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Sunlight Patch

by Credo Fitch Harris · English · Gutenberg #28987 · 556,418 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sunlight Patch

Author: Credo Fitch Harris


        
Release date: May 29, 2009 [eBook #28987]

Language: English

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SUNLIGHT PATCH

by

CREDO HARRIS

Author of "Toby: A Novel of Kentucky,"
"Motor Rambles in Italy," etc.







[Illustration: Without warning he sprang like a panther at the
offender's throat

_See page 12_]



[Illustration]

Boston
Small, Maynard & Company
Publishers

Copyright, 1915
by Small, Maynard & Company
(Incorporated)




  To
  MAUD BLANC HARRIS




  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

        I OUT OF THE WILDERNESS                                        1

       II AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE                                         6

      III THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER                                     18

       IV A HUMAN ENIGMA                                              29

        V AN INTERRUPTED BREAKFAST                                    37

       VI THE BURNED CABIN                                            45

      VII DALE DAWSON'S PHILOSOPHY                                    55

     VIII THE INCONSEQUENT ENGINEER                                   66

       IX AT THE UNPAINTED HOUSE                                      75

        X THE SPIRIT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH                                82

       XI ON THE THRESHOLD                                            95

      XII A LIGHT ABOVE THE MOUNTAIN                                 105

     XIII IN THE CIRCLE OF CEDARS                                    111

      XIV A MEETING OF RASCALS                                       131

       XV TRYING TO PLAY FAIR                                        141

      XVI A SPRINGTIME SANTA CLAUS                                   155

     XVII AT TOP SPEED                                               167

    XVIII A DINNER OF SILENCES                                       179

      XIX THE MERITS OF HORSEFLESH                                   192

       XX A STARTLING CONFESSION                                     203

      XXI A VOICE AND A TAPER FLAME                                  216

     XXII TWO PLANS                                                  226

    XXIII THE SECOND PLAN                                            236

     XXIV THE CALL THAT MEANS SURRENDER                              245

      XXV ALMOST A RESOLUTION                                        256

     XXVI "WHAT EYES HAVE YOU?"                                      266

    XXVII A QUICK FUSE                                               286

   XXVIII AUNT TIMMIE HEARS A SECRET                                 296

     XXIX A PARALYSING DISCOVERY                                     306

      XXX "I'LL PAY THE DEBT!"                                       316

     XXXI OUT OF THE DYING DAY                                       329

    XXXII THE SHERIFF FORGETS HIS PRISONER                           336

   XXXIII THE MYSTIC GARDENER SHOWS HIS WORK                         341

    XXXIV A GIRL'S NOBILITY                                          355

     XXXV THE PRODUCT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH                              363

    XXXVI A TIN CYLINDER                                             372

   XXXVII TUSK                                                       380

  XXXVIII A LANE AT TWILIGHT                                         386

    XXXIX TRIUMPH                                                    390




SUNLIGHT PATCH




CHAPTER I

OUT OF THE WILDERNESS


He appeared an odd figure, sitting loosely on an old white mare which
held her nose to the ground and cautiously single-footed over the uneven
road. Unconcerned, perhaps unconscious that he bestrode a horse, his
head was thrown back and his gaze penetrated the lace-work of branches
to a sky exquisite blue where a few white, puffy clouds were aimlessly
suspended. And, like these clouds, his thoughts hovered between
unrealized hopes and the realistic mountains he was leaving; thoughts
interwoven with ambitions which had obsessed his waking hours and
glorified his dreams--dreams, desires, ambitions, always before his eyes
but out of reach. His hair fell to the opened collar of a homespun
shirt, and homespun were his trousers, tucked into a pair of homemade
boots. His saddle bore an obscure brand of the United States army, for
it had carried one of his people through the War of the States fifty
years before, and across its pummel balanced a long, ungainly rifle of
an earlier period.

It was an afternoon of that month when the spirit of Kentucky arises
from the loamy soil after a recreating sleep of winter. The fragrance of
the earth was everywhere. Overhead the trees met in great, silent
arches--Nature's Gothic, re-frescoed now in the delicate tints of spring
by the brush of Nature's Master--beneath which all life seemed
breathlessly poised as though in this dim-lit, sun-dappled cathedral of
the forest a mute service were in progress. But the man--he did not seem
to see, or feel, or be. Thus, without a sound except for the muffled
shuffle of the old mare's unshod hoofs, he rode.

They were coming down the mountain, he and the old white mare; coming
down into the valley, into the "settlements"; and to-day marked the last
stage of his journey from the center of those wild giants which had
bounded the territory of his twenty-two years' existence. To-day he
would emerge from the foothills into the open country; into the smiling
country of his imagination, from somewhere in whose expanding fields now
came the call of a toiling plowboy. It was this which finally brought
him from his reverie in the sky, from his lofty dreams to the smell of
earth.

Drawing down his gaze, he saw that here, indeed, was the open threshold
of a new world, and his eyes distended with a veritable glory of sight.
They had seen distance, but not like this. They had ranged from mountain
peak to mountain peak, or across the scarred tops of intervening peaks
to a skyline untamed even by the coaxing tints of rose and purple
sunsets; but before him now lay distance of another kind: hills upon
hills, 'twas true, yet low; and whose once rough lines were mellowed by
the patient surgery of a hundred years of plowshares. Gentle slopes, and
shallow valleys, and slopes again--not standing like his graven monsters
of the Cumberlands, but lolling in peace and lazy unconcern, melting
into the azure west so artfully that he could not be definitely sure
where earth left off and sky began. And between these softly molded
forms was no towering harshness at whose contemplation his eyes would
intuitively have narrowed, but a subdued carpet of many fields, with
here and there a nestling home. A grand, sweeping canvas, it might have
been, whose browns of new-turned soil, whose light green tints of reborn
orchards and sprouting wheat, were gracefully interrupted by the deeper
tones of clustered trees--those remnants of primeval forest which the
unintentional landscape gardeners of pioneer days had chanced to leave
standing in this picturesque Kentucky valley.

A welcome seemed to rise from it like soothing fingers laid upon his
brow and his frame drooped in extreme contentment; for it portrayed the
country he had come to seek from his home back in that wilderness where
bridle-paths are boulevards and primitive log cabins the mansions of his
people. So he continued to sit spellbound, held between the
satisfaction of lingering and the impulse to ride down into it, and to
rest there as everything seemed to be resting in a soft growth of
plenty. This was decided by the mare which, of her own accord, turned
and started on.

He did not again draw rein for many miles. The needle of his nature
urged him forward, straight along a narrow valley lane that ambled
between mildewed fences and their inclosed fields; between untouched
walls of wild-grape, red-bud and blossoming dog-wood; and he knew that
his intuition was not sending him astray. This sweet-smelling road was
now making another turn which ushered him directly upon a frame
schoolhouse, set slightly back in a grove of trees. Quickly, he brought
the old mare to a stop.

That it was a schoolhouse--the very schoolhouse which had been the
reliquary of his dreams--he never doubted, so accurately did it fit the
description given by a mountain preacher; and to be actually facing it
in the material form filled him with a nameless fascination. Sitting
rigid, in an attitude bent forward, his tense stare directed on its
partly open door, he suggested a Marathon runner crouched for the start
of that great trial; and somewhere in his subconsciousness a voice
whispered that this day, this hour, marked the beginning of his mortal
race. He comprehended a certain vague significance to which analysis was
denied.

Then slowly dismounting he led the mare deep into an opposite thicket.
There was no necessity for doing this, no reason, except the latent
sense of caution a wild creature feels in strange places; and, having
concealed his rifle beneath a fallen log, he turned back to the road.
But now he hesitated, putting one hand against a tree for support. A
close observer might have seen that his body was swaying slightly from
side to side with a curious movement, not unlike the restive motion of a
caged beast; and a glance at his face would have confirmed the
existence of some overwhelming emotion. In a deep, drawling voice, he
spoke:

"Wall, Ruth, I reckon hyar hit air, 'cause hit looks jest like the
preacher said! Now help my arms ter keep hit with me, 'n' pray the Lawd
ter make my haid larn all the larnin' hit's got shet up in thar! 'N'
tell Him ter give my eyes the fu'st sight of ary danged skunk that'll
try ter crowd me outen hit, so's I kin kill 'im till he rots in hell;
'n' I'll be the Christian ye asked me ter!"

A gentle, almost a childish smile of satisfaction played across his
mouth, and the next moment he was walking forward, carefully and
reverently, as though the little schoolhouse were on holy ground.

The afternoon was waning, and the declining sun cast a genial glow upon
the weatherboarded front; gilding, too, the near side of a crooked
flag-pole set jauntily in the yard. Except for evidences of recent life
the place seemed utterly deserted, and emboldened, even though
disappointed by this, he went up to the door. Here again he hesitated,
for some one within was speaking. It was a woman's voice, raised in
command and fear.




CHAPTER II

AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE


"You may go home now," she was saying. There was a pause which carried
no sign or sound of movement. "You may go home, don't you understand?"

It was a voice that to the listening mountaineer seemed inexpressibly
sweet and caressing, in spite of the determination which made it a bit
unsteady. Still no answer. The silence was becoming unnatural.

"Tusk," she said again, "don't stand before me like this! Go home!"

Not knowing exactly what to do, but in a vague way feeling that he might
be needed, the stranger stepped cautiously to the door and peered in.

With her back to the blackboard and her arms rigid against her sides,
altogether in an attitude of one at bay, stood a girl. He first noticed
that her hands were tightly clenched, and then his look went upward.
Streaming through the window the same golden rays that burnished the
weatherboards and flag-pole touched the looser strands of her hair.
This, against the background of black, framed her upraised face with a
halo of lustrous glory, softening the parted lips rather than showing
them to be stamped with fear, but not disguising the terror which leapt
from her eyes as they stared, fairly hypnotized, at an ungainly man who
stood leering down at her. His head was set deep between massive,
stooping shoulders, and his arms were abnormally long, while the color
of his face indicated a diet, at some period of his life, of clay and
berries. Two fang-like teeth, curving outward as the tusks of a wild
boar--having furnished inspiration for the name by which he was most
popularly known--added a last fierce touch to his repulsive features.

"Go home," the girl repeated, now in a weaker voice.

"It ain't time to go home," he growled. "When kids don't know their
lessons you make 'em stay in, don't you? Well, I'm a-stayin', too!"

"Let me by this instant," she commanded, plucking another crumb of
courage from the sheer imminence of danger.

"Aw, come off yoh high airs," he leered. "Ain't you been standin' me up
afore the school an' actin' me like a fool? I ain't kicked, have I?
Well, what you want to go cuttin' up for now?"

Brains partly numbed, or over-excited by shock, sometimes take queer and
irrelevant channels of thought, and now the only thing on which she
seemed able to concentrate was a duel she had witnessed on that very
schoolhouse window sill but the previous day: a duel between a locust
and a wasp. They had fallen there in deadly embrace, the clumsier
holding his antagonist by brute strength that ultimately would break its
frail body; but the wily wasp, conscious of this danger, sent thrust
after thrust of its venomous stinger with lightning stabs up and down
its enemy's armor, trusting to chance that a vulnerable spot might be
found between the scales. She had watched this struggle with a
breathless pleasure--for at times she could be pagan as of old--and when
at last the little point slipped through, she felt no pity for the
locust; rather, was she tempted to stroke the victor as it crawled from
the suddenly relaxed grip of its stiffening foe, laved its wings,
polished its legs, and rose into the air.

Weak with the consciousness of her peril, this mental by-play urged her
to the necessity of speed; and, like the stinger, her mind began an
hysterical thrusting for a more subtle method of defense.

"Tusk, I'm sorry I stood you up before the class," she tried, in
speaking kindly, to hide her loathing. "But now you must go home at
once, or I shall never be able to let you come to school again!"

He laughed outright.

"Won't never let me come, no moh! Well, now jest heah that! Why, sissy,
you'd ortent git so mad! Kiss me like a nice gal, an' let's make up!"

"You beast," she cried, her fear suddenly bursting into an irresistible
rage. "You beast," she cried again, striking him in the face with all
her strength. "You'll be killed for this!"

For an instant he was stunned by the surprise of her attack, but then,
blind with fury, his gorilla-like arms shot out and caught her just as
she was turning to dash toward the door.

During this scene the newcomer had made several determinations to enter,
yet each was checked by a consciousness that he did not belong to this
country where he had been told strange customs prevailed. He was not at
all sure but that an interference would be seriously inapt. Once or
twice he had been on the verge of stealing back into the thicket for his
rifle, yet the schoolhouse drama held him too firmly chained for this.
Adopting now a middle course, he went up the four steps and entered with
an innocent air of one having just arrived. Blinking with a pretended
effort to make out the interior, he mildly asked:

"Is this Miss Jane's school?"

Tusk sprang back with a snarl, while the girl, twisting free and
frantically recovering her balance, came toward the new voice with hands
outstretched, bumping against the desks as one who had suddenly gone
blind. She could not speak, she could scarcely think, and only by the
sternest force of will would her knees bear up; but somewhere in front
of her stood deliverance, and to this she groped.

"Howdy," the new voice spoke again, as she felt a hand take one of her
own and press her toward a seat. "Ye look peak-éd; maybe ye'd better
set!"

Her composure was returning in bounds; for this girl, herself born in
the mountains, possessed too much innate fortitude to be long dominated
by fear.

"Thank you," her voice still trembled. "I--I must have been frightened."
Then quickly: "Yes, this is Miss Jane's school, and I am Miss Jane."

A curious sound rattled in the newcomer's throat, and his chin dropped
with stupid amazement. For a long moment he stared at her, his pupils
dilating and contracting in a strangely fascinating way, and his body
beginning slowly to rock from side to side as it had done in the thicket
across the road. But just now she was meeting his gaze with a look of
excited gladness.

"Yeou! Miss Jane?" he murmured, each syllable vibrating with some deep
timbre of admiration and protection. Another moment he stared, then his
eyes turned and rested unflinchingly on Tusk. It was a look particularly
expressive neither of surprise nor condemnation, hatred nor scorn, yet
its very impassivity carried a pulsing sense of danger, as though
something terrible were on the verge of happening and the various
elements of destruction were being hurriedly assembled. But quietly he
turned again to the girl.

"Lucy's outside. Maybe ye'd better let her take ye home!"

"Oh, ask her to come in," she cried, feeling the need of a woman perhaps
more than at any time in her life, and now fearful of another sort of
tragedy. She was not sure of how much this newcomer had seen, but his
look at Tusk was eloquent of one thing: that if these men were left
alone the building would receive its first stain of human blood. She
wanted to spare her schoolhouse this. It was her boast that no life
should go out by violence beneath its roof: for it had long been a
recognized custom in wilder regions of this country for men to choose
the wayside schools, the scattered churches or crossroads stores as
places from which to usher obtrusive neighbors into eternal rest.

"Wall, she can't do that," the newcomer thoughtfully replied, "seein' as
how she's my ole mare. But ye mought take her 'n' go home. Me 'n' this
feller'll watch yo' school!"

Looking from one to the other, weighing the chances of outwitting Tusk,
she lightly suggested:

"My own horse is in the shed. You may help me put on the saddle!"

"All right," he readily answered. "'N' yeou," he turned to Tusk, now
watching them with growing malignancy, "wait hyar till I git back: then
verily, verily, I say unto ye, we'll cast another devil outen the Lawd's
temple!"

She was alert to acquiesce in this. Her instinct said that unless
something tentative were left in view, some further part of the drama
held out to be played, the simple-minded Tusk would stop their going.
His dwarfed intelligence, gauged to one idea, might be satisfied to wait
only if waiting promised a climax. And as for the other's
returning--this new-found deliverer who was so thoroughly of the
mountains, yet whose dialect just now had savored of the "circuit-rider"
type--she felt able to cope with that exigency after they were outside.
So in her eagerness she had arisen, when Tusk stepped roughly to the
door and slammed it.

"Nobody's goin' home to-night," he growled, turning and glaring at them.

His eyes, set unusually deep and close together, flashed murder, and the
girl sank weakly back into a seat. For she knew Tusk's strength. She had
seen him shoulder a log under which two men were struggling and walk
firmly away with it. The very consciousness alone of this power was
oppressive. He could crush this other man with a blow.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath," a quiet voice whispered down to her,
and continued: "Let the gal out; she wants ter go home!"

"If you're some kind of a preacher," Tusk snarled at him, having also
noticed the Biblical character of speech, "git out yohse'f. But the gal
stays right heah till I'm ready fer her to go! An', young feller, mebbe
she'll be let go home, or mebbe she'll come 'long with me--I ain't
decided, but I won't be hindered by no one!" His voice was trembling
with increasing passion. "Now's yoh time to git, Mister Preacher, or, by
Gawd--" He drew a long, dirty knife from a hidden sheath, and seemed
unable to complete the sentence for his excited breathing.

"I hain't a preacher," the other quietly replied to him, "but I've jest
been sendin' a message ter the Lawd this very evenin', 'n' I reckon He
had me come in heah ter look ye over, bein' as how ye air one of them
sorry skunks I'm arter." And without warning he sprang like a panther at
the offender's throat.

The shock of his body sent Tusk backwards, tripping him over a desk
where both men went down in a heap. Almost before they struck the floor
the newcomer cried to her:

"Git the critter 'n' ride, Schoolteacher! Hit's yo' only chance!"

He had no more time to warn, for a series of sounds, sickening, bestial
sounds, told of a terrific struggle as feet and bodies and elbows dully
crashed against the desks on either side. It was a narrow aisle in which
to fight.

Yet she was not made of the stuff that would mount a horse and fly. Her
early life, when as a slip of a girl she stood many a night with rifle
in hand filling the place of lookout for an outlaw father who trafficked
in moonshine whisky, had taught her to be careless of physical dangers.
The terrors of a different sort of passion she had never known; but now,
with this averted, her nature leapt beyond the past eight years of
training--eight years spent in fitting herself as teacher for this
school--and transported her to those early days of partial savagery.
Again she was the little mountain outlaw, and the feeling was good, and
her heart bounded with a primeval pleasure of this excitement which was
routing every previous qualm of fright. Bent breathlessly forward, her
hands clenched into revengeful little fists, her cheeks and eyes aflame
and eager, her lips apart, and her nostrils dilated as though in very
truth they sought the smell of battle, she was not a picture of one who
would mount a horse and fly.

At the first rush Tusk's knife had fallen from his hand and now lay
almost at her feet. Stooping impulsively, she seized it, while at the
same moment he uttered a low chuckle of satisfaction and started to
arise. He did not move as one entirely free, but clinging to a burden,
and when his shoulders slowly appeared she saw that he was lifting the
other man, who still struck ineffectually at his face. Handling him
with no great exertion, he backed against a desk and forced the body
between his knees; then placing one huge, hairy hand behind his victim's
ear, and the other beneath his chin, he began calmly to twist.

Jane realized the hellishness of this move which with cruel certainty
would break the yielding neck. The mountaineer also knew, and put his
remaining strength into the struggle, yet only for a moment did it seem
to divert Tusk's purpose.

If the girl had previously looked the beautiful savage, she now became
its incarnation. With an agonized cry she screamed at him to stop, but
his answer was to pin the man more firmly and recommence the murderous
twisting.

It was a matter of seconds now. Any instant she might hear the snap, and
see the one who was giving his life for her quiver and become still. No
longer hesitating, she flew at them with the blade raised high and
poised herself for the stroke. Yet she could not send it. Again she
tried, and a sob of rage burst from her throat as the hand refused to
obey. Had the creature turned, it might have been less difficult; but
the utter revulsion of driving steel into unsuspecting and unresisting
flesh was more than she could master. Slowly the head was yielding to
those horrible hands, and the newcomer's eyes rested on her own for the
merest instant. It was the look of a courageous man sinking beneath
waves; but the sweat and whipcord veins were eloquent of his frenzied
resistance.

"Someone's coming! Someone's coming!" she suddenly cried, rushing to the
door and flinging it wide open.

Tusk looked up with a snarl.

"Quick! Quick!" she cried again. "Here, this way--quick! He's killing a
man! Oh, thank God!" She sprang back into the room, rapturously clasping
the knife to her breast. "They've come! They've come!"

With an oath Tusk flung his victim heavily to the floor and dashed to a
rear window through which he disappeared. She watched only long enough
to see that his rout was absolute--that her ruse of approaching help had
been successful. Then she turned.

The room seemed dark to her eyes which had just been peering into the
sunset's fading glow, and she walked with feeling steps toward the spot
where she knew the body lay, asking in a whisper: "Are you alive?" The
heavy silence made her shiver. There, at her feet, sprawled the shadowy
bulk, twisted and grotesque, and an uncontrollable feeling of loathing
crept over her.

With startling suddenness a quail, close by the open door, ripped out
his evening call, and she sprang back as though the thing upon the floor
had moved. Yet she continued to stare down at it, her cold hands pressed
against her burning cheeks--fascinated, horrified. A few little minutes
ago he had been a moving, feeling being like herself; and now he had
entered the portals of that mysterious eternity--at this very moment he
was standing before the calm scrutiny of God Himself! How was he
behaving in that great inspection? Trembling with bowed head, like
herself? Or smiling with a courage he had shown during his last earthly
moments while giving his life for her?

So vivid were these thoughts which raced like fury through her brain
that when the body did actually move she gave a piercing shriek of
terror. But she had recovered even before the echo of her voice
resounded through the little room and, instantly alert, brought the
drinking bucket from its shelf to bathe his face.

Kneeling there--or, rather, in an attitude of sitting on her crossed
feet--eagerly watching for another sign of life, the tenderness which
spoke in mute eloquence from every movement of her ministrations for the
stranger who had stood between her and insult, was a boon that might
have repaid any man for worse hurts than his. She drew his head upon her
lap and began carefully to staunch a trickle of blood flowing from a
small cut in his temple.

