.^U *&#^ 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A KNIGHT OF THE 
 CUMBERLAND 
 
" Mart s a-gittin ready fer a tourneyment." 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A KNIGHT OF THE 
 CUMBERLAND 
 
 BY 
 JOHN FOX, JR. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 W. T. SMEDLEY AND F. C. YOHN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1910 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Obpyright. 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS 
 
 A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by CHARLES SCRIBNER S SOUS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 1 
 
 A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND . . 161 
 
 I. THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS ... 163 
 
 II. ON THE WILD DOG S TRAIL . . 173 
 
 III. THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE HON. 
 
 SAMUEL BUDD 184 
 
 IV. CLOSE QUARTERS 195 
 
 V. BACK TO THE HILLS .... 213 
 
 VI. THE GREAT DAY 220 
 
 VII. AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT . . 232 
 
 VIII. THE KNIGHT PASSES .... 258 
 
 226720 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Mart s a gittin ready fer a tourneyment " Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Marshall went at once to the piano 60 
 
 "He s in jail" 86 
 
 He tossed his weapon aside 128 
 
 "If I d a known hit was you I d a stayed in jail" 172 
 
 The Knight of the Cumberland reined in before 
 
 the Blight 246 
 
 But every knight and every mounted policemen took 
 
 out after the outlaw 256 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 AND MY FATHERS 
 
 KENTUCKIANS 
 
I 
 
 people of the little Kentucky capital 
 JL do not often honor the gray walls of their 
 state-house. The legislators play small part in 
 the social life of the town. A member must have 
 blood, as well as gifts unusual, who can draw 
 from the fine old homes a people with a full cen 
 tury of oratory and social distinction behind 
 them, and, further back, the proud traditions of 
 Virginia. For years young Marshall was the 
 first to quite fill the measure, and he was to speak 
 that afternoon. The ladies gallery was full, 
 and the Governor s daughter, Anne, sat midway. 
 About her was a sudden flutter and a leaning for 
 ward when Marshall strode a little consciously 
 down the aisle and took his seat. When he rose 
 to speak, the quick silence of the House was a 
 tribute to thrill him. 
 
 It was oratory that one hears rarely now, even 
 in the South. There was an old-fashioned pitch 
 to the vibrant voice, the fire of strong feeling in 
 the fearless eye, an old-fashioned grace and dig 
 nity of manner, and a dash that his high color 
 showed to be not wholly natural. The speech 
 
 3 
 
TBE i 
 
 emotional, the sentences full, 
 swinging, poetic, rich with imagery and classical 
 allusion. And always in voice, eye, bearing, 
 and gesture was there gallant consciousness of 
 the gallery behind. More than once his eyes 
 swept the curve of it ; and when he came to pay 
 his unfailing tribute to the women of his land, 
 he turned quite around, until his back was upon 
 the Speaker and his uplifted face straight tow 
 ard the Governor s daughter, who moved her 
 idle fan and colored as many an eye was turned 
 from him to her. 
 
 The Speaker s gavel lay untouched before him 
 when the last period rang through the chamber. 
 It would have been useless against the outbreak 
 of applause that followed. Marshall had flamed 
 anew from an already brilliant past. Anne was 
 leaning back with luminous eyes and a proud 
 heart. The gallant old Governor himself was 
 hurrying from under the gallery to bend over 
 his protege and grasp his hand. The pit of the 
 house buzzed like a hive of bees. Down there 
 a Greek passion for oratory was still alive; in 
 the older men the young fellow stirred memories 
 that were sacred; and the hum rose so high that 
 the sharp rap of the gavel went through it twice 
 unnoticed, then twice again, more sharply still. 
 The Speaker s face was turned to one dark cor 
 ner of the room where, under the big clock, stood 
 
 4 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the rough figure of a mountaineer, with hands 
 behind him and swaying awkwardly from side 
 to side, as though his tongue were refusing him 
 utterance. Once he cleared his throat huskily, 
 and a smile started on many a face, and quickly 
 stopped, for it was plain that the man s trouble 
 was not embarrassment, but some storm of feel 
 ing that threatened to engulf his brain and surge 
 out in a torrent of invective. The mountaineer 
 himself seemed fearful of some such thing; for, 
 with turbulent calmness, he began slowly, and 
 went on with great care. No reason was ap 
 parent, but at the sound of his voice the House 
 turned toward him with the silence of premoni 
 tion. One by one wrinkles came into the Speak 
 er s strong, placid face. Marshall, quick to feel 
 merit and generous to grant it, had straightened 
 in his chair. The old Governor, going out, was 
 halted by the voice at the door. And one, who 
 himself loved the Governor s daughter, remem 
 bered long afterward that she leaned suddenly 
 toward the man, with her eyes wide and her 
 face quite tense with absorption. The secret was 
 in more than his simple bigness, more than his 
 massive head and heavy hair, in more even than 
 the extraordinary voice that came from him. It 
 was an electric recognition of force the force 
 with which Nature does her heavy work under 
 the earth and in the clouds; and here and there 
 
 5 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 an old member knew that a prophet was among 
 them. 
 
 It was the old fight patrician against plebe 
 ian, crude force against culture but the House 
 knew that young Randolph Marshall, who al 
 ready challenged the brilliant traditions of a 
 great forefather, who was a promise to redeem 
 a degenerate present and bring back a great past, 
 had found an easy peer in the awkward bulk just 
 risen before them, unknown. 
 
 There was little applause when the mountain 
 eer was done. The surprise was too great, the 
 people were too much moved. Adjournment 
 came at once, and everybody asked who the man 
 was, and nobody could tell. One member, who 
 still stood gripping his own wrist hard, recalled 
 on a sudden the recent death of a mountain rep 
 resentative ; and, on a sudden, the old Governor 
 at the door remembered that he had signed cre 
 dentials for somebody to take a dead member s 
 place. This was the man. Outside, Anne Bruce 
 came slowly down the oval stone stairway, and 
 at the bottom Marshall was waiting for her. She 
 smiled a little absently when he raised his hat, 
 and the two stepped from the Greek portico into 
 the sunlight and, passing slowly under the elms 
 and out the sagging iron gate, turned toward 
 the old Mansion. On the curb-stone, just out 
 side, stood one of the figures familiar to the 
 
 6 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 streets of the capital, a man in stripes a 
 " trusty " on parole whose square, sullen jaw 
 caught Anne s attention sharply, as did the sign 
 of force in a face always. A moment later, the 
 big mountaineer stopped there and talked kindly 
 with the convict awhile. Then, still in a tremor, 
 he moved on alone, across the town and through 
 the old wooden bridge over the river, then out 
 to Devil s Hollow and the hills. 
 
II 
 
 THE sun must climb mountains firstthe 
 Cumberland range, that grim and once 
 effectual protest against the march of the race 
 westward. Over this frowning wall, the first 
 light flashes down through primitive woods and 
 into fastnesses that hold the sources of great riv 
 ers and riches unimagined, under and on the 
 earth; beyond, it slants the crests of lesser hills 
 and bushy knolls that sink by-and-by to the 
 gentle undulations of blue-grass pasture and 
 woodland; south and west then, catching the 
 spire of convent and monastery, over fields 
 of pennyroyal, and finally through the Pur 
 chase last clutch of the Spaniard to light 
 up the yellow river that holds a strange mix 
 ture of soils and people in the hollow of its 
 arm. 
 
 Something more than a century ago the range 
 gave way a little, as earth and water must vhen 
 the Anglo-Saxon starts, but only to say, " You 
 may pass over and on, but what drops behind is 
 mine; and I hold my own." To-day its woods 
 are primeval, its riche? are unrifled, and its peo- 
 
 8 
 
THE KENTUCKIASTS 
 
 pie are the people of another age for the range 
 has held its own. 
 
 These men of the mountains and the people 
 of the blue-grass are the extremes of civilization 
 in the State. Through the brush country they 
 can almost touch hands, and yet they know as 
 little and have as little care of one another as 
 though a sea were between them. A few years 
 ago there was but one point where they ever 
 came in contact, one point where their interests 
 could clash. That was the capital, the lazy little 
 capital, on both sides of the river between the big, 
 sleepy hills, with its old, gray wooden bridge, its 
 sturdy old homes, its State buildings of gray 
 stone and classic porticos, and its dead asleep, up 
 in the last sunlight, around the first great Ken- 
 tuckian the hunter Boone. There the river 
 links highland with lowland like an all but use 
 less artery, barren hill-side with rich pasture- 
 land, blue-grass with rhododendron, deteriora 
 tion with slow progress, darkness with light that 
 sometimes is a little dim, the present century 
 with the last. The big hills about the town are 
 little mountains that have followed the river 
 down from the great highlands, and have brought 
 with ^them mute messengers mountain trees, 
 mountain birds, and mountain flowers to ask 
 that the dark region within be not wholly forgot, 
 and to show that the wish of Nature at least is 
 
THE KENTIJCKIANS 
 
 for brotherhood. Down this river come wild 
 raftsmen, who stalk along the middle of the 
 street, single file and curiously subdued; who 
 climb through the car windows, and are swept 
 through the blue-grass, to trudge the old Wilder 
 ness Road back home. Here are two points of 
 close contact for the mountaineer and the low- 
 lander the legislature and the penitentiary. 
 Thirty miles away is an old university the first 
 college built west of the Alleghanies where a 
 mountaineer drifted in occasionally to learn to 
 teach or to preach. Nowhere else and in no 
 way else had the extremes ever touched, until 
 now, for the first time in history, they were in 
 conflict. 
 
 A feud one of those relics of mediaeval days 
 that had been held like a fossil in the hills had 
 broken out afresh. It was called the Keaton- 
 Stallard " war " in the mountains, and it had been 
 giving trouble a long while. Recently the coun 
 ty judge had been driven from the court-house, 
 and the Attorney-General of the State had gone 
 with soldiers to hold court at the county-seat. 
 The only verdict rendered during the term was 
 against the General himself for carrying a 
 weapon concealed; and a heavy fine was imposed 
 for the same which the Governor had to remit. 
 Meanwhile the feudsmen were out in the brush, 
 waiting. When the soldiers went back to the 
 
 10 
 
THE KENTTTCKIANS 
 
 blue-grass, they came out from their hiding- 
 places and began over again. Now it was worse 
 than ever. The Keatons had got the Stallards 
 besieged not long since, and the Keaton leader 
 tried to get a cannon. In good faith, and with 
 a humor that was mighty because unconscious, 
 he had tried to purchase one from the State au 
 thorities from the Governor himself. Judge, 
 jailer, sheriff, and constable were involved now, 
 and the county was nearing anarchy. 
 
 The reputation of the State was at issue, and 
 civilization in the blue-grass was rebuking bar 
 barism in the mountains. Abolish the county, 
 was the cry at the capital, and that afternoon 
 Marshall had voiced it. He had been taken off 
 guard. He had gone down the current of tradi 
 tion, catching up straws that are anybody s for 
 the catching stock allusions to wolf-scalps and 
 pauperism; scathing mountain lawlessness as a 
 red blot on the scutcheon of the State, which, 
 to quote the spirit of his talk, had stained the 
 highland border of the commonwealth with 
 blood, and abroad was engulfing tlie reputation 
 of the lowland blue-grass; contrasting, finally, 
 the garden-spot of the earth, his own land of 
 milk and honey, with the black ribs of rock and 
 forest that still harbor the evil spirit of the 
 Middle Ages. It had never been better done, 
 for under the humor and easy good-nature of the 
 ii 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 speech were a quivering pride of State and a bit 
 ter arraignment of the people who were bringing 
 . it into disrepute. The mountaineer was a strag 
 gler, a deserter from the ranks. He was vicious, 
 untrustworthy, ignorant, lawless, and content 
 with his degradation. He was idle, shiftless, 
 hopeless; a burden to the State, a drawback to 
 civilization. That was the plain truth under 
 Marshall s courteous words, and, well told as it 
 was, it would have been better told had he known 
 the presence of the rough champion who, answer 
 ing just that truth, tore apart his loose net-work 
 with the ease of summer lightning lifting the 
 horizon at dusk. His was a voice from the wil 
 derness ; it bespoke a new and throbbing power 
 in the destiny of the State; it proclaimed a com 
 mercial epoch. He admitted much, he denied 
 somewhat, he made little defence, and he apolo 
 gized not at all. His appeal was for fairness 
 that was all; and it was fierce, passionate, and 
 tender. He was a mountaineer. He lived in 
 the county under discussion, in the town where 
 the feud was going on. More, an uncle of his 
 had once been a leader of the Stallard faction. 
 His people were idle, shiftless, ignorant, lawless. 
 No wonder. They had started as backwoods 
 men a century ago; they had lived apart from 
 the world and without books, schools, or 
 churches since the Revolution; they had had a 
 
 12 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 century of such a life in which to deteriorate. 
 Their law was lax. They lived apart from one 
 another as well, and, of necessity, public senti 
 ment was weak and unity of action difficult 
 except for mischief. It was easy for ten bad 
 men to give character to a community to em 
 broil ninety good ones. And that was what had 
 been done. The good ninety were there for 
 every ten that were bad. Nobody deplored the 
 feud more than he, but he saw there were times 
 when people must take the law into their own 
 hands. The mountain people must in the end 
 govern themselves, and they could not begin too 
 soon. To disrupt the county would be to take 
 away the only remedy possible in the end. Then 
 the heavy brows lifted, and a surprising chal 
 lenge came. By what right and from what high 
 place did the people of the blue-grass rebuke 
 the people of the mountains? Were they less 
 quick to fight? In one section, the fighting was 
 by individuals ; in the other, families and friends 
 for a good reason took up the quarrel. Was 
 not that the great difference? And for whom 
 was there the less excuse? For the people who 
 knew, or for the ignorant; for them who could 
 enforce the law, or for them who, because of 
 their environment, were almost helpless? Who 
 knew how powerful that environment had been? 
 Who knew that it did not make the mighty dis- 
 
 13 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 tinctions between the mountaineers and the peo 
 ple of the blue-grass; that the slipping of a linch 
 pin in a wagon on the Wilderness Road had not 
 made the difference between his own family and 
 the proudest in the State; that the gentleman 
 himself was not scoring his own kin ? Why not ? 
 And with stirring queries like these he closed 
 like a trumpet over the future of his much- 
 mocked hills when their riches were unlocked to 
 their own people and to the outer world. It 
 was the man that made the sensation. What he 
 said, at another time and from another source, 
 would have got scant attention and no credence. 
 But two facts spoke for him now : already a tide 
 of speculation was turning into those little-known 
 hills, and there before the House was at least 
 one human product of them who plainly could 
 force the question to be handled with serious 
 care. 
 
 It was the power of the speech that stung 
 Marshall. The matter of it was of little mo 
 ment to him. Once in a while he had chased a 
 red fox from the blue-grass to the foot-hills. 
 As a boy, he had gone with his father on annual 
 trips to the Cumberland to fish and to hunt deer. 
 The Marshalls even owned mountain lands some 
 where, which, with their sole crop of taxes, had 
 been a jest in the family for generations. That 
 was the little he knew of his own mountains. 
 
THE KEOTUCKIANS 
 
 He had cared even less; but, while he listened, 
 his sense of fairness made him quickly sorry that 
 he had spoken with such confidence when there 
 was room for any doubt; and before the moun 
 taineer was done he was silently and uneasily 
 measuring strength with him, point by point. 
 
 To Anne, the man and the speech were a rev 
 elation : she barely knew her State had moun 
 tains. She hardly spoke on her way home, and 
 she seemed not to notice Marshall s unusual si 
 lence. 
 
 " He has the fascination of something new 
 and perhaps terrible," she said once. " And it s 
 startling, what he said. I wonder if it can be 
 true?" And again, a moment later, slowly: 
 " It is very strange; it all seems to have hap 
 pened before." 
 
 Marshall s answer was a little grim: 
 " Once is enough for me, I think." 
 ( You and your speech," she went on, barely 
 heeding his interruption. " It seemed as though 
 I had already heard you make just that speech 
 under just those circumstances. It s one of those 
 queer experiences that seem to have occurred be 
 fore, down to minute details." 
 
 " That was the trouble," said Marshall, 
 quietly. " I made that speech, practically, on 
 my graduating-day. I hadn t studied the ques 
 tion since." 
 
 15 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Anne s face cleared. " Oh, that s the explana 
 tion ! A thing seems to have happened before, 
 I suppose, because it has so nearly happened that 
 it seems to be exactly the same thing." 
 
 " Yes," assented Marshall, but he was watch- 
 ing Anne steadily. He was already smarting 
 with humiliation, and it hurt him that she could 
 be so absorbed as to carelessly press the thorn 
 in his flesh still farther in, and apparently not 
 guess or not care how it rankled. 
 
 " Once even that man s face seemed familiar," 
 she added. " I d like to know all about him." 
 They had reached the steps of the Mansion, and 
 Marshall was taking off his hat. 
 
 " Make him tell you." 
 
 Anne looked up quickly. " I will." 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 Anne smiled. She was accustomed to that 
 tone; she had forgiven it many times; she had 
 been distrait, and she would forgive it again. 
 
 " Good-by," she said gently. 
 
 16 
 
Ill 
 
 IT was Saturday, and Marshall always spent 
 Sunday at home. It was the run of an hour 
 to Lexington on the fast train, and at sunset he 
 was in a buggy, behind a little blooded mare, and 
 on one of the white turnpikes that make a spider s 
 web of the blue-grass, speeding home. A red arc 
 of the sun was still visible just behind the statue 
 of the great Commoner, and across the long, low 
 sky one cloud in the east was still rosy with light. 
 Already the dew was rising, and when he swept 
 down over a little bridge in a hollow the air was 
 deliciously cool and heavy with the wet fragrance 
 of mint and pennyroyal. On either side the ves 
 pers of a song-sparrow would radiate now and 
 then from the top of a low weed, and a meadow- 
 lark would rise and wheel, singing, toward the 
 west. Marshall s chin was almost on his breast. 
 The reins were loose, and the noble little mare 
 was plying her swift legs so easily under her that 
 her high head and shining back gave hardly a 
 sign of effort. She let the dark have barely 
 time to settle over the rolling fields before she 
 stopped of her own accord at her master s home 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 gate. Marshall got out with some difficulty, 
 and, without a word of command, she walked 
 through the gate and waited for him to climb 
 in. The buggy made no noise on the thick 
 turf, and no one was in sight when he reached 
 the stiles. 
 
 "Tom!" 
 
 "Yessuh!" 
 
 The voice came from a whitewashed cabin 
 behind a clump of lilac, and an old negro shuffled 
 hastily after it. The young fellow s voice was 
 impatient. A woman s figure appeared in the 
 doorway under the sunrise window-light as Mar 
 shall climbed the stiles. 
 
 "Rannie!" 
 
 " Yes, mother," he answered; and he held his 
 breath while she kissed him. It was a big hall 
 that he entered, with a graceful, semi-Oriental 
 arch midway, and two doors opening on either 
 side. The parlor was lighted, and through its 
 door old furniture and old portraits were visible ; 
 and ancient wall-paper, brought from England a 
 century since, blue in color, with clouds painted 
 under the high ceiling, and an English stag-chase 
 running entirely around the four walls. The 
 ring of girlish laughter came down the stairway 
 as Marshall passed into the dining-room. His 
 mother had gathered in a little house-party of 
 girls from the neighborhood, as she often did, to 
 
 18 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 brighten his home-coming. Supper was over, 
 and they were awaiting the arrival of young men 
 from town. Marshall ate little and had little to 
 say, and very slowly a shadow passed over his 
 mother s brow and eyes. 
 
 " What s wrong, my son? " she asked quietly. 
 
 " Nothing, mother, nothing. Don t bother." 
 He laughed slightly. " Maybe it s because I ve 
 got a rival." 
 
 His mother smiled. 
 
 " Oh, no, not with her " he laughed again 
 " at least, not yet. A man beat me speaking 
 this afternoon. He took me by surprise, but 
 I ll be ready for him next time. Still, I m not 
 very well, and I can t go into the parlor to 
 night. Besides, I ve got some writing to do. 
 Tell them how sorry I am, won t you? " He 
 rose from his seat, for he could hear the com 
 ing guests in the hall. " Good-night," he said; 
 and he kissed her forehead as he passed be 
 hind her chair, but the shadow that was there 
 stayed. 
 
 A little darky girl in a checked cotton dress 
 lighted his way outside along a path of round- 
 stone flagging. For the the house was built after 
 the earliest colonial fashion, with an ell left and 
 right one of which, disconnected from the 
 house and called the " office " in slavery days, 
 had been Marshall s room since the day he 
 
 19 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 started to town to school. It signified paternal 
 trust; it meant independence. His room was 
 ready. The student-lamp was lighted. On the 
 table was a vase of flowers from his mother s 
 garden, and he sat down close to their fragrance, 
 and, with a conscious purpose of fulfilling his 
 word, he did try for a while to write. But his 
 hand shook, and he arose and opened a pantry 
 door to one side of the fireplace, and called from 
 the window for old Tom to bring him drinking- 
 water. The glisten of glass-ware came through 
 the crack of the pantry door, and the old negro 
 gave it one sullen glance and went out without 
 speaking. Marshall was walking up and down 
 the room. Once he stopped at the mantel to 
 look at the picture of a very young girl in white 
 muslin and with a big Leghorn hat held lightly 
 by one slender hand in her lap. Under it was 
 a scrawling line, " To Rannie from Anne." He 
 turned sharply away and sat down at his table 
 again, with his forehead on his crossed arms. 
 There had been no trouble, no doubt, between 
 the two in those young days. Now there seemed 
 to be nothing else; and it was in one of these 
 wretched intervals of causeless misunderstanding 
 that a hulking countryman had taught him his 
 first bitter lesson in defeat while Anne looked on. 
 They were having a good time in the parlor. 
 Somebody was playing a waltz. There was a 
 20 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ripple of light laughter through the hall door, 
 and some deep-voiced young fellow was talking 
 low on the porch not far from his window. The 
 sounds smote him with a sharp pain of remote 
 ness from it all, and straightway a memory be 
 gan to bridge the gap between him and those 
 other days; so that he rose presently and took 
 down the picture and put it on the table before 
 him, looking at it steadily. In a little while he 
 unlocked a drawer at his right hand, and took 
 out a note-book and began with the beginning, 
 slowly turning the leaves. It was filled with his 
 own manuscript. Here and there was a verse, 
 " To Anne." On every page, from every para 
 graph, the name sprang from the white paper 
 Anne ! Anne ! Anne ! He had meant to burn 
 that book; the impulse came now, as always; 
 but now, as always, he went on turning the 
 leaves. It ran back years to the childhood of 
 the girl. " Her father s brain, her mother s 
 heart," ran one line, " but her beauty is her 
 own." Some of the verse was almost good. It 
 was Anne s brow here, her eyes there, her mouth, 
 her hand, her arm; " that arm," he read, smiling 
 faintly " the little hollow midway from which 
 the gracious, lovely lines start up and down. It 
 would hold the rain a snowdrop might catch; 
 dew enough for the bath the ivory bath of 
 a humming-bird; enough nectar to make Cupid 
 21 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 delirious, were he to use it for a drinking-cup. 
 Looking for Psyche, the little god rests there, 
 no doubt, while she sleeps. It he doesn t, he is 
 blind, indeed." 
 
 Those were the days when he thought he 
 might be a poet or a novelist if either were a 
 manlier trade; if there were not always the more 
 serious business of law and politics to which he 
 was committed by inheritance. Still it was very 
 foolish, the book, and with the impulse again 
 to burn, he placed it back in the drawer and 
 turned the key. Then he put the picture in its 
 place, and sat down again, as though he would 
 go on with his work, but, instead, reached sud 
 denly across the table. The sound of old Tom s 
 banjo was coming up through his back window 
 from the lilacs below, and, as his fingers closed 
 around the glass, the strum started up before 
 him the old array of ever-weakening visions 
 the negro s reproachful look, the deepening 
 shadows in his mother s face, the pain in Anne s 
 clear eyes and now a new one, the figure of the 
 mountaineer, burly, vivid, and so menacing that 
 he felt nerve, muscle, and brain get suddenly 
 tense as though to meet some shock. And there 
 was his hand trembling like an old man s under 
 the green shade of the lamp. The sight smote 
 him through with a fear of himself so sharp 
 that he brushed his hands rapidly across his eyes, 
 
 22 
 
THE KEISTTUCKIANS 
 
 and with tightened lips once more took up his 
 pen. 
 
 The moon looked in at his window radiantly 
 when he pushed the curtains aside to close a shut 
 ter, so that he changed his mind about going to 
 bed, and blew out his lamp and sat at the win 
 dow, looking out. The young men were going 
 home. He heard the laughing good-bys in the 
 hall, and the low, laughing talk of the young 
 fellows where they were unhitching their horses 
 behind the shrubbery ; then the soft beat of hoofs 
 and wheels on the turf, the loud slam of the pike 
 gate, and the wild rush of the young bucks racing 
 each other home. There was a rustle in the hall, 
 the closing of a door below, a shutter above, and 
 the house was still. 
 
 Not a breath of air moved outside. The 
 white aspens were quiet as the sombre, aged pines 
 that had been brought over from old Hanover, 
 in Virginia, and stood with proud solemnity be 
 fitting the honor. Across the meadow came the 
 low bellow of a restless bull; nearer, the tinkle 
 of a sheep-bell ; and closer, the drowsy twitter of 
 birds in the lilac-bushes at the garden gate. Be 
 yond the lawn and the mock-orange hedge was 
 the woodland, with its sinuous line of soft shadow 
 against the sky, and the broken moonlight under 
 its low branches. Primitive soil, that woodland ; 
 no plough had run a furrow through it; no white 
 
 23 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 man had called it his own before the boy s great 
 forefather, asleep under the wrinkled pines. 
 How full of peace it was how still ! 
 
 Over in the other ell, his mother had gone to 
 sleep with the last prayer on her lips, the last 
 thought in her heart, for him. She had taken 
 him with her into dreamland, no doubt. She 
 was affected, his mother, so a teasing old aunt 
 had told him and her; but never in his life 
 could he remember her perfect poise of body and 
 soul to waver, her sweet dignity to unbend. 
 Proud, but very gentle, her face was he knew 
 but one other like it. " To be your father s wife 
 and your mother, my son," he had heard her, in 
 simple faith, once say. That was her mission on 
 earth. And what a mission he was making for 
 that gracious life ! 
 
 In the dark parlor, just through the wall of 
 his room, were Jouett portraits of his kinspeople 
 of the great Marshall, whose great day people 
 said he was to bring back. Next him was that 
 Marshall s youngest son, a proud-looking young 
 fellow with a noble face and a quiet smile, who 
 had died early, and who, the old aunt said, was 
 the more brilliant of the two. Rannie was like 
 that great-uncle, she used often to say. And 
 he, Marshall knew, had quietly and with beauti 
 ful dignity drunk himself to death for a woman. 
 Men could do that in his day. Men had the 
 
 24 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 young fellow rose, shivering from another rea 
 son than the cooling night air; it still was pos 
 sible. 
 
 Over the quiet fields of blue-grass and young 
 wheat and blossoming clover, in the capital, 
 Boone Stallard was looking from his window on 
 the prison, white in the moonlight as a sepulchre, 
 and on the bleak cliff rising behind it; and his 
 last thoughts, too, were on his home and his peo 
 ple ; the old two-roomed log cabin with its long 
 porch and long slanting roof, Black Mountain 
 rising in a sheer wall of green behind it, and a 
 little creek tinkling under laurel and rhododen 
 dron into the Cumberland; his mother, gaunt, 
 aged, in brown homespun, with her pipe, in a 
 corner of the fireplace; opposite, his sister 
 whose husband had been killed in the feud 
 with a worn, pallid face and dull eyes; his half- 
 brother, cleaning his Winchester, no doubt; the 
 children in bed ; the talk of the feud, always the 
 feud. They were all Stallards on that creek, 
 just as in the next bend of the river all were 
 Keatons their hereditary enemies. They were 
 " a high-heeled and over-bearin race," the Stal 
 lards were ; and they were hated and fought, and 
 they hated and fought back, with the end not yet 
 come. All his life, Boone Stallard had known; 
 only hardship, work, self-denial. There was n&> 
 love of sloth, no vice of blood, to stunt his 
 25 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 growth ; as yet, no love of woman to confuse his 
 purpose, nor inspire it. 
 
 Not once did the two currents cross but on 
 the thinkers themselves; on nothing else not 
 even on Anne. 
 
 26 
 
IV 
 
 A WEEK later the Mansion was thrown 
 open, for the third time during the ses 
 sion, to the law-makers and their wives. Stal- 
 lard, Colton said, must go; and Colton s word, 
 now, was to the good-natured mountaineer little 
 short of law. 
 
 He had found an unknown ally when he 
 opened the great Kentucky daily on the morning 
 after his first fight. There was a long account 
 of the debate, a strong tribute to " The Cumber 
 land Cyclone," as Colton, the correspondent, 
 called him, and an editorial on the question that 
 bore the distinctive ear-marks of the great man 
 in charge. That same morning, when the ques 
 tion of disruption came up, a member who had 
 considerable aspiration, some foresight, and no 
 principles to make or mar his future, and who 
 knew he would help himself in another section 
 and not harm himself in his own, rose and took 
 sides with Stallard, emphasizing the editor s em 
 phasis of Stallard s idea that the mountain people 
 must some day govern themselves, and, there 
 fore, would be better let alone now. To the sur- 
 27 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 prise of all, Marshall rose and stated frankly 
 the lack of positive knowledge on which he had 
 spoken the day before. While he must hold to 
 certain opinions expressed, he recognized the 
 possibility of having done the mountain people 
 wrong in certain statements made; that time 
 would soon prove. 
 
 Meanwhile, he would withdraw his motion, 
 with the consent of the House, and counsel fur 
 ther forbearance on the part of the State. It 
 was graceful, magnanimous, gallant; but Col- 
 ton, watching the mountaineer s face, saw not 
 a muscle of it move. Marshall s bill was put 
 aside for the time. The mountain members, 
 headed by Jack Mockaby, drew close to Stallard, 
 and, before noon of his second day at the capital, 
 Stallard found himself a man of mark, and with 
 a following that in all legislative questions could 
 exact consideration. And for the hour of that 
 noon his head swam and got steady again; for 
 his brain was as sane as his purpose was firm. 
 Of his gift of oratory, he took as little thought 
 as a bird takes of its gift of song. He neither 
 drank nor gambled, and as he kept aloof from 
 all social affairs, he wasted neither his energy nor 
 his time. Few committees of importance were 
 appointed upon which he did not have a place, 
 and his capacity for work was prodigious. In 
 Colton he came at once to know his best friend, 
 
 28 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 and every few days he saw his name prominent 
 in the reports of legislative doings. These 
 would slowly make their way home to the moun 
 tains, and Stallard knew his seat Was secure for 
 another term unless the feud intervened. Once 
 even, in the first flush of his success, the dome of 
 the big Capitol floated a little while along the 
 horizon of his heated vision, and sank. For 
 Stallard s second thought and his last were ever 
 for his people; and he watched their welfare 
 with an eye that let no measure escape that might 
 be of possible help to them. Thus far he had 
 given no thought to anything but work, and now 
 Colton said that, out of respect to the Governor 
 who had been kind to him, Stallard must go to 
 the Mansion. So he had dressed himself in his 
 best which was quite bad had walked twice 
 past the brilliantly lighted old house, and in hope 
 less indecision had started, for the second time, 
 home. Inside, Anne sat in a corner of the big 
 square drawing-room, watching the late-coming 
 guests. Colton was on the sofa beside her and 
 Marshall stood just to one side. The two men 
 did not like each other, and for that reason Col 
 ton rattled on in his talk recklessly. The receiv 
 ing-line of young women in white was broken, 
 and the rather chill formality of the occasion 
 dissolved. Occasionally some little woman, trip 
 ping past, would ask, naively, " Oh, you haven t 
 29 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 met my husband? " And off she would go for 
 the embryonic statesman. Dress and manners 
 made Anne shudder now and then, but no sign 
 arose above the fine courtesy that made social 
 democracy in her own home absolute; and, un 
 failingly, she presented Marshall, who bowed 
 with perfect gravity to the absurd little ducks 
 and curtseys made him. Colton, who knew 
 everybody, was giving pen-and-ink sketches right 
 and left. 
 
 They were all there from the Peavine to the 
 Purchase, through blue-grass, bear-grass, and 
 pennyroyal; from Mammoth Cave and Geth- 
 semane, the Knobs and the Benson Hills; from 
 aristocratic Fayette and Bourbon, "sweet Owen" 
 fortress of democracy, to border Harlan, hot-bed 
 of the feud; from the Mississippi to Hell-fer-Sar- 
 tain Creek in bloody Breathitt. Those were the 
 contrasting soils, social sections, and divisions of 
 vegetation on which the devil was said to have 
 slyly put a thumb of reservation when he offered 
 the earth to his great Conqueror (" and some 
 times," said Colton, " I think the reservation 
 was granted ") . All this the magic name of old 
 Kentucky meant to her loyal sons, who are to this 
 country what the Irishman is to the world; and 
 who, no matter where cast, remain what they 
 were born Kentuckians to the end. The 
 Virginia cavalier was there, he went on, with a 
 3 
 
 \ 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 side-glance at Marshall; the Scotch-Irishman, 
 who had taken on the cavalier s polish and lost 
 nothing of his own strength; the " pore white 
 trash " now risen in the world; the kinless non 
 descript himself, for instance; the political 
 grandee of the cross-roads he of the Clay man 
 ner and the Websterian brow across the room. 
 He always made afternoon calls in his dress suit. 
 There was Jack Mockaby from Breathitt, who 
 was expecting arrest each day last year for a little 
 feud of his own, while he was in the House mak 
 ing laws for the rest of the State. The gaunt 
 individual at the door was another mountaineer. 
 He had brought his wife with him to the " settle- 
 mints." Once she had been asked if she were 
 going to the theatre. She " lowed she was, but 
 she didn t aim to take part." And she did go, 
 and she took down her hair before the curtain 
 went up, gave it a little brush or two, and slowly 
 rolled it up in a knot at the back of her head.. 
 On a fishing trip, Colton had taken dinner with, 
 one of his member s constituents. They hadl 
 corn-bread and potatoes. 
 
 * Take out, stranger," said the mountaineen 
 " Hev a tater; take two of em; take damn nigh 
 all of em." 
 
 Oh, they were a strange people, these moun 
 taineers proud, hospitable, good-hearted, and 
 murderous ! Religious, too : they talked chiefly 
 31 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 of homicide and the Bible. He knew of an aw 
 ful fight that came up over a discussion on origi 
 nal sin. Yes, they were queer; but there was 
 one Boone Stallard was his name Miss Anne 
 had heard him speak? Colton thought he could 
 make something of him. 
 
 " They call him the * Cumberland Cyclone 
 now: that s mine, that phrase. Pretty good, 
 isn t it? They will run him against Marshall 
 for Speaker next year," he added, with innocent 
 malice; " mark my words. He s a coming man 
 but he doesn t seem to be coming here very 
 fast. He said he would. If he doesn t show 
 up in five minutes, I m going after him. It ll 
 be his debut, and I m his chaperon. Ah " 
 
 The information was not worth while. 
 Though smilingly interested in Colton s light 
 nonsense, she was glancing now and then at the 
 door, where her father was receiving the last 
 stragglers; and, looking at her, Marshall knew 
 when she saw the mountaineer, and he smiled: 
 her interest amused him. Stallard s big form was 
 in the doorway. His eyes were roving helplessly 
 up and down the room, and his face, despite its 
 gravity, wore so pained a look that the girl her 
 self half rose. But the Governor had stepped 
 forward and, holding the new-comer s arm, was 
 leading him across the room toward her. 
 
 " Anne, I want to present Mr. Stallard to you 
 32 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Mr. Boone Stallard. Mr. Marshall, Mr. 
 Stallard you two should know each other ; and 
 Mr. Colton you know, of course." 
 
 The girl put out her hand. Marshall, with 
 punctilious courtesy, was putting out his when he 
 met Stallard s eye. The mountaineer knew no 
 polite law that bade him, feeling one way, to act 
 another; and what he felt, he made plain. Mar 
 shall straightened like steel. It was a declara 
 tion of war, open, mutual; and Colton, with a 
 quick breath, half rose from his seat. The Gov 
 ernor, turning away, saw nothing, and Anne s 
 eyes were lowered suddenly to the white point 
 of one of her slippers. 
 
 " Pardon," said Marshall, with quick tact; 
 " your father is calling me." And he bowed 
 himself away and toward the Governor, who 
 was passing through the door. 
 
 Colton turned to Anne s friend, Katherine 
 Craig, who sat at his right, and whose eyes had 
 lost nothing. Stallard crossed his big hands awk 
 wardly in front of him, and stood with one foot 
 advanced and the knee bent. He wore a great 
 Prince Albert coat, which was longer in front 
 than behind, and high boots which showed to 
 their tops under his trousers. They were care 
 fully blackened, and the feet were large so was 
 the man. Anne saw all these details before she 
 raised her eyes to his, and then for a while she 
 33 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 quite forgot them. They were calm, open eyes 
 that she saw, quite dark but luminous, and they 
 quietly held hers in a way that made her wonder 
 then whether it might not be hard for some 
 woman, against his will, to turn her own aside. 
 Yet they were timid too, and kindly, while the 
 strong mouth was for the moment hard; it still 
 held the antagonism that elsewhere in the rugged 
 face was gone. 
 
 " I heard your speech," she said, friendlily. 
 " I want to congratulate you. You gave us all 
 a surprise especially Mr. Marshall." 
 
 " Well, I am very glad you liked it," he said, 
 slowly and with great care, almost as if he were 
 speaking another tongue. " I don t recollect that 
 I saw you there. I reckon I didn t look around 
 at the gallery." 
 
