V.

The news of the horse's return with an empty saddle was received at

first lightly enough by others. The treasures of old Zack Pettingill's

whiskey keg and his wife's cherry-bounce, lavished forth on the

preceding evening, were deemed amply sufficient to account for any

eccentricities of equestrianism. But when several days had passed

without the reappearance of the dismounted horseman, the slowly

percolating gossip touching a conjugal quarrel began to offer another

and a more exciting interpretation of the mystery. So general was

its acceptance that although a company of men organized a search and

patrolled the roads and the by-paths and the mountain-sides, it was

with scant hope or expectation of any definite discovery, and inquiry

of the physician whom Yates had been despatched to summon resulted only

in a verification of the popular conviction that he had never delivered

the message. Thus the fears evoked for his safety were very promptly

merged in reprehension, and speculative gossip was mingled in equal

parts with pity for his wife.

"Who'd ever hev thunk ez Adelaide Sims, counted the prettiest gal

this side o' nowhar, would hev been deserted by her husband 'fore

three years war out?" Mrs. Pettingill said, meditatively, her pipe

between her lips, as she "walked" a spinning-wheel into the house,

making it use first one and then the other of its own spindling legs

to achieve progression rather than lifting it by main force. She half

soliloquized and half addressed a tall, lank mountaineer who sat upon

the edge of the porch, his horse grazing hard by. He had stopped on

the pretext of asking for a "bite," saying that he had travelled far

over the mountain, looking up some stray cattle of his, and albeit

Mrs. Pettingill disapproved of his reputation, the "snack" that she

could give him was one of those admirable things in itself that could

not go amiss even with a sinner. He had a big-boned, powerful frame

and was middle-aged; but despite that his hair was streaked with gray,

and the crow's-feet about his eyes gave evidences of the lapse of

time, he was the very impersonation of the spirit of "devil may care."

He had a keen, hooked nose, an eye far-seeing, gray, and of a steely

brilliancy, and the thin lips of his large mouth, mobility itself,

curved to a vast range of expression. His manner implied an elated,

ever-ready, breezy confidence; his eye now covertly measured you, then

gayly overlooked you as of no manner of consequence. His reputation

might, indeed, be accounted a doubtful one. He had come before the bar

of justice several times: the altering of the brand on certain cattle

herded upon the "Bald" had been laid at his door; the manner in which a

horse had been lost, by a drover passing through the country, and found

in his possession, had been called into question. On each occasion his

escape had been made good by the lack of adequate evidence to convict,

although little doubt existed as to his guilt. He was one of those

singular instances of an undeserved popularity. Better men, amply able

to discern right from wrong, often opined that there was no great harm

in him, that injustice had been done him, and that much meaner men

abounded in the cove who had never been "hauled over the coals." He had

been a brave soldier, although the flavor of bushwhacking clung to his

war record. He had certain magnetic qualities, and there were always

half a dozen stout fellows at his back--ne'er-do-weels like himself.

He had been suspected of moonshining, but this was not considered a

natural sequence of his lawless habits, for many otherwise law-abiding

citizens followed this pursuit; in defence, they would have urged, of

their natural right of possession--to make what use they chose of their

own corn and apples, as their forefathers had done in the days before

the whiskey tax. Buck Cheever's suspected adherence to the popular

standpoint on this burning question might have been considered to only

lower the tone of the profession.

Mrs. Pettingill regarded him with contradictory emotions. As a

religionist, she felt that she would prefer his room to his company;

but his room was but scant encroachment, for he only sat upon the

edge of the porch, and he by no means asserted any equality of piety

or moral standpoint; on the contrary, he seemed to esteem her, and,

by her reflected lustre, Mr. Pettingill, as shining lights, and

vastly different from the general run of the cove. His breezy talk

was peculiarly refreshing to her in the midst of the ordeal, still

in process, of restoring the routine of twenty years, shattered by

the havoc of the infair. He had a discerning palate and a crisp and

flexible tongue, and she felt, with a glow of kindness, that he said as

much in praise of her corn-dodgers, which formed a part of his lunch,

as any one else would have said for her pound-cake.

"Mos' folks don't sense the differ in corn-meal cookin'. It takes a

better cook ter make a plain, _tasty_ corn-dodger, ez eats short with

fried chicken, 'n a cake."

"It takes _Mis' Pettingill_ ter make this kind o' one," he protested,

with his mouth full. "No sech air ever cooked ennywhar else I ever see."

"I hev got some mighty nice fraish buttermilk, Buck, jes' churned," she

remarked, precipitately. "I be goin' ter fetch ye a glass right off."

Old Zack Pettingill, with his shock head of thick gray hair, and his

deeply grooved face, sat in his shirt-sleeves in his accustomed chair

on the porch, and his expression betokened a scorn of his helpmeet's

susceptibility to the praises of her culinary accomplishments, and held

a distinct intimation, by which Buck Cheever might have profited had he

been so disposed, that he was not to be propitiated in any such wise.

Little, however, Buck Cheever cared. The lady in command of the larder

dwarfed her husband's importance.

