Always enwrapped in the illusory mists, always touching the evasive clouds, the peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains are like some barren ideal, that has bartered for the vague isolations of a higher atmosphere the material values of the warm world below. Upon those mighty and majestic domes no tree strikes root, no hearth is alight; humanity is an alien thing, and utility set at naught. Below, dense forests cover the massive, precipitous slopes of the range, and in the midst of the wilderness a clearing shows, here and there, and the roof of a humble log-cabin; in the valley, far, far lower still, a red spark at dusk may suggest a home, nestling in the cove. Grain grows apace in these scanty clearings, for the soil in certain favoured spots is mellow; and the weeds grow, too, and in a wet season the ploughs are fain to be active. They are of the bull-tongue variety, and are sometimes drawn by oxen. As often as otherwise they are followed by women.

In the gracious June mornings, when winds are astir and wings are awhirl in the wide spaces of the sunlit air, the work seemed no hardship to Dorinda Cayce—least of all one day when another plough ran parallel to the furrows of her own, and a loud, drawling, intermittent conversation became practicable. She paused often, and looked idly about her: sometimes at the distant mountains, blue and misty, against the indefinite horizon; sometimes down at the cool, dense shadows of the wooded valley, so far below the precipice, to which the steep clearing shelved; sometimes at the little log-cabin on the slope above, sheltered by a beetling crag and shadowed by the pines; sometimes still higher at the great 'bald' of the mountain, and its mingled phantasmagoria of shifting clouds and flickering sheen and glimmering peak.

'He 'lowed ter me,' she said suddenly, 'ez he hev been gin ter view strange sights a many a time in them fogs, an' sech.'

The eyes lifted to the shivering vapours might never have reflected aught but a tropical sunshine, so warm, so bright, so languorously calm were they. She turned them presently upon a young man, who was ploughing with a horse close by, and who also came to a meditative halt in the turn-row. He too was of intermittent conversational tendencies, and between them it might be marvelled that so many furrows were already run. He wore a wide-brimmed brown wool hat, set far back upon his head; a mass of straight yellow hair hung down to the collar of his brown jeans coat. His brown eyes were slow and contemplative. The corn was knee-high, and hid the great boots drawn over his trousers. As he moved there sounded the unexpected jingle of spurs. He looked, with the stolid, lack-lustre expression of the mountaineer, at the girl, who continued, as she leaned lightly on the plough-handles:

'I 'lowed ter him ez mebbe he hed drempt them visions. I knows I hev thunk some toler'ble cur'ous thoughts myself, ef I war tired an' sleepin' hard. But he said he reckoned I hed drempt no sech dreams ez his'n. I can't holp sorrowin' fur him some. He 'lowed ez Satan hev hunted him like a pa'tridge on the mounting.'

The young man's eyes dropped with sudden significance upon his plough-handles. A pair of pistols in their leather cases swung incongruously there. They gave a caustic suggestion of human adversaries as fierce as the moral pursuit of the Principle of Evil, and the girl's face fell. In absence of mind she recommenced her work.

'Waal,' she gently drawled, as the old ox languidly started down the row, ''pears like ter me ez it ain't goin' ter be no differ, nohow: it won't hender ye none.'

Her face was grave, but there was a smile in her eyes, which had the lustre and depth of a sapphire, and a lambent glow like the heart of a blue flame. They were fringed by long, black lashes, and her hair was black also. Her pink calico sun-bonnet, flaring toward the front, showed it lying in moist tendrils on her brow, and cast an unwonted roseate tint upon the clear, healthful pallor of her complexion. She wore a dark blue homespun dress, and, despite her coarse garb and uncouth occupation and the gaunt old ox, there was something impressive in her simple beauty, her youth, and her elastic vigour. As she drove the ploughshare into the mould she might have seemed the type of a young civilization—so fine a thing in itself, so roughly accoutred.

When she came down the slope again, facing him, the pink curtain of her bonnet waving about her shoulders, her blue skirts fluttering among the blades of corn, a winged shadow sweeping along as if attendant upon her, while a dove flew high above to its nest in the pines, he raised his hand with an imperative gesture, and she paused obediently. He had flushed deeply; the smouldering fire in his eyes was kindling. He leaned across the few rows of corn that stood between them.

'I hev a word ter ax right now. Who air under conviction hyar?' he demanded.

She seemed a trifle startled. Her grasp shifted uncertainly on the plough-handles, and the old ox, accustomed to rest only at the turn-row, mistook her intention, and started off. She stopped him with some difficulty, and then, 'Convicted of sin?' she asked, in a voice that showed her appreciation of the solemnity of the subject.

'I hev said it,' the young man declared, with a half-suppressed irritation which confused her.

She remained silent.

'Mebbe it air yer granny,' he suggested, with a sneer.

