I
She sat at the base of the big tree--her little sunbonnet pushed back,
her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her
crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below.
Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were
tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been
steep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. The
mountains ran in limitless blue waves towards the mounting sun--but at
birth her eyes had opened on them as on the white mists trailing up the
steeps below her. Beyond them was a gap in the next mountain chain and
down in the little valley, just visible through it, were trailing blue
mists as well, and she knew that they were smoke. Where was the great
glare of yellow light that the “circuit rider” had told about--and
the leaping tongues of fire? Where was the shrieking monster that ran
without horses like the wind and tossed back rolling black plumes all
streaked with fire? For many days now she had heard stories of the
“furriners” who had come into those hills and were doing strange things
down there, and so at last she had climbed up through the dewy morning
from the cove on the other side to see the wonders for herself. She had
never been up there before. She had no business there now, and, if she
were found out when she got back, she would get a scolding and maybe
something worse from her step-mother--and all that trouble and risk
for nothing but smoke. So, she lay back and rested--her little mouth
tightening fiercely. It was a big world, though, that was spread before
her and a vague awe of it seized her straightway and held her motionless
and dreaming. Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills, beyond the
blue smoke drifting in the valley, those limitless blue waves must run
under the sun on and on to the end of the world! Her dead sister had
gone into that far silence and had brought back wonderful stories of
that outer world: and she began to wonder more than ever before whether
she would ever go into it and see for herself what was there. With the
thought, she rose slowly to her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that
dropped sheer ten feet aside from the trail, and stood there like a
great scarlet flower in still air. There was the way at her feet--that
path that coiled under the cliff and ran down loop by loop through
majestic oak and poplar and masses of rhododendron. She drew a long
breath and stirred uneasily--she'd better go home now--but the path had
a snake-like charm for her and still she stood, following it as far down
as she could with her eyes. Down it went, writhing this way and that
to a spur that had been swept bare by forest fires. Along this spur it
travelled straight for a while and, as her eyes eagerly followed it
to where it sank sharply into a covert of maples, the little creature
dropped of a sudden to the ground and, like something wild, lay flat.
A human figure had filled the leafy mouth that swallowed up the trail
and it was coming towards her. With a thumping heart she pushed slowly
forward through the brush until her face, fox-like with cunning and
screened by a blueberry bush, hung just over the edge of the cliff, and
there she lay, like a crouched panther-cub, looking down. For a moment,
all that was human seemed gone from her eyes, but, as she watched, all
that was lost came back to them, and something more. She had seen that
it was a man, but she had dropped so quickly that she did not see the
big, black horse that, unled, was following him. Now both man and horse
had stopped. The stranger had taken off his gray slouched hat and he was
wiping his face with something white. Something blue was tied loosely
about his throat. She had never seen a man like that before. His face
was smooth and looked different, as did his throat and his hands. His
breeches were tight and on his feet were strange boots that were the
colour of his saddle, which was deep in seat, high both in front and
behind and had strange long-hooded stirrups. Starting to mount, the man
stopped with one foot in the stirrup and raised his eyes towards her
so suddenly that she shrank back again with a quicker throbbing at her
heart and pressed closer to the earth. Still, seen or not seen, flight
was easy for her, so she could not forbear to look again. Apparently, he
had seen nothing--only that the next turn of the trail was too steep to
ride, and so he started walking again, and his walk, as he strode along
the path, was new to her, as was the erect way with which he held his
head and his shoulders.
In her wonder over him, she almost forgot herself, forgot to wonder
where he was going and why he was coming into those lonely hills until,
as his horse turned a bend of the trail, she saw hanging from the
other side of the saddle something that looked like a gun. He was a
“raider”--that man: so, cautiously and swiftly then, she pushed herself
back from the edge of the cliff, sprang to her feet, dashed past the big
tree and, winged with fear, sped down the mountain--leaving in a spot of
sunlight at the base of the pine the print of one bare foot in the black
earth.