THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 [Page 15] 
 
 " 'HE'S IK JAIL'"
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 B IRovel 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FOX, JR 
 
 iUTHOK OF "A OCMBKELAN1) VENDETTA' 
 "HELL FEE SAETAIN" KTO. 
 
 ILLUSTUATEW 
 
 BY W. T. SMEDLEY 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1898
 
 BY JOHN FOX, JK. 
 
 "HELL FER SARTAIN," and Other Stories. Post 
 Svo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges, $1 00. 
 
 A CUMBERLAND VENDETTA, and Other Stories. 
 IHustrated. Post Svo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 26. 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights ruerted.
 
 TO 
 MY FATHER 
 
 AND 
 
 MY FATHER'S KENTUCKIANS
 
 ILLUSTKATIONS 
 
 ' HE'S IN JAIL ' ". . Frontispiece 
 
 A PROPHET WAS AMONG THEM" . . .Facing p. 4 
 
 THE TWO STEPPED PROM THE GREEK 
 
 PORTICO INTO THE SUNLIGHT" . . 8 
 MARSHALL WENT AT ONCE TO THE 
 
 PIANO" " 82 
 
 : HE TOSSED HIS WEAPON ASIDE "... 180 
 
 ' 'I KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT 1 ". . . " 222
 
 THE people of the little Kentucky cap 
 ital 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 century 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 la 
 dies' gallery was full, and the Governor's
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 daughter, Anne, sat midway. About her 
 was a sudden flutter and a leaning for 
 ward when Marshall strode a little con 
 sciously 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 dignity of 
 manner, and a dash that his high color 
 showed to be not wholly natural. The 
 speech was old-fashioned, emotional, the 
 sentences full, swinging, poetic, rich with 
 imagery and classical allusion. And al 
 ways 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 
 2
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 uplifted face straight towards the Gov 
 ernor'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 be 
 fore him when the last period rang through 
 the chamber. It would have been useless 
 against the outbreak of applause that fol 
 lowed. Marshall had flamed anew from 
 an already brilliant past. Anne was lean 
 ing 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 corner of the 
 3
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 room where, under the big clock, stood 
 the rough figure of a mountaineer, with 
 hands behind him and swaying awkward 
 ly 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 feeling that threatened to engulf 
 his brain and surge out in a torrent of in 
 vective. The mountaineer himself seemed 
 fearful of some such thing ; for, with tur 
 bulent calmness, he began slowly, and 
 went on with great care. No reason was 
 apparent, but at the sound of his voice 
 the House turned towards him with the 
 silence of premonition. One by one wrin 
 kles came into the Speaker'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. 
 4
 
 "A PROPHET WAS AMONG THEM"
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 And one, who himself loved the Govern 
 or's daughter, remembered long after 
 wards that she leaned suddenly towards 
 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 an old member knew that a prophet 
 was among them. 
 
 It was the old fight patrician against 
 plebeian, crude force against culture but 
 the House knew ' that young Randolph 
 Marshall, who already challenged the 
 brilliant traditions of a great forefather, 
 who was a promise to redeem a degener 
 ate present and bring back a great past, 
 had found an easy peer in the awkward 
 bulk just risen before them, unknown. 
 5
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 There was little applause when the 
 mountaineer 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 representative; and, on a sud 
 den, the old Governor at the door remem 
 bered that he had signed credentials for 
 somebody to take a dead member's place. 
 This was the man. Outside, Anne Bruce 
 came slowly down the oval stone stair 
 way, and at the bottom Marshall was 
 waiting for her. She smiled a little ab 
 sently 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 towards the old Mansion. On the 
 curb-stone, just outside, stood one of the 
 figures familiar to the streets of the capi- 
 (i
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 tal, a man in stripes a " trusty " on pa 
 role 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 first 
 the Cumberland range, that grim and 
 once effectual protest against the march 
 of the race westward. Over this frown 
 ing wall, the first light flashes down 
 through primitive woods and into fast 
 nesses 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 Purchase last 
 clutch of the Spaniard to light up the 
 yellow river that holds a strange mixt-
 
 : THE TWO STEPPED PROM THE GREEK PORTICO INTO 
 THE SUNLIGHT "
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ure 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 when 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 riches are unrifled, and its 
 people 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 
 9
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 Kentuckian the hunter 
 Boone. There the river links highland 
 with lowland like an all but useless ar 
 tery, barren hill -side with rich pasture- 
 land, blue -grass with rhododendron, de 
 terioration 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 moun 
 tains that have followed the river down 
 from the great highlands, and have brought 
 with them mute messengers mountain 
 trees, mountain birds, and mountain flow 
 ersto ask that the dark region within 
 be not wholly forgot, and to show that 
 the wish of nature at least is for brother 
 hood. Down this river come wild rafts 
 men, who stalk along the middle of the 
 street, single file and curiously subdued ; 
 10
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 who climb through the car windows, and 
 are swept through the blue -grass, to 
 trudge the old Wilderness Road back 
 home. Here are two points of close con 
 tact for the mountaineer and the lowland- 
 er the legislature and the penitentiary. 
 Thirty miles away is an old university 
 the first college built west of the Al- 
 leghanies 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 county judge 
 had been driven from the court-house, 
 and the Attorney - General of the State 
 had gone with soldiers to hold court at 
 11
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the county -seat. The only verdict ren 
 dered 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 sol 
 diers went back to the blue-grass, they 
 came out from their hiding-places and be 
 gan 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 pur 
 chase one from the State authorities 
 from the Governor himself. Judge, jail 
 er, sheriff, and constable were involved 
 now, and the county was nearing anarchy. 
 The reputation of the State was at is 
 sue, and civilization in the blue-grass was 
 rebuking barbarism in the mountains. 
 Abolish the county, was the cry at the 
 12
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 the reputation of 
 the lowland blue-grass ; contrasting, final 
 ly, 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 
 speech were a quivering pride of State 
 and a bitter arraignment of the people 
 who were bringing it into disrepute. The 
 mountaineer was a straggler, a deserter 
 from the ranks. He was vicious, un- 
 13
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 trustworthy, ignorant, lawless, and con 
 tent 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, an 
 swering 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 wilderness ; it 
 bespoke a new and throbbing power in 
 the destiny of the State ; it proclaimed a 
 commercial epoch. He admitted much, 
 he denied somewhat, he made little de 
 fence, and he apologized 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 
 14
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the Stallard faction. His people were 
 idle, shiftless, ignorant, lawless. No won 
 der. 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 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 sentiment 
 was weak and unity of action difficult 
 except for mischief. It was easy for ten 
 bad men to give character to a communi 
 tyto embroil 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 
 15
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 moun 
 tains? "Were they less quick to fight? 
 In one section, the fighting was by indi 
 viduals ; 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 environ 
 ment, were almost helpless? Who knew 
 how powerful that environment had been ? 
 Who knew that it did not make the 
 mighty distinctions between the moun 
 taineers and the people of the blue-grass ; 
 that the slipping of a linchpin in a wagon 
 on the Wilderness Road had not made 
 the difference between his own family 
 and the proudest in the State ; that the 
 16
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 at 
 tention 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 moment 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. 
 
 B 17
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 The Marshalls even owned mountain lands 
 somewhere, which, with their sole crop of 
 taxes, had been a jest in the family for 
 generations. That Avas the little he knew 
 of his own mountains. 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 be 
 fore the mountaineer was done he was 
 silently and uneasily measuring strength 
 with him, point by point. 
 
 To Anne, the man and the speech were 
 a revelation : she barely knew her State 
 had mountains. She hardly spoke on her 
 way home, and she seemed not to notice 
 Marshall's unusual silence. 
 
 "lie has the fascination of something 
 new and perhaps terrible," she said once. 
 " And it's startling, what he said. I won 
 der if it can be true?" And again, a mo 
 ment later, slowly: "It is very strange; 
 it all seems to have happened before." 
 18
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 seem 
 ed as though I had already heard you make 
 just that speech under just those circum 
 stances. It's one of those queer experi 
 ences that seem to have occurred before, 
 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 question since." 
 
 Anne's face cleared. " Oh, that's the 
 explanation ! A thing seems to have hap 
 pened before, I suppose, because it has so 
 nearly happened that it seems to be ex 
 actly the same thing." 
 
 " Yes," assented Marshall, but he was 
 watching 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 
 19
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 farther in, and apparently not guess or 
 not care how it rankled. 
 
 " Once even that man's face seemed fa 
 miliar," 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-bye." 
 
 Anne smiled. She was accustomed to 
 that tone ; she had forgiven it many times ; 
 she had been distrait, and she would for 
 give it again. " Good-bye," she said, gently.
 
 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 vespers of a song-spar 
 row would radiate now and then from the 
 21
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 top of a low weed, and a meadow -lark 
 would rise and wheel, singing, towards the 
 west. Marshall's chin was almost on his 
 breast. The reins were loose, and the no 
 ble 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 
 gate. Marshall got out with some diffi 
 culty, 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 
 
 22
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 sunrise window-light as Marshall climbed 
 the stiles. 
 
 " Eannie !" 
 
 " 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 visi 
 ble ; 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 girl 
 ish 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 brighten his home-coming. Supper 
 was over, and they were awaiting the ar 
 rival of young men from town. Marshall 
 ate little and had little to say, and very 
 23
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 slowly a shadow passed over his mothers 
 brow and eyes. 
 
