Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/340

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH quarrel. Won't you men stop it? For the sake of that woman, those children, homeless, won't you forget the past, and unite together in one cause? I ask it as a woman."

The thought was utterly beyond Daniels. I could see this in the steely glint of the eyes fastened on Donald; but the latter saw only the girl pleading, his face reflecting her mood.

"I am not a brute, Jean," he said finally, "and I have fought because I was born into it, rather than from choice. If Daniels will meet me half way, it shall be truce between us."

He turned his head to look at the other standing gaunt and grim, a bit of sunshine touching the grizzled hair.

"What shall it be, Daniels, peace or war?"

The silence of the mountaineer burst under the stress of pent-up passion, as if some dam had given way, his words tumbling over one another in torrent.

"Ye want me ter lie down now, do ye? Well, damn ye, I won't; maybe if I was on top like you-uns I'd talk 'bout peace, an' fergiveness, an' thet sorter thing. Thet's easy 'nough when everything goes yer way. But look at my side! You've got ther cinch since this yere war come; yer damn courts drove me out, an' yer guerillas hev raised hell from end ter end o' this region. A Daniels can't live yere any more; yer hell hounds hev burned an' killed an' stole till thar's nobody left ter fight ye. Thet ain't no time ter ask me ter quit. I did n't come yere ter talk ter ye, Jem Donald. I'll fight ye any [ 320 ]