"'THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE\n\nBY\n\nJOHN FOX, JR.\n\nILLUSTRATED BY F. C. YOHN\n\n\n[Illustration: Frontispiece]\n\n[Illustration: Titlepage]\n\n\nTo F. S.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nShe sat at the base of the big tree--her little sunbonnet pushed back,\nher arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her\ncrimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below.\nHer breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were\ntiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been\nsteep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. The\nmountains ran in limitless blue waves towards the mounting sun--but at\nbirth her eyes had opened on them as on the white mists trailing up the\nsteeps below her. Beyond them was a gap in the next mountain chain and\ndown in the little valley, just visible through it, were trailing blue\nmists as well, and she knew that they were smoke. Where was the great\nglare of yellow light that the \"circuit rider\" had told about--and\nthe leaping tongues of fire? Where was the shrieking monster that ran\nwithout horses like the wind and tossed back rolling black plumes all\nstreaked with fire? For many days now she had heard stories of the\n\"furriners\" who had come into those hills and were doing strange things\ndown there, and so at last she had climbed up through the dewy morning\nfrom the cove on the other side to see the wonders for herself. She had\nnever been up there before. She had no business there now, and, if she\nwere found out when she got back, she would get a scolding and maybe\nsomething worse from her step-mother--and all that trouble and risk\nfor nothing but smoke. So, she lay back and rested--her little mouth\ntightening fiercely. It was a big world, though, that was spread before\nher and a vague awe of it seized her straightway and held her motionless\nand dreaming. Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills, beyond the\nblue smoke drifting in the valley, those limitless blue waves must run\nunder the sun on and on to the end of the world! Her dead sister had\ngone into that far silence and had brought back wonderful stories of\nthat outer world: and she began to wonder more than ever before whether\nshe would ever go into it and see for herself what was there. With the\nthought, she rose slowly to her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that\ndropped sheer ten feet aside from the trail, and stood there like a\ngreat scarlet flower in still air. There was the way at her feet--that\npath that coiled under the cliff and ran down loop by loop through\nmajestic oak and poplar and masses of rhododendron. She drew a long\nbreath and stirred uneasily--she\'d better go home now--but the path had\na snake-like charm for her and still she stood, following it as far down\nas she could with her eyes. Down it went, writhing this way and that\nto a spur that had been swept bare by forest fires. Along this spur it\ntravelled straight for a while and, as her eyes eagerly followed it\nto where it sank sharply into a covert of maples, the little creature\ndropped of a sudden to the ground and, like something wild, lay flat.\n\nA human figure had filled the leafy mouth that swallowed up the trail\nand it was coming towards her. With a thumping heart she pushed slowly\nforward through the brush until her face, fox-like with cunning and\nscreened by a blueberry bush, hung just over the edge of the cliff, and\nthere she lay, like a crouched panther-cub, looking down. For a moment,\nall that was human seemed gone from her eyes, but, as she watched, all\nthat was lost came back to them, and something more. She had seen that\nit was a man, but she had dropped so quickly that she did not see the\nbig, black horse that, unled, was following him. Now both man and horse\nhad stopped. The stranger had taken off his gray slouched hat and he was\nwiping his face with something white. Something blue was tied loosely\nabout his throat. She had never seen a man like that before. His face\nwas smooth and looked different, as did his throat and his hands. His\nbreeches were tight and on his feet were strange boots that were the\ncolour of his saddle, which was deep in seat, high both in front and\nbehind and had strange long-hooded stirrups. Starting to mount, the man\nstopped with one foot in the stirrup and raised his eyes towards her\nso suddenly that she shrank back again with a quicker throbbing at her\nheart and pressed closer to the earth. Still, seen or not seen, flight\nwas easy for her, so she could not forbear to look again. Apparently, he\nhad seen nothing--only that the next turn of the trail was too steep to\nride, and so he started walking again, and his walk, as he strode along\nthe path, was new to her, as was the erect way with which he held his\nhead and his shoulders.\n\nIn her wonder over him, she almost forgot herself, forgot to wonder\nwhere he was going and why he was coming into those lonely hills until,\nas his horse turned a bend of the trail, she saw hanging from the\nother side of the saddle something that looked like a gun. He was a\n\"raider\"--that man: so, cautiously and swiftly then, she pushed herself\nback from the edge of the cliff, sprang to her feet, dashed past the big\ntree and, winged with fear, sped down the mountain--leaving in a spot of\nsunlight at the base of the pine the print of one bare foot in the black\nearth.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nHe had seen the big pine when he first came to those hills--one morning,\nat daybreak, when the valley was a sea of mist that threw soft clinging\nspray to the very mountain tops: for even above the mists, that morning,\nits mighty head arose--sole visible proof that the earth still slept\nbeneath. Straightway, he wondered how it had ever got there, so far\nabove the few of its kind that haunted the green dark ravines far below.\nSome whirlwind, doubtless, had sent a tiny cone circling heavenward and\ndropped it there. It had sent others, too, no doubt, but how had this\ntree faced wind and storm alone and alone lived to defy both so proudly?\nSome day he would learn. Thereafter, he had seen it, at noon--but little\nless majestic among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching\nthe last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a\ndark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the\nmoon. He had seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing\nburst of spring--had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green\nin the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow--a\nchangeless promise that the earth must wake to life again. The Lonesome\nPine, the mountaineers called it, and the Lonesome Pine it always looked\nto be. From the beginning it had a curious fascination for him, and\nstraightway within him--half exile that he was--there sprang up a\nsympathy for it as for something that was human and a brother. And now\nhe was on the trail of it at last. From every point that morning it had\nseemed almost to nod down to him as he climbed and, when he reached the\nledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the winds murmured\namong its needles like a welcoming voice. At once, he saw the secret of\nits life. On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms\nuntil its trunk had shot upwards so far and so straight and so strong\nthat its green crown could lift itself on and on and bend--blow what\nmight--as proudly and securely as a lily on its stalk in a morning\nbreeze. Dropping his bridle rein he put one hand against it as though on\nthe shoulder of a friend.\n\n\"Old Man,\" he said, \"You must be pretty lonesome up here, and I\'m glad\nto meet you.\"\n\nFor a while he sat against it--resting. He had no particular purpose\nthat day--no particular destination. His saddle-bags were across the\ncantle of his cow-boy saddle. His fishing rod was tied under one flap.\nHe was young and his own master. Time was hanging heavy on his hands\nthat day and he loved the woods and the nooks and crannies of them\nwhere his own kind rarely made its way. Beyond, the cove looked dark,\nforbidding, mysterious, and what was beyond he did not know. So down\nthere he would go. As he bent his head forward to rise, his eye caught\nthe spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it with a smile. In the black\nearth was a human foot-print--too small and slender for the foot of\na man, a boy or a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible--wider\napart--and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She was the crimson\nflash that he saw as he started up the steep and mistook for a flaming\nbush of sumach. She had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling,\nhe rose to his feet.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nOn one side he had left the earth yellow with the coming noon, but it\nwas still morning as he went down on the other side. The laurel and\nrhododendron still reeked with dew in the deep, ever-shaded ravine.\nThe ferns drenched his stirrups, as he brushed through them, and each\ndripping tree-top broke the sunlight and let it drop in tent-like beams\nthrough the shimmering undermist. A bird flashed here and there through\nthe green gloom, but there was no sound in the air but the footfalls of\nhis horse and the easy creaking of leather under him, the drip of dew\noverhead and the running of water below. Now and then he could see the\nsame slender foot-prints in the rich loam and he saw them in the sand\nwhere the first tiny brook tinkled across the path from a gloomy ravine.\nThere the little creature had taken a flying leap across it and, beyond,\nhe could see the prints no more. He little guessed that while he halted\nto let his horse drink, the girl lay on a rock above him, looking down.\nShe was nearer home now and was less afraid; so she had slipped from the\ntrail and climbed above it there to watch him pass. As he went on, she\nslid from her perch and with cat-footed quiet followed him. When\nhe reached the river she saw him pull in his horse and eagerly bend\nforward, looking into a pool just below the crossing. There was a bass\ndown there in the clear water--a big one--and the man whistled cheerily\nand dismounted, tying his horse to a sassafras bush and unbuckling a tin\nbucket and a curious looking net from his saddle. With the net in one\nhand and the bucket in the other, he turned back up the creek and passed\nso close to where she had slipped aside into the bushes that she came\nnear shrieking, but his eyes were fixed on a pool of the creek above\nand, to her wonder, he strolled straight into the water, with his boots\non, pushing the net in front of him.\n\nHe was a \"raider\" sure, she thought now, and he was looking for a\n\"moonshine\" still, and the wild little thing in the bushes smiled\ncunningly--there was no still up that creek--and as he had left his\nhorse below and his gun, she waited for him to come back, which he did,\nby and by, dripping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him untie the\nqueer \"gun\" on his saddle, pull it out of a case and--her eyes got big\nwith wonder--take it to pieces and make it into a long limber rod. In a\nmoment he had cast a minnow into the pool and waded out into the water\nup to his hips. She had never seen so queer a fishing-pole--so queer\na fisherman. How could he get a fish out with that little switch, she\nthought contemptuously? By and by something hummed queerly, the man gave\na slight jerk and a shining fish flopped two feet into the air. It was\nsurely very queer, for the man didn\'t put his rod over his shoulder and\nwalk ashore, as did the mountaineers, but stood still, winding something\nwith one hand, and again the fish would flash into the air and then\nthat humming would start again while the fisherman would stand quiet\nand waiting for a while--and then he would begin to wind again. In her\nwonder, she rose unconsciously to her feet and a stone rolled down to\nthe ledge below her. The fisherman turned his head and she started to\nrun, but without a word he turned again to the fish he was playing.\nMoreover, he was too far out in the water to catch her, so she advanced\nslowly--even to the edge of the stream, watching the fish cut half\ncircles about the man. If he saw her, he gave no notice, and it was\nwell that he did not. He was pulling the bass to and fro now through the\nwater, tiring him out--drowning him--stepping backward at the same time,\nand, a moment later, the fish slid easily out of the edge of the water,\ngasping along the edge of a low sand-bank, and the fisherman reaching\ndown with one hand caught him in the gills. Then he looked up and\nsmiled--and she had seen no smile like that before.\n\n\"Howdye, Little Girl?\"\n\nOne bare toe went burrowing suddenly into the sand, one finger went to\nher red mouth--and that was all. She merely stared him straight in the\neye and he smiled again.\n\n\"Cat got your tongue?\"\n\nHer eyes fell at the ancient banter, but she lifted them straightway and\nstared again.\n\n\"You live around here?\"\n\nShe stared on.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"What\'s your name, little girl?\"\n\nAnd still she stared.\n\n\"Oh, well, of course, you can\'t talk, if the cat\'s got your tongue.\"\n\nThe steady eyes leaped angrily, but there was still no answer, and he\nbent to take the fish off his hook, put on a fresh minnow, turned his\nback and tossed it into the pool.\n\n\"Hit hain\'t!\"\n\nHe looked up again. She surely was a pretty little thing--and more, now\nthat she was angry.\n\n\"I should say not,\" he said teasingly. \"What did you say your name was?\"\n\n\"What\'s YO\' name?\"\n\nThe fisherman laughed. He was just becoming accustomed to the mountain\netiquette that commands a stranger to divulge himself first.\n\n\"My name\'s--Jack.\"\n\n\"An\' mine\'s--Jill.\" She laughed now, and it was his time for\nsurprise--where could she have heard of Jack and Jill?\n\nHis line rang suddenly.\n\n\"Jack,\" she cried, \"you got a bite!\"\n\nHe pulled, missed the strike, and wound in. The minnow was all right, so\nhe tossed it back again.\n\n\"That isn\'t your name,\" he said.\n\n\"If \'tain\'t, then that ain\'t your\'n?\"\n\n\"Yes \'tis,\" he said, shaking his head affirmatively.\n\nA long cry came down the ravine:\n\n\"J-u-n-e! eh--oh--J-u-n-e!\" That was a queer name for the mountains, and\nthe fisherman wondered if he had heard aright--June.\n\nThe little girl gave a shrill answering cry, but she did not move.\n\n\"Thar now!\" she said.\n\n\"Who\'s that--your Mammy?\"\n\n\"No, \'tain\'t--hit\'s my step-mammy. I\'m a goin\' to ketch hell now.\" Her\ninnocent eyes turned sullen and her baby mouth tightened.\n\n\"Good Lord!\" said the fisherman, startled, and then he stopped--the\nwords were as innocent on her lips as a benediction.\n\n\"Have you got a father?\" Like a flash, her whole face changed.\n\n\"I reckon I have.\"\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\n\"Hyeh he is!\" drawled a voice from the bushes, and it had a tone that\nmade the fisherman whirl suddenly. A giant mountaineer stood on the bank\nabove him, with a Winchester in the hollow of his arm.\n\n\"How are you?\" The giant\'s heavy eyes lifted quickly, but he spoke to\nthe girl.\n\n\"You go on home--what you doin\' hyeh gassin\' with furriners!\"\n\nThe girl shrank to the bushes, but she cried sharply back:\n\n\"Don\'t you hurt him now, Dad. He ain\'t even got a pistol. He ain\'t no--\"\n\n\"Shet up!\" The little creature vanished and the mountaineer turned to\nthe fisherman, who had just put on a fresh minnow and tossed it into the\nriver.\n\n\"Purty well, thank you,\" he said shortly. \"How are you?\"\n\n\"Fine!\" was the nonchalant answer. For a moment there was silence and a\npuzzled frown gathered on the mountaineer\'s face.\n\n\"That\'s a bright little girl of yours--What did she mean by telling you\nnot to hurt me?\"\n\n\"You haven\'t been long in these mountains, have ye?\"\n\n\"No--not in THESE mountains--why?\" The fisherman looked around and was\nalmost startled by the fierce gaze of his questioner.\n\n\"Stop that, please,\" he said, with a humourous smile. \"You make me\nnervous.\"\n\nThe mountaineer\'s bushy brows came together across the bridge of his\nnose and his voice rumbled like distant thunder.\n\n\"What\'s yo\' name, stranger, an\' what\'s yo\' business over hyeh?\"\n\n\"Dear me, there you go! You can see I\'m fishing, but why does everybody\nin these mountains want to know my name?\"\n\n\"You heerd me!\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The fisherman turned again and saw the giant\'s rugged face stern\nand pale with open anger now, and he, too, grew suddenly serious.\n\n\"Suppose I don\'t tell you,\" he said gravely. \"What--\"\n\n\"Git!\" said the mountaineer, with a move of one huge hairy hand up the\nmountain. \"An\' git quick!\"\n\nThe fisherman never moved and there was the click of a shell thrown\ninto place in the Winchester and a guttural oath from the mountaineer\'s\nbeard.\n\n\"Damn ye,\" he said hoarsely, raising the rifle. \"I\'ll give ye--\"\n\n\"Don\'t, Dad!\" shrieked a voice from the bushes. \"I know his name, hit\'s\nJack--\" the rest of the name was unintelligible. The mountaineer dropped\nthe butt of his gun to the ground and laughed.\n\n[Illustration: \"Don\'t, Dad!\" shrieked a voice from the bushes, 0034]\n\n\"Oh, air YOU the engineer?\"\n\nThe fisherman was angry now. He had not moved hand or foot and he said\nnothing, but his mouth was set hard and his bewildered blue eyes had\na glint in them that the mountaineer did not at the moment see. He\nwas leaning with one arm on the muzzle of his Winchester, his face had\nsuddenly become suave and shrewd and now he laughed again:\n\n\"So you\'re Jack Hale, air ye?\"\n\nThe fisherman spoke. \"JOHN Hale, except to my friends.\" He looked hard\nat the old man.\n\n\"Do you know that\'s a pretty dangerous joke of yours, my friend--I might\nhave a gun myself sometimes. Did you think you could scare me?\" The\nmountaineer stared in genuine surprise.\n\n\"Twusn\'t no joke,\" he said shortly. \"An\' I don\'t waste time skeering\nfolks. I reckon you don\'t know who I be?\"\n\n\"I don\'t care who you are.\" Again the mountaineer stared.\n\n\"No use gittin\' mad, young feller,\" he said coolly. \"I mistaken ye fer\nsomebody else an\' I axe yer pardon. When you git through fishin\' come up\nto the house right up the creek thar an\' I\'ll give ye a dram.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the fisherman stiffly, and the mountaineer turned\nsilently away. At the edge of the bushes, he looked back; the stranger\nwas still fishing, and the old man went on with a shake of his head.\n\n\"He\'ll come,\" he said to himself. \"Oh, he\'ll come!\"\n\nThat very point Hale was debating with himself as he unavailingly cast\nhis minnow into the swift water and slowly wound it in again. How did\nthat old man know his name? And would the old savage really have hurt\nhim had he not found out who he was? The little girl was a wonder:\nevidently she had muffled his last name on purpose--not knowing it\nherself--and it was a quick and cunning ruse. He owed her something for\nthat--why did she try to protect him? Wonderful eyes, too, the little\nthing had--deep and dark--and how the flame did dart from them when she\ngot angry! He smiled, remembering--he liked that. And her hair--it was\nexactly like the gold-bronze on the wing of a wild turkey that he had\nshot the day before. Well, it was noon now, the fish had stopped biting\nafter the wayward fashion of bass, he was hungry and thirsty and he\nwould go up and see the little girl and the giant again and get that\npromised dram. Once more, however, he let his minnow float down into the\nshadow of a big rock, and while he was winding in, he looked up to\nsee in the road two people on a gray horse, a man with a woman behind\nhim--both old and spectacled--all three motionless on the bank and\nlooking at him: and he wondered if all three had stopped to ask his name\nand his business. No, they had just come down to the creek and both they\nmust know already.\n\n\"Ketching any?\" called out the old man, cheerily.\n\n\"Only one,\" answered Hale with equal cheer. The old woman pushed back\nher bonnet as he waded through the water towards them and he saw that\nshe was puffing a clay pipe. She looked at the fisherman and his tackle\nwith the naive wonder of a child, and then she said in a commanding\nundertone.\n\n\"Go on, Billy.\"\n\n\"Now, ole Hon, I wish ye\'d jes\' wait a minute.\" Hale smiled. He loved\nold people, and two kinder faces he had never seen--two gentler voices\nhe had never heard.\n\n\"I reckon you got the only green pyerch up hyeh,\" said the old man,\nchuckling, \"but thar\'s a sight of \'em down thar below my old mill.\"\nQuietly the old woman hit the horse with a stripped branch of elm and\nthe old gray, with a switch of his tail, started.\n\n\"Wait a minute, Hon,\" he said again, appealingly, \"won\'t ye?\" but calmly\nshe hit the horse again and the old man called back over his shoulder:\n\n\"You come on down to the mill an\' I\'ll show ye whar you can ketch a\nmess.\"\n\n\"All right,\" shouted Hale, holding back his laughter, and on they went,\nthe old man remonstrating in the kindliest way--the old woman silently\npuffing her pipe and making no answer except to flay gently the rump of\nthe lazy old gray.\n\nHesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed his pole, left his minnow\nbucket where it was, mounted his horse and rode up the path. About him,\nthe beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little\nravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire\nwith the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the morning chill left the\ndensely shaded path. When he got to the bare crest of a little rise,\nhe could see up the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a stone\nchimney. Geese and ducks were hunting crawfish in the little creek that\nran from a milk-house of logs, half hidden by willows at the edge of\nthe forest, and a turn in the path brought into view a log-cabin well\nchinked with stones and plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence\nran around the yard and there was a meat house near a little orchard\nof apple-trees, under which were many hives of bee-gums. This man had\nthings \"hung up\" and was well-to-do. Down the rise and through a thicket\nhe went, and as he approached the creek that came down past the cabin\nthere was a shrill cry ahead of him.\n\n\"Whoa thar, Buck! Gee-haw, I tell ye!\" An ox-wagon evidently was coming\non, and the road was so narrow that he turned his horse into the bushes\nto let it pass.\n\n\"Whoa--Haw!--Gee--Gee--Buck, Gee, I tell ye! I\'ll knock yo\' fool head\noff the fust thing you know!\"\n\nStill there was no sound of ox or wagon and the voice sounded like a\nchild\'s. So he went on at a walk in the thick sand, and when he turned\nthe bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In the road across the\ncreek was a chubby, tow-haired boy with a long switch in his right hand,\nand a pine dagger and a string in his left. Attached to the string and\ntied by one hind leg was a frog. The boy was using the switch as a goad\nand driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest as though both were\nreal.\n\n\"I give ye a little rest now, Buck,\" he said, shaking his head\nearnestly. \"Hit\'s a purty hard pull hyeh, but I know, by Gum, you can\nmake hit--if you hain\'t too durn lazy. Now, git up, Buck!\" he yelled\nsuddenly, flaying the sand with his switch. \"Git up--Whoa--Haw--Gee,\nGee!\" The frog hopped several times.\n\n\"Whoa, now!\" said the little fellow, panting in sympathy. \"I knowed you\ncould do it.\" Then he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified but\nhe did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted the pine dagger over to\nhis right hand and the string to his left.\n\n\"Here, boy,\" said the fisherman with affected sternness: \"What are you\ndoing with that dagger?\"\n\nThe boy\'s breast heaved and his dirty fingers clenched tight around the\nwhittled stick.\n\n\"Don\'t you talk to me that-a-way,\" he said with an ominous shake of his\nhead. \"I\'ll gut ye!\"\n\nThe fisherman threw back his head, and his peal of laughter did what his\nsternness failed to do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his feet\nspurned the sand around the bushes for home--the astonished frog dragged\nbumping after him. \"Well!\" said the fisherman.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nEven the geese in the creek seemed to know that he was a stranger and to\ndistrust him, for they cackled and, spreading their wings, fled cackling\nup the stream. As he neared the house, the little girl ran around the\nstone chimney, stopped short, shaded her eyes with one hand for a moment\nand ran excitedly into the house. A moment later, the bearded giant\nslouched out, stooping his head as he came through the door.\n\n\"Hitch that \'ar post to yo\' hoss and come right in,\" he thundered\ncheerily. \"I\'m waitin\' fer ye.\"\n\nThe little girl came to the door, pushed one brown slender hand through\nher tangled hair, caught one bare foot behind a deer-like ankle and\nstood motionless. Behind her was the boy--his dagger still in hand.\n\n\"Come right in!\" said the old man, \"we are purty pore folks, but you\'re\nwelcome to what we have.\"\n\nThe fisherman, too, had to stoop as he came in, for he, too, was tall.\nThe interior was dark, in spite of the wood fire in the big stone\nfireplace. Strings of herbs and red-pepper pods and twisted tobacco hung\nfrom the ceiling and down the wall on either side of the fire; and in\none corner, near the two beds in the room, hand-made quilts of many\ncolours were piled several feet high. On wooden pegs above the door\nwhere ten years before would have been buck antlers and an old-fashioned\nrifle, lay a Winchester; on either side of the door were auger holes\nthrough the logs (he did not understand that they were port-holes) and\nanother Winchester stood in the corner. From the mantel the butt of a\nbig 44-Colt\'s revolver protruded ominously. On one of the beds in the\ncorner he could see the outlines of a figure lying under a brilliantly\nfigured quilt, and at the foot of it the boy with the pine dagger had\nretreated for refuge. From the moment he stooped at the door something\nin the room had made him vaguely uneasy, and when his eyes in swift\nsurvey came back to the fire, they passed the blaze swiftly and met on\nthe edge of the light another pair of eyes burning on him.\n\n\"Howdye!\" said Hale.\n\n\"Howdye!\" was the low, unpropitiating answer.\n\nThe owner of the eyes was nothing but a boy, in spite of his length: so\nmuch of a boy that a slight crack in his voice showed that it was just\npast the throes of \"changing,\" but those black eyes burned on without\nswerving--except once when they flashed at the little girl who, with her\nchin in her hand and one foot on the top rung of her chair, was gazing\nat the stranger with equal steadiness. She saw the boy\'s glance, she\nshifted her knees impatiently and her little face grew sullen. Hale\nsmiled inwardly, for he thought he could already see the lay of the\nland, and he wondered that, at such an age, such fierceness could be: so\nevery now and then he looked at the boy, and every time he looked, the\nblack eyes were on him. The mountain youth must have been almost six\nfeet tall, young as he was, and while he was lanky in limb he was well\nknit. His jean trousers were stuffed in the top of his boots and were\ntight over his knees which were well-moulded, and that is rare with a\nmountaineer. A loop of black hair curved over his forehead, down almost\nto his left eye. His nose was straight and almost delicate and his mouth\nwas small, but extraordinarily resolute. Somewhere he had seen that face\nbefore, and he turned suddenly, but he did not startle the lad with his\nabruptness, nor make him turn his gaze.\n\n\"Why, haven\'t I--?\" he said. And then he suddenly remembered. He had\nseen that boy not long since on the other side of the mountains, riding\nhis horse at a gallop down the county road with his reins in his teeth,\nand shooting a pistol alternately at the sun and the earth with either\nhand. Perhaps it was as well not to recall the incident. He turned to\nthe old mountaineer.\n\n\"Do you mean to tell me that a man can\'t go through these mountains\nwithout telling everybody who asks him what his name is?\"\n\nThe effect of his question was singular. The old man spat into the fire\nand put his hand to his beard. The boy crossed his legs suddenly and\nshoved his muscular fingers deep into his pockets. The figure shifted\nposition on the bed and the infant at the foot of it seemed to\nclench his toy-dagger a little more tightly. Only the little girl\nwas motionless--she still looked at him, unwinking. What sort of wild\nanimals had he fallen among?\n\n\"No, he can\'t--an\' keep healthy.\" The giant spoke shortly.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Well, if a man hain\'t up to some devilment, what reason\'s he got fer\nnot tellin\' his name?\"\n\n\"That\'s his business.\"\n\n\"Tain\'t over hyeh. Hit\'s mine. Ef a man don\'t want to tell his name over\nhyeh, he\'s a spy or a raider or a officer looking fer somebody or,\" he\nadded carelessly, but with a quick covert look at his visitor--\"he\'s got\nsome kind o\' business that he don\'t want nobody to know about.\"\n\n\"Well, I came over here--just to--well, I hardly know why I did come.\"\n\n\"Jess so,\" said the old man dryly. \"An\' if ye ain\'t looking fer trouble,\nyou\'d better tell your name in these mountains, whenever you\'re axed. Ef\nenough people air backin\' a custom anywhar hit goes, don\'t hit?\"\n\nHis logic was good--and Hale said nothing. Presently the old man rose\nwith a smile on his face that looked cynical, picked up a black lump and\nthrew it into the fire. It caught fire, crackled, blazed, almost oozed\nwith oil, and Hale leaned forward and leaned back.\n\n\"Pretty good coal!\"\n\n\"Hain\'t it, though?\" The old man picked up a sliver that had flown to\nthe hearth and held a match to it. The piece blazed and burned in his\nhand.\n\n\"I never seed no coal in these mountains like that--did you?\"\n\n\"Not often--find it around here?\"\n\n\"Right hyeh on this farm--about five feet thick!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"An\' no partin\'.\"\n\n\"No partin\'\"--it was not often that he found a mountaineer who knew what\na parting in a coal bed was.\n\n\"A friend o\' mine on t\'other side,\"--a light dawned for the engineer.\n\n\"Oh,\" he said quickly. \"That\'s how you knew my name.\"\n\n\"Right you air, stranger. He tol\' me you was a--expert.\"\n\nThe old man laughed loudly. \"An\' that\'s why you come over hyeh.\"\n\n\"No, it isn\'t.\"\n\n\"Co\'se not,\"--the old fellow laughed again. Hale shifted the talk.\n\n\"Well, now that you know my name, suppose you tell me what yours is?\"\n\n\"Tolliver--Judd Tolliver.\" Hale started.\n\n\"Not Devil Judd!\"\n\n\"That\'s what some evil folks calls me.\" Again he spoke shortly. The\nmountaineers do not like to talk about their feuds. Hale knew this--and\nthe subject was dropped. But he watched the huge mountaineer with\ninterest. There was no more famous character in all those hills than the\ngiant before him--yet his face was kind and was good-humoured, but the\nnose and eyes were the beak and eyes of some bird of prey. The little\ngirl had disappeared for a moment. She came back with a blue-backed\nspelling-book, a second reader and a worn copy of \"Mother Goose,\" and\nshe opened first one and then the other until the attention of the\nvisitor was caught--the black-haired youth watching her meanwhile with\nlowering brows.\n\n\"Where did you learn to read?\" Hale asked. The old man answered:\n\n\"A preacher come by our house over on the Nawth Fork \'bout three year\nago, and afore I knowed it he made me promise to send her sister Sally\nto some school up thar on the edge of the settlements. And after she\ncome home, Sal larned that little gal to read and spell. Sal died \'bout\na year ago.\"\n\nHale reached over and got the spelling-book, and the old man grinned\nat the quick, unerring responses of the little girl, and the engineer\nlooked surprised. She read, too, with unusual facility, and her\npronunciation was very precise and not at all like her speech.\n\n\"You ought to send her to the same place,\" he said, but the old fellow\nshook his head.\n\n\"I couldn\'t git along without her.\"\n\nThe little girl\'s eyes began to dance suddenly, and, without opening\n\"Mother Goose,\" she began:\n\n\"Jack and Jill went up a hill,\" and then she broke into a laugh and Hale\nlaughed with her.\n\nAbruptly, the boy opposite rose to his great length.\n\n\"I reckon I better be goin\'.\" That was all he said as he caught up a\nWinchester, which stood unseen by his side, and out he stalked. There\nwas not a word of good-by, not a glance at anybody. A few minutes later\nHale heard the creak of a barn door on wooden hinges, a cursing command\nto a horse, and four feet going in a gallop down the path, and he knew\nthere went an enemy.\n\n\"That\'s a good-looking boy--who is he?\"\n\nThe old man spat into the fire. It seemed that he was not going to\nanswer and the little girl broke in:\n\n\"Hit\'s my cousin Dave--he lives over on the Nawth Fork.\"\n\nThat was the seat of the Tolliver-Falin feud. Of that feud, too, Hale\nhad heard, and so no more along that line of inquiry. He, too, soon rose\nto go.\n\n\"Why, ain\'t ye goin\' to have something to eat?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I\'ve got something in my saddlebags and I must be getting back\nto the Gap.\"\n\n\"Well, I reckon you ain\'t. You\'re jes\' goin\' to take a snack right\nhere.\" Hale hesitated, but the little girl was looking at him with such\nunconscious eagerness in her dark eyes that he sat down again.\n\n\"All right, I will, thank you.\" At once she ran to the kitchen and the\nold man rose and pulled a bottle of white liquid from under the quilts.\n\n\"I reckon I can trust ye,\" he said. The liquor burned Hale like fire,\nand the old man, with a laugh at the face the stranger made, tossed off\na tumblerful.\n\n\"Gracious!\" said Hale, \"can you do that often?\"\n\n\"Afore breakfast, dinner and supper,\" said the old man--\"but I don\'t.\"\nHale felt a plucking at his sleeve. It was the boy with the dagger at\nhis elbow.\n\n\"Less see you laugh that-a-way agin,\" said Bub with such deadly\nseriousness that Hale unconsciously broke into the same peal.\n\n\"Now,\" said Bub, unwinking, \"I ain\'t afeard o\' you no more.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nAwaiting dinner, the mountaineer and the \"furriner\" sat on the porch\nwhile Bub carved away at another pine dagger on the stoop. As Hale\npassed out the door, a querulous voice said \"Howdye\" from the bed in\nthe corner and he knew it was the step-mother from whom the little girl\nexpected some nether-world punishment for an offence of which he was\nignorant. He had heard of the feud that had been going on between the\nred Falins and the black Tollivers for a quarter of a century, and this\nwas Devil Judd, who had earned his nickname when he was the leader of\nhis clan by his terrible strength, his marksmanship, his cunning and his\ncourage. Some years since the old man had retired from the leadership,\nbecause he was tired of fighting or because he had quarrelled with his\nbrother Dave and his foster-brother, Bad Rufe--known as the terror of\nthe Tollivers--or from some unknown reason, and in consequence there had\nbeen peace for a long time--the Falins fearing that Devil Judd would\nbe led into the feud again, the Tollivers wary of starting hostilities\nwithout his aid. After the last trouble, Bad Rufe Tolliver had gone West\nand old Judd had moved his family as far away as possible. Hale looked\naround him: this, then, was the home of Devil Judd Tolliver; the little\ncreature inside was his daughter and her name was June. All around the\ncabin the wooded mountains towered except where, straight before his\neyes, Lonesome Creek slipped through them to the river, and the old man\nhad certainly picked out the very heart of silence for his home. There\nwas no neighbour within two leagues, Judd said, except old Squire Billy\nBeams, who ran a mill a mile down the river. No wonder the spot was\ncalled Lonesome Cove.\n\n\"You must ha\' seed Uncle Billy and ole Hon passin\',\" he said.\n\n\"I did.\" Devil Judd laughed and Hale made out that \"Hon\" was short for\nHoney.\n\n\"Uncle Billy used to drink right smart. Ole Hon broke him. She followed\nhim down to the grocery one day and walked in. \'Come on, boys--let\'s\nhave a drink\'; and she set \'em up an\' set \'em up until Uncle Billy most\nwent crazy. He had hard work gittin\' her home, an\' Uncle Billy hain\'t\nteched a drap since.\" And the old mountaineer chuckled again.\n\nAll the time Hale could hear noises from the kitchen inside. The old\nstep-mother was abed, he had seen no other woman about the house and he\nwondered if the child could be cooking dinner. Her flushed face answered\nwhen she opened the kitchen door and called them in. She had not only\ncooked but now she served as well, and when he thanked her, as he did\nevery time she passed something to him, she would colour faintly. Once\nor twice her hand seemed to tremble, and he never looked at her but her\nquestioning dark eyes were full upon him, and always she kept one hand\nbusy pushing her thick hair back from her forehead. He had not asked her\nif it was her footprints he had seen coming down the mountain for fear\nthat he might betray her, but apparently she had told on herself, for\nBub, after a while, burst out suddenly:\n\n\"June, thar, thought you was a raider.\" The little girl flushed and the\nold man laughed.\n\n\"So\'d you, pap,\" she said quietly.\n\n\"That\'s right,\" he said. \"So\'d anybody. I reckon you\'re the first man\nthat ever come over hyeh jus\' to go a-fishin\',\" and he laughed again.\nThe stress on the last words showed that he believed no man had yet come\njust for that purpose, and Hale merely laughed with him. The old fellow\ngulped his food, pushed his chair back, and when Hale was through, he\nwasted no more time.\n\n\"Want to see that coal?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" said Hale.\n\n\"All right, I\'ll be ready in a minute.\"\n\nThe little girl followed Hale out on the porch and stood with her back\nagainst the railing.\n\n\"Did you catch it?\" he asked. She nodded, unsmiling.\n\n\"I\'m sorry. What were you doing up there?\" She showed no surprise that\nhe knew that she had been up there, and while she answered his question,\nhe could see that she was thinking of something else.\n\n\"I\'d heerd so much about what you furriners was a-doin\' over thar.\"\n\n\"You must have heard about a place farther over--but it\'s coming over\nthere, too, some day.\" And still she looked an unspoken question.\n\nThe fish that Hale had caught was lying where he had left it on the edge\nof the porch.\n\n\"That\'s for you, June,\" he said, pointing to it, and the name as he\nspoke it was sweet to his ears.\n\n\"I\'m much obleeged,\" she said, shyly. \"I\'d \'a\' cooked hit fer ye if I\'d\n\'a\' knowed you wasn\'t goin\' to take hit home.\"\n\n\"That\'s the reason I didn\'t give it to you at first--I was afraid you\'d\ndo that. I wanted you to have it.\"\n\n\"Much obleeged,\" she said again, still unsmiling, and then she suddenly\nlooked up at him--the deeps of her dark eyes troubled.\n\n\"Air ye ever comin\' back agin, Jack?\" Hale was not accustomed to the\nfamiliar form of address common in the mountains, independent of sex or\nage--and he would have been staggered had not her face been so serious.\nAnd then few women had ever called him by his first name, and this time\nhis own name was good to his ears.\n\n\"Yes, June,\" he said soberly. \"Not for some time, maybe--but I\'m coming\nback again, sure.\" She smiled then with both lips and eyes--radiantly.\n\n\"I\'ll be lookin\' fer ye,\" she said simply.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThe old man went with him up the creek and, passing the milk house,\nturned up a brush-bordered little branch in which the engineer saw signs\nof coal. Up the creek the mountaineer led him some thirty yards above\nthe water level and stopped. An entry had been driven through the\nrich earth and ten feet within was a shining bed of coal. There was no\nparting except two inches of mother-of-coal--midway, which would make it\nbut easier to mine. Who had taught that old man to open coal in such a\nway--to make such a facing? It looked as though the old fellow were in\nsome scheme with another to get him interested. As he drew closer, he\nsaw radiations of some twelve inches, all over the face of the coal,\nstar-shaped, and he almost gasped. It was not only cannel coal--it was\n\"bird\'s-eye\" cannel. Heavens, what a find! Instantly he was the cautious\nman of business, alert, cold, uncommunicative.\n\n\"That looks like a pretty good--\" he drawled the last two words--\"vein\nof coal. I\'d like to take a sample over to the Gap and analyze it.\" His\nhammer, which he always carried--was in his saddle pockets, but he did\nnot have to go down to his horse. There were pieces on the ground that\nwould suit his purpose, left there, no doubt, by his predecessor.\n\n\"Now I reckon you know that I know why you came over hyeh.\"\n\nHale started to answer, but he saw it was no use.\n\n\"Yes--and I\'m coming again--for the same reason.\"\n\n\"Shore--come agin and come often.\"\n\nThe little girl was standing on the porch as he rode past the milk\nhouse. He waved his hand to her, but she did not move nor answer. What a\nlife for a child--for that keen-eyed, sweet-faced child! But that coal,\ncannel, rich as oil, above water, five feet in thickness, easy to mine,\nwith a solid roof and perhaps self-drainage, if he could judge from the\ndip of the vein: and a market everywhere--England, Spain, Italy, Brazil.\nThe coal, to be sure, might not be persistent--thirty yards within it\nmight change in quality to ordinary bituminous coal, but he could settle\nthat only with a steam drill. A steam drill! He would as well ask for\nthe wagon that he had long ago hitched to a star; and then there might\nbe a fault in the formation. But why bother now? The coal would\nstay there, and now he had other plans that made even that find\ninsignificant. And yet if he bought that coal now--what a bargain! It\nwas not that the ideals of his college days were tarnished, but he was\na man of business now, and if he would take the old man\'s land for\na song--it was because others of his kind would do the same! But why\nbother, he asked himself again, when his brain was in a ferment with a\ncolossal scheme that would make dizzy the magnates who would some day\ndrive their roadways of steel into those wild hills. So he shook himself\nfree of the question, which passed from his mind only with a transient\nwonder as to who it was that had told of him to the old mountaineer, and\nhad so paved his way for an investigation--and then he wheeled suddenly\nin his saddle. The bushes had rustled gently behind him and out from\nthem stepped an extraordinary human shape--wearing a coon-skin cap,\nbelted with two rows of big cartridges, carrying a big Winchester over\none shoulder and a circular tube of brass in his left hand. With his\nright leg straight, his left thigh drawn into the hollow of his saddle\nand his left hand on the rump of his horse, Hale simply stared, his eyes\ndropping by and by from the pale-blue eyes and stubbly red beard of the\nstranger, down past the cartridge-belts to the man\'s feet, on which\nwere moccasins--with the heels forward! Into what sort of a world had he\ndropped!\n\n\"So nary a soul can tell which way I\'m going,\" said the red-haired\nstranger, with a grin that loosed a hollow chuckle far behind it.\n\n\"Would you mind telling me what difference it can make to me which way\nyou are going?\" Every moment he was expecting the stranger to ask his\nname, but again that chuckle came.\n\n\"It makes a mighty sight o\' difference to some folks.\"\n\n\"But none to me.\"\n\n\"I hain\'t wearin\' \'em fer you. I know YOU.\"\n\n\"Oh, you do.\" The stranger suddenly lowered his Winchester and turned\nhis face, with his ear cocked like an animal. There was some noise on\nthe spur above.\n\n\"Nothin\' but a hickory nut,\" said the chuckle again. But Hale had\nbeen studying that strange face. One side of it was calm, kindly,\nphilosophic, benevolent; but, when the other was turned, a curious\ntwitch of the muscles at the left side of the mouth showed the teeth and\nmade a snarl there that was wolfish.\n\n\"Yes, and I know you,\" he said slowly. Self-satisfaction, straightway,\nwas ardent in the face.\n\n\"I knowed you would git to know me in time, if you didn\'t now.\"\n\nThis was the Red Fox of the mountains, of whom he had heard so\nmuch--\"yarb\" doctor and Swedenborgian preacher; revenue officer and,\nsome said, cold-blooded murderer. He would walk twenty miles to preach,\nor would start at any hour of the day or night to minister to the\nsick, and would charge for neither service. At other hours he would be\nsearching for moonshine stills, or watching his enemies in the valley\nfrom some mountain top, with that huge spy-glass--Hale could see\nnow that the brass tube was a telescope--that he might slip down and\nunawares take a pot-shot at them. The Red Fox communicated with spirits,\nhad visions and superhuman powers of locomotion--stepping mysteriously\nfrom the bushes, people said, to walk at the traveller\'s side and as\nmysteriously disappearing into them again, to be heard of in a few hours\nan incredible distance away.\n\n\"I\'ve been watchin\' ye from up thar,\" he said with a wave of his hand.\n\"I seed ye go up the creek, and then the bushes hid ye. I know what\nyou was after--but did you see any signs up thar of anything you wasn\'t\nlooking fer?\"\n\nHale laughed.\n\n\"Well, I\'ve been in these mountains long enough not to tell you, if I\nhad.\"\n\nThe Red Fox chuckled.\n\n\"I wasn\'t sure you had--\" Hale coughed and spat to the other side of his\nhorse. When he looked around, the Red Fox was gone, and he had heard no\nsound of his going.\n\n\"Well, I be--\" Hale clucked to his horse and as he climbed the last\nsteep and drew near the Big Pine he again heard a noise out in the\nwoods and he knew this time it was the fall of a human foot and not of a\nhickory nut. He was right, and, as he rode by the Pine, saw again at its\nbase the print of the little girl\'s foot--wondering afresh at the reason\nthat led her up there--and dropped down through the afternoon shadows\ntowards the smoke and steam and bustle and greed of the Twentieth\nCentury. A long, lean, black-eyed boy, with a wave of black hair over\nhis forehead, was pushing his horse the other way along the Big Black\nand dropping down through the dusk into the Middle Ages--both all\nbut touching on either side the outstretched hands of the wild little\ncreature left in the shadows of Lonesome Cove.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nPast the Big Pine, swerving with a smile his horse aside that he might\nnot obliterate the foot-print in the black earth, and down the mountain,\nhis brain busy with his big purpose, went John Hale, by instinct,\ninheritance, blood and tradition--pioneer.\n\nOne of his forefathers had been with Washington on the Father\'s first\nhistoric expedition into the wilds of Virginia. His great-grandfather\nhad accompanied Boone when that hunter first penetrated the \"Dark\nand Bloody Ground,\" had gone back to Virginia and come again with a\nsurveyor\'s chain and compass to help wrest it from the red men,\namong whom there had been an immemorial conflict for possession and a\nnever-recognized claim of ownership. That compass and that chain his\ngrandfather had fallen heir to and with that compass and chain his\nfather had earned his livelihood amid the wrecks of the Civil War. Hale\nwent to the old Transylvania University at Lexington, the first seat of\nlearning planted beyond the Alleghanies. He was fond of history, of the\nsciences and literature, was unusually adept in Latin and Greek, and had\na passion for mathematics. He was graduated with honours, he taught two\nyears and got his degree of Master of Arts, but the pioneer spirit in\nhis blood would still out, and his polite learning he then threw to the\nwinds.\n\nOther young Kentuckians had gone West in shoals, but he kept his eye on\nhis own State, and one autumn he added a pick to the old compass and the\nancestral chain, struck the Old Wilderness Trail that his grandfather\nhad travelled, to look for his own fortune in a land which that old\ngentleman had passed over as worthless. At the Cumberland River he took\na canoe and drifted down the river into the wild coal-swollen hills.\nThrough the winter he froze, starved and prospected, and a year later\nhe was opening up a region that became famous after his trust and\ninexperience had let others worm out of him an interest that would have\nmade him easy for life.\n\nWith the vision of a seer, he was as innocent as Boone. Stripped clean,\nhe got out his map, such geological reports as he could find and went\ninto a studious trance for a month, emerging mentally with the freshness\nof a snake that has shed its skin. What had happened in Pennsylvania\nmust happen all along the great Alleghany chain in the mountains of\nVirginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee. Some day the\navalanche must sweep south, it must--it must. That he might be a quarter\nof a century too soon in his calculations never crossed his mind. Some\nday it must come.\n\nNow there was not an ounce of coal immediately south-east of the\nCumberland Mountains--not an ounce of iron ore immediately north-east;\nall the coal lay to the north-east; all of the iron ore to the\nsouth-east. So said Geology. For three hundred miles there were only\nfour gaps through that mighty mountain chain--three at water level, and\none at historic Cumberland Gap which was not at water level and would\nhave to be tunnelled. So said Geography.\n\nAll railroads, to east and to west, would have to pass through those\ngaps; through them the coal must be brought to the iron ore, or the ore\nto the coal. Through three gaps water flowed between ore and coal and\nthe very hills between were limestone. Was there any such juxtaposition\nof the four raw materials for the making of iron in the known world?\nWhen he got that far in his logic, the sweat broke from his brows; he\nfelt dizzy and he got up and walked into the open air. As the vastness\nand certainty of the scheme--what fool could not see it?--rushed through\nhim full force, he could scarcely get his breath. There must be a town\nin one of those gaps--but in which? No matter--he would buy all of\nthem--all of them, he repeated over and over again; for some day there\nmust be a town in one, and some day a town in all, and from all he would\nreap his harvest. He optioned those four gaps at a low purchase price\nthat was absurd. He went back to the Bluegrass; he went to New York;\nin some way he managed to get to England. It had never crossed his mind\nthat other eyes could not see what he so clearly saw and yet everywhere\nhe was pronounced crazy. He failed and his options ran out, but he was\nundaunted. He picked his choice of the four gaps and gave up the other\nthree. This favourite gap he had just finished optioning again, and now\nagain he meant to keep at his old quest. That gap he was entering now\nfrom the north side and the North Fork of the river was hurrying to\nenter too. On his left was a great gray rock, projecting edgewise,\ncovered with laurel and rhododendron, and under it was the first\nbig pool from which the stream poured faster still. There had been a\nterrible convulsion in that gap when the earth was young; the strata\nhad been tossed upright and planted almost vertical for all time, and, a\nlittle farther, one mighty ledge, moss-grown, bush-covered, sentinelled\nwith grim pines, their bases unseen, seemed to be making a heavy flight\ntoward the clouds.\n\nBig bowlders began to pop up in the river-bed and against them the water\ndashed and whirled and eddied backward in deep pools, while above him\nthe song of a cataract dropped down a tree-choked ravine. Just there the\ndrop came, and for a long space he could see the river lashing rock and\ncliff with increasing fury as though it were seeking shelter from some\nrelentless pursuer in the dark thicket where it disappeared. Straight in\nfront of him another ledge lifted itself. Beyond that loomed a mountain\nwhich stopped in mid-air and dropped sheer to the eye. Its crown was\nbare and Hale knew that up there was a mountain farm, the refuge of a\nman who had been involved in that terrible feud beyond Black Mountain\nbehind him. Five minutes later he was at the yawning mouth of the gap\nand there lay before him a beautiful valley shut in tightly, for all the\neye could see, with mighty hills. It was the heaven-born site for the\nunborn city of his dreams, and his eyes swept every curve of the valley\nlovingly. The two forks of the river ran around it--he could follow\ntheir course by the trees that lined the banks of each--curving within\na stone\'s throw of each other across the valley and then looping away\nas from the neck of an ancient lute and, like its framework, coming\ntogether again down the valley, where they surged together, slipped\nthrough the hills and sped on with the song of a sweeping river. Up\nthat river could come the track of commerce, out the South Fork, too, it\ncould go, though it had to turn eastward: back through that gap it could\nbe traced north and west; and so none could come as heralds into those\nhills but their footprints could be traced through that wild, rocky,\nwater-worn chasm. Hale drew breath and raised in his stirrups.\n\n\"It\'s a cinch,\" he said aloud. \"It\'s a shame to take the money.\"\n\nYet nothing was in sight now but a valley farmhouse above the ford where\nhe must cross the river and one log cabin on the hill beyond. Still on\nthe other river was the only woollen mill in miles around; farther\nup was the only grist mill, and near by was the only store, the only\nblacksmith shop and the only hotel. That much of a start the gap had had\nfor three-quarters of a century--only from the south now a railroad\nwas already coming; from the east another was travelling like a wounded\nsnake and from the north still another creeped to meet them. Every road\nmust run through the gap and several had already run through it lines\nof survey. The coal was at one end of the gap, and the iron ore at the\nother, the cliffs between were limestone, and the other elements to make\nit the iron centre of the world flowed through it like a torrent.\n\n\"Selah! It\'s a shame to take the money.\"\n\nHe splashed into the creek and his big black horse thrust his nose into\nthe clear running water. Minnows were playing about him. A hog-fish flew\nfor shelter under a rock, and below the ripples a two-pound bass shot\nlike an arrow into deep water.\n\nAbove and below him the stream was arched with beech, poplar and water\nmaple, and the banks were thick with laurel and rhododendron. His eye\nhad never rested on a lovelier stream, and on the other side of the town\nsite, which nature had kindly lifted twenty feet above the water level,\nthe other fork was of equal clearness, swiftness and beauty.\n\n\"Such a drainage,\" murmured his engineering instinct. \"Such a drainage!\"\nIt was Saturday. Even if he had forgotten he would have known that it\nmust be Saturday when he climbed the bank on the other side. Many horses\nwere hitched under the trees, and here and there was a farm-wagon\nwith fragments of paper, bits of food and an empty bottle or two lying\naround. It was the hour when the alcoholic spirits of the day were\nusually most high. Evidently they were running quite high that day and\nsomething distinctly was going on \"up town.\" A few yells--the high,\nclear, penetrating yell of a fox-hunter--rent the air, a chorus of\npistol shots rang out, and the thunder of horses\' hoofs started beyond\nthe little slope he was climbing. When he reached the top, a merry\nyouth, with a red, hatless head was splitting the dirt road toward him,\nhis reins in his teeth, and a pistol in each hand, which he was letting\noff alternately into the inoffensive earth and toward the unrebuking\nheavens--that seemed a favourite way in those mountains of defying God\nand the devil--and behind him galloped a dozen horsemen to the music of\nthroat, pistol and iron hoof.\n\nThe fiery-headed youth\'s horse swerved and shot by. Hale hardly knew\nthat the rider even saw him, but the coming ones saw him afar and they\nseemed to be charging him in close array. Hale stopped his horse\na little to the right of the centre of the road, and being equally\nhelpless against an inherited passion for maintaining his own rights and\na similar disinclination to get out of anybody\'s way--he sat motionless.\nTwo of the coming horsemen, side by side, were a little in advance.\n\n\"Git out o\' the road!\" they yelled. Had he made the motion of an arm,\nthey might have ridden or shot him down, but the simple quietness of him\nas he sat with hands crossed on the pommel of his saddle, face calm and\nset, eyes unwavering and fearless, had the effect that nothing else he\ncould have done would have brought about--and they swerved on either\nside of him, while the rest swerved, too, like sheep, one stirrup\nbrushing his, as they swept by. Hale rode slowly on. He could hear\nthe mountaineers yelling on top of the hill, but he did not look\nback. Several bullets sang over his head. Most likely they were simply\n\"bantering\" him, but no matter--he rode on.\n\nThe blacksmith, the storekeeper and one passing drummer were coming in\nfrom the woods when he reached the hotel.\n\n\"A gang o\' those Falins,\" said the storekeeper, \"they come over lookin\'\nfor young Dave Tolliver. They didn\'t find him, so they thought they\'d\nhave some fun\"; and he pointed to the hotel sign which was punctuated\nwith pistol-bullet periods. Hale\'s eyes flashed once but he said\nnothing. He turned his horse over to a stable boy and went across to the\nlittle frame cottage that served as office and home for him. While he\nsat on the veranda that almost hung over the mill-pond of the other\nstream three of the Falins came riding back. One of them had left\nsomething at the hotel, and while he was gone in for it, another put a\nbullet through the sign, and seeing Hale rode over to him. Hale\'s blue\neye looked anything than friendly.\n\n\"Don\'t ye like it?\" asked the horseman.\n\n\"I do not,\" said Hale calmly. The horseman seemed amused.\n\n\"Well, whut you goin\' to do about it?\"\n\n\"Nothing--at least not now.\"\n\n\"All right--whenever you git ready. You ain\'t ready now?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale, \"not now.\" The fellow laughed.\n\n\"Hit\'s a damned good thing for you that you ain\'t.\"\n\nHale looked long after the three as they galloped down the road. \"When I\nstart to build this town,\" he thought gravely and without humour, \"I\'ll\nput a stop to all that.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nOn a spur of Black Mountain, beyond the Kentucky line, a lean horse was\ntied to a sassafras bush, and in a clump of rhododendron ten yards away,\na lean black-haired boy sat with a Winchester between his stomach and\nthighs--waiting for the dusk to drop. His chin was in both hands, the\nbrim of his slouch hat was curved crescent-wise over his forehead, and\nhis eyes were on the sweeping bend of the river below him. That was\nthe \"Bad Bend\" down there, peopled with ancestral enemies and the\nhead-quarters of their leader for the last ten years. Though they had\nbeen at peace for some time now, it had been Saturday in the county town\nten miles down the river as well, and nobody ever knew what a Saturday\nmight bring forth between his people and them. So he would not risk\nriding through that bend by the light of day.\n\nAll the long way up spur after spur and along ridge after ridge, all\nalong the still, tree-crested top of the Big Black, he had been thinking\nof the man--the \"furriner\" whom he had seen at his uncle\'s cabin in\nLonesome Cove. He was thinking of him still, as he sat there waiting\nfor darkness to come, and the two vertical little lines in his forehead,\nthat had hardly relaxed once during his climb, got deeper and deeper,\nas his brain puzzled into the problem that was worrying it: who the\nstranger was, what his business was over in the Cove and his business\nwith the Red Fox with whom the boy had seen him talking.\n\nHe had heard of the coming of the \"furriners\" on the Virginia side. He\nhad seen some of them, he was suspicious of all of them, he disliked\nthem all--but this man he hated straightway. He hated his boots and his\nclothes; the way he sat and talked, as though he owned the earth, and\nthe lad snorted contemptuously under his breath:\n\n\"He called pants \'trousers.\'\" It was a fearful indictment, and he\nsnorted again: \"Trousers!\"\n\nThe \"furriner\" might be a spy or a revenue officer, but deep down in the\nboy\'s heart the suspicion had been working that he had gone over there\nto see his little cousin--the girl whom, boy that he was, he had marked,\nwhen she was even more of a child than she was now, for his own. His\npeople understood it as did her father, and, child though she was,\nshe, too, understood it. The difference between her and the\n\"furriner\"--difference in age, condition, way of life, education--meant\nnothing to him, and as his suspicion deepened, his hands dropped and\ngripped his Winchester, and through his gritting teeth came vaguely:\n\n\"By God, if he does--if he just does!\"\n\nAway down at the lower end of the river\'s curving sweep, the dirt road\nwas visible for a hundred yards or more, and even while he was cursing\nto himself, a group of horsemen rode into sight. All seemed to be\ncarrying something across their saddle bows, and as the boy\'s eyes\ncaught them, he sank sidewise out of sight and stood upright, peering\nthrough a bush of rhododendron. Something had happened in town that\nday--for the horsemen carried Winchesters, and every foreign thought in\nhis brain passed like breath from a window pane, while his dark, thin\nface whitened a little with anxiety and wonder. Swiftly he stepped\nbackward, keeping the bushes between him and his far-away enemies.\nAnother knot he gave the reins around the sassafras bush and then,\nWinchester in hand, he dropped noiseless as an Indian, from rock to\nrock, tree to tree, down the sheer spur on the other side. Twenty\nminutes later, he lay behind a bush that was sheltered by the top\nboulder of the rocky point under which the road ran. His enemies were in\ntheir own country; they would probably be talking over the happenings in\ntown that day, and from them he would learn what was going on.\n\nSo long he lay that he got tired and out of patience, and he was about\nto creep around the boulder, when the clink of a horseshoe against\na stone told him they were coming, and he flattened to the earth and\nclosed his eyes that his ears might be more keen. The Falins were riding\nsilently, but as the first two passed under him, one said:\n\n\"I\'d like to know who the hell warned \'em!\"\n\n\"Whar\'s the Red Fox?\" was the significant answer.\n\nThe boy\'s heart leaped. There had been deviltry abroad, but his kinsmen\nhad escaped. No one uttered a word as they rode two by two, under him,\nbut one voice came back to him as they turned the point.\n\n\"I wonder if the other boys ketched young Dave?\" He could not catch the\nanswer to that--only the oath that was in it, and when the sound of the\nhorses\' hoofs died away, he turned over on his back and stared up at the\nsky. Some trouble had come and through his own caution, and the mercy\nof Providence that had kept him away from the Gap, he had had his escape\nfrom death that day. He would tempt that Providence no more, even by\nclimbing back to his horse in the waning light, and it was not until\ndusk had fallen that he was leading the beast down the spur and into a\nravine that sank to the road. There he waited an hour, and when another\nhorseman passed he still waited a while. Cautiously then, with ears\nalert, eyes straining through the darkness and Winchester ready, he went\ndown the road at a slow walk. There was a light in the first house, but\nthe front door was closed and the road was deep with sand, as he knew;\nso he passed noiselessly. At the second house, light streamed through\nthe open door; he could hear talking on the porch and he halted. He\ncould neither cross the river nor get around the house by the rear--the\nridge was too steep--so he drew off into the bushes, where he had to\nwait another hour before the talking ceased. There was only one more\nhouse now between him and the mouth of the creek, where he would be\nsafe, and he made up his mind to dash by it. That house, too, was\nlighted and the sound of fiddling struck his ears. He would give them a\nsurprise; so he gathered his reins and Winchester in his left hand, drew\nhis revolver with his right, and within thirty yards started his horse\ninto a run, yelling like an Indian and firing his pistol in the air.\nAs he swept by, two or three figures dashed pell-mell indoors, and he\nshouted derisively:\n\n\"Run, damn ye, run!\" They were running for their guns, he knew, but\nthe taunt would hurt and he was pleased. As he swept by the edge of a\ncornfield, there was a flash of light from the base of a cliff straight\nacross, and a bullet sang over him, then another and another, but he\nsped on, cursing and yelling and shooting his own Winchester up in the\nair--all harmless, useless, but just to hurl defiance and taunt them\nwith his safety. His father\'s house was not far away, there was no sound\nof pursuit, and when he reached the river he drew down to a walk and\nstopped short in a shadow. Something had clicked in the bushes above him\nand he bent over his saddle and lay close to his horse\'s neck. The moon\nwas rising behind him and its light was creeping toward him through the\nbushes. In a moment he would be full in its yellow light, and he was\nslipping from his horse to dart aside into the bushes, when a voice\nahead of him called sharply:\n\n\"That you, Dave?\"\n\nIt was his father, and the boy\'s answer was a loud laugh. Several men\nstepped from the bushes--they had heard firing and, fearing that young\nDave was the cause of it, they had run to his help.\n\n\"What the hell you mean, boy, kickin\' up such a racket?\"\n\n\"Oh, I knowed somethin\'d happened an\' I wanted to skeer \'em a leetle.\"\n\n\"Yes, an\' you never thought o\' the trouble you might be causin\' us.\"\n\n\"Don\'t you bother about me. I can take keer o\' myself.\"\n\nOld Dave Tolliver grunted--though at heart he was deeply pleased.\n\n\"Well, you come on home!\"\n\nAll went silently--the boy getting meagre monosyllabic answers to his\neager questions but, by the time they reached home, he had gathered the\nstory of what had happened in town that day. There were more men in\nthe porch of the house and all were armed. The women of the house moved\nabout noiselessly and with drawn faces. There were no lights lit, and\nnobody stood long even in the light of the fire where he could be seen\nthrough a window; and doors were opened and passed through quickly. The\nFalins had opened the feud that day, for the boy\'s foster-uncle, Bad\nRufe Tolliver, contrary to the terms of the last truce, had come home\nfrom the West, and one of his kinsmen had been wounded. The boy told\nwhat he had heard while he lay over the road along which some of his\nenemies had passed and his father nodded. The Falins had learned in some\nway that the lad was going to the Gap that day and had sent men after\nhim. Who was the spy?\n\n\"You TOLD me you was a-goin\' to the Gap,\" said old Dave. \"Whar was ye?\"\n\n\"I didn\'t git that far,\" said the boy.\n\nThe old man and Loretta, young Dave\'s sister, laughed, and quiet smiles\npassed between the others.\n\n\"Well, you\'d better be keerful \'bout gittin\' even as far as you did\ngit--wharever that was--from now on.