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 THE 
 CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS
 
 THE ILLUSTRATIONS SHOWN 
 IN THIS EDITION ARE RE- 
 PRODUCTIONS OF SCENES 
 FROM THE PHOTOPLAY OF 
 "THE CALL OF THE CUMBER- 
 LANDS," PRODUCED AND 
 COPYRIGHTED BY PALLAS 
 PICTURES, TO WHOM THE 
 PUBLISHERS DESIRE TO EX 
 PRESS THEIR THANKS AND 
 APPRECIATION FOR PERMIS 
 SION TO USE THE PICTURES.
 
 THE CALL OF THE 
 CUMBERLANDS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE PORTAL OF DREAMS, ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTO- 
 
 PLAY PRODUCED AND COPYRIGHTED 
 
 .BY PALLAS PICTURES. 
 
 GROSSET 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 & DUNLAP 
 
 :-: NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT 1913 BY 
 W. J. WATT & COMPANY 
 
 Published March 
 
 Other novels by 
 Charles Neville Buck 
 
 THE KEY TO YESTERDAY 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 THE PORTAL OF DREAMS
 
 The Call of the Cumberlands 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CLOSE to the serried backbone of the Cumberland 
 ridge through a sky of mountain clarity, the 
 sun seemed hesitating before its descent to the 
 horizon. The sugar-loaf cone that towered above a 
 creek called Misery was pointed and edged with emer 
 ald tracery where the loftiest timber thrust up its crest 
 plumes into the sun. On the hillsides it would be light 
 for more than an hour yet, but below, where the waters 
 tossed themselves along in a chorus of tiny cascades, the 
 light was already thickening into a cathedral gloom. 
 Down there the "furriner" would have seen only the 
 rough course of the creek between moss-velveted and 
 shaded bowlders of titanic proportions. The native 
 would have recognized the country road in these tortu 
 ous twistings. Now there were no travelers, foreign 
 or native, and no sounds from living throats except 
 at intervals the clear "Bob White" of a nesting par 
 tridge, and the silver confidence of the red cardinal 
 flitting among the pines. Occasionally, too, a stray 
 whisper of breeze stole along the creek-bed and rustled 
 the beeches, or stirred in the broad, fanlike leaves of 
 the "cucumber trees." A great block of sandstone, 
 
 1
 
 2 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 to whose summit a man standing in his saddle could 
 scarcely reach his fingertips, towered above the stream, 
 with a gnarled scrub oak clinging tenaciously to its 
 apex. Loftily on both sides climbed the mountains 
 cloaked in laurel and timber. 
 
 Suddenly the leafage was thrust aside from above by a 
 cautious hand, and a shy, half -wild girl appeared in the 
 opening. For an instant she halted, with her brown 
 fingers holding back the brushwood, and raised her face 
 as though listening. Across the slope drifted the call 
 of the partridge, and with perfect imitation she whis 
 tled back an answer. It would have seemed appropriate 
 to anyone who had seen her that she should talk bird 
 language to the birds. She was herself as much a wood 
 creature as they, and very young. That she was 
 beautiful was not strange. The women of the moun 
 tains have a morning-glory bloom until hardship and 
 drudgery have taken toll of their youth and she could 
 not have been more than sixteen. 
 
 It was June, and the hills, which would be bleakly 
 forbidding barriers in winter, were now as blithely 
 young as though they had never known the scourging 
 of sleet or the blight of wind. The world was abloom, 
 and the girl, too, was in her early June, and sentiently 
 alive with the strength of its full pulse-tide. She was 
 slim and lithely resilient of step. Her listening atti 
 tude was as eloquent of pausing elasticity as that of 
 the gray squirrel. Her breathing was soft, though she 
 had come down a steep mountainside, and as fragrant 
 as the breath of the elder bushes that dashed the banks 
 with white sprays of blossom. She brought with her 
 to the greens and grays and browns of the woodland's
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 3 
 
 heart a new note of color, for her calico dress was like 
 the red cornucopias of the trumpet-flower, and her 
 eyes were blue like little scraps of sky. Her heavy, 
 brown-red hair fell down over her shoulders in loose 
 profusion. The coarse dress was freshly briar-torn, 
 and in many places patched; and it hung to the lithe 
 curves of her body in a fashion which told that she wore 
 little else. She had no hat, but the same spirit of child 
 like whimsey that caused her eyes to dance as she 
 answered the partridge's call had led her to fashion for 
 her own crowning a headgear of laurel leaves and wild 
 roses. As she stood with the toes of one bare foot 
 twisting in the gratefully cool moss, she laughed with 
 the sheer exhilaration of life and youth, and started out 
 on the table top of the huge rock. But there she 
 halted suddenly with a startled exclamation, and drew 
 instinctively back. What she saw might well have 
 astonished her, for it was a thing she had never seen 
 before and of which she had never heard. Now she 
 paused in indecision between going forward toward 
 exploration and retreating from new and unexplained 
 phenomena. In her quick instinctive movements was 
 something like the irresolution of the fawn whose nos 
 trils have dilated to a sense of possible daager. Finally, 
 reassured by the silence, she slipped across the broad 
 face of the flat rock for a distance of twenty-five feet, 
 and paused again to listen. 
 
 At the far edge lay a pair of saddlebags, Luch as 
 form the only practical equipment for mountain 
 travelers. They were ordinary saddlebags, made from 
 the undressed hide of a brindle cow, and they were 
 fat with tight packing. A pair of saddlebags lying
 
 4 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 unclaimed at the roadside would in themselves challenge 
 curiosity. But in this instance they gave only the 
 prefatory note to a stranger story. Near them lay a 
 tin box, littered with small and unfamiliar-looking tubes 
 of soft metal, all grotesquely twisted and stained, and 
 beside the box was a strangely shaped plaque of wood, 
 smeared with a dozen hues. That this plaque was a 
 painter's sketching palette was a thing which she could 
 not know, since the ways of artists had to do with a 
 world as remote from her own as the life of the moon 
 or stars. It was one of those vague mysteries that made 
 up the wonderful life of "down below." Even the 
 names of such towns as Louisville and Lexington meant 
 nothing definite to this girl who could barely spell out, 
 "The cat caught the rat," in the primer. Yet here 
 beside the box and palette stood a strange jointed tri 
 pod, and upon it was some sort of sheet. What it all 
 meant, and what was on the other side of the sheet 
 became a matter of keenly alluring interest. Why had 
 these things been left here in such confusion ? If there 
 was a man about who owned them he would doubtless 
 return to claim them. Possibly he was wandering about 
 the broken bed of the creek, searching for a spring, 
 and that would not take long. No one drank creek 
 water. At any moment he might return and discover 
 her. Such a contingency held untold terrors for her 
 shyness, and yet to turn her back on so interesting 
 a mystery would be insupportable. Accordingly, she 
 crept over, eyes and ears alert, and slipped around to 
 the front of the queer tripod, with all her muscles 
 poised in readiness for flight. 
 
 A half-rapturous and utterly astonished cry broke
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 5 
 
 [from her lips. She stared a moment, then dropped to 
 the moss-covered rock, leaning back on her brown hands 
 and gazing intently. She sat there forgetful of every 
 thing except the sketch which stood on the collapsible 
 easel. 
 
 "Hit's purty !" she approved, in a low, musical mur 
 mur. "Hit's plumb dead beautiful!" Her eyes were 
 gloAving with delighted approval. 
 
 She had never before seen a picture more worthy 
 than the chromos of advertising calendars and the few 
 crude prints that find their way into the roughest places, 
 and she was a passionate, though totally unconscious, 
 devotee of beauty. Now she was sitting before a sketch, 
 its paint still moist, which more severe critics would 
 have pronounced worthy of accolade. Of course, it was 
 not a finished picture merely a study of what lay 
 before her but the hand that had placed these brush 
 strokes on the academy board was the sure, deft hand 
 of a master of landscape, who had caught the splendid 
 spirit of the thing, and fixed it immutably in true and 
 glowing appreciation. Who he was ; where he had gone ; 
 why his work stood there unfinished and abandoned, 
 were details which for the moment this half-savage 
 child-woman forgot to question. She was conscious 
 only of a sense of revelation and awe. Then she saw 
 other boards, like the one upon the easel, piled near 
 the paint-box. These were dry, and represented the 
 work of other days ; but they were all pictures of her 
 own mountains, and in each of them, as in this one, 
 was something that made her heart leap. 
 
 To her own people, these steep hillsides and "coves" 
 and valleys were a matter of course. In their stony
 
 6 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 soil, they labored by day: and in their shadows slept 
 when work was done. Yet, someone had discovered that 
 they held a picturesque and rugged beauty; that they 
 were not merely steep fields where the plough was use 
 less and the hoe must be used. She must tell Samson: 
 Samson, whom she held in an artless exaltation of hero- 
 worship; Samson, who was so "smart" that he thought 
 about things beyond her understanding; Samson, who 
 could not only read and write, but speculate on prob 
 lematical matters. 
 
 Suddenly she came to her feet with a swift-darting 
 impulse of alarm. Her ear had caught a sound. She 
 cast searching glances about her, but the tangle was 
 empty of humanity. The water still murmured over the 
 rocks undisturbed. There was no sign of human pres 
 ence, other than herself, that her eyes could discover 
 and yet to her ears came the sound again, and this time 
 more distinctly. It was the sound of a man's voice, and 
 it was moaning as if in pain. She rose and searched 
 vainly through the bushes of the hillside where the rock 
 ran out from the woods. She lifted her skirts and 
 splashed her bare feet in the shallow creek water, wading 
 persistently up and down. Her shyness was forgotten. 
 The groan was a groan of a human creature in distress, 
 9.nd she must find and succor the person from whom it 
 came. 
 
 Certain sounds are baffling as to direction. A voice 
 irom overhead or broken by echoing obstacles does not 
 readily betray its source. Finally she stood up and 
 listened once more intently her attitude full of tense 
 earnestness. 
 
 "I'm shore a fool," she announced, half -aloud. "I'm
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 7 
 
 shore a plumb fool." Then she turned and disappeared 
 in the deep cleft between the gigantic bowlder upon 
 which she had been sitting and another small only 
 by comparison. There, ten feet down, in a narrow alley 
 littered with ragged stones, lay the crumpled body of 
 a man. It lay with the left arm doubled under it, and 
 from a gash in the forehead trickled a thin stream of 
 blood. Also, it was the body of such a man as she had 
 not seen before.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 A LTHOUGH from the man in the gulch came a low 
 ./"m, groan mingled with his breathing, it was not 
 such a sound as comes from fully conscious lips, 
 but rather that of a brain dulled into coma. His lids 
 drooped over his eyes, hiding the pupils ; and his cheeks 
 were pallid, with outstanding veins above the temples. 
 Freed from her fettering excess of shyness by his 
 condition, the girl stepped surely from foothold to foot 
 hold until she reached his side. She stood for a moment 
 with one hand on the dripping walls of rock, looking 
 down while her hair fell about her face. Then, drop 
 ping to her knees, she shifted the doubled body into a 
 leaning posture, straightened the limbs, and began 
 exploring with efficient fingers for broken bones. 
 
 She was a slight girl, and not tall; but the curves 
 of her young figure were slimly rounded, and her firm 
 muscles were capably strong. This man was, in com 
 parison with those rugged types she knew, effeminately 
 delicate. His slim, long-fingered hands reminded her of 
 a bird's claws. The up-rolled sleeves of a blue flannel 
 shirt disclosed forearms well-enough sinewed, but in 
 stead of being browned to the hue of a saddle-skirt, they 
 were white underneath and pinkly red above. More 
 over, they were scaling in the fashion of a skin not 
 inured to weather beating. Though the man had 
 thought on setting out from civilization that he was 
 
 8
 
 suiting his appearance to the environment, the impres 
 sion he made on this native girl was distinctly foreign. 
 The flannel shirt might have passed, though hardly 
 without question, as native wear, but the khaki riding- 
 breeches and tan puttees were utterly out of the picture, 
 and at the neck of his shirt was a soft-blue tie! had 
 he not been hurt, the girl must have laughed at that. 
 
 A felt hat lay in a puddle of water, and, except for 
 a blond mustache, the face was clean shaven and smooth 
 of skin. Long locks of brown hair fell away from 
 the forehead. The helplessness and pallor gave an 
 exaggerated seeming of frailty. 
 
 Despite an ingrained contempt for weaklings, the 
 girl felt, as she raised the head and propped the 
 shoulders, an intuitive friendliness for the mysterious 
 stranger. 
 
 She had found the left arm limp above the wrist, and 
 her fingers had diagnosed a broken bone. But uncon 
 sciousness must have come from the blow on the head, 
 where a bruise was already blackening, and a gash still 
 trickled blood. 
 
 She lifted her skirt, and tore a long strip of cotton 
 from her single petticoat. Then she picked her bare 
 footed way swiftly to the creek-bed, where she drenched 
 the cloth for bathing and bandaging the wound. It 
 required several trips through the littered cleft, for the 
 puddles between the rocks were stale and brackish ; but 
 these journeys she made with easy and untrammeled 
 swiftness. When she had done what she could by way 
 of first aid, she stood looking down at the man, and 
 shook her head dubiously.
 
 10 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Now ef I jest had a little licker," she mused. "Thet 
 air what he needs a little licker!" 
 
 A sudden inspiration turned her eyes to the crest of 
 the rock. She did not go round by the path, but pulled 
 herself up the sheer face by hanging roots and slippery 
 projections, as easily as a young squirrel. On the 
 flat surface, she began unstrapping the saddlebags, 
 and, after a few moments of rummaging among their 
 contents, she smiled with satisfaction. Her hand 
 brought out a leather-covered flask with a silver bottom. 
 She held the thing up curiously, and looked at it. For 
 a little time, the screw top puzzled her. So, she sat 
 down cross-legged, and experimented until she had 
 solved its method of opening. 
 
 Then, she slid over the side again, and at the bottom 
 held the flask up to the light. Through the side slits 
 in the alligator-skin covering, she saw the deep color 
 of the contents ; and, as she lifted the nozzle, she sniffed 
 contemptuously. Then, she took a sample draught her 
 self to make certain that it was whiskey. 
 
 She brushed her lips scornfully with the back of her 
 hand. 
 
 "Huh!" she exclaimed. "Hit hain't nothin' but red 
 licker, but maybe hit mout be better'n nuthin'." She 
 was accustomed to seeing whiskey freely drunk, but the 
 whiskey she knew was colorless as water, and sweetish 
 to the palate. 
 
 She knew the "mountain dew" which paid no reve 
 nue tax, and which, as her people were fond of saying, 
 "mout make a man drunk, but couldn't git him wrong." 
 After tasting the "fotched-on" substitute, she gravely, 
 in accordance with the fixed etiquette of the hills, wiped
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 11 
 
 the mouth of the bottle on the palm of her hand, then, 
 kneeling once more on the stones, she lifted the stran 
 ger's head in her supporting arm, and pressed the 
 flask to his lips. After that, she chafed the wrist 
 which was not hurt, and once more administered 
 the tonic. Finally, the man's lids fluttered, and 
 his lips moved. Then, he opened his eyes. He opened 
 them waveringly, and seemed on the point of closing 
 them again, when he became conscious of a curved 
 cheek, suddenly coloring to a deep flush, a few inches 
 from his own. He saw in the same glance a pair of 
 wide blue eyes, a cloud of brown-red hair that fell down 
 and brushed his face, and he felt a slender young arm 
 about his neck and shoulders. 
 
 "Hello !" said the stranger, vaguely. "I seem to 
 
 have " He broke off, and his lips smiled. It was 
 
 a friendly, understanding smile, and the girl, fighting 
 hard the shy impulse to drop his shoulders, and flee into 
 the kind masking of the bushes, was in a measuie 
 reassured. 
 
 "You must hev fell offen the rock," she enlightened. 
 
 "I think I might have fallen into worse circuit 
 Stances," replied the unknown. 
 
 '"I reckon you kin set up after a little." 
 
 "Yes, of course." The man suddenly realized that 
 although he was quite comfortable as he was, he could 
 scarcely expect to remain permanently in the support 
 of her bent arm. He attempted to prop himself on his 
 hurt hand, and relaxed with a twinge of extreme pain. 
 The color, which had begun to creep back into his 
 cheeks, left them again, and his lips compressed them 
 selves tightly to bite off an exclamation of suffering.
 
 12 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Thet thar left arm air busted," announced the young 
 woman, quietly. "Ye've got ter be heedful." 
 
 Had one of her own men hurt himself, and behaved 
 stoically, it would have been mere matter of course ; but 
 her eyes mirrored a pleased surprise at the stranger's 
 good-natured nod and his quiet refusal to give expres 
 sion to pain. It relieved her of the necessity for 
 contempt. 
 
 "I'm afraid," apologized the painter, "that I've been 
 a great deal of trouble to you." 
 
 Her lips and eyes were sober as she replied. 
 
 "I reckon thet's all right." 
 
 "And what's worse, I've got to be more trouble. Did 
 you see anything of a brown mule?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "He must have wandered off. May I ask to whom 
 I'm indebted for this first aid to the injured?" 
 
 "I don't know what ye means." 
 
 She had propped him against the rocks, and sat 
 near-by, looking into his face with almost disconcerting 
 steadiness ; her solemn-pupiled eyes were unblinking, 
 unsmiling. Unaccustomed to the gravity of the moun 
 taineer in the presence of strangers, he feared that he 
 had offended her. Perhaps his form of speech struck 
 her as affected. 
 
 "Why, I mean who are you?" he laughed. 
 
 "I hain't nobody much. I jest lives over yon." 
 
 "But," insisted the man, "surely you have a name." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Hit's Sally." 
 
 "Then, Miss Sally, I want to thank you." 
 
 Once more she nodded, and, for the first time, let
 
 her eyes drop, while she sat nursing her knees. Finally, 
 she glanced up, and asked with plucked-up courage: 
 
 "Stranger, what mout yore name be?" 
 
 "Lescott George Lescott." 
 
 "How'd ye git hurt?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I was painting up there," he said; "and I guess 
 I got too absorbed in the work. I stepped backward 
 to look at the canvas, and forgot where the edge was. 
 I stepped too far." 
 
 "Hit don't hardly pay a man ter walk backward in 
 these hyar mountings," she told him. The painter 
 looked covertly up to see if at last he had discovered 
 a flash of humor. He had the idea that her lips would 
 shape themselves rather fascinatingly in a smile, but 
 her pupils mirrored no mirth. She had spoken in 
 perfect seriousness. 
 
 The man rose to his feet, but he tottered and reeled 
 against the wall of ragged stone. The blow on his head 
 had left him faint and dizzy. He sat down again. 
 
 "I'm afraid," he ruefully admitted, "that I'm not 
 quite ready for discharge from your hospital." 
 
 "You jest set where yer at." The girl rose, and 
 pointed up the mountainside. "I'll light out across the 
 hill, and fotch Samson an' his mule." 
 
 "Who and where is Samson?" he inquired. He 
 realized that the bottom of the valley would shortly 
 thicken into darkness, and that the way out, unguided, 
 would become impossible. "It sounds like the name of a 
 strong man." 
 
 "I means Samson South," she enlightened, as though
 
 14 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 further description of one so celebrated would be re 
 dundant. "He's over thar 'bout three quarters." 
 
 "Three quarters of a mile ?" 
 
 She nodded. What else could three quarters mean? 
 
 "How long will it take you?" he asked. 
 
 She deliberated. "Samson's hoein' corn in the fur- 
 hill field. He'll hev ter cotch his mule. Hit mout tek 
 a half -hour." 
 
 Lescott had been riding the tortuous labyrinths that 
 twisted through creek bottoms and over ridges for sev 
 eral days. In places two miles an hour had been his 
 rate of speed, though mounted and following so-called 
 roads. She must climb a mountain through the woods. 
 He thought it "mout" take longer, and his scepticism 
 found utterance. 
 
 "You can't do it in a half -hour, can you?" 
 
 "I'll jest take my foot in my hand, an' light out." 
 She turned, and with a nod was gone. The man rose, 
 and made his way carefully over to a mossy bank, ^-here 
 he sat down with his back against a century-old tree 
 to wait. 
 
 The beauty of this forest interior had first lured him 
 to pause, and then to begin painting. The place had 
 not treated him kindly, as the pain in his wrist reminded 
 him, but the beauty was undeniable. A clump of rho 
 dodendron, a little higher up, dashed its pale clusters 
 against a background of evergreen thicket, and a 
 catalpa tree loaned the perfume of its white blossoms 
 with their wild little splashes of crimson and purple 
 and orange to the incense which the elder bushes were 
 contributing. 
 
 Climbing fleetly up through steep and tangled
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 15 
 
 and running as fleetly down ; crossing a brawling little 
 stream on a slender trunk of fallen poplar ; the girl 
 hastened on her mission. Her lungs drank the clear 
 air in regular tireless draughts. Once only, she stopped 
 and drew back. There was a sinister rustle in the grass, 
 and something glided into her path and lay coiled 
 there, challenging her with an ominous rattle, and with 
 wicked, beady eyes glittering out of a swaying, arrow- 
 shaped head. Her own eyes instinctively hardened, and 
 she glanced quickly about for a heavy piece of loose 
 timber. But that was only for an instant, then she 
 took a circuitous course, and left her enemy in undis 
 puted possession of the path. 
 
 "I hain't got no time ter fool with ye now, old rattle 
 snake," she called back, as she went. "Ef I wasn't in 
 sech a hurry, I'd shore bust yer neck." 
 
 At last, she came to a point where a clearing rose on 
 the mountainside above her. The forest blanket was 
 stripped off to make way for a fenced-in and crazily 
 tilting field of young corn. High up and beyond, 
 close to the bald shoulders of sandstone which threw 
 themselves against the sky, was the figure of a man. As 
 the girl halted at the foot of the field, at last panting 
 from her exertions, he was sitting on the rail fence, 
 looking absently down on the outstretched panorama 
 below him. It is doubtful whether his dreaming eyes 
 were as conscious of what he saw as of other things 
 which his imagination saw beyond the haze of the last 
 far rim. Against the fence rested his abandoned hoe, 
 and about him a number of lean hounds scratched and 
 dozed in the sun. Samson South had little need of 
 hounds; but, in another century, his people, turning
 
 their backs on Virginii affluence to invite the hardships 
 of pioneer life, had orought with them certain of the 
 cavaliers' instincts. A hundred years in the stagnant 
 back-waters of the world had brought to their descend 
 ants a lapse into illiteracy and semi-squalor, but 
 through it all had fought that thin, insistent flame of 
 instinct. Such a survival was the boy's clinging to his 
 hounds. Once, they had symbolized the spirit of the 
 nobility; the gentleman's fondness for his sport with 
 horse and dog and gun. Samson South did not know 
 the origin of his fondness for this remnant of a pack. 
 He did not know that in the long ago his forefathers 
 had fought on red fields with Bruce and the Stuarts. 
 He only knew that through his crudities something 
 indefinable, yet compelling, was at war with his life, 
 filling him with great and shapeless longings. He at 
 once loved and resented these ramparts of stone that 
 hemmed in his hermit race and world. 
 
 He was not, strictly speaking, a man. His age was 
 perhaps twenty. He sat loose-jointed and indolent on 
 the top rail of the fence, his hands hanging over his 
 knees: his hoe forgotten. His feet were bare, and his 
 jeans breeches were supported by a single suspender 
 strap. Pushed well to the back of his head was a bat 
 tered straw hat, of the sort rurally known as the "ten- 
 cent jimmy." Under its broken brim, a long lock 
 of black hair fell across his forehead. So much of his 
 appearance was typical of the Kentucky mountaineer. 
 His face was strongly individual, and belonged to no 
 type. Black brows and lashes gave a distinctiveness to 
 gray eyes so clear as to be luminous. A high and 
 splendidly molded forehead and a squarely blocked
 
 171 
 
 chin were free of that degeneracy which marks the 
 wasting of an in-bred people. The nose was straight, 
 and the mouth firm yet mobile. It was the face of the 
 instinctive philosopher, tanned to a hickory brown. In 
 a stature of medium size, there was still a hint of power 
 and catamount alertness. If his attitude was at the 
 moment indolent, it was such indolence as drowses be 
 tween bursts of white-hot activity; a fighting man's 
 aversion to manual labor which, like the hounds, harked 
 back to other generations. Near-by, propped against 
 the rails, rested a repeating rifle, though the people 
 would have told you that the truce in the "South- 
 Hollman war" had been unbroken for two years, and 
 that no clansman need in these halcyon days go armed , 
 afield.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 
 
 SALLY clambered lightly over the fence, and started 
 on the last stage of her journey, the climb across 
 the young corn rows. It was a field stood on end, 
 and the hoed ground was uneven ; but with no seeming 
 of weariness her red dress flashed steadfastly across the 
 green spears, and her voice was raised to shout : "Hello, 
 Samson !" 
 
 The young man looked up and waved a languid 
 greeting. He did not remove his hat or descend from 
 his place of rest, and Sally, who expected no such atten 
 tion, came smilingly on. Samson was her hero. It 
 seemed quite appropriate that one should have to climb 
 steep acclivities to reach him. Her enamored eyes saw 
 in the top rail of the fence a throne, which she was 
 content to address from the ground level. That he was 
 fond of her and meant some day to marry her she 
 knew, and counted herself the most favored of women. 
 The young men of the neighboring coves, too, knew 
 it, and respected his proprietary rights. If he treated 
 her with indulgent tolerance instead of chivalry, he was 
 merely adopting the accepted attitude of the mountain 
 man for the mountain woman, not unlike that of the 
 red warrior for his squaw. Besides, Sally was still 
 almost a child, and Samson, with his twenty years, 
 looked down from a rank of seniority. He was the 
 legitimate head of the Souths, and some day, when 
 
 IS
 
 THE CALL OP THE CUMBERLANDS 19 
 
 the present truce ended, would be their war-leader with 
 certain blood debts to pay. Since his father had been 
 killed by a rifle shot from ambush, he had never been 
 permitted to forget that, and, had he been left alone, 
 he would still have needed no other mentor than the 
 rankle in his heart. 
 
 But, if Samson sternly smothered the glint of tender 
 ness which, at sight of her, rose to his eyes, and recog 
 nized her greeting only in casual fashion, it was because 
 such was the requirement of his stoic code. And to the 
 girl who had been so slow of utterance and diffident 
 with the stranger, words now came fast and fluently as 
 she told her story of the man who lay hurt at the foot 
 of the rock. 
 
 "Hit hain't long now tell sundown," she urged. 
 "Hurry, Samson, an' git yore mule. I've done give him 
 my promise ter fotch ye right straight back." 
 
 Samson took off his hat, and tossed the heavy lock 
 upward from his forehead. His brow wrinkled with 
 doubts. 
 
 "What sort of lookin' feller air he?" 
 
 While Sally sketched a description, the young man's 
 doubt grew graver. 
 
 "This hain't no fit time ter be takin' in folks what 
 we hain't acquainted with," he objected. In the moun 
 tains, any time is the time to take in strangers unless 
 there are secrets to be guarded from outside eyes. 
 
 "Why hain't it?" demanded the girl. "He's hurt. 
 We kain't leave him layin' thar, kin we?" 
 
 Suddenly, her eyes caught sight of the rifle leaning 
 near-by, and straightway they filled with apprehension. 
 Her militant love would have turned to hate for Samson,
 
 20 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 should he have proved recreant to the mission of reprisal 
 in which he was biding his time, yet the coming of the 
 day when the truce must end haunted her thoughts. 
 Heretofore, that day had always been to her remotely 
 vague a thing belonging to the future. Now, with 
 a sudden and appalling menace, it seemed to loom across 
 the present. She came close, and her voice sank with 
 her sinking heart. 
 
 "What air hit?" she tensely demanded. "What air 
 hit, Samson ? What f er hev ye fetched yer gun ter the 
 field?" 
 
 The boy laughed. "Oh, hit ain't nothin' pertic'ler," 
 he reassured. "Hit hain't nothin' fer a gal ter fret 
 herself erbout, only I kinder suspicions strangers jest 
 now." 
 
 "Air the truce busted?" She put the question in a 
 tense, deep-breathed whisper, and the boy replied casu 
 ally, almost indifferently. 
 
 "No, Sally, hit hain't jest ter say busted, but 'pears 
 like hit's right smart cracked. I reckon, though," he 
 added in half-disgust, "nothin' won't come of hit." 
 
 Somewhat reassured, she bethought herself again of 
 her mission. 
 
 "This here furriner hain't got no harm in him, Sam 
 son," she pleaded. "He 'pears ter be more like a gal 
 than a man. He's real puny. He's got white skin and 
 a bow of ribbon on his neck an' he paints pictchers." 
 
 The boy's face had been hardening with contempt as 
 the description advanced, but at the last words a glow 
 came to his eyes, and he demanded almost breathlessly: 
 
 "Paints pictchers? How do ye know that?" 
 
 "I seen 'em. He was paintin' one when he fell offen
 
 the rock and busted his arm. It's shore es beautiful 
 es " she broke off, then added with a sudden peal 
 of laughter "es er pictcher." 
 
 The young man slipped down from the fence, and 
 reached for the rifle. The hoe he left where it stood. 
 
 "I'll git the nag," he announced briefly, and swung 
 off without further parley toward the curling spiral of 
 smoke that marked a cabin a quarter of a mile below. 
 Ten minutes later, his bare feet swung against the 
 ribs of a gray mule, and his rifle lay balanced across 
 the unsaddled withers. Sally sat mountain fashion 
 behind him, facing straight to the side. 
 
 So they came along the creek bed and into the sight 
 of the man who still sat propped against the mossy 
 rock. As Lescott looked up, he closed the case of his 
 watch, and put it back into his pocket with a smile. 
 
 "Snappy work, that!" he called out. "Just thirty- 
 three minutes. I didn't believe it could be done." 
 
 Samson's face was mask-like, but, as he surveyed the 
 foreigner, only the ingrained diqtates of the country's 
 hospitable code kept out of his eyes a gleam of scorn 
 for this frail member of a sex which should be stalwart. 
 
 "Howdy?" he said. Then he added suspiciously: 
 "What mout yer business be in these parts, stranger?" 
 
 Lescott gave the odyssey of his wanderings, since he 
 had rented a mule at Hixon and ridden through the 
 country, sketching where the mood prompted and sleep 
 ing wherever he found a hospitable roof at the coming 
 of the evening. 
 
 "Ye come from over on Crippleshin ?" The boy 
 flashed the question with a sudden hardening of the 
 Voice, and, when he was affirmatively answered, his eyes
 
 22 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 contracted and bored searchingly into the stranger's 
 face. 
 
 "Where'd ye put up last night?" 
 
 "Red Bill Hollman's house, at the mouth of Meeting 
 House Fork ; do you know the place?" 
 
 Samson's reply was curt. 
 
 "I knows hit all right." 
 
 There was a moment's pause rather an awkward 
 pause. Lescott's mind began piecing together frag 
 ments of conversation he had heard, until he had 
 assembled a sort cf mental jig-saw puzzle. 
 
 The South-Hollman feud had been mentioned by the 
 more talkative of his informers, and carefully tabooed 
 by others notable among them his host of last night. 
 It now dawned on him that he was crossing the boundary 
 and coming as the late guest of a Hollman to ask the 
 hospitality of a South. 
 
 "I didn't know whose house it was," he hastened to 
 explain, "until I was benighted, and asked for lodging. 
 They were very kind to me. I'd never seen them before. 
 I'm a stranger hereabouts." 
 
 Samson only nodded. If the explanation failed to 
 satisfy him, it at least seemed to do so. 
 
 "I reckon ye'd better let me holp ye up on thet old 
 mule," he said ; "hit's a-comin' on ter be night." 
 
 With the mountaineer's aid, Lescott clambered astride 
 the mount, then he turned dubiously. 
 
 "I'm sorry to trouble you," he ventured, "but I have 
 a paint box and some materials up there. If you'll 
 bring them down here, I'll show you how to pack the 
 easel, and, by the way," he anxiously added, "please
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 23 
 
 handle that fresh canvas carefully by the edge it's 
 not dry yet. 
 
 He had anticipated impatient contempt for his artist's 
 impedimenta, but to his surprise the mountain boy 
 climbed the rock, and halted before the sketch with a 
 face that slowly softened to an expression of amazed 
 admiration. Finally, he took up the square of academy - 
 board with a tender care of which his rough hands 
 would have seemed incapable, and stood stock still, pre 
 senting an anomalous figure in his rough clothes as his 
 eyes grew almost idolatrous. Then, he brought th> 
 landscape over to its creator, and, though no word was 
 spoken, there flashed between the eyes of the artist, 
 whose signature gave to a canvas the value of a precious 
 stone and the jeans-clad boy whose destiny was that of 
 the vendetta, a subtle, wordless message. It was the 
 countersign of brothers-in-blood who recognize in each 
 other the bond of a mutual passion. 
 
 The boy and the girl, under Lescott's direction, 
 packed the outfit, and stored the canvas in the pro 
 tecting top of the box. Then, while Sally turned and 
 strode down creek in search of Lescott's lost mount, 
 the two men rode up stream in silence. Finally Samson 
 spoke slowly and diffidently. 
 
 "Stranger," he ventured, "ef hit hain't askin' too 
 much, will ye let me see ye paint one of them things?" 
 
 "Gladly," was the prompt reply. 
 
 Then, the boy added covertly: 
 
 "Don't say nothin' erbout hit ter none of these folks. 
 They'd devil me." 
 
 The dusk was falling now, and the hollows choking 
 with murk. Over the ridge, the evening star showed
 
 in a lonely point of pallor. The peaks, which in a 
 broader light had held their majestic distances, seemed 
 with the falling of night to draw in and huddle close 
 in crowding herds of black masses. The distant tink 
 ling of a cow-bell came drifting down the breeze with 
 a weird and fanciful softness. 
 
 "We're nigh home now," said Samson at the end of 
 some minutes' silent plodding. "Hit's right beyond thet 
 thar bend." 
 
 Then, they rounded a point of timber, and came upon 
 a small party of men whose attitudes even in the dim 
 ming light conveyed a subtle suggestion of portent. 
 Some sat their horses, with one leg thrown across the 
 pommel. Others stood in the road, and a bottle of white 
 liquor was passing in and out among them. At the 
 distance they recognized the gray mule, though even 
 the fact that it carried a double burden was not yet 
 manifest. 
 
 "Thet you, Samson ?" called an old man's voice, which 
 was still very deep and powerful. 
 
 "Hello, Unc' Spicer !" replied the boy. 
 
 Then, followed a silence unbroken until the mule 
 reached the group, revealing that besides the boy an 
 other man and a strange man had joined their 
 number. 
 
 "Evenin', stranger," they greeted him, gravely ; then 
 again they fell silent, and in their silence was evident 
 constraint. 
 
 "This hyar man's a furriner," announced Samson, 
 briefly. "He fell offen a rock, an* got hurt. I 'lowed 
 I'd fotch him home ter stay all night." 
 
 The elderly man who had hailed the boy nodded, but
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 25 
 
 with an evident annoyance. It seemed that to him the 
 others deferred as to a commanding officer. The cor 
 tege remounted and rode slowly toward the house. At 
 last, the elderly man came alongside the mule, and 
 inquired : 
 
 "Samson, where was ye last night?" 
 
 "Thet's my business." 
 
 "Mebbe hit hain't." The old mountaineer spoke with 
 no resentment, but deep gravity. "We've been power 
 ful oneasy erbout ye. Hev ye heered the news ?" 
 
 "What news?" The boy put the question non- 
 committally. 
 
 "Jesse Purvy was shot soon this morning." 
 
 The boy vouchsafed no reply. 
 
 "The mail-rider done told hit. . . . Somebody shot 
 five shoots from the laurel. . . . Purvy hain't died 
 yit. . . . Some says as how his folks has sent ter 
 Lexington fer bloodhounds." 
 
 The boy's eyes began to smolder hatefully. 
 
 "I reckon," he spoke slowly, "he didn't git shot none 
 too soon." 
 
 "Samson!" The old man's voice had the ring of 
 determined authority. "When I dies, ye'll be the head 
 of the Souths, but so long es I'm a-runnin' this hyar 
 fam'ly, I keeps my word ter friend an' foe alike. I 
 reckon Jesse Purvy knows who got yore pap, but up 
 till now no South hain't never busted no truce." 
 
 The boy's voice dropped its softness, and took on a 
 shrill crescendo of excitement as he flashed out his 
 retort. 
 
 "Who said a South has done busted the truce this 
 time?"
 
 26 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Old Spencer South gazed searchingly at his nephew. 
 
 "I hain't a-wantin' ter suspicion ye, Samson, but I 
 know how ye feels about yore pap. I heered thet Bud 
 Spicer come by hyar yistiddy plumb full of liquor, an* 
 'lowed he'd seed Jesse an' Jim Asberry a-talkin' ter- 
 gether jest afore yore pap was kilt." He broke off 
 abruptly, then added: "Ye went away from, hyar last 
 night, an' didn't git in twell atter sun-up I just heered 
 the news, an' come ter look fer ye." 
 
 "Air you-all 'lowin' thet I shot them shoots from the 
 laurel?" inquired Samson, quietly. 
 
 "Ef we-all hain't 'lowin' hit, Samson, we're plumb 
 shore thet Jesse Purvy's folks will 'low hit. They're 
 jest a-holdin' yore life like a hostage fer Purvy's, any 
 how. Ef he dies, they'll try ter git ye." 
 
 The boy flashed a challenge about the group, which 
 was now drawing rein at Spicer South's yard fence. 
 His eyes were sullen, but he made no answer. 
 
 One of the men who had listened in silence now spoke: 
 
 "In the fust place, Samson, we hain't a-sayin* ye done 
 hit. In the nex' place, ef ye did do hit, we hain't 
 a-blamin' ye much. But I reckon them dawgs don't 
 lie, an', ef they trails in hyar, ye'll need us. Thet's why 
 we've done come." 
 
 The boy slipped down from his mule, and helped Les- 
 cott to dismount. He deliberately unloaded the saddle 
 bags and kit, and laid them on the top step of the stile, 
 and, while he held his peace, neither denying nor affirm 
 ing, his kinsmen sat their horses and waited. 
 
 Even to Lescott, it was palpable that some of them 
 believed the young heir to clan leadership responsible 
 for the shooting of Jesse Purvy, and that others believed
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 27 
 
 Kim innocent, yet none the less in danger of the enemy's 
 vengeance. But, regardless of divided opinion, all were 
 alike ready to stand at his back, and all alike awaited 
 his final utterance. 
 
 Then, in the thickening gloom, Samson turned at the 
 foot of the stile, and faced the gathering. He stood 
 rigid, and his eyes flashed with deep passion. His hands, 
 hanging at the seams of his jeans breeches, clenched, and 
 his voice came in a slow utterance through which 
 throbbed the tensity of a soul-absorbing bitterness. 
 
 "I knowed all 'bout Jesse Purvy's bein' shot. . . . 
 When my pap lay a-dyin' over thar at his house, I was 
 a little shaver ten years old . . . Jesse Purvy hired 
 somebody ter kill him . . . an' I promised my pap 
 that I'd find out who thet man was, an' thet I'd git 'em 
 both some day. So help me, God Almighty, I'm a-goin' 
 ter git 'em both some day!" The boy paused and 
 lifted one hand as though taking an oath. 
 
 "I'm a-tellin' you-all the truth. . . . But I didn't 
 shoot them shoots this mornin 5 . I hain't no truce-buster. 
 I gives ye my hand on hit. . . . Ef them dawgs 
 comes hyar, they'll find me hyar, an' ef they hain't liars> 
 they'll go right on by hyar. I don't 'low ter run away, 
 an' I don't 'low ter hide out. I'm agoin* ter stay right 
 hyar. Thet's all I've got ter say ter ye." 
 
 For a moment, there was no reply. Then, the older 
 man nodded with a gesture of relieved anxiety. 
 
 "Thet's all we wants ter know, Samson," he said 
 slowly. "Light, men, an' come in."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN days when the Indian held the Dark and Bloody 
 Grounds a pioneer, felling oak and poplar logs for 
 the home he meant to establish on the banks of a 
 purling water-course, let his axe slip, and the cutting 
 edge gashed his ankle. Since to the discoverer belongs 
 the christening, that water-course became Cripple-shin, 
 and so it is to-day set down on atlas pages. A few miles 
 away, as the crow flies, but many weary leagues as 
 a man must travel, a brother settler, racked with rheu 
 matism, gave to his creek the name of Misery. The 
 two pioneers had come together from Virginia, as their 
 ancestors had come before them from Scotland. To 
 gether, they had found one of the two gaps through 
 the mountain wall, which for more than a hundred miles 
 has no other passable rift. Together, and as comrades, 
 they had made their homes, and founded their race. 
 What original grievance had sprung up between their 
 descendants none of the present generation knew per 
 haps it was a farm line or disputed title to a pig. The 
 primary incident was lost in the limbo of the past ; but 
 for fifty years, with occasional intervals of truce, lives 
 had been snuffed out in the fiercely burning hate of these 
 men whose ancestors had been comrades. 
 
 Old Spicer South and his nephew Samson were the 
 direct lineal descendants of the namer of Misery. Their 
 kinsmen dwelt about them: the Souths, the Jaspers, 
 
 28
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 29 
 
 the Spicers, the Wileys, the Millers and McCagers. 
 Other families, related only by marriage and close asso 
 ciation, were, in feud alignment, none the less "Souths." 
 And over beyond the ridge, where the springs and brooks 
 flowed the other way to feed Crippleshin, dwelt the Holl- 
 mans, the Purvies, the Asberries, the Hollises and the 
 Daltons men equally strong in their vindictive fealty to 
 the code of the vendetta. 
 
 By mountain standards, old Spicer South was rich. 
 His lands had been claimed when tracts could be had for 
 the taking, and, though he had to make his cross mark 
 when there was a, contract to be signed, his instinctive 
 mind was shrewd and far seeing. The tinkle of his 
 cow-bells was heard for a long distance along the creek 
 bottoms. His hillside fields were the richest and his 
 coves the most fertile in that country. His house had 
 several rooms, and, except for those who hated him and 
 whom he hated, he commanded the respect of his fel 
 lows. Some day, when a railroad should burrow througk 
 his section, bringing the development of coal and timber 
 at the head of the rails, a sleeping fortune would yawn 
 and awake to enrich him. There were black outcrop- 
 pings along the cliffs, which he knew ran deep in veins 
 of bituminous wealth. But to that time he looked with 
 foreboding, for he had been raised to the standards of . 
 his forefathers, and saw in the coming of a new regime * 
 a curtailment of personal liberty. For new-fangled 
 ideas he held only the aversion of deep-rooted prejudice. 
 He hoped that he might live out his days, and pass before 
 the foreigner held his land, and the Law became a power 
 stronger than the individual or the clan. The Law was 
 his enemy, because it said to him, "Thou shalt not,"
 
 when he sought to take the yellow corn which bruising 
 labor had coaxed from scattered rock-strewn fields to 
 his own mash-vat and still It meant, also, a tyrannous 
 power usually seized and administered by enemies, which 
 undertook to forbid the personal settlement of personal 
 quarrels. But his eyes, which could not read print, could 
 read the signs of the times He foresaw the inevitable 
 coming of that day. Already, he had given up the 
 worm and mash-vat, and no longer sought to make or 
 sell illicit liquor. That was a concession to the Federal 
 power, which could no longer be successfully fought. 
 State power was still largely a weapon in factional 
 hands, and in his country the Hollmans were the office 
 holders. To the Hollmans, he could make no concessions. 
 In Samson, born to be the fighting man, reared to be the 
 fighting man, equipped by nature with deep hatreds 
 and tigerish courage, there had cropped out from time 
 to time the restless spirit of the philosopher and a 
 hunger for knowledge. That was a matter in which 
 the old man found his bitterest and most secret 
 apprehension. 
 
 It was at this house that George Lescott, distin 
 guished landscape painter of New York and the world- 
 at-large, arrived in the twilight. His first impression 
 was received in shadowy evening mists that gave a touch 
 of the weird. The sweep of the stone-guarded well rose 
 in a yard tramped bare of grass. The house itself, a 
 rambling structure of logs, with additions of undressed 
 lumber, was without lights. The cabin, which had been 
 the pioneer nucleus, still stood windowless and with mud- 
 daubed chimney at the center. About it rose a number
 
 of tall poles surmounted by bird-boxes, and at its back 
 loomed the great hump of the mountain. 
 
 Whatever enemy might have to be met to-morrow, old 
 Spicer South recognized as a more immediate call upon 
 his attention the wounded guest of to-day. One of the 
 kinsmen proved to have a rude working knowledge of ( 
 bone-setting, and before the half -hour had passed, Les- . 
 cott's wrist was in a splint, and his injuries as well 
 tended as possible, which proved to be quite well enough. 
 
 By that time, Sally's voice was heard shouting from 
 the stile, and Sally herself appeared with the announce 
 ment that she had found and brought in the lost mule. 
 
 As Lescott looked at her, standing slight and willowy 
 in the thickening darkness, among the big-boned and 
 slouching figures of the clansmen, she seemed to shrink 
 from the stature of a woman into that of a child, and, 
 as she felt his eyes on her, she timidly slipped farther 
 back into the shadowy door of the cabin, and dropped 
 down on the sill, where, with her hands clasped about 
 her knees, she gazed curiously at himself. She did not 
 speak, but sat immovable with her thick hair falling 
 over her shoulders. The painter recognized that even . 
 the interest in him as a new type could not for long' 
 keep her eyes from being drawn to the face of Samson, 
 where they lingered, and in that magnetism he read, not 
 the child, but the woman. 
 
 Samson was plainly restive from the moment of her 
 arrival, and, when a monosyllabic comment from the 
 taciturn group threatened to reveal to the girl the 
 threatened outbreak of the feud, he went over to her, 
 and inquired: 
 
 "Sally, air ye skeered ter go home by yeself ?"
 
 S THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 As she met the boy's eyes, it was clear that her own 
 held neither nervousness nor fear, and yet there was 
 something else in them the glint of invitation. She 
 rose from her seat. 
 
 "I hain't ter say skeered," she told him, "but, ef ye 
 wants ter walk as fur as the stile, I hain't a-keerin'." 
 
 The youth rose, and, taking his hat and rifle, followed 
 her. 
 
 Lescott was happily gifted with the power of facile 
 adaptation, and he unobtrusively bent his efforts toward 
 convincing his new acquaintances that, although he was 
 alien to their ways, he was sympathetic and to be 
 trusted. Once that assurance was given, the family talk 
 went on much as though he had been absent, and, as 
 he sat with open ears, he learned the rudiments of the 
 conditions that had brought the kinsmen together in 
 Samson's defense. 
 
 At last, Spicer South's sister, a woman who looked 
 older than himself, though she was really younger, 
 appeared, smoking a clay pipe, which she waved toward 
 the kitchen. 
 
 "You men kin come in an' eat," she announced; and 
 the mountaineers, knocking the ashes from their pipes, 
 trailed into the kitchen. 
 
 The place was lit by the fire in a cavernous hearth 
 where the cooking was still going forward with skillet 
 and crane. The food, coarse and greasy, but not 
 unwholesome, was set on a long table covered with oil 
 cloth. The roughly clad men sat down with a scraping 
 of chair legs, and attacked their provender in business 
 like silence. 
 
 The corners of the room fell into obscurity. Shadows
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 33 
 
 wavered against the sooty rafters, and, before the meal 
 ended, Samson returned and dropped without comment 
 into his chair. Afterward, the men trooped taciturnly 
 out again, and resumed their pipes. 
 
 A whippoorwill sent his mournful cry across the tree- 
 tops, and was answered. Frogs added the booming of 
 their tireless throats. A young moon slipped across an 
 eastern mountain, and livened the creek into a soft shim 
 mer wherein long shadows quavered. The more distant 
 line of mountains showed in a mist of silver, and the 
 nearer heights in blue-gray silhouette. A wizardry of 
 night and softness settled like a benediction, and from 
 the dark door of the house stole the quaint folklore 
 cadence of a rudely thrummed banjo. Lescott strolled 
 over to the stile with every artist instinct stirred. This 
 nocturne of silver and gray and blue at once soothed 
 and intoxicated his imagination. His fingers were itch 
 ing for a brush. 
 
 Then, he heard a movement at his shoulder, and, 
 turning, saw the boy Samson with the moonlight in his 
 eyes, and, besides the moonlight, that sparkle which is 
 the essence of the dreamer's vision. Once more, their 
 glances met and flashed a countersign. 
 
 "Hit hain't got many colors in hit," said the boy, 
 slowly, indicating with a sweep of his hand the sym 
 phony about them, "but somehow what there is is jest 
 about the right ones. Hit whispers ter a feller, the 
 same as a mammy whispers ter her baby." He paused, 
 then eagerly asked : "Stranger, kin you look at the sky 
 an' the mountings an' hear 'em singin' with yore eyes ?" 
 
 The painter felt a thrill of astonishment. It seemed 
 incredible that the boy, whose rude descriptives reflected
 
 such poetry of feeling, could be one with the savage 
 young animal who had, two hours before, raised his 
 hand heavenward, and reiterated his oath to do murder 
 in payment of murder. 
 
 "Yes," was his slow reply, "every painter must do 
 {that. Music and color are two expressions of the same 
 thing and the thing is Beauty." 
 
 The mountain boy made no reply, but his eyes dwelt 
 on the quivering shadows in the water; and Lescott 
 asked cautiously, fearing to wake him from the dreamer 
 to the savage: 
 
 "So you are interested in skies and hills and their 
 beauties, too, are you?" 
 
 Samson's laugh was half-ashamed, half-defiant. 
 
 "Sometimes, stranger," he said, "I 'lows that I hain't 
 much interested in nothin' else." 
 
 That there dwelt in the lad something which leaped 
 in response to the clarion call of beauty, Lescott had 
 read in that momentary give and take of their eyes down 
 there in the hollow earlier in the afternoon. But, since 
 then, the painter had seen the other and sterner side, 
 and once more he was puzzled and astonished. Now, he 
 stood anxiously hoping that the boy would permit him 
 self further expression, yet afraid to prompt, lest direct 
 questions bring a withdrawal again into the shell of 
 taciturnity. After a few moments of silence, he slowly 
 turned his head, and glanced at his companion, to find 
 him standing rigidly with his elbows resting on the top 
 palings of the fence. He had thrown his rough hat to 
 the ground, and his face in the pale moonlight was 
 raised. His eyes under the black mane of hair were 
 glowing deeply with a fire of something like exaltation,
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 35 
 
 as he gazed away. It was the expression of one who 
 sees things hidden to the generality ; such a light as 
 burns in the eyes of artists and prophets and fanatics, 
 which, to the uncomprehending, seems almost a fire of 
 madness. Samson must have felt Lescott's scrutiny, 
 for he turned with a half-passionate gesture and 
 clenched fists. His face, as he met the glance of the 
 foreigner was sullen, and then, as though in recognition 
 of a brother-spirit, his expression softened, and slowly 
 he began to speak. 
 
 "These folks 'round hyar sometimes 'lows I hain't 
 much better'n an id jit because because I feels that- 
 away. Even Sally" he caught himself, then went 
 on doggedly "even Sally kain't see how a man kin keer 
 about things like skies and the color of the hills, ner 
 the way ther sunset splashes the sky clean acrost its 
 aidge, ner how the sunrise comes outen the dark like a 
 gal a-blushin'. They 'lows thet a man had ought ter be 
 studyin' 'bout other things." 
 
 He paused, and folded his arms, and his strong 
 fingers grasped his tensed biceps until the knuckles 
 stood out, as he went on: 
 
 "I reckon they hain't none of them thet kin hate 
 harder'n me. I reckon they hain't none of 'em thet is 
 more plumb willin' ter fight them thet's rightful enemies, 
 an' yit hit 'pears ter me as thet hain't no reason why 
 a man kain't feel somethin' singin' inside him when 
 Almighty God builds hills like them" he swept both 
 hands out in a wide circle "an' makes 'em green in 
 summer, an' lets 'em blaze in red an' yaller in ther fall, 
 an' hangs blue skies over 'em an' makes ther sun shine, 
 an' at night sprinkles 'em with stars an' a moon like
 
 thet!" Again, he paused, and his eyes seemed to ask 
 the corroboration which they read in the expression and 
 nod of the stranger from the mysterious outside world. 
 Then, Samson South spread his hands in a swift gesture 
 of protest, and his voice hardened in timbre as he 
 went on : 
 
 "But these folks hyarabouts kain't understand thet. 
 All they sees in the laurel on the hillside, an' the big 
 gray rocks an' the green trees, is breshwood an' timber 
 thet may be hidin' their enemies, or places ter hide out 
 an* lay-way some other feller. I hain't never seen no 
 other country. I don't know whether all places is like 
 these hyar mountings er not, but I knows thet the Lord 
 didn't 'low fer men ter live blind, not seein' no beauty 
 in nothin' ; ner not feelin* nothin' but hate an' meanness 
 ner studyin' 'bout nothin' but deviltry. There hain't 
 no better folks nowhar then my folks, an' thar hain't 
 no meaner folks nowhar then them damned Hollmans, 
 but thar's times when hit 'pears ter me thet the Lord 
 Almighty hain't plumb tickled ter death with ther way 
 things goes hyar along these creeks and coves." 
 
 Samson paused, and suddenly the glow died out of his 
 eyes. His features instantly reshaped themselves into 
 their customary mold of stoical hardness. It occurred 
 to him that his outburst had been a long one and 
 strangely out of keeping with his usual taciturnity, and 
 he wondered what this stranger would think of him. 
 
 The stranger was marveling. He was seeing in the 
 crude lad at his side warring elements that might build 
 into a unique and strangely interesting edifice of char 
 acter, and his own speech as he talked there by the 
 palings of the fence in the moonlight was swiftly estab-
 
 lishing the foundations of a comradeship between the 
 two. 
 
 "Thar's something mighty quare about ye, stran 
 ger," said the boy at last, half-shyly. "I been wonderin' 
 why I've talked ter ye like this. I hain't never 
 talked that-away with no other man. Ye jest seemed ter 
 ,kind of compel me ter do hit. When I says things like 
 thet ter Sally, she gits skeered of me like ef I was plumb 
 crazy, an', ef I talked that-away to the menfolks 'round 
 hyar they'd be sartain I was an id jit." 
 
 "That," said Lescott, gravely, "is because they don't 
 understand. I do." 
 
 "I kin lay awake nights," said Samson, "an' see them 
 hills and mists an' colors the same es ef they was thar 
 in front of my eyes an' I kin seem ter hear 'em as 
 well as see 'em." 
 
 The painter nodded, and his voice fell into low 
 quotation : 
 
 " 'The scarlet of the maple can shake me like the cry 
 " 'Of bugles going by.' " 
 
 The boy's eyes deepened. To Lescott, the thought of 
 bugles conjured up a dozen pictures of marching 
 jsoldiery under a dozen flags. To Samson South, it sug 
 gested only one: militia guarding a battered court 
 house, but to both the simile brought a stirring of 
 pulses. 
 
 Even in June, the night mists bring a touch of chill 
 to the mountains, and the clansmen shortly carried their 
 chairs indoors. The old woman fetched a pan of red 
 coals from the kitchen, and kindled the logs on the deep
 
 38 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 hearth. There was no other light, and, until the flames, 
 climbed to roaring volume, spreading their zone of yel 
 low brightness, only the circle about the fireplace 
 emerged from the sooty shadows. In the four dark 
 corners of the room were four large beds, vaguely seen, 
 and from one of them still came the haunting monotony 
 of the banjo. 
 
 Suddenly, out of the silence, rose Samson's voice 
 keyed to a stubborn note, as though anticipating and 
 challenging contradiction. 
 
 "Times is changin' mighty fast. A feller thet grows 
 up plumb ign'rant ain't a-goin' ter have much show." 
 
 Old Spicer South drew a contemplative puff at his 
 pipe. 
 
 "Ye went ter school twell ye was ten year old, Samson. 
 Thet's a heap more schoolin' then I ever had, an* I've 
 done got along all right." 
 
 "Ef my pap had lived" the boy's voice was almost 
 accusing "I'd hev larned more then jest ter read an ? 
 write en figger a little." 
 
 "I hain't got no use fer these newfangled notions." 
 Spicer spoke with careful curbing of his impatience. 
 "Yore pap stood out fer eddycation. He had ideas 
 about law an' all that, an' he talked 'em. He got shot 
 ter death. Yore Uncle John South went down below, 
 an' got ter be a lawyer. He come home hyar, an' onder- 
 took ter penitentiary Jesse Purvy, when Jesse was High 
 Sheriff. I reckon ye knows what happened ter him." 
 
 Samson said nothing and the older man went on: 
 
 "They aimed ter run him outen the mountings." 
 
 "They didn't run him none," blazed the boy. "He 
 didn't never leave the mountings."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 39 
 
 "No." The family head spoke with the force of a 
 logical climax. "He'd done rented a house down below 
 though, an' was a-fixin' ter move. He staid one day too 
 late. Jesse Purvy hired him shot." 
 
 "What of hit?" demanded Samson. 
 
 "Yore cousin, Bud Spicer, was eddicated. He 'lowed 
 in public thet Micah Hollman an' Jesse Purvy was 
 runnin' a murder partnership. Somebody called him ter 
 the door of his house in the night-time ter borry a 
 lantern an' shot him ter death." 
 
 "What of hit?" 
 
 "Thar's jist this much of hit. Hit don't seem ter 
 pay the South family ter go a-runnin' attar newfangled 
 idees. They gets too much notion of goin' ter law 
 an' thet's plumb fatal. Ye'd better stay where ye 
 b'longs, Samson, an' let good enough be." 
 
 "Why hain't ye done told about all the rest of the 
 Souths thet didn't hev no eddication," suggested the 
 youngest South, "thet got killed off jest as quick as 
 them as had hit?"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHILE Spicer South and his cousins had been 
 sustaining themselves or building up compe 
 tences by tilling their soil, the leaders of the 
 other faction were basing larger fortunes on the profits 
 of merchandise and trade. So, although Spicer South 
 could neither read nor write, his chief enemy, Micah 
 Hollman, was to outward seeming an urbane and fairly 
 ,equipped man of affairs. Judged by their heads, the 
 clansmen were rougher and more illiterate on Misery, 
 and in closer touch with civilization on Crippleshin. A 
 deeper scrutiny showed this seeming to be one of the 
 strange anomalies of the mountains. 
 
 Micah Hollman had established himself at Hixon, that 
 shack town which had passed of late years from feudal 
 county seat to the section's one point of contact with 
 the outside world ; a town where the ancient and modern 
 orders brushed shoulders ; where the new was tolerated, 
 but dared not become aggressive. Directly across the 
 street from the court-house stood an ample frame build 
 ing, on whose side wall was emblazoned the legend: 
 "Hollman's Mammoth Department Store." That was 
 the secret stronghold of Hollman power. He had always 
 spoken deploringly of that spirit of lawlessness which 
 had given the mountains a bad name. He himself, he 
 declared, believed that the best assets of any community 
 were tenets of peace and brotherhood. Any mountain 
 
 40
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 41 
 
 man or foreigner who came to town was sure of a wel 
 come from Judge Micah Hollman, who added to his 
 title of storekeeper that of magistrate. 
 
 As the years went on, the proprietor of the "Mam 
 moth Department Store" found that he had money to 
 lend and, as a natural sequence, mortgages stored away 
 in his strong box. To the cry of distress, he turned a 
 sympathetic ear. His infectious smile and suave man 
 ner won him fame as "the best-hearted man in the moun 
 tains." Steadily and unostentatiously, his fortune 
 fattened. 
 
 When the railroad came to Hixon, it found in Judge 
 Hollman a "public-spirited citizen." Incidentally, the 
 timber that it hauled and the coal that its flat cars 
 carried down to the Bluegrass went largely to his con 
 signees. He had so astutely anticipated coming events 
 that, when the first scouts of capital sought options, 
 they found themselves constantly referred to Judge 
 Hollman. No wheel, it seemed, could turn without his 
 nod. It was natural that the genial storekeeper should 
 become the big man of the community and inevitable 
 that the one big man should become the dictator. His 
 inherited place as leader of the Hollmans in the feud he 
 had seemingly passed on as an obsolete prerogative. 
 
 Yet, in business matters, he was found to drive a hard 
 bargain, and men came to regard it the part of good 
 policy to meet rather than combat his requirements. 
 It was essential to his purposes that the officers of the 
 law in his county should be in sympathy with him. 
 Sympathy soon became abject subservience. When a 
 South had opposed Jesse Purvy in the primary as can 
 didate for High Sheriff, he was found one day lying on
 
 42 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 his face with a bullet-riddled body. It may have been 
 a coincidence which pointed to Jim Asberry, the judge's 
 nephew, as the assassin. At all events, the judge's 
 nephew was a poor boy, and a charitable Grand Jury 
 declined to indict him. 
 
 In the course of five years, several South adherents, 
 who had crossed Hollman's path, became victims of the 
 laurel ambuscade. The theory of coincidence was 
 strained. Slowly, the rumor grew and persistently 
 spread, though no man would admit having fathered 
 it, that before each of these executions star-chamber 
 conferences had been held in the rooms above Micah 
 Hollman's "Mammoth Department Store." It was said 
 that these exclusive sessions were attended by Judge 
 Hollman, Sheriff Purvy and certain other gentlemen 
 selected by reason of their marksmanship. When one 
 of these victims fell, John South had just returned from 
 a law school "down below," wearing "fotched-on" cloth 
 ing and thinking "fotched-on" thoughts. He had 
 amazed the community by demanding the right to assist 
 in probing and prosecuting the affair. He had then 
 shocked the community into complete paralysis by re 
 questing the Grand Jury to indict not alone the alleged 
 assassin, but also his employers, whom he named as 
 Judge Hollman and Sheriff Purvy. Then, he, too, fell 
 under a bolt from the laurel. 
 
 That was the first public accusation against the 
 bland capitalist, and it carried its own prompt warning 
 against repetition. The Judge's High Sheriff and chief 
 ally retired from office, and went abroad only with a 
 bodyguard. Jesse Purvy had built his store at a cross 
 roads twenty-five miles from the railroad. Like Holl-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 43 
 
 man, he had won a reputation for open-handed charity, 
 and was liked and hated. His friends were legion. 
 His enemies were so numerous that he apprehended vio 
 lence not only from the Souths, but also from others 
 who nursed grudges in no way related to the line of 
 feud cleavage. The Hollman-Purvy combination had 
 retained enough of its old power to escape the law's 
 retribution and to hold its dictatorship, but the efforts 
 of John South had not been altogether bootless. He 
 had ripped away two masks, and their erstwhile wearers 
 could no longer hold their old semblance of law-abiding 
 philanthropists. Jesse Purvy's home was the show 
 place of the country side. To the traveler's eye, which 
 had grown accustomed to hovel life and squalor, it 
 offered a reminder of the richer Bluegrass. Its walls 
 were weather-boarded and painted, and its roof two 
 stories high. Commodious verandahs looked out over 
 pleasant orchards, and in the same enclosure stood the 
 two frame buildings of his store for he, too, combined 
 merchandise with baronial powers. But back of the 
 place rose the mountainside, on which Purvy never 
 ( looked without dread. Twice, its impenetrable thickets 
 had spat at him. Twice, he had recovered from wounds 
 that would have taken a less-charmed life. And in 
 grisly reminder of the terror which clouded the peace 
 of his days stood the eight-foot log stockade at the 
 rear of the place which the proprietor had built to 
 shield his daily journeys between house and store. But 
 Jesse Purvy was not deluded by his escapes. He knew 
 that he was "marked down." For years, he had seen 
 men die by his own plotting, and he himself must in 
 the end follow by a similar road. Rumor had it that
 
 44 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 he wore a shirt of mail, certain it is that he walked in 
 the expectancy of death. 
 