The sun went down, regretfully backing out of sight, and by its slow
retreat seeming loath to leave them to the somber night. She did not
notice its decline, but in the afterglow leaned nearer, pushing back his
matted hair and searching each of his well-molded features. There was
nothing of a personal interest in the look; there was nothing in the
contact of their touch that aroused in her the least personal appeal. He
was merely a thing hurt, a thing wounded in her defense.

Again from outside the window came a call, the swinging, twilight-eerie
notes of a whip-poor-will; while, from afar off, somewhere in the black
woods, hooted an owl. Softly, but with a restless spirit, the
night-wind began to stir; and a murmur, like the winnowing of many
wings, passed tremulously through the branches which swept the
schoolhouse roof. But now she was unafraid.




CHAPTER III

THE WOUNDED MOUNTAINEER


She was no longer fearful for his life. Saner deductions had recalled
how he was fighting up to the moment Tusk threw him off, and this
precluded the probability of a broken neck. The small abrasion over his
temple, where it must have struck a desk, could alone be responsible for
the unconsciousness which, she now felt assured, would soon be passing.

Had Jane been dressed as a nun, the picture she made with the young
mountaineer's head upon her lap would have startled the world. None of
those discerning critics who stalk the galleries on varnishing day could
have passed a canvas such as this without bending their rusty knees at
least one creak in humble reverence. For God had carefully blessed her
with a Madonna-like loveliness, a matchless purity, which held
enthralled all who came suddenly upon that look. Perhaps it was not
known in Heaven where she got her smile. It was this, when rippling from
eyes to mouth, and lingering about the ovals of her cheeks, that could
have swayed Faith upon its base or chained it thrice firmly to the Rock.

She had first acquired a pleasant suspicion of this years before in the
convent up the valley, where the good sisters had given her shelter.
Early one morning on mischief bent, at the very peep of dawn, she had
filched the garb of old sister Methtune and, supporting its bulky skirt,
demurely walked into the Mother Superior's sanctified chamber. What that
good woman thought as she raised herself up from her couch is not
recorded even in her conscience, but Jane was sent in haste to replace
the nun's attire. While passing a glass door in a dimly lit hall she
saw, for the first time in her life, her own face. For five, ten minutes
she continued to look back into this heretofore undiscovered and sinful
reflector, sometimes laughing, sometimes making grimaces. Then for
another ten minutes she simply stared. Sister Methune was late getting
to her devotions that morning.

But this incident had occurred eight years ago, when she was scarcely
thirteen. Until then she had literally grown up like a weed--or a wild
rose--a half-savage little creature of the Cumberlands, loving
passionately, hating blindly, doing all things with the full intensity
of a vivid, whole-souled temperament. She lived in a cabin many miles
from the more civilized country where the convent lay, under the
questionable protection of a noted feudist father, who was usually
making moonshine when not stalking his enemies. Her cherished glimpses
of civilization came during one month each year--July--when she picked
especially fat and luscious blackberries in remote spots known only to
her, and sold them in the valley to Colonel John May, whose white
columned house might be seen on clear days from the convent tower.

One of her visits happened upon a day when the place was enlivened by
his daughter's approaching wedding. A distinguished house-party had
assembled, among whom a city-bred young fellow had been attracted by her
wild beauty. Safe from the eyes of his friends he followed her through
the woodland pasture, and talked to her; and it had seemed a very
natural thing. Mountain girls mature early, and she was a woman for all
her tender years; a twelve and a half year old woman, partly savage,
masquerading in the guise of a girl. He was dazzling to her and
pleasing. But suddenly he kissed her and, infuriated, she flung the
empty bucket in his face and fled. The gods may know where she learned
the difference between right and wrong.

In a passion of shame and bitter hatred, she hurled back at him every
oath her father, in his most prolific moments, had ever used. It was a
wondrous collection. Her only idea was to reach home and return with the
rifle, and so insistent was this that she ran most of the twelve
intervening miles. Reaching at last the cabin clearing, she panted up
its steep side, through burnt stumps and sparsely growing corn, to the
door; but there across the sill her father lay face down and motionless.
He might have been drunk, and so at first she thought, until her
approach revealed a little hole in the back of his head. She stared at
him like an image of wood, then sank upon the floor, putting her lips
close to his ear.

"Pappy," she said, in a quick whisper, "Pappy, tell me who done hit! I
know ye air daid--but can't ye tell me jest that?"

Her first impulse was of revenge, but slowly the love--unmerited as it
may have been--and the sense of loss, of loneliness, came over her like
a great wave, and with her face on his still shoulder she wailed her
wretched grief to the silent wilderness. When she looked up it was
sundown. She realized that whoever had killed him might come back for
her--might now, indeed, be "layin' out" for her; and yet she could not
leave him unburied! Her hands grasped his shirt and she frantically
tugged, bracing her heels against the roughly hewn log door-step, in a
vague way hoping that she might drag him to a spot where the ground
would be soft enough to dig. A few minutes of this fruitless effort
compelled her to give it up.

"Pappy, can't ye help me, jest a leetle?" she had whispered in despair.
And then the tears would flow again.

She went stealthily to the edge of the corn patch and listened. A
lingering afterglow touched the broken rows of skyward-pointing tassels,
but the valley below her lay shrouded in gloom. Night was creeping up
the mountain side; she could see it, feel it in the horrible silence.
All alone in that stark vastness of crags, disregarding those who might
be "layin' out" for her, she put her hands to her mouth and called; then
leaned forward, holding her breath and listening. There was not even an
echo. So she turned wearily back to the cabin and tenderly covered that
which she was leaving with a quilt from her own bed, whispering:

"Gawd, nor nobody, don't seem ter heah me tonight--ye poh, ole Pappy!"

The only cabin where she might hope for help was three miles away; the
home of a partial friend--at least no enemy. Reaching it after a
perilous walk through a roadless, bridgeless wilderness, she stood
outside the crooked gate and called "Hallo." Again and again she called
till, in desperation scoffing at the risk--for it is never wise to
approach the Kentucky mountaineer's home nearer than his front gate
without an invitation--she walked boldly to the door. It was open, and
she peered into the darkness. No fire had been lighted for supper. She
kneeled on the sill and felt around with her hand. First she touched an
overturned chair, then a piece of broken lamp chimney, then a man's
foot; but the man was not standing, the toes were up. Her heart turned
to ice, yet the need of help was too imperative to turn away from any
hope, so again she reached for the clumsy boot and fearfully moved it to
see if he might be merely asleep, or drunk. The leg was stiff, and, with
another shudder, she turned and fled.

By early morning she had dragged herself down from the mountains and
staggered through the convent gate. Here, at least, in one of those
modest retreats, which generations ago slipped into the remoter valleys
of young Kentucky for their voluntary exile, she would find help! Many
an afternoon when the world was blithe she had been wont to stop and
listen to the mellow peal of its bell floating across her mountains on
an easterly evening breeze, and in all of this torturing night of
wandering she imagined it was calling. The good sisters gathered her in
as though she were that more treasured lamb than the ninety and nine,
nor would they hearken to her leaving. The sheriff soon came to their
call, and in his honest, gruff voice promised reverently to perform the
last services at her cabin. Then she began to find peace.

But after three years here, when she had absorbed all that their patient
teaching could impart, her mind grew disturbed with a new restlessness.
It may have been that life was becoming monotonous; or that pictures of
the great world, of which she had only had a glimpse, whetted her
curiosity to go forth and see; or, more than these, it may have been her
innate love for those mountains, and those mountain people--after all,
her people. For she had come to learn that the blow she suffered had
been struck through simple ignorance, and from this knowledge gradually
developed a resolution, inspiring her with courage to approach the
Mother Superior for permission to go back into the world and teach. She
reminded the good woman that she had taken no vows, and horrified her by
admitting that she had accepted no creed, save that of help to fellow
man. After an hour of tearful, never-to-be-forgotten argument, the
Mother gave signs of yielding.

It happened that upon this same afternoon Colonel May arrived, bringing
some of his guests to see the convent. He was held in very high esteem
by these nuns, although differing from their religious views, and if he
did not quite atone for this by the frequent intervals with which the
bounties of his farm added to their modest comfort, he did, at least,
merit their impersonal affection. So it followed that the good Mother,
being perplexed and sore in mind over her duty to the girl, led him
aside.

He was deeply affected by her story, and recalled the child who
suggested faint memories of toothsome berries. Conscious of the pressing
need for more schools in the rural districts of his State--especially in
the neighborhood of his own home--and spontaneously in sympathy with her
ambition, he so earnestly espoused her cause with promises to keep her
under his protection, that the last doubt vanished from the good woman's
eyes.

What the sisters had been unable to do for her, the generous Colonel
fully accomplished. She was taken away to a most excellent school and,
after five years, returned to him a thoroughly proficient young lady.
Graceful, possessing a finish and magnetism which her wild origin made
more peculiarly attractive, sympathetic, frank, normal, and exceedingly
good to look upon, she excelled even those hopes which he had built
during her absence. A fortnight later the quail and whip-poor-wills,
near the thicket where the wounded mountaineer's mare now stood, had
been startled by the rat-tat of hammers and the song of saws; and that
September she found herself, at nearly twenty-one, in possession of a
well equipped schoolhouse, whose fame spread far during this, its first
year of existence. But while her own years of study and acquiring
culture had charmingly toned the surface of her nature, the earlier
intensity, the freedom of thought and behavior which are the natural
heritage of those born in wild places, still simmered like a resting
volcano.

And now, as her handkerchief went mechanically from the pail to the
forehead of the wounded man, a shadowy procession of these thoughts
glided by in a fantastic panorama. In the stillness of the place ghosts
of the old life reached out and clasped hands with actualities of the
new; clasped hands, and danced, and arabesqued before her fancy until it
seemed as if her entire life were performing there upon the dusky floor.
If only her future could perform! She pressed the handkerchief more
firmly to the wound, and waited.

Some distance along the road two men were hurriedly driving. The breeze
carried this sound to her quick ears and, gently lowering the
mountaineer's head, she went to the door. The whip-poor-wills abruptly
hushed, for they, too, had caught the sound; and amidst that strained
expectancy of woods life, which grows so tense as daylight fails, she
waited.

When the approaching buggy came out of the dusk she saw what she had
been expecting, Colonel May driving a powerful chestnut, and, with him,
Bob Hart; not so great in stature, but resembling the older man in grace
and manner as though he might in fact have been his son, instead of his
daughter's husband.

A groan from the room made her hesitate on the point of rushing out to
meet them, so she halloed between her hands while they alighted. A smile
of extreme relief crossed her face as they came up.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're here," she cried, with pretended lightness.

"And you, my dear," the Colonel panted in his eagerness to reach her,
"are more welcome still to us! What has happened that kept you?"

"Don't be alarmed," she answered, touched by the anxiety in his voice.
"There's a man hurt in here. He's been unconscious for an hour--but just
groaned!"

"Stabbed or shot?" Bob asked, pushing in and lighting the kerosene
ceiling lamp. Its flame rose stupidly, but soon cast a luminous circle
that framed the man, the bucket, the sodden handkerchief and splashes of
blood-stained water on the floor, in a tragic, still-life picture.

"Stabbed or shot?" the Colonel repeated after Bob.

"Neither," she murmured. "He fought Tusk Potter, but I'm sure it's no
worse than a blow on the head as he fell."

"My word! My word!" the old gentleman exploded. "I've always been
concerned about your permitting that half-witted outlaw to come here!
Where is he now?" He glared into the dark corners with the light of
battle in his eyes.

The unconscious man mumbled and stirred, moving as one asleep will
sometimes shift to a more comfortable position. Bob, already by him on
the floor, looked up, saying:

"He's coming about all right. What shall we do, Colonel?"

"Leave him down the road," the Colonel snapped. "Tom Hewlet's house'll
be good enough, and I'll pay the rascal's niece to nurse him, if he
requires it. Why did they fight?" He turned abruptly to Jane.

"He--he resented something Tusk said."

"Something Tusk said to _you_?" The old warrior looked more ferocious
than ever.

She nodded.

The Colonel's jaws came together with a snap. "By God, sir," he
exclaimed to Bob, "we'll take him home, sir! He shall have the best room
in Arden, sir, and all the doctors in the county! No gentleman can
defend you, my dear," he took her hand, "and be left at run-down hovels
on the roadside. The very suggestion, sir," he turned his frowning brows
again on Bob, "is unworthy, sir!"

The young planter burst into a spontaneous laugh.

"It was certainly careless of me," he admitted, "and when our friend
here perks up I'll apologise. I say, old chap," taking one of the inert
wrists, "can't you come to for awhile?"

There was a slight twitching about the mouth, then the eyes opened,
wearily at first, but the next moment wide with surprise. The Colonel
bent over him.

"You have met with a mishap, sir," he said most gently. "If you've no
friends hereabouts I offer you the hospitality of my home, which I trust
you will honor me by accepting."

The mountaineer slowly raised himself to a sitting position, passed a
hand over his forehead, and asked:

"What's hospitality?"

The question, the drawling quality of his voice which sounded as mellow
as though someone had struck a chord upon a harp, surprised them out of
an answer. Rousing further, he continued:

"I hain't got no friends 'round hyar--lest, as Ruth says, all things is
friends."

"Must be a Shaker," Bob whispered, and the Colonel, with an indulgent
smile, remarked:

"I bow to the charity of Miss Ruth's opinion, though I should scarcely
expect so prompt an indorsement from one in your present position. But
come, sir, and we'll help you to our buggy."




CHAPTER IV

A HUMAN ENIGMA


When the mountaineer had been assisted to his feet, he stood for a
moment, with his legs apart, swaying with giddiness; then, aware that
they were observing this, he looked at the Colonel and laughed. It was a
silent laugh, of the eyes and mouth and a movement in the throat. One
could not help thinking that should he let it out it would be deep and
musical.

With growing interest, and no slight amusement, they followed him to the
door where he gave a low whinnying sound that made Bob's stylish
chestnut look up with intelligent expectancy. Then back in the thicket
sounded a faint answer, followed by a crackling of brush, as the old
mare came obediently forward. Jane's horse, also, spoke inquisitively
from the shed where it was stabled, and the night sounds hushed again at
this intrusion of noises.

"I am Colonel May, of this county, sir," the old gentleman said, smiling
at the man's knack of mimicry. "My home, Arden, is but a few miles off."

"Howdy," replied the mountaineer, taking the proffered hand an instant
late and not seeming to realize they might want to be knowing who he
was. The Colonel and Bob exchanged glances.

"Perhaps," he ventured again, "you should drive with me and let Mr. Hart
here ride your horse. This is Mr. Hart, sir!"

"Howdy," Bob soberly put out his hand. "My whole name is Bob Hart, this
county, sir; and my home is known as Flat Rock--also at your service!"

The mountaineer thanked the Colonel with one perfunctory word, said
"Howdy" to Bob, then stepped out to Lucy who gave another low whinny of
welcome and rubbed her nose fondly into his hand. But something seemed
to be weighing heavily on his mind; his brows were contracted, his head
inclined in thought; and at last, having apparently worked it out, he
turned to them, announcing simply:

"This is Lucy!"

"Howdy," said Bob, still keeping an impassive face.

There came another moment of thought. Then:

"I'm Dale Dawson, of Sunlight Patch, in the mountings, suh." He said
this in so clever an imitation of their own introductions that it seemed
a caricature.

"_Chapeaux bas!_" the Colonel murmured, throwing Jane into the most
unlady-like fit of giggles.

"Where did it come from?" Bob asked later. He was riding with her a
hundred yards behind the buggy that held the Colonel and Dale, the old
rifle sticking out at the back like a bean pole.

"A heaven-sent deliverer," she quietly answered.

"I appreciate that," he said, in a more serious vein.

Her very reticence told him how deeply she had been shocked, and that it
was a subject to be avoided, for the present, at least. Bob was quick
to divine situations. For the moment, then, he drifted into another
channel, saying with a laugh that could hardly have been called
spontaneous:

"If he's an example of celestial types I'll--"

"Lead a different life?" she interrupted, smiling.

"No such plagiarism, thank you," he retorted. "I was about to say
something else!"

"You've been giving Bip some most unfatherly theories about that place,
by the way," she observed. "He has confided in me."

"Bip," Bob quietly remarked, with an oozing pride in the subject of his
six-year-old son, "has reached the age of embarrassing questions."

"And is being fed unpardonable answers," she said. "Between old Aunt
Timmie's declaration that it'll smell like heliotrope and taste like
possum the year 'round, and Uncle Zack swearing it's just a big race
track where everybody's horse will win, and doubtless the Colonel's word
for it that it's a perpetual spring flowing with ice-cold mint juleps, I
quite despair of the child's salvation. How have you been picturing it?"

"I passed that on," he ruefully admitted. "You and Ann can tackle it."

"I wasn't home this afternoon at his lesson time. Did he miss me?"

"Miss you! Ann says he went to your room about five o'clock, and then
came running to her saying something had happened to you. She was quite
a while getting him settled. And then, much shame to us, we realized
you'd not got back. I drove over to the Colonel's really expecting you
had stopped there." After a brief pause he asked: "Was that fellow much
unruly? I wouldn't disturb you about it, but think you ought to tell
us."

"About five o'clock," the girl mused. "That's most interesting, Bob.
I've told you, haven't I, that the child is tremendously psychic?"

"I don't know just what psychic is," he laughed. "It sounds like
medicine." And then repeated his other question: "Was Tusk much unruly?"

"Oh, no," she lightly answered. "Has Mr. McElroy been up in the hills
today?"

"There's the laziest chap in clothes," he declared. "I don't believe
he's done a lick of work since he came--and that's two months ago!
Personally, I don't care. He's bully company, and I'm not rabid for that
dinky little railroad, anyhow."

"It'll make all the difference to the mountaineers' future," she said.

"Quite right," he agreed, "and cut through my best pasture."

"Not your best pasture, surely!"

"My dear Jane, don't you know that when a railroad kills your cow it's
always your best cow? Pastures accordingly! Still," he added with a wry
look, "the people's good comes first, doesn't it! That's the proper
motto!" And suddenly he began to laugh. "Brent and your new friend up
there in the buggy ought to be a combination to keep the Colonel amused
for awhile! What do you think?"

She, too, had to laugh. The mental picture of the immaculate,
devil-may-care Brent McElroy--sent down in behalf of his father's
corporation to develop coal fields, to run a line for the little
railroad which Bob had just characterized as "dinky," and otherwise to
put into practice college experiences not included in its
curriculum--chumming with this new child of nature, threw them again
into peals of mirth.

"I wish someone would urge him on faster, anyhow," she said, more
seriously now.

"Why don't you try," he suggested.

They had turned into the lane, a mile of cool meanderings that led from
the pike to hospitable Arden, and for awhile rode in contemplative
silence. Faintly glimmering lights, yellow between the trees, from time
to time twinkled a welcome from the classic old house. Through four
generations of the Colonel's family this place had stood; occasionally
being altered to meet the requirements of comfort, but its stately
colonial front and thick brick walls remained intact. And for four
generations the neighborhood had looked at it with deep respect.

Valiantly had it held the fortification against encroaching modernism,
yet by slow degrees surrendering. A telephone had taken the place of the
more picturesque negro on a mule; the rural delivery of mail had made
another breach in the walls of seclusion. Only an automobile the Colonel
would not essay, declaring himself too much a lover of horseflesh to
offend his thoroughbreds with this; but when a touring car occasionally
penetrated as far as Arden, it was noticeable that his horses viewed it
with less suspicion than their master. Fortunately for the old
gentleman's peace of mind such a form of vehicle remained a novelty in
this section of Kentucky. The pike out of Buckville was good for a few
miles only, and then came almost impassable stretches of unworked roads
before connecting with those beautiful highways which wind and interwind
through the creamier centers of the State--a condition that did not
invite motorists.

Now as they drew near to the vine and tree entangled yard, the massive
white columns stood out through the gloom to meet them. From some of the
outlying cabins, former quarters of slaves, came low, minor singing of
present day field hands. However many times Bob approached this place,
his thoughts reverted to the evenings--half a score of years behind
him--when he would ride across from his own farm to court the Colonel's
daughter. He was thinking of this, of its sweetness to him then, of its
blessings to him now, and quietly said:

"When you marry I hope you will be as happy as I am."

"Existence is satisfying enough with you and Ann and Bip," she lightly
replied, "unless you want to get rid of me!"

He flushed, and turned almost angrily.

"There, I take it back," she said in tones as soft as the night. "It was
horrid! You've been so splendid in giving me a home--although I do
sometimes feel guilty for not being with the Colonel after all he's
done! Yet, were I there, I couldn't give nearly as much time to Bip.
Nothing can--"

"I wish you'd chop that," he growled. "You talk like you're under an
obligation, when you know darn well--"

"I was saying," she looked up brightly, "that nothing can take its
place, not even your suggested slavery; and there isn't a man in the
world whom I wouldn't despise for asking me. I just don't feel a bit
like it!"

"Lord help us!" he cried. "When will D. Cupid, Esquire, discover this
pristine hunting ground? You've a blue ribbon surprise in store for you,
that's all!"

"Perhaps Mr. D. Dawson will spring it," she laughed.

"Or the _blasé_ B. McElroy," he suggested.

She made a grimace at this.

Lucy whinnied, and they saw the Colonel and Dale waiting at the bottom
step.

"Come in for awhile," the old gentleman urged.

"Now, Colonel," Bob said reproachfully, "do you know anything of Ann's
temper when under suspense?"

"I see, sir," his eyes wrinkled into a merry smile, "that you're as much
of a nigger about the house over there as I was when she honored me by
living here. Go home to your tyrant, sir, but come over, all of you,
tomorrow for dinner."

