I
As Clayton rose to his feet in the still air, the tree-tops began to
tremble in the gap below him, and a rippling ran through the
leaves up the mountain-side. Drawing off his hat he stretched out
his arms to meet it, and his eyes closed as the cool wind struck his
throat and face and lifted the hair from his forehead. About him
the mountains lay like a tumultuous sea-the Jellico Spur, stilled
gradually on every side into vague, purple shapes against the
broken rim of the sky, and Pine Mountain and the Cumberland
Range racing in like breakers from the north. Under him lay
Jellico Valley, and just visible in a wooded cove, whence Indian
Creek crept into sight, was a mining-camp-a cluster of white
cabins-from which he had climbed that afternoon. At that distance
the wagon-road narrowed to a bridle-path, and the figure moving
slowly along it and entering the forest at the base of the mountain
was shrunk to a toy. For a moment Clayton stood with his face to
the west, drinking in the air; then tightening his belt, he caught the
pliant body of a sapling and swung loose from the rock. As the
tree flew back, his dog sprang after him. The descent was sharp. At
times he was forced to cling to the birch-tops till they lay flat on
the mountain-side.
Breathless, he reached at last a bowlder from which the path was
easy to the valley below, and he leaned quivering against the soft
rug of moss and lichens that covered it. The shadows had crept
from the foot of the mountains, darkening the valley, and lifting up
the mountain-side beneath him a long, wavering line in which met
the cool, deep green of the shade and the shining bronze where the
sunlight still lay. Lazily following this line, his eye caught two
moving shadows that darted jagged shapes into the sunlight and as
quickly withdrew them. As the road wound up toward him, two
figures were soon visible through the undergrowth. Presently a
head bonneted in blue rose above the bushes, and Clayton's
half-shut eyes opened wide and were fixed with a look of amused
expectancy where a turn of the path must bring rider and beast into
plain sight. Apparently some mountain girl, wearied by the climb
or in a spirit of fun, had mounted her cow while driving it home;
and with a smile at the thought of the confusion he would cause
her, Clayton stepped around the bowlder and waited. With the
slow, easy swing of climbing cattle, the beast brought its rider into
view. A bag of meal lay across its shoulders, and behind this the
girl-for she was plainly young-sat sidewise, with her bare feet
dangling against its flank. Her face was turned toward the valley
below, and her loosened bonnet half disclosed a head of bright
yellow hair.
Catching sight of Clayton, the beast stopped and lifted its head, not
the meek, patient face he expected to see, but a head that was
wrinkled and vicious-the head of a bull. Only the sudden
remembrance of a dead mountain custom saved him from utter
amazement. He had heard that when beasts of burden were scarce,
cows, and especially bulls, were worked in ploughs and ridden by
the mountaineers, even by the women. But this had become a
tradition, the humor of which greater prosperity and contact with a
new civilization had taught even the mountain people to
appreciate. The necessities of this girl were evidently as great as
her fear of ridicule seemed small. When the brute stopped, she
began striking him in the flank with her bare heel, without looking
around, and as he paid no attention to such painless goading, she
turned with sudden impatience and lifted a switch above his
shoulders. The stick was arrested in mid-air when she saw
Clayton, and then dropped harmlessly. The quick fire in her eyes
died suddenly away, and for a moment the two looked at each
other with mutual curiosity, but only for a moment. There was
something in Clayton's gaze that displeased her. Her face clouded,
and she dropped her eyes.
"G'long," she said, in a low tone. But the bull had lowered his
head, and was standing with feet planted apart and tail waving
uneasily. The girl looked up in alarm.
"Watch out thar! " she called out, sharply. "Call that dog off-
quick!"
Clayton turned, but his dog sprang past him and began to bark.
The bull, a lean, active, vicious-looking brute, answered with a
snort.
"Call him off, I tell ye! " cried the girl, angrily, springing to the
ground. "Git out o' the way. Don't you see he's a-comm' at ye?"
