FOSTER REVIVES THE FEUD
No one knew where Hopwood spent the night. He did not accept Mac’s
invitation to stay at the camp, but early morning found him on the road
again on his way up to scout around Foster’s cabin. He had an uneasy
feeling that something would happen if Foster found out where Scott had
gone. He chuckled to think that he probably would not find it out now.
He had sounded out Mr. Roberts and found that he did not know.
It was an hour after he had taken up his watch in a little patch of
woods across the road from the house before he noticed any signs of
life. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from the kitchen chimney. Every now
and then he caught a roar from the rear of the house but no other sound
of voices, a pretty good indication that Foster was in no better mood
than he had been the night before.
A half hour later Bill came running around the house with head ducked
low. Once safe around the corner he dropped down to a slow shuffle. He
had been crying, and he looked longingly up at the mountain before he
turned reluctantly down toward the village.
“He either suspects where Scott has gone or he is planning some new
devilment as soon as he gets back,” Hopwood mused, as he watched Bill
crawling slowly on his snail-like way. “Well, Foster is not likely to go
out till Bill gets back and that can’t be for two hours at the rate he
is moving.”
He had almost decided to go on another errand while he was waiting for
Bill to come back when a movement caught his eye and he saw a barefoot
boy turn in at Foster’s gate. Hopwood groaned with disappointment and
apprehension, for he knew that boy was bearing one of two messages:
either that Scott had passed the logging camp on the way down, or that
the marshal had left town on the way up. Probably it was the former,
because the marshal would know enough to avoid that camp. Hopwood blamed
himself for not having warned Scott to keep away from it. Well, it could
not be helped now.
“There will be something doing pretty soon now,” he thought.
He was not mistaken. The arrival of the boy at the Wait cabin was like
the spark on a fuse running into a powder magazine. Foster roared like a
wounded lion, and everything seemed to be in great commotion. A little
girl darted out of the house and tore down the road toward the village.
“After Bill,” Hopwood mused. “I wonder what the game is?”
The commotion in the back of the house continued.
In a few minutes the girl and Bill came trotting back together. His
reluctance to go had made his recall easy. Hopwood kept a close lookout
now. He did not want anything to escape him, for much might depend on
what he saw now. He saw Bill slip out of the side gate and take a short
cut up the mountain carrying a long rifle.
Hopwood knew what that meant. The boy was to keep watch and fire his
rifle as a signal if he saw the marshal coming that way. That was an old
trick that he had seen worked many times before, but he had never had
the interest in it that he had now. The boy from the logging camp
followed close behind Bill.
These things did not worry Hopwood. A warning of the marshal’s approach
would not do any harm. He had expected that. But when he saw two of the
younger children scamper off on the trails which led to the cabins of
other members of the family, and saw Foster run hurriedly to the barn to
get his white horse, he began to get excited.
If this were Sewall, he would know that he was assembling the clan to
resist the marshal. But he knew that they would not protect Foster, and
Foster knew it himself.
“There is only one way,” Hopwood thought, “that Foster could get the
support of the others, and that would be to start a fight with the
Morgans.” If that were the plan he did not have much time to do it. No
wonder he was in a hurry, with the marshal probably already on his way
over the mountain.
So firmly did this idea take hold of Hopwood that he could stand it no
longer. Foster galloped away furiously in the direction of the village,
and Hopwood, breaking cover like a rabbit, darted across the road and
straight through the woods on a bee line for the opposite mountain.
A little farther down he came into a trail and ducked out of it again
just in time to miss another Wait who was hurrying toward the village.
As soon as the rider was out of sight he broke into the trail again and
ran panting on his way.
He crossed the railroad track below the village and ran gasping up the
steep slope with his eyes glued on a little clearing far up on the
mountainside. Every instant he dreaded that he would see Foster’s white
horse flash across that clearing. Would he be in time?
It was this thought that drove him on and urged him to almost superhuman
efforts, while every breath he drew tore at his lungs like a rusty
knife. Stumbling like a drunken man he tottered out into the road in
front of Jarred’s cabin.
The white horse was nowhere in sight. He had won the race. No matter how
fast they came now Jarred would have his warning. He did not have the
breath to shout at the gate. He ran across the yard and into the cabin
without ceremony.
The minutes dragged slowly by and Hopwood did not come out. An unnatural
silence seemed to surround the place. Not a single bird note broke the
weird stillness, and even the little brook which usually tinkled so
musically over the stones by the house seemed to be gliding softly now.
Only the ticking of the old cuckoo clock within the cabin boomed out
like the blows of a hammer.
The slow minutes passed: ten, fifteen, twenty, and Hopwood came slowly
out. He looked weary and disheartened. Even the sound of a rifle shot
from the valley below did not arouse him. He stood with his arms folded
on top of the fence and looked listlessly across at the opposite
mountain. There was another shot fired in the valley and a scattering
volley answered it, but he did not seem to hear them.
Vic appeared in the doorway and called to him. “You must find out what
that is, Hopwood. Are they fighting us or the logging camp?”
Hopwood started as though he had been awakened from a dream. With a wave
of the hand to Vic he vaulted the fence and ran down the slope. When he
came to the railroad track he hesitated a moment and then turned up the
track toward the village.
He found Mr. Roberts sitting on the end of the station platform watching
the fight as calmly as though watching a game from a grand stand.
“Just what happened?” Hopwood asked.
Shots were still being fired spasmodically from both sides of the
street.
“Foster rode up to the store like a madman and shot across at Morgan’s
wife without any warning,” Mr. Roberts replied, without taking his eyes
off the fight.
“Did he hit her?” Hopwood asked with a hard unnatural ring in his voice.
“Couldn’t miss her, just across the street,” Mr. Roberts replied.
A cold steely glint came into Hopwood’s soft blue eyes and his jaw set
tight. “Kill her?” he persisted.
“Couldn’t tell,” Mr. Roberts replied calmly. “They hauled her inside.”
Hopwood did not wait to hear any more. With a growl of rage he jumped
across the railroad track and ran up the western slope with all the
speed his tired legs could muster.