1 files changed, 1937 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/23630.txt b/23630.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7607818
--- /dev/null
+++ b/23630.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1937 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge
+       1895
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Illustrator: A. B. Frost
+
+Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23630]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE
+
+By Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+1895
+
+
+Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched-a brace of
+logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar
+pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and
+rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift
+and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary
+usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive
+travellers who by common report frequented it.
+
+"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays,
+'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence
+harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the
+foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too,"
+said Roxby.
+
+His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil
+from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate
+terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering
+persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all
+possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to
+the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harms?"
+
+His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom,
+grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest
+that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the
+mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued
+with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its
+wont.
+
+"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the
+cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' not more
+than a haffen-mile off, an' a cornsider'ble passel o' folks hev
+been buried thar off an' on, an' the foot-bredge ain't in nowise
+ill-convenient ter them."
+
+Thus demonstrating the spectral resources of the locality, he rode his
+horse well into the stream as he spoke, and dropped the reins that the
+animal's impatient lips might reach the water. He sat fac-, ing the
+foot-bridge, flecked with the alternate shifting of the sunshine and the
+shadows of the tremulous firs that grew on either side of the high
+banks on the ever-ascending slope, thus arching both above and below
+the haunted bridge. His companion had joined him in the centre of
+the stream; but while the horses drank, the stranger's eyes were
+persistently bent on the concentric circles of the water that the
+movement of the animals had set astir in the current, as if he feared
+that too close or curious a gaze might discern some pilgrim, whom he
+cared not to see, traversing that shadowy quivering foot-bridge. He
+was mounted on a strong, handsome chestnut, as marked a contrast to his
+guide's lank and trace-galled sorrel as were the two riders. A slender
+gloved hand had fallen with the reins to the pommel of the saddle. His
+soft felt hat, like a sombrero, shadowed his clear-cut face. He was
+carefully shaven, save for a long drooping dark mustache and imperial.
+His suit of dark cloth was much concealed by a black cloak, one end of
+which thrown back across his shoulder showed a bright blue lining, the
+color giving a sudden heightening touch to his attire, as if he were "in
+costume." It was a fleeting fashion of the day, but it added a certain
+picturesqueness to a horseman, and seemed far enough from the times
+that produced the square-tailed frock-coat which the mountaineer wore,
+constructed of brown jeans, the skirts of which stood stiffly out on
+each side of the saddle, and gave him, with his broad-brimmed hat, a
+certain Quakerish aspect.
+
+"I dun'no' why folks be so 'feared of 'em," Rox-by remarked,
+speculatively. "The dead ain't so oncommon, nohow. Them ez hev been
+in the war, like you an' me done, oughter be in an' 'bout used ter
+corpses-though I never seen none o' 'em afoot agin. Lookin' at a smit
+field o' battle, arter the rage is jes' passed, oughter gin a body a
+realizin' sense how easy the sperit kin flee, an' what pore vessels fur
+holdin' the spark o' life human clay be."
+
+Simeon Roxby had a keen, not unkindly face, and he had that look of
+extreme intelligence which is entirely distinct from intellectuality,
+and which one sometimes sees in a minor degree in a very clever dog or a
+fine horse. One might rely on him to understand instinctively everything
+one might say to him, even in its subtler aesthetic values, although he
+had consciously learned little. He was of the endowed natures to whom
+much is given, rather than of those who are set to acquire. He had
+many lines in his face-even his simple life had gone hard with him, its
+sorrows un assuaged by its simplicity. His hair was grizzled, and hung
+long and straight on his collar. He wore a grizzled beard cut broad and
+short. His boots had big spurs, although the lank old sorrel had never
+felt them. He sat his horse like the cavalryman he had been for four
+years of hard riding and raiding, but his face had a certain gentleness
+that accented the Quaker-like suggestion of his garb, a look of
+communing with the higher things.
+
+"I never blamed 'em,'" he went on, evidently reverting to the spectres
+of the bridge-"I never blamed 'em for comin' back wunst in a while. It
+'pears ter me 'twould take me a long time ter git familiar with heaven,
+an' sociable with them ez hev gone before. An', my Lord, jes' think what
+the good green yearth is! Leastwise the mountings. I ain't settin' store
+on the valley lands I seen whenst I went ter the wars. I kin remember
+yit what them streets in the valley towns smelt like."
+
+He lifted his head, drawing a long breath to inhale the exquisite
+fragrance of the fir, the freshness of the pellucid water, the aroma of
+the autumn wind, blowing through the sere leaves still clinging red and
+yellow to the boughs of the forest.
+
+"Naw, I ain't blamin' 'em, though I don't hanker ter view 'em," he
+resumed. "One of 'em I wouldn't be afeard of, though. I feel mighty
+sorry fur her. The old folks used ter tell about her. A young 'oman she
+war, a-crossin' this bredge with her child in her arms. She war young,
+an' mus' have been keerless, I reckon; though ez 'twar her fust baby,
+she moightn't hev been practised in holdin' it an' sech, an' somehows
+it slipped through her arms an' fell inter the ruver, an' war killed in
+a minit, dashin' agin the rocks. She jes' stood fur a second a-screamin'
+like a wild painter, an' jumped off'n the bredge arter it. She got it
+agin; for when they dragged her body out'n the ruver she hed it in her
+arms too tight fur even death ter onloose. An' thar they air together in
+the buryin'-ground."
+
+He gave a nod toward the slope of the mountain that intercepted the
+melancholy view of the graveyard.
+
+"Got it yit!" he continued; "bekase" (he lowered his voice) "on windy
+nights, whenst the moon is on the wane, she is viewed kerryin' the baby
+along the bredge--kerryin' it clear over, _safe an' sound_, like she
+thought she oughter done, I reckon, in that one minute, whilst she stood
+an' screamed an' surveyed what she hed done. That child would hev been
+nigh ter my age ef he hed lived."
+
+Only the sunbeams wavered athwart the bridge now as the firs swayed
+above, giving glimpses of the sky, and their fibrous shadows flickered
+back and forth. The wild mountain stream flashed white between the brown
+bowlders, and plunged down the gorge in a succession of cascades, each
+seeming more transparently green and amber and brown than the other. The
+chestnut horse gazed meditatively at these limpid out-gushings, having
+drunk his fill; then thought better of his moderation, and once more
+thrust his head down to the water. The hand of his rider, which had
+made a motion to gather up the reins, dropped leniently on his neck, as
+Simeon Roxby spoke again:
+
+"Several--several others hev been viewed, actin' accordin' ter thar
+motions in life. Now thar war a peddler--some say he slipped one icy
+evenin', 'bout dusk in winter--some say evil ones waylaid him fur his
+gear an' his goods in his pack, but the settlemint mostly believes
+he war alone whenst he fell. His pack 'pears ter be full still, they
+say--but ye air 'bleeged ter know he hev hed ter set that pack down fur
+good 'fore this time. We kin take nuthin' out'n this world, no matter
+what kind o' a line o' goods we kerry in life. Heaven's no place fur
+tradin', I understan', an' I _do_ wonder sometimes how in the worl' them
+merchants an' sech in the valley towns air goin' ter entertain tharse'fs
+in the happy land o' Canaan. It's goin' ter be sorter bleak fur them,
+sure's ye air born."
+
+With a look of freshened recollection, he suddenly drew a plug of
+tobacco from his pocket, and he talked on even as he gnawed a piece from
+it.
+
+"Durin' the war a cavalry-man got shot out hyar whilst runnin' 'crost
+that thar foot-bredge. Thar hed been a scrimmage an' his horse war kilt,
+an' he tuk ter the bresh on foot, hopin' ter hide in the laurel. But ez
+he war crossin' the foot-bredge some o' the pursuin' party war fordin'
+the ruver over thar, an' thinkin' he'd make out ter escape they fired
+on him, jes' ez the feller tried ter surrender. He turned this way an'
+flung up both arms--but thar's mighty leetle truce in a pistol-ball.
+That minute it tuk him right through the brain. Seems toler'ble long
+range fur a pistol, don't it? He kin be viewed now most enny moonlight
+night out hyar on the foot-bredge, throwin' up both hands in sign of
+surrender."
+
+The wild-geese were a-wing on the way southward. Looking up to that
+narrow section of the blue sky which the incision of the gorge into
+the very depths of the woods made visible, he could see the tiny files
+deploying along the azure or the flecking cirrus, and hear the vague
+clangor of their leader's cry. He lifted his head to mechanically follow
+their flight. Then, as his eyes came back to earth, they rested again on
+the old bridge.
+
+"Strange enough," he said, suddenly, "the sker-riest tale I hev ever
+hearn 'bout that thar old bredge is one that my niece set a-goin'. She
+_seen_ the harnt _herself_, an' it shakes me wuss 'n the idee o' all the
+rest."
+
+His companion's gloomy gaze was lifted for a moment with an expression
+of inquiry from the slowly widening circles of the water about the
+horse's head as he drank. But Roxby's eyes, with a certain gleam of
+excitement, a superstitious dilation, still dwelt upon the bridge at
+the end of the upward vista. He went on merely from the impetus of the
+subject. "Yes, sir--she _seen_ it a-pacin' of its sorrowful way acrost
+that bredge, same ez the t'others of the percession o' harnts. 'Twar
+my niece, Mill'cent--brother's darter--by name, Mill'cent Roxby. Waal,
+Mill'cent an' a lot o' young fools o' her age--little over fryin'
+size--they 'tended camp-meetin' down hyar on Tomahawk Creek--'tain't
+so long ago--along with the old folks. An' 'bout twenty went huddled up
+tergether in a road-wagin. An', lo! the wagin it bruk down on the way
+home, an' what with proppin' it up on a crotch, they made out ter reach
+the cross-roads over yander at the Notch, an' thar the sober old folks
+called a halt, an' hed the wagin mended at the blacksmith-shop. Waal, it
+tuk some two hours, fur Pete Rodd ain't a-goin' ter hurry hisself--in my
+opinion the angel Gabriel will hev ter blow his bugle oftener'n wunst
+at the last day 'fore Pete Rodd makes up his mind ter rise from the
+dead an' answer the roll-call--an' this hyar young lot sorter found it
+tiresome waitin' on thar elders' solemn company. The old folks, whilst
+waitin', set outside on the porches of the houses at the settlemint,
+an' repeated some o' the sermons they hed hearn at camp, an' more'n one
+raised a hyme chune. An' the young fry--they hed hed a steady diet o'
+sermons an' hyme chunes fur fower days--they tuk ter stragglin' off
+down the road, two an' two, like the same sorter id jits the world over,
+leavin' word with the old folks that the wagin would overtake 'em an'
+pick 'em up on the road when it passed. Waal, they walked several mile,
+an' time they got ter the crest o' the hill over yander the moon hed
+riz, an' they could look down an' see the mist in the valley. The
+moon war bright in the buryin'-groun' when they passed it, an' the
+head-boards stood up white an' stiff, an' a light frost hed fell on the
+mounds, an' they showed plain, an' shone sorter lonesome an' cold.
