It was Saturday and Hi Kitchell and Jim McBirney, having done their chores, met by appointment at the spring under the tulip trees where Azalea intended to build her bungalow when she became very rich.

It was a lovely spot and they threw themselves down in perfect content, their dogs near at hand, and looked off at what Hi called a “purty worl’.”

“It jes’ seems like everything worth speakin’ about hed come my way,” sighed Hi contently. “You-all remember what a pore little forsaken cuss I was, Jim, when me and ’Zalie came draggin’ along with that thar show of Sisson’s a year back an’ more?”

“’Taint more’n a year, Hi.”

“Seems like a century. An’ no sooner hed we laid eyes on your pa and ma than things began to go right. An’ now look at us. ’Zalie’s like your sister and gettin’ a tip-top education, and is off ridin’ the country over with the Carsons; and me and ma hev a home anybody would be proud to own, and that thar Industries business is lookin’ up more’n more every livelong day. Why we’re so happy we’re in danger of bustin’. I asked ma t’other day if she didn’t feel most like bustin’, and she said she did.”

“It’s a good place to live here-abouts,” agreed Jim. “Pleasant things have a way of happenin’ ’round here. If it wa’n’t for that dod-gasted hard luck of Annie Laurie’s, I’d think this was where the nicest folks in creation lived. But some one done her a mean, low-down trick.”

“It was that scowlin’, grumblin’ Disbrow,” averred Hi. “I know it. Ma says she feels it in her bones, and so do I, and Kitchell bones is simply great for givin’ pointers. I say, what’s the use in you and me loafin’ ’round here while that mis’able, sneakin’ houn’ gets off with Annie Laurie’s money? Ain’t we her friends and as nigh kin as she’s got? What say to you and me hikin’ out after that thar Disbrow an’ findin’ him and bringin’ him back to justice?”

Hi’s sharp black eyes sparkled with the high intent of protecting the friendless. The bright light of adventure shone round about him, and Jim thrilled to it. Here was a friend worth having—a friend like those knights of old of whom Azalea read to him, one who would go out and conquer. Jim stared off across the purple valley, rejoicing in his good fortune at living in days when there was still a man’s work to do in the world.

“Hi,” he breathed after a time, “I’m with you.”

“Then,” said Hi, with something of the air of an Arctic explorer about to embark on his hazardous voyage, “we must make ready. Thar’s no use in waitin’ around here, dreamin’ and sighin’ the way the rest of the town is doin’. Let’s get our grub together and be on our way.”

“I wish I could take Peter,” said Jim wistfully. Peter was his hound. “But he’s got such a sore foot I don’t dast. Ma, she doctors it up every morning and she says we’ll have to be mighty careful or we won’t have no dog at all—he’ll die from blood poisonin’.”

“It’s too bad,” agreed Hi, “but we-all ken take Bike.” Bike, Hi’s hound, wagged his tail in recognition of the attention paid him.

“It will make me feel awful bad for you to take Bike and me to be goin’ along without no dog at all,” mused Jim.There seemed to be no limit to Hi’s chivalry to-day.

“Well then, by gum, I won’t take Bike,” he declared, his face lighting with the glow of sacrifice. Jim was not unappreciative.

“Honest, Hi!”

“Honest.”

“Well then, let’s send the dogs home and we can go right on from here. We don’t need no provisions. I’ve got some money—”

“So have I.”

“What’s the use of delayin’ then. Let’s set off.”

So the dogs were commanded to go to their respective homes, and with lowered tails and drooping ears, they obeyed. Bike writhed along on his belly, beating the ground with his tail. He actually shed tears of humiliation and depression, but Peter, more absorbed with the discomfort in his foot, limped lamely and obediently on his way toward home.

“Pore houn’s,” sighed Hi, “they sure are cast down.”

“Ain’t it just their luck,” Jim sympathized. “Pore critters.”

Both boys were talking their worst and enjoying it. This spang-up grammar was well enough to catch on to when a fellow was talking with Mrs. Carson, or even to Azalea, but there was such a thing as letting down and enjoying oneself when the ladies were out of the way. Men must be men now and then.

So, in all the freemasonry of their kind, the two set off across the mountain. Neither one would have confessed that the “wander-thirst” was on them too. But the truth was, Mr. Carson had set a most infectious example. Mountain folks have pretty hard work staying at home. The roads call, and they long to be up and away. It always seems as if something wonderful must be waiting for them over the next hill. Jim and Hi had the gypsy mood on them this day. They actually ran for a long time, taking the cut-offs that led them over the spur of the mountain to Mulberry Valley, which lay “over-yon” and which they had seldom visited, and then always under the guidance of some grown person who insisted on pushing them along and getting home again.

Getting home seemed to them just now as the last thing in the world that a fellow would care to do. What was the use in getting home when a person could run along paths bordered with trim huckleberry bushes, or rest on a stone where lichen had woven a pale green lace? There were partridge berries peeping up between dark green leaves; here was tender wintergreen; yonder the “sweet buds” were coming out, weighting the air with their fruity odor. Dear me, why should anybody go home?

