“There ain’t many men as inquisitive as I be,” remarked Haystack Thompson as he sat at Aunt Zillah’s supper table that evening. “’Tain’t the kind of inquisitiveness that takes men to big towns, nor the kind that takes men to sea. It’s jest the kind that has to know what’s going on in the neighborhood.”

“But you must admit,” said Carin teasingly, “that your neighborhood is rather a large one.”

“So it is, so it is,” confessed Mr. Thompson. “It includes these yere mountains in all their outcroppings in the two Carolinas. I make it my business to know what’s going on in them whenever possible. Earthquakes, funerals, singings, weddings, corn huskings—anything out of the usual—demand my attention.”

“Well, I’m glad we received it, at any rate,” said Azalea. “Did you think we were getting into mischief? The truth is, all had been perfectly quiet till you arrived on the scene.”“But it was a dishonorable peace,” roared Mr. Thompson. “The enemy had you. You were in league with the powers of darkness. Now, freedom and honor sit upon your banners.”

“So they do,” said Miss Zillah. “I declare, whenever I thought of that poor little boy who honed to come to school and wasn’t allowed, it seemed to me I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to go out and do something about it, but I didn’t know how.”

“I picked him up down the road a piece,” explained Mr. Thompson. “He was playing with a little snake—both of ’em having a nice pleasant time—and I up and said: ‘Why are you playing with snakes instead of studying up at Ravenel School with the young misses?’ And what do you think the little cuss said? ‘It ain’t as dangerous,’ said he. ‘Not as dangerous?’ said I. ‘How is that?’ So he up and told me the whole story.”

“There’s a story whichever way you turn here,” said Azalea. “Just listen, Mr. Thompson, while I tell you the story of Paralee Panther.”

So she told the tale of Paralee, of how her name was no name, of her father, paralyzed, in need of every comfort, and far from all physicians’ aid and all neighborly service. Mr. Thompson listened with deep interest.

“Troubles,” he said, “is divided into two kinds. There’s the kind you can’t help and that you’d best forget; and there’s the kind you can help and that you want to get after. It looks to me as if this is something to get after.”

“We all think so,” said Azalea. “And we propose going to-morrow to see. There’s a nice boy up here named Keefe O’Connor, an artist—he helps us in our school, too, almost every day—and he’s going with us.”

“You-all don’t have no call to go,” said Mr. Thompson. “Not now, at any rate. Here I be, a lazy old coot, with nothing else to do. Just let me go and investigate these here Panthers.”

But Azalea shook a finger at him.

“Mr. Thompson, Mr. Thompson,” she said. “Do you think we’re the kind that can come up into the mountains and just sit and look off at the view? You know we aren’t. We mean to go to that poor man. That’s our adventure, don’t you see? Rescuing the helpless is the greatest fun there is. Why, the knights of old found that out. After you’ve tried all sorts of things, being rich and gay and all that, you come back to that old idea. So we’re setting out to rescue somebody, and we simply can’t be interfered with. But you may come along if you like. It will make it twice as interesting.”

“About this ‘nice boy,’” said Haystack, ever the watchful protector of Azalea. “Who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his folks? What kind of a job does he look to have—or is he a shiftless good-for-nothing like me?”

Carin, who felt the inquiries to be justified, flushed slightly and Azalea distinctly frowned. It was Azalea who spoke.

“We don’t know a thing about him, and that’s a fact,” she confessed. “We thought that perhaps some day he’d be telling us about himself, but he never says a word. I think there’s something he doesn’t want to tell.”

“Like as not,” said Haystack, dryly.

“Oh, not anything that he’s ashamed of,” put in Azalea quickly, “but something that it would make him sad to tell. You know, Mr. Thompson, dear, that it’s just that way with me. There are things in my life I don’t want to speak of, ever, but nothing that I’m ashamed of. If it’s that way with me, why shouldn’t it be the same with others?”

“Why not, indeed, honey-bird?” said Mr. Thompson contritely. “Well, we’ll see this ‘nice boy,’ and pass judgment on him. Though, honor bright, Zalie, I think your judgment ain’t the worst in the state. For a young-un you’ve had a good deal of experience in life and I reckon you have your own way of sizing up folks.”

As a result of all this, the next morning, early, in the best of moods and with a spirit for kindly adventure burning within them, a party of five started for Soco Mountain.

The “sun ball,” as the mountain folk call it, was just showing a burning rim above the purple horizon when they set out, with food in their saddle bags, matches in their pockets and canteens of pure spring water on their backs. Food for the horses and raincoats were buckled to the saddles.