\"\n\n\"I ain\'t afeered,\" the boy said sullenly, and he turned into the\nkitchen. Still sullen, he ate his supper in silence and his mother asked\nhim no questions. He was worried that Bad Rufe had come back to the\nmountains, for Rufe was always teasing June and there was something\nin his bold, black eyes that made the lad furious, even when the\nfoster-uncle was looking at Loretta or the little girl in Lonesome\nCove. And yet that was nothing to his new trouble, for his mind hung\npersistently to the stranger and to the way June had behaved in the\ncabin in Lonesome Cove. Before he went to bed, he slipped out to the\nold well behind the house and sat on the water-trough in gloomy unrest,\nlooking now and then at the stars that hung over the Cove and over the\nGap beyond, where the stranger was bound. It would have pleased him\na good deal could he have known that the stranger was pushing his big\nblack horse on his way, under those stars, toward the outer world.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nIt was court day at the county seat across the Kentucky line. Hale\nhad risen early, as everyone must if he would get his breakfast in the\nmountains, even in the hotels in the county seats, and he sat with his\nfeet on the railing of the hotel porch which fronted the main street\nof the town. He had had his heart-breaking failures since the autumn\nbefore, but he was in good cheer now, for his feverish enthusiasm had at\nlast clutched a man who would take up not only his options on the great\nGap beyond Black Mountain but on the cannel-coal lands of Devil Judd\nTolliver as well. He was riding across from the Bluegrass to meet this\nman at the railroad in Virginia, nearly two hundred miles away; he had\nstopped to examine some titles at the county seat and he meant to go\non that day by way of Lonesome Cove. Opposite was the brick Court\nHouse--every window lacking at least one pane, the steps yellow with\ndirt and tobacco juice, the doorway and the bricks about the upper\nwindows bullet-dented and eloquent with memories of the feud which had\nlong embroiled the whole county. Not that everybody took part in it but,\non the matter, everybody, as an old woman told him, \"had feelin\'s.\"\nIt had begun, so he learned, just after the war. Two boys were playing\nmarbles in the road along the Cumberland River, and one had a patch on\nthe seat of his trousers. The other boy made fun of it and the boy with\nthe patch went home and told his father. As a result there had already\nbeen thirty years of local war. In the last race for legislature,\npolitical issues were submerged and the feud was the sole issue. And a\nTolliver had carried that boy\'s trouser-patch like a flag to victory and\nwas sitting in the lower House at that time helping to make laws for the\nrest of the State. Now Bad Rufe Tolliver was in the hills again and\nthe end was not yet. Already people were pouring in, men, women and\nchildren--the men slouch-hatted and stalking through the mud in the\nrain, or filing in on horseback--riding double sometimes--two men or two\nwomen, or a man with his wife or daughter behind him, or a woman with a\nbaby in her lap and two more children behind--all dressed in homespun\nor store-clothes, and the paint from artificial flowers on her hat\nstreaking the face of every girl who had unwisely scanned the heavens\nthat morning. Soon the square was filled with hitched horses, and an\nauctioneer was bidding off cattle, sheep, hogs and horses to the crowd\nof mountaineers about him, while the women sold eggs and butter and\nbought things for use at home. Now and then, an open feudsman with a\nWinchester passed and many a man was belted with cartridges for the big\npistol dangling at his hip. When court opened, the rain ceased, the sun\ncame out and Hale made his way through the crowd to the battered temple\nof justice. On one corner of the square he could see the chief store of\nthe town marked \"Buck Falin--General Merchandise,\" and the big man in\nthe door with the bushy redhead, he guessed, was the leader of the Falin\nclan. Outside the door stood a smaller replica of the same figure, whom\nhe recognized as the leader of the band that had nearly ridden him down\nat the Gap when they were looking for young Dave Tolliver, the autumn\nbefore. That, doubtless, was young Buck. For a moment he stood at the\ndoor of the court-room. A Falin was on trial and the grizzled judge was\nspeaking angrily:\n\n\"This is the third time you\'ve had this trial postponed because you\nhain\'t got no lawyer. I ain\'t goin\' to put it off. Have you got you a\nlawyer now?\"\n\n\"Yes, jedge,\" said the defendant.\n\n\"Well, whar is he?\"\n\n\"Over thar on the jury.\"\n\nThe judge looked at the man on the jury.\n\n\"Well, I reckon you better leave him whar he is. He\'ll do you more good\nthar than any whar else.\"\n\nHale laughed aloud--the judge glared at him and he turned quickly\nupstairs to his work in the deed-room. Till noon he worked and yet there\nwas no trouble. After dinner he went back and in two hours his work was\ndone. An atmospheric difference he felt as soon as he reached the door.\nThe crowd had melted from the square. There were no women in sight, but\neight armed men were in front of the door and two of them, a red Falin\nand a black Tolliver--Bad Rufe it was--were quarrelling. In every\ndoorway stood a man cautiously looking on, and in a hotel window he saw\na woman\'s frightened face. It was so still that it seemed impossible\nthat a tragedy could be imminent, and yet, while he was trying to\ntake the conditions in, one of the quarrelling men--Bad Rufe\nTolliver--whipped out his revolver and before he could level it, a Falin\nstruck the muzzle of a pistol into his back. Another Tolliver flashed\nhis weapon on the Falin. This Tolliver was covered by another Falin\nand in so many flashes of lightning the eight men in front of him were\ncovering each other--every man afraid to be the first to shoot, since he\nknew that the flash of his own pistol meant instantaneous death for him.\nAs Hale shrank back, he pushed against somebody who thrust him aside. It\nwas the judge:\n\n\"Why don\'t somebody shoot?\" he asked sarcastically. \"You\'re a purty set\no\' fools, ain\'t you? I want you all to stop this damned foolishness. Now\nwhen I give the word I want you, Jim Falin and Rufe Tolliver thar, to\ndrap yer guns.\"\n\nAlready Rufe was grinning like a devil over the absurdity of the\nsituation.\n\n\"Now!\" said the judge, and the two guns were dropped.\n\n\"Put \'em in yo\' pockets.\"\n\nThey did.\n\n\"Drap!\" All dropped and, with those two, all put up their guns--each\nman, however, watching now the man who had just been covering him. It\nis not wise for the stranger to show too much interest in the personal\naffairs of mountain men, and Hale left the judge berating them and went\nto the hotel to get ready for the Gap, little dreaming how fixed the\nfaces of some of those men were in his brain and how, later, they were\nto rise in his memory again. His horse was lame--but he must go on:\nso he hired a \"yaller\" mule from the landlord, and when the beast was\nbrought around, he overheard two men talking at the end of the porch.\n\n\"You don\'t mean to say they\'ve made peace?\"\n\n\"Yes, Rufe\'s going away agin and they shuk hands--all of \'em.\" The other\nlaughed.\n\n\"Rufe ain\'t gone yit!\"\n\nThe Cumberland River was rain-swollen. The home-going people were\nhelping each other across it and, as Hale approached the ford of a creek\nhalf a mile beyond the river, a black-haired girl was standing on a\nboulder looking helplessly at the yellow water, and two boys were on the\nground below her. One of them looked up at Hale:\n\n\"I wish ye\'d help this lady \'cross.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Hale, and the girl giggled when he laboriously turned\nhis old mule up to the boulder. Not accustomed to have ladies ride\nbehind him, Hale had turned the wrong side. Again he laboriously wheeled\nabout and then into the yellow torrent he went with the girl behind him,\nthe old beast stumbling over the stones, whereat the girl, unafraid,\nmade sounds of much merriment. Across, Hale stopped and said\ncourteously:\n\n\"If you are going up this way, you are quite welcome to ride on.\"\n\n\"Well, I wasn\'t crossin\' that crick jes\' exactly fer fun,\" said the girl\ndemurely, and then she murmured something about her cousins and looked\nback. They had gone down to a shallower ford, and when they, too, had\nwaded across, they said nothing and the girl said nothing--so Hale\nstarted on, the two boys following. The mule was slow and, being in a\nhurry, Hale urged him with his whip. Every time he struck, the beast\nwould kick up and once the girl came near going off.\n\n\"You must watch out, when I hit him,\" said Hale.\n\n\"I don\'t know when you\'re goin\' to hit him,\" she drawled unconcernedly.\n\n\"Well, I\'ll let you know,\" said Hale laughing. \"Now!\" And, as he whacked\nthe beast again, the girl laughed and they were better acquainted.\nPresently they passed two boys. Hale was wearing riding-boots and tight\nbreeches, and one of the boys ran his eyes up boot and leg and if they\nwere lifted higher, Hale could not tell.\n\n\"Whar\'d you git him?\" he squeaked.\n\nThe girl turned her head as the mule broke into a trot.\n\n\"Ain\'t got time to tell. They are my cousins,\" explained the girl.\n\n\"What is your name?\" asked Hale.\n\n\"Loretty Tolliver.\" Hale turned in his saddle.\n\n\"Are you the daughter of Dave Tolliver?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then you\'ve got a brother named Dave?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" This, then, was the sister of the black-haired boy he had seen in\nthe Lonesome Cove.\n\n\"Haven\'t you got some kinfolks over the mountain?\"\n\n\"Yes, I got an uncle livin\' over thar. Devil Judd, folks calls him,\"\nsaid the girl simply. This girl was cousin to little June in Lonesome\nCove. Every now and then she would look behind them, and when Hale\nturned again inquiringly she explained:\n\n\"I\'m worried about my cousins back thar. I\'m afeered somethin\' mought\nhappen to \'em.\"\n\n\"Shall we wait for them?\"\n\n\"Oh, no--I reckon not.\"\n\nSoon they overtook two men on horseback, and after they passed and were\nfifty yards ahead of them, one of the men lifted his voice jestingly:\n\n\"Is that your woman, stranger, or have you just borrowed her?\" Hale\nshouted back:\n\n\"No, I\'m sorry to say, I\'ve just borrowed her,\" and he turned to see how\nshe would take this answering pleasantry. She was looking down shyly and\nshe did not seem much pleased.\n\n\"They are kinfolks o\' mine, too,\" she said, and whether it was in\nexplanation or as a rebuke, Hale could not determine.\n\n\"You must be kin to everybody around here?\"\n\n\"Most everybody,\" she said simply.\n\nBy and by they came to a creek.\n\n\"I have to turn up here,\" said Hale.\n\n\"So do I,\" she said, smiling now directly at him.\n\n\"Good!\" he said, and they went on--Hale asking more questions. She was\ngoing to school at the county seat the coming winter and she was fifteen\nyears old.\n\n\"That\'s right. The trouble in the mountains is that you girls marry so\nearly that you don\'t have time to get an education.\" She wasn\'t going\nto marry early, she said, but Hale learned now that she had a sweetheart\nwho had been in town that day and apparently the two had had a quarrel.\nWho it was, she would not tell, and Hale would have been amazed had he\nknown the sweetheart was none other than young Buck Falin and that the\nquarrel between the lovers had sprung from the opening quarrel that day\nbetween the clans. Once again she came near going off the mule, and Hale\nobserved that she was holding to the cantel of his saddle.\n\n\"Look here,\" he said suddenly, \"hadn\'t you better catch hold of me?\" She\nshook her head vigorously and made two not-to-be-rendered sounds that\nmeant:\n\n\"No, indeed.\"\n\n\"Well, if this were your sweetheart you\'d take hold of him, wouldn\'t\nyou?\"\n\nAgain she gave a vigorous shake of the head.\n\n\"Well, if he saw you riding behind me, he wouldn\'t like it, would he?\"\n\n\"She didn\'t keer,\" she said, but Hale did; and when he heard the\ngalloping of horses behind him, saw two men coming, and heard one\nof them shouting--\"Hyeh, you man on that yaller mule, stop thar\"--he\nshifted his revolver, pulled in and waited with some uneasiness. They\ncame up, reeling in their saddles--neither one the girl\'s sweetheart,\nas he saw at once from her face--and began to ask what the girl\ncharacterized afterward as \"unnecessary questions\": who he was, who she\nwas, and where they were going. Hale answered so shortly that the girl\nthought there was going to be a fight, and she was on the point of\nslipping from the mule.\n\n\"Sit still,\" said Hale, quietly. \"There\'s not going to be a fight so\nlong as you are here.\"\n\n\"Thar hain\'t!\" said one of the men. \"Well\"--then he looked sharply\nat the girl and turned his horse--\"Come on, Bill--that\'s ole Dave\nTolliver\'s gal.\" The girl\'s face was on fire.\n\n\"Them mean Falins!\" she said contemptuously, and somehow the mere fact\nthat Hale had been even for the moment antagonistic to the other\nfaction seemed to put him in the girl\'s mind at once on her side, and\nstraightway she talked freely of the feud. Devil Judd had taken\nno active part in it for a long time, she said, except to keep it\ndown--especially since he and her father had had a \"fallin\' out\" and\nthe two families did not visit much--though she and her cousin June\nsometimes spent the night with each other.\n\n\"You won\'t be able to git over thar till long atter dark,\" she said, and\nshe caught her breath so suddenly and so sharply that Hale turned to see\nwhat the matter was. She searched his face with her black eyes, which\nwere like June\'s without the depths of June\'s.\n\n\"I was just a-wonderin\' if mebbe you wasn\'t the same feller that was\nover in Lonesome last fall.\"\n\n\"Maybe I am--my name\'s Hale.\" The girl laughed. \"Well, if this ain\'t the\nbeatenest! I\'ve heerd June talk about you. My brother Dave don\'t like\nyou overmuch,\" she added frankly. \"I reckon we\'ll see Dave purty soon.\nIf this ain\'t the beatenest!\" she repeated, and she laughed again, as\nshe always did laugh, it seemed to Hale, when there was any prospect of\ngetting him into trouble.\n\n\"You can\'t git over thar till long atter dark,\" she said again\npresently.\n\n\"Is there any place on the way where I can get to stay all night?\"\n\n\"You can stay all night with the Red Fox on top of the mountain.\"\n\n\"The Red Fox,\" repeated Hale.\n\n\"Yes, he lives right on top of the mountain. You can\'t miss his house.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I remember him. I saw him talking to one of the Falins in town\nto-day, behind the barn, when I went to get my horse.\"\n\n\"You--seed--him--a-talkin\'--to a Falin AFORE the trouble come up?\" the\ngirl asked slowly and with such significance that Hale turned to look\nat her. He felt straightway that he ought not to have said that, and\nthe day was to come when he would remember it to his cost. He knew how\nfoolish it was for the stranger to show sympathy with, or interest\nin, one faction or another in a mountain feud, but to give any kind of\ninformation of one to the other--that was unwise indeed. Ahead of them\nnow, a little stream ran from a ravine across the road. Beyond was a\ncabin; in the doorway were several faces, and sitting on a horse at the\ngate was young Dave Tolliver.\n\n\"Well, I git down here,\" said the girl, and before his mule stopped she\nslid from behind him and made for the gate without a word of thanks or\ngood-by.\n\n\"Howdye!\" said Hale, taking in the group with his glance, but leaving\nhis eyes on young Dave. The rest nodded, but the boy was too surprised\nfor speech, and the spirit of deviltry took the girl when she saw her\nbrother\'s face, and at the gate she turned:\n\n\"Much obleeged,\" she said. \"Tell June I\'m a-comin\' over to see her next\nSunday.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Hale, and he rode on. To his surprise, when he had gone a\nhundred yards, he heard the boy spurring after him and he looked around\ninquiringly as young Dave drew alongside; but the boy said nothing and\nHale, amused, kept still, wondering when the lad would open speech. At\nthe mouth of another little creek the boy stopped his horse as though\nhe was to turn up that way. \"You\'ve come back agin,\" he said, searching\nHale\'s face with his black eyes.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale, \"I\'ve come back again.\"\n\n\"You goin\' over to Lonesome Cove?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe boy hesitated, and a sudden change of mind was plain to Hale in his\nface. \"I wish you\'d tell Uncle Judd about the trouble in town to-day,\"\nhe said, still looking fixedly at Hale.\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"Did you tell the Red Fox that day you seed him when you was goin\' over\nto the Gap last fall that you seed me at Uncle Judd\'s?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale. \"But how did you know that I saw the Red Fox that day?\"\nThe boy laughed unpleasantly.\n\n\"So long,\" he said. \"See you agin some day.\" The way was steep and the\nsun was down and darkness gathering before Hale reached the top of the\nmountain--so he hallooed at the yard fence of the Red Fox, who peered\ncautiously out of the door and asked his name before he came to the\ngate. And there, with a grin on his curious mismatched face, he repeated\nyoung Dave\'s words:\n\n\"You\'ve come back agin.\" And Hale repeated his:\n\n\"Yes, I\'ve come back again.\"\n\n\"You goin\' over to Lonesome Cove?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale impatiently, \"I\'m going over to Lonesome Cove. Can I\nstay here all night?\"\n\n\"Shore!\" said the old man hospitably. \"That\'s a fine hoss you got\nthar,\" he added with a chuckle. \"Been swappin\'?\" Hale had to laugh as he\nclimbed down from the bony ear-flopping beast.\n\n\"I left my horse in town--he\'s lame.\"\n\n\"Yes, I seed you thar.\" Hale could not resist: \"Yes, and I seed you.\"\nThe old man almost turned.\n\n\"Whar?\" Again the temptation was too great.\n\n\"Talking to the Falin who started the row.\" This time the Red Fox\nwheeled sharply and his pale-blue eyes filled with suspicion.\n\n\"I keeps friends with both sides,\" he said. \"Ain\'t many folks can do\nthat.\"\n\n\"I reckon not,\" said Hale calmly, but in the pale eyes he still saw\nsuspicion.\n\nWhen they entered the cabin, a little old woman in black, dumb and\nnoiseless, was cooking supper. The children of the two, he learned, had\nscattered, and they lived there alone. On the mantel were two pistols\nand in one corner was the big Winchester he remembered and behind it\nwas the big brass telescope. On the table was a Bible and a volume of\nSwedenborg, and among the usual strings of pepper-pods and beans and\ntwisted long green tobacco were drying herbs and roots of all kinds, and\nabout the fireplace were bottles of liquids that had been stewed from\nthem. The little old woman served, and opened her lips not at all.\nSupper was eaten with no further reference to the doings in town that\nday, and no word was said about their meeting when Hale first went to\nLonesome Cove until they were smoking on the porch.\n\n\"I heerd you found some mighty fine coal over in Lonesome Cove.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found somethin\' else thar, too,\"\nchuckled the Red Fox.\n\n\"I did,\" said Hale coolly, and the old man chuckled again.\n\n\"She\'s a purty leetle gal--shore.\"\n\n\"Who is?\" asked Hale, looking calmly at his questioner, and the Red Fox\nlapsed into baffled silence.\n\nThe moon was brilliant and the night was still. Suddenly the Red Fox\ncocked his ear like a hound, and without a word slipped swiftly within\nthe cabin. A moment later Hale heard the galloping of a horse and from\nout the dark woods loped a horseman with a Winchester across his saddle\nbow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could shout \"Hello\" the Red\nFox had stepped from the porch into the moonlight and was going to\nmeet him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful, daring figure on\nhorseback, and in the bright light he could make out the reckless face\nof the man who had been the first to flash his pistol in town that\nday--Bad Rufe Tolliver. For ten minutes the two talked in whispers--Rufe\nbent forward with one elbow on the withers of his horse but lifting his\neyes every now and then to the stranger seated in the porch--and then\nthe horseman turned with an oath and galloped into the darkness whence\nhe came, while the Red Fox slouched back to the porch and dropped\nsilently into his seat.\n\n\"Who was that?\" asked Hale.\n\n\"Bad Rufe Tolliver.\"\n\n\"I\'ve heard of him.\"\n\n\"Most everybody in these mountains has. He\'s the feller that\'s always\ncausin\' trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end\nthe war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don\'t count\nnow an\' he\'s got the right to come back. Soon\'s he comes back, things\ngit frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn\'t go back unless another Falin\ngoes too. Wirt Falin agreed, and that\'s how they made peace to-day. Now\nRufe says he won\'t go at all--truce or no truce. My wife in thar is\na Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of\n\'em.\"\n\nNo doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or mischief with or against\nanybody with that face of his. That was a common type of the bad man,\nthat horseman who had galloped away from the gate--but this old man with\nhis dual face, who preached the Word on Sundays and on other days was a\nwalking arsenal; who dreamed dreams and had visions and slipped through\nthe hills in his mysterious moccasins on errands of mercy or chasing men\nfrom vanity, personal enmity or for fun, and still appeared so sane--he\nwas a type that confounded. No wonder for these reasons and as a tribute\nto his infernal shrewdness he was known far and wide as the Red Fox\nof the Mountains. But Hale was too tired for further speculation and\npresently he yawned.\n\n\"Want to lay down?\" asked the old man quickly.\n\n\"I think I do,\" said Hale, and they went inside. The little old woman\nhad her face to the wall in a bed in one corner and the Red Fox pointed\nto a bed in the other:\n\n\"Thar\'s yo\' bed.\" Again Hale\'s eyes fell on the big Winchester.\n\n\"I reckon thar hain\'t more\'n two others like it in all these mountains.\"\n\n\"What\'s the calibre?\"\n\n\"Biggest made,\" was the answer, \"a 50 x 75.\"\n\n\"Centre fire?\"\n\n\"Rim,\" said the Red Fox.\n\n\"Gracious,\" laughed Hale, \"what do you want such a big one for?\"\n\n\"Man cannot live by bread alone--in these mountains,\" said the Red Fox\ngrimly.\n\nWhen Hale lay down he could hear the old man quavering out a hymn or two\non the porch outside: and when, worn out with the day, he went to sleep,\nthe Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a tallow dip. It is\nfatefully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look\nback to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot\nthat night in the cabin of the Red Fox. For had Bad Rufe Tolliver, while\nhe whispered at the gate, known the part the quiet young man silently\nseated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where\nhe sat: and could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was\nto play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nHale opened his eyes next morning on the little old woman in black,\nmoving ghost-like through the dim interior to the kitchen. A wood-thrush\nwas singing when he stepped out on the porch and its cool notes had the\nliquid freshness of the morning. Breakfast over, he concluded to leave\nthe yellow mule with the Red Fox to be taken back to the county town,\nand to walk down the mountain, but before he got away the landlord\'s son\nturned up with his own horse, still lame, but well enough to limp along\nwithout doing himself harm. So, leading the black horse, Hale started\ndown.\n\nThe sun was rising over still seas of white mist and wave after wave\nof blue Virginia hills. In the shadows below, it smote the mists into\ntatters; leaf and bush glittered as though after a heavy rain, and down\nHale went under a trembling dew-drenched world and along a tumbling\nseries of water-falls that flashed through tall ferns, blossoming laurel\nand shining leaves of rhododendron. Once he heard something move below\nhim and then the crackling of brush sounded far to one side of the\nroad. He knew it was a man who would be watching him from a covert and,\nstraightway, to prove his innocence of any hostile or secret purpose, he\nbegan to whistle. Farther below, two men with Winchesters rose from\nthe bushes and asked his name and his business. He told both readily.\nEverybody, it seemed, was prepared for hostilities and, though the news\nof the patched-up peace had spread, it was plain that the factions were\nstill suspicious and on guard. Then the loneliness almost of Lonesome\nCove itself set in. For miles he saw nothing alive but an occasional\nbird and heard no sound but of running water or rustling leaf. At the\nmouth of the creek his horse\'s lameness had grown so much better that\nhe mounted him and rode slowly up the river. Within an hour he could\nsee the still crest of the Lonesome Pine. At the mouth of a creek a\nmile farther on was an old gristmill with its water-wheel asleep, and\nwhittling at the door outside was the old miller, Uncle Billy Beams,\nwho, when he heard the coming of the black horse\'s feet, looked up and\nshowed no surprise at all when he saw Hale.\n\n\"I heard you was comin\',\" he shouted, hailing him cheerily by name.\n\"Ain\'t fishin\' this time!\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale, \"not this time.\"\n\n\"Well, git down and rest a spell. June\'ll be here in a minute an\' you\ncan ride back with her. I reckon you air goin\' that a-way.\"\n\n\"June!\"\n\n\"Shore! My, but she\'ll be glad to see ye! She\'s always talkin\' about ye.\nYou told her you was comin\' back an\' ever\'body told her you wasn\'t: but\nthat leetle gal al\'ays said she KNOWED you was, because you SAID you\nwas. She\'s growed some--an\' if she ain\'t purty, well I\'d tell a man! You\njes\' tie yo\' hoss up thar behind the mill so she can\'t see it, an\' git\ninside the mill when she comes round that bend thar. My, but hit\'ll be a\nsurprise fer her.\"\n\nThe old man chuckled so cheerily that Hale, to humour him, hitched his\nhorse to a sapling, came back and sat in the door of the mill. The old\nman knew all about the trouble in town the day before.\n\n\"I want to give ye a leetle advice. Keep yo\' mouth plum\' shut about this\nhere war. I\'m Jestice of the Peace, but that\'s the only way I\'ve kept\nouten of it fer thirty years; an\' hit\'s the only way you can keep outen\nit.\"\n\n\"Thank you, I mean to keep my mouth shut, but would you mind--\"\n\n\"Git in!\" interrupted the old man eagerly. \"Hyeh she comes.\" His kind\nold face creased into a welcoming smile, and between the logs of the\nmill Hale, inside, could see an old sorrel horse slowly coming through\nthe lights and shadows down the road. On its back was a sack of corn and\nperched on the sack was a little girl with her bare feet in the hollows\nbehind the old nag\'s withers. She was looking sidewise, quite hidden by\na scarlet poke-bonnet, and at the old man\'s shout she turned the smiling\nface of little June. With an answering cry, she struck the old nag with\na switch and before the old man could rise to help her down, slipped\nlightly to the ground.\n\n\"Why, honey,\" he said, \"I don\'t know whut I\'m goin\' to do \'bout yo\'\ncorn. Shaft\'s broke an\' I can\'t do no grindin\' till to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Well, Uncle Billy, we ain\'t got a pint o\' meal in the house,\" she said.\n\"You jes\' got to LEND me some.\"\n\n\"All right, honey,\" said the old man, and he cleared his throat as a\nsignal for Hale.\n\nThe little girl was pushing her bonnet back when Hale stepped into sight\nand, unstartled, unsmiling, unspeaking, she looked steadily at him--one\nhand motionless for a moment on her bronze heap of hair and then\nslipping down past her cheek to clench the other tightly. Uncle Billy\nwas bewildered.\n\n\"Why, June, hit\'s Mr. Hale--why---\"\n\n\"Howdye, June!\" said Hale, who was no less puzzled--and still she gave\nno sign that she had ever seen him before except reluctantly to give him\nher hand. Then she turned sullenly away and sat down in the door of the\nmill with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.\n\nDumfounded, the old miller pulled the sack of corn from the horse\nand leaned it against the mill. Then he took out his pipe, filled and\nlighted it slowly and turned his perplexed eyes to the sun.\n\n\"Well, honey,\" he said, as though he were doing the best he could with a\ndifficult situation, \"I\'ll have to git you that meal at the house. \'Bout\ndinner time now. You an\' Mr. Hale thar come on and git somethin\' to eat\nafore ye go back.\"\n\n\"I got to get on back home,\" said June, rising.\n\n\"No you ain\'t--I bet you got dinner fer yo\' step-mammy afore you left,\nan\' I jes\' know you was aimin\' to take a snack with me an\' ole Hon.\"\nThe little girl hesitated--she had no denial--and the old fellow smiled\nkindly.\n\n\"Come on, now.\"\n\nLittle June walked on the other side of the miller from Hale back to the\nold man\'s cabin, two hundred yards up the road, answering his questions\nbut not Hale\'s and never meeting the latter\'s eyes with her own. \"Ole\nHon,\" the portly old woman whom Hale remembered, with brass-rimmed\nspectacles and a clay pipe in her mouth, came out on the porch and\nwelcomed them heartily under the honeysuckle vines. Her mouth and face\nwere alive with humour when she saw Hale, and her eyes took in both him\nand the little girl keenly. The miller and Hale leaned chairs against\nthe wall while the girl sat at the entrance of the porch. Suddenly Hale\nwent out to his horse and took out a package from his saddle-pockets.\n\n\"I\'ve got some candy in here for you,\" he said smiling.\n\n\"I don\'t want no candy,\" she said, still not looking at him and with a\nlittle movement of her knees away from him.\n\n\"Why, honey,\" said Uncle Billy again, \"whut IS the matter with ye? I\nthought ye was great friends.\" The little girl rose hastily.\n\n\"No, we ain\'t, nuther,\" she said, and she whisked herself indoors. Hale\nput the package back with some embarrassment and the old miller laughed.\n\n\"Well, well--she\'s a quar little critter; mebbe she\'s mad because you\nstayed away so long.\"\n\nAt the table June wanted to help ole Hon and wait to eat with her, but\nUncle Billy made her sit down with him and Hale, and so shy was she that\nshe hardly ate anything. Once only did she look up from her plate and\nthat was when Uncle Billy, with a shake of his head, said:\n\n\"He\'s a bad un.\" He was speaking of Rufe Tolliver, and at the mention of\nhis name there was a frightened look in the little girl\'s eyes, when she\nquickly raised them, that made Hale wonder.\n\nAn hour later they were riding side by side--Hale and June--on through\nthe lights and shadows toward Lonesome Cove. Uncle Billy turned back\nfrom the gate to the porch.\n\n\"He ain\'t come back hyeh jes\' fer coal,\" said ole Hon.\n\n\"Shucks!\" said Uncle Billy; \"you women-folks can\'t think \'bout nothin\'\n\'cept one thing. He\'s too old fer her.\"\n\n\"She\'ll git ole enough fer HIM--an\' you menfolks don\'t think less--you\njes\' talk less.\" And she went back into the kitchen, and on the porch\nthe old miller puffed on a new idea in his pipe.\n\nFor a few minutes the two rode in silence and not yet had June lifted\nher eyes to him.\n\n\"You\'ve forgotten me, June.\"\n\n\"No, I hain\'t, nuther.\"\n\n\"You said you\'d be waiting for me.\" June\'s lashes went lower still.\n\n\"I was.\"\n\n\"Well, what\'s the matter? I\'m mighty sorry I couldn\'t get back sooner.\"\n\n\"Huh!\" said June scornfully, and he knew Uncle Billy in his guess as to\nthe trouble was far afield, and so he tried another tack.\n\n\"I\'ve been over to the county seat and I saw lots of your kinfolks over\nthere.\" She showed no curiosity, no surprise, and still she did not look\nup at him.\n\n\"I met your cousin, Loretta, over there and I carried her home behind me\non an old mule\"--Hale paused, smiling at the remembrance--and still she\nbetrayed no interest.\n\n\"She\'s a mighty pretty girl, and whenever I\'d hit that old---\"\n\n\"She hain\'t!\"--the words were so shrieked out that Hale was bewildered,\nand then he guessed that the falling out between the fathers was more\nserious than he had supposed.\n\n\"But she isn\'t as nice as you are,\" he added quickly, and the girl\'s\nquivering mouth steadied, the tears stopped in her vexed dark eyes and\nshe lifted them to him at last.\n\n\"She ain\'t?\"\n\n\"No, indeed, she ain\'t.\"\n\nFor a while they rode along again in silence. June no longer avoided his\neyes now, and the unspoken question in her own presently came out:\n\n\"You won\'t let Uncle Rufe bother me no more, will ye?\"\n\n\"No, indeed, I won\'t,\" said Hale heartily. \"What does he do to you?\"\n\n\"Nothin\'--\'cept he\'s always a-teasin\' me, an\'--an\' I\'m afeered o\' him.\"\n\n\"Well, I\'ll take care of Uncle Rufe.\"\n\n\"I knowed YOU\'D say that,\" she said. \"Pap and Dave always laughs at me,\"\nand she shook her head as though she were already threatening her\nbad uncle with what Hale would do to him, and she was so serious and\ntrustful that Hale was curiously touched. By and by he lifted one flap\nof his saddle-pockets again.\n\n\"I\'ve got some candy here for a nice little girl,\" he said, as though\nthe subject had not been mentioned before. \"It\'s for you. Won\'t you have\nsome?\"\n\n\"I reckon I will,\" she said with a happy smile.\n\nHale watched her while she munched a striped stick of peppermint. Her\ncrimson bonnet had fallen from her sunlit hair and straight down from it\nto her bare little foot with its stubbed toe just darkening with dried\nblood, a sculptor would have loved the rounded slenderness in the\ncurving long lines that shaped her brown throat, her arms and her hands,\nwhich were prettily shaped but so very dirty as to the nails, and her\ndangling bare leg. Her teeth were even and white, and most of them\nflashed when her red lips smiled. Her lashes were long and gave a\ntouching softness to her eyes even when she was looking quietly at him,\nbut there were times, as he had noticed already, when a brooding\nlook stole over them, and then they were the lair for the mysterious\nloneliness that was the very spirit of Lonesome Cove. Some day that\nlittle nose would be long enough, and some day, he thought, she would be\nvery beautiful.\n\n\"Your cousin, Loretta, said she was coming over to see you.\"\n\nJune\'s teeth snapped viciously through the stick of candy and then she\nturned on him and behind the long lashes and deep down in the depth of\nthose wonderful eyes he saw an ageless something that bewildered him\nmore than her words.\n\n\"I hate her,\" she said fiercely.\n\n\"Why, little girl?\" he said gently.\n\n\"I don\'t know--\" she said--and then the tears came in earnest and she\nturned her head, sobbing. Hale helplessly reached over and patted her on\nthe shoulder, but she shrank away from him.\n\n\"Go away!\" she said, digging her fist into her eyes until her face was\ncalm again.\n\nThey had reached the spot on the river where he had seen her first, and\nbeyond, the smoke of the cabin was rising above the undergrowth.\n\n\"Lordy!\" she said, \"but I do git lonesome over hyeh.\"\n\n\"Wouldn\'t you like to go over to the Gap with me sometimes?\"\n\nStraightway her face was a ray of sunlight.\n\n\"Would--I like--to--go--over--\"\n\nShe stopped suddenly and pulled in her horse, but Hale had heard\nnothing.\n\n\"Hello!\" shouted a voice from the bushes, and Devil Judd Tolliver issued\nfrom them with an axe on his shoulder. \"I heerd you\'d come back an\'\nI\'m glad to see ye.\" He came down to the road and shook Hale\'s hand\nheartily.\n\n\"Whut you been cryin\' about?\" he added, turning his hawk-like eyes on\nthe little girl.\n\n\"Nothin\',\" she said sullenly.\n\n\"Did she git mad with ye \'bout somethin\'?\" said the old man to Hale.\n\"She never cries \'cept when she\'s mad.\" Hale laughed.\n\n\"You jes\' hush up--both of ye,\" said the girl with a sharp kick of her\nright foot.\n\n\"I reckon you can\'t stamp the ground that fer away from it,\" said the\nold man dryly. \"If you don\'t git the better of that all-fired temper o\'\nyourn hit\'s goin\' to git the better of you, an\' then I\'ll have to spank\nyou agin.\"\n\n\"I reckon you ain\'t goin\' to whoop me no more, pap. I\'m a-gittin\' too\nbig.\"\n\nThe old man opened eyes and mouth with an indulgent roar of laughter.\n\n\"Come on up to the house,\" he said to Hale, turning to lead the way, the\nlittle girl following him. The old step-mother was again a-bed; small\nBub, the brother, still unafraid, sat down beside Hale and the old man\nbrought out a bottle of moonshine.\n\n\"I reckon I can still trust ye,\" he said.\n\n\"I reckon you can,\" laughed Hale.\n\nThe liquor was as fiery as ever, but it was grateful, and again the\nold man took nearly a tumbler full plying Hale, meanwhile, about the\nhappenings in town the day before--but Hale could tell him nothing that\nhe seemed not already to know.\n\n\"It was quar,\" the old mountaineer said. \"I\'ve seed two men with the\ndrap on each other and both afeerd to shoot, but I never heerd of sech a\nring-around-the-rosy as eight fellers with bead on one another and not a\nshoot shot. I\'m glad I wasn\'t thar.\"\n\nHe frowned when Hale spoke of the Red Fox.\n\n\"You can\'t never tell whether that ole devil is fer ye or agin ye, but\nI\'ve been plum\' sick o\' these doin\'s a long time now and sometimes\nI think I\'ll just pull up stakes and go West and git out of\nhit--altogether.\"\n\n\"How did you learn so much about yesterday--so soon?\"\n\n\"Oh, we hears things purty quick in these mountains. Little Dave\nTolliver come over here last night.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" broke in Bub, \"and he tol\' us how you carried Loretty from town\non a mule behind ye, and she jest a-sassin\' you, an\' as how she said she\nwas a-goin\' to git you fer HER sweetheart.\"\n\nHale glanced by chance at the little girl. Her face was scarlet, and a\nlight dawned.\n\n\"An\' sis, thar, said he was a-tellin\' lies--an\' when she growed up she\nsaid she was a-goin\' to marry---\"\n\nSomething snapped like a toy-pistol and Bub howled. A little brown hand\nhad whacked him across the mouth, and the girl flashed indoors without\na word. Bub got to his feet howling with pain and rage and started after\nher, but the old man caught him:\n\n\"Set down, boy! Sarved you right fer blabbin\' things that hain\'t yo\'\nbusiness.\" He shook with laughter.\n\nJealousy! Great heavens--Hale thought--in that child, and for him!\n\n\"I knowed she was cryin\' \'bout something like that. She sets a great\nstore by you, an\' she\'s studied them books you sent her plum\' to pieces\nwhile you was away. She ain\'t nothin\' but a baby, but in sartain ways\nshe\'s as old as her mother was when she died.\" The amazing secret was\nout, and the little girl appeared no more until supper time, when she\nwaited on the table, but at no time would she look at Hale or speak to\nhim again. For a while the two men sat on the porch talking of the feud\nand the Gap and the coal on the old man\'s place, and Hale had no trouble\ngetting an option for a year on the old man\'s land. Just as dusk was\nsetting he got his horse.\n\n\"You\'d better stay all night.\"\n\n\"No, I\'ll have to get along.\"\n\nThe little girl did not appear to tell him goodby, and when he went to\nhis horse at the gate, he called:\n\n\"Tell June to come down here. I\'ve got something for her.\"\n\n\"Go on, baby,\" the old man said, and the little girl came shyly down to\nthe gate. Hale took a brown-paper parcel from his saddle-bags, unwrapped\nit and betrayed the usual blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked doll.\nOnly June did not know the like of it was in all the world. And as she\ncaught it to her breast there were tears once more in her uplifted eyes.\n\n\"How about going over to the Gap with me, little girl--some day?\"\n\nHe never guessed it, but there were a child and a woman before him now\nand both answered:\n\n\"I\'ll go with ye anywhar.\"\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nHale stopped a while to rest his horse at the base of the big pine. He\nwas practically alone in the world. The little girl back there was\nborn for something else than slow death in that God-forsaken cove, and\nwhatever it was--why not help her to it if he could? With this thought\nin his brain, he rode down from the luminous upper world of the moon and\nstars toward the nether world of drifting mists and black ravines. She\nbelonged to just such a night--that little girl--she was a part of its\nmists, its lights and shadows, its fresh wild beauty and its mystery.\nOnly once did his mind shift from her to his great purpose, and that was\nwhen the roar of the water through the rocky chasm of the Gap made him\nthink of the roar of iron wheels, that, rushing through, some day, would\ndrown it into silence. At the mouth of the Gap he saw the white valley\nlying at peace in the moonlight and straightway from it sprang again, as\nalways, his castle in the air; but before he fell asleep in his cottage\non the edge of the millpond that night he heard quite plainly again:\n\n\"I\'ll go with ye--anywhar.\"\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nSpring was coming: and, meanwhile, that late autumn and short winter,\nthings went merrily on at the gap in some ways, and in some ways--not.\n\nWithin eight miles of the place, for instance, the man fell ill--the man\nwho was to take up Hale\'s options--and he had to be taken home. Still\nHale was undaunted: here he was and here he would stay--and he would try\nagain. Two other young men, Bluegrass Kentuckians, Logan and\nMacfarlan, had settled at the gap--both lawyers and both of pioneer,\nIndian-fighting blood. The report of the State geologist had been spread\nbroadcast. A famous magazine writer had come through on horseback and\nhad gone home and given a fervid account of the riches and the beauty of\nthe region. Helmeted Englishmen began to prowl prospectively around the\ngap sixty miles to the southwest. New surveying parties were directing\nlines for the rocky gateway between the iron ore and the coal. Engineers\nand coal experts passed in and out. There were rumours of a furnace\nand a steel plant when the railroad should reach the place. Capital had\nflowed in from the East, and already a Pennsylvanian was starting a main\nentry into a ten-foot vein of coal up through the gap and was coking\nit. His report was that his own was better than the Connellsville coke,\nwhich was the standard: it was higher in carbon and lower in ash. The\nLudlow brothers, from Eastern Virginia, had started a general store. Two\nof the Berkley brothers had come over from Bluegrass Kentucky and their\nfamily was coming in the spring. The bearded Senator up the valley, who\nwas also a preacher, had got his Methodist brethren interested--and the\ncommunity was further enriched by the coming of the Hon. Samuel Budd,\nlawyer and budding statesman. As a recreation, the Hon. Sam was an\nanthropologist: he knew the mountaineers from Virginia to Alabama and\nthey were his pet illustrations of his pet theories of the effect of\na mountain environment on human life and character. Hale took a great\nfancy to him from the first moment he saw his smooth, ageless, kindly\nface, surmounted by a huge pair of spectacles that were hooked behind\ntwo large ears, above which his pale yellow hair, parted in the middle,\nwas drawn back with plaster-like precision. A mayor and a constable\nhad been appointed, and the Hon. Sam had just finished his first\ncase--Squire Morton and the Widow Crane, who ran a boarding-house, each\nhaving laid claim to three pigs that obstructed traffic in the town. The\nHon. Sam was sitting by the stove, deep in thought, when Hale came\ninto the hotel and he lifted his great glaring lenses and waited for no\nintroduction:\n\n\"Brother,\" he said, \"do you know twelve reliable witnesses come on\nthe stand and SWORE them pigs belonged to the squire\'s sow, and twelve\nequally reliable witnesses SWORE them pigs belonged to the Widow Crane\'s\nsow? I shorely was a heap perplexed.\"\n\n\"That was curious.\" The Hon. Sam laughed:\n\n\"Well, sir, them intelligent pigs used both them sows as mothers, and\nmay be they had another mother somewhere else. They would breakfast with\nthe Widow Crane\'s sow and take supper with the squire\'s sow. And so them\nwitnesses, too, was naturally perplexed.\"\n\nHale waited while the Hon. Sam puffed his pipe into a glow:\n\n\"Believin\', as I do, that the most important principle in law is\nmutually forgivin\' and a square division o\' spoils, I suggested a\ncompromise. The widow said the squire was an old rascal an\' thief and\nhe\'d never sink a tooth into one of them shoats, but that her lawyer\nwas a gentleman--meanin\' me--and the squire said the widow had been\nblackguardin\' him all over town and he\'d see her in heaven before she\ngot one, but that HIS lawyer was a prince of the realm: so the other\nlawyer took one and I got the other.\"\n\n\"What became of the third?\"\n\nThe Hon. Sam was an ardent disciple of Sir Walter Scott:\n\n\"Well, just now the mayor is a-playin\' Gurth to that little runt for\ncosts.\"\n\nOutside, the wheels of the stage rattled, and as half a dozen strangers\ntrooped in, the Hon. Sam waved his hand: \"Things is comin\'.\"\n\nThings were coming. The following week \"the booming editor\" brought in\na printing-press and started a paper. An enterprising Hoosier soon\nestablished a brick-plant. A geologist--Hale\'s predecessor in Lonesome\nCove--made the Gap his headquarters, and one by one the vanguard of\nengineers, surveyors, speculators and coalmen drifted in. The wings of\nprogress began to sprout, but the new town-constable soon tendered his\nresignation with informality and violence. He had arrested a Falin,\nwhose companions straightway took him from custody and set him free.\nStraightway the constable threw his pistol and badge of office to the\nground.\n\n\"I\'ve fit an\' I\'ve hollered fer help,\" he shouted, almost crying with\nrage, \"an\' I\'ve fit agin. Now this town can go to hell\": and he picked\nup his pistol but left his symbol of law and order in the dust. Next\nmorning there was a new constable, and only that afternoon when Hale\nstepped into the Ludlow Brothers\' store he found the constable already\nbusy. A line of men with revolver or knife in sight was drawn up inside\nwith their backs to Hale, and beyond them he could see the new constable\nwith a man under arrest. Hale had not forgotten his promise to himself\nand he began now:\n\n\"Come on,\" he called quietly, and when the men turned at the sound of\nhis voice, the constable, who was of sterner stuff than his predecessor,\npushed through them, dragging his man after him.\n\n\"Look here, boys,\" said Hale calmly. \"Let\'s not have any row. Let him go\nto the mayor\'s office. If he isn\'t guilty, the mayor will let him go. If\nhe is, the mayor will give him bond. I\'ll go on it myself. But let\'s not\nhave a row.\"\n\nNow, to the mountain eye, Hale appeared no more than the ordinary man,\nand even a close observer would have seen no more than that his face was\nclean-cut and thoughtful, that his eye was blue and singularly clear\nand fearless, and that he was calm with a calmness that might come from\nanything else than stolidity of temperament--and that, by the way, is\nthe self-control which counts most against the unruly passions of other\nmen--but anybody near Hale, at a time when excitement was high and a\ncrisis was imminent, would have felt the resultant of forces emanating\nfrom him that were beyond analysis. And so it was now--the curious power\nhe instinctively had over rough men had its way.\n\n\"Go on,\" he continued quietly, and the constable went on with his\nprisoner, his friends following, still swearing and with their weapons\nin their hands. When constable and prisoner passed into the mayor\'s\noffice, Hale stepped quickly after them and turned on the threshold with\nhis arm across the door.\n\n\"Hold on, boys,\" he said, still good-naturedly. \"The mayor can attend to\nthis. If you boys want to fight anybody, fight me. I\'m unarmed and you\ncan whip me easily enough,\" he added with a laugh, \"but you mustn\'t come\nin here,\" he concluded, as though the matter was settled beyond further\ndiscussion. For one instant--the crucial one, of course--the men\nhesitated, for the reason that so often makes superior numbers of no\navail among the lawless--the lack of a leader of nerve--and without\nanother word Hale held the door. But the frightened mayor inside let the\nprisoner out at once on bond and Hale, combining law and diplomacy, went\non the bond.\n\nOnly a day or two later the mountaineers, who worked at the brick-plant\nwith pistols buckled around them, went on a strike and, that night, shot\nout the lights and punctured the chromos in their boarding-house. Then,\narmed with sticks, knives, clubs and pistols, they took a triumphant\nmarch through town. That night two knives and two pistols were whipped\nout by two of them in the same store. One of the Ludlows promptly blew\nout the light and astutely got under the counter. When the combatants\nscrambled outside, he locked the door and crawled out the back window.\nNext morning the brick-yard malcontents marched triumphantly again and\nHale called for volunteers to arrest them. To his disgust only Logan,\nMacfarlan, the Hon. Sam Budd, and two or three others seemed willing to\ngo, but when the few who would go started, Hale, leading them, looked\nback and the whole town seemed to be strung out after him. Below the\nhill, he saw the mountaineers drawn up in two bodies for battle and, as\nhe led his followers towards them, the Hoosier owner of the plant rode\nout at a gallop, waving his hands and apparently beside himself with\nanxiety and terror.\n\n\"Don\'t,\" he shouted; \"somebody\'ll get killed. Wait--they\'ll give up.\" So\nHale halted and the Hoosier rode back. After a short parley he came back\nto Hale to say that the strikers would give up, but when Logan started\nagain, they broke and ran, and only three or four were captured. The\nHoosier was delirious over his troubles and straightway closed his\nplant.\n\n\"See,\" said Hale in disgust. \"We\'ve got to do something now.\"\n\n\"We have,\" said the lawyers, and that night on Hale\'s porch, the three,\nwith the Hon. Sam Budd, pondered the problem. They could not build a\ntown without law and order--they could not have law and order without\ntaking part themselves, and even then they plainly would have their\nhands full. And so, that night, on the tiny porch of the little cottage\nthat was Hale\'s sleeping-room and office, with the creaking of the one\nwheel of their one industry--the old grist-mill--making patient music\nthrough the rhododendron-darkness that hid the steep bank of the\nstream, the three pioneers forged their plan. There had been\ngentlemen-regulators a plenty, vigilance committees of gentlemen, and\nthe Ku-Klux clan had been originally composed of gentlemen, as they all\nknew, but they meant to hew to the strict line of town-ordinance and\ncommon law and do the rough everyday work of the common policeman.\nSo volunteer policemen they would be and, in order to extend their\nauthority as much as possible, as county policemen they would be\nenrolled. Each man would purchase his own Winchester, pistol, billy,\nbadge and a whistle--to call for help--and they would begin drilling and\ntarget-shooting at once. The Hon. Sam shook his head dubiously:\n\n\"The natives won\'t understand.\"\n\n\"We can\'t help that,\" said Hale.\n\n\"I know--I\'m with you.\"\n\nHale was made captain, Logan first lieutenant, Macfarlan second, and the\nHon. Sam third. Two rules, Logan, who, too, knew the mountaineer well,\nsuggested as inflexible. One was never to draw a pistol at all unless\nnecessary, never to pretend to draw as a threat or to intimidate, and\nnever to draw unless one meant to shoot, if need be.\n\n\"And the other,\" added Logan, \"always go in force to make an\narrest--never alone unless necessary.\" The Hon. Sam moved his head up\nand down in hearty approval.\n\n\"Why is that?\" asked Hale.\n\n\"To save bloodshed,\" he said. \"These fellows we will have to deal with\nhave a pride that is morbid. A mountaineer doesn\'t like to go home and\nhave to say that one man put him in the calaboose--but he doesn\'t mind\ntelling that it took several to arrest him. Moreover, he will give in\nto two or three men, when he would look on the coming of one man as a\npersonal issue and to be met as such.\"\n\nHale nodded.\n\n\"Oh, there\'ll be plenty of chances,\" Logan added with a smile, \"for\neveryone to go it alone.\" Again the Hon. Sam nodded grimly. It was\nplain to him that they would have all they could do, but no one of them\ndreamed of the far-reaching effect that night\'s work would bring.\n\nThey were the vanguard of civilization--\"crusaders of the nineteenth\ncentury against the benighted of the Middle Ages,\" said the Hon. Sam,\nand when Logan and Macfarlan left, he lingered and lit his pipe.\n\n\"The trouble will be,\" he said slowly, \"that they won\'t understand our\npurpose or our methods. They will look on us as a lot of meddlesome\n\'furriners\' who have come in to run their country as we please, when\nthey have been running it as they please for more than a hundred years.\nYou see, you mustn\'t judge them by the standards of to-day--you must\ngo back to the standards of the Revolution. Practically, they are the\npioneers of that day and hardly a bit have they advanced. They are\nour contemporary ancestors.\" And then the Hon. Sam, having dropped his\nvernacular, lounged ponderously into what he was pleased to call his\nanthropological drool.\n\n\"You see, mountains isolate people and the effect of isolation on\nhuman life is to crystallize it. Those people over the line have had\nno navigable rivers, no lakes, no wagon roads, except often the beds of\nstreams. They have been cut off from all communication with the outside\nworld. They are a perfect example of an arrested civilization and they\nare the closest link we have with the Old World. They were Unionists\nbecause of the Revolution, as they were Americans in the beginning\nbecause of the spirit of the Covenanter. They live like the pioneers;\nthe axe and the rifle are still their weapons and they still have the\nsame fight with nature. This feud business is a matter of clan-loyalty\nthat goes back to Scotland. They argue this way: You are my friend or\nmy kinsman, your quarrel is my quarrel, and whoever hits you hits me.\nIf you are in trouble, I must not testify against you. If you are an\nofficer, you must not arrest me; you must send me a kindly request to\ncome into court. If I\'m innocent and it\'s perfectly convenient--why,\nmaybe I\'ll come. Yes, we\'re the vanguard of civilization, all right, all\nright--but I opine we\'re goin\' to have a hell of a merry time.\"\n\nHale laughed, but he was to remember those words of the Hon. Samuel\nBudd. Other members of that vanguard began to drift in now by twos and\nthrees from the bluegrass region of Kentucky and from the tide-water\ncountry of Virginia and from New England--strong, bold young men with\nthe spirit of the pioneer and the birth, breeding and education of\ngentlemen, and the war between civilization and a lawlessness that was\nthe result of isolation, and consequent ignorance and idleness started\nin earnest.\n\n\"A remarkable array,\" murmured the Hon. Sam, when he took an inventory\none night with Hale, \"I\'m proud to be among \'em.\"\n\nMany times Hale went over to Lonesome Cove and with every visit his\ninterest grew steadily in the little girl and in the curious people\nover there, until he actually began to believe in the Hon. Sam Budd\'s\nanthropological theories. In the cabin on Lonesome Cove was a crane\nswinging in the big stone fireplace, and he saw the old step-mother and\nJune putting the spinning wheel and the loom to actual use. Sometimes\nhe found a cabin of unhewn logs with a puncheon floor, clapboards for\nshingles and wooden pin and auger holes for nails; a batten wooden\nshutter, the logs filled with mud and stones and holes in the roof for\nthe wind and the rain. Over a pair of buck antlers sometimes lay the\nlong heavy home-made rifle of the backwoodsman--sometimes even with a\nflintlock and called by some pet feminine name. Once he saw the hominy\nblock that the mountaineers had borrowed from the Indians, and once a\nhandmill like the one from which the one woman was taken and the\nother left in biblical days. He struck communities where the medium of\nexchange was still barter, and he found mountaineers drinking metheglin\nstill as well as moonshine. Moreover, there were still log-rollings,\nhouse-warmings, corn-shuckings, and quilting parties, and sports were\nthe same as in pioneer days--wrestling, racing, jumping, and lifting\nbarrels. Often he saw a cradle of beegum, and old Judd had in his house\na fox-horn made of hickory bark which even June could blow. He ran\nacross old-world superstitions, too, and met one seventh son of a\nseventh son who cured children of rash by blowing into their mouths. And\nhe got June to singing transatlantic songs, after old Judd said one day\nthat she knowed the \"miserablest song he\'d ever heerd\"--meaning the most\nsorrowful. And, thereupon, with quaint simplicity, June put her heels on\nthe rung of her chair, and with her elbows on her knees, and her chin\non both bent thumbs, sang him the oldest version of \"Barbara Allen\" in a\nvoice that startled Hale by its power and sweetness. She knew lots more\n\"song-ballets,\" she said shyly, and the old man had her sing some songs\nthat were rather rude, but were as innocent as hymns from her lips.\n\nEverywhere he found unlimited hospitality.\n\n\"Take out, stranger,\" said one old fellow, when there was nothing on\nthe table but some bread and a few potatoes, \"have a tater. Take two of\n\'em--take damn nigh ALL of \'em.\"\n\nMoreover, their pride was morbid, and they were very religious. Indeed,\nthey used religion to cloak their deviltry, as honestly as it was ever\nused in history. He had heard old Judd say once, when he was speaking of\nthe feud:\n\n\"Well, I\'ve al\'ays laid out my enemies. The Lord\'s been on my side an\' I\ngits a better Christian every year.\"\n\nAlways Hale took some children\'s book for June when he went to Lonesome\nCove, and she rarely failed to know it almost by heart when he went\nagain. She was so intelligent that he began to wonder if, in her case,\nat least, another of the Hon. Sam\'s theories might not be true--that\nthe mountaineers were of the same class as the other westward-sweeping\nemigrants of more than a century before, that they had simply lain\ndormant in the hills and--a century counting for nothing in the matter\nof inheritance--that their possibilities were little changed, and\nthat the children of that day would, if given the chance, wipe out the\nhandicap of a century in one generation and take their place abreast\nwith children of the outside world. The Tollivers were of good blood;\nthey had come from Eastern Virginia, and the original Tolliver had\nbeen a slave-owner. The very name was, undoubtedly, a corruption of\nTagliaferro. So, when the Widow Crane began to build a brick house for\nher boarders that winter, and the foundations of a school-house were\nlaid at the Gap, Hale began to plead with old Judd to allow June to go\nover to the Gap and go to school, but the old man was firm in refusal:\n\n\"He couldn\'t git along without her,\" he said; \"he was afeerd he\'d\nlose her, an\' he reckoned June was a-larnin\' enough without goin\' to\nschool--she was a-studyin\' them leetle books o\' hers so hard.\" But as\nhis confidence in Hale grew and as Hale stated his intention to take an\noption on the old man\'s coal lands, he could see that Devil Judd, though\nhis answer never varied, was considering the question seriously.\n\nThrough the winter, then, Hale made occasional trips to Lonesome Cove\nand bided his time. Often he met young Dave Tolliver there, but the\nboy usually left when Hale came, and if Hale was already there, he kept\noutside the house, until the engineer was gone.\n\nKnowing nothing of the ethics of courtship in the mountains--how, when\ntwo men meet at the same girl\'s house, \"they makes the gal say which one\nshe likes best and t\'other one gits\"--Hale little dreamed that the first\ntime Dave stalked out of the room, he threw his hat in the grass\nbehind the big chimney and executed a war-dance on it, cursing the\nblankety-blank \"furriner\" within from Dan to Beersheba.\n\nIndeed, he never suspected the fierce depths of the boy\'s jealousy at\nall, and he would have laughed incredulously, if he had been told how,\ntime after time as he climbed the mountain homeward, the boy\'s black\neyes burned from the bushes on him, while his hand twitched at his\npistol-butt and his lips worked with noiseless threats. For Dave had\nto keep his heart-burnings to himself or he would have been laughed\nat through all the mountains, and not only by his own family, but by\nJune\'s; so he, too, bided his time.\n\nIn late February, old Buck Falin and old Dave Tolliver shot each other\ndown in the road and the Red Fox, who hated both and whom each thought\nwas his friend, dressed the wounds of both with equal care. The\ntemporary lull of peace that Bad Rufe\'s absence in the West had brought\nabout, gave way to a threatening storm then, and then it was that old\nJudd gave his consent: when the roads got better, June could go to the\nGap to school. A month later the old man sent word that he did not want\nJune in the mountains while the trouble was going on, and that Hale\ncould come over for her when he pleased: and Hale sent word back that\nwithin three days he would meet the father and the little girl at the\nbig Pine. That last day at home June passed in a dream. She went through\nher daily tasks in a dream and she hardly noticed young Dave when he\ncame in at mid-day, and Dave, when he heard the news, left in sullen\nsilence. In the afternoon she went down to the mill to tell Uncle Billy\nand ole Hon good-by and the three sat in the porch a long time and with\nfew words. Ole Hon had been to the Gap once, but there was \"so much\nbustle over thar it made her head ache.\" Uncle Billy shook his head\ndoubtfully over June\'s going, and the two old people stood at the gate\nlooking long after the little girl when she went homeward up the road.\nBefore supper June slipped up to her little hiding-place at the pool and\nsat on the old log saying good-by to the comforting spirit that always\nbrooded for her there, and, when she stood on the porch at sunset, a\nnew spirit was coming on the wings of the South wind. Hale felt it as\nhe stepped into the soft night air; he heard it in the piping of\nfrogs--\"Marsh-birds,\" as he always called them; he could almost see it\nin the flying clouds and the moonlight and even the bare trees seemed\ntremulously expectant. An indefinable happiness seemed to pervade the\nwhole earth and Hale stretched his arms lazily. Over in Lonesome Cove\nlittle June felt it more keenly than ever in her life before. She did\nnot want to go to bed that night, and when the others were asleep she\nslipped out to the porch and sat on the steps, her eyes luminous and her\nface wistful--looking towards the big Pine which pointed the way towards\nthe far silence into which she was going at last.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nJune did not have to be awakened that morning. At the first clarion call\nof the old rooster behind the cabin, her eyes opened wide and a happy\nthrill tingled her from head to foot--why, she didn\'t at first quite\nrealize--and then she stretched her slender round arms to full length\nabove her head and with a little squeal of joy bounded out of the bed,\ndressed as she was when she went into it, and with no changes to make\nexcept to push back her tangled hair. Her father was out feeding the\nstock and she could hear her step-mother in the kitchen. Bub still slept\nsoundly, and she shook him by the shoulder.\n\n\"Git up, Bub.\"\n\n\"Go \'way,\" said Bub fretfully. Again she started to shake him but\nstopped--Bub wasn\'t going to the Gap, so she let him sleep. For a little\nwhile she looked down at him--at his round rosy face and his frowsy hair\nfrom under which protruded one dirty fist. She was going to leave him,\nand a fresh tenderness for him made her breast heave, but she did not\nkiss him, for sisterly kisses are hardly known in the hills. Then she\nwent out into the kitchen to help her step-mother.\n\n\"Gittin\' mighty busy, all of a sudden, ain\'t ye,\" said the sour old\nwoman, \"now that ye air goin\' away.\"\n\n\"\'Tain\'t costin\' you nothin\',\" answered June quietly, and she picked up\na pail and went out into the frosty, shivering daybreak to the old well.\nThe chain froze her fingers, the cold water splashed her feet, and when\nshe had tugged her heavy burden back to the kitchen, she held her red,\nchapped hands to the fire.\n\n\"I reckon you\'ll be mighty glad to git shet o\' me.\" The old woman\nsniffled, and June looked around with a start.\n\n\"Pears like I\'m goin\' to miss ye right smart,\" she quavered, and June\'s\nface coloured with a new feeling towards her step-mother.\n\n\"I\'m goin\' ter have a hard time doin\' all the work and me so poorly.\"\n\n\"Lorrety is a-comin\' over to he\'p ye, if ye git sick,\" said June,\nhardening again. \"Or, I\'ll come back myself.\" She got out the dishes and\nset them on the table.\n\n\"You an\' me don\'t git along very well together,\" she went on placidly.\n\"I never heerd o\' no step-mother and children as did, an\' I reckon\nyou\'ll be might glad to git shet o\' me.\"\n\n\"Pears like I\'m going to miss ye a right smart,\" repeated the old woman\nweakly.\n\nJune went out to the stable with the milking pail. Her father had spread\nfodder for the cow and she could hear the rasping of the ears of corn\nagainst each other as he tumbled them into the trough for the old\nsorrel. She put her head against the cow\'s soft flank and under her\nsinewy fingers two streams of milk struck the bottom of the tin pail\nwith such thumping loudness that she did not hear her father\'s step;\nbut when she rose to make the beast put back her right leg, she saw him\nlooking at her.\n\n\"Who\'s goin\' ter milk, pap, atter I\'m gone?\"\n\n\"This the fust time you thought o\' that?\" June put her flushed cheek\nback to the flank of the cow. It was not the first time she had thought\nof that--her step-mother would milk and if she were ill, her father or\nLoretta. She had not meant to ask that question--she was wondering when\nthey would start. That was what she meant to ask and she was glad that\nshe had swerved. Breakfast was eaten in the usual silence by the boy and\nthe man--June and the step-mother serving it, and waiting on the lord\nthat was and the lord that was to be--and then the two females sat down.\n\n\"Hurry up, June,\" said the old man, wiping his mouth and beard with the\nback of his hand. \"Clear away the dishes an\' git ready. Hale said he\nwould meet us at the Pine an\' hour by sun, fer I told him I had to git\nback to work. Hurry up, now!\"\n\nJune hurried up. She was too excited to eat anything, so she began\nto wash the dishes while her step-mother ate. Then she went into the\nliving-room to pack her things and it didn\'t take long. She wrapped the\ndoll Hale had given her in an extra petticoat, wound one pair of yarn\nstockings around a pair of coarse shoes, tied them up into one bundle\nand she was ready. Her father appeared with the sorrel horse, caught up\nhis saddle from the porch, threw it on and stretched the blanket behind\nit as a pillion for June to ride on.\n\n\"Let\'s go!\" he said. There is little or no demonstrativeness in the\ndomestic relations of mountaineers. The kiss of courtship is the only\none known. There were no good-bys--only that short \"Let\'s go!