r 7? 2- 
 
Buck saw the shadowed gesture of an arm, and he cocked his pistol. 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE 
 ON LONESOME 
 
 HELL-FER SARTAIN" 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FOX, JR. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 P. C. YOHN, A. I. KELLER, 
 f. A. ROGERS AND H. C. RANSOM 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1910 
 
COPTRIOHT, 1909, BT 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 
 and Other Stories 
 Copyright, 1904 and 1901, by CHARLES SCRIBNER S SDKS 
 
 "HELL-FER-S ARTAIN " 
 
 Copyright, 1899, by HARPER & BROTHERS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME AND 
 OTHER STORIES 
 
 //C 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME *\ ft . 3 
 
 THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN ^ ^ ?***. 10 
 
 THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY F * ! "\^ ^. 46 
 
 A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD P*.\i c.<- Ja-stio^. 58 
 
 CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN D .^ sj-or^ 76 
 
 " HELL-FER-SARTAIN " 
 
 VJ( 
 ON HELL-FER-SARTiVIN CREEK . , . . 99 
 
 THROUGH THE GAP . . . -, 102 
 A TRICK O TRADE . . . : . : . . .106 
 GRAYSON S BABY . ..... 109 
 
 COURTIN ON CUTSHIN . ..... 116 
 
 THE MESSAGE IN THE SAND .... 122 
 
 THE SENATOR S LAST TRADE .... 125 
 v 
 
 226718 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREACHIN ON KINGDOM-COME ... 129 
 
 Tr u^bxs 
 
 THE PASSING OF ABRAHAM SHIVERS ^>**. r 134 
 A PURPLE RHODODENDRON .... 137 
 
 MAN HUNTING IN THE POUND ... 153 
 
 DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT . . 173 
 
 THROUGH THE BAD BEND 195 
 
 TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY .... 217 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Buck saw the shadowed gesture of an arm, 
 
 and cocked his pistol Frontisptect 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Captain Wells descended with no little majesty 
 
 and " biffed" him 20 
 
 "Speak up, nigger!" 40 
 
 Satan would drop the coin and get a ball for himself 78 
 
 " Have you ever searched for a dead man? " . 168 
 
 They took us for the advance guard of a circus . 226 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
TO 
 
 THOMAS NELSON PAGE 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 
 IT was Christmas Eve on Lonesome. But 
 nobody on Lonesome knew that it was 
 Christmas Eve, although a child of the outer 
 world could have guessed it, even out in those 
 wilds where Lonesome slipped from one lone 
 log cabin high up the steeps, down through a 
 stretch of jungled darkness to another lone cabin 
 at the mouth of the stream. 
 
 There was the holy hush in the gray twilight 
 that comes only on Christmas Eve. There were 
 the big flakes of snow that fell as they never fall 
 except on Christmas Eve. There was a snowy 
 man on horseback in a big coat, and with saddle- 
 pockets that might have been bursting with toys 
 for children in the little cabin at the head of the 
 stream. 
 
 But not even he knew that it was Christmas 
 Eve. He was thinking of Christmas Eve, but 
 it was of the Christmas Eve of the year before, 
 when he sat in prison with a hundred other men 
 in stripes, and listened to the chaplain talk of 
 peace and good will to all men upon earth, when 
 
 3 
 
ON LONESOME 
 
 he had forgotten all men upon earth but one, 
 and had only hatred in his heart for him. 
 
 " Vengeance is mine ! saith the Lord." 
 
 That was what the chaplain had thundered 
 at him. And then, as now, he thought of the 
 enemy who had betrayed him to the law, and 
 had sworn away his liberty, and had robbed him 
 of everything in life except a fierce longing for 
 the day when he could strike back and strike to 
 kill. And then, while he looked back hard into 
 the chaplain s eyes, and now, while he splashed 
 through the yellow mud thinking of that Christ 
 mas Eve, Buck shook his head; and then, as 
 now, his sullen heart answered: 
 
 "Mine!" 
 
 The big flakes drifted to crotch and twig and 
 limb. They gathered on the brim of Buck s 
 slouch hat, filled out the wrinkles in his big coat, 
 whitened his hair and his long mustache, and 
 sifted into the yellow, twisting path that guided 
 his horse s feet. 
 
 High above he could see through the whirl 
 ing snow now and then the gleam of a red star. 
 He knew it was the light from his enemy s win 
 dow; but somehow the chaplain s voice kept 
 ringing in his ears, and every time he saw the 
 light he couldn t help thinking of the story of 
 the Star that the chaplain told that Christmas 
 Eve, and he dropped his eyes by and by, so as 
 
 4 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 
 not to see it again, and rode on until the light 
 shone in his face. 
 
 Then he led his horse up a little ravine and 
 hitched it among the snowy holly and rhodo 
 dendrons, and slipped toward the light. There 
 was a dog somewhere, of course; and like a 
 thief he climbed over the low rail-fence and 
 stole through the tall snow-wet grass until he 
 leaned against an apple-tree with the sill of the 
 window two feet above the level of his eyes. 
 
 Reaching above him, he caught a stout limb 
 and dragged himself up to a crotch of the tree. 
 fl A mass of snow slipped softly to the earth. The 
 branch creaked above the light wind; around 
 the corner of the house a dog growled and he 
 sat still. 
 
 He had waited three long years and he had /. 
 ridden two hard nights and lain out two cold 
 days in the woods for this. 
 
 And presently he reached out very carefully, 
 and noiselessly broke leaf and branch and twig 
 until a passage was cleared for his eye and for 
 the point of the pistol that was gripped in his 
 right hand. 
 
 A woman was just disappearing through the 
 kitchen door, and he peered cautiously and saw 
 nothing but darting shadows. From one cor 
 ner a shadow loomed suddenly out in human 
 shape. Buck .saw the shadowed gesture of an 
 
 5 
 
 M 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 
 arm, and he cocked his pistol. That shadow 
 was his man, and in a moment he would be in a 
 chair in the chimney corner to smoke his pipe, 
 maybe his last pipe. 
 
 Buck smiled -pure hatred made him smile 
 but it was mean, a mean and sorry thing to shoot 
 this man in the back, dog though he was; and 
 now that the moment had come a wave of sicken 
 ing shame ran through Buck. No one of his 
 name had ever done that before; but this man 
 and his people had, and with their own lips they 
 had framed palliation for him. What was fair 
 for one was fair for the other they always said. 
 A poor man couldn t fight money in the courts; 
 and so they had shot from the brush, and that 
 was why they were rich now and Buck was poor 
 why his enemy was safe at home, and he was 
 out here, homeless, in the apple-tree. 
 
 Buck thought of all this, but it was no use. 
 The shadow slouched suddenly and disap 
 peared; and Buck was glad. With a gritting 
 oath between his chattering teeth he pulled his 
 pistol in and thrust one leg down to swing from 
 the tree he would meet him face to face next 
 day and kill him like a man and there he hung 
 as rigid as though the cold had suddenly turned 
 him, blood, bones, and marrow, into ice. 
 
 The door had opened, and full in the firelight 
 stood the girl who he had heard was dead. He 
 
 6 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 
 knew now how and why that word was sent him. 
 And now she who had been his sweetheart stood 
 before him the wife of the man he meant to 
 kill. 
 
 Her lips moved he thought he could tell 
 what she said: " Git up, Jim, git up! " Then 
 she went back. 
 
 A flame flared up within him now that must 
 have come straight from the devil s forge. 
 Again the shadows played over the ceiling. His 
 teeth grated as he cocked his pistol, and pointed 
 it down the beam of light that shot into the 
 heart of the apple-tree, and waited. 
 
 The shadow of a head shot along the rafters 
 and over the fireplace. It was a madman 
 clutching the butt of the pistol now, and as his 
 eye caught the glinting sight and his heart 
 thumped, there stepped into the square light of 
 the window a child! 
 
 It was a boy with yellow tumbled hair, and* 
 he had a puppy in his arms. In front of the fire 
 the little fellow dropped the dog, and they began 
 to play. 
 
 "Yap! yap! yap!" 
 
 Buck could hear the shrill barking of the fat 
 little dog, and the joyous shrieks of the child as 
 he made his playfellow chase his tail round and 
 round or tumbled him head over heels on the 
 floor. It was the first child Buck had seen for 
 
CHKISTMAS EVE GIST LONESOME 
 
 three years; it was his child and hers; and, in 
 the apple-tree, Buck watched fixedly. 
 
 They were down on the floor now, rolling 
 over and over together; and he watched them 
 until the child grew tired and turned his face to 
 the fire and lay still looking into it. Buck 
 could see his eyes close presently, and then the 
 puppy crept closer, put his head on his play 
 mate s chest, and the two lay thus asleep. 
 
 And still Buck looked his clasp loosening on 
 his pistol and his lips loosening under his stiff 
 mustache and kept looking until the door 
 opened again and the woman crossed the floor. 
 A flood of light flashed suddenly on the snow, 
 barely touching the snow-hung tips of the apple- 
 tree, and he saw her in the doorway saw her 
 look anxiously into the darkness look and lis 
 ten a long while. 
 
 Buck dropped noiselessly to the snow when 
 she closed the door. He wondered what they 
 would think when they saw his tracks in the 
 snow next morning; and then he realized that 
 they would be covered before morning. 
 
 As he started up the ravine where his horse 
 was he heard the clink of metal down the road 
 and the splash of a horse s hoofs in the soft mud, 
 and he sank down behind a holly-bush. 
 
 Again the light from the cabin flashed out 
 on the snow. 
 
 8 
 
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME 
 
 "That you, Jim?" 
 
 " Yep ! " 
 
 And then the child s voice : " Has oo dot 
 thum tandy?" 
 
 "Yep I" 
 
 The cheery answer rang out almost at Buck s 
 ear, and Jim passed death waiting for him be 
 hind the bush which his left foot brushed, shak 
 ing the snow from the red berries down on the 
 crouching figure beneath. 
 
 Once only, far down the dark jungled way, 
 with the underlying streak of yellow that was 
 leading him whither, God only knew once only 
 Buck looked back. There was the red light 
 gleaming faintly through the moonlit flakes of 
 snow. Once more he thought of the Star, and 
 once more the chaplain s voice came back to 
 him. 
 
 "Mine!"saith the Lord. 
 
 Just how, Buck could not see with himself in 
 the snow and him back there for life with her 
 and the child, but some strange impulse made 
 him bare his head. 
 
 * Yourn," said Buck grimly. 
 
 But nobody on Lonesome not even Buck 
 knew that it was Christmas Eve. 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 THE dreaded message had come. The lank 
 messenger, who had brought it from over 
 Black Mountain, dropped into a chair by the 
 stove and sank his teeth into a great hunk of 
 yellow cheese. " Flitter Bill " Richmond wad 
 dled from behind his counter, and out on the lit 
 tle platform in front of his cross-roads store. 
 Out there was a group of earth-stained country 
 men, lounging against the rickety fence or 
 swinging on it, their heels clear of the ground, 
 all whittling, chewing, and talking the matter 
 over. All looked up at Bill, and he looked 
 down at them, running his eye keenly from one 
 to another until he came to one powerful young 
 fellow loosely bent over a wagon-tongue. Ev m 
 on him, Bill s eyes stayed but a moment, and 
 then were lifted higher in anxious thought. 
 
 The message had come at last, and the man 
 who brought it had heard it fall from Black 
 Tom s own lips. The " wild Jay-Hawkers of 
 Kaintuck " were coming over into Virginia to 
 
 10 
 
THE AKMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 get Flitter Bill s store, for they were mountain 
 Unionists and Bill was a valley rebel and lawful 
 prey. It was past belief. So long had he 
 prospered, and so well, that Bill had come to 
 feel that he sat safe in the hollow of God s hand. 
 But he now must have protection and at once 
 from the hand of man. 
 
 ^Roaring Fork sang lustily through the rho 
 dodendrons. To the north yawned " the Gap " 
 through the Cumberland Mountains. " Calla- 
 han s Nose," a huge gray rock, showed plain in 
 the clear air, high above the young foliage, and 
 under it, and on up the rocky chasm, flashed 
 Flitter Bill s keen mind, reaching out for help. 
 
 (Now, from Virginia to Alabama the South 
 ern mountaineer was a Yankee, because the na 
 tional spirit of 1776, getting fresh impetus in 
 1812 and new life from the Mexican War, had 
 never died out in the hills. Most likely it 
 would never have died out, anyway; for, the 
 world over, any seed of character, individual or < 
 national, that is once dropped between lofty 
 summits brings forth its kind, with deathless 
 tenacity, year after year. Only,] in the Ken 
 tucky mountains, there were more slaveholders 
 than elsewhere in the mountains in the South. 
 These, naturally, fought for their slaves, and 
 the division thus made the war personal and ter 
 rible between the slaveholders who dared to stay 
 II 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 at home, and the Union, " Home Guards " who 
 organized to drive them away.) In Bill s little 
 Virginia valley, e_course, most of the sturdy 
 farmers had shouldered Confederate muskets 
 and gone to the war. Those who had stayed at 
 home were, like Bill, Confederate in sympathy, 
 but they lived in safety down the valley, while 
 Bill traded and fattened just opposite the Gap, 
 through which a wild road ran over into the 
 wild Kentucky hills. Therein Bill s danger lay ; 
 for, just at this time, the Harlan Home Guard 
 under Black Tom, having cleared those hills, 
 were making ready, like the Pict and Scot of 
 olden days, to descend on the Virginia valley 
 and smite the lowland rebels at the mouth of the 
 Gap. Of the " stay-at-homes," and the de 
 serters roundabout, there were many, very many, 
 who would " stand in " with any man who 
 would keep their bellies full, but they were well- 
 nigh worthless even with a Ieader ji ji0jd r -wihout 
 a leader, of no good at ally Flitter Bill must 
 [find a leader for them, and anywhere than in his 
 I own fat self, for a leader of men Bill was not 
 born to be, nor could he see a leader among the 
 men before him. And so, standing there one 
 early morning in the spring of 1865, with up 
 lifted gaze, it was no surprise to him the coin 
 cidence, indeed, became at once one of the arti 
 cles of perfect faith in his own star that he 
 
 12 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 should see afar off, a black slouch hat and a jog 
 ging gray horse rise above a little knoll that was 
 in line with the mouth of the Gap. At once he 
 crossed his hands over his chubby stomach with 
 a pious sigh, and at once a plan of action began 
 to whirl in his little round head. Before man 
 and beast were in full view the work was done, 
 the hands were unclasped, and Flitter Bill, with 
 a chuckle, had slowly risen, and was waddling 
 back to his desk in the store. 
 
 It was a pompous old buck who was bearing 
 down on the old gray horse, and under the 
 slouch hat with its flapping brim one Mayhall 
 Wells, by name. There were but few strands 
 of gray in his thick blue-black hair, though his 
 years were rounding half a century, and he sat 
 the old nag with erect dignity and perfect ease. 
 His bearded mouth showed vanity immeasur 
 able, and suggested a strength of will that his 
 eyes the real seat of power denied, for, while 
 shrewd and keen, they were unsteady. In real 
 ity, he was a great coward, though strong as an 
 ox, and whipping with ease every man who 
 could force him into a fight. So that, in the 
 whole man, a sensitive observer would have felt 
 a peculiar pathos, as though nature had given 
 him a desire to be, and no power to become, and 
 had then sent him on his zigzag way, never to 
 dream wherein his trouble lay. 
 
 13 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 " Mornin , gentlemen I " 
 
 "Mornin , Mayhall!" 
 
 All nodded and spoke except Hence Sturgill 
 on the wagon-tongue, who stopped whittling, 
 and merely looked at the big man with narrow 
 ing eyes. 
 
 i Tallow Dick, a yellow slave, appeared at the 
 corner of the store, and the old buck beckoned 
 him to come and hitch his horse. Flitter Bill 
 had reappeared on the stoop with a piece of 
 white paper in his hand. The lank messenger 
 sagged in the doorway behind him, ready to 
 start for home.^ 
 
 "Mornin Captain Wells," said Bill, with 
 great respect. Every man heard the title, 
 stopped his tongue and his knife-blade, and 
 raised his eyes; a few smiled Hence Sturgill 
 grinned. Mayhall stared, and Bill s left eye 
 closed and opened with lightning quickness in a 
 most portentous wink. Mayhall straightened 
 his shoulders seeing the game, as did the crowd 
 at once: Flitter Bill was impressing that mes 
 senger in case he had some dangerous card up 
 his sleeve. 
 
 " Captain Wells," Bill repeated significantly, 
 " I m sorry to say yo new uniform has not 
 arrived yet. I am expecting it to-morrow." 
 Mayhall toed the line with soldierly promptness. 
 
 " Well, I m sorry to hear that, suh sorry to 
 14 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 hear it, suh," (he said, with slow, measured 
 speech.^ " My men are comin in fast, and you 
 can hardly realize er er what it means to an 
 old soldier er er not to have er " And 
 MayhalPs answering wink was portentous. 
 
 " My friend here is from over in Kaintucky, 
 and the Harlan Home Gyard over there, he 
 says, is a-making some threats." 
 
 Mayhall laughed. 
 
 " So I have heerd so I have heerd." He 
 turned to the messenger. " We shall be ready 
 fer em, suh, ready fer em with a thousand men 
 one thousand men, suh, right hyeh in the Gap 
 right hyeh in the Gap. Let em come on let 
 em come on ! " Mayhall began to rub his hands 
 together as though the conflict were close at 
 hand, and the mountaineer slapped one thigh 
 heartily. " Good for you ! Give em hell ! " He 
 was about to slap Mayhall on the shoulder and 
 call him " pardner," when Flitter Bill coughed, 
 and Mayhall lifted his chin. 
 
 "Captain Wells? "said Bill. 
 
 " Captain Wells," repeated Mayhall with a 
 stiff salutation, and the messenger from over 
 Black Mountain fell back with an apologetic 
 laugh. A few minutes later both Mayhall and 
 Flitter Bill saw him shaking his head, as he 
 started homeward toward the Gap. Bill laughed 
 silently, but Mayhall had grown grave. The 
 
 15 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAIST 
 
 fun was over and he beckoned Bill inside the 
 store. . 
 
 " Misto Richmond, / he said, with h.esitancy 
 and an entire change of tone and manner, I* I am 
 afeerd I ain t goin to be able to pay you that 
 little amount I owe you, but if you can give me a 
 little mo time " 
 
 "Captain Wells," interrupted Bill slowly, 
 and again Mayhall stared hard at him, " as be 
 twixt friends, as have been pussonal friends fer 
 nigh onto twenty year, I hope you won t men 
 tion that little matter to me ag in until I men 
 tions it to you." 
 
 " But, Misto Richmond, Hence Sturgill out 
 thar says as how he heerd you say that if I didn t 
 pay " 
 
 " Captain Wells," interrupted Bill again and 
 again Mayhall stared hard it was strange that 
 Bill could have formed the habit of calling him 
 " Captain " in so short a time " yestiddy is not 
 to-day, is it ? And to-day is not to-morrow ? I 
 axe you have I said one word about that little 
 matter to-day? Well, borrow not from yes 
 tiddy nor to-morrow, to make trouble fer to 
 day. There is other things fer to-day, Captain 
 Wells." 
 ^Mayhall turned here/ 
 
 " Misto Richmond,"she said, with great earn 
 estness, y you may not know it, but three times 
 
 16 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 since thet long-legged jay-hawker s been gone 
 you hev plainly and if my ears do not deceive 
 me, an they never hev you have plainly called 
 me * Captain Wells. I knowed yo little trick 
 whilst he was hyeh, fer I knowed whut the feller 
 had come to tell ye; but since he s been gone, 
 three times, Misto Richmond " 
 
 " Yes, "/drawled Bill, with an unction that 
 was strangely sweet to Mayhall s wondering 
 ears, " an I do it ag in,} Captain Wells." 
 
 " An may I axe you," said Mayhall, ruffling 
 a little, " may I axe you why you " 
 
 " Certainly," said Bill, and he handed over 
 the paper that he held in his hand. 
 
 Mayhall took the paper and looked it up and 
 down helplessly Flitter Bill slyly watching 
 him. 
 
 Mayhall handed it back. u If you please, 
 Misto Richmond I left my specs at home." 
 Without a smile, Bill began. It was an order 
 from the commandant at Cumberland Gap, 
 sixty miles farther down Powell s Valley, au 
 thorizing Mayhall Wells to form a company to 
 guard the Gap and to protect the property of 
 Confederate citizens in the valley; and a com 
 mission of captaincy in the said company for the 
 said Mayhall Wells. Mayhall s mouth wid 
 ened to the full stretch of his lean jaws, and, 
 when Bill was through reading, he silently 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 reached for the paper and looked it up and down 
 and over and over, muttering : 
 
 " Well well well ! " And then he pointed 
 silently to the name that was at the bottom of 
 the paper. 
 
 Bill spelled out the name : 
 
 " Jefferson Davis and Mayhall s big fingers 
 trembled as he pulled them away, as though 
 to avoid further desecration of that sacred 
 name. 
 
 Then he rose, and a magical transformation 
 began that can be likened I speak with rever 
 ence to the turning of water into wine. Cap 
 tain Mayhall Wells raised his head, set his chin 
 well in, and kept it there. He straightened his 
 shoulders, and kept them straight. He paced 
 the floor with a tread that was martial, and once 
 he stopped before the door with his right hand 
 thrust under his breast-pocket, and with wrin 
 kling brow studied the hills. It was a new man 
 with the water in his blood changed to wine 
 who turned suddenly on Flitter Bill Richmond: 
 
 " I can collect a vehy large force in a vehy few 
 days." Flitter Bill knew that that he could 
 get together every loafer between the county-seat 
 of Wise and the county-seat of Lee but he only 
 said encouragingly : 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 " An we air to pertect the property / am to 
 18 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 pertect the property of the Confederate citizens 
 of the valley that means you, Misto Rich 
 mond, and this store." 
 
 Bill nodded. 
 
 Mayhall coughed slightly. " There is one 
 thing in the way, I opine. Whar I axe you 
 air we to git somethin to eat fer my com 
 mand ? " Bill had anticipated this. 
 
 " I ll take keer o that." 
 
 Captain Wells rubbed his hands. 
 
 " Of co se, of co se you are a soldier and a 
 patriot you can afford to feed em as a slight 
 return fer the pertection I shall give you and 
 yourn." 
 
 " Certainly," agreed Bill dryly, and with a 
 prophetic stir of uneasiness. 
 
 " Vehy vehy well. I shall begin now, Misto 
 Richmond." And, to Flitter Bill s wonder, the 
 captain stalked out to the stoop, announced his 
 purpose with the voice of an auctioneer, and 
 called for volunteers then and there. There was 
 dead silence for a moment. Then there was a 
 smile here, a chuckle there, an incredulous laugh, 
 and Hence Sturgill, " bully of the Pocket," rose 
 from the wagon-tongue, closed his knife, came 
 slowly forward, and cackled his scorn straight 
 jip into the teeth of Captain Mayhall Wells. 
 The captain looked down and began to shed his 
 coat. 
 
 19 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 " I take it, Hence Sturgill, that you air laugh- 
 in at me? " 
 
 " I am a-laughin at you, Mayhall Wells," 
 he said, contemptuously, but he was sur 
 prised at the look on the good-natured giant s 
 face. 
 
 " Captain Mayhall Wells, ef you please." 
 
 " Plain ole Mayhall Wells," said Hence, and 
 Captain Wells descended with no little majesty 
 and " biffed " him. 
 
 The delighted crowd rose to its feet and gath 
 ered around. Tallow Dick came running from 
 the barn. It was biff biff, and biff again, but 
 not nip and tuck for long. Captain Mayhall 
 closed in. Hence Sturgill struck the earth like 
 a Homeric pine, and the captain s mighty arm 
 played above him and fell, resounding. In 
 three minutes Hence, to the amazement of the 
 crowd, roared: 
 
 "Nought" 
 
 But Mayhall breathed hard and said quietly : 
 
 "Captain Wells!" 
 
 Hence shouted, "Plain ole But the cap 
 tain s huge fist was poised in the air over his face. 
 
 " Captain Wells," he growled, and the cap 
 tain rose and calmly put on his coat, while the 
 crowd looked respectful, and Hence Sturgill 
 staggered to one side, as though beaten in spirit, 
 strength, and wits as well. The captain beck- 
 
 20. 
 
I 
 
 Captain Weils descended with no little majesty and " biffed " him. 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 orned Flitter Bill inside the store. His manner 
 
 distinct savor of patronage. 
 Misto Richmond," he said, " I make you 
 I appoint you, by the authority of Jefferson 
 Davis and the Confederate States of Ameriky, 
 as commissary-gineral of the Army of the Cal- 
 lahan." 
 
 " As what? " Bill s eyes blinked at the as 
 tounding dignity of his commission. 
 
 " Gineral Richmond, I shall not repeat them 
 words." And he didn t, but rose and made his 
 way toward his old gray mare. Tallow Dick 
 held his bridle. 
 
 " Dick," he said jocosely, " goin to run away 
 ag in?" The negro almost paled, and then, 
 with a look at a blacksnake whip that hung on 
 the barn door, grinned. 
 
 " No, suh no, suh deed I ain t, suh no 
 
 mo ." 
 
 Mounted, the captain dropped a three-cent 
 silver piece in the startled negro s hand. Then 
 he vouchsafed the wondering Flitter Bill and the 
 gaping crowd a military salute and started for 
 the yawning mouth of the Gap riding with \ 
 shoulders squared and chin well in riding as 
 should ride the commander of the Army of the 
 Callahan. 
 
 Flitter Bill dropped his blinking eyes to the 
 paper in his hand that bore the commission of 
 21 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of 
 America to Mayhall Wells of Callahan, and 
 went back into his store. He looked at it a long 
 time and then he laughed, but without much 
 mirth. 
 
 22 
 
II 
 
 GRASS had little chance to grow for three 
 weeks thereafter under the cowhide boots 
 of Captain Mayhall Wells. When the twen 
 tieth morning came over the hills, the mist 
 parted over the Stars and Bars floating from 
 the top of a tall poplar up through the Gap and 
 flaunting brave defiance to Black Tom, his Har- 
 lan Home Guard, and all other jay-hawking 
 Unionists of the Kentucky hills. It parted over 
 the Army of the Callahan asleep on its arms in 
 the mouth of the chasm, over Flitter Bill sitting, 
 sullen and dejected, on the stoop of his store; 
 and over Tallow Dick stealing corn bread from 
 the kitchen to make ready for flight that night 
 through the Gap, the mountains, and to the yel 
 low river that was the Mecca of the runaway 
 slave. 
 
 At the mouth of the Gap a ragged private 
 stood before a ragged tent, raised a long dinner 
 horn to his lips, and a mighty blast rang through 
 the hills, reveille ! And out poured the Army 
 of the Callahan from shack, rock-cave, and cov 
 erts of sticks and leaves, with squirrel rifles, 
 23 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAST 
 
 Revolutionary muskets, shotguns, clasp-knives, 
 and horse pistols for the duties of the day 
 under Lieutenant Skaggs, tactician, and Lieu 
 tenant Boggs, quondam terror of Roaring 
 Fork. 
 
 That blast rang down the valley into Flitter 
 Bill s ears and startled him into action. It 
 brought Tallow Dick s head out of the barn 
 door and made him grin. 
 
 " Dick! " Flitter Bill s call was sharp and 
 angry. 
 
 "Yes, suh!" 
 
 " Go tell ole Mayhall Wells that I ain t goin 
 to send him nary another pound o bacon an 
 
 nary another tin cup o meal no, by , I 
 
 ain t." 
 
 Half an hour later the negro stood before the 
 ragged tent of the commander of the Army of 
 the Callahan. 
 
 " Marse Bill say he ain t gwine to sen you 
 no mo rations no mo ." 
 
 " What I " 
 
 Tallow Dick repeated his message and the 
 captain scowled mutiny ! 
 
 " Fetch my hoss ! " he thundered. 
 
 Very naturally and very swiftly had the trou 
 ble come, for straight after the captain s fight 
 with Hence Sturgill there had been a mighty 
 rally to the standard of Mayhall Wells. From 
 24 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 Pigeon s Creek the loafers came from Roaring 
 Fork, Cracker s Neck, from the Pocket down 
 the valley, and from Turkey Cove. Recruits 
 came so fast, and to such proportions grew the 
 Army of the Callahan, that Flitter Bill shrewdly 
 suggested at once that Captain Wells divide it 
 into three companies and put one up Pigeon s 
 Creek under Lieutenant Jim Skaggs and one on 
 Callahan under Lieutenant Tom Boggs, while 
 the captain, with a third, should guard the mouth 
 of the Gap. Bill s idea was to share with those 
 districts the honor of his commissary-general 
 ship ; but Captain Wells crushed the plan like a 
 dried puffball. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with fine sarcasm. " What 
 will them Kanetuckians do then? Don t you 
 know, Gineral Richmond? Why, I ll tell you 
 what they ll do. They ll jest swoop down on 
 Lieutenant Boggs and gobble him up. Then 
 they ll swoop down on Lieutenant Skaggs on 
 Pigeon and gobble him up. Then they ll swoop 
 down on me and gobble me up. No, they won t 
 gobble me up, but they ll come damn nigh it. 
 An what kind of a report will I make to Jeff 
 Davis, Gineral Richmond ? Captured in detail, 
 suh? No, suK. I ll jest keep Lieutenant Boggs 
 and Lieutenant Skaggs close by me, and we ll 
 pitch our camp right here in the Gap whar we 
 can pertect the property of Confederate citizens 
 25 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 and be close to our base o supplies, suh. That s 
 what I ll do!" 
 
 " Gineral Richmond " groaned, and when in 
 the next breath the mighty captain casually 
 inquired if that uniform of his had come yet, 
 Flitter Bill s fat body nearly rolled off his 
 chair. 
 
 * You will please have it here next Monday," 
 said the captain, with great firmness. " It is 
 necessary to the proper discipline of my troops." 
 And it was there the following Monday a regi 
 mental coat, gray jeans trousers, and a forage 
 cap that Bill purchased from a passing Morgan 
 raider. Daily orders would come from Captain 
 Wells to General Flitter Bill Richmond to send 
 up more rations, and Bill groaned afresh when 
 a man from Callahan told how the captain s 
 family was sprucing up on meal and flour and 
 bacon from the captain s camp. Humiliation 
 followed. It had never occurred to Captain 
 Wells that being a captain made it incongruous 
 for him to have a " general " under him, until 
 Lieutenant Skaggs, who had picked up a manual 
 of tactics somewhere, cautiously communicated 
 his discovery. Captain Wells saw the point at 
 once. There was but one thing to do to re 
 duce General Richmond to the ranks and it 
 was done. Technically, thereafter, the general 
 was purveyor for the Army of the Callahan, but 
 
 26 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 to the captain himself he was gallingly to the 
 purveyor simple Flitter Bill. 
 
 The strange thing was that, contrary to his 
 usual shrewdness, it should have taken Flitter 
 Bill so long to see that the difference between 
 having his store robbed by the Kentucky jay*- 
 hawkers and looted by Captain Wells was the 
 difference between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, 
 but, when he did see, he forged a plan of relief 
 at once. When the captain sent down Lieuten 
 ant Boggs for a supply of rations, Bill sent the 
 saltiest, rankest bacon he could find, with a mes 
 sage that he wanted to see the great man. As 
 before, when Captain Wells rode down to the 
 store, Bill handed out a piece of paper, and, as 
 before, the captain had left his "specs" at home. 
 The paper was an order that, whereas the dis 
 tinguished services of Captain Wells to the Con 
 federacy were appreciated by Jefferson Davis, 
 the said Captain Wells was, and is, hereby em 
 powered to duly, and in accordance with the tac 
 tics of war, impress what live-stock he shall see 
 fit and determine fit for the good of his com 
 mand. The news was joy to the Army of the 
 Callahan. Before it had gone the rounds of the 
 camp Lieutenant Boggs had spied a fat heifer 
 browsing on the edge of the woods and ordered 
 her surrounded and driven down. Without an 
 other word, when she was close enough, he 
 27 
 
THE AEMY OF TME CALLAHAN 
 
 raised his gun and would have shot her dead in 
 her tracks had he not been arrested by a yell of 
 command and horror from his superior. 
 
 " Air you a-goin to have me cashiered and 
 shot, Lieutenant Boggs, fer violatin the tick- 
 tacks of war? " roared the captain, indignantly. 
 " Don t you know that I ve got to impress that 
 heifer accordin to the rules an regulations? Git 
 roun that heifer." The men surrounded her. 
 " Take her by the horns. Now ! In the name 
 of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States 
 of Ameriky, I hereby and hereon do duly im 
 press this heifer for the purposes and use of the 
 Army of the Callahan, so help me God ! Shoot 
 her down, Bill Boggs, shoot her down ! " 
 
 Now, naturally, the soldiers preferred fresh 
 meat, and they got it impressing cattle, sheep, 
 and hogs, geese, chickens, and ducks, vegetables 
 nothing escaped the capacious maw of the 
 Army of the Callahan. It was a beautiful idea, 
 and the success of it pleased Flitter Bill mightily, 
 but the relief did not last long. An indignant 
 murmur rose up and down valley and creek bot 
 tom against the outrages, and one angry old far 
 mer took a pot-shot at Captain Wells with a 
 squirrel rifle, clipping the visor of his forage 
 cap ; and from that day the captain began to call 
 with immutable regularity again on Flitter Bill 
 for bacon and meal. That morning the last 
 28 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN" 
 
 straw fell in a demand for a wagon-load of ra 
 tions to be delivered before noon, and, worn to 
 the edge of his patience, Bill had sent a reckless 
 refusal. And now he was waiting on the stoop 
 of his store, looking at the mouth of the Gap 
 and waiting for it to give out into the valley Cap 
 tain Wells and his old gray mare. And at last, 
 late in the afternoon, there was the captain com 
 ing coming at a swift gallop and Bill steeled 
 himself for the onslaught like a knight in a joust 
 against a charging antagonist. The captain sa 
 luted stiffly pulling up sharply and making no 
 move to dismount. 
 
 " Purveyor," he said, " Black Tom has just 
 sent word that he s a-comin over hyeh this week 
 have you heerd that, purveyor? " Bill was 
 silent. 
 
 " Black Tom says you air responsible for the 
 Army of the Callahan. Have you heerd that, 
 purveyor? " Still was there silence. 
 
 " He says he s a-goin to hang me to that pop 
 lar whar floats them Stars and Bars " Captain 
 Mayhall Wells chuckled " an he says he s 
 a-goin to hang you thar fust, though; have you 
 heerd that, purveyor? " 
 
 The captain dropped the titular address now, 
 and threw one leg over the pommel of his saddle. 
 
 " Flitter Bill Richmond," he said, with great 
 nonchalance, " I axe you do you prefer that I 
 29 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 should disband the Army of the Callahan, or do 
 you not? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 The captain was silent a full minute, and his 
 face grew stern. " Flitter Bill Richmond, I 
 had no idee o disbandin the Army of the Calla 
 han, but do you know what I did aim to do? " 
 Again Bill was silent. 
 
 " Well, suh, I ll tell you whut I aim to do. 
 If you don t send them rations I ll have you 
 cashiered for mutiny, an if Black Tom don t 
 hang you to that air poplar, I ll hang you thar 
 
 myself, suh; yes, by ! I will. Dick! " he 
 
 called sharply to the slave. " Hitch up that air 
 wagon, fill hit full o bacon and meal, and drive 
 it up thar to my tent. An be mighty damn 
 quick about it, or I ll hang you, too." 
 
 The negro gave a swift glance to his master, 
 and Flitter Bill feebly waved acquiescence. 
 
 " Purveyor, I wish you good-day." 
 
