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+Project Gutenberg's The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, by John Fox, Jr.
+
+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 Trail of the Lonesome Pine
+
+Author: John Fox, Jr.
+
+Illustrator: F.C. Yohn
+
+Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5122]
+Posting Date: October 12, 2009 [EBook #5122]
+Last Updated: March 14, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
+
+BY
+
+JOHN FOX, JR.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY F. C. YOHN
+
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+[Illustration: Titlepage]
+
+
+To F. S.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+She sat at the base of the big tree--her little sunbonnet pushed back,
+her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her
+crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below.
+Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were
+tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been
+steep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. The
+mountains ran in limitless blue waves towards the mounting sun--but at
+birth her eyes had opened on them as on the white mists trailing up the
+steeps below her. Beyond them was a gap in the next mountain chain and
+down in the little valley, just visible through it, were trailing blue
+mists as well, and she knew that they were smoke. Where was the great
+glare of yellow light that the “circuit rider” had told about--and
+the leaping tongues of fire? Where was the shrieking monster that ran
+without horses like the wind and tossed back rolling black plumes all
+streaked with fire? For many days now she had heard stories of the
+“furriners” who had come into those hills and were doing strange things
+down there, and so at last she had climbed up through the dewy morning
+from the cove on the other side to see the wonders for herself. She had
+never been up there before. She had no business there now, and, if she
+were found out when she got back, she would get a scolding and maybe
+something worse from her step-mother--and all that trouble and risk
+for nothing but smoke. So, she lay back and rested--her little mouth
+tightening fiercely. It was a big world, though, that was spread before
+her and a vague awe of it seized her straightway and held her motionless
+and dreaming. Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills, beyond the
+blue smoke drifting in the valley, those limitless blue waves must run
+under the sun on and on to the end of the world! Her dead sister had
+gone into that far silence and had brought back wonderful stories of
+that outer world: and she began to wonder more than ever before whether
+she would ever go into it and see for herself what was there. With the
+thought, she rose slowly to her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that
+dropped sheer ten feet aside from the trail, and stood there like a
+great scarlet flower in still air. There was the way at her feet--that
+path that coiled under the cliff and ran down loop by loop through
+majestic oak and poplar and masses of rhododendron. She drew a long
+breath and stirred uneasily--she'd better go home now--but the path had
+a snake-like charm for her and still she stood, following it as far down
+as she could with her eyes. Down it went, writhing this way and that
+to a spur that had been swept bare by forest fires. Along this spur it
+travelled straight for a while and, as her eyes eagerly followed it
+to where it sank sharply into a covert of maples, the little creature
+dropped of a sudden to the ground and, like something wild, lay flat.
+
+A human figure had filled the leafy mouth that swallowed up the trail
+and it was coming towards her. With a thumping heart she pushed slowly
+forward through the brush until her face, fox-like with cunning and
+screened by a blueberry bush, hung just over the edge of the cliff, and
+there she lay, like a crouched panther-cub, looking down. For a moment,
+all that was human seemed gone from her eyes, but, as she watched, all
+that was lost came back to them, and something more. She had seen that
+it was a man, but she had dropped so quickly that she did not see the
+big, black horse that, unled, was following him. Now both man and horse
+had stopped. The stranger had taken off his gray slouched hat and he was
+wiping his face with something white. Something blue was tied loosely
+about his throat. She had never seen a man like that before. His face
+was smooth and looked different, as did his throat and his hands. His
+breeches were tight and on his feet were strange boots that were the
+colour of his saddle, which was deep in seat, high both in front and
+behind and had strange long-hooded stirrups. Starting to mount, the man
+stopped with one foot in the stirrup and raised his eyes towards her
+so suddenly that she shrank back again with a quicker throbbing at her
+heart and pressed closer to the earth. Still, seen or not seen, flight
+was easy for her, so she could not forbear to look again. Apparently, he
+had seen nothing--only that the next turn of the trail was too steep to
+ride, and so he started walking again, and his walk, as he strode along
+the path, was new to her, as was the erect way with which he held his
+head and his shoulders.
+
+In her wonder over him, she almost forgot herself, forgot to wonder
+where he was going and why he was coming into those lonely hills until,
+as his horse turned a bend of the trail, she saw hanging from the
+other side of the saddle something that looked like a gun. He was a
+“raider”--that man: so, cautiously and swiftly then, she pushed herself
+back from the edge of the cliff, sprang to her feet, dashed past the big
+tree and, winged with fear, sped down the mountain--leaving in a spot of
+sunlight at the base of the pine the print of one bare foot in the black
+earth.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+He had seen the big pine when he first came to those hills--one morning,
+at daybreak, when the valley was a sea of mist that threw soft clinging
+spray to the very mountain tops: for even above the mists, that morning,
+its mighty head arose--sole visible proof that the earth still slept
+beneath. Straightway, he wondered how it had ever got there, so far
+above the few of its kind that haunted the green dark ravines far below.
+Some whirlwind, doubtless, had sent a tiny cone circling heavenward and
+dropped it there. It had sent others, too, no doubt, but how had this
+tree faced wind and storm alone and alone lived to defy both so proudly?
+Some day he would learn. Thereafter, he had seen it, at noon--but little
+less majestic among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching
+the last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a
+dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the
+moon. He had seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing
+burst of spring--had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green
+in the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow--a
+changeless promise that the earth must wake to life again. The Lonesome
+Pine, the mountaineers called it, and the Lonesome Pine it always looked
+to be. From the beginning it had a curious fascination for him, and
+straightway within him--half exile that he was--there sprang up a
+sympathy for it as for something that was human and a brother. And now
+he was on the trail of it at last. From every point that morning it had
+seemed almost to nod down to him as he climbed and, when he reached the
+ledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the winds murmured
+among its needles like a welcoming voice. At once, he saw the secret of
+its life. On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms
+until its trunk had shot upwards so far and so straight and so strong
+that its green crown could lift itself on and on and bend--blow what
+might--as proudly and securely as a lily on its stalk in a morning
+breeze. Dropping his bridle rein he put one hand against it as though on
+the shoulder of a friend.
+
+“Old Man,” he said, “You must be pretty lonesome up here, and I'm glad
+to meet you.”
+
+For a while he sat against it--resting. He had no particular purpose
+that day--no particular destination. His saddle-bags were across the
+cantle of his cow-boy saddle. His fishing rod was tied under one flap.
+He was young and his own master. Time was hanging heavy on his hands
+that day and he loved the woods and the nooks and crannies of them
+where his own kind rarely made its way. Beyond, the cove looked dark,
+forbidding, mysterious, and what was beyond he did not know. So down
+there he would go. As he bent his head forward to rise, his eye caught
+the spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it with a smile. In the black
+earth was a human foot-print--too small and slender for the foot of
+a man, a boy or a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible--wider
+apart--and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She was the crimson
+flash that he saw as he started up the steep and mistook for a flaming
+bush of sumach. She had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling,
+he rose to his feet.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+On one side he had left the earth yellow with the coming noon, but it
+was still morning as he went down on the other side. The laurel and
+rhododendron still reeked with dew in the deep, ever-shaded ravine.
+The ferns drenched his stirrups, as he brushed through them, and each
+dripping tree-top broke the sunlight and let it drop in tent-like beams
+through the shimmering undermist. A bird flashed here and there through
+the green gloom, but there was no sound in the air but the footfalls of
+his horse and the easy creaking of leather under him, the drip of dew
+overhead and the running of water below. Now and then he could see the
+same slender foot-prints in the rich loam and he saw them in the sand
+where the first tiny brook tinkled across the path from a gloomy ravine.
+There the little creature had taken a flying leap across it and, beyond,
+he could see the prints no more. He little guessed that while he halted
+to let his horse drink, the girl lay on a rock above him, looking down.
+She was nearer home now and was less afraid; so she had slipped from the
+trail and climbed above it there to watch him pass. As he went on, she
+slid from her perch and with cat-footed quiet followed him. When
+he reached the river she saw him pull in his horse and eagerly bend
+forward, looking into a pool just below the crossing. There was a bass
+down there in the clear water--a big one--and the man whistled cheerily
+and dismounted, tying his horse to a sassafras bush and unbuckling a tin
+bucket and a curious looking net from his saddle. With the net in one
+hand and the bucket in the other, he turned back up the creek and passed
+so close to where she had slipped aside into the bushes that she came
+near shrieking, but his eyes were fixed on a pool of the creek above
+and, to her wonder, he strolled straight into the water, with his boots
+on, pushing the net in front of him.
+
+He was a “raider” sure, she thought now, and he was looking for a
+“moonshine” still, and the wild little thing in the bushes smiled
+cunningly--there was no still up that creek--and as he had left his
+horse below and his gun, she waited for him to come back, which he did,
+by and by, dripping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him untie the
+queer “gun” on his saddle, pull it out of a case and--her eyes got big
+with wonder--take it to pieces and make it into a long limber rod. In a
+moment he had cast a minnow into the pool and waded out into the water
+up to his hips. She had never seen so queer a fishing-pole--so queer
+a fisherman. How could he get a fish out with that little switch, she
+thought contemptuously? By and by something hummed queerly, the man gave
+a slight jerk and a shining fish flopped two feet into the air. It was
+surely very queer, for the man didn't put his rod over his shoulder and
+walk ashore, as did the mountaineers, but stood still, winding something
+with one hand, and again the fish would flash into the air and then
+that humming would start again while the fisherman would stand quiet
+and waiting for a while--and then he would begin to wind again. In her
+wonder, she rose unconsciously to her feet and a stone rolled down to
+the ledge below her. The fisherman turned his head and she started to
+run, but without a word he turned again to the fish he was playing.
+Moreover, he was too far out in the water to catch her, so she advanced
+slowly--even to the edge of the stream, watching the fish cut half
+circles about the man. If he saw her, he gave no notice, and it was
+well that he did not. He was pulling the bass to and fro now through the
+water, tiring him out--drowning him--stepping backward at the same time,
+and, a moment later, the fish slid easily out of the edge of the water,
+gasping along the edge of a low sand-bank, and the fisherman reaching
+down with one hand caught him in the gills. Then he looked up and
+smiled--and she had seen no smile like that before.
+
+“Howdye, Little Girl?”
+
+One bare toe went burrowing suddenly into the sand, one finger went to
+her red mouth--and that was all. She merely stared him straight in the
+eye and he smiled again.
+
+“Cat got your tongue?”
+
+Her eyes fell at the ancient banter, but she lifted them straightway and
+stared again.
+
+“You live around here?”
+
+She stared on.
+
+“Where?”
+
+No answer.
+
+“What's your name, little girl?”
+
+And still she stared.
+
+“Oh, well, of course, you can't talk, if the cat's got your tongue.”
+
+The steady eyes leaped angrily, but there was still no answer, and he
+bent to take the fish off his hook, put on a fresh minnow, turned his
+back and tossed it into the pool.
+
+“Hit hain't!”
+
+He looked up again. She surely was a pretty little thing--and more, now
+that she was angry.
+
+“I should say not,” he said teasingly. “What did you say your name was?”
+
+“What's YO' name?”
+
+The fisherman laughed. He was just becoming accustomed to the mountain
+etiquette that commands a stranger to divulge himself first.
+
+“My name's--Jack.”
+
+“An' mine's--Jill.” She laughed now, and it was his time for
+surprise--where could she have heard of Jack and Jill?
+
+His line rang suddenly.
+
+“Jack,” she cried, “you got a bite!”
+
+He pulled, missed the strike, and wound in. The minnow was all right, so
+he tossed it back again.
+
+“That isn't your name,” he said.
+
+“If 'tain't, then that ain't your'n?”
+
+“Yes 'tis,” he said, shaking his head affirmatively.
+
+A long cry came down the ravine:
+
+“J-u-n-e! eh--oh--J-u-n-e!” That was a queer name for the mountains, and
+the fisherman wondered if he had heard aright--June.
+
+The little girl gave a shrill answering cry, but she did not move.
+
+“Thar now!” she said.
+
+“Who's that--your Mammy?”
+
+“No, 'tain't--hit's my step-mammy. I'm a goin' to ketch hell now.” Her
+innocent eyes turned sullen and her baby mouth tightened.
+
+“Good Lord!” said the fisherman, startled, and then he stopped--the
+words were as innocent on her lips as a benediction.
+
+“Have you got a father?” Like a flash, her whole face changed.
+
+“I reckon I have.”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“Hyeh he is!” drawled a voice from the bushes, and it had a tone that
+made the fisherman whirl suddenly. A giant mountaineer stood on the bank
+above him, with a Winchester in the hollow of his arm.
+
+“How are you?” The giant's heavy eyes lifted quickly, but he spoke to
+the girl.
+
+“You go on home--what you doin' hyeh gassin' with furriners!”
+
+The girl shrank to the bushes, but she cried sharply back:
+
+“Don't you hurt him now, Dad. He ain't even got a pistol. He ain't no--”
+
+“Shet up!” The little creature vanished and the mountaineer turned to
+the fisherman, who had just put on a fresh minnow and tossed it into the
+river.
+
+“Purty well, thank you,” he said shortly. “How are you?”
+
+“Fine!” was the nonchalant answer. For a moment there was silence and a
+puzzled frown gathered on the mountaineer's face.
+
+“That's a bright little girl of yours--What did she mean by telling you
+not to hurt me?”
+
+“You haven't been long in these mountains, have ye?”
+
+“No--not in THESE mountains--why?” The fisherman looked around and was
+almost startled by the fierce gaze of his questioner.
+
+“Stop that, please,” he said, with a humourous smile. “You make me
+nervous.”
+
+The mountaineer's bushy brows came together across the bridge of his
+nose and his voice rumbled like distant thunder.
+
+“What's yo' name, stranger, an' what's yo' business over hyeh?”
+
+“Dear me, there you go! You can see I'm fishing, but why does everybody
+in these mountains want to know my name?”
+
+“You heerd me!”
+
+“Yes.” The fisherman turned again and saw the giant's rugged face stern
+and pale with open anger now, and he, too, grew suddenly serious.
+
+“Suppose I don't tell you,” he said gravely. “What--”
+
+“Git!” said the mountaineer, with a move of one huge hairy hand up the
+mountain. “An' git quick!”
+
+The fisherman never moved and there was the click of a shell thrown
+into place in the Winchester and a guttural oath from the mountaineer's
+beard.
+
+“Damn ye,” he said hoarsely, raising the rifle. “I'll give ye--”
+
+“Don't, Dad!” shrieked a voice from the bushes. “I know his name, hit's
+Jack--” the rest of the name was unintelligible. The mountaineer dropped
+the butt of his gun to the ground and laughed.
+
+[Illustration: “Don't, Dad!” shrieked a voice from the bushes, 0034]
+
+“Oh, air YOU the engineer?”
+
+The fisherman was angry now. He had not moved hand or foot and he said
+nothing, but his mouth was set hard and his bewildered blue eyes had
+a glint in them that the mountaineer did not at the moment see. He
+was leaning with one arm on the muzzle of his Winchester, his face had
+suddenly become suave and shrewd and now he laughed again:
+
+“So you're Jack Hale, air ye?”
+
+The fisherman spoke. “JOHN Hale, except to my friends.” He looked hard
+at the old man.
+
+“Do you know that's a pretty dangerous joke of yours, my friend--I might
+have a gun myself sometimes. Did you think you could scare me?” The
+mountaineer stared in genuine surprise.
+
+“Twusn't no joke,” he said shortly. “An' I don't waste time skeering
+folks. I reckon you don't know who I be?”
+
+“I don't care who you are.” Again the mountaineer stared.
+
+“No use gittin' mad, young feller,” he said coolly. “I mistaken ye fer
+somebody else an' I axe yer pardon. When you git through fishin' come up
+to the house right up the creek thar an' I'll give ye a dram.”
+
+“Thank you,” said the fisherman stiffly, and the mountaineer turned
+silently away. At the edge of the bushes, he looked back; the stranger
+was still fishing, and the old man went on with a shake of his head.
+
+“He'll come,” he said to himself. “Oh, he'll come!”
+
+That very point Hale was debating with himself as he unavailingly cast
+his minnow into the swift water and slowly wound it in again. How did
+that old man know his name? And would the old savage really have hurt
+him had he not found out who he was? The little girl was a wonder:
+evidently she had muffled his last name on purpose--not knowing it
+herself--and it was a quick and cunning ruse. He owed her something for
+that--why did she try to protect him? Wonderful eyes, too, the little
+thing had--deep and dark--and how the flame did dart from them when she
+got angry! He smiled, remembering--he liked that. And her hair--it was
+exactly like the gold-bronze on the wing of a wild turkey that he had
+shot the day before. Well, it was noon now, the fish had stopped biting
+after the wayward fashion of bass, he was hungry and thirsty and he
+would go up and see the little girl and the giant again and get that
+promised dram. Once more, however, he let his minnow float down into the
+shadow of a big rock, and while he was winding in, he looked up to
+see in the road two people on a gray horse, a man with a woman behind
+him--both old and spectacled--all three motionless on the bank and
+looking at him: and he wondered if all three had stopped to ask his name
+and his business. No, they had just come down to the creek and both they
+must know already.
+
+“Ketching any?” called out the old man, cheerily.
+
+“Only one,” answered Hale with equal cheer. The old woman pushed back
+her bonnet as he waded through the water towards them and he saw that
+she was puffing a clay pipe. She looked at the fisherman and his tackle
+with the naive wonder of a child, and then she said in a commanding
+undertone.
+
+“Go on, Billy.”
+
+“Now, ole Hon, I wish ye'd jes' wait a minute.” Hale smiled. He loved
+old people, and two kinder faces he had never seen--two gentler voices
+he had never heard.
+
+“I reckon you got the only green pyerch up hyeh,” said the old man,
+chuckling, “but thar's a sight of 'em down thar below my old mill.”
+ Quietly the old woman hit the horse with a stripped branch of elm and
+the old gray, with a switch of his tail, started.
+
+“Wait a minute, Hon,” he said again, appealingly, “won't ye?” but calmly
+she hit the horse again and the old man called back over his shoulder:
+
+“You come on down to the mill an' I'll show ye whar you can ketch a
+mess.”
+
+“All right,” shouted Hale, holding back his laughter, and on they went,
+the old man remonstrating in the kindliest way--the old woman silently
+puffing her pipe and making no answer except to flay gently the rump of
+the lazy old gray.
+
+Hesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed his pole, left his minnow
+bucket where it was, mounted his horse and rode up the path. About him,
+the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little
+ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire
+with the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the morning chill left the
+densely shaded path. When he got to the bare crest of a little rise,
+he could see up the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a stone
+chimney. Geese and ducks were hunting crawfish in the little creek that
+ran from a milk-house of logs, half hidden by willows at the edge of
+the forest, and a turn in the path brought into view a log-cabin well
+chinked with stones and plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence
+ran around the yard and there was a meat house near a little orchard
+of apple-trees, under which were many hives of bee-gums. This man had
+things “hung up” and was well-to-do. Down the rise and through a thicket
+he went, and as he approached the creek that came down past the cabin
+there was a shrill cry ahead of him.
+
+“Whoa thar, Buck! Gee-haw, I tell ye!” An ox-wagon evidently was coming
+on, and the road was so narrow that he turned his horse into the bushes
+to let it pass.
+
+“Whoa--Haw!--Gee--Gee--Buck, Gee, I tell ye! I'll knock yo' fool head
+off the fust thing you know!”
+
+Still there was no sound of ox or wagon and the voice sounded like a
+child's. So he went on at a walk in the thick sand, and when he turned
+the bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In the road across the
+creek was a chubby, tow-haired boy with a long switch in his right hand,
+and a pine dagger and a string in his left. Attached to the string and
+tied by one hind leg was a frog. The boy was using the switch as a goad
+and driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest as though both were
+real.
+
+“I give ye a little rest now, Buck,” he said, shaking his head
+earnestly. “Hit's a purty hard pull hyeh, but I know, by Gum, you can
+make hit--if you hain't too durn lazy. Now, git up, Buck!” he yelled
+suddenly, flaying the sand with his switch. “Git up--Whoa--Haw--Gee,
+Gee!” The frog hopped several times.
+
+“Whoa, now!” said the little fellow, panting in sympathy. “I knowed you
+could do it.” Then he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified but
+he did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted the pine dagger over to
+his right hand and the string to his left.
+
+“Here, boy,” said the fisherman with affected sternness: “What are you
+doing with that dagger?”
+
+The boy's breast heaved and his dirty fingers clenched tight around the
+whittled stick.
+
+“Don't you talk to me that-a-way,” he said with an ominous shake of his
+head. “I'll gut ye!”
+
+The fisherman threw back his head, and his peal of laughter did what his
+sternness failed to do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his feet
+spurned the sand around the bushes for home--the astonished frog dragged
+bumping after him. “Well!” said the fisherman.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Even the geese in the creek seemed to know that he was a stranger and to
+distrust him, for they cackled and, spreading their wings, fled cackling
+up the stream. As he neared the house, the little girl ran around the
+stone chimney, stopped short, shaded her eyes with one hand for a moment
+and ran excitedly into the house. A moment later, the bearded giant
+slouched out, stooping his head as he came through the door.
+
+“Hitch that 'ar post to yo' hoss and come right in,” he thundered
+cheerily. “I'm waitin' fer ye.”
+
+The little girl came to the door, pushed one brown slender hand through
+her tangled hair, caught one bare foot behind a deer-like ankle and
+stood motionless. Behind her was the boy--his dagger still in hand.
+
+“Come right in!” said the old man, “we are purty pore folks, but you're
+welcome to what we have.”
+
+The fisherman, too, had to stoop as he came in, for he, too, was tall.
+The interior was dark, in spite of the wood fire in the big stone
+fireplace. Strings of herbs and red-pepper pods and twisted tobacco hung
+from the ceiling and down the wall on either side of the fire; and in
+one corner, near the two beds in the room, hand-made quilts of many
+colours were piled several feet high. On wooden pegs above the door
+where ten years before would have been buck antlers and an old-fashioned
+rifle, lay a Winchester; on either side of the door were auger holes
+through the logs (he did not understand that they were port-holes) and
+another Winchester stood in the corner. From the mantel the butt of a
+big 44-Colt's revolver protruded ominously. On one of the beds in the
+corner he could see the outlines of a figure lying under a brilliantly
+figured quilt, and at the foot of it the boy with the pine dagger had
+retreated for refuge. From the moment he stooped at the door something
+in the room had made him vaguely uneasy, and when his eyes in swift
+survey came back to the fire, they passed the blaze swiftly and met on
+the edge of the light another pair of eyes burning on him.
+
+“Howdye!” said Hale.
+
+“Howdye!” was the low, unpropitiating answer.
+
+The owner of the eyes was nothing but a boy, in spite of his length: so
+much of a boy that a slight crack in his voice showed that it was just
+past the throes of “changing,” but those black eyes burned on without
+swerving--except once when they flashed at the little girl who, with her
+chin in her hand and one foot on the top rung of her chair, was gazing
+at the stranger with equal steadiness. She saw the boy's glance, she
+shifted her knees impatiently and her little face grew sullen. Hale
+smiled inwardly, for he thought he could already see the lay of the
+land, and he wondered that, at such an age, such fierceness could be: so
+every now and then he looked at the boy, and every time he looked, the
+black eyes were on him. The mountain youth must have been almost six
+feet tall, young as he was, and while he was lanky in limb he was well
+knit. His jean trousers were stuffed in the top of his boots and were
+tight over his knees which were well-moulded, and that is rare with a
+mountaineer. A loop of black hair curved over his forehead, down almost
+to his left eye. His nose was straight and almost delicate and his mouth
+was small, but extraordinarily resolute. Somewhere he had seen that face
+before, and he turned suddenly, but he did not startle the lad with his
+abruptness, nor make him turn his gaze.
+
+“Why, haven't I--?” he said. And then he suddenly remembered. He had
+seen that boy not long since on the other side of the mountains, riding
+his horse at a gallop down the county road with his reins in his teeth,
+and shooting a pistol alternately at the sun and the earth with either
+hand. Perhaps it was as well not to recall the incident. He turned to
+the old mountaineer.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me that a man can't go through these mountains
+without telling everybody who asks him what his name is?”
+
+The effect of his question was singular. The old man spat into the fire
+and put his hand to his beard. The boy crossed his legs suddenly and
+shoved his muscular fingers deep into his pockets. The figure shifted
+position on the bed and the infant at the foot of it seemed to
+clench his toy-dagger a little more tightly. Only the little girl
+was motionless--she still looked at him, unwinking. What sort of wild
+animals had he fallen among?
+
+“No, he can't--an' keep healthy.” The giant spoke shortly.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Well, if a man hain't up to some devilment, what reason's he got fer
+not tellin' his name?”
+
+“That's his business.”
+
+“Tain't over hyeh. Hit's mine. Ef a man don't want to tell his name over
+hyeh, he's a spy or a raider or a officer looking fer somebody or,” he
+added carelessly, but with a quick covert look at his visitor--“he's got
+some kind o' business that he don't want nobody to know about.”
+
+“Well, I came over here--just to--well, I hardly know why I did come.”
+
+“Jess so,” said the old man dryly. “An' if ye ain't looking fer trouble,
+you'd better tell your name in these mountains, whenever you're axed. Ef
+enough people air backin' a custom anywhar hit goes, don't hit?”
+
+His logic was good--and Hale said nothing. Presently the old man rose
+with a smile on his face that looked cynical, picked up a black lump and
+threw it into the fire. It caught fire, crackled, blazed, almost oozed
+with oil, and Hale leaned forward and leaned back.
+
+“Pretty good coal!”
+
+“Hain't it, though?” The old man picked up a sliver that had flown to
+the hearth and held a match to it. The piece blazed and burned in his
+hand.
+
+“I never seed no coal in these mountains like that--did you?”
+
+“Not often--find it around here?”
+
+“Right hyeh on this farm--about five feet thick!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“An' no partin'.”
+
+“No partin'”--it was not often that he found a mountaineer who knew what
+a parting in a coal bed was.
+
+“A friend o' mine on t'other side,”--a light dawned for the engineer.
+
+“Oh,” he said quickly. “That's how you knew my name.”
+
+“Right you air, stranger. He tol' me you was a--expert.”
+
+The old man laughed loudly. “An' that's why you come over hyeh.”
+
+“No, it isn't.”
+
+“Co'se not,”--the old fellow laughed again. Hale shifted the talk.
+
+“Well, now that you know my name, suppose you tell me what yours is?”
+
+“Tolliver--Judd Tolliver.” Hale started.
+
+“Not Devil Judd!”
+
+“That's what some evil folks calls me.” Again he spoke shortly. The
+mountaineers do not like to talk about their feuds. Hale knew this--and
+the subject was dropped. But he watched the huge mountaineer with
+interest. There was no more famous character in all those hills than the
+giant before him--yet his face was kind and was good-humoured, but the
+nose and eyes were the beak and eyes of some bird of prey. The little
+girl had disappeared for a moment. She came back with a blue-backed
+spelling-book, a second reader and a worn copy of “Mother Goose,” and
+she opened first one and then the other until the attention of the
+visitor was caught--the black-haired youth watching her meanwhile with
+lowering brows.
+
+“Where did you learn to read?” Hale asked. The old man answered:
+
+“A preacher come by our house over on the Nawth Fork 'bout three year
+ago, and afore I knowed it he made me promise to send her sister Sally
+to some school up thar on the edge of the settlements. And after she
+come home, Sal larned that little gal to read and spell. Sal died 'bout
+a year ago.”
+
+Hale reached over and got the spelling-book, and the old man grinned
+at the quick, unerring responses of the little girl, and the engineer
+looked surprised. She read, too, with unusual facility, and her
+pronunciation was very precise and not at all like her speech.
+
+“You ought to send her to the same place,” he said, but the old fellow
+shook his head.
+
+“I couldn't git along without her.”
+
+The little girl's eyes began to dance suddenly, and, without opening
+“Mother Goose,” she began:
+
+“Jack and Jill went up a hill,” and then she broke into a laugh and Hale
+laughed with her.
+
+Abruptly, the boy opposite rose to his great length.
+
+“I reckon I better be goin'.” That was all he said as he caught up a
+Winchester, which stood unseen by his side, and out he stalked. There
+was not a word of good-by, not a glance at anybody. A few minutes later
+Hale heard the creak of a barn door on wooden hinges, a cursing command
+to a horse, and four feet going in a gallop down the path, and he knew
+there went an enemy.
+
+“That's a good-looking boy--who is he?”
+
+The old man spat into the fire. It seemed that he was not going to
+answer and the little girl broke in:
+
+“Hit's my cousin Dave--he lives over on the Nawth Fork.”
+
+That was the seat of the Tolliver-Falin feud. Of that feud, too, Hale
+had heard, and so no more along that line of inquiry. He, too, soon rose
+to go.
+
+“Why, ain't ye goin' to have something to eat?”
+
+“Oh, no, I've got something in my saddlebags and I must be getting back
+to the Gap.”
+
+“Well, I reckon you ain't. You're jes' goin' to take a snack right
+here.” Hale hesitated, but the little girl was looking at him with such
+unconscious eagerness in her dark eyes that he sat down again.
+
+“All right, I will, thank you.” At once she ran to the kitchen and the
+old man rose and pulled a bottle of white liquid from under the quilts.
+
+“I reckon I can trust ye,” he said. The liquor burned Hale like fire,
+and the old man, with a laugh at the face the stranger made, tossed off
+a tumblerful.
+
+“Gracious!” said Hale, “can you do that often?”
+
+“Afore breakfast, dinner and supper,” said the old man--“but I don't.”
+ Hale felt a plucking at his sleeve. It was the boy with the dagger at
+his elbow.
+
+“Less see you laugh that-a-way agin,” said Bub with such deadly
+seriousness that Hale unconsciously broke into the same peal.
+
+“Now,” said Bub, unwinking, “I ain't afeard o' you no more.”
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Awaiting dinner, the mountaineer and the “furriner” sat on the porch
+while Bub carved away at another pine dagger on the stoop. As Hale
+passed out the door, a querulous voice said “Howdye” from the bed in
+the corner and he knew it was the step-mother from whom the little girl
+expected some nether-world punishment for an offence of which he was
+ignorant. He had heard of the feud that had been going on between the
+red Falins and the black Tollivers for a quarter of a century, and this
+was Devil Judd, who had earned his nickname when he was the leader of
+his clan by his terrible strength, his marksmanship, his cunning and his
+courage. Some years since the old man had retired from the leadership,
+because he was tired of fighting or because he had quarrelled with his
+brother Dave and his foster-brother, Bad Rufe--known as the terror of
+the Tollivers--or from some unknown reason, and in consequence there had
+been peace for a long time--the Falins fearing that Devil Judd would
+be led into the feud again, the Tollivers wary of starting hostilities
+without his aid. After the last trouble, Bad Rufe Tolliver had gone West
+and old Judd had moved his family as far away as possible. Hale looked
+around him: this, then, was the home of Devil Judd Tolliver; the little
+creature inside was his daughter and her name was June. All around the
+cabin the wooded mountains towered except where, straight before his
+eyes, Lonesome Creek slipped through them to the river, and the old man
+had certainly picked out the very heart of silence for his home. There
+was no neighbour within two leagues, Judd said, except old Squire Billy
+Beams, who ran a mill a mile down the river. No wonder the spot was
+called Lonesome Cove.
+
+“You must ha' seed Uncle Billy and ole Hon passin',” he said.
+
+“I did.” Devil Judd laughed and Hale made out that “Hon” was short for
+Honey.
+
+“Uncle Billy used to drink right smart. Ole Hon broke him. She followed
+him down to the grocery one day and walked in. 'Come on, boys--let's
+have a drink'; and she set 'em up an' set 'em up until Uncle Billy most
+went crazy. He had hard work gittin' her home, an' Uncle Billy hain't
+teched a drap since.” And the old mountaineer chuckled again.
+
+All the time Hale could hear noises from the kitchen inside. The old
+step-mother was abed, he had seen no other woman about the house and he
+wondered if the child could be cooking dinner. Her flushed face answered
+when she opened the kitchen door and called them in. She had not only
+cooked but now she served as well, and when he thanked her, as he did
+every time she passed something to him, she would colour faintly. Once
+or twice her hand seemed to tremble, and he never looked at her but her
+questioning dark eyes were full upon him, and always she kept one hand
+busy pushing her thick hair back from her forehead. He had not asked her
+if it was her footprints he had seen coming down the mountain for fear
+that he might betray her, but apparently she had told on herself, for
+Bub, after a while, burst out suddenly:
+
+“June, thar, thought you was a raider.” The little girl flushed and the
+old man laughed.
+
+“So'd you, pap,” she said quietly.
+
+“That's right,” he said. “So'd anybody. I reckon you're the first man
+that ever come over hyeh jus' to go a-fishin',” and he laughed again.
+The stress on the last words showed that he believed no man had yet come
+just for that purpose, and Hale merely laughed with him. The old fellow
+gulped his food, pushed his chair back, and when Hale was through, he
+wasted no more time.
+
+“Want to see that coal?”
+
+“Yes, I do,” said Hale.
+
+“All right, I'll be ready in a minute.”
+
+The little girl followed Hale out on the porch and stood with her back
+against the railing.
+
+“Did you catch it?” he asked. She nodded, unsmiling.
+
+“I'm sorry. What were you doing up there?” She showed no surprise that
+he knew that she had been up there, and while she answered his question,
+he could see that she was thinking of something else.
+
+“I'd heerd so much about what you furriners was a-doin' over thar.”
+
+“You must have heard about a place farther over--but it's coming over
+there, too, some day.” And still she looked an unspoken question.
+
+The fish that Hale had caught was lying where he had left it on the edge
+of the porch.
+
+“That's for you, June,” he said, pointing to it, and the name as he
+spoke it was sweet to his ears.
+
+“I'm much obleeged,” she said, shyly. “I'd 'a' cooked hit fer ye if I'd
+'a' knowed you wasn't goin' to take hit home.”
+
+“That's the reason I didn't give it to you at first--I was afraid you'd
+do that. I wanted you to have it.”
+
+“Much obleeged,” she said again, still unsmiling, and then she suddenly
+looked up at him--the deeps of her dark eyes troubled.
+
+“Air ye ever comin' back agin, Jack?” Hale was not accustomed to the
+familiar form of address common in the mountains, independent of sex or
+age--and he would have been staggered had not her face been so serious.
+And then few women had ever called him by his first name, and this time
+his own name was good to his ears.
+
+“Yes, June,” he said soberly. “Not for some time, maybe--but I'm coming
+back again, sure.” She smiled then with both lips and eyes--radiantly.
+
+“I'll be lookin' fer ye,” she said simply.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The old man went with him up the creek and, passing the milk house,
+turned up a brush-bordered little branch in which the engineer saw signs
+of coal. Up the creek the mountaineer led him some thirty yards above
+the water level and stopped. An entry had been driven through the
+rich earth and ten feet within was a shining bed of coal. There was no
+parting except two inches of mother-of-coal--midway, which would make it
+but easier to mine. Who had taught that old man to open coal in such a
+way--to make such a facing? It looked as though the old fellow were in
+some scheme with another to get him interested. As he drew closer, he
+saw radiations of some twelve inches, all over the face of the coal,
+star-shaped, and he almost gasped. It was not only cannel coal--it was
+“bird's-eye” cannel. Heavens, what a find! Instantly he was the cautious
+man of business, alert, cold, uncommunicative.
+
+“That looks like a pretty good--” he drawled the last two words--“vein
+of coal. I'd like to take a sample over to the Gap and analyze it.” His
+hammer, which he always carried--was in his saddle pockets, but he did
+not have to go down to his horse. There were pieces on the ground that
+would suit his purpose, left there, no doubt, by his predecessor.
+
+“Now I reckon you know that I know why you came over hyeh.”
+
+Hale started to answer, but he saw it was no use.
+
+“Yes--and I'm coming again--for the same reason.”
+
+“Shore--come agin and come often.”
+
+The little girl was standing on the porch as he rode past the milk
+house. He waved his hand to her, but she did not move nor answer. What a
+life for a child--for that keen-eyed, sweet-faced child! But that coal,
+cannel, rich as oil, above water, five feet in thickness, easy to mine,
+with a solid roof and perhaps self-drainage, if he could judge from the
+dip of the vein: and a market everywhere--England, Spain, Italy, Brazil.
+The coal, to be sure, might not be persistent--thirty yards within it
+might change in quality to ordinary bituminous coal, but he could settle
+that only with a steam drill. A steam drill! He would as well ask for
+the wagon that he had long ago hitched to a star; and then there might
+be a fault in the formation. But why bother now? The coal would
+stay there, and now he had other plans that made even that find
+insignificant. And yet if he bought that coal now--what a bargain! It
+was not that the ideals of his college days were tarnished, but he was
+a man of business now, and if he would take the old man's land for
+a song--it was because others of his kind would do the same! But why
+bother, he asked himself again, when his brain was in a ferment with a
+colossal scheme that would make dizzy the magnates who would some day
+drive their roadways of steel into those wild hills. So he shook himself
+free of the question, which passed from his mind only with a transient
+wonder as to who it was that had told of him to the old mountaineer, and
+had so paved his way for an investigation--and then he wheeled suddenly
+in his saddle. The bushes had rustled gently behind him and out from
+them stepped an extraordinary human shape--wearing a coon-skin cap,
+belted with two rows of big cartridges, carrying a big Winchester over
+one shoulder and a circular tube of brass in his left hand. With his
+right leg straight, his left thigh drawn into the hollow of his saddle
+and his left hand on the rump of his horse, Hale simply stared, his eyes
+dropping by and by from the pale-blue eyes and stubbly red beard of the
+stranger, down past the cartridge-belts to the man's feet, on which
+were moccasins--with the heels forward! Into what sort of a world had he
+dropped!
+
+“So nary a soul can tell which way I'm going,” said the red-haired
+stranger, with a grin that loosed a hollow chuckle far behind it.
+
+“Would you mind telling me what difference it can make to me which way
+you are going?” Every moment he was expecting the stranger to ask his
+name, but again that chuckle came.
+
+“It makes a mighty sight o' difference to some folks.”
+
+“But none to me.”
+
+“I hain't wearin' 'em fer you. I know YOU.”
+
+“Oh, you do.” The stranger suddenly lowered his Winchester and turned
+his face, with his ear cocked like an animal. There was some noise on
+the spur above.
+
+“Nothin' but a hickory nut,” said the chuckle again. But Hale had
+been studying that strange face. One side of it was calm, kindly,
+philosophic, benevolent; but, when the other was turned, a curious
+twitch of the muscles at the left side of the mouth showed the teeth and
+made a snarl there that was wolfish.
+
+“Yes, and I know you,” he said slowly. Self-satisfaction, straightway,
+was ardent in the face.
+
+“I knowed you would git to know me in time, if you didn't now.”
+
+This was the Red Fox of the mountains, of whom he had heard so
+much--“yarb” doctor and Swedenborgian preacher; revenue officer and,
+some said, cold-blooded murderer. He would walk twenty miles to preach,
+or would start at any hour of the day or night to minister to the
+sick, and would charge for neither service. At other hours he would be
+searching for moonshine stills, or watching his enemies in the valley
+from some mountain top, with that huge spy-glass--Hale could see
+now that the brass tube was a telescope--that he might slip down and
+unawares take a pot-shot at them. The Red Fox communicated with spirits,
+had visions and superhuman powers of locomotion--stepping mysteriously
+from the bushes, people said, to walk at the traveller's side and as
+mysteriously disappearing into them again, to be heard of in a few hours
+an incredible distance away.
+
+“I've been watchin' ye from up thar,” he said with a wave of his hand.
+“I seed ye go up the creek, and then the bushes hid ye. I know what
+you was after--but did you see any signs up thar of anything you wasn't
+looking fer?”
+
+Hale laughed.
+
+“Well, I've been in these mountains long enough not to tell you, if I
+had.”
+
+The Red Fox chuckled.
+
+“I wasn't sure you had--” Hale coughed and spat to the other side of his
+horse. When he looked around, the Red Fox was gone, and he had heard no
+sound of his going.
+
+“Well, I be--” Hale clucked to his horse and as he climbed the last
+steep and drew near the Big Pine he again heard a noise out in the
+woods and he knew this time it was the fall of a human foot and not of a
+hickory nut. He was right, and, as he rode by the Pine, saw again at its
+base the print of the little girl's foot--wondering afresh at the reason
+that led her up there--and dropped down through the afternoon shadows
+towards the smoke and steam and bustle and greed of the Twentieth
+Century. A long, lean, black-eyed boy, with a wave of black hair over
+his forehead, was pushing his horse the other way along the Big Black
+and dropping down through the dusk into the Middle Ages--both all
+but touching on either side the outstretched hands of the wild little
+creature left in the shadows of Lonesome Cove.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Past the Big Pine, swerving with a smile his horse aside that he might
+not obliterate the foot-print in the black earth, and down the mountain,
+his brain busy with his big purpose, went John Hale, by instinct,
+inheritance, blood and tradition--pioneer.
+
+One of his forefathers had been with Washington on the Father's first
+historic expedition into the wilds of Virginia. His great-grandfather
+had accompanied Boone when that hunter first penetrated the “Dark
+and Bloody Ground,” had gone back to Virginia and come again with a
+surveyor's chain and compass to help wrest it from the red men,
+among whom there had been an immemorial conflict for possession and a
+never-recognized claim of ownership. That compass and that chain his
+grandfather had fallen heir to and with that compass and chain his
+father had earned his livelihood amid the wrecks of the Civil War. Hale
+went to the old Transylvania University at Lexington, the first seat of
+learning planted beyond the Alleghanies. He was fond of history, of the
+sciences and literature, was unusually adept in Latin and Greek, and had
+a passion for mathematics. He was graduated with honours, he taught two
+years and got his degree of Master of Arts, but the pioneer spirit in
+his blood would still out, and his polite learning he then threw to the
+winds.
+
+Other young Kentuckians had gone West in shoals, but he kept his eye on
+his own State, and one autumn he added a pick to the old compass and the
+ancestral chain, struck the Old Wilderness Trail that his grandfather
+had travelled, to look for his own fortune in a land which that old
+gentleman had passed over as worthless. At the Cumberland River he took
+a canoe and drifted down the river into the wild coal-swollen hills.
+Through the winter he froze, starved and prospected, and a year later
+he was opening up a region that became famous after his trust and
+inexperience had let others worm out of him an interest that would have
+made him easy for life.
+
+With the vision of a seer, he was as innocent as Boone. Stripped clean,
+he got out his map, such geological reports as he could find and went
+into a studious trance for a month, emerging mentally with the freshness
+of a snake that has shed its skin. What had happened in Pennsylvania
+must happen all along the great Alleghany chain in the mountains of
+Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee. Some day the
+avalanche must sweep south, it must--it must. That he might be a quarter
+of a century too soon in his calculations never crossed his mind. Some
+day it must come.
+
+Now there was not an ounce of coal immediately south-east of the
+Cumberland Mountains--not an ounce of iron ore immediately north-east;
+all the coal lay to the north-east; all of the iron ore to the
+south-east. So said Geology. For three hundred miles there were only
+four gaps through that mighty mountain chain--three at water level, and
+one at historic Cumberland Gap which was not at water level and would
+have to be tunnelled. So said Geography.
+
+All railroads, to east and to west, would have to pass through those
+gaps; through them the coal must be brought to the iron ore, or the ore
+to the coal. Through three gaps water flowed between ore and coal and
+the very hills between were limestone. Was there any such juxtaposition
+of the four raw materials for the making of iron in the known world?
+When he got that far in his logic, the sweat broke from his brows; he
+felt dizzy and he got up and walked into the open air. As the vastness
+and certainty of the scheme--what fool could not see it?--rushed through
+him full force, he could scarcely get his breath. There must be a town
+in one of those gaps--but in which? No matter--he would buy all of
+them--all of them, he repeated over and over again; for some day there
+must be a town in one, and some day a town in all, and from all he would
+reap his harvest. He optioned those four gaps at a low purchase price
+that was absurd. He went back to the Bluegrass; he went to New York;
+in some way he managed to get to England. It had never crossed his mind
+that other eyes could not see what he so clearly saw and yet everywhere
+he was pronounced crazy. He failed and his options ran out, but he was
+undaunted. He picked his choice of the four gaps and gave up the other
+three. This favourite gap he had just finished optioning again, and now
+again he meant to keep at his old quest. That gap he was entering now
+from the north side and the North Fork of the river was hurrying to
+enter too. On his left was a great gray rock, projecting edgewise,
+covered with laurel and rhododendron, and under it was the first
+big pool from which the stream poured faster still. There had been a
+terrible convulsion in that gap when the earth was young; the strata
+had been tossed upright and planted almost vertical for all time, and, a
+little farther, one mighty ledge, moss-grown, bush-covered, sentinelled
+with grim pines, their bases unseen, seemed to be making a heavy flight
+toward the clouds.
+
+Big bowlders began to pop up in the river-bed and against them the water
+dashed and whirled and eddied backward in deep pools, while above him
+the song of a cataract dropped down a tree-choked ravine. Just there the
+drop came, and for a long space he could see the river lashing rock and
+cliff with increasing fury as though it were seeking shelter from some
+relentless pursuer in the dark thicket where it disappeared. Straight in
+front of him another ledge lifted itself. Beyond that loomed a mountain
+which stopped in mid-air and dropped sheer to the eye. Its crown was
+bare and Hale knew that up there was a mountain farm, the refuge of a
+man who had been involved in that terrible feud beyond Black Mountain
+behind him. Five minutes later he was at the yawning mouth of the gap
+and there lay before him a beautiful valley shut in tightly, for all the
+eye could see, with mighty hills. It was the heaven-born site for the
+unborn city of his dreams, and his eyes swept every curve of the valley
+lovingly. The two forks of the river ran around it--he could follow
+their course by the trees that lined the banks of each--curving within
+a stone's throw of each other across the valley and then looping away
+as from the neck of an ancient lute and, like its framework, coming
+together again down the valley, where they surged together, slipped
+through the hills and sped on with the song of a sweeping river. Up
+that river could come the track of commerce, out the South Fork, too, it
+could go, though it had to turn eastward: back through that gap it could
+be traced north and west; and so none could come as heralds into those
+hills but their footprints could be traced through that wild, rocky,
+water-worn chasm. Hale drew breath and raised in his stirrups.
+
+“It's a cinch,” he said aloud. “It's a shame to take the money.”
+
+Yet nothing was in sight now but a valley farmhouse above the ford where
+he must cross the river and one log cabin on the hill beyond. Still on
+the other river was the only woollen mill in miles around; farther
+up was the only grist mill, and near by was the only store, the only
+blacksmith shop and the only hotel. That much of a start the gap had had
+for three-quarters of a century--only from the south now a railroad
+was already coming; from the east another was travelling like a wounded
+snake and from the north still another creeped to meet them. Every road
+must run through the gap and several had already run through it lines
+of survey. The coal was at one end of the gap, and the iron ore at the
+other, the cliffs between were limestone, and the other elements to make
+it the iron centre of the world flowed through it like a torrent.
+
+“Selah! It's a shame to take the money.”
+
+He splashed into the creek and his big black horse thrust his nose into
+the clear running water. Minnows were playing about him. A hog-fish flew
+for shelter under a rock, and below the ripples a two-pound bass shot
+like an arrow into deep water.
+
+Above and below him the stream was arched with beech, poplar and water
+maple, and the banks were thick with laurel and rhododendron. His eye
+had never rested on a lovelier stream, and on the other side of the town
+site, which nature had kindly lifted twenty feet above the water level,
+the other fork was of equal clearness, swiftness and beauty.
+
+“Such a drainage,” murmured his engineering instinct. “Such a drainage!”
+ It was Saturday. Even if he had forgotten he would have known that it
+must be Saturday when he climbed the bank on the other side. Many horses
+were hitched under the trees, and here and there was a farm-wagon
+with fragments of paper, bits of food and an empty bottle or two lying
+around. It was the hour when the alcoholic spirits of the day were
+usually most high. Evidently they were running quite high that day and
+something distinctly was going on “up town.” A few yells--the high,
+clear, penetrating yell of a fox-hunter--rent the air, a chorus of
+pistol shots rang out, and the thunder of horses' hoofs started beyond
+the little slope he was climbing. When he reached the top, a merry
+youth, with a red, hatless head was splitting the dirt road toward him,
+his reins in his teeth, and a pistol in each hand, which he was letting
+off alternately into the inoffensive earth and toward the unrebuking
+heavens--that seemed a favourite way in those mountains of defying God
+and the devil--and behind him galloped a dozen horsemen to the music of
+throat, pistol and iron hoof.
+
+The fiery-headed youth's horse swerved and shot by. Hale hardly knew
+that the rider even saw him, but the coming ones saw him afar and they
+seemed to be charging him in close array. Hale stopped his horse
+a little to the right of the centre of the road, and being equally
+helpless against an inherited passion for maintaining his own rights and
+a similar disinclination to get out of anybody's way--he sat motionless.
+Two of the coming horsemen, side by side, were a little in advance.
+
+“Git out o' the road!” they yelled. Had he made the motion of an arm,
+they might have ridden or shot him down, but the simple quietness of him
+as he sat with hands crossed on the pommel of his saddle, face calm and
+set, eyes unwavering and fearless, had the effect that nothing else he
+could have done would have brought about--and they swerved on either
+side of him, while the rest swerved, too, like sheep, one stirrup
+brushing his, as they swept by. Hale rode slowly on. He could hear
+the mountaineers yelling on top of the hill, but he did not look
+back. Several bullets sang over his head. Most likely they were simply
+“bantering” him, but no matter--he rode on.
+
+The blacksmith, the storekeeper and one passing drummer were coming in
+from the woods when he reached the hotel.
+
+“A gang o' those Falins,” said the storekeeper, “they come over lookin'
+for young Dave Tolliver. They didn't find him, so they thought they'd
+have some fun”; and he pointed to the hotel sign which was punctuated
+with pistol-bullet periods. Hale's eyes flashed once but he said
+nothing. He turned his horse over to a stable boy and went across to the
+little frame cottage that served as office and home for him. While he
+sat on the veranda that almost hung over the mill-pond of the other
+stream three of the Falins came riding back. One of them had left
+something at the hotel, and while he was gone in for it, another put a
+bullet through the sign, and seeing Hale rode over to him. Hale's blue
+eye looked anything than friendly.
+
+“Don't ye like it?” asked the horseman.
+
+“I do not,” said Hale calmly. The horseman seemed amused.
+
+“Well, whut you goin' to do about it?”
+
+“Nothing--at least not now.”
+
+“All right--whenever you git ready. You ain't ready now?”
+
+“No,” said Hale, “not now.” The fellow laughed.
+
+“Hit's a damned good thing for you that you ain't.”
+
+Hale looked long after the three as they galloped down the road. “When I
+start to build this town,” he thought gravely and without humour, “I'll
+put a stop to all that.”
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+On a spur of Black Mountain, beyond the Kentucky line, a lean horse was
+tied to a sassafras bush, and in a clump of rhododendron ten yards away,
+a lean black-haired boy sat with a Winchester between his stomach and
+thighs--waiting for the dusk to drop. His chin was in both hands, the
+brim of his slouch hat was curved crescent-wise over his forehead, and
+his eyes were on the sweeping bend of the river below him. That was
+the “Bad Bend” down there, peopled with ancestral enemies and the
+head-quarters of their leader for the last ten years. Though they had
+been at peace for some time now, it had been Saturday in the county town
+ten miles down the river as well, and nobody ever knew what a Saturday
+might bring forth between his people and them. So he would not risk
+riding through that bend by the light of day.
+
+All the long way up spur after spur and along ridge after ridge, all
+along the still, tree-crested top of the Big Black, he had been thinking
+of the man--the “furriner” whom he had seen at his uncle's cabin in
+Lonesome Cove. He was thinking of him still, as he sat there waiting
+for darkness to come, and the two vertical little lines in his forehead,
+that had hardly relaxed once during his climb, got deeper and deeper,
+as his brain puzzled into the problem that was worrying it: who the
+stranger was, what his business was over in the Cove and his business
+with the Red Fox with whom the boy had seen him talking.
+
+He had heard of the coming of the “furriners” on the Virginia side. He
+had seen some of them, he was suspicious of all of them, he disliked
+them all--but this man he hated straightway. He hated his boots and his
+clothes; the way he sat and talked, as though he owned the earth, and
+the lad snorted contemptuously under his breath:
+
+“He called pants 'trousers.'” It was a fearful indictment, and he
+snorted again: “Trousers!”
+
+The “furriner” might be a spy or a revenue officer, but deep down in the
+boy's heart the suspicion had been working that he had gone over there
+to see his little cousin--the girl whom, boy that he was, he had marked,
+when she was even more of a child than she was now, for his own. His
+people understood it as did her father, and, child though she was,
+she, too, understood it. The difference between her and the
+“furriner”--difference in age, condition, way of life, education--meant
+nothing to him, and as his suspicion deepened, his hands dropped and
+gripped his Winchester, and through his gritting teeth came vaguely:
+
+“By God, if he does--if he just does!”
+
+Away down at the lower end of the river's curving sweep, the dirt road
+was visible for a hundred yards or more, and even while he was cursing
+to himself, a group of horsemen rode into sight. All seemed to be
+carrying something across their saddle bows, and as the boy's eyes
+caught them, he sank sidewise out of sight and stood upright, peering
+through a bush of rhododendron. Something had happened in town that
+day--for the horsemen carried Winchesters, and every foreign thought in
+his brain passed like breath from a window pane, while his dark, thin
+face whitened a little with anxiety and wonder. Swiftly he stepped
+backward, keeping the bushes between him and his far-away enemies.
+Another knot he gave the reins around the sassafras bush and then,
+Winchester in hand, he dropped noiseless as an Indian, from rock to
+rock, tree to tree, down the sheer spur on the other side. Twenty
+minutes later, he lay behind a bush that was sheltered by the top
+boulder of the rocky point under which the road ran. His enemies were in
+their own country; they would probably be talking over the happenings in
+town that day, and from them he would learn what was going on.
+
+So long he lay that he got tired and out of patience, and he was about
+to creep around the boulder, when the clink of a horseshoe against
+a stone told him they were coming, and he flattened to the earth and
+closed his eyes that his ears might be more keen. The Falins were riding
+silently, but as the first two passed under him, one said:
+
+“I'd like to know who the hell warned 'em!”
+
+“Whar's the Red Fox?” was the significant answer.
+
+The boy's heart leaped. There had been deviltry abroad, but his kinsmen
+had escaped. No one uttered a word as they rode two by two, under him,
+but one voice came back to him as they turned the point.
+
+“I wonder if the other boys ketched young Dave?” He could not catch the
+answer to that--only the oath that was in it, and when the sound of the
+horses' hoofs died away, he turned over on his back and stared up at the
+sky. Some trouble had come and through his own caution, and the mercy
+of Providence that had kept him away from the Gap, he had had his escape
+from death that day. He would tempt that Providence no more, even by
+climbing back to his horse in the waning light, and it was not until
+dusk had fallen that he was leading the beast down the spur and into a
+ravine that sank to the road. There he waited an hour, and when another
+horseman passed he still waited a while. Cautiously then, with ears
+alert, eyes straining through the darkness and Winchester ready, he went
+down the road at a slow walk. There was a light in the first house, but
+the front door was closed and the road was deep with sand, as he knew;
+so he passed noiselessly. At the second house, light streamed through
+the open door; he could hear talking on the porch and he halted. He
+could neither cross the river nor get around the house by the rear--the
+ridge was too steep--so he drew off into the bushes, where he had to
+wait another hour before the talking ceased. There was only one more
+house now between him and the mouth of the creek, where he would be
+safe, and he made up his mind to dash by it. That house, too, was
+lighted and the sound of fiddling struck his ears. He would give them a
+surprise; so he gathered his reins and Winchester in his left hand, drew
+his revolver with his right, and within thirty yards started his horse
+into a run, yelling like an Indian and firing his pistol in the air.
+As he swept by, two or three figures dashed pell-mell indoors, and he
+shouted derisively:
+
+“Run, damn ye, run!” They were running for their guns, he knew, but
+the taunt would hurt and he was pleased. As he swept by the edge of a
+cornfield, there was a flash of light from the base of a cliff straight
+across, and a bullet sang over him, then another and another, but he
+sped on, cursing and yelling and shooting his own Winchester up in the
+air--all harmless, useless, but just to hurl defiance and taunt them
+with his safety. His father's house was not far away, there was no sound
+of pursuit, and when he reached the river he drew down to a walk and
+stopped short in a shadow. Something had clicked in the bushes above him
+and he bent over his saddle and lay close to his horse's neck. The moon
+was rising behind him and its light was creeping toward him through the
+bushes. In a moment he would be full in its yellow light, and he was
+slipping from his horse to dart aside into the bushes, when a voice
+ahead of him called sharply:
+
+“That you, Dave?”
+
+It was his father, and the boy's answer was a loud laugh. Several men
+stepped from the bushes--they had heard firing and, fearing that young
+Dave was the cause of it, they had run to his help.
+
+“What the hell you mean, boy, kickin' up such a racket?”
+
+“Oh, I knowed somethin'd happened an' I wanted to skeer 'em a leetle.”
+
+“Yes, an' you never thought o' the trouble you might be causin' us.”
+
+“Don't you bother about me. I can take keer o' myself.”
+
+Old Dave Tolliver grunted--though at heart he was deeply pleased.
+
+“Well, you come on home!”
+
+All went silently--the boy getting meagre monosyllabic answers to his
+eager questions but, by the time they reached home, he had gathered the
+story of what had happened in town that day. There were more men in
+the porch of the house and all were armed. The women of the house moved
+about noiselessly and with drawn faces. There were no lights lit, and
+nobody stood long even in the light of the fire where he could be seen
+through a window; and doors were opened and passed through quickly. The
+Falins had opened the feud that day, for the boy's foster-uncle, Bad
+Rufe Tolliver, contrary to the terms of the last truce, had come home
+from the West, and one of his kinsmen had been wounded. The boy told
+what he had heard while he lay over the road along which some of his
+enemies had passed and his father nodded. The Falins had learned in some
+way that the lad was going to the Gap that day and had sent men after
+him. Who was the spy?
+
+“You TOLD me you was a-goin' to the Gap,” said old Dave. “Whar was ye?”
+
+“I didn't git that far,” said the boy.
+
+The old man and Loretta, young Dave's sister, laughed, and quiet smiles
+passed between the others.
+
+“Well, you'd better be keerful 'bout gittin' even as far as you did
+git--wharever that was--from now on.”
