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SANTA CRUZ
THE TRAIL OF THE
LONESOME PINE
BOOKS BY JOHN FOX, JR.
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.
Illustrated $1.50
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND. Illustrated. $1.00
FOLLOWING THE SUN-FLAG. A VAIN PURSUIT
THROUGH MANCHURIA net, $1.25
CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME AND OTHER
STORIES. Illustrated $1.50
THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME.
Illustrated $1.50
BLUEGRASS AND RHODODENDRON. OUT-DOOR
LIFE IN KENTUCKY. Illustrated .... net, $1.75
CRITTENDEN. A KENTUCKY STORY OF LOVE AND
WAR $,. 25
A CUMBERLAND VENDETTA. Illustrated . . $1.25
HELL FOR SARTAIN AND OTHER STORIES . $1.00
THE KENTUCKIANS. Illustrated $1.25
A MOUNTAIN EUROPA $,.25
"Keep it safe, old Pine. . . . And bless him, dear God, and guard him
evermore."
The Trail of the
Lonesome Pine
BY
JOHN FOX, JR.
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK :: :: :: :: :: 1908
COPYBIGHT, 1908, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published October, 1908
ps
I70Z.
77
rf.Og
F. S.
ILLUSTRATIONS
" Keep it safe, old Pine. . . . And bless him, dear
God, and guard him evermore " . . . Frontispiece
Facing
page
She had never been up there before
" Don't, Dad ! " shrieked a voice from the bushes.
" I know his name " ......... 14
"You hain't never go'in* to marry him" .... 220
"June !" he cried in amazement ...... 260
" Why have you brought me here? " ..... 318
11 We' II fight you both!" ......... 344
She made him tell of everything that had happened 416
THE TRAIL OF THE
LONESOME PINE
i
CHE sat at the base of the big tree her little
sunbonnet pushed back, her arms locked
about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her
crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the
smoke in the valley below. Her breath was still
coming fast between her parted lips. There were
tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the
climb had been steep, and now the shadow of dis
appointment darkened her eyes. The mountains
ran in limitless blue waves towards the mounting
sun but at birth her eyes had opened on them as
on the white mists trailing up the steeps below
her. Beyond them was a gap in the next moun
tain chain and down in the little valley, just visible
through it, were trailing blue mists as well, and she
knew that they were smoke. Where was the great
glare of yellow light that the "circuit rider" had
told about and the leaping tongues of fire ?
Where was the shrieking monster that ran without
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
horses like the wind and tossed back rolling black
plumes all streaked with fire ? For many days now
she had heard stories of the "furriners" who had
come into those hills and were doing strange things
down there, and so at last she had climbed up
through the dewy morning from the cove on the
other side to see the wonders for herself. She had
never been up there before. She had no business
there now, and, if she were found out when she
got back, she would get a scolding and maybe
something worse from her step-mother and all
that trouble and risk for nothing but smoke. So,
she lay back and rested her little mouth tighten
ing fiercely. It was a big world, though, that was
spread before her and a vague awe of it seized her
straightway and held her motionless and dreaming.
Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills,
beyond the blue smoke drifting in the valley, those
limitless blue waves must run under the sun on
and on to the end of the world ! Her dead sister
had gone into that far silence and had brought
back wonderful stories of that outer world: and
she began to wonder more than ever before whether
she would ever go into it and see for herself what
was there. With the thought, she rose slowly to
her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that dropped
sheer ten feet aside from the trail, and stood there
like a great scarlet flower in still air. There was
the way at her feet that path that coiled under
the cliff and ran down loop by loop through ma-
2
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
jestic oak and poplar and masses of rhododendron.
She drew a long breath and stirred uneasily she'd
better go home now but the path had a snake-
like charm for her and still she stood, following it
as far down as she could with her eyes. Down it
went, writhing this way and that to a spur that
had been swept bare by forest fires. Along this
spur it travelled straight for a while and, as her
eyes eagerly followed it to where it sank sharply
into a covert of maples, the little creature dropped
of a sudden to the ground and, like something wild,
lay flat.
A human figure had filled the leafy mouth that
swallowed up the trail and it was coming towards
her. With a thumping heart she pushed slowly
forward through the brush until her face, fox-like
with cunning and screened by a blueberry bush,
hung just over the edge of the clifF, and there she
lay, like a crouched panther-cub, looking down.
For a moment, all that was human seemed gone
from her eyes, but, as she watched, all that was
lost came back to them, and something more.
She had seen that it was a man, but she had
dropped so quickly that she did not see the big,
black horse that, unled, was following him. Now
both man and horse had stopped. The stranger
had taken off his gray slouched hat and he was
wiping his face with something white. Something
blue was tied loosely about his throat. She had
never seen a man like that before. His face was
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PIXE
smooth and looked different, as did his throat and
his hands. His breeches were tight and on his feet
were strange boots that were the colour of his
saddle, which was deep in seat, high both in front
and behind and had strange long-hooded stirrups.
Starting to mount, the man stopped with one foot
in the stirrup and raised his eyes towards her so
suddenly that she shrank back again with a quicker
throbbing atherheart and pressed closer to the earth.
Still, seen or not sgen, flight was easy for her, so
she could not forbear to look again. Apparently,
he had seen nothing only that the next turn of
the trail was too steep to ride, and so he started
walking again, and his walk, as he strode along the
path, was new to her, as was the erect way with
which he held his head and his shoulders.
In her wonder over him, she almost forgot her
self, forgot to wonder where he was going and why
he was coming into those lonely hills until, as his
horse turned a bend of the trail, she saw hanging
from the other side of the saddle something that
looked like a gun. He was a "raider" that man:
so, cautiously and swiftly then, she pushed herself
back from the edge of the clifF, sprang to her feet,
dashed past the big tree and, winged with fear,
sped down the mountain leaving in a spot of sun
light at the base of the pine the print of one bare
foot in the black earth.
II
T TK had seen the big pine when he first came
to those hills one morning, at daybreak,
when the valley was a sea of mist that threw soft
clinging spray to the very mountain tops: for even
above the mists, that morning, its mighty head
arose sole visible proof that the earth still slept
beneath. Straightway, he wondered how it had
ever got there, so far above the few of its kind that
haunted the green dark ravines far below. Some
whirlwind, doubtless, had sent a tiny cone circling
heavenward and dropped it there. It had sent
others, too, no doubt, but how had this tree faced
wind and storm alone and alone lived to defy both
so proudly ? Some day he would learn. There
after, he had seen it, at noon but little less ma
jestic among the oaks that stood about it; had seen
it catching the last light at sunset, clean-cut against
the after-glow, and like a dark, silent, mysterious
sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the
moon. He had seen it giving place with sombre
dignity to the passing burst of spring had seen
it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the
gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of
snow a changeless promise that the earth must
5
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
wake to life again. The Lonesome Pine, the
mountaineers called it, and the Lonesome Pine it
always looked to be. From the beginning it had
a curious fascination for him, and straightway
within him half exile that he was there sprang
up a sympathy for it as for something that was hu
man and a brother. And now he was on the trail
of it at last. From every point that morning it had
seemed almost to nod down to him as he climbed
and, when he reached the ledge that gave him sight
of it from base to crown, the winds murmured
among its needles like a welcoming voice. At once,
he saw the secret of its life. On each side rose a
cliff that had sheltered it from storms until its
trunk had shot upwards so far and so straight and
so strong that its green crown could lift itself on
and on and bend blow what might as proudly
and securely as a lily on its stalk in a morning
breeze. Dropping his bridle rein he put one hand
against it as though on the shoulder of a friend.
"Old Man," he said, "You must be pretty
lonesome up here, and I'm glad to meet you."
For a while he sat against it resting. He had
no particular purpose that day no particular
destination. His saddle-bags were across the
cantle of his cow-boy saddle. His fishing rod was
tied under one flap. He was young and his own
master. Time was hanging heavy on his hands
that day and he loved the woods and the nooks
and crannies of them where his own kind rarely
6
She had never been up there before.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
made its way. Beyond, the cove looked dark, for
bidding, mysterious, and what was beyond he did
not know. So down there he would go. As he
bent his head forward to rise, his eye caught the
spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it with a smile.
In the black earth was a human foot-print too
small and slender for the foot of a man, a boy or
a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible
wider apart and he smiled again. A girl had been
there. She was the crimson flash that he saw as
he started up the steep and mistook for a flaming
bush of sumach. She had seen him coming and
she had fled. Still smiling, he rose to his feet.
Ill
one side he had left the earth yellow with
the coming noon, but it was still morning as
he went down on the other side. The laurel and
rhododendron still reeked with dew in the deep,
ever-shaded ravine. The ferns drenched his stir
rups, as he brushed through them, and each drip
ping tree-top broke the sunlight and let it drop in
tent-like beams through the shimmering under-
mist. A bird flashed here and there through the
green gloom, but there was no sound in the air but
the footfalls of his horse and the easy creaking of
leather under him, the drip of dew overhead and
the running of water below. Now and then he
could see the same slender foot-prints in the rich
loam and he saw them in the sand where the first
tiny brook tinkled across the path from a gloomy
ravine. There the little creature had taken a fly
ing leap across it and, beyond, he could see the
prints no more. He little guessed that while he
halted to let his horse drink, the girl lay on a rock
above him, looking down. She was nearer home
now and was less afraid; so she had slipped from
the trail and climbed above it there to watch him
pass. As he went on, she slid from her perch and
8
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
with cat-footed quiet followed him. When he
reached the river she saw him pull in his horse and
eagerly bend forward, looking into a pool just
below the crossing. There was a bass down there
in the clear water a big one and the man whis
tled cheerily and dismounted, tying his horse to a
sassafras bush and unbuckling a tin bucket and
a curious looking net from his saddle. With the
net in one hand and the bucket in the other, he
turned back up the creek and passed so close to
where she had slipped aside into the bushes that
she came near shrieking, but his eyes were fixed
on a pool of the creek above and, to her wonder, he
strolled straight into the water, with his boots on,
pushing the net in front of him.
He was a "raider" sure, she thought now, and
he was looking for a "moonshine" still, and the
wild little thing in the bushes smiled cunningly
there was no still up that creek and as he had
left his horse below and his gun, she waited for
him to come back, which he did, by and by, drip
ping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him
untie the queer "gun" on his saddle, pull it out of
a case and her eyes got big with wonder take it
to pieces and make it into a long limber rod. In
a moment he had cast a minnow into the pool and
waded out into the water up to his hips. She had
never seen so queer a fishing-pole so queer a fish
erman. How could he get a fish out with that little
switch, she thought contemptuously ? By and by
9
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
something hummed queerly, the man gave a slight
jerk and a shining fish flopped two feet into the
air. It was surely very queer, for the man didn't
put his rod over his shoulder and walk ashore, as
did the mountaineers, but stood still, winding
something with one hand, and again the fish would
flash into the air and then that humming would
start again while the fisherman would stand quiet
and waiting for a while and then he would begin
to wind again. In her wonder, she rose uncon
sciously to her feet and a stone rolled down to the
ledge below her. The fisherman turned his head
and she started to run, but without a word he
turned again to the fish he was playing. More
over, he was too far out in the water to catch her,
so she advanced slowly even to the edge of the
stream, watching the fish cut half circles about the
man. If he saw her, he gave no notice, and it was
well that he did not. He was pulling the bass to
and fro now through the water, tiring him out-
drowning him stepping backward at the same
time, and, a moment later, the fish slid easily out
of the edge of the water, gasping along the edge of
a low sand-bank, and the fisherman reaching down
with one hand caught him in the gills. Then he
looked up and smiled and she had seen no smile
like that before.
"Howdye, Little Girl?"
One bare toe went burrowing suddenly into the
sand, one finger went to her red mouth and that
10
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
was all. She merely stared him straight in the eye
and he smiled again.
"Cat got your tongue ?"
Her eyes fell at the ancient banter, but she
lifted them straightway and stared again.
"You live around here ?"
She stared on.
"Where?"
No answer.
"What's your name, little girl ?"
And still she stared.
"Oh, well, of course, you can't talk, if the cat's
got your tongue."
The steady eyes leaped angrily, but there was
still no answer, and he bent to take the fish off his
hook, put on a fresh minnow, turned his back and
tossed it into the pool.
"Hit hain't!"
He looked up again. She surely was a pretty
little thing and more, now that she was angry.
"I should say not," he said teasingly. "What
did you say your name was ?"
" What's yo' name?"
The fisherman laughed. He was just becoming
accustomed to the mountain etiquette that com
mands a stranger to divulge himself first.
"My name's Jack."
"An' mine's Jill." She laughed now, and it
was his time for surprise where could she have
heard of Jack and Jill ?
II
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
His line rang suddenly.
"Jack," she cried, "you got a bite!"
He pulled, missed the strike, and wound in.
The minnow was all right, so he tossed it back
again.
"That isn't your name," he said.
"If 'tain't, then that ain't your'n ?"
"Yes 'tis," he said, shaking his head affirma
tively.
A long cry came down the ravine:
"J-u-n-e! eh oh J-u-n-e!" That was a
queer name for the mountains, and the fisherman
wondered if he had heard aright June.
The little girl gave a shrill answering cry, but
she did not move.
"Thar now!" she said.
"Who's that your Mammy?"
" No, 'tain't hit's my step-mammy. I'm a goin'
to ketch hell now." Her innocent eyes turned
sullen and her baby mouth tightened.
"Good Lord!" said the fisherman, startled, and
then he stopped the words were as innocent on
her lips as a benediction.
"Have you got a father?" Like a flash, her
whole face changed.
"I reckon I have."
"Where is he?"
"Hyeh he is!" drawled a voice from the bushes,
and it had a tone that made the fisherman whirl
suddenly. A giant mountaineer stood on the
12
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
bank above him, with a Winchester in the hollow
of his arm.
"How are you ?" The giant's heavy eyes lifted
quickly, but he spoke to the girl.
"You go on home what you doin' hyeh gassin'
with furriners!"
The girl shrank to the bushes, but she cried
sharply back:
" Don't you hurt him now, Dad. He ain't even
got a pistol. He ain't no "
" Shet up ! " The little creature vanished and the
mountaineer turned to the fisherman, who had just
put on a fresh minnow and tossed it into the river.
"Purty well, thank you," he said shortly.
"How are you ?"
"Fine!" was the nonchalant answer. For a
moment there was silence and a puzzled frown
gathered on the mountaineer's face.
"That's a bright little girl of yours What did
she mean by telling you not to hurt me ?"
"You haven't been long in these mountains,
have ye?"
"No not in these mountains why?" The
fisherman looked around and was almost startled
by the fierce gaze of his questioner.
" Stop that, please," he said, with a humourous
smile. "You make me nervous."
The mountaineer's bushy brows came together
across the bridge of his nose and his voice rumbled
like distant thunder.
13
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"What's yo' name, stranger, an' what's yo'
business over hyeh ?"
"Dear me, there you go! You can see I'm
fishing, but why does everybody in these moun
tains want to know my name ?"
"You heerd me!" '
"Yes." The fisherman turned again and saw
the giant's rugged face stern and pale with open
anger now, and he, too, grew suddenly serious.
"Suppose I don't tell you," he said gravely.
"What "
"Git!" said the mountaineer, with a move of
one huge hairy hand up the mountain. "An' git
quick!"
The fisherman never moved and there was the
click of a shell thrown into place in the Winches
ter and a guttural oath from the mountaineer's
beard.
"Damn ye," he said hoarsely, raising the rifle.
"I'll give ye-
" Don't, Dad!" shrieked a voice from the
bushes. "I know his name, hit's Jack " the
rest of the name was unintelligible. The moun
taineer dropped the butt of his gun to the ground
and laughed.
"Oh, air you the engineer ?"
The fisherman was angry now. He had not
moved hand or foot and he said nothing, but his
mouth was set hard and his bewildered blue eyes
had a glint in them that the mountaineer did not
H
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
at the moment see. He was leaning with one arm
on the muzzle of his Winchester, his face had
suddenly become suave and shrewd and now he
laughed again:
"So you're Jack Hale, air ye?"
The fisherman spoke. "John Hale, except to
my friends." He looked hard at the old man.
"Do you know that's a pretty dangerous joke
of yours, my friend I might have a gun myself
sometimes. Did you think you could scare me ?"
The mountaineer stared in genuine surprise.
"Twusn't no joke," he said shortly. "An' I
don't waste time skeering folks. I reckon you
don't know who I be ?"
"I don't care who you are." Again the moun
taineer stared.
"No use gittin' mad, young feller," he said
coolly. "I mistaken ye fer somebody else an' I
axe yer pardon. When you git through fishin'
come up to the house right up the creek thar an*
I'll give ye a dram."
"Thank you," said the fisherman stiffly, and
the mountaineer turned silently away. At the
edge of the bushes, he looked back; the stranger
was still fishing, and the old man went on with a
shake of his head.
"He'll come," he said to himself. "Oh, he'll
come!"
That very point Hale was debating with himself
as he unavailingly cast his minnow into the swift
15
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
water and slowly wound it in again. How did that
old man know his name ? And would the old sav
age really have hurt him had he not found out who
he was? The little girl was a wonder: evidently
she had muffled his last name on purpose not
knowing it herself and it was a quick and cun
ning ruse. He owed her something for that why
did she try to protect him ? Wonderful eyes, too,
the little thing had deep and dark and how the
flame did dart from them when she got angry!
He smiled, remembering he liked that. And
her hair it was exactly like the gold-bronze on
the wing of a wild turkey that he had shot the day
before. Well, it was noon now, the fish had
stopped biting after the wayward fashion of bass,
he was hungry and thirsty and he would go up
and see the little girl and the giant again and get
that promised dram. Once more, however, he let
his minnow float down into the shadow of a big
rock, and while he was winding in, he looked up
to see in the road two people on a gray horse, a
man with a woman behind him both old and
spectacled all three motionless on the bank and
looking at him: and he wondered if all three had
stopped to ask his name and his business. No,
they had just come down to the creek and both
they must know already.
"Ketching any?" called out the old man,
cheerily.
"Only one," answered Hale with equal cheer.
16
Don't, Dad!" shrieked a voice from the bushes. "I know his name."
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
The old woman pushed back her bonnet as he
waded through the water towards them and he saw
that she was puffing a clay pipe. She looked at
the fisherman and his tackle with the naive won
der of a child, and then she said in a commanding
undertone.
"Goon, Billy."
"Now, ole Hon, I wish ye'd jes' wait a minute."
Hale smiled. He loved old people, and two kinder
faces he had never seen two gentler voices he
had never heard.
"I reckon you got the only green pyerch up
hyeh," said the old man, chuckling, "but thar's
a sight of 'em down thar below my old mill."
Quietly the old woman hit the horse with a stripped
branch of elm and the old gray, with a switch of
his tail, started.
"Wait a minute, Hon," he said again, appeal-
ingly, "won't ye?" but calmly she hit the horse
again and the old man called back over his shoul
der:
"You come on down to the mill an' I'll show ye
whar you can ketch a mess."
"All right," shouted Hale, holding back his
laughter, and on they went, the old man remon
strating in the kindliest way the old woman
silently puffing her pipe and making no answer
except to flay gently the rump of the lazy old gray.
Hesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed
his pole, left his minnow bucket where it was,
17
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
mounted his horse and rode up the path. About
him, the beech leaves gave back the gold of the
autumn sunlight, and a little ravine, high under
the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire with
the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the morn
ing chill left the densely shaded path. When he
got to the bare crest of a little rise, he could see up
the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a
stone chimney. Geese and ducks were hunting
crawfish in the little creek that ran from a milk-
house of logs, half hidden by willows at the edge
of the forest, and a turn in the path brought into
view a log-cabin well chinked with stones and
plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence ran
around the yard and there was a meat house near
a little orchard of apple-trees, under which were
many hives of bee-gums. This man had things
"hung up" and was well-to-do. Down the rise
and through a thicket he went, and as he ap
proached the creek that came down past the cabin
there was a shrill cry ahead of him.
"Whoa thar, Buck! Gee-haw, I tell ye!" An
ox-wagon evidently was coming on, and the road
was so narrow that he turned his horse into the
bushes to let it pass.
"Whoa Haw! Gee Gee Buck, Gee, I tell
ye! I'll knock yo* fool head off the fust thing you
know!"
Still there was no sound of ox or wagon and the
voice sounded like a child's. So he went on at a
18
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
walk in the thick sand, and when he turned the
bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In
the road across the creek was a chubby, tow-
haired boy with a long switch in his right hand,
and a pine dagger and a string in his left. At
tached to the string and tied by one hind leg was
a frog. The boy was using the switch as a goad
and driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest
as though both were real.
"I give ye a little rest now, Buck,'* he said,
shaking his head earnestly. "Hit's a purty hard
pull hyeh, but I know, by Gum, you can make hit
if you hain't too durn lazy. Now, git up,
Buck!" he yelled suddenly, flaying the sand with
his switch. "Git up Whoa Haw Gee, Gee!"
The frog hopped several times.
"Whoa, now!" said the little fellow, panting in
sympathy. "I knowed you could do it." Then
he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified
but he did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted
the pine dagger over to his right hand and the
string to his left.
"Here, boy," said the fisherman with affected
sternness: "What are you doing with that dag-
ger?"
The boy's breast heaved and his dirty fingers
clenched tight around the whittled stick.
"Don't you talk to me that-a-way," he said with
an ominous shake of his head. "I'll gut ye!"
The fisherman threw back his head, and his
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
peal of laughter did what his sternness failed to
do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his
feet spurned the sand around the bushes for home
the astonished frog dragged bumping after him.
"Well! "said the fisherman.
20
IV
Tj^VEN the geese in the creek seemed to know
*"* that he was a stranger and to distrust him,
for they cackled and, spreading their wings, fled
cackling up the stream. As he neared the house,
the little girl ran around the stone chimney, stopped
short, shaded her eyes with one hand for a mo
ment and ran excitedly into the house. A moment
later, the bearded giant slouched out, stooping his
head as he came through the door.
" Hitch that 'ar post to yo' hoss and come right
in," he thundered cheerily. "I'm waitin' fer ye."
The little girl came to the door, pushed one
brown slender hand through her tangled hair,
caught one bare foot behind a deer-like ankle and
stood motionless. Behind her was the boy his
dagger still in hand.
"Come right in!" said the old man, "we are
purty pore folks, but you're welcome to what we
have."
The fisherman, too, had to stoop as he came in,
for he, too, was tall. The interior was dark, in
spite of the wood fire in the big stone fireplace.
Strings of herbs and red-pepper pods and twisted
tobacco hung from the ceiling and down the wall
on either side of the fire; and in one corner, near
21
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the two beds in the room, hand-made quilts of
many colours were piled several feet high. On
wooden pegs above the door where ten years
before would have been buck antlers and an old-
fashioned rifle, lay a Winchester; on either side of
the door were auger holes through the logs (he did
not understand that they were port-holes) and
another Winchester stood in the corner. From
the mantel the butt of a big 44-Colt's revolver
protruded ominously. On one of the beds in the
corner he could see the outlines of a figure lying
under a brilliantly figured quilt, and at the foot of
it the boy with the pine dagger had retreated for
refuge. From the moment he stooped at the door
something in the room had made him vaguely
uneasy, and when his eyes in swift survey came
back to the fire, they passed the blaze swiftly and
met on the edge of the light another pair of eyes
burning on him.
"Howdye!" said Hale.
"Howdye!" was the low, unpropitiating answer.
The owner of the eyes was nothing but a boy,
in spite of his length: so much of a boy that a
slight crack in his voice showed that it was just
past the throes of "changing," but those black
eyes burned on without swerving except once
when they flashed at the little girl who, with her
chin in her hand and one foot on the top rung of
her chair, was gazing at the stranger with equal
steadiness. She saw the boy's glance, she shifted
22
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
her knees impatiently and her little face grew
sullen. Hale smiled inwardly, for he thought he
could already see the lay of the land, and he won
dered that, at such an age, such fierceness could
be: so every now and then he looked at the boy,
and every time he looked, the black eyes were on
him. The mountain youth must have been al
most six feet tall, young as he was, and while he
was lanky in limb he was well knit. His jean
trousers were stuffed in the top of his boots and
were tight over his knees which were well-moulded,
and that is rare with a mountaineer. A loop of
black hair curved over his forehead, down almost
to his left eye. His nose was straight and almost
delicate and his mouth was small, but extraor
dinarily resolute. Somewhere he had seen that
face before, and he turned suddenly, but he did
not startle the lad with his abruptness, nor make
him turn his gaze.
"Why, haven't I ?" he said. And then he
suddenly remembered. He had seen that boy not
long since on the other side of the mountains, rid
ing his horse at a gallop down the county road
with his reins in his teeth, and shooting a pistol
alternately at the sun and the earth with either
hand. Perhaps it was as well not to recall the in
cident. He turned to the old mountaineer.
"Do you mean to tell me that a man can't go
through these mountains without telling every
body who asks him what his name is ?"
23
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
The effect of his question was singular. The old
man spat into the fire and put his hand to his
beard. The boy crossed his legs suddenly and
shoved his muscular fingers deep into his pockets.
The figure shifted position on the bed and the
infant at the foot of it seemed to clench his toy-
dagger a little more tightly. Only the little girl
was motionless she still looked at him, unwink
ing. What sort of wild animals had he fallen
among ?
"No, he can't an 5 keep healthy." The giant
spoke shortly.
"Why not?"
"Well, if a man hain't up to some devilment,
what reason's he got fer not tellin' his name ?"
"That's his business."
"Tain't over hyeh. Hit's mine. Ef a man
don't want to tell his name over hyeh, he's a spy
or a raider or a officer looking fer somebody or,"
he added carelessly, but with a quick covert look
at his visitor "he's got some kind o' business
that he don't want nobody to know about."
"Well, I came over here just to well, I
hardly know why I did come."
"Jess so," said the old man dryly. "An' if ye
ain't looking fer trouble, you'd better tell your
name in these mountains, whenever you're axed.
Ef enough people air backin' a custom anywhar
hit goes, don't hit ?"
His logic was good and Hale said nothing.
24
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Presently the old man rose with a smile on his
face that looked cynical, picked up a black lump
and threw it into the fire. It caught fire, crackled,
blazed, almost oozed with oil, and Hale leaned
forward and leaned back.
"Pretty good coal!"
"Hain't it, though ?" The old man picked up
a sliver that had flown to the hearth and held a
match to it. The piece blazed and burned in his
hand.
"I never seed no coal in these mountains like
that did you?"
"Not often find it around here?"
" Right hyeh on this farm about five feet thick ! "
"What?"
"An' no partin'."
"No partin'" it was not often that he found
a mountaineer who knew what a parting in a coal
bed was.
"A friend o' mine on t'other side," a light
dawned for the engineer.
"Oh," he said quickly. "That's how you knew
my name."
" Right you air, stranger. He tol' me you was
a expert."
The old man laughed loudly. "An' that's why
you come over hyeh."
"No, it isn't."
"Co'se not," the old fellow laughed again.
Hale shifted the talk.
25
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Well, now that you know my name, suppose
you tell me what yours is ?"
"Tolliver Judd Tolliver." Hale started.
" Not Devil Judd!"
"That's what some evil folks calls me." Again
he spoke shortly. The mountaineers do not like
to talk about their feuds. Hale knew this and
the subject was dropped. But he watched the
huge mountaineer with interest. There was no
more famous character in all those hills than the
giant before him yet his face was kind and was
good-humoured, but the nose and eyes were the
beak and eyes of some bird of prey. The little
girl had disappeared for a moment. She came
back with a blue-backed spelling-book, a second
reader and a worn copy of " Mother Goose," and
she opened first one and then the other until the
attention of the visitor was caught the black-
haired youth watching her meanwhile with lowering
brows.
"Where did you learn to read?" Hale asked.
The old man answered:
"A preacher come by our house over on the
Nawth Fork 'bout three year ago, and afore I
knowed it he made me promise to send her sister
Sally to some school up thar on the edge of the
settlements. And after she come home, Sal
larned that little gal to read and spell. Sal died
'bout a year ago."
Hale reached over and got the spelling-book,
26
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and the old man grinned at the quick, unerring
responses of the little girl, and the engineer looked
surprised. She read, too, with unusual facility,
and her pronunciation was very precise and not at
all like her speech.
"You ought to send her to the same place," he
said, but the old fellow shook his head.
"I couldn't git along without her."
The little girl's eyes began to dance suddenly,
and, without opening "Mother Goose," she began:
"Jack and Jill went up a hill," and then she
broke into a laugh and Hale laughed with her.
Abruptly, the boy opposite rose to his great
length.
"I reckon I better be goin'." That was all he
said as he caught up a Winchester, which stood
unseen by his side, and out he stalked. There was
not a word of good-by, not a glance at anybody.
A few minutes later Hale heard the creak of a
barn door on wooden hinges, a cursing command
to a horse, and four feet going in a gallop down the
path, and he knew there went an enemy.
"That's a good-looking boy who is he ?"
The old man spat into the fire. It seemed that
he was not going to answer and the little girl broke
in:
"Hit's my cousin Dave he lives over on the
Nawth Fork."
That was the seat of the Tolliver-Falin feud.
Of that feud, too, Hale had heard, and so no more
27
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
along that line of inquiry. He, too, soon rose to
g-
"Why, ain't ye goin' to have something to eat ?"
"Oh, no, I've got something in my saddle
bags and I must be getting back to the Gap."
"Well, I reckon you ain't. You're jes' goin' to
take a snack right here." Hale hesitated, but the
little girl was looking at him with such uncon
scious eagerness in her dark eyes that he sat down
again.
"All right, I will, thank you." At once she ran
to the kitchen and the old man rose and pulled a
bottle of white liquid from under the quilts.
" I reckon I can trust ye," he said. The liquor
burned Hale like fire, and the old man, with a
laugh at the face the stranger made, tossed off
a tumblerful.
"Gracious!" said Hale, "can you do that
often?"
"Afore breakfast, dinner and supper," said the
old man "but I don't." Hale felt a plucking at
his sleeve. It was the boy with the dagger at his
elbow.
"Less see you laugh that-a-way agin," said
Bub with such deadly seriousness that Hale un
consciously broke into the same peal.
"Now," said Bub, unwinking, "I ain't afeard
o' you no more."
28
A WAITING dinner, the mountaineer and the
-** "furriner" sat on the porch while Bub
carved away at another pine dagger on the stoop.
As Hale passed out the door, a querulous voice
said "How dye" from the bed in the corner and
he knew it was the step-mother from whom the
little girl expected some nether-world punish
ment for an offence of which he was ignorant.
He had heard of the feud that had been going on
between the red Falins and the black Tollivers for
a quarter of a century, and this was Devil Judd,
who had earned his nickname when he was the
leader of his clan by his terrible strength, his
marksmanship, his cunning and his courage.
Some years since the old man had retired from the
leadership, because he was tired of fighting or
because he had quarrelled with his brother Dave
and his foster-brother, Bad Rufe known as the
terror of the Tollivers or from some unknown
reason, and in consequence there had been peace
for a long time the Falins fearing that Devil
Judd would be led into the feud again, the Tollivers
wary of starting hostilities without his aid. After
the last trouble, Bad Rufe Tolliver had gone
West and old Judd had moved his family as far
29
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
away as possible. Hale looked around him: this,
then, was the home of Devil Judd Tolliver; the
little creature inside was his daughter and her
name was June. All around the cabin the wooded
mountains towered except where, straight before
his eyes, Lonesome Creek slipped through them
to the river, and the old man had certainly picked
out the very heart of silence for his home. There
was no neighbour within two leagues, Judd said,
except old Squire Billy Beams, who ran a mill a
mile down the river. No wonder the spot was
called Lonesome Cove.
"You must ha' seed Uncle Billy and ole Hon
passin'," he said.
"I did." Devil Judd laughed and Hale made
out that "Hon" was short for Honey.
"Uncle Billy used to drink right smart. Ole
Hon broke him. She followed him down to the
grocery one day and walked in. 'Come on, boys
let's have a drink'; and she set 'em up an' set
'em up until Uncle Billy most went crazy. He
had hard work gittin' her home, an' Uncle Billy
hain't teched a drap since." And the old moun
taineer chuckled again.
All the time Hale could hear noises from the
kitchen inside. The old step-mother was abed,
he had seen no other woman about the house and
he wondered if the child could be cooking dinner.
Her flushed face answered when she opened the
kitchen door and called them in. She had not
30
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
only cooked but now she served as well, and when
he thanked her, as he did every time she passed
something to him, she would colour faintly.
Once or twice her hand seemed to tremble, and he
never looked at her but her questioning dark eyes
were full upon him, and always she kept one hand
busy pushing her thick hair back from her fore
head. He had not asked her if it was her foot
prints he had seen coming down the mountain for
fear that he might betray her, but apparently she
had told on herself, for Bub, after a while, burst
out suddenly:
" June, thar, thought you was a raider." The
little girl flushed and the old man laughed.
"So'd you, pap," she said quietly.
"That's right," he said. "So'd anybody.
I reckon you're the first man that ever come over
hyeh jus' to go a-fishin'," and he laughed again.
The stress on the last words showed that he be
lieved no man had yet come just for that purpose,
and Hale merely laughed with him. The old fel
low gulped his food, pushed his chair back, and
when Hale was through, he wasted no more time.
"Want to see that coal ?"
"Yes, I do," said Hale.
"All right, I'll be ready in a minute."
The little girl followed Hale out on the porch
and stood with her back against the railing.
"Did you catch it?" he asked. She nodded,
unsmiling.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I'm sorry. What were you doing up there?"
She showed no surprise that he knew that she had
been up there, and while she answered his ques
tion, he could see that she was thinking of some
thing else.
"I'd heerd so much about what you furriners
was a-doin' over thar."
"You must have heard about a place farther
over but it's coming over there, too, some day."
And still she looked an unspoken question.
The fish that Hale had caught was lying where he
had left it on the edge of the porch.
"That's for you, June," he said, pointing to it,
and the name as he spoke it was sweet to his ears.
"I'm much obleeged," she said, shyly. "I'd
'a' cooked hit fer ye if I'd 'a' knowed you wasn't
goin' to take hit home."
"That's the reason I didn't give it to you at
first I was afraid you'd do that. I wanted you
to have it."
"Much obleeged," she said again, still unsmil
ing, and then she suddenly looked up at him the
deeps of her dark eyes troubled.
"Air ye ever comin' back agin, Jack?" Hale
was not accustomed to the familiar form of ad
dress common in the mountains, independent of
sex or age and he would have been staggered
had not her face been so serious. And then few
women had ever called him by his first name, and
this time his own name was good to his ears.
32
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Yes, June," he said soberly. "Not for some
time, maybe but I'm coming back again, sure."
She smiled then with both lips and eyes radi
antly.
"I'll be lookin' fer ye," she said simply.
33
VI
A l A HE old man went with him up the creek and,
A passing the milk house, turned up a brush-
bordered little branch in which the engineer saw
signs of coal. Up the creek the mountaineer led
him some thirty yards above the water level and
stopped. An entry had been driven through the
rich earth and ten feet within was a shining bed of
coal. There was no parting except two inches of
mother-of-coal midway, which would make it
but easier to mine. Who had taught that old man
to open coal in such a way to make such a fac
ing ? It looked as though the old fellow were in
some scheme with another to get him interested.
As he drew closer, he saw radiations of some
twelve inches, all over the face of the coal, star-
shaped, and he almost gasped. It was not only
cannel coal it was "bird's-eye" cannel. Heav
ens, what a find! Instantly he was the cautious
man of business, alert, cold, uncommunicative.
"That looks like a pretty good " he drawled the
last two words "vein of coal. I'd like to take a
sample over to the Gap and analyze it." His ham
mer, which he always carried was in his saddle
pockets, but he did not have to go down to his
34
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
horse. There were pieces on the ground that
would suit his purpose, left there, no doubt, by his
predecessor.
" Now I reckon you know that I know why you
came over hyeh."
Hale started to answer, but he saw it was no
use.
"Yes and Pm coming again for the same
reason."
"Shore come agin and come often."
The little girl was standing on the porch as he
rode past the milk house. He waved his hand to
her, but she did not move nor answer. What a life
for a child for that keen-eyed, sweet-faced child !
But that coal, cannel, rich as oil, above water,
five feet in thickness, easy to mine, with a solid
roof and perhaps self-drainage, if he could judge
from the dip of the vein: and a market every
where England, Spain, Italy, Brazil. The coal,
to be sure, might not be persistent thirty yards
within it might change in quality to ordinary
bituminous coal, but he could settle that only with
a steam drill. A steam drill! He would as well
ask for the wagon that he had long ago hitched to
a star; and then there might be a fault in the
formation. But why bother now? The coal
would stay there, and now he had other plans that
made even that find insignificant. And yet if he
bought that coal now what a bargain! It was
not that the ideals of his college days were tar-
35
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
nished, but he was a man of business now, and if
he would take the old man's land for a song it
was because others of his kind would do the same!
But why bother, he asked himself again, when his
brain was in a ferment with a colossal scheme that
would make dizzy the magnates who would some
day drive their roadways of steel into those wild
hills. So he shook himself free of the question,
which passed from his mind only with a transient
wonder as to who it was that had told of him to
the old mountaineer, and had so paved his way for
an investigation and then he wheeled suddenly
in his saddle. The bushes had rustled gently be
hind him and out from them stepped an extraor
dinary human shape wearing a coon-skin cap,
belted with two rows of big cartridges, carrying
a big Winchester over one shoulder and a circular
tube of brass in his left hand. With his right leg
straight, his left thigh drawn into the hollow of his
saddle and his left hand on the rump of his horse,
Hale simply stared, his eyes dropping by and by
from the pale-blue eyes and stubbly red beard of
the stranger, down past the cartridge-belts to the
man's feet, on which were moccasins with the
heels forward! Into what sort of a world had he
dropped!
" So nary a soul can tell which way I'm going,"
said the red-haired stranger, with a grin that
loosed a hollow chuckle far behind it.
"Would you mind telling me what difference it
36
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
can make to me which way you are going?"
Every moment he was expecting the stranger to
ask his name, but again that chuckle came.
"It makes a mighty sight o' difference to some
folks."
" But none to me."
" I hain't wearin' 'em fer you. I know you."
"Oh, you do." The stranger suddenly lowered
his Winchester and turned his face, with his ear
cocked like an animal. There was some noise on
the spur above.
"Nothin' but a hickory nut," said the chuckle
again. But Hale had been studying that strange
face. One side of it was calm, kindly, philosophic,
benevolent; but, when the other was turned, a
curious twitch of the muscles at the left side of the
mouth showed the teeth and made a snarl there
that was wolfish.
"Yes, and I know you," he said slowly. Self-
satisfaction, straightway, was ardent in the face.
"I knowed you would git to know me in time,
if you didn't now."
This was the Red Fox of the mountains, of
whom he had heard so much "yarb" doctor
and Swedenborgian preacher; revenue officer and,
some said, cold-blooded murderer. He would
walk twenty miles to preach, or would start at any
hour of the day or night to minister to the sick,
and would charge for neither service. At other
hours he would be searching for moonshine stills,
37
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
or watching his enemies in the valley from some
mountain top, with that huge spy-glass Hale
could see now that the brass tube was a telescope
that he might slip down and unawares take a
pot-shot at them. The Red Fox communicated
with spirits, had visions and superhuman powers
of locomotion stepping mysteriously from the
bushes, people said, to walk at the traveller's side
and as mysteriously disappearing into them again,
to be heard of in a few hours an incredible dis
tance away.
"I've been watchin' ye from up thar," he said
with a wave of his hand. " I seed ye go up the
creek, and then the bushes hid ye. I know what
you was after but did you see any signs up thar
of anything you wasn't looking fer ?"
Hale laughed.
"Well, I've been in these mountains long
enough not to tell you, if I had."
The Red Fox chuckled.
"I wasn't sure you had " Hale coughed and
spat to the other side of his horse. When he looked
around, the Red Fox was gone, and he had heard
no sound of his going.
"Well, I be-" Hale clucked to his horse and
as he climbed the last steep and drew near the
Big Pine he again heard a noise out in the
woods and he knew this time it was the fall of a
human foot and not of a hickory nut. He was
right, and, as he rode by the Pine, saw again at its
38
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
base the print of the little girl's foot wondering
afresh at the reason that led her up there and
dropped down through the afternoon shadows
towards the smoke and steam and bustle and
greed of the Twentieth Century. A long, lean,
black-eyed boy, with a wave of black hair over his
forehead, was pushing his horse the other way
along the Big Black and dropping down through
the dusk into the Middle Ages both all but
touching on either side the outstretched hands of
the wild little creature left in the shadows of Lone
some Cove.
39
VII
the Big Pine, swerving with a smile his
horse aside that he might not obliterate the
foot-print in the black earth, and down the moun
tain, his brain busy with his big purpose, went
John Hale, by instinct, inheritance, blood and
tradition pioneer.
One of his forefathers had been with Washing
ton on the Father's first historic expedition into the
wilds of Virginia. His great-grandfather had
accompanied Boone when that hunter first pene
trated the "Dark and Bloody Ground," had gone
back to Virginia and come again with a surveyor's
chain and compass to help wrest it from the red
men, among whom there had been an immemorial
conflict for possession and a never-recognized
claim of ownership. That compass and that chain
his grandfather had fallen heir to and with that
compass and chain his father had earned his live
lihood amid the wrecks of the Civil War. Hale
went to the old Transylvania University at Lex
ington, the first seat of learning planted beyond
the Alleghanies. He was fond of history, of the
sciences and literature, was unusually adept in
Latin and Greek, and had a passion for mathe-
40
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
matics. He was graduated with honours, he
taught two years and got his degree of Master of
Arts, but the pioneer spirit in his blood would still
out, and his polite learning he then threw to the
winds.
Other young Kentuckians had gone West in
shoals, but he kept his eye on his own State, and
one autumn he added a pick to the old compass
and the ancestral chain, struck the Old Wilderness
Trail that his grandfather had travelled, to look
for his own fortune in a land which that old gentle
man had passed over as worthless. At the Cum
berland River he took a canoe and drifted down
the river into the wild coal-swollen hills. Through
the winter he froze, starved and prospected, and a
year later he was opening up a region that became
famous after his trust and inexperience had let
others worm out of him an interest that would have
made him easy for life.
With the vision of a seer, he was as innocent as
Boone. Stripped clean, he got out his map, such
geological reports as he could find and went into a
studious trance for a month, emerging mentally
with the freshness of a snake that has shed its skin.
What had happened in Pennsylvania must hap
pen all along the great Alleghany chain in the
mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky,
Alabama, Tennessee. Some day the avalanche
must sweep south, it must it must. That he
might be a quarter of a century too soon in his
41
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
calculations never crossed his mind. Some day it
must come.
Now there was not an ounce of coal immedi
ately south-east of the Cumberland Mountains
not an ounce of iron ore immediately north-east;
all the coal lay to the north-east; all of the iron ore
to the south-east. So said Geology. For three
hundred miles there were only four gaps through
that mighty mountain chain three at water level,
and one at historic Cumberland Gap which was
not at water level and would have to be tunnelled.
So said Geography.
All railroads, to east and to west, would have to
pass through those gaps; through them the coal
must be brought to the iron ore, or the ore to the
coal. Through three gaps water flowed between
ore and coal and the very hills between were lime
stone. Was there any such juxtaposition of the
four raw materials for the making of iron in the
known world ? When he got that far in his logic,
the sweat broke from his brows; he felt dizzy and
he got up and walked into the open air. As the
vastness and certainty of the scheme what fool
could not see it ? rushed through him full force,
he could scarcely get his breath. There must be a
town in one of those gaps but in which ? No
matter he would buy all of them all of them,
he repeated over and over again; for some day
there must be a town in one, and some day a town
in all, and from all he would reap his harvest He
42
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
optioned those four gaps at a low purchase price
that was absurd. He went back to the Bluegrass;
he went to New York; in some way he managed
to get to England. It had never crossed his mind
that other eyes could not see what he so clearly
saw and yet everywhere he was pronounced crazy.
He failed and his options ran out, but he was un
daunted. He picked his choice of the four gaps
and gave up the other three. This favourite gap
he had just finished optioning again, and now
again he meant to keep at his old quest. That gap
he was entering now from the north side and the
North Fork of the river was hurrying to enter too.
On his left was a great gray rock, projecting edge
wise, covered with laurel and rhododendron, and
under it was the first big pool from which the
stream poured faster still. There had been a ter
rible convulsion in that gap when the earth was
young; the strata had been tossed upright and
planted almost vertical for all time, and, a little far
ther, one mighty ledge, moss-grown, bush-covered,
sentinelled with grim pines, their bases unseen,
seemed to be making a heavy flight toward the
clouds.
Big bowlders began to pop up in the river-bed
and against them the water dashed and whirled
and eddied backward in deep pools, while above
him the song of a cataract dropped down a tree-
choked ravine. Just there the drop came, and for
a long space he could see the river lashing rock and
43
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
cliff with increasing fury as though it were seeking
shelter from some relentless pursuer in the dark
thicket where it disappeared. Straight in front
of him another ledge lifted itself. Beyond that
loomed a mountain which stopped in mid-air and
dropped sheer to the eye. Its crown was bare and
Hale knew that up there was a mountain farm,
the refuge of a man who had been involved in that
terrible feud beyond Black Mountain behind him.
Five minutes later he was at the yawning mouth
of the gap and there lay before him a beautiful
valley shut in tightly, for all the eye could see,
with mighty hills. It was the heaven-born site for
the unborn city of his dreams, and his eyes swept
every curve of the valley lovingly. The two forks
of the river ran around it he could follow their
course by the trees that lined the banks of each
curving within a stone's throw of each other across
the valley and then looping away as from the neck
of an ancient lute and, like its framework, coming
together again down the valley, where they surged
together, slipped through the hills and sped on
with the song of a sweeping river. Up that river
could come the track of commerce, out the South
Fork, too, it could go, though it had to turn east
ward: back through that gap it could be traced
north and west; and so none could come as her
alds into those hills but their footprints could
be traced through that wild, rocky, water-worn
chasm. Hale drew breath and raised in his stirrups.
44
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"It's a cinch," he said aloud. "It's a shame
to take the money."
Yet nothing was in sight now but a valley farm
house above the ford where he must cross the
river and one log cabin on the hill beyond. Still
on the the other river was the only woollen mill in
miles around; farther up was the only grist mill,
and near by was the only store, the only black
smith shop and the only hotel. That much of a
start the gap had had for three-quarters of a cen
tury only from the south now a railroad was
already coming; from the east another was trav
elling like a wounded snake and from the north
still another creeped to meet them. Every road
must run through the gap and several had already
run through it lines of survey. The coal was at
one end of the gap, and the iron ore at the other,
the cliffs between were limestone, and the other
elements to make it the iron centre of the world
flowed through it like a torrent.
"Selah! It's a shame to take the money."
He splashed into the creek and his big black
horse thrust his nose into the clear running water.
Minnows were playing about him. A hog-fish flew
for shelter under a rock, and below the ripples a
two-pound bass shot like an arrow into deep water.
Above and below him the stream was arched
with beech, poplar and water maple, and the
banks were thick with laurel and rhododendron.
His eye had never rested on a lovelier stream, and
45
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
on the other side of the town site, which nature
had kindly lifted twenty feet above the water
level, the other fork was of equal clearness, swift
ness and beauty.
"Such a drainage," murmured his engineering
instinct. "Such a drainage!" It was Saturday.
Even if he had forgotten he would have known
that it must be Saturday when he climbed the
bank on the other side. Many horses were hitched
under the trees, and here and there was a farm-
wagon with fragments of paper, bits of food and
an empty bottle or two lying around. It was the
hour when the alcoholic spirits of the day were
usually most high. Evidently they were running
quite high that day and something distinctly was
going on " up town." A few yells the high, clear,
penetrating yell of a fox-hunter rent the air, a
chorus of pistol shots rang out, and the thunder of
horses' hoofs started beyond the little slope he was
climbing. When he reached the top, a merry
youth, with a red, hatless head was splitting the
dirt road toward him, his reins in his teeth, and a
pistol in each hand, which he was letting off alter
nately into the inoffensive earth and toward the
unrebuking heavens that seemed a favourite
way in those mountains of defying God and the
devil and behind him galloped a dozen horsemen
to the music of throat, pistol and iron hoof.
The fiery-headed youth's horse swerved and
shot by. Hale hardly knew that the rider even
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
saw him, but the coming ones saw him afar and
they seemed to be charging him in close array.
Hale stopped his horse a little to the right of the
centre of the road, and being equally helpless
against an inherited passion for maintaining his
own rights and a similar disinclination to get out
of anybody's way he sat motionless. Two of
the coming horsemen, side by side, were a little in
advance.
"Git out o* the road!" they yelled. Had he
made the motion of an arm, they might have rid
den or shot him down, but the simple quietness of
him as he sat with hands crossed on the pommel
of his saddle, face calm and set, eyes unwavering
and fearless, had the effect that nothing else he
could have done would have brought about and
they swerved on either side of him, while the rest
swerved, too, like sheep, one stirrup brushing his,
as they swept by. Hale rode slowly on. He could
hear the mountaineers yelling on top of the hill,
but he did not look back. Several bullets sang
over his head. Most likely they were simply
"bantering" him, but no matter he rode on.
The blacksmith, the storekeeper and one pass
ing drummer were coming in from the woods when
he reached the hotel.
"A gang o' those Falins," said the storekeeper,
"they come over lookin' for young Dave Tolliver.
They didn't find him, so they thought they'd have
some fun"; and he pointed to the hotel sign which
47
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
was punctuated with pistol-bullet periods. Hale's
eyes flashed once but he said nothing. He turned
his horse over to a stable boy and went across to
the little frame cottage that served as office and
home for him. While he sat on the veranda that
almost hung over the mill-pond of the other stream
three of the Falins came riding back. One of
them had left something at the hotel, and while he
was gone in for it, another put a bullet through
the sign, and seeing Hale rode over to him. Hale's
blue eye looked anything than friendly.
"Don't ye like it ?" asked the horseman.
"I do not," said Hale calmly. The horseman
seemed amused.
"Well, whut you goin' to do about it?"
"Nothing at least not now."
"All right whenever you git ready. You
ain't ready now ?"
"No," said Hale, "not now." The fellow
laughed.
"Hit's a damned good thing for you that you
ain't."
Hale looked long after the three as they gal
loped down the road. "When I start to build this
town," he thought gravely and without humour,
"I'll put a stop to all that."
VIII
a spur of Black Mountain, beyond the
Kentucky line, a lean horse was tied to a
sassafras bush, and in a clump of rhododendron
ten yards away, a lean black-haired boy sat with
a Winchester between his stomach and thighs
waiting for the dusk to drop. His chin was in
both hands, the brim of his slouch hat was curved
crescent-wise over his forehead, and his eyes were
on the sweeping bend of the river below him.
That was the "Bad Bend" down there, peopled
with ancestral enemies and the head-quarters of
their leader for the last ten years. Though they
had been at peace for some time now, it had been
Saturday in the county town ten miles down the
river as well, and nobody ever knew what a Sat
urday might bring forth between his people and
them. So he would not risk riding through that
bend by the light of day.
All the long way up spur after spur and along
ridge after ridge, all along the still, tree-crested
top of the Big Black, he had been thinking of the
man the "furriner" whom he had seen at his
uncle's cabin in Lonesome Cove. He was think
ing of him still, as he sat there waiting for dark-
49
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ness to come, and the two vertical little lines in his
forehead, that had hardly relaxed once during his
climb, got deeper and deeper, as his brain puz
zled into the problem that was worrying it: who
the stranger was, what his business was over in
the Cove and his business with the Red Fox with
whom the boy had seen him talking.
He had heard of the coming of the "furriners"
on the Virginia side. He had seen some of them,
he was suspicious of all of them, he disliked them
all but this man he hated straightway. He hated
his boots and his clothes; the way he sat and
talked, as though he owned the earth, and the lad
snorted contemptuously under his breath:
"He called pants 'trousers." It was a fearful
indictment, and he snorted again: " Trousers !"
The "furriner" might be a spy or a revenue
officer, but deep down in the boy's heart the sus
picion had been working that he had gone over
there to see his little cousin the girl whom, boy
that he was, he had marked, when she was even
more of a child than she was now, for his own.