"Yes, 'm," he drawled, taking up the thread of the gossip where the

victualling interlude had left it; "Adelaide's been left. That's mighty

bad. An' I reckon it hurts her pride too." He showed himself thus not

insensible to æsthetic considerations.

"I'll be bound it do," Mrs. Pettingill agreed, as she seated herself.

She cast a speculative look upon her husband, silent and grum as if he

had been thus gruffly carved out of wood. He had been a stumbling-block

in many respects in his conjugal career. He was "set" in his ways,

and some of them she felt were ways of pure spite. She had never

before realized, however, that his continued presence was a thing to

be thankful for. Such as he was, she had him at hand. Public pity,

which the sensitive feel as public contempt, had never been meted

out to her because of his desertion. Thus, although she could with

convenience have dispensed with him, and his loud harangues, and his

overbearing ways, and his dyspepsia--the cove said he had been fed till

he foundered--which placed an embargo on three fourths of the dishes on

which she loved to show her skill, he was revealed to her suddenly as a

boon in that he would yet stay by her, and the phrase "a deserted wife"

had no affinity with her fully furnished estate.

"Waal, Steve always 'peared ter me a good match whenst he war

young"--she meant unmarried--"though riprarious he war, an' sorter

onstiddy an' dancified, but I never 'lowed he'd hev done sech a mean

thing. An' that thar baby o' theirn! well growed, an' fat, an' white,

an' strong, but, I will say, _bad_ ez the Lord ever makes 'em. Waal,

waal, a body dun'no' _how_ thar chil'n will turn out; them with small

famblies, or none, oughter thank the Lord--though _that_ ain't in the

Bible. 'Blessed be the man with a quibble on 'em.' That's what the Good

Book say."

This was a new view with Mrs. Pettingill. She had often floutingly

wished she had a "sure enough fambly," as if her own were so many

rag dolls. "Jes' _one_ son," she would say; "an' him, through being

in love, hed ruther eat his meals at the Gossams'--'long o' Malviny

Gossam--whar they don't know no mo' _how_ ter cook a corn puddin' or a

peach cobbler 'n ef they war thousand-legs; an' jes _one_ darter, ez

will pick a chicken bone an' call _it dinner_! an' a 'speptic husband

ez hev sech a crazy stommick that jes' 'Welsh rabbit' will disagree

with him!"

What sort of chance was there here for a woman who knew what good

cooking was? "Ef 'twarn't fur the visitors ez kem ter the house," she

often declared, "I'd git my hand out."

"Folks raise thar chil'n wrong," said old man Pettingill in a

dirge-like tone--"raise 'em for the devil's work like I raise my cattle

fur the plough. Marryin' is a mighty serious business. Yes, sir!"

"A true word!" interpolated his wife, desirous of not seeming

behindhand in this view of the seriousness of matrimony, in order to

intimate that whatever reason he had to be solemn upon the subject, she

too had cause to be sobered by it. She knitted a trifle faster, and her

needles clicked resentfully.

"Yes, sir," he reiterated. "An' steddier singin' o' psalm tunes over

the bride an' groom, an' a-prayin' over 'em, an' hevin' a reg'lar

pray'r-meetin', repentin' o' sins an' castin' o' ashes on thar heads,

we hev _dances_, an' _dancin' Tucker_, an' all manner o' eatables, an'

infairs, ez ef they war a-goin' ter dance through life, when married

life is mos'ly repentance."

"That it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Pettingill, forgetting her gratitude

that she too had not been "left." "Repentance o' ever bein' married.

Sackcloth an' ashes is the word!"

Old Pettingill took no notice of this confirmation of the letter if

not the spirit of his dogma, save by a surly baited glance, and went

on: "Church members though we all war, we stood round an' watched them

young folks dance ter the devil till he fairly riz up through the floor

an' smit one of 'em down."

"By gosh!" exclaimed Cheever, a sudden fear and wonder upon his face;

"which one war smit?"

"'Twar Len Rhodes," his host began, but Mrs. Pettingill's wheeze,

persistently sibilant, dominated even his louder tone.

"Don't you-uns be 'feared, Buck. Satan hisself didn't show up. He

struck through Fee Guthrie's arm--a mighty survigrous one. Ye know the

En'my hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble smart, an' he never made

ch'ice o' a spindlin' arm."

Once more Mr. Pettingill resumed, overlooking what she had said: "An'

so Mr. Shattuck hyar 'lowed the law would be down on us ef Mr. Rhodes

didn't hev his own doctor-man--ez 'peared ter be the apple o' his eye!

An' bein' ez my son war the groom, an' the 'casion war the infair,

I couldn't send him off, an' I jes' axed Steve Yates ter go fur the

doctor, an' go he did."

"An' go war _all_ he did," interpolated Mrs. Pettingill; "he never kem

back no mo'."

"I be powerful obligated ter him ez he never tuk my bay horse-critter

along; sent him home with the saddle onter him an' all. I dun'no' but

what I be s'prised. Ef he war mean enough ter desert his wife, he air

plenty mean enough ter steal a horse."