 Bill gazed after the great captain in dazed 
 wonder (was this the man who had come cring 
 ing to him only a few short weeks ago?) and 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 But for lucky or unlucky coincidence, how 
 could the prophet ever have gained name and 
 fame on earth? 
 
 Captain Wells rode back to camp chuckling 
 
 3 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 chuckling with satisfaction and pride; but the 
 chuckle passed when he caught sight of his tent. 
 In front of it were his lieutenants and some half 
 a dozen privates, all plainly in great agitation, 
 and in the midst of them stood the lank messen 
 ger who had brought the first message from 
 Black Tom, delivering another from the same 
 source. Black Tom was coming, coming sure, 
 and unless that flag, that " Rebel rag," were 
 hauled down under twenty-four hours, Black 
 Tom would come over and pull it down, and to 
 that same poplar hang " Captain Mayhall an 
 his whole damn army." Black Tom might do 
 it anyhow just for fun. 
 
 While the privates listened the captain 
 strutted and swore; then he rested his hand on 
 his hip and smiled with silent sarcasm, and then 
 swore again while the respectful lieutenants 
 and the awed soldiery of the Callahan looked on. 
 Finally he spoke. 
 
 " Ah when did Black Tom say that?" he 
 inquired casually. 
 
 " Yestiddy mornin . He said he was goin to 
 start over hyeh early this morninV The cap 
 tain whirled. 
 
 " What? Then why didn t you git over hyeh 
 this mornin ? " 
 
 " Couldn t git across the river last night." 
 
 ;t Then he s a-comin to-day? " 
 
 31 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 " I reckon Black Tom ll be hyeh in about two 
 hours mebbe he ain t fer away now." The 
 captain was startled. 
 
 " Lieutenant Skaggs," he called, sharply, " git 
 yo men out thar an draw em up in two rows ! " 
 
 The face of the student of military tactics 
 looked horrified. The captain in his excitement 
 had relaxed into language that was distinctly 
 agricultural, and, catching the look on his subor 
 dinate s face, and at the same time the reason 
 for it, he roared, indignantly: 
 
 "Air you afeer d, sir? Git yo men out, I 
 said, an march em up thar in front of the Gap. 
 Lieutenant Boggs, take ten men an march at 
 double quick through the Gap, an defend that 
 poplar with yo life s blood. If you air over 
 whelmed by superior numbers, fall back, suh, 
 step by step, until you air re-enforced by Lieuten 
 ant Skaggs. If you two air not able to hold the 
 enemy in check, you may count on me an the 
 Army of the Callahan to grind him " (How 
 the captain, now thoroughly aroused to all the 
 fine terms of war^ did roll that technical " him " 
 under his tongue) " to grind him to pieces 
 ag in them towerin rocks, and plunge him in the 
 bilin waters of Roarin Fawk. Forward, suh 
 double quick." Lieutenant Skaggs touched 
 his cap. Lieutenant Boggs looked embarrassed 
 and strode nearer. 
 
 32 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN" 
 
 " Captain, whar am I goin to git ten men to 
 face them Kanetuckians ? " 
 
 " Whar air they goin to git a off cer to lead 
 em, you d better say," said the captain, severely, 
 fearing that some of the soldiers had heard the 
 question. " If you air afeer d, suh " and then 
 he saw that no one had heard, and he winked 
 winked with most unmilitary familiarity. 
 
 " Air you a good climber, Lieutenant 
 Boggs?" Lieutenant Boggs looked mystified, 
 but he said he was. 
 
 " Lieutenant Boggs, I now give you the op 
 portunity to show yo profound knowledge of 
 the ticktacks of war. You may now be guilty 
 of disobedience of ordahs, and I will not have 
 you court-martialled for the same. In other 
 words, if, after a survey of the situation, you 
 think best why," the captain s voice dropped 
 to a hoarse whisper, " pull that flag down, Lieu 
 tenant Boggs, pull her down." 
 
 33 
 
Ill 
 
 IT was an hour by sun now. Lieutenant 
 Boggs and his devoted band of ten were 
 making their way slowly and watchfully up the 
 mighty chasm the lieutenant with his hand on 
 his sword and his head bare, and bowed in 
 thought. The Kentuckians were on their way 
 at that moment they might be riding full speed 
 toward the mouth of Pigeon, where floated the 
 flag. They might gobble him and his com 
 mand up when they emerged from the Gap. 
 Suppose they caught him up that tree. His 
 command might escape, but he would be up 
 there, saving them the trouble of stringing him 
 up. All they would have to do would be to send 
 up after him a man with a rope, and let him 
 drop. That was enough. Lieutenant Boggs 
 called a halt and explained the real purpose of 
 the expedition. 
 
 "We will wait here till dark," he said, " so 
 them Kanetuckians can t ketch us, whilst we are 
 climbing that tree." 
 
 And so they waited opposite Bee Rock, which 
 was making ready to blossom with purple rho- 
 34 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 dodendrons. And the reserve back in the Gap, 
 under Lieutenant Skaggs, waited. Waited, too, 
 the Army of the Callahan at the mouth of the 
 Gap, and waited restlessly Captain Wells at the 
 door of his tent, and Flitter Bill on the stoop of 
 his store waited everybody but Tallow Dick, 
 who, in the general confusion, was slipping 
 through the rhododendrons along the bank of 
 Roaring Fork, until he could climb the moun 
 tain-side and slip through the Gap high over 
 the army s head. 
 
 What could have happened? 
 
 When dusk was falling, Captain Wells dis 
 patched a messenger to Lieutenant Skaggs and 
 his reserve, and got an answer; Lieutenant 
 Skaggs feared that Boggs had been captured 
 without the firing of a single shot but the flag 
 was floating still. An hour later, Lieutenant 
 Skaggs sent another message he could not see 
 the flag. Captain Wells answered, stoutly: 
 
 " Hold yo own." 
 
 And so, as darkness fell, the Army of the Cal 
 lahan waited in the strain of mortal expectancy 
 as one man; and Flitter Bill waited, with his 
 horse standing saddled in the barn, ready for 
 swift flight. And, as darkness fell, Tallow 
 Dick was cautiously picking his way alongside 
 the steep wall of the Gap toward freedom, and 
 picking it with stealthy caution, foot by foot; 
 
 35 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 for up there, to this day, big loose rocks mount 
 halfway to the jagged points of the black cliffs, 
 and a careless step would have detached one and 
 sent an avalanche of rumbling stones down to 
 betray him. A single shot rang suddenly out 
 far up through the Gap, and the startled negro 
 sprang forward, slipped, and, with a low, fright 
 ened oath, lay still. Another shot followed, 
 and another. Then a hoarse murmur rose, 
 loudened into thunder, and ended in a frightful 
 boom ! One yell rang from the army s throat : 
 
 " The Kentuckians! The Kentuckians! The 
 wild, long-haired, terrible Kentuckians ! " 
 
 Captain Wells sprang into the air. 
 
 u My God, they ve got a cannon ! " 
 
 Then there was a martial chorus the crack 
 of rifle, the hoarse cough of horse-pistol, the 
 roar of old muskets. 
 
 "Bing! Bang! Boom! Bing bing! Bang 
 bang ! Boom boom ! Bing bang boom ! " 
 
 Lieutenant Skaggs and his reserves heard the 
 beat of running feet down the Gap. 
 
 " They ve gobbled Boggs," he said, and the 
 reserve rushed after him as he fled. The army 
 heard the beat of their coming feet. 
 
 " They ve gobbled Skaggs," the army said. 
 
 Then was there bedlam as the army fled a 
 crashing through bushes a splashing into the 
 river, the rumble of mule wagons, yells of ter- 
 
 36 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 ror, swift flying shapes through the pale moon 
 light. Flitter Bill heard the din as he stood by 
 his barn door. 
 
 " They ve gobbled the army," said Flitter 
 Bill, and he, too, fled like a shadow down the 
 valley. 
 
 Nature never explodes such wild and senseless 
 energy as when she lets loose a mob in a panic. 
 With the army, it was each man for himself and 
 devil take the hindmost; and the flight of the 
 army was like a flight from the very devil him 
 self. Lieutenant Boggs, whose feet were the 
 swiftest in the hills, outstripped his devoted 
 band. Lieutenant Skaggs, being fat and slow, 
 fell far behind his reserve, and dropped ex 
 hausted on a rock for a moment to get his breath. 
 As he rose, panting, to resume flight, a figure 
 bounded out of the darkness behind him, and he 
 gathered it in silently and went with it to the 
 ground, where both fought silently in the dust 
 until they rolled into the moonlight and each 
 looked the other in the face. 
 
 " That you, Jim Skaggs? " 
 
 " That you, Tom Boggs? " 
 
 Then the two lieutenants rose swiftly, but a 
 third shape bounded into the road a gigantic 
 figure Black Tom ! With a startled yell they 
 gathered him in one by the waist, the other 
 about the neck, and, for a moment, the terrible 
 
 37 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 Kehtuckian it could be none other swung the 
 two clear of the ground, but the doughty lieuten 
 ants hung to him. Boggs trying to get his knife 
 and Skaggs his pistol, and all went down in a 
 heap. 
 
 "I surrender I surrender!" It was the 
 giant who spoke, and at the sound of his voice 
 both men ceased to struggle, and, strange to say, 
 no one of the three laughed. 
 
 " Lieutenant Boggs," said Captain Wells, 
 thickly, " take yo thumb out o my mouth. Lieu 
 tenant Skaggs, leggo my leg an stop bitin me." 
 
 Sh sh sh " said all three. 
 
 The faint swish of bushes as Lieutenant 
 Boggs s ten men scuttled into the brush behind 
 them the distant beat of the army s feet get 
 ting fainter ahead of them, and then silence 
 dead, dead silence. 
 
 "Sh sh sh!" 
 
 With the red streaks of dawn Captain May- 
 hall Wells was pacing up and down in front of 
 Flitter Bill s store, a gaping crowd about him, 
 and the shattered remnants of the army drawn 
 up along Roaring Fork in the rear. An hour 
 later Flitter Bill rode calmly in. 
 
 " I stayed all night down the valley," said 
 Flitter Bill. " Uncle Jim Richmond was sick. 
 
 38 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 I hear you had some trouble last night, Captain 
 Wells." The captain expanded his chest. 
 
 " Trouble! " he repeated, sarcastically. And 
 then he told how a charging horde of dare 
 devils had driven him from camp with over 
 whelming numbers and one piece of artillery; 
 how he had rallied the army and fought them 
 back, foot by foot, and put them to fearful rout ; 
 how the army had fallen back again just when 
 the Kentuckians were running like sheep, and 
 how he himself had stayed in the rear with Lieu 
 tenant Boggs and Lieutenant Skaggs, " to cover 
 their retreat, suh," and how the purveyor, if 
 he would just go up through the Gap, would 
 doubtless find the cannon that the enemy had 
 left behind in their flight It was just while he 
 was thus telling the tale for the twentieth time 
 that two figures appeared over the brow of the 
 hill and drew near Hence Sturgill on horse 
 back and Tallow Dick on foot. 
 
 " I ketched this nigger in my corn-fieP this 
 mornin ," said Hence, simply, and Flitter Bill 
 glared, and without a word went for the 
 blacksnake ox-whip that hung by the barn 
 door. 
 
 For the twenty-first time Captain Wells 
 started his tale again, and with every pause that 
 he made for breath Hence cackled scorn. 
 
 " An 1 , Hence Sturgill, ef you will jus* go up 
 39 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 in the Gap you ll find a cannon, captured, suh, 
 by me an the Army of the Callahan, an " 
 
 " Cannon ! " Hence broke in. " Speak up, 
 nigger! " And Tallow Dick spoke up grin 
 ning: 
 
 " I done it!" 
 
 " What! " shouted Flitter Bill. 
 
 " I kicked a rock loose climbin over Calla- 
 han s Nose." 
 
 Bill dropped his whip with a chuckle of pure 
 ecstasy. Mayhall paled and stared. The crowd 
 roared, the Army of the Callahan grinned, and 
 Hence climbed back on his horse. 
 
 " Mayhall Wells," he said, " plain ole May- 
 hall Wells, I ll see you on Couht Day. I ain t 
 got time now." 
 
 And he rode away. 
 
 40 
 
OH 
 
 CO 
 
IV 
 
 THAT day Captain Mayhall Wells and the 
 Army of the Callahan were in disrepute. 
 Next day the awful news of Lee s surrender 
 came. Captain Wells refused to believe it, and 
 still made heroic effort to keep his shattered com 
 mand together. Looking for recruits on Court 
 Day, he was twitted about the rout of the army 
 by Hence Sturgill, whose long-coveted chance to 
 redeem himself had come. Again, as several 
 times before, the captain declined to fight his 
 health was essential to the general well-being 
 but Hence laughed in his face, and the captain 
 had to face the music, though the heart of him 
 was gone. 
 
 He fought well, for he was fighting for his 
 all, and he knew it. He could have whipped 
 with ease, and he did whip, but the spirit of the 
 thoroughbred was not in Captain Mayhall 
 Wells. He had Sturgill down, but Hence sank 
 his teeth into Mayhall s thigh while Mayhall s 
 hands grasped his opponent s throat. The cap 
 tain had only to squeeze, as every rough-and- 
 tumble fighter knew, and endure his pain until 
 41 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 Hence would have to give in. But Mayhall 
 was not built to endure. He roared like a bull 
 as soon as the teeth met in his flesh, his fingers 
 relaxed, and to the disgusted surprise of every 
 body he began to roar with great distinctness and 
 agony : 
 
 " Nough! Nough!" 
 
 The end was come, and nobody knew it better 
 than Mayhall Wells. He rode home that night 
 with hands folded on the pommel of his saddle 
 and his beard crushed by his chin against his 
 breast. For the last time, next morning he rode 
 down to Flitter Bill s store. On the way he met 
 Parson Kilburn and for the last time Mayhall 
 Wells straightened his shoulders and for one 
 moment more resumed his part : perhaps the par 
 son had not heard of his fall. 
 
 " Good-mornin , parsing," he said, pleasantly. 
 " Ah where have you been? " The parson was 
 returning from Cumberland Gap, whither he 
 had gone to take the oath of allegiance. 
 
 " By the way, I have something here for you 
 which Flitter Bill asked me to give you. He 
 said it was from the commandant at Cumberland 
 Gap." 
 
 " Fer me? " asked the captain hope spring 
 ing anew in his heart. The parson handed 
 him a letter. Mayhall looked at it upside 
 down. 
 
 42 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 " If you please, parsing," he said, handing it 
 back, " I hev left my specs at home." 
 
 The parson read that, whereas Captain Wells 
 had been guilty of grave misdemeanors while in 
 command of the Army of the Callahan, he 
 should be arrested and court-martialled for the 
 same, or be given the privilege of leaving the 
 county in twenty-four hours. Mayhall s face 
 paled a little and he stroked his beard. 
 
 " Ah does anybody but you know about this 
 ordah, parsing? " 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 " Well, if you will do me the great favor, 
 parsing, of not mentioning it to nary a living 
 soul as fer me and my ole gray boss and my 
 household furniture we ll be in Kanetuck afore 
 daybreak to-morrow mornin ! " And he was. 
 
 But he rode on just then and presented him 
 self for the last time at the store of Flitter Bill. 
 Bill was sitting on the stoop in his favorite pos 
 ture. And in a moment there stood before him 
 plain Mayhall Wells holding out the order 
 Bill had given the parson that day. 
 
 " Misto Richmond," he said, " I have come 
 to tell you good-by." 
 
 Now just above the selfish layers of fat under 
 
 Flitter Bill s chubby hands was a very kind heart. 
 
 When he saw Mayhall s old manner and heard 
 
 the old respectful way of address, and felt the 
 
 43 
 
THE AEMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 dazed helplessness of the big, beaten man, the 
 heart thumped. 
 
 " I am sorry about that little amount I owe 
 
 you; I think I ll be able shortly" But Bill 
 
 cut him short. Mayhall Wells, beaten, dis- 
 
 j graced, driven from home on charge of petty 
 
 i crimes, of which he was undoubtedly guilty, but 
 
 I for which Bill knew he himself was responsible 
 
 Mayhall on his way into exile and still per* 
 
 suading himself and, at that moment, almost 
 
 persuading him that he meant to pay that little 
 
 debt of long ago was too much for Flitter Bill, 
 
 and he proceeded to lie lying with deliberation 
 
 and pleasure. 
 
 " Captain Wells," he said and the emphasis 
 on the title was balm to Mayhall s soul " you 
 have protected me in time of war, an you air 
 welcome to yo uniform an you air welcome to 
 that little debt. Yes," he went on, reaching 
 down into his pocket and pulling out a roll of 
 bills, " I tender you in payment for that same 
 protection the regular pay of a officer in the 
 Confederate service " and he handed out the 
 army pay for three months in Confederate 
 greenbacks " an five dollars in money of the 
 United States, of which I an , doubtless, you, 
 suh, air true and loyal citizens. Captain Wells, 
 I bid you good-by an I wish ye well I wish ye 
 well." 
 
 44 
 
THE ARMY OF THE CALLAHAN 
 
 From the stoop of his store Bill watched the 
 captain ride away, drooping at the shoulders, 
 and with his hands folded on the pommel of his 
 saddle his dim blue eyes misty, the jaunty for 
 age cap a mockery of his iron-gray hair, and the 
 flaps of his coat fanning either side like mourn 
 ful wings. 
 
 And Flitter Bill muttered to himself: 
 
 " Atter he s gone long enough fer these things 
 to blow over, I m going to bring him back and 
 give him another chance yes, damme if I don t 
 git him back." 
 
 And Bill dropped his remorseful eye to the 
 order in his hand. Like the handwriting of the 
 order that lifted Mayhall like magic into power, 
 the handwriting of this order, that dropped him 
 like a stone was Flitter Bill s own. 
 
 45 
 
THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 THE missionary was young and she was 
 from the North. Her brows were 
 straight, her nose was rather high, and her eyes 
 were clear and gray. The upper lip of her little 
 mouth was so short that the teeth just under it 
 were never quite concealed. It was the mouth 
 of a child and it gave the face, with all its 
 strength and high purpose, a peculiar pathos that 
 no soul in that little mountain town had the 
 power to see or feel. A yellow mule was hitched 
 to the rickety fence in front of her and she stood 
 on the stoop of a little white frame-house with 
 an elm switch between her teeth and gloves on 
 her hands, which were white and looked strong. 
 The mule wore a man s saddle, but no matter 
 the streets were full of yellow pools, the mud 
 was ankle-deep, and she was on her way to the 
 sick-bed of Becky Day. 
 
 There was a flood that morning. All the pre 
 ceding day the rains had drenched the high 
 slopes unceasingly. That night, the rain-clear 
 forks of the Kentucky got yellow and rose high, 
 
 
 
THE PAKDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 \ 
 
 and now they crashed together around the town 
 and, after a heaving conflict, started the river on 
 one quivering, majestic sweep to the sea. 
 
 Nobody gave heed that the girl rode a mule 
 or that the saddle was not her own, and both 
 facts she herself quickly forgot. This half log, 
 half frame house on a corner had stood a siege 
 once. She could yet see bullet holes about the 
 door. Through this window, a revenue officer 
 from the Blue Grass had got a bullet in the 
 shoulder from a garden in the rear. Standing 
 in the post-office door only just one month be 
 fore, she herself had seen children scurrying like 
 rabbits through the back-yard fences, men run 
 ning silently here and there, men dodging into 
 doorways, fire flashing in the street and from 
 every house and not a sound but the crack of 
 pistol and Winchester; for the mountain men 
 deal death in all the terrible silence of death. 
 And now a preacher with a long scar across his 
 forehead had come to the one little church in the 
 place and the fervor of religion was struggling 
 with feudal hate for possession of the town. To 
 the girl, who saw a symbol in every mood of the 
 earth, the passions of these primitive people 
 were like the treacherous streams of the uplands 
 now quiet as sunny skies and now clashing to 
 gether with but little less fury and with much 
 more noise. And the roar of the flood above 
 47 
 
THE PAKDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 the wind that late afternoon was the wrath of 
 the Father, that with the peace of the Son so 
 long on earth, such things still could be. Once 
 more trouble was threatening and that day even 
 she knew that trouble might come, but she rode 
 without fear, for she went when and where she 
 pleased as any woman can, throughout the Cum 
 berland, without insult or harm. 
 
 At the end of the street were two houses that 
 seemed to front each other with unmistakable 
 enmity. In them were two men who had 
 wounded each other only the day before, and 
 who that day wou!4 lead the factions, if the old 
 feud broke loose again. One house was close 
 to the frothing hem of the flood a log-hut with 
 a shed of rough boards for a kitchen the home 
 of Becky Day. 
 
 The other was across the way and was framed 
 and smartly painted. On the steps sat a woman 
 with her head bare and her hands under her 
 apron widow of the Marcum whose death 
 from a bullet one month before had broken the 
 long truce of the feud. A groaning curse was 
 growled from the v. indow as the girl drew near, 
 and she knew it came from a wounded Marcum 
 who had lately come back from the West to 
 avenge his brother s death. 
 
 " Why don t you go over to see your neigh 
 bor? " The girl s clear eyes gave no hint that 
 
 48 
 
THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 she knew as she well did the trouble between 
 the houses, and the widow stared in sheer amaze 
 ment, for mountaineers do not talk with strang 
 ers of the quarrels between them. 
 
 " I have nothin to do with such as her," she 
 said, sullenly; " she ain t the kind " 
 
 " Don t! " said the girl, with a flush, " she s 
 dying." 
 
 "Dybit" 
 
 11 Yes." With the word the girl sprang from 
 the mule and threw the reins over the pale of the 
 fence in front of the log-hut across the way. In 
 the doorway she turned as though she would 
 speak to the woman on the steps again, but a tall 
 man with a black beard appeared in the low door 
 of the kitchen-shed. 
 
 " How is your how is Mrs. Day? " 
 
 " Mighty puny this mornin Becky is." 
 
 The girl slipped into the dark room. On a 
 disordered, pillowless bed lay a white face with 
 eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Near the 
 bed was a low wood fire. On the hearth were 
 several thick cups filled with herbs and heavy 
 fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky s 
 " man " was a teamster. With a few touches of 
 the girl s quick hands, the covers of the bed were 
 smooth, and the woman s eyes rested on the 
 girl s own cloak. With her own handkerchief 
 she brushed the death-damp from the forehead 
 
 49 
 
THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 that already seemed growing cold. At her first 
 touch, the woman s eyelids opened and dropped 
 together again. Her lips moved, but no sound 
 came from them. 
 
 In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth 
 was clean and the fire was blazing. Every 
 time the girl passed the window she saw thtf 
 widow across the way staring hard at the hut. 
 When she took the ashes into the street, the 
 woman spoke to her. 
 
 " I can t go to see Becky she hates me." 
 With good reason." 
 
 The answer came with a clear sharpness that 
 made the widow start and redden angrily; but 
 the girl walked straight to the gate, her eyes 
 ablaze with all the courage that the mountain 
 woman knew and yet with another courage to 
 which the primitive creature was a stranger a 
 courage that made the widow lower her own 
 eyes and twist her hands under her apron. 
 
 " I want you to come and ask Becky to for 
 give you." 
 
 The woman stared and laughed. 
 
 " Forgive me? Becky forgive me? She 
 wouldn t an I don t want her " She could 
 not look up into the girl s eyes ; but she pulled a 
 pipe from under the apron, laid it down with a 
 trembling hand and began to rock slightly. 
 
 The girl leaned across the gate. 
 50 
 
THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 " Look at me ! " she said, sharply. The 
 woman raised her eyes, swerved them once, and 
 then in spite of herself, held them steady. 
 
 " Listen! Do you want a dying woman s 
 curse? " 
 
 It was a straight thrust to the core of a super 
 stitious heart and a spasm of terror crossed the 
 woman s face. She began to wring her hands. 
 
 "Come on!" said the girl, sternly, and 
 turned, without looking back, until she reached 
 the door of the hut, where she beckoned and 
 stood waiting, while the woman started slowly 
 and helplessly from the steps, still wringing her 
 hands. Inside, behind her, the wounded Mar- 
 cum, who had been listening, raised himself on 
 one elbow and looked after her through the win 
 dow. 
 
 " She can t come in not while I m in here." 
 
 The girl turned quickly. It was Dave Day, 
 the teamster, in the kitchen door, and his face 
 looked blacker than his beard. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, simply, as though hurt, and 
 then with a dignity that surprised her, the team 
 ster turned and strode towards the back door. 
 
 " But I can git out, I reckon," he said, and he 
 never looked at the widow who had stopped, 
 frightened, at the gate. 
 
 " Oh, I can t I can t I " she said, and her 
 voice broke; but the girl gently pushed her to 
 
THE PAKDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 the door, where she stopped again, leaning 
 against the lintel. Across the way, the wounded 
 Marcum, with a scowl of wonder, crawled out 
 of his bed and started painfully to the door. 
 The girl saw him and her heart beat fast. 
 
 Inside, Becky lay with closed eyes. She stirred 
 uneasily, as though she felt some hated presence, 
 but her eyes stayed fast, for the presence of 
 Death in the room was stronger still. 
 
 "Becky! " At the broken cry, Becky s eyes 
 flashed wide and fire broke through the haze 
 that had gathered in them. 
 
 " I want ye ter fergive me, Becky." 
 
 The eyes burned steadily for a long time. 
 For two days she had not spoken, but her voice 
 came now, as though from the grave. 
 
 " You ! " she said, and, again, with torturing 
 scorn, " You ! " And then she smiled, for she 
 knew why her enemy was there, and her hour of 
 triumph was come. The girl moved swiftly to 
 the window she could see the wounded Mar 
 cum slowly crossing the street, pistol in hand. 
 
 "What dl ever do to you?" 
 
 " Nothin , Becky, nothin ." 
 
 Becky laughed harshly. " You can tell the 
 truth can t ye to a dyin woman? " 
 
 " Fergive me, Becky! " 
 
 A scowling face, tortured with pain, was 
 thrust into the window. 
 
 52 
 
THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 " Sh-h! " whispered the girl, imperiously, and 
 the man lifted his heavy eyes, dropped one elbow 
 on the window-sill and waited. 
 
 " You tuk Jim from me ! " 
 
 The widow covered her face with her hands, 
 and the Marcum at the window brother to 
 Jim, who was dead lowered at her, listening 
 keenly,. 
 
 " An you got him by lyin bout me. You 
 tuk him by lyin bout me didn t ye? Didn t 
 ye? " she repeated, fiercely, and her voice would 
 have wrung the truth from a stone. 
 
 "Yes Becky yes!" 
 
 " You hear? " cried Becky, turning her eyes 
 to the girl. 
 
 " You made him believe an made ever body, 
 you could, believe that I was was bad" Her 
 breath got short, but the terrible arraignment 
 went on. 
 
 " You started this war. My brother would 
 n t a shot Jim Marcum if it hadn t been fer 
 you. You killed Jim your own husband an 
 you killed me. An now you want me to fer- 
 give you you ! " She raised her right hand as 
 though with it she would hurl the curse behind 
 her lips, and the widow, with a cry, sprang for 
 the bony fingers, catching them in her own hand 
 and falling over on her knees at the bedside. 
 
 u Don t, Becky, don t don t don t! " 
 
 53 
 
THE PARDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 There was a slight rustle at the back window. 
 At the other, a pistol flashed into sight and 
 dropped again below the sill. Turning, the 
 girl saw Dave s bushy black head he, too, with 
 one elbow on the sill and the other hand out of 
 sight. 
 
 " Shame! " she said, looking from one to the 
 other of the two men, who had learned, at last, 
 the bottom truth of the feud; and then she 
 caught the sick woman s other hand and spoke 
 quickly. 
 
 " Hush, Becky," she said; and at the touch of 
 her hand and the sound of her voice, Becky 
 looked confusedly at her and let her upraised 
 hand sink back to the bed. The widow stared 
 swiftly from Jim s brother, at one window, to 
 Dave Day at the other, and hid her face on her 
 arms. 
 
 " Remember, Becky how can you expect for 
 giveness in another world, unless you forgive in 
 this?" 
 
 The woman s brow knitted and she lay quiet. 
 Like the widow who held her hand, the dying 
 woman believed, with never the shadow of a 
 doubt, that somewhere above the stars, a living 
 God reigned in a heaven of never-ending happi 
 ness; that somewhere beneath the earth a per 
 sonal devil gloated over souls in eternal torture ; 
 that whether she went above, or below, hung 
 54 
 
THE PAKDON OF BECKY BAY 
 
 solely on her last hour of contrition ; and that in 
 heaven or hell she would know those whom she 
 might meet as surely as she had known them on 
 earth. By and by her face softened and she 
 drew a long breath. 
 
 " Jim was a good man," she said. And then 
 after a moment: 
 
 " An I was a good woman " she turned her 
 eyes towards the girl " until Jim married her. 
 I didn t keer after that." Then she got calm, 
 and while she spoke to the widow, she looked at 
 the girl. 
 
 " Will you git up in church an say before 
 ever body that you knew I was good when you 
 said I was bad that you lied about me? " 
 
 " Yes yes." Still Becky looked at the girl, 
 who stooped again. 
 
 " She will, Becky, I know she will. Won t 
 you forgive her and leave peace behind you? 
 Dave and Jim s brother are here make them 
 shake hands. Won t you won t you?" she 
 asked, turning from one to the other. 
 
 Both men were silent. 
 
 " Won t you? " she repeated, looking at Jim s 
 brother. 
 
 " I ve got nothin agin Dave. I always 
 thought that she " he did not call his brother s 
 wife by name caused all this trouble. I ve 
 nothin agin Dave." 
 
 55 
 
THE PAEDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 The girl turned. " Won t you, Dave? " 
 
 " I m waitin to hear whut Becky says." 
 
 Becky was listening, though her eyes were 
 closed. Her brows knitted painfully. It was 
 a hard compromise that she was asked to make 
 between mortal hate and a love that was more 
 than mortal, but the Plea that has stood between 
 them for nearly twenty centuries prevailed, and 
 the girl knew that the end of the feud was nigh. 
 
 Becky nodded. 
 
 " Yes, I fergive her, an I want em to shake 
 hands." 
 
 But not once did she turn her eyes to the 
 woman whom she forgave, and the hand that the 
 widow held gave back no answering pressure. 
 The faces at the windows disappeared, and she 
 motioned for the girl to take her weeping enemy 
 away. 
 
 She did not open her eyes when the girl came 
 back, but her lips moved ar^d the girl bent above 
 her. 
 
 " I know whar Jim is." 
 
 From somewhere outside came Dave s cough, 
 and the dying woman turned her head as 
 though she were reminded of something she 
 had quite forgotten. Then, straightway, she 
 forgot again. 
 
 The voice of the flood had deepened. A 
 smile came to Becky s lips a faint, terrible 
 
 56 
 
THE PAEDON OF BECKY DAY 
 
 smile of triumph. The girl bent low and, witK 
 a startled face, shrank back. 
 
 An 9 I ll git tkar first." 
 
 With that whisper went Becky s last breath, 
 but the smile was there, even when her lips were 
 cold. 
 
 57 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 THE tutor was from New England, and he 
 was precisely what passes, with South 
 erners, as typical. He was thin, he wore spec 
 tacles, he talked dreamy abstractions, and he 
 looked clerical. Indeed, his ancestors had been 
 clergymen for generations, and, by nature and 
 principle, he was an apostle of peace and a non- 
 combatant. He had just come to the Gap a 
 cleft in the Cumberland Mountains to prepare 
 two young Blue Grass Kentuckians for Harvard. 
 The railroad was still thirty miles away, and he 
 had travelled mule-back through mudholes, on 
 which, as the joke ran, a traveller was supposed 
 to leave his card before he entered and disap 
 peared that his successor might not unknow 
 ingly press him too hard. I do know that, in 
 those mudholes, mules were sometimes drowned. 
 The tutor s gray mule fell over a bank with him, 
 arid he would have gone back had he not feared 
 what was behind more than anything that was 
 possible ahead. He was mud-bespattered, sore, 
 tired and dispirited when he reached the Gap, 
 but still plucky and full of business. He wanted 
 
 58 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD * 
 
 to see his pupils at once and arrange his schedule. 
 They came in after supper, and I had to laugh 
 when I saw his mild eyes open. The boys were 
 only fifteen and seventeen, but each had around 
 him a huge revolver and a belt of cartridges, 
 which he unbuckled and laid on the table after 
 shaking hands. The tutor s shining glasses were 
 raised to me for light. I gave it : my brothers 
 had just come in from a little police duty, I ex 
 plained. Everybody was a policeman at the 
 Gap, I added ; and, naturally, he still looked puz 
 zled; but he began at once to question the boys 
 about their studies, and, in an hour, he had his 
 daily schedule mapped out and submitted to me. 
 I had to cover my mouth with my hand when I 
 came to one item " Exercise : a walk of half 
 an hour every Wednesday afternoon between 
 five and six " for the younger, known since at 
 Harvard as the colonel, and known then at the 
 Gap as the Infant of the Guard, winked most ir 
 reverently. As he had just come back from a 
 ten-mile chase down the valley on horseback 
 after a bad butcher, and as either was apt to 
 have a like experience any and every day, I 
 was not afraid they would fail to get exercise 
 enough; so I let that item of the tutor pass. 
 
 The tutor slept in my room that night, and 
 my four brothers, the eldest of whom was a lieu 
 tenant on the police guard, in a room across the 
 59 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 hallway. I explained to the tutor that there was 
 much lawlessness in the region; that we " for 
 eigners " were trying to build a town, and that, 
 to ensure law and order, we had all become vol 
 unteer policemen. He seemed to think it was 
 most interesting. 
 
 About three o clock in the morning a shrill 
 whistle blew, and, from habit, I sprang out of 
 bed. I had hardly struck the floor when four 
 pairs of heavy boots thundered down the stairs 
 just outside the door, and I heard a gasp from 
 the startled tutor. He was bolt upright in bed, 
 and his face in the moonlight was white with 
 fear. 
 
 Whawha what s that? " 
 
 I told him it was a police whistle and that the 
 boys were answering it. Everybody jumped 
 when he heard a whistle, I explained ; for nobody 
 in town was permitted to blow one except a po 
 liceman. I guessed there would be enough men 
 answering that whistle without me, however, and 
 I slipped back into bed. 
 
 "Well," he said; and when the boys lum 
 bered upstairs again and one shouted through 
 the door, " All right! " the tutor said again with 
 emphasis:" Well!" 
 
 Next day there was to be a political gathering 
 at the Gap. A Senator was trying to lift him 
 self by his own boot-straps into the Governor s 
 60 
 
A CEISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 chair. He was going to make a speech, there 
 would be a big and unruly crowd, and it would 
 be a crucial day for the Guard. So, next morn 
 ing, I suggested to the tutor that it would be un 
 wise for him to begin work with his pupils that 
 day, for the reason that he was likely to be 
 greatly interrupted and often. He thought, 
 however, he would like to begin. He did begin, 
 and within half an hour Gordon, the town ser 
 geant, thrust his head inside the door and called 
 the colonel by name. 
 
 " Come on," he said; " they re going to try 
 that d n butcher." And seeing from the tu 
 tor s face that he had done something dreadful, 
 he slammed the door in apologetic confusion. 
 The tutor was law-abiding, and it was the law 
 that called the colonel, and so the tutor let him 
 go nay, went with him and heard the case. 
 The butcher had gone off on another man s horse 
 the man owed him money, he said, and the 
 only way he could get his money was to take the 
 horse as security. But the sergeant did not know 
 this, and he and the colonel rode after him, and 
 the colonel, having the swifter horse, but not 
 having had time to get his own pistol, took the 
 sergeant s and went ahead. He fired quite close 
 to the running butcher twice, and the butcher 
 thought it wise to halt. When he saw the child 
 who had captured him he was speechless, and he 
 61 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 got off his horse and cut a big switch to give the 
 colonel a whipping, but the doughty Infant drew 
 down on him again and made him ride, foaming 
 with rage, back to town. The butcher was good- 
 natured at the trial, however, and the tutor heard 
 him say, with a great guffaw: 
 
 " An I do believe the d n little fool would 
 a shot me." 
 