There was an eagle hanging over the valley, strong, and calm, and sure. Three buzzards sat on a blasted pine and shook their evil heads; a king snake gave them a chase and got away from them in spite of their best endeavors. And still the little path went on and on. It passed by a deserted house, where the bats hung from the roof. It wound by wooded hills and fields that once had been tilled, but had perhaps proved too unfertile, and so been left; it crept on up the farther mountain,—the unknown mountain—and still coaxed, and lured, and solicited; and the boys kept on.

Their brown, dusty feet had grown weary and their throats were dry when at length they came upon a cabin. They weren’t sure at first whether it was lived in or not. The heavy shutters—there were no windows—were closed, but the door stood slightly ajar. The chimney, which was made of field stone held together with the red clay of the field, blossomed like a garden with ferns and vines. The yard was bare of grass, but the old stone wall round about it was overgrown with green things, though it was still so early in the year, and the myrtle and mimosa showed their green beside that of the laurel and rhododendron. There was a small well with a sweep, and on the bench lay a broken gourd which had been used as a drinking cup. But over the place was the deepest silence, save for one early bee which made a cheerful buzzing, and seemed to fairly boom, so still was the place.

“I say,” whispered Hi, “don’t it look spooky?”

“Maybe a hermit lives here,” Jim suggested.

“Or a skelington,” added Hi.

It was Hi who had the courage to push back the warped door and look in. Jim was a few feet behind him and he never forgot the yell of horror that came from Hi’s throat, a yell that had fear in it, fear for the next second’s happening. Jim heard a swishing and a hissing, and he knew. Neither formed the word “rattlers!” on their frozen tongues. Hi tried to leap backward and fell over a stub of a bush and lay prone. Jim seized his arm and dragged him along for a dozen feet, and even in the rush they could hear their hearts beating frantically. That swishing and hissing kept up. It seemed to grow louder. Hi turned himself and got on his feet like a monkey. They both ran without looking behind. And after they had started and had got away from the real danger, they began to fear imaginary evils. Panic was on them. With their blistered bare feet they sped on and on, taking no note of where they were going. Their throats, which had been dry to start with, became like paper. Their eyes bulged from their heads. They had started out great heroes, but they had undergone a transformation and were two terribly frightened and tired little boys.

Even as they sank exhausted beneath a pine tree they looked about them shudderingly for snakes, but seeing none they lay there and gasped, their hearts straining in their sides. Then, as their panting ceased, a soft noise struck their ears. It sounded very familiar, and yet in their utter bewilderment they could not at first tell what it was. The meaning penetrated first to Jim.

“A spring,” he whispered. “A spring!”They made their way toward it, dragging their feet like weary dogs, and when they saw it, clear, cold and beautiful, gushing from the ground amid wild forget-me-nots, they sank on their knees and drank long. After that they lay still, staring at the sky. The world swam before them dreamily, the clouds rocked back and forth; they slept.

When they awoke it was dark. It was not just partly dark as it is most nights of the year. No, it was black. They might have been shut up in a black velvet box or lost in a large bottle of black ink. There was nothing above, below, around, so far as their sense could inform them. It was Jim who had opened his eyes first. At least, he thought he had opened them, but when he found he could see nothing at all he had his doubts about having done it. He felt of his eyelids. Yes, they were open, beyond doubt. Had he then suddenly gone blind? He couldn’t imagine why he should, and yet, judging from his present plight, it seemed probable.

“Hi!” he shouted, as if Hi were on the other side of a forty-acre lot.

Hi’s voice answered close at hand, sleepily. “Yep!”“Hi, I believe I’ve gone blind. I can’t see nothing—not a blamed thing.”

There was a short silence.

“I can’t neither,” cried Hi. “Maybe we’re both blind.”

“It’s being so hungry, I reckon,” said Jim. “Don’t you think a fellah could get so run down from eatin’ nothing that he’d go blind?”

“I reckon he might,” sighed Hi.

Silence fell again. They could hear the needles as they fell from the trees, the low whispering of the spring, and the far-away sound of wind or rain, they were not sure which.

Then suddenly they knew that they were not blind. All the world was lit up—lit up terribly and then engulfed in darkness again. Then the thunder came, clamoring and roaring about them. They were mountain boys and they had heard thunder roar and rumble over the hills many times, but had it ever had such a frightful bellow as this? It kept on and on and before the first volley had quite died, again the world was lighted with that fiery light—that forked flame—and again the voice of the sky awoke the thousand voices of the hills.

“Oh, gosh!” groaned Hi.“Ain’t there no place to hide?” demanded Jim with trembling voice.

No, there was no place to hide. The storm king owned everything around there that night. It was all his domain and he meant to do with it as he would. So he blasted an oak, and the boys saw it; and he cracked his horrid whip at the invisible horses of the air, and they rushed by screaming. And then the rain came; not drop by drop as rain should, but in drops that chased each other so that they became streams; in streams that became inverted fountains.