Shattuck, who was lounging with a cigar in a big arm-chair, looked

frowningly at the speaker. He had felt much distress that it should

have been upon his insistence that the young man was despatched upon

that errand whence he had never returned. He could hardly control

his anxiety and forebodings while searching parties went forth; and

so earnestly he hoped that no broken and bruised body would be found

along the roadside, betokening a fatal fall from the saddle, no trace

of robbery or foul deed resulting in death, that when public opinion

settled upon the theory of Yates's desertion of his wife he experienced

a great relief, a welcome sense of irresponsibility. And yet this was

so keen and vivid that he could but reproach himself anew, since he

so rejoiced because of the disaster that sealed her unhappiness. His

spirits had recovered somewhat their normal tone, but nevertheless he

could ill endure an allusion to his share in the circumstances that

precipitated the event.

"How air she a-goin' ter git along?" demanded Cheever; a sufficiently

uncharacteristic question, since his was not the type of practical mind

that is wont to occupy itself with domestic ways and means. "Goin' back

ter her own folks?"

"She 'lows she'd ruther die. She's goin' ter stay thar in her cabin

an' wait fur him," said Mrs. Pettingill. "Sorter seems _de_-stressin',

I do declar'! A purty, young, good, r'ligious 'oman a-settin' herself

ter spen' a empty life a-waitin' fur Steve Yates ter kem back. _He_'ll

never kem. He's in Texas by now," she declared, hyperbolically; for

Texas is the mountaineer's _outremer_. "Litt say she ain't never goin'

ter git married," she continued, irrelevantly.

"How long d'ye reckon she'll stick ter _that_?" demanded old

Pettingill, sourly, glancing up from under his grizzled eyebrows.

"Waal," his wife defended her, "she hain't never got married yit, and

that's more'n _ye_ kin say."

And to this taunt the unhappy Mr. Pettingill could offer no response,

save an inarticulate gruffness that only betokened his ill-will and the

ill grace with which he accepted defeat. The dirge-like monody to which

he seemed to have attuned his spirit was but the retroactive effect of

the gayety of the infair, the swinging back of the pendulum as far as

it was flung forth. More sophisticated people have encountered that

melancholy reflux of pleasure, and, with the knowledge that the cure

lies in "a hair of the dog that bit you," find a revival of their

capacities for gayety in new scenes of mirth. But the society of the

cove had not these opportunities for extension and reduplication.

There were no more infairs nor dances nor weddings. Mr. Pettingill

was constrained to recover the tone of his spirits as best he might,

despite the sheer descent from the heights of the gayeties of the feast

he had made to the humdrum level of his daily life, with all the zest

taken out by contrast. Few people over eighteen have this experience

without acquiring with it such philosophy as serves to nullify it, but

it made Mr. Pettingill very sour at sixty.

"Where is Letitia?" queried Shattuck, who had missed that element which

gave a different interpretation to the whole life of the house, which

lent most blithesome wings to the heavy-footed hours. He had wondered

all the previous day, but until her name was mentioned he would not ask.

"Litt? She went ter stay with Adelaide," said Mrs. Pettingill,

complacently knitting. "Litt air more company 'n help. I miss her

powerful."

"I kin spare her easier 'n ennything round the house," observed her

father, acridly.

Mrs. Pettingill burst into an unexpected laugh. Her eyes twinkled with

reminiscent raillery as they were fixed upon her husband, who seemed a

trifle out of countenance.

"Waal, Litt _do_ make remarks," she offered in explanation.

"I have observed that," said Shattuck.

Mrs. Pettingill became all at once grave and concerned. The quality

of Litt's remarks was disconcertingly satiric, and she deprecated the

fact that the stranger should have acquaintance with them. Shattuck

reflected her embarrassment in some sort; it suggested "remarks"

upon him which he had not had the opportunity of hearing, the very

recollection of which in his presence evidently confused their amiable

auditor, as if the mere consciousness of them implied discourtesy.

"Naw," she went on, somewhat precipitately, addressing herself rather

more directly to Cheever, "Adelaide ain't goin' home ter her folks.

Steve lef' his craps all laid by, an' 'ceptin' fur cuttin' wood an'

fetchin' water thar warn't much use fur him thar. I dun'no' what

Adelaide wanted with Letishy; she jes' seemed ter cling ter her. I

'lowed ter Litt ez _she_ warn't no comp'ny fur grief. But Litt, she

'lowed ez leetle Moses war apt ter make her sorrowful enough fur chief

mourner at a fun'al 'fore he got done with her. His temper fairly

tarrified her."

Cheever suddenly seemed disposed to bring his visit to an end. He

had an inattentive look during Mrs. Pettingill's last words, an

introspective pondering thoughtfulness, inconsistent with his almost

suspicious and vigilant habit of countenance. He started as if with

an effort to recapture his vagrant wits, and it was a long moment of

review before he understood Mrs. Pettingill's commonplace remonstrance,

"What's yer hurry, Buck?"

Mr. Pettingill, sufficiently averse, for not unnatural reasons of his

own, to conversation with Shattuck alone, made haste to second her.