 Once more the tutor looked at the pupil whom 
 he was to lead into the classic halls of Harvard, 
 and once more he said : 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 People were streaming into town now, and I 
 persuaded the tutor that there was no use for 
 him to begin his studies again. He said he would 
 go fishing down the river and take a swim. He 
 would get back in time to hear the speaking in 
 the afternoon. So I got him a horse, and he 
 came out with a long cane fishing-pole and a pair 
 of saddle-bags. I told him that he must watch 
 the old nag or she would run away with him, 
 particularly when he started homeward. The 
 tutor was not much of a centaur. The horse 
 started as he was throwing the wrong leg over 
 his saddle, and the tutor clamped his rod under 
 one arm, clutching for the reins with both hands 
 and kicking for his stirrups with both feet. The 
 tip of the limber pole beat the horse s flank gen 
 tly as she struck a trot, and smartly as she struck 
 
 62 
 
A CEISIS FOE THE GUAKD 
 
 into a lope, and so with arms, feet, saddle-pock 
 ets, and fishing-rod flapping towards different 
 points of the compass, the tutor passed out of 
 sight over Poplar Hill on a dead run. 
 
 As soon as he could get over a fit of laughter 
 and catch his breath, the colonel asked : 
 
 " Do you know what he had in those saddle- 
 pockets? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " A bathing suit," he shouted; and he went off 
 again. 
 
 Not even in a primeval forest, it seemed, 
 would the modest Puritan bare his body to the 
 mirror of limpid water and the caress of moun 
 tain air. 
 
 The trouble had begun early that morning, 
 when Gordon, the town sergeant, stepped from 
 his door and started down the street with no lit 
 tle self-satisfaction. He had been arraying him 
 self for a full hour, and after a tub-bath and a 
 shave he stepped, spick and span, into the street 
 with his head steadily held high, except when he 
 bent it to look at the shine of his boots, which 
 was the work of his own hands, and of which 
 he was proud. As a matter of fact, the ser 
 geant felt that he looked just as he particularly 
 wanted to look on that day his best. Gordon 
 
 63 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 was a native of Wise, but that day a girl was 
 coming from Lee, and he was ready for her. 
 
 Opposite the Intermont, a pistol-shot cracked 
 from Cherokee Avenue, and from habit he 
 started that way. Logan, the captain of the 
 Guard the leading lawyer in that part of the 
 State was ahead of him however, and he called 
 to Gordon to follow. Gordon ran in the grass 
 along the road to keep those boots out of the 
 dust. Somebody had fired off his pistol for fun 
 and was making tracks for the river. As they 
 pushed the miscreant close, he dashed into the 
 river to wade across. It was a very cold morn 
 ing, and Gordon prayed that the captain was not 
 going to be such a fool as to follow the fellow 
 across the river. He should have known better. 
 
 " In with you," said the captain quietly, and 
 the mirror of the shining boots was dimmed, 
 and the icy water chilled the sergeant to the 
 knees and made him so mad that he flashed his 
 pistol and told the runaway to halt, which he did 
 in the middle of the stream. It was Richards, 
 the tough from " the Pocket," and, as he paid 
 his fine promptly, they had to let him go. Gor 
 don went back, put on his everyday clothes and 
 got his billy and his whistle and prepared to see 
 the maid from Lee when his duty should let him. 
 As a matter of fact, he saw her but once, and 
 then he was not made happy. 
 
A CRISIS FOE THE GTJAKD 
 
 The people had come in rapidly giants from 
 the Crab Orchard, mountaineers from through 
 the Gap, and from Cracker s Neck and Thun 
 derstruck Knob ; Valley people from Little Stone 
 Gap, from the furnace site and Bum Hollow and 
 Wildcat, and people from Lee, from Turkey 
 Cove, and from the Pocket the much-dreaded 
 Pocket far down in the river hills. 
 
 They came on foot and on horseback, and left 
 their horses in the bushes and crowded the streets 
 and filled the saloon of one Jack Woods who 
 had the cackling laugh of Satan and did not like 
 the Guard, for good reasons, and whose partic 
 ular pleasure was to persuade some customer to 
 stir up a hornet s nest of trouble. From the 
 saloon the crowd moved up towards the big 
 spring at the foot of Imboden Hill, where, under 
 beautiful trunk-mottled beeches, was built the 
 speakers platform. 
 
 Precisely at three o clock the local orator, 
 much flurried, rose, ran his hand through his 
 long hair and looked in silence over the* crowd. 
 
 " Fellow citizens ! There s beauty in the stars 
 of night and in the glowin orb of day. There s 
 beauty in the rollin meadow and in the quiet 
 stream. There s beauty in the smilin valley 
 and in the everlastin hills. Therefore, fellow 
 citizens THEREFORE, fellow citizens, allow me 
 to introduce to you the future Governor of these 
 65 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 United States Senator William Bayhone." 
 And he sat down with such a beatific smile of 
 self-satisfaction that a fiend would not have had 
 the heart to say he had not won. 
 
 Now, there are wandering minstrels yet in the 
 Cumberland Hills. They play fiddles and go 
 about making up " ballets " that involve local 
 history. Sometimes they make a pretty good 
 verse this, for instance, about a feud : 
 
 The death of these two men 
 
 Caused great trouble in our land. 
 Caused men to leave their families 
 
 And take the parting hand. 
 Retaliation, still at war, 
 
 May never, never cease. 
 I would that I could only see 
 
 Our land once more at peace. 
 
 There was a minstrel out in the crowd, and 
 pretty soon he struck up his fiddle and his lay, 
 and he did not exactly sing the virtues of Billy 
 Bayhone. Evidently some partisan thought he 
 ought, for he smote him on the thigh with the 
 toe of his boot and raised such a stir as a rude 
 stranger might had he smitten a troubadour in 
 Arthur s Court. The crowd thickened and 
 surged, and four of the Guard emerged with the 
 fiddler and his assailant under arrest. It was as 
 though the Valley were a sheet of water straight- 
 
 66 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 way and the fiddler the dropping of a stone, for 
 the ripple of mischief started in every direction. 
 It caught two mountaineers on the edge of the 
 crowd, who for no particular reason thumped 
 each other with their huge fists, and were swiftly 
 led away by that silent Guard. The operation 
 of a mysterious force was in the air and it puz 
 zled the crowd. Somewhere a whistle would 
 blow, and, from this point and that, a quiet, well- 
 dressed young man would start swiftly toward 
 it. The crowd got restless and uneasy, and, by 
 and by, experimental and defiant. For in that 
 crowd was the spirit of Bunker Hill and King s 
 Mountain. It couldn t fiddle and sing; it could 
 n t settle its little troubles after the good old 
 fashion of fist and skull; it couldn t charge up 
 and down the streets on horseback if it pleased; 
 it couldn t ride over those pundiepn sidewalks ; it 
 couldn t drink openly and without shame; and, 
 Shades of the American Eagle and the Stars and 
 Stripes, it couldn t even yell No wonder, like 
 the heathen, it raged. What did these blanked 
 " furriners " have against them anyhow? They 
 couldn t run their country not much. 
 
 Pretty soon there came a shrill whistle far 
 down-town then another and another. It 
 sounded ominous, indeed, and it was, being a 
 signal of distress from the Infant of the Guard, 
 who stood before the door of Jack Woods s 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 saloon with his pistol levelled on Richards, the 
 tough from the Pocket, the Infant, standing 
 there with blazing eyes, alone and in the heart 
 of a gathering storm. 
 
 Now the chain of lawlessness that had tight 
 ened was curious and significant. There was 
 the tough and his kind lawless, irresponsible 
 and possible in any community. There was the 
 farm-hand who had come to town with the wild 
 son of his employer an honest, law-abiding far 
 mer. Came, too, a friend of the farmer who 
 had not yet reaped the crop of wild oats sown 
 in his youth. Whiskey ran all into one mould. 
 The farm-hand drank with the tough, the wild 
 son with the farm-hand, and the three drank to 
 gether, and got the farmer s unregenerate friend 
 to drink with them ; and he and the law-abiding 
 farmer himself, by and by, took a drink for old 
 time s sake. Now the cardinal command of ru 
 ral and municipal districts all through the South 
 is, " Forsake not your friend " : and it does not 
 take whiskey long to make friends. Jack Woods 
 had given the tough from the Pocket a whistle. 
 
 " You dassen t blow it," said he. 
 
 Richards asked why, and Jack told him. 
 Straightway the tough blew the whistle, and 
 when the little colonel ran down to arrest him 
 he laughed and resisted, and the wild son and 
 the farm-hand and Jack Woods showed an 
 68 
 
A CEISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 inclination to take his part. So, holding his 
 " drop " on the tough with one hand, the Infant 
 blew vigorously for help with the other. 
 
 Logan, the captain, arrived first he usually 
 arrived first and Gordon, the sergeant, was by 
 his side Gordon was always by his side. He 
 would have stormed a battery if the captain had 
 led him, and the captain would have led him 
 alone if he thought it was his duty. Logan 
 was as calm as a stage hero at the crisis of a 
 play. The crowd had pressed close. 
 
 " Take that man," he said sharply, pointing 
 to the tough whom the colonel held covered, and 
 two men seized him from behind. 
 
 The farm-hand drew his gun. 
 
 " No, you don t ! " he shouted. 
 
 " Take him" said the captain quietly; and he 
 was seized by two more and disarmed. 
 
 It was then that Sturgeon, the wild son, 
 ran up. 
 
 " You can t take that man to jail," he shouted 
 with an oath, pointing at the farm-hand. 
 
 The captain waved his hand. " And him! " 
 
 As two of the Guard approached, Sturgeon 
 started for his gun. Now, Sturgeon was Gor 
 don s blood cousin, but Gordon levelled his own 
 pistol. Sturgeon s weapon caught in his pocket, 
 and he tried to pull it loose. The moment he 
 succeeded Gordon stood ready to fire. Twice 
 
A CEISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 the hammer of the sergeant s pistol went back 
 almost to the turning-point, and then, as he 
 pulled the trigger again, Macf arlan, first lieuten 
 ant, who once played lacrosse at Yale, rushed, 
 parting the crowd right and left, and dropped 
 his billy lightly three times right, left and right 
 on Sturgeon s head. The blood spurted, the 
 head fell back between the bully s shoulders, his 
 grasp on his pistol loosened, and he sank to his 
 knees. For a moment the crowd was stunned by 
 the lightning quickness of it all. It was the first 
 blow ever struck in that country with a piece of 
 wood in the name of the law. 
 
 Take em on, boys," called the captain, 
 whose face had paled a little, though he seemed 
 as cool as ever. 
 
 And the boys started, dragging the three 
 struggling prisoners, and the crowd, growing 
 angrier and angrier, pressed close behind, a hun 
 dred of them, led by the farmer himself, a giant 
 in size, and beside himself with rage and hu 
 miliation. Once he broke through the guard 
 line and was pushed back. Knives and pistols 
 began to flash now everywhere, and loud threats 
 and curses rose on all sides the men should not 
 be taken to jail. The sergeant, dragging Stur 
 geon, looked up into the blazing eyes of a girl 
 on the sidewalk, Sturgeon s sister the maid 
 from Lee. The sergeant groaned. Logan gave 
 70 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 some order just then to the Infant, who ran 
 ahead, and by the time the Guard with the pris- 
 onejs had backed to a corner there were two lines 
 of Guards drawn across the street. The first 
 line let the prisoners and their captors through, 
 closed up behind, and backed slowly towards the 
 corner, where it meant to stand. 
 
 It was very exciting there. Winchesters and 
 shotguns protruded from the line threateningly, 
 but the mob came on as though it were going to 
 press through, and determined faces blenched 
 with excitement, but not with fear. A moment 
 later, the little colonel and the Guards on either 
 side of him were jabbing at men with cocked 
 Winchesters. At that moment it would have 
 needed but one shot to ring out to have started 
 an awful carnage ; but not yet was there a man \ 
 in the mob and that is the trouble with mobs ) 
 who seemed willing to make a sacrifice of him 
 self that the others might gain their end. For 
 one moment they halted, cursing and waving 
 their pistols, preparing for a charge ; and in that 
 crucial moment the tutor from New England 
 came like a thunderbolt to the rescue. Shrieks 
 of terror from children, shrieks of outraged 
 modesty from women, rent the air down the 
 street where the huddled crowd . was rushing 
 right and left in wild confusion, and, through 
 the parting crowd, the tutor flew into sight on 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 Horseback, bareheaded, barefooted, clad in a 
 gaudily striped bathing suit, with his saddle- 
 pockets flapping behind him like wings. Some 
 mischievous mountaineers, seeing him in his 
 bathing suit on the point of a rock up the river, 
 had joyously taken a pot-shot or two at him, and 
 the tutor had mounted his horse and fled. But 
 he came as welcome and as effective as an emis 
 sary straight from the God of Battles, though 
 he came against his will, for his old nag was 
 frantic and was running away. Men, women 
 and children parted before him, and gaping 
 mouths widened as he passed. The impulse of 
 the crowd ran faster than his horse, and even 
 the enraged mountaineers in amazed wonder 
 sprang out of his way, and, far in the rear, a few 
 privileged ones saw the frantic horse plunge to 
 wards his stable, stop suddenly, and pitch his 
 mottled rider through the door and mercifully 
 out of sight. Human purpose must give way\ 
 when a pure miracle comes to earth to baffle it. J 
 It gave way now long enough to let the oaken 
 doors of the calaboose close behind tough, farm 
 hand, and the farmer s wild son. The line of 
 Winchesters at the corner quietly gave way. 
 The power of the Guard was established, the 
 backbone of the opposition broken; henceforth, 
 the work for law and order was to be easy com 
 pared with what it had been. Up at the big 
 72 
 
A CEISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 spring under the beeches sat the disgusted ora 
 tor of the day and the disgusted Senator, who, 
 seriously, was quite sure that the Guard, being 
 composed of Democrats, had taken this way to 
 shatter his campaign. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Next morning, in court, the members of the 
 Guard acted as witnesses against the culprits. 
 Macfarlan stated that he had struck Sturgeon 
 over the head to save his life, and Sturgeon, 
 after he had paid his fine, said he would prefer 
 being shot to being clubbed to death, and he bore 
 dangerous malice for a long time, until he 
 learned what everybody else knew, that Macfar 
 lan always did what he thought he ought, and 
 never spoke anything but the literal truth, 
 whether it hurt friend, foe or himself. 
 
 After court, Richards, the tough, met Gordon, 
 the sergeant, in the road. " Gordon," he said, 
 " you swore to a lie about me a while ago." 
 
 " How do you want to fight? " asked Gordon. 
 
 "Fair!" 
 
 "Come on"; and Gordon started for the 
 town limits across the river, Richards following 
 on horseback. At a store, Gordon unbuckled 
 his belt and tossed his pistol and his police badge 
 inside. Jack Woods, seeing this, followed, and 
 the Infant, seeing Woods, followed too. The 
 law was law, but this affair was personal, 
 73 
 
A CRISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 and would be settled without the limits of law 
 and local obligation. Richards tried to talk 
 to Gordon, but the sergeant walked with his 
 head down, as though he could not hear he 
 was too enraged to talk. 
 
 While Richards was hitching his horse in the 
 bushes the sergeant stood on the bank of the 
 river with his arms folded and his chin swinging 
 from side to side. When he saw Richards in 
 the open he rushed for him like a young bull 
 that feels the first swelling of his horns. It was 
 not a fair, stand-up, knock-down English fight, 
 but a Scotch tussle, in which either could strike, 
 kick, bite or gouge. After a few blows they 
 clinched and whirled and fell, Gordon on top 
 with which advantage he began to pound the 
 tough from the Pocket savagely. Woods made 
 as if to pull him off, but the Infant drew his 
 pistol. "Keep off!" 
 
 " He s killing him I " shouted Woods, halting. 
 
 " Let him holler Enough, then," said the 
 Infant. 
 
 " He s killing him ! " shouted Woods. 
 
 " Let Gordon s friends take him off, then," 
 said the Infant. " Don t you touch him." 
 
 And it was done. Richards was senseless and 
 speechless he really couldn t shout " Enough." 
 But he was content, and the day left a very sat 
 isfactory impression on him and on his friends. 
 74 
 
A CEISIS FOR THE GUARD 
 
 If they misbehaved in town they would be ar 
 rested: that was plain. But it was also plain 
 that if anybody had a personal grievance against 
 one of the Guard he could call him out of the 
 town limits and get satisfaction, after the way of 
 his fathers. There was nothing personal at all 
 in the attitude of the Guard towards the out 
 siders; which recognition was a great stride to 
 ward mutual understanding and final high re 
 gard. 
 
 All that day I saw that something was troub 
 ling the tutor from New England. It was the 
 Moral Sense of the Puritan at work, I supposed, 
 and, that night, when I came in with a new sup 
 ply of " billies " and gave one to each of my 
 brothers, the tutor looked up over his glasses and 
 cleared his throat. 
 
 " Now," said I to myself, " we shall catch it 
 hot on the savagery of the South and the bar 
 barous Method of keeping it down " ; but before 
 he had said three words the colonel looked as 
 though he were going to get up and slap the lit 
 tle dignitary on the back which would have 
 created a sensation indeed. 
 
 " Have you an extra one of those those 
 
 1 
 
 " Billies? " I said, wonderingly. 
 " Yes. I I believe I shall join the Guard 
 myself," said the tutor from New England. 
 
 75 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 NO night was this in Hades with solemn- 
 eyed Dante, for Satan was only a woolly 
 little black dog, and surely no dog was ever more 
 absurdly misnamed. When Uncle Carey first 
 heard that name, he asked gravely : 
 
 " Why, Dinnie, where in h ," Uncle 
 
 Carey gulped slightly, " did you get him?" 
 And Dinnie laughed merrily, for she saw the fun 
 of the question, and shook her black curls. 
 " He didn t come f um that place! 
 Distinctly Satan had not come from that 
 place. On the contrary, he might by a miracle 
 have dropped straight from some Happy Hunt 
 ing-ground, for all the signs he gave of having 
 touched pitch in this or another sphere. Noth 
 ing human was ever born that was gentler, mer 
 rier, more trusting or more lovable than Satan. 
 That was why Uncle Carey said again gravely 
 that he could hardly tell Satan and his little mis 
 tress apart. He rarely saw them apart, and as 
 both had black tangled hair and bright black 
 eyes ; as one awoke every morning with a happy 
 smile and the other with a jolly bark; as they 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN" 
 
 played all day like wind-shaken shadows and 
 each won every heart at first sight the likeness 
 was really rather curious. I have always be 
 lieved that Satan made the spirit of Dinnie s 
 house, orthodox and severe though it was, al 
 most kindly toward his great namesake. I know 
 I have never been able, since I knew little Satan, 
 to think old Satan as bad as I once painted him, 
 though I am sure the little dog had many pretty 
 tricks that the " old boy " doubtless has never 
 used in order to amuse his friends. 
 
 " Shut the door, Saty, please." Dinnie would 
 say, precisely as she would say it to Uncle Billy, 
 the butler, and straightway Satan would launch 
 himself at it bang ! He never would learn to 
 close it softly, for Satan liked that bang ! 
 
 If you kept tossing a coin or marble in the air, 
 Satan would keep catching it and putting it back 
 in your hand for another throw, till you got 
 tired. Then he would drop it on a piece of rag 
 carpet, snatch the carpet with his teeth, throw 
 the coin across the room and rush for it like mad, 
 until he got tired. If you put a penny on his 
 nose, he would wait until you counted, one two 
 three! Then he would toss it up himself and 
 catch it. Thus, perhaps, Satan grew to love 
 Mammon right well, but for another and better 
 reason than that he liked simply to throw it 
 around as shall now be made plain. 
 77 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 A rubber ball with a hole in it was his favor 
 ite plaything, and he would take it in his mouth 
 and rush around the house like a child, squeezing 
 it to make it whistle. When he got a new ball, 
 he would hide his old one away until the new 
 one was the worse worn of the two, and then he 
 would bring out the old one again. If Dinnie 
 gave him a nickel or a dime, when they went 
 down-town, Satan would rush into a store, rear 
 up on the counter where the rubber balls were 
 kept, drop the coin, and get a ball for himself. 
 Thus, Satan learned finance. He began to hoard 
 his pennies, and one day Uncle Carey found a 
 pile of seventeen under a corner of the carpet. 
 Usually he carried to Dinnie all coins that he 
 found in the street, but he showed one day that 
 he was going into the ball-business for himself. 
 Uncle Carey had given Dinnie a nickel for some 
 candy, and, as usual, Satan trotted down the 
 street behind her. As usual, Satan stopped be 
 fore the knick-knack shop. 
 
 " Turn on, Saty," said Dinnie. Satan reared 
 against the door as he always did, and Dinnie 
 said again: 
 
 " Turn on, Saty." As usual, Satan dropped 
 to his haunches, but what was unusual, he failed 
 to bark. Now Dinnie had got a new ball for 
 Satan only that morning, so Dinnie stamped her 
 foot. 
 
Satan would drop the coin and get a ball for himself. 
 
0HRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 " I tell you to turn on, Saty." Satan never 
 moved. He looked at Dinnie as much as to 
 say: 
 
 " I have never disobeyed you before, little 
 mistress, but this time I have an excellent reason 
 for what must seem to you very bad manners " 
 and being a gentleman withal, Satan rose on his 
 haunches and begged. 
 
 " You re des a pig, Saty," said Dinnie, but 
 with a sigh for the candy that was not to be, 
 Dinnie opened the door, and Satan, to her won 
 der, rushed to the counter, put his forepaws on 
 it, and dropped from his mouth a dime. Satan 
 had found that coin on the street. He didn t 
 bark for change, nor beg for two balls, but he 
 had got it in his woolly little head, somehow, 
 that in that store a coin meant a ball, though 
 never before nor afterward did he try to get a 
 ball for a penny. 
 
 Satan slept in Uncle Carey s room, for of all 
 people, after Dinnie, Satan loved Uncle Carey 
 best. Every day at noon he would go to an up 
 stairs window and watch the cars come around 
 the corner, until a very tall, square-shouldered 
 young man swung to the ground, and down 
 Satan would scamper yelping to meet him at 
 the gate. If Uncle Carey, after supper and 
 when Dinnie was in bed, started out of the house, 
 still in his business clothes, Satan would leap out 
 
 79 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN" 
 
 before him, knowing that he too might be al 
 lowed to go ; but if Uncle Carey had put on black 
 clothes that showed a big, dazzling shirt-front, 
 and picked up his high hat, Satan would sit per 
 fectly still and look disconsolate; for as there 
 were no parties or theatres for Dinnie, so there 
 were none for him. But no matter how late 
 it was when Uncle Carey came home, he always 
 saw Satan s little black nose against the window- 
 pane and heard his bark of welcome. 
 
 After intelligence, Satan s chief trait was lov- 
 ableness nobody ever knew him to fight, to 
 snap at anything, or to get angry; after lovable- 
 ness, it was politeness. If he wanted something 
 to eat, if he wanted Dinnie to go to bed, if he 
 wanted to get out of the door, he would beg 
 beg prettily on his haunches, his little red tongue 
 out and his funny little paws hanging loosely. 
 Indeed, it was just because Satan was so little 
 less than human, I suppose, that old Satan began 
 to be afraid he might have a soul. So the 
 wicked old namesake with the Hoofs and Horns 
 laid a trap for little Satan, and, as he is apt to 
 do, he began laying it early long, indeed, be 
 fore Christmas. 
 
 When Dinnie started to kindergarten that au 
 tumn, Satan found that there was one place 
 where he could never go. Like the lamb, he 
 could not go to school; so while Dinnie was 
 
 80 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 away, Satan began to make friends. He would 
 bark, " Howdy-do? " to every dog that passed 
 his gate. Many stopped to rub noses with him 
 through the fence even Hugo the mastiff, and 
 nearly all, indeed, except one strange-looking 
 dog that appeared every morning at precisely 
 nine o clock and took his stand on the corner. 
 There he would lie patiently until a funeral came 
 along, and then Satan would see him take his 
 place at the head of the procession; and thus he 
 would march out to the cemetery and back again. 
 Nobody knew where he came from nor where he 
 went, and Uncle Carey called him the " funeral 
 dog " and said he was doubtless looking for his 
 dead master. Satan even made friends with a 
 scrawny little yellow dog that followed an old 
 drunkard around a dog that, when his mas 
 ter fell in the gutter, would go and catch a po 
 liceman by the coat-tail, lead the officer to his 
 helpless master, and spend the night with him 
 in jail. 
 
 By and by Satan began to slip out of the house 
 at night, and Uncle Billy said he reckoned Satan 
 had " jined de club "; and late one night, when 
 he had not come in, Uncle Billy told Uncle 
 Carey that it was " powerful slippery and he 
 reckoned they d better send de kerridge after 
 him " an innocent remark that made Uncle / 
 Carey send a boot after the old butler, who fled / 
 81 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 chuckling down the stairs, and left Uncle Carey 
 chuckling in his room. 
 
 Satan had " jined de club " the big club 
 and no dog was too lowly in Satan s eyes for 
 admission; for no priest ever preached the 
 brotherhood of man better than Satan lived it 
 both with man and dog. And thus he lived it 
 that Christmas night to his sorrow. 
 
 Christmas Eve had been gloomy the gloom 
 iest of Satan s life. Uncle Carey had gone to a 
 neighboring town at noon. Satan had followed 
 him down to the station, and when the train 
 started, Uncle Carey had ordered him to go 
 home. Satan took his time about going 
 home, not knowing it was Christmas Eve. He 
 found strange things happening to dogs that 
 day. The truth was, that policemen were 
 shooting all dogs found that were without a 
 collar and a license, and every now and then a 
 bang and a howl somewhere would stop Satan 
 in his tracks. At a little yellow house on the 
 edge of town he saw half a dozen strange dogs 
 in a kennel, and every now and then a negro 
 would lead a new one up to the house and deliver 
 him to a big man at the door, who, in return, 
 would drop something into the negro s hand. 
 While Satan waited, the old drunkard came 
 along with his little dog at his heels, paused be 
 fore the door, looked a moment at his faithful 
 82 
 
CHE1STMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 follower, and went slowly on. Satan little knew 
 the old drunkard s temptation, for in that yellow 
 house kind-hearted people had offered fifteen 
 cents for each dog brought to them, without a 
 license, that they might mercifully put it to 
 death, and fifteen cents was the precise price for 
 a drink of good whiskey. Just then there was 
 another bang and another howl somewhere, and 
 Satan trotted home to meet a calamity. Dinnie 
 was gone. Her mother had taken her out in 
 the country to Grandmother Dean s to spend 
 Christmas, as was the family custom, and Mrs. 
 Dean would not wait any longer for Satan; so 
 she told Uncle Billy to bring him out after sup 
 per. 
 
 " Ain t you shamed o yo self suh ? " said 
 the old butler, " keepin me from ketchin Christ 
 mas gifts dis day? " 
 
 Uncle Billy was indignant, for the negroes be 
 gin at four o clock in the afternoon of Christmas / 
 Eve to slip around corners and jump from hid 
 ing places to shout " Christmas Gif Christmas 
 Gif "; and the one who shouts first gets a gift. 
 No wonder it was gloomy for Satan Uncle 
 Carey, Dinnie, and all gone, and not a soul but 
 Uncle Billy in the big house. Every few min 
 utes he would trot on his little black legs up 
 stairs and downstairs, looking for his mistress. 
 As dusk came on, he would every now and then 
 
 83 
 
CHEISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 howl plaintively. After begging his supper, and 
 while Uncle Billy was hitching up a horse in the 
 stable, Satan went out in the yard and lay with 
 his nose between the close panels of the fence 
 quite heart-broken. When he saw his old friend, 
 Hugo, the mastiff, trotting into the gaslight, he 
 began to bark, his delight frantically. The big 
 mastiff stopped and nosed his sympathy through 
 the fence for a moment and walked slowly on, 
 Satan frisking and barking along inside. At the 
 gate Hugo stopped, and raising one huge paw, 
 playfully struck it. The gate flew open, and 
 with a happy yelp Satan leaped into the street. 
 The noble mastiff hesitated as though this were 
 not quite regular. He did not belong to the 
 club, and he didn t know that Satan had ever 
 been away from home after dark in his life. For 
 a moment he seemed to wait for Dinnie to call 
 him back as she always did, but this time there 
 was no sound, and Hugo walked majestically on, 
 with absurd little Satan running in a circle about 
 him. On the way they met the " funeral dog," 
 who glanced inquiringly at Satan, shied from 
 the mastiff, and trotted on. On the next block 
 the old drunkard s yellow cur ran across the 
 street, and after interchanging the compliments 
 of the season, ran back after his staggering mas 
 ter. As they approached the railroad track a 
 strange dog joined them, to whom Hugo paid 
 
 84 
 
CHEISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 no attention. At the crossing another new ac 
 quaintance bounded toward them. This one 
 a half-breed shepherd was quite friendly, and 
 he received Satan s advances with affable conde 
 scension. Then another came and another, and 
 little Satan s head got quite confused. They 
 were a queer-looking lot of curs and half-breeds 
 from the negro settlement at the edge of the 
 woods, and though Satan had little experience, 
 his instincts told him that all was not as it should 
 be, and had he been human he would have won 
 dered very much how they had escaped the car 
 nage that day. Uneasy, he looked around for 
 Hugo; but Hugo had disappeared. Once or 
 twice Hugo had looked around for Satan, and 
 Satan paying no attention, the mastiff trotted on 
 home in disgust. Just then a powerful yellow 
 cur sprang out of the darkness over the railroad 
 track, and Satan sprang to meet him, and so 
 nearly had the life scared out of him by the snarl 
 and flashing fangs of the new-comer that he 
 hardly had the strength to shrink back behind 
 his new friend, the half-breed shepherd. 
 
 A strange thing then happened. The other 
 dogs became suddenly quiet, and every eye was 
 on the yellow cur. He sniffed the air once or 
 twice, gave two or three peculiar low growls, and 
 all those dogs except Satan lost the civilization 
 of centuries and went back suddenly to the time 
 
 85 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 when they were wolves and were looking for a 
 leader. The cur was Lobo for that little pack, 
 and after a short parley, he lifted his nose high 
 and started away without looking back, while the 
 other dogs silently trotted after him. With a 
 mystified yelp, Satan ran after them. The cur 
 did not take the turnpike, but jumped the fence 
 into a field, making his way by the rear of houses, 
 from which now and then another dog would 
 slink out and silently join the band. Every one 
 of them Satan nosed most friendlily, and to his 
 great joy the funeral dog, on the edge of the 
 town, leaped into their midst. Ten minutes 
 later the cur stopped in the midst of some woods, 
 as though he would inspect his followers. Plain 
 ly, he disapproved of Satan, and Satan kept out 
 of his way. Then he sprang into the turnpike 
 and the band trotted down it, under flying black 
 clouds and shifting bands of brilliant moonlight. 
 Once, a buggy swept past them. A familiar 
 odor struck Satan s nose, and he stopped for a 
 moment to smell the horse s tracks; and right 
 he was, too, for out at her grandmother s Dinnie 
 refused to be comforted, and in that buggy was 
 Uncle Billy going back to town after him. 
 
 Snow was falling. It was a great lark for 
 Satan. Once or twice, as he trotted along, he 
 had to bark his joy aloud, and each time the big 
 cur gave him such a fierce growl that he feared 
 
 86 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 thereafter to open his jaws. But he was happy 
 for all that, to be running out into the night with 
 such a lot of funny friends and not to know or 
 care where he was going. He got pretty tired 
 presently, for over hill and down hill they went, 
 at that unceasing trot, trot, trot ! Satan s tongue 
 began to hang out. Once he stopped to rest, 
 but the loneliness frightened him and he ran on 
 after them with his heart almost bursting. He 
 was about to lie right down and die, when the 
 cur stopped, sniffed the air once or twice, and 
 with those same low growls, led the marauders 
 through a rail fence into the woods, and lay 
 quietly down. How Satan loved that soft, thick 
 grass, all snowy that it was ! It was almost as 
 good as his own bed at home. And there they 
 lay how long, Satan never knew, for he went 
 to sleep and dreamed that he was after a rat in 
 the barn at home; and he yelped in his sleep, 
 which made the cur lift his big yellow head and 
 show his fangs. The moving of the half-breed 
 shepherd and the funeral dog waked him at last, 
 and Satan got up. Half crouching, the cur was 
 leading the way toward the dark, still woods on 
 top of the hill, over which the Star of Bethle 
 hem was lowly sinking, and under which lay a 
 flock of the gentle creatures that seemed to have 
 been almost sacred to the Lord of that Star. 
 They were in sore need of a watchful shepherd 
 
 8? 
 
CHKISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 now. Satan was stiff and chilled, but he was 
 rested and had had his sleep, and he was just as 
 ready for fun as he always was. He didn t un 
 derstand that sneaking. Why they didn t all 
 jump and race and bark as he wanted to, he 
 couldn t see; but he was too polite to do other 
 wise than as they did, and so he sneaked after 
 them ; and one would have thought he knew, as 
 well as the rest, the hellish mission on which they 
 were bent. 
 
 Out of the woods they went, across a little 
 branch, and there the big cur lay flat again in the 
 grass. A faint bleat came from the hill-side be 
 yond, where Satan could see another woods 
 and then another bleat, and another. And the 
 cur began to creep again, like a snake in the 
 grass; and the others crept too, and little Satan 
 crept, though it was all a sad mystery to him. 
 Again the cur lay still, but only long enough for 
 Satan to see curious, fat, white shapes above him 
 and then, with a blood-curdling growl, the big 
 brute dashed forward. Oh, there was fun in 
 them after all! Satan barked joyfully. Those 
 were some new playmates those fat, white, 
 hairy things up there; and Satan was amazed 
 when, with frightened snorts, they fled in every 
 direction. But this was a new game, perhaps, 
 of which he knew nothing, and as did the rest, so 
 did Satan. He picked out one of the white 
 
 88 
 
CHKISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 things and fled barking after it. It was a little 
 fellow that he was after, but little as he was, Sa 
 tan might never have caught up, had not the 
 sheep got tangled in some brush. Satan danced 
 about him in mad glee, giving him a playful nip 
 at his wool and springing back to give him an 
 other nip, and then away again. Plainly, he 
 was not going to bite back, and when the sheep 
 struggled itself tired and sank down in a heap, 
 Satan came close and licked him, and as he was 
 very warm and woolly, he lay down and snug 
 gled up against him for awhile, listening to the 
 turmoil that was going on around him. And 
 as he listened, he got frightened. 
 
 If this was a new game it was certainly a very 
 peculiar one the wild rush, the bleats of ter 
 ror, gasps of agony, and the fiendish growls of 
 attack and the sounds of ravenous gluttony. 
 With every hair bristling, Satan rose and sprang 
 from the woods and stopped with a fierce ting 
 ling of the nerves that brought him horror and 
 fascination. One of the white shapes lay still 
 before him. There was a great steaming red 
 splotch on the snow, and a strange odor in the 
 air that made him dizzy ; but only for a moment. 
 Another white shape rushed by. A tawny 
 streak followed, and then, in a patch of moon 
 light, Satan saw the yellow cur with his teeth 
 fastened in the throat of his moaning playmate. 
 
