o 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT
 
 A Pagan tf********* 
 
 of the Alleghanies * * * * * 
 By * * * * Marah Ellis Ryan 
 
 Chicago and New York * * * 
 
 Rand, McNally & Company 
 ***************
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY RAND, MORALLY & Co. 
 Att Rights Reserved. 
 
 A Pagan.
 
 rs 
 
 e 
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 TWO FRIENDS, 
 
 WHO WROTE: 
 
 " The voice of the mountain ! Nor what men call learning, 
 nor culture, . . . are needed to know its meaning. Often 
 it speaks lottdest to unlettered man. . . . Solitude, the vul 
 gar s dread, becomes his inspiration. 
 
 " Here man fears God, 
 At once his littleness and greatness feels 
 Little, that he s an atom of the infinite mystery ; 
 Great, that he s a part of Infinite Divinity" 
 
 PRENTICE MULFORD, 
 
 In " Voice of the Mountain" 
 
 " All the qualities we now possess result from our use of 
 ancient opportunities. We are indeed the heirs of all the 
 ages Body is the true Lethe, souls plunged into it forget so 
 much." 
 
 EDWARD D WIGHT WALKER, 
 
 In "A Study of Forgotten Truth."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. In the Hunting-Grounds of the Iroquois - 9 
 
 II. Comment at the Cross-Roads 23 . 
 
 III. Dinah and Don 28 
 
 IV. A Death on the Mountain - 36 
 V. The Pagan - 57 
 
 VI. Daphne 88 
 
 VII. The Day After 103 
 
 VIII. "I m jest Krin Krin Le Fevre " in 
 
 IX. Law at Le Fevre s - 123 
 
 X. The Cloud on the Mountain 128 
 
 XL The Home of the Pagan 148 
 
 XII. Dick s Widow 154 
 
 XIII. Match-Making - - 160 
 
 XIV. A Mystery of the Highlands 167 
 XV. Bud and Krin 186 
 
 XVI. Haunted 195 
 
 XVII. Along the Ledge - 202 
 
 XVIII. Confession - 218 
 
 XIX. A Warning 230 
 
 XX. The Pagan s Creed 242 
 
 XXI. Krin s Choice 262 
 
 XXII. A Resurrected Landmark - - 268 
 
 XXIII. Breaking and Binding .... 273 
 
 XXIV. A Night and a Dawning - 286
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAMES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN THE HUNTING-GROUNDS OF THE IROQUOIS. 
 
 Along the walls of the Alleghanies that stand to the west 
 had crept winds of the south with the kisses of spring in 
 them. Faintest of tender greens and uncertain reds of the 
 new leaves were creeping out along that part of the 
 mountain that rests in little broken waves, as the gown of a 
 woman lies in folds about the feet ere the beginning of 
 those long lines of grace that reach upward to curve of 
 throat or hooded head. 
 
 Only to the feet had crept this youngest lover of the 
 seasons so young in days, but so wise in the lore of win 
 ning. Up to those hooded heights he dare not leap, they 
 had been so lately dashed by autumn s tears that weaken, 
 beaten and ravished by the cruel passions of winter, and 
 stripped bare with the life-blood of the forest driven in 
 terror to the heart. 
 
 Standing so, facing ever the sunset and the past a 
 monument of the desolate it was a wise, far-seeing wooer, 
 who began with tender caresses of sympathy, who covered 
 the bare feet and the cold limbs until they thrilled under the 
 warm, greens and gave back whispers that drew him to the 
 summit, which, once gained, he mounted in gay triumph, and 
 rolling aloft his standard of victory the pink flush of the 
 laurel he blew backward a careless kiss of farewell, with
 
 10 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 no care for the well-faring, and leaving his conquest for the 
 hot kisses of the summer sun, turned to the north, where 
 yet stood others in fetters of ice for which he alone car 
 ried the key. 
 
 Why is spring ever given the personality of woman, when 
 the boy Cupid has time out of mind ruled love? They 
 are the same always, not to be separated. With love, is 
 not spring ever in the heart? And if a doubt remains of 
 the sex, only watch the tender kissing open of the buds that 
 are first and sweetest; and with the first thrill of the blood 
 that brings blushes this epicure of love tires like any other 
 masculine thing, and never a backward glance of regret 
 toward the forsaken bosom of the forest never that. For 
 always with spring is the sense triumphant that all the hot 
 passion of summer days will never still in any breast the 
 longings for the tender glimmer of dews that followed the 
 frosts, and that heart-gladdening music of the birds before 
 the nests were built. But to the victor what matter those 
 memories? It is the winning, not the wearing, that is sweet 
 est there. And how can one see a goddess in all that? 
 Surely it is a young god, not a chubby blind child, but a 
 youth with the thrills of compelling life in his veins, and 
 the caressing mouth that trembles, and the eyes that plead, 
 and that elusive smile that is not quite mockery, and yet 
 
 You see it is not safe to dare even write or speak of him, 
 he bewitches one so, and comes uncalled for into the pages 
 that were to hold only a chronicle of the highlands of those 
 Laurel Hills for the thick green of the immortals crowns 
 those heights looming up changelessly above the western 
 level lands and the settlements, and its name has clung to 
 the mountains as its roots have clung, until the Hills of the 
 Laurels are those to the west; and from them one can see 
 on either side the course of those two turbulent, passionate 
 rivers of Indian naming that cut their way through the
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 11 
 
 highlands, and give at their meeting a harbor in the hills 
 that is unrivaled. 
 
 There must have been much deemed unrivaled or to be 
 desired along this barrier that has been fought for by 
 several nations and many factions, and is yet so untamed 
 and untamable; for the forests have still the freeness 
 of the wilderness in them, as wild, if not so vast, as when 
 the Ligonier Valley was the hunting-ground of the Indian 
 confederacy; as wild as when Nemacolin, the Delaware, 
 pushed through its jungles, leaving the trail for the English 
 soldiers, the trail that for a century was called Nemacolin s 
 Path; the one over which the man Washington rode to 
 his first defeat and his last. It was over this debatable 
 range that he fought for the cross of St. George, and the 
 enemy s standard bore the Bourbon lilies. 
 
 From a nook of that western wall he fired the first gun 
 of a war that erased New France from the New World. 
 And the people walk over the soil of ambush and battle, 
 and look down on the serenity of the settlements, and care 
 nothing for the red cross that once stood there a shield 
 for the arms of an octopus; and scarcely notice that the 
 nodding blue of the emblem of France persistently grows 
 in nooks where the waters creep. 
 
 Yes, much history has been written by tomahawk and 
 sword, in despair and exultation, here in the wild corner 
 of Penn s province, that Half-King, the Iroquois, debated 
 Penn s right to; the untamable corner that long ago the Old 
 Dominion coveted and intrigued for; the wild dells where 
 the clanking chains of runaway slaves have broken through 
 the rustle of leaves stray human things willing to share 
 the life of bear and deer for the thing that so few people 
 who possess ever value the trifle of freedom. All those 
 phases of life have been throbbed through on the bosom of 
 the Ligonier and the battlements of the Laurels; but that
 
 12 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES, 
 
 is of the past. Corn grows in patches through the hunt 
 ing-grounds; the plow turns up arrow-heads in the new 
 soil, and the oxen tread them under in the next fur 
 row; the interlopers haul their lumber and grain along the 
 shadowy old roads through the timber-land, with never a 
 thought of the moccasined feet that trod them first no one 
 cares; no one remembers. 
 
 And instead of Iroquois councils under the lodge of 
 Tanacharison, the Half-King, there may be seen any Satur 
 day at " The Roads " a sprinkling of voters gathered from 
 the farms or the log-camps, and there may be heard desul 
 tory dickerings over the merits of the different steeds of 
 different grades hitched to the posts by the store porch. 
 And another familiar topic of conversation is the wander 
 ing hog and his several and distinct marks, for this self- 
 supporting rooter, furnishing the maximum of stock wealth 
 in the mountains, is not to be despised; and the question 
 after the chestnuts and acorns fall is: Four and a half cents 
 on the hoof in the market-places, or that possible extra 
 half-cent that gives as result the desired nickel. 
 
 The women come also to "The Roads," with their splint- 
 baskets filled with eggs, or pats of butter in cabbage-leaves, 
 often from the near farms; and these, voluble, well acquainted, 
 and self-assured, are looked on as quite worldly, because of 
 their proximity to this metropolis of the hills. And then 
 there are others more seldom seen, the women folk from 
 the " wooden " country in the interior; quieter in speech, 
 and not so ready with good-natured badinage over their 
 trade for small groceries. From their great shadowy, cur 
 tained bonnets eyes look out shyly, yet curiously, on those 
 strange store-room assemblages. At times it is hard to tell 
 whether the face curtained so jealously from scrutiny is 
 old or young; but the hands are almost always brown and 
 hard from the weather, the ax, and the plow, and the
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 13 
 
 feet move heavily, unnaturally, under the imprisoning weight 
 of shoes. But their voices! The slow provincial speech in 
 mellow monotone sounds on the ear as if the whispers of 
 native forests had mingled long ago with baby-lips, and 
 left with the tones of the mountain-born a cadence akin 
 to melody; but it is a music as common to the wood as 
 the matinees and vespers of the robin, and as little noted. 
 The clearing of patches for buckwheat and the fights with 
 weeds in the corn-field leave little space for the gleams of 
 poetry about them. And so moves life over the old 
 hunting-grounds of the Six Nations those Indian auto 
 crats. 
 
 And one evening of early spring, one of the spring days 
 that grow misty as with the tenderness of Indian summer, 
 the dignitaries of the store porch were struck into contem 
 plative silence as the sound of hoof-beats on the road was 
 followed by the sight of two equestrians riding from one of 
 the back roads into the broad national one called the Pike. 
 The new-comers were a man and woman, both young, both 
 looking rather " tailor-made " beside the natives of " The 
 Roads." 
 
 " They are stationed there like guardian angels," said 
 the girl in an undertone as her companion dismounted; 
 " and what eyes they have ! Don t be long in there about the 
 mail. I am not easily abashed, but to be a target for all 
 that scrutiny is rather appalling." 
 
 She did not look abashed, however, as her very level 
 eyes took in the unstudied grouping about the door in one 
 leisurely, comprehensive glance, after which she turned her 
 attention back over the way they had come, where great 
 billows of green rise in shattered irregularity across the 
 rugged Ligonier Valley. 
 
 "Did you notice that loose shoe?" she asked, pointing to 
 his mare s foot as he reappeared; "that s what made her
 
 14 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 stumble down there in the hollow. It s a pity to ride her 
 home like that." 
 
 "So it is," he agreed, examining its hoof; while two or 
 three of the guardian angels flopped down from their 
 perches on the railings and fluttered nearer, with the dubi 
 ous mingling of unconcern and curiosity on their faces. 
 
 "Any blacksmith around here?" he asked, looking up 
 at their approach. 
 
 " Naw, sir, tha ain t," returned a stripling with a snuff- 
 stick in his cheek. 
 
 " None nearer than Uniontown? " asked the girl, turning 
 to an older man who was braced complacently against a 
 hitching-post. 
 
 "No, ma am, not much; there s one down foot of the 
 mountain, this side o town, an then tha is a man back in 
 the timber shoes stock if he s a mind to; but strangers 
 couldn t find the way, likely." 
 
 "Back in the timber?" repeated the stranger impatiently; 
 " small use he is to the community back there. I should 
 think right at the cross-roads is the place where one is 
 needed; a good one ought to make money here. Why 
 don t he try it?" 
 
 A smile of grim sympathy lit up two or three of the 
 faces, and then the man at the post remarked: 
 
 "It s been talked over some, an the decision o the 
 judges in the case has decided that it s becase he s too 
 cussed." The speaker turned his eyes porchward as if 
 for commendation, and evidently thought he got it, though 
 all was silence. " Yes, sir yes, ma am, they s some peo 
 ple so plum contrary tha won t do theyselves a good turn 
 becase tha r too scared lest tha might be doing one for 
 some other man; an that s about the measure o Dick 
 Le Fevre." 
 
 " Well, I wish for the time being that he was here, what-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 15 
 
 ever his disposition," remarked the horseman, looking 
 gloomily at the hobbled hoof. " If I can t get it on I d be 
 satisfied to get it off." 
 
 " Here comes a man who will fix it," said the store 
 keeper and post-master, as from the door he spied a figure 
 crossing a mountain meadow toward them. 
 
 "Yep," agreed the loquacious he of the post, "he ll 
 either tinker the shoe or argy scripture, whichever you 
 will;" and then he tapped his bony temple significantly. 
 " Not dangerous, though," was the hasty assurance as the 
 girl turned quickly around; " oh no, ma am, not a bit; only 
 just queer, that s all." 
 
 The man who was " queer " crossed the fence carrying 
 an ax on his shoulder a man of perhaps thirty, a slow- 
 moving, bearded specimen of a mountaineer, with shoulders 
 so broad that they gave him a squatty appearance as he 
 came toward them with his head bent. 
 
 "Ho, Lennard! called the man of the store, "here s 
 someone wants your help a bit." 
 
 He raised his head then, and no longer looked squat, 
 and coming close to them his size made the other men 
 look small. His slow eyes of a greenish gray moved over 
 the group, looked intently into the eyes of the girl, who 
 drew back a little, and then with equal earnestness perused 
 the face of the stranger. 
 
 "You, I reckon?" he said, slowly; " what might it be?" 
 
 The loose shoe was shown him, at which he looked with 
 out comment, and then leaning his ax against the porch 
 he disappeared around the corner, and they heard him 
 opening and closing the barn-door. 
 
 " It s all right," nodded the storekeeper. " He has 
 gone to the tool-chest for something to work with." 
 
 " What an uncomfortable character to have around," said 
 the girl; "his eyes make me nervous. Does he live here?"
 
 16 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " God bless you no, ma am," was the gratuitous bene 
 diction of Mr. Speaker of the occasion. " Lennard don t 
 live in no man s cabin but his own, and it s quite a ways 
 back from The Roads. But no one minds him comin and 
 goin . He ll take what he needs out o any man s stable, 
 but he brings it back again." 
 
 Then they heard the barn-door close again, and the 
 clink-et-y-clank of metals, and the subject of their dis 
 course loomed up around the corner with some pinchers, 
 a claw-hammer, and a cold-chisel, tools pressed into serv 
 ice for blacksmithing. Without a word, he picked up the 
 foot and tapped and twisted, and loosened and pulled the 
 remaining nails until the shoe dropped into his big hand; 
 and the mare set her foot down gingerly, as if by degrees 
 to get used to the lightness of that one leg. 
 
 " I am very, very. much obliged to you," said the young 
 man, as the smith picked up the tools and turned away. 
 " But wait a bit, sir. I owe you something for that." 
 
 " I allow not," returned the man, not checking in the 
 slightest his walk. " I d do that much to save any beast 
 from going lame." 
 
 "That s him all over," remarked one of the guardian 
 angels; " an talkin to him ain t no kind of use. He s got 
 as much contrariness as Le Fevre, only it s a different 
 sort/ 
 
 The stranger, with his hand in his pocket, looked per 
 plexedly in the direction the man had gone. 
 
 "Well, it s a favor, and I m greatly obliged to him," he 
 said at last. 
 
 " That s all right," decided the judge at the post, as if 
 it was himself who had given the service. You re welcome. 
 Reckon the hoof can make the trip without a shoe all the 
 distance you re goin . Headin for the summit, ain t you?" 
 
 "Up that way. Good-evening. *
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 17 
 
 And then the halt was ended, the horses turned again 
 into the road, and their riders turned naturally to the dis 
 cussion of the group they had left. 
 
 "All of them looked alike," decided the girl. 
 
 "No," protested her companion, "that man the smith 
 looked like no other." 
 
 "Oh! he; well, we must make allowance for that one. 
 Yes, he had an individuality in his face, but of a queer sort; 
 and you know they said he is a bit silly." 
 
 " Nothing silly about the nice way he took off that shoe." 
 
 " No use talking to you," she laughed. " You have a faith 
 in finding unalloyed nuggets of gold among the native 
 specimens here, but you won t; you seem to think that the 
 magnificent character of the country must of course pro 
 duce the biped man on the same scale of grandeur, and 
 you may find some type which will physically come up to 
 your expectations, but mentally well, with all their width 
 of views and rare air, I would fancy people stifling here." 
 
 The speaker was a pretty girl, with a tinge of habitual 
 disdain about the lips that showed . she was aware of 
 the prettiness; a clever girl just clever enough for no one 
 ever to be quite sure how much Dinah Floyd really knew 
 about anything. 
 
 " Oh, I agree that the natural advantages and disadvan 
 tages are above par up here," she continued, "and the tim 
 ber-lands seem endless; but those people I mean the 
 ones in the wood what monotonous, sleepy lives they live 
 in the cabins by the corn-fields. I wonder if many of them 
 go melancholy mad ? " 
 
 "Not any," returned the gentleman, composedly; "they 
 generally have sound minds in sound bodies; and if you 
 ask them what class furnishes the greatest number of luna 
 tics to the county, they will tell you the latest innovation, 
 the idle summer visitor." 
 
 2
 
 18 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "And I am an idle summer visitor, thank you, Mr. March." 
 
 " So am I, Mistress Touch-me-not; so are we all." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort. Don is a landed proprietor " 
 
 " Of course he conies first on the list," remarked Mr. 
 March. 
 
 "A landed proprietor," repeated the young lady, "though 
 moodily at war with his inheritance. Then Aunt Lottie is 
 reproducing the beauties of nature in water-colors, and she 
 is not idle. Papa has been hunting vigorously for the 
 trace of those forts of an extinct race that are supposed to 
 abound here, so he is surely not idle; and you well, you are 
 such a creature for taking silent notes when other people 
 think you sleeping that your industry is difficult to esti 
 mate anyway, you are not an orthodox summer visitor at 
 all; this is only spring-time, and you are only a transient, 
 halting just long enough on these peaks to look down and 
 laugh at this band of exiles." 
 
 "Do you feel so much like an exile?" and his voice was 
 dangerously pitiful. 
 
 " Do I? Well, if you were carted to the country before 
 the leaves are out, and just at the season when New York 
 is most delightful " 
 
 "And the spring exhibitions just opened, and a certain 
 gentleman s pictures given a place of honor," added her 
 companion. 
 
 Her eyes brown eyes glanced brightly at him as she 
 reached forward to flick a deer-fly from her horse s ear. 
 
 "Certainly, that makes greater my regret at having a 
 couple of guardians who fancied that just for once it would 
 be delightful and economical to come to the woods and 
 wait for summer. I know I shall have rheumatism, lumbago, 
 and a dozen kindred complaints from the dripping trees, 
 and the clouds that wrap themselves around the mountains 
 like wet blankets that s what they are to me. I have been
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 19 
 
 thinking desperately of turning rebel and leaving Papa and 
 Auntie and Don to vegetate alone." 
 
 "And go back to see Tom Saxel s pictures. Is that it, 
 Dinah?" 
 
 Dinah laughed. "Auntie has taken you to her heart of 
 hearts and been confidential, has she not? Poor Auntie! 
 her prejudices make her fearful. She and Saxel are 
 always at swords points. She declares he draws badly, 
 and I know that the sight of her patchy water-colors 
 gives him a nervous chill." 
 
 "Hm-m! You seem very well acquainted with the con 
 dition of Saxel s nerves," growled her listener, ferociously, 
 but with eyes as quizzical and non-committal as her own. 
 
 " Yes, if you want to learn one s strong or weak points, 
 work together in a studio. You know I worked in his last 
 year." 
 
 "I ought to; he speaks of it often enough. How is it 
 you are doing no work out here? " 
 
 " I don t do landscapes, and haven t seen any types among 
 the natives that aroused my interest." 
 
 "You keep too close to the broad highway; get out into 
 the bridle-paths if you want to find originality; these people 
 we stop with try too hard to be copies of the summer 
 tourist. If I remained here I could find material for work; 
 I am sure of it." 
 
 The girl shrugged her shoulders in unbelief. " You have 
 been here three days," she said, counting them on her fin 
 gers. " I have been here three weeks, and have a conviction 
 that if I stay three years I am not likely to change my 
 opinion. The country is grand, and the people are tame. 
 I have heard of a few murders around about, which the 
 natives tell of in a way that forces me to believe a 
 murder the most romantic thing their lives can conceive. 
 And the worst of it is, Auntie rather likes it thinks it so
 
 20 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 interesting to hear the stories, and then go and visit the 
 scenes. I never imagined she had such ghoulish propen 
 sities. Is it any wonder I turn rebel? " 
 
 " Edson should be a rock of refuge," was the only reply 
 to this rather lengthy complaint. 
 
 " Don? Yes, he should be, but is not. He has actually 
 grown moody for this past week. I have ridiculed him 
 until I believe he begins to see it is a piece of folly to bury 
 himself here; wish I could do the same thing with my own 
 family." 
 
 " And persuade them to desert Edson to his fate, and 
 the wilderness? " 
 
 "Certainly;" and then his manner of speech and tone 
 made her add, " and why not? " 
 
 " Well pardon me if I am on forbidden ground but are 
 you not rather a heartless damsel, considering " 
 
 " Considering what? " 
 
 "Well, considering that this exiled knight of the green 
 woods is to claim you as his lady some day." 
 
 " Um! Is he? How nice of him, or you, to arrange it 
 all without troubling me with the matter. And pray when 
 is the happy consummation of these dreams to take 
 place? " 
 
 Her eyes were bright was it with mischief, or vexation? 
 He did not know. His own were very gray, very steady, 
 very honest eyes. 
 
 "Well," he said, slowly, " Miss Lottie told me the accepted 
 idea of your future was that you and Don Edson would get 
 married some of these days, when Don settled down and 
 you stopped flirting. Are you flirting, Dinah? " 
 
 She tried to laugh, but looked at him and failed, and 
 took refuge in woman s defense of indignation. 
 
 " You have no more right to repeat such senseless gossip 
 than vou have to ask such an impertinent question." And
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 21 
 
 having delivered the speech with a self-satisfying amount 
 of displeasure,, she touched the horse with the whip, or 
 attempted to do so, but was checked by the hand that 
 coolly caught her own and held her fast. 
 
 "Are you flirting, Dinah?" 
 
 " Nonsense! With whom do you " 
 
 "Oh, not with me, of course," he agreed, amiably; 
 "only I was afraid you might be with Don." 
 
 " Cousin Don should be grateful for your interest," she 
 remarked, dryly. 
 
 "Cousin Don? " 
 
 "Well, yes. Haven t you heard him call Papa uncle, and 
 Auntie aunt? " 
 
 " I believe I have," he agreed; "but when I asked about 
 the relationship it dwindled down to a life-long friendship 
 between Don s Uncle Edson and your father/ 
 
 " Well, I m sure I would rather choose my own relations 
 than have them thrust upon me in the unsatisfactory usual 
 way." 
 
 " Naturally," he agreed. " I think myself it would be an 
 improvement, especially since it includes Don Edson in 
 your list of cousins. I could imagine another position in 
 which he would be much more formidable. 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 " To those unlucky individuals whom you flirt with, and 
 say you don t." 
 
 " It is a wonder to me how you ever have any time to 
 think of your own affairs," remarked the girl, tartly, " since 
 so much of it is taken up with your consideration for other 
 people/ 
 
 " Oh! " he rejoined, lightly, " in many cases I don t 
 pretend to look after my own affairs too much exertion. 
 When I find they are getting too much for me, I turn 
 coward and run away; and I m going to-morrow."
 
 22 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "Really?" 
 Really." 
 
 " And what of of the material for romance that you 
 thought floated about these peaks, and that you were to 
 capture by your pen. Is it all to be unwritten?" 
 
 bhe looked the picture of unconcern, or would have had 
 it not oeen for the flush that persisted in creeping up to the 
 fluffy curls a flush the man must have seen too, for he 
 leaned forward in the saddle and laid his hand on hers. 
 
 Wait until I come back, Dinah," he said, in a tone more 
 earnest than he had used. " I am simply stealing time 
 from myself in order to stop here at all. But at the end of 
 summer, when the fox-hunters come trooping out here, I am 
 coming back, if if fortune will grant me a bank account 
 this summer, and you remain. Can I ? " 
 
 " You have stated that you will without asking my leave," 
 she flashed back, with a laugh that was sister to the deep 
 ening blush. 
 
 "Well, then that is settled," he decided. " I am to come 
 back; and I shall expect you to keep notes for me of all 
 unusual phases of the life you meet in the wooden* 
 country." 
 
 "Do not hope for anything unusual. Have I not told 
 you how commonplace it all is here? all but the hills and 
 valleys; and even you could not string a romance from 
 those speechlessly expressive things, for nothing ever hap- 
 pens here." 
 
 "Something will in the autumn, Dinah, will it not?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Why I will come back." 
 
 And at the bit of non-committal egotism they both 
 laughed, as people laugh who understand each other. And 
 then their horses broke into a canter, and they sped down 
 the broad road that is called " National," crossing the low
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 23 
 
 bridge where the ghost walks, and then up the shadowy 
 sides of the mountain, where the ferns grow in sunless 
 nooks, and where the deer-tongued laurel raises grotesque 
 antlers above the azalias, their mingled bloom giving a fra 
 grant pink to the far-reaching ranges that go away to 
 the north, with its cool skies, and away to the south, where 
 the horizon seems always bathed in mists that hold a 
 charm in their changeful hues mists ever alluring, ever 
 suggestive of warm moons and the life of lotus-eaters. 
 And over those peaks, from which they have vast views of 
 either the storm-land or dream-land, live the mountain 
 people, surrounded by the usual patches of corn or of buck 
 wheat the lives that to the worldlings who have come in 
 sight of them seem so uneventful and monotonous that the 
 girl had voiced the sentiments of the majority when she 
 declared them so commonplace that no thing of interest was 
 ever likely to happen there. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COMMENT AT THE CROSS-ROADS. 
 
 The group on the store porch, steeped in the content of 
 tobacco and rumination, did not immediately recover its 
 lapsed speech as the pair of strangers passed on down the 
 road, .and then: 
 
 "A likely bit, that roan she s a ridin ," commented one 
 of the judges from the bench of steps. 
 
 "That s young Edson s," volunteered another, with an 
 assumption of superior knowledge in his tone; "a new one, 
 just sent here from Kentucky last week." 
 
 " Another one ! Well, that young fellow 11 have enough to
 
 24 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAN1ES. 
 
 stock the mountain ef he keeps on. Must cost him some 
 for their keepin ." 
 
 " He ll wear them all out before he gets through with the 
 work he s cut out for himself," decided the dignitary of the 
 post, who had again betaken himself to his perch on the 
 railings and the careful whittling of a stick. "I hear tell 
 that he s to have trouble back at Dumphey s ef he claims 
 that place as lan lord. Dumphey says he ll fight" 
 
 "Dumphey never paid taxes on the ground," said the 
 storekeeper, joining them again at the door. "This young 
 Edson is in the right in a law sense. The land belongs to 
 the Edsons." 
 
 " Then why don t they come an live on it? " queried a 
 sandy-complexioned individual. "What right s a man to 
 have so much land he don t know where it all lays? that s 
 what I want to know." 
 
 " That s so," conceded a black-and-tan specimen, with a 
 molasses-jug and sack of corn-meal between his knees. 
 "Ad s right; this here gobbling up of this here mountain 
 land in big sections is just like them monopolists does with 
 iron an wheat an things just crowds a poor man to the 
 wall; an after awhile they ll grab all the land up here, an 
 then what sort o show is the people to have that lives here? 
 That s what s the matter! " 
 
 " Old Donald Edson is not much of a monopolist," said 
 the storekeeper, " when he has let that land lay there for 
 everybody s use over thirty years now paid the taxes 
 while other folks cut the pick of the timber off it." There 
 was an uneasy shifting of the molasses-jug and meal-sack 
 at this speech, and the whittling knife was idle a moment. 
 " I see they re all set against this young Don Edson, who 
 has come out to look up their claims; but, gentlemen, I 
 believe he s square. He wouldn t be old Donald s nephew 
 if he wasn t."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 25 
 
 "Looks to me, Art Hubbard," said the quavering, high- 
 pitched voice of an old weather-beaten man who smoked 
 on the door-step, "thatyer a layin yerself out as anad-vo- 
 cate o the Edsons these days, an ye ll find work to yer 
 hand ef ye do. I m a talkin now ! " 
 
 Some of the others nodded an appreciation of the patri 
 arch s speech, which tickled the giver of it until he broke 
 into a shrill, tantalizing attempt at a laugh, which ended in 
 broken, maudlin repetitions of the fact that " he was talkin 
 now." 
 
 " All right, Pap," said Mr. Hubbard, easily, as if caring 
 little for contrary opinion; "talk away, and think as you 
 like. The old man has given a dozen families free rent of 
 the land -for years; but there s no reason why he must 
 keep on doing it." 
 
 There was silence among the " angels " for the space of 
 a minute or so; evidently that view of the question had not 
 been presented to them before, and it was weighty enough 
 to require study and deliberation. Then the black-and-tan 
 man treated himself to a fresh chew of " dog-leg," and said: 
 
 " Well, taxes or no taxes, young Edson s a hard case, any 
 way." 
 
 " Shucks ! " ventured one of the skeptical. 
 
 " I heard tell it, just the same," he insisted. " I did that ! " 
 
 "Now who told it?" demanded the whittler from his 
 perch. " He ain t none too welcome in these parts, but no 
 one reckons him anything of a tough." 
 
 " May be there s hard cases who ain t toughs," decided 
 this nice definer of terms. " Big-bugs, ye know, that are 
 fine gentlemen; they ll gamble an race, an beat the d 1 
 for girls an whisky, but they re all so fine an so high an 
 mighty about it that ye never think o callin them tough, 
 as ye would a poor man; an that s jest about the size o 
 this Mr. Don Edson."
 
 26 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " That s all easy enough to say," remarked Hubbard. 
 "We can hear ducks, too." 
 
 " Well, this ain t no duck quackin , Mister Hubbard," 
 said the black-and-tan, pushing a droopy, wide hat to the 
 back of his head. " I got it for facts from the man his 
 name is Phipps that old Donald Edson sent out with that 
 batch of horses, before the young fellow come at all. He 
 said the young fellow had been a livin too high for the old 
 man this winter. They had a sort o quarrel about some 
 debts o gamblin or somethin , an then they patched up 
 a peace if young Don ud come out to the mountains for a 
 year, an look up their land an try an manage it; and 
 from what I heard, the old man s nephew ain t anything of 
 a saint." 
 
 The old patriarch on the door-step mumbled delightedly 
 his own knowledge of young blood and its tendencies, and 
 would have drifted into reminiscence had not the store 
 keeper interrupted him. 
 
 "Well, there are some mighty nice people come out here 
 just on Edson s account that young lady we just saw, 
 and her father, who they say is writing a book about these 
 old Indian forts about here; then there is his sister, an 
 oldish lady; and they all think a heap of young Edson, so 
 he can t be such a very bad one." 
 
 " Well, I guess they re sort o relations, and so hang 
 together," decided the sandy man. 
 
 " Folks are troopin up to the mountain mighty early 
 this year, remarked the man of the molasses-jug, who evi 
 dently had a knack of gathering news, for he added: " Say, 
 have any o you folks heard the latest from the rock 
 ledge ? " 
 
 " Naw; what s up with them now ? " 
 
 " Le Fevre s wife has come back to him." 
 
 " Who said that ? "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 27 
 
 It was the man who had taken off the horseshoe who 
 asked the question. He had joined them unnoticed, taking 
 no part in their conversation until now; but his ears had 
 evidently been open all the time, and his eyes assuredly 
 were as they bent their compelling scrutiny on the 
 informant. 
 
 " I heard Jim Stone tell it over at Hackett s frolic last 
 night/ he answered. " Dick went over into Virginia after 
 her, I guess; anyway, she s back at the house." 
 
 " Thought Dick said she shouldn t come back," said 
 the sandy man. 
 
 " Naw, twasn t Dick," contested the autocrat on the rail 
 ing; "it was that hell-pet of a granny o his; leastwise, it 
 was her I heard tell of sayin of it." 
 
 "Well, Dick s just onery an cussed enough to say it, too 
 or worse." 
 
 " What different sort of a whelp can ye look fer from 
 such a dam ? " queried the old man, as he got up stiffly and 
 haltingly from the door-step. " There was bad French blood 
 on his daddy s side, and bad Injun, or the God knows 
 what, on old Moll s side no one ever did know rightly 
 what she was, an don t yit; an what sort of a whelp can ye 
 look for from stock like that? I m a talkin now ! " 
 
 " Say, Bud," asked one of them, "didn t you know noth- 
 in bout Le Fevre s woman comin* home ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You an" her was kind o good friends. I thought 
 may be they d let ye know." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "There s the supper-bell, gentlemen," remarked the 
 storekeeper, "and I m going. Come in, Bud ?" 
 
 No." 
 
 The men gathered up their baskets and jugs. The sun 
 had dropped almost to the summit of the mountain
 
 28 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 unnoticed in the amount of interesting matter they had 
 found to discuss, and soon their long shadows were passing 
 over the yellow dust of the road, and then out along the 
 fences where the new grass was greening the fields. " In 
 the house back of the store were heard the sound of voices 
 and some boys laughing, the clatter of dishes, and clink of 
 the poker and metal lids of the stove. Someone chased a 
 dog out of the house, throwing a broom after him to has 
 ten his movements, and adding a shrill accusation concern 
 ing his weakness for stealing from an oven. 
 
 His dogship looked back furtively, but was too wise to 
 return, and made his way in stately unconcern into the back 
 door of the store-room, knowing well that under one corner 
 of the counter was a nook from which no one dared turn 
 him. But passing the open front door he paused, turned 
 his soft steps over the threshold to a figure that sat on the 
 steps with bowed head leaning on its open hands, and 
 then the fear of broomsticks seemed driven out by some 
 sympathy, and he crept closely and softly under the arms 
 of the man Bud, and looked up into his face with eyes ten 
 der as the afterglow tinging the clouds; for the sun had 
 gone down beyond the mountain. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DINAH AND DON. 
 
 " Oh ! had I the wings of a dove ! " chanted a voice on 
 the heights, and was immediately taken to account by 
 another voice, a masculine one, asking: " In which direction 
 would they take you, Dinah ? " 
 
 The speakers, the young lady of the roan bit of horse-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 29 
 
 flesh, and a man another man were throned on a peak 
 that looked high enough for the wily Lucifer to use for his 
 temptation scene. The ends of the earth might not be visi 
 ble, but a good deal of the other part was, and lay spread 
 out to the west, a green plain, away below the mountain, 
 merging into blue in the distance, and the sunshine of 
 May over it all. 
 
 "Which way would you go?" repeated the bantering 
 voice. " Tom Saxel is away over those mountains to the 
 east, and by this time Ned March is across considerable 
 prairie to the west, and I myself am here. In which direc 
 tion are you going, Dinah ? " 
 
 "Don t be ridiculous, Don. You re as bad as Aunt Lot 
 tie. She never got married herself, and neither will you, 
 but you both seem disposed to make a present of me and a 
 marriage certificate to every man who speaks to me twice. 
 I am tired of being so badly given away." 
 
 The man stretched on the grass near her laughed and 
 plucked some purple violets to add to the store in her lap. 
 
 " But I don t want to give you away at all," he protested. 
 " Give you away ! There is desolation in the thought. 
 What a lonely outcast I should be here without you." 
 
 " You have a host of tenants for company, if you want to 
 cultivate them," she said, a little maliciously. 
 
 " Yes, and am an alien among them. Poor as I am, this 
 gift of wild land is a white elephant on my hands." 
 
 "Poor! Is there any good and sufficient reason why 
 you should be so poverty-stricken after having a generous 
 allowance for years? "asked the young lady with some 
 asperity. 
 
 He laughed again; in fact, he had the careless, gracious 
 manner to which laughter is close kindred; then it was 
 becoming, he had such fine teeth. 
 
 "Not a reason in the world," he said, easily, "except that
 
 30 A PAGAX OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 my riches always have such restless wings, and my pockets 
 always have holes through which I lose my pennies." 
 
 " Poor child ! Well, he shall have one penny for luck;" 
 and she dived her hand into some receptacle among her 
 draperies. " There is a nice big one to start your fortune 
 with in the mountains." 
 
 He reached for the penny, but held her fingers as well. 
 
 " I need something to bring me new luck," he said, con 
 templating her hand and wrist very attentively. " I wonder 
 if you know how much, Dinah ? Did did you hear all of 
 this late law of the old man s? and " 
 
 She drew her fingers leisurely from his own as she said: 
 
 "Don t you think that term rather irreverent for your 
 uncle? Don, you are degenerating sadly." 
 
 "I know it" but his contrition did not quite chase 
 away his smile; "that is what the governor has decided; and 
 after giving me rope enough to hang myself with for the 
 past ten years, he suddenly gets straight-laced himself and 
 vows that I must do likewise, dear old fellow! He means 
 well, but reformation is hard work." 
 
 "Yes, it is," agreed the girl, with the sympathetic sigh of 
 a veteran sinner; and then they both laughed. But the 
 laugh of the man was not a very merry one; gloomy, im 
 patient thought followed it closely. 
 
 " If he had only let me foster that old ambition of mine 
 the music," he said, regretfully, "I might not have had so 
 many sins to reform of. I sold my birthright for the pot 
 tage of pastime. I was too much of a boy to know that a 
 man s life must have something stronger to do in the world 
 than hunt pleasure; but I know it "now. And crazy as I 
 was over music, I did not realize fully, when I was ridiculed 
 and coaxed into giving it up, that it was the only thing in 
 life I was fit for. I know that too, now." 
 
 "Is it too late?"
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 31 
 
 He flung his head up impatiently, and then dropped it 
 forward in his hands. The voice of the girl was kind and 
 was interested, but one must feel something more deep 
 than kindly interest in the voice of another before it is pos 
 sible to break open for his gaze the vault in which our 
 dreams are locked. Those wraiths of past hopes whose 
 sighs we strive to drown with the sound of our laughter, 
 how they creep close in unguarded moments and show us 
 their fair lost faces ! And our hands, assoiled of the world, 
 can no longer touch them, and the glimmer of tears in their 
 shadowy eyes fashions heart-aches against which we rebel 
 and are slow to acknowledge. Ah ! those ghosts of the 
 things that were to be! 
 
 " Have you gone asleep there, Don ? We were speaking 
 of the music. Is it too late for " 
 
 "Yes, much too late; too late to go back, too late to 
 begin anew too late for everything but regret." 
 
 The girl watched him dreamily for a little, and suddenly 
 asked: 
 
 " Don, there is something puzzling to me in the bitter 
 dislike the senior has shown to any musical leanings of 
 yours. It is all at variance with his usual indulgence. 
 Auntie became dumb when I spoke to her of it. The taste 
 for it is surely inherited from your mother. Her voice 
 made her a reputation to be proud of, and from her picture 
 she must have been beautiful; and how Donald Senior 
 could have disliked such a lovely creature " 
 
 " I always fancied that it was not dislike at all that kept 
 them apart," he answered. "Perhaps it was liking; and 
 that was worse, I suppose, since she was his brother s 
 wife." 
 
 "Oh! but why should he object to a musical career for 
 you?" 
 
 " Heaven only knows, I don t. The force of the objec-
 
 32 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 tion is all I know, and my own promise to give it up that 
 I was coaxed and ridiculed into. But let s talk of other 
 things, or I ll be blue as indigo." 
 
 " Never mind; may be some good luck is awaiting you in 
 these mountains." 
 
 " May be;" and he laughed shortly. " You are the only 
 good luck I have found so far, and mighty thankful I have 
 reason to be to you. Oh, yes," he added, with a smile 
 struggling upward over a sigh; " yes, the world lends 
 me more bright gleams than I deserve, no doubt, and you 
 have been one of the brightest." 
 
 "You are a humbug, Don," she said, promptly. It is 
 Aunt Lottie you mean to say that of, and you know it. 
 She was the prime mover in our exodus from civilization. 
 You simply took advantage of that benighted creature s 
 fondness for you to inveigle her out here." 
 
 " Do you suppose I wanted to come into exile alone?" 
 
 " And I am the martyr of your reformation isn t that 
 what you call this vacation from the world? and my 
 martyrdom is not even crowned with appreciation. I am 
 simply voted a crank, as martyrs always are by their 
 contemporaries. Ah me! " But her lugubrious sigh awak 
 ened no pity. 
 
 " Who is the humbug now? " he asked. " I do not 
 believe you will ever be a martyr for anyone. But I have 
 an idea, Dinah, of something you might be." 
 
 " Well? " 
 
 " A good anchor for a man who needs a cool head and 
 clear eyes beside him; and, Dinah " 
 
 " Yes," she said, rising to her feet, " at the studio they 
 told me I had a very correct eye. The more the pity that 
 I lacked the application of a student." 
 
 He arose too, looking down at her, and needing his gen 
 erous stature to do it, for she was not petite.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 33 
 
 "But you are an anchor one would be puzzled to find a 
 chain for," he continued. " You are such an elusive creat 
 ure; and I I really wanted to talk seriously to you to-day 
 about some things." 
 
 " Well, we can talk and walk at the same time, can t we? 
 And we must be getting back to the house or miss our tea. 
 This has been a perfect afternoon. I have four varieties 
 of violets to take back as trophies, and being so well satis 
 fied I can listen even to your serious somethings; but 
 when Auntie, or Papa, or even your senior, proposes serious 
 subjects to me they are usually preparing me for a lecture. 
 Are you? " 
 
 " Can t you imagine me wanting to say something to you, 
 Dinah, that would be serious? Yet " 
 
 " Certainly," she broke in. " I can always understand 
 that you have a weakness for talking seriously to most 
 girls, haven t you, Don? And the matrons, have not a few 
 of them received your serious consideration as well? 
 Ah, yes," she added, with an impish impulse to be ironical, 
 " seriousness is always becoming to people with sensitive 
 mouths and dreamy eyes; and then it is always so much 
 more effective." 
 
 The dreamy eyes, that were darkly indefinite as to color, 
 elongated under a quick frown, as when the sun suddenly 
 strikes one in the face unsheltered, and a flush of red crept 
 up to his forehead. 
 
 " How little faith you have in me. Yet I did come out 
 here to forget old follies; yes, old faults. I need to before 
 I can hope for any new luck that is good luck." 
 
 There was no anger in his voice, and the girl s eyes 
 looked sorry as he spoke. 
 
 " I am ashamed of myself for saying such things to 
 you," she said. " Why don t you retaliate by giving me a 
 lecture, as you used to when I was rude? I could stand 
 
 3
 
 34 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 it better than your hurt acceptance of my ugliness. 
 Don t mind anything I said, for I would always have faith 
 in anything you would give your word to only I don t 
 understand " 
 
 " No, that is it," he agreed. " You don t understand 
 neither did Uncle Don about the music; but never mind, 
 Dinah, that is not your fault more than likely it is mine. 
 Shall we go now?" 
 
 And descending the peak of wide views, they made their 
 way down to an old grass-grown road through the timber, 
 and found little to say to each other on their way back to 
 the high-road. 
 
 She had known him so long always, it seemed to her; 
 and the two young people had for years laughed over and 
 flirted with that scheme of their elders the idea that 
 Dinah Floyd was to be Dinah Edson when Don settled 
 down and she stopped flirting. 
 
 But of late Don had not laughed at the plan as of old. 
 His life had begun to seem to him so much the life of one 
 who garners dead-sea fruit, finding the hands and the lips 
 poisoned, while all the time there was within that bit of 
 divinity that protested. An idea that this keen-eyed, cool- 
 headed girl would understand or would care had 
 prompted him to speak. He had always liked her, and 
 perhaps and perhaps 
 
 Tired as he was of an erratic life, the freshness of the 
 forest in the sweetest of seasons was not at all the doleful 
 thing to him he had jestingly complained of to the girl. 
 There was so much of novelty in the thought of possessing 
 all that wild land and living for a season in its hills; and 
 Donald Edson had said, "It is all yours if you go there and 
 live one year, showing at the end of it that you have any 
 care for it, or any interest in its development. As you 
 don t take to anything else in the way of business, you may
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 35 
 
 find your vocation as a landed proprietor. You will hear 
 no Wagnerian orchestration in the Laurel Hills, but the birds 
 sing, I believe. I know the foxes used to bark, and the 
 panthers call, and the bear and deer can t all be cleared 
 out." 
 
 Balancing the novelty and the sacrifice of the world, and 
 influenced in no slight degree by the sensationalism of the 
 idea, Don had accepted the offer and the year s isolation. 
 At least the birds would sing. And the birds did sing, and 
 he would sing back to them, trying to establish some broth 
 erhood of feeling with the feathered natives, since the 
 human ones did not take kindly to the new owner, who they 
 thought would likely interfere with the amount of lumber 
 surreptitiously " snaked " out of the old claim that many of 
 them had lived on until they had an ingrained feeling of 
 combativeness against the holders of deeds and such like 
 legal trifles. 
 
 "It s natural enough that those people who have lived on. 
 the little clearings for forty years care more for them than 
 a man who has never seen them before," he decided, a few 
 evenings after the arrival of his friends, the Floyds; 
 " blest if I like to interfere with their homes or plans of 
 living for a whim that may result in a fiasco. I think I 
 will just drop the interesting question of tenants, and look 
 up the lumber or coal resources instead." 
 
 "You make a paragon of landlords for the tenants," 
 laughed Dinah; and the eager, interested old gentleman 
 who was bending over old maps of the district looked up 
 to remark : " That is just like you, Don, like you always were; 
 but those ideas are too Utopian for this age and this region. 
 The mountaineers themselves will only think you a mild 
 sbrt of lunatic if you begin with them that way. Be prac 
 tical and level-headed, my boy; don t be too quick to con 
 sign your pearls to the trough."
 
 35 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " Especially If they are ever likely to be worth the wear 
 ing," added Dinah. 
 
 But the placid-faced, pretty old lady, who was calmly 
 laying high- lights of crimson on the 6cru roofs of impos 
 sible cottages, smiled on him kindly. 
 
 "Never mind their sordid practicalities, Don; they are 
 both very wise, no doubt, but people sometimes find their 
 best wisdom in their hearts. May be you are one of that 
 kind." 
 
 CHAPTER. IV. 
 
 A DEATH ON THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 "Auntie, I will want to borrow your biggest piece of 
 canvas and whole stock of materials. Genius burns in me 
 this morning. I have found a model inspiring." 
 
 " Mr. March insisted that you would." 
 
 " Oh, it was types for literary work, not painting, that he 
 meant, and just now I have seen the first specimen that 
 looks promising for either a faun of the Alleghanies, 
 Auntie, with the profile of a Hermes; he is really an event." 
 
 "Who is the event?" inquired Don, coming in from the 
 stables. "Your enthusiasm makes me jealous." 
 
 " Look out of that window toward the kitchen porch. 
 Isn t he a picture ? " 
 
 The picture was that of a young man of twenty-five or 
 more, a mountaineer, but with a slight theatrical tinge in 
 the dress that was really picturesque, though it might have 
 been the handsome, unusual face and head that made it seem 
 so. Boots soiled with the clay came to the knees over 
 breeches of light corduroy; a cartridge-belt circled a waist 
 that was lithe and flexible as a deer-hound s; a maroon shirt
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 37 
 
 exposed a bit of the throat, that was white as a baby s where 
 the sun had not kissed it; a dark hat, with wide, flexible brim, 
 shaded hair that was the warmest of blonde the red gold 
 that is seldom seen on any but a child s head. And as he 
 stood nonchalantly with one foot on the porch-step, his gun 
 resting across his straight shoulders, he really was enough 
 to win a second glance from an artist. 
 
 " And his eyes are blue as violets," whispered the girl. 
 " He looked up at the window as he passed, and my heart 
 was won in a glance. Find out who he is, Don; I am going 
 to have that face as a model if I have to make love to the 
 man to get it." 
 
 "Dinah !" 
 
 "Well, I will, Auntie. You have complained ever since 
 we came because I don t paint. You will have cause no 
 longer, if I can only prevail on that Greek-featured treasure 
 to sit for me. I do wonder what he is." 
 
 "A handsome nonentity, likely," ventured Don. The 
 honest working-people here have little time to study such 
 effective combinations of costume and attitude. I can t 
 see his face from here, but the figure looks familiar." 
 
 Just then the subject of their curiosity, who had been 
 talking to someone through the window, walked up the two 
 steps, seated himself on the edge of the porch, and taking 
 off his wide hat for a fan, turned his head so that they 
 could see the gold-red hair and the features Dinah had 
 named over. Don turned away from the view with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I can introduce him to you and disenchant you 
 as soon as you like. It is one of my tenants, and not one 
 of the best of them, either." 
 
 " If Dinah had guessed you had such bits of perfection 
 among your mountain people, she would not have let you 
 go alone on so many of your rides/ nodded Aunt Lottie,
 
 38 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 sagaciously. "Ard he is really a good study for both 
 color and form." 
 
 "But what is be?" persisted the girl. 
 
 "A good-looking renegade," answered his landlord. 
 "He lives back in the timber near Indian Ledge; makes a 
 pretense of farming a little and blacksmithing a little, 
 though it is generally conceded that he doesn t depend on 
 those trades for his living. Just what he does depend on I 
 have not heard expressed yet, but imagine the natives think 
 it illicit distilling or counterfeiting. Evidently no one 
 hunts for proof of the supposition." 
 
 "Why, he has a face that is almost boyish," remarked 
 Miss Lottie, taking another look at the questionable char 
 acter. 
 
 "That is the effect of the yellow hair, I suppose. But 
 he isn t too much of a boy to be an ugly customer to han 
 dle, and I hear he has a wife that he acts like a brute 
 toward. Does that dim his attractions in your feminine 
 souls?" 
 
 " He doesn t look brutal," contested Dinah. 
 
 "He doesn t look as though he would pepper a man with 
 shot on slight provocation, either, but I hear he has 
 done it." 
 
 "Well, if the man has not a shred of character nor a 
 virtue to fall back on, it can not alter the lines of his face," 
 decided the girl, who was hastily sketching the figure on 
 the porch; "and then he may have a Tartar of a wife." 
 
 " Never heard anything about her, but of this gentleman 
 and his grandmother I have heard enough to wish they 
 lived in some other district. But I ll go down and have 
 him look at the plates that are on that colt, and eventually 
 you may have opportunities of studying those outlines you 
 are enamored of." 
 
 And a little later the blonde mountaineer and Edson
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 39 
 
 were talking together, as they sauntered down to the field 
 where the young stock grazed. 
 
 " Are you hunting ? " asked Don. " I see you carry a 
 gun." 
 
 "Hunting? Naw, don t know as I was; but a gun s 
 handy." 
 
 The eyes that Dinah likened to violets had a way of 
 glancing stealthily about him and at the people he met, an.d 
 he favored his landlord with several of those surveys as 
 Don picked out the colt needing their attention. He 
 noticed the muscular, elastic limbs as they leaped over the 
 fence, and the hands that were white enough for his con 
 tempt yet held the unwilling three-year-old as with iron 
 fingers; and involuntarily the scarlet, almost boyish lips 
 gave forth a low whistle of surprise. 
 
 "Appears to me you re a good mountaineer spoiled," 
 was the finish of the survey and the whistle. " You hain t 
 the grip of most city men not the most I ve seen." 
 
 " May be the ones you met were not fair specimens." 
 
 "Don t know don t know, I m sure;" and the violet 
 orbs traveled up and down as if measuring the possible 
 strength of a probable adversary. " Some of them look 
 mighty peaked, but I can t say as you do not when you re 
 in action." 
 
 The attitude of the two men during their slight knowl 
 edge of each other had a sort of undefined antagonism in 
 it. Don had, without knowing why, a separate and dis 
 tinct feeling against the man different from that aroused by 
 any of the natives of combative tendencies. The only tan 
 gible thing he could base his antipathy on was the con 
 tempt inspired by the lithe deer-hound with its trappings of 
 a peacock while the mountaineer s tone was half reluc 
 tant as in his surprise he gave acknowledgment of the 
 other s physical advantages; but having broken the ice
 
 40 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES, 
 
 with that grudged compliment, he followed it up by a more 
 communicative manner. 
 
 " Naw, I ain t hunting," he said, taking up the dropped 
 thread of conversation; " but as I was sightin around the 
 mountain, big Bill Riker, he come up to me on the other 
 side, askin if I d bring the word that his girl Addyliny died 
 last night. His woman, she wants preachin* at the house, 
 and wanted I should tell the folks here to your place and 
 they could get word down to the preacher. So my trip s 
 over, I ll be gettin back. Yes, I ll fix that colt s foot some 
 day for you." 
 
 " Who was it that died? " asked Don as the other turned 
 away. 
 
 "Bill Riker s girl Addy; she was most fourteen and a big 
 help. Bill s in hard luck all round lately like to be sold out 
 by sheriff next week. They ll have preachin to-morrow; 
 reckon you ll climb over the mountain for it?" 
 
 The question was rather satirical, and the smile that 
 accompanied it was altogether so. The mountaineer evi 
 dently deemed it the last thing probable that the man of 
 the world would care for either the sorrow or gladness of 
 the people in the hills, and he looked inclined to whistle 
 again when Don answered: 
 
 " I surely will. Thank you for letting me know." 
 
 And a little later he called through the window to the 
 ladies: " I may be away at lunch-time, but will get back 
 in season for your drive; so don t rank me as a deserter." 
 
 "Going back into the timber with Adonis?" queried 
 Miss Floyd, peering through the vines. 
 
 "No; he has vanished for to-day. I am going down the 
 mountain, and will bring back our new clerical friend, Mr. 
 Winston, if he can come. There is a death on the mount 
 ain, and he will be needed to-morrow, anyway." 
 
 "A death on the mountain," repeated the girl a little
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 41 
 
 later to Miss Lottie. " I declare, Don acts as though he were 
 personally responsible by the way he said that. Of course 
 it is rather fine in him to show that sort of interest in those 
 people, but it is a bit ridiculous when one knows how chill 
 ing their reception of him has been." 
 
 " I do not imagine he would care much for the ridicu 
 lous appearance of it if he was only able to understand the 
 people better no, I don t mean that, either but if he 
 could only manage to make them understand him better." 
 
 "He never will," said the girl, promptly; "he has brought 
 too much sentiment into his theories of them, and that is a 
 useless commodity here. I never knew Don had so much 
 sentiment as I have seen crop out in his dealings with those 
 people a queer place for it to make itself manifest." 
 
 " Perhaps the contact with primitive life awakens the 
 primitive feelings," ventured the little lady, "and we world 
 lings have educated ourselves out of comprehending them." 
 
 " No danger of you not comprehending, " returned Dinah, 
 " because you are more than sentimental yourself you are 
 romantic; but Don well, Don is growing interesting to 
 me these days, because he is growing puzzling." 
 
 "Ah, my dear, what a pity you two could not have " 
 
 "Yes, I know what you were going to say," broke in the 
 girl; "and what a pity you and Donald Senior bored each 
 of us for so many moons with an account of the other s per 
 fections. Auntie, I m afraid you have extinguished a match 
 that will have to wait now for heaven." 
 
 "Oh, Dinah, do you think" 
 
 " I never exert my brain to that extent," laughed the girl, 
 kissing the pretty, distressed face of the old lady, "and 
 neither must you, Miss Romantic. By the way, I believe I 
 shall turn over to you a task Mr. March left with me, the 
 gathering up of things interesting in the hills for a work of 
 fiction; in a rash moment I promised, but I am a failure."
 
 43 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "And do you mean to acknowledge, Dinah Floyd, that 
 you are snubbing Don and and others just because 
 you have a personal interest in the work of of that " 
 
 " Degenerate hanger-on of letters," supplied the young 
 lady, "or blood-stained I mean ink-stained caricaturist; 
 either would fit the ruffian equally well; and as to my own 
 interest in that direction, just spare my blushes, won t 
 you? the blushes I haven t got. I am going to make my 
 self altogether beautiful before Mr. Winston comes. With 
 the exception of that aureoled Adonis, he is the most inter 
 esting creature I ve seen here." 
 
 And leaving the little lady ten deep in water-colors and 
 perplexity, she vanished. And her toilet was not love s 
 labor lost, for their new clerical friend did come back with 
 Don, who had taken a liking to talk with him over the 
 affairs of his parishioners; the only trouble was that back in 
 the hills they were too few in number. 
 
 " Spiritually there seems little chance of reaching them 
 yet," he acknowledged, regretfully; " their lives are steeped 
 in a sort of content that keeps any spiritual want from them 
 the material is yet all powerful. There is not much pre 
 tension to religious feeling, except by the women. Even 
 then it is of the cold, stereotyped order. Bigoted, though, 
 they have no enthusiasm, or if they have they are so smoth 
 ered by timidity or lack of local precedent that it never 
 comes to the surface. They are not emotional enough for 
 the religious revivals that take a strong hold on the people 
 of the settlements." 
 