She recoiled, with palpable surprise. 'Granny made her peace fifty year ago,' she declared, with pride in this anciently acquired grace—'fifty year an' better.'

'The boys air convicted, then? he asked, still leaning over the corn and still sneering.

'The boys hev got thar religion, too,' she faltered, looking at him with wide eyes, brilliant with astonishment, and yet a trifle dismayed. Suddenly, she threw herself into her wonted confiding attitude, leaning upon her plough-handles, and with an appealing glance began an extenuation of her spiritual poverty: ''Pears like ez I hev never hed a call ter tell you-uns afore ez I hev hed no time yit ter git my religion. Granny bein' old, an' the boys at the still, I hev hed ter spin, an' weave, an' cook, an' sew, an' plough some—the boys bein' mos'ly at the still. An' then, thar be Mirandy Jane, my brother Ab's darter, ez I hev hed ter l'arn how ter cook vittles. When I went down yander ter my aunt Jerushy's house in Tuckaleechee Cove, ter holp her some with weavin', I war plumb cur'ous ter know how Mirandy Jane would make out whilst I war gone. They 'lowed ez she hed cooked the vittles toler'ble, but ef she had washed a skillet or a platter in them three days I couldn't find it.'

Her tone was stern; all the outraged housekeeper was astir within her.

He said nothing, and she presently continued discursively, still leaning on the plough-handles:

'I never stayed away but them three days. I warn't sati'fied in my mind, nohow, whilst I bided down thar in Tuckaleechee Cove. I hankered cornsider'ble arter the baby. He air three year old now, an' I hev keered fur him ever sence his mother died—my brother Ab's wife, ye know—two year ago an' better. They hed fedded him toler'ble whilst I war away, an' I fund him fat ez common. But they hed crost him somehows, an' he war ailin' in his temper when I got home, an' hed ter hev cornsider'ble coddlin'.'

She paused before the rising anger in his eyes.

'Why air Mirandy Jane called ter l'arn how ter cook vittles?' he demanded, irrelevantly, it might have seemed.

She looked at him in deprecating surprise. Yet she turned at bay.

'I hev never hearn ez ye war convicted yerself, Rick Tyler!' she said tartly. 'Ye war never so much ez seen a-scoutin' round the mourner's bench. Ef I hev got no religion, ye hev got none, nuther.'

'Ye air minded ter git married, D'rindy Cayce,' he said severely, solving his own problem, 'an' that's why Mirandy Jane hev got ter be l'arned ter take yer place at home.'

He produced this as if it were an accusation.

She drew back, indignant and affronted, and with a rigid air of offended propriety.

'I hev no call ter spen' words 'bout sech ez that with a free-spoken man like you-uns,' she staidly asseverated; and then she was about to move on.

Accepting her view of the gross unseemliness of his mention of the subject, the young fellow's anger gave way to contrition.

'Waal, D'rindy,' he said, in an eager, apologetic tone,' I hev seen that critter, that thar preacher, a-hangin' round you-uns's house a powerful deal lately, whilst I hev been obleeged ter hide out in the woods. An' bein' ez nobody thar owns up ter needin' religion but ye, I reckoned he war a-tryin' ter git ye ter take him an' grace tergether. That man hev got his mouth stuffed chock-full o' words—more 'n enny other man I ever see,' he added, with an expression of deep disgust.

Dorinda might be thought to abuse her opportunities.

'He ain't studyin' 'bout'n me, no more 'n I be 'bout'n him,' she said, with scant relish for the spectacle of Rick Tyler's jealousy. 'Pa'son Kelsey jes' stops thar ter the house ter rest his bones awhile, arter he comes down off'n the bald, whar he goes ter pray.'

'In the name o' reason,' exclaimed the young fellow petulantly, 'why can't he pray somewhar else? A man ez hev got ter h'ist hisself on the bald of a mounting ten mile high—except what's lackin'—ter git a purchase on prayer hain't got no religion wuth talkin' 'bout. Sinner ez I am, I kin pray in the valley—way down yander in Tuckaleechee Cove—ez peart ez on enny bald in the Big Smoky. That critter air a powerful aggervatin' contrivance.'

Her eyes still shone upon him.

''Pears like ter me ez it air no differ, nohow,' she said, with her consolatory cadence. As she again started down the row, she added, glancing over her shoulder and relenting even to explanation, ''Twar granny's word ez Mirandy Jane hed ter be l'arned ter cook an' sech. She air risin' thirteen now, an' air toler'ble bouncin' an' spry, an' oughter be some use, ef ever. An' she mought marry when she gits fairly grown, an',' pausing in the turn-row for argument, and looking with earnest eyes at him, as he still stood in the midst of the waving corn, idly holding his plough-handles, where the pistols swung, 'ef she did marry, 'pears like ter me ez she would be mightily faulted ef she couldn't cook tasty.'