 89 
 
CHEISTJVIAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 Like lightning Satan sprang at the cur, who 
 tossed him ten feet away and went back to his 
 awful work. Again Satan leaped, but just then 
 a shout rose behind him, and the cur leaped too 
 as though a bolt of lightning had crashed over 
 him, and, no longer noticing Satan or sheep, 
 began to quiver with fright and slink away. 
 Another shout rose from another direction 
 another from another. 
 
 " Drive em into the barn-yard!" was the 
 cry. 
 
 Now and then there was a fearful bang and a 
 howl of death-agony, as some dog tried to break 
 through the encircling men, who yelled and 
 cursed as they closed in on the trembling brutes 
 that slunk together and crept on; for it is said, 
 every sheep-killing dog knows his fate if caught, 
 and will make little effort to escape. With them 
 went Satan, through the barn-yard gate, where 
 they huddled in a corner a shamed and terri 
 fied group. A tall overseer stood at the gate. 
 
 " Ten of em ! " he said grimly. 
 
 He had been on the lookout for just such a 
 tragedy, for there had recently been a sheep-kill 
 ing raid on several farms in that neighborhood, 
 and for several nights he had had a lantern hung 
 out on the edge of the woods to scare the dogs 
 away; but a drunken farm-hand had neglected 
 his duty that Christmas Eve. 
 90 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 " Yassuh, an dey s jus sebenteen dead sheep 
 out dar," said a negro. 
 
 " Look at the little one," said a tall boy who 
 looked like the overseer; and Satan knew that 
 he spoke of him. 
 
 " Go back to the house, son," said the over 
 seer, " and tell your mother to give you a Christ 
 mas present I got for you yesterday." With a 
 glad whoop the boy dashed away, and in a mo 
 ment dashed back with a brand-new .32 Win 
 chester in his hand. 
 
 The dark hour before dawn was just break 
 ing on Christmas Day. It was the hour when 
 Satan usually rushed upstairs to see if his little 
 mistress was asleep. If he were only at home 
 now, and if he only had known how his little 
 mistress was weeping for him amid her play 
 things and his two new balls and a brass- 
 studded collar with a silver plate on which was 
 his name, Satan Dean; and if Dinnie could have 
 seen him now, her heart would have broken ; for 
 the tall boy raised his gun. There was a jet of 
 smoke, a sharp, clean crack, and the funeral dog 
 started on the right way at last toward his dead 
 master. Another crack, and the yellow cur 
 leaped from the ground and fell kicking. An 
 other crack and another, and with each crack a 
 dog tumbled, until little Satan sat on his 
 haunches amid the writhing pack, alone. His 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 time was now come. As the rifle was raised, 
 he heard up at the big house the cries of chil 
 dren; the popping of fire-crackers; tooting of 
 horns and whistles and loud shouts of " Christ 
 mas Gif , Christmas Gif ! " His little heart 
 beat furiously. Perhaps he knew just what he 
 was doing; perhaps it was the accident of habit; 
 most likely Satan simply wanted to go home 
 but when that gun rose, Satan rose too, on his 
 haunches, his tongue out, his black eyes steady 
 and his funny little paws hanging loosely and 
 begged ! The boy lowered the gun. 
 
 " Down, sir! " Satan dropped obediently, 
 but when the gun was lifted again, Satan rose 
 again, and again he begged. 
 
 " Down, I tell you ! " This time Satan would 
 not down, but sat begging for his life. The 
 boy turned. 
 
 " Papa, I can t shoot that dog." Perhaps 
 Satan had reached the stern old overseer s heart. 
 Perhaps he remembered suddenly that it was 
 Christmas. At any rate, he said gruffly: 
 
 " Well, let him go." 
 
 " Come here, sir ! " Satan bounded toward 
 the tall boy, frisking and trustful and begged 
 again. 
 
 "Go home, sir!" 
 
 Satan needed no second command. Without 
 a sound he fled out the barn-yard, and, as he 
 92 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAtf 
 
 swept under the front gate, a little girl ran out 
 of the front door of the big house and dashed 
 down the steps, shrieking : 
 
 " Saty! Saty! Oh, Saty! " But Satan never 
 heard. On he fled, across the crisp fields, leaped 
 the fence and struck the road, lickety-split ! for 
 home, while Dinnie dropped sobbing in the 
 snow. 
 
 " Hitch up a horse, quick," said Uncle Carey, 
 rushing after Dinnie and taking her up in his 
 arms. Ten minutes later, Uncle Carey and Din 
 nie, both warmly bundled up, were after flying 
 Satan. They never caught him until they 
 reached the hill on the outskirts of town, where 
 was the kennel of the kind-hearted people who 
 were giving painless death to Satan s four-footed 
 kind, and where they saw him stop and turn 
 from the road. There was divine providence 
 in Satan s flight for one little dog that Christ 
 mas morning; for Uncle Carey saw the old 
 drunkard staggering down the road without 
 his little companion, and a moment later, both 
 he and Dinnie saw Satan nosing a little yel 
 low cur between the palings. Uncle Carey 
 knew the little cur, and while Dinnie was 
 shrieking for Satan, he was saying under his 
 breath : 
 
 "Well, I swear! I swear! I swear!" 
 And while the big man who came to the door 
 93 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 was putting Satan into Dinnie s arms, he said, 
 sharply : 
 
 " Who brought that yellow dog here? " The 
 man pointed to the old drunkard s figure turning 
 a corner at the foot of the hill. 
 
 " I thought so ; I thought so. He sold him to 
 you for for a drink of whiskey." 
 
 The man whistled. 
 
 u Bring him out. I ll pay his license." 
 
 So back went Satan and the little cur to 
 Grandmother Dean s and Dinnie cried when 
 Uncle Carey told her why he was taking the lit 
 tle cur along. With her own hands she put 
 Satan s old collar on the little brute, took him 
 to the kitchen, and fed him first of all. Then 
 she went into the breakfast-room. 
 
 " Uncle Billy," she said severely, " didn t I 
 tell you not to let Saty out? " 
 
 " Yes, Miss Dinnie," said the old butler. 
 
 " Didn t I tell you I was goin to whoop you 
 if you let Saty out? " 
 
 " Yes, Miss Dinnie." 
 
 f Miss Dinnie pulled forth from her Christ- 
 \x mas treasures a toy riding-whip and the old 
 darky s eyes began to roll in mock terror. 
 
 " I m sorry, Uncle Billy, but I des got to 
 whoop you a little." 
 
 " Let Uncle Billy off, Dinnie," said Uncle 
 Carey, " this is Christmas." 
 94 
 
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN 
 
 " All wite," said Dinnie, and she turned to 
 Satan. 
 
 In his shining new collar and innocent as a 
 cherub, Satan sat on the hearth begging for his 
 breakfast. 
 
 95 
 
HELL-FER-SARTAIN 
 
TO 
 
 MY BROTHER 
 JAMES 
 
ON HELL-FER-SARTAIN CREEK 
 
 THAR was a dancin -party Christmas night 
 on " Hell fer Sartain." Jes tu n up the 
 fust crick beyond the bend thar, an 7 climb onto a 
 stump, an holler about once, an you ll see how 
 the name come. Stranger, hit s hell fer sartain ! 
 Well, Rich Harp was thar from the headwaters, 
 an Harve Hall toted Nance Osborn clean across 
 the Cumberlan . Fust one ud swing Nance, an 
 then t other. Then they d take a pull out n the 
 same bottle o moonshine, an fust one an then 
 t other they d swing her agin. An Abe Shiv 
 ers a-settin thar by the fire a-bitin his thumbs ! 
 Well, things was sorter whoopin , when some 
 body ups an tells Harve that Rich had said 
 somep n agin Nance an him, an somebody ups 
 an tells Rich that Harve had said somep n agin 
 Nance an him. In a minute, stranger, hit was 
 like two wild-cats in thar. Folks got em parted, 
 though, but thar was no more a-swingin of 
 Nance that night. Harve toted her back over 
 the Cumberlan , an Rich s kinsfolks tuk him up 
 " Hell fer Sartain " ; but Rich got loose, an lit 
 out lickety-split fer Nance Osborn s. He 
 
 99 
 
ON HELL-FER-SARTAIN CREEK 
 
 knowed Harve lived too fer over Black Moun 
 tain to go home that night, an he rid right 
 across the river an up to Nance s house, an hol 
 lered for Harve. Harve poked his head out n 
 the loft he knowed whut was wanted an 
 Harve says, " Uh, come in hyeh an go to bed. 
 Hit s too late ! " An Rich seed him a-gapin 
 like a chicken, an in he walked, stumblin might 
 nigh agin the bed whar Nance was a-layin , lis- 
 tenin an not sayin a word. 
 
 Stranger, them two fellers slept together plum 
 frien ly, an they et together plum frien ly next 
 mornin , an they sa ntered down to the grocery 
 plum frien ly. An Rich says, " Harve," says 
 he, " let s have a drink." u All right, Rich," 
 says Harve. An Rich says, " Harve," says 
 he, " you go out n that door an I ll go out n 
 this door." " All right, Rich," says Harve, an 
 out they walked, steady, an thar was two shoots 
 shot, an Rich an Harve both drapped, an in 
 ten minutes they was stretched out on Nance s 
 bed an Nance was a-lopin away fer the yarb 
 doctor. 
 
 The gal nussed em both plum faithful. Rich 
 didn t hev much to say, an Harve didn t hev 
 much to say. Nance was sorter quiet, an 
 Nance s mammy, ole Nance, jes grinned. Folks 
 come in to ax atter em right peart. Abe Shiv 
 ers come cl ar cross the river powerful frien ly 
 100 
 
ON HELL-FEK-SARTAItf CKEK ; ; 
 
 an ever time Nance ud walk out to the fence 
 with him. One time she didn t come back, an 
 ole Nance fotched the boys thar dinner, an ole 
 Nance fotched thar supper, an then Rich he 
 axed whut was the matter with young Nance. 
 An ole Nance jes snorted. Atter a while Rich 
 says: " Harve," says he, "who toP you that I 
 said that word agin you an Nance? " " Abe 
 Shivers," says Harve. " An who toP you," 
 says Harve, " that I said that word agin Nance 
 an you?" "Abe Shivers," says Rich. An 
 both says, " Well, damn me ! " An Rich tu ned / 
 right over an begun pullin straws out n the bed. 
 He got two out, an he bit one off, an he says : 
 " Harve," says he, " I reckon we better draw fer 
 him. The shortes gits him." An they drawed. 
 Well, nobody ever knowed which got the short 
 es straw, stranger, but 
 
 Thar ll be a dancin -party comin Christmas 
 night on " Hell fer Sartain." Rich Harp 11 be 
 thar from the headwaters. Harve Hall s a-goin 
 to tote the Widder Shivers clean across the 
 Cumberlan . Fust one 11 swing Nance, an then 
 t other. Then they ll take a pull out n the 
 same bottle o moonshine, an fust one an then 
 t other they ll swing her agin, jes the same. 
 Abe won t be thar. He s a-settin by a bigger 
 fire, I reckon (ef he ain t in it), a-bitin his 
 thumbs ! 
 
 101 
 
THROUGH THE GAP 
 
 WHEN thistles go adrift, the sun sets down 
 the valley between the hills ; when snow 
 comes, it goes down behind the Cumberland and 
 streams through a great fissure that people call 
 the Gap. Then the last light drenches the par 
 son s cottage under Imboden Hill, and leaves an 
 after-glow of glory on a majestic heap that lies 
 against the east. Sometimes it spans the Gap 
 with a rainbow. 
 
 Strange people and strange tales come through 
 this Gap from the Kentucky hills. Through it 
 came these two, late one day a man and a 
 woman afoot. I met them at the footbridge 
 over Roaring Fork. 
 
 " Is thar a preacher anywhar aroun hyeh? " 
 he asked. I pointed to the cottage under Imbo 
 den Hill. The girl flushed slightly and turned 
 her head away with a rather unhappy smile. 
 Without a word, the mountaineer led the way 
 towards town. A moment more and a half- 
 breed Malungian passed me on the bridge and 
 followed them. 
 
 At dusk the next day I saw the mountaineer 
 102 
 
THROUGH THE GAP 
 
 chopping wood at a shanty under a clump of 
 rhododendron on the river-bank. The girl was 
 cooking supper inside. The day following he 
 was at work on the railroad, and on Sunday, 
 after church, I saw the parson. The two had 
 not been to him. Only that afternoon the moun 
 taineer was on the bridge with another woman, 
 hideously rouged and with scarlet ribbons flutter 
 ing from her bonnet. Passing on by the shanty, 
 I saw the Malungian talking to the girl. She 
 apparently paid no heed to him until, just as he 
 was moving away, he said something mockingly, 
 and with a nod of his head back towards the 
 bridge. She did not look up even then, but her 
 face got hard and white, and, looking back from 
 the road, I saw her slipping through the bushes 
 into the dry bed of the creek, to make sure that 
 what the half-breed told her was true. 
 
 The two men were working side by side on 
 the railroad when I saw them again, but on the 
 first pay-day the doctor was called to attend the 
 Malungian, whose head was split open with a 
 shovel. I was one of two who went out to ar 
 rest his assailant, and I had no need to ask who 
 he was. The mountaineer was a devil, the fore 
 man said, and I had to club him with a pistol- 
 butt before he would give in. He said he 
 would get even with me; but they all say that, 
 and I paid no attention to the threat. For a 
 103 
 
THROUGH THE GAP 
 
 week he was kept in the calaboose, and when I 
 passed the shanty just after he was sent to the 
 county-seat for trial, I found it empty. The 
 Malungian, too, was gone. Within a fortnight 
 the mountaineer was in the door of the shanty 
 again. Having no accuser, he had been dis 
 charged. He went back to his work, and if he 
 opened his lips I never knew. Every day I saw 
 him at work, and he never failed to give me a 
 surly look. Every dusk I saw him in his door 
 way, waiting, and I could guess for what. It 
 was easy to believe that the stern purpose in his 
 face would make its way through space and 
 draw her to him again. And she did come back 
 one day. I had just limped down the mountain 
 with a sprained ankle. A crowd of women was 
 gathered at the edge of the woods, looking with 
 all their eyes to the shanty on the river-bank. 
 The girl stood in the door-way. The mountain 
 eer was coming back from work with his face 
 down. 
 
 " He hain t seed her yit," said one. " He s 
 goin to kill her shore. I toF her he would. She 
 said she reckoned he would, but she didn t keer." 
 
 For a moment I was paralyzed by the tragedy 
 at hand. She was in the door looking at him 
 when he raised his head. For one moment he 
 stood still, staring, and then he started towards 
 her with a quickened step. I started too, then, 
 104 
 
THROUGH THE GAP 
 
 every step a torture, and as I limped ahead she 
 made a gesture of terror and backed into the 
 room before him. The door closed, and I lis 
 tened for a pistol-shot and a scream. It must 
 have been done with a knife, I thought, and 
 quietly, for when I was within ten paces of the 
 cabin he opened the door again. His face was 
 very white; he held one hand behind him, and 
 he was nervously fumbling at his chin with the 
 other. As he stepped towards me I caught the 
 handle of a pistol in my side pocket and waited. 
 He looked at me sharply. / 
 
 " Did you say the preacher lived up thar? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Yes," I said, breathlessly. 
 
 In the door-way just then stood the girl with 
 a bonnet in her hand, and at a nod from him they 
 started up the hill towards the cottage. They 
 came down again after a while, he stalking 
 ahead, and she, after the mountain fashion, be 
 hind. And after this fashion I saw them at sun 
 set next day pass over the bridge and into the 
 mouth of the Gap whence they came. Through A 
 this Gap come strange people and strange tales ^ 
 from the Kentucky hills. Over it, sometimes, is 
 the span of a rainbow. 
 
 105 
 
A TRICK O TRADE 
 
 STRANGER, I m a separate man, an I 
 don t mquizite into no man s business; but 
 you ax me straight, an I tell ye straight: You 
 watch ole Tom! 
 
 Now, I ll take ole Tom Perkins word agin 
 anybody s ceptin when hit comes to a hoss 
 trade ur a piece o land. Per in the tricks o 
 sech, ole Tom lows well, hit s diff ent; an I 
 reckon, stranger, as how hit sorter is. He was 
 a-stayin at Tom s house, the furriner was, a- 
 dickerin fer a piece o Ian the same piece, 
 mebbe, that you re atter now an Tom keeps 
 him thar fer a week to beat him out n a dollar, 
 / an then won t let him pay nary a cent fer his 
 boa d. Now, stranger, that s Tom. 
 
 Well, Abe Shivers was a-workin fer Tom 
 you ve heerd tell o Abe an the furriner wasn t 
 more n half gone afore Tom seed that Abe was 
 up to some of his devilmint. Abe kin hatch up 
 more devilmint in a minit than Satan hisself kin 
 in a week; so Tom jes got Abe out n the stable 
 under a hoe-handle, an toP him to tell the whole 
 thing straight ur he d have to go to glory right 
 thar. An Abe toP ! 
 
 106 
 
A TRICK TEADE 
 
 Tears like Abe had foun a streak o iron ore 
 on the Ian , an had racked his jinny right down 
 to Hazlan an tol the furriner, who was thar 
 a-buyin wild lands right an left. Co se Abe 
 was goin to make the furriner whack up fer 
 gittin the Ian so cheap. Well, brother, the fur 
 riner come up to Tom s an got Tom into one 
 o them new-fangled trades whut the furriners 
 calls a option t other feller kin git out n hit, 
 but you can t. The furriner lowed he d send his 
 podner up thar next day to put the thing in 
 writin an close up the trade. Hit looked like 
 ole Tom was ketched fer shore, an ef Tom did 
 n t ra r, I d tell a man. He jes let that hoe- , 
 handle drap on Abe fer bout haffen hour, jes to / 
 give him time to study, an next day thar was ole / 
 Tom a-settin on his orchard fence a-lookin* 
 mighty unknowin , when the furriner s podner 
 come a-prancin up an axed ef old Tom Per 
 kins lived thar. 
 
 Ole Tom jes whispers. 
 
 Now, I clean fergot to tell ye, stranger, that 
 Abe Shivers nuver could talk out loud. He tol 
 so many lies that the Lawd jes to make things 
 even sorter fixed Abe, I reckon, so he couldn t 
 lie on more n one side o the river at a time. Ole 
 Tom jes knowed t other furriner had tol this 
 un bout Abe, an , shore nough, the feller says, 
 sorter soft, says he : 
 
 107 
 
A TEICK TEADE 
 
 " Aw, you air the feller whut foun the ore? " 
 
 Ole Tom makin like he was Abe, mind ye 
 jes whispers: " Thar hain t none thar." 
 
 Stranger, the feller mos fell off n his hoss. 
 "Whut?" says he. Ole Tom kep a-whisper- 
 in : " Thar hain t no ore no nothing; ole Tom 
 Perkins made me tell t other furriner them lies." 
 
 Well, sir, the feller was mad. " Jes whut 1 
 tol that fool podner of mine," he says, an he 
 pull out a dollar an gives hit to Tom. Tom 
 jes sticks out his han with his thum turned in 
 jes so, an the furriner says, " Well, ef you can t 
 talk, you kin make purty damn good signs " ; 
 but he forks over four mo dollars (he lowed 
 ole Tom had saved him a pile o money), an 
 turns his hoss an pulls up agin. He was a-gittin 
 the land so durned cheap that I reckon he jes 
 hated to let hit go, an he says, says he : " Well, 
 hain t the groun rich? Won t hit raise no to- 
 baccy nur corn nur nothin ? " 
 
 Ole Tom jes whispers: 
 
 " To tell you the p int-blank truth, stranger, 
 that land s so durned pore that I hain t nuver 
 been able to raise my voice." 
 
 Now, brother, I m a separate man, an I don t 
 inquizite into no man s business but you ax me 
 straight an I tell ye straight. Ole Tom Per 
 kins kin trade with furriners, fer he have 1 arned 
 their ways. You watch ole Tom ! 
 108 
 
GRAYSON S BABY 
 
 THE first snow sifted in through the Gap 
 that night, and in a " shack " of one room > 
 and a low loft a man was dead, a woman was \ 
 sick to death, and four children were barely * 
 alive; and nobody even knew. For they were 
 hill people, who sicken, suffer, and sometimes 
 die, like animals, and make no noise. 
 
 Grayson, the Virginian, coming down from 
 the woods that morning, saw the big-hearted lit 
 tle doctor outside the door of the shack, walking 
 up and down, with his hands in his pockets. He 
 was whistling softly when Grayson got near, 
 and, without stopping, pointed with his thumb 
 within. The oldest boy sat stolidly on the one 
 chair in the room, his little brother was on the 
 floor hard by, and both were hugging a greasy 
 stove. The little girl was with her mother in 
 the bed, both almost out of sight under a heap of 
 quilts. The baby was in a cradle, with its face 
 uncovered, whether dead or asleep Grayson 
 could not tell. A pine coffin was behind the 
 door. It would not have been possible to add 
 109 
 
GBAYSON S BABY 
 
 to the disorder of the room, and the atmosphere 
 made Grayson gasp. He came out looking 
 white. The first man to arrive thereafter took 
 away the eldest boy, a woman picked the baby 
 girl from the bed, and a childless young couple 
 took up the pallid little fellow on the floor. 
 These were step-children. The baby boy that 
 was left was the woman s own. Nobody came 
 for that, and Grayson went in again and looked 
 at it a long while. So little, so old a human face 
 he had never seen. The brow was wrinkled as 
 with centuries of pain, and the little drawn 
 mouth looked as though the spirit within had 
 fought its inheritance without a murmur, and 
 would fight on that way to the end. It was the 
 pluck of the face that drew Grayson. " I ll take 
 it," he said. The doctor was not without his 
 sense of humor even then, but he nodded. " Cra 
 dle and all," he said, gravely. And Grayson put 
 both on one shoulder and walked away. He had 
 lost the power of giving further surprise in that 
 town, and had he met every man he knew, not 
 one of them would have felt at liberty to ask 
 him what he was doing. An hour later the 
 doctor found the child in Grayson s room, and 
 Grayson still looking at it. 
 
 " Is it going to live, doctor? " 
 
 The doctor shook his head. Doubtful. 
 Look at the color. It s starved. There s noth- 
 no 
 
GEAYSON S BABY 
 
 ing to do but to watch it and feed it. You can 
 do that." 
 
 So Grayson watched it, with a fascination of 
 which he was hardly conscious. Never for one 
 instant did its look change the quiet, unyielding 
 endurance that no faith and no philosophy could 
 ever bring to him. It was ideal courage, that j 
 look, to accept the inevitable but to fight it just 
 that way. Half the little mountain town was 
 talking next day that such a tragedy was pos 
 sible by the public road-side, with relief within 
 sound of the baby s cry. The oldest boy was 
 least starved. Might made right in an extremity 
 like his, and the boy had taken care of himself. 
 The young couple who had the second lad in 
 charge said they had been wakened at daylight 
 the next morning by some noise in the room. 
 Looking up, they saw the little fellow at the 
 fireplace breaking an egg. He had built a fire, 
 had got eggs from the kitchen, and was cooking 
 his breakfast. The little girl was mischievous 
 and cheery in spite of her bad plight, and nobody 
 knew of the baby except Grayson and the doc 
 tor. Grayson would let nobody else in. As soon 
 as it was well enough to be peevish and to cry, he 
 took it back to its mother, who was still abed. A 
 long, dark mountaineer was there, of whom the 
 woman seemed half afraid. He followed Gray- 
 son outside. 
 
 in 
 
GRAYSON S BABY 
 
 u Say, podner," he said, with an unpleasant 
 smile, " ye don t go up to Cracker s Neck fer 
 nothin , do ye? " 
 
 The woman had lived at Cracker s Neck be 
 fore she appeared at the Gap, and it did not 
 come to Grayson what the man meant until he 
 was half-way to his room. Then he flushed hot 
 and wheeled back to the cabin, but the moun 
 taineer was gone. 
 
 " Tell that fellow he had better keep out of 
 my way," he said to the woman, who understood, 
 and wanted to say something, but not knowing 
 how, nodded simply. In a few days the other 
 children went back to the cabin, and day and 
 night Grayson went to see the child, until it was 
 out of danger, and afterwards. It was not long 
 before the women in town complained that the 
 mother was ungrateful. When they sent things 
 to eat to her the servant brought back word thai: 
 she had called out, " * Set them over thar, with 
 out so much as a thanky." One message was 
 that " she didn want no second-hand victuals 
 from nobody s table." Somebody suggested 
 sending the family to the poor-house. The 
 mother said " she d go out on her crutches and 
 hoe corn fust, and that the people who talked 
 , bout sendin her to the po house had better 
 / save their breath to make prayers with." One 
 day she was hired to do some washing. The 
 112 
 
GEAYSON S BABY 
 
 mistress of the house happened not to rise un 
 til ten o clock. Next morning the mountain 
 woman did not appear until that hour. " She 
 wasn t goin to work a lick while that woman 
 was a-layin in bed," she said, frankly. And 
 when the lady went down town, she too dis 
 appeared. Nor would she, she explained to 
 Grayson, " while that woman was a-struttin 
 the streets." 
 
 After that, one by one, they let her alone, and 
 the woman made not a word of complaint. 
 Within a week she was working in the fields, 
 when she should have been back in bed. The 
 result was that the child sickened again. The old 
 look came back to its face, and Grayson was 
 there night and day. He was having trouble out 
 in Kentucky about this time, and he went to the 
 Blue Grass pretty often. Always, however, he 
 left money with me to see that the child was 
 properly buried if it should die while he was 
 gone ; and once he telegraphed to ask how it was. 
 He said he was sometimes afraid to open my 
 letters for fear that he should read that the baby 
 was dead. The child knew Grayson s voice, his 
 step. It would go to him from its own mother. 
 When it was sickest and lying torpid it would 
 move the instant he stepped into the room, and, 
 when he spoke, would hold out its thin arms, 
 without opening its eyes, and for hours Grayson 
 
GKAYSON S BABY 
 
 would walk the floor with the troubled little 
 baby over his shoulder. I thought several times 
 it would die when, on one trip, Grayson was 
 away for two weeks. One midnight, indeed, I 
 found the mother moaning, and three female 
 harpies about the cradle. The baby was dying 
 this time, and I ran back for a flask of whiskey. 
 Ten minutes late with the whiskey that night 
 would have been too late. The baby got to know 
 me and my voice during that fortnight, but it 
 was still in danger when Grayson got back, and 
 we went to see it together. It was very weak, 
 and we both leaned over the cradle, from either 
 side, and I saw the pity and affection yes, hun 
 gry, half-shamed affection in Grayson s face. 
 The child opened its eyes, looked from one to 
 the other, and held out its arms to me. Grayson 
 should have known that the child forgot that 
 it would forget its own mother. He turned 
 sharply, and his face was a little pale. He gave 
 something to the woman, and not till then did I 
 notice that her soft black eyes never left him 
 while he was in the cabin. The child got well; 
 but Grayson never went to the shack again, and 
 he said nothing when I came in one night and 
 told him that some mountaineer a long, dark 
 fellow had taken the woman, the children, 
 and the household gods of the shack back into 
 the mountains. 
 
 114 
 
GEAYSON S BABY 
 
 " They don t grieve long," I said, " these 
 people." 
 
 But long afterwards I saw the woman again 
 along the dusty road that leads into the Gap. 
 She had heard over in the mountains that Gray- 
 son was dead, and had walked for two days to 
 learn if it was true. I pointed back towards Bee 
 Rock, and told her that he had fallen from a 
 cliff back there. She did not move, nor did her 
 look change. Moreover, she said nothing, and, 
 being in a hurry, I had to ride on. 
 
 At the foot-bridge over Roaring Fork I 
 looked back. The woman was still there, under 
 the hot mid-day sun and in the dust of the road, 
 motionless. 
 
COURTIN ON CUTSHIN 
 
 HIT was this way, stranger. When hit 
 comes to handlin a right peert gal, Jeb 
 Somers air about the porest man on Fryin Pan, 
 I reckon; an Polly Ann Sturgill have got the 
 vineg rest tongue on Cutshin or any other crick. 
 So the boys over on Fryin Pan made it up to 
 git em together. Abe Shivers you ve heerd 
 tell o Abe toP Jeb that Polly Ann had seed 
 him in Hazlan (which she hadn t, of co se), an 
 had said p int-blank that he was the likeliest fel 
 ler she d seed in them mountains. An he toP 
 Polly Ann that Jeb was ravin crazy bout her. 
 The pure misery of it jes made him plumb de 
 lirious, Abe said; an f Polly Ann wanted to 
 find her match fer languige an talkin out peert 
 well, she jes ought to strike Jeb Somers. Fact 
 is, stranger, Jeb Somers air might nigh a idgit; 
 but Jeb lowed he d rack right over on Cutshin 
 an set up with Polly Ann Sturgill ; an Abe tells 
 Polly Ann the king bee air comin . An Polly 
 Ann s cousin, Nance Osborn, comes over from 
 Hell fer Sartain (whut runs into Kingdom- 
 Come) to stay all night an see the fun. 
 116 
 
COUKTIN ON CUTSHIN 
 
 Now, I hain t been a-raftin logs down to the 
 settlemints o Kaintuck fer nigh on to twenty 
 year fer nothin . An I know gallivantin is 
 diff ent with us mountain fellers an you furriners, 
 in the premises, anyways, as them lawyers up to 
 court says; though I reckon hit s purty much the 
 same atter the premises is over. Whar you says 
 " courtin ," now, we says " talkin to." Sallie 
 Spurlock over on Fryin Pan is a-talkin to Jim 
 Howard now. Sallie s sister hain t nuver talked 
 to no man. An whar you says " makin a call 
 on a young lady," we says " settfn up with a 
 gal " ! An , stranger, we does it. We hain t got 
 more n one room hardly ever in these mountains, 
 an we re jes obleeged to set up to do any court- 
 in at all. 
 
 Well, you go over to Sallie s to stay all night 
 some time, an purty soon atter supper Jim How 
 ard comes in. The ole man an the ole woman 
 goes to bed, an the chil un an you go to bed, an 
 ef you keeps one eye open you ll see Jim s cheer 
 an Sallie s cheer a-movin purty soon, till they 
 gets plumb together. Then, stranger, hit begins. 
 Now I want ye to understand that settin up 
 means business. We don t low no foolishness in 
 these mountains; an f two fellers happens to 
 meet at the same house, they jes makes the gal 
 say which one she likes best, an t other one gits I 
 Well, you ll see Jim put his arm round Sallie s 
 117 
 
COURTIS ON CUTSHIN 
 
 neck an whisper a long while jes so. Mebbe 
 you ve noticed whut fellers us mountain folks air 
 fer whisperin . You ve seed fellers a-whisperin 
 all over Hazlan on court day, hain t ye? Ole 
 Tom Perkins 11 put his arm aroun yo neck an 
 whisper in yo year ef he s ten miles out n the 
 woods. I reckon thar s jes so much devilmint 
 a-goin on in these mountains, folks is naturely 
 afeerd to talk out loud. 
 
 Well, Jim lets go an Sallie puts her arm 
 aroun Jim s neck an whispers a long while jes 
 so; an f you happen to wake up anywhar to 
 two o clock in the mornin you ll see jes that 
 a-goin on. Brother, that s settin up. 
 
 Well, Jeb Somers, as I was a-sayin in the 
 premises, lowed he d rack right over on Cutshin 
 an set up with Polly Ann comin Christmas night. 
 An Abe tells Polly Ann Jeb says he aims to have 
 her fer a Christmas gift afore mornin . Polly 
 Ann jes sniffed sorter, but you know women folks 
 air always mighty ambitious jes to see a feller 
 anyways, f he s a-pinin fer em. So Jeb come, 
 an Jeb was fixed up now fittin to kill. Jeb had 
 his hair oiled down nice an slick, and his mus 
 tache was jes black as powder could make hit. 
 Naturely hit was red ; but a feller can t do noth- 
 in in these mountains with a red mustache ; an 
 Jeb had a big black ribbon tied in the butt o the 
 bigges pistol Abe Shivers could borrer fer him 
 118 
 
COURTIS ON CUTSHIN 
 
 hit was a badge o death an deestruction to his 
 enemies, Abe said, an I tell ye Jeb did look like 
 a man. He never opened his mouth atter he 
 says "howdy" Jeb never does say nothin ; 
 Jeb s one o them fellers whut hides thar lack o 
 brains by a-lookin solemn an a-keepin still, but 
 thar don t nobody say much tell the ole folks air 
 gone to bed, an Polly Ann jes lowed Jeb was 
 a-waitin . Fact is, stranger, Abe Shivers had got 
 Jeb a leetle disguised by liquer, an he did look 
 fat an sassy, ef he couldn t talk, a-settin over 
 in the corner a-plunkin the banjer an a-knockin 
 off " Sour-wood Mountain " an " Jinny Git 
 Aroun " an " Soapsuds over the Fence." 
 
 " Chickens a-crowin on Sour-wood Mountain, 
 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee! 
 Git yo dawgs an* we ll go huntin , 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee! " 
 
 An when Jeb comes to 
 
 " I ve got a gal at the head o* the holler, 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee!" 
 
 he jes turns one eye round on Polly Ann, an 
 then swings his chin aroun as though he didn t 
 give a cuss fer nothin . 
 
 " She won t come, an* I won t roller, 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedy-dahdy-dee I " 
 119 
 
COURTIN ON CUTSHLN" 
 
 Well, sir, Nance seed that Polly Ann was 
 a-eyin Jeb sort o flustered like, an she come 
 might nigh splittin right thar an a-sp ilin the 
 fun, fer she knowed what a skeery fool Jeb was. 
 An when the ole folks goes to bed, Nance lays 
 thar under a quilt a-watchin an a-listenin . 
 Well, Jeb knowed the premises, ef he couldn t 
 talk, an purty soon Nance heerd Jeb s cheer 
 creak a leetle, an she says, Jeb s a-comin , and 
 Jeb was; an Polly Ann lowed Jeb was jes a 
 leetle too resolute an quick-like, an she got her 
 hand ready to give him one lick anyways fer 
 bein so brigaty. I don t know as she d a hit 
 him more n once. Jeb had a farm, an Polly 
 Ann well, Polly Ann was a-gittin along. But 
 Polly Ann sot thar jes as though she didn t know 
 Jeb was a-comin , an Jeb stopped once an says, 
 
 * You hain t got nothin agin me, has ye? " 
 
 An Polly Ann says, sorter quick, 
 
 "Naw;ef I had, I d push it." 
 
 Well, Jeb mos fell off his cheer, when, ef he 
 hadn t been sech a skeery idgit, he d a knowed 
 that Polly Ann was plain open an shet a-biddin 
 fer him. But he sot thar like a knot on a log fer 
 haffen hour, an then he rickollected, I reckon, 
 that Abe had tol him Polly Ann was peppery 
 an he mustn t mind, fer Jeb begun a-movin 
 ag in till he was slam-bang ag in Polly Ann s 
 cheer. An thar he sot like a punkin, not sayin 
 120 
 
COUBTDT ON CUTSHIN 
 
 a word nur doin nothin . An while Polly Ann 
 was a-wonderin ef he was gone plumb crazy, 
 blame me ef that durned fool didn t turn roun 
 to that peppery gal an say, 
 
 "Booh, Polly Ann!" 
 
 Well, Nance had to stuff the bedquilt in her 
 mouth right thar to keep from hollerin out loud, 
 fer Polly Ann s hand was a hangin down by the 
 cheer, jes a-waitin fer a job, and Nance seed 
 the fingers a-twitchin . An Jeb waits another 
 haffen hour, an Jeb says, 
 
 "Ortern tlbekilled?" 
 