 " But comparing the emotional crowds down below and 
 the unemotional few up here, in which would you find the 
 best lives?" 
 
 The clergyman s delicately veined brow ruffled with 
 perplexity. 
 
 " You are asking me something, Mr. Edson, that never
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 43 
 
 occurred to me before," he said, slowly; " and it is worth 
 one s thought, too. Of the people below I have not much 
 personal knowledge; they are mostly from the foreign ele 
 ment that the coal work brings there; then they are some 
 what transitory their good and evil as well. But up here 
 it is different. Two-thirds of the names in the hills have 
 been heard there for generations, and they keep so closely 
 the attributes of their ancestry that, whether good or bad, 
 it would be a mighty work to attempt changing their ways 
 of life; their faults and virtues are rooted in the soil here." 
 
 " So Don has learned," remarked Dinah. 
 
 Mr. Winston s kindly face kindled with a quizzical smile; 
 evidently Don s accumulation of knowledge in that direc 
 tion was no secret. 
 
 "But they have their virtues," he added, earnestly, "and 
 they are sturdy as their vices. They are virtuous, surely, 
 beyond the virtue of the crowds, and beyond their own 
 spirituality or mentality, at the same time that they have 
 a looseness of moral code that in an incomprehensible way 
 runs parallel with a queer sort of honesty. For instance, a 
 man may steal timber off another person s ground and suffer 
 no loss of caste in the eyes of his neighbors, but if he is known 
 to steal a hog or a sheep, or even a chicken, it is a slur on him 
 not easy to be got rid of. Taking them as a class, they are 
 full of contradictions; but the more flagrantly dishonest are 
 those who have drifted away from the hills and brought 
 back vice from the world outside." 
 
 "Well, when even the honest ones may steal timber," 
 began Dinah, dubiously. 
 
 " No, I do not say the honest ones do so," corrected Mr. 
 Winston, smiling; but they simply follow what has be 
 come a matter of habit. Since the time of the Indian, 
 tomahawk claims and shotgun policy have been powers in 
 the wood country. It is only of late that boundaries
 
 44 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 through the timber have become distinct things, and they 
 are too new to win the respect of natives whose forefathers 
 owned the mountain, by courage if not legality. There are 
 so many things to consider, that one can do little toward 
 presenting the morally legal point of view to them. Time 
 will do what words will not, and the wildness of the forests 
 must be broken before you can drive out old customs; they 
 will stick like the wildcats so long as the ledges are here 
 for them to creep under." 
 
 The evening, social and pleasant, wore on; the dusk crept 
 from the east, and the evening star hung like a jewel in its 
 meshes. But \vhile the conversation drifted from the local 
 present of the whites to the local past of the people whose 
 color is even unknown to us the builders of vanished forts 
 within whose space strange ancient trees still grow Don 
 someway dropped out of the conversation. Mr. Winston s 
 summing up of the traits of the people he had to deal with 
 had put him into a brown study, one in which golden 
 gleams of light were needed to bring harmony. 
 
 " Don is in dreamland," said Miss Lottie, nodding 
 toward the still form in the corner of the porch, while 
 Dinah made some remark about " spring fever " and its 
 effect on people who were constitutionally lazy to begin 
 with. 
 
 " I never knew, however, that it deprived people of speech 
 entirely," she added. He aroused himself and smiled 
 around at them. 
 
 " Don t mind me," he entreated. " I am not sleeping, 
 nor nearly so far away from your themes as you imagine. 
 Some of them have taken possession of me, and I was only 
 thinking." 
 
 And he was " only thinking " next morning, when the 
 sun bewitched the mists up from the valley, and he rode 
 rather silently beside Mr. Winston over the mountain.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 45 
 
 That conversation the night before had helped him to some 
 ideas about the people he had to deal with, and he needed 
 them. 
 
 He found himself confronted by technicalities and 
 responsibilities that would need a more practiced hand than 
 his to grasp, unless some clearer insight should lead him 
 into the comprehension of the people. 
 
 All knowledge of books or the world he had lived in was 
 of no help here. He was looked on as a "greenhorn," 
 and he knew it. He could have settled several questions 
 by law and established a reputation for hard-headedness, 
 but he would look in the rude cabins and in the faces of 
 barefooted children, and then ride away leaving them on 
 their native heath; and even his friends had begun to laugh 
 over the hopelessness of his endeavors. If only his past 
 years of trifling had not told so against him if only some 
 one had shown faith; but the lack of it was drifting his 
 own far afield. Mr. Winston s ideas of the people had not 
 helped him in that respect, but they had given him some 
 thoughts of the people that were new; they had been hum 
 ming in his brain all night. 
 
 The house of Riker was neither on .the mountain nor in 
 the valley, but just on the border of each; and a Sabbath 
 stillness lay about it, over the sunlit clearing and the few 
 horses hitched to the rickety fence. The children, a bevy 
 of yellow heads and thin, flail-like legs, were grouped about 
 the corners of the chimney, with furtive eyes, as if poised 
 for instant abashed flight, as each new-comer emerged from 
 the forest above them, or tramped up along the rocky, 
 bushy township road that passed the stable. 
 
 Out at the wood-pile, the men were gathered, " hunk 
 ered " down on the ground or perched against the fence, 
 talking in rather subdued tones, because of the young dead 
 thing that lay in the shadowy corner of the cabin.
 
 46 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 The women, and a few shy, uneasy children with sun-bon 
 nets on, were standing about the door, exchanging remarks 
 of the health or sickness prevalent to the season. One old 
 brown-faced creature, with the pathos of eye that Angelo 
 gave the shearwoman of the Fates, covered the coffined 
 face with a white handkerchief, and laid her unsteady hand 
 with a little pat of condolence on the mother s shoulder. 
 Her voice, in the kindly, stereotyped phrases with which 
 people think to ease despairing grief, fell on the ears at the 
 door, and though the words were not distinguishable to 
 them, the meaning was, and they checked the desultory 
 exchange of remarks and bent sympathetic heads in embar 
 rassed respect. 
 
 One woman, or it may have been a girl, was close 
 enough to hear those words of attempted comfort. She sat 
 somewhat apart from the rest, at the head of the coffin, 
 every now and then driving away a fly that persisted in 
 returning. She had been there when the earliest of the 
 other women had come in the morning. Some of them 
 had spoken to her in a subdued, equivocal way, not as 
 though they knew her, but rather divined who she must be; 
 and as she sat there close to the wall, the coffin on trestles 
 of chairs looked like a barrier between herself and the 
 others. The face could scarcely be seen in the great shadows 
 of a slab bonnet that had surely been made for a larger 
 head than hers; but the mouth and chin emerging from 
 the shadows were too softly curved to belong to other than 
 youth. The mouth even grew tremulous with sympathy as 
 the words of the old woman reached her. She was speaking 
 of the other children who were left, of the one little baby 
 in the cradle that they all agreed was like Addy had been 
 at her age. There were some words, too, of the love of 
 the Christ for little children and the surety of Addy being 
 safe up there, and awaiting the others who were left; and
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 47 
 
 the figure by the coffin grew quite still and rigid in the 
 intentness of listening to the homely comfort. 
 
 And then the baby spoken of stirred in its box-cradle, 
 and before its little wail could break the fraughtful silence, 
 the girl from the corner had crossed the room and 
 gathered it in her arms without disturbing another that 
 slept beside it. She stilled its querulous protest as if by 
 some mesmeric touch, and stepped softly with it back to 
 her place by the wall. 
 
 The mother, with strained, tearless eyes, was looking out 
 of the little square window into the truck-patch, where 
 some nodding jonquils and young onions grew side by side; 
 but she saw none of the springing green or the gold of the 
 blossoms, her own loss loomed too close, blotting out all 
 but despair from her gaze. Her lips twitched convulsively, 
 as if attempting to give answer to the speech of the old 
 woman, but no words came. With a pathetically dumb move 
 ment, she raised the corner of a rusty black apron and 
 pressed it and her work-worn hands against her mouth, 
 rocking to and fro silently; and the old neighbor looked at 
 her, shaking her head over this suppressed rebellion against 
 " The Will," and sat down near her, looking about and 
 noting the floor that was clean-scrubbed, and the posts of 
 the bed protruding from the hole in the loft, where it had 
 been moved from down-stairs to make room for the gather 
 ing. But the quiet girl with the baby raised her eyes again 
 and again to the face of the mother. There seemed some 
 thing contagious to her in that nervous twitching of the 
 piteous mouth, for twice she half arose from the low chair, 
 but the heads of the women at the door turned toward 
 her at each movement, and with a little deprecating cough 
 she sat down again; but from the window a short indrawn 
 breath, that was half a sob, brought her to her feet, and
 
 48 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIE& 
 
 with the intuition of sympathy she laid the round-eyed 
 little mite on the black-draped knee. 
 
 " She s been wanting you," she said, in a low, apologetic 
 sort of way. " It don t appear that she is rightly content 
 anywhere if she can t steyeur face." 
 
 The woman nodded silently, not even raising her red 
 miserable eyes to see who it was brought the child; and 
 then the little whimper of the babe ended in a crow 
 of gladness, and one little fist was laid coaxingly on her 
 breast; and the laughter of the child was the key to the 
 repressed sobs that seemed strangling her, for with a wail 
 that was pitiful, but with tears that were merciful, the 
 child was raised to her bosom and pressed again and again 
 as a balm to the aching heart. 
 
 The women looked uneasily at each other. They felt 
 someone ought to stop her from crying like that. The 
 old woman said: "Now, Becky Ann! " but did not approach 
 her. She felt her functions somewhat interfered with by 
 that " slip of a thing " who stood still at the chair of 
 Becky Ann, and, without looking at the others, gave them 
 an idea that she did not intend to move away for any of 
 them. 
 
 "Seems like she just naturally set Mrs. Riker a-cryin 
 on purpose," complained one whispering voice to another 
 at the door. " Some folks have so little gumption! " 
 
 " Becky Ann was bearin her loss mighty well, too, if 
 she d only been let alone. Hasn t cried a whimper sence 
 I come; jest went around quiet without a word to say. To 
 tell the truth" (and the speaker s voice dropped somewhat), 
 " she didn t even speak to Bill when he asked her where 
 little Jake s pants were; jest pointed to the chest under the 
 ladder, with nary a word." 
 
 "That ain t so curious, either," interposed a third, "for 
 I did hear tell as she and Bill have been havin trouble
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 49 
 
 mongst themselves lately; but you d naturally think she d 
 speak to him at a time like this." 
 
 "Times don t matter much, I reckon, to Becky Ann 
 Riker," nodded another in a conclusive whisper. "She was 
 one of Jake Tygert s girls, and many s the time I ve heard 
 the sayin , As stubborn as a Tygert; so she comes honest 
 enough by her tempers." 
 
 "Well, .well, it s curious how people can t live together 
 peaceable, as the Lord intended," drawled the sanctimoni 
 ous tones of a hatchet-faced woman who looked equal to 
 enforcing peace in her own family, even if it had to be 
 done with a club. 
 
 No answer was returned to this remark; and the soft 
 silence had grown a bit oppressive as it will where the 
 air is charged with the electricity of unuttered feelings. 
 From the wood-pile a low hum came, as the sound of bees 
 wings that intensifies the stillness; and then from the wood 
 pasture came the flash of a sound through the silence, and 
 a couple of the women at the door moved nervously and 
 gazed at each other with wide eyes. 
 
 "I declare, it sounded like something that s human," fal 
 tered one of them with a superstitious shiver, while one of 
 the braver smiled indulgently. 
 
 " Laws! it s only a calf bawling for the cow, I s pose. I 
 noticed it as we come a little speckled one. Yes, did 
 sound some like a person." 
 
 " That s Jinny," volunteered one of the shy young Rikers. 
 "Jinny, she was Addy s calf, and she s just been^/Vz on! " 
 
 The women glanced at each other, with significant dread 
 in their faces and warning nods toward the children, who 
 did not heed much the wail-like bleat, and it continued, 
 wavering and pitiful, until a tall fellow emerged from the 
 rickety log stable and came slowly up to the door. His 
 sad eyes noted a couple of the women whom he had not 
 
 4
 
 50 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 seen earlier, and he nodded to them and passed in, his gaze 
 turning instinctively, disconsolately, toward that corner 
 where his pride, his eldest child, lay the one he had 
 always called his "boy." 
 
 " Becky Ann," he said, lowly, " Jinny s calling out there 
 again like she never would stop. Ain t there something or 
 other I could give her? some bran and milk, may be." 
 
 The girl beside her stepped aside at the sound of the 
 husband s voice, but touched the wife on the shoulder as 
 she did so. 
 
 " Tain t bran she wants, an tain t milk," answered the 
 mother, pressing the baby closer; and then, hearing no 
 reply, she raised her eyes and saw him shaking his head, 
 but with his face turned toward the fire-place, that they 
 might not know that his speech was checked by tears. And 
 then Becky Ann arose and went over to the hearth. 
 
 " May be it might quiet her some, though, and I ll I ll 
 take the baby, Will, and go along." 
 
 He looked at her, and their tear-stained faces for the 
 time banished the "Tygert stubbornness," for when he 
 lifted the bucket of milk from the table Becky Ann walked 
 out beside him down to the wood pasture; and just as she 
 reached the door the girl who had given her the child 
 crossed the floor, and taking the big bonnet from her own 
 head, set it on Becky Ann s and returned bareheaded to the 
 chair in the shadows. 
 
 And then after a little there was a slight stir about the 
 wood-pile and porch, and the word of "the preacher s 
 coming " was passed from one to another as a sort of signal 
 for a general uprising and stretching of limbs and attempt 
 ed poses of unconsciousness. But several of them gained 
 a more alert air as the companion of the preacher was rec 
 ognized. 
 
 " What s bringin that young Edson here, I d like to
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 51 
 
 know," growled one of Edson s tenants from the wood 
 pile. 
 
 " Spyin around," ventured another. " Don t reckon swells 
 of his style care about ridin round to funerals as a gen 
 eral thing. Blest if he ain t goin right down to the fence 
 and shakin hands with Riker and his wife ahead of the 
 preacher! Well, he ain t noways backward, anyway." 
 
 As they entered the house, Don was struck as never 
 before with the meagreness of the life that is wrested from 
 the bit of cleared ground when there is a houseful of grow 
 ing children to clothe and feed with one man s labor the 
 bareness of it all was so intensified by the bare coffin in the 
 corner. He thought with a sort of shame of the luxuries of 
 life he had accepted so long as a matter of course, while 
 here had died a fair blossom of a girl fated to hard labor 
 and these harsh surroundings all the days she had lived. 
 And that mother, with the piteous, tear-wet, weather-worn 
 face! And the hand she had held out that was so much 
 browner and rougher than his own! All his sympathies 
 went out to them. Would the time ever come, though he 
 worked among them all his life, that he could help their 
 lives to any added brightness? 
 
 But he had grown hopeless, so hopeless that he had then 
 in his pocket a letter addressed to the senior telling him to 
 send a business agent; that he himself was not a success. 
 The letter was forty-eight hours old, and unsent; yet it 
 was there, its contents proving his own state of mind. And 
 the thought of it was with him all that sunlit morning 
 through the ride over the mountain, its nearness strength 
 ened by glances and whispers that were directed toward 
 him by the men and women who came in with the quiet, 
 severe manner adopted by so many at the door of a church, 
 ranging themselves on improvised seats of plank, while 
 Mr. Winston and the parents exchanged low, half-whis-
 
 52 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 pered words at the head of the coffin; and Don someway 
 found himself there, too, looking down on the chill sleep-of 
 the child. 
 
 And very beautiful Addy looked, with the faint amethyst 
 shadows about the eyes lending a pensiveness to the face 
 that they said had been a saucy one and there was still 
 the hint about her lips of a smile audacious. One cycle 
 nearer eternal wisdom, the dead can always smile at the 
 futility of tears. 
 
 Someone pushed past Don as he stood gazing into the 
 still face, and a bunch of flowers was laid against the cold 
 cheek. They were tiny white lilies that grow in the high 
 places, and the dew was still on them, shining softly against 
 the brown hand that offered them. It was a large hand 
 large and rough; and Don looked up into the face of its 
 owner and met the gaze of the perplexing greenish-gray 
 eyes whose steadiness Dinah had objected to. It was the 
 man called "Bud," and this native of the hills and the man 
 of the world met for the first time at the open coffin. 
 
 Don returned the steady, curious gaze and bent his head 
 in silent greeting, but the other only closed his eyes for an 
 instant, and when he opened them it was to look down in 
 Addy s face, nod to someone back in the corner, and turn 
 away only the tiny, bell-like lilies left to prove that he had 
 really stood there at all; and Don s hand went mechanically 
 up to the lapel of his coat, where Dinah had fastened a 
 white rose, and the fragrant symbol of silence was laid 
 beside the lilies of the mountain. 
 
 When he turned to a seat, he found one had been 
 assigned him beside Mr. Winston, in the corner by the 
 fire-place the place of honor facing the door and the 
 assembly. 
 
 There was a prayer by the minister, earnest and full of 
 feeling, as prayer is apt to be in the presence of death,
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 5& 
 
 when the magnetism of the near living brings sympathy to 
 priests such as seldom comes to them across the spacious 
 aisles of vast temples; and Don found the man he had 
 known only as a bright, clever companion rising from his 
 knees with unaffected tears in his eyes, and heard him, as 
 in a dream, say: "Will you, Mr. Edson, select a hymn ?" 
 
 Wordless, Don reached for the book, and in a sort of 
 maze at officiating in such a role, he found himself reading 
 aloud the first and last verses of the psalm beginning, "/ 
 to the hills will lift mine eyes" 
 
 Mr. Winston, who had leaned his head on his hand, only 
 raised it to nod approval as the reading was ended, and 
 then, still feeling in an unreal, exalted atmosphere, Don 
 found himself singing the words, and singing alone. 
 
 There may have been some among the people who knew 
 the hymn, and would have joined in it within the walls of a 
 church; but within the walls of their church that was 
 their school-house none had ever heard singing like the 
 voice that mounted upward with the assurance of God s 
 presence. 
 
 He felt in an instinctive way that turning of wondering 
 faces to each other; he felt the silence by the window 
 where the short, sobbing breaths of Becky Ann had trem 
 bled; he felt the something that crept from his own heart 
 into his throat, and then into his eyes; and he could see 
 none of the faces his gaze was over their heads into the 
 shadowy corner where the dead child lay, and where he 
 found himself, suddenly, as if magnetized, gazing into a 
 pair of hungry, yearning eyes that had kindled in their set 
 ting of a pale face as if from some inward fire inexhaust 
 ible. Was it religious fervor that shone through those 
 eyes so ? Was it abiding faith he had awakened by his 
 voice? And was the possessor of it herself startled by its 
 strange force, that she arose to her feet mechanically, s.
 
 54 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 sleep-walkers do, and then stepped back in that deprecat 
 ing way, her girlish, pathetic face never turning from his 
 own? He did not know; but all those fancies flitted through 
 his senses that instant while their eyes met, and he found 
 himself strengthened in an exalted sort of way by the 
 spirit in hers. He sung the closing lines of the moon by 
 night, while he seemed to see but a pale star shining in the 
 morning. 
 
 The stillness as he sat down was intense, and was 
 broken only by the slightest of rustles in that shadowy cor 
 ner; but he did not look in that direction again. He could 
 see the eyes and the hunger in them with his own closed, 
 and his own perplexities kept them so. 
 
 But outside the house there was one man whose eyes 
 were not closed to those meeting glances; it was the man 
 Bud, who had been drawn by the melody as by a charm 
 until he stood just without the window, and who looked, 
 first of all, to that corner, as one s glances turn to a friend 
 who we know will share with us appreciation of a beaut) . 
 But the kindly anticipation froze from his face as he saw 
 the slight, erect figure there, and the eager, awakening light 
 in its eyes. His own followed them, and read in those of 
 the singer that the song was sung at that moment to but 
 one in the roomful of people who wondered at the beauty 
 of it. 
 
 He stood there like a statue through the rest of the serv 
 ice, but he saw no more their looks turned toward each 
 other. She listened, with her eyes on the floor, to the rest 
 of the service wavering, embarrassed glances given when 
 the last word of prayer was uttered and the people stirred 
 with the slight commotion significant of the finish. 
 
 And then Bill Riker arose from the seat beside his wife, 
 laying his hand lightly on her shoulder, and turned to Mr. 
 Winston.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 55 
 
 "We we d like, if it s agreeable if Mr. Edson would 
 sing again, she d like it" and he nodded his head toward 
 Becky Ann; "and if you would " 
 
 The people remained standing while again the voice 
 that was wonderful to them sung the confession of 
 "As pants the hart for cooling streams." 
 
 Once his glance wandered across to that corner whence 
 a sort of inspiration had come to him, but he saw only a 
 bent head half-turned away, but listening surely listening 
 if one could judge by the intentness of the drooped face; 
 and the man at the window, who seemed to see everything 
 with those green-gray eyes of his, noted its earnestness, and 
 turned away with a trouble added to the perplexity of his 
 face. 
 
 As the sad cortege wound up the rocky township road, 
 Don turned in the saddle for a look backward to the edge 
 of the valley, where a few neighbors yet lingered about the 
 cabin the few for whom there had been no room in the 
 limited list of conveyances. They stood in straggling 
 groups about the door and out along the lane; and where 
 the clearing of "new ground" joined the forest, he saw two 
 forms disappear in the green ocean of leaves, one a very 
 large, heavy-shouldered man, who walked with his head bent, 
 and beside him was a slim, girlish figure with an immense 
 sun-bonnet on its head; and as they crossed the rail fence 
 he could see that on one arm the man carried a slight bun 
 dle that looked like a baby. 
 
 Don wondered which of the figures back there belonged 
 to the girl with the eyes, but, strangely enough, he felt a 
 hesitation about questioning on that subject. He had not 
 seen her after the services were ended; but just to remem 
 ber the eyes and the exaltation of faith in them was enough 
 for the present just that, and to have found through her 
 one key by which he might unlock the barriers those people
 
 56 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGIIANIES. 
 
 had thrown between themselves and him! Yes, it seemed a 
 great deal just then; and some of the darting fancies in his 
 brain were sweet as the faith in that semi-childlike face 
 the faith that had so glad a look it might have been a wel 
 come. 
 
 It was all very puzzling. He was riding in the line 
 of a funeral, and was not careless of the solemnity of the 
 fact; but some warm, delicious sprite of hope was singing 
 to him through every bird-song, and blushing pink at him 
 from every azalia-bush and all because of two pathetic eyes 
 in a pale face. 
 
 Mr. Winston looked at him rather intently as they rode 
 abreast, and then: 
 
 " Mr. Edson, I knew you were a musician, but I never 
 dreamed you had such a voice as you let us hear back there. 
 It is wonderful." 
 
 " It has been wonderfully still for a long time," said Don. 
 4t I sing little of late." 
 
 They rode on in silence for a little while, and then the 
 clergyman again spoke. 
 
 "Do you remember our conversation last evening of the 
 unemotional natures of the people up here how difficult 
 it was to touch most of them in a spiritual sense? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I am inclined to take back something of that. 
 Prom the impression left by your singing, I am inclined to 
 think it their preacher who has failed in not finding the way 
 to their hearts or sympathies. You found it this morning, 
 without effort and without intent." 
 
 " Oh, I don t know" 
 
 "I know," said Mr. Winston, loyally decided; it shone 
 in their faces, and sounded in that man s voice when he 
 asked you to sing again, as if it brought a comfort to them. 
 You undervalue the thing I have tried for and failed to
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 57 
 
 find here. If I had your gift of voice, I would never 
 despair again of touching hearts to the sympathies that 
 seek spirituality. Music, music that touches, is a wonder 
 ful power. Never undervalue any gift of God; and your 
 voice is that. But I fear it is a gift you will let go to 
 waste here in the hills;" but the interrogation in the voice 
 said plainly: "Will you let it go to waste here in the hills?" 
 
 The man who had felt so like an alien among them until 
 this odorous, peace-kissed morning was looking at a letter 
 pulled from his pocket with a handkerchief a letter sealed 
 and addressed, which he twisted in his fingers until envel 
 ope and inclosure were broken past repair; and then he 
 dropped it in his pocket with a rather preoccupied smile 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "I hope not," he said; and the clergyman, remembering 
 how full of feeling and sympathy the man s voice had been 
 in music, wondered at the carelessness of it when its own 
 powers for good were under discussion. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PAGAN. 
 
 "Don, who is the Pagan?" 
 
 It was two days after the funeral, and it was Dinah who 
 asked the question, while Miss Lottie looked across the 
 breakfast-table to him, with a little laugh. "Yes, we met a 
 queer old character last evening. Dinah stopped the buggy 
 and chatted with him, and after gossiping about and I must 
 say slandering everyone around here, he told us he was 
 * Pap Keesy, and that he lives, or eats, mostly at the 
 Pagan s; and he had not many good words to say for that 
 person, either."
 
 58 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " That is nothing," returned Don. " The most of them 
 slander each other. The valley folks come to me with 
 tales of the mountaineers stealing timber, while the high- 
 landers retaliate by swearing that the lowlanders kill more 
 hogs every winter than belongs to them, and then they all 
 club together and make life uneasy for any settlement folks 
 that wander up here; and so it goes on. I ve seen Mr. 
 Keesy, who entertained you a shambling old hook-nosed 
 skeleton of a man. Yes, he s a gentleman of leisure; just 
 lives around among the people, and tells whoppers about 
 them all." 
 
 " But the Pagan? " repeated Dinah. 
 
 " Oh, he? I never met him yet; some mountaineer who 
 turned atheist, I believe. Some say he s a wizard, because 
 of his knowledge of herb-cures. I ve heard of him several 
 times, but he don t live on our land. Don t know that he is 
 an atheist, either someone told me he had a sort of religion; 
 but I guess he s queer mentally." 
 
 " We heard about the queerness," said Dinah; " and I m 
 rather glad to hear that Pap is not reliable, though he 
 is so newsy, for he was enlightening us as to your queer 
 speculations over in the timber." 
 
 Don s face flushed a little, though he held out his cup 
 carelessly for more coffee. 
 
 "And what are they?" 
 
 Dinah looked at him sharply. " You are not going to 
 tell me that it s true, are you, " she demanded, " that you did 
 go over to Riker s and buy up all the stock he owned to 
 save them from sheriff s sale, and then made him a present 
 of them?" 
 
 " Not quite a present, but I did buy the stock." 
 
 "Don Edson!" 
 
 " Well, now, what was a fellow to do? " he asked, appeal- 
 ingly. " I am weak, and I know it; but when I heard the
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 59 
 
 story of the man s sickness last winter such a fine manly 
 sort of fellow and the debts that he was unable to meet, 
 and the family there to look after, and just the little bit of 
 live-stock to depend on well, it was too much for your 
 humble servant. I fished in my pocket for the requisite, 
 and Riker rejoices in the animals, from which I am to get 
 my dividends in days to come; and for once the venerable 
 Keesy told the truth." 
 
 Yes, it was quite true a truth that had left a stamp of 
 tranquillity for awhile over the brows of the mountaineer, 
 so used to sad wrinklings in the endeavor to make two long 
 disputin ends meet. It was all so quickly done and so 
 unexpected that Riker, even after days had gone by, could 
 scarcely believe in the actuality of the change, and would 
 stop in his work of laying the " worm " for the new fence 
 and stare long and contemplatively at the chestnut rails, as 
 if to get from them an explanation of the good luck that 
 had come his way. 
 
 "A fine precedent you have planted," remarked Dinah. 
 "It is likely to breed you contention here at about double 
 the increase of Canada thistles. You can t manage any of 
 the others now unless you give them a calf or a pig more 
 than you gave Riker." 
 
 " But I did not give them to him," protested Don. " Wait 
 three years, and see what a return I will have. I will 
 develop into an extensive stock-raiser yet." 
 
 "Three years!" said the girl. "Then you have actually 
 tied yourself down to this place for that length of time?" 
 
 " It looks so, don t it? " he queried, trying to smile away 
 her disapproval; "especially when I have offered up all 
 my spare dollars on the shrine of this experiment, for I 
 am not sure I have quite money enough left to pay car 
 fare in any direction."
 
 60 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 He pulled out a few bits of silver from his pocket, and 
 eyed them regretfully. 
 
 "Where is your big penny?" demanded Miss Dinah, 
 severely. 
 
 " There it is, in the very bottom of the pocket." 
 
 "Where your luck is likely to stay, judging from your 
 late demented actions. What possessed you, Don?" 
 
 " I think it was my old stumbling-block," he confessed, 
 laughingly; " perhaps my vanity, for I sung for them, and 
 just happened to be in the mood for my best, and the 
 moment they showed themselves impressed, they had won 
 me. I can always find some way of understanding people 
 who are touched by music/ 
 
 " By your music," was the unkind addition of the young 
 lady. 
 
 " Perhaps. I don t deny that it may be all a bit of vanity, 
 after all, and it has left me such a bankrupt I shall have to 
 take to the woods to live." 
 
 " Surely, Don, just now, when brother is about to bundle up 
 his notes and depart, you are not going to desert me, too? " 
 
 " My dear Aunt Lottie," he said, crossing over and seat 
 ing himself at her diminutive feet, "my red-letter days 
 would be the ones when I could ride over to see you; 
 but being here constantly is so much too pleasant that I 
 grow lazy through enjoyment, and I do no work." 
 
 " How much nicer that sounds than to tell us we bore 
 him into taking to the woods tp get rid of us," murmured 
 the younger lady. 
 
 And then, though thinking her words half in jest, he 
 turned on her impatiently: 
 
 " Dinah, do you really disbelieve in everything and 
 everybody, or is it only a fashion you think is amusing to 
 adopt? Anyway, it is a fashion that can make your friends 
 feel very uncomfortable sometimes, and very worthless."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 61 
 
 And without giving that much-amazed young lady time 
 to recover her powers of speech, he slipped his hand affec 
 tionately into Miss Lottie s and took his departure. 
 
 The June wind, odorous from its sweet, shadowy nesting- 
 places, was blowing straight across the deep valley to him 
 as he led his horse out from the stable-yard. There were 
 many things for him to do, several places for him to go, 
 and he halted between choosing, until swayed by the wind 
 as by impulse, he turned his face toward its kisses; and 
 they were drifting from the wild mountain, as Dinah had 
 dubbed it the timbered mountain of Don s " wild " 
 hopes. 
 
 " What a way she has of taking all hope out of a fellow," 
 he thought, vexatiously, as he cantered along the dip in the 
 hills where Washington congratulated himself on finding 
 so charming a place for a military encampment. 
 
 The old encampment has still its admirers, and in the hot 
 months and the hunting-season the building on the old 
 site has numerous pilgrims from the paving-stones. 
 
 The bracing air of the mountain, as he went up, up along 
 its shadowed side, blew away vexing queries, or vexatious 
 sprites such as stung him through Dinah s speech. He 
 was riding over the road he had come that morning with 
 Mr. Winston, and with the memory of it came the delicious 
 thrill of sympathy that had touched him through that visit 
 to the cabin at the edge of the valley. 
 
 " Was it only vanity? " Within the four walls of Miss Lot 
 tie s room he had laughed and agreed to it, half-believing 
 his own words; but alone with the mystery of the hills, and 
 the sense of the secrets they tell to none, he did not feel like 
 laughing, or even like striving for an explanation. What 
 use to try to put into words the finer impulses that come 
 to us so often they are untranslatable. Just as the whis 
 per of the leaves that bring us peace but once shut in by a
 
 62 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 roof from the sight or sound of them, how impossible to 
 put into speech their caresses that soothe. And he bared 
 his head to those caresses as he went upward through the 
 shadowy places, and felt the dew dripping from the leaves 
 like a benediction, and smiled to think of trying to express 
 in words to those people back there the witchery of the 
 hills and the subtle way in which they influence lives to 
 otherwise impossible things. 
 
 "Ah, fancies! fancies! "he breathed, in sudden self- 
 derision, " where will you have brought me this time next 
 year? I might as well ask what is the outgrowth of the 
 fancies a year old. But a man should have some other 
 occupation than dreams. Will I ever catch up to the tangi 
 ble things? " 
 
 As if to conjure up some of the tangible things, the alien 
 resorted to the charm that is generally most potent for 
 dreams the lifting up of a voice that trilled and rung 
 above the songs of the birds that were echoing carols on 
 every side. 
 
 Dinah had called him a bit of a reprobate that morning, 
 but threading the aisles of " God s first temples," his face was 
 the face of a boy, and of light heart, and his voice was as 
 the voice of an angel. He stopped once, suddenly, looking 
 up at the branches in audacious rivalry, laughing aloud at 
 the silence there, for the birds were really still, and a full 
 minute went by ere their twitterings again began, and 
 welled as before into a far-answering chorus; and then, con 
 tent with his victory over his mates, he rode on, singing 
 softly, crossing the summit that divides the copper-snake s 
 range on the west side from the domain of its more honest 
 relative, that sings you a warning and likes best the rising 
 sun and the south wind; on through the columns of white- 
 oaks, whose feet are caressed by feathers of fern in the long, 
 desolate " bear-wallows;" on over the road he had passed
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 63 
 
 before, yet had to watch closely, the " blaze " being an im 
 aginary sort of an affair recurring only at long intervals. 
 Some of the intervals the owner of the road put in con 
 signing to an unnamable place people who expected other 
 people to travel on such roads as that was; other intervals 
 were made melodious by the sweetness of an old plantation 
 hymn he had stored in his memory from some Southern 
 sojourn. 
 
 Suddenly, through a low refrain, peculiarly heart-touch 
 ing, which he was rendering with a great deal of satisfac 
 tion at his own excellence, a serious "Good-morning!" 
 almost at his elbow brought his heart in his mouth there 
 was something so uncanny in the voice coming from the 
 seeming solitude. 
 
 The queer shock was not lessened when he saw within 
 reach of his hand a man leaning against a tree that raised 
 its head high up above the cliff of rock around which he 
 was riding. It was the man whose eyes he had met at 
 the coffin that mornipg the man whose brown hand had 
 made those lilies look doubly pure. Don had felt his 
 graceless heart touched by the offer of those blossoms; but 
 why need the creature look at one with those serious stares 
 that may mean contemplative profundity, and might possi 
 bly be placid idiocy. 
 
 " The same to you," he retorted, reining in his beast, that 
 had shied, as had his rider, at the unexpected figure; "but 
 if you would just carry a bell, or some bit of warning, it 
 would be an economy for the nerves of your neighbors 
 and I imagine we are neighbors?" 
 
 The other man smiled slightly at the gravity with which 
 the mocking lips acknowledged nervousness. 
 
 " Yes, sir; I live in the hills, anyway. I heard you singing, 
 and just stood there to listen." 
 
 " Um! rooted to the ground, as it were," supposed
 
 64 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGrfANIES. 
 
 Mr. Edson, in mild self-laudation; "or was it the rock or 
 the tree you were fastened to? May I ask if it is a steady 
 habit of yours to plant yourself around in unexpected places 
 in this sort of way or," he added, "do you think it is 
 too late to reform ? " 
 
 The dark, serious face of the man warmed amusedly as 
 these questions were put, and the gray-green eyes smiled 
 at him indulgently. 
 
 " Most of my habits are steady ones," he acknowledged. 
 "When folks get along in life, habits are hard things to 
 change may be you ll catch up with that knowledge your 
 self some day; but I ll try and not keep up the habit of 
 frightening your beast." 
 
 Among all the soft, pleasant voices of the mountain folk, 
 Don decided he had heard no man speak with the mild gen 
 tleness of this one, and yet there was mingled with it the 
 calm insistence of a speaker whose speech is given audience 
 the bit of philosophy advanced with the confidence of a 
 teacher; and the musical equestrian ran his eyes over this 
 as yet unclassified specimen with the mental query of why 
 he had never happened to meet it in the six weeks he had 
 been riding around the country. Suddenly a convincing 
 inspiration raised his brows somewhat. 
 
 " Perhaps I am wrong, but I am going to give a guess at 
 your identity," he said, coolly. "Are you not the mount 
 aineer who allowed to preach the gospel of Moses to your 
 neighbors, and then ve;red around and struck a bargain 
 with Lucifer, son of the morning, instead? " 
 
 " I reckon I m the man you mean," was the answer to the 
 gravely quizzical question. "My name is Lennard." 
 
 " Ah! I guessed it. Well, Mr. Lennard, glad to know 
 you; and if I get mired any deeper in my righteous endeav 
 ors, you will have a new disciple. May I ask," he added, 
 dubiously, "if that forked stick you carry is the sign man-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 65 
 
 ual of your shady employer? It looks a little like the 
 pronged affairs the devils stir fires with in pictures." 
 
 "Yes," agreed the man, "in pictures." He had picked 
 up the staff of white maple, and walked around the cliff 
 ahead of the horse. Over his broad shoulder was slung a 
 sack from which protruded a hammer, an adz, and a 
 square-rule. In Don s irreverent mind arose another pic 
 ture one of Joseph, the carpenter. 
 
 " Only to complete it I would have to wear petticoats," 
 was his mental addition as he followed in the wake of the 
 other. " I wonder if he is too sensitive to answer the ques 
 tion of the embryo pitchfork ? " 
 
 But as they reached the level above the cliff, the level 
 carpeted with mountain-tea and rabbit-berries, and thick 
 with rustling laurel, the mountaineer halted. 
 
 " When you get up here on top of the rocks, especially 
 on a hot day when the place gets rightly warmed up, you re 
 more than likely to find out the use of a stick like this," he 
 observed. " I carry it for snakes." 
 
 "Here? "and Mr. Edson s eyes sought the sun-flecked 
 carpet warily. 
 
 " Sometimes in fact, it s always safe to keep a lookout 
 for them on this side of the mountain; they travel a good 
 bit after the thunder wakes them up, and on till the frost 
 comes. The den is over that other ridge." 
 
 "Oh, it is a good thing to know and keep away from," 
 decided the owner of the domain mentioned. " A rattle 
 snake-den is a dubious thing to trade for shouldn t you 
 think so ? But as they are my property, I had best try cul 
 tivating them don t imagine they would recognize my 
 right, though, any more than the other tenants." 
 
 The man striding ahead seemed impervious to this 
 light and airy persiflage. Might he be one of the other 
 tenants? The thought occurring to Don made him 
 5
 
 66 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 grin comically, and then ask the question with conciliating 
 gravity. 
 
 " No, sir," answered the disciple of Lucifer by his own 
 acquiescence; " I never lived on any man s land but my 
 own. Folks call it the bee-hive sometimes, as it s so 
 small a plat of ground; and I ve gathered up fruit-trees out 
 of the woods until it s full of them now only room enough 
 left for the bees and me." 
 
 " Oh, you keep bees ? " 
 
 " Some wild ones I ve tolled there. A man can find 
 most everything he wants to live on out of the timber, if 
 only he s a mind to try and manage them." 
 
 " Um ! that so ?" queried Mr. Edson. " Do you know, Mr. 
 Leopard " 
 
 " My name is Lennard," corrected the man, quietly. 
 
 " Thanks. Well, as I was about to remark, your statement 
 that a man can live easily on the fruits of the wilderness is 
 among the most welcome news I ve received out here. 1 
 may come to that myself, and then will look you up to teach 
 me how to manage them." 
 
 " People can t get much of that kind of learning second 
 hand," remarked the garnerer of wild things. " You d just 
 have to live among them till you get to know them. But 
 if ever I can help you, come for me. You ve done a good 
 turn for a man who needed it down there in the valley, and 
 mountain folks ought to mind that of you." 
 
 " Bosh ! " interjected the other, aggrievedly; " now you 
 are bringing me right back to some nagging things I was 
 delightfully singing myself away from when I met you. It s 
 bad enough to repent of wickedness, but generally one only 
 repents after he has had a jolly good time, and even then 
 it s only for the bill he has to pay. But when a man repents 
 of his good actions, he never has those recollections of jolly 
 things to console him; he is told to look into the sweet
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 67 
 
 by and by for his recompense, but it s always a cloudy day 
 about that time and he can t see far. Did you ever hear of 
 a grumpy old fellow called Carlyle ? " 
 
 " No, I think not." 
 
 " He didn t live around here," continued Mr. Edson, 
 condescendingly, "but I hear he is a great thinker of 
 thoughts one of the thoughts occurred to me just now; 
 it s a bit humbuggish to me thought I d ask if you knew 
 him." 
 
 " No, the people I know tire their muscles sometimes 
 never their brains," said the man, with mild concision; 
 " but the thought? " Evidently there was a bit of fasci 
 nation for him in the ideas of a thinker, though he was 
 exiled from them; it was, at any rate, the first thing he had 
 cared to question of. 
 
 "The thought? Oh, yes; my own natural and righteous 
 repentance made me remember it. Well, he s a bit of an 
 advocate for sacrifice (in other people, my friend) never 
 heard of any heroic sacrifices he made; but he admon 
 ishes people to say good-bye to all kinds of happiness, 
 that it is a very empty affair, and that with self-renunciation 
 life begins. Well," continued Mr. Edson, with a confiding 
 air, " I think the old man was after a mistaken idea that trip 
 into his brain; but if he should be right and me wrong, I 
 might as my self-renunciation has brought me to the 
 verge of bankruptcy comfort myself by believing that in 
 return life was about to begin begin for me here on the 
 mountain;" and he laughed softly at the idea. "I rather 
 think I ve lived through the most it has to offer." 
 
 The man ahead halted and looked up into the confidant, 
 audacious face. 
 
 " Don t you be throwing out challenges to God," he said, 
 with the quiet steadiness of a man who weighs his words, 
 "or you may be offered something you ll have to take that
 
 68 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 you re not reckoning on. I ve seen it happen before 
 to-day all in justice, too." 
 
 Mr. Edson whistled gently at this reproof, and opened 
 the audacious eyes a trifle wider. 
 
 " Natural advice from an orthodox," he agreed; " but I 
 thought you belonged to the lot who leave God out of the 
 universe. I ve heard them call you " He stopped 
 short; fitful as he was to serious thought and flippantly 
 as he treated it, his face flushed with impatience as he 
 found his tongue running so far ahead of his discretion. 
 " I really beg you pardon," he said, putting out his hand 
 in an impulsive way, and with a smile winningly character 
 istic of his desire to please. " You speak like a gentleman, 
 and I like a fool; but if you can get used to the idea 
 that I m a harmless sort of a fool, we may get along all 
 right together." 
 
 " I shouldn t wonder if we did," said the older man in 
 the same quiet way, but closing his eyes for an instant, 
 much as the other remembered him doing that first day; 
 so he did not see the offered hand, Don supposed, and with 
 a grimace and a sigh the unaccepted member was thrust in 
 his pocket. " And you needn t feel bad about what they call 
 me here," continued the man; "it s the Pagan, I reckon. 
 Yes, I ve heard them. I don t mind it now. It isn t for 
 not believing in God that these pious folks damn a man, 
 or have the will to do it. It s enough for them to know 
 that a man has his own opinion about the character of the 
 Almighty, and can t in his soul see a justice and a lesson 
 in the God Moses tells about. That was Moses idea of 
 what a God ought to be, I reckon, an I fought for faith in 
 it for a longtime; but it s gone. The Almighty I d try to 
 reach is above tradin blessings for sheep s blood. I ain t 
 askin* any help from God, becase I won t get it. I get a 
 chance to work out my own salvation, iest as everv other
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 69 
 
 human has to for the sins o this life an the other lives 
 before this." 
 
 " Oh, the other lives before this yes," murmured Mr. 
 Edson, eying the broad shoulders of this queer specimen 
 of paganism, and wondering what his chances would be to 
 get out of the way with a whole hide if the man s opinions 
 were likely to render him combative as well as strongly 
 assertive. Had he not heard that the " Pagan " was 
 a little "touched " mentally? And the meeting in the timber 
 began to have the savor of an adventure, and the contest 
 between discretion and curiosity in the young man s mind 
 was won by the latter when he ventured: "Those lives 
 you spoke of just now the lives before this now do 
 you know, Mr. Lennard, I haven t just as clear a recollec 
 tion of mine as I would like to have." 
 
 " None of us have," announced the man, gravely, not 
 seeing the quizzical expression on the other face. " None 
 of us have seen the future life, either, I reckon only in 
 dreams, may be but something tells us to believe in it; 
 an if our souls are immortal an have no end, it s reason 
 able to ask where the beginning of it was. I don t know 
 what your feelings tell you about it, but mine tell me I 
 was in this world before; not just remembrance, but kind 
 o feelings when you come to places, an people, an 
 thoughts in books that you know have been something to 
 you, but you haven t got the record right clear enough to 
 tell just when. Could you tell me true" and he stopped 
 squarely and looked up at his listener "could you tell me 
 true, an say that you haven t ever come to faces an eyes 
 especially eyes that set you thinking like that?" 
 
 "Especially eyes!" Don tried to look down noncha 
 lantly into the questioning ones raised to him, and failed 
 utterly. What curious eyes they were, with the green 
 glints across the gray like an agate he had seen somewhere
 
 70 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 but where? or might it have been the eyes themselves? 
 He felt a swift chill touch him as he tried to take his eyes 
 away from those other compelling ones, and could not. 
 He knew a dizziness as though the earth was coming up 
 to meet him, and the spell was broken by the clasp of a 
 hand on his wrist. 
 
 " There! we ll drop that question for this time," he 
 heard the man saying in a kind voice. "You re strong 
 enough in some ways, but not in others. It s the bird that 
 sings in the throat there that makes you easily touched. 
 Did you know that the snakes charm the birds easier than 
 any other thing? " 
 
 "The snakes ugh! " and Mr. Edson shivered back into 
 a realization that his horse was again walking through the 
 laurel, and that the green-eyed monster with the earnest 
 face was walking beside him. " What makes you speak of 
 snakes like that? and will you have the indulgence to tell 
 me what happened back there? some jugglery." 
 
 " I don t know," said the man, slowly; " one o the marks 
 left on me to carry into this life, I reckon it s been called 
 different names. Long ago, when people could lay their 
 hands or their eyes on others an influence them for good, 
 it was called the power o God, an the people who had it 
 were called saints; an then when it was used for bad it was 
 called the workings o the devil, an the people were burned 
 for witches; an ye ve heard tell of it, I reckon. I can t 
 explain I don t know how it comes; it s the weight o jus 
 tice, I reckon. I was a boy when they said it was the devil 
 in me. I ve grown to be a man, an they can t say harm 
 I ve ever done, but they believe it s the devil yet." 
 
 " And back there ? " 
 
 Don s brows were wrinkled perplexedly trying to follow 
 the slow statements and the queer sensations he had felt 
 for a moment.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 71 
 
 " Back there ? oh, I was earnest, that was all powerful 
 earnest an I looked at you so an clean forgot everything 
 till I saw you get white. You see, sir," he added, pathetic 
 ally apologetic, " this seems the corner o the earth my life 
 is made for, but sometimes I ve been starved like for more 
 laming out o books, an when I can ask anyone who has 
 studied books, an the world, may be, my tongue don t seem 
 to belong to me any more I just have to ask; an that s 
 why I was so earnest, a hoping some day I ll come across 
 some man or some woman who feels as I do about God s 
 plan and the justice in it; but I never have yet, an a good 
 many never give me the chance to ask them a second time." 
 
 " I can understand that, too," said Mr. Edson, with sus 
 picious alacrity. He was beginning to recover something 
 of his natural manner, but was not yet quite decided 
 whether this advocate of reincarnation and dispenser of 
 charms should be viewed in a comical or pathetic light. 
 What a queer confession of faith! Religious doubts did 
 not trouble Don enough for him to understand any sound 
 mind becoming perplexed very deeply. His own interest 
 in things theological had never led him far enough to reach 
 doubt. But this other man where had he ever gathered 
 those ideas? Assuredly not through association with 
 like minds. Don had a conviction that it was as well there 
 were no like minds to keep him company. 
 
 They had reached a plateau in the wood where the trail 
 branched into two; a stranger could scarcely have seen 
 their faint tracing, but to the mountaineer the hills and the 
 valleys were as the pages of one book, allowed to be within 
 reach of his hands always. 
 
 " I m on my way to the forge at the Ledge," he said, 
 " an if you re for a different trail we part here." 
 
 " But I am not; I m going there myself, and then, I think, 
 to Riker s."
 
 72 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 The green-eyed monster Don had already mentally 
 invested him with that title looked up at him, one curious, 
 searching gaze, quickly withdrawn. 
 
 "An* you re bound for Indian Ledge too, to-day?" he 
 said, slowly. " Well, I reckon there is room enough on the 
 trail for us both." But for the rest of the way speech was 
 gone from his tongue; the mood that had invited compan 
 ionship of thought had departed. Something that he had 
 forgotten or driven away for a space had settled like a cloud 
 over the serious face, and he stalked on with bent head, 
 answering only when spoken to. But once he spoke 
 unasked, when his companion, for some awkward trick 
 of horsemanship, gave vent to an opinion on his own 
 restrictions in a mental sense when he was ushered into the 
 world. 
 
 "You called yourself a fool, away across the ridge there, 
 too," he stated, "an you haven t any call to do that. You 
 ain t a fool, but I don t reckon you know yet rightly what 
 you are, or what it s in you to be; lots o people go clear 
 through life an never find the best that might be in them, 
 and they ain t fools, either." 
 
 " Thanks," murmured Mr. Edson, with the humility that 
 was suspicious. 
 
 " It s got to come gradual, that kind o knowledge," con 
 tinued the other, ruminatively; "it s a gift some people are 
 fenced jest out o reach of all through this life a long 
 ing for the knowledge and a guessing at its worth, but not 
 let touch it. An something tells me them same people 
 have had laming and knowledge in some other life, an 
 abused it, may be, or threw it away, an their punishment is 
 to live now without it, but with the something inside always 
 telling them, // belonged to you once, but not now; you threw 
 away the thing you re a starving for, an you re only get 
 ting justice. Yes, sir," he added, rousing himself as if to
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 73 
 
 take his companion into the confidences that had lowered 
 to a soliloquy " yes, sir, I reckon that law was made to 
 stand, an will fit every life that comes into this world. 
 Justice makes us take our heaven or our hell, jest whichever 
 we ve earned, an there ain t use in begging for mercy; 
 "natural laws don t change." 
 
 " There ain t use in begging for mercy! " Don felt him 
 self half-whispering the words over to himself, they had 
 been spoken with a resignation so touching, and so uncon 
 scious, and the intonation was so in keeping with the pathos 
 in the great drooping figure; a load heavier than the 
 visible one of carpenter-tools seemed laid on the broad 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Poor devil!" thought the young fellow, commiserat- 
 ingly; " I guess his brain must be touched through wanting 
 education, and he has settled into the conviction that it is 
 justice for past unknown offenses. What a weird idea to 
 carry through life! and daft as he is, how he starts specu 
 lation in a fellow s head with those queer ideas! I don t 
 believe I care to cultivate such a deep thinker as a steady 
 companion. He would upset the philosophical calm of 
 the patriarchal life I intend leading up here." 
 
 The noon was far past when the forge at the foot of Indian 
 Ledge was reached a little sheltered cove in a wild gorge, 
 where great trees dipped down from the heights, uprooted 
 by storms, forming trestles of their dead bodies on which 
 one could cross at places from wall to wall. "Here and 
 there rootlets had caught at the frowning face, fastening 
 their fingers in the soil, and leaned far out to peep into the 
 pools where the trout leaped. Clean-limbed birches and 
 dark-shadowed pines clung there as living monuments of 
 tenacity; and over the living and dead of the ledge the 
 wild grape crept in great serpentine coils, and the deadly 
 ivy reared aloft its flaunting head, and killed while it clothed
 
 74 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 the thing it clung to; and far in the shadows, in the moist 
 loam where the withered leaves hide, shone the great snowy 
 stars of the Indian turnip, whose bloom was all gone in the 
 more exposed places. 
 
 The place was all very quiet as they went along the path 
 that at times crossed the tinkling stream, and again crept 
 upward along the side of the dipping walls; even the birds 
 did not sing down there in the depths, but they could be 
 heard dimly up on the heights where the sun shone. 
 
 " This is the third time I ve come up that gorge," re 
 marked Don, turning in the saddle and looking back; "and 
 I always feel a shivering sensation the dampness and 
 shadows, I suppose." 
 
 The other man raised his head and listened a moment to 
 the carols high up that echoed above the cliffs. 
 
 "It s because you re meant for the warm and bright 
 places," he said, simply; "some are born for that just as 
 the birds are." 
 
 " That sounds nice," agreed Mr. Edson; " but, my friend, 
 don t dress me out in so many poetical fancies, or I won t 
 know myself. I ll wager," he added, quizzically, " you 
 could make rhymes and verses if you set your mind to it. 
 You ought to you see things with your mind instead of 
 your eyes, and that s the way poets do; and they often see 
 things crooked, and make up for it with a jingle. Your 
 jingle about the birds is a pretty idea, but it doesn t 
 quite hit the mark; you might as well have said a cat as a 
 bird they like the warm places too." 
 
 " I-wasn t meaning a cat," answered the other tranquilly. 
 " I said what I meant." 
 
 " No one at the forge, is there? " and the other subject 
 was dropped as they rounded a curve that brought them 
 to the great smoke-stained rock, jutting out its natural roof 
 above the forge, where the coals were dead.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 75 
 
 " Up at the house, may be;" and the sack of tools was 
 dropped by the anvil. " Do you want to go up? " 
 
 "I think not," decided Mr. Edson; "that is, not if you 
 are going, and will tell Le Fevre I m here. I ve never yet 
 visited his castle on the heights there, and from the stories 
 I ve heard of his ferocious women folk, don t think I ll 
 venture to-day. I m fond of the gentle sex when they re 
 gentle, but I don t care particularly for those of the ancient 
 witchery order. No, I ll wait here; but you can take my 
 horse, if it s far." 
 
 " Only over the ledge, and I ll walk." 
 
 Don dismounted, and finding a place where the sun 
 penetrated in a great warm patch, he sat down and watched 
 with amused perplexity the stalwart figure of the 
 "monster" as he went up up the course of the stream 
 until a drooping pine hid him from sight. That is, he told 
 himself he was amused, but he was not so sure of that as 
 of the perplexity the earnestness of the man in his strange 
 fancies made laughter a hollow sort of an affair; and as 
 he could not laugh, he consoled himself with whistling. 
 
 But had he been able to follow with his eyes the man 
 whom he decided was a bit crazy, he would no doubt have 
 given up the whistle, too, for just at the foot of the ledge, 
 where the narrow path led almost straight up the surface 
 of it, he had dropped down on a fallen log; his head leaned 
 on his hands as it had leaned that evening on the store 
 porch, when the dog had offered him sympathy. 
 
 " It is comingj sure," he said, low, but aloud, as if with 
 the voice to reason some idea for the clearer comprehension 
 of his brain ; "sure, sure as justice. Ain t my load been heavy 
 enough, I wonder? Did I ever make any soul suffer, and 
 suffer as I have to do now? And all quiet, no one knowing, 
 no one guessing; that makes it harder, sometimes. And 
 then, again, what s the use? All the thinking won t help it.
 
 76 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 I m only wearin my heart out with this fearing; but their 
 eyes told. She looked what I felt once the time I saw a 
 soul I felt I belonged to that ought to belong to me. It s 
 an awful thing to have to live a life through knowing that, 
 and knowing that till the day you die that soul you belong 
 to will never know you from the rest." 
 
 His breath came brokenly, convulsively, as if sobs were 
 back of them, but the eyes were dry and staring down into 
 the shadows below. 
 
 " It s an awful thing for one soul to jest live on the 
 breath of another," he repeated; "jest trembling like on 
 the edge o life, like that pine-tree there that hangs over the 
 ledge. It s grown on and on that way it s an old tree 
 now and it never once knew what it meant to be sure of 
 the ground it grew in or to raise its head up high where 
 the others are; and suppose it could think and pine-trees 
 do moan more than other trees. Is there a soul there too in 
 prison? And if it can think or feel, how the storms must 
 have made it ache an tremble ache an tremble all these 
 years an years aching away there in its heart, and tryin 
 not to let on, and whispering soft and kind to coax the 
 birds down there; for it can t even hear their music if it 
 moans. Moans and heart-aches scare the birds, jest as if 
 they were human, I reckon. It s the hearts that are light 
 and laugh that draw people to them; .... and 
 souls are the same only our faces, and the bark of the 
 tree, and the feathers of the bird hide them, that s all; and 
 sometime will we all be alike again sometime when the 
 sin an the ignorance o the world is cured? I m tryin to 
 think o that time, I m tryin hard; . . . that s the only 
 way I can lift myself up out o this hell o loneliness." 
 
