A Man Four-Square | Page 2

of her was clean and pure. There were hours when she hated
him, glimpsed in him points of view that filled her with vague distrust.
But always he attracted her tremendously.
"You're goin' with me, gal," he urged.
Close to her hand was a little clump of forget-me-nots which had
pushed through the moss. 'Lindy feigned to be busy picking the
blossoms.
"No," she answered sulkily.
"Yes. To-night--at eleven o'clock, 'Lindy,--under the big laurel."
While she resented his assurance, it none the less coerced her. She did
not want a lover who groveled in the dust before her. She wanted one to
sweep her from her feet, a young Lochinvar to compel her by the force

of his personality.
"I'll not be there," she told him.
"We'll git right across the river an' be married inside of an hour."
"I tell you I'm not goin' with you. Quit pesterin' me."
His devil-may-care laugh trod on the heels of her refusal. He guessed
shrewdly that circumstances were driving her to him. The girl was full
of resentment at her father's harsh treatment of her. Her starved heart
craved love. She was daughter of that Clanton who led the feud against
the Roush family and its adherents. Dave took his life in his hands
every time he crossed the river to meet her. Once he had swum the
stream in the night to keep an appointment. He knew that his wildness,
his reckless courage and contempt of danger, argued potently for him.
She was coming to him as reluctantly and surely as a wild turkey
answers the call of the hunter.
The sound of a shot, not distant, startled them. He crouched, wary as a
rattlesnake about to strike. The rifle seemed almost to leap forward.
"Hit's Bud--my brother Jimmie." She pushed him back toward the
pawpaws. "Quick! Burn the wind!"
"What about to-night? Will you come?"
"Hurry. I tell you hit's Bud. Are you lookin' for trouble?"
He stopped stubbornly at the edge of the thicket. "I ain't runnin' away
from it. I put a question to ye. When I git my answer mebbe I'll go. But
I don't 'low to leave till then."
"I'll meet ye there if I kin git out. Now go," she begged.
The man vanished in the pawpaws. He moved as silently as one of his
Indian ancestors.
'Lindy waited, breathless lest her brother should catch sight of him. She

knew that if Jimmie saw Roush there would be shooting and one or the
other would fall.
A rifle shot rang out scarce a hundred yards from her. The heart of the
girl stood still. After what seemed an interminable time there came to
her the sound of a care-free whistle. Presently her brother sauntered
into view, a dead squirrel in his hand. The tails of several others bulged
from the game bag by his side. The sister did not need to be told that
four out of five had been shot through the head.
"Thought I heard voices. Was some one with you, sis?" the boy asked.
"Who'd be with me here?" she countered lazily.
A second time she was finding refuge in the for-get-me-nots.
He was a barefoot little fellow, slim and hard as a nail. In his hand he
carried an old-fashioned rifle almost as long as himself. There was a
lingering look of childishness in his tanned, boyish face. His hands and
feet were small and shapely as those of a girl. About him hung the
stolid imperturbability of the Southern mountaineer. Times were when
his blue eyes melted to tenderness or mirth; yet again the cunning of
the jungle narrowed them to slits hard, as jade. Already, at the age of
fourteen, he had been shot at from ambush, had wounded a Roush at
long range, had taken part in a pitched battle. The law of the feud was
tempering his heart to implacability.
The keen gaze of the boy rested on her. Ever since word had reached
the Clantons of how 'Lindy had "carried on" with Dave Roush at the
dance on Lonesome her people had watched her suspiciously. The thing
she had done had been a violation of the hill code and old Clay Clanton
had thrashed her with a cowhide till she begged for mercy. Jimmie had
come home from the still to find her writhing in passionate revolt. The
boy had been furious at his father; yet had admitted the substantial
justice of the punishment. Its wisdom he doubted. For he knew his
sister to be stubborn as old Clay himself, and he feared lest they drive
her to the arms of Bad Dave Roush.

"I reckon you was talkin' to yo'self, mebbe," he suggested.
"I reckon."
They walked home together along a path through the rhododendrons.
The long, slender