for proficiency, but to her it stood for the nearest

glimpse she had ever had of romance, though of ro-

mance passing by like a caravan which she had viewed

from the way-side.

There had been spelling matches and recitations

and the award of small prizes at the college, and the

rough folk had trooped in from the countryside, rid-

ing mules or walking from many miles about.

SVomen had come in bright-hued calicoes and sun-

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 71

bonnets, and bearded, gaunt men in hodden-gray.

Through that gathering and above it, since one who

is very young and very inexperienced may be par-

doned for a finger-touch from the gods of romance,

a figure had stood out for Minerva Rawlins, endowed

with every superiority.

The guests of honor on that occasion had been Old

Mack Falkins and his son Henry. Old Mack had

made a speech and, in awarding the prizes, his son

had followed him. The people of the countryside

had listened, and their applause had rocked the raft-

ers, with that sincerity of admiration which they

accorded to his native-born eloquence. But it was

the younger man who had brought to Minerva Raw-

lins her first stir of hero-worship; the adulation of

the Inexperienced young girl for the first man she

had seen who seemed an exemplar and a revelation.

Comparison is the one yard-stick of life, and by

comparison this young man, who had lived the life

of the outer world as well as that at home, might

well have loomed large to such impressionable eyes.

Minerva was seeing that scene again; the school-

room with Its shuffling audience, and the young

speaker whose words carried no taint of dialect or

inelegance, as he spoke of the torch which was being

lighted here to dispel the murk of Illiteracy.

What Henry Falkins had said became in a fashion

Minerva's standards. She found herself hating the

lawlessness of the feud and the squalor of back-

woods Ignorance. She found herself wishing to be a

rfcruit In th« little army that sought to raise other

72 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

ideals — but most of all she found herself longing

rebelliously for the chance to have in her own life

the companionship of some man like that. To her-

self she put it that way. She did not say that man,

but, when she said " some man like that," the fea-

tures and bearing and voice of young Falkins por-

trayed themselves, and as she sat with the medal in

her fingers, listening to the whippoorwills, her fancy

conjured up his image.

CHAPTER VI

WHEN Newt Spooner had begun his search

for Henry Falkins that afternoon he had

not been so unobserved as he thought him-

self. Not very far behind him had walked Red

Newton. He had not left Cawsler's with any in-

tention of spying upon the boy and had seen him only

by chance, yet when the latter halted in front of the

hotel and stood there with the telltale expression

which the recognition of Falkins brought to his face,

Red Newton observed it and slipped silently into the

door of a convenient store. When Newt went run-

ning excitedly back to Cawsler's place, the brain of

the older clansman began to work rapidly. To his

memory recurred the tirade that had broken so tem-

pestuously from the boy's lips.

'' I knows what I'm atter. I knows who I'm er-

gwine ter git. Thar's a feller I'm ergwine ter kill."

The unforgiving malice in the boy's eyes, the rigid

posture of his whole body as he stood contemplating

his enemy, told Red Newton the whole story. This,

then, was the man Newt meant to kill. It was log-

ical enough. This was the witness who had rid-

dled the alibi.

At first. Red Newton shrugged his shoulders in

the fashion of one who has no call to meddle in the

74 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

affairs of others, but as fresh aspects of the matter

presented themselves to his consideration, a very real

danger to all his family arose to confront him.

If Newt should shoot Henry Falklns on the streets

of Winchester before the speaking of this afternoon,

it would stir into action such a tidal wave of public

indignation against the mountaineers that the more

vital conspiracy would be thwarted. He surmised

that Newt was rushing back to Cawsler's place to

arm himself, and his first instinct was to follow.

Then he remembered that the place was now empty

save for the drunken Dode, and Cawsler himself,

whose discretion could be trusted. So, he took no

action, and, when later the same buggy passed the

court-house and within a few moments Newt went

swinging along after It on foot, the disappointed face

of the boy told the other that he had failed. Red

Newton rubbed his stubbled chin reflectively, bit off

a large chew of tobacco and withdrew Into his inner

consciousness for reflection. As the result of those

cogitations he strolled over to the hitching rack where

he found a lowland farmer with whom he had spent

a part of the morning talking cattle.

" Stranger," he suggested, " I 'lowed I'd love to

ride out the road a piece, an' I figgered I'd ask ye

ter lend me yore horse fer about a half-hour. I

hain't ergwine fur, an' I won't ride him hard. I'll

do es much fer you when you come up my way."

With ready assent, the farmer went over and un-

tied his plug, and Red Newton swung himself to the

saddle. Then he rode slowly and casually after the

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 75

boy. He did not try to overtake him, satisfying

himself with keeping him in sight, while he himself

remained too far back to be recognizable. But

Red Newton had affairs of consequence in town, so,

as soon as he was satisfied that Newt had lost sight

of the buggy, he turned back. He intended to men-

tion the circumstance to Black Pete, but Black Pete

was keeping discreetly out of sight, and so he found

no opportunity for speech' with him.

Meanwhile, the throng about the court-house was

thickening, and Red Newton caught sight of Jake

Falerin making his way to a place near the stand.