"Ye 'pear ter be scorchin' ter git away," he said, although under

normal circumstances both would have considered Buck Cheever's society

no boon. They were aware that ordinarily he, with his ne'er-do-weel

record, would have been flattered by their courtesy. They noted, with

a sort of unformulated speculation and curiosity, his indifference to

it, the definite intention expressed in his face, the preoccupation

with which he looked to his saddle-girth and his stirrup-irons before

he mounted. Even to their languid and half-dormant perceptions the fact

was patent that he was going because he had got what he had come for.

In their simplicity they thought it was his luncheon!

Despite his lank length and slouching awkwardness afoot, he was a

sufficiently imposing horseman when he swung himself into his saddle

and speedily went down the winding way. He rode with his chin high

in the air, his legs stretched straight to the extreme length of

the stirrup-leathers, not rising to the motion of the horse, but

sitting solidly in the saddle as if he were a part of the animal,

like an equestrian statue endowed with motion. A gallant horse it

was, unlike the humble brutes of the mountaineers, with good blood

in his throbbing veins and fire in his full eye, and a high-couraged

spirit breathing in the dilatations of his thin red nostrils; he was

singularly clean-limbed; his red roan coat shone like satin; he had

a compact hoof, a delicate, ever-alert ear, a small bony head, and a

long swinging stride as regular as machinery. If it were possible to

disconcert Buck Cheever, it might be accomplished by the question how

he became possessed of this fine animal--finer even than the mountain

men in their limited experience were able to appreciate. He had been

known to account for him as being identical with a certain lame

colt, which he had bought a few years before from Squire Beamen in

the valley. "I didn't gin much fur him, bein' his laig war crippled,

but he cured up wonderful. An' I wouldn't sell him now. He's some

lighter-complected 'n he war then, through bein' sun-burnt. That's how

kem ye didn't know him fur the same. He's better-lookin' now, though I

hev ter handle his nigh fore-laig keerful."

This "nigh fore-laig" was lifted and thrust forth with a vigorous,

high-stepping action that would have attested much for veterinary

surgery had it been a restored instead of a pristine power. Beneath it

the miles of sandy road, now sunshiny, now flecked with the shadows of

the wayside trees, reeled out swiftly; the landscape seemed speeding

too, describing some large ellipse.

Cheever's far-seeing gray eyes rested absently on the shifting scene

as on and on he went--a certain supercilious observation it would

seem, since from the backward pose of his head he looked out from

half-lowered eyelids. It was too familiar to him, too stereotyped upon

his senses, to produce responsive impressions, and he was familiar with

few others, and knew no contrasts. Thus the farthest mountain's azure

glowed for him in vain. The multitudinous shades of green in the rich

drapings that hid the gaunt old slope near at hand with masses and

masses of foliage--from the sombre hue of the pine and fir, through the

lightening tones of the sycamore and sweet-gum, to the silvered verdure

of the aspen-tree swinging in the wind--might be a revelation to other

eyes of the infinite gradations, the manifold capacities, of the color.

Not to his. And he was as unmindful of the purple bloom that rested

upon other ranges as they drew afar off, of the swift clear water of

the river crossing his path again and again, of the cardinal-flower on

the bank, so stately and slender, with the broken reflection of its

crimson petal glowing in a dark swift swirl below--as oblivious as

they were of him. Only he noticed the sky, the clouds, harbingers of

change, despite the azure above and the golden illusions of sunshine in

which all the world was idealized--change, although the long, feathery,

fleecy sweeps of vapor, like the faint sketchings of snowy wings upon

the opaque blue, otherwise void, might seem only lightest augury.

"Mares' tails," he soliloquized as he went. "Fallin' weather."

The voice of the cataract had long been on the air, growing louder and

louder every moment--only its summertide song, when languors bated its

pulses, and daily its volume dwindled. He had heard it call aloud in

the savage ecstasy of the autumn storms, when reinforced by a hundred

tributaries, and bold and leaping in triumph. And he knew it, too, in

winter--a solemn hush upon it, a torpor like the numb chill of death,

its currents a dull, noiseless, trickling flow through a thousand

glittering icy stalactites. So well he knew it that for its sake he

would not have glanced toward it.

Nevertheless, he drew his horse into a walk, and gazed fixedly out

of his half-closed eyes up the long gorge between the ranges, at the

river, at the glassy emerald sheet of the water-fall, and at the little

house hard by. Its door was closed, as if it too had been deserted;

and it seemed very small in the shadow of the great mountains, against

whose darkling forests its little gray roof and its tendril of smoke

were outlined; but it was only a moment before his quick eye detected

the presence of the household. Down by the water-side the three were.

