A Pagan of the Hills

by Charles Neville Buck

Then one day when the early freshness of summer had been sunburned and freckled into a warmer fullness, a thing happened which stirred the sleeping dogs.

One of the three men of whom Halloway had disposed at the station and who bore ugly scars on his face where the cuffs had marked him, became involved in a boundary dispute with a neighbor, and a shooting affray followed—in which the neighbor fell wounded.

The assailant was arrested and brought to the Coal City Jail, and as he was being led hither, Halloway and Jerry O'Keefe, who chanced to be in town that day, came out of the court-house together.

That coincidence was observed by a lounger in the public square who had, himself, been an alleged Ku-Klux man, on that memorable day and night. Out of his own anxieties he began weaving a pattern of fear.

He reasoned that if Halloway dropped a hint into the ear of the Commonwealth's Attorney that official might go lightly with the prosecution for shooting and wounding, provided, as an exchange of courtesies, this prisoner became fully and freely his tool in ferreting out the larger problem. He might be offered immunity on one indictment, if, as State's evidence, he made possible a number of true bills on graver charges.

The man kept Halloway and Jerry under observation until they left town and satisfied himself that so far they had not talked with the prosecutor—but that carried no assurance for the future, and several consultations ensued, in which certain measures were considered which did not enhance the safety of either Halloway or O'Keefe.

Halloway was less confident as the weeks passed. That first swift moment of apparent victory had not been followed by a satisfactory sequence of progressive steps.

He had sought to wake Alexander out of that sex-lethargy which lay like a moat between the citadel of her heart and the advantage of suitors. In that he had succeeded, too well for his liking. Always Alexander held surprises in store for him, which only maddened him the more, fanning his passion into a hotter blaze. Now when he sought to press his initial advantage to a greater conclusiveness, she only told him to wait and, like Portia judging her lovers, allowed others to come pay court as well, while over all she reigned with a regal sort of despotism, encouraging no one more than another.

But she was splendidly, vitally awake.

She still did with joy the things men did, and did them better than most men, but she was no longer blind to the stronger asset of her arresting beauty and the effect of its charm.