“Short of breaking a nag’s leg,” said Haystack Thompson, complacently, “we’re safe.”

The first business of the day was to go for Paralee, who was of course to be their guide. Living as she did a mile or two back of Rowantree Hall, Azalea begged that they might pass through the Rowantree estate, giving her a chance to speak a word with Mary Cecily, whose haunting story stayed with her almost constantly—all the more, perhaps, because she had been forbidden to speak of it to anyone. The detour made for the purpose was not great, and presently they were pounding up the “approach” which Mr. Rowantree so prized. But on this occasion the master of the house was not sitting upon his gallery. Instead, they found him in the “drawing-room,” clad in a snuff-covered silk dressing gown, reading from an old red-bound copy of “The Lady of the Lake” to the twins, Moira and Michael, while little Mrs. Rowantree got the breakfast.

“The vocation I should have chosen,” he said to his guests after they were seated, “is teaching the young mind to expand. It is, I may say, one of the few things which really interest me.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Rowantree, bustling about to serve her guests with hot coffee, “I can’t tell you what a help it is to me, having Mr. Rowantree amuse the children the way he does.”

“Wouldn’t ‘instruct’ be a better word than ‘amuse,’ my dear?” asked her husband.“Oh, indeed, you do instruct as well as amuse them,” she cried loyally. “You instruct us all.”

“He didn’t amuse nor instruct me none,” said Haystack Thompson when they were on their way again. “A great hulk of a man a-setting around while his little wife lugs in the firewood!”

“It would be horrible, the way she works and the way he loafs,” said Keefe, “if it weren’t that she is happy. She likes to be doing things for him and the children.”

“He sure is a loafer,” mused Haystack. “I know, because I’m a loafer myself and I can recognize one when I see him. But he puts on airs with his loafing, and I swan, I don’t like that. But say, he’s got cute children, ain’t he? That there little Constance said if I’d stay she’d call me ‘uncle.’” He laughed in a flattered way at the remembrance of it.

They were soon at the little cabin where Paralee lived with her grandmother and her brother. The brother they learned, was already off at the sawmill, but the grandmother, bent double with age, with two sharp teeth protruding from otherwise toothless jaws, and with her face brown and furrowed, came out to see her granddaughter’s guests. Her gimlet eyes seemed to bore through them. She looked as if she knew many things which she would not tell, and which, indeed, she ought not to tell. Carin had brought her sketch book, and was eager to make a drawing of old granny Panther, but she was given no time, for Paralee was awaiting them, ready and impatient to lead them on. She had no horse, but she said she wanted none.

“I can keep up with your horses,” she told Azalea.

Keefe wanted to lend her his mount, but at his offer she frowned with vexation.

“I don’t want to be plagued,” she said sullenly, and set off down the road. Her strong, short body moved over the ground with astonishing swiftness; and as she took advantage of every cut-off, leaving the riders to go around by the road, she soon proved that they would not be obliged to waste time by waiting for her. The Gap was quickly crossed and she turned up a shoulder of Dundee Mountain, where for an hour the blowing horses had a hard climb. Then came a canter along the almost level table-top of the mountain, till, having reached the end of the plateau, the road began to descend. The great mountain reached out many arms, each of which bore a name; and it was along one of these wooded reaches that Paralee led them. By noon, a narrow valley was reached; and here, beside a pleasant stream, the green solitude all about them, they dismounted for their luncheon and to rest themselves and their horses.

Paralee would not eat with them, though she accepted the luncheon Azalea offered her. She walked away to a shady spot, turned her back upon her companions and munched her food alone.

“Why does she do it?” Carin asked. It was Haystack who knew the answer.

“She does it because she’s as proud as Lucifer,” he said sympathetically.

“She does it,” echoed Azalea, “because she’s afraid her manners won’t be like ours.”

“She does it because she is unhappy,” said Keefe. “I have been unhappy, and I know.”

It was the first time he had made a reference to his past life.

But now there was another mountain to climb. It was low, long, and dull-looking, and so heavily wooded that there was little outlook. Azalea said she believed that it was the only mountain she ever had seen which she did not care for. The road was so bad that it was impossible for a wagon to pass over it; and even the horses had trouble making their way. Only Paralee, grown up in that tangle, knew how to thread it with ease. It was one of the few things which she did know well, and as she went on, showing no sign of weariness, her awkwardness and shyness began to drop from her. She was on her own ground—the ground where she and her people had fought their lonely fight for life; and she was carrying help to those whose sorrows had been a savage grief to her.