His people understood it as did her father, and,
child though she was, she, too, understood it. The
difference between her and the "furriner" dif
ference in age, condition, way of life, education
meant nothing to him, and as his suspicion deep
ened, his hands dropped and gripped his Win
chester, and through his gritting teeth came
vaguely:
50
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"By God, if he does if he just does!"
Away down at the lower end of the river's curv
ing sweep, the dirt road was visible for a hundred
yards or more, and even while he was cursing to
himself, a group of horsemen rode into sight. All
seemed to be carrying something across their
saddle bows, and as the boy's eyes caught them,
he sank sidewise out of sight and stood upright,
peering through a bush of rhododendron. Some
thing had happened in town that day for the
horsemen carried Winchesters, and every foreign
thought in his brain passed like breath from a
window pane, while his dark, thin face whitened
a little with anxiety and wonder. Swiftly he
stepped backward, keeping the bushes between
him and his far-away enemies. Another knot he
gave the reins around the sassafras bush and then,
Winchester in hand, he dropped noiseless as an
Indian, from rock to rock, tree to tree, down the
sheer spur on the other side. Twenty minutes
later, he lay behind a bush that was sheltered by
the top boulder of the rocky point under which
the road ran. His enemies were in their own
country; they would probably be talking over the
happenings in town that day, and from them he
would learn what was going on.
So long he lay that he got tired and out of pa
tience, and he was about to creep around the
boulder, when the clink of a horseshoe against a
stone told him they were coming, and he flattened
51
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
to the earth and closed his eyes that his ears might
be more keen. The Falins were riding silently,
but as the first two passed under him, one said :
"I'd like to know who the hell warned 'em!"
"Whar's the Red Fox?" was the significant
answer.
The boy's heart leaped. There had been dev
iltry abroad, but his kinsmen had escaped. No
one uttered a word as they rode two by two, under
him, but one voice came back to him as they
turned the point.
"I wonder if the other boys ketched young
Dave ?" He could not catch the answer to that
only the oath that was in it, and when the sound
of the horses' hoofs died away, he turned over on
his back and stared up at the sky. Some trouble
had come and through his own caution, and the
mercy of Providence that had kept him away from
the Gap, he had had his escape from death that
day. He would tempt that Providence no more,
even by climbing back to his horse in the waning
light, and it was not until dusk had fallen that he
was leading the beast down the spur and into a
ravine that sank to the road. There he waited an
hour, and when another horseman passed he still
waited a while. Cautiously then, with ears alert,
eyes straining through the darkness and Winches
ter ready, he went down the road at a slow walk.
There was a light in the first house, but the front
door was closed and the road was deep with sand,
52
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
as he knew; so he passed noiselessly. At the
second house, light streamed through the open
door; he could hear talking on the porch and he
halted. He could neither cross the river nor get
around the house by the rear the ridge was too
steep so he drew off into the bushes, where he
had to wait another hour before the talking ceased.
There was only one more house now between him
and the mouth of the creek, where he would be
safe, and he made up his mind to dash by it. That
house, too, was lighted and the sound of fiddling
struck his ears. He would give them a surprise;
so he gathered his reins and Winchester in his left
hand, drew his revolver with his right, and within
thirty yards started his horse into a run, yelling
like an Indian and firing his pistol in the air. As
he swept by, two or three figures dashed pell-mell
indoors, and he shouted derisively:
"Run, damn ye, run!" They were running for
their guns, he knew, but the taunt would hurt and
he was pleased. As he swept by the edge of a
cornfield, there was a flash of light from the base
of a cliff straight across, and a bullet sang over
him, then another and another, but he sped on,
cursing and yelling and shooting his own Win
chester up in the air all harmless, useless, but
just to hurl defiance and taunt them with his
safety. His father's house was not far away, there
was no sound of pursuit, and when he reached the
river he drew down to a walk and stopped short in
53
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
a shadow. Something had clicked in the bushes
above him and he bent over his saddle and lay
close to his horse's neck. The moon was rising
behind him and its light was creeping toward
him through the bushes. In a moment he would
be full in its yellow light, and he was slipping from
his horse to dart aside into the bushes, when a
voice ahead of him called sharply:
"That you, Dave?"
It was his father, and the boy's answer was a
loud laugh. Several men stepped from the bushes
they had heard firing and, fearing that young
Dave was the cause of it, they had run to his help.
"What the hell you mean, boy, kickin' up such
a racket?"
"Oh, I knowed somethin'd happened an' I
wanted to skeer 'em a leetle."
"Yes, an' you never thought o' the trouble you
might be causin' us."
"Don't you bother about me. I can take keer
o' myself."
Old Dave Tolliver grunted though at heart
he was deeply pleased.
"Well, you come on home!"
All went silently the boy getting meagre mono
syllabic answers to his eager questions but, by the
time they reached home, he had gathered the story
of what had happened in town that day. There
were more men in the porch of the house and all
were armed. The women of the house moved
54
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
about noiselessly and with drawn faces. There
were no lights lit, and nobody stood long even in
the light of the fire where he could be seen through
a window; and doors were opened and passed
through quickly. The Falins had opened the feud
that day, for the boy's foster-uncle, Bad Rufe
Tolliver, contrary to the terms of the last truce,
had come home from the West, and one of his
kinsmen had been wounded. The boy told what
he had heard while he lay over the road along
which some of his enemies had passed and his
father nodded. The Falins had learned in some
way that the lad was going to the Gap that day
and had sent men after him. Who was the spy ?
"You told me you was a-goin' to the Gap,"
said old Dave. " Whar was ye ?"
" I didn't git that far," said the boy.
The old man and Loretta, young Dave's sister,
laughed, and quiet smiles passed between the
others.
"Well, you'd better be keerful 'bout gittin' even
as far as you did git wharever that was from
now on.' 3
"I ain't afeered," the boy said sullenly, and he
turned into the kitchen. Still sullen, he ate his
supper in silence and his mother asked him no
questions. He was worried that Bad Rufe had
come back to the mountains, for Rufe was always
teasing June and there was something in his bold,
black eyes that made the lad furious, even when
55
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the foster-uncle was looking at Loretta or the little
girl in Lonesome Cove. And yet that was nothing
to his new trouble, for his mind hung persistently
to the stranger and to the way June had behaved
in the cabin in Lonesome Cove. Before he went
to bed, he slipped out to the old well behind the
house and sat on the water-trough in gloomy un
rest, looking now and then at the stars that hung
over the Cove and over the Gap beyond, where the
stranger was bound. It would have pleased him
a good deal could he have known that the stranger
was pushing his big black horse on his way, under
those stars, toward the outer world.
IX
TT was court day at the county seat across the
A Kentucky line. Hale had risen early, as every
one must if he would get his breakfast in the
mountains, even in the hotels in the county seats,
and he sat with his feet on the railing of the hotel
porch which fronted the main street of the town.
He had had his heart-breaking failures since the
autumn before, but he was in good cheer now, for
his feverish enthusiasm had at last clutched a
man who would take up not only his options on
the great Gap beyond Black Mountain but on the
cannel-coal lands of Devil Judd Tolliver as well.
He was riding across from the Bluegrass to meet
this man at the railroad in Virginia, nearly two
hundred miles away; he had stopped to examine
some titles at the county seat and he meant to go
on that day by way of Lonesome Cove. Opposite
was the brick Court House every window lack
ing at least one pane, the steps yellow with dirt
and tobacco juice, the doorway and the bricks
about the upper windows bullet-dented and elo
quent with memories of the feud which had long
embroiled the whole county. Not that everybody
took part in it but, on the matter, everybody, as
57
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME KNE
an old woman told him, "had feelin's." It had
begun, so he learned, just after the war. Two
boys were playing marbles in the road along the
Cumberland River, and one had a patch on the
seat of his trousers. The other boy made fun of it
and the boy with the patch went home and told
his father. As a result there had already been
thirty years of local war. In the last race for legis
lature, political issues were submerged and the
feud was the sole issue. And a Tolliver had car
ried that boy's trouser-patch like a flag to victory
and was sitting in the lower House at that time
helping to make laws for the rest of the State.
Now Bad Rufe Tolliver was in the hills again and
the end was not yet. Already people were pour
ing in, men, women and children the men
slouch-hatted and stalking through the mud in
the rain, or filing in on horseback riding double
sometimes two men or two women, or a man
with his wife or daughter behind him, or a woman
with a baby in her lap and two more children be
hind all dressed in homespun or store-clothes,
and the paint from artificial flowers on her hat
streaking the face of every girl who had unwisely
scanned the heavens that morning. Soon the
square was filled with hitched horses, and an
auctioneer was bidding off cattle, sheep, hogs and
horses to the crowd of mountaineers about him,
while the women sold eggs and butter and bought
things for use at home. Now and then, an open
58
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
feudsman with a Winchester passed and many a
man was belted with cartridges for the big pistol
dangling at his hip. When court opened, the rain
ceased, the sun came out and Hale made his way
through the crowd to the battered temple of jus
tice. On one corner of the square he could see the
chief store of the town marked "Buck Falin
General Merchandise," and the big man in the
door with the bushy redhead, he guessed, was the
leader of the Falin clan. Outside the door stood
a smaller replica of the same figure, whom he rec
ognized as the leader of the band that had nearly
ridden him down at the Gap when they were look
ing for young Dave Tolliver, the autumn before.
That, doubtless, was young Buck. For a moment
he stood at the door of the court-room. A Falin
was on trial and the grizzled judge was speaking
angrily :
"This is the third time you've had this trial
postponed because you hain't got no lawyer. I
ain't goin' to put it off. Have you got you a law
yer now?"
"Yes, jedge," said the defendant.
"Well, wharishe?"
"Over thar on the jury."
The judge looked at the man on the jury.
"Well, I reckon you better leave him whar he is.
He'll do you more good thar than any whar else."
Hale laughed aloud the judge glared at him
and he turned quickly upstairs to his work in the
59
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
deed-room. Till noon he worked and yet there
was no trouble. After dinner he went back and
in two hours his work was done. An atmospheric
difference he felt as soon as he reached the door.
The crowd had melted from the square. There
were no women in sight, but eight armed men
were in front of the door and two of them, a red
Falin and a black Tolliver Bad Rufe it was
were quarrelling. In every doorway stood a man
cautiously looking on, and in a hotel window he
saw a woman's frightened face. It was so still
that it seemed impossible that a tragedy could be
imminent, and yet, while he was trying to take the
conditions in, one of the quarrelling men Bad
Rufe Tolliver whipped out his revolver and be
fore he could level it, a Falin struck the muzzle of
a pistol into his back. Another Tolliver flashed
his weapon on the Falin. This Tolliver was cov
ered by another Falin and in so many flashes of
lightning the eight men in front of him were cov
ering each other every man afraid to be the first
to shoot, since he knew that the flash of his own
pistol meant instantaneous death for him. As
Hale shrank back, he pushed against somebody
who thrust him aside. It was the judge:
"Why don't somebody shoot?" he asked sar
castically. "You're a purty set o' fools, ain't you ?
I want you all to stop this damned foolishness.
Now when I give the word I want you, Jim Falin
and Rufe Tolliver thar, to drap yer guns."
60
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Already Rufe was grinning like a devil over the
absurdity of the situation.
"Now!" said the judge, and the two guns were
dropped.
"Put 'em in yo' pockets."
They did.
"Drap!" All dropped and, with those two, all
put up their guns each man, however, watching
now the man who had just been covering him. It
is not wise for the stranger to show too much in
terest in the personal affairs of mountain men, and
Hale left the judge berating them and went to the
hotel to get ready for the Gap, little dreaming how
fixed the faces of some of those men were in his
brain and how, later, they were to rise in his
memory again. His horse was lame but he
must go on: so he hired a "yaller" mule from the
landlord, and when the beast was brought around,
he overheard two men talking at the end of the porch.
"You don't mean to say they've made peace?"
"Yes, Rufe's going away agin and they shuk
hands all of 'em." The other laughed.
"Rufe ain't gone yitf"
The Cumberland River was rain-swollen. The
home-going people were helping each other across
it and, as Hale approached the ford of a creek half
a mile beyond the river, a black-haired girl was
standing on a boulder looking helplessly at the
yellow water, and two boys were on the ground
below her. One of them looked up at Hale:
6l
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I wish ye'd help this lady 'cross."
"Certainly," said Hale, and the girl giggled
when he laboriously turned his old mule up to the
boulder. Not accustomed to have ladies ride be
hind him, Hale had turned the wrong side. Again
he laboriously wheeled about and then into the yel
low torrent he went with the girl behind him, the
old beast stumbling over the stones, whereat the
girl, unafraid, made sounds of much merriment.
Across, Hale stopped and said courteously:
"If you are going up this way, you are quite
welcome to ride on."
"Well, I wasn't crossin' that crick jes' exactly
fer fun," said the girl demurely, and then she
murmured something about her cousins and looked
back. They had gone down to a shallower ford,
and when they, too, had waded across, they said
nothing and the girl said nothing so Hale started
on, the two boys following. The mule was slow
and, being in a hurry, Hale urged him with his
whip. Every time he struck, the beast would kick
up and once the girl came near going off.
"You must watch out, when I hit him," said
Hale.
"I don't know when you're goin' to hit him,"
she drawled unconcernedly.
"Well, I'll let you know," said Hale laughing.
"Now!" And, as he whacked the beast again,
the girl laughed and they were better acquainted.
Presently they passed two boys. Hale was wear-
62
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ing riding-boots and tight breeches, and one of the
boys ran his eyes up boot and leg and if they were
lifted higher, Hale could not tell.
" Whar'd you git him ?" he squeaked.
The girl turned her head as the mule broke into
a trot.
"Ain't got time to tell. They are my cous
ins," explained the girl.
"What is your name ?" asked Hale.
"Loretty Tolliver." Hale turned in his saddle.
"Are you the daughter of Dave Tolliver ?"
"Yes."
"Then youVe got a brother named Dave?"
"Yes." This, then, was the sister of the black-
haired boy he had seen in the Lonesome Cove.
"Haven't you got some kinfolks over the
mountain ?"
"Yes, I got an uncle livin' over thar. Devil
Judd, folks calls him," said the girl simply. This
girl was cousin to little June in Lonesome Cove.
Every now and then she would look behind them,
and when Hale turned again inquiringly she ex
plained:
"I'm worried about my cousins back thar.
I'm afeered somethin' mought happen to 'em."
"Shall we wait for them ?"
"Oh, no I reckon not."
Soon they overtook two men on horseback, and
after they passed and were fifty yards ahead of
them, one of the men lifted his voice jestingly:
63
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Is that your woman, stranger, or have you just
borrowed her?" Hale shouted back:
"No, I'm sorry to say, I've just borrowed her,"
and he turned to see how she would take this an
swering pleasantry. She was looking down shyly
and she did not seem much pleased.
"They are kinfolks o' mine, too," she said, and
whether it was in explanation or as a rebuke, Hale
could not determine.
"You must be kin to everybody around here?"
"Most everybody," she said simply.
By and by they came to a creek.
" I have to turn up here," said Hale.
"So do I," she said, smiling now directly at
him.
"Good!" he said, and they went on Hale ask
ing more questions. She was going to school at
the county seat the coming winter and she was
fifteen years old.
"That's right. The trouble in the mountains is
that you girls marry so early that you don't have
time to get an education." She wasn't going to
marry early, she said, but Hale learned now that
she had a sweetheart who had been in town that
day and apparently the two had had a quarrel.
Who it was, she would not tell, and Hale would
have been amazed had he known the sweetheart
was none other than young Buck Falin and that
the quarrel between the lovers had sprung from
the opening quarrel that day between the clans.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Once again she came near going off the mule, and
Hale observed that she was holding to the cantel
of his saddle.
"Look here," he said suddenly, "hadn't you
better catch hold of me?" She shook her head
vigorously and made two not-to-be-rendered sounds
that meant:
"No, indeed."
"Well, if this were your sweetheart you'd take
hold of him, wouldn't you ?"
Again she gave a vigorous shake of the head.
"Well, if he saw you riding behind me, he
wouldn't like it, would he ?"
"She didn't keer," she said, but Hale did; and
when he heard the galloping of horses behind
him, saw two men coming, and heard one of them
shouting "Hyeh, you man on that yaller mule,
stop thar" he shifted his revolver, pulled in and
waited with some uneasiness. They came up,
reeling in their saddles neither one the girl's
sweetheart, as he saw at once from her face and
began to ask what the girl characterized after
ward as "unnecessary questions": who he was,
who she was, and where they were going. Hale
answered so shortly that the girl thought there was
going to be a fight, and she was on the point of
slipping from the mule.
"Sit still," said Hale, quietly. "There's not
going to be a fight so long as you are here."
"Thar hain't!" said one of the men. "Well"
65
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
then he looked sharply at the girl and turned his
horse "Come on, Bill that's ole Dave Tolli-
ver's gal." The girl's face was on fire.
"Them mean Falins!" she said contemptu
ously, and somehow the mere fact that Hale had
been even for the moment antagonistic to the other
faction seemed to put him in the girl's mind at
once on her side, and straightway she talked
freely of the feud. Devil Judd had taken no active
part in it for a long time, she said, except to keep
it down especially since he and her father had
had a "fallin' out" and the two families did not
visit much though she and her cousin June
sometimes spent the night with each other.
"You won't be able to git over thar till long
atter dark," she said, and she caught her breath
so suddenly and so sharply that Hale turned to see
what the matter was. She searched his face with
her black eyes, which were like June's without the
depths of June's.
"I was just a-wonderin' if mebbe you wasn't
the same feller that was over in Lonesome last
fall."
"Maybe I am my name's Hale." The girl
laughed. "Well, if this ain't the beatenest! I've
heerd June talk about you. My brother Dave
don't like you overmuch," she added frankly.
"I reckon we'll see Dave purty soon. If this ain't
the beatenest!" she repeated, and she laughed
again, as she always did laugh, it seemed to Hale,
66
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
when there was any prospect of getting him into
trouble.
"You can't git over thar till long atter dark,"
she said again presently.
" Is there any place on the way where I can get
to stay all night ? "
"You can stay all night with the Red Fox on
top of the mountain."
"The Red Fox," repeated Hale.
"Yes, he lives right on top of the mountain.
You can't miss his house."
"Oh, yes, I remember him. I saw him talking
to one of the Falins in town to-day, behind the
barn, when I went to get my horse."
"You seed him a-talkin' to a Falin afore
the trouble come up ? " the girl asked slowly and
with such significance that Hale turned to look at
her. He felt straightway that he ought not to have
said that, and the day was to come when he would
remember it to his cost. He knew how foolish it
was for the stranger to show sympathy with, or
interest in, one faction or another in a mountain
feud, but to give any kind of information of one to
the other that was unwise indeed. Ahead of
them now, a little stream ran from a ravine across
the road. Beyond was a cabin; in the doorway
were several faces, and sitting on a horse at the gate
was young Dave Tolliver.
"Well, I git down here," said the girl, and before
his mule stopped she slid from behind him and
6?
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
made for the gate without a word of thanks or
good-by.
"Howdye!" said Hale, taking in the group with
his glance, but leaving his eyes on young Dave.
The rest nodded, but the boy was too surprised for
speech, and the spirit of deviltry took the girl
when she saw her brother's face, and at the gate
she turned :
"Much obleeged," she said. "Tell June I'm
a-comin' over to see her next Sunday."
"I will," said Hale, and he rode on. To his
surprise, when he had gone a hundred yards, he
heard the boy spurring after him and he looked
around inquiringly as young Dave drew alongside;
but the boy said nothing and Hale, amused, kept
still, wondering when the lad would open speech.
At the mouth of another little creek the boy
stopped his horse as though he was to turn up that
way.
"You've come back agin," he said, searching
Hale's face with his black eyes.
"Yes," said Hale, "I've come back again."
" You goin' over to Lonesome Cove ?"
"Yes."
The boy hesitated, and a sudden change of
mind was plain to Hale in his face.
" I wish you'd tell Uncle Judd about the trouble
in town to-day," he said, still looking fixedly at
Hale.
"Certainly."
68
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Did you tell the Red Fox that day you seed
him when you was goin' over to the Gap last fall
that you seed me at Uncle Judd's ?"
"No," said Hale. "But how did you know
that I saw the Red Fox that day?" The boy
laughed unpleasantly.
"So long," he said. "See you agin some day."
The way was steep and the sun was down and
darkness gathering before Hale reached the top of
the mountain so he hallooed at the yard fence of
the Red Fox, who peered cautiously out of the
door and asked his name before he came to the
gate. And there, with a grin on his curious mis
matched face, he repeated young Dave's words:
"You've come back agin." And Hale repeated
his:
"Yes, I've come back again."
"You goin' over to Lonesome Cove ?"
"Yes," said Hale impatiently, "I'm going over
to Lonesome Cove. Can I stay here all night ?"
" Shore ! " said the old man hospitably. " That's
a fine hoss you got thar," he added with a chuckle.
"Been swappin'?" Hale had to laugh as he
climbed down from the bony ear-flopping beast.
"I left my horse in town he's lame."
"Yes, I seed you thar." Hale could not resist:
"Yes, and I seed you." The old man almost
turned.
"Whar?" Again the temptation was too
great.
69
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Talking to the Falin who started the row."
This time the Red Fox wheeled sharply and his
pale-blue eyes filled with suspicion.
"I keeps friends with both sides," he said.
"Ain't many folks can do that."
"I reckon not," said Hale calmly, but in the
pale eyes he still saw suspicion.
When they entered the cabin, a little old woman
in black, dumb and noiseless, was cooking supper.
The children of the two, he learned, had scattered,
and they lived there alone. On the mantel were
two pistols and in one corner was the big Win
chester he remembered and behind it was the big
brass telescope. On the table was a Bible and
a volume of Swedenborg, and among the usual
strings of pepper-pods and beans and twisted long
green tobacco were drying herbs and roots of all
kinds, and about the fireplace were bottles of
liquids that had been stewed from them. The
little old woman served, and opened her lips not
at all. Supper was eaten with no further refer
ence to the doings in town that day, and no word
was said about their meeting when Hale first
went to Lonesome Cove until they were smoking
on the porch.
"I heerd you found some mighty fine coal over
in Lonesome Cove."
"Yes."
" Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found some-
thin' else thar, too," chuckled the Red Fox.
7
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I did," said Hale coolly, and the old man
chuckled again.
"She's a purty leetle gal shore."
"Who is?" asked Hale, looking calmly at his
questioner, and the Red Fox lapsed into baffled
silence.
The moon was brilliant and the night was still.
Suddenly the Red Fox cocked his ear like a hound,
and without a word slipped swiftly within the
cabin. A moment later Hale heard the galloping
of a horse and from out the dark woods loped a
horseman with a Winchester across his saddle
bow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could
shout "Hello" the Red Fox had stepped from the
porch into the moonlight and was going to meet
him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful,
daring figure on horseback, and in the bright light
he could make out the reckless face of the man
who had been the first to flash his pistol in town
that day Bad Rufe Tolliver. For ten minutes
the two talked in whispers Rufe bent forward
with one elbow on the withers of his horse but lift
ing his eyes every now and then to the stranger
seated in the porch and then the horseman turned
with an oath and galloped into the darkness whence
he came, while the Red Fox slouched back to the
porch and dropped silently into his seat.
"Who was that ?" asked Hale.
"Bad Rufe Tolliver."
"I've heard of him."
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Most everybody in these mountains has.
He's the feller that's always causin' trouble. Him
and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end
the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe
claims Joe don't count now an' he's got the right
to come back. Soon's he comes back, things git
frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn't go back
unless another Falin goes too. Wirt Falin agreed,
and that's how they made peace to-day. Now
Rufe says he won't go at all truce or no truce.
My wife in thar is a Tolliver, but both sides comes
to me and I keeps peace with both of 'em."
No doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or
mischief with or against anybody with that face of
his. That was a common type of the bad man,
that horseman who had galloped away from the
gate but this old man with his dual face, who
preached the Word on Sundays and on other days
was a walking arsenal; who dreamed dreams and
had visions and slipped through the hills in his
mysterious moccasins on errands of mercy or
chasing men from vanity, personal enmity or for
fun, and still appeared so sane he was a type that
confounded. No wonder for these reasons and as
a tribute to his infernal shrewdness he was known
far and wide as the Red Fox of the Mountains.
But Hale was too tired for further speculation and
presently he yawned.
" Want to lay down ? " asked the old man quickly.
"I think I do," said Hale, and they went inside.
72
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
The little old woman had her face to the wall in a
bed in one corner and the Red Fox pointed to a
bed in the other:
"Thar's yo' bed." Again Hale's eyes fell on
the big Winchester.
"I reckon thar hain't more'n two others like it
in all these mountains."
"What's the calibre?"
"Biggest made," was the answer, "a 50 x 75."
"Centre fire?"
"Rim," said the Red Fox.
"Gracious," laughed Hale, "what do you want
such a big one for ?"
"Man cannot live by bread alone in these
mountains," said the Red Fox grimly.
When Hale lay down he could hear the old man
quavering out a hymn or two on the porch out
side: and when, worn out with the day, he went
to sleep, the Red Fox was reading his Bible by the
light of a tallow dip. It is fatefully strange when
people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back
to their first meetings with one another, and Hale
never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red
Fox. For had Bad Rufe Tolliver, while he whis
pered at the gate, known the part the quiet young
man silently seated in the porch would play in his
life, he would have shot him where he sat: and
could the Red Fox have known the part his sleep
ing guest was to play in his, the old man would
have knifed him where he lay.
73
TIT ALE opened his eyes next morning on the
A A little old woman in black, moving ghost-like
through the dim interior to the kitchen. A wood-
thrush was singing when he stepped out on the
porch and its cool notes had the liquid freshness
of the morning. Breakfast over, he concluded to
leave the yellow mule with the Red Fox to be
taken back to the county town, and to walk down
the mountain, but before he got away the land
lord's son turned up with his own horse, still lame,
but well enough to limp along without doing him
self harm. So, leading the black horse, Hale
started down.
The sun was rising over still seas of white mist
and wave after wave of blue Virginia hills. In
the shadows below, it smote the mists into tatters;
leaf and bush glittered as though after a heavy
rain, and down Hale went under a trembling dew-
drenched world and along a tumbling series of
water-falls that flashed through tall ferns, blos
soming laurel and shining leaves of rhododendron.
Once he heard something move below him and
then the crackling of brush sounded far to one
side of the road. He knew it was a man who would
74
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
be watching him from a covert and, straightway,
to prove his innocence of any hostile or secret pur
pose, he began to whistle. Farther below, two
men with Winchesters rose from the bushes and
asked his name and his business. He told both
readily. Everybody, it seemed, was prepared for
hostilities and, though the news of the patched-up
peace had spread, it was plain that the factions
were still suspicious and on guard. Then the
loneliness almost of Lonesome Cove itself set in.
For miles he saw nothing alive but an occasional
bird and heard no sound but of running water or
rustling leaf. At the mouth of the creek his
horse's lameness had grown so much better that he
mounted him and rode slowly up the river. With
in an hour he could see the still crest of the Lone
some Pine. At the mouth of a creek a mile farther
on was an old gristmill with its water-wheel asleep,
and whittling at the door outside was the old mil
ler, Uncle Billy Beams, who, when he heard the
coming of the black horse's feet, looked up and
showed no surprise at all when he saw Hale.
"I heard you was comin'," he shouted, hailing
him cheerily by name. "Ain't fishin' this time!"
"No," said Hale, "not this time."
"Well, git down and rest a spell. June'll be
here in a minute an' you can ride back with her.
I reckon you air goin' that a-way."
"June!"
"Shore! My, but she'll be glad to see ye!
75
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
She's always talkin' about ye. You told her you
was comin' back an' ever'body told her you
wasn't: but that leetle gal al'ays said she knowed
you was, because you said you was. She's growed
some an' if she ain't purty, well I'd tell a man!
You jes' tie yo' hoss up thar behind the mill so
she can't see it, an' git inside the mill when she
comes round that bend thar. My, but hit'll be a
surprise fer her."
The old man chuckled so cheerily that Hale, to
humour him, hitched his horse to a sapling, came
back and sat in the door of the mill. The old man
knew all about the trouble in town the day before.
"I want to give ye a leetle advice. Keep yo'
mouth plum' shut about this here war. I'm Jestice
of the Peace, but that's the only way I've kept
outen of it fer thirty years; an' hit's the only way
you can keep outen it."
"Thank you, I mean to keep my mouth shut,
but would you mind "
"Git in!" interrupted the old man eagerly.
"Hyeh she comes." His kind old face creased
into a welcoming smile, and between the logs of
the mill Hale, inside, could see an old sorrel horse
slowly coming through the lights and shadows
down the road. On its back was a sack of corn
and perched on the sack was a little girl with her
bare feet in the hollows behind the old nag's with
ers. She was looking sidewise, quite hidden by
a scarlet poke-bonnet, and at the old man's shout
7 6
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
she turned the smiling face of little June. With
an answering cry, she struck the old nag with a
switch and before the old man could rise to help
her down, slipped lightly to the ground.
"Why, honey," he said, "I don't know whut
I'm goin' to do 'bout yo' corn. Shaft's broke an'
I can't do no grindin' till to-morrow."
"Well, Uncle Billy, we ain't got a pint o' meal
in the house," she said. "You jes' got to lend
me some."
"All right, honey," said the old man, and he
cleared his throat as a signal for Hale.
The little girl was pushing her bonnet back
when Hale stepped into sight and, unstartled, un
smiling, unspeaking, she looked steadily at him
one hand motionless for a moment on her bronze
heap of hair and then slipping down past her
cheek to clench the other tightly. Uncle Billy
was bewildered.
"Why, June, hit's Mr. Hale why-
"Howdye, June!" said Hale, who was no less
puzzled and still she gave no sign that she had
ever seen him before except reluctantly to give him
her hand. Then she turned sullenly away and
sat down in the door of the mill with her elbows
on her knees and her chin in her hands.
Dumfounded, the old miller pulled the sack of
corn from the horse and leaned it against the mill.
Then he took out his pipe, rilled and lighted it
slowly and turned his perplexed eyes to the sun.
77
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Well, honey," he said, as though he were do
ing the best he could with a difficult situation,
" I'll have to git you that meal at the house. 'Bout
dinner time now. You an' Mr. Hale thar come
on and git somethin' to eat afore ye go back."
" I got to get on back home," said June, rising.
"No you ain't I bet you got dinner fer yo'
step-mammy afore you left, an' I jes' know you
was aimin' to take a snack with me an' ole Hon."
The little girl hesitated she had no denial and
the old fellow smiled kindly.
"Come on, now."
Little June walked on the other side of the
miller from Hale back to the old man's cabin, two
hundred yards up the road, answering his ques
tions but not Hale's and never meeting the latter's
eyes with her own. "ole Hon," the portly old
woman whom Hale remembered, with brass-
rimmed spectacles and a clay pipe in her mouth,
came out on the porch and welcomed them heartily
under the honeysuckle vines. Her mouth and
face were alive with humour when she saw Hale,
and her eyes took in both him and the little girl
keenly. The miller and Hale leaned chairs
against the wall while the girl sat at the entrance
of the porch. Suddenly Hale went out to his
horse and took out a package from his saddle-
pockets.
"I've got some candy in here for you," he said
smiling.
78
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I don't want no candy," she said, still not
looking at him and with a little movement of her
knees away from him.
"Why, honey," said Uncle Billy again, "whut
is the matter with ye ? I thought ye was great
friends." The little girl rose hastily.
"No, we ain't, nuther," she said, and she whisked
herself indoors. Hale put the package back with
some embarrassment and the old miller laughed.
"Well, well she's a quar little critter; mebbe
she's mad because you stayed away so long."
At the table June wanted to help ole Hon and
wait to eat with her, but Uncle Billy made her sit
down with him and Hale, and so shy was she that
she hardly ate anything. Once only did she look
up from her plate and that was when Uncle Billy,
with a shake of his head, said:
"He's a bad un." He was speaking of Rufe
Tolliver, and at the mention of his name there was
a frightened look in the little girl's eyes, when she
quickly raised them, that made Hale wonder.
An hour later they were riding side by side
Hale and June on through the lights and shad
ows toward Lonesome Cove. Uncle Billy turned
back from the gate to the porch.
"He ain't come back hyeh jes' fer coal," said
ole Hon.
"Shucks!" said Uncle Billy; "you women
folks can't think 'bout nothin' 'cept one thing.
He's too old fer her."
79
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"She'll git ole enough fer him an* you men-
folks don't think less you jes' talk less." And
she went back into the kitchen, and on the porch
the old miller puffed on a new idea in his pipe.
For a few minutes the two rode in silence and
not yet had June lifted her eyes to him.
" You've forgotten me, June."
"No, I hain't, nuther."
"You said you'd be waiting for me." June's
lashes went lower still.
"I was."
"Well, what's the matter? I'm mighty sorry
I couldn't get back sooner."
"Huh!" said June scornfully, and he knew
Uncle Billy in his guess as to the trouble was far
afield, and so he tried another tack.
"I've been over to the county seat and I saw
lots of your kinfolks over there." She showed
no curiosity, no surprise, and still she did not look
up at him.
"I met your cousin, Loretta, over there and I
carried her home behind me on an old mule"
Hale paused, smiling at the remembrance and
still she betrayed no interest.
"She's a mighty pretty girl, and whenever I'd
hit that old "
"She hain't!" the words were so shrieked out
that Hale was bewildered, and then he guessed
that the falling out between the fathers was more
serious than he had supposed.
80
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"But she isn't as nice as you are," he added
quickly, and the girl's quivering mouth steadied,
the tears stopped in her vexed dark eyes and she
lifted them to him at last.
"She ain't?"
"No, indeed, she ain't."
For a while they rode along again in silence.
June no longer avoided his eyes now, and the
unspoken question in her own presently came
out:
" You won't let Uncle Rufe bother me no more,
will ye?"
"No, indeed, I won't," said Hale heartily.
"What does he do to you ?"
"Nothin' 'cept he's always a-teasin' me, an'
an' I'm afeered o' him."
"Well, I'll take care of Uncle Rufe."
"I knowed youd say that," she said. "Pap
and Dave always laughs at me," and she shook
her head as though she were already threatening
her bad uncle with what Hale would do to him,
and she was so serious and trustful that Hale was
curiously touched. By and by he lifted one flap of
his saddle-pockets again.
" I've got some candy here for a nice little girl,"
he said, as though the subject had not been men
tioned before. "It's for you. Won't you have
some?"
" I reckon I will," she said with a happy smile.
Hale watched her while she munched a striped
81
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
stick of peppermint. Her crimson bonnet had
fallen from her sunlit hair and straight down from
it to her bare little foot with its stubbed toe just
darkening with dried blood, a sculptor would have
loved the rounded slenderness in the curving long
lines that shaped her brown throat, her arms and
her hands, which were prettily shaped but so very
dirty as to the nails, and her dangling bare leg.
Her teeth were even and white, and most of them
flashed when her red lips smiled. Her lashes were
long and gave a touching softness to her eyes even
when she was looking quietly at him, but there
were times, as he had noticed already, when a
brooding look stole over them, and then they were
the lair for the mysterious loneliness that was the
very spirit of Lonesome Cove. Some day that
little nose would be long enough, and some day, he
thought, she would be very beautiful.
"Your cousin, Loretta, said she was coming
over to see you."
June's teeth snapped viciously through the stick
of candy and then she turned on him and behind
the long lashes and deep down in the depth of
those wonderful eyes he saw an ageless something
that bewildered him more than her words.
"I hate her," she said fiercely.
"Why, little girl ?" he said gently.
"I don't know " she said and then the
tears came in earnest and she turned her head,
sobbing. Hale helplessly reached over and patted
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
her on the shoulder, but she shrank away from
him.
"Go away!" she said, digging her fist into her
eyes until her face was calm again.
They had reached the spot on the river where
he had seen her first, and beyond, the smoke of
the cabin was rising above the undergrowth.
"Lordy!" she said, "but I do git lonesome over
hyeh."
"Wouldn't you like to go over to the Gap with
me sometimes?"
Straightway her face was a ray of sunlight.
"Would I like to go over "
She stopped suddenly and pulled in her horse,
but Hale had heard nothing.
"Hello!" shouted a voice from the bushes, and
Devil Judd Tolliver issued from them with an
axe on his shoulder. "I heerd you'd come back
an' I'm glad to see ye." He .came down to the
road and shook Hale's hand heartily.
"Whut you been cryin' about?" he added,
turning his hawk-like eyes on the little girl.
"Nothin'," she said sullenly.
"Did she git mad with ye 'bout somethin'?"
said the old man to Hale. " She never cries 'cept
when she's mad." Hale laughed.
"You jes' hush up both of ye," said the girl
with a sharp kick of her right foot.
"I reckon you can't stamp the ground that fer
away from it," said the old man dryly. " If you
83
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
don't git the better of that all-fired temper o'
yourn hit's goin' to git the better of you, an' then
I'll have to spank you agin."
"I reckon you ain't goin' to whoop me no
more, pap. I'm a-gittin' too big."
The old man opened eyes and mouth with an
indulgent roar of laughter.
"Come on up to the house," he said to Hale,
turning to lead the way, the little girl following
him. The old step-mother was again a-bed; small
Bub, the brother, still unafraid, sat down beside
Hale and the old man brought out a bottle of
moonshine.
" I reckon I can still trust ye," he said.
" I reckon you can," laughed Hale.
The liquor was as fiery as ever, but it was grate
ful, and again the old man took nearly a tumbler
full plying Hale, meanwhile, about the happen
ings in town the day before but Hale could
tell him nothing that he seemed not already to
know.
" It was quar," the old mountaineer said. " I've
seed two men with the drap on each other and
both afeerd to shoot, but I never heerd of sech a
ring-around-the-rosy as eight fellers with bead on
one another and not a shoot shot. I'm glad I
wasn't thar."
He frowned when Hale spoke of the Red Fox.
"You can't never tell whether that ole devil is
fer ye or agin ye, but I've been plum' sick o' these
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
doin's a long time now and sometimes I think I'll
just pull up stakes and go West and git out of hit
altogether."
"How did you learn so much about yesterday
so soon r
14
Oh, we hears things purty quick in these
mountains. Little Dave Tolliver come over here
last night."
"Yes," broke in Bub, "and he tol' us how
you carried Loretty from town on a mule be
hind ye, and she jest a-sassin' you, an* as how
she said she was a-goin' to git you fer her sweet
heart."
Hale glanced by chance at the little girl. Her
face was scarlet, and a light dawned.
"An' sis, thar, said he was a-tellin' lies an'
when she growed up she said she was a-goin' to
marry "
Something snapped like a toy-pistol and Bub
howled. A little brown hand had whacked him
across the mouth, and the girl flashed indoors
without a word. Bub got to his feet howling with
pain and rage and started after her, but the old
man caught him:
"Set down, boy! Sarved you right fer blabbin'
things that hain't yo' business." He shook with
laughter.
Jealousy! Great heavens Hale thought in
that child, and for him!
"I knowed she was cryin' 'bout something like
85
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that. She sets a great store by you, an' she's
studied them books you sent her plum' to pieces
while you was away. She ain't nothin' but a
baby, but in sartain ways she's as old as her
mother was when she died." The amazing secret
was out, and thejittle girl appeared no more until
supper time, when she waited on the table, but at
no time would she look at Hale or speak to him
again. For a while the two men sat on the porch
talking of the feud and the Gap and the coal on
the old man's place, and Hale had no trouble get
ting an option for a year on the old man's land.
Just as dusk was setting he got his horse.
"You'd better stay all night."
"No, I'll have to get along."
The little girl did not appear to tell him good-
by, and when he went to his horse at the gate, he
called:
"Tell June to come down here. I've got some
thing for her."
"Go on, baby," the old man said, and the little
girl came shyly down to the gate. Hale took a
brown-paper parcel from his saddle-bags, un
wrapped it and betrayed the usual blue-eyed,
flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked doll. Only June did
not know the like of it was in all the world. And
as she caught it to her breast there were tears
once more in her uplifted eyes.
"How about going over to the Gap with me,
little girl some day?"
86
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
He never guessed it, but there were a child and
a woman before him now and both answered:
"I'll go with ye anywhar."
Hale stopped a while to rest his horse at the base
of the big pine. He was practically alone in the
world. The little girl back there was born for
something else than slow death in that God-for
saken cove, and whatever it was why not help
her to it if he could ? With this thought in his
brain, he rode down from the luminous upper
world of the moon and stars toward the nether
world of drifting mists and black ravines. She
belonged to just such a night that little girl
she was a part of its mists, its lights and shadows,
its fresh wild beauty and its mystery. Only once
did his mind shift from her to his great purpose,
and that was when the roar of the water through
the rocky chasm of the Gap made him think of the
roar of iron wheels, that, rushing through, some
day, would drown it into silence. At the mouth
of the Gap he saw the white valley lying at peace
in the moonlight and straightway from it sprang
again, as always, his castle in the air; but before
he fell asleep in his cottage on the edge of the
millpond that night he heard quite plainly again:
"I'll go with ye anywhar."
XI
CPRING was coming: and, meanwhile, that
late autumn and short winter, things went
merrily on at the gap in some ways, and in some
ways not.
Within eight miles of the place, for instance, the
man fell ill the man who was to take up Hale's
options and he had to be taken home. Still Hale
was undaunted: here he was and here he would
stay and he would try again. Two other young
men, Bluegrass Kentuckians, Logan and Mac-
farlan, had settled at the gap both lawyers and
both of pioneer, Indian-fighting blood. The re
port of the State geologist had been spread broad
cast. A famous magazine writer had come through
on horseback and had gone home and given a fer
vid account of the riches and the beauty of the
region. Helmeted Englishmen began to prowl
prospectively around the gap sixty miles to the
southwest. New surveying parties were direct
ing lines for the rocky gateway between the
iron ore and the coal. Engineers and coal ex
perts passed in and out. There were rumours of a
furnace and a steel plant when the railroad should
reach the place. Capital had flowed in from the
East, and already a Pennsylvanian was starting
88
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a main entry into a ten-foot vein of coal up through
the gap and was coking it. His report was that his
own was better than the Connellsville coke, which
was the standard: it was higher in carbon and
lower in ash. The Ludlow brothers, from East
ern Virginia, had started a general store. Two of
the Berkley brothers had come over from Blue-
grass Kentucky and their family was coming in
the spring. The bearded Senator up the valley,
who was also a preacher, had got his Methodist
brethren interested and the community was fur
ther enriched by the coming of the Hon. Samuel
Budd, lawyer and budding statesman. As a recre
ation, the Hon. Sam was an anthropologist: he
knew the mountaineers from Virginia to Alabama
and they were his pet illustrations of his pet theo
ries of the effect of a mountain environment on
human life and character. Hale took a great fancy
to him from the first moment he saw his smooth,
ageless, kindly face, surmounted by a huge pair of
spectacles that were hooked behind two large ears,
above which his pale yellow hair, parted in the
middle, was drawn back with plaster-like preci
sion. A mayor and a constable had been appoint
ed, and the Hon. Sam had just finished his first
case Squire Morton and the Widow Crane, who
ran a boarding-house, each having laid claim to
three pigs that obstructed traffic in the town. The
Hon. Sam was sitting by the stove, deep in thought,
when Hale came into the hotel and he lifted his
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
great glaring lenses and waited for no intro
duction :
" Brother," he said, " do you know twelve reliable
witnesses come on the stand and swore them pigs be
longed to the squire's sow, and twelve equally reliable
witnesses swore them pigs belonged to the Widow
Crane's sow ? I shorely was a heap perplexed."
"That was curious." The Hon. Sam laughed:
"Well, sir, them intelligent pigs used both them
sows as mothers, and may be they had another
mother somewhere else. They would breakfast
with the Widow Crane's sow and take supper with
the squire's sow. And so them witnesses, too, was
naturally perplexed."
Hale waited while the Hon. Sam puffed his pipe
into a glow:
"Believin', as I do, that the most important
principle in law is mutually forgivin' and a square
division o' spoils, I suggested a compromise. The
widow said the squire was an old rascal an' thief
and he'd never sink a tooth into one of them
shoats, but that her lawyer was a gentleman
meanin* me and the squire said the widow had
been blackguardin' him all over town and he'd see
her in heaven before she got one, but that his law
yer was a prince of the realm : so the other lawyer
took one and I got the other."
"What became of the third ?"
The Hon. Sam was an ardent disciple of Sir
Walter Scott:
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"Well, just now the mayor is a-playin' Gurth
to that little runt for costs."
Outside, the wheels of the stage rattled, and as
half a dozen strangers trooped in, the Hon. Sam
waved his hand: "Things is comin'."
Things were coming. The following week "the
booming editor" brought in a printing-press and
started a paper. An enterprising Hoosier soon
established a brick-plant. A geologist Hale's
predecessor in Lonesome Cove made the Gap
his headquarters, and one by one the vanguard of
engineers, surveyors, speculators and coalmen
drifted in. The wings of progress began to sprout,
but the new town-constable soon tendered his res
ignation with informality and violence. He had
arrested a Falin, whose companions straightway
took him from custody and set him free. Straight
way the constable threw his pistol and badge of
office to the ground.
"I've fit an' I've hollered fer help," he shouted,
almost crying with rage, "an' I've fit agin. Now
this town can go to hell": and he picked up his
pistol but left his symbol of law and order in the
dust. Next morning there was a new constable,
and only that afternoon when Hale stepped into
the Ludlow Brothers' store he found the constable
already busy. A line of men with revolver or knife
in sight was drawn up inside with their backs to
Hale, and beyond them he could see the new
constable with a man under arrest. Hale had not
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forgotten his promise to himself and he began
now:
"Come on," he called quietly, and when the
men turned at the sound of his voice, the con
stable, who was of sterner stuff than his prede
cessor, pushed through them, dragging his man
after him.
"Look here, boys," said Hale calmly. "Let's
not have any row. Let him go to the mayor's
office. If he isn't guilty, the mayor will let him go.
If he is, the mayor will give him bond. I'll go on
it myself. But let's not have a row."
Now, to the mountain eye, Hale appeared no
more than the ordinary man, and even a close
observer would have seen no more than that his
face was clean-cut and thoughtful, that his eye
was blue and singularly clear and fearless, and
that he was calm with a calmness that might come
from anything else than stolidity of temperament
and that, by the way, is the self-control which
counts most against the unruly passions of other
men but anybody near Hale, at a time when ex
citement was high and a crisis was imminent,
would have felt the resultant of forces emanating
from him that were beyond analysis. And so it
was now the curious power he instinctively had
over rough men had its way.
"Go on," he continued quietly, and the con
stable went on with his prisoner, his friends fol
lowing, still swearing and with their weapons in
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their hands. When constable and prisoner
passed into the mayor's office, Hale stepped
quickly after them and turned on the threshold
with his arm across the door.
"Hold on, boys," he said, still good-naturedly.
"The mayor can attend to this. If you boys want
to fight anybody, fight me. I'm unarmed and you
can whip me easily enough," he added with a
laugh, "but you mustn't come in here," he con
cluded, as though the matter was settled beyond
further discussion. For one instant the crucial
one, of course the men hesitated, for the reason
that so often makes superior numbers of no avail
among the lawless the lack of a leader of nerve
and without another word Hale held the door.
But the frightened mayor inside let the prisoner
out at once on bond and Hale, combining law and
diplomacy, went on the bond.
Only a day or two later the mountaineers, who
worked at the brick-plant with pistols buckled
around them, went on a strike and, that night, shot
out the lights and punctured the chromos in their
boarding-house. Then, armed with sticks, knives,
clubs and pistols, they took a triumphant march
through town. That night two knives and two
pistols were whipped out by two of them in the
same store. One of the Ludlows promptly blew
out the light and astutely got under the counter.
When the combatants scrambled outside, he
locked the door and crawled out the back window.
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Next morning the brick-yard malcontents marched
triumphantly again and Hale called for volunteers
to arrest them. To his disgust only Logan, Mac-
farlan, the Hon. Sam Budd, and two or three
others seemed willing to go, but when the few
who would go started, Hale, leading them, looked
back and the whole town seemed to be strung out
after him. Below the hill, he saw the mountaineers
drawn up in two bodies for battle and, as he led
his followers towards them, the Hoosier owner of
the plant rode out at a gallop, waving his hands
and apparently beside himself with anxiety and
terror.
"Don't," he shouted; "somebody '11 get killed.
Wait they'll give up." So Hale halted and the
Hoosier rode back. After a short parley he came
back to Hale to say that the strikers would give up,
but when Logan started again, they broke and ran,
and only three or four were captured. The Hoo
sier was delirious over his troubles and straight
way closed his plant.
"See," said Hale in disgust. "We've got to do
something now."
"We have," said the lawyers, and that night on
Hale's porch, the three, with the Hon. Sam Budd,
pondered the problem. They could not build a
town without law and order they could not have
law and order without taking part themselves, and
even then they plainly would have their hands
full. And so, that night, on the tiny porch of the
94
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little cottage that was Hale's sleeping-room and
office, with the creaking of the one wheel of their
one industry the old grist-mill making patient
music through the rhododendron-darkness that
hid the steep bank of the stream, the three pio
neers forged their plan. There had been gentlemen-
regulators a plenty, vigilance committees of gen
tlemen, and the Ku-Klux clan had been originally
composed of gentlemen, as they all knew, but
they meant to hew to the strict line of town-
ordinance and common law and do the rough every
day work of the common policeman. So volunteer
policemen they would be and, in order to extend
their authority as much as possible, as county
policemen they would be enrolled. Each man
would purchase his own Winchester, pistol, billy,
badge and a whistle to call for help and they
would begin drilling and target-shooting at once.
The Hon. Sam shook his head dubiously:
"The natives won't understand."
"We can't help that," said Hale.
"I know I'm with you."
Hale was made captain, Logan first lieutenant,
Macfarlan second, and the Hon. Sam third. Two
rules, Logan, who, too, knew the mountaineer
well, suggested as inflexible. One was never to
draw a pistol at all unless necessary, never to pre
tend to draw as a threat or to intimidate, and never
to draw unless one meant to shoot, if need be.
"And the other," added Logan, "always go in
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force to make an arrest never alone unless neces
sary." The Hon. Sam moved his head up and
down in hearty approval.
"Why is that? "asked Hale.
"To save bloodshed," he said. "These fellows
we will have to deal with have a pride that is mor
bid. A mountaineer doesn't like to go home and
have to say that one man put him in the calaboose
but he doesn't mind telling that it took several
to arrest him. Moreover, he will give in to two
or three men, when he would look on the coming
of one man as a personal issue and to be met as
such."
Hale nodded.
"Oh, there'll be plenty of chances," Logan
added with a smile, "for everyone to go it alone."
Again the Hon. Sam nodded grimly. It was plain
to him that they would have all they could do,
but no one of them dreamed of the far-reaching
effect that night's work would bring.
They were the vanguard of civilization "cru
saders of the nineteenth century against the be
nighted of the Middle Ages," said the Hon. Sam,
and when Logan and Macfarlan left, he lingered
and lit his pipe.
"The trouble will be," he said slowly, "that
they won't understand our purpose or our meth
ods. They will look on us as a lot of meddlesome
'furriners' who have come in to run their country
as we please, when they have been running it as
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
they please for more than a hundred years. You
see, you mustn't judge them by the standards of
to-day you must go back to the standards of the
Revolution. Practically, they are the pioneers of
that day and hardly a bit have they advanced.
They are our contemporary ancestors." And then
the Hon. Sam, having dropped his vernacular,
lounged ponderously into what he was pleased to
call his anthropological drool.
"You see, mountains isolate people and the
effect of isolation on human life is to crystallize it.
Those people over the line have had no navigable
rivers, no lakes, no wagon roads, except often the
beds of streams. They have been cut off from all
communication with the outside world. They are
a perfect example of an arrested civilization and
they are the closest link we have with the Old
World. They were Unionists because of the Revo
lution, as they were Americans in the beginning
because of the spirit of the Covenanter. They live
like the pioneers; the axe and the rifle are still
their weapons and they still have the same fight
with nature. This feud business is a matter of
clan-loyalty that goes back to Scotland. They ar
gue this way: You are my friend or my kinsman,
your quarrel is my quarrel, and whoever hits you
hits me. If you are in trouble, I must not testify
against you. If you are an officer, you must not
arrest me; you must send me a kindly request to
come into court. If I'm innocent and it's per-
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fectly convenient why, maybe I'll come. Yes,
we're the vanguard of civilization, all right, all
right but I opine we're goin' to have a hell of a
merry time."