There was no reasonable doubt of this proposition, but it failed to convince, and in miserable cogitation he completed another furrow, and met her at the turn-row.

'I s'pose ez Pa'son Kelsey an' yer granny air powerful sociable an' frien'ly,' he hazarded, as they stood together.

'I dunno ez them two air partic'lar frien'ly. Pa'son Kelsey air in nowise a sociable critter,' said Dorinda, with a discriminating air. 'He ain't like Brother Jake Tobin—though it 'pears like ter me ez his gift in prayer air manifested more survigrus, ef ennything.' She submitted this diffidently. Having no religion, she felt incompetent to judge of such matters. ''Pears like ter me ez Pa'son Kelsey air more like 'Lijah an' 'Lisha, an' them men, what he talks about cornsider'ble, an' goes out ter meet on the bald.'

'He don't meet them men on the bald; they air dead,' said Rick Tyler abruptly.

She looked at him in shocked surprise.

'That's jes' his addling way o' talkin',' continued the young fellow. 'He don't mean fur true more 'n haffen what he say. He 'lows ez he meets the sperits o' them men on the bald.'

Once more she lifted her bright eyes to the shivering vapours—vague, mysterious, veiling in solemn silence the barren, awful heights.

An extreme gravity had fallen upon her face.

'Did they live in thar lifetime up hyar in the Big Smoky, or in the valley kentry?' she asked, in a lowered voice.

'I ain't sure 'bout'n that,' he replied indifferently.

''Crost the line in the old North State?' she hazarded, exhausting her knowledge of the habitable globe.

'I hearn him read 'bout'n it wunst, but I furgits now.'

Still her reverent, beautiful eyes, full of the dreamy sunshine, were lifted to the peak. 'It must hev been in the Big Smoky Mountings they lived,' she said, with eager credulity, 'fur he tole me ez the word an' the prophets holped him when Satan kem a-huntin' of him like a pa'tridge on the mounting.'

The young fellow turned away, with a gesture of angry impatience.

'Ef he hed ever hed the State o' Tennessee a-huntin' of him he wouldn't be so feared o' Satan. Ef thar war a warrant fur him in the sher'ffs pocket, an' the gran' jury's true bill fur murder lyin' agin him yander at Shaftesville, an' the gov'nor's reward, two hunderd dollars blood-money, on him, he wouldn't be a-humpin' his bones round hyar so peart, a-shakin' in his shoes fur the fear o' Satan.' He laughed—a caustic, jeering laugh. 'Satan's mighty active, considerin' his age, but I'd be willin' ter pit the State o' Tennessee agin him when it kem ter huntin' of folks like a pa'tridge.'

The sunshine in the girl's eyes was clouded. They had filled with tears. Still leaning on the plough-handles, she looked at him, with suddenly crimson cheeks and quivering lips. 'I dunno how the State o' Tennessee kin git its own cornsent ter be so mean an' wicked ez it air,' she said, his helpless little partizan.

Despite their futility, her words comforted him. 'An' I hev done nuthin', nohow!' he cried out, in shrill self-justification. 'I could no more hender 'Bednego Tynes from shootin' Joel Byers down in his own door 'n nuthin' in this worl'. I never even knowed they hed a grudge. 'Bednego Tynes, he tole me ez he owed Joel a debt, an' war goin' ter see him 'bout'n it, an' wanted somebody along ter hear his word an' see justice done 'twixt 'em. Thar air fower Byers boys, an' I reckon he war feared they would all jump on him at wunst, an' he wanted me ter holp him ef they did. An' I went along like a fool sheep, thinkin' 'bout nuthin'. An' when we got way down yander in Eskaqua Cove, whar Joel Byers's house air, he gin a hello at the fence, an' Joel kem ter the door. An' 'Bednego whipped up his rifle suddint an' shot him through the head, ez nip an' percise! An' thar stood Joel's wife, seein' it all. An' 'Bednego run off, nimble, I tell ye, an' I war so flustrated I run, too. Somebody cotched 'Bednego in the old North State the nex' week, an' the gov'nor hed ter send a requisition arter him. But sence I fund out ez they 'lowed I war aidin' an' abettin' 'Bednego, an' war goin' ter arrest me 'kase I war thar at the killin', they hev hed powerful little chance o' tryin' me in the court. An' whilst the gov'nor hed his hand in, he offered a reward fur sech a lawless man ez I be.'

He broke off, visibly struggling for composure; then he recommenced in increasing indignation: 'An' these hyar frien's o' mine in the Big Smoky, I'll be bound they hanker powerful arter them two hunderd dollars blood-money. I know ez I'd hev been tuk afore this, ef it warn't fur them consarns thar.' He nodded frowningly at the pistols. 'Them's the only frien's I hev got.'