 " Whut fer?" says Polly Ann, sorter sharp. 
 
 An Jeb says, " Fer bein so devilish." 
 
 Well, brother, Nance snorted right out thar, 
 an Polly Ann Sturgill s hand riz up jes once; an 
 I ve heerd Jeb Somers say the next time he 
 jumps out o the Fryin Pan he s a-goin to take 
 hell-fire stid o Cutshin fer a place to light. 
 
 121 
 
THE MESSAGE IN THE SAND 
 
 T RANGER, you furriners don t nuver seem 
 to consider that a woman has always got the 
 devil to fight in two people at once ! Hit s two 
 agin one, I tell ye, an hit hain t fa r. 
 
 That s what I said more n two year ago, when 
 Rosie Branham was a-layin up thar at Dave 
 Hall s, white an mos dead. An , God, boys, I 
 says, that leetle thing in thar by her shorely 
 can t be to blame, 
 
 Thar hain t been a word agin Rosie sence ; an , 
 stranger, I reckon thar nuver will be. Fer, while 
 the gal hain t got hide o kith or kin, thar air two 
 fellers up hyeh sorter lookin atter Rosie ; an one 
 of em is the shootin es man on this crick, I reck 
 on, ceptone; an , stranger, that s t other. 
 
 Rosie kep her mouth shet fer a long while; 
 an I reckon as how the feller lowed she wasn t 
 goin to tell. Co se the woman folks got hit out n 
 her they al ays gits whut they want, as you 
 know an thar the sorry cuss was a-livin up 
 thar in the Bend, jes aroun that bluff o lorrel 
 yander, a-lookin pious, an a-singin , an a-sayin 
 Amen louder n anybody when thar was meetin . 
 122 
 
THE MESSAGE IN THE SAND 
 
 Well, my boy Jim an a lot o fellers jes went 
 up fer him right away. I don t know as the boys 
 would a killed him exactly ef they had kotched 
 him, though they mought ; but they got Abe Shiv 
 ers, as toP the feller they was a-comin you ve 
 heard tell o Abe an they mos beat Abraham 
 Shivers to death. Stranger, the sorry cuss was 
 Dave. Rosie hadn t no daddy an no mammy; 
 an she was jes a-workin at Dave s fer her 
 victuals an clo es. Pears like the pore gal 
 was jes tricked into evil. Looked like she was 
 sorter witched an anyways, stranger, she 
 was a-fightin Satan in herself, as well as in 
 Dave. Hit was two agin one, I tell ye, an hit 
 wasn t fa r. 
 
 C ose they turned Rosie right out in the road. 
 I hain t got a word to say agin Dave s wife fer 
 that; an atter a while the boys lets Dave come 
 back, to take keer o his ole mammy, of co se, 
 but I tell ye Dave s a-playin a purty lonsesome 
 tune. He keeps purty shy ylt. He don t nuver 
 sa nter down this way. Pears like he don t 
 seem to think hit s healthy fer him down hyeh, 
 an I reckon Dave s right. 
 
 Rosie? Oh, well, I sorter tuk Rosie in my 
 self. Yes, she s been livin thar in the shack 
 with me an my boy Jim, an the Why, thar 
 he is now, stranger. That s him a-wallerin out 
 thar in the road. Do you reckon thar d be a 
 123 
 
THE MESSAGE IN THE SAND 
 
 single thing agin that leetle cuss ef he had to 
 stan up on Jedgment Day jes as he is now? 
 
 Look hyeh, stranger, whut you reckon the 
 Lawd kep a-writin thar on the groun that day 
 when them fellers was a-pesterin him about that 
 pore woman? Don t you jes know he was a 
 writin bout sech as him an Rosie? I tell 
 ye, brother, he writ thar jes what I m al ays 
 a-sayin . 
 
 Hit hain t the woman s fault. I said it 
 more n two years ago, when Rosie was up thar 
 at ole Dave s, an I said it yestiddy, when my 
 boy Jim come to me an lowed as how he aimed 
 to take Rosie down to town to-day an git mar 
 ried. 
 
 1 You ricollect, dad," says Jim, " her mam 
 my?" 
 
 "Yes, Jim," I says; "all the better reason 
 not to be too hard on Rosie." 
 
 I m a-lookin fer em both back right now, 
 stranger; an ef you will, I ll be mighty glad to 
 have ye stay right hyeh to the infair this very 
 night. Thar nuver was a word agin Rosie 
 afore, thar hain t been sence, an you kin ride up 
 an down this river till the crack o doom an* 
 you ll nuver hear a word agin her ag in. Fer, 
 as I toF you, my boy, Jim :s the shootin es fel 
 ler on this crick, I reckon, cept one, an , stran 
 ger, that s me! 
 
 124 
 
THE SENATOR S LAST TRADE 
 
 A DROVE of lean cattle were swinging 
 easily over Black Mountain, and behind 
 them came a big man with wild black hair and 
 a bushy beard. Now and then he would gnaw 
 at his mustache with his long, yellow teeth, 
 or would sit down to let his lean horse rest, and 
 would flip meaninglessly at the bushes with a 
 switch. Sometimes his bushy head would droop 
 over on his breast, and he would snap it up 
 sharply and start painfully on. Robber, cattle- 
 thief, outlaw he might have been in another cen 
 tury; for he filled the figure of any robber hero 
 in life or romance, and yet he was only the Sen 
 ator from Bell, as he was known in the little 
 Kentucky capital; or, as he was known in his 
 mountain home, just the Senator, who had toiled 
 and schemed and grown rich and grown poor; 
 who had suffered long and was kind. 
 
 Only that Christmas he had gutted every 
 store in town. " Give me everything you have, 
 brother," he said, across each counter; and next 
 day every man, woman, and child in the moun 
 tain town had a present from the Senator s 
 125 
 
THE SENATOR S LAST TRADE 
 
 hands. He looked like a brigand that day, 
 as he looked now, but he called every man 
 his brother, and his eye, while black and lus 
 treless as night, was as brooding and just as 
 kind. 
 
 When the boom went down, with it and with 
 everybody else went the Senator. Slowly he got 
 dusty, ragged, long of hair. He looked tor 
 tured and ever-restless. You never saw him 
 still; always he swept by you, flapping his legs 
 on his lean horse or his arms in his rickety bug 
 gy here, there, everywhere turning, twisting, 
 fighting his way back to freedom and not a 
 murmur. Still was every man his brother, and 
 if some forgot his once open hand, he forgot 
 it no more completely than did the Senator. He 
 went very far to pay his debts. He felt honor 
 bound, indeed, to ask his sister to give back the 
 farm that he had given her, which, very prop 
 erly people said, she declined to do. Nothing 
 could kill hope in the Senator s breast; he would 
 hand back the farm in another year, he said; 
 but the sister was firm, and without a word still, 
 the Senator went other ways and schemed 
 through the nights, and worked and rode and 
 walked and traded through the days, until now, 
 when the light was beginning to glimmer, his 
 end was come. 
 
 This was the Senator s last trade, and in 
 126 
 
THE SENATOR S LAST TRADE 
 
 sight, down in a Kentucky valley, was home. 
 Strangely enough, the Senator did not care at all, 
 and he had just enough sanity left to wonder 
 why, and to be worried. It was the " walk 
 ing typhoid " that had caught up with him, andj 
 he was listless, and he made strange gestures 
 and did foolish things as he stumbled down the 
 mountain. He was going over a little knoll 
 now, and he could see the creek that ran around 
 his house, but he was not touched. He would 
 just as soon have lain down right where he was, 
 or have turned around and gone back, except 
 that it was hot and he wanted to get to the wa 
 ter. He remembered that it was nigh Christ 
 mas; he saw the snow about him and the cakes 
 of ice in the creek. He knew that he ought not 
 to be hot, and yet he was so hot that he re 
 fused to reason with himself even a minute, and 
 hurried on. It was odd that it should be so, but 
 just about that time, over in Virginia, a cattle- 
 dealer, nearing home, stopped to tell a neighbor 
 how he had tricked some black-whiskered fool 
 up in the mountains. It may have been just 
 when he was laughing aloud over there, that the 
 Senator, over here, tore his woollen shirt from 
 his great hairy chest and rushed into the icy 
 stream, clapping his arms to his burning sides 
 and shouting in his frenzy. 
 
 " If he had lived a little longer, 1 said a con- 
 127 
 
THE SENATOR S LAST TRADE 
 
 stituent, " he would have lost the next election. 
 He hadn t the money, you know." 
 
 " If he had lived a little longer/* said the 
 mountain preacher high up on Yellow Creek, 
 " I d have got that trade I had on hand with 
 him through. Not that I wanted him to die, 
 but if he had to why " 
 
 " If he had lived a little longer," said the 
 Senator s lawyer, " he would have cleaned off 
 the score against him." 
 
 " If he had lived a little longer," said the 
 Senator s sister, not meaning to be unkind, " he 
 would have got all I have." 
 
 That was what life held for the Senator. 
 Death was more kind. 
 
 128 
 
PREACHIN ON KINGDOM-COME 
 
 I VE told ye, stranger, that Hell fer Sartain 
 empties, as it oughter, of co se, into King 
 dom-Come. You can ketch the devil most any 
 day in the week on Hell fer Sartain, an some 
 times you can git Glory everlastin on Kingdom- 
 Come. Hit s the only meetin -house thar in 
 twenty miles aroun. 
 
 Well, the reg lar rider, ole Jim Skaggs, was 
 dead, an the bretherin was a-lookin aroun fer 
 somebody to step into ole Jim s shoes. Thar d 
 been one young feller up thar from the settle- 
 mints, a-cavortin aroun , an they was studyin* 
 bout gittin him. 
 
 " Bretherin an sisteren," I says, atter the 
 lee tie chap was gone, "he s got the fortitood to 
 speak an he shorely is well favored. He s got a 
 mighty good hawk eye fer spyin out evil an 
 the gals; he can outholler ole Jim; an j/," I 
 says, " any idees ever comes to him, he ll be a 
 hell-rouser shore but they ain t comin ! " 
 An , so sayin , I takes my foot in my hand an 
 steps fer home. 
 
 Stranger, them fellers over thar hain t seed 
 129 
 
PKEACHIN Otf KINGDOM-COME 
 
 much o this world. Lots of em nuver seed the 
 cyars; some of em nuver seed a wagon. An 
 atter jowerin an noratin fer bout two hours, 
 what you reckon they said they aimed to do? 
 They believed they d take that ar man Beecher, 
 ef they could git him to come. They d heerd o* 
 Henry endurin the war, an they knowed he 
 was agin the rebs, an they wanted Henry if 
 they could jes git him to come. 
 
 Well, I snorted, an the feud broke out on 
 Hell fer Sartain betwixt the Days an the Dil 
 lons. Mace Day shot Daws Dillon s brother, 
 as I rickollect somep n s al ays a-startin up 
 that plaguey war an a-makin things frolicsome 
 over thar an ef it hadn t a-been fer a tall 
 young feller with black hair an a scar across 
 his forehead, who was a-goin through the 
 mountains a-settlin these wars, blame me ef I 
 believe thar ever would a been any mo preach- 
 in on Kingdom-Come. This feller comes over 
 from Hazlan an says he aims to hold a meetin 
 on Kingdom-Come. " Brother," I says, " that s 
 what no preacher have ever did whilst this war 
 is a-goin on." An he says, sort o quiet, 
 " Well, then, I reckon I ll have to do what no 
 preacher have ever did." An I ups an says: 
 " Brother, an ole jedge come up here once from 
 the settlemints to hold couht. * Jedge, I says, 
 that s what no jedge have ever did without 
 130 
 
PKEACHIN* ON KINGDOM-COME 
 
 soldiers since this war s been a-goin on. An , 
 brother, the jedge s words was yours, p int- 
 blank. All right/ he says, l then I ll have to 
 do what no other jedge have ever did. An , 
 brother," says I to the preacher, u the jedge 
 done it shore. He jes laid under the count- \ 
 house fer two days whilst the boys fit over him. \ 
 An when I sees the jedge a-makin tracks fer 
 the settlemints, I says, * Jedge, I says, * you 
 spoke a parable shore. 
 
 Well, sir, the long preacher looked jes as 
 though he was a-sayin to hisself, " Yes, I hear 
 ye, but I don t heed ye," an when he says, * Jes 
 the same, I m a-goin to hold a meetin on King 
 dom-Come," why, I jes takes my foot in my 
 hand an ag in I steps fer home. 
 
 That night, stranger, I seed another feller 
 from Hazlan, who was a-tellin how this here 
 preacher had stopped the war over thar, an had 
 got the Marcums an Braytons to shakin hands; 
 an next dny ole Tom Perkins stops in an says 
 that wharas there mought a been preachin 
 somewhar an sometime, thar nuver had been 
 preachin afore on Kingdom-Come. So I goes 
 over to the meetin -house, an they was all thar 
 Daws Dillon an Mace Day, the leaders in 
 the war, an Abe Shivers (you ve heerd tell o 
 Abe) who was a-carryin tales from one side to ^ 
 t other an a-stirrin up hell ginerally, as Abe 
 
PREACHIN Otf KINGDOM-COME 
 
 most al ays is; an thar was Daws on one side o 
 the meetin -house an Mace on t other, an both 
 jes a-watchin fer t other to make a move, an* 
 thar d a been billy-hell to pay right thar! 
 Stranger, that long preacher talked jes as easy 
 as I m a-talkin now, an hit was p int-blank as 
 the feller from Hazlan said. You jes ought a 
 heerd him tellin about the Lawd a-bein as pore 
 as any feller thar, an a-makin barns an fences 
 an ox-yokes an sech like ; an not a-bein able to 
 write his own name havin to make his mark 
 mebbe when he started out to save the world. 
 An how they tuk him an nailed him onto a 
 cross when he d come down fer nothin but to 
 save em; an stuck a spear big as a corn-knife 
 into his side, an give him vinegar; an his own 
 v mammy a-standin down thar on the ground a- 
 i cryin an a-watchin him; an he a-fergivin all 
 of em then an thar ! 
 
 Thar nuver had been nothin like that afore 
 on Kingdom-Come, an all along I heerd fellers 
 a-layin thar guns down; an when the preacher 
 called out fer sinners, blame me ef the fust fel 
 ler that riz wasn t Mace Day. An Mace says, 
 " Stranger, f what you say is true, I reckon the 
 Lawd 11 fergive me too, but I don t believe 
 Daws Dillon ever will," an Mace stood thar 
 lookin around fer Daws. An all of a sudden 
 the preacher got up straight an called out, " Is 
 132 
 
PKEACHISP ON KIXGDOM-COME 
 
 thar a human in this house mean an sorry 
 enough to stand betwixt a man an his Maker " ? 
 An right thar, stranger, Daws riz. " Naw, by 
 God, thar hain t ! " Daws says, an he walks up 
 to Mace a-holdin out his hand, an they all 
 busts out cryin an shakin hands Days an 
 Dillons jes as the preacher had made em do 
 over in Hazlan. An atter the thing was over, 
 I steps up to the preacher an I says : 
 
 " Brother," I says, " you spoke a parable, 
 shore." 
 
 133 
 
THE PASSING OF ABRAHAM 
 SHIVERS 
 
 I TELL ye, boys, hit hain t often a feller 
 has the chance o doin so much good jes 
 by dyin . Per f Abe Shivers air gone, shorely 
 gone, the rest of us every durn one of us air 
 a-goin* to be saved. Fer Abe Shivers you 
 hain t heerd tell o Abe? Well, you must be a 
 stranger in these mountains o Kaintuck, shore. 
 
 " I don t know, stranger, as Abe ever was 
 borned; nobody in these mountains knows it f 
 he was. The fust time I ever heerd tell o Abe 
 he was a-hollerin fer his rights one mawnin at 
 daylight, endurin the war, jes outside o ole 
 Tom Perkins door on Fryin Pan. Abe was 
 left thar by some home-gyard, I reckon. Well, 
 nobody air ever turned out n doors in these 
 mountains, as you know, an Abe got his rights 
 that mawnin , an* he s been a-gittin* em ever 
 sence. Tom already had a houseful, but f any 
 feller got the bigges hunk o corn-bread, that 
 feller was Abe; an ef any feller got a-whalin , 
 hit wasn t Abe. 
 
 " Abe tuk to lyin right naturely looked 
 134 
 
THE PASSING OF ABRAHAM SHIVERS 
 
 like afore he could talk. Fact is, Abe nuver 
 could do nothin but jes whisper. Still, Abe 
 could manage to send a lie furder with that rat- 
 tlin whisper than ole Tom could with that big 
 horn o hisn what tells the boys the revenoos air 
 comin up Fryin Pan. 
 
 " Didn t take Abe long to git to braggin an 
 drinkin an naggin an hectorin everything, 
 mos , cept fightin . Nobody ever drawed Abe 
 Shivers into a fight. I don t know as he was 
 afeerd; looked like Abe was a-havin sech a 
 tarnation good time with his devilmint he jes 
 didn t want to run no risk o havin hit stopped. 
 An sech devilmint ! Hit ud take a coon s age, 
 I reckon, to tell ye. 
 
 " The boys was a-goin up the river one night 
 to git ole Dave Hall fer trickin Rosie Branham 
 into evil. Some feller goes ahead an tells ole 
 Dave they s a-comin . Hit was Abe. Some 
 feller finds a streak o ore on ole Tom Perkins 
 land, an racks his jinny down to town, an tells 
 a furriner thar, an Tom comes might ni~h 
 sellin the land fer nothin . Now Tom raised^ 
 Abe, but, jes the same, the feller was Abe. ^ 
 
 " One night somebody guides the revenoos in 
 on Hell fer Sartain, an they cuts up four stills. 
 Hit was Abe. The same night, mind ye, a feller 
 slips in among the revenoos while they s asleep, 
 and cuts off their bosses manes an tails muled 
 
 135 
 
THE PASSING OF ABEAHAM SHIVEES 
 
 every durned critter uv em. Stranger, hit was 
 Abe. An as fer women-folks well, Abe was 
 the ill-favoredest feller I ever see, an he couldn t 
 talk; still, Abe was sassy, an you know how 
 sass counts with the gals; an Abe s whisperin 
 come in jes as handy as any feller s settin up; 
 so f ever you seed a man with a Winchester 
 a-lookin fer the feller who had cut him out, 
 stranger, he was a-lookin fer Abe. 
 
 " Somebody tells Harve Hall, up thar at a 
 dance on Hell fer Sartain one Christmas night, 
 that Rich Harp had said somep n agin him an 
 Nance Osborn. An somebody tells Rich that 
 Harve had said somep n agin Nance an him. 
 Hit was one an the same feller, stranger, an 
 the feller was Abe. Well, while Rich an Harve 
 was a-gittin well, somebody runs off with Nance. 
 Hit was Abe. Then Rich an Harve jes draws 
 straws fer a feller. Stranger, they drawed fer 
 Abe. Hit s purty hard to believe that Abe air 
 gone, cept that Rich Harp an Harve Hall 
 don t never draw no straws fer nothin ; but f 
 by the grace o Goddlemighty Abe air gone, 
 why, as -I was a-sayin , the rest of us every 
 durned one of us air a-goin to be saved, shore. 
 Fer Abe s gone fust, an ef thar s only one Jedg- 
 ment Day, the Lawd 11 nuver git to us." 
 
 136 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 THE purple rhododendron is rare. Up in 
 the Gap here, Bee Rock, hung out over 
 Roaring Rock, blossoms with it as a gray cloud 
 purples with the sunrise. This rock was tossed 
 lightly on edge when the earth was young, and 
 stands vertical. To get the flowers you climb 
 the mountain to one side, and, balancing on the 
 rock s thin edge, slip down by roots and past 
 rattlesnake dens till you hang out over the 
 water and reach for them. To avoid snakes it 
 is best to go when it is cool, at daybreak. 
 
 I know but one other place in this southwest 
 corner of Virginia where there is another bush 
 of purple rhododendron, and one bush only is 
 there. This hangs at the throat of a peak not 
 far away, whose ageless gray head is bent over 
 a ravine that sinks like a spear thrust into the 
 side of the mountain. Swept only by high wind 
 and eagle wings as this is, I yet knew one-man 
 foolhardy enough to climb to it for a flower. He 
 brought one blossom down: and to this day I 
 do not know that it was not the act of a coward; 
 yes, though Grayson did it, actually smiling all 
 the way from peak to ravine, and though he was 
 137 
 
A PUEPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 my best friend best loved then and since. I 
 believe he was the strangest man I have ever 
 known, and I say this with thought; for his ec 
 centricities were sincere. In all he did I cannot 
 remember having even suspected anything the 
 atrical but once. 
 
 We were all Virginians or Kentuckians at the 
 Gap, and Grayson was a Virginian. You might 
 have guessed that he was a Southerner from his 
 voice and from the way he spoke of women 
 but no more. Otherwise, he might have been a 
 Moor, except for his color, which was about 
 the only racial characteristic he had. He had 
 been educated abroad and, after the English 
 habit, had travelled everywhere. And yet I can 
 imagine no more lonely way between the eterni 
 ties than the path Grayson trod alone. 
 
 He came to the Gap in the early days, and just 
 why he came I never knew. He had studied the 
 iron question a long time, he told me, and what 
 I thought reckless speculation was, it seems, de 
 liberate judgment to him. His money " in the 
 dirt," as the phrase was, Grayson got him a 
 horse and rode the hills and waited. He was 
 intimate with nobody. Occasionally he would 
 play poker with us and sometimes he drank a 
 good deal, but liquor never loosed his tongue. 
 At poker his face told as little as the back of his 
 cards, and he won more than admiration even 
 
 138 
 
A PUKPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 from the Kentuckians, who are artists at the 
 game; but the money went from a free hand, 
 and, after a diversion like this, he was apt to 
 be moody and to keep more to himself than ever. 
 Every fortnight or two he would disappear, al 
 ways over Sunday. In three or four days he t 
 would turn up again, black with brooding, and 
 then he was the last man to leave the card-table 
 or he kept away from it altogether. Where he 
 went nobody knew ; and he was not the man any 
 body would question. 
 
 One night two of us Kentuckians were sitting 
 in the club, and from a home paper I read aloud 
 the rumored engagement of a girl we both knew 
 who was famous for beauty in the Bluegrass, 
 as was her mother before her and the mother be 
 fore her to an unnamed Virginian. Grayson 
 sat near, smoking a pipe; and when I read the 
 girl s name I saw him take the meerschaum from 
 his lips, and I felt his eyes on me. It was a 
 mystery how, but I knew at once that Grayson 
 was the man. He sought me out after that and 
 seemed to want to make friends. I was willing, 
 or, rather he made me more than willing; for he 
 was irresistible to me, as I imagine he would 
 have been to anybody. We got to walking to 
 gether and riding together at night, and we were 
 soon rather intimate ; but for a long time he never 
 so much as spoke the girl s name. Indeed, he 
 139 
 
A PURPLE RHODODEKDROST 
 
 kept away from the Bluegrass for nearly two 
 months; but when he did go he stayed a fort 
 night. 
 
 This time he came for me as soon as he got 
 back to the Gap. It was just before midnight, 
 and we went as usual back of Imboden Hill, 
 through moon-dappled beeches, and Grayson 
 turned off into the woods where there was no 
 path, both of us silent. We rode through trem 
 ulous, shining leaves Grayson s horse choosing 
 a way for himself and, threshing through a 
 patch of high, strong weeds, we circled past an 
 amphitheatre of deadened trees whose crooked 
 arms were tossed out into the moonlight, and 
 halted on the spur. The moon was poised over 
 Morris s farm ; South Fork was shining under us 
 like a loop of gold, the mountains lay about in 
 tranquil heaps, and the moon-mist rose luminous 
 between them. There Grayson turned to me 
 with an eager light in his eyes that I had never 
 seen before. 
 
 " This has a new beauty to-night! " he said; 
 and then "I told her about you, and she said that 
 she used to know you well." I was glad my 
 face was in shadow I could hardly keep back 
 a brutal laugh and Grayson, unseeing, went on 
 to speak of her as I had never heard any man 
 speak of any woman. In the end, he said that 
 she had just promised to be his wife. I answered 
 140 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 nothing. Other men, I knew, had said that witK 
 the same right, perhaps, and had gone from her 
 to go back no more. And I was one of them. 
 Grayson had met her at White Sulphur five years 
 before, and had loved her ever since. She had 
 known it from the first, he said, and I guessed 
 then what was going to happen to him. I mar 
 velled, listening to the man, for it was the star 
 of constancy in her white soul that was most 
 lustrous to him and while I wondered the mar 
 vel became a commonplace. Did not every lover 
 think his loved one exempt from the frailty that 
 names other women? There is no. ideal of faith 
 or of purity that does not live in countless women 
 to-day. I believe that ; but could I not recall one 
 friend who walked with Divinity through pine 
 woods for one immortal spring, and who, being 
 sick to death, was quite finished learning her 
 at last? Did I not know lovers who believed 
 sacred to themselves, in the name of love, lips 
 that had been given to many another without it ? 
 And now did I not know but I knew too much, 
 and to Grayson I said nothing. 
 
 That spring the " boom " came. Grayson s 
 property quadrupled in value and quadrupled 
 again. I was his lawyer, and I plead with him 
 to sell ; but Grayson laughed. He was not spec 
 ulating; he had invested on judgment; he would 
 sell only at a certain figure. The figure was 
 141 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 actually reached, and Grayson let half go. The 
 boom fell, and Grayson took the tumble with a 
 jest. It would come again in the autumn, he said, 
 and he went off to meet the girl at White Sul 
 phur. 
 
 I worked right hard that summer, but I missed 
 him, and I surely was glad when he came back. 
 Something was wrong ; I saw it at once. He did 
 not mention her name, and for a while he avoided 
 even me. I sought him then, and gradually I 
 got him into our old habit of walking up into the 
 Gap and of sitting out after supper on a big rock 
 in the valley, listening to the run of the river 
 and watching the afterglow over the Cumber 
 land, the moon rise over Wallen s Ridge and the 
 stars come out. Waiting for him to speak, I 
 learned for the first time then another secret of 
 his wretched melancholy. It was the hopeless 
 ness of that time perhaps, that disclosed it. 
 Grayson had lost the faith of his childhood. 
 Most men do that at some time or other, but 
 Grayson had no business, no profession, no art 
 in which to find relief. Indeed, there was but 
 one substitute possible, and that came like a gift 
 straight from the God whom he denied. Love 
 came, and Grayson s ideals of love, as of every 
 thing else, were morbid and quixotic. He be 
 lieved that he owed it to the woman he should 
 marry never to have loved another. He had 
 142 
 
A PUEPLE KHODODENDKON 
 
 loved but one woman, he said, and he should 
 love but one. I believed him then literally when 
 he said that his love for the Kentucky girl was 
 his religion now the only anchor left him in 
 his sea of troubles, the only star that gave him 
 guiding light. Without this love, what then ? 
 
 I had a strong impulse to ask him, but Grayson 
 shivered, as though he divined my thought, and, 
 in some relentless way, our talk drifted to the 
 question of suicide. I was not surprised that he 
 rather defended it. Neither of us said anything 
 new, only I did not like the way he talked. He 
 was too deliberate, too serious, as though he were 
 really facing a possible fact. He had no relig 
 ious scruples, he said, no family ties; he had 
 nothing to do with bringing himself into life; 
 why if it was not worth living, not bearable 
 why should he not end it? He gave the usual 
 authority, and I gave the usual answer. Religion 
 aside, if we did not know that we were here for 
 some purpose, we did not know that we were not; 
 and here we were anyway, and our duty was 
 plain. Desertion was the act of a coward, and 
 that Grayson could not deny. 
 
 That autumn the crash of 91 came across the 
 water from England, and Grayson gave up. He 
 went to Richmond, and came back with money 
 enough to pay off his notes, and I think it took 
 nearly all he had. Still, he played poker steadily 
 H3 
 
A PT7RPLB RHODODENDRON 
 
 now for poker had been resumed when it was 
 no longer possible to gamble in lots he drank 
 a good deal, and he began just at this time to 
 take a singular interest in our volunteer police 
 guard. He had always been on hand when there 
 was trouble, and I shan t soon forget him the 
 day Senator Mahone spoke, when we were 
 \ punching a crowd of mountaineers back with 
 cocked Winchesters. He had lost his hat in a 
 struggle with one giant; he looked half crazy 
 with anger, and yet he was white and perfectly 
 cool, and I noticed that he never had to tell a 
 man but once to stand back. Now he was the 
 first man to answer a police whistle. When we 
 were guarding Talt Hall, he always volunteered 
 when there was any unusual risk to run. When 
 we raided the Pound to capture a gang of des 
 peradoes, he insisted on going ahead as spy; and 
 when we got restless lying out in the woods wait 
 ing for daybreak, and the captain suggested a 
 charge on the cabin, Grayson was by his side 
 when it was made. Grayson sprang through the 
 door first, and he was the man w r ho thrust his 
 reckless head up into the loft and lighted a match 
 to see if the murderers were there. Most of us 
 did foolish things in those days under stress of 
 excitement, but Grayson, I saw, was weak enough 
 to be reckless. His trouble with the girl, what 
 ever it was, was serious enough to make him ap- 
 144 
 
A PUEPLE KHODODENDROtf 
 
 patently care little whether he were alive or dead. 
 And still I saw that not yet even had he lost hope. 
 He was having a sore fight with his pride, and 
 he got body-worn and heart-sick over it. Of 
 course he was worsted, and in the end, from sheer 
 weakness, he went back to her once more. 
 
 I shall never see another face like his when 
 Grayson came back that last time. I never no 
 ticed before that there were silver hairs about his 
 temples. He stayed in his room, and had his 
 meals sent to him. He came out only to ride, 
 and then at night. Waking the third morning 
 at daybreak, I saw him through the window gal 
 loping past, and I knew he had spent the night 
 on Black Mountain. I went to his room as soon 
 as I got up, and Grayson was lying across his 
 bed with his face down, his clothes on, and in 
 his right hand was a revolver. I reeled into a 
 chair before I had strength enough to bend over 
 him, and when I did I found him asleep. I left 
 him as he was, and I never let him know that I 
 had been to his room; but I got him out on the 
 rock again that night, and I turned our talk again 
 to suicide. I said it was small, mean, cowardly, 
 criminal, contemptible ! I was savagely in ear 
 nest, and Grayson shivered and said not a word. 
 I thought he was in better mind after that. We 
 got to taking night rides again, and I stayed 
 as closely to him as I could, for times got worse 
 145 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 and trouble was upon everybody. Notes fell 
 thicker than snowflakes, and, through the foolish 
 policy of the company, foreclosures had to be 
 made. Grayson went to the wall like the rest 
 of us. I asked him what he had done with the 
 money he had made. He had given away a 
 great deal to poorer kindred; he had paid his 
 dead father s debts; he had played away a 
 good deal, and he had lost the rest. His faith 
 was still imperturbable. He had a dozen rect 
 angles of " dirt," and from these, he said, it 
 would all come back some day. Still, he felt the 
 sudden poverty keenly, but he faced it as he did 
 any other physical fact in life dauntless. He 
 used to be fond of saying that no one thing could 
 make him miserable. But he would talk with 
 mocking earnestness about some much-dreaded 
 combination; and a favorite phrase of his 
 which got to have peculiar significance was 
 " the cohorts of hell," who closed in on him when 
 he was sick and weak, and who fell back when 
 he got well. He had one strange habit, too, 
 from which I got comfort. He would deliber 
 ately walk into and defy any temptation that 
 beset him. That was the way he strengthened 
 himself, he said. I knew what his temptation 
 was now, and I thought of this habit when I 
 found him asleep with his revolver, and I got 
 hope from it now, when the dreaded combination 
 146 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 (whatever that was) seemed actually to have 
 come. 
 
 I could see now that he got worse daily. He 
 stopped his mockeries, his occasional fits of reck 
 less gayety. He stopped poker resolutely 
 he couldn t afford to lose now; and, what puz 
 zled me, he stopped drinking. The man simply 
 looked tired, always hopelessly tired ; and I could 
 believe him sincere in all his foolish talk about 
 his blessed Nirvana : which was the peace he 
 craved, which was end enough for him. 
 
 Winter broke. May drew near; and one af 
 ternoon, when Grayson and I took our walk up 
 through the Gap, he carried along a huge spy 
 glass of mine, which had belonged to a famous 
 old desperado, who watched his enemies with it 
 from the mountain-tops. We both helped cap 
 ture him, and I defended him. He was sentenced 
 to hang the glass was my fee. We sat down 
 opposite Bee Rock, and for the first time Grayson 
 told me of that last scene with her. He spoke 
 without bitterness, and he told me what she said, 
 word for word, without a breath of blame for 
 her. I do not believe that he judged her at all; 
 she did not know he always said; she did not 
 know; and then, when I opened my lips, Gray- 
 son reached silently for my wrist, and I can feel 
 again the warning crush of his fingers, and I 
 say nothing against her now. 
 
 147 
 
A PUKPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 I asked Grayson what his answer was. 
 
 "I asked her," he said, solemnly, " if she had 
 even seen a purple rhododendron." 
 
 I almost laughed, picturing the scene the 
 girl bewildered by his absurd question Grayson 
 calm, superbly courteous. It was a mental pe 
 culiarity of his this irrelevancy and it was like 
 him to end a matter of life and death in just that 
 way. 
 
 " I told her I should send her one. I am 
 waiting for them to come out," he added; and 
 he lay back with his head against a stone and 
 sighted the telescope on a dizzy point, about 
 which buzzards were circling. 
 
 * There is just one bush of rhododendron up 
 there," he went on. " I saw it looking down 
 from the Point last spring. I imagine it must 
 blossom earlier than that across there on Bee 
 Rock, being always in the sun. No, it s not bud 
 ding yet," he added, with his eye to the glass. 
 " You see that ledge just to the left? I dropped 
 a big rock from the Point square on a rattler 
 BJio was sunning himself there last spring. I 
 can see a foothold all the way up the cliff. It 
 can be done," he concluded, in a tone that made 
 me turn sharply upon him. 
 
 " Do you really mean to climb up there? " I 
 asked, harshly. 
 
 " If it blossoms first up there I ll get it where 
 148 
 
A PUKPLE KHODODENDKON" 
 
 it blooms first. " In a moment I was angry and 
 half sick with suspicion, for I knew his obstinacy; 
 and then began what I am half ashamed to tell. 
 
 Every day thereafter Grayson took that glass 
 with him, and I went along to humor him. I 
 watched Bee Rock, and he that one bush at the 
 throat of the peak neither of us talking over 
 the matter again. It was uncanny, that rivalry 
 sun and wind in one spot, sun and wind in an 
 other Nature herself casting the fate of a half- 
 crazed fool with a flower. It was utterly absurd, 
 but I got nervous over it apprehensive, dismal. 
 
 A week later it rained for two days, and the 
 water was high. The next day the sun shone, 
 and that afternoon Grayson smiled, looking 
 through the glass, and handed it to me. I knew 
 what I should see. One purple cluster, full 
 blown, was shaking in the wind. Grayson was 
 leaning back in a dream when I let the glass 
 down. A cool breath from the woods behind 
 us brought the odor of roots and of black earth; 
 up in the leaves and sunlight somewhere a wood- 
 thrush was singing, and I saw in Grayson s face 
 what I had not seen for a long time, and that 
 was peace the peace of stubborn purpose. He 
 did not come for me the next day, nor the next ; 
 but the next he did, earlier than usual. 
 