The boys couldn’t even call out to each other. They fought for breath as the furious winds whipped them and the drenching rain engulfed them almost like a wave. It was a cloudburst, they knew that much, and finally, from mere animal instinct, they turned their faces to the ground, wreathed their arms about their heads and lay prone. Still the lightning flashed and the thunder bellowed; still the winds wailed and the trees snapped. It seemed at last merely a question of keeping alive till it was over.

But by and by it was over. It ceased almost as suddenly as it had come, and weak as half-drowned rats the two boys got to their feet, and looking up into a clear sky, saw the morning star shining down at them.

“We’ve got to get home,” said Jim, breathing deep.

“Yes,” agreed Hi.

It was some time before they could find any sort of a trail whatever, but after a while they came upon one, though whether it had been made by human feet long since and overgrown, or whether it was merely a rabbit run they could not decide. However, they decided to take it. The dawn was flushing the sky and they could make their way without much difficulty now, so far as seeing was concerned, but their feet were blistered and their bodies felt as sore as if they had been pounded. They went on and on, doggedly.

“We’re bound to come to a road soon,” they kept telling each other.

“Oh, yes, we’ll get somewhere.”

And they got “somewhere,” beyond any manner of doubt. Lifting their eyes at length, they saw before them that frightful cabin of “rattlers,” and stealing to the door to greet the brightly shining sun was a fine, confident father of rattlers. Hi gave one despairing whoop and fled, Jim following, and once more they sped on, taking however an opposite direction from that of the night before and trying to keep their faces toward home. There was the mountain before them to cross, and then Mulberry Valley, and then there was Tennyson mountain to climb. It was really quite simple.

“Anybody ought to be able to do that,” said Hi stoutly.

But the trouble was that after an hour’s hard plodding they came to a sort of opening and thought they had reached a road at last, and there before them once more was the House of Rattlers. And that was the time they gave up and cried. They dared not stay near there, so they went on their way hastily, but not running now, sobbing as they went.

They were lost, that was all there was to it. They were quite completely lost on a mountain they never had visited before—a mountain where nobody lived and where the only neighborly things were rattle snakes.

They were both wondering if they were going to die there, to starve and be heard of no more. Of course, years and years from then their “skelingtons” might be found. But however interesting that might be for others, it really would do them no good at all, when you came to think of it.

Ugh, how chilly the morning air was! And how wet their clothes were! And how empty their stomachs! And the rattlers—the rattlers!

There was a strange, bell-like sound in the distance, a deep, musical, beautiful sound. It rang over the hills with a note at once sad and glad. The boys stopped in their tracks and listened. It came again, like church bells, only faster. It thrilled the two forlorn wanderers, and brought the light back to their faces.

“Bike!” shouted Hi. “It’s Bike. He’s followed us. Oh, Bike, Bike, here we are, you blessed old houn’ dawg! Here! Here!”

They put their fingers in their mouths and whistled, they shouted, they laughed, they hugged each other; and then, over a rise came Bike, wild-eyed with delight, large, it seemed, as a bear, and bursting with importance.

He leaped on them till he knocked them down; he insisted on licking their faces, on pretending to bite their calves, on lathering them as if they were puppies. He couldn’t have enough of them nor they of him. But after all, he came to his senses sooner than they.

“Enough of this,” he seemed to say. “For goodness sake, let’s be getting home.”

He turned his back on them and started over the rise, wagging his tail and giving vent to sharp, scolding barks.

“A fine lot of trouble you’ve put me to,” he appeared to be saying. “Hustle yourselves now and get home. Don’t you know your folks are worried to death about you? Such boys! Such boys! It wears a respectable hound out trying to take care of you.”

And the boys understood and agreed with him. So they followed meekly enough, limping first on one foot and then on the other and calling to him every few minutes not to go so fast.

They went on for hours and hours, as it seemed, but at last they stood beneath the tulip trees by the spring on Azalea’s plateau.

“Well,” said Hi, “this here is whar we part. We-all don’t seem to be bringin’ the Disbrows back to get their just punishment.”

“I reckon we’d better not say much about punishment,” grinned the leg-weary Jim. “So long, Hi. Hope it don’t hurt much.”“Same to you,” called Hi. He and Bike were already on their way down the mountain, and Jim, tired almost to collapse, made his way up the road to where Ma McBirney paced back and forth, pouring out her soul in prayer.

But Pa McBirney seemed to have some feelings which did not come under the head of gratitude for his son’s return. He knew what such a night of torture meant to the dear woman beside him, who already had suffered too many shocks. He looked Jim over with a sternly parental eye.

“If you got what’s coming to you, son,” he said, “you’d be well lathered.”

“I know it, sir,” said Jim with conviction.

Pa hesitated. He was a gentle man.

“Well,” he said, “if you know it, and if you think you’ll remember it, latherin’ wouldn’t teach you nothing. Go in with your ma and get some food, and then wash yourself up and go to bed. Ma’d better give you some of that salve o’ hern for your feet. And Jim—”

“Yes, sir.”

“You watch out jest as hard as you can, and don’t grow up a plumb fool.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jim.