That was his own cue for action, so, forgetting minor

things, and keeping as inconspicuous as possible, he

began edging toward a position of proximity in Fal-

erin's rear. He signaled with a nod to one of his

kinsmen, who was standing silently, but alertly, a

little way off, and who at once began working for-

ward in answer to the sign. The plan worked with

well-oiled smoothness. Red Newton came so close

that he almost brushed shoulders with his intended

victim, and even when he stood at Jake Falerin's

back, chewing his tobacco with as little expression as

a cow chewing its cud, Falerin did not turn around

or suspect his presence.

As the speaking went forward, Red Newton

cast his eyes about, and placed those of his kinsmen

who were present. It had not been deemed advis-

able to have the clan largely represented, and it gave

him pleasure to recognize that Falerins largely out-

numbered Spooners. Later, when the question of

76 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

self-defense and placing the responsibility arose, it

would appear that the Falkins element had come en

masse, and from this circumstance would arise a pre-

sumption of malice aforethought on their part.

That would materially strengthen the Spooner de-

fense. In dividing the mountain men into the two

factions of Spooner and Falkins, Red followed the

classification of the feud. The Falerins and Hul-

burts and their kindred were " Falkinses," though

they bore other names, just as he himself, though a

Newton, was nevertheless a Spooner.

At the psychological moment. Red Newton

stepped forward and violently dug his elbow into

Jake Falerin's midriff. Falerin wheeled to see who

was crowding him, and the eyes of the two moun-

taineers met in a glance which escaped the generality

of upturned faces. So well did each understand

what a quarrel between them must mean that Jake

did not hedge an inch nor attempt to evade the is-

sue. He planted his left fist on Red Newton's jaw,

while he drew with his right. But Red Newton was

the more prepared, though, as he reeled back under

the blow, he would have fallen, had there been room

to fall. As it was he leaned against the crowd, and

fired from that position, just a fraction of a second

before Falerin's weapon came free of the holster.

It was only those directly at Red's back who saw the

swift play, and to their eyes it bore the seeming of

self-defense. In the same instant, the kinsman at

Red Newton's shoulder fired on the attorney so sud-

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 77

denly that it looked as If he too were aiming at Fal-

erin's head, instead of just to its side.

Later in the afternoon, Black Pete, whose name

had been mentioned to the commonwealth attorney

by several of the Falerins, walked voluntarily into

the office of that functionary. His demeanor was

quiet and deeply grieved. Moreover, it was char-

acterized by a show of frankness that was disarming.

He said he would be glad to submit to a search —

that he never went armed. He feared that in an in-

direct way, though entirely without his intent, he had

been instrumental in bringing on the afternoon's de-

plorable tragedy. The commonwealth's attorney

was astounded at this unsolicited statement, verging

so closely on a confession, and felt impelled to warn

the Deacon that he might yet find himself a de-

fendant, and that whatever he said would be used

against him. Had the Deacon been addicted to smil-

ing he would have smiled then. As it was, he only

nodded his head gravely, half sadly, as he stood

there, his hands in his pockets, and his steady gray

eyes unwaveringly holding those of his inquisitor.

" I reckon that's right, an' I'm obliged to you,"

he answered respectfully, " but I find as I go 'long

that a man gets just as far by tellin' the full truth."

" Just as you like. What part did you have in

this affair? " demanded the state prosecutor — a lit-

tle too eagerly.

" Maybe you'd better let me tell it my own way,"

suggested Black Pete imperturbably. ** I haven't

78 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

got much education and I may ramble a little, but Til

do my best. You know all about the feud, I reckon?

I went West years ago, and out there I got to see

that these things are foolish. A sort of truce was

patched up finally, and it was agreed that I must stay

West, and Jake Falerin must leave the mountains,

too. I got a little money saved up, and sent word

that I was comin' home to settle up a mortgage on

my sister's farm, and attend to some other family

business. I didn't aim to stay, and I haven't been

any closer to the mountains than right here. I

wasn't goin' any closer till everybody agreed to it.

I didn't think these fellers would fight right here in

Winchester."

The Deacon stood with the regretful air of one

who has been disappointed In his confidence as to the

worthiness of others. At last, he continued in a

conscience-stricken tone :

" I've been studyin' about It considerable since it

happened. I'm afraid the Falerlns saw me, and fig-

ured I'd broke the truce by comin' back, and, when

Jake met Red in the crowd, they both got panicky,

and begun to shoot."

That was all the Deacon had to state except his

promise to remain in Winchester, subject to the call

of the commonwealth. He knew that no one, save

a handful whom he could trust, could Implicate him

In the conspiracy, which he had devised and engi-

neered. His claws and fangs were well-tucked un-

der his sheep's hide of Innocence. While he was in

the law-office, the jailer arrived with news that Red

* THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 79

Newton and his other prisoner had asked to sec

Black Pete Spooner, with a view to employing coun-

sel for their defense. The Deacon turned to the

commonwealth's attorney.

" What do you think? " he said. " I reckon these

boys have that privilege, haven't they? I want to be

fair all round. If they did shoot in self-defense, I

want them to have their rights, but I'll be here if you

need me."