 " I am going to get that rhododendron/* he 
 said. " I have been half-way up it can be 
 149 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON" 
 
 reached.* 1 So had I been half-way up. With 
 nerve and agility the flower could be got, and 
 both these Grayson had. If he had wanted to 
 climb up there and drop, he could have done it 
 alone, and he would have known that I should 
 have found him. Grayson was testing himself 
 again, and, angry with him for the absurdity of 
 the thing and with myself for humoring it, but 
 still not sure of him, I picked up my hat and 
 went. I swore to myself silently that it was the 
 last time I should pay any heed to his whims. 
 I believed this would be the last. The affair 
 with the girl was over. The flower sent, I knew 
 Grayson would never mention her name again. 
 
 Nature was radiant that afternoon. The 
 mountains had the leafy luxuriance of June, and 
 a rich, sunlit haze drowsed on them between the 
 shadows starting out over the valley and the 
 clouds so white that the blue of the sky looked 
 dark. Two eagles shot across the mouth of the 
 Gap as we neared it, and high beyond buzzards 
 were sailing over Grayson s rhododendron. 
 
 I went up the ravine with him and I climbed 
 up behind him Grayson going very deliberately 
 and whistling softly. He called down to me 
 when he reached the shelf that looked half-way. 
 
 " You mustn t come any farther than this," he 
 said. " Get out on that rock and I ll drop them 
 down to you." 
 
 150 
 
A PURPLE RHODODENDRON 
 
 Then he jumped from the ledge and caught 
 the body of a small tree close to the roots, and 
 my heart sank at such recklessness and all my 
 fears rose again. I scrambled hastily to the 
 ledge, but I could get no farther. I might pos 
 sibly make the jump he had made but how 
 should I ever get back? How would he? I 
 called angrily after him now, and he wouldn t 
 answer me. I called him a fool, a coward; I 
 stamped the ledge like a child but Grayson 
 kept on, foot after hand, with stealthy caution, 
 and the purple cluster nodding down at him 
 made my head whirl. I had to lie down to keep 
 from tumbling from the ledge ; and there on my 
 side, gripping a pine bush, I lay looking up at 
 him. He was close to the flowers now, and just 
 before he took the last upward step he turned 
 and looked down that awful height with as calm 
 a face as though he could have dropped and 
 floated unhurt to the ravine beneath. 
 
 Then with his left hand he caught the ledge 
 to the left, strained up, and, holding thus, 
 reached out with his right. The hand closed 
 about the cluster, and the twig was broken. 
 Grayson gave a great shout then. He turned his 
 head as though to drop them and, that far away, 
 I heard the sibilant whir of rattles. I saw a 
 snake s crest within a yard of his face, and, 
 my God! I saw Grayson loose his left hand to 
 
A PUKPLE BHODODENDRON 
 
 guard it! The snake struck at his arm, and 
 Grayson reeled and caught back once at the ledge 
 with his left hand. He caught once, I say, to 
 do him full justice; then, without a word, he 
 dropped and I swear there was a smile on his 
 face when he shot down past me into the trees. 
 
 I found him down there in the ravine with 
 nearly every bone in his body crushed. His left 
 arm was under him, and outstretched in his right 
 hand was the shattered cluster, with every blos 
 som gone but one. One white half of his face 
 was unmarked, and on it was still the shadow of 
 a smile. I think it meant more than that Gray- 
 son believed that he was near peace at last. It 
 meant that Fate had done the deed for him and 
 that he was glad. Whether he would have done 
 it himself, I do not know ; and that is why I say 
 that though Grayson brought the flower down 
 smiling from peak to ravine I do not know that 
 he was not, after all, a coward. 
 
 That night I wrote to the woman in Kentucky. 
 I told her that Grayson had fallen from a cliff 
 while climbing for flowers ; and that he was dead. 
 Along with these words, I sent a purple rhodo 
 dendron. 
 
 152 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 THE pale lad from the Pound was telling 
 news to an eager circle of men just out 
 side the open window of the little mountain-hotel, 
 and, inside, I dropped knife and fork to listen. 
 The wily old " Daddy " of the Fleming boys had 
 been captured; the sons were being hemmed in 
 that very day, and a fight between sheriff s posse 
 and outlaws was likely any hour. 
 
 Ten minutes later I was astride a gray mule, 
 and with an absurd little .32 Smith & Wesson 
 popgun on my hip the only weapon I could 
 find in town was on my way to the Pound. 
 
 Our volunteer police-guard down at " The 
 Gap," twenty miles away, was very anxious to 
 capture those Fleming boys. Talton Hall, feud- 
 leader and desperado, had already been hanged, 
 and so had his bitter enemy, the Red Fox of the 
 Mountains. With the Fleming outlaws brought 
 to justice, the fight of the guard for law and 
 order was about won. And so, as I was a mem 
 ber of that guard, it behooved me to hurry 
 which I did. 
 
 155 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 The Gap is in the southwestern corner of old 
 Virginia, and is a ragged gash down through the 
 Cumberland Mountains to the water level of a 
 swift stream that there runs through a mountain 
 of limestone and between beds of iron ore and 
 beds of coking coal. That is why some three 
 score young fellows gathered there from Blue- 
 grass Kentucky and Tide-water Virginia not 
 many years ago, to dig their fortunes out of the 
 earth. Nearly all were college graduates, and 
 all were high-spirited, adventurous and well-born. 
 They proposed to build a town and, incidentally, 
 to make cheaper and better iron there than was 
 made anywhere else on the discovered earth. 
 
 A " boom " came. The labor and capital ques 
 tion was solved instantly, for every man in town 
 was straightway a capitalist. You couldn t get 
 a door hung every carpenter was a meteoric 
 Napoleon of finance. Every young blood in 
 town rode Blue-grass saddle-horses and ate eight- 
 o clock dinners making many dollars each day 
 and having high jinks o nights at the club, which, 
 if you please, entertained, besides others of dis 
 tinction, a duke and duchess who had warily 
 eluded the hospitality of New York. The woods 
 were full of aristocrats and plutocrats Ameri 
 can and English. The world itself seemed to 
 be moving that way, and the Gap stretched its 
 jaws wide with a grin of welcome. Later, you 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 could get a door hung, but here I draw the veil. 
 It was magnificent, but it was not business. 
 
 At the high tide, even, the Gap was, however, 
 something of a hell-hole for several reasons ; and 
 the clash of contrasts was striking. The Ken 
 tucky feudsmen would chase each other there, 
 now and then, from over Black Mountain; and 
 the toughs on the Virginia side would meet there 
 on Saturdays to settle little differences of opinion 
 and sentiment. They would quite take the town 
 sometimes riding through the streets, yelling 
 and punctuating the sign of our one hotel with 
 pistol-bullet periods to this refrain : 
 
 .... G.r.a.n.d C.e.n.t.r.a.l H.o.t.e.l. . . . ., 
 
 Hell! Hell! Hell! 
 
 keeping time meanwhile, like darkies in a hoe- 
 down. Or, a single horseman might gallop down 
 one of our wooden sidewalks, with his reins be 
 tween his teeth, and firing into the ground with a 
 revolver in each hand. All that, too, was mag 
 nificent, but it was not business. The people 
 who kept store would have to close up and take 
 to the woods. 
 
 And thus arose a unique organization a vol 
 unteer police-guard of gentlemen, who carried 
 pistol, billy, and whistle, and did a policeman s 
 157 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 work hewing always strictly to the line of the 
 law. 
 
 The result was rather extraordinary. The 
 Gap soon became the only place south of Mason 
 and Dixon s line, perhaps, where a street fight of 
 five minutes duration, or a lynching, was im 
 possible. A yell, a pistol-shot, or the sight of a 
 drunken man, became a rare occurrence. Local 
 lawlessness thus subdued, the guard extended its 
 benign influence creating in time a public senti 
 ment fearless enough to convict a desperado, 
 named Talt Hall ; and, guarding him from rescue 
 by his Kentucky clansmen for one month at the 
 county-seat, thus made possible the first hanging 
 that mountain-region had ever known. 
 
 After that the natives, the easy-going, tolerant 
 good people, caught the fever for law and order, 
 for, like lawlessness, law, too, is contagious. It 
 was they who guarded the Red Fox, Hall s 
 enemy, to the scarfold, and it was they who 
 had now taken up our hunt for the Red 
 Fox s accomplices the Fleming outlaws of the 
 Pound. 
 
 We were anxious to get those boys they had 
 evaded and mocked us so long. Usually they 
 lived in a cave, but lately they had grown quite 
 " tame." From working in the fields, dressed 
 in women s clothes, they got to staying openly at 
 home and lounging around a cross-roads store at 
 
 158 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 the Pound. They even had the impudence to 
 vote for a sheriff and a county judge. They 
 levied on their neighbors for food and clothes, 
 and so bullied and terrorized the Pound that 
 nobody dared to deny them whatever they asked, 
 or dared to attempt an arrest. At last, they got 
 three or four recruits, and tying red strips of 
 flannel to their shoulders and Winchesters, 
 drilled in the county road, mocking our drill at 
 the county-seat when we were guarding Talton 
 Hall. 
 
 This taunt was a little too much, and so 
 we climbed on horseback late one afternoon, 
 wrapped our guns in overcoats, and started out 
 for an all-night ride, only to be turned back 
 again at the foot of Black Mountain by our 
 captain and first lieutenant, who had gone over 
 ahead of us as spies. The outlaws were fighting 
 among themselves; one man was killed, and we 
 must wait until they got " tane " again. 
 
 A few weeks later the guard rode over again, 
 dashed into the Fleming cabin at daybreak and 
 captured a houseful of screaming women and 
 children to the great disgust of the guard and 
 to the great humor of the mountaineers, who had 
 heard of our coming and gone off, dancing, down 
 the road only an hour before. It was then that 
 the natives, emulating our example, took up the 
 search. They were doing the work now, and it 
 159 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 was my great luck to be the only member of the 
 guard who knew what was going on. 
 
 The day was hot the road dusty, and the gray 
 mule was slow. Within two hours I was at the 
 head of the Pound a wild, beautiful, lawless 
 region that harbored the desperadoes of Virginia 
 and Kentucky, who could do mischief in either 
 State and step to refuge across the line. Far 
 ahead, I could see a green dip in the mountains 
 where the Red Fox and the Fleming boys had 
 shot the Mullins family of moonshiners to death 
 from ambush one sunny morning in May. 
 
 Below, sparkled Pound River roaring over a 
 milldam, and by the roadside, as I went down, I 
 found the old miller alone. The posse of natives 
 had run upon the Flemings that morning, he said, 
 and the outlaws, after a sharp fight, had escaped 
 wounded. The sheriff was in charge of the 
 searching party, and he believed that the Flem 
 ings would be caught now, for sure. 
 
 "Which way?" I asked. 
 
 The old fellow pointed down a twisting, sunlit 
 ravine, dense with woods, and I rode down the 
 dim creek that twisted through it. Half an 
 hour later I struck a double log-cabin with quilts 
 hanging in its windows which was unusual. 
 An old woman appeared in the doorway a tall, 
 majestic old tigress, with head thrown back and 
 1 60 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 a throat so big that it looked as though she had 
 a goitre. 
 
 " Who lives here?" 
 
 " The Flemingses lives hyeh," she said, 
 quietly. 
 
 I was startled. I had struck the outlaws cabin 
 by chance, and so, to see what I might learn, I 
 swung from the gray mule and asked for a glass 
 of buttermilk. A handsome girl of twenty, a 
 Fleming sister, with her dress open at the throat, 
 stepped from the door and started to the spring- 
 house. Through the door I could see another 
 woman wife of one of the outlaws ill. A 
 " base-born " child toddled toward me, and a 
 ten-year-old boy a Fleming brother with keen 
 eyes and a sullen face, lay down near me watch 
 ing me, like a snake in the grass. 
 
 The old woman brought out a chair and 
 lighted a pipe. 
 
 u Whar air ye from, and what mought yo* 
 name be? " 
 
 I evaded half the inquiry. 
 
 " I come from the Blue-grass, but I m living 
 at the Gap just now." She looked at me keenly, 
 as did the snake in the grass, and I turned my 
 chair so that I could watch that boy. 
 
 " Was you over hyeh that night when them 
 fellows from the Gap run in on us? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 161 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 The old woman s big throat shook with quiet 
 laughter. The girl laughed and the woman 
 through the door laughed in her apron, but the 
 boy s face moved not a muscle. It was plain that 
 we had no monopoly of the humor of that day 
 break dash into a house full of women and chil 
 dren. 
 
 " One fool feller stuck his head up into the 
 loft and lit a match to see if my boys was up 
 thar. Lit a match! He wouldn t V had no 
 head ef they had been." She laughed again, and 
 drew on her pipe. 
 
 " I give em coffee," she went on, " while they 
 waited for my boys to come back, an all I axed 
 em was not to hurt em if they could help it." 
 Then she broached the point at issue herself. 
 
 " I s pose you ve heerd about the fight this 
 mornin ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I reckon you know my boys is hurt mebbe 
 they re dead in the woods somewhar now." She 
 spoke with little sadness and with no animus 
 whatever. There was no use trying to conceal 
 my purpose down there I saw that at once 
 and I got up to leave. She would not let me 
 pay for the buttermilk. 
 
 " Ef you git hold of em I wish you wouldn t 
 harm em," she said, as I climbed on the gray 
 mule, and I promised her that if they were caught 
 162 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 unharmed, no further harm should come to them ; 
 and I rode away, the group sitting motionless 
 and watching me. 
 
 For two hours I ambled along the top of a 
 spur, on a pretty shaded road with precipitous 
 woods on each side, and now and then an occa 
 sional cabin, but not a human being was in sight 
 not for long. Sometimes I would see a figure 
 flitting around a corner of a cabin; sometimes 
 a door would open a few inches and close quickly ; 
 and I knew the whole region was terrorized. 
 For two hours I rode on through the sunlight and 
 beauty of those lonely hills, and then I came on 
 a crowd of mountaineers all armed with Win 
 chesters, and just emerging from a cabin by the 
 roadside. It was one division of the searching 
 party, and I joined them. They were much 
 amused when they saw the Christmas toy with 
 which I was armed. 
 
 " S pose one o the Flemings had stepped out n 
 the bushes an axed ye what ye was doin 7 down 
 hyeh what would ye V said? " 
 
 That might have been embarrassing, and I 
 had to laugh. I really had not thought of that. 
 
 One man showed me the Winchester they had 
 captured Heen-an s gun. Tied to the meat- 
 house and leaping against a rope-tether was a 
 dog which, too, they had captured Heenan s 
 dog. As we started out the yard " Gooseneck " 
 
 163 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 John Branham, with a look of disgust at my 
 pistol, whipped out one of his own some two 
 feet long for me to swing on my other hip. 
 Another fellow critically took in my broad-brim 
 straw hat. 
 
 " Hell ! " he said. " That won t do. They 
 can see that a mile through the woods. I ll get 
 ye a hat." And he went back into the cabin and 
 brought out a faded slouch-hat. 
 
 " That s Heenan s I " he said. That, too, they 
 had captured. 
 
 And so I wore Heenan s hat looking for 
 Heenan. 
 
 Half a mile down the road we stepped aside 
 twenty yards into the bushes. There was the 
 cave in which the outlaws had lived. There were 
 in it several blankets, a little bag of meal, and 
 some bits of ham. Right by the side of the road 
 was a huge pile of shavings, where the two out 
 laws had whittled away many a sunny hour. 
 Half an hour on, down a deep ravine and up a 
 long slope, and we were on a woody knoll where 
 the fight had taken place that morning. The 
 little trees looked as though a Catling gun had 
 been turned loose on them. 
 
 The posse had found out where the Flemings 
 were, the night before, by capturing the old 
 Fleming mother while she was carrying them a 
 164 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 bag of provisions. As they lay in the brush, she 
 had come along, tossing stones into the bushes 
 to attract the attention of her sons. One of the 
 men had clicked the slide of his Winchester, and 
 the poor old woman, thinking that was the signal 
 from one of her boys, walked toward them, and 
 they caught her and kept her prisoner all night 
 in the woods. Under her apron, they found the 
 little fellow who had lain like a snake in the 
 grass beside me back at the cabin, and, during 
 the night, he had slipped away and escaped and 
 gone back to the county-seat, twenty miles away, 
 on foot, to tell his father, who was a prisoner 
 there, what was taking place at home. 
 
 At daybreak, when the posse was closing in on 
 the Flemings, the old woman sprang suddenly 
 to her feet and shouted shrilly : " Run down the 
 holler, boys; run down the holler! " 
 
 The ways of rude men, naturally, are not 
 gentle, and the sheriff sprang out and caught the 
 old woman by the throat and choked her cries; 
 and they led her to the rear weeping and wring 
 ing her hands. 
 
 A few minutes later, as the men slipped for 
 ward through the woods and mist, they came 
 upon the Flemings crouched in the bushes, and 
 each creeping for a tree. " Gooseneck " John 
 Branham -so called because of the length of his 
 neck Doc Swindall and Ed Hall opened fire. 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 For twenty minutes those two Fleming boys 
 fought twenty-two men fiercely. 
 
 " Just looked like one steady flame was a- 
 comin out o each man s Winchester all the 
 time," said Branham, pointing to two bullet- 
 pecked trees behind which the outlaws had stood. 
 " I was behind this birch/ laying his hand on a 
 tree as big as his thigh, and pointing out where 
 the Flemings had drilled three bullet-holes in it 
 between his neck and his waistband. 
 
 " I seed Jim Hale pokin his gun around 
 this hyeh tree and pumpin it off inter the 
 ground," said Hall, " an 7 I couldn t shoot for 
 laughin ." 
 
 " Well," said Swindall, " I was tryin to git in 
 a shot from the oak there, and something struck 
 me and knocked me out in the bushes. I looked 
 around, and damn me if there wasn t seven full- 
 grown men behind my tree." 
 
 It had evidently been quite warm for a while, 
 until Branham caught Heenan in the shoulder 
 with a load of buckshot. Heenan s hat went off, 
 his gun dropped to his feet ; he cried simply : 
 
 " Oh you ! " Then he ran. 
 
 Cal Fleming, too, ran then, and the posse fired 
 after them. The dog, curiously enough, lay 
 where he had lain during the fight, at the base 
 of Heenan s tree and so hat, dog, and gun were 
 captured. I had wondered why the posse had 
 166 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 not pursued the Flemings after wounding them, 
 and I began to understand. They were so elated 
 at having been in a fight and come out safe, that 
 they stopped to cook breakfast, gather memen 
 tos, and talk it all over. 
 
 Ten minutes later we were at the cabin, where 
 the fugitives had stopped to get some coffee. 
 
 " They was pretty badly hurt, I reckon, 1 
 said the woman who had given them something 
 to eat. 
 
 " Heenan s shoulder was all shot up, an 1 I 
 reckon I could git my hand into a hole in Cal s 
 back. Cal was groanin a good deal, an had to 
 lay down every ten yards." 
 
 We went on hurriedly, and in an hour we 
 struck the main body of the searching party, and 
 as soon as the sheriff saw me, he came running 
 forward. Now, the guard at the Gap had such 
 a reputation that any member of it was sup 
 posed to be past-master in the conduct of such 
 matters as were now pending. He immediately 
 called me " Captain," and asked me to take 
 charge of the party. I looked round at them, 
 and I politely veered from the honor. Such a 
 tough-looking gang it has rarely been my good 
 luck to see, and I had little doubt that many of 
 them were worse than the Fleming boys. One 
 tall fellow particularly attracted my attention; 
 he was fully six and one-half feet high ; he was 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 very slender, and his legs and arms were the 
 longest I have ever seen swung to a human frame. 
 He had sandy hair, red eyes, high cheek-bones, 
 and on each cheek was a diminutive boil. About 
 his waist was strapped a huge revolver, and to 
 the butt of this pistol was tied a big black bow- 
 ribbon tied there, no doubt, by his sweetheart, 
 as a badge of death or destruction to his enemies. 
 He looked me over calmly. 
 
 " Hev you ever searched for a dead man? " 
 he asked deeply. 
 
 It was humiliating to have to confess it in that 
 crowd, but I had not not then. 
 
 " Well, I hev," he said, significantly. 
 
 I had little doubt, and for one, perhaps, of his 
 own killing. 
 
 In the hollow just below us was the cabin of 
 Parson Swindall a friend of the Flemings. The 
 parson thought the outlaws dying or dead, and 
 he knew the cave to which they must have 
 dragged themselves to die. If I got permission 
 from the old Fleming mother, he would guide 
 me, he said, to the spot. I sent back a messenger, 
 promising that the bodies of her sons should not 
 be touched, if they were dead, nor should they 
 be further harmed if they were still alive. The 
 fierce old woman s answer came back in an 
 hour. 
 
 " She d ruther they rotted out in the woods." 
 168 
 
W- 
 
 Jr\ 
 
 
 lilllP 1 " 
 
 l^BiinMlii " --.ii i 1 
 
 "Hev you ever searched for a dead man? 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 Next morning I stretched the men out in a 
 long line, thirty feet apart, and we started on the 
 search. I had taken one man and spent the night 
 in the parson s cabin hoping that, if only 
 wounded, the Flemings might slip in for some 
 thing to eat; but I had a sleepless, useless night. 
 Indeed, the search had only a mild interest and 
 no excitement. We climbed densely thicketed 
 hills, searched ravines, rocks, caves, swam the 
 river backward and forward, tracking suspicious 
 footsteps in the mud and through the woods. 
 I had often read of pioneer woodcraft, and I 
 learned, during these three days, that the mar 
 vellous skill of it still survives in the Southern 
 mountains. 
 
 It was dangerous work; dangerous for the 
 man who should run upon the outlaws, since 
 these would be lying still to hear anyone approach 
 them, and would thus " have the drop " from 
 ambush. Once, to be sure, we came near a 
 tragedy. At one parting of two roads several 
 of us stopped to decide which road we should 
 take. At that moment the Fleming boys were 
 lying in the bushes twenty yards away, with their 
 Winchesters cocked and levelled at us over a log, 
 and only waiting for us to turn up that path to 
 open fire. As I was told afterward, Heenan, 
 very naturally, had his Winchester pointed on 
 his hat, which, at that moment, was on my head. 
 169 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 By a lucky chance I decided to take the other 
 path. Otherwise, I should hardly be writing 
 these lines to-day. 
 
 For three days we searched, only to learn, or 
 rather to be told, which was not the truth, that, 
 in women s dress, the Flemings had escaped over 
 into Kentucky. As a matter of fact, they lay two 
 weeks in a cave, Cal flat on his back and letting 
 the water from the roof of the cave drip, hour 
 by hour, on a frightful wound in his breast. 
 
 For several months they went uncaptured, 
 until finally three of the men who were with me, 
 " Gooseneck " John Branham, Ed Hall, and Doc 
 Swindall, located them over the border in West 
 Virginia. Of course a big reward was offered 
 for each, or they were " rewarded, " as the moun 
 taineers say. The three men closed in on them 
 in a little store one morning. Cal Fleming was 
 reading a letter when the three surged in at the 
 door, and Hall, catching Cal by the lapel of his 
 coat, said quietly : 
 
 " You are my prisoner." 
 
 Cal sprang back to break the hold, and Hall 
 shot him through the breast, killing him outright. 
 Heenan, who was not thought to be dangerous, 
 sprang at the same instant ten feet away, and his 
 first shot caught Hall in the back of the head, 
 dropping the officer to his knees. Thinking he 
 170 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 had done for Hall, Heenan turned on Branham 
 and Swindall, and shot Branham through both 
 lungs and Swindall through the neck dropping 
 both to the floor. This left the duel between 
 Hall on his knees and Heenan. At last a lucky 
 shot from Hall s pistol struck Heenan s pistol 
 hand, lacerating the fingers and making him 
 drop his weapon. Heenan ran into the back 
 room then, and, finding no egress, reappeared in 
 the doorway, with his bloody hands above his 
 head. 
 
 " Well, Ed," he said, simply, " I can t do no 
 
 more." 
 
 Six months later Heenan Fleming was brought 
 back to the county-seat to be tried for his life, 
 and I felt sure that he would meet his end on 
 the scaffold where Talton Hall and Red Fox had 
 suffered death. 
 
 As he sat there in the prisoner s box, his face 
 pale and flecked with powder, I could see a 
 sunken spot in his jaw, through which one of 
 Hall s bullets had gone, and his bright, black 
 eyes gleamed fire. I stepped up to him. I 
 thought there was no chance of his escaping the 
 gallows; but, if he did escape, I wanted to be as 
 friendly with him as possible. 
 
 " Heenan," I said, " did you ever get your hat 
 back?" 
 
 171 
 
MAN-HUNTING IN THE POUND 
 
 "No," he said. 
 
 " Well, if you come clear, go up to the store 
 and get the best hat in the house, and have it 
 charged to me." 
 
 Heenan smiled. 
 
 Now, by a curious chance, the woman on 
 whose testimony the Red Fox had been hanged, 
 had died meanwhile. Some people said she had 
 been purposely put out of the way to avoid fur 
 ther testimony. At any rate, through her death, 
 Heenan did come clear, and the last time I saw 
 him, he was riding out of the town on a mule, 
 with his baby in front of him and on his head a 
 brand-new derby hat mine. 
 
 172 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON 
 A RAFT 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON 
 A RAFT 
 
 THE heart of the Blue-grass in the middle 
 of a sunny afternoon. An hour thence, 
 through a rolling sweep of greening earth and 
 woodland, through the low, poor hills of the 
 brush country and into the oasis of Indian Old 
 Fields, rich in level meadow-lands and wheat- 
 fields. In the good old days of the war-whoop 
 and the scalping-knife, the savage had there one 
 of the only two villages that he ever planted 
 in the " Dark and Bloody Ground." There 
 Daniel Boone camped one night and a pioneer 
 read him " Gulliver s Travels/ and the great 
 Daniel called the little stream at their feet Lulli- 
 bigrub which name it bears to-day. Another 
 hour between cliffs and pointed peaks and cas 
 tled rocky summits, and through laurel and rho 
 dodendron to the Three Forks of the Kentucky. 
 Up the Middle Fork then and at dusk the end of 
 the railroad in the heart of the mountains and 
 Jackson the county-seat of " Bloody Breath- 
 itt " once the seat of a lively feud and still the 
 possible seat of another, in spite of the fact that 
 175 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A EAFT 
 
 with a manual training-school and a branch of a 
 Blue-grass college, it is also the seat of learning 
 and culture for the region drained by Cutshin, 
 Hell-fer-Sartain, Kingdom Come, and other lit 
 tle streams of a nomenclature not less pictur 
 esque. Even Hell-fer-Sartain is looking up. A 
 pious lady has established a Sunday-school on 
 Hell-fer-Sartain. A humorous bookseller has of 
 fered to give it a library on the condition that he 
 be allowed to design a book-plate for the vol 
 umes. And the Sunday-school is officially known 
 as the " Hell-fer-Sartain Sunday-school. * From 
 all these small tributaries of the Kentucky, the 
 mountaineer floats logs down the river to the cap 
 ital in the Blue-grass. Not many years ago that 
 was his chief reason and his only one for going 
 to the Blue-grass, and down the Kentucky on a 
 raft was the best way for him to get there. He 
 got back on foot. But, coming or going, by 
 steam, water, horseback, or afoot, the trip is well 
 worth while. 
 
 At Jackson a man with a lantern put me in a 
 " hack/ 7 drove me aboard a flat boat, ferried me 
 over with a rope cable, cracked his whip, and we 
 went up a steep, muddy bank into the town. All 
 through the Cumberland valleys, nowadays, 
 little " boom " towns with electric lights, water 
 works, and a street-railway make one think of the 
 man who said " give him the luxuries of life and 
 
 176 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 he would do without the necessaries." I did not 
 know that Jackson had ever had a boom, but I 
 thought so when I saw between the flapping cur 
 tains of the " hack " what seemed to be a white 
 sidewalk of solid cement. 
 
 " Hello," I said, " is that a sidewalk? " The 
 driver grunted, quickly : 
 
 " Hit s the side you walk on ! " 
 
 A wheel of the hack went down to the hub in 
 mud just then and I felt the force of his humor 
 better next morning I was to get such humor 
 in plenty on the trip when I went back to the 
 river that same way. It was not a sidewalk of 
 cement but a whitewashed board fence that had 
 looked level in the dark, and except along a 
 muddy foot-wide path close to the fence, passing 
 there, for anything short of a stork on stilts, 
 looked dangerous. I have known mules to. 
 drown in a mountain mud-hole. / 
 
 The " tide," as the mountaineer calls a flood, 
 had come the day before and, as I feared, the 
 rafts were gone. Many of them had passed in 
 the night, and there was nothing to do but to 
 give chase. So I got a row-boat and a mountain 
 eer, and, taking turns at the oars, we sped down 
 the swift yellow water at the clipping rate of ten 
 miles an hour. 
 
 As early as the late days of August the moun 
 taineer goes " logging " in order to cut the trees 
 177 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 before the sap rises, so that the logs can dry bet 
 ter all winter and float better in the spring. Be 
 fore frost comes, on river-bank, hill-side, and 
 mountain-top, the cool morning air is resonant 
 with the ring of axes, the singing whistle of big 
 saws, the crash of giant poplar and oak and 
 chestnut down through the lesser growth under 
 them, and the low boom that echoes through the 
 woods when the big trees strike the earth. All 
 winter this goes on. With the hammer of the 
 woodpecker in the early spring, you hear the cries 
 of ox-drivers "snaking" the logs down the 
 mountain-side to the edge of some steep cliff, 
 where they are tumbled pell-mell straight down 
 to the bank of the river, or the bank of some little 
 creek that runs into it. It takes eight yoke of 
 oxen, sometimes, to drag the heart of a monarch 
 to the chute, and there the logs are " rafted " 
 as the mountaineer calls the work; that is, they 
 are rolled with hand-spikes into the water and 
 lashed side by side with split saplings length 
 wise in the broad Big Sandy, broadside in the 
 narrow Kentucky. Every third or fourth log is a 
 poplar, because that wood is buoyant and will 
 help float the chestnut and the oak. At bow 
 and stern, a huge long limber oar is rigged on a 
 turning stile, the raft is anchored to a tree with 
 a cable of rope or grapevine, and there is a 
 patient wait for a " tide." Some day in March 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 or April sometimes not until May mist and 
 clouds loose the rain in torrents, the neighbors 
 gather, the cable is slipped, and the raft swings 
 out the mouth of the creek on its long way to 
 the land of which, to this day, the average moun 
 taineer knows hardly less than that land knows 
 of him. 
 
 Steadily that morning we kept the clumsy row- 
 boat sweeping around green-buttressed points 
 and long bends of the river, between high verti 
 cal cliffs overspread with vines and streaked white 
 with waterfalls, through boiling eddies and long, 
 swift, waving riffles, in an exhilaration that seems 
 to come to running blood and straining muscles 
 only in lonely wilds. Once a boy shied a stone 
 down at us from the point of a cliff hundreds of 
 feet sheer overhead. 
 
 " I wish I had my 44," said the mountaineer, 
 looking wistfully upward. 
 
 " You wouldn t shoot at him? " 
 
 " I d skeer him a leetle, I reckon," he said, 
 dryly, and then he told me stories of older and 
 fiercer days when each man carried a " gun," 
 and often had to use it to secure a landing on 
 dark nights when the loggers had to tie up to the 
 bank. When the moon shines, the rafts keep 
 going night and day. 
 
 " When the river s purty swift, you know, it s 
 hard to stop a raft. I ve seen a raft slash down 
 179 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 through the bushes for two miles before a fellow 
 could git a rope around a tree. So sometimes we 
 had to ketch hold of another feller s raft that 
 was already tied up, and, as there was danger o* 
 pullin his loose, the feller d try to keep us off. 
 That s whar the 44*8 come in. And they do it 
 yit," he said, as, later, I learned for myself. 
 
 Here and there were logs and splintered sap 
 lings thrown out on the bank of the river signs 
 of wreckage where a raft had " bowed"; that 
 is, the bow had struck the bank at the bend of 
 the river, the stern had swung around to the 
 other shore, and the raft had hunched up in the 
 middle like a bucking horse. Standing upright, 
 the mountaineer can ride a single log down a 
 swift stream, even when his weight sinks it a 
 foot or two under the surface, but he finds it hard 
 and dangerous to stay aboard a raft when it 
 " bows." 
 
 " I was bringin a raft out o Leatherwood 
 Creek below heah " only that was not the name 
 he gave the creek " and we bowed just before 
 we got to the river. Thar was a kind of a idgit 
 on board who was just a-ridin down the creek 
 fer fun, and when I was throwed out in the 
 woods I seed him go up in the air and come down 
 kerflop in the water. He went under the raft, 
 and crawled out about two hundred yards down 
 the river. We axed him to git on agin, but that 
 180 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 idgit showed more sense than I knowed he had. 
 He said he d heerd o hell and high water, and 
 he d been under one and mighty close to t other, 
 and he reckoned he d stay whar he was." 
 
 It was getting toward noon now. We had 
 made full forty miles, and Leatherwood was the 
 next stream below. 
 
 " We mought ketch a raft thar," said the 
 mountaineer; and we did. Sweeping around the 
 bend I saw a raft two hundred feet long at the 
 mouth of the creek tugging at its anchor and 
 a young giant of a mountaineer pushing the bow- 
 oar to and fro through the water to test its sup 
 pleness. He had a smile of pure delight on his 
 bearded, winning face when we shot the row- 
 boat alongside. 
 
 " I tell you, Jim," he said, " hit s a sweet- 
 pullin oar." 
 
 " It shorely is, Tom," said Jim. " Heah s a 
 furriner that wants to go down the river with ye." 
 
 "All right," said the giant, hospitably. 
 We re goin just as soon as we can git off." 
 
 On the bank was a group of men, women, and 
 children gathered to watch the departure. In a 
 basin of the creek above, men up to their waists 
 in water were " rafting " logs. Higher above 
 was a chute, and down it rolled more logs, jump 
 ing from end to end, like jackstraws. Higher, 
 I could hear the hammer of a wood-pecker; 
 181 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A EAFT 
 
 higher still, the fluting of a wood-thrush, and 
 still higher, an ox-driver s sharp cry. The 
 vivid hues of dress and shawl on the bank 
 seemed to strike out sharply every color-note in 
 the green wall behind them, straight up to the 
 mountain-top. It was as primitive and simple 
 as Arcady. 
 
 Down the bank came old Ben Sanders, as I 
 learned later, shouting his gdod-bys, without 
 looking behind him as he slipped down the bank. 
 Close after him, his son, young Ben, with a huge 
 pqne of corn-bread three feet square. The boy 
 was so trembling with excitement over his first 
 trip that he came near dropping it. Then a 
 mountaineer with lank, long hair, the scholar of 
 the party, and Tim, guilty of humor but once on 
 the trip solemn Tim. Two others jumped 
 aboard with bacon and coffee passengers like 
 myself. Tom stood on shore with one hand on 
 the cable, while he said something now and then 
 to a girl in crimson homespun who stood near, 
 looking downward. Now and then one of the 
 other women would look at the two and laugh. 
 
 " All right now, Tom," shouted old Ben, " let 
 her loose ! " 
 
 Tom thrust out his hand, which the girl took 
 shyly. 
 
 " Don t fergit, Tom," she said. Tom laughed 
 there was little danger that Tom would forget 
 182 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A EAFT 
 
 and with one twist of his sinewy hands he 
 threw the loop of the grapevine clear of the 
 tree and, for all his great bulk, sprang like a 
 cat aboard the raft, which shot forward with 
 such lightness that I was nearly thrown from 
 my feet. 
 
 "Good-by, Ben!" 
 
 "Good-by, Molly!" 
 
 " So long, boys ! " 
 
 " Don t you fergit that caliker, now, Ben." 
 
 " I won t." 
 