Lucy, now free of her burden, crossed to the silent but watchful
mountaineer and nestled her nose in his arm. It was an evidence of
affection which touched them all.

As Bob and Jane were leaving, in the buggy this time, they heard the
Colonel ask Uncle Zack if Mr. McElroy were home, and that old darky of
diminutive stature answer:

"No, sah, Cunnel, he done rid off harf hour ago."

"Maybe," Jane presently suggested, when they were well on their way,
"he's gone over to our house!"

"Maybe," Bob replied, wondering where of late the young engineer had
been spending his evenings.

"Do you know," she said irrelevantly, after a silence of several
minutes, "I believe a man in whom animals show implicit faith is to be
trusted."

"In this particular case, perhaps," he agreed, for it just so happened
that he, too, now was thinking of Dale. "Yet old Tom Hewlet has a lot of
dogs which fawn all over him!"

"That's so," she acquiesced, and both again fell silent.




CHAPTER V

AN INTERRUPTED BREAKFAST


About the time that Colonel May was finishing breakfast, consisting this
particular morning of strawberries raised in his own greenhouse, calf's
brains, omelet, fried apples and bacon, fried sweet potatoes, beaten
biscuits, rice cakes, and coffee, Bob Hart was riding across the open
country toward Arden. His right arm hung limberly down in a graceful
perpendicular, unaffected by the galloping motion of his horse, and his
fingers were clasped about the lock of a repeating rifle, pointed muzzle
to the ground. On his face was stamped a look of stern absorption that
relaxed only as he neared occasional fences, but when these had been
hurdled and his mount had again caught its stride, the preoccupation
returned. Although his eyes were lowered, he did not see the ground, nor
the mild surprise of grazing Jerseys past which he dashed. He saw
nothing now beyond a most unpleasant picture which circumstance was
holding up to him.

Jumping into an open woodland pasture he reined to a more leisurely
canter; for here were the very young colts, now crowding nearer the
protection of their dams, which, in one or two instances, with heads and
tails high, trotted toward this impertinent horseman as though
questioning his right of entrance. They soon abandoned this, but stood
looking after him like watchful sentinels until he had risen to the next
fence, and they felt that their foals were free from menace. But he
cantered on, hardly mindful of their unrest. Through ancient beeches now
he went, trees whose downward sweeping boughs spread out in mute
protection above the carpet of spring grass and violets; then he turned
into the cedar-bordered avenue, and soon passed between the crumbling
brick-and-plaster gate-posts to the tangled yard of Arden.

It was then, glancing across the side terrace, that Colonel May observed
him, and laying aside his napkin he went somewhat hastily through the
cool, deep hall and out upon the front porch. A tender expression
lingered about his strong face as the younger man swung into the circle;
a tenderness mingled with approval for the stylish animal that picked up
its feet from the odorous tanbark with a precision bespeaking
generations of thoroughbred ancestors. The Colonel was a great believer
in breeding.

Only when Bob dismounted did the old gentleman see the rifle, and the
seriousness in his eyes. He made no move or comment, but waited while a
darky led back the horse and Bob was seated.

"Has Brant gone out to work?" were the young man's first words.

"I think he's not yet up," the Colonel's look of anxiety deepened. "You
don't want to see him for--for anything?"

"No," Bob smiled. "And Dale--er--Dawson?"

"Left before I came downstairs, sir," the Colonel answered. "What is it,
Bob? Tell me!"

Bob's eyes passed the Colonel and rested on the drive up which he had
just come. With an attempt at casualness he said:

"That Potter fellow did more yesterday than I guessed."

There was no alteration in the old gentleman's attitude; he did not sit
bolt upright in his chair, or grasp its arms until his knuckles showed
white, but simply said:

"Tell me!"

"She went straight to her room when we got home," Bob continued in a
more excited undertone. "Ann followed, of course, and found her
desperately nervous, half crying with rage." He then related practically
what had happened at the school, concluding: "Aunt Timmie slept in her
room all night, and when Jane asks her to do that you know she's upset."

They heard Uncle Zack moving inside the hall, and the Colonel called
him:

"Have Tempest brought up," he said, and to Bob: "I shall be right down,
sir."

Uncle Zack came quickly back to the porch, for his eyes had seen things
which electrified him. This old darky, shriveled up with his burden of
toil and years, who had been the Colonel's servant, adviser, and
comforter since both of them were boys, was too truly a member of the
family to permit anything to occur without pushing well into its
secrets. Until a few years ago, his wife, Aunt Timmie, had divided this
welcome office with him; but after the wedding, and about the time when
Bob's household began to walk on tiptoe in fearful and happy expectancy,
old Timmie left, bag and baggage, for the younger home, where she had
thereafter remained as nurse, comforter, scolder and chief director of
the new heir, as well as of the premises in general. The Colonel having
lately suggested that Mr. Hart, Jr.,--or Bip, for short--being now six
years of age, was too big for her to manage, had called forth an
eloquent outburst, which concluded with the terse observation: "If I
could handle his Pappy an' Mammy, an' his Gran'pappy an' Gran'mammy
befoh him, an' all de Mays an' Harts borned dese las' hund'ed yeahs,
how-cum I ain' able to handle him?" And that had settled it, so each
household gloried in the possession of one of these rare servants,
spoiled by love, mellowed by age, and wise by scores of years of
experience.

Old Zack now whispered, looking Bob squarely in the eyes:

"Whar you-all gwine, Marse Bob?"

"Hunting, Uncle Zack."

"Huntin'!" he gave a snort of impatience. "Dat ain' no shot-gun! Hit's
man huntin' you'se all arter, dat's what! Dar's been funny doin's 'round
heah dis mawnin', 'caze dat gemmen wid de long haih what come las' night
done skin out 'foh sun-up, ridin' dat onery white cradle of his'n what
he calls a hawse, an' totin' de rustiest, wickedest ole gun I ever seen.
He say _he's_ gwine huntin', too; arter squir'ls, he say, an' I'se fool
'nuff to believe him. Is a wah done broke out, Marse Bob?"

"I expect he really did go after squirrels, Uncle Zack, sure enough I
do. But the Colonel and I won't be long, and it's nothing serious, so
you just keep mum about it. Whatever you do, don't let Miss Liz know."

"She's de ve'y fu'st one I'se gwine tell, lest I git mah brains better
sot on dis heah fracas!" He gave a low chuckle, adding: "Lor', chile,
Miss Liz ain' gwine know nuthin'. Ole Zack kin keep mum an' fool de
smartes' of 'em! Didn' I fetch Marse John's djeulin' pistols one Sunday
mawnin' right under de Bible layin' on de cushion we cyarried to chu'ch
fer ole Miss to kneel on? An' didn' we-all walk plumb up de aisle, an'
fix her nice an' easy in her pew, an' den slip out an' go down on de
crick whar de gemmens wuz waitin', an' shoot dat young Mister Green in
de lung? 'Deed we did," he chuckled again, scratching his head as though
the reminiscence were ticklesome--then looked up with a sly smile:
"Whilst we wuz a-drivin' home dat day, ole Miss she say: 'You wuz late,
son,' she say; an' I heah him say: 'Yes mam, a gemmen sont word he'd lak
to see me,' he say. Den ole Miss ax: 'Did you find 'im, son?' 'Yes mam,'
Marse John say, 'I foun' 'im, all right.' Ole Miss pat de back of his
han', croonin' in dat soft voice of her'n: 'You'se a great comfo't, an'
always so 'siderate of others!' At dat, I jest bust plumb out
a-laughin', but turned it to sich a wicked-soundin' chokin' spell dat
dey's 'bleeged to lean over an' beat mah back; an' while Marse John wuz
a-puttin' on de licks, an' mighty nigh killin' me, he whisper: 'You
black rascal, ef you don' behave I'll shoot you nex' Sunday!' Oh, dem
wuz days what wuz days, Marse Bob; dey wuz fer a fac'! Ain' you-all
gwine fight no one dis mawnin'?"

"You bloodthirsty old villain," Bob laughed. "Don't you know that
gentlemen now go to law in adjusting their differences?"

Uncle Zack stood a moment looking at the rifle, apparently in
retrospective reverie. Finally he observed:

"I spec dat's right. Dey may 'just dey diff'ences wid deyse'ves
dat-a-way, but dey sholy make 'em 'parrent to de neighbors. In de ole
days, a gemmen say to a gemmen: 'Yoh fence is too fur on mah line, sah!'
An' de gemmen answer back: ''Tain' no sich a-thing, sah!' So dey frien's
come by in de mawnin', an' has a julep, an' slips out de back way; an'
dat evenin' de neighbors is all sayin': 'Too bad! Bofe sich fine
gemmen!' Nowdays," he concluded, "dey go to cou't wid dey diff'ences,
an' when it's all over de neighbors say: 'My! Who'd ever thought dem men
wuz sich skallawags!' De cou'ts may be all right in dey way, Marse Bob,
but dey suttenly do strip a man of his se'f respec'."

The Colonel came out drawing on his gloves. He made a striking figure in
his riding togs. Tall, dignified, careful of address and slow of
movement--though not the slowness of embonpoint--he would have attracted
attention anywhere. Years had added no roundness to his frame. His nose
was aquiline, perhaps a trifle too fine in lines; and his mouth might
have been too large if uncovered by a silvery white mustache, whose
training bespoke a minute, an almost effeminate, care. Now he looked
every inch a gentleman going for a morning canter, except for the
compact, high-powered rifle resting easily in the hollow of his arm.

"Zack," he cautioned, "when Miss Liz comes down, merely say that Mr.
Robert and I are riding."

"Lor', Marse John, she ain' gwine know nuthin' 'bout it. She's jest lak
yoh mammy dat-a-way; never 'spectin' folks to git in no devilment."

"What do you mean, you black rascal," the Colonel thundered.

Zack rolled his eyes from the old gentleman's face to his rifle, and
back again. Then his own face disappeared into a multitude of wrinkles
while he silently chuckled.

"You-alls jest as pure as de Heaven's blue," he murmured, holding his
sides and shaking. "Reckon I'd better git mah coat!"

"Oh, no, Zack," the Colonel stopped him. "You must stay here."

"Marse John," the old darky approached with a troubled look, "you never
used to go on dese heah trips widout Zack! Ain' you gwine take 'im
'long? Dar ain' no one else is got de knack of holdin' you up ef you
gits stung some, an' you knows it, Marse John!"

He stood in an humble attitude of pleading, looking up at his white
master with eyes as brown and soft as a deer's, notwithstanding the
opaque circles which age had begun to form about their irises. The
Colonel smiled affectionately down at him.

"This is to be nothing of that sort, Zack," he said, "or I would take
you, truly I would. We will return shortly, and shall be expecting some
of your best juleps." For the Colonel belonged to that school of
Kentucky gentlemen, still existing if not flourishing as of yore, whose
daily routine was punctuated into poetic rhythm by fragrant mint and
venerable bourbon with a regularity that would have brought confusion to
a younger generation. Once in a great while he took too much, and once
every year he slipped off to "the springs" as a safeguard against gout.
His type was passing, and for this reason he was even more beloved; but
his example was present, which brought its measure of regret to those
who loved him best. Zack, alone, encouraged the Colonel in whatsoever he
desired; at toddy time, or duel, the old darky had always been found
ready and proud to assist.




CHAPTER VI

THE BURNED CABIN


A thoroughbred man, sitting a thoroughbred horse, with an articulation
that makes them both seem molded into one piece of flesh, is a magnet
for admiration; and when Uncle Zack saw both the Colonel and Bob gallop
out through the trees, their heads up, their rifles swinging gracefully
down, their mounts bristling with power and intelligence, his eyes
sparkled and he took a deep breath of satisfaction.

Passing by the stable way, the riders entered a dirt road and held a
course due east. Finally Colonel May broke the silence.

"Do you know where he lives?"

"Near about," Bob answered. "We won't have any trouble finding it."

"It's a pity the sheriff can't take this duty from us," the older man
said. "It's a pity we have no system of law that will spare women from
unpleasant notoriety under such conditions. Men of the South would be
less quick to take matters into their own hands if they were assured
that the occasional women who may suffer would be spared the further
suffering of public embarrassment in open court."

"Yes," Bob assented, "but this is our only way, so far. Shall we kill
him?"

"My mind is still in solution as to that," the Colonel gravely answered.
"It has not yet crystallized. If he were not the poor half-wit he is, we
would by all means. Under the circumstances, I hardly think we have the
right. Yet, after all is said, he may be just the sort who should be put
out of harm's way. However, the most we will do will be to frighten him
out of the country;--unless he stands his ground."

"He'll doubtless do that, and open on us when we come in sight," Bob
suggested. "Of course, he'll know what we're after."

"I think it likely," the Colonel replied. "Let me caution you against
unnecessary risks."

Some two or three miles from Arden the dirt road sharply began its climb
into the Knobs, and through this rough and wooded foothill country of
the farther Cumberlands, scarred by cliffs and ravines, they rode in
silence. At last Bob spoke.

"We're not far off. His shack is somewhere in here."

They were riding at a quick walk, alert, watching up each ravine for
signs of habitation, when suddenly a man, rifle in hand, stepped out two
hundred yards ahead of them. A lightning touch of rein and spur, and
both horses had sprung instantly apart, while the two repeaters flew
with exact precision to the riders' shoulders. To their surprise,
however, the man raised his hand.

"What do you make of this?" the Colonel asked in a cautious tone, when
they had recognized Dale advancing, instead of the expected Potter.

"Squirrel hunting," Bob answered. "He told Zack."

Dale came with the long stride peculiar to his people, the stride with
which they cover thirty miles a day and think it no great walk.

"Good mawnin'," he called, in a drawling voice. "There's no game in
these parts."

He advanced with perfect ease--the ease of a wild thing walking at
will--and the smile that illumined his face made it almost handsome.
Absorbed even as the Colonel and Bob were in their own mission, and
surprised by this unexpected interruption, they exchanged glances at his
rather correct form of speech. Several times the evening before Colonel
May had been impressed by this, and had thought of it after getting into
bed, determining then to speak of it in the morning. So, recurring to
him now, he said in an undertone:

"That fellow knows how to talk well."

"He does, and he doesn't," Bob replied. "Jane and I were speaking of it
last night. If you'll notice, when he gets excited, or much interested,
he's like a typical mountaineer. Only when careful is it otherwise. He's
a funny cuss, but, gee, Colonel, look at that power! I'll bet he can run
a hundred miles without turning a hair!"

The figure was almost up to them.

"There isn't anything to shoot," he said again, with a meaning smile of
confidence.

"What are you hunting, sir?" the Colonel asked, after a polite exchange
of greetings.

Dale looked at them and chuckled. It was a sign of comradeship, of
fellowship; the sort of chuckle in which two boys might indulge if,
having entered a jam closet from opposite sides and each unknown to the
other, they suddenly meet face to face.

"I'm huntin' the same sort of game you-all air, I reckon," he remarked,
pushing back his hat. "But it's gone."

"Squirrels?"

The mountaineer regarded them with something pathetic in his eyes, and
when he spoke his voice was tinged with disappointment.

"Last night," he said, "I thought ye war both my friends--'n' I war
a-ready ter be yourn. Why do ye want ter lie ter me?"

A flush of anger spread over their faces, and the Colonel was framing a
scorching retort, when Dale continued:

"No, hit hain't squir'ls; hit's that varmint Tusk Potter. I hain't
afeerd ter tell. His shack's back thar;" jerking his thumb over his
shoulder, "or, I'd ought ter say, what's left of hit's thar. He's gone."

"Did you kill him?" the Colonel asked, looking squarely into his eyes.

"That hain't jest a question one man ought ter be askin' of another
man," he quickly answered. "But as hit turned out, I didn't kill him;
'n' I didn't mean ter. I kind of swore off killin' folks when I war a
kid, 'n' hain't done hit much since. But I did mean ter run him outen
the country, 'n' burn his cabin. If he'd ruther've stayed 'n' got kilt,
that war his business."

By a common impulse the three started back, Dale leading them some half
a mile when they dismounted and threaded their way along an obscure
trail. This led up a deep ravine, through which trickled the South Fork
of Blacksnake Creek, and eventually brought them out at a small
clearing. In the center smouldered the ruins of a cabin, with a few
fitful flames still spurting from the ashes and charred log ends.

"You've done well, Dale," the Colonel observed. "Bob, leave a notice for
him here. He can read, I suppose?"

"He's been going to school for several months," Bob said, tearing off
the back of an envelope and stooping to write.

Dale came close on tiptoe and watched this process over the young man's
shoulder. He stood in an attitude of rapt attention and, as the pencil
made stroke after stroke of the printed letters, his own finger traced
each line in the air, as though he were memorizing their directions and
positions. Only after the notice had been pressed on a sharpened stick
and placed before the ruined threshold could he leave it. Turning to
them he said in an awed voice:

"That's the fu'st writin' I ever seed! What does hit mean?"

While Bob repeated it the mountaineer's lips moved after him, as he
tried carefully to fit each sentence to the pencil strokes. But from
his deep breath of uncertainty at the end it appeared to bring him
little satisfaction; and he was turning away when suddenly his frame
stiffened and his hand touched Bob's shoulder.

To the east of them stood Snarly Knob, so called because of its serrated
crest resembling a row of teeth from which the lips had been drawn back
in an angry snarl. Half way up its almost perpendicular side a spur
jutted into the air, and on this a figure stood. Only the hawk-like eyes
of Dale could have seen the clenched fists raised high in a gesture of
fury, eloquent of a flow of oaths which he knew were being hurled upon
the trespassers in the clearing. The Colonel and Bob, following his
steady gaze, saw and understood. Bob's face went white with anger, but
the older man's held a troubled look. Dale's face told no story
whatsoever.

"I wish he'd fall," Bob gritted his teeth. "He's just above the
disappearing stream, Colonel!"

"What's the disappearin' stream?" Dale asked.

"It's a good sized creek that comes tearing down and tumbles into a sort
of cave. Nobody knows where it comes out, and if it ever catches a man
he's gone. The hole and suction is directly under that spur."

"Couldn't fetch 'im with one of them new-fangled guns of your'n, could
ye?"

"Oh, no, Dale; that spur must be easily two miles."

"Come," said the Colonel, "let us go back. Our mission here is done, and
now we must see that it remains well done. Dale, how did you find this
place?"

"I came from the schoolhouse," he answered.

"You mean," Bob cried, "that you trailed him half a dozen miles?"

"Yep," he answered.

"You damned Indian," the young planter admiringly exclaimed; "that's the
smoothest trick I ever saw!"

"'Tain't no trick," Dale simply replied. "I allers find folks that
a-way, same as varmints do. Hit's Nature's way."

"Since we have come together this morning," the Colonel observed,
smiling a frank compliment at Dale's woodcraft, "we may as well drop
the bars, shake hands across the gap, and speak plainly one with the
other. First, I want to thank you, sir, for your chivalry yesterday
evening to Miss Jane--"

"What's chivalry?" the mountaineer interrupted.

"Chivalry? Why, bless my soul, sir," the old gentleman exclaimed,
"chivalry, sir, chivalry is what we all have, sir!" He wiped his brow
and stood in the path, planting himself firmly with a glare that defied
contradiction.

"Chivalry, Dale," Bob said, not daring to laugh, "is the skeleton, or
framework, on which gentlemen are built."

"Bones?" he asked, with a perplexed pucker between his eyes.

"Not bones, exactly," Bob smiled now. "And yet it is a sort of backbone,
too, when you come to think of it."

"Bob, your ignorance is colossal, sir," the Colonel sternly looked at
him. "Chivalry, Dale, is what we all have, and what prompted you to
tackle that ruffian yesterday. The definition is quite simple, and of
course you follow me. As I was saying, sir, we prefer to thank you now
in behalf of Miss Jane, since any further reference to the matter will
be unnecessary. You appreciate this?"

"What's appreciate?" he asked.

The old gentleman told him and, while his face still held a troubled
look, he nodded as though understanding--not only the word, but the
delicacy imposed on him.

"I don't want nobody ter thank me," he said. "I didn't do nothin' fer
_her_!"

He said this quietly, so simply, that its peculiarity did not at once
seem apparent, and before they had time to wonder at it, Dale, who now
was leading, turned in the path and glared at them. His eyes were as
stern as those of a wrathful god, and his lips as resolute as Thor.

"Do ye reckon I'd hev let that damned hound scare the teacher away, when
I've jest now got hyar fer the big larnin'? If I hadn't stepped in, he'd
a-tuck her ter his cabin; 'n' if I hadn't burned 'im out, he'd be likely
ter stay 'round; 'n' as long as he'd be likely ter stay 'round, she'd be
likely ter stay away from school. Then how'd I git my larnin'?" He
gritted his teeth, and suddenly yelled at them: "I won't take no
chances! I'll git the larnin', I tell ye! 'N' if one, or a hund'ed,
tries ter come 'tween me 'n' hit--" He did not finish, but stood swaying
from side to side with an overwhelming intensity of feeling.

Bob's inclination was to smile; not at what he said so much as at the
grotesque figure he made while saying it. The long hair that had been
flying back from his forehead as a lion might have tossed its shaggy
mane, the homespun trousers tucked into wrinkled boots which were
planted well apart as foundations for the swaying body, the antiquated
rifle on which he leaned, all seemed to be the very antithesis of mental
advancement.

The Colonel, on the other hand, had not been impressed by the clothes;
or, at any rate, he had been more impressed by something which robbed
them of their oddity. His observing eyes were fixed with growing
interest on the purposeful face still thrust forward, and for a moment
they were startled by something uncanny, something back of a normal
human enthusiasm. It was only for a moment, only for a fleeting glimpse
through the dilating pupils which shot defiance out at him; but in that
moment he would have sworn that he had seen enthusiasm gone mad.