+The young folks begun ter look behind em' fur the wagin. Some said--I
+b'lieve 'twar Em'ry Keen an--they could read the names on the boards
+plain, 'twar so light, the moon bein' nigh the full: but Em'ry never
+read nuthin' at night by the moon in his life; he ain't enny too capable
+o' wrastlin' with the alphabet with a strong daytime on his book ter
+light him ter knowledge. An' the shadows war black an' still, an' all
+the yearth looked ez ef nuthin' lived nor ever would agin, an' they
+hearn a wolf howl. Waal, that disaccommodated the gals mightily, an'
+they hed a heap more interes' in that old wagin, all smellin' rank with
+wagin-grease an' tar, than they did in thar lovyers; an' they hed ruther
+hev hearn that old botch of a wheel that Pete Rodd hed set onto it com
+in' a-creakin' an' a-com-plainin' along the road than the sweetest words
+them boys war able ter make up or remember. So they stood thar in the
+road--a-stare-gazin' them head-boards, like they expected every grave
+ter open an' the reveilly ter sound--a-waitin' ter be overtook by the
+wagin, a-listenin', but hearin' nuthin' in the silence o' the frost--not
+a dead leaf a-twirlin', nor a frozen blade o' grass astir. An' then
+two or three o' the gals 'lowed they hed ruther walk back ter meet the
+wagin, an' whenst the boys 'lowed ter go on--nuthin' war likely ter
+ketch 'em--one of 'em bust out a-cryin'. Waal, thar war the eend o' that
+much! So the gay party set out on the back track, a-keepin' step
+ter sobs an' sniffles, an' that's how kem _they_ seen no harnt. But
+Mill'-cent an' three or four o' the t'others 'lowed they'd go on. They
+warn't two mile from home, an' full five from the cross-roads. So Em'ry
+Keenan--he hev been waitin' on her sence the year one--so he put his
+skeer in his pocket an' kem along with her, a-shakin' in his shoes, I'll
+be bound! So down the hill in the frosty moonlight them few kem--purty
+nigh beat out, I reckon, Mill'cent war, what with the sermonizin' an'
+the hyme-singin' an' hevin' ter look continual at the sheep's-eyes o'
+Em'ry Keenan--he wears my patience ter the bone! So she concluded ter
+take the short-cut. An' Em'ry he agreed. So they tuk the lead, the rest
+a following an' kem down thar through all that black growth"--he lifted
+his arm and pointed at the great slope, dense with fir and pine and the
+heavy underbrush--"keepin' the bridle-path--easy enough even at night,
+fur the bresh is so thick they couldn't lose thar way. But the moonlight
+war mightily slivered up, fallin' through the needles of the pines an'
+the skeins of dead vines, an' looked bleached and onnatural, an' holped
+the dark mighty leetle. An' they seen the water a-shinin' an' a-plungin'
+down the gorge, an' the glistenin' of the frost on the floor o' the
+bredge. Thar war a few icicles on the hand-rail, an' the branches o' the
+firs hung ez still ez death; only that cold, racin', shoutin', jouncin'
+water moved. Jes ez they got toler'ble nigh the foot-bredge a sudden
+cloud kem over the face o' the sky. Thar warn't no wind on the yearth,
+but up above the air war a-stirrin'. An' Em'ry he 'lowed Mill'cent
+shouldn't cross the foot-bredge whilst the light warn't clar--I wonder
+the critter hed that much sense! An' she jes' drapped down on that rock
+thar ter rest"--he pointed up the slope to a great fragment that had
+broken off from the ledges and lay near the bank: the bulk of the mass
+was overgrown with moss and lichen, but the jagged edges of the recent
+fracture gleamed white and crystalline among the brown and olive-green
+shadows about it. A tree was close beside it. "Agin that thar pine trunk
+Em'ry he stood an' leaned. The rest war behind, a-comin' down the
+hill. An' all of a suddenty a light fell on the furder eend o'
+the foot-bredge--a waverin' light, mighty white an' misty in the
+darksomeness. Mill'cent 'lowed ez fust she thunk it war the moon. An'
+lookin' up, she seen the cloud; it held the moon close kivered. An'
+lookin' down, she seen the light war movin'--movin' from the furder eend
+o' the bredge, straight acrost it. Sometimes a hand war held afore it,
+ez ef ter shield it from the draught, an' then Mill'cent 'seen twar a
+candle, an' the white in the mistiness war a 'oman wearin' white an'
+carryn' it.
+
+[Illustration: The Phantom of the Foot-bridge 025]
+
+Lookin' ter right an' then ter lef the 'oman kem, with now her right
+hand shieldin' the candle she held, an' now layin' it on the hand-rail.
+The candle shone on the water, fur it didn't flare, an' when the 'oman
+held her hand before it the light made a bright spot on the foot-bredge
+an' in the dark air about her, an' on the fir branches over her head.
+An' a thin mist seemed to hang about her white frock, but not over her
+face, fur when she reached the middle o' the foot-bredge she laid her
+hand agin on the rail, an' in the clear light o' the candle Mill'cent
+seen the harnt's face. An' thar she beheld her own face; _her own
+face_ she looked upon ez she waited thar under the tree watchin' the
+foot-bredge; _her own face_ pale an' troubled; her own self dressed in
+white, crossin' the foot-bredge, an' lightin' her steps with a corpse's
+candle." He drew up the reins abruptly. He seemed in sudden haste to go.
+His companion looked with deepening interest at the bridge, although he
+followed his guide's surging pathway to the opposite bank. As the two
+dripping horses struggled up the steep incline he asked, "Did the man
+with her see the manifestation also?"
+
+"He _'lows_ he did," responded Roxby, equivocally. "But when Mill'cent
+fust got so she could tell it, 'peared ter me ez Em'ry Keen an fund it
+ez much news ez the rest o' we-uns. Mill'cent jes' drapped stone-dead,
+accordin' ter all accounts, an' he an' the t'other young folks flung
+water in her face till she kem out'n her faint; an' jes' then they hearn
+the wagin a-rattlin' along the road, an' they stopped it an' fetched her
+home in it. She never told the tale till she war home, an' it skeered
+me an' my mother powerful, fur Mill'cent is all the kin we hev got.
+Mill'cent is gran'daddy an' gran'mam-my, sons an' daughters, uncles an'
+aunts, cousins, nieces, an' nephews, all in one. The only thing I ain't
+pervided with is a nephew-in-law, an' I don't need him. Leastwise I
+ain't lookin' fur Em'ry Keenan jes' at present."
+
+The pace was brisker when the two horses, bending their strength
+sturdily to the task, had pressed up the massive slope from the deep
+cleft of the gorge. As the road curved about the outer verge of the
+mountain, the valley far beneath came into view, with intersecting
+valleys and transverse ranges, dense with the growths of primeval
+wildernesses, and rugged with the tilted strata of great upheavals, and
+with chasms cut in the solid rock by centuries of erosion, traces
+of some remote cataclysmal period, registering thus its throes and
+turmoils. The blue sky, seen beyond a gaunt profile of one of the
+farther summits that defined its craggy serrated edge against the
+ultimate distances of the western heavens, seemed of a singularly suave
+tint, incongruous with the savagery of the scene, which clouds and
+portents of storm might better have befitted. The little graveyard,
+which John Dundas discerned with recognizing eyes, albeit they had never
+before rested upon it, was revealed suddenly, lying high on the opposite
+side of the gorge. No frost glimmered now on the lowly mounds; the
+flickering autumnal sunshine loitered unafraid among them, according
+to its languid wont for many a year. Shadows of the gray un-painted
+head-boards lay on the withered grass, brown and crisp, with never
+a cicada left to break the deathlike silence. A tuft of red leaves,
+vagrant in the wind, had been caught on one of the primitive monuments,
+and swayed there with a decorative effect. The enclosure seemed, to
+unaccustomed eyes, of small compass, and few the denizens who had found
+shelter here and a resting-place, but it numbered all the dead of the
+country-side for many a mile and many a year, and somehow the loneliness
+was assuaged to a degree by the reflection that they had known each
+other in life, unlike the great herds of cities, and that it was a
+common fate which the neighbors, huddled together, encountered in
+company.
+
+It had no discordant effect in the pervasive sense of gloom, of mighty
+antagonistic forces with which the scene was replete; it fostered a
+realization of the pitiable minuteness and helplessness of human nature
+in the midst of the vastness of inanimate nature and the evidences of
+infinite lengths of forgotten time, of the long reaches of unimagined
+history, eventful, fateful, which the landscape at once suggested and
+revealed and concealed.
+
+Like the sudden flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some
+solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along
+the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its
+many pillars, its piazzas, its "observatory," its band-stand, its garish
+intimations of the giddy, gay world of a summer hotel. But, alack! it,
+too, had its surfeit of woe.
+
+"The guerrillas an' bushwhackers tuk it out on the old hotel, sure!"
+observed Sim Roxby, by way of introduction. "Thar warn't much fightin'
+hyar-abouts, an' few sure-enough soldiers ever kem along. But wunst in a
+while a band o' guerrillas went through like a suddint wind-storm, an'
+I tell ye they made things whurl while they war about it. They made a
+sorter barracks o' the old place. Looks some like lightning hed struck
+it."
+
+He had reined up his horse about one hundred yards in front of the
+edifice, where the weed-grown gravelled drive--carefully tended ten
+years agone--had diverged from the straight avenue of poplars, sweeping
+in a circle around to the broad flight of steps.
+
+"Though," he qualified abruptly, as if a sudden thought had struck
+him, "ef ye air countin' on buyin' it, a leetle money spent ter keerful
+purpose will go a long way toward makin' it ez good ez new."