 He arose after a little, stretching out his arms and 
 throwing back his shoulders. 
 
 " But that s becase I m turning coward," he said, and
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 77 
 
 threw back his head and looked up where the birch-leaves 
 shimmered between where he stood and the blue vault 
 above. " I don t know what you are," he said, darkly " you 
 who rules. I believe I m a part of you, though, even if I do 
 seem cursed; an I ll get back there sometime, after this hell s 
 over. I m not asking- help them years I prayed taught 
 me better. But when my heart gets sick, I ve got to hear 
 words, and so I just tell myself that it s the human part of 
 me that turns coward, and begs for the happy ways that 
 other folks live in; but all the time something in me says, 
 It ain t for you, so I ve got to jest keep strong without 
 any hope, and live the best I can under this sentence. 
 . . . Did I ever make anyone suffer like this, I wonder? 
 That thought always comes back to me, that and the 
 thought that I must have abused book-larning sometime; 
 an the natural revenge is justice That set 
 tles it;" and he turned his steps stubbornly on the path 
 again. " I jest had to take time to tell myself that what 
 is to be is to be what is is right and it s only a coward 
 who s afraid of justice. A coward, a coward" and the 
 words kept time with his feet as he climbed upward " and 
 a coward is a mighty mean thing; it don t dare to raise its 
 eyes an look life in the face. Is it for her I get to 
 be a coward sometimes, or for my own self? I can t tell. 
 Something inside makes me sick with dread ever since that 
 day. She believes in the angels, though may be that s the 
 reason the singing made her what use in my try 
 ing to see back of thoughts. I can go so far, and then 
 comes the wall, and I m out; and death is the gate, and 
 only the souls who shirk working out their own salvation 
 are the ones who try breaking the lock of it. I won t 
 do that. I thought of it that time when I prayed ; I ve lamed 
 better. I d only have to come back and live the life out,
 
 78 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 and be that much farther away from her. No, I ll never 
 do that." 
 
 He spoke aloud, but low, as lonely, isolated thinkers 
 are apt to do, carrying a conviction of things to their own 
 senses through the voice, that might not reach them 
 through the silence; and he had talked away some of the 
 strained, lost look that had been in his eyes when he halted 
 at the foot of the cliff, and a stronger light of determina 
 tion went up with him through the path that was flanked 
 pink and green with the laurel. He stooped down and 
 touched with his fingers the shining leaves. How often 
 he had lain through boyhood and manhood under this 
 mantle of the mountain, thinking over the teachings of 
 wordy creeds, and finding himself so often wickedly at war 
 with them; and when among the older people, how he 
 would listen to discover if in any one speech there was 
 given a hint of the troublous doubts that perplexed him! 
 But there never was. Their oaths were proof of a most 
 intense conviction of a personal God, who had the power 
 to damn any soul at will and the will of the God whom 
 Moses gave them was so variable a thing as he read it, and 
 the curses and blessings always were drifted to the wrong 
 people; and though he tried and tried, he could read it in 
 no other way. And then he would listen to the women 
 folk, who sometimes discussed the texts of the preachers 
 who came among them; but in all he saw a placid, pious 
 faith. Sometimes they did not understand, but they never 
 doubted because of that; they contented themselves with 
 the idea that there were some things not to be revealed to 
 every gaze, and their faith kept them in content the 
 preacher knew, if they did not! 
 
 And then he would go away more lonely than ever to the 
 mountain, where the pine and the laurel whispered creeds 
 not written in any books, and they brought to him the only
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 79 
 
 revelations he had known of beauty; and the moist earth 
 would absorb the tears shed for his wickedness, and would 
 bring to him the murmur, murmur, murmur of the innu 
 merable lives that lived through it, and soothing promises 
 of sympathy more real than ever reached him through 
 people or their written laws. And the laurel had shad 
 owed him, too, when those strays of memory had drifted to 
 him in half-elusive fragments from a world of the past 
 a memory as of a vision of past woe, of past gladness, 
 that awoke in him when the storms writhed down the 
 mountain, or when the dawn with gold floods of light 
 showered its sweetness over the valleys. 
 
 In a dim way he felt his soul was as the soul of the for 
 est-growths, only it was yet in the husk, half-shrouded in 
 the earth; its past summer but faintly guessed at, its sum 
 mer to come not yet won. 
 
 And the husk in the earth must school itself to patience 
 through the long winter; for only so will the seed within 
 be granted life, and only so will the blossom be perfect in 
 its season. 
 
 Thus had he come to conviction, after dark wanderings 
 through the land of ignorance. The seed of the flower 
 held a soul as his own body held one each was an expres 
 sion of God; one was to be a smile, perhaps, and the 
 other a lesson, and each, to fulfill its mission, must work 
 its own way to light through the mold; that was nature 
 in all things, and so justice. When he could reason out 
 anything until it rested on justice, he was content for that 
 time. Justice could not err. 
 
 And the whispers of the unchanging laurel he wel 
 comed and drew close as kindred, although he had never 
 heard of pantheism. 
 
 Going up through the summer sunshine, he touched the 
 leaves just as he would touch the hand of a friend. They
 
 80 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 were friends, for they held so many of his secrets those 
 laurels; and never once had they betrayed one. 
 
 And with the caress of their evergreen fingers he was 
 conscious of a feeling that here, alone in the wild places, 
 content always crept closest to him. Only when out among 
 the faces of men did the discords begin; none felt as he 
 felt; the psalm of their lives was in a different key. His 
 was too high or too low; he could not tell which. Only at 
 times had he felt drawn across the gulf that divided them 
 at times when human eyes had met his own, and in their 
 unconscious depths he had read a bond from a life past 
 links that had once bound him; a bondage sweet, no 
 doubt, but forfeited to some rule of that justice to which 
 he bowed. 
 
 Other eyes besides sympathetic ones touched him and 
 aroused those dreams eyes from which he shrunk with a 
 seemingly causeless antipathy, and his own would lower; 
 and he would tell himself, " Sometime I did harm to that 
 soul, or else it did harm to me; it forgets, and I can t remem 
 ber clear, but it was so sometime. That s why I shiver 
 when I hear the voice, or know when it comes close to me, 
 even if I don t see it." 
 
 Something like that had come in his thoughts when ne 
 saw the dauntless eyes of this man who laughed and sung 
 and won people s liking not an antipathy, but a recog 
 nition of some power disastrous to content; and the bird 
 triumphant calling from his throat seemed to this dreamer 
 to be flinging out taunts of ridicule to the dark plodder who 
 realized his own impotence against the gay witcheries back 
 of the music. 
 
 So, as any man or woman of the mountain could testify, it 
 was small wonder that, from calling him "silly" or pos 
 sessed of the devil in his boyish days, they had drifted into 
 calling him a pagan in his manhood. A preacher who long
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 81 
 
 ago had tried to reason with him had added the last term, 
 and, as it seemed fitting, it stuck; and he felt the weight of 
 it at times when among people, but it always dropped 
 lightly off and tendered him recompense when among the 
 laurels. 
 
 A voice came to him over the warm breath of the noon 
 a high, shrill voice, raised above the snarl and yelp of 
 dogs all hidden from sight, however, by the thick growth 
 of young brush. Tt broke in on the self-communion of the 
 mountaineer, scattering dreams and retrospection back to 
 their shadowy coves of the brain; and his face, seriously 
 impassive, met the owner of the voice as he skirted the 
 thicket and came abruptly on the cabin of logs. 
 
 She was not a prepossessing owner of anything, and she 
 looked perfectly in keeping with the gaunt hounds and 
 shaggy, fierce-eyed mongrels who leaped and struggled 
 over each other at a log trough into which she had emptied 
 a crock of buttermilk. 
 
 Her height must have been unusual in her youth, but the 
 youth was long past, and the years had settled heavily 
 heavily on her shoulders, forcing them down and forward 
 until the long head thrust itself out from under them like a 
 turtle s; and the long staff she leaned on made her look 
 something like the pictures of the witches in story-books. 
 One would never have mistaken her for the venerable fairy 
 of the same source the eyes under the shaggy, white 
 brows were too fierce, and the mouth, with its perpetual 
 sneer, had in it too much cruelty; and her shrill laugh, as a 
 shivering, frightened pup was caught in the teeth of a great 
 mongrel and flung backward over the rest, was not good to 
 hear. 
 
 "Did ye see that ?" she demanded, as greeting. "An 
 that s the dog Dick swore he would shoot, an you swore
 
 82 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 was no good. He s good enough to fight for his own, I ll 
 be bound." 
 
 " I said you d enough without him more than you feed, 
 answered the man, tersely; "I swore to nothing." 
 
 " Case yer such a d d forsaken cuss ye ve got not a 
 thing to swear by," grinned the venerable lady, with a good 
 deal of relish. " If ye d right gumption, ye d make that 
 much use, anyway, of the heathen idol folks reckon ye ve 
 got hid som ers on the mountain. I d make it do to swear 
 by yes, sir! " 
 
 "Where s Dick?" 
 
 The old lady snarled at his unconcern of her sarcasm, 
 and seated herself on the edge of the porch before deigning 
 a reply. 
 
 " Dick s where every man ought to be," she answered; 
 " at home." 
 
 "Whereabouts?" and his eyes flung glances of search 
 over the little stumpy clearing back of the house. "I 
 can t see him." 
 
 "Naw, nor you won t," stated the hospitable chatelaine, 
 complacently; "Dick s in bed." 
 
 "Sick?" 
 
 The sneer on the satirical lips widened into a smile. 
 
 "Who ever saw him sick my Dick?" she demanded; 
 "he ain t one o yer skim-milk, dauncy ones. He s as stout 
 as a young bull, even if he isn t so big as all out-doors;" 
 and she glanced vindictively at the stalwart figure of the 
 man who stood there perfectly untouched by her slurs and 
 evident antagonism. "Naw, he ain t ailin jest tired an 
 sleepy; out huntin huntin coons last night." 
 
 "Don t lie, Granny," advised her visitor; "it isn t worth 
 your while to lie to me, and you re old enough to know 
 better. Folks don t hunt coons in June. You tell him
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 83 
 
 there s a man down at the forge to see him; and I want 
 your brace and bit to take down to Riker s." 
 
 " Don t know where it is, and yen can t get it," stated 
 Granny, concisely. 
 
 "Yes you do, too, and he can," called a voice through 
 the open door; and the luxurious Richard appeared, slipping 
 his suspenders up over his shoulders as he came. " Who s 
 the man ? " 
 
 " Donald Edson." 
 
 " Old Donald ? " queried Granny, with sudden interest. 
 
 "No; the other." 
 
 "What s he travelin the road up this gorge for?" she 
 demanded, peevishly. "Three times I ve heard tell of him 
 at the forge now; what s it for ? " 
 
 "Horse-shoeing, and such," answered her grandson; 
 "then he s got some right to this side of the hill, likely. 
 They say the old man give him the papers for it." 
 
 An indistinct murmur from the old lady s lips suggested 
 the consignment of said papers to a space under the earth 
 where all papers or other combustible matter are supposed 
 to be converted rapidly into smoke. 
 
 "Stopcussin ," advised the barefooted Adonis, as Dinah 
 had dubbed him. " Where s my other boots ? " 
 
 "Yeh don t need them other boots," was the retort. 
 "What you want " And then she interrupted herself with 
 a chuckling laugh. " May be there s more visitors down the 
 gorge ?" she hazarded, with one eye blinking at the man in 
 a knowing way that was diabolical. "A tony lady, may 
 be, now one o the big-bugs, who would rayther look at a 
 mountain boy that stands straight on his legs than all the 
 pampered " 
 
 " Shut up! " suggested her grandson, who had found the 
 other boots, evidently the newest ones. " You talk too 
 much, Granny."
 
 84 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "Is she down there?" persisted the dame to the older 
 man, who stood waiting for the brace and bit. 
 
 "Who do you mean ?" 
 
 " Ah, but yer innocent! " She nodded sagaciously. " In my 
 young days no pretty woman would ride the mountain with 
 out every mountaineer knowin who she rode to see; but 
 you never did notice women, old or young more fool you! 
 An this one s the slip that rides with young Edson, an 
 asked fer the picture of Dick; an" if ye knew the least o 
 women, ye d know what that means. Is she down there 
 now?" 
 
 " Granny, you know too much," remarked Dick, though 
 not looking ill-pleased at this particular statement of knowl 
 edge, since it was in a way laudatory of his own attractions. 
 
 " No woman is down there. Am I to get that bit?" 
 
 "You are, you know. Granny, go and get it for him, 
 wherever you have it stuck away;" and the lord of the 
 manor flung back under the bed the " other " boots, and 
 drew on instead the every-day ones, that were not quite so 
 lengthy or picturesque. 
 
 The old lady moved meekly away in search of the 
 required article, muttering as she went her disappointment 
 that the girl wasn t there too. 
 
 "Jest so I could tell her" she added, in explanation. 
 " It ud ta nt her some, I reckon, though she .is powerful 
 independent sence she come across from Verginny this 
 time; but that ud likely ta nt her some." 
 
 "Where is she?" asked their visitor; and at the same mo 
 ment another voice arose, asking for someone a shrill, 
 plaintive voice from the house, toward which the old lady 
 turned with an expressive expletive. 
 
 "There it is again!" she announced, sourly. "Jest 
 squall, squall this blessed day. When I had young ones, I 
 didn t shove them on other people s hands to keer for; I "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 85 
 
 " No matter what ye did with yourn," decided Dick, 
 briefly; " she can t trapse over the mountain after cattle an 
 pack that squaller at the same time. Go in an tend to 
 her." 
 
 She dutifully hobbled in; evidently she never had a 
 thought of disobeying any command of her grandson, 
 though at the door she did turn around with a vindictive 
 sort of admiration in her face. 
 
 " You re slick, Dick Le Fevre, you are," she leered; " yer 
 slicker than yer granny, far and away! Who was it cu: sed 
 her fer all that was out, an sent her after them strays, hey? 
 An now yeh ups an chips in takin her part jest case Bud s 
 here. Lord! Bud knows yeh! " 
 
 Bud had pushed past her and lifted from the bed the 
 wailing little creature whose life had measured but a little 
 time in the world of the mountain. Its wails ceased as it 
 felt itself lifted and petted in a silent fashion; and its ven 
 erable ancestress seated herself again on the door-step, well 
 content so long as she did not need to trouble herself 
 about it. 
 
 "This baby s hungry," said Bud, coming to the door. 
 " How long has she been gone ? " 
 
 " Hour or so," answered the father. " Give it to Granny, 
 an come on; she ll be back before long." 
 
 " If so be she finds them cattle," added the old lady; 
 " you told her not to show her face till she did." 
 
 "Oh, I tell her a heap when the days are long," he 
 answered, easily; " an jest now I m tellin you to feed that 
 young one an keep it quiet do you hear?" 
 
 And then, care free and omnipotent in his own domi 
 cile, Mr. Le Fevre lounged out across the yard toward the 
 thicket. The man with the child in his arms stood silent, 
 watching the old woman as she set a tin of milk on a few 
 coals and began preparations that showed him she was
 
 86 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 about to carry out the instructions received, and then he 
 laid the baby on her lap. 
 
 " She ll be sick if she s let cry any more," he said, threat 
 eningly; " she s ailing some now, *an she ought to have 
 her." 
 
 " Go along with ye! Yeh talk all the time like yeh was a 
 granny yerself, Bud Lennard. I ll swear yeh ought to be a 
 daddy, anyhow, fer the way yeh handle young ones." 
 
 He picked up the brace and bit, with no reply to thia 
 opinion, or the cackling laughter that followed him, and 
 with quick strides he walked out and along the path the 
 way he had come. A little way out he reached Le Fevre. 
 
 " Did you and him come together ? " he asked, slightly 
 interested, but not turning his head, as the other came up 
 behind him. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Thought I heard you say you didn t know him, jest the 
 other day ? " 
 
 No answer was returned to this, and the silence was 
 broken after a little by Mr. Le Fevre adding: 
 
 " Say, have you noticed what a good man he is like to 
 be ? He looks soft an pale, but he s got a grip, now; an 
 he s springy as a cat, an good wind to back it. I saw him 
 handling some hell-pets of horses up at The Notch, an 
 he s got muscle, he has, yeh know! " 
 
 "So have I," said the voice back of him; and something 
 in the sound of it made him turn quickly. 
 
 " Why, Bud" 
 
 " I won t try gettin at this question through your brain," 
 said Bud, steadily, breaking in on Le Fevre s half-formed 
 question, " because you haven t dragged yourself up yet to 
 where justice an reason mean anything to you; and I won t 
 try gettin at it through your feelin s, for you ve drowned 
 the best o them in that new whisky o yours, else you d be
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 87 
 
 touched by that little baby that s ailin back there. But 
 you can still feel if a man hits you, I reckon; an I m tellin 
 you I ll break your neck if I hear again of you sendin her 
 away from the baby like that. You know I don t lie." 
 
 "I know yer meddlin a heap ! " retorted the other; "a 
 body ud think yeh were close kin the way yeh go on. She s 
 satisfied, I reckon, or she wouldn t a come back from over 
 the line; jest let us alone, will yeh ? " 
 
 "She come back on account o the baby an" some idees 
 she has o duty some idees you wouldn t understand be 
 cause she s a good girl," said the other, with scant respect 
 for Mr. Le Fevre s worth; "an you ll be sorry some day, 
 Dick, if you treat her bad. You re only a boy, after all, 
 an a boy that don t take kind to teachin ; but you ve got 
 to do what s right by that girl, or I ll do as I said." 
 
 "What s it your business, anyway ? " demanded Le Fevre, 
 sullenly. " I can t keep a wife up like a lady, if that s what 
 you want." 
 
 " Your wife is a lady she s a good girl; she don t know 
 half the wickedness she lives among. I wouldn t see a man 
 abuse a horse, an I won t see one abuse a woman or child, 
 an that s what it amounts to if you don t do yer duty by them; 
 you re abusing the laws o duty an justice to the life you ve 
 brought into the world, an the life ye promised to care for. 
 Boy ! boy ! you don t know what you re throwing away ! " 
 
 The "boy" looked a little embarrassed under the feeling 
 in the man s voice; it stripped him of his aggressiveness and 
 left him rather defenseless. 
 
 " But what s your call to " 
 
 " Never mind what it is," was the quiet reply. " I don t 
 intend to give it up. I m going on down this trail to 
 Riker s don t feel like meetin strangers again to-day, but 
 you ll find him there at the forge; and, Dick, jest keep in 
 yer mind what I told you keep it in yer mind! "
 
 88 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DAPHNE. 
 
 The warm wind of the west (Zephyrus the tender) was 
 bearing back to the mountain mementos of the vanished 
 sun. In the ferny, moist places of the forest arose the 
 sweet breaths that welcome the dusk, that lover of the hid 
 den places. A few belated robins were yet calling to each 
 other, and in far-away valleys and the nearer highlands 
 whip-poor-wills sung to the night. 
 
 The darkness had not yet fallen/ It was one of the 
 White nights, when that shadowed cloak is fastened up 
 ward with the stars; an evening when the dusk and the 
 dawn blend their colors and woo the pink afterglow of the 
 day into their wedding of tender tones. The pale yellow of 
 the lady-slippers could yet be seen nodding in their regal 
 columns, and azalia-bushes yet could thrust their pink 
 crowns from the gathering grays. High up the leaves rustled 
 and whispered in their odorous wind bath, but down below 
 quiet reigned in the sylvan places, and they stretched over 
 the mountain for miles. And then, suddenly, on a vast 
 wooded plateau on three sides of which the earth seemed to 
 drop away, something crossed with sound the sweet good- 
 nights of the robin, and the sweeter silences between. 
 
 At first it was the rustic, rustle of last year s leaves 
 under swift feet, and then, coming closer, the tired, gasping 
 breath of one who has run or walked long; and then a 
 slight girlish figure crossed the dusk and hurried with 
 startled eyes through the wood that looked pathless. 
 
 Every now and then she would halt slightly to listen. 
 Her bonnet, tied by the strings about the round throat, 
 hung down her back, and, bareheaded, she looked like some
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 89 
 
 nymph of the wild places in the half-light that was kind to 
 the coarse shoes and the dress of many patches that was 
 not just the garb for a goddess. 
 
 Surely tha,t was something behind her that tramped, 
 tramped and bore the bushes down like that! It sounded 
 ominous, crashing as it did through dry sticks and twigs 
 that crackled ; and then her evident terror gained a tinge 
 of amazement as she stopped short, listening, with wide 
 eyes and beating heart, and straining her ears to catch 
 again a sound she fancied had come to her. Was that a 
 voice? 
 
 The certainty of it was strong enough to cause her to 
 turn suddenly to her right and walk stealthily forward, with 
 hands pressed over the tumultuous bosom whose throbbing 
 drowned her own hearing. 
 
 But she could not walk far, however; and where she 
 stopped a great crevice yawned deep down, losing itself in 
 blackness. In some places fallen trees bridged it, and the 
 many-armed giant laurel leaned over from either edge, 
 touching fingers at times across the chasm; and it was 
 from across the chasm that sounds had come and the 
 voice, it could be no one who knew the mountain that 
 would wander there in the dark. 
 
 But yes, it was the footfall of a horse striking a rocky 
 surface that came to her ear now, a horse that had h?lted a 
 moment; and again a voice spoke soothingly, encourag 
 ingly. She could hear it quite plainly now, and the foot 
 falls continued; they were coming closer and closer. She 
 could see the horse; there was a white star on his forehead. 
 She could see the rider, whose head was bent peeringly for 
 ward as if to see ahead of the horse, but it was on the ground 
 his eyes were bent as he brushed through the laurel that 
 seemed growing thicker and thicker; it reared grotesque ant 
 lers high above his horse s head, and brushed whisperingly
 
 90 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 past his own ears. He had just broken through what seemed 
 a hedge of them, and reached again the creeping foliage of 
 the huckleberries, when somewhere out of the dusk a voice 
 that seemed quite close to him said, fearfully: 
 
 " You better stop right where you are, sir. " 
 
 He stopped, accordingly, with a grim fancy of highway 
 robbers crossing his mind. Had he not heard of a woman 
 who once carried on such lone traffic on the mountain? 
 But surely she had never made demands for lucre in those 
 pleading, frightened tones! If she had, Don Edson most 
 likely would have emptied his pockets for her. But he was 
 much mystified as he halted and looked above and below 
 and around, and could see only the wordless things of 
 the forest nothing from which the soft, vibrant voice could 
 have come. 
 
 " Well, I ve stopped," he remarked ; " and if it is some dis 
 embodied spirit making the suggestion, I am waiting for 
 the reason." And then straight ahead of him the laurel 
 rustled and parted; two upraised arms shone in the dusk 
 as they thrust aside and bent over the leafy curtain, and a 
 young face, with shy, wide eyes, looked out from the 
 shadows. 
 
 " It s me," she announced. " I was frightened when I saw 
 you makin for the edge like that. Didn t you see it? " 
 
 "See what?" 
 
 "If you get down off your horse an come this way a few 
 steps, you ll find out," was the answer, accompanied by a 
 soft little laugh, nervous yet elated. 
 
 "Yes, I ve found out;" and he arose from the edge of 
 the crevice and looked across it into the eyes opposite. " A 
 little more and my horse and I would have been down 
 there. May I ask if you are the guardian angel of strays 
 and idiots in this corner of the mountain? "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 91 
 
 " No, I m Krin," she said, soberly, drawing back a little. 
 1 1 was huntin our cattle." 
 
 " Krin, are you? " he asked, with the oddest feeling of 
 unreality in the whole twilight picture. He kept his eyes on 
 her face, not quite sure but that she would vanish if once 
 away from his gaze. Had she not once before come to his 
 aid in time of need, and looked at him with those serious, 
 childish eyes, and helped him to a path he had been seeking 
 vainly? And had she not straightway vanished that other 
 time, and filled his days and nights with the haunting 
 memory of her face and eyes? For he had not once been 
 able to free himself from the pleading pathos in them. The 
 odd feeling that had deterred him from asking questions 
 about her came over him, bringing with it an unreal sort of 
 atmosphere, and through it he heard himself say: 
 
 "And you are Krin? Do you know that for a moment I 
 fancied you a ghost instead of a girl." 
 
 " I ain t a girl " she answered, in the same colorless, sober 
 way, " and I must go on; it ll soon be late. If you want to 
 get off that ledge, you ll have to ride most half a mile along 
 it, till you get to the Neck; then cross over an get on the 
 old road. You can go wherever you want to on it." 
 
 " If I know enough," he added. "And you are not 
 a girl? Then my instinct told me right. I knew you 
 were some ghost of the woods! Krin, Krin! Is thatanother 
 name for Daphne? That is who you are, I think Daphne, 
 who was changed into the laurel-bush; and you look all 
 laurel but your face and eyes. If you should vanish now, 
 I would be sure it was just Daphne who spoke to me 
 out of the laurel." 
 
 " I don t know who you mean," she said. " It ain t anyone 
 on the mountain, I reckon." Then she moved out from the 
 circling arms of the bush and stood outlined in the straight, 
 pale folds of her faded gown. " I cross the Neck, an if you
 
 92 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 ride along the edge I ll show you to the old road. Don t 
 ride far back in the brush, though there s another crack in 
 the rock there that s worse than this ledge; it would let you 
 down to the " den." And her voice dropped a tone lower, as 
 if impressed with a great horror at the thought of what 
 already lay in the " den." 
 
 " So I have been riding around and over that snake-den, 
 have I? " he asked, eying dubiously the yawning break in 
 the rock. " May be that s why my horse needed so much 
 coaxing over this level; he had more wit than his rider." 
 
 " Some horses, and dogs too, know a heap," she agreed, in 
 a soft, sedate way, as she moved along the chasm opposite 
 him " a heap about some things. They know quicker than 
 people about snakes an an ghosts an such-like; they are 
 scared of them." 
 
 " Are they? " he queried, smilingly. " Well, my horse is 
 not at all afraid of you." 
 
 " He ain t any call to be;" and there was yet light enough 
 for him to see her serious face, with no comprehension of 
 his humor in it. " I never did hurt to anything not 
 willingly." 
 
 " I believe you," he said, with the strongest, oddest desire 
 to reach across the chasm and touch just once the sloping 
 shoulder that slipped away from the fair neck; just to cross 
 that threatening depth and assure himself of the reality of 
 the form moving through the dusk opposite him. His 
 whimsical fancy was connecting her with a fair, unreal 
 thing of legend that warns creatures of earth away from 
 dangers, she glided so lightly and easily through the 
 meshes of twining limbs and vines, like a slim bird, needing 
 no trodden path; and if she would only speak loudly or 
 brusquely once, he thought it might dispel the ghost-like 
 fancies that persisted in coming to him. But she would 
 not the soft, rare tones had in them something akin to the
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 93 
 
 whisper of a brook and the murmur of some pines he had 
 passed; and then he grimaced in derision of his own poetical 
 similes, but nevertheless he told her of them. 
 
 " That so? " she said, turning the wide eyes in wonder 
 on him. " I reckon not, though; you ain t used to hearing it, 
 that s all. No, I ve no voice. I never could sing; but I like 
 it I like it better than than anything in the world." 
 
 " In the world," he repeated, dubiously. " I have not yet 
 made up my mind whether you are of the world or not." 
 
 She smiled at that. " It ain t much of the world, 
 may be, our mountain, an one of your towns mayn t be 
 much of it; but they all help to make it up, I reckon one 
 as much as the other." 
 
 " But I am not of the towns now," he objected. " I have 
 given them up. I am gojng to claim a partnership in your 
 mountain now, and may be try and steal its music, too. 
 Will you bar me out? I think Daphne was selfish, if I 
 remember; she wanted all the laurel herself." 
 
 " There ain t any can bar you out, I reckon," she 
 answered, looking at him in a puzzled way evidently the 
 name of Daphne was an unsolved problem to her; "and 
 as to the music, sir, you haven t need for any music of 
 the mountain; you ve got your own an an it helps 
 folks more." 
 
 Her utter seriousness stilled the quizzical manner he 
 had called to his aid with which to ridicule himself out of 
 a seriousness that crept to him as he looked at her or 
 listened to her. He had the most ridiculous impulse to 
 ask if it was any sorrow he could assuage that left so 
 pathetic a wistfulness in the wide eyes. They opened a 
 trifle wider, and then dropped shyly, as he raised his hat, 
 and forgetting, evidently, to replace it, rode on in the dusk 
 bareheaded. 
 
 " I am not worth so great a compliment as that," he
 
 94 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 said, after along silence; "may be you will know that 
 some day, little girl some day when you know the world." 
 But the smile he turned to her was not a gay one. "But 
 what is it you mean when you say my music helps people 
 more than the mountains? " 
 
 She looked at him, but dropped her head as well as her 
 eyes this time, and hurried on. He had noticed how very 
 fast she walked from the first, keeping even with his horse, 
 though looking so tired. 
 
 " Can you not tell me?" 
 
 " I I don t know," she said, uncertainly; "you ought to 
 know. It s like when the preacher prays an you feel all 
 at once how wicked you are an an how good you d like 
 to be if you could; only the singing " 
 
 " Well? " 
 
 " It did more than that, someway," she said, breathlessly; 
 for it is not easy to walk rapidly through clumps of wild 
 growth in a forest and talk at the same time. " I know a 
 woman an old woman who got religion once just at a 
 prayer-meetin ; an she told me that the man that prayed 
 wasn t even a preacher, but the things he said meant more 
 cause he d seen a heap of trouble meant more an" was 
 more beautiful-like than she thought any human could ever 
 talk, an an so she felt it was the hand of the Good Man 
 that was on him; an it touched her heart, too, an she saw 
 what heaven might mean if people was only fit for it. 
 And I" 
 
 "Well and you?" 
 
 His voice was soft as her own as he spoke. He was 
 unspeakably impressed by the serious reverence with which 
 she spoke of things sacred to her, and with ever and anon 
 her face turned upward to him, as if with the certainty that 
 he understood clearer than herself the divinity back of the 
 prayers that help; and he a flush of regret crept over
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 95 
 
 him in the dark at the thought of how little he deserved 
 that belief from anyone. He had never appeared to him 
 self quite such a graceless scamp as he did in the light of 
 her simplicity. The fact that her words were slurred and 
 uncouth did not touch him just then all her provincial 
 isms were covered by the way in which she looked at 
 him, and the faith her manner expressed; and his tones 
 were no longer quizzical as he said, questioningly, " And 
 you? " 
 
 "I well, I used to wonder a heap just what she meant. 
 I d study an study about it an the religion yes, sir, 
 till that day you sung there at the funeral; then I knew 
 when I heard you what it meant the hand of the Good 
 Man that touches people all at once. And I allowed," she 
 added, simply, " if ever I saw you again, to tell you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I don t know hardly," she said, in a doubtful, 
 troubled way; " only to just say Thank ye, sir, cause ye 
 helped me some." 
 
 " Good Lord! " he half-whispered; and then after a little 
 he spoke aloud: 
 
 " I owe you the thanks, little girl. Just before I met you 
 I was finding fault with my luck that lost me the path on 
 the mountain, and all the time the Good Man was leading 
 me right over the snake-den to hear things that are good 
 for me; strange that you should happen to meet me just at 
 the edge of that crevice." 
 
 " Bud he says there ain t any things happen, " she 
 said, naively. " He says everything we do has some pur 
 pose back of it, even if we don t know it. I don t know; 
 but he allows so." 
 
 " Bud? Who is it you call Bud? " he asked. The name 
 was so much more childish than the acceptance of fatalism. 
 "That is a name for a child or a girl, is it not?"
 
 96 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "It stands for brother, I reckon; he s always had it, 
 anyway him, Bud Lennard. He s the best man I ever 
 knew, sir or," she added, "he would be if he had religion; 
 but he hain t got it." 
 
 Her regret that he had not got it was very evident from 
 the plaintive tone of the acknowledgment. They had 
 reached now the " neck " of the point, as it was called a bit 
 of solid ground like an isthmus that joined to the mount 
 ain that great level that had shrunk, or been torn away, 
 from the "mother" side, and left a gulf between them 
 passable but at one place. The shadows were deep about 
 it, for the pines grew there; and he looked about in aston 
 ishment as he noted them. 
 
 "I surely was here before! " he said to her. "I remem 
 ber my horse did not want to pass that white stump." 
 
 " Cause it stands where the rest of that rock-land is 
 goin to break away sometime, I reckon," she explained. 
 " Yes, sir, you crossed there before or you wouldn t a been 
 where I saw you." 
 
 " But I ve been riding for an hour and a half straight 
 ahead," he persisted. 
 
 " You ve been ridin in a circle straight around," said his 
 Daphne, with a little smile at his wonder. " That s nothin , 
 sir; folks do that generally when they re lost on the 
 mountain. I don t know why they do, but they do." 
 
 She had halted a moment, leaning, panting and tired, 
 against one of the pine-trees, as he rode across the 
 " divide " and stopped beside her. 
 
 "I ll show ye the road in a minute, sir," she said; right 
 above here is where ye strayed off it. Natural enough, 
 too, cause the cattle an hogs, they ve got a path over the 
 Neck; they go for the red-oak acorns over there in the 
 winter. Yes, sir; but you can find the road now, I allow, 
 cause this is the only plain trail that takes off between this
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 97 
 
 an the township road, two miles up. I I reckon that s 
 where ye want to go? " 
 
 " That is where I started for from Riker s, but it has not 
 been the short cut they promised me; and now," he 
 added, getting out of the saddle, " may I ask which way 
 you are going? " 
 
 She drew back a little and looked up at him with some 
 thing of hesitation in her manner. Did she not want him 
 to know where she lived ? Was she really a Daphne, who 
 would disappear if once again she gained the shadows of the 
 laurel ? 
 
 " I go on the same road as you do," she said, after a 
 little, "only the other way; and I must go, sir. It must 
 be getting awful late," she breathed, fearfully. He looked 
 at his watch by the light of a match. 
 
 " Twenty minutes past nine," he said, and wondered at 
 the despairing little cry that broke from her. 
 
 " Oh! I must hurry. Good-bye, sir," she gasped, tremu 
 lously. " The moon will be up in a little, an you can find 
 the road then or the horse will find it, anyway, if you let 
 him guide you; an an I do thank you, sir." 
 
 But as she turned to go she felt a detaining hand on her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "You poor frightened child!" he said, compassionately, 
 as he felt her trembling; "you look ready to drop. You 
 must ride my horse home ; yes, you must. I could never 
 turn away and leave you here, tired as you are. If you 
 are in such a hurry to get home, you will save time by let 
 ting me -put you in the saddle at once," he added. 
 
 "Oh, I will, then," she agreed, hurriedly, "for I must 
 hurry. I ve been gone now so long; most all day. Yes, sir, 
 I will, if you please." 
 
 He lifted her to the saddle, where she drooped in a limp, 
 tired way that filled him with pity. 
 
 7
 
 98 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " She is a human creature, anyway," he reassured him 
 self, as he found it was not entirely a thing spiritual he was 
 placing in the saddle; "but what a slight blossom of a girl 
 it is to be wandering alone over these hills; and I believe 
 she is afraid, too." 
 
 " By the way, where are the cattle? " he asked, as they 
 moved more quickly over the path, on which the moon was 
 just beginning to scatter bits of light through the boughs." 
 
 " They ve gone home through the little glade. I started 
 them from the top, where I found them; but people can t 
 go that way well." 
 
 "Are you not afraid to go so far alone over the 
 mountain?" 
 
 "Yes, I am," she acknowledged. "It s awful lonesome 
 sometimes; an then when the winds blow down the hollows, 
 an you can hear them, like lots an lots of people, talkin 
 and talkin away off, like an army, that scares me some, 
 cause I never know just what makes them so like. Bud, 
 he says they re voices, but he can t ever just get me to 
 understand whose; I wisht I could, but I can t." 
 
 "Bud must have a great deal of unusual knowledge," 
 remarked Mr. Edson. 
 
 " He says no," she answered" he says that s what makes 
 him heaps of trouble. I don t know. / think he knows 
 a powerful lot, especially about the things that can t talk, 
 the cattle an such, an snakes and wild things. Some folks 
 is scared of him on count of that. But things he wants so 
 bad to know is books, an how to read them, an all. I 
 don t know what he wants them so for." 
 
 "Books are not so hard to get these days," said the man; 
 "everybody can afford some learning." 
 
 "May be I don t know; but he ain t young any more. 
 Grown men can t go to school, I reckon, an Bud, he was a 
 grown-up man before he knowed what it was to want to
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 99 
 
 know things so bad; an then he s always had folks to work 
 for, first one, then another. An he s been good to folks, 
 Bud has just as good as if he had religion." 
 
 He smiled at the way she divided people in the world 
 just into two classes, the ones who had religion and the 
 others who had not. He supposed he would be assigned a 
 place among the last when she knew him, and drop a little 
 in her opinion besides, and he attempted a defense of those 
 non-religious ones who yet tried to do good work. 
 
 She listened with undisguised wonder in the eyes he 
 could see now plainly as the moonlight touched them. 
 
 " I reckon, now," she said, looking at him with a solemn 
 sort of admiration in her face "I reckon, sir, its just your 
 religion as makes you so kindly spoken of them that 
 haven t any. That s what folkscall charity, ain t it? An 
 charity is what they make a heap o count of in religion. 
 I ve heard the rider down home talk about that some." 
 
 He tried to answer her, but failed utterly. The sweet 
 soberness with which she invested him with the attributes 
 of a professed Christian put a weight on his tongue. He 
 had, he felt sure, done or said nothing to lead her to that 
 erroneous and rather exalted idea of his character; but it 
 was such delicious incense, and so rare to him, that he 
 longed to kiss the little work-worn hand on the bridle, 
 because of her tender, primitive faith in things. 
 
 He had kissed so many hands, not work-worn, on a much 
 slighter temptation; but he restricted himself to looking at 
 this one, and showered mental maledictions on her family, 
 or whoever it was that allowed her to labor until the 
 impress of toil was left on her. 
 
 " Bud is a relation, 1 suppose? " he hazarded, to avoid 
 those personal themes that made him feel so awkward. 
 " I think he is the same man I met to-day in the timber 
 and at Riker s."
 
 100 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " Likely. No, he ain t any kin to us folks, but he seems 
 so. He s powerful kind to me sometimes," she added, 
 simply; "just like he was my father, most; " and she rode 
 on in silence for a little, as if in thought, and then: 
 " It s all cause I m some like a girl he liked once, I reckon," 
 she went on, softly. " He owned up that much one day, 
 when I asked him; but he never did tell me who she was. 
 Granny, she says it ain t so, that Bud Lennard never had a 
 girl; but I reckon it s so, an she died, or something, may be. 
 I think if she d a lived he mightn t be troubled bout so 
 many things, an might a had religion, too. I m always 
 sorry for Bud." 
 
 He listened to the truthful confidence of her with the 
 certainty that it was one of the strangest, most delightful 
 evenings of his life. Were fauns and goddesses native to 
 the mountain, he wondered, that he had met in the forest, 
 on the same day, that massive, magnetic original of Luci 
 fer s forces and this serious-lipped child, with her touching 
 faith and sweet sympathy with all things of sacred tendency. 
 
 " Their avowed theories should take them wide as heaven 
 and hell from each other," he thought, as he glanced at the 
 rare, tender face, with the plaintiveness in it, and remem 
 bered the dark, moody-browed man of the morning; "and 
 yet they are such close friends that everything she speaks 
 of seems colored by his thought, and both, for all their pro 
 vincial speech, are utterly unlike any other people I have 
 met in the wooden country." 
 
 The dusk and the moonlight so often traffic in witchery, 
 weaving spells and binding souls a bit above earth; and this 
 exile from the world felt vaguely their charm, blent as it 
 was with the presence close to him that he found so 
 unusual. The entire day had been that; the meeting with 
 that green-eyed monster had sounded the keynote of con 
 jecture to him that had been with him ever since, account-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 101 
 
 ing in part for the absent-mindedness that let him stray 
 from the old trail, and assuredly tinging his thoughts with 
 the strange and peculiar, until the arising of Daphne from 
 the laurel wrought no discord in his fancies. It was rather 
 in keeping with the rare idyls the mountain could chant, if 
 it chose. No thought of the commonplace worlu he had 
 known had any connection with the fine suggestion that 
 came to him from the morning, that touched him now 
 through the night, and that had lain half-awake in him 
 since the day by that open coffin. Was the mountain 
 bewitched or the people on it? 
 
 And so he walked by her side, listening to the low, 
 caressing intonations, and vaguely conscious of how rare 
 the night was. He felt as if waiting for some curtain of 
 life to raise, disclosing a strange something which the 
 things of the mountain suggested. 
 
 He had brought those broken bits of thought so close to 
 himself that he did not notice their rapid approach to a 
 wall of rock that rose abruptly before them until he heard 
 her saying: 
 
 " And you just keep on that way and leave the ledge 
 always to your right; an you can see now it s moonlight." 
 
 " But you are not stopping here?" he protested, as the 
 horse, obeying the pressure on the bridle, had halted at the 
 stony barrier. 
 
 She slipped quickly to the ground before he could get to 
 her assistance. 
 
 " Yes, sir, please," she said, hurriedly; " this is the nigh 
 way to our place. It ain t far now, an there s a path up 
 them rocks; but no horse can go. Thank you, sir. You ve 
 been powerful kind. Good-bye, sir." 
 
 " Wait," he said, as she turned, half-running, from him. " I 
 will tie the horse here and go with you," and he began to 
 unfasten the hitching-strap; but she stopped him.
 
 102 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " Please, sir, don t! " and her voice was half-pleading. " I 
 ain t scared to go now no sir, indeed! An it ain t far, 
 either; an an* " 
 
 " Don t you want me to go?" 
 
 She hesitated at that direct inquiry, and then: "No," she 
 said, wistfully; "you d better not, sir. We my folks ain t 
 what you re used to. I I d feel bad, may be. They 
 hain t got any religion; and I " 
 
 " Bless you, child," he said, holding out his hand, and 
 really feeling as fatherly as the expression while he looked 
 on her sad embarrassment, "I will not go, then; but won t 
 you shake hands, Daphne? And don t be too hard in your 
 thoughts on people who have not got religion yet. I ve 
 known some square sort of people who said they hadn t 
 any." 
 
 She laid her hand in his, and he felt it tremulous, proba 
 bly from that eager haste of hers to be gone! 
 
 "You mean men, I reckon, sir, an that s some different, 
 may be, sometimes; but women folks, they need it, specially 
 when you re married an have a baby, an* want to learn how 
 to bring it up right, in the love o the Lord, an ain t just 
 sure o the right way. Yes, sir; then s when folks does 
 need religion, bad when ye ve got children to think for." 
 
 And then Edson thought she added " Good-night," and 
 that he answered her, but was too dazed to be certain of 
 anything but that she was gone, fairly running up the path 
 along the face of the rock, and vanishing over its crest, 
 not turning even to glance back at the man standing there 
 by the horse in the shadow and shine of the moonlight. 
 
 "Specially when you re married and have a baby," he 
 repeated, in amused wonder. . Well, of all the perplexing 
 experiences of this day, that young lady s final remarks 
 are, I believe, the strangest."
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DAY AFTER. 
 
 In the bright light of the next morning, the light that 
 disillusions so many, Mr. Edson awoke late, with a glimmer 
 ing sense of being tired and wondering what had happened 
 to him; and when he remembered, he proceeded to dress 
 himself, to a musical accompaniment rather cheery. 
 
 " If those two were witch and warlock who abide in the 
 timber, they let me get home safe, anyway," he confided to 
 the image of himself in the glass, an image he had halted 
 before and examined critically several times during his 
 preparations for breakfast. Some idea of the reason for 
 the careful study might be gleaned from a mental estimate 
 that accompanied it. 
 
 "Good enough face; um! yes, that is to a careless 
 observer. Are you a careless observer, Donald? You 
 oughtn t to be this morning. You should try to find out 
 what there is in your statuesque beauty that compels in the 
 native mind the abstract native the idea that you are of 
 religious tendencies. I can t say that you look the part. 
 Your appearance indicates a good digestion, undisturbed by 
 any weight of thought on any subject whatever, least of 
 all the sort that promotes the bilious-hued doubts of the 
 Pagan, or the ethereal pallor of Daphne. No, you look 
 uncommonly well fed by the food ^f this world, my boy so 
 much of this world that I am puzzled the the blessedest 
 to account for your visions of yesterday in the timber; for 
 of course you were tipsy on the east wind, Donald; and 
 of course there was no monster of the green eyes there to 
 mesmerize you at all, at all; and it was just some old witch 
 of the hills whom you saw and imagined Daphne; and
 
 104 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 may be the hint about religion and babies was all in your 
 mind; and, summing it all up, you re in a bad way, Mr. 
 Edson." 
 
 And then Mr. Edson descended to the lower regions, 
 warbling plaintively, "I m not myself at all." 
 
 "I should think not," remarked Miss Dinah, who espied 
 him passing the sitting-room door on a quest for break 
 fast. " Considering the lazy lateness of the hour, and the 
 probable depth of dissipation that kept you out all night, 
 I have small wonder that you refuse to acknowledge 
 yourself." 
 
 She was looking pretty enough, and provoking enough, 
 to make many a man forget a breakfast, and Mr. Edson 
 was by no means blind to the charm of the wine- 
 brown eyes, or the very becoming array of pale pink 
 that clung daintily about her a fair rose of a woman allur 
 ing. Something so healthily sure of earth, he thought; and 
 the very contrast suggested a pallid, starlit lily of the 
 woods he had seen, even while he said, commendingly: 
 
 " How very pretty you look in that pink gown, Dinah! 
 Your artist eye should tell you always to wear that color. 
 Doesn t Aunt Lottie want to do you in water-colors this 
 morning?" 
 
 " All a clever attempt to evade confession," decided the 
 young lady. "Where did you wander to when you left 
 here in a temper yesterday, you deserter? and why that 
 musical refrain of a lost identity?" 
 
 "S-sh!"he whispered, theatrically, clutching her wrist 
 and drawing her across to the dining-room. " Use your arts 
 to secure me a substantial repast, of which I stand sorely in 
 need, and I am your slave to command; all my sins will I 
 confess, even to the devious wanderings of which you 
 question." 
 
 " Nonsense! Don t be silly, Don; and do let go my wrist.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 105 
 
 Serve you right if the cook refused you even a cup of 
 coffee." 
 
 Plead for me, won t you?" 
 
 "Why did you not stay for breakfast with that other 
 girl? "she demanded; "for I know it wasn t a man that 
 made you forget to come home. Wouldn t she give you 
 any? " 
 
 " I do not believe she eats," answered Mr. Edson, debat- 
 ably mysterious. 
 
 " Good gracious! then there was a girl! " ejaculated the 
 prophetess, astonished at her own accuracy. " Come right in 
 to the table and tell me all about it! Nettie, please get Mr. 
 Edson a bit of breakfast and some coffee, will you? Yes, I 
 know it is away past breakfast-hour; but you can charm 
 that cook into sending him something nice, can t you? I 
 thought so. Nettie, you are a treasure, and when I get 
 married and want a housekeeper, I shall certainly hunt you 
 up; shan t we, Don? Now there is your coffee; half the con 
 tract is filled; so tell me "something about the other girl. 
 Why does she not eat? " 
 
 " Do goddesses ever eat? " queried Mr. Edson, proving 
 himself outside the circle celestial by the energy with which 
 he attacked even the cold biscuit. 
 
 "A goddess! Um! This is serious, my child a goddess 
 in the wooden country. May I ask what particular part of 
 the heavens this one dropped from?" 
 
 "She didn t drop," corrected Mr. Edson; "s T ie rose up." 
 
 "Worse and worse! I thought you had quit cultivating 
 that order. Has your deity of the lower woild a name? 
 and does she chew snuff? All the virgins I ha ve encount 
 ered about here are addicted to that pulverized consolation. 
 Is she an exception? Who is she? 
 
 "Don t know so much of her as I would like to myself," 
 he confessed; "only I ll swear she doesn t indulge in
 
 106 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 snuff. She is a wisp of moonlight turned into a girl. Is 
 that too poetical for a breakfast accompaniment? And as 
 to who she is what sort of a memory have you for 
 mythological lore, Dinah? Who were the progenitors of 
 that Daphne of the laurel episode? If you can tell me 
 that, I can give you some definite history of the immediate 
 family of my moonlight girl." 
 
 "What nonsense you are talking, Don Edson; you are 
 just making this all up for my benefit. Daphne? Daphne? 
 Oh, yes, that was the one Apollo loved; you will be 
 imagining yourself Apollo next. Well, was she fleeing from 
 the bull?" 
 
 "No," answered Mr. Edson, in perfect good faith, having 
 forgotten the associated myth of Apollo s metamorphosis. 
 " No, she wasn t; she had been hunting cattle on the 
 mountain." 
 
 And something in the reply sent Miss Floyd into an 
 immoderate fit of laughter, from which she answered, 
 cynically, " That is what the latter-day Daphnes are all 
 doing, my child; but tell me something more of her." 
 
 "I refuse," he said, pushing aside his empty cup. " I ve 
 earned my breakfast, and will be impaled no longer on the 
 pin of your curiosity. I do not know anything about 
 Daphne except her face and her voice; but there is a sort 
 of fascination in ignorance sometimes, and I don t intend to 
 try learning more. Can you comprehend that? No, I 
 suppose not, as you are of the sex divine; but to average 
 masculinity, the things one does not know about a woman 
 are always so much more fascinating than the things one 
 does. But you do not understand, nor would not believe it 
 of me if you did, would you, Dinah? " And he arose, smiling 
 down in a benign way at the pouting, disappointed face. 
 " Is your father around this morning? Not going to leave
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 107 
 
 us before next week? That s good; I want him to help me 
 out of a quandary." 
 
 And an hour later he emerged from Mr. Floyd s " den " 
 bearing under his arm the fruit of a quest in the form of a 
 thin cloth-bound book of a rusty color, which he carried to 
 his room and bent over with engrossing eagerness; and the 
 second bell had rung for lunch when he arose from it, with 
 the quandary evidently erased from his mind. " Poor devil!" 
 he muttered, commiseratingly, as he changed his coat and 
 made himself beautiful to join the others; "and he so 
 ignorant himself in all science that he could not explain 
 away the thing they think diabolical. Poor devil! Well, 
 may be I can help. him clear his own mind regarding it, any 
 way." 
 
 Which soliloquy proved that the fascinating ignorance 
 regarding his nymph was at least not filling the mind of 
 Mr. Edson to the extinction of all else he had met or been 
 impressed by through that ride on the witchy side of the 
 mountain. 
 
 "And I am going to put up a saw-mill, and make 
 use of some timber over on the wild land/ he an 
 nounced, when the conversation turned, as it often did, 
 to his plan of remaining there. "No, I am not afraid of 
 losing myself again, Miss Dinah; and did I not tell you the 
 mountain has a guardian angel who takes care of fools? " 
 
 " No, you did not," she responded, quickly; " that is a part 
 of the story you forgot. Is it Daphne?" 
 
 But he only grimaced in answer, and began giving Mr. 
 Floyd an account of probable location, natural advantages, 
 etc., for his new enterprise. 
 
 "Somewhere along the edge of the glade, so that the 
 hauling will be all down the mountain," he explained. 
 " Oh, yes, I ll be a lumberman if I keep on; and I m learning 
 a little everv day. There ou^ht to be some decent houses
 
 108 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 put up on that tract; and if I make a move toward it with 
 the rough lumber, perhaps Uncle Don will open his pocket- 
 book to help with improvements. I ve got to convince him 
 first, however, that I am not leading the life of a sybarite 
 out here." 
 
 "Your Uncle Don will come out at once to dissuade 
 you, if he finds you really adopting this wholesale manner 
 of settling down," prophesied Miss Lottie, sagely; "and I 
 really do not know what / should do without you in town 
 next winter. 
 
 "Adopt Saxel," he suggested; and Dinah s eyes 
 fairly sparkled with mischief as she saw Miss Lottie s 
 cloak of coolness swiftly settling over the gentle little face. 
 "Or Mr. March," added Don; and then the sparkling 
 brown eyes were turned from her aunt for one quick 
 upward glance at him. 
 
 "Mr. March is really a very nice person," agreed Miss 
 Lottie. " I enjoyed his society very much, or could have 
 if Dinah had only treated him a little nicer; she was always 
 contrary with him; but pleasant as he was to me, you 
 know, Don, he is not you." 
 
 " Lucky fellow! " agreed Donald. " He is just the style 
 of a man I like, but have never flattered by imitation; the 
 sort that has so definite an object in life that no counter 
 attraction ever swerves him neither love, nor marriage, nor 
 the songs of sirens. Do you fancy he will ever get lazy 
 long enough to think of matrimony, Dinah?" 
 
 " I have not asked him," she returned, with the daintiest 
 flush of light creeping over her cheeks; " but I can after 
 January ist, if you are curious. It will be leap-year then." 
 
 "And he will have ample time to be wooed and married 
 and all before that time. But how comes on that picture 
 of yours, your blonde Adonis? or is it a Vulcan of the 
 Ligonier? "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 109 
 
 " Oh, it is a Vulcan only sketched in. I am yet striving 
 for the tone of the composition. The moment I laid 
 eyes on that forge, with its grim surroundings, I gave up all 
 idea of a simple head. I must have something more com 
 prehensive a full figure, with the background of the smoked 
 rock; a bit of fire gleaming from the cleft where the forge 
 is, and the head of a horse thrust under the laurel at the 
 entrance watching the blonde Vulcan making a shoe. How 
 is that, eh? I have made three sketches one that day we 
 were there. When I decide just which one to use, I will go 
 over with you again, and watch him at work. Just by 
 accident, you know, a model will drop unconsciously some 
 times into the very pose you have been hunting for." 
 
 "Yes;" and Don stroked thoughtfully the brown of a 
 rather fine mustache, and looked across the easel at her, 
 instead of at the stretch of canvas dotted with chalk-lines 
 and meaningless hieroglyphics. " But see here, Dinah, have 
 you stopped to think that these people are not used 
 to being posed for studies, and do not in the least under 
 stand your altogether impersonal attitude toward them? 
 You see you look on a model of the genus homo much as 
 you would on a plaster cast, but but Aunt Lottie, why do 
 you not convince her how much too pretty she is for her 
 masculine models to reciprocate? " 
 
 "Auntie as a chaperone vanishes when art is in question," 
 laughed Dinah; " but what has put those ideas in your mind? 
 Are you afraid Vulcan will be impressed to his own 
 injury? I guess not. He has a wife, you know, for pro 
 tection; and I can t allow your scruples to interfere with 
 my composition. What matters the opinion of these 
 people? Thank heaven, they are not my judges." 
 
 " Well, I have spoken. I say no more; only if you speak 
 to some of them for ten minutes in that gracious way you
 
 110 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 can assume, you are likely to have some extra lovers, and I, 
 perhaps, some duels to fight." 
 
 "Assume! As if I were never by any chance gracious 
 naturally." 
 
 "Master the science of animal magnetism as explained 
 in that book you got," advised Mr. Floyd, slyly, " then you 
 can compel those erratic tendencies of hers to reason, 
 whether she will or no." 
 
 " Animal magnetism! What new fad will you adopt next, 
 Don? In the name of sense, why are you studying up 
 questions of that sort? " 
 
 " Only a late desire to accumulate knowledge," he 
 answered, airily, and retreated before the shower of ques 
 tions Miss Dinah proceeded to launch at him. 
 
 " Don is actually getting queer from living so much 
 among those people on the other mountain," she complained. 
 " Do you not think, Papa, it is time to write Donald Senior 
 that the settling down he advocated has been followed up 
 to a degree alarming? For if this state of mind continues, 
 Don will settle so fast in the mire of the glades or the 
 charms of the mountain that he never will go back to 
 civilization. And is he really reading up questions of 
 magnetism?" 
 
 "Oh, not very seriously, I guess; but something has 
 aroused his interest in the so-called mystery of fascination, 
 and I simply referred him to a work on animal magnetism 
 in explanation; he wanted it for some friend, I fancy." 
 
 " He hasn t any reading friends about here except Mr. 
 Winston. Now whom could he want it for? " 
 
 "Well, well, what matter? I do wish, Dinah, you would 
 cultivate something besides the art of asking questions." 
 And the old gentleman testily gathered up some papers he 
 was trying to read and betook himself upstairs. 
 
 " So am I always excluded from the bosom of my family,"
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. Ill 
 
 yawned Dinah. "Now Auntie, dear, you at least might say 
 something nice to me, as a brace to keep me from falling 
 asleep." 
 
