"JohnFoxJr-ACumberlandVendetta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fox John)

old man's bushy head through the open door, and Lewallens and
Braytons crowded out on the steps and looked after him. All were
armed. Twenty paces farther he met young Jasper on his gray, and
the look on his enemy's face made him grip his rifle. With a
flashing cross-fire from eye to eye, the two passed, each with his
thumb on the hammer of his Winchester. The groups on the
court-house steps stopped talking as he rode by, and turned to look
at him. He saw none of his own friends, and he went on at a gallop
to Rufe Stetson's store. His uncle was not in sight. Steve Marcum
and old Sam Day stood in the porch, and inside a woman was
crying. Several Stetsons were near, and all with grave faces
gathered about him.

He knew what the matter was before Steve spoke. His uncle had
been driven from town. A last warning had come to him on the day
before. The hand of a friend was in the caution, and Rufe rode
away at dusk. That night his house was searched by men masked
and armed. The Lewallens were in town, and were ready to fight.
The crisis had come.

IV


BACK at the mill old Gabe was troubled. Usually he sat in a
cane-bottomed chair near the hopper, whittling, while the lad
tended the mill, and took pay in an oaken toll-dish smooth with the
use of half a century. But the incident across the river that morning
had made the old man uneasy, and he moved restlessly from his
chair to the door, and back again, while the boy watched him,
wondering what the matter was, but asking no questions. At noon
an old mountaineer rode by, and the miller hailed him.

"Any news in town?" he asked.

"Hain't been to town. Reckon fightin' 's goin' on thar from whut I
heerd." The careless, high-pitched answer brought the boy with
wide eyes to the door.

Whut d'ye hear? " asked Gabe. Jes heerd fightin' 's goin' on!

Then every man who came for his meal brought a wild rumor from
town, and the old miller moved his chair to the door, and sat there
whittling fast, and looking anxiously toward Hazlan. The boy was
in a fever of unrest, and old Gabe could hardly keep him in the
mill. In the middle of the afternoon the report of a rifle came
down the river, breaking into echoes against the cliffs below, and
Isom ran out the door, and stood listening for another, with an odd
contradiction of fear and delight on his eager face. In a few
moments Rome Stetson galloped into sight, and, with a shrill cry
of relief, the boy ran down the road to meet him, and ran back,