+
+His companion did not reply, and for the first time Roxby cast upon him
+a covert glance charged with the curiosity which would have been earlier
+and more easily aroused in another man by the manner of the stranger. A
+letter--infrequent missive in his experience--had come from an ancient
+companion-in-arms, his former colonel, requesting him in behalf of a
+friend of the old commander to repair to the railway station, thirty
+miles distant, to meet and guide this prospective purchaser of the old
+hotel to the site of the property. And now as Roxby looked at him the
+suspicion which his kind heart had not been quick to entertain was
+seized upon by his alert brain.
+
+"The cunnel's been fooled somehows," he said to himself.
+
+For the look with which John Dundas contemplated the place was not the
+gaze of him concerned with possible investment--with the problems of
+repair, the details of the glazier and the painter and the plasterer.
+The mind was evidently neither braced for resistance nor resigned to
+despair, as behooves one smitten by the foreknowledge of the certainty
+of the excess of the expenditures over the estimates. Only with pensive,
+listless melancholy, void of any intention, his eyes traversed the
+long rows of open doors, riven by rude hands from their locks, swinging
+helplessly to and fro in the wind, and giving to the deserted and
+desolate old place a spurious air of motion and life. Many of the
+shutters had been wrenched from their hinges, and lay rotting on the
+floors. The ball-room windows caught on their shattered glass the
+reflection of the clouds, and it seemed as if here and there a wan face
+looked through at the riders wending along the weed-grown path. Where so
+many faces had been what wonder that a similitude should linger in the
+loneliness! The pallid face seemed to draw back as they glanced up while
+slowly pacing around the drive. A rabbit sitting motionless on the front
+piazza did not draw back, although observing them with sedate eyes as
+he poised himself upright on his haunches, with his listless fore-paws
+suspended in the air, and it occurred to Dundas that he was probably
+unfamiliar with the presence of human beings, and had never heard the
+crack of a gun. A great swirl of swallows came soaring out of the big
+kitchen chimneys and circled in the sky, darting down again and again
+upward. Through an open passage was a glimpse of a quadrangle, with its
+weed-grown spaces and litter of yellow leaves. A tawny streak, a red
+fox, sped through it as Dundas looked. A half-moon, all a-tilt, hung
+above it. He saw the glimmer through the bare boughs of the leafless
+locust-trees here and there still standing, although outside on the lawn
+many a stump bore token how ruthlessly the bushwhackers had furnished
+their fires.
+
+"That thar moon's a-hangin' fur rain," said the mountaineer, commenting
+upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they
+passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather agin 'fore
+day, an' the man--by name Morgan Holden--that hev charge o' the hotel
+property can't git back fur a week an' better."
+
+A vague wonder to find himself so suspicious flitted through his mind,
+with the thought that perhaps the colonel might have reckoned on this
+delay. "Surely the ruvers down yander at Knoxville mus' be a-boomin',
+with all this wet weather," he said to himself.
+
+Then aloud: "Morgan Holden he went ter Col-bury ter 'tend ter some
+business in court, an' the ruvers hev riz so that, what with the bredges
+bein' washed away an' the fords so onsartain an' tricky, he'll stay till
+the ruver falls. He don't know ye war kemin', ye see. The mail-rider hev
+quit, 'count o' the rise in the ruver, an' thar's no way ter git word
+ter him. Still, ef ye air minded ter wait, I'll be powerful obligated
+fur yer comp'ny down ter my house till the ruver falls an' Holden he
+gits back."
+
+The stranger murmured his obligations, but his eyes dwelt lingeringly
+upon the old hotel, with its flapping doors and its shattered windows.
+Through the recurrent vistas of these, placed opposite in the rooms,
+came again broken glimpses of the grassy space within the quadrangle,
+with its leafless locust-trees, first of all to yield their foliage to
+the autumn wind, where a tiny owl was shrilling stridulously under the
+lonely red sky and the melancholy moon.
+
+"Hed ye 'lowed ter, put up at the old hotel?" asked Roxby, some inherent
+quickness supplying the lack of a definite answer.
+
+For the first time the stranger turned upon him a look more expressive
+than the casual fragmentary attention with which he had half heeded,
+half ignored his talk since their first encounter at the railway
+station.
+
+"A simple fellow, but good as gold," was the phrase with which Simeon
+Roxby had been commended as guide and in some sort guard.
+
+"Not so simple, perhaps," the sophisticated man thought as their eyes
+met. Not so simple but that the truth must serve. "The colonel suggested
+that it might be best," he replied, more alert to the present moment
+than his languid preoccupation had heretofore permitted.
+
+The answer was good as far as it went. A few days spent in the old
+hostelry certainly would serve well to acquaint the prospective
+purchaser with its actual condition and the measures and means needed
+for its repair; but as Sim Roxby stood there, with the cry of the owl
+shrilling in the desert air, the lonely red sky, the ominous tilted
+moon, the doors drearily flapping to and fro as the wind stole into the
+forlorn and empty place and sped back affrighted, he marvelled at the
+refuge contemplated.
+
+"I believe there is some of the furniture here yet. We could contrive to
+set up a bed from what is left. The colonel could make it all right with
+Holden, and I could stay a day or two, as we originally planned."
+
+"Ye-es. I don't mind Holden: a man ain't much in charge of a place ez
+ain't got a lock or a key ter bless itself with, an' takes the owel an'
+the fox an' the gopher fur boarders; but, ennyhow, kem with me home ter
+supper. Mill'cent will hev it ready by now ennyhows, an' ye need suthin'
+hearty an' hot ter stiffen ye up ter move inter sech quarters ez these."
+Dundas hesitated, but the mountaineer had already taken assent for
+granted, and pushed his horse into a sharp trot. Evidently a refusal was
+not in order. Dundas pressed forward, and they rode together along the
+winding way past the ten-pin alley, its long low roof half hidden in the
+encroaching undergrowth springing up apace beneath the great trees; past
+the stables; past a line of summer cottages, strangely staring of aspect
+out of the yawning doors and windows, giving, instead of an impression
+of vacancy, a sense of covert watching, of secret occupancy. If one's
+glances were only quick enough, were there not faces pressed to those
+shattered panes--scarcely seen--swiftly withdrawn?
+
+He was in a desert; he had hardly been so utterly alone in all his life;
+yet he bore through the empty place a feeling of espionage, and ever
+and anon he glanced keenly at the overgrown lawns, with their deepening
+drifts of autumn leaves, at the staring windows and flaring doors, which
+emitted sometimes sudden creaking wails in the silence, as if he sought
+to assure himself of the vacancy of which his mind took cognizance and
+yet all his senses denied.
+
+Little of his sentiment, although sedulously cloaked, was lost on Sim
+Roxby; and he was aware, too, in some subtle way, of the relief his
+guest experienced when they plunged into the darkening forest and left
+the forlorn place behind them. The clearing in which it was situated
+seemed an oasis of light in the desert of night in which the rest of
+the world lay. From the obscurity of the forest Dundas saw, through the
+vistas of the giant trees, the clustering cottages, the great hotel,
+gables and chimneys and tower, stark and distinct as in some weird
+dream-light in the midst of the encircling gloom. The after-glow of
+sunset was still aflare on the western windows; the whole empty place
+was alight with a reminiscence of its old aspect--its old gay life. Who
+knows what memories were a-stalk there--what semblance of former times?
+What might not the darkness foster, the impunity of desertion, the
+associations that inhabited the place with almost the strength of human
+occupancy itself? Who knows--who knows?
+
+He remembered the scene afterward, the impression he received. And from
+this, he thought, arose his regret for his decision to take up here his
+abiding-place.
+
+The forest shut out the illumined landscape, and the night seemed indeed
+at hand; the gigantic boles of the trees loomed through the encompassing
+gloom, that was yet a semi-transparent medium, like some dark but clear
+fluid through which objects were dimly visible, albeit tinged with its
+own sombre hue. The lank, rawboned sorrel had set a sharp pace, to
+which the chestnut, after momentary lagging, as if weary with the day's
+travel, responded briskly. He had received in some way intimations that
+his companion's corn-crib was near at hand, and if he had not deduced
+from these premises the probability of sharing his fare, his mental
+processes served him quite as well as reason, and brought him to the
+same result. On and on they sped, neck and neck, through the darkening
+woods; fire flashed now and again from their iron-shod hoofs; often
+a splash and a shower of drops told of a swift dashing through the
+mud-holes that recent rains had fostered in the shallows. The dank odor
+of dripping boughs came on the clear air. Once the chestnut shied from a
+sudden strange shining point springing up in the darkness close at
+hand, which the country-bred horse discriminated as fox-fire, and
+kept steadily on, unmindful of the rotting log where it glowed. Far in
+advance, in the dank depths of the woods, a Will-o'-the-wisp danced and
+flickered and lured the traveller's eye. The stranger was not sure of
+the different quality of another light, appearing down a vista as the
+road turned, until the sorrel, making a tremendous spurt, headed for it,
+uttering a joyous neigh at the sight.
+
+The deep-voiced barking of hounds rose melodiously on the silence,
+and as the horses burst out of the woods into a small clearing, Dundas
+beheld in the brighter light a half-dozen of the animals nimbly afoot in
+the road, one springing over the fence, another in the act of climbing,
+his fore-paws on the topmost rail, his long neck stretched, and his head
+turning about in attitudes of observation. He evidently wished to assure
+himself whether the excitement of his friends was warranted by the facts
+before he troubled himself to vault over the fence. Three or four still
+lingered near the door of a log-cabin, fawning about a girl who stood on
+the porch. Her pose was alert, expectant; a fire in the dooryard, where
+the domestic manufacture of soap had been in progress, cast a red flare
+on the house, its appurtenances, the great dark forest looming all
+around, and, more than the glow of the hearth within, lighted up the
+central figure of the scene. She was tall, straight, and strong; a
+wealth of fair hair was clustered in a knot at the back of her head, and
+fleecy tendrils fell over her brow; on it was perched a soldier's-cap;
+and certainly more gallant and fearless eyes had never looked out from
+under the straight, stiff brim. Her chin, firm, round, dimpled, was
+uplifted as she raised her head, descrying the horsemen's approach. She
+wore a full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck
+was twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the
+neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the
+blended roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of
+ghosts--Dundas marvelled--this the Millicent whose pallid and troubled
+phantom already-paced the foot-bridge?