+
+“I ain't afeered,” the boy said sullenly, and he turned into the
+kitchen. Still sullen, he ate his supper in silence and his mother asked
+him no questions. He was worried that Bad Rufe had come back to the
+mountains, for Rufe was always teasing June and there was something
+in his bold, black eyes that made the lad furious, even when the
+foster-uncle was looking at Loretta or the little girl in Lonesome
+Cove. And yet that was nothing to his new trouble, for his mind hung
+persistently to the stranger and to the way June had behaved in the
+cabin in Lonesome Cove. Before he went to bed, he slipped out to the
+old well behind the house and sat on the water-trough in gloomy unrest,
+looking now and then at the stars that hung over the Cove and over the
+Gap beyond, where the stranger was bound. It would have pleased him
+a good deal could he have known that the stranger was pushing his big
+black horse on his way, under those stars, toward the outer world.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+It was court day at the county seat across the Kentucky line. Hale
+had risen early, as everyone must if he would get his breakfast in the
+mountains, even in the hotels in the county seats, and he sat with his
+feet on the railing of the hotel porch which fronted the main street
+of the town. He had had his heart-breaking failures since the autumn
+before, but he was in good cheer now, for his feverish enthusiasm had at
+last clutched a man who would take up not only his options on the great
+Gap beyond Black Mountain but on the cannel-coal lands of Devil Judd
+Tolliver as well. He was riding across from the Bluegrass to meet this
+man at the railroad in Virginia, nearly two hundred miles away; he had
+stopped to examine some titles at the county seat and he meant to go
+on that day by way of Lonesome Cove. Opposite was the brick Court
+House--every window lacking at least one pane, the steps yellow with
+dirt and tobacco juice, the doorway and the bricks about the upper
+windows bullet-dented and eloquent with memories of the feud which had
+long embroiled the whole county. Not that everybody took part in it but,
+on the matter, everybody, as an old woman told him, “had feelin's.”
+ It had begun, so he learned, just after the war. Two boys were playing
+marbles in the road along the Cumberland River, and one had a patch on
+the seat of his trousers. The other boy made fun of it and the boy with
+the patch went home and told his father. As a result there had already
+been thirty years of local war. In the last race for legislature,
+political issues were submerged and the feud was the sole issue. And a
+Tolliver had carried that boy's trouser-patch like a flag to victory and
+was sitting in the lower House at that time helping to make laws for the
+rest of the State. Now Bad Rufe Tolliver was in the hills again and
+the end was not yet. Already people were pouring in, men, women and
+children--the men slouch-hatted and stalking through the mud in the
+rain, or filing in on horseback--riding double sometimes--two men or two
+women, or a man with his wife or daughter behind him, or a woman with a
+baby in her lap and two more children behind--all dressed in homespun
+or store-clothes, and the paint from artificial flowers on her hat
+streaking the face of every girl who had unwisely scanned the heavens
+that morning. Soon the square was filled with hitched horses, and an
+auctioneer was bidding off cattle, sheep, hogs and horses to the crowd
+of mountaineers about him, while the women sold eggs and butter and
+bought things for use at home. Now and then, an open feudsman with a
+Winchester passed and many a man was belted with cartridges for the big
+pistol dangling at his hip. When court opened, the rain ceased, the sun
+came out and Hale made his way through the crowd to the battered temple
+of justice. On one corner of the square he could see the chief store of
+the town marked “Buck Falin--General Merchandise,” and the big man in
+the door with the bushy redhead, he guessed, was the leader of the Falin
+clan. Outside the door stood a smaller replica of the same figure, whom
+he recognized as the leader of the band that had nearly ridden him down
+at the Gap when they were looking for young Dave Tolliver, the autumn
+before. That, doubtless, was young Buck. For a moment he stood at the
+door of the court-room. A Falin was on trial and the grizzled judge was
+speaking angrily:
+
+“This is the third time you've had this trial postponed because you
+hain't got no lawyer. I ain't goin' to put it off. Have you got you a
+lawyer now?”
+
+“Yes, jedge,” said the defendant.
+
+“Well, whar is he?”
+
+“Over thar on the jury.”
+
+The judge looked at the man on the jury.
+
+“Well, I reckon you better leave him whar he is. He'll do you more good
+thar than any whar else.”
+
+Hale laughed aloud--the judge glared at him and he turned quickly
+upstairs to his work in the deed-room. Till noon he worked and yet there
+was no trouble. After dinner he went back and in two hours his work was
+done. An atmospheric difference he felt as soon as he reached the door.
+The crowd had melted from the square. There were no women in sight, but
+eight armed men were in front of the door and two of them, a red Falin
+and a black Tolliver--Bad Rufe it was--were quarrelling. In every
+doorway stood a man cautiously looking on, and in a hotel window he saw
+a woman's frightened face. It was so still that it seemed impossible
+that a tragedy could be imminent, and yet, while he was trying to
+take the conditions in, one of the quarrelling men--Bad Rufe
+Tolliver--whipped out his revolver and before he could level it, a Falin
+struck the muzzle of a pistol into his back. Another Tolliver flashed
+his weapon on the Falin. This Tolliver was covered by another Falin
+and in so many flashes of lightning the eight men in front of him were
+covering each other--every man afraid to be the first to shoot, since he
+knew that the flash of his own pistol meant instantaneous death for him.
+As Hale shrank back, he pushed against somebody who thrust him aside. It
+was the judge:
+
+“Why don't somebody shoot?” he asked sarcastically. “You're a purty set
+o' fools, ain't you? I want you all to stop this damned foolishness. Now
+when I give the word I want you, Jim Falin and Rufe Tolliver thar, to
+drap yer guns.”
+
+Already Rufe was grinning like a devil over the absurdity of the
+situation.
+
+“Now!” said the judge, and the two guns were dropped.
+
+“Put 'em in yo' pockets.”
+
+They did.
+
+“Drap!” All dropped and, with those two, all put up their guns--each
+man, however, watching now the man who had just been covering him. It
+is not wise for the stranger to show too much interest in the personal
+affairs of mountain men, and Hale left the judge berating them and went
+to the hotel to get ready for the Gap, little dreaming how fixed the
+faces of some of those men were in his brain and how, later, they were
+to rise in his memory again. His horse was lame--but he must go on:
+so he hired a “yaller” mule from the landlord, and when the beast was
+brought around, he overheard two men talking at the end of the porch.
+
+“You don't mean to say they've made peace?”
+
+“Yes, Rufe's going away agin and they shuk hands--all of 'em.” The other
+laughed.
+
+“Rufe ain't gone yit!”
+
+The Cumberland River was rain-swollen. The home-going people were
+helping each other across it and, as Hale approached the ford of a creek
+half a mile beyond the river, a black-haired girl was standing on a
+boulder looking helplessly at the yellow water, and two boys were on the
+ground below her. One of them looked up at Hale:
+
+“I wish ye'd help this lady 'cross.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Hale, and the girl giggled when he laboriously turned
+his old mule up to the boulder. Not accustomed to have ladies ride
+behind him, Hale had turned the wrong side. Again he laboriously wheeled
+about and then into the yellow torrent he went with the girl behind him,
+the old beast stumbling over the stones, whereat the girl, unafraid,
+made sounds of much merriment. Across, Hale stopped and said
+courteously:
+
+“If you are going up this way, you are quite welcome to ride on.”
+
+“Well, I wasn't crossin' that crick jes' exactly fer fun,” said the girl
+demurely, and then she murmured something about her cousins and looked
+back. They had gone down to a shallower ford, and when they, too, had
+waded across, they said nothing and the girl said nothing--so Hale
+started on, the two boys following. The mule was slow and, being in a
+hurry, Hale urged him with his whip. Every time he struck, the beast
+would kick up and once the girl came near going off.
+
+“You must watch out, when I hit him,” said Hale.
+
+“I don't know when you're goin' to hit him,” she drawled unconcernedly.
+
+“Well, I'll let you know,” said Hale laughing. “Now!” And, as he whacked
+the beast again, the girl laughed and they were better acquainted.
+Presently they passed two boys. Hale was wearing riding-boots and tight
+breeches, and one of the boys ran his eyes up boot and leg and if they
+were lifted higher, Hale could not tell.
+
+“Whar'd you git him?” he squeaked.
+
+The girl turned her head as the mule broke into a trot.
+
+“Ain't got time to tell. They are my cousins,” explained the girl.
+
+“What is your name?” asked Hale.
+
+“Loretty Tolliver.” Hale turned in his saddle.
+
+“Are you the daughter of Dave Tolliver?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then you've got a brother named Dave?”
+
+“Yes.” This, then, was the sister of the black-haired boy he had seen in
+the Lonesome Cove.
+
+“Haven't you got some kinfolks over the mountain?”
+
+“Yes, I got an uncle livin' over thar. Devil Judd, folks calls him,”
+ said the girl simply. This girl was cousin to little June in Lonesome
+Cove. Every now and then she would look behind them, and when Hale
+turned again inquiringly she explained:
+
+“I'm worried about my cousins back thar. I'm afeered somethin' mought
+happen to 'em.”
+
+“Shall we wait for them?”
+
+“Oh, no--I reckon not.”
+
+Soon they overtook two men on horseback, and after they passed and were
+fifty yards ahead of them, one of the men lifted his voice jestingly:
+
+“Is that your woman, stranger, or have you just borrowed her?” Hale
+shouted back:
+
+“No, I'm sorry to say, I've just borrowed her,” and he turned to see how
+she would take this answering pleasantry. She was looking down shyly and
+she did not seem much pleased.
+
+“They are kinfolks o' mine, too,” she said, and whether it was in
+explanation or as a rebuke, Hale could not determine.
+
+“You must be kin to everybody around here?”
+
+“Most everybody,” she said simply.
+
+By and by they came to a creek.
+
+“I have to turn up here,” said Hale.
+
+“So do I,” she said, smiling now directly at him.
+
+“Good!” he said, and they went on--Hale asking more questions. She was
+going to school at the county seat the coming winter and she was fifteen
+years old.
+
+“That's right. The trouble in the mountains is that you girls marry so
+early that you don't have time to get an education.” She wasn't going
+to marry early, she said, but Hale learned now that she had a sweetheart
+who had been in town that day and apparently the two had had a quarrel.
+Who it was, she would not tell, and Hale would have been amazed had he
+known the sweetheart was none other than young Buck Falin and that the
+quarrel between the lovers had sprung from the opening quarrel that day
+between the clans. Once again she came near going off the mule, and Hale
+observed that she was holding to the cantel of his saddle.
+
+“Look here,” he said suddenly, “hadn't you better catch hold of me?” She
+shook her head vigorously and made two not-to-be-rendered sounds that
+meant:
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“Well, if this were your sweetheart you'd take hold of him, wouldn't
+you?”
+
+Again she gave a vigorous shake of the head.
+
+“Well, if he saw you riding behind me, he wouldn't like it, would he?”
+
+“She didn't keer,” she said, but Hale did; and when he heard the
+galloping of horses behind him, saw two men coming, and heard one
+of them shouting--“Hyeh, you man on that yaller mule, stop thar”--he
+shifted his revolver, pulled in and waited with some uneasiness. They
+came up, reeling in their saddles--neither one the girl's sweetheart,
+as he saw at once from her face--and began to ask what the girl
+characterized afterward as “unnecessary questions”: who he was, who she
+was, and where they were going. Hale answered so shortly that the girl
+thought there was going to be a fight, and she was on the point of
+slipping from the mule.
+
+“Sit still,” said Hale, quietly. “There's not going to be a fight so
+long as you are here.”
+
+“Thar hain't!” said one of the men. “Well”--then he looked sharply
+at the girl and turned his horse--“Come on, Bill--that's ole Dave
+Tolliver's gal.” The girl's face was on fire.
+
+“Them mean Falins!” she said contemptuously, and somehow the mere fact
+that Hale had been even for the moment antagonistic to the other
+faction seemed to put him in the girl's mind at once on her side, and
+straightway she talked freely of the feud. Devil Judd had taken
+no active part in it for a long time, she said, except to keep it
+down--especially since he and her father had had a “fallin' out” and
+the two families did not visit much--though she and her cousin June
+sometimes spent the night with each other.
+
+“You won't be able to git over thar till long atter dark,” she said, and
+she caught her breath so suddenly and so sharply that Hale turned to see
+what the matter was. She searched his face with her black eyes, which
+were like June's without the depths of June's.
+
+“I was just a-wonderin' if mebbe you wasn't the same feller that was
+over in Lonesome last fall.”
+
+“Maybe I am--my name's Hale.” The girl laughed. “Well, if this ain't the
+beatenest! I've heerd June talk about you. My brother Dave don't like
+you overmuch,” she added frankly. “I reckon we'll see Dave purty soon.
+If this ain't the beatenest!” she repeated, and she laughed again, as
+she always did laugh, it seemed to Hale, when there was any prospect of
+getting him into trouble.
+
+“You can't git over thar till long atter dark,” she said again
+presently.
+
+“Is there any place on the way where I can get to stay all night?”
+
+“You can stay all night with the Red Fox on top of the mountain.”
+
+“The Red Fox,” repeated Hale.
+
+“Yes, he lives right on top of the mountain. You can't miss his house.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I remember him. I saw him talking to one of the Falins in town
+to-day, behind the barn, when I went to get my horse.”
+
+“You--seed--him--a-talkin'--to a Falin AFORE the trouble come up?” the
+girl asked slowly and with such significance that Hale turned to look
+at her. He felt straightway that he ought not to have said that, and
+the day was to come when he would remember it to his cost. He knew how
+foolish it was for the stranger to show sympathy with, or interest
+in, one faction or another in a mountain feud, but to give any kind of
+information of one to the other--that was unwise indeed. Ahead of them
+now, a little stream ran from a ravine across the road. Beyond was a
+cabin; in the doorway were several faces, and sitting on a horse at the
+gate was young Dave Tolliver.
+
+“Well, I git down here,” said the girl, and before his mule stopped she
+slid from behind him and made for the gate without a word of thanks or
+good-by.
+
+“Howdye!” said Hale, taking in the group with his glance, but leaving
+his eyes on young Dave. The rest nodded, but the boy was too surprised
+for speech, and the spirit of deviltry took the girl when she saw her
+brother's face, and at the gate she turned:
+
+“Much obleeged,” she said. “Tell June I'm a-comin' over to see her next
+Sunday.”
+
+“I will,” said Hale, and he rode on. To his surprise, when he had gone a
+hundred yards, he heard the boy spurring after him and he looked around
+inquiringly as young Dave drew alongside; but the boy said nothing and
+Hale, amused, kept still, wondering when the lad would open speech. At
+the mouth of another little creek the boy stopped his horse as though
+he was to turn up that way. “You've come back agin,” he said, searching
+Hale's face with his black eyes.
+
+“Yes,” said Hale, “I've come back again.”
+
+“You goin' over to Lonesome Cove?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The boy hesitated, and a sudden change of mind was plain to Hale in his
+face. “I wish you'd tell Uncle Judd about the trouble in town to-day,”
+ he said, still looking fixedly at Hale.
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Did you tell the Red Fox that day you seed him when you was goin' over
+to the Gap last fall that you seed me at Uncle Judd's?”
+
+“No,” said Hale. “But how did you know that I saw the Red Fox that day?”
+ The boy laughed unpleasantly.
+
+“So long,” he said. “See you agin some day.” The way was steep and the
+sun was down and darkness gathering before Hale reached the top of the
+mountain--so he hallooed at the yard fence of the Red Fox, who peered
+cautiously out of the door and asked his name before he came to the
+gate. And there, with a grin on his curious mismatched face, he repeated
+young Dave's words:
+
+“You've come back agin.” And Hale repeated his:
+
+“Yes, I've come back again.”
+
+“You goin' over to Lonesome Cove?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hale impatiently, “I'm going over to Lonesome Cove. Can I
+stay here all night?”
+
+“Shore!” said the old man hospitably. “That's a fine hoss you got
+thar,” he added with a chuckle. “Been swappin'?” Hale had to laugh as he
+climbed down from the bony ear-flopping beast.
+
+“I left my horse in town--he's lame.”
+
+“Yes, I seed you thar.” Hale could not resist: “Yes, and I seed you.”
+ The old man almost turned.
+
+“Whar?” Again the temptation was too great.
+
+“Talking to the Falin who started the row.” This time the Red Fox
+wheeled sharply and his pale-blue eyes filled with suspicion.
+
+“I keeps friends with both sides,” he said. “Ain't many folks can do
+that.”
+
+“I reckon not,” said Hale calmly, but in the pale eyes he still saw
+suspicion.
+
+When they entered the cabin, a little old woman in black, dumb and
+noiseless, was cooking supper. The children of the two, he learned, had
+scattered, and they lived there alone. On the mantel were two pistols
+and in one corner was the big Winchester he remembered and behind it
+was the big brass telescope. On the table was a Bible and a volume of
+Swedenborg, and among the usual strings of pepper-pods and beans and
+twisted long green tobacco were drying herbs and roots of all kinds, and
+about the fireplace were bottles of liquids that had been stewed from
+them. The little old woman served, and opened her lips not at all.
+Supper was eaten with no further reference to the doings in town that
+day, and no word was said about their meeting when Hale first went to
+Lonesome Cove until they were smoking on the porch.
+
+“I heerd you found some mighty fine coal over in Lonesome Cove.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found somethin' else thar, too,”
+ chuckled the Red Fox.
+
+“I did,” said Hale coolly, and the old man chuckled again.
+
+“She's a purty leetle gal--shore.”
+
+“Who is?” asked Hale, looking calmly at his questioner, and the Red Fox
+lapsed into baffled silence.
+
+The moon was brilliant and the night was still. Suddenly the Red Fox
+cocked his ear like a hound, and without a word slipped swiftly within
+the cabin. A moment later Hale heard the galloping of a horse and from
+out the dark woods loped a horseman with a Winchester across his saddle
+bow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could shout “Hello” the Red
+Fox had stepped from the porch into the moonlight and was going to
+meet him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful, daring figure on
+horseback, and in the bright light he could make out the reckless face
+of the man who had been the first to flash his pistol in town that
+day--Bad Rufe Tolliver. For ten minutes the two talked in whispers--Rufe
+bent forward with one elbow on the withers of his horse but lifting his
+eyes every now and then to the stranger seated in the porch--and then
+the horseman turned with an oath and galloped into the darkness whence
+he came, while the Red Fox slouched back to the porch and dropped
+silently into his seat.
+
+“Who was that?” asked Hale.
+
+“Bad Rufe Tolliver.”
+
+“I've heard of him.”
+
+“Most everybody in these mountains has. He's the feller that's always
+causin' trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end
+the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don't count
+now an' he's got the right to come back. Soon's he comes back, things
+git frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn't go back unless another Falin
+goes too. Wirt Falin agreed, and that's how they made peace to-day. Now
+Rufe says he won't go at all--truce or no truce. My wife in thar is
+a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of
+'em.”
+
+No doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or mischief with or against
+anybody with that face of his. That was a common type of the bad man,
+that horseman who had galloped away from the gate--but this old man with
+his dual face, who preached the Word on Sundays and on other days was a
+walking arsenal; who dreamed dreams and had visions and slipped through
+the hills in his mysterious moccasins on errands of mercy or chasing men
+from vanity, personal enmity or for fun, and still appeared so sane--he
+was a type that confounded. No wonder for these reasons and as a tribute
+to his infernal shrewdness he was known far and wide as the Red Fox
+of the Mountains. But Hale was too tired for further speculation and
+presently he yawned.
+
+“Want to lay down?” asked the old man quickly.
+
+“I think I do,” said Hale, and they went inside. The little old woman
+had her face to the wall in a bed in one corner and the Red Fox pointed
+to a bed in the other:
+
+“Thar's yo' bed.” Again Hale's eyes fell on the big Winchester.
+
+“I reckon thar hain't more'n two others like it in all these mountains.”
+
+“What's the calibre?”
+
+“Biggest made,” was the answer, “a 50 x 75.”
+
+“Centre fire?”
+
+“Rim,” said the Red Fox.
+
+“Gracious,” laughed Hale, “what do you want such a big one for?”
+
+“Man cannot live by bread alone--in these mountains,” said the Red Fox
+grimly.
+
+When Hale lay down he could hear the old man quavering out a hymn or two
+on the porch outside: and when, worn out with the day, he went to sleep,
+the Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a tallow dip. It is
+fatefully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look
+back to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot
+that night in the cabin of the Red Fox. For had Bad Rufe Tolliver, while
+he whispered at the gate, known the part the quiet young man silently
+seated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where
+he sat: and could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was
+to play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Hale opened his eyes next morning on the little old woman in black,
+moving ghost-like through the dim interior to the kitchen. A wood-thrush
+was singing when he stepped out on the porch and its cool notes had the
+liquid freshness of the morning. Breakfast over, he concluded to leave
+the yellow mule with the Red Fox to be taken back to the county town,
+and to walk down the mountain, but before he got away the landlord's son
+turned up with his own horse, still lame, but well enough to limp along
+without doing himself harm. So, leading the black horse, Hale started
+down.
+
+The sun was rising over still seas of white mist and wave after wave
+of blue Virginia hills. In the shadows below, it smote the mists into
+tatters; leaf and bush glittered as though after a heavy rain, and down
+Hale went under a trembling dew-drenched world and along a tumbling
+series of water-falls that flashed through tall ferns, blossoming laurel
+and shining leaves of rhododendron. Once he heard something move below
+him and then the crackling of brush sounded far to one side of the
+road. He knew it was a man who would be watching him from a covert and,
+straightway, to prove his innocence of any hostile or secret purpose, he
+began to whistle. Farther below, two men with Winchesters rose from
+the bushes and asked his name and his business. He told both readily.
+Everybody, it seemed, was prepared for hostilities and, though the news
+of the patched-up peace had spread, it was plain that the factions were
+still suspicious and on guard. Then the loneliness almost of Lonesome
+Cove itself set in. For miles he saw nothing alive but an occasional
+bird and heard no sound but of running water or rustling leaf. At the
+mouth of the creek his horse's lameness had grown so much better that
+he mounted him and rode slowly up the river. Within an hour he could
+see the still crest of the Lonesome Pine. At the mouth of a creek a
+mile farther on was an old gristmill with its water-wheel asleep, and
+whittling at the door outside was the old miller, Uncle Billy Beams,
+who, when he heard the coming of the black horse's feet, looked up and
+showed no surprise at all when he saw Hale.
+
+“I heard you was comin',” he shouted, hailing him cheerily by name.
+“Ain't fishin' this time!”
+
+“No,” said Hale, “not this time.”
+
+“Well, git down and rest a spell. June'll be here in a minute an' you
+can ride back with her. I reckon you air goin' that a-way.”
+
+“June!”
+
+“Shore! My, but she'll be glad to see ye! She's always talkin' about ye.
+You told her you was comin' back an' ever'body told her you wasn't: but
+that leetle gal al'ays said she KNOWED you was, because you SAID you
+was. She's growed some--an' if she ain't purty, well I'd tell a man! You
+jes' tie yo' hoss up thar behind the mill so she can't see it, an' git
+inside the mill when she comes round that bend thar. My, but hit'll be a
+surprise fer her.”
+
+The old man chuckled so cheerily that Hale, to humour him, hitched his
+horse to a sapling, came back and sat in the door of the mill. The old
+man knew all about the trouble in town the day before.
+
+“I want to give ye a leetle advice. Keep yo' mouth plum' shut about this
+here war. I'm Jestice of the Peace, but that's the only way I've kept
+outen of it fer thirty years; an' hit's the only way you can keep outen
+it.”
+
+“Thank you, I mean to keep my mouth shut, but would you mind--”
+
+“Git in!” interrupted the old man eagerly. “Hyeh she comes.” His kind
+old face creased into a welcoming smile, and between the logs of the
+mill Hale, inside, could see an old sorrel horse slowly coming through
+the lights and shadows down the road. On its back was a sack of corn and
+perched on the sack was a little girl with her bare feet in the hollows
+behind the old nag's withers. She was looking sidewise, quite hidden by
+a scarlet poke-bonnet, and at the old man's shout she turned the smiling
+face of little June. With an answering cry, she struck the old nag with
+a switch and before the old man could rise to help her down, slipped
+lightly to the ground.
+
+“Why, honey,” he said, “I don't know whut I'm goin' to do 'bout yo'
+corn. Shaft's broke an' I can't do no grindin' till to-morrow.”
+
+“Well, Uncle Billy, we ain't got a pint o' meal in the house,” she said.
+“You jes' got to LEND me some.”
+
+“All right, honey,” said the old man, and he cleared his throat as a
+signal for Hale.
+
+The little girl was pushing her bonnet back when Hale stepped into sight
+and, unstartled, unsmiling, unspeaking, she looked steadily at him--one
+hand motionless for a moment on her bronze heap of hair and then
+slipping down past her cheek to clench the other tightly. Uncle Billy
+was bewildered.
+
+“Why, June, hit's Mr. Hale--why---”
+
+“Howdye, June!” said Hale, who was no less puzzled--and still she gave
+no sign that she had ever seen him before except reluctantly to give him
+her hand. Then she turned sullenly away and sat down in the door of the
+mill with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.
+
+Dumfounded, the old miller pulled the sack of corn from the horse
+and leaned it against the mill. Then he took out his pipe, filled and
+lighted it slowly and turned his perplexed eyes to the sun.
+
+“Well, honey,” he said, as though he were doing the best he could with a
+difficult situation, “I'll have to git you that meal at the house. 'Bout
+dinner time now. You an' Mr. Hale thar come on and git somethin' to eat
+afore ye go back.”
+
+“I got to get on back home,” said June, rising.
+
+“No you ain't--I bet you got dinner fer yo' step-mammy afore you left,
+an' I jes' know you was aimin' to take a snack with me an' ole Hon.”
+ The little girl hesitated--she had no denial--and the old fellow smiled
+kindly.
+
+“Come on, now.”
+
+Little June walked on the other side of the miller from Hale back to the
+old man's cabin, two hundred yards up the road, answering his questions
+but not Hale's and never meeting the latter's eyes with her own. “Ole
+Hon,” the portly old woman whom Hale remembered, with brass-rimmed
+spectacles and a clay pipe in her mouth, came out on the porch and
+welcomed them heartily under the honeysuckle vines. Her mouth and face
+were alive with humour when she saw Hale, and her eyes took in both him
+and the little girl keenly. The miller and Hale leaned chairs against
+the wall while the girl sat at the entrance of the porch. Suddenly Hale
+went out to his horse and took out a package from his saddle-pockets.
+
+“I've got some candy in here for you,” he said smiling.
+
+“I don't want no candy,” she said, still not looking at him and with a
+little movement of her knees away from him.
+
+“Why, honey,” said Uncle Billy again, “whut IS the matter with ye? I
+thought ye was great friends.” The little girl rose hastily.
+
+“No, we ain't, nuther,” she said, and she whisked herself indoors. Hale
+put the package back with some embarrassment and the old miller laughed.
+
+“Well, well--she's a quar little critter; mebbe she's mad because you
+stayed away so long.”
+
+At the table June wanted to help ole Hon and wait to eat with her, but
+Uncle Billy made her sit down with him and Hale, and so shy was she that
+she hardly ate anything. Once only did she look up from her plate and
+that was when Uncle Billy, with a shake of his head, said:
+
+“He's a bad un.” He was speaking of Rufe Tolliver, and at the mention of
+his name there was a frightened look in the little girl's eyes, when she
+quickly raised them, that made Hale wonder.
+
+An hour later they were riding side by side--Hale and June--on through
+the lights and shadows toward Lonesome Cove. Uncle Billy turned back
+from the gate to the porch.
+
+“He ain't come back hyeh jes' fer coal,” said ole Hon.
+
+“Shucks!” said Uncle Billy; “you women-folks can't think 'bout nothin'
+'cept one thing. He's too old fer her.”
+
+“She'll git ole enough fer HIM--an' you menfolks don't think less--you
+jes' talk less.” And she went back into the kitchen, and on the porch
+the old miller puffed on a new idea in his pipe.
+
+For a few minutes the two rode in silence and not yet had June lifted
+her eyes to him.
+
+“You've forgotten me, June.”
+
+“No, I hain't, nuther.”
+
+“You said you'd be waiting for me.” June's lashes went lower still.
+
+“I was.”
+
+“Well, what's the matter? I'm mighty sorry I couldn't get back sooner.”
+
+“Huh!” said June scornfully, and he knew Uncle Billy in his guess as to
+the trouble was far afield, and so he tried another tack.
+
+“I've been over to the county seat and I saw lots of your kinfolks over
+there.” She showed no curiosity, no surprise, and still she did not look
+up at him.
+
+“I met your cousin, Loretta, over there and I carried her home behind me
+on an old mule”--Hale paused, smiling at the remembrance--and still she
+betrayed no interest.
+
+“She's a mighty pretty girl, and whenever I'd hit that old---”
+
+“She hain't!”--the words were so shrieked out that Hale was bewildered,
+and then he guessed that the falling out between the fathers was more
+serious than he had supposed.
+
+“But she isn't as nice as you are,” he added quickly, and the girl's
+quivering mouth steadied, the tears stopped in her vexed dark eyes and
+she lifted them to him at last.
+
+“She ain't?”
+
+“No, indeed, she ain't.”
+
+For a while they rode along again in silence. June no longer avoided his
+eyes now, and the unspoken question in her own presently came out:
+
+“You won't let Uncle Rufe bother me no more, will ye?”
+
+“No, indeed, I won't,” said Hale heartily. “What does he do to you?”
+
+“Nothin'--'cept he's always a-teasin' me, an'--an' I'm afeered o' him.”
+
+“Well, I'll take care of Uncle Rufe.”
+
+“I knowed YOU'D say that,” she said. “Pap and Dave always laughs at me,”
+ and she shook her head as though she were already threatening her
+bad uncle with what Hale would do to him, and she was so serious and
+trustful that Hale was curiously touched. By and by he lifted one flap
+of his saddle-pockets again.
+
+“I've got some candy here for a nice little girl,” he said, as though
+the subject had not been mentioned before. “It's for you. Won't you have
+some?”
+
+“I reckon I will,” she said with a happy smile.
+
+Hale watched her while she munched a striped stick of peppermint. Her
+crimson bonnet had fallen from her sunlit hair and straight down from it
+to her bare little foot with its stubbed toe just darkening with dried
+blood, a sculptor would have loved the rounded slenderness in the
+curving long lines that shaped her brown throat, her arms and her hands,
+which were prettily shaped but so very dirty as to the nails, and her
+dangling bare leg. Her teeth were even and white, and most of them
+flashed when her red lips smiled. Her lashes were long and gave a
+touching softness to her eyes even when she was looking quietly at him,
+but there were times, as he had noticed already, when a brooding
+look stole over them, and then they were the lair for the mysterious
+loneliness that was the very spirit of Lonesome Cove. Some day that
+little nose would be long enough, and some day, he thought, she would be
+very beautiful.
+
+“Your cousin, Loretta, said she was coming over to see you.”
+
+June's teeth snapped viciously through the stick of candy and then she
+turned on him and behind the long lashes and deep down in the depth of
+those wonderful eyes he saw an ageless something that bewildered him
+more than her words.
+
+“I hate her,” she said fiercely.
+
+“Why, little girl?” he said gently.
+
+“I don't know--” she said--and then the tears came in earnest and she
+turned her head, sobbing. Hale helplessly reached over and patted her on
+the shoulder, but she shrank away from him.
+
+“Go away!” she said, digging her fist into her eyes until her face was
+calm again.
+
+They had reached the spot on the river where he had seen her first, and
+beyond, the smoke of the cabin was rising above the undergrowth.
+
+“Lordy!” she said, “but I do git lonesome over hyeh.”
+
+“Wouldn't you like to go over to the Gap with me sometimes?”
+
+Straightway her face was a ray of sunlight.
+
+“Would--I like--to--go--over--”
+
+She stopped suddenly and pulled in her horse, but Hale had heard
+nothing.
+
+“Hello!” shouted a voice from the bushes, and Devil Judd Tolliver issued
+from them with an axe on his shoulder. “I heerd you'd come back an'
+I'm glad to see ye.” He came down to the road and shook Hale's hand
+heartily.
+
+“Whut you been cryin' about?” he added, turning his hawk-like eyes on
+the little girl.
+
+“Nothin',” she said sullenly.
+
+“Did she git mad with ye 'bout somethin'?” said the old man to Hale.
+“She never cries 'cept when she's mad.” Hale laughed.
+
+“You jes' hush up--both of ye,” said the girl with a sharp kick of her
+right foot.
+
+“I reckon you can't stamp the ground that fer away from it,” said the
+old man dryly. “If you don't git the better of that all-fired temper o'
+yourn hit's goin' to git the better of you, an' then I'll have to spank
+you agin.”
+
+“I reckon you ain't goin' to whoop me no more, pap. I'm a-gittin' too
+big.”
+
+The old man opened eyes and mouth with an indulgent roar of laughter.
+
+“Come on up to the house,” he said to Hale, turning to lead the way, the
+little girl following him. The old step-mother was again a-bed; small
+Bub, the brother, still unafraid, sat down beside Hale and the old man
+brought out a bottle of moonshine.
+
+“I reckon I can still trust ye,” he said.
+
+“I reckon you can,” laughed Hale.
+
+The liquor was as fiery as ever, but it was grateful, and again the
+old man took nearly a tumbler full plying Hale, meanwhile, about the
+happenings in town the day before--but Hale could tell him nothing that
+he seemed not already to know.
+
+“It was quar,” the old mountaineer said. “I've seed two men with the
+drap on each other and both afeerd to shoot, but I never heerd of sech a
+ring-around-the-rosy as eight fellers with bead on one another and not a
+shoot shot. I'm glad I wasn't thar.”
+
+He frowned when Hale spoke of the Red Fox.
+
+“You can't never tell whether that ole devil is fer ye or agin ye, but
+I've been plum' sick o' these doin's a long time now and sometimes
+I think I'll just pull up stakes and go West and git out of
+hit--altogether.”
+
+“How did you learn so much about yesterday--so soon?”
+
+“Oh, we hears things purty quick in these mountains. Little Dave
+Tolliver come over here last night.”
+
+“Yes,” broke in Bub, “and he tol' us how you carried Loretty from town
+on a mule behind ye, and she jest a-sassin' you, an' as how she said she
+was a-goin' to git you fer HER sweetheart.”
+
+Hale glanced by chance at the little girl. Her face was scarlet, and a
+light dawned.
+
+“An' sis, thar, said he was a-tellin' lies--an' when she growed up she
+said she was a-goin' to marry---”
+
+Something snapped like a toy-pistol and Bub howled. A little brown hand
+had whacked him across the mouth, and the girl flashed indoors without
+a word. Bub got to his feet howling with pain and rage and started after
+her, but the old man caught him:
+
+“Set down, boy! Sarved you right fer blabbin' things that hain't yo'
+business.” He shook with laughter.
+
+Jealousy! Great heavens--Hale thought--in that child, and for him!
+
+“I knowed she was cryin' 'bout something like that. She sets a great
+store by you, an' she's studied them books you sent her plum' to pieces
+while you was away. She ain't nothin' but a baby, but in sartain ways
+she's as old as her mother was when she died.” The amazing secret was
+out, and the little girl appeared no more until supper time, when she
+waited on the table, but at no time would she look at Hale or speak to
+him again. For a while the two men sat on the porch talking of the feud
+and the Gap and the coal on the old man's place, and Hale had no trouble
+getting an option for a year on the old man's land. Just as dusk was
+setting he got his horse.
+
+“You'd better stay all night.”
+
+“No, I'll have to get along.”
+
+The little girl did not appear to tell him goodby, and when he went to
+his horse at the gate, he called:
+
+“Tell June to come down here. I've got something for her.”
+
+“Go on, baby,” the old man said, and the little girl came shyly down to
+the gate. Hale took a brown-paper parcel from his saddle-bags, unwrapped
+it and betrayed the usual blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked doll.
+Only June did not know the like of it was in all the world. And as she
+caught it to her breast there were tears once more in her uplifted eyes.
+
+“How about going over to the Gap with me, little girl--some day?”
+
+He never guessed it, but there were a child and a woman before him now
+and both answered:
+
+“I'll go with ye anywhar.”
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Hale stopped a while to rest his horse at the base of the big pine. He
+was practically alone in the world. The little girl back there was
+born for something else than slow death in that God-forsaken cove, and
+whatever it was--why not help her to it if he could? With this thought
+in his brain, he rode down from the luminous upper world of the moon and
+stars toward the nether world of drifting mists and black ravines. She
+belonged to just such a night--that little girl--she was a part of its
+mists, its lights and shadows, its fresh wild beauty and its mystery.
+Only once did his mind shift from her to his great purpose, and that was
+when the roar of the water through the rocky chasm of the Gap made him
+think of the roar of iron wheels, that, rushing through, some day, would
+drown it into silence. At the mouth of the Gap he saw the white valley
+lying at peace in the moonlight and straightway from it sprang again, as
+always, his castle in the air; but before he fell asleep in his cottage
+on the edge of the millpond that night he heard quite plainly again:
+
+“I'll go with ye--anywhar.”
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Spring was coming: and, meanwhile, that late autumn and short winter,
+things went merrily on at the gap in some ways, and in some ways--not.
+
+Within eight miles of the place, for instance, the man fell ill--the man
+who was to take up Hale's options--and he had to be taken home. Still
+Hale was undaunted: here he was and here he would stay--and he would try
+again. Two other young men, Bluegrass Kentuckians, Logan and
+Macfarlan, had settled at the gap--both lawyers and both of pioneer,
+Indian-fighting blood. The report of the State geologist had been spread
+broadcast. A famous magazine writer had come through on horseback and
+had gone home and given a fervid account of the riches and the beauty of
+the region. Helmeted Englishmen began to prowl prospectively around the
+gap sixty miles to the southwest. New surveying parties were directing
+lines for the rocky gateway between the iron ore and the coal. Engineers
+and coal experts passed in and out. There were rumours of a furnace
+and a steel plant when the railroad should reach the place. Capital had
+flowed in from the East, and already a Pennsylvanian was starting a main
+entry into a ten-foot vein of coal up through the gap and was coking
+it. His report was that his own was better than the Connellsville coke,
+which was the standard: it was higher in carbon and lower in ash. The
+Ludlow brothers, from Eastern Virginia, had started a general store. Two
+of the Berkley brothers had come over from Bluegrass Kentucky and their
+family was coming in the spring. The bearded Senator up the valley, who
+was also a preacher, had got his Methodist brethren interested--and the
+community was further enriched by the coming of the Hon. Samuel Budd,
+lawyer and budding statesman. As a recreation, the Hon. Sam was an
+anthropologist: he knew the mountaineers from Virginia to Alabama and
+they were his pet illustrations of his pet theories of the effect of
+a mountain environment on human life and character. Hale took a great
+fancy to him from the first moment he saw his smooth, ageless, kindly
+face, surmounted by a huge pair of spectacles that were hooked behind
+two large ears, above which his pale yellow hair, parted in the middle,
+was drawn back with plaster-like precision. A mayor and a constable
+had been appointed, and the Hon. Sam had just finished his first
+case--Squire Morton and the Widow Crane, who ran a boarding-house, each
+having laid claim to three pigs that obstructed traffic in the town. The
+Hon. Sam was sitting by the stove, deep in thought, when Hale came
+into the hotel and he lifted his great glaring lenses and waited for no
+introduction:
+
+“Brother,” he said, “do you know twelve reliable witnesses come on
+the stand and SWORE them pigs belonged to the squire's sow, and twelve
+equally reliable witnesses SWORE them pigs belonged to the Widow Crane's
+sow? I shorely was a heap perplexed.”
+
+“That was curious.” The Hon. Sam laughed:
+
+“Well, sir, them intelligent pigs used both them sows as mothers, and
+may be they had another mother somewhere else. They would breakfast with
+the Widow Crane's sow and take supper with the squire's sow. And so them
+witnesses, too, was naturally perplexed.”
+
+Hale waited while the Hon. Sam puffed his pipe into a glow:
+
+“Believin', as I do, that the most important principle in law is
+mutually forgivin' and a square division o' spoils, I suggested a
+compromise. The widow said the squire was an old rascal an' thief and
+he'd never sink a tooth into one of them shoats, but that her lawyer
+was a gentleman--meanin' me--and the squire said the widow had been
+blackguardin' him all over town and he'd see her in heaven before she
+got one, but that HIS lawyer was a prince of the realm: so the other
+lawyer took one and I got the other.”
+
+“What became of the third?”
+
+The Hon. Sam was an ardent disciple of Sir Walter Scott:
+
+“Well, just now the mayor is a-playin' Gurth to that little runt for
+costs.”
+
+Outside, the wheels of the stage rattled, and as half a dozen strangers
+trooped in, the Hon. Sam waved his hand: “Things is comin'.”
+
+Things were coming. The following week “the booming editor” brought in
+a printing-press and started a paper. An enterprising Hoosier soon
+established a brick-plant. A geologist--Hale's predecessor in Lonesome
+Cove--made the Gap his headquarters, and one by one the vanguard of
+engineers, surveyors, speculators and coalmen drifted in. The wings of
+progress began to sprout, but the new town-constable soon tendered his
+resignation with informality and violence. He had arrested a Falin,
+whose companions straightway took him from custody and set him free.
+Straightway the constable threw his pistol and badge of office to the
+ground.
+
+“I've fit an' I've hollered fer help,” he shouted, almost crying with
+rage, “an' I've fit agin. Now this town can go to hell”: and he picked
+up his pistol but left his symbol of law and order in the dust. Next
+morning there was a new constable, and only that afternoon when Hale
+stepped into the Ludlow Brothers' store he found the constable already
+busy. A line of men with revolver or knife in sight was drawn up inside
+with their backs to Hale, and beyond them he could see the new constable
+with a man under arrest. Hale had not forgotten his promise to himself
+and he began now:
+
+“Come on,” he called quietly, and when the men turned at the sound of
+his voice, the constable, who was of sterner stuff than his predecessor,
+pushed through them, dragging his man after him.
+
+“Look here, boys,” said Hale calmly. “Let's not have any row. Let him go
+to the mayor's office. If he isn't guilty, the mayor will let him go. If
+he is, the mayor will give him bond. I'll go on it myself. But let's not
+have a row.”
+
+Now, to the mountain eye, Hale appeared no more than the ordinary man,
+and even a close observer would have seen no more than that his face was
+clean-cut and thoughtful, that his eye was blue and singularly clear
+and fearless, and that he was calm with a calmness that might come from
+anything else than stolidity of temperament--and that, by the way, is
+the self-control which counts most against the unruly passions of other
+men--but anybody near Hale, at a time when excitement was high and a
+crisis was imminent, would have felt the resultant of forces emanating
+from him that were beyond analysis. And so it was now--the curious power
+he instinctively had over rough men had its way.
+
+“Go on,” he continued quietly, and the constable went on with his
+prisoner, his friends following, still swearing and with their weapons
+in their hands. When constable and prisoner passed into the mayor's
+office, Hale stepped quickly after them and turned on the threshold with
+his arm across the door.
+
+“Hold on, boys,” he said, still good-naturedly. “The mayor can attend to
+this. If you boys want to fight anybody, fight me. I'm unarmed and you
+can whip me easily enough,” he added with a laugh, “but you mustn't come
+in here,” he concluded, as though the matter was settled beyond further
+discussion. For one instant--the crucial one, of course--the men
+hesitated, for the reason that so often makes superior numbers of no
+avail among the lawless--the lack of a leader of nerve--and without
+another word Hale held the door. But the frightened mayor inside let the
+prisoner out at once on bond and Hale, combining law and diplomacy, went
+on the bond.
+
+Only a day or two later the mountaineers, who worked at the brick-plant
+with pistols buckled around them, went on a strike and, that night, shot
+out the lights and punctured the chromos in their boarding-house. Then,
+armed with sticks, knives, clubs and pistols, they took a triumphant
+march through town. That night two knives and two pistols were whipped
+out by two of them in the same store. One of the Ludlows promptly blew
+out the light and astutely got under the counter. When the combatants
+scrambled outside, he locked the door and crawled out the back window.
+Next morning the brick-yard malcontents marched triumphantly again and
+Hale called for volunteers to arrest them. To his disgust only Logan,
+Macfarlan, the Hon. Sam Budd, and two or three others seemed willing to
+go, but when the few who would go started, Hale, leading them, looked
+back and the whole town seemed to be strung out after him. Below the
+hill, he saw the mountaineers drawn up in two bodies for battle and, as
+he led his followers towards them, the Hoosier owner of the plant rode
+out at a gallop, waving his hands and apparently beside himself with
+anxiety and terror.
+
+“Don't,” he shouted; “somebody'll get killed. Wait--they'll give up.” So
+Hale halted and the Hoosier rode back. After a short parley he came back
+to Hale to say that the strikers would give up, but when Logan started
+again, they broke and ran, and only three or four were captured. The
+Hoosier was delirious over his troubles and straightway closed his
+plant.
+
+“See,” said Hale in disgust. “We've got to do something now.”
+
+“We have,” said the lawyers, and that night on Hale's porch, the three,
+with the Hon. Sam Budd, pondered the problem. They could not build a
+town without law and order--they could not have law and order without
+taking part themselves, and even then they plainly would have their
+hands full. And so, that night, on the tiny porch of the little cottage
+that was Hale's sleeping-room and office, with the creaking of the one
+wheel of their one industry--the old grist-mill--making patient music
+through the rhododendron-darkness that hid the steep bank of the
+stream, the three pioneers forged their plan. There had been
+gentlemen-regulators a plenty, vigilance committees of gentlemen, and
+the Ku-Klux clan had been originally composed of gentlemen, as they all
+knew, but they meant to hew to the strict line of town-ordinance and
+common law and do the rough everyday work of the common policeman.
+So volunteer policemen they would be and, in order to extend their
+authority as much as possible, as county policemen they would be
+enrolled. Each man would purchase his own Winchester, pistol, billy,
+badge and a whistle--to call for help--and they would begin drilling and
+target-shooting at once. The Hon. Sam shook his head dubiously:
+
+“The natives won't understand.”
+
+“We can't help that,” said Hale.
+
+“I know--I'm with you.”
+
+Hale was made captain, Logan first lieutenant, Macfarlan second, and the
+Hon. Sam third. Two rules, Logan, who, too, knew the mountaineer well,
+suggested as inflexible. One was never to draw a pistol at all unless
+necessary, never to pretend to draw as a threat or to intimidate, and
+never to draw unless one meant to shoot, if need be.
+
+“And the other,” added Logan, “always go in force to make an
+arrest--never alone unless necessary.” The Hon. Sam moved his head up
+and down in hearty approval.
+
+“Why is that?” asked Hale.
+
+“To save bloodshed,” he said. “These fellows we will have to deal with
+have a pride that is morbid. A mountaineer doesn't like to go home and
+have to say that one man put him in the calaboose--but he doesn't mind
+telling that it took several to arrest him. Moreover, he will give in
+to two or three men, when he would look on the coming of one man as a
+personal issue and to be met as such.”
+
+Hale nodded.
+
+“Oh, there'll be plenty of chances,” Logan added with a smile, “for
+everyone to go it alone.” Again the Hon. Sam nodded grimly. It was
+plain to him that they would have all they could do, but no one of them
+dreamed of the far-reaching effect that night's work would bring.
+
+They were the vanguard of civilization--“crusaders of the nineteenth
+century against the benighted of the Middle Ages,” said the Hon. Sam,
+and when Logan and Macfarlan left, he lingered and lit his pipe.
+
+“The trouble will be,” he said slowly, “that they won't understand our
+purpose or our methods. They will look on us as a lot of meddlesome
+'furriners' who have come in to run their country as we please, when
+they have been running it as they please for more than a hundred years.
+You see, you mustn't judge them by the standards of to-day--you must
+go back to the standards of the Revolution. Practically, they are the
+pioneers of that day and hardly a bit have they advanced. They are
+our contemporary ancestors.” And then the Hon. Sam, having dropped his
+vernacular, lounged ponderously into what he was pleased to call his
+anthropological drool.
+
+“You see, mountains isolate people and the effect of isolation on
+human life is to crystallize it. Those people over the line have had
+no navigable rivers, no lakes, no wagon roads, except often the beds of
+streams. They have been cut off from all communication with the outside
+world. They are a perfect example of an arrested civilization and they
+are the closest link we have with the Old World. They were Unionists
+because of the Revolution, as they were Americans in the beginning
+because of the spirit of the Covenanter. They live like the pioneers;
+the axe and the rifle are still their weapons and they still have the
+same fight with nature. This feud business is a matter of clan-loyalty
+that goes back to Scotland. They argue this way: You are my friend or
+my kinsman, your quarrel is my quarrel, and whoever hits you hits me.
+If you are in trouble, I must not testify against you. If you are an
+officer, you must not arrest me; you must send me a kindly request to
+come into court. If I'm innocent and it's perfectly convenient--why,
+maybe I'll come. Yes, we're the vanguard of civilization, all right, all
+right--but I opine we're goin' to have a hell of a merry time.”
+
+Hale laughed, but he was to remember those words of the Hon. Samuel
+Budd. Other members of that vanguard began to drift in now by twos and
+threes from the bluegrass region of Kentucky and from the tide-water
+country of Virginia and from New England--strong, bold young men with
+the spirit of the pioneer and the birth, breeding and education of
+gentlemen, and the war between civilization and a lawlessness that was
+the result of isolation, and consequent ignorance and idleness started
+in earnest.
+
+“A remarkable array,” murmured the Hon. Sam, when he took an inventory
+one night with Hale, “I'm proud to be among 'em.”
+
+Many times Hale went over to Lonesome Cove and with every visit his
+interest grew steadily in the little girl and in the curious people
+over there, until he actually began to believe in the Hon. Sam Budd's
+anthropological theories. In the cabin on Lonesome Cove was a crane
+swinging in the big stone fireplace, and he saw the old step-mother and
+June putting the spinning wheel and the loom to actual use. Sometimes
+he found a cabin of unhewn logs with a puncheon floor, clapboards for
+shingles and wooden pin and auger holes for nails; a batten wooden
+shutter, the logs filled with mud and stones and holes in the roof for
+the wind and the rain. Over a pair of buck antlers sometimes lay the
+long heavy home-made rifle of the backwoodsman--sometimes even with a
+flintlock and called by some pet feminine name. Once he saw the hominy
+block that the mountaineers had borrowed from the Indians, and once a
+handmill like the one from which the one woman was taken and the
+other left in biblical days. He struck communities where the medium of
+exchange was still barter, and he found mountaineers drinking metheglin
+still as well as moonshine. Moreover, there were still log-rollings,
+house-warmings, corn-shuckings, and quilting parties, and sports were
+the same as in pioneer days--wrestling, racing, jumping, and lifting
+barrels. Often he saw a cradle of beegum, and old Judd had in his house
+a fox-horn made of hickory bark which even June could blow. He ran
+across old-world superstitions, too, and met one seventh son of a
+seventh son who cured children of rash by blowing into their mouths. And
+he got June to singing transatlantic songs, after old Judd said one day
+that she knowed the “miserablest song he'd ever heerd”--meaning the most
+sorrowful. And, thereupon, with quaint simplicity, June put her heels on
+the rung of her chair, and with her elbows on her knees, and her chin
+on both bent thumbs, sang him the oldest version of “Barbara Allen” in a
+voice that startled Hale by its power and sweetness. She knew lots more
+“song-ballets,” she said shyly, and the old man had her sing some songs
+that were rather rude, but were as innocent as hymns from her lips.
+
+Everywhere he found unlimited hospitality.
+
+“Take out, stranger,” said one old fellow, when there was nothing on
+the table but some bread and a few potatoes, “have a tater. Take two of
+'em--take damn nigh ALL of 'em.”
+
+Moreover, their pride was morbid, and they were very religious. Indeed,
+they used religion to cloak their deviltry, as honestly as it was ever
+used in history. He had heard old Judd say once, when he was speaking of
+the feud:
+
+“Well, I've al'ays laid out my enemies. The Lord's been on my side an' I
+gits a better Christian every year.”
+
+Always Hale took some children's book for June when he went to Lonesome
+Cove, and she rarely failed to know it almost by heart when he went
+again. She was so intelligent that he began to wonder if, in her case,
+at least, another of the Hon. Sam's theories might not be true--that
+the mountaineers were of the same class as the other westward-sweeping
+emigrants of more than a century before, that they had simply lain
+dormant in the hills and--a century counting for nothing in the matter
+of inheritance--that their possibilities were little changed, and
+that the children of that day would, if given the chance, wipe out the
+handicap of a century in one generation and take their place abreast
+with children of the outside world. The Tollivers were of good blood;
+they had come from Eastern Virginia, and the original Tolliver had
+been a slave-owner. The very name was, undoubtedly, a corruption of
+Tagliaferro. So, when the Widow Crane began to build a brick house for
+her boarders that winter, and the foundations of a school-house were
+laid at the Gap, Hale began to plead with old Judd to allow June to go
+over to the Gap and go to school, but the old man was firm in refusal:
+
+“He couldn't git along without her,” he said; “he was afeerd he'd
+lose her, an' he reckoned June was a-larnin' enough without goin' to
+school--she was a-studyin' them leetle books o' hers so hard.” But as
+his confidence in Hale grew and as Hale stated his intention to take an
+option on the old man's coal lands, he could see that Devil Judd, though
+his answer never varied, was considering the question seriously.
+
+Through the winter, then, Hale made occasional trips to Lonesome Cove
+and bided his time. Often he met young Dave Tolliver there, but the
+boy usually left when Hale came, and if Hale was already there, he kept
+outside the house, until the engineer was gone.
+
+Knowing nothing of the ethics of courtship in the mountains--how, when
+two men meet at the same girl's house, “they makes the gal say which one
+she likes best and t'other one gits”--Hale little dreamed that the first
+time Dave stalked out of the room, he threw his hat in the grass
+behind the big chimney and executed a war-dance on it, cursing the
+blankety-blank “furriner” within from Dan to Beersheba.
+
+Indeed, he never suspected the fierce depths of the boy's jealousy at
+all, and he would have laughed incredulously, if he had been told how,
+time after time as he climbed the mountain homeward, the boy's black
+eyes burned from the bushes on him, while his hand twitched at his
+pistol-butt and his lips worked with noiseless threats. For Dave had
+to keep his heart-burnings to himself or he would have been laughed
+at through all the mountains, and not only by his own family, but by
+June's; so he, too, bided his time.
+
+In late February, old Buck Falin and old Dave Tolliver shot each other
+down in the road and the Red Fox, who hated both and whom each thought
+was his friend, dressed the wounds of both with equal care. The
+temporary lull of peace that Bad Rufe's absence in the West had brought
+about, gave way to a threatening storm then, and then it was that old
+Judd gave his consent: when the roads got better, June could go to the
+Gap to school. A month later the old man sent word that he did not want
+June in the mountains while the trouble was going on, and that Hale
+could come over for her when he pleased: and Hale sent word back that
+within three days he would meet the father and the little girl at the
+big Pine. That last day at home June passed in a dream. She went through
+her daily tasks in a dream and she hardly noticed young Dave when he
+came in at mid-day, and Dave, when he heard the news, left in sullen
+silence. In the afternoon she went down to the mill to tell Uncle Billy
+and ole Hon good-by and the three sat in the porch a long time and with
+few words. Ole Hon had been to the Gap once, but there was “so much
+bustle over thar it made her head ache.” Uncle Billy shook his head
+doubtfully over June's going, and the two old people stood at the gate
+looking long after the little girl when she went homeward up the road.
+Before supper June slipped up to her little hiding-place at the pool and
+sat on the old log saying good-by to the comforting spirit that always
+brooded for her there, and, when she stood on the porch at sunset, a
+new spirit was coming on the wings of the South wind. Hale felt it as
+he stepped into the soft night air; he heard it in the piping of
+frogs--“Marsh-birds,” as he always called them; he could almost see it
+in the flying clouds and the moonlight and even the bare trees seemed
+tremulously expectant. An indefinable happiness seemed to pervade the
+whole earth and Hale stretched his arms lazily. Over in Lonesome Cove
+little June felt it more keenly than ever in her life before. She did
+not want to go to bed that night, and when the others were asleep she
+slipped out to the porch and sat on the steps, her eyes luminous and her
+face wistful--looking towards the big Pine which pointed the way towards
+the far silence into which she was going at last.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+June did not have to be awakened that morning. At the first clarion call
+of the old rooster behind the cabin, her eyes opened wide and a happy
+thrill tingled her from head to foot--why, she didn't at first quite
+realize--and then she stretched her slender round arms to full length
+above her head and with a little squeal of joy bounded out of the bed,
+dressed as she was when she went into it, and with no changes to make
+except to push back her tangled hair. Her father was out feeding the
+stock and she could hear her step-mother in the kitchen. Bub still slept
+soundly, and she shook him by the shoulder.
+
+“Git up, Bub.”
+
+“Go 'way,” said Bub fretfully. Again she started to shake him but
+stopped--Bub wasn't going to the Gap, so she let him sleep. For a little
+while she looked down at him--at his round rosy face and his frowsy hair
+from under which protruded one dirty fist. She was going to leave him,
+and a fresh tenderness for him made her breast heave, but she did not
+kiss him, for sisterly kisses are hardly known in the hills. Then she
+went out into the kitchen to help her step-mother.
+
+“Gittin' mighty busy, all of a sudden, ain't ye,” said the sour old
+woman, “now that ye air goin' away.”
+
+“'Tain't costin' you nothin',” answered June quietly, and she picked up
+a pail and went out into the frosty, shivering daybreak to the old well.
+The chain froze her fingers, the cold water splashed her feet, and when
+she had tugged her heavy burden back to the kitchen, she held her red,
+chapped hands to the fire.
+
+“I reckon you'll be mighty glad to git shet o' me.” The old woman
+sniffled, and June looked around with a start.
+
+“Pears like I'm goin' to miss ye right smart,” she quavered, and June's
+face coloured with a new feeling towards her step-mother.
+
+“I'm goin' ter have a hard time doin' all the work and me so poorly.”
+
+“Lorrety is a-comin' over to he'p ye, if ye git sick,” said June,
+hardening again. “Or, I'll come back myself.” She got out the dishes and
+set them on the table.
+
+“You an' me don't git along very well together,” she went on placidly.
+“I never heerd o' no step-mother and children as did, an' I reckon
+you'll be might glad to git shet o' me.”
+
+“Pears like I'm going to miss ye a right smart,” repeated the old woman
+weakly.
+
+June went out to the stable with the milking pail. Her father had spread
+fodder for the cow and she could hear the rasping of the ears of corn
+against each other as he tumbled them into the trough for the old
+sorrel. She put her head against the cow's soft flank and under her
+sinewy fingers two streams of milk struck the bottom of the tin pail
+with such thumping loudness that she did not hear her father's step;
+but when she rose to make the beast put back her right leg, she saw him
+looking at her.
+
+“Who's goin' ter milk, pap, atter I'm gone?”
+
+“This the fust time you thought o' that?” June put her flushed cheek
+back to the flank of the cow. It was not the first time she had thought
+of that--her step-mother would milk and if she were ill, her father or
+Loretta. She had not meant to ask that question--she was wondering when
+they would start. That was what she meant to ask and she was glad that
+she had swerved. Breakfast was eaten in the usual silence by the boy and
+the man--June and the step-mother serving it, and waiting on the lord
+that was and the lord that was to be--and then the two females sat down.
+
+“Hurry up, June,” said the old man, wiping his mouth and beard with the
+back of his hand. “Clear away the dishes an' git ready. Hale said he
+would meet us at the Pine an' hour by sun, fer I told him I had to git
+back to work. Hurry up, now!”