 "What's wrong, my son?" she asked, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Nothing, mother, nothing. Don't both 
 er." 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 coming 
 guests in the hall. " Good-night," he said ; 
 and he kissed her forehead as he passed 
 behind 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 
 24
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 of round-stone flagging. For 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 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 con 
 scious 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 
 25
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 scrawl 
 ing line, " To Rannie from Anne." He 
 turned sharply away and sat down at his 
 table again, with his forehead on his crossed 
 arras. 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 hulk 
 ing 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 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 
 remoteness from it all, and straightway a 
 memory began to bridge the gap between 
 26
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 paragraph, 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 gra 
 cious lovely lines start up and down. It 
 
 27
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 delirious, were he 
 to use it for a drinking-cup. Looking for 
 Psyche, the little god rests there, no doubt, 
 while she sleeps. If 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, in 
 stead, reached suddenly across the table. 
 The sound of old Tom's banjo was com 
 ing up through his back window from 
 the lilacs below, and, as his fingers closed 
 
 28
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 around the glass, the strum started up be 
 fore 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, 
 and with tightened lips once more took 
 up his pen. 
 
 The moon looked in at his window ra 
 diantly when he pushed the curtains aside 
 to close a shutter, so that he changed his 
 mind about going to bed, and blew out 
 his lamp and sat at the window, looking 
 out. The young men Avere going home. 
 He heard the laughing good-byes in the 
 29
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 hall, and the low, laughing talk of the 
 young fellows where they were unhitch 
 ing 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 Avhite aspens were quiet as the som 
 bre aged pines that had been brought 
 over from old Hanover, in Virginia, and 
 stood with proud solemnity befitting 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. Beyond the lawn 
 and the mock-orange hedge was the wood 
 land, with its sinuous line of soft shadow 
 against the sky, and the broken moonlight 
 30
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 under its low branches. Primitive soil, 
 that Avoodland ; no plough had run a fur 
 row through it ; no white man had called 
 it his own before the boy's great fore 
 father, 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 mis 
 sion on earth. And what a mission he 
 was making for that gracious life ! 
 
 In the dark parlor, just through the 
 
 31
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 Mar 
 shall'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 
 beautiful dignity drunk himself to death 
 for a woman. Men could do that in his 
 day. Men had the young fellow rose, 
 shivering from another reason than the 
 cooling night air ; it still was possible. 
 
 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 
 32
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 people: 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 rhododendron 
 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 overbear- 
 in' race," the Stallards 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 no love of sloth, no vice of 
 o 33
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 blood, to stunt his growth; as yet, no love 
 of woman to confuse his purpose, nor in 
 spire it. 
 
 Not once did the two currents cross but 
 on the thinkers themselves; on nothing 
 else not even on Anne.
 
 IV 
 
 A WEEK later the Mansion was thrown 
 open, for the third time during the ses 
 sion, to the law-makers and their wives. 
 Stallard, Colton said, must go ; and Col- 
 ton'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 Cumberland 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 question of disruption came up, 
 a member who had considerable aspira- 
 35
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 tion, 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 emphasis of Stallard's idea that 
 the mountain people must some day gov 
 ern themselves, and, therefore, would be 
 better let alone now. To the surprise 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 cer 
 tain statements made ; that time would 
 soon prove. 
 
 Meanwhile, he would withdraw his mo 
 tion, with the consent of the House, and 
 counsel further forbearance on the part 
 of the State. It was graceful, magnani 
 mous, gallant ; but Colton, watching the 
 mountaineer's face, saw not a muscle of 
 36
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 con 
 sideration. 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 af 
 fairs, 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, and every 
 few days he saw his name prominent in 
 the reports of legislative doings. These 
 would slowly make their way home to the 
 87
 
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 mountains, 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 Stal- 
 lard'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 hopeless inde 
 cision 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 
 38
 
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 one side. The two men did not like each 
 other, and for that reason Colton rattled 
 on in his talk recklessly. The receiving- 
 line of young women in white was broken, 
 and the rather chill formality of the occa 
 sion dissolved. Occasionally some little 
 woman, tripping past, would ask, naively, 
 " Oh, you haven't met my husband ?" And 
 off she would go for the embryonic states 
 man. Dress and manners made Anne shud 
 der now and then, but no sign arose above 
 the fine courtesy that made social democ 
 racy 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. Col- 
 ton, 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 Gethsemane, the Knobs and the 
 Benson Hills; from aristocratic Fayette 
 39
 
 THE KENTUCKIAN8 
 
 and Bourbon, "sweet Owen" fortress of 
 democracy, to border Harlan, hot-bed of 
 the feud ; from the Mississippi to Hell-fer- 
 Sartain 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 sometimes," 
 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 Irish 
 man 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 
 side-glance at Marshall ; the Scotch-Irish 
 man, who had taken on the cavalier's pol 
 ish and lost nothing of his own strength ; 
 the " pore white trash " now risen in the 
 world; the kinless nondescript himself, 
 for instance ; the political grandee of the 
 
 40
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 cross-roads he of the Clay manner and the 
 
 Websterian brow across the room. He al- 
 
 
 
 ways 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 making 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 this member's constituents. They 
 had corn-bread and potatoes. 
 
 "Take out, stranger," said the moun 
 taineer. " Hev a tater ; take two of 'em ; 
 take damn nigh all of 'em." 
 
 41
 
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 Oh, they were a strange people, these 
 mountaineers proud, hospitab^, good- 
 hearted, and murderous ! Religious, too : 
 they talked chiefly of homicide and the 
 Bible. He knew of an awful fight that 
 came up over a discussion on original 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 Cy 
 clone ' now : that's mine, that phrase. Pret 
 ty 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 min 
 utes, I'm going after him. It '11 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 
 42
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 help 
 lessly up and down the room, and his face, 
 despite its gravity, wore so pained a look 
 that the girl herself half rose. But the 
 Governor had stepped forward and, hold 
 ing the new-comer's arm, was leading him 
 across the room towards her. 
 
 " Anne, I want to present Mr. Stallard 
 to you Mr. Boone Stallard. Mr. Mar 
 shall, 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 anoth 
 er ; and what he felt, he made plain. Mar- 
 43
 
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 shall straightened like steel. It was a 
 declaration of war, open, mutual; and 
 Colton, with a quick breath, half rose from 
 his seat. The Governor, 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 towards the 
 Governor, who was passing through the 
 door. 
 
 Colton turned to Anne's friend, Kather- 
 ine Craig, who sat at his right, and whose 
 eyes had lost nothing. Stallard crossed 
 his big hands awkwardly in front of him, 
 and stood with one foot advanced and the 
 knee bent. He wore a great Prince Al 
 bert coat, which was longer in front than 
 behind, and high boots which showed to 
 their tops under his trousers. They were 
 carefully blackened, and the feet were 
 large so was the man. Anne saw all 
 
 44
 
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 these details before she raised her eyes to 
 his, and then for a while she 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, friend- 
 lily. " I want to congratulate you. You 
 gave us all a surprise especially Mr. Mar 
 shall." 
 
 " 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." 
 45
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 com 
 pliment." 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 press the point further, 
 but the impulse was irresistible. 
 
 "Mr. Marshall is a great friend of 
 mine," she added, her self-control flutter 
 ing, and she raised her eyes to see what 
 should come into his, and she was fright 
 ened. 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 
 46
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 pur 
 pose of somehow putting herself to rights ; 
 but the mountaineer stared merely. 
 
 " I don't think we will," he said, blunt 
 ly. Again Anne's eyes went for refuge 
 back to the point of her slipper, and luck 
 ily for both, just then, the Governor came 
 to take Stallard away. Colton and Kath- 
 erine turned. 
 
 " How did you get along ?" asked Col- 
 ton. 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 and spirited, 
 and he laughed in a way that made her 
 look sharply up. 
 
 47
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " 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 nec 
 essary. 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 quar 
 rel, the wine - room and the card - table ; 
 some wild deed, contrition, pardon, and 
 peace again. It was the beginning of the 
 48
 
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 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 Marshall had the strength 
 that she believed was the mountaineer's. 
 "What might he not do then ? Then, per 
 haps, 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, slie was walking 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. 
 D 49
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 She had thought him stupid and impolite, 
 and she never knew what fixed the inci 
 dent in her mind, unless it was the boy's 
 intent 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 contrast was between the 
 mountaineer's face and his dress, and won 
 dering 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. He's so diffident it's absurd in 
 such a big man and then he isn't. I 
 wonder that he came to-night." 
 50
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " It was Colton's doing, I imagine," said 
 the Governor, rising to fill his pipe ; " and 
 then I suppose he thought he owed espe 
 cial courtesy to me. I let out a pretty 
 bad convict on parole not long ago, at his 
 request a mountaineer." 
 
 "Who is he? 1 ' she asked, so absent- 
 mindedly that the Governor turned. 
 
 "Who is who?" he answered, smiling; 
 and then, " 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 stretching kinship down there than 
 we are." 
 
 The girl rose to go to her room, and 
 the Governor 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, 
 51
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 a feudsman, if you are get 
 ting interested in the mountaineers. I 
 made still another trusty not long ago, at 
 the warden's request. The mountaineers 
 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.
 