 " No," she said, with a smile; " you were not 
 very gallant." 
 
 She was sorry when the words left her mouth, 
 the big man looked so helpless. But no woman 
 minds if the strong are shy, and she went on a 
 little blindly: " Now Mr. Marshall paid us a 
 pretty compliment." If she were uncertain as 
 to the little start he gave when she mentioned 
 Marshall s name just before, she was not now. 
 The repression at his lips spread to his eyes, 
 his brow, and his nostrils, and he did not look 
 pleasant. She did not know why she should 
 34 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 press the point further, but the impulse was 
 irresistible. 
 
 " Mr. Marshall is a great friend of mine," she 
 added, her self-control fluttering, and she raised 
 her eyes to see what should come into his, and 
 she was frightened. She knew little of the strict 
 ethics that governed his life in the matter of 
 friendship ; if Marshall was her friend, then she 
 was the mountaineer s enemy; but with a flash 
 she caught the thought in his mind and, with it, 
 too, his suspicion that she had meant to make the 
 fact of her friendship for Marshall plain. 
 
 " I hope you two will like each other," she 
 added, quickly, and with a vague purpose of 
 somehow putting herself to rights ; but the moun 
 taineer stared merely. 
 
 " I don t think we will," he said, bluntly. 
 Again Anne s eyes went for refuge back to the 
 point of her slipper, and luckily for both, just 
 then, the Governor came to take Stallard away. 
 Colton and Katherine turned. 
 
 " How did you get along? " asked Colton. 
 Anne laughed. Her cheeks were a bright red, 
 and Colton began to wonder. 
 
 " Not very well. It was dreadful. He s half 
 a savage. He made me afraid." 
 
 Marshall was coming up behind her, and could 
 not help but hear what pleases no lover fear in 
 a woman of another man. His manner was light 
 35 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 and spirited, and he laughed in a way that made 
 her look sharply up. 
 
 u Good-night." His face was flushed, and 
 Anne s hardened a little while she looked after 
 him. Stallard did not come to bid her good 
 night, and she guessed the truth that he did not 
 know it was necessary. Still he should have 
 wanted to come, she thought, imperiously; and 
 she did not guess the truth of that that, much 
 puzzled, he had wanted to come; that he had 
 passed the rear door to look at her, and had 
 stood a long while, staring at her strangely; that 
 he had hesitated, through sheer fear, to speak 
 to her again, and, vaguely distressed, had slipped 
 away without a word to anybody. 
 
 For a long while, after the guests were gone, 
 she sat thinking under the pink drop-light in her 
 father s study. It had been the same thing over 
 and over for so long with Marshall peace, a 
 foolish quarrel, the wine-room and the card- 
 table; some wild deed, contrition,- pardon, and 
 peace again. It was the beginning of the second 
 stage now, and she looked a little bitter, and then 
 she sighed helplessly, as though she would as well 
 make ready now to forgive him again. When 
 she thought of Stallard, she found herself going 
 back again to Marshall s graduating-day. That 
 was odd, but the fact slipped unnoticed through 
 her consciousness, for she was wishing that Mar- 
 
 36 
 
THE KENTUCKJANS 
 
 shall had the strength that she believed was the 
 mountaineer s. What might he not do then? 
 Then, perhaps, everything might be otherwise. 
 And thinking of the mountaineer again, there 
 came again, out of the past, the hot air of the old 
 university hall ; and now, as then, she was walk 
 ing out on the big portico to escape it. That day 
 she had dropped her parasol down the great 
 flight of stone steps. A rough-looking country 
 boy was leaning against one of the big pillars, 
 staring at her. She waited for him to pick it up, 
 but he never took his eyes from her face, and 
 she got it herself. She had thought him stupid 
 and impolite, and she never knew what fixed the 
 incident in her mind, unless it was the boy s in 
 tent stare and his shock of black hair. Even now 
 her memory of the incident had no significance, 
 for she was busy thinking how absurd the con 
 trast was between the mountaineer s face and his 
 dress, and wondering why it was that, once, some 
 look in the man s eyes should have given her 
 such a pang of pity for him. He must have 
 miserably misunderstood her that night, and no 
 wonder; she must make that right, and quickly. 
 
 " Papa," she said, " is there any reason why I 
 shouldn t ask that Mr. Boone Stallard " 
 she pronounced the name slowly " to dinner? " 
 
 "Why, no, Anne; why not?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing. I didn t know. He s so queer. 
 37 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 He s so diffident it s absurd in such a big man 
 and then he isn t. I wonder that he came to 
 night." 
 
 " It was Colton s doing, I imagine," said the 
 Governor, rising to fill his pipe; " and then I sup 
 pose he thought he owed especial courtesy to me. 
 I let out a pretty bad convict on parole not long 
 ago, at his request- a mountaineer." 
 
 " Who is he? " she asked, so absent-mindedly 
 that the Governor turned. 
 
 "Who is who?" he answered, smiling; and 
 then, u Why, you remember, surely. Marshall 
 introduced a bill to abolish his county the other 
 day. He belongs to one of the factions that are 
 making trouble in the mountains. I suppose one- 
 fourth of the people in his county have the name 
 of Stallard. And they are worse about stretch 
 ing kinship down there than we are." 
 
 The girl rose to go to her room, and the Gov 
 ernor called to her again, and she stopped under 
 the light of the stairway, with her dreaming face 
 uplifted, the hem of her gown raised from one 
 arched foot, and one white hand on the banister 
 
 - and nobody there to see ! 
 
 " By the way, can t you make use of a trusty 
 for a day or two in the garden? I ll send you 
 
 * feudsman, if you are getting interested in the 
 nountaineers. I made still another trusty not 
 long ago, at the warden s request. The moun- 
 
 38 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 taineers can t stand confinement, he says, having 
 lived all their lives in the open air. Can you 
 give one something to do ? " 
 
 Anne s lips parted and her eyes closed sleepily. 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 39 
 
A FORTNIGHT later, Anne sat in the 
 shade of her grape-arbor, directing the 
 leisurely labor of the " trusty " who had come 
 over from the gloomy prison whose high gray 
 walls and peaked roof, with its ceaseless column 
 of black smoke, were visible over the houses that 
 sat between. 
 
 Her dinner had taken place a few nights be 
 fore. Stallard was not only not there he had 
 not even answered her note of invitation. Col- 
 ton laughed when she told him. He could not 
 explain it, but he knew why the mountaineer had 
 probably not come. Stallard had been hard at 
 work; he was not merely an orator; he shirked 
 no work, and he read law steadily. He had not 
 answered, perhaps, because he did not know the 
 social need of an answer. He might have turned 
 up at the dinner without having sent his accept 
 ance ; that was as likely as what he had done. It 
 was all doubtless true, and the girl wanted to be 
 lieve that it was. Still, it was the harder to be 
 lieve for the reason that it was altogether of a 
 piece with the usual way of a man who seemed 
 40 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 to swerve aside for nothing, and who bore him 
 self toward her as she had all her life borne 
 herself toward all men. And young as she was, 
 Anne s reign had been a long one. Even as a 
 school-girl she had her little local court of sweet 
 hearts, which widened rapidly, as she grew older, 
 through the county, through several counties, 
 through even the confines of the State. It was 
 a social condition already passing away; the 
 pretty young queen and the manly young fellows 
 doing her honor with such loyalty openly, 
 frankly her slaves to themselves, to one an 
 other, and to the world; declaring love one after 
 another in turn, leaving her with a passionate 
 resolution to throw off the yoke, and bending 
 meekly to it again. For usually she kept the 
 lover the friend even after as lover he was hope 
 less, if the lover ever is. Occasionally, however, 
 some young fellow, a little fiercer than usual, 
 would stalk away through the hall, bang the 
 door a little more loudly, and really come back no 
 more. Then Anne would go to her room and 
 cry half the night through, to learn soon that he 
 had gone elsewhere for solace, and that her place 
 was filled. Soon she could smile when some 
 young heart went broken from her to mend no 
 more; and, thereafter, she cried sometimes only 
 because she was losing a friend. By and by some 
 of her courtiers married, some went other ways, 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 but of the original court a few were still left, and 
 of them Marshall was one. He was the oldest, 
 the most faithful and untiring. His strength, 
 aside from birth, was in oratory and politics, for 
 which the girl, coming from a race of lawyers 
 and statesmen, had an innate predilection; so 
 that, in spite of his wild ways, general expecta 
 tion, which looks to the untiring to win in love, 
 as in everything else, rested on Marshall. Still 
 he had not won, and Anne kept on her placid, 
 queenly way, holding every man her friend be 
 cause she was fair with all and loved no one less 
 than his rival. What the trouble was, nobody 
 knew precisely not Marshall not even Anne. 
 Once her mother, remembering the boy s inheri 
 tance, had given her gentle warning against in 
 trusting herself to him; and his reckless way of 
 life kept the warning always in mind. Always, 
 perhaps, Marshall s perfect loyalty had kept her 
 from knowing how strong her own feeling was 
 for him. And then, as she grew older, she slow 
 ly came to exact, what few women do, that a 
 man shall be making an honest effort to realize 
 the best that is in him. That Marshall, brilliant 
 and winning as he was, had never done. It was 
 the contrast in this one particular that was help 
 ing arouse her interest in the mountaineer. One 
 look in his face, and doubt on that question, as to 
 Stallard, was at rest. Moreover, she had a swift 
 42 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 sympathetic insight into what was best in the 
 humanity around her, and this told her that in 
 this rugged rustic was more hidden power than 
 she had ever found in any one man. He was the 
 first man with whom it had been necessary for 
 her to be the first to hold out her hand, in simple 
 kindliness at the start, and then for the mere self- 
 acknowledged reason that he was the first to 
 reach her intellect, as somebody might some day 
 reach her heart. Necessarily, it was the first time 
 she had met with no response. To say that she 
 was piqued would be absurd ; to say that her in 
 terest was not deepened would be to say that she 
 was not a woman and not human. She had 
 thought of the man a good deal ; she would tell 
 anybody that. She wanted to know of him, and 
 Colton had told her much, and everything was 
 of interest. She knew nothing of the mountains, 
 nothing of the people who lived in them. Since 
 she had lived at the Capitol, she had watched the 
 raftsmen coming down the river; once, she had 
 seen a crowd of dusty, wild-looking men empty 
 from the train under charge of an officer, and she 
 had been told that they were moonshiners ; that 
 was all. No more did she know of the highlands 
 of the east, and no more of the people who 
 sprang from them. But Colton the subject 
 was getting to be a hobby with him had told 
 her all he knew and much more. Her personal 
 43 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 interest in Stallard helped her interest in his peo 
 ple. He was the first mountaineer she had seen 
 close at hand. The second was in her garden 
 before her, and she had no way of knowing that 
 both were exceptional. The convict was young 
 and rather good-looking. He had a mat of 
 close-cut black hair and a swarthy face. His 
 eyes were dark, bright, open, and frankly curious. 
 The face was almost good, except for the small^ 
 loose, beautiful mouth, which, with all its easy 
 good-humor, showed to a close study as sensual 
 and rather cruel. She had hesitated at first about 
 giving him orders. 
 
 " Ah, what is your name, please? " 
 
 * Buck/ he said, without looking at her. 
 
 "Buck what ?" 
 
 " Buck s enough, hain t it? " he said, a little 
 surlily. 
 
 " Yes," she said v quietly. " I want you to go 
 on that side and hoe around those rose-bushes 
 there." 
 
 The young fellow went to work without a 
 word. The trusties earn their liberty at a sacri 
 fice of the good opinion of their fellow-prisoners ; 
 but the young mountaineer was sick for the open 
 air; moreover, he was doing a woman s work 
 under a woman s supervision; and he was not 
 pleased. He worked very well, but he seemed 
 weak. His cheeks soon took on a high color; he 
 44 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 breathed hard, and he looked feverish. The 
 stripes must be hot and suffocating, Anne 
 thought on a sudden, and she spoke to him again 
 very kindly. 
 
 " You must stop awhile now; the sun is too 
 hot. Sit down there and rest." 
 
 The convict sat down readily enough. Anne 
 turned away to look across the street and nod to 
 a passing friend, and, when she turned back, he 
 was looking with boyish directness straight at 
 her. 
 
 " Hit s Buck Stallard." 
 
 The girl started. Then it dawned that the 
 abrupt giving of his name was an apology, and 
 she smiled. 
 
 " You come from Roland County? " 
 
 The boy nodded. " Yes," he said. 
 
 41 That s where all the trouble is going on? " 
 
 " Yes." She wondered why he didn t say, 
 " Yes, ma am." " That s what I m doin over 
 thar," he went on, with a jerk of his thumb to 
 ward the prison. "* Thar s two of us in thar, 
 an I reckon thar ll be more, ef the boys at home 
 don t watch out." 
 
 Most of the prisoners would say they were in 
 for fighting, for manslaughter even, rather than 
 confess to theft or some other petty crime a 
 curious commentary on the public sentiment with 
 in and without the sombre walls. Anne knew 
 45 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 that, but she had little doubt that in this case the 
 convict was telling the truth, and she was inured 
 to the point where she did not shrink. 
 
 " Ever heerd o Boone Stallard? " 
 
 The question took her off guard, and the next 
 moment she felt herself coloring under the boy s 
 keen look. 
 
 " Yes," she said, calmly; " I heard him make 
 a speech the other day." 
 
 " Did ye? " he asked, smiling. " Thar hain t 
 nobody as can down Boone on languige. Me an 
 Boone s kin," he said, a little proudly, but he 
 was watching her closely and feeling his way 
 with care. " We s all kin down thar." 
 
 That was what her father had said, and she 
 herself knew what it was to have many kins- 
 people, and a few of whom she was not proud. 
 
 " Has he ever taken part in the feud? " she 
 asked; and again the boy eyed her cautiously. 
 
 " Naw," he said, frankly, satisfied with his in 
 spection. " Boone s al ays a-tryin to git us fel 
 lers to quit. Boone s fer law an order ever 
 time, Boone is. Thar hain t nobody down thar 
 like Boone. He ain t afeerd nother. Ever body 
 knows that. He s plum crazy bout the sanctaty 
 of the law an his dooty that s somep n he 
 picked up from you furriners when he was out 
 in the settlemints, I reckon. He ll git into it 
 some o these days now, you see ; fer he ll go ef 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 he thinks he ought to. An then thar ll be Billy- 
 hell to pay. You see ! " 
 
 Again the girl started, but the boy was look 
 ing away in complete innocence of giving offence, 
 absorbed no doubt in picturing just what would 
 happen should Boone Stallard some day take 
 part. She remembered, too, that Colton said 
 the mountaineers still talked even before their 
 women with Anglo-Saxon freedom, and that 
 their oaths were little more to them than slang 
 was to the outside world. 
 
 " Boone s about the only Stallard as hain t in 
 it; and Stallards air as thick down thar as red 
 heads in a deadenin ." 
 
 " As what! " 
 
 " Red-heads woodpeckers in a deadenin 
 a place whar folks have cut the bark off o 
 trees to kill em. The red-heads goes thar cause 
 hit s easier fer J em to peck holes in dead trees. 
 Sometimes I think you furriners knows most 
 ever thing, an ag in you don t seem to know 
 much." Anne came near laughing aloud. Here 
 was a character. 
 
 " What makes you fight that way? " 
 
 The boy laughed. " Well, suppose some sorry 
 feller was to shoot your brother or your dad 
 dy, an the high-sheriff was afeerd o him an 1 
 wouldn t arrest him, whut would you do ? You 
 know mighty well. You d just go git yo gun 
 47 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 an let him have it. That s what. Then mebbe 
 his brother would layway you ; an all yo folks 
 ud git mad an take hit up; an things ud git 
 frolicsome ginerally. Whut s yo name ? " 
 
 The girl had to answer, the question was 
 asked with such frank trust. " Anne Bruce." 
 
 The boy repeated the name mechanically, and 
 then looked at the work he had done. " Whut 
 you want to raise so many flowers fer, Anne? 
 Whyn t you put that ground in corn ? " 
 
 The girl reddened in spite of her amusement. 
 " You must call me Miss Anne or Miss Bruce," 
 she said, quietly. 
 
 " Miz Anne," repeated the boy. " Who ever 
 heerd o sech a thing? " He would have laughed 
 had not her face been so serious. " All right," 
 he said, placidly. u But we don t call no woman 
 4 Miz whar I come from ceptin they s purty 
 ole or is married. You ain t ole enough, / know ; 
 an you ain t married, is ye ? " 
 
 Anne flushed slightly, but there was not a 
 trace of impudence in his tone, and she could not 
 bring herself to rebuke his childlike curiosity. 
 " No, I m not married," she said, simply. 
 
 But the boy saw something was wrong, and 
 with a look of sudden ill-humor rose to his work. 
 His depression was momentary; he seemed to 
 have the light-hearted irresponsibility of the in 
 sane. Already he was humming to himself in a 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 mournful minor; it was something about " wild 
 roses* 1 ; the intervals were strange to her ear, 
 and the tune seemed to move through at least 
 three keys. Anne remembered the folk songs 
 that Colton said the mountaineers still sang: 
 
 " To jump in the river and drown " 
 
 that was the last sorrowful line; and tken he 
 veered to something lively, singing words that 
 she could barely hear : 
 
 " Chickens a-crowin on Sourwood Mountain, 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dahdy-dee! 
 Git yo* dogs an* we ll go him tin , 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dahdy-dee ! " 
 
 It had the darky s rhythm and the darky s way 
 of dropping into the minor on the third line, 
 while the swing of the last was like the far-away 
 winding of a horn, and it was to ring in her ears 
 for years to come. He was changing now, and 
 she smiled. Colton had sung that to her; he 
 called it " The Dying Injunction of Johnnie 
 
 Buck." 
 
 " Oh, Johnnie Buck is dead, 
 
 An* the last words he said 
 Was, never let yo* woman have her way." 
 
 There was but one verse, and he sang it over 
 and over while she watched him, trying to real 
 ize, to understand, what Colton said; that in this 
 
 49 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 age, this day, this hour ; in her own land, her own 
 State, and within the two days gallop of a thor 
 oughbred of her own home, were people living 
 like the pioneers, singing folk-songs centuries 
 old, talking the speech of Chaucer, and loving, 
 hating, fighting, and dying like the clans of Scot 
 land. It was very strange and interesting, and 
 for no reason she sighed deeply. The town clock 
 was striking noon. 
 
 " You d better go to dinner now," she said, 
 " and come back this afternoon." 
 
 " This whut? " The mountaineer s day has 
 no afternoon. 
 
 " This evening." 
 
 " Aw ! " Again the boy laughed frankly. 
 Just then the Governor was passing into the 
 Mansion. " Who is that ole feller? " 
 
 " You mustn t say * old fellow. You must 
 say old gentleman. That s my father." 
 
 "Well, I be durned! Can he pardin me 
 out?" 
 
 " Yes, he could, if there were a good reason." 
 
 The convict was looking intently at the Gov 
 ernor as he passed through the door. His face 
 had grown sullen and there was a new fire in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " An I never knowed it till yestiddy," he mut 
 tered; " an my time most done. Hit ain t 
 right," he said, fiercely. 
 
 50 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 For the moment he forgot the girl, and he 
 wheeled quickly to her with a sudden fear that 
 he had uncovered himself to a possible enemy, 
 and bent his sharp black eyes full on her. She 
 was puzzled by the change in his face, but she 
 gave him a kindly nod and turned toward the 
 house. 
 
 Boone Stallard was passing the gate, as he al 
 ways did at that hour, going to his dinner. The 
 young trusty called him by his first name and 
 Stallard stopped, but the two did not shake 
 hands. The mountaineer spoke to Anne without 
 raising his hat. 
 
VI 
 
 I7V3R the time, peace down in the mountains 
 J/ took away the cause of war between Mar 
 shall and Stallard at the capital, but hardly a 
 question came up in the House but the tendency 
 was plain in both men to take opposing sides; 
 and always the personal note of enmity was 
 frankly dominant. In consequence, Anne looked 
 forward with some anxiety to the night of her 
 dinner the dinner to which Stallard had prom 
 ised to come. He was deeply mortified, Colton 
 told her, over his failure to answer her note ; so 
 to show that she forgave him, she had asked him 
 again. She feared nothing openly disagreeable ; 
 Marshall would not suffer himself, under her 
 roof, to be drawn into that : still, the mountain 
 eer s blunt hostility might keep her continually on 
 guard and put the table under unpleasant re 
 straint ; for the feeling between the two men was 
 public talk, as her interest in the mountaineer 
 was getting to be. 
 
 To Marshall, then, she gave the seat of honor. 
 Colton sat on her left. Stallard she placed at 
 her father s right, and next Katherine Craig. 
 
 52 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A rather talkative newspaper man, a meteor 
 from the North whom Colton had caught while 
 he was still blazing, and who, for Colton s sake, 
 was there, sat midway. Anne could not reckon 
 as to him, being an unknown quantity, and she 
 little dreamed that he was to be the dangerous 
 link of communication which she found necessary 
 to sever with a tactful stroke. He was making 
 a trip through the South to get a comprehensive 
 grasp of the negro question; and, incidentally, 
 to turn a search-light on the origin and condition 
 of the poor whites. That was, in effect, what she 
 heard him tell the Episcopal minister as they 
 were rising to go out to dinner. Now the clergy 
 man, who sat opposite him, was resuming the 
 subject. 
 
 " How long shall you stay? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, about six weeks, I suppose," was the 
 careless answer. 
 
 " Stay as long as I have," said the minister, 
 with a pleasant smile, " and perhaps you won t 
 write anything." 
 
 The journalist realized that he was talking to 
 a Northern man, and his face lighted up. 
 
 " Why, how long have you been South? " 
 
 " Six years," was the dry answer, and Anne 
 smiled. 
 
 Throughout the meal she watched the moun 
 taineer closely. His face was placid and grave, 
 
 S3 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 but his eyes were busy. Nothing escaped them. 
 He did nothing that he did not see done first; 
 and she saw him waiting more than once to learn 
 what it was proper to do. It was plain that he 
 would get along; indeed, he had got along. 
 That she noticed when he entered the drawing- 
 room ; and now Colton, with the kindliest humor, 
 was calling her attention to the fact, while Mar 
 shall was engaged with his right-hand neighbor. 
 " IVe been tempering the cyclone to the shorn 
 lamb of conventionality," he said. " IVe got 
 him down out of the clouds now, and he roars 
 gently. IVe got his hair cut; and did you ob 
 serve his patent-leathers? I tied that four-in- 
 hand. He had a ready-made bow of yellow satin. 
 I ll get him out of that Prince Albert pretty 
 
 soon." 
 
 " He surely has improved. How did you 
 manage it so quickly? " 
 
 The question was mechanical. She knew Col- 
 ton as one of the few who can give advice with 
 out offence to anybody; but she was watching 
 the Northern journalist, who was vigorously 
 haranguing Reynolds of the geological corps. 
 Several times she saw his lips frame the word 
 " mountaineer." 
 
 " Oh, he was easy work. He went to the uni 
 versity at Lexington. But he s been down in the 
 mountains so long since then that he has lapsed 
 
 54 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 into original sin. That s easy, Reynolds says, 
 down there. 7 
 
 Marshall turned just then, and Colton took 
 up the pink maiden on his left. Stallard was not 
 talking much. Most of the time he was shyly 
 listening to Katherine, who was doing her best 
 to engage him, or to the Governor; but now and 
 then he would turn his eyes toward Anne, and 
 she was pleased. Once she gave him a friendly 
 smile and, from his sudden color, she knew that 
 his looking had been unconscious, and that, too, 
 pleased her. The talking was so spirited all 
 round the table that there seemed to be no pos 
 sible occasion for the two men to come into con 
 tact. She began to wonder how she could have 
 feared it : it was hardly possible at the table, and 
 only by accident could they clash in the drawing- 
 room; and then she was quite sure that Colton 
 had warned the mountaineer on this point as well. 
 It was just while she was giving a long sigh of 
 relief that one of those curious lulls came that 
 are said to silence a table of people either twenty 
 minutes before or twenty minutes after the clock 
 strikes an hour. Anne gave a low, nervous laugh 
 that made Colton turn quickly toward her. The 
 meteor was sputtering through the sudden quiet. 
 
 " No," he said, with emphasis. " The ac 
 cepted theory of the origin of the mountaineer, 
 particularly of the Kentucky mountaineer, is that 
 
 55 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 he is the descendant " He had got that far 
 when he became conscious of the intense silence, 
 that everybody was listening, and that Stallard s 
 calm eyes were on him. Anne was trembling 
 when, to her relief, the mountaineer smiled. He 
 had learned a great deal. " of exported 
 paupers and convicts, indents, and * pore white 
 trash/ " he said, quietly and quite impersonally. 
 " I don t wonder that the theory has got abroad, 
 because so little is known of the mountaineer and 
 
 the effect of his environment, but I think " 
 
 " Allow me," said Reynolds, opposite, who 
 was sunbrowned and wore spectacles. " That is 
 a very foolish theory. Some of them are the 
 descendants of those people, of course. There 
 are more of them in the mountains than in the 
 blue-grass, naturally; but the chief differences be 
 tween them and us come from the fact that they 
 have been shut off from the world absolutely for 
 more than a hundred years. Take out the cav 
 alier element, and, in rank and file, we were 
 originally the same people. Until a man has 
 lived a year at a time in the mountains he doesn t 
 know what a thin veneer civilization is. It goes 
 on and off like a glove, especially off. Put twenty 
 average blue-grass families down in the moun 
 tains half a dozen miles from one another, take 
 away their books, keep them there, with no 
 schools and no churches, for a hundred years, 
 
 56 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 and they will be as ignorant and lawless as the 
 mountaineer " with a nod of " saving your 
 presence" to Stallard "and, with similar 
 causes, fighting one another just the same." 
 
 It was a bold speech, but nobody there had the 
 better right to make it, for none there was of 
 better blood. The pure gratitude in Stallard s 
 face was pathetic. Marshall had grown grave, 
 and Anne saw a paleness about his lips. 
 
 " You mustn t say a word," she said, seriously, 
 but she spoke too late. 
 
 " Would we be assassinating one another 
 from ambush, too?" he asked, with his lids 
 lowered and quietly, but in a way that made 
 Stallard lay down his fork, drop his hands into 
 his lap, and wait. 
 
 A look from Anne stopped Reynolds s answer. 
 <4 Vou mustn t go any further now," she said, 
 laughingly, " or I ll have to take part; and I 
 don t know whose part I should take. My great- 
 great-ra*/-grandmother lived in a log cabin 
 didn t she, papa? and did her own cooking. 
 They went back into the mountains for a while, 
 when game got scarce in the blue-grass. Sup 
 pose they had stayed. I might be a mountaineer 
 myself, and be in a feud. Dear me, somebody 
 might be calling me * pore white trash ! " 
 
 The light manner of the girl was serious 
 enough to comfort Stallard unspeakably. It 
 57 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 held Marshall back with a humor that had no 
 sting for him. Reynolds was smiling; Colton, 
 dissolved in quiet wonder. 
 
 The meteor, after flickering once or twice like 
 a dying tallow dip, had encountered a dangerous 
 light in Stallard s eye and had quite gone out. 
 The storm-cloud was gone, and the men were 
 left to their cigars. Stallard did not smoke, and 
 the Governor took him to the library, across the 
 hall. Two State senators had Marshall between 
 them over an axe they wanted the lower house 
 to grind. The journalist and the clergyman had 
 drawn together, and Reynolds had Colton and 
 two others at the end of the table, and was telling 
 a story. Anne sat near the folding-doors, which 
 were slightly ajar, and, as the ladies opposite 
 were on some domestic theme and taking in her 
 presence only now and then with a glance, she 
 could not help hearing; and after the first words 
 she frankly listened. 
 
 " Maybe you can use it, Colton," Reynolds 
 was saying. You remember I was captain of 
 the football club at the university? Well, one 
 day, at the beginning of the season, one of the 
 fellows got hurt, and I had to take a green sub 
 stitute. There were only some Bible students 
 out there looking on the fellows, you know, 
 who dye their linen dusters for overcoats in win- ,. 
 ter and one of them stepped out. I don t 
 
 58 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 know the game, pardner, he said, but I reckon 
 I can tote that ball wherever you wants me. It 
 was funny to hear him drawl it out ; but he was 
 a big chap, and I took him. The ball did come 
 to him presently, and he got it off the ground. 
 
 * Whar d ye say take it ? he asked, holding it 
 above his head, while two little fellows on the 
 other side were jumping up after it like dogs for 
 a piece of bread. * Run for the goal ! I yelled. 
 
 * Whut, them stakes ? he drawled. Yes, you 
 fool, run ! He gave me one look as much as to 
 say, * Well, I ll attend to you presently ; and 
 then he started, with the ball in one hand and 
 knocking men right and left with the other, just 
 as though they were tenpins, and everybody yell 
 ing, * foul. He never stopped. One man was 
 on his back and two were swinging to his waist, 
 when he was within ten feet of the goal. He 
 thought he had to go under it, and he staggered 
 those ten feet sidewise and, with the crowd on 
 him, got through. * Is that the game, pardner? 
 he asked, when the boys let him up. * Well, I 
 reckon I can do that all day. Hit s purty hard 
 on a feller s clothes, though. And we could 
 never get him to play again. He said he hadn t 
 the time, but I believe it was his clothes (we 
 didn t have football suits in those days). He 
 came around to see me about calling him a fool, 
 and I wasn t long apologizing, either. Well, 
 
 59 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 that fellow came over into the College of Arts 
 and turned out a remarkable orator. He ac 
 tually made his speech at Commencement from 
 a slip of notes in his hand." 
 
 Colton was nodding his head. " I remem 
 ber/ he said. 
 
 " Well, Colton, that fellow was your cyclone. 
 That was why I stood up for him. 7 
 
 Anne heard Colton s exclamation of surprise, 
 and then no more ; but she had been busy with 
 memories, too, and a mystery was clearing. Once 
 more it was Marshall s Commencement day. 
 Again she felt the stifling heat and saw the por 
 tico, her parasol on the flight of steps, and the 
 boy against one of the big pillars, with his fixed 
 stare and his head of unruly black hair. The inci 
 dent came vividly back while Reynolds was tell 
 ing the story, and she looked at Stallard closely 
 when the men came back into the drawing-room. 
 It was quite possible; she would learn if he were 
 the same. It was an odd cast of fate if he were. 
 
 Marshall went at once to the piano to select 
 a song for her. He could both sing and play, 
 but he would rarely do either. Music and art, 
 for men, at least, are yet in serious disfavor 
 through the South, and it is not wise for a man, 
 with the serious purpose of law or politics be 
 fore him, to show facility in light accomplish 
 ments. When Anne sang, Stallard s eyes never 
 
 60 
 
Marshall went at once to the piano* 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 left her face. He was leaning against a column 
 at the entrance to the dining-room, with his 
 hands behind him, his shoulders fallen forward, 
 his head sunk back, his lips slightly apart and 
 once more Anne saw the young rustic against the 
 pillar, and met his curious look again. Only, 
 when she smiled now, there was in his eyes some 
 thing new, personal, eager, softened, and, on a 
 sudden, a surprised flash of such unreckoning 
 intensity that she faltered in her song, and did 
 not look toward him again. The guests rose 
 to go soon after she was done, but Stallard stood 
 where he was; and when Colton called him by 
 name and he turned, his eyes looked as though 
 he had been suddenly awakened from sleep. The 
 two passed Marshall on their way to Anne, but 
 Stallard seemed not even to see him. He was 
 still looking at Anne, who gave him a friendly, 
 half-frightened smile, and passed him on with 
 Colton. Marshall stayed behind. The moun 
 taineer could hardly find his hat in the hallway 
 and, as he started out, he turned again as though 
 he would go back into the parlor. He seemed 
 dazed. 
 
 " I believe " he said, hesitatingly, and Col 
 ton, wondering what the matter was and fearing 
 that he might do some breach of propriety, took 
 him by the arm and led him out the door and into 
 the starlight. 
 
 61 
 
VII 
 
 THE next week Stallard disappeared alto 
 gether. Marshall, too, was rarely in evi 
 dence, through a fixed principle of his. One of 
 Anne s suitors had come in from another part 
 of the State, and Marshall, after showing the 
 stranger every possible courtesy, as was his cus 
 tom with his rivals, hospitably left the field. 
 After the following Sunday, the stranger was 
 gone the way of so many strangers before him, 
 and Marshall smiled and resumed his visits to 
 the Mansion. But Stallard stayed on in hiding. 
 He came once to pay his dinner call, but that was 
 plainly Colton s doing; several others were there, 
 and Anne said nothing to the mountaineer alone. 
 She had asked him to come again, and he had 
 not come. Colton said he was hard at work, 
 Katherine thought him shy, and Anne regretted 
 that she had not been more friendly. 
 
 Several times the young trusty had been over 
 to hoe in the garden. Anne made many efforts 
 to find his conscience, to implant therein a seed 
 of regeneration, but she soon gave him up as 
 hopeless. She was astonished by his knowledge 
 
 62 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 of the Scriptures for sometimes the mountain 
 eer knows the great book from cover to cover 
 and by the distant application of them to his per 
 sonal life. He had " heerd all that afore," he 
 said, with some superiority. " He had wrastled 
 with the Sperit, an he couldn t come through. 
 He was jus a-snortin fer conviction, he was." 
 Once she asked him why they did not settle their 
 quarrels down in the mountains with their fists 
 instead of with knives and pistols as though 
 her own people did that 
 
 " All right," he said. " S posin a feller does 
 somep n to you. You go fer him fist an skull, 
 gougin and bitin . You gits whooped ! " he con 
 cluded, triumphantly. 
 
 " Well," she said, " that isn t a disgrace." 
 
 " All right. Then s posin , the next time he 
 sees ye, he crows over ye. What you goin to do 
 then?" 
 
 The problem, aside from religion, which had 
 to be laid aside, was insoluble. The boy was an 
 interesting puzzle to her. He was so frank a 
 heathen. His wickedness was such a thing of 
 impulse and odd reasoning. His curiosity was so 
 absurdly childlike, so removed from imperti 
 nence. He never made a word of thanks for the 
 little things she gave him, and yet she saw that 
 he was not unappreciative. He repressed his 
 frankness of speech a good deal, and he showed 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 his consideration in other little ways. A quicker 
 native intelligence she had never seen. His na 
 ture was alert, f oxlike, elusive ; and his sense of 
 humor was a strange thing. He was constantly 
 picking up little differences between her life and 
 speech and his at home. He heard somebody 
 call " pants " trousers, for instance, and over 
 that he had a fit of derisive laughter. Indeed, 
 what amused her most was his perfect com 
 placence with his way of life and thinking; his 
 unquestioning faith that his way was the right 
 way, and any other way justly a matter of sur 
 prise, comment and ridicule. It suggested to 
 Anne parallelisms elsewhere, as circles widen, 
 and helped her own breadth of view in judging 
 him. What the boy had done to be in prison she 
 did not know. She had not thought to ask her 
 father; she could not ask the boy the first morn 
 ing he came; and, after that, she thought she 
 would rather not know, for his own sake and 
 for the sake of his kinsman, Boone. 
 
 Meanwhile the days lengthened, and Anne 
 took long drives in the slow twilights, sometimes 
 with Marshall, but usually with Katherine 
 Craig; and the constant cry of the mountaineer s 
 nature for open air led Boone Stallard on long 
 walks into the fields to keep his blood running 
 and his brain clear. Often Anne, with Marshall 
 or with Katherine, met the mountaineer miles 
 
THE KEOTUCKIANS 
 
 from town, striding the road with his hat off; 
 and sometimes, driving alone, she caught a 
 glimpse of his big frame moving across Arnold s 
 Wold in the late dusk. That was as close as she 
 ever saw him ; for resolutely he kept his distance 
 from her, and the tractive force of novelty had 
 its effect with Anne. She wanted to see the man 
 again and to talk with him. It was a fact, frank 
 ly confessed to Katherine to anybody who 
 would not have misunderstood her. She was 
 curious about his past, his purpose, his people. 
 So overtaking Colton with the mountaineer one 
 afternoon on the edge of town, she and Kather 
 ine took them both into the carriage and drove 
 down the river and out through the Benson Hills. 
 It was like crossing the border-line of her life and 
 his when they passed a little cross-roads store. 
 Several horses were hitched to the fence near by. 
 Several men were whittling on the high stoop* 
 More were pitching horseshoes up the dirt road, 
 and at the blacksmith s shop beyond three stal 
 wart young fellows and a fat old farmer were 
 playing marbles. Stallard smiled as though the 
 scene were familiar. A little farther on was a 
 two-roomed house, half of which was built of 
 logs. At the wood-pile and leaning on his axe, 
 was a tall, gaunt fellow, with a sunburnt blond 
 beard, his trousers in his boots, and the brim of 
 his slouched hat curved over his forehead. Far- 
 
 65 
 
THE KENTUCKIAN8 
 
 ther still, a mile or more, they came upon a log 
 cabin with a grape-vine over the door. An old 
 woman, with a basket on one arm, was pushing 
 through the rickety gate. She turned her face 
 toward them as they passed, and peered as 
 though she were straining her eyes through dark 
 ness. 
 
 " Howdy, mother? " said Stallard. 
 
 The old woman gave some quavering answer, 
 and Stallard looked back once. It was the first 
 time he had opened his lips, and the kindness of 
 his voice touched Anne. 
 
 " Some people down in these hills are like 
 your people, Stallard," said Colton. " I don t 
 know whether they floated down the river, or 
 whether it s because it s just hilly down here. 
 They don t have as many curious words as you 
 folks have ; they don t have feuds ; and they don t 
 call the blue-grass the settlemints, and us blue- 
 grass people * furriners, but otherwise they are 
 pretty much the same." 
 