Hale laughed, but he was to remember those
words of the Hon. Samuel Budd. Other members
of that vanguard began to drift in now by twos
and threes from the bluegrass region of Kentucky
and from the tide-water country of Virginia and
from New England strong, bold young men with
the spirit of the pioneer and the birth, breeding
and education of gentlemen, and the war between
civilization and a lawlessness that was the result
of isolation, and consequent ignorance and idleness
started in earnest.
"A remarkable array," murmured the Hon.
Sam, when he took an inventory one night with
Hale. "I'm proud to be among 'em."
Many times Hale went over to Lonesome Cove
and with every visit his interest grew steadily in
the little girl and in the curious people over there,
until he actually began to believe in the Hon. Sam
Budd's anthropological theories. In the cabin on
Lonesome Cove was a crane swinging in the big
stone fireplace, and he saw the old step-mother and
June putting the spinning wheel and the loom to
actual use. Sometimes he found a cabin of un
hewn logs with a puncheon floor, clapboards for
shingles and wooden pin and auger holes for
nails; a batten wooden shutter, the logs filled with
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
mud and stones and holes in the roof for the wind
and the rain. Over a pair of buck antlers some
times lay the long heavy home-made rifle of the
backwoodsman sometimes even with a flintlock
and called by some pet feminine name. Once he
saw the hominy block that the mountaineers had
borrowed from the Indians, and once a handmill
like the one from which the one woman was taken
and the other left in biblical days. He struck
communities where the medium of exchange was
still barter, and he found mountaineers drinking
metheglin still as well as moonshine. Moreover,
there were still log-rollings, house-warmings, corn-
shuckings, and quilting parties, and sports were the
same as in pioneer days wrestling, racing, jumping,
and lifting barrels. Often he saw a cradle of bee-
gum, and old Judd had in his house a fox-horn made
of hickory bark which even June could blow. He
ran across old-world superstitions, too, and met
one seventh son of a seventh son who cured chil
dren of rash by blowing into their mouths. And
he got June to singing transatlantic songs, after
old Judd said one day that she knowed the "mis-
erablest song he'd ever heerd" meaning the most
sorrowful. And, thereupon, with quaint sim
plicity, June put her heels on the rung of her
chair, and with her elbows on her knees, and her
chin on both bent thumbs, sang him the oldest
version of " Barbara Allen " in a voice that startled
Hale by its power and sweetness. She knew lots
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more "song-ballets," she said shyly, and the old
man had her sing some songs that were rather
rude, but were as innocent as hymns from her
lips.
Everywhere he found unlimited hospitality.
"Take out, stranger," said one old fellow, when
there was nothing on the table but some bread and
a few potatoes, "have a tater. Take two of 'em
take damn nigh all of 'em."
Moreover, their pride was morbid, and they
were very religious. Indeed, they used religion to
cloak their deviltry, as honestly as it was ever used
in history. He had heard old Judd say once, when
he was speaking of the feud :
"Well, I've al'ays laid out my enemies. The
Lord's been on my side an' I gits a better Chris
tian every year."
Always Hale took some children's book for
June when he went to Lonesome Cove, and she
rarely failed to know it almost by heart when he
went again. She was so intelligent that he began
to wonder if, in her case, at least, another of the
Hon. Sam's theories might not be true that the
mountaineers were of the same class as the other
westward-sweeping emigrants of more than a
century before, that they had simply lain dormant
in the hills and a century counting for nothing in
the matter of inheritance that their possibilities
were little changed, and that the children of that
day would, if given the chance, wipe out the handi-
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cap of a century in one generation and take their
place abreast with children of the outside world.
The Tollivers were of good blood; they had come
from Eastern Virginia, and the original Tolliver
had been a slave-owner. The very name was, un
doubtedly, a corruption of Tagliaferro. So, when
the Widow Crane began to build a brick house for
her boarders that winter, and the foundations of a
school-house were laid at the Gap, Hale began to
plead with old Judd to allow June to go over to
the Gap and go to school, but the old man was firm
in refusal:
"He couldn't git along without her," he said;
"he was afeerd he'd lose her, an' he reckoned June
was a-larnin' enough without goin' to school she
was a-studyin' them leetle books o' hers so hard."
But as his confidence in Hale grew and as Hale
stated his intention to take an option on the old
man's coal lands, he could see that Devil Judd,
though his answer never varied, was considering
the question seriously.
Through the winter, then, Hale made occasional
trips to Lonesome Cove and bided his time. Often
he met young Dave Tolliver there, but the boy
usually left when Hale came, and if Hale was al
ready there, he kept outside the house, until the
engineer was gone.
Knowing nothing of the ethics of courtship in
the mountains how, when two men meet at the
same girl's house, "they makes the gal say which
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one she likes best and t'other one gits" Hale little
dreamed that the first time Dave stalked out of the
room, he threw his hat in the grass behind the big
chimney and executed a war-dance on it, cursing
the blankety-blank "furriner" within from Dan
to Beersheba.
Indeed, he never suspected the fierce depths of
the boy's jealousy at all, and he would have
laughed incredulously, if he had been told how,
time after time as he climbed the mountain home
ward, the boy's black eyes burned from the bushes
on him, while his hand twitched at his pistol-butt
and his lips worked with noiseless threats. For
Dave had to keep his heart-burnings to himself or
he would have been laughed at through all the
mountains, and not only by his own family, but by
June's; so he, too, bided his time.
In late February, old Buck Falin and old Dave
Tolliver shot each other down in the road and the
Red Fox, who hated both and whom each thought
was his friend, dressed the wounds of both with
equal care. The temporary lull of peace that Bad
Rufe's absence in the West had brought about,
gave way to a threatening storm then, and then it
was that old Judd gave his consent: when the
roads got better, June could go to the Gap to
school. A month later the old man sent word that
he did not want June in the mountains while the
trouble was going on, and that Hale could come
over for her when he pleased: and Hale sent word
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back that within three days he would meet the
father and the little girl at the big Pine. That last
day at home June passed in a dream. She went
through her daily tasks in a dream and she hardly
noticed young Dave when he came in at mid-day,
and Dave, when he heard the news, left in sullen
silence. In the afternoon she went down to the
mill to tell Uncle Billy and ole Hon good-by and
the three sat in the porch a long time and with few
words. Ole Hon had been to the Gap once, but
there was "so much bustle over thar it made
her head ache." Uncle Billy shook his head
doubtfully over June's going, and the two old
people stood at the gate looking long after the little
girl when she went homeward up the road. Be
fore supper June slipped up to her little hiding-
place at the pool and sat on the old log saying
good-by to the comforting spirit that always
brooded for her there, and, when she stood on the
porch at sunset, a new spirit was coming on the
wings of the South wind. Hale felt it as he stepped
into the soft night air; he heard it in the piping of
frogs "Marsh-birds," as he always called them;
he could almost see it in the flying clouds and the
moonlight and even the bare trees seemed tremu
lously expectant. An indefinable happiness
seemed to pervade the whole earth and Hale
stretched his arms lazily. Over in Lonesome
Cove little June felt it more keenly than ever in
her life before. She did not want to go to bed that
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night, and when the others were asleep she slipped
out to the porch and sat on the steps, her eyes
luminous and her face wistful looking towards
the big Pine which pointed the way towards the
far silence into which she was going at last.
104
XII
TUNE did not have to be awakened that morn-
^ ing. At the first clarion call of the old rooster
behind the cabin, her eyes opened wide and a
happy thrill tingled her from head to foot why,
she didn't at first quite realize and then she
stretched her slender round arms to full length
above her head and with a little squeal of joy
bounded out of the bed, dressed as she was when
she went into it, and with no changes to make ex
cept to push back her tangled hair. Her father
was out feeding the stock and she could hear her
step-mother in the kitchen. Bub still slept soundly,
and she shook him by the shoulder.
"Git up, Bub."
"Go 'way," said Bub fretfully. Again she
started to shake him but stopped Bub wasn't
going to the Gap, so she let him sleep. For a little
while she looked down at him at his round rosy
face and his frowsy hair from under which pro
truded one dirty fist. She was going to leave him,
and a fresh tenderness for him made her breast
heave, but she did not kiss him, for sisterly kisses
are hardly known in the hills. Then she went out
into the kitchen to help her step-mother.
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"Gittin' mighty busy, all of a sudden, ain't
ye/' said the sour old woman, "now that ye air
goin' away."
"Tain't costin' you nothing" answered June
quietly, and she picked up a pail and went out into
the frosty, shivering daybreak to the old well. The
chain froze her fingers, the cold water splashed her
feet, and when she had tugged her heavy burden
back to the kitchen, she held her red, chapped
hands to the fire.
"I reckon you'll be mighty glad to git shet o'
me." The old woman sniffled, and June looked
around with a start.
"Pears like I'm goin' to miss ye right smart,"
she quavered, and June's face coloured with a new
feeling towards her step-mother.
"I'm goin' ter have a hard time doin' all the
work and me so poorly."
" Lorrety is a-comin' over to he'p ye, if ye git
sick," said June, hardening again. "Or, I'll come
back myself." She got out the dishes and set
them on the table.
"You an' me don't git along very well to
gether," she went on placidly. "I never heerd o'
no step-mother and children as did, an' I reckon
you'll be might glad to git shet o' me."
"Pears like I'm going to miss ye a right
smart," repeated the old woman weakly.
June went out to the stable with the milking
pail. Her father had spread fodder for the cow
1 06
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and she could hear the rasping of the ears of corn
against each other as he tumbled them into the
trough for the old sorrel. She put her head against
the cow's soft flank and under her sinewy fingers
two streams of milk struck the bottom of the tin
pail with such thumping loudness that she did
not hear her father's step; but when she rose to
make the beast put back her right leg, she saw
him looking at her.
"Who's goin' ter milk, pap, atter I'm gone ?"
"This the fust time you thought o' that?"
June put her flushed cheek back to the flank of the
cow. It was not the first time she had thought of
that her step-mother would milk and if she were
ill, her father or Loretta. She had not meant to
ask that question she was wondering when they
would start. That was what she meant to ask
and she was glad that she had swerved. Break
fast was eaten in the usual silence by the boy and
the man June and the step-mother serving it,
and waiting on the lord that was and the lord that
was to be and then the two females sat down.
"Hurry up, June," said the old man, wiping his
mouth and beard with the back of his hand.
"Clear away the dishes an' git ready. Hale said
he would meet us at the Pine an' hour by sun, fer I
told him I had to git back to work. Hurry up,
now!"
June hurried up. She was too excited to eat
anything, so she began to wash the dishes while
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
her step-mother ate. Then she went into the
living-room to pack her things and it didn't take
long. She wrapped the doll Hale had given her in
an extra petticoat, wound one pair of yarn stock
ings around a pair of coarse shoes, tied them up
into one bundle and she was ready. Her father
appeared with the sorrel horse, caught up his
saddle from the porch, threw it on and stretched
the blanket behind it as a pillion for June to ride on.
"Let's go!" he said. There is little or no
demonstrativeness in the domestic relations of
mountaineers. The kiss of courtship is the only
one known. There were no good-bys only that
short "Let's go!"
June sprang behind her father from the porch.
The step-mother handed her the bundle which
she clutched in her lap, and they simply rode
away, the step-mother and Bub silently gazing
after them. But June saw the boy's mouth work
ing, and when she turned the thicket at the creek,
she looked back at the two quiet figures, and a
keen pain cut her heart. She shut her mouth
closely, gripped her bundle more tightly and the
tears streamed down her face, but the man did
not know. They climbed in silence. Sometimes
her father dismounted where the path was steep,
but June sat on the horse to hold the bundle and
thus they mounted through the mist and chill of
the morning. A shout greeted them from the top
of the little spur whence the big Pine was visible,
1 08
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and up there they found Hale waiting. He had
reached the Pine earlier than they and was coming
down to meet them.
"Hello, little girl," called Hale cheerily, "you
didn't fail me, did you ?"
June shook her head and smiled. Her face was
blue and her little legs, dangling under the bundle,
were shrinking from the cold. Her bonnet had
fallen to the back of her neck, and he saw that her
hair was parted and gathered in a Psyche knot at
the back of her head, giving her a quaint old look
when she stood on the ground in her crimson gown.
Hale had not forgotten a pillion and there the
transfer was made. Hale lifted her behind his
saddle and handed up her bundle.
"I'll take good care of her," he said.
"All right," said the old man.
"And I'm coming over soon to fix up that coal
matter, and I'll let you know how she's getting on."
"All right."
"Good-by," said Hale.
" I wish ye well," said the mountaineer. " Be a
good girl, Juny, and do what Mr. Hale thar tells
ye."
"All right, pap." And thus they parted. June
felt the power of Hale's big black horse with ex
ultation the moment he started.
"Now we're off," said Hale gayly, and he patted
the little hand that was about his waist. "Give
me that bundle."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I can carry it."
"No, you can't not with me," and when he
reached around for it and put it on the cantle of
his saddle, June thrust her left hand into his over
coat pocket and Hale laughed.
"Loretta wouldn't ride with me this way."
"Loretty ain't got much sense," drawled June
complacently. "Tain't no harm. But don't you
tell me! I don't want to hear nothin' 'bout Lo
retty noway." Again Hale laughed and June
laughed, too. Imp that she was, she was just pre
tending to be jealous now. She could see the big
Pine over his shoulder.
"I've knowed that tree since I was a little girl
since I was a baby," she said, and the tone of her
voice was new to Hale. "Sister Sally uster tell me
lots about that ole tree." Hale waited, but she
stopped again.
"What did she tell you?"
"She used to say hit was curious that hit should
be 'way up here all alone that she reckollected it
ever since she was a baby, and she used to come up
here and talk to it, and she said sometimes she
could hear it jus' a whisperin' to her when she
was down home in the cove."
"What did she say it said?"
"She said it was always a-whisperin' 'come
come come!" June crooned the words, "an*
atter she died, I heerd the folks sayin' as how she
riz up in bed with her eyes right wide an' sayin'
no
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
'I hears it! It's a-whisperin' I hears it come
come come'!" And still Hale kept quiet when
she stopped again.
"The Red Fox said hit was the sperits, but I
knowed when they told me that she was a thinkin'
o' that ole tree thar. But I never let on. I reckon
that's one reason made me come here that day."
They were close to the big tree now and Hale dis
mounted to fix his girth for the descent.
"Well, I'm mighty glad you came, little girl.
I might never have seen you."
"That's so," said June.
" I saw the print of your foot in the mud right
there."
"Did ye?"
"And if I hadn't, I might never have gone down
into Lonesome Cove." June laughed.
" You ran from me," Hale went on.
"Yes, I did: an' that's why you follered me."
Hale looked up quickly. Her face was demure,
but her eyes danced. She was an aged little thing.
"Why did you run?"
"I thought yo' fishin' pole was a rifle-gun an*
that you was a raider." Hale laughed "I see."
"'Member when you let yo' horse drink?"
Hale nodded. "Well, I was on a rock above the
creek, lookin' down at ye. An' I seed ye catchin'
minners an' thought you was goin' up the crick
lookin' fer a still."
"Weren't you afraid of me then ?"
in
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Huh!" she said contemptuously. "I wasn't
afeared of you at all, 'cept fer what you mought
find out. You couldn't do no harm to nobody
without a gun, and I knowed thar wasn't no still
up that crick. I know I knowed whar it was."
Hale noticed the quick change of tense.
"Won't you take me to see it some time ?"
"No!" she said shortly, and Hale knew he had
made a mistake. It was too steep for both to ride
now, so he tied the bundle to the cantle with leath
ern strings and started leading the horse. June
pointed to the edge of the cliff.
"I was a-layin' flat right thar and I seed you
comin' down thar. My, but you looked funny to
me! You don't now," she added hastily. "You
look mighty nice to me now !"
"You're a little rascal," said Hale, "that's
what you are." The little girl bubbled with
laughter and then she grew mock-serious.
"No, I ain't."
"Yes, you are," he repeated, shaking his head,
and both were silent for a while. June was going to
begin her education now and it was just as well for
him to begin with it now. So he started vaguely
when he was mounted again:
"June, you thought my clothes were funny
when you first saw them didn't you ?"
"Uh, huh!" said June.
" But you like them now ?"
"Uh, huh!" she crooned again.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Well, some people who weren't used to clothes
that people wear over in the mountains might
think them funny for the same reason mightn't
they ?" June was silent for a moment.
"Well, mebbe, I like your clothes better, because
I like you better," she said, and Hale laughed.
"Well, it's just the same the way people in the
mountains dress and talk is different from the way
people outside dress and talk. It doesn't make
much difference about clothes, though, I guess
you will want to be as much like people over here
as you can "
"I don't know," interrupted the little girl
shortly, "I ain't seed 'em yit."
"Well," laughed Hale, "you will want to talk
like them anyhow, because everybody who is
learning tries to talk the same way." June was
silent, and Hale plunged unconsciously on.
"Up at the Pine now you said, 'I seed you when
I was a-layin on the edge of the cliff'; now you
ought to have said, 'I saw you when I was ly-
ing '"
"I wasn't," she said sharply, "I don't tell
lies " her hand shot from his waist and she slid
suddenly to the ground. He pulled in his horse
and turned a bewildered face. She had lighted
on her feet and was poised back above him like
an enraged eaglet her thin nostrils quivering, her
mouth as tight as a bow-string, and her eyes two
points of fire.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Why June!"
"Ef you don't like my clothes an' the way I
talk, I reckon I'd better go back home." With a
groan Hale tumbled from his horse. Fool that he
was, he had forgotten the sensitive pride of the
mountaineer, even while he was thinking of that
pride. He knew that fun might be made of her
speech and her garb by her schoolmates over at
the Gap, and he was trying to prepare her to save
her mortification, to make her understand.
"Why, June, little girl, I didn't mean to hurt
your feelings. You don't understand you can't
now, but you will. Trust me, won't you ? I like
you just as you are. I love the way you talk. But
other people forgive me, won't you ?" he pleaded.
"I'm sorry. I wouldn't hurt you for the world."
She didn't understand she hardly heard what
he said, but she did know his distress was genuine
and his sorrow: and his voice melted her fierce
little heart. The tears began to come, while she
looked, and when he put his arms about her, she
put her face on his breast and sobbed.
"There now!" he said soothingly. "It's all
right now. I'm so sorry so very sorry," and he
patted her on the shoulder and laid his hand across
her temple and hair, and pressed her head tight to
his breast. Almost as suddenly she stopped sob
bing and loosening herself turned away from
him.
"I'm a fool that's what I am," she said hotly.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"No, you aren't! Come on, little girl! We're
friends again, aren't we?" June was digging at
her eyes with both hands.
"Aren't we?"
"Yes," she said with an angry little catch of
her breath, and she turned submissively to let him
lift her to her seat. Then she looked down into
his face.
"Jack," she said, and he started again at the
frank address, "I ain't never goin to do that no
more."
"Yes, you are, little girl," he said soberly but
cheerily. "You're goin' to do it whenever I'm
wrong or whenever you think I'm wrong." She
shook her head seriously.
"No, Jack."
In a few minutes they were at the foot of the
mountain and on a level road.
"Hold tight!" Hale shouted, "I'm going to let
him out now." At the touch of his spur, the big
black horse sprang into a gallop, faster and faster,
until he was pounding the hard road in a swift run
like thunder. At the creek Hale pulled in and
looked around. June's bonnet was down, her hair
was tossed, her eyes were sparkling fearlessly, and
her face was flushed with joy.
"Like it, June?"
" I never did know nothing like it."
"You weren't scared?"
"Skeered o' what?" she asked, and Hale won-
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
dered if there was anything of which she would be
afraid.
They were entering the Gap now and June's eyes
got big with wonder over the mighty up-shooting
peaks and the rushing torrent.
"See that big rock yonder, June?" June
craned her neck to follow with her eyes his out
stretched finger.
"Uh, huh."
"Well, that's called Bee Rock, because it's cov
ered with flowers purple rhododendrons and
laurel and bears used to go there for wild honey.
They say that once on a time folks around here
put whiskey in the honey and the bears got so
drunk that people came and knocked 'em in the
head with clubs."
"Well, what do you think o' that!" said June
wonderingly.
Before them a big mountain loomed, and a few
minutes later, at the mouth of the Gap, Hale
stopped and turned his horse sidewise.
"There we are, June," he said.
June saw the lovely little valley rimmed with big
mountains. She could follow the course of the
two rivers that encircled it by the trees that fringed
their banks, and she saw smoke rising here and there
and that was all. She was a little disappointed.
"It's mighty purty," she said, "I never seed"
she paused, but went on without correcting her
self "so much level land in all my life."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
The morning mail had just come in as they rode
by the post-office and several men hailed her
escort, and all stared with some wonder at her.
Hale smiled to himself, drew up for none and put
on a face of utter unconsciousness that he was do
ing anything unusual. June felt vaguely uncom
fortable. Ahead of them, when they turned the
corner of the street, her eyes fell on a strange tall
red house with yellow trimmings, that was not
built of wood and had two sets of windows one
above the other, and before that Hale drew up.
"Here we are. Get down, little girl."
"Good-morning!" said a voice. Hale looked
around and flushed, and June looked around and
stared transfixed as by a vision from another
world at the dainty figure behind them in a walk
ing suit, a short skirt that showed two little feet
in laced tan boots and a cap with a plume, under
which was a pair of wide blue eyes with long
lashes, and a mouth that suggested active mischief
and gentle mockery.
"Oh, good-morning," said Hale, and he added
gently, "Get down, June!"
The little girl slipped to the ground and began
pulling her bonnet on with both hands but the
newcomer had caught sight of the Psyche knot
that made June look like a little old woman
strangely young, and the mockery at her lips was
gently accentuated by a smile. Hale swung from
his saddle.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"This is the little girl I told you about, Miss
Anne," he said. "She's come over to go to
school." Instantly, almost, Miss Anne had been
melted by the forlorn looking little creature who
stood before her, shy for the moment and dumb,
and she came forward with her gloved hand out
stretched. But June had seen that smile. She
gave her hand, and Miss Anne straightway was no
little surprised; there was no more shyness in the
dark eyes that blazed from the recesses of the sun-
bonnet, and Miss Anne was so startled when she
looked into them that all she could say was:
"Dear me!" A portly woman with a kind face
appeared at the door of the red brick house and
came to the gate.
"Here she is, Mrs. Crane," called Hale.
"Howdye, June!" said the Widow Crane
kindly. "Come right in!" In her June knew
straightway she had a friend and she picked up
her bundle and followed upstairs the first real
stairs she had ever seen and into a room on the
floor of which was a rag carpet. There was a bed
in one corner with a white counterpane and a
washstand with a bowl and pitcher, which, too, she
had never seen before.
"Make yourself at home right now," said the
Widow Crane, pulling open a drawer under a big
looking-glass "and put your things here. That's
your bed," and out she went.
How clean it was! There were some flowers in
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
a glass vase on the mantel. There were white
curtains at the big window and a bed to herself
her own bed. She went over to the window.
There was a steep bank, lined with rhododendrons,
right under it. There was a mill-dam below and
down the stream she could hear the creaking of a
water-wheel, and she could see it dripping and
shining in the sun a gristmill! She thought of
Uncle Billy and ole Hon, and in spite of a little
pang of home-sickness she felt no loneliness at all.
" I knew she would be pretty," said Miss Anne
at the gate outside.
" I told you she was pretty/' said Hale.
"But not so pretty as that" said Miss Anne.
"We will be great friends."
" I hope so for her sake," said Hale.
Hale waited till noon-recess was nearly over, and
then he went to take June to the school-house.
He was told that she was in her room and he went
up and knocked at the door. There was no an
swer for one does not knock on doors for en
trance in the mountains, and, thinking he had
made a mistake, he was about to try another room,
when June opened the door to see what the matter
was. She gave him a glad smile.
"Come on," he said, and when she went for her
bonnet, he stepped into the room.
"How do you like it?" June nodded toward
the window and Hale went to it.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Thar's Uncle Billy's mill out thar."
"Why, so it is," said Hale smiling. "That's
fine."
The school-house, to June's wonder, had
shingles on the outside around all the walls from
roof to foundation, and a big bell hung on top of
it under a little shingled roof of its own. A pale
little man with spectacles and pale blue eyes met
them at the door and he gave June a pale, slender
hand and cleared his throat before he spoke to her.
"She's never been to school," said Hale; "she
can read and spell, but she's not very strong on
arithmetic."
"Very well, I'll turn her over to the primary."
The school-bell sounded; Hale left with a parting
prophecy "You'll be proud of her some day"
at which June blushed and then, with a beating
heart, she followed the little man into his office.
A few minutes later, the assistant came in, and
she was none other than the wonderful young
woman whom Hale had called Miss Anne. There
were a few instructions in a halting voice and with
much clearing of the throat from the pale little
man; and a moment later June walked the gaunt
let of the eyes of her schoolmates, every one of
whom looked up from his book or hers to watch
her as she went to her seat. Miss Anne pointed out
the arithmetic lesson and, without lifting her eyes,
June bent with a flushed face to her task. It
reddened with shame when she was called to the
1 20
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
class, for she sat on the bench, taller by a head and
more than any of the boys and girls thereon, ex
cept one awkward youth who caught her eye and
grinned with unashamed companionship. The
teacher noticed her look and understood with a
sudden keen sympathy, and naturally she was
struck by the fact that the new pupil was the only
one who never missed an answer.
" She won't be there long," Miss Anne thought,
and she gave June a smile for which the little girl
was almost grateful. June spoke to no one, but
walked through her schoolmates homeward,
when school was over, like a haughty young
queen. Miss Anne had gone ahead and was
standing at the gate talking with Mrs. Crane, and
the young woman spoke to June most kindly.
"Mr. Hale has been called away on business,"
she said, and June's heart sank "and I'm going
to take care of you until he comes back."
"I'm much obleeged," she said, and while she
was not ungracious, her manner indicated her
belief that she could take care of herself. And
Miss Anne felt uncomfortably that this extraor
dinary young person was steadily measuring her
from head to foot. June saw the smart close-
fitting gown, the dainty little boots, and the care
fully brushed hair. She noticed how white her
teeth were and her hands, and she saw that the
nails looked polished and that the tips of them
were like little white crescents; and she could still
121
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
see every detail when she sat at her window, look
ing down at the old mill. She saw Mr. Hale when
he left, the young lady had said; and she had a
headache now and was going home to lie down.
She understood now what Hale meant, on the
mountainside when she was so angry with him.
She was learning fast, and most from the two per
sons who were not conscious what they were
teaching her. And she would learn in the school,
too, for the slumbering ambition in her suddenly
became passionately definite now. She went to
the mirror and looked at her hair she would
learn how to plait that in two braids down her
back, as the other school-girls did. She looked at
her hands and straightway she fell to scrubbing
them with soap as she had never scrubbed them
before. As she worked, she heard her name
called and she opened the door.
"Yes, mam!" she answered, for already she
had picked that up in the school-room.
"Come on, June, and go down the street with
me."
"Yes, mam," she repeated, and she wiped her
hands and hurried down. Mrs. Crane had looked
through the girl's pathetic wardrobe, while she
was at school that afternoon, had told Hale before
he left and she had a surprise for little June. To
gether they went down the street and into the chief
store in town and, to June's amazement, Mrs.
Crane began ordering things for "this little girl."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Who's a-goin' to pay fer all these things?"
whispered June, aghast.
"Don't you bother, honey. Mr. Hale said he
would fix all that with your pappy. It's some coal
deal or something don't you bother!" And
June in a quiver of happiness didn't bother.
Stockings, petticoats, some soft stuff for a new
dress and tan shoes that looked like the ones that
wonderful young woman wore and then some long
white things.
"What's them fer?" she whispered, but the
clerk heard her and laughed, whereat Mrs. Crane
gave him such a glance that he retired quickly.
"Night-gowns, honey."
"You sleep in 'em?" said June in an awed
voice.
"That's just what you do," said the good old
woman, hardly less pleased than June.
"My, but you've got pretty feet."
"I wish they were half as purty as
"Well, they are," interrupted Mrs. Crane a
little snappishly; apparently she did not like
Miss Anne.
"Wrap 'em up and Mr. Hale will attend to the
bill."
"All right," said the clerk looking much mys
tified.
Outside the door, June looked up into the
beaming goggles of the Hon. Samuel Budd.
"Is this the little girl? How dye, June," he
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said, and June put her hand in the Hon. Sam's
with a sudden trust in his voice.
" I'm going to help take care of you, too," said
Mr. Budd, and June smiled at him with shy grat
itude. How kind everybody was!
"I'm much obleeged," she said, and she and
Mrs. Crane went on back with their bundles.
June's hands so trembled when she found her
self alone with her treasures that she could hardly
unpack them. When she had folded and laid
them away, she had to unfold them to look at
them again. She hurried to bed that night merely
that she might put on one of those wonderful
night-gowns, and again she had to look all her
treasures over. She was glad that she had brought
the doll because he had given it to her, but she
said to herself "I'm a-gittin' too big now fer
dolls!" and she put it away. Then she set the
lamp on the mantel-piece so that she could see
herself in her wonderful night-gown. She let her
shining hair fall like molten gold around her shoul
ders, and she wondered whether she could ever
look like the dainty creature that just now was
the model she so passionately wanted to be like.
Then she blew out the lamp and sat a while by the
window, looking down through the rhododendrons,
at the shining water and at the old water-wheel
sleepily at rest in the moonlight. She knelt down
then at her bedside to say her prayers as her
dead sister had taught her to do and she asked
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
God to bless Jack wondering as she prayed that
she had heard nobody else call him Jack and
then she lay down with her breast heaving. She
had told him she would never do that again, but
she couldn't help it now the tears came and from
happiness she cried herself softly to sleep.
125
XIII
T TALE rode that night under a brilliant moon
*-"- to the worm of a railroad that had been
creeping for many years toward the Gap. The
head of it was just protruding from the Natural
Tunnel twenty miles away. There he sent his
horse back, slept in a shanty till morning, and then
the train crawled through a towering bench of
rock. The mouth of it on the other side opened
into a mighty amphitheatre with solid rock walls
shooting vertically hundreds of feet upward.
Vertically, he thought with the back of his head
between his shoulders as he looked up they were
more than vertical they were actually concave.
The Almighty had not only stored riches immeas
urable in the hills behind him He had driven
this passage Himself to help puny man to reach
the-~, and yet the wretched road was going toward
them like a snail. On the fifth night, thereafter
he was back there at the tunnel again from New
York with a grim mouth and a happy eye. He
had brought success with him this time and there
was no sleep for him that night. He had been de
layed by a wreck, it was two o'clock in the morn
ing, and not a horse was available; so he started
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
those twenty miles afoot, and day was breaking
when he looked down on the little valley shrouded
in mist and just wakening from sleep.
Things had been moving while he was away,
as he quickly learned. The English were buying
lands right and left at the gap sixty miles south
west. Two companies had purchased most of the
town-site where he was his town-site and were
going to pool their holdings and form an improve
ment company. But a good deal was left, and
straightway Hale got a map from his office and
with it in his hand walked down the curve of the
river and over Poplar Hill and beyond. Early
breakfast was ready when he got back to the
hotel. He swallowed a cup of coffee so hastily
that it burned him, and June, when she passed his
window on her way to school, saw him busy over
his desk. She started to shout to him, but he
looked so haggard and grim that she was afraid,
and went on, vaguely hurt by a preoccupation that
seemed quite to have excluded her. For two
hours then, Hale haggled and bargained, and at
ten o'clock he went to the telegraph office. The
operator who was speculating in a small way him
self smiled when he read the telegram.
"A thousand an acre?" he repeated with a
whistle. "You could have got that at twenty-five
per three months ago/'
"I know," said Hale, "there's time enough
yet." Then he went to his room, pulled the
127
.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
blinds down and went to sleep, while rumour
played with his name through the town.
It was nearly the closing hour of school when,
dressed and freshly shaven, he stepped out into the
pale afternoon and walked up toward the school-
house. The children were pouring out of the
doors. At the gate there was a sudden commo
tion, he saw a crimson figure flash into the group
that had stopped there, and flash out, and then
June came swiftly toward him followed closely by
a tall boy with a cap on his head. That far away
he could see that she was angry and he hurried
toward her. Her face was white with rage, her
mouth was tight and her dark eyes were aflame.
Then from the group another tall boy darted out
and behind him ran a smaller one, bellowing.
Hale heard the boy with the cap call kindly:
" Hold on, little girl ! I won't let 'em touch you."
June stopped with him and Hale ran to them.
"Here," he called, "what's the matter?"
June burst into crying when she saw him and
leaned over the fence sobbing. The tall lad with
the cap had his back to Hale, and he waited till
the other two boys came up. Then he pointed to
the smaller one and spoke to Hale without looking
around.
"Why, that little skate there was teasing this
little girl and "
"She slapped him," said Hale grimly. The
lad with the cap turned. His eyes were dancing
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and the shock of curly hair that stuck from his
absurd little cap shook with his laughter.
"Slapped him! She knocked him as flat as a
pancake."
"Yes, an' you said you'd stand fer her," said
the other tall boy who was plainly a mountain lad.
He was near bursting with rage.
"You bet I will," said the boy with the cap
heartily, "right now!" and he dropped his books
to the ground.
"Hold on!" said Hale, jumping between them.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he said
to the mountain boy.
"I wasn't atter the gal," he said indignantly.
"I was comin' fer him."
The boy with the cap tried to get away from
Hale's grasp.
"No use, sir," he said coolly. "You'd better
let us settle it now. We'll have to do it some time.
I know the breed. He'll fight all right and there's
no use puttin' it off. It's got to come."
"You bet it's got to come," said the mountain
lad. "You can't call my brother names."
"Well, he is a skate," said the boy with the
cap, with no heat at all in spite of his indignation,
and Hale wondered at his aged calm.
"Every one of you little tads," he went on
coolly, waving his hand at the gathered group,
"is a skate who teases this little girl. And you
older boys are skates for letting the little ones do
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
it, the whole pack of you and I'm going to spank
any little tadpole who does it hereafter, and I'm
going to punch the head off any big one who
allows it. It's got to stop now!" And as Hale
dragged him off he added to the mountain boy,
"and I'm going to begin with you whenever you
say the word." Hale was laughing now.
"You don't seem to understand," he said, "this
is my affair."
"I beg your pardon, sir, I don't understand."
"Why, I'm taking care of this little girl."
"Oh, well, you see I didn't know that. I've
only been here two days. But" his frank, gen
erous face broke into a winning smile "you
don't go to school. You'll let me watch out for
her there?"
"Sure! I'll be very grateful."
"Not at all, sir not at all. It was a great
pleasure and I think I'll have lots of fun." He
looked at June, whose grateful eyes had hardly
left his face.
" So don't you soil your little fist any more with
any of 'em, but just tell me er er "
"June," she said, and a shy smile came through
her tears.
"June," he finished with a boyish laugh.
"Good-by, sir."
"You haven't told me your name."
"I suppose you know my brothers, sir, the
Berkleys."
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"I should say so," and Hale held out his hand.
"You're Bob?''
"Yes, sir."
" I knew you were coming, and I'm mighty glad
to see you. I hope you and June will be good
friends and I'll be very glad to have you watch
over her when I'm away."
"I'd like nothing better, sir," he said cheer
fully, and quite impersonally as far as June was
concerned. Then his eyes lighted up.
"My brothers don't seem to want me to join
the Police Guard. Won't you say a word for me ?"
"I certainly will."
"Thank you, sir."
That "sir" no longer bothered Hale. At first
he had thought it a mark of respect to his superior
age, and he was not particularly pleased, but when
he knew now that the lad was another son of the
old gentleman whom he saw riding up the valley
every morning on a gray horse, with several dogs
trailing after him he knew the word was merely
a family characteristic of old-fashioned courtesy.
"Isn't he nice, June?"
"Yes," she said.
"Have you missed me, June ?"
June slid her hand into his. "I'm so glad you
come back." They were approaching the gate
now.
"June, you said you weren't going to cry any
more." June's head drooped.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I know, but I jes' can't help it when I git
mad," she said seriously. "I'd bust if I didn't."
"All right," said Hale kindly.
"I've cried twice," she said.
"What were you mad about the other time ?"
"I wasn't mad."
"Then why did you cry, June ?"
Her dark eyes looked full at him a moment and
then her long lashes hid them.
"Cause you was so good to me."
Hale choked suddenly and patted her on the
shoulder.
"Go in, now, little girl, and study. Then you
must take a walk. I've got some work to do.
I'll see you at supper time."
"All right," said June. She turned at the gate
to watch Hale enter the hotel, and as she started
indoors, she heard a horse coming at a gallop and
she turned again to see her cousin, Dave Tolliver,
pull up in front of the house. She ran back to the
gate and then she saw that he was swaying in his
saddle.
"Hello, June!" he called thickly.
Her face grew hard and she made no answer.
"I've come over to take ye back home."
She only stared at him rebukingly, and he
straightened in his saddle with an effort at self-
control but his eyes got darker and he looked ugly.
"D'you hear me? I've come over to take ye
home."
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" You oughter be ashamed o' yourself," she said
hotly, and she turned to go back into the house.
"Oh, you ain't ready now. Well, git ready an'
we'll start in the mornin'. I'll be aroun' fer ye
'bout the break o' day."
He whirled his horse with an oath June was
gone. She saw him ride swaying down the street
and she ran across to the hotel and found Hale
sitting in the office with another man. Hale saw her
entering the door swiftly, he knew something was
wrong and he rose to meet her.
"Dave's here," she whispered hurriedly, "an'
he says he's come to take me home."
"Well," said Hale, "he won't do it, will he?"
June shook her head and then she said signifi
cantly:
" Dave's drinkin'."
H ale's brow clouded. Straightway he foresaw
trouble but he said cheerily:
"All right. You go back and keep in the house
and I'll be over by and by and we'll talk it over."
And, without another word, she went. She had
meant to put on her new dress and her new shoes
and stockings that night that Hale might see her
but she was in doubt about doing it when she
got to her room. She tried to study her lessons for
the next day, but she couldn't fix her mind on
them. She wondered if Dave might not get into
a fight or, perhaps, he would get so drunk that he
would go to sleep somewhere she knew that men
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
did that after drinking very much and, anyhow,
he would not bother her until next morning, and
then he would be sober and would go quietly back
home. She was so comforted that she got to
thinking about the hair of the girl who sat in front
of her at school. It was plaited and she had
studied just how it was done and she began to
wonder whether she could fix her own that way.
So she got in front of the mirror and loosened hers
in a mass about her shoulders the mass that
was to Hale like the golden bronze of a wild tur
key's wing. The other girl's plaits were the same
size, so that the hair had to be equally divided-
thus she argued to herself but how did that girl
manage to plait it behind her back ? She did it
in front, of course, so June divided the bronze
heap behind her and pulled one half of it in front
of her and then for a moment she was helpless.
Then she laughed it must be done like the grass-
blades and strings she had plaited for Bub, of
course, so, dividing that half into three parts, she
did the plaiting swiftly and easily. When it was
finished she looked at the braid, much pleased
for it hung below her waist and was much longer
than any of the other girls' at school. The transi
tion was easy now, so interested had she become.
She got out her tan shoes and stockings and the
pretty white dress and put them on. The mill-
pond was dark with shadows now, and she went
down the stairs and out to the gate just as Dave
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
again pulled up in front of it. He stared at the
vision wonderingly and long, and then he began
to laugh with the scorn of soberness and the silli
ness of drink.
" Ton ain't June, air ye?" The girl never
moved. As if by a preconcerted signal three men
moved toward the boy, and one of them said
sternly:
"Drop that pistol. You are under arrest."
The boy glared like a wild thing trapped, from
one to another of the three a pistol gleamed in
the hand of each and slowly thrust his own
weapon into his pocket.
"Get off that horse," added the stern voice.
Just then Hale rushed across the street and the
mountain youth saw him.
"Ketch his pistol," cried June, in terror for
Hale for she knew what was coming, and one of
the men caught with both hands the wrist of
Dave's arm as it shot behind him.
"Take him to the calaboose!"
At that June opened the gate that disgrace
she could never stand but Hale spoke.
"I know him, boys. He doesn't mean any
harm. He doesn't know the regulations yet.
Suppose we let him go home."
"All right," said Logan. "The calaboose or
home. Will you go home ?"
In the moment, the mountain boy had appar
ently forgotten his captors he was staring at
135
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
June with wonder, amazement, incredulity strug
gling through the fumes in his brain to his flushed
face. She a Tolliver had warned a stranger
against her own blood-cousin.
"Will you go home ?" repeated Logan sternly,
The boy looked around at the words, as though
he were half dazed, and his baffled face turned
sick and white.
"Lemme loose!" he said sullenly. "I'll go
home." And he rode silently away, after giving
Hale a vindictive look that told him plainer than
words that more was yet to come. Hale had heard
June's warning cry, but now when he looked for
her she was gone. He went in to supper and sat
down at the table and still she did not come.
"She's got a surprise for you," said Mrs. Crane,
smiling mysteriously. "She's been fixing for you
for an hour. My! but she's pretty in them new
clothes why, June!"
June was coming in she wore her homespun,
her scarlet homespun and the Psyche knot. She
did not seem to have heard Mrs. Crane's note of
wonder, and she sat quietly down in her seat.
Her face was pale and she did not look at Hale.
Nothing was said of Dave in fact, June said
nothing at all, and Hale, too, vaguely understand
ing, kept quiet. Only when he went out, Hale
called her to the gate and put one hand on her
head.
"I'm sorry, little girl."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
The girl lifted her great troubled eyes to him,
but no word passed her lips, and Hale helplessly
left her.
June did not cry that night. She sat by the
window wretched and tearless. She had taken
sides with "furriners" against her own people.
That was why, instinctively, she had put on her old
homespun with a vague purpose of reparation to
them. She knew the story Dave would take back
home the bitter anger that his people and hers
would feel at the outrage done him anger against
the town, the Guard, against Hale because he was
a part of both and even against her. , Dave was
merely drunk, he had simply shot off his pistol
that was no harm in the hills. And yet everybody
had dashed toward him as though he had stolen
something even Hale. Yes, even that boy with
the cap who had stood up for her at school that
afternoon he had rushed up, his face aflame
with excitement, eager to take part should Dave
resist. She had cried out impulsively to save Hale,
but Dave would not understand. No, in his eyes
she had been false to family and friends to the
clan she had sided with "furriners." What
would her father say ? Perhaps she'd better go
home next day perhaps for good for there was
a deep unrest within her that she could not fath
om, a premonition that she was at the parting of
the ways, a vague fear of the shadows that hung
about the strange new path on which her feet were
137
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
set. The old mill creaked in the moonlight below
her. Sometimes, when the wind blew up Lone
some Cove, she could hear Uncle Billy's wheel
creaking just that way. A sudden pang of home
sickness choked her, but she did not cry. Yes, she
would go home next day. She blew out the light
and undressed in the dark as she did at home and
went to bed. And that night the little night-gown
lay apart from her in the drawer unfolded and
untouched.
138
XIV
1DUT June did not go home. Hale anticipated
"^ that resolution of hers and forestalled it by
being on hand for breakfast and taking June over
to the porch of his little office. There he tried to
explain to her that they were trying to build a
town and must have law and order; that they
must have no personal feeling for or against any
body and must treat everybody exactly alike no
other course was fair and though June could not
quite understand, she trusted him and she said
she would keep on at school until her father came
for her.
"Do you think he will come, June ?"
The little girl hesitated.
" I'm afeerd he will," she said, and Hale smiled.
"Well, I'll try to persuade him to let you stay, if
he does come."
June was quite right. She had seen the matter
the night before just as it was. For just at that
hour young Dave, sobered, but still on the verge
of tears from anger and humiliation, was telling
the story of the day in her father's cabin. The
old man's brows drew together and his eyes grew
fierce and sullen, both at the insult to a Tolliver
139
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and at the thought of a certain moonshine still up
a ravine not far away and the indirect danger to it
in any finicky growth of law and order. Still he
had a keen sense of justice, and he knew that
Dave had not told all the story, and from him
Dave, to his wonder, got scant comfort for an
other reason as well: with a deal pending for the
sale of his lands, the shrewd old man would not
risk giving offence to Hale not until that matter
was settled, anyway. And so June was safer from
interference just then than she knew. But Dave
carried the story far and wide, and it spread as a
story can only in the hills. So that the two people
most talked about among the Tollivers and,
through Loretta, among the Falins as well, were
June and Hale, and at the Gap similar talk would
come. Already Hale's name was on every tongue
in the town, and there, because of his recent pur
chases of town-site land, he was already, aside
from his personal influence, a man of mysterious
power.
Meanwhile, the prescient shadow of the coming
"boom" had stolen over the hills and the work of
the Guard had grown rapidly.
Every Saturday there had been local lawless
ness to deal with. The spirit of personal liberty
that characterized the spot was traditional. Here
for half a century the people of Wise County and
of Lee, whose border was but a few miles down
the river, came to get their wool carded, their grist
140
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ground and farming utensils mended. Here, too,
elections were held viva voce under the beeches,
at the foot of the wooded spur now known as Im-
boden Hill. Here were the muster-days of war
time. Here on Saturdays the people had come
together during half a century for sport and horse-
trading and to talk politics. Here they drank
apple-jack and hard cider, chaffed and quarrelled
and fought fist and skull. Here the bullies of the
two counties would come together to decide who
was the "best man." Here was naturally engen
dered the hostility between the hill-dwellers of
Wise and the valley people of Lee, and here was
fought a famous battle between a famous bully of
Wise and a famous bully of Lee. On election days
the country people would bring in gingercakes made
of cane-molasses, bread homemade of Burr flour
and moonshine and apple-jack which the candi
dates would buy and distribute through the
crowd. And always during the afternoon there
were men who would try to prove themselves the
best Democrats in the State of Virginia by resort
to tooth, fist and eye-gouging thumb. Then to
these elections sometimes would come the Ken-
tuckians from over the border to stir up the hos
tility between state and state, which makes that
border bristle with enmity to this day. For half
a century, then, all wild oats from elsewhere
usually sprouted at the Gap. And thus the Gap
had been the shrine of personal freedom the
141
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
place where any one individual had the right to
do his pleasure with bottle and cards and politics
and any other the right to prove him wrong if he
were strong enough. Very soon, as the Hon.
Sam Budd predicted, they had the hostility of Lee
concentrated on them as siding with the county of
Wise, and they would gain, in addition now, the
general hostility of the Kentuckians, because as a
crowd of meddlesome "furriners" they would be
siding with the Virginians in the general enmity
already alive. Moreover, now that the feud
threatened activity over in Kentucky, more trouble
must come, too, from that source, as the talk that
came through the Gap, after young Dave Tolliver's
arrest, plainly indicated.
Town ordinances had been passed. The wild
centaurs were no longer allowed to ride up and
down the plank walks of Saturdays with their
reins in their teeth and firing a pistol into the
ground with either hand; they could punctuate
the hotel sign no more; they could not ride at a
fast gallop through the streets of the town, and,
Lost Spirit of American Liberty! they could not
even yell. But the lawlessness of the town itself
and its close environment was naturally the first
objective point, and the first problem involved was
moonshine and its faithful ally "the blind tiger."
The "tiger" is a little shanty with an ever-open
mouth a hole in the door like a post-office win
dow. You place your money on the sill and, at the
142
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ring of the coin, a mysterious arm emerges from the
hole, sweeps the money away and leaves a bottle
of white whiskey. Thus you see nobody's face;
the owner of the beast is safe, and so are you
which you might not be, if you saw and told. In
every little hollow about the Gap a tiger had his
lair, and these were all bearded at once by a peti
tion to the county judge for high license saloons,
which was granted. This measure drove the tigers
out of business, and concentrated moonshine in
the heart of the town, where its devotees were
under easy guard. One "tiger" only indeed was
left, run by a round-shouldered crouching creature
whom Bob Berkley now at Hale's solicitation
a policeman and known as the Infant of the
Guard dubbed Caliban. His shanty stood mid
way in the Gap, high from the road, set against a
dark clump of pines and roared at by the river
beneath. Everybody knew he sold whiskey, but
he was too shrewd to be caught, until, late one
afternoon, two days after young Dave's arrest,
Hale coming through the Gap into town glimpsed
a skulking figure with a hand-barrel as it slipped
from the dark pines into Caliban's cabin. He
pulled in his horse, dismounted and deliberated.
If he went on down the road now, they would see
him and suspect. Moreover, the patrons of the
tiger would not appear until after dark, and he
wanted a prisoner or two. So Hale led his horse
up into the bushes and came back to a covert by
143
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the roadside to watch and wait. As he sat there,
a merry whistle sounded down the road, and Hale
smiled. Soon the Infant of the Guard came along,
his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his
head, his pistol bumping his hip in manly fashion
and making the ravines echo with his pursed lips.
He stopped in front of Hale, looked toward the
river, drew his revolver and aimed it at a floating
piece of wood. The revolver cracked, the piece of
wood skidded on the surface of the water and
there was no splash.
"That was a pretty good shot," said Hale in a
low voice. The boy whirled and saw him.
"Well what are you ?"
"Easy easy!" cautioned Hale. "Listen! I've
just seen a moonshiner go into Caliban's cabin."
The boy's eager eyes sparkled.
"Let's go after him."
"No, you go on back. If you don't, they'll be
suspicious. Get another man" Hale almost
laughed at the disappointment in the lad's face at
his first words, and the joy that came after it
"and climb high above the shanty and come back
here to me. Then after dark we'll dash in and
cinch Caliban and his customers."
"Yes, sir," said the lad. "Shall I whistle going
back ?" Hale nodded approval.
"Just the same." And ofF Bob went, whistling
like a calliope and not even turning his head to
look at the cabin. In half an hour Hale thought
144
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
he heard something crashing through the bushes
high on the mountain side, and, a little while after
ward, the boy crawled through the bushes to
him alone. His cap was gone, there was a bloody
scratch across his face and he was streaming with
perspiration.
" You'll have to excuse me, sir," he panted,
" I didn't see anybody but one of my brothers, and
if I had told him, he wouldn't have let me come.
And I hurried back for fear for fear something
would happen."
"Well, suppose I don't let you go."
"Excuse me, sir, but I don't see how you can
very well help. You aren't my brother and you
can't go alone."
"I was," said Hale.
" Yes, sir, but not now."
Hale was worried, but there was nothing else to
be done.
"All right. I'll let you go if you stop saying
'sir' to me. It makes me feel so old."
"Certainly, sir," said the lad quite uncon
sciously, and when Hale smothered a laugh, he
looked around to see what had amused him.
Darkness fell quickly, and in the gathering gloom
they saw two more figures skulk into the cabin.
"We'll go now for we want the fellow who's
selling the moonshine."
Again Hale was beset with doubts about the
boy and his own responsibility to the boy's broth-
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ers. The lad's eyes were shining, but his face was
more eager than excited and his hand was as
steady as Hale's own.
"You slip around and station yourself behind
that pine-tree just behind the cabin" the boy
looked crestfallen "and if anybody tries to get
out of the back door you halt him."
"Is there a back door?"
"I don't know," Hale said rather shortly.
"You obey orders. I'm not your brother, but
I'm your captain."
"I beg your pardon, sir. Shall I go now ?"
"Yes, you'll hear me at the front door. They
won't make any resistance." The lad stepped
away with nimble caution high above the cabin,
and he even took his shoes off before he slid lightly
down to his place behind the pine. There was no
back door, only a window, and his disappoint
ment was bitter. Still, when he heard Hale at the
front door, he meant to make a break for that
window, and he waited in the still gloom. He
could hear the rough talk and laughter within and
now and then the clink of a tin cup. By and by
there was a faint noise in front of the cabin, and
he steadied his nerves and his beating heart. Then
he heard the door pushed violently in and Hale's cry :
"Surrender!"
Hale stood on the threshold with his pistol out
stretched in his right hand. The door had struck
something soft and he said sharply again:
146
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Come out from behind that door hands
up!"