+
+June hurried up. She was too excited to eat anything, so she began
+to wash the dishes while her step-mother ate. Then she went into the
+living-room to pack her things and it didn't take long. She wrapped the
+doll Hale had given her in an extra petticoat, wound one pair of yarn
+stockings around a pair of coarse shoes, tied them up into one bundle
+and she was ready. Her father appeared with the sorrel horse, caught up
+his saddle from the porch, threw it on and stretched the blanket behind
+it as a pillion for June to ride on.
+
+“Let's go!” he said. There is little or no demonstrativeness in the
+domestic relations of mountaineers. The kiss of courtship is the only
+one known. There were no good-bys--only that short “Let's go!”
+
+June sprang behind her father from the porch. The step-mother handed her
+the bundle which she clutched in her lap, and they simply rode away, the
+step-mother and Bub silently gazing after them. But June saw the boy's
+mouth working, and when she turned the thicket at the creek, she looked
+back at the two quiet figures, and a keen pain cut her heart. She
+shut her mouth closely, gripped her bundle more tightly and the tears
+streamed down her face, but the man did not know. They climbed in
+silence. Sometimes her father dismounted where the path was steep, but
+June sat on the horse to hold the bundle and thus they mounted through
+the mist and chill of the morning. A shout greeted them from the top of
+the little spur whence the big Pine was visible, and up there they found
+Hale waiting. He had reached the Pine earlier than they and was coming
+down to meet them.
+
+“Hello, little girl,” called Hale cheerily, “you didn't fail me, did
+you?”
+
+June shook her head and smiled. Her face was blue and her little legs,
+dangling under the bundle, were shrinking from the cold. Her bonnet had
+fallen to the back of her neck, and he saw that her hair was parted and
+gathered in a Psyche knot at the back of her head, giving her a quaint
+old look when she stood on the ground in her crimson gown. Hale had not
+forgotten a pillion and there the transfer was made. Hale lifted her
+behind his saddle and handed up her bundle.
+
+“I'll take good care of her,” he said.
+
+“All right,” said the old man.
+
+“And I'm coming over soon to fix up that coal matter, and I'll let you
+know how she's getting on.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Good-by,” said Hale.
+
+“I wish ye well,” said the mountaineer. “Be a good girl, Juny, and do
+what Mr. Hale thar tells ye.”
+
+“All right, pap.” And thus they parted. June felt the power of Hale's
+big black horse with exultation the moment he started.
+
+“Now we're off,” said Hale gayly, and he patted the little hand that was
+about his waist. “Give me that bundle.”
+
+“I can carry it.”
+
+“No, you can't--not with me,” and when he reached around for it and
+put it on the cantle of his saddle, June thrust her left hand into his
+overcoat pocket and Hale laughed.
+
+“Loretta wouldn't ride with me this way.”
+
+“Loretty ain't got much sense,” drawled June complacently. “'Tain't no
+harm. But don't you tell me! I don't want to hear nothin' 'bout Loretty
+noway.” Again Hale laughed and June laughed, too. Imp that she was, she
+was just pretending to be jealous now. She could see the big Pine over
+his shoulder.
+
+“I've knowed that tree since I was a little girl--since I was a baby,”
+ she said, and the tone of her voice was new to Hale. “Sister Sally uster
+tell me lots about that ole tree.” Hale waited, but she stopped again.
+
+“What did she tell you?”
+
+“She used to say hit was curious that hit should be 'way up here all
+alone--that she reckollected it ever since SHE was a baby, and she used
+to come up here and talk to it, and she said sometimes she could hear it
+jus' a whisperin' to her when she was down home in the cove.”
+
+“What did she say it said?”
+
+“She said it was always a-whisperin' 'come--come--come!'” June crooned
+the words, “an' atter she died, I heerd the folks sayin' as how she
+riz up in bed with her eyes right wide an' sayin' “I hears it! It's
+a-whisperin'--I hears it--come--come--come'!” And still Hale kept quiet
+when she stopped again.
+
+“The Red Fox said hit was the sperits, but I knowed when they told me
+that she was a thinkin' o' that ole tree thar. But I never let on. I
+reckon that's ONE reason made me come here that day.” They were close to
+the big tree now and Hale dismounted to fix his girth for the descent.
+
+“Well, I'm mighty glad you came, little girl. I might never have seen
+you.”
+
+“That's so,” said June. “I saw the print of your foot in the mud right
+there.”
+
+“Did ye?”
+
+“And if I hadn't, I might never have gone down into Lonesome Cove.” June
+laughed.
+
+“You ran from me,” Hale went on.
+
+“Yes, I did: an' that's why you follered me.” Hale looked up quickly.
+Her face was demure, but her eyes danced. She was an aged little thing.
+
+“Why did you run?”
+
+“I thought yo' fishin' pole was a rifle-gun an' that you was a raider.”
+ Hale laughed--“I see.”
+
+“'Member when you let yo' horse drink?” Hale nodded. “Well, I was on a
+rock above the creek, lookin' down at ye. An' I seed ye catchin' minners
+an' thought you was goin' up the crick lookin' fer a still.”
+
+“Weren't you afraid of me then?”
+
+“Huh!” she said contemptuously. “I wasn't afeared of you at all, 'cept
+fer what you mought find out. You couldn't do no harm to nobody without
+a gun, and I knowed thar wasn't no still up that crick. I know--I knowed
+whar it was.” Hale noticed the quick change of tense.
+
+“Won't you take me to see it some time?”
+
+“No!” she said shortly, and Hale knew he had made a mistake. It was too
+steep for both to ride now, so he tied the bundle to the cantle with
+leathern strings and started leading the horse. June pointed to the edge
+of the cliff.
+
+“I was a-layin' flat right thar and I seed you comin' down thar. My,
+but you looked funny to me! You don't now,” she added hastily. “You look
+mighty nice to me now--!”
+
+“You're a little rascal,” said Hale, “that's what you are.” The little
+girl bubbled with laughter and then she grew mock-serious.
+
+“No, I ain't.”
+
+“Yes, you are,” he repeated, shaking his head, and both were silent for
+a while. June was going to begin her education now and it was just as
+well for him to begin with it now. So he started vaguely when he was
+mounted again:
+
+“June, you thought my clothes were funny when you first saw them--didn't
+you?”
+
+“Uh, huh!” said June.
+
+“But you like them now?”
+
+“Uh, huh!” she crooned again.
+
+“Well, some people who weren't used to clothes that people wear over
+in the mountains might think THEM funny for the same reason--mightn't
+they?” June was silent for a moment.
+
+“Well, mebbe, I like your clothes better, because I like you better,”
+ she said, and Hale laughed.
+
+“Well, it's just the same--the way people in the mountains dress and
+talk is different from the way people outside dress and talk. It doesn't
+make much difference about clothes, though, I guess you will want to be
+as much like people over here as you can--”
+
+“I don't know,” interrupted the little girl shortly, “I ain't seed 'em
+yit.”
+
+“Well,” laughed Hale, “you will want to talk like them anyhow, because
+everybody who is learning tries to talk the same way.” June was silent,
+and Hale plunged unconsciously on.
+
+“Up at the Pine now you said, 'I SEED you when I was A-LAYIN on the
+edge of the cliff'; now you ought to have said, 'I SAW you when I was
+LYING--'”
+
+“I wasn't,” she said sharply, “I don't tell lies--” her hand shot from
+his waist and she slid suddenly to the ground. He pulled in his horse
+and turned a bewildered face. She had lighted on her feet and was poised
+back above him like an enraged eaglet--her thin nostrils quivering, her
+mouth as tight as a bow-string, and her eyes two points of fire.
+
+“Why--June!”
+
+“Ef you don't like my clothes an' the way I talk, I reckon I'd better go
+back home.” With a groan Hale tumbled from his horse. Fool that he was,
+he had forgotten the sensitive pride of the mountaineer, even while he
+was thinking of that pride. He knew that fun might be made of her speech
+and her garb by her schoolmates over at the Gap, and he was trying to
+prepare her--to save her mortification, to make her understand.
+
+“Why, June, little girl, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You don't
+understand--you can't now, but you will. Trust me, won't you? _I_ like
+you just as you are. I LOVE the way you talk. But other people--forgive
+me, won't you?” he pleaded. “I'm sorry. I wouldn't hurt you for the
+world.”
+
+She didn't understand--she hardly heard what he said, but she did know
+his distress was genuine and his sorrow: and his voice melted her fierce
+little heart. The tears began to come, while she looked, and when he put
+his arms about her, she put her face on his breast and sobbed.
+
+“There now!” he said soothingly. “It's all right now. I'm so sorry--so
+very sorry,” and he patted her on the shoulder and laid his hand across
+her temple and hair, and pressed her head tight to his breast. Almost as
+suddenly she stopped sobbing and loosening herself turned away from him.
+
+“I'm a fool--that's what I am,” she said hotly.
+
+“No, you aren't! Come on, little girl! We're friends again, aren't we?”
+ June was digging at her eyes with both hands.
+
+“Aren't we?”
+
+“Yes,” she said with an angry little catch of her breath, and she turned
+submissively to let him lift her to her seat. Then she looked down into
+his face.
+
+“Jack,” she said, and he started again at the frank address, “I ain't
+NEVER GOIN' TO DO THAT NO MORE.”
+
+“Yes, you are, little girl,” he said soberly but cheerily. “You're goin'
+to do it whenever I'm wrong or whenever you think I'm wrong.” She shook
+her head seriously.
+
+“No, Jack.”
+
+In a few minutes they were at the foot of the mountain and on a level
+road.
+
+“Hold tight!” Hale shouted, “I'm going to let him out now.” At the
+touch of his spur, the big black horse sprang into a gallop, faster and
+faster, until he was pounding the hard road in a swift run like thunder.
+At the creek Hale pulled in and looked around. June's bonnet was down,
+her hair was tossed, her eyes were sparkling fearlessly, and her face
+was flushed with joy.
+
+“Like it, June?”
+
+“I never did know nothing like it.”
+
+“You weren't scared?”
+
+“Skeered o' what?” she asked, and Hale wondered if there was anything of
+which she would be afraid.
+
+They were entering the Gap now and June's eyes got big with wonder over
+the mighty up-shooting peaks and the rushing torrent.
+
+“See that big rock yonder, June?” June craned her neck to follow with
+her eyes his outstretched finger.
+
+“Uh, huh.”
+
+“Well, that's called Bee Rock, because it's covered with flowers--purple
+rhododendrons and laurel--and bears used to go there for wild honey.
+They say that once on a time folks around here put whiskey in the honey
+and the bears got so drunk that people came and knocked 'em in the head
+with clubs.”
+
+“Well, what do you think o' that!” said June wonderingly.
+
+Before them a big mountain loomed, and a few minutes later, at the mouth
+of the Gap, Hale stopped and turned his horse sidewise.
+
+“There we are, June,” he said.
+
+June saw the lovely little valley rimmed with big mountains. She could
+follow the course of the two rivers that encircled it by the trees that
+fringed their banks, and she saw smoke rising here and there and that
+was all. She was a little disappointed.
+
+“It's mighty purty,” she said, “I never seed”--she paused, but went on
+without correcting herself--“so much level land in all my life.”
+
+The morning mail had just come in as they rode by the post-office and
+several men hailed her escort, and all stared with some wonder at her.
+Hale smiled to himself, drew up for none and put on a face of utter
+unconsciousness that he was doing anything unusual. June felt vaguely
+uncomfortable. Ahead of them, when they turned the corner of the street,
+her eyes fell on a strange tall red house with yellow trimmings, that
+was not built of wood and had two sets of windows one above the other,
+and before that Hale drew up.
+
+“Here we are. Get down, little girl.”
+
+“Good-morning!” said a voice. Hale looked around and flushed, and
+June looked around and stared--transfixed as by a vision from another
+world--at the dainty figure behind them in a walking suit, a short skirt
+that showed two little feet in laced tan boots and a cap with a plume,
+under which was a pair of wide blue eyes with long lashes, and a mouth
+that suggested active mischief and gentle mockery.
+
+“Oh, good-morning,” said Hale, and he added gently, “Get down, June!”
+
+The little girl slipped to the ground and began pulling her bonnet on
+with both hands--but the newcomer had caught sight of the Psyche knot
+that made June look like a little old woman strangely young, and the
+mockery at her lips was gently accentuated by a smile. Hale swung from
+his saddle.
+
+“This is the little girl I told you about, Miss Anne,” he said. “She's
+come over to go to school.” Instantly, almost, Miss Anne had been melted
+by the forlorn looking little creature who stood before her, shy for the
+moment and dumb, and she came forward with her gloved hand outstretched.
+But June had seen that smile. She gave her hand, and Miss Anne
+straightway was no little surprised; there was no more shyness in the
+dark eyes that blazed from the recesses of the sun-bonnet, and Miss Anne
+was so startled when she looked into them that all she could say was:
+“Dear me!” A portly woman with a kind face appeared at the door of the
+red brick house and came to the gate.
+
+“Here she is, Mrs. Crane,” called Hale.
+
+“Howdye, June!” said the Widow Crane kindly. “Come right in!” In her
+June knew straightway she had a friend and she picked up her bundle and
+followed upstairs--the first real stairs she had ever seen--and into
+a room on the floor of which was a rag carpet. There was a bed in one
+corner with a white counterpane and a washstand with a bowl and pitcher,
+which, too, she had never seen before.
+
+“Make yourself at home right now,” said the Widow Crane, pulling open a
+drawer under a big looking-glass--“and put your things here. That's your
+bed,” and out she went.
+
+How clean it was! There were some flowers in a glass vase on the mantel.
+There were white curtains at the big window and a bed to herself--her
+own bed. She went over to the window. There was a steep bank, lined with
+rhododendrons, right under it. There was a mill-dam below and down the
+stream she could hear the creaking of a water-wheel, and she could see
+it dripping and shining in the sun--a gristmill! She thought of Uncle
+Billy and ole Hon, and in spite of a little pang of home-sickness she
+felt no loneliness at all.
+
+“I KNEW she would be pretty,” said Miss Anne at the gate outside.
+
+“I TOLD you she was pretty,” said Hale.
+
+“But not so pretty as THAT,” said Miss Anne. “We will be great friends.”
+
+“I hope so--for her sake,” said Hale.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Hale waited till noon-recess was nearly over, and then he went to take
+June to the school-house. He was told that she was in her room and he
+went up and knocked at the door. There was no answer--for one does not
+knock on doors for entrance in the mountains, and, thinking he had made
+a mistake, he was about to try another room, when June opened the door
+to see what the matter was. She gave him a glad smile.
+
+“Come on,” he said, and when she went for her bonnet, he stepped into
+the room.
+
+“How do you like it?” June nodded toward the window and Hale went to it.
+
+“That's Uncle Billy's mill out thar.”
+
+“Why, so it is,” said Hale smiling. “That's fine.”
+
+The school-house, to June's wonder, had shingles on the OUTSIDE around
+all the walls from roof to foundation, and a big bell hung on top of
+it under a little shingled roof of its own. A pale little man with
+spectacles and pale blue eyes met them at the door and he gave June a
+pale, slender hand and cleared his throat before he spoke to her.
+
+“She's never been to school,” said Hale; “she can read and spell, but
+she's not very strong on arithmetic.”
+
+“Very well, I'll turn her over to the primary.” The school-bell sounded;
+Hale left with a parting prophecy--“You'll be proud of her some day”--at
+which June blushed and then, with a beating heart, she followed the
+little man into his office. A few minutes later, the assistant came
+in, and she was none other than the wonderful young woman whom Hale had
+called Miss Anne. There were a few instructions in a halting voice and
+with much clearing of the throat from the pale little man; and a moment
+later June walked the gauntlet of the eyes of her schoolmates, every one
+of whom looked up from his book or hers to watch her as she went to her
+seat. Miss Anne pointed out the arithmetic lesson and, without lifting
+her eyes, June bent with a flushed face to her task. It reddened with
+shame when she was called to the class, for she sat on the bench, taller
+by a head and more than any of the boys and girls thereon, except
+one awkward youth who caught her eye and grinned with unashamed
+companionship. The teacher noticed her look and understood with a sudden
+keen sympathy, and naturally she was struck by the fact that the new
+pupil was the only one who never missed an answer.
+
+“She won't be there long,” Miss Anne thought, and she gave June a smile
+for which the little girl was almost grateful. June spoke to no one, but
+walked through her schoolmates homeward, when school was over, like a
+haughty young queen. Miss Anne had gone ahead and was standing at the
+gate talking with Mrs. Crane, and the young woman spoke to June most
+kindly.
+
+“Mr. Hale has been called away on business,” she said, and June's heart
+sank--“and I'm going to take care of you until he comes back.”
+
+“I'm much obleeged,” she said, and while she was not ungracious, her
+manner indicated her belief that she could take care of herself. And
+Miss Anne felt uncomfortably that this extraordinary young person
+was steadily measuring her from head to foot. June saw the smart
+close-fitting gown, the dainty little boots, and the carefully brushed
+hair. She noticed how white her teeth were and her hands, and she saw
+that the nails looked polished and that the tips of them were like
+little white crescents; and she could still see every detail when she
+sat at her window, looting down at the old mill. She SAW Mr. Hale when
+he left, the young lady had said; and she had a headache now and was
+going home to LIE down. She understood now what Hale meant, on the
+mountainside when she was so angry with him. She was learning fast, and
+most from the two persons who were not conscious what they were teaching
+her. And she would learn in the school, too, for the slumbering ambition
+in her suddenly became passionately definite now. She went to the mirror
+and looked at her hair--she would learn how to plait that in two braids
+down her back, as the other school-girls did. She looked at her hands
+and straightway she fell to scrubbing them with soap as she had never
+scrubbed them before. As she worked, she heard her name called and she
+opened the door.
+
+“Yes, mam!” she answered, for already she had picked that up in the
+school-room.
+
+“Come on, June, and go down the street with me.”
+
+“Yes, mam,” she repeated, and she wiped her hands and hurried down. Mrs.
+Crane had looked through the girl's pathetic wardrobe, while she was
+at school that afternoon, had told Hale before he left and she had a
+surprise for little June. Together they went down the street and into
+the chief store in town and, to June's amazement, Mrs. Crane began
+ordering things for “this little girl.”
+
+“Who's a-goin' to pay fer all these things?” whispered June, aghast.
+
+“Don't you bother, honey. Mr. Hale said he would fix all that with your
+pappy. It's some coal deal or something--don't you bother!” And June in
+a quiver of happiness didn't bother. Stockings, petticoats, some soft
+stuff for a new dress and TAN shoes that looked like the ones that
+wonderful young woman wore and then some long white things.
+
+“What's them fer?” she whispered, but the clerk heard her and laughed,
+whereat Mrs. Crane gave him such a glance that he retired quickly.
+
+“Night-gowns, honey.”
+
+“You SLEEP in 'em?” said June in an awed voice.
+
+“That's just what you do,” said the good old woman, hardly less pleased
+than June.
+
+“My, but you've got pretty feet.”
+
+“I wish they were half as purty as--”
+
+“Well, they are,” interrupted Mrs. Crane a little snappishly; apparently
+she did not like Miss Anne.
+
+“Wrap 'em up and Mr. Hale will attend to the bill.”
+
+“All right,” said the clerk looking much mystified.
+
+Outside the door, June looked up into the beaming goggles of the Hon.
+Samuel Budd.
+
+“Is THIS the little girl? Howdye, June,” he said, and June put her hand
+in the Hon. Sam's with a sudden trust in his voice.
+
+“I'm going to help take care of you, too,” said Mr. Budd, and June
+smiled at him with shy gratitude. How kind everybody was!
+
+“I'm much obleeged,” she said, and she and Mrs. Crane went on back with
+their bundles.
+
+June's hands so trembled when she found herself alone with her treasures
+that she could hardly unpack them. When she had folded and laid them
+away, she had to unfold them to look at them again. She hurried to
+bed that night merely that she might put on one of those wonderful
+night-gowns, and again she had to look all her treasures over. She was
+glad that she had brought the doll because HE had given it to her, but
+she said to herself “I'm a-gittin' too big now fer dolls!” and she put
+it away. Then she set the lamp on the mantel-piece so that she could see
+herself in her wonderful night-gown. She let her shining hair fall like
+molten gold around her shoulders, and she wondered whether she could
+ever look like the dainty creature that just now was the model she so
+passionately wanted to be like. Then she blew out the lamp and sat a
+while by the window, looking down through the rhododendrons, at the
+shining water and at the old water-wheel sleepily at rest in the
+moonlight. She knelt down then at her bedside to say her prayers--as
+her dead sister had taught her to do--and she asked God to bless
+Jack--wondering as she prayed that she had heard nobody else call him
+Jack--and then she lay down with her breast heaving. She had told him
+she would never do that again, but she couldn't help it now--the tears
+came and from happiness she cried herself softly to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Hale rode that night under a brilliant moon to the worm of a railroad
+that had been creeping for many years toward the Gap. The head of it was
+just protruding from the Natural Tunnel twenty miles away. There he
+sent his horse back, slept in a shanty till morning, and then the train
+crawled through a towering bench of rock. The mouth of it on the other
+side opened into a mighty amphitheatre with solid rock walls shooting
+vertically hundreds of feet upward. Vertically, he thought--with the
+back of his head between his shoulders as he looked up--they were more
+than vertical--they were actually concave. The Almighty had not only
+stored riches immeasurable in the hills behind him--He had driven this
+passage Himself to help puny man to reach them, and yet the wretched
+road was going toward them like a snail. On the fifth night, thereafter
+he was back there at the tunnel again from New York--with a grim mouth
+and a happy eye. He had brought success with him this time and there was
+no sleep for him that night. He had been delayed by a wreck, it was two
+o'clock in the morning, and not a horse was available; so he started
+those twenty miles afoot, and day was breaking when he looked down on
+the little valley shrouded in mist and just wakening from sleep.
+
+Things had been moving while he was away, as he quickly learned.
+The English were buying lands right and left at the gap sixty miles
+southwest. Two companies had purchased most of the town-site where he
+was--HIS town-site--and were going to pool their holdings and form an
+improvement company. But a good deal was left, and straightway Hale got
+a map from his office and with it in his hand walked down the curve of
+the river and over Poplar Hill and beyond. Early breakfast was ready
+when he got back to the hotel. He swallowed a cup of coffee so hastily
+that it burned him, and June, when she passed his window on her way to
+school, saw him busy over his desk. She started to shout to him, but
+he looked so haggard and grim that she was afraid, and went on, vaguely
+hurt by a preoccupation that seemed quite to have excluded her. For two
+hours then, Hale haggled and bargained, and at ten o'clock he went to
+the telegraph office. The operator who was speculating in a small way
+himself smiled when he read the telegram.
+
+“A thousand an acre?” he repeated with a whistle. “You could have got
+that at twenty-five per--three months ago.”
+
+“I know,” said Hale, “there's time enough yet.” Then he went to his
+room, pulled the blinds down and went to sleep, while rumour played with
+his name through the town.
+
+It was nearly the closing hour of school when, dressed and freshly
+shaven, he stepped out into the pale afternoon and walked up toward the
+schoolhouse. The children were pouring out of the doors. At the gate
+there was a sudden commotion, he saw a crimson figure flash into the
+group that had stopped there, and flash out, and then June came swiftly
+toward him followed closely by a tall boy with a cap on his head. That
+far away he could see that she was angry and he hurried toward her. Her
+face was white with rage, her mouth was tight and her dark eyes were
+aflame. Then from the group another tall boy darted out and behind
+him ran a smaller one, bellowing. Hale heard the boy with the cap call
+kindly:
+
+“Hold on, little girl! I won't let 'em touch you.” June stopped with him
+and Hale ran to them.
+
+“Here,” he called, “what's the matter?”
+
+June burst into crying when she saw him and leaned over the fence
+sobbing. The tall lad with the cap had his back to Hale, and he waited
+till the other two boys came up. Then he pointed to the smaller one and
+spoke to Hale without looking around.
+
+“Why, that little skate there was teasing this little girl and--”
+
+“She slapped him,” said Hale grimly. The lad with the cap turned. His
+eyes were dancing and the shock of curly hair that stuck from his absurd
+little cap shook with his laughter.
+
+“Slapped him! She knocked him as flat as a pancake.”
+
+“Yes, an' you said you'd stand fer her,” said the other tall boy who was
+plainly a mountain lad. He was near bursting with rage.
+
+“You bet I will,” said the boy with the cap heartily, “right now!” and
+he dropped his books to the ground.
+
+“Hold on!” said Hale, jumping between them. “You ought to be ashamed of
+yourself,” he said to the mountain boy.
+
+“I wasn't atter the gal,” he said indignantly. “I was comin' fer him.”
+
+The boy with the cap tried to get away from Hale's grasp.
+
+“No use, sir,” he said coolly. “You'd better let us settle it now. We'll
+have to do it some time. I know the breed. He'll fight all right and
+there's no use puttin' it off. It's got to come.”
+
+“You bet it's got to come,” said the mountain lad. “You can't call my
+brother names.”
+
+“Well, he IS a skate,” said the boy with the cap, with no heat at all in
+spite of his indignation, and Hale wondered at his aged calm.
+
+“Every one of you little tads,” he went on coolly, waving his hand at
+the gathered group, “is a skate who teases this little girl. And you
+older boys are skates for letting the little ones do it, the whole pack
+of you--and I'm going to spank any little tadpole who does it hereafter,
+and I'm going to punch the head off any big one who allows it. It's got
+to stop NOW!” And as Hale dragged him off he added to the mountain boy,
+“and I'm going to begin with you whenever you say the word.” Hale was
+laughing now.
+
+“You don't seem to understand,” he said, “this is my affair.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir, I don't understand.”
+
+“Why, I'm taking care of this little girl.”
+
+“Oh, well, you see I didn't know that. I've only been here two days.
+But”--his frank, generous face broke into a winning smile--“you don't go
+to school. You'll let me watch out for her there?”
+
+“Sure! I'll be very grateful.”
+
+“Not at all, sir--not at all. It was a great pleasure and I think I'll
+have lots of fun.” He looked at June, whose grateful eyes had hardly
+left his face.
+
+“So don't you soil your little fist any more with any of 'em, but just
+tell me--er--er--”
+
+“June,” she said, and a shy smile came through her tears.
+
+“June,” he finished with a boyish laugh. “Good-by sir.”
+
+“You haven't told me your name.”
+
+“I suppose you know my brothers, sir, the Berkleys.”
+
+“I should say so,” and Hale held out his hand. “You're Bob?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“I knew you were coming, and I'm mighty glad to see you. I hope you and
+June will be good friends and I'll be very glad to have you watch over
+her when I'm away.”
+
+“I'd like nothing better, sir,” he said cheerfully, and quite
+impersonally as far as June was concerned. Then his eyes lighted up.
+
+“My brothers don't seem to want me to join the Police Guard. Won't you
+say a word for me?”
+
+“I certainly will.”
+
+“Thank you, sir.”
+
+That “sir” no longer bothered Hale. At first he had thought it a mark
+of respect to his superior age, and he was not particularly pleased, but
+when he knew now that the lad was another son of the old gentleman whom
+he saw riding up the valley every morning on a gray horse, with
+several dogs trailing after him--he knew the word was merely a family
+characteristic of old-fashioned courtesy.
+
+“Isn't he nice, June?”
+
+“Yes,” she said.
+
+“Have you missed me, June?”
+
+June slid her hand into his. “I'm so glad you come back.” They were
+approaching the gate now.
+
+“June, you said you weren't going to cry any more.” June's head drooped.
+
+“I know, but I jes' can't help it when I git mad,” she said seriously.
+“I'd bust if I didn't.”
+
+“All right,” said Hale kindly.
+
+“I've cried twice,” she said.
+
+“What were you mad about the other time?”
+
+“I wasn't mad.”
+
+“Then why did you cry, June?”
+
+Her dark eyes looked full at him a moment and then her long lashes hid
+them.
+
+“Cause you was so good to me.”
+
+Hale choked suddenly and patted her on the shoulder.
+
+“Go in, now, little girl, and study. Then you must take a walk. I've got
+some work to do. I'll see you at supper time.”
+
+“All right,” said June. She turned at the gate to watch Hale enter the
+hotel, and as she started indoors, she heard a horse coming at a gallop
+and she turned again to see her cousin, Dave Tolliver, pull up in front
+of the house. She ran back to the gate and then she saw that he was
+swaying in his saddle.
+
+“Hello, June!” he called thickly.
+
+Her face grew hard and she made no answer.
+
+“I've come over to take ye back home.”
+
+She only stared at him rebukingly, and he straightened in his saddle
+with an effort at self-control--but his eyes got darker and he looked
+ugly.
+
+“D'you hear me? I've come over to take ye home.”
+
+“You oughter be ashamed o' yourself,” she said hotly, and she turned to
+go back into the house.
+
+“Oh, you ain't ready now. Well, git ready an' we'll start in the
+mornin'. I'll be aroun' fer ye 'bout the break o' day.”
+
+He whirled his horse with an oath--June was gone. She saw him ride
+swaying down the street and she ran across to the hotel and found Hale
+sitting in the office with another man. Hale saw her entering the door
+swiftly, he knew something was wrong and he rose to meet her.
+
+“Dave's here,” she whispered hurriedly, “an' he says he's come to take
+me home.”
+
+“Well,” said Hale, “he won't do it, will he?” June shook her head and
+then she said significantly:
+
+“Dave's drinkin'.”
+
+Hale's brow clouded. Straightway he foresaw trouble--but he said
+cheerily:
+
+“All right. You go back and keep in the house and I'll be over by and
+by and we'll talk it over.” And, without another word, she went. She had
+meant to put on her new dress and her new shoes and stockings that night
+that Hale might see her--but she was in doubt about doing it when she
+got to her room. She tried to study her lessons for the next day, but
+she couldn't fix her mind on them. She wondered if Dave might not get
+into a fight or, perhaps, he would get so drunk that he would go
+to sleep somewhere--she knew that men did that after drinking very
+much--and, anyhow, he would not bother her until next morning, and then
+he would be sober and would go quietly back home. She was so comforted
+that she got to thinking about the hair of the girl who sat in front of
+her at school. It was plaited and she had studied just how it was done
+and she began to wonder whether she could fix her own that way. So
+she got in front of the mirror and loosened hers in a mass about her
+shoulders--the mass that was to Hale like the golden bronze of a wild
+turkey's wing. The other girl's plaits were the same size, so that the
+hair had to be equally divided--thus she argued to herself--but how did
+that girl manage to plait it behind her back? She did it in front, of
+course, so June divided the bronze heap behind her and pulled one half
+of it in front of her and then for a moment she was helpless. Then
+she laughed--it must be done like the grass-blades and strings she had
+plaited for Bub, of course, so, dividing that half into three parts, she
+did the plaiting swiftly and easily. When it was finished she looked at
+the braid, much pleased--for it hung below her waist and was much longer
+than any of the other girls' at school. The transition was easy now, so
+interested had she become. She got out her tan shoes and stockings
+and the pretty white dress and put them on. The millpond was dark with
+shadows now, and she went down the stairs and out to the gate just as
+Dave again pulled up in front of it. He stared at the vision wonderingly
+and long, and then he began to laugh with the scorn of soberness and the
+silliness of drink.
+
+“YOU ain't June, air ye?” The girl never moved. As if by a preconcerted
+signal three men moved toward the boy, and one of them said sternly:
+
+“Drop that pistol. You are under arrest.' The boy glared like a wild
+thing trapped, from one to another of the three--a pistol gleamed in the
+hand of each--and slowly thrust his own weapon into his pocket.
+
+“Get off that horse,” added the stern voice. Just then Hale rushed
+across the street and the mountain youth saw him.
+
+“Ketch his pistol,” cried June, in terror for Hale--for she knew what
+was coming, and one of the men caught with both hands the wrist of
+Dave's arm as it shot behind him.
+
+“Take him to the calaboose!”
+
+At that June opened the gate--that disgrace she could never stand--but
+Hale spoke.
+
+“I know him, boys. He doesn't mean any harm. He doesn't know the
+regulations yet. Suppose we let him go home.”
+
+“All right,” said Logan. “The calaboose or home. Will you go home?”
+
+In the moment, the mountain boy had apparently forgotten his captors--he
+was staring at June with wonder, amazement, incredulity struggling
+through the fumes in his brain to his flushed face. She--a Tolliver--had
+warned a stranger against her own blood-cousin.
+
+“Will you go home?” repeated Logan sternly.
+
+The boy looked around at the words, as though he were half dazed, and
+his baffled face turned sick and white.
+
+“Lemme loose!” he said sullenly. “I'll go home.” And he rode silently
+away, after giving Hale a vindictive look that told him plainer than
+words that more was yet to come. Hale had heard June's warning cry, but
+now when he looked for her she was gone. He went in to supper and sat
+down at the table and still she did not come.
+
+“She's got a surprise for you,” said Mrs. Crane, smiling mysteriously.
+“She's been fixing for you for an hour. My! but she's pretty in them new
+clothes--why, June!”
+
+June was coming in--she wore her homespun, her scarlet homespun and the
+Psyche knot. She did not seem to have heard Mrs. Crane's note of wonder,
+and she sat quietly down in her seat. Her face was pale and she did not
+look at Hale. Nothing was said of Dave--in fact, June said nothing at
+all, and Hale, too, vaguely understanding, kept quiet. Only when he went
+out, Hale called her to the gate and put one hand on her head.
+
+“I'm sorry, little girl.”
+
+The girl lifted her great troubled eyes to him, but no word passed her
+lips, and Hale helplessly left her.
+
+June did not cry that night. She sat by the window--wretched and
+tearless. She had taken sides with “furriners” against her own people.
+That was why, instinctively, she had put on her old homespun with a
+vague purpose of reparation to them. She knew the story Dave would take
+back home--the bitter anger that his people and hers would feel at
+the outrage done him--anger against the town, the Guard, against Hale
+because he was a part of both and even against her. Dave was merely
+drunk, he had simply shot off his pistol--that was no harm in the
+hills. And yet everybody had dashed toward him as though he had stolen
+something--even Hale. Yes, even that boy with the cap who had stood up
+for her at school that afternoon--he had rushed up, his face aflame with
+excitement, eager to take part should Dave resist. She had cried out
+impulsively to save Hale, but Dave would not understand. No, in his eyes
+she had been false to family and friends--to the clan--she had sided
+with “furriners.” What would her father say? Perhaps she'd better go
+home next day--perhaps for good--for there was a deep unrest within her
+that she could not fathom, a premonition that she was at the parting of
+the ways, a vague fear of the shadows that hung about the strange new
+path on which her feet were set. The old mill creaked in the moonlight
+below her. Sometimes, when the wind blew up Lonesome Cove, she could
+hear Uncle Billy's wheel creaking just that way. A sudden pang of
+homesickness choked her, but she did not cry. Yes, she would go home
+next day. She blew out the light and undressed in the dark as she did
+at home and went to bed. And that night the little night-gown lay apart
+from her in the drawer--unfolded and untouched.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+But June did not go home. Hale anticipated that resolution of hers and
+forestalled it by being on hand for breakfast and taking June over to
+the porch of his little office. There he tried to explain to her that
+they were trying to build a town and must have law and order; that they
+must have no personal feeling for or against anybody and must treat
+everybody exactly alike--no other course was fair--and though June could
+not quite understand, she trusted him and she said she would keep on at
+school until her father came for her.
+
+“Do you think he will come, June?”
+
+The little girl hesitated.
+
+“I'm afeerd he will,” she said, and Hale smiled.
+
+“Well, I'll try to persuade him to let you stay, if he does come.”
+
+June was quite right. She had seen the matter the night before just
+as it was. For just at that hour young Dave, sobered, but still on the
+verge of tears from anger and humiliation, was telling the story of the
+day in her father's cabin. The old man's brows drew together and his
+eyes grew fierce and sullen, both at the insult to a Tolliver and at the
+thought of a certain moonshine still up a ravine not far away and the
+indirect danger to it in any finicky growth of law and order. Still he
+had a keen sense of justice, and he knew that Dave had not told all the
+story, and from him Dave, to his wonder, got scant comfort--for another
+reason as well: with a deal pending for the sale of his lands, the
+shrewd old man would not risk giving offence to Hale--not until that
+matter was settled, anyway. And so June was safer from interference
+just then than she knew. But Dave carried the story far and wide, and
+it spread as a story can only in the hills. So that the two people most
+talked about among the Tollivers and, through Loretta, among the Falins
+as well, were June and Hale, and at the Gap similar talk would come.
+Already Hale's name was on every tongue in the town, and there, because
+of his recent purchases of town-site land, he was already, aside from
+his personal influence, a man of mysterious power.
+
+Meanwhile, the prescient shadow of the coming “boom” had stolen over the
+hills and the work of the Guard had grown rapidly.
+
+Every Saturday there had been local lawlessness to deal with. The spirit
+of personal liberty that characterized the spot was traditional. Here
+for half a century the people of Wise County and of Lee, whose border
+was but a few miles down the river, came to get their wool carded, their
+grist ground and farming utensils mended. Here, too, elections were held
+viva voce under the beeches, at the foot of the wooded spur now known
+as Imboden Hill. Here were the muster-days of wartime. Here on Saturdays
+the people had come together during half a century for sport and
+horse-trading and to talk politics. Here they drank apple-jack and
+hard cider, chaffed and quarrelled and fought fist and skull. Here the
+bullies of the two counties would come together to decide who was the
+“best man.” Here was naturally engendered the hostility between the
+hill-dwellers of Wise and the valley people of Lee, and here was fought
+a famous battle between a famous bully of Wise and a famous bully of
+Lee. On election days the country people would bring in gingercakes
+made of cane-molasses, bread homemade of Burr flour and moonshine and
+apple-jack which the candidates would buy and distribute through the
+crowd. And always during the afternoon there were men who would try to
+prove themselves the best Democrats in the State of Virginia by resort
+to tooth, fist and eye-gouging thumb. Then to these elections sometimes
+would come the Kentuckians from over the border to stir up the hostility
+between state and state, which makes that border bristle with enmity to
+this day. For half a century, then, all wild oats from elsewhere usually
+sprouted at the Gap. And thus the Gap had been the shrine of personal
+freedom--the place where any one individual had the right to do his
+pleasure with bottle and cards and politics and any other the right to
+prove him wrong if he were strong enough. Very soon, as the Hon. Sam
+Budd predicted, they had the hostility of Lee concentrated on them as
+siding with the county of Wise, and they would gain, in addition
+now, the general hostility of the Kentuckians, because as a crowd of
+meddlesome “furriners” they would be siding with the Virginians in the
+general enmity already alive. Moreover, now that the feud threatened
+activity over in Kentucky, more trouble must come, too, from that
+source, as the talk that came through the Gap, after young Dave
+Tolliver's arrest, plainly indicated.
+
+Town ordinances had been passed. The wild centaurs were no longer
+allowed to ride up and down the plank walks of Saturdays with their
+reins in their teeth and firing a pistol into the ground with either
+hand; they could punctuate the hotel sign no more; they could not ride
+at a fast gallop through the streets of the town, and, Lost Spirit of
+American Liberty!--they could not even yell. But the lawlessness of the
+town itself and its close environment was naturally the first objective
+point, and the first problem involved was moonshine and its faithful
+ally “the blind tiger.” The “tiger” is a little shanty with an ever-open
+mouth--a hole in the door like a post-office window. You place your
+money on the sill and, at the ring of the coin, a mysterious arm emerges
+from the hole, sweeps the money away and leaves a bottle of white
+whiskey. Thus you see nobody's face; the owner of the beast is safe, and
+so are you--which you might not be, if you saw and told. In every little
+hollow about the Gap a tiger had his lair, and these were all bearded at
+once by a petition to the county judge for high license saloons,
+which was granted. This measure drove the tigers out of business, and
+concentrated moonshine in the heart of the town, where its devotees
+were under easy guard. One “tiger” only indeed was left, run by a
+round-shouldered crouching creature whom Bob Berkley--now at Hale's
+solicitation a policeman and known as the Infant of the Guard--dubbed
+Caliban. His shanty stood midway in the Gap, high from the road, set
+against a dark clump of pines and roared at by the river beneath.
+Everybody knew he sold whiskey, but he was too shrewd to be caught,
+until, late one afternoon, two days after young Dave's arrest, Hale
+coming through the Gap into town glimpsed a skulking figure with a
+hand-barrel as it slipped from the dark pines into Caliban's cabin. He
+pulled in his horse, dismounted and deliberated. If he went on down the
+road now, they would see him and suspect. Moreover, the patrons of the
+tiger would not appear until after dark, and he wanted a prisoner or
+two. So Hale led his horse up into the bushes and came back to a covert
+by the roadside to watch and wait. As he sat there, a merry whistle
+sounded down the road, and Hale smiled. Soon the Infant of the Guard
+came along, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his head,
+his pistol bumping his hip in manly fashion and making the ravines echo
+with his pursed lips. He stopped in front of Hale, looked toward the
+river, drew his revolver and aimed it at a floating piece of wood. The
+revolver cracked, the piece of wood skidded on the surface of the water
+and there was no splash.
+
+“That was a pretty good shot,” said Hale in a low voice. The boy whirled
+and saw him.
+
+“Well-what are you--?”
+
+“Easy--easy!” cautioned Hale. “Listen! I've just seen a moonshiner go
+into Caliban's cabin.” The boy's eager eyes sparkled.
+
+“Let's go after him.”
+
+“No, you go on back. If you don't, they'll be suspicious. Get another
+man”--Hale almost laughed at the disappointment in the lad's face at his
+first words, and the joy that came after it--“and climb high above the
+shanty and come back here to me. Then after dark we'll dash in and cinch
+Caliban and his customers.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the lad. “Shall I whistle going back?” Hale nodded
+approval.
+
+“Just the same.” And off Bob went, whistling like a calliope and not
+even turning his head to look at the cabin. In half an hour Hale thought
+he heard something crashing through the bushes high on the mountain
+side, and, a little while afterward, the boy crawled through the bushes
+to him alone. His cap was gone, there was a bloody scratch across his
+face and he was streaming with perspiration.
+
+“You'll have to excuse me, sir,” he panted, “I didn't see anybody but
+one of my brothers, and if I had told him, he wouldn't have let ME come.
+And I hurried back for fear--for fear something would happen.”
+
+“Well, suppose I don't let you go.”
+
+“Excuse me, sir, but I don't see how you can very well help. You aren't
+my brother and you can't go alone.”
+
+“I was,” said Hale.
+
+“Yes, sir, but not now.”
+
+Hale was worried, but there was nothing else to be done.
+
+“All right. I'll let you go if you stop saying 'sir' to me. It makes me
+feel so old.”
+
+“Certainly, sir,” said the lad quite unconsciously, and when Hale
+smothered a laugh, he looked around to see what had amused him. Darkness
+fell quickly, and in the gathering gloom they saw two more figures skulk
+into the cabin.
+
+“We'll go now--for we want the fellow who's selling the moonshine.”
+
+Again Hale was beset with doubts about the boy and his own
+responsibility to the boy's brothers. The lad's eyes were shining,
+but his face was more eager than excited and his hand was as steady as
+Hale's own.
+
+“You slip around and station yourself behind that pine-tree just behind
+the cabin”--the boy looked crestfallen--“and if anybody tries to get out
+of the back door--you halt him.”
+
+“Is there a back door?”
+
+“I don't know,” Hale said rather shortly. “You obey orders. I'm not your
+brother, but I'm your captain.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir. Shall I go now?”
+
+“Yes, you'll hear me at the front door. They won't make any resistance.”
+ The lad stepped away with nimble caution high above the cabin, and he
+even took his shoes off before he slid lightly down to his place behind
+the pine. There was no back door, only a window, and his disappointment
+was bitter. Still, when he heard Hale at the front door, he meant to
+make a break for that window, and he waited in the still gloom. He could
+hear the rough talk and laughter within and now and then the clink of a
+tin cup. By and by there was a faint noise in front of the cabin, and he
+steadied his nerves and his beating heart. Then he heard the door pushed
+violently in and Hale's cry:
+
+“Surrender!”
+
+Hale stood on the threshold with his pistol outstretched in his right
+hand. The door had struck something soft and he said sharply again:
+
+“Come out from behind that door--hands up!”
+
+At the same moment, the back window flew open with a bang and Bob's
+pistol covered the edge of the opened door. “Caliban” had rolled from
+his box like a stupid animal. Two of his patrons sat dazed and staring
+from Hale to the boy's face at the window. A mountaineer stood in one
+corner with twitching fingers and shifting eyes like a caged wild thing
+and forth issued from behind the door, quivering with anger--young Dave
+Tolliver. Hale stared at him amazed, and when Dave saw Hale, such a wave
+of fury surged over his face that Bob thought it best to attract his
+attention again; which he did by gently motioning at him with the barrel
+of his pistol.
+
+“Hold on, there,” he said quietly, and young Dave stood still.
+
+“Climb through that window, Bob, and collect the batteries,” said Hale.
+
+“Sure, sir,” said the lad, and with his pistol still prominently in the
+foreground he threw his left leg over the sill and as he climbed in he
+quoted with a grunt: “Always go in force to make an arrest.” Grim and
+serious as it was, with June's cousin glowering at him, Hale could not
+help smiling.
+
+“You didn't go home, after all,” said Hale to young Dave, who clenched
+his hands and his lips but answered nothing; “or, if you did, you got
+back pretty quick.” And still Dave was silent.
+
+“Get 'em all, Bob?” In answer the boy went the rounds--feeling the
+pocket of each man's right hip and his left breast.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Unload 'em!”
+
+The lad “broke” each of the four pistols, picked up a piece of twine and
+strung them together through each trigger-guard.
+
+“Close that window and stand here at the door.”
+
+With the boy at the door, Hale rolled the hand-barrel to the threshold
+and the white liquor gurgled joyously on the steps.
+
+“All right, come along,” he said to the captives, and at last young Dave
+spoke:
+
+“Whut you takin' me fer?”
+
+Hale pointed to the empty hand-barrel and Dave's answer was a look of
+scorn.
+
+“I nuvver brought that hyeh.”
+
+“You were drinking illegal liquor in a blind tiger, and if you didn't
+bring it you can prove that later. Anyhow, we'll want you as a witness,”
+ and Hale looked at the other mountaineer, who had turned his eyes
+quickly to Dave. Caliban led the way with young Dave, and Hale walked
+side by side with them while Bob was escort for the other two. The road
+ran along a high bank, and as Bob was adjusting the jangling weapons
+on his left arm, the strange mountaineer darted behind him and leaped
+headlong into the tops of thick rhododendron. Before Hale knew what had
+happened the lad's pistol flashed.
+
+“Stop, boy!” he cried, horrified. “Don't shoot!” and he had to catch
+the lad to keep him from leaping after the runaway. The shot had missed;
+they heard the runaway splash into the river and go stumbling across it
+and then there was silence. Young Dave laughed:
+
+“Uncle Judd'll be over hyeh to-morrow to see about this.” Hale said
+nothing and they went on. At the door of the calaboose Dave balked and
+had to be pushed in by main force. They left him weeping and cursing
+with rage.
+
+“Go to bed, Bob,” said Hale.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Bob; “just as soon as I get my lessons.”
+
+Hale did not go to the boarding-house that night--he feared to face
+June. Instead he went to the hotel to scraps of a late supper and then
+to bed. He had hardly touched the pillow, it seemed, when somebody
+shook him by the shoulder. It was Macfarlan, and daylight was streaming
+through the window.
+
+“A gang of those Falins are here,” Macfarlan said, “and they're after
+young Dave Tolliver--about a dozen of 'em. Young Buck is with them, and
+the sheriff. They say he shot a man over the mountains yesterday.”
+
+Hale sprang for his clothes--here was a quandary.
+
+“If we turn him over to them--they'll kill him.” Macfarlan nodded.
+
+“Of course, and if we leave him in that weak old calaboose, they'll get
+more help and take him out to-night.”
+
+“Then we'll take him to the county jail.”
+
+“They'll take him away from us.”
+
+“No, they won't. You go out and get as many shotguns as you can find and
+load them with buckshot.”
+
+Macfarlan nodded approvingly and disappeared. Hale plunged his face in
+a basin of cold water, soaked his hair and, as he was mopping his face
+with a towel, there was a ponderous tread on the porch, the door opened
+without the formality of a knock, and Devil Judd Tolliver, with his hat
+on and belted with two huge pistols, stepped stooping within. His eyes,
+red with anger and loss of sleep, were glaring, and his heavy moustache
+and beard showed the twitching of his mouth.
+
+“Whar's Dave?” he said shortly.
+
+“In the calaboose.”
+
+“Did you put him in?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hale calmly.
+
+“Well, by God,” the old man said with repressed fury, “you can't git him
+out too soon if you want to save trouble.”
+
+“Look here, Judd,” said Hale seriously. “You are one of the last men
+in the world I want to have trouble with for many reasons; but I'm an
+officer over here and I'm no more afraid of you”--Hale paused to let
+that fact sink in and it did--“than you are of me. Dave's been selling
+liquor.”
+
+“He hain't,” interrupted the old mountaineer. “He didn't bring that
+liquor over hyeh. I know who done it.”
+
+“All right,” said Hale; “I'll take your word for it and I'll let him
+out, if you say so, but---”
+
+“Right now,” thundered old Judd.
+
+“Do you know that young Buck Falin and a dozen of his gang are over here
+after him?” The old man looked stunned.
+
+“Whut--now?”
+
+“They're over there in the woods across the river NOW and they want me
+to give him up to them. They say they have the sheriff with them and
+they want him for shooting a man on Leatherwood Creek, day before
+yesterday.”
+
+“It's all a lie,” burst out old Judd. “They want to kill him.”
+
+“Of course--and I was going to take him up to the county jail right away
+for safe-keeping.”
+
+“D'ye mean to say you'd throw that boy into jail and then fight them
+Falins to pertect him?” the old man asked slowly and incredulously. Hale
+pointed to a two-store building through his window.
+
+“If you get in the back part of that store at a window, you can see
+whether I will or not. I can summon you to help, and if a fight comes up
+you can do your share from the window.”
+
+The old man's eyes lighted up like a leaping flame.
+
+“Will you let Dave out and give him a Winchester and help us fight 'em?”
+ he said eagerly. “We three can whip 'em all.”
+
+“No,” said Hale shortly. “I'd try to keep both sides from fighting, and
+I'd arrest Dave or you as quickly as I would a Falin.”
+
+The average mountaineer has little conception of duty in the abstract,
+but old Judd belonged to the better class--and there are many of
+them--that does. He looked into Hale's eyes long and steadily.
+
+“All right.”
+
+Macfarlan came in hurriedly and stopped short--seeing the hatted,
+bearded giant.
+
+“This is Mr. Tolliver--an uncle of Dave's--Judd Tolliver,” said Hale.
+“Go ahead.”
+
+“I've got everything fixed--but I couldn't get but five of the
+fellows--two of the Berkley boys. They wouldn't let me tell Bob.”
+
+“All right. Can I summon Mr. Tolliver here?”
+
+“Yes,” said Macfarlan doubtfully, “but you know---”
+
+“He won't be seen,” interrupted Hale, understandingly. “He'll be at a
+window in the back of that store and he won't take part unless a fight
+begins, and if it does, we'll need him.”
+
+An hour later Devil Judd Tolliver was in the store Hale pointed out and
+peering cautiously around the edge of an open window at the wooden gate
+of the ramshackle calaboose. Several Falins were there--led by young
+Buck, whom Hale recognized as the red-headed youth at the head of the
+tearing horsemen who had swept by him that late afternoon when he was
+coming back from his first trip to Lonesome Cove. The old man gritted
+his teeth as he looked and he put one of his huge pistols on a table
+within easy reach and kept the other clenched in his right fist. From
+down the street came five horsemen, led by John Hale. Every man carried
+a double-barrelled shotgun, and the old man smiled and his respect for
+Hale rose higher, high as it already was, for nobody--mountaineer
+or not--has love for a hostile shotgun. The Falins, armed only with
+pistols, drew near.
+
+“Keep back!” he heard Hale say calmly, and they stopped--young Buck
+alone going on.
+
+“We want that feller,” said young Buck.
+
+“Well, you don't get him,” said Hale quietly. “He's our prisoner. Keep
+back!” he repeated, motioning with the barrel of his shotgun--and young
+Buck moved backward to his own men, The old man saw Hale and another
+man--the sergeant--go inside the heavy gate of the stockade. He saw a
+boy in a cap, with a pistol in one hand and a strapped set of books in
+the other, come running up to the men with the shotguns and he heard one
+of them say angrily:
+
+“I told you not to come.”
+
+“I know you did,” said the boy imperturbably.
+
+“You go on to school,” said another of the men, but the boy with the cap
+shook his head and dropped his books to the ground. The big gate opened
+just then and out came Hale and the sergeant, and between them young
+Dave--his eyes blinking in the sunlight.
+
+“Damn ye,” he heard Dave say to Hale. “I'll get even with you fer this
+some day”--and then the prisoner's eyes caught the horses and shotguns
+and turned to the group of Falins and he shrank back utterly dazed.
+There was a movement among the Falins and Devil Judd caught up his other
+pistol and with a grim smile got ready. Young Buck had turned to his
+crowd:
+
+“Men,” he said, “you know I never back down”--Devil Judd knew that, too,
+and he was amazed by the words that followed-“an' if you say so, we'll
+have him or die; but we ain't in our own state now. They've got the law
+and the shotguns on us, an' I reckon we'd better go slow.”
+
+The rest seemed quite willing to go slow, and, as they put their pistols
+up, Devil Judd laughed in his beard. Hale put young Dave on a horse and
+the little shotgun cavalcade quietly moved away toward the county-seat.
+
+The crestfallen Falins dispersed the other way after they had taken
+a parting shot at the Hon. Samuel Budd, who, too, had a pistol in his
+hand. Young Buck looked long at him--and then he laughed:
+
+“You, too, Sam Budd,” he said. “We folks'll rickollect this on election
+day.” The Hon. Sam deigned no answer.
+
+And up in the store Devil Judd lighted his pipe and sat down to think
+out the strange code of ethics that governed that police-guard. Hale had
+told him to wait there, and it was almost noon before the boy with the
+cap came to tell him that the Falins had all left town. The old man
+looked at him kindly.
+
+“Air you the little feller whut fit fer June?”
+
+“Not yet,” said Bob; “but it's coming.”
+
+“Well, you'll whoop him.”
+
+“I'll do my best.”
+
+“Whar is she?”
+
+“She's waiting for you over at the boarding-house.”
+
+“Does she know about this trouble?”
+
+“Not a thing; she thinks you've come to take her home.” The old man made
+no answer, and Bob led him back toward Hale's office. June was waiting
+at the gate, and the boy, lifting his cap, passed on. June's eyes were
+dark with anxiety.
+
+“You come to take me home, dad?”
+
+“I been thinkin' 'bout it,” he said, with a doubtful shake of his head.
+
+June took him upstairs to her room and pointed out the old water-wheel
+through the window and her new clothes (she had put on her old homespun
+again when she heard he was in town), and the old man shook his head.
+
+“I'm afeerd 'bout all these fixin's--you won't never be satisfied agin
+in Lonesome Cove.”
+
+“Why, dad,” she said reprovingly. “Jack says I can go over whenever I
+please, as soon as the weather gits warmer and the roads gits good.”
+
+“I don't know,” said the old man, still shaking his head.
+
+All through dinner she was worried. Devil Judd hardly ate anything, so
+embarrassed was he by the presence of so many “furriners” and by the
+white cloth and table-ware, and so fearful was he that he would be
+guilty of some breach of manners. Resolutely he refused butter, and at
+the third urging by Mrs. Crane he said firmly, but with a shrewd twinkle
+in his eye:
+
+“No, thank ye. I never eats butter in town. I've kept store myself,” and
+he was no little pleased with the laugh that went around the table. The
+fact was he was generally pleased with June's environment and, after
+dinner, he stopped teasing June.
+
+“No, honey, I ain't goin' to take you away. I want ye to stay right
+where ye air. Be a good girl now and do whatever Jack Hale tells ye and
+tell that boy with all that hair to come over and see me.” June grew
+almost tearful with gratitude, for never had he called her “honey”
+ before that she could remember, and never had he talked so much to her,
+nor with so much kindness.
+
+“Air ye comin' over soon?”
+
+“Mighty soon, dad.”
+
+“Well, take keer o' yourself.”
+
+“I will, dad,” she said, and tenderly she watched his great figure
+slouch out of sight.
+
+An hour after dark, as old Judd sat on the porch of the cabin in
+Lonesome Cove, young Dave Tolliver rode up to the gate on a strange
+horse. He was in a surly mood.
+
+“He lemme go at the head of the valley and give me this hoss to git
+here,” the boy grudgingly explained. “I'm goin' over to git mine
+termorrer.”
+
+“Seems like you'd better keep away from that Gap,” said the old man
+dryly, and Dave reddened angrily.
+
+“Yes, and fust thing you know he'll be over hyeh atter YOU.” The old man
+turned on him sternly.
+
+“Jack Hale knows that liquer was mine. He knows I've got a still over
+hyeh as well as you do--an' he's never axed a question nor peeped an
+eye. I reckon he would come if he thought he oughter--but I'm on this
+side of the state-line. If I was on his side, mebbe I'd stop.”
+
+Young Dave stared, for things were surely coming to a pretty pass in
+Lonesome Cove.
+
+“An' I reckon,” the old man went on, “hit 'ud be better grace in you to
+stop sayin' things agin' him; fer if it hadn't been fer him, you'd be
+laid out by them Falins by this time.”
+
+It was true, and Dave, silenced, was forced into another channel.
+
+“I wonder,” he said presently, “how them Falins always know when I go
+over thar.”
+
+“I've been studyin' about that myself,” said Devil Judd. Inside, the old
+step-mother had heard Dave's query.
+
+“I seed the Red Fox this afternoon,” she quavered at the door.
+
+“Whut was he doin' over hyeh?” asked Dave.
+
+“Nothin',” she said, “jus' a-sneakin' aroun' the way he's al'ays
+a-doin'. Seemed like he was mighty pertickuler to find out when you was
+comin' back.”
+
+Both men started slightly.
+
+ “We're all Tollivers now all right,” said the Hon. Samuel Budd
+that night while he sat with Hale on the porch overlooking the
+mill-pond--and then he groaned a little.
+
+“Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they'd
+fight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years hence!”
+
+He puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing.
+
+“Yes, sir,” he added cheerily, “we're in for a hell of a merry time NOW.
+The mountaineer hates as long as he remembers and--he never forgets.”
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Hand in hand, Hale and June followed the footsteps of spring from the
+time June met him at the school-house gate for their first walk into the
+woods. Hale pointed to some boys playing marbles.
+
+“That's the first sign,” he said, and with quick understanding June
+smiled.
+
+The birdlike piping of hylas came from a marshy strip of woodland that
+ran through the centre of the town and a toad was croaking at the foot
+of Imboden Hill.
+
+“And they come next.”