 Several times Katherine, who sat with Stallard 
 on the rear seat of the old-fashioned victoria, 
 had tried to draw him out; and now Colton s 
 purpose apparently was to start the mountaineer 
 talking, but he only laughed good-naturedly at 
 the differentiating characterization that Colton 
 tossed off, and settled back into silence. 
 
 " It s all isolation," Colton went on; " that s 
 66 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 what Reynolds was going to say the other night. 
 Isolation arrests development, crystallizes char 
 acter, makes a people deteriorate. That s his 
 idea, and he says the Kentucky mountaineer has 
 been the most isolated of all the Southern moun 
 taineers of whom, by the way, there are about 
 three millions, with a territory as big as the 
 German Empire. He has seen fringed hunting- 
 shirts, moccasins, and coon-skin caps in the moun 
 tains at this late day. He swears that an old 
 mountaineer once told him about the discovery 
 of America by Columbus. Reynolds listened, 
 solemn as an owl. The old chap called himself 
 a * citizen, Reynolds a * furriner, and Columbus 
 one of the * outlandish. He was a sort of patri 
 arch in his district, a philosopher; he was the 
 man who delivered the facts of progress to the 
 people about him, and it never occurred to him 
 that anybody as young as Reynolds might know 
 about Columbus. The old fellow talked about 
 the Mexican war as though it had been over 
 about ten years, and when he got down to the 
 Secession, well, he actually hitched his chair up 
 to Reynolds s and dropped his voice to a whis 
 per. * Some folks had other idees, he said, c but 
 hit was his pussonal opinion that niggahs was 
 the cause of the war. Think of it ! And when 
 Reynolds left, the old man followed him out to 
 the fence: Stranger, he said, * I d ruther you 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 wouldn t say nothin about what I been tellin* 
 ye/ He was one of the few rebel sympathizers 
 in that neighborhood, and he feared violence at 
 that late day for talking too freely about the war. 
 Reynolds claims that the mountaineers were 
 loyal to the Union in 61 because they hadn t got 
 over the fight of 1776, and that these feuds are 
 the spent force of the late war. There were 
 more slave-holders among the Kentucky moun 
 taineers ; for that reason, they were more evenly 
 divided among themselves ; the war issue became 
 a personal one, and isolation kept them fighting. 
 So you have to go back to the Revolution to 
 understand the mountaineer, and you must give 
 him a lonely century in which to deteriorate be 
 fore you can judge him fairly. Consider his 
 isolation, says Reynolds, and the wonder is not 
 that he is so bad, but that he isn t worse." 
 
 Colton could imitate the dialect well, and 
 Anne listened with amused interest. Stallard 
 laughed and nodded affirmatively, but all the 
 while his eyes were on the passing fields. They 
 had turned off from the river now and through 
 the hills into Anne s land the blue-grass. Back 
 toward the town was a soft haze ; before them, 
 all was clear and brilliant. They had left the lo 
 cust blossoms dropping meaninglessly into the 
 streets. Here in the fields, Nature was making 
 ready for the days when she can sit with folded 
 68 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 hands, brooding and happy over work that is all 
 but done. The blue-grass was purpling into soft 
 seas, that rocked as proudly in the wind as the 
 heading wheat and barley and the young green 
 oats, whose silver-gray would be the last passing 
 sheen of the summer s glory. Already the rifled 
 clover blossoms were drooping their heads as 
 the gray spikes of timothy shot exultantly above 
 them. Now and then, from the road-side, came 
 the low, sweet, aimless plaint of a little brown 
 songster, whose name Anne had never learned. 
 Two kingbirds were chasing a crow toward a 
 woodland. Out in the meadow, a starling was 
 poised over his nesting mate, balancing against 
 the breeze, and swearing fealty for one happy 
 month by the crimson on his wings. Quail were 
 calling from the wheat, and larks were wheeling 
 and singing everywhere. Sturdy farm-houses of 
 plain brick stood out here and there from the 
 sunlit fields, and now and then an avenue of lo 
 custs gave sight of a portico with great pillars 
 running two stories high. It was a scene of rich 
 peace and plenty, and Stallard s interest was 
 eager, but Anne noticed his face sadden. She 
 remembered this afterward, as she recalled 
 other impressions of the drive, when she had a 
 key to the meaning of them. Once only, when 
 one of the mountaineer s questions to Colton 
 showed how well he knew the country, could she 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ask him if he had not been to the blue-grass be 
 fore. 
 
 You went to the university, didn t you? 1 
 she said. 
 
 The careless query seemed almost to startle 
 him. He turned quickly to her and, for the first 
 time, looked straight into her eyes. 
 
 " Yes," he said, simply, and he seemed to be 
 waiting for another question that was on Anne s 
 lips ; but his look now brought back a sharp mem 
 ory of his face on the night of the dinner, and 
 made her shrink from the question before Colton 
 and Katherine, as she knew she would shrink if 
 she were with him alone. If he were the same, 
 and if, as she suspected, he remembered her, why 
 was he so palpably making of the matter such a 
 mystery ? 
 
 It was a short, swift ride, but nobody guessed 
 the significance of it to the mountaineer. Only 
 Anne noticed that when they turned from the 
 gray haze settling over the blue-grass ahead of 
 them, back to the smoke haze over the town, 
 Stallard sank into a moodier silence still; and 
 when they reached the darkening hills, some 
 thing in his face assailed her once more with an 
 unaccountable pity for him. They were passing 
 the old woman s cabin at the time, and Anne s 
 eyes followed his through the open door, where 
 the old granny was bending over a fire, and the 
 
 70 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 light showed the rude table set for the rude sup 
 per, and other hard details of the room. To her 
 it was merely a passing picture etched by the light 
 against a dark little ravine, but had she known 
 the memories it brought to Stallard, she would 
 have understood the sudden shadow in his face. 
 The quick throb of her sympathy then made her 
 shake off straightway what she chose to regard 
 as a silly fear; and when they stopped at the 
 Mansion, and Colton was climbing out, she said 
 to Stallard, quite frankly : 
 
 " I wish you would come to see me. I want 
 to know all about the mountains and the feuds 
 and everything." 
 
 Stallard did not answer at once, but looked 
 at her so long and so searchingly that she began 
 to flush, and Katherine, from sheer embarrass 
 ment, rose quickly to take Colton s outstretched 
 hand, so little did the mountaineer seem at that 
 moment to be aware of her presence or to care 
 who might hear what he said. 
 
 " I ll tell you anything on earth you want to 
 know some day." 
 
 The tone of his voice made Colton start, and 
 brought dead silence to the four. 
 
 Marshall was coming down the steps, and in 
 stinctively Anne covered her confusion with a 
 Icok of dismay to Katherine; she had had an en 
 gagement with Marshall; she was getting back 
 
 71 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 too late, and he would be angry. Seeing him, 
 Stallard, who had stepped to the pavement, 
 turned sharply from Anne, who was waiting for 
 him to help her out, and held his eyes on Mar 
 shall until the latter was several paces down the 
 street. It was a strange thing to do, and it mys 
 tified even Colton : but it was merely the moun 
 taineer in him that made him keep his face with 
 watchful suspicion on his enemy; it showed 
 progress in the hostility between the two, and it 
 was partly in answer to the half-contemptuous 
 flash that Marshall gave Stallard, as he coldly 
 lifted his hat. 
 
VIII 
 
 BUT again Stallard did not come, and again 
 Anne forgave him. He was exceptional; 
 he was busy ; he was shy and he was not shy ; 
 there were a thousand things in addition to the 
 one that was important: she became quite sure 
 that he was avoiding her for some definite reason, 
 and that bothered her a good deal. Once she 
 met him for a moment on the steps of the Capi 
 tol and, with intentional lightness, she reminded 
 him of his broken promise. That time he took 
 her words with a seriousness not so deadly ; and, 
 thereafter, as the days went by, her fear abated 
 and her interest grew. 
 
 Just now she was sitting on the old, worn 
 steps of the ancient Hannah mansion. The blue- 
 grass was rich under the trees around her, the 
 birds were singing as though love were going to 
 live forever, and the soft air was like some com 
 forting human presence. As she rose to start 
 home, she saw Stallard emerge from the old 
 wooden bridge, and she sat down again. The 
 session was doubtless just over and he was going 
 for a walk. He passed along the other side of 
 
 73 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the street without seeing her, and in a moment 
 she rose again. She knew her motive when she 
 hesitated at the gate and turned the same way, 
 smiling indulgently at herself as she walked 
 along, and, a little later, smiling at chance, which 
 is sometimes genial, when she saw that she would 
 meet Stallard where one road turns down the 
 river and another winds up the hill. The moun 
 taineer had been down one way ; had changed his 
 mind and was coming back. She stepped from 
 the sidewalk to take the road up the hill, with her 
 face turned to him to speak and expecting him to 
 keep his course ; but, without looking up and not 
 hearing her light step, he turned, too, and they 
 met in the middle of the road. 
 
 " Are we going the same way? " she asked, 
 without calling him by name. 
 
 Surprise a mountaineer and you startle him. 
 It is an inherited trait of people who live primi 
 tive lives among the hills and must be on the 
 alert for an enemy. Instantly Stallard s hands 
 were withdrawn from his pockets and a watch 
 ful light quickened in his eyes. 
 
 " Well," he said, " you skeered mel " 
 
 It was the slip of surprise, but Colton had 
 made even vulgarisms like this tolerable for her. 
 Much of the mountaineer s speech was simply 
 obsolete elsewhere, he had explained. The 
 mountaineer clung to old customs, old words, 
 74 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 old pronunciations, because new ones had never 
 reached him. Certain words were no more in 
 correct than certain customs were immoral. In 
 the outer world, both were old-fashioned merely. 
 
 " I m goin up on the hill," he said, with a 
 gesture. " Are you?" 
 
 " Yes," she said, simply, for in the fraction 
 of time between his speech and hers she so made 
 up her mind. 
 
 The smooth-beaten turnpike, shining like 
 metal ahead of them, was canopied with inter 
 woven branches and dappled with the sunlight 
 that fell through them. Hill, tree, and the sing 
 ing of birds were on the right hand, and the 
 town lay under its haze of smoke to the left. It 
 is against etiquette in the mountains for a young 
 man and a young woman to stroll unchaperoned 
 in the woods a guardian seems necessary only 
 for the extremes of civilization and when 
 Anne suggested turning aside to look for flowers, 
 the mountaineer hesitated instinctively, and then, 
 with a subtler thought, pushed open the little 
 gate that swung from the body of an oak where 
 she had stopped. The leaves in the woods were 
 full, and the sunlight had the gold of autumn. 
 
 Stallard began drawing in his breath. " I 
 
 always come up here when I m homesick," he 
 
 said. " It makes me think of the mountains 
 
 these hills. There s a mountain tree there, and 
 
 75 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 there, and there s another," pointing out a lynn, 
 a chestnut, a beech. " There are mountain birds 
 up here, too" a polyglot chat was chuckling. 
 " Hear that? My father used to call that the 
 plough-bird. It goes up the trunk of a tree 
 Gee ! Haw ! first to the right and then to the 
 left; then it halts and clucks, just as though it 
 wanted a steer to move on. When it gets to 
 the branches, it drops down through the air as 
 though it were hurt, and begins all over again. 
 And this air " drawing it into his great chest 
 " I can smell the roots of that sassafras. 
 There s a spring up here, too. It s the only place 
 where I can get a good drink of water." 
 
 It seemed volubility, so long a speech, and it 
 gave Anne a surprise, as did the mountaineer s 
 change of manner. He was quite easy and un 
 conscious now, for he was with her alone, and he 
 was in the woods, where he was at home. They 
 were going up a path through a tangled thicket 
 of undergrowth. A little stream of water tinkled 
 down the ravine like a child prattling to itself, 
 and tinkled dreamily on through dark shadows 
 into the sunlight. A bluebird fluttered across it 
 and, high above them, a cardinal drew a sinuous 
 line of scarlet through the green gloom and 
 dropped with a splutter of fire into a cool pool. 
 
 "Well," laughed Stallard, "he s in my 
 spring." Somewhere out in the depths, just 
 
 76 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 then, rose cool, flutelike notes, as though satyrs 
 were teaching young fauns to play on reeds. 
 " That s another," said Stallard, delightedly. 
 " It s the first time I ve heard him. 1 don t 
 know what his name is." 
 
 " That s a wood-thrush," said Anne, stopping 
 at the base of a tree and sinking down on a root. 
 She had gathered only a few flowers, but she was 
 tired. 
 
 Stallard stretched his long length in the grass 
 below her. He was listening to the wood-thrush 
 and, for the moment, he forgot her, or he had 
 not learned that she let little pass unseen; for 
 she was following his mood as it became thought 
 ful, reminiscent, and passed finally into the deep 
 sadness she had noted on the drive. It was the 
 second time she had ever seen his face relax from 
 the fixed look that made it inscrutable as to all 
 else except some dominant purpose. It had noth 
 ing of the dreaming quality of Marshall s pen 
 sive moods, it was not temperamental; it came 
 from some definite, tangible source, for it got 
 bitter and hard as the mood held him, even after 
 the bird s gentle fluting ceased a moment and 
 again came like an echo from a distant glade. 
 
 " I think you must have forgotten, haven t 
 you ? " she asked, again playfully, to divest the 
 question, as well as the memory that it must 
 bring to both, of especial significance. 
 
 77 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 He knew what she meant. " Oh no." 
 
 " Well, then, it s a good time to begin. I m 
 waiting." She was pulling a stalk of blue-grass 
 from its casing, and Stallard turned to look full 
 at her. " Why do you want to know? " 
 
 It was well that she was doing something, or 
 the sudden question and the peculiar tone of it 
 would have taken her off guard. As it was, 
 there was no need for her eyelashes to lift until 
 the stalk came loose. Then she raised its white 
 base to her lips and bit it off quite calmly. 
 
 * You mustn t ask me reasons ; you must never 
 ask any woman reasons." 
 
 It was her first parry, and she saw that parry 
 ing with him was going to be difficult his 
 thrusts were so out of rule. He was looking at 
 her in a blunt, penetrating way, and she did not 
 lift her eyes until his face was turned again to 
 ward the faint piping of the thrush. She was 
 not ready to enter that question with herself, 
 much less with him. 
 
 " There ain t much to tell," he was saying, 
 slowly. " I live at the head-waters of the Cum 
 berland, where the mountains are purty steep. A 
 neighbor of mine fell out of his own corn-field 
 once and broke his neck. I went to school in a 
 log-house for three months in winter for three 
 years, working and studying at home between 
 times. I stopped then because I knew more than 
 
 78 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the man who was teaching the school. I made 
 enough money, logging, to get to the Bible col 
 lege at Lexington. I soon found out I wasn t 
 called to be a preacher, so I went over into the 
 College of Arts. I worked in the professors 
 gardens; I did my own cooking anything 
 everything. It took me six years, but I got 
 through. I went back home and I taught school 
 and I studied law. Then I practised at my coun 
 try-seat until I ran for the Legislature. That s 
 all." 
 
 That was all. It was a plain record of plain 
 facts, and Anne knew not half the tale of hard 
 ship that was left untold; what the bitter, patient 
 fight with the hard conditions of his birth had 
 been, she could not even guess. 
 
 " Yes, it was a purty hard row," he added, 
 simply, as though he were following her 
 thoughts; " but I d hoe it over again if it had to 
 be done for one reason, anyhow because I 
 can do more for my people. But for that I think, 
 sometimes, that I wouldn t, if I were back at the 
 beginning, knowing what I know now, and had 
 my choice. It nearly cost me my religion, and it 
 left me hung midway between heaven and hell. 
 Then I ve learned to rebel against what I can t 
 escape, and to value what I can never get." 
 
 Stallard s face settled back into reverie, and 
 there was a long silence so little was there that 
 
 79 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Anne could say. She was curious to know defi 
 nitely what he meant; he had opened the way, 
 whether purposely or not, for her to ask, but she 
 swerved from the question, and asked quite an 
 other : 
 
 " Where did you learn to speak? " 
 
 Stallard laughed. " I never learned. It s 
 natural, what there is of it. I used to pray in 
 meetin s when I was a boy. Then I used to speak 
 in college. I never could write a speech I have 
 to talk offhand. That s the way I made my 
 valedictory." He laughed again, and Anne gave 
 a little cry of surprise. 
 
 " Yes, I remember; that was you, too." 
 
 " You heard of that? " he asked. 
 
 "Who didn t?" was her answer, and Stal- 
 lard s face shone. 
 
 It was epoch-making in the history of valedic 
 tories at the old university that speech; and 
 the pathos of it was unintentional and quite un 
 conscious. A big, rough, manly countryman had 
 stepped out and spoken from a slip of notes in 
 his hand. He was not sorry to go, he said, 
 calmly. He had worked hard ; he had asked no 
 favors, incurred no obligation. He had come as 
 rough material ; he had paid for the privilege of 
 being planed down. The professors were paid 
 to plane him down. He had tried to do his duty ; 
 he believed they had done theirs. He had no 
 80 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 personal gratitude to express to anybody. Nor 
 had he any pathetic farewell to make to the peo 
 ple of the town. He had received no hospitality 
 at their hands. He had been under hardly a 
 single roof outside the campus. He knew the 
 face of hardly a woman before him. He had 
 not a word of complaint or blame. There was 
 no reason why the facts of his college life should 
 have been otherwise; only they were not. The 
 honor of the valedictory had not been conferred 
 on him by his classmates, nor by the professors, 
 nor by the people of the town. He had won that, 
 working for something else. He knew what the 
 valedictorian was expected to do. He had been 
 listening to valedictories for six years. He could 
 not doubt the sincerity of his predecessors, but 
 he must tell what was the truth for him; and 
 doing that, he could not follow them. He had 
 his little memories, associations, friendships; 
 they were few, but they were too sacred for him 
 to bid them farewell from that platform. He 
 had come an alien an alien he was going away. 
 And he was glad to go to get to other work. 
 He would have liked to give them high-wrought 
 sentiment, shining metaphors; to wring them 
 with the agony of farewell into tears even; but 
 he had to tell the truth. The truth was what he 
 had told, and more to tell there was not. So 
 speaking, he sat down. 
 
 81 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 The good old president sat through it bewil 
 dered and pained. The professor of English 
 looked mad. The bluff old professor of Greek 
 was laughing in his eyes and under his right 
 hand, which covered his mouth. The dean of 
 the Bible college, who had labored to save Stal- 
 lard s soul from perdition and his powers for 
 the church, was openly resentful and hurt ; while 
 the little man who helped experiments in the 
 laboratory was laughing in his sleeve at them all. 
 The same variety of results was perceptible in 
 the house. Only the editor of the town paper 
 and a few scattered bold spirits broke into ap 
 plause, but the hall hummed just the same, and 
 the speaker was the man of the day. 
 
 " Why, I m not a patchin to Sherd Raines," 
 Stallard went on " the fellow I roomed with at 
 college. He and I made a bargain when I found 
 out I wasn t * called. He said he d teach the 
 folks at home religion if Fd teach em law." 
 
 " What are you going to do what do you 
 want to do ? " 
 
 " My best, always, and let the rest go. I m 
 a fatalist, I reckon, as I found out when I studied 
 moral philosophy. I take what comes, if it is 
 better than what I have. I have my wishes, my 
 hopes, even a definite ambition; but I shan t 
 risk wrecking my life on it, especially when what 
 I most wish for I knew nothing of until it was 
 82 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 too late to acquire it, if it was not denied me 
 even to acquire it, when I was born." 
 
 He pulled down the brim of his hat and looked 
 away. Some instinct, some fear held her back 
 from asking just what he meant, and she watched 
 him, greatly puzzled. She was sure now that 
 his was the strongest face she had ever seen ; and 
 his history was as plain in it as it was in his 
 words. There was not a line about brow, nose, 
 mouth, or chin that was not chiselled into force 
 of character, force of purpose. If there was 
 a hint of contradiction in his make-up, it was 
 too fine for her vision, keen as that was. It was 
 the flawlessness in this one bulwark of strength 
 that had drawn her and made her fear. She 
 shrank from his eyes when he turned all at once 
 to her; there was a light in them that was not 
 pleasant. 
 
 " I wonder if you could guess what turned me 
 away from religion to law? " 
 
 He pointed to the yellow dome of the Capitol 
 through a rift in the trees, and she knew the half 
 of what he meant that he meant Marshall. 
 " I was in the Bible college, and the first Com 
 mencement I ever saw was his. I heard his 
 speech; he had the salutatory; and I was right 
 under him, looking up into his face. He spoke 
 over my head and never saw me. It was Ken 
 tucky for the Kentuckians his speech and he 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 didn t let us mountain folks in at all. I couldn t 
 catch his eye when he spoke of my people as he 
 did down there in the House the other day. I 
 knew him the moment he got up, and I felt just 
 as I did away back in college. It s kind o like 
 a storm down in the mountains when the river is 
 high. I can hear the wind crashing the big trees 
 together and the water roar. Lightning just 
 seems to flash in front of my eyes, and I can 
 hear the thunder I tell you, I can hear it. 
 That s the way it is below." Stallard moved 
 his hand to and fro, as though he were on some 
 peak and the elements were raging under him. 
 " I m up above somehow" tapping his fore 
 head " an I seem to have the strength of them 
 all right here" stretching out his right hand 
 and gripping it " and I know that what I want 
 to do then, is done. I know that now. That s 
 the way I felt after his speech in college that 
 day when the band crashed in from the gallery ; 
 and the people clapped their hands; and the 
 ushers, with flowers in their button-holes and 
 their canes wrapped in red and white and blue 
 ribbons, carried him up notes and flowers; and 
 everybody talked and smiled and nodded; and he 
 sitting upon the platform, looking red and proud 
 and happy. I must have been a great fool, for 
 I could hardly keep from getting up right then 
 and shouting out, * Brother, you ain t the only 
 
 84 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 man as can do that ; and, thank God, the time 
 did come at last" 
 
 Stallard stopped short, seeing Anne s pained 
 and helpless face. He had spoken quietly, but 
 a zigzag streak of red had run up and down 
 each side of his face, and he had had to stop, 
 now and then, in the hesitancy that with him 
 meant violent emotion. Anne did not speak 
 again until she saw that he had himself in hand 
 once more. 
 
 " I was there that day," she found herself say 
 ing, partly that he might not think she was 
 shifting too suddenly away from the theme. 
 
 " Yes," he said, quickly. " I saw you. You 
 dropped your umbrella, and you waited for me 
 to pick it up out on the steps." 
 
 He spoke calmly and as though with a quickly 
 made resolution, and the girl started and listened 
 surprised, perplexed, and watching with the 
 strength of her soul in her eyes. 
 
 He knew then; he had known all along; 
 why And then, because the woman in her 
 could not help herself : 
 
 " Why didn t you pick it up? " 
 
 He did not answer. If he even heard her, he 
 did not show it ; he was going on as though she 
 were asking him quite another question : 
 
 " Yes, my people live down in the mountains; 
 they have been there a hundred years. My 
 
 85 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 father is dead. My mother is at home, and one 
 married sister, whose worthless husband was 
 killed in the feud. My sister is hardly older 
 than you, I imagine, and yet she looks old enough 
 to be your mother. She has four children, and 
 she has worked in the fields " Anne shrank, 
 and he saw " not before her marriage, mind 
 you, nor since her husband s death. Let me see 
 your hand." 
 
 She held it out with the sensation of obeying 
 an unspoken command. He looked at it intently 
 the pink nails, long white fingers, the thread 
 like veins in the round wrist but he did not 
 touch it. 
 
 " Her s is like mine," he said, turning over his 
 broad palm. " It s hard and rough and sun 
 burnt; and his looks as soft as yours, almost." 
 
 "Haven t you any brothers?" she asked, 
 quickly, to turn him away from the dangerous 
 theme; and then she trembled at her own ques 
 tion, for Stallard started visibly and did not re 
 ply at once. 
 
 " Two," he said, at last. " One is at home 
 he is a half-brother; and the other" his tone 
 got harsh, he rose suddenly to his feet, and an 
 swered with his back to her: " He s in jail." 
 
 " Oh " It was a swift cry of pain, of 
 apology, and it was enough. 
 
 The mountaineer had turned full upon her. 
 86 
 
He s in jail." 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " I want you to know everything. My mother 
 can t write her own name. My sister barely can. 
 My father made his mark, though his father s 
 father wrote a better hand than I do an old 
 deed shows that. My mother is rough, igno 
 rant, not a lady as you would say, though she 
 is the best woman I know on earth. They 
 are all mountaineers, ignorant mountaineers; as 
 Marshall would call them," he added, bitterly, 
 " pore white trash. My brother is in jail, as 
 he deserves to be." 
 
 And then Stallard went on to tell about that 
 brother; how he had done all he could to keep 
 him from the evil to which, as a boy even, he 
 seemed irresistibly drawn. How he had kept 
 aloof from the feud in which his brother had 
 taken an active part; how the latter had sunk 
 lower and lower until just punishment had caught 
 him at last. He himself was like his mother; 
 his brother was more violent and had less re 
 straint, like his father; that was the difference 
 between the two. The turn of a hand and each 
 might have had the other s fate. That was the 
 way of chance. 
 
 " My mother s people came from eastern Vir 
 ginia, like yours. They owned slaves, like yours. 
 Yours came here ; mine stayed in the wilderness. 
 You kept your level ; we went down ; through no 
 virtue of yours, no fault of ours. It was fate. 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 I think of Marshall and you, and of my sister 
 and me. You were born so; we were born so. 
 For that reason what s yours without the asking 
 is not ours at any cost not now. If there s a 
 worse blow in the face of a man who does the 
 best with what comes to him than to learn the 
 value of what he can never get, I hope it may 
 be spared me. To be willing to do anything, 
 deny everything, and to know that neither the 
 one nor the other can ever wholly count, that " 
 Stallard waved his hand, through sheer inability 
 to go on. Neither knew the full and personal 
 significance of what he said, but through it all 
 the girl sat pained and mute, touched too deep 
 down for tears. She kept silent, even when they 
 rose and went down the path again, though Stal 
 lard, with unsuspected delicacy, turned his talk 
 again to the birds and trees. Only when he 
 reached the gate at the oak did he strike the 
 chord again. 
 
 11 1 didn t pick it up," he said, " because I 
 didn t even see it until you started down for it 
 yourself. I was looking at you. I had fol 
 lowed you but of the hall to see you again. And 
 no day has passed since, no hour hardly, that I 
 have not seen you looking at me with a smile, 
 just as you looked then. It is not so strange. 
 You want to see the best in the world, know the 
 best, be the best. Don t you think it would be 
 
 88 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 easy, then, for you to remember your first vision 
 of what you realized was the best? Especially 
 when, thereafter, you are shut off for years from 
 all that is best ? I couldn t have forgotten you, 
 if I had tried. Sometimes I have tried. But 
 for you, after all, I might not have gone on. I 
 might be living in a log cabin in the mountains, 
 and tied there, with a wife and children, forever 
 and it might be the better for me if I were. 
 But you helped open to me the world against 
 which I am still knocking for entrance you and 
 he see what I owe you yes, and him, too. 
 And you are helping open it now the same 
 world which, I am afraid, is barred me as heaven 
 is, for, without cowardice or disloyalty, I can 
 never escape my own. I didn t know you at 
 first " He stopped, holding her eyes with his, 
 so that, in the moment of silence, she felt weak 
 and afraid and was glad when he went on. 
 " You are not as lovely as I thought you were" 
 she could not smile even to herself at his hon 
 esty " and no wonder. Your face has always 
 been the face of something unearthly to me, and 
 now I see the human. I didn t know you until 
 you smiled at me the other night, when you were 
 singing, and I never quite know you as the same, 
 unless you look as you looked then as you look 
 now," he added, for Anne was smiling faintly. 
 Stallard s voice was so gentle and kind, and it 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 was all so strange. He never dreamed that she 
 could doubt a scintilla of what he said; nor did 
 she, strange as it all was. 
 
 Stallard had opened the gate and, mountain- 
 eerlike, had gone through first and was holding 
 it open for her. As she passed through she 
 paused, lifting her eyes suddenly to his. 
 
 " I saw you that day I remember, too." 
 The words rose impulsively to her half-open lips, 
 but some vague dread held them back. 
 
 The sun was cutting like a great red scimitar 
 down through a shadowed hill in the west. Ar 
 nold s Wold was already in dusk. A cloud of 
 smoke was rising above the prison, and the Cath 
 olic cross rose whitely through it, as though 
 swung down from above. There was still a 
 purple glow edging the clouds in the east, and 
 the marble on the hill caught the last light sadly. 
 To Anne the past hour was already taking the 
 misty shape of a dream into such a melodrama 
 had the facts of both their lives in that hour been 
 cast, in spite of the simple, open story Stallard 
 had told. In no way had he made an appeal 
 to her pity, or to her sympathies ; for that reason, 
 he had both wholly. Outwardly now, as they 
 went down the hill, he was ironlike once more; 
 but there was a softer ring in his voice when he 
 spoke, and a new tone of understanding. On 
 the old bridge he stopped looking up stream. 
 
 90 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A long raft of logs was floating down the river 
 toward them. 
 
 " That s the way I came down to go to col 
 lege," he said, smiling. " I walked from here 
 to Lexington." 
 
 A mountaineer was standing at the huge stern 
 oar, motionless. As the end of the raft swung 
 under them they could hear him singing; and, 
 still smiling, Stallard bent his head to listen. 
 
 " I ve got a gal at the head of the holler, 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dahdy-deel " 
 
 And then he swept the big paddle through the 
 water. Anne, too, smiled; it was the song the 
 young trusty sang in the garden. Stallard bent 
 lower and sang back. 
 
 " She won t come, an I won t foller." 
 
 The fellow looked quickly up, gave a " hoo 
 ray," and, with a wave of his hat, sent the re 
 frain up with a hearty swing, 
 
 " Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dahdy-dee! " 
 
 " He doesn t know me, but he knows that I 
 know where he s from," said Stallard. " I used 
 to go over to the Kentucky River and bring logs 
 down that way. We d tie up to the bank, and 
 then we d all go up the middle of the street single 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 file. We didn t know what the sidewalks 
 (hearth-stones I remember old Tom Perkins 
 used to call them) were for. We went back 
 part of the way on the train, and we climbed 
 through the windows, not knowing where the 
 doors were. We called the cars * boxes. One 
 fellow climbed over the fence to his boarding- 
 house, never having seen a gate. I didn t much 
 expect in those days that I d be walking along 
 here some day as a member of the Legislator, 
 as we say, and with the Governor s daughter, 
 
 and she the same " 
 
 He stopped suddenly and stiffened. At the 
 end of the bridge was Marshall, who stepped 
 aside with unnecessary ceremony and, lifting his 
 hat, bowed with elaborate courtesy. Not until 
 he saw Anne s flush, did Stallard notice that Mar 
 shall was almost staggering. At the steps of 
 the Mansion, Anne left her hand in Stallard s 
 as though she would say one of the thousand 
 things that were on her tongue ; but her lip quiv 
 ered, and that was all. 
 
 92 
 
IX 
 
 THE session drew to a close. Several 
 times, Anne had met Stallard in the street 
 and he spoke merely, lifting his hat now, and 
 passed on. She had asked him once if he ex 
 pected to come back the following year. His 
 answer was that he didn t know; he would come, 
 if he were sent ; but that he did not mean to turn 
 his hand over for a renomination. Considering 
 the extraordinary coincidence of their lives, the 
 extraordinary disclosure which linked the present 
 with the past, and the possible fact that, in a 
 few weeks, he might see her for the last time, 
 his course now was inexplicable. He kept to his 
 seclusion rigidly. She could not believe that his 
 interest in her was impersonal, that he regarded 
 her as merely a spiritual embodiment of certain 
 conditions that were denied him at birth, that he 
 wanted to attain, and which he believed were be 
 yond him altogether. It was only after much 
 thought that the truth flashed and seared her to 
 the heart. He saw the gulf between them. He 
 believed she thought it impassable, and, with his 
 strong sense and sure insight, he, too, saw that 
 93 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 it was. He was too proud to make an effort to 
 bridge the gulf too loyal to his own people to 
 cross it alone, if he could. He would walk with 
 them on his own side; and with this resolution he 
 must do as he was doing. She liked his pride, 
 and, for that reason, the hard conditions on which 
 he must uphold it wrung her the more with pity. 
 
 Marshall, too, she rarely saw, and she knew 
 the reason. He had not been to the Mansion 
 since the night she and Stallard met him at the 
 bridge. What she heard of the two men in the 
 House kept her continually uneasy : for no mat 
 ter came up there in which Stallard and Mar 
 shall did not antagonize each other, and Mar 
 shall said sharp things which, from Stallard s 
 lips, Anne knew, would bring about trouble. 
 
 To many, Marshall s bitterness seemed un 
 reasonable, but perhaps there was only one other 
 person, than Colton, who so much as suspected 
 that his hostility was not altogether political: 
 that was Katherine Craig. She saw the inner 
 play of his mind, of which Marshall himself was 
 hardly conscious, and she sensibly kept it to her 
 self. Hitherto, Marshall had met his rivals 
 chivalrously, as he would have met them, man to 
 man, in any conflict as he would have met Stal 
 lard, had the mountaineer been a gentleman. 
 He always said that he had never known jeal 
 ousy that a common admiration was to him a 
 94 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 link of sympathy rather than a cause of hate 
 and to his rivals he was especially courteous. A 
 foreign lover got from no one a more hospitable 
 welcome than from Marshall; but, with Stallard, 
 it was different. The mountaineer had shown 
 himself a boor by exposing his enmity before 
 ladies and in a drawing-room. War was de 
 clared between the two before he had even 
 looked upon Stallard as a possible rival. Not 
 that he seriously saw him in that light yet but, 
 still, he was far too keen not to feel the hold 
 the mountaineer had; and it vexed him with 
 Anne, to whom he dared not open his lips, and 
 gave a surprising force to his feeling against 
 Stallard. The mountaineer had power as an 
 orator. But one thing appealed to the girl more 
 political honor and that, he knew, Anne 
 believed the mountaineer irresistibly bound to> 
 achieve. These would win her admiration, her 
 interest, her respect; and that much Stallard al 
 ready had yes, he confessed quickly, and more.. 
 The mountaineer was, in her eyes, a man with, 
 a people behind him a people who had drifted; 
 back toward barbarism through no fault of their 
 own. They were kindred in distress, and his 
 mission was to aid, to uplift. Moreover, he 
 was new to her in all ways, and he had not 
 dropped, like the others, at once to her feet. 
 Such points of favor, Marshall counted, could 
 95 
 
THE KENTFCKIANS 
 
 never win Stallard more than deep interest, deep 
 friendship, perhaps. The idea of love would 
 be as repugnant to her, he believed, as it was to 
 him. Intellectually, she was quite democratic, 
 and she avowed democracy, but in her exactions 
 and deepest feelings she was aristocrat to her 
 heart s core. Thus far, Marshall could go ; thus 
 far, he went. But how Stallard s personal his 
 tory, his early upward fight, his frank facing of 
 the facts of his birth, his just bitterness that fate 
 should draw the dead-line for one man who 
 wanted to cross it and suffer another to be born 
 on the other side and care nothing for the ad 
 vantage; how the secret inner sorrow that his 
 brother had put upon him stirred her passionate 
 pity of all that he knew nothing, or he might 
 have been uneasy indeed. 
 
 Anne found herself in a curious maze. This 
 brother of Stallard s was, of course, Buck, the 
 young trusty ; that was doubtless what he had yet 
 to tell her. Criminals, after conviction, were 
 sent to the penitentiary from all parts of the 
 State ; she knew that, but she did not know that 
 moonshiners were not ; and in some way she had 
 come to believe that the young trusty s crime was 
 " moonshining," which she had come to regard, 
 through Buck s testimony and Colton s strictures 
 on the revenue service, with much tolerance and 
 a good deal of sympathy. 
 
 96 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " It wasn t no harm once," Buck argued. 
 " Ever body made liquor some fellers was jus 
 born to it. An say, s posin you had a field o 
 corn in some deep hollow. You can t tote hit 
 out an , if you did, you couldn t sell nary a grain. 
 An s posin you had a big family an you jus had 
 to have somep n to eat coffee an sweetenin an 
 sech. Whar you git the money? Thar s the 
 corn an that s all. Well, the corn is yourn, 
 hain t it? Yes. Well, you can do whut you 
 please with what s yourn, can t ye? You can put 
 that corn in a pile an burn hit if you wants to, 
 can t ye? You can give hit away? Well, the 
 only way you can git money fer that corn is to 
 build ye a still an turn hit into moonshine an 
 carry hit over into Virginny an sell hit. An I d 
 jus like to know what right the Gover mint 
 whut all our folks fit fer has to step up, all of 
 a sudden, an say : * Here, gimme some o the 
 money you got fer that corn o yourn, or go to 
 jail. " 
 
 This was the boy s tale, and she forgave much 
 to sincerity of motive no matter how mistaken 
 it might be, and she had quite accustomed her 
 self to thinking of him as the victim of circum 
 stances and of a misdemeanor that was not in 
 itself criminal. Thinking that, she had allowed 
 her interest in him to deepen unreservedly; she 
 had suffered him much liberty of speech; and 
 97 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 now, Stallard had hinted at something in his 
 brother as dark as crime could be : so that she 
 was unsmiling the next time Buck came to work, 
 but full of pity, as she watched him under a 
 newspaper with which she shaded her eyes from 
 the sun. Was it possible that this brightfaced 
 lad, with his careless laughter and his easy chat 
 ter, had human blood on his hands? 
 
 " Hit s this way, Miz Anne," he was saying. 
 " One o them wars jus knocks the fun out n 
 ever thing. Somebody gives a party. Thar s 
 Keatons thar, an thar s Stallards thar. Purty 
 soon thar s a row, an the party is busted up. 
 Folks is afeerd now to have parties. Sometimes 
 a Stallard and a Keaton is a-courtin the same 
 gal, an sometimes they both goes to see her the 
 same night. Commonly, they makes the gal say 
 which one she likes best an t other one takes his 
 foot in his hand an lights fer home; but I 
 knowed a case once whar the gal said she jus 
 didn t plumb know which." 
 