At the same moment, the back window flew
open with a bang and Bob's pistol covered the
edge of the opened door. "Caliban" had rolled
from his box like a stupid animal. Two of his
patrons sat dazed and staring from Hale to the
boy's face at the window. A mountaineer stood
in one corner with twitching ringers and shifting
eyes like a caged wild thing and forth issued from
behind the door, quivering with anger young
Dave Tolliver. Hale stared at him amazed, and
when Dave saw Hale, such a wave of fury surged
over his face that Bob thought it best to attract his
attention again; which he did by gently motion
ing at him with the barrel of his pistol.
"Hold on, there," he said quietly, and young
Dave stood still.
"Climb through that window, Bob, and collect
the batteries," said Hale.
" Sure, sir," said the lad, and with his pistol still
prominently in the foreground he threw his left
leg over the sill and as he climbed in he quoted
with a grunt: "Always go in force to make an
arrest." Grim and serious as it was, with June's
cousin glowering at him, Hale could not help
smiling.
"You didn't go home, after all," said Hale to
young Dave, who clenched his hands and his
lips but answered nothing; "or, if you did,
H7
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
you got back pretty quick." And still Dave was
silent.
"Get 'em all, Bob ?" In answer the boy went
the rounds feeling the pocket of each man's
right hip and his left breast.
"Yes, sir."
"Unload 'em!"
The lad "broke" each of the four pistols,
picked up a piece of twine and strung them to
gether through each trigger-guard.
"Close that window and stand here at the
door."
With the boy at the door, Hale rolled the hand-
barrel to the threshold and the white liquor gur
gled joyously on the steps.
"All right, come along," he said to the captives,
and at last young Dave spoke:
" Whut you takin' me fer ?"
Hale pointed to the empty hand-barrel and
Dave's answer was a look of scorn.
"I nuvver brought that hyeh."
"You were drinking illegal liquor in a blind
tiger, and if you didn't bring it you can prove that
later. Anyhow, we'll want you as a witness," and
Hale looked at the other mountaineer, who had
turned his eyes quickly to Dave. Caliban led the
way with young Dave, and Hale walked side by
side with them while Bob was escort for the other
two. The road ran along a high bank, and as Bob
was adjusting the jangling weapons on his left
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
arm, the strange mountaineer darted behind him
and leaped headlong into the tops of thick rhodo
dendron. Before Hale knew what had happened
the lad's pistol flashed.
"Stop, boy!" he cried, horrified. "Don't
shoot!" and he had to catch the lad to keep him
from leaping after the runaway. The shot had
missed; they heard the runaway splash into the
river and go stumbling across it and then there
was silence. Young Dave laughed :
"Uncle Judd'll be over hyeh to-morrow to see
about this." Hale said nothing and they went on.
At the door of the calaboose Dave balked and
had to be pushed in by main force. They left him
weeping and cursing with rage.
"Go to bed, Bob," said Hale.
"Yes, sir," said Bob; "just as soon as I get my
lessons."
Hale did not go to the boarding-house that
night he feared to face June. Instead he went
to the hotel to scraps of a late supper and then to
bed. He had hardly touched the pillow, it seemed,
when somebody shook him by the shoulder. It
was Macfarlan, and daylight was streaming
through the window.
"A gang of those Falins are here," Macfarlan
said, "and they're after young Dave Tolliver
about a dozen of 'em. Young Buck is with them,
and the sheriff. They say he shot a man over the
mountains yesterday."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Hale sprang for his clothes here was a quan
dary.
"If we turn him over to them they'll kill
him." Macfarlan nodded.
"Of course, and if we leave him in that weak
old calaboose, they'll get more help and take him
out to-night."
"Then we'll take him to the county jail."
"They'll take him away from us."
"No, they won't. You go out and get as many
shotguns as you can find and load them with
buckshot."
Macfarlan nodded approvingly and disap
peared. Hale plunged his face in a basin of cold
water, soaked his hair and, as he was mopping his
face with a towel, there was a ponderous tread on
the porch, the door opened without the formality
of a knock, and Devil Judd Tolliver, with his hat
on and belted with two huge pistols, stepped stoop
ing within. His eyes, red with anger and loss of
sleep, were glaring, and his heavy moustache and
beard showed the twitching of his mouth.
"Whar's Dave?" he said shortly.
"In the calaboose."
"Did you put him in ?"
"Yes," said Hale calmly.
"Well, by God," the old man said with re
pressed fury, "you can't git him out too soon if
you want to save trouble."
"Look here, Judd," said Hale seriously. "You
15
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
are one of the last men in the world I want to have
trouble with for many reasons; but I'm an officer
over here and I'm no more afraid of you" Hale
paused to let that fact sink in and it did "than
you are of me. Dave's been selling liquor."
"He hain't," interrupted the old mountaineer.
"He didn't bring that liquor over hyeh. I know
who done it."
"All right," said Hale; 'Til take your word for
it and I'll let him out, if you say so, but "
" Right now," thundered old Judd.
"Do you know that young Buck Falin and a
dozen of his gang are over here after him ?" The
old man looked stunned.
"Whut now?"
"They're over there in the woods across the
river now and they want me to give him up to
them. They say they have the sheriff with them
and they want him for shooting a man on Leather-
wood Creek, day before yesterday."
"It's all a lie," burst out old Judd. "They
want to kill him."
"Of course and I was going to take him up to
the county jail right away for safe-keeping."
"D'ye mean to say you'd throw that boy into
jail and then fight them Falins to pertect him?"
the old man asked slowly and incredulously.
Hale pointed to a two-store building through
his window.
" If you get in the back part of that store at a
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
window, you can see whether I will or not. I can
summon you to help, and if a fight comes up you
can do your share from the window!"
The old man's eyes lighted up like a leaping
flame.
"Will you let Dave out and give him a Win
chester and help us fight 'em?" he said eagerly.
"We three can whip 'em all."
"No," said Hale shortly. "I'd try to keep
both sides from fighting, and I'd arrest Dave or
you as quickly as I would a Falin."
The average mountaineer has little conception
of duty in the abstract, but old Judd belonged to
the better class and there are many of them
that does. He looked into Hale's eyes long and
steadily.
"All right."
Macfarlan came in hurriedly and stopped short
seeing the hatted, bearded giant.
"This is Mr. Tolliver an uncle of Dave's
Judd Tolliver," said Hale. "Go ahead."
"I've got everything fixed but I couldn't get
but five of the fellows two of the Berkley boys.
They wouldn't let me tell Bob."
"All right. Can I summon Mr. Tolliver
here?"
"Yes," said Macfarlan doubtfully, "but you
know-
"He won't be seen," interrupted Hale, under-
standingly. " He'll be at a window in the back of
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that store and he won't take part unless a fight
begins, and if it does, we'll need him."
An hour later Devil Judd Tolliver was in the
store Hale pointed out and peering cautiously
around the edge of an open window at the wooden
gate of the ramshackle calaboose. Several Falins
were there led by young Buck, whom Hale rec
ognized as the red-headed youth at the head of
the tearing horsemen who had swept by him that
late afternoon when he was coming back from his
first trip to Lonesome Cove. The old man gritted
his teeth as he looked and he put one of his huge
pistols on a table within easy reach and kept the
other clenched in his right fist. From down the
street came five horsemen, led by John Hale.
Every man carried a double-barrelled shotgun, and
the old man smiled and his respect for Hale rose
higher, high as it already was, for nobody moun
taineer or not has love for a hostile shotgun.
The Falins, armed only with pistols, drew near.
"Keep back!" he heard Hale say calmly, and
they stopped young Buck alone going on.
"We want that feller," said young Buck.
"Well, you don't get him," said Hale quietly.
"He's our prisoner. Keep back!" he repeated,
motioning with the barrel of his shotgun and
young Buck moved backward to his own men.
The old man saw Hale and another man the ser
geant go inside the heavy gate of the stockade.
He saw a boy in a cap, with a pistol in one hand
153
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and a strapped set of books in the other, come
running up to the men with the shotguns and he
heard one of them say angrily:
"I told you not to come."
"I know you did," said the boy imperturbably.
"You go on to school," said another of the
men, but the boy with the cap shook his head and
dropped his books to the ground. The big gate
opened just then and out came Hale and the ser
geant, and between them young Dave his eyes
blinking in the sunlight.
"Damn ye," he heard Dave say to Hale. "I'll
get even with you fer this some day" and then
the prisoner's eyes caught the horses and shotguns
and turned to the group of Falins and he shrank
back utterly dazed. There was a movement
among the Falins and Devil Judd caught up his
other pistol and with a grim smile got ready.
Young Buck had turned to his crowd :
"Men," he said, "you know I never back
down" Devil Judd knew that, too, and he was
amazed by the words that followed " an' if you
say so, we'll have him or die; but we ain't in our
own state now. They've got the law and the
shotguns on us, an' I reckon we'd better go slow."
The rest seemed quite willing to go slow, and,
as they put their pistols up, Devil Judd laughed in
his beard. Hale put young Dave on a horse and
the little shotgun cavalcade quietly moved away
toward the county-seat.
154
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The crestfallen Falins dispersed the other way
after they had taken a parting shot at the Hon.
Samuel Budd, who, too, had a pistol in his hand.
Young Buck looked long at him and then he
laughed :
"You, too, Sam Budd/' he said. "We folks'll
rickollect this on election day." The Hon. Sam
deigned no answer.
And up in the store Devil Judd lighted his pipe
and sat down to think out the strange code of eth
ics that governed that police-guard. Hale had
told him to wait there, and it was almost noon be
fore the boy with the cap came to tell him that
the Falins had all left town. The old man looked
at him kindly.
"Air you the little feller whut fit fer June ?"
"Not yet," said Bob; "but it's coming."
"Well, you'll whoop him."
"I'll do my best."
"Wharisshe?"
"She's waiting for you over at the boarding-
house."
"Does she know about this trouble ?"
"Not a thing; she thinks you've come to take
her home. The old man made no answer, and
Bob led him back toward Hale's office. June
was waiting at the gate, and the boy, lifting his
cap, passed on. June's eyes were dark with
anxiety.
"You come to take me home, dad ?"
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I been thinkin' 'bout it," he said, with a
doubtful shake of his head.
June took him upstairs to her room and pointed
out the old water-wheel through the window and
her new clothes (she had put on her old homespun
again when she heard he was in town), and the
old man shook his head.
"I'm afeerd 'bout all these fixin's you won't
never be satisfied agin in Lonesome Cove."
"Why, dad," she said reprovingly. "Jack
says I can go over whenever I please, as soon as
the weather gits warmer and the roads gits good."
"I don't know," said the old man, still shaking
his head.
All through dinner she was worried. Devil
Judd hardly ate anything, so embarrassed was he
by the presence of so many "furriners" and by
the white cloth and table-ware, and so fearful was
he that he would be guilty of some breach of man
ners. Resolutely he refused butter, and at the
third urging by Mrs. Crane he said firmly, but
with a shrewd twinkle in his eye:
"No, thank ye. I never eats butter in town.
I've kept store myself," and he was no little pleased
with the laugh that went around the table. The
fact was he was generally pleased with June's envi
ronment and, after dinner, he stopped teasing
June.
"No, honey, I ain't goin' to take you away. I
want ye to stay right where ye air. Be a good girl
156
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
now and do whatever Jack Hale tells ye and tell
that boy with all that hair to come over and
see me." June grew almost tearful with grat
itude, for never had he called her "honey" be
fore that she could remember, and never had he
talked so much to her, nor with so much kind
ness.
"Air ye comin' over soon ?"
"Mighty soon, dad."
"Well, take keer o' yourself."
" I will, dad," she said, and tenderly she watched
his great figure slouch out of sight.
An hour after dark, as old Judd sat on the
porch of the cabin in Lonesome Cove, young Dave
Tolliver rode up to the gate on a strange horse.
He was in a surly mood.
"He lemme go at the head of the valley and
give me this hoss to git here," the boy grudgingly
explained. "I'm goin' over to git mine ter-
morrer."
"Seems like you'd better keep away from that
Gap," said the old man dryly, and Dave red
dened angrily.
"Yes, and fust thing you know he'll be over
hyeh atter you" The old man turned on him
sternly
"Jack Hale knows that liquer was mine. He
knows I've got a still over hyeh as well as you do
an' he's never axed a question nor peeped an
eye. I reckon he would come if he thought he
157
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
oughter but I'm on this side of the state-line. If
I was on his side, mebbe I'd stop."
Young Dave stared, for things were surely
coming to a pretty pass in Lonesome Cove.
"An' I reckon," the old man went on, "hit 'ud
be better grace in you to stop sayin' things agin'
him; fer if it hadn't been fer him, you'd be laid
out by them Falins by this time."
It was true, and Dave, silenced, was forced into
another channel.
"I wonder," he said presently, "how them
Falins always know when I go over thar."
"I've been studyin' about that myself," said
Devil Judd. Inside, the old step-mother had
heard Dave's query.
" I seed the Red Fox this afternoon," she qua
vered at the door.
"Whut was he doin' over hyeh?" asked
Dave.
"Nothin'," she said, "jus' a-sneakin' aroun'
the way he's al'ays a-doin'. Seemed like he was
mighty pertickuler to find out when you was comin'
back."
Both men started slightly.
"We're all Tollivers now all right," said the
Hon. Samuel Budd that night while he sat with
Hale on the porch overlooking the mill-pond
and then he groaned a little.
"Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the
158
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Virginia side and they'd fight me tooth and toe-
nail for this a hundred years hence!"
He puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing.
"Yes, sir," he added cheerily, "we're in for a
hell of a merry time now. The mountaineer hates
as long as he remembers and he never forgets."
159
XV
T_JAND in hand, Hale and June followed the
footsteps of spring from the time June
met him at the school-house gate for their first
walk into the woods. Hale pointed to some boys
playing marbles.
"That's the first sign," he said, and with quick
understanding June smiled.
The birdlike piping of hylas came from a
marshy strip of woodland that ran through the
centre of the town and a toad was croaking at
the foot of Imboden Hill.
"And they come next."
They crossed the swinging foot-bridge, which
was a miracle to June, and took the foot-path
along the clear stream of South Fork, under the
laurel which June called "ivy," and the rhoden-
dendron which was "laurel" in her speech, and
Hale pointed out catkins greening on alders in one
swampy place and willows just blushing into life
along the banks of a little creek. A few yards
aside from the path he found, under a patch of
snow and dead leaves, the pink-and-white blos
soms and the waxy green leaves of the trailing
arbutus, that fragrant harbinger of the old Moth-
160
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
er's awakening, and June breathed in from it the
very breath of spring. Near by were turkey peas,
which she had hunted and eaten many times.
" You can't put that arbutus in a garden," said
Hale, "it's as wild as a hawk."
Presently he had the little girl listen to a pewee
twittering in a thorn-bush and the lusty call of a
robin from an apple-tree. A bluebird flew over
head with a merry chirp its wistful note of
autumn long since forgotten. These were the
first birds and flowers, he said, and June, knowing
them only by sight, must know the name of each
and the reason for that name. So that Hale found
himself walking the woods with an interrogation
point, and that he might not be confounded he
had, later, to dip up much forgotten lore. For
every walk became a lesson in botany for June,
such a passion did she betray at once for flowers,
and he rarely had to tell her the same thing twice,
since her memory was like a vise for everything,
as he learned in time.
Her eyes were quicker than his, too, and now
she pointed to a snowy blossom with a deeply
lobed leaf.
"Whut's that?"
" Bloodroot," said Hale, and he scratched the
stem and forth issued scarlet drops. "The Indi
ans used to put it on their faces and tomahawks"
she knew that word and nodded "and I used
to make red ink of it when I was a little boy."
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"No!" said June. With the next look she
found a tiny bunch of fuzzy hepaticas
"Liver-leaf."
"Whut's liver?"
Hale, looking at her glowing face and eyes and
her perfect little body, imagined that she would
never know unless told that she had one, and so
he waved one hand vaguely at his chest:
"It's an organ and that herb is supposed to
be good for it."
"Organ? Whut's that?"
"Oh, something inside of you."
June made the same gesture that Hale had.
"Me?"
"Yes," and then helplessly, "but not there
exactly."
June's eyes had caught something else now
and she ran for it:
"Oh! Oh!" It was a bunch of delicate anem
ones of intermediate shades between white and
red yellow, pink and purple-blue.
"Those are anemones."
"A-nem-o-nes," repeated June.
"Wind-flowers because the wind is supposed
to open them." And, almost unconsciously, Hale
lapsed into a quotation:
"'And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower
blows.'"
"Whut's that?" said June quickly.
"That's poetry."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Whut's po-e-try?" Hale threw up both
hands.
"I don't know, but I'll read you some some
day."
By that time she was gurgling with delight over
a bunch of spring beauties that came up, root,
stalk and all, when she reached for them.
"Well, ain't they purty?" While they lay in
her hand and she looked, the rose-veined petals
began to close, the leaves to droop and the stem
got limp.
"Ah-h!" crooned June. "I won't pull up no
more o' them."
* These little dream-flowers found in the
spring.' More poetry, June."
A little later he heard her repeating that line to
herself. It was an easy step to poetry from flowers,
and evidently June was groping for it.
A few days later the service-berry swung out
white stars on the low hill-sides, but Hale could
tell her nothing that she did not know about the
"sarvice-berry." Soon, the dogwood swept in
snowy gusts along the mountains, and from a
bank of it one morning a red-bird flamed and
sang: "What cheer! What cheer! What cheer!"
And like its scarlet coat the red-bud had burst
into bloom. June knew the red-bud, but she had
never heard it called the Judas tree.
"You see, the red-bud was supposed to be poi
sonous. It shakes in the wind and says to the
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
bees, 'Come on, little fellows here's your nice
fresh honey, and when they come, it betrays and
poisons them."
"Well, what do you think o' that!" said June
indignantly, and Hale had to hedge a bit.
" Well, I don't know whether it really does, but
that's what they say." A little farther on the
white stars of the trillium gleamed at them from
the border of the woods and near by June stooped
over some lovely sky-blue blossoms with yellow
eyes.
"Forget-me-nots," said Hale. June stooped to
gather them with a radiant face.
"Oh," she said, "is that what you call 'em ?"
"They aren't the real ones they're false for
get-me-nots."
"Then I don't want 'em," said June. But they
were beautiful and fragrant and she added gently:
"'Tain't their fault. I'm agoin' to call 'em
jus' forget-me-nots, an' I'm givin' 'em to you,"
she said "so that you won't."
"Thank you," said Hale gravely. "I won't."
They found larkspur, too
"'Blue as the heaven it gazes at,"' quoted Hale.
"Whut's* gazes'?"
"Looks." June looked up at the sky and down
at the flower.
"Tain't," she said, "hit's bluer."
When they discovered something Hale did not
know he would say that it was one of those
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
**Wan flowers without a name."
"My!" said June at last, "seems like them wan
flowers is a mighty big fambly."
"They are," laughed Hale, "for a bachelor
like me."
"Huh!" said June.
Later, they ran upon yellow adder's tongues in
a hollow, each blossom guarded by a pair of ear-
like leaves, Dutchman's breeches and wild bleed
ing hearts : a name that appealed greatly to the
fancy of the romantic little lady, and thus together
they followed the footsteps of that spring. And
while she studied the flowers Hale was studying
the loveliest flower of them all little June. About
ferns, plants and trees as well, he told her all he
knew, and there seemed nothing in the skies, the
green world of the leaves or the under world at her
feet to which she was not magically responsive.
Indeed, Hale had never seen a man, woman or
child so eager to learn, and one day, when she
had apparently reached the limit of inquiry, she
grew very thoughtful and he watched her in silence
a long while.
"What's the matter, June?" he asked finally.
"I'm just wonderin' why I'm always axnV
why," said little June.
She was learning in school, too, and she was
happier there now, for there had been no more
open teasing of the new pupil. Bob's champion
ship saved her from that, and, thereafter, school
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
changed straightway for June. Before that day
she had kept apart from her school-fellows at re
cess-times as well as in the school-room. Two or
three of the girls had made friendly advances to
her, but she had shyly repelled them why she
hardly knew and it was her lonely custom at
recess-times to build a play-house at the foot of a
great beech with moss, broken bits of bottles and
stones. Once she found it torn to pieces and from
the look on the face of the tall mountain boy, Cal
Heaton, who had grinned at her when she went
up for her first lesson, and who was now Bob's
arch-enemy, she knew that he was the guilty one.
Again a day or two later it was destroyed, and
when she came down from the woods almost in
tears, Bob happened to meet her in the road and
made her tell the trouble she was in. Straightway
he charged the trespasser with the deed and was
lied to for his pains. So after school that day he
slipped up on the hill with the little girl and helped
her rebuild again.
"Now I'll lay for him," said Bob, "and catch
him at it."
"All right," said June, and she looked both her
worry and her gratitude so that Bob understood
both; and he answered both with a nonchalant
wave of one hand.
"Never you mind and don't you tell Mr. Hale,"
and June in dumb acquiescence crossed heart and
body. But the mountain boy was wary, and for
1 66
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
two or three days the play-house was undisturbed
and so Bob himself laid a trap. He mounted nis
horse immediately after school, rode past the
mountain lad, who was on his way home, crossed
the river, made a wide detour at a gallop and,
hitching his horse in the woods, came to the play
house from the other side of the hill. And half an
hour later, when the pale little teacher came out
of the school-house, he heard grunts and blows
and scuffling up in the woods, and when he ran
toward the sounds, the bodies of two of his pupils
rolled into sight clenched fiercely, with torn clothes
and bleeding faces Bob on top with the moun
tain boy's thumb in his mouth and his own fingers
gripped about his antagonist's throat. Neither
paid any attention to the school-master, who
pulled at Bob's coat unavailingly and with horror
at his ferocity. Bob turned his head, shook it as
well as the thumb in his mouth would let him, and
went on gripping the throat under him and pushing
the head that belonged to it into the ground. The
mountain boy's tongue showed and his eyes bulged.
"'Nough!" he yelled. Bob rose then and told
his story and the school-master from New England
gave them a short lecture on gentleness and Chris
tian charity and fixed on each the awful penalty of
"staying in" after school for an hour every day
for a week. Bob grinned :
"All right, professor it was worth it," he said,
but the mountain lad shuffled silently away.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
An hour later Hale saw the boy with a swollen
lip, one eye black and the other as merry as ever
but after that there was no more trouble for June.
Bob had made his promise good and gradually
she came into the games with her fellows there
after, while Bob stood or sat aside, encouraging
but taking no part for was he not a member of
the Police Force ? Indeed he was already known
far and wide as the Infant of the Guard, and al
ways he carried a whistle and usually, outside the
school-house, a pistol bumped his hip, while a
Winchester stood in one corner of his room and a
billy dangled by his mantel-piece.
The games were new to June, and often Hale
would stroll up to the school-house to watch them
Prisoner's Base, Skipping the Rope, Antny
Over, Cracking the Whip and Lifting the Gate;
and it pleased him to see how lithe and active his
little protege was and more than a match in
strength even for the boys who were near her size.
June had to take the penalty of her greenness, too,
when she was "introduced to the King and
Queen" and bumped the ground between the
make-believe sovereigns, or got a cup of water in
her face when she was trying to see stars through
a pipe. And the boys pinned her dress to the
bench through a crack and once she walked into
school with a placard on her back which read:
" June-Bug." But she was so good-natured that
she fast became a favourite. Indeed it was no-
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ticeable to Hale as well as Bob that Cal Heaton,
the mountain boy, seemed always to get next to
June in the Tugs of War, and one morning June
found an apple on her desk. She swept the room
with a glance and met Cal's guilty flush, and
though she ate the apple, she gave him no thanks
in word, look or manner. It was curious to
Hale, moreover, to observe how June's instinct
deftly led her to avoid the mistakes in dress that
characterized the gropings of other girls who,
like her, were in a stage of transition. They wore
gaudy combs and green skirts with red waists,
their clothes bunched at the hips, and to their
shoes and hands they paid no attention at all.
None of these things for June and Hale did not
know that the little girl had leaped her fellows
with one bound, had taken Miss Anne Saunders
as her model and was climbing upon the pedestal
where that lady justly stood. The two had not
become friends as Hale hoped. June was always
silent and reserved when the older girl was around,
but there was never a move of the latter's hand
or foot or lip or eye that the new pupil failed to
see. Miss Anne rallied Hale no little about her,
but he laughed good-naturedly, and asked why
she could not make friends with June.
"She's jealous," said Miss Saunders, and Hale
ridiculed the idea, for not one sign since she came
to the Gap had she shown him. It was the jeal
ousy of a child she had once betrayed and that
169
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
she had outgrown, he thought; but he never knew
how June stood behind the curtains of her win
dow, with a hungry suffering in her face and eyes,
to watch Hale and Miss Anne ride by and he never
guessed that concealment was but a sign of the
dawn of womanhood that was breaking within
her. And she gave no hint of that breaking dawn
until one day early in May, when she heard a
woodthrush for the first time with Hale : for it was
the bird she loved best, and always its silver
fluting would stop her in her tracks and send
her into dreamland. Hale had just broken a
crimson flower from its stem and held it out to
her.
"Here's another of the 'wan ones,' June. Do
you know what that is ?"
"Hit's" she paused for correction with her
lips drawn severely in for precision "it's a
mountain poppy. Pap says it kills goslings"
her eyes danced, for she was in a merry mood that
day, and she put both hands behind her "if you
air any kin to a goose, you better drap it."
"That's a good one," laughed Hale, "but it's
so lovely I'll take the risk. I won't drop it."
"Drop it," caught June with a quick upward
look, and then to fix the word in her memory she
repeated "drop it, drop it, drop it!"
"Got it now, June ?"
"Uh-huh."
It was then that a woodthrush voiced the
170
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
crowning joy of spring, and with slowly filling eyes
she asked its name.
"That bird," she said slowly and with a break
ing voice, "sung just that-a-way the mornin' my
sister died."
She turned to him with a wondering smile.
"Somehow it don't make me so miserable, like
it useter." Her smile passed while she looked,
she caught both hands to her heaving breast and
a wild intensity burned suddenly in her eyes.
"Why, June!"
"Tain't nothin'," she choked out, and she
turned hurriedly ahead of him down the path.
Startled, Hale had dropped the crimson flower to
his feet. He saw it and he let it lie.
Meanwhile, rumours were brought in that the
Falins were coming over from Kentucky to wipe
out the Guard, and so straight were they some
times that the Guard was kept perpetually on
watch. Once while the members were at target
practice, the shout arose:
"The Kentuckians are coming! The Ken-
tuckians are coming!" And, at double quick, the
Guard rushed back to find it a false alarm and to
see men laughing at them in the street. The truth
was that, while the Falins had a general hostility
against the Guard, their particular enmity was
concentrated on John Hale, as he discovered when
June was to take her first trip home one Friday
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
afternoon. Hale meant to carry her over, but the
morning they were to leave, old Judd Tolliver
came to the Gap himself. He did not want June
to come home at that time, and he didn't think it
was safe over there for Hale just then. Some of
the Falins had been seen hanging around Lone
some Cove for the purpose, Judd believed, of get
ting a shot at the man who had kept young Dave
from falling into their hands, and Hale saw that
by that act he had, as Budd said, arrayed himself
with the Tollivers in the feud. In other words, he
was a Tolliver himself now, and as such the Falins
meant to treat him. Hale rebelled against the re
striction, for he had started some work in Lone
some Cove and was preparing a surprise over there
for June, but old Judd said:
"Just wait a while," and he said it so seriously
that Hale for a while took his advice.
So June stayed on at the Gap with little dis
appointment, apparently, that she could not visit
home. And as spring passed and the summer
came on, the little girl budded and opened like a
rose. To the pretty school-teacher she was a
source of endless interest and wonder, for while
the little girl was reticent and aloof, Miss Saunders
felt herself watched and studied in and out of
school, and Hale often had to smile at June's un
conscious imitation of her teacher in speech, man
ners and dress. And all the time her hero-worship
of Hale went on, fed by the talk of the boarding-
172
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
house, her fellow pupils and of the town at large
and it fairly thrilled her to know that to the Falins
he was now a Tolliver himself.
Sometimes Hale would get her a saddle, and
then June would usurp Miss Anne's place on a
horseback-ride up through the gap to see the
first blooms of the purple rhododendron on Bee
Rock, or up to Morris's farm on Powell's moun
tain, from which, with a glass, they could see the
Lonesome Pine. And all the time she worked at
her studies tirelessly and when she was done
with her lessons, she read the fairy books that Hale
got for her read them until "Paul and Virginia"
fell into her hands, and then there were no more
fairy stories for little June. Often, late at night,
Hale, from the porch of his cottage, could see the
light of her lamp sending its beam across the dark
water of the mill-pond, and finally he got worried
by the paleness of her face and sent her to the doc
tor. She went unwillingly, and when she came
back she reported placidly that "organatically she
was all right, the doctor said," but Hale was glad
that vacation would soon come. At the begin
ning of the last week of school he brought a little
present for her from New York a slender neck
lace of gold with a little reddish stone-pendant
that was the shape of a cross. Hale pulled the
trinket from his pocket as they were walking down
the river-bank at sunset and the little girl quivered
like an aspen-leaf in a sudden puff of wind.
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"Hit's a fairy-stone," she cried excitedly.
"Why, where on earth did you "
"Why, sister Sally told me about 'em. She said
folks found 'em somewhere over here in Virginny,
an' all her life she was a-wishin' fer one an' she
never could git it" her eyes filled "seems like
ever'thing she wanted is a-comin' to me."
"Do you know the story of it, too?" asked
Hale.
June shook her head. "Sister Sally said it was
a luck-piece. Nothin' could happen to ye when
ye was carryin' it, but it was awful bad luck if you
lost it." Hale put it around her neck and fastened
the clasp and June kept hold of the little cross
with one hand.
"Well, you mustn't lose it," he said.
"No no no," she repeated breathlessly, and
Hale told her the pretty story of the stone as they
strolled back to supper. The little crosses were
to be found only in a certain valley in Virginia, so
perfect in shape that they seemed to have been
chiselled by hand, and they were a great mystery
to the men who knew all about rocks the geol
ogists.
"The ge-ol-o-gists," repeated June.
These men said there was no crystallization
nothing like them, amended Hale elsewhere in
the world, and that just as crosses were of different
shapes Roman, Maltese and St. Andrew's so,
too, these crosses were found in all these different
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
shapes. And the myth the story was that this
little valley was once inhabited by fairies June's
eyes lighted, for it was a fairy story after all and
that when a strange messenger brought them the
news of Christ's crucifixion, they wept, and their
tears, as they fell to the ground, were turned into
tiny crosses of stone. Even the Indians had some
queer feeling about them, and for a long, long
time people who found them had used them as
charms to bring good luck and ward off harm.
"And that's for you," he said, "because you've
been such a good little girl and have studied so
hard. School's most over now and I reckon you'll
be right glad to get home again."
June made no answer, but at the gate she
looked suddenly up at him.
"Have you got one, too?" she asked, and she
seemed much disturbed when Hale shook his
head.
"Well, /'// git get you one some day."
"All right," laughed Hale.
There was again something strange in her
manner as she turned suddenly from him, and
what it meant he was soon to learn. It was the
last week of school and Hale had just come down
from the woods behind the school-house at "little
recess-time" in the afternoon. The children
were playing games outside the gate, and Bob and
Miss Anne and the little Professor were leaning
on the fence watching them. The little man
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
raised his hand to halt Hale on the plank side
walk.
"I've been wanting to see you," he said in his
dreamy, abstracted way. "You prophesied, you
know, that I should be proud of your little pro
tege some day, and I am indeed. She is the most
remarkable pupil I've yet seen here, and I have
about come to the conclusion that there is no
quicker native intelligence in our country than
you shall find in the children of these mountain
eers and "
Miss Anne was gazing at the children with an
expression that turned Hale's eyes that way, and
the Professor checked his harangue. Something
had happened. They had been playing "Ring
Around the Rosy" and June had been caught.
She stood scarlet and tense and the cry was:
"Who's your beau who's your beau ?"
And still she stood with tight lips flushing.
"You got to tell you got to tell!"
The mountain boy, Cal Heaton, was grinning
with fatuous consciousness, and even Bob put his
hands in his pockets and took on an uneasy smile.
"Who's your beau ?" came the chorus again.
The lips opened almost in a whisper, but all
could hear:
"Jack!"
"Jack who?" But June looked around and
saw the four at the gate. Almost staggering, she
broke from the crowd and, with one forearm across
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
her scarlet face, rushed past them into the school-
house. Miss Anne looked at Hale's amazed face
and she did not smile. Bob turned respectfully
away, ignoring it all, and the little Professor,
whose life-purpose was psychology, murmured in
his ignorance:
"Very remarkable very remarkable!"
Through that afternoon June kept her hot face
close to her books. Bob never so much as glanced
her way little gentleman that he was but the
one time she lifted her eyes, she met the mountain
lad's bent in a stupor-like gaze upon her. In
spite of her apparent studiousness, however, she
missed her lesson and, automatically, the little
Professor told her to stay in after school and recite
to Miss Saunders. And so June and Miss Anne
sat in the school-room alone the teacher reading
a book, and the pupil her tears unshed with her
sullen face bent over her lesson. In a few mo
ments the door opened and the little Professor
thrust in his head. The girl had looked so hurt
and tired when he spoke to her that some strange
sympathy moved him, mystified though he was,
to say gently now and with a smile that was rare
with him:
"You might excuse June, I think, Miss Saun
ders, and let her recite some time to-morrow,"
and gently he closed the door. Miss Anne rose:
"Very well, June," she said quietly.
June rose, too, gathering up her books, and as
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
she passed the teacher's platform she stopped and
looked her full in the face. She said not a word,
and the tragedy between the woman and the girl
was played in silence, for the woman knew from
the searching gaze of the girl and the black defi
ance in her eyes, as she stalked out of the room,
that her own flush had betrayed her secret as
plainly as the girl's words had told hers.
Through his office window, a few minutes later,
Hale saw June pass swiftly into the house. In a
few minutes she came swiftly out again and went
back swiftly toward the school-house. He was so
worried by the tense look in her face that he could
work no more, and in a few minutes he threw his
papers down and followed her. When he turned
the corner, Bob was coming down the street with
his cap on the back of his head and swinging his
books by a strap, and the boy looked a little con
scious when he saw Hale coming.
"Have you seen June ?" Hale asked.
"No, sir," said Bob, immensely relieved.
"Did she come up this way ?"
" I don't know, but " Bob turned and pointed
to the green dome of a big beech.
"I think you'll find her at the foot of that tree,"
he said. "That's where her play-house is and
that's where she goes when she's that's where
she usually goes."
" Oh, yes," said Hale" her play-house. Thank
you."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Not at all, sir."
Hale went on, turned from the path and climbed
noiselessly. When he caught sight of the beech
he stopped still. June stood against it like a wood-
nymph just emerged from its sun-dappled trunk
stood stretched to her full height, her hands be
hind her, her hair tossed, her throat tense under
the dangling little cross, her face uplifted. At her
feet, the play-house was scattered to pieces. She
seemed listening to the love-calls of a woodthrush
that came faintly through the still woods, and then
he saw that she heard nothing, saw nothing that
she was in a dream as deep as sleep. Hale's
heart throbbed as he looked.
"June!" he called softly. She did not hear
him, and when he called again, she turned her
face unstartled and moving her posture not at
all. Hale pointed to the scattered play-house.
"I done it!" she said fiercely "I done it my
self." Her eyes burned steadily into his, even
while she lifted her hands to her hair as though
she were only vaguely conscious that it was all
undone.
"Tou heerd me?" she cried, and before he
could answer "She heerd me," and again, not
waiting for a word from him, she cried still more
fiercely :
"I don't keer! I don't keer who knows."
Her hands were trembling, she was biting her
quivering lip to keep back the starting tears,
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and Hale rushed toward her and took her in his
arms.
"June! June!" he said brokenly. "You
mustn't, little girl. I'm proud proud why
little sweetheart ' She was clinging to him and
looking up into his eyes and he bent his head
slowly. Their lips met and the man was startled.
He knew now it was no child that answered him.
Hale walked long that night in the moonlit
woods up and around Imboden Hill, along a
shadow-haunted path, between silvery beech-
trunks, past the big hole in the earth from which
dead trees tossed out their crooked arms as if in
torment, and to the top of the ridge under which
the valley slept and above which the dark bulk of
Powell's Mountain rose. It was absurd, but he
found himself strangely stirred. She was a child,
he kept repeating to himself, in spite of the fact
that he knew she was no child among her own
people, and that mountain girls were even wives
who were younger still. Still, she did not know
what she felt how could she ? and she would
get over it, and then came the sharp stab of a
doubt would he want her to get over it ? Frankly
and with wonder he confessed to himself that he
did not know he did not know. But again, why
bother ? He had meant to educate her, anyhow.
That was the first step no matter what happened.
June must go out into the world to school. He
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
would have plenty of money. Her father would
not object, and June need never know. He could
include for her an interest in her own father's coal
lands that he meant to buy, and she could think
that it was her own money that she was using.
So, with a sudden rush of gladness from his brain
to his heart, he recklessly yoked himself, then and
there, under all responsibility for that young life
and the eager, sensitive soul that already lighted
it so radiantly.
And June ? Her nature had opened precisely
as had bud and flower that spring. The Mother
of Magicians had touched her as impartially as
she had touched them with fairy wand, and as un
consciously the little girl had answered as a young
dove to any cooing mate. With this Hale did not
reckon, and this June could not know. For a
while, that night, she lay in a delicious tremor,
listening to the bird-like chorus of the little frogs
in the marsh, the booming of the big ones in the
mill-pond, the water pouring over the dam with
the sound of a low wind, and, as had all the sleep
ing things of the earth about her, she, too, sank to
happy sleep,
181
XVI
/ T V HE in-sweep of the outside world was
broadening its current now. The im
provement company had been formed to encourage
the growth of the town. A safe was put in the
back part of a furniture store behind a wooden
partition and a bank was started. Up through
the Gap and toward Kentucky, more entries were
driven into the coal, and on the Virginia side were
signs of stripping for iron ore. A furnace was
coming in just as soon as the railroad could bring
it in, and the railroad was pushing ahead with
genuine vigor. Speculators were trooping in
and the town had been divided off into lots a
few of which had already changed hands. One
agent had brought in a big steel safe and a tent
and was buying coal lands right and left. More
young men drifted in from all points of the com
pass. A tent-hotel was put at the foot of Imboden
Hill, and of nights there were under it much poker
and song. The lilt of a definite optimism was in
every man's step and the light of hope was in
every man's eye.
And the Guard went to its work in earnest.
Every man now had his Winchester, his revolver,
182
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
his billy and his whistle. Drilling and target-
shooting became a daily practice. Bob, who had
been a year in a military school, was drill-master
for the recruits, and very gravely he performed his
duties and put them through the skirmishers'
drill advancing in rushes, throwing themselves
in the new grass, and very gravely he commended
one enthusiast none other than the Hon. Samuel
Budd who, rather than lose his position in line,
threw himself into a pool of water: all to the sur
prise, scorn and anger of the mountain onlookers,
who dwelled about the town. Many were the
comments the members of the Guard heard from
them, even while they were at drill.
" I'd like to see one o' them fellers hit me with
one of them locust posts."
"Huh! I could take two good men an' run the
whole batch out o' the county."
"Look at them dudes and furriners. They
come into our country and air tryin' to larn us
how to run it."
"Our boys air only tryin' to have their little
fun. They don't mean nothin', but someday some
fool young guard'll hurt somebody and then thar'll
be hell to pay."
Hale could not help feeling considerable sym
pathy for their point of view particularly when
he saw the mountaineers watching the Guard at
target-practice each volunteer policeman with
his back to the target, and at the word of com-
183
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
mand wheeling and firing six shots in rapid suc
cession and he did not wonder at their snorts of
scorn at such bad shooting and their open anger
that the Guard was practising for them. But
sometimes he got an unexpected recruit. One
bully, who had been conspicuous in the brickyard
trouble, after watching a drill went up to him with
a grin:
"Hell," he said cheerily, "I believe you fellers
air goin' to have more fun than we air, an' danged
if I don't jine you, if you'll let me."
"Sure," said Hale. And others, who might
have been bad men, became members and, thus
getting a vent for their energies, were as enthusi
astic for the law as they might have been against
it.
Of course, the antagonistic element in the
town lost no opportunity to plague and harass the
Guard, and after the destruction of the "blind
tigers," mischief was naturally concentrated in the
high-license saloons particularly in the one run
by Jack Woods, whose local power for evil and
cackling laugh seemed to mean nothing else than
close personal communion with old Nick himself.
Passing the door of his saloon one day, Bob saw
one of Jack's customers trying to play pool with
a Winchester in one hand and an open knife be
tween his teeth, and the boy stepped in and
halted. The man had no weapon concealed and
was making no disturbance, and Bob did not
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
know whether or not he had the legal right to
arrest him, so he turned, and, while he was stand
ing in the door, Jack winked at his customer, who,
with a grin, put the back of his knife-blade be
tween Bob's shoulders and, pushing, closed it.
The boy looked over his shoulder without moving
a muscle, but the Hon. Samuel Budd, who came
in at that moment, pinioned the fellow's arms from
behind and Bob took his weapon away.
"Hell," said the mountaineer, "I didn't aim to
hurt the little feller. I jes' wanted to see if I
could skeer him."
"Well, brother, 'tis scarce a merry jest," quoth
the Hon. Sam, and he looked sharply at Jack
through his big spectacles as the two led the man
off to the calaboose: for he suspected that the
saloon-keeper was at the bottom of the trick.
Jack's time came only the next day. He had re
garded it as the limit of indignity when an ordi
nance was up that nobody should blow a whistle
except a member of the Guard, and it was great
fun for him to have some drunken customer blow
a whistle and then stand in his door and laugh at
the policemen running in from all directions.
That day Jack tried the whistle himself and Hale
ran down.
"Who did that?" he asked. Jack felt bold
that morning.
"Iblowedit."
Hale thought for a moment. The ordinance
185
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
against blowing a whistle had not yet been passed,
but he made up his mind that, under the circum
stances, Jack's blowing was a breach of the peace,
since the Guard had adopted that signal. So he
said:
"You mustn't do that again."
Jack had doubtless been going through pre
cisely the same mental process, and, on the nice
legal point involved, he seemed to differ.
"I'll blow it when I damn please," he said.
" Blow it again and I'll arrest you," said Hale.
Jack blew. He had his right shoulder against
the corner of his door at the time, and, when he
raised the whistle to his lips, Hale drew and cov
ered him before he could make another move.
Woods backed slowly into his saloon to get behind
his counter. Hale saw his purpose, and he closed
in, taking great risk, as he always did, to avoid
bloodshed, and there was a struggle. Jack man
aged to get his pistol out; but Hale caught him by
the wrist and held the weapon away so that it was
harmless as far as he was concerned; but a crowd
was gathering at the door toward which the
saloon-keeper's pistol was pointed, and he feared
that somebody out there might be shot; so he
called out:
"Drop that pistol!"
The order was not obeyed, and Hale raised his
right hand high above Jack's head and dropped
the butt of his weapon on Jack's skull hard.
1 86
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Jack's head dropped back between his shoulders,
his eyes closed and his pistol clicked on the floor.
Hale knew how serious a thing a blow was in
that part of the world, and what excitement it
would create, and he was uneasy at Jack's trial,
for fear that the saloon-keeper's friends would take
the matter up; but they didn't, and, to the sur
prise of everybody, Jack quietly paid his fine, and
thereafter the Guard had little active trouble from
the town itself, for it was quite plain there, at
least, that the Guard meant business.
Across Black Mountain old Dave Tolliver and
old Buck Falin had got well of their wounds by
this time, and though each swore to have ven
geance against the other as soon as he was able to
handle a Winchester, both factions seemed wait
ing for that time to come. Moreover, the Falins,
because of a rumour that Bad Rufe Tolliver might
come back, and because of Devil Judd's anger at
their attempt to capture young Dave, grew wary
and rather pacificatory: and so, beyond a little
quarrelling, a little threatening and the exchange
of a harmless shot or two, sometimes in banter,
sometimes in earnest, nothing had been done.
Sternly, however, though the Falins did not know
the fact, Devil Judd continued to hold aloof in
spite of the pleadings of young Dave, and so con
fident was the old man in the balance of power
that lay with him that he sent June word that he
was coming to take her home. And, in truth, with
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Hale going away again on a business trip and
Bob, too, gone back home to the Bluegrass, and
school closed, the little girl was glad to go, and she
waited for her father's coming eagerly. Miss
Anne was still there, to be sure, and if she, too,
had gone, June would have been more content.
The quiet smile of that astute young woman had
told Hale plainly, and somewhat to his embarrass
ment, that she knew something had happened
between the two, but that smile she never gave to
June. Indeed, she never encountered aught else
than the same silent searching gaze from the
strangely mature little creature's eyes, and when
those eyes met the teacher's, always June's hand
would wander unconsciously to the little cross at
her throat as though to invoke its aid against any
thing that could come between her and its giver.
The purple rhododendrons on Bee Rock had
come and gone and the pink-flecked laurels were
in bloom when June fared forth one sunny morn
ing of her own birth-month behind old Judd
Tolliver home. Back up through the wild Gap
they rode in silence, past Bee Rock, out of the
chasm and up the little valley toward the Trail
of the Lonesome Pine, into which the father's old
sorrel nag, with a switch of her sunburnt tail,
turned leftward. June leaned forward a little,
and there was the crest of the big tree motionless
in the blue high above, and sheltered by one big
white cloud. It was the first time she had seen the
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
pine since she had first left it, and little tremblings
went through her from her bare feet to her bon
neted head. Thus was she unclad, for Hale had
told her that, to avoid criticism, she must go home
clothed just as she was when she left Lonesome
Cove. She did not quite understand that, and she
carried her new clothes in a bundle in her lap, but
she took Kale's word unquestioned. So she wore
her crimson homespun and her bonnet, with her
bronze-gold hair gathered under it in the same
old Psyche knot. She must wear her shoes, she
told Hale, until she got out of town, else someone
might see her, but Hale had said she would be
leaving too early for that: and so she had gone
from the Gap as she had come into it, with un-
mittened hands and bare feet. The soft wind was
very good to those dangling feet, and she itched to
have them on the green grass or in the cool waters
through which the old horse splashed. Yes, she
was going home again, the same June as far as
mountain eyes could see, though she had grown
perceptibly, and her little face had blossomed
from her heart almost into a woman's, but she
knew that while her clothes were the same, they
covered quite another girl. Time wings slowly for
the young, and when the sensations are many and
the experiences are new, slowly even for all and
thus there was a double reason why it seemed an
age to June since her eyes had last rested on the
big Pine.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Here was the place where Hale had put his big
black horse into a dead run, and as vivid a thrill
of it came back to her now as had been the thrill
of the race. Then they began to climb labori
ously up the rocky creek the water singing a
joyous welcome to her along the path, ferns and
flowers nodding to her from dead leaves and rich
mould and peeping at her from crevices between
the rocks on the creek-banks as high up as the
level of her eyes up under bending branches full-
leafed, with the warm sunshine darting down
through them upon her as she passed, and making
a playfellow of her sunny hair. Here was the
place where she had got angry with Hale, had slid
from his horse and stormed with tears. What a
little fool she had been when Hale had meant only
to be kind! He was never anything but kind
Jack was dear, dear Jack! That wouldn't hap
pen no more, she thought, and straightway she
corrected that thought.
" It won't happen any more," she said aloud.
"Whut'dyousay, June?"
The old man lifted his bushy beard from his
chest and turned his head.
"Nothin', dad," she said, and old Judd, himself
in a deep study, dropped back into it again. How
often she had said that to herself that it would
happen no more she had stopped saying it to
Hale, because he laughed and forgave her, and
seemed to love her mood, whether she cried from
190
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
joy or anger and yet she kept on doing both just
the same.
Several times Devil Judd stopped to let his
horse rest, and each time, of course, the wooded
slopes of the mountains stretched downward in
longer sweeps of summer green, and across the
widening valley the tops of the mountains beyond
dropped nearer to the straight level of her eyes,
while beyond them vaster blue bulks became
visible and ran on and on, as they always seemed,
to the farthest limits of the world. Even out there,
Hale had told her, she would go some day. The
last curving up-sweep came finally, and there
stood the big Pine, majestic, unchanged and
murmuring in the wind like the undertone of a
far-off sea. As they passed the base of it, she
reached out her hand and let the tips of her ringers
brush caressingly across its trunk, turned quickly
for a last look at the sunlit valley and the hills of
the outer world and then the two passed into a
green gloom of shadow and thick leaves that shut
her heart in as suddenly as though some human
hand had clutched it. She was going home to
see Bub and Loretta and Uncle Billy and "old
Hon" and her step-mother and Dave, and yet she
felt vaguely troubled. The valley on the other
side was in dazzling sunshine she had seen that.
The sun must still be shining over there it must
be shining above her over here, for here and there
shot a sunbeam message from that outer world
191
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
down through the leaves, and yet it seemed that
black night had suddenly fallen about her, and
helplessly she wondered about it all, with her
hands gripped tight and her eyes wide. But the
mood was gone when they emerged at the "dead
ening" on the last spur and she saw Lonesome
Cove and the roof of her little home peacefully
asleep in the same sun that shone on the valley
over the mountain. Colour came to her face and
her heart beat faster. At the foot of the spur the
road had been widened and showed signs of heavy
hauling. There was sawdust in the mouth of the
creek and, from coal-dust, the water was black.
The ring of axes and the shouts of ox-drivers came
from the mountain side. Up the creek above her
father's cabin three or four houses were being
built of fresh boards, and there in front of her was
a new store. To a fence one side of it two horses
were hitched and on one horse was a side-saddle.
Before the door stood the Red Fox and Uncle
Billy, the miller, who peered at her for a moment
through his big spectacles and gave her a wonder
ing shout of welcome that brought her cousin
Loretta to the door, where she stopped a moment,
anchored with surprise. Over her shoulder peered
her cousin Dave, and June saw his face darken
while she looked.
"Why, Honey," said the old miller, "have ye
really come home agin?" While Loretta simply
said:
192
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"My Lord!" and came out and stood with her
hands on her hips looking at June.
"Why, ye ain't a bit changed! I knowed ye
wasn't goin' to put on no airs like Dave thar said"
she turned on Dave, who, with a surly shrug,
wheeled and went back into the store. Uncle
Billy was going home.
"Come down to see us right away now," he
called back. "Ole Hon's might nigh crazy to git
her eyes on ye."
"All right, Uncle Billy," said June, "early ter-
morrer." The Red Fox did not open his lips, but
his pale eyes searched the girl from head to foot.
"Git down, June," said Loretta, "and I'll walk
up to the house with ye."
June slid down, Devil Judd started the old
horse, and as the two girls, with their arms about
each other's waists, followed, the wolfish side of
the Red Fox's face lifted in an ironical snarl. Bub
was standing at the gate, and when he saw his
father riding home alone, his wistful eyes filled and
his cry of disappointment brought the step-mother
to the door.
"Whar's June?" he cried, and June heard
him, and loosening herself from Loretta, she ran
round the horse and had Bub in her arms. Then
she looked up into the eyes of her step-mother.
The old woman's face looked kind so kind that
for the first time in her life June did what her
father could never get her to do: she called her
193
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Mammy," and then she gave that old woman
the surprise of her life she kissed her. Right
away she must see everything, and Bub, in ecstasy,
wanted to pilot her around to see the new calf and
the new pigs and the new chickens, but dumbly
June looked to a miracle that had come to pass to
the left of the cabin a flower-garden, the like of
which she had seen only in her dreams.
194
XVII
her lips opened soundlessly and,
dazed, she could only point dumbly. The
old step-mother laughed:
''Jack Hale done that. He pestered yo' pap to
let him do it fer ye, an' anything Jack Hale wants
from yo' pap, he gits. I thought hit was plum'
foolishness, but he's got things to eat planted thar,
too, an' I declar hit's right purty."
That wonderful garden! June started for it on
a run. There was a broad grass-walk down
through the middle of it and there were narrow
grass-walks running sidewise, just as they did in
the gardens which Hale told her he had seen in
the outer world. The flowers were planted in
raised beds, and all the ones that she had learned
to know and love at the Gap were there, and
many more besides. The hollyhocks, bachelor's
buttons and marigolds she had known all her life.
