Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/103

WE FIND THE COURIER "You came from up there?"

He looked at me almost suspiciously, then his eyes shifted to the scene in front.

"I reckon I was born 'bout ten mile from yere, over yonder on ther east ridge." His eye, narrowed, a new light visible within their depths. "It was jist ter git back yere, with sich an outfit as this yere ahind me, thet made me a sojer," he acknowledged slowly. "I got some private work ter do in this yere kintry "

"A feud?"

"I reckon thet's whut ye call it. Maybe it's bin a hundred years runnin', an' has caused a heap o' killin' one way an' an' other, but it's sorter simmered down ther las two year to Jem Donald an' me. Whin this yere war broke out, he sorter took to ther Confed side an' thet naturally made me a Yank. They hed ther best o' it round yere in them days, an' arter a while I skipped. But I'm back yere now, an' I ain't skulkin' 'round alone neither I reckon I've got an ol' woman an' some kids down thar on Salt Crick, if ther house ain't been burnt over 'em 'fore now; an' if it has, God pity Jem Donald. I reckon he'll hear from me soon 'nough anyhow."

There was a grimness in these words spoken deliberately the tone utterly expressionless, which I cannot properly convey in written language—the glint of the eye. the compression of the thin lips, making the deadly meaning perfectly apparent. It was the unyielding hate of savagery, long brooding over past wrongs. Involuntarily I glanced about it to the fringe of woods.

"Is Donald about here, then?" [ 93 ]