The great caldron betokened a wash-day; the fruits of the industry were

already bleaching and swinging in the fragrant air on the Sweet-Betty

bushes. The fire smouldered almost to extinction under the caldron,

which barely steamed with a dull, lazily wreathing, lace-like vapor;

the work was evidently all done. Adelaide sat upon the roots of a

tree, her arms bare, her chin in her hand, her eyes, that had learned

all the brackish woe of futile weeping, ponderingly fixed upon the

never-ceasing, shifting fall of the water. Letitia, too, was silent as

she leaned upon the paddle that was used to beat the clothes white,

its end poised upon the bench. Moses, seated in a clumped posture,

with his legs doubled in a manner impossible to one of elder years and

less elastic frame, now and again babbled aloud disconsolately, and

ground his gums with the cruelty of rage and with great distortion

of his indeterminate features. He had so implacable an air of such

crusty gravity as he sat on the fine green moss, with his obedient

vassals about him, and his newly washed habiliments, ludicrously small,

swinging on the perfumed branches of the undergrowth, that he might

have provoked a smile from one less preoccupied than Cheever. The keen

eyes of the horseman--very watchful they were under their half-drooping

lids--were fixed upon the two young women.

The horse, alternately bowing low and tossing up his head with its

waving mane, moved in an easy, light walk that hardly raised a mote

of dust upon the road, overgrown with the encroaching weeds, and

intimating few passers. The sound was thus muffled, and Cheever was not

observed until he was close at hand. Letitia was first to recognize

him, and, as she turned toward him, her blue eyes said much, he felt,

but in a language that he wot not of. In some sort her inscrutability

disconcerted him. He was sensible of being at a loss as he reined

up at the riverside. He seemed to forget, to vaguely fumble for the

motive that led him here. The dreary indifference on Adelaide's face as

she met his gaze restored in some degree his normal mental attitude.

He was conscious of a sort of vague wonder that there was no sense

of humiliation, of mortified pride, in its expression. The supreme

calamity of her loss had dwarfed into nullity all the opinion of

others, all the bitterness of being the theme of pitying, half-scornful

gossip. The cove was nothing to her, and nothing all it could say. She

was bereaved.

As to Moses, he should never feel the loss; she would be to him father

and mother too. And if Moses had been unduly pampered heretofore,

he bade fair now to break the record of all spoiled babies. Never

a gesture was lost upon her, never a tone of his oft inharmonious

voice. Now, because the horse which Cheever rode suddenly caught his

attention, and his discordant remonstrance with his teeth ceased

abruptly, she looked around with a wan, pleased smile curving her lips.

The little biped gazed up at the great, overshadowing four-footed

creature with a gasp of joy, delighting in his size and the free motion

of his whisking tail. A dimple came out in Dagon's pink cheek, although

a tear still glittered there. He was suddenly indifferent to his teeth,

and showed them all in a gummy smile. Then, with a self-confidence in

ludicrous disproportion to his inches, he pursed his lips, and giving

an ineffectual imitation of a chirrup, and a flap of the paw, he sought

to establish personal relations with the big animal, who took no more

notice of the great Dagon than if he had been a wayside weed, but bent

down his head and pawed the ground.

"The young un likes the horse," Cheever observed, leniently, conscious

of sharing the "young un's" weakness in equine matters, and seizing the

opportunity to so naturally open the conversation, for he was not, in

a manner, received at the Yates house. "How air ye a-comin' on, Mis'

Yates?" he continued, his voice seeking a cadence of sympathy.

"Toler'ble well," replied Adelaide, reticently, scarcely disposed

to discuss her sorrows with this interlocutor. She turned her eyes

toward the water-fall once more, and her quiet reserve would have

discouraged another man from pursuing the conversation. Cheever, blunt

as his sensibilities were, could have hardly failed to apprehend the

intimations of her manner, so definite were they, so aided by the

expression of her face; but he had his own interest in the premises,

and he was not likely to be easily rebuffed.

"I hev been mightily grieved an' consarned ter hear how Steve hev

tuk an' done," he went on, his countenance readily assuming a more

sympathetic cast than was normal to it, since, as they were on a

lower level, his downward look seemed but a natural slant, and not

the same suspicious, sneering, supercilious disparagement from under

half-drooped eyelids which his usual survey betokened. "I war powerful

grieved," he reiterated. "I never would hev looked fur sech conduc'

from Steve."

She made no answer, but her eyes turned restlessly from one point to

another; her face was agitated. It was a critical moment. She felt

as though she could scarcely forgive herself should she weep to the

erratic measure of Cheever's shallow commiseration. It was an affront

to her sacred grief. And she had no pretext to withdraw.

Letitia had not been addressed, but she seemed to find that fact no

hindrance to assuming a share in the conversation. "Ye war grieved!"

she exclaimed, with a keen, frosty note in her voice, as she swayed

her weight upon the paddle, poised on the wash-bench. "I never war

so _tee_-totally delighted with nuthin' in my life. Steve Yates

never 'peared so extry ter me. Moses thar air fower times the man he

war, an' fower times, I dun'no' but _five_ times"--mathematically

accurate--"better-lookin'. I never war so glad in all my life ez ter

hear he hed vamoosed."

