A Pagan of the Hills

tatement of the spokesman was a true one-that in store for her, instead of robbery and possible outrage, lay only the judgment of the punitive clan

plendid assumption of scorn and defiance. She was keyed to that mood which makes it po

urred in which masked men took a faltering law into their own less faltering hands. Sometimes it was a bastard Ku-Klux in the original meaning of the term, a Vigilance Committee operating against abuses which the l

r captors prolonged the silence in order that the s

a far wall of rock, but there was a squareness about it which suggested a mineshaft. The walls th

ent of dark figures that stood as silent accusers and judges, ran a trickling rivulet of water. At that detail Alexander smiled, for she knew that it w

ushing her cheek, but Alexander was not th

nutes, the standing men meanwhile remaining as motionless as

t friends thet'll be s'archin' these hills fer me ri

protracted silence and impending danger to sap even an assertive courage and for five other minutes they stood wordless and motionle

demanded, "Does ye all solemnly sw'ar, by ther dreadful oath ye've done tuck, with yore lives forfeit fer disloyalty or disobedience, ter try this wench on ther charge of outragin' decorum-an' pr

questioned and then came aloft once more, still as if with a single nerve impulse

nvoked charms against witchcraft and did so with genuine dread. She knew that many others, less candid, laughed at old superstitions yet acknowledged t

f a he-woman-refusin' ter accept God's mandate an' castin' mortification on yore own sex by holdin' on ter shameless notions. W

erformin' devil's work." He wheeled and demanded suddenly; "Number Thirteen, I c

guised, and it came with the lugubri

act with

, how is sich-li

nine nights an' shoot through a kerchief at ther moon, cussin'

wers does Satan give thes

nin' a hand over a rifle gun they kin make hit shoot crooked. They kin spell a houn' dog so thet he back-tracks 'stid of t

the spokesman. "Thet's a lavish of evil. H

lls, but nothin' save death

w does ye go about h

t run outen a mould thet's done

e event of need, hev ye

of us he

he clan turned to the girl. "Wom

y, "ye'd better ask Number Thirteen.

vantage ground of solemnity. He turned his head and gravely inquire

nigh, she kain't he

handy ter test her with," interrupted the mast

a sperit in ther guise of a black

e they had loosened the blindfold from her eyes she had been subjected to

silent for a half hour, then the man who had acted as chief inquisitor drew aside that other whom Alexander knew only as Number Thirteen, and, apart, they conferred in lowered voices. In the manner of these two, the captive r

pid getaway. Yet this crew, leaving the saddle-bags uninvestigated at their feet, were solemnly playing out thei

. Murder and concealment of a lifeless body, here, would be easy enough. These men were desperadoes, and i

ed watch. His gesture showed a petulant impatience. The men in the silent circle stirred uneasily and from time to time low

, then doubled itself to a f

ugh inwardly she felt that the peril was pregnant and immediate. The o

her angrily, without any consistent attempt at

fer midnight-twell

nce to practice highway robbery, still stopping short of murder. The whole scheme had been cut to that pattern and it was now too late to evolve a new strategy. The trial was to have seemed genuine. It was to have been followed by a fictitious battle in which the alleged regulator

s to take off their hands must either be don

uld not ignore him. In a whisper he ventured the suggestion, "Mebby Jase hes done come ter grief. Mebby we'd better k

ge. As yet that was only an academic victory. Unless there stood in the room where the instrument ticked a sufficiently strong force of his f

between Coal City and Viper. He thought very grimly and with bitter futility of the force waiting so near and so eagerly keyed to action under O'Keefe, which one minute of private speech would launch into a hurricane effectiveness. In mad moments he had even tried to break the c

omewhat confused by the intervening wall, but though he missed part of the message he caught

face, he must somehow convey word to Jerry O'Keefe-but how? He had the fact

et. He brought out the pipe which he could neither fill nor light, but there

ed him. From what telegraph office out there in the wilds was Wicks acting as intelligence

es where all conversation could be overheard and so, for the use of highwaymen, they were unavailable. Wicks had merely brought a key, a battery and a ground wire with him and he ha

rritory which lay adjacent to Wolf-Pen Gap. The failure to reach Halloway by 'phone at Viper was a

, herself, might be traveling as uneventfully as themselves, but they could feel no great confidence in that hope and now there was nothing to do but to pus

the forests as a lumber expert knows them, but the seemingly trivial and

ge of such lore amounted to wizardry, and at one point Bud

opped an' hed speech with two horsemen. Ther

signs with forebodin's. Alexander wasn't ridin' at no stiddy gait. She'd walk her mule, then gallop him-then she'd pull down an' h

his head in

that Alexander sought ter shake off two fellers thet didn't low

hy

es don't stomp twice or thrice over ther same spot. Then two of 'em went on gallopin'-and one w

urned aside to the right and, a mile further on, where Alex

lers. "Thar's jest one reasonable cause fer thet. She knowed she war bein'

f and were proceeding warily they came to

r proposition out afore we ride

med a sheer wall of bluff, and that abrupt angle had brought them to a point where the road dipped sharply down and lost itself in the rapidly running waters of a narrow creek. On the opposite shore the road cam

anion. "This is just erbout whar they aimed ter lay-way her at. I shouldn't marve

ted. "Once we get over the stream the cliff itsel

anyhow we've got ter tutor this matter jest right. Thet creek's norrer

got ter start as fur up es ye handily kin-because ther current's swift-an' if hit carr

e had little stomach. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth and prepared to

ean, sharp bark of a rifle. Brent's hat went spinning from his head and he felt the light sting of a grazing wound along his scalp. It seemed to be in the same instant that he heard Bud's revo

, a floundering in the icy water, and then an unsteady sensation as the beast struck out to swim. The current had taken its effect so that mule and r

crossing at all! He had wheeled after firing and kicked his mount into wild flight, making for the protection of the turn

Ahead had lain quicksand, above a rifle in the laurel and in his own entrails an o

ding up to solid roadway once more and there safe,

rehead, but there was still no sign of a returning Bud Sellers. Then Brent unwil

quit me cold-quit like a d

ately for him, there was none. But with dulled observation he passed by a place where, close to the road, a shaft ran back into an abandoned coal mine and