 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 
 before. Stallard was not only not there 
 he had not even answered her note of 
 invitation. Colton 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 steadi 
 ly. He had not answered, perhaps, be- 
 
 53
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 cause he did not know the social need of 
 an answer. He might have turned up at 
 the dinner without having sent his ac 
 ceptance; that was as likely as what he 
 had done. It was all doubtless true, and 
 the girl wanted to believe that it was. 
 Still, it was the harder to believe for the 
 reason that it was altogether of a piece 
 with the usual way of a man who seemed 
 to swerve aside for nothing, and who bore 
 himself towards her as she had all her 
 life borne herself towards all men. And 
 vounc: as she was, Anne's reign had been 
 
 \j o o 
 
 a long one. Even as a school -girl she 
 had her little local court of sweethearts, 
 Avhich widened rapidly, as she grew older, 
 through the county, through several coun 
 ties, 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 another, 
 54
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 and to the world ; declaring love one after 
 another in turn, leaving her with a pas 
 sionate 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 hopeless, 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 los 
 ing a friend. By - and - by some of her 
 courtiers married, some went other ways, 
 but of the original court a few were still 
 left, and of them Marshall was one. He 
 was the oldest, the most faithful and un- 
 55
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 tiring. 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 ex 
 pectation, 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 because she 
 was fair with all and loved no one less 
 than his rival. What the trouble was, no 
 body knew precisely not Marshall not 
 even Anne. Once her mother, remember 
 ing the boy's inheritance, had given her 
 gentle warning against intrusting 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 slowly came to exact, 
 what few women do, that a man shall be 
 56
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 making an honest effort to realize the 
 best that is in him. That Marshall, brill 
 iant and winning as he was, had never 
 done. It was the contrast in this one par 
 ticular that was helping arouse her inter 
 est in the mountaineer. One look in his 
 face, and doubt on that question, as to 
 Stallard, was at rest. Moreover, she had a 
 swift, 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 
 
 G 
 
 that he was the first to reach her intel 
 lect, 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 interest Avas not deepened 
 57
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 would be to say that she was not a wom 
 an and not human. She had thought of 
 the man a good deal ; she would tell any 
 body that. She wanted to know of him, 
 and Colton had told her much, and every 
 thing was of interest. She knew noth 
 ing of the mountains, nothing of the peo 
 ple who lived in them. Since she had 
 lived at the capital, she had watched the 
 raftsmen coming down the river; once, 
 she had seen a crowd of dusty, wild-look 
 ing 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 Col- 
 ton the subject was getting to be a hobby 
 with him had told her all he knew and 
 much more. Her personal interest in 
 Stallard helped her interest in his people. 
 He was the first mountaineer she had seen 
 close at hand. The second was in her 
 
 58
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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, quietly. " I want you 
 to go on that side and hoe around those 
 rose-bushes there." 
 
 The young fellow went to work Avithout 
 a word. The trusties earn their liberty at 
 a sacrifice of the good opinion of their fel- 
 59
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 low-prisoners ; but the young mountaineer 
 was sick for the open air; moreover, he 
 was doing a woman's work under a wom 
 an's supervision ; and he was not pleased. 
 He worked very well, but he seemed 
 weak. His cheeks soon took on a high 
 color; he breathed hard, and he looked 
 feverish. The stripes must be hot and suf 
 focating, 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. 
 
 60
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " 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 towards 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 within and with 
 out the sombre walls. Anne knew 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. 
 61
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " Yes," she said, calmly ; " I heard him 
 make a speech the other clay." 
 
 " Did ye ?" he asked, smiling. " Thar 
 hain't nobody as can down Boone on lan- 
 guige. 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 kinspeople, 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 inspection. " Boone's al'ays a-tryin' to 
 git us fellers 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 
 62
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 he thinks he ought to. An' 
 then thar'll be Billy -hell to pay. You 
 see !" 
 
 Again the girl started, but the boy was 
 looking away in complete innocence of 
 giving offence, absorbed no doubt in pict 
 uring just what would happen should 
 Boone Stallard some day take part. She 
 remembered, too, that Col ton 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 /" 
 
 " Ked-heads . . . woodpeckers in a dead 
 enin' a place whar folks have cut the 
 bark off o' trees to kill 'em. The red- 
 63
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 heads goes thar 'cause hit's easier fer 'em 
 to peck holes in dead trees. Sometimes I 
 think you furriners knows most ever'thing, 
 an' agin 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 daddy, an' the high-sheriff was afeerd 
 o' him an' wouldn't arrest him. whut 
 would you do? You know mighty well. 
 You'd just go git yo' gun an' let him have 
 it. That's what. Then mebbe his broth 
 er would lay way 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 mechani 
 cally, and then looked at the work he had 
 64
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 amuse 
 ment. " 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. 
 " But we don't call no woman ' 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 mar 
 ried," 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 momen 
 tary ; he seemed to have the light-hearted 
 
 E 65
 
 THE KENTUCKIA.NS 
 
 irresponsibility of the insane. Already he 
 was humming to himself in a mournful 
 minor ; it was something about " wild 
 roses" ; 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 moun 
 taineers still sang : 
 
 'To jump in the river and drown" 
 
 that was the last sorrowful line ; and then 
 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 huntin', 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dalidy-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, 
 
 66
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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, try 
 ing to realize, to understand, what Colton 
 said ; that in this age, this day, this hour; 
 in her own land, her own State, and with 
 in the two days' gallop of a thoroughbred 
 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 Scotland. It was very strange 
 and interesting, and for no reason she 
 sighed deeply. The town clock was strik 
 ing noon. 
 
 " You'd better go to dinner now," she 
 said, " and come back this afternoon." 
 67
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " This whut ?" The mountaineer's day 
 has no afternoon. 
 
 "This evening." 
 
 "Aw!" Again the boy laughed frank 
 ly. Just then the Governor was passing 
 into the Mansion. " Who is that ole fel 
 ler?" 
 
 "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 
 Governor 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 muttered; "an' my time 'most done. 
 Hit ain't right," he said, fiercely. 
 
 For the moment he forgot the girl, and 
 he wheeled quickly to her with a sudden 
 68
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 towards the house. 
 Boone Stallard was passing the gate, as 
 he always 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 moun 
 taineer spoke to Anne without raising his 
 hat.
 
 VI 
 
 FOR the time, peace down in the moun 
 tains took away the cause of war between 
 Marshall 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 dom 
 inant. In consequence, Anne looked for 
 ward with some anxiety to the night of 
 her dinner the dinner to which Stallard 
 had promised 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 
 
 70
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 mountaineer's blunt hostility might keep 
 her continually on guard and put the 
 table under unpleasant restraint; 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. A rather talkative news 
 paper man, a meteor from the North whom 
 Colton had caught while he was still blaz 
 ing, 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 tact 
 ful 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 con 
 dition of the poor whites. That was, in 
 71
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 effect, what she heard him tell the Episco 
 pal minister as they were rising to go out 
 to dinner. Now the clergyman, 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 min 
 ister, with a pleasant smile, " and perhaps 
 you won't write anything." 
 
 The journalist realized that he was talk 
 ing 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 
 mountaineer closely. His face was placid 
 and grave, but his eyes were busy. Noth 
 ing 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 
 
 72
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 atten 
 tion to the fact, while Marshall was en 
 gaged with his right-hand neighbor. 
 
 " I've been tempering the cyclone to the 
 shorn lamb of conventionality," he said. 
 "I've got him down out of the clouds 
 now, and he roars gently. I've got his 
 hair cut ; and did you observe 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 Colton as one of the few who can 
 give advice without offence to anybody; 
 but she was watching the Northern jour 
 nalist, who was vigorously haranguing 
 Keynolds of the geological corps. Several 
 73
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 times she saw his lips frame the word 
 " mountaineer." 
 
 "Oh, he was easy work. He went to 
 the university at Lexington. But he's 
 been down in the mountains so long since 
 then that he has lapsed into original sin. 
 That's easy, Reynolds says, down there." 
 
 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 Kath- 
 erine, who was doing her best to engage 
 him, or to the Governor ; but now and 
 then he would turn his eyes towards 
 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 possible occasion for the two men 
 to come into contact. She began to won 
 der how she could have feared it : it was 
 74
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 hardly possible at the table, and only by 
 accident could they clash in the drawing- 
 room ; and then she was quite sure that 
 Col ton 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 towards her. The meteor was 
 sputtering through the sudden quiet. 
 
 "No," he said, with emphasis. "The 
 accepted theory of the origin of the moun 
 taineer, particularly of the Kentucky 
 mountaineer, is that he is the descend 
 ant He had got that far when he be 
 came conscious of the intense silence, that 
 everybody was listening, and that Stal- 
 lard's calm eyes were on him. Anne 
 was trembling when, to her relief, the 
 mountaineer smiled. He had learned a 
 75
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 environ 
 ment, 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, natu 
 rally; but the chief differences between 
 them and us come from the fact that they 
 have been shut off from the world abso 
 lutely for more than a hundred years. Take 
 out the cavalier 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 
 T6
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 average blue -grass families down in the 
 mountains half a dozen miles from one 
 another, take away their books, keep them 
 there, with no schools and no churches, 
 for a hundred years, 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 grati 
 tude in Stallard's face was pathetic. Mar 
 shall 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 each other 
 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
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 answer. "You 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-^^a^-grand- 
 mother 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. 
 Suppose 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 held Marshall back with a humor that 
 had no sting for him. Reynolds was smil 
 ing; 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 ci 
 gars. Stallard did not smoke, and the 
 78
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Governor took him to the library, across 
 the hall. Two State senators had Mar 
 shall between them over an axe they 
 wanted the lower house to grind. The 
 journalist and the clergyman had drawn 
 together, and Revnolds 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," Reyn 
 olds was saying. " You remember I was 
 captain of the football club at the uni 
 versity ? Well, one day, at the beginning 
 of the season, one of the fellows got hurt, 
 and I had to take a green substitute. 
 There were only some Bible students out 
 there looking on the fellows, you know, 
 who dye their linen dusters for overcoats 
 79
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 in winter and one of them stepped out. 
 ' I don't know the game, pardner,' he said, 
 ' but I reckon I can tote that ball wher 
 ever 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 pres 
 ently ' ; 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 yelling, 
 '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, 
 80
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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, 
 that fellow came over into the College of 
 Arts and turned out a remarkable orator. 
 He actually made his speech at Commence 
 ment from a slip of notes in his hand." 
 
 Colton was nodding his head. "I re 
 member," he said. 
 
 " Well, Colton, that fellow was your cy 
 clone. That was why I stood up for him." 
 