A most ingenuously merry face she had, with its red lips curving, and

its dimpled cheeks flushing, as she turned her clear sapphire eyes

up to the rider; but a duller man than he might have read the daring

and the ridicule and the banter in their shining spheres. His look of

mingled reproach and anger had, too, a scornful intimation that she

had not been spoken to, as he glanced indifferently away, passing her

over. This was implied also in the pause. It seemed as if he could not

bring himself to make a rejoinder. It was Mrs. Yates, evidently, with

whom he wished to confer. But conversation with her on this theme was

apparently impracticable, and yet on this theme only would he talk. He

therefore sought presently to make the best of the situation, and to

avail himself of Letitia as a medium for his ideas. He reckoned for a

time without his host, for he only received a superfluity of her ideas.

"Waal, sir," he exclaimed at last, in polite reproach, "I dun'no' why

ye be glad he is gone. I dun'no', but 'pears ter me ye mought be more

cornsiderin' o' Mis' Yates."

"Hev ye lived ez long ez ye hev in this life, an' not f'und out

yit ez nobody cornsiders nobody else?" she cried, with affected

cynicism. "Waal, ye air some older'n me," she continued, blandly

smiling--conscious of his grizzled hair, he was a trifle confused by

this limited way of putting the difference in years--"but I be plumb

overjoyed o' Steve's caper, 'kase I git a chance ter 'company Mis'

Yates. Ye know"--looking up gravely at him--"I hev hed a heap o'

trouble a-fotchin' up my parents in the way they should go--_specially

dad_. They air fractious yit wunst in a while. An' now ef they ain't

obejient an' keerful o' pleasin' me, I jes' kin run away from home an'

'company Mis' Yates. An' ef Mis' Yates don't treat me right, an' Moses

gits _too_ rampagious, I kin run away ter my home folks agin, an' fetch

up my parents some mo' in the way they should go--_specially dad_."

Mrs. Yates gave a short hysterical laugh, ending in a sob. Cheever, his

cheek flushing under this ridicule, looked down at the mocking little

creature still leaning on the paddle as it rested upon the bench.

Letitia's face had grown suddenly grave. Her blue eyes, with a strange

far-seeing look in them, seemed to pierce his very soul.

"Thar's nuthin'," she said, slowly--"thar's nuthin' ter improve the

health an' the sperits an' the conduc' o' yer family like runnin' away.

_Tell Steve Yates that fur me!_"

He started as if he had been shot. A sharp, half-articulated oath

escaped his lips. His manner betokened great anger, and his eyes

burned. He could hardly control himself for a moment, and Adelaide, her

pale face still more pallid with fear, trembled and sprang to her feet.

"I dun'no' what ye mean by that," he cried, indignantly. "An' ef

_ye_ war a man ye shouldn't say it twicet. I ain't seen Steve Yates,

an' ain't like ter see him. _I_ hed nuthin' ter do with his runnin'

away. Lord! Lord!" he added, bitterly, "I 'lowed some folks in the

cove, specially some o' the name o' Pettingill"--he had forgotten the

good corn-dodger--"hed in an' about accused me o' everything, but I

didn't expec' Steve Yates's runnin' away, 'kase he war tired o' his

wife, ter be laid at my door. Naw, Mis' Yates"--he turned toward her

earnestly--"I dun'no' _nuthin'_ o' the whar'bouts o' yer husband. Ef

I did, I'd go arter him ef 'twar fifty mile, an' lug him home by the

scruff o' his neck ter his wife an' chile."

"I b'lieve ye," said Adelaide, in a broken voice, the tears coming

at last--"I b'lieve ye. Don't mind what Litt say. She always talks

helter-skelter."

Letitia stood looking from one to the other, her alert, exquisitely

shaped head, with the hair smooth upon it, save where it curled over

her brow and hung down from the string that gathered the ringlets

together at the nape of the neck, clearly defined against the

dark-green foliage of the young pines, that brought out, too, in high

relief the light blue of her cotton dress. Her glance was full of gay

incredulity, and she evidently found food for satiric laughter in the

mental standpoint of first one and then the other. It is seldom that a

creature of so charming an aspect is the subject of so inimical a look

as that which he bent upon her. But he replied gently to Mrs. Yates:

"Don't ye pester 'bout that, Mis' Yates. Ye hev got plenty ter pester

'bout 'thout it. I jes' kem ter ax ye how ye war a-goin' ter git along

'bout craps an' cuttin' wood an' sech like. I be mighty willin' ter

kem an' plough yer corn nex' week ef 'tain't laid by, an' I 'lowed I

could haul ye a load o' wood wunst in a while ef ye war so minded. I

'low everybody oughter loan ye a helpin' han', now Steve is gone."

Once more her tears flowed. The generosity and kindness implied in

the offer touched her heart as the deed might have done. And yet her

gratitude humiliated her in some sort. She was ashamed to have the

cause to be beholden to such as Buck Cheever for a kind word and a

proffered service. She shook her head.