 "Yes, to be sure," agreed Miss Lottie, rousing from the 
 edge of a nap just long enough to say so. " This is a 
 sleepy sort of a day." And Miss Dinah collapsed, and in 
 a sort of despair picked up brushes and paints and went to 
 work. 
 
 " But I vow I am going with Don in future on those 
 reconstruction quests of his," she decided, recklessly. " He 
 escapes the dull sameness of life in a country boarding- 
 house, anyway." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "I M JEST KRIN KRIN LE FEVRE." 
 
 But the days swung around for a week before the 
 weather and the will of man made her vow possible, and 
 "even then it was the most prosaic of prospects a ride 
 around the road to the edge of the valley, where Riker 
 lived. 
 
 "But I will go, even if I wade through clay and don t 
 see a tree," she decided; "though I did hope you would go 
 over the mountain." 
 
 " Some day I may, if you will wait." 
 
 " Which I will not. I will ride over all the ugly town 
 ship roads in the district rather than stay in the house 
 another day; and then I might get a look at Daphne. 
 Does she live in this direction?" 
 
 " Can you imagine Daphne living on a township road? " 
 he laughed. 
 
 He was growing elusive as Dinah herself those days; and 
 the deprecating uncertainty with which he had com-
 
 112 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 menced his settlement in the hills was giving way to an 
 open-eyed confidence that was contagious. 
 
 "That young Edson s been sorto layin low around hero 
 till he got the lay o* the land, an* now he s peggin* into 
 work an* raisin hell on the mountain," was the grim sum 
 ming up of his achievements by one of his tenants. 
 
 And the tenants took more kindly than at first to the 
 innovations he was bringing in; a sort of awakened faith 
 in himself was having its effect on them through some 
 reflected light. They did not sneer so much at his white 
 hands since they found the fingers could grip like steel, 
 and through a revulsion of feeling that day at Riker s, 
 they accorded him a place in their minds beside the minis 
 ter, yet liked him better than that gentleman, sim 
 ply because no restraint of duty to the cloth kept them 
 sanctimonious in his presence. 
 
 Why they should assign him that semi-clerical character 
 was a puzzle that met him first in the woods that night, 
 but of which he had seen undeniable glimpses in the man 
 ner of the mountaineers ever since. All warmed toward him 
 a little by that spark of sympathy that had touched him 
 that morning, and that he had been able to express through 
 the music. Such a subtle little thing to change a life ! 
 And Dinah, noting only the effects, and wholly ignorant of 
 the cause, wondered a little, and watched him curiously, and 
 decided that life on the mountain was making him queer. 
 
 "And is there never a Daphne in this part of the 
 valley?" she queried. "Somewhere here it must have been 
 that you found her. I am going to hunt her up, in order to 
 ha~ve an object in life." 
 
 "You will not find her," he smiled, confidently. "Is not 
 the home for Daphne in the laurel? And the laurel does 
 not grow in plowed fields." 
 
 But, nevertheless, Miss Dinah kept her bright, cynical
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 112 
 
 eyes very wide open at every farm-house or cabin they 
 passed until they turned from the "glade " road in toward 
 the mountain, riding through the dense scrub-wood that 
 had arisen in the track of some forest fire. 
 
 " If this is the road to Riker s, I wonder that Mr. Riker 
 does not build a new one," she complained, as her horse 
 went floundering in a sink-hole. 
 
 " Find fault with Mr. Riker s landlord," suggested Mr. 
 Edson; "there would be more justice in that." 
 
 The dogs and children came bounding down the road 
 when the horse Don rode was recognized by them. Their 
 welcome was stripped of the shyness that had sent them 
 into the chimney-corners that first day; to all appearances, 
 their landlord s was a welcome, well-known face among 
 them. But their feet tangled up in each other a little, and 
 their eyes grew shy again as startled partridges, when 
 another horse followed the star-faced one, and they saw 
 that its rider was a lady. But the graciousness of which 
 Mr. Edson had made comment would not long allow Miss 
 Dinah to be a stranger when she set her mind on being an 
 intimate; and as she made herself flatteringly at home when 
 once inside the door of the cabin, and got up an admiration 
 for the new mongrel pups equal to her enthusiasm over the 
 way the baby " took notice," the young olive-branches of 
 the House of Riker leaned to her amazingly. 
 
 " But we re all upside down here," apologized Becky Ann, 
 as she brushed off a chair for her visitor, and with a few 
 final whisks of a broom finished the general house-cleaning 
 that had commenced at sight of the new arrivals. " A 
 neighbor of ours they ve had some sickness lately, an 
 I ve been up there some, an my own house has jest been 
 left for the children to look after; an you know what 
 children are ! " 
 
 Miss Dinah did, and expressed her knowledge in a sym- 
 
 8
 
 114 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 pathetic, long-suffering tone that would suggest an idea of 
 a kindergarten somewhere of which she had sole charge. 
 
 "Not but what some o them is a great gift," added 
 Becky Ann, reaching furtively for the corner of her apron, 
 and like the rest of human nature counting her best things 
 of life among the things that were lost. "There was my 
 girl Addyliny my oldest, she was and a powerful help. 
 I reckon you heard about her; died the first of the 
 month." 
 
 "Yes; Mr. Edson told us. He was at the funeral, you 
 know." 
 
 "I should say we did know," assented Becky Ann, with 
 a wan sort of enthusiasm driving back the sudden 
 memories of loss. " My-oh-my ! yes; if anyone had 
 said to me, Mis Riker, your mournin* ain t so deep but 
 what human words can light it up for ye, I wouldn t a 
 believed it no, sir ! not if they had swore it. But, my- 
 oh-my ! when he stood up there an read them hymns (an* 
 none o the mountain folks knowed he was serious-minded 
 before that); an all o them kind o wondered at the 
 preacher askin him to do it, ye know him, a stranger 
 like ! But when he sung they didn t wonder then; an I 
 wasn t the only one he started cryin . He does sing beau 
 tiful an comfortin -like, don t he ?" 
 
 " Yes; to be sure," agreed her visitor, rather vaguely. 
 Don in the role of religious vender of comfort in affliction 
 was so new to her that she would have laughed if it had 
 not been for the earnestness in the woman s voice, and a 
 moisture in her eyes that was a trifle contagious. "Yes, he 
 has a fine voice." 
 
 " I don t know as it s all the voice," debated Becky Ann. 
 " I ain t a jedge o fine music; but a neighbor o ours, Bud 
 Lennard he s queer, but he knows some things an he 
 says it ain t all jest the voice, the instrument like. He says
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 115 
 
 it s something or other that s fine in the soul back of it. 
 That s the way he said it; but he s queer." 
 
 "I should say he was," agreed her visitor; "and I did 
 not know Mr. Edson s singing had made such a sensation." 
 
 "My-oh-my! yes we thought a sight o that; there 
 never was a funeral about here had such singin as our 
 Addy s had. Some o* the folks here Methodis they 
 said that sort o singin hymns brought the Spirit o the 
 Lord down; an Mis Le Fevre she lows she most got 
 religion from it." 
 
 " Did she? " asked Dinah, with her gaze directed to Mr. 
 Edson, who, astride of a log down in the clearing, was 
 talking with Mr. Riker, and looking too entirely careless to 
 fit the priestly garb of mentality that was so gratuitously 
 assigned him "that was strange." 
 
 "Yes, sort of; and then not so very much, after all, 
 if yeh only knowed her. She s been honin for religion this 
 good while. Some o her folks who raised her was 
 religious, I understand. They re dead now; and she was 
 just livin round when Dick Le Fevre, he married her." 
 
 " Le Fevre?" said Dinah, catching at the first thing that 
 offered to break in on this bit of religious retrospection 
 and biographical outline " oh, yes, I know him." 
 
 "Do yeh? well, then, yeh know how much she d be 
 took aback at expectin to find him or his granny religious 
 like her folks was my-oh-my! yes. He s about the 
 worst pest this mountain has, in some ways; an old Granny! 
 well" with a furtive glance about and a lowered voice 
 " it jest isn t safe, folks say, to speak things o her, even if 
 she don t seem to be around there ain t any tellin what 
 might hear yeh!" And then Mrs. Riker looked signifi 
 cantly at Miss Floyd, and Miss Floyd s eyes opened in 
 understanding; there was a slight bit of pantomime,
 
 116 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 directed toward the children at the door, and then a 
 whispered query was put. 
 
 "A witch?" 
 
 The mistress of the house nodded, and at once her 
 self and visitor were on a more sympathetic plane than 
 they had reached heretofore. 
 
 "Good gracious! Tell me all about her. What does 
 she do? " 
 
 " Most all the workin s o the devil in reach of her so 
 folks say. She s an awful woman!" 
 
 " Well, her son does not seem altogether satanic. He 
 can be very civil." 
 
 " You re right he can as smooth-spoken as yeh d want 
 to meet. That s the way he got that poor child to take up 
 with him, I reckon. She wasn t raised in these parts, an 
 so didn t know him much, and wasn t scarce growed up 
 when he brought her home. Poor soul! I do feel sorry for 
 her, many s the time though she never says a word." 
 
 " Not even about the witchcraft? " 
 
 "We don t reckon she knows it. She never sees a 
 woman on the mountain, less it s me. No one will go nigh 
 Granny, so she never gits to see folks or hear things. She 
 did mourn a heap cause she couldn t go to meetin down 
 the valley poor thing, she jest hadn t clothes fit; and then 
 last fall she did set to work pickin chestnuts, bound she 
 was to have a decent dress and bonnet picked nigh two 
 bushel, she did and jest when she wasn t fit to be out 
 doin any sort o work, neither; an then d ye think they d 
 even take them to the store for her? Well, they wouldn t 
 they were uncommon mean with her jest about that time; 
 but Will, my man, he heard of it through Granny ta ntin 
 her, an* he up with the sack o chestnuts an toted them 
 down here, an Bud, he took them to town and got a dress 
 and shoes an a lot o things got more out o them chest-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 117 
 
 nuts than there was in them, I reckon, for Bud is mighty 
 good-hearted to folks in trouble. An when she got the 
 things she jest up an leaves Dick, an goes across the line 
 again to some o the folks she d lived with; but she was too 
 delicate to do work, an I reckon she didn t get as much 
 a welcome as a strong woman would. An when her little 
 girl was born, an Dick heard tell of it, he jest went over 
 an coaxed her back, and here she s been all summer; an 
 hard time as she has with them two, I don t wonder she 
 wants religion so mighty bad, if there is any comfort in it; 
 but I think she d get more comfort out o life if she didn t 
 worry over it so much." 
 
 "A very natural supposition," agreed Miss Floyd, with 
 a slight shadow of boredom on her face, as she wondered 
 if Don was going to talk all morning about that rail-split 
 ting, and if the religious Mrs. Le Fevre was a standard 
 topic of conversation at the Riker homestead. She had 
 already pictured Mrs. Le Fevre in her mind a severe- 
 looking martyr, sanctimonious and illiterate. She jumped 
 to the conclusion that the blonde Vulcan was perhaps 
 excusable for the recklessness and shady character 
 assigned him. It was enough to drive a man to drink 
 and a man s grandmother as well to have a female like 
 that to share one s bed and board ; and to think of Don Edson 
 influencing the religious tendencies of such an individual 
 that was the very funniest thing she had heard for a 
 long time. She would have something to tease him about 
 besides the visionary Daphne. 
 
 " I must surely write to him about it," she decided, 
 mentally. "Anything strange or peculiar, was what he 
 asked me to jot down, if I came across it; and I should 
 think that Don in the character of a revivalist will be 
 about the strangest, most peculiar thing likely to happen." 
 
 And the familiar manner in which she used the pronoun
 
 118 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGH AN1ES. 
 
 masculine in her soliloquy showed that Miss Dinah was 
 none too wise to think of someone so frequently that the 
 personality of the individual had supplanted his own name. 
 
 " You must be very far away from all neighbors here," 
 she remarked, glancing up along the slope of green, where 
 the unbroken wood circled the mountain for miles. " It is a 
 lonely place for anyone to live who is timid; but I 
 suppose you are not." 
 
 "Well, I don t know," nodded Becky Ann, in a sideling 
 fashion difficult to translate. " I ain t so brash in the tim 
 ber as I d like to be, sometimes, specially if Will happens 
 to be away late, an I have to stay alone here with the chil 
 dren; but, my-oh-my! if you think this here s lonesome, 
 what ud you think o Granny Le Fevre s place up at the 
 Ledge? That s just the wildest, snakiest my-oh-my! there 
 she is this minute." 
 
 Thinking to see the storied witch, Dinah leaned forward 
 to the window; but only a flitting shadow touched the sward 
 an instant and vanished from her range of vision, and 
 then there were quick steps on the little porch, some shouts 
 of familiar welcome from the children, and then the most 
 impossible witch stood in the door-way, and halted speech 
 less at sight of a stranger. 
 
 " Come right in, Corinny," commanded Becky Ann, hos 
 pitably. " This here s Miss Floyd, from up at the Notch 
 house. Miss Floyd, this is Mis Le Fevre. An you look 
 ready to drop," she decided, with a quick change from mis 
 tress of ceremonies to the personal appearance of the new 
 comer. " Set down in that chair an tell me what s wrong. 
 Is Edie worse? " 
 
 " Yes, she is," she answered, and slipped down into the 
 chair, holding her side and breathing very fast; " and I run 
 all the way. You said your Will would go for a doctor." 
 
 " My-oh-my! To be sure. Btit our mare hurt herself on
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 119 
 
 the foot this morning; he s just been dosin it, an I know 
 she ain t fit to go; but he ll walk it. Where s Dick?" 
 
 " Dick, he s down at the settlement somewheres. I surely 
 counted on seeing him home this morning, but he ain t;" 
 and the plaintive voice had an added tone of hopelessness 
 in it as she made the statement. " Bud s started after 
 him, but I jest couldn t wait a minute longer." 
 
 "Well, you jest take your breath, an I ll call Will. Will! 
 hoy, Will!" 
 
 " Must you send far for a doctor here? " asked Dinah, 
 Who was taking mental notes of the delicious coloring in 
 the wild-flower face, and the fine modeling of the throat, 
 around which the strings of a huge bonnet were tied. 
 Altogether, she found her charming and unusual this 
 pathetic-eyed creature, who lived with a witch, if she was 
 not the witch herself. 
 
 " Most ten mile it is from our house," she said; and the 
 voice, with its slight sing-song cadence, seemed just the one 
 to accord with her general personality. What a soft-voiced 
 witch! "Ten mile to a regular doctor. There s some herb- 
 doctors about. Bud s one, but he don t dose babies much. 
 Granny has an herb-cure; but I m jest anxious for a 
 regular." 
 
 " Ten miles! that is a long walk. Oh! I tell you what we 
 can do. Mr. Edson is here on horseback; he would go as we 
 go home. I m sure he would, when it is a case of sickness." 
 
 "May be he would!" and a bit of hope crept into the 
 wide, childlike eyes. " I know he s powerful kind to folks 
 mostly, powerful kind." 
 
 "Is he?" queried Dinah, smiling. "Well, I don t know. 
 He has an average amount of the milk of human kindness 
 enough, at least, to bring a doctor for a sick child; but I 
 did not know he was getting a reputation on the mountain 
 for his virtues."
 
 120 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 The bonnet was pushed back a little farther, with a wan 
 dering, uncertain movement of the slight brown hand. 
 The humorous tone of Miss Dinah s remarks evidently dis 
 turbed her; she did not look like a person who understood 
 humor, anyway. 
 
 " He s kind, though," she reiterated, with soft insistence, 
 "and good. He s a comfort to folks, specially when he 
 sings." 
 
 Dinah s alert brown eyes glanced at her curiously, as if 
 to judge the mental status of the pretty study that looked 
 so like a human anemone. She was earnest, at least, to 
 judge by the sincere belief expressed in her whole face. 
 
 "Oh, you know him well, then, and have heard him 
 sing?" 
 
 "Yes, I heard him sing once, an I talked to him once, 
 more than a week gone now; just the night my Edie took 
 ailin first, an that was a Friday a whole week I ve been 
 settin up with her now." 
 
 And she looked it, drooping there in such a weary fashion, 
 an uncertainty in her expression and gesture that was 
 either embarrassment before this well-dressed lady of the 
 cities, or else anxiety to be gone again. 
 
 But the attention of the well-dressed lady was turned for 
 an instant from the sweet form that was not well dressed to 
 that last statement of the one time on which she had spoken 
 with Mr. Edson. Friday night! Surely that was the night 
 he would not tell her nearly enough of; and now she could 
 find out, at least, the direction of Daphne s den, and to 
 confront him with the withheld knowledge was a tempta 
 tion strong enough to make her inquisitive. 
 
 " Friday night? Are you sure that was the time?" she 
 asked. " I think that was the evening he lost his way on 
 the mountain." 
 
 "So it was. That s how we met. I was driving our
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 121 
 
 cows home, an it was powerful late to get lost in the wood 
 most moonrise." 
 
 " And and there was no one with you? " 
 
 "No, ma am; there ain t anyone at our house only 
 Granny an Dick, an they they couldn t go that day." 
 
 " Then it was you who showed him the way from that 
 terrible ledge you who whom he called Daphne? " 
 
 The funniness of the situation struck Dinah, as she saw 
 through the window Don approaching the house with Will 
 and Becky Ann. She dropped her riding-whip, and stooped 
 for it, with the least dangerous of coughs the sort that 
 smothers laughter; but the woman of the mountain did not 
 see the subterfuge. 
 
 " He did say that name," she acknowledged, with simple 
 unconcern; "but he made some mistake, for it ain t mine. 
 I m just Krin Krin LeFevre." 
 
 And as Mr. Edson crossed the threshold, Miss Floyd 
 glided past him with so curious an expression on her face 
 that he turned to glance after her. She had halted by a 
 flock of little chickens that the children were feeding, and 
 with slight regard for her riding-habit, had seated herself 
 on the barrel that served as a coop, and was laughing 
 silently. 
 
 He halted long enough for but one questioning glance 
 at her one her eyes met and refused to answer and then, 
 just a little ahead of the Rikers, he went in to see the 
 woman waiting there. 
 
 She arose, in an embarrassed way; the bonnet had 
 drooped over her face again, but the delicately modeled 
 chin Dinah had admired arrested his eyes with a strange 
 gleam of remembrance and the slight, shrinking form 
 draped in the slimpsy, faded calico. 
 
 "I am sorry, madam," he began; and then the chin was 
 raised a little, and the heavy bonnet slid back, and recog-
 
 122 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 nition checked the commenced speech. "It is you 
 Daphne?" he said, putting out his hand, and her own 
 touched it for a moment. 
 
 "Yes, sir," she answered, in the shy but corrective tone 
 he remembered; "but I ain t Daphne I just was telling 
 your lady so. I m Krin Krin LeFevre." 
 
 "Oh!" and then he paused, awkwardly, as Mrs. Riker 
 entered: " Le Fevre! Then it is your brother s child you 
 want a doctor for? " 
 
 " My-oh-my! no," broke in his hostess. " This is Mis 
 Le Fevre herself, Mr. Edson. I allowed you knowed her, or 
 I d a made you acquainted first off. This is Mis Dick 
 Le Fevre." 
 
 "Oh!" he reiterated, apologetically, conscious that he 
 was staring at her, and with a growing consciousness of 
 Dinah s reason for laughter "and then the child " 
 
 "It s my baby, sir," said Krin, with a sad sort of pride. 
 " Yeh know I spoke about her that time I was after our 
 cattle. Well, she s been ailin ever since that day; and now 
 I m set on a doctor lookin at her. She was powerful bad 
 last night." 
 
 And all his erratic, impulsive heart went out to the trem 
 bling red mouth and the unconscious wistfulness of the 
 eyes. The discord of Dinah s laughter vanished in the fine 
 air of this childlike mother s earnestness. 
 
 "You shall have a doctor as soon as I can get one here," 
 he said, promptly; "so don t worry." Then he walked 
 straight out to Dinah s throne on the chicken-coop. 
 
 "Come! I shall have to hurry you back home," he said, 
 taking her arm. "I am going for the doctor, instead of Riker." 
 Then, as he saw the quizzical light in her eyes: "Yes, I am 
 going for the doctor for Daphne s baby, and if you think 
 that funny, just have your laugh out and be done with it; 
 but please don t let that poor creature see that she is an
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 123 
 
 object of amusement. If you could only forget entirely, 
 the groundless nonsense we talked of her, I would take 
 it as a favor; but I suppose that is too much to ask? " 
 
 "Yes," agreed Miss Floyd, when they had parted from 
 the others and were riding out over the " glade " road 
 "yes, I am afraid it is, my memory is so good; and this 
 affair is really unique. I was just hearing the loveliest, 
 most improbably virtuous things of you this morning, and 
 then, like a plunge into an ice-bath, I stumbled on the 
 fact that your trysts in the wood with an imaginary Daphne 
 are really kept with a most interesting mother of a family. 
 Oh, Don! Don! " 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LAW AT LE FEVRE S. 
 
 Through the shifting mists of the mountain waving to 
 and fro in the night-wind, two figures loomed up vaguely 
 moving bulks of darkness, crossing now and then the sta 
 tionary darkness of the trees; two men, whose heavy breath 
 ing told of a long or rapid walk in the warm night. At 
 last one of them, with an impatient expletive, dropped 
 down on a log that offered a seat and hid its remaining 
 length in the shadows. 
 
 "I m beat out," he acknowledged; " and I ain t a going 
 to keep up this sort of canter the whole trip. What the 
 devil you made up of, Bud? I hain t never seen you 
 tired once." 
 
 " She wants you home," reminded the deeper, mellower 
 voice; " we haven t time to rest here." 
 
 " She always is wantin something," was the peevish 
 answer; "and she s too darned skeery bout Edie. She
 
 124 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 always is in a stew if the young one s ailin a bit; an all 
 young ones have their ailin s, mostly." 
 
 "I reckon. Come on." 
 
 " Go along; I ll ketch up." 
 
 "You ll come now; " and the tired pedestrian arose good- 
 naturedly at the command in the tone. 
 
 "All right, if yeh don t walk so infernal fast. How d 
 yeh happen to find me? " 
 
 " Ike Dumphey said he d seen you at the settlement. 
 Then I heard them tell of your trouble at the coal-works; 
 so I tracked you. That man you cut will make you 
 trouble." 
 
 " Naw; I allow not," was the complacent reply. " Settle 
 ment folks ain t over-anxious to follow up into the mount 
 ain; there s too many places to get lost." 
 
 " Revenue men, may be, won t be so scared." 
 
 Mr. Le Fevre, for it was he, halted as if at the challenge 
 of a sentry. 
 
 " What you drivin at? " he demanded. 
 
 " You needn t try to pretend with me, Dick," said the 
 other, gravely; " and don t act lies it ll be the worse for you 
 some day. You ve been trading liquor down there at the set 
 tlement, but it s been made up here on the mountain. You re 
 making a road for trouble to walk over; and that man you 
 quarreled with has spread the word he ll inform on you, 
 and do it right away." 
 
 " Damn him ! " said Mr. Le Fevre, fervently. " That s the 
 way with the cursed settlement folks; first thing they turn 
 to is to tattle if you do them any hurt. Well, I guess they 
 ain t on our tracks yet, anyway; " and he checked his steps 
 a moment. " No, I don t hear any hosses;" and he 
 laughed at the idea of horses following, for they were on a 
 short cut over ledges where no horse could walk. 
 
 "That proves no safety; they d take the road for it."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 125 
 
 " And get there ahead of us," suggested the suspected 
 moonshiner, jocularly, evidently with little idea of any 
 " settlement" folks venturing into the night of the mount 
 ain. " I reckon you d fight with me, Bud? " 
 
 " No, I think not," was the unhesitating response. "I 
 wouldn t let you get hurt if I could help it, but I d try just 
 as much to keep you from doing hurt to any other man." 
 
 " You re a hell of a friend ! " decided Mr. Le Fevre, 
 ironically. 
 
 " I never said I was your friend," answered the man 
 ahead, unconcernedly. " If you want friends the right 
 sort you ve got to live different." 
 
 "What s the matter with your livin , an how many friends 
 you got? " And with this retort silence fell over their path ; 
 and without further words the crown of the last hill was 
 reached, one of the downward steps of the mountain, and 
 deep into its bosom cut the gulch of Indian Ledge. 
 
 The deep bellows of the curs and half-hounds gave warn 
 ing of their coming, and the light from within streamed 
 through the quickly opened door, outlining as it did so 
 two horses tied to an apple-tree near the door. 
 
 " Strangers ! " whispered Dick, stepping back into the 
 shadow. " You re never in danger; go in." 
 
 But the other stepped to the heads of the horses. 
 
 " It s Mr. Edson s horse, and I think Dr. Nesbit s; you 
 had better come in." 
 
 " Who is there? " demanded the shrill voice of Granny 
 in the door-way. " You, Dick ! that you? " 
 
 "Yes, I found him;" and Bud walked past her into the 
 house and to the bed in the corner, where the young 
 mother bent over a tiny form. 
 
 " Better? " he said, laying his hand on her shoulder for 
 an instant; and she turned a radiant face up to him.
 
 126 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she breathed; "she is just asleep now. Mr. 
 Edson, he brought the doctor oh, Bud ! " 
 
 For at the touch of his well-known sympathetic hand 
 the self-control that had been kept before the strangers 
 melted away in a burst of glad tears, and leaning her head 
 on the pillow, she cried quietly; and with a long, curious 
 look at her, he turned away, attempting no word of com 
 fort. She did not raise her head when her husband 
 entered. His maternal relative had given him the news 
 before he came in, for he asked no questions, only 
 remarked, " I reckoned you was more scared about her 
 than was needed." But he thanked Don for taking a 
 twenty-mile ride on their account, and confessed to being 
 infernally hungry, suggesting that the strangers would wait 
 and have supper with him; an invitation that was declined, 
 as the physician had already agreed to spend the night 
 with Mr. Edson, and they had only waited to see the effect 
 of certain medicines before leaving. 
 
 Each spoke what kindly, hopeful words they could to 
 Krin, and bidding good-night to the others, started for 
 their horses. Granny paid no attention to them whatever; 
 the mere presence of a " regular" vender of cures was a 
 slight on her own medical knowledge, and their visit had 
 not been a social success. She was trying, in a tone but 
 slightly modulated, to impress the Pagan with her own 
 opinion of (condemned) quacks; but he, after a brief 
 recognition of Don, had sat silent, leaning his head on his 
 hand, looking, as they thought, too utterly tired for notice 
 of the surroundings. 
 
 But he was not too oblivious to follow them to the door, 
 stopping Don with a gesture, and holding out his hand. 
 
 " You sent me a thing that takes half the weight of a curse 
 off my mind," he said, in a halting, labored sort of way, as 
 one does a difficult thing under compulsion. " I never
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 127 
 
 shook hands with you, but you ve helped take a load off 
 another mind here this night; and if your willing " 
 
 The proffered hand finished the sentence, and the younger 
 man clasped it with frank earnestness. 
 
 "You mean the book ? " he said, with a smile. " That s 
 all right; glad I happened on it. Don t be so quick shoulder 
 ing curses till you know what they re intended for after 
 this; you re equal to Moses himself in hustling around for 
 them;" and with this half-laughing reference to their 
 former conversation, he turned again to follow the doctor, 
 who seemed to realize more keenly than the young land 
 lord that he was in a disreputable corner of the world, and 
 had no idea of lingering. 
 
 The innumerable canines had again commenced to make 
 night musical, barking ferociously, and Grandam Le 
 Fevre pricked up her ears alertly at a peculiar tone from 
 one of her force of watchmen. 
 
 " Strangers about," she said, with keen laconicism, paus 
 ing on her way to the table with a plate of bread and meat 
 for the use of her grandson. 
 
 "You re late makin the discovery," was the ironical 
 response of that worthy. " They re jest leavin ." 
 
 " Tain t them; it s new ones. Yes, tis hark to Bach ! " 
 
 Without a word, Dick reached for his gun, and from the 
 table drawer thrust a box of cartridges into his pocket. 
 Bud s eyes had evidently been keen as the old lady s 
 ears, for he turned suddenly and laid his hand on the gun. 
 
 " No use to fight against the law, ef it is the law," he 
 said, warningly; " it s like to be bad for you in the end, 
 Dick. Take care ! 
 
 At the same instant the light gleamed on something in 
 the hand of a figure that rose up from the corner of the 
 pig-pen. 
 
 " Hi, you! there in the door, stop jest where you are !"
 
 128 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 rang out a voice weighted with the bullying quality of brief 
 authority. " I ve got you, Le Fevre, in the name of the 
 law ! " 
 
 " The deuce you have ! retorted the figure in the door, 
 halting not at all; and Krin, startled by the call, raised her 
 head in time to see the flash of red light that cut the dark 
 ness, and then, without a cry or sound, Don sunk in a life 
 less-looking heap. There was a shatter of glass as a sash 
 was wrenched from the window-casing by Bud Lennard, 
 and then with quick strides he reached the limp form and 
 raised it in his arms as if it was a child s, checking the rush 
 of the legal agents who materialized from the darkness. 
 
 " I ll kill the first man that fires another shot in that 
 house," he said, slowly; "two women an a sick child is 
 in there, an 1 there ain t anyone else. You ve shot Mr. 
 Edson, gentlemen, a man as come here to help the sick. 
 An Mr. Le Fevre ain t here jest now; he s gone." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 And gone he was; over the hills and far away. Days went 
 by, and he was still gone; and Don, whose form had been 
 mistaken by the sheriff for that of the mountaineer, had a 
 grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that the young rene 
 gade had eluded them. 
 
 " That bullet with which the sheriff grazed my skull has 
 enlisted my sympathy with the law-breakers," he acknowl 
 edged; "and then it gives me the comforting thought that I 
 am of practical use on my estate." 
 
 "Stopping bullets for other men; practical enough,
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 129 
 
 indeed ! " agreed Dinah. " The only redeeming feature of 
 your foolhardiness is that it saved me my model." 
 
 " But if he is not to be found ? " 
 
 " He must be; the Vulcan is not finished." 
 
 "Stupendous reason; of course more important to the 
 man than his freedom may be life, if that other man should 
 die." 
 
 "You are talking too much," decided Miss Lottie, who 
 was in her element with someone to nurse. " You know 
 coolness and quiet are the things ordered for you." 
 
 " But I am not sick," he protested. " My head aches 
 still, when the sun gets hottest, but it is only a scratch." 
 
 "Your uncle thinks it serious enough to hasten your 
 return," smiled the little lady. 
 
 " Has he repented the order of banishment ? Has he 
 acknowledged his faults and asked to be forgiven ? " asked 
 Dinah, eagerly. "Tell us all he says." 
 
 " I I can t very well do that," protested Miss Lottie. 
 " He might prefer expressing himself to Don personally." 
 
 " Um ! " and Dinah looked wondrous wise. " My own 
 opinion, Donald, is that there are hidden things in those 
 letters that are growing more and more frequent between 
 your uncle and my aunt; they mean mischief somehow." 
 
 " I can t imagine her letters meaning mischief to any 
 one," and Don s glance at Miss Lottie was lover-like; "in 
 fact, it would be a jolly good thing for him to always have 
 letters from such a source. Why, when you used to write 
 to me, I could pilot him out of the worst of tempers by 
 reading one of your letters to him. Yes, indeed, whatever 
 politics may say, Uncle Donald never changes his opinion 
 as to the first lady in the land." 
 
 "You are extravagant," she answered, with a blush like 
 a girl; "but he was always very faithful to old friends. 
 Why, when your fathers were both boys, and we lived not 
 
 9
 
 130 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 far apart, it was really hard to tell which of the houses we 
 children belonged in. Yes, we were always great friends." 
 
 " And Papa and he are getting all the good out of that 
 friendship just now, you may depend on it," said Dinah. 
 " How lucky Papa did not leave before your adventure; 
 he can give the senior the affair in detail. Wish I had 
 gone along; I could have furnished the embellishments." 
 
 "Without a doubt," agreed Mr. Edson; "and to my 
 complete discomfiture." 
 
 " Don t you believe it, Don;" and Miss Lottie smiled on 
 them both knowingly. " Dinah says all her ugly things to 
 you, but of you no I never hear them any more." 
 
 Dinah s face flushed as though caught in some 
 misdemeanor. 
 
 "Well, considering that he is not to be disturbed by 
 speech or sun or thought, it seems to me, Auntie, that you 
 yourself are breaking your own rules. Let him rest and 
 mourn silently for that haven of the moonshiners over 
 there. I fancy that is what he must be doing, by those 
 longing looks to the east. No use, Don; you may gaze 
 and gaze, but you can t ride through the sun this week." 
 
 To his own surprise, he had found how much of a depri 
 vation it was to be fenced out from the timber by that 
 bullet; and to the surprise of the others, they found how 
 many people from the "wooden" country tramped over 
 the mountain to see him, and sat around on the veranda 
 for hours asking questions, telling him the news from the 
 timber, and leaving behind them a fine aroma of snuff and 
 tobacco. 
 
 Riker was the most regular attendant. Even Becky Ann 
 was over to see him, carrying under cool, green leaves 
 some scarlet service-berries, the gift of Bud. But the 
 Pagan himself had not returned after the one night when 
 he had helped get Don home, and carried him, still insen-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 131 
 
 sible, up the stairs and to his bed, vanishing again when 
 the dawn came, and when, with returned consciousness, 
 the doctor decided there was nothing dangerous in his 
 hurt only exacting some care from noon-day suns for 
 awhile. 
 
 But day after day something of fruit, or sun-flecked 
 trout, or some offering of the forest, reached him from 
 Bud, telling him how he was remembered on the mountain. 
 
 " But he s some busy these days," explained Mr. Riker. 
 " Over at the Ledge they look to him for some things sence 
 Dick s gone. He s nigher to them than other folks. 
 They re all mighty upset about Dick. He ain t on the 
 mountain, naw, sir; there s men skulkin round an* 
 watchin for him, but he hain t been seen." 
 
 "And she Mrs. Le Fevre?" How odd the name 
 sounded in his own ears! Daphne s name. 
 
 " Krin? Oh, she s right miserable, I hear tell count o 
 the baby more than her ownself. My woman, she s been 
 up some; says Granny s took a notion to you all at once; 
 says if you keep on poorly she s comin to dose you." 
 
 " Never felt better in my life," avowed Mr. Edson, 
 hastily; " and if you happen up that way just mention it." 
 
 " I ll do it. Bud, he saw me as I was comin ; sent word 
 along that if you needed anything he can do to jest let us 
 know. Bud s a good hand with sick folks." 
 
 " I wish," said Don, suddenly, " you would tell me 
 something of that man. Who is he? Where did he come 
 from? And how does it happen he has such queer ideas of 
 religion in the midst of a community of believers? " 
 
 "Well, now you re askin questions," said Mr. Riker, 
 settling himself willingly enough to answer them. "Fust 
 off he s jest Bud Lennard; that s all he or anybody else 
 knows. His daddy an him come here strangers, at a time 
 when strangers was scarce in the wooden country; that
 
 132 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 was about war-times. Bud was only a baby. His daddy 
 was queer kind o foreign chap, folks reckoned; had 
 books enough to stock a Sunday-school. No one knowed 
 whether they was the right sort, though. Anyways, he 
 burned em all up when he took his death-sickness. Old 
 Gran Le Fevre, she could tell you; she was there, an heard 
 him say there was a curse in book- laming sometimes. 
 They say he certainly did know a heap lots about mineral 
 an* sich, an all about the stars, till he could most tell 
 things was goin to happen by them. Folks lowed twas 
 witchcraft. Anyways, he turned agin it at the last; said 
 he wanted his boy Anton Bud, we call him to grow up 
 a farmer, or a woodman, as he said, jest to plow, an 
 sow, and reap, an* sleep healthy o nights without dreamin . 
 So that s how come Bud was lef to old Granny Keesy. 
 She s dead now; lived paralyzed ten years afore she died, 
 an Bud, he took care of her jest same as if she was a 
 mother, an she wa n t none too derned good to him, neither. 
 But then, you see, he didn t know much about how 
 mothers ought to be never even knowed a mite 
 about his own mother not even her name. So that s how 
 Bud Lennard growed up; an he took care o the Keesys 
 more than they did o him. Pap Keesy eats there yet, 
 mostly. Hadn t never any schoolin hardly, Bud hadn t; 
 lived too far out o the way; most sixteen when he first did 
 start, an then didn t go more n a month. The master, 
 he lowed Bud was crazy, he had such queer notions, an so 
 Bud didn t get no more schoolin ; but he s picked up a 
 heap some way, all by himself like. Some of it s -queer 
 stuff; but he s a square man, fer all his crazy notions." 
 
 Don lay back, with half-closed eyes, listening to this life- 
 sketch of the man who had impressed him so strongly. 
 Following the slow, gossipy narrative, he could understand 
 with more clearness the man s conviction of a curse that
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 133 
 
 was laid on him. Who could tell what blood of race, or of 
 scholarly instinct, was struggling within him against his 
 own utter ignorance and uncouth surroundings? Don was 
 not a deep thinker on things psychological; but in spite of 
 himself there arose the idea of fate thwarting the desire 
 of that dead student, who desired only that his child might 
 live his life free of the doubts perplexing that come to 
 scholars. The dead hand had burned the books of human 
 wisdom, and the boy had turned instinctively to the never- 
 closed, indestructible book of nature, and found it written 
 in a language clearer to his understanding than the speech 
 of the people about him; and groping blindly, he had yet 
 caught, perhaps, at thoughts condemned by the man whose 
 learning had been a mysterious thing to the mountaineer. 
 
 " Some jest naturally allowed he was possessed o the 
 devil," was Mr. Riker s final summing up of the defunct 
 Lennard s personality, " an that s why Bud jest took so 
 quick to heathen idees bout religion." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so," acquiesced Don, in the tone of a 
 man too indolent to dispute; "but he has read some read 
 the Bible, anyway." 
 
 "Lord, yes! That s the only school-book he had, most. 
 Gran Keesy, she had one; folks said she kep it to conjer 
 with, "cause she couldn t read. She was a mite like ole 
 Moll Le Fevre, only not so much so. She believed more 
 in boys grubbin in clearin s than school-books, so he 
 hadn t nary but a Bible; an he got meanings out o it 
 what the preacher said never was in it, so that s how he 
 got nicknamed the Pagan, jest same as he s nicknamed 
 Bud, though neither s his name. Folks call boys bud 
 sometimes, jest like they call girls sis short fer 
 brother, I reckon; an Gran Keesy, she allers held there 
 wa n t sense in his other name."
 
 134 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "And you never knew any more about his family? 
 That s strange." 
 
 "Yes, sir, tis. Folks here reckoned they come from 
 Dixie, fer twas jest about war-times. The ole man an he 
 wa n t so old, neither he had some money, an built a log 
 house, with a porch all round. Bud lives there yet, all 
 lone senceGran died; that s two years ago. Folks lowed 
 he d leave the mountain an clear out after that, but he 
 didn t; heap o sickness around jest that winter, so he 
 stayed on, an I reckon heallus will now." 
 
 "Poor devil!" Mr. Edson s vocabulary of sympathy 
 was not extensive, but the tone made amends for the lack 
 of words; and his thoughts were so taken up with the 
 narrative finished that he did not drift easily into the new 
 topics Mr. Riker found for discussion. 
 
 "He s lookin fer Dick, too," was the next he heard 
 clearly. "Yes, sir; ain t sayin a word, but jest livin* out 
 on the mountain; an he ll find him sooner n them paid 
 spies, you bet." 
 
 "To give him up?" 
 
 "Hardly," grinned Mr. Riker; "that ain t Bud no, sir. 
 Curious, now; he ain t a law-breaker hisself, but he hain t 
 no sort o respec fer the law when it comes to helpin 
 criminals. Has his own idees bout some crimes, an lows 
 a higher justice n the court house c lects toll fer wrong- 
 doin , an never does make a mistake that s his idee; but 
 it don t satisfy most folks. Most folks want justice did now, 
 right away, so they can see it, stid o waitin a life-time t 
 see how God A mighty s goin to square it." 
 
 "Naturally." 
 
 "Yes, sir, that s natural; but Bud, he says it s the animal 
 in us all makes us feel that-a-way says that right in the 
 face o the Bible-rule bout the eye for the eye, an so on.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 135 
 
 Lord! Lord! it s right funny to hear him at times, he s 
 got sech queer notions." 
 
 The ride to Indian Ledge, and its unexpected finale, was 
 over a week old at the day Don listened to that outline of 
 the Pagan s life; and he felt impatient at the doctor s restric 
 tions, that kept him under a roof of shingles instead of where 
 his thoughts were, across on the other mountain, under the 
 roof of growing leaves. 
 
 And as he looked he was conscious of a murky cloud 
 that was creeping over the summer sky; not a storm-cloud, 
 only a heavy shadow that drifted low, creeping like a 
 monster of the shades, with wide-spread wings, coming up 
 over the mountain from the west, where the settlements 
 are. 
 
 "It s them blamed coke-ovens on the other side," 
 explained Mr. Riker; " they do send unearthly belches o 
 smoke up this way sometimes. Jest filled the timber with 
 sut, they have. Hain t you noticed how black you will get 
 in the woods? " 
 
 " I supposed it was from the charred sticks of forest 
 fires." 
 
 "Naw jest them blamed furnaces. Looks like hell 
 down there at night; an that s jest near what they are, too. 
 Mountain men get down there sometimes, an they don t 
 come back the same; no, sir, it s a hard place, an they come 
 back queer citizens." 
 
 And long after Mr. Riker had gone the convalescent sat 
 looking at the slow-creeping darkness shadowing the sun, 
 and wondering a little at the unusual density of it; and 
 then his thoughts drifted, as the cloud drifted, over to the 
 far mountain, to the nooks and cavernous places he had 
 seen there, trying fancifully to determine which of them, 
 if any, now served as a hiding-place for the golden head 
 that would be so hard to hide.
 
 136 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 Other eyes noted that cloud on the mountain at Indian 
 Ledge Dame Le Fevre several times cast a " weather " 
 eye upward to the widening shadow. 
 
 "Storm comin up?" asked Krin, resting a moment on 
 her hoe in the potato-patch, and glancing along the rows 
 to the hills yet to be worked before the rain came. 
 
 " Naw, tain t that. Looks like west hill must be a fire, but 
 tain t leaves too green yet an wet; but it s curious." 
 
 "Yes, ma m, they are wet," agreed her daughter-in-law; 
 " been rainin a heap sence " 
 
 Her voice did not finish the sentence, but her eyes did, 
 wandering in a sort of habitual search up into fhe forests 
 of moist leaves, noting every decided tremble of the low 
 brush touched by the summer air; for in some covert of 
 leaves or of rock the fugitive was hidden, and who knew 
 what time he might creep close for needed help? 
 
 " Seems like a powerful long time s been gone sence," 
 she added, with a quick sigh, and then went on hoeing 
 potatoes; for through either sorrow or gladness there were 
 mouths to feed at the Ledge, and the problem "how" was 
 puzzling the young gardener to the extent of crowding 
 out the luxury of personal hopes or fears or longings. 
 
 Dick s erratic sources of revenue had been things of 
 vague fear to her. She had never been confided in regarding 
 them, only picked-up fragments of conversation between 
 Dame Le Fevre and himself had given her enlightenment 
 full of forebodings, and she was conscious that now the 
 household provisions must be secured in a different direc 
 tion; and Krin gripped the hoe with renewed energy, seeing 
 no help but in her own hands not very big hands, either. 
 
 A man coming out of the timber into the brushy, badly 
 cleared clearing watched with sombre eyes the bent form 
 digging in the meagre patch, every now and then straight 
 ening its slim length with such an effort.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 137 
 
 " You better be in with the child stead o" working at 
 such-like," he said, gruffly, taking the hoe from her 
 hands. " There, sit down a minute; you look s if you was 
 ailing." 
 
 "No, I ain t," she said, trying to smile reassuringly, 
 "jest some shaky; an you scared me when you spoke, 
 cause I never heard a step of you. You walk mighty 
 quiet, Bud, to be big." 
 
 She had found a seat on a stump, and sat there while he 
 finished the row and came back on another one. 
 
 "Why is it you find yourself shaky?" he demanded, dig 
 ging with a great concentration of interest around a special 
 hill. " Edie ain t took again? " 
 
 "No, sir, she ain t; she s brightenin up wonderful these 
 two days, thank the Lord! I ve been some nervous, 
 though, ever sence the other night; " and then, with a glance 
 toward the near brush, " You hain t seen him, Bud? " 
 
 He shook his head. " Ain t on the mountain," he said, 
 briefly. " I ve been over it night and day." 
 
 "Did did you see the others?" 
 
 " Them looking for him ? Yes; tried to follow me once. 
 I toled them to the den, an then they must a changed 
 their minds, becase they didn t come nearer. But there s 
 men on the mountain covering the road, an talking." He 
 stopped work, listening a moment. " I heard them up there 
 on the ridge; seems I hear them now." 
 
 " I don t;" and her head was poised an instant as the 
 head of a partridge at the step of a hunter. " How comes it, 
 Bud, you always do hear more in the woods than other folks 
 do?" 
 
 " Don t hear any more than s there," he answered, with 
 conviction. " I don t hear all that s there, either; only 
 hints o the things the woods has to teach. Jest hear their 
 whispers sometimes, an can t make out the words; that s
 
 138 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 what does tantalize a man! But then," with a lowered 
 tone of resignation, " if we live right, may be we ll know 
 them hidden things in the next life." 
 
 " You mean when we re dead? " 
 
 " No, I mean when we re altogether alive; most of us 
 ain t more n half in this life. Look here, try try an think, 
 Krin! Ain t there times when your living seems like a 
 dream to you, an you know if you could only wake up 
 you d get out o the troubles o that dream? An then the 
 bit o God that s in us 11 be stronger, an show us how to 
 work to help other souls that s asleep; an then an then 
 we ll know, too, the souls that belong to us, an that we 
 belong to, like we never could know clear in this life. 
 Don t you never know them thoughts? " 
 
 She drew back in a distressed sort of way before the 
 energy of his speech. 
 
 " Please, sir, don t, Bud," she entreated, wistfully. " Them 
 thoughts is some like religion, but they ain t the church 
 religion; church religion don t say we all are part of the 
 Lord. No, the Lord s jest by Himself, an some day, if we 
 have the faith right, we ll all see Him; that s what we re 
 taught, an why must you go conjure up things different, 
 Bud? You re good you re powerful good to folks, but 
 don t talk that-a-way. You do put idees in my head that s 
 like witchcraft, sometimes; yes they are. I seem while 
 you re talkin just to hear an see the things you do; an 
 it s wicked, oh, it is, Bud! an I don t want to be wicked, I 
 don t! " 
 
 Her voice, with the wail in it, made him turn his head 
 away instead of toward her. 
 
 "Go an get Edie," he said, in a colorless sort of tone; 
 " I hear her crying, an you d better." 
 
 She arose obediently, but checked her going, at sight of 
 the still form and the face so strangely turned away.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 139 
 
 "Don t be mad, Bud, "she said, falteringly; "it ain t you I 
 think is wicked, it s the thoughts about the lives before 
 this the lives in the trees, an the birds, an the flowers, 
 an the notion that God is in them, an in us, stead of in 
 heaven. That s why folks call you Pagan; tain t that you re 
 wicked. But I allow," she added, unconsciously exalting 
 him " I allow them unreligious idees would make anyone 
 but you wicked." 
 
 For one unguarded instant he turned to her a face so 
 alight with warmth and feeling that she looked startled, as 
 when he had come on her unawares a little while before. 
 
 " Some day, Krin, we ll know all the things for sure that 
 we only guess at here; an I wonder I wonder if you ll 
 judge me as kind then. Will you? But " and he shook 
 his head "that ain t noways fair to ask; it ll depend on 
 myself what judgment I get, an* it s sure to be justice. 
 But if you should turn against me " 
 
 He stopped, evidently having no intention of saying so 
 much. The girl looked at him wistfully. 
 
 "No, sir; I ain t ever like to turn agin you," she said, 
 " though I do wish you was more like folks that s con 
 tented. Folks ought to be contented, Bud." 
 
 " Don t know," he debated. " I ve a notion that there 
 wouldn t ever a been any improvements in the world if 
 somebody hadn t started to be dissatisfied, and may be 
 we d all a been walking on four feet yet stead o two." 
 
 "Now don t you, Bud!" she said, pleadingly. "You 
 make folks turn agin you with that heathen talk; an I 
 wonder why it is you care special whether I do, for / 
 don t know much! Is it is it jest case I favor that girl 
 o yours, that one that died, or " 
 
 " Yes," he said, looking at her curiously. " You asked 
 me once before; I told you." 
 
 "I know you did you told me some; but Granny, she
 
 140 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 said there never was any girl around here looked like me. 
 Did did your girl die long ago, Bud 7 " 
 
 He avoided looking at her, as he said, gravely: " Some 
 day, in the next world, when she is my girl when she s 
 given back to me I ll ask her." 
 
 In a wondering sort of despair, she turned away from 
 him, not unkindly, but uncomprehendingly, and entered the 
 house. He watched her until she disappeared, then the 
 light in his eyes changed, as the face of the earth changes 
 when the sun goes down; and when she emerged he was 
 hoeing away at the potatoes as if no thought more perplex 
 ing than their case ever crossed his mind. 
 
 "Granny, she s comin , too," she announced, holding the 
 little blue-eyed mite up that he might see how it was im 
 proving. " She wants to ask you bout them men, the ones 
 that were searchin ." 
 
 "Yes" he had taken the child in his arms a moment, 
 touching the velvety cheek softly with great tender hands 
 "yes, she s brighter; an she s favoring you more and more, 
 Krin. What s to be done with this family and this child, 
 allowing that he has left the mountain for good? You ve 
 got to make plans." 
 
 " I know," she said, soberly. " I ve tried to think, but I 
 hain t been able yet; it s jest been on my mind heavy as 
 that cloud hangs there, an me a waitin for it to break away. 
 I ve jest been waitin like that for somethin to happen." 
 
 He glanced up at the cloud, and gave her back the child. 
 
 " I allow you won t try to scratch a living out o this 
 ground, anyway," he said, digging again into the stony, 
 rooty soil. 
 
 "I d spin if I could get foiks to spin for," she answered; 
 "but I don t know women folks seem scared o this 
 Ledge; Granny says case o snakes. Sometimes I ve been 
 thinkin , Bud, it s becase o Granny."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 141 
 
 The approach of that lady made further discussion of 
 the subject rather awkward, and Krin asked: 
 
 " Did you hear late news of Mr. Edson? I heard tell 
 he dassen t go out in the sun at all." 
 
 " He was forbid a spell, but he s been seen walking a 
 little ways. He s on the mend." 
 
 "I wonder do you know," she asked, low and hur 
 riedly, for the other feet were drawing closer " do you 
 know if he s set against us any for gettin shot here on our 
 account? I ve been tormented some about that. Do ye 
 think" 
 
 "No, he ain t set against you; he thinks kind an respect 
 ful o you," he went on, with dogged honesty, " counting from 
 the way he done that night, fetching the doctor, an all; 
 but s posing he was set against you? " and he leaned on the 
 hoe-handle and looked at her steadily. " S posing he 
 was?" 
 
 " Oh, I don t know," she faltered; "only I yes, I would, 
 too, Bud; I d mind it a heap. He s been a comfort to me 
 twice now. Yes, I would mind," she repeated, more decid 
 edly, drawing the child closer, and rocking to and fro on 
 the stump. " I ain t like to forget what he s done for me." 
 
 "I ll be bound she s goin on about young Edson, now," 
 cackled Mrs. Le Fevre, Sr.; " ye d reckon he was nigh about 
 God A mighty, to hear her. Jest s ef he cured that chile! 
 Huh! heap o good them store medicines done. Not but 
 what the young blade is all right," she added; "he s game, 
 anyway. He caught the ball that was aimed for Dick, an 
 give Dick time to go. Heard anything new? " 
 
 "No special thing," he answered, resuming his work in a 
 way that gave little chance for conversation. " Dick s clear 
 o the mountain; that s all I m sure of." 
 
 "No signs?" 
 
 He shook his head.
 
 142 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " Gettin mighty keen fer work," she observed, " when ye 
 come up here an hoe our potato-patch. Got none o yer 
 own?" 
 
 Receiving no reply to this ironical remark, she whistled 
 to the dogs, and turned her steps toward the wood. 
 
 " Dogs are better company than human critters as won t 
 talk," she decided, with them leaping and tumbling over 
 each other to get closest to her. " May be ye ll find more 
 gab to give the other widder than ye have for me;" and 
 laughing shrilly in laudation of her own wit, she turned 
 away, and Krin arose to go back to the house; but a low, 
 threatening growl from Dame Le Fevre s body-guard halted 
 them both. 
 
 "Strangers!" murmured the girl, fearfully, and took a 
 step nearer Bud. 
 
 " I don t think you have need to be nervous," he said, his 
 eyes on the bushes; " it s the men I heard on the mountain. 
 Yes, it is. It s Will Riker, an " 
 
 She knew why his speech had halted when the men came 
 a little closer. One of them had been of the sheriff s crowd 
 that night, the other she had never seen. 
 
 Riker s good-natured face looked troubled; he spoke in 
 an embarrassed, hesitating way to the old woman, and then 
 came down to Krin, who watched him with questioning 
 eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. " Something we re to know 
 now what?" 
 
 " Well, Krin," he began, and stopped, looking around at 
 the strangers as if for assistance. 
 
 "It s about Dick?" asked Bud, looking also at the 
 strangers, who seemed to have come in no hostile mood 
 to-day. They nodded, glancing with a sort of sympathy 
 at the slim girl with the baby. 
 
 "Yes, that s what it is," said Riker; " an I I jest got
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 143 
 
 these gentlemen to come down along, when I met them, 
 cause this one knows particulars," and he nodded to the 
 stranger of the men. " He s jest come up from the settle 
 ments to give the word to this other one that it s no use 
 layin* out on the mountain a watchin fer Dick now, 
 case " 
 
 " He ain t found? " snarled Dame Le Fevre, in a voice 
 that made the man nearest her take a step aside. " Neither 
 one o you two could take him! He ain t found? " 
 
 "No, ma m, he ain t," said the stranger, overlooking her 
 contempt; "none of them is found yet. You may know by 
 that smoke how the pit is burning an has been since 
 noon yesterday; there s no getting near it yet, and the 
 men " 
 
 "What in hell has Dick got to do with your pit?" was 
 the impatient query; while Bud, seeming to divine what 
 was coming, moved nearer Krin. 
 
 "He s got to die there, we re afraid," said the man, 
 soberly, " along with thirty other men that were working 
 there, and that they can t get out; and -look out there for 
 that woman 1" 
 
 Bat Bud s eyes were alert as the stranger s, and as 
 she swayed, with a little cry of protest on her lips, he 
 caught her and the child in her arms, both looking like frail 
 pink blossoms struck down by the weight of that cloud on 
 the mountain. 
 
 " Are you still in a torpor from the monotony of the 
 mountain?" asked Don, when the story of the lost miners 
 was carried up from the settlements; and Dinah turned a 
 reproachful, horror-stricken face toward him. 
 
 "How can you be so unfeeling, or imagine I am?" she 
 demanded. "That horrible death and that poor young 
 fellow! What a fearful hiding-place to find! "
 
 144 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "There are just thirty other lives lost in that burning 
 mine," he remarked " good honest, hard-working fellows, 
 no doubt and from them all you pick just one well 
 featured renegade to be sorry for. Call that feeling? " 
 
 "Artistic feeling," said Miss Lottie. "It does inter 
 fere, sometimes, with one s view from a humane standpoint, 
 and he was a fine study; but those poor men poor fel- 
 lows!" 
 
 " It is late to be sorry for them days too late," said 
 Don; "there is little doubt that death was instantaneous 
 from the gases. Their tomb is already walled up, and their 
 families are the people who need pity." 
 
 "Yes, indeed yes, indeed!" sighed the little woman; 
 " and this poor young man, Le Fevre, leaves a wife and 
 child, I hear, and an aged grandmother. Dear! dear! Are 
 they so very poor? or do you know, Don, I was thinking 
 we might go to see them, and see if we could do anything, 
 you know. You could take us, Don; you are able to ride 
 now." 
 