 Anne heard Colton's exclamation of sur 
 prise, and then no more ; but she had been 
 busy with memories, too, and a mystery 
 
 F 81
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 was clearing. Once more it was Mar 
 shall's Commencement day. Again she 
 felt the stifling heat and saw the portico, 
 her parasol on the flight of steps, and the 
 boy against one of the big pillars, w 7 ith 
 his fixed stare and his head of unruly 
 black hair. The incident came vividly 
 back while Reynolds was telling 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 before him, to 
 show facility in light accomplishments. 
 When Anne sang, Stallard's eyes never 
 left her face. He was leaning against a 
 
 82
 
 "MARSHALL WENT AT ONCE TO THE PIANO "
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 something new, personal, eager, soft 
 ened, and, on a sudden, a surprised flash of 
 such unreckoning intensity that she falter 
 ed in her song, and did not look towards 
 him again. The guests rose to go soon 
 after she was done, but Stallard stood 
 where he was ; and when Col ton 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 Stal 
 lard seemed not even to see him. He was 
 still looking at Anne, who gave him a 
 friendl} 7 ", half-frightened smile, and passed 
 him on w r ith Colton. Marshall stayed be 
 hind. The mountaineer could hardly find 
 
 83
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 his hat in the hallway and, as he started 
 out, he turned again as though he would 
 go back into the parlor. lie seemed 
 dazed. 
 
 "I believe" he said, hesitating^, and 
 Colton, 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.
 
 VII 
 
 THE next week Stallard disappeared al 
 together. Marshall, too, was rarely in 
 evidence, 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 custom with his ri 
 vals, 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 vis 
 its 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, 
 
 85
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 and lie had not come. Colton said he was 
 hard at work, Katherine thought him shy, 
 and Anne regretted that she had not been 
 more friendty. 
 
 Several times the young trusty had been 
 over to hoe in the garden. Anne made 
 many efforts to find his conscience, to im 
 plant therein a seed of regeneration, but 
 she soon gave him up as hopeless. She 
 was astonished by his knowledge 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 personal life. He had " heerd 
 all that afore," he said, with some superi 
 ority. " 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 set 
 tle their quarrels down in the mountains 
 with their fists instead of with knives and 
 pistols as though her own people did 
 that. 
 
 86
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " All right," he said. " S'posin' a feller 
 does somep'n to you. You go fer him fist 
 an' skull, gougin' an' bitin'. You gits 
 whooped !" he concluded, 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 rea 
 soning. His curiosity was so absurdly 
 childlike, so removed from impertinence. 
 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 his consideration in 
 other little ways. A quicker native in 
 telligence she had never seen. His nature 
 was alert, foxlike, elusive; and his sense 
 87
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 of humor was a strange thing. He was 
 constantly picking up little differences be 
 tween 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 complacence with 
 his way of life and thinking ; his unques 
 tioning faith that his way was the right 
 way, and any other way justly a matter 
 of surprise, comment and ridicule. It sug 
 gested 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 
 morning 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 twi-
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 lights, sometimes with Marshall, but usu 
 ally with Katherine Craig ; and the con 
 stant 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 moun 
 taineer miles 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, frankly con 
 fessed 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 Katherine took
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 them both into the carriage and drove 
 down the river and out through the Ben 
 son Hills. It was like crossing the bor 
 der-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 stalwart 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. Farther 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, Avas 
 pushing through the rickety gate. She 
 90
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 turned her face towards them as they pass 
 ed, and peered as though she were strain 
 ing her eyes through darkness. 
 
 "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 other 
 wise they are pretty much the same." 
 
 Several times Katherine, who sat with 
 Stallard on the rear seat of the old-fash 
 ioned victoria, had tried to draw him out; 
 and now Colton's purpose apparently was 
 91
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 to start the mountaineer talking, but he 
 only laughed good-naturedly at the dif 
 ferentiating characterization that Colton 
 tossed off, and settled back into silence. 
 
 "It's all isolation," Colton went on; 
 " that's what Reynolds \vas going to say 
 the other night. Isolation arrests develop 
 ment, crystallizes character, 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 mountains at this 
 late day. He swears that an old moun 
 taineer once told him about the discovery 
 of America by Columbus. Reynolds lis 
 tened, solemn as an owl. The old chap 
 called himself a 'citizen,' Reynolds a 'fur- 
 riner,' and Columbus one of the ' outland 
 ish.' He was a sort of patriarch in his 
 92
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 Reyn 
 olds 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 Se 
 cession, well, he actually hitched his chair 
 up to Reynolds's and dropped his voice to 
 a whisper. ' Some folks had other idees,' 
 he said, ; 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 
 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. Reyn 
 olds claims that the mountaineers were 
 loyal to the Union in '61 because they 
 93
 
 T E FFN 
 
 hadn't o ,ie fight of 1776, and 
 
 that those feudb i.e the spent force of the 
 late war. There were more slave-holders 
 among the Kentucky mountaineers ; 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 before 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 tow 
 ards the town was a soft haze ; before 
 them, all was clear and brilliant. They 
 94
 
 THE KENTUCKIA.NS 
 
 had left the locust blossoms dropping 
 meaninglessly into the streets. Here in 
 the fields, Nature was making ready for 
 the days when she can sit with folded 
 hands, brooding and happy over work that 
 is all but done. The blue-grass was pur 
 pling into soft seas, that rocked as proud 
 ly 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 exult 
 antly above them. Now and then, from 
 the road-side, came the low, sweet, aim 
 less plaint of a little brown songster, whose 
 name Anne had never learned. Two king 
 birds were chasing a crow towards a wood 
 land. 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 
 95
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 wheat, and larks were wheeling and sing 
 ing everywhere. Sturdy farm-houses of 
 plain brick stood out here and there from 
 the sunlit fields, and now and then an 
 avenue of locusts gave sight of a portico 
 with great pillars running two stories 
 high. It w r as a scene of rich peace and 
 plenty, and Stallard's interest was eager, 
 but Anne noticed his face sadden. She 
 remembered this afterwards, as she recall 
 ed 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 Col ton showed how well he 
 knew the country, could she ask him if 
 he had not been to the blue-grass before. 
 
 "You went to the university, didn't 
 you?" 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 
 96
 
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 to be waiting for another question that 
 was on Anne's lips ; but his look now 
 brought back a sharp memory 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 palpa 
 bly making of the matter such a mys 
 tery ? 
 
 It was a short, swift ride, but nobody 
 guessed the significance of it to the moun 
 taineer. 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, Stal- 
 lard sank into a moodier silence still ; and 
 when they reached the darkening hills, 
 something 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 
 G 97
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 through the open door, where the old 
 granny was bending over a fire, and the 
 light showed the rude table set for the 
 rude supper, 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 mem 
 ories 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 Stal 
 lard, 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 embarrassment, rose quickly 
 to take Colton's outstretched hand, so lit- 
 
 98
 
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 tie did the mountaineer seem at that mo 
 ment to be aware of her presence or to 
 care who might hear what he said. 
 
 "I'll tell you anything on earth } 7 ou 
 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 instinctively Anne covered her con 
 fusion with a look of dismay to Kathe- 
 rine ; she had had an engagement with 
 Marshall ; she was getting back too late, 
 and he would be angry. Seeing him, 
 Stallard, who had stepped to the pave 
 ment, turned sharply from Anne, who was 
 waiting for him to help her out, and held 
 his eyes on Marshall until the latter was 
 several paces down the street. It was a 
 strange thing to do, and it mystified even 
 Colton : but it was merely the mountain 
 eer in him that made him keep his face 
 with watchful suspicion on his enemy; it 
 99
 
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 showed progress in the hostility between 
 the two, and it was partly in answer to 
 the half - contemptuous flash that Mar 
 shall gave Stallard, as he coldly lifted his 
 hat.
 
 VIII 
 
 BUT again Stallard did not come, and 
 again Anne forgave him. He was excep 
 tional; 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 Capitol and, with intentional lightness, 
 she reminded him of his broken promise. 
 That time he took her words with a seri 
 ousness 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 man- 
 101
 
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 sion. 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 comforting 
 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 the street 
 Avithout 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 
 mountaineer 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 
 102
 
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 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 primitive lives among the hills 
 and must be on the alert for an enemy. 
 Instantly Stallard's hands were withdrawn 
 from his pockets and a watchful light quick 
 ened in his eyes. 
 
 " Well," he said, " you skeered me !" 
 It was the slip of surprise, but Colton 
 had made even vulgarisms like this tol 
 erable for her. Much of the mountaineer's 
 speech was simply obsolete elsewhere, he 
 had explained. The mountaineer clung 
 to old customs, old words, old pronunci 
 ations, because new ones had never reach 
 ed him. Certain words were no more in- 
 103
 
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 correct than certain customs were immor 
 al. 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 frac 
 tion 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 interwoven branches and dappled 
 with the sunlight that fell through them. 
 Hill, tree, and the singing 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 un- 
 chaperoned 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 
 104 
 
 \
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the little gate that swung from the body 
 of an oak where she had stopped. The 
 leaves in the woods were full, and the sun 
 light had the gold of autumn. 
 
 Stallard began drawing in his breath. 
 " I always come up here when I'm home 
 sick," he said. "It makes me think of 
 the mountains these hills. There's a 
 mountain tree there, and 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 sas 
 safras. There's a spring up here, too. It's 
 105
 
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 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 unconscious now, for he 
 Avas 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 prat 
 tling 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 then, rose cool flutelike notes, as 
 though satyrs were teaching young fauns 
 to play on reeds. " That's another," said 
 
 106
 
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 Stallard, delightedly. " It's the first time 
 I've heard him. I 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 for 
 got her, or he had not learned that she let 
 little pass unseen ; for she was following 
 his mood as it became thoughtful, reminis 
 cent, and passed finally into the deep sad 
 ness 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 in 
 scrutable as to all else except some domi 
 nant purpose. It had nothing of the 
 dreaming quality of Marshall's pensive 
 moods, it Avas not temperamental ; it came 
 from some definite, tangible source, for it 
 got bitter and hard as the mood held him, 
 107
 
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 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 mem 
 ory that it must bring to both, of especial 
 significance. 
 