The dog leaped nimbly into the bushes, and the maddened bull was
carried on by his own Impetus toward Clayton, who, with a quick
spring, landed in safety in a gully below the road. When he picked
himself up from the uneven ground where he had fallen, the beast
had disappeared around the bowlder. The bag had fallen, and had
broken open, and some of the meal was spilled on the ground. The
girl, flushed and angry, stood above it.
"Look thar, now," she said. "See whut you've done. Why'n't ye
call that dog off?"
"I couldn't," said Clayton, politely. " He wouldn't come. I'm sorry,
very sorry."
"Can't ye manage yer own dog?" she asked, half contemptuously.
"Not always."
"Then ye oughter leave him to home, and not let him go round
a-skeerin' folks' beastes." With a little gesture of indignation she
stooped and began scooping up the meal in her hand.
"Let me help you," said Clayton. The girl looked up in surprise.
You go 'way," she said.
But Clayton stayed, watching her helplessly. He wanted to carry
the bag for her, but she swung it to her shoulder, and moved away.
He followed her around the bowlder, where his late enemy was
browsing peacefully on sassafras-bushes.
"You stay thar now," said the girl, " and keep that dog back."
"Won't you let me help you get up?" he asked.
Without answering, the girl sprang lightly to the bull's back, Once
only she looked around at him. He took off his hat, and a puzzled
expression came into her face. Then, without a word or a nod, she
rode away. Clayton watched the odd pair till the bushes hid them.
"Europa, by Jove!" he exclaimed, and he sat down in
bewilderment.
She was so very odd a creature, so different from the timid
mountain women who shrank with averted faces almost into the
bushes when he met them. She had looked him straight in the face
with steady eyes, and had spoken as though her sway over
mountain and road were undisputed and he had been a wretched
trespasser. She paid no attention to his apologies, and she scorned
his offers of assistance. She seemed no more angered by the loss
of the meal than by his incapacity to manage his dog, which
seemed to typify to her his general worthlessness. He had been
bruised by his fall, and she did not even ask if he were hurt.
Indeed, she seemed not to care, and she had ridden away from him
as though he were worth no more consideration than the stone
under him.
He was amused, and a trifle irritated. How could there be such a
curious growth in the mountains? he questioned, as he rose and
continued the descent. There was an unusual grace about her, in
spite of her masculine air. Her features were regular, the nose
straight and delicate, the mouth resolute, the brow broad, and the
eyes intensely blue, perhaps tender, when not flashing with anger,
and altogether without the listless expression he had marked in
other mountain women, and which, he had noticed, deadened into
pathetic hopelessness later in life. Her figure was erect, and her
manner, despite its roughness, savored of something high-born.
Where could she have got that bearing? She belonged to a race
whose descent, he had heard, was unmixed English; upon whose
lips lingered words and forms of speech that Shakespeare had
heard and used. Who could tell what blood ran in her veins?
Musing, he had come almost unconsciously to a spur of the
mountains under which lay the little mining-camp. It was six
o'clock, and the miners, grim and black, each with a pail in hand
and a little oil-lamp in his cap, were going down from work. A
shower had passed over the mountains above him, and the last
sunlight, coming through a gap in the west, struck the rising mist
and turned it to gold. On a rock which thrust from the mountain
its gray, sombre face, half embraced by a white arm of the mist,
Clayton saw the figure of a woman. He waved his hat, but the
figure stood motionless, and he turned into the woods toward the
camp.
It was the girl; and when Clayton disappeared she too turned and
went on her way. She had stopped there because she knew he
must pass a point where she might see him again. She was little
less indifferent than she seemed; her motive was little more than
curiosity. She had never seen that manner of man before.
Evidently he was a " furriner "from the " settlemints." No man in
the mountains had a smooth, round face like his, or wore such a
queer hat, such a soft, white shirt, and no galluses," or carried
such a shiny, weak-looking stick, or owned a dog that he couldn't
make mind him. She was not wholly contemptuous, however. She
had felt vaguely the meaning of his politeness and deference. She
was puzzled and pleased, she scarcely knew why.
"He was mighty accomodatin'," she thought. But whut," she asked
herself as she rode slowly homeward-" whut did he take off his hat
fer