 " Tom," called a mountaineer, " ef you git 
 drunk an spend yo money, Nance heah says she 
 won t marry ye when you come back." Nance 
 slapped at the fellow, and the giant smiled. 
 Then one piping voice : 
 
 " Don t fergit my terbacky, Ben." 
 
 " All right, Granny I won t," answered old 
 Ben, and, as we neared the bend of the river, he 
 cried back : 
 
 " Take that saddle home I borrowed o Joe 
 Thomas, an don t fergit to send that side of 
 bacon to Mandy Longnecker, an an " and 
 then I got a last glimpse of the women shading 
 their patient eyes to watch the lessening figures 
 on the raft and the creaking oars flashing white 
 in the sunlight; and I thought of them going 
 back to their lonely little cabins on this creek to 
 await the home-coming of the men. If the 
 
 183 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A EAFT 
 
 mountain-women have any curiosity about that 
 distant land, the Blue-grass " settlemints," they 
 never show it. I have never known a mountain- 
 woman to go down the river on a raft. Perhaps 
 they don t care to go; perhaps it is not proper, 
 for their ideas of propriety are very strict; per 
 haps the long trip back on foot deterred them so 
 long that the habit of not going is too strong to 
 overcome. And then if they did go, who would 
 tend the ever-present baby in arms, the ever-nu 
 merous children ; make the garden and weed and 
 hoe the young corn for the absent lord and mas 
 ter. I suppose it was generations of just such 
 lonely women, waiting at their cabins in pioneer 
 days for the men to come home, that gives the 
 mountain-woman the brooding look of pathos 
 that so touches the stranger s heart to-day ; and it 
 is the watching to-day that will keep unchanged 
 that look of vacant sadness for generations to 
 come. 
 
 " Ease her up now ! " called old Ben we 
 were making our first turn and big Tom at the 
 bow, and young Ben and the scholar at the stern 
 oar, swept the white saplings through the water 
 with a terrific swish. Footholes had been cut 
 along the logs, and in these the men stuck their 
 toes as they pushed, with both hands on the oar 
 and the oar across their breasts. At the end of 
 the stroke, they threw the oar down and up with 
 184 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A BAFT 
 
 rhythm and dash. Then they went back on a 
 run to begin another stroke. 
 
 " Ease her up ease her up," said old Ben, 
 soothingly, and then, suddenly: 
 
 " Hit her up hit her up hell! " 
 
 Solemn Tim began to look ashore for a good 
 place to jump. The bow barely slipped past 
 the bend of the river. 
 
 "That won t do," said old Ben again; 
 " Hell! " Big Tom looked as crestfallen as a 
 school-boy, and said nothing we had just es 
 caped " bowing " on our first turn. Ten min 
 utes later we swept into the Narrows the / 
 " Nahrers " as the mountaineer says; and it was f 
 quick and dangerous work keeping the unwieldy 
 craft from striking a bowlder, or the solid wall 
 of a vertical cliff that on either side rose straight 
 upward, for the river was pressed into a narrow 
 channel, and ran with terrific force. It was 
 one long exhilarating thrill going through those 
 Narrows, and everybody looked relieved when 
 we slipped out of them into broad water, which 
 ran straight for half a mile where the oars 
 were left motionless and the men got back their 
 breath and drew their pipes and bottles. I 
 knew the innocent white liquor that revenue man 
 and mountaineer call " moonshine," and a wary 
 sip or two was enough for me. Along with the 
 bottle came the inevitable first question that, 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A EAFT 
 
 under any and all circumstances, every moun 
 taineer asks the stranger, no matter if the 
 stranger has asked him a question first. 
 
 " Well, stranger, what mought yo name 
 be?" 
 
 Answering that, you are expected to tell in 
 the same breath, as well, what your business is. 
 I knew it was useless to tell mine it would 
 not have been understood, and would have en 
 gendered suspicion. I was at Jackson; I had 
 long wanted to go down the river on a raft, and 
 I let them think that I was going for curiosity 
 and fun; but I am quite sure they were not 
 wholly satisfied until I had given them ground 
 to believe that I could afford the trip for fun, 
 by taking them up to the hotel that night for 
 supper, and giving them some very bad cigars. 
 For, though the moon was full, the sky was 
 black with clouds, and old Ben said we must tie 
 up for the night. That tying up was exciting 
 work. The raft was worked cautiously toward 
 the shore, and a man stood at bow and stern 
 with a rope, waiting his chance to jump ashore 
 and coil it about a tree. Tom jumped first, and 
 I never realized what the momentum of the raft 
 was until I saw him, as he threw the rope about a 
 tree, jerked like a straw into the bushes, the rope 
 torn from his hands, and heard the raft crashing 
 down through the undergrowth. Tom gave 
 186 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 chase along the bank, and everybody yelled and 
 ran to and fro. It was crash swish bump 
 grind and crash again; and it was only by the 
 hardest work at the clumsy oars that we kept 
 the raft off the shore. From a rock Tom made 
 a flying leap aboard again, and luckily the river 
 broadened there, and just past the point of a 
 thicket we came upon another raft already 
 anchored. The boy Ben picked up his rope 
 and prepared to leap aboard the stranger, 
 from the other end of which a mountaineer ran 
 toward us. 
 
 " Keep off," he shouted, " keep off, I tell ye," 
 but the boy paid no attention, and the other 
 man pulled his pistol. Ben dropped his rope, 
 then looked around, laughed, picked up his rope 
 again and jumped aboard. The fellow lowered 
 his pistol and swore. I looked around, too, 
 then. Every man on board with us had his pis 
 tol in his hand. We tugged the stranger s cable 
 sorely, but it held him fast and he held us fast, 
 and the tying up was done. 
 
 " He d a* done us the same way, 1 said old 
 Ben, in palliation. 
 
 Next day it was easy sailing most of the time, 
 and we had long rests from the oars, and we 
 smoked, and the bottles were slowly emptied, one 
 by one, while the mountaineers " jollied " each 
 other and told drawling stories. Once we struck 
 
 is? 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 a long eddy, and were caught by it and swept 
 back up-stream; twice this happened before we 
 could get in the current again. Then they all 
 laughed and " jollied " old Ben. 
 
 It seemed that the old fellow had taken too 
 much one dark night and had refused to tie up. 
 There was a house at the head of this eddy, and 
 when he struck it there was a gray horse hitched 
 to the fence outside; and inside was the sound 
 of fiddles and furious dancing. Next morn 
 ing old Ben told another raftsman that he had 
 seen more gray horses and heard more fiddling 
 that night than he had seen and heard since he 
 was born. 
 
 4 They was a-fiddlin an a-dancin at every 
 house I passed last night," he said, " an I m 
 damned if I didn t see a gray hoss hitched out 
 side every time I heerd the fiddlin . I reckon 
 they was ha nts." The old fellow laughed 
 good-naturedly while the scholar was telling his 
 story. He had been caught in the eddy and 
 had been swung around and around, passing 
 the same house and the same horse each time. 
 
 I believe I have remarked that those bottles 
 were emptying fast. By noon they were quite 
 empty, and two hours later, as we rounded a 
 curve, the scholar went to the bow, put his 
 hands to his mouth and shouted: 
 
 "Whis-kee!" 
 
 188 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A BAFT 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Whiss-kee-ee I " 
 
 A girl sprang from the porch of a cabin far 
 down the stream, and a moment later a canoe 
 was pushed from the bushes, and the girl, 
 standing erect, paddled it up-stream close to the 
 bank and shot it out alongside the raft. 
 
 "Howdye, Mandy!" 
 
 "Howdye, boys!" 
 
 Young Ben took two bottles from her, gave 
 her some pieces of silver, and, as we sped on, 
 she turned shoreward again and stood holding 
 the bushes and looking after us, watching young 
 Ben, as he was watching her; for she was black- 
 eyed and pretty. 
 
 The sky was broken with hardly a single 
 cloud that night. The moon was yellow as a 
 flame, and we ran all night long. I lay with 
 my feet to the fire that Ben had built on some 
 stones in the middle of the raft, looking up at 
 the trees that arched over us, and the steep, 
 moonlit cliffs, and the moon itself riding high 
 and full and so brilliant that the stars seemed 
 to have fallen in a shower all around the hori 
 zon. The raft ran as noiselessly as a lily-pad, 
 and it was all as still and wild as a dream. 
 Once or twice we heard the yelp of a fox-hound 
 and the yell of a hunter out in the hills, and the 
 mountaineers yelled back in answer and hied the 
 189 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A BAFT 
 
 dog on. Sometimes young Ben and the scholar, 
 and even solemn Tim, sang some weird old 
 ballad that one can hear now only in the South 
 ern hills; and twice, to my delight and surprise, 
 the scholar " yodelled." I wondered where he 
 had learned how. He did not know he had 
 always known how. It was perhaps only an 
 other of the curious Old World survivals that 
 are of ceaseless interest to a speculative " fur- 
 riner," and was no stranger than the songs he 
 sang. I went to sleep by and by, and woke up 
 shivering. It was yet dark, but signs of day 
 were evident; and in the dim light I could see 
 young Ben at the stern-oar on watch, and the 
 huge shape of big Tom standing like a statile 
 at the bow and peering ahead. We had made 
 good time during the night the mountaineers 
 say a raft makes better time during the night 
 why, I could not see, nor could they explain, 
 and at daybreak we were sweeping around the 
 hills of the brush country, and the scholar who 
 had pointed out things of interest (he was a 
 school-teacher at home) began to show his parts 
 with some pride. Every rock and cliff and turn 
 and eddy down that long river has some pictur 
 esque name that the river-men have given it 
 names known only to them. Two rocks that 
 shoved their black shoulders up on either side 
 of the stream have been called Buck and Billy, 
 190 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 after some old fellow s favorite oxen, for more 
 than half a century. Here was an eagle s nest. 
 A bear had been seen not long ago, looking 
 from a black hole in the face of a cliff. How 
 he got there no one could understand. The 
 scholar told some strong stories now that we 
 were in a region of historical interest where 
 Boone planted his first fort and where Boones- 
 borough once stood, but he always prefaced his 
 tale with the overwhelming authority that: 
 
 "Hist ry says!" 
 
 He declared that history said that a bull, see 
 ing some cows across the river, had jumped 
 from the point of a high cliff straight down into 
 the river; had swum across and fallen dead as 
 he was climbing the bank. 
 
 " He busted his heart," said the scholar. 
 
 Oddly enough, solemn Tim, who had never 
 cracked a smile, was the first to rebel. 
 
 "You see that cliff yander? " said the 
 scholar. " Well, hist ry says that Dan l Boone 
 druv three Injuns once straight over that cliff 
 down into the river." 
 
 I could see that Tim was loath to cast dis 
 credit on the facts of history. If the scholar 
 had said one or even two Indians, I don t think 
 Tim would have called a halt; but for Daniel, 
 with only one load in his gun and it not a 
 Winchester to drive three it was too much. 
 191 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 And yet Tim never smiled, and it was the 
 first time I heard him voluntarily open his 
 lips. 
 
 " Well, hist ry mought a* said that," he said, 
 " but I reckon Dan I was in the lead! " The 
 yell that went up routed the scholar and stilled 
 him. History said no farther down that 
 stream, even when we were passing between 
 the majestic cliffs that in one place are spanned 
 by the third highest bridge in the world. There 
 a ferry was crossing the river, and old Ben 
 grew reminiscential. He had been a ferryman 
 back in the mountains. 
 
 " Thar was a slosh of ice runnin in the 
 river/ he said, " an a feller come a-lopin down 
 the road one day, an* hollered an axed me 
 to take him across. I knowed from his voice 
 that he was a-drinkin , and I hollered back an* 
 axed him if he was drunk. 
 
 44 * Yes, I m drunk! 
 
 " How drunk? I says. 
 
 44 4 Drunk as hell ! he says, 4 but I can ride 
 that boat. 
 
 44 Well, there was a awful slosh o ice a-run- 
 n!n f , but I let him on, an we hadn t got more n 
 ten feet from the bank when that feller fell off 
 in that slosh o ice. Well, I ketched him by 
 one foot, an I drug him an I drug him an I 
 drug his face about twenty feet in the mud, an 
 192 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A EAFT 
 
 do you know that damn fool come might 1 nigh 
 a-drownin before I could change eends! " 
 
 Thence on, the trip was monotonous except 
 for the Kentuckian who loves every blade of 
 grass in his land for we struck locks and dams 
 and smooth and slower water, and the hills were 
 low but high enough to shut off the blue-grass 
 fields. But we knew they were there slope 
 and woodland, bursting into green and the trip 
 from highland to lowland, barren hillside to 
 rich pasture-land from rhododendron to blue- 
 grass was done. 
 
 At dusk that day we ran slowly into the little 
 Kentucky capital, past distilleries and brick fac 
 tories with tall smoking stacks and under the 
 big bridge and, wonder of wonders to Ben, past 
 a little stern-wheel steamboat wheezing up 
 stream. We climbed the bank into the town, 
 where the boy Ben and solemn Tim were for 
 walking single file in the middle of the streets 
 until called by the scholar to the sidewalk. The 
 boy s eyes grew big with wonder when he saw 
 streets and houses of stone, and heard the 
 whistles of factories and saw what was to him 
 a crush of people in the sleepy little town. I 
 parted from them that night, but next morn 
 ing I saw big Tom passing the station on foot. 
 He said his companions had taken his things 
 and gone on by train, and that he was going 
 193 
 
DOWN THE KENTUCKY ON A RAFT 
 
 to walk back. I wondered, and while I asked 
 no questions, I should like to wager that I 
 guessed the truth. Tom had spent every cent 
 of his money for the girl in crimson homespun 
 who was waiting for him away back in the hills, 
 and if I read her face aright I could have told 
 him that she would have given every trinket he 
 had sent her rather than wait a day longer for 
 the sight of his face. We shook hands, and I 
 watched him pass out of sight with his face 
 set homeward across and beyond the blue- 
 grass, through the brush country and the 
 Indian Old Fields, back to his hills of laurel 
 and rhododendron. 
 
 194 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 A WILDLY beautiful cleft through the 
 Cumberland Range opens into the head 
 of Powell s Valley, in Virginia, and forms iihe 
 Gap. From this point a party of us were go 
 ing bass-fishing on a fork of the Cumberland 
 River over in the Kentucky mountains. It was 
 Sunday, and several Kentucky mountaineers 
 had crossed over that day to take their first ride 
 on the cars, and to see " the city " as the Gap 
 has been prophetically called ever since it had 
 a cross-roads store, one little hotel, two farm 
 houses, and a blacksmith s shop. From them , 
 we learned that we could ride down Powell s ( 
 Valley and get to the fork of the Cumberland 
 by simply climbing over the mountain. As the 
 mountaineers were going back home the same 
 day, Breck and I boarded the train with them, 
 intending to fish down the fork of the river to 
 the point where the rest of the party would 
 strike the same stream, two days later. 
 
 At the second station down the road a crowd 
 of Virginia mountaineers got on board. Most 
 of them had been drinking, and the festivities 
 197 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 soon began. One drunken young giant pulled 
 his revolver, swung it back over his shoulder 
 the muzzle almost grazing a woman s face be 
 hind him and swung it up again to send a 
 bullet crashing through the top of the car. The 
 hammer was at the turning-point when a com 
 panion caught his wrist. At the same time, the 
 fellow s sister sprang across the aisle, and, 
 wrenching the weapon from his grasp, hid it 
 in her dress. Simultaneously his partner at the 
 other end of the car was drawing a .45 Colt s fc 
 half as long as his arm. A quick panic ran 
 through the car, and in a moment there was no 
 one in it with us but the mountaineers, the con 
 ductor, one brakeman, and one other man, who 
 sat still in his seat, with one hand under his 
 coat. The prospect was neither pleasant nor 
 peaceful, and we rose to our feet and waited. 
 The disarmed giant was raging through the 
 aisle searching and calling, with mighty oaths, 
 for his pistol. The other had backed into a 
 corner of the car, waving his revolver, turning 
 his head from side to side to avoid a surprise 
 in the rear, white with rage, and just drunk 
 enough to shoot. The little conductor was un 
 moved and smiling, and, by some quiet mesmer 
 ism, he kept the two in subjection until the sta 
 tion was reached. 
 
 The train moved out and left us among the 
 198 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 drunken maniacs, no house in sight, the darkness 
 settling on us, and the unclimbed mountain 
 looming up into it. The belligerents paid no 
 attention to us, however, but disappeared quick 
 ly, with an occasional pistol-shot and a yell from 
 the bushes, each time sounding farther away. 
 The Kentucky mountaineers were going to climb 
 the mountain. A storm was coming, but there 
 was nothing else to do. So we shouldered our 
 traps and followed them. 
 
 There were eight of us an old man and 
 his two daughters, the husband of one of these, 
 the sweetheart of the other, and a third man, 
 who showed suspicion of us from the beginning. 
 This man with a flaring torch led the way; the 
 old man followed him, and there were two 
 mountaineers deep between the girls and us, who 
 went last. 
 
 It was not long before a ragged line of fire 
 cut through the blackness overhead, and the 
 thunder began to crash and the rain to fall. 
 The torch was beaten out, and for a moment 
 there was a halt. Breck and I could hear a 
 muffled argument going on in the air above us, 
 and, climbing toward the voices, we felt the lin 
 tel of a mountain-cabin and heard a long drawl 
 of welcome. 
 
 The cabin was one dark room without even 
 a loft, the home of a newly married pair. They 
 199 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 themselves had evidently just gotten home, for 
 the hostess was on her knees at the big fireplace, 
 blowing a few coals into a blaze. The rest 
 of us sat on the two beds in the room waiting 
 for the fire-light, and somebody began talking 
 about the trouble on the train. 
 
 " Did you see that feller settin thar with his 
 hand under his coat while Jim was tryin to 
 shoot the brakeman?" said one. u Well, Jim 
 killed his brother a year ago, an the feller was 
 jus waitin fer a chance to git Jim right then. 
 I knowed that." 
 
 " Who was the big fellow who started the 
 row, by flourishing his pistol around? " I asked. 
 
 A man on the next bed leaned forward and 
 laughed slightly. :t Well, stranger, I reckon 
 that was me." 
 
 This sounds like the opening chapter of a 
 piece of fiction, but we had really stumbled upon 
 \ this man s cabin in the dark, and he was our 
 host. A little spinal chill made me shiver. He 
 had not seen us yet, and I began to wonder 
 whether he would recognize us when the light 
 blazed up, and whether he would know that we 
 were ready to take part against him in the car, 
 and what would happen, if he did. When the 
 blaze did kindle, he was reaching for his hip, 
 but he drew out a bottle of apple-jack and 
 handed it over the foot of the bed. 
 200 
 
THEOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 " Somebody ought to V knocked my head 
 off/ he said. 
 
 " That s so," said the younger girl, with 
 sharp boldness. " I never seed sech doin s." 
 
 The old mountaineer, her father, gave her 
 a quick rebuke, but the man laughed. He was 
 sobering up, and, apparently, he had never seen 
 us before. The young wife prepared supper, 
 and we ate and went to bed the ten of us in 
 that one room. The two girls took off their 
 shoes and stockings with frank innocence, and 
 warmed their bare feet at the fire. The host 
 and hostess gave up their bed to the old moun 
 taineer and his son-in-law, and slept, like the 
 rest of us, on the floor. 
 
 We were wakened long before day. Indeed 
 it was pitch dark when, after a mountain cus 
 tom, we stumbled to a little brook close to the 
 cabin and washed our faces. A wood-thrush 
 was singing somewhere in the darkness, and its 
 cool notes had the liquid freshness of the morn 
 ing. We did not wait for breakfast, so anxious 
 were the Kentuckians to get home, or so fearful 
 were they of abusing their host s hospitality, 
 though the latter urged us strenuously to stay. 
 Not a cent would he take from anybody, and 
 I know now that he was a moonshiner, a feuds- 
 man, an outlaw, and that he was running from 
 the sheriff at that very time. 
 201 
 
THEOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 With a parting pull at the apple-jack, we be 
 gan, on an empty stomach, that weary climb. 
 Not far up the mountain Breck stopped, pant 
 ing, while the mountaineers were swinging on 
 up the path without an effort, even the girls; 
 but Breck swore that he had heart disease, and 
 must rest. When I took part of his pack, the 
 pretty one looked back over her shoulder and 
 smiled at him without scorn. Both were shy, 
 and had not spoken a dozen words with either 
 of us. Half-way up we overtook a man and 
 a boy, one carrying a tremendous demijohn 
 and the other a small hand-barrel. They had 
 been over on the Virginia side selling moon 
 shine, and I saw the light of gladness in Breck s 
 eye, for his own flask was wellnigh empty from 
 returning our late host s courtesy. But both 
 man and boy disappeared with a magical sud 
 denness that became significant later. Already 
 we were suspected as being revenue spies, though 
 neither of us dreamed what the matter was. 
 
 We reached the top after daybreak, and the 
 beauty of the sunrise over still seas of white 
 mist and wave after wave of blue Virginia hills 
 was unspeakable, as was the beauty of the de 
 scent on the Kentucky side, down through pri 
 meval woods of majestic oak and poplar, under 
 a trembling world of dew-drenched leaves, and 
 along a tumbling series of waterfalls that flashed 
 202 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 through tall ferns, blossoming laurel, and shin 
 ing leaves of rhododendron. 
 
 The sun was an hour high when we reached 
 the foot of the mountain. There the old man 
 and the young girl stopped at a little cabin 
 where lived the son-in-law. We, too, were 
 pressed to stop, but we went on with the suspi 
 cious one to his house, where we got breakfast. 
 There the people took pay, for their house was 
 weather-boarded, and they were more civilized; 
 or perhaps for the reason that the man thought 
 us spies. I did not like his manner, and I got 
 the first unmistakable hint of his suspicions after 
 breakfast. I was down behind the barn, and 
 he and another mountaineer came down on the 
 other side. 
 
 " Didn t one o them fellers come down this 
 way? " I heard him ask. 
 
 I started to make my presence known, but he 
 spoke too quickly, and I concluded it was best to 
 keep still. 
 
 " No tellin whut them damn fellers is up to. 
 I don t like their occupation." 
 
 That is, we were the first fishermen to cast a 
 minnow with a reel into those waters, and it was 
 beyond the mountaineer s comprehension to un 
 derstand how two men could afford to come 
 so far and spend time and a little money just 
 for the f v of fishing. They supposed we were 
 203 
 
THKOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 fishing for profit, and later they asked us how 
 we kept our fish fresh, and how we got them 
 over the mountain, and where we sold them. 
 With this idea, naturally it was a puzzle to 
 them how we could afford to give a boy a quar 
 ter for a dozen minnows, and then, perhaps, 
 catch not a single fish with them. 
 
 When I got back to the house, Breck was rig 
 ging his rod, with a crowd of spectators around 
 him. Such a rod and such a fisherman had 
 never been seen in that country before. Breck 
 was dressed in a white tennis-shirt, blue gym 
 nasium breeches, blue stockings, and white ten 
 nis-shoes. With a cap on his shock of black 
 hair and a .38 revolver in his belt, he was a 
 thing for those women to look at and to admire, 
 and for the men to scorn secretly, of course, 
 for there was a look in his black eyes that 
 forced guarded respect in any crowd. The 
 wonder of those mountaineers when he put his 
 rod together, fastened the reel, and tossed his 
 hook fifty feet in the air was worth the morn 
 ing s climb to see. At the same time they made 
 fun of our rods, and laughed at the idea of get 
 ting out a big " green pyerch " as the moun 
 taineers call bass with "them switches. " 
 Their method is to tie a strong line to a long 
 hickory sapling, and, when they strike a bass, 
 to put the stout pole over one shoulder and walk 
 204 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 ashore with it. Before the sun was over the 
 mountain, we were wading down the stream, 
 while two boys carried our minnows and clothes 
 along the bank. The news of our coming 
 went before us, and every now and then a man 
 would roll out of the bushes with a gun and / 
 look at us with much suspicion and some won- 
 der. For two luckless hours we cast down that 
 too narrow and too shallow stream before we 
 learned that there was a dam two miles farther 
 down, and at once we took the land for it. It 
 was after dinner when we reached it, and there 
 the boys left us. We could not induce them to 
 go farther. An old miller sat outside his mill 
 across the river, looking at us with some curi 
 osity, but no surprise, for the coming of a stran 
 ger in those mountains is always known miles! 
 ahead of him. v 
 
 We told him our names and that we were 
 from Virginia, but were natives of the Blue- 
 grass, and we asked if he could give us dinner. 
 His house was half a mile farther down the 
 river, he said, but the women folks were at 
 home, and he reckoned they would give us 
 something to eat. When we started, I shifted 
 my revolver from my pocket to a kodak-camera 
 case that I had brought along to hold fishing- 
 tackle. 
 
 " I suppose I can put this thing in here? " I 
 205 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 said to Breck, not wanting to risk arrest for car 
 rying concealed weapons and the confiscation of 
 the pistol, which was valuable. Breck hesitat 
 ed, and the old miller studied us keenly. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if you two air from Kane- 
 tucky, hit strikes me you ought to know the 
 laws of yo 1 own State. You can carry it in thar 
 as baggage," he added, quietly, and I knew that 
 my question had added another fagot to the 
 flame of suspicion kindling against us. 
 
 In half an hour we were in the cool shade of 
 a spreading apple-tree in the miller s yard, with 
 our bare feet in thick, cool grass, while the mill 
 er s wife and his buxom, red-cheeked daughter 
 got us dinner. And a good dinner it was ; and 
 we laughed and cracked jokes at each other till 
 the sombre, suspicious old lady relaxed and 
 laughed, too, and the girl lost some of her tim 
 idity and looked upon Breck with wide-eyed ad 
 miration, while Breck ogled back outrageously. 
 
 After dinner a scowling mountaineer led a 
 mule through the yard and gave us a surly nod. 
 Two horsemen rode up to the gate and waited 
 to escort us down the river. One of them car 
 ried our baggage, for no matter what he sus 
 pects, the mountaineer will do anything in the 
 world for a stranger until the moment of actual 
 conflict comes. In our green innocence, we 
 thought it rather a good joke that we should be 
 206 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 taken for revenue men, so that, Break s flask 
 being empty, he began by telling one of the men 
 that we had been wading the river all the morn 
 ing, that the water was cold, and that, anyway, 
 a little swallow now and then often saved a fel 
 low from a cold and fever. He had not been 
 able to get any from anybody and couldn t 
 the man do something? The mountaineer was 
 touched, and he took the half-dollar that Breck 
 gave him, and turned it over, with a whispered 
 consultation, to one of two more horsemen that 
 we met later on the road. Still farther on we 
 found a beautiful hole of water, edged with a 
 smooth bank of sand a famous place, the men 
 told us, for green " pyerch." Mountaineers 
 rolled out of the bushes to watch us while we 
 were rigging up, some with guns and some with 
 out. We left our pistols on the shore, and sev 
 eral examined them curiously, especially mine, 
 which was hammerless. Later, I showed them 
 how it worked, and explained that one advan 
 tage of it was that, in close quarters, the other 
 man could not seize your pistol, get his finger or 
 thumb under your hammer, and prevent you 
 from shooting at all. This often happens in a 
 fight, of course, and the point appealed to them 
 strongly, but I could see that they were wonder 
 ing why I should be carrying a gun that was 
 good for close quarters, since close quarters are 
 207 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 rarely necessary except in case of making ar 
 rests. Pretty soon the two men who had gone 
 for Breck s " moonshine " returned, and a gleam 
 rose in Breck s eye and went quickly down. In 
 stead of a bottle, the boy handed back the half- 
 dollar. 
 
 " I couldn t git any," he said. He lied, of 
 course, as we both knew, and the disappoint 
 ment in Breck s face was so sincere that his 
 companion, with a gesture that was half sym 
 pathy, half defiance, whisked a bottle from 
 his hip. 
 
 Well, by I ll give him a drink! " 
 
 It was fiery, white as water, and so fresh that 
 we could taste the smoke in it, but it was good, 
 and we were grateful. All the afternoon, from 
 two to a dozen people watched us fish, but we 
 had poor luck, which is never a surprise, fishing 
 for bass. Perhaps the fish had gone to nesting, 
 or the trouble may have been the light of the 
 moon, during which they feed all night, and are 
 not so hungry through the day; or it may have 
 been any of the myriad reasons that make the 
 mystery and fascination of catching bass. At 
 another time, and from the same stream, I have 
 seen two rods take out one hundred bass, rang 
 ing from one to five pounds in weight, in a sin 
 gle day. An hour by sun, we struck for the 
 house of the old man with whom we had crossed 
 208 
 
THKOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 the mountain, and, that night, we learned that 
 we had passed through a locality alive with 
 moonshiners, and banded together with such 
 system and determination that the revenue 
 agents rarely dared to make a raid on them. 
 We were supposed to be two spies who were 
 expected to come in there that spring. We had 
 passed within thirty yards of a dozen stills, and 
 our host hinted where we might find them. We 
 thanked him, and told him we preferred to keep 
 as far away from them as possible. He was 
 much puzzled. He also said that we had been 
 in the head-quarters of a famous desperado, 
 who was the leader of the Howard faction in 
 the famous Howard-Turner feud. He was a 
 non-combatant himself, but he had " feelin s," 
 as he phrased it, for the other side. He was 
 much surprised when we told him we were 
 going back there next day. We had told the 
 people we were coming back, and next morning 
 we were foolish enough to go. 
 
 As soon as we struck the river, we saw a man 
 with a Winchester sitting on a log across the 
 stream, as though his sole business in life was 
 to keep an eye on us. All that day we were 
 never out of sight of a mountaineer and a gun ; 
 we never had been, I presume, since our first 
 breakfast on that stream. Still, everybody was 
 kind and hospitable and honest how honest 
 209 
 
THEOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 this incident will show. An old woman cooked 
 dinner especially for us, and I gave her two 
 quarters. She took them, put them away, and 
 while she sat smoking her pipe, I saw something 
 was troubling her. She got up presently, went 
 into a room, came back, and without a word 
 dropped one of the quarters into my hand. 
 Half a dollar was too much. They gave us 
 moonshine, too, and Breck remarked casually 
 that we were expecting to meet our friends at 
 Uncle Job Turner s, somewhere down the river. 
 They would have red whiskey from the Blue- 
 grass and we would be all right. Then he asked 
 how far down Uncle Job lived. The remark 
 and the question occasioned very badly con 
 cealed excitement, and I wondered what had 
 happened, but I did not ask. I was getting 
 wary, and I had become quite sure that the fish 
 ing must be better down, very far down, that 
 stream. When we started again, the moun 
 taineers evidently held a quick council of war. 
 One can hear a long distance over water at the 
 quiet of dusk, and they were having a lively dis 
 cussion about us and our business over there. 
 Somebody was defending us, and I recognized 
 the voice as belonging to a red-whiskered fel 
 low, who said he had lived awhile in the Blue- 
 grass, and had seen young fellows starting to 
 the Kentucky River to fish for fun. " Oh, them 
 210 
 
THEOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 damn fellers ain t up to nothing" we could hear 
 him say, with the disgust of the cosmopolitan. 
 " I tell ye, they lives in town an they likes to 
 git out this way! " 
 
 I have always believed that this man saved us 
 trouble right then, for next night the mountain 
 eers came down in a body to the house where we 
 had last stopped. But we had gone on rather 
 hastily, and when we reached Uncle Job Tur 
 ner s, the trip behind us became more interest 
 ing than ever in retrospect. All along we asked 
 where Uncle Job lived, and once we shouted 
 the question across the river, where some women 
 and boys were at work, weeding corn. As usual, 
 the answer was another question, and always the 
 same what were our names? Breck yelled, in 
 answer, that we were from Virginia, and that 
 they would be no wiser if we should tell an 
 answer that will always be unwise in the moun 
 tains of Kentucky as long as moonshine is made 
 and feuds survive. We asked again, and an 
 other yell told us that the next house was Uncle 
 Job s. The next house was rather pretentious. 
 It had two or three rooms, apparently, and a 
 loft, and was weather-boarded; but it was as 
 silent as a tomb. We shouted " Hello! " from 
 outside the fence, which is etiquette in the moun 
 tains. Not a sound. We shouted again once, 
 twice, many times. It was most strange. Then 
 
 211 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 we waited, and shouted again, and at last a big 
 gray-haired old fellow slouched out and asked 
 rather surlily what we wanted. 
 
 " Dinner." 
 
 He seemed pleased that that was all, and his 
 manner changed immediately. His wife ap 
 peared; then, as if by magic, two or three chil 
 dren, one a slim, wild, dark-eyed girl of fifteen, 
 dressed in crimson homespun. As we sat on the 
 porch I saw her passing through the dark rooms, 
 but always, while we were there, if I entered one 
 door she slipped out of the other. Breck was 
 more fortunate. He came up behind her the 
 next day at sundown while she was dancing bare 
 footed in the dust of the road, driving her cows 
 home. Later I saw him in the cow-pen, helping 
 her milk. He said she was very nice, but very- 
 shy. 
 
 We got dinner, and the old man sent after a 
 bottle of moonshine, and in an hour he was 
 thawed out wonderfully. 
 
 We told him where we had been, and as he 
 slowly began to believe us, he alternately grew 
 sobered and laughed aloud. 
 
 " Went through thar fishing did ye? Wore 
 yo pistols ? Axed whar thar was branches whar 
 you could ketch minners? Oh, Lawdl Didn t 
 ye know that the stills air al ays up the branches? 
 ToF em you was goin to meet a party at my 
 212 
 
THKOUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 house, and stay here awhile fishin ? Oh, 
 Lawdy ! Ef that ain t a good un ! " 
 
 We didn t see it, but we did later, when we 
 knew that we had come through the " Bad 
 Bend," which was the head-quarters of the How 
 ard leader and his chief men; that Uncle Job 
 was the most prominent man of the other fac 
 tion, and lived farthest up the river of all the 
 Turners ; that he hadn t been up in the Bend for 
 ten years, and that we had given his deadly en 
 emies the impression that we were friends of his. 
 As Uncle Job grew mellow, and warmed up in 
 his confidences, something else curious came out. 
 Every now and then he would look at me and 
 say: 
 
 " I seed you lookin at my pants." And then 
 he would throw back his head and laugh. After 
 he had said this for the third time, I did look at 
 his " pants," and I saw that he was soaking wet 
 to the thighs why, I soon learned. A nephew 
 of his had killed a man at the county-seat only a 
 week before. Uncle Job had gone on his bond. 
 When we shouted across the river, he was in the 
 cornfield, and when we did not tell our names, 
 he got suspicious, and, mistaking our rod-holders 
 for guns, had supposed that his nephew had run 
 away, and that we were officers come to arrest 
 him. He had run down the river on the other 
 side, had waded the stream, and was up in the 
 213 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 loft with his Winchester on us while we were 
 shouting at his gate. He told us this very 
 frankly. Nor would even he believe that we 
 were fishing. He, too, thought that we were 
 officers looking through the Bad Bend for some 
 criminal, and the least innocent mission that 
 struck him as plausible was that, perhaps, we 
 might be looking over the ground to locate a 
 railroad, or prospecting for coal veins. When 
 Uncle Job went down the road with us the next 
 morning, he took his wife along, so that no 
 Howard would try to ambush him through fear 
 of hitting a woman. And late that afternoon, 
 when we were fishing with Uncle Job s son in 
 some thick bushes behind the house, some wom 
 en passed along in the path above us, and, seeing 
 us, but not seeing him, scurried out of sight as 
 though frightened. Little Job grinned. 
 
 " Them women thinks the Howards have 
 hired you fellers to layway dad." 
 