 The boy was wily as a fox; he stopped there. 
 Something was wrong that morning he saw it 
 in Anne s face and he was trying to get her in 
 terested. 
 
 "What happened then?" she asked, partly 
 because she wanted to know, partly because he 
 was waiting for the question. 
 
 " Well, they jus stepped out n doors an* fit. 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 An when Jim Stallard was a-gittin the best o* 
 Tom Keaton, the gal gits to cryin ; an when 
 Jim gits him down, she runs up an pulls Jim off 
 by his ha r; an Jim says the next time he fights 
 fer a gal he wants to be the feller what s licked." 
 
 The girl laughed, when she felt close to tears. 
 Once she thought of asking him outright if he 
 were a brother to Boone Stallard, but it was no 
 longer possible; when the mountaineer wanted 
 her to know, he would himself tell: and Anne 
 went in-doors, much troubled. 
 
 That day, to her distress, all her doubt was 
 dissolved. 
 
 In the afternoon she took some friends of her 
 father through the prison. Passing through the 
 dust-cloud of a room in which prisoners were 
 making laths, her eyes caught the face and shape 
 of a convict who was running a thin plank 
 through one of the circular saws. The jaw of 
 the face was square and strong; the cheek to 
 ward her was sunken as though by a bullet or a 
 knife thrust; and, while she looked at him, the 
 man, as though to answer her gaze, lifted his 
 dusty brows, and the cold, evil eyes under them 
 met hers and, dropping at onceJback to his work, 
 left her shuddering. Almost unconsciously she 
 touched the warden s arm. 
 
 "Who is that man?" 
 
 The convict fell into a violent fit of coughing 
 99 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 as she spoke, and, when the warden turned, Buck 
 the trusty was nodding brightly to her, side by 
 side with the man she meant. 
 
 " Oh, his name s Stallard from down in the 
 mountains one of those feuds murder. He s 
 a pretty bad fellow ; everybody asks about him. 
 He s got a brother in the Legislature," he added 
 to another of the party ; but Anne heard him, and 
 was sunk in such sudden wretchedness that she 
 did not repeat her question. She felt her pity 
 deepening for Stallard as she walked home, and 
 when she went to her room that night, she was 
 seeking palliation for the young trusty. It was 
 hard to believe that he was evil in soul he was 
 so light-hearted, open, frank, and humorously 
 curious. She found herself going back to the 
 time when men exacted a blood penalty for a 
 slain kinsman. She recalled the boy s words : 
 
 " S posin somebody was to shoot down your 
 brother, an the law wouldn t tech him not 
 couldn t, now, mind ye wouldn t. What 
 would you do? What would any feller do? " 
 
 Then she faced the question ; what, under such 
 circumstances, would her own father do? She 
 would learn the details before she judged the 
 boy. No, she must not do even that; Stallard 
 would tell her these when he wanted her to know, 
 No; she The thread was snapped there 
 Why was she trying to defend this boy? For 
 100 
 
THE 
 
 his own sake, or through her pity of Stallard? 
 Pa ad the lad appealed to her on his own account? 
 Yes, but, ah! and just there the white hands 
 sapped from the bright hair they had been 
 loosening, and Anne sank into a chair by the win 
 dow, looking out with startled eyes into the June 
 night. When she went to bed, she lay there 
 sleepless and a little frightened. She could not 
 put one image outside her vision : now and then, 
 in her half-conscious dreams, the young trusty 
 would displace it; now and then, Marshall; of- 
 tenest of the three, the convict with the sunken 
 cheek : but it always swung back before her closed 
 eyes in the darkness, fixed, calm, inscrutable 
 the face of Stallard, the mountaineer. 
 
 101 
 
X 
 
 SHE did not go down to breakfast next morn 
 ing. She stayed abed and, early in the af 
 ternoon, Katherine Craig came with disturbing 
 news. Down in the mountains, Colton had told 
 her, Mace Keaton "was at his deviltry again. 
 He had elected himself sheriff, and had suffered 
 a Stallard to be shot down within sight of him 
 and had not raised his hand. Both parties were 
 once more armed and organized, and the Kea- 
 tons had taken to " the brush." The judge who 
 had gone to the county-seat to hold court had 
 been driven from town. Any day there might 
 be a general conflict. 
 
 Elsewhere, Katherine had heard more. Mar 
 shall meant to bring up that day his old bill to 
 disrupt the county. He would be bitter; and 
 lately Stallard s patience, it was said, was being 
 worn to an edge. Trouble was feared. 
 
 About that time, in the House, Marshall was 
 rising to his feet. He repeated all he had said 
 and more bitterly. He addressed himself 
 straight to the gentleman from Roland. Could 
 he deny such and such, and such and such? And 
 102 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Stallard had to sit through it all, white and si 
 lent, for Marshall, drinking as he was, took care 
 to state only facts. Still, the spirit of his talk 
 was vindictive. It looked as though he wanted 
 to bring about a mortal quarrel, and Colton, who 
 was watching the mountaineer s face, believed it 
 was going to come. The ticking of the big 
 clock could be heard when the mountaineer rose, 
 but there was no answering invective. Not once 
 did Stallard s tone rise above the level of quiet 
 conversation. He was pale and his eyes were 
 bright, but in no other way did he show unusual 
 emotion. The facts were as the gentleman had 
 stated. He had said much; he had implied a 
 good deal that was irrelevant and unnecessary. 
 It was not the place where those things should 
 be said, discussed or answered. The gentleman 
 seemed to hold him personally responsible for 
 the lawlessness of his people. Very well, he 
 would accept and bear the responsibility, and he 
 pledged that body that he personally would see 
 that law and order, in the end, prevailed. 
 
 The pressure of affairs for the term was 
 growing short and Marshall s manner and con 
 dition were already seriously against his bill. 
 Stallard s temperate words defeated it, and Mar 
 shall s face, flushed as it was, paled a little. He 
 was standing in the lobby, when Colton came out, 
 and a friend had him by the arm and was trying 
 103 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 to lead him away. He tried to break loose when 
 Stallard appeared, and Colton saw the mountain 
 eer s mouth tighten and a dangerous light leap 
 from his eyes as he stopped still and waited. 
 Another friend caught Marshall s arm, and Stal 
 lard walked on as though he had seen nothing. 
 But he went on with a quickening step over the 
 bridge, and he walked the hills till dark. The 
 animal in him that he had been slowly netting 
 with such care was straining at its cords now. 
 It is never securely bound in a nature as close to 
 earth as Stallard s was; and nothing will make 
 it restive like the kindly eyes and voice of a wom 
 an and a rival claim for them. It had turned 
 with leaping fury in Stallard and made him pri 
 meval again. Marshall was not fooling him. 
 He knew the true reason for the bitter hostility 
 of that day. Marshall feared him without, as 
 well as within, the legislative chamber. The 
 mountaineer had no traditions of chivalry to hold 
 him in check; and he went on stripping himself, 
 stripping Marshall, until soul to soul the two 
 faced in a mortal fight for mastery. And could 
 Anne have seen his face when the moon rose on 
 it out in the fields, she would have heard her 
 heart beat. Had Marshall been face to face 
 with him in fact, as he was in mind, the mountain 
 eer would have killed him and gone striding on 
 through the fragrant dusk, an exultant savage,. 
 104 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 It was late when he got back, but the strain of 
 his heart and his brain was eased; and the inner 
 structure that a strong soul builds on religion 
 first, and then on a love of law that is born of a 
 love of people who are in need of restraint, was 
 firm within him again. He got to his room and 
 to his books with the tempest in him calm, and 
 the old, old resolution freshly made to run his 
 course, as he had started, to the end. 
 
 He had a hard time with his law that night. 
 Things were always passing between his eyes and 
 the page that blurred the print; and he was glad 
 when the hour came for the walk that was a 
 nightly custom with him after his task was done. 
 Not that he needed exercise that night; but the 
 walk always took him past Anne Bruce s house, 
 and it was for that sole reason that he went now. 
 There was a dim light in the hallway, but the 
 parlor was dark, and so was Anne s room, which 
 he had come to know from seeing her at her win 
 dow, half screened by maple leaves. As he 
 passed the rear of the hotel beyond, music started 
 through the open windows above him, and he re 
 membered that the last hop of the season was 
 going on that night. Anne was doubtless there 
 and Marshall. Farther up the street, an un 
 usual clinking of glasses came from behind a 
 pair of green shutters, and there was an unusual 
 stir on the portico and in the hallway of the 
 105 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 hotel. At the top of the steps stood Colton in 
 evening dress, mopping his face with a handker 
 chief. Stallard had declined to go when Colton 
 urged him that morning, but he let himself be 
 dragged up-stairs now to the door of the ball 
 room, and there he halted and stood a grave, 
 unsmiling statue looking on. He had never 
 seen waltzing before, and, while he watched, his 
 mind was on a dance at home a log cabin, a 
 fiddle and a banjo, a puncheon floor, and men in 
 jeans and cowhide boots swinging girls in linsey 
 under low, blackened rafters and through the 
 wavering light of a tallow dip. And the prompt 
 ing: " Balance all ! Swing yer pardners ! Cage 
 the bird! Grand right an 1 wrong! Fust lady 
 to the right cheat an* swing. " What a con 
 trast ! Katherine smiled at him as she whirled 
 past, and, through the dancers, he saw Anne at 
 the other end of the room and, near her, Mar 
 shall dark, grave, and faultless in dress and 
 bearing. Already she was gathering up her 
 wraps and, when the dance was over, she was 
 moving on Marshall s arm toward the door. 
 She was going home, and Stallard shrank back 
 that she might not see him. As she passed, he 
 saw that she was biting her lip under a forced 
 smile, and Marshall was frowning darkly. 
 Something was wrong between the two, and it 
 pleased him savagely. 
 
 106 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 He did not wait long after they were gone; 
 the brilliant scene thrust him farther and farther 
 from Anne. Even to his eyes she was marked 
 from every other woman in the room by her 
 simple presence, which seemed out of keeping 
 with the rush and whirl of the place. And if 
 she were out of place in these lights, with this 
 music, among these dainty things in white how 
 would she seem at home? The thought stung 
 him, as he turned away ; it added to his store of 
 bitterness, but it helped make his purpose firm. 
 
 The Mansion was only two blocks distant, and 
 straight on Stallard s way home. The door 
 opened just as he was passing by on the other 
 side of the street, and, having stopped uncon 
 sciously in the thick shadow of a maple, he 
 feared to move on. Marshall came out, with 
 his hat in his hand, and Anne stood in the door. 
 It was after midnight, and the street was still. 
 Marshall turned and began talking in a low tone 
 and rapidly. Anne leaned in the doorway, with 
 her hands behind her. Her attitude was indif 
 ferent and her face looked hard. She made no 
 answer as Marshall moved down the steps, and, 
 for the second time that day, an exultant fire ran 
 through him. She stood a little while just as 
 Marshall had left her, and then she came to the 
 edge of the porch, looking across through the 
 darkness where h was hungrily watching her. 
 107 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Her eyes seemed almost to be on him, as he 
 stood uneasy and noiseless, but she turned and 
 closed the door. He saw the light in the draw 
 ing-room and in the hall go out and, a moment 
 later, another appear up-stairs; then her face 
 through the leaves at the window and one hand 
 reaching up for the curtain; and he stayed on, 
 just to see her shadow pass now and then, till 
 the room was dark. 
 
 He started for his room then, little reckoning 
 how the girl lay looking with sleepless eyes into 
 the darkness above her, mystified, perplexed, dis 
 tressed. It was the first time Marshall had been 
 to the Mansion for a long while, and they had 
 had the worst of their many quarrels. She had 
 heard of the trouble in the House fully, and 
 her sympathies sided resistlessly with Stallard. 
 Marshall was wrong, she tried to argue; it was 
 a matter of justice, she said as though justice 
 guided a woman s sympathies, she thought, be 
 fore the words had quite left her lips. Still, she 
 had spoken as though Stallard were a stranger 
 to both, and Marshall, with one reckless word, 
 had made the matter personal. Then was she 
 very plain with him. She rarely tried to hide 
 the truth, even when there was no need for 
 it to be known ; for she was fearless of criticism 
 and especially, just now, of his for she thought 
 him bitter and unjust. So, in her defence of the 
 108 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 mountaineer, she indirectly laid bare her interest 
 in him, and Marshall was startled. She feared 
 that, in the heat of the moment, she had put that 
 interest too strong ; and she herself was startled 
 to realize how little she had fallen short of the 
 truth. 
 
 A revolution took place that night. Grown 
 reckless at last, Anne faced fact after fact, ex 
 traordinary as each was, and finally went to trou 
 bled sleep, ceasing to question. 
 
 109 
 
XI 
 
 IT was well for the three that the session came 
 to a quick end. Marshall went to his farm ; 
 Stallard to the mountains ; Anne stayed on at the 
 capital: the summer came and gave the three 
 time to think. 
 
 Anne saw the leaves grow full, the hills round 
 with beauty, and the flowers go. When the trees 
 got dusty and the hot days came, she too went 
 home. She saw nothing of Marshall ; she heard 
 nothing, and she was not surprised ; for she knew 
 his moods and his ways, she thought, beyond the 
 ohance of error. Nobody saw Marshall during 
 those days; for he stayed at home, passing his 
 own test of fire. Anne had cut his pride to the 
 quick. The mountaineer had started with noth 
 ing, and had accomplished all that human effort 
 could ; while he, wanting nothing, had done only 
 what his birth and station had impelled him to 
 do: that was the blunt burden of the contrast 
 that he had drawn on himself from Anne. In 
 other and plainer words, he was little more than 
 a machine, run by the momentum of forces that 
 were prenatal. He deserved little credit for 
 no 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 what he had done, and great censure for not hav 
 ing done more. That was the final courageous 
 interpretation he gave her words, and it was not 
 long before his self-searching honesty began to 
 tell him that it was all true. His humiliation 
 was bitter, but his hurt pride was turned into a 
 power for good, and started a change in him that 
 nothing else had ever been able to effect; for it 
 forged and edged a purpose started him on a 
 course of grim self-denial and turned him to 
 work. 
 
 A century back, new life was put into the lazy 
 Virginia blood that fought its way over the Cum 
 berland and along the Wilderness Road to the 
 interior; it needed only antagonism then to give 
 it new strength, and the vigor of that pioneer ef 
 fort is far from spent. It is the bed-rock of the 
 Kentuckian s character to-day, and a shaft, sunk 
 through his easy good-humor, rarely fails to rest 
 on it at last. That far down, the differences be 
 tween Marshall and Stallard practically ceased; 
 down there, they would meet as granite meets 
 granite, when a great test should come. But 
 now, thanks to the guidance, since, of an unseen 
 Hand, the mountaineer must fight away from the 
 earth for strength, as Marshall, for help, must 
 fight back to it : and the love of the same woman 
 was the motive power that led them opposite 
 ways. 
 
 in 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 They were long days that summer, and days 
 of gain to both, but the Hand still bore with 
 unequal weight on the mountaineer. Marshall 
 saw his blue-grass stripped and stored, the grain 
 harvested, the corn turn yellow for the knife. 
 With the first crisp touch of frost, he was busy 
 in the hemp-fields. Then came the brooding 
 days of autumn, the gentle, pensive haze of In 
 dian-summer, and the drowsy rest of nature filled 
 his mother s heart and brought to his turbulent 
 spirit an unguessed measure of peace. 
 
 Not a word came from the mountaineer. His 
 mountains had swallowed him, as they swallow 
 everything that passes their blue summits. Once 
 Anne saw in a newspaper that the leaders in the 
 Keaton-Stallard feud had met, shaken hands, and 
 signed a truce; and that Boone Stallard had 
 brought the reconciliation about. It was the one 
 fact that she heard of him through the autumn, 
 and she thought of him a good deal ; for she was 
 living alone ; she had much time for speculations 
 and dreams : and, moreover, the way of chance 
 is strange. Had Stallard been an acute student 
 of woman s nature, had he given years of study 
 to Anne Bruce s heart and brain, and then have 
 deliberately chosen the way to reach both, it is 
 doubtful whether he could have picked a better 
 part or have played it with better skill. To 
 show his secret with every act and look, and but 
 112 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 once and barely then with a spoken word ; to 
 trouble her with no exactions; to give all, in a 
 word, and ask nothing ; to be strong so strong 
 as to make her feel, with a vague dissatisfaction, 
 that there was in him something stronger even 
 than his love for her, and then to pass out of her 
 life as silently as he came into it to pass on and 
 out of life altogether for aught she knew there 
 was hardly a detail left undone. For she read, 
 later, that the truce was broken once more ; she 
 saw Buck Stallard s name among the prisoners 
 whose time was done, and that surprised her and 
 gave her great relief; that his crime was com 
 plicity in a feud not murder and that per 
 plexed her and made her wonder. Then came 
 news of a fight in which Buck had taken part and 
 two Stallards were killed. One of them might 
 have been Boone. Any other than he would 
 have sent her word, if he were alive. Silence 
 in another man would have been inexplicable 
 it meant nothing in Stallard. He had never so 
 much as said that he was coming back; he had 
 said, indeed, that he would not turn over his 
 hand for the chance to return. He had said 
 that and yet he loved her: he had loved no 
 other; his love, born years ago with a look, had 
 suffered no change, no displacement : all this he 
 had given her to understand as plainly as he 
 could have put it into words. She would have 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 smiled at such a tale in another man, and yet 
 she hardly wondered at it in Stallard : she simply 
 thought it strange that fate had made it so. Now 
 he was gone gone for good, as far as she knew. 
 It would have been beyond reason in another 
 man it meant nothing in an inscrutable enigma 
 like him. He was dead, even, as far as she 
 knew ; he might be and she not know ; for once 
 she had gone so far as to write Colton, who, too, 
 had heard not a word. So, day by day, wonder 
 ing, fearing, thinking more than was good for 
 her, good as it all was for Stallard s place in her 
 heart Anne had to wait and be patient till 
 Christmas should come and the new year, when 
 the session would open again. Then she wold 
 know, and not till then. 
 
 One thing only was there for her to know that 
 summer, that would have distressed her less than 
 news of his death, and that was the storm and 
 stress of his life. He had told Anne the truth. 
 He had gone home with the resolution not to 
 lift hand or foot to secure his renomination. Ap 
 parently no move was necessary ; for, by the terms 
 of the truce, Mace Keaton had left the moun 
 tains for a year, to give the heated blood of both 
 factions time to cool; and, without Mace, there 
 was no man to oppose him. So Boone Stallard 
 gathered his mother s thin corn in peace, as did 
 other Stallards and Keatons their corn, and it 
 114 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 was the first summer in many years that many of 
 either name had worked in the fields, without a 
 rifle close at hand and the fear of an enemy 
 lurking near in ambush. It was a time of inner 
 tumult to the mountaineer, for it was an old story 
 retold now his coming back home, his revulsion 
 from its narrow life ; the rough talk of his friends 
 in the presence of their daughters and wives ; the 
 rustic uncouthness of the young women ; the pain 
 ful pity that attacked him when he newly realized 
 the hard lot of his mother and sister, whose un 
 consciousness made the pathos of it the more 
 piteous to know how helpless he was to aid them 
 in more than the simple needs of existence ; how 
 beyond him to*broaden or uplift them, so crystal 
 lized were they in the way of life that had been 
 moulded for them so long. Contrast it was 
 all bitter, hopeless contrast, when he saw his 
 mother in the cabin at night with her pipe; his 
 sister with hers, now; the neighbors drifting in 
 with hats on, and barefooted sometimes men 
 and women; the talk it struck him now with 
 ludicrous inconsistency of homicide and the 
 Bible, the last killing and the doctrine of orig 
 inal sin from the same lips, with hardly a 
 breath to bridge the chasm between. Even in 
 his early days, a sullen rebellion against the 
 chains of birth would break loose within him; 
 and now, with Anne s face always looking from 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 water, mist, and moonlight, the rebellion was 
 fierce ; and half-crazed sometimes, he would start 
 up the mountain, after his work was done, and 
 climb until there was no leaf between him and 
 the stars. There he would have it out with his 
 own soul, and with the wide heaven that had 
 put him where he was and did not chain him 
 there. And there his strong courage upheld him, 
 even when he was deepest sunk in helplessness, 
 and he would go down under cover of darkness 
 to look at the old, patient, unembittered face of 
 his mother, and sometimes he would go to bed 
 with a half-born resolution, since he was cast 
 there, to stay there and share their fate, and not 
 try to breathe an air that was thin for him and 
 would stifle them. Then would it come over 
 him, with an awful sense of desolation, how un 
 speakably absurd were the high-wrought dreams 
 that every thought of Anne once brought him. 
 Where was the place for her ? For the delicately 
 nurtured, exquisitely dressed, fastidious girl who, 
 with all the favor she had shown him, yet seemed 
 as distant from the rough background that lay 
 close behind his life, as though her home were the 
 clouds and his the earth forever. But it was his 
 second self that spoke in this way the self that 
 was born of contact with civilization; for, 
 whether it be the pride of independence or the 
 complacence of isolation, the mountaineer, recog- 
 116 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 nizing no social chasm, believes deep down in his 
 heart that he is the peer of any and the inferior 
 of none. Even with Stallard, this feeling was 
 not dead, and, with him, in the end, little that was 
 antagonism counted for more than he weight of 
 a straw, when into one cup all his doubts, specu 
 lations, and purposes were strained at last the 
 cup of fatalism, from which he had drunk deep 
 at birth, in his rearing, from the grim mountains 
 that had cradled him the draught that gave 
 him his strength and drove him forward when, 
 without it, he would have shrunk back and would 
 have passed from the earth to count for little 
 more on the stage of action than the daily 
 shadow of Black Rock to and fro across the Cum 
 berland. What is to be, will be. He was not 
 to blame that his ways were not the ways of his 
 people; his aspirations were not his own 
 whence they came, God only knew. He had not 
 striven to gain Anne Bruce s favor. He had not 
 asked to take another place than the place to 
 which he was born. He had asked nothing of 
 friend or foe, and he had nothing to ask now. 
 Fate had put him where he was ; fate might take 
 him out : very well, he would go. And whether 
 he went or stayed, he would do his duty just the 
 same. Such was his final thought; and no man 
 ever watched for the gleam that flashes from 
 within as Boone Stallard hearkened to the inner 
 117 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 voice that had but to whisper to be obeyed. The 
 people wanted him to go back to the capital; 
 very well, he would go back. That was what he 
 told the Stallards at the court-house one Satur 
 day afternoon, and when he started for home, 
 his brain swam with the thought of what must 
 come. Responsibility had ceased for him it 
 was fate pointing the way beyond where he had 
 dared to go. There was no turning back, then, 
 when a little later came the crisis in his moun 
 tain life. Mace Keaton appeared one morning 
 against the express terms of the truce drunk 
 and defiant. More, a little later he announced 
 himself as a candidate to oppose Boone Stallard ; 
 more still, day by day the startling rumor that 
 the Keatons meant to uphold his return and 
 support his claim crystallized into certain fact. 
 There was no doubt that Mace Keaton was acting 
 from bitter personal hatred of Boone, and the 
 Stallard leaders watched the latter closely and 
 with fear. Always he had steered his course 
 clear of the bloody run of feudal feeling. His 
 acceptance of the nomination meant open enmity 
 to the Keatons, open arrayal with them ; it would 
 make him the Stallard leader for the years to 
 come. And they knew that he knew the penalty 
 of his choice. Apparently he took no time to 
 make up his mind. Straight and clear came his 
 answer at once he would run: the Stallards 
 118 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 wanted him ; Mace Keaton had violated the bond 
 and so had his friends; the one had no right 
 there his friends no right to stand by him when 
 he was plainly in the wrong. 
 
 It was a jubilee for the Stallards this dic 
 tum. And all at once the burden of leadership, 
 the responsibility of it, and the terrible risk were 
 shifted in a day from shoulders that had long 
 borne them to shoulders that had been well 
 trained by other burdens to take on more if 
 more had to be borne. The truce not to take 
 up arms held ; and the Keatons felt honor bound 
 to keep the more rigidly to it in other particulars, 
 having so grossly violated it in one. So the con 
 flict began peaceably enough. But the conven 
 tion was to come, and nobody had a doubt as 
 to what that would bring to pass. Boone Stal-^ 
 lard was in the feud at last. 
 
 119 
 
XII 
 
 /CHRISTMAS passed and the time was 
 V_>< nigh. The House was open ; new matting 
 had been laid; there were divans in the lobbies; 
 the cloak-rooms and the library were fresh and 
 clean and the flags were newly furled. In the 
 Lower House a good-looking mulatto was tack 
 ing to the desks cards that bore the members 
 names. A portrait of Washington hung above 
 the dingy gold eagle on the Speaker s chair. To 
 his right Daniel Boone sat on a log in a sylvan 
 bower, cocking his rifle with a vista, cut by 
 the artist, through thick woods to the placid 
 Ohio. To the left was Lafayette, hat in hand, 
 and strolling near a cliff that his preoccupation 
 made perilous. Each picture was ticketed, per 
 haps to save unwary rustics the mortification that 
 the memories of innocent questions would later 
 bring. A few old members were writing in their 
 seats. A pompous new one was walking around 
 his desk, looking at his own name openly once, 
 then furtively again and again. 
 
 Passing the Senate door, one saw the tall por 
 trait of the great Commoner, his face smiling 
 120 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 but imperious. Visitors were coming up and 
 going down the oval stone stairway. Out on the 
 steps was a " lady candidate " for librarian, with 
 an imitation seal-skin thrown back and a bunch 
 of carnations at her breast smiling up into the 
 flattered eyes of a very old statesman. Pushing 
 a wheelbarrow toward the old iron gate was a 
 trusty in stripes a sullen fellow with a heavy 
 jaw and a disfigured face. Over in the gray 
 hotel of Kentucky marble, a crowd of tobacco- 
 chewing politicians were wrangling about the 
 Speakership for the coming term. The parlor 
 was full of their wives and children. Outside, 
 the day was clear, cloudless, brilliant, and warm, 
 though along the road the moss was sprinkled 
 with snow, and the hollows in the black hay 
 stacks out in the brown fields were plump and 
 white. Out there the hazels, like the trees, were 
 bending from the west bent by the wind that 
 blows ever from the sun. The far distance was 
 hazy, dreamlike, reminiscent, and the mood of 
 the horizon caught Anne when she turned with 
 Katherine, on the hill, to look at the yellow west 
 ern light, and held her while she walked back 
 to the smoky town. Marshall was back; so was 
 Stallard. No opponent dared to face Marshall 
 in his own party, and the conflict in his county 
 of rock-ribbed democracy was always, for the 
 other side, a matter merely of form. So far 
 121 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 there had never been any need for him to take 
 a thought for his political morrow, and, as usual, 
 he stayed quietly at home, and passed, as usual, 
 into his honors without opposition. 
 
 It was Colton who had told her about Stal- 
 lard. He had got the story from Jack Mockaby, 
 a mountain member who had been at the con 
 vention in Roland. Stallard stormed through 
 the little court-house like a mad lion, shaking his 
 finger in Mace Keaton s face, defying him and 
 his clan ; and the magnificent audacity of the per 
 formance so dazed his adversaries that they 
 finally led Keaton from the court-house and left 
 the nomination to Stallard, at the cost of a life 
 time of peace, at the cost some day of his life, 
 maybe. He was openly the leader of the Stal- 
 lards now. Pistols were drawn that day after 
 the Keatons came out from the spell of Stallard s 
 cyclonic oratory, and it was all but necessary for 
 Boone to take up a gun, for the first time in his 
 life, against his fellow-man. At the last mo 
 ment, Stallard had even been in doubt about 
 leaving home for the capital, questioning 
 whether his duty were at one place or the other. 
 Any day he might need to go back to a mortal 
 conflict; and then, in the words of the mountain 
 member which were familiar in Anne s memory, 
 " there d be Billy-hell to pay when he did." 
 Marshall knew all this, and already it was plain 
 
 122 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 that he and Stallard would be contestants for 
 the Speakership. The old fight for disrup 
 tion would surely come up again, and be 
 fore Anne s eyes was nowhere the light of 
 peace. It was a strange wrench from the 
 placid run of her own life to have her sym 
 pathies drawn into such a current of mediaeval 
 barbarism. There had been a great deal in the 
 papers about the feud; about the people who 
 took part in it; the method of warfare ambush 
 ing from behind trees, lying in wait along the 
 roadside, calling men to their own doors and 
 shooting them down; worse still, cowards who 
 had a little money paying assassins a petty sum 
 to do their bloody work. Usually, it was said, 
 one faction of the two rarely resorted to these 
 means, and in this feud the Stallards had kept 
 aloof from such hideous practices. That helped 
 check Anne s growing horror, but it was incred 
 ible barbarism, and when she went back to the 
 Mansion there appeared, as if to clinch the truth 
 of what she had read, the only figure she had 
 ever seen that might embody such evil. The 
 warden would send over another trusty to take 
 young Buck s place, her father said, and next 
 morning she saw at the gate the sinister face of 
 the convict with the sunken cheek, and Anne was 
 transfixed. He, too, was a mountaineer. Stal 
 lard was one possibility of that life here was 
 123 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 another. She had the man told that there was 
 nothing for him to do; and it was on her lips 
 to ask her father then and there just what young 
 Buck had done, but her delicate honor forbade 
 that, Stallard was going to tell her. Why, 
 she asked herself, passionately, did he not wrench 
 loose wholly from such a life and from such peo 
 ple? Already he had answered the question 
 without cowardice and disloyalty he could not. 
 It was not till then that she fully realized the 
 mountaineer s strange predicament: his duty lay 
 where he was; and if he could shake himself 
 free, what then? The instincts that go with 
 birth, the traits of character that grow with the 
 training of childhood, the graces and culture that 
 come with later associations, could never be his. 
 Without them he would always be at a conscious 
 disadvantage, and his pride would allow him 
 no peace. For there was nothing in Stallard of 
 that lurking hatred of the born gentleman, which 
 she had noticed in other self-made men : the bitter 
 jealousy of him, the contemptuous disparagement 
 of his high claims and exactions. The moun 
 taineer s bitterness was that he had not had the 
 chance to be and to become all that was possible 
 for a man. He was doing his best to make good 
 what had been denied him ; he would always do 
 that. But meanwhile with lips sealed for some 
 reason he was as helpless in the web of circum- 
 124 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 stance as a fly in a spider s toils; and it was his 
 own strength that bound him. 
 
 Stallard had not come to see her; she did not 
 know that he would come, even if he were not 
 so busy if the stress of affairs were not so great. 
 Both the men she had seen but once. She was 
 standing on the steps of the Mansion when Mar 
 shall appeared on the other side of the street. 
 She expected him to lift his hat and pass on, but, 
 to her surprise, he had come across and shaken 
 hands with fine control, and had asked that he 
 might have a long talk with her soon. The days 
 of thought and settled purpose had wrought their 
 story that summer in his face, which was brown, 
 ruddy, and firm. Some change had taken place 
 in him which made her wonder; and some change 
 had come over Stallard. Him she had seen from 
 the drawing-room window. He, too, was pass 
 ing by in deep thought, and the sight of his face 
 choked her so lean and worn was it. It had 
 a hunted and wary look Colton had spoken to 
 her of that the look of a man ever at high ten 
 sion, on constant guard against an enemy, on 
 guard for his life. 
 
 To everybody, the change in both was quickly 
 apparent. Marshall had come back with the 
 purpose of being considerate, temperate, and just. 
 Stallard s timidity was gone. He had taken on 
 a new front, he was aggressive at the start, and 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Marshall, to his surprise and vexation, found 
 himself where he had always held Stallard 
 on the defensive. On the morning of the first 
 day in the caucus, to decide certain preliminary 
 matters, Marshall s hot temper flared up, and 
 there was a lightning cross-fire between the two 
 men. It was as plain as noonday that a clash 
 would come. Marshall had become a little un 
 popular; his haughtiness offended some and his 
 wealth others ; some were jealous of him. These, 
 with the following upon which Stallard could 
 count, were enough to make the contest of grave 
 doubt to Marshall s friends, and the situation 
 did not help Marshall, who brooked such rivalry 
 with little tolerance and little grace. 
 
 It was an old tale for that day, and one not 
 impossible now. At first, Stallard declined to 
 arm himself, though Mockaby told him to his 
 face that he was a fool to go unarmed. Neither 
 meant to make an attack; both believed an at 
 tack possible ; both used the plea of self-defence ; 
 and when, at the afternoon session, the lie all but 
 passed, each man went armed the next day, and 
 the close friends of each were in an unrest of 
 expectancy. And on that day Anne s life began 
 to be a melodrama which she would have ridi 
 culed had it passed before her on the stage. At 
 noon she heard that trouble was likely, and her 
 father had told her that ladies would not be al- 
 126 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 lowed to enter the house that afternoon. So she 
 stayed at home and, as women must, lay in a 
 dark room with dry eyes and nothing to do but 
 fear and think. 
 
 Meanwhile Marshall had spoken once, briefly 
 and bitterly. Stallard replied briefly in kind, but 
 with a cool moderation that inflamed Marshall 
 more than bitterness could. As Marshall arose 
 again, a messenger-boy laid a telegram on the 
 mountaineer s desk. Colton saw him start, 
 quickly break open the yellow envelope and 
 then saw every particle of color leave his face. 
 There was but one answer for Stallard when 
 Marshall sat down, and had the listeners been 
 forced to sit still, while a bolt of lightning played 
 under the ceiling, the face of every man could 
 hardly have been more intense, nor would Mar 
 shall s, had he known that it was he whom the 
 bolt would strike. There was but one answer to 
 Stallard, too, and Marshall s white silence was 
 an omen that the answer was sure to come. He 
 went out before the session was quite over, and 
 Mockaby, preceding Stallard a step, saw him 
 waiting near one of the gray pillars at the far 
 end of the portico, and gave the mountaineer a 
 nod of warning. Stallard purposely walked to 
 ward the other end, and as he stepped down on 
 the brick flagging, Marshall stepped down, too, 
 facing him. Men near each of them scurried 
 127 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 quickly out of line. The members coming out 
 stopped still about the pillars, and Marshall s 
 voice cut clearly through the sudden quiet. 
 
 " Stallard," he called, reaching for his pistol, 
 " we d as well settle this thing now." 
 
 Stallard saw the movement and, mountaineer- 
 like, thought Marshall meant to get the advan 
 tage. Like lightning his own weapon flashed, 
 and the two reports struck Mockaby s ear as one. 
 It was hasty work, and both missed. Marshall s 
 revolver spoke again, as he fired, advancing. 
 Stallard hitched one shoulder slightly, and, to 
 Mockaby s terror, looked down at his pistol, his 
 face unmoved. Hearing no other shot, he looked 
 up again quickly, and stood motionless and be 
 wildered, staring at Marshall. Mockaby, too, 
 was staring helplessly; for Marshall, seeing the 
 trouble with the mountaineer s pistol, was quietly 
 waiting for him to get ready again. 
 
 Stallard reddened and looked shamed; then, 
 with a turn of his wrist, he tossed his weapon 
 aside. It rang on the flagging at Mockaby s 
 feet, and Mockaby stooped mechanically to pick 
 it up. When he rose upright, he saw Stallard 
 striding toward Marshall with his hand out 
 stretched. Promptly Marshall stepped forward 
 to meet him, shifting his pistol as he came, and 
 midway, the two men caught hands. It was too 
 much for the on-lookers : the strain of mortal ex- 
 128 
 
35 
 
 nj 
 
 1 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 pectancy; the gallant magnanimity of the one, 
 the perfect courage of the other. Mockaby was 
 struck dumb, but a hum of enthusiasm rose be 
 hind him. One old Confederate, who had stood 
 at rigid attention against a pillar, was wiping his 
 eyes, and his mouth was twitching; and, asStal- 
 lard walked toward the gate, a policeman held 
 it open for him, and touched his corded slouch 
 hat as the mountaineer passed through. 
 
 An hour later, he was at the post-office eagerly 
 breaking the seal of a letter from home. He 
 read it once, and, leaning against the railing, 
 read it again, with his face quite expressionless. 
 Then he took his hat off and walked bareheaded 
 up the street. The warning clang of a coming 
 train brought him sharply up as he started across 
 the track, and, reaching for his watch, he found 
 his hat still in his hand. With a shake of his 
 shoulders, he hurried to the Governor s office. 
 
 In a little while he came out again with a set 
 face and started for his room. At the steps of 
 the Mansion he looked at his watch for the third 
 time on his way that far, and with the hesitation 
 of a moment rang the bell. He told the negro 
 girl who opened the door to say to her mistress 
 that he was going away, and had only a minute 
 in which to say good-by. The girl shrank from 
 him, and Anne, who happened to be starting 
 down-stairs, could not tell what he said, and 
 129 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 hardly knew his voice. Coming in from the 
 strong light so suddenly, he did not see her ; so, 
 with a nod to the servant, she let him pass into 
 the drawing-room without calling to him, and 
 stopped an instant at the foot of the stairs, her 
 clasp tightening on the banisters. She had just 
 heard of the all but mortal meeting of the two 
 men her eyes were still wet with tears of relief. 
 Marshall had just sent her word that he was com 
 ing to the Mansion in an hour, and she was 
 wondering why. Why was Stallard here ? 
 
 The mountaineer had not sat down when she 
 passed in. He was at the window, and he heard 
 her coming and turned quickly. He did not of 
 fer to shake hands he made no greeting, but 
 stood silent, his body swaying slightly, as it did 
 when he was greatly moved, and he looked as he 
 looked the first time she saw him in the State 
 House, and Anne felt the warning flutter of 
 some new terror and steeled herself. 
 
