"I don't know," answered Hall, "because I'm a stranger in this country—I only know one trail out. And that trail will be guarded; so perhaps, after all——"
"But you'll come back soon, won't you?" she murmured wearily. "I'm afraid I can't go now. The strain was too much for me, when I thought you were dead—something seemed to snap in my brain. But now listen, dear, please don't join in this fighting. Will you always remember me first? And think of our kinsfolk back there in Kentucky—and of all our happiness, too. Think how happy we could be if we were married at last and back in our own mountains again; and the Randolphs and McIvors, after all these years——"
She stopped and sat bolt upright, a nervous tremor running through her, for Mrs. Scarborough had risen up before them. She held a pistol in one hand and behind her followed a dog which bristled at McIvor and growled.
"Put up those hands!" she commanded, pointing her pistol at him threateningly. "And so you're Hall McIvor! Well, let me tell you, Mr. McIvor, your father killed my brother and he killed my sister's son, too. You're nothing but a murderer and if you make the least move I'm going to shoot you dead. And before I'll let Allifair marry a son of Bland McIvor I'll shoot her down in her tracks!"
She towered above them, like a witch in the starlight, and as Allifair broke down and gave way to tears, Hall lifted her gently up.
"You don't need that pistol," he said to Miz Zoolah, "because no man that claims to be a gentleman ever raised his hand against a woman. I never have, and I never will."
"Yes, there you go again," she burst out vindictively, "I ought to have known it was you. Was there ever a McIvor that didn't have the same twaddle about his 'honor,' and being a gentleman? Well, what kind of honor is it when a grown man like your father shoots down my sister's boy? He was just a child, hardly fourteen years old——"
"Yes, but he shot at my father twice. And a boy, Mrs. Scarborough, can pull just as hard on a trigger as a man that's forty years old."
"Well, if that isn't a McIvor!" she burst out, laughing spitefully, "but I'll fix you, here and now. You put that fool down and march back to the house—I'll turn you over to Isham."
"You know he'll kill me," replied Hall, suddenly stepping away from Allifair, and Zoolah raised her voice.