\"\n\nJune sprang behind her father from the porch. The step-mother handed her\nthe bundle which she clutched in her lap, and they simply rode away, the\nstep-mother and Bub silently gazing after them. But June saw the boy\'s\nmouth working, and when she turned the thicket at the creek, she looked\nback at the two quiet figures, and a keen pain cut her heart. She\nshut her mouth closely, gripped her bundle more tightly and the tears\nstreamed down her face, but the man did not know. They climbed in\nsilence. Sometimes her father dismounted where the path was steep, but\nJune sat on the horse to hold the bundle and thus they mounted through\nthe mist and chill of the morning. A shout greeted them from the top of\nthe little spur whence the big Pine was visible, and up there they found\nHale waiting. He had reached the Pine earlier than they and was coming\ndown to meet them.\n\n\"Hello, little girl,\" called Hale cheerily, \"you didn\'t fail me, did\nyou?\"\n\nJune shook her head and smiled. Her face was blue and her little legs,\ndangling under the bundle, were shrinking from the cold. Her bonnet had\nfallen to the back of her neck, and he saw that her hair was parted and\ngathered in a Psyche knot at the back of her head, giving her a quaint\nold look when she stood on the ground in her crimson gown. Hale had not\nforgotten a pillion and there the transfer was made. Hale lifted her\nbehind his saddle and handed up her bundle.\n\n\"I\'ll take good care of her,\" he said.\n\n\"All right,\" said the old man.\n\n\"And I\'m coming over soon to fix up that coal matter, and I\'ll let you\nknow how she\'s getting on.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Good-by,\" said Hale.\n\n\"I wish ye well,\" said the mountaineer. \"Be a good girl, Juny, and do\nwhat Mr. Hale thar tells ye.\"\n\n\"All right, pap.\" And thus they parted. June felt the power of Hale\'s\nbig black horse with exultation the moment he started.\n\n\"Now we\'re off,\" said Hale gayly, and he patted the little hand that was\nabout his waist. \"Give me that bundle.\"\n\n\"I can carry it.\"\n\n\"No, you can\'t--not with me,\" and when he reached around for it and\nput it on the cantle of his saddle, June thrust her left hand into his\novercoat pocket and Hale laughed.\n\n\"Loretta wouldn\'t ride with me this way.\"\n\n\"Loretty ain\'t got much sense,\" drawled June complacently. \"\'Tain\'t no\nharm. But don\'t you tell me! I don\'t want to hear nothin\' \'bout Loretty\nnoway.\" Again Hale laughed and June laughed, too. Imp that she was, she\nwas just pretending to be jealous now. She could see the big Pine over\nhis shoulder.\n\n\"I\'ve knowed that tree since I was a little girl--since I was a baby,\"\nshe said, and the tone of her voice was new to Hale. \"Sister Sally uster\ntell me lots about that ole tree.\" Hale waited, but she stopped again.\n\n\"What did she tell you?\"\n\n\"She used to say hit was curious that hit should be \'way up here all\nalone--that she reckollected it ever since SHE was a baby, and she used\nto come up here and talk to it, and she said sometimes she could hear it\njus\' a whisperin\' to her when she was down home in the cove.\"\n\n\"What did she say it said?\"\n\n\"She said it was always a-whisperin\' \'come--come--come!\'\" June crooned\nthe words, \"an\' atter she died, I heerd the folks sayin\' as how she\nriz up in bed with her eyes right wide an\' sayin\' \"I hears it! It\'s\na-whisperin\'--I hears it--come--come--come\'!\" And still Hale kept quiet\nwhen she stopped again.\n\n\"The Red Fox said hit was the sperits, but I knowed when they told me\nthat she was a thinkin\' o\' that ole tree thar. But I never let on. I\nreckon that\'s ONE reason made me come here that day.\" They were close to\nthe big tree now and Hale dismounted to fix his girth for the descent.\n\n\"Well, I\'m mighty glad you came, little girl. I might never have seen\nyou.\"\n\n\"That\'s so,\" said June. \"I saw the print of your foot in the mud right\nthere.\"\n\n\"Did ye?\"\n\n\"And if I hadn\'t, I might never have gone down into Lonesome Cove.\" June\nlaughed.\n\n\"You ran from me,\" Hale went on.\n\n\"Yes, I did: an\' that\'s why you follered me.\" Hale looked up quickly.\nHer face was demure, but her eyes danced. She was an aged little thing.\n\n\"Why did you run?\"\n\n\"I thought yo\' fishin\' pole was a rifle-gun an\' that you was a raider.\"\nHale laughed--\"I see.\"\n\n\"\'Member when you let yo\' horse drink?\" Hale nodded. \"Well, I was on a\nrock above the creek, lookin\' down at ye. An\' I seed ye catchin\' minners\nan\' thought you was goin\' up the crick lookin\' fer a still.\"\n\n\"Weren\'t you afraid of me then?\"\n\n\"Huh!\" she said contemptuously. \"I wasn\'t afeared of you at all, \'cept\nfer what you mought find out. You couldn\'t do no harm to nobody without\na gun, and I knowed thar wasn\'t no still up that crick. I know--I knowed\nwhar it was.\" Hale noticed the quick change of tense.\n\n\"Won\'t you take me to see it some time?\"\n\n\"No!\" she said shortly, and Hale knew he had made a mistake. It was too\nsteep for both to ride now, so he tied the bundle to the cantle with\nleathern strings and started leading the horse. June pointed to the edge\nof the cliff.\n\n\"I was a-layin\' flat right thar and I seed you comin\' down thar. My,\nbut you looked funny to me! You don\'t now,\" she added hastily. \"You look\nmighty nice to me now--!\"\n\n\"You\'re a little rascal,\" said Hale, \"that\'s what you are.\" The little\ngirl bubbled with laughter and then she grew mock-serious.\n\n\"No, I ain\'t.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are,\" he repeated, shaking his head, and both were silent for\na while. June was going to begin her education now and it was just as\nwell for him to begin with it now. So he started vaguely when he was\nmounted again:\n\n\"June, you thought my clothes were funny when you first saw them--didn\'t\nyou?\"\n\n\"Uh, huh!\" said June.\n\n\"But you like them now?\"\n\n\"Uh, huh!\" she crooned again.\n\n\"Well, some people who weren\'t used to clothes that people wear over\nin the mountains might think THEM funny for the same reason--mightn\'t\nthey?\" June was silent for a moment.\n\n\"Well, mebbe, I like your clothes better, because I like you better,\"\nshe said, and Hale laughed.\n\n\"Well, it\'s just the same--the way people in the mountains dress and\ntalk is different from the way people outside dress and talk. It doesn\'t\nmake much difference about clothes, though, I guess you will want to be\nas much like people over here as you can--\"\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" interrupted the little girl shortly, \"I ain\'t seed \'em\nyit.\"\n\n\"Well,\" laughed Hale, \"you will want to talk like them anyhow, because\neverybody who is learning tries to talk the same way.\" June was silent,\nand Hale plunged unconsciously on.\n\n\"Up at the Pine now you said, \'I SEED you when I was A-LAYIN on the\nedge of the cliff\'; now you ought to have said, \'I SAW you when I was\nLYING--\'\"\n\n\"I wasn\'t,\" she said sharply, \"I don\'t tell lies--\" her hand shot from\nhis waist and she slid suddenly to the ground. He pulled in his horse\nand turned a bewildered face. She had lighted on her feet and was poised\nback above him like an enraged eaglet--her thin nostrils quivering, her\nmouth as tight as a bow-string, and her eyes two points of fire.\n\n\"Why--June!\"\n\n\"Ef you don\'t like my clothes an\' the way I talk, I reckon I\'d better go\nback home.\" With a groan Hale tumbled from his horse. Fool that he was,\nhe had forgotten the sensitive pride of the mountaineer, even while he\nwas thinking of that pride. He knew that fun might be made of her speech\nand her garb by her schoolmates over at the Gap, and he was trying to\nprepare her--to save her mortification, to make her understand.\n\n\"Why, June, little girl, I didn\'t mean to hurt your feelings. You don\'t\nunderstand--you can\'t now, but you will. Trust me, won\'t you? _I_ like\nyou just as you are. I LOVE the way you talk. But other people--forgive\nme, won\'t you?\" he pleaded. \"I\'m sorry. I wouldn\'t hurt you for the\nworld.\"\n\nShe didn\'t understand--she hardly heard what he said, but she did know\nhis distress was genuine and his sorrow: and his voice melted her fierce\nlittle heart. The tears began to come, while she looked, and when he put\nhis arms about her, she put her face on his breast and sobbed.\n\n\"There now!\" he said soothingly. \"It\'s all right now. I\'m so sorry--so\nvery sorry,\" and he patted her on the shoulder and laid his hand across\nher temple and hair, and pressed her head tight to his breast. Almost as\nsuddenly she stopped sobbing and loosening herself turned away from him.\n\n\"I\'m a fool--that\'s what I am,\" she said hotly.\n\n\"No, you aren\'t! Come on, little girl! We\'re friends again, aren\'t we?\"\nJune was digging at her eyes with both hands.\n\n\"Aren\'t we?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said with an angry little catch of her breath, and she turned\nsubmissively to let him lift her to her seat. Then she looked down into\nhis face.\n\n\"Jack,\" she said, and he started again at the frank address, \"I ain\'t\nNEVER GOIN\' TO DO THAT NO MORE.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are, little girl,\" he said soberly but cheerily. \"You\'re goin\'\nto do it whenever I\'m wrong or whenever you think I\'m wrong.\" She shook\nher head seriously.\n\n\"No, Jack.\"\n\nIn a few minutes they were at the foot of the mountain and on a level\nroad.\n\n\"Hold tight!\" Hale shouted, \"I\'m going to let him out now.\" At the\ntouch of his spur, the big black horse sprang into a gallop, faster and\nfaster, until he was pounding the hard road in a swift run like thunder.\nAt the creek Hale pulled in and looked around. June\'s bonnet was down,\nher hair was tossed, her eyes were sparkling fearlessly, and her face\nwas flushed with joy.\n\n\"Like it, June?\"\n\n\"I never did know nothing like it.\"\n\n\"You weren\'t scared?\"\n\n\"Skeered o\' what?\" she asked, and Hale wondered if there was anything of\nwhich she would be afraid.\n\nThey were entering the Gap now and June\'s eyes got big with wonder over\nthe mighty up-shooting peaks and the rushing torrent.\n\n\"See that big rock yonder, June?\" June craned her neck to follow with\nher eyes his outstretched finger.\n\n\"Uh, huh.\"\n\n\"Well, that\'s called Bee Rock, because it\'s covered with flowers--purple\nrhododendrons and laurel--and bears used to go there for wild honey.\nThey say that once on a time folks around here put whiskey in the honey\nand the bears got so drunk that people came and knocked \'em in the head\nwith clubs.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you think o\' that!\" said June wonderingly.\n\nBefore them a big mountain loomed, and a few minutes later, at the mouth\nof the Gap, Hale stopped and turned his horse sidewise.\n\n\"There we are, June,\" he said.\n\nJune saw the lovely little valley rimmed with big mountains. She could\nfollow the course of the two rivers that encircled it by the trees that\nfringed their banks, and she saw smoke rising here and there and that\nwas all. She was a little disappointed.\n\n\"It\'s mighty purty,\" she said, \"I never seed\"--she paused, but went on\nwithout correcting herself--\"so much level land in all my life.\"\n\nThe morning mail had just come in as they rode by the post-office and\nseveral men hailed her escort, and all stared with some wonder at her.\nHale smiled to himself, drew up for none and put on a face of utter\nunconsciousness that he was doing anything unusual. June felt vaguely\nuncomfortable. Ahead of them, when they turned the corner of the street,\nher eyes fell on a strange tall red house with yellow trimmings, that\nwas not built of wood and had two sets of windows one above the other,\nand before that Hale drew up.\n\n\"Here we are. Get down, little girl.\"\n\n\"Good-morning!\" said a voice. Hale looked around and flushed, and\nJune looked around and stared--transfixed as by a vision from another\nworld--at the dainty figure behind them in a walking suit, a short skirt\nthat showed two little feet in laced tan boots and a cap with a plume,\nunder which was a pair of wide blue eyes with long lashes, and a mouth\nthat suggested active mischief and gentle mockery.\n\n\"Oh, good-morning,\" said Hale, and he added gently, \"Get down, June!\"\n\nThe little girl slipped to the ground and began pulling her bonnet on\nwith both hands--but the newcomer had caught sight of the Psyche knot\nthat made June look like a little old woman strangely young, and the\nmockery at her lips was gently accentuated by a smile. Hale swung from\nhis saddle.\n\n\"This is the little girl I told you about, Miss Anne,\" he said. \"She\'s\ncome over to go to school.\" Instantly, almost, Miss Anne had been melted\nby the forlorn looking little creature who stood before her, shy for the\nmoment and dumb, and she came forward with her gloved hand outstretched.\nBut June had seen that smile. She gave her hand, and Miss Anne\nstraightway was no little surprised; there was no more shyness in the\ndark eyes that blazed from the recesses of the sun-bonnet, and Miss Anne\nwas so startled when she looked into them that all she could say was:\n\"Dear me!\" A portly woman with a kind face appeared at the door of the\nred brick house and came to the gate.\n\n\"Here she is, Mrs. Crane,\" called Hale.\n\n\"Howdye, June!\" said the Widow Crane kindly. \"Come right in!\" In her\nJune knew straightway she had a friend and she picked up her bundle and\nfollowed upstairs--the first real stairs she had ever seen--and into\na room on the floor of which was a rag carpet. There was a bed in one\ncorner with a white counterpane and a washstand with a bowl and pitcher,\nwhich, too, she had never seen before.\n\n\"Make yourself at home right now,\" said the Widow Crane, pulling open a\ndrawer under a big looking-glass--\"and put your things here. That\'s your\nbed,\" and out she went.\n\nHow clean it was! There were some flowers in a glass vase on the mantel.\nThere were white curtains at the big window and a bed to herself--her\nown bed. She went over to the window. There was a steep bank, lined with\nrhododendrons, right under it. There was a mill-dam below and down the\nstream she could hear the creaking of a water-wheel, and she could see\nit dripping and shining in the sun--a gristmill! She thought of Uncle\nBilly and ole Hon, and in spite of a little pang of home-sickness she\nfelt no loneliness at all.\n\n\"I KNEW she would be pretty,\" said Miss Anne at the gate outside.\n\n\"I TOLD you she was pretty,\" said Hale.\n\n\"But not so pretty as THAT,\" said Miss Anne. \"We will be great friends.\"\n\n\"I hope so--for her sake,\" said Hale.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nHale waited till noon-recess was nearly over, and then he went to take\nJune to the school-house. He was told that she was in her room and he\nwent up and knocked at the door. There was no answer--for one does not\nknock on doors for entrance in the mountains, and, thinking he had made\na mistake, he was about to try another room, when June opened the door\nto see what the matter was. She gave him a glad smile.\n\n\"Come on,\" he said, and when she went for her bonnet, he stepped into\nthe room.\n\n\"How do you like it?\" June nodded toward the window and Hale went to it.\n\n\"That\'s Uncle Billy\'s mill out thar.\"\n\n\"Why, so it is,\" said Hale smiling. \"That\'s fine.\"\n\nThe school-house, to June\'s wonder, had shingles on the OUTSIDE around\nall the walls from roof to foundation, and a big bell hung on top of\nit under a little shingled roof of its own. A pale little man with\nspectacles and pale blue eyes met them at the door and he gave June a\npale, slender hand and cleared his throat before he spoke to her.\n\n\"She\'s never been to school,\" said Hale; \"she can read and spell, but\nshe\'s not very strong on arithmetic.\"\n\n\"Very well, I\'ll turn her over to the primary.\" The school-bell sounded;\nHale left with a parting prophecy--\"You\'ll be proud of her some day\"--at\nwhich June blushed and then, with a beating heart, she followed the\nlittle man into his office. A few minutes later, the assistant came\nin, and she was none other than the wonderful young woman whom Hale had\ncalled Miss Anne. There were a few instructions in a halting voice and\nwith much clearing of the throat from the pale little man; and a moment\nlater June walked the gauntlet of the eyes of her schoolmates, every one\nof whom looked up from his book or hers to watch her as she went to her\nseat. Miss Anne pointed out the arithmetic lesson and, without lifting\nher eyes, June bent with a flushed face to her task. It reddened with\nshame when she was called to the class, for she sat on the bench, taller\nby a head and more than any of the boys and girls thereon, except\none awkward youth who caught her eye and grinned with unashamed\ncompanionship. The teacher noticed her look and understood with a sudden\nkeen sympathy, and naturally she was struck by the fact that the new\npupil was the only one who never missed an answer.\n\n\"She won\'t be there long,\" Miss Anne thought, and she gave June a smile\nfor which the little girl was almost grateful. June spoke to no one, but\nwalked through her schoolmates homeward, when school was over, like a\nhaughty young queen. Miss Anne had gone ahead and was standing at the\ngate talking with Mrs. Crane, and the young woman spoke to June most\nkindly.\n\n\"Mr. Hale has been called away on business,\" she said, and June\'s heart\nsank--\"and I\'m going to take care of you until he comes back.\"\n\n\"I\'m much obleeged,\" she said, and while she was not ungracious, her\nmanner indicated her belief that she could take care of herself. And\nMiss Anne felt uncomfortably that this extraordinary young person\nwas steadily measuring her from head to foot. June saw the smart\nclose-fitting gown, the dainty little boots, and the carefully brushed\nhair. She noticed how white her teeth were and her hands, and she saw\nthat the nails looked polished and that the tips of them were like\nlittle white crescents; and she could still see every detail when she\nsat at her window, looting down at the old mill. She SAW Mr. Hale when\nhe left, the young lady had said; and she had a headache now and was\ngoing home to LIE down. She understood now what Hale meant, on the\nmountainside when she was so angry with him. She was learning fast, and\nmost from the two persons who were not conscious what they were teaching\nher. And she would learn in the school, too, for the slumbering ambition\nin her suddenly became passionately definite now. She went to the mirror\nand looked at her hair--she would learn how to plait that in two braids\ndown her back, as the other school-girls did. She looked at her hands\nand straightway she fell to scrubbing them with soap as she had never\nscrubbed them before. As she worked, she heard her name called and she\nopened the door.\n\n\"Yes, mam!\" she answered, for already she had picked that up in the\nschool-room.\n\n\"Come on, June, and go down the street with me.\"\n\n\"Yes, mam,\" she repeated, and she wiped her hands and hurried down. Mrs.\nCrane had looked through the girl\'s pathetic wardrobe, while she was\nat school that afternoon, had told Hale before he left and she had a\nsurprise for little June. Together they went down the street and into\nthe chief store in town and, to June\'s amazement, Mrs. Crane began\nordering things for \"this little girl.\"\n\n\"Who\'s a-goin\' to pay fer all these things?\" whispered June, aghast.\n\n\"Don\'t you bother, honey. Mr. Hale said he would fix all that with your\npappy. It\'s some coal deal or something--don\'t you bother!\" And June in\na quiver of happiness didn\'t bother. Stockings, petticoats, some soft\nstuff for a new dress and TAN shoes that looked like the ones that\nwonderful young woman wore and then some long white things.\n\n\"What\'s them fer?\" she whispered, but the clerk heard her and laughed,\nwhereat Mrs. Crane gave him such a glance that he retired quickly.\n\n\"Night-gowns, honey.\"\n\n\"You SLEEP in \'em?\" said June in an awed voice.\n\n\"That\'s just what you do,\" said the good old woman, hardly less pleased\nthan June.\n\n\"My, but you\'ve got pretty feet.\"\n\n\"I wish they were half as purty as--\"\n\n\"Well, they are,\" interrupted Mrs. Crane a little snappishly; apparently\nshe did not like Miss Anne.\n\n\"Wrap \'em up and Mr. Hale will attend to the bill.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said the clerk looking much mystified.\n\nOutside the door, June looked up into the beaming goggles of the Hon.\nSamuel Budd.\n\n\"Is THIS the little girl? Howdye, June,\" he said, and June put her hand\nin the Hon. Sam\'s with a sudden trust in his voice.\n\n\"I\'m going to help take care of you, too,\" said Mr. Budd, and June\nsmiled at him with shy gratitude. How kind everybody was!\n\n\"I\'m much obleeged,\" she said, and she and Mrs. Crane went on back with\ntheir bundles.\n\nJune\'s hands so trembled when she found herself alone with her treasures\nthat she could hardly unpack them. When she had folded and laid them\naway, she had to unfold them to look at them again. She hurried to\nbed that night merely that she might put on one of those wonderful\nnight-gowns, and again she had to look all her treasures over. She was\nglad that she had brought the doll because HE had given it to her, but\nshe said to herself \"I\'m a-gittin\' too big now fer dolls!\" and she put\nit away. Then she set the lamp on the mantel-piece so that she could see\nherself in her wonderful night-gown. She let her shining hair fall like\nmolten gold around her shoulders, and she wondered whether she could\never look like the dainty creature that just now was the model she so\npassionately wanted to be like. Then she blew out the lamp and sat a\nwhile by the window, looking down through the rhododendrons, at the\nshining water and at the old water-wheel sleepily at rest in the\nmoonlight. She knelt down then at her bedside to say her prayers--as\nher dead sister had taught her to do--and she asked God to bless\nJack--wondering as she prayed that she had heard nobody else call him\nJack--and then she lay down with her breast heaving. She had told him\nshe would never do that again, but she couldn\'t help it now--the tears\ncame and from happiness she cried herself softly to sleep.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nHale rode that night under a brilliant moon to the worm of a railroad\nthat had been creeping for many years toward the Gap. The head of it was\njust protruding from the Natural Tunnel twenty miles away. There he\nsent his horse back, slept in a shanty till morning, and then the train\ncrawled through a towering bench of rock. The mouth of it on the other\nside opened into a mighty amphitheatre with solid rock walls shooting\nvertically hundreds of feet upward. Vertically, he thought--with the\nback of his head between his shoulders as he looked up--they were more\nthan vertical--they were actually concave. The Almighty had not only\nstored riches immeasurable in the hills behind him--He had driven this\npassage Himself to help puny man to reach them, and yet the wretched\nroad was going toward them like a snail. On the fifth night, thereafter\nhe was back there at the tunnel again from New York--with a grim mouth\nand a happy eye. He had brought success with him this time and there was\nno sleep for him that night. He had been delayed by a wreck, it was two\no\'clock in the morning, and not a horse was available; so he started\nthose twenty miles afoot, and day was breaking when he looked down on\nthe little valley shrouded in mist and just wakening from sleep.\n\nThings had been moving while he was away, as he quickly learned.\nThe English were buying lands right and left at the gap sixty miles\nsouthwest. Two companies had purchased most of the town-site where he\nwas--HIS town-site--and were going to pool their holdings and form an\nimprovement company. But a good deal was left, and straightway Hale got\na map from his office and with it in his hand walked down the curve of\nthe river and over Poplar Hill and beyond. Early breakfast was ready\nwhen he got back to the hotel. He swallowed a cup of coffee so hastily\nthat it burned him, and June, when she passed his window on her way to\nschool, saw him busy over his desk. She started to shout to him, but\nhe looked so haggard and grim that she was afraid, and went on, vaguely\nhurt by a preoccupation that seemed quite to have excluded her. For two\nhours then, Hale haggled and bargained, and at ten o\'clock he went to\nthe telegraph office. The operator who was speculating in a small way\nhimself smiled when he read the telegram.\n\n\"A thousand an acre?\" he repeated with a whistle. \"You could have got\nthat at twenty-five per--three months ago.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Hale, \"there\'s time enough yet.\" Then he went to his\nroom, pulled the blinds down and went to sleep, while rumour played with\nhis name through the town.\n\nIt was nearly the closing hour of school when, dressed and freshly\nshaven, he stepped out into the pale afternoon and walked up toward the\nschoolhouse. The children were pouring out of the doors. At the gate\nthere was a sudden commotion, he saw a crimson figure flash into the\ngroup that had stopped there, and flash out, and then June came swiftly\ntoward him followed closely by a tall boy with a cap on his head. That\nfar away he could see that she was angry and he hurried toward her. Her\nface was white with rage, her mouth was tight and her dark eyes were\naflame. Then from the group another tall boy darted out and behind\nhim ran a smaller one, bellowing. Hale heard the boy with the cap call\nkindly:\n\n\"Hold on, little girl! I won\'t let \'em touch you.\" June stopped with him\nand Hale ran to them.\n\n\"Here,\" he called, \"what\'s the matter?\"\n\nJune burst into crying when she saw him and leaned over the fence\nsobbing. The tall lad with the cap had his back to Hale, and he waited\ntill the other two boys came up. Then he pointed to the smaller one and\nspoke to Hale without looking around.\n\n\"Why, that little skate there was teasing this little girl and--\"\n\n\"She slapped him,\" said Hale grimly. The lad with the cap turned. His\neyes were dancing and the shock of curly hair that stuck from his absurd\nlittle cap shook with his laughter.\n\n\"Slapped him! She knocked him as flat as a pancake.\"\n\n\"Yes, an\' you said you\'d stand fer her,\" said the other tall boy who was\nplainly a mountain lad. He was near bursting with rage.\n\n\"You bet I will,\" said the boy with the cap heartily, \"right now!\" and\nhe dropped his books to the ground.\n\n\"Hold on!\" said Hale, jumping between them. \"You ought to be ashamed of\nyourself,\" he said to the mountain boy.\n\n\"I wasn\'t atter the gal,\" he said indignantly. \"I was comin\' fer him.\"\n\nThe boy with the cap tried to get away from Hale\'s grasp.\n\n\"No use, sir,\" he said coolly. \"You\'d better let us settle it now. We\'ll\nhave to do it some time. I know the breed. He\'ll fight all right and\nthere\'s no use puttin\' it off. It\'s got to come.\"\n\n\"You bet it\'s got to come,\" said the mountain lad. \"You can\'t call my\nbrother names.\"\n\n\"Well, he IS a skate,\" said the boy with the cap, with no heat at all in\nspite of his indignation, and Hale wondered at his aged calm.\n\n\"Every one of you little tads,\" he went on coolly, waving his hand at\nthe gathered group, \"is a skate who teases this little girl. And you\nolder boys are skates for letting the little ones do it, the whole pack\nof you--and I\'m going to spank any little tadpole who does it hereafter,\nand I\'m going to punch the head off any big one who allows it. It\'s got\nto stop NOW!\" And as Hale dragged him off he added to the mountain boy,\n\"and I\'m going to begin with you whenever you say the word.\" Hale was\nlaughing now.\n\n\"You don\'t seem to understand,\" he said, \"this is my affair.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir, I don\'t understand.\"\n\n\"Why, I\'m taking care of this little girl.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, you see I didn\'t know that. I\'ve only been here two days.\nBut\"--his frank, generous face broke into a winning smile--\"you don\'t go\nto school. You\'ll let me watch out for her there?\"\n\n\"Sure! I\'ll be very grateful.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir--not at all. It was a great pleasure and I think I\'ll\nhave lots of fun.\" He looked at June, whose grateful eyes had hardly\nleft his face.\n\n\"So don\'t you soil your little fist any more with any of \'em, but just\ntell me--er--er--\"\n\n\"June,\" she said, and a shy smile came through her tears.\n\n\"June,\" he finished with a boyish laugh. \"Good-by sir.\"\n\n\"You haven\'t told me your name.\"\n\n\"I suppose you know my brothers, sir, the Berkleys.\"\n\n\"I should say so,\" and Hale held out his hand. \"You\'re Bob?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I knew you were coming, and I\'m mighty glad to see you. I hope you and\nJune will be good friends and I\'ll be very glad to have you watch over\nher when I\'m away.\"\n\n\"I\'d like nothing better, sir,\" he said cheerfully, and quite\nimpersonally as far as June was concerned. Then his eyes lighted up.\n\n\"My brothers don\'t seem to want me to join the Police Guard. Won\'t you\nsay a word for me?\"\n\n\"I certainly will.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir.\"\n\nThat \"sir\" no longer bothered Hale. At first he had thought it a mark\nof respect to his superior age, and he was not particularly pleased, but\nwhen he knew now that the lad was another son of the old gentleman whom\nhe saw riding up the valley every morning on a gray horse, with\nseveral dogs trailing after him--he knew the word was merely a family\ncharacteristic of old-fashioned courtesy.\n\n\"Isn\'t he nice, June?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said.\n\n\"Have you missed me, June?\"\n\nJune slid her hand into his. \"I\'m so glad you come back.\" They were\napproaching the gate now.\n\n\"June, you said you weren\'t going to cry any more.\" June\'s head drooped.\n\n\"I know, but I jes\' can\'t help it when I git mad,\" she said seriously.\n\"I\'d bust if I didn\'t.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Hale kindly.\n\n\"I\'ve cried twice,\" she said.\n\n\"What were you mad about the other time?\"\n\n\"I wasn\'t mad.\"\n\n\"Then why did you cry, June?\"\n\nHer dark eyes looked full at him a moment and then her long lashes hid\nthem.\n\n\"Cause you was so good to me.\"\n\nHale choked suddenly and patted her on the shoulder.\n\n\"Go in, now, little girl, and study. Then you must take a walk. I\'ve got\nsome work to do. I\'ll see you at supper time.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said June. She turned at the gate to watch Hale enter the\nhotel, and as she started indoors, she heard a horse coming at a gallop\nand she turned again to see her cousin, Dave Tolliver, pull up in front\nof the house. She ran back to the gate and then she saw that he was\nswaying in his saddle.\n\n\"Hello, June!\" he called thickly.\n\nHer face grew hard and she made no answer.\n\n\"I\'ve come over to take ye back home.\"\n\nShe only stared at him rebukingly, and he straightened in his saddle\nwith an effort at self-control--but his eyes got darker and he looked\nugly.\n\n\"D\'you hear me? I\'ve come over to take ye home.\"\n\n\"You oughter be ashamed o\' yourself,\" she said hotly, and she turned to\ngo back into the house.\n\n\"Oh, you ain\'t ready now. Well, git ready an\' we\'ll start in the\nmornin\'. I\'ll be aroun\' fer ye \'bout the break o\' day.\"\n\nHe whirled his horse with an oath--June was gone. She saw him ride\nswaying down the street and she ran across to the hotel and found Hale\nsitting in the office with another man. Hale saw her entering the door\nswiftly, he knew something was wrong and he rose to meet her.\n\n\"Dave\'s here,\" she whispered hurriedly, \"an\' he says he\'s come to take\nme home.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Hale, \"he won\'t do it, will he?\" June shook her head and\nthen she said significantly:\n\n\"Dave\'s drinkin\'.\"\n\nHale\'s brow clouded. Straightway he foresaw trouble--but he said\ncheerily:\n\n\"All right. You go back and keep in the house and I\'ll be over by and\nby and we\'ll talk it over.\" And, without another word, she went. She had\nmeant to put on her new dress and her new shoes and stockings that night\nthat Hale might see her--but she was in doubt about doing it when she\ngot to her room. She tried to study her lessons for the next day, but\nshe couldn\'t fix her mind on them. She wondered if Dave might not get\ninto a fight or, perhaps, he would get so drunk that he would go\nto sleep somewhere--she knew that men did that after drinking very\nmuch--and, anyhow, he would not bother her until next morning, and then\nhe would be sober and would go quietly back home. She was so comforted\nthat she got to thinking about the hair of the girl who sat in front of\nher at school. It was plaited and she had studied just how it was done\nand she began to wonder whether she could fix her own that way. So\nshe got in front of the mirror and loosened hers in a mass about her\nshoulders--the mass that was to Hale like the golden bronze of a wild\nturkey\'s wing. The other girl\'s plaits were the same size, so that the\nhair had to be equally divided--thus she argued to herself--but how did\nthat girl manage to plait it behind her back? She did it in front, of\ncourse, so June divided the bronze heap behind her and pulled one half\nof it in front of her and then for a moment she was helpless. Then\nshe laughed--it must be done like the grass-blades and strings she had\nplaited for Bub, of course, so, dividing that half into three parts, she\ndid the plaiting swiftly and easily. When it was finished she looked at\nthe braid, much pleased--for it hung below her waist and was much longer\nthan any of the other girls\' at school. The transition was easy now, so\ninterested had she become. She got out her tan shoes and stockings\nand the pretty white dress and put them on. The millpond was dark with\nshadows now, and she went down the stairs and out to the gate just as\nDave again pulled up in front of it. He stared at the vision wonderingly\nand long, and then he began to laugh with the scorn of soberness and the\nsilliness of drink.\n\n\"YOU ain\'t June, air ye?\" The girl never moved. As if by a preconcerted\nsignal three men moved toward the boy, and one of them said sternly:\n\n\"Drop that pistol. You are under arrest.\' The boy glared like a wild\nthing trapped, from one to another of the three--a pistol gleamed in the\nhand of each--and slowly thrust his own weapon into his pocket.\n\n\"Get off that horse,\" added the stern voice. Just then Hale rushed\nacross the street and the mountain youth saw him.\n\n\"Ketch his pistol,\" cried June, in terror for Hale--for she knew what\nwas coming, and one of the men caught with both hands the wrist of\nDave\'s arm as it shot behind him.\n\n\"Take him to the calaboose!\"\n\nAt that June opened the gate--that disgrace she could never stand--but\nHale spoke.\n\n\"I know him, boys. He doesn\'t mean any harm. He doesn\'t know the\nregulations yet. Suppose we let him go home.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Logan. \"The calaboose or home. Will you go home?\"\n\nIn the moment, the mountain boy had apparently forgotten his captors--he\nwas staring at June with wonder, amazement, incredulity struggling\nthrough the fumes in his brain to his flushed face. She--a Tolliver--had\nwarned a stranger against her own blood-cousin.\n\n\"Will you go home?\" repeated Logan sternly.\n\nThe boy looked around at the words, as though he were half dazed, and\nhis baffled face turned sick and white.\n\n\"Lemme loose!\" he said sullenly. \"I\'ll go home.\" And he rode silently\naway, after giving Hale a vindictive look that told him plainer than\nwords that more was yet to come. Hale had heard June\'s warning cry, but\nnow when he looked for her she was gone. He went in to supper and sat\ndown at the table and still she did not come.\n\n\"She\'s got a surprise for you,\" said Mrs. Crane, smiling mysteriously.\n\"She\'s been fixing for you for an hour. My! but she\'s pretty in them new\nclothes--why, June!\"\n\nJune was coming in--she wore her homespun, her scarlet homespun and the\nPsyche knot. She did not seem to have heard Mrs. Crane\'s note of wonder,\nand she sat quietly down in her seat. Her face was pale and she did not\nlook at Hale. Nothing was said of Dave--in fact, June said nothing at\nall, and Hale, too, vaguely understanding, kept quiet. Only when he went\nout, Hale called her to the gate and put one hand on her head.\n\n\"I\'m sorry, little girl.\"\n\nThe girl lifted her great troubled eyes to him, but no word passed her\nlips, and Hale helplessly left her.\n\nJune did not cry that night. She sat by the window--wretched and\ntearless. She had taken sides with \"furriners\" against her own people.\nThat was why, instinctively, she had put on her old homespun with a\nvague purpose of reparation to them. She knew the story Dave would take\nback home--the bitter anger that his people and hers would feel at\nthe outrage done him--anger against the town, the Guard, against Hale\nbecause he was a part of both and even against her. Dave was merely\ndrunk, he had simply shot off his pistol--that was no harm in the\nhills. And yet everybody had dashed toward him as though he had stolen\nsomething--even Hale. Yes, even that boy with the cap who had stood up\nfor her at school that afternoon--he had rushed up, his face aflame with\nexcitement, eager to take part should Dave resist. She had cried out\nimpulsively to save Hale, but Dave would not understand. No, in his eyes\nshe had been false to family and friends--to the clan--she had sided\nwith \"furriners.\" What would her father say? Perhaps she\'d better go\nhome next day--perhaps for good--for there was a deep unrest within her\nthat she could not fathom, a premonition that she was at the parting of\nthe ways, a vague fear of the shadows that hung about the strange new\npath on which her feet were set. The old mill creaked in the moonlight\nbelow her. Sometimes, when the wind blew up Lonesome Cove, she could\nhear Uncle Billy\'s wheel creaking just that way. A sudden pang of\nhomesickness choked her, but she did not cry. Yes, she would go home\nnext day. She blew out the light and undressed in the dark as she did\nat home and went to bed. And that night the little night-gown lay apart\nfrom her in the drawer--unfolded and untouched.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n\nBut June did not go home. Hale anticipated that resolution of hers and\nforestalled it by being on hand for breakfast and taking June over to\nthe porch of his little office. There he tried to explain to her that\nthey were trying to build a town and must have law and order; that they\nmust have no personal feeling for or against anybody and must treat\neverybody exactly alike--no other course was fair--and though June could\nnot quite understand, she trusted him and she said she would keep on at\nschool until her father came for her.\n\n\"Do you think he will come, June?\"\n\nThe little girl hesitated.\n\n\"I\'m afeerd he will,\" she said, and Hale smiled.\n\n\"Well, I\'ll try to persuade him to let you stay, if he does come.\"\n\nJune was quite right. She had seen the matter the night before just\nas it was. For just at that hour young Dave, sobered, but still on the\nverge of tears from anger and humiliation, was telling the story of the\nday in her father\'s cabin. The old man\'s brows drew together and his\neyes grew fierce and sullen, both at the insult to a Tolliver and at the\nthought of a certain moonshine still up a ravine not far away and the\nindirect danger to it in any finicky growth of law and order. Still he\nhad a keen sense of justice, and he knew that Dave had not told all the\nstory, and from him Dave, to his wonder, got scant comfort--for another\nreason as well: with a deal pending for the sale of his lands, the\nshrewd old man would not risk giving offence to Hale--not until that\nmatter was settled, anyway. And so June was safer from interference\njust then than she knew. But Dave carried the story far and wide, and\nit spread as a story can only in the hills. So that the two people most\ntalked about among the Tollivers and, through Loretta, among the Falins\nas well, were June and Hale, and at the Gap similar talk would come.\nAlready Hale\'s name was on every tongue in the town, and there, because\nof his recent purchases of town-site land, he was already, aside from\nhis personal influence, a man of mysterious power.\n\nMeanwhile, the prescient shadow of the coming \"boom\" had stolen over the\nhills and the work of the Guard had grown rapidly.\n\nEvery Saturday there had been local lawlessness to deal with. The spirit\nof personal liberty that characterized the spot was traditional. Here\nfor half a century the people of Wise County and of Lee, whose border\nwas but a few miles down the river, came to get their wool carded, their\ngrist ground and farming utensils mended. Here, too, elections were held\nviva voce under the beeches, at the foot of the wooded spur now known\nas Imboden Hill. Here were the muster-days of wartime. Here on Saturdays\nthe people had come together during half a century for sport and\nhorse-trading and to talk politics. Here they drank apple-jack and\nhard cider, chaffed and quarrelled and fought fist and skull. Here the\nbullies of the two counties would come together to decide who was the\n\"best man.\" Here was naturally engendered the hostility between the\nhill-dwellers of Wise and the valley people of Lee, and here was fought\na famous battle between a famous bully of Wise and a famous bully of\nLee. On election days the country people would bring in gingercakes\nmade of cane-molasses, bread homemade of Burr flour and moonshine and\napple-jack which the candidates would buy and distribute through the\ncrowd. And always during the afternoon there were men who would try to\nprove themselves the best Democrats in the State of Virginia by resort\nto tooth, fist and eye-gouging thumb. Then to these elections sometimes\nwould come the Kentuckians from over the border to stir up the hostility\nbetween state and state, which makes that border bristle with enmity to\nthis day. For half a century, then, all wild oats from elsewhere usually\nsprouted at the Gap. And thus the Gap had been the shrine of personal\nfreedom--the place where any one individual had the right to do his\npleasure with bottle and cards and politics and any other the right to\nprove him wrong if he were strong enough. Very soon, as the Hon. Sam\nBudd predicted, they had the hostility of Lee concentrated on them as\nsiding with the county of Wise, and they would gain, in addition\nnow, the general hostility of the Kentuckians, because as a crowd of\nmeddlesome \"furriners\" they would be siding with the Virginians in the\ngeneral enmity already alive. Moreover, now that the feud threatened\nactivity over in Kentucky, more trouble must come, too, from that\nsource, as the talk that came through the Gap, after young Dave\nTolliver\'s arrest, plainly indicated.\n\nTown ordinances had been passed. The wild centaurs were no longer\nallowed to ride up and down the plank walks of Saturdays with their\nreins in their teeth and firing a pistol into the ground with either\nhand; they could punctuate the hotel sign no more; they could not ride\nat a fast gallop through the streets of the town, and, Lost Spirit of\nAmerican Liberty!--they could not even yell. But the lawlessness of the\ntown itself and its close environment was naturally the first objective\npoint, and the first problem involved was moonshine and its faithful\nally \"the blind tiger.\" The \"tiger\" is a little shanty with an ever-open\nmouth--a hole in the door like a post-office window. You place your\nmoney on the sill and, at the ring of the coin, a mysterious arm emerges\nfrom the hole, sweeps the money away and leaves a bottle of white\nwhiskey. Thus you see nobody\'s face; the owner of the beast is safe, and\nso are you--which you might not be, if you saw and told. In every little\nhollow about the Gap a tiger had his lair, and these were all bearded at\nonce by a petition to the county judge for high license saloons,\nwhich was granted. This measure drove the tigers out of business, and\nconcentrated moonshine in the heart of the town, where its devotees\nwere under easy guard. One \"tiger\" only indeed was left, run by a\nround-shouldered crouching creature whom Bob Berkley--now at Hale\'s\nsolicitation a policeman and known as the Infant of the Guard--dubbed\nCaliban. His shanty stood midway in the Gap, high from the road, set\nagainst a dark clump of pines and roared at by the river beneath.\nEverybody knew he sold whiskey, but he was too shrewd to be caught,\nuntil, late one afternoon, two days after young Dave\'s arrest, Hale\ncoming through the Gap into town glimpsed a skulking figure with a\nhand-barrel as it slipped from the dark pines into Caliban\'s cabin. He\npulled in his horse, dismounted and deliberated. If he went on down the\nroad now, they would see him and suspect. Moreover, the patrons of the\ntiger would not appear until after dark, and he wanted a prisoner or\ntwo. So Hale led his horse up into the bushes and came back to a covert\nby the roadside to watch and wait. As he sat there, a merry whistle\nsounded down the road, and Hale smiled. Soon the Infant of the Guard\ncame along, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his head,\nhis pistol bumping his hip in manly fashion and making the ravines echo\nwith his pursed lips. He stopped in front of Hale, looked toward the\nriver, drew his revolver and aimed it at a floating piece of wood. The\nrevolver cracked, the piece of wood skidded on the surface of the water\nand there was no splash.\n\n\"That was a pretty good shot,\" said Hale in a low voice. The boy whirled\nand saw him.\n\n\"Well-what are you--?\"\n\n\"Easy--easy!\" cautioned Hale. \"Listen! I\'ve just seen a moonshiner go\ninto Caliban\'s cabin.\" The boy\'s eager eyes sparkled.\n\n\"Let\'s go after him.\"\n\n\"No, you go on back. If you don\'t, they\'ll be suspicious. Get another\nman\"--Hale almost laughed at the disappointment in the lad\'s face at his\nfirst words, and the joy that came after it--\"and climb high above the\nshanty and come back here to me. Then after dark we\'ll dash in and cinch\nCaliban and his customers.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the lad. \"Shall I whistle going back?\" Hale nodded\napproval.\n\n\"Just the same.\" And off Bob went, whistling like a calliope and not\neven turning his head to look at the cabin. In half an hour Hale thought\nhe heard something crashing through the bushes high on the mountain\nside, and, a little while afterward, the boy crawled through the bushes\nto him alone. His cap was gone, there was a bloody scratch across his\nface and he was streaming with perspiration.\n\n\"You\'ll have to excuse me, sir,\" he panted, \"I didn\'t see anybody but\none of my brothers, and if I had told him, he wouldn\'t have let ME come.\nAnd I hurried back for fear--for fear something would happen.\"\n\n\"Well, suppose I don\'t let you go.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, sir, but I don\'t see how you can very well help. You aren\'t\nmy brother and you can\'t go alone.\"\n\n\"I was,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Yes, sir, but not now.\"\n\nHale was worried, but there was nothing else to be done.\n\n\"All right. I\'ll let you go if you stop saying \'sir\' to me. It makes me\nfeel so old.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir,\" said the lad quite unconsciously, and when Hale\nsmothered a laugh, he looked around to see what had amused him. Darkness\nfell quickly, and in the gathering gloom they saw two more figures skulk\ninto the cabin.\n\n\"We\'ll go now--for we want the fellow who\'s selling the moonshine.\"\n\nAgain Hale was beset with doubts about the boy and his own\nresponsibility to the boy\'s brothers. The lad\'s eyes were shining,\nbut his face was more eager than excited and his hand was as steady as\nHale\'s own.\n\n\"You slip around and station yourself behind that pine-tree just behind\nthe cabin\"--the boy looked crestfallen--\"and if anybody tries to get out\nof the back door--you halt him.\"\n\n\"Is there a back door?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" Hale said rather shortly. \"You obey orders. I\'m not your\nbrother, but I\'m your captain.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir. Shall I go now?\"\n\n\"Yes, you\'ll hear me at the front door. They won\'t make any resistance.\"\nThe lad stepped away with nimble caution high above the cabin, and he\neven took his shoes off before he slid lightly down to his place behind\nthe pine. There was no back door, only a window, and his disappointment\nwas bitter. Still, when he heard Hale at the front door, he meant to\nmake a break for that window, and he waited in the still gloom. He could\nhear the rough talk and laughter within and now and then the clink of a\ntin cup. By and by there was a faint noise in front of the cabin, and he\nsteadied his nerves and his beating heart. Then he heard the door pushed\nviolently in and Hale\'s cry:\n\n\"Surrender!\"\n\nHale stood on the threshold with his pistol outstretched in his right\nhand. The door had struck something soft and he said sharply again:\n\n\"Come out from behind that door--hands up!\"\n\nAt the same moment, the back window flew open with a bang and Bob\'s\npistol covered the edge of the opened door. \"Caliban\" had rolled from\nhis box like a stupid animal. Two of his patrons sat dazed and staring\nfrom Hale to the boy\'s face at the window. A mountaineer stood in one\ncorner with twitching fingers and shifting eyes like a caged wild thing\nand forth issued from behind the door, quivering with anger--young Dave\nTolliver. Hale stared at him amazed, and when Dave saw Hale, such a wave\nof fury surged over his face that Bob thought it best to attract his\nattention again; which he did by gently motioning at him with the barrel\nof his pistol.\n\n\"Hold on, there,\" he said quietly, and young Dave stood still.\n\n\"Climb through that window, Bob, and collect the batteries,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Sure, sir,\" said the lad, and with his pistol still prominently in the\nforeground he threw his left leg over the sill and as he climbed in he\nquoted with a grunt: \"Always go in force to make an arrest.\" Grim and\nserious as it was, with June\'s cousin glowering at him, Hale could not\nhelp smiling.\n\n\"You didn\'t go home, after all,\" said Hale to young Dave, who clenched\nhis hands and his lips but answered nothing; \"or, if you did, you got\nback pretty quick.\" And still Dave was silent.\n\n\"Get \'em all, Bob?\" In answer the boy went the rounds--feeling the\npocket of each man\'s right hip and his left breast.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Unload \'em!\"\n\nThe lad \"broke\" each of the four pistols, picked up a piece of twine and\nstrung them together through each trigger-guard.\n\n\"Close that window and stand here at the door.\"\n\nWith the boy at the door, Hale rolled the hand-barrel to the threshold\nand the white liquor gurgled joyously on the steps.\n\n\"All right, come along,\" he said to the captives, and at last young Dave\nspoke:\n\n\"Whut you takin\' me fer?\"\n\nHale pointed to the empty hand-barrel and Dave\'s answer was a look of\nscorn.\n\n\"I nuvver brought that hyeh.\"\n\n\"You were drinking illegal liquor in a blind tiger, and if you didn\'t\nbring it you can prove that later. Anyhow, we\'ll want you as a witness,\"\nand Hale looked at the other mountaineer, who had turned his eyes\nquickly to Dave. Caliban led the way with young Dave, and Hale walked\nside by side with them while Bob was escort for the other two. The road\nran along a high bank, and as Bob was adjusting the jangling weapons\non his left arm, the strange mountaineer darted behind him and leaped\nheadlong into the tops of thick rhododendron. Before Hale knew what had\nhappened the lad\'s pistol flashed.\n\n\"Stop, boy!\" he cried, horrified. \"Don\'t shoot!\" and he had to catch\nthe lad to keep him from leaping after the runaway. The shot had missed;\nthey heard the runaway splash into the river and go stumbling across it\nand then there was silence. Young Dave laughed:\n\n\"Uncle Judd\'ll be over hyeh to-morrow to see about this.\" Hale said\nnothing and they went on. At the door of the calaboose Dave balked and\nhad to be pushed in by main force. They left him weeping and cursing\nwith rage.\n\n\"Go to bed, Bob,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Bob; \"just as soon as I get my lessons.\"\n\nHale did not go to the boarding-house that night--he feared to face\nJune. Instead he went to the hotel to scraps of a late supper and then\nto bed. He had hardly touched the pillow, it seemed, when somebody\nshook him by the shoulder. It was Macfarlan, and daylight was streaming\nthrough the window.\n\n\"A gang of those Falins are here,\" Macfarlan said, \"and they\'re after\nyoung Dave Tolliver--about a dozen of \'em. Young Buck is with them, and\nthe sheriff. They say he shot a man over the mountains yesterday.\"\n\nHale sprang for his clothes--here was a quandary.\n\n\"If we turn him over to them--they\'ll kill him.\" Macfarlan nodded.\n\n\"Of course, and if we leave him in that weak old calaboose, they\'ll get\nmore help and take him out to-night.\"\n\n\"Then we\'ll take him to the county jail.\"\n\n\"They\'ll take him away from us.\"\n\n\"No, they won\'t. You go out and get as many shotguns as you can find and\nload them with buckshot.\"\n\nMacfarlan nodded approvingly and disappeared. Hale plunged his face in\na basin of cold water, soaked his hair and, as he was mopping his face\nwith a towel, there was a ponderous tread on the porch, the door opened\nwithout the formality of a knock, and Devil Judd Tolliver, with his hat\non and belted with two huge pistols, stepped stooping within. His eyes,\nred with anger and loss of sleep, were glaring, and his heavy moustache\nand beard showed the twitching of his mouth.\n\n\"Whar\'s Dave?\" he said shortly.\n\n\"In the calaboose.\"\n\n\"Did you put him in?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale calmly.\n\n\"Well, by God,\" the old man said with repressed fury, \"you can\'t git him\nout too soon if you want to save trouble.\"\n\n\"Look here, Judd,\" said Hale seriously. \"You are one of the last men\nin the world I want to have trouble with for many reasons; but I\'m an\nofficer over here and I\'m no more afraid of you\"--Hale paused to let\nthat fact sink in and it did--\"than you are of me. Dave\'s been selling\nliquor.\"\n\n\"He hain\'t,\" interrupted the old mountaineer. \"He didn\'t bring that\nliquor over hyeh. I know who done it.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Hale; \"I\'ll take your word for it and I\'ll let him\nout, if you say so, but---\"\n\n\"Right now,\" thundered old Judd.\n\n\"Do you know that young Buck Falin and a dozen of his gang are over here\nafter him?\" The old man looked stunned.\n\n\"Whut--now?\"\n\n\"They\'re over there in the woods across the river NOW and they want me\nto give him up to them. They say they have the sheriff with them and\nthey want him for shooting a man on Leatherwood Creek, day before\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"It\'s all a lie,\" burst out old Judd. \"They want to kill him.\"\n\n\"Of course--and I was going to take him up to the county jail right away\nfor safe-keeping.\"\n\n\"D\'ye mean to say you\'d throw that boy into jail and then fight them\nFalins to pertect him?\" the old man asked slowly and incredulously. Hale\npointed to a two-store building through his window.\n\n\"If you get in the back part of that store at a window, you can see\nwhether I will or not. I can summon you to help, and if a fight comes up\nyou can do your share from the window.\"\n\nThe old man\'s eyes lighted up like a leaping flame.\n\n\"Will you let Dave out and give him a Winchester and help us fight \'em?\"\nhe said eagerly. \"We three can whip \'em all.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale shortly. \"I\'d try to keep both sides from fighting, and\nI\'d arrest Dave or you as quickly as I would a Falin.\"\n\nThe average mountaineer has little conception of duty in the abstract,\nbut old Judd belonged to the better class--and there are many of\nthem--that does. He looked into Hale\'s eyes long and steadily.\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nMacfarlan came in hurriedly and stopped short--seeing the hatted,\nbearded giant.\n\n\"This is Mr. Tolliver--an uncle of Dave\'s--Judd Tolliver,\" said Hale.\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"I\'ve got everything fixed--but I couldn\'t get but five of the\nfellows--two of the Berkley boys. They wouldn\'t let me tell Bob.\"\n\n\"All right. Can I summon Mr. Tolliver here?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Macfarlan doubtfully, \"but you know---\"\n\n\"He won\'t be seen,\" interrupted Hale, understandingly. \"He\'ll be at a\nwindow in the back of that store and he won\'t take part unless a fight\nbegins, and if it does, we\'ll need him.\"\n\nAn hour later Devil Judd Tolliver was in the store Hale pointed out and\npeering cautiously around the edge of an open window at the wooden gate\nof the ramshackle calaboose. Several Falins were there--led by young\nBuck, whom Hale recognized as the red-headed youth at the head of the\ntearing horsemen who had swept by him that late afternoon when he was\ncoming back from his first trip to Lonesome Cove. The old man gritted\nhis teeth as he looked and he put one of his huge pistols on a table\nwithin easy reach and kept the other clenched in his right fist. From\ndown the street came five horsemen, led by John Hale. Every man carried\na double-barrelled shotgun, and the old man smiled and his respect for\nHale rose higher, high as it already was, for nobody--mountaineer\nor not--has love for a hostile shotgun. The Falins, armed only with\npistols, drew near.\n\n\"Keep back!\" he heard Hale say calmly, and they stopped--young Buck\nalone going on.\n\n\"We want that feller,\" said young Buck.\n\n\"Well, you don\'t get him,\" said Hale quietly. \"He\'s our prisoner. Keep\nback!\" he repeated, motioning with the barrel of his shotgun--and young\nBuck moved backward to his own men, The old man saw Hale and another\nman--the sergeant--go inside the heavy gate of the stockade. He saw a\nboy in a cap, with a pistol in one hand and a strapped set of books in\nthe other, come running up to the men with the shotguns and he heard one\nof them say angrily:\n\n\"I told you not to come.\"\n\n\"I know you did,\" said the boy imperturbably.\n\n\"You go on to school,\" said another of the men, but the boy with the cap\nshook his head and dropped his books to the ground. The big gate opened\njust then and out came Hale and the sergeant, and between them young\nDave--his eyes blinking in the sunlight.\n\n\"Damn ye,\" he heard Dave say to Hale. \"I\'ll get even with you fer this\nsome day\"--and then the prisoner\'s eyes caught the horses and shotguns\nand turned to the group of Falins and he shrank back utterly dazed.\nThere was a movement among the Falins and Devil Judd caught up his other\npistol and with a grim smile got ready. Young Buck had turned to his\ncrowd:\n\n\"Men,\" he said, \"you know I never back down\"--Devil Judd knew that, too,\nand he was amazed by the words that followed-\"an\' if you say so, we\'ll\nhave him or die; but we ain\'t in our own state now. They\'ve got the law\nand the shotguns on us, an\' I reckon we\'d better go slow.\"\n\nThe rest seemed quite willing to go slow, and, as they put their pistols\nup, Devil Judd laughed in his beard. Hale put young Dave on a horse and\nthe little shotgun cavalcade quietly moved away toward the county-seat.\n\nThe crestfallen Falins dispersed the other way after they had taken\na parting shot at the Hon. Samuel Budd, who, too, had a pistol in his\nhand. Young Buck looked long at him--and then he laughed:\n\n\"You, too, Sam Budd,\" he said. \"We folks\'ll rickollect this on election\nday.\" The Hon. Sam deigned no answer.\n\nAnd up in the store Devil Judd lighted his pipe and sat down to think\nout the strange code of ethics that governed that police-guard. Hale had\ntold him to wait there, and it was almost noon before the boy with the\ncap came to tell him that the Falins had all left town. The old man\nlooked at him kindly.\n\n\"Air you the little feller whut fit fer June?\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" said Bob; \"but it\'s coming.\"\n\n\"Well, you\'ll whoop him.\"\n\n\"I\'ll do my best.\"\n\n\"Whar is she?\"\n\n\"She\'s waiting for you over at the boarding-house.\"\n\n\"Does she know about this trouble?\"\n\n\"Not a thing; she thinks you\'ve come to take her home.\" The old man made\nno answer, and Bob led him back toward Hale\'s office. June was waiting\nat the gate, and the boy, lifting his cap, passed on. June\'s eyes were\ndark with anxiety.\n\n\"You come to take me home, dad?\"\n\n\"I been thinkin\' \'bout it,\" he said, with a doubtful shake of his head.\n\nJune took him upstairs to her room and pointed out the old water-wheel\nthrough the window and her new clothes (she had put on her old homespun\nagain when she heard he was in town), and the old man shook his head.\n\n\"I\'m afeerd \'bout all these fixin\'s--you won\'t never be satisfied agin\nin Lonesome Cove.\"\n\n\"Why, dad,\" she said reprovingly. \"Jack says I can go over whenever I\nplease, as soon as the weather gits warmer and the roads gits good.\"\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" said the old man, still shaking his head.\n\nAll through dinner she was worried. Devil Judd hardly ate anything, so\nembarrassed was he by the presence of so many \"furriners\" and by the\nwhite cloth and table-ware, and so fearful was he that he would be\nguilty of some breach of manners. Resolutely he refused butter, and at\nthe third urging by Mrs. Crane he said firmly, but with a shrewd twinkle\nin his eye:\n\n\"No, thank ye. I never eats butter in town. I\'ve kept store myself,\" and\nhe was no little pleased with the laugh that went around the table. The\nfact was he was generally pleased with June\'s environment and, after\ndinner, he stopped teasing June.\n\n\"No, honey, I ain\'t goin\' to take you away. I want ye to stay right\nwhere ye air. Be a good girl now and do whatever Jack Hale tells ye and\ntell that boy with all that hair to come over and see me.\" June grew\nalmost tearful with gratitude, for never had he called her \"honey\"\nbefore that she could remember, and never had he talked so much to her,\nnor with so much kindness.\n\n\"Air ye comin\' over soon?\"\n\n\"Mighty soon, dad.\"\n\n\"Well, take keer o\' yourself.\"\n\n\"I will, dad,\" she said, and tenderly she watched his great figure\nslouch out of sight.\n\nAn hour after dark, as old Judd sat on the porch of the cabin in\nLonesome Cove, young Dave Tolliver rode up to the gate on a strange\nhorse. He was in a surly mood.\n\n\"He lemme go at the head of the valley and give me this hoss to git\nhere,\" the boy grudgingly explained. \"I\'m goin\' over to git mine\ntermorrer.\"\n\n\"Seems like you\'d better keep away from that Gap,\" said the old man\ndryly, and Dave reddened angrily.\n\n\"Yes, and fust thing you know he\'ll be over hyeh atter YOU.\" The old man\nturned on him sternly.\n\n\"Jack Hale knows that liquer was mine. He knows I\'ve got a still over\nhyeh as well as you do--an\' he\'s never axed a question nor peeped an\neye. I reckon he would come if he thought he oughter--but I\'m on this\nside of the state-line. If I was on his side, mebbe I\'d stop.\"\n\nYoung Dave stared, for things were surely coming to a pretty pass in\nLonesome Cove.\n\n\"An\' I reckon,\" the old man went on, \"hit \'ud be better grace in you to\nstop sayin\' things agin\' him; fer if it hadn\'t been fer him, you\'d be\nlaid out by them Falins by this time.\"\n\nIt was true, and Dave, silenced, was forced into another channel.\n\n\"I wonder,\" he said presently, \"how them Falins always know when I go\nover thar.\"\n\n\"I\'ve been studyin\' about that myself,\" said Devil Judd. Inside, the old\nstep-mother had heard Dave\'s query.\n\n\"I seed the Red Fox this afternoon,\" she quavered at the door.\n\n\"Whut was he doin\' over hyeh?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Nothin\',\" she said, \"jus\' a-sneakin\' aroun\' the way he\'s al\'ays\na-doin\'. Seemed like he was mighty pertickuler to find out when you was\ncomin\' back.\"\n\nBoth men started slightly.\n\n \"We\'re all Tollivers now all right,\" said the Hon. Samuel Budd\nthat night while he sat with Hale on the porch overlooking the\nmill-pond--and then he groaned a little.\n\n\"Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they\'d\nfight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years hence!\"\n\nHe puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" he added cheerily, \"we\'re in for a hell of a merry time NOW.\nThe mountaineer hates as long as he remembers and--he never forgets.\"\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\n\nHand in hand, Hale and June followed the footsteps of spring from the\ntime June met him at the school-house gate for their first walk into the\nwoods. Hale pointed to some boys playing marbles.\n\n\"That\'s the first sign,\" he said, and with quick understanding June\nsmiled.\n\nThe birdlike piping of hylas came from a marshy strip of woodland that\nran through the centre of the town and a toad was croaking at the foot\nof Imboden Hill.\n\n\"And they come next.\"\n\nThey crossed the swinging foot-bridge, which was a miracle to June,\nand took the foot-path along the clear stream of South Fork, under the\nlaurel which June called \"ivy,\" and the rhododendron which was \"laurel\"\nin her speech, and Hale pointed out catkins greening on alders in one\nswampy place and willows just blushing into life along the banks of a\nlittle creek. A few yards aside from the path he found, under a patch\nof snow and dead leaves, the pink-and-white blossoms and the waxy green\nleaves of the trailing arbutus, that fragrant harbinger of the old\nMother\'s awakening, and June breathed in from it the very breath of\nspring. Near by were turkey peas, which she had hunted and eaten many\ntimes.\n\n\"You can\'t put that arbutus in a garden,\" said Hale, \"it\'s as wild as a\nhawk.\"\n\nPresently he had the little girl listen to a pewee twittering in a\nthorn-bush and the lusty call of a robin from an apple-tree. A bluebird\nflew over-head with a merry chirp--its wistful note of autumn long since\nforgotten. These were the first birds and flowers, he said, and June,\nknowing them only by sight, must know the name of each and the reason\nfor that name. So that Hale found himself walking the woods with an\ninterrogation point, and that he might not be confounded he had, later,\nto dip up much forgotten lore. For every walk became a lesson in botany\nfor June, such a passion did she betray at once for flowers, and he\nrarely had to tell her the same thing twice, since her memory was like a\nvise--for everything, as he learned in time.\n\nHer eyes were quicker than his, too, and now she pointed to a snowy\nblossom with a deeply lobed leaf.\n\n\"Whut\'s that?\"\n\n\"Bloodroot,\" said Hale, and he scratched the stem and forth issued\nscarlet drops. \"The Indians used to put it on their faces and\ntomahawks\"--she knew that word and nodded--\"and I used to make red ink\nof it when I was a little boy.\"\n\n\"No!\" said June. With the next look she found a tiny bunch of fuzzy\nhepaticas.\n\n\"Liver-leaf.\"\n\n\"Whut\'s liver?\"\n\nHale, looking at her glowing face and eyes and her perfect little body,\nimagined that she would never know unless told that she had one, and so\nhe waved one hand vaguely at his chest:\n\n\"It\'s an organ--and that herb is supposed to be good for it.\"\n\n\"Organ? Whut\'s that?\"\n\n\"Oh, something inside of you.\"\n\nJune made the same gesture that Hale had.\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" and then helplessly, \"but not there exactly.\"\n\nJune\'s eyes had caught something else now and she ran for it:\n\n\"Oh! Oh!\" It was a bunch of delicate anemones of intermediate shades\nbetween white and red-yellow, pink and purple-blue.\n\n\"Those are anemones.\"\n\n\"A-nem-o-nes,\" repeated June.\n\n\"Wind-flowers--because the wind is supposed to open them.