 He did not answer; but, in spite of himself, he smiled at 
 the idea of introducing Miss Lottie to Dame Le Fevre 
 of leading this gray-garbed little wood-dove into the vult 
 ure s nest; and as the simile crossed his mind he remem 
 bered another life, just as surely fitted for refinements, that 
 lived its blameless days in the midst of the vulture s coarse 
 ness; and the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, 
 and was evidently borrowed by Dinah, who was looking at 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, Don, I had quite forgotten the most interesting 
 thing in this series of calamities; but that wood-nymph is 
 a widow now, isn t she? " 
 
 Mr. Edson favored her with a mild, uncomprehending 
 stare, and returned again to the perusal of a county paper 
 that gave the embellished account of the tragedy of the mine,
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 145 
 
 with an extra article in praise of the indefatigable sheriff and 
 his efficient aids, who had just succeeded, on the morning of 
 the fire, in tracking the young desperado, Le Fevre, from 
 his mountain haunts to the doomed mine, where he had 
 been employed three days at the time of the acci 
 dent. The local writer dwelt at length on the evidence 
 undisputable that had proven his identity: the coat left at 
 his boarding-house was identified as his; the pillow on 
 which he slept was stained by some matter he had used to 
 change the hue of his hair not quite sue ceedingj for his 
 landlady had noticed the light curly rings showing about his 
 temples that very morning after his ablutions at the public 
 bath the wash-bench. She had commented on the fact, 
 and noticed it seemed to disturb him; he started at once for 
 work, and had entered the mine some two hours before the 
 terrible catastrophe that at present convulsed the com 
 munity. The suspicious landlady had mentioned her 
 doubts about the stranger the mention had reached one 
 of the local guardians of the peace; but fate had stepped 
 in and set aside the decrees of human justice, and the 
 walled-up tomb in the mountain held, besides the thirty 
 respected and lamented workmen, the mortal remains of 
 one young in years, but old in crime, etc. 
 
 There was also an incidental mention made of the man 
 who had found fault with Le Fevre s make of whisky, and 
 whom Le Fevre had accordingly " cut up" badly; his 
 recovery was uncertain. 
 
 Mr. Edson had read the whole affair before, but waded 
 through in sheer ennui and impatience, with his head that 
 still persisted in aching if he ventured in the sun; for the 
 bullet that had grazed his skull, deadening him for awhile, 
 had a trick of making itself remembered, though it had not 
 taken up a permanent residence in his anatomy. He had 
 read an article in the county paper about that, too, in 
 
 10
 
 146 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 which the editorial " we " regretted so serious an accident 
 to one of our latest and most-respected citizens; and then 
 followed an allusion to an unnamed renegade of the hills, a 
 suspected confederate of Le Fevre s, who had interfered 
 with the duty of the sheriff in securing that probable man- 
 slayer. And there was little doubt in the editorial mind 
 that ere long the untiring agents of the law would find in 
 those mountain recesses, somewhere, the nest of outlaws 
 and illicit distillers that had been known to exist for years; 
 and when unearthed, there was a conviction in the mind of 
 the public that the man who refused the sheriff entrance to 
 Le Fevre s house would be found one of the leading spirits. 
 And when Mr. Edson had reached that finale, he threw 
 down the sheet in a fit of disgust, wordy and emphatic, and 
 then gathered it up again, marked all the paragraphs relat 
 ing to the affair, and mailed it to Edson Senior, with a pen 
 ciled line conveying the idea that the people mentioned in 
 it were among the most interesting of his tenants and 
 neighbors. And the reply that came was: 
 
 I m coming out there to change things and bring you 
 back. Would go this week, but can t. Reason, rheumatic 
 gout. Don t be pig-headed. I give in. R. D. EDSON. 
 
 A note that was waved as a banner of victory before the 
 eyes of his friends, and brought from Miss Dinah congrat 
 ulations for that bullet-mark. 
 
 " Standing up there in that handsome fellow s stead was 
 one of the best-paying moves you ve made in business all 
 summer." 
 
 " Yes, and then I had to stand such a short time, too," 
 he added, complacently. And Miss Lottie, happening to be 
 near, patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. 
 
 "Has the other suspected run away, too?" asked 
 Dinah, leaning back to catch the effect of some flesh-tints 
 on Dick s nose that she was trying to finish from memory.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 147 
 
 " I mean the man with the eyes, the one they say picked 
 you right up off the porch;" and then she glanced at Mr. 
 Edson s generous length. "Say, he must be very strong." 
 
 " He is. He d make a much better modern Vulcan than 
 that curled darling; " and his eyes rested critically on the 
 uncompleted forge-scene. " No, he has not run away not 
 likely to. Riker tells me he is working at the forge, and 
 people are beginning to take custom there now; this came 
 from him," and he raised the cover of a home-made basket 
 that had been brought not an hour before. It was filled 
 with wild raspberries and a great yellow square of honey. 
 
 "Um! Well, he knows what good things are, anyway; 
 and he is the Vulcan of the forge now, is he? And 
 what about the rest of Mr. Le Fevre s belongings, will 
 his friend appropriate them, too? For you know that Vulcan, 
 though the least prepossessing of the gods, really did 
 marry Venus." 
 
 " This is not Venus," he retorted; "this is Daphne, and 
 Daphne never married anyone." 
 
 "Oh!" and Miss Dinah gathered her skirts closely, with 
 a primly severe expression. " Then allow me to say that, 
 from the nature of the lady s anxiety the last time we met, she 
 is a person I can not possibly discuss with you, even in the 
 presence of a chaperone." 
 
 And then the chaperone, mightily puzzled, declared she 
 did not see what they were laughing at; and since they 
 were dipping into Grecian mythology, they should try, at 
 least, to remember the main facts of characters, and that 
 Daphne certainly never was married that sort of a finale 
 would have spoiled one of the most beautiful of Grecian 
 legends. And what was so amusing about it? 
 
 " I was only thinking," said the girl, wickedly, as she 
 widened Vulcan s nostrils a trifle, "how many beautiful sto 
 ries of modern life are spoiled by the same sort of a finale."
 
 148 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE HOME OF THE PAGAN. 
 
 On a level facing the south and west, and half-way up 
 the mountain, in total ignorance of the worldly suspicions 
 directed to it, the domain of the Pagan basked in the sun 
 shine and tendered its white clover for the bees kiss. 
 
 Approaching it from the valley below, and up along the 
 shady path, where the grape-vines droop their fruit low in 
 reach of your hands, no stranger would suspect the iniquity 
 that was lived there the life with the mark of a serpent 
 in its eyes a life touched by a curse that had weighed as 
 heavy as that hurled on the tempter in the Garden of 
 Eden. And one of the surest proofs of the man s 
 iniquity was that he did not believe the story of that tempta 
 tion at all. 
 
 " It was the man himself who came across the field from 
 the woods, with an ax on his shoulder, stopping a moment 
 at the house of the bees, and leaning a practiced ear to listen 
 for the sounds of a probable division in some of the colo 
 nies. A pet kitten came bounding over the grass, with a 
 welcome in every graceful movement; white pigeons from 
 the log barn fluttered to his shoulder, with never a fear of 
 a repulse; and so the green-eyed monster was welcomed, 
 though by none of his own kind, unless one accept his own 
 pagan idea of souls that lived in dumb bodies, at times 
 " may be for making bad use o words when they could 
 speak them," he reasoned, and with the instinct of a true 
 heathen, treated each thing of life as a possible brother. 
 A real member of the genus homo awaited him inside the 
 door a bent figure that dozed over the few coals on the 
 hearth, though the day was warm with the sun; and Bud
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 149 
 
 left open the door and raised the window to let out the 
 rank smell of tobacco that seemed especially agreeable to 
 the occupant of the corner. 
 
 " Pity ye can t lift the roof off, grunted the occupant, 
 with never a glance around; "took ye mighty long timetuh 
 cut a stick o wood up at the forge." 
 
 " There was more to do," answered the other, quietly; 
 "an* then it s a mile an a half to go an* come." 
 
 The gentleman at the fire raised his head then, with a 
 sound that may have been meant for laughter, and looking 
 round showed the face of the eldest of those guardian 
 angels who had garnished the store porch that spring 
 evening. 
 
 "That s so," he agreed "that s so; that s jest what old 
 Moll Le Fevre, she tole out at the store, a spell ago. She was 
 there, an some o them nobby city folks of boarders was there; 
 so, jest for game, they was made acquainted; an one 
 o them says, in an uppish sort o way, An pray, Mrs. Le 
 Fevre, whereabout is it you be livin at? An then she 
 says (an there was right smart of a gathering there, too), 
 an , says she, Jest a mile an a half from hell come an see 
 me. An ye d ought to o heard the boys holler." 
 
 And this recital of mountain wit pleased him so mightily 
 that he chucklingly filled another pipe, with mumbling rem 
 iniscences of the only other funny thing in his memory 
 that was on a par with it; and the palm wavered between 
 Granny s speech and a long-past trick of a Hallow Eve, 
 when a crowd of roysterers shaved a cow s tail. The 
 young man paid little heed to the reminiscences, 
 evidently used to hearing his own abode given Granny s 
 witty title. He stirred up the fire and set on the coals a 
 pot of coffee, brought out some butter and cooked berries 
 for the table, preparatory to the midday meal.
 
 150 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "Did Mrs. Riker bring up the bread?" he asked, glanc 
 ing into an empty dough-tray. 
 
 " She didn t, but Bill did; it s there in that basket. Look 
 here" and he straightened up, with a combative look in 
 the bleary eyes "what s this here he s a sayin bout you 
 tradin houses with them Le Fevres? I told him it was a 
 plum lie." 
 
 " It ain t a lie, an if they ll take this they re welcome;" 
 and Bud halted a moment in his work of cutting the bread. 
 " If I m to run the forge, I ought to be there, anyway." 
 
 "Yer a fool a plum fool!" and the voice as well as 
 the head was raised now " a givin away a decent house 
 fer a shanty, jest fer a fool notion; but I see the workin s 
 back of it I see! " and his sagacious grimaces were a bit 
 diabolical. " She s been a conspirin fer this a long time 
 Lord, yes; I seen! " 
 
 "No one s been conspiring," and Bud s face flushed; 
 " I made the offer." 
 
 "An I tell yeh I see the workin s back of it," persisted 
 the old gentleman, dropping his pipe in his nervousness, 
 and forgetting to pick it up again. " She s had her eye on 
 this place sence long afore Le Fevre died I know." 
 
 Bud s face was no longer flushed it was strangely 
 white. 
 
 " You can t know what you re saying, Pap Keesy," he 
 managed to articulate, though his tongue seemed unwieldy, 
 and he sat down suddenry at the table an example that 
 Pap Keesy promptly followed, thinking the dinner was 
 ready. 
 
 "Don t I?" he queried, in a tone that suggested 
 volumes of suppressed knowledge. "Well, I do. 
 Why don t ye pour the coffee, Bud? Yer allus so 
 dead-set on the book-studyin and sech-like that ye never 
 give notice to people s doin s much; but I ve seen what she s
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 151 
 
 aimin* at " and something like a complacent vanity shone 
 over the yellow mask of a face. " Tain t the first time she s 
 tried to get a holt on a man. Lord, no! Didn t even 
 wait till Le Fevre was dead for that. I ve seen her, many s 
 the time, gallivantin through the woods and around that 
 old still with" 
 
 And then Bud s hand came down on his shoulder as that 
 of a cat would fall on a mouse, and the shake that accom 
 panied it rendered Pap Keesy speechless, between lack of 
 breath and amazement. 
 
 "You miserable thing! " and the green-gray eyes were 
 not good to see with that expression in them "hain t 
 you, at your age, got any better thing to do than try to 
 make some other folks black as the thoughts in your own 
 mind? You re jest slingin mud that won t hit its mark 
 only leave your own hands full o dirt that s what slander 
 always does do in the end. And old as you are, and long as 
 I ve cared for you, you ll go outo that door, never to come 
 in again, if ever you say another word against folks at 
 this here table." And then Pap Keesy was allowed to con 
 tinue his repast, but alone, knowing that for awhile for 
 days, perhaps speechless silence would reign on that par 
 ticular corner of the mountain. It had happened so before, 
 when something that was a trifle to Pap, or to any of the 
 common-sense neighbors, had suddenly jarred on the pagan 
 sensibilities of Bud, and sent him into solitary confinement, 
 or out into the forest, where symphonies of nature 
 throb always, with never a discord never once lowering 
 the key to the coarseness of feeling that is only possible to 
 some phases of humanity. 
 
 And Pap, with his mouth too full for audible speech, 
 turned half-way around at the click of the bolt, and, with a 
 bow leeringly grotesque, gave his good-bye to present com 
 panionship, tranquilly continuing his dinner.
 
 152 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " Folks as is borned fools ain t to be held to task for their 
 folly," he decided, charitably, and proceeded to slice down 
 another section of the fool s loaf. 
 
 In the inner room were great windows that opened like 
 doors on the double veranda that circled the building. It 
 looked like a bit of the south blown by some freak of the 
 winds up to rest on a northern mountain. About it were 
 drooping arms of great spruce that never allowed winter to 
 rob them of the summer s gift, and under the largest of 
 them, not twenty feet from the door, nestled the mound 
 among the roses, marked only by that stone cut by "the 
 son s hands, and bearing only the letters "J. L.," for 
 Jacques Lennard; no age given the son never knew that 
 nor birthplace, nor family. Just those letters to stand as a 
 record for all that a life means; all the wealth of thoughts 
 and emotions, sympathies and sorrows, that throb on 
 through existence to judgment. Just two letters ! And 
 the heir of that problematic existence walked up and down, 
 up and down, past the windows of southern fashion, at 
 every turn his eyes resting on that mound, pink now with 
 fallen rose-leaves, and again on a great old book-case that 
 filled one corner of the room and mocked at him with its 
 empty shelves. 
 
 " I wonder if I had all that used to be there, would the 
 learning and knowing things help me to crowd back the 
 ache here in the heart when I think of her life an would 
 the books may be draw me away an help me forget?" 
 But something painful as the ache in the heart seemed 
 to come with that thought, for he covered his face with his 
 hands, whispering the hoarse protest of " No, no, no ! 
 that ud be worse, a heap worse; some o the light of under 
 standing come to me when she come to the mountain, an 
 the darkness fell away, an I knew her, seemin to see back 
 back to the past time through her eyes, an on forward
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 153 
 
 ^c:os this gulf into the new time that will be that will 
 0e \ Even the worm that crawls can t forever hold its soul 
 from winning the wings that God meant should belong to 
 it. I must keep in mind o that I must keep in mind. 
 . . . Did he, when he lived, know all that one look into a 
 woman s eyes would tell a man of his own soul, like a lan 
 tern dropped into a dark cave where you ve been gropin 
 an gropin a whole age? He knew books an thoughts; 
 he knew what it meant to want an want to know things, 
 an then jest left me where he knowed I d starve to death 
 for the want o what he took from me. And then folks talk 
 o love an duty to parents," and he laughed shortly. " Their 
 duty to you is first, ain t it? An if they don t pay it if they 
 shirk it, what do you owe them? Nothing; not a thing." 
 
 And then, inconsistently enough, he dropped on his knees, 
 with his head resting on the open pages of the volume 
 whose teachings he was contradicting. 
 
 " But that ain t your fault," he added, after a long silence, 
 and as if the book were a living thing; "an I ain t never 
 despising your words right through jest becase some men 
 have told things in you that ain t fair to God. No, I ain t. 
 You ve been my friend, most my only one; but don t people 
 have friends they like and jest grow to, an all the time 
 them friends have faults that you can t shut your eyes to, 
 an that you try to drive out o them? I reckon so; an 
 that s just how I feel to you," and his big hand patted the 
 pages in a conciliatory way. " She believes all of you; an 
 I d like to for her but " 
 
 Out in the other room was a rattle of dishes and pans, 
 telling that Pap Keesy had finished his repast and was 
 stowing the rest away out of reach of the flies; then the 
 click-clack of his shoes and cane was heard, growing more 
 and more indistinct, and the household had dwindled for 
 awhile to one.
 
 154 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 And the one remained there on his knees, with all his 
 might trying to pierce the veil of life and its destiny; 
 crowding together, as the untutored mind does, its gleams 
 of wisdom and its crude reasoning of a child. 
 
 "Jest to kneel down has a sort o comfort in it, some 
 times," he told himself; " not to beg like they do in 
 churches no, only to think and talk to God, or the spirit 
 o good. Indians, they call it the Great Spirit that sounds 
 true, someway. Yes, jest to kneel not to ask for things, 
 for when you earn them you ll get them without asking; 
 but jest to bow down before the spirits o good, and thank 
 them for sending thoughts that show you a little light to 
 climb up by, up out o the places where people go crazy." 
 
 To how many a mind, wise with the wisdom that is 
 above speculation, would the surety come that the light had 
 reached the pagan soul of him too late. So many of the 
 same order of mind, however, brush against strange truths 
 all through existence and never recognize them, and so 
 never regret their loss. The difference with him was that 
 his sense of loss was so strong strong as his ignorance. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 DICK S WIDOW. 
 
 When the dog-star watches over the summer skies, and 
 the night-dews and the seething sun ripen the berries, 
 more voices are heard along the trails in the mountain 
 than in all the rest of the year put together. Neighbors 
 who are inclined to be sociable club together their families 
 and their dinners in quest of a profitable picnic, and hunt 
 out those " old claims " cleared long ago by forgotten
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 155 
 
 woodmen, and climbing over nameless graves and over 
 shattered, weather-worn hearth-stones, reach for clusters 
 of the wild raspberry, that always seeks an abiding-place 
 in the soil that has been trodden by human feet. 
 
 Of old, the path up the gorge and past Indian Ledge 
 had been known as the trail to the best berry-ground for 
 miles. It had fallen into disuse during the ruling of the late 
 Mr. Le Fevre; but people remembered it now, and risked 
 even an occasional curse from the present ruler for the 
 sake of the berries that were a failure in the valleys; and 
 not a few had a bit of morbid curiosity in creeping to the 
 very edge of danger for a sight of Dick s widow and the 
 old witch. 
 
 But Dick s widow kept strangely out of sight. Once or 
 twice people who had failed to see any sign of her about 
 the house were startled, in the dense thickets of the berry- 
 patch, by that plaintive cry that was credited to a wildcat 
 until a slim form would pass them in sensitive silence, car 
 rying on one arm a basket of berries and on the other the 
 child that cried; and then they knew that was Dick s 
 family. 
 
 "Ain t so much for looks as I heard tell," was the gen 
 eral verdict of the women-kind, who saw no beauty in shy, 
 sad eyes that were gaining a frightened look at every 
 footfall. 
 
 Perhaps it was the rumors afloat on the mountain that 
 made her more fearful of its dwellers than of old, for 
 rumors of strange things were about; and few as the people 
 were who spoke to her, yet some of the thought of local 
 minds had sifted to her. Hard to tell just how much the 
 Weekly Dispenser s opinion influenced that of the mountain, 
 for there is magic in printer s ink; and although the mount 
 ain knew itself superior to the settlement, yet the mount 
 ain had not a newspaper and the settlement had, and
 
 156 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 was a mighty power, whether they willed or not. The 
 mountain frowned down on the settlements sent terrible 
 storms plowing across the levels, while its own heights 
 were scarce stirred by the wind; and the retaliation of the 
 level lands was a wordy condemnation of the order of 
 people whom the mountain gave life to. And the con 
 demnation had grown and thrived in the wake of editorial 
 suspicion, and even crept up the range. Petty thievery that 
 at any other time would have been blamed on the settle 
 ment folks up berrying, was now laid with dubious sur 
 mises to "the gang" of which the paper had spoken; and 
 the probable location of the gang was a thing furnishing 
 food for much controversy. Every stranger seen in the 
 timber was reported at the Roads council, and received his 
 particular share of comment. But strange nocturnal 
 figures had been seen, according to " Ole Pap " Keesy and 
 little Jake Riker, and the puzzling thing was to tell 
 whether they were strangers or ghosts, for they had not 
 spoken. 
 
 "Two of them," related Pap, with a certain air of 
 mystery " two of them a totin something, an never a 
 word out o them, right up above Injun Ledge, on Tues 
 day night. I was out a lookin for hogs, an got belated. 
 I kind o coughed, but nary a stop or a hurry or a word 
 out o them, an before a minute they seemed to drop into 
 the ground; an I made up my mind they warn t nothin* 
 livin , then, an I made tracks." 
 
 "What did it look like they was totin ?" queried one of 
 the curious. 
 
 " Well, I m flummixed about that; wasn t a bar l too 
 long just a long, queer " 
 
 " May be a coffin? " suggested another; and as Pap 
 could neither affirm nor contradict it, the decision went 
 abroad that it was a coffin.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 157 
 
 "Up on Injun Ledge, too," and heads were shaken 
 with fearful significance around more than one hearth; " up 
 along the Ledge where ole man Le Fevre s still used to 
 be, an where Gran Keesy, in her day, swore ole Moll had 
 her gatherin o witches an devils on witch-nights. Up 
 along that special side o the mountain, where all sorts o 
 bad has been, is where things is seen totin coffins now." 
 
 " An then Dick Le Fevre, he never did get a coffin, 
 neither," was another reminder offered; and that fact 
 was immediately given as proof that it could not have 
 been any other thing that disappeared with those fig 
 ures descending into the earth; "but who was helpin Dick 
 to tote it? 
 
 " What does Bud say? " someone asked Pap. 
 
 "Don t know a plum thing about it; I didn t tell him. 
 He got one o his fits on cause o somethin I said about 
 ole Moll didn t amount to much; but he just raved an 
 charged, an" hasn t spoke sence. Naw, I won t tell him 
 nothin ." 
 
 " He knows so mighty much about the wooden country, 
 I shouldn t s pose even a ghost could creep in it thout his 
 say-so." 
 
 "May be Pap had been takin an extra dram with ole 
 Moll an was bewitched that night," laughed one of the 
 skeptical. 
 
 " Little Jake Riker, he wasn t takin drams, an he saw a 
 man skulkin up there, right curious," retorted Pap 
 "a man with whiskers black all over his face. Now, who 
 is there in these parts looks that way?" 
 
 No one knew, and the people had a mild sensation to 
 gossip over; and some curious ones went in crowds up past 
 the forge, as if to track the ghost, but sundown always 
 found them home, or on the way to it, so the ghost-hunting 
 did not prosper.
 
 158 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 It was impossible, however, for Krin not to be aware that 
 more people than she had ever seen on the mountain now 
 passed the Ledge and stopped at the door on the flimsiest 
 of excuses. One or two women, who noted the young face 
 of her, asked, with curious sympathy, if she was not "some 
 scared to live up there so far from folks; " and her own 
 wonder at their sudden interest was only equaled by 
 Granny s fury over it, and small welcome was there for a 
 passer-by at her domicile. 
 
 Krin, filled with mortification by the old lady s general 
 tone of conversation, avoided as much as she could being 
 in the house when anyone came, up from the forge, as they 
 did sometimes. Don would see a fleeting glimpse of her 
 vanishing along the path to the milk-house, or out across 
 the clearing for berries, until she seemed more than ever a 
 creature of out-of-doors. In fact, he liked best to think of 
 her so. 
 
 In love with her this wistful-eyed little widow, whom 
 he could never realize was a widow any more than he had 
 realized before that she was a man s wife was he? Was 
 he not? He had tried to put himself through a process of ex 
 amination on that point after Dinah s tantalizing innuen 
 does, and the examination had resulted in a series of 
 whistled solos, and little else, beyond taking for the first 
 ride after his illness the path to the forge. 
 
 " What you mean shyin off that-a-way any time young 
 Edson s up yere now?" demanded Granny. " Thought yeh 
 sot sech a heap on him an his doin s." 
 
 " Yes, ma am, I do," agreed her daughter-in-law. " He s 
 mighty good, I think; but I I don t feel much like talking 
 to folks these days." 
 
 "Grievin , I reckon," and the old lady s smile was not 
 good to see; " a grievin* for the man yeh run away from 
 once, an "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 159 
 
 "Hush!" and the girl s face was strangely white. "If 
 I m to keep on livin* here, I can t bear another word said 
 over that. No, I didn t want to live with him. I won t lie; 
 I never lied to him about it he knowed; an if he had 
 been good to me, may be it ud been a heap different. 
 May be I m not grievin like wives grieve, if that s what 
 you mean; but I ve got my own grievin s, jest the same." 
 
 " Oh! I ll go bail it ain t anything yeh can t tell Bud; " 
 and Granny herself was surprised at the look on Krin s 
 face. 
 
 "What you ta ntin bout Bud for? " she asked, look 
 ing very squarely at the old woman; "you ve done that fore 
 this, jest cause you two had words over that forge. I hear 
 folks is talkin bad bout him, but I don t rightly know why. 
 If that s what you re ta ntin over, I want to know." 
 
 "Ask him yourself," grinned Granny; " he ll tell you, in 
 course, whether he s got a still hid on the mountain, an 
 whether he s part of a gang o counterfeiters an all " (Gran 
 ny s imagination was adding to the very slight gossip she had 
 overheard); "an say," she added, as the girl turned-away 
 contemptuously, " he might tell yeh what folks are sayin 
 bout your goin up to his place to stay; that yeh couldn t 
 scarce wait for that mine to close up till yeh went to livin 
 together." 
 
 A sharp cry of protest broke from the girl, and she sat 
 down on the bed where the baby lay, looking at the old 
 lady with so steady a stare that the amiable creature 
 stirred uneasily, with a pretense of hunting for tobacco. 
 
 " Do folks say that? " 
 
 No reply from Granny, who had fired her biggest gun, and 
 disdained a slighter affray. 
 
 " Do you think that ? " But Granny evidently had no 
 opinion, and the young mother turned to the baby as to her 
 last refuge.
 
 160 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "And it was all for you, Edie," she muttered, catching 
 the child up as if to gain comfort from its closeness. "All 
 so you d have a pretty home to have in mind when you 
 grew up. My baby! My baby! " 
 
 The child blinked up with the big wise eyes with which 
 children look love and dependence into the older eyes that 
 gain strength from them; and from her mute little confessor 
 Krin raised her head defiantly. 
 
 "He knows better; he ain t thinkin wrong of me him! 
 Why, he s jest like a father would be, I reckon. He s queer, 
 but he ain t wicked. He don t do wicked things" (though 
 the poor child could not, according to her light, say that his 
 ideas were all blameless); "an* then, he s a heap older than 
 me an then " 
 
 She was stumbling confusedly for evidence, in every cor 
 ner of her brain, that it would be impossible such thoughts 
 could have come to him too; but in the midst of her 
 reasoning she stopped suddenly. 
 
 "If folks think an talk like that I m goin away," she 
 decided, in a voice tremulous between shame and anger. 
 "I m goin before he hears it, too. I m goin away from the 
 mountain." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MATCH-MAKING. 
 
 "Don!" 
 
 "Yes, your highness." 
 
 "Oh, you are back, are you? "and her highness peeped 
 around the corner of the porch. " You are wanted at a 
 family council." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Well, I suppose it is that," she amended. "Anyway, my 
 aunt and your uncle have been having a talk three hours long,
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 161 
 
 to which the outer world has not been admitted; then they 
 asked for you. I told them you were over the hills and far 
 away, and Edson Senior scowled." 
 
 "Oh, he did" and Edson Junior picked up a club 
 " scowled at you. Where is he?" 
 
 " Upstairs; he has the foot-ache again. He asked me 
 what in the nation took you gallivanting around the country 
 before daybreak. I told him you said it was because the 
 noonday sun objected to you." 
 
 " Um! Kind of you to help me out so nicely. Did you 
 also add your own opinion?" 
 
 " I did," announced Miss Dinah, promptly. " I confided 
 to him my conviction that you had a lion s share in that 
 talked-of still that rumor says is pouring whisky down 
 from the mountain, that there was no doubt in my mind 
 that you and your ruffianly confederates took the hams that 
 are missed from our landlord s spring-house, and that the 
 only puzzling thing in your late leanings is how in the world 
 do you ever expect to eat the three bushels of dried peaches 
 that were taken last week from Mr. Dumphey s." 
 
 " You have been helping me out beautifully! " he agreed, 
 dropping the club, as if it was entirely too trifling for the 
 present emergency. " Now, may I ask what diabolical 
 scheme you have in view? My utter disinheritance, I pre 
 sume, from the headlong fashion in which you have been 
 making love to him through the whole forty-eight hours 
 since his arrival. When am I to call you Aunt? " 
 
 " I I haven t proposed yet," was the reply, flanked by 
 an exaggerated simper that was too much for Don s 
 gravity. 
 
 "You humbug!" and with a swing upward he reached 
 the edge of the porch, leaped over the railing, and was 
 beside her "are you going to disinherit me?" 
 
 " I believe," she said, laughing up at him, " that it would 
 
 11
 
 162 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 have been the best possible thing for you if someone had 
 done so years ago." 
 
 " Granted but now?" 
 
 " Oh, now? Well, you know it is never so easy to say 
 what is best just now as it is to be certain of what would 
 have been best a year or two back. My intuitions tell me, 
 however, that Uncle Edson is going to give you as strong 
 an inducement to go back to where there is some enjoy 
 ment in life as he did to have you leave it five months 
 ago." 
 
 He balanced himself nicely on the railing of the porch, 
 humming an air, to either collect thoughts or scatter them, 
 and finally said: 
 
 " He is a dear old fellow, and I owe him a long list of 
 duties, but I wonder I wonder if I don t owe myself one 
 or two?" 
 
 " Now don t get so ridiculously serious over everything! 
 It s all the influence of these serious-visaged natives. How 
 long has it been since you heard one good hearty laugh? 
 Not for one summer, / know! Come along." 
 
 And taking him by the hand, she whisked in at the door, 
 and up to the door of the studio. 
 
 " Go in and hear your doom " she laughed and drew 
 back "I ll stay outside and pray for you; pray that you 
 will have sense to take the goods the gods provide." 
 
 " No, you don t! " he retorted, and held her fast; " if the 
 doom is too heavy, I ll need you to help me bear it." 
 
 And holding her fast, they made an entrance more 
 sentimental than usual, and halted, laughing and with 
 clasped hands, just inside the studio door. 
 
 The unconventional entrance did not, however, seem 
 displeasing to either Miss Lottie or the portly, shaggy- 
 haired gentleman who sat near her. Don knew in a 
 moment Dinah was right, that it was some question of
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 163 
 
 moment on foot; one glance at the iron-gray shock of hair 
 told him that under ordinary circumstances its position was 
 smoothly recumbent; but when Edson Senior grappled for 
 ideas he always began running his fingers upward through 
 his hair. The depth of his feelings on a subject could be 
 judged from a passing glance at his cranium, and just then 
 it was in a ferocious state. But his eyes were not, as he 
 turned them on Miss Lottie and exchanged with her a 
 pleased confidential comment in one glance; and the 
 quiet elation in that little lady s manner had given a 
 real pink tinge to her cheeks. 
 
 "Glad to see you back, sir! " said Mr. Edson, looking at 
 them frowningly, but with twinkling eyes; "and with that 
 sort of an escort. I ll swear, from the accounts I hear of 
 your associates, I am continually expecting to have you 
 march in with a sheriff as guard over you." 
 
 "She is worse than a sheriff," answered Don, with a nod 
 toward his prisoner; "the sheriff only grazed my skull 
 with a bullet, he didn t try to blacken my character." 
 
 "Oh! I did not!" she cried, in quick defense. 
 "I did not tell a thing but the truth, and not all of it;" 
 and then she looked up with tears of laughter in her eyes. 
 " I never said a word about the widow, Don." 
 
 "A widow? Good Lord!" roared Edson Senior, in a 
 voice that left no doubt of his own terror of the species; 
 while Don, with one annihilating glance at the informer, 
 gripped her hand closer. 
 
 * Now you have done it," he growled, while poor Miss 
 Lottie, with the most distressed expression, turned from 
 one to the other. 
 
 " Now you could not find the least bit of fault with this 
 widow," said Dinah, reassuringly. "She is the prettiest 
 thing imaginable." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" grunted the senior, impatiently.
 
 164 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 "Except her husband," added the girl, her memory 
 reverting with pride to her picturesque model. "There s a 
 picture of him in the corner; if he had not departed this 
 life, I have a conviction I should have eloped with him 
 before the summer was over, and left the wife for Don." 
 
 "Dinah!" pleaded Miss Lottie, in a flutter of shame, 
 while the senior suddenly arose, and as suddenly sat down 
 again at a reminder from his lame foot. 
 
 "And I nagged him into coming up here with the hope 
 of settling him down," uttered the senior, in a colorless 
 tone of retrospection that nearly sent the two culprits into 
 convulsions. "A widow! Good Lord, deliver us!" 
 
 Don had seated himself on a big chest just inside the 
 door, and was comforting himself with the mere shadow 
 of a whistled melody, but never once letting go the hand 
 of Dinah, who squirmed uselessly, but gave in when those 
 grappling fingers would not bend. 
 
 "Humph! Glad to see you have sense enough to attach 
 yourself to that sort of an anchor," said the senior, after a 
 rather steady stare at the pair of them. " The most praise 
 worthy thing I remember of you for the past five years has 
 been your liking for Dinah; and that she understands and 
 has patience with you is so great a point in your favor 
 that I have concluded, after a talk with Miss Lottie, to in 
 fact" and his eyes were smiling in the kindliest way at the 
 girl s startled face "to recompense you." 
 
 " Going to give me an aunt," hazarded Don, sotto voce; 
 but his listening prisoner had no smile this time. 
 
 " It is about three years," continued the senior, growing 
 more benignant with every sentence uttered, probably soft 
 ened by the picture of those two young people waiting 
 with clasped hands; and they were both too good-looking 
 for the picture not to be a pleasing one " it s about three
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 165 
 
 years since you first acknowledged your liking for each 
 other." 
 
 "Longer than that, ain t it, Dinah?" queried Don, in the 
 innocence of his heart; but it was she who gripped his hand 
 closely, half-fiercely, at the question, and though a little 
 puzzled, he hesitated not at all man is so much a creature 
 of habit and promptly pressed the slight hand in a way 
 caressingly assuring. The senior and Miss Lottie exchanged 
 beaming glances. 
 
 "Well," continued the chief speaker, "you are both, 
 according to your own confessions, likely to disgrace me if 
 I don t provide guardians more capable of watching you 
 than your present ones. Your father, Miss, sent me, with 
 his full approval, knowing the the leanings you have each 
 been playing fast and loose with too long. We ll have no 
 more widows or their husbands in the question; we ll have 
 no more fast and loose business; we ll have no more wild 
 woods adventures; but you shall have an allowance enabling 
 you to live like Christians, and we ll have the wedding as a 
 wind-up to this exile up here ! " 
 
 The senior s voice had been gradually rising to the occa 
 sion until an amiable roar accompanied the final plan and 
 promise, and then he dropped his chin and glowered at 
 them in a leonine fashion from under the mane that looked 
 so much more aggressive than his twinkling eyes. 
 
 " Come and give me a kiss, now, for putting the pair of 
 you out of your misery," he commanded; but Dinah stood 
 still, with a very much flushed face, mechanically grasping 
 Don s hand, while he was looking blankly at her for some 
 cue to speak, but all he got was a little closer clasp of , her 
 fingers and what might not a man think from that? He 
 did not know, and the whole thing was so ridiculously 
 sudden that he could not think at all. Miss Lottie was 
 smiling on them tremulously; the senior was so entirely
 
 166 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 satisfied with having crowned by his approval an evidently 
 much-desired affair, and altogether 
 
 "Oh, bless you, never mind, then," broke in the master of 
 ceremonies. " Give the kiss to him, instead; and you need 
 not blush so about it. Yes, give the kiss to him, to keep 
 company with the one I caught you giving him three years 
 ago. Oh, you thought the old man was blind? Not a bit 
 of it; but love was that time, so don t say a word." 
 
 An altogether needless precaution. Both the happy 
 ones of the party seemed speechlessly happy. That kiss ! 
 Yes, to be sure, he had kissed her when going well, he had 
 forgotten where he was going, but she wanted to go too, and 
 he had coaxed her into staying home, and kissed her; 
 and was it possible she had remembered it under all her 
 seeming brusquerie, and had he been a condemned fool not 
 to see it, and well, what a muddle ! But he managed to 
 rise up under it; he even walked under it across the room, 
 leading his speechless fiancee. 
 
 " Most people have to manage such affairs just their own 
 two selves," he remarked; "but we are luckier than that, 
 Dinah, ain t we? At least, I am the lucky one, if you 
 approve this ogre s plan; so if you are willing to accept such 
 an uncle you may give him that kiss;" then he looked at 
 her and smiled. " And all the time you cheated me into 
 thinking it was an aunt s kiss I was to get." 
 
 "You haven t got any yet ! " she flashed back. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I did, " he answered, coolly " three years ago; 
 and you have been taking advantage of that weakness of 
 mine to snub me ever since. So you are the goods the 
 gods were to provide? " 
 
 "And that I prayed you to have sense enough to 
 accept! " 
 
 And Miss Lottie s tender, sentimental ideas, that had been 
 jarred upon somewhat by the senior s bluffness, received a
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 167 
 
 final blow from the two young people, who, in the midst of a 
 certain perplexed embarrassment, looked at each other and 
 burst out laughing. The only redeeming point in their 
 hilarity was the detection of a slightly hysterical element 
 in the merriment of the girl; and Miss Lottie promptly 
 arose and drew her away with a manner that expressed 
 her own knowledge of the sympathy needed in such cases, 
 and the gentlemen were left alone, feeling themselves very 
 ignorant of all the things which her apologetic, deprecating 
 nod should have conveyed to them. But at the door 
 Dinah s natural self rose above her emotions, whatever they 
 were, and she halted long enough to ask: 
 
 " Don, how in the world will you break the news to the 
 widow? " 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A MYSTERY OF THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 Whether Dinah s persistent allusions to "the widow " had 
 the slightest foundation in belief, Don had not an idea. 
 They had teased each other for years over their several flirt 
 ations, or possible tendernesses the frankness with which 
 they had ridiculed each other s tendencies was comical, 
 viewed in the new light of their absolute engagement. Of 
 course it was an event that had always been looked on by 
 the families as a thing to be, and, to be sure, Dinah and 
 himself had for a little while, three years ago, when she 
 was seventeen, rather given them cause for their ideas. 
 But three years ago! and those two seniors looked on that 
 episode as if it was yesterday! Don asked himself, cynic 
 ally, if anyone but a benighted old maid and bachelor 
 would take that view of the matter, or expect that change 
 less order of things from human nature. Yet, had he not
 
 168 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 wished for just such an anchor in life to chain his drifting 
 years? Had not the lack of women in their home been the 
 one thing that had sent the senior and himself floating pur 
 poseless in risky channels? Each of them had been conscious 
 of that, and "When Don gets married" had been for a 
 long time the understood time of comfort to come in their 
 bachelor household. But if Dinah was placidly content to 
 walk with him now to the sacrifice, why had she snubbed all 
 idea of it not so many weeks ago? The snubbing had 
 hurt him then he remembered feeling hopeless for days; 
 but when he had risen above it, and found this new pleasure 
 in living drawing in the freer, fresher life and impulses of 
 the forest he knew that she had not really touched him 
 at all, except to kindly thought. She had belonged to the 
 phase of his life that had much of the superficial in it; and 
 the influence that had urged him to be more than superfi 
 cial what had it been? When he got himself cornered 
 with that very direct query, he finished the soliloquy with a 
 whistle a whistle that did not quite succeed, however, in 
 dispelling a vision of a rude interior, a slim pine coffin, and 
 a wistful face rising out of the shadows. To tell the truth, 
 however, the effect of that vision prompted him into an im 
 mediate adjournment to Dinah s presence, and an impres 
 sive tenderness of manner that was a delight to the seniors, 
 and checked completely the things Dinah herself had been 
 making up her mind to say to him. 
 
 Despite persuasions, Donald Senior refused flatly to be 
 driven through the drivable part of his domains. 
 
 " No, sir, I ll keep to the house and the ladies," he decided. 
 " The place will be yours some day, so make what plans 
 you please, only there must be no permanent location of 
 yourself up here; this little girl is not going to be a wood 
 man s wife; round your business up in shape for an agent. 
 But I ve had enough of living alone, with only my con-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 169 
 
 science for company, and it twitting me morning, noon, and 
 night for having insisted on your coming up here. I give 
 in, I tell you; and when I do anything, it is a wholesale 
 affair." 
 
 And he was really trying to make it so, even in view of 
 Don s absurd liking for the place laying out plans for a 
 house they would build some day up on one of the highest 
 peaks, and where they would all come for awhile in 
 summer. 
 
 " Not just a few isolated souls," he said, " but a jolly party 
 some men we know and some of your girl and woman 
 friends, my dear, so that there will be more than one pair 
 of lovers to be found when the summer s over. We will all 
 come, and wear out our old clothes, and bring nothing with 
 us worth stealing to tempt those tenants of Don s." 
 
 " Now, how is it to be known that it is his tenants? " said 
 Miss Lottie, in remonstrance. " I am sure they can not be 
 so very bad when he is really fond of several." 
 
 " Just the reason he is fond," returned her niece. " Don 
 is developing a most shepherd-like bearing toward black 
 sheep out here even getting shot for the handsomest and 
 blackest." 
 
 "Well, now, so far as being the blackest, if you mean 
 that poor Adonis, I am sure we heard no stories of thieves 
 around here until since his death." 
 
 Dinah looked at her with admiring eyes. "Why, Auntie, 
 how clever you are this morning! Are you trying to help 
 Don study up a defense for his flock?" 
 
 " And if I am any prophet, there is one of them now," 
 and the senior pointed down the road, where a shambling 
 ancient was seen coming closer, and eying the tempting 
 rotundity of the ducks that waddled along the lane ahead 
 of him. 
 
 "Well, if he has many like that, he will need to build
 
 170 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 infirmaries instead of saw-mills," said Dinah, with scant 
 sympathy for her betrothed s fads. " That is Father 
 Keesy." 
 
 " Yes" and the senior twisted his head around at a dan 
 gerous angle to get a better view of him " yes, there he 
 is talking to Don. I wonder if we will have him as an 
 addition to our dinner-party. Does Don go so far as that? " 
 
 "On the contrary, visits from his wooden friends too 
 often mean that we must take our dinner alone. Their 
 attractions are usually the strongest." 
 
 The senior reached over and touched her hair in as 
 caressing a way as Miss Lottie s own. 
 
 " You re a good, patient little girl," he said, with a cer 
 tain sympathy in his tone, "and I m not sure but what 
 you ll understand Don and his ways better than I ever did 
 I liked him too well to be the best sort of a tutor." 
 
 " I sha n t err in that direction," laughed Dinah; " so you 
 had better warn him." 
 
 The old gentleman only shook his head fondly, so sure 
 that no influence could be better for his boy than this 
 frank-spoken, unaffected girl who had known him all her 
 life. 
 
 But, considering that she was a female bit of humanity, 
 the girl was strangely perverse under all attempts at pet 
 ting and demonstrations of interest in her future state of 
 blessedness; and just then she evaded the sympathetic pair 
 of them by calling from the window, "Going again?" 
 
 Don nodded and blew her a kiss, a thing at which his 
 visitor chuckled and grinned. 
 
 "Sprucest gal as I remember gettin sight of among 
 town folks" he mumbled; and getting no reply, he added, 
 " Reckon I ll jest walk on." 
 
 "All right; I can dispense with your blood-and-thunder 
 recitals," said Don, sourly "go on."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 171 
 
 "Who is that latest one? " queried Dinah, still from her 
 perch in the window. 
 
 "A Mercury. Don t you want to add him to your studies 
 of types? What a messenger of the gods! " 
 
 "He is more likely to be a messenger from a goddess," 
 she retorted, and dodged behind the curtain to escape the 
 only missile near him, the golden wheel of a sunflower. 
 
 "Shall I give her your love?" he called; and she leaned 
 out, peeping over the disk of yellow leaves, and laughed. 
 
 "Are you tired of it already, Don? " she asked. 
 
 A kiss is the simplest answer to all love-queries, and 
 costs so little (at the time), so a second was flung upward 
 to her; and the smile that went with it was so gayly reassur 
 ing that words were not needed. 
 
 He eyed the shambling shanks of Pap Keesy disapprov 
 ingly, as he caught up to that gentleman, and knew that 
 all along the "back" road he would have to view that 
 rickety pedestrian, unless he turned pedestrian himself. 
 
 "Here," he said, frowningly, as he dismounted, "get on 
 this beast; I ll walk awhile." 
 
 Pap made not the slightest of demurs; he just climbed 
 up gruntingly, and sat very erect, with an attempt at jaunti- 
 ness, for a rod or so, and then slowly settled in a sort of 
 heap that was no more pleasure to view than his painful 
 gait. 
 
 " I wonder if he could do or be anything that is not 
 repulsive," thought Don. " I suppose it is only because he 
 is old and ugly, but why need he suggest all things that 
 are unpleasant?" and then, aloud, he said: 
 
 " Why is it you did not tell Mr. Lennard, instead of coming 
 to me this morning? " 
 
 Something like a wink distorted Pap s left eyelid. 
 
 " They s reasons," he said, mysteriously " reasons. 
 Fust off, it s on your land you re the gentleman to look
 
 172 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 it up; an second, if so be as it s a family as don t live a 
 hundred miles from our place, Bud, he s queer about them 
 he d go right there n give em notice, er else " 
 
 "Well, what?" asked the younger man, impatiently. 
 
 "Er else he d jest skip the kentry an* give notice to 
 nary." 
 
 "You are a fine specimen of a friend in need," remarked 
 Don, contemptuously. " He gave you and your wife a home, 
 didn t he took care of you both for years? Can t you do 
 something better than put his name in this?" 
 
 "Now, don t ye kick afore ye re spurred," suggested the 
 equestrian, untouched by the other s disdain. " I said 
 they s reasons " didn t I ? Well, they is. Who s out trap- 
 sin the timber like him at nights eh? What s it fer, yeh 
 reckon? Folks says he s witched an cust an sich. Naw, 
 sir; more I see, more I know he s jest cute jest cute 
 enough to fool folks most sence he could gabble yes, 
 sir. Then he talks sort o religion tain t no religion at 
 all, only it jest makes folks think him serious in his mind, an 
 never a spectin him to mix up in Dick s sorto ways. Oh, 
 he s cute; but he s mighty close kin to them folks, however 
 yeh fix it. An that gal o Dick s " 
 
 "You mean his wife? " 
 
 " That s who. Well, Bud an her s thick as hops least 
 they was." 
 
 " What s that got to do with the the blood you say you 
 saw on the old road?" 
 
 " Don know," was the cautious reply. " Ole Moll is a 
 terror to the girl, but they hain t killed, ole Moll; I heerd 
 her callin the dogs as I come; an I don know who it is, 
 but there s been something done, an someone s done it." 
 
 " The longer I think about it, and the more you talk 
 about it," said Mr. Edson, coolly, "the more I m inclined 
 to think your whole account has more lie than truth in it;
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 173 
 
 and I wouldn t come a step for your story if I didn t 
 have an errand over anyway." 
 
 "All right, all right," returned Pap, amiably " that s 
 your way o thinkin ; but s posin ther s been some killin , 
 the law can t say / hain t done duty naw sir. I ve give 
 notice to the man o the land." And then, after a jarring 
 silence for awhile, he added, " S posin anyone s missin , 
 I reckon there ll be a reward ? " 
 
 " Shut up," growled Don, who was gaining a beastly tem 
 per with every foot of ground he was covering. At first, 
 the old man s statement of a something mysterious on the 
 mountain blood on the leaves and grass above Indian 
 Ledge, and a trail for a little way where something had 
 been dragged those first bare facts had aroused his inter 
 est; but the farther he went the more ridiculous the quest 
 seemed, and the more Pap mumbled his own suspicions 
 the greater grew his companion s disgust for some phases 
 of human nature. 
 
 "Right down curious that I see them signs so plain near- 
 abouts where the ghosts was seen," was the next remark 
 of Pap. 
 
 "Ghost? Whose ghost? " 
 
 " That s furder on yit," was tne reply, meant by the tone 
 to suggest all that was mysterious. " Naw, you hain t 
 heard, I reckon you hain t been around much for awhile 
 back; but it s been seen. Yes, sir, somethin was two of 
 them a totin somethin atween em, over a week now. I 
 reckon it was jest a warnin o somethin to come; an it s 
 come." 
 
 " Who saw the ghost? " 
 
 "I did, with my own eyes." 
 
 "Bosh!" 
 
 " Leastwise, I didn t take it for one, but folks say it must 
 a been; folks say it s Le Fevre done come back to tote his
 
 174 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 coffin, cause he never got one. Anyway, they toted some- 
 thin , with nary a word, an dropped into the ground like 
 jest ahead o me, along the still ledge the ledge where 
 old Le Fevre s whisky-still was." 
 
 " Did you ever," asked Don, in his blandest tones " did 
 you ever hear of a man called Ananias? " 
 
 " Naw; who s he? " 
 
 "lam just puzzling my own brain to answer that," 
 mused Mr. Edson. " There are times when the rather 
 peculiar views of Mr. Lennard seem perfectly in keeping 
 with truth aad justice. It never occurred to me so strongly 
 as just now when I remembered Ananias and looked at 
 you, and wondered if it could be possible that even a 
 supreme being could manfacture two such souls. No, 
 n-no," and he contemplated Pap with so profound an 
 earnestness that the rider edged over to the other side of 
 the saddle as much as possible. " I don t remember the 
 features of Ananias myself, but I have a conviction that if 
 a picture of him were in existence it would look like your 
 twin. Where have you been putting in your time for the 
 past thirty or forty centuries, Ananias? Hold on! where 
 are you going? " 
 
 For with a dig of his long heel and a " Jup! " the vener 
 able equestrian endeavored to hasten his steed out of the 
 reach of its owner, whose serious, calm reasoning had simply 
 given Pap an idea of the sudden collapse of intellectual 
 organs. 
 
 "I ll lead the horse the rest of the way," decided Mr. 
 Edson, catching at the bridle. "You see I want to be 
 sure, Ananias, that I will have a horse when I get there." 
 
 " My name is Keesy Abe Keesy," corrected Pap, 
 his bleary eyes alert and watchful, and plainly showing 
 some doubt regarding his companion. 
 
 "Oh, yes, your present one," agreed the companion.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 175 
 
 "Your proud parents gave you that before making inquiry 
 of your past existence? Yes, I suppose so; but don t you 
 believe them. They ve been trying to cheat you out of 
 your birthright, Ananias; but you ll get it yet if you 
 persevere. Now whereabouts is that spook-laden, blood 
 stained, ghost-haunted spot at?" 
 
 " Over yonder p int," said Pap, sullenly; "but ye can t 
 go it on critter-back." 
 
 "Neither can you, then get off ! " which the rider pro 
 ceeded to do, with watchful eyes and a close grip of his 
 bony hand around the staff he carried. 
 
 It was not far to walk over the " p int" a jut of rocks 
 standing on edge, like great gray teeth of some buried 
 monster. About the roots of them, in the shadow of the 
 pines, a few bushes grew just a straggle of huckleberries, 
 and sandy places where old leaves lay. 
 
 Pap stopped there, with a startled " Ho-ho!" of astonish 
 ment. 
 
 "This is it," he said, poking around like a weasel in 
 every cranny; "but they ve been a coverin their tracks." 
 
 Again the word " Bosh! " arose to Don s lips. His small 
 stock of belief in the whole story had been dwindled under 
 Pap s additions to it until the only desire he had left in 
 the matter was that his guide had more of robust youth in 
 his frame, the temptation to thrash him was so strong. 
 
 " What is your little game, Ananias? " he asked, glancing 
 around the scrubby growth that was trampled and bruised 
 some, but nothing more stop! was there nothing more? 
 His eyes, keener and younger than Pap s, saw close in 
 the shadow of the rock a tuft of leaves, colored as leaves 
 color in October; but it was not October, and birch-leaves 
 do not turn crimson, but gold. 
 
 He sat there eying them, and listening to Pap s
 
 176 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 expressions of wonder as not a vestige of sanguinary sign? 
 could he find. 
 
 " Someone s been tromplin all over, stirrin up the 
 leaves like hogs ud root, an strippin the "brush o leaves 
 whar the blood showed; not a derned sign kin I see of it." 
 
 " What did you have to drink this morning? " asked Mr. 
 Edson, with bland curiosity; and Pap scowled. 
 
 " Not a derned thing. Naw, sir, twa n t drink. I seed 
 them signs thick yere, I did; but they ve been trompled 
 over, an riddled, an " 
 
 " Exactly," agreed the other, " just as hundreds of places 
 on the mountain are trampled over where cattle range; and, 
 as I asked before, what is your little game? Now, Ananias, 
 I would advise you to go home and stay there, say a few 
 prayers for the good of your soul, and don t encourage 
 yourself in any more ghost-seeing. You re bewitched, 
 Ananias, and you got a delusive hope in your addled brain 
 that I would pay you something for your trip over there 
 this morning that s why you cantered over to me instead 
 of to Riker, or nearer neighbors; but you ve been playing 
 on the wrong bank. I m broke. The only pay you get 
 from me will be the privilege of getting home with a 
 whole hide, if you go quick; but if I hear any more of 
 your attempts to give my corner of this mountain a bad 
 name, or if you go telling anyone else about this morning s 
 trip well " And the suspended speech suggested little 
 less than some form of instant annihilation. 
 
 The fact that Pap really had counted not a little on 
 a possible recompense made him look a bit guilty under 
 Mr. Edson s remarks a great deal more guilty than he 
 really was, as his merciless antagonist was partly aware of. 
 
 " But if he don t deserve it for this trip, he probably does 
 for something else," reasoned his judge, looking down on
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 177 
 
 him from that exalted moral standpoint human nature is 
 prone to when the other fellow is at a disadvantage. 
 
 "All right, all right!" mumbled Pap, in an impotent 
 sort of vindictiveness. "/ain t tellin , less it s in the court 
 house; an that s where it ll end, I m tellin ye! " 
 
 " So I hear you say," remarked Mr. Edson; " and before 
 you take the trail home, Ananias, just point out the corner 
 of the earth where that ghost dropped into with its coffin, 
 will you?" 
 
 But Pap would enlighten him no further. " Git some 
 other Ananias to guide ye," he retorted, in just wrath. 
 " Go an git someone that ain t forty thousan years ole, 
 an be d d to ye! " 
 
 For some time after the old gentleman s departure, Mr. 
 Edson sat thoughtfully staring, without restraint, at that 
 cluster of strange-colored birch-leaves; and something 
 more. In the gray sand washed down from the rocks was 
 the fresh imprint of a boot, a boot with the mark of a 
 clumsy patch that crossed the sole; and Don felt a fresh 
 anger against Mr. Keesy s suspicions as his scrutiny con 
 vinced him he had seen that track before. He had noticed 
 it because of the patch, as its wearer had walked ahead of 
 him through some clay near the forge; and its wearer was 
 the Pagan. 
 
 " Nothing ghostly about that, anyway, he decided, and 
 then wiped out the mark with his riding-whip. " If that 
 old croaker were to come back and see that, he might 
 think here, here, just keep your own thoughts in order, 
 young fellow! I wonder where in thunder that old still 
 was? that s where he said the ghosts walked." 
 
 But look where he might, no clew was offered by the 
 
 forest; no path in any direction, save the old road where 
 
 his horse was tied. The wide fronds of the fern and the 
 
 white spires of the rattle-weed grew tall and unbroken, 
 
 12
 
 1.78 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 save right there where he sat. There they were beaten 
 down somewhat, but only for a short distance; and then 
 the rocks began to crowd out of the ground, until you 
 could walk far as you could see and never touch the soil 
 with your feet. And then, down along there somewhere 
 must be that crevice across which he had seen Daphne 
 materializing from the laurels. Ah, that beautiful night, 
 with the witchy, unreal atmosphere of it! He called him 
 self a fool, sometimes, for the ridiculous way in which that 
 memory affected him. What the mischief did she mean 
 coming like that, with the young eyes of her flitting 
 through the shadows of every laurel he passed, and the 
 tender, wistful voice of her that came filtering through 
 memory to his senses, as the gold of the sun s shine sifted 
 through shadowing leaves. 
 
 "This won t do, my boy," he muttered, jumping to his 
 feet and starting down toward the rock-land where the 
 chasm was. " This sort of thing is getting too frequent, 
 very much so, and it isn t what you came to the wilds for, 
 anyway; and more than that, you are an engaged man, and 
 a lucky one, too you ve got a girl that s too good for you. 
 Just remember that, too, and be modest and satisfied." 
 
 And thus whimsically reasoning with himself, he kept on 
 through the places where the trees grew sparely, and often 
 grotesquely, among the great gray stone. 
 
 Climbing up an eminence whose layers of sandstone 
 made inviting stairs, he halted for a final glance over the 
 untamable bit of wild land below him. A great dip, like 
 the cradle of some gigantic thing, lay rock-bound and 
 bedded on the bosom of the mountain; along its sides 
 arose huge battlements, pine-crowned and birch-lined, 
 looking like a series of ruined castles that reached away 
 into the distance, their gray walls defying the annihilation 
 of time their forms, under all the smother of wood-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 179 
 
 growth, still retaining the semblance of entrance and col 
 onnade, windows and watch-towers, that invited research 
 into those mysteriously shadowed interiors. 
 