 The next morning I lost Breck, and about 
 noon I got a note from him, written with a trem 
 bling lead-pencil, to the effect that he believed 
 he would fish up a certain creek that afternoon. 
 As the creek was not more than three feet wide 
 and a few inches deep, I knew what had hap 
 pened, and I climbed one of Job s mules and 
 went to search for him. Breck had stumbled 
 upon a moonshine still, and, getting hilarious, 
 214 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 had climbed a barrel and was making to a crowd 
 of mountaineers a fiery political speech. Breck 
 had captured that creek, " wild-cat " still and 
 all, and to this day I never meet a mountaineer 
 from that region who does not ask, with a wide 
 grin, about Breck. 
 
 When we reached the county-seat, the next 
 day, we met the revenue deputy. He said the 
 town was talking about two spies who were up 
 the Fork. We told him that we must be the 
 spies. The old miller was the brains of the 
 Bend, he said, both in outwitting the revenue 
 men and in planning the campaign of the How 
 ard leader against the Turners, and he told us 
 of several fights he had had in the Bad Bend. 
 He said that we were lucky to come through 
 alive; that what saved us was sticking to the 
 river, hiring our minnows caught, leaving our 
 pistols on the bank to be picked up by anybody, 
 the defence of the red-whiskered man from the 
 Blue-grass, and Breck s popularity at the still. 
 I thought he was exaggerating that the moun 
 taineers, even if convinced that we were spies, 
 would have given us a chance to get out of the 
 country but when he took me over to a room 
 across the street and showed me where his pred 
 ecessor, a man whom I had known quite well, 
 was shot through a window at night and killed, 
 I was not quite so sure. 
 
 215 
 
THROUGH THE BAD BEND 
 
 . But still another straw of suspicion was await 
 ing us. When we reached the railroad again by 
 another route, you may be sure Breck, being a 
 lawyer, got permission for us to ride on a 
 freight-train, and thus save a night and a day. 
 The pass for us was technically charged to the 
 mail service. The captain and crew of the train 
 were overwhelmingly and mysteriously polite to 
 us an inexplicable contrast to the surliness with 
 which passengers are usually treated on a 
 freight-train. When we got off at the Gap, and 
 several people greeted us by name, the captain 
 laughed. 
 
 " Do you know what these boys thought you 
 two were?" he asked, referring to his crew. 
 " They thought you were freight spotters. 
 
 The crew laughed. I looked at Breck, and I 
 didn t wonder. He was a ragged, unshaven 
 tramp, and I was another. 
 
 Months later, I got a message from the Bad 
 Bend. Breck and I mustn t come through there 
 any more. We have never gone through there 
 any more, though anybody on business that the 
 mountaineers understand, can go more safely 
 than he can cross Broadway at Twenty-third 
 Street, at noon. As a matter of fact, however, 
 there are two other forks to the Cumberland in 
 which the fishing is very good indeed, and just 
 now I would rather risk Broadway. 
 216 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 

 TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 DOWN in the southwestern corner of Vir 
 ginia, and just over the Kentucky line, are 
 the Gap and " The Gap " the one made by na 
 ture and the other by man. One is a ragged 
 gash down through the Cumberland Mountains, 
 from peak to water level ; and the other is a new 
 little, queer little town, on a pretty plateau which 
 is girdled by two running streams that loop and 
 come together like the framework of an ancient 
 lute. Northeast the range runs, unbroken by na 
 ture and undisturbed by man, until it crumbles at 
 the Breaks of Sandy, seventy miles away. There 
 the bass leaps from rushing waters, and there, as 
 nowhere else this side of the Rockies, is the face 
 of nature wild and shy. 
 
 It was midsummer, the hour was noon, and we 
 were bound for the Breaks of Sandy, seventy 
 miles away. 
 
 No similar aggregate of man, trap, and beast 
 had ever before penetrated those mountain wilds. 
 The wagon was high-seated and the team was 
 spiked, with Rock and Ridgling as wheel horses, 
 Diavolo as leader, and Dolly, a half thorough- 
 219 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 bred, galloping behind under Sam, the black 
 cook, and a wild Western saddle, with high 
 pommels, heavily hooded stirrups, hand-worked 
 leather, and multitudinous straps and shaking 
 rawhide strings; and running alongside, Tiger, 
 bull-terrier. Any man who was at Andover, 
 Cornell, or Harvard during certain years will, if 
 he sees these lines, remember Tiger. 
 
 As for the men there was Josh, ex-captain 
 of a Kentucky Horse Guard, ex-captain of the 
 volunteer police force back at " The Gap," and, 
 like Henry Clay, always captain whenever and 
 wherever there was anything to be done and 
 more than one man was needed to do it; now, 
 one of the later-day pioneers who went back over 
 the Cumberland, not many years ago, to reclaim 
 a certain wild little corner of old Virginia, and 
 then, as now, the first man and the leading law 
 yer of the same. There was another Kentuck- 
 ian, fresh from the Blue-grass Little Willie, as 
 he was styled on this trip being six feet three 
 in his bare feet, carrying 190 pounds of bone 
 and muscle; champion heavy-weight with his 
 fists in college (he could never get anybody to 
 fight with him), centre-rush in foot-ball, with 
 this grewsome record of broken bones: collar 
 bone, one leg, one knee three times, and three 
 teeth smashed smashed by biting through his 
 nose guard against each other when he set his 
 220 
 
TO THE BEEAKS OP SANDY 
 
 jaws to break through a hostile line. Also, 
 Willie was ex-bugler of a military school, singer 
 of coon songs unrivalled, and with other accom 
 plishments for which there is no space here to 
 record. There was Dan, boy-manager of a 
 mighty coal company, good fellow, and of im 
 portance to the dog-lover as the master of Ti 
 ger. I include Tiger here, because he was so 
 little less than human. There are no words to 
 describe Tiger. He was prepared for Yale at 
 Andover, went to Cornell in a pet, took a post 
 graduate course at Harvard, and, getting indif 
 ference and world-weariness there, followed his 
 master to pioneer in the Cumberland. Tiger 
 has a white collar, white-tipped tail, white 
 feet; his body is short, strong, close-knit, tawny, 
 ringed; and his peculiar distinctions are intelli 
 gence, character, magnetism. All through the 
 mountains Tiger has run his fifty miles a day 
 behind Dolly, the thorough-bred; so that, in a 
 radius of a hundred miles, there is nobody who 
 does not know that dog. Still, he never walks 
 unless it is necessary, and his particular oscilla 
 tion is between the mines and " The Gap," ten 
 miles apart. Being a coal magnate, he has an 
 annual pass and he always takes the train 
 alone, if he pleases changing cars three times 
 and paying no attention, until his stations are 
 called. Sometimes he is too weary to go to a 
 221 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 station, so he sits down on the track and waits 
 for the train. I have known the engineer of a 
 heavily laden freight train to slacken up when 
 he saw Tiger trotting ahead between the rails, 
 and stop to take him aboard, did Tiger but nod 
 at him. I have never seen man, woman, or 
 child, of respectable antecedents, whom that dog 
 didn t love, and nobody, regardless of antece 
 dents, who didn t love that dog. 
 
 Such, we rattled out of u The Gap " that mid 
 summer noon. Northward, through the Gap, .a 
 cloud of dun smoke hung over the Hades of coke 
 ovens that Dan had planted in the hills. On the 
 right was the Ridge, heavy with beds of ore. 
 Straight ahead was a furnace, from which the 
 coke rose as pale-blue smoke and the ore gave 
 out a stream of molten iron. Farther on, moun 
 tains to the right and mountains to the left came 
 together at a little gap, and toward that point 
 we rattled up Powell s Valley smiling back at 
 the sun ; furnace, ore-mine, coke-cloud, and other 
 ugly signs of civilization dropping behind us 
 fast, and our eyes set toward one green, lovely 
 spot that was a shrine of things primeval. 
 
 In the wagon we had a tent, and things to eat, 
 and a wooden box that looked like a typewriter 
 case, under lock and key, and eloquently in 
 scribed : 
 
 " Glass, 2 gal." It is a great way to carry the 
 
 222 
 
TO THE BREAKS OP SANDY 
 
 indispensable in a wagon and I recommend it 
 to fishermen. 
 
 At the foot of the first mountain was a spring 
 and we stopped to water the horses and unlock 
 that case. Twenty yards above, and to one side 
 of the road, a mountaineer was hanging over the 
 fence, looking down at us. 
 
 "Have a drink? "said Josh. 
 
 " Yes," he drawled, " if ye ll fetch it up." 
 
 " Come an get it," said Josh, shortly. 
 
 " Are you sick? " I asked. 
 
 " Sort o puny." 
 
 We drank. 
 
 " Have a drink? " said Josh once more. 
 
 " If ye ll fetch it up." 
 
 Josh drove the cork home with the muscular 
 base of his thumb. 
 
 " I m damned if I do." 
 
 Dan whistled to Diavolo, and we speculated. 
 It was queer conduct in the mountaineer why 
 didn t he come down ? 
 
 " I don t know," said Dan. 
 
 " He really came down for a drink," I said, 
 knowing the mountaineer s independence, " and 
 he wanted to prove to himself and to us that he 
 didn t." 
 
 " A smart Alec," said Little Willie. 
 
 " A plain damn fool," said Josh. 
 
 Half an hour later we were on top of the 
 223 
 
TO THE BEEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 mountain, in the little gap where the mountains 
 came together. Below us the valley started on 
 its long, rich sweep southward, and beyond were 
 the grim shoulders of Black Mountains, which 
 we were to brush now and then on our way to 
 the " Breaks." 
 
 There Dan put Tiger out of the wagon and 
 made him walk. After three plaintive whines to 
 his master to show cause for such an outrage, Ti 
 ger dropped nose and eyes to the ground and 
 jogged along with such human sullenness that 
 Willie was led to speak to him. Tiger paid no 
 attention. I called him and Dan called him. 
 Tiger never so much as lifted eye or ear, and 
 Willie watched him, wondering. 
 
 " Why, that dog s got a grouch," he said at 
 last, delightedly. " I tell you he s got a grouch." 
 It was Willie s first observation of Tiger. Of 
 course he had a " grouch " as distinctly as a child 
 who is old enough to show petulance with dig 
 nity. And having made us feel sufficiently mean, 
 Tiger dropped quite behind, as though to say: 
 " I m gettin kind o tired o this. Now It s 
 come here, Tiger, and * Stick in the mud, Ti 
 ger, and straightway again, * Tiger, come here. 
 I don t like it. I d go home if it weren t for 
 Dolly and this nigger here, whom I reckon I ve 
 got to watch. But I ll stick in the mud." And 
 he did. 
 
 224 
 
TO THE BEEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 At dusk we passed through Norton, where 
 Talt Hall, desperado, killed his thirteenth and 
 last man, and on along a rocky, muddy, Stygian- 
 black road to Wise Court-house, where our 
 police guard from " The Gap," with Josh as 
 captain, guarded Talt for one month to keep 
 his Kentucky clan from rescuing him. And 
 there we told Dan and the big Kentuckian how 
 banker, broker, lawyer, and doctor left his 
 business and his home, cut port-holes in the 
 court-house, put the town under martial law, 
 and, with twenty men with Winchesters in the 
 rude box that enclosed the scaffold, and a cor 
 don of a hundred more in a circle outside, to 
 keep back a thousand mountaineers, thus made 
 possible the first hanging that the county had 
 ever known. And how, later, in the same 
 way we hung old Doc Taylor, Hall s enemy 
 Swedenborgian preacher, herb doctor, revenue 
 officer, and desperado the " Red Fox of the 
 Mountains." \S 
 
 The two listeners were much interested, for, 
 in truth, that police guard of gentlemen who 
 hewed strictly to the line of the law, who pa 
 trolled the streets of " The Gap " with billy, 
 whistle, and pistol, knocking down toughs, lug 
 ging them to the calaboose, appearing in court 
 against them next morning, and maintaining a 
 fund for the prosecution of them in the higher 
 225 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 courts, was as unique and successful an experi 
 ment in civilization as any borderland has ever 
 known. 
 
 Next day we ran the crests of long ridges 
 and struck good roads, and it was then that we 
 spiked Rock and Ridgling, with Diavolo as 
 leader. 
 
 "Tool em!" shouted Willie, and we 
 " tooled " joyously. A coach-horn was all that 
 we lacked, and we did not lack that long. 
 Willie evolved one from his unaided throat, in 
 some mysterious way that he could not explain, 
 but he did the tooting about as well as it is ever 
 done with a horn. It was hot, and the natives 
 stared. They took us for the advance-guard of 
 a circus. 
 
 " Where are you goin to show? " they shout 
 ed. We crossed ridges, too, tooling recklessly 
 about the edges of precipices and along roads 
 scarcely wide enough for one wagon Dan 
 swinging to the brake with one hand and holding 
 Josh in the driver s seat with the other Willie 
 and I speculating, meanwhile, how much higher 
 the hind wheel could go from the ground before 
 the wagon would overturn. It was great fun, 
 and dangerous. 
 
 " Hank Monks is not in it," said Willie. 
 
 The brake required both of Dan s hands just 
 then and Josh flew out into space and landed on 
 226 
 
They took us for the advance-guard of a circus. 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 his shoulder, some ten feet down the mountain, 
 unhurt. 
 
 Rock, though it was his first work under har 
 ness, was steady as a plough-horse. Ridgling 
 now and then would snort and plunge and paw, 
 getting one foot over the wagon tongue. Di- 
 avolo, like his master, was a born leader, or we 
 should have had trouble indeed. 
 
 That night we struck another county-seat, 
 where the court-house had been a brick bone of 
 contention for many, many years two localities 
 claiming the elsewhere undisputed honor, for the 
 reason that they alone had the only two level 
 acres in the county on which a court-house could 
 stand. A bitter fight it was, and they do say 
 that not many years ago, in a similar conflict, 
 the opposing factions met to decide the question 
 with fist and skull 150 picked men on each side 
 a direct and curious survival of the ancient 
 wager of battle. The women prevented the 
 fight. Over in Kentucky there would have been 
 a bloody feud. At that town we had but fitful 
 sleep. Certain little demons of the dark, which 
 shall be nameless, marked us, as they always 
 mark fresh victims, for their own. 
 
 " I ll bet they look over the register every- 
 night," said Willie baring a red-splotched 
 brawny arm next morning. 
 
 ;< Wingless victory ! " he said, further. 
 227 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 And then on. Wilder and ever wilder, next 
 day, grew the hills and woods and the slitting 
 chasms between them. First one hind wheel 
 dished we braced it with hickory saplings. 
 Then the other we braced that. The harness 
 broke Dan mended that. A horse cast a shoe 
 Josh shod him then and there. These two 
 were always tinkering, and were happy. Ineffi 
 ciency made Willie and me miserable it was 
 plain that we were to be hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water on that trip, and we were. 
 
 And still wilder and ever wilder was the 
 face of Nature, which turned primeval turned 
 Greek. Willie swore he could see the fleeting 
 shapes of nymphs in the dancing sunlight and 
 shadows under the beeches. Where the cane- 
 rushes shivered and shook along the bank of a 
 creek, it was a satyr chasing a dryad through 
 them ; and once it may have been the tinkle of 
 water but I was sure I heard her laugh float 
 from a dark little ravine high above, where she 
 had fled to hide. No wonder! We were ap 
 proaching the most isolated spot, perhaps, this 
 side of the Rockies. If this be hard to believe, 
 listen. Once we stopped at a cabin, and Sam, 
 the black cook, went in for a drink of water. 
 A little girl saw him and was thrown almost 
 into convulsions of terror. She had never seen 
 a negro before. Her mother had told her, 
 228 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 doubtless, that the bad man would get her some 
 day and she thought Sam was the devil and that 
 he had come for her. And this in Virginia. I 
 knew there were many white people in Virginia, 
 and all throughout the Cumberland, who had 
 never seen a black man, and why they hate him 
 as they do has always been a mystery, especially 
 as they often grant him social equality, even to 
 the point of eating at the same table with him, 
 though the mountaineer who establishes certain 
 relations with the race that is still tolerated in 
 the South, brings himself into lasting disgrace. 
 Perhaps the hostility reaches back to the time 
 when the poor white saw him a fatal enemy, 
 as a slave, to the white man who must work with 
 his hands. And yet, to say that this competition, 
 with the black man, along with a hatred of his 
 aristocratic master, was the reason for the uni 
 versal Union sentiment of the Southern moun 
 taineer during the war is absurd. Competition 
 ceased nearly a century ago. Negro and aristo 
 crat were forgotten were long unknown. No 
 historian seems to have guessed that the moun 
 taineer was loyal because of 1776. The fight 
 for the old flag in 1812 and the Mexican War 
 helped, but 1776 was enough to keep him loyal 
 to this day; for to-day, in life, character, cus 
 toms, speech, and conviction, he is practically 
 what he was then. But a change is coming now, 
 229 
 
TO THE BKEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 and down in a little hollow we saw, suddenly, a 
 startling sign a frame house with an upper 
 balcony, and, moving along that balcony, a tall 
 figure in a pink ungirded Mother Hubbard. 
 And, mother of all that is modern, we saw 
 against the doorway below her a bicycle. We 
 took dinner there and the girl gave me her card. 
 It read: 
 
 AMANDA TOLLIVER, 
 
 EXECUTRIX TO JOSIAH TOLLIVER. 
 
 Only that was not her name. She owned coal 
 lands, was a woman of judgment and business, 
 and realizing that she could not develop them 
 alone, had advertised for a partner in coal, and, 
 I was told, in love as well. Anyhow there were 
 numerous pictures of young men around, and I 
 have a faint suspicion that as we swung over the 
 brow of the hill, we might have been taken for 
 suitors four. She had been to school at the 
 county-seat where we spent the first night, and 
 had thus swung into the stream of Progress. 
 She had live gold fish in a glass tank and jugs 
 with plants growing out of the mouth and out 
 of holes in the sides. And she had a carpet in 
 the parlor and fire-screens of red calico and red 
 plush albums, a birthday book, and, of course, 
 a cottage organ. It was all prophetic, I sup- 
 230 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 pose, and the inevitable American way toward 
 higher things; and it was at once sad and 
 hopeful. 
 
 Just over the hill, humanity disappeared again 
 and Nature turned primeval turned Greek 
 again. And again nymphs and river gods be 
 gan their play. Pretty soon a dryad took human 
 Silape in some blackberry bushes, and Little 
 Willie proceeded to take mythological shape as 
 a faun. We moderns jollied him on the meta 
 morphosis. 
 
 The Breaks were just ahead. Somewhere 
 through the green thickness of poplar, oak, and 
 maple, the river lashed and boiled between gray 
 bowlders, eddied and danced and laughed 
 through deep pools, or leaped in waves over 
 long riffles, and we turned toward the low, far 
 sound of its waters. A slip of a bare-footed 
 girl stepped from the bushes and ran down the 
 wood-path, and Willie checked her to engage in 
 unnecessary small talk and to ask questions 
 whereof he knew the answers as well as she 
 all leading to the final one. 
 
 " What s your name? " Unlike her hill-sis 
 ters, the girl was not shy. 
 
 " Melissa/ 1 
 
 Shades of Hymettus, but it was fitting. There 
 were blackberry stains about her red lips. Her 
 eyes had the gloom of deep woods and shone 
 231 
 
TO THE BEEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 from the darkness of her tumbled hair tum 
 bled it was, like an oatfield I had seen that morn 
 ing after a wind and rain storm that swept it all 
 night long. 
 
 " Melissa ! " Willie said softly, once, twice, 
 three times; and his throat gurgled with poetic 
 delight in the maid and the name. I think he 
 would have said " Prithee " and addressed her 
 some more, but just then a homespun mother 
 veered about the corner of a log cabin, and 
 Melissa fled. Willie thought he had scared her. 
 
 " On the way to the Breaks," he said " my 
 first." We hurried the stricken youth on and 
 pitched camp below the cabin, and on a minnow 
 branch that slipped past low willows and under 
 rhododendrons and dropped in happy water 
 falls into the Breaks, where began a vertical 
 turreted ledge, hundreds of feet high, that ran 
 majestically on miles on. 
 
 There Willie at once developed unwonted 
 vim. We needed milk and butter and eggs, so 
 he left me to hew wood and draw water while 
 he strode back to the cabin, and Melissa after 
 them ; and he made contracts for the same daily 
 he would go for them himself and hired all 
 Melissa s little brothers and sisters to pick black 
 berries for us. 
 
 Then came the first supper in the woods and 
 draughts from the typewriter case, the label of 
 232 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 which Willie proceeded to alter, because the 
 level of the fluid was sinking, and as a tribute 
 to Melissa. 
 
 " Glass i gal." 
 
 It takes little to make humor in the woods. 
 Followed sweet pipes under the stars, thickening 
 multitudinously straight overhead, where alone 
 we could see them. 
 
 Something was troubling Josh that night and 
 I could see that he hesitated about delivering 
 himself but he did. 
 
 " Have you fellows er ^ver noticed er 
 that when men get out in the woods they er 
 at once begin to swear? " Each one of us 
 had noticed that fact. Josh looked severely at 
 me and severely at Dan and at Willie not ob 
 serving that we were looking severely at him. 
 
 * Well," he said, with characteristic decision, 
 " I think you ought to stop it." 
 
 There was a triangular howl of derision. 
 
 "We?" I said. 
 
 " We! "said Dan. 
 
 "We\" yelled Willie. 
 
 Josh laughed he had not heard the rattling 
 fire of picturesque expletives that he had been 
 turning loose on Rock and Ridgling since we 
 left the Gap. 
 
 However, we each agreed to be watchful 
 of the others. 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 By the by, Willie knocked the ashes from his 
 pipe and picked up a pail the mother s pail in 
 which he had brought the milk down to camp. 
 
 " I reckon they ll need this," he said, thought 
 fully. " Don t you think they ll need this? " I 
 was sure they would, and as Willie s colossal 
 shoulders disappeared through the bushes we 
 chuckled, and at the fire Sam, the black cook, 
 snickered respectfully. Willie did not know the 
 lark habits of the mountaineer. We could have- 
 told him that Melissa was in bed, but we wick 
 edly didn t. He was soon back, and looking 
 glum. We chuckled some more. 
 
 That night a snake ran across my breast I 
 suppose it was a snake a toad beat a tattoo on 
 Willie s broad chest, a horse got tangled in the 
 guy-ropes, Josh and Dan swore sleepily, and 
 long before the sun flashed down into our 
 eyes, a mountaineer, Melissa s black-headed sire, 
 brought us minnows which he had insisted on 
 catching without help. Willie wondered at his 
 anxious spirit of lonely accommodation, but it 
 was no secret to the rest of us. The chances 
 were that he was a moonshiner, and that he had 
 a " still " within a mile of our camp perhaps 
 within a hundred yards ; for moonshine stills are 
 always located on little running streams like 
 the one into which we dipped our heads that 
 morning. 
 
 234 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 After breakfast, we went down that shaded 
 little stream into the Breaks, where, aeons ago, 
 the majestic Cumberland met its volcanic con 
 queror, and, after a heaving conflict, was tum 
 bled head and shoulders to the lower earth, to 
 let the pent-up waters rush through its shattered 
 ribs, and where the Big Sandy grinds through 
 them to-day, with a roar of freedom that once 
 must have shaken the stars. It was ideal sun, 
 wind, rock, and stream. The water was a bit 
 milky; there were eddies and pools, in sunlight 
 and in shadow, and our bait, for a wonder, was 
 perfect chubs, active cold-water chubs and mil 
 itary minnows sucker-shaped little fellows, 
 with one brilliant crimson streak from gill to 
 base of tail. And we did steady, faithful work 
 all of us including Tiger, who, as Willie 
 said, was a " fisher-dog to beat the band." But 
 is there any older and sadder tale for the sports 
 man than to learn, when he has reached one 
 happy hunting-ground, that the game is on an 
 other, miles away? Thus the Indian s idea of 
 heaven sprang ! For years and years Josh and I 
 had been planning to get to the Breaks. For 
 years we had fished the three forks of the Cum 
 berland, over in Kentucky, with brilliant success, 
 and the man who had been to the Breaks always 
 smiled indulgently when we told our tales, and 
 told, in answer, the marvellous things possible 
 235 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 in the wonderful Breaks. Now we were at the 
 Breaks, and no sooner there than we were ready, 
 in great disgust, to get away. We investigated. 
 There had been a drought, two years before, 
 and the mountaineers had sledged the bass un 
 der the rocks and had slaughtered them. There 
 had been saw-mills up the river and up its tribu 
 taries, and there had been dynamiting. We 
 found catfish a-plenty, but we were not after 
 catfish. We wanted that king of mountain wa 
 ters, the black bass, and we wanted him to run 
 from one pound to five pounds in weight and 
 to fight, like the devil that he is, in the clear cold 
 waters of the Cumberland. Nobody showed 
 disappointment more bitter than Tiger. To say 
 that Tiger was eager and expectant is to under 
 rate that game little sport s intelligence and his 
 power to catch moods from his master. At first 
 he sat on the rocks, with every shining tooth in 
 his head a finished cameo of expectant delight, 
 and he watched the lines shaking in the eddies 
 as he would watch a hole for a rat, or another 
 dog for a fight. When the line started cutting 
 through the water and the musical hum of the 
 reel rose, Tiger knew as well as his master just 
 what was happening. 
 
 " Let him run, Dan," he would gurgle, de 
 lightedly. We all knew plainly that that was 
 what he said. " Give him plenty of line. Don t 
 236 
 
TO THE BEEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 strike yet not yet. Don t you know that he s 
 just running for a rock? Now he s swallowing 
 the minnow head first. Off he goes again 
 now s your time, man, now wow ! " 
 
 When the strike came and the line got taut 
 and the rod bent, Tiger would begin to leap 
 and bark at the water s edge. As Dan reeled 
 in and the fish would flash into the air, Tiger 
 would get frantic. When his master played a 
 bass and the fish cut darting circles forward and 
 back, with the tip of the rod as a centre for geo 
 metrical evolutions, Tiger would have sprung 
 into the water, if he had not known better. And 
 when the bass was on the rocks, Tiger sprang 
 for him and brought him to his master, avoid 
 ing the hook as a wary lad will look out for the 
 sharp horns of a mud-cat. But the bass were all 
 little fellows, and Tiger gurgled his disgust 
 most plainly. 
 
 That night, Josh and I comforted ourselves, 
 and made Dan and Willie unhappy, with tales 
 of what we had done in the waters of the Cum 
 berland sixty bass in one day four four- 
 pounders in two hours, not to mention one little 
 whale that drew the scales down to the five- 
 pound notch three hours after I had him from 
 the water. We recalled he and I how we 
 had paddled, dragged, and lifted a clumsy ca 
 noe, for four days, down the wild and beautiful 
 
 237 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 Clinch (sometimes we had to go ahead and 
 build canals through the ripples), shooting hap 
 py, blood-stirring rapids, but catching no fish, 
 and how, down that river, we had foolishly done 
 it again. This was the third time we had been 
 enticed away from the Cumberland, and then 
 and there we resolved to run after the gods of 
 strange streams no more. Fish stories followed. 
 Dan recalled how Cecil Rhodes got his start in 
 South Africa, illustrating thereby the speed of 
 the shark. Rhodes was poor, but he brought to 
 a speculator news of the Franco-Prussian War 
 in a London newspaper of a date five days later 
 than the speculator s mail. The two got a cor 
 ner on some commodity and made large money. 
 Rhodes had got his paper from the belly of a 
 shore-cast shark that had beaten the mail steam 
 er by five round days. That was good, and 
 Willie thereupon told a tale that he knew to be 
 true. 
 
 4 You know how rapidly a bass grows? " 
 
 We did not know. 
 
 1 You know how a bass will use the same 
 hole year after year? " 
 
 That we did know. 
 
 ;t Well, I caught a yearling once, and I bet 
 
 a man that he would grow six inches in a 
 
 year. To test it, I tied a little tin whistle to 
 
 his tail. A year later we went and fished for 
 
 238 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 him. The second day I caught him." Willie 
 knocked the top-ashes from his pipe and puffed 
 silently. 
 
 " Well? "we said. 
 
 Willie edged away out of reach, speaking 
 softly. 
 
 " That tin whistle had grown to a fog-horn." 
 We spared him, and he quickly turned to a po- 
 etico-scientific dissertation on birds and flowers 
 in the Blue-grass and in the mountains, surpris 
 ing us. He knew, positively, what even the 
 great Mr. Burroughs did not seem to know a 
 few years ago, that the shrike the butcher-bird 
 impales mice as well as his feathered fellows 
 on thorns, having found a nest in a thorn-tree 
 up in the Blue-grass which was a ghastly, aerial, 
 Indian-like burying-place for two mice and 
 twenty song-sparrows. So, next day, Willie and 
 I turned unavailingly to Melissa, whom we saw 
 but once speeding through the weeds along the 
 creek bank for home and, with success, to Na 
 ture ; while the indefatigable Josh and Dan and 
 Tiger whipped the all but responseless waters 
 once more. 
 
 We reached camp at sunset dispirited all. 
 Tiger refused to be comforted until we turned 
 loose two big catfish in a pool of the minnow 
 branch and gave him permission to bring them 
 out. With a happy wow Tiger sprang for the 
 239 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 outsticking point of a horn and with a mad yelp 
 sprang clear of the water. With one rub of his 
 pricked nose agaiast the bank, he jumped again. 
 Wherever the surface of the water rippled, he 
 made a dash, nosing under the grassy clumps 
 where the fish tried to hide. Twice he got one 
 clear of the water, but it was hard to hold to 
 the slippery, leathery skins. In ten minutes he 
 laid both, gasping, on the bank. 
 
 Next morning we struck camp. Willie said 
 he would go on ahead and let down the fence 
 which was near Melissa s cabin. He was sit 
 ting on the fence, with a disconsolate pipe be 
 tween his teeth, when we rattled and shook over 
 the stony way up the creek sitting alone. Yet 
 he confessed. He had had a brief farewell with 
 Melissa. What did she say? " 
 
 " She said she was sorry we were going, " said 
 modest Willie, but he did not say what he said ; 
 and he lifted the lid of the typewriter case, the 
 label of which was slowly emptying to a sad 
 and empty lie. 
 
 4 Thus pass the flowers," he said, with a last 
 backward look to the log-cabin and the black- 
 haired, blackberry-stained figure watching at the 
 corner. " Such is life a lick and a promise, 
 and then no more." The wagon passed under 
 the hill, and Melissa, the maid of the Breaks, 
 had come and Melissa had gone forever. 
 240 
 
TO THE BREAKS OP SANDY 
 
 Only next day, however for such, too, is 
 life the aching void in Willie s imagination, 
 and what he was pleased to call his heart, was 
 nicely filled again. 
 
 That night we struck the confluence of Rus 
 sell s Fork and the Pound, where, under wide 
 sycamores, the meeting of swift waters had lift 
 ed from the river-beds a high breach of white 
 sand and had considerately overspread it with 
 piles of dry drift-wood. The place was ideal 
 why not try it there? The freedom of gypsies 
 was ours, and we did. There was no rain in 
 the sky, so we pitched no tent, but slept on the 
 sand, under the leaves of the sycamore, and, by 
 the light of the fire, we solaced ourselves with 
 the cheery game of " draw." It was a happy 
 night, in spite of Willie s disappointment with 
 the game. He played with sorrow, and to his 
 cost. He was accustomed to table stakes; he 
 did not know how to act on a modest fifty- 
 cent limit, being denied the noble privilege of 
 " bluff." 
 
 " I was playing once with a fellow I knew 
 slightly," he said, reminiscently and as though 
 for self-comfort, u and with two others whom 
 I didn t know at all. The money got down be 
 tween me and one of the strangers, and when 
 the other stranger dealt the last hand my suspi 
 cions were aroused. I picked up my hand. He 
 241 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 had dealt me a full house three aces and a 
 pair. I made up my mind that he had dealt his 
 confederate four of a kind, and do you know 
 what I did? I discarded the pair and actually 
 caught the remaining ace. When it came to a 
 show-down he had four deuces. I scooped in 
 all the gold, pushed over to my acquaintance 
 what he had lost in their presence and left 
 the table." Perhaps it was just as well that we 
 denied Willie his own game, and thus kept him 
 shorn of his strength. 
 
 Next day was hard, faithful, fruitless Josh 
 and I fishing up-stream and Dan and Willie 
 wading down the " Pound " and we came in 
 at dark, each pair with a few three-quarter 
 pound bass, only Willie having had a bigger 
 catch. They had struck a mill, Dan said, 
 which Willie entered reappearing at once 
 and silently setting his rod, and going back 
 again, to reappear no more. Dan found him 
 in there with his catch a mountain maid, 
 fairer even than Melissa, and she was running 
 the mill. 
 
 Dan had hard work to get him away, but 
 Willie came with a silent purpose that he un 
 veiled at the camp-fire when he put his rod to 
 gether. He was done fishing for fish; the 
 proper study of mankind being man, his proper 
 .study, next day, would be the maid of the mill, 
 242 
 
TO THE BREAKS OF SANDY 
 
 and he had forged his plan. He would hire 
 a mule, put on jean trousers, a slouch hat, and 
 a homespun skirt, buy a bag of corn, and go to 
 the mill. When that bag was ground, he would 
 go out and buy another. All his life he had 
 wanted to learn the milling business, and, while 
 we fished, he would learn. But we had had 
 enough, and were stern. We would move on 
 from those hard-fished, fishless waters next day. 
 In silent acquiescence Willie made for the wood 
 en box and its fluid consolation, and when he 
 was through with label and jug, the tale of the 
 altered title was doubly true. 
 
 " No gal." 
 
 It takes very little to make humor in the 
 woods. 
 
 We did move on, but so strong is hope and 
 so powerful the ancient hunting instinct in us 
 all, that we stopped again and fished again, with 
 the same result, in the Pound. Something was 
 wrong. Human effort could do no more. So, 
 after sleep on a high hill, through a wind 
 storm, it was home with us, and with unalter 
 able decision this time we started, climbing 
 hills, sliding down them, tooling around the 
 edge of steep cliffs sun-baked, bewhiskered, 
 and happy, in spite of the days of hard, hard 
 luck. 
 
 Tiger rode on the camp-chest just in front 
 243 
 
TO THE BKEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 of me. Going up a hill the wagon jolted, and 
 the dog slipped and fell between the wheels. 
 The hind wheel, I saw, would pass over the 
 dog s body, and if Tiger had been a child, I 
 couldn t have been more numb with horror. 
 The wheel ran squarely over him, crushing him 
 into the sand. The little fellow gave one short, 
 brave, surprised yelp. Then he sprang up and 
 trotted after us unhurt. It was a miracle, 
 easier to believe for the reason that that particu 
 lar hind wheel was a wheel of kindly magic. 
 Only an hour before it had run squarely over a 
 little haversack in which were a bottle, a pipe, 
 and other fragile things, and not a thing was 
 broken. I do not believe it would have been 
 possible so to arrange the contents and let the 
 wheel run over it as harmlessly again. 
 
 Another night, another hot day, and another, 
 and we were tooling down into the beautiful 
 little valley, toward the sunset and " The Gap " 
 toward razor, bathtub, dinner, Willie s gui 
 tar and darky songs, and a sound, sweet sleep 
 in each man s own bed through dreams of 
 green hills, gray walls, sharp peaks, and clear, 
 swift waters, from which no fish flashed to se 
 ductive fly or crimson-streaked minnow. But 
 with all the memories, no more of the Breaks 
 for Josh or Dan or for me ; and no more, doubt 
 less, for Willie, though Melissa be there wait- 
 244 
 
TO THE BEEAKS OF SANDY 
 
 ing for him, and though the other maid, with 
 the light of mountain waters in her eyes, be 
 dreaming of him at her mill. 
 
 After the gods of strange streams we would 
 run no more. 
 
 TH 
 
 245 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY