The Red Debt

way between Southpaw peak and Moon mountain. Its divine splendor, unalloyed with any tithe of partisanship, laved with a mystic luster these two primeval ranges that h

petals and emerald leafage, it peopled a theatre of animated pictures. And the coppice pooled the shadows, creating a hippodrome of transitory caricat

een and, topographically, held these two warring communities apart, sunk its rock-lined bed sheer two hundred feet below. Through this sinuous adamantine artery the head waters of Hellsfork d

wrath; shaping crystal goblets that bubbled over and burst, and flung showers of magical frothy flowers aloft. From across the si

e's sublime artistry, is an irony at once awesome and hopelessly insoluble. Nevertheless, immured upon natural ramifications on the shoulder of Moon mountain, old Cap Lutts, a strategist and mountain despot of kingly renown, dominated as the head of an implacable dynasty that boded ill to inimical inv

he domicile of old Lutts stood out in the moonlight, traced in silver brocade

ut deeper into the hills, until it ended in the valley where Boon Creek and Hellsfork intersected; wh

n of pigmy peaks, left dun and naked by a river dead a thousand

f the enemy-rearing its savage peaks higher and higher, piling upward and onward until t

r wall of granite and hung perilously over sheer space. This freakish rock, known as Eagle Crown, looked li

y-odd years. This imperishable shelf of granite offered him sanctuary when travail and sorrow, that weighted his life, pressed hard upon him. There he had spent his moody hours

and a drop of chilled steel for a fighting heart. In the premises of peace, this same heart swelled up to proportions of compassion and generosity that named him father of a

toward heaven, in the profundity of his loneness, only God knew this somber, silent man's thoughts-this feud-hunted, law-hounded man whose soul b

deed were tempered with the tenets of a unique creed handed down by his mountain fore-fathers. In his heart ther

ondly now he gazed down toward the spot where the new cedar clapboards of the meeting-house shimmered like a disk of t

in buckskin, he held it to the moon's rays and for a full minute peered tenderly at the kindly pictured eyes and smiling lips. Then, clasping the tintype reve

and he knew that the picture smiled

grievously late, he had now moulded this double dream into a tangible reality; for now before him, in the center of the clearing at the frowsy, feudal base of Moon mountain, and just where the rabid waters of H

family wars and illicit distilling is religiously pursued. Nevertheless, he and Maw Lutts had d

he had clearly foreseen it in the rising sun of the morrow. Always with the firm intention to do, he had added postpo

ens had felt before him, the old man had gone to the orchard like a penitent truce-breaker, where on his knees in supplicant

o build a church. Looking across the epitome of delay, they told themselves that this was the first pledge the old man had ever made, which he had not kept, so now the redeeming news of Cap Lutts' finished meeting-house and the day of dedication h

have exchanged their interest for a mustard plaster, they knew that it was not negotiable. They lied aloud, but in their hearts they knew that sooner or later they would follow that magnetic spark Luttsward. They knew

ce like a nest of snakes in the sunshine. The relatives and friendly factions representing the prospective congregation, did homage to Cap Lutts and clamored to make the church a success. The enemy over in Southpaw

In secret service circles, down in Frankfort, it had long been moot

rials never carried a conviction. Burton had even juggled cases, alternately, on venue writs, between the six Federal Courts in the Eastern Distric

hiners, altered his procedure and, armed with a premature change of venue

merely a wraith-pilot pointing toward new skins-a favorite platitude upon which to stage another hunting vacation. But to Chief Burton, the subject of this jest was far removed f

w-breaker, Lutts had as yet never seen the county calaboose, or the barriers of a blue-grass jail. Burton had surprised him ti

ese red splotches never led to the man. This feud leader and distilling chieftain of the range still reigned and the stereotyped r

old Lutts. The times when they did find him, they merely

erection of this infantile sanctuary. It was an enshrined monument to Maw Lutts. It was a mural hanging against Moon mountain, the place of her birth and the scene of her death. It was her own

n' donate 'em at th' cross t' be wyshed 'way with th' blood uv Calv'ry-an' keep on a comin' thet they m

pe Burton, the revenuer. Even in such intervals, the old man had sallied out into the night like the crag-panther, when the moon had turned white; and climbed high, with

ons and laurel blossoms, it reared its exotic head in defiant chall

his own hands and crude appliances of the back forests he had split, shaped and trimmed eleven

mooth planks turned into benches, all represented cash-and cash was a rarity in the sterile Moon mountain district. And, too, the new

b, the negro, and the two red steers, plowed the slanting plot that hung on the hip of the mountain and sown t

arned dollars that had bought th

ould procure and it had taken the steers five hot days to go to Flat Gap Junc