 " I m going home to-night," he said. " I 
 may not come back very soon ... I may not 
 come back at all. And I ve come to tell you 
 good-by. It s come down in the mountains. 
 They ve killed two of my cousins. They ve sent 
 me word " the curious little zigzag streaks of 
 red began to run up and down his cheeks when 
 he stopped to gain self-control " that they will 
 sell my mother s cattle, and and hire out my 
 130 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 sister. Your father says he can t help me. So 
 it all depends on me, and I m going to-night 
 in an hour. I don t know that I ll get back . . . 
 the chances are that I shan t ... so there s no 
 need yet to tell you the one thing that I ve kept 
 from you . . . that I ve kept from everybody 
 . . . here. I shall tell it, if I come back; and 
 then, if you can forgive that, I may have some 
 thing to ask you. I can t speak the words now, 
 and how I shall ever dare to say them, I don t 
 know. I am crazy now, I think . . . but you 
 know, you must know. I am helpless before you 
 like a child. You have been very good to me, 
 and I have told you all but one thing. I ve kept 
 that back . . . from everybody . . . but I shall 
 tell it . . .to you. I m going now. I ve given 
 my word to the people there, and I m going to 
 keep it. You are the one person on earth to me 
 . . . besides my mother and sister . . . the rest 
 of the world is nothing . . . and if you can for 
 give one thing more, as you have forgiven so 
 much, I ... I shall make myself worthy. How 
 I shall work for that. Good-by . . . if I don t 
 come back . . . you will know why . . . good- 
 by." 
 
 Already he was starting for the door, while 
 the girl stood silent, cold, white. To save her 
 soul she could not utter a word, and, like a statue, 
 she watched him leave with a broken " God bless 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 you " that gave her a throb of pain to hear. She 
 heard the door close, his heavy tread across the 
 porch, and she followed, opening the door and 
 looking down the street where he had disap 
 peared. She saw a figure coming toward her, but 
 not until it had halted at the bottom of the steps 
 was she aware that it was Marshall, smiling up 
 at her. It was surprising that he should appear 
 just at that moment; she had forgotten that he 
 was to come, though she still held his note in 
 her hand. She saw a keen, curious look flit 
 through his eyes, and she felt the rush of tears 
 on her face. Then her father spoke from the 
 corner of the steps below she had not seen him 
 at all. 
 
 " You will win to-morrow," he said to Mar 
 shall. " Your rival has fled. There s trouble 
 in Roland, and Stallard came to me for soldiers. 
 Of course I couldn t help him nor could I help 
 approving his plan to take the matter in hand 
 himself. I don t blame him. It looks pretty 
 serious Why, Anne ! " 
 
 Then all at once Marshall seemed to under 
 stand 1 ; for an instant Anne helplessly met his 
 sharp, straight gaze, and before she could speak, 
 he was lifting his hat and turning away. She 
 started indoors then, swerving slightly, and her 
 father caught her arm, thinking that she had 
 tripped on something and was about to fall. 
 132 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Stallard did not appear in the House next 
 morning. Just before the vote for Speaker was 
 cast the chairman read to the astonished mem 
 bers the withdrawal from the race, for reasons 
 to be hereafter explained, of the member from 
 Roland. There was not a vote against Marshall, 
 and next day the papers made public the reason 
 of Stallard s absence. Mace Keaton had con 
 trol of Roland with his faction, and was in open 
 defiance. Stallard had sent in to the Governor 
 his resignation from the House, and had then 
 gone down to make good his word that his people 
 could take care of themselves. A desperate fight 
 was imminent any hour. 
 
 133 
 
XIII 
 
 TO meet death a rat goes to his hole, a 
 lion to his lair ; the same instinct, perhaps, 
 in the shadow of a lesser crisis even, sends a man 
 home. Marshall took the train with Anne s face 
 still haunting him like the face of the dead. 
 Chance had rent the veil, and he had turned 
 away, as he would have turned had chance as 
 suddenly bared the girl s breast as it had seemed 
 to bare her soul. The stupefying calm that held 
 him broke slowly as the train rushed through 
 the winter fields ; and slowly his hold on himself 
 began to loosen. By the time he was climbing 
 into his buggy he was asking himself fiercely 
 what the use of it all was ; and, a moment later, 
 he pulled his mare to her haunches before his 
 club door, in answer to an old voice within him 
 that had been still for a long while. He had 
 always stopped there in the old days, and it was 
 the habit of resisting the impulse since those 
 days, perhaps, that made him suddenly lash his 
 horse on now. The mare sprang ahead with a 
 frightened snort, and Marshall, with a half-curse 
 on himself for his thoughtless cruelty, called 
 134 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 kindly to her several times to make recompense. 
 Then he settled back into his big coat, and, a 
 little later, he was on the white turnpike again 
 speeding home, with his chin on his breast and 
 the same fight in his soul that was there on that 
 other drive, when Stallard first came into his life 
 and into Anne s. Only the yellow evening light 
 was almost gone now. There was not a bird- 
 note from the darkening brown fields. The sun 
 was a sullen blotch of fire when he reached his 
 gate, and the woods behind the house were black 
 and still. But his mother was waiting for him, 
 and he was very tender with her that night. She 
 knew something was wrong she always knew; 
 but she waited for him to tell, as she always did; 
 and there were things that he had never told 
 and could never tell, which she never knew 
 nor guessed; and he was grateful, whatever the 
 shame her faith and his weakness brought to him. 
 The pantry door was open when he went to his 
 room, but there was no glisten of glassware from 
 within. That temptation had been removed long 
 ago, and it was well for him that night that 
 it was. His room was cold; the white raoon 
 through the window looked cold, and the dead 
 fields and the gaunt moonlit woods. The whole 
 world was cold, and every riotous drop in the 
 veins of his reckless forefathers was running wild 
 in his, when he went sleepless to bed and to an 
 
 135 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 all-night struggle that sent him groping back 
 through his past for the things that were the 
 stay of his unthinking childhood. For the first 
 time in years, he was ready to go with his mother 
 to church next morning when the carriage drove 
 before the door. It was a sign to her of some 
 unusual distress of mind, and a grateful surprise 
 that she was too wise to show. Instinctively she 
 took him to the old country church where she 
 used to take him when he was a boy; and, going 
 and coming, the little school-house where he and 
 Anne had been playmates gave him a sharp 
 pang; but the old church that had brought its 
 sturdy walls and sturdy faith down from the 
 pioneers, the saddle-horses hitched to the plank 
 fence, the long stiles, with the country girls dis 
 mounting in their long black skirts, the atmos 
 phere of reverence, the droning old hymns all 
 helped little by little to draw him back to the 
 faith from which he had started adrift; to stir 
 memories that were good for him, and to make 
 easier what was to come. From church, several 
 neighbors went home with them to dinner, after 
 a custom of the neighborhood; and it was after 
 they were gone that a negro boy brought the 
 morning paper to Marshall s room. He opened 
 it, and read one paragraph on the first page twice 
 then he threw the paper on the table and rose. 
 It was a terse telegram from Stallard to the Gov- 
 136 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ernor. The fight was over, and Stallard was 
 safe and successful. And he was coming back. 
 Marshall s acceptance of the fact and its prob 
 able significance was quick, proud, and fiery. 
 Only he picked up his hat and got quickly out 
 into the open air. His mother was in the front 
 yard, and he did not want to see her quite yet; 
 so he went into the parlor, where a fire was still 
 burning, and sat down by the window forestall 
 ing the days that were at hand. He was before 
 Anne now, paying her his tribute to Stallard; 
 and from the depths of his unworthy satire rose 
 the bitter fact that what he was saying to him 
 self, and mentally to Anne, was literal truth 
 the mountaineer was worthy. And with this 
 realization, he suddenly lost the power to feel 
 the thousand subtleties that he had always be 
 lieved would prevent Anne from joining her life 
 to Stallard s, no matter what her admiration for 
 him, her respect, her pity, or even her love. 
 
 Then, for the first time in his life, jealousy 
 started throbbing through him, and he knew the 
 hell of two passions fighting his soul at once. It 
 stretched him out on the sofa where he sat, and 
 he lay there a long time, dully watching the even 
 ing sunlight as it rose slowly to the face of his 
 boyish uncle on the wall, whose life and death 
 was a tragedy that seemed meant for him to 
 play again. He looked with a deeper sympathy 
 137 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 now behind the smiling lips and the reckless, 
 smiling eyes, and with a throb of pity for him 
 which was half for himself, he hurried out into 
 the woods and the dusk. 
 
 It was startling to realize that nothing, not 
 even religion nor his mother, had governed his 
 life as had his love of Anne. Without her, it 
 seemed that he must lose anchor and go adrift. 
 And once, in the night, sick with fever and mad 
 for a little relief, he sprang from his bed to take 
 his buggy and go back to town and lose himself 
 in the old way. This time it was the swift vision 
 of his mother s face that stopped him in the mid 
 dle of the floor his duty was to her now and 
 forced him in an agony of helplessness to his 
 knees in the first prayer that had been wrung 
 from him in years. That was his crucial hour, 
 and he faced the morning, grateful ; but he stayed 
 at home that day through distrust of himself 
 and to keep away from the capital. 
 
 Life had almost begun anew for him a year 
 ago ; he believed now that, without Anne, it must 
 begin quite new. It was like walking back into 
 childhood when he started out after breakfast 
 on foot, and every memory was a healing com 
 fort. When he passed the spring-house, the 
 geese raised their wings with a reedy cackling 
 and, with the ducks, went swinging down the 
 riffles, as though they yet expected him to throw 
 
 138 
 
THE KENTTJCKIANS 
 
 pebbles at them. At the stone fence, beyond, he 
 stopped to look at the water bubbling over the 
 water-gap, through which he used to drop his 
 hook for perch and catfish. Then he followed 
 the winding branch by a pig-path, through the 
 thickly matted long grass, that was criss-crossed 
 by tiny, beaten roads that used to lead many a 
 musk-rat to death in his traps. A hawk was 
 sweeping the field with his wings, hovering close 
 to the grass in his hunt for a breakfast of mice. 
 The old impulse came to run back to the house 
 for his gun, and the gray bird swerved like a 
 glancing arrow to safety on a dead tree far out 
 in the meadow. Up in the sun, the hill-side was 
 covered with sheep. A ewe with one white lamb 
 was lapping water at the grassy edge of the creek. 
 Just to one side of the path lay another its 
 twin, no doubt dead and mutilated, and across 
 the creek hung its murderer, a robber crow, 
 dangling by its wings from a low limb, with his 
 penitent beak between his feet. 
 
 He was not the only thing on earth that had to 
 suffer. Life was a chain of suffering, with nature 
 at one end and nature at the other; a pyramid of 
 cruelty with man at the apex exacting the tribute 
 of sacrifice from below, paying it right and left 
 to the strong, and above to the unseen. He must 
 take his share. There were other motives to 
 action in life than love, than duty to his mother 
 
 139 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the duty to those of whom he had not thought 
 much, and of whom suffering was teaching him 
 to think now : others than himself his duty to 
 the world around, above and below. He might 
 have drawn tears from an audience on that theme 
 once with his tongue and his brain : it was sinking 
 to his heart now. 
 
 Anne was right ; he had made a wretched use 
 of himself. He had been weak and reckless, and 
 wasteful of the time, energy, and the talents, 
 whatever they were, that God had given him. 
 He had made of his love a moping luxury instead 
 of a motive to deeds that were worth doing ; he 
 was selfish and degenerate. He loved his State, 
 he thought, and he was intensely proud of it and 
 of his people. Yet there was Stallard fighting 
 like a savage on its border that was a stain; 
 and there was he provoking the same man to a 
 deadly conflict at the very seat of order and law. 
 Where was the difference, except that the moun 
 taineer, as he claimed, had the better right to 
 fight in the one place and, as Marshall admitted, 
 the better excuse in the other. It was hypocrisy 
 for him to blame Stallard and to justify himself. 
 Courage was a passionate ideal in him, as it is 
 in his people. Human life was worth less, he 
 believed, and was proud that his State believed, 
 and would not have it otherwise, than certain 
 old-fashioned ideals that were still all-powerful ; 
 140 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 but was it not possible to lift life and yet not 
 lower those ideals at all? That was something 
 he might have helped to do. Once, a political 
 career was an honored one. He could help bring 
 the honor of it back. There were consolations, 
 too the thrill of power as a speaker, the exhil 
 aration of conflict, the pride in a good cause 
 ah ! there was much left in the world, even after 
 love was gone out. 
 
 All these years it had taken him to realize sim 
 ple facts about which he had thundered with 
 such confidence in college; and now, far out In 
 the woods, he lay on a stone wall in the warm 
 sun, taking in the comfort of his discovery, until 
 the mellow tone of the dinner-bell rang noon 
 across the fields. From everywhere came an 
 swering shouts from the darkies at work; and 
 when he climbed the yard fence going home he 
 could hear the jingling traces of the plough- 
 horses crowding into the barn-yard, and the 
 laughing banter of the darkies about the white 
 washed cabins. It was all very busy and peace 
 ful and comforting, and it was his to have day 
 after day, when he pleased. 
 
 And so, that afternoon, it seemed a bigger 
 and a kindlier world when he started out again 
 through the winter blue-grass, past the white to 
 bacco-barn, past the spring in the woods, gush 
 ing from under a rock over rich, bent grass, May- 
 141 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 green ; on over brown turf and under gray woods 
 to the " field " where the breakers were at work. 
 How he would fool the birds that croaked evil 
 of him ! All over the hill-side the hemp lay in 
 shining swaths. Two darkies were picking it up 
 with wooden hooks; another was working at a 
 brake, which, at that distance, looked absurdly 
 like a big doll-baby with tow-linen skirts blowing 
 in the wind. The rest were idling about a fire 
 of hurds. The overseer stood near with his hand 
 outstretched, as though he were arguing. He 
 was having trouble of some kind, for but one 
 other negro was at work, an old fellow with gray 
 whiskers, thick lips, and a striped over-suit of 
 cotton. Nobody could hear Marshall s tread 
 on the thick turf. 
 
 " Hemp gone down, boys," the overseer was 
 saying. " Can t pay you more sorry. If you 
 don t like the price, you needn t work. No 
 body s feelin s hurt. Brakes won t go beggin ." 
 
 The old darky picked on. The brawny 
 breaker swooped up a fresh armful with his left 
 hand, and, with his right, brought the heavy up 
 per swords crackling down on the stiff stalks until 
 his figure was lost in a gray cloud of hurds. 
 
 " Dat s right," said one of the idlers. " I 
 ain t gwine to wuck." 
 
 " All right," said the overseer. " Hit the 
 pike. Nobody s feelin s hurt. Brakes won t go 
 142 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 beggin . Could V got hands in town yesterday, 
 but wanted to give you boys a chance. Hit the 
 pike." 
 
 The man at the brake seemed not to hear. His 
 hemp had got bright and flexible, and it sank like 
 folds of iron-gray hair down through the lower 
 swords, which were smooth, shining, and curved 
 like the throat of a harp. The idlers had all 
 started from the fire, but only one reached the 
 fence at the pike, and he turned on the top rail 
 and looked back. Slowly, one after another, 
 the men were going to work. It was Marshall s 
 own orders that the shrewd overseer had given 
 the simple negroes. There was another thing 
 that he might have done than cut their wages 
 down he could have taken less profit for him 
 self and he did that now. 
 
 " Give them the old price," he called, in a low 
 voice, but they heard, and a row of white teeth 
 shone in every black face. It was to him like 
 light to darkness that grateful flash. It helped 
 the deeps to open as he turned away. Love was 
 not everything. All day that fact had beat in 
 on him persistently, and it was strange that never 
 once came with it the suspicion that Anne too 
 might know that, with a man, love should not be 
 everything; that she might be generous enough 
 to accept the fact; unselfish enough to exact it of 
 him; that his love for her was a weakness that 
 143 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 kept Her from perfect respect for him as long as 
 it kept him from paying the debt that he owed 
 to his State, his name, and to himself ; and that, 
 being a goal In itself, her love might lose value 
 when he had gained it. Stallard was coming 
 back. Until Anne should open her lips, it was no 
 more his business than if he had never known 
 her. Again and again the thought had forced it 
 self on him, with some bitterness, that she hadnot 
 been altogether just and frank. Now he straight 
 way gave her absolution. Women did not under 
 stand friendship as men did; besides both were 
 not friends he was a lover. She may not have 
 wanted to pain him. The flash may have come 
 to her as to him from a clear sky. But it had 
 come, and his way was straight, and it led him 
 into a calm that was like the quiet sunset that he 
 faced, turning homeward. 
 
 Away off in the east, across the gently concave 
 sky, some little blue clouds had begun to turn 
 golden. The air had grown cold and the shad 
 ows long. The crows were coming home to 
 roost ; there was a line of black specks across the 
 low, even band of yellow that lay across the west 
 like a stubble wheat-field at noon. Against this 
 the trees, with trunks invisible, were set bright, 
 sharp, and clear; and when he reached the brow 
 of a low hill he saw, black and distinct against 
 the after-glow, the last of the many pictures that 
 144 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 were etched on his brain that day to stay the 
 dim, sloping barn, the black cedars with one light 
 shining through them, and, above, the roof that 
 sheltered his mother, his father s memory, and 
 a name of which, henceforth, please God, he 
 should make himself worthy. 
 
 At once he put his purpose to a bitter test, 
 when he reached the darkened house, by going 
 upstairs and straight to his book of memories. 
 And there, in the dusk, he tore out the leaves one 
 by one and heaped them in the grate. Then he 
 set them afire and left the room that he might 
 not see them burn. 
 
 The blaze lit up the room and showed the pic 
 ture of Anne on the mantel in white muslin, 
 with a blue ribbon about her throat and a Leg 
 horn hat in her lap. It showed, too, the paper 
 on the table, where Marshall had thrown it the 
 day before, and by the light one could have 
 read Stallard s message to the Governor it was 
 as laconic as Caesar s: 
 
 " I told you I should retake my fireside. It s 
 done." 
 
 145 
 
XIV 
 
 COLTON himself had gone to the scene of 
 the conflict, and, on the second day, the 
 people in the capital read the story of the fight : 
 and nothing was lost to it, nor to Stallard, in the 
 telling. Colton had got the mountaineer s terse 
 message to the Governor, and the ring of it and 
 the passion for analogy spun the story around a 
 circuit that made Stallard notorious. The moun 
 taineer had led his law-and-order party into the 
 town, as a sheriff s posse, at daybreak. At that 
 hour the sheriff disappeared and Stallard alone 
 was in command. His coolness, witnesses said, 
 was extraordinary. One man had seen him stop 
 shooting in the heat of the fight, deliberately 
 touch the muzzle of his Winchester to the 
 ground, and, while two Keatons were cross-firing 
 at him, deliberately resume again. He was ner 
 vous, he explained afterward, having been with 
 out sleep and on an intense strain for forty-eight 
 hours, and he had been told that, in a fight, it 
 would calm a man simply to touch his gun to the 
 earth. Evidently it did calm him, for at his first 
 shot thereafter a Keaton dropped to the ground 
 146 
 
THE KENTUCKIA^S 
 
 with a broken shoulder. Mace Keaton and three 
 others would give no further trouble, Colton 
 concluded; and, indeed, the feud in that county 
 was done. The intimidated were plucking up 
 heart, and the good men of the county were tak 
 ing Stallard s part. Several ringleaders had been 
 arrested, and would be sent to the blue-grass for 
 trial. Boone Stallard had made his word good. 
 
 That afternoon Marshall asked that his old 
 bill for disruption be voted down, gave Stallard 
 a eulogy, and went home, half ill. The House 
 entered a unanimous protest against the moun 
 taineer s resignation of his seat, though Colton 
 had written that Stallard would return to the 
 capital for only a few days, and would go back, 
 then, where he was needed home. 
 
 A week later, Marshall and the mountaineer 
 reached the capital on the same day. As the 
 purpose of both was the same, it was not un 
 natural that, when Marshall came to see Anne 
 in the afternoon, she should have just received a 
 note from Stallard, asking if he could come that 
 night. She was in the haze of great mental dis 
 tress when Marshall s name was brought to her; 
 she was stifling for the open air, and the day was 
 a sunny promise of spring a day that may stand 
 sharply out in any season as a forecast of the 
 next to come. So Anne came down dressed for a 
 walk, and it was a trick of the fate whose hand 
 147 
 
THE KENTTJCKIANS 
 
 seemed ever at Stallard s throat that led the three 
 together on the hill. As they passed through the 
 old bridge they met several people driving so 
 warm was the air and when they turned off 
 from the river, Anne directed Marshall s atten 
 tion up the hill and smiled. 
 
 " I m not as freakish as you might think," she 
 said. 
 
 Colton and Katherine were far above them, 
 walking slowly, and when they reached the curve 
 of the road, Colton was waving at them from the 
 other end of the segment and close to the crest of 
 the hill. Twice he pointed significantly toward 
 the road below him, and, in a moment, Anne saw 
 why. Stallard s tall figure was moving slowly 
 up the pike, with his hands clasped behind him, 
 and his head bent far over. The gate at the oak- 
 tree was opposite, and Anne turned toward it 
 from the road. Marshall, seeing Stallard just 
 then, knew why, and turned, too, without a word. 
 Had a thunder-cloud swept suddenly over the 
 sun, the day could not have been more swiftly 
 darkened for both; for Anne s silent recoil was 
 to Marshall another surprised confession, how 
 ever vague, and had Anne but glanced at him 
 she would have known that with him, too, a de 
 cisive moment was at hand. She could not help 
 looking back, even after she had passed through 
 the gate and was following Marshall up the path. 
 148 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 The mountaineer had turned, and was walking 
 down the road, his figure unchanged. While she 
 looked, he slowly turned again, as though he 
 were pacing to and fro, waiting for some jne. 
 He looked weak and he looked wretched, and 
 the girl s breath came hard. The mountaineer 
 had come back to tell her what she already knew, 
 that Buck, the young trusty who had worked in 
 her garden, was the brother of whom he had 
 spoken, and to ask her what? And what 
 should she say? It was plain now his course 
 from the beginning: his struggle with his duty 
 to his people, his temptation to hide from the 
 world the one thing that he had left untold to 
 her. If she forgave that and she had he 
 meant to ask her she well knew what and 
 what should she say? What could she say? 
 For days she had not been able to think of any 
 thing else she could think of nothing else 
 now. The horror of it all had swept freshly 
 over her after the relief of Stallard s safety came 
 horror at what he had done, though she knew 
 she would have despised him had he even hesi 
 tated doing it; horror at the life with which he 
 was so mercilessly linked, of which she knew so 
 little, and from which she was beginning to 
 shrink as she shrank from the terrible convict 
 who typified to her all the evil she had heard, 
 and was the one distinct figure in the awful dark- 
 149 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ness of which she dreamed. And yet, one by 
 one, the barriers that would have made Stallard s 
 question absurd a year ago had slowly fallen 
 until now it troubled her as nothing else of the 
 kind ever had. Never had love in another man 
 thrilled her as it thrilled her in Stallard that 
 much was sure. She had for him perfect respect, 
 high admiration, deep pity what else more she 
 did not know. 
 
 It was odd that Marshall should stop at the 
 same tree where she and Stallard had stopped 
 nearly a year before; that she should sit quite 
 mechanically on the same root where she had 
 sat before ; odd that he should lie where Stallard 
 had lain. The contrast was marked now between 
 the clean, graceful figure stretched easily on the 
 sun-warmed, yellow grass and the loose, power 
 ful bulk of the mountaineer. She remembered 
 Stallard s unshorn head, looking now at Mar 
 shall s carefully kept brown hair. The sunlight 
 showed its slight tendency to crinkle; she had 
 always hated that, but no more, she knew, than 
 did he. It was odd that so slight a thing should 
 so worry her now. The faces of both were 
 smooth, and, to Anne s searching insight, the life 
 of both was written plain, except for one dark 
 spot from which, in each, she shrank. It had 
 kept her from fully trusting one ; it had held her 
 sometimes in an unaccountable dread of the 
 150 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 other. Marshall was not gaining ground as he 
 lay there with his hat tilted over his eyes and a 
 blade of withered grass between his teeth easy, 
 indolent, an image to her of wasting power for 
 Anne was thinking of Stallard down in the road, 
 and it was well for him that he began to speak. 
 No woman could listen with indifference to a 
 voice that was so rich and low ; that told all the 
 good in him and none of the evil. 
 
 " Anne," he said, and the girl raised her head 
 quickly. She could hardly remember when he 
 had called her by her fi r st name, and the tone 
 of his voice was new. " Anne," he repeated, 
 with a firm note of possession, as it seemed to 
 her, that made her pulse with sudden resentment, 
 " I am done now." 
 
 His tone was almost harsh, and he was not 
 looking at her, but at a vivid patch of young 
 wheat that glanced like an emerald on the brown 
 top of a distant sunlit hill. And Anne, looking 
 hard at him, saw again the change that the sum 
 mer had brought. The fieriness was gone from 
 him, and the old, impetuous way of breaking into 
 a torrent of words, and as suddenly breaking off 
 in a useless effort to frame thought and feeling. 
 He looked as calm as a young monk she had once 
 seen at Gethsemane as calm as though his 
 peace, too, was made for earth as well as heaven. 
 
 " Let me see. It must have been ten years 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ago. It was coming home through the woods 
 from the old school-house. I had a red welt on 
 my forehead. I told you I had got it playing 
 town-ball that was not true. I got it fighting 
 about you. It was Indian summer, I recollect 
 that, and sunset you remember, don t you? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, wonderingly and almost 
 gently; but she was thinking, too, of Stallard 
 going up and down the road he looked lonely. 
 
 u I asked you to be my sweetheart, and I was 
 just sixteen." Marshall might have been repeat 
 ing words that had been carefully prepared, so 
 finished were his sentences, so dramatic the qual 
 ity of them, " and you said l yes ; yes, you said 
 * yes ; and that was ten years ago, and I have 
 never loved another woman since. I have made 
 no pretence of loving another; or of not loving 
 one. When I came home from college, some 
 thing had happened, and you began to say * no ; 
 but I kept on loving you just the same and you 
 kept on saying no. I am doing the one thing 
 now, and you are still doing the other. Ten 
 years! That gives me some rights, little as I 
 may otherwise deserve them, doesn t it, Anne? " 
 The voice was doing good work now. 
 
 " Yes, Rannie," she said, and she had never 
 
 called him by that name since he went away to 
 
 school; but if he noticed it, he gave no sign. 
 
 The green on the hill-top still held his eyes, and 
 
 152 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 for a moment he said nothing. The sunlight 
 was very rich for midwinter, as rich as though it 
 had been sifted through gold-dust somewhere. 
 It seemed palpable enough to grasp with the 
 hand across the running water that was making 
 it pulse in quivering circles along bush and tree. 
 It foretold an early spring, and made Anne think 
 of the shy green of young leaves and the gold 
 of the same sunlight a year ago, and then of 
 Stallard, through the soft, gray cloud of wiinter 
 trees, walking up and down the road, waiting. 
 
 " I m going to take them now. People inherit 
 tendencies to go down." 
 
 Anne turned to him again: he was speaking 
 of himself, and he had never done that before 
 but once. 
 
 " Everybody knows and remembers that. 
 People may, at the same time, inherit the aspira 
 tion for better things and the strength to rise to 
 them. Everybody seems to forget that, some 
 times even you. And yet you were right, and 
 I haven t a word of blame." 
 
 Nor had he, she recalled quickly, that night 
 after the dance, when, losing patience, she had 
 broken out with her defence of Stallard. She 
 remembered now the start her outburst gave him, 
 the quick flush of his face, his quick restraint,, 
 and the steady quiet with which he had unflinch 
 ingly taken to heart the bitter truth she gave 
 153 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 him, and his courtesy to the end. She was too 
 much aroused that night to care what pain she 
 caused him, but the memory of it hurt her now. 
 
 1 You have been hard, but you have not been 
 unjust. I have been fighting a long time, and 
 you might have given me a little more credit for 
 the fight. I think you would have given me 
 more, if you had cared more. Because you 
 seemed not to care, I did not ask it. It was a 
 weakness to want it ... I don t need it now . . . 
 whatever happens, I shall keep my own path just 
 the same . . . 
 
 Anne hardly took in what he was saying, his 
 voice was so dispassionate. Marshall had always 
 been generous, winning, faithful that was what 
 she was thinking. Why had she never loved 
 him? It was as strange as that she should not 
 know what it was she felt for Stallard. 
 
 41 For I m done now," repeated Marshall, in 
 exorably. " I m going to take my rights. I m 
 going to leave you altogether." 
 
 She heard now, and she turned, half dazed. 
 Marshall was steeling himself against his own 
 tenderness and going calmly on : 
 
 " When you want me, if you ever do, you 
 must send for me. It is all, or nothing, I must 
 have. And you must give it unasked now, if you 
 should ever have it to give. Yes," he went on, 
 as though to answer her unuttered cry of sur- 
 154 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 prise and indignation . . . " I know your pride 
 your foolish, steely pride but I m done 
 
 now." 
 
 Anne s eyes were wide with bewilderment. 
 Was he gone crazy? 
 
 " I have loved you for ten years. I don t 
 wonder at your distrust of me, but it s different 
 now. Perhaps you don t yet trust me ? In that 
 event, I don t care how long a test you put upon 
 me. Only, if by some miracle you should want 
 me to come back, you will have no right to say, 
 Maybe he has ceased to care for me now. 
 You will have no right to say that, even to your 
 self to think it. I promise, if that ever hap 
 pens, to come and tell you myself. I promise 
 that. I have done all I can all I should. The 
 rest is with you now, wholly." 
 
 Marshall was rising. He had not looked at 
 her since he began to talk he had hardly dared 
 for fear his purpose should fail him and Anne 
 rose too, as though he had bidden her. 
 
 " If you marry anybody else, I ll wait for him 
 to die. You can t escape me in the end." He 
 was smiling faintly, but his tone was almost 
 rough, and Anne was ready both to laugh and 
 to cry. " And I ll never come till you send for 
 me. We d better go now," he said, coolly, and 
 he started down, Anne following, quite helpless, 
 without a word, and with a growing sense of de- 
 
 155 
 
THE KENTUCKiAXS 
 
 sertion that oppressed her and made her uncon 
 sciously look for Stallard when they emerged 
 from the undergrowth. She was quite sure she 
 would see him, and there he was, walking rapidly 
 past the gate, but he did not seem to see them, so 
 intent was he on something down the road. Her 
 dress caught on a bush, as Marshall pulled back 
 the gate, and, when he stooped to disentangle 
 it, she heard the mountaineer s voice around a 
 clump of bushes below them. Marshall rose 
 quickly, and, the next moment, both heard what 
 he was saying. 
 
 " No," he said, sternly. " I ll give you the 
 money, but you must go back. I got you out, 
 and I gave my word you wouldn t run away. 
 You ve got to go back." 
 
 A rough voice, strangely like his own to the 
 girl s ears, answered something unintelligible. 
 
 " Then I ll take you back myself." 
 
 A low oath of rage and the shuffling of feet 
 came through the bushes, and Marshall caught 
 Anne s arm. 
 
 " You stay here," he said, firmly, and he hur 
 ried through the gate and around the bushes. 
 Stallard was blocking the road against a rough- 
 looking fellow, who started to run when he saw 
 Marshall. Stallard caught him by the arm, and 
 with the other hand the fellow struck the moun 
 taineer a fearful blow in the face. 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " God, man! " shouted Marshall, indignantly; 
 for, to his amazement, Stallard did not give back 
 the blow but caught his assailant by the other 
 wrist. 
 
 " Come here and help," he said. " This is an 
 escaped convict." 
 
 Marshall ran forward, and the convict gave 
 up and dropped stubbornly to the road, cough 
 ing hard, crying from rage, and cursing Stallard 
 by his first name. 
 
 " You re a fine brother, hain t ye?" he re 
 peated, with savage malice, starting another 
 string of curses and stopping short, with his eyes 
 fixed on something behind Stallard. The moun 
 taineer wheeled. Anne was standing there, her 
 face quite bloodless, and her eyes wide and full 
 upon his. 
 
 " You heard what he said? " 
 
 It was the mountaineer s voice that broke at 
 last through the awful silence, and in this test, 
 even, it was steady. 
 
 " I know what you thought. This this is 
 my brother." 
 
 Anne s eyes turned slowly to the convict, who 
 lay at Stallard s feet with his sunken cheek to 
 ward her ; and slowly the truth forced its terrible 
 way to her brain and then back again to Stal 
 lard in one look of unspeakable horror, unspeak 
 able pity. 
 
 157 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " This was what I had to tell you, * he said, 
 quietly; but his face had whitened quickly, all 
 but the red welt where the convict had struck. 
 " I have nothing to ask now." Not in voice 
 or bearing was there the slightest reproach for 
 her. 
 
 " Get up, Bud," he said, kindly. Anne turned 
 for an instant to Marshall, when the convict rose, 
 but it was a second rending of the veil for him, 
 and he had moved away that he might not hear. 
 Before the two could take a step, she was at the 
 mountaineer s side. 
 
 " I . . . I m going with you ! " 
 
 Marshall heard that and, but for his agitated 
 face, Stallard s calm must have broken. For he 
 understood, even then, what was beyond Mar 
 shall to know, and at that moment, perhaps, be 
 yond Anne. She had struck into his heart when 
 he was most helpless, and, to atone, she would 
 walk with him through the streets of the town, 
 back to the very walls of the prison, on through 
 life even, if he asked. All this Stallard saw 
 and more and he shook his head. 
 
 " God bless you! " he said. . . t ., " Come 
 on, Bud!" 
 
 The two brothers started down the road to 
 ward town and toward the shifting black col 
 umn of smoke that rose over the gray prison be 
 yond. 
 
THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A year later one of them, faithful to the end 
 as the other s keeper, came to the capital to de 
 liver his charge back to the Keeper of the things 
 that die. 
 
 " If that had happened before " said 
 
 Katherine, questioningly ; but Anne shook her 
 head. 
 
 " Not that not that," she said, sadly. " I 
 don t know ... I ... And there she 
 stopped still. 
 
 A flood of development was at high tide in the 
 mountains before another year was gone, and it 
 seemed as though the prophecy of Stallard s first 
 speech at the capital was coming true. His name 
 was slowly radiating from the great capital then ; 
 and a year later still, Marshall rose as a senator 
 of the State, and in a fervid piece of oratory, in 
 which he was now without a rival, spoke for 
 Boone Stallard for the Senate of the nation. 
 Stallard was defeated; but when Katherine Col- 
 ton, who was a guest at the Bruce homestead, 
 told Anne of the quixotic fight that Marshall, to 
 his own hurt, had made for the mountaineer, 
 Anne let her head sink back out of the light into 
 a shadow. Then Katherine, who knew how 
 matters stood between the two, spoke sharply 
 and with the authority that had lately come to 
 her. As a result, a night or two afterward, a 
 buggy creaked softly over the turf from the pike 
 159 
 
THE KENTUGKIANS 
 
 gate and a dai^k, active figure climbed the stiles. 
 Katherine rose for flight. 
 
 "Please. . ." said Anne, " . . . not yet. " 
 
 From an up-stairs window, Katherine saw the 
 moon rising on the two at the gate, and on the 
 gracious sweep of field, meadow, and woodland 
 that had always been and would always be, per 
 haps, his home and hers. Lying all along the 
 east, and hardly touched as yet by the coming 
 light, was a bank of dark clouds, as mountainlike 
 and full of mystery as though they were faithful 
 shadows of the great Range behind and beyond 
 and Katherine s eyes filled. When she went 
 to bed she could hear the voices of the two now 
 and then on the porch below, until she fell asleep. 
 She felt a pair of arms around her next, and a 
 pair of lips at her ear. 
 
 " Katherine!" 
 
 "Yes?" she said, sleepily. 
 
 Anne kissed her. 
 
 1 60 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS 
 
 HIGH noon of a crisp October day, sun 
 shine flooding the earth with the warmth 
 and light of old wine and going single-file up 
 through the jagged gap that the dripping of 
 water has worn down through the Cumberland 
 Mountains from crest to valley-level, a gray 
 horse and two big mules, a man and two young 
 girls. On the gray horse, I led the tortuous 
 way. After me came my small sister and after 
 her and like her, mule-back, rode the Blight 
 dressed as she would be for a gallop in Central 
 Park or to ride a hunter in a horse show. 
 
 I was taking them, according to promise, 
 where the feet of other women than mountain 
 eers had never trod beyond the crest of the 
 Big Black to the waters of the Cumberland 
 the lair of moonshiner and feudsman, where is 
 yet pocketed a civilization that, elsewhere, is long 
 ago gone. This had been a pet dream of the 
 Blight s for a long time, and now the dream 
 was coming true. The Blight was in the hills. 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 Nobody ever went to her mother s house with 
 out asking to see her even when she was a little 
 thing with black hair, merry face and black eyes. 
 Both men and women, with children of their 
 own, have told me that she was, perhaps, the 
 most fascinating child that ever lived. There 
 be some who claim that she has never changed 
 and I am among them. She began early, re 
 gardless of age, sex or previous condition of 
 servitude she continues recklessly as she began 
 and none makes complaint. Thus was it in 
 her own world thus it was when she came to 
 mine. On the way down from the North, the 
 conductor s voice changed from a command to 
 a request when he asked for her ticket. The 
 jacketed lord of the dining-car saw her from 
 afar and advanced to show her to a seat that 
 she might ride forward, sit next to a shaded win 
 dow and be free from the glare of the sun on 
 the other side. Two porters made a rush for 
 her bag when she got off the car, and the pro 
 prietor of the little hotel in the little town where 
 we had to wait several hours for the train into 
 the mountains gave her the bridal chamber for 
 an afternoon nap. From this little town to 
 " The Gap " is the worst sixty-mile ride, perhaps, 
 in the world. She sat in a dirty day-coach; the 
 smoke rolled in at the windows and doors; the 
 cars shook and swayed and lumbered around 
 164 
 
THE BLIGHT IX THE HILLS 
 
 curves and down and up gorges ; there were about 
 her rough men, crying children, slatternly wom 
 en, tobacco juice, peanuts, popcorn and apple 
 cores, but dainty, serene and as merry as ever, 
 she sat through that ride with a radiant smile, 
 her keen black eyes noting everything unlovely 
 within and the glory of hill, tree and chasm with 
 out. Next morning at home, where we rise early, 
 no one was allowed to waken her and she had 
 breakfast in bed for the Blight s gentle tyranny 
 was established on sight and varied not at the 
 Gap. 
 