So, late in the afternoon, In the privacy of the

cell which the two mountaineers complacently shared,

the Deacon heard from Red how the boy, Newt,

fresh from the penitentiary, was already on the trail

of a " marked-down " victim. It was news that dis-

concerted the master assassin to a degree which he

would not have cared to admit. These men de-

pended upon making a case of self-defense, and

looked to him to see them through. The gravest

element that confronted them was the violent dis-

like of the bluegrass, where they must face trial, for

the murderous tendencies of the mountains. If

there should occur on the heels of the first tragedy a

second, traceable to a mountain man, the fat would

be In the fire. At all costs, young Newt must for

the present hold his hand. Above all else, that was

imperative. Black Pete questioned the prisoner

searchingly and learned that Newt had gone out

Main Street, and Red had followed him for some

distance. Therefore, that was the road young Newt

would watch, and the road upon which young Newt

must be watched. Cawsler later reported the man-

8o THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

ner In which the boy had come demanding arms, and

the Deacon bitterly regretted having surrendered to

him his own pistol.

And Newt had disappeared. Of each Spooner he

met, the Deacon demanded news of his whereabouts.

Finally, near the court-house, he met a man who had

seen the sought-for one sauntering slowly out the

road near the edge of town. Since it was only a few

minutes before, he could not have gone far.

The Deacon hurried forward, and from a party

of incoming negroes he learned of the dance, which

explained the procession of buggies and gave him a

clew. Probably, Newt had learned that his intended

victim would be there. At least, it would be worth

investigating. But of Newt himself he saw noth-

ing, for when he reached the spot where the boy had

climbed the fence to kill time behind the hedge, he

unwittingly passed him by. At the beginning of the

stone fence, where he caught first the music and the

light of the festivities, his eye took in the growth of

locusts and his mountain mind reckoned by swift

processes. Here was such natural cover as a man

would be likely to seek in working his way surrepti-

tiously rearward. He had begun to fear he might

be too late, in which event his coming at all would be

more fatal than staying away. That haste pre-

vented his using the most exhaustive caution, and so

he did not explore to the far side of the woodland,

but crossed the fence at the nearest corner and went

swiftly back, skulking In the shadow. In point of

fact, instead of being later than the boy, he arrived

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 8i

first, but on the opposite side of the broad lawn.

When he had gone back as far as the house level, his

painstaking search commenced. He was not only

endeavoring to remain concealed, important as that

was, but also to penetrate the shadows and find the

other hidden man. It was a thing that would have

been sheer impossibility but for his splendid wood-

craft and the catlike focus of his eyes in the night.

So, when he had exhausted the possibilities on that

side of the house to his full satisfaction, he recog-

nized his mistake, and knew that he had wasted

precious time. He should be on the far side, and,

taking a long detour which carried him far to the

rear of the barns and led him behind the fence line

of the paddock lots, he worked his way up again to

the front until he reached the edge of the lilac bushes,

and could see the summer-house. To that spot he

began crawling noiselessly, and, led by a sure in-

stinct, and while still some fifty yards away, his

trained eye caught a stealthy shadow also hitching

forward at his front. There still lay between him

and Newt Spooner the matter of some thirty yards,

and, even if he rose to his feet and ran for it, he

would overtake the boy so close to the vine-covered

retreat that any sound of Interference would result

in the discovery of both. He did not personally

know that the summer-house was occupied, but he

argued It from the movements of the other skulker.

Newt was so engrossed In his hate that at this par-

ticular moment he had eyes and ears only for the

front. Between the lilac thicket where Black Pete

S2 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

crouched and the vine shadows where Newt knelt,

lay an open space of flooding radiance, but it was

directly behind the summer-house, and, unless Newt

saw him crossing it, no one was apt to see. The

Deacon rose to his feet and ran for it.

As Newt thrust the revolver behind him to cock it,

Black Pete's hand closed silently around his, and

Black Pete's thumb was jammed between the back-

drawn hammer and the firing-pin.

Black Pete's thumb was jammed between the back-drawn hammer and

the firing pin

CHAPTER VII

HENRY FALKINS and Lucinda Merton had

not kept close count on the flying moments

since they had entered the summer-house.

The girl had promised to sit out two consecutive

dances with him, since to-morrow morning he must

go back to the mountains. So, having only a little

while and much to say, he had plunged in, and,

though his voice was low, his words came tumultu-

ously. Of course, she knew that he w^as in love with

her, but until to-night it had been a thing which had

been given no concrete declaration. Except for a

glow of confession in her eyes, she had said nothing

of loving him. Yet now, when he wished to claim

every moment for himself, she had asked him to tell

her about his hills and their people, of whom she and

her world knew so little.

" I want you to understand the life and conditions

there," he told her, " and yet I don't want to talk of

that to-night. I would like to paint for you true

pictures of my mountains just as they look under

this moon, as they will look when to-morrow's sun

comes up over the peaks and begins to drive away the

lingering mists; of the elder bushes and rhododen-

dron and wild roses that bloom on the tangled slopes;

but to-night I want to talk only of you and me."