 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 some 
 thing, or the sudden question and the pe 
 culiar tone of it Avould 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." 
 108
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 It was her first parry, and she saw that 
 parrying with him was going to be diffi 
 cult 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 towards the 
 faint piping of the thrush. She was not 
 ready to enter that question with herself, 
 much less w^ith him. 
 
 " There ain't much to tell," he was say 
 ing, slowly. " I Yive at the head - waters 
 of the Cumberland, 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 the man who was teaching the 
 school. I made enough money, logging, 
 to get to the Bible college at Lexington. 
 I soon found out I wasn't called to be a 
 preacher, so I went over into the College 
 
 109
 
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 of Arts. I worked in the professors' 
 gardens; I did my own cooking any 
 thing 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 country-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 hardship 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 add 
 ed, simply, as though he were following 
 her thoughts ; " but I'd hoe it over again 
 if it had to be done for one reason, any 
 how because I can do more for my peo 
 ple. But for that I think, sometimes, that 
 I wouldn't, if I were back at the begin 
 ning, knowing what I knoAv now, and had 
 my choice. It nearly cost me my religion, 
 and it left me hung midway between 
 110
 
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 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 Anne could say. She was curious 
 to know definitely 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 another : 
 " 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 off 
 hand. That's the way I made my vale 
 dictory." 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 
 Stallard's face shone, 
 in
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 It was epoch-making in the history of 
 valedictories at the old university that 
 speech ; and the pathos of it was uninten 
 tional and quite unconscious. 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 personal gratitude to express to any 
 body. Nor had he any pathetic farewell 
 to make to the people 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 
 112
 
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 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, 
 
 H 113
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 and more to tell there was not. So speak 
 ing, he sat down. 
 
 The good old president sat through it 
 bewildered and pained. The professor of 
 English looked mad. The bluff old pro 
 fessor of Greek was laughing in his eyes 
 and under his right hand, which covered 
 his mouth. The dean of the Bible col 
 lege, who had labored to save Stallard's 
 soul from perdition and his powers for the 
 church, was openly resentful and hurt ; 
 while the little man who helped experi 
 ments 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.' 
 
 114
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 He said he'd teach the folks at home re 
 ligion if I'd 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 sha'n't risk 
 wrecking my life on it, especially when 
 what I most wish for I knew nothing of 
 until it was 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 puz 
 zled. 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, 
 115
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 col 
 lege, and the first Commencement I ever 
 saw was his. I heard his speech ; he had 
 the salutatory ; and I was right under 
 him, looking up into his face, lie spoke 
 over my head and never saw me. It was 
 Kentucky for the Kentuckians his speech 
 and he didn't let us mountain folks in 
 116
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 crash 
 ing the big trees together and the water 
 roar. Lightning just seems to flash in 
 front of my eyes, and I can hear the thun 
 der 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 forehead " 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 
 
 117
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 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 her 
 self saying, partly that he might not think 
 118
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 an 
 other question : 
 
 " Yes, my people live down in the moun 
 tains; they have been there a hundred 
 years. My father is dead. My mother is 
 at home, and one married sister, whose 
 119
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 worthless husband was killed in the feud. 
 My sister is hardly older than you, I im 
 agine, 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 mar 
 riage, 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 look 
 ed at it intently the pink nails, long white 
 fingers, the threadlike 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 sunburnt ; and his looks as soft 
 as yours, almost." 
 
 " Haven't you any brothers ?" she asked, 
 quickly, to turn him away from the dan 
 gerous theme ; and then she trembled at 
 her own question, for Stallard started vis 
 ibly and did not reply at once. 
 
 " Two," he said, at last. " One is at 
 120
 
 home he is a half-brother; and the oth 
 er" his tone got harsh, he rose suddenly 
 to his feet, and answered 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. " 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 moun 
 taineers ; 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. 
 
 121
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 restraint, 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 
 Virginia, 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. I 
 think of Marshall and you, and of my sis 
 ter 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 
 
 122
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 of what he can never get, I hope it m&y 
 be spared me. To be willing to do any 
 thing, 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 sig 
 nificance 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 Stallard, with unsus 
 pected delicacy, turned his talk again to 
 the birds and trees. Only when he reach 
 ed the gate at the oak did he strike the 
 chord again. 
 
 " I 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 followed you out 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 
 123
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 easy, then, for you to remember 
 your first vision of what you realized 
 was the best ? Especially when, there 
 after, 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 
 l/cah'm 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 
 
 124
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 honesty 
 " 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, un 
 less you look as you looked then as you 
 look now," he added, for Anne was smil 
 ing faintly. Stallard's voice was so gentle 
 and kind, and it 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, moun- 
 taineerlike, had gone through first and 
 was holding it open for her. As she passed 
 through she paused, lifting her eyes sud 
 denly to his. 
 
 125
 
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 "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. Arnold's Wold was already 
 in dusk. A cloud of smoke was rising 
 above the prison, and the Catholic cross 
 rose whitely through it, as though swung 
 down from above. There was still a pur 
 ple 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 ; 
 126
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 but there was a softer ring in his voice 
 when he spoke, and a new tone of un 
 derstanding. On the old bridge he stop 
 ped looking up stream. , A long raffe of 
 logs was floating down thenriver towards 
 
 O C3 ^^* |J , . 
 
 them. 
 
 " That's the way I came down to go 
 to college," 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, Stal- 
 lard bent his head to listen. 
 
 " I've got a gal at the head of the holler, 
 Heh-o-dee-um-dee-eedle-dahdy-dee !" 
 
 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." 
 127 

 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 The fello\v looked quickly up, gave a 
 "hooray," and, with a wave of his hat, 
 sent the refrain 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 Stal- 
 lard. " I used to go over to the Ken 
 tucky 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 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 win 
 dows, 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 mem 
 ber of the ' Legislatur,' as we say, and 
 
 128
 
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 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 Marshall was al 
 most staggering. At the steps of the 
 Mansion, Anne left her hand in Stallard's 
 as though she would say one of the thou 
 sand things that were on her tongue ; but 
 her lip quivered, and that was all.
 
 IX 
 
 THE session drew to a close. Several 
 times, Anne met Stallard in the street and 
 he spoke merely, lifting his hat now, and 
 passed on. She had asked him once if he 
 expected 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 ex 
 traordinary 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 inex 
 plicable. He kept to his seclusion rigidly. 
 She could not believe that his interest in 
 her was impersonal, that he regarded her as 
 
 130
 
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 merely a spiritual embodiment of certain 
 conditions that were denied him at birth, 
 that he wanted to attain, and which he 
 believed were beyond 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 be 
 lieved she thought it impassable, and, with 
 his strong sense and sure insight, he, too, 
 saw that 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 Stal- 
 lard met him at the bridge. What she 
 heard of the two men in the House kept 
 131
 
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 her continually uneasy : for no matter came 
 up there in which Stallard and Marshall 
 did not antagonize each other, and Mar 
 shall said sharp things which, from Stal- 
 lard's lips, Anne knew, would bring about 
 trouble. 
 
 To many, Marshall's bitterness seemed 
 unreasonable, but perhaps there was only 
 one other person, than Colton, who so 
 much as suspected that his hostility was 
 not altogether political : that was Kath- 
 erine Craig. She saw the inner play of 
 his mind, of which Marshall himself was 
 hardly conscious, and she sensibly kept it 
 to herself. Hitherto, Marshall had met 
 his rivals chivalrously, as he would have 
 met them, man to man, in any conflict 
 as he would have met Stallard, had the 
 mountaineer been a gentleman. He al 
 ways said that he had never known jeal 
 ousy that a common admiration was to 
 him a link of sympathy rather than a 
 cause of hate and to his rivals he was 
 132
 
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 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 be 
 fore ladies and in a drawing-room. War 
 was declared between the two before he 
 had even looked upon Stallard as a possi 
 ble 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 ir 
 resistibly bound to achieve. These would 
 win her admiration, her interest, her re 
 spect ; and that much Stallard already had 
 yes, he confessed quickly, and more. The 
 mountaineer was, in her eyes, a man with 
 133
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 a people behind him a people who had 
 drifted back towards 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 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 democ 
 racy, but in her exactions and deepest feel 
 ings she was aristocrat to her heart's 
 core. Thus far, Marshall could go ; thus 
 far, he went. But how Stallard's personal 
 history, 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 advantage; 
 134
 
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 how the secret inner sorrow that his broth 
 er had put upon him stirred her passion 
 ate 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 doubt 
 less what he had yet to tell her. Crim 
 inals, 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. 
 
 " It wasn't no harm once," Buck argued. 
 " Everybody 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 
 135
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 couldn't sell nary a grain. An' s'posin' you 
 had a big family an' you jus' had to have 
 soraep'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 moon 
 shine 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 he, and she had quite 
 
 accustomed herself to thinking of him 
 
 136
 
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 as the victim of circumstances and of a 
 misdemeanor that was not in itself crim 
 inal. Thinking that, she had allowed her 
 interest in him to deepen unreservedly ; 
 she had suffered him much liberty of 
 speech; and 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 news 
 paper with which she shaded her eyes 
 from the sun. Was it possible that this 
 brightfaced lad, with his careless laughter 
 and his easy chatter, 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 
 137
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 morn 
 ing he saw it in Anne's face and he 
 was trying to get her interested. 
 
 "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. 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 fel 
 ler what's licked." 
 