The girl's voice trembled. ''Pears like ye mought count me in,' she said reproachfully.

'Naw,' he retorted sternly; 'ye go round hyar sorrowin' fur a man ez hev got nuthin' ter be afeared of but the devil.'

She made no reply, and her meekness mollified him.

'D'rindy,' he said, in an altered tone, and with the pathos of a keen despair, 'I hed fixed it in my mind a good while ago, when I could hev hed a house, an' lived like folks, stidd'er like a wolf in the woods, ter ax ye ter marry me; but I war hendered by gittin' skeered 'bout'n yer bein' all in favour o' Amos Jeemes, ez kem up ter see ye from Eskaqua Cove, an' I didn't want ter git turned off. Mebbe ef I hed axed ye then I wouldn't hev tuk ter goin' along o' Abednego Tynes an' sech, an' the killin' o' Joel wouldn't hev happened like it done. Would ye—would ye hev married me then?'

Her eyes flashed. 'Ye air fairly sodden with foolishness, Rick!' she exclaimed angrily. 'Air you-uns thinkin ez I'll 'low ez I would hev married a man four months ago ez never axed me ter marry, nohow?' Then, with an appreciation of the delicacy of the position and a conservation of mutual pride, she added, 'An' I won't say nuther ez I wouldn't marry a man ez hev never axed me ter marry, nohow.'

Somehow, the contrariety of the proprieties, as she translated them, bewildered and baffled him. Even had he been looking at her he might hardly have interpreted, with his blunt perceptions, the dewy wistfulness of the eyes which she bent upon him. The word might promise nothing now. Still she would have valued it. He did not speak it. His eyes were fixed on Chilhowee Mountain, rising up, massive and splendid, against the west. The shadows of the clouds flecked the pure and perfect blue of the sunny slopes with a dusky mottling of purple. The denser shade in the valley had shifted, and one might know by this how the day wore on. The dew had dried from the long, keen blades of the Indian corn; the grasshoppers droned among them. A lizard basked on a flat white stone hard by. The old ox dozed in the turn-row.

Suddenly Rick Tyler lifted his hand, with an intent gesture and a dilated eye. There came from far below, on the mountain road, the sound of a horse's hoof striking on a stone, again, and yet again. A faint metallic jingle—the air was so still now—suggested spurs. The girl's hand trembled violently as she stepped swiftly to his horse and took off the plough-gear. He had caught up a saddle that was lying in the turn-row, and as hastily buckled the girth about the animal.

'Ef that air ennybody a-hankerin' ter see me, don't you-uns be a-denyin' ez I hev been hyar, D'rindy,' he said, as he put his foot in the stirrup. 'I reckon they hev fund out by now ez I be in the kentry round about. But keep 'em hyar ez long ez ye kin, ter gin me a start.'

He mounted his horse, and rode noiselessly away along the newly turned mould of the furrow.

She stood leaning upon her plough-handles and silently watching him. His equestrian figure, darkly outlined against the far blue mountains and the intermediate valley, seemed of heroic size against the landscape, which was reduced by the distance to the minimum of proportion. The deep shadows of the woods encompassing the clearing fell upon him presently, and he, too, was but a shadow in the dusky monochrome of the limited vista. The dense laurel closed about him, and his mountain fastnesses, that had befriended him of yore, received him once again.

Then up and down the furrows Dorinda mechanically followed the plough, her pulses throbbing, every nerve tense, every faculty alert. She winced when she heard the frequent striking of hoofs upon the rocky slopes of the road below. She was instantly aware when they were silent, and the party had stopped to breathe the horses. She began accurately to gauge their slow progress.

''Tain't airish in nowise ter-day,' she said, glancing about at the still, noontide landscape; 'an' ef them air valley cattle they mus' git blowed mightily travellin' up sech steep mountings ez the Big Smoky.' She checked her self-gratulation. 'Though I ain't wantin' ter gloat on the beastis' misery, nuther,' she stipulated.

She paused presently at the lower end of the clearing, and looked down over the precipice, that presented a sheer sandstone cliff on one side, and on the other a wild confusion of splintered and creviced rocks, where the wild rose bloomed in the niches and the grape-vine swung. The beech-trees on the slope below conserved beneath their dense, umbrageous branches a tender green twilight. Loitering along in a gleaming silver thread by the roadside was a mountain rill, hardly gurgling even when with slight and primitive shift it was led into a hollow and mossy log, that it might aggregate sufficient volume in the dry season to water the horse of the chance wayfarer.

The first stranger that rode into this shadowy nook took off a large straw hat and bared his brow to the refreshing coolness. His grizzled hair stood up in front after the manner denominated 'a roach.' His temples were deeply sunken, and his strongly marked face was long and singularly lean. He held it forward, as if he were snuffing the air. He had a massive and powerful frame, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh, and he looked like a hound in the midst of the hunting season.