Presently they reached a ragged clearing, stumbled past it to an ill-kept garden, passed a number of pig pens and a large chicken yard, and came upon the place that Paralee Panther called home. It had been rather a pleasant cabin, once, perhaps, in the old days when Thomas Panther had brought his bride there and had “aimed” to be a farmer and woodsman. But the roof now hardly gave shelter from the storms, the shutters sagged from the unglassed windows, the steps had rotted away, and one mounted to the floor by means of ill-chosen stones which had been placed before the door, and which rocked when they were stepped upon.

Paralee plunged ahead to carry word to that desolated house that visitors were at hand.

Visitors!

The word means little enough to most people, thought Azalea, but to these strange, stricken people, these people who, as Paralee said, had “almost forgot how to talk,” it must be as the sight of a sail to one upon a desert island. Perhaps they would fear as much as they would welcome it; yet there was Paralee, dragging a gaunt woman to the door.

“Tell ’em to ’light, ma, and come in,” begged the girl, using the mountaineers’ old phrase of hospitality.

There was Paralee, dragging a gaunt woman to the door. “Tell ’em to ’light, ma, and come in,” she begged

“We will, ma’am,” cried Haystack Thompson, just as if Mrs. Panther herself has spoken. “We’ll be glad to.”

He left Keefe to help the ladies from their mounts, and himself went forward to shake this ghostlike woman by the hand. She was tall and sunburned, thin past belief, and so smitten by the silence and deadness of the days that she looked like a person who had lost some of her faculties. Yet now, with a visible effort, she summoned back her knowledge of what should be done when guests came.

The first glance in the cabin was enough. Its two beds, its rickety chairs and uncovered table, were the whole of the tale so far as furniture went, and a pathetic tale it was. But the tragedy began with the man who lay in one of the beds. His wandering, wild glance fell upon the visitors with something like terror. His yellow skin clung to his bones, and only one side of his body was alive. The other was immovable in the curious half-death of paralysis.

It was Keefe who first went to him, for Mr. Thompson had paused a moment, aghast at the sight.

“You must pardon us for coming to your home, sir,” he said in such a gentle and winning way that no one could have resisted his plea. “It is taking a liberty, we know, but we heard how ill you were and how no doctor could get to you. We are not doctors, but we mean to get you to one if it will do any good.”

Panther, it appeared, could talk but little. He shook his head despairingly at Keefe’s speech, and made a strange, inarticulate sound in his throat.

“Nothing won’t help him,” said his wife. “A tree fell on him and he’s got the paraletics. He ain’t going to git well.” She made the statement calmly. She was used to the idea; it was her house-companion and always with her.

“Where’s Pete?” asked Paralee. “Ain’t he ’round?”

“He’s done lit out,” said Mrs. Panther, still in that dead voice.

“Lit out?” cried Paralee. “You don’t mean he’s gone and run away?”

Mrs. Panther nodded again; and again the eyes of her husband rolled wildly.

“Did he leave you all alone, ma?” persisted Paralee. “’Th’out anybody to do for you?”

“My childer has all done that,” said the woman. “Thar ain’t nary one left.”

“Oh, but Paralee didn’t mean to desert you, ma’am,” cried Azalea, unable to endure the spiritual bleakness of that home another minute. “It was only that she might find some way to help you that she left. She’s going to be a teacher; she—”Mrs. Panther lifted her sun-faded eyes and looked at Azalea with unspeakable scorn.

“Her! A teacher!” she said.

Azalea saw Paralee cower at this speech, and she knew then why the girl was so sullen, so heavily sad. She had been “put down” all her life, and she had grown to be like a hateful, chained beast under it.

Then Miss Zillah spoke. She was occupying one of the three chairs in the room, and in that bare and bitter place, she looked—with her kind face and seemly garments—like a being from another world than that in which poor Mrs. Panther lived and had her aimless being.

“She has the wish to be a teacher, Mrs. Panther,” she said in her soft tones, “and she has the brains for it as well, so these young ladies tell me. In fact, I hear that she understands book-studying better than most. We all hope to help her, ma’am, and to see you and your husband in a different home from this. Wouldn’t you like to have neighbors and to be where a doctor could visit your husband?”

But Mrs. Panther could not face Miss Pace as she replied. There was too much she could not tell. How could she leave the only spot on earth that belonged to her? How could they make any sort of a living elsewhere? Dare she, who had no more clothes than the poorest beggar, go out into the world?

Miss Zillah looked at her with her soft yet penetrating gaze.

“I know all you’re thinking, Mrs. Panther,” she said in tones that carried conviction to the heart, “but I’ll just ask you to trust in us and we’ll see you through.”