And yet, so brief had been the glimpse, that his conscious feeling was
but of charm, inspired by the primal strength of this wild and
unconquerable thing before him. The restive swaying of the body brought
to the old gentleman's mind an incident he once had seen at a circus,
when an elephant, fretted by its ankle chain, rocked from foot to foot
in sullen disquiet. He pictured an ankle chain on this well made youth
before him now, the ankle chain of ignorance, and a wave of pity made
him resolve to be the means of breaking it.

"If that is what you want, Dale," he gently said, "you shall have it,
all that you can store away." And he smiled at the flush of pleasure
which followed his words. "I'll talk to you about it this afternoon," he
added. "Let us now hurry; we must reach the horses."




CHAPTER VII

DALE DAWSON'S PHILOSOPHY


Passing out to the road, the Colonel being somewhat in advance, Bob laid
his hand on Dale's shoulder.

"There are lots of things to be learned out of schools, as well as in,"
he said, falling into step, "and some of them I can teach you better
than Miss Jane. You mustn't hesitate to ask me, nor be put
out--offended, I mean--if I volunteer things for your own good.
Understand?"

"Hit seems thar hain't nuthin' but goodness down hyar," the mountaineer
murmured.

"How about that cabin behind us?" the young planter laughed.

"Shucks, he hain't yo' kind," Dale said in a tone of deep disgust. "He
belongs moh ter my people, I reckon, than ter yourn."

"Why shouldn't your people and my people be the same?" Bob asked. "We're
the same stock, and live in the same State, and speak the same
language."

"Three chestnuts come outen the same burr," Dale slowly answered, "but
ye hain't never seed all three alike yit! 'N' they're the same stock,
too, 'n' live in the same house, 'n' borned of the same tree! Hit don't
foller what ye say is right!"

"But they're chestnuts, all the same," Bob laughed, pleased with the
simile.

"'N' I never said they warn't," the other replied. "'N' yeou're a man,
'n' I'm a man, 'n' we're white men, too, 'n' borned in Kaintuck; but
thar hain't only one thing as kin make us alike. That's the one thing
Natur' hain't provided fer--education! Accordin' ter my way of thinkin',
education draws the line 'tween a man 'n' a dawg; 'tween a woman 'n' a
sow. A man kin git hit, but a dawg can't; 'n' if a man don't, then he's
even wuss'n a dawg. I've done a lot of thinkin' 'bout hit," he added in
a reverential, wistful voice, "since Ruth come back ter Sunlight Patch."

"You seem to take things pretty seriously, Dale." Bob gave his shoulder
a slap. "Don't draw your lines too fine with Nature. It's apt to make
you ride over the hounds; it's risky."

"How do ye mean risky?" he quickly asked.

"Lots of ways," Bob laughed, trying to think even of one. "In Nature,
for instance, water flows down hill, but man must continually go up hill
if he expects to be any account--even though he's mostly all made of
water, at that! There's one way for you." And Bob felt proud of this,
and glad the Colonel was listening. And the Colonel, still stalking on
before them, nodded his head in approval.

"'Doth Nature itself not teach you?'" Dale sternly replied in faultless
English. "That's in the Good Book, 'cause Ruth read it out; 'n' that's
what fu'st made me look in the woods 'n' mountings fer my larnin'.
Natur' hain't lied ter me yit--but," he added suspiciously, "hit hain't
said nuthin' 'bout folks being mostly made of water!"

The Colonel gave an explosive snort, but did not turn around.

"It won't lie to you either," Bob said in good humor, "but neither will
it give up all its secrets; and the danger is in thinking you have
guessed what isn't there. Who's Ruth?"

"Ruth?" he turned as though the question surprised him. "She's the
slocum of Sunlight Patch."

"The--slocum?" Bob again asked.

"Yes, the slocum," he answered simply.

"I don't remember having heard of a slocum. Is that one of Nature's
lessons?"

"Bob," the Colonel spoke in a tone of warning, "you astonish me by your
ignorance, sir. Everybody knows what a slocum is!"

They had reached the road, and Dale gave a long, low whinny, in so exact
an imitation that even before Lucy answered and was heard coming toward
him, the other horses, near by, had also whinnied a response. Bob
laughed outright, and the Colonel chuckled.

"Upon my word, sir," he said, "I thought there was a horse right at the
back of my neck! You do it remarkably well!"

Dale smiled, for compliments, even the simplest, he had not experienced.
His people were unversed in many of the gentler ways, and this brought
him a pleasant sense of being appreciated.

"Can you imitate other things?" Bob asked.

"All thar is in the mountings," he answered. "I've talked with 'em ever
since I war a brat."

"They have a language, then?" Bob winked at the Colonel, who replied
with another warning look.

"'Course they hev a language. They talk jest like we-uns do, but 'thout
so many words. Lucy, hyar," he continued, after having patted her nose,
"'n' all critters, has one kind of whinny fer hunger 'n' thirst, another
when somethin's scarin' 'em, another when they're hurt, another when
they're callin' a critter, 'n' another when they're answerin'. Most all
varmints has those, too; jest the same as a critter--'cept the hunger
call."

"I don't quite follow your distinction between critters, as you call
them, and varmints," the Colonel turned curiously.

"Bob-cats, 'n' foxes, 'n' skunks, 'n' coons, 'n' them sech, is varmints.
Lucy is a critter," he said simply. "'N' they all have 'bout the same
sort of calls--'ceptin' hunger calls."

"But wild animals get hungry," the Colonel exclaimed, taking a still
deeper interest in what this observer was saying.

"Wall, yes," he drawled, "but some don't make no fuss 'bout hit. Take a
bob-cat! He'd be a purty thing a-yellin' all through the mountings when
he's hungry, now wouldn't he? _He's_ got ter move like a grey cloud, 'n'
slip up on things! A bob-cat," he added with his peculiar chuckle,
"that'd yell when he went a-huntin' wouldn't take long ter starve. 'N'
the wilder a thing is, the moh uncomplainin' hit is, too. Shoot a fox,
'n' he'll pull hisse'f along till he drops daid--jest grittin' his teeth
'n' standin' hit; but a dawg'll holler somethin' awful. Hit's most
allers that-a-way with birds, too. Ketch a chicken, 'n' folks'll think
ye're killin' her; but ketch a pa'tridge, 'n' she'll jest lay in yo'
hand 'n' breathe fast, 'n' hate ye."

"How do you account for that?" the Colonel asked. "The fox and the dog
belong to the same family; likewise the chicken and partridge!"

"That's jest why I picked them kind out ter tell ye 'bout," he answered.
"I reckon the reason is bein' 'round human folks, Cunnel. When a varmint
loses his wildness, he loses his grit, 'n' I may say he's apt ter go
down in health. Ruth says that Injuns could stand bein' burned with fyar
'n' not flinch. Thar hain't no white men now-days kin do hit. I've
tried," he rolled back his sleeve and showed a long scar on his forearm.
"I tried jest ter see, 'n' had ter quit. Hit made me plumb sick. 'N'
that's jest the same with varmints."

They mounted their horses and turned down the road. Colonel May and Bob,
being for the moment together, the old gentleman whispered;

"Interesting sort of fellow."

Bob nodded. "Nervy to try fire, wasn't he?"

"Dale," the Colonel called, "ride up with us! Is it then your
impression," he asked, when the lowly head of Lucy was abreast with the
arched necks of the thoroughbreds, "that civilization has a bad
influence?"

Dale fairly rose in his stirrups. "I never said that," he cried. "I
never said no sech a-thing! Hit hain't so! I said that bein' 'round
folks makes varmints 'n' critters lose thar grit, 'n' be moh apt ter git
sick; bein' brought up in stalls, 'n' stables, 'n' pens, 'n' havin'
their victuals fetched ter 'em all the time, 'n' bein' drove 'n'
bullied, makes 'em lose thar fightin' sperit; 'n' when a thing loses
that hit'll go down. The same way with folks. Why, Cunnel, I knowed a
man who laid behind two rocks 'n' fit all day long with nine bullets in
him, 'cause his son war in the cabin jest below, 'n' both war a-holdin'
off a passel of fellers. But to'ard evenin', when the ole man seed the
fellers rush in 'n' drag his boy out, 'n' kill 'im thar afore his eyes,
he rolled right over hisse'f 'n' died--'n' he hadn't been hit since
dinner. 'N' that jest showed, as long's he had the savage in 'im
fightin' fer the boy, he war all right; but when thar warn't no moh use,
he quit. That's one big trouble with civilization, as we-uns sees hit
from the mountings: hit takes the grit outen folks, 'n' makes 'em want
ter quit too soon."

The Colonel sat gazing moodily between his horse's ears, one of which
was tilted back and the other forward, as though at the same time
listening to the conversation and watching the road. He seemed to have
forgotten that an uncouth mountaineer had been talking; he seemed not to
have heard the low drawl, or in any way have been affected by its
musical crudity, but only by the man's point of view.

"So that's the way you people think of us?" he finally asked.

"Bob, hyar, says you-uns 'n' we-uns hain't no different." He had begun
calling Bob by his first name with child-like ingenuousness.

"But there is a distinction," the old gentleman insisted. "The
mountaineers are more--I might say more intense, as your act this
morning gives testimony. Altogether, I should say, as Miss Jane once put
it, that your aura is tinctured with savagery."

Dale hesitated. "I don't reckon," he said at last, "that what I did this
mawnin' war any wuss'n what you-uns war a-goin' ter do. What's aura?"

Bob burst into peals of laughter.

"I think he's got you on number one, Colonel! Now tell him what aura
is!"

But this was a knotty undertaking, and when he finished, quite
unassisted by Bob, Dale's face held a troubled look.

"If a fine man like yeou, Cunnel," he began, causing the old gentleman
to stiffen in his saddle with righteous pride, "don't know no moh'n that
'bout the English language, how, in Gawd's name, am I a-goin' ter larn?"

"Upon my word, sir! Upon my word!" the Colonel sputtered, red to the
roots of his silvery hair, "you haven't the capacity to understand, sir;
no matter how explicit I may be, sir!" And touching spur he galloped
ahead, not deigning to look at them again.

"Dale," Bob implored, trying to control his laughter, "for the love of
Mike cut 'aura' from your vocabulary! Honest, my friend, if you ever
should walk into the Colonel's drawing room in that costume and announce
that your aura is tinctured with savagery, it would be worse than
murder!"

Again the mountaineer's face became troubled; indeed, it held an
expression of childish helplessness, made so pathetic by a succeeding,
shy glance at his awkward costume of homespun, that the young planter
winced.

"That's all right," he said, contrite enough now, and giving the broad
shoulder another friendly slap. "Before long you'll be turning out
classier stuff than any of us. And we like your clothes."

"I'm a-goin' ter larn," Dale murmured through clenched teeth. "I'm
a-goin' ter larn all thar is, 'n' a whole lot moh; so help me Gawd I
will."

For awhile they rode without speaking until the Colonel was seen waiting
at a turn of the road. Then Dale asked:

"Ye reckon he meant that, 'bout me livin' with 'im?"

"'Course he meant it. He'll make you think you own the place in
twenty-four hours, and you won't feel the slightest obligation."

"What's obligation?"

Patiently Bob went through the definition, and Dale again asked:

"Who's the feller he calls Brent?"

"He's staying there, too; trying his wings on a survey for a railroad.
There's going to be a little road through here some day, and he's
looking to it."

"How does he?"

"Heaven pity us," Bob groaned. "I don't know how does he, Dale. Ask him.
Come, let's catch up!"

The Colonel was riding slowly ahead, and from the appearance of his back
Bob knew him to be sulking. Strong and big and fine as he was in both
physique and temperament, his _amour propre_ was an easy thing to wound.
Such hurts, however, were quickly healed by his blessed sense of humor,
and now as he wheeled and watched them, Bob saw that his spirits were
returning.

"In the eyes of babes," the old gentleman began, with a humorous
twitching about his mouth, "we see the mirror of our age--and, Mr.
Dawson, don't ask me what that means for I don't know! But come,
gentlemen, it is quite noon, and a cool house is calling us."

"When the mint is in the toddy, and the chair is in the shade," Bob
hummed, bringing another twinkle of amusement to the old gentleman's
lips.

"I reckon I'll turn off hyar," Dale said, "'n' go on ter school."

"What for?" the Colonel asked. "There's no school today."

"Hain't!" the mountaineer turned in a fury. "Why so?"

"Why so?" Bob answered, not exactly with patience. "For several reasons,
Dale; one being that they don't have school on Saturdays, and another,
quite sufficient in itself, that Miss Jane has a headache."

"What's Satu'day got ter do with hit?" He asked again, unconscious of
the other's growing ill humor.

"You darned boob," Bob laughed, "don't you know that Saturday is a
holiday? It always is! They never have school on that day!"

"D'ye mean they lose a whole day a week?" Dale cried, working himself
into a rage and giving the Colonel that same unpleasant, startled
feeling of witnessing something human out of gear. "That all that time
is jest plumb wasted, when I mought be larnin'? Hain't I come hyar fer
her ter teach me? Hain't I got the right? Hain't hit her business?"

"When Miss Jane doesn't feel like teaching," Bob began, turning a shade
pale and becoming unnaturally calm, "Saturday or no Saturday, she isn't
going to teach; and the Colonel and I'll see anyone in hell first.
Remember that, for it's a right important thing."

"Lord have pity on our mendacious world," the old gentleman sighed.

The mountaineer had not intended to give offense. As a matter of fact,
he held Jane in too sacred regard to suffer her the slightest
inconvenience--but it was a regard for the teacher, for the possessor of
that magic wand which would point him along the path of learning. She
inspired him with no other personality. To get into school had been for
so long the precious beacon of his desire that physical comforts or
discomforts were transient incidents to be utterly ignored. He would
have ignored his own bodily ailments, elbowed his way through pain of
flesh and weariness of mind, in an onward rush for that one thing his
soul craved--Learning. It craved, it blindly implored him, abjured him
with curses and sweet words, until he had reached a state where
obedience became an uncompromisable law. Nothing else came within his
mental horizon, and thus it was that Bob's words perplexed, rather than
offended, him.

The Colonel, ever ready to quiet fermenting anger, laid his hand
genially on the homespun-covered shoulder.

"You will find, my ambitious young friend," he said, "that it is better
in the long run to rest occasionally. Nature requires it, and, as you
yourself have said, Nature is the true standard to follow."

"Nature don't rest," he doggedly retorted. "Trees don't rest from
growin'!"

"They do, indeed," declared the Colonel, not quite sure of his ground,
but willing to venture it. "Every night they rest, and so do all growing
things."

Dale thought a moment, for this was a new idea.

"I don't believe it," he finally declared. Then smiling, and dropping
into the attractive drawl, he asked: "Cunnel, ye wouldn't go so fur as
ter say the trees takes Satu'day off ter quit growin', would ye?"

Bob laughed, but the old gentleman sighed.

"I fear you can't quite catch my meaning, sir," he compromised.
"However, you will be learning something this evening, because I want to
have a long talk with you. I want to know your ambitions and your plans.
I have determined to see you get all the education you can eat, drink,
and otherwise stuff into your system. Now, be satisfied for the moment,
until we discuss the matter."

Dale's eyes and cheeks showed the grateful effect of the old gentleman's
words. He wanted to thank him, but, not knowing quite how, remained
silent; and in this way the three entered the overgrown gate of Arden.




CHAPTER VIII

THE INCONSEQUENT ENGINEER


Uncle Zack's watchful eyes discerned the returning riders and busily he
went to prepare juleps, while, at the same time, a company of little
darkies dashed past the house eager to lead the horses stableward.

This aroused a man who had been day-dreaming on the deep, cool porch.
His feet were comfortably perched on the seat of an opposite chair, and
an open book lay face down on his lap. Within convenient reaching
distance stood a silver goblet topped with sprigs of mint. He was
dressed in immaculate white, a suit which showed the character of expert
tailorship when subjected to the arm and leg stretch of the frantic yawn
he now deliberately enjoyed. For young Mr. Brent McElroy was as well
groomed as he was good to look upon. Although Bod had called him the
laziest chap in clothes, and Miss Liz had berated his lack of ambition,
and all had sometimes resented his ironies, a very critical glance at
his face would have belied these faults. For his chin was cast in a good
mould, and his eyes looked at one with steady, honest interest. They
were spirited, but tender, and a trained observer would have found in
them a deep, lingering hunger for something which seemed not to have
come. He would also have found strength in the mouth, ordinarily too
cynical.

Brent managed to get along pretty well with everything but work, and in
severing diplomatic relations with this he usually found himself persona
non grata with Jane and her strongest ally, Miss Liz. For Jane, more
than all of them, realized the blessings a railroad would bring to her
people in that wild area beyond Snarly Knob. She knew how each artery
leading from the virgin heart of those mountains, carrying to the world
its stream of warmth, would return twofold riches to the benighted
denizens of their antiquity. She knew that through each vein from the
distant centers of the world's culture would flow back a broader
understanding of life, its responsibilities, ambitions, opportunities.
To her, the little road was a savior, to such a degree God-sent, that it
seemed a sacrilege to let it halt. Moreover, since Brent came, she felt
that the Colonel had been given fresh inspiration to imbibe. It had not
occurred to her to reverse this indictment, which might have been done
with an equal amount of truth. At any rate, she had lost patience with
the good-looking engineer, while the Colonel was finding him more and
more attractive.

He arose now as the men dismounted, stretched again, and smiled down at
them.

"Ah, sir," the Colonel cried, "I'm glad you are home in time to join
us!"

"I've just been joining," he laughed, "but, of course, if you can't get
along without me--" he waved a hand toward his empty goblet. Uncle Zack
had made provision for this--Uncle Zack, who believed that a
thoroughbred gentleman should always be "jes' a li'l bit toddied up."

Dale stood at the bottom step staring with the open curiosity
characteristic of his kind, and convinced that he was gazing upon the
most elegant gentleman in all creation. No detail of the toilette
escaped his minute scrutiny--from the white buckskin shoes to the white
cravat, from the immaculate linen to the flashing teeth; and for a
second time that day his eyes lowered to pass slowly over the crudeness
of his own attire.

The Colonel saw this and smiled, but it was not a mirthful smile. His
former interest had become quickened by this helpless and pathetic look,
and mentally he strengthened a previous resolution.

"Brent," he said, "I want you to know Dale Dawson! Mr. McElroy," he
turned to the still staring mountaineer, "is staying with me, and making
a survey for the railroad we hope to see running through here before
long, sir."

"I hain't never seed a train but onct," Dale exclaimed, shaking hands
with more open admiration. "Then hit 'most scared the gizzard outen me!
How do ye make 'em?"

"Oh," Brent laughed, "screws, and nuts, and hammers, and things. But I
don't make trains, old fellow; I'm just making the survey!"

"Good-bye everybody!" Bob gurgled, swinging into the saddle. The Colonel
called him sternly back.

"Now, Bob," he whispered, stepping out to the tanbark drive, "you've no
right to leave me like this, sir. I can't put up with it, I tell you!
Why, God bless my soul, the fellow hasn't a rag except what's on his
back! Must I ask him to sleep in the stable, sir? Those mountain people
are sensitive to the very core, you know that, and his feelings would be
immeasurably hurt if he suspected I complain of his clothes. But, Bob,
it's impossible! You're both of a size; help an old man out--there's a
good fellow!"

"I'll do anything but stay here and disgrace myself," Bob assured him.

"Tactfully, sir, tactfully," the Colonel warned.

"Trust me to do it tactfully," Bob whispered. "I'm not out to get shot."
And turning to the porch he called: "Dale, like to ride over and meet my
family? You might get a word with Miss Jane about the school, too!"

There was no reply to this except a quick step toward the old white
mare.

"Will hit be all right ter leave my rifle hyar, Cunnel?" he asked, with
one foot in the stirrup.

"Certainly, sir," that gentleman gave cheery acquiescence. "But take my
horse. Your own seems tired."

"Yourn _air_ faster," he nodded, passing unnoticed Lucy's invitation to
be caressed and rising into the Colonel's saddle. There was something
pathetic in the wistful way she looked after him, whinnying twice or
three times in a sudden panic of apprehension. The old gentleman stroked
her nose, murmuring:

"I don't think he ought to have done it just that way, old faithful. But
if I read the signs correctly you'd better get used to it now. There'll
be plenty more times."

Bob called from the gate: "Send Zack over; I want my hair cut!" And the
Colonel, understanding, waved his hand as they again cantered away--Dale
in advance, and the young planter evidently cautioning him to spare his
horse in the noon hour heat.

"Who's Bob's anthropoid friend?" Brent asked, as he and the Colonel now
stretched in their chairs.

"A young man from the mountains, violently in search of an education. He
will be asking you every question in the range of thought, Brent, and I
hope you will have patience with him. It's such a pity to see one so
hungry for knowledge--really starving for it--while the whole wide board
before him holds more than enough for all!"

"He's welcome to banquet on my feast of reason, but he'll get mighty
tired of it. Do you think he's serious?"

The Colonel smiled at this from Brent.

"It has been my observation that believing in people usually brings out
their best," he answered, "and so I think he is serious. I hope you
will, also."

"You bet I will," Brent cordially agreed, burying his nose in the mint.
"He's all right;--I like him!"

After a moment of affectionate contemplation of his own julep, the
Colonel said:

"Bob's household will be over to dinner tonight. I trust you can be with
us, sir!"

Before he could reply, Miss Liz appeared in the doorway, and both men
arose with courtly bows. When Brent had arranged a place for her--and
the Colonel had slipped into the house holding the telltale goblet
under his coat--this severe lady, balancing on the chair with prim
nicety, raised her lorgnette and observed:

"You have come home early!"