+
+They crossed the swinging foot-bridge, which was a miracle to June,
+and took the foot-path along the clear stream of South Fork, under the
+laurel which June called “ivy,” and the rhododendron which was “laurel”
+ in her speech, and Hale pointed out catkins greening on alders in one
+swampy place and willows just blushing into life along the banks of a
+little creek. A few yards aside from the path he found, under a patch
+of snow and dead leaves, the pink-and-white blossoms and the waxy green
+leaves of the trailing arbutus, that fragrant harbinger of the old
+Mother's awakening, and June breathed in from it the very breath of
+spring. Near by were turkey peas, which she had hunted and eaten many
+times.
+
+“You can't put that arbutus in a garden,” said Hale, “it's as wild as a
+hawk.”
+
+Presently he had the little girl listen to a pewee twittering in a
+thorn-bush and the lusty call of a robin from an apple-tree. A bluebird
+flew over-head with a merry chirp--its wistful note of autumn long since
+forgotten. These were the first birds and flowers, he said, and June,
+knowing them only by sight, must know the name of each and the reason
+for that name. So that Hale found himself walking the woods with an
+interrogation point, and that he might not be confounded he had, later,
+to dip up much forgotten lore. For every walk became a lesson in botany
+for June, such a passion did she betray at once for flowers, and he
+rarely had to tell her the same thing twice, since her memory was like a
+vise--for everything, as he learned in time.
+
+Her eyes were quicker than his, too, and now she pointed to a snowy
+blossom with a deeply lobed leaf.
+
+“Whut's that?”
+
+“Bloodroot,” said Hale, and he scratched the stem and forth issued
+scarlet drops. “The Indians used to put it on their faces and
+tomahawks”--she knew that word and nodded--“and I used to make red ink
+of it when I was a little boy.”
+
+“No!” said June. With the next look she found a tiny bunch of fuzzy
+hepaticas.
+
+“Liver-leaf.”
+
+“Whut's liver?”
+
+Hale, looking at her glowing face and eyes and her perfect little body,
+imagined that she would never know unless told that she had one, and so
+he waved one hand vaguely at his chest:
+
+“It's an organ--and that herb is supposed to be good for it.”
+
+“Organ? Whut's that?”
+
+“Oh, something inside of you.”
+
+June made the same gesture that Hale had.
+
+“Me?”
+
+“Yes,” and then helplessly, “but not there exactly.”
+
+June's eyes had caught something else now and she ran for it:
+
+“Oh! Oh!” It was a bunch of delicate anemones of intermediate shades
+between white and red-yellow, pink and purple-blue.
+
+“Those are anemones.”
+
+“A-nem-o-nes,” repeated June.
+
+“Wind-flowers--because the wind is supposed to open them.” And, almost
+unconsciously, Hale lapsed into a quotation:
+
+“'And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows.'”
+
+“Whut's that?” said June quickly.
+
+“That's poetry.”
+
+“Whut's po-e-try?” Hale threw up both hands.
+
+“I don't know, but I'll read you some--some day.”
+
+By that time she was gurgling with delight over a bunch of spring
+beauties that came up, root, stalk and all, when she reached for them.
+
+“Well, ain't they purty?” While they lay in her hand and she looked, the
+rose-veined petals began to close, the leaves to droop and the stem got
+limp.
+
+“Ah-h!” crooned June. “I won't pull up no more o' THEM.”
+
+'“These little dream-flowers found in the spring.' More poetry, June.”
+
+A little later he heard her repeating that line to herself. It was an
+easy step to poetry from flowers, and evidently June was groping for it.
+
+A few days later the service-berry swung out white stars on the low
+hill-sides, but Hale could tell her nothing that she did not know about
+the “sarvice-berry.” Soon, the dogwood swept in snowy gusts along the
+mountains, and from a bank of it one morning a red-bird flamed and sang:
+“What cheer! What cheer! What cheer!” And like its scarlet coat the
+red-bud had burst into bloom. June knew the red-bud, but she had never
+heard it called the Judas tree.
+
+“You see, the red-bud was supposed to be poisonous. It shakes in the
+wind and says to the bees, 'Come on, little fellows--here's your nice
+fresh honey, and when they come, it betrays and poisons them.”
+
+“Well, what do you think o' that!” said June indignantly, and Hale had
+to hedge a bit.
+
+“Well, I don't know whether it REALLY does, but that's what they SAY.”
+ A little farther on the white stars of the trillium gleamed at them
+from the border of the woods and near by June stooped over some lovely
+sky-blue blossoms with yellow eyes.
+
+“Forget-me-nots,” said Hale. June stooped to gather them with a radiant
+face.
+
+“Oh,” she said, “is that what you call 'em?”
+
+“They aren't the real ones--they're false forget-me-nots.”
+
+“Then I don't want 'em,” said June. But they were beautiful and fragrant
+and she added gently:
+
+“'Tain't their fault. I'm agoin' to call 'em jus' forget-me-nots, an'
+I'm givin' 'em to you,” she said--“so that you won't.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Hale gravely. “I won't.”
+
+They found larkspur, too--
+
+“'Blue as the heaven it gazes at,'” quoted Hale.
+
+“Whut's 'gazes'?”
+
+“Looks.” June looked up at the sky and down at the flower.
+
+“Tain't,” she said, “hit's bluer.”
+
+When they discovered something Hale did not know he would say that it
+was one of those--
+
+“'Wan flowers without a name.'”
+
+“My!” said June at last, “seems like them wan flowers is a mighty big
+fambly.”
+
+“They are,” laughed Hale, “for a bachelor like me.”
+
+“Huh!” said June.
+
+Later, they ran upon yellow adder's tongues in a hollow, each blossom
+guarded by a pair of ear-like leaves, Dutchman's breeches and wild
+bleeding hearts--a name that appealed greatly to the fancy of the
+romantic little lady, and thus together they followed the footsteps of
+that spring. And while she studied the flowers Hale was studying the
+loveliest flower of them all--little June. About ferns, plants and trees
+as well, he told her all he knew, and there seemed nothing in the skies,
+the green world of the leaves or the under world at her feet to which
+she was not magically responsive. Indeed, Hale had never seen a man,
+woman or child so eager to learn, and one day, when she had apparently
+reached the limit of inquiry, she grew very thoughtful and he watched
+her in silence a long while.
+
+“What's the matter, June?” he asked finally.
+
+“I'm just wonderin' why I'm always axin' why,” said little June.
+
+She was learning in school, too, and she was happier there now, for
+there had been no more open teasing of the new pupil. Bob's championship
+saved her from that, and, thereafter, school changed straightway for
+June. Before that day she had kept apart from her school-fellows at
+recess-times as well as in the school-room. Two or three of the girls
+had made friendly advances to her, but she had shyly repelled them--why
+she hardly knew--and it was her lonely custom at recess-times to build
+a play-house at the foot of a great beech with moss, broken bits of
+bottles and stones. Once she found it torn to pieces and from the look
+on the face of the tall mountain boy, Cal Heaton, who had grinned at her
+when she went up for her first lesson, and who was now Bob's arch-enemy,
+she knew that he was the guilty one. Again a day or two later it was
+destroyed, and when she came down from the woods almost in tears, Bob
+happened to meet her in the road and made her tell the trouble she was
+in. Straightway he charged the trespasser with the deed and was lied to
+for his pains. So after school that day he slipped up on the hill with
+the little girl and helped her rebuild again.
+
+“Now I'll lay for him,” said Bob, “and catch him at it.”
+
+“All right,” said June, and she looked both her worry and her gratitude
+so that Bob understood both; and he answered both with a nonchalant wave
+of one hand.
+
+“Never you mind--and don't you tell Mr. Hale,” and June in dumb
+acquiescence crossed heart and body. But the mountain boy was wary, and
+for two or three days the play-house was undisturbed and so Bob himself
+laid a trap. He mounted his horse immediately after school, rode past
+the mountain lad, who was on his way home, crossed the river, made a
+wide detour at a gallop and, hitching his horse in the woods, came to
+the play-house from the other side of the hill. And half an hour later,
+when the pale little teacher came out of the school-house, he heard
+grunts and blows and scuffling up in the woods, and when he ran toward
+the sounds, the bodies of two of his pupils rolled into sight clenched
+fiercely, with torn clothes and bleeding faces--Bob on top with the
+mountain boy's thumb in his mouth and his own fingers gripped about his
+antagonist's throat. Neither paid any attention to the school-master,
+who pulled at Bob's coat unavailingly and with horror at his ferocity.
+Bob turned his head, shook it as well as the thumb in his mouth would
+let him, and went on gripping the throat under him and pushing the head
+that belonged to it into the ground. The mountain boy's tongue showed
+and his eyes bulged.
+
+“'Nough!” he yelled. Bob rose then and told his story and the
+school-master from New England gave them a short lecture on gentleness
+and Christian charity and fixed on each the awful penalty of “staying
+in” after school for an hour every day for a week. Bob grinned:
+
+“All right, professor--it was worth it,” he said, but the mountain lad
+shuffled silently away.
+
+An hour later Hale saw the boy with a swollen lip, one eye black and
+the other as merry as ever--but after that there was no more trouble
+for June. Bob had made his promise good and gradually she came into
+the games with her fellows there-after, while Bob stood or sat aside,
+encouraging but taking no part--for was he not a member of the Police
+Force? Indeed he was already known far and wide as the Infant of
+the Guard, and always he carried a whistle and usually, outside the
+school-house, a pistol bumped his hip, while a Winchester stood in one
+corner of his room and a billy dangled by his mantel-piece.
+
+The games were new to June, and often Hale would stroll up to the
+school-house to watch them--Prisoner's Base, Skipping the Rope, Antny
+Over, Cracking the Whip and Lifting the Gate; and it pleased him to see
+how lithe and active his little protege was and more than a match in
+strength even for the boys who were near her size. June had to take the
+penalty of her greenness, too, when she was “introduced to the King and
+Queen” and bumped the ground between the make-believe sovereigns, or got
+a cup of water in her face when she was trying to see stars through a
+pipe. And the boys pinned her dress to the bench through a crack and
+once she walked into school with a placard on her back which read:
+
+“June-Bug.” But she was so good-natured that she fast became a
+favourite. Indeed it was noticeable to Hale as well as Bob that Cal
+Heaton, the mountain boy, seemed always to get next to June in the Tugs
+of War, and one morning June found an apple on her desk. She swept the
+room with a glance and met Cal's guilty flush, and though she ate the
+apple, she gave him no thanks--in word, look or manner. It was curious
+to Hale, moreover, to observe how June's instinct deftly led her to
+avoid the mistakes in dress that characterized the gropings of other
+girls who, like her, were in a stage of transition. They wore gaudy
+combs and green skirts with red waists, their clothes bunched at the
+hips, and to their shoes and hands they paid no attention at all. None
+of these things for June--and Hale did not know that the little girl had
+leaped her fellows with one bound, had taken Miss Anne Saunders as her
+model and was climbing upon the pedestal where that lady justly stood.
+The two had not become friends as Hale hoped. June was always silent and
+reserved when the older girl was around, but there was never a move of
+the latter's hand or foot or lip or eye that the new pupil failed
+to see. Miss Anne rallied Hale no little about her, but he laughed
+good-naturedly, and asked why SHE could not make friends with June.
+
+“She's jealous,” said Miss Saunders, and Hale ridiculed the idea, for
+not one sign since she came to the Gap had she shown him. It was the
+jealousy of a child she had once betrayed and that she had outgrown,
+he thought; but he never knew how June stood behind the curtains of her
+window, with a hungry suffering in her face and eyes, to watch Hale and
+Miss Anne ride by and he never guessed that concealment was but a sign
+of the dawn of womanhood that was breaking within her. And she gave no
+hint of that breaking dawn until one day early in May, when she heard a
+woodthrush for the first time with Hale: for it was the bird she loved
+best, and always its silver fluting would stop her in her tracks and
+send her into dreamland. Hale had just broken a crimson flower from its
+stem and held it out to her.
+
+“Here's another of the 'wan ones,' June. Do you know what that is?”
+
+“Hit's”--she paused for correction with her lips drawn severely in for
+precision--“IT'S a mountain poppy. Pap says it kills goslings”--her eyes
+danced, for she was in a merry mood that day, and she put both hands
+behind her--“if you air any kin to a goose, you better drap it.”
+
+“That's a good one,” laughed Hale, “but it's so lovely I'll take the
+risk. I won't drop it.”
+
+“Drop it,” caught June with a quick upward look, and then to fix the
+word in her memory she repeated--“drop it, drop it, DROP it!”
+
+“Got it now, June?”
+
+“Uh-huh.”
+
+It was then that a woodthrush voiced the crowning joy of spring, and
+with slowly filling eyes she asked its name.
+
+“That bird,” she said slowly and with a breaking voice, “sung just
+that-a-way the mornin' my sister died.”
+
+She turned to him with a wondering smile.
+
+“Somehow it don't make me so miserable, like it useter.” Her smile
+passed while she looked, she caught both hands to her heaving breast and
+a wild intensity burned suddenly in her eyes.
+
+“Why, June!”
+
+“'Tain't nothin',” she choked out, and she turned hurriedly ahead of
+him down the path. Startled, Hale had dropped the crimson flower to his
+feet. He saw it and he let it lie.
+
+Meanwhile, rumours were brought in that the Falins were coming over from
+Kentucky to wipe out the Guard, and so straight were they sometimes that
+the Guard was kept perpetually on watch. Once while the members were at
+target practice, the shout arose:
+
+“The Kentuckians are coming! The Kentuckians are coming!” And, at double
+quick, the Guard rushed back to find it a false alarm and to see men
+laughing at them in the street. The truth was that, while the Falins
+had a general hostility against the Guard, their particular enmity was
+concentrated on John Hale, as he discovered when June was to take her
+first trip home one Friday afternoon. Hale meant to carry her over,
+but the morning they were to leave, old Judd Tolliver came to the Gap
+himself. He did not want June to come home at that time, and he didn't
+think it was safe over there for Hale just then. Some of the Falins had
+been seen hanging around Lonesome Cove for the purpose, Judd believed,
+of getting a shot at the man who had kept young Dave from falling into
+their hands, and Hale saw that by that act he had, as Budd said,
+arrayed himself with the Tollivers in the feud. In other words, he was
+a Tolliver himself now, and as such the Falins meant to treat him.
+Hale rebelled against the restriction, for he had started some work in
+Lonesome Cove and was preparing a surprise over there for June, but old
+Judd said:
+
+“Just wait a while,” and he said it so seriously that Hale for a while
+took his advice.
+
+So June stayed on at the Gap--with little disappointment, apparently,
+that she could not visit home. And as spring passed and the summer
+came on, the little girl budded and opened like a rose. To the pretty
+school-teacher she was a source of endless interest and wonder, for
+while the little girl was reticent and aloof, Miss Saunders felt herself
+watched and studied in and out of school, and Hale often had to smile
+at June's unconscious imitation of her teacher in speech, manners and
+dress. And all the time her hero-worship of Hale went on, fed by
+the talk of the boardinghouse, her fellow pupils and of the town at
+large--and it fairly thrilled her to know that to the Falins he was now
+a Tolliver himself.
+
+Sometimes Hale would get her a saddle, and then June would usurp Miss
+Anne's place on a horseback-ride up through the gap to see the first
+blooms of the purple rhododendron on Bee Rock, or up to Morris's farm on
+Powell's mountain, from which, with a glass, they could see the Lonesome
+Pine. And all the time she worked at her studies tirelessly--and when
+she was done with her lessons, she read the fairy books that Hale got
+for her--read them until “Paul and Virginia” fell into her hands, and
+then there were no more fairy stories for little June. Often, late at
+night, Hale, from the porch of his cottage, could see the light of
+her lamp sending its beam across the dark water of the mill-pond, and
+finally he got worried by the paleness of her face and sent her to
+the doctor. She went unwillingly, and when she came back she reported
+placidly that “organatically she was all right, the doctor said,” but
+Hale was glad that vacation would soon come. At the beginning of the
+last week of school he brought a little present for her from New York--a
+slender necklace of gold with a little reddish stone-pendant that was
+the shape of a cross. Hale pulled the trinket from his pocket as they
+were walking down the river-bank at sunset and the little girl quivered
+like an aspen-leaf in a sudden puff of wind.
+
+“Hit's a fairy-stone,” she cried excitedly.
+
+“Why, where on earth did you--”
+
+“Why, sister Sally told me about 'em. She said folks found 'em somewhere
+over here in Virginny, an' all her life she was a-wishin' fer one an'
+she never could git it”--her eyes filled--“seems like ever'thing she
+wanted is a-comin' to me.”
+
+“Do you know the story of it, too?” asked Hale.
+
+June shook her head. “Sister Sally said it was a luck-piece. Nothin'
+could happen to ye when ye was carryin' it, but it was awful bad luck
+if you lost it.” Hale put it around her neck and fastened the clasp and
+June kept hold of the little cross with one hand.
+
+“Well, you mustn't lose it,” he said.
+
+“No--no--no,” she repeated breathlessly, and Hale told her the pretty
+story of the stone as they strolled back to supper. The little crosses
+were to be found only in a certain valley in Virginia, so perfect in
+shape that they seemed to have been chiselled by hand, and they were a
+great mystery to the men who knew all about rocks--the geologists.
+
+“The ge-ol-o-gists,” repeated June.
+
+These men said there was no crystallization--nothing like them, amended
+Hale--elsewhere in the world, and that just as crosses were of different
+shapes--Roman, Maltese and St. Andrew's--so, too, these crosses were
+found in all these different shapes. And the myth--the story--was that
+this little valley was once inhabited by fairies--June's eyes lighted,
+for it was a fairy story after all--and that when a strange messenger
+brought them the news of Christ's crucifixion, they wept, and their
+tears, as they fell to the ground, were turned into tiny crosses of
+stone. Even the Indians had some queer feeling about them, and for a
+long, long time people who found them had used them as charms to bring
+good luck and ward off harm.
+
+“And that's for you,” he said, “because you've been such a good little
+girl and have studied so hard. School's most over now and I reckon
+you'll be right glad to get home again.”
+
+June made no answer, but at the gate she looked suddenly up at him.
+
+“Have you got one, too?” she asked, and she seemed much disturbed when
+Hale shook his head.
+
+“Well, I'LL git--GET--you one--some day.”
+
+“All right,” laughed Hale.
+
+There was again something strange in her manner as she turned suddenly
+from him, and what it meant he was soon to learn. It was the last
+week of school and Hale had just come down from the woods behind the
+school-house at “little recess-time” in the afternoon. The children were
+playing games outside the gate, and Bob and Miss Anne and the little
+Professor were leaning on the fence watching them. The little man raised
+his hand to halt Hale on the plank sidewalk.
+
+“I've been wanting to see you,” he said in his dreamy, abstracted way.
+“You prophesied, you know, that I should be proud of your little protege
+some day, and I am indeed. She is the most remarkable pupil I've yet
+seen here, and I have about come to the conclusion that there is no
+quicker native intelligence in our country than you shall find in the
+children of these mountaineers and--”
+
+Miss Anne was gazing at the children with an expression that turned
+Hale's eyes that way, and the Professor checked his harangue. Something
+had happened. They had been playing “Ring Around the Rosy” and June had
+been caught. She stood scarlet and tense and the cry was:
+
+“Who's your beau--who's your beau?”
+
+And still she stood with tight lips--flushing.
+
+“You got to tell--you got to tell!”
+
+The mountain boy, Cal Heaton, was grinning with fatuous consciousness,
+and even Bob put his hands in his pockets and took on an uneasy smile.
+
+“Who's your beau?” came the chorus again.
+
+The lips opened almost in a whisper, but all could hear:
+
+“Jack!”
+
+“Jack who?” But June looked around and saw the four at the gate. Almost
+staggering, she broke from the crowd and, with one forearm across her
+scarlet face, rushed past them into the school-house. Miss Anne looked
+at Hale's amazed face and she did not smile. Bob turned respectfully
+away, ignoring it all, and the little Professor, whose life-purpose was
+psychology, murmured in his ignorance:
+
+“Very remarkable--very remarkable!”
+
+Through that afternoon June kept her hot face close to her books. Bob
+never so much as glanced her way--little gentleman that he was--but
+the one time she lifted her eyes, she met the mountain lad's bent in
+a stupor-like gaze upon her. In spite of her apparent studiousness,
+however, she missed her lesson and, automatically, the little Professor
+told her to stay in after school and recite to Miss Saunders. And so
+June and Miss Anne sat in the school-room alone--the teacher reading a
+book, and the pupil--her tears unshed--with her sullen face bent over
+her lesson. In a few moments the door opened and the little Professor
+thrust in his head. The girl had looked so hurt and tired when he spoke
+to her that some strange sympathy moved him, mystified though he was, to
+say gently now and with a smile that was rare with him:
+
+“You might excuse June, I think, Miss Saunders, and let her recite some
+time to-morrow,” and gently he closed the door. Miss Anne rose:
+
+“Very well, June,” she said quietly.
+
+June rose, too, gathering up her books, and as she passed the teacher's
+platform she stopped and looked her full in the face. She said not
+a word, and the tragedy between the woman and the girl was played in
+silence, for the woman knew from the searching gaze of the girl and the
+black defiance in her eyes, as she stalked out of the room, that her own
+flush had betrayed her secret as plainly as the girl's words had told
+hers.
+
+Through his office window, a few minutes later, Hale saw June pass
+swiftly into the house. In a few minutes she came swiftly out again
+and went back swiftly toward the school-house. He was so worried by the
+tense look in her face that he could work no more, and in a few minutes
+he threw his papers down and followed her. When he turned the corner,
+Bob was coming down the street with his cap on the back of his head and
+swinging his books by a strap, and the boy looked a little conscious
+when he saw Hale coming.
+
+“Have you seen June?” Hale asked.
+
+“No, sir,” said Bob, immensely relieved.
+
+“Did she come up this way?”
+
+“I don't know, but--” Bob turned and pointed to the green dome of a big
+beech.
+
+“I think you'll find her at the foot of that tree,” he said. “That's
+where her play-house is and that's where she goes when she's--that's
+where she usually goes.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Hale--“her play-house. Thank you.”
+
+“Not at all, sir.”
+
+Hale went on, turned from the path and climbed noiselessly. When he
+caught sight of the beech he stopped still. June stood against it like
+a wood-nymph just emerged from its sun-dappled trunk--stood stretched to
+her full height, her hands behind her, her hair tossed, her throat tense
+under the dangling little cross, her face uplifted. At her feet,
+the play-house was scattered to pieces. She seemed listening to the
+love-calls of a woodthrush that came faintly through the still woods,
+and then he saw that she heard nothing, saw nothing--that she was in a
+dream as deep as sleep. Hale's heart throbbed as he looked.
+
+“June!” he called softly. She did not hear him, and when he called
+again, she turned her face--unstartled--and moving her posture not at
+all. Hale pointed to the scattered play-house.
+
+“I done it!” she said fiercely--“I done it myself.” Her eyes burned
+steadily into his, even while she lifted her hands to her hair as though
+she were only vaguely conscious that it was all undone.
+
+“YOU heerd me?” she cried, and before he could answer--“SHE heerd
+me,” and again, not waiting for a word from him, she cried still more
+fiercely:
+
+“I don't keer! I don't keer WHO knows.”
+
+Her hands were trembling, she was biting her quivering lip to keep back
+the starting tears, and Hale rushed toward her and took her in his arms.
+
+“June! June!” he said brokenly. “You mustn't, little girl. I'm
+proud--proud--why little sweetheart--” She was clinging to him and
+looking up into his eyes and he bent his head slowly. Their lips met and
+the man was startled. He knew now it was no child that answered him.
+
+ Hale walked long that night in the moonlit woods up and around
+Imboden Hill, along a shadow-haunted path, between silvery beech-trunks,
+past the big hole in the earth from which dead trees tossed out their
+crooked arms as if in torment, and to the top of the ridge under which
+the valley slept and above which the dark bulk of Powell's Mountain
+rose. It was absurd, but he found himself strangely stirred. She was a
+child, he kept repeating to himself, in spite of the fact that he knew
+she was no child among her own people, and that mountain girls were even
+wives who were younger still. Still, she did not know what she felt--how
+could she?--and she would get over it, and then came the sharp stab of
+a doubt--would he want her to get over it? Frankly and with wonder he
+confessed to himself that he did not know--he did not know. But again,
+why bother? He had meant to educate her, anyhow. That was the first
+step--no matter what happened. June must go out into the world to
+school. He would have plenty of money. Her father would not object, and
+June need never know. He could include for her an interest in her own
+father's coal lands that he meant to buy, and she could think that it
+was her own money that she was using. So, with a sudden rush of gladness
+from his brain to his heart, he recklessly yoked himself, then and
+there, under all responsibility for that young life and the eager,
+sensitive soul that already lighted it so radiantly.
+
+And June? Her nature had opened precisely as had bud and flower that
+spring. The Mother of Magicians had touched her as impartially as she
+had touched them with fairy wand, and as unconsciously the little girl
+had answered as a young dove to any cooing mate. With this Hale did not
+reckon, and this June could not know. For a while, that night, she lay
+in a delicious tremor, listening to the bird-like chorus of the little
+frogs in the marsh, the booming of the big ones in the mill-pond, the
+water pouring over the dam with the sound of a low wind, and, as had
+all the sleeping things of the earth about her, she, too, sank to happy
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The in-sweep of the outside world was broadening its current now. The
+improvement company had been formed to encourage the growth of the town.
+A safe was put in the back part of a furniture store behind a wooden
+partition and a bank was started. Up through the Gap and toward
+Kentucky, more entries were driven into the coal, and on the Virginia
+side were signs of stripping for iron ore. A furnace was coming in just
+as soon as the railroad could bring it in, and the railroad was pushing
+ahead with genuine vigor. Speculators were trooping in and the town had
+been divided off into lots--a few of which had already changed hands.
+One agent had brought in a big steel safe and a tent and was buying coal
+lands right and left. More young men drifted in from all points of the
+compass. A tent-hotel was put at the foot of Imboden Hill, and of nights
+there were under it much poker and song. The lilt of a definite optimism
+was in every man's step and the light of hope was in every man's eye.
+
+And the Guard went to its work in earnest. Every man now had his
+Winchester, his revolver, his billy and his whistle. Drilling and
+target-shooting became a daily practice. Bob, who had been a year in a
+military school, was drill-master for the recruits, and very gravely
+he performed his duties and put them through the skirmishers'
+drill--advancing in rushes, throwing themselves in the new grass, and
+very gravely he commended one enthusiast--none other than the Hon.
+Samuel Budd--who, rather than lose his position in line, threw himself
+into a pool of water: all to the surprise, scorn and anger of the
+mountain onlookers, who dwelled about the town. Many were the comments
+the members of the Guard heard from them, even while they were at drill.
+
+“I'd like to see one o' them fellers hit me with one of them locust
+posts.”
+
+“Huh! I could take two good men an' run the whole batch out o' the
+county.”
+
+“Look at them dudes and furriners. They come into our country and air
+tryin' to larn us how to run it.”
+
+“Our boys air only tryin' to have their little fun. They don't mean
+nothin', but someday some fool young guard'll hurt somebody and then
+thar'll be hell to pay.”
+
+Hale could not help feeling considerable sympathy for their point of
+view--particularly when he saw the mountaineers watching the Guard at
+target-practice--each volunteer policeman with his back to the target,
+and at the word of command wheeling and firing six shots in rapid
+succession--and he did not wonder at their snorts of scorn at such bad
+shooting and their open anger that the Guard was practising for THEM.
+But sometimes he got an unexpected recruit. One bully, who had been
+conspicuous in the brickyard trouble, after watching a drill went up to
+him with a grin:
+
+“Hell,” he said cheerily, “I believe you fellers air goin' to have more
+fun than we air, an' danged if I don't jine you, if you'll let me.”
+
+“Sure,” said Hale. And others, who might have been bad men, became
+members and, thus getting a vent for their energies, were as
+enthusiastic for the law as they might have been against it.
+
+Of course, the antagonistic element in the town lost no opportunity to
+plague and harass the Guard, and after the destruction of the “blind
+tigers,” mischief was naturally concentrated in the high-license
+saloons--particularly in the one run by Jack Woods, whose local power
+for evil and cackling laugh seemed to mean nothing else than close
+personal communion with old Nick himself. Passing the door of his saloon
+one day, Bob saw one of Jack's customers trying to play pool with a
+Winchester in one hand and an open knife between his teeth, and the boy
+stepped in and halted. The man had no weapon concealed and was making no
+disturbance, and Bob did not know whether or not he had the legal right
+to arrest him, so he turned, and, while he was standing in the door,
+Jack winked at his customer, who, with a grin, put the back of his
+knife-blade between Bob's shoulders and, pushing, closed it. The boy
+looked over his shoulder without moving a muscle, but the Hon. Samuel
+Budd, who came in at that moment, pinioned the fellow's arms from behind
+and Bob took his weapon away.
+
+“Hell,” said the mountaineer, “I didn't aim to hurt the little feller. I
+jes' wanted to see if I could skeer him.”
+
+“Well, brother, 'tis scarce a merry jest,” quoth the Hon. Sam, and he
+looked sharply at Jack through his big spectacles as the two led the man
+off to the calaboose: for he suspected that the saloon-keeper was at the
+bottom of the trick. Jack's time came only the next day. He had regarded
+it as the limit of indignity when an ordinance was up that nobody should
+blow a whistle except a member of the Guard, and it was great fun for
+him to have some drunken customer blow a whistle and then stand in his
+door and laugh at the policemen running in from all directions. That day
+Jack tried the whistle himself and Hale ran down.
+
+“Who did that?” he asked. Jack felt bold that morning.
+
+“I blowed it.”
+
+Hale thought for a moment. The ordinance against blowing a whistle
+had not yet been passed, but he made up his mind that, under the
+circumstances, Jack's blowing was a breach of the peace, since the Guard
+had adopted that signal. So he said:
+
+“You mustn't do that again.”
+
+Jack had doubtless been going through precisely the same mental process,
+and, on the nice legal point involved, he seemed to differ.
+
+“I'll blow it when I damn please,” he said.
+
+“Blow it again and I'll arrest you,” said Hale.
+
+Jack blew. He had his right shoulder against the corner of his door at
+the time, and, when he raised the whistle to his lips, Hale drew and
+covered him before he could make another move. Woods backed slowly
+into his saloon to get behind his counter. Hale saw his purpose, and he
+closed in, taking great risk, as he always did, to avoid bloodshed,
+and there was a struggle. Jack managed to get his pistol out; but Hale
+caught him by the wrist and held the weapon away so that it was harmless
+as far as he was concerned; but a crowd was gathering at the door
+toward which the saloon-keeper's pistol was pointed, and he feared that
+somebody out there might be shot; so he called out:
+
+“Drop that pistol!”
+
+The order was not obeyed, and Hale raised his right hand high above
+Jack's head and dropped the butt of his weapon on Jack's skull--hard.
+Jack's head dropped back between his shoulders, his eyes closed and his
+pistol clicked on the floor.
+
+Hale knew how serious a thing a blow was in that part of the world, and
+what excitement it would create, and he was uneasy at Jack's trial, for
+fear that the saloon-keeper's friends would take the matter up; but they
+didn't, and, to the surprise of everybody, Jack quietly paid his fine,
+and thereafter the Guard had little active trouble from the town itself,
+for it was quite plain there, at least, that the Guard meant business.
+
+Across Black Mountain old Dave Tolliver and old Buck Falin had got well
+of their wounds by this time, and though each swore to have vengeance
+against the other as soon as he was able to handle a Winchester, both
+factions seemed waiting for that time to come. Moreover, the Falins,
+because of a rumour that Bad Rufe Tolliver might come back, and because
+of Devil Judd's anger at their attempt to capture young Dave, grew wary
+and rather pacificatory: and so, beyond a little quarrelling, a little
+threatening and the exchange of a harmless shot or two, sometimes in
+banter, sometimes in earnest, nothing had been done. Sternly, however,
+though the Falins did not know the fact, Devil Judd continued to hold
+aloof in spite of the pleadings of young Dave, and so confident was the
+old man in the balance of power that lay with him that he sent June word
+that he was coming to take her home. And, in truth, with Hale going away
+again on a business trip and Bob, too, gone back home to the Bluegrass,
+and school closed, the little girl was glad to go, and she waited for
+her father's coming eagerly. Miss Anne was still there, to be sure,
+and if she, too, had gone, June would have been more content. The quiet
+smile of that astute young woman had told Hale plainly, and somewhat to
+his embarrassment, that she knew something had happened between the two,
+but that smile she never gave to June. Indeed, she never encountered
+aught else than the same silent searching gaze from the strangely mature
+little creature's eyes, and when those eyes met the teacher's, always
+June's hand would wander unconsciously to the little cross at her throat
+as though to invoke its aid against anything that could come between her
+and its giver.
+
+The purple rhododendrons on Bee Rock had come and gone and the
+pink-flecked laurels were in bloom when June fared forth one sunny
+morning of her own birth-month behind old Judd Tolliver--home. Back up
+through the wild Gap they rode in silence, past Bee Rock, out of the
+chasm and up the little valley toward the Trail of the Lonesome Pine,
+into which the father's old sorrel nag, with a switch of her sunburnt
+tail, turned leftward. June leaned forward a little, and there was the
+crest of the big tree motionless in the blue high above, and sheltered
+by one big white cloud. It was the first time she had seen the pine
+since she had first left it, and little tremblings went through her from
+her bare feet to her bonneted head. Thus was she unclad, for Hale had
+told her that, to avoid criticism, she must go home clothed just as she
+was when she left Lonesome Cove. She did not quite understand that, and
+she carried her new clothes in a bundle in her lap, but she took Hale's
+word unquestioned. So she wore her crimson homespun and her bonnet, with
+her bronze-gold hair gathered under it in the same old Psyche knot.
+She must wear her shoes, she told Hale, until she got out of town, else
+someone might see her, but Hale had said she would be leaving too early
+for that: and so she had gone from the Gap as she had come into it, with
+unmittened hands and bare feet. The soft wind was very good to those
+dangling feet, and she itched to have them on the green grass or in the
+cool waters through which the old horse splashed. Yes, she was going
+home again, the same June as far as mountain eyes could see, though she
+had grown perceptibly, and her little face had blossomed from her heart
+almost into a woman's, but she knew that while her clothes were the
+same, they covered quite another girl. Time wings slowly for the young,
+and when the sensations are many and the experiences are new, slowly
+even for all--and thus there was a double reason why it seemed an age to
+June since her eyes had last rested on the big Pine.
+
+Here was the place where Hale had put his big black horse into a dead
+run, and as vivid a thrill of it came back to her now as had been the
+thrill of the race. Then they began to climb laboriously up the rocky
+creek--the water singing a joyous welcome to her along the path, ferns
+and flowers nodding to her from dead leaves and rich mould and peeping
+at her from crevices between the rocks on the creek-banks as high up as
+the level of her eyes--up under bending branches full-leafed, with the
+warm sunshine darting down through them upon her as she passed, and
+making a playfellow of her sunny hair. Here was the place where she had
+got angry with Hale, had slid from his horse and stormed with tears.
+What a little fool she had been when Hale had meant only to be kind! He
+was never anything but kind--Jack was--dear, dear Jack! That wouldn't
+happen NO more, she thought, and straightway she corrected that thought.
+
+“It won't happen ANY more,” she said aloud.
+
+“Whut'd you say, June?”
+
+The old man lifted his bushy beard from his chest and turned his head.
+
+“Nothin', dad,” she said, and old Judd, himself in a deep study, dropped
+back into it again. How often she had said that to herself--that it
+would happen no more--she had stopped saying it to Hale, because he
+laughed and forgave her, and seemed to love her mood, whether she cried
+from joy or anger--and yet she kept on doing both just the same.
+
+Several times Devil Judd stopped to let his horse rest, and each time,
+of course, the wooded slopes of the mountains stretched downward in
+longer sweeps of summer green, and across the widening valley the tops
+of the mountains beyond dropped nearer to the straight level of her
+eyes, while beyond them vaster blue bulks became visible and ran on and
+on, as they always seemed, to the farthest limits of the world. Even
+out there, Hale had told her, she would go some day. The last curving
+up-sweep came finally, and there stood the big Pine, majestic, unchanged
+and murmuring in the wind like the undertone of a far-off sea. As they
+passed the base of it, she reached out her hand and let the tips of her
+fingers brush caressingly across its trunk, turned quickly for a last
+look at the sunlit valley and the hills of the outer world and then the
+two passed into a green gloom of shadow and thick leaves that shut her
+heart in as suddenly as though some human hand had clutched it. She was
+going home--to see Bub and Loretta and Uncle Billy and “old Hon” and her
+step-mother and Dave, and yet she felt vaguely troubled. The valley on
+the other side was in dazzling sunshine--she had seen that. The sun must
+still be shining over there--it must be shining above her over here, for
+here and there shot a sunbeam message from that outer world down through
+the leaves, and yet it seemed that black night had suddenly fallen about
+her, and helplessly she wondered about it all, with her hands gripped
+tight and her eyes wide. But the mood was gone when they emerged at the
+“deadening” on the last spur and she saw Lonesome Cove and the roof
+of her little home peacefully asleep in the same sun that shone on the
+valley over the mountain. Colour came to her face and her heart beat
+faster. At the foot of the spur the road had been widened and showed
+signs of heavy hauling. There was sawdust in the mouth of the creek and,
+from coal-dust, the water was black. The ring of axes and the shouts of
+ox-drivers came from the mountain side. Up the creek above her father's
+cabin three or four houses were being built of fresh boards, and there
+in front of her was a new store. To a fence one side of it two horses
+were hitched and on one horse was a side-saddle. Before the door stood
+the Red Fox and Uncle Billy, the miller, who peered at her for a moment
+through his big spectacles and gave her a wondering shout of welcome
+that brought her cousin Loretta to the door, where she stopped a moment,
+anchored with surprise. Over her shoulder peered her cousin Dave, and
+June saw his face darken while she looked.
+
+“Why, Honey,” said the old miller, “have ye really come home agin?”
+ While Loretta simply said:
+
+“My Lord!” and came out and stood with her hands on her hips looking at
+June.
+
+“Why, ye ain't a bit changed! I knowed ye wasn't goin' to put on no
+airs like Dave thar said “--she turned on Dave, who, with a surly shrug,
+wheeled and went back into the store. Uncle Billy was going home.
+
+“Come down to see us right away now,” he called back. “Ole Hon's might
+nigh crazy to git her eyes on ye.”
+
+“All right, Uncle Billy,” said June, “early termorrer.” The Red Fox
+did not open his lips, but his pale eyes searched the girl from head to
+foot.
+
+“Git down, June,” said Loretta, “and I'll walk up to the house with ye.”
+
+June slid down, Devil Judd started the old horse, and as the two girls,
+with their arms about each other's waists, followed, the wolfish side of
+the Red Fox's face lifted in an ironical snarl. Bub was standing at the
+gate, and when he saw his father riding home alone, his wistful eyes
+filled and his cry of disappointment brought the step-mother to the
+door.
+
+“Whar's June?” he cried, and June heard him, and loosening herself
+from Loretta, she ran round the horse and had Bub in her arms. Then she
+looked up into the eyes of her step-mother. The old woman's face looked
+kind--so kind that for the first time in her life June did what her
+father could never get her to do: she called her “Mammy,” and then she
+gave that old woman the surprise of her life--she kissed her. Right away
+she must see everything, and Bub, in ecstasy, wanted to pilot her around
+to see the new calf and the new pigs and the new chickens, but dumbly
+June looked to a miracle that had come to pass to the left of the
+cabin--a flower-garden, the like of which she had seen only in her
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Twice her lips opened soundlessly and, dazed, she could only point
+dumbly. The old step-mother laughed:
+
+“Jack Hale done that. He pestered yo' pap to let him do it fer ye, an'
+anything Jack Hale wants from yo' pap, he gits. I thought hit was plum'
+foolishness, but he's got things to eat planted thar, too, an' I declar
+hit's right purty.”
+
+That wonderful garden! June started for it on a run. There was a
+broad grass-walk down through the middle of it and there were narrow
+grass-walks running sidewise, just as they did in the gardens which Hale
+told her he had seen in the outer world. The flowers were planted in
+raised beds, and all the ones that she had learned to know and love at
+the Gap were there, and many more besides. The hollyhocks, bachelor's
+buttons and marigolds she had known all her life. The lilacs,
+touch-me-nots, tulips and narcissus she had learned to know in gardens
+at the Gap. Two rose-bushes were in bloom, and there were strange
+grasses and plants and flowers that Jack would tell her about when
+he came. One side was sentinelled by sun-flowers and another side
+by transplanted laurel and rhododendron shrubs, and hidden in the
+plant-and-flower-bordered squares were the vegetables that won her
+step-mother's tolerance of Hale's plan. Through and through June walked,
+her dark eyes flashing joyously here and there when they were not a
+little dimmed with tears, with Loretta following her, unsympathetic in
+appreciation, wondering that June should be making such a fuss about a
+lot of flowers, but envious withal when she half guessed the reason, and
+impatient Bub eager to show her other births and changes. And, over and
+over all the while, June was whispering to herself:
+
+“My garden--MY garden!”
+
+When she came back to the porch, after a tour through all that was new
+or had changed, Dave had brought his horse and Loretta's to the gate.
+No, he wouldn't come in and “rest a spell”--“they must be gittin' along
+home,” he said shortly. But old Judd Tolliver insisted that he should
+stay to dinner, and Dave tied the horses to the fence and walked to the
+porch, not lifting his eyes to June. Straightway the girl went into the
+house co help her step-mother with dinner, but the old woman told her
+she “reckoned she needn't start in yit”--adding in the querulous tone
+June knew so well:
+
+“I've been mighty po'ly, an' thar'll be a mighty lot fer you to do now.”
+ So with this direful prophecy in her ears the girl hesitated. The old
+woman looked at her closely.
+
+“Ye ain't a bit changed,” she said.
+
+They were the words Loretta had used, and in the voice of each was the
+same strange tone of disappointment. June wondered: were they sorry
+she had not come back putting on airs and fussed up with ribbons and
+feathers that they might hear her picked to pieces and perhaps do some
+of the picking themselves? Not Loretta, surely--but the old step-mother!
+June left the kitchen and sat down just inside the door. The Red Fox and
+two other men had sauntered up from the store and all were listening to
+his quavering chat:
+
+“I seed a vision last night, and thar's trouble a-comin' in these
+mountains. The Lord told me so straight from the clouds. These railroads
+and coal-mines is a-goin' to raise taxes, so that a pore man'll have to
+sell his hogs and his corn to pay 'em an' have nothin' left to keep
+him from starvin' to death. Them police-fellers over thar at the Gap is
+a-stirrin' up strife and a-runnin' things over thar as though the earth
+was made fer 'em, an' the citizens ain't goin' to stand it. An' this
+war's a-comin' on an' thar'll be shootin' an' killin' over thar an' over
+hyeh. I seed all this devilment in a vision last night, as shore as I'm
+settin' hyeh.”
+
+Old Judd grunted, shifted his huge shoulders, parted his mustache and
+beard with two fingers and spat through them.
+
+“Well, I reckon you didn't see no devilment. Red, that you won't take a
+hand in, if it comes.”
+
+The other men laughed, but the Red Fox looked meek and lowly.
+
+“I'm a servant of the Lord. He says do this, an' I does it the best
+I know how. I goes about a-preachin' the word in the wilderness an'
+a-healin' the sick with soothin' yarbs and sech.”
+
+“An' a-makin' compacts with the devil,” said old Judd shortly, “when
+the eye of man is a-lookin' t'other way.” The left side of the Red Fox's
+face twitched into the faintest shadow of a snarl, but, shaking his
+head, he kept still.
+
+“Well,” said Sam Barth, who was thin and long and sandy, “I don't keer
+what them fellers do on t'other side o' the mountain, but what air they
+a-comin' over here fer?”
+
+Old Judd spoke again.
+
+“To give you a job, if you wasn't too durned lazy to work.”
+
+“Yes,” said the other man, who was dark, swarthy and whose black
+eyebrows met across the bridge of his nose--“and that damned Hale, who's
+a-tearin' up Hellfire here in the cove.” The old man lifted his eyes.
+Young Dave's face wore a sudden malignant sympathy which made June
+clench her hands a little more tightly.
+
+“What about him? You must have been over to the Gap lately--like Dave
+thar--did you git board in the calaboose?” It was a random thrust, but
+it was accurate and it went home, and there was silence for a while.
+Presently old Judd went on:
+
+“Taxes hain't goin' to be raised, and if they are, folks will be better
+able to pay 'em. Them police-fellers at the Gap don't bother nobody if
+he behaves himself. This war will start when it does start, an' as for
+Hale, he's as square an' clever a feller as I've ever seed. His word is
+just as good as his bond. I'm a-goin' to sell him this land. It'll be
+his'n, an' he can do what he wants to with it. I'm his friend, and I'm
+goin' to stay his friend as long as he goes on as he's goin' now,
+an' I'm not goin' to see him bothered as long as he tends to his own
+business.”
+
+The words fell slowly and the weight of them rested heavily on all
+except on June. Her fingers loosened and she smiled.
+
+The Red Fox rose, shaking his head.
+
+“All right, Judd Tolliver,” he said warningly.
+
+“Come in and git something to eat, Red.”
+
+“No,” he said, “I'll be gittin' along”--and he went, still shaking his
+head.
+
+The table was covered with an oil-cloth spotted with drippings from a
+candle. The plates and cups were thick and the spoons were of pewter.
+The bread was soggy and the bacon was thick and floating in grease. The
+men ate and the women served, as in ancient days. They gobbled their
+food like wolves, and when they drank their coffee, the noise they made
+was painful to June's ears. There were no napkins and when her father
+pushed his chair back, he wiped his dripping mouth with the back of
+his sleeve. And Loretta and the step-mother--they, too, ate with their
+knives and used their fingers. Poor June quivered with a vague newborn
+disgust. Ah, had she not changed--in ways they could not see!
+
+June helped clear away the dishes--the old woman did not object to
+that--listening to the gossip of the mountains--courtships, marriages,
+births, deaths, the growing hostility in the feud, the random killing of
+this man or that--Hale's doings in Lonesome Cove.
+
+“He's comin' over hyeh agin next Saturday,” said the old woman.
+
+“Is he?” said Loretta in a way that made June turn sharply from her
+dishes toward her. She knew Hale was not coming, but she said nothing.
+The old woman was lighting her pipe.
+
+“Yes--you better be over hyeh in yo' best bib and tucker.”
+
+“Pshaw,” said Loretta, but June saw two bright spots come into her
+pretty cheeks, and she herself burned inwardly. The old woman was
+looking at her.
+
+“'Pears like you air mighty quiet, June.”
+
+“That's so,” said Loretta, looking at her, too.
+
+June, still silent, turned back to her dishes. They were beginning to
+take notice after all, for the girl hardly knew that she had not opened
+her lips.
+
+Once only Dave spoke to her, and that was when Loretta said she must
+go. June was out in the porch looking at the already beloved garden, and
+hearing his step she turned. He looked her steadily in the eyes. She
+saw his gaze drop to the fairy-stone at her throat, and a faint sneer
+appeared at his set mouth--a sneer for June's folly and what he thought
+was uppishness in “furriners” like Hale.
+
+“So you ain't good enough fer him jest as ye air--air ye?” he said
+slowly. “He's got to make ye all over agin--so's you'll be fitten fer
+him.”
+
+He turned away without looking to see how deep his barbed shaft went
+and, startled, June flushed to her hair. In a few minutes they were
+gone--Dave without the exchange of another word with June, and Loretta
+with a parting cry that she would come back on Saturday. The old man
+went to the cornfield high above the cabin, the old woman, groaning
+with pains real and fancied, lay down on a creaking bed, and June,
+with Dave's wound rankling, went out with Bub to see the new doings in
+Lonesome Cove. The geese cackled before her, the hog-fish darted like
+submarine arrows from rock to rock and the willows bent in the same
+wistful way toward their shadows in the little stream, but its crystal
+depths were there no longer--floating sawdust whirled in eddies on the
+surface and the water was black as soot. Here and there the white
+belly of a fish lay upturned to the sun, for the cruel, deadly work
+of civilization had already begun. Farther up the creek was a buzzing
+monster that, creaking and snorting, sent a flashing disk, rimmed with
+sharp teeth, biting a savage way through a log, that screamed with pain
+as the brutal thing tore through its vitals, and gave up its life each
+time with a ghost-like cry of agony. Farther on little houses were being
+built of fresh boards, and farther on the water of the creek got blacker
+still. June suddenly clutched Bud's arms. Two demons had appeared on
+a pile of fresh dirt above them--sooty, begrimed, with black faces and
+black hands, and in the cap of each was a smoking little lamp.
+
+“Huh,” said Bub, “that ain't nothin'! Hello, Bill,” he called bravely.
+
+“Hello, Bub,” answered one of the two demons, and both stared at the
+lovely little apparition who was staring with such naive horror at them.
+It was all very wonderful, though, and it was all happening in Lonesome
+Cove, but Jack Hale was doing it all and, therefore, it was all right,
+thought June--no matter what Dave said. Moreover, the ugly spot on the
+great, beautiful breast of the Mother was such a little one after all
+and June had no idea how it must spread. Above the opening for the
+mines, the creek was crystal-clear as ever, the great hills were the
+same, and the sky and the clouds, and the cabin and the fields of corn.
+Nothing could happen to them, but if even they were wiped out by Hale's
+hand she would have made no complaint. A wood-thrush flitted from a
+ravine as she and Bub went back down the creek--and she stopped with
+uplifted face to listen. All her life she had loved its song, and this
+was the first time she had heard it in Lonesome Cove since she had
+learned its name from Hale. She had never heard it thereafter without
+thinking of him, and she thought of him now while it was breathing out
+the very spirit of the hills, and she drew a long sigh for already she
+was lonely and hungering for him. The song ceased and a long wavering
+cry came from the cabin.
+
+“So-o-o-cow! S-o-o-kee! S-o-o-kee!”
+
+The old mother was calling the cows. It was near milking-time, and with
+a vague uneasiness she hurried Bub home. She saw her father coming down
+from the cornfield. She saw the two cows come from the woods into the
+path that led to the barn, switching their tails and snatching mouthfuls
+from the bushes as they swung down the hill and, when she reached the
+gate, her step-mother was standing on the porch with one hand on her hip
+and the other shading her eyes from the slanting sun--waiting for her.
+Already kindness and consideration were gone.
+
+“Whar you been, June? Hurry up, now. You've had a long restin'-spell
+while I've been a-workin' myself to death.”
+
+It was the old tone, and the old fierce rebellion rose within June, but
+Hale had told her to be patient. She could not check the flash from her
+eyes, but she shut her lips tight on the answer that sprang to them, and
+without a word she went to the kitchen for the milking-pails. The cows
+had forgotten her. They eyed her with suspicion and were restive. The
+first one kicked at her when she put her beautiful head against its soft
+flank. Her muscles had been in disuse and her hands were cramped and
+her forearms ached before she was through--but she kept doggedly at her
+task. When she finished, her father had fed the horses and was standing
+behind her.
+
+“Hit's mighty good to have you back agin, little gal.”
+
+It was not often that he smiled or showed tenderness, much less spoke it
+thus openly, and June was doubly glad that she had held her tongue. Then
+she helped her step-mother get supper. The fire scorched her face, that
+had grown unaccustomed to such heat, and she burned one hand, but
+she did not let her step-mother see even that. Again she noticed
+with aversion the heavy thick dishes and the pewter spoons and the
+candle-grease on the oil-cloth, and she put the dishes down and, while
+the old woman was out of the room, attacked the spots viciously. Again
+she saw her father and Bub ravenously gobbling their coarse food while
+she and her step-mother served and waited, and she began to wonder. The
+women sat at the table with the men over in the Gap--why not here? Then
+her father went silently to his pipe and Bub to playing with the kitten
+at the kitchen-door, while she and her mother ate with never a word.
+Something began to stifle her, but she choked it down. There were the
+dishes to be cleared away and washed, and the pans and kettles to be
+cleaned. Her back ached, her arms were tired to the shoulders and her
+burned hand quivered with pain when all was done. The old woman had left
+her to do the last few little things alone and had gone to her pipe.
+Both she and her father were sitting in silence on the porch when June
+went out there. Neither spoke to each other, nor to her, and both seemed
+to be part of the awful stillness that engulfed the world. Bub fell
+asleep in the soft air, and June sat and sat and sat. That was all
+except for the stars that came out over the mountains and were slowly
+being sprayed over the sky, and the pipings of frogs from the little
+creek. Once the wind came with a sudden sweep up the river and she
+thought she could hear the creak of Uncle Billy's water-wheel. It
+smote her with sudden gladness, not so much because it was a relief
+and because she loved the old miller, but--such is the power of
+association--because she now loved the mill more, loved it because the
+mill over in the Gap had made her think more of the mill at the mouth
+of Lonesome Cove. A tapping vibrated through the railing of the porch on
+which her cheek lay. Her father was knocking the ashes from his pipe. A
+similar tapping sounded inside at the fireplace. The old woman had gone
+and Bub was in bed, and she had heard neither move. The old man rose
+with a yawn.
+
+“Time to lay down, June.”
+
+The girl rose. They all slept in one room. She did not dare to put on
+her night-gown--her mother would see it in the morning. So she slipped
+off her dress, as she had done all her life, and crawled into bed with
+Bub, who lay in the middle of it and who grunted peevishly when
+she pushed him with some difficulty over to his side. There were no
+sheets--not even one--and the coarse blankets, which had a close acrid
+odour that she had never noticed before, seemed almost to scratch her
+flesh. She had hardly been to bed that early since she had left home,
+and she lay sleepless, watching the firelight play hide and seek with
+the shadows among the aged, smoky rafters and flicker over the strings
+of dried things that hung from the ceiling. In the other corner her
+father and stepmother snored heartily, and Bub, beside her, was in a
+nerveless slumber that would not come to her that night--tired and aching
+as she was. So, quietly, by and by, she slipped out of bed and out the
+door to the porch. The moon was rising and the radiant sheen of it had
+dropped down over the mountain side like a golden veil and was lighting
+up the white rising mists that trailed the curves of the river. It sank
+below the still crests of the pines beyond the garden and dropped on
+until it illumined, one by one, the dewy heads of the flowers. She rose
+and walked down the grassy path in her bare feet through the silent
+fragrant emblems of the planter's thought of her--touching this flower
+and that with the tips of her fingers. And when she went back, she bent
+to kiss one lovely rose and, as she lifted her head with a start
+of fear, the dew from it shining on her lips made her red mouth as
+flower-like and no less beautiful. A yell had shattered the quiet of the
+world--not the high fox-hunting yell of the mountains, but something new
+and strange. Up the creek were strange lights. A loud laugh shattered
+the succeeding stillness--a laugh she had never heard before in Lonesome
+Cove. Swiftly she ran back to the porch. Surely strange things were
+happening there. A strange spirit pervaded the Cove and the very air
+throbbed with premonitions. What was the matter with everything--what
+was the matter with her? She knew that she was lonely and that she
+wanted Hale--but what else was it? She shivered--and not alone from the
+chill night-air--and puzzled and wondering and stricken at heart, she
+crept back to bed.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Pausing at the Pine to let his big black horse blow a while, Hale
+mounted and rode slowly down the green-and-gold gloom of the ravine. In
+his pocket was a quaint little letter from June to “John Hail”; thanking
+him for the beautiful garden, saying she was lonely, and wanting him to
+come soon. From the low flank of the mountain he stopped, looking down
+on the cabin in Lonesome Cove. It was a dreaming summer day. Trees, air,
+blue sky and white cloud were all in a dream, and even the smoke lazing
+from the chimney seemed drifting away like the spirit of something human
+that cared little whither it might be borne. Something crimson emerged
+from the door and stopped in indecision on the steps of the porch. It
+moved again, stopped at the corner of the house, and then, moving on
+with a purpose, stopped once more and began to flicker slowly to and
+fro like a flame. June was working in her garden. Hale thought he would
+halloo to her, and then he decided to surprise her, and he went on down,
+hitched his horse and stole up to the garden fence. On the way he
+pulled up a bunch of weeds by the roots and with them in his arms he
+noiselessly climbed the fence. June neither heard nor saw him. Her
+underlip was clenched tight between her teeth, the little cross swung
+violently at her throat and she was so savagely wielding the light hoe
+he had given her that he thought at first she must be killing a snake;
+but she was only fighting to death every weed that dared to show its
+head. Her feet and her head were bare, her face was moist and flushed
+and her hair was a tumbled heap of what was to him the rarest gold under
+the sun. The wind was still, the leaves were heavy with the richness of
+full growth, bees were busy about June's head and not another soul was
+in sight.
+
+“Good morning, little girl!” he called cheerily.
+
+The hoe was arrested at the height of a vicious stroke and the little
+girl whirled without a cry, but the blood from her pumping heart
+crimsoned her face and made her eyes shine with gladness. Her eyes went
+to her feet and her hands to her hair.
+
+“You oughtn't to slip up an' s-startle a lady that-a-way,” she said with
+grave rebuke, and Hale looked humbled. “Now you just set there and wait
+till I come back.”
+
+“No--no--I want you to stay just as you are.”
+
+“Honest?”
+
+Hale gravely crossed heart and body and June gave out a happy little
+laugh--for he had caught that gesture--a favourite one--from her. Then
+suddenly:
+
+“How long?” She was thinking of what Dave said, but the subtle twist in
+her meaning passed Hale by. He raised his eyes to the sun and June shook
+her head.
+
+“You got to go home 'fore sundown.”
+
+She dropped her hoe and came over toward him.
+
+“Whut you doin' with them--those weeds?”
+
+“Going to plant 'em in our garden.” Hale had got a theory from a
+garden-book that the humble burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plants
+were good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to experiment, but June
+gave a shrill whoop and fell to scornful laughter. Then she snatched the
+weeds from him and threw them over the fence.
+
+“Why, June!”
+
+“Not in MY garden. Them's stagger-weeds--they kill cows,” and she went
+off again.
+
+“I reckon you better c-consult me 'bout weeds next time. I don't know
+much 'bout flowers, but I've knowed all my life 'bout WEEDS.” She laid
+so much emphasis on the word that Hale wondered for the moment if her
+words had a deeper meaning--but she went on:
+
+“Ever' spring I have to watch the cows fer two weeks to keep 'em from
+eatin'--those weeds.” Her self-corrections were always made gravely now,
+and Hale consciously ignored them except when he had something to tell
+her that she ought to know. Everything, it seemed, she wanted to know.
+
+“Do they really kill cows?”
+
+June snapped her fingers: “Like that. But you just come on here,”
+ she added with pretty imperiousness. “I want to axe--ask you some
+things--what's that?”
+
+“Scarlet sage.”
+
+“Scarlet sage,” repeated June. “An' that?”
+
+“Nasturtium, and that's Oriental grass.”
+
+“Nas-tur-tium, Oriental. An' what's that vine?”
+
+“That comes from North Africa--they call it 'matrimonial vine.'”
+
+“Whut fer?” asked June quickly.
+
+“Because it clings so.” Hale smiled, but June saw none of his
+humour--the married people she knew clung till the finger of death
+unclasped them. She pointed to a bunch of tall tropical-looking plants
+with great spreading leaves and big green-white stalks.
+
+“They're called Palmae Christi.”
+
+“Whut?”