83

84 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

He paused, and her voice carried a responsive

thrill as she said:

*' I should love your mountains ! It must all be

very beautiful — but so different from this." Her

eyes traveled out with native pride over the smooth

opulence of the country, which had seemed the Prom-

ised Land to the eyes of its pioneer discoverers.

"Yes," he admitted; "it is very different. We

have rugged fields and rugged people. Down here

you spring from Cavalier stock. But to-night there

are In the world only ourselves. Let's talk of our

private universe." His voice was feverishly eager.

*' Until I can in some way improve my fortunes, God

knows I ought to be silent as to love." He leaned

forward and added desperately: "But I can't be

silent. After all, what is the use? You know I

love you. If I never spoke a syllable of it, you

would still know it. You can feel it in the tremor of

my hand when I take yours in greeting. And if I

lock my lips, my eyes give them the He. You know

I love you, but you will never know how much."

He leaned forward and his breath came fast while

his heart pounded with the great anxiety of putting

his fortunes to the touch. He had knowledge of

other lovers who had come and gone; gone very re-

luctantly, from the quest of her heart.

He had known her a year, and friendship had

grown into that intimacy which tacitly admits some-

thing deeper than the casual. In her house he had

been accepted almost as a member of the family —

but that need not mean that he was accepted as a

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 85

lover. In his mountains such an association would

have been tantamount to an engagement, but here

in the bluegrass it was different.

There had been sometimes a quality in her smile

which he had never seen on her lips or In her eyes

for other men, and she must know of his love. Still,

he had heretofore been content to hope without cer-

tainty — and now the moment had come when, If he

had builded on false dreams, he must wake to a

reality of which he could think only with terror.

For his own crude land, he was a rich man, whose

status was the status of a baron; but, down here in

the counties of aristocracy and wealth, he was poor

and a mountaineer.

" I suppose," he went on, with a voice that came

from a taut throat, which he forced Into measured

syllables, " I suppose that until I can offer you a

home like this, I should not ask you to confess a

love for me, even if you could feel It. I can't even

ask you to marry me yet, and still because you must

know it, because you have a heart that must tell you,

it seems to me that it is only hypocritical to lock my

lips. My heart Is too full to be damned up. It

must have utterance. It must say, * I love you.' I

can't go on any longer being just a favored friend."

He paused a moment and wiped the moisture of his

anxiety from his brow, and his voice was tensely even

in its control. *' It means too much now, for that.

If I am living In a fool's paradise I must know it be-

fore It Is too late. They say we men of the Cum-

berlands have somber natures that take things seri-

86 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

ously. To hope too long — and then fail — " He

broke off again and added quietly — " that would be

a thing that would utterly ruin me. I love you."

The girl did not at once speak. He saw that her

face was downcast and that her breast rose and fell,

in an emotion which might be pity. Perhaps she,

too, found speech difficult because she was merciful.

A man and a girl were coming toward the summer-

house, and Henry Falkins watched them with a fas-

cination of fear lest they interrupt. The seconds

seemed to stretch into an interminable suspense.

Slowly he put out his hand, and took hers. Her fin-

gers trembled in his grasp and slowly he bent and

kissed her lowered head.

*' I am waiting," he whispered; but something in

the voice said more and told her of the torture of

his doubt.

At last, very slowly, her face came up and her eyes

met his. They were misty eyes, but smiling, and as

he bent with a wild leaping of his pulses and took her

in his arms, her lips, too, met his, responsive to his

kisses.

Finally he rose, and now it was his own hands that

trembled and his own senses that swam with the in-

toxication of a happiness which seemed to him mirac-

ulous.

" I suppose," laughed the girl, " I ought to be

ashamed to surrender so quickly — but I'm not.

I'm very proud."

For a moment after that they sat silent and across

th« moonlight came the band music and the softened

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 87

laughter of the dancers. And It was at that moment

that Newt Spooner, so close that they could almost

have heard his breathing, was reaching into his

pocket for his borrowed revolver. The pause was

brief, for the girl, looking Into her lover's eyes, be-

came suddenly beset by a new thought — perhaps

some subtle premonition — and In Its wake came

panic. She laid her hands on his shoulders and bent

so close that he could feel the play of her breath on

his forehead.

'' But you are going back there," she exclaimed;

*' back to the mountains, and I'm afraid. Are you

in any danger, because. If you are, you sha'n't go I I

won't let you go. Why, only to-day, there in Win-

chester, think what happened! "

The man laughed.

" I sha'n't be hurt," he assured her. *' Your love

will be my talisman."

" If my love has such power," she exclaimed,

" you will go on living to the end of time."

He took her two hands in his.

" Let's have no thought of danger to-night," he

said. '' To-night belongs to love, dearest: to love

and to us."

And that was the exact moment at which Black

Pete Spooner closed his hand over the pistol, thrust-

ing his thumb between hammer and pin, and his fore-

finger between trigger and guard.

So suddenly interrupted at the threshold of his

attainment, a man from the lowlands would have be-

trayed himself with oath or exclamation, or at least

88 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

have struggled noisily in the grip that thwarted him.