 " I can t imagine a more interesting place for a spook to 
 loaf in," he decided, after a long look from the turret of 
 his selection. " But it doesn t seem just the place for a 
 native spook, for the natives care mighty little about the 
 grander phases of their mountain s beauty; a big drove of 
 hogs on a white- oak flat, when the acorns are a good 
 crop, would touch their sensibilities much closer, and 
 Halloo! is that it now?" 
 
 His cynical soliloquy was broken in on by a white 
 body darting through some brush below him. At first 
 glimpse the form could not be distinguished; but emerging 
 into the open rocky plain, he saw it was a dog, a great 
 white hound, that was a sort of familiar spirit of the elder 
 Mrs. Le Fevre. 
 
 But it was not that lady herself who was following the 
 hound s course; it was a man, who was running over the 
 level bits, leaping over fallen logs or other obstacles, and 
 finding unerringly the quickest path over every barrier that 
 was raised between himself and the gliding white form 
 and all in silence, not a bay from the hound, not a word 
 from the man. 
 
 They were coming closer, closer. Now the hound 
 crosses the trail he had left. It halted, throwing up its head 
 and snuffing at the air, and its follower s speed slackened; 
 stealthier movements crept into it as he advanced, warily, 
 warily, with head thrust forward, as if he too were scenting 
 the game. 
 
 " Well, if it is a spook," concluded the watcher, with a 
 breath of relief, " it s the Pagan s double, so can t have much 
 harm in it what the mischief " 
 
 The hound gave a short bellow, and came on a lope
 
 180 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 along the tracks Don had just left, and then the Pagan, 
 with his searching eyes ever ahead of the hound, looked up 
 and met the gracious nod and smile of the man above 
 him. 
 
 " Halloo ! what are you running ? " asked that individual. 
 
 And the man below looked at him a bit before replying; 
 then he said, "That hound." 
 
 " Oh ! Just exercising him for the hunting-season, are 
 you ? Isn t that exhausting on a man s own frame-work ? " 
 
 "Yes, it is," agreed the hunter; "and it s some warm 
 to-day, too." 
 
 He looked warm, and took off his hat as Don descended 
 the irregular steps to him. He looked embarrassed, too, 
 and turned the wide straw covering around in his hands 
 uncertainly. 
 
 " I didn t count on sighting you out here," he said, 
 moistening his lips as if he found speech in some way diffi 
 cult; "didn t know you were on the mountain, anyway." 
 
 " I haven t been very long. Fine view one gets from that 
 summit there. I was looking for the old still I ve heard 
 the folks speak of; the one the veteran Le Fevre worked 
 before your time or mine. Can t you get at it from this 
 direction ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, I reckon you can;" and the man sat down on a 
 convenient ledge, and replaced the hat after a few desultory 
 waves of it in the form of a fan. " Yes, sir, but folks 
 don t generally go sighting round it much; tain t anything 
 for looks, an then they do say a ha nt walks there." 
 
 "That s the place; it s the ha nt I want to see. I 
 thought it was that when I saw your dog coming. Where 
 has he gone to ? " 
 
 An impatient exclamation broke from Bud. 
 
 " I clean forgot that hound/ he said, and ran rapidly up 
 the incline where Don had been, Don following; but look
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 181 
 
 where they would, down along the border of the basin, on 
 either side of the ledge, or clear across the dip to the other 
 rise of the rock-chain, not a glimpse could they get of the 
 white moving form. 
 
 "That s curious; looks as if the dog was a spook, after 
 all. Where do you suppose he has gone ? " 
 
 " That s a question," returned the mountaineer, his eyes 
 still bent watchfully along the little valley. " He may run 
 a mile an never come above ground. I well, no use try 
 ing to follow this time." 
 
 " Whistle on him, or call him," suggested Don. " What s 
 his name ? " 
 
 " Don t you whistle ! " and the other turned on him sud 
 denly. " Don t call, either; it s no matter." 
 
 " Only my curiosity. Why, you say he can run a mile 
 through the alleys and by-ways split through the rock. I 
 had no idea of such a stretch of half-caverns along here; 
 and of course I m curious to know the resources of my 
 claim." 
 
 " I reckon, but folks allow it ain t noways lucky to have 
 to do with Indian Ledge; and then " 
 
 "What are you doing here, then ? " 
 
 " Jest followed that hound; reckoned he tracked some 
 thing." 
 
 " And you going to hunt it without a gun, or even a 
 revolver ! You ought to have a bow and arrows, though. 
 I ve an idea they would suit you best." 
 
 "I reckon not," answered the mountaineer, with placid 
 seriousness; we never see them hereabouts, an I never did 
 carry fire-arms. Taking the breath an the soul out o the 
 things in the woods jest for the sake o saying you could 
 hit them ain t in my line only becase they don t take 
 speech, too. Lots o folks don t claim it s murder; but they
 
 182 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAN1ES. 
 
 can all talk, I reckon, in their own way. I ve got notions 
 like that, anyway, and notions agin bloodshed." 
 
 " Not strong enough ones to keep it off your boot," 
 remarked Don, trying to speak lightly and carelessly, yet 
 feeling, against his will, Pap s insinuations repeating 
 themselves in his ears, as he saw across the instep of the 
 other the unmistakable mark of a blood-stain; some pool of 
 water into which he had stepped left the boot wet, and 
 brought out that mark redly in the warm sun. The man 
 again looked vaguely embarrassed, much as he had done 
 when he first saw Don in his path. 
 
 " I wonder now, my friend," mused Don, very strictly to 
 himself, " if it were a murder pure and simple, and you as 
 chief actor, would you show a particle more excitement 
 than that mildly troubled look? No, I guess not; that s 
 one of the comforts of being a pagan, I suppose." 
 
 But for all his self-query, he lost none of the muttered 
 disjointed words of the other as he assayed with a brush of 
 moss to wipe off the unpleasant marks. 
 
 " A a hog of mine young shote it was killed killed 
 early to-day up on the ridge." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said the other, blandly; " there by the 
 point of rocks this side the old road." 
 
 " You got good eyes for the timber, even if you did grow 
 up in town," was all the comment the Pagan made as he 
 threw away the bit of moss; and again Don felt a sense of 
 impotence when he met the serious gray-green eyes. How 
 was it at all possible to question that serenity, or the inno 
 cence of it ? 
 
 "Were you on the way any place?" continued the sus 
 pected. "The sun s about half-way across." 
 
 " I told you I was looking up the old still and the ha nt. 
 Who haunts it?" asked Don, with sudden directness. 
 
 " It ain t easy to know;" and the mountaineer arose, as if
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 183 
 
 to talk as they walked along, and Don had nothing to do 
 but keep step with him if he wanted to listen. "It s an old 
 ha nt years an years. Folks say there was murder there 
 in old Le Fevre s time; and a revenue officer did come up 
 here an never was seen any more. And then some say it s 
 jest old man Le Fevre himself that ha nts there, and floats, 
 lights and all, down where the ledge runs out and the glade 
 begins. I ve seen the light on the cranberry-swamp myself, 
 but there wasn t any harm in it." 
 
 " You ve seen it? " 
 
 "Yes, I have, more than once. Jest a little blaze like a 
 star that s fell, and floats above the grass. Yes, it s a ha nt, 
 I reckon; but I don t know what for. Some say it s old 
 Le Fevre s soul a burning out on the swamp, case they 
 wouldn t even give him hell-room; but I don t believe that 
 there. Souls burn yes, they burn" he nodded seriously 
 "but it s in a different way it s with the fire in here;" and 
 he tapped his head; "a fire that s worse than brimstone. 
 I hear some o the churches say they can pray your soul 
 out o the brimstone-fire, even when your dead in this life. 
 There s times I grudge them folks that belief, an then 
 there s other times most o times when I d sooner jest 
 crawl along under my own load; it makes me feel stronger, 
 someway, an the more I m made to carry at a time the 
 sooner my work will be over; and you see when a man 
 feels like that he ain t a going to beg help, or depend on 
 other people s prayers after his own breath is gone no, 
 sir! You see he just don t dare turn coward that-a-way." 
 
 " Bud, do you ever allow yourself to think of anything 
 more cheerful than the warmth of the hereafter? "demanded 
 his listener, scowlingly. " I was enjoying life on that 
 watch-tower up there rather glad I was living, and had 
 such a good view of everything and here you come with
 
 184 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 your theories of hell and knock my serenity galley-west 
 Don t worry over hell till you get there." 
 
 "I didn t." 
 
 They had reached the point of rocks where Mr. Keesy 
 had been baffled over the loss of " signs." Don halted, 
 glancing about him again in a way the Pagan noted, for he 
 said: 
 
 "I d jest as soon you made no mention o that pig that 
 was killed here. Someone s jest toted it off, an I ve 
 got some reasons for laying low about it. I ll tell you what 
 they are, may be, some other day." 
 
 "You think you will I mean, that you will tell me?" 
 
 " Yes," said the other, looking at him with that placidity 
 that was growing irritating to Don "yes, I reckon I will." 
 
 Just then a golden-winged oriole darted low past their 
 faces, and so close that Don took a step back in surprise. 
 
 "I should have liked to catch that fellow," he observed; 
 " they are beautifully marked, and I never saw one come so 
 close in the woods." 
 
 The mountaineer smiled, and, walking away a few steps, 
 dropped down and lay on his back in the ferns and wood- 
 grass, making a queer little sound that was half a whistle, 
 and pulling his hat over his eyes just enough to keep the 
 sun out, he seemed waiting for something. Don simply 
 stared. His impulse to question was checked by a little 
 flutter somewhere above him, and two birds, darting past each 
 other like butterflies, gradually lowered, and finally lit, with 
 out the least sign of fear, on the outstretched arm of Bud. 
 Another and then another came, until seven were stepping 
 daintily and flutteringly over him robin and wren, bluejay 
 and redbird, to whom he chirruped in a friendly way, but 
 never closing his fingers over them. 
 
 "That oriole heard you say you wanted to catch him," 
 observed their charmer, " that s why he don t come back
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 185 
 
 they know;" then he looked up into the wondering face of 
 the other and smiled. " I don t know jest what I have been, 
 any more than you do," he said, in his slow, insistent way 
 "nor what I may be after this; but jest now I ain t any 
 thing that the birds thinks bad of. You ve got some notion 
 in your head that is doubtful o me I can t see yet jest 
 what; but jest try for a little while and mind that the 
 birds ain t scared o me." 
 
 He arose, and the birds darted away again, some only a 
 short distance and returning again, others disappearing in 
 the high trees. 
 
 "And I don t reckon you ve got cause to think doubtful," 
 he continued. " I don t want you to have, and I don t 
 think you will have, unless " 
 
 He hesitated, with a look of those green-gray eyes that 
 made Don drop his own. 
 
 " Unless what?" 
 
 " Unless you do a wrong your own self to someone else. 
 May be you don t know what I mean yet; but if the time 
 comes you ll know, and you ll remember." 
 
 " I have not the remotest idea of your meaning," broke 
 in Don. " I do someone a wrong? Well, I promise you " 
 
 The mountaineer shook his head. " Don t you be making 
 promises, even to yourself, an putting them into words," 
 he said. "You re taking the power o the future into your 
 own hands when you do that, or you re aiming to; an it s 
 like the challenges to God I spoke of that other day. 
 There s a something stronger than us beyond us that 
 reaches out a hand, and strikes our hearts, an shows us the 
 weakness o words and our power to keep them. A prom 
 ise is like a link in a chain, and the chain doesn t need to 
 be long to make a man a prisoner." 
 
 " I fancy that Pinkerton would bid wildly for my serv 
 ices if he imagined I could be secured," said Mr. Edson,
 
 186 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 in self-confidence, as he regained his saddle and watched 
 the Pagan s form go from him again through leafy screens 
 that little by little hid him. " I have no doubt that any 
 one in my stead would have strong convictions of suspicion 
 after the rather curious incidents of this morning. But I 
 instead of finding out the thing I should have, I am just 
 given a dissertation on hell, a bird-show, and some vague 
 advice that I guess I said thank you for, and here 
 lam!" 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BUD AND KRIN. 
 
 The drowsy, slumbrous songs of the woods told of high 
 noon; the sun was half-way across, and on the bare cabin on 
 the Ledge it beat pitilessly. Not a tree reached out an arm 
 to break the force of either sun or storm there the nearest 
 tree to the door was always the one used for fire- wood by 
 the household; and the only sound that now broke the 
 quiet of those heights was the ring of an ax out in the 
 edge of the cleared space. 
 
 Bud, coming alone down through the laurel, listened to 
 those sounds with a growing darkness in his eyes. His 
 step on the porch was answered by a little sleepy wail 
 within, and entering, he found the child struggling for 
 wakefulness in its nest of pillows. He quieted it by much 
 the same crooning sounds with which he had talked to the 
 birds, touching so tenderly the waxen flesh of it with his 
 great brown hands. He laid it again to rest, and with a 
 comprehensive glance about the cabin, closed the door 
 softly and walked out to where those aggravating sounds 
 still rang. 
 
 " Jest stop that ! " he commanded, when he got within
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 187 
 
 speaking distance; and Krin dropped the ax and leaned 
 breathless against the young chestnut she had been work 
 ing to bring down. " You hain t any call to do that sort o 
 work," he continued, as she did not speak; " you re get 
 ting thinner an thinner with all this care on you; 
 you re " 
 
 " I surely had to have some green wood to bake with," 
 she protested, " an so I had a call to get it." 
 
 " I was past here this morning; you know I d a done it." 
 
 She shrouded her head in her apron to keep off the sun s 
 glare evidently the one sun-bonnet in the family was doing 
 other duty and drawing back out of reach of the ax, stood 
 in embarrassed silence while with a few strokes he brought 
 the tree crashing its length on the ground, from which the 
 dust raised in a cloud. 
 
 " This dry spell is sure to end with a big storm," he said, 
 glancing across the open space where the heat quivered 
 upward; " there is signs of it every place in the woods, an 
 the bees are a telling." 
 
 "Pap Keesy, he lowed things was dry enough for a 
 forest fire," she answered; "but there ain t ever any forest 
 fires this soon, are they? " 
 
 "When did you see him? " 
 
 " A little while back; soon after you passed. He s riled at 
 you some, ain t he?" A nod was the only reply. "I 
 reckoned so. He s riled at Mr. Edson, too; swore a heap at 
 him, though I couldn t just make out what for. He said 
 Mr. Edson was on the mountain to-day; is he?" and the 
 eager interest in her voice was duplicated in her eyes. 
 
 "Yes," he said, shortly "gone over the hill to Riker s." 
 And the ax, flashing in the late August sun and buried with 
 even precision in the heart of the fallen tree, checked fur 
 ther conversation. Length after length of the wood was 
 cut. split, and tossed aside, and she sat there watching the
 
 IBS A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 swift energy of his work, but not questioning again, except 
 once to ask: 
 
 "Was Edie asleep yet?" 
 
 He nodded without looking at her, and again an air of 
 constraint fell about them, one that at last he broke by 
 leaning on the ax, studying attentively the grain of the 
 wood before him, and asking: 
 
 "What s he Pap been saying?" 
 
 " Bout Mr. Edson? Oh " 
 
 " No; bout me." 
 
 " Well, first off he sighted you somewhere back there 
 with that noun dog o Granny s, and wanted to know 
 mighty curious what you got him for. I didn t know you 
 had got him; I lowed he d gone after Granny." 
 
 " She ain t back yet? " 
 
 " No, she ain t. The older she gets the more time she 
 puts in out on the mountain. Don t know what she does do 
 up there just spells, an xperiments o herb-roots, that s 
 what she says; but I don t know. Pap, he tried to kind o 
 scare me into tellin , an I was scared the way he s hintin 
 at folks; but I never can tell what I don t know, an / don t 
 allow to follow where she goes to find out, either." 
 
 "That all he was saying?" 
 
 " No, it ain t; " and her eyes faltered under his own. " He 
 was askin if we d heard anything curious on the mountain 
 last night, an if if you was here last night, an what sort 
 o friends you and Mr. Edson was now, an all o them 
 questions mixed together, but him actin all the time like 
 they all had to do with somethin that s a mystery, an that 
 he s allowin to find out. He talked about that old ha nt 
 that s a walkin again the first time in ten year, he says; an 
 he got me so scared with his notions ! Bud, is it that ha nt 
 come back as a warnin o trouble? An what s folks to do 
 that s just got to live here an take it if it comes? Sendin
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 189 
 
 signs like that ain t any use when folks can t get out o* 
 the way; an " 
 
 " You can get farther away if you ve a mind to," he 
 answered, quietly. " I told you " 
 
 "No, I can t; I got to stay here! I " Then she 
 stopped suddenly, and turned to him with a deal of earnest 
 ness in her questioning. " Bud, I want you to say what 
 you think about that ha nt. Do they come back and ought 
 a person to try an do the things they say or sign to you of? 
 I m troubled." 
 
 " Yes, he s been jest trying to scare you for plum mean 
 ness. Them ghosts o the old still and the glade ain t a 
 going to do you harm. I don t allow anyone seen the 
 ghost, anyway." 
 
 " Pap he " 
 
 " Pap, he lies," was the brief reply. " I wouldn t believe 
 him." 
 
 " Don t you believe in the ghosts, anyway? " 
 
 And seeing the troubled fear in her eyes, he shook his 
 head to reassure her. 
 
 " No; an you mustn t, either. Folks jest scare themselves 
 at shadows when they get to being afraid about ghosts." 
 
 "Well," she said, with a little doubtful, disappointed sigh 
 "well, PapKeesy, he did worry me. I was powerful glad 
 when he left. He means something that ain t good, the way 
 he s bent on findin out so much about the doin s o folks. 
 He did worry me." 
 
 "You hain t done anything you re afraid o him know 
 ing " and the statement was half a question, as he looked 
 at her " that ain t why you re scared? " 
 
 "No, sir, I ain t! nothing I ve been real shamed of 
 sence that time I run away. Then I was some ashamed 
 to come back." 
 
 His face was turned stubbornly away from her as she
 
 190 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 answered, in the subdued tones that showed even now her 
 half-shame over that crime against duty. Through all his 
 knowledge of her, she had never yet induced him to say a 
 word either in commendation or blame of that past act; and 
 his very silence always added to her conviction of her own 
 fault. But he seemed not to hear the voice with the humil 
 ity in it, or see the eyes that unconsciously asked comfort. 
 He only asked, briefly: 
 
 "What is there about one man s spying around to scare 
 you, then? " 
 
 " Tain t jest one man, though!" she burst out; "it s 
 lots o folks. They ve been talkin a long spell now. You 
 never do hear things folks say, case you re always thinkin 
 o things way above them, and you say and do things that s 
 curious, an never tell any of them why; an now that 
 there s queer things on the mountain strange men seen 
 that somebody s a hidin they re most all pointin to you, 
 an there s trouble comin out of it all. Granny, she cut the 
 cards last night, an she seen trouble in them, too. And I 
 wisht I wisht it was over! " 
 
 " Is it them notions o theirs about me that makes you 
 keep so far away from me lately? " he asked, quietly. " Is 
 that why you changed your mind about taking my house? 
 Is that why you d come out here and cut wood till you d 
 drop sooner than ask me for help, like you used to do is 
 that the reason? " 
 
 I don t know. I m bothered a heap about things. I 
 wisht you wouldn t ask me like that it only bothers me 
 more; and I wisht, oh I do wisht you had some religion, like 
 other people, an wouldn t have wicked thoughts an ways 
 that makes folks think bad about you! That s what sets 
 them against you, an makes them say you re sold to the 
 devil an I wisht you was different." 
 
 I allowed that was it," he said, in a smothered sort of
 
 A PAGAN OF T&E ALLEGHANIES. 191 
 
 way. His eyes as he questioned her had the strained 
 intentness that sees the shadow of the blade above him. 
 The hardening whiteness of his face as she spoke had in it 
 all the realization of the blade s blow, and the death in it. 
 
 He looked at the figure of her sitting there with the half- 
 shrouded head, and never a thought inside of it of the 
 rapture or wreck words of hers could bring a man. Slight, 
 shabbily draped body so insignificant a casket for the 
 holding of a soul. He asked himself if that soul would for 
 ever be shrouded as the head was from all understanding 
 of unseen bonds that he felt were forged for all eternity? 
 Did never the force of his own life, that was drawn to 
 her, touch her for one instant with the knowledge of hidden 
 power? So slight a thing to bear such power; so slight a 
 goal for the race of a man s life or the embodied realiza 
 tion of what life might mean. Yet, which of us is able to 
 gauge the weight or power of any influence until it touches 
 ourself. The treasures other men strive for are such 
 dross, only our own are all real, all compelling. Not that 
 he had ever dreamed of sharing her life as the wedded 
 about them lived, the pagan mind of him accepted the fact 
 of her bonds that were for one existence. But if he closed 
 his eyes and dreamed dreams of some future well, they were 
 only dreams, but they had sweetened life sometimes, those 
 faint, far-reaching shadows through which he made his 
 crude guesses at substances. 
 
 He looked at her with all the weight of those substances 
 crashing and thronging on him at the knowledge that she 
 was shrinking from him through distrust. 
 
 " What if I d lie to you? " he demanded. " That s what 
 I d do if I tried to make folks think I m different than I 
 am. If my thoughts are wicked thoughts, how am I to 
 change them? They re me. We can t change our minds 
 any more than our faces, I reckon; they just grow in us
 
 192 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 according to our deserts some fine and clear, an" some 
 troubled and wicked. Some like that chestnut-tree there, 
 straight and even in the grain, ready to split or saw for any 
 use, a tree that s a blessing to the woods; and right there 
 beside is a gum-tree, jest as big, jest as straight on the out 
 side, but in the wood of it are the twists and the crooked 
 turns, and the stubbornness of it, that they say lightning 
 itself won t split. Men an women are that way, too. It s all 
 in the soul they start with; the seed that dropped from the 
 tree of their other life. Why is it you re so set against them 
 thoughts, and say they re wicked? " he asked, almost plead 
 ingly. " Why, they ve give me all the hope I ve got in life, 
 them thoughts. I d be different in other ways if I could, 
 but not to give up thinking that way about life an God s plan 
 for souls. I can t drive that comfort away, or think as the 
 folks here do; that is, to get a preacher to think for me, and 
 reckon I ve done my duty to God A mighty if I set two 
 hours of a Sunday and listen to him. That s what they do, 
 and then tell lies to a neighbor on the way home for the 
 sake of a horse-trade, or go straight to the woods an steal 
 timber off some other man s land the next morning and 
 think they re mighty smart to do it, too, and beat someone 
 out o something; but they only beat themselves out o the 
 thing their lives have a right to be. They re like rattle 
 snakes that bite and poison themselves, lest any hand that 
 reaches out to them for help might get it. They make 
 themselves cowards, and they re afraid o death so afraid 
 that they dress it in black. And you wan t me to live by 
 their notions? I can t do it; I d go crazy. I remember 
 the times I tried to believe them. I ve been given these 
 convictions to keep me from that. I know it; and I m 
 thankful. There ain t a night, Krin, when I don t kneel 
 and say so." 
 
 He talked, walking back and forward. He had half-for-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 193 
 
 gotten even her presence in his crude reasonings and 
 arguments all he had to raise him above the blinding pain 
 of her distrust. 
 
 Cold, far-off comfort, when from the blows of humanity 
 one can turn only to the slow justice that sums up impulses 
 and acts at the end of a life. 
 
 But when it is all one dare claim? 
 
 What use to try and make him see or care for the 
 opinion of people when he only drew away off like that into 
 speculations where it was wicked to follow? He said he 
 knelt yes, but how was one to know to what power? 
 Had not the devil ways of making evil seem right when 
 once he set his claim on a soul? Krin had heard so. She 
 listened to his words, but drew farther away, in a sort of 
 dread. 
 
 " I don t know rightly whether you re good or bad in 
 your mind," she faltered; "you re earnest, but it ain t with 
 the Spirit o the Lord. You set folks agin you, a& you 
 don t care; but you ought to care. You ought to think 
 more o people right around you than to wonder and won 
 der over souls that s far off. Here s where you ve got to 
 live on this earth, among folks; an you ought to try 
 an make them think well of you an an " 
 
 She broke down not crying, but trembling and half- 
 frightened "at her own temerity. However fearful her own 
 doubts had been of him, she had never before dared put them 
 into such plain words, or condemned as trifling the atoms 
 of wisdom he believed had come to him. Suddenly, out of 
 her own ignorance and humility, she had arisen as a judge, 
 and he felt the weight of her hand added to the others that 
 had outlawed him. 
 
 " Don t you be afraid of my wickedness," he said, low y 
 and very gently. " I ll keep away, now that I know how 
 you feel. It s jest another big wall built up between us for 
 13
 
 194 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 this life but some day, in some other one, may be, you ll 
 know better whether I tried to be good or bad." 
 
 "Some other life!" she burst out, with the tears trem 
 bling in her eyes and her voice. " Oh, Bud, Bud ! what if there 
 is no other life? Here now is the time we re livin in the 
 world may be never any more; an* then what of your 
 notions? What of puttin all your hope so far ahead that 
 you ll never reach it when right here " 
 
 She was stopped by his hand on her shoulder his face, 
 white and passionate, bending so curiously near her own. 
 
 "It ain t safe for you to say any more," he said; "you re 
 as much of a child as that baby o yours I put asleep as I 
 come out here. You don t know the weight o your own 
 words; but I can t bear any more o* them. Don t look so 
 scared I don t think I d harm you but " 
 
 His voice, low and hoaise, did frighten her. She reached 
 up, trying to loosen his fingers, but her hand also was 
 caught in his own trembling ones, and held held held 
 while she could only whisper in terror: 
 
 "Oh, Bud! oh, Bud! " 
 
 " Yes, I ll let you go," he said, looking down into her 
 eyes, and seeing only the dread there. " You needn t be 
 afraid o me and my wicked thoughts again so long as 
 you live. I m letting you go, you see; and when I can do 
 that go! go into the house where your baby is. I ll keep 
 away now that I see. One lifetime one lifetime! " 
 
 She did not try to speak the weight of some unspoken 
 thing back of his own words left her dumb; and when he 
 let go of her she turned away sick and dizzy, her lips 
 unconsciously echoing his words " One lifetime! " 
 
 And when she reached the cabin, and dropped on her 
 knees by the baby s bed, she heard through a prayer the 
 regular ring of th at ax out there; and it s echoes bore to her 
 the same words, with the sound of his strange tones in it.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HAUNTED. 
 
 A long, long time seemed passing, but she did not move 
 Was the trouble to come the trouble the cards told already 
 here? She had meant to say nothing to anger him what 
 had she said, anyway? His eyes seemed yet burning into 
 her brain; his voice would ring in her ears, and drove out 
 remembrance of her own words; on her wrist was a mark 
 turning blue from the cruel grip of his fingers and it all 
 told her that the gentle, wise, uncouth friend she had had 
 was gone. Was it all the result of those terrible unchris 
 tian ideas of his that had made him turn on her like that when 
 she entreated him to be more human more like other 
 people? She supposed so. She remembered the Bible had 
 words in it about keeping far away from the wicked people, 
 lest one s own garment be smirched by black through associa 
 tion. Not the words, only the sense of them, was with her, 
 and she knew it meant the people who turned from the 
 right religion, as he had; and she supposed there was no use 
 in even praying for him a soul that shut itself out from 
 the church and then she never felt good enough, or sure 
 enough of her own peace with heaven, to dare pray for 
 others; only the preachers and "professors" dared do 
 that, according to her lights on the subject lights that 
 never showed near brightly enough for her, cut off as she 
 was from association with people of " convictions." 
 
 " But may be since I ain t jest one of the Lord s chosen, 
 that rule about the good folks keepin away from sinners 
 don t jest mean such as me," was the only tangible bit of 
 reasoning she could arrive at. " I hain t never took com 
 munion, an I reckon my robe for heaven ain t so near
 
 196 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 white yet that that much black is goin to show bad; an* if 
 the Lord ll forgive me, I ll risk prayin for his poor lost 
 soul once, anyway." 
 
 And so she knelt there, praying for the man who had 
 lost faith in prayer, but who had been good to her so often. 
 After awhile the sound of the ax ceased, then she heard a 
 step, and was conscious that he had brought it and stood it 
 by the door; then the step died away again, and she was 
 alone with the fears and the dread that she had but half- 
 acknowledged to him. 
 
 " If I could only jest go away, Edie an me, an I could 
 get work, not too far from the woods, an jest live an mind 
 all his kind ways that used to be, an all the powerful 
 strange things he s told me o the words the trees an the 
 wild things try to say to people if I could jest do 
 that, an forget all the other wicked thoughts that make me 
 afraid, I d be a most happy, Edie an me; but I can t go, 
 an I daren t go an I haven t a soul left to speak to, only 
 Mr. Edson. He s he s like an angel a most when I think 
 o him after other men yes, an women ! Never a word 
 that ain t kind, and always that way of laugh that he has, 
 jest as if he ain t a tryin earnest to help folks be good. 
 Oh, I could tell him; I could tell him all better than ary a 
 preacher." 
 
 Had her wish the strength to draw him there, or was it 
 his nearness that had touched her thoughts and made her 
 conscious of the need of him? For there was a step on 
 the slab porch, a knock at the door, to which she scarcely 
 knew if she answered or not; and as her landlord pushed it 
 open a bit he saw her standing in the middle of the floor, 
 as if poised for flight. 
 
 "You actually look as if you were afraid of me," he said, 
 bluntly. "Why is this thusly, Mrs. Krin? And is not 
 madame the dowager here to lend you courage? "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 197 
 
 Either she was too frightened or too embarrassed for 
 reply. She leaned against the table, as if really needing 
 the support; but he might have read a flattering relief in 
 her eyes had he dared receive it as such, but he did not. 
 Fresh from that self-communion of his in the woods, he 
 looked past danger and over her head, and jotted a white 
 mark down to his credit in his new duty-book. Then she 
 remembered her manners, and offered him a chair, with a 
 deprecating mention of being " some shaky these days, an 
 nervous." 
 
 "You are working too hard" he decided, with an attempt 
 at a fatherly manner that would have fitted the robe of a 
 patriarch. " You are wearing yourself to the very shadow 
 of a Daphne." 
 
 But she shook her head, a sort of pride impelling her to 
 the denial. 
 
 " No, sir; I don t reckon it s all that, though there is a 
 heap to do, but " 
 
 Why don t you take Lennard s offer to change places, so 
 he could run the forge? " he demanded. " You could get 
 some return for your work there the best fruit around here, 
 and the house is a little home-nest." 
 
 "Yes, I know, an I would like it cause of Edie; it ud 
 be mighty nice to bring her up where the flowers grow 
 around the door, stead o them," and she made an elo 
 quent gesture toward a lot of pigs and a big spotted sow 
 dozing serenely in the path leading to the spring. " But 
 Granny, she won t ! " 
 
 " And you expect, then, to live on with her? . 
 
 She glanced in that same startled way at the door and 
 window, and sat down as if the chair had been a corner she 
 was driven into. 
 
 "I I don t know," she said, helplessly. "I did say I 
 wouldn t, but now "
 
 198 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 She crossed the room to the bed where the baby lay 
 asleep, and seemed to gain some courage from looking at 
 its serene sweetness that had no dependence but her. 
 
 " If I was only sure it wouldn t do harm to Edie," she 
 began, but halted uncertainly. 
 
 "Why, you said just now it was for her sake you d like 
 the other place ! " 
 
 "Yes, I know; an I want to tell you I do, for may be 
 you d know what to say. "Oh, I I m nigh crazy these 
 days, Mr. Edson I am. An you you helped me to a heap 
 o comfort before an* if you " 
 
 She was almost hysterical, and he stared at her in amaze 
 ment. Surely this nervousness, that seemed in part terror, 
 could not all be evolved from dislike of the crude surround 
 ings. 
 
 " Tell me what is wrong, then," and in spite of himself 
 his tone was a caress; " but please do not look so frightened 
 or despairing. Some way out of the difficulty will be found. 
 Tell me what it is." 
 
 "I m afraid," she half- Whispered; " can t tell you here, 
 nohow. Where you on the way to now? " 
 
 " Down the valley to the mill," he answered, wonderingly. 
 "My horse is at the forge." 
 
 She took from a peg on the wall a splint-basket, and 
 threw the apron over her head. 
 
 "I ll go a piece along, if you don t mind," she said, more 
 sedately. "Granny, she s gone up the mountain after herbs 
 in bloom, an I allowed some to go for berries, anyway." 
 
 She lifted the sleeping little one with much care, lest it 
 waken; but swift and decided as were her movements, he saw 
 she was tremulous, and even after the door was closed 
 behind them her eyes seemed peering into every covert of 
 leaves into every nook where shadows lay. 
 
 " I ll tell you when we get clear of the laurel," she said
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 199 
 
 once, as he followed her wonderingly; and, with a keen 
 sense of the ridiculous, he carried the berry-basket while 
 Daphne led the way with the child in her arms not for a 
 flight into the laurel, but to get as far from its thick, green 
 places of hiding as possible. If Dinah should happen that 
 way with a sketch-book! 
 
 But Dinah did not the wood seemed untenanted by any 
 human thing but themselves; but his guide never stopped 
 until they had reached a " flat " where the white-oaks grew 
 tall and far apart, and where none of the low bushes were, 
 
 " I don t know what you ll think," she said, looking back 
 at him "this is some out of your way but I don t know 
 what to think, either; an so I jest felt I had to tell some 
 one, an there isn t anyone but you." 
 
 "Lennard is a good friend of yours," he reminded her, 
 generously. 
 
 " Yes, Bud I mostly do go to him about things he s 
 kind o older, an good to folks; but maybe his idees bout 
 religion won t let him think jest right bout this here, 
 so I ve jest kept it from him, someway." 
 
 She had seated herself on a fallen log, throwing back 
 the apron from her face, and with a green spray of leaves 
 was sheltering the baby s eyes from the rays of the sun, 
 while Mr. Edson arranged a comfortable couch in the 
 leaves, at a respectful distance, and waited. 
 
 "I couldn t speak back there," she said, looking at him 
 and nodding the way they had come. "I was afraid some 
 one something would hear me." 
 
 " Something? " 
 
 She nodded, but did not speak; and her eyes, solemnly 
 mysterious, brought him from his lazy attitude up into a 
 sitting position. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Daphne, would you just please tell me what 
 it is you mean? "
 
 200 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " Do you do you believe in ghosts? " was all the ex 
 planation he got. 
 
 "Ghosts? well, I don t know;" and he would have 
 laughed had he dared, but opposite her serious face it was 
 not easy. " I might if I saw one, but the nearest approach 
 I ever made to doing so was a night when I got lost, and 
 a spirit I met in the woods led me back to the right road." 
 
 "That wasn t a ghost that was me," she said, simply, 
 ignoring the lightness of his speech; "but this is different, 
 a heap different. Do you know does the Bible own up to 
 ghosts much?" 
 
 "Full of them," said Mr. Edson, with more decision 
 than knowledge. 
 
 " Then if they come back in them days they kin now, I 
 reckon," she said, resignedly; " an that jest settles it." 
 
 "Who has been frightening you with ghost-stories?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 " No, sir; nobody has," she protested. " Nobody knows 
 about this one only me; but it s at our house twice now 
 both times with a warning." 
 
 "Tell me all about it, you poor scared-to-death child! 
 So that s why you are getting frightened at every step. 
 What ghost have you seen? " 
 
 She covered her eyes with her hand for a moment; with 
 all encouragement, it was not easy to tell. 
 
 " Sometimes may be you ve heard we didn t get along 
 well," she said, slowly, "an* once I run away that was last 
 year an then he promised some things on account of 
 Edie; so when he went after me I come back again that 
 was jest before corn-plantin . May be I hadn t ought to 
 a gone it wasn t right duty cordin to the church" (and 
 her listener felt like the veriest scamp as she humbled her 
 self as if for his judgment); "but sometimes folks spe 
 cially if they ain t very good, anyway they re like to
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 201 
 
 forget duties jest cause someone else does forget, too; an 
 may be some folks ud say its cause we had that trouble 
 that he s comin back now, an so " 
 
 "Who s coming back now?" he demanded; and she 
 answered, almost in a whisper: 
 
 "Dick." 
 
 "Why how can you " 
 
 "Oh, don t think I m crazy!" she said, pleadingly, drop 
 ping the hand from her face and looking at him; "I ain t. 
 I wasn t giving any thought to such things first time. It s 
 over a week now at night I was tellin her Granny 
 that I jest must go somewheres else to make a livin to 
 the settlements, may be an she was against it, an said I 
 shouldn t take Edie; an I was some worried, for she she 
 was makin it so we couldn t move to Lennards, either. 
 An I was out a milkin after dark, for our cows come home 
 late; an while I was at it, I made up my mind sure I d jest 
 go back across the line into Virginia again; an* jest then, 
 out o that laurel on the way to the spring, a warnin come. 
 Oh, it did! it was his voice, an I about dropped when I 
 heard it; an it said, slow an careful, the words: If 
 you go, Til go after you; I ll bring you back jest like I did 
 before. " 
 
 Whatever were the thoughts of Mr. Edson as father con 
 fessor, they lay too deep for words. He dropped back on 
 his couch of leaves, with half-closed eyes, that neverthe 
 less noted warily, pitifully, the earnestness in the wistful 
 eyes. And when expression did come to him, it was in the 
 form of music, beginning in the softest of contemplative 
 whistles, and ending in a vocal rhythmical monologue about 
 a Mr. McGinty and the bottom of the sea!
 
 202 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ALONG THE LEDGE. 
 
 The lost soul for whom Krin was forming so doubtful a 
 prayer stopped for a moment by the hot, sun-baked wall; 
 but from within no sound came, and the desolation of the 
 bare, treeless yard seemed doubly intensified when never a 
 gleam of eyes gladdened the low door-way. Back there by 
 the timber a blind sort of passion had made it possible for 
 him to send her away knowing that for the rest of their 
 lives friendly intercourse was over, but standing alone out 
 side, the force of this new silence that was as one of the 
 many deaths struck him with a meaning uncomprehended 
 before, and sent him away aimless, but, like any other hurt 
 animal, turning instinctively to the jungles. 
 
 Not even through the portion where paths led did he go, 
 but turned square to the right, pushing through the crisp, 
 rustling barricades of laurel, and then on on over 
 untraveled ways where the forest stretches unbroken 
 through mountain after mountain. 
 
 The heat had penetrated even the shield of leaves raised 
 against it; in every open space the more sensitive of the 
 wood-plants were shriveled; the moss on old logs had 
 turned from green to gold with the long, dry days. But of 
 the heat from above, from below, the man was scarcely con 
 scious; a fire within had burned something to death in his 
 heart, and in the eyes and the brain the embers were yet 
 smoldering. But if there is any comfort to be gained from 
 motion, he was moving with a sort of desperation toward it. 
 
 The mountain ! How he had loved her ! How he had 
 gone to her ever with his secrets, his questions, his con 
 fessions, to which no human ear opened ! There were
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 203 
 
 nights of battle when he had lain on her cool bosom and 
 caught whispers of patience from her lullabys of the star 
 light and the sure breaking of golden dawns, and now 
 
 Is it not always at life s greatest need that words of com 
 fort or hope fail utterly, the speakers standing far out of 
 reach, as if aghast at the depth of their need. Just so that 
 help of his boyhood yes, of his manhood drew out of 
 reach of his need that day, just as our gods of earth ever 
 do. Bear witness, any disciple of the heart s religion that 
 men call love. 
 
 He crossed without noting it the course over which he 
 had run only a few hours before, but the quest of then and 
 the meeting with the man of the world were as things long 
 past; they belonged on another side of his life life, ever 
 revolving, had turned with them into the shadows. Would 
 the old dreams ever creep up awake again in some dawn of 
 the future? Just now there was only the burning present, 
 and under the weight of it he flung himself down where 
 yawned a great crevice, whose end in either direction was 
 only a thing of conjecture. A trifle of air seemed drawn 
 through the long lane of it, and over him bent the thick 
 green of Daphne s shelter. Without really seeking it, he had 
 dropped down in as cool and shady a nook as could be 
 found on the mountain that day. 
 
 But the beat or the break of a heart crowds out studies 
 of still-life; and once having ceased bodily motion, he lay 
 there in the dumb sort of stupor that follqws some deaths 
 in us. Whether it was minutes or hours that passed he 
 could not have told, only the sun was not low; but from 
 somewhere through the stagnation of thought into which he 
 had crowded himself he was conscious of a peculiar odor 
 that was drifting to him, and every now and then something 
 so like a voice that he found himself waiting listlessly for it 
 to come nearer, thinking it some passer-by on the mount-
 
 204 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 ain. It came no nearer, just remained that murmur, mur 
 mur, as if from some distance; but something sharper, 
 shriller, cut through the air and aroused him to surprise, at 
 least. It was the rebellious yelp of a dog as when one is 
 struck or trodden on, and it came up from that lane cleft 
 through the rock. He arose then, quietly, and listened. 
 Even the odor began to have an interest of its own as he 
 walked first in one direction, then in another, to deter 
 mine from which the sounds came. Then, searching for 
 footing along the sheer walls, he at last slipped down a 
 young birch and dropped, with a lightness strange in so 
 large a man, to the ground below. 
 
 The ground was but layers of the leaves of innumerable 
 seasons, making a thick carpet along the long, narrow alley, 
 with its frequent cross-crevices that connected it with other 
 alleys yet beyond. If any feet had passed over this one, 
 they had been careful, for not a stir could he see traces of. 
 From appearances, human feet might never have walked 
 there since the days when Indians leaped those crevices; 
 but those voices were not phantoms. 
 
 He could hear them plainer now, but the odor he had 
 associated with them had disappeared, as if it floated only 
 upward; and nowhere could he discover any entrance to 
 the hidden room that must be very near yet who knew the 
 mountain and her secret places so much better than he? 
 
 On the other side of the ledge was where he decided the 
 entrance was, but closer than that was some crevice through 
 which the sounds came; and just yet, to hear them more 
 clearly was object enough. 
 
 They were the voices of a man and a woman, and through 
 one break in the stone wall he could hear most of their 
 words, by listening very carefully. The voice of the man 
 he did not know; that of the woman was not to be mistaken 
 it was the relict of the veteran Le Fevre.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 205 
 
 The listener could find no place where he could get a 
 view of them, the break in the wall was too devious and 
 deep; but if he had, the picture there would surely have 
 strengthened those old tales of witch-brews that had lent 
 interest to the name of the lady within for many a year. 
 
 A shapeless sort of room, vast and shadowy, was lit 
 dimly by some bluish streaks of daylight that seemed to 
 come so long a distance they had forgotten the color of 
 the sun. In some places the roof dipped very low, and a 
 far-off drip, drip of water was heard. Where the roof was 
 highest, a fire was burning on the stone floor a fire of 
 light sun-dried sticks that gave little smoke and bending 
 over it was Granny, shaking every now and then a piece of 
 sheet-iron on which some peaches were scorching; and as 
 soon as they were done to her taste they were dumped in a 
 little heap on the floor, and her improvised griddle was 
 again filled. 
 
 It was in stepping back for a fresh supply from a long 
 bag in the shadows that her foot had come down on the 
 white hound of that morning s chase, and his protest was 
 the call that had aroused Bud. 
 
 " Curse the dog!" growled the man, who was using one 
 end of the bag of peaches for a pillow. " I d think you d 
 leave that company at home." 
 
 "I did. Someone was busy enough to untie him, though 
 I ll find out when I get home." 
 
 "May be her his wife," suggested the man in the 
 shadow. "You said she wanted to know where you stayed 
 out in the hills. Will he track?" 
 
 "I ll go bail he will," returned Granny "tracks rabbits 
 in the daytime an coons at night, an never gets tied-up 
 with them; but she hain t gumption enough to think o 
 trackin with him she s one o the God bless ye! skeered- 
 to-death kind o creeturs/
 
 206 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "Queer sort for him to pick up." 
 
 "Urn!" assented the old lady. "Spite-work mostly, I 
 reckon. There was another girl he d run with she be 
 longed to your kentry settlements. They had a flare-up, 
 an* she went a flirtin with someone else, an Dick was 
 spunky he wouldn t be left; he jest brought a wife home 
 in short order, but made a bad bargain/ 
 
 The man stretched himself drowsily at this not unusual 
 love-story. He was a man of about middle age, black- 
 bearded and lengthy, judging from the limbs reaching 
 away into the shadows. The faint light outlined only his 
 shoulders and the small magic circle where the mistress of 
 ceremonies moved. 
 
 " Pity she ain t to be trusted/ he said, at length; " she d 
 be a big help." 
 
 " Yes, she d pray fer ye," said Granny " that s all the 
 way she d help anyone out of a hole; an then she d hunt 
 up the first psalm-singer that come along, an get him to 
 pray fer ye, too. Most o the gospel folks hereabouts could 
 scent a reward ekal to Bach there." 
 
 The man muttered a curse, and turned restlessly on his 
 pillow, giving Bach a stroke with one weighty hand that 
 sent the hound slinking to the end of its rope away from 
 him. 
 
 " What s your call for a spite at that there dog?" demanded 
 Mrs. Le Fevre. " He hain t pesterin you any. Jest let im 
 be. Did you get that logwood last night? " 
 
 " It s there with them jugs an the candy. Is he goin to 
 sleep all day?" 
 
 Granny did not trouble herself to reply, but lit a bit of 
 stick from the meagre fire and moved over into an alcove 
 where there was gathered and heaped a curious assortment 
 of things. Three barrels were ranged along the wall of it, 
 one covered; a newly killed pig was stretched there stark and
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 207 
 
 white, and some ham-bones that were stripped. The old 
 lady held her light high above one of the barrels, peering 
 into it s black depths; then dipping a jug in it, she raised 
 it, when the swallowing gurgles told her it was half-filled, 
 and bringing it, together with some paper packages, she 
 seated herself on the stone floor and began untying them. 
 
 " Done burning peaches? " queried the man, as if ques 
 tioning through sheer distaste of that underground silence, 
 and not through interest. " You hain t used half." 
 
 "Don t allow to; there s enough in that pile to color all 
 the spirits you can tote, I ll be bound. I m aimin to take 
 the rest home, little at a time, after you light out." 
 
 "What ll she say?" 
 
 " Pooh! " and Granny s scorn was supreme. " She s fool 
 enough to believe I picked em off hazel-bushes ef I told 
 her so leastways, ef she don t believe she don t say so. 
 She ll jest set an look at ye like the devil. Some folks 
 looks," added the old lady, contemplatively, " are jest the 
 hardest things about em to deal with; she s one o them 
 kind." 
 
 "She s got good looks," contested the man; and a con 
 temptuous snort was the only reply given. 
 
 "Well, she has," he went on, "and I ll bet other folks 
 know it that city chap, for one. I overheard him talkin 
 to her out at that fence last week. Not that they was sayin 
 so much, but he was lookin at her as if she was peaches 
 and cream; an I don t reckon she s got many ideas of her 
 own when he speaks." 
 
 To the listener, every word came. He drew back a little. 
 There are some things even the strongest men can not face 
 immovable. When he heard their voices again, they were 
 speaking of the man with whom Dick had had trouble. 
 
 "Ain t out of danger yet," said the stranger. " If he goes 
 under it would be manslaughter."
 
 208 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "Mighty little difference what they call it," decided the 
 old lady, briefly " it s settled fer Dick." 
 
 " Say," continued the stranger, " ain t that man Len- 
 nard to be trusted in a pinch? Dick told me some about 
 him when I first met him how he histed him out of the 
 window away from the sheriff, and all. I tell you what we 
 need here now, Granny, is a man s help to get off this 
 cursed mountain, and across south. I m bound to strike 
 for Tennessee, or down that way, if we only had a man we 
 could trust to borrow money from. This way of sneakin 
 a jug of whisky at a time down the mountain ain t giving 
 us but mighty little ahead. We need a ten-strike." 
 
 " Can t make it off Bud. He hasn t gumption enough to 
 make money does too much work for folks that can t pay 
 prices. Some ways he s to be trusted, an some ways he 
 ain t. Him an me had a fallin out t other day at the 
 forge, an it s too hard tellin* how to take him to run risks 
 this time. He s donated your meat this week; that ought 
 to satisfy you; " and Granny wound up with a laugh that 
 silenced the stranger. 
 
 She had opened the largest paper package and displayed 
 several pounds of the cheaper grade of candies. Every now 
 and then she would take a generous bite that showed her 
 own liking for sweets, but over half of it she was dropping 
 into the large-bodied, narrow-throated jug. 
 
 " That bar l o rain-water s most gone," she announced, 
 "an* little sign o gettin it full again. No rain-water, no 
 spirits." 
 
 The man grumbled something in condemnation of the 
 mountain, it s temperature, and general unfitness for any 
 sort of an existence. 
 
 " Dick told me it was safe as a jail for hiding out in," he 
 grumbled. " Lord! if I ve got to live in this dungeon many 
 more weeks, I ll break back into jail to get away from it."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 209 
 
 His disgust had little effect on Granny; evidently she was 
 used to it. 
 
 " But you ll not go jest yet, my lad," she said, in a 
 sinister way. " I ll see to it that ye get no one else in 
 trouble by changing your mind." 
 
 "What would you do?" he demanded. " And when you 
 grin like that, you look devilish enough for anything." 
 
 Granny grinned a little more at the compliment, anc 
 wrapped up the rest of the candy. " Ye ll not be movin 
 afore I get back, anyway," she said; "an that ll be in the 
 mornin . The herbs I m out after must always be picked 
 afore the dew s off; " and cackling at her own clever 
 subterfuge, she gathered up her staff and her bonnet. " It s 
 gettin along in the day, an it s no short walk," she con 
 cluded. " You untie Bachelor." 
 
 The man proceeded to do so, with some words of warning 
 about the dog following next time. 
 
 "And if you go out past that well-spring, keep your wits 
 about you," he advised. " I came near breaking my neck 
 over that ledge last night. It s an ugly place; be careful 
 you don t make a misstep." 
 
 Granny laughed tauntingly. " That s case you re green 
 to the mountain, that ye can t keep on yer feet. The 
 mountain always has tricks fer greenhorns." 
 
 The man outside listened no longer. He had little idea 
 which way Granny was likely to turn, through those alleys 
 in making her exit, or and this was more to the point 
 which way Bachelor would turn. No good was to be gained 
 from their knowing their " still " was discovered. Not even 
 an honest" still," either; for the mention of the ingredients 
 used told him that the " spirits " manufactured there had 
 never the juice of the corn in them, but was a crude con 
 coction of chemicals and simple vegetable additions that 
 the wisdom of the mountain had some fame for producing. 
 14
 
 210 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 But their traffic had no interest to the man who listened. 
 A strange presence on the mountain haddisturbed him until 
 he had located it; but now that he knew where neighbors 
 goods were disappearing to in a mysteriously nocturnal 
 way, his interest was over. He would warn them that the 
 thieving must cease. They must leave, whoever they were. 
 He would tell Granny so, but not to-day. He wanted to 
 get away from voices; most of all, voices that would want 
 answers. Even the forest in this its least sympathetic 
 mood was better than people. He had seen too many 
 people to-day. 
 
 If he had counted them, he had seen but two; but in 
 some strange manner they and their influences had been 
 doubled many, many times. Words and voices of them 
 seemed filling all the universe known to him they were 
 crowding him out of his world. 
 
 Once he looked back after leaving the ledge, but no sign 
 of the white hound or its mistress met him; she was evi 
 dently going down the ravine farther before beginning the 
 climb over the rocks. The man had mentioned the well- 
 spring; he knew where that was. The water leaped up 
 between two great slabs of stone and formed the head of a 
 run through the basin; so it was past it they found the door 
 to their shelter. Well, he would warn them away 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Granny was right it was getting along in the day. The 
 sun was dropping low and lengthening the waving shadows 
 of things; his own loomed up before him fatefully. Would 
 he never be able to walk it down? Suppose one s shadow 
 was a conscious thing! What terror the idea would bring at 
 times the times when one forgets the guardian angels 
 and the all-seeing Power that rules; forgets all that can not 
 be seen with the bodily sense of sight! But the shadow 
 the shadow is never gone; it dims sometimes, but never
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 211 
 
 dies away. Suppose it knew all, felt all of the life that 
 formed it! Might there be shadows of thought, of im 
 pulses, of desires, that fell just so on some sward beyond 
 human ken, laid there in clear outline by the light of a 
 sun that shone on minds and souls? And did they pass just 
 so, and drift among the forgotten things they touched; or 
 was there somewhere recorded to one s credit those shades 
 of immaculate yearnings that touch the spirit at times, and 
 then are driven back by the force of the body? What 
 of all the strivings for good that there must be in the world 
 of which the world knows nothing, because it faints in the 
 strife for lack of strength, and the good reached for is 
 never clasped? 
 
 Is it only deeds we will be weighed by in the scales of 
 eternal justice? Then what of the mighty battles of good 
 and evil in the heart that end in lethargy? Do the lances 
 of right that we strove to carry catch never a gleam of 
 light on their tips as they fall from our striving, but weak, 
 hands? 
 
 Does the recording angel lay on the book only the 
 strokes of black and the strokes of white to our credit? If 
 so, it would take but a small page to hold the record of a 
 soul for half-tones are the covering of lives. In places, 
 the shadows may grow deeper; in others, the gray melt 
 into a whiter light. Our fairest deeds may have grown 
 from some selfishness, our darkest be the result of some 
 strife for good that failed; and how is all that to be balanced 
 in that book of life? Questions! questions! 
 
 To be sure, he had asked them all before, with only him 
 self to answer them; they had drifted among the half-for 
 gotten things, and then some trifle would lead him back on 
 the old lines. There were the chosen people of the Lord, 
 why should they have been exalted above their brethren? 
 There was the bodily rising of the Christ from the tomb that
 
 212 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 he had tried to reason himself into, and had only pushed 
 himself far away from; there was the final judgment given 
 from the pen of that angelic scribe. How had he got 
 back to that question again? Oh, yes, it was in the track 
 of that shadow the shadow that would know all if it was 
 conscious; the shadow that what if people were their 
 own recording angels! What if each act, good or bad, 
 every atom of thought or action, every impulse and en 
 deavor, left its own track on our souls! a track we can no 
 more free ourselves from than from our shadow that clings. 
 What if that lesson of life in the seed and the fruit were 
 duplicated in unaccountable ways. What if each unseen, 
 unacted impulse, for either good or bad, were a grain 
 dropped in the furrows of a soul. We forget them, and 
 leave them in the darkness, and pass on; but in the dark 
 ness things grow. Under the snow the roots of things 
 live through the longest winters. The planter forgets, but 
 never the seed. Its fruit, good or bad, is an aid to the 
 development of the thing undefinable the spirit to which 
 we belong. 
 
 That idea, fragmentary and elusive, but ever recurring, 
 seemed suddenly to open a great vista through which light 
 streamed on him a light of insight he had walked to 
 through that shadow. It might be but transitory a 
 phase of fancy, such as sometimes drifts between some sor 
 row and us, and lures one into overleaping all that is pain 
 just now, showing us some vast possibilities of soul that 
 will raise us above the human aches of the heart. 
 
 But he did not think of that. He only knew that a bit of 
 glory had crept into his darkened mind. 
 
 He took off his hat and glanced up through the tall col 
 umns where the sky shone golden. "I feel like saying 
 Thank God for it, an then then I don t know but what 
 it s jest myself that drew it to me through a long hunt
 
 A PAGAX OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 213 
 
 me an the little bit o God in me that reaches for the light 
 again. Will it come back to me? And when it does, will she 
 know, too, and understand, and never look afraid of me?" 
 
 For no conception of the supreme life came to him with 
 out the thought of another soul sharing it one his own 
 reached out to as father and lover and child. 
 
 A too fleshly idea of heaven? but no stream can rise 
 higher than its source. Many freer from environments of 
 thought than he are just pagan enough to have no desire 
 for a heaven beyond an abode in the place where their 
 love is. 
 
 " She ll know then an understand," he whispered, with 
 almost a smile in his eyes. The "then" seemed very 
 distant; but one must have some hope to guide a ship by, 
 though we never draw it closer to us than the horizon. 
 
 He was in the clear woods now, away from bush and 
 rock. His feet were taking him where they would; his 
 thoughts were of other things than his course. He was 
 walking slowly, quietly, but all at once his drooped head 
 was raised. He was not conscious of hearing anything, but 
 he was conscious of not being alone. One must be bred 
 in the timber to know that unexplainable feeling with 
 which the unseen presence of an embodied spirit touches 
 us a certain narrowing and closening of the wide, 
 speechless vistas. 
 