 The girl laughed, when she felt close to 
 138
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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. Pass 
 ing through the dust-cloud of a room in 
 which prisoners were making laths, her 
 eyes caught the face and shape of a con 
 vict who was running a thin plank 
 through one of the circular saws. The 
 jaw of the face was square and strong; 
 the cheek towards 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 once 
 back to his work, left her shuddering. 
 139
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Almost unconsciously she touched the 
 warden's arm. 
 
 "Who is that man?" 
 
 The convict fell into a violent fit of 
 coughing as she spoke, and, when the 
 warden turned, Buck the trusty was nod 
 ding 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 ; ev 
 erybody 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 wretched 
 ness 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 
 140
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 going back to the time when men exacted 
 a blood penalty for a slain kinsman. She 
 recalled the boys 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 his own sake, or through her pity of 
 Stallard? Had the lad appealed to her 
 on his own account ? Yes, but, ah ! and 
 just there the white hands slipped from 
 the bright hair they had been loosening, 
 and Anne sank into a chair by the win 
 dow, looking out with startled eyes into 
 141
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the June night. When she went to bed, 
 she lay there sleepless and a little fright 
 ened. She could not put one image out 
 side 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 Stal- 
 lard, the mountaineer.
 
 X 
 
 SHE did not go down to breakfast next 
 morning. She stayed abed and, early in 
 the afternoon, Katherine Craig came with 
 disturbing news. Down in the mountains, 
 Colton had told her, Mace Keaton was at 
 his deviltry again. He had elected him 
 self 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 
 Keatons 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 con 
 flict. 
 
 Elsewhere, Katherine had heard more. 
 Marshall meant to bring up that day his 
 143
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 ad 
 dressed himself straight to the gentleman 
 from Roland. Could he deny such and 
 such, and such and such? And Stallard 
 had to sit through it all, white and silent, 
 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 mor 
 tal quarrel, and Colton, who was watching 
 the mountaineer's face, believed it w r as 
 going to come. The ticking of the big 
 clock could be heard when the mountain 
 eer rose, but there was no. answering in 
 vective. Not once did Stallard's tone rise 
 above the level of quiet conversation. He 
 was pale and his eyes were bright, but in 
 144
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 no other way did he show unusual emo 
 tion. 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, dis 
 cussed, or answered. The gentleman seem 
 ed to hold him personally responsible for 
 the lawlessness of his people. Very well, 
 he would accept and bear the responsibil 
 ity, 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 man 
 ner and condition were already seriously 
 against his bill. Stallard's temperate words 
 defeated it, and Marshall'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 try 
 ing to lead him away. He tried to break 
 
 O 
 
 loose when Stallard appeared, and Colton 
 
 K 145
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 saw the mountaineer's mouth tighten and 
 a dangerous light leap from his eyes as he 
 stopped still and waited. Another friend 
 caught MarshallVarm, and Stallard walk 
 ed 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 woman and a rival claim for 
 them. It had turned with leaping fury 
 in Stallard and made him primeval 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 chiv 
 alry to hold him in check ; and he went 
 on stripping himself, stripping Marshall, 
 146
 
 THE KENTUCKIANB 
 
 until soul to soul the two faced in a mor 
 tal 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 mountaineer would have killed 
 him and gone striding on through the 
 fragrant dusk, an exultant savage. 
 
 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 alwaj's passing be 
 tween his eyes and the page that blurred 
 147
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the print ; and he was glad when the hour 
 came for the walk that was a nightly cus 
 tom with him after his task was done. 
 JSTot that he needed exercise that night ; 
 but the walk always took him past Anne 
 Brace's house, and it was for that sole rea 
 son that he went now. There was a dim 
 light in the hallway, but the parlor Avas 
 dark, and so was Anne's room, Avhich he 
 had come to know from seeing her at her 
 AvindoAv, half screened by maple leaves. 
 As he passed the rear of the hotel beyond, 
 music started through the open windows 
 above him, and he remembered 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 hall 
 way of the hotel. At the top of the steps 
 stood Colton in evening dress, mopping 
 his face with a handkerchief. Stallard 
 148
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 had declined to go when Colton urged 
 him that morning, but he let himself be 
 dragged up-stairs now to the door of the 
 ballroom, 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 prompting: "Balance all! 
 Swing yer pardners ! Cage the bird ! 
 Grand right an' wrong ! Fust lady to the 
 right cheat an' swing." What a contrast ! 
 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, Marshall dark, grave, and fault 
 less in dress and bearing. Already she 
 was gathering up her wraps and, when 
 the dance was over, she was moving on 
 149
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Marshall's arm towards 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 sav 
 agely. 
 
 He did not wait long after they were 
 gone ; the brilliant scene thrust him far 
 ther and farther from Anne. Even to his 
 eyes she was marked from every other 
 woman in the room by her simple pres 
 ence, 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 dis 
 tant, and straight on Stallard's way home. 
 150
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 The door opened just as he Avas passing 
 by on the other side of the street, and, 
 having stopped unconsciously 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 indifferent 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 he was 
 hungrily watching her. 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 
 151
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 no\v 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, distressed. 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 resistless- 
 ly 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 mat- 
 
 152
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ter 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 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 her 
 self 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, extraordinary as each was, and 
 finally went to troubled sleep, ceasing to 
 question.
 
 XI 
 
 IT was well for the three that the ses 
 sion came to a quick end. Marshall went 
 to his farm; Stallard to the mountains; 
 Anne stayed on at the capital : the sum 
 mer 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, be 
 yond the chance 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 
 
 154
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 mountaineer had started with nothing, 
 and had accomplished all that human ef 
 fort 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 what he had done, and great 
 censure for not having done more. That 
 was the final courageous interpretation he 
 gave her words, and it was not long be 
 fore his self -searching honesty began to 
 tell him that it was all true. His humili 
 ation 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. 
 
 155
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A century back, new life was put into 
 the lazy Virginia blood that fought its 
 way over the Cumberland and along the 
 Wilderness Koad to the interior; it need 
 ed only antagonism then to give it new 
 strength, and the vigor of that pioneer 
 effort 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. 
 
 They were long days that summer, and 
 days of gain to both, but the Hand still 
 
 156
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 bore with unequal weight on the moun 
 taineer. Marshall saw his blue - gras* 
 stripped and stored, the grain harvested, 
 the corn turn yellow for the kn:'.^ 
 With the first crisp touch of frost, he was 
 busy in the hemp-fields. Then came the 
 brooding days of autumn, the gentle, pen 
 sive haze of Indian - summer, and the 
 drowsy rest of nature filled^is mother's 
 heart and brought to his turV Jlent 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 
 157
 
 TPIE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 dreams : and, moreover, the way of chance 
 is strange. Had Stallard been an acute 
 student of woman's nature, had he given 
 jjrirs 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 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 dissatis 
 faction, 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, 
 158
 
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 and that surprised her and gave her great 
 relief ; that his crime was complicity in a 
 feud not murder and that perplexed 
 her and made her wonder. Then came 
 ne\vs 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 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 
 159
 
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 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, wondering, fear 
 ing, 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 would know, and 
 not till then. 
 
 One thing only was there for her to 
 know that summer, that would have dis 
 tressed her less than news of his death, 
 and that was the storm and stress of his' 
 life. He had told Anne the truth. lie 
 had gone home with the resolution not to 
 lift hand or foot to secure his nomination. 
 160
 
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 Apparently no move was necessary ; for, 
 by the terras of the truce, Mace Keaton 
 had left the mountains 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 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 pres 
 ence of their daughters and wives; the 
 rustic uncouthness of the young women ; 
 the painful pity that attacked him when 
 he newly realized the hard lot of his 
 mother and sister, whose unconsciousness 
 made the pathos of it the more piteous; 
 
 L 161
 
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 to know how helpless he was to aid them 
 in more than the simple needs of exist 
 ence ; how beyond him to broaden or up 
 lift them, so crystallized were they in the 
 way of life that had been moulded for 
 them so long. Contrast it was all bit 
 ter, hopeless contrast, when he saw his 
 mother in the cabin at night with her 
 pipe ; his sister with hers, now ; the neigh 
 bors drifting in with hats on, and bare 
 footed sometimes men and women ; the 
 talk it struck him now Avith ludicrous in 
 consistency 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 water, mist, and 
 moonlight, the rebellion was fierce ; and 
 half-crazed sometimes, he would start up 
 the mountain, after his work was done, 
 
 162
 
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 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, un- 
 embittered face of his mother, and some 
 times 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 desola 
 tion, how unspeakably 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 
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 the rough background that lay close be 
 hind 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 con 
 tact with civilization ; for, whether it be 
 the pride of independence or the com 
 placence of isolation, the mountaineer, 
 recognizing 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 an 
 tagonism counted for more than the 
 weight of a straw, when into one cup 
 all his doubts, speculations, 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 for 
 ward when, without it, he would have 
 shrunk back and would have passed from the 
 164
 
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 earth to count for little more on the stage 
 of action than the daily shadow of Black 
 Rock to and fro across the Cumberland. 
 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 an 
 other 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 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 
 165
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 what he told the Stallards at the court 
 house one Saturday afternoon, and when 
 he started for home, his brain swam with 
 the thought of what must come. Respon 
 sibility 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 mountain life. Mace Keaton ap 
 peared 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 re 
 turn 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 Stal 
 lard 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 
 
 166
 
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 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. Ap 
 parently he took no time to make up his 
 mind. Straight and clear came his an 
 swer at once he would run : the Stallards 
 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 
 dictum. 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 
 167
 
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 other particulars, having so grossly vio 
 lated it in one. So the conflict began 
 peaceably enough. But the convention 
 was to come, and nobody had a doubt as 
 to what that would bring to pass. Boone 
 Stallard was in the fend at last.
 