It was not hospitably done. Indeed, Miss Liz, sister of the Colonel's
angelic wife, inherited few of that departed lady's endearments. While
both had passed their girlhood in the Shenandoah, this one alone managed
to absorb and retain all the stern qualities from the surroundings of
her nativity. Now a spinster of perhaps sixty years, this firmness had
become imbedded in her nature as unalterably as the Blue Ridge rock; her
eyes and hair were as gray, and her voice--unless she were deeply
moved--as hard; also was her sense of duty as unyielding. Before her
sister's death she regularly visited Arden, and afterwards the Colonel
had insisted upon her making it a permanent home.

He paid the price for this, as he knew he would pay; but without a word,
and with as few outward signs as possible. For Miss Liz could not have
been termed in sympathy with the easy-going Colonel, nor, in her
self-righteous moods, sympathetic with any man. From long practice and
research she had at her fingers' tips the measurements of every male
transgressor from Cain to Judas Iscariot, and could work up about as
unhappy an hour for gay Lotharios as might be found this side of the
Spanish Inquisition. At any rate, Miss Liz did come to Arden, finding
rest and quiet and peace--not imparting them.

The little darkies never tired of twisting pieces of bale-wire into an
imitation of lorgnettes and airily strutting in her wake when she
visited the garden---being careful to keep their carousal well away from
the danger zone. At the same time, all who had been allowed peeps into
her gentler side were gripped with tentacles of affection as firm as was
her own relentless adherence to duty. In just one respect might Miss Liz
have been rated below par, and this was a hopeless incapacity to see
when others were teasing her. She took all in good faith when they
looked her straight in the eyes and told the most flagrant absurdities.

Brent now smiled blandly into her face and accepted the implied rebuke a
moment in silence.

"Isn't it extraordinary," he said at last, "that I guessed you would be
having on that becoming gown, and looking just this cool and
attractive?"

In spite of her stiffening shoulders and frown of extreme displeasure,
an echo of color crept slowly into her cheeks. For it is a curious fact
that, while stern and self-denying people may be found who are
impregnable to the fiercest attacks of passion, indifferent to the most
insidious lures of avarice, unmoved by the most convincing whispers of
jealousy, and impartial in every act toward fellowman--all, all will
yield an inch to the smile of flattery.

"Fiddlesticks!" she exclaimed. "I am old enough to be your grandmother!"

The lorgnette never faltered, and Brent's eyes lowered in feigned
distress.

"Yes, I suppose so," he quietly admitted. "The fact is, when you come
out on the porch this way and begin to talk so pleasantly, I'm always
forgetting that you're so--so terribly old as you insist. I'll try to
remember, Miss Liz."

"I am not inviting old age," she smiled, with a freezing lack of mirth;
but yet she may have yielded the inch, for one of her thin hands went
timidly up to the iron gray curls which hung before her ears, and her
eyes turned to gaze dreamily over the fields as though in search of some
long past, golden memory.

His own eyes took this opportunity to cast another sly look at the
tell-tale goblet, hoping to light upon some method of spiriting it away.

"Mr. McElroy," she suddenly exclaimed, "I have been talking to brother
John, and have told him my views about you!"

Brent's mouth opened a moment in surprise and then he frankly began to
laugh.

"I'm glad I wasn't in hearing distance!"

"You might have heard to your advantage. I told him that I considered
marriage to some determined girl your only chance of reformation."

"Marriage!" he almost rose out of his chair. "Heavens, Miss Liz! I've
got an alarm clock that does that sort of thing!"

"Alarm clock?" she gasped. "Pray, what do you suppose marriage is?"

"I've never tried to suppose! I don't want to suppose"

She arose with dignity and went toward the door. There was another
minute, while he stood making humble apologies to which she seemed
indifferent, and then her voice came like the crackling of dry twigs. "I
bid you good morning, Mr. McElroy!"




CHAPTER IX

AT THE UNPAINTED HOUSE


Brent sat down and took a deep breath, as men do when they have narrowly
escaped disaster. He saw Zack on a mule, heading for the gate, and
called him.

"Uncle Zack," he whispered, when the old darky had come hat in hand up
the steps, "rustle me another julep!"

"Lawd, Marse Brent," he cast a suspicious glance toward the front hall,
"I'se gotter go clar to Marse Bob's an' cut his haih!" But, translating
the look, Brent gave a low laugh, saying:

"She won't be out again for awhile. Hustle, Zack! I've just been frozen
to death!"

The old man thrust the empty goblet under his coat and quickly returned
with another, invitingly frosted.

"Ain' she turr'ble sometimes, Marse Brent?" he asked in a confidential
undertone. "She done tol' me yisterday dat I'se gwine git th'owed clar
to de bottom of hell, an' den criss-cross all over de coals, ef I don'
stop makin' juleps for Marse John an' you! Do you reckon I'se gwine git
all dat misery?"

"Betcher life," Brent answered, taking a few swallows and leaning back
with a sigh of satisfaction. "That's all coming to you; but d'you want
to know what the Colonel and I've decided to do if you quit making us
juleps, you old devil?"

Zack grinned.

"We'll take you out to the tool house, and press your teeth down on a
dry grinding-stone till they get hot and squeak and--"

"Hush, man, hush! In de name of goodness, hush!" Zack covered his
wrinkled mouth. "You makes mah jaws feel all scrouged up!"

And after he was again astride the mule, plodding toward Bob's place,
his hand continued to stroke with affectionate care those jaws that had
been thrown into such spasms of suggested torture, muttering:

"Who ever heerd tell of sech misery as puttin' mah onlies' toof on de
grind-stone!"

A mile from Arden stood a house, too near the road to give it the air of
being a place of many comforts, even were it in other respects
pretentious. But its lightly built porch, precariously nailed to an
unpainted frame front, stamped it with poverty.

Here dwelt Tom Hewlet, proprietor of ten acres and a bad name. It was
said that his first wife had all but died of neglect, and then burst an
artery in her brain while pursuing him with a skillet. The second Mrs.
Hewlet still held on. Both, no doubt, possessed virtues, but neighborly
sympathy clustered around the present incumbent, because she was the
present, and because of a frequently expressed regret that the good Lord
had not spared her predecessor until the skillet and Tom had made
connection. It was but a whispered wish, for Tom's second choice came
from the meek and lowly. He was taking no more chances.

Besides that exciting memory, however, the first Mrs. Hewlet, previously
the widow of a country parson, had left him a daughter by that marriage,
and this girl, Nancy, had stayed--for Tom's house was, after all, the
only place she had to stay. Arden's people and those of Bob's home had
felt in a mild way sorry for this girl, sometimes sending over "things,"
and in other ways showing a long-distance interest; yet the very fact
that she lived beneath the roof of such an old reprobate constituted a
barrier which many of the less established neighbors would not venture
to cross. Just, or unjust, this had made her shunned--at least, not
sought; and as she grew into young womanhood, she also grew into a life
of solitude. The native swains did not approach because they were afraid
of Tom, and girl friends were denied by a far more unrelenting
danger--compromise.

This particular spring, however, two events occurred which were vitally
affecting her life. The first, when she stopped Jane in the road and
asked if she might come to school. From that time forth the teacher
began to see many things which others had not given themselves the
opportunity to see, and her previous long-distance interest merged with
the girl's spirit of secret envy into a companionship--bounded for the
most part by school hours, yet a companionship, nevertheless.

Not until then was there exposed a lovelier side of character, doubtless
formed in early childhood with her father, the country parson. Jane
learned of the mutual adoration which had existed between these two,
and, when he had died, how death seemed also to lay a hand upon her
budding hopes of life and future. The mother's background she found more
difficult to place, and the only glimpse she could get of it was through
Nancy's possession of four books left from that forlorn woman's more
forlorn estate: the Bible, Swinburne's poems, "Adam Bede" and "Household
Hints." That she had been superior to Tom might be accepted without
question, and why she married him was simply one of those anomalies
which makes our neighbors interesting.

But the seed implanted by the father, a man of honest impulses, remained
somewhere the girl's consciousness--latent, nearly parched by the
brutality of subsequent environments; until Jane had begun to moisten it
with encouragement, and now it was budding. On the other hand, she had
seen in Nancy tendencies of less promise: a physical desire to be away
from the frame house by the roadside, and a character--not entirely
weak, but irresolute--easing its sense of obligation by the devil's
insidious argument of poverty; also, that the recent application to
perfect her modest learning was in parallel with an unexpressed hope of
independence in the cities. Frequently--and invariably after nights when
old Tom was on his sprees--Jane had found her pathetically near the
precipice of desperation, and it required some pointed talks to hold her
steady.

The second event in her life had been of more recent date: Brent.

As old Zack now neared the ramshackle house, he saw her leaning over
the crooked gate. Not infrequently of late he had carried a note to her,
and he rather felt that she might be looking for one today.

She smiled, showing a really exquisite line of teeth between lips full
and inviting. Her mouth was large, as though Nature, realizing her
possession of one exceptional quality, had made the most of it. Around
her neck hung a simple garnet pendant which Zack had noticed only in the
last few days; and now, as she stood with chin up-tilted, the sunlight
struck this stone sending a soft, crimson gleam of dull fire across the
white skin below her throat.

"Mawnin', Miss Nancy," he made a perfunctory bow.

"Good mornin', Uncle Zack."

"How's yoh folks?" the old man asked. It was warm, he was weary of the
ride and wanted to talk.

"They're well, thanks." She did not ask after those at Arden.

He folded his hands on the pummel and let his feet slip out of the
uncertain rope stirrups. Sitting thus relaxed, for a moment he looked
meditatively at the old mule's drooping ears, then reached in his
pocket, brought out a red handkerchief of the bandanna type and wiped
his brow. He had something to tell her--she knew this! But she knew,
too, from experience that when he brought a message he must take his own
time about delivering it.

"Dat's a mighty spry gemmen over to our house," he finally remarked.

"Mr. Brent?" she flushed a little.

"No-deedy! He's spry, too; but dis'n I'm talkin' 'bout jes' come."

"Yes, I heard about him," she said. "A sort of hill-billy, isn't he?"

"Now, how'd you heah dat?" the old fellow looked down at her. "He only
got dar las' night!"

"I don't remember--somebody came by an' told Pappy, I reckon."

"It do beat all how tales travel," he doubtfully shook his head. "But
don' you put no stock in him bein' a hill-billy! Long haih an' s'penders
don' make no greenhorn. Dey never has yit, an' dey never will--any moh'n
a Adam's Apple do; an' I got a Adam's Apple mahse'f, sech as 'tis! I got
sumfin else, too!" He slowly closed one eye and looked up at the sky.

"A note?" she laughed.

"Dat ain' so fur off!"

"A message?"

"You sho' guessed it dat time!" he chuckled. "Some-un suttenly do a lot
of thinkin' 'bout some-un--dat's all I got to say!"

"Does he?" she blushed. It pleased her to have this old man tease. It
was her only outlet; he was the only one who shared the secrets of their
trysts.

"He suttenly do! I don' reckon she's been outen his mind but onct dis
spring!"

"When could that have been?" she bantered.

The old fellow's face disappeared into a network of wrinkles. "Dat wuz
when he picked his gloves offen de po'ch an' got one on befoh knowin' a
hornet had done crawled in it. He come purty nigh fergittin' his
salvation, den! All de same," he added, still chuckling, "he say he's
comin' over dis 'way dis evenin', less'n de lightnin' strike 'im. Dar
ain' no cloud in de sky now," he looked up musingly.

He felt about for the stirrups with his boots and then took up the old
reins, still grinning and bowing his adieux with a gallantry that would
have done credit to the Colonel. And, as he rode away, she drew a deep,
trembling breath of happy anticipation.




CHAPTER X

THE SPIRIT OF SUNLIGHT PATCH


The old darky, after another half hour of plodding, sighed as he turned
into the welcome shade of Flat Rock. The pike had been shimmering white
and his eyes ached. Yet, as he followed the woodland road, he thought of
a garnet shadow on a young throat, and again he sighed. In a vague way
it meant a sign to him, and troubled his old heart.

A glimpse of Bob's house and its carefully kept grounds came into view,
each detail opening as he approached, until he saw Jane and the
mountaineer seated on the lawn. Passing by a side way to the rear, had
his eyes been good he might have seen her face flushed with interest in
the man whom she was drawing out and graciously dissecting.

For this was one of her own people--one of that very shut-in, restless,
hungry type, whom she had hoped by the perfecting of herself to help.
Other scholars at the school were not like him. They were, with a single
exception, of the valley and foothills, but this one came from primeval
grandeur. He alone possessed the absorbing craze to learn which had
dominated her own life, and so she felt peculiarly drawn to him.

"I must ask you," she was saying, "where you get your way of talking.
We of the mountains,"--and she noted his look of thanks for this
acknowledgment of mutual origin--"come out with our dialect pure; but I
find you mixing it up with bits of really correct speech!"

"I can't talk yet like I want to," he answered, carefully choosing his
words, "but what I've learned was up in Sunlight Patch. Some of the
finest speakin' in the world, I reckon, is up thar!"

"Up there," Jane corrected.

"Up there," he repeated after her, adding: "I knowed that, but forgot."

"What and where is Sunlight Patch? Twice you've spoken of it."

"Hit's a cabin 'n' a clarin'," he answered simply, "back in the
mountings. I war borned thar--there; all of we-uns war born there."

"An odd name," she mused, although she knew odd names were typical of
the mountains.

"Not when ye know how-cum-hit," he said. "Hit war called that-a-way by a
preacher onct. Yeou see, Miss Jane, my sister war born blind--leastways,
the fu'st thing they knowed of hit she war blind. Thar war four of us
brats in the cabin, two brothers older'n me who got shot, 'n' her. I war
the kid, ye mought say, 'n' when I war mighty small some-un took her off
ter the blind school in the settlements. She only come back 'bout two
year ago, 'n' fetched some blind books they'd give her."

"What were the books?" Jane softly asked, touched by the picture of that
poverty she had so well known.

"The New Testament," he answered. "Thar war five big books of that.
Then she had four big-uns of a feller named Dickens--'The Tale of Two
Cities,' that war. But what I liked most war the three wrote by a Cooper
feller--he warn't no kin ter our Coopers, Ruth says--called 'The Last of
the Mohigans.' That Injun, Uncas, war a man, I tell yeou! Thar war some
poetry I liked mighty well, too. Ruth says all of 'em wouldn't take up
so much room, if 'twarn't fer the blind writin'."

"Do you remember much of those books?" she asked.

"'Member much! Why, I know 'em purty nigh off by heart! That's how-cum I
kin talk so good--when I stop to think. By repeatin' arter her I know
the alphabet, the multiplication table, mental 'rithmetic up ter long
dervision, some history, 'n' some g'ography--but I hain't never seed a
map, nor writin'. Her books is writ in blind."

"I think you have learned a great deal," she smiled at him.

"Hit hain't nuthin' ter what I'm goin' ter larn," he declared. "But
moh'n what I've told ye, even, I larned from her readin'. Yeou see, Miss
Jane, she uster read ter ever'body who'd come, 'n' hit got so arter
'while--'specially Sundays--that folks 'd walk or ride ter our place
from as fur as twenty mile ter listen, jest like they war comin' ter a
singin', till the clarin' 'd be plumb full. They'd listen, 'n' watch her
fingers slip over them raised letters, 'n' keep a-listenin' till plumb
dark afore thinkin' 'bout goin' home. 'N' arter dark, too; 'cause ter
her the darkness didn't make no diff'ence. 'N' sometimes, with jest the
stars 'n' black trees 'round us up thar on the mounting side, hit seemed
right quar ter see folks a-settin' on the grass, 'n' her voice comin'
outen the night like one of them prophets what maybe she war a-readin'
'bout. Yeou see," his voice assumed a mystic, whispery tone, "she never
knowed when hit war night, 'n' the people wouldn't tell her, nur make a
move till she quit--beant hit even mawnin'. Arter readin', she'd talk
awhile; tellin' 'em things they'd orter do, 'n' things they'd orten't.
'N' onct she clean busted up a feud by makin' two ole fellers shake
han's. That caught the preacher's eye. When he heern tell of hit, he
called our cabin Sunlight Patch, 'n' said she war the slocum--'n' the
name's done stuck."

He paused; absently, almost unconsciously raising his fingers to brush
back the long hair. And when she gently encouraged him to continue, he
looked at her with another smile of grateful acknowledgment.

"I won't ever fergit that day, I reckon. She war settin' in the doh as
usual, 'n' on the step nigh her feet war ole Ben French 'n' Leister
Mann--two of the hatin'est fellers in our parts. But they'd wanted ter
come so bad that both sides compacted ter leave thar weepons behind.
This day she seemed ter be readin' stronger'n afore, 'n' she talked moh
like she war a-seein' things--I mean sure 'nough things; 'n' arter
'while the folks begun ter rock 'n' moan. They believe ter this day that
the Lawd give her sight back fer a minit then, 'cause she reached down
'n' took ole Ben's hand in one of hern, 'n' ole Leister's in t'other'n,
'n' asked 'em ter shake. They'd been settin' thar a-cryin' afore that,
so they shook friendly, 'n' all the fellers in the clarin' they shook,
too; 'n' the wimmin folks on both sides crossed over 'n' made up. That's
how-cum-hit."

"I don't remember those men," she murmured. "Leaders of that feud
changed so quickly and so often! It lasted a long time, didn't it!"

"Hit did, that! The fu'st I ever knowed thar war sich a thing war when
they brought Pappy home daid," he looked down at the ground. "I war only
a leetle brat, then, but ole Granny busted out a-wailin', 'n' put his
rifle in my han's, 'n' tetched my face with his blood, 'n'--but yeou
know how our people takes the oath; 'n' ye know hit hain't no nice
oath." She shuddered, but the mountaineer continued: "Wall, she done all
that, 'n' made me say arter her the things I wisht 'd strike me daid if
I didn't git the fellers what had got him. Then one day, from up in the
rocks, she p'inted 'em out, so'd I know 'em. One got drowned takin' a
raft down ter Frankfo't--he fell off jest arter I shot. 'N' t'other-un I
didn't git fer a long time. I ketched him--"

"Don't tell me any more, Dale," she pleaded. "I know you must have
ketched him."

"Wall," he mused, "'twusn't right ter make no leetle feller take a oath
like that, Miss Jane--'n' I moughtn't a-done hit, 'cept fer not knowin'
no better. I wouldn't be tellin' ye, neither, but Ruth said ye'd want
ter know afore takin' me in school. She says folks in the settlemints is
awful tetchy 'bout killin' folks."

"We'll pass the feud. Tell me how you happened to come here?"

"A circuit rider come through our parts one day, 'n' tol' us 'bout yo'
school. That war in the winter. Ruth war so set on me ter come, 'n' me
the same, I couldn't sleep. She said I'd be like Lincoln, 'n' Clay, 'n'
even finer--ef thar is sech a thing as bein' finer'n them! But I knowed
I'd be jest as fine, 'n' she did too. But ye see, with all our people
daid, 'cept me 'n' her, I couldn't leave. She knowed how 'twar, 'n' one
day a woman come from over the mounting ter live with us. I reckon Ruth
had the preacher ask her ter come 'n' stay thar whilst I war heah ter
school; fer her man had got caught makin' licker 'n' had ter do time
down in the settlemints."

"We say 'her husband'; not 'her man,' Dale."

"Thank-ee. Well, she come, 'n' Ruth says fer me ter light out, 'n' ter
tell ye all I know, as 'twon't take so long as tellin' ye all I don't.
'N' she give me the ole mare, 'n' nine dollars--all we had. The mawnin'
I left," his voice slipped back into the whispery accents, "she put her
arms 'round my neck, 'n' asked me ter make her one promise."

"What was that promise? Can you tell me?"

"Hit war jest somethin'," he hesitated, flushing. "She said she war
willin' fer me ter do any other kind of sinnin', ef I jest plain
couldn't git outen hit, but she hoped I might die afore doin' _that_.
Then she got on her knees 'n' fer most a hour prayed Gawd ter strike me
daid afore He'd see me do hit. She said," he added softly, "hit air on
accounten _that_ sin as how-cum she's blind."

Jane shuddered. She could picture the cabin room, the girl kneeling on
the rough board floor, her sightless eyes raised to the wall of logs and
mud, her frantic prayer to have this only brother kept safe and sent
back to her; but, if he were about to sin a certain sin, to strike him
dead.

She was too deeply moved to speak, and indeed she felt that words would
be out of place in this pause which seemed so eloquent of a curiously
comforting holiness. On his own part, he merely sat there looking down
at his awkward boots. Finally, with sincere, trembling regret in his
voice, he murmured:

"I'm sorry ye've a headache."

"Thank you, Dale." Her reply was tenderer than she knew, for now he
still further appealed to her. From men in the valley, this solicitation
might probably have denoted no more than ordinary politeness, but she
knew from experience that the phlegmatic mountaineers must be moved by
strong emotion to sympathize with one in pain. "It's all gone, now," she
added.

"Whoop-ee!" he gave a sudden yell, at the same time springing into the
air and striking his heels twice together in a wild dance of joy.
"Whoop-ee!" he yelled again. "Git hit, 'n' let's begin! Git hit, I say!"

"Dale!" she cried in consternation, drawing back from him. "Are you
mad?"

"Bob said ye couldn't teach 'counten yo' haid," he breathlessly
continued, his face glowing with excited pleasure. "But now ye kin! Now
ye kin git the book 'n' give me my larnin', can't ye?"

He was looking down at her with an expression she had never beheld in
anyone's face--enthusiasm, wildness, even madness; but his eyes were not
seeing her. They missed the parted, startled lips, the heightened color
of her oval cheeks, the pulsing throat, and the frightened breathing.
They watched only for her to produce the key to his religion--a book.