\" And, almost\nunconsciously, Hale lapsed into a quotation:\n\n\"\'And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows.\'\"\n\n\"Whut\'s that?\" said June quickly.\n\n\"That\'s poetry.\"\n\n\"Whut\'s po-e-try?\" Hale threw up both hands.\n\n\"I don\'t know, but I\'ll read you some--some day.\"\n\nBy that time she was gurgling with delight over a bunch of spring\nbeauties that came up, root, stalk and all, when she reached for them.\n\n\"Well, ain\'t they purty?\" While they lay in her hand and she looked, the\nrose-veined petals began to close, the leaves to droop and the stem got\nlimp.\n\n\"Ah-h!\" crooned June. \"I won\'t pull up no more o\' THEM.\"\n\n\'\"These little dream-flowers found in the spring.\' More poetry, June.\"\n\nA little later he heard her repeating that line to herself. It was an\neasy step to poetry from flowers, and evidently June was groping for it.\n\nA few days later the service-berry swung out white stars on the low\nhill-sides, but Hale could tell her nothing that she did not know about\nthe \"sarvice-berry.\" Soon, the dogwood swept in snowy gusts along the\nmountains, and from a bank of it one morning a red-bird flamed and sang:\n\"What cheer! What cheer! What cheer!\" And like its scarlet coat the\nred-bud had burst into bloom. June knew the red-bud, but she had never\nheard it called the Judas tree.\n\n\"You see, the red-bud was supposed to be poisonous. It shakes in the\nwind and says to the bees, \'Come on, little fellows--here\'s your nice\nfresh honey, and when they come, it betrays and poisons them.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you think o\' that!\" said June indignantly, and Hale had\nto hedge a bit.\n\n\"Well, I don\'t know whether it REALLY does, but that\'s what they SAY.\"\nA little farther on the white stars of the trillium gleamed at them\nfrom the border of the woods and near by June stooped over some lovely\nsky-blue blossoms with yellow eyes.\n\n\"Forget-me-nots,\" said Hale. June stooped to gather them with a radiant\nface.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"is that what you call \'em?\"\n\n\"They aren\'t the real ones--they\'re false forget-me-nots.\"\n\n\"Then I don\'t want \'em,\" said June. But they were beautiful and fragrant\nand she added gently:\n\n\"\'Tain\'t their fault. I\'m agoin\' to call \'em jus\' forget-me-nots, an\'\nI\'m givin\' \'em to you,\" she said--\"so that you won\'t.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Hale gravely. \"I won\'t.\"\n\nThey found larkspur, too--\n\n\"\'Blue as the heaven it gazes at,\'\" quoted Hale.\n\n\"Whut\'s \'gazes\'?\"\n\n\"Looks.\" June looked up at the sky and down at the flower.\n\n\"Tain\'t,\" she said, \"hit\'s bluer.\"\n\nWhen they discovered something Hale did not know he would say that it\nwas one of those--\n\n\"\'Wan flowers without a name.\'\"\n\n\"My!\" said June at last, \"seems like them wan flowers is a mighty big\nfambly.\"\n\n\"They are,\" laughed Hale, \"for a bachelor like me.\"\n\n\"Huh!\" said June.\n\nLater, they ran upon yellow adder\'s tongues in a hollow, each blossom\nguarded by a pair of ear-like leaves, Dutchman\'s breeches and wild\nbleeding hearts--a name that appealed greatly to the fancy of the\nromantic little lady, and thus together they followed the footsteps of\nthat spring. And while she studied the flowers Hale was studying the\nloveliest flower of them all--little June. About ferns, plants and trees\nas well, he told her all he knew, and there seemed nothing in the skies,\nthe green world of the leaves or the under world at her feet to which\nshe was not magically responsive. Indeed, Hale had never seen a man,\nwoman or child so eager to learn, and one day, when she had apparently\nreached the limit of inquiry, she grew very thoughtful and he watched\nher in silence a long while.\n\n\"What\'s the matter, June?\" he asked finally.\n\n\"I\'m just wonderin\' why I\'m always axin\' why,\" said little June.\n\nShe was learning in school, too, and she was happier there now, for\nthere had been no more open teasing of the new pupil. Bob\'s championship\nsaved her from that, and, thereafter, school changed straightway for\nJune. Before that day she had kept apart from her school-fellows at\nrecess-times as well as in the school-room. Two or three of the girls\nhad made friendly advances to her, but she had shyly repelled them--why\nshe hardly knew--and it was her lonely custom at recess-times to build\na play-house at the foot of a great beech with moss, broken bits of\nbottles and stones. Once she found it torn to pieces and from the look\non the face of the tall mountain boy, Cal Heaton, who had grinned at her\nwhen she went up for her first lesson, and who was now Bob\'s arch-enemy,\nshe knew that he was the guilty one. Again a day or two later it was\ndestroyed, and when she came down from the woods almost in tears, Bob\nhappened to meet her in the road and made her tell the trouble she was\nin. Straightway he charged the trespasser with the deed and was lied to\nfor his pains. So after school that day he slipped up on the hill with\nthe little girl and helped her rebuild again.\n\n\"Now I\'ll lay for him,\" said Bob, \"and catch him at it.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said June, and she looked both her worry and her gratitude\nso that Bob understood both; and he answered both with a nonchalant wave\nof one hand.\n\n\"Never you mind--and don\'t you tell Mr. Hale,\" and June in dumb\nacquiescence crossed heart and body. But the mountain boy was wary, and\nfor two or three days the play-house was undisturbed and so Bob himself\nlaid a trap. He mounted his horse immediately after school, rode past\nthe mountain lad, who was on his way home, crossed the river, made a\nwide detour at a gallop and, hitching his horse in the woods, came to\nthe play-house from the other side of the hill. And half an hour later,\nwhen the pale little teacher came out of the school-house, he heard\ngrunts and blows and scuffling up in the woods, and when he ran toward\nthe sounds, the bodies of two of his pupils rolled into sight clenched\nfiercely, with torn clothes and bleeding faces--Bob on top with the\nmountain boy\'s thumb in his mouth and his own fingers gripped about his\nantagonist\'s throat. Neither paid any attention to the school-master,\nwho pulled at Bob\'s coat unavailingly and with horror at his ferocity.\nBob turned his head, shook it as well as the thumb in his mouth would\nlet him, and went on gripping the throat under him and pushing the head\nthat belonged to it into the ground. The mountain boy\'s tongue showed\nand his eyes bulged.\n\n\"\'Nough!\" he yelled. Bob rose then and told his story and the\nschool-master from New England gave them a short lecture on gentleness\nand Christian charity and fixed on each the awful penalty of \"staying\nin\" after school for an hour every day for a week. Bob grinned:\n\n\"All right, professor--it was worth it,\" he said, but the mountain lad\nshuffled silently away.\n\nAn hour later Hale saw the boy with a swollen lip, one eye black and\nthe other as merry as ever--but after that there was no more trouble\nfor June. Bob had made his promise good and gradually she came into\nthe games with her fellows there-after, while Bob stood or sat aside,\nencouraging but taking no part--for was he not a member of the Police\nForce? Indeed he was already known far and wide as the Infant of\nthe Guard, and always he carried a whistle and usually, outside the\nschool-house, a pistol bumped his hip, while a Winchester stood in one\ncorner of his room and a billy dangled by his mantel-piece.\n\nThe games were new to June, and often Hale would stroll up to the\nschool-house to watch them--Prisoner\'s Base, Skipping the Rope, Antny\nOver, Cracking the Whip and Lifting the Gate; and it pleased him to see\nhow lithe and active his little protege was and more than a match in\nstrength even for the boys who were near her size. June had to take the\npenalty of her greenness, too, when she was \"introduced to the King and\nQueen\" and bumped the ground between the make-believe sovereigns, or got\na cup of water in her face when she was trying to see stars through a\npipe. And the boys pinned her dress to the bench through a crack and\nonce she walked into school with a placard on her back which read:\n\n\"June-Bug.\" But she was so good-natured that she fast became a\nfavourite. Indeed it was noticeable to Hale as well as Bob that Cal\nHeaton, the mountain boy, seemed always to get next to June in the Tugs\nof War, and one morning June found an apple on her desk. She swept the\nroom with a glance and met Cal\'s guilty flush, and though she ate the\napple, she gave him no thanks--in word, look or manner. It was curious\nto Hale, moreover, to observe how June\'s instinct deftly led her to\navoid the mistakes in dress that characterized the gropings of other\ngirls who, like her, were in a stage of transition. They wore gaudy\ncombs and green skirts with red waists, their clothes bunched at the\nhips, and to their shoes and hands they paid no attention at all. None\nof these things for June--and Hale did not know that the little girl had\nleaped her fellows with one bound, had taken Miss Anne Saunders as her\nmodel and was climbing upon the pedestal where that lady justly stood.\nThe two had not become friends as Hale hoped. June was always silent and\nreserved when the older girl was around, but there was never a move of\nthe latter\'s hand or foot or lip or eye that the new pupil failed\nto see. Miss Anne rallied Hale no little about her, but he laughed\ngood-naturedly, and asked why SHE could not make friends with June.\n\n\"She\'s jealous,\" said Miss Saunders, and Hale ridiculed the idea, for\nnot one sign since she came to the Gap had she shown him. It was the\njealousy of a child she had once betrayed and that she had outgrown,\nhe thought; but he never knew how June stood behind the curtains of her\nwindow, with a hungry suffering in her face and eyes, to watch Hale and\nMiss Anne ride by and he never guessed that concealment was but a sign\nof the dawn of womanhood that was breaking within her. And she gave no\nhint of that breaking dawn until one day early in May, when she heard a\nwoodthrush for the first time with Hale: for it was the bird she loved\nbest, and always its silver fluting would stop her in her tracks and\nsend her into dreamland. Hale had just broken a crimson flower from its\nstem and held it out to her.\n\n\"Here\'s another of the \'wan ones,\' June. Do you know what that is?\"\n\n\"Hit\'s\"--she paused for correction with her lips drawn severely in for\nprecision--\"IT\'S a mountain poppy. Pap says it kills goslings\"--her eyes\ndanced, for she was in a merry mood that day, and she put both hands\nbehind her--\"if you air any kin to a goose, you better drap it.\"\n\n\"That\'s a good one,\" laughed Hale, \"but it\'s so lovely I\'ll take the\nrisk. I won\'t drop it.\"\n\n\"Drop it,\" caught June with a quick upward look, and then to fix the\nword in her memory she repeated--\"drop it, drop it, DROP it!\"\n\n\"Got it now, June?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh.\"\n\nIt was then that a woodthrush voiced the crowning joy of spring, and\nwith slowly filling eyes she asked its name.\n\n\"That bird,\" she said slowly and with a breaking voice, \"sung just\nthat-a-way the mornin\' my sister died.\"\n\nShe turned to him with a wondering smile.\n\n\"Somehow it don\'t make me so miserable, like it useter.\" Her smile\npassed while she looked, she caught both hands to her heaving breast and\na wild intensity burned suddenly in her eyes.\n\n\"Why, June!\"\n\n\"\'Tain\'t nothin\',\" she choked out, and she turned hurriedly ahead of\nhim down the path. Startled, Hale had dropped the crimson flower to his\nfeet. He saw it and he let it lie.\n\nMeanwhile, rumours were brought in that the Falins were coming over from\nKentucky to wipe out the Guard, and so straight were they sometimes that\nthe Guard was kept perpetually on watch. Once while the members were at\ntarget practice, the shout arose:\n\n\"The Kentuckians are coming! The Kentuckians are coming!\" And, at double\nquick, the Guard rushed back to find it a false alarm and to see men\nlaughing at them in the street. The truth was that, while the Falins\nhad a general hostility against the Guard, their particular enmity was\nconcentrated on John Hale, as he discovered when June was to take her\nfirst trip home one Friday afternoon. Hale meant to carry her over,\nbut the morning they were to leave, old Judd Tolliver came to the Gap\nhimself. He did not want June to come home at that time, and he didn\'t\nthink it was safe over there for Hale just then. Some of the Falins had\nbeen seen hanging around Lonesome Cove for the purpose, Judd believed,\nof getting a shot at the man who had kept young Dave from falling into\ntheir hands, and Hale saw that by that act he had, as Budd said,\narrayed himself with the Tollivers in the feud. In other words, he was\na Tolliver himself now, and as such the Falins meant to treat him.\nHale rebelled against the restriction, for he had started some work in\nLonesome Cove and was preparing a surprise over there for June, but old\nJudd said:\n\n\"Just wait a while,\" and he said it so seriously that Hale for a while\ntook his advice.\n\nSo June stayed on at the Gap--with little disappointment, apparently,\nthat she could not visit home. And as spring passed and the summer\ncame on, the little girl budded and opened like a rose. To the pretty\nschool-teacher she was a source of endless interest and wonder, for\nwhile the little girl was reticent and aloof, Miss Saunders felt herself\nwatched and studied in and out of school, and Hale often had to smile\nat June\'s unconscious imitation of her teacher in speech, manners and\ndress. And all the time her hero-worship of Hale went on, fed by\nthe talk of the boardinghouse, her fellow pupils and of the town at\nlarge--and it fairly thrilled her to know that to the Falins he was now\na Tolliver himself.\n\nSometimes Hale would get her a saddle, and then June would usurp Miss\nAnne\'s place on a horseback-ride up through the gap to see the first\nblooms of the purple rhododendron on Bee Rock, or up to Morris\'s farm on\nPowell\'s mountain, from which, with a glass, they could see the Lonesome\nPine. And all the time she worked at her studies tirelessly--and when\nshe was done with her lessons, she read the fairy books that Hale got\nfor her--read them until \"Paul and Virginia\" fell into her hands, and\nthen there were no more fairy stories for little June. Often, late at\nnight, Hale, from the porch of his cottage, could see the light of\nher lamp sending its beam across the dark water of the mill-pond, and\nfinally he got worried by the paleness of her face and sent her to\nthe doctor. She went unwillingly, and when she came back she reported\nplacidly that \"organatically she was all right, the doctor said,\" but\nHale was glad that vacation would soon come. At the beginning of the\nlast week of school he brought a little present for her from New York--a\nslender necklace of gold with a little reddish stone-pendant that was\nthe shape of a cross. Hale pulled the trinket from his pocket as they\nwere walking down the river-bank at sunset and the little girl quivered\nlike an aspen-leaf in a sudden puff of wind.\n\n\"Hit\'s a fairy-stone,\" she cried excitedly.\n\n\"Why, where on earth did you--\"\n\n\"Why, sister Sally told me about \'em. She said folks found \'em somewhere\nover here in Virginny, an\' all her life she was a-wishin\' fer one an\'\nshe never could git it\"--her eyes filled--\"seems like ever\'thing she\nwanted is a-comin\' to me.\"\n\n\"Do you know the story of it, too?\" asked Hale.\n\nJune shook her head. \"Sister Sally said it was a luck-piece. Nothin\'\ncould happen to ye when ye was carryin\' it, but it was awful bad luck\nif you lost it.\" Hale put it around her neck and fastened the clasp and\nJune kept hold of the little cross with one hand.\n\n\"Well, you mustn\'t lose it,\" he said.\n\n\"No--no--no,\" she repeated breathlessly, and Hale told her the pretty\nstory of the stone as they strolled back to supper. The little crosses\nwere to be found only in a certain valley in Virginia, so perfect in\nshape that they seemed to have been chiselled by hand, and they were a\ngreat mystery to the men who knew all about rocks--the geologists.\n\n\"The ge-ol-o-gists,\" repeated June.\n\nThese men said there was no crystallization--nothing like them, amended\nHale--elsewhere in the world, and that just as crosses were of different\nshapes--Roman, Maltese and St. Andrew\'s--so, too, these crosses were\nfound in all these different shapes. And the myth--the story--was that\nthis little valley was once inhabited by fairies--June\'s eyes lighted,\nfor it was a fairy story after all--and that when a strange messenger\nbrought them the news of Christ\'s crucifixion, they wept, and their\ntears, as they fell to the ground, were turned into tiny crosses of\nstone. Even the Indians had some queer feeling about them, and for a\nlong, long time people who found them had used them as charms to bring\ngood luck and ward off harm.\n\n\"And that\'s for you,\" he said, \"because you\'ve been such a good little\ngirl and have studied so hard. School\'s most over now and I reckon\nyou\'ll be right glad to get home again.\"\n\nJune made no answer, but at the gate she looked suddenly up at him.\n\n\"Have you got one, too?\" she asked, and she seemed much disturbed when\nHale shook his head.\n\n\"Well, I\'LL git--GET--you one--some day.\"\n\n\"All right,\" laughed Hale.\n\nThere was again something strange in her manner as she turned suddenly\nfrom him, and what it meant he was soon to learn. It was the last\nweek of school and Hale had just come down from the woods behind the\nschool-house at \"little recess-time\" in the afternoon. The children were\nplaying games outside the gate, and Bob and Miss Anne and the little\nProfessor were leaning on the fence watching them. The little man raised\nhis hand to halt Hale on the plank sidewalk.\n\n\"I\'ve been wanting to see you,\" he said in his dreamy, abstracted way.\n\"You prophesied, you know, that I should be proud of your little protege\nsome day, and I am indeed. She is the most remarkable pupil I\'ve yet\nseen here, and I have about come to the conclusion that there is no\nquicker native intelligence in our country than you shall find in the\nchildren of these mountaineers and--\"\n\nMiss Anne was gazing at the children with an expression that turned\nHale\'s eyes that way, and the Professor checked his harangue. Something\nhad happened. They had been playing \"Ring Around the Rosy\" and June had\nbeen caught. She stood scarlet and tense and the cry was:\n\n\"Who\'s your beau--who\'s your beau?\"\n\nAnd still she stood with tight lips--flushing.\n\n\"You got to tell--you got to tell!\"\n\nThe mountain boy, Cal Heaton, was grinning with fatuous consciousness,\nand even Bob put his hands in his pockets and took on an uneasy smile.\n\n\"Who\'s your beau?\" came the chorus again.\n\nThe lips opened almost in a whisper, but all could hear:\n\n\"Jack!\"\n\n\"Jack who?\" But June looked around and saw the four at the gate. Almost\nstaggering, she broke from the crowd and, with one forearm across her\nscarlet face, rushed past them into the school-house. Miss Anne looked\nat Male\'s amazed face and she did not smile. Bob turned respectfully\naway, ignoring it all, and the little Professor, whose life-purpose was\npsychology, murmured in his ignorance:\n\n\"Very remarkable--very remarkable!\"\n\nThrough that afternoon June kept her hot face close to her books. Bob\nnever so much as glanced her way--little gentleman that he was--but\nthe one time she lifted her eyes, she met the mountain lad\'s bent in\na stupor-like gaze upon her. In spite of her apparent studiousness,\nhowever, she missed her lesson and, automatically, the little Professor\ntold her to stay in after school and recite to Miss Saunders. And so\nJune and Miss Anne sat in the school-room alone--the teacher reading a\nbook, and the pupil--her tears unshed--with her sullen face bent over\nher lesson. In a few moments the door opened and the little Professor\nthrust in his head. The girl had looked so hurt and tired when he spoke\nto her that some strange sympathy moved him, mystified though he was, to\nsay gently now and with a smile that was rare with him:\n\n\"You might excuse June, I think, Miss Saunders, and let her recite some\ntime to-morrow,\" and gently he closed the door. Miss Anne rose:\n\n\"Very well, June,\" she said quietly.\n\nJune rose, too, gathering up her books, and as she passed the teacher\'s\nplatform she stopped and looked her full in the face. She said not\na word, and the tragedy between the woman and the girl was played in\nsilence, for the woman knew from the searching gaze of the girl and the\nblack defiance in her eyes, as she stalked out of the room, that her own\nflush had betrayed her secret as plainly as the girl\'s words had told\nhers.\n\nThrough his office window, a few minutes later, Hale saw June pass\nswiftly into the house. In a few minutes she came swiftly out again\nand went back swiftly toward the school-house. He was so worried by the\ntense look in her face that he could work no more, and in a few minutes\nhe threw his papers down and followed her. When he turned the corner,\nBob was coming down the street with his cap on the back of his head and\nswinging his books by a strap, and the boy looked a little conscious\nwhen he saw Hale coming.\n\n\"Have you seen June?\" Hale asked.\n\n\"No, sir,\" said Bob, immensely relieved.\n\n\"Did she come up this way?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know, but--\" Bob turned and pointed to the green dome of a big\nbeech.\n\n\"I think you\'ll find her at the foot of that tree,\" he said. \"That\'s\nwhere her play-house is and that\'s where she goes when she\'s--that\'s\nwhere she usually goes.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Hale--\"her play-house. Thank you.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir.\"\n\nHale went on, turned from the path and climbed noiselessly. When he\ncaught sight of the beech he stopped still. June stood against it like\na wood-nymph just emerged from its sun-dappled trunk--stood stretched to\nher full height, her hands behind her, her hair tossed, her throat tense\nunder the dangling little cross, her face uplifted. At her feet,\nthe play-house was scattered to pieces. She seemed listening to the\nlove-calls of a woodthrush that came faintly through the still woods,\nand then he saw that she heard nothing, saw nothing--that she was in a\ndream as deep as sleep. Hale\'s heart throbbed as he looked.\n\n\"June!\" he called softly. She did not hear him, and when he called\nagain, she turned her face--unstartled--and moving her posture not at\nall. Hale pointed to the scattered play-house.\n\n\"I done it!\" she said fiercely--\"I done it myself.\" Her eyes burned\nsteadily into his, even while she lifted her hands to her hair as though\nshe were only vaguely conscious that it was all undone.\n\n\"YOU heerd me?\" she cried, and before he could answer--\"SHE heerd\nme,\" and again, not waiting for a word from him, she cried still more\nfiercely:\n\n\"I don\'t keer! I don\'t keer WHO knows.\"\n\nHer hands were trembling, she was biting her quivering lip to keep back\nthe starting tears, and Hale rushed toward her and took her in his arms.\n\n\"June! June!\" he said brokenly. \"You mustn\'t, little girl. I\'m\nproud--proud--why little sweetheart--\" She was clinging to him and\nlooking up into his eyes and he bent his head slowly. Their lips met and\nthe man was startled. He knew now it was no child that answered him.\n\n Hale walked long that night in the moonlit woods up and around\nImboden Hill, along a shadow-haunted path, between silvery beech-trunks,\npast the big hole in the earth from which dead trees tossed out their\ncrooked arms as if in torment, and to the top of the ridge under which\nthe valley slept and above which the dark bulk of Powell\'s Mountain\nrose. It was absurd, but he found himself strangely stirred. She was a\nchild, he kept repeating to himself, in spite of the fact that he knew\nshe was no child among her own people, and that mountain girls were even\nwives who were younger still. Still, she did not know what she felt--how\ncould she?--and she would get over it, and then came the sharp stab of\na doubt--would he want her to get over it? Frankly and with wonder he\nconfessed to himself that he did not know--he did not know. But again,\nwhy bother? He had meant to educate her, anyhow. That was the first\nstep--no matter what happened. June must go out into the world to\nschool. He would have plenty of money. Her father would not object, and\nJune need never know. He could include for her an interest in her own\nfather\'s coal lands that he meant to buy, and she could think that it\nwas her own money that she was using. So, with a sudden rush of gladness\nfrom his brain to his heart, he recklessly yoked himself, then and\nthere, under all responsibility for that young life and the eager,\nsensitive soul that already lighted it so radiantly.\n\nAnd June? Her nature had opened precisely as had bud and flower that\nspring. The Mother of Magicians had touched her as impartially as she\nhad touched them with fairy wand, and as unconsciously the little girl\nhad answered as a young dove to any cooing mate. With this Hale did not\nreckon, and this June could not know. For a while, that night, she lay\nin a delicious tremor, listening to the bird-like chorus of the little\nfrogs in the marsh, the booming of the big ones in the mill-pond, the\nwater pouring over the dam with the sound of a low wind, and, as had\nall the sleeping things of the earth about her, she, too, sank to happy\nsleep.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\n\nThe in-sweep of the outside world was broadening its current now. The\nimprovement company had been formed to encourage the growth of the town.\nA safe was put in the back part of a furniture store behind a wooden\npartition and a bank was started. Up through the Gap and toward\nKentucky, more entries were driven into the coal, and on the Virginia\nside were signs of stripping for iron ore. A furnace was coming in just\nas soon as the railroad could bring it in, and the railroad was pushing\nahead with genuine vigor. Speculators were trooping in and the town had\nbeen divided off into lots--a few of which had already changed hands.\nOne agent had brought in a big steel safe and a tent and was buying coal\nlands right and left. More young men drifted in from all points of the\ncompass. A tent-hotel was put at the foot of Imboden Hill, and of nights\nthere were under it much poker and song. The lilt of a definite optimism\nwas in every man\'s step and the light of hope was in every man\'s eye.\n\nAnd the Guard went to its work in earnest. Every man now had his\nWinchester, his revolver, his billy and his whistle. Drilling and\ntarget-shooting became a daily practice. Bob, who had been a year in a\nmilitary school, was drill-master for the recruits, and very gravely\nhe performed his duties and put them through the skirmishers\'\ndrill--advancing in rushes, throwing themselves in the new grass, and\nvery gravely he commended one enthusiast--none other than the Hon.\nSamuel Budd--who, rather than lose his position in line, threw himself\ninto a pool of water: all to the surprise, scorn and anger of the\nmountain onlookers, who dwelled about the town. Many were the comments\nthe members of the Guard heard from them, even while they were at drill.\n\n\"I\'d like to see one o\' them fellers hit me with one of them locust\nposts.\"\n\n\"Huh! I could take two good men an\' run the whole batch out o\' the\ncounty.\"\n\n\"Look at them dudes and furriners. They come into our country and air\ntryin\' to larn us how to run it.\"\n\n\"Our boys air only tryin\' to have their little fun. They don\'t mean\nnothin\', but someday some fool young guard\'ll hurt somebody and then\nthar\'ll be hell to pay.\"\n\nHale could not help feeling considerable sympathy for their point of\nview--particularly when he saw the mountaineers watching the Guard at\ntarget-practice--each volunteer policeman with his back to the target,\nand at the word of command wheeling and firing six shots in rapid\nsuccession--and he did not wonder at their snorts of scorn at such bad\nshooting and their open anger that the Guard was practising for THEM.\nBut sometimes he got an unexpected recruit. One bully, who had been\nconspicuous in the brickyard trouble, after watching a drill went up to\nhim with a grin:\n\n\"Hell,\" he said cheerily, \"I believe you fellers air goin\' to have more\nfun than we air, an\' danged if I don\'t jine you, if you\'ll let me.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Hale. And others, who might have been bad men, became\nmembers and, thus getting a vent for their energies, were as\nenthusiastic for the law as they might have been against it.\n\nOf course, the antagonistic element in the town lost no opportunity to\nplague and harass the Guard, and after the destruction of the \"blind\ntigers,\" mischief was naturally concentrated in the high-license\nsaloons--particularly in the one run by Jack Woods, whose local power\nfor evil and cackling laugh seemed to mean nothing else than close\npersonal communion with old Nick himself. Passing the door of his saloon\none day, Bob saw one of Jack\'s customers trying to play pool with a\nWinchester in one hand and an open knife between his teeth, and the boy\nstepped in and halted. The man had no weapon concealed and was making no\ndisturbance, and Bob did not know whether or not he had the legal right\nto arrest him, so he turned, and, while he was standing in the door,\nJack winked at his customer, who, with a grin, put the back of his\nknife-blade between Bob\'s shoulders and, pushing, closed it. The boy\nlooked over his shoulder without moving a muscle, but the Hon. Samuel\nBudd, who came in at that moment, pinioned the fellow\'s arms from behind\nand Bob took his weapon away.\n\n\"Hell,\" said the mountaineer, \"I didn\'t aim to hurt the little feller. I\njes\' wanted to see if I could skeer him.\"\n\n\"Well, brother, \'tis scarce a merry jest,\" quoth the Hon. Sam, and he\nlooked sharply at Jack through his big spectacles as the two led the man\noff to the calaboose: for he suspected that the saloon-keeper was at the\nbottom of the trick. Jack\'s time came only the next day. He had regarded\nit as the limit of indignity when an ordinance was up that nobody should\nblow a whistle except a member of the Guard, and it was great fun for\nhim to have some drunken customer blow a whistle and then stand in his\ndoor and laugh at the policemen running in from all directions. That day\nJack tried the whistle himself and Hale ran down.\n\n\"Who did that?\" he asked. Jack felt bold that morning.\n\n\"I blowed it.\"\n\nHale thought for a moment. The ordinance against blowing a whistle\nhad not yet been passed, but he made up his mind that, under the\ncircumstances, Jack\'s blowing was a breach of the peace, since the Guard\nhad adopted that signal. So he said:\n\n\"You mustn\'t do that again.\"\n\nJack had doubtless been going through precisely the same mental process,\nand, on the nice legal point involved, he seemed to differ.\n\n\"I\'ll blow it when I damn please,\" he said.\n\n\"Blow it again and I\'ll arrest you,\" said Hale.\n\nJack blew. He had his right shoulder against the corner of his door at\nthe time, and, when he raised the whistle to his lips, Hale drew and\ncovered him before he could make another move. Woods backed slowly\ninto his saloon to get behind his counter. Hale saw his purpose, and he\nclosed in, taking great risk, as he always did, to avoid bloodshed,\nand there was a struggle. Jack managed to get his pistol out; but Hale\ncaught him by the wrist and held the weapon away so that it was harmless\nas far as he was concerned; but a crowd was gathering at the door\ntoward which the saloon-keeper\'s pistol was pointed, and he feared that\nsomebody out there might be shot; so he called out:\n\n\"Drop that pistol!\"\n\nThe order was not obeyed, and Hale raised his right hand high above\nJack\'s head and dropped the butt of his weapon on Jack\'s skull--hard.\nJack\'s head dropped back between his shoulders, his eyes closed and his\npistol clicked on the floor.\n\nHale knew how serious a thing a blow was in that part of the world, and\nwhat excitement it would create, and he was uneasy at Jack\'s trial, for\nfear that the saloon-keeper\'s friends would take the matter up; but they\ndidn\'t, and, to the surprise of everybody, Jack quietly paid his fine,\nand thereafter the Guard had little active trouble from the town itself,\nfor it was quite plain there, at least, that the Guard meant business.\n\nAcross Black Mountain old Dave Tolliver and old Buck Falin had got well\nof their wounds by this time, and though each swore to have vengeance\nagainst the other as soon as he was able to handle a Winchester, both\nfactions seemed waiting for that time to come. Moreover, the Falins,\nbecause of a rumour that Bad Rufe Tolliver might come back, and because\nof Devil Judd\'s anger at their attempt to capture young Dave, grew wary\nand rather pacificatory: and so, beyond a little quarrelling, a little\nthreatening and the exchange of a harmless shot or two, sometimes in\nbanter, sometimes in earnest, nothing had been done. Sternly, however,\nthough the Falins did not know the fact, Devil Judd continued to hold\naloof in spite of the pleadings of young Dave, and so confident was the\nold man in the balance of power that lay with him that he sent June word\nthat he was coming to take her home. And, in truth, with Hale going away\nagain on a business trip and Bob, too, gone back home to the Bluegrass,\nand school closed, the little girl was glad to go, and she waited for\nher father\'s coming eagerly. Miss Anne was still there, to be sure,\nand if she, too, had gone, June would have been more content. The quiet\nsmile of that astute young woman had told Hale plainly, and somewhat to\nhis embarrassment, that she knew something had happened between the two,\nbut that smile she never gave to June. Indeed, she never encountered\naught else than the same silent searching gaze from the strangely mature\nlittle creature\'s eyes, and when those eyes met the teacher\'s, always\nJune\'s hand would wander unconsciously to the little cross at her throat\nas though to invoke its aid against anything that could come between her\nand its giver.\n\nThe purple rhododendrons on Bee Rock had come and gone and the\npink-flecked laurels were in bloom when June fared forth one sunny\nmorning of her own birth-month behind old Judd Tolliver--home. Back up\nthrough the wild Gap they rode in silence, past Bee Rock, out of the\nchasm and up the little valley toward the Trail of the Lonesome Pine,\ninto which the father\'s old sorrel nag, with a switch of her sunburnt\ntail, turned leftward. June leaned forward a little, and there was the\ncrest of the big tree motionless in the blue high above, and sheltered\nby one big white cloud. It was the first time she had seen the pine\nsince she had first left it, and little tremblings went through her from\nher bare feet to her bonneted head. Thus was she unclad, for Hale had\ntold her that, to avoid criticism, she must go home clothed just as she\nwas when she left Lonesome Cove. She did not quite understand that, and\nshe carried her new clothes in a bundle in her lap, but she took Hale\'s\nword unquestioned. So she wore her crimson homespun and her bonnet, with\nher bronze-gold hair gathered under it in the same old Psyche knot.\nShe must wear her shoes, she told Hale, until she got out of town, else\nsomeone might see her, but Hale had said she would be leaving too early\nfor that: and so she had gone from the Gap as she had come into it, with\nunmittened hands and bare feet. The soft wind was very good to those\ndangling feet, and she itched to have them on the green grass or in the\ncool waters through which the old horse splashed. Yes, she was going\nhome again, the same June as far as mountain eyes could see, though she\nhad grown perceptibly, and her little face had blossomed from her heart\nalmost into a woman\'s, but she knew that while her clothes were the\nsame, they covered quite another girl. Time wings slowly for the young,\nand when the sensations are many and the experiences are new, slowly\neven for all--and thus there was a double reason why it seemed an age to\nJune since her eyes had last rested on the big Pine.\n\nHere was the place where Hale had put his big black horse into a dead\nrun, and as vivid a thrill of it came back to her now as had been the\nthrill of the race. Then they began to climb laboriously up the rocky\ncreek--the water singing a joyous welcome to her along the path, ferns\nand flowers nodding to her from dead leaves and rich mould and peeping\nat her from crevices between the rocks on the creek-banks as high up as\nthe level of her eyes--up under bending branches full-leafed, with the\nwarm sunshine darting down through them upon her as she passed, and\nmaking a playfellow of her sunny hair. Here was the place where she had\ngot angry with Hale, had slid from his horse and stormed with tears.\nWhat a little fool she had been when Hale had meant only to be kind! He\nwas never anything but kind--Jack was--dear, dear Jack! That wouldn\'t\nhappen NO more, she thought, and straightway she corrected that thought.\n\n\"It won\'t happen ANY more,\" she said aloud.\n\n\"Whut\'d you say, June?\"\n\nThe old man lifted his bushy beard from his chest and turned his head.\n\n\"Nothin\', dad,\" she said, and old Judd, himself in a deep study, dropped\nback into it again. How often she had said that to herself--that it\nwould happen no more--she had stopped saying it to Hale, because he\nlaughed and forgave her, and seemed to love her mood, whether she cried\nfrom joy or anger--and yet she kept on doing both just the same.\n\nSeveral times Devil Judd stopped to let his horse rest, and each time,\nof course, the wooded slopes of the mountains stretched downward in\nlonger sweeps of summer green, and across the widening valley the tops\nof the mountains beyond dropped nearer to the straight level of her\neyes, while beyond them vaster blue bulks became visible and ran on and\non, as they always seemed, to the farthest limits of the world. Even\nout there, Hale had told her, she would go some day. The last curving\nup-sweep came finally, and there stood the big Pine, majestic, unchanged\nand murmuring in the wind like the undertone of a far-off sea. As they\npassed the base of it, she reached out her hand and let the tips of her\nfingers brush caressingly across its trunk, turned quickly for a last\nlook at the sunlit valley and the hills of the outer world and then the\ntwo passed into a green gloom of shadow and thick leaves that shut her\nheart in as suddenly as though some human hand had clutched it. She was\ngoing home--to see Bub and Loretta and Uncle Billy and \"old Hon\" and her\nstep-mother and Dave, and yet she felt vaguely troubled. The valley on\nthe other side was in dazzling sunshine--she had seen that. The sun must\nstill be shining over there--it must be shining above her over here, for\nhere and there shot a sunbeam message from that outer world down through\nthe leaves, and yet it seemed that black night had suddenly fallen about\nher, and helplessly she wondered about it all, with her hands gripped\ntight and her eyes wide. But the mood was gone when they emerged at the\n\"deadening\" on the last spur and she saw Lonesome Cove and the roof\nof her little home peacefully asleep in the same sun that shone on the\nvalley over the mountain. Colour came to her face and her heart beat\nfaster. At the foot of the spur the road had been widened and showed\nsigns of heavy hauling. There was sawdust in the mouth of the creek and,\nfrom coal-dust, the water was black. The ring of axes and the shouts of\nox-drivers came from the mountain side. Up the creek above her father\'s\ncabin three or four houses were being built of fresh boards, and there\nin front of her was a new store. To a fence one side of it two horses\nwere hitched and on one horse was a side-saddle. Before the door stood\nthe Red Fox and Uncle Billy, the miller, who peered at her for a moment\nthrough his big spectacles and gave her a wondering shout of welcome\nthat brought her cousin Loretta to the door, where she stopped a moment,\nanchored with surprise. Over her shoulder peered her cousin Dave, and\nJune saw his face darken while she looked.\n\n\"Why, Honey,\" said the old miller, \"have ye really come home agin?\"\nWhile Loretta simply said:\n\n\"My Lord!\" and came out and stood with her hands on her hips looking at\nJune.\n\n\"Why, ye ain\'t a bit changed! I knowed ye wasn\'t goin\' to put on no\nairs like Dave thar said \"--she turned on Dave, who, with a surly shrug,\nwheeled and went back into the store. Uncle Billy was going home.\n\n\"Come down to see us right away now,\" he called back. \"Ole Hon\'s might\nnigh crazy to git her eyes on ye.\"\n\n\"All right, Uncle Billy,\" said June, \"early termorrer.\" The Red Fox\ndid not open his lips, but his pale eyes searched the girl from head to\nfoot.\n\n\"Git down, June,\" said Loretta, \"and I\'ll walk up to the house with ye.\"\n\nJune slid down, Devil Judd started the old horse, and as the two girls,\nwith their arms about each other\'s waists, followed, the wolfish side of\nthe Red Fox\'s face lifted in an ironical snarl. Bub was standing at the\ngate, and when he saw his father riding home alone, his wistful eyes\nfilled and his cry of disappointment brought the step-mother to the\ndoor.\n\n\"Whar\'s June?\" he cried, and June heard him, and loosening herself\nfrom Loretta, she ran round the horse and had Bub in her arms. Then she\nlooked up into the eyes of her step-mother. The old woman\'s face looked\nkind--so kind that for the first time in her life June did what her\nfather could never get her to do: she called her \"Mammy,\" and then she\ngave that old woman the surprise of her life--she kissed her. Right away\nshe must see everything, and Bub, in ecstasy, wanted to pilot her around\nto see the new calf and the new pigs and the new chickens, but dumbly\nJune looked to a miracle that had come to pass to the left of the\ncabin--a flower-garden, the like of which she had seen only in her\ndreams.\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\n\nTwice her lips opened soundlessly and, dazed, she could only point\ndumbly. The old step-mother laughed:\n\n\"Jack Hale done that. He pestered yo\' pap to let him do it fer ye, an\'\nanything Jack Hale wants from yo\' pap, he gits. I thought hit was plum\'\nfoolishness, but he\'s got things to eat planted thar, too, an\' I declar\nhit\'s right purty.\"\n\nThat wonderful garden! June started for it on a run. There was a\nbroad grass-walk down through the middle of it and there were narrow\ngrass-walks running sidewise, just as they did in the gardens which Hale\ntold her he had seen in the outer world. The flowers were planted in\nraised beds, and all the ones that she had learned to know and love at\nthe Gap were there, and many more besides. The hollyhocks, bachelor\'s\nbuttons and marigolds she had known all her life. The lilacs,\ntouch-me-nots, tulips and narcissus she had learned to know in gardens\nat the Gap. Two rose-bushes were in bloom, and there were strange\ngrasses and plants and flowers that Jack would tell her about when\nhe came. One side was sentinelled by sun-flowers and another side\nby transplanted laurel and rhododendron shrubs, and hidden in the\nplant-and-flower-bordered squares were the vegetables that won her\nstep-mother\'s tolerance of Hale\'s plan. Through and through June walked,\nher dark eyes flashing joyously here and there when they were not a\nlittle dimmed with tears, with Loretta following her, unsympathetic in\nappreciation, wondering that June should be making such a fuss about a\nlot of flowers, but envious withal when she half guessed the reason, and\nimpatient Bub eager to show her other births and changes. And, over and\nover all the while, June was whispering to herself:\n\n\"My garden--MY garden!\"\n\nWhen she came back to the porch, after a tour through all that was new\nor had changed, Dave had brought his horse and Loretta\'s to the gate.\nNo, he wouldn\'t come in and \"rest a spell\"--\"they must be gittin\' along\nhome,\" he said shortly. But old Judd Tolliver insisted that he should\nstay to dinner, and Dave tied the horses to the fence and walked to the\nporch, not lifting his eyes to June. Straightway the girl went into the\nhouse co help her step-mother with dinner, but the old woman told her\nshe \"reckoned she needn\'t start in yit\"--adding in the querulous tone\nJune knew so well:\n\n\"I\'ve been mighty po\'ly, an\' thar\'ll be a mighty lot fer you to do now.\"\nSo with this direful prophecy in her ears the girl hesitated. The old\nwoman looked at her closely.\n\n\"Ye ain\'t a bit changed,\" she said.\n\nThey were the words Loretta had used, and in the voice of each was the\nsame strange tone of disappointment. June wondered: were they sorry\nshe had not come back putting on airs and fussed up with ribbons and\nfeathers that they might hear her picked to pieces and perhaps do some\nof the picking themselves? Not Loretta, surely--but the old step-mother!\nJune left the kitchen and sat down just inside the door. The Red Fox and\ntwo other men had sauntered up from the store and all were listening to\nhis quavering chat:\n\n\"I seed a vision last night, and thar\'s trouble a-comin\' in these\nmountains. The Lord told me so straight from the clouds. These railroads\nand coal-mines is a-goin\' to raise taxes, so that a pore man\'ll have to\nsell his hogs and his corn to pay \'em an\' have nothin\' left to keep\nhim from starvin\' to death. Them police-fellers over thar at the Gap is\na-stirrin\' up strife and a-runnin\' things over thar as though the earth\nwas made fer \'em, an\' the citizens ain\'t goin\' to stand it. An\' this\nwar\'s a-comin\' on an\' thar\'ll be shootin\' an\' killin\' over thar an\' over\nhyeh. I seed all this devilment in a vision last night, as shore as I\'m\nsettin\' hyeh.\"\n\nOld Judd grunted, shifted his huge shoulders, parted his mustache and\nbeard with two fingers and spat through them.\n\n\"Well, I reckon you didn\'t see no devilment. Red, that you won\'t take a\nhand in, if it comes.\"\n\nThe other men laughed, but the Red Fox looked meek and lowly.\n\n\"I\'m a servant of the Lord. He says do this, an\' I does it the best\nI know how. I goes about a-preachin\' the word in the wilderness an\'\na-healin\' the sick with soothin\' yarbs and sech.\"\n\n\"An\' a-makin\' compacts with the devil,\" said old Judd shortly, \"when\nthe eye of man is a-lookin\' t\'other way.\" The left side of the Red Fox\'s\nface twitched into the faintest shadow of a snarl, but, shaking his\nhead, he kept still.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sam Barth, who was thin and long and sandy, \"I don\'t keer\nwhat them fellers do on t\'other side o\' the mountain, but what air they\na-comin\' over here fer?\"\n\nOld Judd spoke again.\n\n\"To give you a job, if you wasn\'t too durned lazy to work.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the other man, who was dark, swarthy and whose black\neyebrows met across the bridge of his nose--\"and that damned Hale, who\'s\na-tearin\' up Hellfire here in the cove.\" The old man lifted his eyes.\nYoung Dave\'s face wore a sudden malignant sympathy which made June\nclench her hands a little more tightly.\n\n\"What about him? You must have been over to the Gap lately--like Dave\nthar--did you git board in the calaboose?\" It was a random thrust, but\nit was accurate and it went home, and there was silence for a while.\nPresently old Judd went on:\n\n\"Taxes hain\'t goin\' to be raised, and if they are, folks will be better\nable to pay \'em. Them police-fellers at the Gap don\'t bother nobody if\nhe behaves himself. This war will start when it does start, an\' as for\nHale, he\'s as square an\' clever a feller as I\'ve ever seed. His word is\njust as good as his bond. I\'m a-goin\' to sell him this land. It\'ll be\nhis\'n, an\' he can do what he wants to with it. I\'m his friend, and I\'m\ngoin\' to stay his friend as long as he goes on as he\'s goin\' now,\nan\' I\'m not goin\' to see him bothered as long as he tends to his own\nbusiness.\"\n\nThe words fell slowly and the weight of them rested heavily on all\nexcept on June. Her fingers loosened and she smiled.\n\nThe Red Fox rose, shaking his head.\n\n\"All right, Judd Tolliver,\" he said warningly.\n\n\"Come in and git something to eat, Red.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"I\'ll be gittin\' along\"--and he went, still shaking his\nhead.\n\nThe table was covered with an oil-cloth spotted with drippings from a\ncandle. The plates and cups were thick and the spoons were of pewter.\nThe bread was soggy and the bacon was thick and floating in grease. The\nmen ate and the women served, as in ancient days. They gobbled their\nfood like wolves, and when they drank their coffee, the noise they made\nwas painful to June\'s ears. There were no napkins and when her father\npushed his chair back, he wiped his dripping mouth with the back of\nhis sleeve. And Loretta and the step-mother--they, too, ate with their\nknives and used their fingers. Poor June quivered with a vague newborn\ndisgust. Ah, had she not changed--in ways they could not see!\n\nJune helped clear away the dishes--the old woman did not object to\nthat--listening to the gossip of the mountains--courtships, marriages,\nbirths, deaths, the growing hostility in the feud, the random killing of\nthis man or that--Hale\'s doings in Lonesome Cove.\n\n\"He\'s comin\' over hyeh agin next Saturday,\" said the old woman.\n\n\"Is he?\" said Loretta in a way that made June turn sharply from her\ndishes toward her. She knew Hale was not coming, but she said nothing.\nThe old woman was lighting her pipe.\n\n\"Yes--you better be over hyeh in yo\' best bib and tucker.\"\n\n\"Pshaw,\" said Loretta, but June saw two bright spots come into her\npretty cheeks, and she herself burned inwardly. The old woman was\nlooking at her.\n\n\"\'Pears like you air mighty quiet, June.\"\n\n\"That\'s so,\" said Loretta, looking at her, too.\n\nJune, still silent, turned back to her dishes. They were beginning to\ntake notice after all, for the girl hardly knew that she had not opened\nher lips.\n\nOnce only Dave spoke to her, and that was when Loretta said she must\ngo. June was out in the porch looking at the already beloved garden, and\nhearing his step she turned. He looked her steadily in the eyes. She\nsaw his gaze drop to the fairy-stone at her throat, and a faint sneer\nappeared at his set mouth--a sneer for June\'s folly and what he thought\nwas uppishness in \"furriners\" like Hale.\n\n\"So you ain\'t good enough fer him jest as ye air--air ye?\" he said\nslowly. \"He\'s got to make ye all over agin--so\'s you\'ll be fitten fer\nhim.\"\n\nHe turned away without looking to see how deep his barbed shaft went\nand, startled, June flushed to her hair. In a few minutes they were\ngone--Dave without the exchange of another word with June, and Loretta\nwith a parting cry that she would come back on Saturday. The old man\nwent to the cornfield high above the cabin, the old woman, groaning\nwith pains real and fancied, lay down on a creaking bed, and June,\nwith Dave\'s wound rankling, went out with Bub to see the new doings in\nLonesome Cove. The geese cackled before her, the hog-fish darted like\nsubmarine arrows from rock to rock and the willows bent in the same\nwistful way toward their shadows in the little stream, but its crystal\ndepths were there no longer--floating sawdust whirled in eddies on the\nsurface and the water was black as soot. Here and there the white\nbelly of a fish lay upturned to the sun, for the cruel, deadly work\nof civilization had already begun. Farther up the creek was a buzzing\nmonster that, creaking and snorting, sent a flashing disk, rimmed with\nsharp teeth, biting a savage way through a log, that screamed with pain\nas the brutal thing tore through its vitals, and gave up its life each\ntime with a ghost-like cry of agony. Farther on little houses were being\nbuilt of fresh boards, and farther on the water of the creek got blacker\nstill. June suddenly clutched Bud\'s arms. Two demons had appeared on\na pile of fresh dirt above them--sooty, begrimed, with black faces and\nblack hands, and in the cap of each was a smoking little lamp.\n\n\"Huh,\" said Bub, \"that ain\'t nothin\'! Hello, Bill,\" he called bravely.\n\n\"Hello, Bub,\" answered one of the two demons, and both stared at the\nlovely little apparition who was staring with such naive horror at them.\nIt was all very wonderful, though, and it was all happening in Lonesome\nCove, but Jack Hale was doing it all and, therefore, it was all right,\nthought June--no matter what Dave said. Moreover, the ugly spot on the\ngreat, beautiful breast of the Mother was such a little one after all\nand June had no idea how it must spread. Above the opening for the\nmines, the creek was crystal-clear as ever, the great hills were the\nsame, and the sky and the clouds, and the cabin and the fields of corn.\nNothing could happen to them, but if even they were wiped out by Hale\'s\nhand she would have made no complaint. A wood-thrush flitted from a\nravine as she and Bub went back down the creek--and she stopped with\nuplifted face to listen. All her life she had loved its song, and this\nwas the first time she had heard it in Lonesome Cove since she had\nlearned its name from Hale. She had never heard it thereafter without\nthinking of him, and she thought of him now while it was breathing out\nthe very spirit of the hills, and she drew a long sigh for already she\nwas lonely and hungering for him. The song ceased and a long wavering\ncry came from the cabin.\n\n\"So-o-o-cow! S-o-o-kee! S-o-o-kee!\"\n\nThe old mother was calling the cows. It was near milking-time, and with\na vague uneasiness she hurried Bub home. She saw her father coming down\nfrom the cornfield. She saw the two cows come from the woods into the\npath that led to the barn, switching their tails and snatching mouthfuls\nfrom the bushes as they swung down the hill and, when she reached the\ngate, her step-mother was standing on the porch with one hand on her hip\nand the other shading her eyes from the slanting sun--waiting for her.\nAlready kindness and consideration were gone.\n\n\"Whar you been, June? Hurry up, now. You\'ve had a long restin\'-spell\nwhile I\'ve been a-workin\' myself to death.\"\n\nIt was the old tone, and the old fierce rebellion rose within June, but\nHale had told her to be patient. She could not check the flash from her\neyes, but she shut her lips tight on the answer that sprang to them, and\nwithout a word she went to the kitchen for the milking-pails. The cows\nhad forgotten her. They eyed her with suspicion and were restive. The\nfirst one kicked at her when she put her beautiful head against its soft\nflank. Her muscles had been in disuse and her hands were cramped and\nher forearms ached before she was through--but she kept doggedly at her\ntask. When she finished, her father had fed the horses and was standing\nbehind her.\n\n\"Hit\'s mighty good to have you back agin, little gal.\"\n\nIt was not often that he smiled or showed tenderness, much less spoke it\nthus openly, and June was doubly glad that she had held her tongue. Then\nshe helped her step-mother get supper. The fire scorched her face, that\nhad grown unaccustomed to such heat, and she burned one hand, but\nshe did not let her step-mother see even that. Again she noticed\nwith aversion the heavy thick dishes and the pewter spoons and the\ncandle-grease on the oil-cloth, and she put the dishes down and, while\nthe old woman was out of the room, attacked the spots viciously. Again\nshe saw her father and Bub ravenously gobbling their coarse food while\nshe and her step-mother served and waited, and she began to wonder. The\nwomen sat at the table with the men over in the Gap--why not here? Then\nher father went silently to his pipe and Bub to playing with the kitten\nat the kitchen-door, while she and her mother ate with never a word.\nSomething began to stifle her, but she choked it down. There were the\ndishes to be cleared away and washed, and the pans and kettles to be\ncleaned. Her back ached, her arms were tired to the shoulders and her\nburned hand quivered with pain when all was done. The old woman had left\nher to do the last few little things alone and had gone to her pipe.\nBoth she and her father were sitting in silence on the porch when June\nwent out there. Neither spoke to each other, nor to her, and both seemed\nto be part of the awful stillness that engulfed the world. Bub fell\nasleep in the soft air, and June sat and sat and sat. That was all\nexcept for the stars that came out over the mountains and were slowly\nbeing sprayed over the sky, and the pipings of frogs from the little\ncreek. Once the wind came with a sudden sweep up the river and she\nthought she could hear the creak of Uncle Billy\'s water-wheel. It\nsmote her with sudden gladness, not so much because it was a relief\nand because she loved the old miller, but--such is the power of\nassociation--because she now loved the mill more, loved it because the\nmill over in the Gap had made her think more of the mill at the mouth\nof Lonesome Cove. A tapping vibrated through the railing of the porch on\nwhich her cheek lay. Her father was knocking the ashes from his pipe. A\nsimilar tapping sounded inside at the fireplace. The old woman had gone\nand Bub was in bed, and she had heard neither move. The old man rose\nwith a yawn.\n\n\"Time to lay down, June.\"\n\nThe girl rose. They all slept in one room. She did not dare to put on\nher night-gown--her mother would see it in the morning. So she slipped\noff her dress, as she had done all her life, and crawled into bed with\nBub, who lay in the middle of it and who grunted peevishly when\nshe pushed him with some difficulty over to his side. There were no\nsheets--not even one--and the coarse blankets, which had a close acrid\nodour that she had never noticed before, seemed almost to scratch her\nflesh. She had hardly been to bed that early since she had left home,\nand she lay sleepless, watching the firelight play hide and seek with\nthe shadows among the aged, smoky rafters and flicker over the strings\nof dried things that hung from the ceiling. In the other corner her\nfather and stepmother snored heartily, and Bub, beside her, was in a\nnerveless slumber that would not come to her that night-tired and aching\nas she was. So, quietly, by and by, she slipped out of bed and out the\ndoor to the porch. The moon was rising and the radiant sheen of it had\ndropped down over the mountain side like a golden veil and was lighting\nup the white rising mists that trailed the curves of the river. It sank\nbelow the still crests of the pines beyond the garden and dropped on\nuntil it illumined, one by one, the dewy heads of the flowers. She rose\nand walked down the grassy path in her bare feet through the silent\nfragrant emblems of the planter\'s thought of her--touching this flower\nand that with the tips of her fingers. And when she went back, she bent\nto kiss one lovely rose and, as she lifted her head with a start\nof fear, the dew from it shining on her lips made her red mouth as\nflower-like and no less beautiful. A yell had shattered the quiet of the\nworld--not the high fox-hunting yell of the mountains, but something new\nand strange. Up the creek were strange lights. A loud laugh shattered\nthe succeeding stillness--a laugh she had never heard before in Lonesome\nCove. Swiftly she ran back to the porch. Surely strange things were\nhappening there. A strange spirit pervaded the Cove and the very air\nthrobbed with premonitions. What was the matter with everything--what\nwas the matter with her? She knew that she was lonely and that she\nwanted Hale--but what else was it? She shivered--and not alone from the\nchill night-air--and puzzled and wondering and stricken at heart, she\ncrept back to bed.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\n\nPausing at the Pine to let his big black horse blow a while, Hale\nmounted and rode slowly down the green-and-gold gloom of the ravine. In\nhis pocket was a quaint little letter from June to \"John Hail\"; thanking\nhim for the beautiful garden, saying she was lonely, and wanting him to\ncome soon. From the low flank of the mountain he stopped, looking down\non the cabin in Lonesome Cove. It was a dreaming summer day. Trees, air,\nblue sky and white cloud were all in a dream, and even the smoke lazing\nfrom the chimney seemed drifting away like the spirit of something human\nthat cared little whither it might be borne. Something crimson emerged\nfrom the door and stopped in indecision on the steps of the porch. It\nmoved again, stopped at the corner of the house, and then, moving on\nwith a purpose, stopped once more and began to flicker slowly to and\nfro like a flame. June was working in her garden. Hale thought he would\nhalloo to her, and then he decided to surprise her, and he went on down,\nhitched his horse and stole up to the garden fence. On the way he\npulled up a bunch of weeds by the roots and with them in his arms he\nnoiselessly climbed the fence. June neither heard nor saw him. Her\nunderlip was clenched tight between her teeth, the little cross swung\nviolently at her throat and she was so savagely wielding the light hoe\nhe had given her that he thought at first she must be killing a snake;\nbut she was only fighting to death every weed that dared to show its\nhead. Her feet and her head were bare, her face was moist and flushed\nand her hair was a tumbled heap of what was to him the rarest gold under\nthe sun. The wind was still, the leaves were heavy with the richness of\nfull growth, bees were busy about June\'s head and not another soul was\nin sight.\n\n\"Good morning, little girl!\" he called cheerily.\n\nThe hoe was arrested at the height of a vicious stroke and the little\ngirl whirled without a cry, but the blood from her pumping heart\ncrimsoned her face and made her eyes shine with gladness. Her eyes went\nto her feet and her hands to her hair.\n\n\"You oughtn\'t to slip up an\' s-startle a lady that-a-way,\" she said with\ngrave rebuke, and Hale looked humbled. \"Now you just set there and wait\ntill I come back.\"\n\n\"No--no--I want you to stay just as you are.\"\n\n\"Honest?\"\n\nHale gravely crossed heart and body and June gave out a happy little\nlaugh--for he had caught that gesture--a favourite one--from her. Then\nsuddenly:\n\n\"How long?\" She was thinking of what Dave said, but the subtle twist in\nher meaning passed Hale by. He raised his eyes to the sun and June shook\nher head.\n\n\"You got to go home \'fore sundown.\"\n\nShe dropped her hoe and came over toward him.\n\n\"Whut you doin\' with them--those weeds?\"\n\n\"Going to plant \'em in our garden.\" Hale had got a theory from a\ngarden-book that the humble burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plants\nwere good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to experiment, but June\ngave a shrill whoop and fell to scornful laughter. Then she snatched the\nweeds from him and threw them over the fence.\n\n\"Why, June!\"\n\n\"Not in MY garden. Them\'s stagger-weeds--they kill cows,\" and she went\noff again.\n\n\"I reckon you better c-consult me \'bout weeds next time. I don\'t know\nmuch \'bout flowers, but I\'ve knowed all my life \'bout WEEDS.\" She laid\nso much emphasis on the word that Hale wondered for the moment if her\nwords had a deeper meaning--but she went on:\n\n\"Ever\' spring I have to watch the cows fer two weeks to keep \'em from\neatin\'--those weeds.\" Her self-corrections were always made gravely now,\nand Hale consciously ignored them except when he had something to tell\nher that she ought to know. Everything, it seemed, she wanted to know.\n\n\"Do they really kill cows?\"\n\nJune snapped her fingers: \"Like that. But you just come on here,\"\nshe added with pretty imperiousness. \"I want to axe--ask you some\nthings--what\'s that?\"\n\n\"Scarlet sage.\"\n\n\"Scarlet sage,\" repeated June. \"An\' that?\"\n\n\"Nasturtium, and that\'s Oriental grass.\"\n\n\"Nas-tur-tium, Oriental. An\' what\'s that vine?\"\n\n\"That comes from North Africa--they call it \'matrimonial vine.\'\"\n\n\"Whut fer?\" asked June quickly.\n\n\"Because it clings so.\" Hale smiled, but June saw none of his\nhumour--the married people she knew clung till the finger of death\nunclasped them. She pointed to a bunch of tall tropical-looking plants\nwith great spreading leaves and big green-white stalks.\n\n\"They\'re called Palmae Christi.\"\n\n\"Whut?\"\n\n\"That\'s Latin. It means \'Hands of Christ,\'\" said Hale with reverence.\n\"You see how the leaves are spread out--don\'t they look like hands?\'\n\n\"Not much,\" said June frankly. \"What\'s Latin?\"\n\n\"Oh, that\'s a dead language that some people used a long, long time\nago.\"\n\n\"What do folks use it nowadays fer? Why don\'t they just say \'Hands o\'\nChrist\'?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" he said helplessly, \"but maybe you\'ll study Latin some\nof these days.\" June shook her head.\n\n\"Gettin\' YOUR language is a big enough job fer me,\" she said with such\nquaint seriousness that Hale could not laugh. She looked up suddenly.\n\"You been a long time git--gettin\' over here.\"\n\n\"Yes, and now you want to send me home before sundown.\"\n\n\"I\'m afeer--I\'m afraid for you. Have you got a gun?\" Hale tapped his\nbreast-pocket.\n\n\"Always. What are you afraid of?\"\n\n\"The Falins.\" She clenched her hands.\n\n\"I\'d like to SEE one o\' them Falins tech ye,\" she added fiercely, and\nthen she gave a quick look at the sun.\n\n\"You better go now, Jack. I\'m afraid fer you. Where\'s your horse?\" Hale\nwaved his hand.\n\n\"Down there. All right, little girl,\" he said. \"I ought to go, anyway.\"\nAnd, to humour her, he started for the gate. There he bent to kiss her,\nbut she drew back.\n\n\"I\'m afraid of Dave,\" she said, but she leaned on the gate and looked\nlong at him with wistful eyes.\n\n\"Jack,\" she said, and her eyes swam suddenly, \"it\'ll most kill me--but I\nreckon you better not come over here much.\" Hale made light of it all.\n\n\"Nonsense, I\'m coming just as often as I can.\" June smiled then.\n\n\"All right. I\'ll watch out fer ye.\"\n\nHe went down the path, her eyes following him, and when he looked back\nfrom the spur he saw her sitting in the porch and watching that she\nmight wave him farewell.\n\nHale could not go over to Lonesome Cove much that summer, for he was\naway from the mountains a good part of the time, and it was a weary,\nracking summer for June when he was not there. The step-mother was a\nstern taskmistress, and the girl worked hard, but no night passed that\nshe did not spend an hour or more on her books, and by degrees she\nbribed and stormed Bub into learning his A, B, C\'s and digging at a\nblue-back spelling book. But all through the day there were times when\nshe could play with the boy in the garden, and every afternoon, when\nit was not raining, she would slip away to a little ravine behind the\ncabin, where a log had fallen across a little brook, and there in the\ncool, sun-pierced shadows she would study, read and dream--with the\nwater bubbling underneath and wood-thrushes singing overhead. For Hale\nkept her well supplied with books. He had given her children\'s books\nat first, but she outgrew them when the first love-story fell into her\nhands, and then he gave her novels--good, old ones and the best of the\nnew ones, and they were to her what water is to a thing athirst. But the\nhappy days were when Hale was there. She had a thousand questions for\nhim to answer, whenever he came, about birds, trees and flowers and the\nthings she read in her books. The words she could not understand in them\nshe marked, so that she could ask their meaning, and it was amazing how\nher vocabulary increased. Moreover, she was always trying to use the\nnew words she learned, and her speech was thus a quaint mixture of\nvernacular, self-corrections and unexpected words. Happening once to\nhave a volume of Keats in his pocket, he read some of it to her, and\nwhile she could not understand, the music of the lines fascinated her\nand she had him leave that with her, too. She never tired hearing him\ntell of the places where he had been and the people he knew and the\nmusic and plays he had heard and seen. And when he told her that she,\ntoo, should see all those wonderful things some day, her deep eyes took\nfire and she dropped her head far back between her shoulders and looked\nlong at the stars that held but little more wonder for her than the\nworld of which he told. But each time he was there she grew noticeably\nshyer with him and never once was the love-theme between them taken up\nin open words. Hale was reluctant, if only because she was still such a\nchild, and if he took her hand or put his own on her wonderful head or\nhis arm around her as they stood in the garden under the stars--he did\nit as to a child, though the leap in her eyes and the quickening of his\nown heart told him the lie that he was acting, rightly, to her and to\nhimself. And no more now were there any breaking-downs within her--there\nwas only a calm faith that staggered him and gave him an ever-mounting\nsense of his responsibility for whatever might, through the part he had\ntaken in moulding her life, be in store for her.