 XII 
 
 CHRISTMAS passed and the time was nigh. 
 The House was open ; new matting had 
 been laid; there were divans in the lob 
 bies ; the cloak-rooms and the library were 
 fresh and clean and the flags were newly 
 furled. In the Lower House a good-look 
 ing mulatto was tacking 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- 
 
 169
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 haps to save unwary rustics the morti 
 fication that the memories o 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 portrait of the great Commoner, his 
 face smiling 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 car 
 nations at her breast smiling up into the 
 flattered eyes of a very old statesman. 
 Pushing a wheelbarrow towards 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 poli 
 ticians were wrangling about the Speaker- 
 ship for the coming term. The parlor was 
 1TO
 
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 full of their wives and children. Outside, 
 the day \vas 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 dis 
 tance 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 western 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 con 
 flict in his county of rock-ribbed democ 
 racy was always, for the other side, a 
 matter merely of form. So far 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 
 171
 
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 passed, as usual, into his honors without 
 opposition. 
 
 It was Colton who had told her about 
 Stallard. He had got the story from Jack 
 Mockaby, a mountain member who had 
 been at the convention in Roland. Stal 
 lard 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 lifetime of peace, at the 
 cost some day of his life, maybe. He was 
 openly the leader of the Stallards now. 
 Pistols were drawn that day after the 
 Keatons came out from the spell of Stal- 
 lard'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 moment, Stallard had 
 even been in doubt about leaving home 
 172
 
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 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 that he and 
 Stallard would be contestants for the 
 Speakership. The old fight for disruption 
 would surely come up again, and before 
 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 
 sympathies 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 ambushing from be 
 hind trees, lying in wait along the road 
 side, calling men to their own doors and 
 shooting them down ; worse still, cowards 
 who had a little money paying assassins 
 
 173
 
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 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. Stallard was one possibility 
 of that life here was 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 for 
 bade that, Stallard was going to tell her. 
 174
 
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 Why, she asked herself, passionately, did 
 he not wrench loose wholly from such a 
 life and from such people? Already he 
 had answered the question without cow 
 ardice 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 in 
 stincts 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 no 
 ticed in other self-made men: the bitter 
 jealousy of him, the contemptuous dispar 
 agement of his high claims and exactions. 
 The mountaineer's bitterness was that he 
 had not had the chance to be and to be- 
 175
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 come 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 circumstance 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 
 
 176
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 tension, 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 consider 
 ate, temperate, and just. Stallard's timid 
 ity was gone. He had taken on a new 
 front, he was aggressive at the start, and 
 Marshall, to his surprise and vexation, 
 found himself where he had always held 
 Stallard on the defensive. On the morn 
 ing of the first day in the caucus, to decide 
 certain preliminary matters, Marshall's 
 hot temper flared up, and there was a light 
 ning cross-fire between the two men. It 
 M 177
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 ri 
 valry with little tolerance and little grace. 
 It was an old tale for that day, and one 
 not impossible now. At first, Stallard de 
 clined 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 attack possi 
 ble ; 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 melo 
 drama which she would have ridiculed had 
 178
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 it passed before her on the stage. At noon 
 she heard that trouble was likely, and her 
 father told her that ladies would not be 
 allowed to enter the house that afternoon. 
 So she stayed at home and, as women must, 
 lay in a dark room with dry eyes and noth 
 ing 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 messen 
 ger-boy laid a telegram on the mountain 
 eer'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 Stal 
 lard when Marshall sat down, and had 
 the listeners been forced to sit still, while 
 a bolt of lightning played under the ceil 
 ing, the face of every man could hardly 
 have been more intense, nor would Mar 
 shall's, had he known that it was he whom 
 179
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 the bolt would strike. There was but one 
 answer to Stallard, too, and Marshall's 
 white silence was an omen that the an 
 swer was sure to come. He went out be 
 fore the session was quite over, and Mock- 
 aby, preceding Stallard a step, saw him 
 waiting near one of the gray pillars at the 
 far end of the portico, and gave the moun 
 taineer a nod of warning. Stallard pur 
 posely walked towards the other end,' and 
 as he stepped down on the brick flagging, 
 Marshall stepped down, too, facing him. 
 Men near each of them scurried quickly 
 out of line. The members coming out 
 stopped still about the pillars, and Mar 
 shall's voice cut clearly through the sud 
 den quiet. 
 
 "Stallard," he called, reaching for his 
 pistol, " we'd as well settle this thing now." 
 
 Stallard saw the movement and, moun- 
 taineerlike, thought Marshall meant to 
 get the advantage. Like lightning his 
 own weapon flashed, and the two reports 
 
 180
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 struck Mockaby's ear as one. It was hasty 
 work, and both missed. Marshall's revolver 
 spoke again, as he fired, advancing. Stal- 
 lard hitched one shoulder slightly and, to 
 Mockaby's terror, looked do\vn at his pis 
 tol, his face unmoved. Hearing no other 
 shot, he looked up again quickly, and stood 
 motionless and bewildered, staring at Mar 
 shall. Mockaby, too, was staring helpless 
 ly ; for Marshal], seeing the trouble with 
 the mountaineer's pistol, was quietly wait 
 ing 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 towards 
 Marshall with his hand outstretched. 
 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 
 
 181
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 strain of mortal expectancy; the gallant 
 magnanimity of the one, the perfect cour 
 age 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, as Stallard walked tow 
 ards 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 start 
 ed 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. 
 182
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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-bye. The 
 girl shrank from him, and Anne, who hap 
 pened to be starting down -stairs, could 
 not tell what he said, and 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 ban 
 isters. She had just heard' of the all but 
 mortal meeting of the two men her eyes 
 were still wet with tears of relief. Mar 
 shall had just sent her word that he was 
 coming to the Mansion in an hour, and 
 188
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 she was wondering why. Why was Stal- 
 lard 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 offer 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-bye. 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 
 V 
 
 stopped to gain self-control "that they 
 
 will sell my mother's cattle, and and hire 
 unit my sister> Your father says he can't 
 
 184
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 sha'n'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 
 something 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 have 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 forgive one 
 thing more, as you have forgiven so much, 
 185
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 I ... I shall make myself worthy. How 
 I shall work for that. Good-bye ... if I 
 don't come back . . . you will know why 
 . . . good-bye." 
 
 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 you " that 
 gave her a throb of pain to hear. She 
 heard the door close, his heavy tread 
 across the porch, and she followed, open 
 ing the door and looking down the street 
 where he had disappeared. She saw a 
 figure coming towards her, but not until 
 it had halted at the bottom of the steps 
 was she aware that it was Marshall, smil 
 ing 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 
 
 O 
 
 eyes, and she felt the rush of tears on her 
 186
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 
 Marshall. "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 
 understand ; for an instant Anne help 
 lessly met his sharp, straight gaze, and 
 before she could speak, he was lifting his 
 hat and turning away. She started in 
 doors then, swerving slightly, and her 
 father caught her arm, thinking that she 
 had tripped on something and was about 
 to fall. 
 
 Stallard did not appear in the House 
 next morning. Just before the vote for 
 Speaker was cast the chairman read to the 
 187
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 astonished members the Avithdrawal from 
 the race, for reasons to be hereafter ex 
 plained, 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 Kea- 
 ton had control of Roland with his fac 
 tion, and was in open defiance. Stallard 
 had sent in to the Governor his resigna 
 tion from the House, and had then gone 
 down to make good his word that his peo 
 ple could take care of themselves. A des 
 perate fight was imminent any hour.
 
 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 sudden 
 ly 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 
 189
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 re 
 sisting the impulse since those days, per 
 haps, 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 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 Stal- 
 lard 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 
 190
 
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 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 moon 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 fore 
 fathers was running wild in his, when he 
 went sleepless to bed and to an all-night 
 struggle that sent him groping back 
 through his past for the things that were 
 191
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 dis 
 tress 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 coun 
 try girls dismounting in their long black 
 skirts, the atmosphere 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 mem 
 ories that were good for him, and to make 
 easier what was to come. From church, 
 192
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 several neighbors went home with them 
 to dinner, after a custom of the neighbor 
 hood ; 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 lie threw the paper on the 
 table and rose. It was a terse telegram 
 from Stallard to the Governor. The fight 
 was over, and Stallard was safe and success 
 ful. And he was coming back. Marshall's 
 acceptance of the fact and its probable 
 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 forestalling the 
 days that were at hand. He was before 
 Anne now, paying her his tribute to Stal 
 lard ; and from the depths of his unworthy 
 satire rose the bitter fact that what he 
 N 193
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 was saying to himself, 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, jeal 
 ousy 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 evening sun 
 light as it rose slowly to the face of his boy 
 ish uncle on the wall, whose life and death 
 was a tragedy that seemed meant for him to 
 play again. He looked with a deeper sym 
 pathy 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. 
 
 194
 
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 It was startling to realize that nothing, 
 not even religion nor his mother, had gov 
 erned 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 him 
 self in the old way. This time it was the 
 swift vision of his mother's face that 
 stopped him in the middle 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 dis 
 trust 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 
 
 195 
 
 
 I
 
 started out after breakfast on foot, and 
 every memory was a healing comfort. 
 When he passed the spring - house, the 
 geese raised their wings with a reedy 
 cackling and, with the ducks, went swing 
 ing down the riffles, as though they yet ex 
 pected him to throw 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. 
 196
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 A ewe with one white lamb was lapping 
 water at the grassy edge of the creek. 
 
 Just^rone side of the path lav another 
 
 / ] " 
 
 (ts ,twj, no doubt dead and mutilated, 
 
 and across the creek hung its murderer, a 
 robber crow, dangling by his wings from 
 a low limb, with his penitent beak be 
 tween 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 nat 
 ure 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 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 
 197
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 wretch 
 ed 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 w r as Stal- 
 lard fighting like a savage on its border 
 that was a stain ; and there was he pro 
 voking 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 
 198
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 ; but was it not possible to lift 
 life and yet not lower those ideals at all ? 
 That was something he might have help 
 ed 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 
 exhilaration 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 real 
 ize simple facts about which he had thun 
 dered 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 answering 
 
 199
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 dar 
 kies about the whitewashed cabins. It 
 was all very busy and peaceful and com 
 forting, and it was his to have day after 
 day, when he pleased. 
 