Newt Spooner was a mountaineer. Ambuscading

caution was to him as instinctive as to the fox or

weasel. He felt his hand drawn down at his back

so forcibly that, crouching with his weight on one

knee and one foot, he could not rise — yet he re-

mained utterly noiseless. He carefully turned his

head, and at the distance of a few inches recognized,

even in the darkness, the drooping mustache and

square jaw of the Deacon. The Deacon was hold-

ing a finger of the disengaged hand to his. lips in an

imperative command for silence. Black Pete was

always a diplomat. He regarded this moment as

one of rather desperate crisis, calling for extreme

finesse.

No word of explanation could be spoken; the

slightest sound of scuffling would give the alarm

fatal to both. He knew that the implacable hatred

of this single-idead boy was not a thing to yield

readily. So he continued to put into his manner and

touch something of subtle and friendly reassurance,

lest Newt flare into reckless and needless antagonism.

And Newt felt at the moment a wave of relief in

recognizing one of his own people.

The strategist gently shook the hand which held

the weapon in hint that Newt should surrender it,

while he nodded and laid the other hand conciliat-

Ingly on the boy's shoulder. But Newt, although he

made no sound or motion, held tightly to the pistol,

and so for a moment while Henry Falkins was boast-

ing of his safety with the confidence of youth and

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 89

love, his Intended assassin crouched not six feet away

while the man who sought to prevent his act bent

over him, holding his hand, and the wills of the two

wrestled In utter silence.

There Is in all leaders, good or bad, a psycholog-

ical, almost hypnotic element of power which can,

at need, act without words. Black Pete was recog-

nized so thoroughly as a man of leadership that the

enemy talked peace only on the basis of his exile.

Newt Spooner had always regarded him with awe as

the leader of his clan. Moreover, the Deacon's at-

titude just now was rather that of a friend who

carried a warning than that of an enemy. The hyp-

notism of his masterful quiet was telling on the In-

furiated boy and yet there flared anew In his breast

a dangerous resentment against the balking of his

purpose. How it might have ended Is problemat-

ical, but as they held their strained pose, and as

Henry Falklns talked on In false security, a second

couple came strolling to the summer-house. Find-

ing it occupied, they banterlngly apologized for In-

trusion, while Miss Merton and her escort blush-

Ingly declared themselves on the point of departure,

and went back to the dance. So the chance was

gone. Slowly, Newt surrendered his pistol, and the

Deacon silently rose to his feet and pointed off

through the bushes. The boy strode sullenly on

ahead and neither he nor his captor made a sound or

spoke a word until they had progressed so far Into

the shadow that they were safe from overhearing.

Then and then only Newt wheeled. His voice was

90 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

almost a sob In its bitter and vibrant passion, as,

with blazing eyes and snarling teeth, he demanded:

" What in hell did ye do thet fur? Damn ye, he

b'longs ter me. Ye didn't hev no call ter interfere."

He threw himself prone on the ground, clawing into

it with his lean fingers as a frenzied animal might

claw, and his thin body racked itself with silent

sobs of anger and frustration. It ended in a fit of

coughing which he could not control, and which he

smothered in his two hands until the paroxysm

passed.

The Deacon sought to soothe him. Most moun-

taineers speak with a nasal harshness, but this man

had the exceptional quality that gave to his words an

ingratiating and velvety smoothness.

" Don't worry, son. I wouldn't have interfered,

only I was obliged to. He's your enemy, and he did

you wrong, but this ain't the moment to kill him.

Go back home and bide your time. If you need

help, call on me after a little."

" Hits as fitten a time es any," blurted Newt

tensely. *' They hain't no manner of use puttin' hit

off. I tells ye I'm ergwine ter git him. Hit hain't

ergwine ter do no good to argify with me. Nothin'

hain't ergwine ter change me none."

** Son," Insisted the other calmly, " I ain't aimin'

to change you. I've never let men change me, have

I? But there's a time for everything, an' just now

you must hearken to me." He sketched briefly and

forcibly his Interviews in the oflice of the common-

wealth attorney and at the jail. He enlarged on the

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 91

fatality of having another shooting by a mountaineer

tread so close on the heels of the first tragedy.

" You ain't aimin' to put these boys' necks into

ropes, son," he suggested chidingly at the end.

*' You can get your man without makin' your own

kin pay such a steep price. All I ask of you is to

pass me your word that you won't do anything until

you get back to the hills. Seems to me that's fair

enough."

Newt sat silent for a time, scowling blackly, but

at last he rose and nodded.

"I gives ye my hand on thet — because I don't

see no way ter holp myself," he capitulated. It is

the mountain's formula of oath, and though the men

who use it rarely shake hands, its utterance is a

recognized bond.

" Come along to town with me," suggested the

Deacon. " You can sleep at my boardin' place, and

In the morning you can start out."

But to that proposition Newt shook his head.

" I aims ter start right now, es soon es I kin buy

a snack ter put in my pocket," he announced deci-

sively. *' Which road goes towards Jackson?"

When at last he did lie down for sleep that night,

it was under the lee of a last year's straw stack and

surrounded by the rustling spears of this year's corn,

where he could look up at the stars and call defiantly

upon them all to bear witness that he had no inten-

tion of being deterred by the interference of any

man.