And she read this in his burning eyes as though it were written there in
cold, black, selfish letters. A deep smouldering and immoderate anger
seized her. That this man who had seemed such a power of softness should
so show himself to be a thing of self-centered flint, wounded her; and
Jane rebelled at wounds. For the moment they stared, seemingly
hypnotized; until at last her voice came as low and expressionless as
his had been full of fire.

"Sit down. I'll get a book, but before you look into it you shall learn
a lesson that will be more useful."

He obediently dropped into his chair, but she remained standing and, in
the same monotone, said:

"You've told me about your Sunlight Patch, and of a blind sister who
reads all day and into the nights to throngs of ignorant people for
their improvement; who gave the only horse and the last nine dollars on
the place, and left herself nearer helpless than she already was, in
order that you might start out to be a great man--a man like Lincoln, or
like Clay." He missed a touch of fine sarcasm here. "Now let us see what
you have done, and how far you have emulated the great hearts of those
noble patterns you've set out to follow: Yesterday you arrived, and,"
here her cheeks turned a deeper pink, "defended a school teacher
against insult. Understand, you did not champion a defenseless girl; it
was the school teacher, whom you considered as a necessity to your
future. This morning you went out before daylight--I've heard about
it--to punish, not an offender against society, but a probable menace to
your ambition. You are sorry if the school teacher has a headache, not
because a human being is suffering, but because your own desire is
thwarted. You have no more charity in your soul than a stone!"

He was silent, contrite and humble, but she had not finished with him
yet. While the instinct of the teacher had been stirred, more thoroughly
had been aroused a girl's offended pride. So in the same voice she went
relentlessly on:

"First learn that your mountain is not the only place which holds a
Sunlight Patch! There is one everywhere," her hand, unconsciously placed
against her breast, now pressed as she spoke. "In everyone there must be
that same selfless desire to give the last horse and the last nine
dollars to whomsoever it may carry to a higher goal, or mankind is a
failure. Learn this now. Do not think because you were born in Sunlight
Patch that any of its virtues are clinging to you. We carry no virtues
but our own--remember that! Don't forget that other people depend on you
just as much as you depend upon them, and that life is a big game of
give and take--the giver usually winding up with the largest share of
happiness. Now go to the house. Bob has called you twice!"

He rose slowly. There was a tightness in his throat; his head throbbed
and hurt. His capacity for learning, the true offspring of his
insatiable desire, had become so like a dry sponge drawing in from every
trickle of knowledge which flowed through his remote habitation, that he
missed no word of what she said--each had sunk deep into his mind as a
marble that is tossed into a limpid pool, gradually settling until it
rests on the clear bottom, forever to be undisturbed, but forever in
sight.

It suddenly occurred to him that Bob had really called, and he took a
step in that direction, but turned once more to look at her. No one
could have met that look unmoved, much less this girl who had been the
necessary cause of it. It was so haunted, so pleading for another
chance, and he seemed so pitifully helpless in his awkwardness and
homespun clothes, that in spite of herself two tears welled into her
eyes, balanced, and fell. She dashed them quickly away and turned her
back to him. Again the tightness seized his throat while wave after wave
of something particularly cruel swept through him.

His sister had never cried--or, at least, not in his presence; nor had
the few bare-footed girls he knew. They might have bawled their eyes out
and he would have calmly walked away. But this one was different, very
different, and he could not move; this was the teacher, his teacher, the
thing he had set up on a pedestal by the throne of God Himself--yes,
higher; or, at any rate, more continuously in his thoughts.

"Have you forgotten Bob wants you?" she finally asked.

"No'm," he answered. "I war jest 'bout ter go."

A woodpecker tapping on the dead top of a tree now stopped amidst a
breathless stillness. Bees were droning in the air, and softly over the
land came the song of a happy field hand. It was all very peaceful and
very quiet; too peaceful, too cloyingly quiet for Jane just then, and,
as he continued to stand, she fairly screamed at him:

"Are you petrified?"

"What's petrified?" he asked simply.

Slowly she turned and faced him; her eyes showing no tears, only
tolerant surprise and amusement.

"Really, Dale, you are the most extraordinary person! Petrified means
having become stone, or stony; sometimes stunned, or dazed. Now run
along to Bob!"

While she watched him striding over the lawn, a low, merry laugh made
her turn to behold Nancy, a picture of mischief--although with traces of
a recent storm in her own eyes. Yet, like so many of the physically
mature but mentally undeveloped, sorrows did not rest heavily upon her
for any length of time.

"I didn't mean to laugh," she apologized, "but it did sound so funny
sending that big feller away like that! That's all I heard," she added
quickly.

"He's really no more than a boy," Jane smiled. "You'll probably see him
in school Monday. What's the matter?"

"Oh, lots;" Nancy flopped, rather than sat, on the grass. "I can't keep
on goin' to school! I can't do these sums a-tall! Pappy's drunk again,
an' throwin' things around the house just awful. He can't mortgage the
farm for any more, an' the storekeeper in town says he's goin' to sue
him for what he owes, an' he's got drunk to forget it, I reckon. I can't
work out this old thing in long division, anyway, Miss Jane, let alone
when he's throwin' things!"

Most of this story had often before been poured into the teacher's
sympathetic ears.

"You must have more grit than that," she said, patting one of the girl's
hands. "You know I'll stand by you, and you know you're doing very
nicely!"

"I reckon I ought to know," Nancy sighed. "But, honest, Miss Jane, I've
used up enough grit for a flock of dominick hens! There isn't any more
left on our place!"

Jane laughed. "If I'm not terribly mistaken in the girl, you'll find
another supply before getting home."

"I reckon you're awful mistaken, then," she sighed dolefully. "I've just
plain got to the end of the pile. It's hard, Miss Jane, honest it is,
with Pappy cussin' an' drunk, an' barely enough to eat, an' not decent
clothes to wear! His mealy-mouthed wife stands for it, but I don't, an'
that makes things all the hotter. I'm tired of it! Why, I could have
everything I want if--if--"

"If what?" Jane quickly asked. She looked fixedly at the girl whose
face, suddenly crimson with blushes, made an effort to look calmly back.

"Oh, if nothin', I reckon," Nancy stammered.

"Sit over here nearer to me, Nan," Jane said after awhile. "I'm lonely
myself today, and I've just heard something I want to tell you."

In no school could she have acquired that faculty for reaching one's
confidence, and this artfully expressed feeling of loneliness touched a
response in the girl's nature which she now frankly confessed by timidly
snuggling against Jane's knees.

"Poor, tired thing," Jane murmured, her fingers touching Nancy's hair.
"Do you sometimes fancy everyone unsympathetic?"

"Sort of," came a trembling little sigh.

Again the bees droned their drowsy lullaby. The song of the field hand
was hushed, but in its place was the smell of new turned earth that told
of a labor finished.

With every detail vividly drawn, she related the story of the blind girl
in a remote wilderness which had achieved the name of Sunlight Patch; of
what she had accomplished; of all she had given to the lives of those
about her. And in a lowered voice told of the promise exacted of her
brother, her only brother and support. When she finished, Nancy was
looking up with wide open eyes.

"You mean to say she prayed for the only kin she had on earth to be
struck dead if he ever went wrong?--an' him a man? Well, that surely is
grit!"

"The thing is, Nan," Jane said softly, "that people with two eyes ought
to do at least as much!"

Nancy arose and brushed her skirt.

"I reckon," she murmured, "that girl can teach us a heap when it comes
to gettin' your teeth in things an' holdin' on. I ain't got a good
reason now for not goin' back an' fightin' the ole man; but I wish to
Gawd somethin' would strike _him_ dead! Much obliged, Miss Jane--I sort
of feel more like a Christian now."




CHAPTER XI

ON THE THRESHOLD


Toward evening Dale rode back to Arden. His mind was a confusion of
happy impressions, the result of having laid its touch upon the throttle
of power. From the dusky room where his life had sat wondering, he felt
now that a hand had pressed his shoulder, aroused him, and led him to
the silver threshold whose outlook was a landscape of golden
opportunity. As, twenty-four hours earlier, when his eyes for the first
time rapturously feasted on this valley of plenty, so now his mind
roamed across a dazzling future--a future which was his, his very own.

Tossing back his head he gave a yell, a wild, joyous yell, that startled
the horse and sent scurrying to higher branches an inquisitive squirrel
which had been looking down at him with chattering interest.

When he turned into the circle, the Colonel stood up and stretched,
welcoming him with an open smile of approval. He could imagine what tact
Bob had employed to bring about this new attire, but little did he guess
at what sacrifice to personal comfort. For the donation of clothes was
not what stamped Bob a philanthropist. He had taken Dale into his room
and there prosecuted a stragetic system; voluntarily submitting to Uncle
Zack's shears on his hair which required no cutting. Nor was this all.
He made the old servant shave him, a thing he despised from any hand but
his own. Then he tubbed, and continued this game of follow-the-leader
throughout the entire toilette, affably talking all the while, until
Dale emerged a different looking, and a much more gratified, man.

"Lawd, Marse Dale," Uncle Zack had exclaimed, "you suah does look
handsome! I'se gwine to shave you ever' mawnin' now, till you ketches on
for yohse'f!"

The Colonel's smile was immeasurably pleasing to his new guest, and when
the old gentleman playfully spoke of fine clothes Dale responded like a
happy boy.

"Ain't they fine!" he looked admiringly down at himself. "I reckon I
hain't never had on decent clothes before in all my life! D'ye reckon
I'll get used ter this collar? Bob said so!"

Under his arm were two books--a speller and a simple reader. These Jane
had given him as he left, after an afternoon spent in lessons on the
lawn. It was the first lesson, of course; a lesson, perhaps, which both
would remember all their lives; vivid to Dale because the tentacles of
his mind were beginning to stir and stretch in their new awakening;
vivid to her for many reasons. As the day had progressed she became more
and more astounded by his ability to learn, for in an incredibly short
time he had mastered the first four columns of her spelling book with an
ease which made her wonder if he had not before been over it.

Enthusiastically now he related this to the Colonel, who saw that he
was trembling--tingling, like a thoroughbred ready for the start in a
big race.

"You must use the library for your studies, sir," the old gentleman
declared with warmth. "In there you will find a dictionary--if you know
how to use one."

"Show me how!" the new student eagerly turned to him.

Laying aside his own volume, a treatise on the calorific power of
fuels--a brain-rasping subject which had been absorbing him since the
coal fields were in prospect--he led the way into that spacious, mellow
room, walled from floor to ceiling with shelves upon shelves of books.
Dale stood transfixed. His head was thrown back and his hands were
clenched, as though in very truth the secrets of this silent store-house
were already creeping out to enter his attentive brain. Colonel May
opened the clumsy dictionary, explaining it with a word the mountaineer
had already learned to spell, and left him in this paradise of fancies.

Some time later Uncle Zack opened the library door, announced dinner,
and left unheard. A few minutes after this he returned, but again left
unheard, and only when a hand pressed Dale's arm did the young man look
up. The Colonel was smiling down at him.

"Come, Sam Johnson. Dr. Jared Sparks, Ben Franklin, Davy Crockett, Abe
Lincoln, and more such indomitable shades rolled into one! Man must eat;
it is time for dinner!"

"What does that mean?" he asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Oh, Lord," the Colonel groaned. "I'll tell you another time. Come! You
understand 'dinner,' I hope?"

Entering the dining room Dale's mind was like a country pup walking
stiff-legged into a crowd of city dogs, its hair belligerently on end
and the tip of its tail wagging a friendly compromise. Not that he was
at all defiant, and of course not afraid, but his whole mental attitude
had become one of alert watchfulness, ready to spring this way or that,
to follow this new custom or that new custom, and not intending to lag
if the others made a move. So it was that when the Colonel held a chair
back for Miss Liz, and Bob was seating Jane, Dale, who never in his life
had seen anything of this sort, made a pretense of imitating them for
the convenience of Ann;--and even though she were rudely jolted by the
violence with which he shoved her into the table, her appreciative smile
made him determine to do this thing forever.

"How will you have your coffee, Mr. Dawson?" Miss Liz presently
asked--for dinner at the Colonel's was of the farm variety which scorned
the demitasse.

"A mite of long sweetenin', please Ma'm," he answered to that lady's
utter consternation. She laid down the tongs and stared at him.

"He'll take it as you fix Bob's, Miss Liz," Jane interposed readily
enough to save the situation, and at the next opportunity she turned in
a confidential undertone: "We don't use 'long sweetening' down here,
Dale. People in the valleys use sugar exclusively--'short sweetening,'
as you call it. They don't have to grind and stew up corn-stalks to get
sorghum for their coffee, as we used to do. But I remember how good
that molasses--that 'long sweetening'--was," she added, lying for the
benefit of charity. "Don't forget, they use 'short sweetening' all the
time here in coffee, but they never call it anything but sugar. While on
the subject of customs I want to correct you about something else.
Today, over home, you stood in the drive and halloed for Bob till he
came out for you. That isn't done in the settlements. Here you can walk
right up to anybody's front door and knock, or ring the bell, without
the slightest fear of having a rifle poked through a chink because
people may take you for an enemy. Of course, your way is the proper and
polite thing to do where we come from, but in the valley it isn't good
etiquette."

"What's etiquette?" he asked.

She explained it and continued:

"The etiquette of knives and forks and spoons also materially differs
between our people and these."

"I never seed one of these little fellers before," he picked up a
teaspoon and turned it curiously over.

"I didn't either," she laughed, "until I went to the convent. But now,
since I'm to be your teacher, you must let me teach you these things,
too."

"I want ye to teach me everything in the world," he whispered.

"Then watch how I use them," she replied, flushing at the way he said
this, "and which ones I use. Down here, people who eat with their knives
are murdered--I mean socially murdered. Break--" she was about to say:
break all the commandments before doing this! but thought better of it
and added: "yourself of that habit the very first--the very first thing
you do. And I want to hear more of that good English you say you know,"
she laughed at him. "You've been talking atrociously all day!"

"What's atrociously?" he asked.

"I don't see Brent," Miss Liz raised her lorgnette. "Is he ill?"

"No, my dear," the Colonel answered, "he is otherwise engaged and cannot
be with us."

"John," the good woman stared severely across at him, "I believe that
boy is working too hard! You must prevail upon him to take more rest."

A bomb exploding could scarcely have produced more surprise, yet one
could never know just at what point Miss Liz would "break out"--as Zack
called it. In the midst of their spellbound silence Ann giggled, and
Jane managed to say:

"That would be rather difficult, wouldn't it, Miss Liz?--I mean,
persuading him to take _more_ rest?"

"Well, your father must try," she insisted; for, when very much in
earnest, Miss Liz impartially denoted the Colonel as father to
whomsoever she might be speaking.

"He's makin' a railroad, ain't he?" Dale turned to Ann. "Do ye reckon
he'll show me how?"

"He'll turn it all over to you, no doubt!--he'll have to turn it over to
someone if it gets built! It only shows, Daddy," she laughed across to
the Colonel, "that one can't serve a corporation and a goddess both at
the same time! Isn't that a natty little epigram?"

"I don't follow the subject of your epigram," the Colonel smiled.

"Why, Brent, and the goddess, and the railroad," she replied.

"Goddess, my dear? What goddess?"

She and Jane exchanged glances.

"He's suspected of having a love somewhere; some mysterious love whom he
meets in the moonlit forest of Arden--when it's moonlight; and, maybe,
when it isn't."

"What have you to support this?" the old gentleman frowned. He, too, had
sometimes wondered what took Brent away so frequently of late. These
were uncomfortable thoughts to the Colonel, who allowed suspicions no
place in his estimate of people.

"Oh, we just support it for the sake of gossip," she laughed. "Aunt
Timmie dreamed it, I believe."

"I thought you were serious," he smiled, yet showing his distaste for
the subject, "nor will I permit any gossiping here!"

"But, Heavens, Daddy--"

"My dear," he interrupted her, "I trust you will never learn to gossip.
It is purely a trade, carried on by a breed of fawning Judases--of
self-satisfied butchers, to deal in the choicest cuts of their
unsuspecting friends' characters. The shelter of my roof must also
afford protection to the good name of my guest."

"'Good name' in the present instance is hardly a calculable statement,"
she murmured, for Ann could be biting, as well as sweet, when her
feelings were touched.

"I quite agree with John," Miss Liz arose to the occasion. "It is
strange," she added, turning the lorgnette this time carefully at Jane,
"that he does not find a nice young girl to marry."

"Such a cynosure of niceness, too," Ann added her little dig, and Jane
suggested:

"He might try advertising!"

"What's advertising?" Dale asked.

"Oh, Lord," the Colonel exploded into his napkin.

When dinner was over, Jane crossed the porch unnoticed and walked out
under the trees. The lorgnette which had said to her "it is strange he
does not find some nice girl to marry," left a disquieting effect. Ann
had only that day suggested the same idea, and Bob had laughed to her
about it the previous evening. Even Aunt Timmie, the ebony font of
wisdom, had but recently looked slyly at her, remarking: "'Foh long we's
gwine to have a weddin' in a private cyar!" (Aunt Timmie had never seen
a private car, but it typified her idea of grandeur). She now strolled
on beneath the trees, beneath giant clinging wild grape and trumpet
vines, to a circle of low spreading cedars, wherein lay a carpet of
odorous tanbark. It was a favorite spot with her.

Gliding carefully through the meeting branches which hid the path, she
dropped into a yielding hammock and gazed for several minutes up at the
network of black limbs, watching a star here and there which showed in
a few small patches of visible sky. One arm stretched down at full
length until her fingers touched the ground, and in this way she was
keeping the hammock gently in motion.

She made a wonderfully graceful shadow, reclining in this dark place,
and no judge of the human form could have passed without a quick breath
of admiration for its delicate blending of strength and frailty, its
stamp of being thoroughbred. And it was along the line of thoroughbreds
that her thoughts were wandering.

Having acquired much of the Colonel's reliance in breeding, and in the
fitness of appropriately mated things, she was wondering! Her father and
mother had been illiterate mountaineers, but did there not exist a time
prior to this when their ancestors were people of refinement? This, she
felt, must be surely so, because of her early love of refined
things--truly refined, to a degree far beyond the ken of mountain life.
Without substantiating records, she seemed to know that in early
Colonial days her family of gentle blood had floated with the migratory
tide across the Appalachian range. That was the origin of all
mountaineers! What had held some there, instead of sending them on to
the rich, unsurveyed plains? A birth enroute? That sometimes happened.
The man of the family died, or was killed, and the woman forced to build
a shelter as best she might until the boys grew big enough to help?
That, too, had happened. Whatever the reason, some of the best
Anglo-Saxon stock had been stranded in the Cumberlands, staying there
literally and figuratively while the world advanced.

Perhaps her strain was purer than the Colonel's! Few mountaineers made
alien marriages, for the very sufficient reason that they seldom
roamed--even though this had meant stagnation in their own environment.
Still, the strain was pure! If one occasionally escaped these mountain
fastnesses, why should he not--why should she not--with a free rein,
dash out to regain lost prestige? Why should she not with one stroke
blot out five or six generations of ignorance, and bring the stifled
line of her honorable ancestry to the place it had been rightfully
demanding for a century? But, in the face of uncertainties, would her
blood commingled with the blood of established lineage now be fair?
Would she ever feel a rebuke in infant eyes? Would they not burn her
soul if she wantonly summoned them to open on a world which might point
back with a superior smile? Could she ever kiss the little lips which
might some day praise the father and be silent of her?

Thus her sensitive thoughts, bringing a succession of confusions,
wandered dreamily on, while the hammock gradually ceased its swinging
and hung as a thing asleep.




CHAPTER XII

A LIGHT ABOVE THE MOUNTAIN


During the latter part of Jane's reflections Brent McElroy was having a
few strange minutes. He had left Arden shortly before sundown and, by
following two side roads, reached the rear gate of Tom Hewlet's farm
without having to appear on the pike. This was no unusual route for him
on evenings when the pike promised hazards such as a chance meeting with
the Harts or Jane.

Whenever Nancy, on the lookout, saw a cloud of dust rising above these
rambling, tree-lined lanes instead of from the white, direct way, a deep
flush of mortification tinged her face. She understood his
circumspection, but wisely refrained from showing it.

Tying his horse, he followed a path up to the gnarled orchard where he
knew she would be waiting. And there he spied her, idly plaiting dry
stems of last year's bluegrass, beneath the distorted old tree which he
had named Nirvana. A glow of extreme pleasure warmed him, for this
Rosalind with her rustic prettiness made an agreeable diversion from the
somewhat monotonous evenings at Arden, and he vastly enjoyed angling
about the edges of her rural pool. But he was unaware that she had never
left its limpid depths. He did not suspect--because he did not think it
possible--that, like a goldfish, she had only swum about in the limited
sphere of her transparent bowl, looking out at the universe with large
eyes which seemed, but were not, wise; and ready, if danger came, to
scurry back into the little frosted castle that constituted the center
of her constricted existence.

No kind words or deeds had reached that frosted little castle during the
years she most required them. It had remained cold and uninviting,
except as a place of shelter, and her soul had shrunk into a sort of
knot--until Brent came. Only at his coming did her hungry nature begin
to uncurl;--only at the coming of this polished gentleman from the great
world, who knew everything, who was the epitome of kindness, who fed her
with confidences and compliments, who inspired her with a sudden sense
of meaningness, of importance--only since then had she begun to realize
that for a long time her heart had craved affection.

He now remained another moment behind the trees to draw a half filled
flask from his pocket. Had he not had more than enough to drink that
day, he might have possessed the prudence to put this back untouched.
Instead, he drained it; then carelessly sent it flying across the fence
into an adjoining field rank with old weeds.