It served to quiet Dorinda's quivering nerves when he leisurely rode his big grey horse up to the trough, and dropped the rein that the animal might drink. If he were in pursuit he evidently had no idea how close he had pressed the fugitive. He was joined there by the other members of the party, six or eight in number, and presently a stentorian voice broke upon the air. 'Hello! Hello!' he shouted, hailing the log cabin.

Mirandy Jane, a slim, long-legged, filly-like girl of thirteen, with a tangled black mane, the forelock hanging over her wild, prominent eyes, had at that moment appeared on the porch. She paused, and stared at the strangers with vivacious surprise. Then, taking sudden fright, she fled precipitately, with as much attendant confusion of pattering footfalls, flying mane, and excited snorts and gasps as if she were a troop of wild horses.

'Granny! Granny!' she exclaimed to the old crone in the chimney-corner, 'thar's a man on a big grey critter down at the trough, an' I an't s'prised none ef he air a raider!'

The hail of the intruders was regarded as a challenge by some fifteen or twenty hounds that suddenly materialized among the beehives and the althea bushes, and from behind the ash-hopper and the hen-house and the rain-barrel. From under the cabin two huge curs came, their activity impeded by the blocks and chains they drew. These were silent, while the others yelped vociferously, and climbed over the fence, and dashed down the road.

The horses pricked up their ears, and the leader of the party awaited the onslaught with a pistol in his hand.

The old woman, glancing out of the window, observed this demonstration.

'He'll kill one o' our dogs with that thar shootin'-iron o' his'n!' she exclaimed in trepidation. 'Run, Mirandy Jane, an' tell him our dogs don't bite.'

The filly-like Mirandy Jane made great speed among the hounds as she called them off, and remembered only after she had returned to the house to be afraid of the 'shootin'-iron' herself.

The old woman, who had come out on the porch, stood gazing at the party, shading her eyes with her hands, and a long-range colloquy ensued.

'Good-mornin', madam,' said the man at the trough.

'Good-mornin', sir,' quavered the old crone on the mountain slope.

'I'm the sher'ff o' the county, madam, an' I'd like ter know ef——'

'Mirandy Jane,' the old woman interrupted, in a wrathful undertone, ''pears like I hev' hed the trouble o' raisin' a idjit in you-uns! Them ain't raiders, 'n nuthin' like it. Run an' tell the sher'ff we air dishin' up dinner right now, an' ax him an' his gang ter' light an' hitch, an' eat it along o' we-uns.'

The prospect was tempting. It was high noon, and the posse had been in the saddle since dawn. Dorinda, with a beating heart, remarked how short a consultation resulted in dismounting and hitching the horses; and then, with their spurs jingling and their pistols belted about them, the men trooped up to the house.

As they seated themselves around the table, more than one looked back over his shoulder at the open window, in which was framed, as motionless as a painted picture, the vast perspective of the endless blue ranges and the great vaulted sky, not more blue, all with the broad, still, brilliant noontide upon it.

'Ye ain't scrimped fur a view, Mis' Cayce, an' that's the Lord's truth!' exclaimed the officer.

'Waal,' said the old woman, as if her attention were called to the fact for the first time, 'we kin see a power o' kentry from this spot o' ourn, sure enough; but I dunno ez it gins us enny more chance o' ever viewin' Canaan.'

'It's a sight o' ground ter hev ter hunt a man over, ez ef he war a needle in a haystack,' and once more the officer turned and surveyed the prospect.

The room was overheated by the fire which had cooked the dinner, and the old woman actively plied her fan of turkey feathers, pausing occasionally to readjust her cap, which had a flapping frill, and was surmounted by a pair of gleaming spectacles. A bandana kerchief was crossed over her breast, and she wore a blue-and-white-checked homespun dress of the same pattern and style that she had worn here fifty years ago. Her hands were tremulous and gnarled, and her face was deeply wrinkled, but her interest in life was as fresh as Mirandy Jane's.

The great frame of the warping-bars on one side of the room was swathed with a rainbow of variegated yarn, and a spinning-wheel stood near the door. A few shelves, scrupulously neat, held piggins, a cracked blue bowl, brown earthenware, and the cooking utensils. There were rude gun-racks on the walls. These indicated the fact of several men in the family. It was the universal dinner-hour, yet none of them appeared. The sheriff reflected that perhaps they had their own sufficient reason to be shy of strangers, and the horses hitched outside advertised the presence and number of unaccustomed visitors within. When the usual appetizer was offered, it took the form of whisky in such quantity that the conviction was forced upon him that it was come by very handily. However, he applied himself with great relish to the bacon and snap-beans, corn dodgers and fried chicken, not knowing that Mirandy Jane, who was esteemed altogether second-rate, had cooked them, and he spread honey upon the apple-pie, ate it with his knife, and washed it down with buttermilk, kept cold as ice in the spring—the mixture being calculated to surprise a more civilized stomach.