For a moment or two no one spoke. Mr. Thompson was leaving matters for the present in Miss Zillah’s hands. Keefe and the girls were silent with pity. Never had they imagined anything so hopeless as the look on the faces of that man and woman.

“You’ll think of a dozen reasons why you can’t do this or that,” went on Miss Zillah, “but I feel that every one of them can be overcome.”

Paralee had drawn nearer to her mother, and her dark eyes shone like points of fire there in the gloom of the cabin.

“Say yes, ma,” she whispered. “Say yes! We’ll all die here like snakes in our holes, if you don’t.”

Mrs. Panther turned on her.“What you talking to me for?” she demanded. “Didn’t you turn your back on me? Didn’t you make Jake leave? Didn’t you take Granny? Much you care!”

Then Haystack Thompson arose. He towered till he almost touched the roof of the cabin.

“Mrs. Panther, ma’am,” he said, “you ain’t seeing things right, but I don’t blame you none. I’m a mountain man and I know how you feel. You’re proud. But this ain’t a question of pride. This is a question of saving lives. Now, ma’am, does it hurt your husband to move him?”

“Oh, awful,” she said. “One side don’t feel, but to touch him hurts the other side awful.”

“Does it, now?” said the fiddler, his voice quivering with sympathy. “I wonder why? Ladies, if you’ll be so good as to step outside, I’ll see if I can find out. I’m something of a bone-setter in my way. O’Connor, will you lend a hand?”

Half an hour later Mr. Thompson came to consult with the ladies.

“I believe,” he said earnestly, “that the man can be cured. There’s a broken collar bone—broken in two places as I make out, and never set—and it’s pressing on nerves and muscles in such a way as to make him helpless. That’s the way it looks to me. Now, Miss Carin told me coming over, that she’d pay for his keep in a hospital at Asheville if only we could get him there. It would be the death of him to take him in a wagon; and he couldn’t sit on a nag. So O’Connor and I have fixed it up that we’ll carry him out.”

“But you can’t do that, Mr. Thompson,” objected Miss Zillah. “You’re not so vigorous as you used to be, sir—”

“Never tell me that, Miss Pace! Never tell me that! Old Haystack’s got muscle and he’s got grit. You’ll see. You’ve set me on doing it more than ever, Miss Pace.”

“It might be all very well to carry him for a mile,” said the practical Azalea, “but just think of doing it for miles and miles—for twenty miles.”

“We won’t have to carry him that far. Say we rig up a hammock and carry him ten miles. Then we’ll reach a wagon road. Meantime, you-all ride ahead, and have a wagon waiting for us. Put a mattress on it with plenty of pillows and comfortables.”

“And we’ll bring along something to sustain him,” added Aunt Zillah, forgetting all about her objections, “and some refreshments for you and Keefe—”

“And the first thing you know we’ll have him at Bee Tree.”

“Then,” put in Carin, “we could get the drawing room on a Pullman for him, and you and Keefe could go with him to Asheville.”

“Sure,” said Mr. Thompson. “Sure we can do it!”

“And is Mrs. Panther willing?” asked Miss Zillah.

“You can’t tell whether she is or whether she ain’t,” said Mr. Thompson. “She’s fierce as a tiger. But then she’s lived like a tiger—only the hunting ain’t been good. Say, ladies, are you with us?”

“Oh, we are,” said Miss Zillah fervently. “It will be like taking a man from a living tomb. Of course I can see there are many difficulties, but probably it is best not to think too much about them.”

“That’s the idee exackly,” agreed Mr. Thompson. “If you want to do anything, don’t waste your time thinking about the difficulties.”“For example,” went on Miss Zillah, “you’ll never reach the main road before sundown.”

“We’ve thought of that,” said Mr. Thompson, “and what we propose is that we shall stay right here to-night.”

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep in that house,” whispered Carin. “Honestly, I couldn’t.”

“No call to,” said Mr. Thompson, flushing a little, however, in spite of himself, out of loyalty to his fellow mountain folk. “You-all will sleep out in the open. You can have the stars for your candles and the sun-ball for your alarm clock. O’Connor and I will scrape up pine leaves for your beds. You can put your raincoats around you, and maybe I can find an extra blanket to help you out. We’ll build a fire and you can sleep with your feet to it. Now, what’s the matter with that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” cried Azalea. “Oh, Mr. Thompson, how sweet of you to think of it.”

Haystack Thompson grinned mockingly at his young friend.

“Me, ‘sweet’?” he asked derisively. “Jest about as sweet as a green persimmon.”