He came on after this, and Nancy sprang up, holding lightly to one of
the low hanging boughs. Before they spoke, and to her wild dismay, he
kissed her; and, as much to her dismay, she yielded, clinging to him in
a strange, sweet agony. For if two hearts are hungry, if two natures
have been strangled, there is a time when the touch of lips to lips lets
loose a sweep of human passion before which the hosts of heaven and the
laws of man draw back in awe.

But suddenly, with a piercing shriek, she sprang away; then, clutching
his arm, whirled him about.

"Look!" she whispered, pointing a trembling finger to a pale, mysterious
glow which seemed to be arising from the peaks of the distant
Cumberlands.

"The moon is coming up," he said, unsteadily.

This was the first time either had spoken, either had moved; but now she
commenced to sob in little gasps, backing farther from him as though he
were something she dared not touch again--reaching blindly behind her
for their old tree, whose strength in having resisted the fury of many
storms might be imparted to her now.

"What's the matter?" he asked, still stupidly.

"Oh, Brent," she whispered, "I thought it was that blind girl lookin'
down here an' tellin' me she'd rather see me dead! Go home, quick, for
the love of Christ!"

He would not ask her to explain. Non-understandable as her words had
been, they had given him time to look about and see upon what a perilous
brink their feet were standing.

Brent was not a godly man; he had not cultivated Nancy with a grain of
godly intention. But he was a manly man; and now as he suddenly
realized, with that certainty which has no law, no rule, no answer, that
she was good, he would not trust himself to speak. Shutting his teeth
hard, he turned abruptly and almost ran toward the horse.

Then it was that she threw herself upon the grass and sobbed great sobs
of thankfulness; and tried to laugh, and tried to pray; holding out her
clasped hands to that halo of light above a humble cabin somewhere in
the mountains, in whose door a blind face had seemed to look down at her
entreating: "I'd ruther see ye die!"

It was in a perturbed but thoroughly sober mind that Brent dragged back
the broken gate, whose openings and closings had worn a deep rut in the
ground. He was about to untie his horse when the figure of a man
appeared walking clumsily along the orchard fence.

"Wait there," the fellow called. "I want to see you!"

The heavy frame of Tom Hewlet came on, and no other word was spoken
until he stopped three feet away. Swaying slightly, and looking into
Brent's face with a simpering leer, in an undertone he said:

"Come over some evenin' next week."

"What for?"

"I might say it's 'cause you're so purty to look at," he guffawed at
this bit of humor. "But, fact is, it's on fam'ly matters."

"You're coming apart, Tom. Go in and get some sleep!"

"I was sleepin', till a empty whiskey bottle come sailin' through the
air an' hit me on my hand."

A cold shiver crawled up the engineer's spine, but he turned to unhitch
the horse, saying casually:

"You'll have blue mice sailing through the air if you don't sober up."

"Don't be in a hurry," hiccoughed Tom. "Don't leave yoh would-be
step-pappy without some kind of reminder. A fiver 'd go mighty fine
jest now, an' you wouldn't never miss it!"

Brent had wheeled on him.

"You're getting in mighty dangerous ground, Tom," he warned sharply.

"'Tain't half as dangerous as that orchard back there, if you didn't
come into it honest!--an' if you did come honest, there ain't no reason
why I can't borry a fiver--bein' a fam'ly matter, as you might say!"

"I came honest, and I'm leaving honest, you drunken fool," Brent raved
at him. "And don't try any blackmail dodges on me or I'll beat your head
off!"

"Blackmail!" Tom stepped back, not so much in surprise at the word as at
Brent's threatening attitude. "Well, I'll leave it to the Cunnel, an'
Miss Jane, an' them folks over there, if this ain't a fair an' squar
proposition--all in the fam'ly, as you might say;--bein' as you come
honest! For if fine gentlemen like you don't come honest, they'll say
Gawd pity the gal!"

They'll say: God pity the girl! It smote his soul like a whip. Why
should they not say it anyhow of the half-read country girl whom he
slipped around by back roads to meet at night? Heretofore, he had been
more the adventurer than criminal, but now he felt the brand of both.
Some day, after his work was finished and he had gone, Zack would tell
of the messages and notes, and all the sacred oaths of all the creeds
would not convince Arden and Flat Rock one little mite of her innocence!

Over in the orchard a girl, walking slowly to the house, had stopped,
terrified; shrinking for him, not for herself, as with the unerring
instinct of her sex she realized how his pride would cringe before such
an exposure.

"Tom," he said at last, "you may have the fiver, but not because I'm
afraid of anything you can say. Nancy hasn't a thing in God's world to
be ashamed of, and neither have I. But it's plain that I can't come
again as long as you're drunk and seeing things. Here," handing him a
bill. "But it isn't a loan, or hush money, or anything of the
sort;--just hope money."

"How hope money?" Tom grinned, crumpling it eagerly in his hand.

"Because I hope you'll drink yourself to death with it. Good night."

It was late that night, and not until she had made a hurried walk across
the country to Arden, when Nancy stole into the house. Her ears told her
that Tom was lost in slumber, and she crept to her room, fastening the
door with the back of a chair wedged firmly beneath the knob. She was
breathing fast--this time from physical exertion. Her skirt showed one
or two rents where, in her haste, it had been forced through stiff
underbrush, and the knuckles of her hands were stained with fresh earth,
as though she might have crouched upon the ground somewhere to escape
detection. Only upon her face was there no sign of violence. In it
rested a light translatable as a great peace which comes to one who has
forgiven nobly, at the sacrifice of toil, an erring friend.




CHAPTER XIII

IN THE CIRCLE OF CEDARS


Brent reached Arden behind a sweaty horse. The meeting with Hewlet was
filling him more and more with an agonizing unrest. He wanted to be
alone, and he wanted not to be alone. He wanted to think, and he wanted
not to think. At least, he could not face the Colonel and the others
just now, so turning past the house to the most secluded spot the lawn
afforded, he brushed through the screen of cedar branches, felt his way
across the tanbark to a seat, and sank into it with a low curse.

Jane had heard the quick approaching steps, and now, because her eyes
were accustomed to the shadowy gloom, she recognized at once, not only
the man but a measure of his agitation by the way he breathed and jammed
one fist into the palm of his other hand. Yet, in a spirit of fun, she
remained motionless, wondering how soon he would detect her. Then a deep
groan burst from his lips. It was a sound of poignant suffering that
went to the depths of her nature. Purposeless as seemed his life, she
still felt that it could not be altogether bad. The very charm of his
presence, which had a way of stamping him a gentleman born even when in
his khaki working clothes, stood for some defense; and, in spite of his
laziness, she rather guessed that a generous fund of masculine strength
lay within that frame--and of mental strength, if directed toward things
of his desire. She knew him to be a dreamer, a scoffer; but had not
accredited him with a capacity of worry or grief. The evidence of it now
perplexed as much as it stirred her. In the stillness of the place it
seemed almost as though she could hear his heart crying beneath its
breath in the grip of some remorseless sorrow. At once she was all pity,
and slowly, with her eyes resting on his bent head, asked:

"What has happened?"

He sprang up, peered at her, and then tried to laugh.

"You must forgive me," he bowed, "for bringing the dramatic club into
your sanctum. I'd no idea anyone was here."

"I know that," she said. Then asked again: "What has happened?"

"You're a bully fellow," he exclaimed in a tone of sincerity, but not
entirely free from the false echo of his laugh, "and I'd love to tell
you were you not certain to be bored stiff with it. Let me ask you,
instead, what you're thinking about in this charmed circle?"

"I'm sure you'd be bored stiff," she drily answered.

He waited a moment. Then:

"It wasn't very courteous of me, I know; but, as a matter of fact, I was
just having something out with myself. I've--I haven't been fair to
someone; and I'm sorry. So I can't tell you lest I betray."

She sat more erect with a shade of her former sympathy, asking as though
it had been a debatable point:

"Then you have a conscience?"

"I have a sense of proportion," he answered. "That's more logical than a
conscience."

"Will you ever exercise it for those poor mountain people of mine, who
are starving for civilization?"

"I already do--all sorts of ways."

He had himself in hand now, and, crossing over, sat down by her.

"I think you'll be more comfortable on the bench," she suggested, and he
returned to the rustic seat.

The pause was rather awkward, and she continued:

"I didn't mean to pry into your--sense of proportion, but thought you
might have had bad news. That's why I asked. In a place like this, you
know, where people are more or less detached from the usual worldly
interests, they sometimes feel as though they might help each other
without committing an unpardonable affront. That's all. Have you many
more rights of way to secure before the road can go ahead?"

"I should like to think, Miss Jane," he replied, passing the matter of
railroads, "that I really could turn to you for help sometimes. If
there's a fellow in all the world who needs it, and who abominably hates
to let people see he needs it, it's the luckless devil before you."

"If the world is to be kept in ignorance," she smiled, "you mustn't come
into dark places and begin swearing unless you know they're uninhabited.
It's romantic, but dangerous."

"Romantic things are always dangerous; ever think of that?"

"I haven't, but it isn't true," she answered.

"I can prove it without any trouble, but--" he arose, feeling his
pockets, "my--er--cigarettes! Will you wait a few minutes?"

She bowed, and he went out; not for the cigarettes, but to a side window
of the house where he beckoned Zack and told him to build, without
delay, a toddy. For Brent had been considerably unstrung by the
suddenness with which events moved across his stage since sunset, and he
turned to this concoction for temporary steadiness. Then he lighted a
cigarette and walked back to her in a more composed frame of mind.

"Now," he said, entering the cedars, "with your permission, why are
romantic things dangerous?"

"That happened to be your observation, and not interesting," she
answered. "You found your cigarettes?"

"You see I'm smoking," he smiled.

"And temporizing," she drily observed. "Really, Mr. McElroy, the truth
is not in you!"

"I beg your pardon?" he stiffened slightly.

"I am saying the truth is not in you," she directly answered. "When you
first came here tonight, you took a cigarette from your case and lighted
it."

"I should never have been so careless if something weren't on my mind,"
he laughed now. "The truth--the true truth--is that I needed a drink of
wicked whiskey. Forgive me?"

"I might not find it so difficult to forgive if, in the future, you
either stop trying to deceive me or talking to me; I really don't care
which!"

"I say!" he looked up in surprise. "That's pretty straight talk! But it
may be a worth-while thing for you to remember that a place does exist
where men can't answer every question put to them, and I very much doubt
your right to assume so much simply because I choose to keep a few of my
affairs to myself. When I first came in here you asked what had
happened. That was sympathetic, and I appreciated it; but it was
something I couldn't answer, and told you so. You may remember that you
seemed to resent that. Your manner was an invitation for me to make up
some sort of a fairy-tale to appease your curiosity; and if I had, and
you'd found it out, you would just as readily have called me a
what's-his-name. You're illogical. You don't seem to share my sense of
proportion, at any rate. I wanted a drink--I needed a drink; and I had
every right in the world to take it, providing I didn't offend anyone.
But it would have offended you--so why announce my intention? If I'm put
in a position where some sort of explanation is demanded, and the truth
can't in fairness be told, I'm thrown back on the resort which your own
sex has taught me--that delectable sex of sweet poisons and silent
stilettoes, versatile in the art of lying; queens of the art,
indeed--though innocent in it. And here's another plain truth: I'd love
to be frank with you, and tell you everything in the world I can,
because I think you are square with lots of things which most women
side-step. I can't just express it, but you're broadminded and
charitable, and smash right out from the shoulder at a thing as if you
didn't have skirts on. I don't put it very well, but you know what I
mean!"

She thought he did not put it very well, but she knew he put it
sincerely, and her reply held a vein of banter which he might not have
been expecting just then:

"Perhaps you'll begin by telling about your mysterious dryad in the
Forest of Arden!"

"Suspicion," he peered through the gloom at her reprovingly, "is the
solvent which disintegrates happiness; and happiness, reduced to its
component parts, is trash. Withdraw your question!"

"Happiness cannot be reduced to its component parts," she laughed,
"because its ingredients have strayed to us from the four corners of the
universe, and cannot ever be returned. I insist upon your answer!"

"You are drawing a long bow," he said more soberly. "You employ
femininity's imperfect warrant to shoot at random and trust her gods to
put something in the way of getting hit. It's a satire on honesty."

"Never mind about honesty," she laughed again. "Did my gods fail me?"

He puffed a few times at his cigarette, finally taking a deep inhalation
and blowing it slowly on the lighted end until the outlines of his face
became softly visible in the glow. She saw how serious it seemed, and
guessed he was purposely making it so.

"Since you insist--!" he began very carefully. "My dryad in this
enchanted wood is the most enticing spirit ever clothed in the graces
of woman. That's all."

Again he turned to his cigarette. Again the red glow and the serious
face. Again her accurate suspicion.

"If that is all, you're not playing fair. Does she live in a tree?"

"No. She lives in a big white house with big white columns; by night she
haunts me, but by day she holds school for mortals in a shady grove."

"I thought you were more original than that," she said, in an
expressionless voice. "So we're not to talk any more, are we!"

"But I swear--" he began.

"So do I," she interrupted him, "that you bore me to extinction with
things like that, Brent; honestly you do! If you can't be just a little
bit sincere, I can't be interested in you."

They had known each other for more than two months; two months of almost
daily, unconventional contact, but this was the first time she had
called him Brent. It came now as a master-stroke for true understanding,
and he threw back his head and laughed.

"My, but you're a corker--beg pardon--I mean a live wire!"

"Overwhelming flattery in either case," she smiled, "and that's the
second sincere thing you've said."

"The second! Well, I like that! Perhaps when you begin thinking less
about yourself, you'll be able to see more virtues in other people!"

"No one has ever accused me of thinking particularly about myself," she
righteously flushed.

"No one has to," he replied, teasingly. "Being a teacher--although a
very young and charming one--presupposes egotism."

"Your analysis is shrewd tonight," she coolly observed.

"Not at all," he affably continued. "An egoist, and a woman whose dress
is unhooked in the back, are always blissfully unconscious that the
world is seeing more of them than they normally would permit."

Her hand stole to the back of her waist. He saw this and again began to
laugh, saying:

"I fancy that part is all right. And you know how far I am from meaning
the other, too!"

"I'm probably different from most of your friends," she spoke rather
quickly, "because I'd rather tell an unpleasant truth than a
conventional falsehood. Truth, to me, is the bravest and most beautiful
thing in life. And one reason," she added, leaning imperceptibly nearer
to see his face, "that women so love it in a man is because it makes of
him a sort of restful harbor she can steer to from gathering worries. No
man can possibly know how comforting it is for a girl's course to be
laid within easy running distance of a safe harbor. He may know of
wrecks which occur without them, but seldom considers how easily many of
these might have been averted."

"Men sometimes feel that way about girls," he suggested. "Only, in
girls, they ask for tenderness."

She took the rebuke, simply adding:

"Girls feel tenderness for shelter, not for a destroying sea."

They were quiet then. The hum of night life was about them, and from the
house came faintly the mellow notes of a piano, where the Colonel and
Bob were watching out of shadow the enraptured light in Dale's face as
Ann introduced him for the first time in his life to that type of
instrumental music.

As though this were in some way made known to her, Jane broke the
silence.

"A man with an honest purpose in life," she gently said, "with a duty to
perform, who sticks to it through thick and thin, admitting no defeat,
hammering upon stubborn places, finds in good womankind an ever-ready
tenderness. It is the feminine answer to masculine courage."

"There are two kinds of courage," he replied after a polite pause, "just
as there are two kinds of duty, and two kinds of pride--each so closely
resembling its other self that men, and particularly women, are often
misled. When fear tugs at a fellow's heart (and without fear there would
be no courage) he is courageous who walks resolutely into every
uncertainty if duty chances to be there calling. I think you will agree
with me. But what is duty? There's your stumbling block! A false
conception of this--a belief that he sees ahead of him what there is
not--may cause him to be sacrificed as ignominiously as a bone tossed to
a dog; his life would be gobbled up for no better purpose. That's bad
business. Humanity would be bankrupt at such a rate. So, if a man of
courage be not also a man of foresight--"

"You mean that he would have no excuse for keeping out of danger," she
laughed. "That when he saw a duty, or heard its call, he would not be
able to justify himself in sitting calmly down to consider if the
sacrifice were worth while! Then, indeed, would the world be a sorry
place! Personally, I'd rather see fat dogs stalking over the earth than
just bones!"

"I hope you are deliberately misconstruing what I have said," he flushed
furiously. "Fear of physical and mental pains are just the same,
requiring the same courage to go through." He stopped, as though
weighing the wisdom of continuing. "Oh, I don't care," he moved
uneasily, "I want to tell you nearer what I mean. Once, a long time
ago--maybe three years or four--there was a girl for whom I'd have
suffered anything and thanked God for the pain. That's loving some! And
there was another chap, a sort of friend of mine, and a right decent
sort; steady, always at work, and people said she'd make a great mistake
by taking me. They saw him only when he was making money by his own
grinding, you know, and saw me only when I was spending my allowance. He
wanted her, too; and it was a pretty nice race between us, with a
foregone conclusion that she'd take one or the other. She didn't pay any
attention to what the people said, but one day I picked up some kind of
a self-righteous, courageous microbe, and decided the proper way for
her--I stepped aside."

"And?" she asked, when he did not continue.

"My courage was there, but my point of view was warped; I was out of
focus on duty," he quietly asserted. "She married the other fellow, and
it developed too late that his life was a shabby muss. Now her eyes are
heavy with an endless sorrow. I think that was when I tried--well, when
I began drinking some."

"Wouldn't you have done that anyway?" she asked.

"Perhaps," he slowly answered.

"If he had not married her, and she were here now, would you?"

"Not since you are here," he debonairly smiled.

She might not have heard this from the way she sat, looking down and
thinking.

"I suppose," she said at last, "that all men's lives are shabby musses.
You may think me unkind, but without a shadow of doubt you would have
made her unhappy, too. You are that type."

"I'm very much obliged to you," he murmured. "It seems that I've come to
a friend, and found a judge; that my search for sympathy has brought me
to a sentence. You're most encouraging, Jane. Perhaps it would be
interesting to know how you've found all this out!"

"Oh, I can't say just how," she answered, feeling that his rebuke held
more than a share of justice. "It comes from so many small things,
which, apart, might be immaterial, but, together, speak volumes and make
you quite an impossible quantity in the scheme of domesticity. For
instance, the other day, when you had someone's gun in your hands, you
deliberately fired at an overflying woodpecker to test your skill. The
dead bird was useless. That showed the instinct of a wanton destroyer,
and a wanton destroyer, my friend, is not just the safest place for a
girl's happiness."

"How do you know I wasn't keeping in practice, in order to become a good
protector?" he murmured, but she was not in the mood for flippancy, and
continued:

"You shirk responsibilities, and have that dear old Colonel drinking
more than he has done in years; while your own hedonism is shocking."

"Well, why not?" he looked up suddenly. "If pleasure's my god, whose
business is it?"

"Pride's," she softly answered. "It's the business of Pride, that makes
all male human beings men. Girls know, without having to reason, that a
man who is lacking in pride is lacking in self respect, and is unworthy
of himself; which means he is unworthy of anyone else. That may not be
very clear, but it's what I mean. If Dale, now, had the surveying of
your road, we could feel certain of it; or if you had more self control
like him--though I suppose he was born with it!"

He frowned, and she saw his teeth press hard upon his lower lip. Perhaps
that was why she added:

"See what a dependable man he is going to be!--what strength of
character!"

He looked away. Realizing how impossible it would be for her to say this
about himself, a feeling of rebellion began to stir against the
mountaineer. But he indignantly choked it with a ruthless hand, knowing
that her comparison, not Dale, must be held responsible. Then for a
moment he took a swift glance into the future, wondering how long it
might be before he could come abreast of this mountaineer's supposed
dependability--and, perhaps, pass on ahead of it! But Brent was not in
the habit of gazing future-ward, and he could not hold the focus for
long at a time. Now, quietly, he spoke to her, though without interest:

"I'm afraid your three little observations are illogical. In the first
place, self control is not a proof of dependability; in the second
place, Dale has no more self control than a kitten in a fit; and in the
third place, people are not born with self control. Is there anything
else you'd like to talk about?"

She flushed, but looked across at him smilingly:

"I want to talk about that!"

"Then let's get rid of Dale first. If I read the signs, you've got in
that chap a creature of limitless self indulgence. He's crazy to learn,
and I've no doubt that already he is studying like a steam engine; but
when he wants to do other things he'll do 'em with the same zeal. I
gather from the Colonel that he doesn't give a rap for anybody or
anything just so he gets to a book. Self control? He doesn't know any
more about it than water coming down a rain pipe!"

"Don't you think the desire to study is commendable?"

"Certainly, but it requires no self control. He studies just as he would
scratch his hand if it itched. I should call it natural, rather than
commendable; or fortunate, if you choose. Jane," he now looked her fully
and seriously in the eyes, "there are lots of people who go through life
with tense lines about their mouths, saying nothing, never getting into
devilment, and the world tiptoes behind them whispering: 'What
wonderful self control!' It's all rot! Self control is a thing we
unconsciously cultivate from the moment our minds begin to coordinate.
It's like building a dam across our hidden river of tendency; and a hit
or miss sort of structure it is, too. In one man the current of this
tendency may be like a trickling stream, and a handful of materials are
enough to keep it in check. In another, it may be a raging torrent, and
he may slave night and day, gathering stone and sand, and sealing them
with his very blood. But suppose in the end the torrent gets away from
him! He fails, you say. Yet is he weaker after that herculean task than
the other chap who dammed up his stream of tendency with the side of his
boot? He publicly goes under,--yes! But may he not still be finer than
his two-by-four brother whose temperament ran only from the ice-box to
family prayers and back to the ice-box? I want to tell you," he
concluded in the same low, even voice, "that in the Big Summing Up, the
Celestial Clearing House will show many a poor gutter-runner more
entitled to wear medals for having made a game fight for respectability
than some of his anemic superiors who all their days walked slowly, and
were called by their fellows examples of great character. Don't be too
quick to size up a chap's pace, Lady Jane, until you know how red his
blood is, and how much weight he's carrying. I must go now!"