It had been a very exhausting day, strenuous with

92 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

much footsore tramping; strenuous, too, with the

buffeting of emotions as sudden and violent as the

tempests which sometimes swept across his hills;

bending the forests, lashing the sandstone ramparts,

shrieking through valleys and cannonading along the

slopes. And like the hills when such a storm has

wreaked Its noisy wrath and swollen all the thread-

like streams to freshets, he lay by his straw stack

supine and shaken. It seemed to him that he had

only just stretched himself out on the straw when he

opened his eyes to see the east pallidly kindling with

the preface of dawn, yet It had been long enough for

his limbs to have cramped and chilled under the mois-

ture of the night. He rose and ate a small supply

of his provender, and took a swig from the flask, wip-

ing the mouth of the bottle with his palm, after the

custom of his country. After that he started on

with the gray dawn growing rosy at his front. At

length, he halted and drew a long breath of relief

and satisfaction, for already he was beginning to

recognize, in the changing character of the country,

harbingers of home. The smooth swell of the blue-

grass began to break into a choppier formation and

assume raggedness, while far away the sky-line was

broken by a climbing back-bone of foot-hills.

Unless he could mend his rate of travel he had still

ahead several days of journeying, but early in the

afternoon, when he sat down to rest, it was by a

woodland stream where the underbrush grew in a

tangle and the wild roses were blooming among

scrub oaks. Cornucopias of the trumpet-flow^er

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 93

flared vividly, and here and there he caught a

glimpse of a chinked log-cabin. That night he slept

at Clay City, where the channel of Red River was

almost choked with logs; logs floated down from

higher up. Once more he slept in a " feather-bed,"

for a distant relative had taken him in, willing to

^' eat an' sleep him " for no greater remuneration

than the news of what had happened in Winchester;

willing even to produce from some hidden place a

jug from which moonshine liquor ran white and

colorless.

The next day brought such a dawn as he had not

seen since he had left Jackson with cuffed wrists, a

dawn in which the sun did not blaze forth at once

unobscured, but came up to dissipate the mists and

flare redly through their vanishing, before he stood

forth master of the day. And even then the skies

were full of sullen hinting at rain. Nature seemed

to brood in accord with his own dreariness of mind;

and wisps of cloud trailed down the summits, as he

nodded with a curt, " I'm obleeged ter ye," and

pushed onward, boring into hills that grew ever taller

and wilder.

At last, he came to Jackson, the shack town that

is the county seat of Breathitt, which the world

knows as " bloody." But even the twisting and

steep streets beyond the bridge offered this traveler

no security for tarrying. Jackson knew that in Win-

chester Jake Falerin had fallen, and that Black Pete

was back from the West, and Jackson was a Falerin

strong-hold. The outlook was for stormy days, and

94 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

It would be as well for the boy to push at once to

his own section, some twenty miles away, where

along the waters of Troublesome and Lost Creeks

he would be among his own people. In front of the

court-house and along the main street he saw groups

of men, some of them Falkinses and some Spooners,

and though there was no open hostility, they sepa-

rated studiously into their own respective groups and

their movements were characterized by an alertness

which told of mutual and restive suspicion.

Newt Spooner was not afraid, but just now he was

not wasting his activities. Moreover, he was still

half-sick and not courting quarrels save those of his

own choosing. As he strolled through the streets

of the town, no one seemed to notice him. He had

been forgotten. He paused before the court-house

with the small " jail-house " squatting In the yard

and surveyed both with wormwood bitterness of un-

forgiving memory.

Across the street where brick banks and modern

plate-glass store fronts stood jammed between fron-

tier-like shacks, he halted once more. Court was ad-

journing for the noon recess, and a homicide jury

came out of the dingy doors, marching in columns of

twos, while behind, shirt-sleeved and collarless,

stalked the sheriff, herding the panel to its mid-day

meal and bearing a long hickory staff. They were

rude and bearded men, for the most part spare and

sinewy, but the elder among them tramped with a

shambling gait that told of unrelieved drudgery.

Newt made his way to the north end of the town,

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 95

and took the road across the hills. By nightfall he

would be in his own territory.

Now he was once more treading familiar trails,

and though he was tired and the way became steeper,

he walked with a resilient stride. The roads along

the valley gulches were only creek-beds, and where

they looped over the tops of ridges they were uneven

stairways of broken rock. Sometimes for a little

space they ran level along high banks where the sand

was like that of a beach. But Newt had taken off

his shoes and as he splashed along the water courses,

where straining " jolt-wagons " had cut smooth ruts

almost hub-deep into the shaly beds, the grateful

water stimulated him. About him were great for-

ests almost virgin to the ax. Spruce pines and wal-

nuts and poplars towered over him, and the road

dipped often through a gloom like that of a dim

chapel. Down there little cascades whispered, and

out of fern banks rose huge brown and gray and

green bowlders of sandstone, like altars of the

Druids. The rhododendron, which his people called

" laurel," and the laurel, which they called " ivy,"

cloaked the open slopes. It was a country where a

good walker can travel faster afoot than mounted.