+
+He did not realize that he had drawn up his horse suddenly at the sight
+of her, nor did he notice that his host had dismounted, until Roxby was
+at the chestnut's head, ready to lead the animal to supper in the barn.
+His evident surprise, his preoccupation, were not lost upon Roxby,
+however. His hand hesitated on the girth of the chestnut's saddle when
+he stood between the two horses in the barn. He had half intended to
+disregard the stranger's declination of his invitation, and stable the
+creature. Then he shook his head slowly; the mystery that hung about the
+new-comer was not reassuring. "A heap o' wuthless cattle 'mongst them
+valley men," he said; for the war had been in some sort an education to
+his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him ter stay. I
+ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, nohow. Em'ry
+Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble well acquainted
+with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy an' mammy, an'
+both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could tell ye exac'ly
+which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, an' them lean
+sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice. Em'ry never
+thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He 'lowed I
+knowed him _too_ well."
+
+He laughed as he glanced through the open door into the darkening
+landscape. Horizontal gray clouds were slipping fast across the pearly
+spaces of the sky. The yellow stubble gleamed among the brown earth
+of the farther field, still striped with its furrows. The black forest
+encircled the little cleared space, and a wind was astir among the
+tree-tops. A white star gleamed through the broken clapboards of the
+roof, the fire still flared under the soap-kettle in the dooryard, and
+the silence was suddenly smitten by a high cracked old voice, which told
+him that his mother had perceived the dismounted stranger at the gate,
+and was graciously welcoming him.
+
+She had come to the door, where the girl still stood, but half withdrawn
+in the shadow. Dundas silently bowed as he passed her, following his
+aged hostess into the low room, all bedight with the firelight of a huge
+chimney-place, and comfortable with the realization of a journey's end.
+The wilderness might stretch its weary miles around, the weird wind
+wander in the solitudes, the star look coldly on unmoved by aught it
+beheld, the moon show sad portents, but at the door they all failed,
+for here waited rest and peace and human companionship and the sense of
+home.
+
+"Take a cheer, stranger, an' make yerself at home. Powerful glad ter
+see ye---war 'feard night would overtake ye. Ye fund the water toler'ble
+high in all the creeks an' sech, I reckon, an' fords shifty an'
+onsartain. Yes, sir. Fall rains kem on earlier'n common, an' more'n
+we need. Wisht we could divide it with that thar drought we had in the
+summer. Craps war cut toler'ble short, sir--toler'ble short."
+
+Mrs. Roxby's spectacles beamed upon him with an expression of the utmost
+benignity as the firelight played on the lenses, but her eyes peering
+over them seemed endowed in some sort with independence of outlook. It
+was as if from behind some bland mask a critical observation was poised
+for unbiased judgment. He felt in some degree under surveillance. But
+when a light step heralded an approach he looked up, regardless of
+the betrayal of interest, and bent a steady gaze upon Millicent as she
+paused in the doorway.
+
+And as she stood there, distinct in the firelight and outlined against
+the black background of the night, she seemed some modern half-military
+ideal of Diana, with her two gaunt hounds beside her, the rest of the
+pack vaguely glimpsed at her heels outside, the perfect outline and
+chiselling of her features, her fine, strong, supple figure, the look of
+steady courage in her eyes, and the soldier's cap on her fair hair. Her
+face so impressed itself upon his mind that he seemed to have seen her
+often. It was some resemblance to a picture of a vivandiere, doubtless,
+in a foreign gallery--he could not say when or where; a remnant of a
+tourist's overcrowded impressions; a half-realized reminiscence, he
+thought, with an uneasy sense of recognition.
+
+"Hello, Mill'cent! home agin!" Roxby cried, in cheery greeting as he
+entered at the back door opposite. "What sorter topknot is that ye got
+on?" he demanded, looking jocosely at her head-gear.
+
+The girl put up her hand with an expression of horror. A deep red
+flush dyed her cheek as she touched the cap. "I forgot 'twar thar," she
+murmured, contritely. Then, with a sudden rush of anger as she tore it
+off: "'Twar granny's fault. She axed me ter put it on, so ez ter see
+which one I looked most like."
+
+"Stranger," quavered the old woman, with a painful break in her voice,
+"I los' fower sons in the war, an' Mill'cent hev got the fambly favor."
+
+"Ye _mought_ hev let me know ez I war a-perlitin' round in this hyar
+men's gear yit," the girl muttered, as she hung the cap on a prong of
+the deer antlers on which rested the rifle of the master of the house.
+
+Roxby's face had clouded at the mention of the four sons who had gone
+out from the mountains never to return, leaving to their mother's aching
+heart only the vague comfort of an elusive resemblance in a girl's
+face; but as he noted Millicent's pettish manner, and divined her
+mortification because of her unseemly head-gear in the stranger's
+presence, he addressed her again in that jocose tone without which he
+seldom spoke to her.
+
+[Illustration: Warn't you-uns apologizin' ter me 006]
+
+"Warn't you-uns apologizin' ter me t'other day fur not bein' a nephew
+'stiddier a niece? Looked sorter like a nephew ter-night."
+
+She shook her head, covered now only with its own charming tresses
+waving in thick undulations to the coil at the nape of her neck--a
+trifle dishevelled from the rude haste with which the cap had been torn
+off.
+
+Roxby had seated himself, and with his elbows on his knees he looked
+up at her with a teasing jocularity, such as one might assume toward a
+child.
+
+"_Ye war_," he declared, with affected solemnity--"ye war 'pologizin'
+fur not bein' a nephew, an' 'lowed ef ye war a nephew we could go
+a-huntin' tergether, an' ye could holp me in all my quar'ls an' fights.
+I been aging some lately, an' ef I war ter go ter the settlemint an' git
+inter a fight I mought not be able ter hold my own. Think what 'twould
+be ter a pore old man ter hev a dutiful nephew step up an'"--he doubled
+his fists and squared off--"jes' let daylight through some o' them
+cusses. An' didn't _ye say_"--he dropped his belligerent attitude and
+pointed an insistent finger at her, as if to fix the matter in her
+recollection--"ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye could fire a gun
+'thout shettin' yer eyes? An' I told ye then ez that would mend yer aim
+mightily. I told ye that I'd be powerful mortified ef I hed a nephew ez
+hed ter shet his eyes ter keep the noise out'n his ears whenst he fired
+a rifle. The tale would go mighty hard with me at the settlemint."
+
+The girl's eyes glowed upon him with the fixity and the lustre of those
+of a child who is entertained and absorbed by an elder's jovial wiles.
+A flash of laughter broke over her face, and the low, gurgling,
+half-dreamy sound was pleasant to hear. She was evidently no more than
+a child to these bereft old people, and by them cherished as naught else
+on earth.
+
+"An' didn't _I tell you-uns,_" he went on, affecting to warm to the
+discussion, and in reality oblivious of the presence of the
+guest'--"didn't I tell ye ez how ef ye war a nephew 'stiddier a niece ye
+wouldn't hev sech cattle ez Em'ry Keenan a-dan-glin' round underfoot,
+like a puppy ye can't gin away, an' that _won't_ git lost, an' ye ain't
+got the heart ter kill?"
+
+The girl's lip suddenly curled with scorn. "Yer nephew would be
+obligated ter make a ch'ice fur marryin' 'mongst these hyar mounting
+gals--Par-mely Lepstone, or Belindy M'ria Matthews, or one o' the
+Windrow gals. Waal, sir, I'd ruther be yer niece--even ef Em'ry Keenan
+_air_ like a puppy underfoot, that ye can't gin away, an' won't git
+lost, an' ye ain't got the heart ter kill." She laughed again,
+showing her white teeth. She evidently relished the description of the
+persistent adherence of poor Emory Keenan. "But which one o' these hyar
+gals would ye recommend ter yer nephew ter marry--ef ye hed a nephew?"
+
+She looked at him with flashing eyes, conscious of having propounded a
+poser.
+
+He hesitated for a moment. Then--"I'm surrounded," he said, with a
+laugh. "Ez I couldn't find a wife fur myself, I can't undertake
+ter recommend one ter my nephew. Mighty fine boy he'd hev been, an'
+saaft-spoken an' perlite ter aged men--not sassy an' makin' game o' old
+uncles like a niece. Mighty fine boy!"
+
+"Ye air welcome ter him," she said, with a simulation of scorn, as she
+turned away to the table.
+
+Whether it were the military cap she had worn, or the fancied
+resemblance to the young soldiers, never to grow old, who had gone forth
+from this humble abode to return no more, there was still to the guest's
+mind the suggestion of the vivandiere about her as she set the table
+and spread upon it the simple fare. To and from the fireplace she was
+followed by two or three of the younger dogs, their callowness expressed
+in their lack of manners and perfervid interest in the approaching meal.
+This induced their brief journeys back and forth, albeit embarrassed
+by their physical conformation, short turns on four legs not being
+apparently the easy thing it would seem from so much youthful
+suppleness. The dignity of the elder hounds did not suffer them to move,
+but they looked on from erect postures about the hearth with glistening
+eyes and slobbering jaws.
+
+Ever and anon the deep blue eyes of Millicent were lifted to the outer
+gloom, as if she took note of its sinister aspect. She showed scant
+interest in the stranger, whose gaze seldom left her as he sat beside
+the fire. He was a handsome man, his face and figure illumined by the
+firelight, and it might have been that he felt a certain pique, an
+unaccustomed slight, in that his presence was so indifferent an element
+in the estimation of any young and comely specimen of the feminine sex.