+
+“That's Latin. It means 'Hands of Christ,'” said Hale with reverence.
+“You see how the leaves are spread out--don't they look like hands?'
+
+“Not much,” said June frankly. “What's Latin?”
+
+“Oh, that's a dead language that some people used a long, long time
+ago.”
+
+“What do folks use it nowadays fer? Why don't they just say 'Hands o'
+Christ'?”
+
+“I don't know,” he said helplessly, “but maybe you'll study Latin some
+of these days.” June shook her head.
+
+“Gettin' YOUR language is a big enough job fer me,” she said with such
+quaint seriousness that Hale could not laugh. She looked up suddenly.
+“You been a long time git--gettin' over here.”
+
+“Yes, and now you want to send me home before sundown.”
+
+“I'm afeer--I'm afraid for you. Have you got a gun?” Hale tapped his
+breast-pocket.
+
+“Always. What are you afraid of?”
+
+“The Falins.” She clenched her hands.
+
+“I'd like to SEE one o' them Falins tech ye,” she added fiercely, and
+then she gave a quick look at the sun.
+
+“You better go now, Jack. I'm afraid fer you. Where's your horse?” Hale
+waved his hand.
+
+“Down there. All right, little girl,” he said. “I ought to go, anyway.”
+ And, to humour her, he started for the gate. There he bent to kiss her,
+but she drew back.
+
+“I'm afraid of Dave,” she said, but she leaned on the gate and looked
+long at him with wistful eyes.
+
+“Jack,” she said, and her eyes swam suddenly, “it'll most kill me--but I
+reckon you better not come over here much.” Hale made light of it all.
+
+“Nonsense, I'm coming just as often as I can.” June smiled then.
+
+“All right. I'll watch out fer ye.”
+
+He went down the path, her eyes following him, and when he looked back
+from the spur he saw her sitting in the porch and watching that she
+might wave him farewell.
+
+Hale could not go over to Lonesome Cove much that summer, for he was
+away from the mountains a good part of the time, and it was a weary,
+racking summer for June when he was not there. The step-mother was a
+stern taskmistress, and the girl worked hard, but no night passed that
+she did not spend an hour or more on her books, and by degrees she
+bribed and stormed Bub into learning his A, B, C's and digging at a
+blue-back spelling book. But all through the day there were times when
+she could play with the boy in the garden, and every afternoon, when
+it was not raining, she would slip away to a little ravine behind the
+cabin, where a log had fallen across a little brook, and there in the
+cool, sun-pierced shadows she would study, read and dream--with the
+water bubbling underneath and wood-thrushes singing overhead. For Hale
+kept her well supplied with books. He had given her children's books
+at first, but she outgrew them when the first love-story fell into her
+hands, and then he gave her novels--good, old ones and the best of the
+new ones, and they were to her what water is to a thing athirst. But the
+happy days were when Hale was there. She had a thousand questions for
+him to answer, whenever he came, about birds, trees and flowers and the
+things she read in her books. The words she could not understand in them
+she marked, so that she could ask their meaning, and it was amazing how
+her vocabulary increased. Moreover, she was always trying to use the
+new words she learned, and her speech was thus a quaint mixture of
+vernacular, self-corrections and unexpected words. Happening once to
+have a volume of Keats in his pocket, he read some of it to her, and
+while she could not understand, the music of the lines fascinated her
+and she had him leave that with her, too. She never tired hearing him
+tell of the places where he had been and the people he knew and the
+music and plays he had heard and seen. And when he told her that she,
+too, should see all those wonderful things some day, her deep eyes took
+fire and she dropped her head far back between her shoulders and looked
+long at the stars that held but little more wonder for her than the
+world of which he told. But each time he was there she grew noticeably
+shyer with him and never once was the love-theme between them taken up
+in open words. Hale was reluctant, if only because she was still such a
+child, and if he took her hand or put his own on her wonderful head or
+his arm around her as they stood in the garden under the stars--he did
+it as to a child, though the leap in her eyes and the quickening of his
+own heart told him the lie that he was acting, rightly, to her and to
+himself. And no more now were there any breaking-downs within her--there
+was only a calm faith that staggered him and gave him an ever-mounting
+sense of his responsibility for whatever might, through the part he had
+taken in moulding her life, be in store for her.
+
+When he was not there, life grew a little easier for her in time,
+because of her dreams, the patience that was built from them and Hale's
+kindly words, the comfort of her garden and her books, and the blessed
+force of habit. For as time went on, she got consciously used to the
+rough life, the coarse food and the rude ways of her own people and
+her own home. And though she relaxed not a bit in her own dainty
+cleanliness, the shrinking that she felt when she first arrived home,
+came to her at longer and longer intervals. Once a week she went down
+to Uncle Billy's, where she watched the water-wheel dripping sun-jewels
+into the sluice, the kingfisher darting like a blue bolt upon his prey,
+and listening to the lullaby that the water played to the sleepy old
+mill--and stopping, both ways, to gossip with old Hon in her porch under
+the honeysuckle vines. Uncle Billy saw the change in her and he grew
+vaguely uneasy about her--she dreamed so much, she was at times so
+restless, she asked so many questions he could not answer, and she
+failed to ask so many that were on the tip of her tongue. He saw that
+while her body was at home, her thoughts rarely were; and it all haunted
+him with a vague sense that he was losing her. But old Hon laughed at
+him and told him he was an old fool and to “git another pair o' specs”
+ and maybe he could see that the “little gal” was in love. This startled
+Uncle Billy, for he was so like a father to June that he was as slow
+as a father in recognizing that his child has grown to such absurd
+maturity. But looking back to the beginning--how the little girl had
+talked of the “furriner” who had come into Lonesome Cove all during
+the six months he was gone; how gladly she had gone away to the Gap
+to school, how anxious she was to go still farther away again, and,
+remembering all the strange questions she asked him about things in the
+outside world of which he knew nothing--Uncle Billy shook his head in
+confirmation of his own conclusion, and with all his soul he wondered
+about Hale--what kind of a man he was and what his purpose was with
+June--and of every man who passed his mill he never failed to ask if he
+knew “that ar man Hale” and what he knew. All he had heard had been in
+Hale's favour, except from young Dave Tolliver, the Red Fox or from any
+Falin of the crowd, which Hale had prevented from capturing Dave.
+Their statements bothered him--especially the Red Fox's evil hints
+and insinuations about Hale's purposes one day at the mill. The miller
+thought of them all the afternoon and all the way home, and when he
+sat down at his fire his eyes very naturally and simply rose to his old
+rifle over the door--and then he laughed to himself so loudly that old
+Hon heard him.
+
+“Air you goin' crazy, Billy?” she asked. “Whut you studyin' 'bout?”
+
+“Nothin'; I was jest a-thinkin' Devil Judd wouldn't leave a grease-spot
+of him.”
+
+“You AIR goin' crazy--who's him?”
+
+“Uh--nobody,” said Uncle Billy, and old Hon turned with a shrug of her
+shoulders--she was tired of all this talk about the feud.
+
+All that summer young Dave Tolliver hung around Lonesome Cove. He would
+sit for hours in Devil Judd's cabin, rarely saying anything to June or
+to anybody, though the girl felt that she hardly made a move that he did
+not see, and while he disappeared when Hale came, after a surly grunt
+of acknowledgment to Hale's cheerful greeting, his perpetual espionage
+began to anger June. Never, however, did he put himself into words until
+Hale's last visit, when the summer had waned and it was nearly time for
+June to go away again to school. As usual, Dave had left the house when
+Hale came, and an hour after Hale was gone she went to the little ravine
+with a book in her hand, and there the boy was sitting on her log, his
+elbows dug into his legs midway between thigh and knee, his chin in his
+hands, his slouched hat over his black eyes--every line of him picturing
+angry, sullen dejection. She would have slipped away, but he heard her
+and lifted his head and stared at her without speaking. Then he slowly
+got off the log and sat down on a moss-covered stone.
+
+“'Scuse me,” he said with elaborate sarcasm. “This bein' yo'
+school-house over hyeh, an' me not bein' a scholar, I reckon I'm in your
+way.”
+
+“How do you happen to know hit's my school-house?” asked June quietly.
+
+“I've seed you hyeh.”
+
+“Jus' as I s'posed.”
+
+“You an' HIM.”
+
+“Jus' as I s'posed,” she repeated, and a spot of red came into each
+cheek. “But we didn't see YOU.” Young Dave laughed.
+
+“Well, everybody don't always see me when I'm seein' them.”
+
+“No,” she said unsteadily. “So, you've been sneakin' around through the
+woods a-spyin' on me--SNEAKIN' AN' SPYIN',” she repeated so searingly
+that Dave looked at the ground suddenly, picked up a pebble confusedly
+and shot it in the water.
+
+“I had a mighty good reason,” he said doggedly. “Ef he'd been up to some
+of his furrin' tricks---” June stamped the ground.
+
+“Don't you think I kin take keer o' myself?”
+
+“No, I don't. I never seed a gal that could--with one o' them
+furriners.”
+
+“Huh!” she said scornfully. “You seem to set a mighty big store by the
+decency of yo' own kin.” Dave was silent. “He ain't up to no tricks. An'
+whut do you reckon Dad 'ud be doin' while you was pertecting me?”
+
+“Air ye goin' away to school?” he asked suddenly. June hesitated.
+
+“Well, seein' as hit's none o' yo' business--I am.”
+
+“Air ye goin' to marry him?”
+
+“He ain't axed me.” The boy's face turned red as a flame.
+
+“Ye air honest with me, an' now I'm goin' to be honest with you. You
+hain't never goin' to marry him.”
+
+[Illustration: You hain't never goin' to marry him.”, 0242]
+
+“Mebbe you think I'm goin' to marry YOU.” A mist of rage swept before
+the lad's eyes so that he could hardly see, but he repeated steadily:
+
+“You hain't goin' to marry HIM.” June looked at the boy long and
+steadily, but his black eyes never wavered--she knew what he meant.
+
+“An' he kept the Falins from killin' you,” she said, quivering with
+indignation at the shame of him, but Dave went on unheeding:
+
+“You pore little fool! Do ye reckon as how he's EVER goin' to axe ye
+to marry him? Whut's he sendin' you away fer? Because you hain't good
+enough fer him! Whar's yo' pride? You hain't good enough fer him,” he
+repeated scathingly. June had grown calm now.
+
+“I know it,” she said quietly, “but I'm goin' to try to be.”
+
+Dave rose then in impotent fury and pointed one finger at her. His black
+eyes gleamed like a demon's and his voice was hoarse with resolution and
+rage, but it was Tolliver against Tolliver now, and June answered him
+with contemptuous fearlessness.
+
+“YOU HAIN'T NEVER GOIN' TO MARRY HIM.”
+
+“An' he kept the Falins from killin' ye.”
+
+“Yes,” he retorted savagely at last, “an' I kept the Falins from killin'
+HIM,” and he stalked away, leaving June blanched and wondering.
+
+It was true. Only an hour before, as Hale turned up the mountain that
+very afternoon at the mouth of Lonesome Cove, young Dave had called to
+him from the bushes and stepped into the road.
+
+“You air goin' to court Monday?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” said Hale.
+
+“Well, you better take another road this time,” he said quietly. “Three
+o' the Falins will be waitin' in the lorrel somewhar on the road to
+lay-way ye.”
+
+Hale was dumfounded, but he knew the boy spoke the truth.
+
+“Look here,” he said impulsively, “I've got nothing against you, and
+I hope you've got nothing against me. I'm much obliged--let's shake
+hands!”
+
+The boy turned sullenly away with a dogged shake of his head.
+
+“I was beholden to you,” he said with dignity, “an' I warned you 'bout
+them Falins to git even with you. We're quits now.”
+
+Hale started to speak--to say that the lad was not beholden to him--that
+he would as quickly have protected a Falin, but it would have only made
+matters worse. Moreover, he knew precisely what Dave had against him,
+and that, too, was no matter for discussion. So he said simply and
+sincerely:
+
+“I'm sorry we can't be friends.”
+
+“No,” Dave gritted out, “not this side o' Heaven--or Hell.”
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+And still farther into that far silence about which she used to dream
+at the base of the big Pine, went little June. At dusk, weary and
+travel-stained, she sat in the parlours of a hotel--a great gray
+columned structure of stone. She was confused and bewildered and her
+head ached. The journey had been long and tiresome. The swift motion of
+the train had made her dizzy and faint. The dust and smoke had almost
+stifled her, and even now the dismal parlours, rich and wonderful as
+they were to her unaccustomed eyes, oppressed her deeply. If she could
+have one more breath of mountain air!
+
+The day had been too full of wonders. Impressions had crowded on her
+sensitive brain so thick and fast that the recollection of them was as
+through a haze. She had never been on a train before and when, as
+it crashed ahead, she clutched Hale's arm in fear and asked how they
+stopped it, Hale hearing the whistle blow for a station, said:
+
+“I'll show you,” and he waved one hand out the window. And he repeated
+this trick twice before she saw that it was a joke. All day he had
+soothed her uneasiness in some such way and all day he watched her with
+an amused smile that was puzzling to her. She remembered sadly watching
+the mountains dwindle and disappear, and when several of her own people
+who were on the train were left at way-stations, it seemed as though all
+links that bound her to her home were broken. The face of the country
+changed, the people changed in looks, manners and dress, and she shrank
+closer to Hale with an increasing sense of painful loneliness. These
+level fields and these farm-houses so strangely built, so varied in
+colour were the “settlemints,” and these people so nicely dressed, so
+clean and fresh-looking were “furriners.” At one station a crowd
+of school-girls had got on board and she had watched them with keen
+interest, mystified by their incessant chatter and gayety. And at last
+had come the big city, with more smoke, more dust, more noise, more
+confusion--and she was in HIS world. That was the thought that comforted
+her--it was his world, and now she sat alone in the dismal parlours
+while Hale was gone to find his sister--waiting and trembling at the
+ordeal, close upon her, of meeting Helen Hale.
+
+Below, Hale found his sister and her maid registered, and a few minutes
+later he led Miss Hale into the parlour. As they entered June rose
+without advancing, and for a moment the two stood facing each other--the
+still roughly clad, primitive mountain girl and the exquisite modern
+woman--in an embarrassment equally painful to both.
+
+“June, this is my sister.”
+
+At a loss what to do, Helen Hale simply stretched out her hand, but
+drawn by June's timidity and the quick admiration and fear in her eyes,
+she leaned suddenly forward and kissed her. A grateful flush overspread
+the little girl's features and the pallor that instantly succeeded went
+straight-way to the sister's heart.
+
+“You are not well,” she said quickly and kindly. “You must go to your
+room at once. I am going to take care of you--you are MY little sister
+now.”
+
+June lost the subtlety in Miss Hale's emphasis, but she fell with
+instant submission under such gentle authority, and though she could say
+nothing, her eyes glistened and her lips quivered, and without looking
+to Hale, she followed his sister out of the room. Hale stood still.
+He had watched the meeting with apprehension and now, surprised and
+grateful, he went to Helen's parlour and waited with a hopeful heart.
+When his sister entered, he rose eagerly:
+
+“Well--” he said, stopping suddenly, for there were tears of vexation,
+dismay and genuine distress on his sister's face.
+
+“Oh, Jack,” she cried, “how could you! How could you!”
+
+Hale bit his lips, turned and paced the room. He had hoped too much and
+yet what else could he have expected? His sister and June knew as little
+about each other and each other's lives as though they had occupied
+different planets. He had forgotten that Helen must be shocked by June's
+inaccuracies of speech and in a hundred other ways to which he had
+become accustomed. With him, moreover, the process had been gradual and,
+moreover, he had seen beneath it all. And yet he had foolishly expected
+Helen to understand everything at once. He was unjust, so very wisely he
+held himself in silence.
+
+“Where is her baggage, Jack?” Helen had opened her trunk and was lifting
+out the lid. “She ought to change those dusty clothes at once. You'd
+better ring and have it sent right up.”
+
+“No,” said Hale, “I will go down and see about it myself.”
+
+He returned presently--his face aflame--with June's carpet-bag.
+
+“I believe this is all she has,” he said quietly.
+
+In spite of herself Helen's grief changed to a fit of helpless laughter
+and, afraid to trust himself further, Hale rose to leave the room. At
+the door he was met by the negro maid.
+
+“Miss Helen,” she said with an open smile, “Miss June say she don't want
+NUTTIN'.” Hale gave her a fiery look and hurried out. June was seated
+at a window when he went into her room with her face buried in her arms.
+She lifted her head, dropped it, and he saw that her eyes were red with
+weeping. “Are you sick, little girl?” he asked anxiously. June shook her
+head helplessly.
+
+“You aren't homesick, are you?”
+
+“No.” The answer came very faintly.
+
+“Don't you like my sister?” The head bowed an emphatic “Yes--yes.”
+
+“Then what is the matter?”
+
+“Oh,” she said despairingly, between her sobs, “she--won't--like--me. I
+never--can--be--like HER.”
+
+Hale smiled, but her grief was so sincere that he leaned over her and
+with a tender hand soothed her into quiet. Then he went to Helen again
+and he found her overhauling dresses.
+
+“I brought along several things of different sizes and I am going to try
+at any rate. Oh,” she added hastily, “only of course until she can get
+some clothes of her own.”
+
+“Sure,” said Hale, “but--” His sister waved one hand and again Hale kept
+still.
+
+June had bathed her eyes and was lying down when Helen entered, and
+she made not the slightest objection to anything the latter proposed.
+Straightway she fell under as complete subjection to her as she had done
+to Hale. Without a moment's hesitation she drew off her rudely fashioned
+dress and stood before Helen with the utmost simplicity--her beautiful
+arms and throat bare and her hair falling about them with the rich gold
+of a cloud at an autumn sunset. Dressed, she could hardly breathe,
+but when she looked at herself in the mirror, she trembled. Magic
+transformation! Apparently the chasm between the two had been bridged
+in a single instant. Helen herself was astonished and again her heart
+warmed toward the girl, when a little later, she stood timidly under
+Hale's scrutiny, eagerly watching his face and flushing rosy
+with happiness under his brightening look. Her brother had not
+exaggerated--the little girl was really beautiful. When they went down
+to the dining-room, there was another surprise for Helen Hale, for
+June's timidity was gone and to the wonder of the woman, she was clothed
+with an impassive reserve that in herself would have been little less
+than haughtiness and was astounding in a child. She saw, too, that the
+change in the girl's bearing was unconscious and that the presence of
+strangers had caused it. It was plain that June's timidity sprang from
+her love of Hale--her fear of not pleasing him and not pleasing her, his
+sister, and plain, too, that remarkable self-poise was little June's to
+command. At the table June kept her eyes fastened on Helen Hale. Not a
+movement escaped her and she did nothing that was not done by one of the
+others first. She said nothing, but if she had to answer a question, she
+spoke with such care and precision that she almost seemed to be using
+a foreign language. Miss Hale smiled but with inward approval, and that
+night she was in better spirits.
+
+“Jack,” she said, when he came to bid her good-night, “I think we'd
+better stay here a few days. I thought of course you were exaggerating,
+but she is very, very lovely. And that manner of hers--well, it passes
+my understanding. Just leave everything to me.”
+
+Hale was very willing to do that. He had all trust in his sister's
+judgment, he knew her dislike of interference, her love of autocratic
+supervision, so he asked no questions, but in grateful relief kissed her
+good-night.
+
+The sister sat for a long time at her window after he was gone. Her
+brother had been long away from civilization; he had become infatuated,
+the girl loved him, he was honourable and in his heart he meant to marry
+her--that was to her the whole story. She had been mortified by the
+misstep, but the misstep made, only one thought had occurred to her--to
+help him all she could. She had been appalled when she first saw the
+dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness
+of the tired little face touched her, and she was straightway responsive
+to the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted to her own
+with such modest fear and wonder. Now her surprise at her brother's
+infatuation was abating rapidly. The girl's adoration of him, her wild
+beauty, her strange winning personality--as rare and as independent of
+birth and circumstances as genius--had soon made that phenomenon plain.
+And now what was to be done? The girl was quick, observant, imitative,
+docile, and in the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner gave
+the impression of uncanny self-possession. It really seemed as though
+anything might be possible. At Helen's suggestion, then, the three
+stayed where they were for a week, for June's wardrobe was sadly in need
+of attention. So the week was spent in shopping, driving, and walking,
+and rapidly as it passed for Helen and Hale it was to June the longest
+of her life, so filled was it with a thousand sensations unfelt by them.
+The city had been stirred by the spirit of the new South, but the charm
+of the old was distinct everywhere. Architectural eccentricities had
+startled the sleepy maple-shaded rows of comfortable uniform dwellings
+here and there, and in some streets the life was brisk; but it was
+still possible to see pedestrians strolling with unconscious good-humour
+around piles of goods on the sidewalk, business men stopping for a
+social chat on the streets, street-cars moving independent of time,
+men invariably giving up their seats to women, and, strangers or not,
+depositing their fare for them; the drivers at the courteous personal
+service of each patron of the road--now holding a car and placidly
+whistling while some lady who had signalled from her doorway went back
+indoors for some forgotten article, now twisting the reins around the
+brakes and leaving a parcel in some yard--and no one grumbling! But what
+was to Hale an atmosphere of amusing leisure was to June bewildering
+confusion. To her his amusement was unintelligible, but though in
+constant wonder at everything she saw, no one would ever have suspected
+that she was making her first acquaintance with city scenes. At first
+the calm unconcern of her companions had puzzled her. She could not
+understand how they could walk along, heedless of the wonderful visions
+that beckoned to her from the shop-windows; fearless of the strange
+noises about them and scarcely noticing the great crowds of people,
+or the strange shining vehicles that thronged the streets. But she had
+quickly concluded that it was one of the demands of that new life to
+see little and be astonished at nothing, and Helen and Hale surprised in
+turn at her unconcern, little suspected the effort her self-suppression
+cost her. And when over some wonder she did lose herself, Hale would
+say:
+
+“Just wait till you see New York!” and June would turn her dark eyes to
+Helen for confirmation and to see if Hale could be joking with her.
+
+“It's all true, June,” Helen would say. “You must go there some day.
+It's true.” But that town was enough and too much for June. Her head
+buzzed continuously and she could hardly sleep, and she was glad when
+one afternoon they took her into the country again--the Bluegrass
+country--and to the little town near which Hale had been born, and which
+was a dream-city to June, and to a school of which an old friend of
+his mother was principal, and in which Helen herself was a temporary
+teacher. And Rumour had gone ahead of June. Hale had found her dashing
+about the mountains on the back of a wild bull, said rumour. She was as
+beautiful as Europa, was of pure English descent and spoke the language
+of Shakespeare--the Hon. Sam Budd's hand was patent in this. She had
+saved Hale's life from moonshiners and while he was really in love
+with her, he was pretending to educate her out of gratitude--and
+here doubtless was the faint tracery of Miss Anne Saunder's natural
+suspicions. And there Hale left her under the eye of his sister--left
+her to absorb another new life like a thirsty plant and come back to the
+mountains to make his head swim with new witcheries.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+The boom started after its shadow through the hills now, and Hale
+watched it sweep toward him with grim satisfaction at the fulfilment of
+his own prophecy and with disgust that, by the irony of fate, it
+should come from the very quarters where years before he had played
+the maddening part of lunatic at large. The avalanche was sweeping
+southward; Pennsylvania was creeping down the Alleghanies, emissaries of
+New York capital were pouring into the hills, the tide-water of Virginia
+and the Bluegrass region of Kentucky were sending in their best blood
+and youth, and friends of the helmeted Englishmen were hurrying over the
+seas. Eastern companies were taking up principalities, and at Cumberland
+Gap, those helmeted Englishmen had acquired a kingdom. They were
+building a town there, too, with huge steel plants, broad avenues and
+business blocks that would have graced Broadway; and they were pouring
+out a million for every thousand that it would have cost Hale to acquire
+the land on which the work was going on. Moreover they were doing it
+there, as Hale heard, because they were too late to get control of
+his gap through the Cumberland. At his gap, too, the same movement was
+starting. In stage and wagon, on mule and horse, “riding and tying”
+ sometimes, and even afoot came the rush of madmen. Horses and mules were
+drowned in the mud holes along the road, such was the traffic and such
+were the floods. The incomers slept eight in a room, burned oil at one
+dollar a gallon, and ate potatoes at ten cents apiece. The Grand Central
+Hotel was a humming Real-Estate Exchange, and, night and day, the
+occupants of any room could hear, through the thin partitions, lots
+booming to right, left, behind and in front of them. The labour
+and capital question was instantly solved, for everybody became a
+capitalist-carpenter, brick-layer, blacksmith, singing teacher and
+preacher. There is no difference between the shrewdest business man and
+a fool in a boom, for the boom levels all grades of intelligence and
+produces as distinct a form of insanity as you can find within the walls
+of an asylum. Lots took wings sky-ward. Hale bought one for June for
+thirty dollars and sold it for a thousand. Before the autumn was gone,
+he found himself on the way to ridiculous opulence and, when spring
+came, he had the world in a sling and, if he wished, he could toss it
+playfully at the sun and have it drop back into his hand again. And the
+boom spread down the valley and into the hills. The police guard had
+little to do and, over in the mountains, the feud miraculously came to a
+sudden close.
+
+So pervasive, indeed, was the spirit of the times that the Hon. Sam
+Budd actually got old Buck Falin and old Dave Tolliver to sign a truce,
+agreeing to a complete cessation of hostilities until he carried through
+a land deal in which both were interested. And after that was
+concluded, nobody had time, even the Red Fox, for deviltry and private
+vengeance--so busy was everybody picking up the manna which was dropping
+straight from the clouds. Hale bought all of old Judd's land, formed a
+stock company and in the trade gave June a bonus of the stock. Money was
+plentiful as grains of sand, and the cashier of the bank in the back of
+the furniture store at the Gap chuckled to his beardless directors as he
+locked the wooden door on the day before the great land sale:
+
+“Capital stock paid in--thirteen thousand dollars;
+
+“Deposits--three hundred thousand;
+
+“Loans--two hundred and sixty thousand--interest from eight to twelve
+per cent.” And, beardless though those directors were, that statement
+made them reel.
+
+A club was formed and the like of it was not below Mason and Dixon's
+line in the way of furniture, periodicals, liquors and cigars. Poker
+ceased--it was too tame in competition with this new game of town-lots.
+On the top of High Knob a kingdom was bought. The young bloods of the
+town would build a lake up there, run a road up and build a Swiss chalet
+on the very top for a country club. The “booming” editor was discharged.
+A new paper was started, and the ex-editor of a New York Daily was got
+to run it. If anybody wanted anything, he got it from no matter where,
+nor at what cost. Nor were the arts wholly neglected. One man, who was
+proud of his voice, thought he would like to take singing lessons. An
+emissary was sent to Boston to bring back the best teacher he could
+find. The teacher came with a method of placing the voice by trying to
+say “Come!” at the base of the nose and between the eyes. This was with
+the lips closed. He charged two dollars per half hour for this effort,
+he had each pupil try it twice for half an hour each day, and for six
+weeks the town was humming like a beehive. At the end of that period,
+the teacher fell ill and went his way with a fat pocket-book and not
+a warbling soul had got the chance to open his mouth. The experience
+dampened nobody. Generosity was limitless. It was equally easy to raise
+money for a roulette wheel, a cathedral or an expedition to Africa.
+And even yet the railroad was miles away and even yet in February, the
+Improvement Company had a great land sale. The day before it, competing
+purchasers had deposited cheques aggregating three times the sum
+asked for by the company for the land. So the buyers spent the night
+organizing a pool to keep down competition and drawing lots for the
+privilege of bidding. For fairness, the sale was an auction, and one old
+farmer who had sold some of the land originally for a hundred dollars an
+acre, bought back some of that land at a thousand dollars a lot.
+
+That sale was the climax and, that early, Hale got a warning word from
+England, but he paid no heed even though, after the sale, the boom
+slackened, poised and stayed still; for optimism was unquenchable and
+another tide would come with another sale in May, and so the spring
+passed in the same joyous recklessness and the same perfect hope.
+
+In April, the first railroad reached the Gap at last, and families came
+in rapidly. Money was still plentiful and right royally was it spent,
+for was not just as much more coming when the second road arrived in
+May? Life was easier, too--supplies came from New York, eight o'clock
+dinners were in vogue and everybody was happy. Every man had two or
+three good horses and nothing to do. The place was full of visiting
+girls. They rode in parties to High Knob, and the ring of hoof and the
+laughter of youth and maid made every dusk resonant with joy. On Poplar
+Hill houses sprang up like magic and weddings came. The passing stranger
+was stunned to find out in the wilderness such a spot; gayety, prodigal
+hospitality, a police force of gentlemen--nearly all of whom were
+college graduates--and a club, where poker flourished in the smoke of
+Havana cigars, and a barrel of whiskey stood in one corner with a faucet
+waiting for the turn of any hand. And still the foundation of the new
+hotel was not started and the coming of the new railroad in May did not
+make a marked change. For some reason the May sale was postponed by the
+Improvement Company, but what did it matter? Perhaps it was better to
+wait for the fall, and so the summer went on unchanged. Every man still
+had a bank account and in the autumn, the boom would come again. At such
+a time June came home for her vacation, and Bob Berkley came back from
+college for his. All through the school year Hale had got the best
+reports of June. His sister's letters were steadily encouraging. June
+had been very homesick for the mountains and for Hale at first, but the
+homesickness had quickly worn off--apparently for both. She had studied
+hard, had become a favourite among the girls, and had held her own
+among them in a surprising way. But it was on June's musical talent that
+Hale's sister always laid most stress, and on her voice which, she said,
+was really unusual. June wrote, too, at longer and longer intervals and
+in her letters, Hale could see the progress she was making--the change
+in her handwriting, the increasing formality of expression, and the
+increasing shrewdness of her comments on her fellow-pupils, her teachers
+and the life about her. She did not write home for a reason Hale knew,
+though June never mentioned it--because there was no one at home who
+could read her letters--but she always sent messages to her father and
+Bub and to the old miller and old Hon, and Hale faithfully delivered
+them when he could.
+
+From her people, as Hale learned from his sister, only one messenger had
+come during the year to June, and he came but once. One morning, a tall,
+black-haired, uncouth young man, in a slouch hat and a Prince Albert
+coat, had strode up to the school with a big paper box under his arm and
+asked for June. As he handed the box to the maid at the door, it broke
+and red apples burst from it and rolled down the steps. There was a
+shriek of laughter from the girls, and the young man, flushing red as
+the apples, turned, without giving his name, and strode back with no
+little majesty, looking neither to right nor left. Hale knew and June
+knew that the visitor was her cousin Dave, but she never mentioned the
+incident to him, though as the end of the session drew nigh, her letters
+became more frequent and more full of messages to the people in Lonesome
+Cove, and she seemed eager to get back home. Over there about this time,
+old Judd concluded suddenly to go West, taking Bud with him, and when
+Hale wrote the fact, an answer came from June that showed the blot of
+tears. However, she seemed none the less in a hurry to get back, and
+when Hale met her at the station, he was startled; for she came back in
+dresses that were below her shoe-tops, with her wonderful hair massed
+in a golden glory on the top of her head and the little fairy-cross
+dangling at a woman's throat. Her figure had rounded, her voice had
+softened. She held herself as straight as a young poplar and she walked
+the earth as though she had come straight from Olympus. And still, in
+spite of her new feathers and airs and graces, there was in her eye and
+in her laugh and in her moods all the subtle wild charm of the child in
+Lonesome Cove. It was fairy-time for June that summer, though her father
+and Bud had gone West, for her step-mother was living with a sister, the
+cabin in Lonesome Cove was closed and June stayed at the Gap, not at the
+Widow Crane's boarding-house, but with one of Hale's married friends
+on Poplar Hill. And always was she, young as she was, one of the merry
+parties of that happy summer--even at the dances, for the dance, too,
+June had learned. Moreover she had picked up the guitar, and many times
+when Hale had been out in the hills, he would hear her silver-clear
+voice floating out into the moonlight as he made his way toward Poplar
+Hill, and he would stop under the beeches and listen with ears of
+growing love to the wonder of it all. For it was he who was the ardent
+one of the two now.
+
+June was no longer the frank, impulsive child who stood at the foot of
+the beech, doggedly reckless if all the world knew her love for him. She
+had taken flight to some inner recess where it was difficult for Hale to
+follow, and right puzzled he was to discover that he must now win again
+what, unasked, she had once so freely given.
+
+Bob Berkley, too, had developed amazingly. He no longer said “Sir” to
+Hale--that was bad form at Harvard--he called him by his first name and
+looked him in the eye as man to man: just as June--Hale observed--no
+longer seemed in any awe of Miss Anne Saunders and to have lost all
+jealousy of her, or of anybody else--so swiftly had her instinct taught
+her she now had nothing to fear. And Bob and June seemed mightily
+pleased with each other, and sometimes Hale, watching them as they
+galloped past him on horseback laughing and bantering, felt foolish
+to think of their perfect fitness--the one for the other--and the
+incongruity of himself in a relationship that would so naturally be
+theirs. At one thing he wondered: she had made an extraordinary
+record at school and it seemed to him that it was partly through the
+consciousness that her brain would take care of itself that she could
+pay such heed to what hitherto she had had no chance to learn--dress,
+manners, deportment and speech. Indeed, it was curious that she seemed
+to lay most stress on the very things to which he, because of his long
+rough life in the mountains, was growing more and more indifferent.
+It was quite plain that Bob, with his extreme gallantry of manner,
+his smart clothes, his high ways and his unconquerable gayety, had
+supplanted him on the pedestal where he had been the year before, just
+as somebody, somewhere--his sister, perhaps--had supplanted Miss Anne.
+Several times indeed June had corrected Hale's slips of tongue with
+mischievous triumph, and once when he came back late from a long trip in
+the mountains and walked in to dinner without changing his clothes,
+Hale saw her look from himself to the immaculate Bob with an unconscious
+comparison that half amused, half worried him. The truth was he was
+building a lovely Frankenstein and from wondering what he was going to
+do with it, he was beginning to wonder now what it might some day
+do with him. And though he sometimes joked with Miss Anne, who had
+withdrawn now to the level plane of friendship with him, about the
+transformation that was going on, he worried in a way that did neither
+his heart nor his brain good. Still he fought both to little purpose
+all that summer, and it was not till the time was nigh when June must
+go away again, that he spoke both. For Hale's sister was going to marry,
+and it was her advice that he should take June to New York if only for
+the sake of her music and her voice. That very day June had for the
+first time seen her cousin Dave. He was on horseback, he had been
+drinking and he pulled in and, without an answer to her greeting, stared
+her over from head to foot. Colouring angrily, she started on and then
+he spoke thickly and with a sneer:
+
+“'Bout fryin' size, now, ain't ye? I reckon maybe, if you keep on,
+you'll be good enough fer him in a year or two more.”
+
+“I'm much obliged for those apples, Dave,” said June quietly--and Dave
+flushed a darker red and sat still, forgetting to renew the old threat
+that was on his tongue.
+
+But his taunt rankled in the girl--rankled more now than when Dave first
+made it, for she better saw the truth of it and the hurt was the greater
+to her unconquerable pride that kept her from betraying the hurt to Dave
+long ago, and now, when he was making an old wound bleed afresh. But
+the pain was with her at dinner that night and through the evening. She
+avoided Hale's eyes though she knew that he was watching her all the
+time, and her instinct told her that something was going to happen that
+night and what that something was. Hale was the last to go and when he
+called to her from the porch, she went out trembling and stood at the
+head of the steps in the moonlight.
+
+“I love you, little girl,” he said simply, “and I want you to marry me
+some day--will you, June?” She was unsurprised but she flushed under his
+hungry eyes, and the little cross throbbed at her throat.
+
+“SOME day--not NOW,” she thought, and then with equal simplicity: “Yes,
+Jack.”
+
+“And if you should love somebody else more, you'll tell me right
+away--won't you, June?” She shrank a little and her eyes fell, but
+straight-way she raised them steadily:
+
+“Yes, Jack.”
+
+“Thank you, little girl--good-night.”
+
+“Good-night, Jack.”
+
+Hale saw the little shrinking movement she made, and, as he went down
+the hill, he thought she seemed to be in a hurry to be alone, and that
+she had caught her breath sharply as she turned away. And brooding he
+walked the woods long that night.
+
+Only a few days later, they started for New York and, with all her
+dreaming, June had never dreamed that the world could be so large.
+Mountains and vast stretches of rolling hills and level land melted
+away from her wondering eyes; towns and cities sank behind them, swift
+streams swollen by freshets were outstripped and left behind, darkness
+came on and, through it, they still sped on. Once during the night she
+woke from a troubled dream in her berth and for a moment she thought she
+was at home again. They were running through mountains again and there
+they lay in the moonlight, the great calm dark faces that she knew and
+loved, and she seemed to catch the odour of the earth and feel the cool
+air on her face, but there was no pang of homesickness now--she was too
+eager for the world into which she was going. Next morning the air was
+cooler, the skies lower and grayer--the big city was close at hand. Then
+came the water, shaking and sparkling in the early light like a great
+cauldron of quicksilver, and the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge--a ribbon of
+twinkling lights tossed out through the mist from the mighty city that
+rose from that mist as from a fantastic dream; then the picking of a
+way through screeching little boats and noiseless big ones and white
+bird-like floating things and then they disappeared like two tiny grains
+in a shifting human tide of sand. But Hale was happy now, for on that
+trip June had come back to herself, and to him, once more--and now, awed
+but unafraid, eager, bubbling, uplooking, full of quaint questions
+about everything she saw, she was once more sitting with affectionate
+reverence at his feet. When he left her in a great low house that
+fronted on the majestic Hudson, June clung to him with tears and of her
+own accord kissed him for the first time since she had torn her little
+playhouse to pieces at the foot of the beech down in the mountains far
+away. And Hale went back with peace in his heart, but to trouble in the
+hills.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Not suddenly did the boom drop down there, not like a falling star,
+but on the wings of hope--wings that ever fluttering upward, yet sank
+inexorably and slowly closed. The first crash came over the waters when
+certain big men over there went to pieces--men on whose shoulders rested
+the colossal figure of progress that the English were carving from the
+hills at Cumberland Gap. Still nobody saw why a hurt to the Lion should
+make the Eagle sore and so the American spirit at the other gaps and
+all up the Virginia valleys that skirt the Cumberland held faithful
+and dauntless--for a while. But in time as the huge steel plants grew
+noiseless, and the flaming throats of the furnaces were throttled, a
+sympathetic fire of dissolution spread slowly North and South and it was
+plain only to the wise outsider as merely a matter of time until, all up
+and down the Cumberland, the fox and the coon and the quail could come
+back to their old homes on corner lots, marked each by a pathetic little
+whitewashed post--a tombstone over the graves of a myriad of buried
+human hopes. But it was the gap where Hale was that died last and
+hardest--and of the brave spirits there, his was the last and hardest to
+die.
+
+In the autumn, while June was in New York, the signs were sure but every
+soul refused to see them. Slowly, however, the vexed question of labour
+and capital was born again, for slowly each local capitalist went slowly
+back to his own trade: the blacksmith to his forge, but the carpenter
+not to his plane nor the mason to his brick--there was no more building
+going on. The engineer took up his transit, the preacher-politician was
+oftener in his pulpit, and the singing teacher started on his round of
+raucous do-mi-sol-dos through the mountains again. It was curious to see
+how each man slowly, reluctantly and perforce sank back again to his old
+occupation--and the town, with the luxuries of electricity, water-works,
+bath-tubs and a street railway, was having a hard fight for the plain
+necessities of life. The following spring, notes for the second payment
+on the lots that had been bought at the great land sale fell due,
+and but very few were paid. As no suits were brought by the company,
+however, hope did not quite die. June did not come home for the
+summer, and Hale did not encourage her to come--she visited some of her
+school-mates in the North and took a trip West to see her father who had
+gone out there again and bought a farm. In the early autumn, Devil Judd
+came back to the mountains and announced his intention to leave them for
+good. But that autumn, the effects of the dead boom became perceptible
+in the hills. There were no more coal lands bought, logging ceased, the
+factions were idle once more, moonshine stills flourished, quarrelling
+started, and at the county seat, one Court day, Devil Judd whipped three
+Falins with his bare fists. In the early spring a Tolliver was shot
+from ambush and old Judd was so furious at the outrage that he openly
+announced that he would stay at home until he had settled the old scores
+for good. So that, as the summer came on, matters between the Falins and
+the Tollivers were worse than they had been for years and everybody knew
+that, with old Judd at the head of his clan again, the fight would be
+fought to the finish. At the Gap, one institution only had suffered in
+spirit not at all and that was the Volunteer Police Guard. Indeed, as
+the excitement of the boom had died down, the members of that force,
+as a vent for their energies, went with more enthusiasm than ever into
+their work. Local lawlessness had been subdued by this time, the Guard
+had been extending its work into the hills, and it was only a question
+of time until it must take a part in the Falin-Tolliver troubles.
+Indeed, that time, Hale believed, was not far away, for Election Day was
+at hand, and always on that day the feudists came to the Gap in a search
+for trouble. Meanwhile, not long afterward, there was a pitched battle
+between the factions at the county seat, and several of each would fight
+no more. Next day a Falin whistled a bullet through Devil Judd's beard
+from ambush, and it was at such a crisis of all the warring elements in
+her mountain life that June's school-days were coming to a close. Hale
+had had a frank talk with old Judd and the old man agreed that the
+two had best be married at once and live at the Gap until things
+were quieter in the mountains, though the old man still clung to his
+resolution to go West for good when he was done with the Falins. At such
+a time, then, June was coming home.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Hale was beyond Black Mountain when her letter reached him. His work
+over there had to be finished and so he kept in his saddle the greater
+part of two days and nights and on the third day rode his big black
+horse forty miles in little more than half a day that he might meet
+her at the train. The last two years had wrought their change in him.
+Deterioration is easy in the hills--superficial deterioration in
+habits, manners, personal appearance and the practices of all the little
+niceties of life. The morning bath is impossible because of the crowded
+domestic conditions of a mountain cabin and, if possible, might if
+practised, excite wonder and comment, if not vague suspicion. Sleeping
+garments are practically barred for the same reason. Shaving becomes a
+rare luxury. A lost tooth-brush may not be replaced for a month. In time
+one may bring himself to eat with a knife for the reason that it is hard
+for a hungry man to feed himself with a fork that has but two tines. The
+finger tips cease to be the culminating standard of the gentleman. It
+is hard to keep a supply of fresh linen when one is constantly in the
+saddle, and a constant weariness of body and a ravenous appetite make a
+man indifferent to things like a bad bed and worse food, particularly
+as he must philosophically put up with them, anyhow. Of all these things
+the man himself may be quite unconscious and yet they affect him more
+deeply than he knows and show to a woman even in his voice, his walk,
+his mouth--everywhere save in his eyes, which change only in severity,
+or in kindliness or when there has been some serious break-down of soul
+or character within. And the woman will not look to his eyes for the
+truth--which makes its way slowly--particularly when the woman has
+striven for the very things that the man has so recklessly let go. She
+would never suffer herself to let down in such a way and she does not
+understand how a man can.
+
+Hale's life, since his college doors had closed behind him, had always
+been a rough one. He had dropped from civilization and had gone back
+into it many times. And each time he had dropped, he dropped the deeper,
+and for that reason had come back into his own life each time with more
+difficulty and with more indifference. The last had been his roughest
+year and he had sunk a little more deeply just at the time when June had
+been pluming herself for flight from such depths forever. Moreover,
+Hale had been dominant in every matter that his hand or his brain had
+touched. His habit had been to say “do this” and it was done. Though
+he was no longer acting captain of the Police Guard, he always acted as
+captain whenever he was on hand, and always he was the undisputed leader
+in all questions of business, politics or the maintenance of order and
+law. The success he had forged had hardened and strengthened his mouth,
+steeled his eyes and made him more masterful in manner, speech and
+point of view, and naturally had added nothing to his gentleness, his
+unselfishness, his refinement or the nice consideration of little things
+on which women lay such stress. It was an hour by sun when he clattered
+through the gap and pushed his tired black horse into a gallop across
+the valley toward the town. He saw the smoke of the little dummy and, as
+he thundered over the bridge of the North Fork, he saw that it was just
+about to pull out and he waved his hat and shouted imperiously for it to
+wait. With his hand on the bell-rope, the conductor, autocrat that he,
+too, was, did wait and Hale threw his reins to the man who was nearest,
+hardly seeing who he was, and climbed aboard. He wore a slouched hat
+spotted by contact with the roof of the mines which he had hastily
+visited on his way through Lonesome Cove. The growth of three days'
+beard was on his face. He wore a gray woollen shirt, and a blue
+handkerchief--none too clean--was loosely tied about his sun-scorched
+column of a throat; he was spotted with mud from his waist to the soles
+of his rough riding boots and his hands were rough and grimy. But his
+eye was bright and keen and his heart thumped eagerly. Again it was the
+middle of June and the town was a naked island in a sea of leaves
+whose breakers literally had run mountain high and stopped for all time
+motionless. Purple lights thick as mist veiled Powell's Mountain. Below,
+the valley was still flooded with yellow sunlight which lay along the
+mountain sides and was streaked here and there with the long shadow of
+a deep ravine. The beech trunks on Imboden Hill gleamed in it like white
+bodies scantily draped with green, and the yawning Gap held the yellow
+light as a bowl holds wine. He had long ago come to look upon the hills
+merely as storehouses for iron and coal, put there for his special
+purpose, but now the long submerged sense of the beauty of it all
+stirred within him again, for June was the incarnate spirit of it all
+and June was coming back to those mountains and--to him.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+And June--June had seen the change in Hale. The first year he had come
+often to New York to see her and they had gone to the theatre and the
+opera, and June was pleased to play the part of heroine in what was such
+a real romance to the other girls in school and she was proud of Hale.
+But each time he came, he seemed less interested in the diversions that
+meant so much to her, more absorbed in his affairs in the mountains and
+less particular about his looks. His visits came at longer intervals,
+with each visit he stayed less long, and each time he seemed more eager
+to get away. She had been shy about appearing before him for the first
+time in evening dress, and when he entered the drawing-room she stood
+under a chandelier in blushing and resplendent confusion, but he seemed
+not to recognize that he had never seen her that way before, and for
+another reason June remained confused, disappointed and hurt, for he
+was not only unobserving, and seemingly unappreciative, but he was more
+silent than ever that night and he looked gloomy. But if he had grown
+accustomed to her beauty, there were others who had not, and smart,
+dapper college youths gathered about her like bees around a flower--a
+triumphant fact to which he also seemed indifferent. Moreover, he was
+not in evening clothes that night and she did not know whether he had
+forgotten or was indifferent to them, and the contrast that he was made
+her that night almost ashamed for him. She never guessed what the matter
+was, for Hale kept his troubles to himself. He was always gentle and
+kind, he was as lavish with her as though he were a king, and she was
+as lavish and prodigally generous as though she were a princess. There
+seemed no limit to the wizard income from the investments that Hale
+had made for her when, as he said, he sold a part of her stock in the
+Lonesome Cove mine, and what she wanted Hale always sent her without
+question. Only, as the end was coming on at the Gap, he wrote once to
+know if a certain amount would carry her through until she was ready to
+come home, but even that question aroused no suspicion in thoughtless
+June. And then that last year he had come no more--always, always he was
+too busy. Not even on her triumphal night at the end of the session was
+he there, when she had stood before the guests and patrons of the school
+like a goddess, and had thrilled them into startling applause, her
+teachers into open glowing pride, the other girls into bright-eyed envy
+and herself into still another new world. Now she was going home and she
+was glad to go.
+
+She had awakened that morning with the keen air of the mountains in her
+nostrils--the air she had breathed in when she was born, and her eyes
+shone happily when she saw through her window the loved blue hills along
+which raced the train. They were only a little way from the town where
+she must change, the porter said; she had overslept and she had no time
+even to wash her face and hands, and that worried her a good deal. The
+porter nearly lost his equilibrium when she gave him half a dollar--for
+women are not profuse in the way of tipping--and instead of putting her
+bag down on the station platform, he held it in his hand waiting to do
+her further service. At the head of the steps she searched about for
+Hale and her lovely face looked vexed and a little hurt when she did not
+see him.
+
+“Hotel, Miss?” said the porter.
+
+“Yes, please, Harvey!” she called.
+
+An astonished darky sprang from the line of calling hotel-porters and
+took her bag. Then every tooth in his head flashed.
+
+“Lordy, Miss June--I never knowed you at all.”
+
+June smiled--it was the tribute she was looking for.
+
+“Have you seen Mr. Hale?”
+
+“No'm. Mr. Hale ain't been here for mos' six months. I reckon he aint in
+this country now. I aint heard nothin' 'bout him for a long time.”
+
+June knew better than that--but she said nothing. She would rather have
+had even Harvey think that he was away. So she hurried to the hotel--she
+would have four hours to wait--and asked for the one room that had a
+bath attached--the room to which Hale had sent her when she had passed
+through on her way to New York. She almost winced when she looked in the
+mirror and saw the smoke stains about her pretty throat and ears, and
+she wondered if anybody could have noticed them on her way from the
+train. Her hands, too, were dreadful to look at and she hurried to take
+off her things.
+
+In an hour she emerged freshened, immaculate from her crown of lovely
+hair to her smartly booted feet, and at once she went downstairs. She
+heard the man, whom she passed, stop at the head of them and turn to
+look down at her, and she saw necks craned within the hotel office when
+she passed the door. On the street not a man and hardly a woman
+failed to look at her with wonder and open admiration, for she was an
+apparition in that little town and it all pleased her so much that she
+became flushed and conscious and felt like a queen who, unknown, moved
+among her subjects and blessed them just with her gracious presence.
+For she was unknown even by several people whom she knew and that, too,
+pleased her--to have bloomed so quite beyond their ken. She was like a
+meteor coming back to dazzle the very world from which it had flown for
+a while into space. When she went into the dining-room for the midday
+dinner, there was a movement in almost every part of the room as though
+there were many there who were on the lookout for her entrance. The head
+waiter, a portly darky, lost his imperturbable majesty for a moment in
+surprise at the vision and then with a lordly yet obsequious wave of his
+hand, led her to a table over in a corner where no one was sitting. Four
+young men came in rather boisterously and made for her table. She lifted
+her calm eyes at them so haughtily that the one in front halted with
+sudden embarrassment and they all swerved to another table from which
+they stared at her surreptitiously. Perhaps she was mistaken for the
+comic-opera star whose brilliant picture she had seen on a bill board in
+front of the “opera house.” Well, she had the voice and she might
+have been and she might yet be--and if she were, this would be the
+distinction that would be shown her. And, still as it was she was
+greatly pleased.
+
+At four o'clock she started for the hills. In half an hour she was
+dropping down a winding ravine along a rock-lashing stream with those
+hills so close to the car on either side that only now and then could
+she see the tops of them. Through the window the keen air came from the
+very lungs of them, freighted with the coolness of shadows, the scent of
+damp earth and the faint fragrance of wild flowers, and her soul leaped
+to meet them. The mountain sides were showered with pink and white
+laurel (she used to call it “ivy”) and the rhododendrons (she used to
+call them “laurel”) were just beginning to blossom--they were her old
+and fast friends--mountain, shadow, the wet earth and its pure breath,
+and tree, plant and flower; she had not forgotten them, and it was good
+to come back to them. Once she saw an overshot water-wheel on the bank
+of the rushing little stream and she thought of Uncle Billy; she smiled
+and the smile stopped short--she was going back to other things as well.
+The train had creaked by a log-cabin set in the hillside and then past
+another and another; and always there were two or three ragged children
+in the door and a haggard unkempt woman peering over their shoulders.
+How lonely those cabins looked and how desolate the life they suggested
+to her now--NOW! The first station she came to after the train had
+wound down the long ravine to the valley level again was crowded with
+mountaineers. There a wedding party got aboard with a great deal of
+laughter, chaffing and noise, and all three went on within and without
+the train while it was waiting. A sudden thought stunned her like a
+lightning stroke. They were HER people out there on the platform and
+inside the car ahead--those rough men in slouch hats, jeans and cowhide
+boots, their mouths stained with tobacco juice, their cheeks and eyes
+on fire with moonshine, and those women in poke-bonnets with their sad,
+worn, patient faces on which the sympathetic good cheer and joy of
+the moment sat so strangely. She noticed their rough shoes and their
+homespun gowns that made their figures all alike and shapeless, with
+a vivid awakening of early memories. She might have been one of those
+narrow-lived girls outside, or that bride within had it not been for
+Jack--Hale. She finished the name in her own mind and she was conscious
+that she had. Ah, well, that was a long time ago and she was nothing but
+a child and she had thrown herself at his head. Perhaps it was different
+with him now and if it was, she would give him the chance to withdraw
+from everything. It would be right and fair and then life was so full
+for her now. She was dependent on nobody--on nothing. A rainbow spanned
+the heaven above her and the other end of it was not in the hills. But
+one end was and to that end she was on her way. She was going to just
+such people as she had seen at the station. Her father and her kinsmen
+were just such men--her step-mother and kinswomen were just such women.
+Her home was little more than just such a cabin as the desolate ones
+that stirred her pity when she swept by them. She thought of how she
+felt when she had first gone to Lonesome Cove after a few months at the
+Gap, and she shuddered to think how she would feel now. She was getting
+restless by this time and aimlessly she got up and walked to the front
+of the car and back again to her seat, hardly noticing that the other
+occupants were staring at her with some wonder. She sat down for a few
+minutes and then she went to the rear and stood outside on the platform,
+clutching a brass rod of the railing and looking back on the dropping
+darkness in which the hills seemed to be rushing together far behind as
+the train crashed on with its wake of spark-lit rolling smoke. A cinder
+stung her face, and when she lifted her hand to the spot, she saw that
+her glove was black with grime. With a little shiver of disgust she went
+back to her seat and with her face to the blackness rushing past her
+window she sat brooding--brooding. Why had Hale not met her? He had said
+he would and she had written him when she was coming and had telegraphed
+him at the station in New York when she started. Perhaps he HAD changed.
+She recalled that even his letters had grown less frequent, shorter,
+more hurried the past year--well, he should have his chance. Always,
+however, her mind kept going back to the people at the station and to
+her people in the mountains. They were the same, she kept repeating
+to herself--the very same and she was one of them. And always she kept
+thinking of her first trip to Lonesome Cove after her awakening and of
+what her next would be. That first time Hale had made her go back as
+she had left, in home-spun, sun-bonnet and brogans. There was the same
+reason why she should go back that way now as then--would Hale insist
+that she should now? She almost laughed aloud at the thought. She knew
+that she would refuse and she knew that his reason would not appeal to
+her now--she no longer cared what her neighbours and kinspeople might
+think and say. The porter paused at her seat.
+
+“How much longer is it?” she asked.
+
+“Half an hour, Miss.”
+
+June went to wash her face and hands, and when she came back to her seat
+a great glare shone through the windows on the other side of the car. It
+was the furnace, a “run” was on and she could see the streams of white
+molten metal racing down the narrow channels of sand to their narrow
+beds on either side. The whistle shrieked ahead for the Gap and she
+nerved herself with a prophetic sense of vague trouble at hand.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+At the station Hale had paced the platform. He looked at his watch to
+see whether he might have time to run up to the furnace, half a mile
+away, and board the train there. He thought he had and he was about to
+start when the shriek of the coming engine rose beyond the low hills in
+Wild Cat Valley, echoed along Powell's Mountain and broke against the
+wrinkled breast of the Cumberland. On it came, and in plain sight it
+stopped suddenly to take water, and Hale cursed it silently and
+recalled viciously that when he was in a hurry to arrive anywhere,
+the water-tower was always on the wrong side of the station. He got so
+restless that he started for it on a run and he had gone hardly fifty
+yards before the train came on again and he had to run back to beat it
+to the station--where he sprang to the steps of the Pullman before it
+stopped--pushing the porter aside to find himself checked by the crowded
+passengers at the door. June was not among them and straightway he ran
+for the rear of the car.
+
+June had risen. The other occupants of the car had crowded forward and
+she was the last of them. She had stood, during an irritating wait, at
+the water-tower, and now as she moved slowly forward again she heard
+the hurry of feet behind her and she turned to look into the eager,
+wondering eyes of John Hale.
+
+“June!” he cried in amazement, but his face lighted with joy and he
+impulsively stretched out his arms as though he meant to take her in
+them, but as suddenly he dropped them before the startled look in her
+eyes, which, with one swift glance, searched him from head to foot. They
+shook hands almost gravely.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+June sat in the little dummy, the focus of curious eyes, while Hale was
+busy seeing that her baggage was got aboard. The checks that she gave
+him jingled in his hands like a bunch of keys, and he could hardly
+help grinning when he saw the huge trunks and the smart bags that were
+tumbled from the baggage car--all marked with her initials. There had
+been days when he had laid considerable emphasis on pieces like those,
+and when he thought of them overwhelming with opulent suggestions that
+debt-stricken little town, and, later, piled incongruously on the porch
+of the cabin on Lonesome Cove, he could have laughed aloud but for a
+nameless something that was gnawing savagely at his heart.
+
+He felt almost shy when he went back into the car, and though
+June greeted him with a smile, her immaculate daintiness made him
+unconsciously sit quite far away from her. The little fairy-cross was
+still at her throat, but a tiny diamond gleamed from each end of it and
+from the centre, as from a tiny heart, pulsated the light of a little
+blood-red ruby. To him it meant the loss of June's simplicity and was
+the symbol of her new estate, but he smiled and forced himself into
+hearty cheerfulness of manner and asked her questions about her trip.
+But June answered in halting monosyllables, and talk was not easy
+between them. All the while he was watching her closely and not a
+movement of her eye, ear, mouth or hand--not an inflection of her
+voice--escaped him. He saw her sweep the car and its occupants with
+a glance, and he saw the results of that glance in her face and the
+down-dropping of her eyes to the dainty point of one boot. He saw
+her beautiful mouth close suddenly tight and her thin nostrils quiver
+disdainfully when a swirl of black smoke, heavy with cinders, came
+in with an entering passenger through the front door of the car. Two
+half-drunken men were laughing boisterously near that door and even her
+ears seemed trying to shut out their half-smothered rough talk. The car
+started with a bump that swayed her toward him, and when she caught the
+seat with one hand, it checked as suddenly, throwing her the other way,
+and then with a leap it sprang ahead again, giving a nagging snap to her
+head. Her whole face grew red with vexation and shrinking distaste,
+and all the while, when the little train steadied into its creaking,
+puffing, jostling way, one gloved hand on the chased silver handle of
+her smart little umbrella kept nervously swaying it to and fro on its
+steel-shod point, until she saw that the point was in a tiny pool of
+tobacco juice, and then she laid it across her lap with shuddering
+swiftness.
+
+At first Hale thought that she had shrunk from kissing him in the car
+because other people were around. He knew better now. At that moment he
+was as rough and dirty as the chain-carrier opposite him, who was just
+in from a surveying expedition in the mountains, as the sooty brakeman
+who came through to gather up the fares--as one of those good-natured,
+profane inebriates up in the corner. No, it was not publicity--she had
+shrunk from him as she was shrinking now from black smoke, rough men,
+the shaking of the train--the little pool of tobacco juice at her feet.