The lilacs, touch-me-nots, tulips and narcissus
she had learned to know in gardens at the Gap.
Two rose-bushes were in bloom, and there were
strange grasses and plants and flowers that Jack
would tell her about when he came. One side
was sentinelled by sun-flowers and another side
by transplanted laurel and rhododendron shrubs;
195
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and hidden in the plant-and-flower-bordered
squares were the vegetables that won her step
mother's tolerance of Hale's plan. Through and
through June walked, her dark eyes flashing
joyously here and there when they were not a little
dimmed with tears, with Loretta following her,
unsympathetic in appreciation, wondering that
June should be making such a fuss about a lot of
flowers, but envious withal when she half guessed
the reason, and impatient Bub eager to show her
other births and changes. And, over and over all
the while, June was whispering to herself:
"My garden my garden!"
When she came back to the porch, after a tour
through all that was new or had changed, Dave
had brought his horse and Loretta's to the gate.
No, he wouldn't come in and "rest a spell"
"they must be gittin' along home," he said shortly.
But old Judd Tolliver insisted that he should stay
to dinner, and Dave tied the horses to the fence
and walked to the porch, not lifting his eyes to
June. Straightway the girl went into the house
to help her step-mother with dinner, but the old
woman told her she "reckoned she needn't start
in yit" adding in the querulous tone June knew
so well :
" I've been mighty po'ly, an' thar'll be a mighty
lot fer you to do now." So with this direful proph
ecy in her ears the girl hesitated. The old woman
looked at her closely.
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"Ye ain't a bit changed," she said.
They were the words Loretta had used, and in
the voice of each was the same strange tone of dis
appointment. June wondered: were they sorry
she had not come back putting on airs and fussed
up with ribbons and feathers that they might hear
her picked to pieces and perhaps do some of the
picking themselves ? Not Loretta, surely but
the old step-mother! June left the kitchen and sat
down just inside the door. The Red Fox and two
other men had sauntered up from the store and all
were listening to his quavering chat:
"I seed a vision last night, and thar's trouble
a-comin' in these mountains. The Lord told me
so straight from the clouds. These railroads and
coal-mines is a-goin' to raise taxes, so that a pore
man'll have to sell his hogs and his corn to pay
'em an' have nothin' left to keep him from starv-
in' to death. Them police-fellers over thar at the
Gap is a-stirrin' up strife and a-runnin' things
over thar as though the earth was made fer 'em,
an' the citizens ain't goin' to stand it. An' this
war's a-comin' on an' thar'll be shootin' an' killin'
over thar an' over hyeh. I seed all this devilment
in a vision last night, as shore as I'm settin' hyeh."
Old Judd grunted, shifted his huge shoulders,
parted his mustache and beard with two fingers
and spat through them.
"Well, I reckon you didn't see no devilment,
Red, that you won't take a hand in, if it comes."
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The other men laughed, but the Red Fox looked
meek and lowly.
" I'm a servant of the Lord. He says do this,
an' I does it the best I know how. I goes about
a-preachin' the word in the wilderness an* a-heal-
in' the sick with soothin' yarbs and sech."
"An* a-makin' compacts with the devil," said
old Judd shortly, "when the eye of man is a-lookin*
t'other way." The left side of the Red Fox's face
twitched into the faintest shadow of a snarl, but,
shaking his head, he kept still.
"Well," said Sam Earth, who was thin and long
and sandy, " I don't keer what them fellers do on
t'other side o' the mountain, but what air they
a-comin' over here fer?"
Old Judd spoke again.
"To give you a job, if you wasn't too durned
lazy to work."
"Yes," said the other man, who was dark,
swarthy and whose black eyebrows met across the
bridge of his nose "and that damned Hale,
who's a-tearin' up Hellfire here in the cove." The
old man lifted his eyes. Young Dave's face wore
a sudden malignant sympathy which made June
clench her hands a little more tightly.
"What about him? You must have been over
to the Gap lately like Dave thar did you git
board in the calaboose ?" It was a random thrust,
but it was accurate and it went home, and there was
silence for a while. Presently old Judd went on:
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"Taxes hain't goin' to be raised, and if they
are, folks will be better able to pay 'em. Them
police-fellers at the Gap don't bother nobody if
he behaves himself. This war will start when it
does start, an' as for Hale, he's as square an*
clever a feller as I've ever seed. His word is just
as good as his bond. I'm a-goin' to sell him this
land. It'll be his'n, an' he can do what he wants
to with it. I'm his friend, and I'm goin' to stay
his friend as long as he goes on as he's goin' now,
an' I'm not goin' to see him bothered as long as
he tends to his own business."
The words fell slowly and the weight of them
rested heavily on all except on June. Her fingers
loosened and she smiled.
The Red Fox rose, shaking his head.
"All right, Judd Tolliver," he said warningly.
"Come in and git something to eat, Red."
"No," he said, "I'll be gittin' along" and he
went, still shaking his head.
The table was covered with an oil-cloth spotted
with drippings from a candle. The plates and
cups were thick and the spoons were of pewter.
The bread was soggy and the bacon was thick and
floating in grease. The men ate and the women
served, as in ancient days. They gobbled their
food like wolves, and when they drank their
coffee, the noise they made was painful to June's
ears. There were no napkins and when her
father pushed his chair back, he wiped his drip-
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ping mouth with the back of his sleeve. And
Loretta and the step-mother they, too, ate with
their knives and used their ringers. Poor June
quivered with a vague newborn disgust. Ah, had
she not changed in ways they could not see!
June helped clear away the dishes the old
woman did not object to that listening to the gos
sip of the mountains courtships, marriages,
births, deaths, the growing hostility in the feud,
the random killing of this man or that Hale's
doings in Lonesome Cove.
"He's comin' over hyeh agin next Saturday,"
said the old woman.
"Is he ?" said Loretta in a way that made June
turn sharply from her dishes toward her. She
knew Hale was not coming, but she said nothing.
The old woman was lighting her pipe.
"Yes you better be over hyeh in yo' best bib
and tucker."
"Pshaw," said Loretta, but June saw two
bright spots come into her pretty cheeks, and she
herself burned inwardly. The old woman was
looking at her.
* 'Pears like you air mighty quiet, June."
"That's so," said Loretta, looking at her, too.
June, still silent, turned back to her dishes.
They were beginning to take notice after all, for
the girl hardly knew that she had not opened her
lips.
Once only Dave spoke to her, and that was
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when Loretta said she must go. June was out in
the porch looking at the already beloved garden,
and hearing his step she turned. He looked her
steadily in the eyes. She saw his gaze drop to the
fairy-stone at her throat, and a faint sneer ap
peared at his set mouth a sneer for June's folly
and what he thought was uppishness in "furri-
ners" like Hale.
"So you ain't good enough fer him jest as ye
air air ye?" he said slowly. He's got to make
ye all over agin so's you'll be fitten fer him."
He turned away without looking to see how
deep his barbed shaft went and, startled, June
flushed to her hair. In a few minutes they were
gone Dave without the exchange of another word
with June, and Loretta with a parting cry that
she would come back on Saturday. The old man
went to the cornfield high above the cabin, the old
woman, groaning with pains real and fancied, lay
down on a creaking bed, and June, with Dave's
wound rankling, went out with Bub to see the new
doings in Lonesome Cove. The geese cackled
before her, the hog-fish darted like submarine
arrows from rock to rock and the willows bent in
the same wistful way toward their shadows in the
little stream, but its crystal depths were there no
longer floating sawdust whirled in eddies on
the surface and the water was black as soot.
Here and there the white belly of a fish lay up
turned to the sun, for the cruel, deadly work of
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civilization had already begun. Farther up the
creek was a buzzing monster that, creaking and
snorting, sent a flashing disk, rimmed with sharp
teeth, biting a savage way through a log, that
screamed with pain as the brutal thing tore
through its vitals, and gave up its life each time
with a ghost-like cry of agony. Farther on little
houses were being built of fresh boards, and far
ther on the water of the creek got blacker still.
June suddenly clutched Bud's arms. Two de
mons had appeared on a pile of fresh dirt above
them sooty, begrimed, with black faces and
black hands, and in the cap of each was a smoking
little lamp.
"Huh," said Bub, "that ain't nothin'! Hello,
Bill," he called bravely.
"Hello, Bub," answered one of the two de
mons, and both stared at the lovely little appari
tion who was staring with such naive horror at
them. It was all very wonderful, though, and it
was all happening in Lonesome Cove, but Jack
Hale was doing it all and, therefore, it was all
right, thought June no matter what Dave said.
Moreover, the ugly spot on the great, beautiful
breast of the Mother was such a little one after all
and June had no idea how it must spread. Above
the opening for the mines, the creek was crystal-
clear as ever, the great hills were the same, and the
sky and the clouds, and the cabin and the fields of
corn. Nothing could happen to them, but if even
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they were wiped out by Kale's hand she would
have made no complaint. A wood-thrush flitted
from a ravine as she and Bub went back down the
creek and she stopped with uplifted face to
listen. All her life she had loved its song, and this
was the first time she had heard it in Lonesome
Cove since she had learned its name from Hale.
She had never heard it thereafter without thinking
of him, and she thought of him now while it was
breathing out the very spirit of the hills, and she
drew a long sigh for already she was lonely and
hungering for him. The song ceased and a long
wavering cry came from the cabin.
"So-o-o-cow! S-o-o-kee! S-o-o-kee!"
The old mother was calling the cows. It was
near milking-time, and with a vague uneasiness
she hurried Bub home. She saw her father coming
down from the cornfield. She saw the two cows
come from the woods into the path that led to the
barn, switching their tails and snatching mouth-
fuls from the bushes as they swung down the hill
and, when she reached the gate, her step-mother
was standing on the porch with one hand on her
hip and the other shading her eyes from the slant
ing sun waiting for her. Already kindness and
consideration were gone.
"Whar you been, June? Hurry up, now.
You've had a long restin'-spell while I've been
a-workin' myself to death."
It was the old tone, and the old fierce rebellion
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rose within June, but Hale had told her to be
patient. She could not check the flash from her
eyes, but she shut her lips tight on the answer that
sprang to them, and without a word she went to
the kitchen for the milking-pails. The cows had
forgotten her. They eyed her with suspicion and
were restive. The first one kicked at her when she
put her beautiful head against its soft flank. Her
muscles had been in disuse and her hands were
cramped and her forearms ached before she was
through but she kept doggedly at her task. When
she finished, her father had fed the horses and
was standing behind her.
"Hit's mighty good to have you back agin,
little gal."
It was not often that he smiled or showed ten
derness, much less spoke it thus openly, and June
was doubly glad that she had held her tongue.
Then she helped her step-mother get supper. The
fire scorched her face, that had grown unaccus
tomed to such heat, and she burned one hand,
but she did not let her step-mother see even that.
Again she noticed with aversion the heavy thick
dishes and the pewter spoons and the candle-
grease on the oil-cloth, and she put the dishes
down and, while the old woman was out of the
room, attacked the spots viciously. Again she
saw her father and Bub ravenously gobbling their
coarse food while she and her step-mother served
and waited, and she began to wonder. The women
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sat at the table with the men over in the Gap
why not here ? Then her father went silently to
his pipe and Bub to playing with the kitten at the
kitchen-door, while she and her mother ate with
never a word. Something began to stifle her, but
she choked it down. There were the dishes to
be cleared away and washed, and the pans and
kettles to be cleaned. Her back ached, her arms
were tired to the shoulders and her burned hand
quivered with pain when all was done. The old
woman had left her to do the last few little things
alone and had gone to her pipe. Both she and her
father were sitting in silence on the porch when
June went out there. Neither spoke to each other,
nor to her, and both seemed to be part of the
awful stillness that engulfed the world. Bub fell
asleep in the soft air, and June sat and sat and sat.
That was all except for the stars that came out
over the mountains and were slowly being sprayed
over the sky, and the pipings of frogs from the
little creek. Once the wind came with a sudden
sweep up the river and she thought she could hear
the creak of Uncle Billy's water-wheel. It smote
her with sudden gladness, not so much because it
was a relief and because she loved the old miller,
but such is the power of association because
she now loved the mill more, loved it because the
mill over in the Gap had made her think more of
the mill at the mouth of Lonesome Cove. A tap
ping vibrated through the railing of the porch on
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
which her cheek lay. Her father was knocking the
ashes from his pipe. A similar tapping sounded
inside at the fireplace. The old woman had gone
and Bub was in bed, and she had heard neither
move. The old man rose with a yawn.
"Time to lay down, June."
The girl rose. They all slept in one room. She
did not dare to put on her night-gown her mother
would see it in the morning. So she slipped off her
dress, as she had done all her life, and crawled
into bed with Bub, who lay in the middle of it
and who grunted peevishly when she pushed him
with some difficulty over to his side. There were
no sheets not even one and the coarse blankets,
which had a close acrid odour that she had never
noticed before, seemed almost to scratch her
flesh. She had hardly been to bed that early since
she had left home, and she lay sleepless, watching
the firelight play hide and seek with the shadows
among the aged, smoky rafters and flicker over
the strings of dried things that hung from the ceil
ing. In the other corner her father and step
mother snored heartily, and Bub, beside her, was
in a nerveless slumber that would not come to her
that night tired and aching as she was. So,
quietly, by and by, she slipped out of bed and out
the door to the porch. The moon was rising and
the radiant sheen of it had dropped down over the
mountain side like a golden veil and was lighting
up the white rising mists that trailed the curves of
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the river. It sank below the still crests of the pines
beyond the garden and dropped on until it illu
mined, one by one, the dewy heads of the flowers.
She rose and walked down the grassy path in her
bare feet through the silent fragrant emblems of
the planter's thought of her touching this flower
and that with the tips of her fingers. And when
she went back, she bent to kiss one lovely rose
and, as she lifted her head with a start of fear, the
dew from it shining on her lips made her red
mouth as flower-like and no less beautiful. A yell
had shattered the quiet of the world not the high
fox-hunting yell of the mountains, but something
new and strange. Up the creek were strange
lights. A loud laugh shattered the succeeding
stillness a laugh she had never heard before in
Lonesome Cove. Swiftly she ran back to the
porch. Surely strange things were happening
there. A strange spirit pervaded the Cove and
the very air throbbed with premonitions. What
was the matter with everything what was the
matter with her ? She knew that she was lonely
and that she wanted Hale but what else was it ?
She shivered and not alone from the chill night-
air and puzzled and wondering and stricken at
heart, she crept back to bed.
207
XVIII
PAUSING at the Pine to let his big black horse
blow a while, Hale mounted and rode slowly
down the green-and-gold gloom of the ravine. In
his pocket was a quaint little letter from June to
" John Hail"; thanking him for the beautiful gar
den, saying she was lonely, and wanting him to
come soon. From the low flank of the mountain
he stopped, looking down on the cabin in Lone
some Cove. It was a dreaming summer day. Trees,
air, blue sky and white cloud were all in a dream,
and even the smoke lazing from the chimney
seemed drifting away like the spirit of something
human that cared little whither it might be borne.
Something crimson emerged from the door and
stopped in indecision on the steps of the porch.
It moved again, stopped at the corner of the
house, and then, moving on with a purpose,
stopped once more and began to flicker slowly to
and fro like a flame. June was working in her
garden. Hale thought he would halloo to her,
and then he decided to surprise her, and he went
on down, hitched his horse and stole up to the
garden fence. On the way he pulled up a bunch
of weeds by the roots and with them in his arms
he noiselessly climbed the fence. June neither
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heard nor saw him. Her underlip was clenched
tight between her teeth, the little cross swung
violently at her throat and she was so savagely
wielding the light hoe he had given her that he
thought at first she must be killing a snake; but
she was only fighting to death every weed that
dared to show its head. Her feet and her head
were bare, her face was moist and flushed and her
hair was a tumbled heap of what was to him the
rarest gold under the sun. The wind was still,
the leaves were heavy with the richness of full
growth, bees were busy about June's head and
not another soul was in sight
"Good morning, little girl!" he called cheerily.
The hoe was arrested at the height of a vicious
stroke and the little girl whirled without a cry,
but the blood from her pumping heart crimsoned
her face and made her eyes shine with gladness.
Her eyes went to her feet and her hands to her
hair.
"You oughtn't to slip up an' s-startle a lady
that-a-way," she said with grave rebuke, and
Hale looked humbled. "Now you just set there
and wait till I come back."
"No no I want you to stay just as you are."
"Honest?"
Hale gravely crossed heart and body and June
gave out a happy little laugh for he had caught
that gesture a favourite one from her. Then
suddenly:
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"How long?" She was thinking of what Dave
said, but the subtle twist in her meaning passed
Hale by. He raised his eyes to the sun and June
shook her head.
" You got to go home 'fore sundown."
She dropped her hoe and came over toward him.
" Whut you doin' with them those weeds ?"
"Going to plant 'em in our garden." Hale had
got a theory from a garden-book that the humble
burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plants were
good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to ex
periment, but June gave a shrill whoop and fell to
scornful laughter. Then she snatched the weeds
from him and threw them over the fence.
"Why, June!"
"Not in my garden. Them's stagger-weeds
they kill cows," and she went off again.
"I reckon you better c-consult me 'bout weeds
next time. I don't know much 'bout flowers, but
I've knowed all my life 'bout weeds.' 9 She laid so
much emphasis on the word that Hale wondered
for the moment if her words had a deeper mean
ing but she went on:
"Ever' spring I have to watch the cows fer two
weeks to keep 'em from eatin' those weeds."
Her self-corrections were always made gravely
now, and Hale consciously ignored them except
when he had something to tell her that she ought
to know. Everything, it seemed, she wanted to
know.
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"Do they really kill cows?"
June snapped her fingers: "Like that. But
you just come on here," she added with pretty
imperiousness. "I want to axe ask you some
things what's that?"
"Scarlet sage."
"Scarlet sage," repeated June. "An' that?"
"Nasturtium, and that's Oriental grass."
" Nas-tur-tium, Oriental. An' what's that
vine?"
"That comes from North Africa they call it
'matrimonial vine."
"Whut fer?" asked June quickly.
"Because it clings so." Hale smiled, but June
saw none of his humour the married people she
knew clung till the finger of death unclasped them.
She pointed to a bunch of tall tropical-looking
plants with great spreading leaves and big green-
white stalks.
"They're called Palrn^ Christi."
"Whut?"
"That's Latin. It means 'Hands of Christ,'"
said Hale with reverence. "You see how the
leaves are spread out don't they look like hands ?'
"Not much," said June frankly. "What's
Latin?"
"Oh, that's a dead language that some people
used a long, long time ago."
"What do folks use it nowadays fer? Why
don't they just say 'Hands o' Christ' ?"
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I don't know," he said helplessly, "but maybe
you'll study Latin some of these days." June
shook her head.
"Gettin' your language is a big enough job fer
me," she said with such quaint seriousness that
Hale could not laugh. She looked up suddenly.
" You been a long time git-gettin' over here."
"Yes, and now you want to send me home
before sundown."
" I'm afeer I'm afraid for you. Have you got
a gun ?" Hale tapped his breast-pocket.
"Always. What are you afraid of?"
"The Falins." She clenched her hands.
"I'd like to see one o' them Falins tech ye," she
added fiercely, and then she gave a quick look at
the sun.
"You better go now, Jack. I'm afraid fer you.
Where's your horse ?" Hale waved his hand.
"Down there. All right, little girl," he said.
"I ought to go, anyway." And, to humour her, he
started for the gate. There he bent to kiss her,
but she drew back.
"I'm afraid of Dave," she said, but she leaned
on the gate and looked long at him with wistful
eyes.
" Jack," she said, and her eyes swam suddenly,
"it'll most kill me but I reckon you better not
come over here much." Hale made light of it all.
"Nonsense, I'm coming just as often as I can."
June smiled then.
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"All right. I'll watch out fer ye."
He went down the path, her eyes following him,
and when he looked back from the spur he saw
her sitting in the porch and watching that she
might wave him farewell.
Hale could not go over to Lonesome Cove much
that summer, for he was away from the mountains
a good part of the time, and it was a weary, rack
ing summer for June when he was not there. The
step-mother was a stern taskmistress, and the girl
worked hard, but no night passed that she did not
spend an hour or more on her books, and by de
grees she bribed and stormed Bub into learning
his A, B, C's and digging at a blue-back spelling
book. But all through the day there were times
when she could play with the boy in the garden,
and every afternoon, when it was not raining, she
would slip away to a little ravine behind the cabin,
where a log had fallen across a little brook, and
there in the cool, sun-pierced shadows she would
study, read and dream with the water bubbling
underneath and wood-thrushes singing overhead.
For Hale kept her well supplied with books. He
had given her children's books at first, but she
outgrew them when the first love-story fell into her
hands, and then he gave her novels good, old
ones and the best of the new ones, and they were
to her what water is to a thing athirst. But the
happy days were when Hale was there. She had
a thousand questions for him to answer, whenever
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
he came, about birds, trees and flowers and the
things she read in her books. The words she
could not understand in them she marked, so that
she could ask their meaning, and it was amazing
how her vocabulary increased. Moreover, she
was always trying to use the new words she learned,
and her speech was thus a quaint mixture of ver
nacular, self-corrections and unexpected words.
Happening once to have a volume of Keats in his
pocket, he read some of it to her, and while she
could not understand, the music of the lines fas
cinated her and she had him leave that with her,
too. She never tired hearing him tell of the places
where he had been and the people he knew and
the music and plays he had heard and seen. And
when he told her that she, too, should see all those
wonderful things some day, her deep eyes took
fire and she dropped her head far back between
her shoulders and looked long at the stars that
held but little more wonder for her than the world
of which he told. But each time he was there she
grew noticeably shyer with him and never once
was the love-theme between them taken up in
open words. Hale was reluctant, if only because
she was still such a child, and if he took her hand
or put his own on her wonderful head or his arm
around her as they stood in the garden under the
stars he did it as to a child, though the leap in
her eyes and the quickening of his own heart told
him the lie that he was acting, rightly, to her and
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
to himself. And no more now were there any
breaking-downs within her there was only a
calm faith that staggered him and gave him an
ever-mounting sense of his responsibility for what
ever might, through the part he had taken in
moulding her life, be in store for her.
When he was not there, life grew a little easier
for her in time, because of her dreams, the pa
tience that was built from them and Hale's kindly
words, the comfort of her garden and her books,
and the blessed force of habit. For as time went
on, she got consciously used to the rough life, the
coarse food and the rude ways of her own people
and her own home. And though she relaxed not
a bit in her own dainty cleanliness, the shrinking
that she felt when she first arrived home, came to
her at longer and longer intervals. Once a week
she went down to Uncle Billy's, where she watched
the water-wheel dripping sun-jewels into the sluice,
the kingfisher darting like a blue bolt upon his
prey, and listening to the lullaby that the water
played to the sleepy old mill and stopping, both
ways, to gossip with old Hon in her porch under
the honeysuckle vines. Uncle Billy saw the change
in her and he grew vaguely uneasy about her
she dreamed so much, she was at times so restless,
she asked so many questions he could not answer,
and she failed to ask so many that were on the tip
of her tongue. He saw that while her body was at
home, her thoughts rarely were; and it all haunted
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him with a vague sense that he was losing her.
But old Hon laughed at him and told him he
was an old fool and to "git another pair o' specs"
and maybe he could see that the "little gal" was
in love. This startled Uncle Billy, for he was so
like a father to June that he was as slow as a
father in recognizing that his child has grown to
such absurd maturity. But looking back to the
beginning how the little girl had talked of the
"furriner" who had come into Lonesome Cove
all during the six months he was gone; how gladly
she had gone away to the Gap to school, how anx
ious she was to go still farther away again, and,
remembering all the strange questions she asked
him about things in the outside world of which he
knew nothing Uncle Billy shook his head in con
firmation of his own conclusion, and with all his
soul he wondered about Hale what kind of a man
he was and what his purpose was with June and
of every man who passed his mill he never failed
to ask if he knew "that ar man Hale" and what
he knew. All he had heard had been in Hale's
favour, except from young Dave Tolliver, the Red
Fox or from any Falin of the crowd, which Hale
had prevented from capturing Dave. Their state
ments bothered him especially the Red Fox's
evil hints and insinuations about Hale's purposes
one- day at the mill. The miller thought of them
all the afternoon and all the way home, and when
he sat down at his fire his eyes very naturally and
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simply rose to his old rifle over the door and
then he laughed to himself so loudly that old
Hon heard him.
"Air you goin' crazy, Billy?" she asked.
" Whut you studyin' 'bout ?"
"Nothin'; I was jest a-thinkin* Devil Judd
wouldn't leave a grease-spot of him."
"You air goin' crazy who's him ?"
"Uh nobody," said Uncle Billy, and old
Hon turned with a shrug of her shoulders she
was tired of all this talk about the feud.
All that summer young Dave Tolliver hung
around Lonesome Cove. He would sit for hours
in Devil Judd's cabin, rarely saying anything to
June or to anybody, though the girl felt that she
hardly made a move that he did not see, and while
he disappeared when Hale came, after a surly
grunt of acknowledgment to Hale's cheerful greet
ing, his perpetual espionage began to anger June.
Never, however, did he put himself into words
until Hale's last visit, when the summer had
waned and it was nearly time for June to go away
again to school. As usual, Dave had left the
house when Hale came, and an hour after Hale
was gone she went to the little ravine with a book
in her hand, and there the boy was sitting on her
log, his elbows dug into his legs midway between
thigh and knee, his chin in his hands, his slouched
hat over his black eyes every line of him pictur
ing angry, sullen dejection. She would have
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slipped away, but he heard her and lifted his head
and stared at her without speaking. Then he
slowly got off the log and sat down on a moss-
covered stone.
"Scuse me," he said with elaborate sarcasm.
"This bein' yo' school-house over hyeh, an' me
not bein' a scholar, I reckon I'm in your way."
" How do you happen to know hit's my school-
house ?" asked June quietly.
"I've seed you hyeh."
"Jus'asls'posed."
"You an' him."
:t Jus' as I s'posed," she repeated, and a spot of
red came into each cheek. " But we didn't see
you." Young Dave laughed.
"Well, everybody don't always see me when
I'm seein' them."
"No," she said unsteadily. "So, you've been
sneakin' around through the woods a-spyin' on
me sneakin' an 9 spyin" she repeated so sear-
ingly that Dave looked at the ground suddenly,
picked up a pebble confusedly and shot it in the
water.
" I had a mighty good reason," he said doggedly.
"Ef he'd been up to some of his furrin' tricks "
June stamped the ground.
"Don't you think I kin take keer o' myself?"
"No, I don't. I never seed a gal that could
with one o' them furriners."
"Huh!" she said scornfully. "You seem to set
218
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
a mighty big store by the decency of yo' own kin."
Dave was silent. "He ain't up to no tricks. An'
whut do you reckon Dad 'ud be doin' while you
was pertecting me ?"
"Air ye goin' away to school?" he asked sud
denly. June hesitated.
" Well, seein' as hit's none o' yo' business I am."
"Air ye goin' to marry him ?"
"He ain't axed me." The boy's face turned
red as a flame.
"Ye air honest with me, an' now I'm goin' to
be honest with you. You hain't never goin' to
marry him."
"Mebbe you think I'm goin' to marry you."
A mist of rage swept before the lad's eyes so that
he could hardly see, but he repeated steadily:
"You hain't goin' to marry him." June looked
at the boy long and steadily, but his black eyes
never wavered she knew what he meant.
"An' he kept the Falins from killin' you," she
said, quivering with indignation at the shame of
him, but Dave went on unheeding:
"You pore little fool! Do ye reckon as how
he's ever goin' to axe ye to marry him ? Whut's
he sendin' you away fer? Because you hain't
good enough fer him ! Whar's yo' pride ? You
hain't good enough fer him," he repeated scath
ingly. June had grown calm now.
"I know it," she said quietly, "but I'm goin'
to try to be."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Dave rose then in impotent fury and pointed
one finger at her. His black eyes gleamed like a
demon's and his voice was hoarse with resolution
and rage, but it was Tolliver against Tolliver now,
and June answered him with contemptuous fear
lessness.
" You halnt never goin to marry htm."
"An' he kept the Falins from killin' ye."
"Yes," he retorted savagely at last, "an* I kept
the Falins from killin' him" and he stalked away,
leaving June blanched and wondering.
It was true. Only an hour before, as Hale
turned up the mountain that very afternoon at the
mouth of Lonesome Cove, young Dave had called
to him from the bushes and stepped into the road.
"You air goin' to court Monday?" he said.
"Yes," said Hale.
"Well, you better take another road this time,"
he said quietly. "Three o' the Falins will be
waitin' in the lorrel somewhar on the road to lay-
way ye."
Hale was dumfounded, but he knew the boy
spoke the truth.
"Look here," he said impulsively, "I've got
nothing against you, and I hope you've got noth
ing against me. I'm much obliged let's shake
hands!"
The boy turned sullenly away with a dogged
shake of his head.
"I was beholden to you," he said with dignity,
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"an* I warned you 'bout them Falins to git even
with you. We're quits now."
Hale started to speak to say that the lad was
not beholden to him that he would as quickly
have protected a Falin, but it would have only
made matters worse. Moreover, he knew pre
cisely what Dave had against him, and that, too,
was no matter for discussion. So he said simply
and sincerely:
"I'm sorry we can't be friends."
"No," Dave gritted out, "not this side o'
Heaven or Hell."
221
XIX
A ND still farther into that far silence about
* ^ which she used to dream at the base of the
big Pine, went little June. At dusk, weary and
travel-stained, she sat in the parlours of a hotel
a great gray columned structure of stone. She
was confused and bewildered and her head ached.
The journey had been long and tiresome. The
swift motion of the train had made her dizzy and
faint. The dust and smoke had almost stifled her,
and even now the dismal parlours, rich and won
derful as they were to her unaccustomed eyes,
oppressed her deeply. If she could have one more
breath of mountain air!
The day had been too full of wonders. Impres
sions had crowded on her sensitive brain so thick
and fast that the recollection of them was as
through a haze. She had never been on a train
before and when, as it crashed ahead, she clutched
Hale's arm in fear and asked how they stopped it,
Hale hearing the whistle blow for a station, said :
" I'll show you," and he waved one hand out the
window. And he repeated this trick twice before
she saw that it was a joke. All day he had soothed
her uneasiness in some such way and all day he
watched her with an amused smile that was puz-
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zling to her. She remembered sadly watching the
mountains dwindle and disappear, and when sev
eral of her own people who were on the train were
left at way-stations, it seemed as though all links
that bound her to her home were broken. The
face of the country changed, the people changed in
looks, manners and dress, and she shrank closer to
Hale with an increasing sense of painful loneli
ness. These level fields and these farm-houses so
strangely built, so varied in colour were the"set-
tlemints," and these people so nicely dressed, so
clean and fresh-looking were "furriners." At one
station a crowd of school-girls had got on board and
she had watched them with keen interest, mysti
fied by their incessant chatter and gayety. And
at last had come the big city, with more smoke,
more dust, more noise, more confusion and she
was in his world. That was the thought that
comforted her it was his world, and now she sat
alone in the dismal parlours while Hale was gone
to find his sister waiting and trembling at the
ordeal, close upon her, of meeting Helen Hale.
Below, Hale found his sister and her maid reg
istered, and a few minutes later he led Miss Hale
into the parlour. As they entered June rose
without advancing, and for a moment the two
stood facing each other the still roughly clad,
primitive mountain girl and the exquisite modern
woman in an embarrassment equally painful to
both.
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"June, this is my sister."
At a loss what to do, Helen Hale simply stretched
out her hand, but drawn by June's timidity and
the quick admiration and fear in her eyes, she
leaned suddenly forward and kissed her. A grate
ful flush overspread the little girl's features and
the pallor that instantly succeeded went straight
way to the sister's heart.
"You are not well," she said quickly and
kindly. "You must go to your room at once.
I am going to take care of you you are my little
sister now."
June lost the subtlety in Miss Kale's emphasis,
but she fell with instant submission under such
gentle authority, and though she could say nothing,
her eyes glistened and her lips quivered, and with
out looking to Hale, she followed his sister out of
the room. Hale stood still. He had watched the
meeting with apprehension and now, surprised
and grateful, he went to Helen's parlour and
waited with a hopeful heart. When his sister
entered, he rose eagerly:
"Well " he said, stopping suddenly, for there
were tears of vexation, dismay and genuine dis
tress on his sister's face.
"Oh, Jack," she cried, "how could you!
How could you!"
Hale bit his lips, turned and paced the room.
He had hoped too much and yet what else could
he have expected ? His sister and June knew as
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little about each other and each other's lives as
though they had occupied different planets. He
had forgotten that Helen must be shocked by
June's inaccuracies of speech and in a hundred
other ways to which he had become accustomed.
With him, moreover, the process had been gradual
and, moreover, he had seen beneath it all. And
yet he had foolishly expected Helen to understand
everything at once. He was unjust, so very wisely
he held himself in silence.
"Where is her baggage, Jack?" Helen had
opened her trunk and was lifting out the lid.
" She ought to change those dusty clothes at once.
You'd better ring and have it sent right up."
"No," said Hale, "I will go down and see
about it myself."
He returned presently his face aflame with
June's carpet-bag.
" I believe this is all she has," he said quietly.
In spite of herself Helen's grief changed to a fit
of helpless laughter and, afraid to trust himself
further, Hale rose to leave the room. At the door
he was met by the negro maid.
"Miss Helen," she said with an open smile,
"Miss June say she don't want nuttin 9 ." Hale
gave her a fiery look and hurried out. June was
seated at a window when he went into her room
with her face buried in her arms. She lifted her
head, dropped it, and he saw that her eyes were
red with weeping.
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"Are you sick, little girl?" he asked anxiously.
June shook her head helplessly.
"You aren't homesick, are you ?"
"No." The answer came very faintly.
"Don't you like my sister?" The head bowed
an emphatic "Yes yes."
"Then what is the matter ?"
"Oh," she said despairingly, between her sobs,
"she won't like me. I never can be like
her."
Hale smiled, but her grief was so sincere that
he leaned over her and with a tender hand soothed
her into quiet. Then he went to Helen again and
he found her overhauling dresses.
"I brought along several things of different
sizes and I am going to try at any rate. Oh," she
added hastily, "only of course until she can get
some clothes of her own."
"Sure," said Hale, "but " His sister waved
one hand and again Hale kept still.
June had bathed her eyes and was lying down
when Helen entered, and she made not the slight
est objection to anything the latter proposed.
Straightway she fell under as complete subjection
to her as she had done to Hale. Without a mo
ment's hesitation she drew off her rudely fashioned
dress and stood before Helen with the utmost sim
plicity her beautiful arms and throat bare and
her hair falling about them with the rich gold of
a cloud at an autumn sunset. Dressed, she could
226
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
hardly breathe, but when she looked at herself in
the mirror, she trembled. Magic transformation!
Apparently the chasm between the two had been
bridged in a single instant. Helen herself was
astonished and again her heart warmed toward
the girl, when a little later, she stood timidly under
Kale's scrutiny, eagerly watching his face and
flushing rosy with happiness under his brightening
look. Her brother had not exaggerated the little
girl was really beautiful. When they went down
to the dining-room, there was another surprise for
Helen Hale, for June's timidity was gone and to
the wonder of the woman, she was clothed with
an impassive reserve that in herself would have
been little less than haughtiness and was astound
ing in a child. She saw, too, that the change in
the girl's bearing was unconscious and that the
presence of strangers had caused it. It was plain
that June's timidity sprang from her love of Hale
her fear of not pleasing him and not pleasing her,
his sister, and plain, too, that remarkable self-
poise was little June's to command. At the table
June kept her eyes fastened on Helen Hale. Not
a movement escaped her and she did nothing that
was not done by one of the others first. She said
nothing, but if she had to answer a question, she
spoke with such care and precision that she almost
seemed to be using a foreign language. Miss
Hale smiled but with inward approval, and that
night she was in better spirits.
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"Jack," she said, when he came to bid her
good-night, "I think we'd better stay here a few
days. I thought of course you were exaggerating,
but she is very, very lovely. And that manner of
hers well, it passes my understanding. Just
leave everything to me."
Hale was very willing to do that. He had all
trust in his sister's judgment, he knew her dislike
of interference, her love of autocratic supervision,
so he asked no questions, but in grateful relief
kissed her good-night.
The sister sat for a long time at her window
after he was gone. Her brother had been long
away from civilization; he had become infatuated,
the girl loved him, he was honourable and in his
heart he meant to marry her that was to her the
whole story. She had been mortified by the mis
step, but the misstep made, only one thought
had occurred to her to help him all she could.
She had been appalled when she first saw the
dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helpless
ness and the loneliness of the tired little face
touched her, and she was straightway responsive
to the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted
to her own with such modest fear and wonder.
Now her surprise at her brother's infatuation was
abating rapidly. The girl's adoration of him, her
wild beauty, her strange winning personality as
rare and as independent of birth and circum
stances as genius had soon made that phenom-
228
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
enon plain. And now what was to be done ? The
girl was quick, observant, imitative, docile, and in
the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner
gave the impression of uncanny self-possession.
It really seemed as though anything might be pos-
sible. At Helen's suggestion, then, the three
stayed where they were for a week, for June's
wardrobe was sadly in need of attention. So the
week was spent in shopping, driving, and walking,
and rapidly as it passed for Helen and Hale it was
to June the longest of her life, so filled was it with
a thousand sensations unfelt by them. The city
had been stirred by the spirit of the new South,
but the charm of the old was distinct everywhere.
Architectural eccentricities had startled the sleepy
maple-shaded rows of comfortable uniform dwell-
ings here and there, and in some streets the life
was brisk; but it was still possible to see pedes-
trians strolling with unconscious good-humour
around piles of goods on the sidewalk, business
men stopping for a social chat on the streets,
street-cars moving independent of time, men in-
variably giving up their seats to women, and,
strangers or not, depositing their fare for them;
the drivers at the courteous personal service of
each patron of the road now holding a car and
placidly whistling while some lady who had sig-
nalled from her doorway went back indoors for
some forgotten article, now twisting the reins
around the brakes and leaving a parcel in some
229
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
yard and no one grumbling! But what was to
Hale an atmosphere of amusing leisure was to
June bewildering confusion. To her his amuse-
ment was unintelligible, but though in constant
wonder at everything she saw, no one would ever
have suspected that she was making her first
acquaintance with city scenes. At first the calm
unconcern of her companions had puzzled her.
She could not understand how they could walk
along, heedless of the wonderful visions that
beckoned to her from the shop-windows; fearless
of the strange noises about them and scarcely no-
ticing the great crowds of people, or the strange
shining vehicles that thronged the streets. But
she had quickly concluded that it was one of the
demands of that new life to see little and be aston-
ished at nothing, and Helen and Hale surprised in
turn at her unconcern, little suspected the effort
her self-suppression cost her. And when over some
wonder she did lose herself, Hale would say:
"Just wait till you see New York!" and June
would turn her dark eyes to Helen for confirma-
tion and to see if Hale could be joking with her.
"It's all true, June," Helen would say. "You
must go there some day. It's true." But that
town was enough and too much for June. Her
head buzzed continuously and she could hardly
sleep, and she was glad when one afternoon they
took her into the country again the Bluegrass
country and to the little town near which Hale
230
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
had been born, and which was a dream-city to
June, and to a school of which an old friend of his
mother was principal, and in which Helen herself
was a temporary teacher. And Rumour had gone
ahead of June. Hale had found her dashing about
the mountains on the back of a wild bull, said
rumour. She was as beautiful as Europa, was of
pure English descent and spoke the language of
Shakespeare the Hon. Sam Budd's hand was
patent in this. She had saved Hale's life from
moonshiners and while he was really in love with
her, he was pretending to educate her out of
gratitude and here doubtless was the faint
tracery of Miss Anne Saunder's natural suspi-
cions. And there Hale left her under the eye of
his sister left her to absorb another new life like
a thirsty plant and come back to the mountains to
make his head swim with new witcheries.
231
XX
boom started after its shadow through
the hills now, and Hale watched it sweep
toward him with grim satisfaction at the fulfilment
of his own prophecy and with disgust that, by the
irony of fate, it should come from the very quar-
ters where years before he had played the mad-
dening part of lunatic at large. The avalanche
was sweeping southward; Pennsylvania was creep-
ing down the Alleghanies, emissaries of New York
capital were pouring into the hills, the tide-water
of Virginia and the Bluegrass region of Kentucky
were sending in their best blood and youth, and
friends of the helmeted Englishmen were hurry-
ing over the seas. Eastern companies were taking
up principalities, and at Cumberland Gap, those
helmeted Englishmen had acquired a kingdom.
They were building a town there, too, with huge
steel plants, broad avenues and business blocks
that would have graced Broadway; and they
were pouring out a million for every thousand that
it would have cost Hale to acquire the land on
which the work was going on. Moreover they
were doing it there, as Hale heard, because they
were too late to get control of his gap through the
Cumberland. At his gap, too, the same movement
232
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
was starting. In stage and wagon, on mule and
horse, "riding and tying" sometimes, and even
afoot came the rush of madmen. Horses and
mules were drowned in the mud holes along the
road, such was the traffic and such were the
floods. The incomers slept eight in a room,
burned oil at one dollar a gallon, and ate potatoes
at ten cents apiece. The Grand Central Hotel
was a humming Real-Estate Exchange, and, night
and day, the occupants of any room could hear,
through the thin partitions, lots booming to right,
left, behind and in front of them. The labour
and capital question was instantly solved, for
everybody became a capitalist carpenter, brick-
layer, blacksmith, singing teacher and preacher.
There is no difference between the shrewdest
business man and a fool in a boom, for the boom
levels all grades of intelligence and produces as
distinct a form of insanity as you can find within
the walls of an asylum. Lots took wings sky-
ward. Hale bought one for June for thirty dol-
lars and sold it for a thousand. Before the au-
tumn was gone, he found himself on the way to
ridiculous opulence and, when spring came, he
had the world in a sling and, if he wished, he could
toss it playfully at the sun and have it drop back
into his hand again. And the boom spread down
the valley and into the hills. The police guard had
little to do and, over in the mountains, the feud
miraculously came to a sudden close.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
So pervasive, indeed, was the spirit of the times
that the Hon. Sam Budd actually got old Buck
Falin and old Dave Tolliver to sign a truce, agree-
ing to a complete cessation of hostilities until he
carried through a land deal in which both were
interested. And after that was concluded, no-
body had time, even the Red Fox, for deviltry and
private vengeance so busy was everybody pick-
ing up the manna which was dropping straight
from the clouds. Hale bought all of old Judd's
land, formed a stock company and in the trade
gave June a bonus of the stock. Money was plenti-
ful as grains of sand, and the cashier of the bank in
the back of the furniture store at the Gap chuckled
to his beardless directors as he locked the wooden
door on the day before the great land sale:
"Capital stock paid in thirteen thousand dol-
lars;
"Deposits three hundred thousand;
"Loans two hundred and sixty thousand
interest from eight to twelve per cent." And,
beardless though those directors were, that state-
ment made them reel.
A club was formed and the like of it was not
below Mason and Dixon's line in the way of fur-
niture, periodicals, liquors and cigars. Poker
ceased it was too tame in competition with this
new game of town-lots. On the top of High Knob
a kingdom was bought. The young bloods of the
town would build a lake up there, run a road up
234
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and build a Swiss chalet on the very top for a
country club. The "booming" editor was dis-
charged. A new paper was started, and the ex-
editor of a New York Daily was got to run it. If
anybody wanted anything, he got it from no mat-
ter where, nor at what cost. Nor were the arts
wholly neglected. One man, who was proud of
his voice, thought he would like to take singing
lessons. An emissary was sent to Boston to bring
back the best teacher he could find. The teacher
came with a method of placing the voice by trying
to say "Come!" at the base of the nose and be-
tween the eyes. This was with the lips closed.
He charged two dollars per half hour for this effort,
he had each pupil try it twice for half an hour each
day, and for six weeks the town was humming like
a beehive. At the end of that period, the teacher
fell ill and went his way with a fat pocket-book
and not a warbling soul had got the chance to
open his mouth. The experience dampened no-
body. Generosity was limitless. It was equally
easy to raise money for a roulette wheel, a cathe-
dral or an expedition to Africa. And even yet the
railroad was miles away and even yet in Feb-
ruary, the Improvement Company had a great
land sale. The day before it, competing purchas-
ers had deposited cheques aggregating three times
the sum asked for by the company for the land.
So the buyers spent the night organizing a pool to
keep down competition and drawing lots for the
235
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
privilege of bidding. For fairness, the sale was an
auction, and one old farmer who had sold some
of the land originally for a hundred dollars an
acre, bought back some of that land at a thousand
dollars a lot.
That sale was the climax and, that early, Hale
got a warning word from England, but he paid no
heed even though, after the sale, the boom slack-
ened, poised and stayed still; for optimism was
unquenchable and another tide would come with
another sale in May, and so the spring passed in
the same joyous recklessness and the same perfect
hope.
In April, the first railroad reached the Gap at
last, and families came in rapidly. Money was
still plentiful and right royally was it spent, for
was not just as much more coming when the sec-
ond road arrived in May ? Life was easier, too
supplies came from New York, eight o'clock din-
ners were in vogue and everybody was happy.
Every man had two or three good horses and noth-
ing to do. The place was full of visiting girls.
They rode in parties to High Knob, and the ring
of hoof and the laughter of youth and maid made
every dusk resonant with joy. On Poplar Hill
houses sprang up like magic and weddings came.
The passing stranger was stunned to find out in
the wilderness such a spot; gayety, prodigal hos-
pitality, a police force of gentlemen nearly all of
whom were college graduates and a club, where
236
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
poker flourished in the smoke of Havana cigars,
and a barrel of whiskey stood in one corner with
a faucet waiting for the turn of any hand. And
still the foundation of the new hotel was not started
and the coming of the new railroad in May did not
make a marked change. For some reason the
May sale was postponed by the Improvement
Company, but what did it matter? Perhaps it
was better to wait for the fall, and so the summer
went on unchanged. Every man still had a bank
account and in the autumn, the boom would come
again. At such a time June came home for her
vacation, and Bob Berkley came back from col-
lege for his. All through the school year Hale had
got the best reports of June. His sister's letters
were steadily encouraging. June had been very
homesick for the mountains and for Hale at first,
but the homesickness had quickly worn off ap-
parently for both. She had studied hard, had be-
come a favourite among the girls, and had held
her own among them in a surprising way. But it
was on June's musical talent that Hale's sister
always laid most stress, and on her voice which,
she said, was really unusual. June wrote, too, at
longer and longer intervals and in her letters,
Hale could see the progress she was making the
change in her handwriting, the increasing for-
mality of expression, and the increasing shrewd-
ness of her comments on her fellow-pupils, her
teachers and the life about her. She did not
237
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
write home for a reason Hale knew, though June
never mentioned it because there was no one at
home who could read her letters but she always
sent messages to her father and Bub and to the
old miller and old Hon, and Hale faithfully deliv-
ered them when he could.
From her people, as Hale learned from his sis-
ter, only one messenger had come during the year
to June, and he came but once. One morning, a
tall, black-haired, uncouth young man, in a slouch
hat and a Prince Albert coat, had strode up to the
school with a big paper box under his arm and
asked for June. As he handed the box to the
maid at the door, it broke and red apples burst
from it and rolled down the steps. There was a
shriek of laughter from the girls, and the young
man, flushing red as the apples, turned, without
giving his name, and strode back with no little
majesty, looking neither to right nor left. Hale
knew and June knew that the visitor was her
cousin Dave, but she never mentioned the incident
to him, though as the end of the session drew nigh,
her letters became more frequent and more full of
messages to the people in Lonesome Cove, and she
seemed eager to get back home. Over there about
this time, old Judd concluded suddenly to go
West, taking Bud with him, and when Hale wrote
the fact, an answer came from June that showed
the blot of tears. However, she seemed none the
less in a hurry to get back, and when Hale met her
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at the station, he was startled; for she came back
in dresses that were below her shoe-tops, with her
wonderful hair massed in a golden glory on the
top of her head and the little fairy-cross dangling
at a woman's throat. Her figure had rounded, her
voice had softened. She held herself as straight
as a young poplar and she walked the earth as
though she had come straight from Olympus.
And still, in spite of her new feathers and airs and
graces, there was in her eye and in her laugh and
in her moods all the subtle wild charm of the child
in Lonesome Cove. It was fairy-time for June
that summer, though her father and Bud had
gone West, for her step-mother was living with a
sister, the cabin in Lonesome Cove was closed and
June stayed at the Gap, not at the Widow Crane's
boarding-house, but with one of Hale's married
friends on Poplar Hill. And always was she,
young as she was, one of the merry parties of that
happy summer even at the dances, for the dance,
too, June had learned. Moreover she had picked
up the guitar, and many times when Hale had
been out in the hills, he would hear her silver-
clear voice floating out into the moonlight as he
made his way toward Poplar Hill, and he would
stop under the beeches and listen with ears of
growing love to the wonder of it all. For it was
he who was the ardent one of the two now.
June was no longer the frank, impulsive child
who stood at the foot of the beech, doggedly reck-
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less if all the world knew her love for him. She
had taken flight to some inner recess where it was
difficult for Hale to follow, and right puzzled he
was to discover that he must now win again what,
unasked, she had once so freely given.
Bob Berkley, too, had developed amazingly.
He no longer said "Sir" to Hale that was bad
form at Harvard he called him by his first name
and looked him in the eye as man to man: just as
June Hale observed no longer seemed in any
awe of Miss Anne Saunders and to have lost all
jealousy of her, or of anybody else so swiftly had
her instinct taught her she now had nothing to
fear. And Bob and June seemed mightily pleased
with each other, and sometimes Hale, watching
them as they galloped past him on horseback
laughing and bantering, felt foolish to think of
their perfect fitness the one for the other and
the incongruity of himself in a relationship that
would so naturally be theirs. At one thing he
wondered: she had made an extraordinary record
at school and it seemed to him that it was partly
through the consciousness that her brain would
take care of itself that she could pay such heed to
what hitherto she had had no chance to learn
dress, manners, deportment and speech. Indeed,
it was curious that she seemed to lay most stress
on the very things to which he, because of his long
rough life in the mountains, was growing more and
more indifferent. It was quite plain that Bob,
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with his extreme gallantry of manner, his smart
clothes, his high ways and his unconquerable
gayety, had supplanted him on the pedestal where
he had been the year before, just as somebody,
somewhere his sister, perhaps had supplanted
Miss Anne. Several times indeed June had cor-
rected Hale's slips of tongue with mischievous tri-
umph, and once when he came back late from a
long trip in the mountains and walked in to din-
ner without changing his clothes, Hale saw her
look from himself to the immaculate Bob with an
unconscious comparison that half amused, half
worried him. The truth was he was building a
lovely Frankenstein and from wondering what he
was going to do with it, he was beginning to won-
der now what it might some day do with him.
And though he sometimes joked with Miss Anne,
who had withdrawn now to the level plane of
friendship with him, about the transformation
that was going on, he worried in a way that did
neither his heart nor his brain good. Still he
fought both to little purpose all that summer, and
it was not till the time was nigh when June must
go away again, that he spoke both. For Hale's
sister was going to marry, and it was her advice
that he should take June to New York if only for
the sake of her music and her voice. That very
day June had for the first time seen her cousin
Dave. He was on horseback, he had been drink-
ing and he pulled in and, without an answer to her
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greeting, stared her over from head to foot. Col-
ouring angrily, she started on and then he spoke
thickly and with a sneer:
' 'Bout fryin' size, now, ain't ye? I reckon
maybe, if you keep on, you'll be good enough fer
him in a year or two more."
"I'm much obliged for those apples, Dave,"
said June quietly and Dave flushed a darker red
and sat still, forgetting to renew the old threat
that was on his tongue.
But his taunt rankled in the girl rankled more
now than when Dave first made it, for she better
saw the truth of it and the hurt was the greater to
her unconquerable pride that kept her from betray-
ing the hurt to Dave long ago, and now, when he
was making an old wound bleed afresh. But the
pain was with her at dinner that night and through
the evening. She avoided Hale's eyes though she
knew that he was watching her all the time, and
her instinct told her that something was going
to happen that night and what that something
was. Hale was the last to go and when he called
to her from the porch, she went out trembling
and stood at the head of the steps in the moon-
light.