+Certainly he had rarely encountered such absolute preoccupation as her
+smiling far-away look betokened as she went back and forth with her
+young canine friends at her heels, or stood at the table deftly slicing
+the salt-rising bread, the dogs poised skilfully upon their hind-legs
+to better view the appetizing performance; whenever she turned her face
+toward them they laid their heads languish-ingly askew, as if to remind
+her that supper could not be more fitly bestowed than on them. One, to
+steady himself, placed unobserved his fore-paw on the edge of the table,
+his well-padded toes leaving a vague imprint as of fingers upon the
+coarse white cloth; but John Dundas was a sportsman, and could the
+better relax an exacting nicety where so pleasant-featured and affable
+a beggar was concerned. He forgot the turmoils of his own troubles as
+he gazed at Millicent, the dreary aspect of the solitudes without, the
+exile from his accustomed sphere of culture and comfort, the poverty
+and coarseness of her surroundings. He was sorry that he had declined
+a longer lease of Roxby's hospitality, and it was in his mind to
+reconsider when it should be again proffered. Her attitude, her gesture,
+her face, her environment, all appealed to his sense of beauty, his
+interest, his curiosity, as little ever had done heretofore. Slice after
+slice of the firm fragrant bread was deftly cut and laid on the plate,
+as again and again she lifted her eyes with a look that might seem to
+expect to rest on summer in the full flush of a June noontide without,
+rather than on the wan, wintry night sky and the plundered, quaking
+woods, while the robber wind sped on his raids hither and thither so
+swiftly that none might follow, so stealthily that none might hinder. A
+sudden radiance broke upon her face, a sudden shadow fell on the
+firelit floor, and there was entering at the doorway a tall, lithe young
+mountaineer, whose first glance, animated with a responsive brightness,
+was for the girl, but whose punctilious greeting was addressed to the
+old woman.
+
+"Howdy, Mis' Roxby--howdy? Air yer rheumatics mendin' enny?" he
+demanded, with the condolent suavity of the would-be son-in-law, or
+grand-son-in-law, as the case may be. And he hung with a transfixed
+interest upon her reply, prolix and discursive according to the wont of
+those who cultivate "rheumatics," as if each separate twinge racked his
+own sympathetic and filial sensibilities. Not until the tale was ended
+did he set his gun against the wall and advance to the seat which Roxby
+had indicated with the end of the stick he was whittling. He observed
+the stranger with only slight interest, till Dundas drew up his chair
+opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in
+the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended
+beard and hair, his immaculate cuffs and delicate hand, the seal-ring on
+his taper finger.
+
+"Like a gal, by gum!" thought Emory Keenan. "Rings on his fingers--yit
+six feet high!"
+
+He looked at his elders, marvelling that they so hospitably repressed
+the disgust which this effeminate adornment must occasion, forgetting
+that it was possible that they did not even observe it. In the gala-days
+of the old hotel, before the war, they had seen much "finicking finery"
+in garb and equipage and habits affected by the _jeunesse doree_ who
+frequented the place in those halcyon times, and were accustomed to
+such details. It might be that they and Millicent approved such flimsy
+daintiness. He began to fume inwardly with a sense of inferiority in her
+estimation. One of his fingers had been frosted last winter, and with
+the first twinge of cold weather it was beginning to look very red and
+sad and clumsy, as if it had just remembered its ancient woe; he glanced
+from it once more at the delicate ringed hand of the stranger.
+
+Dundas was looking up with a slow, deferential, decorous smile that
+nevertheless lightened and transfigured his expression. It seemed
+somehow communicated to Millicent's face as she looked down at him from
+beneath her white eyelids and long, thick, dark lashes, for she was
+standing beside him, handing him the plate of bread. Then, still
+smiling, she passed noiselessly on to the others.
+
+Emory was indeed clumsy, for he had stretched his hand downward to
+offer a morsel to a friend of his under the table--he was on terms of
+exceeding amity with the four-footed members of the household--and in
+his absorption not withdrawing it as swiftly as one accustomed to canine
+manners should do, he had his frosted finger well mumbled before he
+could, as it were, repossess himself of it.
+
+"I wonder what they charge fur iron over yander at the settlemint,
+Em'ry?" observed Sim Roxby presently.
+
+"Dun'no', sir," responded Emory, glumly, his sullen black eyes full of
+smouldering fire--"hevin' no call ter know, ez I ain't no blacksmith."
+
+"I war jes' wonderin' ef tenpenny nails didn't cost toler'ble high ez
+reg'lar feed," observed Roxby, gravely.
+
+But his mother laughed out with a gleeful cracked treble, always a ready
+sequence of her son's rustic sallies. "He got ye that time, Em'ry," she
+cried.
+
+A forced smile crossed Emory's face. He tossed back his tangled dark
+hair with a gasp that was like the snort of an unruly horse submitting
+to the inevitable, but with restive projects in his brain. "I let the
+dog hyar ketch my finger whilst feedin' him," he said. His plausible
+excuse for the ten-penny expression was complete; but he added, his
+darker mood recurring instantly, "An', Mis' Roxby, I hev put a stop ter
+them ez hev tuk ter callin' me Em'ly, I hev."
+
+The old woman looked up, her small wrinkled mouth round and amazed.
+"_I_ never called ye Emily," she declared.
+
+Swift repentance seized him.
+
+"Naw, 'm," he said, with hurried propitiation. "I 'lowed ye did."
+
+"I didn't," said the old woman. "But ef I warter find it toothsome ter
+call ye 'Emily,' I dun'no' how ye air goin' ter pervent it. Ye can't go
+gun-nin' fur me, like ye done fur the men at the mill, fur callin' ye
+'Emily.'"
+
+"Law, Mis' Roxby!" he could only exclaim, in his horror and contrition
+at this picture he had thus conjured up. "Ye air welcome ter call me
+ennything ye air a mind ter," he protested.
+
+And then he gasped once more. The eyes of the guest, contemptuous,
+amused, seeing through him, were fixed upon him. And he himself had
+furnished the lily-handed stranger with the information that he had been
+stigmatized "Em'ly" in the banter of his associates, until he had taken
+up arms, as it were, to repress this derision.
+
+"It takes powerful little ter put ye down, Em'ry," said Roxby, with
+rallying laughter. "Mam hev sent ye skedaddlin' in no time at all. I
+don't b'lieve the Lord made woman out'n the man's rib. He made her out'n
+the man's backbone; fur the man ain't hed none ter speak of sence."
+
+Millicent, with a low gurgle of laughter, sat down beside Emory at the
+table, and fixed her eyes, softly lighted with mirth, upon him. The
+others too had laughed, the stranger with a flattering intonation, but
+young Keenan looked at her with a dumb appealing humility that did not
+altogether fail of its effect, for she busied herself to help his plate
+with an air of proprietorship as if he were a child, and returned
+it with a smile very radiant and sufficient at close range. She then
+addressed herself to her own meal. The young dogs under the table ceased
+to beg, and gambolled and gnawed and tugged at her stout little shoes,
+the sound of their callow mirthful growls rising occasionally above
+the talk. Sometimes she rose again to wait on the table, when they came
+leaping out after her, jumping and catching at her skirts, now and then
+casting themselves on the ground prone before her feet, and rolling over
+and over in the sheer joy of existence.
+
+The stranger took little part in the talk at the table. Never a question
+was asked him as to his mission in the mountains, or the length of
+his stay, his vocation, or his home. That extreme courtesy of the
+mountaineers, exemplified in their singular abstinence from any
+expressions of curiosity, accepted such account of himself as he had
+volunteered, and asked for no more. In the face of this standard of
+manners any inquisitiveness on his part, such as might have elicited
+points of interest for his merely momentary entertainment, was tabooed.
+Nevertheless, silent though he was for the most part, the relish with
+which he listened, his half-covert interest in the girl, his quick
+observation of the others, the sudden very apparent enlivening of his
+mental atmosphere, betokened that his quarters were not displeasing
+to him. It seemed only a short time before the meal was ended and the
+circle all, save Millicent, with pipes alight before the fire again. The
+dogs, well fed, had ranged themselves on the glowing hearth, lying prone
+on the hot stones; one old hound, however, who conserved the air of
+listening to the conversation, sat upright and nodded from time to time,
+now and again losing his balance and tipping forward in a truly human
+fashion, then gazing round on the circle with an open luminous eye, as
+who should say he had not slept.
+
+It was all very cheerful within, but outside the wind still blared
+mournfully. Once more Dundas was sorry that he had declined the
+invitation to remain, and it was with a somewhat tentative intention
+that he made a motion to return to the hotel. But his host seemed
+to regard his resolution as final, and rose with a regret, not an
+insistence. The two women stared in silent amazement at the mere idea
+of his camping out, as it were, in the old hotel. The ascendency of
+masculine government here, notwithstanding Roxby's assertion that
+Eve was made of Adam's backbone, was very apparent in their mute
+acquiescence and the alacrity with which they began to collect various
+articles, according to his directions, to make the stranger's stay more
+comfortable.
+
+"Em'ry kin go along an' holp," he said, heartlessly; for poor Emory's
+joy in perceiving that the guest was not a fixture, and that his
+presence was not to be an embargo on any word between himself and
+Millicent during the entire evening, was pitiably manifest. But the
+situation was still not without its comforts, since Dundas was to go
+too. Hence he was not poor company when once in the saddle, and was
+civil to a degree of which his former dismayed surliness had given no
+promise.
+
+Night had become a definite element. The twilight had fled. Above their
+heads, as they galloped through the dank woods, the bare boughs of the
+trees clashed together--so high above their heads that to the town
+man, unaccustomed to these great growths, the sound seemed not of the
+vicinage, but unfamiliar, uncanny, and more than once he checked his
+horse to listen. As they approached the mountain's verge and overlooked
+the valley and beheld the sky, the sense of the predominance of darkness
+was redoubled. The ranges gloomed against the clearer spaces, but a
+cloud, deep gray with curling white edges, was coming up from the
+west, with an invisible convoy of vague films, beneath which the stars,
+glimmering white points, disappeared one by one. The swift motion of
+this aerial fleet sailing with the wind might be inferred from the
+seemingly hurried pace of the moon making hard for the west. Still
+bright was the illumined segment, but despite its glitter the shadowy
+space of the full disk was distinctly visible, its dusky field spangled
+with myriads of minute, dully golden points. Down, down it took its
+way in haste--in disordered fright, it seemed, as if it had no heart
+to witness the storm which the wind and the clouds foreboded--to fairer
+skies somewhere behind those western mountains. Soon even its vague
+light would encroach no more upon the darkness. The great hotel would be
+invisible, annihilated as it were in the gloom, and not even thus dimly
+exist, glimmering, alone, forlorn, so incongruous to the wilderness that
+it seemed even now some mere figment of the brain, as the two horsemen
+came with a freshened burst of speed along the deserted avenue and
+reined up beside a small gate at the side.
+
+"No use ter ride all the way around," observed Emory Keenan. "Mought jes
+ez well 'light an' hitch hyar."