+The truth began to glimmer through his brain. He understood, even when
+she leaned forward suddenly to look into the mouth of the gap, that was
+now dark with shadows. Through that gap lay her way and she thought him
+now more a part of what was beyond than she who had been born of it was,
+and dazed by the thought, he wondered if he might not really be. At once
+he straightened in his seat, and his mind made up, as he always made it
+up--swiftly. He had not explained why he had not met her that morning,
+nor had he apologized for his rough garb, because he was so glad to see
+her and because there were so many other things he wanted to say; and
+when he saw her, conscious and resentful, perhaps, that he had not done
+these things at once--he deliberately declined to do them now. He became
+silent, but he grew more courteous, more thoughtful--watchful. She was
+very tired, poor child; there were deep shadows under her eyes which
+looked weary and almost mournful. So, when with a clanging of the engine
+bell they stopped at the brilliantly lit hotel, he led her at once
+upstairs to the parlour, and from there sent her up to her room, which
+was ready for her.
+
+“You must get a good sleep,” he said kindly, and with his usual firmness
+that was wont to preclude argument. “You are worn to death. I'll have
+your supper sent to your room.” The girl felt the subtle change in his
+manner and her lip quivered for a vague reason that neither knew, but,
+without a word, she obeyed him like a child. He did not try again to
+kiss her. He merely took her hand, placed his left over it, and with a
+gentle pressure, said:
+
+“Good-night, little girl.”
+
+“Good-night,” she faltered.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Resolutely, relentlessly, first, Hale cast up his accounts, liabilities,
+resources, that night, to see what, under the least favourable outcome,
+the balance left to him would be. Nearly all was gone. His securities
+were already sold. His lots would not bring at public sale one-half of
+the deferred payments yet to be made on them, and if the company brought
+suit, as it was threatening to do, he would be left fathoms deep in
+debt. The branch railroad had not come up the river toward Lonesome
+Cove, and now he meant to build barges and float his cannel coal down to
+the main line, for his sole hope was in the mine in Lonesome Cove.
+The means that he could command were meagre, but they would carry his
+purpose with June for a year at least and then--who knew?--he might,
+through that mine, be on his feet again.
+
+The little town was dark and asleep when he stepped into the cool
+night-air and made his way past the old school-house and up Imboden
+Hill. He could see--all shining silver in the moonlight--the still crest
+of the big beech at the blessed roots of which his lips had met June's
+in the first kiss that had passed between them. On he went through the
+shadowy aisle that the path made between other beech-trunks, harnessed
+by the moonlight with silver armour and motionless as sentinels on watch
+till dawn, out past the amphitheatre of darkness from which the dead
+trees tossed out their crooked arms as though voicing silently now his
+own soul's torment, and then on to the point of the spur of foot-hills
+where, with the mighty mountains encircling him and the world, a
+dreamland lighted only by stars, he stripped his soul before the Maker
+of it and of him and fought his fight out alone.
+
+His was the responsibility for all--his alone. No one else was to
+blame--June not at all. He had taken her from her own life--had swerved
+her from the way to which God pointed when she was born. He had given
+her everything she wanted, had allowed her to do what she pleased
+and had let her think that, through his miraculous handling of her
+resources, she was doing it all herself. And the result was natural. For
+the past two years he had been harassed with debt, racked with worries,
+writhing this way and that, concerned only with the soul-tormenting
+catastrophe that had overtaken him. About all else he had grown
+careless. He had not been to see her the last year, he had written
+seldom, and it appalled him to look back now on his own self-absorption
+and to think how he must have appeared to June. And he had gone on in
+that self-absorption to the very end. He had got his license to marry,
+had asked Uncle Billy, who was magistrate as well as miller, to marry
+them, and, a rough mountaineer himself to the outward eye, he had
+appeared to lead a child like a lamb to the sacrifice and had found a
+woman with a mind, heart and purpose of her own. It was all his work. He
+had sent her away to fit her for his station in life--to make her fit to
+marry him. She had risen above and now HE WAS NOT FIT TO MARRY HER. That
+was the brutal truth--a truth that was enough to make a wise man laugh
+or a fool weep, and Hale did neither. He simply went on working to make
+out how he could best discharge the obligations that he had voluntarily,
+willingly, gladly, selfishly even, assumed. In his mind he treated
+conditions only as he saw and felt them and believed them at that moment
+true: and into the problem he went no deeper than to find his simple
+duty, and that, while the morning stars were sinking, he found. And it
+was a duty the harder to find because everything had reawakened within
+him, and the starting-point of that awakening was the proud glow in
+Uncle Billy's kind old face, when he knew the part he was to play in the
+happiness of Hale and June. All the way over the mountain that day his
+heart had gathered fuel from memories at the big Pine, and down the
+mountain and through the gap, to be set aflame by the yellow sunlight in
+the valley and the throbbing life in everything that was alive, for the
+month was June and the spirit of that month was on her way to him. So
+when he rose now, with back-thrown head, he stretched his arms suddenly
+out toward those far-seeing stars, and as suddenly dropped them with an
+angry shake of his head and one quick gritting of his teeth that such a
+thought should have mastered him even for one swift second--the thought
+of how lonesome would be the trail that would be his to follow after
+that day.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+June, tired though she was, tossed restlessly that night. The one look
+she had seen in Hale's face when she met him in the car, told her the
+truth as far as he was concerned. He was unchanged, she could give him
+no chance to withdraw from their long understanding, for it was plain
+to her quick instinct that he wanted none. And so she had asked him
+no question about his failure to meet her, for she knew now that his
+reason, no matter what, was good. He had startled her in the car, for
+her mind was heavy with memories of the poor little cabins she had
+passed on the train, of the mountain men and women in the wedding-party,
+and Hale himself was to the eye so much like one of them--had so
+startled her that, though she knew that his instinct, too, was at work,
+she could not gather herself together to combat her own feelings, for
+every little happening in the dummy but drew her back to her previous
+train of painful thought. And in that helplessness she had told Hale
+good-night. She remembered now how she had looked upon Lonesome Cove
+after she went to the Gap; how she had looked upon the Gap after her
+year in the Bluegrass, and how she had looked back even on the first big
+city she had seen there from the lofty vantage ground of New York. What
+was the use of it all? Why laboriously climb a hill merely to see and
+yearn for things that you cannot have, if you must go back and live in
+the hollow again? Well, she thought rebelliously, she would not go back
+to the hollow again--that was all. She knew what was coming and her
+cousin Dave's perpetual sneer sprang suddenly from the past to cut
+through her again and the old pride rose within her once more. She was
+good enough now for Hale, oh, yes, she thought bitterly, good enough
+NOW; and then, remembering his life-long kindness and thinking what she
+might have been but for him, she burst into tears at the unworthiness of
+her own thought. Ah, what should she do--what should she do? Repeating
+that question over and over again, she fell toward morning into troubled
+sleep. She did not wake until nearly noon, for already she had formed
+the habit of sleeping late--late at least, for that part of the
+world--and she was glad when the negro boy brought her word that Mr.
+Hale had been called up the valley and would not be back until the
+afternoon. She dreaded to meet him, for she knew that he had seen
+the trouble within her and she knew he was not the kind of man to let
+matters drag vaguely, if they could be cleared up and settled by open
+frankness of discussion, no matter how blunt he must be. She had to wait
+until mid-day dinner time for something to eat, so she lay abed, picked
+a breakfast from the menu, which was spotted, dirty and meagre in
+offerings, and had it brought to her room. Early in the afternoon she
+issued forth into the sunlight, and started toward Imboden Hill. It was
+very beautiful and soul-comforting--the warm air, the luxuriantly wooded
+hills, with their shades of green that told her where poplar and oak and
+beech and maple grew, the delicate haze of blue that overlay them and
+deepened as her eyes followed the still mountain piles north-eastward
+to meet the big range that shut her in from the outer world. The changes
+had been many. One part of the town had been wiped out by fire and a few
+buildings of stone had risen up. On the street she saw strange faces,
+but now and then she stopped to shake hands with somebody whom she knew,
+and who recognized her always with surprise and spoke but few words, and
+then, as she thought, with some embarrassment. Half unconsciously
+she turned toward the old mill. There it was, dusty and gray, and the
+dripping old wheel creaked with its weight of shining water, and the
+muffled roar of the unseen dam started an answering stream of memories
+surging within her. She could see the window of her room in the old
+brick boarding-house, and as she passed the gate, she almost stopped
+to go in, but the face of a strange man who stood in the door with a
+proprietary air deterred her. There was Hale's little frame cottage and
+his name, half washed out, was over the wing that was still his office.
+Past that she went, with a passing temptation to look within, and toward
+the old school-house. A massive new one was half built, of gray stone,
+to the left, but the old one, with its shingles on the outside that had
+once caused her such wonder, still lay warm in the sun, but closed and
+deserted. There was the playground where she had been caught in
+“Ring around the Rosy,” and Hale and that girl teacher had heard her
+confession. She flushed again when she thought of that day, but the
+flush was now for another reason. Over the roof of the schoolhouse she
+could see the beech tree where she had built her playhouse, and memory
+led her from the path toward it. She had not climbed a hill for a long
+time and she was panting when she reached it. There was the scattered
+playhouse--it might have lain there untouched for a quarter of a
+century--just as her angry feet had kicked it to pieces. On a root of
+the beech she sat down and the broad rim of her hat scratched the trunk
+of it and annoyed her, so she took it off and leaned her head against
+the tree, looking up into the underworld of leaves through which
+a sunbeam filtered here and there--one striking her hair which had
+darkened to a duller gold--striking it eagerly, unerringly, as though
+it had started for just such a shining mark. Below her was outspread
+the little town--the straggling, wretched little town--crude, lonely,
+lifeless! She could not be happy in Lonesome Cove after she had known
+the Gap, and now her horizon had so broadened that she felt now toward
+the Gap and its people as she had then felt toward the mountaineers: for
+the standards of living in the Cove--so it seemed--were no farther
+below the standards in the Gap than they in turn were lower than the new
+standards to which she had adapted herself while away. Indeed, even that
+Bluegrass world where she had spent a year was too narrow now for her
+vaulting ambition, and with that thought she looked down again on the
+little town, a lonely island in a sea of mountains and as far from
+the world for which she had been training herself as though it were in
+mid-ocean. Live down there? She shuddered at the thought and straightway
+was very miserable. The clear piping of a wood-thrush rose far away, a
+tear started between her half-closed lashes and she might have gone to
+weeping silently, had her ear not caught the sound of something moving
+below her. Some one was coming that way, so she brushed her eyes swiftly
+with her handkerchief and stood upright against the tree. And there
+again Hale found her, tense, upright, bareheaded again and her hands
+behind her; only her face was not uplifted and dreaming--it was turned
+toward him, unstartled and expectant. He stopped below her and leaned
+one shoulder against a tree.
+
+“I saw you pass the office,” he said, “and I thought I should find you
+here.”
+
+His eyes dropped to the scattered playhouse of long ago--and a faint
+smile that was full of submerged sadness passed over his face. It was
+his playhouse, after all, that she had kicked to pieces. But he did not
+mention it--nor her attitude--nor did he try, in any way, to arouse her
+memories of that other time at this same place.
+
+“I want to talk with you, June--and I want to talk now.”
+
+“Yes, Jack,” she said tremulously.
+
+For a moment he stood in silence, his face half-turned, his teeth hard
+on his indrawn lip--thinking. There was nothing of the mountaineer about
+him now. He was clean-shaven and dressed with care--June saw that--but
+he looked quite old, his face seemed harried with worries and ravaged by
+suffering, and June had suddenly to swallow a quick surging of pity for
+him. He spoke slowly and without looking at her:
+
+“June, if it hadn't been for me, you would be over in Lonesome Cove and
+happily married by this time, or at least contented with your life, for
+you wouldn't have known any other.”
+
+“I don't know, Jack.”
+
+“I took you out--and it rests with you whether I shall be sorry I
+did--sorry wholly on your account, I mean,” he added hastily.
+
+She knew what he meant and she said nothing--she only turned her head
+away slightly, with her eyes upturned a little toward the leaves that
+were shaking like her own heart.
+
+“I think I see it all very clearly,” he went on, in a low and perfectly
+even voice. “You can't be happy over there now--you can't be happy over
+here now. You've got other wishes, ambitions, dreams, now, and I want
+you to realize them, and I want to help you to realize them all I
+can--that's all.”
+
+“Jack!--” she helplessly, protestingly spoke his name in a whisper, but
+that was all she could do, and he went on:
+
+“It isn't so strange. What is strange is that I--that I didn't foresee
+it all. But if I had,” he added firmly, “I'd have done it just the
+same--unless by doing it I've really done you more harm than good.”
+
+“No--no--Jack!”
+
+“I came into your world--you went into mine. What I had grown
+indifferent about--you grew to care about. You grew sensitive while I
+was growing callous to certain--” he was about to say “surface things,”
+ but he checked himself--“certain things in life that mean more to a
+woman than to a man. I would not have married you as you were--I've got
+to be honest now--at least I thought it necessary that you should be
+otherwise--and now you have gone beyond me, and now you do not want to
+marry me as I am. And it is all very natural and very just.” Very
+slowly her head had dropped until her chin rested hard above the little
+jewelled cross on her breast.
+
+“You must tell me if I am wrong. You don't love me now--well enough to
+be happy with me here”--he waved one hand toward the straggling little
+town below them and then toward the lonely mountains--“I did not
+know that we would have to live here--but I know it now--” he checked
+himself, and afterward she recalled the tone of those last words, but
+then they had no especial significance.
+
+“Am I wrong?” he repeated, and then he said hurriedly, for her face
+was so piteous--“No, you needn't give yourself the pain of saying it in
+words. I want you to know that I understand that there is nothing in the
+world I blame you for--nothing--nothing. If there is any blame at all,
+it rests on me alone.” She broke toward him with a cry then.
+
+“No--no, Jack,” she said brokenly, and she caught his hand in both her
+own and tried to raise it to her lips, but he held her back and she
+put her face on his breast and sobbed heart-brokenly. He waited for the
+paroxysm to pass, stroking her hair gently.
+
+“You mustn't feel that way, little girl. You can't help it--I can't help
+it--and these things happen all the time, everywhere. You don't have to
+stay here. You can go away and study, and when I can, I'll come to see
+you and cheer you up; and when you are a great singer, I'll send you
+flowers and be so proud of you, and I'll say to myself, 'I helped do
+that.' Dry your eyes, now. You must go back to the hotel. Your father
+will be there by this time and you'll have to be starting home pretty
+soon.”
+
+Like a child she obeyed him, but she was so weak and trembling that
+he put his arm about her to help her down the hill. At the edge of the
+woods she stopped and turned full toward him.
+
+“You are so good,” she said tremulously, “so GOOD. Why, you haven't even
+asked me if there was another--”
+
+Hale interrupted her, shaking his head.
+
+“If there is, I don't want to know.”
+
+“But there isn't, there isn't!” she cried, “I don't know what is the
+matter with me. I hate--” the tears started again, and again she was on
+the point of breaking down, but Hale checked her.
+
+“Now, now,” he said soothingly, “you mustn't, now--that's all right. You
+mustn't.” Her anger at herself helped now.
+
+“Why, I stood like a silly fool, tongue-tied, and I wanted to say so
+much. I--”
+
+“You don't need to,” Hale said gently, “I understand it all. I
+understand.”
+
+“I believe you do,” she said with a sob, “better than I do.”
+
+“Well, it's all right, little girl. Come on.”
+
+They issued forth into the sunlight and Hale walked rapidly. The strain
+was getting too much for him and he was anxious to be alone. Without
+a word more they passed the old school-house, the massive new one, and
+went on, in silence, down the street. Hitched to a post, near the hotel,
+were two gaunt horses with drooping heads, and on one of them was a
+side-saddle. Sitting on the steps of the hotel, with a pipe in his
+mouth, was the mighty figure of Devil Judd Tolliver. He saw them
+coming--at least he saw Hale coming, and that far away Hale saw his
+bushy eyebrows lift in wonder at June. A moment later he rose to his
+great height without a word.
+
+“Dad,” said June in a trembling voice, “don't you know me?” The old man
+stared at her silently and a doubtful smile played about his bearded
+lips.
+
+“Hardly, but I reckon hit's June.”
+
+She knew that the world to which Hale belonged would expect her to kiss
+him, and she made a movement as though she would, but the habit of a
+lifetime is not broken so easily. She held out her hand, and with the
+other patted him on the arm as she looked up into his face.
+
+“Time to be goin', June, if we want to get home afore dark!”
+
+“All right, Dad.”
+
+The old man turned to his horse.
+
+“Hurry up, little gal.”
+
+In a few minutes they were ready, and the girl looked long into Hale's
+face when he took her hand.
+
+“You are coming over soon?”
+
+“Just as soon as I can.” Her lips trembled.
+
+“Good-by,” she faltered.
+
+“Good-by, June,” said Hale.
+
+From the steps he watched them--the giant father slouching in his
+saddle and the trim figure of the now sadly misplaced girl, erect on the
+awkward-pacing mountain beast--as incongruous, the two, as a fairy on
+some prehistoric monster. A horseman was coming up the street behind him
+and a voice called:
+
+“Who's that?” Hale turned--it was the Honourable Samuel Budd, coming
+home from Court.
+
+“June Tolliver.”
+
+“June Taliaferro,” corrected the Hon. Sam with emphasis.
+
+“The same.” The Hon. Sam silently followed the pair for a moment through
+his big goggles.
+
+“What do you think of my theory of the latent possibilities of the
+mountaineer--now?”
+
+“I think I know how true it is better than you do,” said Hale calmly,
+and with a grunt the Hon. Sam rode on. Hale watched them as they rode
+across the plateau--watched them until the Gap swallowed them up and his
+heart ached for June. Then he went to his room and there, stretched out
+on his bed and with his hands clenched behind his head, he lay staring
+upward.
+
+Devil Judd Tolliver had lost none of his taciturnity. Stolidly,
+silently, he went ahead, as is the custom of lordly man in the
+mountains--horseback or afoot--asking no questions, answering June's in
+the fewest words possible. Uncle Billy, the miller, had been complaining
+a good deal that spring, and old Hon had rheumatism. Uncle Billy's
+old-maid sister, who lived on Devil's Fork, had been cooking for him at
+home since the last taking to bed of June's step-mother. Bub had “growed
+up” like a hickory sapling. Her cousin Loretta hadn't married, and some
+folks allowed she'd run away some day yet with young Buck Falin. Her
+cousin Dave had gone off to school that year, had come back a month
+before, and been shot through the shoulder. He was in Lonesome Cove now.
+
+This fact was mentioned in the same matter-of-fact way as the other
+happenings. Hale had been raising Cain in Lonesome Cove--“A-cuttin'
+things down an' tearin' 'em up an' playin' hell ginerally.”
+
+The feud had broken out again and maybe June couldn't stay at home long.
+He didn't want her there with the fighting going on--whereat June's
+heart gave a start of gladness that the way would be easy for her to
+leave when she wished to leave. Things over at the Gap “was agoin' to
+perdition,” the old man had been told, while he was waiting for June and
+Hale that day, and Hale had not only lost a lot of money, but if things
+didn't take a rise, he would be left head over heels in debt, if that
+mine over in Lonesome Cove didn't pull him out.
+
+They were approaching the big Pine now, and June was beginning to ache
+and get sore from the climb. So Hale was in trouble--that was what he
+meant when he said that, though she could leave the mountains when she
+pleased, he must stay there, perhaps for good.
+
+“I'm mighty glad you come home, gal,” said the old man, “an' that ye air
+goin' to put an end to all this spendin' o' so much money. Jack says
+you got some money left, but I don't understand it. He says he made a
+'investment' fer ye and tribbled the money. I haint never axed him no
+questions. Hit was betwixt you an' him, an' 'twant none o' my business
+long as you an' him air goin' to marry. He said you was goin' to marry
+this summer an' I wish you'd git tied up right away whilst I'm livin',
+fer I don't know when a Winchester might take me off an' I'd die a sight
+easier if I knowed you was tied up with a good man like him.”
+
+“Yes, Dad,” was all she said, for she had not the heart to tell him the
+truth, and she knew that Hale never would until the last moment he must,
+when he learned that she had failed.
+
+Half an hour later, she could see the stone chimney of the little cabin
+in Lonesome Cove. A little farther down several spirals of smoke were
+visible--rising from unseen houses which were more miners' shacks, her
+father said, that Hale had put up while she was gone. The water of the
+creek was jet black now. A row of rough wooden houses ran along its
+edge. The geese cackled a doubtful welcome. A new dog leaped barking
+from the porch and a tall boy sprang after him--both running for the
+gate.
+
+“Why, Bub,” cried June, sliding from her horse and kissing him, and then
+holding him off at arms' length to look into his steady gray eyes and
+his blushing face.
+
+“Take the horses, Bub,” said old Judd, and June entered the gate while
+Bub stood with the reins in his hand, still speechlessly staring her
+over from head to foot. There was her garden, thank God--with all her
+flowers planted, a new bed of pansies and one of violets and the border
+of laurel in bloom--unchanged and weedless.
+
+“One o' Jack Hale's men takes keer of it,” explained old Judd, and
+again, with shame, June felt the hurt of her lover's thoughtfulness.
+When she entered the cabin, the same old rasping petulant voice called
+her from a bed in one corner, and when June took the shrivelled old hand
+that was limply thrust from the bed-clothes, the old hag's keen eyes
+swept her from head to foot with disapproval.
+
+“My, but you air wearin' mighty fine clothes,” she croaked enviously.
+“I ain't had a new dress fer more'n five year;” and that was the welcome
+she got.
+
+“No?” said June appeasingly. “Well, I'll get one for you myself.”
+
+“I'm much obleeged,” she whined, “but I reckon I can git along.”
+
+A cough came from the bed in the other corner of the room.
+
+“That's Dave,” said the old woman, and June walked over to where her
+cousin's black eyes shone hostile at her from the dark.
+
+“I'm sorry, Dave,” she said, but Dave answered nothing but a sullen
+“howdye” and did not put out a hand--he only stared at her in sulky
+bewilderment, and June went back to listen to the torrent of the old
+woman's plaints until Bub came in. Then as she turned, she noticed for
+the first time that a new door had been cut in one side of the cabin,
+and Bub was following the direction of her eyes.
+
+“Why, haint nobody told ye?” he said delightedly.
+
+“Told me what, Bub?”
+
+With a whoop Bud leaped for the side of the door and, reaching up,
+pulled a shining key from between the logs and thrust it into her hands.
+
+“Go ahead,” he said. “Hit's yourn.”
+
+“Some more o' Jack Hale's fool doin's,” said the old woman. “Go on, gal,
+and see whut he's done.”
+
+With eager hands she put the key in the lock and when she pushed open
+the door, she gasped. Another room had been added to the cabin--and the
+fragrant smell of cedar made her nostrils dilate. Bub pushed by her and
+threw open the shutters of a window to the low sunlight, and June stood
+with both hands to her head. It was a room for her--with a dresser, a
+long mirror, a modern bed in one corner, a work-table with a student's
+lamp on it, a wash-stand and a chest of drawers and a piano! On the
+walls were pictures and over the mantel stood the one she had first
+learned to love--two lovers clasped in each other's arms and under them
+the words “Enfin Seul.”
+
+“Oh-oh,” was all she could say, and choking, she motioned Bub from the
+room. When the door closed, she threw herself sobbing across the bed.
+
+Over at the Gap that night Hale sat in his office with a piece of white
+paper and a lump of black coal on the table in front of him. His foreman
+had brought the coal to him that day at dusk. He lifted the lump to the
+light of his lamp, and from the centre of it a mocking evil eye leered
+back at him. The eye was a piece of shining black flint and told him
+that his mine in Lonesome Cove was but a pocket of cannel coal and worth
+no more than the smouldering lumps in his grate. Then he lifted the
+piece of white paper--it was his license to marry June.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Very slowly June walked up the little creek to the old log where she had
+lain so many happy hours. There was no change in leaf, shrub or tree,
+and not a stone in the brook had been disturbed. The sun dropped the
+same arrows down through the leaves--blunting their shining points into
+tremulous circles on the ground, the water sang the same happy tune
+under her dangling feet and a wood-thrush piped the old lay overhead.
+
+Wood-thrush! June smiled as she suddenly rechristened the bird for
+herself now. That bird henceforth would be the Magic Flute to musical
+June--and she leaned back with ears, eyes and soul awake and her brain
+busy.
+
+All the way over the mountain, on that second home-going, she had
+thought of the first, and even memories of the memories aroused by that
+first home-going came back to her--the place where Hale had put his
+horse into a dead run and had given her that never-to-be-forgotten
+thrill, and where she had slid from behind to the ground and stormed
+with tears. When they dropped down into the green gloom of shadow and
+green leaves toward Lonesome Cove, she had the same feeling that her
+heart was being clutched by a human hand and that black night had
+suddenly fallen about her, but this time she knew what it meant. She
+thought then of the crowded sleeping-room, the rough beds and coarse
+blankets at home; the oil-cloth, spotted with drippings from a candle,
+that covered the table; the thick plates and cups; the soggy bread and
+the thick bacon floating in grease; the absence of napkins, the eating
+with knives and fingers and the noise Bub and her father made drinking
+their coffee. But then she knew all these things in advance, and the
+memories of them on her way over had prepared her for Lonesome Cove. The
+conditions were definite there: she knew what it would be to face
+them again--she was facing them all the way, and to her surprise the
+realities had hurt her less even than they had before. Then had come the
+same thrill over the garden, and now with that garden and her new room
+and her piano and her books, with Uncle Billy's sister to help do the
+work, and with the little changes that June was daily making in the
+household, she could live her own life even over there as long as she
+pleased, and then she would go out into the world again.
+
+But all the time when she was coming over from the Gap, the way had
+bristled with accusing memories of Hale--even from the chattering
+creeks, the turns in the road, the sun-dappled bushes and trees and
+flowers; and when she passed the big Pine that rose with such friendly
+solemnity above her, the pang of it all hurt her heart and kept on
+hurting her. When she walked in the garden, the flowers seemed not to
+have the same spirit of gladness. It had been a dry season and they
+drooped for that reason, but the melancholy of them had a sympathetic
+human quality that depressed her. If she saw a bass shoot arrow-like
+into deep water, if she heard a bird or saw a tree or a flower whose
+name she had to recall, she thought of Hale. Do what she would, she
+could not escape the ghost that stalked at her side everywhere, so like
+a human presence that she felt sometimes a strange desire to turn and
+speak to it. And in her room that presence was all-pervasive. The piano,
+the furniture, the bits of bric-a-brac, the pictures and books--all were
+eloquent with his thought of her--and every night before she turned
+out her light she could not help lifting her eyes to her once-favourite
+picture--even that Hale had remembered--the lovers clasped in each
+other's arms--“At Last Alone”--only to see it now as a mocking symbol of
+his beaten hopes. She had written to thank him for it all, and not
+yet had he answered her letter. He had said that he was coming over
+to Lonesome Cove and he had not come--why should he, on her account?
+Between them all was over--why should he? The question was absurd in
+her mind, and yet the fact that she had expected him, that she so WANTED
+him, was so illogical and incongruous and vividly true that it raised
+her to a sitting posture on the log, and she ran her fingers over her
+forehead and down her dazed face until her chin was in the hollow of her
+hand, and her startled eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the running water
+and yet not seeing it at all. A call--her step-mother's cry--rang up the
+ravine and she did not hear it. She did not even hear Bub coming through
+the underbrush a few minutes later, and when he half angrily shouted her
+name at the end of the vista, down-stream, whence he could see her, she
+lifted her head from a dream so deep that in it all her senses had for
+the moment been wholly lost.
+
+“Come on,” he shouted.
+
+She had forgotten--there was a “bean-stringing” at the house that
+day--and she slipped slowly off the log and went down the path,
+gathering herself together as she went, and making no answer to the
+indignant Bub who turned and stalked ahead of her back to the house. At
+the barnyard gate her father stopped her--he looked worried.
+
+“Jack Hale's jus' been over hyeh.” June caught her breath sharply.
+
+“Has he gone?” The old man was watching her and she felt it.
+
+“Yes, he was in a hurry an' nobody knowed whar you was. He jus' come
+over, he said, to tell me to tell you that you could go back to New York
+and keep on with yo' singin' doin's whenever you please. He knowed I
+didn't want you hyeh when this war starts fer a finish as hit's goin'
+to, mighty soon now. He says he ain't quite ready to git married yit.
+I'm afeerd he's in trouble.”
+
+“Trouble?”
+
+“I tol' you t'other day--he's lost all his money; but he says you've got
+enough to keep you goin' fer some time. I don't see why you don't git
+married right now and live over at the Gap.”
+
+June coloured and was silent.
+
+“Oh,” said the old man quickly, “you ain't ready nuther,”--he studied
+her with narrowing eyes and through a puzzled frown--“but I reckon hit's
+all right, if you air goin' to git married some time.”
+
+“What's all right, Dad?” The old man checked himself:
+
+“Ever' thing,” he said shortly, “but don't you make a fool of yo'self
+with a good man like Jack Hale.” And, wondering, June was silent. The
+truth was that the old man had wormed out of Hale an admission of the
+kindly duplicity the latter had practised on him and on June, and he
+had given his word to Hale that he would not tell June. He did not
+understand why Hale should have so insisted on that promise, for it was
+all right that Hale should openly do what he pleased for the girl he was
+going to marry--but he had given his word: so he turned away, but his
+frown stayed where it was.
+
+June went on, puzzled, for she knew that her father was withholding
+something, and she knew, too, that he would tell her only in his
+own good time. But she could go away when she pleased--that was the
+comfort--and with the thought she stopped suddenly at the corner of the
+garden. She could see Hale on his big black horse climbing the spur.
+Once it had always been his custom to stop on top of it to rest his
+horse and turn to look back at her, and she always waited to wave him
+good-by. She wondered if he would do it now, and while she looked
+and waited, the beating of her heart quickened nervously; but he
+rode straight on, without stopping or turning his head, and June felt
+strangely bereft and resentful, and the comfort of the moment before
+was suddenly gone. She could hear the voices of the guests in the porch
+around the corner of the house--there was an ordeal for her around
+there, and she went on. Loretta and Loretta's mother were there, and
+old Hon and several wives and daughters of Tolliver adherents from
+up Deadwood Creek and below Uncle Billy's mill. June knew that the
+“bean-stringing” was simply an excuse for them to be there, for she
+could not remember that so many had ever gathered there before--at that
+function in the spring, at corn-cutting in the autumn, or sorghum-making
+time or at log-raisings or quilting parties, and she well knew the
+motive of these many and the curiosity of all save, perhaps, Loretta and
+the old miller's wife: and June was prepared for them. She had borrowed
+a gown from her step-mother--a purple creation of home-spun--she had
+shaken down her beautiful hair and drawn it low over her brows, and
+arranged it behind after the fashion of mountain women, and when she
+went up the steps of the porch she was outwardly to the eye one of them
+except for the leathern belt about her slenderly full waist, her black
+silk stockings and the little “furrin” shoes on her dainty feet. She
+smiled inwardly when she saw the same old wave of disappointment sweep
+across the faces of them all. It was not necessary to shake hands, but
+unthinkingly she did, and the women sat in their chairs as she went from
+one to the other and each gave her a limp hand and a grave “howdye,”
+ though each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague something about her,
+by wiping that hand on an apron first. Very quietly and naturally she
+took a low chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them, went to
+work. Nobody looked at her at first until old Hon broke the silence.
+
+“You haint lost a spec o' yo' good looks, Juny.”
+
+June laughed without a flush--she would have reddened to the roots of
+her hair two years before.
+
+“I'm feelin' right peart, thank ye,” she said, dropping consciously into
+the vernacular; but there was a something in her voice that was vaguely
+felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erect
+bearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into
+their own--a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and
+those shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in
+time covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was
+beyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, and
+the others, even Loretta, said never a word.
+
+“Jack Hale must have been in a mighty big hurry,” quavered the old
+step-mother. “June ain't goin' to be with us long, I'm afeerd:” and,
+without looking up, June knew the wireless significance of the speech
+was going around from eye to eye, but calmly she pulled her thread
+through a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical shake of
+her head:
+
+“I--don't know--I don't know.”
+
+Young Dave's mother was encouraged and all her efforts at good-humour
+could not quite draw the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice.
+
+“I reckon she'd never git away, if my boy Dave had the sayin' of it.”
+ There was a subdued titter at this, but Bub had come in from the stable
+and had dropped on the edge of the porch. He broke in hotly:
+
+“You jest let June alone, Aunt Tilly, you'll have yo' hands full if you
+keep yo' eye on Loretty thar.”
+
+Already when somebody was saying something about the feud, as June came
+around the corner, her quick eye had seen Loretta bend her head swiftly
+over her work to hide the flush of her face. Now Loretta turned scarlet
+as the step-mother spoke severely:
+
+“You hush, Bub,” and Bub rose and stalked into the house. Aunt Tilly was
+leaning back in her chair--gasping--and consternation smote the group.
+June rose suddenly with her string of dangling beans.
+
+“I haven't shown you my room, Loretty. Don't you want to see it? Come
+on, all of you,” she added to the girls, and they and Loretta with one
+swift look of gratitude rose shyly and trooped shyly within where
+they looked in wide-mouthed wonder at the marvellous things that room
+contained. The older women followed to share sight of the miracle,
+and all stood looking from one thing to another, some with their hands
+behind them as though to thwart the temptation to touch, and all saying
+merely:
+
+“My! My!”
+
+None of them had ever seen a piano before and June must play the “shiny
+contraption” and sing a song. It was only curiosity and astonishment
+that she evoked when her swift fingers began running over the keys from
+one end of the board to the other, astonishment at the gymnastic quality
+of the performance, and only astonishment when her lovely voice set the
+very walls of the little room to vibrating with a dramatic love song
+that was about as intelligible to them as a problem in calculus, and
+June flushed and then smiled with quick understanding at the dry comment
+that rose from Aunt Tilly behind:
+
+“She shorely can holler some!”
+
+She couldn't play “Sourwood Mountain” on the piano--nor “Jinny git
+Aroun',” nor “Soapsuds over the Fence,” but with a sudden inspiration
+she went back to an old hymn that they all knew, and at the end she won
+the tribute of an awed silence that made them file back to the beans on
+the porch. Loretta lingered a moment and when June closed the piano and
+the two girls went into the main room, a tall figure, entering, stopped
+in the door and stared at June without speaking:
+
+“Why, howdye, Uncle Rufe,” said Loretta. “This is June. You didn't know
+her, did ye?” The man laughed. Something in June's bearing made him take
+off his hat; he came forward to shake hands, and June looked up into a
+pair of bold black eyes that stirred within her again the vague fears of
+her childhood. She had been afraid of him when she was a child, and it
+was the old fear aroused that made her recall him by his eyes now. His
+beard was gone and he was much changed. She trembled when she shook
+hands with him and she did not call him by his name Old Judd came in,
+and a moment later the two men and Bub sat on the porch while the women
+worked, and when June rose again to go indoors, she felt the newcomer's
+bold eyes take her slowly in from head to foot and she turned crimson.
+This was the terror among the Tollivers--Bad Rufe, come back from the
+West to take part in the feud. HE saw the belt and the stockings and
+the shoes, the white column of her throat and the proud set of her
+gold-crowned head; HE knew what they meant, he made her feel that
+he knew, and later he managed to catch her eyes once with an amused,
+half-contemptuous glance at the simple untravelled folk about them, that
+said plainly how well he knew they two were set apart from them, and she
+shrank fearfully from the comradeship that the glance implied and
+would look at him no more. He knew everything that was going on in the
+mountains. He had come back “ready for business,” he said. When he made
+ready to go, June went to her room and stayed there, but she heard him
+say to her father that he was going over to the Gap, and with a laugh
+that chilled her soul:
+
+“I'm goin' over to kill me a policeman.” And her father warned gruffly:
+
+“You better keep away from thar. You don't understand them fellers.” And
+she heard Rufe's brutal laugh again, and as he rode into the creek his
+horse stumbled and she saw him cut cruelly at the poor beast's ears with
+the rawhide quirt that he carried. She was glad when all went home, and
+the only ray of sunlight in the day for her radiated from Uncle Billy's
+face when, at sunset, he came to take old Hon home. The old miller was
+the one unchanged soul to her in that he was the one soul that could see
+no change in June. He called her “baby” in the old way, and he talked to
+her now as he had talked to her as a child. He took her aside to ask her
+if she knew that Hale had got his license to marry, and when she shook
+her head, his round, red face lighted up with the benediction of a
+rising sun:
+
+“Well, that's what he's done, baby, an' he's axed me to marry ye,” he
+added, with boyish pride, “he's axed ME.”
+
+And June choked, her eyes filled, and she was dumb, but Uncle Billy
+could not see that it meant distress and not joy. He just put his arm
+around her and whispered:
+
+“I ain't told a soul, baby--not a soul.”
+
+She went to bed and to sleep with Hale's face in the dream-mist of
+her brain, and Uncle Billy's, and the bold, black eyes of Bad Rufe
+Tolliver--all fused, blurred, indistinguishable. Then suddenly Rufe's
+words struck that brain, word by word, like the clanging terror of a
+frightened bell.
+
+“I'm goin' to kill me a policeman.” And with the last word, it seemed,
+she sprang upright in bed, clutching the coverlid convulsively. Daylight
+was showing gray through her window. She heard a swift step up the
+steps, across the porch, the rattle of the door-chain, her father's
+quick call, then the rumble of two men's voices, and she knew as well
+what had happened as though she had heard every word they uttered. Rufe
+had killed him a policeman--perhaps John Hale--and with terror clutching
+her heart she sprang to the floor, and as she dropped the old purple
+gown over her shoulders, she heard the scurry of feet across the back
+porch--feet that ran swiftly but cautiously, and left the sound of them
+at the edge of the woods. She heard the back door close softly, the
+creaking of the bed as her father lay down again, and then a sudden
+splashing in the creek. Kneeling at the window, she saw strange horsemen
+pushing toward the gate where one threw himself from his saddle, strode
+swiftly toward the steps, and her lips unconsciously made soft, little,
+inarticulate cries of joy--for the stern, gray face under the hat of
+the man was the face of John Hale. After him pushed other men--fully
+armed--whom he motioned to either side of the cabin to the rear. By his
+side was Bob Berkley, and behind him was a red-headed Falin whom she
+well remembered. Within twenty feet, she was looking into that gray
+face, when the set lips of it opened in a loud command: “Hello!” She
+heard her father's bed creak again, again the rattle of the door-chain,
+and then old Judd stepped on the porch with a revolver in each hand.
+
+“Hello!” he answered sternly.
+
+“Judd,” said Hale sharply--and June had never heard that tone from him
+before--“a man with a black moustache killed one of our men over in the
+Gap yesterday and we've tracked him over here. There's his horse--and we
+saw him go into that door. We want him.”
+
+“Do you know who the feller is?” asked old Judd calmly.
+
+“No,” said Hale quickly. And then, with equal calm:
+
+“Hit was my brother,” and the old man's mouth closed like a vise. Had
+the last word been a stone striking his ear, Hale could hardly have been
+more stunned. Again he called and almost gently:
+
+“Watch the rear, there,” and then gently he turned to Devil Judd.
+
+“Judd, your brother shot a man at the Gap--without excuse or warning. He
+was an officer and a friend of mine, but if he were a stranger--we want
+him just the same. Is he here?”
+
+Judd looked at the red-headed man behind Hale.
+
+“So you're turned on the Falin side now, have ye?” he said
+contemptuously.
+
+“Is he here?” repeated Hale.
+
+“Yes, an' you can't have him.” Without a move toward his pistol Hale
+stepped forward, and June saw her father's big right hand tighten on his
+huge pistol, and with a low cry she sprang to her feet.
+
+“I'm an officer of the law,” Hale said, “stand aside, Judd!” Bub leaped
+to the door with a Winchester--his eyes wild and his face white.
+
+“Watch out, men!” Hale called, and as the men raised their guns there
+was a shriek inside the cabin and June stood at Bub's side, barefooted,
+her hair tumbled about her shoulders, and her hand clutching the little
+cross at her throat.
+
+“Stop!” she shrieked. “He isn't here. He's--he's gone!” For a moment a
+sudden sickness smote Hale's face, then Devil Judd's ruse flashed to him
+and, wheeling, he sprang to the ground.
+
+“Quick!” he shouted, with a sweep of his hand right and left. “Up those
+hollows! Lead those horses up to the Pine and wait. Quick!”
+
+Already the men were running as he directed and Hale, followed by
+Bob and the Falin, rushed around the corner of the house. Old Judd's
+nostrils were quivering, and with his pistols dangling in his hands he
+walked to the gate, listening to the sounds of the pursuit.
+
+“They'll never ketch him,” he said, coming back, and then he dropped
+into a chair and sat in silence a long time. June reappeared, her face
+still white and her temples throbbing, for the sun was rising on days of
+darkness for her. Devil Judd did not even look at her.
+
+“I reckon you ain't goin' to marry John Hale.”
+
+“No, Dad,” said June.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Thus Fate did not wait until Election Day for the thing Hale most
+dreaded--a clash that would involve the guard in the Tolliver-Falin
+troubles over the hills. There had been simply a preliminary political
+gathering at the Gap the day before, but it had been a crucial day for
+the guard from a cloudy sunrise to a tragic sunset. Early that morning,
+Mockaby, the town-sergeant, had stepped into the street freshly shaven,
+with polished boots, and in his best clothes for the eyes of his
+sweetheart, who was to come up that day to the Gap from Lee. Before
+sunset he died with those boots on, while the sweetheart, unknowing,
+was bound on her happy way homeward, and Rufe Tolliver, who had shot
+Mockaby, was clattering through the Gap in flight for Lonesome Cove.
+
+As far as anybody knew, there had been but one Tolliver and one Falin in
+town that day, though many had noticed the tall Western-looking stranger
+who, early in the afternoon, had ridden across the bridge over the North
+Fork, but he was quiet and well-behaved, he merged into the crowd and
+through the rest of the afternoon was in no way conspicuous, even when
+the one Tolliver and the one Falin got into a fight in front of the
+speaker's stand and the riot started which came near ending in a bloody
+battle. The Falin was clearly blameless and was let go at once. This
+angered the many friends of the Tolliver, and when he was arrested there
+was an attempt at rescue, and the Tolliver was dragged to the calaboose
+behind a slowly retiring line of policemen, who were jabbing the
+rescuers back with the muzzles of cocked Winchesters. It was just when
+it was all over, and the Tolliver was safely jailed, that Bad Rufe
+galloped up to the calaboose, shaking with rage, for he had just learned
+that the prisoner was a Tolliver. He saw how useless interference was,
+but he swung from his horse, threw the reins over its head after the
+Western fashion and strode up to Hale.
+
+“You the captain of this guard?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hale; “and you?” Rufe shook his head with angry impatience,
+and Hale, thinking he had some communication to make, ignored his
+refusal to answer.
+
+“I hear that a fellow can't blow a whistle or holler, or shoot off his
+pistol in this town without gittin' arrested.”
+
+“That's true--why?” Rufe's black eyes gleamed vindictively.
+
+“Nothin',” he said, and he turned to his horse.
+
+Ten minutes later, as Mockaby was passing down the dummy track, a
+whistle was blown on the river bank, a high yell was raised, a pistol
+shot quickly followed and he started for the sound of them on a run. A
+few minutes later three more pistol shots rang out, and Hale rushed to
+the river bank to find Mockaby stretched out on the ground, dying, and a
+mountaineer lout pointing after a man on horseback, who was making at a
+swift gallop for the mouth of the gap and the hills.
+
+“He done it,” said the lout in a frightened way; “but I don't know who
+he was.”
+
+Within half an hour ten horsemen were clattering after the murderer,
+headed by Hale, Logan, and the Infant of the Guard. Where the road
+forked, a woman with a child in her arms said she had seen a tall,
+black-eyed man with a black moustache gallop up the right fork. She no
+more knew who he was than any of the pursuers. Three miles up that fork
+they came upon a red-headed man leading his horse from a mountaineer's
+yard.
+
+“He went up the mountain,” the red-haired man said, pointing to
+the trail of the Lonesome Pine. “He's gone over the line. Whut's he
+done--killed somebody?”
+
+“Yes,” said Hale shortly, starting up his horse.
+
+“I wish I'd a-knowed you was atter him. I'm sheriff over thar.”
+
+Now they were without warrant or requisition, and Hale, pulling in, said
+sharply:
+
+“We want that fellow. He killed a man at the Gap. If we catch him over
+the line, we want you to hold him for us. Come along!” The red-headed
+sheriff sprang on his horse and grinned eagerly:
+
+“I'm your man.”
+
+“Who was that fellow?” asked Hale as they galloped. The sheriff denied
+knowledge with a shake of his head.
+
+“What's your name?” The sheriff looked sharply at him for the effect of
+his answer.
+
+“Jim Falin.” And Hale looked sharply back at him. He was one of the
+Falins who long, long ago had gone to the Gap for young Dave Tolliver,
+and now the Falin grinned at Hale.
+
+“I know you--all right.” No wonder the Falin chuckled at this
+Heaven-born chance to get a Tolliver into trouble.
+
+At the Lonesome Pine the traces of the fugitive's horse swerved along
+the mountain top--the shoe of the right forefoot being broken in half.
+That swerve was a blind and the sheriff knew it, but he knew where Rufe
+Tolliver would go and that there would be plenty of time to get him.
+Moreover, he had a purpose of his own and a secret fear that it might be
+thwarted, so, without a word, he followed the trail till darkness hid
+it and they had to wait until the moon rose. Then as they started again,
+the sheriff said:
+
+“Wait a minute,” and plunged down the mountain side on foot. A few
+minutes later he hallooed for Hale, and down there showed him the tracks
+doubling backward along a foot-path.
+
+“Regular rabbit, ain't he?” chuckled the sheriff, and back they went to
+the trail again on which two hundred yards below the Pine they saw the
+tracks pointing again to Lonesome Cove.
+
+On down the trail they went, and at the top of the spur that overlooked
+Lonesome Cove, the Falin sheriff pulled in suddenly and got off his
+horse. There the tracks swerved again into the bushes.
+
+“He's goin' to wait till daylight, fer fear somebody's follered him.
+He'll come in back o' Devil Judd's.”
+
+“How do you know he's going to Devil Judd's?” asked Hale.
+
+“Whar else would he go?” asked the Falin with a sweep of his arm toward
+the moonlit wilderness. “Thar ain't but one house that way fer ten
+miles--and nobody lives thar.”
+
+“How do you know that he's going to any house?” asked Hale impatiently.
+“He may be getting out of the mountains.”
+
+“D'you ever know a feller to leave these mountains jus' because he'd
+killed a man? How'd you foller him at night? How'd you ever ketch him
+with his start? What'd he turn that way fer, if he wasn't goin' to
+Judd's--why d'n't he keep on down the river? If he's gone, he's gone. If
+he ain't, he'll be at Devil Judd's at daybreak if he ain't thar now.”
+
+“What do you want to do?”
+
+“Go on down with the hosses, hide 'em in the bushes an' wait.”
+
+“Maybe he's already heard us coming down the mountain.”
+
+“That's the only thing I'm afeerd of,” said the Falin calmly. “But whut
+I'm tellin' you's our only chance.”
+
+“How do you know he won't hear us going down? Why not leave the horses?”
+
+“We might need the hosses, and hit's mud and sand all the way--you ought
+to know that.”
+
+Hale did know that; so on they went quietly and hid their horses aside
+from the road near the place where Hale had fished when he first went to
+Lonesome Cove. There the Falin disappeared on foot.
+
+“Do you trust him?” asked Hale, turning to Budd, and Budd laughed.
+
+“I reckon you can trust a Falin against a friend of a Tolliver, or
+t'other way round--any time.” Within half an hour the Falin came back
+with the news that there were no signs that the fugitive had yet come
+in.
+
+“No use surrounding the house now,” he said, “he might see one of us
+first when he comes in an' git away. We'll do that atter daylight.”
+
+And at daylight they saw the fugitive ride out of the woods at the back
+of the house and boldly around to the front of the house, where he left
+his horse in the yard and disappeared.
+
+“Now send three men to ketch him if he runs out the back way--quick!”
+ said the Falin. “Hit'll take 'em twenty minutes to git thar through the
+woods. Soon's they git thar, let one of 'em shoot his pistol off an'
+that'll be the signal fer us.”
+
+The three men started swiftly, but the pistol shot came before they had
+gone a hundred yards, for one of the three--a new man and unaccustomed
+to the use of fire-arms, stumbled over a root while he was seeing that
+his pistol was in order and let it go off accidentally.
+
+“No time to waste now,” the Falin called sharply. “Git on yo' hosses
+and git!” Then the rush was made and when they gave up the chase at noon
+that day, the sheriff looked Hale squarely in the eye when Hale sharply
+asked him a question:
+
+“Why didn't you tell me who that man was?”
+
+“Because I was afeerd you wouldn't go to Devil Judd's atter him. I know
+better now,” and he shook his head, for he did not understand. And so
+Hale at the head of the disappointed Guard went back to the Gap, and
+when, next day, they laid Mockaby away in the thinly populated little
+graveyard that rested in the hollow of the river's arm, the spirit of
+law and order in the heart of every guard gave way to the spirit of
+revenge, and the grass would grow under the feet of none until Rufe
+Tolliver was caught and the death-debt of the law was paid with death.
+
+That purpose was no less firm in the heart of Hale, and he turned
+away from the grave, sick with the trick that Fate had lost no time in
+playing him; for he was a Falin now in the eyes of both factions and an
+enemy--even to June.
+
+The weeks dragged slowly along, and June sank slowly toward the depths
+with every fresh realization of the trap of circumstance into which she
+had fallen. She had dim memories of just such a state of affairs when
+she was a child, for the feud was on now and the three things that
+governed the life of the cabin in Lonesome Cove were hate, caution, and
+fear.
+
+Bub and her father worked in the fields with their Winchesters close
+at hand, and June was never easy if they were outside the house. If
+somebody shouted “hello”--that universal hail of friend or enemy in the
+mountains--from the gate after dark, one or the other would go out
+the back door and answer from the shelter of the corner of the house.
+Neither sat by the light of the fire where he could be seen through the
+window nor carried a candle from one room to the other. And when either
+rode down the river, June must ride behind him to prevent ambush from
+the bushes, for no Kentucky mountaineer, even to kill his worst enemy,
+will risk harming a woman. Sometimes Loretta would come and spend
+the day, and she seemed little less distressed than June. Dave was
+constantly in and out, and several times June had seen the Red Fox
+hanging around. Always the talk was of the feud. The killing of this
+Tolliver and of that long ago was rehearsed over and over; all the
+wrongs the family had suffered at the hands of the Falins were retold,
+and in spite of herself June felt the old hatred of her childhood
+reawakening against them so fiercely that she was startled: and she knew
+that if she were a man she would be as ready now to take up a Winchester
+against the Falins as though she had known no other life.
+
+Loretta got no comfort from her in her tentative efforts to talk of Buck
+Falin, and once, indeed, June gave her a scathing rebuke. With every day
+her feeling for her father and Bub was knit a little more closely, and
+toward Dave grew a little more kindly. She had her moods even against
+Hale, but they always ended in a storm of helpless tears. Her father
+said little of Hale, but that little was enough. Young Dave was openly
+exultant when he heard of the favouritism shown a Falin by the Guard
+at the Gap, the effort Hale had made to catch Rufe Tolliver and his
+well-known purpose yet to capture him; for the Guard maintained a fund
+for the arrest and prosecution of criminals, and the reward it offered
+for Rufe, dead or alive, was known by everybody on both sides of the
+State line. For nearly a week no word was heard of the fugitive, and
+then one night, after supper, while June was sitting at the fire, the
+back door was opened, Rufe slid like a snake within, and when June
+sprang to her feet with a sharp cry of terror, he gave his brutal laugh:
+
+“Don't take much to skeer you--does it?” Shuddering she felt his evil
+eyes sweep her from head to foot, for the beast within was always
+unleashed and ever ready to spring, and she dropped back into her seat,
+speechless. Young Dave, entering from the kitchen, saw Rufe's look and
+the hostile lightning of his own eyes flashed at his foster-uncle, who
+knew straightway that he must not for his own safety strain the boy's
+jealousy too far.
+
+“You oughtn't to 'a' done it, Rufe,” said old Judd a little later, and
+he shook his head. Again Rufe laughed:
+
+“No--” he said with a quick pacificatory look to young Dave, “not to
+HIM!” The swift gritting of Dave's teeth showed that he knew what was
+meant, and without warning the instinct of a protecting tigress leaped
+within June. She had seen and had been grateful for the look Dave gave
+the outlaw, but without a word she rose new and went to her own room.
+While she sat at her window, her step-mother came out the back door and
+left it open for a moment. Through it June could hear the talk:
+
+“No,” said her father, “she ain't goin' to marry him.” Dave grunted and
+Rufe's voice came again:
+
+“Ain't no danger, I reckon, of her tellin' on me?”
+
+“No,” said her father gruffly, and the door banged.
+
+No, thought June, she wouldn't, even without her father's trust, though
+she loathed the man, and he was the only thing on earth of which she was
+afraid--that was the miracle of it and June wondered. She was a Tolliver
+and the clan loyalty of a century forbade--that was all. As she rose she
+saw a figure skulking past the edge of the woods. She called Bub in and
+told him about it, and Rufe stayed at the cabin all night, but June did
+not see him next morning, and she kept out of his way whenever he came
+again. A few nights later the Red Fox slouched up to the cabin with some
+herbs for the step-mother. Old Judd eyed him askance.
+
+“Lookin' fer that reward, Red?” The old man had no time for the meek
+reply that was on his lips, for the old woman spoke up sharply:
+
+“You let Red alone, Judd--I tol' him to come.” And the Red Fox stayed
+to supper, and when Rufe left the cabin that night, a bent figure with a
+big rifle and in moccasins sneaked after him.
+
+The next night there was a tap on Hale's window just at his bedside, and
+when he looked out he saw the Red Fox's big rifle, telescope, moccasins
+and all in the moonlight. The Red Fox had discovered the whereabouts of
+Rufe Tolliver, and that very night he guided Hale and six of the
+guard to the edge of a little clearing where the Red Fox pointed to a
+one-roomed cabin, quiet in the moonlight. Hale had his requisition now.
+
+“Ain't no trouble ketchin' Rufe, if you bait him with a woman,” he
+snarled. “There mought be several Tollivers in thar. Wait till daybreak
+and git the drap on him, when he comes out.” And then he disappeared.
+
+Surrounding the cabin, Hale waited, and on top of the mountain, above
+Lonesome Cove, the Red Fox sat waiting and watching through his big
+telescope. Through it he saw Bad Rufe step outside the door at daybreak
+and stretch his arms with a yawn, and he saw three men spring with
+levelled Winchesters from behind a clump of bushes. The woman shot from
+the door behind Rufe with a pistol in each hand, but Rufe kept his hands
+in the air and turned his head to the woman who lowered the half-raised
+weapons slowly. When he saw the cavalcade start for the county seat
+with Rufe manacled in the midst of them, he dropped swiftly down into
+Lonesome Cove to tell Judd that Rufe was a prisoner and to retake him
+on the way to jail. And, as the Red Fox well knew would happen, old Judd
+and young Dave and two other Tollivers who were at the cabin galloped
+into the county seat to find Rufe in jail, and that jail guarded by
+seven grim young men armed with Winchesters and shot-guns.
+
+Hale faced the old man quietly--eye to eye.
+
+“It's no use, Judd,” he said, “you'd better let the law take its
+course.” The old man was scornful.
+
+“Thar's never been a Tolliver convicted of killin' nobody, much less
+hung--an' thar ain't goin' to be.”
+
+“I'm glad you warned me,” said Hale still quietly, “though it wasn't
+necessary. But if he's convicted, he'll hang.”
+
+The giant's face worked in convulsive helplessness and he turned away.
+
+“You hold the cyards now, but my deal is comin'.”
+
+“All right, Judd--you're getting a square one from me.”
+
+Back rode the Tollivers and Devil Judd never opened his lips again until
+he was at home in Lonesome Cove. June was sitting on the porch when he
+walked heavy-headed through the gate.
+
+“They've ketched Rufe,” he said, and after a moment he added gruffly:
+
+“Thar's goin' to be sure enough trouble now. The Falins'll think all
+them police fellers air on their side now. This ain't no place fer
+you--you must git away.”
+
+June shook her head and her eyes turned to the flowers at the edge of
+the garden:
+
+“I'm not goin' away, Dad,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+Back to the passing of Boone and the landing of Columbus no man, in that
+region, had ever been hanged. And as old Judd said, no Tolliver had ever
+been sentenced and no jury of mountain men, he well knew, could be
+found who would convict a Tolliver, for there were no twelve men in
+the mountains who would dare. And so the Tollivers decided to await the
+outcome of the trial and rest easy. But they did not count on the mettle
+and intelligence of the grim young “furriners” who were a flying wedge
+of civilization at the Gap. Straightway, they gave up the practice of
+law and banking and trading and store-keeping and cut port-holes in the
+brick walls of the Court House and guarded town and jail night and day.
+They brought their own fearless judge, their own fearless jury and
+their own fearless guard. Such an abstract regard for law and order the
+mountaineer finds a hard thing to understand. It looked as though the
+motive of the Guard was vindictive and personal, and old Judd was almost
+stifled by the volcanic rage that daily grew within him as the toils
+daily tightened about Rufe Tolliver.
+
+Every happening the old man learned through the Red Fox, who, with his
+huge pistols, was one of the men who escorted Rufe to and from Court
+House and jail--a volunteer, Hale supposed, because he hated Rufe;
+and, as the Tollivers supposed, so that he could keep them advised of
+everything that went on, which he did with secrecy and his own peculiar
+faith. And steadily and to the growing uneasiness of the Tollivers, the
+law went its way. Rufe had proven that he was at the Gap all day and had
+taken no part in the trouble. He produced a witness--the mountain lout
+whom Hale remembered--who admitted that he had blown the whistle, given
+the yell, and fired the pistol shot. When asked his reason, the witness,
+who was stupid, had none ready, looked helplessly at Rufe and finally
+mumbled--“fer fun.” But it was plain from the questions that Rufe
+had put to Hale only a few minutes before the shooting, and from the
+hesitation of the witness, that Rufe had used him for a tool. So the
+testimony of the latter that Mockaby without even summoning Rufe to
+surrender had fired first, carried no conviction. And yet Rufe had
+no trouble making it almost sure that he had never seen the dead man
+before--so what was his motive? It was then that word reached the ear
+of the prosecuting attorney of the only testimony that could establish a
+motive and make the crime a hanging offence, and Court was adjourned for
+a day, while he sent for the witness who could give it. That afternoon
+one of the Falins, who had grown bolder, and in twos and threes were
+always at the trial, shot at a Tolliver on the edge of town and there
+was an immediate turmoil between the factions that the Red Fox had been
+waiting for and that suited his dark purposes well.