 "Why don't you leave the mountains?" strangers 
 had asked ; and to each of them Purvy had replied with 
 a shrug of his shoulders and a short laugh: "This is 
 where I belong." , 
 
 But the years of strain were telling on Jesse Purvy. ! 
 The robust, full-blooded face was showing deep lines; 
 his flesh was growing flaccid; his glance tinged with 
 quick apprehension. He told his intimates that he 
 realized "they'd get him," yet he sought to prolong his 
 term of escape. 
 
 The creek purled peacefully by the stile; the apple 
 and peach trees blossomed and bore fruit at their 
 appointed time, but the householder, when he walked 
 between his back door and the back door of the store, 
 hugged his stockade, and hurried his steps. 
 
 Yesterday morning, Jesse Purvy had risen early as 
 usual, and, after a satisfying breakfast, had gone to 
 his store to arrange for the day's business. One or two 
 of his henchmen, seeming loafers, but in reality a body 
 guard, were lounging within call. A married daughter 
 was chatting with her father while her young baby 
 played among the barrels and cracker boxes. 
 
 The daughter went to a rear window, and gazed up 
 at the mountain. The cloudless skies were still in hiding 
 behind a curtain of mist. The woman was idly watch 
 ing the vanishing fog wraiths, and her father came over 
 to her side. Then, the baby cried, and she stepped back. 
 Purvy himself remained at the window. It was a thing 
 he did not often do. It left him exposed, but the most 
 cautiously guarded life has its moments of relaxed
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 45 
 
 vigilance. He stood there possibly thirty seconds, then 
 a sharp fusillade of clear reports barked out and was 
 shattered by the hills into a long reverberation. With 
 a hand clasped to his chest, Purvy turned, walked to 
 the middle of the floor, and fell. 
 
 The henchmen rushed to the open sash. They Ieaped 4 
 out, and plunged up the mountain, tempting the assas- 5 
 sin's fire, but the assassin was satisfied. The mountain 
 was again as quiet as it had been at dawn. Its impene 
 trable mask of green was blank and unresponsive. 
 Somewhere in the cool of the dewy treetops a squirrel 
 barked. Here and there, the birds saluted the sparkle 
 and freshness of June. Inside, at the middle of the 
 store, Jesse Purvy shifted his head against his daugh 
 ter's knee, and said, as one stating an expected event: 
 
 "Well, they've got me." 
 
 An ordinary mountaineer would have been carried 
 home to die in the darkness of a dirty and windowless 
 shack. The long-suffering star of Jesse Purvy or 
 dained otherwise. He might go under or he might 
 once more beat his way back and out of the quicksands 
 of death. At all events, he would fight for life to 
 the last gasp. 
 
 Twenty miles away in the core of the wilderness, 
 removed from a railroad by a score of semi-perpendic 
 ular miles, a fanatic had once decided to found a school. 
 The fact that the establishment in this place of such 
 a school as his mind pictured was sheer madness and 
 impossibility did not in the least deter him. It was a 
 thing that could not be done, and it was a thing that 
 he had done none the less. 
 
 Now a faculty of ten men, like himself holding de-
 
 46 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 grees of Masters of Dreams, taught such as cared to 
 come such things as they cared to learn. Substantial 
 two- and three-storied buildings of square-hewn logs 
 lay grouped in a sort of Arts and Crafts village around 
 a clean-clipped campus. The Stagbone College prop 
 erty stretched twenty acres square at the foot of a 
 hill. The drone of its own saw-mill came across the 
 valley. In a book-lined library, wainscoted in natural 
 woods of three colors, the original fanatic often sat 
 reflecting pleasurably on his folly. Higher up the 
 hillside stood a small, but model, hospital, with a mod 
 ern operating table and a case of surgical instruments, 
 which, it was said, the State could not surpass. These 
 things had been the gifts of friends who liked such a 
 type of God-inspired madness. A "fotched-on" trained 
 nurse was in attendance. From time to time, eminent 
 Bluegrass surgeons came to Hixon by rail, rode twenty 
 miles on mules, and held clinics on the mountainside. 
 
 To this haven, Jesse Purvy, the murder lord, was 
 borne in a litter carried on the shoulders of his depend 
 ents. Here, as his steadfast guardian star decreed, he 
 found two prominent medical visitors, who hurried him 
 to the operating table. Later, he was removed to a 
 white bed, with the June sparkle in his eyes, pleasantly 
 ^nodulated through drawn blinds, and the June rustle 
 fand bird chorus in his ears and his own thoughts in 
 his brain. 
 
 Conscious, but in great pain, Purvy beckoned Jim 
 Asberry and Aaron Hollis, his chiefs of bodyguard, to 
 his bedside, and waved the nurse back out of hearing. 
 
 "If I don't get well," he said, feebly, "there's a job 
 for you two boys, I reckon you know what it is?"
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 47 
 
 They nodded, and Asberry whispered a name : 
 
 "Samson South?" 
 
 "Yes," Purvy spoke in a weak whisper; but the old 
 vindictiveness was not smothered. "You got the old 
 man, I reckon you can manage the cub. If you don't, 
 he'll get you both one day." 
 
 The two henchmen scowled. 
 
 "I'll git him to-morrer," growled Asberry. "Thar 
 hain't no sort of use in a-waitin'." 
 
 "No !" For an instant Purvy's voice rose out of its 
 weakness to its old staccato tone of command, a tone 
 which brought obedience. "If I get well, I have other 
 plans. Never mind what they are. That's my business. 
 If I don't die, leave him alone, until I give other orders." 
 He lay back and fought for breath. The nurse came 
 over with gentle insistence, ordering quiet, but the man, 
 whose violent life might be closing, had business yet to 
 discuss with his confidential vassals. Again, he waved 
 her back. 
 
 "If I get well," he went on, "and Samson South is 
 killed meanwhile, I won't live long either. It would be 
 my life for his. Keep close to him. The minute you 
 hear of my death get him." He paused again, then 
 supplemented, "You two will find something mighty in- 
 terestin' in my will." 
 
 It was afternon when Purvy reached the hospital, 
 and, at nightfall of the same day, there arrived at his 
 store's entrance, on stumbling, hard-ridden mules, sev 
 eral men, followed by two tawny hounds whose long 
 ears flapped over their lean jaws, and whose eyes were 
 listless and tired, but whose black muzzles wrinkled and 
 sniffed with that sensitive instinct which follows the
 
 48 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 man-scent. The ex-sheriff's family were instituting 
 proceedings independent of the Chief's orders. The 
 next morning, this party plunged into the mountain 
 tangle, and beat the cover with the bloodhounds in 
 leash. 
 
 The two gentle-faced dogs picked their way between 
 the flowering rhododendrons, the glistening laurels, the 
 feathery pine sprouts and the moss-covered rocks. 
 They went gingerly and alertly on ungainly, cushioned 
 feet. Just as their masters were despairing, they came 
 to a place directly over the store, where a branch had 
 been bent back and hitched to clear the outlook, and 
 where a boot heel had crushed the moss. There one of 
 them raised his nose high into the air, opened his mouth, 
 and let out a long, deep-chested bay of discovery.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 GEORGE LESCOTT had known hospitality of 
 many brands and degrees. He had been the 
 lionized celebrity in places of fashion. He had 
 been the guest of equally famous brother artists in the 
 cities of two hemispheres, and, since sincere painting 
 had been his pole-star, he had gone where his art's 
 wanderlust beckoned. His most famous canvas, per 
 haps, was his "Prayer Toward Mecca," which hangs 
 in the Metropolitan. It shows, with a power that holds 
 the observer in a compelling grip, the wonderful colors 
 of a sunset across the desert. One seems to feel the 
 renewed life that comes to the caravan with the welcome 
 of the oasis. One seems to hear the grunting of the 
 kneeling camels and the stirring of the date palms. 
 The Bedouins have spread their prayer-rugs, and be 
 hind them burns the west. Lescott caught in that, as 
 he had caught in his mountain sketches, the broad 
 spirit of the thing. To paint that canvas, he had 
 endured days of racking camel-travel and burning heat 
 and thirst. He had followed the lure of transitory 
 beauty to remote sections of the world. The present 
 trip was only one of many like it, which had brought 
 him into touch with varying peoples and distinctive 
 types of life. He told himself that never had he f ounc! 
 men at once so crude and so courteous as these hosts, 
 
 49
 
 50 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 who, facing personal perils, had still time and willing 
 ness to regard his comfort. 
 
 They could not speak grammatically; they could 
 hardly offer him the necessities of life, yet they gave 
 all they had, with a touch of courtliness. 
 
 In a fabric soiled and threadbare, one may sometimes 
 trace the tarnished design that erstwhile ran in gold 
 through a rich pattern. Lescott could not but think 
 of some fine old growth gone to seed and decay, but still 
 bearing at its crest a single beautiful blossom while it 
 held in its veins a poison. 
 
 Such a blossom was Sally. Her scarlet lips and sweet, 
 grave eyes might have been the inheritance gift of some 
 remote ancestress whose feet, instead of being bare and 
 brown, had trod in high-heeled, satin slippers. When 
 Lord Fairfax governed the Province of Virginia, that 
 first Sally, in the stateliness of panniered brocades and 
 powdered hair, may have tripped a measure to the 
 harpsichord or spinet. Certain it is she trod with no 
 more untrammeled grace than her wild descendant. For 
 the nation's most untamed and untaught fragment is, 
 after all, an unamalgamated stock of British and Scot 
 tish bronze, which now and then strikes back to its 
 beginning and sends forth a pure peal from its corroded 
 bell-metal. In all America is no other element whose 
 blood is so purely what the Nation's was at birth. 
 
 The coming of the kinsmen, who would stay until the 
 present danger passed, had filled the house. The four 
 beds in the cabin proper were full, and some slept on 
 floor mattresses. Lescott, because a guest and wounded, 
 was given a small room aside. Samson, however, shared 
 his quarters in order to perform any service that an
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLAND'S 51 
 
 injured man might require. It had been a full and 
 unusual day for the painter, and its incidents crowded 
 in on him in retrospect and drove off the possibility of 
 sleep. Samson, too, seemed wakeful, and in the isolation 
 of the dark room the two men fell into conversation, 
 which almost lasted out the night. Samson went into 
 the confessional. This was the first human being he had 
 ever met to whom he could unburden his soul. 
 
 The thirst to taste what knowledge lay beyond the 
 hills ; the unnamed wanderlust that had at times brought 
 him a restiveness so poignant as to be agonizing; the 
 undefined attuning of his heart to the beauty of sky 
 and hill; these matters he had hitherto kept locked in 
 guilty silence. To the men of his clan these were eccen 
 tricities bordering on the abnormal; frailties to be 
 passed over with charity, as one would pass over the 
 infirmities of an afflicted child. To Samson they looked 
 as to a sort of feud Messiah. His destiny was stern, 
 and held no place for dreams. For him, they could 
 see only danger in an insatiable hunger for learning. 
 In a weak man, a school-teacher or parson sort of a 
 man, that might be natural, but this young cock of their 
 walk was being reared for the pit for conflict. What 
 was important in him was stamina, and sharp strength 
 of spur. These qualities he had proven from infancy. 
 Weakening proclivities must be eliminated. 
 
 So, the boy had been forced to keep throttled im 
 pulses that, for being throttled, had smoldered and set 
 on fire the inner depths of his soul. During long nights, 
 he had secretly digested every available book. Yet, in 
 order to vindicate himself from the unspoken accusation 
 of growing weak, of forgetting his destiny, he head
 
 52 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 courted trouble, and sought combat. He was too close 
 to his people's point of view for perspective. He shared 
 their idea that the thinking man weakens himself as a 
 fighting man. He had never heard of a Cyrano de 
 Bergerac, or an Aramis. Now had come some one with 
 whom he could talk: a man who had traveled and fol 
 lowed, without shame, the beckoning of Learning and 
 Beauty. At once, the silent boy found himself talking 
 intimately, and the artist found himself studying one 
 of the strangest human paradoxes he had yet seen. 
 
 In a cove, or lowland pocket, stretching into the 
 mountainside, lay the small and meager farm of the 
 Widow Miller. The Widow Miller was a "South" ; that 
 is to say she fell, by tie of marriage, under the protec 
 tion of the clan-head. She lived alone with her fourteen- 
 year-old son and her sixteen-year-old daughter. The 
 daughter was Sally. At sixteen, the woman's figure 
 had been as pliantly slim, her step as light as was her 
 daughter's now. At forty, she was withered. Her face 
 was hard, and her lips had forgotten how to smile. 
 Her shoulders sagged, and she was an old woman, who 
 smoked her pipe, and taught her children that rudimen 
 tary code of virtue to which the mountains subscribe. 
 She believed in a brimstone hell and a personal devil. 
 She believed that the whale had swallowed Jonah, but 
 she thought that "Thou shalt not kill" was an edict 
 enunciated by the Almighty with mental reservations, 
 
 The sun rose on the morning after Lescott arrived, 
 the mists lifted, and the cabin of the Widow Miller stood 
 revealed. Against its corners several hogs scraped their 
 bristled backs with satisfied grunts. A noisy rooster 
 cocked his head inquiringly sidewise before the open
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 53 
 
 door, and, hopping up to the sill, invaded the main 
 room. A towsled-headed boy made his way to the barn 
 to feed the cattle, and a red patch of color, as bright 
 and tuneful as a Kentucky cardinal, appeared at the 
 door between the morning-glory vines. The red patch 
 of color was Sally. 
 
 She made her way, carrying a bucket, to the spring, 
 where she knelt down and gazed at her own image in 
 the water. Her grave lips broke into a smile, as the 
 reflected face, framed in its mass of reflected red hair, 
 gazed back at her. Then, the smile broke into a laugh. 
 
 "Hello, Sally Miller!" she gaily accosted her picture- 
 self. "How air ye this mornin', Sally Miller?" 
 
 She plunged her face deep in the cool spring, and 
 raised it to shake back her hair, until the water flew 
 from its masses. She laughed again, because it was 
 another day, and because she was alive. She waded 
 about for a while where the spring joined the creek, 
 and delightedly watched the schools of tiny, almost 
 transparent, minnows that darted away at her coming. 
 Then, standing on a rock, she paused with her head 
 bent, and listened until her ears caught the faint tinkle 
 of a cowbell, which she recognized. Nodding her head 
 joyously, she went off into the woods, to emerge at the 
 end of a half -hour later, carrying a pail of milk, and 
 smiling joyously again because it was almost breakfast 
 time. 
 
 But, before going home, she set down her bucket by 
 the stream, and, with a quick glance toward the house 
 to make sure that she was not observed, climbed through 
 the brush, and was lost to view. She followed a path 
 that her own feet had made, and after a steep course
 
 54s THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 upward, came upon a bald face of rock, which stood 
 out storm-battered where a rift went through the back 
 bone of the ridge. This point of vantage commanded 
 the other valley. From its edge, a white oak, dwarfed, 
 but patriarchal, leaned out over an abrupt drop. No 
 more sweeping or splendid view could be had within 
 miles, but it was not for any reason so general that 
 Sally had made her pilgrimage. Down below, across 
 the treetops, were a roof and a chimney from which 
 a thread of smoke rose in an attenuated shaft. That 
 was Spicer South's house, and Samson's home. The 
 girl leaned against the gnarled bowl of the white oak, 
 and waved toward the roof and chimney. She cupped 
 her hands, and raised them to her lips like one who 
 means to shout across a great distance, then she whis 
 pered so low that only she herself could hear : 
 
 "Hello, Samson South!" 
 
 She stood for a space looking down, and forgot to 
 laugh, while her eyes grew religiously and softly deep, 
 then, turning, she ran down the slope. She had per 
 formed her morning devotions. 
 
 That day at the house of Spicer South was an off 
 day. The kinsmen who had stopped for the night 
 stayed on through the morning. Nothing was said of 
 the possibility of trouble. The men talked crops, and 
 tossed horseshoes in the yard ; but no one went to work 
 in the fields, and all remained within easy call. Only 
 young Tamarack Spicer, a raw-boned nephew, wore 
 a sullen face, and made a great show of cleaning his 
 rifle and pistol. He even went out in the morning, and 
 practised at target-shooting, and Lescott, who was 
 still very pale and weak, but able to wander about at
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 55 
 
 will, gained the impression that in young Tamarack 
 he was seeing the true type of the mountain "bad-man." 
 Tamarack seemed willing to feed that idea, and ad 
 mitted apart to Lescott that, while he obeyed the dic 
 tates of the truce, he found them galling, and was 
 'straining at his leash. 
 
 "I don't take nothin' offen nobody," he sullenly con 
 fided. "The Hollmans gives me my half the road." 
 
 Shortly after dinner, he disappeared, and, when the 
 afternoon was well advanced, Samson, too, with his rifle 
 on his arm, strolled toward the stile. Old Spicer South 
 glanced up, and removed his pipe from his mouth to 
 inquire : 
 
 "Whar be ye a-goin' ?" 
 
 "I hain't a-goin' fur," was the non-committal re 
 sponse. 
 
 "Meybe hit mout be a good idea ter stay round clost 
 fer a spell." The old man made the suggestion casu 
 ally, and the boy replied in the same fashion. 
 
 "I hain't a-goin' ter be outen sight." 
 
 He sauntered down the road, but, when he had passed 
 out of vision, he turned sharply into the woods, and 
 began climbing. His steps carried him to the rift in 
 the ridge where the white oak stood sentinel over the 
 ^atch-tower of rock. As he came over the edge from 
 one side, his bare feet making no sound, he saw Sally 
 sitting there, with her hands resting on the moss and 
 her eyes deeply troubled. She was gazing fixedly ahead, 
 and her lips were trembling. At once Samson's face 
 grew black. Some one had been making Sally unhappy. 
 Then, he saw beyond her a standing figure, which the
 
 56 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 tree trunk had hitherto concealed. It was the loose- 
 knitted figure of young Tamarack Spicer. 
 
 "In course," Spicer was saying, "we don't 'low Sam 
 son shot Jesse Purvy, but them Hollmans '11 'spicion 
 him, an' I heered just now, thet them dawgs was trackin' 
 straight up hyar from the mouth of Misery. They'll 
 git hyar against sundown." 
 
 Samson leaped violently forward. With one hand, 
 he roughly seized his cousin's shoulder, and wheeled him 
 about. 
 
 "Shet up!" he commanded. "What damn fool stuff 
 hev ye been tellin' Sally ?" 
 
 For an instant, the two clansmen stood fronting each 
 other. Samson's face was set and wrathful. Tam 
 arack's was surly and snarling. "Hain't I got a license 
 ter tell Sally the news?" he demanded. 
 
 "Nobody hain't got no license," retorted the younger 
 man in the quiet of cold anger, "ter tell Sally nothin* 
 thet'll fret her." 
 
 "She air bound ter know hit all pretty soon. Them 
 dawgs " 
 
 "Didn't I tell ye ter shet up?" Samson clenched his 
 fists, and took a step forward. "Ef ye opens yore 
 mouth again, I'm a-goin' ter smash hit. Now, git !" 
 
 Tamarack Spicer's face blackened, and his teethj 
 showed. His right hand swept to his left arm-pit. 
 Outwardly he seemed weaponless, but Samson knew that 
 concealed beneath the hickory shirt was a holster, worn 
 mountain fashion. 
 
 "What air ye a-reachin* atter, Tam'rack?" he in 
 quired, his lips twisting in amusement. 
 
 "Thet's my business."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 57 
 
 "Well, get hit out or git out yeself , afore I throws 
 ye offen the clift." 
 
 Sally showed no symptoms of alarm. Her confidence 
 in her hero was absolute. The boy lifted his hand, and 
 pointed off down the path. Slowly and with incoherent 
 muttering, Spicer took himself away. Then only did 
 Sally rise. She came over, and laid a hand on Sam 
 son's shoulder. In her blue eyes, the tears were welling. 
 
 "Samson," she whispered, "ef they're atter ye, come 
 ter my house. I kin hide ye out. Why didn't ye tell 
 me Jesse Purvy'd done been shot?" 
 
 "Hit tain't nothin' ter fret about, Sally," he assured 
 her. He spoke awkwardly, for he had been trained to 
 regard emotion as unmanly. "Thar hain't no danger." 
 
 She gazed searchingly into his eyes, and then, with 
 a short sob, threw her arms around him, and buried her 
 face on his shoulder. 
 
 "Ef anything happens ter ye, Samson," she said, 
 brokenly, "hit'll jest kill me. I couldn't live withouten 
 ye, Samson. I jest couldn't do hit!" 
 
 The boy took her in his arms, and pressed her close. 
 His eyes were gazing off over her bent head, and his 
 lips twitched. He drew his features into a scowl, 
 because that was the only expression with which he could 
 safeguard his feelings. His voice was husky. 
 
 "I reckon, Sally," he said, "I couldn't live withouten 
 you, neither." 
 
 The party of men who had started at morning from 
 Jesse Purvy's store had spent a hard day. The roads 
 followed creek-beds, crossing and recrossing waterways 
 in a fashion that gave the bloodhounds a hundred baf 
 fling difficulties. Often, their noses lost the trail, which
 
 had at first been so surely taken. Often, they circled 
 and whined, and halted in perplexity, but each time they 
 came to a point where, at the end, one of them again 
 raised his muzzle skyward, and gave voice. 
 
 Toward evening, they were working up Misery along 
 a course less broken. The party halted for a moment's 
 rest, and, as the bottle was passed, the man from Lexing 
 ton, who had brought the dogs and stayed to conduct 
 the chase, put a question: 
 
 "What do you call this creek?" 
 
 "Hit's Misery." 
 
 "Does anybody live on Misery that er that you 
 might suspect?" 
 
 The Hollmans laughed. 
 
 "This creek is settled with Souths thicker'n hops." 
 
 The Lexington man looked up. He knew what the 
 name of South meant to a Hollman. 
 
 "Is there any special South, who might have a par 
 ticular grudge?" 
 
 "The Souths don't need no partic'lar grudge, but 
 thar's young Samson South. He's a wildcat." 
 
 "He lives this way?" 
 
 "These dogs air a-makin' a bee-line fer his house." 
 Jim Hollman was speaking. Then he added : "I've done 
 been told that Samson denies doin' the shootin', an' 
 claims he kin prove an alibi." 
 
 The Lexington man lighted his pipe, and poured a 
 drink of red whiskey into a flask cup. 
 
 "He'd be apt to say that," he commented, coolly. 
 "These dogs haven't any prejudice in the matter. I'll 
 stake my life on their telling the truth."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 59 
 
 An hour later, the group halted again. The master 
 of hounds mopped his forehead. 
 
 "Are we still going toward Samson South's house?" 
 he inquired. 
 
 ''We're about a quarter from hit now, an' we hain't 
 never varied from the straight road." 
 '> "Will they be apt to give us trouble?" 
 
 Jim Hollman smiled. 
 
 "I hain't never heered of no South submittin' ter 
 arrest by a Hollman." 
 
 The trailers examined their firearms, and loosened 
 their holster-flaps. The dogs went forward at a trot.
 
 CHAPTER VH 
 
 FROM time to time that day, neighbors had ridden 
 up to Spicer South's stile, and drawn rein for 
 gossip. These men brought bulletins as to the 
 progress of the hounds, and near sundown, as a post 
 script to their information, a volley of gunshot signals 
 sounded from a mountain top. No word was spoken, 
 but in common accord the kinsmen rose from their 
 chairs, and drifted toward their leaning rifles. 
 
 "They're a-comin' hyar," said the head of the house, 
 curtly. "Samson ought ter be home. Whar's Tam'- 
 rack?" 
 
 1 No one had noticed his absence until that moment, 
 nor was he to be found. A few minutes later, Samson's 
 figure swung into sight, and his uncle met him at the 
 fence. 
 
 "Samson, I've done asked ye all the questions I'm 
 a-goin' ter ask ye," he said, "but them dawgs is makin* 
 fer this house. They've jest been sighted a mile below.'* 
 
 Samson nodded. , 
 
 "Now" Spicer South's face hardened "I owns, 
 down thar ter the road. No man kin cross that fence 
 withouten I choose ter give him leave. Ef ye wants 
 ter go indoors an' stay thar, ye kin do hit an' no 
 dawg ner no man hain't a-goin' ter ask ye no questions. 
 But, ef ye sees fit ter face hit out, I'd love ter prove ter 
 these hyar men thet us Souths don't break our word. 
 
 60
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 61 
 
 We done agreed ter this truce. I'd like ter invite 'em 
 in, an' let them damn dawgs sniff round the feet of 
 every man in my house an' then, when they're plumb 
 teetotally damn satisfied, I'd like ter tell 'em all ter 
 go ter hell. Thet's the way I feels, but I'm a-goin' ter 
 do jest what ye says." 
 
 Lescott did not overhear the conversation in full, but 
 he saw the old man's face work with suppressed passion, 
 and he caught Samson's louder reply. 
 
 "When them folks gets hyar, Uncle Spicer, I'm 
 a-goin' ter be a-settin' right out thar in front. I'm 
 plumb willin' ter invite 'em in." Then, the two men 
 turned toward the house. 
 
 Already the other clansmen had disappeared noise 
 lessly through tlhe door or around the angles of the 
 walls. The painter found himself alone in a scene of 
 utter quiet, unmarred by any note that was not peace 
 ful. He had seen many situations charged with sus 
 pense and danger, and he now realized how thoroughly 
 freighted was the atmosphere about Spicer South's 
 cabin with the possibilities of bloodshed. The moments 
 seemed to drag interminably. In the expressionless 
 faces that so quietly vanished; in the absolutely calm 
 and businesslike fashion in which, with no spoken order, 
 every man fell immediately into his place of readiness 
 and concealment, he read an ominous portent that sent 
 a current of apprehension through his arteries. Into 
 his mind flashed all the historical stories he had heard 
 of the vendetta life of these wooded slopes, and he 
 wondered if he was to see another chapter enacted in 
 the next few minutes, while the June sun and soft 
 shadows drowsed so quietly across the valley.
 
 62 THE GALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 While he waited, Spicer South's sister, the prema 
 turely aged crone, appeared in the kitchen door with 
 the clay pipe between her teeth, and raised a shading 
 hand to gaze off up the road. She, too, understood 
 the tenseness of the situation as her grim, but unflinch 
 ing, features showed ; yet even in her feminine eyes was 
 no shrinking and on her face, inured to fear, was no 
 tell-tale signal beyond a heightened pallor. 
 
 Spicer South looked up at her, and jerked his head 
 toward the house. 
 
 "Git inside, M'lindy," he ordered, curtly, and with 
 out a word she, too, turned and disappeared. 
 
 But there was another figure, unseen, its very pres 
 ence unsuspected, watching from near by with a pound 
 ing heart and small fingers clutching in wild terror at 
 a palpitant breast. In this country, where human 
 creatures seemed to share with the "varmints" the 
 faculty of moving unseen and unheard, the figure had 
 come stealthily to watch and pray. 
 
 When Samson had heard that signal of the gunshots 
 from a distant peak, he had risen from the rock where 
 he sat with Sally. He had said nothing of the issue 
 he must go to meet; nothing of the enemies who had 
 brought dogs, confident that they would make their 
 run straight to his lair. That subject had not been 
 mentioned between them since he had driven Tamarack 
 away that afternoon, and reassured her. He had only 
 risen casually, as though his action had no connection 
 with the signal of the rifles, and said: 
 
 "Reckon I'll be a-goin'." 
 
 Ami Sally had said nothing either, except gefed-by, 
 and had turned her face toward her own side of the
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERHANBS 3 
 
 ridge, but, as soon as he had passed out of sight, she had 
 wheeled and followed noiselessly, slipping from rhodo 
 dendron clump to laurel thicket as stealthily as though 
 she were herself the object of an enemy's attack. She 
 knew that Samson would have sent her back, and she 
 knew that a crisis was at hand, and that she could not 
 support the suspense of awaiting the news. She must' 
 see for herself. 
 
 And now, while the stage was setting itself, the girl 
 crouched trembling a little way up the hillside, at the 
 foot of a titanic poplar. About her rose gray, moss- 
 covered rocks and the fronds of clinging ferns. At 
 her feet bloomed wild flowers for which she knew no 
 names except those with which she had herself chris 
 tened them, "sunsetty flowers" whose yellow petals sug 
 gested to her imagination the western skies, and "fairy 
 cups and saucers." 
 
 She was not trembling for herself, though, if a fusil 
 lade broke out below, the masking screen of leafage 
 would not protect her from the pelting of stray bullets. 
 Her small face was pallid, and her blue eyes wide- 
 stretched and terrified. With a catch in her throat, she 
 shifted from her crouching attitude to a kneeling pos 
 ture, and clasped her hands desperately, and raised her 
 face, while her lips moved in prayer. She did not pray 
 aloud, for even in her torment of fear for the boy she 
 loved, her mountain caution made her noiseless and the 
 God to whom she prayed could hear her equally well 
 in silence. 
 
 "Oh, God," pleaded the girl, brokenly, "I reckon ye 
 knows thet them Hollmans is atter Samson, an' I reckons 
 ye knows he hain't committed no sin. I reckon ye
 
 64 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 knows, since ye knows all things, thet hitll kill me ef I 
 loses him, an' though I hain't nobody but jest Sally 
 Miller, an* ye air Almighty God, I wants ye ter hear 
 my prayin', an' pertect him." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, Lescott, standing at the fence, 
 saw a strange cavalcade round the bend of the road. 
 Several travel-stained men were leading mules, and hold 
 ing two tawny and impatient dogs in leash. In their 
 number, the artist recognized his host of two nights ago. 
 
 They halted at a distance, and in their faces the 
 artist read dismay, for, while the dogs were yelping 
 confidently and tugging at their cords, young Samson 
 South who should, by their prejudiced convictions, be 
 hiding out in some secret stronghold sat at the top 
 step of the stile, smoking his pipe, and regarded them 
 with a lack-luster absence of interest. Such a calm 
 reception was uncanny. The trailers felt sure that in 
 a moment more the dogs would fall into accusing excite 
 ment. Logically, these men should be waiting to receive 
 them behind barricaded doors. There must be some 
 hidden significance. Possibly, it was an invitation to 
 walk into ambuscade. No doubt, unseen rifles covered 
 their approach, and the shooting of Purvy was only the 
 inaugural step to a bloody and open outbreak of the 
 'war. After a whispered conference, the Lexington man 
 came forward alone. Old Spicer South had been looking 
 on from the door, and was now strolling out to meet the 
 envoy, unarmed. 
 
 And the envoy, as he came, held his hands unneces 
 sarily far away from his sides, and walked with an osten 
 tatious show of peace.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 65 
 
 "Evenin', stranger," hailed the old man. "Come 
 right in." 
 
 "Mr. South," began the dog-owner, with some embar 
 rassment, "I have been employed to furnish a pair of 
 bloodhounds to the family of Jesse Purvy, who has 
 been shot." . 
 
 "I heerd tell thet Purvy was shot," said t^e head of' 
 the Souths in an affable tone, which betrayed no deeper 
 note of interest than neighborhood gossip might have 
 elicited. 
 
 "I have no personal interest in the matter," went 
 on the stranger, hastily, as one bent on making his 
 attitude clear, "except to supply the dogs and manage 
 them. I do not in any way direct their course ; I merely 
 follow." 
 
 "Ye can't hardly fo'ce a dawg." Old Spicer sagely 
 nodded his head as he made the remark. "A dawg jest 
 natcher'ly follers his own nose." 
 
 "Exactly and they have followed their noses here." 
 The Lexington man found the embarrassment of his 
 position growing as the colloquy proceeded. "I want 
 to ask you whether, if these dogs want to cross your 
 fence, I have your permission to let them?" 
 
 The cabin in the yard was utterly quiet. There was 
 no hint of the seven or eight men who rested on their 
 arms behind its half-open door. The master of the house 
 crossed the stile, the low sun shining on his shock of 
 gray hair, and stood before the man-hunter. He spoke 
 so that his voice carried to the waiting group in the 
 road. 
 
 "Ye're plumb welcome ter turn them dawgs loose, an* 
 let 'em ramble, stranger. Nobody hain't a-goin' ter
 
 66 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 hurt 'em. I sees some fellers out thar with ye thet 
 mustn't cross my fence. Ef they does" the voice rang 
 menacingly "hit'll mean that they're a-bustin' the 
 truce an' they won't never go out ag*in. But you air 
 safe in hyar. I gives yer my hand on thet. Ye're wel 
 come, an' yore dawgs is welcome. I hain't got nothin' 
 'gainst dawgs thet comes on four legs, but I shore bars 
 the two-legged kind." 
 
 There was a murmur of astonishment from the road. 
 Disregarding- \t, Spicer South turned his face toward 
 the house. 
 
 "You boys kin come out," he shouted, "an' leave yore 
 guns inside." 
 
 The leashes were slipped from the dogs. They leaped 
 forward, and wade directly for Samson, who sat as 
 unmoving as a lifeless image on the top step of the 
 stile. Up on the hillside the fingernails of Sally Miller's 
 clenched hands cut into the flesh, and the breath stopped 
 between her parted and bloodless lips. There was a 
 half -moment of terrific suspense, then the beasts clam 
 bered by the seated figure, passing on each side and 
 circled aimlessly about the yard their quest unended. 
 They sniffed indifferently about the trouser legs of the 
 men who sauntered indolently out of the door. They 
 trotted into the house and out again, and mingled with 
 the mongrel home pack that snarled and growled hos 
 tility for this invasion. Then, they came once more to 
 the stile. As they climbed out, Samson South reached up 
 and stroked a tawny head, and the bloodhound paused 
 a moment to wag its tail in friendship, before it jumped 
 down to the road, and trotted gingerly onward.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 67 
 
 "I'm obliged to you, sir," said the man from the 
 Bluegrass, with a voice of immense relief. 
 
 The moment of suspense seemed past, and, in the 
 relief of the averted clash, the master of hounds forgot 
 that his dogs stood branded as false trailers. But, when 
 he rejoined the group in the road, he found himself 
 looking into surly visages, and the features of Jim' 
 Hollman in particular were black in their scowl of 
 smoldering wrath. 
 
 "Why didn't ye axe him," growled the kinsman of the 
 man who had been shot, "whar the other feller's at?" 
 
 "What other fellow?" echoed the Lexington man. 
 
 Jim Hollman's voice rose truculently, and his words 
 drifted, as he meant them to, across to the ears of the 
 clansmen who stood in the yard of Spicer South. 
 
 "Them dawgs of your'n come up Misery a-hellin'. 
 They hain't never turned aside, an', onless they're plumb 
 ornery no-'count curs thet don't know their business, 
 they come for some reason. They seemed mighty inter 
 ested in gittin' hyar. Axe them fellers in thar who's 
 been hyar thet hain't hyar now? Who is ther feller thet 
 got out afore we come hyar." 
 
 At this veiled charge of deceit, the faces of the Souths 
 again blackened, and the men near the door of the 
 house drifted in to drift presently out again, swinging, 
 discarded Winchesters at their sides. It seemed that/ 
 after all, the incident was not closed. The man from 
 Lexington, finding himself face to face with a new diffi 
 culty, turned and argued in a low voice with the Hollman 
 leader. But Jim Hollman, whose eyes were fixed on 
 Samson, refused to talk in a modulated tone, and he 
 shouted his reply :
 
 "I hain't got nothin' ter whisper about," he pro 
 claimed. "Go axe 'em who hit war thet got away from 
 hyar." 
 
 Old Spicer South stood leaning on his fence, aiid his 
 rugged countenance stiffened. He started to speak, 
 but Samson rose from the stile, and said, in a c imposed 
 voice : 
 
 "Let me talk ter this feller, Unc' Spicer." The old 
 man nodded, and Samson beckoned to the owner of the 
 dogs. 
 
 "We hain't got nothin' ter say ter them fellers with 
 ye," he announced, briefly. "We hahVt axin' 'em no 
 questions, an' we hain't answerin' none. Ye done come 
 hyar with dawgs, an' we hain't stopped ye. We've done 
 answered alt the questions them dawgs hes axed. We 
 done treated you an' yore houn's plumb friendly. Es 
 f er them other men, we hain't got nothin' ter say ter 'em. 
 They done come hyar because they hoped they could git 
 me in trouble. They done failed. Thet road belongs ter 
 the county. They got a license ter travel hit, but this 
 strip right hyar hain't ther healthiest section they kin 
 find. I reckon ye'd better advise 'em ter move on." 
 
 The Lexington man went back. For a minute or two, 
 Jim Hollman sat scowling down in indecision from his 
 saddle. Then, he admitted to himself that he had done 
 all he could do without becoming the aggressor. For 
 the moment, he was beaten. He looked up, and from 
 the road one of the hounds raised its voice and gave cry. 
 That baying afforded an excuse for leaving, and Jim 
 Hollman seized upon it. 
 
 "Go on," he growled. "Let's see what them damned 
 curs hes ter say now."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 69 
 
 Mounting, they kicked their mules into a jog. From 
 the men inside the fence came no note of derision; no 
 hint of triumph. They stood looking out with expres 
 sionless, mask-like faces until their enemies had passed 
 out of sight around the shoulder of the mountain. The 
 Souths had met and fronted an accusation made after 
 the enemy's own choice and method. A jury of two 
 hounds had acquitted them. It was not only because 
 the dogs had refused to recognize in Samson a suspicious 
 character that the enemy rode on grudgingly convinced, 
 but, also, because the family, which had invariably met 
 hostility with hostility, had so willingly courted the 
 acid test of guilt or innocence. 
 
 Samson, passing around the corner of the house, 
 caught a flash of red up among the green clumps of the 
 mountainside, and, pausing to gaze at it, saw it disap 
 pear into the thicket of brush. He knew then that 
 Sally had followed him, and why she had done it, and, 
 framing a stern rebuke for the f oolhardiness of the ven 
 ture, he plunged up the acclivity in pursuit. But, as 
 he made his way cautiously, he heard around the shoulder 
 of a mass of piled-up sandstone a shaken sobbing, and, 
 slipping toward it, found the girl bent over with her 
 face in her hands, her slender body convulsively heaving 
 with the weeping of reaction, and murmuring half- 
 incoherent prayers of thanksgiving for his deliverance. 
 
 "Sally!" he exclaimed, hurrying over and dropping 
 to his knees beside her. "Sally, thar hain't nothin' ter 
 fret about, little gal. Hit's all right." 
 
 She started up at the sound of his voice, and then, 
 pillowing her head on his shoulder, wept tears of happi 
 ness. He sought for words, but no words came, and
 
 70 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 his lips and eyes, unused to soft expressions, drew them 
 selves once more into the hard mask with which he 
 screened his heart's moods. 
 
 Days passed uneventfully after that. The kinsmen 
 dispersed to their scattered coves and cabins. Now and 
 again came a rumor that Jesse Purvy was dying, but 
 always hard on its heels came another to the effect that 
 the obdurate fighter had rallied, though the doctors held 
 out small encouragement of recovery. 
 
 One day Lescott, whose bandaged arm gave him much 
 pain, but who was able to get about, was strolling not 
 far from the house with Samson. They were follow 
 ing a narrow trail along the mountainside, and, at a 
 sound no louder than the falling of a walnut, the boy 
 halted and laid a silencing hand on the painter's 
 shoulder. Then followed an unspoken command in his 
 companion's eyes. Lescott sank down behind a rock, 
 cloaked with glistening rhododendron leafage, where 
 Samson had already crouched, and become immovable 
 and noiseless. They had been there only a short time 
 when they saw another figure slipping quietly from 
 tree to tree below them. 
 
 For a time, the mountain boy watched the figure, 
 and che painter saw his lips draw into a straight line, 
 and his eyes narrow with a glint of tense hate. Yet, a 
 moment later, with a nod to follow, the boy unex 
 pectedly rose into view, and his features were absolutely 
 expressionless. 
 
 "Mornin', Jim," he called. 
 
 The slinking stranger whirled with a start, and an 
 instinctive motion as though to bring his rifle to his
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 71 
 
 shoulder. But, seeing Samson's peaceable manner, he 
 smiled, and his own demeanor became friendly. 
 
 "Mornin'j Samson." 
 
 "Kinder stranger in this country, hain't ye, Jim?" 
 drawled the boy who lived there, and the question 
 brought a sullen flush to the other's cheekbones. 
 
 "Jest a-passin' through," he vouchsafed. 
 
 "I reckon ye'd find the wagon road more handy," 
 suggested Samson. "Some folks might 'spicion ye fer 
 stealin' long through the timber." 
 
 The skulking traveler decided to lie plausibly. He 
 laughed mendaciously. "That's the reason, Samson. 
 I was kinder skeered ter go through this country in 
 the open." 
 
 Samson met his eye steadily, and said slowly: 
 
 "I reckon, Jim, hit moughtn't be half es risky fer ye 
 ter walk upstandin' along Misery, es ter go a-crouchin'. 
 Ye thinks ye've been a shadderin' me. I knows jest 
 whar ye've been all the time. Ye lies when ye talks 
 'bout passin' through. Ye've done been spyin' hyar, 
 ever since Jesse Purvy got shot, an' all thet time ye've 
 done been watched yeself. I reckon hit'll be healthier 
 fer ye ter do yore spyin' from t'other side of the ridge. 
 I reckon yer allowin' ter git me ef Purvy dies, but we're 
 twatchin' ye." 
 
 Jim Asberry's face darkened, but he said nothing. 
 There was nothing to say. He was discovered in the 
 enemy's country, and must accept the enemy's terms. 
 
 "This hyar time, I lets ye go back," said Samson, 
 "fer the reason thet I'm tryin' like all hell ter keep this 
 truce. But ye must stay on yore side, or else ride the 
 roads open. How is Purvy terday?"
 
 it, THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 ) "He's mighty porely," replied the other, in a sullen 
 voice. 
 
 "All right. Thet's another reason why hit hain't 
 healthy fer ye over hyar." 
 
 The spy turned, and made his way over the mountain. 
 
 "Damn him!" muttered Samson, his face twitching, 
 as the other was lost in the undergrowth. "Some day 
 I'm a-goin' ter git him." 
 
 Tamarack Spicer did not at once reappear, and, 
 when one of the Souths met another in the road, the 
 customary dialogue would be: "Heered anything of 
 Tamarack?" . . . "No, hev you?" . . . "No, 
 nary a word." 
 
 As Lescott wandered through the hills, his unhurt 
 right hand began crying out for action and a brush 
 to nurse. As he watched, day after day, the unveiling 
 of the monumental hills, and Ihe transitions from hazy 
 wraith-like whispers of hues, to strong, flaring riot of 
 color, this fret of restlessness became actual pain. He 
 was wasting wonderful opportunity and the creative 
 instinct in him was clamoring. 
 
 One morning, when he came out just after sunrise to 
 the tin wash basin at the well, the desire to paint was 
 on him with compelling force. The hills ended near 
 their bases like things bitten off. Beyond lay limitless 
 streamers of mist, but, while he stood at gaze, the filmy 
 veil began to lift and float higher. Trees and moun 
 tains grew taller. The sun, which showed first as a 
 ghost-like disc of polished aluminum, struggled through 
 orange and vermilion into a sphere of living flame. It 
 was as though the Creator were breathing on a formless 
 void to kindle it into a vital and splendid cosmos, and
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 7S 
 
 between the dawn's fog and the radiance of full 
 lay a dozen miracles. Through rifts in the streamers, 
 patches of hillside and sky showed for an ethereal 
 moment or two in tender and transparent coloration, 
 like spirit-reflections of emerald and sapphire. . . . 
 iLescott heard a voice at his side. 
 
 "When does ye 'low ter commence paintin'?" 
 
 It was Samson. For answer, the artist, with his 
 unhurt hand, impatiently tapped his bandaged wrist. 
 
 "Ye still got yore right hand, hain't ye?" demanded 
 the boy. The other laughed. It was a typical ques 
 tion. So long as one had the trigger finger left, one 
 should not admit disqualification. 
 
 "You see, Samson,' he explained, "this isn't precisely 
 like handling a gun. One must hold the palette; mix 
 the colors ; wipe the brushes and do half a dozen equally 
 necessary things. It requires at least two perfectly 
 good hands. Many people don't find two enough. 5 ' 
 
 "But hit only takes one ter do the paintin', don't hit?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well" the boy spoke diffidently but with enthu 
 siasm "between the two of us, we've got three hands. 
 I reckon ye kin lam me how ter do them other things 
 fer ye." 
 
 Lescott's surprise showed in his face, and the lad 
 swept eagerly on. 
 
 "Mebby hit hain't none of my business, but, all day 
 yestiddy an' the day befo', I was a-studyin' 'bout this 
 here thing, an' I hustled up an' got thet corn weeded, 
 an' now I'm through. Ef I kin help ye out, I thought 
 mebby " He paused, and looked appealingly at the 
 artist.
 
 74 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Lescott whistled, and then his face lighted into con 
 tentment. 
 
 "To-day, Samson," he announced, "Lescott, South 
 and Company get busy." 
 
 It was the first time he had seen Samson smile, and, 
 although the expression was one of sheer delight, in 
 herent somberness loaned it a touch of the wistful. 
 
 When, an hour later, the two set out, the mountain 
 boy carried the paraphernalia, and the old man stand 
 ing at the door watched them off with a half-quizzical, 
 half -disapproving glance. To interfere with any act 
 of courtesy to a guest was not to be thought of, but 
 already the influence en Samson of this man from the 
 other world was disquieting his uncle's thoughts. With 
 his mother's milk, the boy had fed on hatred of his 
 enemies. With his training, he had been reared to 
 feudal animosities. Disaffection might ruin his useful 
 ness. Besides the sketching outfit, Samson carried his 
 rifle. He led the painter by slow stages, since the 
 climb proved hard for a man still somewhat enfeebled, 
 to the high rock which Sally visited each morning. 
 
 As the boy, with remarkable aptitude, learned how 
 to adjust the easel and arrange the paraphernalia, 
 Lescott sat drinking in through thirsty eyes the stretch 
 of landscape he had determined to paint. 
 
 It was his custom to look long and studiously through 
 closed lashes before he took up his brush. After that 
 he began laying in his key tones and his fundamental 
 sketching with an incredible swiftness, having already 
 Delved his problems of composition and analysis. 
 
 Then, while he painted, the boy held the palette, his 
 eyes riveted on the canvas, which was growing from a
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 75 
 
 blank to a mirror of vistas and the boy's pupils be 
 came deeply hungry. He was not only looking. He 
 was seeing. His gaze took in the way the fingers held 
 the brushes ; the manner of mixing the pigments, the 
 detail of method. Sometimes, when he saw a brush 
 v dab into a color whose use he did not at once under- 
 ;Stand, he would catch his breath anxiously, then nod 
 silently to himself as the blending vindicated the choice. 
 He did not know it, but his eye for color was as 
 instinctively true as that of the master. 
 
 As the day wore on, they fell to talking, and the 
 boy again found himself speaking of his fettered rest- 
 iveness in the confinement of his life ; of the wanderlust 
 which stirred him, and of which he had been taught to 
 feel ashamed. 
 
 During one of their periods of rest, there was a 
 rustle in the branches of a hickory, and a gray shape 
 flirted a bushy tail. Samson's hand slipped silently 
 out, and the rifle came to his shoulder. In a moment 
 it snapped, and a squirrel dropped through the leaves. 
 
 "Jove!" exclaimed Lescott, admiringly. "That was 
 neat work. He was partly behind the limb at a hun 
 dred yards." 
 
 "Hit warn't nothin'," said Samson, modestly. "Hit's 
 '.a good gun." He brought back his quarry, and affec 
 tionately picked up the rifle. It was a repeating Win 
 chester, carrying a long steel- jacketed bullet of special 
 caliber, but it was of a pattern fifteen years old, and 
 fitted with target sights. 
 
 "That gun," Samson explained, in a lowered and rev 
 erent voice, "was my pap's. I reckon there hain't 
 enough money in the world ter buy hit offen me.,"
 
 76 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Slowly, in a matter-of-fact tone, he began a story 
 without decoration of verbiage straightforward and 
 tense in its simplicity. As the painter listened, he be 
 gan to understand; the gall that had crept into this 
 lad's blood before his weaning became comprehensible. 
 . . . Killing Hollmans was not murder. ... It 
 was duty. He seemed to see the smoke-blackened cabin 
 and the mother of the boy sitting, with drawn face, in 
 dread of the hours. He felt the racking nerve-tension 
 of a life in which the father went forth each day leaving 
 his family in fear that he would not return. Then, 
 under the spell of the unvarnished recital, he seemed to 
 witness the crisis when the man, who had dared repu 
 diate the lawless law of individual reprisal, paid the 
 price of his insurgency. 
 
 A solitary friend had come in advance to break the 
 news. His face, when he awkwardly commenced to 
 speak, made it unnecessary to put the story into words. 
 Samson told how his mother had turned pallid, and 
 stretched out her arm gropingly for support against 
 the door-jamb. Then the man had found his voice with 
 clumsy directness. 
 
 "They've got him." 
 
 The small boy had reached her in time tc break her 
 fall as she fainted, but, later, when they brought in 
 the limp, unconscious man, she was awaiting them with 
 regained composure. An expression came to her face 
 at that moment, said the lad, which had never left it 
 during the remaining two years of her life. For some 
 hours, "old" Henry South, who in a less-wasting life 
 would hardly have been middle-aged, had lingered. They 
 were hours of conscious suffering, with no power to
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 77 
 
 speak, but before he died he had beckoned his ten-year- 
 old son to his bedside, and laid a hand on the dark, 
 rumpled hair. The boy bent forward, his eyes tortured 
 and tearless, and his little lips tight pressed. The 
 old man patted the head, and made a feeble gesture 
 toward the mother who was to be widowed. Samson 
 had nodded. 
 
 "I'll take keer of her, pap," he had fervently sworn. 
 
 Then, Henry South had lifted a tremulous finger, 
 and pointed to the wall above the hearth. There, upon 
 a set of buck-antlers, hung the Winchester rifle. And, 
 again, Samson had nodded, but this time he did not 
 speak. That moment was to his mind the most sacred 
 of his life ; it had been a dedication to a purpose. The 
 arms of the father had then and there been bequeathed 
 to the son, and with the arms a mission for their use. 
 After a brief pause, Samson told of the funeral. He 
 had a remarkable way of visualizing in rough speech 
 the desolate picture ; the wailing mourners on the bleak 
 hillside, with the November clouds hanging low and trail 
 ing their wet streamers. A "jolt-wagon" had carried 
 the coffin in lieu of a hearse. Saddled mules stood 
 tethered against the picket fence. The dogs that had 
 followed their masters started a rabbit close by the 
 open grave, and split the silence with their yelps as 
 the first clod fell. He recalled, too, the bitter voice 
 with which his mother had spoken to a kinsman as she 
 turned from the ragged burying ground, where only 
 the forlorn cedars were green. She was leaning on the 
 boy's thin shoulders at the moment. He had felt her 
 arm stiffen with her words, and, as her arm stiffened, 
 his own positive nature stiffened with it.
 
 78 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Henry believed in law and order. I did, too. But 
 they wouldn't let us have it that way. From this day 
 on, I'm a-goin' to raise my boy to kill Hollmans."
 
 WITH his father's death Samson's schooling. had 
 ended. His responsibility now was farm 
 work and the roughly tender solicitude of a 
 young stoic for his mother. His evenings before the 
 broad fireplace he gave up to a devouring sort of study, 
 but his books were few. 
 
 When, two years later, he laid the body of the Widow 
 South beside that of his father in the ragged hillside 
 burying-ground, he turned his nag's head away from 
 the cabin where he had been born, and rode over to 
 make his home at his Uncle Spicer's place. He had, 
 in mountain parlance, "heired" a farm of four hundred 
 acres, but a boy of twelve can hardly operate a farm, 
 even if he be so stalwart a boy as Samson. His Uncle 
 Spicer wanted him, and he went, and the head of the 
 family took charge of his property as guardian ; placed 
 a kinsman there to till it, on shares, and faithfully 
 set aside for the boy what revenue came from the 
 stony acres. He knew that they would be rich acres 
 when men began to dig deeper than the hoe could 
 scratch, and opened the veins where the coal slept its 
 unstirring sleep. The old man had not set such store 
 by learning as had Samson's father, and the little 
 shaver's education ended, except for what he could wrest 
 from stinted sources and without aid. His mission of 
 "killing Hollmans" was not forgotten. There had 
 
 79
 
 years ago been one general battle at a primary, when 
 the two factions fought for the control that would 
 insure the victors safety against "law trouble," and 
 put into their hands the weapons of the courts. 
 
 Samson was far too young to vote, but he was old 
 i enough to fight, and the account he had given of him- 
 .self, with the inherited rifle smoking, gave augury of 
 fighting effectiveness. So sanguinary had been this 
 fight, and so dangerously had it focused upon the war 
 ring clans the attention of the outside world, that after 
 its indecisive termination, they made the compact of 
 the present truce. By its terms, the Hollmans held 
 their civil authority, and the Souths were to be undis 
 turbed dictators beyond Misery. For some years now, 
 the peace had been unbroken save by sporadic assassina 
 tions, none of which could be specifically enough charged 
 to the feud account to warrant either side in regarding 
 the contract as broken. Samson, being a child, had 
 been forced to accept the terms of this peace bondage. 
 The day would come when the Souths could agree to 
 no truce without his consent. Such was, in brief, the 
 story that the artist heard while he painted and rested 
 that day on the rock. Had he heard it in New York, 
 he would have discounted it as improbable and melo 
 dramatic. Now, he knew that it was only one of many 
 such chapters in the history of the Cumberlands. The 
 native point of view even became in a degree acceptable. 
 In a system of trial by juries from the vicinage, fair 
 and bold prosecutions for crime were impossible, and 
 such as pretended to be so were bitterly tragic farces. 
 He understood why the families of murdered fathers 
 and brothers preferred to leave the punishment to
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 81 
 
 their kinsmen in the laurel, rather than to their enemies 
 in the jury-box. 
 
 The day of painting was followed by others like it. 
 The disabling of Lescott's left hand made the constant 
 companionship of the boy a matter that needed no ex 
 planation or apology, though not a matter of approval 
 to his uncle. 
 
 Another week had passed without the reappearance of 
 Tamarack Spicer. 
 
 One afternoon, Lescott and Samson were alone on a 
 cliff-protected shelf, and the painter had just blocked 
 in with umber and neutral tint the crude sketch of his 
 next picture. In the foreground was a steep wall, rising 
 palisade-like from the water below. A kingly spruce- 
 pine gave the near note for a perspective which went 
 away across a valley of cornfields to heaping and distant 
 mountains. Beyond that range, in a slender ribbon of 
 pale purple, one saw the ridge of a more remote and 
 mightier chain. 
 
 The two men had lost an hour huddled under a canopy 
 beneath the cannonading of a sudden storm. They had 
 silently watched titanic battallions of thunder-clouds 
 riding the skies in gusty puffs of gale, and raking the 
 earth with lightning and hail and water. The crags 
 had roared back echoing defiance, and the great trees 
 had lashed and bent and tossed like weeds in the buf 
 feting. Every gully had become a stream, and every 
 gulch-rock a waterfall. Here and there had been a 
 crashing of spent timber, and now the sun had burst 
 through a rift in the west, and flooded a segment of 
 the horizon with a strange, luminous field of lemon. 
 About this zone of clarity were heaped masses of
 
 gold-rimmed and rose-edged clouds, still inky at their 
 centers. 
 
 "My Gd!" exclaimed the mountain boy abruptly. 
 "I'd give 'most anything ef I could paint that." 
 
 Lescott rose smilingly from his seat before the easel, 
 and surrendered his palette and sheaf of brushes. 
 
 "Try it," he invited. 
 
 For a moment, Samson stood hesitant and overcome 
 with diffidence; then, with set lips, he took his place, 
 and experimentally fitted his fingers about a brush, as 
 he had seen Lescott do. He asked no advice. He merely 
 gazed for awhile, and then, dipping a brush and experi 
 menting for his color, went to sweeping in his primary 
 tones. 
 
 The painter stood at his back, still smiling. Of 
 course, the bmsk-troke was that of the novice. Of 
 course, the work was clumsy and heavy. But what 
 Lescott noticed was not so much the things that went 
 on canvas as the mixing of colors on the palette, for 
 he knew that the palette is the painter's heart, and its 
 colors are the elements of his soul. What a man paints 
 on canvas is the sum of his acquirement ; but the celers 
 he mixes are the declarations of what his soul can see, 
 and no man can paint whose eyes are not touched with 
 the sublime. At that moment, Lescott knew that Sam 
 son had such eyes. 
 
 The splashes of lemon yellow that the boy daubed 
 above the hills might have been painted with a brush 
 dipped in the sunset. The heavy clouds with their gos 
 samer edgings had truth of tone and color. Then the 
 experimenter came to the purple rim of mountain tops.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 83 
 
 There was no color for that on the palette, and he 
 turned to the paint-box. 
 
 "Here," suggested Lescott, handing him a tube of 
 Payne's Gray : "is that what you're looking for ?" 
 
 Samsn read the label, and decisively shook his head. 
 
 "I'm a-goin' atter them hills," he declared. "There 
 hain't no gray in them thar mountings." f 
 
 "Squeeze seme out, anyway." The artist suited the 
 action to the word, and soon Samson was experimenting 
 with a mixture. 
 
 "Why, that hain't no gray," he announced, with en 
 thusiasm; "that thar's sort of ashy purple." Still, he 
 was not satisfied. His first brush-stroke showed a trifle 
 dead and heavy. It lacked the soft lucid quality that 
 the hills held, though it was close enough to truth to 
 have satisfied any eye save one of uncompromising 
 sincerity. Samson, even though he was hopelessly daub 
 ing, and knew it, was sincere, and the painter at his 
 elbow caught his breath, and looked on with the absorp 
 tion of a prophet, who, listening to childish prattle, yet 
 recognizes the gift of prophecy. The boy dabbled for 
 a perplexed moment among the pigments, then lightened 
 up his color with a trace of ultramarine. Uncon 
 sciously, the master heaved a sigh of satisfaction. The 
 boy "laid in" his far hills, and turned. 
 
 "Thet's the way hit looks ter me/' he said, simply. 
 
 "That's the way it is," commended his critic. 
 
 For a while more, Samson worked at the nearer hills, 
 then he rose. 
 
 "I'm dene," he said. "I fcain't a-goin' ter fool with 
 them thar trees an' thing's. I dont know nothing erbout 
 thet. I can't paint leaves an' twigs an' biretsnests.
 
 84 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 What I likes is mountings, an* skies, an' secht-like 
 things." 
 
 Lescott looked at the daub before him. A less- 
 trained eye would have seen only the daub, just as a 
 poor judge of horse-flesh might see only awkward joints 
 and long legs in a weanling colt, though it be bred in 
 the purple. 
 
 "Samson," he said, earnestly, "that's all there is to 
 art. It's the power to feel the poetry of color. The 
 rest can be taught. The genius must work, of course 
 work, work, work, and still work, but the Gift is the 
 power of seeing true and, by God, boy, you have it." 
 
 His words rang exultantly. 
 
 "Anybody with eyes kin see," deprecated Samson, 
 wiping his fingers on his jeans trousers. 
 
 "You think so? To the seer who reads the passing 
 shapes in a globe of crystal, it's plain enough. To any 
 other eye, there is nothing there but transparency." 
 Lescott halted, conscious that he was falling into meta 
 phor which his companion could not understand, then 
 more quietly he went on : "I don't know how you would 
 progress, Samson, in detail and technique, but I know 
 you've got what many men have struggled a lifetime 
 for, and failed. I'd like to have you study with me. 
 I'd like to be your discoverer. Look here." 
 
 The painter sat down, and speedily went to work. He 
 painted out nothing. He simply toned, and, with pre 
 cisely the right touch here and there, softened the crude- 
 ness, laid stress on the contrast, melted the harshness, 
 and, when he rose, he had built, upon the rough corner 
 stone of Samson's Ikying, a picture. 
 
 "That proves it," he said. "I had only to finish. I
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 85 
 
 didn't have to undo. Boy, you're wasting yourself. 
 
 Come with me, and let me make you. We all pretend 
 
 there is no such thing, in these days, as sheer genius ; 
 
 but, deep down, we know that, unless there is, there can 
 
 be no such thing as true art. There is genius and you 
 
 t 'have it." Enthusiasm was again sweeping him into an 
 
 f unintended outburst. 
 
 The boy stood silent. Across his countenance swept 
 a conflict of emotions. He looked away, as if taking 
 counsel with the hills. 
 
 "It's what I'm a-honin' fer," he admitted at last. 
 "Hit's what I'd give half my life fer. ... I mout 
 sell my land, an' raise the money. ... I reckon hit 
 would take passels of money, wouldn't hit?" He paused, 
 and his eyes fell on the rifle leaning against the tree. 
 His lips tightened in sudden remembrance. He went 
 over and picked up the gun, and, as he did so, he shook 
 his head. 
 
 "No," he stolidly declared; "every man to his own 
 tools. This here's mine." 
 
 Yet, when they were again out sketching, the tempta 
 tion to play with brushes once more seized him, and he 
 took his place before the easel. Neither he nor Lescott 
 noticed a man who crept down through the timber, and 
 for a time watched them. The man's face wore a surly, 
 contemptuous grin, and shortly it withdrew. 
 
 But, an hour later, while the boy was still working 
 industriously and the artist was lying on his back, with 
 a pipe between his teeth, and his half-closed eyes gazing 
 up contentedly through the green of overhead branches, 
 their peace was broken by a guffaw of derisive laughter. 
 They looked up, to find at their backs a semi-circle of
 
 86 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 % 
 scoffing humanity. Lescott's impulse was to laugh, for 
 
 only the comedy of the situation at the moment struck 
 him. A stage director, setting a comedy scene with that 
 most ancient of jests, the gawking of boobs at seme 
 new sight, could hardly have improved on this tableau. 
 At the front stood Tamarack Spicer, the returned 
 wanderer. His lean wrist was stretched out of a ragged 
 sleeve all too short, and his tattered "jimmy" was shoved 
 back over a face all a-grin. His eyes were blood-shot 
 with recent drinking, but his manner was in exaggerated 
 and cumbersome imitation of a rural master of cere 
 monies. At his back were the raw-boned men and women 
 and children of the hills, to the number of a dozen. To 
 the front shuffled an old, half-witted hag, with thin gray 
 hair and pendulous lower lip. Her dress was patched 
 and colorless. Her back was bent with age and 
 rheumatism. Her feet were incased in a pair of man's 
 brogans. She stared and snickered, and several chil 
 dren, taking the cue, giggled, but the men, save 
 Tamarack himself, wore troubled faces, as though 
 recognizing that their future chieftain had been dis 
 covered in some secret shame. They were looking on 
 their idol's feet of clay. 
 