Not even his conscience was roused—the first intimation of a disordered digestion. He listened to old Mrs. Cayce with no betrayal of divination when she vaguely but anxiously explained the absence of her son and his boys in the equivocal phrase, 'Not round about ter-day, bein' gone off,' and he asked how many miles distant was the Settlement, as if he understood they had gone thither. He was saying to himself, the brush whisky warming his heart, that the revenue department paid him nothing to raid moonshiners, and there was no obligation of his office to sift any such suspicion which might occur to him while accepting an unguarded hospitality.

He looked with somewhat appreciative eyes at Dorinda, as she went back and forth from the table to the pot which hung in the deep chimney-place above the smouldering coals. She had laid aside her bonnet. Her face was grave, her eyes were bright and excited; her hair was drawn back, except for the tendrils about her brow, and coiled, with the aid of a much-prized 'tuckin'-comb,' at the back of her head in a knot discriminated as Grecian in civilization. He remarked to her grandmother that he was a family man himself, and had a daughter as old, he should say, as Dorinda.

'D'rindy air turned seventeen, now,' said Mrs. Cayce disparagingly. 'It 'pears like ter me ez the young folks nowadays air awk'ard an' back'ard. I war married when I war sixteen—sixteen scant.'

The girl felt that she was indeed of advanced years, and the sheriff said that his daughter was not yet sixteen, and he thought it probable that she weighed more than Dorinda.

He lighted his pipe presently, and tilted his chair back against the wall.

'Yes 'm,' he said meditatively, gazing out of the window at the great panorama, 'it's a pretty big spot o' kentry ter hev ter hunt a man over. Now ef 'twar one o' the town folks we could make out ter overhaul him somehows; but a mounting boy—why, he's ez free ter the hills ez a fox. I s'pose ye hain't seen him hyar-abouts?'

'I hain't hearn who it air yit,' the old woman replied, putting her hand behind her ear.

'It's Rick Tyler; he hails from this deestric'. I won't be 'stonished ef we ketch him this time. The gov'nor has offered two hunderd dollars reward fur him, an' I reckon somebody will find it wuth while ter head him fur us.'

He was talking idly. He had no expectation of developments here. He had only stopped at the house in the first instance for the question which he had asked at every habitation along the road. It suddenly occurred to him as polite to include Dorinda in the conversation.

'Ye hain't seen nor hearn of him, I s'pose, hev ye?' inquired the sheriff, directly addressing her.

As he turned toward her he marked her expression. His own face changed suddenly. He rose at once.

'Don't trifle with the law, I warn ye,' he said sternly. 'Ye hev seen that man.'

Dorinda was standing beside her spinning-wheel, one hand holding the thread, the other raised to guide the motion. She looked at him pale and breathless.

'I hev seen him. I ain't onwillin' ter own it. Ye never axed me afore.'

The other members of the party had crowded in from the porch, where they had been sitting since dinner, smoking their pipes. The officer, realizing his lapse of vigilance and the loss of his opportunity, was sharply conscious, too, of their appreciation of his fatuity.

'Whar did ye see him?' he asked.

'I seen him hyar—this mornin'.' There was a stir of excitement in the group. 'He kem by on his beastis whilst I war a-ploughin', an' we talked a passel. An' then he tuk Pete's plough, ez war idle in the turn-row, an' helped along some; he run a few furrows.'

'Which way did he go?' asked the sheriff breathlessly.

'I dunno,' faltered the girl.

'Look-a-hyar!' he thundered, in rising wrath. 'Ye'll find yerself under lock an' key in the jail at Shaftesville, if ye undertake ter fool with me. Which way did he go?'

A flush sprang into the girl's excited face. Her eyes flashed.

'Ef ye kin jail me fur tellin' all I know, I can't holp it,' she said, with spirit. 'I kin tell no more.'

He saw the justice of her position. It did not make the situation easier for him. Here he had sat eating and drinking and idly talking, while the fugitive, who had escaped by a hair's-breadth, was counting miles and miles between himself and his lax pursuer. This would be heard of in Shaftesville—and he a candidate for re-election! He beheld already an exchange of significant glances among his posse. Had he asked that simple question earlier he might now be on his way back to Shaftesville, his prisoner braceleted with the idle handcuffs that jingled in his pocket as he moved.

He caught at every illusive vagary that might promise to retrieve his error. He declared that she could not say which way Rick Tyler had taken because he was not gone.

'He's in this house right now!' he exclaimed. He ordered a search, and the guests, a little while ago so friendly, began exploring every nook and cranny.