 Standing motionless, he discovered within gunshot the 
 reason of the feeling a man and a woman seated under the 
 white-oaks. Sometimes for weeks he could pass over the 
 mountain and meet no human thing, but to-day at every 
 turn he saw faces and heard voices; the forest had never 
 seemed so small. 
 
 He heard no voices this time, and their backs were to 
 him; her head was bent and her hand covered her eyes. 
 When it was taken away, it was the man who did it; he
 
 214 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 reached over and took the hand in his, saying something 
 that from his manner one would think could only be lover- 
 like; evidently a question, for she nodded her head, and 
 after a little, still holding her hand, he helped her to rise. 
 
 His eyes were very tender, could the watcher but have 
 seen them. He felt them instead, though standing afar 
 off, and their feeling went to the heart of him. 
 
 "You poor child," the man beside her was saying; "you 
 must fret yourself no more. You shall leave. It is all some 
 miserable trick of that old woman; but you shall slave for 
 her no longer. I will see " 
 
 Just then, with his hand yet on her arm, he glanced up 
 and saw a short distance away a figure there was no mis 
 taking. For the second time that day it arose like an 
 apparition before him in the forest, but this time there was 
 neither haste nor embarrassment in the manner of the 
 mountaineer nothing unusual, unless it was a certain 
 pallor; but he came straight to them. Scarcely seeming to 
 see Krin, he spok^ to Edson. 
 
 " I forgot all about the work you wanted done at the 
 forge," he said. " I ll go back along now an do it, if it 
 ain t too late." 
 
 " It will be late, bat no matter," answered Don, his face 
 flushing a little. Of course, his being there with Krin was 
 all right, but the very way in which Bud ignored the meet 
 ing so unusual made him feel ill at ease. And then he 
 added: "It has been too hot to work, anyway. We I 
 thought it would be cooler up here." 
 
 " Not likely to be cool any place till the moon changes 
 Hgain. It changed yesterday in the mornin that s a warm 
 change, too; an it s apt too keep at this heat till the next 
 change." 
 
 " Is the moon your sign for weather on the mountain? " 
 
 * Mostly; we hain t any better one. It s true, the moon
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES, 215 
 
 is. I ve heard tell of folks who could read things by the 
 stars, but I never could do that. I look and look, and get 
 to know jest where they all belong, but they don t tell 
 things to most folks like the moon." 
 
 They were walking together, the three, through the long 
 shadows. The child, awake now, raised it s head at the 
 sound of Bud s voice, and struggled toward him. He 
 looked at Krin, and without a word she reached the little 
 one to him. 
 
 "She seems to know you well," remarked Don, as the 
 child nestled so contentedly in his arms; and the man s eyes 
 were very tender as he looked down. 
 
 " She does," he said. " When she was sick she got some 
 petted on me; they do that sometimes, you know; and I ll 
 miss her powerful, for awhile, when I m gone." 
 
 " Gone? You re going away? " And Don looked at him 
 in surprise. " Well, I d miss you powerful, too, if you did 
 that. Isn t the idea rather sudden? " 
 
 "No, I reckon not;" and the low evenness of the man s 
 voice never wavered. " May be I never mentioned it to you, 
 but I aimed to leave once before, two years back, and then 
 there was things to keep me sickness an such; but I ain t 
 needed bad now, an I reckon I ll be a going." 
 
 " Not needed ! Why, I would try and make it worth 
 while for you to stay, if " 
 
 "You couldn t," answered the other, briefly, and took 
 the lead where the path was narrow. He may have realized 
 that the speech was strangely blunt, from the silence that 
 followed it, for after a little he added: "No, sir; there is 
 life beyond this mountain, an it s natural enough a man 
 would want to see something of it, and my time seems to 
 have come. I reckon I ll come back sometime. I wouldn t 
 want to die away from the mountain. I always had that 
 notion; " and he glanced back with a sort of apologetic
 
 216 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 smile for the weakness, and then asked suddenly: " Do 
 you ever look ahead till you seem to see the time your life s 
 to be over? I mean, does there come a year when you 
 can t see or plan or imagine yourself living after that 
 year?" 
 
 Don nodded. " Yes, when I used to hear the old saying 
 that whom the gods love die young, I was convinced I 
 should never be let live for old age; but here I am." 
 
 "Who said that, and what gods did they mean? " 
 
 Mr. Edson always tried to keep clear of the discussions 
 theological, in which he never seemed to do himself any 
 credit, though he knew he was expected to by these ridicu 
 lously earnest believers and doubters; but anything away 
 from their own book of faith he was not so much afraid of. 
 
 "Oh, the gods of the Greeks. You should have lived in 
 their day, Lennard. They were all out-of-door divinities; 
 the moon and the winds and the sun were each some divine 
 spirit, to say nothing of the flowers and trees. I forget 
 most of them, but this" and he picked up a late violet from 
 among the leaves "this, they held, was colored by the 
 blood of one of the many gods who died of love; and the 
 pine-tree there, they held, was inhabited by his soul Atys, 
 I think it was. For some reason, the higher powers would 
 not give back his life, but decreed that his cloak should be 
 ever green; and do you not know how the pine moans? 
 That is for freedom, perhaps." 
 
 He was speaking lightly, but his listeners were earnest 
 ones; it was a bit of new religion to them, and, seeing it, he 
 added: " One of those old Greek histories of their religion 
 would just be the thing you would like, Lennard. They had 
 their ideas of the spirits in different birds; one, for eaves 
 dropping, was changed to an owl that could see only at 
 night. The goddess Daphne was changed into this," and 
 he touched the laurel, " to hide her from "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 217 
 
 He stopped abruptly- he was about to say " her lover," 
 totally forgetful for the moment of the suggestiveness 
 touching the legend and his own application of it to this 
 other Daphne this sprite of the wood that fate had set in 
 unfitting, prosaic surroundings. Krin had raised her head 
 and was looking ^at him eagerly, questioningly. 
 
 " Oh ! " she breathed, with a little air of comprehension, 
 "you meant that, an I never knew." 
 
 "In fact, there is no end to those transformations of 
 theirs," he went on, hastily. " For bad acts people were 
 given a life in some animal, an evil bird, or some sort of tree 
 that would go through death every year; while for good 
 ones, of course, they were given a life in some beautiful 
 thing., and made immortal and all that." 
 
 " An it s all wrote in a book? " asked the Pagan, slowly; 
 " all that an men in other places have been knowing it 
 all their lives, an" no one ever told me before." 
 
 "Well, you see, it s just an old, forgotten religion; people 
 don t think of it as a religion at all any more, only just a 
 string of pretty stories, like fairy-tales." 
 
 " I reckon it s some more than that," decided the other, 
 thoughtfully. " It may be it ain t all truth, but there s like to 
 be some truth back of it, jest like other religion that ain t 
 old an forgotten. May be, now, some o them in the 
 churches will jest be like pretty stories to people in hun 
 dreds of years, when folks know enough to pick out the 
 good and live by it; an may be they ll find good in the old 
 as well as the new, then. I ll get one o them books/ 
 
 Krin gave a quick little sigh, a sigh near akin to a sob, 
 for the day had left her worn and tired. And of what use 
 were her prayers against this determined will of his to turn 
 to the false beliefs? For of course they were false, though 
 pretty. Mr. Edson, of course, meant no harm; but she 
 would have chosen to remain ignorant, even of the puzzling
 
 218 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 Daphne, rather than have had Bud hear of those many gods 
 her own poor brain was so sadly beset to understand the 
 ways of one. 
 
 Little more was said. Once, in crossing an unusually 
 rough place, Don offered his hand to her, and meeting her 
 eyes, fancied there was something pleading and reproachful 
 there. 
 
 " Trust me," he said, in a low voice, his thoughts given 
 to her superstitious fears, and wishing to reassure her as to 
 his own secrecy, and his intent to free her in some way from 
 the machinations that he had no doubt were of Mother 
 Le Fevre s weaving. 
 
 And the man ahead, hearing only the words, bent his face 
 lower over the child s, drawing it close, as one draws a 
 shield, feeling it might be the last time he would carry 
 her so. He gave her to Krin, in silence, when they reached 
 the place where the paths divided. 
 
 " I may bring someone else over to see you to-morrow a 
 lady," said Don, with a certain significance in his manner. 
 She looked at him and nodded, and then spoke to Bud 
 not looking at him at all. 
 
 "Are you leaving the mountain soon? " she asked. 
 
 "To-morrow." 
 
 It was the first time they had addressed each other, and 
 without another word the girl walked into the house and 
 shut the door. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONFESSION. 
 
 Edson was the first to break the silence as they walked 
 down to the forge together. " You were likely surprised to 
 meet Mrs. Le Fevre (how that stuck in his throat) and me 
 out there? "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 219 
 
 " Some," was the laconic reply. 
 
 " Well, I m glad it was you rather than anyone else, on 
 her account," went on Don, brazenly, annoyed at the man s 
 suggestive, unpleasant silence. " And you saw, I suppose, 
 she had been crying, too? " 
 
 No answer at all to that. 
 
 " Well, she was," he went on, desperately; " and I know 
 how the whole thing looks to anyone else. But she she s 
 in trouble, poor child! I don t know just why she turns to 
 me; never imagined I was cut out for a comforter! But 
 she needs someone; " and then he said, bluntly: " It seems 
 to me you two are not the friends you used to be; yet you 
 never seemed to me like a man to draw away from anyone 
 just when they got where they needed friends worst." 
 
 That shot seemed to tell. 
 
 " She hasn t any need for me, or she d let me know, and 
 I d be there," he said; "and if she wanted me to know 
 what troubles her, she d tell me that, too. So you needn t 
 mind about me. She s turned to you first on account of 
 religion that s natural; and all you ve got to do is to see 
 that she ain t ever sorry. I heard some men once speak 
 ing about you and women folks. May be they lied; but I 
 don t want to find they re right, or that you d ever make her 
 be sorry." 
 
 "Why, look here! Confound it! " burst out Don, with a 
 very much flushed face. " You talk as if I might be some 
 scoundrelly adventurer making love to her to her! Good 
 God! She is like a lily growing in slime here, and I don t 
 know a man that s fit to even think of her. She is only a 
 child, after all, a child with a soul like a crystal." 
 
 The other man listened, with his eyes on the ground 
 eyes that seemed to need rest so sadly. 
 
 " That s all right," he said, slowly; " your thoughts are all 
 right, I reckon. If I didn t think it, I d not be so quick about
 
 220 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 leaving the mountain, may be. She won t come to me for 
 any help any more, count o me having no religion. Kind 
 o* fraid, she seems; an may be it s natural. But she turned 
 to you becase you have; and and sence her thoughts are 
 jest bound up in you, you ll be good to her? " 
 
 " You re crazy! " was the only reply Don could make, he 
 was so staggered at the calm, serious statement; and his 
 heart seemed to give a great leap at the crazy man s fancy. 
 
 " No," said Bud, firmly. "I ve seen it all along; a makin 
 her more an more set against everybody s ways but yourn. 
 She needs someone who thinks about her jest like you say; 
 someone she thinks is good. She thinks a heap o goodness, 
 Corinny does; more especial case she s always had to live 
 so far off of it. It s always the thing that s furthest off that 
 we want most," he added, with logical certainty. 
 
 " But you re mistaken about " 
 
 " No, I ain t;" and Don wondered a little at the sullen, 
 decided doggedness of the man. " She s been a heap differ 
 ent sence that day she heard you a singing. She s kind o 
 had religion ever sence that, and kind o more scarey about 
 folks that don t have it. I ve counted it all up I see how 
 it all is; so you needn t, either of you, try to hide it from 
 me any longer. And when I m gone away " 
 
 "See here, Bud, I want an agent an overseer here in 
 case in case I should not be here all the time. The 
 place is open for you, if you ll take it." 
 
 " The mountain s getting too narrow. I feel some like 
 I m smothering on it these days. I m going away." 
 
 They had reached the forge, where Edson s horse was 
 pawing impatiently, tired of the long wait for his master; 
 and his master resaddled him, with a sense of being very 
 close to some whirlwind of feeling that he wanted to get 
 away by himself to think over. 
 
 "I ll miss you," was all he could think of to say.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 221 
 
 " Yes," agreed the other; and then, after a little, he 
 added, " But you ll have a heap on the mountain that I 
 never could a got. Folks like you, not knowing why, 
 hardly. Tain t so much what you do as what you seem to be 
 that draws folks, and makes folks believe in you; and that s 
 a heap o help to a man. And I think, if you don t mind, 
 I ll ask you to-morrow to keep some papers for me same 
 as if I might die away; so that if I did my house will be 
 give where I want it to go to Corinny." 
 
 "But you re likely to outlive me, you know," protested 
 Don. 
 
 " I reckon not," was the placid reply. " I never could, 
 all my life, see any further ahead of me than to thirty years 
 old. I m about that now, I reckon; and it s time to make 
 plans." 
 
 " I believe," said Don, looking at him with keener eyes 
 he had been too much absorbed by one especial revela 
 tion made to notice very closely the bearer of it " I 
 believe you have simply got a morbid fit that is sending 
 you away. Come, now, own up tell me what s the matter. 
 Why won t you stay on here? " 
 
 The man, who was gathering up some tools, finished put 
 ting them in a bag that lay there before he answered. 
 
 "You mightn t like it if I told you," he said; "or you 
 mightn t be agreed to take my things in. charge for her, 
 or for anyone who needs them bad, if she don t." 
 
 " Nonsense! I give you my word to do anything you 
 ask in that line without knowing your reasons. Fix up 
 your papers I ll be over at noon to-morrow; but I 
 acknowledge I d like to know the why of it all." 
 
 "Well" and the curious, sad eyes of the man rather 
 avoided the frank ones of his questioner " if I don t go, 
 may be I ll do worse. When a man knows jest how weak 
 he is, he is that much stronger than if he didn t know it;
 
 X 2Z A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 and that s jest all the strength I have to-day, sir. I know 
 some things I can t face here any longer, an I m a going." 
 
 " But that ain t giving me a real reason." 
 
 "May be not; but I shouldn t be surprised if you found 
 out some day without me having to tell you. I ll have 
 the papers ready, sir, to-morrow." 
 
 And for the second time that day Mr. Edson 
 watched the Pagan walk away from him, leaving a host of 
 chaotic thoughts behind. 
 
 " I guess the hill people are right about his mental state," 
 was the charitable conclusion arrived at. " Solid, reliable 
 about work, and all that, but the queer fancies and morbid 
 streaks in him are just about on the dividing-line of lunacy 
 harmless lunacy, I hope, for the sake of that mesmerism in 
 his eyes; but what what of that other idea? " 
 
 The " other idea" kept with him all along the gorge, that 
 was growing dusk far in advance of the hill-tops. The 
 excuse of lunacy was not so ready to his aid, knowing, 
 perhaps, that it was not wanted. 
 
 "It is ridiculous, it is altogether ridiculous," he repeated, 
 until the words lost their meaning, and he said them as an 
 accompaniment to a memory that was not ridiculous to 
 him at all the memory of her eyes as she had said that 
 day: " You re so good so powerful good it s not so hard 
 to tell the troubles to you. It s like folks feel, I reckon, 
 when they go to priests and tell their sins, like I hear some 
 do. Yes, I reckon it comforts them jest as it does me." 
 
 "And all because I happened to sing a hymn instead of 
 a walk-around, " he told himself. That fellow is right it 
 is not what I do, but what I seem, that wins me friends. 
 Yet I don t try to cheat people myself excepted." 
 
 But no striking into side questions could keep him long 
 away from the one rather absorbing fancy of the Pagan s. 
 The Pagan himself and his speedy departure drifted into
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 223 
 
 the background. At any other time the affairs of the day 
 would have led him into wary suspicion, after Pap s 
 discoveries and the mark on the boot, and of it; but even 
 the ghost of the Ledge had dwindled to insignificance 
 the weakest of schemes to frighten that poor girl into 
 staying with the old woman. 
 
 " But she sha n t," was one of his decisions that startled 
 him a little when put into words it had such an air of 
 proprietorship about it. 
 
 Someway, all his own vague, intangible fancies leaped 
 into form and speech when he heard that " ridiculous " idea 
 put into words by someone else. It had raised the corner 
 of a veil, and the vision that he had laughed himself into 
 disbelieving stood close and raised wistful, half-adoring 
 eyes to him, and he knew that he could never laugh them 
 away again. What matter the errors of speech that were 
 the outgrowth of association there was never an error of 
 thought in the white soul of her. No association could 
 soil that; and conscious of many a smirch on his own 
 soul that had never cried aloud to him before, he bowed in 
 a sort of veneration to this isolated, untainted child-mother. 
 And if she cared well, everything seemed within range of 
 the possible if that was so. But Dinah! 
 
 He had for one full hour, at least, forgotten the existence 
 of Dinah forgotten all worldly interests or opinions. 
 
 " I shall fight shy of the seniors until I know if that 
 green-eyed monster is a reliable guesser," was the decision 
 that followed the remembrance of Dinah; "but Di herself 
 I may as well prepare for all sorts of ridicule, if nothing 
 worse but Dinah, in all fairness, has got to know first." 
 
 But when face to face with Dinah his usual freedom of 
 speech limped sadly; and she was looking so pretty, so 
 bright, so evidently content with her own state of exist 
 ence, that he could only look at her, turning phrase after
 
 224 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 phrase over in his mind as a beginning, and could not begin 
 at all. 
 
 The moon was full the " warm " moon of Bud s 
 prophesy; and to make his endeavor more difficult by a 
 leaning toward sentiment, Miss Dinah proposed after 
 tea that they adjourn to the veranda. The veranda, of 
 all places! a trellis-shadowed, honeysuckle-scented bower 
 of a retreat one where no doubt many a love-whisper had 
 been told through many a summer. 
 
 " No, it is not so much cooler here than in the sitting- 
 room," she agreed, "but there are two already in there; 
 if we remained, we might be two too many." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Just take a peep through the window and answer your 
 self," suggested the young lady. 
 
 "Well " after that had been done "the seniors are get 
 ting out the card-table that is, Miss Lottie is; and Uncle 
 looks, for all his gouty foot, as if he was enjoying life." 
 
 "Exactly. It will be whist until bed-time; it was read 
 ing aloud to each other until tea-time; it was Auntie doing 
 a sketch in water-colors of him until dinner-time. In fact, 
 they have been two and I have been one all day long." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 " I know you have no idea of being rude when you shout 
 into my ear after that fashion. Nevertheless, it is a little 
 trying to delicate nerves," and from her pained expression 
 one would think her own nerves were in the last stage of 
 decay; "but, forgiving you, allow me to say that my own 
 varied experience always furnishes me with a key to such 
 all-absorbing games of whist." 
 
 " I do wish you would be serious. What puts that 
 absurd idea into your head? " 
 
 "I told you, did I not?" she asked, looking up at him, 
 half-laughing, half-watchful "my knowledge of human
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 235 
 
 nature, gleaned from an experience wider than my future 
 husband might relish. Is that serious enough? " 
 
 " In a way; but it tells me nothing." 
 
 "And I don t mean it to," she said, laughing outright. 
 " I have lived long enough to know better. There is 
 nothing to tell you about those children in there, " and 
 she nodded toward the window. " They are still in the 
 sublime innocence of ignorance, and don t know what ails 
 them. Taey have an idea that wedded bliss is the most 
 correct thing in life, and immediately began by getting a 
 yoke ready for us. One good turn deserves another. Don, 
 we ought to reciprocate." 
 
 Here seemed at last one opening, and he leaped into it. 
 " Oh, but don t you think, Di, that people should arrange 
 affairs of that sort themselves? Outside parties so seldom 
 understand " 
 
 "Our outside parties did," she corrected. "Just see 
 how beautifully they mated us so much better than we 
 could have done alone;" and receiving no answer, she 
 added, "Don t you agree, dear?" 
 
 And though he did not speak, he could not keep his head 
 from nodding assent, even feeling that the nod was taking 
 him into deeper water. 
 
 "Why do you jump up and tramp along the porch like 
 that?" she said, complainingly. "Thought you said you 
 were tired. Come, sit down here comfortably, and tell me 
 how the mountain has fared since your three days absence. 
 Did that Gannymede lead you to your goddess? Has she 
 married Vulcan yet? And how does the saw-mill get 
 along? " 
 
 He stopped in his walk then, but did not take the seat 
 beside her, standing, instead, with his back to the honey 
 suckle trellis, and so facing her. 
 
 "You don t care a particle about all those things," he 
 
 15
 
 226 A PAGAN OF THE ALLE6HANIES. 
 
 said, slowly, with a belated acuteness. " You are talking 
 against time for some reason to-night; and your eyes are 
 as bright as the stars or a fever." 
 
 "What a finale to a compliment! " and then, with a com 
 ical professional air, she felt her own pulse. " No, not a 
 fever; quite regular, thank you! And you are mistaken. 
 I am interested in Vnlcan, who has taken the place of the 
 handsomest man I ve seen in the mountains. How is his 
 Paganship? " 
 
 "All right" he had resumed his walk again "he leaves 
 the mountain to-morrow." 
 
 "Oh! then Venus has said no, has she?" 
 
 " I can not understand your reason for coupling her per 
 sonality with his or any other man s," he returned, rather 
 stiffly. " It is altogether uncalled for." 
 
 " By you," she completed, and her smile was a bit sar 
 donic. " But you see I am seeking for some bit of romance 
 to wind up our summer with. Our own affair has been too 
 prosaic. Vulcan and Daphne are my last hope." 
 
 "And I do not believe you ever heard them exchange 
 words with each other," he said, impatiently. That 
 impossible jest of hers always annoyed him. 
 
 " No, but I did see him look at her once." 
 
 " Oh, yes; and you do see a couple playing whist in 
 there, too!" he remarked, derisively; "and you build 
 flimsy fabrications on that foundation. You would be a 
 host in yourself at gathering up material for a romance 
 writer. Didn t you promise to keep notes of the mountain 
 for your friend March?" 
 
 " He is your friend, too." 
 
 " Well, yes, I hope so; " and then, after a turn or so on 
 the veranda, " Yes, I do hope so. I liked that fellow, you 
 know. Wish he had spent the summer with us, instead of 
 going West. He is a good companion."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 227 
 
 "So he is," she agreed, carelessly. "And, by the way, 
 Don, he is coming back here a letter in to-day s mail says 
 so." 
 
 "To you?" 
 
 She nodded. " Sends regards to you; says he has struck 
 some bonanza -of luck out there, and asks if you have 
 any shares yet for sale in your coal and lumber schemes." 
 
 "Tell him to come on," he returned, gloomily. "I 
 might donate to him all my gains of this summer, and then 
 not make him rich. What are you laughing at? " 
 
 "Well," she said, straightening her lips with an effort, 
 "considering that I am one of the gains or in balancing 
 your accounts will I be footed up among the losses? " 
 
 " If I lose you; " and the tinge of impatience in his tones 
 only seemed to amuse her the more. 
 
 " But you can t," she returned. " My aunt and your 
 uncle will prevent it. I tell you what you might do, 
 though, and rid your shoulders of a responsibility you 
 might give me away." 
 
 "Humph!" his thoughts were so far afield again that 
 her chatter was half-unheeded " to whom? " 
 
 " I do believe," she laughed, "that you can t conceive of 
 anyone wanting me. What a lover, Don! I wish you would 
 just tell me why you helped them elect me to be Mrs. Edson." 
 
 He checked his restless promenade quickly enough then. 
 He was at his wits end how to approach that very sub 
 ject, and she had plunged into it without the slightest 
 hesitation. 
 
 "Why did you?" he retorted. 
 
 " Well, it is a delicate thing to do refusing a man right 
 before folks, a man you always liked, too. And when 
 you re so dazed that you know you d do it brutally if you 
 did it at all, it is so much easier just to keep silence until 
 you have a better chance."
 
 228 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAN1ES. 
 
 With an inarticulate sort of exclamation, he was beside 
 her. 
 
 " If you had spoken at all, would you have refused me?" 
 And his voice was so intense, so commanding, that for 
 an instant the laughter was driven from her eyes. " Tell 
 me!" 
 
 "Well, I will," she promised, "if you will try and look 
 a degree less ferocious. You have been so stupendously 
 lover-like ever since, that it was still a delicate subject to 
 approach; but to-night you are different, and so " 
 
 "Goon." 
 
 "But there is nothing more to say, is there? " she asked. 
 " I am sure I twisted the fingers nearly off you as a hint 
 for you to raise objections that day if you wanted to 
 and" 
 
 "And I didn t, because I was a conceited fool," he burst 
 out. "Lord, Di! you ve no idea what a fool I was. So 
 that is why you pressed my hand? You darling! " 
 
 And if the match-makers at the whist-table had seen the 
 decided way in which Miss Dinah was clasped for a 
 moment in Don s arms, their souls would have rejoiced at 
 the success of their plan. 
 
 " For mercy s sake, let me go, Don ! " whispered that 
 young lady, in a rather smothered way; "and don t you 
 dare kiss me again ! You have utterly lost your wits on 
 the witchy side of the mountain ! " 
 
 But when the proprieties were again in command, it was 
 no gloomy-faced person who stalked back and forth, with 
 at every turn his eyes resting on the misty height of the 
 other mountain. He was free once more in every sense 
 he, who had never before realized how much it meant that 
 freedom ! and he would use it now with little care for the 
 world or it s opinion. What duty so strong anywhere as 
 the right to care for that child whose life had been so sad?
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 229 
 
 And she had turned to him as to a priest ! Was it in love? 
 Was it 
 
 " I declare, Don, I never realized how insignificant I was 
 until you showed your exuberance at getting rid of me," 
 complained Dinah; "it is really one of the most humiliating 
 things I can remember." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort. Do you suppose I wanted you 
 against your will? " he demanded, with a fine show of 
 unselfishness never a word of his own fruitless attempt to 
 do the thing she had done so easily. " Not a bit of it; and 
 of course I had to kiss you for being such a frank, good 
 girl." 
 
 " Of course," she agreed, with a quizzical glance up at 
 him; "that is one of your redeeming traits, isn t it? a rule 
 never to let goodness go unappreciated. The trouble is, 
 though, that a man is so likely to be misunderstood by peo 
 ple too unsophisticated to comprehend only the philan 
 thropy and rise above the personal feelings. Now, with 
 the good girls of the mountain, for instance, don t you 
 think a nice Christmas-card, or a pound of candy " 
 
 " Go on ! I don t mind the ridicule to-night," he con 
 fessed. " Since I have lost you, I can bear the lesser evils of 
 life somehow." 
 
 She only laughed and slipped her arm through his, and 
 stood looking over the valleys and the far hills that seemed 
 swathed in a great peace; and out of the blue-gray billows 
 the witched mountain arose like a sovereign, with just a 
 trifle of mist that lay on its brow like a crown. 
 
 " I am going with you to-morrow if you ride over there," 
 she decided. " I will not stay here alone and become per 
 meated by sentiment through the seniors a sentiment 
 needing just that lame foot and this isolation for its culti 
 vation. If they had remained in town among people they 
 would, perhaps, never have got so near each other as those
 
 230 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 games of whist have brought them. Yes, I will be chari 
 table enough to leave them alone and go with you. To 
 morrow will be a long day, anyway." 
 
 He did not ask why; but if he had, would have learned 
 that it was because of an arrival the following day would 
 bring, and might have learned, also, that a letter tucked 
 close in Miss Dinah s bodice was accountable for much of 
 that young lady s prowess in shirking so lightly the bonds 
 laid on them by the seniors for life. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A WARNING. 
 
 But the serenity of the mountain in the moonlight belied 
 the life on it, just as many another serene visage does, for 
 there were strange moving figures through its glens and 
 gulches, loud calls from hunters, and shots fired that 
 brought back only their own echoes; and at Riker s the 
 children, who persisted in being wakeful and curious, were 
 told to lie still in the trundle-bed and go to sleep; that it 
 was just Gran Le Fevre had strayed off and got lost on the 
 mountain. 
 
 " Naw, sir-ee ! " confided little Jake to his nearest neigh 
 bor under the patch- work quilt "naw, sir; tain t Granny, 
 I know. Couldn t lose her on this here mountain. I don t 
 know who tis, but tain t Granny." 
 
 "What call they got to tell that for, then?" was the 
 whispered query that Jacob could not answer; " tain t any 
 o* our folks, an tain t Krin, cause she s here. Reckon it s 
 Bud?" 
 
 A snort of contempt gave that question its due, and the 
 speaker was pacified.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 231 
 
 - Tain t anyone we set store by, then; an I m goin 
 asleep." 
 
 But little Jake did not; the instincts of the hunter 
 answered in him to the sound of every shot that echoed 
 down the valley. He heard his mother say it was one 
 o clock; and failing to persuade Krin to lie down, she her 
 self did so, without undressing, not knowing what moment 
 the men might come back with news. 
 
 He peeped again and again at the figure that sat there 
 by the window so still, so silent, that he thought she had 
 gone asleep at times; but she had not, for once, when a 
 halloo of some man was heard nearer, she raised her head 
 and listened. He wished she would stir around a little 
 more. Once he ventured to whisper: 
 
 " Say, Krin, is it Granny? " 
 
 But Becky Ann, who was not yet asleep, forestalled an 
 answer by ordering him to keep quiet and not waken the 
 rest. But it was a fidgety quietude; all the more so because 
 of that figure at the window that did not fidget. In some 
 way he got to thinking that her face in the moonlight 
 looked like Addy s face as he had seen it last, and that was 
 more than he could endure and lie still. From the bed a 
 heavy breath sounded Becky Ann was off guard and a 
 soft whisper arose from the trundle-bed: 
 
 " You turn your face t other way; I m goin to get up." 
 
 Krin automatically paid that tribute to the proprieties, 
 and having adjusted one garment satisfactorily, he slid up 
 beside her. 
 
 " I ll bet it ll be Bud finds her first," he said, determined 
 to converse whether she would or no. " Which trail did 
 he start on? 
 
 " None," she said, wearily; " he hasn t heard." 
 
 " Sho ! I d take the wood if I wa n t skeered o the 
 ghosts; did you know I seen one?"
 
 A PAGA N OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 She nodded, scarce heeding. 
 
 " Mam tell ye? " He waited a reasonable time for an 
 answer, and then went on. "Well, I did, sure nough. 
 Say, what was that Pap Keesy was tellin Ike Dumphey 
 bout Bud an Granny s white houn ? Didn t you hear? 
 Sho ! they was right by the window." 
 
 Failing to arouse interest or answers, he slipped out at 
 the open door into the warm night. The moon had crossed 
 the center of the sky, and with his sharp ears alert he 
 tried to tell by distant muffled calls just what "flat" or 
 what "rise" the hunters were on, and longed, boy-fashion, 
 for some of the blood-hounds of old war-legends. How 
 quick he would learn the hiding-places of everything on 
 the mountain barring ghosts ! 
 
 The moon dropped lower and lower. After awhile, two 
 men came down from the mountain and halted out at the 
 chip-yard, talking in low tones. 
 
 " Well, Denny," said one it was Will Riker " I don t 
 know what Pap s word would go for in the court house, 
 but blamed if I d believe him on oath. Then he s got a 
 spite at Bud." 
 
 " There s more than Pap Keesy s sayin s," argued the 
 other. " Didn t Dick s woman own up quick as could be 
 that Bud took that houn away? Well, that houn hain t 
 showed up sence no more has Granny; and if anyone did 
 harm by her they d have to quiet him, too, or he d lead the 
 way right to her. I ain t set against Bud bad, though you 
 can t expect too much that s good from a man that owns 
 he s a heathen. My wife, she s always allowed some such 
 an end would come of him." 
 
 Riker sat down on a log and dropped his gun beside him. 
 
 " Well, I don t want any better neighbor than he is, any 
 way," was his rather worried summing up of the case. "And
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 233 
 
 I ain t believin a word o this stuff till I hear him own up. 
 Now that s me! " 
 
 "You wouldn t do fora jury, nohow," remarked Denny, 
 with an eye to the profit derived from that source. " Now 
 I hain t anything against nor for him; but I ve a notion," 
 and his voice was dropped a trifle " I ve a notion Dick s 
 wife s got her suspicions." 
 
 " Naw, she ain t," contradicted Riker. " They re good 
 friends enough. Them words he had with Granny, over the 
 forge, didn t change Krin any. She says Bud was in the 
 right of it, an that Granny wanted about four times the 
 worth o them tools. Krin ain t set against Bud any." 
 
 " I ain t sayin she is; but if she has nary a suspicion, 
 why you reckon she said for us not to bother him about 
 lookin for Granny? Now that s curious. She didn t say 
 that bout any others of us, did she? And she said special 
 to send for young Edson soon as daylight come. Seems 
 willin to have everybody bothered only Bud." 
 
 " Well, may be she knows he s goin" away, an like to be 
 busy." 
 
 " That s it," agreed Mr. Denny. " I ve been figurin it 
 out on jest that lay of the land, sence I heard what Pap 
 has to say. She knows he s goin , like enough, an she don t 
 want nothing to hinder. Cause why? Cause she s may be 
 got a notion that if he don t get off quick he won t at all; 
 an " 
 
 "Ugh! "and Will Riker arose impatiently. "All them 
 notions are plum nonsense. What she come down here to 
 give the word for if she wanted him to get away first? 
 Naw, sir; she jest hasn t any notion o the things folks say 
 about him o late, that him and Granny have a still, an 
 that the things that s been stole come to this side o the 
 mountain, an all that. We ve kind o kept it from her 
 when we could. Pap Keesy, though, he s been interferin
 
 234 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 in, and worryin her some. But you re dead wrong about 
 her suspicions o Bud; she hain t any." 
 
 "Well, there s enough without her," concluded Mr. 
 Denny; "and if the old woman ain t found by daylight, 
 you bet folks ll be for arrestin him on suspicion. Warrant 
 or no warrant, they ll stop him from leavin to-morrow, any 
 way. I heard two or three talkin that way. And if he 
 aint guilty, he ll raise no objections." 
 
 " Well, that s so," agreed Jake s father, who had no idea 
 that Jake was listening, with eyes of terror, from behind the 
 chicken-coop. " But when he s told what s up, he s more 
 like to offer to help hunt than anything else. Pshaw! 
 What reason has he for killin off Granny? She s more 
 like drunk somewh- * He never harmed her, I ll be 
 bound." 
 
 " Hope you ll find yourself in the right of it; but I d 
 keep quiet to Dick s woman about it. I reckon they re all 
 in bed it don t want much o daylight." 
 
 Mr. Riker arose and looked in the door. " That you, 
 Krin? You settin there all night? Now that don t do any 
 good! There s no news yet; an you jest go to bed with 
 Becky Ann, an be comfortable." 
 
 She nodded to signify she heard him; and then, in answer 
 to a query of Denny, he walked down to the stable to see 
 what a horse was kicking about; and an agile, skinny little 
 form darted around the corner of the house the second 
 their backs were turned. And Krin, hearing her name 
 whispered just outside the window, was startled to see 
 Jake s small excited face there. She supposed he had 
 crawled back to bed long before. 
 
 "Say! you re a good friend o Bud s, ain t yeh?" was the 
 first question he put. " A sure-enough good friend? " he 
 repeated, as she nodded. " Well, then, I gut to tell you a 
 thing or two," and in spite of his alarm, the responsibility
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 235 
 
 of his intent made him a trifle consequential; " an you jest 
 keep still as the dead don t you yell er nothin ; you did 
 that time you near stepped on the big snake, an this is 
 worse than snakes." 
 
 And with this preparation, and the sight of her still, 
 white face, he whispered: "Folks say Bud can t leave the 
 mountain less Granny s found. They ll arrest an hang 
 him likely if he don t get away quick. Folks say he killed 
 Granny, an killed Bach, too. Now what you allow to do 
 about it? " 
 
 There was no need to tell her not to scream; she looked 
 more as if she were paralyzed. 
 
 "Say! don t yeh hear?" demanded Jake, reaching in 
 and grabbing her by the arm. " What you set starin that- 
 a-way fer? Sho! may be Granny ain t dead at all; so don 
 look so plum skeery. But if we let Bud know, we ve got 
 to hustle." 
 
 She understood that, at least, for without a word she 
 arose and joined the boy around the corner of the house. 
 
 " Who said that?" she asked; and her hand on his 
 shoulder was uncomfortably tight in its grip. " Did they 
 say it for true? " 
 
 He nodded energetically. 
 
 "Sure enough! Pap an Denny; they ve gone to the 
 stable. I d a started right fer Bud if it had been daylight; 
 but that there road is jest where I seen the ghost walk, an 
 I m some against goin alone." 
 
 A little later, when Mr. Riker came back from the stable, 
 he glanced approvingly at the empty chair by the window, 
 and closed the door softly. 
 
 "We ll jest let the womenfolks have the inside o the 
 house till breakfast-time," he said, motioning his visitor to 
 a seat beside him on the porch "no long time to wait, 
 anyway; an I m glad to see Krin s took my advice an laid
 
 236 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 down. That poor critter has had her heart and hands full 
 with Dick an Granny. 
 
 At the home of the bees a light shone out into the 
 darkest bit of the whole night, the part where the dawn 
 is yet to be, and the moon has sunk into the world behind 
 the mountain; and the light shone within on confusion 
 clothes were scattered about, and a bundle tied up lay on a 
 chair. On the table were piled the few books that had 
 taught their owner so much of discontent; they also were 
 ready for their journey. Whither? 
 
 Did their owner guess? Did not that " second sight " 
 which they said he possessed that gift of his devil give 
 him ever a hint of the way his feet were tending? Was 
 that why again and again he had halted in his preparations, 
 and left things half-finished to gaze with questioning, 
 bewildered eyes into the night without? But not dreamily; 
 there was too much of intensity and alertness speaking 
 through every change of his face; and once he said aloud 
 to the silence: "What is it is some one here? What 
 is it?" 
 
 But only his own voice sounded and died away in the old 
 room, never even an echoing whisper to answer; and he 
 turned again to his work to the gathering together of 
 papers, some bearing his father s name, some his own, the 
 receipts of years, that bound together would show the abso 
 lute freedom of the dot of land on the mountain-shelf; 
 that the gift he was leaving had never a weight to it 
 heavier than his own love. 
 
 From sorting and marking those records, the pen glided 
 into records of its own over the pages of a book partly 
 filled with the chronicles of bee-colonies, an unclassed sort 
 of epistle, part letter, part journal; and the hours went by, 
 touching him with no idea of time. Along the valley
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 237 
 
 and around the spur of the mountain sounded the shots of 
 the hunters and their calls. But for once the peace of the 
 sylvan places was disturbed without him questioning why. 
 Life on the mountain was somehow a dead thing in his 
 thoughts. 
 
 " Thirty years," he whispered over to himself. " That s 
 how far I could see to no more; it s nearly that, I reckon. 
 Is it jest me that s going away, or only memory? That 
 would be worse, a heap worse, I know; for I saw a man 
 once, strong and well, likely to live fifty years, folks said, 
 but he d live them without mind or remembrance they 
 had left him sudden-like, .for some cause. Fifty years! 
 Suppose I d turn like that? What brings that notion, now? 
 I feel like fixing these," and he touched the papers, "but 
 when it comes to the clothes an the books something says, 
 Never mind them, only the words don t come to my ears^ 
 but to the heart or the brain, or whatever it is that thinks 
 in us, and it keeps me a waiting and a listening for some 
 voice that ll speak plainer." 
 
 "Bud!" 
 
 So quietly she had come to the open window that never 
 a whisper of the grass betrayed her; and her face was to 
 the man like a star that shines in the darkness, but heralds 
 the dawn. The voice for one instant seemed the thing he 
 had waited for. 
 
 But the habitual restraint fell again over him as he 
 moved to the door and opened it their last meeting, where 
 she had flown as the queen-bee flies to the forest for 
 her clandestine love that memory was too recent. He 
 showed no pleasure at her coming, only said, as she entered 
 and stood looking at him: 
 
 " Well, what has brought you? " 
 
 "Oh, Bud, I had to come I want to tell you " 
 
 Just then another shot sounded up from the valley, and
 
 A PAGAK OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 her face grew a shade paler at the fancied nearness 
 of it. 
 
 There! You hear that? Bud " and her voice dropped 
 low "they re searching for Granny for her and Bach. 
 No one reckons they ll be found alive; and oh, Bud, why 
 can t you speak!- Say something r I " 
 
 He pushed a chair toward her, for an instant touching 
 her shoulder as he helped her to it, and then walked to the 
 fire-place. 
 
 " I got nothing more to say," he answered, briefly. " If 
 you want my help, all you ve got to do is to speak an* 
 you ll get it, but I hain t any more words. You come for 
 me to look her up?" 
 
 " Xo, I didn t." Despite her faintness, she arose again 
 and went toward him. " Bud, I want to tell you to go 
 away, quick. They ll come straight here from the hunt, 
 may be, an then they won t let you go if she ain t found. 
 Oh, I m teliin you true. Go quick, afore the day breaks." 
 
 "You d better set down there," he suggested. " You re 
 noways fit to come climbing up here; and what s it all 
 for? What call they got to stop me?" 
 
 As connectedly as she could, she repeated to him the evi 
 dence she had heard; and the listener was by far the caimer 
 of the two, putting in never a word of protest against the 
 suspicion. 
 
 " And oh, Bud! " she burst out, "if she t s found dead, 
 may be you ll never be let walk free again. May be they ll 
 hang you for it, no matter what you say; maybe " 
 
 But the picture of horrors evoked was more than she 
 could look at, and she broke down, shuddering, moaning. 
 
 Then, indeed, the face of the man grew less indifferent 
 the longing to raise her head from the back of the chair, 
 to comfort her with caresses, shone in his eyes, and he said:
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 239 
 
 "And you, Corinny, with all them ideas, you come up 
 here jest to help me? You " 
 
 "Yes, sir, I did;" and she made a great effort to regain 
 some degree of calmness, and succeeding a little, her 
 speech was less broken. " I couldn t see any other thing to 
 do. I mind a heap o kindness you did, helpin with Edie 
 an all, an helpin me, too, away back, them days I was so 
 miserable, afore I run away; and it all come in my mind, an 
 I had to come. I m sorry, sir, to see you leave the mount 
 ain, I am; but for all that, I m beggin you to go quick." 
 
 A certain little air of formality was with her words, and 
 it separated her far from the Krin he had known. 
 
 " And suppose I don t go? 
 
 Her eyes widened in a dazed sort of way. She half 
 arose, but dropped back into the chair with a smothered 
 cry, and one hand pressing, clenched, against her heart. 
 
 "It s not much," she said, gaspingly, when her breath 
 came back. "A stitch in my side it comes sometimes 
 queer that way. I hurried some up the mountain." 
 
 He drew away again when some of the deadly whiteness 
 left her face. 
 
 " Is there anything in medicine I can get you?" 
 
 She shook her head. " I allow not. Mother had it afore 
 me. Some allowed she got it so bad she died; but I don t 
 know if that was it. Anyhow, it don t last long." 
 
 The pain had driven away her errand for a moment; but 
 a far-off halloo, a call and answer, brought it back. 
 
 "An please do go," Bud, she continued. "Don t tell 
 anyone where, less you think you ll need help, an then I 
 know one you could trust Mr. Edson. " 
 
 " Can you trust him?" he asked. 
 
 "Indeed yes, I can I do. He s a good man, Bud. Any 
 body s trouble is jest like his own, if he can help any. 
 Trust him? " and a curious look came into her face, as if
 
 240 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 struggling for restraint " if I couldn t trust him now I d 
 go crazy." 
 
 She was thinking so entirely of her needs that she did 
 not realize how significant her speech was, or how fully it 
 verified his great-grown fears and completed the bar be 
 tween them; but he crossed it for one instant by catching 
 her by the shoulder and turning her face brutally to the 
 light of the candle. 
 
 " Is it on account of anything you re ashamed of that 
 you need to trust him just now more than any other man?" 
 he demanded; and he looked down on her like some devil 
 of vengeance. The slurs he had half-strangled Pap 
 for were brought back with her words they dared not be 
 belief; but "Tell me! "he repeated. "And if them folks 
 want so bad to hang me for something, I ll give them a 
 reason when I find him. Tell me! " 
 
 The bewilderment in her eyes was pitiful enough at the 
 question, without the added harshness of tone. 
 
 " Oh, I I don t know," she said, trying to free herself, 
 and not succeeding. " You hain t any call to act so, Bud 
 not about him. He s never need to be ashamed, if that s 
 what you mean no, sir. He s jest good, an he helps me 
 about things; but they ain t things to be ashamed of no, 
 sir. .An oh, Bud, let me go an you go, too quick! An 
 good-bye! " 
 
 " You ain t telling a lie, I reckon," he said, paying no 
 heed to her plea, and looking into her face with puzzled 
 scrutiny. " You never did tell a lie, as I know. You re 
 telling true; but," and he shook his head slowly, "you 
 ain t telling all the truth. Though, as you say, I hain t 
 any call to interfere with the rest of it; that s atween 
 yourself and and your God, I reckon, and I m shut away." 
 
 Whatever her answer might have been, it was checked 
 by a small voice outside.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 241 
 
 Hey, Krin! our folks ll all be up if we don t get home 
 soon, an I reckon the men s a comin . I hear a dog closer." 
 
 " It s Jake he stayed out to watch," she said, rising to 
 her feet. " Bud, if I knew any other thing to say that ud 
 make you go quick an take care o yourself, I d say it; but 
 words don t seem to come easy. When I try to talk I feel 
 too much as if I was choked. When I heard tell o what 
 they was going to do with you, it jest made me sick; but 
 if they did\\. if you let them do it, an won t take heed o 
 me, I d never get over it the thought of it! " 
 
 "I ll take care o myself," he said; " don t you worry. 
 I ll go away, but I ll find Granny for you first." 
 
 "Alive?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " I can t promise that, but I ll go now to look. Yes, I 
 allow she s alive. You go or you ll be missed. I m 
 obliged, but you hadn t any real call to come up here." 
 
 Poor Krin! whose remorseful, terror-struck heart had 
 scarcely furnished her strength for the journey up there. 
 It had seemed life and death to her; it seemed nothing to 
 him; and the utter futility of it all brought tears to her 
 eyes. 
 
 " If you go away, may be I won t see you any more," she 
 said, and held out her hand wistfully. 
 
 " I don t allow you will," he answered, slowly, and took 
 her hand, looking long and seriously into her eyes. " Some 
 thing tells me no more in this world, Corinny. But be 
 a good woman; make a good woman of Edie; and I hope 
 some day you ll let her live here after I m gone. Go 
 home now. Good-bye." 
 
 He laid his hand on her head, and it drooped before 
 him in silence. She drew her fingers away, and echoed, 
 slowly, " Good-bye. " And then he stood alone in the room. 
 She had slipped into the shadows without. 
 
 16
 
 242 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " You d better light out," advised her guard, running to 
 the window, with a shrill whisper. " I can hear folks talkin 
 somewheres. An if you hide out, an want grub, you jest 
 whistle like a bob-white by our crab-apple trees, an* I m yer 
 man!" 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 THE PAGAN S CREED. 
 
 " The people on your part of the earth are above waiting 
 on the law of the land, are they not? " asked Dinah, as from 
 the summit they could hear desultory shots, muffled by the 
 distance. " The hunting-season is not in yet, but I hear 
 them at work over there." 
 
 " Curious;" and Don halted his horse to listen. " I never 
 heard a shot yesterday, and surely it is too hot to follow 
 any sort of game to-day." 
 
 " It is fearful!" and her riding-cap was turned into a 
 fan to emphasize her words. " Lucky the road goes all 
 the way through the timber. Where will you stop first?" 
 
 " At Lennard s. I think you would rather like to see 
 that place the bee-colony though you do think the 
 owner queer." 
 
 "I do," she acknowledged; "he isn t a bit like a man. 
 He never looked at me but once in his life that was the 
 first time I saw him; and ever since he just seems to 
 divine who I am, and says How are you? but never one 
 glance can I get from him. I don t like people to act like 
 that!" 
 
 "Naturally," he laughed; "but what consolation there 
 must be for you in the knowledge that few other men are 
 strong enough to do the same." 
 
 "Don," she said, turning to him suddenly, "I have
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 243 
 
 heard you laugh aloud, as light-hearted as any boy, three 
 times since we left the house. Where has that rather 
 murky seriousness gone that was growing a part of you? " 
 
 " Lost in the sylvan silences, I suppose merged into 
 an Arcadian content. I have no longer any ambitions more 
 worldly than the selection of a site for a log cabin and the 
 planting of an orchard for fruit of the future. With the 
 lessening of wants comes lightness of care. Therefore I 
 laugh, Mistress Di I sing. I am the age of ten years ago." 
 
 " So I perceive," she said, eying him dubiously; " but ten 
 years ago you would not have been so easily satisfied. 
 You had dreams of this then, had you not?" and she 
 touched with her whip some laurel-leaves " fame, per 
 haps, through your music, and the praise of a public instead 
 of the lowing of cattle. How are the mighty fallen! " 
 
 "Have they? I don t know. Something more whole 
 some is in this primitive life for me. It has made my am 
 bitions that had only fame for a goal seem an empty affair. 
 Yesterday I spoke to a mountaineer of the crowns of laurel 
 people had fought for since the world began, and she put 
 the cap-sheaf on my late harvest of convictions; though 
 she only said: Why should they ever do that? I m sure 
 it s the most brittle wood that ever grows. So it is, 
 Dinah, for me. I ll turn Pan, and make music to govern 
 my flocks by when I get them." 
 
 "Urn!" and the young lady looked at him critically 
 " from my own observation of human nature in its most 
 interesting stage, I should say you had a bad stroke. Was 
 the blow from the oracle of the laurel episode? And, by 
 the way, Don, the Arcadian youths were only great simple 
 tons, after all." 
 
 He laughed with her, feeling he could afford to; the 
 richness of hope was in the very air of the morning. 
 What if speculation and theory would run a bit wild? He
 
 244 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAXIES. 
 
 was not the first man to grow incoherent over such proph 
 ecies as his own heart and that pagan prophet had brought 
 him. 
 
 And the pagan prophet? 
 
 He was still in the room where Krin had left him, but 
 not alone; and the wary, half -embarrassed eyes of his 
 companions lessened somewhat their dignity as guards for 
 the peace, if not of the law. 
 
 For little Jake had been right. The men s voices had 
 come closer in their zeal and suspicion not waiting for 
 the dawn. 
 
 " It s some against the grain, Mr. Lennard," acknowl 
 edged the spokesman, Coon Hyle. "And more it s again 
 the law; but we heerd tell you was to leave the mountain 
 mighty sudden, and we ve just took it in our own hands to 
 see that no one leaves the mountain till this is cleared up. 
 We don t want to make trouble, but we allow you can 
 explain some, if you re so minded; and if you won t, why, 
 some of us ll trouble you to let us stay here till word 
 can get to the settlements for authorities. Now that s 
 how it is, and no ill-feeling from me. But will you tell us 
 where you left the houn dog of Granny Le Fevre s?" 
 
 Bud would not. He thought a little while before 
 answering; but that was the answer when it came. . 
 
 "Then we re obliged to see that you don t leave till we 
 find out." 
 
 " I don t intend to," he answered, in so quiet and uncon 
 cerned a manner that his visitors felt a decided relief. 
 Their anticipations had been of something very different. 
 
 " Most turrible happenin I recollect on the mountain," 
 sighed Pap Keesy, pulling an unhemmed square of ging 
 ham out of his pocket, as if in fear of his emotion needing 
 that check. " One o the oldest o the Ian marks, yeh might
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 245 
 
 say. All a goin all a passin away. It s lonely for them 
 as is left." 
 
 " May be Bud ll send you the same trip, if you re anx 
 ious," suggested one of the unfeeling. 
 
 "An I was jest jokin about her, not so many days 
 back," continued Pap, too buried in his own memories 
 to heed the scoffer; " jokin , right yere in this yere room, 
 bout her gay doin s when Le Fevre was alive yes, indeedy! 
 An now she s gone, likely. There ll be mournin stead of 
 jokin for her now. Um! " 
 
 To tell the truth, the group there was not much affected 
 at the idea of Granny s change of abode spiritual. The 
 suspected was the only one who seemed interested. 
 
 Who s that you say you was joking about?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 " Lordy! as if you didn t know, when yeh nigh choked 
 the breath out o me for speakin of it," retorted Pap. 
 " Why, it was poor ole Mollie, as yeh well know; " and then, 
 with a nod and a wink, he added, " Lettin on he don t 
 mind! If poor Mollie is foun dead, he ll be pleadin the 
 insane dodge I m a tellin yeh!" 
 
 The prisoner arose and walked back and forth, smiling 
 over the revelation in Mr. Keesy s speech. Then it WLS not 
 Krin he had meant, after all. 
 
 "Why would I do that, even suppose I was guilty?" he 
 asked " to save my life just now an get it left a little 
 longer? I can t noways see that a few years more o life 
 is worth acting that sort o lies for or any sort. No, sir; 
 no more than I can see why you d all try to be first toward 
 making a man suffer death, or any other torture, for 
 some sin he d done. If that story of Cain was true, the 
 justice made no mistake that put the mark on him an sent 
 him to live his life out with it. And even if it ain"t true, 
 Moses had a good idea of what sort o pain would hurt a
 
 24G A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 man most. But you folks " and he glanced at the heads 
 that had thrust themselves in at the door when he began to 
 speak " you all act as if you re afraid your God is likely 
 to forget his business, and you reckon you ll have to help 
 out with the justice part of it; you! and there ain t any 
 one o you equal to measure justice for your own families." 
 
 E;ich one of the men glanced at the other, scarce 
 knowing whether to retort or laugh at the unexpected 
 lecture. 
 
 "Well, Bud," said Mr. Hyle, at last, with an attempt 
 to be amiable, " we ll give you good for evil, anyway. 
 We ll see that prayers are said for you asking mercy for a 
 man that don t believe in Moses and the Scripture." 
 
 " They won t be answered," he decided. " No, sir; whether 
 I m good or bad, I ain t asking mercy. It s jest the 
 cowards o the earth who had to have a merciful God made 
 for them. All the prayers the world ever heard tell of never 
 changed a mite the consequences of any sin. They ve all 
 got to be paid for not by prayers, either; not by repent 
 ance alone, but by atonement. Jest making amends for 
 wrongs, so far as can be. Standin up like a man to the 
 retribution that is sure to follow, and then jest gettin the 
 bad under your feet an living it down. Folks have to fight 
 for strength to do all that; but any man can win the fight in 
 time, if he wants to if he -wants to. But he ll never get it 
 by stayin on his knees an beggin ; and he ll never get it 
 by sayin , I believe, an tryin to slip into salvation at 
 the leventh hour on the pass-word o Christ." 
 
 Just outside, at the steps of the back porch, two new 
 comers halted as that last emphatic sentence came to their 
 ears halted as if listening for the continuation; and after 
 a groan from Pap, and a whistle from one of the others, 
 Mr. Hyle broke in:
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 24? 
 
 " Sho! Now, Bud; why, you re gettin worse than ever. I 
 allowed you did believe some in Him." 
 
 11 Believe? believe? " returned the other, with impatient 
 emphasis " believe He lived, believe He died, believe He 
 was the great teacher an the perfected man? Yes, I do. 
 And the Son of God of good? Yes; for he had climbed 
 up above sin. But I ain t dragging Christ down when I 
 say that what He was a ny man or woman can be. No, sir. 
 I d think every living soul ud be so glad to reach that 
 belief that they d never let go of it again. Divine, you all 
 say, as if that there jest forever barred human folks from 
 getting near what He was what He is. Urn!" 
 
 He walked back and forth as if scarce seeing the curious 
 faces at the door as if searching for words to express the 
 theories struggling in his brain. Some of them were used 
 to Bud s " fits," though it surely was the queerest of times 
 for a man to stray off into discussion. Not under arrest, it 
 is true, but yet detained through a suspicion that would be 
 depressing to most men, instead of firing one with enthu 
 siasm regarding any divinity. But it was just another of 
 the things which they did not think so queer in Bud as 
 they would have thought it in another man. 
 
 " Divine human human and divine," he repeated. " He 
 was that, so are we all, only most of us crowd out the divine 
 in us till after a long time we forget it was ever in us. We 
 say we re human ; that s all. Then some others crowd out the 
 human, too, till they get to be like animals; and lots o 
 animals would be disgraced by them. That s what comes 
 o" folks drivin out the bit o God that s in them, not daring 
 to believe it is in them for fear if they ever commenced a 
 studying of it they d see clear how far they d sunk, and 
 how far they ve got to climb back again to get on a level 
 with Christ through lives, an lives, an lives, maybe. You 
 don t take stock in that, do you? " as one voice whispered
 
 248 A PAGAN Cl THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 to the other at the door. " May be you could if thinkin* 
 was done with your hands or feet, but you re all powerful 
 careful not to use your brains." 
 