 "Ladies and gentle-m^w-," announced Tamarack 
 Spicer, in a hiccoughy voice, "swing yo' partners an' 
 sashay forward. See the only son of the late Henry 
 South engaged in his mar-ve-lous an' heretofere undis 
 covered occupation of doin' fancy work. Ladies and 
 gentle-m<r, after this here show is conclooded, keep 
 your seats for the concert in the main tent. This here 
 famous performer will favor ye with a little exhibition 
 of plain an* fancy sock-darnin'."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBEHLANDS 87 
 
 The children snickered again. The old woman 
 shuffled forward. 
 
 "Samson," she quavered, "I didn't never 'low ter see 
 ye doin' no sich woman's work as thet." 
 
 After the first surprise, Samson had turned his back 
 on the group. He was mixing paint at the time and 
 he proceeded to experiment with a fleeting cloud effect, 
 which would not outlast the moment. He finished that, 
 and, reaching for the palette-knife, scraped his fingers 
 and wiped them on his trousers' legs. Then, he 
 deliberately rose. 
 
 Without a word he turned. Tamarack had begun 
 his harangue afresh. The boy tossed back the long lock 
 from his forehead, and then, with an unexpectedly swift 
 movement, crouched and leaped. His right fist shot for 
 ward to Tamarack Spicer's chattering lips, and they 
 abruptly ceased to chatter as the teeth were driven into 
 their flesh. Spicer's head snapped back, and he stag 
 gered against the onlookers, where he stood rocking 
 on his unsteady legs. His hand swept instinctively to 
 the shirt-concealed holster, but, before it had connected, 
 both f Samson's fists were playing a terrific tattoo en 
 iiis face. The inglorious master of the show dropped, 
 and lay grcggily trying to rise. 
 
 The laughter died as suddenly as Tamarack's speech. 
 Samson stepped back again, and searched the faces of 
 the group for any lingering sign of mirth or criticism. 
 There was none. Every countenance was sober and 
 expressionless, but the boy felt a weight of unuttered 
 disapproval, and he glared defiance. One of the older 
 onlookers spoke up reproachfully.
 
 88 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Samson, ye hadn't hardly ought ter a-done that. 
 He was jest a funnin' with ye." 
 
 "Git him up on his feet. I've got somethin' ter say 
 ter him." The boy's voice was dangerously quiet. It 
 was his first word. They lifted the fallen cousin, whose 
 entertainment had gone astray, and led him forward 
 grumbling, threatening and sputtering, but evincing no 
 immediate desire to renew hostilities. 
 
 "Whar hev ye been?" demanded Samson. 
 
 "Thet's my business," came the familiar mountain 
 phrase. 
 
 "Why wasn't yer hyar when them dawgs come by? 
 Why was ye the only South thet runned away, when 
 they was smellin* round f er Jesse Purvy's assassin ?" 
 
 "I didn't run away." Tamarack's blood-shot eyes 
 flared wickedly. "I knowed thet ef I stayed 'round 
 hyar with them damned Hollmans stickin' their noses 
 inter our business, I'd hurt somebody. So, I went over 
 inter the next county fer a spell. You fellers mout be 
 able to take things offen the Hollmans, but I hain't." 
 
 "Thet's a damned lie," said Samson, quietly. "Ye 
 runned away, an' ye runned in the water so them dawgs 
 couldn't trail ye ye done hit because ye shot them 
 shoots at Jesse Purvy from the laurel because ye're 
 a truce-bustin', murderin' bully thet shoots off his face, 
 an* is skeered to fight." Samson paused for breath, 
 and went on with regained calmness. "I've knowed all 
 along ye was the man, an' I've kept quiet because ye're 
 my kin. If ye've got anything else ter say, say hit. 
 But, ef I ever ketches yer talkin' about me, or talkin* 
 ter Sally, I'm a-goin' ter take ye by the scruff of the 
 neck, an' drag ye plumb inter Hixon, an' stick ye in
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 89 
 
 the j ail-house. An' I'm a-goin' ter tell the High Sheriff 
 that the Souths spits ye outen their mouths. Take him 
 away." The crowd turned and left the place. When 
 they were gone, Samson seated himself at his easel again, 
 
 and picked up his palette. 
 *
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 LESCOTT had come to the mountains anticipating! 
 a visit of two weeks. His accident had resolved 
 him to shorten it to the nearest day upon which 
 he felt capable of making the trip out to the railroad. 
 Yet, June had ended; July had burned the slopes from 
 emerald to russet-green; August had brought purple 
 tops to the ironweed, and still he found himself linger 
 ing. And this was true although he recognized a grow 
 ing sentiment of disapproval for himself. He knew 
 indubitably that he stood charged with the offense for 
 which Socrates was invited to drink the hemlock: "cor 
 rupting the morals of the youth, and teaching strange 
 gods." Feeling the virtue of his teaching, he was 
 unwilling as Socrates to abandon the field. In Sam 
 son he thought he recognized twin gifts : a spark of a 
 genius too rare to be allowed to flicker out, and a 
 potentiality for constructive work among his own 
 people, which needed for its perfecting only education 
 and experience. Having aroused a soul's restiveness in 
 the boy, he felt a direct responsibility for it and him, 
 to which he added a deep personal regard. Though the 
 kinsmen looked upon him as an undesirable citizen, 
 bringing teachings which they despised, the hospitality 
 of old Spicer South continued unbroken and a guarantee 
 of security on Misery. 
 
 "Samson," he suggested one day when they were 
 
 90
 
 alone, "I want you to come East. You say that gun 
 is your tool, and that each man must stick to his own. 
 You are in part right, in part wrong. A man uses any 
 tool better for understanding other tools. You have 
 the right to use your brains and talents to the full." 
 
 The boy's face was somber in the intensity of his 
 | mental struggle, and his answer had that sullen ring 
 which was not really sullenness at all, but self-repression. 
 
 "I reckon a feller's biggest right is to stand by his 
 kinfolks. Unc' Spicer's gittin' old. He's done been 
 good ter me. He needs me here." 
 
 "I appreciate that. He will be older later. You can 
 go now, and come back to him when he needs you more. 
 If what I urged meant disloyalty to your people, I 
 would cut out my tongue before I argued for it. You 
 must believe me in that. I want you to be in the fullest 
 sense your people's leader. I want you to be not only 
 their Samson but their Moses." 
 
 The boy looked up and nodded. The mountaineer is 
 not given to demonstration. He rarely shakes hands, 
 and he does not indulge in superlatives of affection. He 
 loved and admired this man from the outside world, 
 who seemed to him to epitomize wisdom, but* his code 
 did not permit him to say so. 
 
 i "I reckon ye aims ter be friendly, all right," was his 
 conservative response. 
 
 The painter went on earnestly: 
 
 "I realize that I am urging things of which your 
 people disapprove, but it is only because they misunder 
 stand that they do disapprove. They are toe close, 
 Samson, to see the purple that mountains have when 
 they are far away. I want you te go where you can see
 
 92 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 the purple. If you are the sort of man I think, you 
 won't be beguiled. You won't lose your loyalty. You 
 won't be ashamed of your people." 
 
 "I reckon I wouldn't be ashamed," said the youth. 
 "I reckon there hain't no better folks nowhar." 
 
 "I'm sure of it. There are going to be sweeping 
 changes in these mountains. Conditions here have stood 
 as immutably changeless as the hills themselves for a 
 hundred years. That day is at its twilight. I tell you, 
 I know what I'm talking about. The State of Ken 
 tucky is looking this way. The State must develop, 
 and it is here alone that it can develop. In the Blue- 
 grass, the possibilities for change are exhausted. Their 
 fields lie fallow, their woodlands are being stripped. 
 Tobacco has tainted the land. It has shouldered out 
 the timber, and is turning forest to prairie. A land of 
 fertile loam is vying with cheap soil that can send 
 almost equal crops to market. There is no more timber 
 to be cut, and when the timber goes the climate changes. 
 In these hills lie the sleeping sources of wealth. Here 
 are virgin forests and almost inexhaustible coal veins. 
 Capital is turning from an orange squeezed dry, and 
 casting about for fresher food. Capital has seen your 
 hills. Capital is inevitable, relentless, omnipotent. 
 Where it comes, it makes its laws. Conditions that have 
 existed undisturbed will vanish. The law of the feud, 
 which militia and courts have not been able to abate, 
 will vanish before Capital's breath like the mists when 
 the sun strikes them. Unless you learn to ride the 
 waves which will presently sweep over your country, 
 you and your people will go under. You may not 
 realize it, but that is true. It is written."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 93 
 
 The boy had listened intently, but at the end he 
 smiled, and in his expression was something of the 
 soldier who scents battle, not without welcome. 
 
 "I reckon if these here fellers air a-comin' up here ter 
 run things, an' drownd out my folks, hit's a right good 
 reason fer me ter stay here an' holp my folks." 
 
 "By staying here, you can't help them. It won't be> 
 work for guns, but for brains. By going away and 
 coming back armed with knowledge, you can save them. 
 You will knoAV how to play the game." 
 
 "I reckon they won't git our land, ner our timber, 
 ner our coal, without we wants ter sell hit. I reckon ef 
 Ihey tries thet, guns will come in handy. Things has 
 stood here like they is now, fer a hundred years. I 
 reckon we kin keep 'em that-away fer a spell longer." 
 But it was evident that Samson was arguing against his 
 own belief ; that he was trying to bolster up his resolu 
 tion and impeached loyalty, and that at heart he was 
 sick to be up and going to a world which did not despise 
 "eddication." After a little, he waved his hand vaguely 
 toward "down below." 
 
 "Ef I went down thar," he questioned suddenly and 
 irrelevantly, "would I hev' ter cut my ha'r ?" 
 
 "My dear boy," laughed Lescott, "I can introduce 
 you in New York studios to many distinguished gentle-j 
 men who would feel that their heads had been shorn if 
 they let their locks get as short as yours. In New 
 York, you might stroll along Broadway garbed in tur 
 ban and a burnouse without greatly exciting anybody. 
 I think my own hair is as long as yours." 
 
 "Because," doggedly declared the mountaineer, "I 
 wouldn't allow nobody ter make me cut my ha'r."
 
 94 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Why?" questioned Lescott, amused at the stubborn 
 inflection. 
 
 "I don't hardly know why " He paused, then ad 
 mitted with a glare as though defying criticism : "Sally 
 likes hit that-away an' I won't let nobody dictate ter 
 me, that's all." 
 
 The leaven was working, and one night Samson 
 announced to his Uncle from the doorstep that he was 
 "studyin* erbout goin' away fer a spell, an' seein' the 
 world." 
 
 The old man laid down his pipe. He cast a reproach 
 ful glance at the painter, which said cltarly, though 
 without words: 
 
 "I have opened my home to you and offered you what 
 I had, yet in my old age you take away my mainstay." 
 For a time, he sat silent, but his shoulders hunched for 
 ward with a sag which they had not held a moment 
 before. His seamed face appeared to age visibly and 
 in the moment. He ran one bony hand through his gray 
 mane of hair. 
 
 "I 'lowed you was a-studyin' erbout thet, Samson," 
 he said, at last. "I've done ther best fer ye I knowed. 
 I kinder 'lowed thet from now on ye'd do the same fer 
 me. I'm gittin' along in years right smart. . . ." 
 * "Uncle Spicer," interrupted the boy, "I reckon ye 
 knows thet any time ye needed me I'd come back." 
 
 The old man's face hardened. 
 
 "Ef ye goes," he said, almost sharply, "I won't never 
 send fer ye. Any time ye ever wants ter come back, ye 
 knows ther way. Thar'll be room an' victuals fer ye 
 hyar."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 9* 
 
 "I reckon I mout be a heap more useful ef I knowed 
 more." 
 
 "I've heered fellers say that afore. Hit hain't never 
 turned out thet way with them what has left the mount 
 ings. Mebby they gets more useful, but they don't git 
 useful ter us. Either they don't come back at all, or 
 mebby they comes back full of newfangled notions an' 
 ashamed of their kinfolks. Thet's the way, I've noticed, 
 hit gen'ally turns out." 
 
 Samson scorned to deny that such might be the case 
 with him, and was silent. After a time, the old man 
 went on again in a weary voice, as he bent down to 
 loosen his brogans and kick them noisily off on to the 
 floor: 
 
 "The Souths hev done looked to ye a good deal, Sam 
 son. They 'lowed they could depend on ye. Ye hain't 
 quite twenty-one yet, an' I reckon I could refuse ter let 
 ye sell yer prop'ty. But thar hain't no uso tryin' ter 
 hold a feller when he wants ter quit. Ye don't 'low ter 
 go right away, do ye?" 
 
 "I hain't plumb made up my mind ter go at all," said 
 the boy, shamefacedly. "But, ef I does go, I hain't 
 a-goin' yit. I hain't spoke ter nobody but you about 
 hit yit." 
 
 Lescott felt reluctant to meet his host's eyes at break 
 fast the next morning, dreading their reproach, but, 
 if Spicer South harbored resentment, he meant to con 
 ceal it, after the stoic's code. There was no hinted 
 constraint of cordiality. Lescott felt, however, that in 
 Samson's mind was working the leaven of that unspoken 
 accusation of disloyalty. He resolved to make a final 
 play, and seek to enlist Sally in his cause. If Sally's
 
 96 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 hero-worship could be made to take the form of ambi 
 tion for Samson, she might be brought to relinquish 
 him for a time, and urge his going that he might 
 return strengthened. Yet, Sally's devotion was so 
 instinctive and so artless that it would take compelling 
 argument to convince her of any need of change. It 
 was Samson as he was whom she adored. Any altera 
 tion was to be distrusted. Still, Lescott set out one 
 afternoon on his doubtful mission. He was more 
 versed in mountain ways than he had been. His own 
 ears could now distinguish between the bell that hung 
 at the neck of Sally's brindle heifer and those of old 
 Spicer's cows. He went down to the creek at the hour 
 when he knew Sally, also, would be making her way 
 thither with her milk-pail, and intercepted her coming. 
 As she approached, she was singing, and the man 
 watched her from the distance. He was a landscape 
 painter and not a master of genre or portrait. Yet, 
 he wished that he might, before going, paint Sally. 
 She was really, after all, a part of the landscape, as 
 much a thing of nature and the hills as the hollyhocks 
 that had come along the picket-fences. She swayed 
 as gracefully and thoughtlessly to her movements as 
 do strong and pliant stems under the breeze's kiss. 
 'Artfulness she had not; nor has the flower: only the 
 joy and fragrance of a brief bloom. It was that 
 thought which just now struck the painter most 
 forcibly. It was shameful that this girl and boy should 
 go on to the hard and unlighted life that inevitably 
 awaited them, if neither had the opportunity of develop 
 ment. She would be at forty a later edition of the 
 Widow Miller. He had seen the widow. Sally's charm
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 97 
 
 /mist be as ephemeral under the life of illiterate 
 drudgery and perennial child-bearing as her mother's 
 had been. Her shoulders, now so gloriously straight 
 and strong, would sag, and her bosom shrink, and her 
 face harden and take on that drawn misery of constant 
 anxiety. But, if Samson went and came back with 
 some conception of cherishing his wife yes, the effort 
 was worth making. Yet, as the girl came down the 
 slope, gaily singing a very melancholy song, the painter 
 broke off in his reflections, and his thoughts veered. 
 If Samson left, would he ever return? Might not the 
 old man after all be right? When he had seen other 
 women and tasted other allurements would he, like 
 Ulysses, still hold his barren Ithaca above the gilded 
 invitation of Calypso? History has only one Ulysses. 
 Sally's voice was lilting like a bird's as she walked 
 happMy. The song was one of those old ballads that 
 have been held intact since the stock learned to sing them 
 in the heather of the Scotch highlands before there was 
 an America. 
 
 " 'She's pizened me, mother, make my bed soon, 
 
 Fer I'm sick at my heart and I fain would lay doon. 5 ' 
 
 i 
 
 The man rose and went to meet her. 
 
 "Miss Sally," he began, uncertainly, "I want to talk 
 to you." 
 
 She was always very grave and diffident with Lescott. 
 He was a strange new type to her, and, though she 
 liad begun with a predilection in his favor, she had since 
 then come to hold him in adverse prejudice. Before his 
 arrival, Samson had been all hers. She had not missed
 
 98 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 in her lover the gallantries that she and her women 
 had never known. At evening, when the supper dishes 
 were washed and she sat in the honeysuckle fragrance 
 of the young night with the whippoorwills calling, she 
 had been accustomed to hear a particular whippoorwill- 
 note call, much like the real ones, yet distinct to her 
 waiting ears. She was wont to rise and go to the stile 
 to meet him. She had known that every day she would, 
 seemingly by chance, meet Samson somewhere along the 
 creek, or on the big bowlder at the rift, or hoeing on 
 the sloping cornfield. These things had been enough. 
 But, of late, his interests had been divided. This 
 painter had claimed many of his hours and many of 
 his thoughts. There was in her heart an unconfessed 
 jealousy of the foreigner. Now, she scrutinized him 
 solemnly, and nodded. 
 
 "Won't you sit down?" he invited, and the girl 
 dropped cross-legged on a mossy rock, and waited. 
 To-day, she wore a blue print dress, instead of the red 
 one. It was always a matter of amazement to the man 
 that in such an environment she was not only wildly 
 beautiful, but invariably the pink of neatness. She 
 could climb a tree or a mountain, or emerge from a 
 sweltering blackberry patch, seemingly as fresh and 
 unruffled as she had been at the start. The man stood 
 uncomfortably looking at her, and was momentarily at 
 a loss for words with which to commence. 
 
 "What was ye a-goin' ter tell me ?" she asked. 
 
 "Miss Sally," he began, "I've discovered something 
 about Samson." 
 
 Her blue eyes flashed ominously.
 
 "Ye can't tell me nothin' 'bout Samson," she declared, 
 *'withouten hit's somethin* nice." 
 
 "It's something very nice," the man reassured her. 
 
 "Then, ye needn't tell me, because I already knows 
 hit," came her prompt and confident announcement. 
 
 Lescott shook his head, dubiously. 
 
 "Samson is a genius," he said. 
 
 "What's thet?" 
 
 "He has great gifts great abilities to become a 
 figure in the world." 
 
 She nodded her head, in prompt and full corrob- 
 oration. 
 
 "I reckon Samson'll be the biggest man in the mount 
 ings some day." 
 
 "He ought to be more than that." 
 
 Suspicion at once cast a cloud across the violet 
 serenity of her eyes. 
 
 "What does ye mean ?" she demanded. 
 
 "I mean" the painter paused a moment, and then 
 said bluntly "I mean that I want to take him back 
 with me to New York." 
 
 The girl sprang to her feet with her chin defiantly 
 high and her brown hands clenched into tight little 
 fists. Her bosom heaved convulsively, and her eyes 
 blazed through tears of anger. Her face was pale. 
 
 "Ye hain't!" she cried, in a paroxysm of fear and 
 wrath. "Ye hain't a-goin' ter do no sich no sich of 
 a damn thing!" She stamped her foot, and her whole 
 girlish body, drawn into rigid uprightness, was a-quiver 
 with the incarnate spirit of the woman defending her 
 home and institutions. For a moment after that, she 
 could not speak, but her determined eyes blazed a
 
 declaration of war. It was as though he had posed her 
 as the Spirit of the Cumberlands. 
 
 He waited until she should be calmer. It was use 
 less to attempt stemming her momentary torrent of 
 rage. It was like one of the sudden and magnificent 
 tempests that often swept these hills, a brief visit of 
 the furies. One must seek shelter and wait. It would 
 end as suddenly as it had come. At last, he spoke, very 
 softly. 
 
 "You don't understand me, Miss Sally. I'm not try 
 ing to take Samson away from you. If a man should 
 lose a girl like you, he couldn't gain enough in the 
 world to make up for it. All I want is that he shall 
 have the chance to make the best of his life." 
 
 "I reckon Samson don't need no fotched-on help ter 
 make folks acknowledge him." 
 
 "Every man needs his chance. He can be a great 
 painter but that's the least part of it. He can come 
 back equipped for anything that life offers. Here, he is 
 wasted." 
 
 "Ye mean" she put the question with a Kurt quaver 
 in her voice "ye mean we all hain't good enough fer 
 Samson ?" 
 
 "No. I only mean that Samson wants to grow and 
 he needs space and new scenes in which to grow. I want 
 to take him where he can see more of the world not 
 only a little section of the world. Surely, you are not 
 distrustful of Samson's loyalty? I want him to go with 
 me for a while, and see life." 
 
 "Don't ye say hit!" The defiance in her voice was 
 being pathetically tangled up with the tears. She was 
 speaking in a transport of grief. "Don't ye say hit.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 101 
 
 Take anybody else take 'em all down thar, but leave 
 us Samson. We needs him hyar. We've jest got ter 
 have Samson hyar." 
 
 She faced him still with quivering lips, but in another 
 moment, with a sudden sob, she dropped to the rock, 
 rand buried her face in her crossed arms. Her slender 
 body shook under a harrowing convulsion of unhappi- 
 ness. Lescott felt as though he had struck her; as 
 though he had ruthlessly blighted the irresponsible joy- 
 ousness which had a few minutes before sung from her 
 lips with the blitheness of a mocking-bird. He went 
 over and softly laid a hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "Miss Sally " he began. 
 
 She suddenly turned on him a tear-stained, infuriated 
 face, stormy with blazing eyes and wet cheeks and 
 trembling lips. 
 
 "Don't touch me," she cried ; "don't ye dare ter touch 
 me! I hain't nothin' but a gal but I reckon I could 
 'most tear ye ter pieces. Ye're jest a pizen snake, any 
 how !" Then, she pointed a tremulous finger off up the 
 road. "Git away from hyar," she commanded. "I don't 
 never want ter see ye again. Ye're tryin' ter steal 
 everything I loves. Git away, I tells ye ! git away 
 begone !" 
 
 "Think it over," urged Lescott, 'quietly. "See if your 
 'heart doesn't say I am Samson's friend and yours." 
 He turned, and began making his way over the rocks; 
 but, before he had gone far, he sat down to reflect upon 
 the situation. * Certainly, he was not augmenting his 
 popularity. A half-hour later, he heard a rustle, and s 
 turning, saw Sally standing not far off. She was hesi 
 tating at the edge of the underbrush, and Lescott read
 
 102 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 in her eyes the effort it was costing her to come forward 
 and apologize. Her cheeks were still pale and her eyes 
 wet, but the tempest of her anger had spent itself, and 
 in the girl who stood penitently, one hand nervously 
 clutching a branch of rhododendron, one foot twisting 
 in the moss, Lescott was seeing an altogether new Sally. 
 There was a renunciation in her eyes that in contrast 
 with the child-like curve of her lips, and slim girlishness 
 of her figure, seemed entirely pathetic. 
 
 As she stood there, trying to come forward with a 
 pitiful effort at composure and a twisted smile, Lescott 
 wanted to go and meet her. But he knew her shyness, 
 and realized that the kindest thing would be to pretend 
 that he had not seen her at all. So, he covertly watched 
 her, while he assumed to sit in moody unconsciousness of 
 her nearness. 
 
 Little by little, and step by step, she edged over to 
 him, halting often and looking about with the impulse 
 to slip out of sight, but always bracing herself and 
 drawing a little nearer. Finally, he knew that she 
 was standing almost directly over him, and yet it was 
 a moment or two more before her voice, sweetly penitent, 
 announced her arrival. 
 
 "I reckon I reckon I've got ter ask yore pardon," 
 she said, slowly and with labored utterance. He looked, 
 up to see her standing with her head drooping and her 
 fingers nervousJy pulling a flower to pieces. 
 
 "I reckon I hain't a plumb fool. I knows thet Sam 
 son's got a right ter eddication. Anyhow, I knows he 
 wants hit." 
 
 "Education," said the man, "isn't going to change
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 103 
 
 Samson, except to make him finer than he is and more 
 capable." 
 
 She shook her head. "I hain't got no eddication," 
 she answered. "Hit's a-goin' ter make him too good fer 
 me. I reckon hit's a-goin' ter jest about kill me. . . . 
 4Ye hain't never seed these here mountings in the winter 
 time, when thar hain't nothin' green, an' thar hain't no 
 birds a-singin', an' thar hain't nothin' but rain an' snow 
 an' fog an' misery. They're a-goin' ter be like thet all 
 the time fer me, atter Samson's gone away." She 
 choked back something like a sob before she went on. 
 "Yes, stranger, hit's a-goin' ter pretty nigh kill me, 
 but " Her lips twisted themselves into the pathetic 
 smile again, and her chin came stiffly up. "But," she 
 added, determinedly, "thet don't make no diff'rence, 
 nohow."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 YET, when Samson that evening gave his whippoor- 
 will call at the Widow Miller's cabin, he found 
 a dejected and miserable girl sitting on the stile, 
 with her chin propped in her two hands and her eyes 
 full of somberness and foreboding. 
 
 "What's the matter, Sally ?" questioned he, anxiously. 
 "Hes that low-down Tamarack Spicer been round here 
 tellin' ye some more stories ter pester ye?'* 
 
 She shook her head in silence. Usually, she bore the 
 brunt of their conversations, Samson merely agreeing 
 with, or overruling, her in lordly brevities. The boy 
 climbed up and sat beside her. 
 
 "Thar's a-goin' ter be a dancin' party over ter Wile 
 McCager's mill come Saturday," he insinuatingly sug 
 gested. "I reckon ye'll go over thar with me, won't ye, 
 Sally?" 
 
 He waited for her usua/ delighted assent, but Sally 
 only told him absently and without enthusiasm that she 
 would "study about it." At last, however, her restraint 
 broke, and, looking up, she abruptly demanded: 
 
 "Air ye a-goin' away, Samson?" 
 
 "Who's been a-talkin' ter ye?" demanded the boy, 
 angrily. 
 
 For a moment, the girl sat silent. Silver mists were 
 softening under a rising moon. The katydids were 
 prophesying with strident music the six weeks' warning 
 
 104
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 105 
 
 of frost. Myriads of stars were soft and low-hanging. 
 Finally, she spoke in a grave voice: 
 
 "Hit hain't nothin' ter git mad about, Samson. The 
 artist man 'lowed as how ye had a right ter go down 
 thar, an' git an eddication." She made a weary gesture 
 toward the great beyond. 
 
 "He hadn't ought to of told ye, Sally. If I'd been 
 plumb sartin in my mind, I'd a-told ye myself not 
 but what I knows," he hastily amended, "thet he meant 
 hit friendly." 
 
 "Air ye a-goin'?" 
 
 "I'm studyin' about hit." 
 
 He awaited objection, but none came. Then, with a 
 piquing of his masculine vanity, he demanded: 
 
 "Hain't ye a-keerin', Sally, whether I goes, or not?" 
 
 The girl grew rigid. Her fingers on the crum 
 bling plank of the stile's top tightened and gripped 
 hard. The moonlit landscape seemed to whirl in a dizzy 
 circle. Her face did not betray her, nor her voice, 
 though she had to gulp down a rising lump in her 
 throat before she could answer calmly. 
 
 "I thinks ye had ought ter go, Samson." 
 
 The boy was astonished. He had avoided the subject 
 for fear of her opposition and tears. 
 
 Then, slowly, she went on as though repeating a les 
 ion painstakingly conned: 
 
 "There hain't nothin' in these here hills fer ye, Sam 
 son. Down thar, ye'll see lots of things thet's new 
 an' civilized an' beautiful! Ye'll see lots of gals thet 
 kin read an' write, gals dressed up in all kinds of fancy 
 frxin's." Her glib words ran out and ended in a sort of 
 inward gasp.
 
 106 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Compliment came hardly and awkwardly to Samson's 
 lips. He reached for the girl's hand, and whispered : 
 
 "I reckon I won't see no gals thet's as purty as you 
 be, Sally. I reckon ye knows, whether I goes or stays, 
 we're a-goin 5 ter git married." 
 
 She drew her hand away, and laughed, a little bit 
 terly. In the last day, she had ceased to be a child, and 
 become a woman with all the soul-aching possibilities of 
 a woman's intuitions. 
 
 "Samson," she said, "I hain't askin' ye ter make me 
 no promises. When ye sees them other gals gals thet 
 kin read an' write I reckon mebby ye'll think diff'rent. 
 I can't hardly spell out printin' in the fust reader." 
 
 Her lover's voice was scornful of the imagined dan 
 gers, as a recruit may be of the battle terrors before 
 he has been under fire. He slipped his arm about her 
 and drew her over to him. 
 
 "Honey," he said, "ye needn't fret about thet. 
 Readin' an' writin' can't make no difference fer a 
 woman. Hit's mighty important fer a man, but you're 
 a gal." 
 
 "You're a-goin' ter think diff'rent atter awhile," she 
 insisted. "When ye goes, I hain't a-goin' ter be ex- 
 pectin' ye ter come back . . . But" the resolution 
 in her voice for a moment quavered as she added "but 
 God knows I'm a-goin' ter be hopin' !" 
 
 "Sally !" The boy rose, and paced up and down in 
 the road. "Air ye goin' ter be ag'inst me, too? Don't 
 ye see that I wants ter have a chanst? Can't ye trust 
 me? I'm jest a-tryin' to amount to something. I'm 
 plumb tired of bein' ornery an' no 'count." 
 
 She nodded.
 
 "I've done told ye," she said, wearily, "thet I thinks 
 ye ought ter do hit." 
 
 He stood there in the road looking down at her and 
 the twisted smile that lifted only one corner of her 
 lips, while the other drooped. The moonlight caught 
 her eyes ; eyes that were trying, like the lips, to smile, 
 but that were really looking away into the future, which 
 she saw stripped of companionship and love, and gray 
 with the ashiness of wretched desolation. And, while 
 he was seeing the light of the simulated cheeriness die 
 out in her face, she was seeing the strange, exalted glow, 
 of which she was more than half-afraid, kindle in his 
 pupils. It was as though she were giving up the living 
 fire out of her own heart to set ablaze the ambition and 
 anticipation in his own. 
 
 That glow in Samson's eyes she feared and shrank 
 from, as she might have flinched before the blaze of 
 insanity. It was a thing which her mountain supersti 
 tion could not understand, a thing not wholly normal; 
 a manifestation that came to the stoic face and trans 
 formed it, when the eyes of the brain and heart were 
 seeing things which she herself could not see. It was 
 the proclamation of the part of Samson which she could 
 not comprehend, as though he were looking into a spirit 
 v world of weird and abnormal things. It was the light 
 of an enthusiasm such as his love for her could not 
 bring to his eyes and it told her that the strongest and 
 deepest part of Samson did not belong to her. Now, 
 as the young man stood there before her, and her little 
 world of hope and happiness seemed crumbling into 
 ruins, and she was steeling her soul to sacrifice herself 
 and let him go, he was thinking, not of what it was
 
 108 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 costing her in heart-break, but seeing visions of all the 
 great world held for him beyond the barriers of the 
 mountains. The light in his eyes seemed to flaunt the 
 victory of the enthusiasms that had nothing to do with 
 her. 
 
 .Samson came forward, and held out his arms. But 
 Sally drew away with a little shudder, and crouched at 
 the end of the stile. 
 
 "What's ther matter, Sally?" he demanded in sur 
 prise, and, as he bent toward her, his eyes lost the 
 strange light she feared, and she laughed a little nervous 
 laugh, and rose from her seat. 
 
 "Nothin* hain't ther matter now," she said, stanchly. 
 
 Lescott and Samson discussed the matter frequently. 
 At times, the boy was obstinate in his determination to 
 remain ; at other times, he gave way to the yearnings 
 for change and opportunity. But the lure of the palette 
 and brush possessed him beyond resistance and his taci 
 turnity melted, when in the painter's company, to a 
 roughly poetic form of expression. 
 
 "Thet sunrise," he announced one morning, setting 
 down his milk-pail to gaze at the east, "is jest like the 
 sparkle in a gal's eyes when she's tickled at somethin* 
 ye've said about her. An,' when the sun sets, hit's likp 
 the whole world was a woman blushin'." 
 
 The dance on Saturday was to be something more' 
 portentous than a mere frolic. It would be a clan 
 gathering to which the South adherents would come 
 riding up and down Misery and its tributaries from 
 **nigh abouts" and "over yon." From forenoon until 
 after midnight, shuffle, jig and fiddling would hold high, 
 if rough, carnival. But, while the younger folk aban-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBEKLANDS 109 
 
 doned themselves to these diversions, the grayer heads 
 would gather in more serious conclave. Jesse Purvy 
 had once more beaten back death, and his mind had 
 probably been devising, during those bed-ridden days 
 and nights, plans of reprisal. According to current 
 report, Purvy had announced that his would-be assassin 
 dwelt on Misery, and was "marked down." So, there i 
 were obvious exigencies which the Souths must prepare 
 to meet. In particular, the clan must thrash out to 
 definite understanding the demoralizing report that 
 Samson South, their logical leader, meant to aban 
 don them, at a crisis when war-clouds were thick 
 ening. 
 
 The painter had finally resolved to cut the Gordian 
 knot, and leave the mountains. He had trained on Sam 
 son to the last piece all his artillery of argument. The 
 case was now submitted with the suggestion that the 
 boy take three months to consider, and that, if he decided 
 affirmatively, he should notify Lescott in advance of his 
 coming. He proposed sending Samson a small library 
 of carefully picked books, which the mountaineer eagerly 
 agreed to devour in the interval. 
 
 Lescott consented, however, to remain over Saturday, 
 and go to the dance, since he was curious to observe 
 what pressure was brought to bear on the boy, and to 
 have himself a final word of argument after the kinsmen 
 had spoken. 
 
 Saturday morning came after a night of torrential 
 rain, which had left the mountains steaming under a 
 reek of fog and pitching clouds. Hillside streams ran 
 freshets, and creek-bed roads were foaming and boiling 
 into waterfalls. Sheep and cattle huddled forlornly
 
 110 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 under their shelters of shelving rock, and only the geese 
 seemed happy. 
 
 Far down the dripping shoulders of the mountains 
 trailed ragged streamers of vapor. Here and there 
 along the lower slopes hung puffs of smoky mist as 
 though silent shells were bursting from unseen artil 
 lery over a vast theater of combat. 
 
 But, as the morning wore on, the sun fought its way 
 to view in a scrap of overhead blue. A freshening 
 breeze plunged into the reek, and sent it scurrying in 
 broken cloud ranks and shredded tatters. The steamy 
 heat gave way under a dissipating sweep of coolness, 
 until the skies smiled down on the hills and the hills 
 smiled back. From log cabins and plank houses up and 
 down Misery and its tributaries, men and women began 
 their hegira toward the mill. Some came on foot, carry 
 ing their shoes in their hands, but those were only 
 near-by dwellers. Others made saddle journeys of ten 
 or fifteen, or even twenty, miles, and the beasts that 
 carried a single burden were few. Lescott rode in the 
 wake of Samson, who had Sally on a pillow at his back, 
 and along the seven miles of journey he studied the 
 strange procession. It was, for the most part, a solemn 
 cavalcade, for these are folk who "take their pleasures 
 sadly." Possibly, some of the sun-bonneted, strangely- 
 garbed women were reflecting on the possibilities which 
 mountain-dances often develop into tragic actualities. 
 Possibly, oilers were having their enjoyment discounted 
 by the necessity of "dressing up" and wearing shoes. 
 
 Sometimes, a slowly ambling mule bore an entire 
 family; the father managing the reins with one hand 
 and holding a baby with the other, while his rifle lay
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 111 
 
 balanced across his pommel and his wife sat solemnly 
 behind him on a sheepskin or pillion. Many of the men 
 rode side-saddles, and sacks bulky at each end hinted of 
 such baggage as is carried in jugs. Lescott realized 
 from the frank curiosity with which he was regarded 
 that he had been a topic of discussion, and that he was 
 now being "sized up." He was the false prophet who 
 was weaving a spell over Samson! Once, he heard a 
 sneering voice from the wayside comment as he rode by. 
 
 "He looks like a damned parson." 
 
 Glancing back, he saw a tow-headed youth glowering 
 at him out of pinkish albino eyes. The way lay in part 
 along the creek-bed, where wagons had ground the dis 
 integrating rock into deep ruts as smooth as walls of 
 concrete. Then, it traversed a country of palisading 
 cliffs and immensity of forest, park-like and splendid. 
 Strangely picturesque suspension bridges with rough 
 stairways at their ends spanned waters too deep for 
 fording. Frame houses showed along the banks of the 
 creek grown here to a river unplaned and unpainted 
 of wall, but brightly touched with window- and door 
 frames of bright yellow or green or blue. This was the 
 territory where the Souths held dominance, and it was 
 pouring out its people. 
 
 They came before noon to the mouth of Dryhole 
 Creek, and the house of Wile McCager. Already, the 
 picket fence was lined with tethered horses and mules, 
 and a canvas-covered wagon came creeping in behind 
 its yoke of oxen. Men stood clustered in the road, and 
 at the entrance a woman, nursing her baby at her breast, 
 welcomed and gossiped with the arrivals. 
 
 The house of Wile McCager loaned itself to enter-
 
 112 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 tainment. It was not of logs, but of undressed lumber, 
 and boasted a front porch and two front rooms entered 
 by twin doors facing on a triangular alcove. In the 
 recess between these portals stood a washstand, sur 
 mounted by a china basin and pitcher a declaration of 
 .affluence. From the interior of the house came the 
 sounds of fiddling, though these strains of "Turkey in 
 the Straw" were only by way of prelude. Lescott felt, 
 though he could not say just what concrete thing told 
 him, that under the shallow note of merry-making 
 brooded the major theme of a troublesome problem. 
 The seriousness was below the surface, but insistently 
 depressing. He saw, too, that he himself was mixed up 
 with it in a fashion, which might become dangerous, 
 when a few jugs of white liquor had been emptied. 
 
 It would be some time yet before the crowd warmed 
 up. Now, they only stood about and talked, and to 
 Lescott they gave a gravely polite greeting, beneath 
 which was discernible an undercurrent of hostility. 
 
 As the day advanced, the painter began picking out 
 the more influential clansmen, by the fashion in which 
 they fell together into groups, and took themselves off 
 to the mill by the racing creek for discussion. While 
 the young persons danced and "sparked" within, and 
 the more truculent lads escaped to the road to pass the 
 jug, and forecast with youthful war-fever "cleanin' out 
 the Hollmans," the elders were deep in ways and means. 
 If the truce could be preserved for its unexpired period 
 of three years, it was, of course, best. In that event, 
 crops could be cultivated, and lives saved. But, if Jesse 
 Purvy chose to regard his shooting as a breach of terms, 
 and struck, he would strike hard, and, in that event,
 
 best defense lay in striking first. Samson would soon 
 be twenty-one. That he would take his place as head of 
 the clan had until now never been questioned and he 
 was talking of desertion. For that, a pink-skinned 
 foreigner, who wore a woman's bow of ribbon at his 
 collar, was to blame. The question of loyalty must be 
 squarely put up to Samson, and it must be done to-day. 
 His answer must be definite and unequivocal. As a guest 
 of Spicer South, Lescott was entitled to that considera 
 tion which is accorded ambassadors. 
 
 None the less, the vital affairs of the clan could not be 
 balked by consideration for a stranger, who, in the 
 opinion of the majority, should be driven from the 
 country as an insidious mischief-maker. Ostensibly, the 
 truce still held, but at no time since its signing had 
 matters been so freighted with the menace of a gather 
 ing storm. The attitude of each faction was that of 
 several men standing quiet with guns trained on one 
 another's breasts. Each hesitated to fire, knowing that 
 to pull the trigger meant to die himself, yet fearing 
 that another trigger might at any moment be drawn. 
 Purvy dared not have Samson shot out of hand, because 
 he feared that the Souths would <;laim his life in return, 
 yet he feared to let Samson live. On the other hand, if 
 Purvy fell, no South could balance his death, except 
 Spicer or Samson. Any situation that might put condi 
 tions to a moment of issue would either prove that the 
 truce was being observed, or open the war and yet 
 each faction was guarding against such an event as too 
 fraught with danger. One thing was certain. By per 
 suasion or force, Lescott must leave, and Samson must 
 show himself to be the youth he had been thought, or
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 the confessed and repudiated renegade. Those ques 
 tions, to-day must answer. It was a difficult situation, 
 and promised an eventful entertainment. Whatever 
 conclusion was reached as to the artist's future, he was, 
 until the verdict came in, a visitor, and, unless liquor 
 inflamed some reckless trouble-hunter, that fact would 
 not be forgotten. Possibly, it was as well that Tama 
 rack Spicer had not arrived. 
 
 Lescott himself realized the situation in part, as he 
 stood at the door of the house watching the scene inside. 
 
 There was, of course, no round dancing only the 
 shuffle and jig with champions contending for the 
 honor of their sections. A young woman from Deer 
 Lick and a girl from the head of Dryhill had been 
 matched for the "hoe-down," and had the floor to them 
 selves. The walls were crowded with partisan onlookers, 
 who applauded and cheered their favorite. 
 
 The bows scraped faster and louder; the clapping 
 hands beat more tumultuously, until their mad tempo 
 was like the clatter of musketry; the dancers threw 
 themselves deliriously into the madly quickening step. 
 It was a riotous saturnalia of flying feet and twinkling 
 ankles. Onlookers shouted and screamed encourage 
 ment. It seemed that the girls must fall in exhaustion, 
 yet each kept on, resolved to be still on the floor when 
 the other had abandoned it in defeat that being the 
 test of victory. At last, the girl from Dryhill reeled, 
 and was caught by half-a-dozen arms. Her adversary, 
 holding the floor undisputed, slowed down, and someone 
 stopped the fiddler. Sally turned from the crowded 
 wall, and began looking about for Samson. He was 
 not there. Lescott had seen him leave the house a few
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 115 
 
 moments before, and started over to intercept the girl, 
 as she came out to the porch. 
 
 In the group about the door, he passed a youth with 
 tow-white hair and very pink cheeks. The boy was the 
 earliest to succumb to the temptation of the moonshine 
 jug, a temptation which would later claim others. He 
 was reeling crazily, and his albino eyes were now red 
 and inflamed. Lescott remembered him. 
 
 "Thet's ther damned furriner thet's done turned 
 Samson inter a gal," proclaimed the youth, in a thick 
 voice. 
 
 The painter paused, and looked back. The boy was 
 reaching under his coat with hands that had become 
 clumsy and unresponsive. 
 
 "Let me git at him," he shouted, with a wild whoop 
 and a dash toward the painter. 
 
 Lescott said nothing, but Sally had heard, and 
 stepped swiftly between. 
 
 "You've got ter git past me fust, Buddy," she said, 
 quietly. "I reckon ye'd better run on home, an' git yore 
 mammy ter put ye ter bed."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SEVERAL soberer men closed around the boy, and, 
 after disarming him, led him away grumbling and 
 muttering, while Wile McCager made apologies 
 to the guest. 
 
 " Jimmy's jest a peevish child," he explained. "A 
 drop or two of licker makes him skittish. I hopes ye'll 
 look over hit." 
 
 Jimmy's outbreak was interesting to Lescott chiefly 
 as an indication of what might follow. He noted how 
 the voices were growing louder and shriller, and how 
 the jug was circulating faster. A boisterous note was 
 making itself heard through the good humor and laugh 
 ter, and the "furriner" remembered that these minds, 
 when inflamed, are more prone to take the tangent of 
 violence than that of mirth. Unwilling to intioduce 
 discord by his presence, and involve Samson in quarrels 
 on his account, he suggested riding back to Misery, 
 but the boy's face clouded at the suggestion. 
 
 "Ef they kain't be civil ter my friends," he said, 
 shortly, "they've got ter account ter me. You stay 
 right hyar, and I'll stay clost to you. I done come 
 hyar to-day ter tell 'em that they mustn't meddle in 
 my business." 
 
 A short while later, Wile McCager invited Samson to 
 come out to the mill, and the boy nodded to Lescott an 
 invitation to accompany him. The host shook his head, 
 
 116
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 117 
 
 "We kinder 'lowed ter talk over some f am'ly matters 
 with ye, Samson," he demurred. "I reckon Mr. Les- 
 cott'll excuse ye f er a spell." 
 
 "Anything ye've got ter talk ter me about, George 
 
 Lescott kin hear," said the youth, defiantly. "I hain't 
 
 jgot no secrets." He was heir to his father's leadership, 
 
 rand his father had been unquestioned. He meant to 
 
 stand uncompromisingly on his prerogatives. 
 
 For an instant, the old miller's keen eyes hardened 
 obstinately. After Spicer and Samson South, he was 
 the most influential and trusted of the South leaders 
 and Samson was still a boy. His ruggedly chiseled 
 features were kindly, but robustly resolute, and, when 
 he was angered, few men cared to face him. For an 
 instant, a stinging rebuke seemed to hover on his lips, 
 then he turned with a curt jerk of his large head. 
 
 "All right. Suit yourselves. I've done warned ye 
 both. We 'lows ter talk plain." 
 
 The mill, dating back to pioneer days, sat by its 
 race with its shaft now idle. About it, the white-boled 
 sycamores crowded among the huge rocks, and the water 
 poured tumultuously over the dam. The walls of mor 
 tised logs were chinked with rock and clay. At its 
 porch, two discarded millstones served in lieu of steps. 
 Over the door were fastened a spreading pair of stag- 
 antlers. It looked to Lescott, as he approached, like 
 a scrap of landscape torn from some medieval picture, 
 and the men about its door seemed medieval, too; 
 bearded and gaunt, hard-thewed and sullen. 
 
 All of them who stood waiting were men of middle 
 age, or beyond. A number were gray-haired, but they 
 were all of cadet branches. Many of them, like Wile
 
 118 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 McCager himself, did not bear the name of South, and 
 Samson was the eldest son of the eldest son. They sat 
 on meal-whitened bins and dusty timbers and piled-up 
 sacks. Several crouched on the ground, squatting on 
 their heels, and, as the conference proceeded, they drank 
 moonshine whiskey, and spat solemnly at the floor 
 cracks. 
 
 "Hevn't ye noticed a right-smart change in Sam 
 son?" inquired old Caleb Wiley of a neighbor, in his 
 octogenarian quaver. "The boy hes done got es quiet 
 an' pious es a missionary." 
 
 The other nodded under his battered black felt hat, 
 and beat a tattoo with the end of his long hickory staff. 
 
 "He hain't drunk a half-pint of licker to-day," he 
 querulously replied. 
 
 "Why in heck don't we run this here pink-faced con- 
 jure-doctor outen the mountings?" demanded Caleb, 
 who had drunk more than a half -pint. "He's a-castin' 
 spells over the boy. He's a-practisin' of deviltries." 
 
 "We're a-goin' ter see about thet right now," was 
 the response. "We don't 'low to let hit run on no 
 further." 
 
 "Samson," began old Wile McCager, clearing his 
 throat and taking up his duty as spokesman, "we're 
 all your kinf oiks here, an' we aimed ter ask ye about this 
 here report thet yer 'lowin' ter leave the mountings?" 
 
 "What of hit?" countered the boy. 
 
 "Hit looks mighty like the war's a-goin' ter be on 
 ag'in pretty soon. Air ye a-goin' ter quit, or air ye 
 a-goin' ter stick? Thet's what we wants ter know." 
 
 "I didn't make this here truce, an' I hain't a-goin' ter 
 bust hit/' said the boy, quietly. "When the war com-
 
 mences, I'll be hyar. Ef I hain't hyar in the meantime, 
 hit hain't nobody's business. I hain't accountable ter 
 no man but my pap, an' I reckon, whar he is, he knows 
 whether I'm a-goin' ter keep my word." 
 
 There was a moment's silence, then Wile McCager 
 put another question: 
 
 "Ef ye're plumb sot on gittin' larnin' why don't ye 
 git hit right hyar in these mountings?" 
 
 Samson laughed derisively. 
 
 "Who'll I git hit from?" he caustically inquired. "Ef 
 the mountain won't come ter Mohamet, Mohamet's got 
 ter go ter the mountain, I reckon." The figure was one 
 they did not understand. It was one Samson himself 
 had only acquired of late. He was quoting George Les- 
 cott. But one thing there was which did not escape 
 his hearers : the tone of contempt. Eyes of smoldering 
 hate turned on the visitor at whose door they laid the 
 blame. 
 
 Caleb Wiley rose unsteadily to his feet, his shaggy 
 beard trembling with wrath and his voice quavering 
 with senile indignation. 
 
 "Hev ye done got too damned good fer yore kin- 
 folks, Samson South?" he shrilly demanded. "Hev ye 
 done been follerin' atter this here puny witch-doctor 
 fcwell ye can't keep a civil tongue in yer head fer yore 
 'elders? I'm in favor of runnin' this here furriner outen 
 the country with tar an' feathers on him. Furthermore, 
 I'm in favor of cleanin' out the Hollmans. I was jest 
 a-sayin' ter Bill " 
 
 "Never mind what ye war jest a-sayin'," interrupted 
 the boy, flushing redly to his cheekbones, but controlling 
 his voice. "Ye've done said enough a'ready. Ye're a
 
 120 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 right old man, Caleb, an' I reckon thet gives ye some 
 license ter shoot off yore face, but ef any of them 
 no-'count, shif less boys of yores wants ter back up what 
 ye says, I'm ready ter go out thar an' make 'em eat hit. 
 I hain't a-goin' ter answer no more questions." 
 
 There was a commotion of argument, until "Black 
 Dave" Jasper, a saturnine giant, whose hair was no 
 blacker than his expression, rose, and a semblance of 
 quiet greeted him as he spoke. 
 
 "Mebby, Samson, ye've got a right ter take the studs 
 this a-way, an' ter refuse ter answer our questions, but 
 we've got a right ter say who kin stay in this hyar 
 country. Ef ye 'lows ter quit us, I reckon we kin quit 
 you and, if we quits ye, ye hain't nothin' more ter us 
 then no other boy thet's gettin' too big fer his breeches. 
 This furriner is a visitor here to-day, an' we don't 'low 
 ter hurt him but he's got ter go. We don't want him 
 round hyar no longer." He turned to Lescott. "We're 
 a-givin' ye fair warnin', stranger. Ye hain't our breed. 
 Atter this, ye stays on Misery at yore own risk an* 
 hit's a-goin' ter be plumb risky. That thar's final." 
 
 "This man," blazed the boy, before Lescott could 
 speak, "is a-visitin* me an* Unc' Spicer. When ye wants 
 him ye kin come up thar an' git him. Every damned, 
 man of ye kin come. I hain't a-sayin' how many of 
 ye'll go back. He was 'lowin' that he'd leave hyar ter- 
 morrer mornin', but atter this I'm a-tellin' ye he hain't 
 a-goin' ter do hit. He's a-goin' ter stay es long es 
 he likes, an' nobody hain't a-goin' ter run him off." 
 Samson took his stand before the painter, and swept the 
 group with his eyes. "An 5 what's more," he added, 
 "I'll tell ye another thing. I hadn't plumb made up
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 my mind ter leave the mountings, but ye've done settled 
 hit fer me. I'm a-goin'." 
 
 There was a low murmur of anger, and a voice cried 
 out from the rear: 
 
 "Let him go. We hain't got no use fer damn 
 cowards." 
 
 "Whoever said thet's a liar !" shouted the boy. Les- 
 cott, standing at his side, felt that the situation was 
 more than parlous. But, before the storm could break, 
 some one rushed in, and whispered to Wile McCager a 
 message that caused him to raise both hands above his 
 head, and thunder for attention. 
 
 "Men," he roared, "listen ter me! This here hain't 
 no time fer squabblin* amongst ourselves. We're all 
 Souths. Tamarack Spicer has done gone ter Hixon, 
 an' got inter trouble. He's locked up in the jail-house." 
 
 "We're all hyar," screamed old Caleb's high, broken 
 voice. "Let's go an' take him out." 
 
 Samson's anger had died. He turned, and held a 
 whispered conversation with McCager, and, at its end, 
 the host of the day announced briefly : 
 
 "Samson's got somethin' ter say ter ye. So long as 
 he's willhi' ter stand by us, I reckon we're willin' ter 
 listen ter Henry South's boy." 
 
 "I hain't got no use for Tam'rack Spicer," said the 
 'boy, succinctly, "but I don't 'low ter let him lay in no 
 jail-house, unlessen he's got a right ter be thai*. What's 
 he charged with?" 
 
 But no one knew that. A man supposedly close to 
 the Hollmans, but in reality an informer for the Souths, 
 had seen him led into the jail-yard by a posse of a half- 
 dozen men, and had seen the iron-barred doors close on
 
 him. That was all, except that the Hollman forces were 
 gathering in Hixon, and, if the Souths went there en 
 masse, a pitched battle must be the inevitable result. 
 The first step was to gain accurate information and an 
 answer to one vital question. Was Tamarack held as a 
 feud victim, or was his arrest legitimate? How to learn 
 that was the problem. To send a body of men was to 
 invite bloodshed. To send a single inquirer was to 
 deliver him over to the enemy. 
 
 "Air you men willin' ter take my word about Tama 
 rack?" inquired Samson. But for the scene of a few 
 minutes ago, it would have been an unnecessary question. 
 There was a clamorous assent, and the boy turned to 
 Lescott. 
 
 "I wants ye ter take Sally home with ye. Ye'd better 
 start right away, afore she heers any of this talk. Hit 
 would fret her. Tell her I've had ter go 'cross ther 
 country a piece, ter see a sick man. Don't tell her whar 
 I'm a-goin'." He turned to the others. "I reckon I've 
 got yore promise thet Mr. Lescott hain't a-goin' ter be 
 bothered afore I gits back?" 
 
 Wile McCager promptly gave the assurance. 
 
 "I gives ye my hand on hit." 
 
 "I seed Jim Asberry loafin' round jest beyond ther 
 ridge, es I rid over hyar," volunteered the man who had 
 brought the message. 
 
 "Go slow now, Samson. Don't be no blame fool," 
 dissuaded Wile McCager. "Hixon's plumb full of them 
 Hollmans, an' they're likely ter be full of licker hit's 
 Saturday. Hit's apt ter be shore death fer ye ter try 
 ter ride through Main Street ef ye gits thet fur. Ye 
 dassent do hit."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 123 
 
 "I dast do anything !" asserted the boy, with a flash of 
 sudden anger. "Some liar 'lowed awhile ago thet I was 
 a coward. All right, mebby I be. Unc' Wile, keep the 
 boys hyar tell ye hears from me an' keep 'em sober." 
 He turned and made his way to the fence where his mule 
 stood hitched. 
 
 When Samson crossed the ridge, and entered the Holl- 
 man country, Jim Asberry, watching from a hilltop 
 point of vantage, rose and mounted the horse that stood 
 hitched behind a near-by screen of rhododendron bushes 
 and young cedars. Sometimes, he rode just one bend of 
 the road in Samson's rear. Sometimes, he took short 
 cuts, and watched his enemy pass. But always he held 
 him under a vigilant eye. Finally, he reached a wayside 
 store where a local telephone gave communication with 
 Hollman's Mammoth Department Store. 
 
 "Jedge," he informed, "Samson South's done left the 
 party et ther mill, an' he's a-ridin' towards town. Shall 
 I git him?" 
 
 "Is he comin' by hisself ?" inquired the storekeeper. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, jest let him come on. We can tend ter him 
 hyar, ef necessary." So, Jim withheld his hand, and 
 'merely shadowed, sending bulletins, from time to time. 
 
 It was three o'clock when Samson started. It was 
 near six when he reached the ribbon of road that loops 
 down into town over the mountain. His mule was in a 
 lather of sweat. He knew that he was being spied upon, 
 and that word of his coming was traveling ahead of him. 
 What he did not know was whether or not it suited Jesse 
 Purvy's purpose that he should slide from his mule, dead, 
 before he turned homeward. If Tamarack had been
 
 seized as a declaration of war, the chief South would 
 certainly not be allowed to return. If the arrest had 
 not been for feud reasons, he might escape. That was 
 the question which would be answered with his life or 
 death. 
 
 The boy kept his eyes straight to the front, fixed on ! 
 the philosophical wagging of his mule's brown ears. 
 Finally, he crossed the bridge that gave entrance to the 
 town, as yet unharmed, and clattered at a trot between 
 the shacks of the environs. He was entering the fortified 
 stronghold of the enemy, and he was expected. As he 
 rode along, doors closed to slits, and once or twice he 
 caught the flash of sunlight on a steel barrel, but his eyes 
 held to the front. Several traveling men, sitting on the 
 porch of the hotel opposite the court-house, rose when 
 they saw his mule, and went inside, closing the door 
 behind them. 
 
 The "jail-house" was a small building of home-made 
 brick, squatting at the rear of the court-house yard. 
 Its barred windows were narrow with sills breast-high. 
 
 The court-house itself was shaded by large oaks and 
 sycamores, and, as Samson drew near, he saw that some 
 ten or twelve men, armed with rifles, separated from 
 groups and disposed themselves behind the tree trunks 
 and the stone coping of the well. None of them spoke,, 
 and Samson pretended that he had not seen them. He 
 rode his mule at a walk, knowing that he was rifle- 
 covered from a half-dozen windows. At the hitching 
 rack directly beneath the county building, he flung his 
 reins over a post, and, swinging his rifle at his side, 
 passed casually along the brick walk to the jail. The 
 men behind the trees edged around their covers as he
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 125 
 
 went, keeping themselves protected, as squirrels creep 
 around a trunk when a hunter is lurking below. Sam 
 son halted at the jail wall, and called the prisoner's 
 name. A towsled head and surly face appeared at the 
 barred window, and the boy went over and held converse 
 from the outside. 
 
 "How in hell did ye git into town?" demanded the 
 prisoner. 
 
 "I rid in," was the short reply. "How'd ye git in 
 the jail-house?" 
 
 The captive was shamefaced. 
 
 "I got a leetle too much licker, an' I was shootin' out 
 the lights last night," he confessed. 
 
 "What business did ye have hyar in Hixon?" 
 
 "I jest slipped in ter see a gal." 
 
 Samson leaned closer, and lowered his voice. 
 
 "Does they know thet ye shot them shoots at Jesse 
 Purvy ?" 
 
 Tamarack turned pale. 
 
 "No," he stammered, "they believe you done hit." 
 
 Samson laughed. He was thinking of the rifles 
 trained on him from a dozen invisible rests. 
 
 "How long air they a-goin' ter keep ye hyar?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 "I kin git out to-morrer ef I pays the fine. Hit's ten 
 dollars." 
 
 "An' ef ye don't pay the fine?" 
 
 "Hit's a dollar a day." 
 
 "I reckon ye don't 'low ter pay hit, do ye?" 
 
 "I 'lowed mebby ye mout pay hit fer me, Samson." 
 
 "Ye done 'lowed plumb wrong. I come hyar ter see
 
 126 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 ef ye needed help, but hit 'pears ter me they're lettin* 
 ye off easy." 
 
 He turned on his heel, and went back to his mule. 
 The men behind the trees began circling again. Sam 
 son mounted, and, with his chin well up, trotted back 
 along the main street. It was over. The question was 
 answered. The Hollmans regarded the truce as still 
 effective. The fact that they were permitting him to 
 ride out alive was a wordless assurance of that. Inci 
 dentally, he stood vindicated in the eyes of his own 
 people. 
 
 When Samson reached the mill it was ten o'clock. 
 The men were soberer than they had been in the after 
 noon. McCager had seen to that. The boy replaced his 
 exhausted mule with a borrowed mount. At midnight, 
 as he drew near the cabin of the Widow Miller, he gave 
 a long, low whippoorwill call, and promptly, from the 
 shadow of the stile, a small tired figure rose up to greet 
 him. For hours that little figure had been sitting there, 
 silent, wide-eyed and terrified, nursing her knees in 
 locked fingers that pressed tightly into the flesh. She 
 had not spoken. She had hardly moved. She had only 
 gazed out, keeping the vigil with a white face that was 
 beginning to wear the drawn, heart-eating anxiety of the 
 mountain woman ; the woman whose code demands that 
 she stand loyally to her clan's hatreds ; the woman who 
 has none of the man's excitement in stalking human 
 game, which is also stalking him ; the woman who must 
 only stay at home and imagine a thousand terrors and 
 wait. 
 
 A rooster was crowing, and the moon had set. Only 
 the stars were left,
 
 "Sally," the boy reproved, "hit's most mornin', an* 
 ye Must be plumb fagged out. Why hain't you in bed ?" 
 
 "I 'lowed ye'd come by hyar," she told him simply, 
 "and I waited fer ye. I knowed whar ye had went," she 
 added, "an' I was skeered." 
 
 "How did ye know?" 
 
 "I heered thet Tam'rack was in the jail-house, an* 
 ' somebody hed ter go ter Hixon. So, of course, I knowed 
 hit would be you,"
 
 CHAPTER XH 
 
 LE SCOTT stayed on a week after that simply in 
 deference to Samson's insistence. To leave at 
 once might savor of flight under fire, but when 
 the week was out the painter turned his horse's head 
 toward town, and his train swept him back to the Blue- 
 grass and the East. As he gazed out of his car windows 
 at great shoulders of rock and giant trees, things 
 he was leaving behind, he felt a sudden twinge of some 
 thing akin to homesickness. He knew that he should 
 miss these great humps of mountains and the ragged 
 grandeur of the scenery. With the rich smoothness of 
 the Bluegrass, a sense of flatness and heaviness came to 
 his lungs. Level metal roads and loamy fields invited 
 his eye. The tobacco stalks rose in profuse heaviness of 
 sticky green; the hemp waved its feathery tops; 
 and woodlands were clear of underbrush the pauper 
 counties were behind him. 
 
 A quiet of unbroken and deadly routine settled down 
 on Misery. The conduct of the Souths in keeping 
 ^hands off, and acknowledging the justice of Tamarack 
 Spicer's jail sentence, had been their answer to the dec 
 laration of the Hollmans in letting Samson ride into 
 and out of Hixon. The truce was established. When, 
 a short time later, Tamarack left the country to become 
 a railroad brakeman, Jesse Purvy passed the word that 
 his men must, until further orders, desist from violence, 
 
 128
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 129 
 
 The word had crept about that Samson, too, was going 
 away, and, if this were true, Jesse felt that his future 
 would be more secure than his past. Purvy believed 
 Samson guilty, despite the exoneration of the hounds. 
 Their use had been the idea of over-fervent relatives. 
 He himself scoffed at their reliability. 
 
 "I wouldn't believe no dog on oath," he declared^ 
 Besides, he preferred to blame Samson, since he was the 
 head of the tribe and because he himself knew what 
 cause Samson had to hate him. Perhaps, even now, 
 Samson meant to have vengeance before leaving. Pos 
 sibly, even, this ostentatious care to regard the truce 
 was simply a shrewdly planned sham meant to disarm 
 his suspicion. 
 
