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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, by John Fox, Jr.
+#7 in our series by John Fox, Jr.
+
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+Title: The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
+
+Author: John Fox, Jr.
+
+Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5122]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 4, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 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
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+"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
+
+H3 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 Male'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 gic 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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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 Male'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, arid 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:
+
+"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.
+
+"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 Bale'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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, by John Fox
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE ***
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