\n\nWhen he was not there, life grew a little easier for her in time,\nbecause of her dreams, the patience that was built from them and Hale\'s\nkindly words, the comfort of her garden and her books, and the blessed\nforce of habit. For as time went on, she got consciously used to the\nrough life, the coarse food and the rude ways of her own people and\nher own home. And though she relaxed not a bit in her own dainty\ncleanliness, the shrinking that she felt when she first arrived home,\ncame to her at longer and longer intervals. Once a week she went down\nto Uncle Billy\'s, where she watched the water-wheel dripping sun-jewels\ninto the sluice, the kingfisher darting like a blue bolt upon his prey,\nand listening to the lullaby that the water played to the sleepy old\nmill--and stopping, both ways, to gossip with old Hon in her porch under\nthe honeysuckle vines. Uncle Billy saw the change in her and he grew\nvaguely uneasy about her--she dreamed so much, she was at times so\nrestless, she asked so many questions he could not answer, and she\nfailed to ask so many that were on the tip of her tongue. He saw that\nwhile her body was at home, her thoughts rarely were; and it all haunted\nhim with a vague sense that he was losing her. But old Hon laughed at\nhim and told him he was an old fool and to \"git another pair o\' specs\"\nand maybe he could see that the \"little gal\" was in love. This startled\nUncle Billy, for he was so like a father to June that he was as slow\nas a father in recognizing that his child has grown to such absurd\nmaturity. But looking back to the beginning--how the little girl had\ntalked of the \"furriner\" who had come into Lonesome Cove all during\nthe six months he was gone; how gladly she had gone away to the Gap\nto school, how anxious she was to go still farther away again, and,\nremembering all the strange questions she asked him about things in the\noutside world of which he knew nothing--Uncle Billy shook his head in\nconfirmation of his own conclusion, and with all his soul he wondered\nabout Hale--what kind of a man he was and what his purpose was with\nJune--and of every man who passed his mill he never failed to ask if he\nknew \"that ar man Hale\" and what he knew. All he had heard had been in\nHale\'s favour, except from young Dave Tolliver, the Red Fox or from any\nFalin of the crowd, which Hale had prevented from capturing Dave.\nTheir statements bothered him--especially the Red Fox\'s evil hints\nand insinuations about Hale\'s purposes one day at the mill. The miller\nthought of them all the afternoon and all the way home, and when he\nsat down at his fire his eyes very naturally and simply rose to his old\nrifle over the door--and then he laughed to himself so loudly that old\nHon heard him.\n\n\"Air you goin\' crazy, Billy?\" she asked. \"Whut you studyin\' \'bout?\"\n\n\"Nothin\'; I was jest a-thinkin\' Devil Judd wouldn\'t leave a grease-spot\nof him.\"\n\n\"You AIR goin\' crazy--who\'s him?\"\n\n\"Uh--nobody,\" said Uncle Billy, and old Hon turned with a shrug of her\nshoulders--she was tired of all this talk about the feud.\n\nAll that summer young Dave Tolliver hung around Lonesome Cove. He would\nsit for hours in Devil Judd\'s cabin, rarely saying anything to June or\nto anybody, though the girl felt that she hardly made a move that he did\nnot see, and while he disappeared when Hale came, after a surly grunt\nof acknowledgment to Hale\'s cheerful greeting, his perpetual espionage\nbegan to anger June. Never, however, did he put himself into words until\nHale\'s last visit, when the summer had waned and it was nearly time for\nJune to go away again to school. As usual, Dave had left the house when\nHale came, and an hour after Hale was gone she went to the little ravine\nwith a book in her hand, and there the boy was sitting on her log, his\nelbows dug into his legs midway between thigh and knee, his chin in his\nhands, his slouched hat over his black eyes--every line of him picturing\nangry, sullen dejection. She would have slipped away, but he heard her\nand lifted his head and stared at her without speaking. Then he slowly\ngot off the log and sat down on a moss-covered stone.\n\n\"\'Scuse me,\" he said with elaborate sarcasm. \"This bein\' yo\'\nschool-house over hyeh, an\' me not bein\' a scholar, I reckon I\'m in your\nway.\"\n\n\"How do you happen to know hit\'s my school-house?\" asked June quietly.\n\n\"I\'ve seed you hyeh.\"\n\n\"Jus\' as I s\'posed.\"\n\n\"You an\' HIM.\"\n\n\"Jus\' as I s\'posed,\" she repeated, and a spot of red came into each\ncheek. \"But we didn\'t see YOU.\" Young Dave laughed.\n\n\"Well, everybody don\'t always see me when I\'m seein\' them.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said unsteadily. \"So, you\'ve been sneakin\' around through the\nwoods a-spyin\' on me--SNEAKIN\' AN\' SPYIN\',\" she repeated so searingly\nthat Dave looked at the ground suddenly, picked up a pebble confusedly\nand shot it in the water.\n\n\"I had a mighty good reason,\" he said doggedly. \"Ef he\'d been up to some\nof his furrin\' tricks---\" June stamped the ground.\n\n\"Don\'t you think I kin take keer o\' myself?\"\n\n\"No, I don\'t. I never seed a gal that could--with one o\' them\nfurriners.\"\n\n\"Huh!\" she said scornfully. \"You seem to set a mighty big store by the\ndecency of yo\' own kin.\" Dave was silent. \"He ain\'t up to no tricks. An\'\nwhut do you reckon Dad \'ud be doin\' while you was pertecting me?\"\n\n\"Air ye goin\' away to school?\" he asked suddenly. June hesitated.\n\n\"Well, seein\' as hit\'s none o\' yo\' business--I am.\"\n\n\"Air ye goin\' to marry him?\"\n\n\"He ain\'t axed me.\" The boy\'s face turned red as a flame.\n\n\"Ye air honest with me, an\' now I\'m goin\' to be honest with you. You\nhain\'t never goin\' to marry him.\"\n\n[Illustration: You hain\'t never goin\' to marry him.\", 0242]\n\n\"Mebbe you think I\'m goin\' to marry YOU.\" A mist of rage swept before\nthe lad\'s eyes so that he could hardly see, but he repeated steadily:\n\n\"You hain\'t goin\' to marry HIM.\" June looked at the boy long and\nsteadily, but his black eyes never wavered--she knew what he meant.\n\n\"An\' he kept the Falins from killin\' you,\" she said, quivering with\nindignation at the shame of him, but Dave went on unheeding:\n\n\"You pore little fool! Do ye reckon as how he\'s EVER goin\' to axe ye\nto marry him? Whut\'s he sendin\' you away fer? Because you hain\'t good\nenough fer him! Whar\'s yo\' pride? You hain\'t good enough fer him,\" he\nrepeated scathingly. June had grown calm now.\n\n\"I know it,\" she said quietly, \"but I\'m goin\' to try to be.\"\n\nDave rose then in impotent fury and pointed one finger at her. His black\neyes gleamed like a demon\'s and his voice was hoarse with resolution and\nrage, but it was Tolliver against Tolliver now, and June answered him\nwith contemptuous fearlessness.\n\n\"YOU HAIN\'T NEVER GOIN\' TO MARRY HIM.\"\n\n\"An\' he kept the Falins from killin\' ye.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he retorted savagely at last, \"an\' I kept the Falins from killin\'\nHIM,\" and he stalked away, leaving June blanched and wondering.\n\nIt was true. Only an hour before, as Hale turned up the mountain that\nvery afternoon at the mouth of Lonesome Cove, young Dave had called to\nhim from the bushes and stepped into the road.\n\n\"You air goin\' to court Monday?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Well, you better take another road this time,\" he said quietly. \"Three\no\' the Falins will be waitin\' in the lorrel somewhar on the road to\nlay-way ye.\"\n\nHale was dumfounded, but he knew the boy spoke the truth.\n\n\"Look here,\" he said impulsively, \"I\'ve got nothing against you, and\nI hope you\'ve got nothing against me. I\'m much obliged--let\'s shake\nhands!\"\n\nThe boy turned sullenly away with a dogged shake of his head.\n\n\"I was beholden to you,\" he said with dignity, \"an\' I warned you \'bout\nthem Falins to git even with you. We\'re quits now.\"\n\nHale started to speak--to say that the lad was not beholden to him--that\nhe would as quickly have protected a Falin, but it would have only made\nmatters worse. Moreover, he knew precisely what Dave had against him,\nand that, too, was no matter for discussion. So he said simply and\nsincerely:\n\n\"I\'m sorry we can\'t be friends.\"\n\n\"No,\" Dave gritted out, \"not this side o\' Heaven--or Hell.\"\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\n\nAnd still farther into that far silence about which she used to dream\nat the base of the big Pine, went little June. At dusk, weary and\ntravel-stained, she sat in the parlours of a hotel--a great gray\ncolumned structure of stone. She was confused and bewildered and her\nhead ached. The journey had been long and tiresome. The swift motion of\nthe train had made her dizzy and faint. The dust and smoke had almost\nstifled her, and even now the dismal parlours, rich and wonderful as\nthey were to her unaccustomed eyes, oppressed her deeply. If she could\nhave one more breath of mountain air!\n\nThe day had been too full of wonders. Impressions had crowded on her\nsensitive brain so thick and fast that the recollection of them was as\nthrough a haze. She had never been on a train before and when, as\nit crashed ahead, she clutched Hale\'s arm in fear and asked how they\nstopped it, Hale hearing the whistle blow for a station, said:\n\n\"I\'ll show you,\" and he waved one hand out the window. And he repeated\nthis trick twice before she saw that it was a joke. All day he had\nsoothed her uneasiness in some such way and all day he watched her with\nan amused smile that was puzzling to her. She remembered sadly watching\nthe mountains dwindle and disappear, and when several of her own people\nwho were on the train were left at way-stations, it seemed as though all\nlinks that bound her to her home were broken. The face of the country\nchanged, the people changed in looks, manners and dress, and she shrank\ncloser to Hale with an increasing sense of painful loneliness. These\nlevel fields and these farm-houses so strangely built, so varied in\ncolour were the \"settlemints,\" and these people so nicely dressed, so\nclean and fresh-looking were \"furriners.\" At one station a crowd\nof school-girls had got on board and she had watched them with keen\ninterest, mystified by their incessant chatter and gayety. And at last\nhad come the big city, with more smoke, more dust, more noise, more\nconfusion--and she was in HIS world. That was the thought that comforted\nher--it was his world, and now she sat alone in the dismal parlours\nwhile Hale was gone to find his sister--waiting and trembling at the\nordeal, close upon her, of meeting Helen Hale.\n\nBelow, Hale found his sister and her maid registered, and a few minutes\nlater he led Miss Hale into the parlour. As they entered June rose\nwithout advancing, and for a moment the two stood facing each other--the\nstill roughly clad, primitive mountain girl and the exquisite modern\nwoman--in an embarrassment equally painful to both.\n\n\"June, this is my sister.\"\n\nAt a loss what to do, Helen Hale simply stretched out her hand, but\ndrawn by June\'s timidity and the quick admiration and fear in her eyes,\nshe leaned suddenly forward and kissed her. A grateful flush overspread\nthe little girl\'s features and the pallor that instantly succeeded went\nstraight-way to the sister\'s heart.\n\n\"You are not well,\" she said quickly and kindly. \"You must go to your\nroom at once. I am going to take care of you--you are MY little sister\nnow.\"\n\nJune lost the subtlety in Miss Hale\'s emphasis, but she fell with\ninstant submission under such gentle authority, and though she could say\nnothing, her eyes glistened and her lips quivered, and without looking\nto Hale, she followed his sister out of the room. Hale stood still.\nHe had watched the meeting with apprehension and now, surprised and\ngrateful, he went to Helen\'s parlour and waited with a hopeful heart.\nWhen his sister entered, he rose eagerly:\n\n\"Well--\" he said, stopping suddenly, for there were tears of vexation,\ndismay and genuine distress on his sister\'s face.\n\n\"Oh, Jack,\" she cried, \"how could you! How could you!\"\n\nHale bit his lips, turned and paced the room. He had hoped too much and\nyet what else could he have expected? His sister and June knew as little\nabout each other and each other\'s lives as though they had occupied\ndifferent planets. He had forgotten that Helen must be shocked by June\'s\ninaccuracies of speech and in a hundred other ways to which he had\nbecome accustomed. With him, moreover, the process had been gradual and,\nmoreover, he had seen beneath it all. And yet he had foolishly expected\nHelen to understand everything at once. He was unjust, so very wisely he\nheld himself in silence.\n\n\"Where is her baggage, Jack?\" Helen had opened her trunk and was lifting\nout the lid. \"She ought to change those dusty clothes at once. You\'d\nbetter ring and have it sent right up.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale, \"I will go down and see about it myself.\"\n\nHe returned presently--his face aflame--with June\'s carpet-bag.\n\n\"I believe this is all she has,\" he said quietly.\n\nIn spite of herself Helen\'s grief changed to a fit of helpless laughter\nand, afraid to trust himself further, Hale rose to leave the room. At\nthe door he was met by the negro maid.\n\n\"Miss Helen,\" she said with an open smile, \"Miss June say she don\'t want\nNUTTIN\'.\" Hale gave her a fiery look and hurried out. June was seated\nat a window when he went into her room with her face buried in her arms.\nShe lifted her head, dropped it, and he saw that her eyes were red with\nweeping. \"Are you sick, little girl?\" he asked anxiously. June shook her\nhead helplessly.\n\n\"You aren\'t homesick, are you?\"\n\n\"No.\" The answer came very faintly.\n\n\"Don\'t you like my sister?\" The head bowed an emphatic \"Yes--yes.\"\n\n\"Then what is the matter?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she said despairingly, between her sobs, \"she--won\'t--like--me. I\nnever--can--be--like HER.\"\n\nHale smiled, but her grief was so sincere that he leaned over her and\nwith a tender hand soothed her into quiet. Then he went to Helen again\nand he found her overhauling dresses.\n\n\"I brought along several things of different sizes and I am going to try\nat any rate. Oh,\" she added hastily, \"only of course until she can get\nsome clothes of her own.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Hale, \"but--\" His sister waved one hand and again Hale kept\nstill.\n\nJune had bathed her eyes and was lying down when Helen entered, and\nshe made not the slightest objection to anything the latter proposed.\nStraightway she fell under as complete subjection to her as she had done\nto Hale. Without a moment\'s hesitation she drew off her rudely fashioned\ndress and stood before Helen with the utmost simplicity--her beautiful\narms and throat bare and her hair falling about them with the rich gold\nof a cloud at an autumn sunset. Dressed, she could hardly breathe,\nbut when she looked at herself in the mirror, she trembled. Magic\ntransformation! Apparently the chasm between the two had been bridged\nin a single instant. Helen herself was astonished and again her heart\nwarmed toward the girl, when a little later, she stood timidly under\nHale\'s scrutiny, eagerly watching his face and flushing rosy\nwith happiness under his brightening look. Her brother had not\nexaggerated--the little girl was really beautiful. When they went down\nto the dining-room, there was another surprise for Helen Hale, for\nJune\'s timidity was gone and to the wonder of the woman, she was clothed\nwith an impassive reserve that in herself would have been little less\nthan haughtiness and was astounding in a child. She saw, too, that the\nchange in the girl\'s bearing was unconscious and that the presence of\nstrangers had caused it. It was plain that June\'s timidity sprang from\nher love of Hale--her fear of not pleasing him and not pleasing her, his\nsister, and plain, too, that remarkable self-poise was little June\'s to\ncommand. At the table June kept her eyes fastened on Helen Hale. Not a\nmovement escaped her and she did nothing that was not done by one of the\nothers first. She said nothing, but if she had to answer a question, she\nspoke with such care and precision that she almost seemed to be using\na foreign language. Miss Hale smiled but with inward approval, and that\nnight she was in better spirits.\n\n\"Jack,\" she said, when he came to bid her good-night, \"I think we\'d\nbetter stay here a few days. I thought of course you were exaggerating,\nbut she is very, very lovely. And that manner of hers--well, it passes\nmy understanding. Just leave everything to me.\"\n\nHale was very willing to do that. He had all trust in his sister\'s\njudgment, he knew her dislike of interference, her love of autocratic\nsupervision, so he asked no questions, but in grateful relief kissed her\ngood-night.\n\nThe sister sat for a long time at her window after he was gone. Her\nbrother had been long away from civilization; he had become infatuated,\nthe girl loved him, he was honourable and in his heart he meant to marry\nher--that was to her the whole story. She had been mortified by the\nmisstep, but the misstep made, only one thought had occurred to her--to\nhelp him all she could. She had been appalled when she first saw the\ndusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness\nof the tired little face touched her, and she was straightway responsive\nto the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted to her own\nwith such modest fear and wonder. Now her surprise at her brother\'s\ninfatuation was abating rapidly. The girl\'s adoration of him, her wild\nbeauty, her strange winning personality--as rare and as independent of\nbirth and circumstances as genius--had soon made that phenomenon plain.\nAnd now what was to be done? The girl was quick, observant, imitative,\ndocile, and in the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner gave\nthe impression of uncanny self-possession. It really seemed as though\nanything might be possible. At Helen\'s suggestion, then, the three\nstayed where they were for a week, for June\'s wardrobe was sadly in need\nof attention. So the week was spent in shopping, driving, and walking,\nand rapidly as it passed for Helen and Hale it was to June the longest\nof her life, so filled was it with a thousand sensations unfelt by them.\nThe city had been stirred by the spirit of the new South, but the charm\nof the old was distinct everywhere. Architectural eccentricities had\nstartled the sleepy maple-shaded rows of comfortable uniform dwellings\nhere and there, and in some streets the life was brisk; but it was\nstill possible to see pedestrians strolling with unconscious good-humour\naround piles of goods on the sidewalk, business men stopping for a\nsocial chat on the streets, street-cars moving independent of time,\nmen invariably giving up their seats to women, and, strangers or not,\ndepositing their fare for them; the drivers at the courteous personal\nservice of each patron of the road--now holding a car and placidly\nwhistling while some lady who had signalled from her doorway went back\nindoors for some forgotten article, now twisting the reins around the\nbrakes and leaving a parcel in some yard--and no one grumbling! But what\nwas to Hale an atmosphere of amusing leisure was to June bewildering\nconfusion. To her his amusement was unintelligible, but though in\nconstant wonder at everything she saw, no one would ever have suspected\nthat she was making her first acquaintance with city scenes. At first\nthe calm unconcern of her companions had puzzled her. She could not\nunderstand how they could walk along, heedless of the wonderful visions\nthat beckoned to her from the shop-windows; fearless of the strange\nnoises about them and scarcely noticing the great crowds of people,\nor the strange shining vehicles that thronged the streets. But she had\nquickly concluded that it was one of the demands of that new life to\nsee little and be astonished at nothing, and Helen and Hale surprised in\nturn at her unconcern, little suspected the effort her self-suppression\ncost her. And when over some wonder she did lose herself, Hale would\nsay:\n\n\"Just wait till you see New York!\" and June would turn her dark eyes to\nHelen for confirmation and to see if Hale could be joking with her.\n\n\"It\'s all true, June,\" Helen would say. \"You must go there some day.\nIt\'s true.\" But that town was enough and too much for June. Her head\nbuzzed continuously and she could hardly sleep, and she was glad when\none afternoon they took her into the country again--the Bluegrass\ncountry--and to the little town near which Hale had been born, and which\nwas a dream-city to June, and to a school of which an old friend of\nhis mother was principal, and in which Helen herself was a temporary\nteacher. And Rumour had gone ahead of June. Hale had found her dashing\nabout the mountains on the back of a wild bull, said rumour. She was as\nbeautiful as Europa, was of pure English descent and spoke the language\nof Shakespeare--the Hon. Sam Budd\'s hand was patent in this. She had\nsaved Hale\'s life from moonshiners and while he was really in love\nwith her, he was pretending to educate her out of gratitude--and\nhere doubtless was the faint tracery of Miss Anne Saunder\'s natural\nsuspicions. And there Hale left her under the eye of his sister--left\nher to absorb another new life like a thirsty plant and come back to the\nmountains to make his head swim with new witcheries.\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\n\nThe boom started after its shadow through the hills now, and Hale\nwatched it sweep toward him with grim satisfaction at the fulfilment of\nhis own prophecy and with disgust that, by the irony of fate, it\nshould come from the very quarters where years before he had played\nthe maddening part of lunatic at large. The avalanche was sweeping\nsouthward; Pennsylvania was creeping down the Alleghanies, emissaries of\nNew York capital were pouring into the hills, the tide-water of Virginia\nand the Bluegrass region of Kentucky were sending in their best blood\nand youth, and friends of the helmeted Englishmen were hurrying over the\nseas. Eastern companies were taking up principalities, and at Cumberland\nGap, those helmeted Englishmen had acquired a kingdom. They were\nbuilding a town there, too, with huge steel plants, broad avenues and\nbusiness blocks that would have graced Broadway; and they were pouring\nout a million for every thousand that it would have cost Hale to acquire\nthe land on which the work was going on. Moreover they were doing it\nthere, as Hale heard, because they were too late to get control of\nhis gap through the Cumberland. At his gap, too, the same movement was\nstarting. In stage and wagon, on mule and horse, \"riding and tying\"\nsometimes, and even afoot came the rush of madmen. Horses and mules were\ndrowned in the mud holes along the road, such was the traffic and such\nwere the floods. The incomers slept eight in a room, burned oil at one\ndollar a gallon, and ate potatoes at ten cents apiece. The Grand Central\nHotel was a humming Real-Estate Exchange, and, night and day, the\noccupants of any room could hear, through the thin partitions, lots\nbooming to right, left, behind and in front of them. The labour\nand capital question was instantly solved, for everybody became a\ncapitalist-carpenter, brick-layer, blacksmith, singing teacher and\npreacher. There is no difference between the shrewdest business man and\na fool in a boom, for the boom levels all grades of intelligence and\nproduces as distinct a form of insanity as you can find within the walls\nof an asylum. Lots took wings sky-ward. Hale bought one for June for\nthirty dollars and sold it for a thousand. Before the autumn was gone,\nhe found himself on the way to ridiculous opulence and, when spring\ncame, he had the world in a sling and, if he wished, he could toss it\nplayfully at the sun and have it drop back into his hand again. And the\nboom spread down the valley and into the hills. The police guard had\nlittle to do and, over in the mountains, the feud miraculously came to a\nsudden close.\n\nSo pervasive, indeed, was the spirit of the times that the Hon. Sam\nBudd actually got old Buck Falin and old Dave Tolliver to sign a truce,\nagreeing to a complete cessation of hostilities until he carried through\na land deal in which both were interested. And after that was\nconcluded, nobody had time, even the Red Fox, for deviltry and private\nvengeance--so busy was everybody picking up the manna which was dropping\nstraight from the clouds. Hale bought all of old Judd\'s land, formed a\nstock company and in the trade gave June a bonus of the stock. Money was\nplentiful as grains of sand, and the cashier of the bank in the back of\nthe furniture store at the Gap chuckled to his beardless directors as he\nlocked the wooden door on the day before the great land sale:\n\n\"Capital stock paid in--thirteen thousand dollars;\n\n\"Deposits--three hundred thousand;\n\n\"Loans--two hundred and sixty thousand--interest from eight to twelve\nper cent.\" And, beardless though those directors were, that statement\nmade them reel.\n\nA club was formed and the like of it was not below Mason and Dixon\'s\nline in the way of furniture, periodicals, liquors and cigars. Poker\nceased--it was too tame in competition with this new game of town-lots.\nOn the top of High Knob a kingdom was bought. The young bloods of the\ntown would build a lake up there, run a road up and build a Swiss chalet\non the very top for a country club. The \"booming\" editor was discharged.\nA new paper was started, and the ex-editor of a New York Daily was got\nto run it. If anybody wanted anything, he got it from no matter where,\nnor at what cost. Nor were the arts wholly neglected. One man, who was\nproud of his voice, thought he would like to take singing lessons. An\nemissary was sent to Boston to bring back the best teacher he could\nfind. The teacher came with a method of placing the voice by trying to\nsay \"Come!\" at the base of the nose and between the eyes. This was with\nthe lips closed. He charged two dollars per half hour for this effort,\nhe had each pupil try it twice for half an hour each day, and for six\nweeks the town was humming like a beehive. At the end of that period,\nthe teacher fell ill and went his way with a fat pocket-book and not\na warbling soul had got the chance to open his mouth. The experience\ndampened nobody. Generosity was limitless. It was equally easy to raise\nmoney for a roulette wheel, a cathedral or an expedition to Africa.\nAnd even yet the railroad was miles away and even yet in February, the\nImprovement Company had a great land sale. The day before it, competing\npurchasers had deposited cheques aggregating three times the sum\nasked for by the company for the land. So the buyers spent the night\norganizing a pool to keep down competition and drawing lots for the\nprivilege of bidding. For fairness, the sale was an auction, and one old\nfarmer who had sold some of the land originally for a hundred dollars an\nacre, bought back some of that land at a thousand dollars a lot.\n\nThat sale was the climax and, that early, Hale got a warning word from\nEngland, but he paid no heed even though, after the sale, the boom\nslackened, poised and stayed still; for optimism was unquenchable and\nanother tide would come with another sale in May, and so the spring\npassed in the same joyous recklessness and the same perfect hope.\n\nIn April, the first railroad reached the Gap at last, and families came\nin rapidly. Money was still plentiful and right royally was it spent,\nfor was not just as much more coming when the second road arrived in\nMay? Life was easier, too--supplies came from New York, eight o\'clock\ndinners were in vogue and everybody was happy. Every man had two or\nthree good horses and nothing to do. The place was full of visiting\ngirls. They rode in parties to High Knob, and the ring of hoof and the\nlaughter of youth and maid made every dusk resonant with joy. On Poplar\nHill houses sprang up like magic and weddings came. The passing stranger\nwas stunned to find out in the wilderness such a spot; gayety, prodigal\nhospitality, a police force of gentlemen--nearly all of whom were\ncollege graduates--and a club, where poker flourished in the smoke of\nHavana cigars, and a barrel of whiskey stood in one corner with a faucet\nwaiting for the turn of any hand. And still the foundation of the new\nhotel was not started and the coming of the new railroad in May did not\nmake a marked change. For some reason the May sale was postponed by the\nImprovement Company, but what did it matter? Perhaps it was better to\nwait for the fall, and so the summer went on unchanged. Every man still\nhad a bank account and in the autumn, the boom would come again. At such\na time June came home for her vacation, and Bob Berkley came back from\ncollege for his. All through the school year Hale had got the best\nreports of June. His sister\'s letters were steadily encouraging. June\nhad been very homesick for the mountains and for Hale at first, but the\nhomesickness had quickly worn off--apparently for both. She had studied\nhard, had become a favourite among the girls, and had held her own\namong them in a surprising way. But it was on June\'s musical talent that\nHale\'s sister always laid most stress, and on her voice which, she said,\nwas really unusual. June wrote, too, at longer and longer intervals and\nin her letters, Hale could see the progress she was making--the change\nin her handwriting, the increasing formality of expression, and the\nincreasing shrewdness of her comments on her fellow-pupils, her teachers\nand the life about her. She did not write home for a reason Hale knew,\nthough June never mentioned it--because there was no one at home who\ncould read her letters--but she always sent messages to her father and\nBub and to the old miller and old Hon, and Hale faithfully delivered\nthem when he could.\n\nFrom her people, as Hale learned from his sister, only one messenger had\ncome during the year to June, and he came but once. One morning, a tall,\nblack-haired, uncouth young man, in a slouch hat and a Prince Albert\ncoat, had strode up to the school with a big paper box under his arm and\nasked for June. As he handed the box to the maid at the door, it broke\nand red apples burst from it and rolled down the steps. There was a\nshriek of laughter from the girls, and the young man, flushing red as\nthe apples, turned, without giving his name, and strode back with no\nlittle majesty, looking neither to right nor left. Hale knew and June\nknew that the visitor was her cousin Dave, but she never mentioned the\nincident to him, though as the end of the session drew nigh, her letters\nbecame more frequent and more full of messages to the people in Lonesome\nCove, and she seemed eager to get back home. Over there about this time,\nold Judd concluded suddenly to go West, taking Bud with him, and when\nHale wrote the fact, an answer came from June that showed the blot of\ntears. However, she seemed none the less in a hurry to get back, and\nwhen Hale met her at the station, he was startled; for she came back in\ndresses that were below her shoe-tops, with her wonderful hair massed\nin a golden glory on the top of her head and the little fairy-cross\ndangling at a woman\'s throat. Her figure had rounded, her voice had\nsoftened. She held herself as straight as a young poplar and she walked\nthe earth as though she had come straight from Olympus. And still, in\nspite of her new feathers and airs and graces, there was in her eye and\nin her laugh and in her moods all the subtle wild charm of the child in\nLonesome Cove. It was fairy-time for June that summer, though her father\nand Bud had gone West, for her step-mother was living with a sister, the\ncabin in Lonesome Cove was closed and June stayed at the Gap, not at the\nWidow Crane\'s boarding-house, but with one of Hale\'s married friends\non Poplar Hill. And always was she, young as she was, one of the merry\nparties of that happy summer--even at the dances, for the dance, too,\nJune had learned. Moreover she had picked up the guitar, and many times\nwhen Hale had been out in the hills, he would hear her silver-clear\nvoice floating out into the moonlight as he made his way toward Poplar\nHill, and he would stop under the beeches and listen with ears of\ngrowing love to the wonder of it all. For it was he who was the ardent\none of the two now.\n\nJune was no longer the frank, impulsive child who stood at the foot of\nthe beech, doggedly reckless if all the world knew her love for him. She\nhad taken flight to some inner recess where it was difficult for Hale to\nfollow, and right puzzled he was to discover that he must now win again\nwhat, unasked, she had once so freely given.\n\nBob Berkley, too, had developed amazingly. He no longer said \"Sir\" to\nHale--that was bad form at Harvard--he called him by his first name and\nlooked him in the eye as man to man: just as June--Hale observed--no\nlonger seemed in any awe of Miss Anne Saunders and to have lost all\njealousy of her, or of anybody else--so swiftly had her instinct taught\nher she now had nothing to fear. And Bob and June seemed mightily\npleased with each other, and sometimes Hale, watching them as they\ngalloped past him on horseback laughing and bantering, felt foolish\nto think of their perfect fitness--the one for the other--and the\nincongruity of himself in a relationship that would so naturally be\ntheirs. At one thing he wondered: she had made an extraordinary\nrecord at school and it seemed to him that it was partly through the\nconsciousness that her brain would take care of itself that she could\npay such heed to what hitherto she had had no chance to learn--dress,\nmanners, deportment and speech. Indeed, it was curious that she seemed\nto lay most stress on the very things to which he, because of his long\nrough life in the mountains, was growing more and more indifferent.\nIt was quite plain that Bob, with his extreme gallantry of manner,\nhis smart clothes, his high ways and his unconquerable gayety, had\nsupplanted him on the pedestal where he had been the year before, just\nas somebody, somewhere--his sister, perhaps--had supplanted Miss Anne.\nSeveral times indeed June had corrected Hale\'s slips of tongue with\nmischievous triumph, and once when he came back late from a long trip in\nthe mountains and walked in to dinner without changing his clothes,\nHale saw her look from himself to the immaculate Bob with an unconscious\ncomparison that half amused, half worried him. The truth was he was\nbuilding a lovely Frankenstein and from wondering what he was going to\ndo with it, he was beginning to wonder now what it might some day\ndo with him. And though he sometimes joked with Miss Anne, who had\nwithdrawn now to the level plane of friendship with him, about the\ntransformation that was going on, he worried in a way that did neither\nhis heart nor his brain good. Still he fought both to little purpose\nall that summer, and it was not till the time was nigh when June must\ngo away again, that he spoke both. For Hale\'s sister was going to marry,\nand it was her advice that he should take June to New York if only for\nthe sake of her music and her voice. That very day June had for the\nfirst time seen her cousin Dave. He was on horseback, he had been\ndrinking and he pulled in and, without an answer to her greeting, stared\nher over from head to foot. Colouring angrily, she started on and then\nhe spoke thickly and with a sneer:\n\n\"\'Bout fryin\' size, now, ain\'t ye? I reckon maybe, if you keep on,\nyou\'ll be good enough fer him in a year or two more.\"\n\n\"I\'m much obliged for those apples, Dave,\" said June quietly--and Dave\nflushed a darker red and sat still, forgetting to renew the old threat\nthat was on his tongue.\n\nBut his taunt rankled in the girl--rankled more now than when Dave first\nmade it, for she better saw the truth of it and the hurt was the greater\nto her unconquerable pride that kept her from betraying the hurt to Dave\nlong ago, and now, when he was making an old wound bleed afresh. But\nthe pain was with her at dinner that night and through the evening. She\navoided Hale\'s eyes though she knew that he was watching her all the\ntime, and her instinct told her that something was going to happen that\nnight and what that something was. Hale was the last to go and when he\ncalled to her from the porch, she went out trembling and stood at the\nhead of the steps in the moonlight.\n\n\"I love you, little girl,\" he said simply, \"and I want you to marry me\nsome day--will you, June?\" She was unsurprised but she flushed under his\nhungry eyes, and the little cross throbbed at her throat.\n\n\"SOME day-not NOW,\" she thought, and then with equal simplicity: \"Yes,\nJack.\"\n\n\"And if you should love somebody else more, you\'ll tell me right\naway--won\'t you, June?\" She shrank a little and her eyes fell, but\nstraight-way she raised them steadily:\n\n\"Yes, Jack.\"\n\n\"Thank you, little girl--good-night.\"\n\n\"Good-night, Jack.\"\n\nHale saw the little shrinking movement she made, and, as he went down\nthe hill, he thought she seemed to be in a hurry to be alone, and that\nshe had caught her breath sharply as she turned away. And brooding he\nwalked the woods long that night.\n\nOnly a few days later, they started for New York and, with all her\ndreaming, June had never dreamed that the world could be so large.\nMountains and vast stretches of rolling hills and level land melted\naway from her wondering eyes; towns and cities sank behind them, swift\nstreams swollen by freshets were outstripped and left behind, darkness\ncame on and, through it, they still sped on. Once during the night she\nwoke from a troubled dream in her berth and for a moment she thought she\nwas at home again. They were running through mountains again and there\nthey lay in the moonlight, the great calm dark faces that she knew and\nloved, and she seemed to catch the odour of the earth and feel the cool\nair on her face, but there was no pang of homesickness now--she was too\neager for the world into which she was going. Next morning the air was\ncooler, the skies lower and grayer--the big city was close at hand. Then\ncame the water, shaking and sparkling in the early light like a great\ncauldron of quicksilver, and the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge--a ribbon of\ntwinkling lights tossed out through the mist from the mighty city that\nrose from that mist as from a fantastic dream; then the picking of a\nway through screeching little boats and noiseless big ones and white\nbird-like floating things and then they disappeared like two tiny grains\nin a shifting human tide of sand. But Hale was happy now, for on that\ntrip June had come back to herself, and to him, once more--and now, awed\nbut unafraid, eager, bubbling, uplooking, full of quaint questions\nabout everything she saw, she was once more sitting with affectionate\nreverence at his feet. When he left her in a great low house that\nfronted on the majestic Hudson, June clung to him with tears and of her\nown accord kissed him for the first time since she had torn her little\nplayhouse to pieces at the foot of the beech down in the mountains far\naway. And Hale went back with peace in his heart, but to trouble in the\nhills.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nNot suddenly did the boom drop down there, not like a falling star,\nbut on the wings of hope--wings that ever fluttering upward, yet sank\ninexorably and slowly closed. The first crash came over the waters when\ncertain big men over there went to pieces--men on whose shoulders rested\nthe colossal figure of progress that the English were carving from the\nhills at Cumberland Gap. Still nobody saw why a hurt to the Lion should\nmake the Eagle sore and so the American spirit at the other gaps and\nall up the Virginia valleys that skirt the Cumberland held faithful\nand dauntless--for a while. But in time as the huge steel plants grew\nnoiseless, and the flaming throats of the furnaces were throttled, a\nsympathetic fire of dissolution spread slowly North and South and it was\nplain only to the wise outsider as merely a matter of time until, all up\nand down the Cumberland, the fox and the coon and the quail could come\nback to their old homes on corner lots, marked each by a pathetic little\nwhitewashed post--a tombstone over the graves of a myriad of buried\nhuman hopes. But it was the gap where Hale was that died last and\nhardest--and of the brave spirits there, his was the last and hardest to\ndie.\n\nIn the autumn, while June was in New York, the signs were sure but every\nsoul refused to see them. Slowly, however, the vexed question of labour\nand capital was born again, for slowly each local capitalist went slowly\nback to his own trade: the blacksmith to his forge, but the carpenter\nnot to his plane nor the mason to his brick--there was no more building\ngoing on. The engineer took up his transit, the preacher-politician was\noftener in his pulpit, and the singing teacher started on his round of\nraucous do-mi-sol-dos through the mountains again. It was curious to see\nhow each man slowly, reluctantly and perforce sank back again to his old\noccupation--and the town, with the luxuries of electricity, water-works,\nbath-tubs and a street railway, was having a hard fight for the plain\nnecessities of life. The following spring, notes for the second payment\non the lots that had been bought at the great land sale fell due,\nand but very few were paid. As no suits were brought by the company,\nhowever, hope did not quite die. June did not come home for the\nsummer, and Hale did not encourage her to come--she visited some of her\nschool-mates in the North and took a trip West to see her father who had\ngone out there again and bought a farm. In the early autumn, Devil Judd\ncame back to the mountains and announced his intention to leave them for\ngood. But that autumn, the effects of the dead boom became perceptible\nin the hills. There were no more coal lands bought, logging ceased, the\nfactions were idle once more, moonshine stills flourished, quarrelling\nstarted, and at the county seat, one Court day, Devil Judd whipped three\nFalins with his bare fists. In the early spring a Tolliver was shot\nfrom ambush and old Judd was so furious at the outrage that he openly\nannounced that he would stay at home until he had settled the old scores\nfor good. So that, as the summer came on, matters between the Falins and\nthe Tollivers were worse than they had been for years and everybody knew\nthat, with old Judd at the head of his clan again, the fight would be\nfought to the finish. At the Gap, one institution only had suffered in\nspirit not at all and that was the Volunteer Police Guard. Indeed, as\nthe excitement of the boom had died down, the members of that force,\nas a vent for their energies, went with more enthusiasm than ever into\ntheir work. Local lawlessness had been subdued by this time, the Guard\nhad been extending its work into the hills, and it was only a question\nof time until it must take a part in the Falin-Tolliver troubles.\nIndeed, that time, Hale believed, was not far away, for Election Day was\nat hand, and always on that day the feudists came to the Gap in a search\nfor trouble. Meanwhile, not long afterward, there was a pitched battle\nbetween the factions at the county seat, and several of each would fight\nno more. Next day a Falin whistled a bullet through Devil Judd\'s beard\nfrom ambush, and it was at such a crisis of all the warring elements in\nher mountain life that June\'s school-days were coming to a close. Hale\nhad had a frank talk with old Judd and the old man agreed that the\ntwo had best be married at once and live at the Gap until things\nwere quieter in the mountains, though the old man still clung to his\nresolution to go West for good when he was done with the Falins. At such\na time, then, June was coming home.\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\n\nHale was beyond Black Mountain when her letter reached him. His work\nover there had to be finished and so he kept in his saddle the greater\npart of two days and nights and on the third day rode his big black\nhorse forty miles in little more than half a day that he might meet\nher at the train. The last two years had wrought their change in him.\nDeterioration is easy in the hills--superficial deterioration in\nhabits, manners, personal appearance and the practices of all the little\nniceties of life. The morning bath is impossible because of the crowded\ndomestic conditions of a mountain cabin and, if possible, might if\npractised, excite wonder and comment, if not vague suspicion. Sleeping\ngarments are practically barred for the same reason. Shaving becomes a\nrare luxury. A lost tooth-brush may not be replaced for a month. In time\none may bring himself to eat with a knife for the reason that it is hard\nfor a hungry man to feed himself with a fork that has but two tines. The\nfinger tips cease to be the culminating standard of the gentleman. It\nis hard to keep a supply of fresh linen when one is constantly in the\nsaddle, and a constant weariness of body and a ravenous appetite make a\nman indifferent to things like a bad bed and worse food, particularly\nas he must philosophically put up with them, anyhow. Of all these things\nthe man himself may be quite unconscious and yet they affect him more\ndeeply than he knows and show to a woman even in his voice, his walk,\nhis mouth--everywhere save in his eyes, which change only in severity,\nor in kindliness or when there has been some serious break-down of soul\nor character within. And the woman will not look to his eyes for the\ntruth--which makes its way slowly--particularly when the woman has\nstriven for the very things that the man has so recklessly let go. She\nwould never suffer herself to let down in such a way and she does not\nunderstand how a man can.\n\nHale\'s life, since his college doors had closed behind him, had always\nbeen a rough one. He had dropped from civilization and had gone back\ninto it many times. And each time he had dropped, he dropped the deeper,\nand for that reason had come back into his own life each time with more\ndifficulty and with more indifference. The last had been his roughest\nyear and he had sunk a little more deeply just at the time when June had\nbeen pluming herself for flight from such depths forever. Moreover,\nHale had been dominant in every matter that his hand or his brain had\ntouched. His habit had been to say \"do this\" and it was done. Though\nhe was no longer acting captain of the Police Guard, he always acted as\ncaptain whenever he was on hand, and always he was the undisputed leader\nin all questions of business, politics or the maintenance of order and\nlaw. The success he had forged had hardened and strengthened his mouth,\nsteeled his eyes and made him more masterful in manner, speech and\npoint of view, and naturally had added nothing to his gentleness, his\nunselfishness, his refinement or the nice consideration of little things\non which women lay such stress. It was an hour by sun when he clattered\nthrough the gap and pushed his tired black horse into a gallop across\nthe valley toward the town. He saw the smoke of the little dummy and, as\nhe thundered over the bridge of the North Fork, he saw that it was just\nabout to pull out and he waved his hat and shouted imperiously for it to\nwait. With his hand on the bell-rope, the conductor, autocrat that he,\ntoo, was, did wait and Hale threw his reins to the man who was nearest,\nhardly seeing who he was, and climbed aboard. He wore a slouched hat\nspotted by contact with the roof of the mines which he had hastily\nvisited on his way through Lonesome Cove. The growth of three days\'\nbeard was on his face. He wore a gray woollen shirt, and a blue\nhandkerchief--none too clean--was loosely tied about his sun-scorched\ncolumn of a throat; he was spotted with mud from his waist to the soles\nof his rough riding boots and his hands were rough and grimy. But his\neye was bright and keen and his heart thumped eagerly. Again it was the\nmiddle of June and the town was a naked island in a sea of leaves\nwhose breakers literally had run mountain high and stopped for all time\nmotionless. Purple lights thick as mist veiled Powell\'s Mountain. Below,\nthe valley was still flooded with yellow sunlight which lay along the\nmountain sides and was streaked here and there with the long shadow of\na deep ravine. The beech trunks on Imboden Hill gleamed in it like white\nbodies scantily draped with green, and the yawning Gap held the yellow\nlight as a bowl holds wine. He had long ago come to look upon the hills\nmerely as storehouses for iron and coal, put there for his special\npurpose, but now the long submerged sense of the beauty of it all\nstirred within him again, for June was the incarnate spirit of it all\nand June was coming back to those mountains and--to him.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nAnd June--June had seen the change in Hale. The first year he had come\noften to New York to see her and they had gone to the theatre and the\nopera, and June was pleased to play the part of heroine in what was such\na real romance to the other girls in school and she was proud of Hale.\nBut each time he came, he seemed less interested in the diversions that\nmeant so much to her, more absorbed in his affairs in the mountains and\nless particular about his looks. His visits came at longer intervals,\nwith each visit he stayed less long, and each time he seemed more eager\nto get away. She had been shy about appearing before him for the first\ntime in evening dress, and when he entered the drawing-room she stood\nunder a chandelier in blushing and resplendent confusion, but he seemed\nnot to recognize that he had never seen her that way before, and for\nanother reason June remained confused, disappointed and hurt, for he\nwas not only unobserving, and seemingly unappreciative, but he was more\nsilent than ever that night and he looked gloomy. But if he had grown\naccustomed to her beauty, there were others who had not, and smart,\ndapper college youths gathered about her like bees around a flower--a\ntriumphant fact to which he also seemed indifferent. Moreover, he was\nnot in evening clothes that night and she did not know whether he had\nforgotten or was indifferent to them, and the contrast that he was made\nher that night almost ashamed for him. She never guessed what the matter\nwas, for Hale kept his troubles to himself. He was always gentle and\nkind, he was as lavish with her as though he were a king, and she was\nas lavish and prodigally generous as though she were a princess. There\nseemed no limit to the wizard income from the investments that Hale\nhad made for her when, as he said, he sold a part of her stock in the\nLonesome Cove mine, and what she wanted Hale always sent her without\nquestion. Only, as the end was coming on at the Gap, he wrote once to\nknow if a certain amount would carry her through until she was ready to\ncome home, but even that question aroused no suspicion in thoughtless\nJune. And then that last year he had come no more--always, always he was\ntoo busy. Not even on her triumphal night at the end of the session was\nhe there, when she had stood before the guests and patrons of the school\nlike a goddess, and had thrilled them into startling applause, her\nteachers into open glowing pride, the other girls into bright-eyed envy\nand herself into still another new world. Now she was going home and she\nwas glad to go.\n\nShe had awakened that morning with the keen air of the mountains in her\nnostrils--the air she had breathed in when she was born, and her eyes\nshone happily when she saw through her window the loved blue hills along\nwhich raced the train. They were only a little way from the town where\nshe must change, the porter said; she had overslept and she had no time\neven to wash her face and hands, and that worried her a good deal. The\nporter nearly lost his equilibrium when she gave him half a dollar--for\nwomen are not profuse in the way of tipping--and instead of putting her\nbag down on the station platform, he held it in his hand waiting to do\nher further service. At the head of the steps she searched about for\nHale and her lovely face looked vexed and a little hurt when she did not\nsee him.\n\n\"Hotel, Miss?\" said the porter.\n\n\"Yes, please, Harvey!\" she called.\n\nAn astonished darky sprang from the line of calling hotel-porters and\ntook her bag. Then every tooth in his head flashed.\n\n\"Lordy, Miss June--I never knowed you at all.\"\n\nJune smiled--it was the tribute she was looking for.\n\n\"Have you seen Mr. Hale?\"\n\n\"No\'m. Mr. Hale ain\'t been here for mos\' six months. I reckon he aint in\nthis country now. I aint heard nothin\' \'bout him for a long time.\"\n\nJune knew better than that--but she said nothing. She would rather have\nhad even Harvey think that he was away. So she hurried to the hotel--she\nwould have four hours to wait--and asked for the one room that had a\nbath attached--the room to which Hale had sent her when she had passed\nthrough on her way to New York. She almost winced when she looked in the\nmirror and saw the smoke stains about her pretty throat and ears, and\nshe wondered if anybody could have noticed them on her way from the\ntrain. Her hands, too, were dreadful to look at and she hurried to take\noff her things.\n\nIn an hour she emerged freshened, immaculate from her crown of lovely\nhair to her smartly booted feet, and at once she went downstairs. She\nheard the man, whom she passed, stop at the head of them and turn to\nlook down at her, and she saw necks craned within the hotel office when\nshe passed the door. On the street not a man and hardly a woman\nfailed to look at her with wonder and open admiration, for she was an\napparition in that little town and it all pleased her so much that she\nbecame flushed and conscious and felt like a queen who, unknown, moved\namong her subjects and blessed them just with her gracious presence.\nFor she was unknown even by several people whom she knew and that, too,\npleased her--to have bloomed so quite beyond their ken. She was like a\nmeteor coming back to dazzle the very world from which it had flown for\na while into space. When she went into the dining-room for the midday\ndinner, there was a movement in almost every part of the room as though\nthere were many there who were on the lookout for her entrance. The head\nwaiter, a portly darky, lost his imperturbable majesty for a moment in\nsurprise at the vision and then with a lordly yet obsequious wave of his\nhand, led her to a table over in a corner where no one was sitting. Four\nyoung men came in rather boisterously and made for her table. She lifted\nher calm eyes at them so haughtily that the one in front halted with\nsudden embarrassment and they all swerved to another table from which\nthey stared at her surreptitiously. Perhaps she was mistaken for the\ncomic-opera star whose brilliant picture she had seen on a bill board in\nfront of the \"opera house.\" Well, she had the voice and she might\nhave been and she might yet be--and if she were, this would be the\ndistinction that would be shown her. And, still as it was she was\ngreatly pleased.\n\nAt four o\'clock she started for the hills. In half an hour she was\ndropping down a winding ravine along a rock-lashing stream with those\nhills so close to the car on either side that only now and then could\nshe see the tops of them. Through the window the keen air came from the\nvery lungs of them, freighted with the coolness of shadows, the scent of\ndamp earth and the faint fragrance of wild flowers, and her soul leaped\nto meet them. The mountain sides were showered with pink and white\nlaurel (she used to call it \"ivy\") and the rhododendrons (she used to\ncall them \"laurel\") were just beginning to blossom--they were her old\nand fast friends--mountain, shadow, the wet earth and its pure breath,\nand tree, plant and flower; she had not forgotten them, and it was good\nto come back to them. Once she saw an overshot water-wheel on the bank\nof the rushing little stream and she thought of Uncle Billy; she smiled\nand the smile stopped short--she was going back to other things as well.\nThe train had creaked by a log-cabin set in the hillside and then past\nanother and another; and always there were two or three ragged children\nin the door and a haggard unkempt woman peering over their shoulders.\nHow lonely those cabins looked and how desolate the life they suggested\nto her now--NOW! The first station she came to after the train had\nwound down the long ravine to the valley level again was crowded with\nmountaineers. There a wedding party got aboard with a great deal of\nlaughter, chaffing and noise, and all three went on within and without\nthe train while it was waiting. A sudden thought stunned her like a\nlightning stroke. They were HER people out there on the platform and\ninside the car ahead--those rough men in slouch hats, jeans and cowhide\nboots, their mouths stained with tobacco juice, their cheeks and eyes\non fire with moonshine, and those women in poke-bonnets with their sad,\nworn, patient faces on which the sympathetic good cheer and joy of\nthe moment sat so strangely. She noticed their rough shoes and their\nhomespun gowns that made their figures all alike and shapeless, with\na vivid awakening of early memories. She might have been one of those\nnarrow-lived girls outside, or that bride within had it not been for\nJack--Hale. She finished the name in her own mind and she was conscious\nthat she had. Ah, well, that was a long time ago and she was nothing but\na child and she had thrown herself at his head. Perhaps it was different\nwith him now and if it was, she would give him the chance to withdraw\nfrom everything. It would be right and fair and then life was so full\nfor her now. She was dependent on nobody--on nothing. A rainbow spanned\nthe heaven above her and the other end of it was not in the hills. But\none end was and to that end she was on her way. She was going to just\nsuch people as she had seen at the station. Her father and her kinsmen\nwere just such men--her step-mother and kinswomen were just such women.\nHer home was little more than just such a cabin as the desolate ones\nthat stirred her pity when she swept by them. She thought of how she\nfelt when she had first gone to Lonesome Cove after a few months at the\nGap, and she shuddered to think how she would feel now. She was getting\nrestless by this time and aimlessly she got up and walked to the front\nof the car and back again to her seat, hardly noticing that the other\noccupants were staring at her with some wonder. She sat down for a few\nminutes and then she went to the rear and stood outside on the platform,\nclutching a brass rod of the railing and looking back on the dropping\ndarkness in which the hills seemed to be rushing together far behind as\nthe train crashed on with its wake of spark-lit rolling smoke. A cinder\nstung her face, and when she lifted her hand to the spot, she saw that\nher glove was black with grime. With a little shiver of disgust she went\nback to her seat and with her face to the blackness rushing past her\nwindow she sat brooding--brooding. Why had Hale not met her? He had said\nhe would and she had written him when she was coming and had telegraphed\nhim at the station in New York when she started. Perhaps he HAD changed.\nShe recalled that even his letters had grown less frequent, shorter,\nmore hurried the past year--well, he should have his chance. Always,\nhowever, her mind kept going back to the people at the station and to\nher people in the mountains. They were the same, she kept repeating\nto herself--the very same and she was one of them. And always she kept\nthinking of her first trip to Lonesome Cove after her awakening and of\nwhat her next would be. That first time Hale had made her go back as\nshe had left, in home-spun, sun-bonnet and brogans. There was the same\nreason why she should go back that way now as then--would Hale insist\nthat she should now? She almost laughed aloud at the thought. She knew\nthat she would refuse and she knew that his reason would not appeal to\nher now--she no longer cared what her neighbours and kinspeople might\nthink and say. The porter paused at her seat.\n\n\"How much longer is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"Half an hour, Miss.\"\n\nJune went to wash her face and hands, and when she came back to her seat\na great glare shone through the windows on the other side of the car. It\nwas the furnace, a \"run\" was on and she could see the streams of white\nmolten metal racing down the narrow channels of sand to their narrow\nbeds on either side. The whistle shrieked ahead for the Gap and she\nnerved herself with a prophetic sense of vague trouble at hand.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nAt the station Hale had paced the platform. He looked at his watch to\nsee whether he might have time to run up to the furnace, half a mile\naway, and board the train there. He thought he had and he was about to\nstart when the shriek of the coming engine rose beyond the low hills in\nWild Cat Valley, echoed along Powell\'s Mountain and broke against the\nwrinkled breast of the Cumberland. On it came, and in plain sight it\nstopped suddenly to take water, and Hale cursed it silently and\nrecalled viciously that when he was in a hurry to arrive anywhere,\nthe water-tower was always on the wrong side of the station. He got so\nrestless that he started for it on a run and he had gone hardly fifty\nyards before the train came on again and he had to run back to beat it\nto the station--where he sprang to the steps of the Pullman before it\nstopped--pushing the porter aside to find himself checked by the crowded\npassengers at the door. June was not among them and straightway he ran\nfor the rear of the car.\n\nJune had risen. The other occupants of the car had crowded forward and\nshe was the last of them. She had stood, during an irritating wait, at\nthe water-tower, and now as she moved slowly forward again she heard\nthe hurry of feet behind her and she turned to look into the eager,\nwondering eyes of John Hale.\n\n\"June!\" he cried in amazement, but his face lighted with joy and he\nimpulsively stretched out his arms as though he meant to take her in\nthem, but as suddenly he dropped them before the startled look in her\neyes, which, with one swift glance, searched him from head to foot. They\nshook hands almost gravely.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\n\nJune sat in the little dummy, the focus of curious eyes, while Hale was\nbusy seeing that her baggage was got aboard. The checks that she gave\nhim jingled in his hands like a bunch of keys, and he could hardly\nhelp grinning when he saw the huge trunks and the smart bags that were\ntumbled from the baggage car--all marked with her initials. There had\nbeen days when he had laid considerable emphasis on pieces like those,\nand when he thought of them overwhelming with opulent suggestions that\ndebt-stricken little town, and, later, piled incongruously on the porch\nof the cabin on Lonesome Cove, he could have laughed aloud but for a\nnameless something that was gnawing savagely at his heart.\n\nHe felt almost shy when he went back into the car, and though\nJune greeted him with a smile, her immaculate daintiness made him\nunconsciously sit quite far away from her. The little fairy-cross was\nstill at her throat, but a tiny diamond gleamed from each end of it and\nfrom the centre, as from a tiny heart, pulsated the light of a little\nblood-red ruby. To him it meant the loss of June\'s simplicity and was\nthe symbol of her new estate, but he smiled and forced himself into\nhearty cheerfulness of manner and asked her questions about her trip.\nBut June answered in halting monosyllables, and talk was not easy\nbetween them. All the while he was watching her closely and not a\nmovement of her eye, ear, mouth or hand--not an inflection of her\nvoice--escaped him. He saw her sweep the car and its occupants with\na glance, and he saw the results of that glance in her face and the\ndown-dropping of her eyes to the dainty point of one boot. He saw\nher beautiful mouth close suddenly tight and her thin nostrils quiver\ndisdainfully when a swirl of black smoke, heavy with cinders, came\nin with an entering passenger through the front door of the car. Two\nhalf-drunken men were laughing boisterously near that door and even her\nears seemed trying to shut out their half-smothered rough talk. The car\nstarted with a bump that swayed her toward him, and when she caught the\nseat with one hand, it checked as suddenly, throwing her the other way,\nand then with a leap it sprang ahead again, giving a nagging snap to her\nhead. Her whole face grew red with vexation and shrinking distaste,\nand all the while, when the little train steadied into its creaking,\npuffing, jostling way, one gloved hand on the chased silver handle of\nher smart little umbrella kept nervously swaying it to and fro on its\nsteel-shod point, until she saw that the point was in a tiny pool of\ntobacco juice, and then she laid it across her lap with shuddering\nswiftness.\n\nAt first Hale thought that she had shrunk from kissing him in the car\nbecause other people were around. He knew better now. At that moment he\nwas as rough and dirty as the chain-carrier opposite him, who was just\nin from a surveying expedition in the mountains, as the sooty brakeman\nwho came through to gather up the fares--as one of those good-natured,\nprofane inebriates up in the corner. No, it was not publicity--she had\nshrunk from him as she was shrinking now from black smoke, rough men,\nthe shaking of the train--the little pool of tobacco juice at her feet.\nThe truth began to glimmer through his brain. He understood, even when\nshe leaned forward suddenly to look into the mouth of the gap, that was\nnow dark with shadows. Through that gap lay her way and she thought him\nnow more a part of what was beyond than she who had been born of it was,\nand dazed by the thought, he wondered if he might not really be. At once\nhe straightened in his seat, and his mind made up, as he always made it\nup--swiftly. He had not explained why he had not met her that morning,\nnor had he apologized for his rough garb, because he was so glad to see\nher and because there were so many other things he wanted to say; and\nwhen he saw her, conscious and resentful, perhaps, that he had not done\nthese things at once--he deliberately declined to do them now. He became\nsilent, but he grew more courteous, more thoughtful--watchful. She was\nvery tired, poor child; there were deep shadows under her eyes which\nlooked weary and almost mournful. So, when with a clanging of the engine\nbell they stopped at the brilliantly lit hotel, he led her at once\nupstairs to the parlour, and from there sent her up to her room, which\nwas ready for her.\n\n\"You must get a good sleep,\" he said kindly, and with his usual firmness\nthat was wont to preclude argument. \"You are worn to death. I\'ll have\nyour supper sent to your room.