 Until Samson went, if he did go, Jesse Purvy would 
 redouble his caution. It would be a simple matter to 
 have the boy shot to death, and end all question. Sam 
 son took no precautions to safeguard his life, but he 
 had a safeguard none the less. Purvy felt sure that 
 within a week after Samson fell, despite every care he 
 might take, he, too, would fall. He was tired of being 
 shot down. Purvy was growing old, and the fires of war 
 were burning to embers in his veins. He was becoming 
 more and more interested in other things. It dawned 
 upon him that to be known as a friend of the poor held 
 more allurement for gray-haired age than to be known 
 as a master of assassins. It would be pleasant to sit 
 undisturbed, and see his grandchildren grow up, and he 
 recognized, with a sudden ferocity of repugnance, that 
 he did not wish them to grow up as feud fighters. Purvy 
 had not reformed, but, other things being equal, he 
 would prefer to live and let live. He had reached that
 
 130 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 stage to which all successful villains come at some time, 
 when he envied the placid contentment of respected 
 virtues. Ordering Samson shot down was a last resort 
 one to be held in reserve until the end. 
 
 So, along Misery and Crippleshin, the men of the 
 factions held their fire while the summer spent itself, 
 and over the mountain slopes the leaves began to turn, 
 and the mast to ripen. 
 
 Lescott had sent a box of books, and Samson had 
 taken a team over to Hixon, and brought them back. 
 It was a hard journey, attended with much plunging 
 against the yokes and much straining of trace chains. 
 Sally had gone with him. Samson was spending as much 
 time as possible in her society now. The girl was saying 
 little about his departure, but her eyes were reading, 
 and without asking she knew that his going was inevi 
 table. Many nights she cried herself to sleep, but, when 
 he saw her, she was always the same blithe, bird-like 
 creature that she had been before. She was philo 
 sophically sipping her honey while the sun shone. 
 
 Samson read some of the books aloud to Sally, who 
 had a child's passion for stories, and who could not have 
 spelled them out for herself. He read badly, but to her 
 it was the flower of scholastic accomplishment, and her 
 untrained brain, sponge-like in its acquisitiveness, soaked 
 up many new words and phrases which fell again 
 quaintly from her lips in talk. Lescott had spent a 
 week picking out those books. He had wanted them to 
 argue for him ; to feed the boy's hunger for education, 
 and give him some forecast of the life that awaited him. 
 His choice had been an effort to achieve imdtwm in 
 paruo, but Samson devoured them all from title page
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 131 
 
 to finis line, and many of them he went back to, and 
 digested again* 
 
 He wrestled long amd gently with his uncle, strug 
 gling to win the old man's consent to his departure. 
 But Spieer South's brain wai no longer plastic. What 
 had been good enough for the past was good enough 
 for the future. He sought to take the most tolerant 
 view, and to believe that Samson was acting on convic 
 tion and not on an ingrate's impulse, but that was the 
 best he could do, and he added to himself that Samson's 
 was an abnormal and perverted conviction. Neverthe 
 less, he arranged affairs so that his nephew should be 
 able to meet financial needs, and to go where he chose 
 in a fashion befitting a South. The old man was 
 intensely proud, and, if the boy were bent on wasting 
 himself, he should waste like a family head, and not 
 appear a pauper among strangers. 
 
 The autumn came, and the hills blazed out in their 
 fanfare of splendid color. The broken skyline took on 
 a wistful sweetness under the haze of "the Great Spirit's 
 peace-pipe." 
 
 The sugar trees flamed their fullest crimson that fall. 
 The poplars were clear amber and the hickories russet 
 and the oaks a deep burgundy. Lean hogs began to 
 fill and fatten with their banqueting on beechnuts and 
 acorns. Scattered quail came together in the conclave 
 of the covey, and changed their summer call for the 
 "hover" whistle. Shortly, the rains would strip the 
 trees, and leave them naked. Then, Misery would vin 
 dicate its christener. But, now, as if to compensate in 
 a few carnival days of champagne sparkle and color,
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 the mountain world was burning out its summer life 
 on a pyre of transient splendor. 
 
 November came in bleakly, with a raw and devas 
 tating breath of fatality. The smile died from horizon 
 to horizon, and for days cold rains beat and lashed the 
 forests. And, toward the end of that month, came the 
 day which Samson had set for his departure. He had 
 harvested the corn, and put the farm in order. He had 
 packed into his battered saddlebags what things were to 
 go with him into his new life. The sun had set in a 
 sickly bank of murky, red-lined clouds. His mule, which 
 knew the road, and could make a night trip, stood 
 saddled by the stile. A kinsman was to lead it back 
 from Kixon when Samson had gone. The boy slowly 
 put on his patched and mud-stained overcoat. His face 
 was sullen and glowering. There was a lump in his 
 throat, like the lump that had been there when he stood 
 with his mother's arm about his shoulders, and watched 
 the dogs chase a rabbit by his father's grave. Supper 
 had been eaten in silence. Now that the hour of depar 
 ture had come, he felt the guilt of the deserter. He 
 realized how aged his uncle seemed, and how the old 
 man hunched forward over the plate as they ate the 
 last meal they should, for a long while, have together. 
 It was only by sullen taciturnity that he could retain 
 his composure. 
 
 At the threshold, with the saddlebags over his left 
 forearm and the rifle in his hand, he paused. His 
 uncle stood at his elbow and the boy put out his hand. 
 
 "Good-by, Unc' Spicer," was all he said. The old 
 man, who had been his second father, shook hands. His 
 face, too, was expressionless, but he felt that he was
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 133 
 
 saying farewell to a soldier of genius who was abandon 
 ing the field. And he loved the boy with all the cen 
 tered power of an isolated heart. 
 
 "Hadn't ye better take a lantern ?" he questioned. 
 
 "No, I reckon I won't need none." And Samson 
 went out, and mounted his mule. 
 
 A half-mile along the road, he halted and dis 
 mounted. There, in a small cove, surrounded by a 
 tangle of briars and blackberry bushes, stood a small 
 and dilapidated "meeting house" and churchyard, which 
 he must visit. He made his way through the rough 
 undergrowth to the unkempt half -acre, and halted be 
 fore the leaning headstones which marked two graves. 
 With a sudden emotion, he swept the back of his hand 
 across his eyes. He did not remove his hat, but he 
 stood in the drizzle of cold rain for a moment of silence, 
 and then he said: 
 
 "Pap, I hain't fergot. I don't want ye ter think 
 thet I've fergot." 
 
 Before he arrived at the Widow Miller's, the rain 
 had stopped and the clouds had broken. Back of them 
 was a discouraged moon, which sometimes showed its 
 face for a fitful moment, only to disappear. The wind 
 was noisily floundering through the treetops. Near 
 the stile, Samson gave his whippoorwill call. It was, 
 perhaps, not quite so clear or true as usual, but that 
 did not matter. There were no other whippoorwills 
 calling at this season to confuse signals. He crossed 
 the stile, and with a word quieted Sally's dog as it rose 
 to challenge him, and then went with him, licking his 
 hand. 
 
 Sally opened the door, and smiled. She had spent
 
 134 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 the day nerving herself for this farewell, and at least 
 until the moment of leave-taking she would be safe from 
 tears. The Widow Miller and her son soon left them 
 alone, and the boy and girl sat before the blazing logs. 
 
 For a time, an awkward silence fell between them. 
 Sally had donned her best dress, and braided her red- 
 brown hair. She sat with her chin in her palms, and 
 the fire kissed her cheeks and temples into color. That 
 picture and the look in her eyes remained with Samson 
 for a long while, and there were times of doubt and 
 perplexity when he closed his eyes and steadied himself 
 by visualizing it all again in his heart. At last, the 
 boy rose, and went over to the corner where he had 
 placed his gun. He took it up, and laid it on the 
 hearth between them. 
 
 "Sally," he said, "I wants ter tell ye some things thet 
 I hain't never said ter nobody else. In the fust place, 
 I wants ye ter keep this hyar gun fer me." 
 
 The girl's eyes widened with surprise. 
 
 "Hain't ye a-goin' ter take hit with ye, Samson ?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I hain't a-goin' ter need hit down below. Nobody 
 don't use 'em down thar. I've got my pistol, an' I 
 reckon thet will be enough." 
 
 "I'll take good keer of hit," she promised. 
 
 The boy took out of his pockets a box of cartridges 
 and a small package tied in a greasy rag. 
 
 "Hit's loaded, Sally, an' hit's cleaned an* hit's 
 greased. Hit's ready fer use." 
 
 Again, she nodded in silent assent, and the boy began 
 speaking in a slow, careful voice, which gradually 
 mounted into tense emotion.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 135 
 
 "Sally, thet thar gun was my pap's. When he lay 
 a-dyin', he gave hit ter me, an' he gave me a job ter 
 do with hit. When I was a little feller, I used ter set 
 up 'most all day, polishin' thet gun an' gittin' hit 
 ready. I used ter go out in the woods, an' practise 
 shootin' hit at things, tell I larned how ter handle hit. 
 I reckon thar hain't many fellers round here thet kin 
 beat me now." He paused, and the girl hastened to 
 corroborate. 
 
 "Thar hain't none, Samson." 
 
 "There hain't nothin' in the world, Sally, thet I prizes 
 like I does thet gun. Hit's got a job ter do. . . . 
 Thar hain't but one person in the world I'd trust hit 
 with. Thet's you. ... I wants ye ter keep hit fer 
 me, an* ter keep hit ready. . . . They thinks round 
 hyar I'm quittin', but I hain't. I'm a-comin' back, an', 
 when I conies, I'll need this hyar thing an' I'll need 
 hit b*.d." He took up the rifle, and ran his hand caress 
 ingly along its lock and barrel. 
 
 "I don't know when I'm a-comin'," he said, slowly, 
 "but, when I calls fer this, I'm shore a-goin' ter need 
 hit quick. I wants hit ter be ready fer me, day er night. 
 Maybe, nobody won't know I'm hyar. , . Maybe, 
 I won't want nobody ter know. . . But, when I 
 whistles out thar like a whippoorwill, I wants ye ter slip 
 out an' f otch me thet gun !" 
 
 He stopped, and bent forward. His face was tense, 
 and his eyes were glinting with purpose. His lips were 
 tight set and fanatical. 
 
 "Samson," said the girl, reaching out and taking the 
 weapon from his hands, "ef I'm alive when ye comes, 
 I'll do hit. I promises ye. An'," she added, "ef I hain't
 
 136 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 alive, hlt'll be standin' thar in thet corner. I'll grease 
 hit, an* keep hit loaded, an* when ye calls, I'll fetch hit 
 out thar to ye." 
 
 The youth nodded. "I mout come anytime, but likely 
 as not I'll hev ter come a-fightin' when I comes." 
 
 Next, he produced an envelope. 
 
 "This here is a letter I've done writ ter myself," he 
 explained. He drew out the sheet, and read : 
 
 "Samson, come back." Then he handed the missive 
 to the girl. "Thet there is addressed ter me, in care 
 
 of Mr. Lescott Ef anything happens 
 
 ef Unc* Spicer needs me I wants yer ter mail thet 
 ter me quick. He says as how he won't never call me 
 back, but, Sally, I wants thet you shall send fer me, ef 
 they needs me. I hain't a-goin' ter write no letters 
 home. Unc' Spicer can't read, an' you can't read much 
 either. But I'll plumb shore be thinkin' about ye day 
 an' night." 
 
 She gulped and nodded. 
 
 "Yes, Samson," was all she said. 
 
 The boy rose. 
 
 "I reckon I'd better be gettin' along," he announced. 
 
 The girl suddenly reached out both hands, and seized 
 his coat. She held him tight, and rose, facing him. 
 Her upturned face grew very pallid, and her eyes 
 widened. They were dry, and her lips were tightly ' 
 closed, but, through the tearless pupils, in the firelight, 
 the boy could read her soul, and her soul was sobbing. 
 
 He drew her toward him, and held her very tight. 
 
 "Sally," he said, in a voice which threatened to choke, 
 "I wants ye ter take keer of yeself. Ye hain't like these 
 other gals round here. Ye hain't got big hands an*
 
 feet. Ye kain't stand es much es they kin. Don't stay 
 out in the night air too much an', Sally fer God's 
 sake take keer of yeself !" He broke off, and picked up 
 his hat. 
 
 "An' that gun, Sally," he repeated at the door, 
 "that there's the most precious thing I've got. I loves 
 hit better then anything take keer of hit." 
 
 Again, she caught at his shoulders. 
 
 "Does ye love hit better'n ye do me, Samson?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "I reckon ye knows how much I loves ye, Saily," he 
 said, slowly, "but I've done made a promise, an' thet 
 gun's a-goin' ter keep hit fer me." 
 
 They went together out to the stile, he still carrying 
 his rifle, as though loath to let it go, and she crossed 
 with him to the road. 
 
 As he untied his reins, she threw her arms about his 
 neck, and for a long while they stood there under the 
 clouds and stars, as he held her close. There was no 
 eloquence of leave-taking, no professions of undying 
 love, for these two hearts were inarticulate and dizzily 
 clinging to a wilderness code of self-repression and 
 they had reached a point where speech would have swept 
 them both away to a break-down. 
 
 But as they stood, their arms gripping each other, 
 each heart pounding on the other's breast, it was with a 
 pulsing that spoke in the torrent their lips dammed, 
 and between the two even in this farewell embrace was 
 the rifle which stood emblematical of the man's life and 
 mission and heredity. Its cold metal lay in a line 
 between their warm breasts, separating, yet uniting
 
 them, and they clung to each other across its rigid bar 
 rel, as a man and woman may cling with the child be 
 tween them which belongs to both, and makes them one. 
 As yet, she had shed no tears. Then, he mounted and 
 was swallowed in the dark. It was not until the thud of 
 his mule's hoofs were lost in the distance that the girl 
 climbed back to the top of the stile, and dropped down. 
 Then, she lifted the gun and pressed it close to her 
 bosom, and sat silently sobbing for a long while. 
 
 "He's done gone away," she moaned, "an' he won't 
 never come back no more but ef he does come" she 
 raised her eyes to the stars as though calling them to 
 witness "ef he does come, I'll shore be a-waitin'. Lord 
 God, make him come back !"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THF. boy from Misery rode slowly toward Hixon. 
 At times, the moon struggled out and made the 
 shadows black along the way. At other times, 
 it was like riding in a huge caldron of pitch. When he 
 passed into that stretch of country at whose heart 
 Jesse Purvy dwelt, he raised his voice in song. His 
 singing was very bad, and the ballad lacked tune, but 
 it served its purpose of saving him from the suspicion 
 of furtiveness. Though the front of the house was 
 blank, behind its heavy shutters he knew that his 
 coming might be noted, and night-riding at this par 
 ticular spot might be misconstrued in the absence of 
 frank warning. 
 
 The correctness of his inference brought a brief smile 
 to his lips when he crossed the creek that skirted the 
 orchard, and heard a stable door creak softly behind 
 him. He was to be followed again and watched, but 
 he did not look back or pause to listen for the hoof- 
 beats of his unsolicited escort. On the soft mud of the 
 I road, he would hardly have heard them, had he bent his 
 ear and drawn rein. He rode at a walk, for his train 
 would not leave until five o'clock in the morning. There 
 was time in plenty. 
 
 It was cold and depressing as he trudged the empty 
 streets from the livery stable to the railroad station, 
 carrying his saddlebags over his arm. His last fare- 
 
 139
 
 well had been taken when he left the old mule behind In 
 the rickety livery stable. It had been unemotional, too, 
 but the ragged creature had raised its stubborn head, 
 and rubbed its soft nose against his shoulder as though 
 in realization of the parting and unwilling realization. 
 He had roughly laid his hand for a moment on the 
 muzzle, and turned on his heel. 
 
 He was all unconscious that he presented a figure 
 which would seem ludicrous in the great world to which 
 he had looked with such eagerness. The lamps burned 
 murkily about the railroad station, and a heavy fog 
 cloaked the hills. At last he heard the whistle and saw 
 the blazing headlight, and a minute later he had pushed 
 his way into the smoking-car and dropped his saddle 
 bags on the seat beside him. Then, for the first time, 
 he saw and recognized his watchers. Purvy meant to 
 have Samson shadowed as far as Lexington, and his 
 movements from that point definitely reported. Jim 
 Asberry and Aaron Hollis were the chosen spies. He 
 did not speak to the two enemies who took seats across 
 the car, but his face hardened, and his brows came 
 together in a black scowl. 
 
 "When I gits back," he promised himself, "you'll be 
 one of the fust folks I'll look fer, Jim Asberry, damn 
 ye! All I hopes is thet nobody else don't git ye fust 
 Ye b'longs ter me." 
 
 He was not quite certain yet that Jim Asberry had 
 murdered his father, but he knew that Asberry was one 
 of the coterie of "killers" who took their blood hire 
 from Purvy, and he knew that Asberry had sworn to 
 "git" him. To sit in the same car with these men and 
 to force himself to withhold his hand, was a hard bullet
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 141 
 
 for Samson South to chew, but he had bided his time 
 thus far, and he would bide it to the end. When that 
 end came, it would also be the end for Purvy and 
 Asberry. He disliked Hollis, too, but with a less definite 
 and intense hatred. Samson wished that one of the 
 henchmen would make a move toward attack. He made 
 no concealment of his own readiness. He removed both 
 overcoat and coat, leaving exposed to view the heavy 
 revolver which was strapped under his left arm. He 
 even unbuttoned the leather flap of the holster, and then 
 being cleared for action, sat glowering across the aisle, 
 with his eyes not on the faces but upon the hands of 
 the two Purvy spies. 
 
 The wrench of partings, the long raw ride and dis- 
 spiriting gloom of the darkness before dawn had taken 
 out of the boy's mind all the sparkle of anticipation 
 and left only melancholy and hate. He felt for the 
 moment that, had these men attacked him and thrown 
 him back into the life he was leaving, back into the war 
 without fault on his part, he would be glad. The fierce 
 activity of fighting would be welcome to his mood. He 
 longed for the appeasement of a thoroughly satisfied 
 vengeance. But the two watchers across the car were 
 not ordered to fight and so they made no move. They 
 did not seem to see Samson. They did not appear to 
 'have noticed his inviting readiness for combat. They ' 
 did not remove their coats. At Lexington, where he had 
 several hours to wait, Samson bought a "snack" at a 
 restaurant near the station and then strolled about the 
 adjacent streets, still carrying his saddlebags, for he 
 knew nothing of the workings of check-rooms. When 
 he returned to the depot with his open wallet in his
 
 142 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 hand, and asked for a ticket to New York, the agent 
 looked up and his lips unguardedly broke into a smile 
 of amusement. It was a good-humored smile, but Sam 
 son saw that it was inspired by some sort of joke, and 
 he divined that the joke was himself! 
 
 "What's the matter?" he inquired very quietly, 
 though his chin stiffened. **Don't ye sell tickets ter New 
 York?" 
 
 The man behind the grilled wicket read a spirit as 
 swift to resent ridicule as that of d'Artagnan had been 
 when he rode his orange-colored nag into the streets of 
 Paris. His face sobered, and his manner became atten 
 tive. He was wondering what complications lay ahead 
 of this raw creature whose crudity of appearance was 
 so at odds with the compelling quality of his eyes. 
 
 "Do you want a Pullman reservation?" he asked. 
 
 "What's thet?" The boy put the question with a 
 steadiness of gaze that seemed to defy the agent to 
 entertain even a subconsciously critical thought as to 
 his ignorance. 
 
 The ticket man explained sleeping- and dining-cars. 
 He had rather expected the boy to choose the day coach, 
 but Samson merely said: 
 
 "I wants the best thar is." He counted out the 
 additional money, and turned gravely from the window. 
 The sleeping-car to which he was assigned was almost 
 empty, but he felt upon him the interested gaze of those 
 few eyes that were turned toward his entrance. He 
 engaged every pair with a pair very clear and steady 
 and undropping, until somehow each lip that had started 
 to twist in amusement straightened, and the twinkle 
 that rose at first glance sobered at second. He did not
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 143 
 
 know why an old gentleman in a plaid traveling cap, who 
 looked up from a magazine, turned his gaze out of the 
 window with an expression of grave thoughtf ulness. To 
 himself, the old gentleman was irrelevantly quoting a 
 line or two of verse : 
 
 " '. . . Unmade, unhandled, unmeet 
 Ye pushed them raw to the battle, as ye picked them 
 raw from the street ' 
 
 "Only," added the old gentleman under his breath, 
 "this one hasn't even the training of the streets but 
 with those eyes he'll get somewhere." 
 
 The porter paused and asked to see Samson's ticket. 
 Mentally, he observed: 
 
 "Po' white trash!" Then, he looked again, for the 
 boy's eyes were discomfortingly on his fat, black face, 
 and the porter straightway decided to be polite. Yet, 
 for all his specious seeming of unconcern, Samson was 
 waking to the fact that he was a scarecrow, and his 
 sensitive pride made him cut his meals short in the 
 dining-car, where he was kept busy beating down 
 inquisitive eyes with his defiant gaze. He resolved after 
 some thought upon a definite policy. It was a very old 
 policy, but to him new and a discovery. He would 
 change nothing in himself that involved a surrender of 
 code or conviction. But, wherever it could be done with 
 honor, he would concede to custom. He had come to 
 learn, not to give an exhibition of stubbornness. What 
 ever the outside world could offer with a recommenda 
 tion to his good sense, that thing he would adopt and 
 make his own.
 
 14-4. THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 It was late in the second afternoon when he stepped 
 from the train at Jersey City, to be engulfed in an 
 unimagined roar and congestion. Here, it was impos 
 sible to hold his own against the unconcealed laughter 
 of the many, and he stood for an instant glaring about 
 like a caged tiger, while three currents of humanity 
 separated and flowed toward the three ferry exits. It 
 was a moment of longing for the quiet of his ancient 
 hills, where nothing more formidable than blood enemies 
 existed to disquiet and perplex a man's philosophy. 
 Those were things he understood and even enemies at 
 home did not laugh at a man's peculiarities. For the 
 first time in his life, Samson felt a tremor of something 
 like terror, terror of a great, vague thing, too vast 
 and intangible to combat, and possessed of the measure 
 less power of many hurricanes. Then, he saw the 
 smiling face of Lescott, and Lescott's extended hand. 
 Even Lescott, immaculately garbed and fur-coated, 
 seemed almost a stranger, and the boy's feeling of 
 intimacy froze to inward constraint and diffidence. But 
 Lescott knew nothing of that. The stoic in Samson 
 held true, masking his emotions. 
 
 "So you came," said the New Yorker, heartily, grasp 
 ing the boy's hand. "Where's your luggage? We'll 
 just pick that up, and make a dash for the ferry." 
 
 "Hyar hit is," replied Samson, who still carried his 
 saddlebags. The painter's eyes twinkled, but the mirth 
 was so frank and friendly that the boy, instead of 
 glaring in defiance, grinned responsively. 
 
 "Right, oh!" laughed Lescott. "I thought maybe 
 you'd brought a trunk, but it's the wise man who travels 
 light."
 
 "I reckon I'm pretty green," acknowledged the youth 
 somewhat ruefully. "But I hain't been studyin' on 
 what I looked like. I reckon thet don't make much 
 difference." 
 
 "Not much," affirmed the other, with conviction. "Let 
 the men with little souls spend their thought on that." 
 
 The artist watched his protege narrowly as they 
 took their places against the forward rail of the ferry- 
 deck, and the boat stood out into the crashing water 
 traffic of North River. What Samson saw must be 
 absolutely bewildering. Ears attuned to hear a break 
 ing twig must ache to this hoarse shrieking of whistles. 
 To the west, in the evening's fading color, the sky-line 
 of lower Manhattan bit the sky with its serried line of 
 fangs. 
 
 Yet, Samson leaned on the rail without comment, and 
 his face told nothing. Lescott waited for some expres 
 sion, and, when none came, he casually suggested: 
 
 "Samson, that is considered rather an impressive 
 panorama over there. What do you think of it ?" 
 
 "Ef somebody was ter ask ye ter describe the shape 
 of a rainstorm, what would ye say ?" countered the boy. 
 
 Lescott laughed. 
 
 "I guess I wouldn't try to say." 
 
 "I reckon," replied the mountaineer, "I won't try, 
 neither." 
 
 "Do you find it anything like the thing expected?" 
 No New Yorker can allow a stranger to be unimpressed 
 with that sky-line. 
 
 "I didn't have no notion what to expect." Samson's 
 voice was matter-of-fact. "I 'lowed I'd jest wait and 
 see."
 
 146 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 He followed Lescott out to the foot of Twenty-third 
 Street, and stepped with him into the tonneau of the 
 painter's waiting car. Lescott lived with his family 
 tip-town, for it happened that, had his canvases pos 
 sessed no value whatever, he would still have been in 
 a position to drive his motor, and follow his impulses 
 about the world. Lescott himself had found it neces 
 sary to overcome family opposition when he had de 
 termined to follow the career of painting. His people 
 had been in finance, and they had expected him to take 
 the position to which he logically fell heir in activities 
 that center about Wall Street. He, too, had at first 
 been regarded as recreant to traditions. For that 
 reason, he felt a full sympathy with Samson. The 
 painter's place in the social world although he pre 
 ferred his other world of Art was so secure that he 
 was free from any petty embarrassment in standing 
 sponsor for a wild man from the hills. If he did not 
 take the boy to his home, it was because he understood 
 that a life which must be not only full of early embar 
 rassment, but positively revolutionary, should be ap 
 proached by easy stages. Consequently, the car turned 
 down Fifth Avenue, passed under the arch, and drew 
 up before a door just off Washington Square, where 
 the landscape painter had a studio suite. There were 
 sleeping-rooms and such accessories as seemed to the boy 
 unheard-of luxury, though Lescott regarded the place 
 as a makeshift annex to his home establishment. 
 
 "You'd better take your time in selecting permanent 
 quarters," was his careless fashion of explaining to 
 Samson. "It's just as well not to hurry. You are to 
 stay here with me, as long as you will."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANBS 147 
 
 i 
 
 "I'm sbleeged ter ye," replied the boy, to whose train 
 ing in pen-doored hospitality the invitation seemed 
 only natural. The evening meal was brought in from 
 a neighboring hotel, and the two men dined before an 
 open fire, Samson eating in mountain silence, while his 
 host chatted and asked questions. The place was 
 quiet for New York, but to Samson it seemed an insuf-l 
 ferable pandemonium. He found himself longing for 
 the velvet-soft quiet of the nightfalls he had known. 
 
 "Samson," suggested the painter, when the dinner 
 things had been carried out and they were alone, "you 
 are here for two purposes: first to study painting; 
 secnd, to educate and equip yourself for coming con 
 ditions. It's going to take work, more work, and then 
 some more work." 
 
 "I hain't skeered of work." 
 
 "I believe that. Also, you must keep out of trouble. 
 You've got to ride your fighting instinct with a strong 
 curb." 
 
 "I don't 'low to let nobody run over me." The state 
 ment was not argumentative ; only an announcement of 
 a principle which was not subject to modification. 
 
 "All right, but until you learn the ropes, let me advise 
 you." 
 
 The boy gazed into the fire for a few moments of* 
 silence. 
 
 "I gives ye my hand on thet," he promised. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the painter, having shown his guest 
 over the premises, said good-night, and went up-town 
 to his own house. Samson lay a long while awake, with 
 many disquieting reflections. Before his closed eyes 
 rose insistently the picture of a smoky cabin with a
 
 148 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 puncheon floor and of a girl upon whose cheeks and 
 temples flickered orange and vermilion lights. To his 
 ears came the roar of elevated trains, and, since a fog 
 had risen over the Hudson, the endless night-splitting 
 screams of brazen-throated ferry whistles. He tossed 
 on a mattress which seemed hard and comfortless, and 
 longed for a feather-bed. 
 
 "Good-night, Sally," he almost groaned. "I wisht I 
 was back thar whar I belongs." . . . And Sally, 
 more than a thousand miles away, was shivering on the 
 top of a stile with a white, grief -torn little face, wishing 
 that, too. 
 
 Meanwhile Lescott, letting himself into a house over 
 looking the Park, was hailed by a chorus of voices from 
 the dining-room. He turned and went in to join a gay 
 group just back from the opera. As he thoughtfully 
 mixed himself a highball, they bombarded him with 
 questions. 
 
 "Why didn't you bring your barbarian with you?" 
 demanded a dark-eyed girl, who looked very much as 
 Lescott himself might have looked had he been a girl 
 and very young and lovely. The painter always 
 thought of his sister as the family's edition de luxe. 
 Now, she flashed on him an affectionate smile, and added: 
 "We have been waiting to see him. Must we go to 
 bed disappointed?" 
 
 George stood looking down on them, and tinkled the 
 ice in his glass. 
 
 "He wasn't brought on for purposes of exhibition, 
 Drennie," he smiled. "I was afraid, if he came in here 
 in the fashion of his arrival carrying his saddlebags 
 you ultra-civilized folk might have laughed."
 
 A roar of laughter at the picture vindicated Lescott's 
 assumption. 
 
 "No! Now, actually with saddlebags?" echoed a 
 young fellow with a likeable face which was for the 
 moment incredulously amused. "That goes Dick Whit- 
 tington one better. You do make some rare discoveries, 
 George. We celebrate you." 
 
 "Thanks, Horton," commented the painter, dryly. 
 "When you New Yorkers have learned what these bar 
 barians already know, the control of your over-sensitized 
 risibles and a courtesy deeper than your shirt-fronts 
 maybe I'll let you have a look. Meantime, I'm much 
 too fond of all of you to risk letting you laugh at my 
 barbarian."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE first peep of daylight through the studio sky 
 light found the mountain boy awake. Before the 
 daylight came he had seen the stars through its 
 panes. Lescott's servant, temporarily assigned to the 
 studio, was still sleeping when Samson dressed and went 
 out. As he put on his clothes, he followed his custom of 
 strapping the pistol-holster under his left armpit out 
 side his shirt. He did it with no particular thought and 
 from force of habit. His steps carried him first into 
 Washington Square, at this cheerless hour empty except 
 for a shivering and huddled figure on a bench and a 
 rattling milk-cart. The boy wandered aimlessly until, 
 an hur later, he found himself on Bleecker Street, as 
 that thoroughfare began to awaken and take up its 
 day's activity. The smaller shops that lie in the shadow 
 of the elevated trestle were opening their doors. Sam 
 son had been reflecting on the amused glances he had 
 inspired yesterday and, when he came to a store with 
 a tawdry window display of haberdashery and ready- 
 made clothing, he decided to go in and investigate. 
 
 Evidently, the garments he now wore gave him an 
 appearance of poverty and meanness, which did not 
 comport with the dignity of a South. Had any one 
 else criticized his appearance his resentment would have 
 blazed, but he could make voluntary admissions. The 
 shopkeeper's curiosity was somewhat piqued by a man- 
 
 150
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 151 
 
 ner of speech and appearance which were, to him, new, 
 and which he could not classify. His first impression 
 of the boy in the stained suit, slouch hat, and patched 
 overcoat, was much the same as that which the Pullman 
 porter had mentally summed up as, "Po' white trash" ; 
 but the Yiddish shopman could not place his prospective 
 customer under any head or type with which he was 
 familiar. He was neither "kike," "wop," "rough-neck," 
 nor beggar, and, as the proprietor laid out his wares 
 with unctuous solicitude, he was, also, studying his 
 unresponsive and early visitor. When Samson, for the 
 purpose of trying on a coat and vest, took off his own 
 outer garments, and displayed, without apology or ex 
 planation, a huge and murderous-looking revolver, the 
 merchant became nervously excited. Had Samson made 
 gratifying purchases, he might have seen nothing, but 
 it occurred to the mountaineer, just as he was counting 
 money from a stuffed purse, that it would perhaps be 
 wiser to wait and consult Lescott in matters of sartorial 
 selection. So, with incisive bluntness, he countermanded 
 his order and made an enemy. The shopkeeper, stand 
 ing at the door of his basement establishment, combed 
 his beard with his fingers, and thought regretfully of 
 the fat wallet ; and, a minute after, when two policemen 
 ' came by, walking together, he awoke suddenly to his 
 responsibilities as a citizen. He pointed to the figure 
 now half a block away. 
 
 "Dat feller," he said, "chust vent out off my blace. 
 He's got a young cannon strapped to his vish-bone. 
 I don't know if he's chust a rube, or if maybe he's bad. 
 Anyway, he's a gun-toter." 
 
 The two patrolmen only nodded, and sauntered on
 
 152 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 They did not hurry, but neither did Samson. Pausing 
 to gaze into a window filled with Italian sweetmeats, he 
 felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to find himself 
 looking into two pairs of accusing eyes. 
 
 "What's your game?" shortly demanded one of the 
 officers. 
 
 "What's ther matter?" countered Samson, as tartly 
 as he had been questioned. 
 
 "Don't you know better than to tote a gun around 
 this town?" 
 
 "I reckon thet's my business, hain't hit?" 
 The boy stepped back, and shook the offending hand 
 from his shoulder. His gorge was rising, but he con 
 trolled it, and turned on his heel, with the manner of one 
 saying the final word. 
 
 "I reckon ye're a-barkin' up ther wrong tree." 
 "Not by a damned sight, we ain't!" One of the 
 patrolmen seized and pinioned his arms, while the second 
 threateningly lifted his club. 
 
 "Don't try to start anything, young feller," he 
 warned. The street was awake now and the ever-curious 
 crowd began to gather. The big officer at Samson's 
 back held his arms locked and gave curt directions to 
 his partner. "Go through him, Quinn." 
 
 Samson recognized that he was in the hands of the 
 law, and a different sort of law from that which he had 
 known on Misery. He made no effort to struggle, but 
 looked very straight and unblinkingly into the eyes of 
 the club-wielder. 
 
 "Don't ye hit me with thet thing," he said, quietly. 
 "I warns ye." 
 
 The officer laughed as he ran his left hand over Sam-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 153 
 
 son's hips and chest, and brought out the offending 
 weapon. 
 
 "I guess that's about all. We'll let you explain the 
 rest of it to the judge. It's a trick on the Island for 
 yours." 
 
 The Island meant nothing to Samson South, but the 
 derisive laughter of the crowd, and the roughness with 
 which the two bluecoats swung him around, and ordered 
 him to march, set on edge every defiant nerve. Still, he 
 gazed directly into the faces of his captors, and inquired 
 with a cruelly forced calm : 
 
 "Does ye 'low ter take me ter the jail-house?" 
 
 "Can that rube stuff. Get along, get along !" And 
 the officers started him on his journey with a shove that 
 sent him lurching and stumbling forward. Then, the 
 curb of control slipped. The prisoner wheeled, his face 
 distorted with passion, and lashed out with his fist to 
 the face of the biggest patrolman. It was a foolish 
 and hopeless attack, as the boy realized, but in his code 
 it was necessary. One must resent gratuitous insult 
 whatever the odds, and he fought with such concentrated 
 fury and swiftness, after his rude hill method of "fist 
 and skull," driving in terrific blows with hands and 
 head, that the crowd breathed deep with the delicious 
 I excitement of the combat and regretted its brevity. 
 
 The amazed officers, for an instant handicapped by 
 their surprise, since they were expecting to monopolize 
 the brutality of the occasion, came to their senses, and 
 had instant recourse to the comforting reinforcement 
 of their locust clubs. The boy went down under a rat- 
 tat of night sticks, which left him as groggy and easy 
 to handle as a fainting woman.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANBS 
 
 "You got ter hand it ter dat guy," commented a 
 sweater-clad onlooker, as they dragged Samson into a 
 doorway to await the wagon. "He was goin' some while 
 he lasted." 
 
 The boy was conscious again, though still faint, when 
 the desk sergeant wrote on the station-house blotter: 
 
 "Carrying a deadly weapon, and resisting an officer." 
 
 The lieutenant had strolled in, and was contem 
 platively turning over in his hand the heavy forty-five- 
 calibre Colt. 
 
 "Some rod that !" he announced. "We don't get many 
 like it here. Where did you breeze in from, young 
 fellow?" 
 
 "Thet's my business," growled Samson. Then, he 
 added: "I'll be obleeged if ye'll send word ter Mr. 
 George Lescott ter come an' bail me out." 
 
 "You seem to know the procedure," remarked the 
 desk sergeant, with a smile. "Who is Mr. George Les 
 cott, and where's his hang-out?" 
 
 One of the arresting officers looked up from wiping 
 with his handkerchief the sweat-band of his helmet. 
 
 "George Lescott?" he repeated. "I know him. He's 
 got one of them studios just off Washington Square. 
 He drives down-town in a car the size of the Olympic. 
 I don't know how he'd get acquainted with a boob like 
 this." 
 
 "Oh, well!" the desk sergeant yawned. "Stick him 
 in the cage. We'll call up this Lescott party later on. 
 I guess he's still in the hay, and it might make him 
 peevish to wake him up." 
 
 Left alone in the police-station cell, the boy began to 
 think. First of all, he was puzzled. He had fared
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 155 
 
 forth peaceably, and spoken to no one except the store 
 keeper. To force a man into peace by denying him his 
 gun, seemed as unreasonable as to prevent fisticuffs by 
 cutting off hands. But, also, a deep sense of shame 
 swept over him, and scalded him. Getting into trouble 
 ^here was, somehow, different from getting into trouble 
 ,at home and, in some strange way, bitterly humil 
 iating. 
 
 Lescott had risen early, meaning to go down to the 
 studio, and have breakfast with Samson. His mother 
 and sister were leaving for Bermuda by a nine o'clock 
 sailing. Consequently, eight o'clock found the house 
 hold gathered in the breakfast-room, supplemented by 
 Mr. Wilfred Horton, whose orchids Adrienne Lescott 
 was wearing, and whose luggage was already at the 
 wharf. 
 
 "Since Wilfred is in the party to take care of things, 
 and look after you," suggested Lescott, as he came into 
 the room a trifle late, "I think I'll say good-by here, 
 and run along to the studio. Samson is probably feel 
 ing like a new boy in school this morning. You'll find 
 the usual litter of flowers and fiction in your state 
 rooms to attest my filial and brotherly devotion." 
 
 "Was the brotherly sentiment addressed to me?" in 
 quired Wilfred, with an unsmiling and brazen gravity 
 that brought to the girl's eyes and lips a half -mocking 
 and wholly decorative twinkle of amusement. 
 
 "Just because I try to be a sister to you, Wilfred," 
 she calmly reproved, "I can't undertake to make my 
 brother do it, too. Besides, he couldn't be a sister to 
 
 you." 
 
 'But by dropping that attitude which is entirely
 
 156 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 gratuitous you will compel him to assume it. My 
 sentiment as regards brotherly love is brief and terse, 
 'Let George do it !' " Mr. Horton was complacently 
 consuming his breakfast with an excellent appetite, to 
 which the prospect of six weeks among Bermuda lilies 
 with Adrienne lent a fillip. 
 
 "So, brother-to-be," he continued, "you have my per 
 mission to run along down-town, and feed your savage." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir !" The Lescott butler leaned close 
 to the painter's ear, and spoke with a note of apology 
 as though deploring the necessity of broaching such a 
 subject. "But will you kindly speak with the Macdougal 
 Street Police Station?" 
 
 "With the what?" Lescott turned in surprise, while 
 Horton surrendered himself to unrestrained and bois 
 terous laughter. 
 
 "The barbarian !" he exclaimed. "I call that snappy 
 work. Twelve hours in New York, and a run-in with 
 the police ! I've noticed," he added, as the painter hur 
 riedly quitted the room, "that, when you take the bad 
 man out of his own cock-pit, he rarely lasts as far as 
 the second round." 
 
 "It occurs to me, Wilfred," suggested Adrienne, with 
 the hint of warning in her voice, "that you may be just 
 a trifle overdoing your attitude of amusement as to this 
 barbarian. George is fond of him, and believes in him, 
 and George is quite often right in his judgment." 
 
 "George," added Mrs. Lescott, "had a broken arm 
 down there in the mountains, and these people were kind 
 to him in many ways. I wish I could see Mr. South, 
 and thank him." 
 
 Lescott's manner over the telephone was indicating to
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 157 
 
 a surprised desk sergeant a decidedly greater interest 
 than had been anticipated, and, after a brief and pointed 
 conversation in that quarter, he called another number. 
 It was a private number, not included in the telephone 
 book and communicated with the residence of an 
 attorney who would not have permitted the generality 
 of clients to disturb him in advance of office hours. 
 
 A realization that the "gun-lugger" had friends 
 "higher up" percolated at the station-house in another 
 hour, when a limousine halted at the door, and a legal 
 celebrity, whose ways were not the ways of police sta 
 tions or magistrates' courts, stepped to the curb. 
 
 "I am waiting to meet Mr. Lescott," announced the 
 Honorable Mr. Wickliffe, curtly. 
 
 When a continuance of the case had been secured, 
 and bond given, the famous lawyer and Samson lunched 
 together at the studio as Lescott's guests, and, after 
 the legal luminary had thawed the boy's native reserve 
 and wrung from him his story, he was interested enough 
 to use all his eloquence and logic in his efforts to show 
 the mountaineer what inherent necessities of justice lay 
 back of seemingly restrictive laws. 
 
 "You simply 'got in bad' through your failure to 
 understand conditions here," laughed the lawyer. "I 
 guess we can pull you through, but in future you'll 
 have to submit to some guidance, my boy." 
 
 And Samson, rather to Lescott's surprise, nodded his 
 head with only a ghost of resentment. From friends, 
 he was willing to learn. 
 
 Lescott had been afraid that this initial experience 
 would have an extinguishing effect on Samson's ambi 
 tions. He half -expected to hear the dogged announce-
 
 158 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 ment, "I reckon I'll go back home. I don't b'long hyar 
 nohow." But no such remark came. 
 
 One night, they sat in the cafe of an old French 
 hostelry where, in the polyglot chatter of three lan 
 guages, one hears much shop talk of art and literature. 
 Between the mirrored walls, Samson was for the first 
 time glimpsing the shallow sparkle of Bohemia. The 
 orchestra was playing an appealing waltz. Among the 
 diners were women gowned as he had never seen women 
 gowned before. They sat with men, and met the 
 challenge of ardent glances with dreamy eyes. They 
 hummed an accompaniment to the air, and sometimes 
 loudly and publicly quarreled. But Samson looked on 
 as taciturn and unmoved as though he had never dined 
 elsewhere. And yet, his eyes were busy, for suddenly 
 he laid down his knife, and picked up his fork. 
 
 "Hit 'pears like I've got a passel of things ter I'arn," 
 he said, earnestly. "I reckon I mout as well begin by 
 1'arnin' how ter eat." He had heretofore regarded a 
 fork only as a skewer with which to hold meat in the 
 cutting. 
 
 Lescott laughed. 
 
 "Most rules of social usage," he explained, "go back 
 to the test of efficiency. It is considered good form 
 to eat with the fork, principally because it is more 
 efficient." 
 
 The boy nodded. 
 
 "All right," he acquiesced. "You 1'arn me all them 
 things, an' I'll be obleeged ter ye. Things is diff'rent 
 in diff'rent places. I reckon the Souths lies a right ter 
 behave es good es anybody." 
 
 When a man, whose youth and courage are at their
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 159 
 
 zenith, and whose brain is tuned to concert pitch, is 
 thrown neck and crop out of squalid isolation into the 
 melting pot of Manhattan, puzzling problems of read 
 justment must follow. Samson's half -starved mind was 
 reaching out squid-like tentacles in every direction. He 
 was saying little, seeing much, not yet coordinating or 
 tabulating, but grimly bolting every morsel of enlight 
 enment. Later, he would digest; now, he only gorged. 
 Before he could hope to benefit by the advanced instruc 
 tion of the life-classes, he must toil and sweat over 
 the primer stages of drawing. Several months were 
 spent laboring with charcoal and paper over plaster 
 casts in Lescptt's studio, and Lescott himself played 
 instructor. When the skylight darkened with the com 
 ing of evening, the boy whose mountain nature cried 
 out for exercise went for long tramps that carried him 
 over many miles of city pavements, and after that, 
 when the gas was lit, he turned, still insatiably hungry, 
 to volumes of history, and algebra, and facts. So 
 gluttonous was his protege's application that the 
 painter felt called on to remonstrate against the danger 
 of overwork. But Samson only laughed; that was one 
 of the things he had learned to do since he left the 1 
 mountains. 
 
 "I reckon," he drawled, "that as long as I'm at work, 
 I kin keep out of trouble. Seems like that's the only 
 
 way I kin do it." 
 
 **#* 
 
 A sloop-rigged boat with a crew of two was dancing 
 before a brisk breeze through blue Bermuda waters. 
 Off to the right, Hamilton rose sheer and colorful from 
 the bay. At the tiller sat the white-clad figure of
 
 Adrienne Lescott. Puffs of wind that whipped the 
 ~tautly bellying sheets lashed her dark hair about her 
 face. Her lips, vividly red like poppy-petals, were 
 just now curved into an amused smile, which made them 
 even more than ordinarily kissable and tantalizing. 
 Her companion was neglecting his nominal duty of 
 tending the sheet to watch her. 
 
 "Wilfred," she teased, "your contrast is quite start 
 ling and, in a way, effective. From head to foot, you 
 are spotless white but your scowl is absolutely 'the 
 Slackest black that our eyes endure.' And," she added, in 
 an injured voice, "I'm sure I've been very nice to you." 
 
 "I have not yet begun to scowl," he assured her, and 
 proceeded to show what superlatives of saturnine expres 
 sion he held in reserve. "See here, Drennie, I know 
 perfectly well that I'm a sheer imbecile to reveal the 
 fact that you've made me mad. It pleases you too 
 perfectly. It makes you happier than is good for you, 
 but " 
 
 "It's a terrible thing to make me happy, isn't it?" she 
 inquired, sweetly. 
 
 "Unspeakably so, when you derive happiness from 
 the torture of your fellow-man." 
 
 "My brother-man," she amiably corrected him. 
 
 "Good Lord !" he groaned in desperation. "I ought 
 to turn cave man, and seize you by the hair and drag 
 you to the nearest minister or prophet, or whoever 
 could marry us. Then, after the ceremony, I ought to 
 drag you to my own grotto, and beat you." 
 
 "Would I have to wear my wedding ring in my nose ?" 
 She put the question with the manner of one much 
 interested in acquiring useful information.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 161 
 
 "Drennie, for the nine-hundred-thousandth time; 
 simply, in the interests of harmony and to break the 
 deadlock, will you marry me?" 
 
 "Not this afternoon," she smiled. "Watch for the 
 boom ! I'm going to bring her round." 
 
 The young man promptly ducked his head, and 
 played out the line, as the boat dipped her masthead 
 waterward, and came about on the other tack. When 
 the sails were again drumming under the fingers of the 
 wind, she added: 
 
 "Besides, I'm not sure that harmony is what I want." 
 
 "You know you'll have to marry me in the end. Why 
 not now?" he persisted, doggedly. "We are simply 
 wasting our youth, dear." 
 
 His tone had become so calamitous that the girl could 
 not restrain a peal of very musical laughter. 
 
 "Am I so very funny?" he inquired, with dignity. 
 
 "You are, when you are so very tragic," she assured 
 him. 
 
 He realized that his temper was merely a challenge 
 to her teasing, and he wisely fell back into his cus 
 tomary attitude of unruffled insouciance. 
 
 "Drennie, you have held me off since we were children. 
 I believe I first announced my intention of marrying 
 you when you were twelve. That intention remains 
 unaltered, More: it is unalterable and inevitable. My 
 reasons for wanting to needn't be rehearsed. It would 
 take too long. I regard you as possessed of an alert and 
 remarkable mind one worthy of companionship with 
 my own." Despite the frivolous badinage of his words 
 and the humorous smile of his lips, his eyes hinted at 
 an underlying intensity. "With no desire to flatter or
 
 162 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 spoil you, I find your personal aspect pleasing enough 
 to satisfy me. And then, while a man should avoid 
 emotionalism, I am in love with you." He moved over 
 to a place in the sternsheets, and his face became in 
 tensely earnest. He dropped his hand over hers as 
 it lay on the tiller shaft. "God knows, dear," he ex 
 claimed, "how much I love you!" 
 
 Her eyes, after holding his for a moment, fell to the 
 hand which still imprisoned her own. She shook her 
 head, not in anger, but with a manner of gentle denial, 
 until he released her fingers and stepped back. 
 
 "You are a dear, Wilfred," she comforted, "and I 
 couldn't manage to get on without you, but you aren't 
 marriageable at least, not yet." 
 
 "Why not ?" he argued. "I've stood back and twirled 
 my thumbs all through your debut winter. I've been 
 Patience without the comfort of a pedestal. Now, will 
 you give me three minutes to show you that you are not 
 acting fairly, or nicely at all?" 
 
 "Duck!" warned the girl, and once more they fell 
 silent in the sheer physical delight of two healthy young 
 animals, clean-blooded and sport-loving, as the tall jib 
 swept down ; the "high side" swept up, and the boat 
 hung for an exhilarating moment on the verge of cap 
 sizing. As it righted itself again, like the craft of a 
 daring airman banking the pylons, the girl gave him a 
 bright nod. "Now, go ahead," she acceded, "you have 
 three minutes to put yourself in nomination as the 
 exemplar of your age and times."
 
 CHAPTKR XV 
 
 THE young man settled back, and stuffed tobacco 
 into a battered pipe. Then, with a lightness of 
 tone which was assumed as a defense against her 
 mischievous teasing, he began : 
 
 "Very well, Drennie. When you were twelve, which 
 is at best an unimpressive age for the female of the 
 species, I was eighteen, and all the world knows that at 
 eighteen a man is very mature and important. You 
 wore pigtails then, and it took a prophet's eye to fore 
 see how wonderfully you were going to emerge from 
 your chrysalis." 
 
 The idolatry of his eyes told how wonderful she 
 seemed to him now. 
 
 "Yet, I fell in love with you, and I said to myself, 
 'I'll wait for her.' However, I didn't want to wait 
 eternally. For eight years, I have danced willing 
 attendance following you through nursery, younger- 
 set and debutante stages. In short, with no wish to 
 trumpet too loudly my own virtues, I've been your 
 Fidus Achates." His voice dropped from its pitch of 
 antic whimsey, and became for a moment grave, as he 
 added: "And, because of my love for you, I've lived a 
 life almost as clean as your own." 
 
 "One's Fidus Achates, if I remembx. .: anything of 
 my Latin, which I don't" the girl spoke in that voice 
 which the man loved best, because it had left off banter- 
 
 163
 
 164 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 ing, and become grave with such softness and depth of 
 timbre as might have trembled in the reed pipes of a 
 Sylvan Pan "is one's really-truly friend. Everything 
 that you claim for yourself is admitted and many 
 other things that you haven't claimed. Now, suppose 
 you give me three minutes to make an accusation on 
 other charges. They're not very grave faults, perhaps, 
 by the standards of your world and mine, but to me, 
 personally, they seem important." 
 
 Wilfred nodded, and said, gravely: 
 
 "I am waiting." 
 
 "In the first place, you are one of those men whose 
 fortunes are listed in the top schedule the swollen 
 fortunes. Socialists would put you in the predatory 
 class." 
 
 "Drennie," he groaned, "do you keep your heaven 
 locked behind a gate of the Needle's Eye? It's not my 
 fault that I'm rich. It was wished on me. If you are 
 serious, I'm willing to become poor as Job's turkey. 
 Show me the way to strip myself, and I'll stand shortly 
 before you begging alms." 
 
 "To what end?" she questioned. "Poverty would be 
 quite inconvenient. I shouldn't care for it. But hasn't 
 it ever occurred to you that the man who wears the 
 strongest and brightest mail, and who by his own con 
 fession is possessed of an alert brain, ought occasionally 
 to be seen in the lists?" 
 
 "In short, your charge is that I am a shirker and, 
 since it's the same thing, a coward?" 
 
 Adrienne did not at once answer him, but she 
 straightened out for an uninterrupted run before the 
 wind, and by the tiny moss-green flecks, which moments
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 165 
 
 of great seriousness brought to the depths of her eyes, 
 he knew that she meant to speak the unveiled truth. 
 
 "Besides your own holdings in a lot of railways and 
 things, you handle your mother's and sisters' property, 
 don't you?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "In a fashion, I do. I sign the necessary papers 
 when the lawyers call me up, and ask me to come down 
 town." 
 
 "You are a director in the Metropole Trust Com 
 pany ?" 
 
 "Guilty." 
 
 "In the Consolidated Seacoast?" 
 
 "I believe so." 
 
 "In a half-dozen other things equally important?" 
 
 "Good Lord, Drennie, how can I answer all those 
 questions off-hand? I don't carry a note-book in my 
 yachting flannels." 
 
 Her voice was so serious that he wondered if it were 
 not, also, a little contemptuous. 
 
 "Do you have to consult a note-book to answer those 
 questions ?" 
 
 "Those directorate jobs are purely honorary," he 
 defended. "If I butted in with fool suggestions, they'd 
 {quite properly kick me out." 
 
 "With your friends, who are also share-holders, you 
 could assume control of the Morning Intelligence, 
 couldn't you?" 
 
 "I guess I could assume control, but what would I 
 do with it?" 
 
 "Do you know the reputation of that newspaper?" 
 
 "I guess it's all right. It's conservative and newsy.
 
 166 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 I read it every morning when I'm in town. It fits in 
 very nicely between the grapefruit and the bacon-and- 
 eggs." 
 
 "It is, also, powerful," she added, "and is said to be 
 absolutely servile to corporate interests." 
 
 "Drennie, you talk like an anarchist. You are rich 
 yourself, you know." 
 
 "And, against each of those other concerns, various 
 charges have been made." 
 
 "Well, what do you want me to do?" 
 
 "It's not what I want you to do," she informed him ; 
 "it's what I'd like to see you want to do." 
 
 "Name it ! I'll want to do it forthwith." 
 
 "I think, when you are one of a handful of the 
 richest men in New York; when, for instance, you could 
 dictate the policy of a great newspaper, yet know it 
 only as the course that follows your grapefruit, you 
 are a shirker and a drone, and are not playing the 
 game." Her hand tightened on the tiller. "I think, if 
 I were a man riding on to the polo field, I'd either try 
 like the devil to drive the ball down between the posts, 
 or I'd come inside, and take off my boots and colors. 
 I wouldn't hover in lady-like futility around the edge 
 of the scrimmage." 
 
 She knew that to Horton, who played polo like a 
 fiend incarnate, the figure would be effective, and she 
 whipped out her words with something very close to 
 scorn. 
 
 "Duck your head!" she commanded shortly. "I'm 
 coming about." 
 
 Possibly, she had thrown more of herself into her 
 philippic than she had realized. Possibly, some of her
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 167 
 
 emphasis imparted itself to her touch on the tiller, and 
 jerked the sloop too violently into a sudden puff as it 
 careened. At all events, the boat swung sidewise, 
 trembled for an instant like a wounded gull, and then 
 slapped its spread of canvas prone upon the water 
 with a vicious report. 
 
 "Jump !" yelled the man, and, as he shouted, the girl 
 disappeared over-side, perilously near the sheet. He 
 knew the danger of coming up under a wet sail, and, 
 diving from the high side, he swam with racing strokes 
 toward the point where she had gone down. When 
 Adrienne's head did not reappear, his alarm grew, and 
 he plunged under water where the shadow of the over 
 turned boat made everything cloudy and obscure to his 
 wide-open eyes. He stroked his way back and forth 
 through the purple fog that he found down there, until 
 his lungs seemed on the point of bursting. Then, he 
 paused at the surface, shaking the water from his face, 
 and gazing anxiously about. The dark head was not 
 visible, and once more, with a fury of growing terror, 
 he plunged downward, and began searching the shadows. 
 This time, he remained until his chest was aching with 
 an absolute torture. If she had swallowed water under 
 that canvas barrier this attempt would be the last that 
 could avail. Then, just as it seemed that he was spend 
 ing the last fraction of the last ounce of endurance,, 
 his aching eyes made out a vague shape, also swimming, 
 and his hand touched another hand. She was safe, and 
 together they came out of the opaqueness into water 
 as translucent as sapphires, and rose to the surface. 
 "Where were you?" she inquired. 
 "I was looking for you under the sail," he panted.
 
 Adrienne laughed. 
 
 "I'm quite all right," she assured him. "I came up 
 under the boat at first, but I got out easily enough, and 
 went back to look for you." 
 
 They swam together to the capsized hull, and the 
 girl thrust up one strong, slender hand to the stem, 
 while with the other she wiped the water from her 
 smiling eyes. The man also laid hold on the support, 
 and hung there, filling his cramped lungs. Then, for 
 just an instant, his hand closed over hers. 
 
 "There's my hand on it, Drennie," he said. "We 
 start back to New York to-morrow, don't we? Well, 
 when I get there, I put on overalls, and go to work. 
 When I propose next, I'll have something to show." 
 
 A motor-boat had seen their plight, and was racing 
 madly to their rescue, with a yard-high swirl of water 
 thrown up from its nose and a fusillade of explosions 
 
 trailing in its wake. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Christmas came to Misery wrapped in a drab mantle 
 of desolation. The mountains were like gigantic cones 
 of raw and sticky chocolate, except where the snow lay 
 patched upon their cheerless slopes. The skies were 
 low and leaden, and across their gray stretches a spirit 
 of squalid melancholy rode with the tarnished sun. 
 Windowless cabins, with tight-closed doors, became 
 cavernous dens untouched by the cleansing power of 
 daylight. In their vitiated atmosphere, their humanity 
 grew stolidly sullen. Nowhere was a hint of the season's 
 cheer. The mountains knew only of such celebration 
 as snuggling close to the jug of moonshine, and drink 
 ing out the day. Mountain children, who had never
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 169 
 
 heard of Kris Kingle, knew of an ancient tradition that 
 at Christmas midnight the cattle in the barns and fields 
 knelt down, as they had knelt around the manger, and 
 that along the ragged slopes of the hills the elder bushes 
 ceased to rattle dead stalks, and burst into white sprays 
 of momentary bloom. 
 
 Christmas itself was a week distant, and, at the cabin 
 of the Widow Miller, Sally was sitting alone before the 
 logs. She laid down the slate and spelling-book, over 
 which her forehead had been strenuously puckered, and 
 gazed somewhat mournfully into the blaze. Sally had 
 a secret. It was a secret which she based on a faint 
 hope. If Samson should come back to Misery, he would 
 come back full of new notions. No man had ever yet 
 returned from that outside world unaltered. No man 
 ever would. A terrible premonition said he would not 
 come at all, but, if he did if he did she must know 
 how to read and write. Maybe, when she had learned 
 a little more, she might even go to school for a term 
 or two. She had not confided her secret. The widow 
 would not have understood. The book and slate came 
 out of their dusty cranny in the logs beside the fireplace 
 only when the widow had withdrawn to her bed, and 
 the freckled boy was dreaming of being old enough to 
 kill Hollmans. 
 
 The cramped and distorted chirography on the slate 
 was discouraging. It was all proving very hard work. 
 The girl gazed for a time at something she saw in the 
 embers, and then a faint smile came to her lips. By next 
 Christmas, she would surprise Samson with a letter. 
 It should be well written, and every "hain't" should be 
 an "isn't." Of course, until then Samson would not
 
 170 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 write to her, because he would not know that she could 
 read the letter indeed, as yet the deciphering of "hand- 
 write" was beyond her abilities. 
 
 She rose and replaced the slate and primer. Then, 
 she took tenderly from its corner the rifle, which the 
 boy had confided to her keeping, and unwrapped its 
 greasy covering. She drew the cartridges from cham 
 ber and magazine, oiled the rifling, polished the lock, 
 and reloaded the piece. 
 
 "Thar now," she said, softly, "I reckon ther old 
 rifle-gun's ready." 
 
 As she sat there alone in the shuck-bottomed chair, 
 the corners of the room wavered in huge shadows, and 
 the smoke-blackened cavern of the fireplace, glaring 
 like a volcano pit, threw her face into relief. She made 
 a very lovely and pathetic picture. Her slender knees 
 were drawn close together, and from her slim waist she 
 bent forward, nursing the inanimate thing which she 
 valued and tended, because Samson valued it. Her violet 
 eyes held the heart-touching wistfulness of utter lone 
 liness, and her lips drooped. This small girl, dreaming 
 her dreams of hope against hope, with the vast isolation 
 of the hills about her, was a little monument of unflinch 
 ing loyalty and simple courage, and, as she sat, she 
 patted the rifle with as soft a touch as though she had 
 been dandling Samson's child and her own on her 
 knee. There was no speck of rust in the unused muzzle, 
 no hitch in the easily sliding mechanism of the breech 
 block. The hero's weapon was in readiness to his 
 hand, as the bow of Ulysses awaited the coming of the 
 wanderer. 
 
 Then, with sudden interruption to her reflections,
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 171 
 
 came a rattling on the cabin door. She sat up and lis 
 tened. Night visitors were rare at the Widow Miller's. 
 Sally waited, holding her breath, until the sound was 
 repeated. 
 
 "Who is hit?" she demanded in a low voice. 
 
 "Hit's me Tam'rack !" came the reply, very low and 
 cautious, and somewhat shamefaced. 
 
 "What does ye want ?" 
 
 "Let me in, Sally," whined the kinsman, desperately. 
 "They're atter me. They won't think to come hyar." 
 
 Sally had not seen her cousin since Samson had for 
 bidden his coming to the house. Since Samson's de 
 parture, the troublesome kinsman, too, had been some 
 where "down below," holding his railroad job. But 
 the call for protection was imperative. She set the 
 gun out of sight against the mantle-shelf, and, walking 
 over unwillingly, opened the door. 
 
 The mud-spattered man came in, glancing about him 
 half-furtively, and went to the fireplace. There, he 
 held his hands to the blaze. 
 
 "Hit's cold outdoors," he said. 
 
 "What manner of deviltry hev ye been into now, 
 Tam'rack?" inquired the girl. "Kain't ye never keep 
 outen trouble?" 
 
 The self-confessed refugee did not at once reply, 
 When he did, it was to ask: 
 
 "Is the widder asleep?" 
 
 Sally saw from his blood-shot eyes that he had been 
 drinking heavily. She did not resume her seat, but 
 atood holding him with her eyes. In them, the man 
 read contempt, and an angry flush mounted to his sal 
 low cheek-bones.
 
 172 THE CALL OF THE CUMBEKLANDS 
 
 "I reckon ye knows," went on the girl in the same 
 steady voice, "thet Samson meant what he said when 
 he warned ye ter stay away from hyar. I reckon ye 
 knows I wouldn't never hev opened thet door, ef hit 
 wasn't fer ye bein' in trouble." 
 
 The mountaineer straightened up, his eyes burning 
 with the craftiness of drink, and the smoldering of 
 resentment. 
 
 "I reckon I knows thet. Thet's why I said they was 
 atter me. I hain't in no trouble, Sally. I jest come 
 hyar ter see ye, thet's all." 
 
 Now, it was the girl's eyes that flashed anger. With 
 quick steps, she reached the door, and threw it open. 
 Her hand trembled as she pointed out into the night, 
 and the gusty winter's breath caught and whipped her 
 calico skirts about her ankles. 
 