+
+That very night, with his big rifle, he slipped through the woods to a
+turn of the road, over which old Dave Tolliver was to pass next morning,
+and built a “blind” behind some rocks and lay there smoking peacefully
+and dreaming his Swedenborgian dreams. And when a wagon came round the
+turn, driven by a boy, and with the gaunt frame of old Dave Tolliver
+lying on straw in the bed of it, his big rifle thundered and the
+frightened horses dashed on with the Red Fox's last enemy, lifeless.
+Coolly he slipped back to the woods, threw the shell from his gun,
+tirelessly he went by short cuts through the hills, and at noon,
+benevolent and smiling, he was on guard again.
+
+The little Court Room was crowded for the afternoon session. Inside the
+railing sat Rufe Tolliver, white and defiant--manacled. Leaning on the
+railing, to one side, was the Red Fox with his big pistols, his good
+profile calm, dreamy, kind--to the other, similarly armed, was Hale.
+At each of the gaping port-holes, and on each side of the door, stood
+a guard with a Winchester, and around the railing outside were several
+more. In spite of window and port-hole the air was close and heavy with
+the smell of tobacco and the sweat of men. Here and there in the crowd
+was a red Falin, but not a Tolliver was in sight, and Rufe Tolliver sat
+alone. The clerk called the Court to order after the fashion since the
+days before Edward the Confessor--except that he asked God to save a
+commonwealth instead of a king--and the prosecuting attorney rose:
+
+“Next witness, may it please your Honour”: and as the clerk got to
+his feet with a slip of paper in his hand and bawled out a name, Hale
+wheeled with a thumping heart. The crowd vibrated, turned heads, gave
+way, and through the human aisle walked June Tolliver with the sheriff
+following meekly behind. At the railing-gate she stopped, head uplifted,
+face pale and indignant; and her eyes swept past Hale as if he were
+no more than a wooden image, and were fixed with proud inquiry on the
+Judge's face. She was bare-headed, her bronze hair was drawn low over
+her white brow, her gown was of purple home-spun, and her right hand was
+clenched tight about the chased silver handle of a riding whip, and
+in eyes, mouth, and in every line of her tense figure was the mute
+question: “Why have you brought _me_ here?”
+
+[Illustration: “Why have you brought me here?”, 0342]
+
+“Here, please,” said the Judge gently, as though he were about to answer
+that question, and as she passed Hale she seemed to swerve her skirts
+aside that they might not touch him.
+
+“Swear her.”
+
+June lifted her right hand, put her lips to the soiled, old, black Bible
+and faced the jury and Hale and Bad Rufe Tolliver whose black eyes never
+left her face.
+
+“What is your name?” asked a deep voice that struck her ears as
+familiar, and before she answered she swiftly recalled that she had
+heard that voice speaking when she entered the door.
+
+“June Tolliver.”
+
+“Your age?”
+
+“Eighteen.”
+
+“You live--”
+
+“In Lonesome Cove.”
+
+“You are the daughter of--”
+
+“Judd Tolliver.”
+
+“Do you know the prisoner?”
+
+“He is my foster-uncle.”
+
+“Were you at home on the night of August the tenth?”
+
+“I was.”
+
+“Have you ever heard the prisoner express any enmity against this
+volunteer Police Guard?” He waved his hand toward the men at the
+portholes and about the railing--unconsciously leaving his hand directly
+pointed at Hale. June hesitated and Rufe leaned one elbow on the table,
+and the light in his eyes beat with fierce intensity into the girl's
+eyes into which came a curious frightened look that Hale remembered--the
+same look she had shown long ago when Rufe's name was mentioned in the
+old miller's cabin, and when going up the river road she had put her
+childish trust in him to see that her bad uncle bothered her no more.
+Hale had never forgot that, and if it had not been absurd he would have
+stopped the prisoner from staring at her now. An anxious look had come
+into Rufe's eyes--would she lie for him?
+
+“Never,” said June. Ah, she would--she was a Tolliver and Rufe took a
+breath of deep content.
+
+“You never heard him express any enmity toward the Police Guard--before
+that night?”
+
+“I have answered that question,” said June with dignity and Rufe's
+lawyer was on his feet.
+
+“Your Honour, I object,” he said indignantly.
+
+“I apologize,” said the deep voice--“sincerely,” and he bowed to June.
+Then very quietly:
+
+“What was the last thing you heard the prisoner say that afternoon when
+he left your father's house?”
+
+It had come--how well she remembered just what he had said and how, that
+night, even when she was asleep, Rufe's words had clanged like a bell in
+her brain--what her awakening terror was when she knew that the deed was
+done and the stifling fear that the victim might be Hale. Swiftly her
+mind worked--somebody had blabbed, her step-mother, perhaps, and what
+Rufe had said had reached a Falin ear and come to the relentless man in
+front of her. She remembered, too, now, what the deep voice was saying
+as she came into the door:
+
+“There must be deliberation, a malicious purpose proven to make the
+prisoner's crime a capital offence--I admit that, of course, your
+Honour. Very well, we propose to prove that now,” and then she had
+heard her name called. The proof that was to send Rufe Tolliver to the
+scaffold was to come from her--that was why she was there. Her lips
+opened and Rufe's eyes, like a snake's, caught her own again and held
+them.
+
+“He said he was going over to the Gap--”
+
+There was a commotion at the door, again the crowd parted, and in
+towered giant Judd Tolliver, pushing people aside as though they were
+straws, his bushy hair wild and his great frame shaking from head to
+foot with rage.
+
+“You went to my house,” he rumbled hoarsely--glaring at Hale--“an' took
+my gal thar when I wasn't at home--you--”
+
+“Order in the Court,” said the Judge sternly, but already at a signal
+from Hale several guards were pushing through the crowd and old Judd
+saw them coming and saw the Falins about him and the Winchesters at the
+port-holes, and he stopped with a hard gulp and stood looking at June.
+
+“Repeat his exact words,” said the deep voice again as calmly as though
+nothing had happened.
+
+“He said, 'I'm goin' over to the Gap--'” and still Rufe's black eyes
+held her with mesmeric power--would she lie for him--would she lie for
+him?
+
+It was a terrible struggle for June. Her father was there, her uncle
+Dave was dead, her foster-uncle's life hung on her next words and she
+was a Tolliver. Yet she had given her oath, she had kissed the sacred
+Book in which she believed from cover to cover with her whole heart,
+and she could feel upon her the blue eyes of a man for whom a lie was
+impossible and to whom she had never stained her white soul with a word
+of untruth.
+
+“Yes,” encouraged the deep voice kindly.
+
+Not a soul in the room knew where the struggle lay--not even the
+girl--for it lay between the black eyes of Rufe Tolliver and the blue
+eyes of John Hale.
+
+“Yes,” repeated the deep voice again. Again, with her eyes on Rufe, she
+repeated:
+
+“'I'm goin' over to the Gap--'” her face turned deadly white, she
+shivered, her dark eyes swerved suddenly full on Hale and she said
+slowly and distinctly, yet hardly above a whisper:
+
+“'TO KILL ME A POLICEMAN.'”
+
+“That will do,” said the deep voice gently, and Hale started toward
+her--she looked so deadly sick and she trembled so when she tried to
+rise; but she saw him, her mouth steadied, she rose, and without looking
+at him, passed by his outstretched hand and walked slowly out of the
+Court Room.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+The miracle had happened. The Tollivers, following the Red Fox's advice
+to make no attempt at rescue just then, had waited, expecting the old
+immunity from the law and getting instead the swift sentence that Rufe
+Tolliver should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Astounding and
+convincing though the news was, no mountaineer believed he would ever
+hang, and Rufe himself faced the sentence defiant. He laughed when he
+was led back to his cell:
+
+“I'll never hang,” he said scornfully. They were the first words that
+came from his lips, and the first words that came from old Judd's when
+the news reached him in Lonesome Cove, and that night old Judd gathered
+his clan for the rescue--to learn next morning that during the night
+Rufe had been spirited away to the capital for safekeeping until the
+fatal day. And so there was quiet for a while--old Judd making ready for
+the day when Rufe should be brought back, and trying to find out who it
+was that had slain his brother Dave. The Falins denied the deed, but old
+Judd never questioned that one of them was the murderer, and he came out
+openly now and made no secret of the fact that he meant to have revenge.
+And so the two factions went armed, watchful and wary--especially the
+Falins, who were lying low and waiting to fulfil a deadly purpose of
+their own. They well knew that old Judd would not open hostilities on
+them until Rufe Tolliver was dead or at liberty. They knew that the
+old man meant to try to rescue Rufe when he was brought back to jail or
+taken from it to the scaffold, and when either day came they themselves
+would take a hand, thus giving the Tollivers at one and the same time
+two sets of foes. And so through the golden September days the two clans
+waited, and June Tolliver went with dull determination back to her old
+life, for Uncle Billy's sister had left the house in fear and she
+could get no help--milking cows at cold dawns, helping in the kitchen,
+spinning flax and wool, and weaving them into rough garments for her
+father and step-mother and Bub, and in time, she thought grimly--for
+herself: for not another cent for her maintenance could now come from
+John Hale, even though he claimed it was hers--even though it was in
+truth her own. Never, but once, had Hale's name been mentioned in the
+cabin--never, but once, had her father referred to the testimony that
+she had given against Rufe Tolliver, for the old man put upon Hale the
+fact that the sheriff had sneaked into his house when he was away and
+had taken June to Court, and that was the crowning touch of bitterness
+in his growing hatred for the captain of the guard of whom he had once
+been so fond.
+
+“Course you had to tell the truth, baby, when they got you there,” he
+said kindly; “but kidnappin' you that-a-way--” He shook his great bushy
+head from side to side and dropped it into his hands.
+
+“I reckon that damn Hale was the man who found out that you heard Rufe
+say that. I'd like to know how--I'd like to git my hands on the feller
+as told him.”
+
+June opened her lips in simple justice to clear Hale of that charge, but
+she saw such a terrified appeal in her step-mother's face that she
+kept her peace, let Hale suffer for that, too, and walked out into her
+garden. Never once had her piano been opened, her books had lain unread,
+and from her lips, during those days, came no song. When she was not
+at work, she was brooding in her room, or she would walk down to Uncle
+Billy's and sit at the mill with him while the old man would talk in
+tender helplessness, or under the honeysuckle vines with old Hon, whose
+brusque kindness was of as little avail. And then, still silent, she
+would get wearily up and as quietly go away while the two old friends,
+worried to the heart, followed her sadly with their eyes. At other times
+she was brooding in her room or sitting in her garden, where she was
+now, and where she found most comfort--the garden that Hale had planted
+for her--where purple asters leaned against lilac shrubs that would
+flower for the first time the coming spring; where a late rose
+bloomed, and marigolds drooped, and great sunflowers nodded and giant
+castor-plants stretched out their hands of Christ, And while June thus
+waited the passing of the days, many things became clear to her: for the
+grim finger of reality had torn the veil from her eyes and let her see
+herself but little changed, at the depths, by contact with John Hale's
+world, as she now saw him but little changed, at the depths, by contact
+with hers. Slowly she came to see, too, that it was his presence in the
+Court Room that made her tell the truth, reckless of the consequences,
+and she came to realize that she was not leaving the mountains because
+she would go to no place where she could not know of any danger that, in
+the present crisis, might threaten John Hale.
+
+And Hale saw only that in the Court Room she had drawn her skirts aside,
+that she had looked at him once and then had brushed past his helping
+hand. It put him in torment to think of what her life must be now,
+and of how she must be suffering. He knew that she would not leave her
+father in the crisis that was at hand, and after it was all over--what
+then? His hands would still be tied and he would be even more helpless
+than he had ever dreamed possible. To be sure, an old land deal had come
+to life, just after the discovery of the worthlessness of the mine
+in Lonesome Cove, and was holding out another hope. But if that, too,
+should fail--or if it should succeed--what then? Old Judd had sent back,
+with a curt refusal, the last “allowance” he forwarded to June and
+he knew the old man was himself in straits. So June must stay in the
+mountains, and what would become of her? She had gone back to her
+mountain garb--would she lapse into her old life and ever again be
+content? Yes, she would lapse, but never enough to keep her from being
+unhappy all her life, and at that thought he groaned. Thus far he was
+responsible and the paramount duty with him had been that she should
+have the means to follow the career she had planned for herself outside
+of those hills. And now if he had the means, he was helpless. There was
+nothing for him to do now but to see that the law had its way with Rufe
+Tolliver, and meanwhile he let the reawakened land deal go hang and set
+himself the task of finding out who it was that had ambushed old Dave
+Tolliver. So even when he was thinking of June his brain was busy on
+that mystery, and one night, as he sat brooding, a suspicion flashed
+that made him grip his chair with both hands and rise to pace the porch.
+Old Dave had been shot at dawn, and the night before the Red Fox had
+been absent from the guard and had not turned up until nearly noon next
+day. He had told Hale that he was going home. Two days later, Hale heard
+by accident that the old man had been seen near the place of the ambush
+about sunset of the day before the tragedy, which was on his way home,
+and he now learned straightway for himself that the Red Fox had not
+been home for a month--which was only one of his ways of mistreating the
+patient little old woman in black.
+
+A little later, the Red Fox gave it out that he was trying to ferret out
+the murderer himself, and several times he was seen near the place of
+ambush, looking, as he said, for evidence. But this did not halt Hale's
+suspicions, for he recalled that the night he had spent with the Red
+Fox, long ago, the old man had burst out against old Dave and had
+quickly covered up his indiscretion with a pious characterization of
+himself as a man that kept peace with both factions. And then why had he
+been so suspicious and fearful when Hale told him that night that he had
+seen him talking with a Falin in town the Court day before, and had he
+disclosed the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver and guided the guard to his
+hiding-place simply for the reward? He had not yet come to claim it, and
+his indifference to money was notorious through the hills. Apparently
+there was some general enmity in the old man toward the whole Tolliver
+clan, and maybe he had used the reward to fool Hale as to his real
+motive. And then Hale quietly learned that long ago the Tollivers
+bitterly opposed the Red Fox's marriage to a Tolliver--that Rufe, when a
+boy, was always teasing the Red Fox and had once made him dance in his
+moccasins to the tune of bullets spitting about his feet, and that the
+Red Fox had been heard to say that old Dave had cheated his wife out of
+her just inheritance of wild land; but all that was long, long ago, and
+apparently had been mutually forgiven and forgotten. But it was enough
+for Hale, and one night he mounted his horse, and at dawn he was at the
+place of ambush with his horse hidden in the bushes. The rocks for
+the ambush were waist high, and the twigs that had been thrust in the
+crevices between them were withered. And there, on the hypothesis that
+the Red Fox was the assassin, Hale tried to put himself, after the deed,
+into the Red Fox's shoes. The old man had turned up on guard before
+noon--then he must have gone somewhere first or have killed considerable
+time in the woods. He would not have crossed the road, for there were
+two houses on the other side; there would have been no object in going
+on over the mountain unless he meant to escape, and if he had gone over
+there for another reason he would hardly have had time to get to the
+Court House before noon: nor would he have gone back along the road
+on that side, for on that side, too, was a cabin not far away. So Hale
+turned and walked straight away from the road where the walking was
+easiest--down a ravine, and pushing this way and that through the bushes
+where the way looked easiest. Half a mile down the ravine he came to
+a little brook, and there in the black earth was the faint print of a
+man's left foot and in the hard crust across was the deeper print of his
+right, where his weight in leaping had come down hard. But the prints
+were made by a shoe and not by a moccasin, and then Hale recalled
+exultantly that the Red Fox did not have his moccasins on the morning
+he turned up on guard. All the while he kept a sharp lookout, right and
+left, on the ground--the Red Fox must have thrown his cartridge shell
+somewhere, and for that Hale was looking. Across the brook he could see
+the tracks no farther, for he was too little of a woodsman to follow so
+old a trail, but as he stood behind a clump of rhododendron, wondering
+what he could do, he heard the crack of a dead stick down the stream,
+and noiselessly he moved farther into the bushes. His heart thumped in
+the silence--the long silence that followed--for it might be a hostile
+Tolliver that was coming, so he pulled his pistol from his holster, made
+ready, and then, noiseless as a shadow, the Red Fox slipped past him
+along the path, in his moccasins now, and with his big Winchester in his
+left hand. The Red Fox, too, was looking for that cartridge shell, for
+only the night before had he heard for the first time of the whispered
+suspicions against him. He was making for the blind and Hale trembled
+at his luck. There was no path on the other side of the stream, and Hale
+could barely hear him moving through the bushes. So he pulled off his
+boots and, carrying them in one hand, slipped after him, watching for
+dead twigs, stooping under the branches, or sliding sidewise through
+them when he had to brush between their extremities, and pausing every
+now and then to listen for an occasional faint sound from the Red Fox
+ahead. Up the ravine the old man went to a little ledge of rocks, beyond
+which was the blind, and when Hale saw his stooped figure slip over that
+and disappear, he ran noiselessly toward it, crept noiselessly to the
+top and peeped carefully over to see the Red Fox with his back to him
+and peering into a clump of bushes--hardly ten yards away. While
+Hale looked, the old man thrust his hand into the bushes and drew out
+something that twinkled in the sun. At the moment Hale's horse nickered
+from the bushes, and the Red Fox slipped his hand into his pocket,
+crouched listening a moment, and then, step by step, backed toward the
+ledge. Hale rose:
+
+“I want you, Red!”
+
+The old man wheeled, the wolf's snarl came, but the big rifle was too
+slow--Hale's pistol had flashed in his face.
+
+“Drop your gun!” Paralyzed, but the picture of white fury, the old man
+hesitated.
+
+“Drop--your--gun!” Slowly the big rifle was loosed and fell to the
+ground.
+
+“Back away--turn around and hands up!”
+
+With his foot on the Winchester, Hale felt in the old man's pockets and
+fished out an empty cartridge shell. Then he picked up the rifle and
+threw the slide.
+
+“It fits all right. March--toward that horse!”
+
+Without a word the old man slouched ahead to where the big black horse
+was restlessly waiting in the bushes.
+
+“Climb up,” said Hale. “We won't 'ride and tie' back to town--but I'll
+take turns with you on the horse.”
+
+The Red Fox was making ready to leave the mountains, for he had been
+falsely informed that Rufe was to be brought back to the county seat
+next day, and he was searching again for the sole bit of evidence that
+was out against him. And when Rufe was spirited back to jail and was on
+his way to his cell, an old freckled hand was thrust between the bars of
+an iron door to greet him and a voice called him by name. Rufe stopped
+in amazement; then he burst out laughing; he struck then at the pallid
+face through the bars with his manacles and cursed the old man bitterly;
+then he laughed again horribly. The two slept in adjoining cells of the
+same cage that night--the one waiting for the scaffold and the other
+waiting for the trial that was to send him there. And away over the blue
+mountains a little old woman in black sat on the porch of her cabin
+as she had sat patiently many and many a long day. It was time, she
+thought, that the Red Fox was coming home.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+And so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting for death, the trial of the
+Red Fox went on, and when he was not swinging in a hammock, reading his
+Bible, telling his visions to his guards and singing hymns, he was in
+the Court House giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all, with
+the benevolent half of his mask turned to the jury and the wolfish snarl
+of the other half showing only now and then to some hostile witness for
+whom his hate was stronger than his fear for his own life. And in jail
+Bad Rufe worried his enemy with the malicious humour of Satan. Now he
+would say:
+
+“Oh, there ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all--'cept
+this iron wall,” and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall
+with the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox's
+hammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to his guard outside:
+
+“Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the word, nor talk with
+sperits, but thar's worse men than me in the world--old Red in thar' for
+instance”; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox would
+writhe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always he
+would daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in the
+night, and his devilish instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too,
+was sentenced to death--he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man's
+face, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence against
+the Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against Rufe
+Tolliver--John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He could
+not swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, but
+it was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later he
+had found the shell in the old man's pocket--and if it had been fired
+innocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it?
+He was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That
+claim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.
+
+“You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at his
+home that this rifle was rim-fire?”
+
+“He did.” The lawyer held up the shell.
+
+“You see this was exploded in such a rifle.” That was plain, and the
+lawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out,
+and held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near the
+centre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and
+examined it closely.
+
+“It's been tampered with,” he said quietly, and he handed it to the
+prosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job and
+better proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were only two such
+big rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man who
+owned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days of
+brain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to prove
+insanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends--none save the
+little old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day by
+day.
+
+And the Red Fox was doomed.
+
+In the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray face
+before him the usual question:
+
+“Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not be
+pronounced on you?”
+
+The Red Fox rose:
+
+“No,” he said in a shaking voice; “but I have a friend here who I would
+like to speak for me.” The Judge bent his head a moment over his bench
+and lifted it:
+
+“It is unusual,” he said; “but under the circumstances I will grant
+your request. Who is your friend?” And the Red Fox made the souls of his
+listeners leap.
+
+“Jesus Christ,” he said.
+
+The Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room grew
+deeper when the old man fished his Bible from his pocket and calmly read
+such passages as might be interpreted as sure damnation for his enemies
+and sure glory for himself--read them until the Judge lifted his hand
+for a halt.
+
+And so another sensation spread through the hills and a superstitious
+awe of this strange new power that had come into the hills went with it
+hand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew that nothing could save
+the Red Fox they would wait to see if that power could really avail
+against the Tolliver clan. The day set for Rufe's execution was the
+following Monday, and for the Red Fox the Friday following--for it was
+well to have the whole wretched business over while the guard was there.
+Old Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned, had come himself to offer the little
+old woman in black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and had
+tried to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleased
+the Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white--cap
+and all--as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was to put on above,
+and the little old woman stayed where she was, silently and without
+question, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly learned, from a white
+table-cloth and measuring them piece by piece with the clothes the old
+man wore in jail. It pleased him, too, that his body should be kept
+unburied three days--saying that he would then arise and go about
+preaching, and that duty, too, she would as silently and with as little
+question perform. Moreover, he would preach his own funeral sermon on
+the Sunday before Rufe's day, and a curious crowd gathered to hear him.
+The Red Fox was led from jail. He stood on the porch of the jailer's
+house with a little table in front of him. On it lay a Bible, on the
+other side of the table sat a little pale-faced old woman in black with
+a black sun-bonnet drawn close to her face. By the side of the Bible lay
+a few pieces of bread. It was the Red Fox's last communion--a communion
+which he administered to himself and in which there was no other soul
+on earth to join save that little old woman in black. And when the old
+fellow lifted the bread and asked the crowd to come forward to partake
+with him in the last sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman who
+had been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years--only she, of
+all the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her face
+toward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over
+toward her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she reached for it.
+
+Bob Berkley was on the death-watch that night, and as he passed Rufe's
+cell a wiry hand shot through the grating of his door, and as the boy
+sprang away the condemned man's fingers tipped the butt of the big
+pistol that dangled on the lad's hip.
+
+“Not this time,” said Bob with a cool little laugh, and Rufe laughed,
+too.
+
+“I was only foolin',” he said, “I ain't goin' to hang. You hear that,
+Red? I ain't goin' to hang--but you are, Red--sure. Nobody'd risk his
+little finger for your old carcass, 'cept maybe that little old woman o'
+yours who you've treated like a hound--but my folks ain't goin' to see
+me hang.”
+
+Rufe spoke with some reason. That night the Tollivers climbed the
+mountain, and before daybreak were waiting in the woods a mile on the
+north side of the town. And the Falins climbed, too, farther along the
+mountains, and at the same hour were waiting in the woods a mile to the
+south.
+
+Back in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat alone--her soul shaken and
+terror-stricken to the depths--and the misery that matched hers was in
+the heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the county seat, on guard
+and forging out his plans for that day under the morning stars.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Day broke on the old Court House with its black port-holes, on the
+graystone jail, and on a tall topless wooden box to one side, from
+which projected a cross-beam of green oak. From the centre of this beam
+dangled a rope that swung gently to and fro when the wind moved.
+And with the day a flock of little birds lighted on the bars of the
+condemned man's cell window, chirping through them, and when the jailer
+brought breakfast he found Bad Rufe cowering in the corner of his cell
+and wet with the sweat of fear.
+
+“Them damn birds ag'in,” he growled sullenly.
+
+“Don't lose yo' nerve, Rufe,” said the jailer, and the old laugh of
+defiance came, but from lips that were dry.
+
+“Not much,” he answered grimly, but the jailer noticed that while he
+ate, his eyes kept turning again and again to the bars; and the turnkey
+went away shaking his head. Rufe had told the jailer, his one friend
+through whom he had kept in constant communication with the Tollivers,
+how on the night after the shooting of Mockaby, when he lay down to
+sleep high on the mountain side and under some rhododendron bushes, a
+flock of little birds flew in on him like a gust of rain and perched
+over and around him, twittering at him until he had to get up and pace
+the woods, and how, throughout the next day, when he sat in the sun
+planning his escape, those birds would sweep chattering over his head
+and sweep chattering back again, and in that mood of despair he had said
+once, and only once: “Somehow I knowed this time my name was Dennis”--a
+phrase of evil prophecy he had picked up outside the hills. And now
+those same birds of evil omen had come again, he believed, right on the
+heels of the last sworn oath old Judd had sent him that he would never
+hang.
+
+With the day, through mountain and valley, came in converging lines
+mountain humanity--men and women, boys and girls, children and babes
+in arms; all in their Sunday best--the men in jeans, slouched hats, and
+high boots, the women in gay ribbons and brilliant home-spun; in wagons,
+on foot and on horses and mules, carrying man and man, man and boy,
+lover and sweetheart, or husband and wife and child--all moving through
+the crisp autumn air, past woods of russet and crimson and along brown
+dirt roads, to the straggling little mountain town. A stranger would
+have thought that a county fair, a camp-meeting, or a circus was their
+goal, but they were on their way to look upon the Court House with
+its black port-holes, the graystone jail, the tall wooden box, the
+projecting beam, and that dangling rope which, when the wind moved,
+swayed gently to and fro. And Hale had forged his plan. He knew that
+there would be no attempt at rescue until Rufe was led to the scaffold,
+and he knew that neither Falins nor Tollivers would come in a band, so
+the incoming tide found on the outskirts of the town and along every
+road boyish policemen who halted and disarmed every man who carried a
+weapon in sight, for thus John Hale would have against the pistols
+of the factions his own Winchesters and repeating shot-guns. And the
+wondering people saw at the back windows of the Court House and at the
+threatening port-holes more youngsters manning Winchesters, more at the
+windows of the jailer's frame house, which joined and fronted the jail,
+and more still--a line of them--running all around the jail; and the
+old men wagged their heads in amazement and wondered if, after all, a
+Tolliver was not really going to be hanged.
+
+So they waited--the neighbouring hills were black with people waiting;
+the housetops were black with men and boys waiting; the trees in the
+streets were bending under the weight of human bodies; and the jail-yard
+fence was three feet deep with people hanging to it and hanging about
+one another's necks--all waiting. All morning they waited silently and
+patiently, and now the fatal noon was hardly an hour away and not a
+Falin nor a Tolliver had been seen. Every Falin had been disarmed of his
+Winchester as he came in, and as yet no Tolliver had entered the town,
+for wily old Judd had learned of Hale's tactics and had stayed outside
+the town for his own keen purpose. As the minutes passed, Hale was
+beginning to wonder whether, after all, old Judd had come to believe
+that the odds against him were too great, and had told the truth when he
+set afoot the rumour that the law should have its way; and it was just
+when his load of anxiety was beginning to lighten that there was a
+little commotion at the edge of the Court House and a great red-headed
+figure pushed through the crowd, followed by another of like build, and
+as the people rapidly gave way and fell back, a line of Falins slipped
+along the wall and stood under the port-holes-quiet, watchful, and
+determined. Almost at the same time the crowd fell back the other way
+up the street, there was the hurried tramping of feet and on came the
+Tollivers, headed by giant Judd, all armed with Winchesters--for old
+Judd had sent his guns in ahead--and as the crowd swept like water into
+any channel of alley or doorway that was open to it, Hale saw the yard
+emptied of everybody but the line of Falins against the wall and the
+Tollivers in a body but ten yards in front of them. The people on the
+roofs and in the trees had not moved at all, for they were out of range.
+For a moment old Judd's eyes swept the windows and port-holes of the
+Court House, the windows of the jailer's house, the line of guards about
+the jail, and then they dropped to the line of Falins and glared with
+contemptuous hate into the leaping blue eyes of old Buck Falin, and for
+that moment there was silence. In that silence and as silently as the
+silence itself issued swiftly from the line of guards twelve youngsters
+with Winchesters, repeating shot-guns, and in a minute six were facing
+the Falins and six facing the Tollivers, each with his shot-gun at his
+hip. At the head of them stood Hale, his face a pale image, as hard
+as though cut from stone, his head bare, and his hand and his hip
+weaponless. In all that crowd there was not a man or a woman who had not
+seen or heard of him, for the power of the guard that was at his back
+had radiated through that wild region like ripples of water from a
+dropped stone and, unarmed even, he had a personal power that belonged
+to no other man in all those hills, though armed to the teeth. His voice
+rose clear, steady, commanding:
+
+“The law has come here and it has come to stay.” He faced the beetling
+eyebrows and angrily working beard of old Judd now:
+
+[Illustration: “We'll fight you both!”, 0370]
+
+“The Falins are here to get revenge on you Tollivers, if you attack us.
+I know that. But”--he wheeled on the Falins--“understand! We don't want
+your help! If the Tollivers try to take that man in there, and one of
+you Falins draws a pistol, those guns there”--waving his hand toward the
+jail windows--“will be turned loose on YOU, WE'LL FIGHT YOU BOTH!” The
+last words shot like bullets through his gritted teeth, then the flash
+of his eyes was gone, his face was calm, and as though the whole matter
+had been settled beyond possible interruption, he finished quietly:
+
+“The condemned man wishes to make a confession and to say good-by.
+In five minutes he will be at that window to say what he pleases. Ten
+minutes later he will be hanged.” And he turned and walked calmly into
+the jailer's door. Not a Tolliver nor a Falin made a movement or a
+sound. Young Dave's eyes had glared savagely when he first saw Hale, for
+he had marked Hale for his own and he knew that the fact was known to
+Hale. Had the battle begun then and there, Hale's death was sure,
+and Dave knew that Hale must know that as well as he: and yet with
+magnificent audacity, there he was--unarmed, personally helpless, and
+invested with an insulting certainty that not a shot would be fired. Not
+a Falin or a Tolliver even reached for a weapon, and the fact was the
+subtle tribute that ignorance pays intelligence when the latter is
+forced to deadly weapons as a last resort; for ignorance faced now
+belching shot-guns and was commanded by rifles on every side. Old Judd
+was trapped and the Falins were stunned. Old Buck Falin turned his eyes
+down the line of his men with one warning glance. Old Judd whispered
+something to a Tolliver behind him and a moment later the man slipped
+from the band and disappeared. Young Dave followed Hale's figure with a
+look of baffled malignant hatred and Bub's eyes were filled with angry
+tears. Between the factions, the grim young men stood with their guns
+like statues.
+
+At once a big man with a red face appeared at one of the jailer's
+windows and then came the sheriff, who began to take out the sash.
+Already the frightened crowd had gathered closer again and now a hush
+came over it, followed by a rustling and a murmur. Something was going
+to happen. Faces and gun-muzzles thickened at the port-holes and at the
+windows; the line of guards turned their faces sidewise and upward;
+the crowd on the fence scuffled for better positions; the people in the
+trees craned their necks from the branches or climbed higher, and there
+was a great scraping on all the roofs. Even the black crowd out on the
+hills seemed to catch the excitement and to sway, while spots of intense
+blue and vivid crimson came out here and there from the blackness when
+the women rose from their seats on the ground. Then--sharply--there was
+silence. The sheriff disappeared, and shut in by the sashless window as
+by a picture frame and blinking in the strong light, stood a man with
+black hair, cropped close, face pale and worn, and hands that looked
+white and thin--stood bad Rufe Tolliver.
+
+He was going to confess--that was the rumour. His lawyers wanted him to
+confess; the preacher who had been singing hymns with him all morning
+wanted him to confess; the man himself said he wanted to confess; and
+now he was going to confess. What deadly mysteries he might clear up if
+he would! No wonder the crowd was eager, for there was no soul there but
+knew his record--and what a record! His best friends put his victims no
+lower than thirteen, and there looking up at him were three women whom
+he had widowed or orphaned, while at one corner of the jail-yard stood
+a girl in black--the sweetheart of Mockaby, for whose death Rufe was
+standing where he stood now. But his lips did not open. Instead he
+took hold of the side of the window and looked behind him. The sheriff
+brought him a chair and he sat down. Apparently he was weak and he was
+going to wait a while. Would he tell how he had killed one Falin in the
+presence of the latter's wife at a wild bee tree; how he had killed a
+sheriff by dropping to the ground when the sheriff fired, in this way
+dodging the bullet and then shooting the officer from where he lay
+supposedly dead; how he had thrown another Falin out of the Court House
+window and broken his neck--the Falin was drunk, Rufe always said, and
+fell out; why, when he was constable, he had killed another--because,
+Rufe said, he resisted arrest; how and where he had killed Red-necked
+Johnson, who was found out in the woods? Would he tell all that and
+more? If he meant to tell there was no sign. His lips kept closed and
+his bright black eyes were studying the situation; the little squad of
+youngsters, back to back, with their repeating shot-guns, the line of
+Falins along the wall toward whom protruded six shining barrels, the
+huddled crowd of Tollivers toward whom protruded six more--old Judd
+towering in front with young Dave on one side, tense as a leopard about
+to spring, and on the other Bub, with tears streaming down his face. In
+a flash he understood, and in that flash his face looked as though he
+had been suddenly struck a heavy blow by some one from behind, and then
+his elbows dropped on the sill of the window, his chin dropped into
+his hands and a murmur arose. Maybe he was too weak to stand and
+talk--perhaps he was going to talk from his chair. Yes, he was leaning
+forward and his lips were opening, but no sound came. Slowly his eyes
+wandered around at the waiting people--in the trees, on the roofs and
+the fence--and then they dropped to old Judd's and blazed their appeal
+for a sign. With one heave of his mighty chest old Judd took off his
+slouch hat, pressed one big hand to the back of his head and, despite
+that blazing appeal, kept it there. At that movement Rufe threw his
+head up as though his breath had suddenly failed him, his face turned
+sickening white, and slowly again his chin dropped into his trembling
+hands, and still unbelieving he stared his appeal, but old Judd dropped
+his big hand and turned his head away. The condemned man's mouth
+twitched once, settled into defiant calm, and then he did one kindly
+thing. He turned in his seat and motioned Bob Berkley, who was just
+behind him, away from the window, and the boy, to humour him,
+stepped aside. Then he rose to his feet and stretched his arms wide.
+Simultaneously came the far-away crack of a rifle, and as a jet of smoke
+spurted above a clump of bushes on a little hill, three hundred yards
+away, Bad Rufe wheeled half-way round and fell back out of sight into
+the sheriff's arms. Every Falin made a nervous reach for his pistol, the
+line of gun-muzzles covering them wavered slightly, but the Tollivers
+stood still and unsurprised, and when Hale dashed from the door again,
+there was a grim smile of triumph on old Judd's face. He had kept his
+promise that Rufe should never hang.
+
+“Steady there,” said Hale quietly. His pistol was on his hip now and a
+Winchester was in his left hand.
+
+“Stand where you are--everybody!”
+
+There was the sound of hurrying feet within the jail. There was the
+clang of an iron door, the bang of a wooden one, and in five minutes
+from within the tall wooden box came the sharp click of a hatchet and
+then--dully:
+
+“T-H-O-O-MP!” The dangling rope had tightened with a snap and the wind
+swayed it no more.
+
+At his cell door the Red Fox stood with his watch in his hand and his
+eyes glued to the second-hand. When it had gone three times around its
+circuit, he snapped the lid with a sigh of relief and turned to his
+hammock and his Bible.
+
+“He's gone now,” said the Red Fox.
+
+Outside Hale still waited, and as his eyes turned from the Tollivers
+to the Falins, seven of the faces among them came back to him with
+startling distinctness, and his mind went back to the opening trouble
+in the county-seat over the Kentucky line, years before--when eight men
+held one another at the points of their pistols. One face was missing,
+and that face belonged to Rufe Tolliver. Hale pulled out his watch.
+
+“Keep those men there,” he said, pointing to the Falins, and he turned
+to the bewildered Tollivers.
+
+“Come on, Judd,” he said kindly--“all of you.”
+
+Dazed and mystified, they followed him in a body around the corner of
+the jail, where in a coffin, that old Jadd had sent as a blind to his
+real purpose, lay the remains of Bad Rufe Tolliver with a harmless
+bullet hole through one shoulder. Near by was a wagon and hitched to it
+were two mules that Hale himself had provided. Hale pointed to it:
+
+“I've done all I could, Judd. Take him away. I'll keep the Falins under
+guard until you reach the Kentucky line, so that they can't waylay you.”
+
+If old Judd heard, he gave no sign. He was looking down at the face of
+his foster-brother--his shoulder drooped, his great frame shrunken, and
+his iron face beaten and helpless. Again Hale spoke:
+
+“I'm sorry for all this. I'm even sorry that your man was not a better
+shot.”
+
+The old man straightened then and with a gesture he motioned young Dave
+to the foot of the coffin and stooped himself at the head. Past the
+wagon they went, the crowd giving way before them, and with the dead
+Tolliver on their shoulders, old Judd and young Dave passed with their
+followers out of sight.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The longest of her life was that day to June. The anxiety in times of
+war for the women who wait at home is vague because they are mercifully
+ignorant of the dangers their loved ones run, but a specific issue that
+involves death to those loved ones has a special and poignant terror of
+its own. June knew her father's plan, the precise time the fight would
+take place, and the especial danger that was Hale's, for she knew that
+young Dave Tolliver had marked him with the first shot fired. Dry-eyed
+and white and dumb, she watched them make ready for the start that
+morning while it was yet dark; dully she heard the horses snorting from
+the cold, the low curt orders of her father, and the exciting mutterings
+of Bub and young Dave; dully she watched the saddles thrown on, the
+pistols buckled, the Winchesters caught up, and dully she watched them
+file out the gate and ride away, single file, into the cold, damp mist
+like ghostly figures in a dream. Once only did she open her lips and
+that was to plead with her father to leave Bub at home, but her father
+gave her no answer and Bub snorted his indignation--he was a man now,
+and his now was the privilege of a man. For a while she stood listening
+to the ring of metal against stone that came to her more and more
+faintly out of the mist, and she wondered if it was really June Tolliver
+standing there, while father and brother and cousin were on their way to
+fight the law--how differently she saw these things now--for a man who
+deserved death, and to fight a man who was ready to die for his duty to
+that law--the law that guarded them and her and might not perhaps guard
+him: the man who had planted for her the dew-drenched garden that was
+waiting for the sun, and had built the little room behind her for
+her comfort and seclusion; who had sent her to school, had never been
+anything but kind and just to her and to everybody--who had taught her
+life and, thank God, love. Was she really the June Tolliver who had gone
+out into the world and had held her place there; who had conquered birth
+and speech and customs and environment so that none could tell what
+they all once were; who had become the lady, the woman of the world, in
+manner, dress, and education: who had a gift of music and a voice that
+might enrich her life beyond any dream that had ever sprung from her own
+brain or any that she had ever caught from Hale's? Was she June Tolliver
+who had been and done all that, and now had come back and was slowly
+sinking back into the narrow grave from which Hale had lifted her? It
+was all too strange and bitter, but if she wanted proof there was her
+step-mother's voice now--the same old, querulous, nerve-racking voice
+that had embittered all her childhood--calling her down into the old
+mean round of drudgery that had bound forever the horizon of her narrow
+life just as now it was shutting down like a sky of brass around her
+own. And when the voice came, instead of bursting into tears as she was
+about to do, she gave a hard little laugh and she lifted a defiant
+face to the rising sun. There was a limit to the sacrifice for kindred,
+brother, father, home, and that limit was the eternal sacrifice--the
+eternal undoing of herself: when this wretched terrible business was
+over she would set her feet where that sun could rise on her, busy with
+the work that she could do in that world for which she felt she was
+born. Swiftly she did the morning chores and then she sat on the porch
+thinking and waiting. Spinning wheel, loom, and darning needle were
+to lie idle that day. The old step-mother had gotten from bed and was
+dressing herself--miraculously cured of a sudden, miraculously active.
+She began to talk of what she needed in town, and June said nothing. She
+went out to the stable and led out the old sorrel-mare. She was going to
+the hanging.
+
+“Don't you want to go to town, June?”
+
+“No,” said June fiercely.
+
+“Well, you needn't git mad about it--I got to go some day this week,
+and I reckon I might as well go ter-day.” June answered nothing, but in
+silence watched her get ready and in silence watched her ride away. She
+was glad to be left alone. The sun had flooded Lonesome Cove now with a
+light as rich and yellow as though it were late afternoon, and she could
+yet tell every tree by the different colour of the banner that each yet
+defiantly flung into the face of death. The yard fence was festooned
+with dewy cobwebs, and every weed in the field was hung with them as
+with flashing jewels of exquisitely delicate design: Hale had once told
+her that they meant rain. Far away the mountains were overhung with
+purple so deep that the very air looked like mist, and a peace
+that seemed motherlike in tenderness brooded over the earth. Peace!
+Peace--with a man on his way to a scaffold only a few miles away, and
+two bodies of men, one led by her father, the other by the man she
+loved, ready to fly at each other's throats--the one to get the
+condemned man alive, the other to see that he died. She got up with
+a groan. She walked into the garden. The grass was tall, tangled, and
+withering, and in it dead leaves lay everywhere, stems up, stems down,
+in reckless confusion. The scarlet sage-pods were brown and seeds were
+dropping from their tiny gaping mouths. The marigolds were frost-nipped
+and one lonely black-winged butterfly was vainly searching them one
+by one for the lost sweets of summer. The gorgeous crowns of the
+sun-flowers were nothing but grotesque black mummy-heads set on lean,
+dead bodies, and the clump of big castor-plants, buffeted by the wind,
+leaned this way and that like giants in a drunken orgy trying to keep
+one another from falling down. The blight that was on the garden was the
+blight that was in her heart, and two bits of cheer only she found--one
+yellow nasturtium, scarlet-flecked, whose fragrance was a memory of the
+spring that was long gone, and one little cedar tree that had caught
+some dead leaves in its green arms and was firmly holding them as though
+to promise that another spring would surely come. With the flower in
+her hand, she started up the ravine to her dreaming place, but it was so
+lonely up there and she turned back. She went into her room and tried
+to read. Mechanically, she half opened the lid of the piano and shut
+it, horrified by her own act. As she passed out on the porch again she
+noticed that it was only nine o'clock. She turned and watched the long
+hand--how long a minute was! Three hours more! She shivered and went
+inside and got her bonnet--she could not be alone when the hour came,
+and she started down the road toward Uncle Billy's mill. Hale! Hale!
+Hale!--the name began to ring in her ears like a bell. The little shacks
+he had built up the creek were deserted and gone to ruin, and she began
+to wonder in the light of what her father had said how much of a tragedy
+that meant to him. Here was the spot where he was fishing that day, when
+she had slipped down behind him and he had turned and seen her for the
+first time. She could recall his smile and the very tone of his kind
+voice:
+
+“Howdye, little girl!” And the cat had got her tongue. She remembered
+when she had written her name, after she had first kissed him at the
+foot of the beech--“June HAIL,” and by a grotesque mental leap the
+beating of his name in her brain now made her think of the beating of
+hailstones on her father's roof one night when as a child she had lain
+and listened to them. Then she noticed that the autumn shadows seemed to
+make the river darker than the shadows of spring--or was it already
+the stain of dead leaves? Hale could have told her. Those leaves were
+floating through the shadows and when the wind moved, others zig-zagged
+softly down to join them. The wind was helping them on the water, too,
+and along came one brown leaf that was shaped like a tiny trireme--its
+stem acting like a rudder and keeping it straight before the breeze--so
+that it swept past the rest as a yacht that she was once on had swept
+past a fleet of fishing sloops. She was not unlike that swift little
+ship and thirty yards ahead were rocks and shallows where it and the
+whole fleet would turn topsy-turvy--would her own triumph be as short
+and the same fate be hers? There was no question as to that, unless she
+took the wheel of her fate in her own hands and with them steered the
+ship. Thinking hard, she walked on slowly, with her hands behind her
+and her eyes bent on the road. What should she do? She had no money, her
+father had none to spare, and she could accept no more from Hale. Once
+she stopped and stared with unseeing eyes at the blue sky, and once
+under the heavy helplessness of it all she dropped on the side of the
+road and sat with her head buried in her arms--sat so long that she rose
+with a start and, with an apprehensive look at the mounting sun, hurried
+on. She would go to the Gap and teach; and then she knew that if she
+went there it would be on Hale's account. Very well, she would not blind
+herself to that fact; she would go and perhaps all would be made up
+between them, and then she knew that if that but happened, nothing else
+could matter...
+
+When she reached the miller's cabin, she went to the porch without
+noticing that the door was closed. Nobody was at home and she turned
+listlessly. When she reached the gate, she heard the clock beginning
+to strike, and with one hand on her breast she breathlessly listened,
+counting--“eight, nine, ten, eleven”--and her heart seemed to stop in
+the fraction of time that she waited for it to strike once more. But it
+was only eleven, and she went on down the road slowly, still thinking
+hard. The old miller was leaning back in a chair against the log side
+of the mill, with his dusty slouched hat down over his eyes. He did not
+hear her coming and she thought he must be asleep, but he looked up with
+a start when she spoke and she knew of what he, too, had been thinking.
+Keenly his old eyes searched her white face and without a word he got up
+and reached for another chair within the mill.
+
+“You set right down now, baby,” he said, and he made a pretence of
+having something to do inside the mill, while June watched the creaking
+old wheel dropping the sun-shot sparkling water into the swift sluice,
+but hardly seeing it at all. By and by Uncle Billy came outside and sat
+down and neither spoke a word. Once June saw him covertly looking at his
+watch and she put both hands to her throat--stifled.
+
+“What time is it, Uncle Billy?” She tried to ask the question calmly,
+but she had to try twice before she could speak at all and when she did
+get the question out, her voice was only a broken whisper.
+
+“Five minutes to twelve, baby,” said the old man, and his voice had a
+gulp in it that broke June down. She sprang to her feet wringing her
+hands:
+
+“I can't stand it, Uncle Billy,” she cried madly, and with a sob that
+almost broke the old man's heart. “I tell you I can't stand it.”
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+And yet for three hours more she had to stand it, while the cavalcade
+of Tollivers, with Rufe's body, made its slow way to the Kentucky line
+where Judd and Dave and Bub left them to go home for the night and be
+on hand for the funeral next day. But Uncle Billy led her back to his
+cabin, and on the porch the two, with old Hon, waited while the three
+hours dragged along. It was June who was first to hear the galloping
+of horses' hoofs up the road and she ran to the gate, followed by Uncle
+Billy and old Hon to see young Dave Tolliver coming in a run. At the
+gate he threw himself from his horse:
+
+“Git up thar, June, and go home,” he panted sharply. June flashed out
+the gate.
+
+“Have you done it?” she asked with deadly quiet.
+
+“Hurry up an' go home, I tell ye! Uncle Judd wants ye!”
+
+She came quite close to him now.
+
+“You said you'd do it--I know what you've done--you--” she looked as if
+she would fly at his throat, and Dave, amazed, shrank back a step.
+
+“Go home, I tell ye--Uncle Judd's shot. Git on the hoss!”
+
+“No, no, NO! I wouldn't TOUCH anything that was yours”--she put her
+hands to her head as though she were crazed, and then she turned and
+broke into a swift run up the road.
+
+Panting, June reached the gate. The front door was closed and there she
+gave a tremulous cry for Bub. The door opened a few inches and through
+it Bub shouted for her to come on. The back door, too, was closed, and
+not a ray of daylight entered the room except at the port-hole where
+Bub, with a Winchester, had been standing on guard. By the light of the
+fire she saw her father's giant frame stretched out on the bed and she
+heard his laboured breathing. Swiftly she went to the bed and dropped on
+her knees beside it.
+
+“Dad!” she said. The old man's eyes opened and turned heavily toward
+her.
+
+“All right, Juny. They shot me from the laurel and they might nigh got
+Bub. I reckon they've got me this time.”
+
+“No--no!” He saw her eyes fixed on the matted blood on his chest.
+
+“Hit's stopped. I'm afeared hit's bleedin' inside.” His voice had
+dropped to a whisper and his eyes closed again. There was another
+cautious “Hello” outside, and when Bub again opened the door Dave ran
+swiftly within. He paid no attention to June.
+
+“I follered June back an' left my hoss in the bushes. There was three of
+'em.” He showed Bub a bullet hole through one sleeve and then he turned
+half contemptuously to June:
+
+“I hain't done it”--adding grimly--“not yit. He's as safe as you air. I
+hope you're satisfied that hit hain't him 'stid o' yo' daddy thar.”
+
+“Are you going to the Gap for a doctor?”
+
+“I reckon I can't leave Bub here alone agin all the Falins--not even to
+git a doctor or to carry a love-message fer you.”
+
+“Then I'll go myself.”
+
+A thick protest came from the bed, and then an appeal that might have
+come from a child.
+
+“Don't leave me, Juny.” Without a word June went into the kitchen and
+got the old bark horn.
+
+“Uncle Billy will go,” she said, and she stepped out on the porch. But
+Uncle Billy was already on his way and she heard him coming just as she
+was raising the horn to her lips. She met him at the gate, and without
+even taking the time to come into the house the old miller hurried
+upward toward the Lonesome Pine. The rain came then--the rain that the
+tiny cobwebs had heralded at dawn that morning. The old step-mother had
+not come home, and June told Bub she had gone over the mountain to see
+her sister, and when, as darkness fell, she did not appear they knew
+that she must have been caught by the rain and would spend the night
+with a neighbour. June asked no question, but from the low talk of Bub
+and Dave she made out what had happened in town that day and a wild
+elation settled in her heart that John Hale was alive and unhurt--though
+Rufe was dead, her father wounded, and Bub and Dave both had but
+narrowly escaped the Falin assassins that afternoon. Bub took the first
+turn at watching while Dave slept, and when it was Dave's turn she saw
+him drop quickly asleep in his chair, and she was left alone with the
+breathing of the wounded man and the beating of rain on the roof. And
+through the long night June thought her brain weary over herself, her
+life, her people, and Hale. They were not to blame--her people, they but
+did as their fathers had done before them. They had their own code and
+they lived up to it as best they could, and they had had no chance to
+learn another. She felt the vindictive hatred that had prolonged the
+feud. Had she been a man, she could not have rested until she had slain
+the man who had ambushed her father. She expected Bub to do that now,
+and if the spirit was so strong in her with the training she had had,
+how helpless they must be against it. Even Dave was not to blame--not to
+blame for loving her--he had always done that. For that reason he could
+not help hating Hale, and how great a reason he had now, for he could
+not understand as she could the absence of any personal motive that had
+governed him in the prosecution of the law, no matter if he hurt friend
+or foe. But for Hale, she would have loved Dave and now be married to
+him and happier than she was. Dave saw that--no wonder he hated Hale.
+And as she slowly realized all these things, she grew calm and gentle
+and determined to stick to her people and do the best she could with her
+life.
+
+And now and then through the night old Judd would open his eyes and
+stare at the ceiling, and at these times it was not the pain in his
+face that distressed her as much as the drawn beaten look that she had
+noticed growing in it for a long time. It was terrible--that helpless
+look in the face of a man, so big in body, so strong of mind, so
+iron-like in will; and whenever he did speak she knew what he was going
+to say:
+
+“It's all over, Juny. They've beat us on every turn. They've got us one
+by one. Thar ain't but a few of us left now and when I git up, if I ever
+do, I'm goin' to gether 'em all together, pull up stakes and take 'em
+all West. You won't ever leave me, Juny?”
+
+“No, Dad,” she would say gently. He had asked the question at first
+quite sanely, but as the night wore on and the fever grew and his mind
+wandered, he would repeat the question over and over like a child, and
+over and over, while Bub and Dave slept and the rain poured, June would
+repeat her answer:
+
+“I'll never leave you, Dad.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Before dawn Hale and the doctor and the old miller had reached the Pine,
+and there Hale stopped. Any farther, the old man told him, he would go
+only at the risk of his life from Dave or Bub, or even from any Falin
+who happened to be hanging around in the bushes, for Hale was hated
+equally by both factions now.
+
+“I'll wait up here until noon, Uncle Billy,” said Hale. “Ask her, for
+God's sake, to come up here and see me.”
+
+“All right. I'll axe her, but--” the old miller shook his head.
+Breakfastless, except for the munching of a piece of chocolate, Hale
+waited all the morning with his black horse in the bushes some thirty
+yards from the Lonesome Pine. Every now and then he would go to the tree
+and look down the path, and once he slipped far down the trail and aside
+to a spur whence he could see the cabin in the cove. Once his hungry
+eyes caught sight of a woman's figure walking through the little garden,
+and for an hour after it disappeared into the house he watched for it to
+come out again. But nothing more was visible, and he turned back to the
+trail to see Uncle Billy laboriously climbing up the slope. Hale
+waited and ran down to meet him, his face and eyes eager and his lips
+trembling, but again Uncle Billy was shaking his head.
+
+“No use, John,” he said sadly. “I got her out on the porch and axed her,
+but she won't come.”
+
+“She won't come at all?”
+
+“John, when one o' them Tollivers gits white about the mouth, an' thar
+eyes gits to blazin' and they KEEPS QUIET--they're plumb out o' reach
+o' the Almighty hisself. June skeered me. But you mustn't blame her jes'
+now. You see, you got up that guard. You ketched Rufe and hung him, and
+she can't help thinkin' if you hadn't done that, her old daddy wouldn't
+be in thar on his back nigh to death. You mustn't blame her, John--she's
+most out o' her head now.”
+
+“All right, Uncle Billy. Good-by.” Hale turned, climbed sadly back to
+his horse and sadly dropped down the other side of the mountain and on
+through the rocky gap-home.
+
+A week later he learned from the doctor that the chances were even that
+old Judd would get well, but the days went by with no word of June.
+Through those days June wrestled with her love for Hale and her loyalty
+to her father, who, sick as he was, seemed to have a vague sense of the
+trouble within her and shrewdly fought it by making her daily promise
+that she would never leave him. For as old Judd got better, June's
+fierceness against Hale melted and her love came out the stronger,
+because of the passing injustice that she had done him. Many times she
+was on the point of sending him word that she would meet him at the
+Pine, but she was afraid of her own strength if she should see him face
+to face, and she feared she would be risking his life if she allowed him
+to come. There were times when she would have gone to him herself, had
+her father been well and strong, but he was old, beaten and helpless,
+and she had given her sacred word that she would never leave him. So
+once more she grew calmer, gentler still, and more determined to follow
+her own way with her own kin, though that way led through a breaking
+heart. She never mentioned Hale's name, she never spoke of going West,
+and in time Dave began to wonder not only if she had not gotten over
+her feeling for Hale, but if that feeling had not turned into permanent
+hate. To him, June was kinder than ever, because she understood him
+better and because she was sorry for the hunted, hounded life he led,
+not knowing, when on his trips to see her or to do some service for her
+father, he might be picked off by some Falin from the bushes. So Dave
+stopped his sneering remarks against Hale and began to dream his old
+dreams, though he never opened his lips to June, and she was unconscious
+of what was going on within him. By and by, as old Judd began to mend,
+overtures of peace came, singularly enough, from the Falins, and while
+the old man snorted with contemptuous disbelief at them as a pretence to
+throw him off his guard, Dave began actually to believe that they were
+sincere, and straightway forged a plan of his own, even if the Tollivers
+did persist in going West. So one morning as he mounted his horse at old
+Judd's gate, he called to June in the garden:
+
+“I'm a-goin' over to the Gap.” June paled, but Dave was not looking at
+her.
+
+“What for?” she asked, steadying her voice.
+
+“Business,” he answered, and he laughed curiously and, still without
+looking at her, rode away.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Hale sat in the porch of his little office that morning, and the Hon.
+Sam Budd, who had risen to leave, stood with his hands deep in his
+pockets, his hat tilted far over his big goggles, looking down at the
+dead leaves that floated like lost hopes on the placid mill-pond. Hale
+had agreed to go to England once more on the sole chance left him before
+he went back to chain and compass--the old land deal that had come to
+life--and between them they had about enough money for the trip.
+
+“You'll keep an eye on things over there?” said Hale with a backward
+motion of his head toward Lonesome Cove, and the Hon. Sam nodded his
+head:
+
+“All I can.”
+
+“Those big trunks of hers are still here.” The Hon. Sam smiled. “She
+won't need 'em. I'll keep an eye on 'em and she can come over and get
+what she wants--every year or two,” he added grimly, and Hale groaned.
+
+“Stop it, Sam.”
+
+“All right. You ain't goin' to try to see her before you leave?” And
+then at the look on Hale's face he said hurriedly: “All right--all
+right,” and with a toss of his hands turned away, while Hale sat
+thinking where he was.
+
+Rufe Tolliver had been quite right as to the Red Fox. Nobody would risk
+his life for him--there was no one to attempt a rescue, and but a few of
+the guards were on hand this time to carry out the law. On the last day
+he had appeared in his white suit of tablecloth. The little old woman
+in black had made even the cap that was to be drawn over his face, and
+that, too, she had made of white. Moreover, she would have his body kept
+unburied for three days, because the Red Fox said that on the third day
+he would arise and go about preaching. So that even in death the Red Fox
+was consistently inconsistent, and how he reconciled such a dual life
+at one and the same time over and under the stars was, except to his
+twisted brain, never known. He walked firmly up the scaffold steps and
+stood there blinking in the sunlight. With one hand he tested the rope.
+For a moment he looked at the sky and the trees with a face that was
+white and absolutely expressionless. Then he sang one hymn of two verses
+and quietly dropped into that world in which he believed so firmly and
+toward which he had trod so strange a way on earth. As he wished, the
+little old woman in black had the body kept unburied for the three
+days--but the Red Fox never rose. With his passing, law and order had
+become supreme. Neither Tolliver nor Falin came on the Virginia side
+for mischief, and the desperadoes of two sister States, whose skirts
+are stitched together with pine and pin-oak along the crest of the
+Cumberland, confined their deviltries with great care to places long
+distant from the Gap. John Hale had done a great work, but the limit of
+his activities was that State line and the Falins, ever threatening that
+they would not leave a Tolliver alive, could carry out those threats and
+Hale not be able to lift a hand. It was his helplessness that was making
+him writhe now.
+
+Old Judd had often said he meant to leave the mountains--why didn't he
+go now and take June for whose safety his heart was always in his mouth?
+As an officer, he was now helpless where he was; and if he went away
+he could give no personal aid--he would not even know what was
+happening--and he had promised Budd to go. An open letter was clutched
+in his hand, and again he read it. His coal company had accepted his
+last proposition. They would take his stock--worthless as they thought
+it--and surrender the cabin and two hundred acres of field and woodland
+in Lonesome Cove. That much at least would be intact, but if he failed
+in his last project now, it would be subject to judgments against him
+that were sure to come. So there was one thing more to do for June
+before he left for the final effort in England--to give back her home to
+her--and as he rose to do it now, somebody shouted at his gate:
+
+“Hello!” Hale stopped short at the head of the steps, his right hand
+shot like a shaft of light to the butt of his pistol, stayed there--and
+he stood astounded. It was Dave Tolliver on horseback, and Dave's right
+hand had kept hold of his bridle-reins.