"I love you, little girl," he said simply, "and
I want you to marry me some day will you,
June?" She was unsurprised but she flushed
under his hungry eyes, and the little cross throbbed
at her throat.
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"Some day not now" she thought, and then
with equal simplicity: "Yes, Jack."
"And if you should love somebody else more,
you'll tell me right away won't you, June?"
She shrank a little and her eyes fell, but straight-
way she raised them steadily:
"Yes, Jack."
" Thank you, little girl good-night."
"Good-night, Jack."
Hale saw the little shrinking movement she
made, and, as he went down the hill, he thought
she seemed to be in a hurry to be alone, and that
she had caught her breath sharply as she turned
away. And brooding he walked the woods long
that night.
Only a few days later, they started for New
York and, with all her dreaming, June had never
dreamed that the world could be so large. Moun-
tains and vast stretches of rolling hills and level
land melted away from her wondering eyes; towns
and cities sank behind them, swift streams swollen
by freshets were outstripped and left behind, dark-
ness came on and, through it, they still sped on.
Once during the night she woke from a troubled
dream in her berth and for a moment she thought
she was at home again. They were running
through mountains again and there they lay in the
moonlight, the great calm dark faces that she
knew and loved, and she seemed to catch the odour
of the earth and feel the cool air on her face, but
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there was no pang of homesickness now she was
too eager for the world into which she was going.
Next morning the air was cooler, the skies lower
and grayer the big city was close at hand. Then
came the water, shaking and sparkling in the
early light like a great cauldron of quicksilver,
and the wonderful Brooklyn Bridge a ribbon of
twinkling lights tossed out through the mist from
the mighty city that rose from that mist as from
a fantastic dream; then the picking of a way
through screeching little boats and noiseless big
ones and white bird-like floating things and then
they disappeared like two tiny grains in a shifting
human tide of sand. But Hale was happy now,
for on that trip June had come back to herself, and
to him, once more and now, awed but unafraid,
eager, bubbling, uplooking, full of quaint ques-
tions about everything she saw, she was once more
sitting with affectionate reverence at his feet.
When he left her in a great low house that fronted
on the majestic Hudson, June clung to him with
tears and of her own accord kissed him for the first
time since she had torn her little playhouse to
pieces at the foot of the beech down in the moun-
tains far away. And Hale went back with peace
in his heart, but to trouble in the hills.
Not suddenly did the boom drop down there,
not like a falling star, but on the wings of hope
wings that ever fluttering upward, yet sank inex-
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orably and slowly closed. The first crash came
over the waters when certain big men over there
went to pieces men on whose shoulders rested
the colossal figure of progress that the English
were carving from the hills at Cumberland Gap.
Still nobody saw why a hurt to the Lion should
make the Eagle sore and so the American spirit
at the other gaps and all up the Virginia valleys
that skirt the Cumberland held faithful and
dauntless for a while. But in time as the huge
steel plants grew noiseless, and the flaming throats
of the furnaces were throttled, a sympathetic fire
of dissolution spread slowly North and South and
it was plain only to the wise outsider as merely a
matter of time until, all up and down the Cumber-
land, the fox and the coon and the quail could
come back to their old homes on corner lots,
marked each by a pathetic little whitewashed
post a tombstone over the graves of a myriad of
buried human hopes. But it was the gap where
Hale was that died last and hardest and of the
brave spirits there, his was the last and hardest to
die.
In the autumn, while June was in New York,
the signs were sure but every soul refused to see
them. Slowly, however, the vexed question of
labour and capital was born again, for slowly each
local capitalist went slowly back to his own trade:
the blacksmith to his forge, but the carpenter not
to his plane nor the mason to his brick there was
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
no more building going on. The engineer took
up his transit, the preacher-politician was oftener
in his pulpit, and the singing teacher started on
his round of raucous do-mi-sol-dos through the
mountains again. It was curious to see how each
man slowly, reluctantly and perforce sank back
again to his old occupation and the town, with
the luxuries of electricity, water-works, bath-tubs
and a street railway, was having a hard fight for
the plain necessities of life. The following spring,
notes for the second payment on the lots that had
been bought at the great land sale fell due, and
but very few were paid. As no suits were brought
by the company, however, hope did not quite die.
June did not come home for the summer, and
Hale did not encourage her to come she visited
some of her school-mates in the North and took
a trip West to see her father who had gone out
there again and bought a farm. In the early
autumn, Devil Judd came back to the mountains
and announced his intention to leave them for
good. But that autumn, the effects of the dead
boom became perceptible in the hills. There
were no more coal lands bought, logging ceased,
the factions were idle once more, moonshine stills
flourished, quarrelling started, and at the county
seat, one Court day, Devil Judd whipped three
Falins with his bare fists. In the early spring a
Tolliver was shot from ambush and old Judd was
so furious at the outrage that he openly announced
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that he would stay at home until he had settled
the old scores for good. So that, as the summer
came on, matters between the Falins and the Tol-
livers were worse than they had been for years and
everybody knew that, with old Judd at the head
of his clan again, the right would be fought to the
finish. At the Gap, one institution only had suf-
fered in spirit not at all and that was the Volun-
teer Police Guard. Indeed, as the excitement of
the boom had died down, the members of that
force, as a vent for their energies, went with more
enthusiasm than ever into their work. Local law-
lessness had been subdued by this time, the Guard
had been extending its work into the hills, and it
was only a question of time until it must take a
part in the Falin-Tolliver troubles. Indeed, that
time, Hale believed, was not far away, for Election
Day was at hand, and always on that day the
feudists came to the Gap in a search for trouble.
Meanwhile, not long afterward, there was a pitched
battle between the factions at the county seat, and
several of each would fight no more. Next day
a Falin whistled a bullet through Devil Judd's
beard from ambush, and it was at such a crisis of
all the warring elements in her mountain life that
June's school-days were coming to a close. Hale
had had a frank talk with old Judd and the old
man agreed that the two had best be married at
once and live at the Gap until things were quieter
in the mountains, though the old man still clung
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to his resolution to go West for good when he was
done with the Falins. At such a time, then, June
was coming home.
248
XXI
TLTALE was beyond Black Mountain when her
* letter reached him. His work over there
had to be finished and so he kept in his saddle the
greater part of two days and nights and on the
third day rode his big black horse forty miles in
little more than half a day that he might meet her
at the train. The last two years had wrought
their change in him. Deterioration is easy in the
hills superficial deterioration in habits, manners,
personal appearance and the practices of all the
little niceties of life. The morning bath is impos-
sible because of the crowded domestic conditions
of a mountain cabin and, if possible, might if prac-
tised, excite wonder and comment, if not vague
suspicion. Sleeping garments are practically
barred for the same reason. Shaving becomes a
rare luxury. A lost tooth-brush may not be re-
placed for a month. In time one may bring him-
self to eat with a knife for the reason that it is
hard for a hungry man to feed himself with a fork
that has but two tines. The finger tips cease to
be the culminating standard of the gentleman. It
is hard to keep a supply of fresh linen when one is
constantly in the saddle, and a constant weariness
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
of body and a ravenous appetite make a man in-
different to things like a bad bed and worse food,
particularly as he must philosophically put up
with them, anyhow. Of all these things the man
himself may be quite unconscious and yet they
affect him more deeply than he knows and show
to a woman even in his voice, his walk, his mouth
everywhere save in his eyes, which change only
in severity, or in kindliness or when there has been
some serious break-down of soul or character
within. And the woman will not look to his eyes
for the truth which makes its way slowly par-
ticularly when the woman has striven for the very
things that the man has so recklessly let go. She
would never suffer herself to let down in such a
way and she does not understand how a man can.
Hale's life, since his college doors had closed
behind him, had always been a rough one. He
had dropped from civilization and had gone back
into it many times. And each time he had dropped,
he dropped the deeper, and for that reason had
come back into his own life each time with more
difficulty and with more indifference. The last
had been his roughest year and he had sunk a little
more deeply just at the time when June had been
pluming herself for flight from such depths for-
ever. Moreover, Hale had been dominant in
every matter that his hand or his brain had
touched. His habit had been to say "do this" and
it was done. Though he was no longer acting cap-
250
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
tain of the Police Guard, he always acted as cap-
tain whenever he was on hand, and always he was
the undisputed leader in all questions of business,
politics or the maintenance of order and law. The
success he had forged had hardened and strength-
ened his mouth, steeled his eyes and made him
more masterful in manner, speech and point of
view, and naturally had added nothing to his gen-
tleness, his unselfishness, his refinement or the nice
consideration of little things on which women lay
such stress. It was an hour by sun when he clat-
tered through the gap and pushed his tired black
horse into a gallop across the valley toward the
town. He saw the smoke of the little dummy and,
as he thundered over the bridge of the North Fork,
he saw that it was just about to pull out and he
waved his hat and shouted imperiously for it to
wait. With his hand on the bell-rope, the con-
ductor, autocrat that he, too, was, did wait and
Hale threw his reins to the man who was nearest,
hardly seeing who he was, and climbed aboard.
He wore a slouched hat spotted by contact with
the roof of the mines which he had hastily visited
on his way through Lonesome Cove. The growth
of three days' beard was on his face. He wore a
gray woollen shirt, and a blue handkerchief none
too clean was loosely tied about his sun-scorched
column of a throat; he was spotted with mud from
his waist to the soles of his rough riding boots and
his hands were rough and grimy. But his eye was
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bright and keen and his heart thumped eagerly.
Again it was the middle of June and the town was
a naked island in a sea of leaves whose breakers
literally had run mountain high and stopped for
all time motionless. Purple lights thick as mist
veiled Powell's Mountain. Below, the valley was
still flooded with yellow sunlight which lay along
the mountain sides and was streaked here and
there with the long shadow of a deep ravine. The
beech trunks on Imboden Hill gleamed in it like
white bodies scantily draped with green, and the
yawning Gap held the yellow light as a bowl holds
wine. He had long ago come to look upon the
hills merely as storehouses for iron and coal, put
there for his special purpose, but now the long
submerged sense of the beauty of it all stirred
within him again, for June was the incarnate spirit
of it all and June was coming back to those
mountains and to him.
And June June had seen the change in Hale.
The first year he had come often to New York to
see her and they had gone to the theatre and the
opera, and June was pleased to play the part of
heroine in what was such a real romance to the
other girls in school and she was proud of Hale.
But each time he came, he seemed less interested
in the diversions that meant so much to her, more
absorbed in his affairs in the mountains and less
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particular about his looks. His visits came at
longer intervals, with each visit he stayed less long,
and each time he seemed more eager to get away.
She had been shy about appearing before him for
the first time in evening dress, and when he entered
the drawing-room she stood under a chandelier in
blushing and resplendent confusion, but he seemed
not to recognize that he had never seen her that
way before, and for another reason June remained
confused, disappointed and hurt, for he was not
only unobserving, and seemingly unappreciative,
but he was more silent than ever that night and
he looked gloomy. But if he had grown accus-
tomed to her beauty, there were others who had
not, and smart, dapper college youths gathered
about her like bees around a flower a trium-
phant fact to which he also seemed indifferent.
Moreover, he was not in evening clothes that
night and she did not know whether he had for-
gotten or was indifferent to them, and the con-
trast that he was made her that night almost
ashamed for him. She never guessed what the
matter was, for Hale kept his troubles to himself.
He was always gentle and kind, he was as lavish
with her as though he were a king, and she was
as lavish and prodigally generous as though she
were a princess. There seemed no limit to the
wizard income from the investments that Hale
had made for her when, as he said, he sold a part
of her stock in the Lonesome Cove mine, and
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what she wanted Hale always sent her without
question. Only, as the end was coming on at the
Gap, he wrote once to know if a certain amount
would carry her through until she was ready to
come home, but even that question aroused no
suspicion in thoughtless June. And then that last
year he had come no more always, always he was
too busy. Not even on her triumphal night at the
end of the session was he there, when she had
stood before the guests and patrons of the school
like a goddess, and had thrilled them into startling
applause, her teachers into open glowing pride,
the other girls into bright-eyed envy and herself
into still another new world. Now she was going
home and she was glad to go.
She had awakened that morning with the keen
air of the mountains in her nostrils the air she
had breathed in when she was born, and her eyes
shone happily when she saw through her window
the loved blue hills along which raced the train.
They were only a little way from the town where
she must change, the porter said; she had over-
slept and she had no time even to wash her face
and hands, and that worried her a good deal. The
porter nearly lost his equilibrium when she gave
him half a dollar for women are not profuse in
the way of tipping and instead of putting her
bag down on the station platform, he held it in his
hand waiting to do her further service. At the
head of the steps she searched about for Hale and
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her lovely face looked vexed and a little hurt when
she did not see him.
"Hotel, Miss ?" said the porter.
"Yes, please, Harvey!" she called.
An astonished darky sprang from the line of
calling hotel-porters and took her bag. Then every
tooth in his head flashed.
" Lordy, Miss June I never knowed you at all."
June smiled it was the tribute she was looking
for.
"Have you seen Mr. Hale?"
"No'm. Mr. Hale ain't been here for mos' six
months. I reckon he aint in this country now.
I aint heard nothin' 'bout him for a long time."
June knew better than that but she said noth-
ing. She would rather have had even Harvey
think that he was away. So she hurried to the
hotel she would have four hours to wait and
asked for the one room that had a bath attached
the room to which Hale had sent her when she
had passed through on her way to New York.
She almost winced when she looked in the mirror
and saw the smoke stains about her pretty throat
and ears, and she wondered if anybody could have
noticed them on her way from the train. Her
hands, too, were dreadful to look at and she hurried
to take off her things.
In an hour she emerged freshened, immaculate
from her crown of lovely hair to her smartly booted
feet, and at once she went downstairs. She heard
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the man, whom she passed, stop at the head of
them and turn to look down at her, and she saw
necks craned within the hotel office when she
passed the door. On the street not a man and
hardly a woman failed to look at her with wonder
and open admiration, for she was an apparition in
that little town and it all pleased her so much that
she became flushed and conscious and felt like a
queen who, unknown, moved among her subjects
and blessed them just with her gracious presence.
For she was unknown even by several people
whom she knew and that, too, pleased her to
have bloomed so quite beyond their ken. She was
like a meteor coming back to dazzle the very world
from which it had flown for a while into space.
When she went into the dining-room for the mid-
day dinner, there was a movement in almost every
part of the room as though there were many there
who were on the lookout for her entrance, The
head waiter, a portly darky, lost his imperturbable
majesty for a moment in surprise at the vision
and then with a lordly yet obsequious wave of his
hand, led her to a table over in a corner where no
one was sitting. Four young men came in rather
boisterously and made for her table. She lifted her
calm eyes at them so haughtily that the one in
front halted with sudden embarrassment and
they all swerved to another table from which they
stared at her surreptitiously. Perhaps she was
mistaken for the comic-opera star whose brilliant
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
picture she had seen on a bill board in front of
the "opera house." Well, she had the voice and
she might have been and she might yet be and
if she were, this would be the distinction that
would be shown her. And, still as it was she was
greatly pleased.
At four o'clock she started for the hills. In half
an hour she was dropping down a winding ravine
along a rock-lashing stream with those hills so
close to the car on either side that only now and
then could she see the tops of them. Through the
window the keen air came from the very lungs of
them, freighted with the coolness of shadows, the
scent of damp earth and the faint fragrance of
wild flowers, and her soul leaped to meet them.
The mountain sides were showered with pink and
white laurel (she used to call it "ivy") and the
rhododendrons (she used to call them "laurel")
were just beginning to blossom they were her
old and fast friends mountain, shadow, the wet
earth and its pure breath, and tree, plant and
flower; she had not forgotten them, and it was
good to come back to them. Once she saw an
overshot water-wheel on the bank of the rushing
little stream and she thought of Uncle Billy; she
smiled and the smile stopped short she was going
back to other things as well. The train had
creaked by a log-cabin set in the hillside and
then past another and another; and always there
were two or three ragged children in the door and
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a haggard unkempt woman peering over their
shoulders. How lonely those cabins looked and
how desolate the life they suggested to her now
now! The first station she came to after the train
had wound down the long ravine to the valley
level again was crowded with mountaineers.
There a wedding party got aboard with a great
deal of laughter, chaffing and noise, and all three
went on within and without the train while it was
waiting. A sudden thought stunned her like a
lightning stroke. They were her people out there
on the platform and inside the car ahead those
rough men in slouch hats, jeans and cowhide boots,
their mouths stained with tobacco juice, their
cheeks and eyes on fire with moonshine, and those
women in poke-bonnets with their sad, worn, patient
faces on which the sympathetic good cheer and
joy of the moment sat so strangely. She noticed
their rough shoes and their homespun gowns that
made their figures all alike and shapeless, with a
vivid awakening of early memories. She might
have been one of those narrow-lived girls outside,
or that bride within had it not been for Jack
Hale. She finished the name in her own mind and
she was conscious that she had. Ah, well, that
was a long time ago and she was nothing but a child
and she had thrown herself at his head. Perhaps
it was different with him now and if it was, she
would give him the chance to withdraw from
everything. It would be right and fair and then
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life was so full for her now. She was dependent on
nobody on nothing. A rainbow spanned the
heaven above her and the other end of it was not
in the hills. But one end was and to that end she
was on her way. She was going to just such peo-
ple as she had seen at the station. Her father and
her kinsmen were just such men her step-mother
and kinswomen were just such women. Her home
was little more than just such a cabin as the deso-
late ones that stirred her pity when she swept by
them. She thought of how she felt when she had
first gone to Lonesome Cove after a few months at
the Gap, and she shuddered to think how she
would feel now. She was getting restless by this
time and aimlessly she got up and walked to the front
of the car and back again to her seat, hardly notic-
ing that the other occupants were staring at her
with some wonder. She sat down for a few min-
utes and then she went to the rear and stood out-
side on the platform, clutching a brass rod of the
railing and looking back on the dropping darkness
in which the hills seemed to be rushing together
far behind as the train crashed on with its wake of
spark-lit rolling smoke. A cinder stung her face,
and when she lifted her hand to the spot, she saw
that her glove was black with grime. With a little
shiver of disgust she went back to her seat and
with her face to the blackness rushing past her
window she sat brooding brooding. Why had
Hale not met her ? He had said he would and she
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had written him when she was coming and had
telegraphed him at the station in New York when
she started. Perhaps he had changed. She re-
called that even his letters had grown less fre-
quent, shorter, more hurried the past year well,
he should have his chance. Always, however, her
mind kept going back to the people at the station
and to her people in the mountains. They were
the same, she kept repeating to herself the very
same and she was one of them. And always she
kept thinking of her first trip to Lonesome Cove
after her awakening and of what her next would
be. That first time Hale had made her go back
as she had left, in home-spun, sun-bonnet and bro-
gans. There was the same reason why she should
go back that way now as then would Hale insist
that she should now ? She almost laughed aloud
at the thought. She knew that she would refuse
and she knew that his reason would not appeal to
her now she no longer cared what her neigh-
bours and kinspeople might think and say. The
porter paused at her seat.
"How much longer is it ?" she asked.
"Half an hour, Miss."
June went to wash her face and hands, and
when she came back to her seat a great glare shone
through the windows on the other side of the car.
It was the furnace, a "run" was on and she could
see the streams of white molten metal racing down
the narrow channels of sand to their narrow beds
260
: June!" he cried in amazement.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
on either side. The whistle shrieked ahead for
the Gap and she nerved herself with a prophetic
sense of vague trouble at hand.
At the station Hale had paced the platform.
He looked at his watch to see whether he might
have time to run up to the furnace, half a mile away,
and board the train there. He thought he had
and he was about to start when the shriek of the
coming engine rose beyond the low hills in Wild
Cat Valley, echoed along Powell's Mountain and
broke against the wrinkled breast of the Cumber-
land. On it came, and in plain sight it stopped
suddenly to take water, and Hale cursed it silently
and recalled viciously that when he was in a hurry
to arrive anywhere, the water-tower was always
on the wrong side of the station. He got so rest-
less that he started for it on a run and he had gone
hardly fifty yards before the train came on again
and he had to run back to beat it to the station
where he sprang to the steps of the Pullman before
it stopped pushing the porter aside to find him-
self checked by the crowded passengers at the door.
June was not among them and straightway he ran
for the rear of the car.
June had risen. The other occupants of the car
had crowded forward and she was the last of them.
She had stood, during an irritating wait, at the
water-tower, and now as she moved slowly forward
again she heard the hurry of feet behind her and
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
she turned to look into the eager, wondering eyes
of John Hale.
"June!" he cried in amazement, but his face
lighted with joy and he impulsively stretched out
his arms as though he meant to take her in them,
but as suddenly he dropped them before the
startled look in her eyes, which, with one swift
glance, searched him from head to foot. They
shook hands almost gravely.
262
XXII
TUNE sat in the little dummy, the focus of
** curious eyes, while Hale was busy seeing that
her baggage was got aboard. The checks that
she gave him jingled in his hands like a bunch of
keys, and he could hardly help grinning when he
saw the huge trunks and the smart bags that were
tumbled from the baggage car all marked with
her initials. There had been days when he had
laid considerable emphasis on pieces like those,
and when he thought of them overwhelming with
opulent suggestions that debt-stricken little town,
and, later, piled incongruously on the porch of the
cabin on Lonesome Cove, he could have laughed
aloud but for a nameless something that was
gnawing savagely at his heart.
He felt almost shy when he went back into the
car, and though June greeted him with a smile,
her immaculate daintiness made him uncon-
sciously sit quite far away from her. The little
fairy-cross was still at her throat, but a tiny dia-
mond gleamed from each end of it and from the
centre, as from a tiny heart, pulsated the light of a
little blood-red ruby. To him it meant the loss of
June's simplicity and was the symbol of her new
estate, but he smiled and forced himself into hearty
263
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
cheerfulness of manner and asked her questions
about her trip. But June answered in halting
monosyllables, and talk was not easy between
them. All the while he was watching her closely
and not a movement of her eye, ear, mouth or
hand not an inflection of her voice escaped him.
He saw her sweep the car and its occupants with
a glance, and he saw the results of that glance in
her face and the down-dropping of her eyes to the
dainty point of one boot. He saw her beautiful
mouth close suddenly tight and her thin nostrils
quiver disdainfully when a swirl of black smoke,
heavy with cinders, came in with an entering pas-
senger through the front door of the car. Two
half-drunken men were laughing boisterously near
that door and even her ears seemed trying to shut
out their half-smothered rough talk. The car
started with a bump that swayed her toward him,
and when she caught the seat with one hand, it
checked as suddenly, throwing her the other way,
and then with a leap it sprang ahead again, giving
a nagging snap to her head. Her whole face grew
red with vexation and shrinking distaste, and all
the while, when the little train steadied into its
creaking, puffing, jostling way, one gloved hand
on the chased silver handle of her smart little um-
brella kept nervously swaying it to and fro on its
steel-shod point, until she saw that the point was
in a tiny pool of tobacco juice, and then she laid
it across her lap with shuddering swiftness.
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At first Hale thought that she had shrunk from
kissing him in the car because other people were
around. He knew better now. At that moment
he was as rough and dirty as the chain-carrier op-
posite him, who was just in from a surveying ex-
pedition in the mountains, as the sooty brakeman
who came through to gather up the fares as one
of those good-natured, profane inebriates up in
the corner. No, it was not publicity she had
shrunk from him as she was shrinking now from
black smoke, rough men, the shaking of the train
the little pool of tobacco juice at her feet. The
truth began to glimmer through his brain. He
understood, even when she leaned forward sud-
denly to look into the mouth of the gap, that was
now dark with shadows. Through that gap lay
her way and she thought him now more a part of
what was beyond than she who had been born of
it was, and dazed by the thought, he wondered if
he might not really be. At once he straightened
in his seat, and his mind made up, as he always
made it up swiftly. He had not explained why
he had not met her that morning, nor had he
apologized for his rough garb, because he was so
glad to see her and because there were so many
other things he wanted to say; and when he saw
her, conscious and resentful, perhaps, that he had
not done these things at once he deliberately de-
clined to do them now. He became silent, but he
grew more courteous, more thoughtful watchful.
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She was very tired, poor child; there were deep
shadows under her eyes which looked weary and
almost mournful. So, when with a clanging of the
engine bell they stopped at the brilliantly lit hotel,
he led her at once upstairs to the parlour, and
from there sent her up to her room, which was
ready for her.
"You must get a good sleep," he said kindly,
and with his usual firmness that was wont to pre-
clude argument. "You are worn to death. I'll
have your supper sent to your room." The girl
felt the subtle change in his manner and her lip
quivered for a vague reason that neither knew, but,
without a word, she obeyed him like a child. He
did not try again to kiss her. He merely took her
hand, placed his left over it, and with a gentle
pressure, said:
"Good-night, little girl."
"Good-night," she faltered.
Resolutely, relentlessly, first, Hale cast up his
accounts, liabilities, resources, that night, to see
what, under the least favourable outcome, the
balance left to him would be. Nearly all was
gone. His securities were already sold. His lots
would not bring at public sale one-half of the de-
ferred payments yet to be made on them, and if
the company brought suit, as it was threatening
to do, he would be left fathoms deep in debt.
The branch railroad had not come up the river
266
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
toward Lonesome Cove, and now he meant to
build barges and float his cannel coal down to the
main line, for his sole hope was in the mine in
Lonesome Cove. The means that he could com-
mand were meagre, but they would carry his pur-
pose with June for a year at least and then who
knew ? he might, through that mine, be on his
feet again.
The little town was dark and asleep when he
stepped into the cool night-air and made his way
past the old school-house and up Imboden Hill.
He could see all shining silver in the moonlight
the still crest of the big beech at the blessed
roots of which his lips had met June's in the first
kiss that had passed between them. On he went
through the shadowy aisle that the path made be-
tween other beech-trunks, harnessed by the moon-
light with silver armour and motionless as senti-
nels on watch till dawn, out past the amphitheatre
of darkness from which the dead trees tossed out
their crooked arms as though voicing silently now
his own soul's torment, and then on to the point of
the spur of foot-hills where, with the mighty
mountains encircling him and the world, a dream-
land lighted only by stars, he stripped his soul
before the Maker of it and of him and fought his
fight out alone.
His was the responsibility for all his alone.
No one else was to blame June not at all. He
had taken her from her own life had swerved
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
her from the way to which God pointed when she
was born. He had given her everything she
wanted, had allowed her to do what she pleased
and had let her think that, through his miraculous
handling of her resources, she was doing it all her-
self. And the result was natural. For the past
two years he had been harassed with debt, racked
with worries, writhing this way and that, concerned
only with the soul-tormenting catastrophe that had
overtaken him. About all else he had grown care-
less. He had not been to see her the last year, he
had written seldom, and it appalled him to look
back now on his own self-absorption and to think
how he must have appeared to June. And he had
gone on in that self-absorption to the very end.
He had got his license to marry, had asked Uncle
Billy, who was magistrate as well as miller, to
marry them, and, a rough mountaineer himself to
the outward eye, he had appeared to lead a child
like a lamb to the sacrifice and had found a woman
with a mind, heart and purpose of her own. It
was all his work. He had sent her away to fit her
for his station in life to make her fit to marry
him. She had risen above and now he was not fit
to marry her. That was the brutal truth a truth
that was enough to make a wise man laugh or a
fool weep, and Hale did neither. He simply went
on working to make out how he could best dis-
charge the obligations that he had voluntarily,
willingly, gladly, selfishly even, assumed. In his
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
mind he treated conditions only as he saw and felt
them and believed them at that moment true: and
into the problem he went no deeper than to find
his simple duty, and that, while the morning stars
were sinking, he found. And it was a duty the
harder to find because everything had reawakened
within him, and the starting-point of that awak-
ening was the proud glow in Uncle Billy's kind old
face, when he knew the part he was to play in the
happiness of Hale and June. All the way over
the mountain that day his heart had gathered fuel
from memories at the big Pine, and down the
mountain and through the gap, to be set aflame
by the yellow sunlight in the valley and the throb-
bing life in everything that was alive, for the
month was June and the spirit of that month was
on her way to him. So when he rose now, with
back-thrown head, he stretched his arms sud-
denly out toward those far-seeing stars, and as
suddenly dropped them with an angry shake of
his head and one quick gritting of his teeth that
such a thought should have mastered him even for
one swift second the thought of how lonesome
would be the trail that would be his to follow after
that day.
269
XXIII
TUNE, tired though she was, tossed restlessly
that night. The one look she had seen in
Hale's face when she met him in the car, told her
the truth as far as he was concerned. He was un-
changed, she could give him no chance to with-
draw from their long understanding, for it was
plain to her quick instinct that he wanted none.
And so she had asked him no question about his
failure to meet her, for she knew now that his rea-
son, no matter what, was good. He had startled
her in the car, for her mind was heavy with mem-
ories of the poor little cabins she had passed on
the train, of the mountain men and women in the
wedding-party, and Hale himself was to the eye
so much like one of them had so startled her
that, though she knew that his instinct, too, was
at work, she could not gather herself together to
combat her own feelings, for every little happen-
ing in the dummy but drew her back to her pre-
vious train of painful thought. And in that
helplessness she had told Hale good-night. She re-
membered now how she had looked upon Lone-
some Cove after she went to the Gap; how she
had looked upon the Gap after her year in the
270
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Bluegrass, and how she had looked back even on
the first big city she had seen there from the lofty
vantage ground of New York. What was the use
of it all ? Why laboriously climb a hill merely to
see and yearn for things that you cannot have, if
you must go back and live in the hollow again ?
Well, she thought rebelliously, she would not go
back to the hollow again that was all. She knew
what was coming and her cousin Dave's perpet-
ual sneer sprang suddenly from the past to cut
through her again and the old pride rose within
her once more. She was good enough now for
Hale, oh, yes, she thought bitterly, good enough
now; and then, remembering his life-long kindness
and thinking what she might have been but for
him, she burst into tears at the unworthiness of her
own thought. Ah, what should she do what
should she do ? Repeating that question over and
over again, she fell toward morning into troubled
sleep. She did not wake until nearly noon, for al-
ready she had formed the habit of sleeping late
late at least, for that part of the world and she
was glad when the negro boy brought her word
that Mr. Hale had been called up the valley and
would not be back until the afternoon. She
dreaded to meet him, for she knew that he had
seen the trouble within her and she knew he was
not the kind of man to let matters drag vaguely,
if they could be cleared up and settled by open
frankness of discussion, no matter how blunt he
271
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
must be. She had to wait until mid-day dinner
time for something to eat, so she lay abed, picked
a breakfast from the menu, which was spotted,
dirty and meagre in offerings, and had it brought
to her room. Early in the afternoon she issued
forth into the sunlight, and started toward Imbo-
den Hill. It was very beautiful and soul-com-
forting the warm air, the luxuriantly wooded
hills, with their shades of green that told her where
poplar and oak and beech and maple grew, the
delicate haze of blue that overlay them and deep-
ened as her eyes followed the still mountain piles
north-eastward to meet the big range that shut her
in from the outer world. The changes had been
many. One part of the town had been wiped out
by fire and a few buildings of stone had risen up.
On the street she saw strange faces, but now and
then she stopped to shake hands with somebody
whom she knew, and who recognized her always
with surprise and spoke but few words, and then,
as she thought, with some embarrassment. Half
unconsciously she turned toward the old mill.
There it was, dusty and gray, and the dripping old
wheel creaked with its weight of shining water,
and the muffled roar of the unseen dam started
an answering stream of memories surging within
her. She could see the window of her room in the
old brick boarding-house, and as she passed the
gate, she almost stopped to go in, but the face of a
strange man who stood in the door with a proprie-
272
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
tary air deterred her. There was Hale's little
frame cottage and his name, half washed out, was
over the wing that was still his office. Past that
she went, with a passing temptation to look within,
and toward the old school-house. A massive new
one was half built, of gray stone, to the left, but the
old one, with its shingles on the outside that had
once caused her such wonder, still lay warm in the
sun, but closed and deserted. There was the play-
ground where she had been caught in "Ring
around the Rosy," and Hale and that girl teacher
had heard her confession. She flushed again when
she thought of that day, but the flush was now for
another reason. Over the roof of the school-
house she could see the beech tree where she had
built her playhouse, and memory led her from the
path toward it. She had not climbed a hill for a
long time and she was panting when she reached
it. There was the scattered playhouse it might
have lain there untouched for a quarter of a cen-
tury just as her angry feet had kicked it to pieces.
On a root of the beech she sat down and the broad
rim of her hat scratched the trunk of it and an-
noyed her, so she took it off and leaned her head
against the tree, looking up into the underworld
of leaves through which a sunbeam filtered here
and there one striking her hair which had dark-
ened to a duller gold striking it eagerly, uner-
ringly, as though it had started for just such a shin-
ing mark. Below her was outspread the little
273
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
town the straggling, wretched little town crude,
lonely, lifeless! She could not be happy in Lone-
some Cove after she had known the Gap, and now
her horizon had so broadened that she felt now
toward the Gap and its people as she had then felt
toward the mountaineers: for the standards of
living in the Cove so it seemed were no farther
below the standards in the Gap than they in turn
were lower than the new standards to which she
had adapted herself while away. Indeed, even
that Bluegrass world where she had spent a year
was too narrow now for her vaulting ambition,
and with that thought she looked down again on
the little town, a lonely island in a sea of moun-
tains and as far from the world for which she had
been training herself as though it were in mid-
ocean. Live down there ? She shuddered at the
thought and straightway was very miserable.
The clear piping of a wood-thrush rose far away,
a tear started between her half-closed lashes and
she might have gone to weeping silently, had her
ear not caught the sound of something moving
below her. Some one was coming that way, so
she brushed her eyes swiftly with her handkerchief
and stood upright against the tree. And there
again Hale found her, tense, upright, bareheaded
again and her hands behind her; only her face
was not uplifted and dreaming it was turned
toward him, unstartled and expectant. He stopped
below her and leaned one shoulder against a tree.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I saw you pass the office," he said, "and I
thought I should find you here."
His eyes dropped to the scattered playhouse of
long ago and a faint smile that was full of sub-
merged sadness passed over his face. It was his
playhouse, after all, that she had kicked to pieces.
But he did not mention it nor her attitude nor
did he try, in any way, to arouse her memories of
that other time at this same place.
" I want to talk with you, June and I want to
talk now."
"Yes, Jack," she said tremulously.
For a moment he stood in silence, his face half-
turned, his teeth hard on his indrawn lip think-
ing. There was nothing of the mountaineer about
him now. He was clean-shaven and dressed with
care June saw that but he looked quite old, his
face seemed harried with worries and ravaged by
suffering, and June had suddenly to swallow a
quick surging of pity for him. He spoke slowly
and without looking at her:
" June, if it hadn't been for me, you would be
over in Lonesome Cove and happily married by
this time, or at least contented with your life, for
you wouldn't have known any other."
"I don't know, Jack."
" I took you out and it rests with you whether
I shall be sorry I did sorry wholly on your ac-
count, I mean," he added hastily.
She knew what he meant and she said nothing
275
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
she only turned her head away slightly, with her
eyes upturned a little toward the leaves that were
shaking like her own heart.
" I think I see it all very clearly," he went on, in
a low and perfectly even voice. "You can't be
happy over there now you can't be happy over
here now. You've got other wishes, ambitions,
dreams, now, and I want you to realize them, and
I want to help you to realize them all I can that's
all."
"Jack! " she helplessly, protestingly spoke
his name in a whisper, but that was all she could
do, and he went on :
"It isn't so strange. What is strange is that I
that I didn't foresee it all. But if I had," he
added firmly, "I'd have done it just the same
unless by doing it I've really done you more harm
than good."
"No no Jack!"
" I came into your world you went into mine.
What I had grown indifferent about you grew
to care about. You grew sensitive while I was
growing callous to certain " he was about to say
"surface things," but he checked himself " cer-
ta'n things in life that mean more to a woman
than to a man. I would not have married you as
you were I've got to be honest now at least I
thought it necessary that you should be otherwise
and now you have gone beyond me, and now
you do not want to marry me as I am. And it is
276
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
all very natural and very just." Very slowly her
head had dropped until her chin rested hard above
the little jewelled cross on her breast.
"You must tell me if I am wrong. You don't
love me now well enough to be happy with me
here" he waved one hand toward the straggling
little town below them and then toward the
lonely mountains "I did not know that we
would have to live here but I know it now "
he checked himself, and afterward she recalled the
tone of those last words, but then they had no
especial significance.
"Am I wrong?" he repeated, and then he said
hurriedly, for her face was so piteous "No, you
needn't give yourself the pain of saying it in
words. I want you to know that I understand
that there is nothing in the world I blame you for
nothing nothing. If there is any blame at all,
it rests on me alone." She broke toward him with
a cry then.
"No no, Jack," she said brokenly, and she
caught his hand in both her own and tried to raise
it to her lips, but he held her back and she put her
face on his breast and sobbed heart-brokenly. He
waited for the paroxysm to pass, stroking her hair
gently.
"You mustn't feel that way, little girl. You
can't help it I can't help it and these things
happen all the time, everywhere. You don't have
to stay here. You can go away and study, and
277
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
when I can, I'll come to see you and cheer you up;
and when you are a great singer, I'll send you
flowers and be so proud of you, and I'll say to my-
self, 'I helped do that/ Dry your eyes, now.
You must go back to the hotel. Your father will
be there by this time and you'll have to be starting
home pretty soon."
Like a child she obeyed him, but she was so
weak and trembling that he put his arm about her
to help her down the hill. At the edge of the
woods she stopped and turned full toward him.
"You are so good," she said tremulously, "so
good. Why, you haven't even asked me if there
was another "
Hale interrupted her, shaking his head.
"If there is, I don't want to know."
"But there isn't, there isn't!" she cried, "I
don't know what is the matter with me. I hate "
the tears started again, and again she was on the
point of breaking down, but Hale checked her.
"Now, now," he said soothingly, "you mustn't,
now that's all right. You mustn't." Her anger
at herself helped now.
"Why, I stood like a silly fool, tongue-tied, and
I wanted to say so much. I "
"You don't need to," Hale said gently, "I un-
derstand it all. I understand."
"I believe you do," she said with a sob, "better
than I do."
"Well, it's all right, little girl. Come on."
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They issued forth into the sunlight and Hale
walked rapidly. The strain was getting too much
for him and he was anxious to be alone. Without
a word more they passed the old school-house, the
massive new one, and went on, in silence, down
the street. Hitched to a post, near the hotel, were
two gaunt horses with drooping heads, and on one
of them was a side-saddle. Sitting on the steps of
the hotel, with a pipe in his mouth, was the
mighty figure of Devil Judd Tolliver. He saw
them coming at least he saw Hale coming, and
that far away Hale saw his bushy eyebrows lift in
wonder at June. A moment later he rose to his
great height without a word.
"Dad," said June in a trembling voice, "don't
you know me?" The old man stared at her si-
lently and a doubtful smile played about his
bearded lips.
"Hardly, but I reckon hit's June."
She knew that the world to which Hale belonged
would expect her to kiss him, and she made a
movement as though she would, but the habit of
a lifetime is not broken so easily. She held out
her hand, and with the other patted him on the
arm as she looked up into his face.
"Time to be goin', June, if we want to get home
afore dark!"
"All right, Dad."
The old man turned to his horse.
"Hurry up, little gal."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
In a few mniutes they were ready, and the girl
looked long into Kale's face when he took her
hand.
"You are coming over soon ?"
lf Just as soon as I can." Her lips trembled.
"Good-by," she faltered.
"Good-by, June," said Hale.
From the steps he watched them the giant
father slouching in his saddle and the trim figure
of the now sadly misplaced girl, erect on the awk-
ward-pacing mountain beast as incongruous, the
two, as a fairy on some prehistoric monster. A
horseman was coming up the street behind him
and a voice called:
"Who's that?" Hale turned it was the
Honourable Samuel Budd, coming home from
Court.
"JuneTolliver."
"June Taliaferro," corrected the Hon. Sam
with emphasis.
"The same." The Hon. Sam silently followed
the pair for a moment through his big goggles.
"What do you think of my theory of the latent
possibilities of the mountaineer now?"
"I think I know how true it is better than you
do," said Hale calmly, and with a grunt the Hon.
Sam rode on. Hale watched them as they rode
across the plateau watched them until the Gap
swallowed them up and his heart ached for June.
Then he went to his room and there, stretched out
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
on his bed and with his hands clenched behind his
head, he lay staring upward.
Devil Judd Tolliver had lost none of his taci-
turnity. Stolidly, silently, he went ahead, as is
the custom of lordly man in the mountains
horseback or afoot asking no questions, answer-
ing June's in the fewest words possible. Uncle
Billy, the miller, had been complaining a good
deal that spring, and old Hon had rheumatism.
Uncle Billy's old-maid sister, who lived on Devil's
Fork, had been cooking for him at home since the
last taking to bed of June's step-mother. Bub had
"growed up" like a hickory sapling. Her cousin
Loretta hadn't married, and some folks allowed
she'd run away some day yet with young Buck
Falin. Her cousin Dave had gone off to school
that year, had come back a month before, and
been shot through the shoulder. He was in Lone-
some Cove now.
This fact was mentioned in the same matter-of-
fact way as the other happenings. Hale had been
raising Cain in Lonesome Cove "A-cuttin*
things down an' tearin' 'em up an' playin' hell
ginerally."
The feud had broken out again and maybe
June couldn't stay at home long. He didn't want
her there with the fighting going on whereat
June's heart gave a start of gladness that the way
would be easy for her to leave when she wished to
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leave. Things over at the Gap "was agoirT to
perdition," the old man had been told, while he
was waiting for June and Hale that day, and Hale
had not only lost a lot of money, but if things
didn't take a rise, he would be left head over heels
in debt, if that mine over in Lonesome Cove didn't
pull him out.
They were approaching the big Pine now, and
June was beginning to ache and get sore from the
climb. So Hale was in trouble that was what he
meant when he said that, though she could leave
the mountains when she pleased, he must stay
there, perhaps for good.
" I'm mighty glad you come home, gal," said the
old man, " an' that ye air goin' to put an end to all
this spendin' o' so much money. Jack says you
got some money left, but I don't understand it.
He says he made a 'investment' fer ye and tribbled
the money. I haint never axed him no questions.
Hit was betwixt you an' him, an' 'twant none o'
my business long as you an' him air goin' to
marry. He said you was goin' to marry this sum-
mer an' I wish you'd git tied up right away whilst
I'm livin', fer I don't know when a Winchester
might take me off an' I'd die a sight easier if I
knowed you was tied up with a good man like him."
"Yes, Dad," was all she said, for she had not
the heart to tell him the truth, and she knew that
Hale never would until the last moment he must,
when he learned that she had failed.
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Half an hour later, she could see the stone
chimney of the little cabin in Lonesome Cove.
A little farther down several spirals of smoke were
visible rising from unseen houses which were
more miners' shacks, her father said, that Hale
had put up while she was gone. The water of the
creek was jet black now. A row of rough wooden
houses ran along its edge. The geese cackled a
doubtful welcome. A new dog leaped barking
from the porch and a tall boy sprang after him
both running for the gate.
"Why, Bub," cried June, sliding from her horse
and kissing him, and then holding him off at arms'
length to look into his steady gray eyes and his
blushing face.
"Take the horses, Bub," said old Judd, and
June entered the gate while Bub stood with the
reins in his hand, still speechlessly staring her over
from head to foot. There was her garden, thank
God with all her flowers planted, a new bed of
pansies and one of violets and the border of laurel
in bloom unchanged and weedless.
"One o' Jack Hale's men takes keer of it," ex-
plained old Judd, and again, with shame, June felt
the hurt of her lover's thoughtfulness. When she
entered the cabin, the same old rasping petulant
voice called her from a bed in one corner, and when
June took the shrivelled old hand that was limply
thrust from the bed-clothes, the old hag's keen
eyes swept her from head to foot with disapproval.
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"My, but you air wearin' mighty fine clothes,"
she croaked enviously. "I ain't had a new dress
fer more'n five year;" and that was the welcome
she got.
"No?" said June appeasingly. "Well, I'll get
one for you myself."
"I'm much obleeged," she whined, "but I
reckon I can git along."
A cough came from the bed in the other corner
of the room.
"That's Dave," said the old woman, and June
walked over to where her cousin's black eyes shone
hostile at her from the dark.
"I'm sorry, Dave," she said, but Dave answered
nothing but a sullen "howdye" and did not put
out a hand he only stared at her in sulky bewil-
derment, and June went back to listen to the tor-
rent of the old woman's plaints until Bub came in.
Then as she turned, she noticed for the first time
that a new door had been cut in one side of the cabin,
and Bub was following the direction of her eyes.
"Why, haint nobody told ye?" he said delight-
edly.
"Told me what, Bub?"
With a whoop Bud leaped for the side of the
door and, reaching up, pulled a shining key from
between the logs and thrust it into her hands.
"Go ahead," he said. "Hit's yourn."
"Some more o' Jack Hale's fool doin's," said the
old woman. "Go on, gal, and see whut he's done."
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With eager hands she put the key in the lock
and when she pushed open the door, she gasped.
Another room had been added to the cabin and
the fragrant smell of cedar made her nostrils
dilate. Bub pushed by her and threw open the
shutters of a window to the low sunlight, and June
stood with both hands to her head. It was a room
for her with a dresser, a long mirror, a modern
bed in one corner, a work-table with a student's
lamp on it, a wash-stand and a chest of drawers
and a piano ! On the walls were pictures and over
the mantel stood the one she had first learned to
love two lovers clasped in each other's arms and
under them the words " Enfin Seul."
"Oh-oh," was all she could say, and choking,
she motioned Bub from the room. When the door
closed, she threw herself sobbing across the bed.
Over at the Gap that night Hale sat in his office
with a piece of white paper and a lump of black
coal on the table in front of him. His foreman had
brought the coal to him that day at dusk. He
lifted the lump to the light of his lamp, and from
the centre of it a mocking evil eye leered back at
him. The eye was a piece of shining black flint
and told him that his mine in Lonesome Cove was
but a pocket of cannel coal and worth no more
than the smouldering lumps in his grate. Then he
lifted the piece of white paper it was his license
to marry June.
285
XXIV
TyHERY slowly June walked up the little creek
to the old log where she had lain so many
happy hours. There was no change in leaf, shrub
or tree, and not a stone in the brook had been dis-
turbed. The sun dropped the same arrows down
through the leaves blunting their shining points
into tremulous circles on the ground, the water
sang the same happy tune under her dangling feet
and a wood-thrush piped the old lay overhead.
Wood-thrush! June smiled as she suddenly re-
christened the bird for herself now. That bird
henceforth would be the Magic Flute to musical
June and she leaned back with ears, eyes and
soul awake and her brain busy.
All the way over the mountain, on that second
home-going, she had thought of the first, and even
memories of the memories aroused by that first
home-going came back to her the place where
Hale had put his horse into a dead run and had
given her that never-to-be-forgotten thrill, and
where she had slid from behind to the ground [and
stormed with tears. When they dropped down
into the green gloom of shadow and green leaves
toward Lonesome Cove, she had the same feeling
286
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that her heart was being clutched by a human
hand and that black night had suddenly fallen
about her, but this time she knew what it meant.
She thought then of the crowded sleeping-room,
the rough beds and coarse blankets at home; the
oil-cloth, spotted with drippings from a candle,
that covered the table; the thick plates and cups;
the soggy bread and the thick bacon floating in
grease; the absence of napkins, the eating with
knives and fingers and the noise Bub and her
father made drinking their coffee. But then she
knew all these things in advance, and the memo-
ries of them on her way over had prepared her for
Lonesome Cove. The conditions were definite
there: she knew what it would be to face them
again she was facing them all the way, and to
her surprise the realities had hurt her less even
than they had before. Then had come the same
thrill over the garden, and now with that garden
and her new room and her piano and her books,
with Uncle Billy's sister to help do the work, and
with the little changes that June was daily making
in the household, she could live her own life even
over there as long as she pleased, and then she
would go out into the world again.
But all the time when she was coming over
from the Gap, the way had bristled with ac-
cusing memories of Hale even from the chat-
tering creeks, the turns in the road, the sun-dappled
bushes and trees and flowers; and when she
287
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
passed the big Pine that rose with such friendly
solemnity above her, the pang of it all hurt
her heart and kept on hurting her. When she
walked in the garden, the flowers seemed not
to have the same spirit of gladness. It had been
a dry season and they drooped for that reason, but
the melancholy of them had a sympathetic human
quality that depressed her. If she saw a bass shoot
arrow-like into deep water, if she heard a bird or
saw a tree or a flower whose name she had to re-
call, she thought of Hale. Do what she would,
she could not escape the ghost that stalked at her
side everywhere, so like a human presence that
she felt sometimes a strange desire to turn and
speak to it. And in her room that presence was
all-pervasive. The piano, the furniture, the bits
of bric-a-brac, the pictures and books all were
eloquent with his thought of her and every night
before she turned out her light she could not help
lifting her eyes to her once-favourite picture even
that Hale had remembered the lovers clasped in
each other's arms "At Last Alone" only to see
it now as a mocking symbol of his beaten hopes.
She had written to thank him for it all, and not yet
had he answered her letter. He had said that he
was coming over to Lonesome Cove and he had
not come why should he, on her account ? Be-
tween them all was over why should he ? The
question was absurd in her mind, and yet the fact
that she had expected him, that she so wanted
288
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him, was so illogical and incongruous and vividly
true that it raised her to a sitting posture on the
log, and she ran her fingers over her forehead and
down her dazed face until her chin was in the
hollow of her hand, and her startled eyes were
fixed unwaveringly on the running water and yet
not seeing it at all. A call her step-mother's
cry rang up the ravine and she did not hear
it. She did not even hear Bub coming through
the underbrush a few minutes later, and when
he half angrily shouted her name at the end of
the vista, down-stream, whence he could see her,
she lifted her head from a dream so deep that
in it all her senses had for the moment been
wholly lost.
"Come on," he shouted.
She had forgotten there was a "bean-string-
ing" at the house that day and she slipped slowly
off the log and went down the path, gathering her-
self together as she went, and making no answer
to the indignant Bub who turned and stalked
ahead of her back to the house. At the barn-
yard gate her father stopped her he looked wor-
ried.
"Jack Hale's jus* been over hyeh." June
caught her breath sharply.
"Has he gone?" The old man was watching
her and she felt it.
"Yes, he was in a hurry an' nobody knowed
whar you was. He jus* come over, he said, to tell
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
me to tell you that you could go back to New York
and keep on with yo' singin' doin's whenever you
please. He knowed I didn't want you hyeh when
this war starts fer a finish as hit's goin' to, mighty
soon now. He says he ain't quite ready to git mar-
ried yit. I'm afeerd he's in trouble."
"Trouble?"
"I tol' you t'other day he's lost all his money;
but he says you've got enough to keep you goin'
fer some time. I don't see why you don't git mar-
ried right now and live over at the Gap."
June coloured and was silent.
"Oh," said the old man quickly, "you ain't
ready nuther," he studied her with narrowing
eyes and through a puzzled frown "but I reckon
hit's all right, if you air goin' to git married some
time."
"What's all right, Dad?" The old man
checked himself:
"Ever' thing," he said shortly, "but don't you
make a fool of yo'self with a good man like Jack
Hale." And, wondering, June was silent. The
truth was that the old man had wormed out of
Hale an admission of the kindly duplicity the lat-
ter had practised on him and on June, and he had
given his word to Hale that he would not tell June.
He did not understand why Hale should have so
insisted on that promise, for it was all right that
Hale should openly do what he pleased for the
girl he was going to marry but he had given his
290
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word: so he turned away, but his frown stayed
where it was.
June went on, puzzled, for she knew that her
father was withholding something, and she knew,
too, that he would tell her only in his own good
time. But she could go away when she pleased
that was the comfort and with the thought she
stopped suddenly at the corner of the garden. She
could see Hale on his big black horse climbing the
spur. Once it had always been his custom to stop
on top of it to rest his horse and turn to look back
at her, and she always waited to wave him good-by.
She wondered if he would do it now, and while
she looked and waited, the beating of her heart
quickened nervously; but he rode straight on,
without stopping or turning his head, and June
felt strangely bereft and resentful, and the com-
fort of the moment before was suddenly gone.