 "You kin go!" she ordered, passionately. "Don't 
 ye never cross this doorstep ag'in. Begone quick !" 
 
 But Tamarack only laughed with easy insolence. 
 
 "Sally," he drawled. "Thar's a-goin' ter be a dancin* 
 party Christmas night over ter the Forks. I 'lowed I'd 
 like ter hev ye go over thar with me." 
 
 Her voice was trembling with white-hot indignation. 
 
 "Didn't ye hear Samson say ye wasn't never ter speak 
 ter me?" , 
 
 "Ter hell with Samson !" he ripped out, furiously. ' 
 "Nobody hain't pesterin' 'bout him. I don't allow Sam 
 son, ner no other man, ter dictate ter me who I keeps 
 company with. I likes ye, Sally. Ye're the purtiest gal 
 in the mountings, an' " 
 
 "Will ye git out, or hev I got ter drive ye?" inter-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 173 
 
 *upted the girl. Her face paled, and her lips drew 
 themselves into a taut line. 
 
 "Will ye go ter the party with me, Sally?" He came 
 insolently over, and stood waiting, ignoring her dis 
 missal with the ease of braggart effrontery. She, in 
 turn, stood rigid, wordless, pointing his way across the 
 doorstep. Slowly, the drunken face lost its leering grin. 
 The eyes blackened into a truculent and venomous scowl. 
 He stepped over, and stood towering above the slight 
 figure, which did not give back a step before his advance. 
 With an oath, he caught her savagely in his arms, and 
 crushed her to him, while his unshaven, whiskey-soaked 
 lips were pressed clingingly against her own indignant 
 ones. Too astonished for struggle, the girl felt herself 
 grow faint in his loathsome embrace, while to her ears 
 came his panted words: 
 
 "I'll show ye. I wants ye, an' I'll git ye." 
 
 Adroitly, with a regained power of resistance and a 
 lithe twist, she slipped out of his grasp, hammering at 
 his face futilely with her clenched fists. 
 
 "I I've got a notion ter kill ye !" she cried, brokenly. 
 "Ef Samson was hyar, ye wouldn't dare " What else 
 she might have said was shut off in stormy, breathless 
 gasps of humiliation and anger. 
 
 "Well," replied Tamarack, with drawling confidence, 
 "ef Samson was hyar, I'd show him, too damn him! 
 But Samson hain't hyar. He won't never be hyar no 
 more." His voice became deeply scornful, as he added : 
 "He's done cut an' run. He's down thar below, con- 
 sortin' with f urriners, an' he hain't thinkin' nothin' 'bout 
 you. You hain't good enough fer Samson, Sally. I 
 tells ye he's done left ye fer all time."
 
 174 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Sally had backed away from the man, until she stood 
 trembling near the hearth. As he spoke, Tamarack was 
 slowly and step by step following her up. In his eyes 
 glittered the same light that one sees in those of a cat 
 which is watching a mouse already caught and crippled. 
 
 She half-reeled, and stood leaning against the rough 
 stones of the fireplace. Her head was bowed, and her 
 bosom heaving with emotion. She felt her knees weak 
 ening under her, and feared they would no longer sup 
 port her. But, as her cousin ended, with a laugh, she 
 turned her back to the wall, and stood with her 
 downstretched hands groping against the logs. Then, 
 she saw the evil glint in Tamarack's blood-shot eyes. He 
 took one slow step forward, and held out his arms. 
 
 "Will ye come ter me?" he commanded, "or shall I 
 come an' git ye?" The girl's fingers at that instant 
 fell against something cooling and metallic. It was 
 Samson's rifle. 
 
 With a sudden cry of restored confidence and a dan 
 gerous up-leaping of light in her eyes, she seized and 
 cocked it.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE girl stepped forward, and held the weapon 
 finger on trigger, close to her cousin's chest. 
 
 "Ye lies, Tam'rack," she said, in a very low 
 and steady voice a voice that could not be mistaken, 
 a voice relentlessly resolute and purposeful. 
 
 "Ye lies like ye always lies. Yore heart's black an* 
 dirty. Ye're a murderer an' a coward. Samson's 
 a-comin' back ter me. . . . I'm a-goin' ter be Sam 
 son's wife." The tensity of her earnestness might have 
 told a subtler psychologist than Tamarack that she 
 *yas endeavoring to convince herself. "He hain't never 
 run away. He's hyar in this room right now." The 
 mountaineer started, and cast an apprehensive glance 
 about him. The girl laughed, with a deeply bitter note, 
 then she went on : 
 
 "Oh, you can't see him, Tam'rack. Ye mout hunt 
 all night, but wharever I be, Samson's thar, too. I 
 hain't nothin' but a part of Samson an' I'm mighty 
 nigh ter killin' ye this minute he'd do hit, I reckon." 
 
 "Come on now, Sally," urged the man, ingratiatingly. 
 He was thoroughly cowed, seeking compromise. A fool 
 woman with a gun : every one knew it was a dangerous 
 combination, and, except for himself, no South had 
 ever been a coward. He knew a certain glitter in their 
 eyes. He knew it was apt to presage death, and this 
 girl, trembling in her knees but holding that muzzle 
 
 175
 
 176 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 against his chest so unwaveringly, as steady as granite, 
 had it in her pupils. Her voice held an inexorable 
 monotony suggestive of tolling bells. She was not the 
 Sally he had known before, but a new Sally, acting 
 under a quiet sort of exaltation, capable of anything. 
 He knew that, should she shoot him dead there in her 
 house, no man who knew them both would blame her. 
 His life depended on strategy. "Come on, Sally," he 
 whined, as his face grew ashen. "I didn't aim ter make 
 ye mad. I jest lost my head, an* made love ter ye. Hit 
 hain't no sin ter kiss a feller's own cousin." He was 
 edging toward the door. 
 
 "Stand where ye're at," ordered Sally, in a voice of 
 utter loathing, and he halted. "Hit wasn't jest kissin' 
 me " She broke off, and shuddered again. "I said 
 thet Samson was in this here room. Ef ye moves twell 
 I tells ye ye kin, ye'll hear him speak ter ye, an' ef he 
 speaks ye won't never hear nothin' more. This here 
 is Samson's gun. I reckon he'll tell me ter pull the trig 
 ger terectly!" 
 
 "Fer God's sake, Sally!" implored the braggart. 
 "Fer God's sake, look over what I done. I knows ye're 
 
 Samson's gal. I " 
 
 "Shet up!" she said, quietly; and his voice died 
 instantly. 
 
 "Yes, I'm Samson's gal, an' I hain't a-goin' ter kill 
 ye this time, Tam'rack, unlessen ye makes me do hit. 
 But, ef ever ye crosses that stile out thar ag'in, so 
 help me God, this gun air goin' ter shoot." 
 
 Tamarack licked his lips. They had grown dry. He 
 had groveled before a girl but he was to be spared. 
 That was the essential thing.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 177 
 
 "I promises," he said, and turned, much sobered, to 
 the door. 
 
 Sally stood for a while, listening until she heard the 
 slopping hoof-beats of his retreat, then she dropped 
 limply into the shaky shuck-bottomed chair, and sat 
 staring straight ahead, with a dazed and almost mortal 
 hurt in her eyes. It was a trance-like attitude, and the 
 gesture with which she several times wiped her calico 
 sleeve across the lips his kisses had defiled, seemed sub 
 conscious. At last, she spoke aloud, but in a far-away 
 voice, shaking her head miserably. 
 
 "I reckon Tam'rack's right," she said. "Samson 
 won't hardly come back. Why would he come back?" 
 
 f3f flf, fc fjf .--. 
 
 T" 
 
 The normal human mind is a reservoir, which fills at 
 a rate of speed regulated by the number and calibre 
 of its feed pipes. Samson's mind had long been almost 
 empty, and now from so many sources the waters of 
 new things were rushing in upon it that under their 
 pressure it must fill fast, or give away. 
 
 He was saved from hopeless complications of thought 
 by a sanity which was willing to assimilate without too 
 much effort to analyze. That belonged to the future. 
 Just now, all was marvelous. What miracles around 
 him were wrought out of golden virtue, and what out? 
 of brazen vice, did not as yet concern him. New worlds* 
 are not long new worlds. The boy from Misery was 
 presently less bizarre to the eye than many of the 
 unkempt bohemians he met in the life of the studios: 
 men who quarreled garrulously over the end and aim 
 of Art, which they spelled with a capital A and, for 
 the most part, knew nothing of. He retained, except
 
 178 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 within a small circle of intimates, a silence that passed 
 for taciturnity, and a solemnity of visage that was often 
 construed into surly egotism. 
 
 He still wore his hair long, and, though his conver 
 sation gradually sloughed off much of its idiom and 
 vulgarism, enough of the mountaineer stood out to lend 
 to his personality a savor of the crudely picturesque. 
 
 Meanwhile, he drew and read and studied and walked 
 and every day's advancement was a forced march. The 
 things that he drew began by degrees to resolve them 
 selves into some faint similitude to the things from which 
 he draw them. The stick of charcoal no longer insisted 
 on leaving in the wake of its stroke smears like soot. 
 It began to be governable. But it was the fact that 
 Samson saw things as they were and insisted on trying 
 to draw them just as he saw them, which best pleased his 
 sponsor. During those initial months, except for his 
 long tramps, occupied with thoughts of the hills and 
 the Widow Miller's cabin, his life lay between Les- 
 cott's studio and the cheap lodgings which he had taken 
 near by. Sometimes while he was bending toward his 
 easel there would rise before his imagination the dark 
 unshaven countenance of Jim Asberry. At such mo 
 ments, he would lay down the charcoal, and his eyes 
 would cloud into implacable hatred. "I hain't f ergot ye, 
 Pap," he would mutter, with the fervor of a renewed 
 vow. With the speed of a clock's minute hand, too 
 gradual to be seen by the eye, yet so fast that it soon 
 circles the dial, changes were being wrought in the raw 
 material called Samson South. One thing did not 
 change. In every crowd, he found himself searching 
 hungrily for the face of Sally, which he knew he could
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 179 
 
 not find. Always, there was the unadmitted, yet haunt 
 ing, sense of his own rawness. For life was taking off 
 his rough edges and there were many and life went 
 about the process in workmanlike fashion, with sand 
 paper. The process was not enjoyable, and, though the 
 man's soul was made fitter, it was also rubbed raw. 
 Lescott, tremendously interested in his experiment, 
 began to fear that the boy's too great somberness of 
 disposition would defeat the very earnestness from which 
 it sprang. So, one morning, the landscape-maker went 
 to the telephone, and called for the number of a friend 
 whom he rightly believed to be the wisest man, and the 
 greatest humorist, in New York. The call brought no 
 response, and the painter dried his brushes, and turned 
 up Fifth Avenue to an apartment hotel in a cross street, 
 where on a certain door he rapped with all the elaborate 
 formula of a secret code. Very cautiously, the door 
 opened, and revealed a stout man with a humorous, 
 clean-shaven face. On a table lay a scattered sheaf of 
 rough and yellow paper, penciled over in a cramped and 
 interlined hand. The stout man's thinning hair was 
 rumpled over a perspiring forehead. Across the carpet 
 was a worn stretch that bespoke much midnight pacing. 
 The signs were those of authorship. 
 
 "Why didn't you answer your 'phone?" smiled Les 
 cott, though he knew. 
 
 The stout man shrugged his shoulders and pointed 
 to the wall, where the disconnected receiver was hang 
 ing down. "Necessary precaution against creditors," 
 he explained. "I am out except to you." 
 
 "Busy?" interrogated Lescott. "You seem to have 
 a manuscript in the making."
 
 180 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "No." The stout man's face clouded with black fore* 
 boding. "I shall never write another story. I'm played 
 out." He turned, and restively paced the worn carpet, 
 pausing at the window for a despondent glance across 
 the roofs and chimney pots of the city. Lescott, with 
 the privilege of intimacy, filled his pipe from the writer's 
 tobacco jar. 
 
 "I want your help. I want you to meet a friend of 
 mine, and take him under your wing in a fashion. He 
 needs you." 
 
 The stout man's face again clouded. A few years 
 ago, he had been peddling his manuscripts with the 
 heart-sickness of unsuccessful middle age. To-day, men 
 coupled his name with those of Kipling and De Maupas 
 sant. One of his antipathies was meeting people who 
 sought to lionize him. Lescott read the expression, and, 
 before his host had time to object, swept into his recital. 
 
 At the end he summarized: 
 
 "The artist is much like the setter-pup. If it's in 
 him, it's as instinctive as a dog's nose. But to become 
 efficient he must go a-field with a steady veteran of his 
 own breed." 
 
 "I know !" The great man, who was also the simple 
 man, smiled reminiscently. "They tried to teach me to 
 herd sheep when my nose was itching for bird country. 
 Bring on your man ; I want to know him." 
 
 Samson was told nothing of the benevolent conspiracy, 
 but one evening shortly later he found himself sitting 
 at a cafe table with his sponsor and a stout man, almost 
 as silent as himself. The stout man responded with 
 something like churlish taciturnity to the half-dozen 
 men and women who came over with flatteries. But
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 181 
 
 later, when the trio was left alone, his face brightened, 
 and he turned to the boy from Misery. 
 
 "Does Billy Conrad still keep store at Stagbone?" 
 
 Samson started, and his gaze fell in amazement. At 
 the mention of the name, he saw a cross-roads store, 
 with rough mules hitched to fence palings. It was a 
 picture of home, and here was a man who had been 
 there! With glowing eyes, the boy dropped uncon 
 sciously back into the vernacular of the hills. 
 
 "Hev ye been thar, stranger?" 
 
 The writer nodded, and sipped his whiskey. 
 
 "Not for some years, though," he confessed, as he 
 drifted into reminiscence, which to Samson was like 
 water to a parched throat. 
 
 When they left the cafe, the boy felt as though he 
 were taking leave of an old and tried friend. By homely 
 methods, this unerring diagnostician of the human soul 
 had been reading him, liking him, and making him feel 
 a heart-warming sympathy. The man who shrunk from 
 lion-hunters, and who could return the churl's answer 
 to the advances of sycophant and flatterer, enthusi 
 astically poured out for the ungainly mountain boy all 
 the rare quality and bouquet of his seasoned personal 
 charm. It was a vintage distilled from experience and 
 humanity. It had met the ancient requirement for the 
 'mellowing and perfecting of good Madeira, that it shall 
 "voyage twice around the world's circumference," and 
 it was a thing reserved for his friends. 
 
 "It's funny," commented the boy, when he and Les- 
 cott were alone, "that he's been to Stagbone." 
 
 "My dear Samson," Lescott assured him, "if you had
 
 182 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 spoken of Tucson, Arizona, or Caracas or Saskatche 
 wan, it would have been the same. He knows them all." 
 
 It was not until much later that Samson realized how 
 these two really great men had adopted him as their 
 "little brother," that he might have their shoulder-touch 
 to march by. And it was without his realization, too, 
 that they laid upon him the imprint of their own char 
 acters and philosophy. One night at Tonelli's table- 
 d'hote place, the latest diners were beginning to drift 
 out into Tenth Street. The faded soprano, who had in 
 better days sung before a King, was wearying as she 
 reeled out ragtime with a strong Neapolitan accent. 
 Samson had been talking to the short-story writer about 
 his ambitions and his hatreds. He feared he was drift 
 ing away from his destiny and that he would in the 
 end become too softened. The writer leaned across the 
 table, and smiled. 
 
 "Fighting is all right," he said; "but a man should 
 not be just the fighter." He mused a moment in silence, 
 then quoted a scrap of verse : 
 
 " 'Test of the man, if his worth be, 
 
 " 'In accord with the ultimate plan, 
 " 'That he be not, to his marring, 
 
 " 'Always and utterly man ; 
 'That he bring out of the battle 
 
 " 'Fitter and undefiled, 
 *' 'To woman the heart of a woman, 
 
 " 'To children the heart of a child.' " 
 
 Samson South offered no criticism. He had known 
 life from the stoic's view-point. He had heard the
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 183 
 
 seductive call of artistic yearnings. Now, it dawned on 
 him in an intensely personal fashion, as it had begun 
 already to dawn in theory, that the warrior and the 
 artist may meet on common and compatible ground, 
 where the fighting spirit is touched and knighted with 
 | the gentleness of chivalry. He seemed to be looking 
 from a new and higher plane, from which he could see 
 a mellow softness on angles that had hitherto been only 
 stern and unrelieved.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 " T HAVE come, not to quarrel with you, but to try 
 
 X to dissuade you." The Honorable Mr. Wick- 
 liffe bit savagely at his cigar, and gave a 
 despairing spread to his well-manicured hands. "You 
 stand in danger of becoming the most cordially hated 
 man in New York hated by the most powerful com 
 binations in New York." 
 
 Wilfred Horton leaned back in a swivel chair, and 
 put his feet up on his desk. For a while, he seemed 
 interested in his own silk socks. 
 
 "It's very kind of you to warn me," he said, quietly. 
 
 The Honorable Mr. Wickliffe rose in exasperation, 
 and paced the floor. The smoke from his black cigar 
 went before him in vicious puffs. Finally, he stopped, 
 and leaned glaring on the table. 
 
 "Your family has always been conservative. When 
 you succeeded to the fortune, you showed no symptoms 
 of this mania. In God's name, what has changed you?" 
 
 "I hope I have grown up," explained the young man, 
 with an unruffled smile. "One can't wear swaddling' 
 clothes forever, you know." 
 
 The attorney for an instant softened his manner as 
 he looked into the straight-gazing, unafraid eyes of his 
 client. 
 
 "I've known you from your babyhood. I advised 
 your father before you were born. You have, by the
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 185 
 
 chance of birth, come into the control of great wealth. 
 The world of finance is of delicate balance. Squabbles 
 in certain directorates may throw the Street into panic. 
 Suddenly, you emerge from decent quiet, and run amuck 
 in the china-shop, bellowing and tossing your horns. 
 You make war on those whose interests are your own. 
 You seem bent on hari-kari. You have toys enough to 
 amuse you. Why couldn't you stay put?" 
 
 "They weren't the right things. They were, as you 
 say, toys." The smile faded and Horton's chin set 
 itself for a moment, as he added: 
 
 "If you don't think I'm going to stay put watch 
 me." 
 
 "Why do you have to make war to be chronically 
 insurgent?" 
 
 "Because" the young man, who had waked up, 
 spoke slowly "I am reading a certain writing on the 
 wall. The time is not far off when, unless we regulate 
 a number of matters from within, we shall be regulated 
 from without. Then, instead of giving the financial 
 body a little griping in its gold-lined tummy, which is 
 only the salutary effect of purging, a surgical operation 
 will be required. It will be something like one they 
 performed on the body politic of France not so long 
 'ago. Old Dr. Guillotine officiated. It was quite a suc 
 cessful operation, though the patient failed to rally." 
 
 "Take for instance this newspaper war you've inaug 
 urated on the police," grumbled the corporation lawyer. 
 "It's less dangerous to the public than these financial 
 crusades, but decidedly more so for yourself. You are 
 regarded as a dangerous agitator, a marplot! I tell 
 you, Wilfred, aside from all other considerations the
 
 186 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 thing is perilous to yourself. You are riding for a 
 fall. These men whom you are whipping put of public 
 life will turn on you." 
 
 "So I hear. Here's a letter I got this morning 
 unsigned. That is, I thought it was here. Well, no 
 matter. It warns me that I have less than three months 
 to live unless I call off my dogs." 
 
 The Honorable Mr. Wickliffe's face mirrored alarm. 
 
 "Let me have it," he demanded. "You shouldn't treat 
 such matters lightly. Men are assassinated in Nev 
 York. I'll refer it to the police." 
 
 Horton laughed. 
 
 "That would be in the nature of referring back, 
 wouldn't it? I fancy it came from some one not so 
 remote from police sympathy." 
 
 "What are you going to do about it?" 
 
 "I'm going to stay put. If I can convict certain 
 corrupt members of the department, I'm going to nail 
 brass-buttoned hides all over the front of the city hall." 
 
 "Have you had any other threats?" 
 
 "No, not exactly, but I've had more touching recog 
 nition than that. I've been asked to resign from several 
 very good clubs." f 
 
 The attorney groaned. 
 
 "You will be a Pariah. So will your allies." 
 
 It is said that the new convert is ever the most extrenu* 1 
 fanatic. Wilfred Horton had promised to put on his 
 working clothes, and he had done it with reckless disre 
 gard for consequences. At first, he was simply obeying 
 Adrienne's orders; but soon he found himself playing 
 the game for the game's sake. Men at the clubs 
 and women whom he took into dinner chaffed him over
 
 his sudden disposition to try his wings. Pie was a man 
 riding a hobby, they said. In time, it began to dawn 
 that he, with others, whom he had drawn to his 
 standards, meant serious war on certain complacent 
 evils in the world of finance and politics. Sleeping 
 dogs of custom began to stir and growl. Political over 
 lords, assailed as unfaithful servants, showed their teeth. 
 From some hidden, but unfailing, source terribly sure 
 and direct evidence of guilt was being gathered. For 
 Wilfred Horton, who was demanding a day of reckoning 
 and spending great sums of money to get it, there was 
 a prospect of things doing. 
 
 Adrienne Lescott was in Europe. Soon, she would 
 return, and Horton meant to show that he had not buried 
 
 his talent. 
 
 ****** 
 
 For eight months Samson's life had run in the steady 
 ascent of gradual climbing, but, in the four months 
 from the first of August to the first of December, the 
 pace of his existence suddenly quickened. He left off 
 drawing from plaster casts, and went into a life class. 
 His shyness secretly haunted him. The nudity of the 
 woman posing on the model throne, the sense of his own 
 almost as naked ignorance, and the dread of the criti 
 cism to come, were all keen embarrassments upon him. 
 
 In this period, Samson had his first acquaintanceship 
 with women, except those he had known from childhood 
 and his first acquaintanceship with the men who were 
 not of his own art world. Of the women, he saw several 
 sorts. There were the aproned and frowsy students, of 
 uncertain age, who seemed to have no life except that 
 which existed under studio skylights. There were, also,
 
 188 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 a few younger girls, who took their art life with less 
 painful solemnity ; and, of course, the models in the 
 "partially draped" and the "altogether." 
 
 Tony Collasso was an Italian illustrator, who lodged 
 and painted in studio-apartments in Washington 
 Square, South. He had studied in the Julian School 
 and the Beaux Arts, and wore a shock of dark curls, 
 a Satanic black mustache, and an expression of Byronic 
 melancholy. The melancholy, he explained to Samson, 
 sprang from the necessity of commercializing his divine 
 gift. His companions were various, numbering among 
 them a group of those pygmy celebrities of whom one 
 has never heard until by chance he meets them, and of 
 whom their intimates speak as of immortals. 
 
 To Collasso's studio, Samson was called one night by 
 telephone. He had sometimes gone there before to sit 
 for an hour, chiefly as a listener, while the man from 
 Sorrento bewailed fate with his coterie, and denounced 
 all forms of government, over insipid Chianti. Some 
 times, an equally melancholy friend in soiled linen and 
 frayed clothes took up his violin, and, as he improvised, 
 the noisy group would fall silent. At such moments, 
 Samson would ride out on the waves of melody, and see 
 again the velvet softness of the mountain night, with 
 stars hanging intimately close, and hear the ripple of 
 Misery and a voice for which he longed. 
 
 But, to-night, he entered the door to find himself in 
 the midst of a gay and boisterous party. The room 
 was already thickly fogged with smoke, and a dozen 
 men and women, singing snatches of current airs, were 
 interesting themselves over a chafing dish. The studio 
 of Tony Collasso was of fair size, and adorned with
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 189 
 
 many unframed paintings, chiefly his own, and a few 
 good tapestries and bits of bric-a-brac variously jetti 
 soned from the sea of life in which he had drifted. The 
 crowd itself was typical. A few very minor writers and 
 artists, a model or two, and several women who had 
 thinking parts in current Broadway productions. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the guests of honor arrived in a 
 taxicab. They were Mr. William Farbish and Miss 
 Winifred Starr. Having come, as they explained, direct 
 from the theater where Miss Starr danced in the first 
 row, they were in evening dress. Samson mentally 
 acknowledged, though, with instinctive disfavor for the 
 pair, that both were, in a way, handsome. Collasso 
 drew him aside to whisper importantly: 
 
 "Make yourself agreeable to Farbish. He is received 
 in the most exclusive society, and is a connoisseur of 
 art. He is a connoisseur in all things," added the 
 Italian, with a meaning glance at the girl. "Farbish 
 has lived everywhere," he ran on, "and, if he takes a 
 fancy to you, he will put you up at the best clubs. I 
 think I shall sell him a landscape." 
 
 The girl was talking rapidly and loudly. She had 
 at once taken the center of the room, and her laughter 
 rang in free and egotistical peals above the other voices. 
 
 "Come," said the host, "I shall present you." 
 
 The boy shook hands, gazing with his usual direct 
 ness into the show-girl's large and deeply-penciled eyes. 
 Farbish, standing at one side with his hands in his 
 pockets, looked on with an air of slightly bored 
 detachment. 
 
 His dress, his mannerisms, his bearing, were all those 
 of the man who has overstudied his part. They were
 
 190 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 too perfect, too obviously rehearsed through years of 
 social climbing, but that was a defect Samson was not 
 yet prepared to recognize. 
 
 Some one had naively complimented Miss Starr on the 
 leopard-skin cloak she had just thrown from her shapely 
 jhoulders, and she turned promptly and vivaciously to 
 ;he flatterer. 
 
 "It is nice, isn't it?" she prattled. "It may look a 
 little up-stage for a girl who hasn't got a line to read 
 in the piece, but these days one must get the spot-light, 
 or be a dead one. It reminds me of a little run-in I 
 had with Graddy he's our stage-director, you know." 
 She paused, awaiting the invitation to proceed, and, 
 having received it, went gaily forward. "I was ten 
 minutes late, one day, for rehearsal, and Graddy came 
 up with that sarcastic manner of his, and said: 'Miss 
 Starr, I don't doubt you are a perfectly nice girl, and 
 all that, but it rather gets my goat to figure out how, 
 on a salary of fifteen dollars a week, you come to 
 rehearsals in a million dollars' worth of clothes, riding 
 in a limousine and ten minutes late !' ' She broke off 
 with the eager little expression of awaiting applause, 
 and, having been satisfied, she added : "I was afraid that 
 wasn't going to get a laugh, after all." 
 
 She glanced inquiringly at Samson, who had not 
 smiled, and who stood looking puzzled. 
 
 "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. South, from down 
 South," she challenged. 
 
 "I guess I'm sort of like Mr. Graddy," said the boy, 
 slowly. "I was just wondering how you do do it." 
 
 He spoke with perfect seriousness, and, after a mo 
 ment, the girl broke into a prolonged peal of laughter.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBEREANDS 191 
 
 "Oh, you are delicious !" she exclaimed. "If I could 
 do the ingenue like that, believe me, I'd make some hit." 
 She came over, and, laying a hand on each of the boy's 
 shoulders, kissed him lightly on the cheek. "That's for 
 a droll boy !" she said. "That's the best line I've heard 
 pulled lately." 
 
 Farbish was smiling in quiet amusement. He tapped 
 the mountaineer on the shoulder. 
 
 "I've heard George Lescott speak of you," he said, 
 genially. "I've rather a fancy for being among the 
 discoverers of men of talent. We must see more of each 
 other." 
 
 Samson left the party early, and with a sense of 
 disgust. It was, at the time of his departure, waxing 
 more furious in its merriment. It seemed to him that 
 nowhere among these people was a note of sincerity, 
 and his thoughts went back to the parting at the stile, 
 and the girl whose artlessness and courage were honest. 
 
 Several days later, Samson was alone in Lescott's 
 studio. It was nearing twilight, and he had laid aside 
 a volume of De Maupassant, whose simple power had 
 beguiled him. The door opened, and he saw the figure 
 <?f a woman on the threshold. The boy rose somewhat 
 shyly from his seat, and stood looking at her. She was 
 as richly dressed as Miss Starr had been, but there was 
 the same difference as between the colors of the sunset 
 sky and the exaggerated daubs of Collasso's landscape. 
 She stood lithely straight, and her furs fell back from 
 a throat as smooth and slenderly rounded as Sally's. 
 Her cheeks were bright with the soft glow of perfect 
 health, and her lips parted over teeth that were as sound 
 and strong as they were decorative. This girl did not
 
 192 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 have to speak to give the boy the conviction that she was 
 some one whom he must like. She stood at the door a 
 moment, and then came forward with her hand out 
 stretched. 
 
 "This is Mr. South, isn't it?" she asked, with a frank 
 friendliness in her voice. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, that's my name." 
 
 "I'm Adrienne Lescott," said the girl. "I thought 
 I'd find my brother here. I stopped by to drive him 
 up-town." 
 
 Samson had hesitatingly taken the gloved hand, and 
 its grasp was firm and strong despite its ridiculous 
 smalhiess. 
 
 "I reckon he'll be back presently." The boy was in 
 doubt as to the proper procedure. This was Lescott's 
 studio, and he was not certain whether or not it lay 
 in his province to invite Lescott's sister to take posses 
 sion of it. Possibly, he ought to withdraw. His ideas 
 of social usages were very vague. 
 
 "Then, I think I'll wait," announced the girl. She 
 threw off her fur coat, and took a seat before the open 
 grate. The chair was large, and swallowed her up. 
 
 Samson wanted to look at her, and was afraid that 
 this would be impolite. He realized that he had seen 
 tno real ladies, except on the street, and now he had the 
 opportunity. She was beautiful, and there was some 
 thing about her willowy grace of attitude that made 
 the soft and clinging lines of her gown fall about her 
 in charming drapery effects. Her small pumps and 
 silk-stockinged ankles as she held them out toward the 
 fire made him say to himself: 
 
 "I reckon she never went barefoot in her life."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 193 
 
 "I'm glad of this chance to meet you, Mr. South," 
 said the girl with a smile that found its way to the 
 boy's heart. After all, there was sincerity in "foreign" 
 women. "George talks of you so much that I feel as 
 if I'd known you all the while. Don't you think I might 
 claim friendship with George's friends?" 
 
 Samson had no answer. He wished to say something 
 equally cordial, but the old instinct against effusivene&s 
 tied his tongue. 
 
 "I owe right smart to George Lescott," he told her, 
 gravely. 
 
 "That's not answering my question," she laughed. 
 "Do you consent to being friends with me?" 
 
 "Miss " began the boy. Then, realizing that in 
 New York this form of address is hardly complete, he 
 hastened to add: "Miss Lescott, I've been here over 
 nine months now, and I'm just beginning to realize what 
 a rube I am. I haven't no " Again, he broke off, 
 and laughed at himself. "I mean, I haven't any idea 
 of proper manners, and so I'm, as we would say down 
 home, 'plumb skeered' of ladies." 
 
 As he accused himself, Samson was looking at her 
 with unblinking directness ; and she met his glance with 
 eyes that twinkled. 
 
 "Mr. South," she said, "I know all about manners, 
 and you know all about a hundred real things that I 
 want to know. Suppose we begin teaching each other?" 
 
 Samson's face lighted with the revolutionizing effect 
 that a smile can bring only to features customarily 
 solemn. 
 
 "Miss Lescott," he said, "let's call that a trade 
 but you're gettin' all the worst of it. To start with,
 
 194 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 you might give me a lesson right now in how a feller 
 ought to act, when he's talkin' to a lady how I ought 
 to act with you!" 
 
 Her laugh made the situation as easy as an old shoe. 
 
 Ten minutes later, Lescott entered. 
 
 "Well," he said, with a smile, "shall I introduce you 
 people, or have you already done it for yourselves?" 
 
 "Oh," Adrienne assured him, "Mr. South and I are 
 old friends." As she left the room, she turned and 
 added: "The second lesson had better be at my house. 
 If I telephone you some day when we can have the 
 school-room to ourselves, will you come up?" 
 
 Samson grinned, and forgot to be bashful as ke 
 replied : 
 
 "I'll come a-kitin'!"
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 EARLY that year, the touch of autumn came to 
 the air. Often, returning at sundown from the 
 afternoon life class, Samson felt the lure of its 
 melancholy sweetness, and paused on one of the Wash 
 ington Square benches, with many vague things stirring 
 in his mind. Some of these things were as subtly 
 intangible as the lazy sweetness that melted the fa9ades 
 of the walls into the soft colors of a dream city. He 
 found himself loving the Palisades of Jersey, seen 
 through a powdery glow at evening, and the red-gold 
 glare of the setting sun on high-swung gilt signs. He 
 felt with a throb of his pulses that he was in the Bagdad 
 of the new world, and that every skyscraper was a 
 minaret from which the muezzin rang toward the Mecca 
 of his Art. He felt with a stronger throb the surety of 
 young, but quickening, abilities within himself. Partly, 
 it was the charm of Indian summer, partly a sense of 
 growing with the days, but, also, though he had not as 
 yet realized that, it was the new friendship into which 
 Adrienne had admitted him, and the new experience of 
 frank camaraderie with a woman not as a member of an 
 inferior sex, but as an equal companion of brain and 
 soul. He had seen her often, and usually alone, because 
 he shunned meetings with strangers. Until his educa 
 tion had advanced further, he wished to avoid social 
 embarrassments. He knew that she liked him, and 
 
 195
 
 196 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 realized that it was because he was a new and virile type, 
 and for that reason a diversion a sort of human 
 novelty. She liked him, too, because it was rare for a 
 man to offer her friendship without making love, and 
 she was certain he would not make love. He liked her 
 for the same many reasons that every one else did 
 because she was herself. Of late, too, he had met a 
 number of men at Lescott's clubs. He was modestly 
 surprised to find that, though his attitude on these occa 
 sions was always that of one sitting in the background, 
 the men seemed to like him, and, when they said, "See 
 you again," at parting, it was with the convincing 
 manner of real friendliness. Sometimes, even now, his 
 language was ungrammatical, but so, for the matter of 
 that, was theirs. . . . The great writer smiled with 
 his slow, humorous lighting of the eyes as he observed 
 to Lescott: 
 
 "We are licking our cub into shape, George, and the 
 best of it is that, when he learns to dance ragtime to 
 the organ, he isn't going to stop being a bear. He's a 
 grizzly !" 
 
 One wonderful afternoon in October, when the dis 
 tances were mist-hung, and the skies very clear, Samson 
 sat across the table from Adrienne Lescott at a road- 
 house on the Sound. The sun had set through great 
 cloud battalions massed against the west, and the hori 
 zon was fading into darkness through a haze like ash 
 of roses. She had picked him up on the Avenue, and 
 taken him into her car for a short spin, but the after 
 noon had beguiled them, luring them on a little further, 
 and still a little further. When they were a score of 
 miles from Manhattan, the car had suddenly broken
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 197 
 
 Sown. It would, the chauffeur told them, be the matter 
 of an hour to effect repairs, so the girl, explaining to 
 the boy that this event gave the affair the aspect of 
 adventure, turned and led the way, on foot, to the 
 nearest road-house. 
 
 <e We will telephone that we shall be late, and then have 
 dinner," she laughed. "And for me to have dinner with 
 you alone, unchaperoned at a country inn, is by New 
 York standards delightfully unconventional. It borders 
 on wickedness." Then, since their attitude toward each 
 other was so friendly and innocent, they both laughed. 
 They had dined under the trees of an old manor house, 
 built a century ago, and now converted into an inn, 
 and they had enjoyed themselves because it seemed to 
 them pleasingly paradoxical that they should find in 
 a place seemingly so shabby-genteel a cuisine and service 
 of such excellence. Neither of them had ever been there 
 before, and neither of them knew that the reputation 
 of this establishment was in its own way wide and 
 unsavory. They had no way of knowing that, because 
 of several thoroughly bruited scandals which had had 
 origin here, it was a tabooed spot, except for persons 
 who preferred a semi-shady retreat; and they passed 
 over without suspicion the palpable surprise of the head 
 'waiter when they elected to occupy a table on the terrace 
 'instead of a cabinet partictdier. 
 
 But the repairs did not go as smoothly as the 
 chauffeur had expected, and, when he had finished, he 
 was hungry. So, eleven o'clock found them still chat 
 ting at their table on the lighted lawn. After awhile, 
 they fell silent, and Adrienne noticed that her com-
 
 198 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 panion's face had become deeply, almost painfully set, 
 and that his gaze was tensely focused on herself. 
 
 "What is it, Mr. South?" she demanded. 
 
 The young man began to speak, in a steady, self- 
 accusing voice. 
 
 "I was sitting here, looking at you," he said, bluntly. 
 *'I was thinking how fine you are in every way; how 
 there is as much difference in the texture of men and 
 women as there is in the texture of their clothes. From 
 that automobile cap you wear to your slippers and 
 stockings, you are clad in silk. From your brain to 
 the tone of your voice, you are woven of human silk. 
 I've learned lately that silk isn't weak, but strong. 
 They make the best balloons of it." He paused and 
 laughed, but his face again became sober. "I was think 
 ing, too, of your mother. She must be sixty, but she's 
 a young woman. Her face is smooth and unwrinkled, 
 and her heart is still in bloom. At that same age, 
 George won't be much older than he is now." 
 
 The compliment was so obviously not intended as 
 compliment at all that the girl flushed with pleasure. 
 
 "Then," went on Samson, his face slowly drawing 
 with pain, "I was thinking of my own people. My 
 mother was about forty when she died. She was an old 
 woman. My father was forty-three. He was an old 
 man. I was thinking how they withered under their 
 drudgery and of the monstrous injustice of it all." 
 
 Adrienne Lescott nodded. Her eyes were sweetly 
 sympathetic. 
 
 "It's the hardship of the conditions," she said, softly. 
 "Those conditions will change." 
 
 "But that's not all I was thinking," went on the boy.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 199 
 
 "I was watching you lift your coffee-cup awhile ago. 
 You did it unconsciously, but your movement was dainty 
 and graceful, as though an artist had posed you. That 
 takes generations, and, in my imagination, I saw my 
 people sitting around an oil-cloth on a kitchen table, 
 'pouring coffee into their saucers." 
 
 " 'There are five and twenty ways 
 " 'Of writing tribal lays,' ' : 
 
 quoted the girl, smilingly, 
 
 " 'And every single one of them is right.* ' 
 
 "And a horrible thought came to me," contin'aed 
 Samson. He took out his handkerchief, and mopped 
 his forehead, then tossed back the long lock that fell 
 over it. "I wondered" he paused, and then went on 
 with a set face "I wondered if I were growing ashamed 
 of my people." 
 
 "If I thought that," said Miss Lescott, quietly, "I 
 wouldn't have much use for you. But I know there's no 
 danger." 
 
 "If I thought there was," Samson assured her, "I 
 would go back there to Misery, and shoot myself to 
 death. . . . And, yet, the thought came to me." 
 
 "I'm not afraid of your being a cad," she repeated. 
 
 "And yet," he smiled, "I was trying to imagine you 
 among my people. What was that rhyme you used to 
 quote to me when you began to teach me manners?" 
 
 She laughed, and fell into nonsense quotation, as she 
 thrummed lightly on the table-cloth with her slim 
 fingers.
 
 200 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 " 'The goops they lick their fingers, 
 " 'The goops eat with their knives, 
 
 " 'They spill their broth on the table-cloth, 
 " 'And lead disgusting lives.' ' 
 
 "My people do all those things," announced Samson, 
 though he said it rather in a manner of challenge than 
 apology, "except spilling their broth on the table-cloth. 
 . . . There are no table-cloths. What would you do 
 in such company?" 
 
 "I," announced Miss Lescott, promptly, "should also 
 lick my fingers." 
 
 Samson laughed, and looked up. A man had come 
 out onto the verandah from the inside, and was 
 approaching the table. He was immaculately groomed, 
 and came forward with the deference of approaching a 
 throne, yet as one accustomed to approaching thrones. 
 His smile was that of pleased surprise. 
 
 The mountaineer recognized Farbish, and, with a 
 quick hardening of the face, he recalled their last 
 meeting. If Farbish should presume to renew the 
 acquaintanceship under these circumstances, Samson 
 meant to rise from his chair, and strike him in the face. 
 George Lescott's sister could not be subjected to such 
 meetings. Yet, it was a tribute to his advancement in/ 
 good manners that he dreaded making a scene in he- ' 
 presence, and, as a warning, he met Farbish's pleasant 
 smile with a look of blank and studied lack of recogni 
 tion. The circumstances out of which Farbish might 
 weave unpleasant gossip did not occur to Samson. That 
 they were together late in the evening, unchaperoned, 
 at a road-house whose reputation was socially dubious,
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 201 
 
 was a thing he did not realize. But Farbish was keenly 
 alive to the possibilities of the situation. He chose to 
 construe the Kentuckian's blank expression as annoy 
 ance at being discovered, a sentiment he could readily 
 understand. Adrienne Lescott, following her com 
 panion's eyes, looked up, and to the boy's astonishment 
 nodded to the new-comer, and called him by name. 
 
 "Mr. Farbish," she laughed, with mock confusion and 
 total innocence of the fact that her words might have 
 meaning, "don't tell on us." 
 
 "I never tell things, my dear lady," said the new 
 comer. "I have dwelt too long in conservatories to toss 
 pebbles. I'm afraid, Mr. South, you have forgotten 
 me. I'm Farbish, and I had the pleasure of meeting 
 you" he paused a moment, then with a pointed glance 
 added "at the Manhattan Club, was it not?" 
 
 "It was not," said Samson, promptly. Farbish looked 
 his surprise, but was resolved to see no offense, and, 
 after a few moments of affable and, it must be acknowl 
 edged, witty conversation, withdrew to his own table. 
 
 "Where did you meet that man?" demanded Samson, 
 fiercely, when he and the girl were alone again. 
 
 "Oh, at any number of dinners and dances. His sort 
 is tolerated for some reason." She paused, then, look 
 ing very directly at the Kentuckian, inquired, "And 
 where did you meet him?" 
 
 "Didn't you hear him say the Manhattan Club?" 
 
 "Yes, and I knew that he was lying." 
 
 "Yes, he was!" Samson spoke, contemptuously. 
 "Never mind where it was. It was a place I got out of 
 when I found out who were there." 
 
 The chauffeur came to announce that the car was
 
 202 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 ready, and they went out. Farbish watched them with 
 a smile that had in it a trace of the sardonic. 
 
 The career of Farbish had been an interesting one in 
 its own peculiar and unadmirable fashion. With no 
 advantages of upbringing, he had nevertheless so culti 
 vated the niceties of social usage that his one flaw was 
 a too great perfection. He was letter-perfect where" 
 one to the manor born might have slurred some detail. 
 
 He was witty, handsome in his saturnine way, and 
 had powerful friends in the world of fashion and finance. 
 That he rendered services to his plutocratic patrons, 
 other than the repartee of his dinner talk, was a thing 
 vaguely hinted in club gossip, and that these services 
 were not to his credit had more than once been con 
 jectured. 
 
 When Horton had begun his crusade against various 
 abuses, he had cast a suspicious eye on all matters 
 through which he could trace the trail of William Far 
 bish, and now, when Farbish saw Horton, he eyed him 
 with an enigmatical expression, half -quizzical and half- 
 malevolent. 
 
 After Adrienne and Samson had disappeared, he 
 rejoined his companion, a stout, middle-aged gentle 
 man of florid complexion, whose cheviot cutaway and 
 reposeful waistcoat covered a liberal embonpoint. Far 
 bish took his cigar from his lips, and studied its ascend-' 
 ing smoke through lids half -closed and thoughtful. 
 
 "Singular," he mused ; "very singular !" 
 
 "What's singular?" impatiently demanded his com* 
 panion. "Finish, or don't start." 
 
 "That mountaineer came up here as George Lescott's 
 protege," went on Farbish, reflectively. "He came
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 203 
 
 iresh from the feud belt, and landed promptly in the 
 police court. Now, in less than a year, he's pairing off 
 with Adrienne Lescott who, every one supposed, meant 
 to marry Wilfred Horton. This little party to-night 
 is, to put it quite mildly, a bit unconventional." 
 
 The stout gentleman said nothing, and the other 
 questioned, musingly : 
 
 "By the way, Bradburn, has the Kenmore Shooting 
 Club requested Wilfred Horton's resignation yet?" 
 
 "Not yet. We are going to. He's not congenial, 
 since his hand is raised against every man who owns 
 more than two dollars." The speaker owned several 
 million times that sum. This meeting at an out-of-the- 
 way place had been arranged for the purpose of dis 
 cussing ways and means of curbing Wilfred's crusades. 
 
 "Well, don't do it." 
 
 "Why the devil shouldn't we? We don't want anar 
 chists in the Kenmore." 
 
 After awhile, they sat silent, Farbish smiling over 
 the plot he had just devised, and the other man puffing 
 with a puzzled expression at his cigar. 
 
 "That's all there is to it," summarized Mr. Farbish, 
 succinctly. "If we can get these two men, South and 
 Horton, together down there at the shooting lodge s 
 under the proper conditions, they'll do the rest them 
 selves, I think. I'll take care of South. Now, it's up 
 to you to have Horton there at the same time." 
 
 "How do you know these two men have not already 
 met and amicably?" demanded Mr. Bradburn. 
 
 "I happen to know it, quite by chance. It is my 
 business to know things quite by chance!"
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 INDIAN summer came again to Misery, flaunting 
 woodland banners of crimson and scarlet and 
 orange, but to Sally the season brought only heart- 
 achy remembrances of last autumn, when Samson had 
 softened his stoicism as the haze had softened the hori- 
 2on. He had sent her a few brief letters not written, 
 but plainly printed. He selected short words as much 
 like the primer as possible, for no other messages could 
 she read. There were times in plenty when he wished 
 to pour out to her torrents of feeling, and it was such 
 feeling as would have carried comfort to her lonely 
 little heart. He wished to tell frankly of what a good 
 friend he had made, and how this friendship made him 
 more able to realize that other feeling his love for 
 Sally. There was in his mind no suspicion as yet that 
 these two girls might ever stand in conflict as to right- 
 of-way. But the letters he wished to write were not the 
 sort he cared to have read to the girl by the evangelist- 
 doctor or the district-school teacher, and alone she could 
 have made nothing of them. However, "I love you" 
 are easy words -and those he always included. 
 
 The Widow Miller had been ailing for monVns, and, 
 though the local physician diagnosed the condition as 
 being "right porely," he knew that the specter of tuber 
 culosis which stalks through these badly lighted and 
 ventilated houses was stretching out its fingers to touch 
 
 204
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 205 
 
 her shrunken chest. This had meant that Sally had to 
 forego the evening hours of study, because of the weari 
 ness that followed the day of nursing and household 
 drudgery. Autumn seemed to bring to her mother a 
 slight improvement, and Sally could again sometimes 
 steal away with her slate and book, to sit alone on the 
 big bowlder, and study. But, oftentimes, the print on 
 the page, or the scrawl on the slate, became blurred. 
 Nowadays, the tears came weakly to her eyes, and, 
 instead of hating herself for them and dashing them 
 fiercely away, as she would have done a year ago, she 
 sat listlessly, and gazed across the flaring hills. 
 
 Even the tuneful glory of the burgundy and scarlet 
 mountains hurt her into wincing for was it not the 
 clarion of Beauty that Samson had heard and in 
 answer to which he had left her ? So, she would sit, and 
 let her eyes wander, and try to imagine the sort of 
 picture those same very hungry eyes would see, could 
 she rip away the curtain of purple distance, and look 
 in on him wherever he was. And, in imagining such 
 a picture, she was hampered by no actual knowledge of 
 the world in which he lived it was all a fairy-tale world, 
 one which her imagination shaped and colored fantas 
 tically. Then, she would take out one of his occasional 
 letters, and her face would grow somewhat rapt, as 
 she spelled out the familiar, "I love you," which was 
 to her the soul of the message. The rest was unim 
 portant. She would not be able to write that Christmas 
 letter. There had been too many interruptions in the 
 self -imparted education, but some day she would write. 
 There would probably be time enough. It would take 
 even Samson a long while to become an artist. He had
 
 206 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 said so, and the morbid mountain pride forbade that 
 she should write at all until she could do it well enough 
 to give him a complete surprise. It must be a finished 
 article, that letter or nothing at all ! 
 
 One day, as she was walking homeward from her 
 lonely trysting place, she met the battered-looking man 
 who carried medicines in his saddlebags and the 
 Scriptures in his pocket, and who practised both forms 
 of heaKng through the hills. The old man drew down 
 his nag, and threw one leg over the pommel. 
 
 "Evenin', Sally," he greeted. 
 
 "Evenin', Brother Spencer. How air ye?" 
 
 "Tol'able, thank ye, Sally." The body-and-soul 
 mender studied the girl awhile in silence, and then said 
 bluntly : 
 
 "Ye've done broke right smart, in the last year. 
 Anything the matter with ye ?" 
 
 She shook her head, and laughed. It was an effort 
 to laugh merrily, but only the ghost of the old in 
 stinctive blitheness rippled into it. 
 
 "I've jest come from old Spicer South's," vol 
 unteered the doctor. "He's ailin' pretty consid'able, 
 these days." 
 
 "What's the matter with Unc' Spicer?" demanded 
 the girl, in genuine anxiety. Every one along Misery 
 called the old man Unc' Spicer. 
 
 "I can't jest make out." Her informer spoke slowly, 
 and his brow corrugated into something like sullenness. 
 "He hain't jest to say sick. Thet is, his organs seems 
 all right, but he don't 'pear to have no heart fer nothin', 
 and his victuals don't tempt him none. He's jest puny, 
 thet's all,"
 
 "I'll go over thar, an* see him," announced the girl. 
 "I'll cook a chicken thet'll tempt him." 
 
 The physician's mind was working along some line 
 which did not seem to partake of cheerfulness. Again, 
 he studied the girl, still upright and high-chmned, but, 
 somehow, no longer effervescent with wild, resilient 
 strength. 
 
 "Hit sometimes 'pears to me," he said, gruffly, "thet 
 this here thing of eddication costs a sight more than 
 hit comes to." 
 
 "What d'ye mean, Brother Spencer?" 
 
 "I reckon if Samson South hadn't a-took this hyar 
 hankerin' atter larnin', an' had stayed home 'stid of 
 rainbow chasm', the old man would still be able-bodied, 
 'stid of dyin' of a broken heart an' you " 
 
 The girl's cheeks flushed. Her violet eyes became 
 deep with a loyal and defensive glow. 
 
 "Ye mustn't say things like them, Brother Spencer." 
 Her voice was very firm and soft. "Unc' Spicer's jest 
 gettin' old, an' es fer me, I wasn't never better ner 
 happier in my life." It was a lie, but a splendid lie, and 
 she told herself as well as Brother Spencer that she 
 believed it. "Samson would come back in a minit ef 
 we sent fer him. He's smart, an* he's got a right ter 
 1'arnin' ! He hain't like us folks ; he's a " She paused, 
 and groped for the word that Lescott had added to her 
 vocabulary, which she had half-forgotten. "He's a 
 genius !" 
 
 There rose to the lips of the itinerant preacher a 
 sentiment as to how much more loyalty availeth a man 
 than genius, but, as he looked at the slender and valiant
 
 208 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 figure standing in the deep dust of the road, he left it 
 unuttered. 
 
 The girl spent much time after that at the house of 
 old Spicer South, and her coming seemed to waken him 
 into a fitful return of spirits. His strength, which had 
 been like the strength of an ox, had gone from him, and 
 he spent his hours sitting listlessly in a split-bottomed 
 rocker, which was moved from place to place, following 
 the sunshine. 
 
 "I reckon, Unc' Spicer," suggested the girl, on one 
 of her first visits, "I'd better send fer Samson. Mebby 
 hit mout do ye good ter see him." 
 
 The old man was weakly leaning back in his chair, 
 and his eyes were vacantly listless ; but, at the sugges 
 tion, he straightened, and the ancient fire came again 
 to his face. 
 
 "Don't ye do hit," he exclaimed, almost fiercely. "I 
 knows ye means hit kindly, Sally, but don't ye meddle 
 in my business." 
 
 "I I didn't 'low ter meddle," faltered the girl. 
 
 "No, little gal." His voice softened at once into 
 jgentleness. "I knows ye didn't. I didn't mean ter be 
 short-answered with ye neither, but thar's jest one thing 
 I won't 'low nobody ter do an' thet's ter send fer 
 Samson. He knows the road home, an', when he wants 
 ter come, he'll find the door open, but we hain't a-goin' 
 ter send atter him." 
 
 The girl said nothing, and, after awhile, the old man 
 went on : 
 
 "I wants ye ter understand me, Sally. Hit hain't 
 that I'm mad with Samson. God knows, I loves the 
 boy. ... I hain't a-blamin' him, neither. . . ."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 209 
 
 He was silent for awhile, and his words came with the 
 weariness of dead hopes when he began again. "Mebby, 
 I oughtn't ter talk about sech things with a young gal, 
 but I'm an old man, an' thar hain't no harm in hit. . . . 
 From the time when I used ter watch you two children 
 go a-trapsin' off in the woods together atter hickory 
 nuts, thar's been jest one thing thet I've looked forward 
 to and dreamed about: I wanted ter see ye married. 
 I 'lowed " A mistiness quenched the sternness of his 
 gray eyes. "I 'lowed thet, ef I could see yore children 
 playin' round this here yard, everything thet's ever 
 gone wrong would be paid fer." 
 
 Sally stood silently at his side, and her cheeks flushed 
 as the tears crept into her eyes; but her hand stole 
 through the thick mane of hair, fast turning from iron- 
 gray to snow-white. 
 
 Spicer South watched the fattening hog that rubbed 
 its bristling side against the rails stacked outside the 
 fence, and then said, with an imperious tone that did 
 not admit of misconstruction : 
 
 "But, Sally, the boy's done started out on his own 
 row. He's got ter hoe hit. Mebby he'll come back 
 mebby not ! Thet's as the Lord wills. Hit wouldn't do 
 us no good fer him to come withouten he come willin'ly. 
 The meanest thing ye could do ter me an' him would 
 be ter send fer him. Ye mustn't do hit. Ye mustn't !" 
 
 "All right, Unc' Spicer. I hain't a-goin' ter do hit 
 leastways, not yit. But I'm a-goin' ter come over 
 hyar every day ter see ye." 
 
 "Ye can't come too often, Sally, gal," declared the 
 old clansman, heartily.
 
 210 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Wilfred Horton found himself that fall in the posi 
 tion of a man whose course lies through rapids, and for 
 the first time in his life his pleasures were giving prece 
 dence to business. He knew that his efficiency would 
 depend on maintaining the physical balance of perfect 
 health and fitness, and early each morning he went for 
 his gallop in the park. At so early an hour, he had 
 the bridle path for the most part to himself. This 
 had its compensations, for, though Wilfred Horton 
 continued to smile with his old-time good humor, he ac 
 knowledged to himself that it was not pleasant to have 
 men who had previously sought him out with flatteries 
 avert their faces, and pretend that they had not seen him. 
 Horton was the most-hated and most-admired man, 
 in New York, but the men who hated and snubbed him 
 were his own sort, and the men who admired him were 
 those whom he would never meet, and who knew him 
 only through the columns of penny papers. Their 
 sympathy was too remote to bring him explicit pleas 
 ure. He was merely attempting, from within, reforms 
 which the public and the courts had attempted from 
 without. But, since he operated from within the walls, 
 he was denounced as a Judas. Powerful enemies had 
 ceased to laugh, and begun to conspire. He must be 
 silenced! How, was a mooted question. But, in some 
 fashion, he must be silenced. Society had not cast him 
 out, but Society had shown him in many subtle ways 
 that he was no longer her favorite. He had taken a 
 plebeian stand with the masses. Meanwhile, from vari 
 ous sources, Horton had received warnings of actual 
 personal danger. But at these he had laughed, and no 
 hint of them had reached Adrienne's ears.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 211 
 
 One evening, when business had forced the postpone 
 ment of a dinner engagement with Miss Lescott, he 
 begged her over the telephone to ride with him the fol 
 lowing morning. 
 
 "I know you are usually asleep when I'm out and 
 galloping," he laughed, "but you pitched me neck and 
 crop into this hurly-burly, and I shouldn't have to lose 
 everything. Don't have your horse brought. I want 
 you to try out a new one of mine." 
 
 "I think," she answered, "that early morning is the 
 est time to ride. I'll meet you at seven at the Plaza 
 entrance." 
 
 They had turned the upper end of the reservoir 
 before Horton drew his mount to a walk, and allowed 
 the reins to hang. They had been galloping hard, and 
 conversation had been impracticable. 
 
 "I suppose experience should have taught me," began 
 Horton, slowly,, "that the most asinine thing in the 
 world is to try to lecture you, Drennie. But there are 
 times when one must even risk your delight at one's 
 discomfiture." 
 
 "I'm not going to tease you this morning," she 
 answered, docilely. "I like the horse too well and, to 
 be frank, I like you too well!" 
 
 "Thank you," smiled Horton. "As usual, you disarm 
 me on the verge of combat. I had nerved myself for 
 ridicule." 
 
 "What have I done now?" inquired the girl, with an 
 innocence which further disarmed him. 
 
 "The Queen can do no wrong. But even the Queen, 
 perhaps more particularly the Queen, must give thought 
 to what people are saying."
 
 "What are people saying?" 
 
 "The usual unjust things that are said about women 
 in society. You are being constantly seen with an 
 uncouth freak who is scarcely a gentleman, however 
 much he may be a man. And malicious tongues are 
 1 wagging." 
 
 The girl stiffened. 
 
 "I won't spar with you. I know that you are alluding 
 to Samson South, though the description is a slander. I 
 never thought it would be necessary to say such a thing 
 to you, Wilfred, but you are talking like a cad." 
 
 The young man flushed. 
 
 "I laid myself open to that," he said, slowly, "and 
 I suppose I should have expected it." 
 
 He knew her well enough to dread the calmness of 
 her more serious anger, and just now the tilt of her 
 chin, the ominous light of her deep eyes and the quality 
 of her voice told him that he had incurred it. 
 
 "May I ask," Adrienne inquired, "what you fancy 
 constitutes your right to assume this censorship of my 
 conduct?" 
 
 "I have no censorship, of course. I have only the 
 jinterest of loving you, and meaning to marry you." 
 
 "And I may remark in passing, that you are making 
 no progress to that end by slandering my friends." 
 
 "Adrienne, I'm not slandering. God knows I hate 
 cads and snobs. Mr. South is simply, as yet, uncivil 
 ized. Otherwise, he would hardly take you, unchape- 
 roned, to well, let us say to ultra-bohemian resorts, 
 where you are seen by such gossip-mongers as William 
 Farbish. 
 
 "So, that's the specific charge, is it?"
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 213 
 
 "Yes, that's the specific charge. Mr. South may be 
 a man of unusual talent and strength. But he has 
 done what no other man has done with you. He has 
 caused club gossip, which may easily be twisted and 
 misconstrued." 
 
 "Do you fancy that Samson South could have taken 
 me to the Wigwam Road-house if I had not cared to 
 go with him?" 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 "Certainly not! But the fact that you did care to 
 go with him indicates an influence over you which is new. 
 You have not sought the bohemian and unconventional 
 phases of life with your other friends." 
 
 Adrienne glanced at the athletic figure riding at her 
 side, just now rather rigid with restraint and indigna 
 tion, as though his vertebrae were threaded on a ramrod, 
 and her eyes darkened a little. 
 
 "Now, let it be thoroughly understood between us, 
 Wilfred," she said very quietly, "that if you see any 
 danger in my unconventionalities, I don't care to discuss 
 this, or any other matter, with you now or at any time." 
 She paused, then added in a more friendly voice: "It 
 would be rather a pity for us to quarrel about a thing 
 like this." 
 
 The young man was still looking into her eyes, and 
 he read there an ultimatum. 
 
 "God knows I was not questioning you," he replied, 
 slowly. "There is no price under heaven I would not 
 pay for your regard. None the less, I repeat that, at 
 the present moment, I can see only two definitions for 
 this mountaineer. Either he is a bounder, or else he is
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 so densely ignorant and churlish that he is unfit to asso 
 ciate with you." 
 
 "I make no apologies for Mr. South," she said, 
 "because none are needed. He is a stranger in New 
 York, who knows nothing, and cares nothing about the 
 conventionalities. If I chose to waive them, I think it 
 was my right and my responsibility." 
 
 Horton said nothing, and, in a moment, Adrienne 
 Lescott's manner changed. She spoke more gently : 
 
 "Wilfred, I'm sorry you choose to take this prejudice 
 against the boy. You could have done a great deal to 
 help him. I wanted you to be friends." 
 
 "Thank you!" His manner was stiff. "I hardly 
 think we'd hit it off together." 
 
 * { I don't think you quite understand," she argued. 
 "Samson South is running a clean, creditable race, 
 weighted down with a burdensome handicap. As a 
 straight-thinking sportsman, if for no better reason, I 
 should fancy you'd be glad to help him. He has the 
 stamina and endurance." 
 
 "Those," said Horton, who at heart was the fairest 
 and most generous of men, "are very admirable quali 
 ties Perhaps, I should be more enthusiastic, Drennie, 
 if you were a little less so." 
 
 For the first time since the talk had so narrowly 
 skirted a quarrel, her eyes twinkled. 
 
 "I believe you are jealous !" she announced. 
 
 "Of course, I'm jealous," he replied, without evasion. 
 "Possibly, I might have saved time in the first place 
 by avowing my jealousy. I hasten now to make amends. 
 7Vn green-eyed." 
 
 She laid her gloved fingers lightly on his bridle hand.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 215 
 
 "Don't be," she advised; "I'm not in love with him. 
 If I were, it wouldn't matter. He has 
 
 " 'A neater, sweeter maiden, 
 " 'In a greener, cleaner land.' 
 
 He's told me all about her." 
 
 Horton shook his head, dubiously. 
 
 "I wish to the good Lord, he'd go back to her," he 
 said. "This Platonic proposition is the doormat ove*- 
 which two persons walk to other things. They end by 
 wiping their feet on the Platonic doormat." 
 
 "We'll cross that that imaginary doormat, when 
 we get to it," laughed the girl. "Meantime, you ought 
 to help me with Samson." 
 
 "Thank you, no ! I won't help educate my successor. 
 And I won't abdicate" his manner of speech grew 
 suddenly tense "while I can fight for my foothold." 
 
 "I haven't asked you to abdicate. This boy has been 
 here less than a year. He came absolutely raw " 
 
 "And lit all spraddled out in the police court!" Wil 
 fred prompted. 
 
 "And, in less than a year, he has made wonderful 
 advancement; such advancement as he could not have 
 made but for one thing." 
 
 "Which was that you took him in hand." 
 
 "No which is, that he springs from stock that, 
 despite its hundred years of lapse into illiteracy, is 
 good stock. Samson South was a gentleman, Wilfred, 
 two hundred years before he was born." 
 
 "That," observed her companion, curtly, "was som* 
 time ago."
 
 216 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 She tossed her head, impatiently. 
 
 "Come," she said, "let's gallop." 
 