"Naw," she said, the prosaic words punctuated by her sobs; "the corn's

laid by, an' the cotton an' sorghum an' terbacco." She stopped to

remember that Steve Yates, constitutionally a lazy fellow, and fonder

far of the woods and his gun than of the furrow and the plough,

had never failed in any labor that meant comfort to the household,

though he did little for profit. She recalled like a flash a thousand

instances of this care for her and for Moses. Why, was not one animal

of every kind--a calf, and a lamb, and a filly, and a shote--upon the

place marked with little Moses's own brand? She wondered how often she

had heard Steve say, as he sat meditating before the fire, "By the

time he's twenty he'll hev some head o' stock o' his own, ye mark my

words." And last year the cotton was soft and clean beyond all their

experience, and the flax was fine, and the weaving had been successful

out of the common run, and little Moses's homely clothes thus appeared

to their unsophisticated eyes very delicate and beautiful, and she had

been almost ashamed of Stephen's pleasure in this smart toggery--it

seemed so feminine. And now he was gone! And here she, the object

of this constant, honest, thrifty care of the thriftless Yates,

was weeping because of a kind word, and thanking Buck Cheever for

remembering that she might need to have wood hauled.

"We don't need wood," she said, "'kase Cousin Si Anderson sent his

nevy, Baker Anderson--he's 'bout sixteen year old--ter haul wood an' be

in the house of a night, 'count 'o robbers an' sech, though Letishy an'

me air nowise skeery."

"Naw," put in Letitia, suddenly; "an' I didn't want him round hyar,

nohow. I jes' kin view how reedic'lous I'd look axin' the robber ter

kem in an' help wake Baker Anderson, 'kase we-uns couldn't wake him--he

bein' a hard sleeper, sech ez Gabriel's trump wouldn't 'sturb from

his slumber--so ez we could git the boy ter the p'int o' sightin' a

rifle. Naw! Steve war perlite enough ter leave one o' them leetle

shootin'-irons ye call pistols hyar, an' plenty o' loads fur it. It's

handy fur folks o' my size. An' Moses air men folks enough 'bout the

house ter suit my taste."

Cheever made no sign that he heard. His eyes still rested with their

sympathetic expression--patently spurious--upon Mrs. Yates. To the

hard, keen lines of his face the affected sentiment was curiously

ill-adjusted. Letitia's eyes were fairly alight as she gazed at him,

gauging all the tenuity of this æsthetic veneer.

"I be glad ter know ye air so well pervided fur, Mis' Yates," he said;

"an' so will all yer frien's be. Ye air mighty well liked in the cove

an' the mountings hyarabouts. I dun'no' ez I ever knowed a woman ter

hev mo' frien's. Ye hev got a heap o' frien's, shore."

"Lots of 'em hev been hyar jes' ter find out how she takes it,"

remarked the small cynic. "An' 'fore they go away they air obleeged ter

see ez _I_ bear up wonderful."

Letitia had dropped the paddle, and was leaning back against the

silver bark of a great beech-tree. She had plucked a cluster of the

half-developed nuts from the low-hanging boughs, and as she bent her

head and affected to examine them she half hid and half vaunted a

roguish smile.

"They hev all kem, sech acquaintances ez I hev got," said Adelaide,

flustered by this attack upon the motives of the community, fearful

that Cheever might repeat it, and thus eager to set herself right

upon the record. "Folks hev been powerful good; everybody hev kem

round-about ez knowed Steve."

"'Ceptin' Mr. Rhodes," observed Letitia. "He war toler'ble constant

visitin' hyar whilst in the neighborhood ez long ez Steve Yates held

forth. But ez it air agin the religion o' wimmen ter vote, an' they

think it air a sin, this hyar wicked Mr. Rhodes, ez air stirrin' up all

the men folks ter tempt Satan at the polls, jes' bides up thar at some

folkses ez be named Pettingill, they tell me, a-nussin' of his nicked

head. He knows Adelaide an' me air too righteous ter vote, so he don't

kem tryin' ter git us ter vote fur him."

"Whar's Fee Guthrie?" asked Cheever, suddenly, reminded of him by the

allusion to the wound he had given the candidate.

The next moment there was a sneer upon his face, for the young scoffer

had changed color. It crept up from the flush in her cheeks to the

roots of her hair; but she replied, with her air of mock seriousness:

"I seem ter disremember at the moment."

Adelaide was dulled by the trouble and the preoccupation that had

fallen upon her. "He war hyar this mornin', an' yistiddy too," she

remarked, all unconscious of any but the superficial meaning of what

she said. "He 'pears ter be powerful troubled 'bout his soul."

"He seems ter 'low ez he _hev_ got a soul," observed Letitia, casually.

"The pride o' some folks is astonishin'."

"He 'lowed he war goin' ter the woods ter pray," said Adelaide.

"An' I tole him," said Letitia, "that the Lord mought like him better

ef he went ter the field ter plough. His corn is spindlin', an' his

cotton is mightily in the grass. But it takes more elbow grease ter

plough corn an' scrape cotton than ter pray, so the lazy critter is

prayin'."

Her complexion had recovered its normal tints, and she laughed at

this fling with manifest enjoyment, although the other two failed to

respond--Adelaide deprecating its tone, and Cheever preserving an

elaborate manner of ignoring that she had spoken at all.