He drank from wayside springs and from the flask

which his kinsman had refilled. His mind turned to

its magnet, and he planned anew the death of Henry

Falkins, but now that he was at home he planned with

confidence of success and in this conviction he found

a certain contentment. It was something to be where

he belonged and something to walk free of the chain-

96 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

gang. Around him the hills closed In comforting

tiers of ramparts. From the high points of the road,

he could look off over valleys to other peal^s and see

here and there the roof of a cabin with its small patch

of corn and its rude out-houses. He passed tilting

fields where red and blue calico dresses flashed as en-

tire families worked with hoes, and roadside habita-

tions of logs where raggedy children fled inside to

gaze timidly around the corners of door-jambs.

Razor-backed hogs and flocks of geese wandered near

every habitation, and mules flapped their long ears

as they looked out from primitive stables, fashioned

by closing in with fence shelters under overhanging

shelves of rock.

CHAPTER VIII

WHEN the pltchlness of night closed in un-

til it seemed that the mountains moved up

and huddled closer together, Newt was

on well-remembered roads and did not pause. In an

hour or two the moon would be up, and he would

reach the cabin which he called home.

With the coming of the moon the hills underwent

a wizardry of beauty which was lost on the boy.

First, silvery threads of light began to weave along

the bristling ridges of the east and opalescent flecks

to glimmer overhead. Then a soft blue-gray light

filtered down the slopes; throwing the shoulders of

the mountains into relief and bathing the lowlands

in a luminous mist. The waters of Troublesome

caught the glint and the frogs boomed out from bass

to treble, while back in the timbered slopes the whip-

poorwills set up a plaintive chorus.

Ahead of him Newt saw his destination. A cabin

of logs stood darkly at the side of the road, marking

his journey's end. Though the moon struck across

the small hard-tramped yard, the house threw its

shadow forward and was itself a block of darkness

from which shone no light. That was because there

was no light to shine, except what came from the fire-

place, and because there was no window through

97

98 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

which it might show. But Newt needed no illumina-

tion. He knew every wretched detail by heart.

There was one room only, except for the lean-to

shed, which served as kitchen and dining-room, and

that was reached by going outside and walking around

the corner of the house. The one room was pictured

on his mind almost as clearly as he trudged toward its

doorstep as it could be when he entered it. Through

the slabs of the puncheon floor the wind came in gusty

weather. In each of the four corners was a large

dauble bed with feather mattresses, for the family,

when he had left home, had numbered six. About

the log walls on pegs driven into the chinking would

be hanging such articles of clo-thing as were not in

use, except such other articles as were thrust in dis-

order under the beds. Unless the family had " lain

down " they would be huddling about the hearth with

their shaes off, for even in June when the night chill

came it was customary to kindle an evening fire. Al-

ways in the past, his great grandfather, old Luke

Spooner, had sat at the right-hand corner of that

hearth, mumbling into his long white beard. Newt

wondered if he would still be there. He had been

almost a centenarian when they took the grandson

away to the penitentiary; his sight almost gone, his

hearing almost gone, his brain wasted to a remnant

of nightmare brooding, but his physical vitality hold-

ing out like a spent and stubborn fortress. Once he

had been among the most feared of feudists, tireless,

unafraid, vindictive and honest. He would hardly

be there now, reflected Newt. He must have died by

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 99

this time. One member of his family only would he

greet with any feeling akin to welcome. His father

had in his rough way been fond of him, and Newt

in an equally wolfish fashion had reciprocated the

feeling. It had never been expressed In words or

demonstration, for of these things the mountaineer

is as chary as a grizzly. Often in the long warfare

of quarreling and bickering between his father and

mother, which Newt regarded as a natural and uni-

versal incident of family life, his " pappy " had taken

his side and rescued him from a " whopping."

Newt thought he would be glad to see his father.

He crossed the stile, hewn in rough steps from a

poplar stump, and strode over to the broken mill-

stone that served as a door-step. He shouted, " I'm

a-comin' in," and pushed at the door. It was barred.

That was a sign of the troublesome condition of the

times. The mountaineer shouts an announcement

of his coming from a distance to avoid the seeming

of surreptitiousness, but, having reached the thresh-

old, does not knock.

"Who's thet? " called a high-pitched, Irritable

voice from the interior. It was his mother's voice,

and Newt replied:

" Hit's me. Mammy. Let me In."

No outburst or murmur of surprise broke from the

cabin at the announcement of the prodigal's return.

He heard only the rasping of a bar being drawn from

its sockets, and then the door swung in. Newt en-

tered, and with no offer to embrace his mother cast

an appraising glance about the place, which the logs

100 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

on the hearth revealed in a wavering light. The

corners of the room were darkly shadowed, but the

semicircle about the fireplace was red and yellow from

the flames. The rafters were smoke-blackened, and

an odor hung between the walls like that in a house

used for curing hams.