+
+The moon gave him the escort of a great grotesque shadow as he
+threw himself from his horse and passed the reins over a decrepit
+hitching-post near at hand. Then he essayed the latch of the small gate.
+He glanced up at Dundas, the moonlight in his dark eyes, with a smile as
+it resisted his strength.
+
+He was a fairly good-looking fellow when rid of the self-consciousness
+of jealousy. His eyes, mouth, chin, and nose, acquired from reliable
+and recognizable sources, were good features, and statuesque in their
+immobility beneath the drooping curves of his broad soft hat. He was
+tall, with the slenderness of youth, despite his evident weight and
+strength. He was long-waisted and lithe and small of girth, with broad
+square shoulders, whose play of muscles as he strove with the gate was
+not altogether concealed by the butternut jeans coat belted in with his
+pistols by a broad leathern belt. His boots reached high on his long
+legs, and jingled with a pair of huge cavalry spurs. His stalwart
+strength seemed as if it must break the obdurate gate rather than open
+it, but finally, with a rasping creak, dismally loud in the silence, it
+swung slowly back.
+
+The young mountaineer stood gazing for a moment at the red rust on the
+hinges. "How long sence this gate must hev been opened afore?" he said,
+again looking up at Dundas with a smile.
+
+Somehow the words struck a chill to the stranger's heart. The sense of
+the loneliness of the place, of isolation, filled him with a sort of
+awe. The night-bound wilderness itself was not more daunting than these
+solitary tiers of piazzas, these vacant series of rooms and corridors,
+all instinct with vanished human presence, all alert with echoes of
+human voices. A step, a laugh, a rustle of garments--he could have sworn
+he heard them at any open doorway as he followed his guide along the dim
+moonlit piazza, with its pillars duplicated at regular intervals by the
+shadows on the floor. How their tread echoed down these lonely ways!
+From the opposite side of the house he heard Kee-nan's spurs jangling,
+his soldierly stride sounding back as if their entrance had roused
+barracks. He winced once to see his own shadow with its stealthier
+movement. It seemed painfully furtive. For the first time during the
+evening his jaded mind, that had instinctively sought the solace of
+contemplating trifles, reverted to its own tormented processes. "Am
+I not hiding?" he said to himself, in a sort of sarcastic pity of his
+plight.
+
+The idea seemed never to enter the mind of the transparent Keenan. He
+laughed out gayly as they turned into the weed-grown quadrangle, and
+the red fox that Dundas had earlier observed slipped past him with
+affrighted speed and dashed among the shadows of the dense shrubbery of
+the old lawn without. Again and again the sound rang back from wall to
+wall, first with the jollity of seeming imitation, then with an appalled
+effect sinking to silence, and suddenly rising again in a grewsome
+_staccato_ that suggested some terrible unearthly laughter, and bore but
+scant resemblance to the hearty mirth which had evoked it Keenan paused
+and looked back with friendly gleaming eyes. "Oughter been a leetle
+handier with these hyar consarns," he said, touching the pistols in his
+belt.
+
+It vaguely occurred to Dundas that the young man went strangely heavily
+armed for an evening visit at a neighbor's house. But it was a lawless
+country and lawless times, and the sub-current of suggestion did not
+definitely fix itself in his mind until he remembered it later. He
+was looking into each vacant open doorway, seeing the still moonlight
+starkly white upon the floor; the cobwebbed and broken window-panes,
+through which a section of leafless trees beyond was visible; bits of
+furniture here and there, broken by the vandalism of the guerillas. Now
+and then a scurrying movement told of a gopher, hiding too, and on one
+mantel-piece, the black fireplace yawning below, sat a tiny tawny-tinted
+owl, whose motionless beadlike eyes met his with a stare of stolid
+surprise. After he had passed, its sudden ill-omened cry set the silence
+to shuddering.
+
+Keenan, leading the way, paused in displeasure. "I wisht I hed viewed
+that critter," he said, glumly. "I'd hev purvented that screechin' ter
+call the devil, sure. It's jes a certain sign o' death."
+
+He was about to turn, to wreak his vengeance, perchance. But the bird,
+sufficiently fortunate itself, whatever woe it presaged for others,
+suddenly took its awkward flight through sheen and shadow across the
+quadrangle, and when they heard its cry again it came from some remote
+section of the building, with a doleful echo as a refrain.
+
+The circumstance was soon forgotten by Keenan. He seemed a happy,
+mercurial, lucid nature, and he began presently to dwell with interest
+on the availability of the old music-stand in the centre of the square
+as a manger. "Hyar," he said, striking the rotten old structure with
+a heavy hand, which sent a quiver and a thrill through all the
+timbers--"hyar's whar the guerillas always hitched thar beastises. Thar
+feed an' forage war piled up thar on the fiddlers' seats. Ye can't do no
+better'n ter pattern arter them, till ye git ready ter hev fiddlers an'
+sech a-sawin' away in hyar agin."
+
+And he sauntered away from the little pavilion, followed by Dundas, who
+had not accepted his suggestion of a room on the first floor as being
+less liable to leakage, but finally made choice of an inner apartment in
+the second story. He looked hard at Keenan, when he stood in the doorway
+surveying the selection. The room opened into a cross-hall which gave
+upon a broad piazza that was latticed; tiny squares of moonlight were
+all sharply drawn on the floor, and, seen through a vista of gray
+shadow, seemed truly of a gilded lustre. From the windows of this room
+on a court-yard no light Could be visible to any passer-by without.
+Another door gave on an inner gallery, and through its floor a staircase
+came up from the quadrangle close to the threshold. Dundas wondered if
+these features were of possible significance in Keenan's estimation. The
+young mountaineer turned suddenly, and snatching up a handful of slats
+broken from the shutters, remarked:
+
+"Let's see how the chimbly draws--that's the main p'int."
+
+There was no defect in the chimney's constitution. It drew admirably,
+and with the white and red flames dancing in the fireplace, two or
+three chairs, more or less disabled, a table, and an upholstered lounge
+gathered at random from the rooms near at hand, the possibility of
+sojourning comfortably for a few days in the deserted hostelry seemed
+amply assured.
+
+Once more Dundas gazed fixedly at the face of the young mountaineer,
+who still bent on one knee on the hearth, watching with smiling eyes
+the triumphs of his fire-making. It seemed to him afterwards that his
+judgment was strangely at fault; he perceived naught of import in the
+shallow brightness of the young man's eyes, like the polished surface of
+jet; in the instability of his jealousy, his anger; in his hap-hazard,
+mercurial temperament. Once he might have noted how flat were the
+spaces beneath the eyes, how few were the lines that defined the lid,
+the socket, the curve of the cheekbone, the bridge of the nose, and how
+expressionless. It was doubtless the warmth and glow of the fire,
+the clinging desire of companionship, the earnest determination to be
+content, pathetic in one who had but little reason for optimism, that
+caused him to ignore the vacillating glancing moods that successively
+swayed Keenan, strong while they lasted, but with scanty augury because
+of their evanescence. He was like some newly discovered property in
+physics of untried potentialities, of which nothing is ascertained but
+its uncertainties.
+
+And yet he seemed to Dundas a simple country fellow, good-natured in the
+main, unsuspicious, and helpful. So, giving a long sigh of relief and
+fatigue, Dundas sank down in one of the large arm-chairs that had once
+done duty for the summer loungers on the piazza.
+
+In the light of the fire Emory was once more looking at him. A certain
+air of distinction, a grace and ease of movement, an indescribable
+quality of bearing which he could not discriminate, yet which he
+instinctively recognized as superior, offended him in some sort. He
+noticed again the ring on the stranger's hand as he drew off his glove.
+Gloves! Emory Keen an would as soon have thought of wearing a petticoat.
+Once more the fear that these effeminate graces found favor in
+Millicent's estimation smote upon his heart. It made the surface of his
+opaque eyes glisten as Dundas rose and took up a pipe and tobacco-pouch
+which he had laid on the mantelpiece, his full height and fine figure
+shown in the changed posture.
+
+"Ez tall ez me, ef not taller, an', by gum! a good thirty pound
+heavier," Emory reflected, with, a growing dismay that he had not those
+stalwart claims to precedence in height and weight as an offset to the
+smoother fascinations of the stranger's polish.
+
+He had risen hastily to his feet. He would not linger to smoke
+fraternally over the fire, and thus cement friendly relations.
+
+"I guided him hyar, like old Sim Roxby axed me ter do, an' that's all. I
+ain't keerin' ef I never lay eyes on him again," he said to himself.
+
+"Going?" said Dundas, pleasantly, noticing the motion. "You'll look in
+again, won't you?"
+
+"Wunst in a while, I reckon," drawled Keenan, a trifle thrown off his
+balance by this courtesy.
+
+He paused at the door, looking back over his shoulder for a moment at
+the illumined room, then stepped out into the night, leaving the tenant
+of the lonely old house filling his pipe by the fire.
+
+His tread rang along the deserted gallery, and sudden echoes came
+tramping down the vacant halls as if many a denizen of the once populous
+place was once more astir within its walls. Long after Dundas had heard
+him spring from the lower piazza to the ground, and the rusty gate clang
+behind him, vague footfalls were audible far away, and were still again,
+and once more a pattering tread in some gaunt and empty apartment near
+at hand, faint and fainter yet, till he hardly knew whether it were the
+reverberations of sound or fancy that held his senses in thrall.
+
+And when all was still and silent at last he felt less solitary than
+when these elusive tokens of human presence were astir.