"Waal, waal, Mis' Yates, I mus' be ridin'," he said, gathering up the

reins. "Good-by. Ef ye want me fur ennything jes' call on me, an' ye'll

do me a pleasure. Yes, 'm."

Her recognizant response was lost in the tramp of his horse, keen to be

off on the first intimation that progress was in order, and in the wail

which Moses set up in logical prescience that the admirable quadruped

was to be withdrawn from his enchanted gaze. He lunged forward,

bending his elastic body almost double, to see the horse go, mane and

tail flying, and with the sun upon his neck and his sides that had a

sheen like satin. As the rider was turning at right angles to cross

the rickety bridge, he looked back over his shoulder at the group.

Adelaide's dark attire and the diminutive size of Moses rendered them

almost indistinguishable, but the faint blue of Letitia's dress defined

her figure against the sombre green of the banks as if it was drawn in

lines of light. She had not changed her posture; her face was still

turned toward him. He knew that she was gazing after him as the fleet

hoofs of the horse with the "nigh fore-laig crippled" swiftly bore him

into invisibility. He could not hear her words, but he instinctively

felt that she spoke of him, and he could only vaguely guess their

import. So unflattering were these divinations that he ground his teeth

with rage at the thought.

"I wisht I hed never seen her," he said, as the hollow beat of the

slackened hoof sounded upon the bridge. "I wisht I hedn't stopped. But

_who_ would hev thunk ez that darned leetle consarn would hev been so

all-fired sharp ez ter guess it? I wisht I hedn't stopped at all."

An incongruous fear, surely, for a man like this; but more than

once, as he rode, he looked over his shoulder with a knitted brow

and a furtive eager eye. Naught followed but the long shadows which

the sinking sun had set a-stalking all adown the valley. The world

was still. He heard only here and there the ecstatic burst of a

mocking-bird's wonderful roulades. Then the horse, with muscles as

strong as steel, distanced the sound. Once, as the woods on either

side fell away, he saw the west; it glowed with purest roseate tints,

deepening to a live vermilion in the spaces about the horizon whence

the sun but now had blazed; the nearest mountains were darkly purple;

the northern ranges wore a crystalline, amethystine splendor, with a

fine green sky above them that had an opaque hardness of color, which

gradually merged into amber, giving way at the zenith to azure. In the

midst of all a great palpitating star glistered, so white that with

these strong contrasts of the flaunting heavens one might feel, for the

first time, a full discernment of the effect of white.

Another moment the deep woods had closed around, and it seemed that

night had come. He presently ceased to follow the road. The jungle

into which he plunged had no path, no sign of previous passing, and

the earth was invisible beneath the inextricable interlacings of the

undergrowth. But if the sense of man was at fault, the good horse

supplied the lack with a certain unclassified faculty, and with the

reins on his neck and his head alert pushed on at fair speed, stepping

gingerly over the boles of fallen trees, making his way around

insurmountable boulders, swimming a deep and narrow pool; and finally,

in struggling up the opposite bank, he uttered a whinny of triumph and

recognition that bespoke his journey's end. The sound rang through the

evening stillness of the woods with abrupt effect, repeated a thousand

times by the echoes of the huge rocks that lay all adown the gorge. The

place might realize to the imagination the myths of magic castles to be

summoned into symmetry out of the craggy chaos by some talismanic word.

It was easy to fancy, in the solitude and the pensive hour, castellated

towers in those great rugged heights, a moat in the deep pool, even a

gateway, a narrow space above which the cliffs almost met. Buck Cheever

wot of none of these things, and no fancied resemblance embellished

the stolidity of his recognition of the place as "mighty handy" for

his purposes. Perhaps the horse had more imagination, for when his

owner dismounted and sought to lead him through this narrow space, that

seemed a broken doorway to an unroofed tunnel--so consecutive were the

crags, so nearly their summits approached each other--he held back,

making a long neck, hanging heavily on the bridle, and lifting each

hoof reluctantly.

"D---- yer durned hide! ain't ye never goin' ter l'arn nuthin', many

times ez ye hev been hyar?" cried his master.

Thus encouraged, the horse slowly followed Cheever along the narrow

passway between the cliffs, that finally met in a veritable tunnel,

which might have seemed an entrance into a cave, save that at its

extremity Cheever emerged into a lighted space and the free out-door

air, and stood facing the western skies.

Nevertheless, the ledges of the cliff extended, roof-like, far out

above; its walls were on either side; the solid rock was beneath his

feet. It was a gigantic niche in the crags, to which the subterranean

passage alone gave access, one side being altogether open, showing

the tops of the trees on the low opposite bank of the river, the

stream itself in the deep gorge below, and many and many a league of

cloud-land. This unexpected outlook, these large liberties of airy

vision, formed the salient feature of the place, dwarfing for the first

moment all other properties. On the resplendent background of the

sunset, still richly aglow, the slouching figures of a group of half

a dozen men about a smouldering fire had an odd dehumanized effect.

Familiar though he was with these uncanny silhouettes, he started

violently, and hesitated, as if about to turn and flee.