Hapsburg Liebe

“ On the mountainside above, a heavily built, anxious man watched the Harman cabin as a hawk watches a squirrel's nest, and back in the blooming laurels an old mountaineer with a long rifle in his hands watched him just as closely. When Bill Hines had taken his prisoner toward the Johnsboro jail, Marvin Blair drew a long breath of relief and started rapidly homeward. ”

“ Blair continued in tones that were low and tense:
"Even if the Larrimores prove that Joe Falls killed the son of Old Henry, it won't clear the girl. And it's up to you and me to save her, Tom, my friend. One of us must make a sacrifice for this girl we both love. Either of us is big enough to do it. We would have a chance of escape, but Bess wouldn't. Don't you see, Tom? Well, are you game?"
"Am I game!" muttered the mountaineer, inclined toward feeling insulted at being asked. "Marvin, my middle name is game. How'll we decide which one of us is to make the sacrifice?" ”

“ Nearly three years of association with Kentucky horse-men had taken away much of his native dialect.
"Come in and have a chair on the porch," said Bess with a vague unhappiness in her voice. "I'll bring out the money."
Harman went to the porch and sat down. He drew the rim of his broad black hat low over his eyes to prevent her from recognizing him. She came out, gave him a nickel and five pennies and sat down in a chair facing him. He put the money into his pocket and reached for her hand.
"A man who loves you is not far away," he began in a monotone, staring intently at her palm. ”

“ Better sneak over to your father's and hide there, and do it quick. I'll be over tonight to see you, and I'll tell Bess you're here. Be careful! Hines holds out that you will be caught if it takes the rest of his life."
"All right," said Harman, and he dove into the thick laurels.
Almost on a line between him and his father's cabin was the cabin of old Henry Larrimore, and the temptation to stop and see Bess for one little minute became strong. He yielded to it and went creeping up to the spring under the giant hemlock. Bess was nowhere in sight, and he went on to the house. ”

“ It threw Harman into a boiling rage. And he was disappointed, too. Truly, the real friends of a man's lifetime may be counted on one's fingers, for friendship is scarce, and finer, less selfish than any other kind of love. But, after all, Blair had willingly taken his chance on the tossing of a coin. There Tom Harman found himself in a dilemma.
He told Bess all about it. Bess went into the cabin and returned a moment later with a fully loaded automatic pistol of small caliber, which explained much to Harman. That pistol had been used in the killing of Joe Falls, he was sure. ”

“ Tom Harman stole down by way of the back stairway to avoid a ragging, and hurried off through the woodland. From a window Marvin Blair watched him go with a strange light in his eyes. More than one pair of good friends have been brought to swords' points by a woman. ”

“ Suddenly one of them that was not a mountaineer, a heavily built man under thirty, who never alluded to his past any more than if he had had no past whatever, rose and went upstairs and to his unplastered, unceiled, funpapered room, where even the bedframe was made of rough boards. ”

“ Now you write that confession and light out, or else I take you to Johnsboro. Which do you want to do?"
Blair wrote the confession, signed it and gave it to Harman. Then he broke for the front door—and ran straight into the powerful arms of Bill Hines! When Blair had been ironed the young mountaineer gave the empty revolver and the badge back to its owner. Hines, a little distrustful, had kept Tom covered while he was working out his part of that which had just taken place in the cabin.
When Bess had her separation, Harman went to see her. ”

“ Old Henry bit off a chew of twisted brown tobacco. "I don' know. 'At was shore a fine little rifle ye bought for Bess, Tom; but I'm afeard ye laid out too much money on it. Blast my eyes, Tom Harman, ef she cain't beat me a-shootin' with it! She vows ef ever us and them thar low-down Fallses gits to fightin' ag'in she's a-goin' to he'p! Good stuff in that gyurl, Tom. And it now looks like the'd be more trouble atwixt us and the Fallses. Joe Falls he's been a-carryin' talk around putty sharp.
"Bess hates Joe. By gar! She turns as white as a ghost when she even hears his name spoke. ”

“ A Woman Keeps a Secret
by Hapsburg Liebe
IT WAS Sunday. The skidders, the log-loaders, the geared locomotives, the ax and the saw of the woodsmen were silent; over the mountains lay the soft blue haze that somehow hallows all the days of September and October. ”