 When she went down the street that day every 
 body stared surreptitiously and with perfect re 
 spect, as her dainty black-plumed figure passed ; 
 the post-office clerk could barely bring himself 
 to say that there was no letter for her. The 
 soda-fountain boy nearly filled her glass with 
 syrup before he saw that he was not strictly mind 
 ing his own business; the clerk, when I bought 
 chocolate for her, unblushingly added extra 
 weight and, as we went back, she met them both 
 Marston, the young engineer from the North, 
 crossing the street and, at the same moment, a 
 drunken young tough with an infuriated face 
 reeling in a run around the corner ahead of us 
 as though he were being pursued. Now we have 
 a volunteer police guard some forty strong at 
 the Gap and from habit, I started for him, 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 but the Blight caught my arm tight. The young 
 engineer in three strides had reached the curb 
 stone and all he sternly said was : 
 
 "Here! Here!" 
 
 The drunken youth wheeled and his right 
 hand shot toward his hip pocket. The engineer 
 was belted with a pistol, but with one lightning 
 movement and an incredibly long reach, his 
 right fist caught the fellow s jaw so that he 
 pitched backward and collapsed like an empty 
 bag. Then the engineer caught sight of the 
 Blight s bewildered face, flushed, gripped his 
 hands in front of him and simply stared. At 
 last he saw me : 
 
 " Oh," he said, " how do you do? " and he 
 turned to his prisoner, but the panting sergeant 
 and another policeman also a volunteer were 
 already lifting him to his feet. I introduced the 
 boy and the Blight then, and for the first time 
 in my life I saw the Blight shaken. Round- 
 eyed, she merely gazed at him. 
 
 " That was pretty well done," I said. 
 
 " Oh, he was drunk and I knew he would 
 be slow." Now something curious happened. 
 The dazed prisoner was on his feet, and his cap 
 tors were starting with him to the calaboose 
 when he seemed suddenly to come to his senses. 
 
 " Jes wait a minute, will ye? " he said quietly, 
 and his captors, thinking perhaps that he wanted 
 166 
 
THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS 
 
 to say something to me, stopped. The moun 
 tain youth turned a strangely sobered face and 
 fixed his blue eyes on the engineer as though he 
 were searing every feature of that imperturbable 
 young man in his brain forever. It was not a 
 bad face, but the avenging hatred in it was fear 
 ful. Then he, too, saw the Blight, his face 
 calmed magically and he, too, stared at her, and 
 turned away with an oath checked at his lips. 
 We went on the Blight thrilled, for she had 
 heard much of our volunteer force at the Gap 
 and had seen something already. Presently I 
 looked back. Prisoner and captors were climb 
 ing the little hill toward the calaboose and the 
 mountain boy just then turned his head and I 
 could swear that his eyes sought not the engineer, 
 whom we left at the corner, but, like the engi 
 neer, he was looking at the Blight. Whereat I 
 did not wonder particularly as to the engineer. 
 He had been in the mountains for a long time 
 and I knew what this vision from home meant 
 to him. He turned up at the house quite early 
 that night. 
 
 " Fm not on duty until eleven," he said hesi 
 tantly, " and I thought Fd " 
 
 " Come right in." 
 
 I asked him a few questions about business 
 and then I left him and the Blight alone. When 
 I came back she had a Catling gun of eager 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 questions ranged on him and happy withal 
 he was squirming no little. I followed him to 
 the gate. 
 
 " Are you really going over into those God 
 forsaken mountains? " he asked, 
 
 " I thought I would." 
 
 " And you are going to take her? " 
 
 " And my sister." 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon." He strode away. 
 
 " Coming up by the mines? " he called back. 
 
 " Perhaps will you show us around? n 
 
 " I guess I will," he said emphatically, and he 
 went on to risk his neck on a ten-mile ride along 
 a mountain road in the dark. 
 
 " I like a man," said the Blight. " I like a 
 
 man" 
 
 Of course the Blight must see everything, so 
 she insisted on going to the police court next 
 morning for the trial of the mountain boy. The 
 boy was in the witness chair when we got there, 
 and the Hon. Samuel Budd was his counsel. He 
 had volunteered to defend the prisoner, I was 
 soon told, and then I understood. The Novem 
 ber election was not far off and the Hon. Samuel 
 Budd was candidate for legislature. More even, 
 the boy s father was a warm supporter of Mr. 
 Budd and the boy himself might perhaps render 
 good service in the cause when the time came 
 as indeed he did. On one of the front chairs 
 168 
 
THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS 
 
 sat the young engineer and it was a question 
 whether he or the prisoner saw the Blight s black 
 plumes first. The eyes of both flashed toward 
 her simultaneously, the engineer colored percep 
 tibly and the mountain boy stopped short in 
 speech and his pallid face flushed with unmis 
 takable shame. Then he went on : " He had 
 liquered up," he said, " and had got tight afore 
 he knowed it and he didn t mean no harm and 
 had never been arrested afore in his whole life." 
 
 " Have you ever been drunk before? " asked 
 the prosecuting attorney severely. The lad 
 looked surprised. 
 
 " Co se I have, but I ain t goin to agin 
 leastwise not in this here town." There was a 
 general laugh at this and the aged mayor rapped 
 loudly. 
 
 " That will do," said the attorney. 
 
 The lad stepped down, hitched his chair 
 slightly so that his back was to the Blight, sank 
 down in it until his head rested on the back of 
 the chair and crossed his legs. The Hon. Sam 
 uel Budd arose and the Blight looked at him 
 with wonder. His long yellow hair was parted 
 in the middle and brushed with plaster-like pre 
 cision behind two enormous ears, he wore spec 
 tacles, gold-rimmed and with great staring 
 lenses, and his face was smooth and ageless. He 
 caressed his chin ruminatingly and rolled his lips 
 169 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEELAND 
 
 until they settled into a fine resultant of wisdom, 
 patience, toleration and firmness. His manner 
 was profound and his voice oily and soothing. 
 
 " May it please your Honor my young 
 friend frankly pleads guilty." He paused as 
 though the majesty of the law could ask no 
 more. " He is a young man of naturally high 
 and somewhat naturally, too, no doubt bibu 
 lous spirits. Homoeopathically if inversely 
 the result was logical. In the untrammelled life 
 of the liberty-breathing mountains, where the 
 stern spirit of law and order, of which your 
 Honor is the august symbol, does not prevail 
 as it does here thanks to your Honor s wise 
 and just dispensations the lad has, I may say, 
 naturally acquired a certain recklessness of mood 
 indulgence which, however easily condoned 
 there, must here be sternly rebuked. At the 
 same time, he knew not the conditions here, he 
 became exhilarated without malice, prepensey or 
 even, I may say, consciousness. He would not 
 have done as he has, if he had known what he 
 knows now, and, knowing, he will not repeat the 
 offence. I need say no more. I plead simply 
 that your Honor will temper the justice that is 
 only yours with the mercy that is yours only." 
 
 His Honor was visibly affected and to cover it 
 his methods being informal he said with 
 sharp irrelevancy : 
 
 170 
 
THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS 
 
 " Who bailed this young feller out last 
 night? " The sergeant spoke: 
 
 " Why, Mr. Marston thar " with out 
 stretched finger toward the young engineer. 
 The Blight s black eyes leaped with exultant 
 appreciation and the engineer turned crimson. 
 His Honor rolled his quid around in his mouth 
 once, and peered over his glasses: 
 
 " I fine this young feller two dollars and 
 costs." The young fellow had turned slowly in 
 his chair and his blue eyes blazed at the engineer 
 with unappeasable hatred. I doubt if he had 
 heard his Honor s voice. 
 
 " I want ye to know that I m obleeged to ye 
 an I ain t a-goin to fergit it ; but if I d a known 
 hit was you I d a stayed in jail an seen you in 
 hell afore I d a been bounden to ye." 
 
 " Ten dollars fer contempt of count." The 
 boy was hot now. 
 
 " Oh, fine and be " The Hon. Samuel 
 
 Budd had him by the shoulder, the boy swallowed 
 his voice and his starting tears of rage, and after 
 a whisper to his Honor, the Hon. Samuel led 
 him out. Outside, the engineer laughed to the 
 Blight: 
 
 "Pretty peppery, isn t he?" but the Blight 
 
 said nothing, and later we saw the youth on a 
 
 gray horse crossing the bridge and conducted by 
 
 the Hon. Samuel Budd, who stopped and waved 
 
 171 
 
A KOTGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 him toward the mountains. The boy went on 
 and across the plateau, the gray Gap swallowed 
 him. 
 
 That night, at the post-office, the Hon. Sam 
 plucked me aside by the sleeve. 
 
 " I know Marston is agin me in this race but 
 I ll do him a good turn just the same. You tell 
 him to watch out for that young fellow. He s 
 all right when he s sober, but when he s drunk 
 well, over in Kentucky, they call him the Wild 
 Dog." 
 
 Several days later we started out through that 
 same Gap. The glum stableman looked at the 
 Blight s girths three times, and with my own 
 eyes starting and my heart in my mouth, I saw 
 her pass behind her sixteen-hand-high mule and 
 give him a friendly tap on the rump as she went 
 by. The beast gave an appreciative flop of one 
 ear and that was all. Had I done that, any fur 
 ther benefit to me or mine would be incorporated 
 in the terms of an insurance policy. So, stating 
 this, I believe I state the limit and can now go 
 on to say at last that it was because she seemed 
 to be loved by man and brute alike that a big 
 man of her own town, whose body, big as it was, 
 was yet too small for his heart and from whose 
 brain things went off at queer angles, always 
 christened her perversely as " The Blight." 
 172 
 
II 
 
 ON THE WILD DOG S TRAIL 
 
 SO up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher s 
 Creek and Little Looney, past the mines 
 where high on a " tipple " stood the young engi 
 neer looking down at us, and looking after the 
 Blight as we passed on into a dim, rocky avenue 
 walled on each side with rhododendrons. I 
 waved at him and shook my head we would see 
 him coming back. Beyond a deserted log-cabin 
 we turned up a spur of the mountain. Around a 
 clump of bushes we came on a gray-bearded 
 mountaineer holding his horse by the bridle and 
 from a covert high above two more men ap 
 peared with Winchesters. The Blight breathed 
 forth an awed whisper: 
 
 " Are they moonshiners? " 
 
 I nodded sagely, " Most likely," and the 
 Blight was thrilled. They might have been 
 squirrel-hunters most innocent, but the Blight 
 had heard much talk of moonshine stills and 
 mountain feuds and the men who run them and 
 I took, the risk of denying her nothing. Up and 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 up we went, those two mules swaying from side 
 to side with a motion little short of elephantine 
 and, by and by, the Blight called out : 
 
 " You ride ahead and don t you dare look 
 back." 
 
 Accustomed to obeying the Blight s orders, I 
 rode ahead with eyes to the front. Presently, a 
 shriek made me turn suddenly. It was nothing 
 my little sister s mule had gone near a steep 
 cliff perilously near, as its rider thought, but I 
 saw why I must not look back; those two little 
 girls were riding astride on side-saddles, the 
 booted little right boot of each dangling stirrup- 
 less a posture quite decorous but ludicrous. 
 
 " Let us know if anybody comes," they cried. 
 A mountaineer descended into sight around a 
 loop of the path above. 
 
 " Change cars ! " I shouted. 
 
 They changed and, passing, were grave, de 
 mure then they changed again, and thus we 
 climbed. 
 
 Such a glory as was below, around and above 
 us; the air like champagne; the sunlight rich and 
 pouring like a flood on the gold that the beeches 
 had strewn in the path, on the gold that the pop 
 lars still shook high above and shimmering on 
 the royal scarlet of the maple and the sombre 
 russet of the oak. From far below us to far 
 above us a deep, curving ravine was slashed into 
 174 
 
ON THE WILD DOG S TRAIL 
 
 the mountain-side as by one stroke of a gigantic 
 scimitar. The darkness deep down was lighted 
 up with cool green, interfused with liquid gold. 
 Russet and yellow splashed the mountain-sides 
 beyond and high up the maples were in a shaking 
 blaze. The Blight s swift eyes took all in and 
 with indrawn breath she drank it all deep down. 
 An hour by sun we were near the top, which 
 was bared of trees and turned into rich farm 
 land covered with blue-grass. Along these up 
 land pastures, dotted with grazing cattle, and 
 across them we rode toward the mountain wil 
 dernesses on the other side, down into which a 
 zigzag path wriggles along the steep front of 
 Benham s spur. At the edge of the steep was 
 a cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer, who 
 looked like a brigand, answered my hail. He 
 " mought " keep us all night, but he d " ruther 
 not, as we could git a place to stay down the 
 spur." Could we get down before dark? The 
 mountaineer lifted his eyes to where the sun was 
 breaking the horizon of the west into streaks and 
 splashes of yellow and crimson. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you can git thar afore dark." 
 Now I knew that the mountaineer s idea of 
 distance is vague but he knows how long it 
 takes to get from one place to another. So we 
 started down dropping at once into thick, dark 
 woods, and as we went looping down, the deeper 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 was the gloom. That sun had suddenly severed 
 all connection with the laws of gravity and sunk, 
 and it was all the darker because the stars were 
 not out. The path was steep and coiled down 
 ward like a wounded snake. In one place a tree 
 had fallen across it, and to reach the next coil 
 of the path below was dangerous. So I had the 
 girls dismount and I led the gray horse down 
 on his haunches. The mules refused to follow, 
 which was rather unusual. I went back and 
 from a safe distance in the rear I belabored them 
 down. They cared neither for gray horse nor 
 crooked path, but turned of their own devilish 
 wills along the bushy mountain-side. As I ran 
 after them the gray horse started calmly on 
 down and those two girls shrieked with laughter 
 they knew no better. First one way and then 
 the other down the mountain went those mules, 
 with me after them, through thick bushes, over 
 logs, stumps and bowlders and holes crossing 
 the path a dozen times. What that path was 
 there for never occurred to those long-eared half 
 asses, whole fools, and by and by, when the girls 
 tried to shoo them down they clambered around 
 and above them and struck the path back up the 
 mountain. The horse had gone down one way, 
 the mules up the other, and there was no health 
 in anything. The girls could not go up so 
 there was nothing to do but go down, which, 
 176 
 
ON THE WILD DOG S TRAIL 
 
 hard as it was, was easier than going up. The 
 path was not visible now. Once in a while I 
 would stumble from it and crash through the 
 bushes to the next coil below. Finally I went 
 down, sliding one foot ahead all the time 
 knowing that when leaves rustled under that 
 foot I was on the point of going astray. Some 
 times I had to light a match to make sure of the 
 way, and thus the ridiculous descent was made 
 with those girls in high spirits behind. Indeed, 
 the darker, rockier, steeper it got, the more they 
 shrieked from pure joy but I was anything than 
 happy. It was dangerous. I didn t know the 
 cliffs and high rocks we might skirt and an un 
 lucky guidance might land us in the creek-bed 
 far down. But the blessed stars came out, the 
 moon peered over a farther mountain and on the 
 last spur there was the gray horse browsing in 
 the path and the sound of running water not 
 far below. Fortunately on the gray horse were 
 the saddle-bags of the chattering infants who 
 thought the whole thing a mighty lark. We 
 reached the running water, struck a flock of 
 geese and knew, in consequence, that humanity 
 was somewhere near. A few turns of the creek 
 and a beacon light shone below. The pales of a 
 picket fence, the cheering outlines of a log-cabin 
 came in view and at a peaked gate I shouted : 
 "Hello!" 
 
 177 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 You enter no mountaineer s yard without that 
 announcing cry. It was mediaeval, the Blight 
 said, positively two lorn damsels, a benighted 
 knight partially stripped of his armor by bush 
 and sharp-edged rock, a gray palfrey (she didn t 
 mention the impatient asses that had turned 
 homeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. 
 I wanted a " horn " badly enough but it was 
 not the kind men wind. By and by we got a 
 response : 
 
 " Hello! " was the answer, as an opened door 
 let out into the yard a broad band of light. 
 Could we stay all night? The voice replied 
 that the owner would see " Pap." " Pap " 
 seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate and 
 into the house went the Blight and the little sis 
 ter. Shortly, I followed. 
 
 There, all in one room, lighted by a huge 
 wood-fire, rafters above, puncheon floor beneath 
 cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only 
 furniture " pap," barefooted, the old mother 
 in the chimney-corner with a pipe, strings of red 
 pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around 
 and above, a married daughter with a child at 
 her breast, two or three children with yellow hair 
 and bare feet all looking with all their eyes at 
 the two visitors who had dropped upon them 
 from another world. The Blight s eyes were 
 brighter than usual that was the only sign she 
 
ON THE WILD DOG S TRAIL 
 
 gave that she was not in her own drawing-room. 
 Apparently she saw nothing strange or unusual 
 even, but there was really nothing that she did 
 not see or hear and absorb, as few others than 
 the Blight can. 
 
 Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes 
 out of her pipe. 
 
 " I reckon you hain t had nothin to eat," she 
 said, and disappeared. The old man asked ques 
 tions, the young mother rocked her baby on her 
 knees, the children got less shy and drew near 
 the fireplace, the Blight and the little sister ex 
 changed a furtive smile, and the contrast of the 
 extremes in American civilization, as shown in 
 that little cabin, interested me mightily. 
 
 " Yer snack s ready," said the old woman. 
 The old man carried the chairs into the kitchen, 
 and when I followed the girls were seated. The 
 chairs were so low that their chins came barely 
 over their plates, and demure and serious as they 
 were they surely looked most comical. There 
 was the usual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes 
 and sour milk, and the two girls struggled with 
 the rude fare nobly. 
 
 After supper I joined the old man and the old 
 woman with a pipe exchanging my tobacco for 
 their long green with more satisfaction probably 
 to me than to them, for the long green was good, 
 and strong and fragrant. 
 179 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEKLAND 
 
 The old woman asked the Blight and the little 
 sister many questions and they, in turn, showed 
 great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the 
 eighteen-year-old mother blushed and looked 
 greatly pleased. 
 
 1 You got mighty purty black eyes," said the 
 old woman to the Blight, and not to slight the 
 little sister she added, " An you got mighty purty 
 teeth." 
 
 The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and 
 the old woman turned back to her. 
 
 " Oh, youVe got both," she said and she shook 
 her head, as though she were thinking of the 
 damage they had done. It was my time now 
 to ask questions. 
 
 They didn t have many amusements on that 
 creek, I discovered and no dances. Sometimes 
 the boys went coon-hunting and there were corn- 
 shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties. 
 
 " Does anybody round here play the banjo ? " 
 
 " None o my boys," said the old wom 
 an; "but Tom Green s son down the creek 
 he follers pickin the banjo a leetle." " Fol- 
 lers pickin " the Blight did not miss that 
 phrase. 
 
 " What do you foller fer a livin ? " the old 
 man asked me suddenly. 
 
 " I write for a living." He thought a while. 
 
 " Well, it must be purty fine to have a good 
 180 
 
ON THE WILD DOG S TRAIL 
 
 handwrite." This nearly dissolved the Blight 
 and the little sister, but they held on heroically. 
 
 "Is there much fighting around here?" I 
 asked presently. 
 
 " Not much cept when one young feller up 
 the river gets to tearin up things. I heerd as 
 how he was over to the Gap last week raisin 
 hell. He comes by here on his way home." 
 The Blight s eyes opened wide apparently we 
 were on his trail. It is not wise for a member 
 of the police guard at the Gap to show too much 
 curiosity about the lawless ones of the hills, and 
 I asked no questions. 
 
 " They calls him the Wild Dog over here," 
 he added, and then he yawned cavernously. 
 
 I looked around with divining eye for the 
 sleeping arrangements soon to come, which some 
 times are embarrassing to " furriners " who are 
 unable to grasp at once the primitive unconscious 
 ness of the mountaineers and, in consequence, ac 
 cept a point of view natural to them because 
 enforced by architectural limitations and a hospi 
 tality that turns no one seeking shelter from 
 any door. They were, however, better prepared 
 than I had hoped for. They had a spare room 
 on the porch and just outside the door, and when 
 the old woman led the two girls to it, I followed 
 with their saddle-bags. The room was about 
 seven feet by six and was windowless. 
 181 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 " You d better leave your door open a little," 
 I said, " or you ll smother in there." 
 
 " Well," said the old woman, " hit s all right 
 to leave the door open. Nothin s goin ter 
 bother ye, but one o my sons is out a coon-hun- 
 tin and he mought come in, not knowin you re 
 thar. But you jes holler an he ll move on." 
 She meant precisely what she said and saw no 
 humor at all in such a possibility but when the 
 door closed, I could hear those girls stifling 
 shrieks of laughter. 
 
 Literally, that night, I was a member of the 
 family. I had a bed to myself (the following 
 night I was not so fortunate) in one corner; 
 behind the head of mine the old woman, the 
 daughter-in-law and the baby had another in the 
 other corner, and the old man with the two boys 
 spread a pallet on the floor. That is the invar 
 iable rule of courtesy with the mountaineer, to 
 give his bed to the stranger and take to the floor 
 himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in 
 a long experience, have I seen the slightest con 
 sciousness much less immodesty in a moun 
 tain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the 
 part of the visitors is taken for granted any 
 other indeed holds mortal possibilities of of 
 fence so that if the visitor has common sense, 
 all embarrassment passes at once. The door 
 was closed, the fire blazed on uncovered, the 
 182 
 
ON THE WILD DOG S TKAIL 
 
 smothered talk and laughter of the two girls 
 ceased, the coon-hunter came not and the night 
 passed in peace. 
 
 It must have been near daybreak that I was 
 aroused by the old man leaving the cabin and I 
 heard voices and the sound of horses feet out 
 side. When he came back he was grinning. 
 
 " Hit s your mules." 
 
 "Who found them?" 
 
 " The Wild Dog had em," he said. 
 
 183 
 
Ill 
 
 THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE HON. 
 SAMUEL BUDD 
 
 BEHIND us came the Hon. Samuel Budd. 
 Just when the sun was slitting the east with 
 a long streak of fire, the Hon. Samuel was, with 
 the jocund day, standing tiptoe in his stirrups 
 on the misty mountain-top and peering into the 
 ravine down which we had slid the night before, 
 and he grumbled no little when he saw that he, 
 too, must get off his horse and slide down. The 
 Hon. Samuel was ambitious, Southern, and a 
 lawyer. Without saying, it goes that he was 
 also a politician. He was not a native of the 
 mountains, but he had cast his fortunes in the 
 highlands, and he was taking the first step that 
 he hoped would, before many years, land him 
 in the National Capitol. He really knew little 
 about the mountaineers, even now, and he had 
 never been among his constituents on Devil s 
 Fork, where he was bound now. The campaign 
 had so far been full of humor and full of trials 
 not the least of which sprang from the fact 
 
THE AURICULAR TALENT 
 
 that it was sorghum time. Everybody through 
 the mountains was making sorghum, and every 
 mountain child was eating molasses. 
 
 Now, as the world knows, the straightest way 
 to the heart of the honest voter is through the 
 women of the land, and the straightest way to 
 the heart of the women is through the children 
 of the land; and one method of winning both, 
 with rural politicians, is to kiss the babies wide 
 and far. So as each infant, at sorghum time, 
 has a circle of green-brown stickiness about his 
 chubby lips, and as the Hon. Sam was averse to 
 " long sweetenin " even in his coffee, this par 
 ticular political device just now was no small trial 
 to the Hon. Samuel Budd. But in the language 
 of one of his firmest supporters Uncle Tommie 
 Hendricks : 
 
 " The Hon. Sam done his duty, and he done 
 it damn well." 
 
 The issue at stake was the site of the new 
 Court-House two localities claiming the right 
 undisputed, because they were the only two places 
 in the county where there was enough level land 
 for the Court-House to stand on. Let no man 
 think this a trivial issue. There had been a 
 similar one over on the Virginia side once, and 
 the opposing factions agreed to decide the ques 
 tion by the ancient wager of battle, fist and skull 
 two hundred men on each side and the worn- 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 en of the county with difficulty prevented the 
 fight. Just now, Mr. Budd was on his way to 
 " The Pocket " the voting place of one faction 
 where he had never been, where the hostility 
 against him was most bitter, and, that day, he 
 knew he was " up against " Waterloo, the cross 
 ing of the Rubicon, holding the pass at Ther 
 mopylae, or any other historical crisis in the his 
 tory of man. 
 
 I was saddling the mules when the cackling 
 of geese in the creek announced the coming of 
 the Hon. Samuel Budd, coming with his chin 
 on his breast deep in thought. Still his eyes 
 beamed cheerily, he lifted his slouched hat gal 
 lantly to the Blight and the little sister, and he 
 would wait for us to jog along with him. I 
 told him of our troubles, meanwhile. The Wild 
 Dog had restored our mules and the Hon. 
 Sam beamed: 
 
 " He s a wonder where is he? " 
 
 " He never waited even for thanks." 
 
 Again the Hon. Sam beamed : 
 
 " Ah ! just like him. He s gone ahead to help 
 me." 
 
 "Well, how did he happen to be here?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " He s everywhere," said the Hon. Sam. 
 
 " How did he know the mules were ours? " 
 
 " Easy. That boy knows everything." 
 186 
 
THE AURICULAR TALENT 
 
 " Well, why did he bring them back and then 
 leave so mysteriously? " 
 
 The Hon. Sam silently pointed a finger at the 
 laughing Blight ahead, and I looked incredulous. 
 
 " Just the same, that s another reason I told 
 you to warn Marston. He s already got it in 
 his head that Marston is his rival." 
 
 " Pshaw! " I said for it was too ridiculous. 
 
 " All right," said the Hon. Sam placidly. 
 
 " Then why doesn t fye want to see her? " 
 
 " How do you know he ain t watchin* her 
 now, for all we know? Mark me," he added, 
 " you won t see him at the speakin , but I ll bet 
 fruit cake agin gingerbread he ll be somewhere 
 around." 
 
 So we went on, the two girls leading the way 
 and the Hon. Sam now telling his political 
 troubles to me. Half a mile down the road, a 
 solitary horseman stood waiting, and Mr. Budd 
 gave a low whistle. 
 
 " One o my rivals," he said, from the corner 
 of his mouth. 
 
 " Mornin ," said the horseman; " lemme see 
 you a minute." 
 
 He made a movement to draw aside, but the 
 Hon. Samuel made a counter-gesture of dissent. 
 
 " This gentleman is a friend of mine," he said 
 firmly, but with great courtesy, " and he can 
 hear what you have to say to me." 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 The mountaineer rubbed one huge hand over 
 his stubby chin, threw one of his long legs over 
 the pommel of his saddle, and dangled a heavy 
 cowhide shoe to and fro. 
 
 " Would you mind tellin me whut pay a mem 
 ber of the House of Legislator gits a day? " 
 
 The Hon. Sam looked surprised. 
 
 " I think about two dollars and a half." 
 
 "An his meals?" 
 
 " No ! " laughed Mr. Budd. 
 
 " Well, look-ee here, stranger. I m a pore 
 man an I ve got a mortgage on my farm. That 
 money don t mean nothin to you but if you ll 
 draw out now an* I win, I ll tell ye whut I ll do." 
 He paused as though to make sure that the sacri 
 fice was possible. " I ll just give ye half of that 
 two dollars and a half a day, as shore as you re 
 a-settin on that boss, and you won t hav to hit 
 a durn lick to earn it." 
 
 I had not the heart to smile nor did the 
 Hon. Samuel so artless and simple was the 
 man and so pathetic his appeal. 
 
 " You see you ll divide my vote, an ef we 
 both run, ole Josh Barton ll git it shore. Ef 
 you git out o the way, I can lick him easy." 
 
 Mr. Budd s answer was kind, instructive, and 
 uplifted. 
 
 " My friend," said he, " I m sorry, but I can 
 not possibly accede to your request for the fol- 
 iSS 
 
THE AURICULAR TALENT 
 
 lowing reasons : First, it would not be fair to my 
 constituents ; secondly, it would hardly be seem 
 ing to barter the noble gift of the people to 
 which we both aspire; thirdly, you might lose 
 with me out of the way; and fourthly, I m going 
 to win whether you are in the way or not." 
 
 The horseman slowly collapsed while the Hon. 
 Samuel was talking, and now he threw the leg 
 back, kicked for his stirrup twice, spat once, and 
 turned his horse s head. 
 
 " I reckon you will, stranger," he said sadly, 
 " with that gift o gab o yourn." He turned 
 without another word or nod of good-by and 
 started back up the creek whence he had come. 
 
 " One gone," said the Hon. Samuel Budd 
 grimly, " and I swear I m right sorry for him." 
 And so was I. 
 
 An hour later we struck the river, and another 
 hour upstream brought us to where the contest 
 of tongues was to come about. No sylvan dell 
 in Arcady could have been lovelier than the spot. 
 Above the road, a big spring poured a clear little 
 stream over shining pebbles into the river ; above 
 it the bushes hung thick with autumn leaves, and 
 above them stood yellow beeches like pillars of 
 pale fire. On both sides of the road sat and 
 squatted the honest voters, sour-looking, dis 
 gruntled a distinctly hostile crowd. The 
 Blight and my little sister drew great and curi- 
 189 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 ous attention as they sat on a bowlder above the 
 spring while I went with the Hon. Samuel Budd 
 under the guidance of Uncle Tommie Hendricks, 
 who introduced him right and left. The Hon. 
 Samuel was cheery, but he was plainly nervous. 
 There were two lanky youths whose names, oddly 
 enough, were Budd. As they gave him their 
 huge paws in lifeless fashion, the Hon. Samuel 
 slapped one on the shoulder, with the true de 
 mocracy of the politician, and said jocosely: 
 
 * Well, we Budds may not be what you call 
 great people, but, thank God, none of us have 
 ever been in the penitentiary, " and he laughed 
 loudly, thinking that he had scored a great and 
 jolly point. The two young men looked exceed 
 ingly grave and Uncle Tommie panic-stricken. 
 He plucked the Hon. Sam by the sleeve and led 
 him aside: 
 
 " I reckon you made a leetle mistake thar. 
 Them two fellers daddy died in the penitentiary 
 last spring." The Hon. Sam whistled mourn 
 fully, but he looked game enough when his op 
 ponent rose to speak Uncle Josh Barton, who 
 had short, thick, upright hair, little, sharp eyes, 
 and a rasping voice. Uncle Josh wasted no 
 time: 
 
 " Feller-citizens," he shouted, " this man is a 
 lawyer he s a corporation lawyer " ; the fearful 
 name pronounced " lie-yer " rang through 
 190 
 
THE AURICULAR TALENT 
 
 the crowd like a trumpet, and like lightning the 
 Hon. Sam was on his feet. 
 
 " The man who says that is a liar," he said 
 calmly, " and I demand your authority for the 
 statement. If you won t give it I shall hold 
 you personally responsible, sir." 
 
 It was a strike home, and under the flashing 
 eyes that stared unwaveringly through the big 
 goggles, Uncle Josh halted and stammered and 
 admitted that he might have been misinformed. 
 
 " Then I advise you to be more careful," cau 
 tioned the Hon. Samuel sharply. 
 
 " Feller-citizens," said Uncle Josh, " if he 
 ain t a corporation lawyer who is this man? 
 Where did he come from? I have been born 
 and raised among you. You all know me do 
 you know him ? Whut s he a-doin now ? He s 
 a fine-haired furriner, an he s come down hyeh 
 from the settlemints to tell ye that you hain t got 
 no man in yo own deestrict that s fittin to repre 
 sent ye in the legislatur . Look at him look 
 at him ! He s got four eyes ! Look at his hair 
 hit s parted in the middle! " There was a 
 storm of laughter Uncle Josh had made good 
 and if the Hon. Samuel could straightway 
 have turned bald-headed and sightless, he would 
 have been a happy man. He looked sick with 
 hopelessness, but Uncle Tommie Hendricks, his 
 mentor, was vigorously whispering something in 
 191 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 his ear, and gradually his face cleared. Indeed, 
 the Hon. Samuel was smilingly confident when 
 he rose. 
 
 Like his rival, he stood in the open road, and 
 the sun beat down on his parted yellow hair, so 
 that the eyes of all could see, and the laughter 
 was still running round. 
 
 " Who is your Uncle Josh? " he asked with 
 threatening mildness. " I know I was not born 
 here, but, my friends, I couldn t help that. And 
 just as soon as I could get away from where I 
 was born, I came here and," he paused with lips 
 parted and long finger outstretched, " and I 
 came because I wanted to come and not 
 because / had /o." 
 
 Now it seems that Uncle Josh, too, was not 
 a native and that he had left home early 
 in life for his State s good and for his own. 
 Uncle Tommie had whispered this, and the 
 Hon. Samuel raised himself high on both 
 toes while the expectant crowd, on the verge of 
 a roar, waited as did Uncle Joshua, with a 
 sickly smile. 
 
 Why did your Uncle Josh come among you ? 
 Because he was hoop-poled away from home." 
 Then came the roar and the Hon. Samuel had 
 to quell it with uplifted hand. 
 
 " And did your Uncle Joshua marry a moun 
 tain wife ? No ! He didn t think any of your 
 192 
 
THE AURICULAR TALENT 
 
 mountain women were good enough for him, so 
 he slips down into the settlemints and steals one. 
 And now, fellow-citizens, that is just what I m 
 here for I m looking for a nice mountain girl, 
 and I m going to have her." Again the Hon. 
 Samuel had to still the roar, and then he went 
 on quietly to show how they must lose the Court- 
 House site if they did not send him to the legis 
 lature, and how, while they might not get it if 
 they did send him, it was their only hope to send 
 only him. The crowd had grown somewhat hos 
 tile again, and it was after one telling period, 
 when the Hon. Samuel stopped to mop his brow, 
 that a gigantic mountaineer rose in the rear of 
 the crowd: 
 
 " Talk on, stranger ; you re talking sense. I ll 
 trust ye. You ve got big ears! " 
 
 Now the Hon. Samuel possessed a primordial 
 talent that is rather rare in these physically 
 degenerate days. He said nothing, but stood 
 quietly in the middle of the road. The eyes of 
 the crowd on either side of the road began to 
 bulge, the lips of all opened with wonder, and a 
 simultaneous burst of laughter rose around the 
 Hon. Samuel Budd. A dozen men sprang to 
 their feet and rushed up to him looking at 
 those remarkable ears, as they gravely wagged 
 to and fro. That settled things, and as we left, 
 the Hon. Sam was having things his own way, 
 193 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 and on the edge of the crowd Uncle Tommic 
 Hendricks was shaking his head : 
 
 " I tell ye, boys, he ain t no jackass even if 
 he can flop his ears." 
 
 At the river we started upstream, and some 
 impulse made me turn in my saddle and look 
 back. All the time I had had an eye open for 
 the young mountaineer whose interest in us 
 seemed to be so keen. And now I saw, stand 
 ing at the head of a gray horse, on the edge of 
 the crowd, a tall figure with his hands on his 
 hips and looking after us. I couldn t be sure, 
 but it looked like the Wild Dog. 
 
 194 
 
IV 
 
 CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 TWO hours up the river we struck Buck. 
 Buck was sitting on the fence by the road 
 side, barefooted and hatless. 
 
 " How-dye-do?" I said. 
 
 " Purty well," said Buck. 
 
 " Any fish in this river? " 
 
 " Several," said Buck. Now in mountain 
 speech, " several " means simply " a good 
 many." 
 
 " Any minnows in these branches? " 
 
 " I seed several in the branch back o our 
 house." 
 
 " How far away do you live? " 
 
 " Oh, bout one whoop an a holler." If he 
 had spoken Greek the Blight could not have been 
 more puzzled. He meant he lived as far as a 
 man s voice would carry with one yell and a 
 holler. 
 
 "Will you help me catch some?" Buck 
 nodded. 
 
 " All right," I said, turning my horse up to 
 195 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 the fence. " Get on behind." The horse shied 
 his hind quarters away, and I pulled him 
 back. 
 
 " Now, you can get on, if you ll be quick. * 
 Buck sat still. 
 
 "Yes," he said imperturbably ; " but I ain t 
 quick." The two girls laughed aloud, and Buck 
 looked surprised. 
 
 Around a curving cornfield we went, and 
 through a meadow which Buck said was a " nigh 
 cut." From the limb of a tree that we passed 
 hung a piece of wire with an iron ring swinging 
 at its upturned end. A little farther was an 
 other tree and another ring, and farther on an 
 other and another. 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, Buck, what are these 
 things?" 
 
 " Mart s a-gittin ready fer a tourneyment." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 " That s whut Mart calls hit. He was over 
 to the Gap last Fourth o July, an he says fellers 
 over thar fix up like Kuklux and go a-chargin 
 on bosses and takin off them rings with a ash- 
 stick * spear, Mart calls hit. He come back 
 an he says he s a-goin to win that ar tourney 
 ment next Fourth o July. He s got the best 
 boss up this river, and on Sundays him an Dave 
 Branham goes a-chargin along here a-pickin off 
 these rings jus a-flyin ; an Mart can do hit, I m 
 196 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 tellin ye. Dave s mighty good hisself, but he 
 ain t nowhar longside o Mart." 
 