+
+Late, late he sat over the dwindling embers. His mind, no longer
+diverted by the events of the day, recurred with melancholy persistence
+to a theme which even they, although fraught with novelty and presage
+of danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril
+dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him
+in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here,
+defenceless so far from the specious wiles and ways of men. All the line
+of provocations seemed slight, seemed naught, as he reviewed them and
+balanced them against a human life. True, it was not in some mad quarrel
+that his skill had taken it and had served to keep his own--a duel, a
+fair fight, strictly regular according to the code of "honorable men"
+for ages past--and he sought to argue that it was doubtless but the
+morbid sense of the wild fastnesses without, the illimitable vastness
+of the black night, the unutterable indurability of nature to the
+influences of civilization, which made it taste like murder. He had
+brought away even from the scene of action, to which he had gone with
+decorous deliberation--his worldly affairs arranged for the possibility
+of death, his will made, his volition surrendered, and his sacred honor
+in the hands of his seconds--a humiliating recollection of the sudden
+revulsion of the aspect of all things; the criminal sense of haste with
+which he was hurried away after that first straight shot; the agitation,
+nay, the fright of his seconds; their eagerness to be swiftly rid of
+him, their insistence that he should go away for a time, get out of the
+country, out of the embarrassing purview of the law, which was prone to
+regard the matter as he himself saw it now, and which had an ugly trick
+of calling things by their right names in the sincere phraseology of an
+indictment. And thus it was that he was here, remote from all the usual
+lines of flight, with his affectation of being a possible purchaser for
+the old hotel, far from the railroad, the telegraph, even the postal
+service. Some time--soon, indeed, it might be, when the first flush
+of excitement and indignation should be overpast, and the law, like a
+barking dog that will not bite, should have noisily exhausted the gamut
+of its devoirs--he would go back and live according to his habit in his
+wonted place, as did other men whom he had known to be "called out," and
+who had survived their opponents. Meantime he heard the ash crumble; he
+saw the lighted room wane from glancing yellow to a dull steady red,
+and so to dusky brown; he marked the wind rise, and die away, and come
+again, banging the doors of the empty rooms, and setting timbers all
+strangely to creaking as under sudden trampling feet; then lift into the
+air with a rustling sound like the stir of garments and the flutter of
+wings, calling out weirdly in the great voids of the upper atmosphere.
+
+He had welcomed the sense of fatigue earlier in the evening, for it
+promised sleep. Now it had slipped away from him. He was strong and
+young, and the burning sensation that the frosty air had left on his
+face was the only token of the long journey. It seemed as if he
+would never sleep again as he lay on the lounge watching the gray ash
+gradually overgrow the embers, till presently only a vague dull glow
+gave intimation of the position of the hearth in the room. And then,
+bereft of this dim sense of companionship, he stared wide-eyed in the
+darkness, feeling the only creature alive and awake in all the world.
+No; the fox was suddenly barking within the quadrangle--a strangely wild
+and alien tone. And presently he heard the animal trot past his door
+on the piazza, the cushioned footfalls like those of a swift dog. He
+thought with a certain anxiety of the tawny tiny owl that had sat like
+a stuffed ornament on the mantel-piece of a neighboring room, and he
+listened with a quaking vicarious presentiment of woe for the sounds of
+capture and despair. He was sensible of waiting and hoping for the fox's
+bootless return, when he suddenly lost consciousness.
+
+How long he slept he did not know, but it seemed only a momentary
+respite from the torture of memory, when, still in the darkness,
+thousands of tremulous penetrating sounds were astir, and with a great
+start he recognized the rain on the roof. It was coming down in steady
+torrents that made the house rock before the tumult of his plunging
+heart was still, and he was longing again for the forgetfulness of
+sleep. In vain. The hours dragged by; the windows slowly, slowly denned
+their dull gray squares against the dull gray day dawning without.
+The walls that had been left with only the first dark coat of plaster,
+awaiting another season for the final decoration, showed their drapings
+of cobweb, and the names and pencilled scribblings with which the fancy
+of transient bushwhackers had chosen to deface them. The locust-trees
+within the quadrangle drearily tossed their branches to and fro in the
+wind, the bark very black and distinct against the persistent gray lines
+of rain and the white walls of the galleried buildings opposite; the
+gutters were brimming, roaring along like miniature torrents; nowhere
+was the fox or the owl to be seen. Somehow their presence would have
+been a relief--the sight of any living thing reassuring. As he walked
+slowly along the deserted piazzas, in turning sudden corners, again and
+again he paused, expecting that something, some one, was approaching to
+meet him. When at last he mounted his horse, that had neighed gleefully
+to see him, and rode away through the avenue and along the empty ways
+among the untenanted summer cottages, all the drearier and more forlorn
+because of the rain, he felt as if he had left an aberration, some
+hideous dream, behind, instead of the stark reality of the gaunt and
+vacant and dilapidated old house.
+
+The transition to the glow and cheer of Sim Roxby's fireside was like
+a rescue, a restoration. The smiling welcome in the women's eyes, their
+soft drawling voices, with mellifluous intonations that gave a value to
+each commonplace simple word, braced his nerves like a tonic. It might
+have been only the contrast with the recollections of the night, with
+the prospect visible through the open door--the serried lines of rain
+dropping aslant from the gray sky and elusively outlined against the
+dark masses of leafless woods that encircled the clearing; the dooryard
+half submerged with puddles of a clay-brown tint, embossed always with
+myriads of protruding drops of rain, for however they melted away the
+downpour renewed them, and to the eye they were stationary, albeit
+pervaded with a continual tremor--but somehow he was cognizant of a
+certain coddling tenderness in the old woman's manner that might have
+been relished by a petted child, an unaffected friendliness in the
+girl's clear eyes. They made him sit close to the great wood fire; the
+blue and yellow flames gushed out from the piles of hickory logs, and
+the bed of coals gleamed at red and white heat beneath. They took his
+hat to carefully dry it, and they spread out his cloak on two chairs
+at one side of the room, where it dismally dripped. When he ventured to
+sneeze, Mrs. Roxby compounded and administered a "yerb tea," a sovereign
+remedy against colds, which he tasted on compulsion and in great doubt,
+and swallowed with alacrity and confidence, finding its basis the easily
+recognizable "toddy." He had little knowledge how white and troubled
+his face had looked as he came in from the gray day, how strongly marked
+were those lines of sharp mental distress, how piteously apparent was
+his mute appeal for sympathy and comfort.
+
+"Mill'cent," said the old woman in the shed-room, as they washed and
+wiped the dishes after the cozy breakfast of venison and corn-dodgers
+and honey and milk, "that thar man hev run agin the law, sure's ye air
+born."
+
+Millicent turned her reflective fair face, that seemed whiter and
+more delicate in the damp dark day, and looked doubtfully out over the
+fields, where the water ran in steely lines in the furrows.
+
+"Mus' hev been by accident or suthin'. _He_ ain't no hardened sinner."
+
+"Shucks!" the old woman commented upon her reluctant acquiescence. "I
+ain't keerin' for the law! 'Tain't none o' my job. The tomfool men make
+an' break it. Ennybody ez hev seen this war air obleeged to take note
+o' the wickedness o' men in gineral. This hyer man air a sorter pitiful
+sinner, an' he hev got a look in his eyes that plumb teches my heart.
+I 'ain't got no call ter know nuthin' 'bout the law, bein' a 'oman an'
+naterally ignorant. I dun'no' ez he hev run agin it."
+
+"Mus' hev been by accident," said Millicent, dreamily, still gazing over
+the sodden fields.
+
+The suspicion did nothing to diminish his comfort or their cordiality.
+The morning dragged by without change in the outer aspects. The noontide
+dinner came and went without Roxby's return, for the report of the
+washing away of a bridge some miles distant down the river had early
+called him out to the scene of the disaster, to verify in his own
+interests the rumor, since he had expected to haul his wheat to the
+settlement the ensuing day. The afternoon found the desultory talk still
+in progress about the fire, the old woman alternately carding cotton
+and nodding in her chair in the corner; the dogs eying the stranger,
+listening much of the time with the air of children taking instruction,
+only occasionally wandering out-of-doors, the floor here and there
+bearing the damp imprint of their feet; and Millicent on her knees in
+the other corner, the firelight on her bright hair, her delicate cheek,
+her quickly glancing eyes, as she deftly moulded bullets.
+
+"Uncle Sim hed ter s'render his shootin'-irons," she explained, "an' he
+'ain't got no ca'tridge-loadin' ones lef. So he makes out with his old
+muzzle-loadin' rifle that he hed afore the war, an' I moulds his bullets
+for him rainy days."
+
+As she held up a moulded ball and dexterously clipped off the surplus
+lead, the gesture was so culinary in its delicacy that one of the dogs
+in front of the fire extended his head, making a long neck, with a
+tentative sniff and a glistening gluttonous eye.
+
+"Ef I swallered enny mo' lead, I wouldn't take it hot, Towse," she said,
+holding out the bullet for canine inspection. "'Tain't healthy!"
+
+But the dog, perceiving the nature of the commodity, drew back with a
+look of deep reproach, rose precipitately, and with a drooping tail went
+out skulkingly into the wet gray day.
+
+"Towse can't abide a bullet," she observed, "nor nuthin' 'bout a gun.
+He got shot wunst a-huntin', an' he never furgot it. Jes show him a gun
+an' he ain't nowhar ter be seen--like he war cotch up in the clouds."
+
+"Good watch-dog, I suppose," suggested Dundas, striving to enter into
+the spirit of her talk.
+
+"Naw; too sp'ilt for a gyard-dog--granny coddled him so whenst he
+got shot. He's jest vally'ble fur his conversation, I reckon," she
+continued, with a smile in her eyes. "I dun'no' what else, but he _is_
+toler'ble good company."
+
+The other dogs pressed about her, the heads of the great hounds as high
+as her own as she sat among them on the floor. With bright eyes and
+knitted brows they followed the motions of pouring in the melted metal,
+the lifting of the bullets from the mould, the clipping off of the
+surplus lead, and the flash of the keen knife.
+
+Outside the sad light waned; the wind sighed and sighed; the dreary
+rain fell; the trees clashed their boughs dolorously together, and their
+turbulence deadened the sound of galloping horses. As Dundas sat and
+gazed at the girl's intent head, with its fleecy tendrils and its
+massive coil, the great hounds beside her, all emblazoned by the
+firelight upon the brown wall near by, with the vast fireplace at hand,
+the whole less like reality than some artist's pictured fancy, he knew
+naught of a sudden entrance, until she moved, breaking the spell, and
+looked up to meet the displeasure in Roxby's eyes and the dark scowl on
+Emory Keenan's face.
+
+*****
+
+That night the wind shifted to the north. Morning found the chilled
+world still, ice where the water had lodged, all the trees incased in
+glittering garb that followed the symmetry alike of every bough and
+the tiniest twig, and made splendid the splintered remnants of the
+lightning-riven. The fields were laced across from furrow to furrow, in
+which the frozen water still stood gleaming, with white arabesques which
+had known a more humble identity as stubble and crab-grass; the sky was
+slate-colored, and from its sad tint this white splendor gained added
+values of contrast. When the sun should shine abroad much of the effect
+would be lost in the too dazzling glister; but the sun did not shine.