She could hear the voices of the guests in the porch
around the corner of the house there was an or-
deal for her around there, and she went on. Lo-
retta and Loretta's mother were there, and old
Hon and several wives and daughters of Tolliver
adherents from up Deadwood Creek and below
Uncle Billy's mill. June knew that the "bean-
stringing" was simply an excuse for them to be
there, for she could not remember that so many
had ever gathered there before at that function in
the spring, at corn-cutting in the autumn, or sor-
ghum-making time or at log-raisings or quilting
291
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
paties, and she well knew the motive of these many
and the curiosity of all save, perhaps, Loretta and
the old miller's wife: and June was prepared for
them. She had borrowed a gown from her step-
mother a purple creation of home-spun she had
shaken down her beautiful hair and drawn it low
over her brows, and arranged it behind after the
fashion of mountain women, and when she went
up the steps of the porch she was outwardly to the
eye one of them except for the leathern belt about
her slenderly full waist, her black silk stockings
and the little "furrin" shoes on her dainty feet.
She smiled inwardly when she saw the same old
wave of disappointment sweep across the faces of
them all. It was not necessary to shake hands, but
unthinkingly she did, and the women sat in their
chairs as she went from one to the other and each
gave her a limp hand and a grave "howdye," though
each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague some-
thing about her, by wiping that hand on an apron
first. Very quietly and naturally she took a low
chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them,
went to work. Nobody looked at her at first until
old Hon broke the silence.
"You haint lost a spec o' yo' good looks, Juny."
June laughed without a flush she would have
reddened to the roots of her hair two years before.
"I'm feelin' right peart, thank ye," she said,
dropping consciously into the vernacular; but
there was a something in her voice that was vaguely
292
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness
that was in her erect bearing, her proud head, her
deep eyes that looked so straight into their own
a strangeness that was in that belt and those stock-
ings and those shoes, inconspicuous as they were,
to which she saw every eye in time covertly wan-
dering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was
beyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother
alone talked at first, and the others, even Loretta,
said never a word.
"Jack Hale must have been in a mighty big
hurry," quavered the old step-mother. "June
ain't goin' to be with us long, I'm afeerd:" and,
without looking up, June knew the wireless sig-
nificance of the speech was going around from eye
to eye, but calmly she pulled her thread through a
green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmati-
cal shake of her head:
"I don't know I don't know."
Young Dave's mother was encouraged and all
her efforts at good-humour could not quite draw
the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice.
"I reckon she'd never git away, if my boy Dave
had the sayin' of it." There was a subdued titter
at this, but Bub had come in from the stable and
had dropped on the edge of the porch. He broke
in hotly:
"You jest let June alone, Aunt Tilly, you'll
have yo' hands full if you keep yo' eye on Loretty
thar."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Already when somebody was saying something
about the feud, as June came around the corner,
her quick eye had seen Loretta bend her head
swiftly over her work to hide the flush of her face.
Now Loretta turned scarlet as the step-mother
spoke severely:
"You hush, Bub," and Bub rose and stalked
into the house. Aunt Tilly was leaning back in
her chair gasping and consternation smote the
group. June rose suddenly with her string of
dangling beans.
"I haven't shown you my room, Loretty.
Don't you want to see it ? Come on, all of you,"
she added to the girls, and they and Loretta with
one swift look of gratitude rose shyly and trooped
shyly within where they looked in wide-mouthed
wonder at the marvellous things that room con-
tained. The older women followed to share sight
of the miracle, and all stood looking from one
thing to another, some with their hands behind
them as though to thwart the temptation to touch,
and all saying merely:
"My! My!"
None of them had ever seen a piano before and
June must play the "shiny contraption" and sing
a song. It was only curiosity and astonishment
that she evoked when her swift fingers began run-
ning over the keys from one end of the board to the
other, astonishment at the gymnastic quality of
the performance, and only astonishment when her
294
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
lovely voice set the very walls of the little room to
vibrating with a dramatic love song that was about
as intelligible to them as a problem in calculus,
and June flushed and then smiled with quick
understanding at the dry comment that rose from
Aunt Tilly behind:
"She shorely can holler some!"
She couldn't play "Sourwood Mountain" on
the piano nor "Jinny git Aroun'," nor "Soap-
suds over the Fence," but with a sudden inspira-
tion she went back to an old hymn that they all
knew, and at the end she won the tribute of an
awed silence that made them file back to the
beans on the porch. Loretta lingered a moment
and when June closed the piano and the two girls
went into the main room, a tall figure, entering,
stopped in the door and stared at June without
speaking:
"Why, howdye, Uncle Rufe," said Loretta.
"This is June. You didn't know her, did ye?"
The man laughed. Something in June's bearing
made him take off his hat; he came forward to
shake hands, and June looked up into a pair of
bold black eyes that stirred within her again the
vague fears of her childhood. She had been
afraid of him when she was a child, and it was the
old fear aroused that made her recall him by his
eyes now. His beard was gone and he was much
changed. She trembled when she shook hands
with him and she did not call him by his name.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Old Judd came in, and a moment later the two
men and Bub sat on the porch while the women
worked, and when June rose again to go indoors,
she felt the newcomer's bold eyes take her slowly
in from head to foot and she turned crimson. This
was the terror among the Tollivers Bad Rufe,
come back from the West to take part in the feud.
He saw the belt and the stockings and the shoes,
the white column of her throat and the proud set
of her gold-crowned head; he knew what they
meant, he made her feel that he knew, and later
he managed to catch her eyes once with an amused,
half-contemptuous glance at the simple untrav-
elled folk about them, that said plainly how well
he knew they two were set apart from them, and
she shrank fearfully from the comradeship that
the glance implied and would look at him no
more. He knew everything that was going on in
the mountains. He had come back "ready for
business," he said. When he made ready to go,
June went to her room and stayed there, but she
heard him say to her father that he was going over
to the Gap, and with a laugh that chilled her soul:
"I'm goin' over to kill me a policeman." And
her father warned gruffly:
"You better keep away from thar. You don't
understand them fellers." And she heard Rufe's
brutal laugh again, and as he rode into the creek
his horse stumbled and she saw him cut cruelly at
the poor beast's ears with the rawhide quirt that
296
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
he carried. She was glad when all went home, and
the only ray of sunlight in the day for her radiated
from Uncle Billy's face when, at sunset, he came
to take old Hon home. The old miller was the one
unchanged soul to her in that he was the one soul
that could see no change in June. He called her
"baby" in the old way, and he talked to her now
as he had talked to her as a child. He took her
aside to ask her if she knew that Hale had got his
license to marry, and when she shook her head,
his round, red face lighted up with the benediction
of a rising sun:
"Well, that's what he's done, baby, an' he's
axed me to marry ye," he added, with boyish pride,
"he's axed me." '
And June choked, her eyes filled, and she was
dumb, but Uncle Billy could not see that it meant
distress and not joy. He just put his arm around
her and whispered:
"I ain't told a soul, baby not a soul."
She went to bed and to sleep with Hale's face
in the dream-mist of her brain, and Uncle Billy's,
and the bold, black eyes of Bad Rufe Tolliver all
fused, blurred, indistinguishable. Then suddenly
Rufe's words struck that brain, word by word,
like the clanging terror of a frightened bell.
"I'm goin' to kill me a policeman." And with
the last word, it seemed, she sprang upright in
bed, clutching the coverlid convulsively. Daylight
was showing gray through her window. She heard
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
a swift step up the steps, across the porch, the rat-
tle of the door-chain, her father's quick call, then
the rumble of two men's voices, and she knew as
well what had happened as though she had heard
every word they uttered. Rufe had killed him a
policeman perhaps John Hale and with terror
clutching her heart she sprang to the floor, and as
she dropped the old purple gown over her shoul-
ders, she heard the scurry of feet across the back
porch feet that ran swiftly but cautiously, and
left the sound of them at the edge of the woods.
She heard the back door close softly, the creaking
of the bed as her father lay down again, and then
a sudden splashing in the creek. Kneeling at the
window, she saw strange horsemen pushing toward
the gate where one threw himself from his saddle,
strode swiftly toward the steps, and her lips un-
consciously made soft, little, inarticulate cries of
joy for the stern, gray face under the hat of the
man was the face of John Hale. After him pushed
other men fully armed whom he motioned to
either side of the cabin to the rear. By his side
was Bob Berkley, and behind him was a red-
headed Falin whom she well remembered. Within
twenty feet, she was looking into that gray face,
when the set lips of it opened in a loud command:
"Hello!" She heard her father's bed creak
again, again the rattle of the door-chain, and then
old Judd stepped on the porch with a revolver in
each hand.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Hello!" he answered sternly.
"Judd," said Hale sharply and June had
never heard that tone from him before "a man
with a black moustache killed one of our men over
in the Gap yesterday and we've tracked him over
here. There's his horse and we saw him go into
that door. We want him."
"Do you know who the feller is?" asked old
Judd calmly.
"No," said Hale quickly. And then, with equal
calm:
"Hit was my brother," and the old man's
mouth closed like a vise. Had the last word been
a stone striking his ear, Hale could hardly have
been more stunned. Again he called and almost
gently:
"Watch the rear, there," and then gently he
turned to Devil Judd.
"Judd, your brother shot a man at the Gap
without excuse or warning. He was an officer and
a friend of mine, but if he were a stranger we
want him just the same. Is he here ?"
Judd looked at the red-headed man behind Hale.
" So you're turned on the Falin side now, have
ye ?" he said contemptuously.
"Is he here? "repeated Hale.
"Yes, an' you can't have him." Without a move
toward his pistol Hale stepped forward, and June
saw her father's big right hand tighten on his huge
pistol, and with a low cry she sprang to her feet.
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"I'm an officer of the law," Hale said, "stand
aside, Judd!" Bub leaped to the door with a Win-
chester his eyes wild and his face white.
"Watch out, men!" Hale called, and as the
men raised their guns there was a shriek inside the
cabin and June stood at Bub's side, barefooted,
her hair tumbled about her shoulders, and her
hand clutching the little cross at her throat.
"Stop!" she shrieked. "He isn't here. He's
he's gone!" For a moment a sudden sickness
smote Hale's face, then Devil Judd's ruse flashed
to him and, wheeling, he sprang to the ground.
"Quick!" he shouted, with a sweep of his hand
right and left. "Up those hollows! Lead those
horses up to the Pine and wait. Quick!"
Already the men were running as he directed
and Hale, followed by Bob and the Falin, rushed
around the corner of the house. Old Judd's nos-
trils were quivering, and with his pistols dangling
in his hands he walked to the gate, listening to the
sounds of the pursuit.
"They'll never ketch him," he said, coming
back, and then he dropped into a chair and sat in
silence a long time. June reappeared, her face
still white and her temples throbbing, for the sun
was rising on days of darkness for her. Devil
Judd did not even look at her.
"I reckon you ain't goin' to marry John Hale."
"No, Dad," said June.
300
XXV
Fate did not wait until Election Day
for the thing Hale most dreaded a clash
that would involve the guard in the Tolliver-Falin
troubles over the hills. There had been simply a
preliminary political gathering at the Gap the day
before, but it had been a crucial day for the guard
from a cloudy sunrise to a tragic sunset. Early
that morning, Mockaby, the town-sergeant, had
stepped into the street freshly shaven, with pol-
ished boots, and in his best clothes for the eyes of
his sweetheart, who was to come up that day to
the Gap from Lee. Before sunset he died with
those boots on, while the sweetheart, unknowing,
was bound on her happy way homeward, and
Rufe Tolliver, who had shot Mockaby, was clat-
tering through the Gap in flight for Lonesome
Cove.
As far as anybody knew, there had been but
one Tolliver and one Falin in town that day,
though many had noticed the tall Western-looking
stranger who, early in the afternoon, had ridden
across the bridge over the North Fork, but he was
quiet and well-behaved, he merged into the crowd
and through the rest of the afternoon was in no
301
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
way conspicuous, even when the one Tolliver and
the one Falin got into a fight in front of the speak-
er's stand and the riot started which came near
ending in a bloody battle. The Falin was clearly
blameless and was let go at once. This angered
the many friends of the Tolliver, and when he was
arrested there was an attempt at rescue, and the
Tolliver was dragged to the calaboose behind a
slowly retiring line of policemen, who were jab-
bing the rescuers back with the muzzles of cocked
Winchesters. It was just when it was all over,
and the Tolliver was safely jailed, that Bad Rufe
galloped up to the calaboose, shaking with rage,
for he had just learned that the prisoner was a
Tolliver. He saw how useless interference was,
but he swung from his horse, threw the reins over
its head after the Western fashion and strode up
to Hale.
"You the captain of this guard ?"
"Yes," said Hale; "and you?" Rufe shook
his head with angry impatience, and Hale, think-
ing he had some communication to make, ignored
his refusal to answer.
"I hear that a fellow can't blow a whistle or
holler, or shoot off his pistol in this town without
gittin' arrested."
"That's true why?" Rufe's black eyes
gleamed vindictively.
"Nothin'," he said, and he turned to his horse.
Ten minutes later, as Mockaby was passing
302
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
down the dummy track, a whistle was blown on
the river bank, a high yell was raised, a pistol shot
quickly followed and he started for the sound of
them on a run. A few minutes later three more
pistol shots rang out, and Hale rushed to the river
bank to find Mockaby stretched out on the ground,
dying, and a mountaineer lout pointing after a
man on horseback, who was making at a swift
gallop for the mouth of the gap and the hills.
" He done it," said the lout in a frightened way;
"but I don.'t know who he was."
Within half an hour ten horsemen were clatter-
ing after the murderer, headed by Hale, Logan,
and the Infant of the Guard. Where the road
forked, a woman with a child in her arms said she
had seen a tall, black-eyed man with a black
moustache gallop up the right fork. She no more
knew who he was than any of the pursuers. Three
miles up that fork they came upon a red-headed
man leading his horse from a mountaineer's
yard.
"He went up the mountain," the red-haired
man said, pointing to the trail of the Lonesome
Pine. " He's gone over the line. Whut's he done
killed somebody?"
"Yes," said Hale shortly, starting up his horse.
"I wish I'd a-knowed you was atter him. I'm
sheriff over thar."
Now they were without warrant or requisition,
and Hale, pulling in, said sharply:
33
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"We want that fellow. He killed a man at the
Gap. If we catch him over the line, we want you
to hold him for us. Come along!" The red-
headed sheriff sprang on his horse and grinned
eagerly:
"I'm your man."
"Who was that fellow?" asked Hale as they
galloped. The sheriff denied knowledge with a
shake of his head.
"What's your name?" The sheriff looked
sharply at him for the effect of his answer.
"Jim Falin." And Hale looked sharply back at
him. He was one of the Falins who long, long
ago had gone to the Gap for young Dave Tolliver,
and now the Falin grinned at Hale.
"I know you all right." No wonder the Falin
chuckled at this Heaven-born chance to get a Tol-
liver into trouble.
At the Lonesome Pine the traces of the fugi-
tive's horse swerved along the mountain top the
shoe of the right forefoot being broken in half.
That swerve was a blind and the sheriff knew it,
but he knew where Rufe Tolliver would go and
that there would be plenty of time to get him.
Moreover, he had a purpose of his own and a se-
cret fear that it might be thwarted, so, without a
word, he followed the trail till darkness hid it and
they had to wait until the moon rose. Then as
they started again, the sheriff said :
"Wait a minute," and plunged down the moun-
34
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
tain side on foot. A few minutes later he hallooed
for Hale, and down there showed him the tracks
doubling backward along a foot-path.
"Regular rabbit, ain't he?" chuckled the sher-
iff, and back they went to the trail again on which
two hundred yards below the Pine they saw the
tracks pointing again to Lonesome Cove.
On down the trail they went, and at the top of
the spur that overlooked Lonesome Cove, the
Falin sheriff pulled in suddenly and got off his
horse. There the tracks swerved again into the
bushes.
"He's goin' to wait till daylight, fer fear some-
body's follered him. He'll come in back o' Devil
Judd's."
" How do you know he's going to Devil Judd's ? "
asked Hale.
" Whar else would he go ?" asked the Falin with
a sweep of his arm toward the moonlit wilderness.
"Thar ain't but one house that way fer ten miles
and nobody lives thar."
"How do you know that he's going to any
house?" asked Hale impatiently. "He may be
getting out of the mountains."
" D'you ever know a feller to leave these moun-
tains jus' because he'd killed a man ? How'd you
foller him at night ? How'd you ever ketch him
with his start ? What'd he turn that way fer, if he
wasn't goin' to Judd's why d'n't he keep on
down the river ? If he's gone, he's gone. If he
305
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ain't, he'll be at Devil JudcTs at daybreak if he
ain't thar now."
"What do you want to do ?"
"Go on down with the hosses, hide 'em in the
bushes an' wait."
"Maybe he's already heard us coming down
the mountain."
"That's the only thing I'm afeerd of," said the
Falin calmly. "But whut I'm tellin' you's our
only chance."
"How do you know he won't hear us going
down ? Why not leave the horses ?"
"We might need the hosses, and hit's mud and
sand all the way you ought to know that."
Hale did know that; so on they went quietly
and hid their horses aside from the road near the
place where Hale had fished when he first went to
Lonesome Cove. There the Falin disappeared
on foot.
"Do you trust him?" asked Hale, turning to
Budd, and Budd laughed.
"I reckon you can trust a Falin against a friend
of a Tolliver, or t'other way round any time."
Within half an hour the Falin came back with
the news that there were no signs that the fugitive
had yet come in.
"No use surrounding the house now," he said,
"he might see one of us first when he comes in an'
git away. We'll do that atter daylight."
And at daylight they saw the fugitive ride out
306
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
of the woods at the back of the house and boldly
around to the front of the house, where he left his
horse in the yard and disappeared.
" Now send three men to ketch him if he runs
out the back way quick ! " said the Falin. " Hit'll
take 'em twenty minutes to git thar through the
woods. Soon's they git thar, let one of 'em shoot
his pistol off an' that'll be the signal fer us."
The three men started swiftly, but the pistol
shot came before they had gone a hundred yards,
for one of the three a new man and unaccustomed
to the use of fire-arms, stumbled over a root while
he was seeing that his pistol was in order and let
it go off accidentally.
"No time to waste now," the Falin called
sharply. "Git on yo' bosses and git!" Then the
rush was made and when they gave up the chase
at noon that day, the sheriff looked Hale squarely
in the eye when Hale sharply asked him a question:
"Why didn't you tell me who that man was ?"
" Because I was afeerd you wouldn't go to Devil
Judd's atter him. I know better now," and he
shook his head, for he did not understand. And
so Hale at the head of the disappointed Guard
went back to the Gap, and when, next day, they
laid Mockaby away in the thinly populated little
graveyard that rested in the hollow of the river's
arm, the spirit of law and order in the heart of every
guard gave way to the spirit of revenge, and the
grass would grow under the feet of none until
37
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Rufe Tolliver was caught and the death-debt of
the law was paid with death.
That purpose was no less firm in the heart of
Hale, and he turned away from the grave, sick
with the trick that Fate had lost no time in playing
him; for he was a Falin now in the eyes of both
factions and an enemy even to June.
The weeks dragged slowly along, and June sank
slowly toward the depths with every fresh realiza-
tion of the trap of circumstance into which she had
fallen. She had dim memories of just such a state
of affairs when she was a child, for the feud was
on now and the three things that governed the life
of the cabin in Lonesome Cove were hate, caution,
and fear.
Bub and her father worked in the fields with
their Winchesters close at hand, and June was
never easy if they were outside the house. If some-
body shouted "hello" that universal hail of
friend or enemy in the mountains from the gate
after dark, one or the other would go out the back
door and answer from the shelter of the corner of
the house. Neither sat by the light of the fire
where he could be seen through the window nor
carried a candle from one room to the other.
And when either rode down the river, June must
ride behind him to prevent ambush from the
bushes, for no Kentucky mountaineer, even to kill
his worst enemy, will risk harming a woman.
Sometimes Loretta would come and spend the day,
308
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and she seemed little less distressed than June.
Dave was constantly in and out, and several times
June had seen the Red Fox hanging around. Al-
ways the talk was of the feud. The killing of this
Tolliver and of that long ago was rehearsed over
and over; all the wrongs the family had suffered
at the hands of the Falins were retold, and in spite
of herself June felt the old hatred of her childhood
reawakening against them so fiercely that she was
startled : and she knew that if she were a man she
would be as ready now to take up a Winchester
against the Falins as though she had known no
other life.
Loretta got no comfort from her in her tentative
efforts to talk of Buck Falin, and once, indeed,
June gave her a scathing rebuke. With every day
her feeling for her father and Bub was knit a little
more closely, and toward Dave grew a little more
kindly. She had her moods even against Hale,
but they always ended in a storm of helpless tears.
Her father said little of Hale, but that little was
enough. Young Dave was openly exultant when
he heard of the favouritism shown a Falin by the
Guard at the Gap, the effort Hale had made to
catch Rufe Tolliver and his well-known purpose
yet to capture him; for the Guard maintained a
fund for the arrest and prosecution of criminals,
and the reward it offered for Rufe, dead or alive,
was known by everybody on both sides of the
State line. For nearly a week no word was heard
39
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
of the fugitive, and then one night, after supper,
while June was sitting at the fire, the back door
was opened, Rufe slid like a snake within, and
when June sprang to her feet with a sharp cry of
terror, he gave his brutal laugh :
"Don't take much to skeer you does it?"
Shuddering she felt his evil eyes sweep her from
head to foot, for the beast within was always un-
leashed and ever ready to spring, and she dropped
back into her seat, speechless. Young Dave, en-
tering from the kitchen, saw Rufe's look and the
hostile lightning of his own eyes flashed at his
foster-uncle, who knew straightway that he must
not for his own safety strain the boy's jealousy too
far.
"You oughtn't to 'a' done it, Rufe," said old
Judd a little later, and he shook his head. Again
Rufe laughed :
"No " he said with a quick pacificatory look
to young Dave, "not to him!' 9 The swift gritting
of Dave's teeth showed that he knew what was
meant, and without warning the instinct of a pro-
tecting tigress leaped within June. She had seen
and had been grateful for the look Dave gave the
outlaw, but without a word she rose now and went
to her own room. While she sat at her window, her
step-mother came out the back door and left it
open for a moment. Through it June could hear
the talk:
"No," said her father, "she ain't goin' to marry
310
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
him." Dave grunted and Rufe's voice came
again :
" Ain't no danger, I reckon, of her tellin' on me ? "
"No," said her father gruffly, and the door
banged.
No, thought June, she wouldn't, even without
her father's trust, though she loathed the man, and
he was the only thing on earth of which she was
afraid that was the miracle of it and June won-
dered. She was a Tolliver and the clan loyalty of
a century forbade that was all. As she rose she
saw a figure skulking past the edge of the woods.
She called Bub in and told him about it, and Rufe
stayed at the cabin all night, but June did not see
him next morning, and she kept out of his way
whenever he came again. A few nights later the
Red Fox slouched up to the cabin with some herbs
for the step-mother. Old Judd eyed him askance.
"Lookin' fer that reward, Red ?" The old man
had no time for the meek reply that was on his lips,
for the old woman spoke up sharply:
"You let Red alone, Judd I tol' him to come."
And the Red Fox stayed to supper, and when
Rufe left the cabin that night, a bent figure with a
big rifle and in moccasins sneaked after him.
The next night there was a tap on Hale's win-
dow just at his bedside, and when he looked out he
saw the Red Fox's big rifle, telescope, moccasins
and all in the moonlight. The Red Fox had dis-
covered the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver, and
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that very night he guided Hale and six of the
guard to the edge of a little clearing where the
Red Fox pointed to a one-roomed cabin, quiet in
the moonlight. Hale had his requisition now.
"Ain't no trouble ketchin' Rufe, if you bait
him with a woman," he snarled. "There mought
be several Tollivers in thar. Wait till daybreak
and git the drap on him, when he comes out."
And then he disappeared.
Surrounding the cabin, Hale waited, and on top
of the mountain, above Lonesome Cove, the Red
Fox sat waiting and watching through his big tele-
scope. Through it he saw Bad Rufe step outside
the door at daybreak and stretch his arms with a
yawn, and he saw three men spring with levelled
Winchesters from behind a clump of bushes. The
woman shot from the door behind Rufe with a
pistol in each hand, but Rufe kept his hands in the
air and turned his head to the woman who lowered
the half-raised weapons slowly. When he saw the
cavalcade start for the county seat with Rufe
manacled in the midst of them, he dropped swiftly
down into Lonesome Cove to tell Judd that Rufe
was a prisoner and to retake him on the way to
jail. And, as the Red Fox well knew would hap-
pen, old Judd and young Dave and two other
Tollivers who were at the cabin galloped into
the county seat to find Rufe in jail, and that jail
guarded by seven grim young men armed with
Winchesters and shot-guns.
312
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Hale faced the old man quietly eye to eye.
"It's no use, Judd," he said, "you'd better let
the law take its course." The old man was scorn-
fid.
"Thar's never been a Tolliver convicted of
killin' nobody, much less hung an* thar ain't
goin' to be."
"I'm glad you warned me," said Hale still
quietly, " though it wasn't necessary. But if he's
convicted, he'll hang."
The giant's face worked in convulsive helpless-
ness and he turned away.
"You hold the cyards now, but my deal is
comm'. 3
"All right, Judd you're getting a square one
from me."
Back rode the Tollivers and Devil Judd never
opened his lips again until he was at home in
Lonesome Cove. June was sitting on the porch
when he walked heavy-headed through the gate.
"They've ketched Rufe," he said, and after
a moment he added gruffly:
"Thar's goin' to be sure enough trouble now.
The Falins'll think all them police fellers air on
their side now. This ain't no place fer you you
must git away."
June shook her head and her eyes turned to the
flowers at the edge of the garden :
"I'm not goin' away, Dad," she said.
313
XXVI
"DACK to the passing of Boone and the landing
"^ of Columbus no man, in that region, had
ever been hanged. And as old Judd said, no Tol-
liver had ever been sentenced and no jury of
mountain men, he well knew, could be found who
would convict a Tolliver, for there were no twelve
men in the mountains who would dare. And so
the Tollivers decided to await the outcome of the
trial and rest easy. But they did not count on the
mettle and intelligence of the grim young "fur-
riners" who were a flying wedge of civilization at
the Gap. Straightway, they gave up the practice
of law and banking and trading and store-keeping
and cut port-holes in the brick walls of the Court
House and guarded town and jail night and day.
They brought their own fearless judge, their own
fearless jury and their own fearless guard. Such
an abstract regard for law and order the moun-
taineer finds a hard thing to understand. It
looked as though the motive of the Guard was vin-
dictive and personal, and old Judd was almost
stifled by the volcanic rage that daily grew within
him as the toils daily tightened about Rufe Tolliver.
Every happening the old man learned through
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the Red Fox, who, with his huge pistols, was one of
the men who escorted Rufe to and from Court
House and jail a volunteer, Hale supposed, be-
cause he hated Rufe; and, as the Tollivers sup-
posed, so that he could keep them advised of
everything that went on, which he did with se-
crecy and his own peculiar faith. And steadily and
to the growing uneasiness of the Tollivers, the
law went its way. Rufe had proven that he was
at the Gap all day and had taken no part in the
trouble. He produced a witness the mountain
lout whom Hale remembered who admitted that
he had blown the whistle, given the yell, and fired
the pistol shot. When asked his reason, the wit-
ness, who was stupid, had none ready, looked
helplessly at Rufe and finally mumbled "fer
fun." But it was plain from the questions that
Rufe had put to Hale only a few minutes before
the shooting, and from the hesitation of the witness,
that Rufe had used him for a tool. So the testi-
mony of the latter that Mockaby without even
summoning Rufe to surrender had fired first, car-
ried no conviction. And yet Rufe had no trouble
making it almost sure that he had never seen the
dead man before so what was his motive ? It
was then that word reached the ear of the prose-
cuting attorney of the only testimony that could
establish a motive and make the crime a hanging
offence, and Court was adjourned for a day, while
he sent for the witness who could give it. That
315
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
afternoon one of the Falins, who had grown bolder,
and in twos and threes were always at the trial,
shot at a Tolliver on the edge of town and there
was an immediate turmoil between the factions
that the Red Fox had been waiting for and that
suited his dark purposes well.
That very night, with his big rifle, he slipped
through the woods to a turn of the road, over which
old Dave Tolliver was to pass next morning, and
built a "blind" behind some rocks and lay there
smoking peacefully and dreaming his Swedenbor-
gian dreams. And when a wagon came round the
turn, driven by a boy, and with the gaunt frame of
old Dave Tolliver lying on straw in the bed of it,
his big rifle thundered and the frightened horses
dashed on with the Red Fox's last enemy, lifeless.
Coolly he slipped back to the woods, threw the
shell from his gun, tirelessly he went by short cuts
through the hills, and at noon, benevolent and
smiling, he was on guard again.
The little Court Room was crowded for the
afternoon session. Inside the railing sat Rufe
Tolliver, white and defiant manacled. Leaning
on the railing, to one side, was the Red Fox with
his big pistols, his good profile calm, dreamy, kind
to the other, similarly armed, was Hale. At each
of the gaping port-holes, and on each side of the
door, stood a guard with a Winchester, and around
the railing outside were several more. In spite of
window and port-hole the air was close and heavy
316
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
with the smell of tobacco and the sweat of men.
Here and there in the crowd was a red Falin, but
not a Tolliver was in sight, and Rufe Tolliver sat
alone. The clerk called the Court to order after
the fashion since the days before Edward the Con-
fessor except that he asked God to save a com-
monwealth instead of a king and the prosecuting
attorney rose:
"Next witness, may it please your Honour":
and as the clerk got to his feet with a slip of paper
in his hand and bawled out a name, Hale wheeled
with a thumping heart. The crowd vibrated,
turned heads, gave way, and through the human
aisle walked June Tolliver with the sheriff follow-
ing meekly behind. At the railing-gate she stop-
ped, head uplifted, face pale and indignant; and
her eyes swept past Hale as if he were no more
than a wooden image, and were fixed with proud
inquiry on the Judge's face. She was bare-
headed, her bronze hair was drawn low over her
white brow, her gown was of purple home-spun,
and her right hand was clenched tight about the
chased silver handle of a riding whip, and in eyes,
mouth, and in every line of her tense figure was the
mute question: "Why have you brought me
here?"
" Here, please," said the Judge gently, as though
he were about to answer that question, and as she
passed Hale she seemed to swerve her skirts aside
that they might not touch him.
317
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Swear her."
June lifted her right hand, put her lips to the
soiled, old, black Bible and faced the jury and
Hale and Bad Rufe Tolliver whose black eyes
never left her face.
"What is your name ?" asked a deep voice that
struck her ears as familiar, and before she an-
swered she swiftly recalled that she had heard that
voice speaking when she entered the door.
"June Tolliver."
"Your age ?"
"Eighteen."
"You live "
"In Lonesome Cove."
"You are the daughter of "
"Judd Tolliver."
"Do you know the prisoner ?"
"He is my foster-uncle."
" Were you at home on the night of August the
tenth?"
"I was."
" Have you ever heard the prisoner express any
enmity against this volunteer Police Guard?"
He waved his hand toward the men at the port-
holes and about the railing unconsciously leav-
ing his hand directly pointed at Hale. June hesi-
tated and Rufe leaned one elbow on the table, and
the light in his eyes beat with fierce intensity into
the girl's eyes into which came a curious frightened
look that Hale remembered the same look she
318
Why have you brought me here?'
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
had shown long ago when Rufe's name was men-
tioned in the old miller's cabin, and when going up
the river road she had put her childish trust in
him to see that her bad uncle bothered her no
more. Hale had never forgot that, and if it had
not been absurd he would have stopped the pris-
oner from staring at her now. An anxious look
had come into Rufe's eyes would she lie for him ?
"Never," said June. Ah, she would she was
a Tolliver and Rufe took a breath of deep content.
"You never heard him express any enmity
toward the Police Guard before that night?"
"I have answered that question," said June
with dignity and Rufe's lawyer was on his feet.
"Your Honour, I object," he said indignantly.
" I apologize," said the deep voice " sincerely,"
and he bowed to June. Then very quietly:
"What was the last thing you heard the prisoner
say that afternoon when he left your father's
house?"
It had come how well she remembered just
what he had said and how, that night, even when
she was asleep, Rufe's words had clanged like a
bell in her brain what her awakening terror was
when she knew that the deed was done and the
stifling fear that the victim might be Hale. Swiftly
her mind worked somebody had blabbed, her
step-mother, perhaps, and what Rufe had said
had reached a Falin ear and come to the relent-
less man in front of her. She remembered, too,
319
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
now, what the deep voice was saying as she came
into the door:
"There must be deliberation, a malicious pur-
pose proven to make the prisoner's crime a capital
offence I admit that, of course, your Honour.
Very well, we propose to prove that now," and
then she had heard her name called. The proof
that was to send Rufe Tolliver to the scaffold was
to come from her that was why she was there.
Her lips opened and Rufe's eyes, like a snake's,
caught her own again and held them.
"He said he was going over to the Gap "
There was a commotion at the door, again the
crowd parted, and in towered giant Judd Tolliver,
pushing people aside as though they were straws,
his bushy hair wild and his great frame shaking
from head to foot with rage.
"You went to my house," he rumbled hoarsely
glaring at Hale "an* took my gal thar when I
wasn't at home you "
"Order in the Court/' said the Judge sternly,
but already at a signal from Hale several guards
were pushing through the crowd and old Judd saw
them coming and saw the Falins about him and
the Winchesters at the port-holes, and he stopped
with a hard gulp and stood looking at June.
" Repeat his exact words," said the deep voice
again as calmly as though nothing had happened.
"He said, 'I'm goin' over to the Gap " and
still Rufe's black eyes held her with mesmeric
320
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
power would she lie for him would she lie for
him ?
It was a terrible struggle for June. Her father
was there, her uncle Dave was dead, her foster-
uncle's life hung on her next words and she was
a Tolliver. Yet she had given her oath, she had
kissed the sacred Book in which she believed from
cover to cover with her whole heart, and she could
feel upon her the blue eyes of a man for whom
a lie was impossible and to whom she had never
stained her white soul with a word of untruth.
"Yes," encouraged the deep voice kindly.
Not a soul in the room knew where the struggle
lay not even the girl for it lay between the
black eyes of Rufe Tolliver and the blue eyes of
John Hale.
"Yes," repeated the deep voice again. Again,
with her eyes on Rufe, she repeated :
"'I'm goin' over to the Gap her face
turned deadly white, she shivered, her dark eyes
swerved suddenly full on Hale and she said slowly
and distinctly, yet hardly above a whisper:
"To kill me a policeman.'"
"That will do," said the deep voice gently, and
Hale started toward her she looked so deadly
sick and she trembled so when she tried to rise;
but she saw him, her mouth steadied, she rose,
and without looking at him, passed by his out-
stretched hand and walked slowly out of the Court
Room.
321
XXVII
miracle had happened. The Tollivers,
following the Red Fox's advice to make no
attempt at rescue just then, had waited, expecting
the old immunity from the law and getting instead
the swift sentence that Rufe Tolliver should be
hanged by the neck until he was dead. Astounding
and convincing though the news was, no moun-
taineer believed he would ever hang, and Rufe
himself faced the sentence defiant. He laughed
when he was led back to his cell:
"I'll never hang," he said scornfully. They
were the first words that came from his lips, and
the first words that came from old Judd's when
the news reached him in Lonesome Cove, and that
night old Judd gathered his clan for the rescue
to learn next morning that during the night Rufe
had been spirited away to the capital for safe-
keeping until the fatal day. And so there was
quiet for a while old Judd making ready for the
day when Rufe should be brought back, and trying
to find out who it was that had slain his brother
Dave. The Falins denied the deed, but old Judd
never questioned that one of them was the mur-
derer, and he came out openly now and made no
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secret of the fact that he meant to have revenge.
And so the two factions went armed, watchful and
wary especially the Falins, who were lying low
and waiting to fulfil a deadly purpose of their own.
They well knew that old Judd would not open hos-
tilities on them until Rufe Tolliver was dead or at
liberty. They knew that the old man meant to
try to rescue Rufe when he was brought back to
jail or taken from it to the scaffold, and when
either day came they themselves would take a
hand, thus giving the Tollivers at one and the same
time two sets of foes. And so through the golden
September days the two clans waited, and June
Tolliver went with dull determination back to her
old life, for Uncle Billy's sister had left the house in
fear and she could get no help milking cows at
cold dawns, helping in the kitchen, spinning flax
and wool, and weaving them into rough garments
for her father and step-mother and Bub, and in
time, she thought grimly for herself: for not an-
other cent for her maintenance could now come
from John Hale, even though he claimed it was
hers even though it was in truth her own. Never,
but once, had Male's name been mentioned in the
cabin never, but once, had her father referred to
the testimony that she had given against Rufe
Tolliver, for the old man put upon Hale the fact
that the sheriff had sneaked into his house when
he was away and had taken June to Court, and
that was the crowning touch of bitterness in his
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growing hatred for the captain of the guard of
whom he had once been so fond.
"Course you had to tell the truth, baby, when
they got you there," he said kindly; "but kidnap-
pin' you that-a-way " He shook his great bushy
head from side to side and dropped it into his
hands.
"I reckon that damn Hale was the man who
found out that you heard Rufe say that. I'd like
to know how I'd like to git my hands on the fel-
ler as told him."
June opened her lips in simple justice to clear
Hale of that charge, but she saw such a terrified
appeal in her step-mother's face that she kept her
peace, let Hale suffer for that, too, and walked out
into her garden. Never once had her piano been
opened, her books had lain unread, and from her
lips, during those days, came no song. When she
was not at work, she was brooding in her room,
or she would walk down to Uncle Billy's and sit
at the mill with him while the old man would talk
in tender helplessness, or under the honeysuckle
vines with old Hon, whose brusque kindness was
of as little avail. And then, still silent, she would
get wearily up and as quietly go away while the
two old friends, worried to the heart, followed her
sadly with their eyes. At other times she was
brooding in her room or sitting in her garden,
where she was now, and where she found most com-
fort the garden that Hale had planted for her
324
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
where purple asters leaned against lilac shrubs
that would flower for the first time the coming
spring; where a late rose bloomed, and marigolds
drooped, and great sunflowers nodded and giant
castor-plants stretched out their hands of Christ.
And while June thus waited the passing of the
days, many things became clear to her: for the
grim finger of reality had torn the veil from her
eyes and let her see herself but little changed, at
the depths, by contact with John Hale's world, as
she now saw him but little changed, at the depths,
by contact with hers. Slowly she came to see, too,
that it was his presence in the Court Room that
made her tell the truth, reckless of the conse-
quences, and she came to realize that she was not
leaving the mountains because she would go to no
place where she could not know of any danger
that, in the present crisis, might threaten John
Hale.
And Hale saw only that in the Court Room she
had drawn her skirts aside, that she had looked at
him once and then had brushed past his helping
hand. It put him in torment to think of what her
life must be now, and of how she must be suffering.
He knew that she would not leave her father in
the crisis that was at hand, and after it was all over
what then? His hands would still be tied and
he would be even more helpless than he had ever
dreamed possible. To be sure, an old land deal
had come to life, just after the discovery of the
325
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
worthlessness of the mine in Lonesome Cove, and
was holding out another hope. But if that, too,
should fail or if it should succeed what then ?
Old Judd had sent back, with a curt refusal, the
last "allowance" he forwarded to June and he
knew the old man was himself in straits. So June
must stay in the mountains, and what would be-
come of her ? She had gone back to her mountain
garb would she lapse into her old life and ever
again be content ? Yes, she would lapse, but never
enough to keep her from being unhappy all her
life, and at that thought he groaned. Thus far he
was responsible and the paramount duty with
him had been that she should have the means to
follow the career she had planned for herself out-
side of those hills. And now if he had the means,
he was helpless. There was nothing for him to
do now but to see that the law had its way with
Rufe Tolliver, and meanwhile he let the reawak-
ened land deal go hang and set himself the task
of rinding out who it was that had ambushed old
Dave Tolliver. So even when he was thinking of
June his brain was busy on that mystery, and one
night, as he sat brooding, a suspicion flashed that
made him grip his chair with both hands and rise
to pace the porch. Old Dave had been shot at
dawn, and the night before the Red Fox had been
absent from the guard and had not turned up
until nearly noon next day. He had told Hale
that he was going home. Two days later, Hale
326
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
heard by accident that the old man had been seen
near the place of the ambush about sunset of the
day before the tragedy, which was on his way
home, and he now learned straightway for himself
that the Red Fox had not been home for a month
which was only one of his ways of mistreating
the patient little old woman in black.
A little later, the Red Fox gave it out that he
was trying to ferret out the murderer himself, and
several times he was seen near the place of ambush,
looking, as he said, for evidence. But this did not
halt Male's suspicions, for he recalled that the
night he had spent with the Red Fox, long ago,
the old man had burst out against old Dave and
had quickly covered up his indiscretion with a
pious characterization of himself as a man that
kept peace with both factions. And then why had
he been so suspicious and fearful when Hale told
him that night that he had seen him talking with
a Falin in town the Court day before, and had he
disclosed the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver and
guided the guard to his hiding-place simply for
the reward ? He had not yet come to claim it,
and his indifference to money was notorious
through the hills. Apparently there was some
general enmity in the old man toward the whole
Tolliver clan, and maybe he had used the reward
to fool Hale as to his real motive. And then Hale
quietly learned that long ago the Tollivers bitterly
opposed the Red Fox's marriage to a Tolliver
327
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that Rufe, when a boy, was always teasing the Red
Fox and had once made him dance in his mocca-
sins to the tune of bullets spitting about his feet,
and that the Red Fox had been heard to say that
old Dave had cheated his wife out of her just in-
heritance of wild land; but all that was long, long
ago, and apparently had been mutually forgiven
and forgotten. But it was enough for Hale, and
one night he mounted his horse, and at dawn he
was at the place of ambush with his horse hidden
in the bushes. The rocks for the ambush were
waist high, and the twigs that had been thrust in
the crevices between them were withered. And
there, on the hypothesis that the Red Fox was the
assassin, Hale tried to put himself, after the deed,
into the Red Fox's shoes. The old man had
turned up on guard before noon then he must
have gone somewhere first or have killed consid-
erable time in the woods. He would not have
crossed the road, for there were two houses on the
other side; there would have been no object in
going on over the mountain unless he meant to
escape, and if he had gone over there for another
reason he would hardly have had time to get to
the Court House before noon: nor would he have
gone back along the road on that side, for on that
side, too, was a cabin not far away. So Hale
turned and walked straight away from the road
where the walking was easiest down a ravine,
and pushing this way and that through the bushes
328
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
where the way looked easiest. Half a mile down
the ravine he came to a little brook, and there in
the black earth was the faint print of a man's left
foot and in the hard crust across was the deeper
print of his right, where his weight in leaping had
come down hard. But the prints were made by
a shoe and not by a moccasin, and then Hale re-
called exultantly that the Red Fox did not have
his moccasins on the morning he turned up on
guard. All the while he kept a sharp lookout,
right and left, on the ground the Red Fox must
have thrown his cartridge shell somewhere, and
for that Hale was looking. Across the brook he
could see the tracks no farther, for he was too little
of a woodsman to follow so old a trail, but as he
stood behind a clump of rhododendron, wondering
what he could do, he heard the crack of a dead
stick down the stream, and noiselessly he moved
farther into the bushes. His heart thumped in the
silence the long silence that followed for it
might be a hostile Tolliver that was coming, so
he pulled his pistol from his holster, made ready,
and then, noiseless as a shadow, the Red Fox
slipped past him along the path, in his moccasins
now, and with his big Winchester in his left hand.
The Red Fox, too, was looking for that cartridge
shell, for only the night before had he heard for
the first time of the whispered suspicions against
him. He was making for the blind and Hale trem-
bled at his luck. There was no path on the other
329
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
side of the stream, and Hale could barely hear him
moving through the bushes. So he pulled ofF his
boots and, carrying them in one hand, slipped
after him, watching for dead twigs, stooping under
the branches, or sliding sidewise through them
when he had to brush between their extremities,
and pausing every now and then to listen for an
occasional faint sound from the Red Fox ahead.
Up the ravine the old man went to a little ledge of
rocks, beyond which was the blind, and when
Hale saw his stooped figure slip over that and dis-
appear, he ran noiselessly toward it, crept noise-
lessly to the top and peeped carefully over to see
the Red Fox with his back to him and peering into
a clump of bushes hardly ten yards away. While
Hale looked, the old man thrust his hand into the
bushes and drew out something that twinkled in
the sun. At the moment Hale's horse nickered
from the bushes, and the Red Fox slipped his
hand into his pocket, crouched listening a mo-
ment, and then, step by step, backed toward the
ledge. Hale rose:
"I want you, Red!"
The old man wheeled, the wolPs snarl came,
but the big rifle was too slow Hale's pistol had
flashed in his face.
"Drop your gun!" Paralyzed, but the picture
of white fury, the old man hesitated.
"Drop your gun!" Slowly the big rifle was
loosed and fell to the ground.
330
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Back away turn around and hands up!"
With his foot on the Winchester, Hale felt in
the old man's pockets and fished out an empty
cartridge shell. Then he picked up the rifle and
threw the slide.
"It fits all right. March toward that horse!"
Without a word the old man slouched ahead to
where the big black horse was restlessly waiting
in the bushes.
"Climb up," said Hale. "We won't 'ride and
tie' back to town but I'll take turns with you on
the horse."
The Red Fox was making ready to leave the
mountains, for he had been falsely informed that
Rufe was to be brought back to the county seat
next day, and he was searching again for the sole
bit of evidence that was out against him. And
when Rufe was spirited back to jail and was on
his way to his cell, an old freckled hand was thrust
between the bars of an iron door to greet him and
a voice called him by name. Rufe stopped in
amazement; then he burst out laughing; he struck
then at the pallid face through the bars with
his manacles and cursed the old man bitterly;
then he laughed again horribly. The two slept in
adjoining cells of the same cage that night the
one waiting for the scaffold and the other waiting
for the trial that was to send him there. And
away over the blue mountains a little old woman
331
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
in black sat on the porch of her cabin as she had
sat patiently many and many a long day. It was
time, she thought, that the Red Fox was coming
home.
332
XXVIII
A ND so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting
f-% for death, the trial of the Red Fox went on,
and when he was not swinging in a hammock,
reading his Bible, telling his visions to his guards
and singing hymns, he was in the Court House
giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all,
with the benevolent half of his mask turned to the
jury and the wolfish snarl of the other half show-
ing only now and then to some hostile witness for
whom his hate was stronger than his fear for his
own life. And in jail Bad Rufe worried his enemy
with the malicious humour of Satan. Now he
would say:
"Oh, there ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and
me, nothin' at all 'cept this iron wall," and he
would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall with
the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak
of the Red Fox's hammock as he droned his Bible
aloud, he would say to his guard outside:
"Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the
word, nor talk with sperits, but thar's worse men
than me in the world old Red in thar* for in-
stance"; and then he would cackle like a fiend
and the Red Fox would writhe in torment and
333
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
beg to be sent to another cell. And always he
would daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and
ask him questions in the night, and his devilish
instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too,
was sentenced to death he saw it in the gray pal-
lour of the old man's face, and he cackled his glee
like a demon. For the evidence against the Red
Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief
witness against Rufe Tolliver John Hale sat as
chief witness against the Red Fox. He could not
swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old
man pick up, but it was something that glistened
in the sun, and a moment later he had found the
shell in the old man's pocket and if it had been
fired innocently, why was it there and why was the
old man searching for it ? He was looking, he
said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That
claim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the
big rifle and the shell.
"You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the
night you spent at his home that this rifle was
rim-fire?"
" He did." The lawyer held up the shell.
"You see this was exploded in such a rifle."
That was plain, and the lawyer shoved the shell
into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out, and
held it up again. The plunger had struck below
the rim and near the centre, but not quite on the
centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and examined
it closely.
334
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"It's been tampered with," he said quietly, and
he handed it to the prosecuting attorney. The
fact was plain; it was a bungling job and better
proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were
only two such big rifles in all the hills, and it was
proven that the man who owned the other was at
the time of the murder far away. The days of
brain-storms had not come then. There were no
eminent Alienists to prove insanity for the pris-
oner. Apparently, he had no friends none save
the little old woman in black who sat by his side,
hour by hour and day by day.
And the Red Fox was doomed.
In the hush of the Court Room the Judge sol-
emnly put to the gray face before him the usual
question:
"Have you anything to say whereby sentence
of death should not be pronounced on you ?"
The Red Fox rose:
"No," he said in a shaking voice; "but I have
a friend here who I would like to speak for me."
The Judge bent his head a moment over his
kench and lifted it:
"It is unusual," he said; "but under the cir-
cumstances I will grant your request. Who is
your friend ?" And the Red Fox made the souls
of his listeners leap.
" Jesus Christ," he said.
The Judge reverently bowed his head and the
hush of the Court Room grew deeper when the
335
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
old man fished his Bible from his pocket and
calmly read such passages as might be interpreted
as sure damnation for his enemies and sure glory
for himself read them until the Judge lifted his
hand for a halt.
And so another sensation spread through the
hills and a superstitious awe of this strange new
power that had come into the hills went with it
hand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew
that nothing could save the Red Fox they would
wait to see if that power could really avail against
the Tolliver clan. The day set for Rufe's execu-
tion was the following Monday, and for the Red
Fox the Friday following for it was well to have
the whole wretched business over while the guard
was there. Old Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned,
had come himself to offer the little old woman in
black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived,
and had tried to get her to go back with him to
Lonesome Cove; but it pleased the Red Fox that
he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white
cap and all as emblems of the purple and fine
linen he was to put on above, and the little old
woman stayed where she was, silently and without
question, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly
learned, from a white table-cloth and measuring
them piece by piece with the clothes the old man
wore in jail. It pleased him, too, that his body
should be kept unburied three days saying that
he would then arise and go about preaching, and
336
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that duty, too, she would as silently and with as
little question perform. Moreover, he would
preach his own funeral sermon on the Sunday
before Rufe's day, and a curious crowd gathered
to hear him. The Red Fox was led from jail.
He stood on the porch of the jailer's house with
a little table in front of him. On it lay a Bible, on
the other side of the table sat a little pale-faced
old woman in black with a black sun-bonnet
drawn close to her face. By the side of the Bible
lay a few pieces of bread. It was the Red Fox's
last communion a communion which he admin-
istered to himself and in which there was no other
soul on earth to join save that little old woman in
black. And when the old fellow lifted the bread
and asked the crowd to come forward to partake
with him in the last sacrament, not a soul moved.
Only the old woman who had been ill-treated by
the Red Fox for so many years only she, of all
the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one in-
stant turned her face toward him. With a churlish
gesture the old man pushed the bread over toward
her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she
reached for it.
Bob Berkley was on the death-watch that night,
and as he passed Rufe's cell a wiry hand shot
through the grating of his door, and as the boy
sprang away the condemned man's fingers tipped
the butt of the big pistol that dangled on the lad's
hip.
337
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Not this time," said Bob with a cool little
laugh, and Rufe laughed, too.
"I was only foolin'," he said, "I ain't goin' to
hang. You hear that, Red ? I ain't goin' to hang
but you are, Red sure. Nobody'd risk his
little finger for your old carcass, 'cept maybe that
little old woman o' yours who you've treated like
a hound but my folks ain't goin' to see me hang."
Rufe spoke with some reason. That night the
Tollivers climbed the mountain, and before day-
break were waiting in the woods a mile on the
north side of the town. And the Falins climbed,
too, farther along the mountains, and at the same
hour were waiting in the woods a mile to the
south.
Back in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat
alone her soul shaken and terror-stricken to the
depths and the misery that matched hers was in
the heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the
county seat, on guard and forging out his plans for
that day under the morning stars.
338
XXIX
T^\AY broke on the old Court House with its
**J black port-holes, on the graystone jail, and
on a tall topless wooden box to one side, from
which projected a cross-beam of green oak. From
the centre of this beam dangled a rope that swung
gently to and fro when the wind moved. And with
the day a flock of little birds lighted on the bars
of the condemned man's cell window, chirping
through them, and when the jailer brought break-
fast he found Bad Rufe cowering in the corner of
his cell and wet with the sweat of fear.