'No, no!' cried the old woman shrilly, as they tried the door of the shed-room, which was bolted and barred. 'Ye can't tech that thar door. It can't be opened—not ef the Gov'nor o' Tennessee war hyar himself, a-moanin' an' a-honin' ter git in.'

The sheriff's eyes dilated. 'Open the door—I summon ye!' he proclaimed, with his imperative official manner.

'No!—I done tole ye,' she said indignantly. 'The word o' the men folks hev been gin ter keep that thar door shet, an shet it's going ter be kep'.'

The officer laid his hand upon it.

'Ye mustn't bust it open!' shrilled the old woman. 'Laws-a-massy! ef thar be many sech ez you-uns in Shaftesville, I ain't s'prised none that the Bible gits ter mournin' over the low kentry, an' calls it a vale o' tears an' the valley o' the shadder o' death!'

The sheriff had placed his powerful shoulder against the frail batten door.

'Hyar goes!' he said.

There was a crash; the door lay in splinters on the floor; the men rushed precipitately over it.

They came back laughing sheepishly. The officer's face was angry and scarlet.

'Don't take the bar'l—don't take the bar'l!' the old woman besought of him, as she fairly hung upon his arm. 'I dunno how the boys would cavort ef they kem back an' fund the bar'l gone.'

He gave her no heed. 'Whyn't ye tell me that man warn't thar?' he asked of the girl.

'Ye didn't ax me that word,' said Dorinda.

'No, 'Cajah Green, ye didn't,' said one of the men, who, since the abortive result of their leader's suspicion, were ashamed of their mission, and prone to self-exoneration. 'I'll stand up ter it ez she answered full an' true every word ez ye axed her.'

'Lor'-a'mighty! Ef I jes' knowed aforehand how it will tech the boys when they view the door down onto the floor!' exclaimed the old woman. 'They mought jounce round hyar ez ef they war bereft o' reason, an' all thar hope o' salvation hed hung on the hinges. An' then agin they mought 'low ez they hed ruther hev no door than be at the trouble o' shettin' it an' barrin' it up ez they come an' go. They air mighty onsartin in thar temper, an' I hev never hankered ter see 'em crost. But fur the glory's sake, don't tech the bar'l. It's been sot thar ter age some, ef the Lord will spare it.'

In the girl's lucent eyes the officer detected a gleam of triumph. How far away in the tangled labyrinths of the mountain wilderness, among the deer-paths and the cataracts and the cliffs, had these long hours led Rick Tyler?

He spoke on his angry impulse: 'An' I ain't goin' ter furgit in a hurry how I hev fund out ez ye air a-consortin' with criminals, an' aidin' an' abettin' men ez air fleein' from jestice an' wanted fur murder. Ye look out; ye'll find yerself in Shaftesville jail 'fore long, I'm a-thinkin'.'

'He stopped an' talked ez other folks stop an' talk,' Dorinda retorted. 'I couldn't hender, an' I hed no mind ter hender. He took no bite nor sup ez others hez done. 'Pears like ter me ez we hev gin aid an' comfort ter the off'cer o' the law ez well ez we could.'

And this was the story that went down to Shaftesville.

The man, his wrath rebounding upon himself, hung his head, and went down to the trough, and mounted his horse without another word.

The others hardly knew what to say to Dorinda. But they were more deliberate in their departure, and hung around apologizing in their rude way to the old woman, who convulsively besought each to spare the barrel, which had been set in the shed-room to 'age some, ef it could be lef alone.'

Dorinda stood under the jack-bean vines, blossoming purple and white, and watched the men as they silently rode away. All the pride within her was stirred. Every sensitive fibre flinched from the officer's coarse threat. She followed him out of sight with vengeful eyes.

'I wish I war a man!' she cried passionately.

'A-law, D'rindy!' exclaimed her grandmother, aghast at the idea. 'That ain't manners!'

The shadows were beginning to creep slowly up the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, as if they came from the depths of the earth. A roseate suffusion idealised range and peak to the east. The delicate skyey background of opaline tints and lustre made distinct and definite their majestic symmetry of outline. Ah! and the air was so clear! What infinite lengths of elastic distances stretched between that quivering trumpet-flower by the fence and the azure heights which its scarlet horn might almost seem to cover! The sun, its yellow blaze burned out, and now a sphere of smouldering fire, was dropping down behind Chilhowee, royally purple, richly dark. Wings were in the air, and every instinct was homeward. An eagle, with a shadow skurrying through the valley like some forlorn Icarus that might not soar, swept high over the landscape. Above all rose the great 'bald,' still splendidly illumined with the red glamour of the sunset, and holding its uncovered head so loftily against the sky that it might seem it had bared its brow before the majesty of heaven.

When the 'men folks,' great, gaunt, bearded, jeans-clad fellows, stood in the shed-room and gazed at the splintered door upon the floor, it was difficult to judge what was the prevailing sentiment, so dawdling, so uncommunicative, so inexpressive of gesture were they.