 "No," protested Wilfred, his face becoming peni 
 tent. "Just a moment ! I retract. It is I who am the 
 cad. Please, tell Mr. South just what we have both 
 said, and make my apologies if he'll accept them. Of 
 course, if you insist, I'll meet him. I suppose I'll have 
 to meet him some day, anyhow. But, frankly, Drennie, 
 I hate the man. It will take a Herculean effort to be 
 decent to him. Still, if you say so " 
 
 "No, Wilfred," she declined, "if you can't do it 
 willingly, I don't want you to do it at all. It doesn't 
 matter in the least. Let's drop the subject."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 ONE afternoon, swinging along Fifth Avenue in 
 his down-town walk, Samson met Mr. Farbish, 
 who fell into step with him, and began to make 
 conversation. 
 
 "By the way, South," he suggested after the com 
 monplaces had been disposed of, "you'll pardon my little 
 prevarication the other evening about having met you 
 at the Manhattan Club?" 
 
 "Why was it necessary?" inquired Samson, with a 
 glance of disquieting directness. 
 
 "Possibly, it was not necessary, merely politic. Of 
 course," he laughed, "every man knows two kinds of 
 women. It's just as well not to discuss the nectarines 
 with the orchids, or the orchids with the nectarines." 
 
 Samson made no response. But Farbish, meeting his 
 eyes, felt as though he had been contemptuously re 
 buked. His own eyes clouded with an impulse of resent 
 ment. But it passed, as he remembered that his plans 
 involved the necessity of winning this boy's confidence. 
 An assumption of superior virtue, he thought, came 
 rather illogically from Samson, who had brought to the 
 inn a young woman whom he should not have exposed 
 to comment. He, himself, could afford to be diplomatic. 
 Accordingly, he laughed. 
 
 "You mustn't take me too literal^, South," he ex 
 plained. "The life here has a tendency to make us 
 
 217
 
 218 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 cynical in our speech, even though we may be quite the 
 reverse in our practices. In point of fact, I fancy 
 we were both rather out of our element at Collasso's 
 studio." 
 
 At the steps of a Fifth Avenue club, Farbish halted. 
 
 "Won't you turn in here," he suggested, "and assuage 
 your thirst?" 
 
 Samson declined, and walked on. But when, a day or 
 two later, he dropped into the same club with George 
 Lescott, Farbish joined them in the grill without 
 invitation. 
 
 "By the way, Lescott," said the interloper, with an 
 easy assurance upon which the coolness of his reception 
 had no seeming effect, "it won't be long now until ducks 
 are flying south. Will you get off for your customary 
 shooting?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not." Lescott's voice became more 
 cordial, as a man's will whose hobby has been touched. 
 "There are several canvases to be finished for ap 
 proaching exhibitions. I wish I could go. When the 
 first cold winds begin to sweep down, I get the fever. 
 The prospects are good, too, I understand." 
 
 "The best in years! Protection in the Canadian 
 breeding fields is bearing fruit. Do you shoot ducks, 
 Mr. South?" The speaker included Samson as though 
 merely out of deference to his physical presence. 
 
 Samson shook his head. But he was listening 
 eagerly. He, too, knew that note of the migratory 
 "honk" from high overhead. 
 
 "Samson," said Lescott slowly, as he caught the 
 gleam in his friend's eyes, "you've been working too 
 hard. You'll have to take a week off, and try your
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 hand. After you've changed your method from rifle to 
 shotgun, you'll bag your share, and you'll come back 
 fitter for work. I must arrange it." 
 
 "As to that," suggested Farbish, in the manner of 
 one regarding the civilities, "Mr. South can run down 
 to the Kenmore. I'll have a card made out for him." 
 
 "Don't trouble," demurred Lescott, coolly, "I can fix 
 that up." 
 
 "It would be a pleasure," smiled the other. "I sin 
 cerely wish I could be there at the same time, but I'm 
 afraid that, like you, Lescott, I shall have to give 
 business the right of way. However, when I hear that 
 the flights are beginning, I'll cell Mr. South up, and 
 pass the news to him." 
 
 Samson had thought it rather singular that he had 
 never met Horton at the Lescott house, though Adrienne 
 spoke of him almost as of a member of the family. 
 However, Samson's visits were usually in his intervals 
 between relays of work and Horton was probably at 
 such times in Wall Street. It did not occur to the 
 mountaineer that the other was intentionally avoiding 
 him. He knew of Wilfred only through Adrienne's 
 eulogistic descriptions, and, from hearsay, liked him. 
 
 The months of close application to easel and books 
 had begun to tell on the outdoor man in a softening of 
 Jmuscles and a slight, though noticeable, pallor. The 
 enthusiasm with which he attacked his daily schedule 
 carried him far, and made his progress phenomenal, 
 but he was spending capital of nerve and health, and 
 George Lescott began to fear a break-down for his 
 protege. Lescott did not want to advise a visit to the 
 mountains, because he had secured from the boy a
 
 220 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 promise that, unless he was called home, he would give 
 the experiment an unbroken trial of eighteen months. 
 
 If Samson went back, he feared his return would 
 reawaken the sleeping volcano of the feud and he could 
 not easily come away again. He discussed the matter 
 with Adrienne, and the girl began to promote in the 
 boy an interest in the duck-shooting trip an interest 
 which had already awakened, despite the rifleman's 
 inherent contempt for shotguns. 
 
 "You will be in your blind," she enthusiastically told 
 him, "before daybreak, and after a while the wedges 
 will come flying into view, cutting the fog in hundreds 
 and dropping into the decoys. You'll love it! I wish 
 I were going myself." 
 
 "Do you shoot?" he asked, in some surprise. 
 
 She nodded, and added modestly : 
 
 "But I don't kill many ducks." 
 
 "Is there anything you can't do?" he questioned in 
 admiration, then demanded, with the touch of homesick 
 ness in his voice, "Are there any mountains down there?" 
 
 "I'm afraid we can't provide any mountains," laughed 
 Adrienne. "Just salt marshes and beyond them, the 
 sea. But there's moonshine of the natural variety 
 and a tonic in the wind that buffets you." 
 
 "I reckon I'd like it, all right," he said, "and I'll 
 bring you back some ducks, if I'm lucky." 
 
 So, Lescott arranged the outfit, and Samson awaited 
 the news of the coming flights. 
 
 That same evening, Farbish dropped into the studio, 
 explaining that he had been buying a picture at Col- 
 lasso's, and had taken the opportunity to stop by and 
 hand Samson a visitor's card to the Kenmore Club.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 He found the ground of interest fallow, and artfully 
 sowed it with well-chosen anecdotes calculated to stim 
 ulate enthusiasm. 
 
 On leaving the studio, he paused to say: 
 
 "I'll let you know when conditions are just right." 
 Then, he added, as though in afterthought: "And I'll 
 arrange so that you won't run up on Wilfred Horton." 
 
 "What's the matter with Wilfred Horton?" de 
 manded Samson, a shade curtly. 
 
 "Nothing at all," replied Farbish, with entire gravity. 
 "Personally, I like Horton immensely. I simply thought 
 you might find things more congenial when he wasn't 
 among those present." 
 
 Samson was puzzled, but he did not fancy hearing 
 from this man's lips criticisms upon friends of his 
 friends. 
 
 "Well, I reckon," he said, coolly, "I'd like him, too." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said the other. "I supposed 
 you knew, or I shouldn't have broached the topic." 
 
 "Knew what?" 
 
 "You must excuse me," demurred the visitor with 
 dignity. "I shouldn't have mentioned the subject. I 
 seem to have said too much." 
 
 "See here, Mr. Farbish," Samson spoke quietly, but 
 imperatively ; "if you know any reason why I shouldn't 
 meet Mr. Wilfred Horton, I want you to tell me what 
 it is. He is a friend of my friends. You say you've 
 said too much. I reckon you've either said too much, 
 or too little." 
 
 Then, very insidiously and artistically, seeming all 
 the while reluctant and apologetic, the visitor proceeded 
 to plant in Samson's mind an exaggerated and untrue
 
 S22 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 picture of Horton's contempt for him and of Horton's 
 resentment at the favor shown him by the Lescotts. 
 
 Samson heard him out with a face enigmatically set, 
 and his voice was soft, as he said simply at the end : 
 
 "I'm obliged to you." 
 
 Farbish had hoped for more stress of feeling, but, as 
 Ihe walked home, he told himself that the sphinx-like 
 features had been a mask, and that, when these two met, 
 their coming together held potentially for a clash. He 
 was judge enough of character to know that Samson's 
 morbid pride would seal his lips as to the interview 
 until he met Horton. 
 
 In point of fact, Samson was at first only deeply 
 wounded. That through her kindness to him Adrienne 
 was having to fight \is battles with a close friend he 
 had never suspected. Then, slowly, a bitterness began 
 to rankle, quite distinct from the hurt to his sensitive 
 ness. His birthright of suspicion and tendency to foster 
 hatreds had gradually been falling asleep under the 
 disarming kindness of these persons. Now, they began 
 to stir in him again vaguely, but forcibly, and to trouble 
 him. 
 
 Samson did not appear at the Lescott house for two 
 weeks after that. He had begun to think that, if his 
 going there gave embarrassment to the girl who had 
 been kind to him, it were better to remain away. 
 
 "I don't belong here," he told himself, bitterly. "I 
 reckon everybody that knows me in New York, except 
 the Lescotts, is laughing at me behind my back." 
 
 He worked fiercely, and threw into his work such fire 
 and energy that it came out again converted into a 
 baldness of stroke and an almost savage vigor of
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 drawing. The instructor nodded his head over the easel, 
 and passed on to the next student without having left 
 the defacing mark of his relentless crayon. To the next 
 pupil, he said: 
 
 "Watch the way that man South draws. He's not 
 clever. He's elementally sincere, and, if he goes on, the 
 first thing you know he will be a portrait painter. He ' 
 won't merely draw eyes and lips and noses, but char 
 acter and virtues and vices showing out through them." 
 
 And Samson met every gaze with smoldering sav 
 agery, searching for some one who might be laughing 
 at him openly, or even covertly; instead of behind his 
 back. The long-suffering fighting lust in him craved 
 opportunity to break out and relieve the pressure on 
 his soul. But no one laughed. 
 
 One afternoon late in November, a hint of blizzards 
 swept snarling down the Atlantic seaboard from the 
 polar floes, with wet flurries of snow and rain. Off on 
 the marshes where the Kenmore Club had its lodge, the 
 live decoys stretched their clipped wings, and raised 
 their green necks restively into the salt wind, and 
 listened. With dawn, they had heard, faint and far 
 away, the first notes of that wild chorus with which the 
 skies would ring until the southerly migrations ended 
 the horizon-distant honking of high-flying water fowl. 
 
 Then it was that Farbish dropped in with marching 
 orders, and Samson, yearning to be away where there 
 were open skies, packed George Lescott's borrowed 
 paraphernalia, and prepared to leave that same night. 
 
 While he was packing, the telephone rang, and Sam 
 son heard Adrienne's voice at the other end of the wire*
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Where have you been hiding?" she demanded. "I'll 
 have to send a truant officer after you." 
 
 "I've been very busy," said the man, "and I reckon, 
 after all, you can't civilize a wolf. I'm afraid I've been 
 wasting your time." 
 
 Possibly, the miserable tone of the voice told the girl 
 more than the words. 
 
 "You are having a season with the blue devils," she 
 announced. "You've been cooped up too much. This 
 wind ought to bring the ducks, and " 
 
 "Pm leaving to-night," Samson told her. 
 
 "It would have been very nice of you to have run up 
 to say good-bye," she reproved. "But I'll forgive you, 
 if you call me up by long distance. You will get there 
 early in the morning. To-morrow, I'm going to Phila 
 delphia over night. The next night, I shall be at the 
 theater. Call me up after the theater, and tell me how 
 you like it." 
 
 It was the same old frankness and friendliness of 
 voice, and the same old note like the music of a reed 
 instrument. Samson felt so comforted and reassured 
 that he laughed through the telephone. 
 
 "I've been keeping away from you," he volunteered, 
 "because I've had a relapse into savagery, and haven't 
 been fit to talk to you. When I get back, I'm coming 
 up to explain. And, in the meantime, I'll telephone." 
 
 On the train Samson was surprised to discover that, 
 after all, he had Mr. William Farbish for a traveling 
 companion. That gentleman explained that he had 
 found an opportunity to play truant from business for 
 a day or two, and wished to see Samson comfortably 
 ensconced and introduced.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 225 
 
 The first day Farbish and Samson had the place to 
 themselves, but the next morning would bring others. 
 Samson's ideas of a millionaires' shooting-box had been 
 vague, but he had looked forward to getting into the 
 wilds. The marshes were certainly desolate enough, 
 and the pine woods through which the buckboard 
 brought them. But, inside the club itself, the Ken- 
 tuckian found himself in such luxurious comfort as he 
 could not, in his own mind, reconcile with the idea of 
 "going hunting." He would be glad when the cushioned 
 chairs of the raftered lounging-room and the tinkle of 
 high-ball ice and gossip were exchanged for the salt air 
 and the blinds.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 BUT, when he went out for his initiation, in the raw 
 blackness before daybreak, and lay in the blind, 
 with only his guide for a companion, he felt far 
 away from artificial luxuries. The first pale streamers 
 of dawn soon streaked the east, and the wind charged 
 cuttingly like drawn sabers of galloping cavalry. The 
 wooden decoys had been anchored with the live ducks 
 swimming among them, and the world began to awake. 
 He drew a long breath of contentment, and waited. 
 Then came the trailing of gray and blue and green 
 mists, and, following the finger of the silent boatman, 
 he made out in the northern sky a slender wedge of 
 black dots, against the spreading rosiness of the hori 
 zon. Soon after, he heard the clear clangor of throats 
 high in the sky, answered by the nearer honking of the 
 live decoys, and he felt a throbbing of his pulses as he 
 huddled low against the damp bottom of the blind and 
 waited. 
 
 The lines and wedges grew until the sky was stippled 
 with them, and their strong-throatcu cries were a stri 
 dent music. For a time, they passed in seeming thou 
 sands, growing from scarcely visible dots into speeding 
 shapes with slender outstretched necks and bills, pointed 
 like reversed compass needles to the south. As yet, 
 they were all flying high, ignoring with lordly indiffer 
 ence the clamor of their renegade brothers, who shrieked 
 
 226
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 227 
 
 to them through the morning mists to drop down, and 
 feed on death. 
 
 But, as the day grew older, Samson heard the pop 
 ping of guns off to the side, where other gunners lay 
 in other blinds, and presently a drake veered from his 
 line of flight, far off to the right, harkened to the voice 
 of temptation, and led his flock circling toward the 
 blind. Then, with a whir and drumming of dark-tipped 
 wings, they came down, and struck the water, and the 
 boy from Misery rose up, shooting as he came. He 
 heard the popping of his guide's gun at his side, and 
 saw the dead and crippled birds falling about him, amid 
 the noisy clamor of their started flight. 
 
 That day, while the mountaineer was out on the flats, 
 the party of men at the club had been swelled to a total 
 of six, for in pursuance of the carefully arranged plans 
 of Mr. Farbish, Mr. Bradburn had succeeded in inducing 
 Wilfred Horton to run down for a day or two of the 
 sport he loved. To outward seeming, the trip which the 
 two men had made together had been quite casual, and 
 the outgrowth of coincidence ; yet, in point of fact, not 
 only the drive from Baltimore in Horton' s car, but the 
 conversation by the way had been in pursuance of a 
 plan, and the result was that, when Horton arrived that 
 afternoon, he found his usually even temper ruffled by 
 bits of maliciously broached gossip, until his resentment 
 against Samson South had been fanned into danger 
 heat. He did not know that South also was at the club, 
 and he did not that afternoon go out to the blinds, 
 but so far departed from his usual custom as to permit 
 himself to sit for hours in the club grill. 
 
 And yet, as is often the case in carefully designed
 
 228 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 affairs, the one element that made most powerfully for 
 the success of Farbish's scheme was pure accident. 
 The carefully arranged meeting between the two men, 
 the adroitly incited passions of each, would still have 
 brought no clash, had not Wilfred Horton been affected 
 by the flushing effect of alcohol. Since his college days, 
 he had been invariably abstemious. To-night marked 
 an exception. 
 
 He was rather surprised at the cordiality of the wel 
 come accorded him, for, as chance would have it, except 
 for Samson South, whom he had not yet seen, all the 
 other sportsmen were men closely allied to the political 
 and financial elements upon which he had been making 
 war. Still, since they seemed willing.to forget for the 
 time that there had been a breach, he was equally so. 
 Just now, he was feeling such bitterness for the Ken- 
 tuckian that the foes of a less-personal sort seemed 
 unimportant. 
 
 In point of fact, Wilfred Horton had spent a very 
 bad day. The final straw had broken the back of his 
 usually unruffled temper, when he had found in his room 
 on reaching the Kenmore a copy of a certain New York 
 weekly paper, and had read a page, which chanced to be 
 lying face up (a chance carefully prearranged). It was 
 an item of which Farbish had known, in advance of pub 
 lication, but Wilfred would never have seen that sheet, 
 had it not been so carefully brought to his attention. 
 There were hints of the strange infatuation which a 
 certain young woman seemed to entertain for a par 
 tially civilized stranger who had made his entree to 
 New York via the Police Court, and who wore his hair 
 long in imitation of a Biblical character of the same
 
 name. The supper at the Wigwam Inn was mentioned, 
 and the character of the place intimated. Horton felt 
 this objectionable innuendo was directly traceable to 
 Adrienne's ill-judged friendship for the mountaineer, 
 and he bitterly blamed the mountaineer. And, while he 
 had been brooding on these matters, a man acting as 
 Farbish's ambassador had dropped into his room, since 
 Farbish himself knew that Horton would not listen to his 
 confidences. The delegated spokesman warned Wilfred 
 that Samson South had spoken pointedly of him, and 
 advised cautious conduct, in a fashion calculated to 
 inflame. 
 
 Samson, it was falsely alleged, had accused him of 
 saying derogatory things in his absence, which he would 
 hardly venture to repeat in his presence. In short, it 
 was put up to Horton to announce his opinion openly, 
 or eat the crow of cowardice. 
 
 That evening, when Samson went to his room, Far 
 bish joined him. 
 
 "I've been greatly annoyed to find," he said, seating 
 himself on Samson's bed, "that Horton arrived to-day." 
 
 "I reckon that's all right," said Samson. "He's a 
 member, isn't he?" 
 
 Farbish appeared dubious. 
 
 "I don't want to appear in the guise of a prophet of 
 /trouble," he said, "but you are my guest here, and I 
 must warn you. Horton thinks of you as a 'gun- 
 fighter* and a dangerous man. He won't take chances 
 with you. If there is a clash, it will be serious. He 
 doesn't often drink, but to-day he's doing it, and may 
 be ugly. Avoid an altercation if you can, but if it 
 comes " He broke off and added seriously: "You
 
 230 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 will have to get him, or he will get you. Are you 
 armed?" 
 
 The Kentuckian laughed. 
 
 "I reckon I don't need to be armed amongst gentle 
 men." 
 
 Farbish drew from his pocket a magazine pistol. 
 
 "It won't hurt you to slip that into your clothes,"! 
 he insisted. 
 
 For an instant, the mountaineer stood looking at 
 his host and with eyes that bored deep, but whatever 
 was in his mind as he made that scrutiny he kept to 
 himself. At last, he took the magazine pistol, turned 
 it over in his hand, and put it into his pocket. 
 
 "Mr. Farbish," he said, "I've been in places before 
 now where men were drinking who had made threats 
 against me. I think you are excited about this thing. 
 If anything starts, he will start it." 
 
 At the dinner table, Samson South and Wilfred Hor- 
 ton were introduced, and acknowledged their introduc 
 tions with the briefest and most formal of nods. Dur 
 ing the course of the meal, though seated side by side, 
 each ignored the presence of the other. Samson was, 
 perhaps, no more silent than usual. Always, he was the 
 listener except when a question was put to him direct, 
 but the silence which sat upon Wilfred Horton was a 
 departure from his ordinary custom. 
 
 He had discovered in his college days that liquor, 
 instead of exhilarating him, was an influence under which 
 he grew morose and sullen, and that discovery had made 
 him almost a total abstainer. To-night, his glass was 
 constantly filled and emptied, and, as he ate, he gazed 
 ahead, and thought resentfully of the man at his side.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 231 
 
 When the coffee had been brought, and the cigars 
 lighted, and the servants had withdrawn, Horton, with 
 the manner of one who had been awaiting an oppor 
 tunity, turned slightly in his chair, and gazed inso 
 lently at the Kentuckian. 
 
 , Samson South still seemed entirely unconscious of the 
 (other's existence, though in reality no detail of the brew 
 ing storm had escaped him. He was studying the other 
 faces around the table, and what he saw in them 
 appeared to occupy him. Wilfred Horton's cheeks were 
 burning with a dull flush, and his eyes were narrowing 
 with an unveiled dislike. Suddenly, a silence fell on 
 the party, and, as the men sat puffing their cigars, 
 Horton turned toward the Kentuckian. For a moment, 
 he glared in silence, then with an impetuous exclamation 
 of disgust he announced: 
 
 "See here, South, I want you to know that if I'd 
 understood you were to be here, I wouldn't have come. 
 It has pleased me to express my opinion of you to a 
 number of people, and now I mean to express it to you 
 in person." 
 
 Samson looked around, and his features indicated 
 neither surprise nor interest. He caught Farbish's eye 
 at the same instant, and, though the plotter said noth 
 ing, the glance was subtle and expressive. It seemed 
 to prompt and goad him on, as though the man had said : 
 
 "You mustn't stand that. Go after him." 
 
 "I reckon" Samson's voice was a pleasant drawl 
 "it doesn't make any particular difference, Mr. Hor 
 ton." 
 
 "Even if what I said didn't happen to be particularly 
 commendatory?" inquired Horton, his eyes narrowing.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "So long," replied the Kentuckian, "as what you said 
 was your own opinion, I don't reckon it would interest 
 me much." 
 
 "In point of fact" Horton was gazing with steady 
 hostility into Samson's eyes "I prefer to tell you. I 
 have rather generally expressed the belief that you are 
 a damned savage, unfit for decent society." 
 
 Samson's face grew rigid and a trifle pale. His mouth 
 set itself in a straight line, but, as Wilfred Horton 
 came to his feet with the last words, the mountaineer 
 remained seated. 
 
 "And," went on the New Yorker, flushing with sud 
 denly augmenting passion, "what I said I still believe 
 to be true, and repeat in your presence. At another 
 time and place, I shall be even more explicit. I shall 
 ask you to explain certain things." 
 
 "Mr. Horton," suggested Samson in an ominously 
 quiet voice, "I reckon you're a little drunk. If I were 
 you, I'd sit down." 
 
 Wilfred's face went from red to white, and his shoul 
 ders stiffened. He leaned forward, and for the instant 
 no one moved. The tick of a hall clock was plainly 
 audible. 
 
 "South," he said, his breath coming in labored excite 
 ment, "defend yourself!" 
 
 Samson still sat motionless. 
 
 "Against what?" he inquired. 
 
 " Against that!" Horton struck the mountain man 
 across the face with his open hand. Instantly, there 
 was a commotion of scraping chairs and shuffling feet, 
 mingled with a chorus of inarticulate protest. Samson 
 had risen, and, for a second, his face had become a thing
 
 of unspeakable passion. His hand instinctively swept 
 toward his pocket and stopped half-way. He stood 
 by his overturned chair, gazing into the eyes of his 
 assailant, with an effort at self-mastery which gave his 
 chest and arms the appearance of a man writhing and 
 stiffening under electrocution. Then, he forced both 
 hands to his back and gripped them there. For a 
 moment, the tableau was held, then the man from the 
 mountains began speaking, slowly and in a tone of dead- 
 level monotony. Each syllable was portentously dis 
 tinct and clear clipped. 
 
 "Maybe you know why I don't kill you. . . 
 Maybe you don't. ... I don't give a damn whether 
 you do or not. . . . That's the first blow I've ever 
 passed. ... I ain't going to hit back. . . . You 
 need a friend pretty bad just now. . . . For certain 
 reasons, I'm going to be that friend. . . . Don't 
 you see that this thing is a damned frame-up? . . . 
 Don't you see that I was brought here to murder you,?" 
 He turned suddenly to Farbish. 
 
 "Why did you insist on my putting that in my 
 pocket" Samson took out the pistol, and threw it down 
 on the table-cloth in front of Wilfred, where it struck 
 and shivered a half-filled wine-glass "and why did 
 you warn me that this man meant to kill me, unless I 
 killed him first? I was meant to be your catspaw to 
 put Wilfred Horton out of your way. I may be a bar 
 barian and a savage, but I can smell a rat if it's dead 
 enough !" 
 
 For an instant, there was absolute and hushed calm. 
 Wilfred Horton picked up the discarded weapon and
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 looked at it in bewildered stupefaction, then slowly his 
 face flamed with distressing mortification. 
 
 "Any time you want to fight me" Samson had 
 turned again to face him, and was still talking in his 
 deadly quiet voice "except to-night, you can find me. 
 I've never been hit before without hitting back. That 
 blow has got to be paid for but the man that's really 
 responsible has got to pay first. When I fight you, I'll 
 fight for myself, not for a bunch of damned murderers. 
 ,. . . Just now, I've got other business. That man 
 framed this up!" He pointed a lean finger across the 
 table into the startled countenance of Mr. Farbish. 
 ''He knew! He has been working on this job for a 
 month. I'm going to attend to his case now." 
 
 As Samson started toward Farbish, the conspirator 
 rose, and, with an excellent counterfeit of insulted virtue, 
 pushed back his chair. 
 
 "By God," he indignantly exclaimed, "you mustn't 
 try to embroil me in your quarrels. You must apolo 
 gize. You are talking wildly, South." 
 
 "Am I?" questioned the Kentuckian, quietly; "I'm 
 going to act wildly in a minute." 
 
 He halted a short distance from Farbish, and drew 
 from his pocket a crumpled scrap of the offending 
 magazine page : the item that had offended Horton. 
 
 "I may not have good manners, Mister Farbish,' 
 but where I come from we know how to handle varmints." 
 He dropped his voice and added for the plotter's ear 
 only: "Here's a little matter on the side that con 
 cerns only us. It wouldn't interest these other gen 
 tlemen." He opened his hand, and added: "Here, 
 eat that !"
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 235 
 
 Farbish, with a frightened glance at the set face of 
 the man who was advancing upon him, leaped back, 
 and drew from his pocket a pistol it was an exact 
 counterpart of the one with which he had supplied 
 Samson. 
 
 With a panther-like swiftness, the Kentuckian leaped 
 forward, and struck up the weapon, which spat one 
 ineffective bullet into the rafters. There was a momen 
 tary scuffle of swaying bodies and a crash under which 
 the table groaned amid the shattering of glass and 
 china. Then, slowly, the conspirator's body bent back 
 at the waist, until its shoulders were stretched on the 
 disarranged cloth, and the white face, with purple veins 
 swelling on the forehead, stared up between two brown 
 hands that gripped its throat. 
 
 "Swallow that!" ordered the mountaineer. 
 
 For just an instant, the company stood dumfounded, 
 then a strained, unnatural voice broke the silence. 
 
 "Stop him, he's going to kill the man !" 
 
 The odds were four to two, and with a sudden rally 
 to the support of their chief plotter, the other con 
 spirators rushed the figure that stood throttling his 
 victim. But Samson South was in his element. The 
 dammed-up wrath that had been smoldering during these 
 last days was having a tempestuous outlet. He had 
 found men who, in a gentlemen's club to which he had 
 come as a guest, sought to use him as a catspaw and 
 murderer. 
 
 They had planned to utilize the characteristics upon 
 which they relied in himself. They had thought that, 
 if once angered, he would relapse into the feudist, and 
 _ jrget that his surroundings were those of gentility and
 
 236 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 civilization. Very well, he would oblige them, but not 
 as a blind dupe. He would be as elementally primitive 
 as they had pictured him, but the victims of his savagery 
 should be of his own choosing. Before his eyes swam a 
 red mist of wrath. Once before, as a boy, he had seen 
 things as through a fog of blood. It was the day when 
 the factions met at Hixon, and he had carried the gun' 
 of his father for the first time into action. The only 
 way his eyes could be cleared of that fiery haze was 
 that they should first see men falling. 
 
 As they assaulted him, en masse, he seized a chair, 
 and swung it flail-like about his head. For a few 
 moments, there was a crashing of glass and china, and 
 a clatter of furniture and a chaos of struggle. At its 
 center, he stood wielding his impromptu weapon, and, 
 when two of his assailants had fallen under its sweeping 
 blows, and Farbish stood weakly supporting himself 
 against the table and gasping for the breath which had 
 been choked out of him, the mountaineer hurled aside 
 his chair, and plunged for the sole remaining man. 
 They closed in a clinch. The last antagonist was a 
 boxer, and when he saw the Kentuckian advance toward 
 him empty-handed, he smiled and accepted the gauge of 
 battle. In weight and reach and practice, he knew that 
 he had the advantage, and, now that it was man to 
 man, he realized that there was no danger of interfer 
 ence from Horton. But Samson knew nothing of box 
 ing. He had learned his fighting tactics in the rough- 
 and-tumble school of the mountains ; the school of "fist 
 and skull," of fighting with hands and head and teeth, 
 and as the Easterner squared off he found himself 
 caught in a flying tackle and went to the floor locked in
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 237 
 
 an embrace that carried down with it chairs and 
 furniture. As he struggled and rolled, pitting his 
 gymnasium training against the unaccustomed assault 
 of cyclonic fury, he felt the strong fingers of two hands 
 close about his throat and lost consciousness. 
 
 Samson South rose, and stood for a moment panting 
 in a scene of wreckage and disorder. The table was 
 littered with shivered glasses and decanters and china- 
 ware. The furniture was scattered and overturned. 
 Farbish was weakly leaning to one side in the seat to 
 which he had made his way. The men who had gone 
 down under the heavy blows of the chair lay quietly 
 where they had fallen. 
 
 Wilfred Horton stood waiting. The whole affair had 
 transpired with such celerity and speed that he had 
 hardly understood it, and had taken no part. But, as 
 he met the gaze of the disordered figure across the 
 wreckage of a dinner-table, he realized that now, with 
 the preliminaries settled, he who had struck Samson in 
 the face must give satisfaction for the blow. Horton 
 was sober, as cold sober as though he had jumped into 
 ice-water, and though he was not in the least afraid, he 
 was mortified, and, had apology at such a time been 
 possible, would have made it. He knew that he had 
 misjudged his man; he saw the outlines of the plot as 
 plainly as Samson had seen them, though more tardily. 
 
 Samson's toe touched the pistol which had dropped 
 from Farbish's hand and he contemptuously kicked it 
 to one side. He came back to his place. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Horton," he said to the man who stood 
 looking about with a dazed expression, "if you're still 
 of the same mind, I can accommodate you. You lied
 
 when you said I was a savage though just now it sort 
 of looks like I was, and" he paused, then added "and 
 I'm ready either to fight or shake hands. Either way 
 suits me." 
 
 For the moment, Horton did not speak, and Samson 
 slowly went on: 
 
 "But, whether we fight or not, you've got to shake 
 hands with me when we're finished. You and me ain't 
 going to start a feud. This is the first time I've ever 
 refused to let a man be my enemy if he wanted to. I've 
 got my own reasons. I'm going to make you shake hands 
 with me whether you like it or not, but if you want to 
 fight first it's satisfactory. You said awhile ago you 
 would be glad to be more explicit with me when we were 
 alone " He paused and looked about the room. 
 "Shall I throw these damned murderers out of here, or 
 will you go into another room and talk?" 
 
 "Leave them where they are," said Horton, quietly. 
 "We'll go into the reading-room. Have you killed any 
 of them?' ' 
 
 "I don't know," said the other, curtly, "and I don't 
 care." 
 
 When they were alone, Samson went on : 
 
 "I know what you want to ask me about, and I don't 
 mean to answer you. You want to question me about 
 Miss Lescott. Whatever she and I have done doesn't 
 concern you. I will say this much: if I've been ignorant 
 of New York ways, and my ignorance has embarrassed 
 her, I'm sorry. 
 
 "I suppose you know that she's too damned good for 
 you just like she's too good for me. But she thinks 
 more of you than she does of me and she's yours. As
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 239 
 
 for me, I have nothing to apologize to you for. Maybe, 
 I have something to ask her pardon about, but she hasn't 
 asked it. 
 
 "George Lescott brought me up here, and befriended 
 me. Until a year ago, I had never known any lif e except 
 that of the Cumberland Mountains. Until I met Miss 
 Lescott, I had never known a woman of your world. 
 She was good to me. She saw that in spite of my rough 
 ness and ignorance I wanted to learn, and she taught me. 
 You chose to misunderstand, and dislike me. These men 
 saw that, and believed that, if they could make you 
 insult me, they could make me kill you. As to your part,, 
 they succeeded. I didn't see fit to oblige them, but, now 
 that I've settled with them, I'm willing to give you satis 
 faction. Do we fight now, and shake hands afterward, 
 or do we shake hands without fighting?" 
 
 Horton stood silently studying the mountaineer. 
 
 "Good God!" he exclaimed at last. "And you are 
 the man I undertook to criticize!" 
 
 "You ain't answered my question," suggested Sam 
 son South. 
 
 "South, if you are willing to shake hands with me, 
 I shall be grateful. I may as well admit that, if you 
 had thrashed me before that crowd, you could hardly 
 have succeeded in making me feel smaller. I have played 
 into their hands. I have been a damned fool. I have 
 riddled my own self-respect and, if you can afford to 
 accept my apologies and my hand, I am offering you 
 both." 
 
 "I'm right glad to hear that," said the mountain boy, 
 gravely. "I to^ vou I'd iiist as li*f shake hand* s
 
 240 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 fight. . . . But just now I've got to go to the 
 telephone." 
 
 The booth was in the same room, and, as Horton 
 waited, he recognized the number for which Samson was 
 calling. Wilfred's face once more flushed with the old 
 prejudice. Could it be that Samson meant to tell Adri- 
 enne Lescott what had transpired? Was he, after all, 
 the braggart who boasted of his fights? And, if not, 
 was it Samson's custom to call her up every evening 
 for a good-night message? He turned and went into 
 the hall, but, after a few minutes, returned. 
 
 "I'm glad you liked the show. . . ." the moun 
 taineer was saying. "No, nothing special is happening 
 here except that the ducks are plentiful. . . . Yes, 
 I like it fine. . . . Mr. Horton's here. Wait a 
 minute I guess maybe he'd like to talk to you." 
 
 The Kentuckian beckoned to Horton, and, as he sur 
 rendered the receiver, left the room. He was thinking 
 with a smile of the unconscious humor with which the 
 girl's voice had just come across the wire: 
 
 "I knew that, if you two met each other, you would 
 become friends." 
 
 "I reckon," said Samson, ruefully, when Horton 
 joined him, "we'd better look around, and see how bad 
 those fellows are hurt in there. They may need a doc 
 tor." And the two went back to find several startled 
 servants assisting to their beds the disabled combatants, 
 and the next morning their inquiries elicited the infor 
 mation that the gentlemen were all "able to be about, 
 but were breakfasting in their rooms." 
 
 Such as looked from their windows that morning saw 
 an unexpected climax, when the car of Mr. Wilfred
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Horton drove away from the club carrying the man 
 whom they had hoped to see killed, and the man they 
 had hoped to see kill him. The two appeared to be in 
 excellent spirits and thoroughly congenial, as the car 
 rolled out of sight, and the gentlemen who were left 
 behind decided that, in view of the circumstances, the 
 "extraordinary spree" of last night had best go unad- 
 vertised into ancient history.
 
 CHAPTER XXH 
 
 THE second year of a new order brings fewer radi 
 cal changes than the first. Samson's work began 
 to forge out of the ranks of the ordinary, and to 
 show symptoms of a quality which would some day give 
 it distinction. Heretofore, his instructors had held him 
 rigidly to the limitations of black and white, but now 
 they took off the bonds, and permitted him the colorful 
 delight of attempting to express himself from the 
 palette. It was like permitting a natural poet to leave 
 prose, and play with prosody. 
 
 Sometimes, when his thoughts went back to the life 
 he had left, it seemed immensely far away, as though 
 it were really the life of another incarnation, and old 
 ideas that had seemed axiomatic to his boyhood stood 
 before him in the guise of strangers : strangers tattered 
 and vagabond. He wondered if, after all, the new gods 
 were sapping his loyalty. At such times, he would for 
 days keep morosely to himself, picturing the death-bed 
 of his father, and seeming to hear a small boy's voice 
 making a promise. Sometimes, that promise seemed 
 monstrous, in the light of his later experience. But it 
 was a promise and no man can rise in his own esteem 
 by treading on his vows. In these somber moods, there 
 would appear at the edges of his drawing-paper terrible, 
 vividly graphic little heads, not drawn from any present 
 model. They were sketched in a few ferociously power-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 ful strokes, and always showed the same malevolent 
 visage a face black with murder and hate-endowed, the 
 countenance of Jim Asberry. Sometimes would come a 
 wild, heart-tearing longing for the old places. He 
 wanted to hear the frogs boom, and to see the moon spill 
 a shower of silver over the ragged shoulder of the moun 
 tain. Pie wanted to cross a certain stile, and set out 
 for a certain cabin where a certain girl would be. He 
 told himself that he was still loyal, that above all else 
 he loved his people. When he saw these women, whose 
 youth and beauty lasted long into life, whose manners 
 and clothes spoke of ease and wealth and refinement, he 
 saw Sally again as he had left her, hugging his "rifle- 
 gun" to her breast, and he felt that the only thing he 
 wanted utterly was to take her in his arms. Yes, he 
 would return to Sally, and to his people some day. 
 The some day he did not fix. He told himself that the 
 hills were only thirty hours away, and therefore he could 
 go any time which is the other name for no time. He 
 had promised Lescott to remain here for eighteen 
 months, and, when that interval ended, he seemed just 
 on the verge of grasping his work properly. He assured 
 himself often and solemnly that his creed was un 
 changed ; his loyalty untainted ; and the fact that it was 
 necessary to tell himself proved that he was being 
 weaned from his traditions. And so, though he often 
 longed for home, he did not return. And then reason 
 would rise up and confound him. Could he paint 
 pictures in the mountains ? If he did, what would he do 
 with them? If he went back to that hermit life, would 
 he not vindicate his uncle's prophecy that he had merely 
 unplaced himself? And, if he went back and discharged
 
 24)4 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 his promise, and then returned again to the new fascina 
 tion, could he bring Sally with him into this life Sally, 
 whom he had scornfully told that a "gal didn't need no 
 1'arnin'?" And the answer to all these questions was 
 only that there was no answer. 
 
 One day, Adrienne looked up from a sheaf of his very 
 creditable landscape studies to inquire suddenly: 
 
 "Samson, are you a rich man, or a poor one?" 
 
 He laughed. "So rich," he told her, "that unless I 
 can turn some of this stuff into money within a year or 
 two, I shall have to go back to hoeing corn." 
 
 She nodded gravely. 
 
 "Hasn't it occurred to you," she demanded, "that m 
 a way you are wasting your gifts? They were talking 
 about you the other evening several painters. They 
 all said that you should be doing portraits." 
 
 The Kentuckian smiled. His masters had been telling 
 him the same thing. He had fallen in love with art 
 through the appeal of the skies and hills. He had fol 
 lowed its call at the proselyting of George Lescott, who 
 painted only landscape. Portraiture seemed a less- 
 artistic form of expression. He said so. 
 
 "That may all be very true," she conceded, "but you 
 can go on with your landscapes, and let your portraits 
 pay the way. With your entree, you could soon have 
 a very enviable clientele." 
 
 " 'So she showed me the way, to promotion and pay, 
 And I learned about women from her,' " 
 
 quoted Samson with a laugh. 
 
 "And," she added, "since I am very vain and mod-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 245 
 
 erately rich, I hereby commission you to paint me, just 
 as soon as you learn how." 
 
 Farbish had simply dropped out. Bit by bit, the 
 truth of the conspiracy had leaked, and he knew that 
 his usefulness was ended, and that well-lined pocket- 
 books would no longer open to his profligate demands. 
 The bravo and plotter whose measure has been taken is 
 a broken reed. Farbish made no farewells. He had 
 
 come from nowhere and his going was like his coming. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Sally had started to school. She had not announced 
 that she meant to do so, but each day the people of 
 Misery saw her old sorrel mare making its way to and 
 from the general direction of Stagbone College, and 
 they smiled. No one knew how Sally's cheeks flamed 
 as she sat alone on Saturdays and Sundays on the rock 
 at the backbone's rift. She was taking her place, mor 
 bidly sensitive and a woman of eighteen, among little 
 spindle-shanked girls in short skirts, and the little girls 
 were more advanced than she. But she, too, meant to 
 have "1'arnin' ' as much of it as was necessary to sat 
 isfy the lover who might never come. It must be admit 
 ted that learning for its own sake did not make a clarion- 
 tongued appeal to the girl's soul. Had Samson been 
 satisfied with her untutored, she would have been con 
 tent to remain untutored. He had said that these things 
 were of no importance in her, but that was before he had 
 gone forth into the world. If, she naively told herself, 
 he should come back of that same opinion, she would 
 never "let on" that she had learned things. She would 
 toss overboard her acquirements as ruthlessly as useless 
 ballast from an over-encumbered boat. But, if Samson
 
 came demanding these attainments, he must find her 
 possessed of them. So far, her idea of "1'arnin' " 
 embraced the three R's only. And, yet, the "fotched- 
 on" teachers at the "college" thought her the most 
 voraciously ambitious pupil they had ever had, so unflag- 
 gingly did she toil, and the most remarkably acquisitive, 
 so fast did she learn. But her studies had again been 
 interrupted, and Miss Grover, her teacher, riding over 
 one day to find out why her prize scholar had deserted, 
 met in the road an empty "jolt-wagon," followed by a 
 ragged cortege of mounted men and women, whose faces 
 were still lugubrious with the eif ort of recent mourning. 
 Her questions elicited the information that they were 
 returning from the "buryin' " of the Widow Miller. 
 
 Sally was not in the procession, and the teacher, riding 
 on, found her lying face down among the briars of the 
 desolate meeting-house yard, her small body convulsively 
 heaving with her weeping, and her slim fingers grasping 
 the thorny briar shoots as though she would still hold 
 to the earth that lay in freshly broken clods over her 
 mother's grave. 
 
 Miss Grover lifted her gently, and at first the girl 
 only stared at her out of wide, unseeing eyes. 
 
 "You've nothing to keep you here now," said the 
 older woman, gently. "You can come to us, and live 
 at the college." She had learned from Sally's lips that 
 she lived alone with her mother and younger brother. 
 "You can't go on living there now." 
 
 But the girl drew away, and shook her head with a 
 wild torrent of childish dissent. 
 
 "No, I kain't, neither!" she declared, violently. "I 
 kain't !"
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 247 
 
 "Why, dear?" The teacher took the palpitating 
 little figure in her arms and kissed the wet face. She 
 had learned something of this sweet wood-thrush girl, 
 and had seen both sides of life's coin enough to be able 
 to close her eyes and ears, and visualize the woman that 
 this might be. 
 
 " 'Cause I kain't !" was the obstinate reply. 
 
 Being wise, Miss Grover desisted from urging, and 
 went with Sally to the desolated cabin, which she 
 straightway began to overhaul and put to rights. The 
 widow had been dying for a week. It was when she 
 lifted Samson's gun with the purpose of sweeping the 
 corner that the girl swooped down on her, and rescued 
 the weapon from her grasp. 
 
 "Nobody but me mustn't tech thet rifle-gun," she 
 exclaimed, and then, little by little, it came out that the 
 reason Sally could not leave this cabin, was because 
 some time there might be a whippoorwill call out by the 
 stile, and, when it came, she must be there to answer. 
 And, when at the next vacation Miss Grover rode over, 
 and announced that she meant to visit Sally for a month 
 or two, and when under her deft hands the cabin began 
 to transform itself, and the girl to transform herself, 
 she discovered that Sally found in the graveyard an 
 other magnet. There, she seemed to share something 
 with Samson where their dead lay buried. While the 
 "fotched-on" lady taught the girl, the girl taught the 
 "f otched-on" lady, for the birds were her brothers, and 
 the flowers her cousins, and in the poetry that existed 
 before forms of meter came into being she was deeply 
 versed. 
 
 Toward the end of that year, Samson undertook his
 
 248 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 portrait of Adrienne Lescott. The work was nearing 
 completion, but it had been agreed that the girl herself 
 was not to have a peep at the canvas until the painter 
 was ready to unveil it in a finished condition. Often 
 as she posed, Wilfred Horton idled in the studio with 
 them, and often George Lescott came to criticize, and 
 left without criticizing. The girl was impatient for 
 the day when she, too, was to see the picture, concerning 
 which the three men maintained so profound a secrecy. 
 She knew that Samson was a painter who analyzed with 
 his brush, and that his picture would show her not only 
 features and expression, but the man's estimate of 
 herself. 
 
 "Do you know," he said one day, coming out from 
 behind his easel and studying her, through half-closed 
 eyes, "I never really began to know you until now? 
 Analyzing you studying you in this fashion, not by 
 your words, but by your expression, your pose, the very 
 unconscious essence of your personality these things 
 are illuminating." 
 
 "Can I smile," she queried obediently, "or do I have 
 to keep my face straight?" 
 
 "You may smile for two minutes," he generously 
 conceded, "and I'm going to come over and sit on the 
 floor at your feet, and watch you do it." 
 
 "And under the X-ray scrutiny of this profound 
 analysis," she laughed, "do you like me?" 
 
 "Wait and see," was his non-committal rejoinder. 
 
 For a few moments, neither of them spoke. He sat 
 there gazing up, and she gazing down. Though neither 
 of them said it, both were thinking of the changes that 
 had taken place since, in this same room, they had first
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 249 
 
 met. The man knew that many cf the changes in him 
 self were due to her, and she began to wonder vaguely 
 if he had not also been responsible for certain differ 
 ences in her. 
 
 He felt for her, besides a deep friendship such a 
 deep friendship that it might perhaps be even more 
 a measureless gratitude. She had been loyal, and had 
 turned and shaped with her deft hand and brain the 
 rough clay of his crude personality into something that 
 was beginning to show finish and design. Perhaps, she 
 liked him the better because of certain obstinate quali 
 ties which, even to her persuasive influence, remained 
 unaltered. But, if she liked him the better for these 
 things, she yet felt that her dominion over him was not 
 complete. 
 
 Now, as they sat there alone in the studio, a shaft 
 of sunlight from the skylight fell on his squarely 
 blocked chin, and he tossed his head, throwing back the 
 long lock from his forehead. It was as though he was 
 emphasizing with that characteristic gesture one of the 
 things in which he had not yielded to her modeling. 
 The long hair still fell low around his head. Just now, 
 he was roughly dressed and paint-stained, but usually 
 he presented the inconspicuous appearance of the well- 
 groomed man except for that long hair. It was not 
 so much as a matter of personal appearance but as a 
 reminder of the old roughness that she resented this. 
 She had often suggested a visit to the barber, but to 
 no avail. 
 
 "Although I am not painting you," she said with a 
 smile, "I have been studying you, too. As you stand 
 there before your canvas, your own personality is
 
 250 THE CALL OF THE CUMBEREANDS 
 
 revealed and I have not been entirely unobservant 
 myself." 
 
 " 'And under the X-ray scrutiny of this profound 
 analysis,' " he quoted with a laugh, "do you like me?'* 
 
 "Wait and see," she retorted. 
 
 "At all events" he spoke gravely "you must try 
 to like me a little, because I am not what I was. The 
 person that I am is largely the creature of your own 
 fashioning. Of course, you had very raw material to 
 work with, and you can't make a silk purse of" he 
 broke off and smiled "well, of me, but in time you may: 
 at least get me mercerized a little." 
 
 For no visible reason, she flushed, and her next ques 
 tion came a trifle eagerly: 
 
 "Do you mean that I have influenced you?" 
 
 "Influenced me, Drennie?" he repeated. "You have 
 done more than that. You have painted me out, and 
 painted me over." 
 
 She shook her head, and in her eyes danced a light 
 of subtle coquetry. 
 
 "There are things I have tried to do, and failed," 
 she told him. 
 
 His eyes showed surprise. 
 
 "Perhaps," he apologized, "I am dense, and you 
 may have to tell me bluntly what I am to do. But you 
 know that you have only to tell me." 
 
 For a moment, she said nothing, then she shook her 
 head again. 
 
 "Issue your orders," he insisted. "I am waiting to 
 obey." 
 
 She hesitated again, then said, slowly :
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 251 
 
 "Have your hair cut. It's the one uncivilized thing 
 about you." 
 
 For an instant, Samson's face hardened. 
 
 "No," he said; "I don't care to do that." 
 
 "Oh, very well!" she laughed, lightly. "In that 
 event, of course, you shouldn't do it." But her smile 
 faded, and after a moment he explained: 
 
 "You see, it wouldn't do." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that I've got to keep something as it was to 
 remind me of a prior claim on my life." 
 
 For an instant the girl's face clouded, and grew 
 deeply troubled. 
 
 "You don't mean," she asked, with an outburst of 
 interest more vehement than she had meant to show, or 
 realized that she was showing "you don't mean that 
 you still adhere to ideas of the vendetta?" Then she 
 broke off with a laugh, a rather nervous laugh. "Of 
 course not," she answered herself. "That would be too 
 absurd !" 
 
 "Would it?" asked Samson, simply. He glanced at 
 his watch. "Two minutes up," he announced. "The 
 model will please resume the pose. By the way, may I 
 
 drive with you to-morrow afternoon?" 
 
 ##*##* 
 
 The next afternoon, Samson ran up the street steps 
 of the Lescott house, and rang the bell, and a few 
 moments later Adrienne appeared. The car was waiting 
 outside, and, as the girl came down the stairs in motor 
 coat and veil, she paused and her fingers on the bannis 
 ters tightened in surprise as she looked at the man who 
 stood below holding his hat in his hand, with his face
 
 upturned. The well-shaped head was no longer marred 
 by the mane which it had formerly worn, but was close 
 cropped, and under the transforming influence of the 
 change the forehead seemed bolder and higher, and to 
 her thinking the strength of the purposeful features 
 was enhanced, and yet, had she known it, the man felt 
 that he had for the first time surrendered a point which 
 meant an abandonment of something akin to principle. 
 
 She said nothing, but as she took his hand in greet 
 ing, her fingers pressed his own in handclasp more 
 lingering than usual. 
 
 Late that evening, when Samson returned to the 
 studio, he found a missive in his letter-box, and, as he 
 took it out, his eyes fell on the postmark. It was 
 dated from Hixon, Kentucky, and, as the man slowly 
 climbed the stairs, he turned the envelope over in 
 his hand with a strange sense of misgiving and 
 premonition.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE letter was written in the cramped hand of 
 Brother Spencer. Through its faulty diction ran 
 a plainly discernible undernote of disapproval 
 for Samson, though there was no word of reproof or 
 criticism. It was plain that it was sent as a matter 
 of courtesy to one who, having proven an apostate, 
 scarcely merited such consideration. It informed him 
 that old Spicer South had been "mighty porely," but 
 was now better, barring the breaking of age. Every 
 one was "tolerable." Then came the announcement 
 which the letter had been written to convey. 
 
 The term of the South-Hollman truce had ended, and 
 it had.been renewed for an indefinite period. 
 
 "Some of your folks thought they ought to let you 
 know because they promised to give you a say," wrote 
 the informant. "But they decided that it couldn't 
 hardly make no difference to you, since you have left 
 the mountains, and if you cared anything about it, you 
 knew the time, and could of been here. Hoping this 
 finds you well." 
 
 Samson's face clouded. He threw the soiled and 
 scribbled missive down on the table and sat with unseeing 
 eyes fixed on the studio wall. So, they had cast him out 
 of their councils ! They already thought of him as one 
 who had been. 
 
 In that passionate rush of feeling, everything that 
 253
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 had happened since he had left Misery seemed artificial 
 and dream-like. He longed for the realities that were 
 forfeited. He wanted to press himself close to the great, 
 gray shoulders of rock that broke through the greenery 
 like giants tearing off soft raiment. Those were his 
 people back there. He should be running with the wolf- 
 pack, not coursing with beagles. 
 
 He had been telling himself that he was loyal, and 
 now he realized that he was drifting like the lotus-eaters. 
 Things that had gripped his soul were becoming myths. 
 Nothing in his life was honest he had become as they 
 had prophesied, a derelict. In that thorn-choketl grave 
 yard lay the crude man whose knotted hand had rested 
 on his head just before death stiffened it, bestowing a 
 mission. 
 
 "I hain't fergot ye, Pap." The words rang in l~ls 
 ears with the agony of a repudiated vow. 
 
 He rose and paced the floor, with teeth and hands 
 clenched, and the sweat standing out on his forehead. 
 His advisers had of late been urging him to go to Paric. 
 He had refused, and his unconfessed reasoa had been 
 that in Paris he could not answer a sudden call. He 
 would go back to them now, and compel them to admit 
 his leadership. 
 
 Then, his eyes fell on the unfinished portrait of 
 Adrienne. The face gazed at him with its grave sweet 
 ness ; its fragrant subtlety and its fine-grained delicacy. 
 Her pictured lips were silently arguing for the life he 
 had found among strangers, and her victory would 
 have been an easy one, but for the fact that just now 
 his conscience seemed to be on the other side. Samson's 
 civilization was two years old a thin veneer over a
 
 THE CAIX OF THE CUMBERLANDS 255 
 
 century of feudalism and now the century was thun 
 dering its call of blood bondage. But, as the man 
 struggled over the dilemma, the pendulum swung back. 
 The hundred years had left, also, a heritage of quick 
 ness and bitterness to resent injury and injustice. His 
 own people had cast him out. They had branded him 
 as the deserter ; they felt no need of him or his counsel. 
 Very well, let them have it so. His problem had been 
 settled for him. His Gordian knot was cut. 
 
 Sally and his uncle alone had his address. This letter, 
 casting him out, must have been authorized by them, 
 Brother Spencer acting merely as amanuensis. They, 
 too, had repudiated him and, if that were true, except 
 for the graves of his parents the hills had no tie to hold 
 him. 
 
 "Sally, Sally !" he groaned, dropping his face on his 
 crossed arms, while his shoulders heaved in an agony of 
 heart-break, and his words came in the old crude syl 
 lables : "I 'lowed you'd believe in me ef hell froze !" He 
 rose after that, and made a fierce gesture with his 
 clenched fists. "All right," he said, bitterly, "I'm shet 
 of the lot of ye. I'm done !" 
 
 But it was easier to say the words of repudiation 
 than to cut the ties that were knotted about his heart. 
 Again, he saw Sally standing by the old stile in the 
 starlight with sweet, loyal eyes lifted to his own, and 
 again he heard her vow that, if he came back, she 
 would be waiting. Now, that picture lay beyond a 
 sea which he could not recross. Sally and his uncle 
 had authorized his excommunication. There was, after 
 all, in the entire world no faith which could stand unal 
 terable, and in all the world no reward that could be
 
 a better thing than Dead-Sea fruit, without the love of 
 that barefooted girl back there in the log cabin, 
 whose sweet tongue could not fashion phrases except in 
 illiteracy. He would have gambled his soul on her stead 
 fastness without fear and he bitterly told himself he 
 would have lost. And yet some voice sounded to him 
 as he stood there alone in the studio with the arteries 
 knotted on his temples and the blood running cold and 
 bitter in his veins and yet what right had he, the 
 deserter, to demand faith? One hand went up and 
 clasped his forehead and the hand fell on the hear* 'iiat 
 had been shorn because a foreign woman had asked it. 
 What tradition had he kept inviolate? And, in his 
 mood, that small matter of shortened hair meant as 
 great and bitter surrender as it had meant to the Sam 
 son before him, whose mighty strength had gone out 
 under the snipping of shears. What course was open to 
 him now, except that of following the precedent of the 
 other Samson, of pulling down the whole temple of his 
 past? He was disowned, and could not return. He 
 would go ahead with the other life, though at the 
 moment he hated it. 
 
 With a rankling soul, the mountaineer left New York. 
 He wrote Sally a brief note, telling her that he was 
 going to cross the ocean, but his hurt pride forbade his 
 pleading for her confidence, or adding, "I love you." 
 He plunged into the art life of the "other side of the 
 Seine," and worked voraciously. He was trying to learn 
 much and to forget much. 
 
 One sunny afternoon, when Samson had been in the 
 Quartier Latin for eight or nine months, the concierge 
 of his lodgings handed him, as he passed through the
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 257 
 
 cour, an envelope addressed in the hand of Adrienne 
 Lescott. He thrust it into his pocket for a later read 
 ing and hurried on to the atelier where he was to have 
 a criticism that day. When the day's work was over, 
 he was leaning on the embankment wall at the Quai de 
 Grand St. Augustin, gazing idly at the fruit and flower 
 stands that patched the pavement with color and at the 
 gray walls of the Louvre across the Seine. His hand 
 went into his pocket, and came out with the note. As 
 he read it, he felt a glow of pleasurable surprise, and, 
 wheeling, he retraced his steps briskly to his lodgings, 
 where he began to pack. Adrienne had written that she 
 and her mother and Wilfred Horton were sailing for 
 Naples, and commanded him, unless he were too busy, to 
 meet their steamer. Within two hours, he was bound for 
 Lucerne to cross the Italian frontier by the slate-blue 
 waters of Lake Maggiore. 
 
 A few weeks later Samson and Adrienne were stand 
 ing together by moonlight in the ruins of the Coliseum. 
 The junketing about Italy had been charming, and 
 now, in that circle of sepia softness and broken col 
 umns, he looked at her, and suddenly asked himself: 
 
 "Just what does she mean to you?" 
 
 If he had never asked himself that question before, 
 he knew now that it must some day be answered. 
 Friendship had been a good and seemingly a sufficient 
 definition. Now, he was not so sure that it could 
 remain so. 
 
 Then, his thoughts went back to a cabin in the hills 
 and a girl in calico. He heard a voice like the voice 
 of a song-bird saying through tears :
 
 258 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "I couldn't live without ye, Samson. ... I jest 
 couldn't do hit!" 
 
 For a moment, he was sick of his life. It seemed 
 that there stood before him, in that place of historic 
 wraiths and memories, a girl, her eyes sad, but loyal 
 and without reproof. For an instant, he could see a 
 scene of centuries ago. A barbarian and captive girl 
 stood in the arena, looking up with ignorant, but un 
 flinching, eyes ; and a man sat in the marble tiers look 
 ing down. The benches were draped with embroidered 
 rugs and gold and scarlet hangings ; the air was heavy 
 with incense and blood. About him sat men and 
 women of Rome's culture, freshly perfumed from the 
 baths. The slender figure in the dust of the circus alone 
 was a creature without artifice. And, as she looked up, 
 she recognized the man in the box. the man who had once 
 been a barbarian, too, and she turned her eyes to the 
 iron gates of the cages whence came the roar of the 
 beasts, and waited the ordeal. And the face was the 
 face of Sally. 
 
 "You look," said Adrienne, studying his countenance 
 in the pallor of the moonlight, "as though you were 
 seeing ghosts." 
 
 "I am," said Samson. "Let's go." 
 
 Adrienne had not yet seen her portrait. Samson 
 had needed a few hours of finishing when he left New 
 York, though it was work which could be done away 
 from the model. So, it was natural that, when the 
 party reached Paris, Adrienne should soon insist on 
 crossing the Pont d* Alexandre III. to his studio near 
 the "Boule Mich' " for an inspection of her commis 
 sioned canvas. For a while, she wandered about the
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 259 
 
 business-like place, littered with the gear of the 
 painter's craft. It was, in a way, a form of mind-read 
 ing, for Samson's brush was the tongue of his soul. 
 
 The girl's eyes grew thoughtful, as she saw that he 
 still drew the leering, saturnine face of Jim Asberry. 
 He had not outgrown hate, then ? But she said nothing, 
 until he brought out and set on an easel her own por 
 trait. For a moment, she gasped with sheer delight for 
 the colorful mastery of the technique, and she would 
 have been hard to please had she not been delighted 
 with the conception of herself mirrored in the canvas. 
 It was a face through which the soul showed, and the 
 soul was strong and 'flawless. The girl's personality 
 radiated from the canvas and yet A disappointed 
 little look crossed and clouded her eyes. She was con 
 scious of an indefinable catch of pain at her heart. 
 
 Samson stepped forward, and his waiting eyes, too, 
 were disappointed. 
 
 "You don't like it, Drennie ?" he anxiously questioned. 
 But she smiled in answer, and declared : 
 
 "I love it." 
 
 He went out a few minutes later to telephone for 
 her to Mrs. Lescott, and gave Adrienne carte blanche 
 to browse among his portfolios and stacked canvases 
 until his return. In a few minutes, she discovered 
 one of those efforts which she called his "rebellious 
 pictures." 
 
 These were such things as he painted, using no model 
 except memory perhaps, not for the making of finished 
 pictures, but merely to give outlet to his feelings; an 
 outlet which some men might have found in talk. 
 
 This particular canvas was roughly blocked in, and
 
 260 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 it was elementally simple, but each brush stroke had 
 been thrown against the surface with the concentrated 
 fire and energy of a blow, except the strokes that had 
 painted the face, and there the brush had seemed to 
 kiss the canvas. The picture showed a barefooted girl, 
 standing, in barbaric simplicity of dress, in the glare of 
 the arena, while a gaunt lion crouched eying her. Her 
 head was lifted as though she were listening to far 
 away music. In the eyes was indomitable courage. 
 That canvas was at once a declaration of love, and a 
 miserere. Adrienne set it up beside her own portrait, 
 and, as she studied the two with her chin resting on 
 her gloved hand, her eyes cleared of questioning. Now, 
 she knew what she missed in her own more beautiful 
 likeness. It had been painted with all the admiration 
 of the mind. This other had been dashed off straight 
 from the heart and this other was Sally ! She replaced 
 the sketch where she had found it, and Samson, return 
 ing, found her busy with little sketches of the Seine. 
 
 "Drennie," pleaded Wilfred Horton, as the two leaned 
 on the deck rail of the Mauretatiid, returning from 
 Europe, "are you going to hold me off indefinitely? 
 I've served my seven years for Rachel, and thrown in 
 seme extra time. Am I no nearer the goal?" 
 
 The girl looked at the oily heave of the leaden and 
 cheerless Atlantic, and its somber tones found reflection 
 in her eyes. She shook her head. 
 
 "I wish I knew," she said, wearily. Then, she added, 
 vehemently: "I'm not worth it, Wilfred. Let me go. 
 Chuck me out of your life as a little pig who can't read
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 261 
 
 her own heart ; who is too utterly selfish to decide upon 
 her own life." 
 
 "Is it" he put the question with foreboding "that, 
 after all, I was a prophet? Have you and South 
 wiped your feet on the doormat marked 'Platonic 
 friendship'? Have you done that, Drennie?" 
 