+
+All day the gray mood held unchanged. Night was imperceptibly sifting
+down upon all this whiteness, that seemed as if it would not be
+obscured, as if it held within itself some property of luminosity, when
+Millicent, a white apron tied over her golden head, improvising a hood,
+its superfluous fulness gathered in many folds and pleats around her
+neck, fichu-wise, stood beside the ice-draped fodder-stack and essayed
+with half-numbed hands to insert a tallow dip into the socket of a
+lantern, all incrusted and clumsy with previous drippings.
+
+"I dun'no' whether I be a-goin' ter need this hyar consarn whilst
+milkin' or no," she observed, half to herself, half to Emory, who,
+chewing a straw, somewhat surlily had followed her out for a word apart.
+"The dusk 'pears slow ter-night, but Spot's mighty late comin' home, an'
+old Sue air fractious an' contrairy-minded, and feels mighty anxious
+an' oneasy 'boutn her calf, that's ez tall ez she is nowadays, an' don't
+keer no mo' 'bout her mammy 'n a half-grown human does. I tell her she
+oughtn't ter be mad with me, but with the way she brung up her chile, ez
+won't notice her now."
+
+She looked up with a laugh, her eyes and teeth gleaming; her golden hair
+still showed its color beneath the spotless whiteness of her voluminous
+headgear, and the clear tints of her complexion seemed all the more
+delicate and fresh in the snowy pallor of the surroundings and the
+grayness of the evening.
+
+"I reckon I'd better take it along," and once more she addressed herself
+to the effort to insert the dip into the lantern.
+
+Emory hardly heard. His pulse was quick. His eye glittered. He breathed
+hard as, with both hands in his pockets, he came close to her.
+
+"Mill'cent," he said, "I told ye the t'other day ez ye thunk a heap too
+much o' that thar stran-ger-"
+
+"An' I tole ye, bubby, that I didn't think nuthin' o' nobody but
+you-uns," she interrupted, with an effort to placate his jealousy. The
+little jocularity which she affected dwindled and died before the steady
+glow of his gaze, and she falteringly looked at him, her unguided hands
+futilely fumbling with the lantern.
+
+"Ye can't fool me," he stoutly asseverated. "Ye think mo' o' him 'n o'
+me, kase ye 'low he air rich, an' book-larned, an' smooth-fingered, an'
+fini-fied ez a gal, an' goin' ter buy the hotel. I say, _hotel!_ Now
+_I'll_ tell ye what he is--I'll tell ye! He's a criminal. He's runnin'
+from the law. He's hidin' in the old hotel that he's purtendin' ter
+buy."
+
+She stared wide-eyed and pallid, breathless and waiting.
+
+He interpreted her expression as doubt, denial.
+
+"It's gospel sure," he cried. "Fur this very evenin' I met a gang o'
+men an' the sheriff's deputy down yander by the sulphur spring 'bout
+sundown, an' he 'lowed ez they war a-sarchin' fur a criminal ez war
+skulkin' round hyarabout lately--ez they wanted a man fur hevin'
+c'mitted murder."
+
+"But ye didn't accuse _him_, surely; ye hed no right ter s'picion _him_.
+Uncle Sim! Oh, my Lord! Ye surely wouldn't! Oh, Uncle Sim!"
+
+Her tremulous words broke into a quavering cry as she caught his arm
+convulsively, for his face confirmed her fears. She thrust him wildly
+away, and started toward the house.
+
+"Ye needn't go tattlin' on me," he said, roughly pushing her aside.
+"I'll tell Mr. Roxby myself. I ain't 'shamed o' what I done. I'll
+tell him. I'll tell him myself." And animated with this intention to
+forestall her disclosure, his long strides bore him swiftly past and
+into the house.
+
+It seemed to him that he lingered there only a moment or two, for Roxby
+was not at the cabin, and he said nothing of the quarrel to the old
+woman. Already his heart had revolted against his treachery, and then
+there came to him the further reflection that he did not know enough
+to justify suspicion. Was not the stranger furnished with the fullest
+credentials--a letter to Roxby from the Colonel? Perhaps he had allowed
+his jealousy to endanger the man, to place him in jeopardy even of his
+life should he resist arrest.
+
+Keenan tarried at the house merely long enough to devise a plausible
+excuse for his sudden excited entrance, and then took his way back to
+the barnyard.
+
+It was vacant. The cows still stood lowing at the bars; the sheep
+cowered together in their shed; the great whitened cone of the
+fodder-stack gleamed icily in the purple air; beside it lay the lantern
+where Millicent had cast it aside. She was gone! He would not believe
+it till he had run to the barn, calling her name in the shadowy place,
+while the horse at his manger left his corn to look over the walls of
+his stall with inquisitive surprised eyes, luminous in the dusk. He
+searched the hen-house, where the fowls on their perches crowded close
+because of the chill of the evening. He even ran to the bars and looked
+down across the narrow ravine to which the clearing sloped. Beyond the
+chasm-like gorge he saw presently on the high ascent opposite footprints
+that had broken the light frostlike coating of ice on the dead leaves
+and moss--climbing footprints, swift, disordered. He looked back again
+at the lantern where Millicent had flung it in her haste. Her mission
+was plain now. She had gone to warn Dundas. She had taken a direct line
+through the woods. She hoped to forestall the deputy sheriff and his
+posse, following the circuitous mountain road.
+
+Keenan's lip curled in triumph. His heart burned hot with scornful anger
+and contempt of the futility of her effort. "They're there afore she
+started!" he said, looking up at the aspects of the hour shown by the
+sky, and judging of the interval since the encounter by the spring.
+Through a rift in the gray cloud a star looked down with an icy
+scintillation and disappeared again. He heard a branch in the woods snap
+beneath the weight of ice. A light sprang into the window of the cabin
+hard by, and came in a great gush of orange-tinted glow out into the
+snowy bleak wintry space. He suddenly leaped over the fence and ran like
+a deer through the woods.
+
+Millicent too had been swift. He had thought to overtake her before he
+emerged from the woods into the more open space where the hotel stood.
+In this quarter the cloud-break had been greater. Toward the west a
+fading amber glow still lingered in long horizontal bars upon the opaque
+gray sky. The white mountains opposite were hung with purple shadows
+borrowed from a glimpse of sunset somewhere far away over the valley
+of East Tennessee; one distant lofty range was drawn in elusive snowy
+suggestions, rather than lines, against a green space of intense yet
+pale tint. The moon, now nearing the full, hung over the wooded valley,
+and aided the ice and the crust of snow to show its bleak, wan, wintry
+aspect; a tiny spark glowed in its depths from some open door of an
+isolated home. Over it all a mist was rising from the east, drawing its
+fleecy but opaque curtain. Already it had climbed the mountain-side and
+advanced, windless, soundless, overwhelming, annihilating all before and
+beneath it. The old hotel had disappeared, save that here and there a
+gaunt gable protruded and was withdrawn, showed once more, and once more
+was submerged.
+
+A horse's head suddenly looking out of the enveloping mist close to his
+shoulder gave him the first intimation of the arrival, the secret silent
+waiting, of those whom he had directed hither. That the saddles were
+empty he saw a moment later. The animals stood together in a row,
+hitched to the rack. No disturbance sounded from the silent building.
+The event was in abeyance. The fugitive in hiding was doubtless at
+ease, unsuspecting, while the noiseless search of the officers for his
+quarters was under way.
+
+With a thrill of excitement Keenan crept stealthily through an open
+passage and into the old grass-grown spaces of the quadrangle. Night
+possessed the place, but the cloud seemed denser than the darkness. He
+was somehow sensible of its convolutions as he stood against the wall
+and strained his eyes into the dusk. Suddenly it was penetrated by a
+milky-white glimmer, a glimmer duplicated at equidistant points, each
+fading as its successor sprang into brilliance. The next moment he
+understood its significance. It had come from the blurred windows of the
+old ball-room. Milli-cent had lighted her candle as she searched for the
+fugitive's quarters; she was passing down the length of the old house
+on the second story, and suddenly she emerged upon the gallery. She
+shielded the feeble flicker with her Hand; her white-hooded head gleamed
+as with an aureola as the divergent rays rested on the opaque mist; and
+now and again she clutched the baluster and walked with tremulous care,
+for the flooring was rotten here and there, and ready to crumble away.
+Her face was pallid, troubled; and Dundas, who had been warned by the
+tramp of horses and the tread of men, and who had descended the stairs,
+revolver in hand, ready to slip away if he might under cover of
+the mist, paused appalled, gazing across the quadrangle as on an
+apparition--the sight so familiar to his senses, so strange to his
+experience. He saw in an abrupt shifting of the mist that there were
+other figures skulking in doorways, watching her progress. The next
+moment she leaned forward to clutch the baluster, and the light of the
+candle fell full on Emory Keenan, lurking in the open passage. A sudden
+sharp cry of "Surrender!" The young mountaineer, confused, swiftly drew
+his pistol. Others were swifter still. A sharp report rang out into
+the chill crisp air, rousing all the affrighted echoes--a few faltering
+steps, a heavy fall, and for a long time Emory Keenan's life-blood
+stained the floor of the promenade. Even when it had faded, the rustic
+gossips came often and gazed at the spot with morbid interest, until, a
+decade later, an enterprising proprietor removed the floor and altered
+the shape of that section of the building out of recognition.
+
+The escape of Dundas was easily effected. The deputy sheriff, confronted
+with the problem of satisfactorily accounting for the death of a man
+who had committed no offence against public polity, was no longer
+formidable. His errand had been the arrest of a horse-thief, well-known
+to him, and he had no interest in pursuing a fugitive, however obnoxious
+to the law, whose personal description was so different from that of the
+object of his search.
+
+Time restored to Dundas his former place in life and the esteem of his
+fellow-citizens. His stay in the mountains was an episode which he will
+not often recall, but sometimes volition fails, and he marvels at the
+strange fulfilment of the girl's vision; he winces to think that her
+solicitude for his safety should have cost her her lover; he wonders
+whether she yet lives, and whether that tender troubled phantom, on
+nights when the wind is still and the moon is low and the mists rise,
+again joins the strange, elusive, woful company crossing the quaking
+foot-bridge.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 23630.txt or 23630.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/3/23630/
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.