While he had been speaking, the moon, full and mellow, climbed high
above the house and shed a mere suggestion of light--a sort of luminous
radiance--into the thickly sheltered circle. He stood up quickly with
the air of one who had said too much, reached for a cigarette, and then
for a match which he could not at once find. She saw that his face was
very white and drawn in this ghost-like gloaming.

"I wish you wouldn't," she hesitated. "I like to talk to you tonight."

He turned and looked down at her, as she added:

"You're a curious make-up;--and have some really fine things in you!"

"That starts out well," he laughed, lighting the cigarette and sinking
back on the bench.

"Do you ever ask women's permission before smoking?" she asked, a shade
offended by the persistent way he ignored her in this regard.

"I didn't think it was quite necessary out doors;--and you might say
no!"

"Then you haven't the diplomacy of a true Kentucky gentleman. I'll tell
you what one of the most true and gallant of them once told me, and he
would be an example for you to follow--in more than one particular. He
was over ninety years old, and smoking a pipe--a dear old pipe he was
seldom without--when I came up to him. Holding it toward me, he said: 'I
shall not ask if I may smoke in your presence! A long time ago that
request once met with a denial, so thereafter I merely implored the
ladies' permission to burn a little incense to their lovely charms. Nor
do I recall,' he smiled, 'one single refusal in the seventy-five years
which have passed since then!' This," Jane added, her voice tender with
the memory, "was General Simon Bolivar Buckner."

"Well, you've cut a notch too high for me," he answered seriously.
"Those few 'fine things' you just accused me of are nothing more than
fireflies flashing in a skull compared to that grand old man. How d'you
like the simile, by the way? Pretty good, isn't it?"

"A striking picture of you, Brent! I would recognize it anywhere!"

A ripple of good humor played about her mouth which made her dangerously
attractive, and, oddly enough, this was caused by that look of
seriousness she had seen in him--a look which she had not the slightest
doubt portrayed some mental suffering. To anyone else she would have
held out her hand and said: "Let me help--I know I can!" But now she
could only feel somehow glad to find that he was big enough, and fine
enough to suffer. She had not suspected it, and it threw a new light
about him. It sent, too, a riot of something pleasant tingling through
her blood--as she had felt sometimes at the lookout point above her
father's cabin, where she watched for spies while he "mashed" the corn,
and the white moonshine dripped, dripped from the rusty worm of his
home-made still; when, crouched beneath the stars, her quick ears had
caught some faint, suspicious sounds. Ruinous though they might turn out
to be, she used to love those tingle-giving sounds. The same sort of
thrill now reached past the culture-clothed sentinels around her heart
and gave it an honest shake for old time's sake. Slowly she began to
smile, and, seeing this, he moodily asked:

"Why are you smiling?"

"I don't know, Brent. I just want to smile, that's all." Then she arose,
murmured good night, and went out.

But the branches were still swaying where she had passed when he heard a
quick cry of surprise.

"Brent!"

He was beside her in a second, looking over her outstretched arm that
pointed toward the thickest portion of the grounds.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Someone must have been here, and ran in
there!"

He dashed after whatever it was, plunging through the shrubbery and
threshing about for several minutes. Once she thought she heard a low
cry, or voice, and for awhile he was so quiet that she grew more uneasy;
but again the crackling sounds proclaimed him to be on the search, and
finally he emerged.

"It's nothing," he said, coming up. "Maybe a dog."

"It couldn't have been a dog. Let's go to the house--it makes me
creepy!"

They turned, crossing the little patches of moonlight filtered through
the trees upon the violet sprinkled ground. It was a wonderfully
seductive spot on a night like this! The mellow tinkle of the piano,
arising from Ann's nimble touch, floated out to them;--they might have
been walking in an enchanted fairy-land but for the turmoil about his
heart and the unrest in her own. Impulsively she faced him:

"What do you think that could have been?"

He was taken unawares, and had of course no suspicion of her cause for
nervousness.

"Brent," she said again, "I must know who was there!"

He stood humbly before her with his head bowed. When he spoke his voice
was absolutely sincere.

"I can't tell you, Jane."

This magnified her fears, for she thought he was trying mercifully to
spare her.

"You must tell me," she urged, betraying her terror by grasping his arm.
In his own preoccupation he did not notice this. "You must tell me," she
was pleading. "Oh, Brent, if we are ever to be friends, here, tell me!
There's a vital reason why I must know at once!"

"But, Jane, I can't," he earnestly replied to her. "It was someone to
see me!"

"You are cruel to try to spare me this way," she gasped, and the tears
in her voice turned him to a being of great tenderness. "Can't you see
I'm desperate?--that your evasions are torturing me? Who was that man?"

"Man?" he stared at her. "It wasn't a man!"

"Oh," she said, loosing his arm and stepping back with a half earnest,
half hysterical little laugh. "Oh," she repeated, "I--you must forgive
me! I thought it was someone--I thought it might be someone who touched
me very closely, Brent!"

He stood looking down at her. How could he know she had been fearful of
Potter?

"It seems," he slowly mused, "that we've nearly stumbled on each
other's secrets. I didn't suspect you were waiting for anyone, or I
shouldn't have stayed."

"But I wasn't," she quickly retorted.

"Certainly," he drily agreed with her. "Very stupid of me to suggest
it."

She stepped around in front of him, saying frankly:

"I give you my word of honor that I did not dream anyone would come
there, nor is there a man--"

"This isn't necessary," he smiled. "I quite agree with you; and it was
nothing that could have touched you at all closely."

She flushed, then turned and started slowly on, saying in a tremulous
whisper:

"Very well, you needn't believe me." But just before reaching the house
she again turned and faced him. "It hurts, Brent," she faltered, "to
know you are thinking unkind things of me! Your own worldliness makes
you utterly unsparing!"

"I would rather not have you persist in this," he said gently. "It seems
to be one of those cases where you can't tell the truth, so why should
you go to the other extreme unnecessarily? I'm not asking you 'what is
the matter?' or if you found your cigarettes! Please dismiss it! If you
want Dale to meet you in that charmed circle, I'm sure it's a harmless
pastime."

She wheeled and left him, quickly running up the steps and into the
house; but an echo of the pleading in her voice remained, and now gently
pushed aside his ill humor which, in turn, was succeeded by a feeling of
joyous relief;--because, hidden in the rhododendron thicket, a girl had
whispered for him to have no fear--that Tom Hewlet would not threaten
his peace again. In his surprise he had caught her arm and asked why she
had come, but she drew back, whispering: "That blind girl! And, Brent,
take this!" What had she meant again by the blind girl? And why had she
thrust into his hand the little garnet pendant he had given her?

For another minute he pondered over the strange complexity of girls,
then sighed and smiled, and by a side door reached his room.




CHAPTER XIV

A MEETING OF RASCALS


Sometime after dusk the following Saturday, Tusk Potter walked
cautiously toward the home of Tom Hewlet. There was no moon, but a
starry glow illumined the pike and he kept well beneath the overhanging
trees; for Tusk had learned, through a dim sort of reasoning, that when
he walked in life's comfortable shadows he usually walked away from
trouble. He now reached the broken gate and for awhile stood regarding
the house, listening to see what manner of sounds came from within.
Being satisfied, he called:

"Hey, Tom!"

The door opened, and Mrs. Hewlet's whining voice answered:

"What d'you want?"

"Is Tom home?" he asked, in a half whisper.

"What if he is?" she demanded.

"Nuthin'," Tusk answered, shifting his weight and leaning against the
fence.

"Oh, is that you, Tusk?" she exclaimed more hospitably. "I've tuck so
much quinine a body can't hear their ears! Come in an' set!"

"Naw, I reckon not," he evasively replied. "Tell him to come on out!"

The door closed and, after a wait of several minutes, Tom glided around
the corner of the house. He preferred this to coming the direct way.
There were many things in common between Tusk and Tom.

"Hullo, Tusk," he said.

"Hullo, Tom."

They stood for awhile in awkward silence. Finally Tusk got out his knife
and began to whittle on the gate. Tom watched this, then reached into
his own pocket and produced a twist of long-green tobacco from which he
gnawed off a chew.

"Got any licker 'bout you?" he asked.

"A mite," Tusk answered, and by mutual consent they moved farther down
the road.

After having each tipped the bottle, Tusk announced:

"I'm buhned out!"

"You are?" Tom's voice held a note of alarm. "When?"

"A week ago today."

"How'd it happen?"

"You know that feller over to Cunnel's?"

"Reckon I do! Was it him?"

Tusk nodded. Tom remained deep in thought, wondering how he might
proceed without Nancy's knowledge.

"He'll pay for it, all right," he said, at last. "He's been owin' me a
little sum for a spell, an' we'll ask him to come across for two!"

"Aw, hell," Tusk turned with an air of disgust, "that ain't him. This
here'n ain't got no money what I'm talkin' 'bout. I don't mean the
railroad feller!"

"That's so; I did hear tell as how another feller was over there!"

"Well, I'd sort of reckon," Tusk growled. "An' what's moh, he's a
Dawson! There ain't no love lost 'tween me an' you an' the Dawsons,
Tom!"

"Shucks, Tusk, that ole thing's been fixed up way back at home," Hewlet
evasively replied.

"It ain't fixed up when he comes down heah an' buhns me out, I reckon!"

"Naw, I reckon not," the other had to admit. "What you goin' to do?"

"What you reckon I'm goin' to do?" Tusk growled.

"Look-ee-heah," Tom exclaimed, having a sudden inspiration. "You help me
on somethin' fu'st, an' then we'll have money to git moh guns, if yoh're
a mind to start somethin'!"

"How you mean?" Tusk cautiously asked.

"The railroad feller owes me a hund'ed dollars--I wouldn't be s'prised
if it was moh, but a hund'ed'll do to start on. Now don't ask no
questions! It don't consarn nobody but him an' me. You git it for me,
an' I'll help you with that Dawson bird. You know the McElroy feller,
don't you?"

"I've saw him hangin' 'round; but I can't go over there," Tusk grumbled.
"Didn't I jest tell you Dawson buhned me out? Why don't you go?"

"Tusk, a gentl'man don't like to be askin' another gentl'man to pay him
back a little friendly loan. You don't know that, 'cause you ain't got
real good sense, Tusk, but it's so. 'Sides that, some business dealin's
has to go through a third party. That's how he done when he made Dawson
buhn you out, didn't he?"

"When he what?" Tusk glared.

"Why, durn yoh poh haid, don't you know he wants yoh land for the
railroad? Ain't he said time an' time agin he's goin' to have it; an'
ain't you said you wouldn't sell? Well, then how's he goin' to git it,
you tell me that?"

As though a veil had been drawn from Tusk's face he saw it all in an
instant, and the next few minutes he spent in a flow of lurid oaths. Tom
watched him, a slow smile flickering about the corners of his mouth.
Finally he said:

"'Tain't no use to cuss; that won't build yoh cabin. Jest go like you
don't know nuthin' 'bout it, an' say you've come for that hund'ed for
me. An' if he says he ain't goin' to send it, jest say all right, that
you'll go right on over to Arden an' ax the Cunnel an' his folks if they
don't think it's fair an' squar. Jest say that! An' tell him, in case he
ain't got it on him, to put it--let's see," Tom thought a moment; "tell
him to put it on the schoolhouse steps tomorrer night at nine. See? If
you do that, Tusk, an' fetch the coin, I'll give you five dollars an' a
new rifle; an' help you git squar', too."

"Where'll I find this heah railroad feller?" Tusk was growing excited.

"He's at the Cunnel's; I done told you that!"

"An' I done told you I dassant go there!"

"Then ketch him out somewhere."

Tusk thought a moment, and hopefully exclaimed:

"I kin ketch 'im at the schoolhouse when he leaves the money!"

Tom looked at his friend in pitying disgust.

"You blamed fool, how's he comin' to the schoolhouse less'n you tell
'im!"

The simple-minded giant was greatly perplexed at this. He drew out his
bottle and took another drink, then mechanically passed it to Tom.

"Well," this schemer said, drawing the back of his hand across his
mouth, "if you want the gun, you'll have to make it. Belly-achin' around
this a-way won't bring you nothin'. Let me know tomorrer night what you
kin do, 'cause there's plenty others'll jump at the chance." With that
he turned and went back to the house, while Tusk, dazed and thinking
hard, walked slowly and slouchily down the pike.

Chance succeeded where the ingenuity of Tusk might have failed. He
reached a dip in the road where a small stream crossed, and stopped to
drink. On his hands and knees, and with the water dripping from his
mouth and chin, he suddenly raised his head to listen, then scurried
into the bushes to watch, as he recognized the sound of a galloping
horse.

Brent, coming from town, felt his mount shy and saw Potter looking out
at him. He did not know, of course, the part Tusk had played in the
schoolhouse drama, or of the fire, or, indeed, anything about him except
that he owned a piece of land which Dulany, Buckville's legal hope, was
trying to buy for the railroad, and that someone else had said his
strength was as great as his intellect was lacking. Brent reined up.

"Hello, Potter! What are you doing in there?"

"Hello yohse'f," Tusk emerged. "Hold up a minute!"

"Well?" Brent asked.

There was a pause, and Brent asked again: "Well?"

"Tom says as how you kin git that hund'ed for buhnin' down my cabin!"

"I'll get a monkey-wrench, my friend; you rattle," Brent chuckled. "But
you get out of my way! I'm going!"

Tusk regarded him in sullen silence. His face was black with passion and
Brent saw the necessity of more affable tactics.

"What's on your mind?" he asked. "Tell me so I can understand!"

"Nothin' ain't on my mind," Potter answered, with more truth than he
realized. "Tom says you owe me a hund'ed dollars for buhnin' down my
cabin; an' he says to leave that an' the hund'ed you owes him on the
schoolhouse steps tomorrer night; an' if you don't hand 'em over now
I'm to put it up to the Cunnel!"

It was disconnected, but Brent understood the last part well enough.
Also, it had flashed across his mind that if Tusk were really burned
out, Tom had done it and concocted a plausible tale in order to gain
this fellow as an ally. So he sat for a minute trying to grasp the
dangling threads of this surprising situation.

"Tusk," he said, "I didn't know you were burned out, and, of course, I
didn't do it; but I will buy your land if you'll come in town Monday and
sign--that is, if Dulany finds the title clear. He's getting some other
pieces for me, and can put yours in. How much do you own?"

"Acre," Tusk answered. "Th' ain't no trick 'bout this?"

"Certainly not. But land up there where you are isn't worth a hundred
dollars an acre! What are you trying to put over on us, Tusk?"

"Don't make no difference," he growled. "I had a cabin, an' a bed, an
blanket; an' stove, too, sech as 'twas!"

"All right," Brent laughed. "I'll give you the hunner if you're at
Dulany's office Monday." A hundred was the exact maximum price he and
Dulany had decided on offering Potter for that little strip.

"How 'bout Tom's?"

"Tom's?" Brent looked down at him. "Oh, you just tell Tom to go to hell.
That's the place for him."

"Will I tell the Cunnel's folks to go there, too?" he asked, with
unintentional sagacity.

Brent hesitated; then, leaning over the saddle, put an impressive
question.

"Tusk, do you want to go to hell?"

"Shucks," he spat contemptuously, "hell ain't got nothin' on a feller
like me!"

"Then do you want to go to the penitentiary?"

"Fer Gawd sake," he sprang back, "what you mean?"

"Just this: You tell Tom that this blackmail has got to stop! Understand
the word?--Blackmail! Let it soak in well, Tusk:--Blackmail! It's a
penitentiary offense, and I'll have him up before the next Circuit
Court, sure! Or better still," he declared, growing more and more angry,
"I'll ride back and tell him myself!"

"Naw you don't," Tusk's hand went quickly to the bridle rein. "You don't
give me the slip that a-way!"

"I'm not trying to give you the slip, you poor fool! You come in town
day after tomorrow and get your money. That's all you want!"

"An' that's all you want, too, I reckon. But I ain't goin' nigh no town
arter this talk 'bout penitentries. Jest come 'crost with that hund'ed
now!"

"I won't do anything to you in town, simpleton!" Brent raged at him.

"That can be settled best by stayin' right heah, I reckon. Hand out the
money!"

"I haven't it with me, Tusk. Do what I say and you won't be hurt!"

"That's all right 'bout bein' hurt," the fellow growled. "If you ain't
got that money with you, I'm goin' to take its wu'th outen yoh hide. You
got yoh hide, ain't you?"

For the first time Brent realized he was about to have trouble. The
man's size impressed him with no particular awe. He did not think of
this. He was aroused now and becoming furious, and as willing for a
fight as one well could be. He felt that he had been reasonable enough,
even while the man's words were goading him; but, irrespective of this,
an act which invariably fires a horseman's anger had been committed--a
restraining hand had been put with violence on his bridle rein.

"Wait till I tie this beast," he said, "and you can peel off all the
hide you're able!"

Tusk clicked his tongue and chuckled in fiendish delight as he watched
Brent dismount. Dollars were nothing to him now. He was about to thrash
the "railroad feller"--to kill him, maybe--and the world seemed
transformed into a whirlwind of happiness.

Brent, coming slowly back, considered that in his recent college days
his right punch had been a potent factor. In the gym it had come to be
an unanswerable argument, and outside of the gym on one or two
occasions--perhaps others might have been recalled--it was respectfully,
even though dreamily, remembered.

But now, as he stood on the ground, the abnormally long arms of the
antagonist before him precluded any reasonable chance of putting this
narcotic into effect--at least, where it had heretofore proved its
value. The point of the jaw had been his favorite spot, but the point of
this fellow's jaw would be as difficult to reach as Mars. However, he
approached warily, taking a close look at the ground to make sure there
were no hindrances to footwork, and rather humorously whispering:
"Brent, if I didn't actually know better, I'd take you for as big an
idiot as this boob who'll probably crack your nut." He had as whimsical
a way of going into dangers as of going into pleasures, and now there
was no trace of anger.

Tusk, watching him approach, raised his hand and blinked at a stone he
had slyly picked up. But when he, too, saw his opponent on foot he
scorned the need of a weapon, even so primitive. Quite deliberately then
he rolled his tattered sleeves up on those powerful, freckled, hairy
arms; and grinned, showing the hideous yellow teeth.




CHAPTER XV

TRYING TO PLAY FAIR


"Put up your paddles now, Mr. Potter," Brent said, edging to the left.
His arms were working like slowly moving piston-rods of an engine, that
is capable of great speed. He was on his toes, and his sinuous movements
seemed to speak of highly tempered springs and oil. He was indeed a
different Brent from any which the countryside had heretofore seen.
"Come ahead, old mutton-top," he laughed. "I'm going to fill your eye!"

To Tusk's imagination this shy fighter who kept himself at safe
distances now became suddenly elongated, and then as suddenly grew
normal. In the meanwhile, however,--in that infinitesmal part of a
second during which the transformation occurred--a fist as hard as rocks
smashed into his mouth. It was the sting of the blow, more than its
actual force, which made the big fellow wild with rage; and as this
increased in fury Brent kept up a rapid conversation generously
punctuated with cool, insulting epithets. It was unbearable to the
simple-minded Tusk who struck with a savageness that would have felled
an ox. He charged his foe but never found him, he cursed and drooled and
charged again, until at last Brent said in a tone of great solicitude:

"Well, old throw-back, I reckon I'll have to uncouple you now, and let
in the twilight! Hate to do it--Ugh!" The right swing went smashing
out--not to the jaw, but at just the proper instant to the pit of Tusk's
stomach. In another fraction of a second Brent was five feet away,
wiping the perspiration from his forehead and watching the big fellow
crumple up.

For he was clutching, tearing open his shirt and swaying. His eyes
stared wildly, his face was drawn and his mouth was open to its fullest
capacity in a struggle for breath. Then he went down, all of a heap;
tried to regain his feet, but failed, and crawled about on his hands and
knees in the dust, still fighting for that first gasp of air which
seemed tauntingly to stand between him and eternity. When it came, he
rolled over on his back and lay there panting.

"Get up," Brent scowled. "We've got to finish this scrap, and I'm in a
hurry!"

Tusk blinked at him in sheer perplexity. "What's yoh idee of finish?" he
asked.

"I'll show you in a minute. Get up!"

"That don't sound like good sense to me," Tusk whined. "Say, how'd you
do that, anyhow? I've knocked a lot with fellers, but--"

There was a spirit of forgiveness in the voice, a whisper of
reconciliation, but Brent wanted his victory to be absolute. He appeared
to go into a towering rage, screwing his face into a distorted horror,
stamping about like a demon, and disfiguring himself as much as
possible--trying, Chinese fashion, the experiment of terrifying the
enemy into abject submission, and having a great deal of fun throughout.

Growing more and more superstitious about this mysteriously delivered
blow from a man of smaller stature, and his apparent confidence to do it
again any number of times, Tusk remained in a sitting position and
stared. He became gradually impressed with a feeling that here was his
master, and the more Brent raved the more he cringed. At last he whined:

"I don't want no moh!"

"Will you come back with me and tell Tom Hewlet what I say?"

"Yep."

"And make him believe it?"

"He's durn sure to believe it when I tell 'im 'bout this heah!"

"All right; get up. You and I can be good friends, or damn bad ones,
whichever you please; and it all depends on how you act tonight. Come
on, before he goes to bed!"

As they proceeded toward Tom's house, but a few hundred yards away,
Brent

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