The girl fairly leaped over the space that intervened. Her black curls streamed in the wind. She was wild-eyed and panting. Her bare legs were bleeding from brush scratches, and the tatters of her torn skirt were weighted with burs.
"He's cum! He's got through, he air! He's a cumin' now! Go! Go! Run, Lem! Run away!" she cried in a choking riot of fear, throwing her body against Lem and fairly pushing him before her.
"Whar's yo' gun, pap? Whar's yo' gun? Run, Lem! Fo' Gawd's sake, run away! He's follerin' right ahin' o' me—thah! thah! thah!" she screamed in her terror, pointing, heaving, gazing with charmed stare at the spot where she had emerged from the thicket.
Despairing, horrified at the stunned inactivity of the Lutts men, the frantic girl grabbed little Bud by one arm and half dragged, half carried him across the clearing. Together they disappeared into the undergrowth.
Then, rousing suddenly, stung to action, the old man remembered his gun and started for the church, while Lem fell prostrate and lay close behind the log on which they had been seated.
Old Lutts had no more than gained the threshold of the sanctuary when a giant figure, with heaving chest, sprang into the open behind the church and just to the right. It was Peter Burton, and the surprise was full and complete, for his rifle was leveled at the old man's blue shirt-front as he called:
"None of your damned nonsense now, Lutts! I've got you at last, and I want you alive! Stand where you are!"
His voice rang triumphantly as he hurried nearer, and he leered and cried:
"Maybe I'll take you down Blue Grass this time, eh? Well, I guess yes!"
Cap Lutts hesitated for just the fraction of a second.