 She looked up into his eyes. Her own were wide 
 and honest and very full of pain. 
 
 "No," she said ; "we haven't done that, yet. I guess 
 we won't. ... I think he'd rather stay outside, 
 Wilfred. If I was sure I loved him, and that he loved 
 me, I'd feel like a cheat there is the other girl to think 
 of. . . . And, besides, I'm not sure what I want 
 myself. . . . But I'm horribly afraid I'm going to 
 end by losing you both." 
 
 Horton stood silent. It was tea-time, and from below 
 came the strains of the ship's orchestra. A few ulster- 
 muffled passengers gloomily paced the deck. 
 
 "You won't lose us both, Drennie," he said, steadily. 
 "You may lose your choice but, if you find yourself 
 able to fall back on substitutes, I'll still be there, 
 waiting." 
 
 For once, he did not meet her scrutiny, or know of it. 
 His own eyes were fixed on the slow swing of heavy, 
 gray-green waters. He was smiling, but it is as a man 
 smiles when he confronts despair, and pretends that 
 everything is quite all right. The girl looked at him 
 with a choke in her throat. 
 
 "Wilfred," she said, laying her hand on nis arm, 
 "I'm not worth worrying over. Really, I'm not. If 
 Samson South proposed to me to-day, I know that I 
 should refuse him. I am not at all sure that I am the
 
 262 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 least little bit in love with him. Only, don't you see 
 I can't be quite sure I'm not? It would be horrible 
 if we all made a mistake. May I have till Christmas 
 to make up my mind for all time? I'll tell you then, 
 
 dear, if you care to wait." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Tamarack Spicer sat on the top of a box car, swing 
 ing his legs over the side. He was clad in overalls* 
 and in the pockets of his breeches reposed a bulging 
 flask of red liquor, and an unbulging pay envelope. 
 Tamarack had been "railroading" for several months 
 this time. He had made a new record for sustained 
 effort and industry, but now June was beckoning him 
 to the mountains with vagabond yearnings for free 
 dom and leisure. Many things invited his soul. Almost 
 four years had passed since Samson had left the moun 
 tains, and in four years a woman can change her mind. 
 Sally might, when they met on the road, greet him once 
 more as a kinsman, and agree to forget his faulty 
 method of courtship. This time, he would be more 
 diplomatic. Yesterday, he had gone to the boss, and 
 "called for his time." To-day, he was paid off, and a 
 free lance. 
 
 As he reflected on these matters, a fellow trainman 
 came along the top of the car, and sat down at Tam 
 arack's side. This brakeman had also been recruited 
 from the mountains, though from another section over 
 toward the Virginia line. 
 
 "So yer quittin' ?" observed the new-comer. 
 
 Spicer nodded. 
 
 "Goin* back thar on Misery?" 
 
 Again, Tamarack answered with a jerk of his head.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 263 
 
 "I've been layin* off ter tell ye something Tam'rack." 
 
 "Cut her loose." 
 
 "I laid over in Hixon last week, an' some fellers that 
 used ter know my mother's folks took me down in the 
 cellar of Hollman's store, an' give me some licker." 
 
 "What of hit?" 
 
 "They was talkin' 'bout you." 
 
 "What did they say?" 
 
 "I seen that they was enemies of yours, an' they 
 wasn't in no good humor, so, when they axed me ef I 
 knowed ye, I 'lowed I didn't know nothin' good about 
 ye. I had ter cuss ye out, or git in trouble myself." 
 
 Tamarack cursed the whole Hollman tribe, and his 
 companion went on: 
 
 "Jim Asberry was thar. He 'lowed they'd found out 
 thet you'd done shot Purvy thet time, an' he said" 
 the brakeman paused to add emphasis to his conclusion 
 "thet the next time ye come home, he 'lowed ter git 
 ye plumb shore." 
 
 Tamarack scowled. 
 
 "Much obleeged," he replied. 
 
 At Hixon, Tamarack Spicer strolled along the street 
 toward the court-house. He wished to be seen. So 
 long as it was broad daylight, and he displayed no 
 hostility, he knew he was safe and he had plans. 
 
 Standing before the Hollman store were Jim Asberry 
 and several companions. They greeted Tamarack 
 affably, and he paused to talk. 
 
 "Ridin' over ter Misery ?" inquired Asberry. 
 
 " 'Lowed I mout as well." 
 
 **Mind ef I rides with ye es fur es Jesse's place ?" 
 
 "Plumb glad ter have company," drawled Tamarack.
 
 264s THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 They chatted of many things, and traveled slowly, 
 but, when they came to those narrows where they could 
 not ride stirrup to stirrup, each jockeyed for the rear 
 position, and the man who found himself forced into 
 the lead turned in his saddle and talked back over his 
 shoulder, with wary, though seemingly careless, eyes. 
 Each' knew the other was bent on his murder. 
 
 At Purvy's gate, Asberry waved farewell, and turned 
 in. Tamarack rode on, but shortly he hitched his horse 
 in the concealment of a hollow, walled with huge rocks, 
 and disappeared into the laurel. 
 
 He began climbing, in a crouched position, bringing 
 each foot down noiselessly, and pausing often to listen. 
 Jim Asberry had not been outwardly armed when he 
 left Spicer. But, soon, the brakeman's delicately attuned 
 ears caught a sound that made him lie flat in the lee of 
 a great log, where he was masked in clumps of flowering 
 rhododendron. Presently, Asberry passed him, also 
 walking cautiously, but hurriedly, and cradling a Win 
 chester rifle in the hollow of his arm. Then, Tamarack 
 knew that Asberry was taking this cut to head him off, 
 and waylay him in the gorge a mile away by road but 
 a short distance only over the hill. Spicer held his 
 heavy revolver cocked in his hand, but it was too near 
 the Purvy house to risk a shot. He waited a moment, 
 and then, rising, went on noiselessly with a snarling 
 grin, stalking the man who was stalking him. 
 
 Asberry found a place at the foot of a huge pine 
 where the undergrowth would cloak him. Twenty yards 
 below ran the creek-bed road, returning from its long 
 horseshoe deviation. When he had taken his position, 
 his faded butternut clothing matched the earth as incon-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 265 
 
 spicuously as a quail matches dead leaves, and he settled 
 himself to wait. Slowly and with infinite caution, his 
 intended victim stole down, guarding each step, until 
 he was in short and certain range, but, instead of being 
 at the front, he came from the back. He, also, lay flat 
 on his stomach, and raised the already cocked pistol. 
 He steadied it in a two-handed grip against a tree 
 trunk, and trained it with deliberate care on a point 
 to the left of the other man's spine just below the 
 shoulder blades. 
 
 Then, he pulled the trigger ! He did not go down to 
 inspect his work. It was not necessary. The instan 
 taneous fashion with which the head of the ambuscader 
 settled forward on its face told him all he wanted to 
 know. He slipped back to his horse, mounted and rode 
 fast to the house of Spicer South, demanding asylum. 
 
 The next day came word that, if Tamarack Spicer 
 would surrender and stand trial, in a court dominated 
 by the Hollmans, the truce would continue. Otherwise, 
 the "war was on." 
 
 The Souths flung back this message: 
 
 "Come and git him." 
 
 But Hollman and Purvy, hypocritically clamoring 
 for the sanctity of the law, made no effort to come and 
 "git him." They knew that Spicer South's house was 
 now a fortress, prepared for siege. They knew that 
 every trail thither was picketed. Also, they knew a 
 better way. This time, they had the color of the law 
 on their side. The Circuit Judge, through the Sheriff, 
 asked for troops, and troops came. Their tents dotted 
 the river bank below the Hixon Bridge. A detail under 
 a white flag went out after Tamarack Spicer. The
 
 266 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 militia Captain in command, who feared neither feudist 
 nor death, was courteously received. He had brains, 
 and he assured them that he acted under orders which 
 could not be disobeyed. Unless they surrendered the 
 prisoner, gatling guns would follow. If necessary they 
 would be dragged behind ox-teams. Many militiamer. 
 might be killed, but for each of them the State hac 
 another. If Spicer would surrender, the officer would 
 guarantee him personal protection, and, if it seemed 
 necessary, a change of venue would secure him trial in 
 another circuit. For hours, the clan deliberated. For 
 the soldiers they felt no enmity. For the young Cap 
 tain they felt an instinctive liking. He was a man. 
 
 Old Spicer South, restored to an echo of his former 
 robustness by the call of action, gave the clan's verdict. 
 
 "Hit hain't the co'te we're skeered of. Ef this boy 
 goes ter town, he won't never git inter no co'te. He'll 
 be murdered." 
 
 The officer held out his hand. 
 
 "As man to man," he said, "I pledge you my word 
 that no one shall take him except by process of law. 
 I'm not working for the Hollmans, or the Purvys. I 
 know their breed." 
 
 For a space, old South looked into the soldier's eyes, 
 and the soldier looked back. 
 
 "I'll take yore handshake on thet bargain," said the 
 mountaineer, gravely. "Tam'rack," he added, in a voice 
 of finality, "ye've got ter go." 
 
 The officer had meant what he said. He marched his 
 prisoner into Hixon at the center of a hollow square, 
 with muskets at the ready. And yet, as the boy passed 
 into the court-house yard, with a soldier rubbing elbows
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 267 
 
 on each side, a cleanly aimed shot sounded from some 
 where. The smokeless powder told no tale and with 
 blue shirts and army hats circling him, Tamarack fell 
 and died. 
 
 That afternoon, one of Hollman's henchmen was 
 found lying in the road with his lifeless face in the water 
 of the creek. The next day, as old Spicer South stood 
 at the door of his cabin, a rifle barked from the hillside, 
 and he fell, shot through the left shoulder by a bullet 
 intended for his heart. All this while, the troops were 
 helplessly camped at Hixon. They had power and in 
 clination to go out and get men, but there was no man 
 to get. 
 
 The Hollmans had used the soldiers as far as they 
 wished; they had made them pull the chestnuts out of 
 the fire and Tamarack Spicer out of his stronghold. 
 They now refused to swear out additional warrants. 
 
 A detail had rushed into Hollman's store an instant 
 after the shot which killed Tamarack was fired. Except 
 for a woman buying a card of buttons, and a fair- 
 haired clerk waiting on her, they found the building 
 empty. 
 
 Back beyond, the hills were impenetrable, and an* 
 ?wered no questions.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 OLD SPICER SOUTH would ten years ago have t 
 put a bandage on his wound and gone about his ' 
 business, but now he tossed under his patchwork 
 quilt, and Brother Spencer expressed grave doubts 
 for his recovery. With his counsel unavailable Wile 
 McCager, by common consent, assumed something like 
 the powers of a regent and took upon himself the duties 
 to which Samson should have succeeded. 
 
 That a Hollman should have been able to elude the 
 pickets and penetrate the heart of South territory to 
 Spicer South's cabin, was both astounding and alarm 
 ing. The war was on without question now, ancl there 
 must be council. Wile McCager had sent out a sum 
 mons for the family heads to meet that afternoon at his 
 mill. It was Saturday "mill day" and in accordance 
 with ancient custom the lanes would be more traveled 
 than usual. 
 
 Those men who came by the wagon road afforded no 
 unusual spectacle, for behind each saddle sagged a sack 
 of grain. Their faces bore no stamp of unwonted 
 excitement, but every man balanced a rifle across his 
 pommel. None the less, their purpose was grim, and 
 their talk when they had gathered was to the point. 
 
 Old McCager, himself sorely perplexed, voiced the 
 sentiment that the others had been too courteous to 
 express. With Spicer South bed-ridden and Samson a 
 
 268
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 269 
 
 renegade, they had no adequate leader. McCager was 
 a solid man of intrepid courage and honesty, but grind 
 ing grist was his avocation, not strategy and tactics. 
 The enemy had such masters of intrigue as Purvy and 
 Judge Hollman. 
 
 Then, a lean sorrel mare came jogging into view, 
 switching her fly-bitten tail, and on the mare's back, 
 urging him with a long, leafy switch, sat a woman. 
 Behind her sagged the two loaded ends of a corn-sack. 
 She rode like the mountain women, facing much to the 
 side, yet unlike them. Her arms did not flap. She did 
 not bump gawkily up and down in her saddle. Her blue 
 calico dress caught the sun at a distance, but her blue 
 sunbonnet shaded and masked her face. She was lithe 
 and slim, and her violet eyes were profoundly serious, 
 and her lips were as resolutely set as Joan of Arc's 
 might have been, for Sally Miller had come only 
 ostensibly to have her corn ground to meal. She had 
 really come to speak for the absent chief, and she knew 
 that she would be met with derision. The years had 
 sobered the girl, but her beauty had increased, though 
 it was now of a chastened type, which gave her a 
 strange and rather exalted refinement of expression. 
 
 Wile McCager came to the mill door, as she rode up, 
 ^and lifted the sack from her horse. 
 
 -'Howdy, Sally?" he greeted. 
 
 "Tol'able, thank ye," said Sally. "I'm goin' ter 
 get off." 
 
 As she entered the great half-lighted room, where the 
 mill stones creaked on their cumbersome shafts, the hum 
 of discussion sank to silence. The place was brown with 
 age and dirt, and powdered with a coarse dusting of
 
 270 THE. CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 meal. The girl nodded to the mountaineers gathered in 
 conclave, then, turning to the miller she announced: 
 
 "I'm going to send for Samson." 
 
 The statement was at first met with dead silence, 
 then came a rumble of indignant dissent, but for that 
 the girl was prepared, as she was prepared for the 
 contemptuous laughter which followed. 
 
 "I reckon if Samson was here," she said, dryly, "you 
 all wouldn't think it was quite so funny." 
 
 Old Caleb Wiley spat through his bristling beard, 
 and his voice was a quavering rumble. 
 
 "What we wants is a man. We hain't got no use fer 
 no traitors thet's too almighty damn busy doin' fancy 
 work ter stand by their kith an' kin." 
 
 "That's a lie!" said the girl, scornfully. "There's 
 just one man living that's smart enough to match Jesse 
 Purvy an' that one man is Samson. Samson's got 
 the right to lead the Souths, and he's going to do it 
 ef he wants to." 
 
 "Sally," Wile McCager spoke, soothingly, "don't go 
 gittin' mad. Caleb talks hasty. We knows ye used ter 
 be Samson's gal, an' we hain't aimin' ter hurt yore 
 feelin's. But Samson's done left the mountings. I 
 reckon ef he wanted ter come back, he'd a-come afore 
 now. Let him stay whar he's at." 
 
 "Whar is he at?" demanded old Caleb Wiley, in a 
 truculent voice. 
 
 "That's his business," Sally flashed back, "but I 
 know. All I want to tell you is this. Don't you make 
 a move till I have time to get word to him. I tell you, 
 he's got to have his say." 
 
 "I reckon we hain't a-goin' ter wait," sneered Caleb,
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 271 
 
 "fer a feller thet won't let hit be known whar he's 
 a-sojournin' at. Ef ye air so shore of him, why won't 
 ye tell us whar he is now?" 
 
 "That's my business, too." Sally's voice was reso 
 lute. "I've got a letter here it'll take two days to get 
 to Samson. It'll take him two or three days more to 
 get here. You've got to wait a week." 
 
 "Sally," the temporary chieftain spoke still in a 
 patient, humoring sort of voice, as to a tempestuous 
 child, "thar hain't no place ter mail a letter nigher then 
 Hixon. No South can't ride inter Hixon, an' ride out 
 again. The mail-carrier won't be down this way fer 
 two days yit." 
 
 "I'm not askin' any South to ride into Hixon. I recol 
 lect another time when Samson was the only one that 
 would do that," she answered, still scornfully. "I didn't 
 come here to ask favors. I came to give orders for 
 him. A train leaves soon in the morning. My letter's 
 goin' on that train." 
 
 "Who's goin' ter take hit ter town fer ye?" 
 
 "I'm goin' to take it for myself." Her reply was 
 given as a matter of course. 
 
 "That wouldn't hardly be safe, Sally," the miller 
 demurred; "this hain't no time fer a gal ter be gala- 
 vantin' around by herself in the night time. Hit's 
 a-comin' up ter storm, an' ye've got thirty miles ter 
 ride, an' thirty-five back ter yore house." 
 
 "I'm not scared," she replied. "I'm goin' an' I'm 
 warnin' you now, if you do anything that Samson don't 
 like, you'll have to answer to him, when he comes." She 
 turned, walking very erect and dauntless to her sorrel 
 mare, and disappeared at a gallop.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "I reckon," said Wile McCager, breaking the silence 
 at last, "hit don't make no great difrence. He won't 
 hardly come, nohow." Then, he added: "But thet boy 
 is smart." 
 
 Samson's return from Europe, after a year's study, 
 was in the nature of a moderate triumph. With the art 
 sponsorship of George Lescott, and the social sponsor 
 ship of Adrienne, he found that orders for portraits, 
 from those who could pay munificently, seemed to seek 
 him. He was tasting the novelty of being lionized. 
 
 That summer, Mrs. Lescott opened her house on 
 Long Island early, and the life there was full of the sort 
 of gaiety that comes to pleasant places when young men 
 in flannels and girls in soft summery gowns and tanned 
 cheeks are playing wholesomely, and singing tunefully, 
 and making love not too seriously. 
 
 Samson, tremendously busy these days in a new studio 
 of his own, had run over for a week. Horton was, of 
 course, of the party, and George Lescott was doing 
 the honors as host. Besides these, all of whom regarded 
 themselves as members of the family, there was a group 
 of even younger folk, and the broad halls and terraces 
 and tennis courts rang all day long with their laughter, 
 and the floors trembled at night under the rhythmical 
 tread of their dancing. 
 
 Off across the lawns and woodlands stretched the blue, 
 sail-flecked waters of the Sound, and on the next hill 
 rose the tile roofs and cream-white walls of the country 
 club. 
 
 One evening, Adrienne left the dancers for the
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 273 
 
 pergola, where she took refuge under a mass of honey 
 suckle. 
 
 Samson South followed her. She saw him coming, and 
 smiled. She was contrasting this Samson, loosely clad 
 in flannels, with the Samson she had first seen rising 
 awkwardly to greet her in the studio. 
 
 "You should have stayed inside and made yourself 
 agreeable to the girls," Adrienne reproved him, as he 
 came up. "What's the use of making a lion of you, if 
 you won't roar for the visitors?" 
 
 "I've been roaring," laughed the man. "I've just 
 been explaining to Miss Willoughby that we only eat 
 the people we kill in Kentucky on certain days of solemn 
 observance and sacrifice. I wanted to be agreeable to 
 you, Drennie, for a while." 
 
 The girl shook her head sternly, but she smiled and 
 made a place for him at her side. She wondered what 
 form his being agreeable to her would take. 
 
 "I wonder if the man or woman lives," mused Sam 
 son, "to whom the fragrance of honeysuckle doesn't 
 bring back some old memory that is as strong and 
 sweet as itself." 
 
 The girl did not at once answer him. The breeze 
 was stirring the hair on her temples and neck. The 
 moon was weaving a lace pattern on the ground, and 
 filtering its silver light through the vines. At last, she 
 asked : 
 
 "Do you ever find yourself homesick, Samson, these 
 days?" 
 
 The man answered with a short laugh. Then, his 
 words came softly, and not his own words, but those of 
 one more eloquent:
 
 274 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "'Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness 
 
 rather 
 '* 'Than the forecourts of kings, and her uttermost pits 
 
 than the streets where men gather. . , . 
 " 'His Sea that his being fulfills ? 
 " 'So and no otherwise so and no otherwise hillmen 
 
 desire their hills.' " 
 
 "And yet," she said, ana a trace of the argumentative 
 stole into her voice, "you haven't gone back." 
 
 "No." There was a note of self-reproach in his voice. 
 "But soon I shall go. At least, for a time. I've been 
 thinking a great deal lately about 'my fluttered folk 
 and wild.' I'm just beginning to understand my rela 
 tion to them, and my duty." 
 
 "Your duty is no more to go back there and throw 
 away your life," she found herself instantly contending, 
 "than it is the duty of the young eagle, who has learned 
 to fly, to go back to the nest where he was hatched." 
 
 "But, Drennie," he said, gently, "suppose the young 
 eagle is the only one that knows how to fly and sup 
 pose he could teach the others? Don't you see? I've 
 only seen it myself for a little while." 
 
 "What is it that that you see now?" 
 
 "I must go back, not to relapse, but to come to be a 
 constructive force. I must carry some of the outside 
 world to Misery. I must take to them, because I am 
 one of them, gifts that they would reject from other 
 hands." 
 
 "Will they accept them even from you ?" 
 
 "Drennie, you once said that, if I grew ashamed of 
 my people, ashamed even of their boorish manners, their
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 275 
 
 ignorance, their crudity, you would have no use for 
 me." 
 
 "I still say that," she answered. 
 
 "Well, I'm not ashamed of them. I went through 
 that, but it's over." 
 
 She sat silent for a while, then cried suddenly : 
 
 "I don't want you to go !" The moment she had said 
 it, she caught herself with a nervous little laugh, and 
 added a postscript of whimsical nonsense to disarm 
 her utterance of its telltale feeling. "Why, I'm just 
 getting you civilized, yourself. It took years to get 
 your hair cut." 
 
 He ran his palm over his smoothly trimmed head, 
 and laughed. 
 
 "Delilah, Oh, Delilah !" he said. "I was resolute, but 
 you have shorn me." 
 
 "Don't!" she exclaimed. "Don't call me that!" 
 
 "Then, Drennie, dear," he answered, lightly, "don't 
 dissuade me from the most decent resolve I have lately 
 made." 
 
 From the house came the strains of an alluring waltz. 
 For a little time, they listened without speech, then the 
 girl said very gravely : 
 
 "You won't you won't still feel bound to kill your 
 enemies, will you, Samson?" 
 
 The man's face hardened. 
 
 "I believe I'd rather not talk about that. I shall have 
 to win back the confidence I have lost. I shall have to 
 take a place at the head of my clan by proving myself 
 a man and a man by their own standards. It is only 
 at their head that I can lead them. If the lives of a 
 few assassins have to be forfeited, I sha'n't hesitate
 
 76 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 at that. I shall stake my own against them fairly. 
 The end is worth it." 
 
 The girl breathed deeply, then she heard Samson's 
 voice again : 
 
 "Drennie, I want you to understand, that if I suc 
 ceed it is your success. You took me raw and unfash- 
 ioned, and you have made me. There is no way of 
 thanking you." 
 
 "There is a way," she contradicted. "You can thank 
 me by feeling just that way about it." 
 
 "Then, I do thank you." 
 
 She sat looking up at him, her eyes wide and 
 questioning. 
 
 "Exactly what do you feel, Samson," she asked. "I 
 mean about me?" 
 
 He leaned a little toward her, and the fragrance and 
 subtle beauty of her stole into his veins and brain, in 
 a sudden intoxication. His hand went out to seize hers. 
 This beauty which would last and not wither into a 
 hag's ugliness with the first breath of age as mountain 
 beauty does was hypnotizing him. Then, he straight 
 ened and stood looking down. 
 
 "Don't ask me that, please," he said, in a carefully 
 controlled voice. "I don't even want to ask myself. 
 My God, Drennie, don't you see that I'm afraid to 
 answer that?" 
 
 She rose from her seat, and stood for just an instant 
 rather unsteadily before him, then she laughed. 
 
 "Samson, Samson !" she challenged. "The moon is 
 making us as foolish as children. Old friend, we are 
 growing silly. Let's go in, and be perfectly good 
 hostesses and social lions."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 277 
 
 The next afternoon, Adrienne and Samson were sit 
 ting with a gaily chattering group at the side lines 
 of the tennis courts. 
 
 "When you go back to the mountains, Samson," 
 Wilfred was suggesting, "we might form a partner- 
 , ship. "South, Horton and Co., development of coal 
 l and timber.' There are millions in it." 
 
 "Five years ago, I should have met you with a 
 Winchester rifle," laughed the Kentuckian. "Now I 
 shall not." 
 
 "I'll go with you, Horton, and make a sketch or 
 two," volunteered George Lescott, who just then arrived 
 from town. "And, by the way, Samson, here's a let 
 ter that came for you just as I left the studio." 
 
 The mountaineer took the envelope with a Hixon 
 postmark, and for an instant gazed at it with a puzzled 
 expression. It was addressed in a feminine hand, which 
 he did not recognize. It was careful, but perfect, 
 writing, such as one sees in a school copybook. With an 
 apology he tore the covering, and read the letter. 
 Adrienne, glancing at his face, saw it suddenly pale and 
 grow as set and hard as marble. 
 
 Samson's eyes were dwelling with only partial com 
 prehension on the script. This is what he read : 
 
 "DEAR SAMSON: The war is on again. Tamarack 
 Spicer has killed Jim Asberry, and the Hollmans have 
 killed Tamarack. Uncle Spicer is shot, but he may 
 get well. There is nobody to lead the Souths. I am 
 trying to hold them down until I hear from you. Don't 
 come if you don't want to but the gun is ready. With 
 love, SAL.LY."
 
 278 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Slowly, Samson South came to his feet. His voice 
 was in the dead-level pitch which Wilfred had once 
 before heard. His eyes were as clear and hard as trans 
 parent flint. 
 
 "I'm sorry to be of trouble, George," he said, quietly. 
 "But you must get me to New York at once by motor. 
 I must take a train South to-night." 
 
 "No bad news, I hope," suggested Lescott. 
 
 For an instant, Samson forgot his four years of 
 veneer. The century of prenatal barbarism broke out 
 fiercely. He was seeing things far away and forget 
 ting things near by. His eyes blazed and his fingers 
 twitched. 
 
 "Hell, no!" he exclaimed. "The war's on, and my 
 hands are freed!" 
 
 For an instant, as no one spoke, he stood breathing 
 heavily, then, wheeling, rushed toward the house as 
 though just across its threshold lay the fight into which 
 he was aching to hurl himself.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 \ AMSOX, throwing things hurriedly into his bag, 
 
 ^^5 heard a knock on his door. He opened it, and 
 
 outside in the hall stood Adrienne. Her face 
 
 was pale, and she leaned a little on the hand which 
 
 rested against the white jamb. 
 
 "What does it mean?' she asked. 
 
 He came over. 
 
 "It means, Drennie," he said, "that you may make 
 a pet of a leopard cub, but there will come a day when 
 something of the jungle comes out in him and he 
 must go. My uncle has been shot, and the feud is on 
 I've been sent for." 
 
 He paused, and she half-whispered in an appealing 
 voice : 
 
 "Don't go." 
 
 "You don't mean that," he said, quietly. "If it 
 were you, you would go. Whether I get back here or 
 not" he hesitated "my gratitude will be with you 
 always." He broke off, and said suddenly : "Drennie, 
 I don't want to say good-by to you. I can't." 
 
 "It's not necessary yet," she answered. "I'm going 
 to drive you to Xew York." 
 
 "No!" he exclaimed. "It's too far, and I've got to 
 go fast " 
 
 "That's why I'm going," she promptly assured him. 
 "I'm the only fool on these premises that can get all 
 
 279
 
 280 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 the speed out of a car that's in her engine and the 
 constables are good to me. I just came up here to" 
 she hesitated, then added "to see you alone for a 
 moment, and to say that teacher has never had such 
 a bright little pupil, in her life and" the flippancy 
 with which she was masking her feeling broke and she 
 added, in a shaken voice as she thrust out her hand, 
 man-fashion "and to say, God keep you, boy." 
 
 He seized the hand in both his own, and gripped it 
 hard. He tried to speak, but only shook his head with 
 a rueful smile. 
 
 "I'll be waiting at the door with the car," she told 
 him, as she left. 
 
 Horton, too, came in to volunteer assistance. 
 
 "Wilfred," said Samson, feelingly, 'there isn't any 
 man I'd rather have at my back, in a stand-up fight. 
 But this isn't exactly that sort. Where I'm going, a 
 fellow has got to be invisible. No, you can't help, now. 
 Come down later. We'll organize Horton, South and 
 Co." 
 
 "South, Horton and Co.," corrected Wilfred ; "native 
 sons first." 
 
 At that moment, Adrienne believed she had decided 
 the long-mooted question. Of course, she had not. 
 It was merely the stress of the moment ; exaggerating 
 the importance of one she was losing at the expense 
 of the one who was left. Still, as she sat in the car 
 waiting, her world seemed slipping into chaos under 
 her feet, and, when Samson had taken his place at her 
 side, the machine leaped forward into a reckless plunge 
 of speed. 
 
 Samson stopped at his studio, and threw open an
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBEKLANDS 281 
 
 old closet where, from a littered pile of discarded back 
 ground draperies, canvases and stretchers, he fished out 
 a buried and dust-covered pair of saddlebags. They 
 had long lain there forgotten, but they held the rusty 
 clothes in which he had left Misery. He threw them 
 over his arm and dropped them at Adrienne's feet, as 
 he handed her the studio keys. 
 
 "Will you please have George look after things, and 
 make the necessary excuses to my sitters? He'll find 
 a list of posing appointments in the desk." 
 
 The girl nodded. 
 
 "What are those?" she asked, gazing at the great 
 leather pockets as at some relic unearthed from Pom- 
 peian excavations. 
 
 "Saddlebags, Drennie," he said, "and in them are 
 homespun and jeans. One can't lead his 'fluttered folk 
 and wild' in a cutaway coat." 
 
 Shortly they were at the station, and the man, stand 
 ing at the side of the machine, took her hand. 
 
 "It's not good-by, you know," he said, smiling. 
 "Just auf Wicdersehen." 
 
 She nodded and smiled, too, but, as she smiled, she 
 shivered, and turned the car slowly. There was no 
 need to hurry, now. 
 
 \ Samson had caught the fastest west-bound express 
 on the schedule. In thirty-six hours, he would be at 
 Hixon. There were many things which his brain must 
 attack and digest in these hours. He must arrange 
 his plan of action to its minutest detail, because he 
 would have as little time for reflection, once he had 
 reached his own country, as a wildcat flung into a pack 
 of hounds.
 
 282 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 From the railroad station to his home, he must make 
 his way most probably fight his way through thirty 
 miles of hostile territory where all the trails were 
 watched. And yet, for the time, all that seemed too 
 remotely unreal to hold his thoughts. He was seeing 
 the coolly waving curtains of flowered chintz that 
 stirred in the windows of his room at the Lescott house 
 and the crimson ramblers that nodded against the sky. 
 He was hearing a knock on the door, and seeing, as it 
 opened, the figure of Adrienne Lescott and the look 
 that had been in her eyes. 
 
 He took out Sally's letter, and read it once more. 
 He read it mechanically and as a piece of news that 
 had brought evil tidings. Then, suddenly, another 
 aspect of it struck him an aspect to which the shock 
 of its reception had until this tardy moment blinded 
 him. The letter was perfectly grammatical and penned 
 in a hand of copy-book roundness and evenness. The 
 address, the body of the missive, and the signature, were 
 all in one chirography. She would not have intrusted 
 the writing of this letter to any one else. 
 
 Sally had learned to write! 
 
 Moreover, at the end were the words "with love." 
 It was all plain now. Sally had never repudiated him. 
 She was declaring herself true to her mission and her 
 love. All that heartbreak through which he had gone 
 had been due to his own misconception, and in that 
 misconception he had drawn into himself and had 
 stopped writing to her. Even his occasional letters 
 had for two years ceased to brighten her heart-strang 
 ling isolation and she was still waiting. . . . She 
 had sent no word of appeal until the moment had come
 
 of which she had promised to inform him. Sally, aban 
 doned and alone, had been fighting her way up that 
 she might stand on his level. 
 
 "Good God!" groaned the man, in abjectly bitter 
 self-contempt. His hand went involuntarily to his 
 cropped head, and dropped with a gesture of self- 
 doubting. He looked down at his tan shoes and silk 
 socks. He rolled back his shirtsleeve and contemplated 
 the forearm that had once been as brown and tough 
 as leather. It was now the arm of a city man, except 
 for the burning of one outdoor week. He was return 
 ing at the eleventh hour stripped of the faith of his 
 kinsmen, half-stripped of "his faith in himself. If he 
 were to realize the constructive dreams of which he 
 had last night so confidently prattled to Adrienne, he 
 must lead his people from under the blighting shadow 
 of the feud. 
 
 Yet, if he was to lead them at all, he must first 
 regain their shaken confidence, and to do that he must 
 go, at their head, through this mire of war to vindica 
 tion. Only a fighting South could hope to be heard 
 in behalf of peace. His eventual regeneration belonged 
 , to some to-morrow. To-day held the need of such 
 work as that of the first Samson to slay. 
 
 He must reappear before his kinsmen as much as 
 possible the boy who had left them not the fop with 
 newfangled affectations. His eyes fell upon the sad 
 dlebags on the floor of the Pullman, and he smiled 
 satirically. He would like to step from the train at 
 Hixon and walk brazenly through the town in those 
 old clothes, challenging every hostile glance If they 
 shot him down on the streets, as they certainly would
 
 284 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 do, it would end his questioning and his anguish of 
 dilemma. He would welcome that, but it would, after 
 all, be shirking the issue. 
 
 He must get out of Hixon and into his own country 
 unrecognized. The lean boy of four years ago was 
 the somewhat filled out man now. The one concession 
 that he had made to Paris life was the wearing of a 
 closely cropped mustache. That he still wore had 
 worn it chiefly because he liked to hear Adrienne's 
 humorous denunciation of it. He knew that, in his 
 present guise and dress, he had an excellent chance 
 of walking through the streets of Hixon as a stranger. 
 And, after leaving Hixon, there was a mission to be 
 performed at Jesse Purvy's store. As he thought of 
 that mission a grim glint came to his pupils. 
 
 All journeys end, and as Samson passed through 
 the tawdry cars of the local train near Hixon he saw 
 several faces which he recognized, but they either eyed 
 him in inexpressive silence, or gave him the greeting 
 of the "furriner." 
 
 Then the whistle shrieked for the trestle over the 
 Middle Fork, and at only a short distance rose the 
 cupola of the brick court-house and the scattered roofs 
 of the town. Scattered over the green slopes by the 
 river bank lay the white spread of a tented company 
 street, and, as he looked out, he saw uniformed figures 
 moving to and fro, and caught the ring of a bugle 
 caM. So the militia was on deck; things must be bad, 
 he reflected. He stood on the platfor^ and looked 
 down as the engine roared along the trestle. There 
 were two goatling guns. One pointed its muzzle to 
 ward the tovn, and the othe** .-coT.VJ np at the face
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 285 
 
 of the mountain. Sentries paced their beats. Men in 
 undershirts lay dozing outside tent flaps. It was all 
 a picture of disciplined readiness, and yet Samson knew 
 that soldiers made of painted tin would be equally 
 effective. These military forces must remain subservi 
 ent to local civil authorities, and the local civil authori 
 ties obeyed the nod of Judge Hollman and Jesse Purvy. 
 
 As Samson crossed the toll-bridge to the town proper 
 he passed two brown-shirted militiamen, lounging on 
 the rail of the middle span. They grinned at him, 
 and, recognizing the outsider from his clothes, one of 
 them commented: 
 
 "Ain't this the hell of a town?" 
 
 "It's going to be," replied Samson, enigmatically, as 
 he went on. 
 
 Still unrecognized, he hired a horse at the livery 
 stable, and for two hours rode in silence, save for the 
 easy creaking of his stirrup leathers and the soft 
 thud of hoofs. 
 
 The silence soothed him. The brooding hills lulled 
 his spirit as a crooning song lulls a fretful child. Mile 
 after mile unrolled forgotten vistas. Something deep 
 in himself murmured: 
 
 "Home !" 
 
 It was late afternoon when he saw ahead of kin. 
 the orchard of Purvy's place, and read on the store- 
 wall, a little more weather-stained, but otherwise un 
 changed : 
 
 "Jesse Purvy, General Merchandise." 
 
 The porch of the store was empty, ana as Samson 
 flung himself from his saddle there was no one to greet 
 him. This was surprising, since, ordinarily, two or
 
 286 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 three of Purvy's personal guardsmen loafed at the front 
 to watch the road. Just now the guard should logic 
 ally be doubled. Samson still wore his Eastern clothes 
 for he wanted to go through that door unknown. 
 As Samson South he could not cross its threshold either 
 way. But when he stepped up on to the rough porch 
 flooring no one challenged his advance. The yard and 
 orchard were quiet from their front fence to the grisly 
 stockade at the rear, and, wondering at these things, 
 the young man stood for a moment looking about at 
 the afternoon peace before he announced himself. 
 
 Yet Samson had not come to the stronghold of his 
 enemy for the purpose of assassination. There had 
 been another object in his mind an utterly mad idea, 
 it is true, yet so bold of conception that it held a ghost 
 ef promise. He had meant to go into Jesse Purvy's 
 store and chat artlessly, like some inquisitive "f urriner." 
 He would ask questions which by their very imperti 
 nence might be forgiven on the score of a stranger's 
 folly. But, most of all, he wanted to drop the casual 
 information, which he should assume to have heard 
 on the train, that Samson South was returning, and 
 to mark, on the assassin leader, the effect of the news. 
 In his new code it was necessary to give at least the 
 9 rattler's warning before he struck, and he meant to 
 .strike. If he were recognized, well he shrugged his 
 shoulders. 
 
 But as he stood on the outside, wiping the perspira 
 tion from his forehead, for the ride had been warm, 
 he heard voices within. They were loud and angry 
 voices. It occurred to him that by remaining where
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 287 
 
 he was he might gain more information than by hur 
 rying in. 
 
 "I've done been your executioner fer twenty years," 
 complained a voice, which Samson at once recognized 
 as that of Aaron Hollis, the most trusted of Purvy's 
 personal guards. "I hain't never laid down on ye yet. 
 Me an' Jim Asberry killed old Henry South. We laid 
 fer his boy, an* would 'a' got him ef ye'd only said 
 ther word. I went inter Hixon, an' killed Tam'rack 
 Spicer, with soldiers all round me. There hain't no 
 other damn fool in these mountings would 'a' took 
 such a long chance es thet. I'm tired of hit. They're 
 a-goin' ter git me, an' I wants ter leave, an' you won't 
 come clean with the price of a railroad ticket to Okla 
 homa. Now, damn yore stingy soul, I gits that ticket 
 or I gits you !" 
 
 "Aaron, ye can't scare me into doin' nothin' I ain't 
 aimin' to do." The old baron of the vendetta spoke 
 in a cold, stoical voice. "I tell ye I ain't quite through 
 with ye yet. In due an' proper time I'll see that ye 
 get yer ticket." Then he added, with conciliating soft 
 ness: "We've been friends a long while. Let's talk 
 this thing over before we fall out." 
 
 "Thar hain't nothin' ter talk over," stormed Aaron. 
 "Ye're jest tryin' ter kill time till the boys gits hyar, 
 and then I reckon ye 'lows ter have me kilt like yer've 
 had me kill them others. Hit hain't no use. I've done 
 sent 'em away. When they gits back hyar, either you'll 
 be in hell, or I'll be on my way outen the mountings." 
 
 Samson stood rigid. Here was the confession of one 
 murderer, with no denial from the other. The truce 
 was off. Why should he wait? Cataracts seemed to
 
 288 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 thunder in his brain, and yet he stood there, his hand in 
 his coat-pocket, clutching the grip of a magazine pistol. 
 Samson South the old, and Samson South the new, were 
 writhing in the life-and-death grapple of two codes. 
 Then, before decision came, he heard a sharp report 
 inside, and the heavy fall of a body to the floor. 
 
 A wildly excited figure came plunging through the 
 door, and Samson's left hand swept out, and seized its 
 shoulder in a sudden vise grip. 
 
 "Do you know me?" he inquired, as the mountaineer 
 pulled away and crouched back with startled surprise 
 and vicious frenzy. 
 
 "No, damn ye ! Git outen my road !" Aaron thrust 
 his cocked rifle close against the stranger's face. From 
 its muzzle came the acrid stench of freshly burned 
 powder. "Git outen my road afore I kills ye !" 
 
 "My name is Samson South." 
 
 Before the astounded finger on the rifle trigger could 
 be crooked, Samson's pistol spoke from the pocket, and, 
 as though in echo, the rifle blazed, a little too late and 
 a shade too high, over his head, as the dead man's arms 
 went up.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 T71 XCEPT for those two reports there was no sound. 
 
 HJ Samson stood still, anticipating an uproar of 
 alarm. Now, he should doubtless have to pay 
 with his life for both the deaths which would inevitably 
 and logically be attributed to his agency. But, strange 
 ly enough, no clamor arose. The shot inside had been 
 muffled, and those outside, broken by the intervening 
 store, did not arouse the house. Purvy's bodyguard had 
 been sent away by Hollis on a false alarm. Only the 
 "womenfolks" and children remained indoors, and they 
 were drowning with a piano any sounds that might have 
 come from without. That piano was the chief emblem 
 of Purvy's wealth. It represented the acme of "having 
 things hung up" ; that ancient and expressive phrase, 
 which had come down from days when the pioneers' 
 worldly condition was gauged by the hams hanging in 
 the smokehouse and the peppers, tobacco and herbs 
 strung high against the rafters. 
 
 Now, Samson South stood looking down, uninterrupt 
 ed, on what had been Aaron Hollis as it lay motionless 
 at his feet. There was a powder-burned hole in the but 
 ternut shirt, and only a slender thread of blood trickled 
 into the dirt-grimed cracks between the planks. The 
 body was twisted sidewise, in one of those grotesque atti 
 tudes with which a sudden summons so frequently robs 
 the greatest phenomenon of all its rightful dignity. The 
 
 289
 
 290 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLAND^ 
 
 sun was gilding the roadside clods, and burnishing the 
 greens of the treetops. The breeze was harping sleepily 
 among the branches, and several geese stalked pom 
 pously along the creek's edge. On the top of the 
 stockade a gray squirrel, sole witness to the tragedy, 
 rose on his haunches, flirted his brush, and then, in a 
 sudden leap of alarm, disappeared. 
 
 Samson turned to the darkened doorway. Inside was 
 emptiness, except for the other body, which had 
 crumpled forward and face down across the counter. 
 A glance showed that Jesse Purvy would no more fight 
 back the coming of death. He was quite unarmed. 
 Behind his spent body ranged shelves of general mer 
 chandise. Boxes of sardines and cans of peaches were 
 lined in homely array above him. His lifeless hand 
 rested as though flung out in an oratorical gesture on 
 a bolt of blue calico. 
 
 Samson paused only for a momentary survey. His 
 score was clean. He would not again have to agonize 
 over the dilemma of old ethics and new. To-morrow, 
 the word would spread like wildfire along Misery and 
 Crippleshin, that Samson South was back, and that his 
 coming had been signalized by these two deaths. The 
 fact that he was responsible for only one and that in 
 self-defense would not matter. They would prefer to 
 believe that he had invaded the store and killed Purvy, 
 and that Hollis had fallen in his master's defense at the 
 threshold. Samson went out, still meeting no one, and 
 continued his journey. 
 
 Dusk was falling, when he hitched his horse in a 
 clump of timber, and, lifting his saddlebags, began 
 climbing to a cabin that sat far back in a thicketed
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 291 
 
 cove. He was now well within South territory, and the 
 need of masquerade had ended. 
 
 The cabin had not, for years, been occupied. Its 
 rooftree was leaning askew under rotting shingles. The 
 doorstep was ivy-covered, and the stones of the hearth 
 were broken. But it lay well hidden, and would serve 
 his purposes. 
 
 Shortly, a candle flickered inside, before a small hand 
 mirror. Scissors and safety razor were for a while busy. 
 The man who entered in impeccable clothes emerged 
 fifteen minutes later transformed. There appeared 
 under the rising June crescent, a smooth-faced native, 
 clad in stained store-clothes, with rough woolen socks 
 showing at his brogan tops, and a battered felt hat 
 drawn over his face. No one who had known the Samson 
 South of four years ago would fail to recognize him 
 now. And the strangest part, he told himself, was that 
 he felt the old Samson. He no longer doubted his 
 courage. He had come home, and his conscience was 
 once more clear. 
 
 The mountain roads and the mountain sides them 
 selves were sweetly silent. Moon mist engulfed the 
 flats in a lake of dreams, and, as the livery-stable horse 
 halted to pant at the top of the final ridge, he could see 
 below him his destination. 
 
 The smaller knobs rose like little islands out of the 
 vapor, and yonder, catching the moonlight like scraps 
 of gray paper, were two roofs : that of his uncle's 
 house and that of the Widow Miller. 
 
 At a point where a hand-bridge crossed the skirting 
 creek, the boy dismounted. Ahead of him lay the stile 
 where he had said good-by to Sally. The place was
 
 292 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 dark, and the chimney smokeless, but, as he came nearer, 
 holding the shadows of the trees, he saw one sliver of 
 light at the bottom of a solid shutter; the shutter of 
 Sally's room. Yet, for a while, Samson stopped there, 
 looking and making no sound. He stood at his Rubi 
 con and behind him lay all the glitter and culture of 
 that other world, a world that had been good to him. 
 
 That was to Samson South one of those pregnant 
 and portentous moments with which life sometimes 
 punctuates its turning points. At such times, all the 
 set and solidified strata that go into the building of a 
 man's nature may be uptossed and rearranged. So, 
 the layers of a mountain chain and a continent that 
 have for centuries remained steadfast may break and 
 alter under the stirring of earthquake or volcano, drop 
 ping heights under water and throwing new ranges 
 above the sea. 
 
 There was passing before his eyes as he stood there, 
 pausing, a panorama much vaster than any he had been 
 able to conceive when last he stood there. He was seeing 
 in review the old life and the new, lurid with contrasts, 
 and, as the pictures of things thousands of miles away 
 rose before his eyes as clearly as the serried backbone 
 of the ridges, he was comparing and settling for all 
 time the actual values and proportions of the things in 
 his life. 
 
 He saw the streets of Paris and New York, brilliant 
 under their strings of opalescent lights; the Champs 
 Elysees ran in its smooth, tree-trimmed parquetry from 
 the Place de Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, and the 
 chatter and music of its cafes rang in his ears. The 
 ivory spaces of Rome, from the Pincian Hill where his
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 293 
 
 fancy saw almond trees in bloom to the Piazza Venezia, 
 spread their eternal story before his imagination. He 
 saw 'buses and hansoms slirring through the mud and 
 fog of London and the endless pot-pourri of Manhat 
 tan. All the things that the outside world had to offer ; 
 all that had ever stirred his pulses to a worship of the 
 beautiful, the harmonious, the excellent, rose in exact 
 value. Then, he saw again the sunrise as it would be 
 to-morrrow morning over these ragged hills. He saw 
 the mists rise and grow wisp-like, and the disc of the 
 sun gain color, and all the miracles of cannoning 
 tempest and caressing calm and, though he had come 
 back to fight, a wonderful peace settled over him, for 
 he knew that, if he must choose these, his native hills, 
 or all the rest, he would forego all the rest. 
 
 And Sally would she be changed? His heart was 
 hammering wildly now. Sally had remained loyal. It 
 was a miracle, but it was the one thing that counted. 
 He was going to her, and nothing else mattered. All 
 the questions of dilemma were answered. He was Sam 
 son South come back to his own to Sally, and the 
 rifle. Nothing had changed! The same trees raised 
 the same crests against the same sky. For every one 
 of them, he felt a throb of deep emotion. Best of all, 
 he himself had not changed in any cardinal respect, 
 though he had come through changes and perplexities. 
 
 He lifted his head, and sent out a long, clear whip- 
 poorwill call, which quavered on the night much like the 
 other calls in the black hills around him. After a 
 moment, he went nearer, in the shadow of a poplar, and 
 repeated the call. 
 
 Then, the cabin-door opened. Its jamb framed a
 
 294 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 patch of yellow candlelight, and, at the center, a slender 
 silhouetted figure, in a fluttering, eager attitude of 
 uncertainty. The figure turned slightly to one side, 
 and, as it did so, the man saw clasped in her right hand 
 the rifle, which had been his mission, bequeathed to her 
 in trust. He saw, too, the delicate outline of her pro 
 file, with anxiously parted lips and a red halo about 
 her soft hair. He watched the eager heave of her 
 breast, and the spasmodic clutching of the gun to her 
 heart. For four years, he had not given that familiar 
 signal. Possibly, it had lost some of its characteristic 
 quality, for she still seemed in doubt. She hesitated, 
 and the man, invisible in the shadow, once more imitated 
 the bird-note, but this time it was so low and soft that 
 it seemed the voice of a whispering whippoorwill. 
 
 Then, with a sudden glad little cry, she came running 
 with her old fleet grace down to the road. 
 
 Samson had vaulted the stile, and stood in the full 
 moonlight. As he saw her coming he stretched out his 
 arms and his voice broke from his throat in a half- 
 hoarse, passionate cry: 
 
 "Sally!" 
 
 It was the only word he could have spoken just then, 
 but it was all that was necessary. It told her every 
 thing. It was an outburst from a heart too full of 
 emotion to grope after speech, the cry of a man for the 
 One Woman who alone can call forth an inflection more 
 eloquent than phrases and poetry. And, as she came 
 into his outstretched arms as straight and direct as a 
 homing pigeon, they closed about her in a convulsive 
 grip that held her straining to him, almost crushing her 
 in the tempest of his emotion.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 295 
 
 For a time, there was no speech, but to each of them 
 it seemed that their tumultuous heart-beating must 
 sound above the night music, and the telegraphy of 
 heart-beats tells enough. Later, they would talk, but 
 now, with a gloriously wild sense of being together, 
 with a mutual intoxication of joy because all that they 
 had dreamed was true, and all that they had feared 
 was untrue, they stood there under the skies clasping 
 each other with the rifle between their breasts. Then 
 as he held her close, he wondered that a shadow of doubt 
 could ever have existed. He wondered if, except in 
 some nightmare of hallucination, it had ever existed. 
 
 The flutter of her heart was like that of a rapturous 
 bird, and the play of her breath on his face like the 
 fragrance of the elder blossoms. 
 
 These were their stars twinkling overhead. These 
 were their hills, and their moon was smiling on their 
 tryst. 
 
 He had gone and seen the world that lured him: he 
 had met its difficulties, and faced its puzzles. He had 
 even felt his feet wandering at the last from the path 
 that led back to her, and now, with her lithe figure close 
 held in his embrace, and her red-brown hair brushing his 
 temples, he marveled how such an instant of doubt could 
 have existed. He knew only that the silver of the moon 
 and the kiss of the breeze and the clasp of her soft 
 arms about his neck were all parts of one great miracle. 
 And she, who had waited and almost despaired, not 
 taking count of what she had suffered, felt her knees 
 grow weak, and her head grow dizzy with sheer happi 
 ness, and wondered if it were not too marvelous to be 
 true. And, looking very steadfastly into his eyes, she
 
 296 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 saw there tlie gleam that once had frightened her ; the 
 gleam that spoke of something stronger and more com 
 pelling than his love. It no longer frightened her, but 
 made her soul sing, though it was more intense than 
 it had ever been before, for now she knew that it was 
 She herself who brought it to his pupils and that 
 nothing would ever be stronger. 
 
 But they had much to say to each other, and, finally, 
 Samson broke the silence: 
 
 "Did ye think I wasn't a-comin' back, Sally?" he 
 questioned, softly. At that moment, he had no realiza 
 tion that his tongue had ever fashioned smoother 
 phrases. And she, too, who had been making war on 
 crude idioms, forgot, as she answered: 
 
 "Ye done said ye was comin'." Then, she added a 
 happy lie : "I knowed plumb shore ye'd do hit." 
 
 After a while, she drew away, and said, slowly : 
 
 "Samson, I've done kept the old rifle-gun ready fer 
 ye. Ye said ye'd need it bad when ye come back, an* 
 I've took care of it." 
 
 She stood there holding it, and her voice dropped 
 almost to a whisper as she added : 
 
 "It's been a lot of comfort to me sometimes, because 
 it was your'n. I knew if ye stopped keerin' fer me, ye 
 wouldn't let me keep it an' as long as I had it, I " 
 She broke off, and the fingers of one hand touched the 
 weapon caressingly. 
 
 The man knew many things now that he had not 
 known when he said good-by. He recognized in the very 
 gesture with which she stroked the old walnut stock the 
 pathetic heart-hunger of a nature which had been denied 
 the fulfillment of its strength, and which had been
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 297 
 
 bestowing on an inanimate object something that might 
 almost have been the stirring of the mother instinct for 
 a child. Now, thank God, her life should never lack 
 anything that a flood-tide of love could bring to it. He 
 bent his head in a mute sort of reverence. 
 
 After a long while, they found time for the less- 
 wonderful things. 
 
 "I got your letter," he said, seriously, "and I came 
 at once." As he began to speak of concrete facts, he 
 dropped again into ordinary English, and did not know 
 that he had changed his manner of speech. 
 
 For an instant, Sally looked up into his face, then 
 with a sudden laugh, she informed him : 
 
 "I can say, 'isn't,' instead of, 'hain't,' too. How did 
 you like my writing?" 
 
 He held her off at arms' length, and looked at her 
 pridefully, but under his gaze her eyes fell, and her 
 face flushed with a sudden diffidence and a new shyness 
 of realization. She wore a calico dress, but at her throat 
 was a soft little bow of ribbon. She was no longer the 
 totally unself-conscious wood-nymph, though as natural 
 and instinctive as in the other days. Suddenly, she drew 
 away from him a little, and her hands went slowly to 
 her breast, and rested there. She was fronting a great 
 crisis, but, in the first flush of joy, she had forgotten 
 it. She had spent lonely nights struggling for rudi 
 ments ; she had sought and fought to refashion herself, 
 so that, if he came, he need not be ashamed of her. And 
 now he had come, and, with a terrible clarity and dis 
 tinctness, she realized how pitifully little she had beeri 
 able to accomplish. Would she pass muster? She stood
 
 298 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 there before him, frightened, self-conscious and palpi 
 tating, then her voice came in a whisper : 
 
 "Samson, dear, I'm not holdin' you to any promise. 
 Those things we said were a long time back. Maybe 
 we'd better forget 'em now, and begin all over again." 
 
 But, again, he crushed her in his arms, and his voice 
 rose triumphantly : 
 
 "Sally, I have no promises to take back, and you have 
 made none that I'm ever going to let you take back 
 not while life lasts !" 
 
 Her laugh was the delicious music of happiness. 
 
 "I don't want to take them back," she said. Then, 
 suddenly, she added, importantly: "I wear shoes and 
 stockings now, and I'v? been to school a little. I'm 
 awfully awfully ignorant, Samson, but I've started, 
 and I reckon you can teaclh me." 
 
 His voice choked. Then, her hands strayed up, and 
 clasped themselves about his head. 
 
 "Oh, Samson," she cried, as though someone had 
 struck her, "you've cut yore ha'r." 
 
 "It will grow again," he laughed. But he wished that 
 he had not had to make that excuse. Then, being 
 honest, he told her all about Adrienne Lescott even 
 about how, after he believed that he had been outcast 
 by his uncle and herself, he had had his moments of 
 doubt. Now that it was all so clear, now that there 
 could never be doubt, he wanted the woman who had 
 been so true a friend to know the girl whom he loved. 
 He loved them both, but was in love with only one. He 
 wanted to present to Sally the friend who had made 
 him, and to the friend who had made him the Sally of 
 whom he was proud. He wanted to tell Adrienne that
 
 now he could answer her question that each of them 
 meant to the other exactly the same thing: they were 
 friends of the rarer sort, who had for a little time been 
 in danger of mistaking their comradeship for passion. 
 
 As they talked, sitting on the stile, Sally held the 
 rifle across her knees. Except for their own voices and 
 the soft chorus of night sounds, the hills were wrapped 
 in silence a silence as soft as velvet. Suddenly, in a 
 pause, there came to the girl's ears the cracking of a 
 twig in the woods. With the old instinctive training 
 of the mountains, she leaped noiselessly down, and for 
 an instant stood listening with intent ears. Then, in a 
 low, tense whisper, as she thrust the gun into the man's 
 hands, she cautioned: 
 
 "Git out of sight. Maybe they've done found out 
 ye've come back maybe they're trailin' ye !" 
 
 With an instant shock, she remembered what mission 
 had brought him back, and what was his peril ; and he, 
 too, for whom the happiness of the moment had swal 
 lowed up other things, came back to a recognition of 
 facts. Dropping into the old woodcraft, he melted out 
 of sight into the shadow, thrusting the girl behind him, 
 and crouched against the fence, throwing the rifle for 
 ward, and peering into the shadows. As he stood there, 
 balancing the gun once more in his hands, old instincts 
 began to stir, old battle hunger to rise, and old realiza 
 tions of primitive things to assault him. Then, when 
 they had waited with bated breath until they were both 
 reassured, he rose and swung the stock to his shoulder 
 several times. With something like a sigh of content 
 ment, he said, half to himself:
 
 300 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "Hit feels mighty natural ter throw this old rifle- 
 gun up. I reckon maybe I kin still shoot hit." 
 
 "I learned some things down there at school, Samson," 
 said the girl, slowly, "and I wish I wish you didn't 
 have to use it." 
 
 "Jim Asberry is dead," said the man, gravely. 
 
 "Yes," she echoed, "Jim Asberry's dead." She 
 stopped there. Yet, her sigh completed the sentence as 
 though she had added, "but he was only one of several. 
 Your vow went farther." 
 
 After a moment's pause, Samson added : 
 
 "Jesse Purvy's dead." 
 
 The girl drew back, with a frightened gasp. She 
 knew what this meant, or thought she did. 
 
 "Jesse Purvy!" she repeated. "Oh, Samson, did 
 ye ?" She broke off, and covered her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 "No, Sally," he told her. "I didn't have to." He 
 recited the day's occurrences, and they sat together on 
 
 the stile, until the moon had sunk to the ridge top. 
 ****** 
 
 Captain Sidney Callomb, who had been despatched 
 in command of a militia company to quell the trouble in 
 the mountains, should have been a soldier by profession. 
 All his enthusiasms were martial. His precision was 
 military. His cool eye held a note of command which 
 made itself obeyed. He had a rare gift of handling 
 men, which made them ready to execute the impossible. 
 But the elder Callomb had trained his son to succeed 
 him at the head of a railroad system, and the young 
 man had philosophically undertaken to satisfy his mili 
 tary ambitions with State Guard shoulder-straps.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 301 
 
 The deepest sorrow and mortification he had ever 
 known was that which came to him when Tamarack 
 Spicer, his prisoner of war and a man who had been 
 surrendered on the strength of his personal guarantee, 
 had been assassinated before his eyes. That the manner 
 of this killing had been so outrageously treacherous that 
 it could hardly have been guarded against, failed to 
 bring him solace. It had shown the inefficiency of his 
 efforts, and had brought on a carnival of blood-letting, 
 when he had come here to safeguard against that danger. 
 In some fashion, he must make amends. He realized, 
 too, and it rankled deeply, that his men were not being 
 genuinely used to serve the State, but as instruments of 
 the Hollmans, and he had seen enough to distrust the 
 Hollmans. Here, in Hixon, he was seeing things from 
 only one angle. He meant to learn something more 
 impartial. 
 
 Besides being on duty as an officer of militia, Callomb 
 was a Kentuckian, interested in the problems of his 
 Commonwealth, and, when he went back, he knew that 
 his cousin, who occupied the executive mansion at Frank 
 fort, would be interested in his suggestions. The Gov 
 ernor had asked him to report his impressions, and he 
 meant to form them after analysis. 
 
 So, smarting under his impotency, Captain Callomb 
 came out of his tent one morning, and strolled across 
 the curved bridge to the town proper. He knew that 
 the Grand Jury was convening, and he meant to sit as 
 a spectator in the court-house and studv proceedings 
 when they were instructed. 
 
 But before he reached the court-house, where for a 
 half -hour yet the cupola bell would not clang out its
 
 302 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 summons to veniremen and witnesses, he found fresh 
 fuel for his wrath. 
 
 He was not a popular man with these clansmen, 
 though involuntarily he had been useful in leading their 
 victims to the slaughter. There was a scowl in his eyes 
 that they did not like, and an arrogant hint of 
 iron laws in the livery he wore, which their instincts 
 distrusted. 
 
 Callomb saw without being told that over the town 
 lay a sense of portentous tidings. Faces were more 
 sullen than usual. Men fell into scowling knots and 
 groups. A clerk at a store where he stopped for tobacco 
 inquired as he made change: 
 
 "Heered the news, stranger?" 
 
 "What news?" 
 
 "This here 'Wildcat' Samson South come back yis- 
 tiddy, an' last evenin' towards sundown, Jesse Purvy 
 an' Aaron Hollis was shot dead." 
 
 For an instant, the soldier stood looking at the young 
 clerk, his eyes kindling into a wrathful blaze. Then, 
 he cursed under his breath. At the door, he turned on 
 his heel: 
 
 "Where can Judge Smithers be found at this time of 
 day?" he demanded.
 
 CHAPTER XXVH 
 
 THE Honorable Asa Smithers was not the regular 
 Judge of the Circuit which numbered Hixon 
 among its county-seats. The elected incumbent 
 was ill, and Smithers had been named as his pro-tern, 
 successor. Callomb climbed to the second story of the 
 frame bank building, and pounded loudly on a door, 
 which bore the boldly typed shingle : 
 
 "AsA SMITHERS, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW." 
 
 The temporary Judge admitted a visitor in uniform, 
 whose countenance was stormy with indignant protest. 
 The Judge himself was placid and smiling. The lawyer, 
 who was for the time being exalted to the bench, hoped 
 to ascend it more permanently by the votes of the Holl- 
 man faction, since only Hollman votes were counted. He 
 was a young man of powerful physique with a face 
 ruggedly strong and honest. 
 
 It was such an honest and fearless face that it was 
 extremely valuable to its owner in concealing a crooked 
 ness as resourceful as that of a fox, and a moral 
 cowardice which made him a spineless tool in evil hands. 
 A shock of tumbled red hair over a fighting face added 
 to the appearance of combative strength. The Honor 
 able Asa was conventionally dressed, and his linen was 
 white, but his collar was innocent of a necktie. Callomb 
 
 303
 
 304 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 stood for a moment inside the door, and, when he spoke* 
 it was to demand crisply: 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do about it ?" 
 
 "About what, Captain?" inquired the other, mildly. 
 
 "Is it possible you haven't heard? Since yesterday 
 noon, two more murders have been added to the holo 
 caust. You represent the courts of law. I represent 
 the military arm of the State. Are we going to stand 
 by and see this go on?" 
 
 The Judge shook his head, and his visage was sternly 
 thoughtful and hypocritical. He did not mention that 
 he had just come from conference with the Hollman 
 leaders. He did not explain that the venire he had 
 drawn from the jury drum had borne a singularly solid 
 Hollman compl action. 
 
 "Until the Grand Jury acts, I don't see that we can 
 take any steps." 
 
 "And," stormed Captain Callomb, "the Grand Jury 
 will, like former Grand Juries, lie down in terror and 
 inactivity. Either there are no courageous men in your 
 county, or these panels are selected to avoid including 
 them." 
 
 Judge Smithers' face darkened. If he was a moral 
 coward, he was at least a coward crouching behind a 
 seeming of fearlessness. 
 