\" The girl felt the subtle change in his\nmanner and her lip quivered for a vague reason that neither knew, but,\nwithout a word, she obeyed him like a child. He did not try again to\nkiss her. He merely took her hand, placed his left over it, and with a\ngentle pressure, said:\n\n\"Good-night, little girl.\"\n\n\"Good-night,\" she faltered.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nResolutely, relentlessly, first, Hale cast up his accounts, liabilities,\nresources, that night, to see what, under the least favourable outcome,\nthe balance left to him would be. Nearly all was gone. His securities\nwere already sold. His lots would not bring at public sale one-half of\nthe deferred payments yet to be made on them, and if the company brought\nsuit, as it was threatening to do, he would be left fathoms deep in\ndebt. The branch railroad had not come up the river toward Lonesome\nCove, and now he meant to build barges and float his cannel coal down to\nthe main line, for his sole hope was in the mine in Lonesome Cove.\nThe means that he could command were meagre, but they would carry his\npurpose with June for a year at least and then--who knew?--he might,\nthrough that mine, be on his feet again.\n\nThe little town was dark and asleep when he stepped into the cool\nnight-air and made his way past the old school-house and up Imboden\nHill. He could see--all shining silver in the moonlight--the still crest\nof the big beech at the blessed roots of which his lips had met June\'s\nin the first kiss that had passed between them. On he went through the\nshadowy aisle that the path made between other beech-trunks, harnessed\nby the moonlight with silver armour and motionless as sentinels on watch\ntill dawn, out past the amphitheatre of darkness from which the dead\ntrees tossed out their crooked arms as though voicing silently now his\nown soul\'s torment, and then on to the point of the spur of foot-hills\nwhere, with the mighty mountains encircling him and the world, a\ndreamland lighted only by stars, he stripped his soul before the Maker\nof it and of him and fought his fight out alone.\n\nHis was the responsibility for all--his alone. No one else was to\nblame--June not at all. He had taken her from her own life--had swerved\nher from the way to which God pointed when she was born. He had given\nher everything she wanted, had allowed her to do what she pleased\nand had let her think that, through his miraculous handling of her\nresources, she was doing it all herself. And the result was natural. For\nthe past two years he had been harassed with debt, racked with worries,\nwrithing this way and that, concerned only with the soul-tormenting\ncatastrophe that had overtaken him. About all else he had grown\ncareless. He had not been to see her the last year, he had written\nseldom, and it appalled him to look back now on his own self-absorption\nand to think how he must have appeared to June. And he had gone on in\nthat self-absorption to the very end. He had got his license to marry,\nhad asked Uncle Billy, who was magistrate as well as miller, to marry\nthem, and, a rough mountaineer himself to the outward eye, he had\nappeared to lead a child like a lamb to the sacrifice and had found a\nwoman with a mind, heart and purpose of her own. It was all his work. He\nhad sent her away to fit her for his station in life--to make her fit to\nmarry him. She had risen above and now HE WAS NOT FIT TO MARRY HER. That\nwas the brutal truth--a truth that was enough to make a wise man laugh\nor a fool weep, and Hale did neither. He simply went on working to make\nout how he could best discharge the obligations that he had voluntarily,\nwillingly, gladly, selfishly even, assumed. In his mind he treated\nconditions only as he saw and felt them and believed them at that moment\ntrue: and into the problem he went no deeper than to find his simple\nduty, and that, while the morning stars were sinking, he found. And it\nwas a duty the harder to find because everything had reawakened within\nhim, and the starting-point of that awakening was the proud glow in\nUncle Billy\'s kind old face, when he knew the part he was to play in the\nhappiness of Hale and June. All the way over the mountain that day his\nheart had gathered fuel from memories at the big Pine, and down the\nmountain and through the gap, to be set aflame by the yellow sunlight in\nthe valley and the throbbing life in everything that was alive, for the\nmonth was June and the spirit of that month was on her way to him. So\nwhen he rose now, with back-thrown head, he stretched his arms suddenly\nout toward those far-seeing stars, and as suddenly dropped them with an\nangry shake of his head and one quick gritting of his teeth that such a\nthought should have mastered him even for one swift second--the thought\nof how lonesome would be the trail that would be his to follow after\nthat day.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\n\nJune, tired though she was, tossed restlessly that night. The one look\nshe had seen in Hale\'s face when she met him in the car, told her the\ntruth as far as he was concerned. He was unchanged, she could give him\nno chance to withdraw from their long understanding, for it was plain\nto her quick instinct that he wanted none. And so she had asked him\nno question about his failure to meet her, for she knew now that his\nreason, no matter what, was good. He had startled her in the car, for\nher mind was heavy with memories of the poor little cabins she had\npassed on the train, of the mountain men and women in the wedding-party,\nand Hale himself was to the eye so much like one of them--had so\nstartled her that, though she knew that his instinct, too, was at work,\nshe could not gather herself together to combat her own feelings, for\nevery little happening in the dummy but drew her back to her previous\ntrain of painful thought. And in that helplessness she had told Hale\ngood-night. She remembered now how she had looked upon Lonesome Cove\nafter she went to the Gap; how she had looked upon the Gap after her\nyear in the Bluegrass, and how she had looked back even on the first big\ncity she had seen there from the lofty vantage ground of New York. What\nwas the use of it all? Why laboriously climb a hill merely to see and\nyearn for things that you cannot have, if you must go back and live in\nthe hollow again? Well, she thought rebelliously, she would not go back\nto the hollow again--that was all. She knew what was coming and her\ncousin Dave\'s perpetual sneer sprang suddenly from the past to cut\nthrough her again and the old pride rose within her once more. She was\ngood enough now for Hale, oh, yes, she thought bitterly, good enough\nNOW; and then, remembering his life-long kindness and thinking what she\nmight have been but for him, she burst into tears at the unworthiness of\nher own thought. Ah, what should she do--what should she do? Repeating\nthat question over and over again, she fell toward morning into troubled\nsleep. She did not wake until nearly noon, for already she had formed\nthe habit of sleeping late--late at least, for that part of the\nworld--and she was glad when the negro boy brought her word that Mr.\nHale had been called up the valley and would not be back until the\nafternoon. She dreaded to meet him, for she knew that he had seen\nthe trouble within her and she knew he was not the kind of man to let\nmatters drag vaguely, if they could be cleared up and settled by open\nfrankness of discussion, no matter how blunt he must be. She had to wait\nuntil mid-day dinner time for something to eat, so she lay abed, picked\na breakfast from the menu, which was spotted, dirty and meagre in\nofferings, and had it brought to her room. Early in the afternoon she\nissued forth into the sunlight, and started toward Imboden Hill. It was\nvery beautiful and soul-comforting--the warm air, the luxuriantly wooded\nhills, with their shades of green that told her where poplar and oak and\nbeech and maple grew, the delicate haze of blue that overlay them and\ndeepened as her eyes followed the still mountain piles north-eastward\nto meet the big range that shut her in from the outer world. The changes\nhad been many. One part of the town had been wiped out by fire and a few\nbuildings of stone had risen up. On the street she saw strange faces,\nbut now and then she stopped to shake hands with somebody whom she knew,\nand who recognized her always with surprise and spoke but few words, and\nthen, as she thought, with some embarrassment. Half unconsciously\nshe turned toward the old mill. There it was, dusty and gray, and the\ndripping old wheel creaked with its weight of shining water, and the\nmuffled roar of the unseen dam started an answering stream of memories\nsurging within her. She could see the window of her room in the old\nbrick boarding-house, and as she passed the gate, she almost stopped\nto go in, but the face of a strange man who stood in the door with a\nproprietary air deterred her. There was Hale\'s little frame cottage and\nhis name, half washed out, was over the wing that was still his office.\nPast that she went, with a passing temptation to look within, and toward\nthe old school-house. A massive new one was half built, of gray stone,\nto the left, but the old one, with its shingles on the outside that had\nonce caused her such wonder, still lay warm in the sun, but closed and\ndeserted. There was the playground where she had been caught in\n\"Ring around the Rosy,\" and Hale and that girl teacher had heard her\nconfession. She flushed again when she thought of that day, but the\nflush was now for another reason. Over the roof of the schoolhouse she\ncould see the beech tree where she had built her playhouse, and memory\nled her from the path toward it. She had not climbed a hill for a long\ntime and she was panting when she reached it. There was the scattered\nplayhouse--it might have lain there untouched for a quarter of a\ncentury--just as her angry feet had kicked it to pieces. On a root of\nthe beech she sat down and the broad rim of her hat scratched the trunk\nof it and annoyed her, so she took it off and leaned her head against\nthe tree, looking up into the underworld of leaves through which\na sunbeam filtered here and there--one striking her hair which had\ndarkened to a duller gold--striking it eagerly, unerringly, as though\nit had started for just such a shining mark. Below her was outspread\nthe little town--the straggling, wretched little town--crude, lonely,\nlifeless! She could not be happy in Lonesome Cove after she had known\nthe Gap, and now her horizon had so broadened that she felt now toward\nthe Gap and its people as she had then felt toward the mountaineers: for\nthe standards of living in the Cove--so it seemed--were no farther\nbelow the standards in the Gap than they in turn were lower than the new\nstandards to which she had adapted herself while away. Indeed, even that\nBluegrass world where she had spent a year was too narrow now for her\nvaulting ambition, and with that thought she looked down again on the\nlittle town, a lonely island in a sea of mountains and as far from\nthe world for which she had been training herself as though it were in\nmid-ocean. Live down there? She shuddered at the thought and straightway\nwas very miserable. The clear piping of a wood-thrush rose far away, a\ntear started between her half-closed lashes and she might have gone to\nweeping silently, had her ear not caught the sound of something moving\nbelow her. Some one was coming that way, so she brushed her eyes swiftly\nwith her handkerchief and stood upright against the tree. And there\nagain Hale found her, tense, upright, bareheaded again and her hands\nbehind her; only her face was not uplifted and dreaming--it was turned\ntoward him, unstartled and expectant. He stopped below her and leaned\none shoulder against a tree.\n\n\"I saw you pass the office,\" he said, \"and I thought I should find you\nhere.\"\n\nHis eyes dropped to the scattered playhouse of long ago--and a faint\nsmile that was full of submerged sadness passed over his face. It was\nhis playhouse, after all, that she had kicked to pieces. But he did not\nmention it--nor her attitude--nor did he try, in any way, to arouse her\nmemories of that other time at this same place.\n\n\"I want to talk with you, June--and I want to talk now.\"\n\n\"Yes, Jack,\" she said tremulously.\n\nFor a moment he stood in silence, his face half-turned, his teeth hard\non his indrawn lip--thinking. There was nothing of the mountaineer about\nhim now. He was clean-shaven and dressed with care--June saw that--but\nhe looked quite old, his face seemed harried with worries and ravaged by\nsuffering, and June had suddenly to swallow a quick surging of pity for\nhim. He spoke slowly and without looking at her:\n\n\"June, if it hadn\'t been for me, you would be over in Lonesome Cove and\nhappily married by this time, or at least contented with your life, for\nyou wouldn\'t have known any other.\"\n\n\"I don\'t know, Jack.\"\n\n\"I took you out--and it rests with you whether I shall be sorry I\ndid--sorry wholly on your account, I mean,\" he added hastily.\n\nShe knew what he meant and she said nothing--she only turned her head\naway slightly, with her eyes upturned a little toward the leaves that\nwere shaking like her own heart.\n\n\"I think I see it all very clearly,\" he went on, in a low and perfectly\neven voice. \"You can\'t be happy over there now--you can\'t be happy over\nhere now. You\'ve got other wishes, ambitions, dreams, now, and I want\nyou to realize them, and I want to help you to realize them all I\ncan--that\'s all.\"\n\n\"Jack!--\" she helplessly, protestingly spoke his name in a whisper, but\nthat was all she could do, and he went on:\n\n\"It isn\'t so strange. What is strange is that I--that I didn\'t foresee\nit all. But if I had,\" he added firmly, \"I\'d have done it just the\nsame--unless by doing it I\'ve really done you more harm than good.\"\n\n\"No--no--Jack!\"\n\n\"I came into your world--you went into mine. What I had grown\nindifferent about--you grew to care about. You grew sensitive while I\nwas growing callous to certain--\" he was about to say \"surface things,\"\nbut he checked himself--\"certain things in life that mean more to a\nwoman than to a man. I would not have married you as you were--I\'ve got\nto be honest now--at least I thought it necessary that you should be\notherwise--and now you have gone beyond me, and now you do not want to\nmarry me as I am. And it is all very natural and very just.\" Very\nslowly her head had dropped until her chin rested hard above the little\njewelled cross on her breast.\n\n\"You must tell me if I am wrong. You don\'t love me now--well enough to\nbe happy with me here\"--he waved one hand toward the straggling little\ntown below them and then toward the lonely mountains--\"I did not\nknow that we would have to live here--but I know it now--\" he checked\nhimself, and afterward she recalled the tone of those last words, but\nthen they had no especial significance.\n\n\"Am I wrong?\" he repeated, and then he said hurriedly, for her face\nwas so piteous--\"No, you needn\'t give yourself the pain of saying it in\nwords. I want you to know that I understand that there is nothing in the\nworld I blame you for--nothing--nothing. If there is any blame at all,\nit rests on me alone.\" She broke toward him with a cry then.\n\n\"No--no, Jack,\" she said brokenly, and she caught his hand in both her\nown and tried to raise it to her lips, but he held her back and she\nput her face on his breast and sobbed heart-brokenly. He waited for the\nparoxysm to pass, stroking her hair gently.\n\n\"You mustn\'t feel that way, little girl. You can\'t help it--I can\'t help\nit--and these things happen all the time, everywhere. You don\'t have to\nstay here. You can go away and study, and when I can, I\'ll come to see\nyou and cheer you up; and when you are a great singer, I\'ll send you\nflowers and be so proud of you, and I\'ll say to myself, \'I helped do\nthat.\' Dry your eyes, now. You must go back to the hotel. Your father\nwill be there by this time and you\'ll have to be starting home pretty\nsoon.\"\n\nLike a child she obeyed him, but she was so weak and trembling that\nhe put his arm about her to help her down the hill. At the edge of the\nwoods she stopped and turned full toward him.\n\n\"You are so good,\" she said tremulously, \"so GOOD. Why, you haven\'t even\nasked me if there was another--\"\n\nHale interrupted her, shaking his head.\n\n\"If there is, I don\'t want to know.\"\n\n\"But there isn\'t, there isn\'t!\" she cried, \"I don\'t know what is the\nmatter with me. I hate--\" the tears started again, and again she was on\nthe point of breaking down, but Hale checked her.\n\n\"Now, now,\" he said soothingly, \"you mustn\'t, now--that\'s all right. You\nmustn\'t.\" Her anger at herself helped now.\n\n\"Why, I stood like a silly fool, tongue-tied, and I wanted to say so\nmuch. I--\"\n\n\"You don\'t need to,\" Hale said gently, \"I understand it all. I\nunderstand.\"\n\n\"I believe you do,\" she said with a sob, \"better than I do.\"\n\n\"Well, it\'s all right, little girl. Come on.\"\n\nThey issued forth into the sunlight and Hale walked rapidly. The strain\nwas getting too much for him and he was anxious to be alone. Without\na word more they passed the old school-house, the massive new one, and\nwent on, in silence, down the street. Hitched to a post, near the hotel,\nwere two gaunt horses with drooping heads, and on one of them was a\nside-saddle. Sitting on the steps of the hotel, with a pipe in his\nmouth, was the mighty figure of Devil Judd Tolliver. He saw them\ncoming--at least he saw Hale coming, and that far away Hale saw his\nbushy eyebrows lift in wonder at June. A moment later he rose to his\ngreat height without a word.\n\n\"Dad,\" said June in a trembling voice, \"don\'t you know me?\" The old man\nstared at her silently and a doubtful smile played about his bearded\nlips.\n\n\"Hardly, but I reckon hit\'s June.\"\n\nShe knew that the world to which Hale belonged would expect her to kiss\nhim, and she made a movement as though she would, but the habit of a\nlifetime is not broken so easily. She held out her hand, and with the\nother patted him on the arm as she looked up into his face.\n\n\"Time to be goin\', June, if we want to get home afore dark!\"\n\n\"All right, Dad.\"\n\nThe old man turned to his horse.\n\n\"Hurry up, little gal.\"\n\nIn a few minutes they were ready, and the girl looked long into Hale\'s\nface when he took her hand.\n\n\"You are coming over soon?\"\n\n\"Just as soon as I can.\" Her lips trembled.\n\n\"Good-by,\" she faltered.\n\n\"Good-by, June,\" said Hale.\n\nFrom the steps he watched them--the giant father slouching in his\nsaddle and the trim figure of the now sadly misplaced girl, erect on the\nawkward-pacing mountain beast--as incongruous, the two, as a fairy on\nsome prehistoric monster. A horseman was coming up the street behind him\nand a voice called:\n\n\"Who\'s that?\" Hale turned--it was the Honourable Samuel Budd, coming\nhome from Court.\n\n\"June Tolliver.\"\n\n\"June Taliaferro,\" corrected the Hon. Sam with emphasis.\n\n\"The same.\" The Hon. Sam silently followed the pair for a moment through\nhis big goggles.\n\n\"What do you think of my theory of the latent possibilities of the\nmountaineer--now?\"\n\n\"I think I know how true it is better than you do,\" said Hale calmly,\nand with a grunt the Hon. Sam rode on. Hale watched them as they rode\nacross the plateau--watched them until the Gap swallowed them up and his\nheart ached for June. Then he went to his room and there, stretched out\non his bed and with his hands clenched behind his head, he lay staring\nupward.\n\nDevil Judd Tolliver had lost none of his taciturnity. Stolidly,\nsilently, he went ahead, as is the custom of lordly man in the\nmountains--horseback or afoot--asking no questions, answering June\'s in\nthe fewest words possible. Uncle Billy, the miller, had been complaining\na good deal that spring, and old Hon had rheumatism. Uncle Billy\'s\nold-maid sister, who lived on Devil\'s Fork, had been cooking for him at\nhome since the last taking to bed of June\'s step-mother. Bub had \"growed\nup\" like a hickory sapling. Her cousin Loretta hadn\'t married, and some\nfolks allowed she\'d run away some day yet with young Buck Falin. Her\ncousin Dave had gone off to school that year, had come back a month\nbefore, and been shot through the shoulder. He was in Lonesome Cove now.\n\nThis fact was mentioned in the same matter-of-fact way as the other\nhappenings. Hale had been raising Cain in Lonesome Cove--\"A-cuttin\'\nthings down an\' tearin\' \'em up an\' playin\' hell ginerally.\"\n\nThe feud had broken out again and maybe June couldn\'t stay at home long.\nHe didn\'t want her there with the fighting going on--whereat June\'s\nheart gave a start of gladness that the way would be easy for her to\nleave when she wished to leave. Things over at the Gap \"was agoin\' to\nperdition,\" the old man had been told, while he was waiting for June and\nHale that day, and Hale had not only lost a lot of money, but if things\ndidn\'t take a rise, he would be left head over heels in debt, if that\nmine over in Lonesome Cove didn\'t pull him out.\n\nThey were approaching the big Pine now, and June was beginning to ache\nand get sore from the climb. So Hale was in trouble--that was what he\nmeant when he said that, though she could leave the mountains when she\npleased, he must stay there, perhaps for good.\n\n\"I\'m mighty glad you come home, gal,\" said the old man, \"an\' that ye air\ngoin\' to put an end to all this spendin\' o\' so much money. Jack says\nyou got some money left, but I don\'t understand it. He says he made a\n\'investment\' fer ye and tribbled the money. I haint never axed him no\nquestions. Hit was betwixt you an\' him, an\' \'twant none o\' my business\nlong as you an\' him air goin\' to marry. He said you was goin\' to marry\nthis summer an\' I wish you\'d git tied up right away whilst I\'m livin\',\nfer I don\'t know when a Winchester might take me off an\' I\'d die a sight\neasier if I knowed you was tied up with a good man like him.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dad,\" was all she said, for she had not the heart to tell him the\ntruth, and she knew that Hale never would until the last moment he must,\nwhen he learned that she had failed.\n\nHalf an hour later, she could see the stone chimney of the little cabin\nin Lonesome Cove. A little farther down several spirals of smoke were\nvisible--rising from unseen houses which were more miners\' shacks, her\nfather said, that Hale had put up while she was gone. The water of the\ncreek was jet black now. A row of rough wooden houses ran along its\nedge. The geese cackled a doubtful welcome. A new dog leaped barking\nfrom the porch and a tall boy sprang after him--both running for the\ngate.\n\n\"Why, Bub,\" cried June, sliding from her horse and kissing him, and then\nholding him off at arms\' length to look into his steady gray eyes and\nhis blushing face.\n\n\"Take the horses, Bub,\" said old Judd, and June entered the gate while\nBub stood with the reins in his hand, still speechlessly staring her\nover from head to foot. There was her garden, thank God--with all her\nflowers planted, a new bed of pansies and one of violets and the border\nof laurel in bloom--unchanged and weedless.\n\n\"One o\' Jack Hale\'s men takes keer of it,\" explained old Judd, and\nagain, with shame, June felt the hurt of her lover\'s thoughtfulness.\nWhen she entered the cabin, the same old rasping petulant voice called\nher from a bed in one corner, and when June took the shrivelled old hand\nthat was limply thrust from the bed-clothes, the old hag\'s keen eyes\nswept her from head to foot with disapproval.\n\n\"My, but you air wearin\' mighty fine clothes,\" she croaked enviously.\n\"I ain\'t had a new dress fer more\'n five year;\" and that was the welcome\nshe got.\n\n\"No?\" said June appeasingly. \"Well, I\'ll get one for you myself.\"\n\n\"I\'m much obleeged,\" she whined, \"but I reckon I can git along.\"\n\nA cough came from the bed in the other corner of the room.\n\n\"That\'s Dave,\" said the old woman, and June walked over to where her\ncousin\'s black eyes shone hostile at her from the dark.\n\n\"I\'m sorry, Dave,\" she said, but Dave answered nothing but a sullen\n\"howdye\" and did not put out a hand--he only stared at her in sulky\nbewilderment, and June went back to listen to the torrent of the old\nwoman\'s plaints until Bub came in. Then as she turned, she noticed for\nthe first time that a new door had been cut in one side of the cabin,\nand Bub was following the direction of her eyes.\n\n\"Why, haint nobody told ye?\" he said delightedly.\n\n\"Told me what, Bub?\"\n\nWith a whoop Bud leaped for the side of the door and, reaching up,\npulled a shining key from between the logs and thrust it into her hands.\n\n\"Go ahead,\" he said. \"Hit\'s yourn.\"\n\n\"Some more o\' Jack Hale\'s fool doin\'s,\" said the old woman. \"Go on, gal,\nand see whut he\'s done.\"\n\nWith eager hands she put the key in the lock and when she pushed open\nthe door, she gasped. Another room had been added to the cabin--and the\nfragrant smell of cedar made her nostrils dilate. Bub pushed by her and\nthrew open the shutters of a window to the low sunlight, and June stood\nwith both hands to her head. It was a room for her--with a dresser, a\nlong mirror, a modern bed in one corner, a work-table with a student\'s\nlamp on it, a wash-stand and a chest of drawers and a piano! On the\nwalls were pictures and over the mantel stood the one she had first\nlearned to love--two lovers clasped in each other\'s arms and under them\nthe words \"Enfin Seul.\"\n\n\"Oh-oh,\" was all she could say, and choking, she motioned Bub from the\nroom. When the door closed, she threw herself sobbing across the bed.\n\nOver at the Gap that night Hale sat in his office with a piece of white\npaper and a lump of black coal on the table in front of him. His foreman\nhad brought the coal to him that day at dusk. He lifted the lump to the\nlight of his lamp, and from the centre of it a mocking evil eye leered\nback at him. The eye was a piece of shining black flint and told him\nthat his mine in Lonesome Cove was but a pocket of cannel coal and worth\nno more than the smouldering lumps in his grate. Then he lifted the\npiece of white paper--it was his license to marry June.\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\n\nVery slowly June walked up the little creek to the old log where she had\nlain so many happy hours. There was no change in leaf, shrub or tree,\nand not a stone in the brook had been disturbed. The sun dropped the\nsame arrows down through the leaves--blunting their shining points into\ntremulous circles on the ground, the water sang the same happy tune\nunder her dangling feet and a wood-thrush piped the old lay overhead.\n\nWood-thrush! June smiled as she suddenly rechristened the bird for\nherself now. That bird henceforth would be the Magic Flute to musical\nJune--and she leaned back with ears, eyes and soul awake and her brain\nbusy.\n\nAll the way over the mountain, on that second home-going, she had\nthought of the first, and even memories of the memories aroused by that\nfirst home-going came back to her--the place where Hale had put his\nhorse into a dead run and had given her that never-to-be-forgotten\nthrill, and where she had slid from behind to the ground and stormed\nwith tears. When they dropped down into the green gloom of shadow and\ngreen leaves toward Lonesome Cove, she had the same feeling that her\nheart was being clutched by a human hand and that black night had\nsuddenly fallen about her, but this time she knew what it meant. She\nthought then of the crowded sleeping-room, the rough beds and coarse\nblankets at home; the oil-cloth, spotted with drippings from a candle,\nthat covered the table; the thick plates and cups; the soggy bread and\nthe thick bacon floating in grease; the absence of napkins, the eating\nwith knives and fingers and the noise Bub and her father made drinking\ntheir coffee. But then she knew all these things in advance, and the\nmemories of them on her way over had prepared her for Lonesome Cove. The\nconditions were definite there: she knew what it would be to face\nthem again--she was facing them all the way, and to her surprise the\nrealities had hurt her less even than they had before. Then had come the\nsame thrill over the garden, and now with that garden and her new room\nand her piano and her books, with Uncle Billy\'s sister to help do the\nwork, and with the little changes that June was daily making in the\nhousehold, she could live her own life even over there as long as she\npleased, and then she would go out into the world again.\n\nBut all the time when she was coming over from the Gap, the way had\nbristled with accusing memories of Hale--even from the chattering\ncreeks, the turns in the road, the sun-dappled bushes and trees and\nflowers; and when she passed the big Pine that rose with such friendly\nsolemnity above her, the pang of it all hurt her heart and kept on\nhurting her. When she walked in the garden, the flowers seemed not to\nhave the same spirit of gladness. It had been a dry season and they\ndrooped for that reason, but the melancholy of them had a sympathetic\nhuman quality that depressed her. If she saw a bass shoot arrow-like\ninto deep water, if she heard a bird or saw a tree or a flower whose\nname she had to recall, she thought of Hale. Do what she would, she\ncould not escape the ghost that stalked at her side everywhere, so like\na human presence that she felt sometimes a strange desire to turn and\nspeak to it. And in her room that presence was all-pervasive. The piano,\nthe furniture, the bits of bric-a-brac, the pictures and books--all were\neloquent with his thought of her--and every night before she turned\nout her light she could not help lifting her eyes to her once-favourite\npicture--even that Hale had remembered--the lovers clasped in each\nother\'s arms--\"At Last Alone\"--only to see it now as a mocking symbol of\nhis beaten hopes. She had written to thank him for it all, and not\nyet had he answered her letter. He had said that he was coming over\nto Lonesome Cove and he had not come--why should he, on her account?\nBetween them all was over--why should he? The question was absurd in\nher mind, and yet the fact that she had expected him, that she so WANTED\nhim, was so illogical and incongruous and vividly true that it raised\nher to a sitting posture on the log, and she ran her fingers over her\nforehead and down her dazed face until her chin was in the hollow of her\nhand, and her startled eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the running water\nand yet not seeing it at all. A call--her step-mother\'s cry--rang up the\nravine and she did not hear it. She did not even hear Bub coming through\nthe underbrush a few minutes later, and when he half angrily shouted her\nname at the end of the vista, down-stream, whence he could see her, she\nlifted her head from a dream so deep that in it all her senses had for\nthe moment been wholly lost.\n\n\"Come on,\" he shouted.\n\nShe had forgotten--there was a \"bean-stringing\" at the house that\nday--and she slipped slowly off the log and went down the path,\ngathering herself together as she went, and making no answer to the\nindignant Bub who turned and stalked ahead of her back to the house. At\nthe barnyard gate her father stopped her--he looked worried.\n\n\"Jack Hale\'s jus\' been over hyeh.\" June caught her breath sharply.\n\n\"Has he gone?\" The old man was watching her and she felt it.\n\n\"Yes, he was in a hurry an\' nobody knowed whar you was. He jus\' come\nover, he said, to tell me to tell you that you could go back to New York\nand keep on with yo\' singin\' doin\'s whenever you please. He knowed I\ndidn\'t want you hyeh when this war starts fer a finish as hit\'s goin\'\nto, mighty soon now. He says he ain\'t quite ready to git married yit.\nI\'m afeerd he\'s in trouble.\"\n\n\"Trouble?\"\n\n\"I tol\' you t\'other day--he\'s lost all his money; but he says you\'ve got\nenough to keep you goin\' fer some time. I don\'t see why you don\'t git\nmarried right now and live over at the Gap.\"\n\nJune coloured and was silent.\n\n\"Oh,\" said the old man quickly, \"you ain\'t ready nuther,\"--he studied\nher with narrowing eyes and through a puzzled frown--\"but I reckon hit\'s\nall right, if you air goin\' to git married some time.\"\n\n\"What\'s all right, Dad?\" The old man checked himself:\n\n\"Ever\' thing,\" he said shortly, \"but don\'t you make a fool of yo\'self\nwith a good man like Jack Hale.\" And, wondering, June was silent. The\ntruth was that the old man had wormed out of Hale an admission of the\nkindly duplicity the latter had practised on him and on June, and he\nhad given his word to Hale that he would not tell June. He did not\nunderstand why Hale should have so insisted on that promise, for it was\nall right that Hale should openly do what he pleased for the girl he was\ngoing to marry--but he had given his word: so he turned away, but his\nfrown stayed where it was.\n\nJune went on, puzzled, for she knew that her father was withholding\nsomething, and she knew, too, that he would tell her only in his\nown good time. But she could go away when she pleased--that was the\ncomfort--and with the thought she stopped suddenly at the corner of the\ngarden. She could see Hale on his big black horse climbing the spur.\nOnce it had always been his custom to stop on top of it to rest his\nhorse and turn to look back at her, and she always waited to wave him\ngood-by. She wondered if he would do it now, and while she looked\nand waited, the beating of her heart quickened nervously; but he\nrode straight on, without stopping or turning his head, and June felt\nstrangely bereft and resentful, and the comfort of the moment before\nwas suddenly gone. She could hear the voices of the guests in the porch\naround the corner of the house--there was an ordeal for her around\nthere, and she went on. Loretta and Loretta\'s mother were there, and\nold Hon and several wives and daughters of Tolliver adherents from\nup Deadwood Creek and below Uncle Billy\'s mill. June knew that the\n\"bean-stringing\" was simply an excuse for them to be there, for she\ncould not remember that so many had ever gathered there before--at that\nfunction in the spring, at corn-cutting in the autumn, or sorghum-making\ntime or at log-raisings or quilting parties, and she well knew the\nmotive of these many and the curiosity of all save, perhaps, Loretta and\nthe old miller\'s wife: and June was prepared for them. She had borrowed\na gown from her step-mother--a purple creation of home-spun--she had\nshaken down her beautiful hair and drawn it low over her brows, and\narranged it behind after the fashion of mountain women, and when she\nwent up the steps of the porch she was outwardly to the eye one of them\nexcept for the leathern belt about her slenderly full waist, her black\nsilk stockings and the little \"furrin\" shoes on her dainty feet. She\nsmiled inwardly when she saw the same old wave of disappointment sweep\nacross the faces of them all. It was not necessary to shake hands, but\nunthinkingly she did, and the women sat in their chairs as she went from\none to the other and each gave her a limp hand and a grave \"howdye,\"\nthough each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague something about her,\nby wiping that hand on an apron first. Very quietly and naturally she\ntook a low chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them, went to\nwork. Nobody looked at her at first until old Hon broke the silence.\n\n\"You haint lost a spec o\' yo\' good looks, Juny.\"\n\nJune laughed without a flush--she would have reddened to the roots of\nher hair two years before.\n\n\"I\'m feelin\' right peart, thank ye,\" she said, dropping consciously into\nthe vernacular; but there was a something in her voice that was vaguely\nfelt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erect\nbearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into\ntheir own--a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and\nthose shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in\ntime covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was\nbeyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, and\nthe others, even Loretta, said never a word.\n\n\"Jack Hale must have been in a mighty big hurry,\" quavered the old\nstep-mother. \"June ain\'t goin\' to be with us long, I\'m afeerd:\" and,\nwithout looking up, June knew the wireless significance of the speech\nwas going around from eye to eye, but calmly she pulled her thread\nthrough a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical shake of\nher head:\n\n\"I--don\'t know--I don\'t know.\"\n\nYoung Dave\'s mother was encouraged and all her efforts at good-humour\ncould not quite draw the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice.\n\n\"I reckon she\'d never git away, if my boy Dave had the sayin\' of it.\"\nThere was a subdued titter at this, but Bub had come in from the stable\nand had dropped on the edge of the porch. He broke in hotly:\n\n\"You jest let June alone, Aunt Tilly, you\'ll have yo\' hands full if you\nkeep yo\' eye on Loretty thar.\"\n\nAlready when somebody was saying something about the feud, as June came\naround the corner, her quick eye had seen Loretta bend her head swiftly\nover her work to hide the flush of her face. Now Loretta turned scarlet\nas the step-mother spoke severely:\n\n\"You hush, Bub,\" and Bub rose and stalked into the house. Aunt Tilly was\nleaning back in her chair--gasping--and consternation smote the group.\nJune rose suddenly with her string of dangling beans.\n\n\"I haven\'t shown you my room, Loretty. Don\'t you want to see it? Come\non, all of you,\" she added to the girls, and they and Loretta with one\nswift look of gratitude rose shyly and trooped shyly within where\nthey looked in wide-mouthed wonder at the marvellous things that room\ncontained. The older women followed to share sight of the miracle,\nand all stood looking from one thing to another, some with their hands\nbehind them as though to thwart the temptation to touch, and all saying\nmerely:\n\n\"My! My!\"\n\nNone of them had ever seen a piano before and June must play the \"shiny\ncontraption\" and sing a song. It was only curiosity and astonishment\nthat she evoked when her swift fingers began running over the keys from\none end of the board to the other, astonishment at the gymnastic quality\nof the performance, and only astonishment when her lovely voice set the\nvery walls of the little room to vibrating with a dramatic love song\nthat was about as intelligible to them as a problem in calculus, and\nJune flushed and then smiled with quick understanding at the dry comment\nthat rose from Aunt Tilly behind:\n\n\"She shorely can holler some!\"\n\nShe couldn\'t play \"Sourwood Mountain\" on the piano--nor \"Jinny git\nAroun\',\" nor \"Soapsuds over the Fence,\" but with a sudden inspiration\nshe went back to an old hymn that they all knew, and at the end she won\nthe tribute of an awed silence that made them file back to the beans on\nthe porch. Loretta lingered a moment and when June closed the piano and\nthe two girls went into the main room, a tall figure, entering, stopped\nin the door and stared at June without speaking:\n\n\"Why, howdye, Uncle Rufe,\" said Loretta. \"This is June. You didn\'t know\nher, did ye?\" The man laughed. Something in June\'s bearing made him take\noff his hat; he came forward to shake hands, and June looked up into a\npair of bold black eyes that stirred within her again the vague fears of\nher childhood. She had been afraid of him when she was a child, and it\nwas the old fear aroused that made her recall him by his eyes now. His\nbeard was gone and he was much changed. She trembled when she shook\nhands with him and she did not call him by his name Old Judd came in,\nand a moment later the two men and Bub sat on the porch while the women\nworked, and when June rose again to go indoors, she felt the newcomer\'s\nbold eyes take her slowly in from head to foot and she turned crimson.\nThis was the terror among the Tollivers--Bad Rufe, come back from the\nWest to take part in the feud. HE saw the belt and the stockings and\nthe shoes, the white column of her throat and the proud set of her\ngold-crowned head; HE knew what they meant, he made her feel that\nhe knew, and later he managed to catch her eyes once with an amused,\nhalf-contemptuous glance at the simple untravelled folk about them, that\nsaid plainly how well he knew they two were set apart from them, and she\nshrank fearfully from the comradeship that the glance implied and\nwould look at him no more. He knew everything that was going on in the\nmountains. He had come back \"ready for business,\" he said. When he made\nready to go, June went to her room and stayed there, but she heard him\nsay to her father that he was going over to the Gap, and with a laugh\nthat chilled her soul:\n\n\"I\'m goin\' over to kill me a policeman.\" And her father warned gruffly:\n\n\"You better keep away from thar. You don\'t understand them fellers.\" And\nshe heard Rufe\'s brutal laugh again, and as he rode into the creek his\nhorse stumbled and she saw him cut cruelly at the poor beast\'s ears with\nthe rawhide quirt that he carried. She was glad when all went home, and\nthe only ray of sunlight in the day for her radiated from Uncle Billy\'s\nface when, at sunset, he came to take old Hon home. The old miller was\nthe one unchanged soul to her in that he was the one soul that could see\nno change in June. He called her \"baby\" in the old way, and he talked to\nher now as he had talked to her as a child. He took her aside to ask her\nif she knew that Hale had got his license to marry, and when she shook\nher head, his round, red face lighted up with the benediction of a\nrising sun:\n\n\"Well, that\'s what he\'s done, baby, an\' he\'s axed me to marry ye,\" he\nadded, with boyish pride, \"he\'s axed ME.\"\n\nAnd June choked, her eyes filled, and she was dumb, but Uncle Billy\ncould not see that it meant distress and not joy. He just put his arm\naround her and whispered:\n\n\"I ain\'t told a soul, baby--not a soul.\"\n\nShe went to bed and to sleep with Hale\'s face in the dream-mist of\nher brain, and Uncle Billy\'s, and the bold, black eyes of Bad Rufe\nTolliver--all fused, blurred, indistinguishable. Then suddenly Rufe\'s\nwords struck that brain, word by word, like the clanging terror of a\nfrightened bell.\n\n\"I\'m goin\' to kill me a policeman.\" And with the last word, it seemed,\nshe sprang upright in bed, clutching the coverlid convulsively. Daylight\nwas showing gray through her window. She heard a swift step up the\nsteps, across the porch, the rattle of the door-chain, her father\'s\nquick call, then the rumble of two men\'s voices, and she knew as well\nwhat had happened as though she had heard every word they uttered. Rufe\nhad killed him a policeman--perhaps John Hale--and with terror clutching\nher heart she sprang to the floor, and as she dropped the old purple\ngown over her shoulders, she heard the scurry of feet across the back\nporch--feet that ran swiftly but cautiously, and left the sound of them\nat the edge of the woods. She heard the back door close softly, the\ncreaking of the bed as her father lay down again, and then a sudden\nsplashing in the creek. Kneeling at the window, she saw strange horsemen\npushing toward the gate where one threw himself from his saddle, strode\nswiftly toward the steps, and her lips unconsciously made soft, little,\ninarticulate cries of joy--for the stern, gray face under the hat of\nthe man was the face of John Hale. After him pushed other men--fully\narmed--whom he motioned to either side of the cabin to the rear. By his\nside was Bob Berkley, and behind him was a red-headed Falin whom she\nwell remembered. Within twenty feet, she was looking into that gray\nface, when the set lips of it opened in a loud command: \"Hello!\" She\nheard her father\'s bed creak again, again the rattle of the door-chain,\nand then old Judd stepped on the porch with a revolver in each hand.\n\n\"Hello!\" he answered sternly.\n\n\"Judd,\" said Hale sharply--and June had never heard that tone from him\nbefore--\"a man with a black moustache killed one of our men over in the\nGap yesterday and we\'ve tracked him over here. There\'s his horse--and we\nsaw him go into that door. We want him.\"\n\n\"Do you know who the feller is?\" asked old Judd calmly.\n\n\"No,\" said Hale quickly. And then, with equal calm:\n\n\"Hit was my brother,\" and the old man\'s mouth closed like a vise. Had\nthe last word been a stone striking his ear, Hale could hardly have been\nmore stunned. Again he called and almost gently:\n\n\"Watch the rear, there,\" and then gently he turned to Devil Judd.\n\n\"Judd, your brother shot a man at the Gap--without excuse or warning. He\nwas an officer and a friend of mine, but if he were a stranger--we want\nhim just the same. Is he here?\"\n\nJudd looked at the red-headed man behind Hale.\n\n\"So you\'re turned on the Falin side now, have ye?\" he said\ncontemptuously.\n\n\"Is he here?\" repeated Hale.\n\n\"Yes, an\' you can\'t have him.\" Without a move toward his pistol Hale\nstepped forward, and June saw her father\'s big right hand tighten on his\nhuge pistol, and with a low cry she sprang to her feet.\n\n\"I\'m an officer of the law,\" Hale said, \"stand aside, Judd!\" Bub leaped\nto the door with a Winchester--his eyes wild and his face white.\n\n\"Watch out, men!\" Hale called, and as the men raised their guns there\nwas a shriek inside the cabin and June stood at Bub\'s side, barefooted,\nher hair tumbled about her shoulders, and her hand clutching the little\ncross at her throat.\n\n\"Stop!\" she shrieked. \"He isn\'t here. He\'s--he\'s gone!\" For a moment a\nsudden sickness smote Hale\'s face, then Devil Judd\'s ruse flashed to him\nand, wheeling, he sprang to the ground.\n\n\"Quick!\" he shouted, with a sweep of his hand right and left. \"Up those\nhollows! Lead those horses up to the Pine and wait. Quick!\"\n\nAlready the men were running as he directed and Hale, followed by\nBob and the Falin, rushed around the corner of the house. Old Judd\'s\nnostrils were quivering, and with his pistols dangling in his hands he\nwalked to the gate, listening to the sounds of the pursuit.\n\n\"They\'ll never ketch him,\" he said, coming back, and then he dropped\ninto a chair and sat in silence a long time. June reappeared, her face\nstill white and her temples throbbing, for the sun was rising on days of\ndarkness for her. Devil Judd did not even look at her.\n\n\"I reckon you ain\'t goin\' to marry John Hale.\"\n\n\"No, Dad,\" said June.\n\n\n\n\nXXV\n\n\nThus Fate did not wait until Election Day for the thing Hale most\ndreaded--a clash that would involve the guard in the Tolliver-Falin\ntroubles over the hills. There had been simply a preliminary political\ngathering at the Gap the day before, but it had been a crucial day for\nthe guard from a cloudy sunrise to a tragic sunset. Early that morning,\nMockaby, the town-sergeant, had stepped into the street freshly shaven,\nwith polished boots, and in his best clothes for the eyes of his\nsweetheart, who was to come up that day to the Gap from Lee. Before\nsunset he died with those boots on, while the sweetheart, unknowing,\nwas bound on her happy way homeward, and Rufe Tolliver, who had shot\nMockaby, was clattering through the Gap in flight for Lonesome Cove.\n\nAs far as anybody knew, there had been but one Tolliver and one Falin in\ntown that day, though many had noticed the tall Western-looking stranger\nwho, early in the afternoon, had ridden across the bridge over the North\nFork, but he was quiet and well-behaved, he merged into the crowd and\nthrough the rest of the afternoon was in no way conspicuous, even when\nthe one Tolliver and the one Falin got into a fight in front of the\nspeaker\'s stand and the riot started which came near ending in a bloody\nbattle. The Falin was clearly blameless and was let go at once. This\nangered the many friends of the Tolliver, and when he was arrested there\nwas an attempt at rescue, and the Tolliver was dragged to the calaboose\nbehind a slowly retiring line of policemen, who were jabbing the\nrescuers back with the muzzles of cocked Winchesters. It was just when\nit was all over, and the Tolliver was safely jailed, that Bad Rufe\ngalloped up to the calaboose, shaking with rage, for he had just learned\nthat the prisoner was a Tolliver. He saw how useless interference was,\nbut he swung from his horse, threw the reins over its head after the\nWestern fashion and strode up to Hale.\n\n\"You the captain of this guard?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale; \"and you?\" Rufe shook his head with angry impatience,\nand Hale, thinking he had some communication to make, ignored his\nrefusal to answer.\n\n\"I hear that a fellow can\'t blow a whistle or holler, or shoot off his\npistol in this town without gittin\' arrested.\"\n\n\"That\'s true--why?\" Rufe\'s black eyes gleamed vindictively.\n\n\"Nothin\',\" he said, and he turned to his horse.\n\nTen minutes later, as Mockaby was passing down the dummy track, a\nwhistle was blown on the river bank, a high yell was raised, a pistol\nshot quickly followed and he started for the sound of them on a run. A\nfew minutes later three more pistol shots rang out, and Hale rushed to\nthe river bank to find Mockaby stretched out on the ground, dying, and a\nmountaineer lout pointing after a man on horseback, who was making at a\nswift gallop for the mouth of the gap and the hills.\n\n\"He done it,\" said the lout in a frightened way; \"but I don\'t know who\nhe was.\"\n\nWithin half an hour ten horsemen were clattering after the murderer,\nheaded by Hale, Logan, and the Infant of the Guard. Where the road\nforked, a woman with a child in her arms said she had seen a tall,\nblack-eyed man with a black moustache gallop up the right fork. She no\nmore knew who he was than any of the pursuers. Three miles up that fork\nthey came upon a red-headed man leading his horse from a mountaineer\'s\nyard.\n\n\"He went up the mountain,\" the red-haired man said, pointing to\nthe trail of the Lonesome Pine. \"He\'s gone over the line. Whut\'s he\ndone--killed somebody?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale shortly, starting up his horse.\n\n\"I wish I\'d a-knowed you was atter him. I\'m sheriff over thar.\"\n\nNow they were without warrant or requisition, and Hale, pulling in, said\nsharply:\n\n\"We want that fellow. He killed a man at the Gap. If we catch him over\nthe line, we want you to hold him for us. Come along!\" The red-headed\nsheriff sprang on his horse and grinned eagerly:\n\n\"I\'m your man.\"\n\n\"Who was that fellow?\" asked Hale as they galloped. The sheriff denied\nknowledge with a shake of his head.\n\n\"What\'s your name?\" The sheriff looked sharply at him for the effect of\nhis answer.\n\n\"Jim Falin.\" And Hale looked sharply back at him. He was one of the\nFalins who long, long ago had gone to the Gap for young Dave Tolliver,\nand now the Falin grinned at Hale.\n\n\"I know you--all right.\" No wonder the Falin chuckled at this\nHeaven-born chance to get a Tolliver into trouble.\n\nAt the Lonesome Pine the traces of the fugitive\'s horse swerved along\nthe mountain top--the shoe of the right forefoot being broken in half.\nThat swerve was a blind and the sheriff knew it, but he knew where Rufe\nTolliver would go and that there would be plenty of time to get him.\nMoreover, he had a purpose of his own and a secret fear that it might be\nthwarted, so, without a word, he followed the trail till darkness hid\nit and they had to wait until the moon rose. Then as they started again,\nthe sheriff said:\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" and plunged down the mountain side on foot. A few\nminutes later he hallooed for Hale, and down there showed him the tracks\ndoubling backward along a foot-path.\n\n\"Regular rabbit, ain\'t he?\" chuckled the sheriff, and back they went to\nthe trail again on which two hundred yards below the Pine they saw the\ntracks pointing again to Lonesome Cove.\n\nOn down the trail they went, and at the top of the spur that overlooked\nLonesome Cove, the Falin sheriff pulled in suddenly and got off his\nhorse. There the tracks swerved again into the bushes.\n\n\"He\'s goin\' to wait till daylight, fer fear somebody\'s follered him.\nHe\'ll come in back o\' Devil Judd\'s.\"\n\n\"How do you know he\'s going to Devil Judd\'s?\" asked Hale.\n\n\"Whar else would he go?\" asked the Falin with a sweep of his arm toward\nthe moonlit wilderness. \"Thar ain\'t but one house that way fer ten\nmiles--and nobody lives thar.\"\n\n\"How do you know that he\'s going to any house?\" asked Hale impatiently.\n\"He may be getting out of the mountains.\"\n\n\"D\'you ever know a feller to leave these mountains jus\' because he\'d\nkilled a man? How\'d you foller him at night? How\'d you ever ketch him\nwith his start? What\'d he turn that way fer, if he wasn\'t goin\' to\nJudd\'s--why d\'n\'t he keep on down the river? If he\'s gone, he\'s gone. If\nhe ain\'t, he\'ll be at Devil Judd\'s at daybreak if he ain\'t thar now.\"\n\n\"What do you want to do?\"\n\n\"Go on down with the hosses, hide \'em in the bushes an\' wait.\"\n\n\"Maybe he\'s already heard us coming down the mountain.\"\n\n\"That\'s the only thing I\'m afeerd of,\" said the Falin calmly. \"But whut\nI\'m tellin\' you\'s our only chance.\"\n\n\"How do you know he won\'t hear us going down? Why not leave the horses?\"\n\n\"We might need the hosses, and hit\'s mud and sand all the way--you ought\nto know that.\"\n\nHale did know that; so on they went quietly and hid their horses aside\nfrom the road near the place where Hale had fished when he first went to\nLonesome Cove. There the Falin disappeared on foot.\n\n\"Do you trust him?\" asked Hale, turning to Budd, and Budd laughed.\n\n\"I reckon you can trust a Falin against a friend of a Tolliver, or\nt\'other way round--any time.\" Within half an hour the Falin came back\nwith the news that there were no signs that the fugitive had yet come\nin.\n\n\"No use surrounding the house now,\" he said, \"he might see one of us\nfirst when he comes in an\' git away. We\'ll do that atter daylight.\"\n\nAnd at daylight they saw the fugitive ride out of the woods at the back\nof the house and boldly around to the front of the house, where he left\nhis horse in the yard and disappeared.\n\n\"Now send three men to ketch him if he runs out the back way--quick!\"\nsaid the Falin. \"Hit\'ll take \'em twenty minutes to git thar through the\nwoods. Soon\'s they git thar, let one of \'em shoot his pistol off an\'\nthat\'ll be the signal fer us.\"\n\nThe three men started swiftly, but the pistol shot came before they had\ngone a hundred yards, for one of the three--a new man and unaccustomed\nto the use of fire-arms, stumbled over a root while he was seeing that\nhis pistol was in order and let it go off accidentally.\n\n\"No time to waste now,\" the Falin called sharply. \"Git on yo\' hosses\nand git!\" Then the rush was made and when they gave up the chase at noon\nthat day, the sheriff looked Hale squarely in the eye when Hale sharply\nasked him a question:\n\n\"Why didn\'t you tell me who that man was?\"\n\n\"Because I was afeerd you wouldn\'t go to Devil Judd\'s atter him. I know\nbetter now,\" and he shook his head, for he did not understand. And so\nHale at the head of the disappointed Guard went back to the Gap, and\nwhen, next day, they laid Mockaby away in the thinly populated little\ngraveyard that rested in the hollow of the river\'s arm, the spirit of\nlaw and order in the heart of every guard gave way to the spirit of\nrevenge, and the grass would grow under the feet of none until Rufe\nTolliver was caught and the death-debt of the law was paid with death.\n\nThat purpose was no less firm in the heart of Hale, and he turned\naway from the grave, sick with the trick that Fate had lost no time in\nplaying him; for he was a Falin now in the eyes of both factions and an\nenemy--even to June.\n\nThe weeks dragged slowly along, and June sank slowly toward the depths\nwith every fresh realization of the trap of circumstance into which she\nhad fallen. She had dim memories of just such a state of affairs when\nshe was a child, for the feud was on now and the three things that\ngoverned the life of the cabin in Lonesome Cove were hate, caution, and\nfear.\n\nBub and her father worked in the fields with their Winchesters close\nat hand, and June was never easy if they were outside the house. If\nsomebody shouted \"hello\"--that universal hail of friend or enemy in the\nmountains--from the gate after dark, one or the other would go out\nthe back door and answer from the shelter of the corner of the house.\nNeither sat by the light of the fire where he could be seen through the\nwindow nor carried a candle from one room to the other. And when either\nrode down the river, June must ride behind him to prevent ambush from\nthe bushes, for no Kentucky mountaineer, even to kill his worst enemy,\nwill risk harming a woman. Sometimes Loretta would come and spend\nthe day, and she seemed little less distressed than June. Dave was\nconstantly in and out, and several times June had seen the Red Fox\nhanging around. Always the talk was of the feud. The killing of this\nTolliver and of that long ago was rehearsed over and over; all the\nwrongs the family had suffered at the hands of the Falins were retold,\nand in spite of herself June felt the old hatred of her childhood\nreawakening against them so fiercely that she was startled: and she knew\nthat if she were a man she would be as ready now to take up a Winchester\nagainst the Falins as though she had known no other life.\n\nLoretta got no comfort from her in her tentative efforts to talk of Buck\nFalin, and once, indeed, June gave her a scathing rebuke. With every day\nher feeling for her father and Bub was knit a little more closely, and\ntoward Dave grew a little more kindly. She had her moods even against\nHale, but they always ended in a storm of helpless tears. Her father\nsaid little of Hale, but that little was enough. Young Dave was openly\nexultant when he heard of the favouritism shown a Falin by the Guard\nat the Gap, the effort Hale had made to catch Rufe Tolliver and his\nwell-known purpose yet to capture him; for the Guard maintained a fund\nfor the arrest and prosecution of criminals, and the reward it offered\nfor Rufe, dead or alive, was known by everybody on both sides of the\nState line. For nearly a week no word was heard of the fugitive, and\nthen one night, after supper, while June was sitting at the fire, the\nback door was opened, Rufe slid like a snake within, and when June\nsprang to her feet with a sharp cry of terror, he gave his brutal laugh:\n\n\"Don\'t take much to skeer you--does it?\" Shuddering she felt his evil\neyes sweep her from head to foot, for the beast within was always\nunleashed and ever ready to spring, and she dropped back into her seat,\nspeechless. Young Dave, entering from the kitchen, saw Rufe\'s look and\nthe hostile lightning of his own eyes flashed at his foster-uncle, who\nknew straightway that he must not for his own safety strain the boy\'s\njealousy too far.\n\n\"You oughtn\'t to \'a\' done it, Rufe,\" said old Judd a little later, and\nhe shook his head. Again Rufe laughed:\n\n\"No--\" he said with a quick pacificatory look to young Dave, \"not to\nHIM!\" The swift gritting of Dave\'s teeth showed that he knew what was\nmeant, and without warning the instinct of a protecting tigress leaped\nwithin June. She had seen and had been grateful for the look Dave gave\nthe outlaw, but without a word she rose new and went to her own room.\nWhile she sat at her window, her step-mother came out the back door and\nleft it open for a moment. Through it June could hear the talk:\n\n\"No,\" said her father, \"she ain\'t goin\' to marry him.\" Dave grunted and\nRufe\'s voice came again:\n\n\"Ain\'t no danger, I reckon, of her tellin\' on me?\"\n\n\"No,\" said her father gruffly, and the door banged.\n\nNo, thought June, she wouldn\'t, even without her father\'s trust, though\nshe loathed the man, and he was the only thing on earth of which she was\nafraid--that was the miracle of it and June wondered. She was a Tolliver\nand the clan loyalty of a century forbade--that was all. As she rose she\nsaw a figure skulking past the edge of the woods. She called Bub in and\ntold him about it, and Rufe stayed at the cabin all night, but June did\nnot see him next morning, and she kept out of his way whenever he came\nagain. A few nights later the Red Fox slouched up to the cabin with some\nherbs for the step-mother. Old Judd eyed him askance.\n\n\"Lookin\' fer that reward, Red?\" The old man had no time for the meek\nreply that was on his lips, for the old woman spoke up sharply:\n\n\"You let Red alone, Judd--I tol\' him to come.\" And the Red Fox stayed\nto supper, and when Rufe left the cabin that night, a bent figure with a\nbig rifle and in moccasins sneaked after him.\n\nThe next night there was a tap on Hale\'s window just at his bedside, and\nwhen he looked out he saw the Red Fox\'s big rifle, telescope, moccasins\nand all in the moonlight. The Red Fox had discovered the whereabouts of\nRufe Tolliver, and that very night he guided Hale and six of the\nguard to the edge of a little clearing where the Red Fox pointed to a\none-roomed cabin, quiet in the moonlight. Hale had his requisition now.\n\n\"Ain\'t no trouble ketchin\' Rufe, if you bait him with a woman,\" he\nsnarled. \"There mought be several Tollivers in thar. Wait till daybreak\nand git the drap on him, when he comes out.\" And then he disappeared.\n\nSurrounding the cabin, Hale waited, and on top of the mountain, above\nLonesome Cove, the Red Fox sat waiting and watching through his big\ntelescope. Through it he saw Bad Rufe step outside the door at daybreak\nand stretch his arms with a yawn, and he saw three men spring with\nlevelled Winchesters from behind a clump of bushes. The woman shot from\nthe door behind Rufe with a pistol in each hand, but Rufe kept his hands\nin the air and turned his head to the woman who lowered the half-raised\nweapons slowly. When he saw the cavalcade start for the county seat\nwith Rufe manacled in the midst of them, he dropped swiftly down into\nLonesome Cove to tell Judd that Rufe was a prisoner and to retake him\non the way to jail. And, as the Red Fox well knew would happen, old Judd\nand young Dave and two other Tollivers who were at the cabin galloped\ninto the county seat to find Rufe in jail, and that jail guarded by\nseven grim young men armed with Winchesters and shot-guns.\n\nHale faced the old man quietly--eye to eye.\n\n\"It\'s no use, Judd,\" he said, \"you\'d better let the law take its\ncourse.\" The old man was scornful.\n\n\"Thar\'s never been a Tolliver convicted of killin\' nobody, much less\nhung--an\' thar ain\'t goin\' to be.\"\n\n\"I\'m glad you warned me,\" said Hale still quietly, \"though it wasn\'t\nnecessary. But if he\'s convicted, he\'ll hang.\"\n\nThe giant\'s face worked in convulsive helplessness and he turned away.\n\n\"You hold the cyards now, but my deal is comin\'.\"\n\n\"All right, Judd--you\'re getting a square one from me.\"\n\nBack rode the Tollivers and Devil Judd never opened his lips again until\nhe was at home in Lonesome Cove. June was sitting on the porch when he\nwalked heavy-headed through the gate.\n\n\"They\'ve ketched Rufe,\" he said, and after a moment he added gruffly:\n\n\"Thar\'s goin\' to be sure enough trouble now. The Falins\'ll think all\nthem police fellers air on their side now. This ain\'t no place fer\nyou--you must git away.\"\n\nJune shook her head and her eyes turned to the flowers at the edge of\nthe garden:\n\n\"I\'m not goin\' away, Dad,\" she said.\n\n\n\n\nXXVI\n\n\nBack to the passing of Boone and the landing of Columbus no man, in that\nregion, had ever been hanged. And as old Judd said, no Tolliver had ever\nbeen sentenced and no jury of mountain men, he well knew, could be\nfound who would convict a Tolliver, for there were no twelve men in\nthe mountains who would dare. And so the Tollivers decided to await the\noutcome of the trial and rest easy. But they did not count on the mettle\nand intelligence of the grim young \"furriners\" who were a flying wedge\nof civilization at the Gap. Straightway, they gave up the practice of\nlaw and banking and trading and store-keeping and cut port-holes in the\nbrick walls of the Court House and guarded town and jail night and day.\nThey brought their own fearless judge, their own fearless jury and\ntheir own fearless guard. Such an abstract regard for law and order the\nmountaineer finds a hard thing to understand. It looked as though the\nmotive of the Guard was vindictive and personal, and old Judd was almost\nstifled by the volcanic rage that daily grew within him as the toils\ndaily tightened about Rufe Tolliver.\n\nEvery happening the old man learned through the Red Fox, who, with his\nhuge pistols, was one of the men who escorted Rufe to and from Court\nHouse and jail--a volunteer, Hale supposed, because he hated Rufe;\nand, as the Tollivers supposed, so that he could keep them advised of\neverything that went on, which he did with secrecy and his own peculiar\nfaith. And steadily and to the growing uneasiness of the Tollivers, the\nlaw went its way. Rufe had proven that he was at the Gap all day and had\ntaken no part in the trouble. He produced a witness--the mountain lout\nwhom Hale remembered--who admitted that he had blown the whistle, given\nthe yell, and fired the pistol shot. When asked his reason, the witness,\nwho was stupid, had none ready, looked helplessly at Rufe and finally\nmumbled--\"fer fun.\" But it was plain from the questions that Rufe\nhad put to Hale only a few minutes before the shooting, and from the\nhesitation of the witness, that Rufe had used him for a tool. So the\ntestimony of the latter that Mockaby without even summoning Rufe to\nsurrender had fired first, carried no conviction. And yet Rufe had\nno trouble making it almost sure that he had never seen the dead man\nbefore--so what was his motive? It was then that word reached the ear\nof the prosecuting attorney of the only testimony that could establish a\nmotive and make the crime a hanging offence, and Court was adjourned for\na day, while he sent for the witness who could give it. That afternoon\none of the Falins, who had grown bolder, and in twos and threes were\nalways at the trial, shot at a Tolliver on the edge of town and there\nwas an immediate turmoil between the factions that the Red Fox had been\nwaiting for and that suited his dark purposes well.\n\nThat very night, with his big rifle, he slipped through the woods to a\nturn of the road, over which old Dave Tolliver was to pass next morning,\nand built a \"blind\" behind some rocks and lay there smoking peacefully\nand dreaming his Swedenborgian dreams. And when a wagon came round the\nturn, driven by a boy, and with the gaunt frame of old Dave Tolliver\nlying on straw in the bed of it, his big rifle thundered and the\nfrightened horses dashed on with the Red Fox\'s last enemy, lifeless.\nCoolly he slipped back to the woods, threw the shell from his gun,\ntirelessly he went by short cuts through the hills, and at noon,\nbenevolent and smiling, he was on guard again.\n\nThe little Court Room was crowded for the afternoon session. Inside the\nrailing sat Rufe Tolliver, white and defiant--manacled. Leaning on the\nrailing, to one side, was the Red Fox with his big pistols, his good\nprofile calm, dreamy, kind--to the other, similarly armed, was Hale.\nAt each of the gaping port-holes, and on each side of the door, stood\na guard with a Winchester, and around the railing outside were several\nmore. In spite of window and port-hole the air was close and heavy with\nthe smell of tobacco and the sweat of men. Here and there in the crowd\nwas a red Falin, but not a Tolliver was in sight, and Rufe Tolliver sat\nalone. The clerk called the Court to order after the fashion since the\ndays before Edward the Confessor--except that he asked God to save a\ncommonwealth instead of a king--and the prosecuting attorney rose:\n\n\"Next witness, may it please your Honour\": and as the clerk got to\nhis feet with a slip of paper in his hand and bawled out a name, Hale\nwheeled with a thumping heart. The crowd vibrated, turned heads, gave\nway, and through the human aisle walked June Tolliver with the sheriff\nfollowing meekly behind. At the railing-gate she stopped, head uplifted,\nface pale and indignant; and her eyes swept past Hale as if he were\nno more than a wooden image, and were fixed with proud inquiry on the\nJudge\'s face. She was bare-headed, her bronze hair was drawn low over\nher white brow, her gown was of purple home-spun, and her right hand was\nclenched tight about the chased silver handle of a riding whip, and\nin eyes, mouth, and in every line of her tense figure was the mute\nquestion: \"Why have you brought _me_ here?