"Them damn birds ag'in," he growled sullenly.
"Don't lose yo' nerve, Rufe," said the jailer,
and the old laugh of defiance came, but from lips
that were dry.
"Not much," he answered grimly, but the jailer
noticed that while he ate, his eyes kept turning
again and again to the bars; and the turnkey went
away shaking his head. Rufe had told the jailer,
his one friend through whom he had kept in con-
stant communication with the Tollivers, how on
the night after the shooting of Mockaby, when he
lay down to sleep high on the mountain side and
under some rhododendron bushes, a flock of little
339
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
birds flew in on him like a gust of rain and perched
over and around him, twittering at him until he
had to get up and pace the woods, and how,
throughout the next day, when he sat in the sun
planning his escape, those birds would sweep
chattering over his head and sweep chattering
back again, and in that mood of despair he had
said once, and only once: "Somehow I knowed
this time my name was Dennis" a phrase of evil
prophecy he had picked up outside the hills. And
now those same birds of evil omen had come
again, he believed, right on the heels of the last
sworn oath old Judd had sent him that he would
never hang.
With the day, through mountain and valley,
came in converging lines mountain humanity
men and women, boys and girls, children and
babes in arms; all in their Sunday best the men
in jeans, slouched hats, and high boots, the women
in gay ribbons and brilliant home-spun; in wag-
ons, on foot and on horses and mules, carrying man
and man, man and boy, lover and sweetheart, or
husband and wife and child all moving through
the crisp autumn air, past woods of russet and
crimson and along brown dirt roads, to the strag-
gling little mountain town. A stranger would
have thought that a county fair, a camp-meeting,
or a circus was their goal, but they were on their
way to look upon the Court House with its black
port-holes^ the graystone jail, the tall wooden box,
340
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the projecting beam, and that dangling rope which,
when the wind moved, swayed gently to and fro.
And Hale had forged his plan. He knew that
there would be no attempt at rescue until Rufe
was led to the scaffold, and he knew that neither
Falins nor Tollivers would come in a band, so the
incoming tide found on the outskirts of the town
and along every road boyish policemen who halted
and disarmed every man who carried a weapon in
sight, for thus John Hale would have against the
pistols of the factions his own Winchesters and re-
peating shot-guns. And the wondering people saw
at the back windows of the Court House and at
the threatening port-holes more youngsters man-
ning Winchesters, more at the windows of the jail-
er's frame house, which joined and fronted the jail,
and more still a line of them running all around
the jail; and the old men wagged their heads in
amazement and wondered if, after all, a Tolliver
was not really going to be hanged.
So they waited the neighbouring hills were
black with people waiting; the housetops were
black with men and boys waiting; the trees in the
streets were bending under the weight of human
bodies; and the jail-yard fence was three feet deep
with people hanging to it and hanging about one
another's necks all waiting. All morning they
waited silently and patiently, and now the fatal
noon was hardly an hour away and not a Falin nor
a Tolliver had been seen. Every Falin had been
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
disarmed of his Winchester as he came in, and as
yet no Tolliver had entered the town, for wily old
Judd had learned of Rale's tactics and had stayed
outside the town for his own keen purpose. As
the minutes passed, Hale was beginning to wonder
whether, after all, old Judd had come to believe
that the odds against him were too great, and had
told the truth when he set afoot the rumour that
the law should have its way; and it was just when
his load of anxiety was beginning to lighten that
there was a little commotion at the edge of the
Court House and a great red-headed figure pushed
through the crowd, followed by another of like
build, and as the people rapidly gave way and fell
back, a line of Falins slipped along the wall and
stood under the port-holes quiet, watchful, and
determined. Almost at the same time the crowd
fell back the other way up the street, there was the
hurried tramping of feet and on came the Tolli-
vers, headed by giant Judd, all armed with Win-
chesters for old Judd had sent his guns in ahead
and as the crowd swept like water into any chan-
nel of alley or doorway that was open to it, Hale
saw the yard emptied of everybody but the line of
Falins against the wall and the Tollivers in a body
but ten yards in front of them. The people on the
roofs and in the trees had not moved at all, for they
were out of range. For a moment old Judd's eyes
swept the windows and port-holes of the Court
House, the windows of the jailer's house, the line
342
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
of guards about the jail, and then they dropped to
the line of Falins and glared with contemptuous
hate into the leaping blue eyes of old Buck Falin,
and for that moment there was silence. In that
silence and as silently as the silence itself issued
swiftly from the line of guards twelve youngsters
with Winchesters, repeating shot-guns, and in a
minute six were facing the Falins and six facing
the Tollivers, each with his shot-gun at his hip.
At the head of them stood Hale, his face a pale
image, as hard as though cut from stone, his head
bare, and his hand and his hip weaponless. In all
that crowd there was not a man or a woman who
had not seen or heard of him, for the power of the
guard that was at his back had radiated through
that wild region like ripples of water from a
dropped stone and, unarmed even, he had a per-
sonal power that belonged to no other man in all
those hills, though armed to the teeth. His voice
rose clear, steady, commanding:
"The law has come here and it has come to
stay." He faced the beetling eyebrows and angrily
working beard of old Judd now:
"The Falins are here to get revenge on you
Tollivers, if you attack us. I know that. But"
he wheeled on the Falins "understand! We
don't want your help! If the Tollivers try to take
that man in there, and one of you Falins draws a
pistol, those guns there" waving his hand toward
the jail windows "will be turned loose on you.
343
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
We'll fight you both!" The last words shot like
bullets through his gritted teeth, then the flash of
his eyes was gone, his face was calm, and as though
the whole matter had been settled beyond possible
interruption, he finished quietly:
"The condemned man wishes to make a con-
fession and to say good-by. In five minutes he will
be at that window to say what he pleases. Ten
minutes later he will be hanged." And he turned
and walked calmly into the jailer's door. Not a
Toliiver nor a Falin made a movement or a sound.
Young Dave's eyes had glared savagely when he
first saw Hale, for he had marked Hale for his
own and he knew that the fact was known to
Hale. Had the battle begun then and there, Hale's
death was sure, and Dave knew that Hale must
know that as well as he: and yet with magnifi-
cent audacity, there he was unarmed, personally
helpless, and invested with an insulting certainty
that not a shot would be fired. Not a Falin or a
Toliiver even reached for a weapon, and the fact
was the subtle tribute that ignorance pays intelli-
gence when the latter is forced to deadly weapons
as a last resort; for ignorance faced now belching
shot-guns and was commanded by rifles on every
side. Old Judd was trapped and the Falins were
stunned. Old Buck Falin turned his eyes down
the line of his men with one warning glance. Old
Judd whispered something to a Toliiver behind
him and a moment later the man slipped from the
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band and disappeared. Young Dave followed
Hale's figure with a look of baffled malignant ha-
tred and Bub's eyes were filled with angry tears.
Between the factions, the grim young men stood
with their guns like statues.
At once a big man with a red face appeared at
one of the jailer's windows and then came the
sheriff, who began to take out the sash. Already
the frightened crowd had gathered closer again
and now a hush came over it, followed by a rustling
and a murmur. Something was going to happen.
Faces and gun-muzzles thickened at the port-
holes and at the windows; the line of guards turned
their faces sidewise and upward; the crowd on the
fence scuffled for better positions; the people in
the trees craned their necks from the branches or
climbed higher, and there was a great scraping on
all the roofs. Even the black crowd out on the
hills seemed to catch the excitement and to sway,
while spots of intense blue and vivid crimson came
out here and there from the blackness when the
women rose from their seats on the ground. Then
sharply there was silence. The sheriff disap-
peared, and shut in by the sashless window as by
a picture frame and blinking in the strong light,
stood a man with black hair, cropped close, face
pale and worn, and hands that looked white and
thin stood bad Rufe Tolliver.
He was going to confess that was the rumour.
His lawyers wanted him to confess; the preacher
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
who had been singing hymns with him all morning
wanted him to confess; the man himself said he
wanted to confess; and now he was going to con-
fess. What deadly mysteries he might clear up if
he would! No wonder the crowd was eager, for
there was no soul there but knew his record and
what a record! His best friends put his victims no
lower than thirteen, and there looking up at him
were three women whom he had widowed or or-
phaned, while at one corner of the jail-yard stood
a girl in black the sweetheart of Mockaby, for
whose death Rufe was standing where he stood
now. But his lips did not open. Instead he took
hold of the side of the window and looked behind
him. The sheriff brought him a chair and he sat
down. Apparently he was weak and he was going
to wait a while. Would he tell how he had killed
one Falin in the presence of the latter's wife at a
wild bee tree; how he had killed a sheriff by drop-
ping to the ground when the sheriff fired, in this
way dodging the bullet and then shooting the
officer from where he lay supposedly dead; how
he had thrown another Falin out of the Court
House window and broken his neck the Falin
was drunk, Rufe always said, and fell out; why,
when he was constable, he had killed another
because, Rufe said, he resisted arrest; how and
where he had killed Red-necked Johnson, who
was found out in the woods ? Would he tell all
that and more ? If he meant to tell there was no
34-6
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
sign. His lips kept closed and his bright black eyes
were studying the situation; the little squad of
youngsters, back to back, with their repeating
shot-guns, the line of Falins along the wall toward
whom protruded six shining barrels, the huddled
crowd of Tollivers toward whom protruded six
more old Judd towering in front with young
Dave on one side, tense as a leopard about to
spring, and on the other Bub, with tears streaming
down his face. In a flash he understood, and in
that flash his face looked as though he had been
suddenly struck a heavy blow by some one from
behind, and then his elbows dropped on the sill of
the window, his chin dropped into his hands and a
murmur arose. Maybe he was too weak to stand
and talk perhaps he was going to talk from his
chair. Yes, he was leaning forward and his lips
were opening, but no sound came. Slowly his
eyes wandered around at the waiting people in
the trees, on the roofs and the fence and then they
dropped to old Judd's and blazed their appeal for
a sign. With one heave of his mighty chest old
Judd took off his slouch hat, pressed one big hand
to the back of his head and, despite that blazing
appeal, kept it there. At that movement Rufe
threw his head up as though his breath had sud-
denly failed him, his face turned sickening white,
and slowly again his chin dropped into his trem-
bling hands, and still unbelieving he stared his
appeal, but old Judd dropped his big hand and
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
turned his head away. The condemned man's
mouth twitched once, settled into defiant calm,
and then he did one kindly thing. He turned in
his seat and motioned Bob Berkley, who was just
behind him, away from the window, and the boy,
to humour him, stepped aside. Then he rose to
his feet and stretched his arms wide. Simultane-
ously came the far-away crack of a rifle, and as a
jet of smoke spurted above a clump of bushes on
a little hill, three hundred yards away, Bad Rufe
wheeled half-way round and fell back out of sight
into the sheriff's arms. Every Falin made a ner-
vous reach for his pistol, the line of gun-muzzles
covering them wavered slightly, but the Tollivers
stood still and unsurprised, and when Hale dashed
from the door again, there was a grim smile of
triumph on old Judd's face. He had kept his
promise that Rufe should never hang.
"Steady there," said Hale quietly. His pistol
was on his hip now and a Winchester was in his
left hand.
"Stand where you are everybody!"
There was the sound of hurrying feet within the
jail. There was the clang of an iron door, the bang
of a wooden one, and in five minutes from within
the tall wooden box came the sharp click of a
hatchet and then dully:
" T-h-o-o-mp ! " The dangling rope had tight-
ened with a snap and the wind swayed it no more.
At his cell door the Red Fox stood with his
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
watch in his hand and his eyes glued to the second-
hand. When it had gone three times around its
circuit, he snapped the lid with a sigh of relief and
turned to his hammock and his Bible.
" He's gone now," said the Red Fox.
Outside Hale still waited, and as his eyes turned
from the Tollivers to the Falins, seven of the faces
among them came back to him with startling dis-
tinctness, and his mind went back to the opening
trouble in the county-seat over the Kentucky line,
years before when eight men held one another at
the points of their pistols. One face was missing,
and that face belonged to Rufe Tolliver. Hale
pulled out his watch.
" Keep those men there," he said, pointing to
the Falins, and he turned to the bewildered
Tollivers.
"Come on, Judd," he said kindly "all of you."
Dazed and mystified, they followed him in a
body around the corner of the jail, where in a
coffin, that old Judd had sent as a blind to his real
purpose, lay the remains of Bad Rufe Tolliver
with a harmless bullet hole through one shoulder.
Near by was a wagon and hitched to it were two
mules that Hale himself had provided. Hale
pointed to it:
" I've done all I could, Judd. Take him away.
Pll keep the Falins under guard until you reach the
Kentucky line, so that they can't waylay you."
If old Judd heard, he gave no sign. He was
349
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
looking down at the face of his foster-brother his
shoulder drooped, his great frame shrunken, and
his iron face beaten and helpless. Again Hale
spoke:
" I'm sorry for all this. I'm even sorry that your
man was not a better shot."
The old man straightened then and with a
gesture he motioned young Dave to the foot of the
coffin and stooped himself at the head. Past the
wagon they went, the crowd giving way before
them, and with the dead Tolliver on their shoul-
ders, old Judd and young Dave passed with their
followers out of sight.
350
XXX
/ T S HE longest of her life was that day to June.
The anxiety in times of war for the women
who wait at home is vague because they are mer-
cifully ignorant of the dangers their loved ones
run, but a specific issue that involves death to those
loved ones has a special and poignant terror of its
own. June knew her father's plan, the precise
time the fight would take place, and the especial
danger that was Hale's, for she knew that young
Dave Tolliver had marked him with the first shot
fired. Dry-eyed and white and dumb, she watched
them make ready for the start that morning while
it was yet dark; dully she heard the horses snort-
ing from the cold, the low curt orders of her father,
and the exciting mutterings of Bub and young
Dave; dully she watched the saddles thrown on,
the pistols buckled, the Winchesters caught up,
and dully she watched them file out the gate and
ride away, single file, into the cold, damp mist like
ghostly figures in a dream. Once only did she
open her lips and that was to plead with her father
to leave Bub at home, but her father gave her no
answer and Bub snorted his indignation he was
a man now, and his now was the privilege of a
351
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
man. For a while she stood listening to the ring
of metal against stone that came to her more and
more faintly out of the mist, and she wondered if it
was really June Tolliver standing there, while
father and brother and cousin were on their way
to fight the law how differently she saw these
things now for a man who deserved death, and
to fight a man who was ready to die for his duty
to that law the law that guarded them and her
and might not perhaps guard him: the man who
had planted for her the dew-drenched garden that
was waiting for the sun, and had built the little
room behind her for her comfort and seclusion;
who had sent her to school, had never been any-
thing but kind and just to her and to everybody
who had taught her life and, thank God, love.
Was she really the June Tolliver who had gone
out into the world and had held her place there;
who had conquered birth and speech and customs
and environment so that none could tell what they
all once were; who had become the lady, the
woman of the world, in manner, dress, and educa-
tion: who had a gift of music and a voice that
might enrich her life beyond any dream that had
ever sprung from her own brain or any that she
had ever caught from Hale's ? Was she June Tol-
liver who had been and done all that, and now had
come back and was slowly sinking back into the
narrow grave from which Hale had lifted her ? It
was all too strange and bitter, but if she wanted
352
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
proof there was her step-mother's voice now the
same old, querulous, nerve-racking voice that had
embittered all her childhood calling her down
into the old mean round of drudgery that had
bound forever the horizon of her narrow life just
as now it was shutting down like a sky of brass
around her own. And when the voice came, in-
stead of bursting into tears as she was about to do,
she gave a hard little laugh and she lifted a defiant
face to the rising sun. There was a limit to the
sacrifice for kindred, brother, father, home, and
that limit was the eternal sacrifice the eternal
undoing of herself: when this wretched terrible
business was over she would set her feet where that
sun could rise on her, busy with the work that she
could do in that world for which she felt she was
born. Swiftly she did the morning chores and
then she sat on the porch thinking and waiting.
Spinning wheel, loom, and darning needle were to
lie idle that day. The old step-mother had gotten
from bed and was dressing herself miraculously
cured of a sudden, miraculously active. She be-
gan to talk of what she needed in town, and June
said nothing. She went out to the stable and led
out the old sorrel-mare. She was going to the
hanging.
"Don't you want to go to town, June ?"
"No," said June fiercely.
"Well, you needn't git mad about it I got to
go some day this week, and I reckon I might as
353
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
well go ter-day." June answered nothing, but in
silence watched her get ready and in silence
watched her ride away. She was glad to be left
alone. The sun had flooded Lonesome Cove now
with a light as rich and yellow as though it were
late afternoon, and she could yet tell every tree by
the different colour of the banner that each yet
defiantly flung into the face of death. The yard
fence was festooned with dewy cobwebs, and every
weed in the field was hung with them as with flash-
ing jewels of exquisitely delicate design: Hale had
once told her that they meant rain. Far away the
mountains were overhung with purple so deep
that the very air looked like mist, and a peace that
seemed motherlike in tenderness brooded over the
earth. Peace! Peace with a man on his way to
a scaffold only a few miles away, and two bodies
of men, one led by her father, the other by the
man she loved, ready to fly at each other's throats
the one to get the condemned man alive, the
other to see that he died. She got up with a groan.
She walked into the garden. The grass was tall,
tangled, and withering, and in it dead leaves lay
everywhere, stems up, stems down, in reckless
confusion. The scarlet sage-pods were brown
and seeds were dropping from their tiny gaping
mouths. The marigolds were frost-nipped and
one lonely black-winged butterfly was vainly
searching them one by one for the lost sweets of
summer. The gorgeous crowns of the sun-flowers
354
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
were nothing but grotesque black mummy-heads
set on lean, dead bodies, and the clump of big
castor-plants, buffeted by the wind, leaned this
way and that like giants in a drunken orgy trying
to keep one another from falling down. The blight
that was on the garden was the blight that was in
her- heart, and two bits of cheer only she found
one yellow nasturtium, scarlet-flecked, whose fra-
grance was a memory of the spring that was long
gone, and one little cedar tree that had caught
some dead leaves in its green arms and was firmly
holding them as though to promise that another
spring would surely come. With the flower in her
hand, she started up the ravine to her dreaming
place, but it was so lonely up there and she turned
back. She went into her room and tried to read.
Mechanically, she half opened the lid of the piano
and shut it, horrified by her own act. As she
passed out on the porch again she noticed that it
was only nine o'clock. She turned and watched
the long hand how long a minute was! Three
hours more ! She shivered and went inside and got
her bonnet she could not be alone when the hour
came, and she started down the road toward Uncle
Billy's mill. Hale! Hale! Hale! the name began
to ring in her ears like a bell. The little shacks he
had built up the creek were deserted and gone to
ruin, and she began to wonder in the light of what
her father had said how much of a tragedy that
meant to him. Here was the spot where he was
355
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
fishing that day, when she had slipped down be-
hind him and he had turned and seen her for the
first time. She could recall his smile and the very
tone of his kind voice :
"Howdye, little girl!" And the cat had got her
tongue. She remembered when she had written
her name, after she had first kissed him at the foot
of the beech "June Hail," and by a grotesque
mental leap the beating of his name in her brain
now made her think of the beating of hailstones on
her father's roof one night when as a child she had
lain and listened to them. Then she noticed that
the autumn shadows seemed to make the river
darker than the shadows of spring or was it al-
ready the stain of dead leaves ? Hale could have
told her. Those leaves were floating through the
shadows and when the wind moved, others zig-
zagged softly down to join them. The wind was
helping them on the water, too, and along came
one brown leaf that was shaped like a tiny trireme
its stem acting like a rudder and keeping it
straight before the breeze so that it swept past
the rest as a yacht that she was once on had swept
past a fleet of fishing sloops. She was not unlike
that swift little ship and thirty yards ahead were
rocks and shallows where it and the whole fleet
would turn topsy-turvy would her own triumph
be as short and the same fate be hers ? There was
no question as to that, unless she took the wheel
of her fate in her own hands and with them steered
356
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
the ship. Thinking hard, she walked on slowly,
with her hands behind her and her eyes bent on
the road. What should she do ? She had no
money, her father had none to spare, and she
could accept no more from Hale. Once she
stopped and stared with unseeing eyes at the blue
sky, and once under the heavy helplessness of it
all she dropped on the side of the road and sat
with her head buried in her arms sat so long that
she rose with a start and, with an apprehensive look
at the mounting sun, hurried on. She would go to
the Gap and teach; and then she knew that if she
went there it would be on Hale's account. Very
well, she would not blind herself to that fact; she
would go and perhaps all would be made up be-
tween them, and then she knew that if that but
happened, nothing else could matter. . . .
When she reached the miller's cabin, she went
to the porch without noticing that the door was
closed. Nobody was at home and she turned list-
lessly. When she reached the gate, she heard the
clock beginning to strike, and with one hand on
her breast she breathlessly listened, counting
"eight, nine, ten, eleven" and her heart seemed
to stop in the fraction of time that she waited for
it to strike once more. But it was only eleven, and
she went on down the road slowly, still thinking
hard. The old miller was leaning back in a chair
against the log side of the mill, with his dusty
slouched hat down over his eyes. He did not hear
357
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
her coming and she thought he must be asleep,
but he looked up with a start when she spoke and
she knew of what he, too, had been thinking.
Keenly his old eyes searched her white face and
without a word he got up and reached for another
chair within the mill.
"You set right down now, baby," he said, and
he made a pretence of having something to do in-
side the mill, while June watched the creaking old
wheel dropping the sun-shot sparkling water into
the swift sluice, but hardly seeing it at all. By and
by Uncle Billy came outside and sat down and
neither spoke a word. Once June saw him covertly
looking at his watch and she put both hands to
her throat stifled.
"What time is it, Uncle Billy?" She tried to
ask the question calmly, but she had to try twice
before she could speak at all and when she did get
the question out, her voice was only a broken
whisper.
"Five minutes to twelve, baby," said the old
man, and his voice had a gulp in it that broke June
down. She sprang to her feet wringing her hands:
" I can't stand it, Uncle Billy," she cried madly,
and with a sob that almost broke the old man's
heart. "I tell you I can't stand it."
And yet for three hours more she had to stand
it, while the cavalcade of Tollivers, with Rufe's
body, made its slow way to the Kentucky line
358
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
where Judd and Dave and Bub left them to go
home for the night and be on hand for the funeral
next day. But Uncle Billy led her back to his
cabin, and on the porch the two, with old Hon,
waited while the three hours dragged along. It
was June who was first to hear the galloping of
horses' hoofs up the road and she ran to the gate,
followed by Uncle Billy and old Hon to see young
Dave Tolliver coming in a run. At the gate he
threw himself from his horse:
"Git up thar, June, and go home," he panted
sharply. June flashed out the gate.
" Have you done it ? " she asked with deadly quiet.
"Hurry up an' go home, I tell ye! Uncle Judd
wants ye!"
She came quite close to him now.
"You said you'd do it I know what you've
done you " she looked as if she would fly at
his throat, and Dave, amazed, shrank back a step.
"Go home, I tell ye Uncle Judd's shot. Git
on the hoss!"
"No, no, no! I wouldn't touch anything that
was yours" she put her hands to her head as
though she were crazed, and then she turned and
broke into a swift run up the road.
Panting, June reached the gate. The front door
was closed and there she gave a tremulous cry for
Bub. The door opened a few inches and through
it Bub shouted for her to come on. The back
door, too, was closed, and not a ray of daylight
359
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
entered the room except at the port-hole where
Bub, with a Winchester, had been standing on
guard. By the light of the fire she saw her father's
giant frame stretched out on the bed and she heard
his laboured breathing. Swiftly she went to the
bed and dropped on her knees beside it.
"Dad!" she said. The old man's eyes opened
and turned heavily toward her.
"All right, Juny. They shot me from the laurel
and they might nigh got Bub. I reckon they've
got me this time."
"No no!" He saw her eyes fixed on the
matted blood on his chest.
"Hit's stopped. I'm afeared hit's bleedin' in-
side." His voice had dropped to a whisper and
his eyes closed again. There was another cautious
"Hello" outside, and when Bub again opened the
door Dave ran swiftly within. He paid no atten-
tion to June.
"I follered June back an' left my hoss in the
bushes. There was three of 'em." He showed
Bub a bullet hole through one sleeve and then he
turned half contemptuously to June:
"I hain't done it" adding grimly "not yit.
He's as safe as you air. I hope you're satisfied
that hit hain't him 'stid o' yo' daddy thar."
"Are you going to the Gap for a doctor ?"
"I reckon I can't leave Bub here alone agin all
the Falins not even to git a doctor or to carry a
love-message fer you."
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
" Then I'll go myself."
A thick protest came from the bed, and then an
appeal that might have come from a child.
"Don't leave me, Juny." Without a word June
went into the kitchen and got the old bark horn.
"Uncle Billy will go," she said, and she stepped
out on the porch. But Uncle Billy was already on
his way and she heard him coming just as she was
raising the horn to her lips. She met him at the
gate, and without even taking the time to come
into the house the old miller hurried upward tow-
ard the Lonesome Pine. The rain came then
the rain that the tiny cobwebs had heralded at
dawn that morning. The old step-mother had
not come home, and June told Bub she had gone
over the mountain to see her sister, and when, as
darkness fell, she did not appear they knew that
she must have been caught by the rain and would
spend the night with a neighbour. June asked no
question, but from the low talk of Bub and Dave
she made out what had happened in town that day
and a wild elation settled in her heart that John
Hale was alive and unhurt though Rufe was
dead, her father wounded, and Bub and Dave
both had but narrowly escaped the Falin assassins
that afternoon. Bub took the first turn at watch-
ing while Dave slept, and when it was Dave's
turn she saw him drop quickly asleep in his chair,
and she was left alone with the breathing of the
wounded man and the beating of rain on the roof.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
And through the long night June thought her
brain weary over herself, her life, her people, and
Hale. They were not to blame her people, they
but did as their fathers had done before them.
They had their own code and they lived up to it
as best they could, and they had had no chance to
learn another. She felt the vindictive hatred that
had prolonged the feud. Had she been a man, she
could not have rested until she had slain the man
who had ambushed her father. She expected Bub
to do that now, and if the spirit was so strong in
her with the training she had had, how helpless
they must be against it. Even Dave was not to
blame not to blame for loving her he had always
done that. For that reason he could not help ha-
ting Hale, and how great a reason he had now, for
he could not understand as she could the absence
of any personal motive that had governed him in
the prosecution of the law, no matter if he hurt
friend or foe. But for Hale, she would have loved
Dave and now be married to him and happier
than she was. Dave saw that no wonder he hated
Hale. And as she slowly realized all these things,
she grew calm and gentle and determined to stick
to her people and do the best she could with her
life.
And now and then through the night old Judd
would open his eyes and stare at the ceiling, and
at these times it was not the pain in his face that
distressed her as much as the drawn beaten look
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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
that she had noticed growing in it for a long time.
It was terrible that helpless look in the face of a
man, so big in body, so strong of mind, so iron-
like in will; and whenever he did speak she knew
what he was going to say:
" It's all over, Juny. They've beat us on every
turn. They've got us one by one. Thar ain't but
a few of us left now and when I git up, if I ever
do, I'm goin' to gether 'em all together, pull up
stakes and take 'em all West. You won't ever
leave me, Juny?"
"No, Dad," she would say gently. He had
asked the question at first quite sanely, but as the
night wore on and the fever grew and his mind
wandered, he would repeat the question over and
over like a child, and over and over, while Bub
and Dave slept and the rain poured, June would
repeat her answer:
"I'll never leave you, Dad."
363
XXXI
T3EFORE dawn Hale and the doctor and the
-*-* old miller had reached the Pine, and there
Hale stopped. Any farther, the old man told him,
he would go only at the risk of his life from Dave
or Bub, or even from any Falin who happened to
be hanging around in the bushes, for Hale was
hated equally by both factions now.
"I'll wait up here until noon, Uncle Billy," said
Hale. "Ask her, for God's sake, to come up here
and see me."
"All right. I'll axe her, but" the old miller
shook his head. Breakfastless, except for the
munching of a piece of chocolate, Hale waited all
the morning with his black horse in the bushes
some thirty yards from the Lonesome Pine.
Every now and then he would go to the tree and
look down the path, and once he slipped far down
the trail and aside to a spur whence he could see
the cabin in the cove. Once his hungry eyes
caught sight of a woman's figure walking through
the little garden, and for an hour after it disap-
peared into the house he watched for it to come
out again. But nothing more was visible, and he
turned back to the trail to see Uncle Billy labori-
3 6 4
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
ously climbing up the slope. Hale waited and ran
down to meet him, his face and eyes eager and his
lips trembling, but again Uncle Billy was shaking
his head.
"No use, John," he said sadly. "I got her out
on the porch and axed her, but she won't come."
"She won't come at all?"
''John, when one o' them Tollivers gits white
about the mouth, an' thar eyes gits to blazin' and
they keeps quiet they're plumb out o' reach o'
the Almighty hisself. June skeered me. But you
mustn't blame her jes' now. You see, you got up
that guard. You ketched Rufe and hung him, and
she can't help thinkin' if you hadn't done that,
her old daddy wouldn't be in thar on his back
nigh to death. You mustn't blame her, John
she's most out o' her head now."
"All right, Uncle Billy. Good-by." Hale
turned, climbed sadly back to his horse and sadly
dropped down the other side of the mountain and
on through the rocky gap home.
A week later he learned from the doctor that
the chances were even that old Judd would get well,
but the days went by with no word of June.
Through those days June wrestled with her love
for Hale and her loyalty to her father, who, sick as
he was, seemed to have a vague sense of the trouble
within her and shrewdly fought it by making her
daily promise that she would never leave him. For
as old Judd got better, June's fierceness against
365
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Hale melted and her love came out the stronger,
because of the passing injustice that she had done
him. Many times she was on the point of sending
him word that she would meet him at the Pine, but
she was afraid of her own strength if she should
see him face to face, and she feared she would be
risking his life if she allowed him to come. There
were times when she would have gone to him her-
self, had her father been well and strong, but he
was old, beaten and helpless, and she had given
her sacred word that she would never leave him.
So once more she grew calmer, gentler still, and
more determined to follow her own way with her
own kin, though that way led through a breaking
heart. She never mentioned Hale's name, she
never spoke of going West, and in time Dave be-
gan to wonder not only if she had not gotten over
her feeling for Hale, but if that feeling had not
turned into permanent hate. To him, June was
kinder than ever, because she understood him
better and because she was sorry for the hunted,
hounded life he led, not knowing, when on his
trips to see her or to do some service for her father,
he might be picked off by some Falin from the
bushes. So Dave stopped his sneering remarks
against Hale and began to dream his old dreams,
though he never opened his lips to June, and she
was unconscious of what was going on within him.
By and by, as old Judd began to mend, overtures
of peace came, singularly enough, from the Falins,
THE TRAIT, OF THE LONESOME PINE
and while the old man snorted with contemptuous
disbelief at them as a pretence to throw him off
his guard, Dave began actually to believe that
they were sincere, and straightway forged a plan
of his own, even if the Tollivers did persist in going
West. So one morning as he mounted his horse
at old Judd's gate, he called to June in the gar-
den:
"I'm a-goin' over to the Gap." June paled, but
Dave was not looking at her.
"What for?" she asked, steadying her voice.
"Business," he answered, and he laughed curi-
ously and, still without looking at her, rode away.
Hale sat in the porch of his little office that
morning, and the Hon. Sam Budd, who had risen
to leave, stood with his hands deep in his pockets,
his hat tilted far over his big goggles, looking down
at the dead leaves that floated like lost hopes on
the placid mill-pond. Hale had agreed to go to
England once more on the sole chance left him
before he went back to chain and compass the
old land deal that had come to life and between
them they had about enough money for the trip.
"You'll keep an eye on things over there?"
said Hale with a backward motion of his head
toward Lonesome Cove, and the Hon. Sam
nodded his head:
"All I can."
"Those big trunks of hers are still here." The
367
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Hon. Sam smiled. "She won't need 'em. I'll
keep an eye on 'em and she can come over and get
what she wants every year or two," he added
grimly, and Hale groaned.
"Stop it, Sam."
"All right. You ain't goin' to try to see her
before you leave?" And then at the look on
Hale's face he said hurriedly: "All right all
right," and with a toss of his hands turned away,
while Hale sat thinking where he was.
Rufe Tolliver had been quite right as to the
Red Fox. Nobody would risk his life for him
there was no one to attempt a rescue, and but a few
of the guards were on hand this time to carry out
the law. On the last day he had appeared in his
white suit of tablecloth. The little old woman in
black had made even the cap that was to be
drawn over his face, and that, too, she had made
of white. Moreover, she would have his body
kept unburied for three days, because the Red
Fox said that on the third day he would arise and
go about preaching. So that even in death the
Red Fox was consistently inconsistent, and how he
reconciled such a dual life at one and the same
time over and under the stars was, except to his
twisted brain, never known. He walked firmly up
the scaffold steps and stood there blinking in the
sunlight. With one hand he tested the rope. For
a moment he looked at the sky and the trees with
a face that was white and absolutely expressionless.
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
Then he sang one hymn of two verses and quietly
dropped into that world in which he believed so
firmly and toward which he had trod so strange
a way on earth. As he wished, the little old woman
in black had the body kept unburied for the three
days but the Red Fox never rose. With his pass-
ing, law and order had become supreme. Neither
Tolliver nor Falin came on the Virginia side for
mischief, and the desperadoes of two sister States,
whose skirts are stitched together with pine and
pin-oak along the crest of the Cumberland, con-
fined their deviltries with great care to places long
distant from the Gap. John Hale had done a
great work, but the limit of his activities was that
State line and the Falins, ever threatening that
they would not leave a Tolliver alive, could carry
out those threats and Hale not be able to lift a
hand. It was his helplessness that was making
him writhe now.
Old Judd had often said he meant to leave the
mountains why didn't he go now and take June
for whose safety his heart was always in his mouth ?
As an officer, he was now helpless where he was;
and if he went away he could give no personal aid
he would not even know what was happening
and he had promised Budd to go. An open letter
was clutched in his hand, and again he read it.
His coal company had accepted his last proposi-
tion. They would take his stock worthless as
they thought it and surrender the cabin and two
3 6 9
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
hundred acres of field and woodland in Lonesome
Cove. That much at least would be intact, but if
he failed in his last project now, it would be sub-
ject to judgments against him that were sure to
come. So there was one thing more to do for
June before he left for the final effort in England
to give back her home to her and as he rose to
do it now, somebody shouted at his gate:
"Hello!" Hale stopped short at the head of
the steps, his right hand shot like a shaft of light
to the butt of his pistol, stayed there and he
stood astounded. It was Dave Tolliver on horse-
back, and Dave's right hand had kept hold of his
bridle-reins.
"Hold on!" he said, lifting the other with a
wide gesture of peace. " I want to talk with you
a bit." Still Hale watched him closely as he
swung from his horse.
" Come in won't you ? " The mountaineer
hitched his horse and slouched within the gate.
"Have a seat." Dave dropped to the steps.
"I'll set here," he said, and there was an em-
barrassed silence for a while between the two.
Hale studied young Dave's face from narrowed
eyes. He knew all the threats the Tolliver had
made against him, the bitter enmity that he felt,
and that it would last until one or the other was
dead. This was a queer move. The mountaineer
took off his slouched hat and ran one hand through
his thick black hair.
370
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
" I reckon you've heard as how all our folks air
sellin' out over the mountains."
"No," said Hale quickly.
" Well, they air, an* all of 'em are going West
Uncle Judd, Loretty and June, and all our kin-
folks. You didn't know that ?"
"No," repeated Hale.
"Well, they hain't closed all the trades yit," he
said, "an' they mought not go mebbe afore
spring. The Falins say they air done now. Uncle
Judd don't believe 'em, but I do, an' I'm
thinkin' I won't go. I've got a leetle money, an' I
want to know if I can't buy back Uncle Judd's
house an' a leetle ground around it. Our folks is
tired o' fightin' and I couldn't live on t'other side
of the mountain, after they air gone, an' keep as
healthy as on this side so I thought I'd see if I
couldn't buy back June's old home, mebbe, an'
live thar."
Hale watched him keenly, wondering what his
game was and he went on: "I know the house
an' land ain't wuth much to your company, an' as
the coal-vein has petered out, I reckon they might
not axe much fer it." It was all out now, and he
stopped without looking at Hale. "I ain't axin'
any favours, leastwise not o' you, an' I thought
my share o' Mam's farm mought be enough to git
me the house an' some o' the land."
"You mean to live there, yourself?"
"Yes."
37 1
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"Alone ?" Dave frowned.
"I reckon that's my business."
"So it is excuse me." Hale lighted his pipe
and the mountaineer waited he was a little sullen
now.
"Well, the company has parted with the
land." Dave started.
"Sold it?"
"In a way yes."
"Well, would you mind tellin' me who bought
it maybe I can git it from him."
"It's mine now," said Hale quietly.
"Tourn!" The mountaineer looked incredu-
lous and then he let loose a scornful laugh.
" You goin' to live thar ?"
"Maybe."
"Alone?"
"That's my business." The mountaineer's face
darkened and his fingers began to twitch.
"Well, if you're talkin' 'bout June, hit's my
business. Hit always has been and hit always will
be."
"Well, if I was talking about June, I wouldn't
consult you."
"No, but I'd consult you like hell."
"I wish you had the chance," said Hale coolly;
"but I wasn't talking about June." Again Dave
laughed harshly, and for a moment his angry eyes
rested on the quiet mill-pond. He went backward
suddenly.
372
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"You went over thar in Lonesome with your
high notions an' your slick tongue, an' you took
June away from me. But she wusn't good enough
fer you then so you filled her up with yo' fool
notions an' sent her away to git her po' little head
filled with furrin' ways, so she could be fitten to
marry you. You took her away from her daddy,
her family, her kinfolks and her home, an' you
took her away from me; an' now she's been over
thar eatin' her heart out just as she et it out over
here when she fust left home. An' in the end she
got so highfalutin that she wouldn't marry you."
He laughed again and Hale winced under the
laugh and the lashing words. "An' I know you
air eatin' yo' heart out, too, because you can't git
June, an' I'm hopin' you'll suffer the torment o'
hell as long as you live. God, she hates ye now!
To think o' your knowin' the world and women
and books" he spoke with vindictive and in-
sulting slowness "You bein' such a fool!"
"That may all be true, but I think you can talk
better outside that gate." The mountaineer, de-
ceived by Hale's calm voice, sprang to his feet in
a fury, but he was too late. Hale's hand was on
the butt of his revolver, his blue eyes were glitter-
ing and a dangerous smile was at his lips. Silently
he sat and silently he pointed his other hand at the
gate. Dave laughed:
"D'ye think I'd fight you hyeh ? If you killed
me, you'd be elected County Jedge; if I killed you,
373
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
what chance would I have o' gittin' away ? I'd
swing fer it." He was outside the gate now and
unhitching his horse. He started to turn the beast,
but Hale stopped him.
"Get on from this side, please."
With one foot in the stirrup, Dave turned sav-
agely: "Why don't you go up in the Gap with me
now an' fight it out like a man ?"
"I don't trust you/'
"I'll git ye over in the mountains some day."
" I've no doubt you will, if you have the chance
from the bush." Hale was getting roused now.
"Look here," he said suddenly, "you've been
threatening me for a long time now. I've never had
any feeling against you. I've never done anything
to you that I hadn't to do. But you've gone a
little too far now and I'm tired. If you can't get
over your grudge against me, suppose we go across
the river outside the town-limits, put our guns
down and fight it out fist and skull."
"I'm your man," said Dave eagerly. Look-
ing across the street Hale saw two men on the
porch.
"Come on!" he said. The two men were Budd
and the new town-sergeant. "Sam," he said,
" this gentleman and I are going across the river to
have a little friendly bout, and I wish you'd come
along and you, too, Bill, to see that Dave here
gets fair play."
The sergeant spoke to Dave. "You don't need
374
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
nobody to see that you git fair play with them two
but I'll go 'long just the same." Hardly a word
was said as the four walked across the bridge and
toward a thicket to the right. Neither Budd nor
the sergeant asked the nature of the trouble, for
either could have guessed what it was. Dave tied
his horse and, like Hale, stripped off his coat.
The sergeant took charge of Dave's pistol and
BuddofHale's.
"All you've got to do is to keep him away from
you," said Budd. "If he gets his hands on you
you're gone. You know how they fight rough-
and-tumble."
Hale nodded he knew all that himself, and
when he looked at Dave's sturdy neck, and gigan-
tic shoulders, he knew further that if the moun-
taineer got him in his grasp he would have to gasp
"enough" in a hurry, or be saved by Budd from
being throttled to death.
"Are you ready ?" Again Hale nodded.
"Go ahead, Dave," growled the sergeant, for
the job was not to his liking. Dave did not plunge
toward Hale, as the three others expected. On
the contrary, he assumed the conventional attitude
of the boxer and advanced warily, using his head
as a diagnostician for Hale's points and Hale
remembered suddenly that Dave had been away
at school for a year. Dave knew something of the
game and the Hon. Sam straightway was anxious,
when the mountaineer ducked and swung his left.
375
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
BudcTs heart thumped and he almost shrank him-
self from the terrific sweep of the big fist.
"God!" he muttered, for had the fist caught
Hale's head it must, it seemed, have crushed it like
an egg-shell. Hale coolly withdrew his head not
more than an inch, it seemed to Budd's practised
eye, and jabbed his right with a lightning uppercut
into Dave's jaw, that made the mountaineer reel
backward with a grunt of rage and pain, and
when he followed it up with a swing of his left on
Dave's right eye and another terrific jolt with his
right on the left jaw, and Budd saw the crazy rage
in the mountaineer's face, he felt easy. In that
rage Dave forgot his science as the Hon. Sam ex-
pected, and with a bellow he started at Hale like
a cave-dweller to bite, tear, and throttle, but the
lithe figure before him swayed this way and that
like a shadow, and with every side-step a fist
crushed on the mountaineer's nose, chin or jaw,
until, blinded with blood and fury, Dave staggered
aside toward the sergeant with the cry of a mad-
man:
"Gimme my gun! I'll kill him! Gimme my
gun!" And when the sergeant sprang forward
and caught the mountaineer, he dropped weeping
with rage and shame to the ground.
"You two just go back to town," said the ser-
geant. "I'll take keer of him. Quick!" and he
shook his head as Hale advanced. "He ain't goin'
to shake hands with you."
376
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
The two turned back across the bridge and
Hale went on to Budd's office to do what he was
setting out to do when young Dave came. There
he had the lawyer make out a deed in which the
cabin in Lonesome Cove and the acres about it
were conveyed in fee simple to June her heirs
and assigns forever; but the girl must not know
until, Hale said, "her father dies, or I die, or she
marries." When he came out the sergeant was
passing the door.
"Ain't no use fightin' with one o 5 them fellers
thataway," he said, shaking his head. "If he
whoops you, he'll crow over you as long as he lives,
and if you whoop him, he'll kill ye the fust chance
he gets. You'll have to watch that feller as long
as you live 'specially when he's drinking. He'll
remember that lickin* and want revenge fer it till
the grave. One of you has got to die some day
shore."
And the sergeant was right. Dave was going
through the Gap at that moment, cursing, swaying
like a drunken man, firing his pistol and shouting
his revenge to the echoing gray walls that took up
his cries and sent them shrieking on the wind up
every dark ravine. All the way up the mountain
he was cursing. Under the gentle voice of the big
Pine he was cursing still, and when his lips stopped,
his heart was beating curses as he dropped down
the other side of the mountain.
When he reached the river, he got off his horse
377
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
and bathed his mouth and his eyes again, and he
cursed afresh when the blood started afresh at his
lips again. For a while he sat there in his black
mood, undecided whether he should go to his
uncle's cabin or go on home. But he had seen a
woman's figure in the garden as he came down the
spur, and the thought of June drew him to the
cabin in spite of his shame and the questions that
were sure to be asked. When he passed around
the clump of rhododendrons at the creek, June
was in the garden still. She was pruning a rose-
bush with Bub's penknife, and when she heard
him coming she wheeled, quivering. She had
been waiting for him all day, and, like an angry
goddess, she swept fiercely toward him. Dave
pretended not to see her, but when he swung from
his horse and lifted his sullen eyes, he shrank as
though she had lashed him across them with a
whip. Her eyes blazed with murderous fire from
her white face, the penknife in her hand was
clenched as though for a deadly purpose, and on
her trembling lips was the same question that she
had asked him at the mill:
"Have you done it this time?" she whispered,
and then she saw his swollen mouth and his bat-
tered eye. Her fingers relaxed about the handle of
the knife, the fire in her eyes went swiftly down,
and with a smile that was half pity, half contempt,
she turned away. She could not have told the
whole truth better in words, even to Dave, and as
378
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
he looked after her his every pulse-beat was a new
curse, and if at that minute he could have had
Hale's heart he would have eaten it like a savage
raw. For a minute he hesitated with reins in
hand as to whether he should turn now and go
back to the Gap to settle with Hale, and then he
threw the reins over a post. He could bide his
time yet a little longer, for a crafty purpose sud-
denly entered his brain. Bub met him at the door
of the cabin and his eyes opened.
"What's the matter, Dave?"
"Oh, nothin'," he said carelessly. "My hoss
stumbled comin' down the mountain an' I went
clean over his head." He raised one hand to his
mouth and still Bub was suspicious.
"Looks like you been in a fight." The boy
began to laugh, but Dave ignored him and went
on into the cabin. Within, he sat where he could
see through the open door.
" Whar you been, Dave ?" asked old Judd from
the corner. Just then he saw June coming and, pre-
tending to draw on his pipe, he waited until she had
sat down within ear-shot on the edge of the porch.
"Who do you reckon owns this house and two
hundred acres o' land roundabouts?"
The girl's heart waited apprehensively and she
heard her father's deep voice.
" The company owns it." Dave laughed harshly.
"Not much John Hale." The heart out on
the porch leaped with gladness now
379
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
"He bought it from the company. It's just as
well you're goin' away, Uncle Judd. He'd put
you out."
" I reckon not. I got writin' from the company
which 'lows me to stay here two year or more if
I want to."
"I don't know. He's a slick one."
"I heerd him say," put in Bub stoutly, "that
he'd see that we stayed here jus' as long as we
pleased."
"Well," said old Judd shortly, "ef we stay here
by his favour, we won't stay long."
There was silence for a while. Then Dave
spoke again for the listening ears outside
maliciously:
" I went over to the Gap to see if I couldn't git
the place myself from the company. I believe the
Falins ain't goin' to bother us an' I ain't hankerin'
to go West. But I told him that you-all was goin'
to leave the mountains and goin' out thar fer
good." There was another silence.
"He never said a word." Nobody had asked
the question, but he was answering the unspoken
one in the heart of June, and that heart sank like
a stone.
"He's goin' away hisself goin' ter-morrow
goin' to that same place he went before England,
some feller called it."
Dave had done his work well. June rose un-
steadily, and with one hand on her heart and the
380
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
other clutching the railing of the porch, she crept
noiselessly along it, staggered like a wounded thing
around the chimney, through the garden and on,
still clutching her heart, to the woods there to
sob it out on the breast of the only mother she had
ever known.
Dave was gone when she came back from the
woods calm, dry-eyed, pale. Her step-mother
had kept her dinner for her, and when she said she
wanted nothing to eat, the old woman answered
something querulous to which June made no an-
swer, but went quietly to cleaning away the
dishes. For a while she sat on the porch, and
presently she went into her room and for a few
moments she rocked quietly at her window. Hale
was going away next day, and when he came
back she would be gone and she would never see
him again. A dry sob shook her body of a sudden,
she put both hands to her head and with wild eyes
she sprang to her feet and, catching up her bonnet,
slipped noiselessly out the back door. With hands
clenched tight she forced herself to walk slowly
across the foot-bridge, but when the bushes hid
her, she broke into a run as though she were crazed
and escaping a madhouse. At the foot of the spur
she turned swiftly up the mountain and climbed
madly, with one hand tight against the little cross
at her throat. He was going away and she must
tell him she must tell him what ? Behind her
a voice was calling, the voice that pleaded all one
381
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
night for her not to leave him, that had made that
plea a daily prayer, and it had come from an old
man wounded, broken in health and heart, and
her father. Hale's face was before her, but that
voice was behind, and as she climbed, the face
that she was nearing grew fainter, the voice she
was leaving sounded the louder in her ears, and
when she reached the big Pine she dropped help-
lessly at the base of it, sobbing. With her tears the
madness slowly left her, the old determination
came back again and at last the old sad peace.
The sunlight was slanting at a low angle when she
rose to her feet and stood on the cliff overlooking the
valley her lips parted as when she stood there
first, and the tiny drops drying along the roots of
her dull gold hair. And being there for the last
time she thought of that time when she was first
there ages ago. The great glare of light that she
looked for then had come and gone. There was
the smoking monster rushing into the valley and
sending echoing shrieks through the hills but
there was no booted stranger and no horse issuing
from the covert of maple where the path disap-
peared. A long time she stood there, with a wan-
dering look of farewell to every familiar thing be-
fore her, but not a tear came now. Only as she
turned away at last her breast heaved and fell
with one long breath that was all. Passing the
Pine slowly, she stopped and turned back to it,
unclasping the necklace from her throat. With
382
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
trembling fingers she detached from it the little
luck-piece that Hale had given her the tear of a
fairy that had turned into a tiny cross of stone
when a strange messenger brought to the Virginia
valley the story of the crucifixion. The penknife
was still in her pocket, and, opening it, she went
behind the Pine and dug a niche as high and as
deep as she could toward its soft old heart. In
there she thrust the tiny symbol, whispering:
"I want all the luck you could ever give me,
little cross for him" Then she pulled the fibres
down to cover it from sight and, crossing her
hands over the opening, she put her forehead
against them and touched her lips to the tree.
"Keep it safe, old Pine." Then she lifted her
face looking upward along its trunk to the blue
sky. "And bless him, dear God, and guard him
evermore." She clutched her heart as she turned,
and she was clutching it when she passed into the
shadows below, leaving the old Pine to whisper,
when he passed, her love.
Next day the word went round to the clan that
the Tollivers would start in a body one week later
for the West. At daybreak, that morning, Uncle
Billy and his wife mounted the old gray horse and
rode up the river to say good-by. They found the
cabin in Lonesome Cove deserted. Many things
were left piled in the porch; the Tollivers had left
apparently in a great hurry and the two old people
383
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
were much mystified. Not until noon did they
learn what the matter was. Only the night before
a Tolliver had shot a Falin and the Falins had
gathered to get revenge on Judd that night. The
warning word had been brought to Lonesome
Cove by Loretta Tolliver, and it had come straight
from young Buck Falin himself. So June and old
Judd and Bub had fled in the night. At that hour
they were on their way to the railroad old Judd
at the head of his clan his right arm still bound
to his side, his bushy beard low on his breast, June
and Bub on horseback behind him, the rest strung
out behind them, and in a wagon at the end, with
all her household effects, the little old woman in
black who would wait no longer for the Red Fox to
arise from the dead. Loretta alone was missing.
She was on her way with young Buck Falin to the
railroad on the other side of the mountains. Be-
tween them not a living soul disturbed the dead
stillness of Lonesome Cove.
384
XXXII
A LL winter the cabin in Lonesome Cove slept
"* ^- through rain and sleet and snow, and no foot
passed its threshold. Winter broke, floods came
and warm sunshine. A pale green light stole
through the trees, shy, ethereal and so like a mist
that it seemed at any moment on the point of
floating upward. Colour came with the wild
flowers and song with the wood-thrush. Squirrels
played on the tree-trunks like mischievous chil-
dren, the brooks sang like happy human voices
through the tremulous underworld and wood-
peckers hammered out the joy of spring, but the
awakening only made the desolate cabin lonelier
still. After three warm days in March, Uncle
Billy, the miller, rode up the creek with a hoe over
his shoulder he had promised this to Hale for
his labour of love in June's garden. Weeping
April passed, May came with rosy face uplifted, and
with the birth of June the laurel emptied its pink-
flecked cups and the rhododendron blazed the
way for the summer's coming wit