 "Captain," he said, coolly, but with a dangerous hint 
 of warning, "I don't see that your duties include con 
 tempt of court." 
 
 "No !" Callomb was now thoroughly angered, and his 
 voice rose. "I am sent down here subject to your orders, 
 and it seems you are also subject to orders. Here art 
 two murders in a day, capping a climax of twenty years
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 305 
 
 of bloodshed. You have information as to the arrival 
 of a man known as a desperado with a grudge against 
 the two dead men, yet you know of no steps to take. 
 Give me the word, and I'll go out and bring that man, 
 and any others you name, to your bar of justice if 
 it is a bar of justice! For God's sake, give me some 
 thing else to do than to bring in prisoners to be shot 
 down in cold blood." 
 
 The Judge sat balancing a pencil on his extended 
 forefinger as though it were a scale of justice. 
 
 "You have been heated in your language, sir," he 
 said, sternly, "but it is a heat arising from an indigna 
 tion which I share. Consequently, I pass it over. I 
 cannot instruct you to arrest Samson South before the 
 Grand Jury has accused him. The law does not con 
 template hasty or unadvised action. All men are inno 
 cent until proven guilty. If the Grand Jury wants 
 South, I'll instruct you to go and get him. Until then, 
 you may leave my part of the work to me." 
 
 His Honor rose from his chair. 
 
 "You can at least give this Grand Jury such instruc 
 tions on murder as will point out their duty. You can 
 assure them that the militia will protect them. Through 
 your prosecutor, you can bring evidence to their at 
 tention, you " 
 
 "If you will excuse me," interrupted His Honor, 1 
 drily, "I'll judge of how I am to charge my Grand 
 Jury. I have been in communication with the family of 
 Mr. Purvy, and it is not their wish at the present time 
 to bring this case before the panel." 
 
 Callomb laughed ironically. 
 
 "No, I could have told you that before you conferred
 
 306 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 with them. I could have told you that they prefer to be 
 their own courts and executioners, except where they 
 need you. They also preferred to have me get a man 
 they couldn't take themselves, and then to assassinate 
 him in my hands. Who in the hell do you work for, 
 Judge-for-the-moment Smithers? Are you holding a 
 job under the State of Kentucky, or under the Hollman 
 faction of this feud? I am instructed to take my orders 
 from you. Will you kindly tell me my master's real 
 name?" 
 
 Smithers turned pale with anger, his fighting face 
 grew as truculent as a bulldog's, while Callomb stood 
 glaring back at him like a second bulldog, but the 
 Judge knew that he was being honestly and fearlessly 
 accused. He merely pointed to the door. The Captain 
 turned on his heel, and stalked out of the place, and the 
 Judge came down the steps, and crossed the street to 
 the court-house. Five minutes later, he turned to the 
 shirt-sleeved man who was leaning on the bench, and 
 said in his most judicial voice: 
 
 "Mr. Sheriff, open court." 
 
 The next day the mail-carrier brought in a note for 
 the temporary Judge* His Honor read it at recess, 
 and hastened across to Hollman's Mammoth Depart 
 ment Store. There, in council with his masters, he asked 
 instructions. This was the note: 
 
 "THE HON. ASA SMITHEB.S. 
 
 "Sia: I arrived in this county yesterday, and am 
 prepared, if called as a witness, to give to the Grand 
 Jury full and true particulars of the murder of Jesse 
 Purvy and the killing of Aaron Hollis. I am willing to
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 307 
 
 come under escort of my own kinsmen, or of the militia 
 men, as the Court may advise. 
 
 "The requirement of any bodyguard, I deplore, but 
 in meeting my legal obligations, I do not regard it as 
 necessary or proper to walk into a trap. 
 
 "Respectfully, SAMSON SOUTH." 
 
 Smithers looked perplexedly at Judge Hollman. 
 
 "Shall I have him come ?" he inquired. 
 
 Hollman threw the letter down on his desk with a 
 burst of blasphemy: 
 
 "Have him come?" he echoed. "Hell and damnation, 
 no ! What do we want him to come here and spill the 
 milk for? When we get ready, we'll indict him. Then, 
 let your damned soldiers go after him as a criminal, 
 not a witness. After that, we'll continue this case until 
 these outsiders go away, and we can operate to suit 
 ourselves. We don't fall for Samson South's tricks. 
 No, sir ; you never got that letter ! It miscarried. Do 
 you hear? You never got it." 
 
 Smithers nodded grudging acquiescence. Most men 
 would rather be independent officials than collar-wearers. 
 
 Out on Misery Samson South had gladdened the soul 
 of his uncle with his return. The old man was mending, 
 and, for a long time, the two had talked. The failing 
 head of the clan looked vainly for signs of degeneration 
 in his nephew, and, failing to find them, was happy. 
 
 "Hev ye decided, Samson,*' he inquired, "thet ye was 
 right in yer notion 'bout goin' away?" 
 
 Samson sat reflectively for a while, then replied : 
 
 "We were both right, Uncle Spicer and both wrong. 
 This is my place, but if I'm to take up the leadership
 
 308 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 it must be in a different fashion. Changes are coming. 
 We can't any longer stand still." 
 
 Spicer South lighted his pipe. He, too, in these last 
 years, had seen in the distance the crest of the oncoming 
 wave. He, too, recognized that, from within or with 
 out, there must be a regeneration. He did not welcome 
 it, but, if it must come, he preferred that it come not 
 at the hands of conquerors, but under the leadership 
 of his own blood. 
 
 "I reckon there's right smart truth to that," he 
 acknowledged. "I've been studyin' 'bout hit consid'able 
 myself of late. Thar's been sev'ral fellers through the 
 country talkin' coal an' timber an' railroads an' sich 
 like." 
 
 Sally went to mill that Saturday, and with her rode 
 Samson. There, besides Wile McCager, he met Caleb 
 Wiley and several others. At first, they received him 
 sceptically, but they knew of the visit to Purvy's store, 
 and they were willing to admit that in part at least he 
 had erased the blot from his escutcheon. Then, too, 
 except for cropped hair and a white skin, he had come 
 back as he had gone, in homespun and hickory. There 
 was nothing highfalutin in his manners. In short, the 
 impression was good. 
 
 "I reckon now that ye're back, Samson," suggested 
 McCager, "an' seein' how yore Uncle Spicer is gettin' 
 along all right, I'll jest let the two of ye run things. 
 I've done had enough." It was a simple fashion of re 
 signing a regency, but effectual. 
 
 Old Caleb, however, still insurgent and unconvinced, 
 brought in a minority report. 
 
 "We wants fightin' men," he grumbled, with th^ senile
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 309 
 
 reiteration of his age, as he spat tobacco and beat a 
 rat-tat on the mill floor with his long hickory staff. 
 "We don't want no deserters." 
 
 "Samson ain't a deserter," defended Sally. "There 
 isn't one of you fit to tie his shoes." Sally and old 
 Spicer South alone knew of her lover's letter to the 
 Circuit Judge, and they were pledged to secrecy. 
 
 "Never mind, Sally!" It was Samson himself who 
 answered her. "I didn't come back because I care what 
 men like old Caleb think. I came back because they 
 needed me. The proof of a fighting man is his fighting, 
 I reckon. I'm willing to let 'em judge me by what I'm 
 going to do." 
 
 So, Samson slipped back, tentatively, at least, into 
 his place as clan head, though for a time he found it 
 a post without action. After the fierce outburst of 
 bloodshed, quiet had settled, and it was tacitly under 
 stood that, unless the Hollman forces had some coup 
 in mind which they were secreting, this peace would last 
 until the soldiers were withdrawn. 
 
 "When the world's a-lookin'," commented Judge Holl 
 man, "hit's a right good idea to crawl under a log an* 
 lay still." 
 
 Purvy had been too famous a feudist to pass unsung. 
 Reporters came as far as Hixon, gathered there such 
 news as the Hollmans chose to give them, and went back 
 to write lurid stories and description, from hearsay, of 
 the stockaded seat of tragedy. Nor did they overlook 
 the dramatic coincidence of the return of "Wildcat" 
 Samson South from civilization to savagery. They made 
 no accusation, but they pointed an inference and a moral 
 as they thought. It was a sermon on the triumph of
 
 310 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 heredity over the advantages of environment. Adrienne 
 read some of these saffron misrepresentations, and they 
 
 distressed her. 
 
 **#*## 
 
 Meanwhile, it came insistently to the ears of Captain 
 Callomb that some plan was on foot, the intricacies of 
 which he could not fathom, to manufacture a case 
 against a number of the Souths, quite apart from their 
 actual guilt, or likelihood of guilt. Once more, he would 
 be called upon to go out and drag in men too well 
 fortified to be taken by the posses and deputies of the 
 Hollman civil machinery. At this news, he chafed bit 
 terly, and, still rankling with a sense of shame at the 
 loss of his first prisoner, he formed a plan of his own, 
 which he revealed over his pipe to his First Lieutenant. 
 
 "There's a nigger in the woodpile, Merriwether," he 
 said. "We are simply being used to do the dirty work 
 up here, and I'm going to do a little probing of my 
 own. I guess I'll turn the company over to you for a 
 day or two." 
 
 "What idiocy are you contemplating now?" inquired 
 the second in command. 
 
 "I'm going to ride over on Misery, and hear what 
 the other side has to say. I've usually noticed that 
 one side of any story is pretty good until the other's 
 told." 
 
 "You mean you are going to go over there where the 
 Souths are intrenched, where every road is guarded?" 
 The Lieutenant spoke wrathfully and with violence. 
 "Don't be an ass, Callomb. You went over there once 
 before, and took a man away and he's dead. You 
 owe them a life, and they collect their dues. You will be
 
 supported by no warrant of arrest, and can't take a 
 sufficient detail to protect you." 
 
 "No," said Callomb, quietly; "I go on my own re 
 sponsibility and I go by myself." 
 
 "And," stormed Merriwether, "you'll never come 
 back." 
 
 "I think," smiled Callomb, "I'll get back. I owe an 
 old man over there an apology, and I want to see this 
 desperado at first hand." 
 
 "It's sheer madness. I ought to take you down to this 
 infernal crook of a Judge, and have you committed to 
 a strait-jacket." 
 
 "If," said Callomb, "you are content to play the cats- 
 paw to a bunch of assassins, I'm not. The mail-rider 
 went out this morning, and he carried a letter to old 
 Spicer South. I told him that I was coming unescorted 
 and unarmed, and that my object was to talk with him. 
 I asked him to give me a safe-conduct, at least until I 
 reached his house, and stated my case. I treated him 
 like an officer and a gentleman, and, unless I'm a 
 poor judge of men, he's going to treat me that way." 
 
 The Lieutenant sought vainly to dissuade Callomb, 
 but the next day the Captain rode forth, unaccompanied. 
 Curious stares followed him, and Judge Smithers turned 
 narrowing and unpleasant eyes after him, but at the 
 " point where the ridge separated the territory of the 
 Hollmans from that of the Souths, he saw waiting in 
 the road a mounted figure, sitting his horse straight, 
 and clad in the rough habiliments of the mountaineer. 
 
 As Callomb rode up he saluted, and the mounted 
 figure with perfect gravity and correctness returned 
 that salute as one officer to another. The Captain was
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 surprised. Where had this mountaineer with the steady 
 eyes and the clean-cut jaw learned the niceties of mili 
 tary etiquette? 
 
 "I am Captain Callomb of F Company," said the 
 officer. "I'm riding over to Spicer South's house. Did 
 you come to meet me?" 
 
 "To meet and guide you," replied a pleasant voice. 
 "My name is Samson South." 
 
 The militiaman stared. This man whose countenance 
 was calmly thoughtful scarcely comported with the 
 descriptions he had heard of the "Wildcat of the Moun 
 tains" ; the man who had come home straight as a storm- 
 petrel at the first note of tempest, and marked his 
 coming with double murder. Callomb had been too busy 
 to read newspapers of late. He had heard only that 
 Samson had "been away." 
 
 While he wondered, Samson went on : 
 
 "I'm glad you came. If it had been possible I would 
 have come to you." As he told of the letter he had 
 written the Judge, volunteering to present himself as a 
 witness, the officer's wonder grew. 
 
 "They said that you had been away," suggested Cal 
 lomb. "If it's not an impertinent question, what part 
 of the mountains have you been visiting?" 
 
 Samson laughed. 
 
 "Not any part of the mountains," he said. "I've 
 been living chiefly in New York and for a time in 
 Paris." 
 
 Callomb drew his horse to a dead halt. 
 
 "In the name of God," he incredulously asked, "what 
 manner of man are you?" 
 
 "I hope," came the instant reply, "it may be summed
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 313 
 
 up by saying that I'm exactly the opposite of the man 
 you've had described for you back there at Hixon." 
 
 "I knew it," exclaimed the soldier, "I knew that I was 
 being fed on lies! That's why I came. I wanted to 
 get the straight of it, and I felt that the solution lay 
 over here." 
 
 They rode the rest of the way in deep conversation. 
 Samson outlined his ambitions for his people. He told, 
 too, of the scene that had been enacted at Purvy's store. 
 Callomb listened with absorption, feeling that the nar 
 rative bore axiomatic truth on its face. 
 
 At last he inquired : 
 
 "Did you succeed up there as a painter?" 
 
 "That's a long road," Samson told him, "but I think 
 I had a fair start. I was getting commissions when 
 I left." 
 
 "Then, I am to understand" the officer met the 
 steady gray eyes and put the question like a cross- 
 examiner bullying a witness "I am to understand that 
 you deliberately put behind you a career to come down 
 here and herd these fence-jumping sheep?" 
 
 "Hardly that," deprecated the head of the Souths. 
 "They sent for me that's all. Of course, I had to 
 come." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because they had sent. They are my people." 
 
 The officer leaned in his saddle. 
 
 "South," he said, "would you mind shaking hands 
 with me? Some day, I want to brag about it to my 
 grandchildren."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 CALLOMB spent the night at the house of Spicer 
 South. He met and talked with a number of the 
 kinsmen, and, if he read in the eyes of some of 
 them a smoldering and unforgiving remembrance of his 
 unkept pledge, at least they repressed all expression of 
 censure. 
 
 With Spicer South and Samson, the Captain talked 
 long into the night. He made many jottings in a note 
 book. He, with Samson abetting him, pointed out to 
 the older and more stubborn man the necessity of a new 
 regime in the mountains, under which the individual 
 could walk in greater personal safety. As for the 
 younger South, the officer felt, when he rode away the 
 next morning, that he had discovered the one man who 
 combined with the courage and honesty that many of his 
 clansmen shared the mental equipment and local influ 
 ence to prove a constructive leader. 
 
 When he returned to the Bluegrass, he meant to have 
 a long and unofficial talk with his relative, the Governor. 
 
 He rode back to the ridge with a strong bodyguard. 
 Upon this Samson had insisted. He had learned of 
 Callomb's hasty and unwise denunciation of Smithers, 
 and he knew that Smithers had lost no time in relating 
 it to his masters. Callomb would be safe enough in 
 Hollman country, because the faction which had called 
 for troops could not afford to let him be killed within 
 
 314
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 315 
 
 their own precincts. But, if Callomb could be shot down 
 in his uniform, under circumstances which seemed to 
 bear the earmarks of South authorship, it would arouse 
 in the State at large a tidal wave of resentment against 
 the Souths, which they could never hope to stem. And 
 so, lest one of Hollman's hired assassins should suc 
 ceed in slipping across the ridge and waylaying him, 
 Samson conducted him to the frontier of the ridge. 
 
 On reaching Hixon, Callomb apologized to Judge 
 Smithers for his recent outburst of temper. Now that 
 he understood the hand that gentleman was playing, he 
 wished to be strategic and in a position of seeming 
 accord. He must match craft against craft. He did 
 not intimate that he knew of Samson's letter, and rather 
 encouraged the idea that he had been received on Misery 
 with surly and grudging hospitality. 
 
 Smithers, presuming that the Souths still burned with 
 anger over the shooting of Tamarack, swallowed that 
 bait, and was beguiled. 
 
 The Grand Jury trooped each day to the court-house 
 and transacted its business. The petty juries went and 
 came, occupied with several minor homicide cases. The 
 Captain, from a chair, which Judge Smithers had or 
 dered placed beside him on the bench, was looking on and 
 intently studying. One morning, Smithers confided to 
 him that in a day or two more the Grand Jury would 
 bring in a true bill against Samson South, charging 
 him with murder. The officer did not show surprise. 
 He merely nodded. 
 
 "I suppose I'll be called on to go and get him?" 
 "I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to do that." 
 "What caused the change of heart? I thought
 
 Purvy's people didn't want it done." It was Callomb's 
 first allusion, except for his apology, to their former 
 altercation. 
 
 For an instant only, Smithers was a little confused. 
 
 "To be quite frank with you, Callomb," he said, "I 
 got to thinking over the matter in the light of your 
 own viewpoint, and, after due deliberation, I came to 
 see that to the State at large it might bear the same 
 appearance. So, I had the Grand Jury take the matter 
 up. We must stamp out such lawlessness as Samson 
 South stands for. He is the more dangerous because 
 he has brains." 
 
 Callomb nodded, but, at noon, he slipped out on a 
 pretense of sight-seeing, and rode by a somewhat cir 
 cuitous route to the ridge. At nightfall, he came to 
 the house of the clan head. 
 
 "South," he said to Samson, when he had led him 
 aside, "they didn't want to hear what you had to tell 
 the Grand Jury, but they are going ahead to indict you 
 on manufactured evidence." 
 
 Samson was for a moment thoughtful, then he nodded. 
 
 "That's about what I was expecting." 
 
 "Now," went on Callomb, "we understand each other. 
 We are working for the same end, and, by God! I've 
 had one experience in making arrests at the order of 
 that Court. I don't want it to happen again." 
 
 "I suppose," said Samson, "you know that while I 
 am entirely willing to face any fair court of justice, 
 I don't propose to walk into a packed jury, whose only 
 object is to get me where I can be made way with. 
 Callomb, I hope we won't have to fight each other. 
 iWhat do you suggest?"
 
 *'If the Court orders the militia to make an arrest^ 
 the militia has no option. In the long run, resistance 
 would only alienate the sympathy of the world at large. 
 There is just one thing to be done, South. It's a thing 
 I don't like to suggest, and a thing which, if we were 
 not fighting the devil with fire, it would be traitorous for 
 me to suggest." He paused, then added emphatically: 
 "When my detail arrives here, which will probably be m 
 three or four days, you must not be here. You must not 
 be in any place where we can find you." 
 
 For a little while, Samson looked at the other man 
 With a slow smile of amusement, but soon it died, and 
 his face grew hard and determined. 
 
 "I'm obliged to you, Callomb," he said, seriously. 
 "It was more than I had the right to expect this 
 warning. I understand the cost of giving it. But it's 
 no use. I can't cut and run. No, by God, you wouldn't 
 do it ! You can't ask me to do it." 
 
 "By God, you can and will!" Callomb spoke with 
 determination. "This isn't a time for quibbling. 
 You've got work to do. We both have work to do. 
 We can't stand on a matter of vainglorious pride, and 
 let big issues of humanity go to pot. We haven't the 
 right to spend men's lives in fighting each other, when 
 we are the only two men in this entanglement who are 
 in perfect accord and honest." 
 
 The mountaineer spent some minutes in silent self- 
 debate. The working of his face under the play of 
 alternating doubt, resolution, hatred and insurgency, 
 told the militiaman what a struggle was progressing. 
 At last, Samson's eyes cleared with an expression of 
 discovered solution.
 
 318 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "All right, Callomb," he said, briefly, "you won't fine! 
 me!" He smiled, as he added: "Make as thorough a 
 search as your duty demands. It needn't be perfunc 
 tory or superficial. Every South cabin will stand open 
 to you. I shall be extremely busy, to ends which you 
 will approve. I can't tell you what I shall be doing, 
 because to do that, I should have to tell where I m^an 
 to be." 
 
 In two days, the Grand Jury, with much secrecy, 
 returned a true bill, and a day later a considerable 
 detachment of infantry started on a dusty hike up 
 Misery. Furtive and inscrutable Hollman eyes along 
 the way watched them from cabin-doors, and counted 
 them. They meant also to count them coming back, 
 
 and they did not expect the totals to tally. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Back of an iron spiked fence, and a dusty sunburned 
 lawn, the barrack-like fa9ades of the old Administra 
 tion Building and Kentucky State Capitol frowned on 
 the street and railroad track. About it, on two sides 
 of the Kentucky River, sprawled the town of Frank 
 fort ; sleepy,, more or less disheveled at the center, and 
 stretching to shaded environs of Colonial houses set in 
 lawns of rich bluegrass, amid the shade of forest trees. 
 Circling the town in an embrace of quiet beauty rose 
 the Kentucky River hills. 
 
 Turning in to the gate of the State House enclosure, 
 a man, who seemed to be an Easterner by the cut of his 
 clothes, walked slowly up the brick walk, and passed 
 around the fountain at the front of the Capitol. He 
 scwled to himself as his wandering eyes caught the 
 distant walls and roofs of the State Prison on the hill-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 319 
 
 side. His steps carried him direct to the main entrance 
 of the Administration Building, and, having paused a 
 moment in the rotunda, he entered the Secretary's office 
 of the Executive suite, and asked for an interview with 
 the Governor. The Secretary, whose duties were in part 
 playing Cerberus at that threshold, made his customary 
 swift, though unobtrusive, survey of the applicant for 
 audience, and saw nothing to excite suspicion. 
 
 "Have you an appointment ?" he asked. 
 
 The visitor shook his head. Scribbling a brief note 
 on a slip of paper, he enclosed it in an envelope and 
 handed it to his questioner. 
 
 "You must pardon my seeming mysteriousness," he 
 said, "but, if you will let me send in that note, I think 
 the Governor will see me." 
 
 Once more the Secretary studied his man with a 
 slightly puzzled air, then nodded and went through the 
 door that gave admission to the Executive's office.. 
 
 His Excellency opened the envelope, and his face 
 showed an expression of surprise. He raised his brows 
 questioningly. 
 
 "Rough-looking sort?" he inquired. "Mountaineer?" 
 
 "No, sir. New Yorker would be my guess. Is there 
 anything suspicious r" 
 
 "I guess not." The Governor laughed. "Rather 
 extraordinary note, but send him- in." 
 
 Through his eastern window, the Governor gazed off 
 across the hills of South Frankfort, to the ribbon of 
 river that came down from the troublesome hills. . Then, 
 hearing a movement at his back, he turned, and his 
 eyes took in a well-dressed figure with confidence-in 
 spiring features.
 
 320 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 He picked up the slip from his desk, and, for 
 a moment, stood comparing the name and the message 
 with the man who had sent them in. There seemed to 
 be in his mind some irreconcilable contradiction between 
 the two. With a slightly frowning seriousness, the 
 Executive suggested: 
 
 "This note says that you are Samson South, and that 
 you want to see me with reference to a pardon. Whose 
 pardon is it, Mr. South?" 
 
 "My own, sir." 
 
 The Governor raised his brows, slightly. 
 
 "Your pardon for what? The newspapers do not 
 even report that you have yet been indicted." He 
 shaded the word "yet" with a slight emphasis. 
 
 "I think I have been indicted within the past day 
 or two. I'm not sure myself." 
 
 The Governor continued to stare. The impression 
 he had formed of the "Wildcat" from press dispatches 
 was warring with the pleasing personal presence of this 
 visitor. Then, his forehead wrinkled under his black 
 hair, and his lips drew themselves sternly. 
 
 "You have come to me too soon, sir," he said 
 curtly. "The pardoning power is a thing to be most 
 cautiously used at all times, and certainly never until 
 the courts have acted. A case not yet adjudicated can 
 not address itself to executive clemency." 
 
 Samson nodded. 
 
 "Quite true," he admitted. "If I announced that I 
 had come on the matter of a pardon, it was largely that 
 I had to state some business and that seemed the briefest 
 way of putting it." 
 
 "Then, there is something else?"
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 321 
 
 "Yes. If it were only a plea for clemency, I should 
 expect the matter to be chiefly important to myself. In 
 point of fact, I hope to make it equally interesting 
 to you. Whether you give me a pardon in a fashion 
 which violates all precedent, or whether I surrender 
 myself, and go back to a trial which will be merely 
 a form of assassination, rests entirely with you, sir. 
 You will not find me insistent." 
 
 "If," said the Governor, with a trace of warning 
 in his voice, "your preamble is simply a device to 
 pique my interest with its unheard-of novelty, I may 
 as well confess that so far it has succeeded." 
 
 "In that case, sir," responded Samson, gravely, "I 
 have scored a point. If, when I am through, you find 
 that I have been employing a subterfuge, I fancy a 
 touch of that bell under your finger will give you the 
 means of summoning an officer. I am ready to turn 
 myself over." 
 
 Then, Samson launched into the story of his desires 
 and the details of conditions which outside influences 
 had been powerless to remedy because they were out 
 side influences. Some man of sufficient vigor and com 
 prehension, acting from the center of disturbance, 
 must be armed with the power to undertake the house- 
 cleaning, and for a while must do work that would not 
 be pretty. As far as he was personally concerned, a 
 pardon after trial would be a matter of purely aca 
 demic interest. He could not expect to survive a trial. 
 He was at present able to hold the Souths in leash. 
 If the Governor was not of that mind, he was now 
 ready to surrender himself, and permit matters to take 
 their course.
 
 322 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 "And now, Mr. South?" suggested the Governor, 
 after a half-hour of absorbed listening. "There is 
 one point you have overlooked. Since in the end the 
 whole thing comes back to the exercise of the pardon 
 ing power, it is after all the crux of the situation. 
 You may be able to render such services as those for 
 which you volunteer. Let us for the moment assume 
 that to be true. You have not yet told me a very im 
 portant thing. Did you or did you not kill Purvy and 
 Hollis?" 
 
 "I killed Hollis," said Samson, as though he were 
 answering a question as to the time of day, "and I 
 did not kill Purvy." 
 
 "Kindly," suggested the Governor, "give me the 
 full particulars of that affair." 
 
 The two were still closeted, when a second visitor 
 called, and was told that his Excellency could not be 
 disturbed. The second visitor, however, was so insistent 
 that the secretary finally consented to take in the card. 
 After a glance at it, his chief ordered admission. 
 
 The door opened, and Captain Callomb entered. 
 
 He was now in civilian clothes, with portentous 
 news written on his face. He paused in annoyance at 
 the sight of a second figure standing with back turned 
 at the window. Then Samson wheeled, and the two 
 men recognized each other. They had met before only 
 when one was in olive drab; the other in jeans and 
 butternut. At recognition, Callomb's face fell, and 
 grew troubled. 
 
 "You here, South!" he exclaimed. "I thought you 
 promised me that I shouldn't find you. God knows I 
 didn't want to meet you."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 323 
 
 "Nor I you," Samson spoke slowly. "I supposed 
 you'd be raking the hills." 
 
 Neither of them was for the moment paying the least 
 attention to the Governor, who stood quietly looking on. 
 
 "I sent Merriwether out there," explained Callomb, 
 impatiently. "I wanted to come here before it was too 
 late. God knows, South, I wouldn't have had this 
 meeting occur for anything under heaven. It leaves 
 me no choice. You are indicted on two counts, each 
 charging you with murder." The officer took a step 
 toward the center of the room. His face was weary, 
 and his eyes wore the deep disgust and fatigue that 
 come from the necessity of performing a hard duty. 
 
 "You are under arrest," he added quietly, but his 
 composure broke as he stormed. "Now, by God, I've 
 got to take you back and let them murder you, and 
 you're the one man who might have been useful to the 
 State."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE Governor had been more influenced by watch 
 ing the two as they talked than by what he 
 had heard. 
 
 "It seems to me, gentlemen," he suggested quietly, 
 "that you are both overlooking my presence." He 
 turned to Callomb. 
 
 "Your coming, Sid, unless it was prearranged be 
 tween the two of you (which, since I know you, I know 
 was not the case) has shed more light on this matter 
 than the testimony of a dozen witnesses. After all, 
 I'm still the Governor." 
 
 The militiaman seemed to have forgotten the existence 
 of his distinguished kinsman, and, at the voice, his eyes 
 came away from the face of the man he had not wanted 
 to capture, and he shook his head. 
 
 "You are merely the head of the executive branch," 
 he said. "You are as helpless here as I am. Neither 
 of us can interfere with the judicial gentry, though 
 we may know that they stink to high heaven with the 
 stench of blood. After a conviction, you can pardon, 
 but a pardon won't help the dead. I don't see that you 
 can do much of anything, Crit." 
 
 "I don't know yet what I can do, but I can tell you 
 I'm going to do something," said the Governor. "You 
 can just begin watching me. In the meantime, I believe 
 I am Commander-in-Chief of the State troops." 
 
 324.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 325 
 
 "And I am Captain of F Company, but all I can 
 do is to obey the orders of a bunch of Borgias." 
 
 "As your superior officer," smiled the Governor, "I 
 can give you orders. I'm going to give you one now. 
 Mr. South has applied to me for a pardon in advance 
 of trial. Technically, I have the power to grant that 
 request. Morally, I doubt my right. Certainly, I shall 
 not do it without a very thorough sifting of evidence 
 and grave consideration of the necessities of the case 
 as well as the danger of the precedent. However, I 
 am considering it, and for the present you will parole 
 your prisoner in my custody. Mr. South, you will not 
 leave Frankfort without my permission. You will take 
 every precaution to conceal your actual identity. You 
 will treat as utterly confidential all that has transpired 
 here and, above all, you will not let newspaper men 
 discover you. Those are my orders. Report here to 
 morrow afternoon, and remember that you are my 
 prisoner." 
 
 Samson bowed, and left the two cousins together, 
 where shortly they were joined by the Attorney Gen 
 eral. That evening, the three dined at the executive 
 mansion, and sat until midnight in the Governor's pri 
 vate office, still deep in discussion. During the long 
 session, Callomb opened the bulky volume of the Ken 
 tucky Statutes, and laid his finger on Section 2673. 
 
 "There's the rub," he protested, reading aloud : 'The 
 military shall be at all times, and in all cases, in strict 
 subordination to the civil power.' ' 
 
 The Governor glanced down to the next paragraph, 
 and read in part : " 'The Governor may direct the com 
 manding officer of the military force to report to any
 
 326 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 one of the following-named officers of the district in 
 which the said force is employed: Mayor of a city, 
 sheriff, jailer or marshal.' ' 
 
 "Which list," stormed Callomb, "is the honor roll of 
 the assassins." 
 
 "At all events" the Governor had derived from Cal 
 lomb much information as to Samson South which the 
 mountaineer himself had modestly withheld "South 
 gets his pardon. That is only a step. I wish I could 
 make him satrap over his province, and provide him 
 with troops to rule it. Unfortunately, our form of 
 government has its drawbacks." 
 
 "It might be possible," ventured the Attorney Gen 
 eral, "to impeach the Sheriff, and appoint this or some 
 other suitable man to fill the vacancy until the next 
 election." 
 
 "The Legislature doesn't meet until next winter," 
 objected Callomb. "There is one chance. The Sheriff 
 down there is a sick man. Let us hope he may die." 
 
 One day, the Hixon conclave met in the room over 
 Hollman's Mammoth Department Store, and with much 
 profanity read a communication from Frankfort, an 
 nouncing the pardon of Samson South. In that epi 
 sode, they foresaw the beginning of the end for their 
 dynasty. The outside world was looking on, and their 
 regime could not survive the spotlight of law-loving 
 scrutiny. 
 
 "The fust thing," declared Judge Hollman, curtly, 
 "is to get rid of these damned soldiers. We'll attend 
 to our own business later, and we don't want them 
 watchin' us. Just now, we want to lie mighty quiet for 
 a spell teetotally quiet until I pass the word."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 327 
 
 Samson had won back the confidence of his tribe, and 
 enlisted the faith of the State administration. He 
 had been authorized to organize a local militia com 
 pany, and to drill them, provided he could stand an 
 swerable for their conduct. The younger Souths took 
 gleefully to that idea. The mountain boy makes a good 
 soldier, once he has grasped the idea of discipline. For 
 ten weeks, they drilled daily in squads and weekly in 
 platoons. Then, the fortuitous came to pass. Sheriff 
 Forbin died, leaving behind him an unexpired term of 
 two years, and Samson was summoned hastily to Frank 
 fort. He returned, bearing his commission as High 
 Sheriff, though, when that news reached Hixon, there 
 were few men who envied him his post, and none who 
 cared to bet that he would live to take his oath of office. 
 
 That August court day was a memorable one in 
 Hixon. Samson South was coming to town to take up 
 his duties. Every one recognized it as the day of 
 final issue, and one that could hardly pass without 
 bloodshed. The Hollmans, standing in their last 
 trench, saw only the blunt question of Hollman-South 
 supremacy. For years, the feud had flared and slept 
 and broken again into eruption, but never before had 
 a South sought to throw his outposts of power across 
 the waters of Crippleshin, and into the county seat. 
 That the present South came bearing commission as 
 an officer of the law only made his effrontery the more 
 unendurable. 
 
 Samson had not called for outside troops. The drill 
 ing and disciplining of his own company had progressed 
 in silence along the waters of Misery. They were a 
 slouching, unmilitary band of uniformed vagabonds,
 
 328 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 but they were longing to fight, and Callomb had been 
 with them, tirelessly whipping them into rudimentary 
 shape. After all, they were as much partisans as they 
 had been before they were issued State rifles. The 
 battle, if it came, would be as factional as the fight 
 of twenty-five years ago, when the Hollmans held the 
 store and the Souths the court-house. But back of 
 all that lay one essential difference, and it was this 
 difference that had urged the Governor to stretch the 
 forms of law and put such dangerous power into the 
 hands of one man. That difference was the man him 
 self. He was to take drastic steps, but he was to take 
 them under the forms of law, and the State Executive 
 believed that, having gone through worse to better, he 
 would maintain the improved condition. 
 
 Early that morning, men began to assemble along 
 the streets of Hixon; and to congregate into sullen 
 clumps with set faces that denoted a grim, unsmiling 
 determination. Not only the Hollmans from the town 
 and immediate neighborhood were there, but their shag 
 gier, fiercer brethren from remote creeks and coves, who 
 came only at urgent call, and did not come without 
 intent of vindicating their presence. Old Jake Holl- 
 man, from "over yon" on the headwaters of Dryhole 
 Creek, brought his son and fourteen-year-old grandson, 
 and all of them carried Winchesters. Long before the 
 hour for the court-house bell to sound the call which 
 would bring matters to a crisis, women disappeared 
 from the streets, and front shutters and doors closed 
 themselves. At last, the Souths began to ride in by 
 half-dozens, and to hitch their horses at the racks. 
 They, also, fell into groups well apart. The two fac-
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 329 
 
 tions eyed each other somberly, sometimes nodding or 
 exchanging greetings, for the time had not yet come to 
 fight. Slowly, however, the Hollmans began centering 
 about the court-house. They swarmed in the yard, and 
 entered the empty jail, and overran the halls and offices 
 of the building itself. They took their places massed 
 at the windows. The Souths, now coming in a solid 
 stream, flowed with equal unanimity to McEwer's Hotel, 
 near the square, and disappeared inside. Besides their 
 rifles, they carried saddlebags, but not one of the uni 
 forms which some of these bags contained, nor one of 
 the cartridge belts, had yet been exposed to view. 
 
 Stores opened, but only for a desultory pretense of 
 business. Horsemen led their mounts away from the 
 more public racks, and tethered them to back fences and 
 willow branches in the shelter of the river banks, where 
 stray bullets would not find them. 
 
 The dawn that morning had still been gray when 
 Samson South and Captain Callomb had passed the 
 Miller cabin. Callomb had ridden slowly on around 
 the turn of the road, and waited a quarter of a mile 
 away. He was to command the militia that day, if 
 the High Sheriff should call upon him. Samson went 
 in and knocked, and instantly to the cabin door came 
 Sally's slender, fluttering figure. She put both arms 
 about him, and her eyes, as she looked into his face, 
 were terrified, but tearless. 
 
 "I'm frightened, Samson," she whispered. "God 
 knows I'm going to be praying all this day." 
 
 "Sally," he said, softly, "I'm coming back to you 
 but, if I don't" he held her very close "Uncle Spicer 
 has my will. The farm is full of coal, and days are
 
 330 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 coming when roads will take it out, and every ridge 
 will glow with coke furnaces. That farm will make 
 you rich, if we win to-day's fight." 
 
 "Don't!" she cried, with a sudden gasp. "Don't 
 talk like that." 
 
 "I must," he said, gently. "I want you to make 
 me a promise, Sally." 
 
 "It's made," she declared. 
 
 "If, by any chance I should not come back, I want you 
 to hold Uncle Spicer and old Wile McCager to their 
 pledge. They must not privately avenge me. They 
 must still stand for the law. I want you, and this is 
 most important of all, to leave these mountains " 
 
 Her hands tightened on his shoulders. 
 
 "Not that, Samson," she pleaded; "not these moun 
 tains where we've been together." 
 
 "You promised. I want you to go to the Lescotts 
 in New York. In a year, you can come back if you 
 want to ; but you must promise that." 
 
 "I promise," she reluctantly yielded. 
 
 It was half-past nine o'clock when Samson South 
 and Sidney Callomb rode side by side into Hixon from 
 the east. A dozen of the older Souths, who had not 
 become soldiers, met them there, and, with no word, 
 separated to close about them in a circle of protection. 
 As Callomb's eyes swept the almost deserted streets, sc 
 silent that the strident switching of a freight train 
 could be heard down at the edge of town, he shook his 
 head. As he met the sullen glances of the gathering 
 in the court-house yard, he turned to Samson. 
 
 "They'll fight," he said, briefly. 
 
 Samson nodded.
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 331 
 
 "I don't understand the method," demurred the 
 officer, with perplexity. "Why don't they shoot you 
 at once. What are they waiting for?" 
 
 "They want to see," Samson assured him, "what 
 tack I mean to take. They want to let the thing play 
 itself out. They're inquisitive and they're cautious, 
 because now they are bucking the State and the world." 
 
 Samson with his escort rode up to the court-house 
 door, and dismounted. He was for the moment un 
 armed, and his men walked on each side of him, while the 
 onlooking Hollmans stood back in surly silence to let 
 him pass. In the office of the County Judge, Samson 
 said briefly : 
 
 "I want to get my deputies sworn in." 
 
 "We've got plenty deputy sheriffs," was the quietly 
 insolent rejoinder. 
 
 "Not now we haven't any." Samson's voice was 
 sharply incisive. "I'll name my own assistants." 
 
 "What's the matter with these boys?" The County 
 Judge waved his hand toward two hold-over deputies. 
 
 "They're fired." 
 
 The County Judge laughed. 
 
 "Well, I reckon I can't attend to that right now." 
 
 "Then, you refuse?" 
 
 "Mebby you might call it that." 
 
 Samson leaned on the Judge's table, and rapped 
 sharply with his knuckles. His handful of men stood 
 close, and Callomb caught his breath, in the heavy air 
 of storm-freighted suspense. The Hollman parti 
 sans filled the room, and others were crowding to the 
 doors. 
 
 "I'm High Sheriff of this County now," said Samson,
 
 332 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 sharply. "You are County Judge. Do we cooperate 
 or fight?" 
 
 "I reckon," drawled the other, "that's a matter we'll 
 work out as we goes along. Depends on how obedient 
 ye air." 
 
 "I'm responsible for the peace and quiet of this 
 County," continued Samson. "We're going to have 
 peace and quiet." 
 
 The Judge looked about him. The indications did 
 not appear to him indicative of peace and quiet. 
 
 "Air we?" he inquired. 
 
 "I'm coming back here in a half-hour," said the new 
 Sheriff. "This is an unlawful and armed assembly. 
 When I get back, I want to find the court-house occu 
 pied only by unarmed citizens who have business 
 here." 
 
 "When ye comes back," suggested the County Judge, 
 "I'd advise that ye resigns yore job. A half-hour is 
 about es long as ye ought ter try ter hold hit." 
 
 Samson turned and walked through the scowling 
 crowd to the court-house steps. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, in a clear, far-carrying voice, 
 "there is no need of an armed congregation at this 
 court-house. I call on you in the name of the law to 
 lay aside your arms or scatter." 
 
 There was murmur which for an instant threatened 
 to become a roar, but trailed into a chorus of derisive 
 laughter. 
 
 Samson went to the hotel, accompanied by Callomb. 
 A half -hour later, the two were back at the court-house, 
 with a half-dozen companions. The yard was empty. 
 Samson carried his father's rifle. In that half-hour
 
 a telegram, prepared in advance, had flashed to 
 Frankfort. 
 
 "Mob holds court-house need troops." 
 
 And a reply had flashed back : 
 
 "Use local company Callomb commanding." So 
 that form of law was met. 
 
 The court-house doors were closed, and its windows 
 barricaded. The place was no longer a judicial build 
 ing. It was a fortress. As Samson's party paused at 
 the gate, a warning voice called: 
 
 "Don't come no nigher !" 
 
 The body-guard began dropping back to shelter. 
 
 "I demand admission to the court-house to make 
 arrests," shouted the new Sheriff. In answer, a spat 
 tering of rifle reports came from the jail windows. Two 
 of the Souths fell. At a nod from Samson, Callomb left 
 on a run for the hotel. The Sheriff himself took his 
 position in a small store across the street, which he 
 reached unhurt under a desultory fire. 
 
 Then, again, silence settled on the town, to remain for 
 five minutes unbroken. The sun glared mercilessly on 
 clay streets, now as empty as a cemetery. A single 
 horse incautiously hitched at the side of the court 
 house switched its tail against the assaults of the, flies. 
 Otherwise, there was no outward sign of life. Then, 
 Callomb's newly organized force of ragamuffin soldiers 
 clattered down the street at double time. For a moment 
 or two after they came into sight, only the massed uni 
 forms caught the eyes of the intrenched Hollmans, and 
 an alarmed murmur broke from the court-house. They 
 had seen no troops detrain, or pitch camp. These men 
 had sprung from the earth as startlingly as Jason's
 
 334, THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 crop of dragon's teeth. But, when the command rounded 
 the shoulder of a protecting wall to await further 
 orders, the ragged stride of their marching, and the 
 all-too-obvious bearing of the mountaineer proclaimed 
 them native amateurs. The murmur turned to a howl of 
 derision and challenge. They were nothing more nor less 
 than South, masquerading in the uniforms of soldiers. 
 
 "What orders?" inquired Callomb briefly, joining 
 Samson in the store. 
 
 "Demand surrender once more then take the court 
 house and jail," was the short reply. 
 
 There was little conversation in the ranks of the new 
 company, but their faces grew black as they listened to 
 the jeers and insults across the way, and they greedily 
 fingered their freshly issued rifles. They would be ready 
 when the command of execution came. Callomb himself 
 went forward with the flag of truce. He shouted his 
 message, and a bearded man came to the court-house 
 door. 
 
 "Tell 'em," he said without redundancy, "thet we're 
 all here. Come an' git us." 
 
 The officer went back, and distributed his forces under 
 such cover as offered itself, about the four walls. Then, 
 a volley was fired over the roof, and instantly the two 
 buildings in the public square awoke to a volcanic 
 response of rifle fire. 
 
 All day, the duel between the streets and county 
 buildings went on with desultory intervals of quiet and 
 wild outbursts of musketry. The troops were firing as 
 sharpshooters, and the court-house, too, had its sharp 
 shooters. When a head showed itself at a barricaded 
 window, a report from the outside greeted it. Samson
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 335 
 
 was everywhere, his rifle smoking and hot-barreled. His 
 life seemed protected by a talisman. Yet, most of the 
 firing, after the first hour, was from within. The troops 
 were, except for occasional pot shots, holding their 
 fire. There was neither food nor water inside the build 
 ing, and at last night closed and the cordon drew tighter 
 to prevent escape. The Hollmans, like rats in a trap, 
 grimly held on, realizing that it was to be a siege. On 
 the following morning, a detachment of F Company 
 arrived, dragging two gatling guns. The Hollmans 
 saw them detraining, from their lookout in the court 
 house cupola, and, realizing that the end had come, 
 resolved upon a desperate sortie. Simultaneously, every 
 door and lower window of the court-house burst open 
 to discharge a frenzied rush of men, firing as they came. 
 They meant to eat their way out and leave as many 
 hostile dead as possible in their wake. Their one chance 
 now was to scatter before the machine-guns came into 
 action. They came like a flood of human lava, and their 
 guns were never silent, as they bore down on the barri 
 cades, where the single outnumbered company seemed 
 insufficient to hold them. But the new militiamen, look 
 ing for reassurance not so much to Callomb as to the 
 granite-like face of Samson South, rallied, and rose 
 with a yell to meet them on bayonet and smoking muz 
 zle. The rush wavered, fell back, desperately rallied, 
 then broke in scattered remnants for the shelter of the 
 building. 
 
 Old Jake Hollman fell near the door, and his grand 
 son, rushing out, picked up his fallen rifle, and sent fare 
 well defiance from it, as he, too, threw up both arms 
 and dropped.
 
 336 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Then, a white flag wavered at a window, and, as the 
 newly arrived troops halted in the street, the noise died 
 suddenly to quiet. Samson went out to meet a man who 
 opened the door, and said shortly : 
 
 "We lays down." 
 
 Judge Hollman, who had not participated, turned 
 from the slit in his shuttered window, through which he 
 had since the beginning been watching the conflict. 
 
 "That ends it!" he said, with a despairing shrug of 
 his shoulders. He picked up a magazine pistol which 
 lay on his table, and, carefully counting down his chest 
 to the fifth rib, placed the muzzle against his breast.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 BEFORE the mountain roads were mired with the 
 coming of the rains, and while the air held its 
 sparkle of autumnal zestfulness, Samson South 
 wrote to Wilfred Horton that, if he still meant to come 
 to the hills for his inspection of coal and timber, the 
 time was ripe. Soon, men would appear bearing transit 
 and chain, drawing a line which a railroad was to follow 
 to Misery and across it to the heart of untouched forests 
 and coal-fields. With that wave of innovation would 
 come the speculators. Besides, Samson's fingers were 
 itching to be out in the hills with a palette and a sheaf 
 of brushes in the society of George Lescott. 
 
 For a while after the battle at Hixon, the county had 
 lain in a torpid paralysis of dread. Many illiterate 
 feudists on each side remembered the directing and 
 exposed figure of Samson South seen through eddies 
 of gun smoke, and believed him immune from death. 
 With Purvy dead and Hollman the victim of his own 
 hand, the backbone of the murder syndicate was broken. 
 Its heart had ceased to beat. Those Hollman survivors 
 who bore the potentialities for leadership had not only 
 signed pledges of peace, but were afraid to break them ; 
 and the triumphant Souths, instead of vaunting their 
 victory, had subscribed to the doctrine of order, and 
 declared the war over. Souths who broke the law were 
 as speedily arrested as Hollmans. Their boys were 
 
 337
 
 338 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 drilling as militiamen, and wonder of wonders! in 
 viting the sons of the enemy to join them. Of course, 
 these things changed gradually, but the beginnings of 
 them were most noticeable in the first few months, just 
 as a newly painted and renovated house is more con 
 spicuous than one that has been long respectable. 
 
 Hollman's Mammoth Department Store passed into 
 new hands, and trafficked only in merchandise, and the 
 town was open to the men and women of Misery as well 
 as those of Crippleshin. 
 
 These things Samson had explained in his letters to 
 the Lescotts and Horton. Men from down below could 
 still find trouble in the wink of an eye, by seeking it, 
 for under all transformation the nature of the indi 
 vidual remained much the same ; but, without seeking to 
 give offense, they could ride as securely through the 
 hills as through the streets of a policed city and meet 
 a readier hospitality. 
 
 And, when these things were discussed and the two 
 men prepared to cross the Mason-and-Dixon line and 
 visit the Cumberlands, Adrienne promptly and definitely 
 announced that she would accompany her brother. No 
 argument was effective to dissuade her, and after all 
 Lescott, who had been there, saw no good reason why 
 she should not go with him. He had brought Samson 
 North. He had made a hazardous experiment which 
 subsequent events had more than vindicated, and yet, in 
 one respect, he feared that there had been failure. He 
 had promised Sally that her lover would return to her 
 with undeflected loyalty. Had he done so? Lescott 
 had been glad that his sister should have undertaken 
 the part of Samson's molding, which only a woman's
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 339 
 
 hand could accomplish, and he had been glad of the 
 strong friendship that had grown between them. But, 
 if that friendship had come to mean something more 
 sentimental, his experiment had been successful at the 
 cost of unsuccess. He had said little, but watched 
 much, and he had known that, after receiving a certain 
 letter from Samson South, his sister had seemed 
 strangely quiet and distressed. These four young per 
 sons had snarled their lives in perplexity. They could 
 definitely find themselves and permanently adjust them 
 selves, only by meeting on common ground. Perhaps, 
 Samson had shone in an exaggerated high-light of 
 fascination by the strong contrast into which New 
 York had thrown him. Wilfred Horton had the right 
 to be seen also in contrast with mountain life, and 
 then only could the girl decide for all time and irrevo 
 cably. The painter learns something of confused 
 values. 
 
 Horton himself had seen small reason for a growth 
 of hope in these months, but he, like Lescott, felt that 
 the matter must come to issue, and he was not of that 
 type which shrinks from putting to the touch a question 
 of vital consequence. He knew that her happiness as 
 well as his own was in the balance. He was not embit 
 tered or deluded, as a narrower man might have been, 
 into the fallacy that her treatment of him denoted 
 fickleness. Adrienne was merely running the boundary 
 line that separates deep friendship from love, a 
 boundary which is often confusing. When she had 
 finally staked out the disputed frontier, it would never 
 again be questioned. But on which side he would find 
 himself, he did not know.
 
 At Hixon, they found that deceptive air of serenity 
 which made the history of less than three months ago 
 seem paradoxical and fantastically unreal. Only about 
 the court-house square where numerous small holes in 
 frame walls told of fusillades, and in the interior of the 
 building itself where the woodwork was scarred and 
 torn, and the plaster freshly patched, did they find 
 grimly reminiscent evidence. 
 
 Samson had not met them at the town, because he 
 wished their first impressions of his people to reach them 
 uninfluenced by his escort. It was a form of the moun 
 tain pride an honest resolve to soften nothing, and 
 make no apologies. But they found arrangements made 
 for horses and saddlebags, and the girl discovered that 
 for her had been provided a mount as evenly gaited as 
 any in her own stables. 
 
 When she and her two companions came out to the 
 hotel porch to start, they found a guide waiting, who 
 said he was instructed to take them as far as the ridge, 
 where the Sheriff himself would be waiting, and the 
 cavalcade struck into the hills. Men at whose houses 
 they paused to ask a dipper of water, or to make an 
 inquiry, gravely advised that they "had better light, 
 and stay all night." In the coloring forests, squirrels 
 scampered and scurried out of sight, and here and there 
 on the tall slopes they saw shy-looking children regard 
 ing them with inquisitive eyes. 
 
 The guide led them silently, gazing in frank amaze 
 ment, though deferential politeness, at this girl in cord 
 uroys, who rode cross-saddle, and rode so well. Yet, 
 it was evident that he would have preferred talking had 
 not diffidence restrained him. He was a young man and
 
 rather handsome in a shaggy, unkempt way. Across 
 one cheek ran a long scar still red, and the girl, looking 
 into his clear, intelligent eyes, wondered what that scar 
 stood for. Adrienne had the power of melting masculine 
 diffidence, and her smile as she rode at his side, and 
 asked, "What is your name?" brought an answering 
 smile to his grim lips. 
 
 "Joe Hollman, ma'am," he answered; and the girl 
 gave an involuntary start. The two men who caught 
 the name closed up the gap between the horses, with sud 
 denly piqued interest. 
 
 "Hollman !" exclaimed the girl. "Then, you " She 
 stopped and flushed. "I beg your pardon," she said, 
 quickly. 
 
 "That's all right," reassured the man. "I know what 
 ye're a-thinkin', but I hain't takin' no offense. The 
 High Sheriff sent me over. I'm one of his deputies." 
 
 "Were you" she paused, and added rather timidly 
 "were you in the court-house ?" 
 
 He nodded, and with a brown forefinger traced the 
 scar on his cheek. 
 
 "Samson South done that thar with his rifle-gun," he 
 enlightened. "He's a funny sort of feller, is Samson 
 South." 
 
 "How?" she asked. 
 
 "Wall, he licked us, an' he licked us so plumb damn 
 hard we was skeered ter fight ag'in, an' then, 'stid of 
 tramplin' on us, he turned right 'round, an' made me a 
 deputy. My brother's a corporal in this hyar new 
 fangled milishy. I reckon this time the peace is goin' 
 ter last. Hit's a mighty funny way ter act, but 'pears 
 like it works all right."
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Then, at the ridge, the girl's heart gave a sudden 
 bound, for there at the highest point, where the road 
 went up and dipped again, waited the mounted figure of 
 Samson South, and, as they came into sight, he waved 
 his felt hat, and rode down to meet them. 
 
 "Greetings !" he shtfuted. Then, as he leaned over 
 and took Adrienne's hand, he added: "The Goops send 
 you their welcome." His smile was unchanged, but the 
 girl noted that his hair had again grown long. 
 
 Finally, as the sun was setting, they reached a road 
 side cabin, and the mountaineer said briefly to the other 
 men: 
 
 "You fellows ride on. I want Drennie to stop with 
 me a moment. We'll join you later." 
 
 Lescott nodded. He remembered the cabin of the 
 Widow Miller, and Horton rode with him, albeit 
 grudgingly. 
 
 Adrienne sprang lightly to the ground, laughingly 
 rejecting Samson's assistance, and came with him to the 
 top of a stile, from which he pointed to the log cabin, 
 set back in its small yard, wherein geese and chickens 
 picked industriously about in the sandy earth. 
 
 A huge poplar and a great oak nodded to each other 
 at either side of the door, and over the walls a clamber 
 ing profusion of honeysuckle vine contended with a mass 
 of wild grape, in joint effort to hide the white chinking 
 between the dark logs. From the crude milk-benches to 
 the sweep of the well, every note was one of neatness and 
 rustic charm. Slowly, he said, looking straight into 
 her eyes: 
 
 "This is Sally's cabin, Drennie." 
 
 He watched her expression, and her lips curved up
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLAND 343 
 
 in the same sweetness of smile that had first captivated 
 and helped to mold him. 
 
 "It's lovely !" she cried, with f rauk delight. "It's a 
 picture." 
 
 "Wait !" he commanded. Then, turning toward the 
 house, he sent out the long, peculiarly mournful call of 
 the whippoorwill, and, at the signal, the door opened, 
 and on the threshold Adrienne saw a slender figure. 
 She had called the cabin with its shaded dooryard a 
 picture, but now she knew she had been wrong. It was 
 only a background. It was the girl herself who made 
 and completed the picture. She stood there in the wild 
 simplicity that artists seek vainly to reproduce in posed 
 figures. Her red calico dress was patched, but fell in 
 graceful lines to her slim bare ankles, though the first 
 faint frosts had already fallen. 
 
 Her red-brown hair hung loose and in masses about 
 the oval of a face in which the half-parted lips were 
 dashes of scarlet, and the eyes large violet pools. She 
 stood with her little chin tilted in a half -wild attitude 
 of reconnoiter, as a fawn might have stood. One brown 
 arm and hand rested on the door frame, and, as she saw 
 the other woman, she colored adorably. 
 
 Adrienne thought she had never seen so instinctively 
 and unaffectedly lovely a face or figure. Then the girl 
 came down the steps and ran toward them. 
 
 "Drennie," said the man, "this is Sally. I want you 
 two to love each other." For an instant, Adrienne Les- 
 cott stood looking at the mountain girl, and then she 
 opened both her arms. 
 
 "Sally," she cried, "you adorable child, I do love 
 you!"
 
 344 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 The girl in the calico dress raised her face, and her 
 eyes were glistening. 
 
 "I'm obleeged ter ye," she faltered. Then, with open 
 and wondering admiration she stood gazing at the first 
 "fine lady" upon whom her glance had ever fallen. 
 
 Samson went over and took Sally's hand. 
 
 "Drennie," he said, softly, "is there anything the 
 matter with her?" 
 
 Adrienne Lescott shook her head. 
 
 "I understand," she said. 
 
 "I sent the others on," he went on quietly, "because 
 I wanted that first we three should meet alone. George 
 and Wilfred are going to stop at my uncle's house, but, 
 unless you'd rather have it otherwise, Sally wants you 
 here." 
 
 "Do I stop now ?" the girl asked. 
 
 But the man shook his head. 
 
 "I want you to meet my other people first." 
 
 As they rode at a walk along the little shred of road 
 left to them, the man turned gravely. 
 
 "Drennie," he began, "she waited for me, all those 
 years. What I was helped to do by such splendid 
 friends as you and your brother and Wilfred, she was 
 back here trying to do for herself. I told you back 
 there the night before I left that I was afraid to let 
 myself question my feelings toward you. Do you 
 remember ?" 
 
 She met his eyes, and her own eyes were frankly 
 smiling. 
 
 "You were very complimentary, Samson," she told 
 him. "I warned you then that it was the moon talking." 
 
 "No," he said firmly, "it was not the moon. I have
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 345 
 
 since then met that fear, and analyzed it. My feeling 
 for you is the best that a man can have, the honest 
 worship of friendship. And," he added, "'I have ana 
 lyzed your feeling for me, too, and, thank God ! I have 
 that same friendship from you. Haven't I?" 
 
 For a moment, she only nodded; but her eyes were 
 bent on the road ahead of her. The man waited in 
 tense silence. Then, she raised her face, and it was a 
 face that smiled with the serenity of one who has 
 wakened out of a troubled dream. 
 
 "You will always have that, Samson, dear," she 
 assured him. 
 
 "Have I enough of it, to ask you to do for her what 
 you did for me? To take her and teach her the things 
 she has the right to know?" 
 
 "I'd love it," she cried. And then she smiled, as she 
 added : "She will be much easier to teach. She won't be 
 so stupid, and one of the things I shall teach her" 
 she paused, and added whimsically "will be to make 
 you cut your hair again." 
 
 But, just before they drew up at the house of old 
 Spicer South, she said: 
 
 "I might as well make a clean breast of it, Samson, 
 and give my vanity the punishment it deserves. You 
 had me in deep doubt." 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 "About well, about us. I wasn't quite sure that I 
 wanted Sally to have you that I didn't need you my 
 self. I've been a shameful little cat to Wilfred." 
 
 "But now?" The Kentuckian broke off. 
 
 "Now, I know that my friendship for you and my 
 love for him have both had their acid test and I am
 
 346 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 happier than I've ever been before. I'm glad we've 
 been through it. There are no doubts ahead. I've got 
 you both." 
 
 "About him," said Samson, thoughtfully. "May I 
 tell you something which, although it's a thing in your 
 own heart, you have never quite known?" 
 
 She nodded, and he went on. 
 
 "The thing which you call fascination in me was 
 really just a proxy, Drennie. You were liking qualities 
 in me that were really his qualities. Just because you 
 had known him only in gentle guise, his finish blinded 
 you to his courage. Because he could turn 'to woman 
 the heart of a woman,' you failed to see that under it 
 was the 'iron and fire.' You thought you saw those 
 qualities in me, because I wore my bark as shaggy as 
 that scaling hickory over there. When he was getting 
 anonymous threats of death every morning, he didn't 
 mention them to you. He talked of teas and dances. I 
 know his danger was real, because they tried to have me 
 kill him and if I'd been the man they took me for, I 
 reckon I'd have done it. I was mad to my marrow that 
 night for a minute. I don't hold a brief for Wilfred, 
 but I know that you liked me first for qualities which 
 he has as strongly as I and more strongly. He's a 
 braver man than I, because, though raised to gentle 
 things, when you ordered him into the fight, he was 
 there. He never turned back, or flickered. I was raised 
 on raw meat and gunpowder, but he went in without 
 training." 
 
 The girl's eyes grew grave and thoughtful, and for 
 the rest of the way she rode in silence. 
 
 There were transformations, too, in the house of
 
 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS 347 
 
 Spicer South. Windows had been cut, and lamps 
 adopted. It was no longer so crudely a pioneer abode. 
 While they waited for dinner, a girl lightly crossed the 
 stile, and came up to the house. Adrienne met her at 
 the door, while Samson and Horton stood back, waiting. 
 Suddenly, Miss Lescott halted and regarded the new 
 comer in surprise. It was the same girl she had seen, 
 yet a different girl. Her hair no longer fell in tangled 
 masses. Her feet were no longer bare. Her dress, 
 though simple, was charming, and, when she spoke, her 
 English had dropped its half-illiterate peculiarities, 
 though the voice still held its bird-like melody. 
 
 "Oh, Samson," cried Adrienne, "you two have been 
 deceiving me ! Sally, you were making up, dressing the 
 part back there, and letting me patronize you." 
 
 Sally's laughter broke from her throat in a musical 
 peal, but it still held the note of shyness, and it was 
 Samson who spoke. 
 
 "I made the others ride on, and I got Sally to meet 
 you just as she was when I left her to go East." He 
 spoke with a touch of the mountaineer's over-sensitive 
 pride. "I wanted you first to see my people, not as they 
 are going to be, but as they were. I wanted you to 
 know how proud I am of them just that way." 
 
 That evening, the four of them walked together over 
 to the cabin of the Widow Miller. At the stile, Adrienne 
 Lescott turned to the girl, and said: 
 
 "I suppose this place is preempted. I'm going to 
 take Wilfred down there by the creek, and leave you 
 two alone." 
 
 Sally protested with mountain hospitality, but even 
 under the moon she once more colored adorably.
 
 348 THE CALL OF TPIE CUMBERLANDS 
 
 Adrienne turned up the collar of her sweater around 
 her throat, and, when she and the man who had waited, 
 stood leaning on the rail of the footbridge, she laid a 
 hand on his arm. 
 
 "Has the water flowed by my mill, Wilfred?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "What do you mean?" His voice trembled. 
 
 "Will you have anything to ask me when Christmas 
 comes ?" 
 
 "If I can wait that long, Drennie," he told her. 
 
 "Don't wait, dear," she suddenly exclaimed, turning 
 toward him, and raising eyes that held his answer. "Ask 
 me now !" 
 
 But the question which he asked was one that his 
 lips smothered as he pressed them against her own. 
 
 Back where the poplar threw its sooty shadow on the 
 road, two figures sat close together on the top of a 
 stile, talking happily in whispers. A girl raised her 
 face, and the moon shone on the deepness of her eyes, as 
 her lips curved in a trembling smile. 
 
 "You've come back, Samson," she said in a low voice, 
 "but, if I'd known how lovely she was, I'd have given 
 up hoping. I don't see what made you come." 
 
 Her voice dropped again into the tender cadence of 
 dialect. 
 
 "I couldn't live withouten ye, Samson. I jest couldn't 
 do hit." Would he remember when she had said that 
 before ? 
 
 "I reckon, Sally," he promptly told her, "I couldn't 
 live withouten you, neither." Then, he added, fervently, 
 "I'm plumb dead shore I couldn't." 
 
 THE END
 
 A- 
 
 N.