\"\n\n[Illustration: \"Why have you brought me here?\", 0342]\n\n\"Here, please,\" said the Judge gently, as though he were about to answer\nthat question, and as she passed Hale she seemed to swerve her skirts\naside that they might not touch him.\n\n\"Swear her.\"\n\nJune lifted her right hand, put her lips to the soiled, old, black Bible\nand faced the jury and Hale and Bad Rufe Tolliver whose black eyes never\nleft her face.\n\n\"What is your name?\" asked a deep voice that struck her ears as\nfamiliar, and before she answered she swiftly recalled that she had\nheard that voice speaking when she entered the door.\n\n\"June Tolliver.\"\n\n\"Your age?\"\n\n\"Eighteen.\"\n\n\"You live--\"\n\n\"In Lonesome Cove.\"\n\n\"You are the daughter of--\"\n\n\"Judd Tolliver.\"\n\n\"Do you know the prisoner?\"\n\n\"He is my foster-uncle.\"\n\n\"Were you at home on the night of August the tenth?\"\n\n\"I was.\"\n\n\"Have you ever heard the prisoner express any enmity against this\nvolunteer Police Guard?\" He waved his hand toward the men at the\nportholes and about the railing--unconsciously leaving his hand directly\npointed at Hale. June hesitated and Rufe leaned one elbow on the table,\nand the light in his eyes beat with fierce intensity into the girl\'s\neyes into which came a curious frightened look that Hale remembered--the\nsame look she had shown long ago when Rufe\'s name was mentioned in the\nold miller\'s cabin, and when going up the river road she had put her\nchildish trust in him to see that her bad uncle bothered her no more.\nHale had never forgot that, and if it had not been absurd he would have\nstopped the prisoner from staring at her now. An anxious look had come\ninto Rufe\'s eyes--would she lie for him?\n\n\"Never,\" said June. Ah, she would--she was a Tolliver and Rufe took a\nbreath of deep content.\n\n\"You never heard him express any enmity toward the Police Guard--before\nthat night?\"\n\n\"I have answered that question,\" said June with dignity and Rufe\'s\nlawyer was on his feet.\n\n\"Your Honour, I object,\" he said indignantly.\n\n\"I apologize,\" said the deep voice--\"sincerely,\" and he bowed to June.\nThen very quietly:\n\n\"What was the last thing you heard the prisoner say that afternoon when\nhe left your father\'s house?\"\n\nIt had come--how well she remembered just what he had said and how, that\nnight, even when she was asleep, Rufe\'s words had clanged like a bell in\nher brain--what her awakening terror was when she knew that the deed was\ndone and the stifling fear that the victim might be Hale. Swiftly her\nmind worked--somebody had blabbed, her step-mother, perhaps, and what\nRufe had said had reached a Falin ear and come to the relentless man in\nfront of her. She remembered, too, now, what the deep voice was saying\nas she came into the door:\n\n\"There must be deliberation, a malicious purpose proven to make the\nprisoner\'s crime a capital offence--I admit that, of course, your\nHonour. Very well, we propose to prove that now,\" and then she had\nheard her name called. The proof that was to send Rufe Tolliver to the\nscaffold was to come from her--that was why she was there. Her lips\nopened and Rufe\'s eyes, like a snake\'s, caught her own again and held\nthem.\n\n\"He said he was going over to the Gap--\"\n\nThere was a commotion at the door, again the crowd parted, and in\ntowered giant Judd Tolliver, pushing people aside as though they were\nstraws, his bushy hair wild and his great frame shaking from head to\nfoot with rage.\n\n\"You went to my house,\" he rumbled hoarsely--glaring at Hale--\"an\' took\nmy gal thar when I wasn\'t at home--you--\"\n\n\"Order in the Court,\" said the Judge sternly, but already at a signal\nfrom Hale several guards were pushing through the crowd and old Judd\nsaw them coming and saw the Falins about him and the Winchesters at the\nport-holes, and he stopped with a hard gulp and stood looking at June.\n\n\"Repeat his exact words,\" said the deep voice again as calmly as though\nnothing had happened.\n\n\"He said, \'I\'m goin\' over to the Gap--\'\" and still Rufe\'s black eyes\nheld her with mesmeric power--would she lie for him--would she lie for\nhim?\n\nIt was a terrible struggle for June. Her father was there, her uncle\nDave was dead, her foster-uncle\'s life hung on her next words and she\nwas a Tolliver. Yet she had given her oath, she had kissed the sacred\nBook in which she believed from cover to cover with her whole heart,\nand she could feel upon her the blue eyes of a man for whom a lie was\nimpossible and to whom she had never stained her white soul with a word\nof untruth.\n\n\"Yes,\" encouraged the deep voice kindly.\n\nNot a soul in the room knew where the struggle lay--not even the\ngirl--for it lay between the black eyes of Rufe Tolliver and the blue\neyes of John Hale.\n\n\"Yes,\" repeated the deep voice again. Again, with her eyes on Rufe, she\nrepeated:\n\n\"\'I\'m goin\' over to the Gap--\'\" her face turned deadly white, she\nshivered, her dark eyes swerved suddenly full on Hale and she said\nslowly and distinctly, yet hardly above a whisper:\n\n\"\'TO KILL ME A POLICEMAN.\'\"\n\n\"That will do,\" said the deep voice gently, and Hale started toward\nher--she looked so deadly sick and she trembled so when she tried to\nrise; but she saw him, her mouth steadied, she rose, and without looking\nat him, passed by his outstretched hand and walked slowly out of the\nCourt Room.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII\n\n\nThe miracle had happened. The Tollivers, following the Red Fox\'s advice\nto make no attempt at rescue just then, had waited, expecting the old\nimmunity from the law and getting instead the swift sentence that Rufe\nTolliver should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Astounding and\nconvincing though the news was, no mountaineer believed he would ever\nhang, and Rufe himself faced the sentence defiant. He laughed when he\nwas led back to his cell:\n\n\"I\'ll never hang,\" he said scornfully. They were the first words that\ncame from his lips, and the first words that came from old Judd\'s when\nthe news reached him in Lonesome Cove, and that night old Judd gathered\nhis clan for the rescue--to learn next morning that during the night\nRufe had been spirited away to the capital for safekeeping until the\nfatal day. And so there was quiet for a while--old Judd making ready for\nthe day when Rufe should be brought back, and trying to find out who it\nwas that had slain his brother Dave. The Falins denied the deed, but old\nJudd never questioned that one of them was the murderer, and he came out\nopenly now and made no secret of the fact that he meant to have revenge.\nAnd so the two factions went armed, watchful and wary--especially the\nFalins, who were lying low and waiting to fulfil a deadly purpose of\ntheir own. They well knew that old Judd would not open hostilities on\nthem until Rufe Tolliver was dead or at liberty. They knew that the\nold man meant to try to rescue Rufe when he was brought back to jail or\ntaken from it to the scaffold, and when either day came they themselves\nwould take a hand, thus giving the Tollivers at one and the same time\ntwo sets of foes. And so through the golden September days the two clans\nwaited, and June Tolliver went with dull determination back to her old\nlife, for Uncle Billy\'s sister had left the house in fear and she\ncould get no help--milking cows at cold dawns, helping in the kitchen,\nspinning flax and wool, and weaving them into rough garments for her\nfather and step-mother and Bub, and in time, she thought grimly--for\nherself: for not another cent for her maintenance could now come from\nJohn Hale, even though he claimed it was hers--even though it was in\ntruth her own. Never, but once, had Hale\'s name been mentioned in the\ncabin--never, but once, had her father referred to the testimony that\nshe had given against Rufe Tolliver, for the old man put upon Hale the\nfact that the sheriff had sneaked into his house when he was away and\nhad taken June to Court, and that was the crowning touch of bitterness\nin his growing hatred for the captain of the guard of whom he had once\nbeen so fond.\n\n\"Course you had to tell the truth, baby, when they got you there,\" he\nsaid kindly; \"but kidnappin\' you that-a-way--\" He shook his great bushy\nhead from side to side and dropped it into his hands.\n\n\"I reckon that damn Hale was the man who found out that you heard Rufe\nsay that. I\'d like to know how--I\'d like to git my hands on the feller\nas told him.\"\n\nJune opened her lips in simple justice to clear Hale of that charge, but\nshe saw such a terrified appeal in her step-mother\'s face that she\nkept her peace, let Hale suffer for that, too, and walked out into her\ngarden. Never once had her piano been opened, her books had lain unread,\nand from her lips, during those days, came no song. When she was not\nat work, she was brooding in her room, or she would walk down to Uncle\nBilly\'s and sit at the mill with him while the old man would talk in\ntender helplessness, or under the honeysuckle vines with old Hon, whose\nbrusque kindness was of as little avail. And then, still silent, she\nwould get wearily up and as quietly go away while the two old friends,\nworried to the heart, followed her sadly with their eyes. At other times\nshe was brooding in her room or sitting in her garden, where she was\nnow, and where she found most comfort--the garden that Hale had planted\nfor her-where purple asters leaned against lilac shrubs that would\nflower for the first time the coming spring; where a late rose\nbloomed, and marigolds drooped, and great sunflowers nodded and giant\ncastor-plants stretched out their hands of Christ, And while June thus\nwaited the passing of the days, many things became clear to her: for the\ngrim finger of reality had torn the veil from her eyes and let her see\nherself but little changed, at the depths, by contact with John Male\'s\nworld, as she now saw him but little changed, at the depths, by contact\nwith hers. Slowly she came to see, too, that it was his presence in the\nCourt Room that made her tell the truth, reckless of the consequences,\nand she came to realize that she was not leaving the mountains because\nshe would go to no place where she could not know of any danger that, in\nthe present crisis, might threaten John Hale.\n\nAnd Hale saw only that in the Court Room she had drawn her skirts aside,\nthat she had looked at him once and then had brushed past his helping\nhand. It put him in torment to think of what her life must be now,\nand of how she must be suffering. He knew that she would not leave her\nfather in the crisis that was at hand, and after it was all over--what\nthen? His hands would still be tied and he would be even more helpless\nthan he had ever dreamed possible. To be sure, an old land deal had come\nto life, just after the discovery of the worthlessness of the mine\nin Lonesome Cove, and was holding out another hope. But if that, too,\nshould fail--or if it should succeed--what then? Old Judd had sent back,\nwith a curt refusal, the last \"allowance\" he forwarded to June and\nhe knew the old man was himself in straits. So June must stay in the\nmountains, and what would become of her? She had gone back to her\nmountain garb--would she lapse into her old life and ever again be\ncontent? Yes, she would lapse, but never enough to keep her from being\nunhappy all her life, and at that thought he groaned. Thus far he was\nresponsible and the paramount duty with him had been that she should\nhave the means to follow the career she had planned for herself outside\nof those hills. And now if he had the means, he was helpless. There was\nnothing for him to do now but to see that the law had its way with Rufe\nTolliver, and meanwhile he let the reawakened land deal go hang and set\nhimself the task of finding out who it was that had ambushed old Dave\nTolliver. So even when he was thinking of June his brain was busy on\nthat mystery, and one night, as he sat brooding, a suspicion flashed\nthat made him grip his chair with both hands and rise to pace the porch.\nOld Dave had been shot at dawn, and the night before the Red Fox had\nbeen absent from the guard and had not turned up until nearly noon next\nday. He had told Hale that he was going home. Two days later, Hale heard\nby accident that the old man had been seen near the place of the ambush\nabout sunset of the day before the tragedy, which was on his way home,\nand he now learned straightway for himself that the Red Fox had not\nbeen home for a month--which was only one of his ways of mistreating the\npatient little old woman in black.\n\nA little later, the Red Fox gave it out that he was trying to ferret out\nthe murderer himself, and several times he was seen near the place of\nambush, looking, as he said, for evidence. But this did not halt Hale\'s\nsuspicions, for he recalled that the night he had spent with the Red\nFox, long ago, the old man had burst out against old Dave and had\nquickly covered up his indiscretion with a pious characterization of\nhimself as a man that kept peace with both factions. And then why had he\nbeen so suspicious and fearful when Hale told him that night that he had\nseen him talking with a Falin in town the Court day before, and had he\ndisclosed the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver and guided the guard to his\nhiding-place simply for the reward? He had not yet come to claim it, and\nhis indifference to money was notorious through the hills. Apparently\nthere was some general enmity in the old man toward the whole Tolliver\nclan, and maybe he had used the reward to fool Hale as to his real\nmotive. And then Hale quietly learned that long ago the Tollivers\nbitterly opposed the Red Fox\'s marriage to a Tolliver-that Rufe, when a\nboy, was always teasing the Red Fox and had once made him dance in his\nmoccasins to the tune of bullets spitting about his feet, and that the\nRed Fox had been heard to say that old Dave had cheated his wife out of\nher just inheritance of wild land; but all that was long, long ago, and\napparently had been mutually forgiven and forgotten. But it was enough\nfor Hale, and one night he mounted his horse, and at dawn he was at the\nplace of ambush with his horse hidden in the bushes. The rocks for\nthe ambush were waist high, and the twigs that had been thrust in the\ncrevices between them were withered. And there, on the hypothesis that\nthe Red Fox was the assassin, Hale tried to put himself, after the deed,\ninto the Red Fox\'s shoes. The old man had turned up on guard before\nnoon--then he must have gone somewhere first or have killed considerable\ntime in the woods. He would not have crossed the road, for there were\ntwo houses on the other side; there would have been no object in going\non over the mountain unless he meant to escape, and if he had gone over\nthere for another reason he would hardly have had time to get to the\nCourt House before noon: nor would he have gone back along the road\non that side, for on that side, too, was a cabin not far away. So Hale\nturned and walked straight away from the road where the walking was\neasiest--down a ravine, and pushing this way and that through the bushes\nwhere the way looked easiest. Half a mile down the ravine he came to\na little brook, and there in the black earth was the faint print of a\nman\'s left foot and in the hard crust across was the deeper print of his\nright, where his weight in leaping had come down hard. But the prints\nwere made by a shoe and not by a moccasin, and then Hale recalled\nexultantly that the Red Fox did not have his moccasins on the morning\nhe turned up on guard. All the while he kept a sharp lookout, right and\nleft, on the ground--the Red Fox must have thrown his cartridge shell\nsomewhere, and for that Hale was looking. Across the brook he could see\nthe tracks no farther, for he was too little of a woodsman to follow so\nold a trail, but as he stood behind a clump of rhododendron, wondering\nwhat he could do, he heard the crack of a dead stick down the stream,\nand noiselessly he moved farther into the bushes. His heart thumped in\nthe silence--the long silence that followed--for it might be a hostile\nTolliver that was coming, so he pulled his pistol from his holster, made\nready, and then, noiseless as a shadow, the Red Fox slipped past him\nalong the path, in his moccasins now, and with his big Winchester in his\nleft hand. The Red Fox, too, was looking for that cartridge shell, for\nonly the night before had he heard for the first time of the whispered\nsuspicions against him. He was making for the blind and Hale trembled\nat his luck. There was no path on the other side of the stream, and Hale\ncould barely hear him moving through the bushes. So he pulled off his\nboots and, carrying them in one hand, slipped after him, watching for\ndead twigs, stooping under the branches, or sliding sidewise through\nthem when he had to brush between their extremities, and pausing every\nnow and then to listen for an occasional faint sound from the Red Fox\nahead. Up the ravine the old man went to a little ledge of rocks, beyond\nwhich was the blind, and when Hale saw his stooped figure slip over that\nand disappear, he ran noiselessly toward it, crept noiselessly to the\ntop and peeped carefully over to see the Red Fox with his back to him\nand peering into a clump of bushes--hardly ten yards away. While\nHale looked, the old man thrust his hand into the bushes and drew out\nsomething that twinkled in the sun. At the moment Hale\'s horse nickered\nfrom the bushes, and the Red Fox slipped his hand into his pocket,\ncrouched listening a moment, and then, step by step, backed toward the\nledge. Hale rose:\n\n\"I want you, Red!\"\n\nThe old man wheeled, the wolf\'s snarl came, but the big rifle was too\nslow--Hale\'s pistol had flashed in his face.\n\n\"Drop your gun!\" Paralyzed, but the picture of white fury, the old man\nhesitated.\n\n\"Drop--your--gun!\" Slowly the big rifle was loosed and fell to the\nground.\n\n\"Back away--turn around and hands up!\"\n\nWith his foot on the Winchester, Hale felt in the old man\'s pockets and\nfished out an empty cartridge shell. Then he picked up the rifle and\nthrew the slide.\n\n\"It fits all right. March--toward that horse!\"\n\nWithout a word the old man slouched ahead to where the big black horse\nwas restlessly waiting in the bushes.\n\n\"Climb up,\" said Hale. \"We won\'t \'ride and tie\' back to town--but I\'ll\ntake turns with you on the horse.\"\n\nThe Red Fox was making ready to leave the mountains, for he had been\nfalsely informed that Rufe was to be brought back to the county seat\nnext day, and he was searching again for the sole bit of evidence that\nwas out against him. And when Rufe was spirited back to jail and was on\nhis way to his cell, an old freckled hand was thrust between the bars of\nan iron door to greet him and a voice called him by name. Rufe stopped\nin amazement; then he burst out laughing; he struck then at the pallid\nface through the bars with his manacles and cursed the old man bitterly;\nthen he laughed again horribly. The two slept in adjoining cells of the\nsame cage that night--the one waiting for the scaffold and the other\nwaiting for the trial that was to send him there. And away over the blue\nmountains a little old woman in black sat on the porch of her cabin\nas she had sat patiently many and many a long day. It was time, she\nthought, that the Red Fox was coming home.\n\n\n\n\nXXVIII\n\n\nAnd so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting for death, the trial of the\nRed Fox went on, and when he was not swinging in a hammock, reading his\nBible, telling his visions to his guards and singing hymns, he was in\nthe Court House giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all, with\nthe benevolent half of his mask turned to the jury and the wolfish snarl\nof the other half showing only now and then to some hostile witness for\nwhom his hate was stronger than his fear for his own life. And in jail\nBad Rufe worried his enemy with the malicious humour of Satan. Now he\nwould say:\n\n\"Oh, there ain\'t nothin\' betwixt old Red and me, nothin\' at all--\'cept\nthis iron wall,\" and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall\nwith the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox\'s\nhammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to his guard outside:\n\n\"Course I don\'t read the Bible an\' preach the word, nor talk with\nsperits, but thar\'s worse men than me in the world--old Red in thar\' for\ninstance\"; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox would\nwrithe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always he\nwould daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in the\nnight, and his devilish instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too,\nwas sentenced to death-he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man\'s\nface, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence against\nthe Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against Rufe\nTolliver--John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He could\nnot swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, but\nit was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later he\nhad found the shell in the old man\'s pocket--and if it had been fired\ninnocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it?\nHe was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That\nclaim made, the Red Fox\'s lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.\n\n\"You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at his\nhome that this rifle was rim-fire?\"\n\n\"He did.\" The lawyer held up the shell.\n\n\"You see this was exploded in such a rifle.\" That was plain, and the\nlawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out,\nand held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near the\ncentre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and\nexamined it closely.\n\n\"It\'s been tampered with,\" he said quietly, and he handed it to the\nprosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job and\nbetter proved the Red Fox\'s guilt. Moreover, there were only two such\nbig rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man who\nowned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days of\nbrain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to prove\ninsanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends--none save the\nlittle old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day by\nday.\n\nAnd the Red Fox was doomed.\n\nIn the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray face\nbefore him the usual question:\n\n\"Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not be\npronounced on you?\"\n\nThe Red Fox rose:\n\n\"No,\" he said in a shaking voice; \"but I have a friend here who I would\nlike to speak for me.\" The Judge bent his head a moment over his bench\nand lifted it:\n\n\"It is unusual,\" he said; \"but under the circumstances I will grant\nyour request. Who is your friend?\" And the Red Fox made the souls of his\nlisteners leap.\n\n\"Jesus Christ,\" he said.\n\nThe Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room grew\ndeeper when the old man fished his Bible from his pocket and calmly read\nsuch passages as might be interpreted as sure damnation for his enemies\nand sure glory for himself--read them until the Judge lifted his hand\nfor a halt.\n\nAnd so another sensation spread through the hills and a superstitious\nawe of this strange new power that had come into the hills went with it\nhand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew that nothing could save\nthe Red Fox they would wait to see if that power could really avail\nagainst the Tolliver clan. The day set for Rufe\'s execution was the\nfollowing Monday, and for the Red Fox the Friday following--for it was\nwell to have the whole wretched business over while the guard was there.\nOld Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned, had come himself to offer the little\nold woman in black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and had\ntried to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleased\nthe Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white--cap\nand all--as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was to put on above,\nand the little old woman stayed where she was, silently and without\nquestion, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly learned, from a white\ntable-cloth and measuring them piece by piece with the clothes the old\nman wore in jail. It pleased him, too, that his body should be kept\nunburied three days--saying that he would then arise and go about\npreaching, and that duty, too, she would as silently and with as little\nquestion perform. Moreover, he would preach his own funeral sermon on\nthe Sunday before Rufe\'s day, and a curious crowd gathered to hear him.\nThe Red Fox was led from jail. He stood on the porch of the jailer\'s\nhouse with a little table in front of him. On it lay a Bible, on the\nother side of the table sat a little pale-faced old woman in black with\na black sun-bonnet drawn close to her face. By the side of the Bible lay\na few pieces of bread. It was the Red Fox\'s last communion--a communion\nwhich he administered to himself and in which there was no other soul\non earth to join save that little old woman in black. And when the old\nfellow lifted the bread and asked the crowd to come forward to partake\nwith him in the last sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman who\nhad been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years--only she, of\nall the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her face\ntoward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over\ntoward her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she reached for it.\n\nBob Berkley was on the death-watch that night, and as he passed Rufe\'s\ncell a wiry hand shot through the grating of his door, and as the boy\nsprang away the condemned man\'s fingers tipped the butt of the big\npistol that dangled on the lad\'s hip.\n\n\"Not this time,\" said Bob with a cool little laugh, and Rufe laughed,\ntoo.\n\n\"I was only foolin\',\" he said, \"I ain\'t goin\' to hang. You hear that,\nRed? I ain\'t goin\' to hang--but you are, Red--sure. Nobody\'d risk his\nlittle finger for your old carcass, \'cept maybe that little old woman o\'\nyours who you\'ve treated like a hound--but my folks ain\'t goin\' to see\nme hang.\"\n\nRufe spoke with some reason. That night the Tollivers climbed the\nmountain, and before daybreak were waiting in the woods a mile on the\nnorth side of the town. And the Falins climbed, too, farther along the\nmountains, and at the same hour were waiting in the woods a mile to the\nsouth.\n\nBack in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat alone--her soul shaken and\nterror-stricken to the depths--and the misery that matched hers was in\nthe heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the county seat, on guard\nand forging out his plans for that day under the morning stars.\n\n\n\n\nXXIX\n\n\nDay broke on the old Court House with its black port-holes, on the\ngraystone jail, and on a tall topless wooden box to one side, from\nwhich projected a cross-beam of green oak. From the centre of this beam\ndangled a rope that swung gently to and fro when the wind moved.\nAnd with the day a flock of little birds lighted on the bars of the\ncondemned man\'s cell window, chirping through them, and when the jailer\nbrought breakfast he found Bad Rufe cowering in the corner of his cell\nand wet with the sweat of fear.\n\n\"Them damn birds ag\'in,\" he growled sullenly.\n\n\"Don\'t lose yo\' nerve, Rufe,\" said the jailer, and the old laugh of\ndefiance came, but from lips that were dry.\n\n\"Not much,\" he answered grimly, but the jailer noticed that while he\nate, his eyes kept turning again and again to the bars; and the turnkey\nwent away shaking his head. Rufe had told the jailer, his one friend\nthrough whom he had kept in constant communication with the Tollivers,\nhow on the night after the shooting of Mockaby, when he lay down to\nsleep high on the mountain side and under some rhododendron bushes, a\nflock of little birds flew in on him like a gust of rain and perched\nover and around him, twittering at him until he had to get up and pace\nthe woods, and how, throughout the next day, when he sat in the sun\nplanning his escape, those birds would sweep chattering over his head\nand sweep chattering back again, and in that mood of despair he had said\nonce, and only once: \"Somehow I knowed this time my name was Dennis\"--a\nphrase of evil prophecy he had picked up outside the hills. And now\nthose same birds of evil omen had come again, he believed, right on the\nheels of the last sworn oath old Judd had sent him that he would never\nhang.\n\nWith the day, through mountain and valley, came in converging lines\nmountain humanity--men and women, boys and girls, children and babes\nin arms; all in their Sunday best--the men in jeans, slouched hats, and\nhigh boots, the women in gay ribbons and brilliant home-spun; in wagons,\non foot and on horses and mules, carrying man and man, man and boy,\nlover and sweetheart, or husband and wife and child--all moving through\nthe crisp autumn air, past woods of russet and crimson and along brown\ndirt roads, to the straggling little mountain town. A stranger would\nhave thought that a county fair, a camp-meeting, or a circus was their\ngoal, but they were on their way to look upon the Court House with\nits black port-holes, the graystone jail, the tall wooden box, the\nprojecting beam, and that dangling rope which, when the wind moved,\nswayed gently to and fro. And Hale had forged his plan. He knew that\nthere would be no attempt at rescue until Rufe was led to the scaffold,\nand he knew that neither Falins nor Tollivers would come in a band, so\nthe incoming tide found on the outskirts of the town and along every\nroad boyish policemen who halted and disarmed every man who carried a\nweapon in sight, for thus John Hale would have against the pistols\nof the factions his own Winchesters and repeating shot-guns. And the\nwondering people saw at the back windows of the Court House and at the\nthreatening port-holes more youngsters manning Winchesters, more at the\nwindows of the jailer\'s frame house, which joined and fronted the jail,\nand more still--a line of them--running all around the jail; and the\nold men wagged their heads in amazement and wondered if, after all, a\nTolliver was not really going to be hanged.\n\nSo they waited--the neighbouring hills were black with people waiting;\nthe housetops were black with men and boys waiting; the trees in the\nstreets were bending under the weight of human bodies; and the jail-yard\nfence was three feet deep with people hanging to it and hanging about\none another\'s necks--all waiting. All morning they waited silently and\npatiently, and now the fatal noon was hardly an hour away and not a\nFalin nor a Tolliver had been seen. Every Falin had been disarmed of his\nWinchester as he came in, and as yet no Tolliver had entered the town,\nfor wily old Judd had learned of Hale\'s tactics and had stayed outside\nthe town for his own keen purpose. As the minutes passed, Hale was\nbeginning to wonder whether, after all, old Judd had come to believe\nthat the odds against him were too great, and had told the truth when he\nset afoot the rumour that the law should have its way; and it was just\nwhen his load of anxiety was beginning to lighten that there was a\nlittle commotion at the edge of the Court House and a great red-headed\nfigure pushed through the crowd, followed by another of like build, and\nas the people rapidly gave way and fell back, a line of Falins slipped\nalong the wall and stood under the port-holes-quiet, watchful, and\ndetermined. Almost at the same time the crowd fell back the other way\nup the street, there was the hurried tramping of feet and on came the\nTollivers, headed by giant Judd, all armed with Winchesters--for old\nJudd had sent his guns in ahead--and as the crowd swept like water into\nany channel of alley or doorway that was open to it, Hale saw the yard\nemptied of everybody but the line of Falins against the wall and the\nTollivers in a body but ten yards in front of them. The people on the\nroofs and in the trees had not moved at all, for they were out of range.\nFor a moment old Judd\'s eyes swept the windows and port-holes of the\nCourt House, the windows of the jailer\'s house, the line of guards about\nthe jail, and then they dropped to the line of Falins and glared with\ncontemptuous hate into the leaping blue eyes of old Buck Falin, and for\nthat moment there was silence. In that silence and as silently as the\nsilence itself issued swiftly from the line of guards twelve youngsters\nwith Winchesters, repeating shot-guns, and in a minute six were facing\nthe Falins and six facing the Tollivers, each with his shot-gun at his\nhip. At the head of them stood Hale, his face a pale image, as hard\nas though cut from stone, his head bare, and his hand and his hip\nweaponless. In all that crowd there was not a man or a woman who had not\nseen or heard of him, for the power of the guard that was at his back\nhad radiated through that wild region like ripples of water from a\ndropped stone and, unarmed even, he had a personal power that belonged\nto no other man in all those hills, though armed to the teeth. His voice\nrose clear, steady, commanding:\n\n\"The law has come here and it has come to stay.\" He faced the beetling\neyebrows and angrily working beard of old Judd now:\n\n[Illustration: \"We\'ll fight you both!\", 0370]\n\n\"The Falins are here to get revenge on you Tollivers, if you attack us.\nI know that. But\"--he wheeled on the Falins--\"understand! We don\'t want\nyour help! If the Tollivers try to take that man in there, and one of\nyou Falins draws a pistol, those guns there\"--waving his hand toward the\njail windows--\"will be turned loose on YOU, WE\'LL FIGHT YOU BOTH!\" The\nlast words shot like bullets through his gritted teeth, then the flash\nof his eyes was gone, his face was calm, and as though the whole matter\nhad been settled beyond possible interruption, he finished quietly:\n\n\"The condemned man wishes to make a confession and to say good-by.\nIn five minutes he will be at that window to say what he pleases. Ten\nminutes later he will be hanged.\" And he turned and walked calmly into\nthe jailer\'s door. Not a Tolliver nor a Falin made a movement or a\nsound. Young Dave\'s eyes had glared savagely when he first saw Hale, for\nhe had marked Hale for his own and he knew that the fact was known to\nHale. Had the battle begun then and there, Hale\'s death was sure,\nand Dave knew that Hale must know that as well as he: and yet with\nmagnificent audacity, there he was--unarmed, personally helpless, and\ninvested with an insulting certainty that not a shot would be fired. Not\na Falin or a Tolliver even reached for a weapon, and the fact was the\nsubtle tribute that ignorance pays intelligence when the latter is\nforced to deadly weapons as a last resort; for ignorance faced now\nbelching shot-guns and was commanded by rifles on every side. Old Judd\nwas trapped and the Falins were stunned. Old Buck Falin turned his eyes\ndown the line of his men with one warning glance. Old Judd whispered\nsomething to a Tolliver behind him and a moment later the man slipped\nfrom the band and disappeared. Young Dave followed Hale\'s figure with a\nlook of baffled malignant hatred and Bub\'s eyes were filled with angry\ntears. Between the factions, the grim young men stood with their guns\nlike statues.\n\nAt once a big man with a red face appeared at one of the jailer\'s\nwindows and then came the sheriff, who began to take out the sash.\nAlready the frightened crowd had gathered closer again and now a hush\ncame over it, followed by a rustling and a murmur. Something was going\nto happen. Faces and gun-muzzles thickened at the port-holes and at the\nwindows; the line of guards turned their faces sidewise and upward;\nthe crowd on the fence scuffled for better positions; the people in the\ntrees craned their necks from the branches or climbed higher, and there\nwas a great scraping on all the roofs. Even the black crowd out on the\nhills seemed to catch the excitement and to sway, while spots of intense\nblue and vivid crimson came out here and there from the blackness when\nthe women rose from their seats on the ground. Then--sharply--there was\nsilence. The sheriff disappeared, and shut in by the sashless window as\nby a picture frame and blinking in the strong light, stood a man with\nblack hair, cropped close, face pale and worn, and hands that looked\nwhite and thin--stood bad Rufe Tolliver.\n\nHe was going to confess--that was the rumour. His lawyers wanted him to\nconfess; the preacher who had been singing hymns with him all morning\nwanted him to confess; the man himself said he wanted to confess; and\nnow he was going to confess. What deadly mysteries he might clear up if\nhe would! No wonder the crowd was eager, for there was no soul there but\nknew his record--and what a record! His best friends put his victims no\nlower than thirteen, and there looking up at him were three women whom\nhe had widowed or orphaned, while at one corner of the jail-yard stood\na girl in black--the sweetheart of Mockaby, for whose death Rufe was\nstanding where he stood now. But his lips did not open. Instead he\ntook hold of the side of the window and looked behind him. The sheriff\nbrought him a chair and he sat down. Apparently he was weak and he was\ngoing to wait a while. Would he tell how he had killed one Falin in the\npresence of the latter\'s wife at a wild bee tree; how he had killed a\nsheriff by dropping to the ground when the sheriff fired, in this way\ndodging the bullet and then shooting the officer from where he lay\nsupposedly dead; how he had thrown another Falin out of the Court House\nwindow and broken his neck--the Falin was drunk, Rufe always said, and\nfell out; why, when he was constable, he had killed another--because,\nRufe said, he resisted arrest; how and where he had killed Red-necked\nJohnson, who was found out in the woods? Would he tell all that and\nmore? If he meant to tell there was no sign. His lips kept closed and\nhis bright black eyes were studying the situation; the little squad of\nyoungsters, back to back, with their repeating shot-guns, the line of\nFalins along the wall toward whom protruded six shining barrels, the\nhuddled crowd of Tollivers toward whom protruded six more--old Judd\ntowering in front with young Dave on one side, tense as a leopard about\nto spring, and on the other Bub, with tears streaming down his face. In\na flash he understood, and in that flash his face looked as though he\nhad been suddenly struck a heavy blow by some one from behind, and then\nhis elbows dropped on the sill of the window, his chin dropped into\nhis hands and a murmur arose. Maybe he was too weak to stand and\ntalk--perhaps he was going to talk from his chair. Yes, he was leaning\nforward and his lips were opening, but no sound came. Slowly his eyes\nwandered around at the waiting people--in the trees, on the roofs and\nthe fence--and then they dropped to old Judd\'s and blazed their appeal\nfor a sign. With one heave of his mighty chest old Judd took off his\nslouch hat, pressed one big hand to the back of his head and, despite\nthat blazing appeal, kept it there. At that movement Rufe threw his\nhead up as though his breath had suddenly failed him, his face turned\nsickening white, and slowly again his chin dropped into his trembling\nhands, and still unbelieving he stared his appeal, but old Judd dropped\nhis big hand and turned his head away. The condemned man\'s mouth\ntwitched once, settled into defiant calm, and then he did one kindly\nthing. He turned in his seat and motioned Bob Berkley, who was just\nbehind him, away from the window, and the boy, to humour him,\nstepped aside. Then he rose to his feet and stretched his arms wide.\nSimultaneously came the far-away crack of a rifle, and as a jet of smoke\nspurted above a clump of bushes on a little hill, three hundred yards\naway, Bad Rufe wheeled half-way round and fell back out of sight into\nthe sheriff\'s arms. Every Falin made a nervous reach for his pistol, the\nline of gun-muzzles covering them wavered slightly, but the Tollivers\nstood still and unsurprised, and when Hale dashed from the door again,\nthere was a grim smile of triumph on old Judd\'s face. He had kept his\npromise that Rufe should never hang.\n\n\"Steady there,\" said Hale quietly. His pistol was on his hip now and a\nWinchester was in his left hand.\n\n\"Stand where you are--everybody!\"\n\nThere was the sound of hurrying feet within the jail. There was the\nclang of an iron door, the bang of a wooden one, and in five minutes\nfrom within the tall wooden box came the sharp click of a hatchet and\nthen--dully:\n\n\"T-H-O-O-MP!\" The dangling rope had tightened with a snap and the wind\nswayed it no more.\n\nAt his cell door the Red Fox stood with his watch in his hand and his\neyes glued to the second-hand. When it had gone three times around its\ncircuit, he snapped the lid with a sigh of relief and turned to his\nhammock and his Bible.\n\n\"He\'s gone now,\" said the Red Fox.\n\nOutside Hale still waited, and as his eyes turned from the Tollivers\nto the Falins, seven of the faces among them came back to him with\nstartling distinctness, and his mind went back to the opening trouble\nin the county-seat over the Kentucky line, years before--when eight men\nheld one another at the points of their pistols. One face was missing,\nand that face belonged to Rufe Tolliver. Hale pulled out his watch.\n\n\"Keep those men there,\" he said, pointing to the Falins, and he turned\nto the bewildered Tollivers.\n\n\"Come on, Judd,\" he said kindly--\"all of you.\"\n\nDazed and mystified, they followed him in a body around the corner of\nthe jail, where in a coffin, that old Jadd had sent as a blind to his\nreal purpose, lay the remains of Bad Rufe Tolliver with a harmless\nbullet hole through one shoulder. Near by was a wagon and hitched to it\nwere two mules that Hale himself had provided. Hale pointed to it:\n\n\"I\'ve done all I could, Judd. Take him away. I\'ll keep the Falins under\nguard until you reach the Kentucky line, so that they can\'t waylay you.\"\n\nIf old Judd heard, he gave no sign. He was looking down at the face of\nhis foster-brother--his shoulder drooped, his great frame shrunken, and\nhis iron face beaten and helpless. Again Hale spoke:\n\n\"I\'m sorry for all this. I\'m even sorry that your man was not a better\nshot.\"\n\nThe old man straightened then and with a gesture he motioned young Dave\nto the foot of the coffin and stooped himself at the head. Past the\nwagon they went, the crowd giving way before them, and with the dead\nTolliver on their shoulders, old Judd and young Dave passed with their\nfollowers out of sight.\n\n\n\n\nXXX\n\n\nThe longest of her life was that day to June. The anxiety in times of\nwar for the women who wait at home is vague because they are mercifully\nignorant of the dangers their loved ones run, but a specific issue that\ninvolves death to those loved ones has a special and poignant terror of\nits own. June knew her father\'s plan, the precise time the fight would\ntake place, and the especial danger that was Hale\'s, for she knew that\nyoung Dave Tolliver had marked him with the first shot fired. Dry-eyed\nand white and dumb, she watched them make ready for the start that\nmorning while it was yet dark; dully she heard the horses snorting from\nthe cold, the low curt orders of her father, and the exciting mutterings\nof Bub and young Dave; dully she watched the saddles thrown on, the\npistols buckled, the Winchesters caught up, and dully she watched them\nfile out the gate and ride away, single file, into the cold, damp mist\nlike ghostly figures in a dream. Once only did she open her lips and\nthat was to plead with her father to leave Bub at home, but her father\ngave her no answer and Bub snorted his indignation--he was a man now,\nand his now was the privilege of a man. For a while she stood listening\nto the ring of metal against stone that came to her more and more\nfaintly out of the mist, and she wondered if it was really June Tolliver\nstanding there, while father and brother and cousin were on their way to\nfight the law--how differently she saw these things now--for a man who\ndeserved death, and to fight a man who was ready to die for his duty to\nthat law--the law that guarded them and her and might not perhaps guard\nhim: the man who had planted for her the dew-drenched garden that was\nwaiting for the sun, and had built the little room behind her for\nher comfort and seclusion; who had sent her to school, had never been\nanything but kind and just to her and to everybody--who had taught her\nlife and, thank God, love. Was she really the June Tolliver who had gone\nout into the world and had held her place there; who had conquered birth\nand speech and customs and environment so that none could tell what\nthey all once were; who had become the lady, the woman of the world, in\nmanner, dress, and education: who had a gift of music and a voice that\nmight enrich her life beyond any dream that had ever sprung from her own\nbrain or any that she had ever caught from Hale\'s? Was she June Tolliver\nwho had been and done all that, and now had come back and was slowly\nsinking back into the narrow grave from which Hale had lifted her? It\nwas all too strange and bitter, but if she wanted proof there was her\nstep-mother\'s voice now--the same old, querulous, nerve-racking voice\nthat had embittered all her childhood--calling her down into the old\nmean round of drudgery that had bound forever the horizon of her narrow\nlife just as now it was shutting down like a sky of brass around her\nown. And when the voice came, instead of bursting into tears as she was\nabout to do, she gave a hard little laugh and she lifted a defiant\nface to the rising sun. There was a limit to the sacrifice for kindred,\nbrother, father, home, and that limit was the eternal sacrifice--the\neternal undoing of herself: when this wretched terrible business was\nover she would set her feet where that sun could rise on her, busy with\nthe work that she could do in that world for which she felt she was\nborn. Swiftly she did the morning chores and then she sat on the porch\nthinking and waiting. Spinning wheel, loom, and darning needle were\nto lie idle that day. The old step-mother had gotten from bed and was\ndressing herself--miraculously cured of a sudden, miraculously active.\nShe began to talk of what she needed in town, and June said nothing. She\nwent out to the stable and led out the old sorrel-mare. She was going to\nthe hanging.\n\n\"Don\'t you want to go to town, June?\"\n\n\"No,\" said June fiercely.\n\n\"Well, you needn\'t git mad about it--I got to go some day this week,\nand I reckon I might as well go ter-day.\" June answered nothing, but in\nsilence watched her get ready and in silence watched her ride away. She\nwas glad to be left alone. The sun had flooded Lonesome Cove now with a\nlight as rich and yellow as though it were late afternoon, and she could\nyet tell every tree by the different colour of the banner that each yet\ndefiantly flung into the face of death. The yard fence was festooned\nwith dewy cobwebs, and every weed in the field was hung with them as\nwith flashing jewels of exquisitely delicate design: Hale had once told\nher that they meant rain. Far away the mountains were overhung with\npurple so deep that the very air looked like mist, and a peace\nthat seemed motherlike in tenderness brooded over the earth. Peace!\nPeace--with a man on his way to a scaffold only a few miles away, and\ntwo bodies of men, one led by her father, the other by the man she\nloved, ready to fly at each other\'s throats--the one to get the\ncondemned man alive, the other to see that he died. She got up with\na groan. She walked into the garden. The grass was tall, tangled, and\nwithering, and in it dead leaves lay everywhere, stems up, stems down,\nin reckless confusion. The scarlet sage-pods were brown and seeds were\ndropping from their tiny gaping mouths. The marigolds were frost-nipped\nand one lonely black-winged butterfly was vainly searching them one\nby one for the lost sweets of summer. The gorgeous crowns of the\nsun-flowers were nothing but grotesque black mummy-heads set on lean,\ndead bodies, and the clump of big castor-plants, buffeted by the wind,\nleaned this way and that like giants in a drunken orgy trying to keep\none another from falling down. The blight that was on the garden was the\nblight that was in her heart, and two bits of cheer only she found--one\nyellow nasturtium, scarlet-flecked, whose fragrance was a memory of the\nspring that was long gone, and one little cedar tree that had caught\nsome dead leaves in its green arms and was firmly holding them as though\nto promise that another spring would surely come. With the flower in\nher hand, she started up the ravine to her dreaming place, but it was so\nlonely up there and she turned back. She went into her room and tried\nto read. Mechanically, she half opened the lid of the piano and shut\nit, horrified by her own act. As she passed out on the porch again she\nnoticed that it was only nine o\'clock. She turned and watched the long\nhand--how long a minute was! Three hours more! She shivered and went\ninside and got her bonnet--she could not be alone when the hour came,\nand she started down the road toward Uncle Billy\'s mill. Hale! Hale!\nHale!--the name began to ring in her ears like a bell. The little shacks\nhe had built up the creek were deserted and gone to ruin, and she began\nto wonder in the light of what her father had said how much of a tragedy\nthat meant to him. Here was the spot where he was fishing that day, when\nshe had slipped down behind him and he had turned and seen her for the\nfirst time. She could recall his smile and the very tone of his kind\nvoice:\n\n\"Howdye, little girl!\" And the cat had got her tongue. She remembered\nwhen she had written her name, after she had first kissed him at the\nfoot of the beech--\"June HAIL,\" and by a grotesque mental leap the\nbeating of his name in her brain now made her think of the beating of\nhailstones on her father\'s roof one night when as a child she had lain\nand listened to them. Then she noticed that the autumn shadows seemed to\nmake the river darker than the shadows of spring--or was it already\nthe stain of dead leaves? Hale could have told her. Those leaves were\nfloating through the shadows and when the wind moved, others zig-zagged\nsoftly down to join them. The wind was helping them on the water, too,\nand along came one brown leaf that was shaped like a tiny trireme--its\nstem acting like a rudder and keeping it straight before the breeze--so\nthat it swept past the rest as a yacht that she was once on had swept\npast a fleet of fishing sloops. She was not unlike that swift little\nship and thirty yards ahead were rocks and shallows where it and the\nwhole fleet would turn topsy-turvy--would her own triumph be as short\nand the same fate be hers? There was no question as to that, unless she\ntook the wheel of her fate in her own hands and with them steered the\nship. Thinking hard, she walked on slowly, with her hands behind her\nand her eyes bent on the road. What should she do? She had no money, her\nfather had none to spare, and she could accept no more from Hale. Once\nshe stopped and stared with unseeing eyes at the blue sky, and once\nunder the heavy helplessness of it all she dropped on the side of the\nroad and sat with her head buried in her arms--sat so long that she rose\nwith a start and, with an apprehensive look at the mounting sun, hurried\non. She would go to the Gap and teach; and then she knew that if she\nwent there it would be on Hale\'s account. Very well, she would not blind\nherself to that fact; she would go and perhaps all would be made up\nbetween them, and then she knew that if that but happened, nothing else\ncould matter...\n\nWhen she reached the miller\'s cabin, she went to the porch without\nnoticing that the door was closed. Nobody was at home and she turned\nlistlessly. When she reached the gate, she heard the clock beginning\nto strike, and with one hand on her breast she breathlessly listened,\ncounting--\"eight, nine, ten, eleven\"--and her heart seemed to stop in\nthe fraction of time that she waited for it to strike once more. But it\nwas only eleven, and she went on down the road slowly, still thinking\nhard. The old miller was leaning back in a chair against the log side\nof the mill, with his dusty slouched hat down over his eyes. He did not\nhear her coming and she thought he must be asleep, but he looked up with\na start when she spoke and she knew of what he, too, had been thinking.\nKeenly his old eyes searched her white face and without a word he got up\nand reached for another chair within the mill.\n\n\"You set right down now, baby,\" he said, and he made a pretence of\nhaving something to do inside the mill, while June watched the creaking\nold wheel dropping the sun-shot sparkling water into the swift sluice,\nbut hardly seeing it at all. By and by Uncle Billy came outside and sat\ndown and neither spoke a word. Once June saw him covertly looking at his\nwatch and she put both hands to her throat--stifled.\n\n\"What time is it, Uncle Billy?\" She tried to ask the question calmly,\nbut she had to try twice before she could speak at all and when she did\nget the question out, her voice was only a broken whisper.\n\n\"Five minutes to twelve, baby,\" said the old man, and his voice had a\ngulp in it that broke June down. She sprang to her feet wringing her\nhands:\n\n\"I can\'t stand it, Uncle Billy,\" she cried madly, and with a sob that\nalmost broke the old man\'s heart. \"I tell you I can\'t stand it.\"\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nAnd yet for three hours more she had to stand it, while the cavalcade\nof Tollivers, with Rufe\'s body, made its slow way to the Kentucky line\nwhere Judd and Dave and Bub left them to go home for the night and be\non hand for the funeral next day. But Uncle Billy led her back to his\ncabin, and on the porch the two, with old Hon, waited while the three\nhours dragged along. It was June who was first to hear the galloping\nof horses\' hoofs up the road and she ran to the gate, followed by Uncle\nBilly and old Hon to see young Dave Tolliver coming in a run. At the\ngate he threw himself from his horse:\n\n\"Git up thar, June, and go home,\" he panted sharply. June flashed out\nthe gate.\n\n\"Have you done it?\" she asked with deadly quiet.\n\n\"Hurry up an\' go home, I tell ye! Uncle Judd wants ye!\"\n\nShe came quite close to him now.\n\n\"You said you\'d do it--I know what you\'ve done--you--\" she looked as if\nshe would fly at his throat, and Dave, amazed, shrank back a step.\n\n\"Go home, I tell ye--Uncle Judd\'s shot. Git on the hoss!\"\n\n\"No, no, NO! I wouldn\'t TOUCH anything that was yours\"--she put her\nhands to her head as though she were crazed, and then she turned and\nbroke into a swift run up the road.\n\nPanting, June reached the gate. The front door was closed and there she\ngave a tremulous cry for Bub. The door opened a few inches and through\nit Bub shouted for her to come on. The back door, too, was closed, and\nnot a ray of daylight entered the room except at the port-hole where\nBub, with a Winchester, had been standing on guard. By the light of the\nfire she saw her father\'s giant frame stretched out on the bed and she\nheard his laboured breathing. Swiftly she went to the bed and dropped on\nher knees beside it.\n\n\"Dad!\" she said. The old man\'s eyes opened and turned heavily toward\nher.\n\n\"All right, Juny. They shot me from the laurel and they might nigh got\nBub. I reckon they\'ve got me this time.\"\n\n\"No--no!\" He saw her eyes fixed on the matted blood on his chest.\n\n\"Hit\'s stopped. I\'m afeared hit\'s bleedin\' inside.\" His voice had\ndropped to a whisper and his eyes closed again. There was another\ncautious \"Hello\" outside, and when Bub again opened the door Dave ran\nswiftly within. He paid no attention to June.\n\n\"I follered June back an\' left my hoss in the bushes. There was three of\n\'em.\" He showed Bub a bullet hole through one sleeve and then he turned\nhalf contemptuously to June:\n\n\"I hain\'t done it\"--adding grimly--\"not yit. He\'s as safe as you air. I\nhope you\'re satisfied that hit hain\'t him \'stid o\' yo\' daddy thar.\"\n\n\"Are you going to the Gap for a doctor?\"\n\n\"I reckon I can\'t leave Bub here alone agin all the Falins--not even to\ngit a doctor or to carry a love-message fer you.\"\n\n\"Then I\'ll go myself.\"\n\nA thick protest came from the bed, and then an appeal that might have\ncome from a child.\n\n\"Don\'t leave me, Juny.\" Without a word June went into the kitchen and\ngot the old bark horn.\n\n\"Uncle Billy will go,\" she said, and she stepped out on the porch. But\nUncle Billy was already on his way and she heard him coming just as she\nwas raising the horn to her lips. She met him at the gate, and without\neven taking the time to come into the house the old miller hurried\nupward toward the Lonesome Pine. The rain came then--the rain that the\ntiny cobwebs had heralded at dawn that morning. The old step-mother had\nnot come home, and June told Bub she had gone over the mountain to see\nher sister, and when, as darkness fell, she did not appear they knew\nthat she must have been caught by the rain and would spend the night\nwith a neighbour. June asked no question, but from the low talk of Bub\nand Dave she made out what had happened in town that day and a wild\nelation settled in her heart that John Hale was alive and unhurt--though\nRufe was dead, her father wounded, and Bub and Dave both had but\nnarrowly escaped the Falin assassins that afternoon. Bub took the first\nturn at watching while Dave slept, and when it was Dave\'s turn she saw\nhim drop quickly asleep in his chair, and she was left alone with the\nbreathing of the wounded man and the beating of rain on the roof. And\nthrough the long night June thought her brain weary over herself, her\nlife, her people, and Hale. They were not to blame--her people, they but\ndid as their fathers had done before them. They had their own code and\nthey lived up to it as best they could, and they had had no chance to\nlearn another. She felt the vindictive hatred that had prolonged the\nfeud. Had she been a man, she could not have rested until she had slain\nthe man who had ambushed her father. She expected Bub to do that now,\nand if the spirit was so strong in her with the training she had had,\nhow helpless they must be against it. Even Dave was not to blame--not to\nblame for loving her--he had always done that. For that reason he could\nnot help hating Hale, and how great a reason he had now, for he could\nnot understand as she could the absence of any personal motive that had\ngoverned him in the prosecution of the law, no matter if he hurt friend\nor foe. But for Hale, she would have loved Dave and now be married to\nhim and happier than she was. Dave saw that--no wonder he hated Hale.\nAnd as she slowly realized all these things, she grew calm and gentle\nand determined to stick to her people and do the best she could with her\nlife.\n\nAnd now and then through the night old Judd would open his eyes and\nstare at the ceiling, and at these times it was not the pain in his\nface that distressed her as much as the drawn beaten look that she had\nnoticed growing in it for a long time. It was terrible--that helpless\nlook in the face of a man, so big in body, so strong of mind, so\niron-like in will; and whenever he did speak she knew what he was going\nto say:\n\n\"It\'s all over, Juny. They\'ve beat us on every turn. They\'ve got us one\nby one. Thar ain\'t but a few of us left now and when I git up, if I ever\ndo, I\'m goin\' to gether \'em all together, pull up stakes and take \'em\nall West. You won\'t ever leave me, Juny?\"\n\n\"No, Dad,\" she would say gently. He had asked the question at first\nquite sanely, but as the night wore on and the fever grew and his mind\nwandered, he would repeat the question over and over like a child, and\nover and over, while Bub and Dave slept and the rain poured, June would\nrepeat her answer:\n\n\"I\'ll never leave you, Dad.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXXI\n\n\nBefore dawn Hale and the doctor and the old miller had reached the Pine,\nand there Hale stopped. Any farther, the old man told him, he would go\nonly at the risk of his life from Dave or Bub, or even from any Falin\nwho happened to be hanging around in the bushes, for Hale was hated\nequally by both factions now.\n\n\"I\'ll wait up here until noon, Uncle Billy,\" said Hale. \"Ask her, for\nGod\'s sake, to come up here and see me.\"\n\n\"All right. I\'ll axe her, but--\" the old miller shook his head.\nBreakfastless, except for the munching of a piece of chocolate, Hale\nwaited all the morning with his black horse in the bushes some thirty\nyards from the Lonesome Pine. Every now and then he would go to the tree\nand look down the path, and once he slipped far down the trail and aside\nto a spur whence he could see the cabin in the cove. Once his hungry\neyes caught sight of a woman\'s figure walking through the little garden,\nand for an hour after it disappeared into the house he watched for it to\ncome out again. But nothing more was visible, and he turned back to the\ntrail to see Uncle Billy laboriously climbing up the slope. Hale\nwaited and ran down to meet him, his face and eyes eager and his lips\ntrembling, but again Uncle Billy was shaking his head.\n\n\"No use, John,\" he said sadly. \"I got her out on the porch and axed her,\nbut she won\'t come.\"\n\n\"She won\'t come at all?\"\n\n\"John, when one o\' them Tollivers gits white about the mouth, an\' thar\neyes gits to blazin\' and they KEEPS QUIET--they\'re plumb out o\' reach\no\' the Almighty hisself. June skeered me. But you mustn\'t blame her jes\'\nnow. You see, you got up that guard. You ketched Rufe and hung him, and\nshe can\'t help thinkin\' if you hadn\'t done that, her old daddy wouldn\'t\nbe in thar on his back nigh to death. You mustn\'t blame her, John--she\'s\nmost out o\' her head now.\"\n\n\"All right, Uncle Billy. Good-by.\" Hale turned, climbed sadly back to\nhis horse and sadly dropped down the other side of the mountain and on\nthrough the rocky gap-home.\n\nA week later he learned from the doctor that the chances were even that\nold Judd would get well, but the days went by with no word of June.\nThrough those days June wrestled with her love for Hale and her loyalty\nto her father, who, sick as he was, seemed to have a vague sense of the\ntrouble within her and shrewdly fought it by making her daily promise\nthat she would never leave him. For as old Judd got better, June\'s\nfierceness against Hale melted and her love came out the stronger,\nbecause of the passing injustice that she had done him. Many times she\nwas on the point of sending him word that she would meet him at the\nPine, but she was afraid of her own strength if she should see him face\nto face, and she feared she would be risking his life if she allowed him\nto come. There were times when she would have gone to him herself, had\nher father been well and strong, but he was old, beaten and helpless,\nand she had given her sacred word that she would never leave him. So\nonce more she grew calmer, gentler still, and more determined to follow\nher own way with her own kin, though that way led through a breaking\nheart. She never mentioned Hale\'s name, she never spoke of going West,\nand in time Dave began to wonder not only if she had not gotten over\nher feeling for Hale, but if that feeling had not turned into permanent\nhate. To him, June was kinder than ever, because she understood him\nbetter and because she was sorry for the hunted, hounded life he led,\nnot knowing, when on his trips to see her or to do some service for her\nfather, he might be picked off by some Falin from the bushes. So Dave\nstopped his sneering remarks against Hale and began to dream his old\ndreams, though he never opened his lips to June, and she was unconscious\nof what was going on within him. By and by, as old Judd began to mend,\novertures of peace came, singularly enough, from the Falins, and while\nthe old man snorted with contemptuous disbelief at them as a pretence to\nthrow him off his guard, Dave began actually to believe that they were\nsincere, and straightway forged a plan of his own, even if the Tollivers\ndid persist in going West. So one morning as he mounted his horse at old\nJudd\'s gate, he called to June in the garden:\n\n\"I\'m a-goin\' over to the Gap.\" June paled, but Dave was not looking at\nher.\n\n\"What for?\" she asked, steadying her voice.\n\n\"Business,\" he answered, and he laughed curiously and, still without\nlooking at her, rode away.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nHale sat in the porch of his little office that morning, and the Hon.\nSam Budd, who had risen to leave, stood with his hands deep in his\npockets, his hat tilted far over his big goggles, looking down at the\ndead leaves that floated like lost hopes on the placid mill-pond. Hale\nhad agreed to go to England once more on the sole chance left him before\nhe went back to chain and compass--the old land deal that had come to\nlife--and between them they had about enough money for the trip.\n\n\"You\'ll keep an eye on things over there?\" said Hale with a backward\nmotion of his head toward Lonesome Cove, and the Hon. Sam nodded his\nhead:\n\n\"All I can.\"\n\n\"Those big trunks of hers are still here.\" The Hon. Sam smiled. \"She\nwon\'t need \'em. I\'ll keep an eye on \'em and she can come over and get\nwhat she wants--every year or two,\" he added grimly, and Hale groaned.\n\n\"Stop it, Sam.\"\n\n\"All right. You ain\'t goin\' to try to see her before you leave?\" And\nthen at the look on Hale\'s face he said hurriedly: \"All right--all\nright,\" and with a toss of his hands turned away, while Hale sat\nthinking where he was.\n\nRufe Tolliver had been quite right as to the Red Fox. Nobody would risk\nhis life for him--there was no one to attempt a rescue, and but a few of\nthe guards were on hand this time to carry out the law. On the last day\nhe had appeared in his white suit of tablecloth. The little old woman\nin black had made even the cap that was to be drawn over his face, and\nthat, too, she had made of white. Moreover, she would have his body kept\nunburied for three days, because the Red Fox said that on the third day\nhe would arise and go about preaching. So that even in death the Red Fox\nwas consistently inconsistent, and how he reconciled such a dual life\nat one and the same time over and under the stars was, except to his\ntwisted brain, never known. He walked firmly up the scaffold steps and\nstood there blinking in the sunlight. With one hand he tested the rope.\nFor a moment he looked at the sky and the trees with a face that was\nwhite and absolutely expressionless. Then he sang one hymn of two verses\nand quietly dropped into that world in which he believed so firmly and\ntoward which he had trod so strange a way on earth. As he wished, the\nlittle old woman in black had the body kept unburied for the three\ndays--but the Red Fox never rose. With his passing, law and order had\nbecome supreme. Neither Tolliver nor Falin came on the Virginia side\nfor mischief, and the desperadoes of two sister States, whose skirts\nare stitched together with pine and pin-oak along the crest of the\nCumberland, confined their deviltries with great care to places long\ndistant from the Gap. John Hale had done a great work, but the limit of\nhis activities was that State line and the Falins, ever threatening that\nthey would not leave a Tolliver alive, could carry out those threats and\nHale not be able to lift a hand. It was his helplessness that was making\nhim writhe now.