 And so, that afternoon, it seemed a big 
 ger and a kindlier world when he started 
 out again through the winter blue-grass, 
 past the white tobacco - barn, past the 
 spring in the w T oods, gushing from under 
 a rock over rich, bent grass, May-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 ab- 
 
 200
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 surdly 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. Nobody'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 upper 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." 
 201
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " All right," said the overseer. " Hit 
 the pike. Nobody's feelin's hurt. Brakes 
 won't go beggin'. Could 'a' 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 flex 
 ible, 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 or 
 ders 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 himself and he did that 
 now. 
 
 " Give them the old price," he called, in 
 
 202
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 suspi 
 cion that Anne too might know that, with 
 a man, love should not be everything ; 
 that she might be generous enough to ac 
 cept the fact ; unselfish enough to exact it 
 of him ; that his love for her was a weak 
 ness that 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 com 
 ing 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 itself on him, with 
 203
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 some bitterness, that she had not been al 
 together just and frank. Now he straight 
 way gave her absolution. Women did 
 not understand 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 home 
 ward. 
 
 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 shadows 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, 
 
 204
 
 THE KENTUCKIA.NS 
 
 black and distinct against the after-glow, 
 the last of the many pictures that 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 up-stairs 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 picture of Anne on the mantel in 
 white muslin, with a blue ribbon about 
 her throat and a Leghorn hat in her lap. 
 It showed, too, the paper on the tablo, 
 where Marshall had thrown it the day be- 
 
 205
 
 V 
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 fore, 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 ray fireside. 
 It's done."
 
 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 pas 
 sion for analogy spun the story around a 
 circuit that made Stallard notorious. The 
 mountaineer 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 Win- 
 207
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Chester to the ground, and, while two 
 Keatons were cross-firing at him, deliber 
 ately resume again. He was nervous, he 
 explained afterwards, having been without 
 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 there 
 after a Keaton dropped to the ground 
 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 taking 
 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. 
 208
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 The House entered a unanimous protest 
 \ against the mountaineer's resignation of his 
 seat, though Colton had written that Stal- 
 lard Avould return to the capital for only a 
 few days, and would go back, then, where 
 he was needed home. 
 
 A Aveek later, Marshall and the moun 
 taineer reached the capital on the same 
 day. As the purpose of both was the 
 same, it was not unnatural that, when 
 Marshall came to see Anne in the after 
 noon, she should have just received a note 
 from Stallard, asking if he could come that 
 night. She was in the haze of great men 
 tal distress 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 seemed ever at Stallard's throat 
 that led the three together on the hill. 
 o 209
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 
 attention 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 towards the 
 road below him, and, in a moment, Anne 
 saw why. Stallard's tall figure was mov 
 ing slowly up the pike, with his hands 
 clasped behind him, and his head bent far 
 over. The gate at the oak-tree was oppo 
 site, and Anne turned towards it from the 
 road. Marshall, seeing Stallard just then, 
 knew why, and turned, too, without a 
 word. Had a thunder-cloud swept sud 
 denly over the sun, the day could not have 
 210
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 been more swiftly darkened for both ; for 
 Anne's silent recoil was to Marshall an 
 other surprised confession, however vague, 
 and had Anne but glanced at him she 
 would have known that with him, too, a 
 decisive moment was at hand. She could 
 not help looking back, even after she had 
 passed through the gate and was follow 
 ing Marshall up the path. The moun 
 taineer 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 one. 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 
 211
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 anything 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 hesitated 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 darkness of 
 which she dreamed. And yet, one by one, 
 the barriers that would have made Stal 
 lard's question absurd a year ago had 
 slowly fallen until now it troubled her as 
 nothing else of the kind ever had. Never 
 212
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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, powerful bulk of the mountaineer. 
 She remembered Stallard's unshorn head, 
 looking now at Marshall's carefully kept 
 brown hair. The sunlight showed its 
 slight tendency to crinkle ; she had alwa} T s 
 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 search- 
 
 213
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 ing 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 some 
 times in an unaccountable dread of the 
 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 remem 
 ber when he had called her by her first 
 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." 
 
 214
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 summer had brought. 
 The fieriness was gone from him, and the 
 old impetuous way of breaking into a tor 
 rent 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 Geth- 
 semane as calm as though his peace, too, 
 was made for earth as well as heaven. 
 
 "Let me see. It must have been ten 
 years 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 al- 
 
 215
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 most gently ; but she was thinking, too, 
 of Stallard going up and down the road 
 he looked lonely. 
 
 " I asked you to be my sweetheart, and 
 I was just sixteen." Marshall might have 
 been repeating words that had been care 
 fully prepared, so finished were his sen 
 tences, so dramatic the quality of them. 
 " and you said '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, something 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 
 
 216
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 for a moment 
 he said nothing. The sunlight was very 
 rich for midwinter, as rich as though it 
 had been sifted through gold-dust some 
 where. It seemed palpable enough to 
 grasp with the hand across the running 
 water that was making it pulse in quiver 
 ing circles along bush and tree. It fore 
 told 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 winter trees, walking up and 
 down the road, waiting. 
 
 " I'm going to tales 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. 
 
 217
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 People may, at the same time, inherit 
 the aspiration for better things and the 
 strength to rise to them. Everybody seems 
 to forget that, sometimes 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 pa 
 tience, she had broken out with her de 
 fence 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 un 
 flinchingly taken to heart the bitter truth 
 she gave 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. 
 
 " 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 
 
 218
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 say 
 ing, his voice was so dispassionate. Mar 
 shall 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. 
 
 " For I'm done now," repeated Mar 
 shall, inexorably. "I'm going to take 
 my rights. I'm going to leave you alto 
 gether." 
 
 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 un- 
 219
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 asked now, if you should ever have it 
 to give. Yes," he went on, as though 
 to answer her unuttered cry of surprise 
 and indignation . . . " I know your pride 
 your foolish, steely pride but I'm done 
 now." 
 
 Anne's eyes were wide with bewilder 
 ment. 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 yourself to think it. I promise, if 
 that ever happens, 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 
 
 220
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 help 
 less, without a word, and with a growing 
 sense of desertion that oppressed her and 
 made her unconsciously 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 in 
 tent 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 mountain- 
 
 221
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 eer's voice around a clump of bushes be 
 low 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 un 
 intelligible. 
 
 " Then I'll take you back myself." 
 
 A low oath of rage and the shuffling of 
 feet came through the bushes, and Mar 
 shall caught Anne's arm. 
 
 " You stay here," he said, firmly, and he 
 hurried through the gate and around the 
 bushes. Stallard was blocking the road 
 against a rough-looking fellow, who start 
 ed to run when he saw Marshall. Stal 
 lard caught him by the arm, and with the 
 other hand the fellow struck the moun 
 taineer a fearful blow in the face. 
 222
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " God, man !" shouted Marshall, indig 
 nantly ; for, to his amazement, Stallard 
 did not give back the blow but caught his 
 assailant by the other Avrist. 
 
 " Come here and help," he said. " This 
 is an escaped convict." 
 
 Marshall ran forward, and the con 
 vict gave up and dropped stubbornly to 
 the road, coughing hard, crying from 
 rage, and cursing Stallard by his first 
 name. 
 
 "You're a fine brother, hain't ye?" he 
 repeated, with savage malice, starting 
 another string of curses and stopping 
 short, with his eyes fixed on something be 
 hind Stallard. The mountaineer 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. 
 223
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " I kno\v what you thought. This 
 this is my brother." 
 
 Anne's eyes turned slowly to the con 
 vict, who lay at StallarcTs feet with his 
 sunken cheek towards her; and slowly 
 the truth forced its terrible way to her 
 brain and then back again to Stallard in 
 one look of unspeakable horror, unspeak 
 able pity. 
 
 "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 rend 
 ing 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 gMng with you !" 
 
 224
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 Marshall heard that and, but for his 
 agitated face, Stallard's calm must have 
 broken. For he understood, even then, 
 what was beyond Marshall to know, and 
 at that moment, perhaps, beyond 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. ..." Come 
 on, Bud !" 
 
 The two brothers started down the 
 road towards town and towards the 
 shifting black column of smoke that rose 
 over the gray prison beyond. 
 
 A year later one of them, faithful to the 
 end as the other's keeper, came to the cap 
 ital to deliver his charge back to the 
 Keeper of the things that die. 
 
 p 225
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 " 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 with 
 out a rival, spoke for Boone Stallard for 
 the Senate of the nation. Stallard was 
 defeated ; but when Katherine Colton, 
 who was a guest at the Bruce homestead, 
 told Anne of the quixotic fight that Mar 
 shall, to his own hurt, had made for the 
 mountaineer, Anne let her head sink back 
 out of the light into a shadow. Then 
 
 226
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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 afterwards, a 
 buggy creaked softly over the turf from 
 the pike gate and a dark 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, 
 
 227
 
 THE KENTUCKIANS 
 
 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. 
 
 THE END
 
 BY JAMES LANE ALLEN 
 
 AFTERMATH. Part Second of "A Kentucky 
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 A KENTUCKY CARDINAL. Illustrated by 
 ALBERT E. STERNER. Square 32mo, Cloth, 
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 lustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. 
 Mr. Allen has a poetic touch, a full vocabulary, a 
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 Chicago Inter- Ocean. 
 
 FLUTE AND VIOLIN, and Other Kentucky 
 Tales and Romances. Illustrated. Post 8vo, 
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