About the fire sat the family group, but none of

them rose to welcome him. At the right hand corner

sat old Luke. He was not dead then, after all,

though just now he was sleeping with his bearded,

mummy-like face fallen forward and his long hickory

staff resting between his knees. Newt's younger

brother, " Little Luke," grown since he had left

home from a boy of thirteen to a gawky and angular

young cub of sixteen, and his sister, who had been

twelve and was now fifteen, stared at him in shy

silence. His mother who was only a little more

than forty had all the seeming of sixty. She was

bent and slovenly. But of his father he saw noth-

ing, though a man sat in the remaining chair, and

when this interloper leaned forward, holding down

his beard with his forefinger as he spat at the ashes,

Newt recognized Clem Rawlins, a distant kinsman.

Clem's presence surprised him little, for it would

have been quite natural for Clem or any other man

who found himself benighted to stop and " stay all

night."

His mother came forward, and invited:

" Take my cheer, Newt. Til set on the bed."

Newt dropped into the seat, and inquired:

" Where's pappy? "

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS loi

" Dald," was his mother's laconic reply.

"When did he die?"

Clem Rawlins answered in a deep, drawling voice :

" He failed tol'able fast-like after ye left, Newt.

He had the weak treemers, an' died erbout cawn-

plantln' time a-follerin' of yore goin' down below."

The boy said nothing. He sat mutely scowling

into the fire.

A constrained silence fell on the gathering, which

was at last broken by the boy's mother In a tone of

dubious embarrassment.

" With yore old gran-pap on my hands, Newt, an'

yore pap daid an' Little Luk kind of puny-like, I

couldn't hardly git along withouten some man on the

place an' so — " She paused again, then added with

a note half-apology, half-defiance: "An' so I mar-

ried Clem. I was plumb driv ter hit."

She knew that the boy had never liked his kins-

man, Clem Rawlins, but now Newt sat with his brow

drawn and his gaze fixed on the embers, making no

response. Clem waited stolidly, puffing at his pipe,

though he, too, would be glad when the moment of

explanation was ended. At last, the boy dismissed

the topic with the curt comment :

" I reckon thet's yore business."

After a while, he rose and went to the corner of

the room where once his few belongings had been

kept. He evidently failed to find that for which he

sought, for he came back to the fire and demanded :

" Whar's my rifle-gun? "

His mother was still sitting on the edge of the

102 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

bed. She had filled her clay pipe and lighted it with

a coal from the fire. Once more her voice carried

the note of anxious embarrassment, and she tried to

give it also an ingratiating quality, as she replied.

" Well, ye see, Newty, atter yore pappy died we

had a heap of trouble. 'Peared like the good Lord

hed done plumb forgot us in his prov'i-dence. The

hail kilt all the cawn, an' the hawgs died off like es ef

they was blighted, an' so — " She paused, and the

boy finished for her in a voice very metallic, though

not reproachful.

'* So ye went an' sold my rifle-gun. Is thet wha-t

ye war a-tryin' ter say? "

" Thet's hit," she acknowledged. Then in ex-

culpation she went on: " Ye see, Newt, I wouldn't

'a' done hit, only I didn't reckon ye'd want hit no

more. We didn't hardly 'low ye'd ever come back

hyar noways."

Newt Spooner rose from his chair and stood fac-

ing them. His fists were tight-clenched at his sides.

The spurting blaze of the slowly dying fire sent his

shadow wavering out across the semicircle of light.

" You-all didn't 'low I'd need my rifle-gun no

more," he repeated slowly, with forced restraint.

*' Ye didn't hardly reckon I'd ever come back hyar-

abouts. Ye 'lowed I wuz buried alive in thet damned

penitentiary whar ye let me go without a-holpin' me

none. Ye 'lowed I'd jest stay thar an' rot." He

paused and his breath came heavily. Then his utter-

ance quickened. " Well, ye 'lowed plumb wrong.

I'm hyar an' thar's a thing I'm hyar ter do, an' hit's z

THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS 103

thing thet calls fer a gun. Ye done married thls-

hyar man. Thet's yore business an' his'n. 'Pears

like ter me ye mout 'a' done a sight better, but I

hain't got no call ter say nothin' erbout thet."

With a vague idea of placating both sides of what

might become a family rupture, the woman suggested

in a milder tone than usual :

" I mout 'a' done a sight wusser, too. Newt."

The boy sniffed.

" I don't hardly see how," he retorted. '* Now

I've done been robbed of my gun. What's become

of my pappy's gun? "

His mother hesitated, then confessed:

*' I done give it ter Clem."

The son nodded his head.

" Thet's what I 'lowed. Now thet gun b'longs ter

me. I've done lawfully heired hit from my pap."

He turned suddenly to Clem Rawlins, and his voice

rang out in sharp and peremptory outburst.

"Go git hit I"

Rawlins rose in quick obedience, and went to his

own corner whence he fetched the repeating rifle

that had been the elder Spooner's.

Newt stood before the fireplace, testing and load-

ing the magazine, while his mother looked on in

anxious scrutiny.

Then the centenarian across the hearth roused up,

lifting his ancient and withered face, in which the

jaw muscles worked loosely and flabbily.

" Who air thet feller? " he demanded In a quaver-

ing, accusing voice, gazing up without recognition

104 THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

at the tall, spare figure which towered over him.

'' Thet's little Newt," shouted the mother, bend-

ing her lips close to his ear. The old man sat fool-