 This was strange. I had told the Blight about 
 our Fourth of July, and how on the Virginia 
 side the ancient custom of the tournament 
 still survived. It was on the last Fourth of 
 July that she had meant to come to the Gap. 
 Truly civilization was spreading throughout 
 the hills. 
 
 "Who s Mart?" 
 
 " Mart s my brother," said little Buck. " He 
 was over to the Gap not long ago, an he come 
 back mad as hops " He stopped suddenly, and 
 in such a way that I turned my head, knowing 
 that caution had caught Buck. 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 "Oh, nothin ," said Buck carelessly; "only 
 he s been quar ever since. My sister says he s 
 got a gal over thar, an he s a-pickin off these 
 rings more n ever now. He s going to win or 
 bust a belly-band." 
 
 " Well, who s Dave Branham? " 
 
 Buck grinned. " You jes axe my sister Mol- 
 lie. Thar she is." 
 
 Before us was a white-framed house of logs 
 in the porch of which stood two stalwart, good- 
 looking girls. Could we stay all night? We 
 could there was no hesitation and straight in 
 we rode. 
 
 197 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 " Where s your father ? " Both girls giggled, 
 and one said, with frank unembarrassment : 
 
 " Pap s tight! " That did not look promis 
 ing, but we had to stay just the same. Buck 
 helped me to unhitch the mules, helped me also 
 to catch minnows, and in half an hour we started 
 down the river to try fishing before dark came. 
 Buck trotted along. 
 
 " Have you got a wagon, Buck? " 
 
 "What far?" 
 
 " To bring the fish back." Buck was not to 
 be caught napping. 
 
 " We got that sled thar, but hit won t be big 
 enough," he said gravely. " An our two-hoss 
 wagon s out in the cornfield. We ll have to 
 string the fish, leave em in the river and go fer 
 em in the mornin ." 
 
 " All right, Buck." The Blight was greatly 
 amused at Buck. 
 
 Two hundred yards down the road stood his 
 sisters over the figure of a man outstretched in 
 the road. Unashamed, they smiled at us. The 
 man in the road was " pap " tight and they 
 were trying to get him home. 
 
 We cast into a dark pool farther down and 
 fished most patiently ; not a bite not a nibble. 
 
 " Are there any fish in here, Buck? " 
 
 " Dunno used ter be." The shadows deep 
 ened ; we must go back to the house. 
 198 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 " Is there a dam below here, Buck? " 
 
 " Yes, thar s a dam about a half-mile down 
 the river." 
 
 I was disgusted. No wonder there were no 
 bass in that pool. 
 
 " Why didn t you tell me that before?" 
 
 " You never axed me," said Buck placidly. 
 
 I began winding in my line. 
 
 " Ain t no bottom to that pool," said Buck. 
 
 Now I never saw any rural community where 
 there was not a bottomless pool, and I suddenly 
 determined to shake one tradition in at least one 
 community. So I took an extra fish-line, tied a 
 stone to it, and climbed into a canoe, Buck watch 
 ing me, but not asking a word. 
 
 " Get in, Buck." 
 
 Silently he got in and I pushed off to the 
 centre. 
 
 " This the deepest part, Buck? " 
 
 " I reckon so." 
 
 I dropped in the stone and the line reeled out 
 some fifty feet and began to coil on the surface 
 of the water. 
 
 " I guess that s on the bottom, isn t it, 
 Buck?" 
 
 Buck looked genuinely distressed; but pres 
 ently he brightened. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " ef hit ain t on a turtle s 
 back." 
 
 199 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 Literally I threw up both hands and back we 
 trailed fishless. 
 
 44 Reckon you won t need that two-hoss 
 wagon," said Buck. 
 
 " No, Buck, I think not." Buck looked at the 
 Blight and gave himself the pleasure of his first 
 chuckle. A big, crackling, cheerful fire awaited 
 us. Through the door I could see, outstretched 
 on a bed in the next room, the limp figure of 
 " pap " in alcoholic sleep. The old mother, big, 
 kind-faced, explained and there was a heaven 
 of kindness and charity in her drawling voice. 
 
 44 Dad didn often git that a-way," she said ; 
 * 4 but he d been out a-huntin hawgs that mornin 
 and had met up with some teamsters and gone 
 to a political speakin and had tuk a dram or two 
 of their mean whiskey, and not havin nothin* 
 on his stummick, hit had all gone to his head. 
 No, 4 pap didn t git that a-way often, and he d 
 be all right jes as soon as he slept it off a while." 
 The old woman moved about with a cane and the 
 sympathetic Blight merely looked a question at 
 her. 
 
 44 Yes, she d fell down a year ago and had 
 sort o hurt herself didn t do nothin , though, 
 cept break one hip," she added, in her kind, 
 patient old voice. Did many people stop there ? 
 Oh, yes, sometimes fifteen at a time they 
 44 never turned nobody away." And she had a 
 200 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 big family, little Cindy and the two big girls and 
 Buck and Mart who was out somewhere and 
 the hired man, and yes " Thar was another 
 boy, but he was fitified," said one of the big 
 sisters. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the wondering 
 Blight, but she knew that phrase wouldn t do, 
 so she added politely : 
 
 44 What did you say?" 
 
 44 Fitified Tom has fits. He s in a asylum 
 in the settlements." 
 
 44 Tom come back once an he was all right," 
 said the old mother; 44 but he worried so much 
 over them gals workin so hard that it plum 
 throwed him off ag in, and we had to send him 
 back." 
 
 44 Do you work pretty hard? " I asked pres 
 ently. Then a story came that was full of un 
 conscious pathos, because there was no hint of 
 complaint simply a plain statement of daily life. 
 They got up before the men, in order to get 
 breakfast ready; then they went with the men 
 into the fields those two girls and worked like 
 men. At dark they got supper ready, and after 
 the men went to bed they worked on washing 
 dishes and clearing up the kitchen. They took 
 it turn about getting supper, and sometimes, one 
 said, she was " so plumb tuckered out that she d 
 drap on the bed and go to sleep ruther than eat 
 201 
 
A KOTGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 her own supper." No wonder poor Tom had 
 to go back to the asylum. All the while the two 
 girls stood by the fire looking, politely but mi 
 nutely, at the two strange girls and their curious 
 clothes and their boots, and the way they dressed 
 their hair. Their hard life seemed to have hurt 
 them none for both were the pictures of health 
 whatever that phrase means. 
 
 After supper " pap " came in, perfectly sober, 
 with a big, ruddy face, giant frame, and twin 
 kling gray eyes. He was the man who had risen 
 to speak his faith in the Hon. Samuel Budd that 
 day on the size of the Hon. Samuel s ears. He, 
 too, was unashamed and, as he explained his 
 plight again, he did it with little apology. 
 
 " I seed ye at the speakin to-day. That man 
 Budd is a good man. He done somethin fer a 
 boy o* mine over at the Gap." Like little Buck, 
 he, too, stopped short. " He s a good man an* 
 I m a-goin to help him." 
 
 Yes, he repeated, quite irrelevantly, it was 
 hunting hogs all day with nothing to eat and only 
 mean whiskey to drink. Mart had not come in 
 yet he was " workin out " now. 
 
 " He s the best worker in these mountains," 
 said the old woman; " Mart works too hard." 
 
 The hired man appeared and joined us at the 
 fire. Bedtime came, and I whispered jokingly 
 to the Blight : 
 
 202 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 " I believe I ll ask that good-looking one to 
 * set up with me." " Settin up " is what court 
 ing is called in the hills. The couple sit up in 
 front of the fire after everybody else has gone 
 to bed. The man puts his arm around the girl s 
 neck and whispers ; then she puts her arm around 
 his neck and whispers so that the rest may not 
 hear. This I had related to the Blight, and now 
 she withered me. 
 
 " You just do, now ! " 
 
 I turned to the girl in question, whose name 
 was Mollie. " Buck told me to ask you who 
 Dave Branham was." Mollie wheeled, blush 
 ing and angry, but Buck had darted, cackling, 
 out the door. " Oh," I said, and I changed the 
 subject. " What time do you get up? " 
 
 " Oh, bout crack o day." I was tired, and 
 that was discouraging. 
 
 " Do you get up that early every morning? " 
 
 " No," was the quick answer; "a mornin 
 later." 
 
 A morning later, Mollie got up, each morning. 
 The Blight laughed. 
 
 Pretty soon the two girls were taken into the 
 next room, which was a long one, with one bed 
 in one dark corner, one in the other, and a third 
 bed in the middle. The feminine members of 
 the family all followed them put on the porch 
 and watched them brush their teeth, for they had 
 203 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 never seen tooth-brushes before. They watched 
 them prepare for bed and I could hear much 
 giggling and comment and many questions, all 
 of which culminated, by and by, in a chorus of 
 shrieking laughter. That climax, as I learned 
 next morning, was over the Blight s hot-water 
 bag. Never had their eyes rested on an article 
 of more wonder and humor than that water bag. 
 
 By and by, the feminine members came back 
 and we sat around the fire. Still Mart did not 
 appear, though somebody stepped into the kitch 
 en, and from the warning glance that Mollie 
 gave Buck when she left the room I guessed 
 that the newcomer was her lover Dave. Pretty 
 soon the old man yawned. 
 
 ;< Well, mammy, I reckon this stranger s about 
 ready to lay down, if you ve got a place fer 
 him." 
 
 " Git a light, Buck," said the old woman. 
 Buck got a light a chimneyless, smoking oil- 
 lamp and led me into the same room where the 
 Blight and my little sister were. Their heads 
 were covered up, but the bed in the gloom of 
 one corner was shaking with their smothered 
 laughter. Buck pointed to the middle bed. 
 
 " I can get along without that light, Buck," 
 
 I said, and I must have been rather haughty and 
 
 abrupt, for a stifled shriek came from under the 
 
 bedclothes in the corner and Buck disappeared 
 
 204 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 swiftly. Preparations for bed are simple in the 
 mountains they were primitively simple for me 
 that night. Being in knickerbockers, I merely 
 took off my coat and shoes. Presently somebody 
 else stepped into the room and the bed in the 
 other corner creaked. Silence for a while. 
 Then the door opened, and the head of the old 
 woman was thrust in. 
 
 " Mart! " she said coaxingly; " git up thar 
 now an climb over inter bed with that ar 
 stranger." 
 
 That was Mart at last, over in the corner. 
 Mart turned, grumbled, and, to my great plea 
 sure, swore that he wouldn t. The old woman 
 waited a moment. 
 
 " Mart," she said again with gentle im- 
 periousness, " git up thar now, I tell ye you ve 
 got to sleep with that thar stranger." 
 
 She closed the door and with a snort Mart 
 piled into bed with me. I gave him plenty of 
 room and did not introduce myself. A little 
 more dark silence the shaking of the bed under 
 the hilarity of those astonished, bethrilled, but 
 thoroughly unfrightened young women in the 
 dark corner on my left ceased, and again the 
 door opened. This time it was the hired man, 
 and I saw that the trouble was either that neither 
 Mart nor Buck wanted to sleep with the hired 
 man or that neither wanted to sleep with me. 
 205 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEKLAND 
 
 A long silence and then the boy Buck slipped in. 
 The hired man delivered himself with the into 
 nation somewhat of a circuit rider. 
 
 " I ve been a-watchin that star thar, through 
 the winder. Sometimes hit moves, then hit 
 stands plum still, an 7 ag in hit gits to pitchin ." 
 The hired man must have been touching up mean 
 whiskey himself. Meanwhile, Mart seemed to 
 be having spells of troubled slumber. He would 
 snore gently, accentuate said snore with a sudden 
 quiver of his body and then wake up with a cli 
 macteric snort and start that would shake the 
 bed. This was repeated several times, and I 
 began to think of the unfortunate Tom who was 
 " fitified." Mart seemed on the verge of a fit 
 himself, and I waited apprehensively for each 
 snorting climax to see if fits were a family fail 
 ing. They were not. Peace overcame Mart 
 and he slept deeply, but not I. The hired man 
 began to show symptoms. He would roll and 
 groan, dreaming of feuds, quorum pars magna 
 fuit, it seemed, and of religious conversion, in 
 which he feared he was not so great. Twice he 
 said aloud: 
 
 " An I tell you thar wouldn t a one of em 
 have said a word if I d been killed stone-dead." 
 Twice he said it almost weepingly, and now and 
 then he would groan appealingly : 
 
 " O Lawd, have mercy on my pore soul ! " 
 206 
 
CLOSE QUARTEKS 
 
 Fortunately those two tired girls slept I 
 could hear their breathing but sleep there was 
 little for me. Once the troubled soul with the 
 hoe got up and stumbled out to the water-bucket 
 on the porch to soothe the fever or whatever it 
 was that was burning him, and after that he was 
 quiet. I awoke before day. The dim light at 
 the window showed an empty bed Buck and 
 the hired man were gone. Mart was slipping 
 out of the side of my bed, but the girls still slept 
 on. I watched Mart, for I guessed I might 
 now see what, perhaps, is the distinguishing trait 
 of American civilization down to its bed-rock, as. 
 you find ikthrough the West and in the Southern 
 hills a chivalrous respect for women. Mart 
 though! I was asleep. Over in the corner were 
 two creatures the like of which I supposed he 
 had never seen and would not see, since he came 
 in too late the night before, and was going away 
 too early now and two angels straight from 
 heaven could not have stirred my curiosity any 
 more than they already must have stirred his. 
 But not once did Mart turn his eyes, much less 
 his face, toward the corner where they were 
 not once, for I watched him closely. And when 
 he went out he sent his little sister back for his 
 shoes, which the night-walking hired man had 
 accidentally kicked toward the foot of the 
 strangers bed In a minute I was out after him, 
 207 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 but he was gone. Behind me the two girls 
 opened their eyes on a room that was empty 
 save for them. Then the Blight spoke (this I 
 was told later) . 
 
 " Dear," she said, " have our room-mates 
 gone?" 
 
 Breakfast at dawn. The mountain girls were 
 ready to go to work. All looked sorry to have 
 us leave. They asked us to come back again, 
 and they meant it. We said we would like to 
 come back and we meant it to see them 
 the kind old mother, the pioneer-like old man, 
 sturdy little Buck, shy little Cindy, the elusive, 
 hard-working, unconsciously shivery Mart, and 
 the two big sisters. As we started back up the 
 river the sisters started for the fields, and I 
 thought of their stricken brother in the settle 
 ments, who must have been much like Mart. 
 
 Back up the Big Black Mountain we toiled, 
 and late in the afternoon we were on the State 
 line that runs the crest of the Big Black. Right 
 on top and bisected by that State line sat a dingy 
 little shack, and there, with one leg thrown over 
 the pommel of his saddle, sat Marston, drink 
 ing water from a gourd. 
 
 " I was coming over to meet you," he said, 
 
 smiling at the Blight, who, greatly pleased, 
 
 smiled back at him. The shack was a " blind 
 
 Tiger " where whiskey could be sold to Ken- 
 
 208 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 tuckians on the Virginia side and to Virginians 
 on the Kentucky side. Hanging around were 
 the slouching figures of several moonshiners and 
 the villainous fellow who ran it. 
 
 " They are real ones all right," said Marston. 
 " One of them killed a revenue officer at that 
 front door last week, and was killed by the posse 
 as he was trying to escape out of the back win 
 dow. That house will be in ashes soon, 1 he 
 added. And it was. 
 
 As we rode down the mountain we told him 
 about our trip and the people with whom we 
 had spent the night and all the time he was 
 smiling curiously. 
 
 " Buck," he said. " Oh, yes, I know that 
 little chap. Mart had him posted down there 
 on the river to toll you to his house to toll 
 you" he added to the Blight. He pulled in his 
 horse suddenly, turned and looked up toward the 
 top of the mountain. 
 
 " Ah, I thought so." We all looked back. 
 On the edge of the cliff, far upward, on which 
 the " blind Tiger " sat was a gray horse, and on 
 it was a man who, motionless, was looking down 
 at us. " He s been following you all the way," 
 said the engineer. 
 
 " Who s been following us? " I asked. 
 
 " That s Mart up there my friend and 
 yours," said Marston to the Blight. " I m 
 209 
 
r A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 rather glad I didn t meet you on the other side 
 of the mountain that s * the Wild Dog. " 
 The Blight looked incredulous, but Marston 
 knew the man and knew the horse. 
 
 So Mart hard-working Mart was the Wild 
 Dog, and he was content to do the Blight all 
 service without thanks, merely for the privilege 
 of secretly seeing her face now and then; and 
 yet he would not look upon that face when she 
 was a guest under his roof and asleep. 
 
 Still, when we dropped behind the two girls 
 I gave Marston the Hon. Sam s warning, and 
 for a moment he looked rather grave. 
 
 " Well," he said, smiling, " if I m found in 
 the road some day, you ll know who did it." 
 
 I shook my head. "Oh, no; he isn t that 
 bad." 
 
 " I don t know," said Marston. 
 
 The smoke of the young engineer s coke ovens 
 lay far below us and the Blight had never seen 
 a coke-plant before. It looked like Hades even 
 in the early dusk the snake-like coil of fiery 
 ovens stretching up the long, deep ravine, and 
 the smoke-streaked clouds of fire, trailing like a 
 yellow mist over them, with a fierce white blast 
 shooting up here and there when the lid of an 
 oven was raised, as though to add fresh temper 
 ature to some particular malefactor in some par- 
 210 
 
CLOSE QUARTERS 
 
 ticular chamber of torment. Humanity about 
 was joyous, however. Laughter and banter and 
 song came from the cabins that lined the big 
 ravine and the little ravines opening into it. A 
 banjo tinkled at the entrance of " Possum Trot," 
 sacred to the darkies. We moved toward it. 
 On the stoop sat an ecstatic picker and in the dust 
 shuffled three pickaninnies one boy and two 
 girls the youngest not five years old. The 
 crowd that was gathered about them gave way 
 respectfully as we drew near; the little darkies 
 showed their white teeth in jolly grins, and their 
 feet shook the dust in happy competition. I 
 showered a few coins for the Blight and on we 
 went into the mouth of the many-peaked Gap. 
 The night train was coming in and everybody 
 had a smile of welcome for the Blight post- 
 office assistant, drug clerk, soda-water boy, tele 
 graph operator, hostler, who came for the mules 
 and when tired, but happy, she slipped from 
 her saddle to the ground, she then and there 
 gave me what she usually reserves for Christmas 
 morning, and that, too, while Marston was look 
 ing on. Over her shoulder I smiled at him. 
 
 That night Marston and the Blight sat under 
 the vines on the porch until the late moon rose 
 over Wallens Ridge, and, when bedtime came, 
 the Blight said impatiently that she did not want 
 
 211 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 to go home. She had to go, however, next 
 day, but on the next Fourth of July she would 
 surely come again; and, as the young engineer 
 mounted his horse and set his face toward Black 
 Mountain, I knew that until that day, for him, 
 a blight would still be in the hills. 
 
 212 
 
BACK TO THE HILLS 
 
 WINTER drew a gray veil over the moun 
 tains, wove into it tiny jewels of frost 
 and turned it many times into a mask of snow, 
 before spring broke again among them and in 
 Marston s impatient heart. No spring had ever 
 been like that to him. The coming of young 
 leaves and flowers and bird-song meant but one 
 joy for the hills to him the Blight was coming 
 back to them. All those weary waiting months 
 he had clung grimly to his work. He must have 
 heard from her sometimes, else I think he would 
 have gone to her; but I knew the Blight s pen 
 was reluctant and casual for anybody, and, more 
 over, she was having a strenuous winter at home. 
 That he knew as well, for he took one paper, 
 at least, that he might simply read her name. 
 He saw accounts of her many social doings as 
 well, and ate his heart out as lovers have done 
 for all time gone and will do for all time to 
 come. 
 
 I, too, was away all winter, but I got back a 
 213 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEKLAND 
 
 month before the Blight, to learn much of inter 
 est that had come about. The Hon. Samuel 
 Budd had ear-wagged himself into the legisla 
 ture, had moved that Court-House, and was go 
 ing to be State Senator. The Wild Dog had 
 confined his reckless career to his own hills 
 through the winter, but when spring came, mi- 
 gratory-like, he began to take frequent wing to 
 the Gap. So far, he and Marston had never 
 come into personal conflict, though Marston 
 kept ever ready for him, and several times they 
 had met in the road, eyed each other in passing 
 and made no hipward gesture at all. But then 
 Marston had never met him when the Wild Dog 
 was drunk and when sober, I took it that the 
 one act of kindness from the engineer always 
 stayed his hand. But the Police Guard at the 
 Gap saw him quite often and to it he was a 
 fearful and elusive nuisance. He seemed to be 
 staying somewhere within a radius of ten miles, 
 for every night or two he would circle about 
 the town, yelling and firing his pistol, and when 
 we chased him, escaping through the Gap or up 
 the valley or down In Lee. Many plans were 
 laid to catch him, but all failed, and finally he 
 came in one day and gave himself up and paid 
 his fines. Afterward I recalled that the time of 
 this gracious surrender to law and order was but 
 little subsequent to one morning when a woman 
 214 
 
BACK TO THE HILLS 
 
 who brought butter and eggs to my little sister 
 casually asked when that " purty slim little gal 
 with the snappin black eyes was a-comin back." 
 And the little sister, pleased with the remem 
 brance, had said cordially that she was coming 
 soon. 
 
 Thereafter .the Wild Dog was in town every 
 day, and he behaved well until one Saturday he 
 got drunk again, and this time, by a peculiar 
 chance, it was Marston again who leaped on 
 him, wrenched his pistol away, and put him in 
 the calaboose. Again he paid his fine, promptly 
 visited a " blind Tiger," came back to town, 
 emptied another pistol at Marston on sight and 
 fled for the hills. 
 
 The enraged Guard chased him for two days 
 and from that day the Wild Dog was a marked 
 man. The Guard wanted many men, but if they 
 could have had their choice they would have 
 picked out of the world of malefactors that 
 same Wild Dog. 
 
 Why all this should have thrown the Hon. 
 Samuel Budd into such gloom I could not un 
 derstand except that the Wild Dog had been 
 so loyal a henchman to him in politics, but later 
 I learned a better reason, that threatened to cost 
 the Hon. Sam much more than the fines that, as 
 I later learned, he had been paying for his moun 
 tain friend. 
 
 215 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 Meanwhile, the Blight was coming from her 
 Northern home through the green lowlands of 
 Jersey, the fat pastures of Maryland, and, as 
 the white dresses of school-girls and the shining 
 faces of darkies thickened at the stations, she 
 knew that she was getting southward. All the 
 way she was known and welcomed, and next 
 morning she awoke with the keen air of the dis 
 tant mountains in her nostrils and an expectant 
 light in her happy eyes. At least the light was 
 there when she stepped daintily from the dusty 
 train and it leaped a little, I fancied, when Mar- 
 ston, bronzed and flushed, held out his sunburnt 
 hand. Like a convent girl she babbled ques 
 tions to the little sister as the dummy puffed 
 along and she bubbled like wine over the mid 
 summer glory of the hills. And well she might, 
 for the glory of the mountains, full-leafed, 
 shrouded in evening shadows, blue-veiled in 
 the distance, was unspeakable, and through the 
 Gap the sun was sending his last rays as though 
 he, too, meant to take a peep at her before 
 he started around the world to welcome her 
 next day. And she must know everything 
 at once. The anniversary of the Great Day 
 on which all men were pronounced free and 
 equal was only ten days distant and prepara 
 tions were going on. There would be a big 
 crowd of mountaineers and there would be 
 216 
 
BACK TO THE HILLS 
 
 sports of all kinds, and games, but the tourna 
 ment was to be the feature of the day. " A 
 tournament? " " Yes, a tournament," repeated 
 the little sister, and Marston was going to 
 ride and the mean thing would not tell what 
 mediaeval name he meant to take. And the 
 Hon. Sam. Budd did the Blight remem 
 ber him? (indeed, she did) had a " dark 
 horse," and he had bet heavily that his dark 
 horse would win the tournament whereat the 
 little sister looked at Marston and at the 
 Blight and smiled disdainfully. And the Wild 
 Dog did she remember him? I checked 
 the sister here with a glance, for Marston 
 looked uncomfortable and the Blight saw me 
 do it, and on the point of saying something 
 she checked herself, and her face, I thought, 
 paled a little. 
 
 That night I learned why when she came in 
 from the porch after Marston was gone. I saw 
 she had wormed enough of the story out of him 
 to worry her, for her face this time was distinctly 
 pale. I would tell her no more than she knew, 
 however, and then she said she was sure she had 
 seen the Wild Dog herself that afternoon, sitting 
 on his horse in the bushes near a station in Wild 
 cat Valley. She was sure that he saw her, and 
 his face had frightened her. I knew her fright 
 was for Marston and not for herself, so I laughed 
 217 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 at her fears. She was mistaken Wild Dog 
 was an outlaw now and he would not dare appear 
 at the Gap, and there was no chance that he 
 could harm her or Marston. And yet I was 
 uneasy. 
 
 It must have been a happy ten days for those 
 two young people. Every afternoon Marston 
 would come in from the mines and they would 
 go off horseback together, over ground that I 
 well knew for I had been all over it myself 
 up through the gray-peaked rhododendron-bor 
 dered Gap with the swirling water below them 
 and the gray rock high above where another such 
 foolish lover lost his life, climbing to get a 
 flower for his sweetheart, or down the winding 
 dirt road into Lee, or up through the beech 
 woods behind Imboden Hill, or climbing the 
 spur of Morris s Farm to watch the sunset over 
 the majestic Big Black Mountains, where the 
 Wild Dog lived, and back through the fragrant, 
 cool, moonlit woods. He was doing his best, 
 Marston was, and he was having trouble as 
 every man should. And that trouble I knew 
 even better than he, for I had once known a 
 Southern girl who was so tender of heart that 
 she could refuse no man who really loved her 
 she accepted him and sent him to her father, who 
 did all of her refusing for her. And I knew no 
 man would know that he had won the Blight un- 
 218 
 
BACK TO THE HILLS 
 
 til he had her at the altar and the priestly hand 
 of benediction was above her head. 
 
 Of such kind was the Blight. Every night 
 when they came in I could read the story of the 
 day, always in his face and sometimes in hers; 
 and it was a series of ups and downs that must 
 have wrung the boy s heart bloodless. Still I 
 was in good hope for him, until the crisis came 
 on the night before the Fourth. The quarrel was 
 as plain as though typewritten on the face of 
 each. Marston would not come in that night 
 and the Blight went dinnerless to bed and cried 
 herself to sleep. She told the little sister that 
 she had seen the Wild Dog again peering 
 through the bushes, and that she was fright 
 ened. That was her explanation but I guessed 
 a better one. 
 
 219 
 
VI 
 
 THE GREAT DAY 
 
 IT was a day to make glad the heart of slave 
 or freeman. The earth was cool from a 
 night-long rain, and a gentle breeze fanned cool 
 ness from the north all day long. The clouds 
 were snow-white, tumbling, ever-moving, and 
 between them the sky showed blue and deep. 
 Grass, leaf, weed and flower were in the rich 
 ness that comes to the green things of the earth 
 just before that full tide of summer whose foam 
 is drifting thistle-down. The air was clear and 
 the mountains seemed to have brushed the haze 
 from their faces and drawn nearer that they, too, 
 might better see the doings of that day. 
 
 From the four winds of heaven, that morning, 
 came the brave and the free. Up from Lee, 
 down from Little Stone Gap, and from over in 
 Scott, came the valley-farmers horseback, in 
 buggies, hacks, two-horse wagons, with wives, 
 mothers, sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses, be- 
 flowered hats, and many ribbons, and with din 
 ner-baskets stuffed with good things to eat old 
 220 
 
THE GREAT DAY 
 
 ham, young chicken, angel-cake and blackberry 
 wine to be spread in the sunless shade of great 
 poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow and Wild 
 cat Valley and from up the slopes that lead to 
 Cracker s Neck came smaller tillers of the soil 
 as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw trap 
 pings of the outer world; while from beyond 
 High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land, and 
 through the Gap, came the mountaineer in the 
 primitive simplicity of home-spun and cowhide, 
 wide-brimmed hat and poke-bonnet, quaint 
 speech, and slouching gait. Through the Gap 
 he came in two streams the Virginians from 
 Crab Orchard and Wise and Dickinson, the Ken- 
 tuckians from Letcher and feudal Harlan, be 
 yond the Big Black and not a man carried a 
 weapon in sight, for the stern spirit of that Po 
 lice Guard at the Gap was respected wide and 
 far. Into the town, which sits on a plateau some 
 twenty feet above the level of the two rivers 
 that all but encircle it, they poured, hitching 
 their horses in the strip of woods that runs 
 through the heart of the place, and broadens into 
 a primeval park that, fan-like, opens on the oval, 
 level field where all things happen on the Fourth 
 of July. About the street they loitered lovers 
 hand in hand eating fruit and candy and drink 
 ing soda-water, or sat on the curb-stone, mothers 
 with babies at their breasts and toddling chil- 
 221 
 
A KMGHT OF THE CUMBEELAND 
 
 dren clinging close all waiting for the celebra 
 tion to begin. 
 
 It was a great day for the Hon. Samuel Budd. 
 With a cheery smile and beaming goggles, he 
 moved among his constituents, joking with yok 
 els, saying nice things to mothers, paying gallan 
 tries to girls, and chuckling babies under the chin. 
 He felt popular and he was so popular that he 
 had begun to see himself with prophetic eye in a 
 congressional seat at no distant day; and yet, 
 withal, he was not wholly happy. 
 
 " Do you know," he said, " them fellers I 
 made bets with in the tournament got together 
 this morning and decided, all of em, that they 
 wouldn t let me off? Jerusalem, it s most five 
 hundred dollars ! " And, looking the picture 
 of dismay, he told me his dilemma. 
 
 It seems that his " dark horse " was none 
 other than the Wild Dog, who had been prac 
 tising at home for this tournament for nearly a 
 year; and now that the Wild Dog was an out 
 law, he, of course, wouldn t and couldn t come 
 to the Gap. And said the Hon. Sam Budd: 
 
 " Them fellers says I bet I d bring in a dark 
 horse who would win this tournament, and if I 
 don t bring him in, I lose just the same as though 
 I had brought him in and he hadn t won. An 
 I reckon they ve got me." 
 
 " I guess they have." 
 
 222 
 
THE GKEAT DAY 
 
 " It would have been like pickin money off a 
 blackberry-bush, for I was goin to let the Wild 
 Dog have that black horse o mine the stead 
 iest and fastest runner in this country and my, 
 how that fellow can pick off the rings! He s 
 been a-practising for a year, and I believe he 
 could run the point o that spear of his through 
 a lady s finger-ring." 
 
 " You d better get somebody else." 
 
 " Ah that s it. The Wild Dog sent word 
 he d send over another feller, named Dave Bran- 
 ham, who has been practising with him, who s 
 just as good, he says, as he is. I m looking for 
 him at twelve o clock, an I m goin to take him 
 down an see what he can do on that black horse 
 o mine. But if he s no good, I lose five hundred, 
 all right," and he sloped away to his duties. For 
 it was the Hon. Sam who was master of cere 
 monies that day. He was due now to read the 
 Declaration of Independence in a poplar grove 
 to all who would listen; he was to act as umpire 
 at the championship baseball game in the after 
 noon, and he was to give the " Charge " to the 
 assembled knights before the tournament. 
 
 At ten o clock the games began and I took 
 the Blight and the little sister down to the 
 " grandstand " several tiers of backless benches 
 with leaves for a canopy and the river singing 
 through rhododendrons behind. There was 
 223 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 jumping broad and high, and a loo-yard dash 
 and hurdling and throwing the hammer, which 
 the Blight said were not interesting they were 
 too much like college sports and she wanted to 
 see the baseball game and the tournament. And 
 yet Marston was in them all dogged and re 
 sistless his teeth set and his eyes anywhere but 
 lifted toward the Blight, who, secretly proud, as 
 I believed, but openly defiant, mentioned not his 
 name even when he lost, which was twice only. 
 
 " Pretty good, isn t he? " I said. 
 
 " Who? " she said indifferently. 
 
 " Oh, nobody," I said, turning to smile, but 
 not turning quickly enough. 
 
 "What s the matter with you?" asked the 
 Blight sharply. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing at all," I said, and 
 straightway the Blight thought she wanted to go 
 home. The thunder of the Declaration was still 
 rumbling in the poplar grove. 
 
 " That s the Hon. Sam Budd," I said. 
 " Don t you want to hear him? " 
 
 " I don t care who it is and I don t want to 
 hear him and I think you are hateful." 
 
 Ah, dear me, it was more serious than I 
 thought. There -were tears in her eyes, and I 
 led the Blight and the little sister home con 
 science-stricken and humbled. Still I would find 
 that young jackanapes of an engineer and let 
 224 
 
THE GREAT DAY 
 
 him know that anybody who made the Blight un 
 happy must deal with me. I would take him by 
 the neck and pound some sense into him. I found 
 him lofty, uncommunicative, perfectly alien to 
 any consciousness that I could have any knowl 
 edge of what was going or any right to poke 
 my nose into anybody s business and I did 
 nothing except go back to lunch to find the 
 Blight upstairs and the little sister indignant 
 with me. 
 
 " You just let them alone," she said severely. 
 
 "Let who alone?" I said, lapsing into the 
 speech of childhood. 
 
 " You just let them alone," she re 
 peated. 
 
 " I ve already made up my mind to that." 
 
 " Well, then! " she said, with an air of satis 
 faction, but why I don t know. 
 
 I went back to the poplar grove. The Dec 
 laration was over and the crowd was gone, but 
 there was the Hon. Samuel Budd, mopping his 
 brow with one hand, slapping his thigh with the 
 other, and all but executing a pigeon-wing on 
 the turf. He turned goggles on me that literally 
 shone triumph. 
 
 " He s come Dave Branham s come!" he 
 
 said. " He s better than the Wild Dog. I ve 
 
 been trying him on the black horse and, Lord, 
 
 how he can take them rings off! Ha, won t I 
 
 225 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 get into them fellows who wouldn t let me off 
 this morning! Oh, yes, I agreed to bring in a 
 dark horse, and I ll bring him in all right. That 
 five hundred is in my clothes now. You see that 
 point yonder? Well, there s a hollow there and 
 bushes all around. That s where I m going to 
 dress him. I ve got his clothes all right and a 
 name for him. This thing is a-goin to come off 
 accordin to Hoyle, Ivanhoe, Four-Quarters-of- 
 Beef, and all them mediaeval fellows. Just watch 
 me!" 
 
 I began to get newly interested, for that 
 knight s name I suddenly recalled. Little Buck, 
 the Wild Dog s brother, had mentioned him, 
 when we were over in the Kentucky hills, as 
 pracising with the Wjld Dog as being 
 44 mighty good, but nowhar longside o Mart." 
 So the Hon. Sam might have a good substitute, 
 after all, and being a devoted disciple of Sir 
 Walter, I knew his knight would rival, in splen 
 dor at least, any that rode with King Arthur 
 in days of old. 
 
 The Blight was very quiet at lunch, as was the 
 little sister, and my effort to be jocose was a 
 lamentable failure. So I gave news. 
 
 " The Hon. Sam has a substitute." No curi 
 osity and no question. 
 
 14 Who did you say? Why, Dave Branham, 
 a friend of the Wild Dog. Don t you remember 
 226 
 
THE GHEAT DAY 
 
 Buck telling us about him?" No answer. 
 " Well, I do and, by the way, I saw Buck and 
 one of the big sisters just a while ago. Her name 
 is Mollie. Dave Branham, you will recall, is 
 her sweetheart. The other big sister had to stay 
 at home with her mother and little Cindy, who s 
 sick. Of course, I didn t ask them about Mart 
 the Wild Dog. They knew I knew and they 
 wouldn t have liked it. The Wild Dog s around, 
 I understand, but he won t dare show his face. 
 Every policeman in town is on the lookout for 
 him." I thought the Blight s face showed a 
 signal of relief. 
 
 " I m going to play short-stop," I added. 
 
 " Oh! " said the Blight, with a smile, but the 
 little sister said with some scorn : 
 
 "You!" 
 
 " I ll show you," I said, and I told the Blight 
 about baseball at the Gap. We had introduced 
 baseball into the region and the valley boys and 
 mountain boys, being swift runners, throwing 
 like a rifle-shot from constant practice with 
 stones, and being hard as nails, caught the game 
 quickly and with great ease. We beat them all 
 the time at first, but now they were beginning 
 to beat us. We had a league now, and this was 
 the championship game for the pennant. 
 
 " It was right funny the first time we beat a 
 native team. Of course, we got together and 
 227 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 cheered em. They thought we were cheering 
 ourselves, so they got red in the face, rushed to 
 gether and whooped it up for themselves for 
 about half an hour." 
 
 The Blight almost laughed. 
 
 " We used to have to carry our guns around 
 with us at first when we went to other places, 
 and we came near having several fights." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the Blight excitedly. " Do you 
 think there might be a fight this afternoon? " 
 
 " Don t know," I said, shaking my head. 
 " It s pretty hard for eighteen people to fight 
 when nine of them are policemen and there are 
 forty more around. Still the crowd might take 
 a hand." 
 
 This, I saw, quite thrilled the Blight and she 
 was in good spirits when we started out. 
 
 " Marston doesn t pitch this afternoon," I 
 said to the little sister. " He plays first base. 
 He s saving himself for the tournament. He s 
 done too much already." The Blight merely 
 turned her head while I was speaking. " And 
 the Hon. Sam will not act as umpire. He wants 
 to save his voice and his head." 
 