'We knowed ez thar war strangers prowlin' roun',' said the master of the house, when he had heard his mother's excited account of the events of the day. 'We war a-startin' home ter dinner, an' seen thar beastises hitched thar a-nigh the trough. An' I 'lowed ez mebbe they mought be the revenue devils, so I jes' made the boys lay low. An' Sol war set ter watch, an' he gin the word when they hed rid away.'

He was a man of fifty-five, perhaps, tough and stalwart. His face was as lined and seamed as that of his mother, who had counted nearly fourscore years, but his frame was almost as supple as at thirty. This trait of physical vigour was manifested in each of his muscular sons, and, despite their slow and lank uncouthness, their movements suggested latent elasticity. In Dorinda, his only daughter, it graced her youth and perfected her beauty. He was known far and wide as 'Groundhog Cayce,' but he would tell you, with a flash of the eye, that before the war he bore the Christian name of John.

Nothing more was said on the subject until after supper, when they were all sitting, dusky shadows, on the little porch, where the fireflies sparkled and the vines fluttered, and one might look out and see the new moon, in the similitude of a silver boat, sailing down the western skies, off the headlands of Chilhowee. A cricket was shrilling in the weeds. The vague sighing voice of the woods rose and fell with a melancholy monody. A creamy elder-blossom glimmered in a corner of the rail fence, hard by, its delicate, delicious odour pervading the air.

'I never knowed,' said one of the young men, 'ez this hyar sher'ff—this 'Cajah Green—war sech a headin' critter.'

'He never teched the bar'l,' said the old woman, not wishing that he should appear blacker than he had painted himself.

'I s'pose you-uns gin him an' his gang a bite an' sup,' remarked Groundhog Cayce.

'They eat a sizable dinner hyar,' put in Mirandy Jane, who, having cooked it, had no mind that it should be belittled.

'An' they stayed a right smart while, an' talked powerful frien'ly an' sociable-like,' said old Mrs. Cayce, 'till the sher'ff got addled with the notion that we hed Rick Tyler hid hyar. An' unless we-uns hed tied him in the cheer or shot him, nuthin' in natur' could hev held him. I 'lowed 't war the dram he tuk, though D'rindy thinks differ. They never teched the bar'l, though.'

'An' then,' said Dorinda, with a sudden gush of tears, all the afflicted delicacy of a young and tender woman, all the overweening pride of the mountaineer, throbbing wildly in her veins, her heart afire, her helpless hands trembling, 'he said the word ez he would lock me up in the jail at Shaftesville, sence I hed owned ter seein' a man ez he warn't peart enough ter ketch. He spoke that word ter me—the jail!'

She hung sobbing in the doorway.

There was a murmur of indignation among the group, and John Cayce rose to his feet with a furious oath.

'He shell rue it!' he cried—'he shell rue it! Me an' mine take no word off'n nobody. My gran'dad an' his three brothers, one hunderd an' fourteen year ago, kem hyar from the old North State an' settled in the Big Smoky. They an' thar sons rooted up the wilderness. They cropped. They fit the beastis; they fit the Injun; they fit the British; an' this last little war o' ourn they fit each other. Thar hev never been a coward 'mongst 'em. Thar hev never been a key turned on one of 'em, or a door shet. They hev respected the law fur what it war wuth, an' they hev stood up fur thar rights agin it. They answer fur thar word, an others hev ter answer.'

He paused for a moment.

The moon, still in the similitude of a silver boat, swung at anchor in a deep indentation in the summit of Chilhowee that looked like some lonely pine-girt bay; what strange, mysterious fancies did it land from its cargo of sentiments and superstitions and uncanny influences!

'D'rindy,' her father commanded, 'make a mark on this hyar rifle-bar'l fur 'Cajah Green's word ter be remembered by.'

There was a flash in the faint moonbeams, as he held out to her a long, sharp knife. The rifle was in his hand. Other marks were on it commemorating past events. This was to be a foregone conclusion.

'No, no!' cried the girl, shrinking back aghast. 'I don't want him shot. I wouldn't hev him hurted fur me, fur nothin'! I ain't keerin' now fur what he said. Let him be—let him be!'

She had smarted under the sense of indignity. She had wanted their sympathy, and perhaps their idle anger. She was dismayed by the revengeful passion she had roused.

'No, no!' she reiterated, as one of the younger men, her brother Peter, stepped swiftly out from the shadow, seized her hand with the knife trembling in it, and, catching the moonlight on the barrel of the rifle, guided upon it, close to the muzzle, the mark of a cross.

The moon had weighed anchor at last, and dropped down behind the mountain summit, leaving the bay with a melancholy waning suffusion of light, and the night very dark.

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