+
+“Hold on!” he said, lifting the other with a wide gesture of peace. “I
+want to talk with you a bit.” Still Hale watched him closely as he swung
+from his horse.
+
+“Come in--won't you?” The mountaineer hitched his horse and slouched
+within the gate.
+
+“Have a seat.” Dave dropped to the steps.
+
+“I'll set here,” he said, and there was an embarrassed silence for a
+while between the two. Hale studied young Dave's face from narrowed
+eyes. He knew all the threats the Tolliver had made against him, the
+bitter enmity that he felt, and that it would last until one or the
+other was dead. This was a queer move. The mountaineer took off his
+slouched hat and ran one hand through his thick black hair.
+
+“I reckon you've heard as how all our folks air sellin' out over the
+mountains.”
+
+“No,” said Hale quickly.
+
+“Well, they air, an' all of 'em are going West--Uncle Judd, Loretty and
+June, and all our kinfolks. You didn't know that?”
+
+“No,” repeated Hale.
+
+“Well, they hain't closed all the trades yit,” he said, “an' they mought
+not go mebbe afore spring. The Falins say they air done now. Uncle Judd
+don't believe 'em, but I do, an' I'm thinkin' I won't go. I've got a
+leetle money, an' I want to know if I can't buy back Uncle Judd's house
+an' a leetle ground around it. Our folks is tired o' fightin' and I
+couldn't live on t'other side of the mountain, after they air gone, an'
+keep as healthy as on this side--so I thought I'd see if I couldn't buy
+back June's old home, mebbe, an' live thar.”
+
+Hale watched him keenly, wondering what his game was--and he went on:
+“I know the house an' land ain't wuth much to your company, an' as the
+coal-vein has petered out, I reckon they might not axe much fer it.” It
+was all out now, and he stopped without looking at Hale. “I ain't axin'
+any favours, leastwise not o' you, an' I thought my share o' Mam's farm
+mought be enough to git me the house an' some o' the land.”
+
+“You mean to live there, yourself?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Alone?” Dave frowned.
+
+“I reckon that's my business.”
+
+“So it is--excuse me.” Hale lighted his pipe and the mountaineer
+waited--he was a little sullen now.
+
+“Well, the company has parted with the land.” Dave started.
+
+“Sold it?”
+
+“In a way--yes.”
+
+“Well, would you mind tellin' me who bought it--maybe I can git it from
+him.”
+
+“It's mine now,” said Hale quietly.
+
+“YOURN!” The mountaineer looked incredulous and then he let loose a
+scornful laugh.
+
+“YOU goin' to live thar?”
+
+“Maybe.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“That's my business.” The mountaineer's face darkened and his fingers
+began to twitch.
+
+“Well, if you're talkin' 'bout June, hit's MY business. Hit always has
+been and hit always will be.”
+
+“Well, if I was talking about June, I wouldn't consult you.”
+
+“No, but I'd consult you like hell.”
+
+“I wish you had the chance,” said Hale coolly; “but I wasn't talking
+about June.” Again Dave laughed harshly, and for a moment his angry eyes
+rested on the quiet mill-pond. He went backward suddenly.
+
+“You went over thar in Lonesome with your high notions an' your slick
+tongue, an' you took June away from me. But she wusn't good enough fer
+you THEN--so you filled her up with yo' fool notions an' sent her away
+to git her po' little head filled with furrin' ways, so she could be
+fitten to marry you. You took her away from her daddy, her family, her
+kinfolks and her home, an' you took her away from me; an' now she's been
+over thar eatin' her heart out just as she et it out over here when she
+fust left home. An' in the end she got so highfalutin that SHE wouldn't
+marry YOU.” He laughed again and Hale winced under the laugh and the
+lashing words. “An' I know you air eatin' yo' heart out, too, because
+you can't git June, an' I'm hopin' you'll suffer the torment o' hell as
+long as you live. God, she hates ye now! To think o' your knowin' the
+world and women and books”--he spoke with vindictive and insulting
+slowness--“You bein' such a--fool!”
+
+“That may all be true, but I think you can talk better outside that
+gate.” The mountaineer, deceived by Hale's calm voice, sprang to his
+feet in a fury, but he was too late. Hale's hand was on the butt of his
+revolver, his blue eyes were glittering and a dangerous smile was at
+his lips. Silently he sat and silently he pointed his other hand at the
+gate. Dave laughed:
+
+“D'ye think I'd fight you hyeh? If you killed me, you'd be elected
+County Jedge; if I killed you, what chance would I have o' gittin' away?
+I'd swing fer it.” He was outside the gate now and unhitching his horse.
+He started to turn the beasts but Hale stopped him.
+
+“Get on from this side, please.”
+
+With one foot in the stirrup, Dave turned savagely: “Why don't you go up
+in the Gap with me now an' fight it out like a man?”
+
+“I don't trust you.”
+
+“I'll git ye over in the mountains some day.”
+
+“I've no doubt you will, if you have the chance from the bush.” Hale was
+getting roused now.
+
+“Look here,” he said suddenly, “you've been threatening me for a long
+time now. I've never had any feeling against you. I've never done
+anything to you that I hadn't to do. But you've gone a little too far
+now and I'm tired. If you can't get over your grudge against me, suppose
+we go across the river outside the town-limits, put our guns down and
+fight it out--fist and skull.”
+
+“I'm your man,” said Dave eagerly. Looking across the street Hale saw
+two men on the porch.
+
+“Come on!” he said. The two men were Budd and the new town-sergeant.
+“Sam,” he said “this gentleman and I are going across the river to have
+a little friendly bout, and I wish you'd come along--and you, too, Bill,
+to see that Dave here gets fair play.”
+
+The sergeant spoke to Dave. “You don't need nobody to see that you git
+fair play with them two--but I'll go 'long just the same.” Hardly a word
+was said as the four walked across the bridge and toward a thicket
+to the right. Neither Budd nor the sergeant asked the nature of the
+trouble, for either could have guessed what it was. Dave tied his horse
+and, like Hale, stripped off his coat. The sergeant took charge of
+Dave's pistol and Budd of Hale's.
+
+“All you've got to do is to keep him away from you,” said Budd. “If
+he gets his hands on you--you're gone. You know how they fight
+rough-and-tumble.”
+
+Hale nodded--he knew all that himself, and when he looked at Dave's
+sturdy neck, and gigantic shoulders, he knew further that if the
+mountaineer got him in his grasp he would have to gasp “enough” in a
+hurry, or be saved by Budd from being throttled to death.
+
+“Are you ready?” Again Hale nodded.
+
+“Go ahead, Dave,” growled the sergeant, for the job was not to his
+liking. Dave did not plunge toward Hale, as the three others expected.
+On the contrary, he assumed the conventional attitude of the boxer
+and advanced warily, using his head as a diagnostician for Hale's
+points--and Hale remembered suddenly that Dave had been away at school
+for a year. Dave knew something of the game and the Hon. Sam straightway
+was anxious, when the mountaineer ducked and swung his left Budd's heart
+thumped and he almost shrank himself from the terrific sweep of the big
+fist.
+
+“God!” he muttered, for had the fist caught Hale's head it must, it
+seemed, have crushed it like an egg-shell. Hale coolly withdrew his head
+not more than an inch, it seemed to Budd's practised eye, and jabbed
+his right with a lightning uppercut into Dave's jaw, that made the
+mountaineer reel backward with a grunt of rage and pain, and when he
+followed it up with a swing of his left on Dave's right eye and another
+terrific jolt with his right on the left jaw, and Budd saw the crazy
+rage in the mountaineer's face, he felt easy. In that rage Dave forgot
+his science as the Hon. Sam expected, and with a bellow he started at
+Hale like a cave-dweller to bite, tear, and throttle, but the lithe
+figure before him swayed this way and that like a shadow, and with every
+side-step a fist crushed on the mountaineer's nose, chin or jaw, until,
+blinded with blood and fury, Dave staggered aside toward the sergeant
+with the cry of a madman:
+
+“Gimme my gun! I'll kill him! Gimme my gun!” And when the sergeant
+sprang forward and caught the mountaineer, he dropped weeping with rage
+and shame to the ground.
+
+“You two just go back to town,” said the sergeant. “I'll take keer of
+him. Quick!” and he shook his head as Hale advanced. “He ain't goin' to
+shake hands with you.”
+
+The two turned back across the bridge and Hale went on to Budd's office
+to do what he was setting out to do when young Dave came. There he had
+the lawyer make out a deed in which the cabin in Lonesome Cove and
+the acres about it were conveyed in fee simple to June--her heirs and
+assigns forever; but the girl must not know until, Hale said, “her
+father dies, or I die, or she marries.” When he came out the sergeant
+was passing the door.
+
+“Ain't no use fightin' with one o' them fellers thataway,” he said,
+shaking his head. “If he whoops you, he'll crow over you as long as
+he lives, and if you whoop him, he'll kill ye the fust chance he gets.
+You'll have to watch that feller as long as you live--'specially when
+he's drinking. He'll remember that lickin' and want revenge fer it till
+the grave. One of you has got to die some day--shore.”
+
+And the sergeant was right. Dave was going through the Gap at that
+moment, cursing, swaying like a drunken man, firing his pistol and
+shouting his revenge to the echoing gray walls that took up his cries
+and sent them shrieking on the wind up every dark ravine. All the way up
+the mountain he was cursing. Under the gentle voice of the big Pine
+he was cursing still, and when his lips stopped, his heart was beating
+curses as he dropped down the other side of the mountain.
+
+When he reached the river, he got off his horse and bathed his mouth and
+his eyes again, and he cursed afresh when the blood started afresh at
+his lips again. For a while he sat there in his black mood, undecided
+whether he should go to his uncle's cabin or go on home. But he had seen
+a woman's figure in the garden as he came down the spur, and the thought
+of June drew him to the cabin in spite of his shame and the questions
+that were sure to be asked. When he passed around the clump of
+rhododendrons at the creek, June was in the garden still. She was
+pruning a rose-bush with Bub's penknife, and when she heard him coming
+she wheeled, quivering. She had been waiting for him all day, and, like
+an angry goddess, she swept fiercely toward him. Dave pretended not to
+see her, but when he swung from his horse and lifted his sullen eyes,
+he shrank as though she had lashed him across them with a whip. Her eyes
+blazed with murderous fire from her white face, the penknife in her hand
+was clenched as though for a deadly purpose, and on her trembling lips
+was the same question that she had asked him at the mill:
+
+“Have you done it this time?” she whispered, and then she saw his
+swollen mouth and his battered eye. Her fingers relaxed about the handle
+of the knife, the fire in her eyes went swiftly down, and with a smile
+that was half pity, half contempt, she turned away. She could not have
+told the whole truth better in words, even to Dave, and as he looked
+after her his every pulse-beat was a new curse, and if at that minute he
+could have had Hale's heart he would have eaten it like a savage--raw.
+For a minute he hesitated with reins in hand as to whether he should
+turn now and go back to the Gap to settle with Hale, and then he threw
+the reins over a post. He could bide his time yet a little longer, for
+a crafty purpose suddenly entered his brain. Bub met him at the door of
+the cabin and his eyes opened.
+
+“What's the matter, Dave?”
+
+“Oh, nothin',” he said carelessly. “My hoss stumbled comin' down the
+mountain an' I went clean over his head.” He raised one hand to his
+mouth and still Bub was suspicious.
+
+“Looks like you been in a fight.” The boy began to laugh, but Dave
+ignored him and went on into the cabin. Within, he sat where he could
+see through the open door.
+
+“Whar you been, Dave?” asked old Judd from the corner. Just then he saw
+June coming and, pretending to draw on his pipe, he waited until she had
+sat down within ear-shot on the edge of the porch.
+
+“Who do you reckon owns this house and two hundred acres o' land
+roundabouts?”
+
+The girl's heart waited apprehensively and she heard her father's deep
+voice.
+
+“The company owns it.” Dave laughed harshly.
+
+“Not much--John Hale.” The heart out on the porch leaped with gladness
+now.
+
+“He bought it from the company. It's just as well you're goin' away,
+Uncle Judd. He'd put you out.”
+
+“I reckon not. I got writin' from the company which 'lows me to stay
+here two year or more--if I want to.”
+
+“I don't know. He's a slick one.”
+
+“I heerd him say,” put in Bub stoutly, “that he'd see that we stayed
+here jus' as long as we pleased.”
+
+“Well,” said old Judd shortly, “ef we stay here by his favour, we won't
+stay long.”
+
+There was silence for a while. Then Dave spoke again for the listening
+ears outside--maliciously:
+
+“I went over to the Gap to see if I couldn't git the place myself from
+the company. I believe the Falins ain't goin' to bother us an' I ain't
+hankerin' to go West. But I told him that you-all was goin' to leave the
+mountains and goin' out thar fer good.” There was another silence.
+
+“He never said a word.” Nobody had asked the question, but he was
+answering the unspoken one in the heart of June, and that heart sank
+like a stone.
+
+“He's goin' away hisself-goin' ter-morrow--goin' to that same place he
+went before--England, some feller called it.”
+
+Dave had done his work well. June rose unsteadily, and with one hand on
+her heart and the other clutching the railing of the porch, she crept
+noiselessly along it, staggered like a wounded thing around the
+chimney, through the garden and on, still clutching her heart, to the
+woods--there to sob it out on the breast of the only mother she had ever
+known.
+
+Dave was gone when she came back from the woods--calm, dry-eyed, pale.
+Her step-mother had kept her dinner for her, and when she said she
+wanted nothing to eat, the old woman answered something querulous to
+which June made no answer, but went quietly to cleaning away the dishes.
+For a while she sat on the porch, and presently she went into her room
+and for a few moments she rocked quietly at her window. Hale was going
+away next day, and when he came back she would be gone and she would
+never see him again. A dry sob shook her body of a sudden, she put
+both hands to her head and with wild eyes she sprang to her feet and,
+catching up her bonnet, slipped noiselessly out the back door. With
+hands clenched tight she forced herself to walk slowly across the
+foot-bridge, but when the bushes hid her, she broke into a run as though
+she were crazed and escaping a madhouse. At the foot of the spur she
+turned swiftly up the mountain and climbed madly, with one hand tight
+against the little cross at her throat. He was going away and she must
+tell him--she must tell him--what? Behind her a voice was calling, the
+voice that pleaded all one night for her not to leave him, that had
+made that plea a daily prayer, and it had come from an old man--wounded,
+broken in health and heart, and her father. Hale's face was before her,
+but that voice was behind, and as she climbed, the face that she was
+nearing grew fainter, the voice she was leaving sounded the louder in
+her ears, and when she reached the big Pine she dropped helplessly at
+the base of it, sobbing. With her tears the madness slowly left her,
+the old determination came back again and at last the old sad peace. The
+sunlight was slanting at a low angle when she rose to her feet and stood
+on the cliff overlooking the valley--her lips parted as when she stood
+there first, and the tiny drops drying along the roots of her dull gold
+hair. And being there for the last time she thought of that time when
+she was first there--ages ago. The great glare of light that she looked
+for then had come and gone. There was the smoking monster rushing into
+the valley and sending echoing shrieks through the hills--but there was
+no booted stranger and no horse issuing from the covert of maple where
+the path disappeared. A long time she stood there, with a wandering look
+of farewell to every familiar thing before her, but not a tear came now.
+Only as she turned away at last her breast heaved and fell with one long
+breath--that was all. Passing the Pine slowly, she stopped and turned
+back to it, unclasping the necklace from her throat. With trembling
+fingers she detached from it the little luck-piece that Hale had given
+her--the tear of a fairy that had turned into a tiny cross of stone
+when a strange messenger brought to the Virginia valley the story of the
+crucifixion. The penknife was still in her pocket, and, opening it, she
+went behind the Pine and dug a niche as high and as deep as she
+could toward its soft old heart. In there she thrust the tiny symbol,
+whispering:
+
+“I want all the luck you could ever give me, little cross--for HIM.”
+ Then she pulled the fibres down to cover it from sight and, crossing her
+hands over the opening, she put her forehead against them and touched
+her lips to the tree.
+
+[Illustration: Keep it Safe Old Pine, Frontispiece]
+
+“Keep it safe, old Pine.” Then she lifted her face--looking upward
+along its trunk to the blue sky. “And bless him, dear God, and guard him
+evermore.” She clutched her heart as she turned, and she was clutching
+it when she passed into the shadows below, leaving the old Pine to
+whisper, when he passed, her love.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Next day the word went round to the clan that the Tollivers would start
+in a body one week later for the West. At daybreak, that morning, Uncle
+Billy and his wife mounted the old gray horse and rode up the river to
+say good-by. They found the cabin in Lonesome Cove deserted. Many things
+were left piled in the porch; the Tollivers had left apparently in a
+great hurry and the two old people were much mystified. Not until noon
+did they learn what the matter was. Only the night before a Tolliver
+had shot a Falin and the Falins had gathered to get revenge on Judd that
+night. The warning word had been brought to Lonesome Cove by Loretta
+Tolliver, and it had come straight from young Buck Falin himself. So
+June and old Judd and Bub had fled in the night. At that hour they were
+on their way to the railroad--old Judd at the head of his clan--his
+right arm still bound to his side, his bushy beard low on his breast,
+June and Bub on horseback behind him, the rest strung out behind them,
+and in a wagon at the end, with all her household effects, the little
+old woman in black who would wait no longer for the Red Fox to arise
+from the dead. Loretta alone was missing. She was on her way with young
+Buck Falin to the railroad on the other side of the mountains. Between
+them not a living soul disturbed the dead stillness of Lonesome Cove.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+All winter the cabin in Lonesome Cove slept through rain and sleet and
+snow, and no foot passed its threshold. Winter broke, floods came and
+warm sunshine. A pale green light stole through the trees, shy, ethereal
+and so like a mist that it seemed at any moment on the point of floating
+upward. Colour came with the wild flowers and song with the wood-thrush.
+Squirrels played on the tree-trunks like mischievous children, the
+brooks sang like happy human voices through the tremulous underworld and
+woodpeckers hammered out the joy of spring, but the awakening only made
+the desolate cabin lonelier still. After three warm days in March, Uncle
+Billy, the miller, rode up the creek with a hoe over his shoulder--he
+had promised this to Hale--for his labour of love in June's garden.
+Weeping April passed, May came with rosy face uplifted, and with
+the birth of June the laurel emptied its pink-flecked cups and the
+rhododendron blazed the way for the summer's coming with white stars.
+
+Back to the hills came Hale then, and with all their rich beauty they
+were as desolate as when he left them bare with winter, for his mission
+had miserably failed. His train creaked and twisted around the benches
+of the mountains, and up and down ravines into the hills. The smoke
+rolled in as usual through the windows and doors. There was the same
+crowd of children, slatternly women and tobacco-spitting men in the
+dirty day-coaches, and Hale sat among them--for a Pullman was no longer
+attached to the train that ran to the Gap. As he neared the bulk
+of Powell's mountain and ran along its mighty flank, he passed the
+ore-mines. At each one the commissary was closed, the cheap, dingy
+little houses stood empty on the hillsides, and every now and then he
+would see a tipple and an empty car, left as it was after dumping its
+last load of red ore. On the right, as he approached the station, the
+big furnace stood like a dead giant, still and smokeless, and the piles
+of pig iron were red with rust. The same little dummy wheezed him into
+the dead little town. Even the face of the Gap was a little changed by
+the gray scar that man had slashed across its mouth, getting limestone
+for the groaning monster of a furnace that was now at peace. The streets
+were deserted. A new face fronted him at the desk of the hotel and the
+eyes of the clerk showed no knowledge of him when he wrote his name. His
+supper was coarse, greasy and miserable, his room was cold (steam heat,
+it seemed, had been given up), the sheets were ill-smelling, the mouth
+of the pitcher was broken, and the one towel had seen much previous use.
+But the water was the same, as was the cool, pungent night-air--both
+blessed of God--and they were the sole comforts that were his that
+night.
+
+The next day it was as though he were arranging his own funeral, with
+but little hope of a resurrection. The tax-collector met him when he
+came downstairs--having seen his name on the register.
+
+“You know,” he said, “I'll have to add 5 per cent. next month.” Hale
+smiled.
+
+“That won't be much more,” he said, and the collector, a new one,
+laughed good-naturedly and with understanding turned away. Mechanically
+he walked to the Club, but there was no club--then on to the office of
+The Progress--the paper that was the boast of the town. The Progress
+was defunct and the brilliant editor had left the hills. A boy with an
+ink-smeared face was setting type and a pallid gentleman with glasses
+was languidly working a hand-press. A pile of fresh-smelling papers lay
+on a table, and after a question or two he picked up one. Two of its
+four pages were covered with announcements of suits and sales to satisfy
+judgments--the printing of which was the raison d'etre of the noble
+sheet. Down the column his eye caught John Hale et al. John Hale et al.,
+and he wondered why “the others” should be so persistently anonymous.
+There was a cloud of them--thicker than the smoke of coke-ovens. He had
+breathed that thickness for a long time, but he got a fresh sense of
+suffocation now. Toward the post-office he moved. Around the corner
+he came upon one of two brothers whom he remembered as carpenters. He
+recalled his inability once to get that gentleman to hang a door for
+him. He was a carpenter again now and he carried a saw and a plane.
+There was grim humour in the situation. The carpenter's brother had
+gone--and he himself could hardly get enough work, he said, to support
+his family.
+
+“Goin' to start that house of yours?”
+
+“I think not,” said Hale.
+
+“Well, I'd like to get a contract for a chicken-coop just to keep my
+hand in.”
+
+There was more. A two-horse wagon was coming with two cottage-organs
+aboard. In the mouth of the slouch-hatted, unshaven driver was a
+corn-cob pipe. He pulled in when he saw Hale.
+
+“Hello!” he shouted grinning. Good Heavens, was that uncouth figure the
+voluble, buoyant, flashy magnate of the old days? It was.
+
+“Sellin' organs agin,” he said briefly.
+
+“And teaching singing-school?”
+
+The dethroned king of finance grinned.
+
+“Sure! What you doin'?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Goin' to stay long?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, see you again. So long. Git up!”
+
+Wheel-spokes whirred in the air and he saw a buggy, with the top down,
+rattling down another street in a cloud of dust. It was the same buggy
+in which he had first seen the black-bearded Senator seven years before.
+It was the same horse, too, and the Arab-like face and the bushy black
+whiskers, save for streaks of gray, were the same. This was the man who
+used to buy watches and pianos by the dozen, who one Xmas gave a present
+to every living man, woman and child in the town, and under whose
+colossal schemes the pillars of the church throughout the State stood as
+supports. That far away the eagle-nosed face looked haggard, haunted and
+all but spent, and even now he struck Hale as being driven downward like
+a madman by the same relentless energy that once had driven him upward.
+It was the same story everywhere. Nearly everybody who could get away
+was gone. Some of these were young enough to profit by the lesson and
+take surer root elsewhere--others were too old for transplanting, and of
+them would be heard no more. Others stayed for the reason that getting
+away was impossible. These were living, visible tragedies--still
+hopeful, pathetically unaware of the leading parts they were playing,
+and still weakly waiting for a better day or sinking, as by gravity,
+back to the old trades they had practised before the boom. A few sturdy
+souls, the fittest, survived--undismayed. Logan was there--lawyer for
+the railroad and the coal-company. MacFarlan was a judge, and two or
+three others, too, had come through unscathed in spirit and undaunted
+in resolution--but gone were the young Bluegrass Kentuckians, the young
+Tide-water Virginians, the New England school-teachers, the bankers,
+real-estate agents, engineers; gone the gamblers, the wily Jews and
+the vagrant women that fringe the incoming tide of a new
+prosperity--gone--all gone!
+
+Beyond the post-office he turned toward the red-brick house that sat
+above the mill-pond. Eagerly he looked for the old mill, and he stopped
+in physical pain. The dam had been torn away, the old wheel was gone and
+a caved-in roof and supporting walls, drunkenly aslant, were the only
+remnants left. A red-haired child stood at the gate before the red-brick
+house and Hale asked her a question. The little girl had never heard of
+the Widow Crane. Then he walked toward his old office and bedroom. There
+was a voice inside his old office when he approached, a tall figure
+filled the doorway, a pair of great goggles beamed on him like beacon
+lights in a storm, and the Hon. Sam Budd's hand and his were clasped
+over the gate.
+
+“It's all over, Sam.”
+
+“Don't you worry--come on in.”
+
+The two sat on the porch. Below it the dimpled river shone through
+the rhododendrons and with his eyes fixed on it, the Hon. Sam slowly
+approached the thought of each.
+
+“The old cabin in Lonesome Cove is just as the Tollivers left it.”
+
+“None of them ever come back?” Budd shook his head.
+
+“No, but one's comin'--Dave.”
+
+“Dave!”
+
+“Yes, an' you know what for.”
+
+“I suppose so,” said Hale carelessly. “Did you send old Judd the deed?”
+
+“Sure--along with that fool condition of yours that June shouldn't know
+until he was dead or she married. I've never heard a word.”
+
+“Do you suppose he'll stick to the condition?”
+
+“He has stuck,” said the Hon. Sam shortly; “otherwise you would have
+heard from June.”
+
+“I'm not going to be here long,” said Hale.
+
+“Where you goin'?”
+
+“I don't know.” Budd puffed his pipe.
+
+“Well, while you are here, you want to keep your eye peeled for Dave
+Tolliver. I told you that the mountaineer hates as long as he remembers,
+and that he never forgets. Do you know that Dave sent his horse back to
+the stable here to be hired out for his keep, and told it right and left
+that when you came back he was comin', too, and he was goin' to straddle
+that horse until he found you, and then one of you had to die? How he
+found out you were comin' about this time I don't know, but he has sent
+word that he'll be here. Looks like he hasn't made much headway with
+June.”
+
+“I'm not worried.”
+
+“Well, you better be,” said Budd sharply.
+
+“Did Uncle Billy plant the garden?”
+
+“Flowers and all, just as June always had 'em. He's always had the idea
+that June would come back.”
+
+“Maybe she will.”
+
+“Not on your life. She might if you went out there for her.”
+
+Hale looked up quickly and slowly shook his head.
+
+“Look here, Jack, you're seein' things wrong. You can't blame that girl
+for losing her head after you spoiled and pampered her the way you did.
+And with all her sense it was mighty hard for her to understand your
+being arrayed against her flesh and blood--law or no law. That's
+mountain nature pure and simple, and it comes mighty near bein' human
+nature the world over. You never gave her a square chance.”
+
+“You know what Uncle Billy said?”
+
+“Yes, an' I know Uncle Billy changed his mind. Go after her.”
+
+“No,” said Hale firmly. “It'll take me ten years to get out of debt. I
+wouldn't now if I could--on her account.”
+
+“Nonsense.” Hale rose.
+
+“I'm going over to take a look around and get some things I left at
+Uncle Billy's and then--me for the wide, wide world again.”
+
+The Hon. Sam took off his spectacles to wipe them, but when Hale's back
+was turned, his handkerchief went to his eyes:
+
+“Don't you worry, Jack.”
+
+“All right, Sam.”
+
+An hour later Hale was at the livery stable for a horse to ride to
+Lonesome Cove, for he had sold his big black to help out expenses for
+the trip to England. Old Dan Harris, the stableman, stood in the door
+and silently he pointed to a gray horse in the barn-yard.
+
+“You know that hoss?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You know whut's he here fer?”
+
+“I've heard.”
+
+“Well, I'm lookin' fer Dave every day now.”
+
+“Well, maybe I'd better ride Dave's horse now,” said Hale jestingly.
+
+“I wish you would,” said old Dan.
+
+“No,” said Hale, “if he's coming, I'll leave the horse so that he can
+get to me as quickly as possible. You might send me word, Uncle Dan,
+ahead, so that he can't waylay me.”
+
+“I'll do that very thing,” said the old man seriously.
+
+“I was joking, Uncle Dan.”
+
+“But I ain't.”
+
+The matter was out of Hale's head before he got through the great Gap.
+How the memories thronged of June--June--June!
+
+“YOU DIDN'T GIVE HER A CHANCE.”
+
+That was what Budd said. Well, had he given her a chance? Why shouldn't
+he go to her and give her the chance now? He shook his shoulders at the
+thought and laughed with some bitterness. He hadn't the car-fare for
+half-way across the continent--and even if he had, he was a promising
+candidate for matrimony!--and again he shook his shoulders and settled
+his soul for his purpose. He would get his things together and leave
+those hills forever.
+
+How lonely had been his trip--how lonely was the God-forsaken little
+town behind him! How lonely the road and hills and the little white
+clouds in the zenith straight above him--and how unspeakably lonely the
+green dome of the great Pine that shot into view from the north as he
+turned a clump of rhododendron with uplifted eyes. Not a breath of
+air moved. The green expanse about him swept upward like a wave--but
+unflecked, motionless, except for the big Pine which, that far away,
+looked like a bit of green spray, spouting on its very crest.
+
+“Old man,” he muttered, “you know--you know.” And as to a brother he
+climbed toward it.
+
+“No wonder they call you Lonesome,” he said as he went upward into the
+bright stillness, and when he dropped into the dark stillness of shadow
+and forest gloom on the other side he said again:
+
+“My God, no wonder they call you Lonesome.”
+
+And still the memories of June thronged--at the brook--at the river--and
+when he saw the smokeless chimney of the old cabin, he all but groaned
+aloud. But he turned away from it, unable to look again, and went down
+the river toward Uncle Billy's mill.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Old Hon threw her arms around him and kissed him.
+
+“John,” said Uncle Billy, “I've got three hundred dollars in a old yarn
+sock under one of them hearthstones and its yourn. Ole Hon says so too.”
+
+Hale choked.
+
+“I want ye to go to June. Dave'll worry her down and git her if you
+don't go, and if he don't worry her down, he'll come back an' try to
+kill ye. I've always thought one of ye would have to die fer that gal,
+an' I want it to be Dave. You two have got to fight it out some day,
+and you mought as well meet him out thar as here. You didn't give that
+little gal a fair chance, John, an' I want you to go to June.”
+
+“No, I can't take your money, Uncle Billy--God bless you and old
+Hon--I'm going--I don't know where--and I'm going now.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+Clouds were gathering as Hale rode up the river after telling old Hon
+and Uncle Billy good-by. He had meant not to go to the cabin in Lonesome
+Cove, but when he reached the forks of the road, he stopped his horse
+and sat in indecision with his hands folded on the pommel of his saddle
+and his eyes on the smokeless chimney. The memories tugging at his heart
+drew him irresistibly on, for it was the last time. At a slow walk he
+went noiselessly through the deep sand around the clump of rhododendron.
+The creek was clear as crystal once more, but no geese cackled and
+no dog barked. The door of the spring-house gaped wide, the barn-door
+sagged on its hinges, the yard-fence swayed drunkenly, and the cabin was
+still as a gravestone. But the garden was alive, and he swung from his
+horse at the gate, and with his hands clasped behind his back walked
+slowly through it. June's garden! The garden he had planned and planted
+for June--that they had tended together and apart and that, thanks to
+the old miller's care, was the one thing, save the sky above, left in
+spirit unchanged. The periwinkles, pink and white, were almost gone. The
+flags were at half-mast and sinking fast. The annunciation lilies were
+bending their white foreheads to the near kiss of death, but the pinks
+were fragrant, the poppies were poised on slender stalks like brilliant
+butterflies at rest, the hollyhocks shook soundless pink bells to
+the wind, roses as scarlet as June's lips bloomed everywhere and the
+richness of mid-summer was at hand.
+
+Quietly Hale walked the paths, taking a last farewell of plant and
+flower, and only the sudden patter of raindrops made him lift his eyes
+to the angry sky. The storm was coming now in earnest and he had hardly
+time to lead his horse to the barn and dash to the porch when the very
+heavens, with a crash of thunder, broke loose. Sheet after sheet swept
+down the mountains like wind-driven clouds of mist thickening into water
+as they came. The shingles rattled as though with the heavy slapping
+of hands, the pines creaked and the sudden dusk outside made the cabin,
+when he pushed the door open, as dark as night. Kindling a fire, he lit
+his pipe and waited. The room was damp and musty, but the presence of
+June almost smothered him. Once he turned his face. June's door was ajar
+and the key was in the lock. He rose to go to it and look within and
+then dropped heavily back into his chair. He was anxious to get away
+now--to get to work. Several times he rose restlessly and looked out the
+window. Once he went outside and crept along the wall of the cabin to
+the east and the west, but there was no break of light in the murky sky
+and he went back to pipe and fire. By and by the wind died and the rain
+steadied into a dogged downpour. He knew what that meant--there would be
+no letting up now in the storm, and for another night he was a prisoner.
+So he went to his saddle-pockets and pulled out a cake of chocolate, a
+can of potted ham and some crackers, munched his supper, went to bed,
+and lay there with sleepless eyes, while the lights and shadows from the
+wind-swayed fire flicked about him. After a while his body dozed but his
+racked brain went seething on in an endless march of fantastic dreams in
+which June was the central figure always, until of a sudden young Dave
+leaped into the centre of the stage in the dream-tragedy forming in his
+brain. They were meeting face to face at last--and the place was the big
+Pine. Dave's pistol flashed and his own stuck in the holster as he tried
+to draw. There was a crashing report and he sprang upright in bed--but
+it was a crash of thunder that wakened him and that in that swift
+instant perhaps had caused his dream. The wind had come again and was
+driving the rain like soft bullets against the wall of the cabin next
+which he lay. He got up, threw another stick of wood on the fire and
+sat before the leaping blaze, curiously disturbed but not by the dream.
+Somehow he was again in doubt--was he going to stick it out in the
+mountains after all, and if he should, was not the reason, deep down
+in his soul, the foolish hope that June would come back again. No,
+he thought, searching himself fiercely, that was not the reason. He
+honestly did not know what his duty to her was--what even was his inmost
+wish, and almost with a groan he paced the floor to and fro. Meantime
+the storm raged. A tree crashed on the mountainside and the lightning
+that smote it winked into the cabin so like a mocking, malignant eye
+that he stopped in his tracks, threw open the door and stepped outside
+as though to face an enemy. The storm was majestic and his soul went
+into the mighty conflict of earth and air, whose beginning and end were
+in eternity. The very mountain tops were rimmed with zigzag fire, which
+shot upward, splitting a sky that was as black as a nether world, and
+under it the great trees swayed like willows under rolling clouds of
+gray rain. One fiery streak lit up for an instant the big Pine and
+seemed to dart straight down upon its proud, tossing crest. For a moment
+the beat of the watcher's heart and the flight of his soul stopped
+still. A thunderous crash came slowly to his waiting ears, another flash
+came, and Hale stumbled, with a sob, back into the cabin. God's finger
+was pointing the way now--the big Pine was no more.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+The big Pine was gone. He had seen it first, one morning at daybreak,
+when the valley on the other side was a sea of mist that threw soft,
+clinging spray to the very mountain tops--for even above the mists, that
+morning, its mighty head arose, sole visible proof that the earth still
+slept beneath. He had seen it at noon--but little less majestic, among
+the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching the last light at
+sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a dark, silent,
+mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the moon. He had
+seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing burst of spring,
+had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the gray of winter
+trees and still green in a shroud of snow--a changeless promise that the
+earth must wake to life again. It had been the beacon that led him into
+Lonesome Cove--the beacon that led June into the outer world. From it
+her flying feet had carried her into his life--past it, the same feet
+had carried her out again. It had been their trysting place--had
+kept their secrets like a faithful friend and had stood to him as the
+changeless symbol of their love. It had stood a mute but sympathetic
+witness of his hopes, his despairs and the struggles that lay between
+them. In dark hours it had been a silent comforter, and in the last year
+it had almost come to symbolize his better self as to that self he came
+slowly back. And in the darkest hour it was the last friend to whom he
+had meant to say good-by. Now it was gone. Always he had lifted his eyes
+to it every morning when he rose, but now, next morning, he hung back
+consciously as one might shrink from looking at the face of a dead
+friend, and when at last he raised his head to look upward to it, an
+impenetrable shroud of mist lay between them--and he was glad.
+
+And still he could not leave. The little creek was a lashing yellow
+torrent, and his horse, heavily laden as he must be, could hardly swim
+with his weight, too, across so swift a stream. But mountain streams
+were like June's temper--up quickly and quickly down--so it was noon
+before he plunged into the tide with his saddle-pockets over one
+shoulder and his heavy transit under one arm. Even then his snorting
+horse had to swim a few yards, and he reached the other bank soaked to
+his waist line. But the warm sun came out just as he entered the woods,
+and as he climbed, the mists broke about him and scudded upward
+like white sails before a driving wind. Once he looked back from a
+“fire-scald” in the woods at the lonely cabin in the cove, but it gave
+him so keen a pain that he would not look again. The trail was slippery
+and several times he had to stop to let his horse rest and to slow the
+beating of his own heart. But the sunlight leaped gladly from wet leaf
+to wet leaf until the trees looked decked out for unseen fairies, and
+the birds sang as though there was nothing on earth but joy for all its
+creatures, and the blue sky smiled above as though it had never bred a
+lightning flash or a storm. Hale dreaded the last spur before the little
+Gap was visible, but he hurried up the steep, and when he lifted his
+apprehensive eyes, the gladness of the earth was as nothing to the
+sudden joy in his own heart. The big Pine stood majestic, still
+unscathed, as full of divinity and hope to him as a rainbow in an
+eastern sky. Hale dropped his reins, lifted one hand to his dizzy head,
+let his transit to the ground, and started for it on a run. Across the
+path lay a great oak with a white wound running the length of its mighty
+body, from crest to shattered trunk, and over it he leaped, and like a
+child caught his old friend in both arms. After all, he was not alone.
+One friend would be with him till death, on that border-line between the
+world in which he was born and the world he had tried to make his own,
+and he could face now the old one again with a stouter heart. There
+it lay before him with its smoke and fire and noise and slumbering
+activities just awakening to life again. He lifted his clenched fist
+toward it:
+
+“You got ME once,” he muttered, “but this time I'll get YOU.” He turned
+quickly and decisively--there would be no more delay. And he went back
+and climbed over the big oak that, instead of his friend, had fallen
+victim to the lightning's kindly whim and led his horse out into the
+underbrush. As he approached within ten yards of the path, a metallic
+note rang faintly on the still air the other side of the Pine and down
+the mountain. Something was coming up the path, so he swiftly knotted
+his bridle-reins around a sapling, stepped noiselessly into the path
+and noiselessly slipped past the big tree where he dropped to his
+knees, crawled forward and lay flat, peering over the cliff and down
+the winding trail. He had not long to wait. A riderless horse filled the
+opening in the covert of leaves that swallowed up the path. It was gray
+and he knew it as he knew the saddle as his old enemy's--Dave. Dave had
+kept his promise--he had come back. The dream was coming true, and they
+were to meet at last face to face. One of them was to strike a trail
+more lonesome than the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and that man would
+not be John Hale. One detail of the dream was going to be left out, he
+thought grimly, and very quietly he drew his pistol, cocked it, sighted
+it on the opening--it was an easy shot--and waited. He would give that
+enemy no more chance than he would a mad dog--or would he? The horse
+stopped to browse. He waited so long that he began to suspect a trap.
+He withdrew his head and looked about him on either side and
+behind--listening intently for the cracking of a twig or a footfall. He
+was about to push backward to avoid possible attack from the rear, when
+a shadow shot from the opening. His face paled and looked sick of a
+sudden, his clenched fingers relaxed about the handle of his pistol
+and he drew it back, still cocked, turned on his knees, walked past
+the Pine, and by the fallen oak stood upright, waiting. He heard a low
+whistle calling to the horse below and a shudder ran through him. He
+heard the horse coming up the path, he clenched his pistol convulsively,
+and his eyes, lit by an unearthly fire and fixed on the edge of the
+bowlder around which they must come, burned an instant later on--June.
+At the cry she gave, he flashed a hunted look right and left, stepped
+swiftly to one side and stared past her-still at the bowlder. She had
+dropped the reins and started toward him, but at the Pine she stopped
+short.
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+Her lips opened to answer, but no sound came. Hale pointed at the horse
+behind her.
+
+“That's his. He sent me word. He left that horse in the valley, to
+ride over here, when he came back, to kill me. Are you with him?” For
+a moment she thought from his wild face that he had gone crazy and she
+stared silently. Then she seemed to understand, and with a moan she
+covered her face with her hands and sank weeping in a heap at the foot
+of the Pine.
+
+The forgotten pistol dropped, full cocked to the soft earth, and Hale
+with bewildered eyes went slowly to her.
+
+“Don't cry,”--he said gently, starting to call her name. “Don't cry,” he
+repeated, and he waited helplessly.
+
+“He's dead. Dave was shot--out--West,” she sobbed. “I told him I was
+coming back. He gave me his horse. Oh, how could you?”
+
+“Why did you come back?” he asked, and she shrank as though he had
+struck her--but her sobs stopped and she rose to her feet.
+
+“Wait,” she said, and she turned from him to wipe her eyes with her
+handerchief. Then she faced him.
+
+“When dad died, I learned everything. You made him swear never to
+tell me and he kept his word until he was on his death-bed. YOU did
+everything for me. It was YOUR money. YOU gave me back the old cabin in
+the Cove. It was always you, you, YOU, and there was never anybody else
+but you.” She stopped for Hale's face was as though graven from stone.
+
+“And you came back to tell me that?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You could have written that.”
+
+“Yes,” she faltered, “but I had to tell you face to face.”
+
+“Is that all?”
+
+Again the tears were in her eyes.
+
+“No,” she said tremulously.
+
+“Then I'll say the rest for you. You wanted to come to tell me of the
+shame you felt when you knew,” she nodded violently--“but you could have
+written that, too, and I could have written that you mustn't feel that
+way--that” he spoke slowly--“you mustn't rob me of the dearest happiness
+I ever knew in my whole life.”
+
+“I knew you would say that,” she said like a submissive child. The
+sternness left his face and he was smiling now.
+
+“And you wanted to say that the only return you could make was to come
+back and be my wife.”
+
+“Yes,” she faltered again, “I did feel that--I did.”
+
+“You could have written that, too, but you thought you had to PROVE it
+by coming back yourself.”
+
+This time she nodded no assent and her eyes were streaming. He turned
+away--stretching out his arms to the woods.
+
+“God! Not that--no--no!”
+
+“Listen, Jack!” As suddenly his arms dropped. She had controlled her
+tears but her lips were quivering.
+
+“No, Jack, not that--thank God. I came because I wanted to come,” she
+said steadily. “I loved you when I went away. I've loved you every
+minute since--” her arms were stealing about his neck, her face was
+upturned to his and her eyes, moist with gladness, were looking into his
+wondering eyes--“and I love you now--Jack.”
+
+“June!” The leaves about them caught his cry and quivered with the joy
+of it, and above their heads the old Pine breathed its blessing with the
+name--June--June--June.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+With a mystified smile but with no question, Hale silently handed his
+penknife to June and when, smiling but without a word, she walked behind
+the old Pine, he followed her. There he saw her reach up and dig the
+point of the knife into the trunk, and when, as he wonderingly watched
+her, she gave a sudden cry, Hale sprang toward her. In the hole she was
+digging he saw the gleam of gold and then her trembling fingers brought
+out before his astonished eyes the little fairy stone that he had given
+her long ago. She had left it there for him, she said, through tears,
+and through his own tears Hale pointed to the stricken oak:
+
+“It saved the Pine,” he said.
+
+“And you,” said June.
+
+“And you,” repeated Hale solemnly, and while he looked long at her, her
+arms dropped slowly to her sides and he said simply:
+
+“Come!”
+
+Leading the horses, they walked noiselessly through the deep sand around
+the clump of rhododendron, and there sat the little cabin of Lonesome
+Cove. The holy hush of a cathedral seemed to shut it in from the world,
+so still it was below the great trees that stood like sentinels on
+eternal guard. Both stopped, and June laid her head on Hale's shoulder
+and they simply looked in silence.
+
+“Dear old home,” she said, with a little sob, and Hale, still silent,
+drew her to him.
+
+“You were _never_ coming back again?”
+
+“I was never coming back again.” She clutched his arm fiercely as though
+even now something might spirit him away, and she clung to him, while he
+hitched the horses and while they walked up the path.
+
+“Why, the garden is just as I left it! The very same flowers in the very
+same places!” Hale smiled.
+
+“Why not? I had Uncle Billy do that.”
+
+“Oh, you dear--you dear!”
+
+Her little room was shuttered tight as it always had been when she was
+away, and, as usual, the front door was simply chained on the outside.
+The girl turned with a happy sigh and looked about at the nodding
+flowers and the woods and the gleaming pool of the river below and up
+the shimmering mountain to the big Pine topping it with sombre majesty.
+
+“Dear old Pine,” she murmured, and almost unconsciously she unchained
+the door as she had so often done before, stepped into the dark room,
+pulling Hale with one hand after her, and almost unconsciously reaching
+upward with the other to the right of the door. Then she cried aloud:
+
+“My key--my key is there!”
+
+“That was in case you should come back some day.”
+
+“Oh, I might--I might! and think if I had come too late--think if I
+hadn't come _now!_” Again her voice broke and still holding Hale's arm,
+she moved to her own door. She had to use both hands there, but before
+she let go, she said almost hysterically:
+
+“It's so dark! You won't leave me, dear, if I let you go?”
+
+For answer Hale locked his arms around her, and when the door opened, he
+went in ahead of her and pushed open the shutters. The low sun flooded
+the room and when Hale turned, June was looking with wild eyes from one
+thing to another in the room--her rocking-chair at a window, her sewing
+close by, a book on the table, her bed made up in the corner, her
+washstand of curly maple--the pitcher full of water and clean towels
+hanging from the rack. Hale had gotten out the things she had packed
+away and the room was just as she had always kept it. She rushed to him,
+weeping.
+
+“It would have killed me,” she sobbed. “It would have killed me.”
+ She strained him tightly to her--her wet face against his cheek:
+“Think--_think_--if I hadn't come now!” Then loosening herself she went
+all about the room with a caressing touch to everything, as though it
+were alive. The book was the volume of Keats he had given her--which had
+been loaned to Loretta before June went away.
+
+“Oh, I wrote for it and wrote for it,” she said.
+
+“I found it in the post-office,” said Hale, “and I understood.”
+
+She went over to the bed.
+
+“Oh,” she said with a happy laugh. “You've got one slip inside out,” and
+she whipped the pillow from its place, changed it, and turned down the
+edge of the covers in a triangle.
+
+“That's the way I used to leave it,” she said shyly. Hale smiled.
+
+“I never noticed that!” She turned to the bureau and pulled open a
+drawer. In there were white things with frills and blue ribbons--and she
+flushed.
+
+“Oh,” she said, “these haven't even been touched.” Again Hale smiled
+but he said nothing. One glance had told him there were things in that
+drawer too sacred for his big hands.
+
+“I'm so happy--_so_ happy.”
+
+Suddenly she looked him over from head to foot--his rough riding boots,
+old riding breeches and blue flannel shirt.
+
+“I am pretty rough,” he said. She flushed, shook her head and looked
+down at her smart cloth suit of black.
+
+“Oh, _you_ are all right--but you must go out now, just for a little
+while.”
+
+“What are you up to, little girl?”
+
+“How I love to hear that again!”
+
+“Aren't you afraid I'll run away?” he said at the door.
+
+“I'm not afraid of anything else in this world any more.”
+
+“Well, I won't.”
+
+He heard her moving around as he sat planning on the porch.
+
+“To-morrow,” he thought, and then an idea struck him that made him
+dizzy. From within June cried:
+
+“Here I am,” and out she ran in the last crimson gown of her young
+girlhood--her sleeves rolled up and her hair braided down her back as
+she used to wear it.
+
+“You've made up my bed and I'm going to make yours--and I'm going to
+cook your supper--why, what's the matter?” Hale's face was radiant with
+the heaven-born idea that lighted it, and he seemed hardly to notice the
+change she had made. He came over and took her in his arms:
+
+“Ah, sweetheart, _my_ sweetheart!” A spasm of anxiety tightened her
+throat, but Hale laughed from sheer delight.
+
+“Never you mind. It's a secret,” and he stood back to look at her. She
+blushed as his eyes went downward to her perfect ankles.
+
+“It _is_ too short,” she said.
+
+“No, no, no! Not for me! You're mine now, little girl, _mine_--do you
+understand that?”
+
+“Yes,” she whispered, her mouth trembling, Again he laughed joyously.
+
+“Come on!” he cried, and he went into the kitchen and brought out an
+axe:
+
+“I'll cut wood for you.” She followed him out to the wood-pile and then
+she turned and went into the house. Presently the sound of his axe rang
+through the woods, and as he stooped to gather up the wood, he heard a
+creaking sound. June was drawing water at the well, and he rushed toward
+her:
+
+“Here, you mustn't do that.”
+
+She flashed a happy smile at him.
+
+“You just go back and get that wood. I reckon,” she used the word
+purposely, “I've done this afore.” Her strong bare arms were pulling the
+leaking moss-covered old bucket swiftly up, hand under hand--so he got
+the wood while she emptied the bucket into a pail, and together they
+went laughing into the kitchen, and while he built the fire, June got
+out the coffee-grinder and the meal to mix, and settled herself with the
+grinder in her lap.
+
+“Oh, isn't it fun?” She stopped grinding suddenly.
+
+“What would the neighbours say?”
+
+“We haven't any.”
+
+“But if we had!”
+
+“Terrible!” said Hale with mock solemnity.
+
+“I wonder if Uncle Billy is at home,” Hale trembled at his luck. “That's
+a good idea. I'll ride down for him while you're getting supper.”
+
+“No, you won't,” said June, “I can't spare you. Is that old horn here
+yet?”
+
+Hale brought it out from behind the cupboard.
+
+“I can get him--if he is at home.”
+
+Hale followed her out to the porch where she put her red mouth to the
+old trumpet. One long, mellow hoot rang down the river--and up the
+hills. Then there were three short ones and a single long blast again.
+
+“That's the old signal,” she said. “And he'll know I want him _bad_.”
+ Then she laughed.
+
+“He may think he's dreaming, so I'll blow for him again.” And she did.
+
+“There, now,” she said. “He'll come.”
+
+It was well she did blow again, for the old miller was not at home and
+old Hon, down at the cabin, dropped her iron when she heard the horn
+and walked to the door, dazed and listening. Even when it came again
+she could hardly believe her ears, and but for her rheumatism, she would
+herself have started at once for Lonesome Cove. As it was, she ironed
+no more, but sat in the doorway almost beside herself with anxiety and
+bewilderment, looking down the road for the old miller to come home.
+
+Back the two went into the kitchen and Hale sat at the door watching
+June as she fixed the table and made the coffee and corn bread. Once
+only he disappeared and that was when suddenly a hen cackled, and with a
+shout of laughter he ran out to come back with a fresh egg.
+
+“Now, my lord!” said June, her hair falling over her eyes and her face
+flushed from the heat.
+
+“No,” said Hale. “I'm going to wait on you.”
+
+“For the last time,” she pleaded, and to please her he did sit down, and
+every time she came to his side with something he bent to kiss the hand
+that served him.
+
+“You're nothing but a big, nice boy,” she said. Hale held out a lock
+of his hair near the temples and with one finger silently followed the
+track of wrinkles in his face.
+
+“It's premature,” she said, “and I love every one of them.” And she
+stooped to kiss him on the hair. “And those are nothing but troubles.
+I'm going to smooth every one of _them_ away.”
+
+“If they're troubles, they'll go--now,” said Hale.
+
+All the time they talked of what they would do with Lonesome Cove.
+
+“Even if we do go away, we'll come back once a year,” said Hale.
+
+“Yes,” nodded June, “once a year.”
+
+“I'll tear down those mining shacks, float them down the river and sell
+them as lumber.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And I'll stock the river with bass again.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And I'll plant young poplars to cover the sight of every bit of uptorn
+earth along the mountain there. I'll bury every bottle and tin can in
+the Cove. I'll take away every sign of civilization, every sign of the
+outside world.”
+
+“And leave old Mother Nature to cover up the scars,” said June.
+
+“So that Lonesome Cove will be just as it was.”
+
+“Just as it was in the beginning,” echoed June.
+
+“And shall be to the end,” said Hale.
+
+“And there will never be anybody here but you.”
+
+“And you,” said June.
+
+While she cleared the table and washed the dishes Hale fed the horses
+and cut more wood, and it was dusk when he came to the porch. Through
+the door he saw that she had made his bed in one corner. And through
+her door he saw one of the white things, that had lain untouched in her
+drawer, now stretched out on her bed.
+
+The stars were peeping through the blue spaces of a white-clouded sky
+and the moon would be coming by and by. In the garden the flowers were
+dim, quiet and restful. A kingfisher screamed from the river. An owl
+hooted in the woods and crickets chirped about them, but every passing
+sound seemed only to accentuate the stillness in which they were
+engulfed. Close together they sat on the old porch and she made him tell
+of everything that had happened since she left the mountains, and she
+told him of her flight from the mountains and her life in the West--of
+her father's death and the homesickness of the ones who still were
+there.
+
+[Illustration: She made him tell of everything, 0444]
+
+“Bub is a cowboy and wouldn't come back for the world, but I could
+never have been happy there,” she said, “even if it hadn't been for
+you--here.”
+
+“I'm just a plain civil engineer, now,” said Hale, “an engineer without
+even a job and--” his face darkened.
+
+“It's a shame, sweetheart, for you--” She put one hand over his lips and
+with the other turned his face so that she could look into his eyes. In
+the mood of bitterness, they did show worn, hollow and sad, and around
+them the wrinkles were deep.
+
+“Silly,” she said, tracing them gently with her finger tips, “I love
+every one of them, too,” and she leaned over and kissed them.
+
+“We're going to be happy each and every day, and all day long! We'll
+live at the Gap in winter and I'll teach.”
+
+“No, you won't.”
+
+“Then I'll teach _you_ to be patient and how little I care for anything
+else in the world while I've got you, and I'll teach you to care for
+nothing else while you've got me. And you'll have me, dear, forever and
+ever----”
+
+“Amen,” said Hale.
+
+Something rang out in the darkness, far down the river, and both sprang
+to their feet. “It's Uncle Billy!” cried June, and she lifted the old
+horn to her lips. With the first blare of it, a cheery halloo
+answered, and a moment later they could see a gray horse coming up the
+road--coming at a gallop, and they went down to the gate and waited.
+
+“Hello, Uncle Billy” cried June. The old man answered with a
+fox-hunting yell and Hale stepped behind a bush.
+
+“Jumping Jehosophat--is that you, June? Air ye all right?”
+
+“Yes, Uncle Billy.” The old man climbed off his horse with a groan.
+
+“Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, but I was skeered!” He had his hands on June's
+shoulders and was looking at her with a bewildered face.
+
+“What air ye doin' here alone, baby?”
+
+June's eyes shone: “Nothing Uncle Billy.” Hale stepped into sight.
+
+“Oh, ho! I see! You back an' he ain't gone! Well, bless my soul, if this
+ain't the beatenest--” he looked from the one to the other and his kind
+old face beamed with a joy that was but little less than their own.
+
+“You come back to stay?”
+
+“My--where's that horn? I want it right now, Ole Hon down thar is
+a-thinkin' she's gone crazy and I thought she shorely was when she said
+she heard you blow that horn. An' she tol' me the minute I got here,
+if hit was you--to blow three times.” And straightway three blasts rang
+down the river.
+
+“Now she's all right, if she don't die o' curiosity afore I git back
+and tell her why you come. Why did you come back, baby? Gimme a drink o'
+water, son. I reckon me an' that ole hoss hain't travelled sech a gait
+in five year.”
+
+June was whispering something to the old man when Hale came back, and
+what it was the old man's face told plainly.
+
+“Yes, Uncle Billy--right away,” said Hale.
+
+“Just as soon as you can git yo' license?” Hale nodded.
+
+“An' June says I'm goin' to do it.”
+
+“Yes,” said Hale, “right away.”
+
+Again June had to tell the story to Uncle Billy that she had told to
+Hale and to answer his questions, and it was an hour before the old
+miller rose to go. Hale called him then into June's room and showed him
+a piece of paper.
+
+“Is it good now?” he asked.
+
+The old man put on his spectacles, looked at it and chuckled:
+
+“Just as good as the day you got hit.”
+
+“Well, can't you----”
+
+“Right now! Does June know?”
+
+“Not yet. I'm going to tell her now. June!” he called.
+
+“Yes, dear.” Uncle Billy moved hurriedly to the door.
+
+“You just wait till I git out o' here.” He met June in the outer room.
+
+“Where are you going, Uncle Billy?”
+
+“Go on, baby,” he said, hurrying by her, “I'll be back in a minute.”
+
+She stopped in the doorway--her eyes wide again with sudden anxiety, but
+Hale was smiling.
+
+“You remember what you said at the Pine, dear?” The girl nodded and she
+was smiling now, when with sweet seriousness she said again: “Your least
+wish is now law to me, my lord.”
+
+“Well, I'm going to test it now. I've laid a trap for you.” She shook
+her head.
+
+“And you've walked right into it”
+
+“I'm glad.” She noticed now the crumpled piece of paper in his hand and
+she thought it was some matter of business.
+
+“Oh,” she said, reproachfully. “You aren't going to bother with anything
+of that kind _now?_”
+
+“Yes,” he said. “I want you to look over this.”
+
+“Very well,” she said resignedly. He was holding the paper out to her
+and she took it and held it to the light of the candle. Her face flamed
+and she turned remorseful eyes upon him.
+
+“And you've kept that, too, you had it when I----”
+
+“When you were wiser maybe than you are now.”
+
+“God save me from ever being such a fool again.” Tears started in her
+eyes.
+
+“You haven't forgiven me!” she cried.
+
+“Uncle Billy says it's as good now as it was then.”
+
+He was looking at her queerly now and his smile was gone. Slowly his
+meaning came to her like the flush that spread over her face and throat.
+She drew in one long quivering breath and, with parted lips and her
+great shining eyes wide, she looked at him.
+
+“Now?” she whispered.
+
+“Now!” he said.
+
+Her eyes dropped to the coarse gown, she lifted both hands for a moment
+to her hair and unconsciously she began to roll one crimson sleeve down
+her round, white arm.
+
+“No,” said Hale, “just as you are.”
+
+She went to him then, put her arms about his neck, and with head thrown
+back she looked at him long with steady eyes.
+
+“Yes,” she breathed out--“just as you are--and now.”
+
+Uncle Billy was waiting for them on the porch and when they came out, he
+rose to his feet and they faced him, hand in hand. The moon had risen.
+The big Pine stood guard on high against the outer world. Nature was
+their church and stars were their candles. And as if to give them even
+a better light, the moon had sent a luminous sheen down the dark
+mountainside to the very garden in which the flowers whispered like
+waiting happy friends. Uncle Billy lifted his hand and a hush of
+expectancy seemed to come even from the farthest star.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, by John Fox, Jr.
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