 The seats in the " grandstand " were in the 
 sun now, so I left the girls in a deserted band 
 stand that stood on stilts under trees on the south 
 ern side of the field, and on a line midway be 
 tween third base and the position of short-stop. 
 228 
 
THE GREAT DAY 
 
 Now there is no enthusiasm in any sport that 
 equals the excitement aroused by a rural base 
 ball game and I never saw the enthusiasm of that 
 game outdone except by the excitement of the 
 tournament that followed that afternoon. The 
 game was close and Marston and I assuredly 
 were stars Marston one of the first magnitude. 
 " Goose-egg " on one side matched " goose-egg " 
 on the other until the end of the fifth inning, 
 when the engineer knocked a home-run. Spec 
 tators threw their hats into the trees, yelled them 
 selves hoarse, and I saw several old mountain 
 eers who understood no more of baseball than 
 of the lost digamma in Greek going wild with 
 the general contagion. During these innings I 
 had " assisted " in two doubles and had fired 
 in three " daisy-cutters " to first myself in spite 
 of the guying I got from the opposing rooters. 
 " Four-eyes " they called me on account of my 
 spectacles until a new nickname came at the last 
 half of the ninth inning, when we were in the 
 field with the score four to three in our favor. 
 It was then that a small, fat boy with a paper 
 megaphone longer than he was waddled out al 
 most to first base and levelling his trumpet at 
 me, thundered out in a sudden silence : 
 
 " Hello, Foxy Grandpa ! " That was too 
 much. I got rattled, and when there were three 
 men on bases and two out, a swift grounder came 
 229 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEKLAND 
 
 to me, I fell catching it and threw wildly to 
 first from my knees. I heard shouts of horror, 
 anger, and distress from everywhere and my 
 own heart stopped beating I had lost the game 
 and then Marston leaped in the air surely it 
 must have been four feet caught the ball with 
 his left hand and dropped back on the bag. 
 The sound of his foot on it and the runner s was 
 almost simultaneous, but the umpire said Mar- 
 ston s was there first. Then bedlam! One of 
 my brothers was umpire and the captain of the 
 other team walked threateningly out toward him, 
 followed by two of his men with baseball bats. 
 As I started off myself toward them I saw, with 
 the corner of my eye, another brother of mine 
 start in a run from the left field, and I wondered 
 why a third, who was scoring, sat perfectly still 
 in his chair, particularly as a well-known, red 
 headed tough from one of the mines who had 
 been officiously antagonistic ran toward the 
 pitcher s box directly in front of him. Instantly 
 a dozen of the Guard sprang toward it, some man 
 pulled his pistol, a billy cracked straightway on 
 his head, and in a few minutes order was re 
 stored. And still the brother scoring hadn t 
 moved from his chair, and I spoke to him hotly. 
 " Keep your shirt on," he said easily, lifting 
 his score-card with his left hand and showing his 
 right clinched about his pistol under it. 
 230 
 
THE GREAT DAY 
 
 " I was just waiting for that red-head to make 
 a move. I guess I d have got him first." 
 
 I walked back to the Blight and the little sis 
 ter and both of them looked very serious and 
 frightened. 
 
 " I don t think I want to see a real fight, after 
 all," said the Blight. " Not this afternoon." 
 
 It was a little singular and prophetic, but just 
 as the words left her lips one of the Police Guard 
 handed me a piece of paper. 
 
 " Somebody in the crowd must have dropped 
 it in my pocket," he said. On the paper were 
 scrawled these words: 
 
 " Look out for the Wild Dog!" 
 
 I sent the paper to Marston. 
 
 231 
 
VII 
 
 AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 A"~^ last the tournament ! 
 Ever afterward the Hon. Samuel Budd 
 called it " The Gentle and Joyous Passage of 
 Arms not of Ashby but of the Gap, by-suh I " 
 The Hon. Samuel had arranged it as nearly 
 after Sir Walter as possible. And a sudden leap 
 it was from the most modern of games to a game 
 most ancient. 
 
 No knights of old ever jousted on a lovelier 
 field than the green little valley toward which 
 the Hon. Sam waved one big hand. It was level, 
 shorn of weeds, elliptical in shape, and bound in 
 by trees that ran in a semicircle around the bank 
 of the river, shut in the southern border, and ran 
 back to the northern extremity in a primeval 
 little forest that wood-thrushes, even then, were 
 making musical all of it shut in by a wall of 
 living green, save for one narrow space through 
 which the knights were to enter. In front waved 
 Wallens leafy ridge and behind rose the Cum 
 berland Range shouldering itself spur by spur, 
 232 
 
AT LAST THE TOUBNAMENT 
 
 into the coming sunset and crashing eastward 
 into the mighty bulk of Powell s Mountain, 
 which loomed southward from the head of the 
 valley all nodding sunny plumes of chestnut. 
 
 The Hon. Sam had seen us coming from afar 
 apparently, had come forward to meet us, and 
 he was in high spirits. 
 
 " I am Prince John and Waldemar and all the 
 rest of em this day," he said, " and it is thus/ 
 quoting Sir Walter, " that we set the dutiful ex 
 ample of loyalty to the Queen of Love and 
 Beauty, and are ourselves her guide to the throne 
 which she must this day occupy." And so say 
 ing, the Hon. Sam marshalled the Blight to a 
 seat of honor next his own. 
 
 " And how do you know she is going to be the 
 Queen of Love and Beauty? " asked the little 
 sister. The Hon. Sam winked at me. 
 
 " Well, this tournament lies between two gal 
 lant knights. One will make her the Queen of 
 his own accord, if he wins, and if the other 
 wins, he s got to, or I ll break his head. I ve 
 given orders." And the Hon. Sam looked 
 about right and left on the people who were his 
 that day. 
 
 " Observe the nobles and ladies," he said, still 
 following Sir Walter, and waving at the towns 
 people and visitors in the rude grandstand. 
 " Observe the yeomanry and spectators of a bet- 
 
 233 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 ter degree than the mere vulgar " waving at 
 the crowd on either side of the stand " and 
 the promiscuous multitude down the river banks 
 and over the woods and clinging to the tree-tops 
 and to yon telegraph-pole. And there is my her 
 ald " pointing to the cornetist of the local band 
 " and wait by my halidom please just wait 
 until you see my knight on that black charger o 
 
 mine." 
 
 The Blight and the little sister were convulsed 
 and the Hon. Sam went on : 
 
 " Look at my men-at-arms " the volunteer 
 policemen with bulging hip-pockets, dangling 
 billies and gleaming shields of office " and at 
 my refreshment tents behind " where peanuts 
 and pink lemonade were keeping the multitude 
 busy u and my attendants " colored gentle 
 men with sponges and water-buckets u the ar 
 morers and farriers haven t come yet. But my 
 knight I got his clothes in New York just 
 wait Love of Ladies and Glory to the Brave ! n 
 Just then there was a commotion on the free seats 
 on one side of the grandstand. A darky starting, 
 in all ignorance, to mount them was stopped and 
 jostled none too good-naturedly back to the 
 ground. 
 
 " And see," mused the Hon. Sam, " in lieu 
 of the dog of an unbeliever we have a dark an 
 alogy in that son of Ham." 
 234 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 The little sister plucked me by the sleeve and 
 pointed toward the entrance. Outside and lean 
 ing on the fence were Mollie, the big sister, and 
 little Buck. Straightway I got up and started 
 for them. They hung back, but I persuaded 
 them to come, and I led them to seats two tiers 
 below the Blight who, with my little sister, 
 rose smiling to greet them and shake hands 
 much to the wonder of the nobles and ladies close 
 about, for Mollie was in brave and dazzling ar 
 ray, blushing fiercely, and little Buck looked as 
 though he would die of such conspicuousness. 
 No embarrassing questions were asked about 
 Mart or Dave Branham, but I noticed that Mol 
 lie had purple and crimson ribbons clinched in 
 one brown hand. The purpose of them was 
 plain, and I whispered to the Blight : 
 
 " She s going to pin them on Dave s lance." 
 The Hon. Sam heard me. 
 
 " Not on your life," he said emphatically. " I 
 ain t takin chances," and he nodded toward the 
 Blight. " She s got to win, no matter who loses." 
 He rose to his feet suddenly. 
 
 " Glory to the Brave they re comin ! Toot 
 that horn, son," he said; " they re comin ," and 
 the band burst into discordant sounds that would 
 have made the " wild, barbaric music " on the 
 field of Ashby sound like a lullaby. The Blight 
 stifled her laughter over that amazing music 
 
 235 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 with her handkerchief, and even the Hon. Sam 
 scowled. 
 
 " Gee! " he said; " it is pretty bad, isn t it? " 
 
 " Here they come!" 
 
 The nobles and ladies on the grandstand, the 
 yeomanry and spectators of better degree, and 
 the promiscuous multitude began to sway expect 
 antly and over the hill came the knights, single 
 file, gorgeous in velvets and in caps, with wav 
 ing plumes and with polished spears, vertical, 
 resting on the right stirrup foot and gleaming 
 in the sun. 
 
 "A goodly array!" murmured the Hon. 
 Sam. 
 
 A crowd of small boys gathered at the fence 
 below, and I observed the Hon. Sam s pockets 
 bulging with peanuts. 
 
 " Largesse ! " I suggested. 
 
 " Good! " he said, and rising he shouted: 
 
 " Largessy! largessy! " scattering peanuts by 
 the handful among the scrambling urchins. 
 
 Down wound the knights behind the back 
 stand of the baseball field, and then, single file, 
 in front of the nobles and ladies, before whom 
 they drew up and faced, saluting with inverted 
 spears. 
 
 The Hon. Sam arose his truncheon a hick 
 ory stick and in a stentorian voice asked the 
 names of the doughty knights who were there to 
 236 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 win glory for themselves and the favor of fair 
 women. 
 
 Not all will be mentioned, but among them 
 was the Knight of the Holston Athelstanic in 
 build in black stockings, white negligee shirt, 
 with Byronic collar, and a broad crimson sash 
 tied with a bow at his right side. There was the 
 Knight of the Green Valley, in green and gold, 
 a green hat with a long white plume, lace ruffles 
 at his sleeves, and buckles on dancing-pumps ; a 
 bonny fat knight of Maxwelton Braes, in High 
 land kilts and a plaid; and the Knight at Large. 
 
 " He ought to be caged," murmured the Hon. 
 Sam ; for the Knight at Large wore plum-colored 
 velvet, red baseball stockings, held in place with 
 safety-pins, white tennis shoes, and a very small 
 hat with a very long plume, and the dye was al 
 ready streaking his face. Marston was the last 
 sitting easily on his iron gray. 
 
 " And your name, Sir Knight? " 
 
 " The Discarded/ said Marston, with steady 
 eyes. I felt the Blight start at my side and side- 
 wise I saw that her face was crimson. 
 
 The Hon. Sam sat down, muttering, for he 
 did not like Marston : 
 
 " Wenchless springal! " 
 
 Just then my attention was riveted on Mollie 
 and little Buck. Both had been staring silently 
 at the knights as though they were apparitions, 
 237 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 but when Marston faced them I saw Buck clutch 
 his sister s arm suddenly and say something ex 
 citedly in her ear. Then the mouths of both 
 tightened fiercely and their eyes seemed to be 
 darting lightning at the unconscious knight, 
 who suddenly saw them, recognized them, and 
 smiled past them at me. Again Buck whis 
 pered, and from his lips I could make out what 
 he said: 
 
 "I wonder whar s Dave?" but Mollie did 
 not answer. 
 
 "Which is yours, Mr. Budd? " asked the 
 little sister. The Hon. Sam had leaned back 
 with his thumbs in the armholes of his white 
 waistcoat. 
 
 " He ain t come yet. I told him to come 
 last." 
 
 The crowd waited and the knights waited 
 so long that the Mayor rose in his seat some 
 twenty feet away and called out : 
 
 " Go ahead, Budd." 
 
 " You jus wait a minute my man ain t come 
 yet," he said easily, but from various places in 
 the crowd came jeering shouts from the men with 
 whom he had wagered and the Hon. Sam began 
 to look anxious. 
 
 " I wonder what is the matter? " he added in 
 a lower tone. " I dressed him myself more than 
 an hour ago and I told him to come last, but I 
 
 238 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 didn t mean for him to wait till Christmas 
 ah!" 
 
 The Hon. Sam sat back in his seat again. 
 From somewhere had come suddenly the blare 
 of a solitary trumpet that rang in echoes around 
 the amphitheatre of the hills and, a moment 
 later, a dazzling something shot into sight above 
 the mound that looked like a ball of fire, coming 
 in mid-air. The new knight wore a shining hel 
 met and the Hon. Sam chuckled at the murmur 
 that rose and then he sat up suddenly. There 
 was no face under that helmet the Hon. Sam s 
 knight was masked and the Hon. Sam slapped his 
 thigh with delight. 
 
 "Bully bully! I never thought of it I 
 never thought of it bully ! " 
 
 This was thrilling, indeed but there was 
 more ; the strange knight s body was cased in a 
 flexible suit of glistening mail, his spear point, 
 when he raised it on high, shone like silver, and 
 he came on like a radiant star on the Hon. 
 Sam s charger, white-bridled, with long mane and 
 tail and black from tip of nose to tip of that 
 tail as midnight. The Hon. Sam was certainly 
 doing well. At a slow walk the stranger drew 
 alongside of Marston and turned his spear point 
 downward. 
 
 " Gawd ! " said an old darky. " Kuklux done 
 come again." And, indeed, it looked like a Ku- 
 239 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEKLAND 
 
 klux mask, white, dropping below the chin, and 
 with eye-holes through which gleamed two bright 
 fires. 
 
 The eyes of Buck and Mollie were turned 
 from Marston at last, and open-mouthed they 
 stared. 
 
 "Hit s the same hoss hit s Dave!" said 
 Buck aloud. 
 
 " Well, my Lord! " said Mollie simply. 
 
 The Hon. Sam rose again. 
 
 " And who is Sir Tardy Knight that hither 
 comes with masked face? " he asked courteously. 
 He got no answer. 
 
 " What s your name, son? " 
 
 The white mask puffed at the wearer s lips. 
 
 " The Knight of the Cumberland," was the 
 low, muffled reply. 
 
 " Make him take that thing off ! " shouted 
 some one. 
 
 " What s he got it on fer? " shouted another. 
 
 " I don t know, friend," said the Hon. Sam; 
 " but it is not my business nor prithee thine ; since 
 by the laws of the tournament a knight may ride 
 masked for a specified time or until a particular 
 purpose is achieved, that purpose being, I wot, 
 victory for himself and for me a handful of by- 
 zants from thee." 
 
 " Now, go ahead, Budd," called the Mayor, 
 again. " Are you going crazy? " 
 240 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 The Hon. Sam stretched out his arms once to 
 loosen them for gesture, thrust his chest out, and 
 uplifted his chin : " Fair ladies, nobles of the 
 realm, and good knights," he said sonorously, 
 and he raised one hand to his mouth and behind 
 it spoke aside to me : 
 
 u How s my voice how s my voice? " 
 
 "Great!" 
 
 His question was genuine, for the mask of hu 
 mor had dropped and the man was transformed. 
 I knew his inner seriousness, his oratorical com 
 mand of good English, and I knew the habit, not 
 uncommon among stump-speakers in the South, 
 of falling, through humor, carelessness, or for 
 the effect of flattering comradeship, into all the 
 lingual sins of rural speech; but I was hardly 
 prepared for the soaring flight the Hon. Sam 
 took now. He started with one finger pointed 
 heavenward : 
 
 " The knights are dust 
 
 And their good swords are rust ; 
 
 Their souls are with the saints, we trust." 
 
 " Scepticism is but a harmless phantom in 
 these mighty hills. We believe that with the 
 saints is the good knight s soul, and if, in the 
 radiant unknown, the eyes of those who have 
 gone before can pierce the little shadow that lies 
 between, we know that the good knights of old 
 241 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 look gladly down on these good knights of to 
 day. For it is good to be remembered. The 
 tireless struggle for name and fame since the 
 sunrise of history attests it; and the ancestry 
 worship in the East and the world-wide hope of 
 immortality show the fierce hunger in the human 
 soul that the memory of it not only shall not 
 perish from this earth, but that, across the Great 
 Divide, it shall live on neither forgetting nor 
 forgotten. You are here in memory of those 
 good knights to prove that the age of chivalry is 
 not gone ; that though their good swords are rust, 
 the stainless soul of them still illumines every 
 harmless spear point before me and makes it a 
 torch that shall reveal, in your own hearts still 
 aflame, their courage, their chivalry, their sense 
 of protection for the weak, and the honor in 
 which they held pure women, brave men, and 
 almighty God. 
 
 * The tournament, some say, goes back to the 
 walls of Troy. The form of it passed with the 
 windmills that Don Quixote charged. It is with 
 you to keep the high spirit of it an ever-burning 
 vestal fire. It was a deadly play of old it is 
 a harmless play to you this day. But the prowess 
 of the game is unchanged ; for the skill to strike 
 those pendant rings is no less than was the skill 
 to strike armor-joint, visor, or plumed crest. It 
 was of old an exercise for deadly combat on the 
 242 
 
AT LAST THE TOUKNAMENT 
 
 field of battle ; it is no less an exercise now to you 
 for the field of life for the quick eye, the steady 
 nerve, and the deft hand which shall help you 
 strike the mark at which, outside these lists, you 
 aim. And the crowning triumph is still just 
 what it was of old that to the victor the Rose 
 of his world made by him the Queen of Love 
 and Beauty for us all shall give her smile and 
 with her own hands place on his brow a thorn- 
 less crown." 
 
 Perfect silence honored the Hon. Samuel 
 Budd. The Mayor was nodding vigorous ap 
 proval, the jeering ones kept still, and when 
 after the last deep-toned word passed like music 
 from his lips the silence held sway for a little 
 while before the burst of applause came. Every 
 knight had straightened in his saddle and was 
 looking very grave. Marston s eyes never left 
 the speaker s face, except once, when they turned 
 with an unconscious appeal, I thought, to the 
 downcast face of Blight whereat the sympa 
 thetic little sister seemed close to tears. The 
 Knight of the Cumberland shifted in his 
 saddle as though he did not quite understand 
 what was going on, and once Mollie, seeing 
 the eyes through the mask-holes fixed on her, 
 blushed furiously, and little Buck, grinned back 
 a delighted recognition. The Hon. Sam sat 
 down, visibly affected by his own eloquence; 
 243 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 slowly he wiped his face and then he rose 
 again. 
 
 " Your colors, Sir Knights," he said, with a 
 commanding wave of his truncheon, and one by 
 one the knights spurred forward and each held 
 his lance into the grandstand that some fair one 
 might tie thereon the colors he was to wear. 
 Marston, without looking at the Blight, held his 
 up to the little sister, and the Blight carelessly 
 turned her face while the demure sister was busy 
 with her ribbons, but I noticed that the little ear 
 next to me was tingling red for all her brave 
 look of unconcern. Only the Knight cxf the Cum 
 berland sat still. 
 
 " What ! " said the Hon. Sam, rising to his 
 feet, his eyes twinkling and his mask of humor 
 on again; "sees this masked springal " the 
 Hon. Sam seemed much enamored of that ancient 
 word " no maid so fair that he will not beg 
 from her the boon of colors gay that he may 
 carry them to victory and receive from her hands 
 a wreath therefor? " Again the Knight of the 
 Cumberland seemed not to know that the Hon. 
 Sam s winged words were meant for him, so the 
 statesman translated them into a mutual ver 
 nacular. 
 
 " Remember what I told you, son," he said. 
 " Hold up yo spear here to some one of these 
 gals jes like the other fellows are dom ," and 
 244 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 as he sat down he tried surreptitiously to indicate 
 the Blight with his index finger, but the knight 
 failed to see and the Blight s face was so indig 
 nant and she rebuked him with such a knife-like 
 whisper that, humbled, the Hon. Sam collapsed 
 in his seat, muttering : 
 
 " The fool don t know you he don t know 
 you." 
 
 For the Knight of the Cumberland had turned 
 the black horse s head and was riding, like Ivan- 
 hoe, in front of the nobles and ladies, his eyes 
 burning up at them through the holes in his white 
 mask. Again he turned, his mask still uplifted, 
 and the behavior of the beauties there, as on the 
 field of Ashby, was no whit changed : " Some 
 blushed, some assumed an air of pride and dig 
 nity, some looked straight forward and essayed 
 to seem utterly unconscious of what was going 
 on, some drew back in alarm which was perhaps 
 affected, some endeavored to forbear smiling and 
 there were two or three who laughed outright." 
 Only none " dropped a veil over her charms " 
 and thus none incurred the suspicion, as on that 
 field of Ashby, that she was " a beauty of ten 
 years standing " whose motive, gallant Sir Wal 
 ter supposes in defence, however, was doubtless 
 " a surfeit of such vanities and a willingness to 
 give a fair chance to the rising beauties of the 
 age." But the most conscious of the fair was 
 
 245 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 Mollie below, whose face was flush " 1 .id whose 
 brown fingers were nervously twisting the ribbons 
 in her lap, and I saw Buck nudge her and heard 
 him whisper: 
 
 " Dave ain t going to pick you out, I tell ye. 
 I heered Mr. Budd thar myself tell him he had 
 to pick out some other gal." 
 
 " You hush! " said Mollie indignantly. 
 
 It looked as though the Knight of the Cum 
 berland had grown rebellious and meant to 
 choose whom he pleased, but on his way back the 
 Hon. Sam must have given more surreptitious 
 signs, for the Knight of the Cumberland reined 
 in before the Blight and held up his lance to her. 
 Straightway the colors that were meant for Mar- 
 ston fluttered from the Knight of the Cumber 
 land s spear. I saw Marston bite his lips and 
 I saw Mollie s face aflame with fury and her 
 eyes darting lightning no longer at Marston 
 now, but at the Blight. The mountain girl held 
 nothing against the city girl because of the Wild 
 Dog s infatuation, but that her own lover, no 
 matter what the Hon. Sam said, should give his 
 homage also to the Blight, in her own presence, 
 was too much. Mollie looked around no more. 
 Again the Hon. Sam rose. 
 
 " Love of ladies," he shouted, " splintering of 
 lances ! Stand forth, gallant knights. Fair eyes 
 look upon your deeds ! Toot again, son ! " 
 246 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 Now just opposite the grandstand was a post 
 some ten feet high, with a small beam projecting 
 from the top toward the spectators. From the 
 end of this hung a wire, the end of which was 
 slightly upturned in line with the course, and on 
 the tip of this wire a steel ring about an inch in 
 diameter hung lightly. Nearly forty yards be 
 low this was a similar ring similarly arranged; 
 and at a similar distance below that was still an 
 other, and at the blast from the Hon. Sam s 
 herald, the gallant knights rode slowly, two by 
 two, down the lists to the western extremity 
 the Discarded Knight and the Knight of the 
 Cumberland, stirrup to stirrup, riding last 
 where they all drew up in line, some fifty yards 
 beyond the westernmost post. This distance 
 they took that full speed might be attained be 
 fore jousting at the first ring, since the course 
 much over one hundred yards long must be 
 covered in seven seconds or less, which was no 
 slow rate of speed. The Hon. Sam arose again : 
 
 " The Knight of the Holston ! 5> 
 
 Farther down the lists a herald took up the 
 same cry and the good knight of Athelstanic 
 build backed his steed from the line and took his 
 place at the head of the course. 
 
 With his hickory truncheon the Hon. Sam 
 signed to his trumpeter to sound the onset. 
 
 " Now, son! " he said. 
 247 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 With the blare of the trumpet Athelstane 
 sprang from his place and came up the course, 
 his lance at rest; a tinkling sound and the first 
 ring slipped down the knight s spear and when 
 he swept past the last post there was a clapping 
 of hands, for he held three rings triumphantly 
 aloft. And thus they came, one by one, until 
 each had run the course three times, the Dis 
 carded jousting next to the last and the Knight 
 of the Cumberland, riding with a reckless Cave, 
 Adsum air, the very last. At the second joust 
 it was quite evident that the victory lay between 
 these two, as they only had not lost a single 
 ring, and when the black horse thundered by, the 
 Hon. Sam shouted " Brave lance! " and jollied 
 his betting enemies, while Buck hugged himself 
 triumphantly and Mollie seemed temporarily to 
 lose her chagrin and anger in pride of her lover, 
 Dave. On the third running the Knight of the 
 Cumberland excited a sensation by sitting up 
 right, waving his lance up and down between 
 the posts and lowering it only when the ring was 
 within a few feet of its point. His recklessness 
 cost him one ring, but as the Discarded had lost 
 one, they were still tied, with eight rings to the 
 credit of each, for the first prize. Only four 
 others were left the Knight of the H jlston and 
 the Knight of the Green Valley tying with seven 
 rings for second prize, and the fat Maxwelton 
 248 
 
AT LAST THE TOUKNAMENT 
 
 Braes and the Knight at Large tying with six 
 rings for the third. The crowd was eager now 
 and the Hon. Sam confident. On came the 
 Knight at Large, his face a rainbow, his plume 
 wilted and one red baseball stocking slipped 
 from its moorings two rings! On followed 
 the fat Maxwelton, his plaid streaming and his 
 kilts flapping about his fat legs also two rings ! 
 
 " Egad! " quoth the Hon. Sam. " Did yon 
 lusty trencherman of Annie Laurie s but put a 
 few more layers of goodly flesh about his ribs, 
 thereby projecting more his frontal Falstaffian 
 proportions, by my halidom, he would have to 
 joust tandem ! " 
 
 On came Athelstane and the Knight of the 
 Green Valley, both with but two rings to their 
 credit, and on followed the Discarded, riding 
 easily, and the Knight of the Cumberland again 
 waving his lance between the posts, each with 
 three rings on his spear. At the end the Knight 
 at Large stood third, Athelstane second, and the 
 Discarded and the Knight of the Cumberland 
 stood side by side at the head of the course, still 
 even, and now ready to end the joust, for neither 
 on the second trial had missed a ring. 
 
 The excitement was intense now. Many peo 
 ple seemed to know who the Knight of the Cum 
 berland was, for there were shouts of " Go it, 
 Dave! " from everywhere; the rivalry of class 
 249 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 had entered the contest and now it was a conflict 
 between native and " furriner." The Hon. Sam 
 was almost beside himself with excitement; now 
 and then some man with whom he had made a 
 bet would shout jeeringly at him and the Hon. 
 Sam would shout back defiance. But when the 
 trumpet sounded he sat leaning forward with his 
 brow wrinkled and his big hands clinched tight. 
 Marston sped up the course first three rings 
 and there was a chorus of applauding yells. 
 
 " His horse is gittin tired," said the Hon. 
 Sam jubilantly, and the Blight s face, I noticed, 
 showed for the first time faint traces of indigna 
 tion. The Knight of the Cumberland was tak 
 ing no theatrical chances now and he came 
 through the course with level spear and, with 
 three rings on it, he shot by like a thunderbolt. 
 
 " Hooray ! " shouted the Hon. Sam. " Lord, 
 what a horse ! " For the first time the Blight, 
 I observed, failed to applaud, while Mollie was 
 clapping her hands and Buck was giving out 
 shrill yells of encouragement. At the next tilt 
 the Hon. Sam had his watch in his hand and 
 when he saw the Discarded digging in his spurs 
 he began to smile and he was looking at his watch 
 when the little tinkle in front told him that the 
 course was run. 
 
 " Did he get em all?" 
 
 " Yes, he got em all," mimicked the Blight. 
 250 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 " Yes, an he just did make it," chuckled the 
 Hon. Sam. The Discarded had wheeled his 
 horse aside from the course to watch his antag 
 onist. He looked pale and tired almost as tired 
 as his foam-covered steed but his teeth were set 
 and his face was unmoved as the Knight of the 
 Cumberland came on like a demon, sweeping off 
 the last ring with a low, rasping oath of satis 
 faction. 
 
 " I never seed Dave ride that-a-way afore," 
 said Mollie. 
 
 " Me, neither," chimed in Buck. 
 
 The nobles and ladies were waving handker 
 chiefs, clapping hands, and shouting. The spec 
 tators of better degree were throwing up their 
 hats and from every part of the multitude the 
 same hoarse shout of encouragement rose : 
 
 " Go it, Dave ! Hooray for Dave ! " while 
 the boy on the telegraph-pole was seen to clutch 
 wildly at the crossbar on which he sat he had 
 come near tumbling from his perch. 
 
 The two knights rode slowly back to the head 
 of the lists, where the Discarded was seen to 
 dismount and tighten his girth. 
 
 " He s tryin to git time to rest," said the 
 Hon. Sam. " Toot, son ! " 
 
 " Shame ! " said the little sister and the Blight 
 both at once so severely that the Hon. Sam 
 quickly raised his hand. 
 
 251 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 " Hold on," he said, and with hand still up 
 lifted he waited till Marston was mounted again. 
 41 Now ! " 
 
 The Discarded came on, using his spurs with 
 every jump, the red of his horse s nostrils show 
 ing that far away, and he swept on, spearing off 
 the rings with deadly accuracy and holding the 
 three aloft, but having no need to pull in his 
 panting steed, who stopped of his own accord. 
 Up went a roar, but the Hon. Sam, covertly 
 glancing at his watch, still smiled. That watch 
 he pulled out when the Knight of the Cumber 
 land started and he smiled still when he heard 
 the black horse s swift, rhythmic beat and he 
 looked up only when that knight, shouting to 
 his horse, moved his lance up and down before 
 coming to the last ring and, with a dare-devil 
 yell, swept it from the wire. 
 
 " Tied tied! " was the shout; " theyVe got 
 to try it again ! they ve got to try it again ! " 
 
 The Hon. Sam rose, with his watch in one 
 hand and stilling the tumult with the other. 
 Dead silence came at once. 
 
 u I fear me," he said, " that the good knight, 
 the Discarded, has failed to make the course in 
 the time required by the laws of the tourna 
 ment." Bedlam broke loose again and the Hon. 
 Sam waited, still gesturing for silence. 
 
 " Summon the time-keeper! " he said. 
 252 
 
AT LAST THE TOUKNAMEISTT 
 
 The time-keeper appeared from the middle of 
 the field and nodded. 
 
 "Eight seconds!" 
 
 " The Knight of the Cumberland wins," said 
 the Hon Sam. 
 
 The little sister, unconscious of her own sad 
 face, nudged me to look at the Blight there 
 were tears in her eyes. 
 
 Before the grandstand the knights slowly 
 drew up again. Marston s horse was so lame 
 and tired that he dismounted and let a darky boy 
 lead him under the shade of the trees. But he 
 stood on foot among the other knights, his arms 
 folded, worn out and vanquished, but taking his 
 bitter medicine like a man. I thought the 
 Blight s eyes looked pityingly upon him. 
 
 The Hon. Sam arose with a crown of laurel 
 leaves in his hand: 
 
 " You have fairly and gallantly won, Sir 
 Knight of the Cumberland, and it is now your 
 right to claim and receive from the hands of the 
 Queen of Love and Beauty the chaplet of honor 
 which your skill has justly deserved. Advance, 
 Sir Knight of the Cumberland, and dismount! " 
 
 The Knight of the Cumberland made no move 
 nor sound. 
 
 " Get off yo hoss, son," said the Hon. Sam 
 kindly, " and get down on yo knees at the feet 
 253 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND 
 
 of them steps. This fair young Queen is a-goin 
 to put this chaplet on your shinin brow. That 
 horse ll stand." 
 
 The Knight of the Cumberland, after a mo 
 ment s hesitation, threw his leg over the saddle 
 and came to the steps with a slouching gait and 
 looking about him right and left. The Blight, 
 blushing prettily, took the chaplet and went 
 down the steps to meet him. 
 
 "Unmask!" I shouted. 
 
 " Yes, son," said the Hon. Sam, " take that 
 rag off." 
 
 Then Mollie s voice, clear and loud, startled 
 the crowd. " You better not, Dave Branham, 
 fer if you do and this other gal puts that thing 
 
 on you, you ll never " What penalty she 
 
 was going to inflict, I don t know, for the Knight 
 of the Cumberland, half kneeling, sprang sud 
 denly to his feet and interrupted her. ;< Wait a 
 minute, will ye?" he said almost fiercely, and 
 at the sound of his voice Mollie rose to her feet 
 and her face blanched. 
 
 " Lord God ! " she said almost in anguish, 
 and then she dropped quickly to her seat again. 
 
 The Knight of the Cumberland had gone back 
 to his horse as though to get something from 
 his saddle. Like lightning he vaulted into the 
 saddle, and as the black horse sprang toward 
 the opening tore his mask from his face, turned 
 254 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 in his stirrups, and brandished his spear with a 
 yell of defiance, while a dozen voices shouted : 
 
 14 The Wild Dog! " Then was there an up 
 roar. 
 
 " Coddle mighty! " shotted the Hon. Sam. 
 " I didn t do it, I swear I didn t know it. He s 
 tricked me he s tricked me! Don t shoot 
 you might hit that hoss ! " 
 
 There was no doubt about the Hon. Sam s 
 innocence. Instead of turning over an outlaw 
 to the police, he had brought him into the inner 
 shrine of law and order and he knew what a 
 political asset for his enemies that insult would 
 be. And there was no doubt of the innocence 
 of Mollie and Buck as they stood, Mollie wring 
 ing her hands and Buck with open mouth and 
 startled face. There was no doubt about the in 
 nocence of anybody other than Dave Branham 
 and the dare-devil Knight of the Cumberland. 
 
 Marston had clutched at the Wild Dog s 
 bridle and missed and the outlaw struck savagely 
 at him with his spear. Nobody dared to shoot 
 because of the scattering crowd, but every knight 
 and every mounted policeman took out after the 
 outlaw and the beating of hoofs pounded over 
 the little mound and toward Poplar Hill. Mar 
 ston ran to his horse at the upper end, threw his 
 saddle on, and hesitated- there were enough 
 after the Wild Dog and his horse was blown. 
 
 255 
 
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBEKLAND 
 
 He listened to the yells and sounds of the chase 
 encircling Poplar Hill. The outlaw was making 
 for Lee. All at once the yells and hoof-beats 
 seemed to sound nearer and Marston listened, 
 astonished. The Wild Dog had wheeled and 
 was coming back ; he was going to make for the 
 Gap, where sure safety lay. Marston buckled 
 his girth and as he sprang on his horse, uncon 
 sciously taking his spear with him, the Wild Dog 
 dashed from the trees at the far end of the field. 
 As Marston started the Wild Dog saw him, 
 pulled something that flashed from under his 
 coat of mail, thrust it back again, and brandish 
 ing his spear, he came, full speed and yelling, 
 up the middle of the field. It was a strange thing 
 to happen in these modern days, but Marston was 
 an officer of the law and was between the Wild 
 Dog and the Ford and liberty through the Gap, 
 into the hills. The Wild Dog was an outlaw. 
 It was Marston s duty to take him. 
 
 The law does not prescribe with what weapon 
 the lawless shall be subdued, and Marston s spear 
 was the only weapon he had. Moreover, the 
 Wild Dog s yell was a challenge that set his 
 blood afire and the girl both loved was looking 
 on. The crowd gathered the meaning of the 
 joust the knights were crashing toward each 
 other with spears at rest. There were a few 
 surprised oaths from men, a few low cries from 
 256 
 
But every knight and every mounted policeman took out after the outlaw 
 
AT LAST THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 women, and then dead silence in which the sound 
 of hoofs on the hard turf was like thunder. The 
 Blight s face was white and the little sister was 
 gripping my arm with both hands. A third 
 horseman shot into view out of the woods at 
 right angles, to stop them, and it seemed that 
 the three horses must crash together in a heap. 
 With a moan the Blight buried her face on my 
 shoulder. She shivered when the muffled thud 
 of body against body and the splintering of wood 
 rent the air; a chorus of shrieks arose about her, 
 and when she lifted her frightened face Marston, 
 the Discarded, was limp on the ground, his horse 
 was staggering to his feet, and the Wild Dog 
 was galloping past her, his helmet gleaming, his 
 eyes ablaze, his teeth set, the handle of his 
 broken spear clinched in his right hand, and 
 blood streaming down the shoulder of the black 
 horse. She heard the shots that were sent after 
 him, she heard him plunge into the river, and 
 then she saw and heard no more. 
 
 257 
 
VIII 
 
 THE KNIGHT PASSES 
 
 \ TELEGRAM summoned the Blight home 
 jL\. next day. Marston was in bed with a 
 ragged wound in the shoulder, and I took her 
 to tell him good-by. I left the room for a few 
 minutes, and when I came back their hands were 
 unclasping, and for a Discarded Knight the en 
 gineer surely wore a happy though pallid face. 
 
 That afternoon the train on which we left 
 the Gap was brought to a sudden halt in Wildcat 
 Valley by a piece of red flannel tied to the end 
 of a stick that was planted midway the track. 
 Across the track, farther on, lay a heavy piece 
 of timber, and it was plain that somebody meant 
 that, just at that place, the train must stop. 
 The Blight and I were seated on the rear plat 
 form and the Blight was taking a last look at 
 her beloved hills. When the train started again, 
 there was a cracking of twigs overhead and a 
 shower of rhododendron leaves and flowers 
 dropped from the air at the feet of the Blight. 
 And when we pulled away from the high-walled 
 
 258 
 
THE KNIGHT PASSES 
 
 cut we saw, motionless on a little mound, a black 
 horse, and on him, motionless, the Knight of 
 the Cumberland, the helmet on his head (that 
 the Blight might know who he was, no doubt), 
 and both hands clasping the broken handle of 
 his spear, which rested across the pommel of his 
 saddle. Impulsively the Blight waved her hand 
 to him and I could not help waving my hat ; but 
 he sat like a statue and, like a statue, sat on, 
 simply looking after us as we were hurried along, 
 until horse, broken shaft, and shoulders sank out 
 of sight. And thus passed the Knight of the 
 Cumberland with the last gleam that struck his 
 helmet, spear-like, from the slanting sun. 
 
 THE END 
 
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 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
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 OVERDUE. 
 
 29 
 
 DEC 17 1932 
 
 MAY 14 1987 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 JBKt ^a^^H