\n\nOld Judd had often said he meant to leave the mountains--why didn\'t he\ngo now and take June for whose safety his heart was always in his mouth?\nAs an officer, he was now helpless where he was; and if he went away\nhe could give no personal aid--he would not even know what was\nhappening--and he had promised Budd to go. An open letter was clutched\nin his hand, and again he read it. His coal company had accepted his\nlast proposition. They would take his stock--worthless as they thought\nit--and surrender the cabin and two hundred acres of field and woodland\nin Lonesome Cove. That much at least would be intact, but if he failed\nin his last project now, it would be subject to judgments against him\nthat were sure to come. So there was one thing more to do for June\nbefore he left for the final effort in England--to give back her home to\nher--and as he rose to do it now, somebody shouted at his gate:\n\n\"Hello!\" Hale stopped short at the head of the steps, his right hand\nshot like a shaft of light to the butt of his pistol, stayed there--and\nhe stood astounded. It was Dave Tolliver on horseback, and Dave\'s right\nhand had kept hold of his bridle-reins.\n\n\"Hold on!\" he said, lifting the other with a wide gesture of peace. \"I\nwant to talk with you a bit.\" Still Hale watched him closely as he swung\nfrom his horse.\n\n\"Come in--won\'t you?\" The mountaineer hitched his horse and slouched\nwithin the gate.\n\n\"Have a seat.\" Dave dropped to the steps.\n\n\"I\'ll set here,\" he said, and there was an embarrassed silence for a\nwhile between the two. Hale studied young Dave\'s face from narrowed\neyes. He knew all the threats the Tolliver had made against him, the\nbitter enmity that he felt, and that it would last until one or the\nother was dead. This was a queer move. The mountaineer took off his\nslouched hat and ran one hand through his thick black hair.\n\n\"I reckon you\'ve heard as how all our folks air sellin\' out over the\nmountains.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale quickly.\n\n\"Well, they air, an\' all of \'em are going West--Uncle Judd, Loretty and\nJune, and all our kinfolks. You didn\'t know that?\"\n\n\"No,\" repeated Hale.\n\n\"Well, they hain\'t closed all the trades yit,\" he said, \"an\' they mought\nnot go mebbe afore spring. The Falins say they air done now. Uncle Judd\ndon\'t believe \'em, but I do, an\' I\'m thinkin\' I won\'t go. I\'ve got a\nleetle money, an\' I want to know if I can\'t buy back Uncle Judd\'s house\nan\' a leetle ground around it. Our folks is tired o\' fightin\' and I\ncouldn\'t live on t\'other side of the mountain, after they air gone, an\'\nkeep as healthy as on this side--so I thought I\'d see if I couldn\'t buy\nback June\'s old home, mebbe, an\' live thar.\"\n\nHale watched him keenly, wondering what his game was--and he went on:\n\"I know the house an\' land ain\'t wuth much to your company, an\' as the\ncoal-vein has petered out, I reckon they might not axe much fer it.\" It\nwas all out now, and he stopped without looking at Hale. \"I ain\'t axin\'\nany favours, leastwise not o\' you, an\' I thought my share o\' Mam\'s farm\nmought be enough to git me the house an\' some o\' the land.\"\n\n\"You mean to live there, yourself?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Alone?\" Dave frowned.\n\n\"I reckon that\'s my business.\"\n\n\"So it is--excuse me.\" Hale lighted his pipe and the mountaineer\nwaited--he was a little sullen now.\n\n\"Well, the company has parted with the land.\" Dave started.\n\n\"Sold it?\"\n\n\"In a way--yes.\"\n\n\"Well, would you mind tellin\' me who bought it--maybe I can git it from\nhim.\"\n\n\"It\'s mine now,\" said Hale quietly.\n\n\"YOURN!\" The mountaineer looked incredulous and then he let loose a\nscornful laugh.\n\n\"YOU goin\' to live thar?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\n\"Alone?\"\n\n\"That\'s my business.\" The mountaineer\'s face darkened and his fingers\nbegan to twitch.\n\n\"Well, if you\'re talkin\' \'bout June, hit\'s MY business. Hit always has\nbeen and hit always will be.\"\n\n\"Well, if I was talking about June, I wouldn\'t consult you.\"\n\n\"No, but I\'d consult you like hell.\"\n\n\"I wish you had the chance,\" said Hale coolly; \"but I wasn\'t talking\nabout June.\" Again Dave laughed harshly, and for a moment his angry eyes\nrested on the quiet mill-pond. He went backward suddenly.\n\n\"You went over thar in Lonesome with your high notions an\' your slick\ntongue, an\' you took June away from me. But she wusn\'t good enough fer\nyou THEN--so you filled her up with yo\' fool notions an\' sent her away\nto git her po\' little head filled with furrin\' ways, so she could be\nfitten to marry you. You took her away from her daddy, her family, her\nkinfolks and her home, an\' you took her away from me; an\' now she\'s been\nover thar eatin\' her heart out just as she et it out over here when she\nfust left home. An\' in the end she got so highfalutin that SHE wouldn\'t\nmarry YOU.\" He laughed again and Hale winced under the laugh and the\nlashing words. \"An\' I know you air eatin\' yo\' heart out, too, because\nyou can\'t git June, an\' I\'m hopin\' you\'ll suffer the torment o\' hell as\nlong as you live. God, she hates ye now! To think o\' your knowin\' the\nworld and women and books\"--he spoke with vindictive and insulting\nslowness--\"You bein\' such a--fool!\"\n\n\"That may all be true, but I think you can talk better outside that\ngate.\" The mountaineer, deceived by Hale\'s calm voice, sprang to his\nfeet in a fury, but he was too late. Hale\'s hand was on the butt of his\nrevolver, his blue eyes were glittering and a dangerous smile was at\nhis lips. Silently he sat and silently he pointed his other hand at the\ngate. Dave laughed:\n\n\"D\'ye think I\'d fight you hyeh? If you killed me, you\'d be elected\nCounty Jedge; if I killed you, what chance would I have o\' gittin\' away?\nI\'d swing fer it.\" He was outside the gate now and unhitching his horse.\nHe started to turn the beasts but Hale stopped him.\n\n\"Get on from this side, please.\"\n\nWith one foot in the stirrup, Dave turned savagely: \"Why don\'t you go up\nin the Gap with me now an\' fight it out like a man?\"\n\n\"I don\'t trust you.\"\n\n\"I\'ll git ye over in the mountains some day.\"\n\n\"I\'ve no doubt you will, if you have the chance from the bush.\" Hale was\ngetting roused now.\n\n\"Look here,\" he said suddenly, \"you\'ve been threatening me for a long\ntime now. I\'ve never had any feeling against you. I\'ve never done\nanything to you that I hadn\'t to do. But you\'ve gone a little too far\nnow and I\'m tired. If you can\'t get over your grudge against me, suppose\nwe go across the river outside the town-limits, put our guns down and\nfight it out--fist and skull.\"\n\n\"I\'m your man,\" said Dave eagerly. Looking across the street Hale saw\ntwo men on the porch.\n\n\"Come on!\" he said. The two men were Budd and the new town-sergeant.\n\"Sam,\" he said \"this gentleman and I are going across the river to have\na little friendly bout, and I wish you\'d come along--and you, too, Bill,\nto see that Dave here gets fair play.\"\n\nThe sergeant spoke to Dave. \"You don\'t need nobody to see that you git\nfair play with them two--but I\'ll go \'long just the same.\" Hardly a word\nwas said as the four walked across the bridge and toward a thicket\nto the right. Neither Budd nor the sergeant asked the nature of the\ntrouble, for either could have guessed what it was. Dave tied his horse\nand, like Hale, stripped off his coat. The sergeant took charge of\nDave\'s pistol and Budd of Hale\'s.\n\n\"All you\'ve got to do is to keep him away from you,\" said Budd. \"If\nhe gets his hands on you--you\'re gone. You know how they fight\nrough-and-tumble.\"\n\nHale nodded--he knew all that himself, and when he looked at Dave\'s\nsturdy neck, and gigantic shoulders, he knew further that if the\nmountaineer got him in his grasp he would have to gasp \"enough\" in a\nhurry, or be saved by Budd from being throttled to death.\n\n\"Are you ready?\" Again Hale nodded.\n\n\"Go ahead, Dave,\" growled the sergeant, for the job was not to his\nliking. Dave did not plunge toward Hale, as the three others expected.\nOn the contrary, he assumed the conventional attitude of the boxer\nand advanced warily, using his head as a diagnostician for Hale\'s\npoints--and Hale remembered suddenly that Dave had been away at school\nfor a year. Dave knew something of the game and the Hon. Sam straightway\nwas anxious, when the mountaineer ducked and swung his left Budd\'s heart\nthumped and he almost shrank himself from the terrific sweep of the big\nfist.\n\n\"God!\" he muttered, for had the fist caught Hale\'s head it must, it\nseemed, have crushed it like an egg-shell. Hale coolly withdrew his head\nnot more than an inch, it seemed to Budd\'s practised eye, and jabbed\nhis right with a lightning uppercut into Dave\'s jaw, that made the\nmountaineer reel backward with a grunt of rage and pain, and when he\nfollowed it up with a swing of his left on Dave\'s right eye and another\nterrific jolt with his right on the left jaw, and Budd saw the crazy\nrage in the mountaineer\'s face, he felt easy. In that rage Dave forgot\nhis science as the Hon. Sam expected, and with a bellow he started at\nHale like a cave-dweller to bite, tear, and throttle, but the lithe\nfigure before him swayed this way and that like a shadow, and with every\nside-step a fist crushed on the mountaineer\'s nose, chin or jaw, until,\nblinded with blood and fury, Dave staggered aside toward the sergeant\nwith the cry of a madman:\n\n\"Gimme my gun! I\'ll kill him! Gimme my gun!\" And when the sergeant\nsprang forward and caught the mountaineer, he dropped weeping with rage\nand shame to the ground.\n\n\"You two just go back to town,\" said the sergeant. \"I\'ll take keer of\nhim. Quick!\" and he shook his head as Hale advanced. \"He ain\'t goin\' to\nshake hands with you.\"\n\nThe two turned back across the bridge and Hale went on to Budd\'s office\nto do what he was setting out to do when young Dave came. There he had\nthe lawyer make out a deed in which the cabin in Lonesome Cove and\nthe acres about it were conveyed in fee simple to June--her heirs and\nassigns forever; but the girl must not know until, Hale said, \"her\nfather dies, or I die, or she marries.\" When he came out the sergeant\nwas passing the door.\n\n\"Ain\'t no use fightin\' with one o\' them fellers thataway,\" he said,\nshaking his head. \"If he whoops you, he\'ll crow over you as long as\nhe lives, and if you whoop him, he\'ll kill ye the fust chance he gets.\nYou\'ll have to watch that feller as long as you live--\'specially when\nhe\'s drinking. He\'ll remember that lickin\' and want revenge fer it till\nthe grave. One of you has got to die some day--shore.\"\n\nAnd the sergeant was right. Dave was going through the Gap at that\nmoment, cursing, swaying like a drunken man, firing his pistol and\nshouting his revenge to the echoing gray walls that took up his cries\nand sent them shrieking on the wind up every dark ravine. All the way up\nthe mountain he was cursing. Under the gentle voice of the big Pine\nhe was cursing still, and when his lips stopped, his heart was beating\ncurses as he dropped down the other side of the mountain.\n\nWhen he reached the river, he got off his horse and bathed his mouth and\nhis eyes again, and he cursed afresh when the blood started afresh at\nhis lips again. For a while he sat there in his black mood, undecided\nwhether he should go to his uncle\'s cabin or go on home. But he had seen\na woman\'s figure in the garden as he came down the spur, and the thought\nof June drew him to the cabin in spite of his shame and the questions\nthat were sure to be asked. When he passed around the clump of\nrhododendrons at the creek, June was in the garden still. She was\npruning a rose-bush with Bub\'s penknife, and when she heard him coming\nshe wheeled, quivering. She had been waiting for him all day, and, like\nan angry goddess, she swept fiercely toward him. Dave pretended not to\nsee her, but when he swung from his horse and lifted his sullen eyes,\nhe shrank as though she had lashed him across them with a whip. Her eyes\nblazed with murderous fire from her white face, the penknife in her hand\nwas clenched as though for a deadly purpose, and on her trembling lips\nwas the same question that she had asked him at the mill:\n\n\"Have you done it this time?\" she whispered, and then she saw his\nswollen mouth and his battered eye. Her fingers relaxed about the handle\nof the knife, the fire in her eyes went swiftly down, and with a smile\nthat was half pity, half contempt, she turned away. She could not have\ntold the whole truth better in words, even to Dave, and as he looked\nafter her his every pulse-beat was a new curse, and if at that minute he\ncould have had Hale\'s heart he would have eaten it like a savage--raw.\nFor a minute he hesitated with reins in hand as to whether he should\nturn now and go back to the Gap to settle with Hale, and then he threw\nthe reins over a post. He could bide his time yet a little longer, for\na crafty purpose suddenly entered his brain. Bub met him at the door of\nthe cabin and his eyes opened.\n\n\"What\'s the matter, Dave?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothin\',\" he said carelessly. \"My hoss stumbled comin\' down the\nmountain an\' I went clean over his head.\" He raised one hand to his\nmouth and still Bub was suspicious.\n\n\"Looks like you been in a fight.\" The boy began to laugh, but Dave\nignored him and went on into the cabin. Within, he sat where he could\nsee through the open door.\n\n\"Whar you been, Dave?\" asked old Judd from the corner. Just then he saw\nJune coming and, pretending to draw on his pipe, he waited until she had\nsat down within ear-shot on the edge of the porch.\n\n\"Who do you reckon owns this house and two hundred acres o\' land\nroundabouts?\"\n\nThe girl\'s heart waited apprehensively and she heard her father\'s deep\nvoice.\n\n\"The company owns it.\" Dave laughed harshly.\n\n\"Not much--John Hale.\" The heart out on the porch leaped with gladness\nnow.\n\n\"He bought it from the company. It\'s just as well you\'re goin\' away,\nUncle Judd. He\'d put you out.\"\n\n\"I reckon not. I got writin\' from the company which \'lows me to stay\nhere two year or more--if I want to.\"\n\n\"I don\'t know. He\'s a slick one.\"\n\n\"I heerd him say,\" put in Bub stoutly, \"that he\'d see that we stayed\nhere jus\' as long as we pleased.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said old Judd shortly, \"ef we stay here by his favour, we won\'t\nstay long.\"\n\nThere was silence for a while. Then Dave spoke again for the listening\nears outside--maliciously:\n\n\"I went over to the Gap to see if I couldn\'t git the place myself from\nthe company. I believe the Falins ain\'t goin\' to bother us an\' I ain\'t\nhankerin\' to go West. But I told him that you-all was goin\' to leave the\nmountains and goin\' out thar fer good.\" There was another silence.\n\n\"He never said a word.\" Nobody had asked the question, but he was\nanswering the unspoken one in the heart of June, and that heart sank\nlike a stone.\n\n\"He\'s goin\' away hisself-goin\' ter-morrow--goin\' to that same place he\nwent before--England, some feller called it.\"\n\nDave had done his work well. June rose unsteadily, and with one hand on\nher heart and the other clutching the railing of the porch, she crept\nnoiselessly along it, staggered like a wounded thing around the\nchimney, through the garden and on, still clutching her heart, to the\nwoods--there to sob it out on the breast of the only mother she had ever\nknown.\n\nDave was gone when she came back from the woods--calm, dry-eyed, pale.\nHer step-mother had kept her dinner for her, and when she said she\nwanted nothing to eat, the old woman answered something querulous to\nwhich June made no answer, but went quietly to cleaning away the dishes.\nFor a while she sat on the porch, and presently she went into her room\nand for a few moments she rocked quietly at her window. Hale was going\naway next day, and when he came back she would be gone and she would\nnever see him again. A dry sob shook her body of a sudden, she put\nboth hands to her head and with wild eyes she sprang to her feet and,\ncatching up her bonnet, slipped noiselessly out the back door. With\nhands clenched tight she forced herself to walk slowly across the\nfoot-bridge, but when the bushes hid her, she broke into a run as though\nshe were crazed and escaping a madhouse. At the foot of the spur she\nturned swiftly up the mountain and climbed madly, with one hand tight\nagainst the little cross at her throat. He was going away and she must\ntell him--she must tell him--what? Behind her a voice was calling, the\nvoice that pleaded all one night for her not to leave him, that had\nmade that plea a daily prayer, and it had come from an old man--wounded,\nbroken in health and heart, and her father. Hale\'s face was before her,\nbut that voice was behind, and as she climbed, the face that she was\nnearing grew fainter, the voice she was leaving sounded the louder in\nher ears, and when she reached the big Pine she dropped helplessly at\nthe base of it, sobbing. With her tears the madness slowly left her,\nthe old determination came back again and at last the old sad peace. The\nsunlight was slanting at a low angle when she rose to her feet and stood\non the cliff overlooking the valley--her lips parted as when she stood\nthere first, and the tiny drops drying along the roots of her dull gold\nhair. And being there for the last time she thought of that time when\nshe was first there--ages ago. The great glare of light that she looked\nfor then had come and gone. There was the smoking monster rushing into\nthe valley and sending echoing shrieks through the hills--but there was\nno booted stranger and no horse issuing from the covert of maple where\nthe path disappeared. A long time she stood there, with a wandering look\nof farewell to every familiar thing before her, but not a tear came now.\nOnly as she turned away at last her breast heaved and fell with one long\nbreath--that was all. Passing the Pine slowly, she stopped and turned\nback to it, unclasping the necklace from her throat. With trembling\nfingers she detached from it the little luck-piece that Hale had given\nher--the tear of a fairy that had turned into a tiny cross of stone\nwhen a strange messenger brought to the Virginia valley the story of the\ncrucifixion. The penknife was still in her pocket, and, opening it, she\nwent behind the Pine and dug a niche as high and as deep as she\ncould toward its soft old heart. In there she thrust the tiny symbol,\nwhispering:\n\n\"I want all the luck you could ever give me, little cross--for HIM.\"\nThen she pulled the fibres down to cover it from sight and, crossing her\nhands over the opening, she put her forehead against them and touched\nher lips to the tree.\n\n[Illustration: Keep it Safe Old Pine, Frontispiece]\n\n\"Keep it safe, old Pine.\" Then she lifted her face--looking upward\nalong its trunk to the blue sky. \"And bless him, dear God, and guard him\nevermore.\" She clutched her heart as she turned, and she was clutching\nit when she passed into the shadows below, leaving the old Pine to\nwhisper, when he passed, her love.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nNext day the word went round to the clan that the Tollivers would start\nin a body one week later for the West. At daybreak, that morning, Uncle\nBilly and his wife mounted the old gray horse and rode up the river to\nsay good-by. They found the cabin in Lonesome Cove deserted. Many things\nwere left piled in the porch; the Tollivers had left apparently in a\ngreat hurry and the two old people were much mystified. Not until noon\ndid they learn what the matter was. Only the night before a Tolliver\nhad shot a Falin and the Falins had gathered to get revenge on Judd that\nnight. The warning word had been brought to Lonesome Cove by Loretta\nTolliver, and it had come straight from young Buck Falin himself. So\nJune and old Judd and Bub had fled in the night. At that hour they were\non their way to the railroad--old Judd at the head of his clan--his\nright arm still bound to his side, his bushy beard low on his breast,\nJune and Bub on horseback behind him, the rest strung out behind them,\nand in a wagon at the end, with all her household effects, the little\nold woman in black who would wait no longer for the Red Fox to arise\nfrom the dead. Loretta alone was missing. She was on her way with young\nBuck Falin to the railroad on the other side of the mountains. Between\nthem not a living soul disturbed the dead stillness of Lonesome Cove.\n\n\n\n\nXXXII\n\n\nAll winter the cabin in Lonesome Cove slept through rain and sleet and\nsnow, and no foot passed its threshold. Winter broke, floods came and\nwarm sunshine. A pale green light stole through the trees, shy, ethereal\nand so like a mist that it seemed at any moment on the point of floating\nupward. Colour came with the wild flowers and song with the wood-thrush.\nSquirrels played on the tree-trunks like mischievous children, the\nbrooks sang like happy human voices through the tremulous underworld and\nwoodpeckers hammered out the joy of spring, but the awakening only made\nthe desolate cabin lonelier still. After three warm days in March, Uncle\nBilly, the miller, rode up the creek with a hoe over his shoulder--he\nhad promised this to Hale--for his labour of love in June\'s garden.\nWeeping April passed, May came with rosy face uplifted, and with\nthe birth of June the laurel emptied its pink-flecked cups and the\nrhododendron blazed the way for the summer\'s coming with white stars.\n\nBack to the hills came Hale then, and with all their rich beauty they\nwere as desolate as when he left them bare with winter, for his mission\nhad miserably failed. His train creaked and twisted around the benches\nof the mountains, and up and down ravines into the hills. The smoke\nrolled in as usual through the windows and doors. There was the same\ncrowd of children, slatternly women and tobacco-spitting men in the\ndirty day-coaches, and Hale sat among them--for a Pullman was no longer\nattached to the train that ran to the Gap. As he neared the bulk\nof Powell\'s mountain and ran along its mighty flank, he passed the\nore-mines. At each one the commissary was closed, the cheap, dingy\nlittle houses stood empty on the hillsides, and every now and then he\nwould see a tipple and an empty car, left as it was after dumping its\nlast load of red ore. On the right, as he approached the station, the\nbig furnace stood like a dead giant, still and smokeless, and the piles\nof pig iron were red with rust. The same little dummy wheezed him into\nthe dead little town. Even the face of the Gap was a little changed by\nthe gray scar that man had slashed across its mouth, getting limestone\nfor the groaning monster of a furnace that was now at peace. The streets\nwere deserted. A new face fronted him at the desk of the hotel and the\neyes of the clerk showed no knowledge of him when he wrote his name. His\nsupper was coarse, greasy and miserable, his room was cold (steam heat,\nit seemed, had been given up), the sheets were ill-smelling, the mouth\nof the pitcher was broken, and the one towel had seen much previous use.\nBut the water was the same, as was the cool, pungent night-air--both\nblessed of God--and they were the sole comforts that were his that\nnight.\n\nThe next day it was as though he were arranging his own funeral, with\nbut little hope of a resurrection. The tax-collector met him when he\ncame downstairs--having seen his name on the register.\n\n\"You know,\" he said, \"I\'ll have to add 5 per cent. next month.\" Hale\nsmiled.\n\n\"That won\'t be much more,\" he said, and the collector, a new one,\nlaughed good-naturedly and with understanding turned away. Mechanically\nhe walked to the Club, but there was no club--then on to the office of\nThe Progress--the paper that was the boast of the town. The Progress\nwas defunct and the brilliant editor had left the hills. A boy with an\nink-smeared face was setting type and a pallid gentleman with glasses\nwas languidly working a hand-press. A pile of fresh-smelling papers lay\non a table, and after a question or two he picked up one. Two of its\nfour pages were covered with announcements of suits and sales to satisfy\njudgments--the printing of which was the raison d\'etre of the noble\nsheet. Down the column his eye caught John Hale et al. John Hale et al.,\nand he wondered why \"the others\" should be so persistently anonymous.\nThere was a cloud of them--thicker than the smoke of coke-ovens. He had\nbreathed that thickness for a long time, but he got a fresh sense of\nsuffocation now. Toward the post-office he moved. Around the corner\nhe came upon one of two brothers whom he remembered as carpenters. He\nrecalled his inability once to get that gentleman to hang a door for\nhim. He was a carpenter again now and he carried a saw and a plane.\nThere was grim humour in the situation. The carpenter\'s brother had\ngone--and he himself could hardly get enough work, he said, to support\nhis family.\n\n\"Goin\' to start that house of yours?\"\n\n\"I think not,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Well, I\'d like to get a contract for a chicken-coop just to keep my\nhand in.\"\n\nThere was more. A two-horse wagon was coming with two cottage-organs\naboard. In the mouth of the slouch-hatted, unshaven driver was a\ncorn-cob pipe. He pulled in when he saw Hale.\n\n\"Hello!\" he shouted grinning. Good Heavens, was that uncouth figure the\nvoluble, buoyant, flashy magnate of the old days? It was.\n\n\"Sellin\' organs agin,\" he said briefly.\n\n\"And teaching singing-school?\"\n\nThe dethroned king of finance grinned.\n\n\"Sure! What you doin\'?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Goin\' to stay long?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, see you again. So long. Git up!\"\n\nWheel-spokes whirred in the air and he saw a buggy, with the top down,\nrattling down another street in a cloud of dust. It was the same buggy\nin which he had first seen the black-bearded Senator seven years before.\nIt was the same horse, too, and the Arab-like face and the bushy black\nwhiskers, save for streaks of gray, were the same. This was the man who\nused to buy watches and pianos by the dozen, who one Xmas gave a present\nto every living man, woman and child in the town, and under whose\ncolossal schemes the pillars of the church throughout the State stood as\nsupports. That far away the eagle-nosed face looked haggard, haunted and\nall but spent, and even now he struck Hale as being driven downward like\na madman by the same relentless energy that once had driven him upward.\nIt was the same story everywhere. Nearly everybody who could get away\nwas gone. Some of these were young enough to profit by the lesson and\ntake surer root elsewhere--others were too old for transplanting, and of\nthem would be heard no more. Others stayed for the reason that getting\naway was impossible. These were living, visible tragedies--still\nhopeful, pathetically unaware of the leading parts they were playing,\nand still weakly waiting for a better day or sinking, as by gravity,\nback to the old trades they had practised before the boom. A few sturdy\nsouls, the fittest, survived--undismayed. Logan was there--lawyer for\nthe railroad and the coal-company. MacFarlan was a judge, and two or\nthree others, too, had come through unscathed in spirit and undaunted\nin resolution--but gone were the young Bluegrass Kentuckians, the young\nTide-water Virginians, the New England school-teachers, the bankers,\nreal-estate agents, engineers; gone the gamblers, the wily Jews and\nthe vagrant women that fringe the incoming tide of a new\nprosperity--gone--all gone!\n\nBeyond the post-office he turned toward the red-brick house that sat\nabove the mill-pond. Eagerly he looked for the old mill, and he stopped\nin physical pain. The dam had been torn away, the old wheel was gone and\na caved-in roof and supporting walls, drunkenly aslant, were the only\nremnants left. A red-haired child stood at the gate before the red-brick\nhouse and Hale asked her a question. The little girl had never heard of\nthe Widow Crane. Then he walked toward his old office and bedroom. There\nwas a voice inside his old office when he approached, a tall figure\nfilled the doorway, a pair of great goggles beamed on him like beacon\nlights in a storm, and the Hon. Sam Budd\'s hand and his were clasped\nover the gate.\n\n\"It\'s all over, Sam.\"\n\n\"Don\'t you worry--come on in.\"\n\nThe two sat on the porch. Below it the dimpled river shone through\nthe rhododendrons and with his eyes fixed on it, the Hon. Sam slowly\napproached the thought of each.\n\n\"The old cabin in Lonesome Cove is just as the Tollivers left it.\"\n\n\"None of them ever come back?\" Budd shook his head.\n\n\"No, but one\'s comin\'--Dave.\"\n\n\"Dave!\"\n\n\"Yes, an\' you know what for.\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" said Hale carelessly. \"Did you send old Judd the deed?\"\n\n\"Sure--along with that fool condition of yours that June shouldn\'t know\nuntil he was dead or she married. I\'ve never heard a word.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose he\'ll stick to the condition?\"\n\n\"He has stuck,\" said the Hon. Sam shortly; \"otherwise you would have\nheard from June.\"\n\n\"I\'m not going to be here long,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Where you goin\'?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know.\" Budd puffed his pipe.\n\n\"Well, while you are here, you want to keep your eye peeled for Dave\nTolliver. I told you that the mountaineer hates as long as he remembers,\nand that he never forgets. Do you know that Dave sent his horse back to\nthe stable here to be hired out for his keep, and told it right and left\nthat when you came back he was comin\', too, and he was goin\' to straddle\nthat horse until he found you, and then one of you had to die? How he\nfound out you were comin\' about this time I don\'t know, but he has sent\nword that he\'ll be here. Looks like he hasn\'t made much headway with\nJune.\"\n\n\"I\'m not worried.\"\n\n\"Well, you better be,\" said Budd sharply.\n\n\"Did Uncle Billy plant the garden?\"\n\n\"Flowers and all, just as June always had \'em. He\'s always had the idea\nthat June would come back.\"\n\n\"Maybe she will.\"\n\n\"Not on your life. She might if you went out there for her.\"\n\nHale looked up quickly and slowly shook his head.\n\n\"Look here, Jack, you\'re seein\' things wrong. You can\'t blame that girl\nfor losing her head after you spoiled and pampered her the way you did.\nAnd with all her sense it was mighty hard for her to understand your\nbeing arrayed against her flesh and blood--law or no law. That\'s\nmountain nature pure and simple, and it comes mighty near bein\' human\nnature the world over. You never gave her a square chance.\"\n\n\"You know what Uncle Billy said?\"\n\n\"Yes, an\' I know Uncle Billy changed his mind. Go after her.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hale firmly. \"It\'ll take me ten years to get out of debt. I\nwouldn\'t now if I could--on her account.\"\n\n\"Nonsense.\" Hale rose.\n\n\"I\'m going over to take a look around and get some things I left at\nUncle Billy\'s and then--me for the wide, wide world again.\"\n\nThe Hon. Sam took off his spectacles to wipe them, but when Bale\'s back\nwas turned, his handkerchief went to his eyes:\n\n\"Don\'t you worry, Jack.\"\n\n\"All right, Sam.\"\n\nAn hour later Hale was at the livery stable for a horse to ride to\nLonesome Cove, for he had sold his big black to help out expenses for\nthe trip to England. Old Dan Harris, the stableman, stood in the door\nand silently he pointed to a gray horse in the barn-yard.\n\n\"You know that hoss?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You know whut\'s he here fer?\"\n\n\"I\'ve heard.\"\n\n\"Well, I\'m lookin\' fer Dave every day now.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe I\'d better ride Dave\'s horse now,\" said Hale jestingly.\n\n\"I wish you would,\" said old Dan.\n\n\"No,\" said Hale, \"if he\'s coming, I\'ll leave the horse so that he can\nget to me as quickly as possible. You might send me word, Uncle Dan,\nahead, so that he can\'t waylay me.\"\n\n\"I\'ll do that very thing,\" said the old man seriously.\n\n\"I was joking, Uncle Dan.\"\n\n\"But I ain\'t.\"\n\nThe matter was out of Hale\'s head before he got through the great Gap.\nHow the memories thronged of June--June--June!\n\n\"YOU DIDN\'T GIVE HER A CHANCE.\"\n\nThat was what Budd said. Well, had he given her a chance? Why shouldn\'t\nhe go to her and give her the chance now? He shook his shoulders at the\nthought and laughed with some bitterness. He hadn\'t the car-fare for\nhalf-way across the continent--and even if he had, he was a promising\ncandidate for matrimony!--and again he shook his shoulders and settled\nhis soul for his purpose. He would get his things together and leave\nthose hills forever.\n\nHow lonely had been his trip--how lonely was the God-forsaken little\ntown behind him! How lonely the road and hills and the little white\nclouds in the zenith straight above him--and how unspeakably lonely the\ngreen dome of the great Pine that shot into view from the north as he\nturned a clump of rhododendron with uplifted eyes. Not a breath of\nair moved. The green expanse about him swept upward like a wave--but\nunflecked, motionless, except for the big Pine which, that far away,\nlooked like a bit of green spray, spouting on its very crest.\n\n\"Old man,\" he muttered, \"you know--you know.\" And as to a brother he\nclimbed toward it.\n\n\"No wonder they call you Lonesome,\" he said as he went upward into the\nbright stillness, and when he dropped into the dark stillness of shadow\nand forest gloom on the other side he said again:\n\n\"My God, no wonder they call you Lonesome.\"\n\nAnd still the memories of June thronged--at the brook--at the river--and\nwhen he saw the smokeless chimney of the old cabin, he all but groaned\naloud. But he turned away from it, unable to look again, and went down\nthe river toward Uncle Billy\'s mill.\n\n * * * * * * *\n\nOld Hon threw her arms around him and kissed him.\n\n\"John,\" said Uncle Billy, \"I\'ve got three hundred dollars in a old yarn\nsock under one of them hearthstones and its yourn. Ole Hon says so too.\"\n\nHale choked.\n\n\"I want ye to go to June. Dave\'ll worry her down and git her if you\ndon\'t go, and if he don\'t worry her down, he\'ll come back an\' try to\nkill ye. I\'ve always thought one of ye would have to die fer that gal,\nan\' I want it to be Dave. You two have got to fight it out some day,\nand you mought as well meet him out thar as here. You didn\'t give that\nlittle gal a fair chance, John, an\' I want you to go to June.\"\n\n\"No, I can\'t take your money, Uncle Billy--God bless you and old\nHon--I\'m going--I don\'t know where--and I\'m going now.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXXIII\n\n\nClouds were gathering as Hale rode up the river after telling old Hon\nand Uncle Billy good-by. He had meant not to go to the cabin in Lonesome\nCove, but when he reached the forks of the road, he stopped his horse\nand sat in indecision with his hands folded on the pommel of his saddle\nand his eyes on the smokeless chimney. The memories tugging at his heart\ndrew him irresistibly on, for it was the last time. At a slow walk he\nwent noiselessly through the deep sand around the clump of rhododendron.\nThe creek was clear as crystal once more, but no geese cackled and\nno dog barked. The door of the spring-house gaped wide, the barn-door\nsagged on its hinges, the yard-fence swayed drunkenly, and the cabin was\nstill as a gravestone. But the garden was alive, and he swung from his\nhorse at the gate, and with his hands clasped behind his back walked\nslowly through it. June\'s garden! The garden he had planned and planted\nfor June--that they had tended together and apart and that, thanks to\nthe old miller\'s care, was the one thing, save the sky above, left in\nspirit unchanged. The periwinkles, pink and white, were almost gone. The\nflags were at half-mast and sinking fast. The annunciation lilies were\nbending their white foreheads to the near kiss of death, but the pinks\nwere fragrant, the poppies were poised on slender stalks like brilliant\nbutterflies at rest, the hollyhocks shook soundless pink bells to\nthe wind, roses as scarlet as June\'s lips bloomed everywhere and the\nrichness of mid-summer was at hand.\n\nQuietly Hale walked the paths, taking a last farewell of plant and\nflower, and only the sudden patter of raindrops made him lift his eyes\nto the angry sky. The storm was coming now in earnest and he had hardly\ntime to lead his horse to the barn and dash to the porch when the very\nheavens, with a crash of thunder, broke loose. Sheet after sheet swept\ndown the mountains like wind-driven clouds of mist thickening into water\nas they came. The shingles rattled as though with the heavy slapping\nof hands, the pines creaked and the sudden dusk outside made the cabin,\nwhen he pushed the door open, as dark as night. Kindling a fire, he lit\nhis pipe and waited. The room was damp and musty, but the presence of\nJune almost smothered him. Once he turned his face. June\'s door was ajar\nand the key was in the lock. He rose to go to it and look within and\nthen dropped heavily back into his chair. He was anxious to get away\nnow--to get to work. Several times he rose restlessly and looked out the\nwindow. Once he went outside and crept along the wall of the cabin to\nthe east and the west, but there was no break of light in the murky sky\nand he went back to pipe and fire. By and by the wind died and the rain\nsteadied into a dogged downpour. He knew what that meant--there would be\nno letting up now in the storm, and for another night he was a prisoner.\nSo he went to his saddle-pockets and pulled out a cake of chocolate, a\ncan of potted ham and some crackers, munched his supper, went to bed,\nand lay there with sleepless eyes, while the lights and shadows from the\nwind-swayed fire flicked about him. After a while his body dozed but his\nracked brain went seething on in an endless march of fantastic dreams in\nwhich June was the central figure always, until of a sudden young Dave\nleaped into the centre of the stage in the dream-tragedy forming in his\nbrain. They were meeting face to face at last--and the place was the big\nPine. Dave\'s pistol flashed and his own stuck in the holster as he tried\nto draw. There was a crashing report and he sprang upright in bed--but\nit was a crash of thunder that wakened him and that in that swift\ninstant perhaps had caused his dream. The wind had come again and was\ndriving the rain like soft bullets against the wall of the cabin next\nwhich he lay. He got up, threw another stick of wood on the fire and\nsat before the leaping blaze, curiously disturbed but not by the dream.\nSomehow he was again in doubt--was he going to stick it out in the\nmountains after all, and if he should, was not the reason, deep down\nin his soul, the foolish hope that June would come back again. No,\nhe thought, searching himself fiercely, that was not the reason. He\nhonestly did not know what his duty to her was--what even was his inmost\nwish, and almost with a groan he paced the floor to and fro. Meantime\nthe storm raged. A tree crashed on the mountainside and the lightning\nthat smote it winked into the cabin so like a mocking, malignant eye\nthat he stopped in his tracks, threw open the door and stepped outside\nas though to face an enemy. The storm was majestic and his soul went\ninto the mighty conflict of earth and air, whose beginning and end were\nin eternity. The very mountain tops were rimmed with zigzag fire, which\nshot upward, splitting a sky that was as black as a nether world, and\nunder it the great trees swayed like willows under rolling clouds of\ngray rain. One fiery streak lit up for an instant the big Pine and\nseemed to dart straight down upon its proud, tossing crest. For a moment\nthe beat of the watcher\'s heart and the flight of his soul stopped\nstill. A thunderous crash came slowly to his waiting ears, another flash\ncame, and Hale stumbled, with a sob, back into the cabin. God\'s finger\nwas pointing the way now--the big Pine was no more.\n\n\n\n\nXXXIV\n\n\nThe big Pine was gone. He had seen it first, one morning at daybreak,\nwhen the valley on the other side was a sea of mist that threw soft,\nclinging spray to the very mountain tops--for even above the mists, that\nmorning, its mighty head arose, sole visible proof that the earth still\nslept beneath. He had seen it at noon--but little less majestic, among\nthe oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching the last light at\nsunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a dark, silent,\nmysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the moon. He had\nseen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing burst of spring,\nhad seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the gray of winter\ntrees and still green in a shroud of snow--a changeless promise that the\nearth must wake to life again. It had been the beacon that led him into\nLonesome Cove--the beacon that led June into the outer world. From it\nher flying feet had carried her into his life--past it, the same feet\nhad carried her out again. It had been their trysting place--had\nkept their secrets like a faithful friend and had stood to him as the\nchangeless symbol of their love. It had stood a mute but sympathetic\nwitness of his hopes, his despairs and the struggles that lay between\nthem. In dark hours it had been a silent comforter, and in the last year\nit had almost come to symbolize his better self as to that self he came\nslowly back. And in the darkest hour it was the last friend to whom he\nhad meant to say good-by. Now it was gone. Always he had lifted his eyes\nto it every morning when he rose, but now, next morning, he hung back\nconsciously as one might shrink from looking at the face of a dead\nfriend, and when at last he raised his head to look upward to it, an\nimpenetrable shroud of mist lay between them--and he was glad.\n\nAnd still he could not leave. The little creek was a lashing yellow\ntorrent, and his horse, heavily laden as he must be, could hardly swim\nwith his weight, too, across so swift a stream. But mountain streams\nwere like June\'s temper--up quickly and quickly down--so it was noon\nbefore he plunged into the tide with his saddle-pockets over one\nshoulder and his heavy transit under one arm. Even then his snorting\nhorse had to swim a few yards, and he reached the other bank soaked to\nhis waist line. But the warm sun came out just as he entered the woods,\nand as he climbed, the mists broke about him and scudded upward\nlike white sails before a driving wind. Once he looked back from a\n\"fire-scald\" in the woods at the lonely cabin in the cove, but it gave\nhim so keen a pain that he would not look again. The trail was slippery\nand several times he had to stop to let his horse rest and to slow the\nbeating of his own heart. But the sunlight leaped gladly from wet leaf\nto wet leaf until the trees looked decked out for unseen fairies, and\nthe birds sang as though there was nothing on earth but joy for all its\ncreatures, and the blue sky smiled above as though it had never bred a\nlightning flash or a storm. Hale dreaded the last spur before the little\nGap was visible, but he hurried up the steep, and when he lifted his\napprehensive eyes, the gladness of the earth was as nothing to the\nsudden joy in his own heart. The big Pine stood majestic, still\nunscathed, as full of divinity and hope to him as a rainbow in an\neastern sky. Hale dropped his reins, lifted one hand to his dizzy head,\nlet his transit to the ground, and started for it on a run. Across the\npath lay a great oak with a white wound running the length of its mighty\nbody, from crest to shattered trunk, and over it he leaped, and like a\nchild caught his old friend in both arms. After all, he was not alone.\nOne friend would be with him till death, on that border-line between the\nworld in which he was born and the world he had tried to make his own,\nand he could face now the old one again with a stouter heart. There\nit lay before him with its smoke and fire and noise and slumbering\nactivities just awakening to life again. He lifted his clenched fist\ntoward it:\n\n\"You got ME once,\" he muttered, \"but this time I\'ll get YOU.\" He turned\nquickly and decisively--there would be no more delay. And he went back\nand climbed over the big oak that, instead of his friend, had fallen\nvictim to the lightning\'s kindly whim and led his horse out into the\nunderbrush. As he approached within ten yards of the path, a metallic\nnote rang faintly on the still air the other side of the Pine and down\nthe mountain. Something was coming up the path, so he swiftly knotted\nhis bridle-reins around a sapling, stepped noiselessly into the path\nand noiselessly slipped past the big tree where he dropped to his\nknees, crawled forward and lay flat, peering over the cliff and down\nthe winding trail. He had not long to wait. A riderless horse filled the\nopening in the covert of leaves that swallowed up the path. It was gray\nand he knew it as he knew the saddle as his old enemy\'s--Dave. Dave had\nkept his promise--he had come back. The dream was coming true, and they\nwere to meet at last face to face. One of them was to strike a trail\nmore lonesome than the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and that man would\nnot be John Hale. One detail of the dream was going to be left out, he\nthought grimly, and very quietly he drew his pistol, cocked it, sighted\nit on the opening--it was an easy shot--and waited. He would give that\nenemy no more chance than he would a mad dog--or would he? The horse\nstopped to browse. He waited so long that he began to suspect a trap.\nHe withdrew his head and looked about him on either side and\nbehind--listening intently for the cracking of a twig or a footfall. He\nwas about to push backward to avoid possible attack from the rear, when\na shadow shot from the opening. His face paled and looked sick of a\nsudden, his clenched fingers relaxed about the handle of his pistol\nand he drew it back, still cocked, turned on his knees, walked past\nthe Pine, and by the fallen oak stood upright, waiting. He heard a low\nwhistle calling to the horse below and a shudder ran through him. He\nheard the horse coming up the path, he clenched his pistol convulsively,\nand his eyes, lit by an unearthly fire and fixed on the edge of the\nbowlder around which they must come, burned an instant later on--June.\nAt the cry she gave, he flashed a hunted look right and left, stepped\nswiftly to one side and stared past her-still at the bowlder. She had\ndropped the reins and started toward him, but at the Pine she stopped\nshort.\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\nHer lips opened to answer, but no sound came. Hale pointed at the horse\nbehind her.\n\n\"That\'s his. He sent me word. He left that horse in the valley, to\nride over here, when he came back, to kill me. Are you with him?\" For\na moment she thought from his wild face that he had gone crazy and she\nstared silently. Then she seemed to understand, and with a moan she\ncovered her face with her hands and sank weeping in a heap at the foot\nof the Pine.\n\nThe forgotten pistol dropped, full cocked to the soft earth, and Hale\nwith bewildered eyes went slowly to her.\n\n\"Don\'t cry,\"--he said gently, starting to call her name. \"Don\'t cry,\" he\nrepeated, and he waited helplessly.\n\n\"He\'s dead. Dave was shot--out--West,\" she sobbed. \"I told him I was\ncoming back. He gave me his horse. Oh, how could you?\"\n\n\"Why did you come back?\" he asked, and she shrank as though he had\nstruck her--but her sobs stopped and she rose to her feet.\n\n\"Wait,\" she said, and she turned from him to wipe her eyes with her\nhanderchief. Then she faced him.\n\n\"When dad died, I learned everything. You made him swear never to\ntell me and he kept his word until he was on his death-bed. YOU did\neverything for me. It was YOUR money. YOU gave me back the old cabin in\nthe Cove. It was always you, you, YOU, and there was never anybody else\nbut you.\" She stopped for Hale\'s face was as though graven from stone.\n\n\"And you came back to tell me that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You could have written that.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she faltered, \"but I had to tell you face to face.\"\n\n\"Is that all?\"\n\nAgain the tears were in her eyes.\n\n\"No,\" she said tremulously.\n\n\"Then I\'ll say the rest for you. You wanted to come to tell me of the\nshame you felt when you knew,\" she nodded violently--\"but you could have\nwritten that, too, and I could have written that you mustn\'t feel that\nway--that\" he spoke slowly--\"you mustn\'t rob me of the dearest happiness\nI ever knew in my whole life.\"\n\n\"I knew you would say that,\" she said like a submissive child. The\nsternness left his face and he was smiling now.\n\n\"And you wanted to say that the only return you could make was to come\nback and be my wife.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she faltered again, \"I did feel that--I did.\"\n\n\"You could have written that, too, but you thought you had to PROVE it\nby coming back yourself.\"\n\nThis time she nodded no assent and her eyes were streaming. He turned\naway--stretching out his arms to the woods.\n\n\"God! Not that--no--no!\"\n\n\"Listen, Jack!\" As suddenly his arms dropped. She had controlled her\ntears but her lips were quivering.\n\n\"No, Jack, not that--thank God. I came because I wanted to come,\" she\nsaid steadily. \"I loved you when I went away. I\'ve loved you every\nminute since--\" her arms were stealing about his neck, her face was\nupturned to his and her eyes, moist with gladness, were looking into his\nwondering eyes--\"and I love you now--Jack.\"\n\n\"June!\" The leaves about them caught his cry and quivered with the joy\nof it, and above their heads the old Pine breathed its blessing with the\nname--June--June--June.\n\n\n\n\nXXXV\n\nWith a mystified smile but with no question, Hale silently handed his\npenknife to June and when, smiling but without a word, she walked behind\nthe old Pine, he followed her. There he saw her reach up and dig the\npoint of the knife into the trunk, and when, as he wonderingly watched\nher, she gave a sudden cry, Hale sprang toward her. In the hole she was\ndigging he saw the gleam of gold and then her trembling fingers brought\nout before his astonished eyes the little fairy stone that he had given\nher long ago. She had left it there for him, she said, through tears,\nand through his own tears Hale pointed to the stricken oak:\n\n\"It saved the Pine,\" he said.\n\n\"And you,\" said June.\n\n\"And you,\" repeated Hale solemnly, and while he looked long at her, her\narms dropped slowly to her sides and he said simply:\n\n\"Come!\"\n\nLeading the horses, they walked noiselessly through the deep sand around\nthe clump of rhododendron, and there sat the little cabin of Lonesome\nCove. The holy hush of a cathedral seemed to shut it in from the world,\nso still it was below the great trees that stood like sentinels on\neternal guard. Both stopped, and June laid her head on Hale\'s shoulder\nand they simply looked in silence.\n\n\"Dear old home,\" she said, with a little sob, and Hale, still silent,\ndrew her to him.\n\n\"You were _never_ coming back again?\"\n\n\"I was never coming back again.\" She clutched his arm fiercely as though\neven now something might spirit him away, and she clung to him, while he\nhitched the horses and while they walked up the path.\n\n\"Why, the garden is just as I left it! The very same flowers in the very\nsame places!\" Hale smiled.\n\n\"Why not? I had Uncle Billy do that.\"\n\n\"Oh, you dear--you dear!\"\n\nHer little room was shuttered tight as it always had been when she was\naway, and, as usual, the front door was simply chained on the outside.\nThe girl turned with a happy sigh and looked about at the nodding\nflowers and the woods and the gleaming pool of the river below and up\nthe shimmering mountain to the big Pine topping it with sombre majesty.\n\n\"Dear old Pine,\" she murmured, and almost unconsciously she unchained\nthe door as she had so often done before, stepped into the dark room,\npulling Hale with one hand after her, and almost unconsciously reaching\nupward with the other to the right of the door. Then she cried aloud:\n\n\"My key--my key is there!\"\n\n\"That was in case you should come back some day.\"\n\n\"Oh, I might--I might! and think if I had come too late--think if I\nhadn\'t come _now!_\" Again her voice broke and still holding Hale\'s arm,\nshe moved to her own door. She had to use both hands there, but before\nshe let go, she said almost hysterically:\n\n\"It\'s so dark! You won\'t leave me, dear, if I let you go?\"\n\nFor answer Hale locked his arms around her, and when the door opened, he\nwent in ahead of her and pushed open the shutters. The low sun flooded\nthe room and when Hale turned, June was looking with wild eyes from one\nthing to another in the room--her rocking-chair at a window, her sewing\nclose by, a book on the table, her bed made up in the corner, her\nwashstand of curly maple--the pitcher full of water and clean towels\nhanging from the rack. Hale had gotten out the things she had packed\naway and the room was just as she had always kept it. She rushed to him,\nweeping.\n\n\"It would have killed me,\" she sobbed. \"It would have killed me.\"\nShe strained him tightly to her--her wet face against his cheek:\n\"Think--_think_--if I hadn\'t come now!\" Then loosening herself she went\nall about the room with a caressing touch to everything, as though it\nwere alive. The book was the volume of Keats he had given her--which had\nbeen loaned to Loretta before June went away.\n\n\"Oh, I wrote for it and wrote for it,\" she said.\n\n\"I found it in the post-office,\" said Hale, \"and I understood.\"\n\nShe went over to the bed.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said with a happy laugh. \"You\'ve got one slip inside out,\" and\nshe whipped the pillow from its place, changed it, and turned down the\nedge of the covers in a triangle.\n\n\"That\'s the way I used to leave it,\" she said shyly. Hale smiled.\n\n\"I never noticed that!\" She turned to the bureau and pulled open a\ndrawer. In there were white things with frills and blue ribbons--and she\nflushed.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"these haven\'t even been touched.\" Again Hale smiled\nbut he said nothing. One glance had told him there were things in that\ndrawer too sacred for his big hands.\n\n\"I\'m so happy--_so_ happy.\"\n\nSuddenly she looked him over from head to foot--his rough riding boots,\nold riding breeches and blue flannel shirt.\n\n\"I am pretty rough,\" he said. She flushed, shook her head and looked\ndown at her smart cloth suit of black.\n\n\"Oh, _you_ are all right--but you must go out now, just for a little\nwhile.\"\n\n\"What are you up to, little girl?\"\n\n\"How I love to hear that again!\"\n\n\"Aren\'t you afraid I\'ll run away?\" he said at the door.\n\n\"I\'m not afraid of anything else in this world any more.\"\n\n\"Well, I won\'t.\"\n\nHe heard her moving around as he sat planning on the porch.\n\n\"To-morrow,\" he thought, and then an idea struck him that made him\ndizzy. From within June cried:\n\n\"Here I am,\" and out she ran in the last crimson gown of her young\ngirlhood--her sleeves rolled up and her hair braided down her back as\nshe used to wear it.\n\n\"You\'ve made up my bed and I\'m going to make yours--and I\'m going to\ncook your supper--why, what\'s the matter?\" Hale\'s face was radiant with\nthe heaven-born idea that lighted it, and he seemed hardly to notice the\nchange she had made. He came over and took her in his arms:\n\n\"Ah, sweetheart, _my_ sweetheart!\" A spasm of anxiety tightened her\nthroat, but Hale laughed from sheer delight.\n\n\"Never you mind. It\'s a secret,\" and he stood back to look at hen She\nblushed as his eyes went downward to her perfect ankles.\n\n\"It _is_ too short,\" she said.\n\n\"No, no, no! Not for me! You\'re mine now, little girl, _mine_--do you\nunderstand that?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she whispered, her mouth trembling, Again he laughed joyously.\n\n\"Come on!\" he cried, and he went into the kitchen and brought out an\naxe:\n\n\"I\'ll cut wood for you.\" She followed him out to the wood-pile and then\nshe turned and went into the house. Presently the sound of his axe rang\nthrough the woods, and as he stooped to gather up the wood, he heard a\ncreaking sound. June was drawing water at the well, and he rushed toward\nher:\n\n\"Here, you mustn\'t do that.\"\n\nShe flashed a happy smile at him.\n\n\"You just go back and get that wood. I reckon,\" she used the word\npurposely, \"I\'ve done this afore.\" Her strong bare arms were pulling the\nleaking moss-covered old bucket swiftly up, hand under hand--so he got\nthe wood while she emptied the bucket into a pail, and together they\nwent laughing into the kitchen, and while he built the fire, June got\nout the coffee-grinder and the meal to mix, and settled herself with the\ngrinder in her lap.\n\n\"Oh, isn\'t it fun?\" She stopped grinding suddenly.\n\n\"What would the neighbours say?\"\n\n\"We haven\'t any.\"\n\n\"But if we had!\"\n\n\"Terrible!\" said Hale with mock solemnity.\n\n\"I wonder if Uncle Billy is at home,\" Hale trembled at his luck. \"That\'s\na good idea. I\'ll ride down for him while you\'re getting supper.\"\n\n\"No, you won\'t,\" said June, \"I can\'t spare you. Is that old horn here\nyet?\"\n\nHale brought it out from behind the cupboard.\n\n\"I can get him--if he is at home.\"\n\nHale followed her out to the porch where she put her red mouth to the\nold trumpet. One long, mellow hoot rang down the river--and up the\nhills. Then there were three short ones and a single long blast again.\n\n\"That\'s the old signal,\" she said. \"And he\'ll know I want him _bad_.\"\nThen she laughed.\n\n\"He may think he\'s dreaming, so I\'ll blow for him again.\" And she did.\n\n\"There, now,\" she said. \"He\'ll come.\"\n\nIt was well she did blow again, for the old miller was not at home and\nold Hon, down at the cabin, dropped her iron when she heard the horn\nand walked to the door, dazed and listening. Even when it came again\nshe could hardly believe her ears, and but for her rheumatism, she would\nherself have started at once for Lonesome Cove. As it was, she ironed\nno more, but sat in the doorway almost beside herself with anxiety and\nbewilderment, looking down the road for the old miller to come home.\n\nBack the two went into the kitchen and Hale sat at the door watching\nJune as she fixed the table and made the coffee and corn bread. Once\nonly he disappeared and that was when suddenly a hen cackled, and with a\nshout of laughter he ran out to come back with a fresh egg.\n\n\"Now, my lord!\" said June, her hair falling over her eyes and her face\nflushed from the heat.\n\n\"No,\" said Hale. \"I\'m going to wait on you.\"\n\n\"For the last time,\" she pleaded, and to please her he did sit down, and\nevery time she came to his side with something he bent to kiss the hand\nthat served him.\n\n\"You\'re nothing but a big, nice boy,\" she said. Hale held out a lock\nof his hair near the temples and with one finger silently followed the\ntrack of wrinkles in his face.\n\n\"It\'s premature,\" she said, \"and I love every one of them.\" And she\nstooped to kiss him on the hair. \"And those are nothing but troubles.\nI\'m going to smooth every one of _them_ away.\"\n\n\"If they\'re troubles, they\'ll go--now,\" said Hale.\n\nAll the time they talked of what they would do with Lonesome Cove.\n\n\"Even if we do go away, we\'ll come back once a year,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Yes,\" nodded June, \"once a year.\"\n\n\"I\'ll tear down those mining shacks, float them down the river and sell\nthem as lumber.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And I\'ll stock the river with bass again.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And I\'ll plant young poplars to cover the sight of every bit of uptorn\nearth along the mountain there. I\'ll bury every bottle and tin can in\nthe Cove. I\'ll take away every sign of civilization, every sign of the\noutside world.\"\n\n\"And leave old Mother Nature to cover up the scars,\" said June.\n\n\"So that Lonesome Cove will be just as it was.\"\n\n\"Just as it was in the beginning,\" echoed June.\n\n\"And shall be to the end,\" said Hale.\n\n\"And there will never be anybody here but you.\"\n\n\"And you,\" said June.\n\nWhile she cleared the table and washed the dishes Hale fed the horses\nand cut more wood, and it was dusk when he came to the porch. Through\nthe door he saw that she had made his bed in one corner. And through\nher door he saw one of the white things, that had lain untouched in her\ndrawer, now stretched out on her bed.\n\nThe stars were peeping through the blue spaces of a white-clouded sky\nand the moon would be coming by and by. In the garden the flowers were\ndim, quiet and restful. A kingfisher screamed from the river. An owl\nhooted in the woods and crickets chirped about them, but every passing\nsound seemed only to accentuate the stillness in which they were\nengulfed. Close together they sat on the old porch and she made him tell\nof everything that had happened since she left the mountains, and she\ntold him of her flight from the mountains and her life in the West--of\nher father\'s death and the homesickness of the ones who still were\nthere.\n\n[Illustration: She made him tell of everything, 0444]\n\n\"Bub is a cowboy and wouldn\'t come back for the world, but I could\nnever have been happy there,\" she said, \"even if it hadn\'t been for\nyou--here.\"\n\n\"I\'m just a plain civil engineer, now,\" said Hale, \"an engineer without\neven a job and--\" his face darkened.\n\n\"It\'s a shame, sweetheart, for you--\" She put one hand over his lips and\nwith the other turned his face so that she could look into his eyes. In\nthe mood of bitterness, they did show worn, hollow and sad, and around\nthem the wrinkles were deep.\n\n\"Silly,\" she said, tracing them gently with her finger tips, \"I love\nevery one of them, too,\" and she leaned over and kissed them.\n\n\"We\'re going to be happy each and every day, and all day long! We\'ll\nlive at the Gap in winter and I\'ll teach.\"\n\n\"No, you won\'t.\"\n\n\"Then I\'ll teach _you_ to be patient and how little I care for anything\nelse in the world while I\'ve got you, and I\'ll teach you to care for\nnothing else while you\'ve got me. And you\'ll have me, dear, forever and\never----\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Hale.\n\nSomething rang out in the darkness, far down the river, and both sprang\nto their feet. \"It\'s Uncle Billy!\" cried June, and she lifted the old\nhorn to her lips. With the first blare of it, a cheery halloo\nanswered, and a moment later they could see a gray horse coming up the\nroad--coming at a gallop, and they went down to the gate and waited.\n\n\"Hello, Uncle Billy\" cried June. The old man answered with a\nfox-hunting yell and Hale stepped behind a bush.\n\n\"Jumping Jehosophat--is that you, June? Air ye all right?\"\n\n\"Yes, Uncle Billy.\" The old man climbed off his horse with a groan.\n\n\"Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, but I was skeered!\" He had his hands on June\'s\nshoulders and was looking at her with a bewildered face.\n\n\"What air ye doin\' here alone, baby?\"\n\nJune\'s eyes shone: \"Nothing Uncle Billy.\" Hale stepped into sight.\n\n\"Oh, ho! I see! You back an\' he ain\'t gone! Well, bless my soul, if this\nain\'t the beatenest--\" he looked from the one to the other and his kind\nold face beamed with a joy that was but little less than their own.\n\n\"You come back to stay?\"\n\n\"My--where\'s that horn? I want it right now, Ole Hon down thar is\na-thinkin\' she\'s gone crazy and I thought she shorely was when she said\nshe heard you blow that horn. An\' she tol\' me the minute I got here,\nif hit was you--to blow three times.\" And straightway three blasts rang\ndown the river.\n\n\"Now she\'s all right, if she don\'t die o\' curiosity afore I git back\nand tell her why you come. Why did you come back, baby? Gimme a drink o\'\nwater, son. I reckon me an\' that ole hoss hain\'t travelled sech a gait\nin five year.\"\n\nJune was whispering something to the old man when Hale came back, and\nwhat it was the old man\'s face told plainly.\n\n\"Yes, Uncle Billy--right away,\" said Hale.\n\n\"Just as soon as you can git yo\' license?\" Hale nodded.\n\n\"An\' June says I\'m goin\' to do It.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hale, \"right away.\"\n\nAgain June had to tell the story to Uncle Billy that she had told to\nHale and to answer his questions, and it was an hour before the old\nmiller rose to go. Hale called him then into June\'s room and showed him\na piece of paper.\n\n\"Is it good now?\" he asked.\n\nThe old man put on his spectacles, looked at it and chuckled:\n\n\"Just as good as the day you got hit.\"\n\n\"Well, can\'t you----\"\n\n\"Right now! Does June know?\"\n\n\"Not yet. I\'m going to tell her now. June!\" he called.\n\n\"Yes, dear.\" Uncle Billy moved hurriedly to the door.\n\n\"You just wait till I git out o\' here.\" He met June in the outer room.\n\n\"Where are you going, Uncle Billy?\"\n\n\"Go on, baby,\" he said, hurrying by her, \"I\'ll be back in a minute.\"\n\nShe stopped in the doorway--her eyes wide again with sudden anxiety, but\nHale was smiling.\n\n\"You remember what you said at the Pine, dear?\" The girl nodded and she\nwas smiling now, when with sweet seriousness she said again: \"Your least\nwish is now law to me, my lord.\"\n\n\"Well, I\'m going to test it now. I\'ve laid a trap for you.\" She shook\nher head.\n\n\"And you\'ve walked right into it\"\n\n\"I\'m glad.\" She noticed now the crumpled piece of paper in his hand and\nshe thought it was some matter of business.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, reproachfully. \"You aren\'t going to bother with anything\nof that kind _now?_\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I want you to look over this.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" she said resignedly. He was holding the paper out to her\nand she took it and held it to the light of the candle. Her face flamed\nand she turned remorseful eyes upon him.\n\n\"And you\'ve kept that, too, you had it when I----\"\n\n\"When you were wiser maybe than you are now.\"\n\n\"God save me from ever being such a fool again.\" Tears started in her\neyes.\n\n\"You haven\'t forgiven me!\" she cried.\n\n\"Uncle Billy says it\'s as good now as it was then.\"\n\nHe was looking at her queerly now and his smile was gone. Slowly his\nmeaning came to her like the flush that spread over her face and throat.\nShe drew in one long quivering breath and, with parted lips and her\ngreat shining eyes wide, she looked at him.\n\n\"Now?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Now!\" he said.\n\nHer eyes dropped to the coarse gown, she lifted both hands for a moment\nto her hair and unconsciously she began to roll one crimson sleeve down\nher round, white arm.\n\n\"No,\" said Hale, \"just as you are.\"\n\nShe went to him then, put her arms about his neck, and with head thrown\nback she looked at him long with steady eyes.\n\n\"Yes,\" she breathed out--\"just as you are--and now.\"\n\nUncle Billy was waiting for them on the porch and when they came out, he\nrose to his feet and they faced him, hand in hand. The moon had risen.\nThe big Pine stood guard on high against the outer world. Nature was\ntheir church and stars were their candles. And as if to give them even\na better light, the moon had sent a luminous sheen down the dark\nmountainside to the very garden in which the flowers whispered like\nwaiting happy friends. Uncle Billy lifted his hand and a hush of\nexpectancy seemed to come even from the farthest star.'"