 "You hain t so mighty much book-learning yourself," 
 retorted Mr. Hyle, in pardonable indignation; "so what 
 call you got to preach against justification by faith?" 
 
 " That s so/ agreed another, emboldened by this 
 precedent; "you hain t no sort o right to talk against the 
 gospel when you never had gospel training no more right 
 than you have for throwing slurs at old folks cause they 
 live so long." 
 
 " Slurs?" 
 
 "Yes, that s what! Yes, gentlemen, if you jest reason it 
 out, that s what it comes to." And the speaker tilted his 
 chair against the wall, stowed an allowance of tobacco in 
 his cheek, and prepared for contest. " Time Riker s Addy- 
 liny died, an Mrs. Riker took on so, didn t he say the 
 time would come when there wouldn t be that sort o 
 grievin for death specially for children?" 
 
 Bud nodded. 
 
 " An didn t you say that the earlier people died out o 
 this life the more sure people could be that they hadn t been 
 so very wicked in the life before they come here at all, 
 reckonin that this world s a sort o prison for spirits to 
 work out their redemption in for crimes and badness done 
 in some other world, and that the children that die are 
 them that has to work out only a light sentence?" 
 
 Again an affirmative motion, and the speaker of the 
 occasion glanced at the silent ones, and with the air of a 
 man who is going to demolish the opposition, he con 
 tinued: 
 
 "Well, now, allowin that s all true jest for the occasion, 
 Mr. Lennard, allowin it s true I reckon there s a side of it 
 you ain t looked on, and that would be so uncomfortable
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 249 
 
 most folks wouldn t want to look on; for if the longer 
 people lived the wickeder they d be proved, how d that 
 reflect on the Bible men who lived hundreds of years, to 
 say nothing of our mountain folks, who mostly live longer 
 than the settlement folks? And we ve always crowed about 
 that some about the health the Lord gives us up here, 
 and how hearty the old folks are and all. Now, if 
 this heathen notion of yours would be took up, 
 where do you suppose it would land us mountain folks? 
 Why, jest naturally at the little end of the horn; and the 
 settlement folks would be tootin the horn! " 
 
 " That s true enough, too," agreed Ike Dumphey, as the 
 other ceased, triumphant. "An* there s my pap and my 
 gran pap both with the angels, thank the Lord! both 
 good church members, as we ve cause to be proud of. Now, 
 s pose this prison idee s proved, where d we be? Why, 
 we d jest be shy o makin mention o their names, case 
 they both lived to over eighty, an would be counted hard 
 cases" in that other life he talks about. Jest look at it that 
 way, an you ll see tain t any comfort to have things brought 
 home to folks in that fashion." 
 
 " No, sir," chimed in a former speaker, darting an 
 ill-pleased glance at the prisoner, who seemed to give little 
 heed to their logic. " No, sir nor to have the character of 
 their church folks took away, neither; for the steadiest 
 church pillars we have are the oldest people. An jest 
 s pose the settlements would get a hold o that notion! Jest 
 s pose it!" 
 
 "An* how you know prayers won t be answered?" 
 queried Mr. Hyle. " I reckon the Lord can wipe out sins 
 if He s a mind to. An ain t there the sayin that nothin* 
 is impossible to Him?" 
 
 " I reckon," and Bud stopped in his walk to and fro and 
 looked at the speaker thoughtfully; "but it s like lots o
 
 250 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 things folks say, Coon, it ain t true. There ain t any 
 power can lift sins off a soul and leave that soul as it was 
 before the sin had been there. A thing done is done for 
 ever. God can t wipe it out and say it never was. All 
 that s to do is to make amends; but it s us has got to do it, 
 not God. And as for prayers, why, we are all like 
 children. The thing we d .beg and pray for once is likely 
 the thing we d pray to get rid of some other time. Don t 
 you reckon the Power that rules knows that? Don t you 
 reckon folks ud make a hell out o heaven for any God 
 that tried to answer half their prayers, even supposing 
 He had the power to? But it never seems to me He has. 
 Seems me to like as if God an the world an the souls are 
 all bound by laws some great law of justice that moves 
 and binds everything. You re right, I ain t book-larned; 
 but there s some sort o teachin comes through the feelin s, 
 and that s all I ve got. You folks reckon it s wrong, cause 
 it don t make enough of a God that lives somewhere in the 
 clouds and looks like Moses. But if I give up my notion 
 o the Almighty s plan; if I thought we had never lived 
 but this one time, and would live no more after this, and 
 that our souls as babies were new and clean, I d curse 
 such a God an go to meet death mighty quick, hating 
 forever a power that sets an immortal soul for its one 
 chance o life in a crazy man, or a cripple, or a body sick 
 with disease, an right alongside another soul that s in a 
 body beautiful an given everything its life needs for hap 
 piness one cursed and the other blessed before they was 
 born jest like Esau and Jacob. Where s an almighty 
 justice in that, unless them curses and blessin s was earned? 
 No! no! no! God is good. That Spirit, that Power 
 we are part of, the soul of it is just higher than the jus 
 tice that would give us but one time to live, and start us 
 in it under a curse. No!" and he looked out through
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 251 
 
 the window to the great arch of blue that showed through 
 the leaves " no; we get what we earn. We ain t cringin 
 or beggin off. Some day, in some life, we ll look you in the 
 face you Power! Some day you ll have to give the key to 
 all this riddle of life you Spirit that the prayers call Father, 
 but that I believe is mother. A mother soul, like the 
 mother earth, it sends us out for trial. It will take us back 
 to its bosom when our race is run. We are children, blind, 
 feeling for you in the dark, hearing your whispers in every 
 sound of life; and, sure, however much we stumble and fall, 
 however long it may take us to reach the good of you, 
 there never will be a gate shut against us that in some life 
 to come we can t earn the key to; and the fruit o this life 
 gives us the seed for the next. All the lessons of a life can 
 be seen in the woods on the mountain. It speaks to you 
 here alive not the dead thoughts of dead men, who shut 
 themselves up in walls to write. It is all here here! " and 
 he picked up an acorn from the window where a twig 
 of oak had been thrown. " The fruit and the seed, and 
 the seed in the fruit. It goes on like that always. It 
 proves the justice o that high Power. It smothers out the 
 God-devil that drops curses. It whispers o things sweeter 
 an stronger than all the words found in the Bible; the 
 sweet things o the visions them men saw but never could 
 tell of. New ways o speech must come first the ways o 
 speech that God has, an the winds, an the leaves, an the 
 birds know an try to tell us." And he laughed outright as 
 he looked in their disapproving, puzzled faces. "And 
 you d ask me to give that all up, and believe that we re all 
 to suffer for the original sin of Adam and Eve, and rest on 
 the faith o prayer, an believe in that hell o* brimstone 
 that an all-merciful God has got ready for us and all I 
 can do is jest to feel sorry for you! " 
 
 The men had ceased both exchange of derisive grins and
 
 252 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 comment. Absolute silence fell over them as he ceased 
 speaking and stood there, earnest and sombre-eyed, looking 
 like some spirit of darkness proclaiming some law of 
 damnation. 
 
 And not one of his audience doubted Pap s wildest 
 conjectures as he proceeded. When he had finished, all of 
 them were certain sure he had killed Granny and the best 
 coon-dog on the mountain. 
 
 But those two without looked at each other in amaze 
 ment Dinah s a little more pronounced, perhaps, as it was 
 the first time she had heard any of those heathenish theories 
 that the mountain people condemned in a sort of fear, and 
 it was a revelation. 
 
 "Well, your pagan friend has opinions, anyway," she 
 said; "and now that I think that I ve recovered the breath 
 he took away, suppose we go in." 
 
 " You got here right quick, Mr. Edson," said Mr. Hyle, 
 who assumed the r61e of spokesman, entitled thereto by 
 having a better-improved piece of land than any of the 
 others, besides owning a third of a thrashing-machine. 
 " He asked to have you sent after first thing. But the 
 the lady" 
 
 " Who sent? And what is the matter? " And scarcely wait 
 ing a reply, Don walked past them into the other room, 
 where the Pagan still stood by the fire-place. " You tell 
 me, Lennard." 
 
 "Ain t much to tell," he answered, with none of the 
 interest in his voice that had thrilled them but a few 
 moments before. " They re setting a watch over me, 
 though, to keep me from leaving the mountain. They allow 
 I ve killed Granny Le Fevre; they re waiting till they find 
 her, to be sure." 
 
 " Ridiculous! " 
 
 And then Dinah, having no reason at all to believe in the
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 253 
 
 man, only the memory of those queer ideas still ringing in 
 her head, came promptly forward. 
 
 "I don t believe one word of it," she said, and held out 
 her hand to give emphasis to the avowal. 
 
 "Thank you, Miss; neither do I," he answered, barely 
 touching her hand. She thought it was through a sort of 
 diffidence or backwardness, but it was not only the dusk 
 of the morning was not far gone, and the touch of another 
 woman s hand seemed yet to thrill his own. Then he 
 turned to Edson. 
 
 " I sent for you," he said, simply. "I reckon they ll let 
 me talk to you alone?" 
 
 Pap was the only one who mumbled objections; but 
 when Miss Floyd coolly walked out of the room herself and 
 shut the door, the rest good-naturedly accepted her decision. 
 
 " You can watch the windows and the top of the chimney," 
 she said, to console Mr. Keesy, " and there is no other way 
 for him to escape." 
 
 " Not for most folks, may be," warned that worthy; " but 
 he s different. He s got queer ways o his own for comin 
 an goin . I know; I most raised him, ye know, an* allus 
 reckoned he d come to bad." 
 
 "Because of his raising?" queried Miss Dinah. "And 
 was it from you he got those ideas of religion we heard as 
 we came up? " 
 
 " Not by a long shot," was the hasty disclaimer. " Nor 
 from nary another man on the mountain, either. Mount 
 ain folks is believers mostly; these gentlemen 11 tell ye. 
 But him he s jest naturally plum cussed." 
 
 Within the room the two men spoke low. Only a mur 
 mur of the voices reached the others. A package of papers 
 tied compactly together was accepted by Don without a 
 word. He had heard no explanation, and asked for none,
 
 254 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 though he could but wonder at the man s utter unconcern 
 as to his own position. 
 
 " If anything happens me, jest open those papers an* 
 you ll see who and what they re for. May be you won t have 
 to take care of them long," he added, with a faint smile. 
 " An I m going to trust you with another thing that is, if 
 you re willing." 
 
 " Try me." 
 
 " She allowed this morning she trusted you a heap," he 
 said, steadily; " an if she can I can, I reckon." 
 
 "Krin this morning?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. She come to warn me, but I d no notion leaving 
 till this was cleared; but they," and he nodded toward the 
 kitchen, "seem to think every man s a liar, and I don t mind 
 much this morning, for it keeps jest that many off the hunt." 
 
 "Oh! Yes, I suppose it does," was the inane reply to 
 the damaging statement. 
 
 "That s what I thought; that s why I m easy enough to 
 keep here. I wouldn t stir, even if they all left the house. 
 Reason why? They d watch. But they ain t like to watch 
 you, and so I want you to go some place where I darsen t 
 go myself." 
 
 "Well" and Mr. Edson s eyes wandered up and down 
 the powerful-built figure of the man " that s a nice proposi 
 tion for Goliath to make to David; but let me know the 
 direction of your altar of sacrifice." 
 
 " It ain t far. There ain t so much to do; it s jest to 
 keep out o the way o the folks that ud watch me, and to 
 give a warn to some other folks that needs it. 
 I ll tell you this much, though," he added; " I don t 
 know myself what they re in hidin for, and I don t want to 
 know. Sometimes the less you know about a man the more 
 you re willing to do for him, and I reckon this is one o that 
 sort. You re agreed? "
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 255 
 
 " Only waiting orders," answered Mr. Edson, promptly. 
 "I am not understanding much of this, but it will be 
 time enough to back out if I learn that it means harm to 
 anyone. Up to that point, I m content to work in the 
 dark." 
 
 The other smiled at him. 
 
 "If the woman they re a searching for ain t back in her 
 cabin in three hours time, I give you leave to tell anyone 
 all I ask of you." And getting a paper and pencil, he 
 wrote slowly, in a large, crude hand, a few lines. 
 " You can read it if you re so minded," he said. And this 
 is what there was to read: 
 
 Get Granny home; a mans took up for the murder of her. 
 You have three hours to do it in, but I wont keep your secret 
 longer than that. A FRIEND. 
 
 " No harm in that, is there? " asked the writer. " Well, 
 there s a black birch grows up out of a crack in the ledge 
 clost to a split poplar, jest below where we met yester 
 day. I want that pinned about a yard from the ground on 
 that birch. No one above ll see it, but anyone in the gully d 
 have to. Then whistle three times, not loud, but you know 
 how, jest to give notice to anyone in hearing; and then you 
 can clear out o that soon as you ve a mind to. May be it ud 
 be better not to run risk o seeing anyone; leastways, we ll 
 give them three hours notice." 
 
 "And if Granny is not so dead as these folks think, what 
 is your idea of her absence? " 
 
 " I haven t any," he said, in a tired way. " I ve had 
 other things to think of. You see, I m going away from the 
 mountain." 
 
 A something plaintive in the man s words made Don turn, 
 to him impulsively. 
 
 "Why are you?" 
 
 The other looked at him kindly, but shook his head.
 
 256 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " You asked me that yesterday, too/ he answered. " 11 
 I d told you then, I would a said it was for fear I might ki); 
 someone if I stayed; but that ain t the reason to-day," he 
 added, as Edson stared at him. "That s all gone this 
 morning; something drove them thoughts away. I m a 
 going soon, but I want folks to be happy that I leave 
 behind you too. I never felt toward any man as I do to 
 you" and his contemplative gaze made Mr. Edson feel 
 uncomfortable. "Maybe it was that bird in your throat 
 that witches folks, but I hain t always trusted you, and I 
 have always liked you. I thought I would jest say that to 
 you this morning; something might happen. I mightn t see 
 you again; and I trust you to-day." 
 
 " But what of to-morrow? " 
 
 " We haven t got to to-morrow yet, an I m getting where I 
 can t count ahead; but I believe in you, and so does she." 
 
 " Krin? Have you spoken " 
 
 "She said so," he replied. "Now go. Good-bye." 
 
 "Why, I will see you again," decided Don, his heart 
 warming unusually toward the man who prophesied his 
 own happiness " many times, I hope." 
 
 But he went as he was told, for the time was slipping by; 
 and though he had almost forgotten it while talking to the 
 accused, yet a man s life might actually depend on his own 
 errand. 
 
 In the other room there was a general show of interest 
 vhen he made his appearance. 
 
 " Own up to anything? " queried Mr. Hyle; but hearing 
 a negative, looked anxiously at the papers he had seen on 
 the Pagan s table. " He got me an Cleve there to witness 
 him signin* some paper he was writin when we come," he 
 said; " now I a! :w it s with them " 
 
 " Likely/ returned Don. " Come, Miss Floyd, I have to
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 get around past Riker s, and the sun is getting warmer 
 every minute." 
 
 " Don t know as papers ought to be let leave the house 
 jest now," debated Pap, suspiciously. "This ain t an 
 every-day case, especial as they re close cronies an sich. 
 I hain t anything to say, but if I had " 
 
 " If you have, Ananias, tell it to the sheriff and send him 
 after me when he comes," suggested Mr. Edson. " And 
 you might send him to look up that murdered hog of Len- 
 nard s at the same time." 
 
 " Bud hain t complained o losin any." 
 
 " Bud don t complain of anything, even of you," was the 
 retort that showed a sad lack of reverence on Mr. Edson s 
 part. " Well, Dinah? " 
 
 Dinah had approached the middle door to make her adieux 
 to the suspected; but he was by the table, his head bowed 
 on his arms, the whole attitude a bar against any careless 
 entrance, and with a swift, pitying glance, she turned away. 
 
 " Well, it is lucky for my susceptible nature that your 
 pagan preacher is leaving this territory, or that we are soon; 
 all at once I am wondering how I came to think him stupid." 
 
 Don did not reply, he had so much food for both trust 
 and distrust in his own mind. But the letter once off his 
 mind well, it was only three hours to wait, at the worst. 
 
 "And it is eleven now," he said, aloud. 
 
 " Yes; what of it? " 
 
 " Would you mind going home alone when you get 
 ready? " he asked. " That affair back there will give me 
 some work, and " 
 
 " Enough said," she decided. " I am growing used to 
 being toled over here and abandoned. Last time it was for 
 a goddess, this time for a pagan who seems rather pious. 
 Yes, go your way. I rather like the brave feeling of look 
 ing after myself." 
 17
 
 258 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAN1ES 
 
 "And will you take care of these? " She took the papers. 
 "One is his will," he said; and the girl, with a remembrance 
 of her last view of the writer, rode on in silence. "lam 
 going to look up some trees on the mountain," he said, 
 as they neared the house in the valley; " so if anyone 
 should ask you, you know." 
 
 She looked as if she did not believe him, but he only 
 laughed at her, and altogether seemed rather happy, con 
 sidering the gloomy probabilities among his tenants. And 
 one tenant 
 
 Her face was the first he saw as he neared the house; and 
 how it lit up at the sight of him! Even Jake, whose alle 
 giance was divided between their landlord and Bud, did 
 not look more eager, did not hasten to greet them with 
 more eager questions. 
 
 Dinah could not take her eyes from Krin, she was so 
 changed from the white, waxen creature of such a short 
 time ago her eyes were so bright, so burning, .a flush 
 was in her cheeks, and her lips, with their tender curves, had 
 something tremulous yet decided that was adorable. The 
 wistfulness had vanished. 
 
 "Ah!" thought Miss Floyd, "the anemone will yet turn 
 rose. Is my cavalier the magician? " 
 
 It seemed so, for her eyes watched him so eagerly; and 
 how she listened to every word as he spoke highly of Bud 
 to Riker, who had refused to be of the party who went up 
 as guard! 
 
 But while his words were to others, he too was looking 
 in awakened wonder at Krin. Could it possibly be the pale, 
 frightened creature who had told him her occult fears, and 
 who but yesterday had raised her wet eyes to his instead of 
 those strangely brilliant ones? What was it? Had that 
 blessed pagan, in the goodness of his heart, spoken to Krin 
 as well as to himself of the thing that had filled his heart all
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 259 
 
 night? Someway he convinced himself it must be that; it 
 is hard to keep from thinking the thing we want to think. 
 
 "My-oh-my! Ain t these awful times on the mount 
 ain? " said Becky Ann, hurrying out at sight of the visitors. 
 " Jest light off an come right in; that sun s burnin . No 
 news, I reckon? We ve been upset all night with the search 
 ers got scarce a mite o sleep; and Krin there, she jest set 
 up the live-long night, an this morning " her voice was 
 lowered that it might not go beyond Miss Dinah s ear 
 " this morning she s right down nervous from it, an her 
 eyes look queer as fever." 
 
 "Then fever is wonderfully becoming to some people," 
 answered the visitor, watching Don, who % had dismounted 
 for a moment and was saying what reassuring words he 
 could of Granny s absence, but saying nothing of the paper 
 he carried that gave him a hope. 
 
 Krin listened, saying little; she had no hope herself. All 
 night she had sat there thinking it over. No, Granny 
 could never get lost. The premonition of some evil to 
 come on the mountain was proving true; it had begun. 
 
 " I know now what his Dick s voice must a meant; 
 it was a sign o death. That s what it is when the dead 
 comes back, sure." 
 
 Dick s child looked up in her face and laughed and 
 blinked a little at the glaring sun. 
 
 "You see she knows enough to laugh at your notions," 
 said Don. "And so will you before night, when the old 
 lady takes a notion to come back." 
 
 " But if she don t? If she s dead if she can t? " 
 
 Her vehemence was so unlike her. He thought what a 
 loving, tender nature it was that could feel so deeply for the 
 old woman whose treatment of her had not been of the best. 
 
 " Try not to worry to-day," he said, gently. "Whatever 
 happens, you are among friends, Krin."
 
 260 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 He dared attempt to say no more, for Mr. Riker was 
 approaching with a bucket of water for his horse; but she 
 must have understood from the grateful glance she sent up 
 to him. 
 
 "I know," she said; "but there s someone else ll need 
 help worse than me if she ain t found." 
 
 " You mean Bud? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Oh, well, we ll get him bailed until investigations are 
 through, supposing he is really arrested; he didn t seem 
 to mind it much this morning." 
 
 " No, that s jest Bud," complained Mr. Riker. " An if 
 the worst comes to the worst, he s like to act the same way 
 may be not take bail, maybe walk to the scaffold without 
 even tryin to hire a lawyer to clear him. Fact is, you don t 
 never know what to look for him to do." 
 
 " Walk to the sea/old? " 
 
 " There, there, Krin, go on in the house," said her host; 
 "an* don t look so skeery. I hadn t any sort o business to 
 say that, for Bud ain t goin to any scaffold. No sir; Bud ll 
 be all right. I blurted that out, never thinkin how women 
 folks get scared o sech. You better stay in out o this 
 heat, anyway, when you have nary a cover on your head." 
 
 So talking and soothing down the effects of his rough 
 words, or trying to, he went with her to the door-step. 
 But she did not go in, she sat down where he left her; and 
 as the horse ceased drinking, and Don remounted, he nod 
 ded a friendly adieu, but she did not seem to notice. 
 
 Riker went back to the stable. Inside, Becky Ann was 
 telling her visitor how " riled " Will was at the notion of 
 holding Bud on the mountain till Granny was found. 
 
 " Will, he always thought some o Bud, though, more than 
 most folks. He d stick to Bud through a good deal ; but then 
 if there is plain evidence brought up, Will s too poor a man
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 261 
 
 to be much help. It s money that talks in the court house! 
 Though the best o Bud s bargain ud be to clear out afore 
 the lawyers get hold of him; for they re always bound an 
 set to convict someone if a crime s done; an folks that have 
 the mountain for the court house, either never come back 
 or else come changed to the worse. I ve seen them more 
 than one time." 
 
 And he might have been saved from that dread chance if 
 he had but listened to her and gone quickly in the morn 
 ing and now 
 
 Their words were carrying an undreamed-of weight to 
 her. Dinah glanced at her once or twice, thinking how still 
 she sat, and wondering if she was really so affected by the 
 loss of that horrid old woman; and with the memory of her 
 eager meeting with Don, fell to wondering still more if 
 that gentleman s weakness for flirtation was going to be met 
 half-way with the serious belief of this desolate-looking child. 
 
 It was perhaps due to the fact that those summer guests 
 of the mountain had seen nothing of the domestic life of 
 Dick and Krin, but they always failed to realize that Krin 
 was either wife or widow. A desolate child was Miss 
 Dinah s idea of her, as she sat there apparently taking 
 little heed to their words. 
 
 Where her thoughts were was not hard to guess, however, 
 when she surprised them by saying: 
 
 " He can t have got far yet. I hain t been sittin here 
 long, have I ? " 
 
 "My-oh-my! Krin, are you so plum wildered with all 
 this that you re losin count o time? Mr. Edson you re 
 thinkin of? No, he ain t no distance yet; barely out o 
 sight, I reckon." 
 
 She arose and held out the child to Becky Ann. 
 
 " I can t run with her," she said; "an I want to tell him 
 something I forgot."
 
 262 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 And awaiting neither query nor protest, she vanished 
 through the door, and for an instant her going reminded 
 Dinah of that other day when she had seen her first. Just 
 a flitting form that seemed winged, and that darted from 
 the open space into the green mysteries of the wood. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 KRIN S CHOICE. 
 
 Silence quivered upward with the sun, and even the rocks 
 of Indian Ledge seemed alive with heat as he touched them 
 at times, climbing over the nearest route to that black birch 
 by the split poplar. 
 
 Once in the circle of the thousands of trees, he more 
 than once realized that it might be a task to find a particu 
 lar one or two of them. His horse was left at the forge. 
 He had no fear of being watched, yet there were, no doubt, 
 more people than usual on the mountain, and it would be 
 easier to avoid them on foot. Some distant halloos came to 
 him at times, some far-off barks of dogs. The immediate 
 vicinity had evidently been searched thoroughly; those 
 in the quest were circling to a wider range. Several times 
 he crossed trails of the men, and though they were not to 
 be seen, yet the wood did not seem nearly so vast as the 
 morning before; all humanity seemed to have drawn a little 
 closer since that time. He smiled to himself as he thought 
 of the reason, and set it aside as much as he could, know 
 ing that somewhere near him was a mystery that might 
 need what wit he could gather none of it could be spared 
 to rest down in the valley. 
 
 After all, the birch was not so hard to find; the poplar
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 263 
 
 struck by lightning shone a white landmark among the 
 greens of many shades. Looking about, he remembered that 
 it must have been near those trees the hound had disap 
 peared the main cause of suspicion against Lennard. 
 
 " Well, if their idiocy continues, I can tell, at least, that 
 the dog was not killed by him not the time he was seen 
 following it, at any rate. I don t understand him, but I ve 
 a* sort of liking for him; and he didn t trust me, but had a 
 sort of liking for me. That was a queer thing for him to 
 say; but it is not any queerer than the communication 
 I m to pin to the tree a latter-day Orlando. I d give 
 double postage to know who is intended to read it." 
 
 Not a rustle but his own step sounded near as he slid 
 down to the foot of the stone wall, and felt the wind-spread 
 carpet of elastic leaves under his feet. Not a breath of 
 air fluttered the paper as he fastened it to the dark bole, 
 where it would surely show plainly to anyone who crept 
 into the rift of the rock to look. But who would? 
 
 He might not have asked that question with so light a 
 personal interest could lie have seen one face that, secure 
 in the shadows of a narrow-necked crevice, watched his 
 movements with startled eyes eyes with the look in them 
 of an animal that hears the step of the hunter. 
 
 It might have even disturbed some of his dreams that he 
 felt at liberty to indulge in after the letter was posted 
 and the whistle sounded. That affair was off his hands for 
 three hours. In the meantime, he would see Daphne. 
 
 No, he had got not a glimpse of the eyes that watched 
 him, else less of hope might have colored those dreams 
 dreams that he ridiculed, yet held so close, and was 
 hurrying forward into the future to meet. 
 
 He passed the cabin on the Ledge, looking bare and for 
 saken with but one night s vacancy; but there are some 
 houses, both cabins and mansions, that have never the soul
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHAN .ES. 
 
 or the atmosphere of any living meaning in them, and this 
 witch-cabin was one of them. He thought of that as he 
 walked by on the laurel-edged path. Of all its inhab 
 itants, Krin alone had a soul that might have lent meaning 
 to a home, and she poor child! she seemed always, with 
 all her dependent fearfulness, more at home in the forest. 
 
 So he was thinking of her of the trustful simplicity of 
 her that a man should be proud to keep always unsullied 
 by doubts of the world. Could a man, having wakened 
 the trust of so pure a soul, ever risk seeing unfaith grow 
 In her eyes instead? Ah, the fancies! 
 
 And in the midst of them she arose, as if out of the 
 ground, before him. 
 
 "I called and called," she said, abruptly; "and then 
 when I found your horse tied I knew you would come 
 back, so I waited." 
 
 "To see me? Oh, Krin!" 
 
 Before the curious eyes of the others down the valley 
 he had held his thoughts in check, only an hour before; 
 but now that she had come to him again in the wild places, 
 the places where Daphne belonged, and come with all 
 that new, strange light in her eyes! well, his hands went 
 out to her, as he saw her in the shadow of the forge rock, 
 and with half-chiding, wholly pleased questions, he met 
 her. 
 
 But she drew back from his hands. She looked at him 
 with imploring eyes, and a mingled fear, defiance, and 
 decision in her manner. It was not Daphne as she had 
 ever looked to him before. 
 
 "No, sir, I won t shake hands, please; may be never no 
 more. I ll tell you why; may be you won t want to after 
 oh, that s no sort o difference," she said, hurriedly. " It s 
 other things I come to say. I heard them talking back 
 there about that! the court house maybe the gallows
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 265 
 
 an* I come! He he mustn t be let go there. You can 
 help that folks trust you. If you d give the word now 
 afore the sheriff comes, they d take it, an an he could 
 get away across the line. It ud jest be some money lost, 
 that s all; but you d get it back again. I d work I d pay 
 you I d " 
 
 " You would pay it back?" He felt as if the heat had 
 scorched all sense out of his brain, such idiotic thoughts 
 were suggested by her kindly sympathy for that man. 
 " And it is Lennard you are speaking of?" 
 
 "Yes, that s who. Poor folks can t help him. I 
 heard them say so. May be no one can if they ever take 
 him to the court house an" that s why. Oh, you re good! 
 You ain t poor. You can do it! right now, right away. 
 I thought you d never come, but I found the horse here, 
 so I waited; an now " 
 
 Her eyes dropped under the steady, questioning regard 
 of his own; a colder scrutiny than she had ever seen in 
 him silenced the plea on her lips for a moment. She had 
 not the courage to look in his eyes and speak; but, with 
 averted head, she went on. 
 
 "You don t say anything," she said, wistfully. "An it s 
 the first time I ever knew any to come to you for help an 
 not get it. May be it s cause you think that, after all, he s 
 wicked his thoughts are wicked, an they are, I reckon; 
 but but look here, Mr. Edson " and the desperate tone 
 of her pleading again swept over him like a wave that 
 scorched and froze him "you was kind yesterday; you 
 offered to help me about another house somewhere, for 
 me an Edie. I thought jest then that I wanted that more 
 than any other thing in all the world, but I don t. I m 
 scared here, but I ll stay. I ll live among the snakes, I ll 
 live ha nted all my life, I ll never ask help o none, if you ll 
 only go an give him the help you d a give me! "
 
 266 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 "And why are you asking that? " He heard himself say 
 ing the words, though he could scarcely feel himself doing 
 so; his lips were far too stiff for whistling away puzzling 
 things as usual. 
 
 She looked up at his question, and an answer might have 
 been read in her eyes, but he refused it; and under his 
 exacting gaze she covered her face with her hands, and 
 dropped on the rock floor of the forge, half-kneeling, and 
 near to his feet. 
 
 " May be I can say it now to you," she said, whisper- 
 ingly. "I don t want to lie. You re like I said like the 
 priests some folks tell sins to when they get too heavy; an 
 mine are now. An I never know it till till they break me 
 down. But it s true; I m wicked wickeder than him far! 
 I must always a been, an didn t know it. TAat swhy Dick s 
 a ha ntin 1 me. Spirits know things we think, an I was 
 Dick s wife his wife, an all the time must a been thinkin 
 o someone else in my heart. I must a been. If it hadn t 
 been growin there quiet, day an day, it wouldn t a been 
 so so strong to kill me most now. An that s what it ll 
 do yet, I reckon. I knew it all at once this mornin when I 
 heard what they was to do with him. If they kill him, I 
 couldn t live, Mr. Edson. My life ud go with his." 
 
 And Mr. Edson heard heard more than her halting, 
 humble, desperate confession betrayed. As an accompa 
 niment to her sobbing whispers, he heard the echo of slow, 
 serious speech that had so short a time since, in that very 
 spot, thrilled him by a widely different idea of her sym 
 pathies. The sombre green-gray eyes seemed yet looking 
 conviction into his own. What a lie! What a lie! 
 
 He bent forward to raise her, but she shook her head, 
 crouching fearfully as if for judgment. She had not dared 
 raise her eyes once her sin and her shame were so 
 absolute to her.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 267 
 
 "And he?" 
 
 " He ain t bad, that way," she said, brokenly "not bad 
 enough to like me. It s only cause I am some like a girl 
 she is dead that he was good to me. He ll never know 
 how I m thinkin ; how bad I ve got to be wicked, wicked, 
 wicked ! more than him. He never had the right Bible 
 belief, nor the right church belief; it wouldn t come to him. 
 But it come to me oh, it did ! I had that much o the 
 blessin o God; an now " she threw back her head and 
 raised an intense, tear-wet face to his as if forcing herself to 
 speak the horror and face the terrible condemnation due it 
 " an now I m turned in sin from its promises. They say 
 he is curst, an it s true, I reckon; but I d go to the hell 
 where he goes sooner than go to the heaven where he ll be 
 shut out from." 
 
 Absolute silence. The mountain had not yawned and 
 taken her to swift death for the terrible confession; the sky, 
 yet serene, had sent no stroke of lightning. Her listener 
 had launched never a word of scorn and condemnation for 
 her sin, yet she had felt she was daring them all when 
 she made that choice. 
 
 But even silence can bear a crushing weight under its 
 moveless wings. She felt it, and whispered: 
 
 "It isn t just me; it s something stronger than me. I 
 can t help it." 
 
 Then he spoke, but the keen contempt she dreaded did 
 not come, and his voice sounded strained and queer. 
 
 "No, little one, I know; you can t help it." 
 
 Afterward, he never could recall what other words he 
 spoke; what he promised her, or how they parted. He 
 was conscious of a desire and intention to do the things 
 she begged for, and then he found himself alone, with a 
 dull physical pain in the heart a thing that sickened him
 
 268 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 with every breath he drew, and a thing so altogether new 
 in his knowledge of himself as to be bewildering. 
 
 " What was that he said about throwing out challenges 
 to God?" he asked himself. "Did I, or did I not? I 
 don t remember, but I rather think fate has given me the 
 benefit of the intention." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A RESURRECTED LANDMARK. 
 
 Evidently the heat was too withering for the " authori 
 ties" to venture on a ride from the settlements in the 
 middle of the day; anyway, the middle of the afternoon 
 had arrived, but no sheriff. The self-suggested guards 
 were getting tired of their responsibility. The enthusiasm 
 of the morning in the cause of right was cooling. Some of 
 them growled dissatisfaction at the sheriff, some at Bud, 
 and some at Granny. Bach was the only special object of 
 interest that escaped some sort of blame. Instead of blame, 
 Bach was remembered by accounts of his prowess; there 
 was a loss that was a loss ! Remarks of condemnation and 
 glances of ire were directed toward the man whom they 
 fancied had robbed the mountain of so much sagacity. 
 
 But he was rather philosophic under it all. After Don 
 had gone with the paper, he was silent and indifferent to 
 the others, only, hearing one of those regretful remarks 
 about Bach, he looked at the length of the shadows in 
 the garden, and said: 
 
 " If any of you are so anxious over that dog, you d better 
 go down to the cabin and see if he ain t got back." 
 
 "No use; Dave Hentz, he come up past there jest after 
 them Edsons left."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 269 
 
 " That s nigh four hour ago, though," said one of the 
 others, " an of course there might be some later news. Do 
 you reckon Granny 11 be there, Bud?" 
 
 "I wouldn t be noways surprised to hear it," he said, 
 quietly; and the men glanced at each other questioningly. 
 
 "Wonder if there s anything in that ?" said Dumphey, 
 when they had adjourned to the kitchen. 
 
 "Hard tellin ; but then, Bud don t talk less he means 
 something." 
 
 " Some of you take a run down and see, anyway no harm 
 in that; and he acts so plagued queer that a fellow don t 
 know what to think." 
 
 " I ll go, too," volunteered Pap. "It s terrible hot, but 
 we can take the woods for it; an if there s any word o 
 poor Mollie poor old Moll one o the landmarks o the 
 mountain, gentlemen ! Yes, sir, I ll go, too." 
 
 Which he did, peering as he went along every fallen 
 tree, or every hollow one, seeking with snivels of reminis 
 cence the form regretted, though so late. 
 
 " Reckon that there loom o hers 11 be sold with the other 
 truck," he remarked, thoughtfully, as they drew near the 
 house. " It hain t been used for years now, and ain t worth 
 money; but I ve got to do some sort business, now Bud s 
 turned out so. Can t live round that sorto man no longer; 
 no, sir. You re like, now, to be one o the committee to 
 settle her affairs, ef there s a sale. I reckon none o the 
 votes now ud go agin me a gettin that there loom, for old 
 friendship sake hey? Old friendship! Yes, indeedy. Time 
 was when she d a been keepin house fer me fer the askin . 
 I m bout the only one left on the mountain as minds her 
 when she was young. Well, well, the Lord s will be done; 
 an he s took her, I reckon. I d set store by that loom to 
 remember her by. Yes, sir! Seems like I can see her yet. 
 Well, I ll bed d!"
 
 270 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 It was the most ordinary of things that caused the ft^ale 
 of his recollections simply a view of the open cabin door 
 with Bach stretched across it; and within a face shone 
 through wreaths of smoke, as the faces of cherubs gleam 
 through curtains of cloud, and the face was Granny s, with 
 a pipe in her mouth. 
 
 She removed it to order Bach out of the way of the vis 
 itors, and Pap fairly tottered in, and stared, speechless, 
 at the arisen landmark 
 
 "Why, we ve searched the hills over for you ! " burst out 
 Mr. Dumphey, aggrievedly. " Where you been ? " 
 
 " Oh, ye did ? " grunted Granny. " You re Ike Dumphey, 
 an you an" your woman been keepin yer tongues goin" un- 
 ceasin bout me fer years. So I d jest like to know what 
 you re wantin o me now." 
 
 "Want you! We don t want you, only it seemed 
 human-like to search." 
 
 "Yes, Mollie," quavered Pap, "we have been a 
 searchin high an low. Slep nary a wink myself sence the 
 word went out. I I d jest give ye up." 
 
 "Give me up ! Lord-a-mighty! ef yeh wanted me so bad 
 why didn t yeh come to the house stead o the hills?" 
 
 "Why why, yeh wa n t here." 
 
 " That s a lie! " said the landmark, promptly. "Allus was 
 a failin* o yours, Keesy lyin an stealin sheep. I mind 
 yeh ! Not here ! " and she thrust out a foot wrapped 
 up and pointed to the crutch beside her. " How you reckon 
 I d get away with a strained foot, hey? Got it hurt about 
 sundown yesterday." 
 
 "You wasn t here last night," said Dumphey. 
 
 "You re another! I reckon it s Krin you-all was wantin . 
 She s lit out somewheres." 
 
 " Naw, she ain t. She s down at Riker s, terribly worried. 
 She we lowed you d been Lordy! Lordy! " he broke in,
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 271 
 
 remembering the guard up on the mountain "Bud, he s 
 been held fer killin yeh an Bach." 
 
 " Bud, is it? " and she rocked back and forward in silent 
 laughter. "Bud? That s worth hearin tell. But you re 
 fools, the lot of yeh! Do I look dead ?" 
 
 " We searched here more than once last night," insisted 
 Dumphey, stolidly. "There wasn t any sign of a livin 
 thing here then." 
 
 "Yes, there was" and Granny s smile was diabolically 
 mysterious " there was a big spotted sow never ten feet 
 away from the porch." 
 
 The men looked at her and at each other, and Mr. Dum 
 phey arose and went out of the door. 
 
 "We d better get up the mountain and let the folks 
 know," he remarked. "Are you coming, Keesy?" 
 
 " Stay, fer supper, won t yeh?" called Granny, with mean 
 ing cackles of laughter. "I ll give yeh some dishes yer 
 woman can t cook. I was pickin roots fer them on the 
 mountain yesterday." 
 
 But her invitation only reminded Mr. Keesy also that it 
 was getting late, and with rather nervous steps he sidled 
 past her, and past Bach, who blinked knowingly at the two 
 men from the door- way. 
 
 "Looks like the devil in her has a mate in him," was Mr. 
 Dumphey s opinion. " He looks like as if he knowed all the 
 things about that cussed den, and could tell them if he 
 wanted to." 
 
 "Reckon he can;" and Mr. Keesy s voice was lowered, 
 lest it might reach the keen dog-ears. "There s three 
 things on this here mountain that folks ud need a key to 
 understand, an that s old Moll, Bach, an Bud. How d 
 Bud know we d find her there, hey? There s some devil s 
 conjurin in it. Him up there on the mountain, and not 
 a-nigh her, an her disappear an appear again as ef she d
 
 272 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 never left the spot, an so crippled, as yeh can see, that she 
 couldn t a got fur. Jest explain that, will yeh? " 
 
 " I ain t thinking of that near so much as I am of one 
 other thing " and Mr. Dumphey s eyes met Mr. Keesy s 
 with a dark significance " and that s the spotted sow that 
 did lay there by the porch while we searched; and the more 
 I think of it the more I believe that that there sow lay 
 there lazy-like because she iv as lame." 
 
 The pause that followed proved that his listener received 
 all the suggestive meaning underlying that statement. A 
 chill crept through the heat of the day and lingered around 
 Pap s scanty locks, and a shudder ran over him, as he 
 glanced back toward the late lamented landmark. 
 
 "It s the devil s doin s," he insisted, impressively; "that 
 an Bud s second-sight. No follower o the Lord can ever 
 find the how o that." 
 
 And to this day they remain among the mysterious 
 unproven things of the mountain. 
 
 And Krin? *" 
 
 Clasping the child, as the faithful clasp the cross in their 
 deepest despair, she turned her feet again toward the place 
 that she had never a doubt would be ha nted now for her 
 forever. 
 
 She had made her one sacrifice, had humiliated herself to 
 the confession of her blackest sin, that no silent lie should 
 weaken her plea in the judgment of her confessor. And, 
 after all, it was in vain. Not refused, only the desperate 
 need that had moved her to feeling and confession had 
 never really existed. It had been only a fancy. It was 
 past, and in its wake walked shame beside her that was 
 all. She had not even served him that was the heart- 
 aching thought of it. If it had been of any use, if he had 
 been saved in any way through her pleadings, through her
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 373 
 
 humiliation, that knowledge would have been the crown she 
 could have raised her head to bear. But it was denied. 
 Crownless, she would walk forever with her own shame. 
 He would never even know how far she excelled him 
 in wickedness. 
 
 And there were two men in the world into whose eyes she 
 would never dare look again. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 BREAKING AND BINDING. 
 
 That evening, though tired and a bit impatient with Don 
 for disappearing so entirely, Dinah carried the sensation 
 of the day to " the children," as she had dubbed the sen 
 iors, and rather exulted over the unusual wildness of the 
 superstitions attached to the reappearance of Granny; the 
 witchy supposition was quite the most delightful part of it 
 that and the Pagan s preaching. 
 
 " He has without knowing it convinced me that I have 
 wasted my summer out here in looking for pretty things," 
 she declared. " I shall come out next summer, with added 
 wisdom, and paint that green-eyed monster." 
 
 " Is he so ugly? " asked the interesting invalid, whose 
 slight lameness had won him consideration and cushions 
 that a better man with a sound frame might have begged 
 for and not got "so very ugly? " 
 
 " Ugly well, not so ugly as odd and " with a little laugh 
 "uncanny. Just imagine a huge figure with immense 
 shoulders coming toward you, a lot of black hair, too 
 much of it, and the head almost always bent; but when it 
 does begin to straighten up, it seems to tower over you. 
 And his eyes, under the ledges of brows, can give you such 
 
 18
 
 274 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 an impression of seeing through you; and I object to being 
 seen through, especially by green eyes. But his voice I 
 can t say that I ever heard him talk, beyond an occasional 
 mutter, until to-day his voice is the one redeeming, inter 
 esting thing in the uncouth-looking creature." 
 
 " But you know, dear, you can t paint that," reminded 
 Miss Lottie. 
 
 " True for you. I could not even describe it. And the 
 wonder to me is that Don has never talked more about him; 
 for I really believe it is partly that man s influence that has 
 intereste ! Don so much in this life out here. Oh, you needn t 
 smile, Mr. Donald I do. The Pagan is peculiar among 
 all the others, and Don is attracted by peculiar things." 
 
 "Hence " And Mr. Donald s eyes twinkled at her 
 quizzically. 
 
 " Hence nothing of the sort," she retorted. " I am not 
 at all peculiar. I am just one of the ruttiest of the people 
 who always drive their wheel of life through the ruts. If I 
 were rich, I would be one of the fashionable rich; not being 
 so, I try to skirmish up some very thin substitute for talent, 
 and flout a little at life outside of the enchanted circle of 
 art. But " and she laughed frankly in Miss Lottie s 
 reproving face " it is all make believe. I am only bored 
 by my own attempts. The ladder to fame is always so 
 slippery, icy and then it is so lonesome. I have lived too 
 long, and learned so many things that are much nicer. I 
 like the crowds of living people to study, not the books on 
 anatomy. I like men modern men better than all the 
 masterpieces of antique copies. I prefer handsome ones, 
 but have found many ugly ones who know how to make 
 themselves charming. If possible, I like two at a time 
 within calling distance, and one of the two generally within 
 whispering distance. And I m not so peculiar, either, as 
 vour looks would seem to indicate."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 275 
 
 My dear! " 
 
 " Thank you, Auntie; you said that as if you meant it." 
 
 The lame senior was doing his best to frown on her, but 
 did not quite succeed. 
 
 " Does is your future husband acquainted with those 
 final views of yours? " he inquired, blandly. 
 
 " N-no, I reckon not, as the mountaineers say; for " And 
 she glanced at the pair of them. She read in their eyes the 
 lecture they both intended reading her; she knew there was 
 to be a lecture on another subject meted out, so why not 
 have them both at once. To be sure, Don ought to be there 
 too and get his share, but she had shoulders broad enough 
 to bear it all; and with a wicked sense of delight, she added: 
 " For, to tell the truth, my future husband is yet to enter 
 the alas! slim lists for my hand; he has not as yet mate 
 rialized." 
 
 11 Dinah, dear!" 
 
 " Why, Don" 
 
 " Oh, Don? " and her laugh was not in the least affected. 
 "You did not suppose that little farce of ours was earnest, 
 did you? My dear Mr. Donald, I would like you immensely 
 as an uncle, but I can t undertake to make Don miserable 
 for life, even for that selfish gain." 
 
 The desirable uncle seemed to expand and enlarge with 
 indignation that threatened to be explosive; with one rush 
 of his fingers his hair stood on end. With a preparatory 
 ahem! he turned square on the rebel the lightning of his 
 glance, and as suddenly collapsed again. 
 
 Miss Lottie had looked at him. Not with a look of ire 
 that had defeated his, but with the prettiest pleading glance 
 imaginable; and he retreated; he changed his line of battle. 
 
 " Do you know, young lady, what a broken engagement 
 now may mean to Don? " 
 
 " It will break his heart, Dinah."
 
 276 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 " It will do nothing of the sort," contradicted Dinah. 
 " His heart is entirely too elastic, and he s had too much 
 experience. Bless you both! he would have gone like a 
 martyr to the altar if he thought anybody s happiness was 
 at stake, and been bored to death with the whole business. 
 That is just what ails the boy, he has been bored to death 
 with too many girls like me; that is the reason why he leaps 
 into the primitive sea of life out here with so much zest, 
 and takes to pagans as to bosom friends. Just the want of 
 some unusual element in life that we are too worldly to 
 contribute." 
 
 " Well, if he wants the unusual " and the senior s glance 
 completed the sentence. 
 
 " Oh, but you are mistaken there! " she insisted. " I am 
 not unusual at all, unless it has been in not falling in love 
 with him girls generally do; and he can sing." 
 
 " But, Dinah, the entire arrangement " 
 
 " Is settled," laughed Dinah. " I told him last nighl I 
 was tired of being engaged, and he " 
 
 " What did he say? " demanded his uncle. 
 
 "Well, he kissed me to begin with," she confessed " the 
 kiss, you know, that he did not give me that day when you 
 settled us for life; and then he congratulated me on my 
 good sense." 
 
 The two match-makers looked at each other in dismay 
 and blushes. Miss Lottie did the blushing blushing for 
 the blushless frankness of the girl who left them not a shred 
 of sentiment to hope on. 
 
 " I don t see why you ever let the curtain go up on the 
 farce," remarked the senior, grimly. 
 
 " I hadn t anything to do with it. You and Auntie had it 
 all so beautifully arranged for us, neither of us had time to 
 say our hearts were our own. But it is all right, after all. 
 Don is wedded to the woods, and I well, I ll marry the
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 277 
 
 next man asks me, if you want a wedding so badly. But " 
 and she edged toward the door " Don and I are not the 
 only marriageable people in the two families, and you need 
 a guardian angel quite as badly as your nephew." 
 
 And with that last shot she vanished fairly ran from 
 the room, and almost into the arms of a gentleman named 
 March who astonished her by rising from the rustic seat 
 outside the window. 
 
 " Oh ! you ve come back," she remarked, lamely. 
 
 " None too soon, I suspect;" and he frovvningly shook 
 hands and held her at arm s-length. " Pretty goings on I 
 heard of while trying to get a moment s rest there ! What 
 sort of an account have you to render up for the season ? " 
 
 " The season is not over yet/ she answered, demurely. 
 
 " Yours is; you have done enough mischief. Society 
 needs a protection against such greed as yours. I am will 
 ing to shield it by offering to be one of the gentlemen 
 within call for the rest of my life. I will also see that the 
 other gentleman does not get within whispering distance." 
 
 " You would have to be clever," she laughed. 
 
 " I will be. The reputation of our family will depend 
 on it." 
 
 " I declare, you can be just as disagreeable as ever." 
 
 " Quite. Will you marry me ? " 
 
 " You haven t had supper yet, have you ? " she asked. 
 
 "No; that has nothing to do with this question." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it has; you think you want a wife, but it is 
 really a cook. You think it is your heart that is empty, 
 and it is only your stomach." 
 
 " Excuse me, but I have not said a word about my 
 heart." 
 
 " It is time you did, then," she whispered; and the rest of 
 the interview drifted so far from their usual cynicism that 
 even their chronicler has no business on the veranda.
 
 278 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 But however sentimental their drift, the prosaic ending of 
 it was supper the daintiest of little suppers, such as 
 Dinah s genius was given to evolving, even in the face of 
 the cook s statement that there was not a bite to be had. 
 But there was, several bites, and it took a ridiculously long 
 tin\e to finish them; so long that Miss Lottie, arousing her 
 self to a remembrance of the world, said, blushing and 
 embarrassed: 
 
 " Where do you suppose Dinah is ? It is surely a long 
 time since she left us." 
 
 For in the most unaccountable way time had stopped up 
 there on the summit that night; the rest of the world had 
 seemingly drifted into the valley anyway, it was far off, 
 and time, for a little while, had stood still with the seniors. 
 It had even rolled back almost thirty years of it. 
 
 " Just so much of living lost ! " said the man, leaning 
 over and taking her hand. " Lottie, suppose I had spoken 
 that winter ? No, you could not have trusted me then. 
 She had just died, and you knew too much of that weak 
 ness. And then then I wandered far afield until guardian 
 angels gave me a wide berth; and all the time Lottie, how 
 did that girl guess what I need? I know I never dared 
 grind a hope out of my loneliness." 
 
 Miss Lottie, tremulous, and fearfully happy, shook her 
 head. 
 
 " I am sure I don t know. What in the world will we say 
 to her and to Don ? It seems so " 
 
 "Much as it should be," he completed; "and say, 
 Lottie, couldn t you manage to give me one smile without 
 tears in your eyes ? " 
 
 Evidently she succeeded, from the low, grateful word of 
 endearment that ended so hastily as the door opened and 
 the missing cause of their present relations entered. 
 
 " Am I forgiven ? " she inquired, peeping in. " For I
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 879 
 
 have brought a visitor, and if I am in disgrace, I will con 
 tinue to talk to him out here." 
 
 But Miss Lottie had recognized the face in the hall. 
 
 "Not when it is Mr. March," she declared; and Mr. 
 March was welcomed forthwith. The contagion of happi 
 ness was in the air, and the quartette had gathered a 
 comfort unto themselves that ignored even the heat that 
 yet enveloped the heights. 
 
 " Something unheard-of at this season," stated the senior. 
 " The oldest of the natives say it would be thought extreme 
 even in July, and here is the hunting-season almost 
 upon us." 
 
 " That is what brought me back," remarked Mr. March. 
 " I saw these forests in May, and felt sure there would be 
 something in them worth hunting in October, so I worked 
 like a Turk all summer to be rich enough to allow myself 
 the indulgence." 
 
 " Ah ! you belong to the wise, far-seeing heads of the 
 new generation," smiled the older man. "You arrange 
 your desires and earn your holidays before you claim them. 
 I never did that, I fear. I was unfortunate in not having 
 to. Dinah, here, was telling me the other day I had 
 handed down the same misfortune to Don, and handi 
 capped him for use by too much leisure." 
 
 " Yes, you have," decided that young lady. " He is try 
 ing to blunder his way out of it now in spite of you, and 
 make himself of use in the world." 
 
 " You young people make my head swim when I try to 
 understand you. How is it with you, Miss Lottie ? Now 
 in my day the poor people were busy getting bread and 
 butter, the rich ones were busy having a good time, and 
 none of them bothered their heads over schemes for the 
 improvement of the world, and theories for individual
 
 280 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 usefulness, and all that sort of thing; the older folks and 
 the preachers were left to wrangle over those." 
 
 " That is the reason why the new generation work them 
 selves into fits of nervous prostration now. You never 
 heard of that complaint in your day, either, did you ? But 
 you see they exhaust themselves to make amends for the 
 slothfulness of their fathers and uncles." 
 
 He only laughed at her significant addition. 
 
 " I wonder if that is what has impelled your pagan to 
 preach on the other mountain ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " and Mr. March turned with a look of innocent 
 inquiry to Miss Dinah " is the other one of the gentlemen 
 within call a pagan ? " 
 
 " No I don t know; that is, I would not know what to 
 call him. I am not posted on creeds and shades of creeds. 
 They call him a pagan, but he is an odd one, and self- 
 taught, they say, in both his faiths and unfaiths. I do wish, 
 Mr. March, you had been with Don and me to-day and 
 heard him once yourself." 
 
 " Preaching? " 
 
 " Hardly that; just talking. Afterward, one of the 
 neighbors was commenting on it at the farm-house where I 
 was, and airing his opinion of regular preachers. The 
 verdict of the lot seemed to be that the sort of person they 
 want here again is the sort that can scare the unrighteous 
 with proofs of a personal devil a real red-fire hades, and 
 undoubted eternal damnation. Just think of them object 
 ing to the person they have because he does not frighten 
 them! They have evidently had discourses on hades in 
 the past until this one stray has been driven into heathen 
 dom by it, or into a queer mongrel creed of his own, where 
 he peems to stand alone; and, by the way, it is the very 
 man who acted blacksmith for you that time the man you 
 said had character, or something, in his face."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 281 
 
 " I remember. So you have found a bit of interest up 
 here? Tell me of him." 
 
 "I don t know enough," she answered; "and part that I 
 do is memory of Don s. You know what he looks like; 
 and then imagine him asserting, with the greatest rever 
 ence for Christ as a teacher, that every son of earth is also 
 as much a son of God as that One was; that we have, 
 through some personal original sin of our own, dropped 
 down from our inheritance and the memory of it; that this 
 life is a sort of school. We are transmigratory souls, pun 
 ished by being driven back to earth again and again, until 
 we school ourselves to the state of perfection required for 
 the highest life, or, commonly speaking, heaven. Now 
 there is the frame-work of it, I believe. But some of his 
 remarks would send an orthodox person into spasms. The 
 people, I think, both like him and dread him. No one doubts 
 that he is possessed by the devil. But are not those ideas 
 the strangest to crop out in an uneducated creature in the 
 very midst of a community where everybody believes lit 
 erally all the gospel teachings? " 
 
 " That an uneducated man should drift into those theo 
 ries is strange, though the theories themselves are not so, 
 and are certainly not new. You could pick .each one of 
 them out from different old half-forgotten religions, 
 chiefly Oriental ones; but where did he get them? Who 
 is he? " 
 
 " Just a mountaineer. Folks say he got his education 
 in the timber and out of the Bible. How much would you 
 and I know with only those chances of study? The people 
 he lived with could not even read. His speech is crude, but 
 it is the ideas that struck me as peculiar. I am sorry you 
 will not get to see him you would have him analyzed and 
 classed in an hour; but he is going away. He prepared 
 for a trip from the mountain just like people did for a rail-
 
 282 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 road ride in early days made his will, settled his estate, 
 etc. Don is to be executor, I fancy, since he gave me the 
 papers to bring home for him. There they are;" and she 
 picked up the packet of papers that lay beside her riding- 
 gloves on the table. " Not a formidable-looking lot, 
 though there is one that has the yellow of several summers 
 and much smoke. Oh, how careless! " 
 
 Balancing them aloft, they slipped. The cord had 
 become loosened, and when they reached the floor it was in 
 scattered bits. 
 
 " The Pagan may have uncanny powers, but not over a 
 pen," she laughed, seeing the sprawled writing that marked 
 some of the papers; " but this, see how different it is like 
 a copper-plate engraving, and is on that old one, too." 
 
 She held up for March s notice the yellowed envelope, 
 evidently a deed, inventory, or some such record of former 
 legalities. 
 
 " It is beautifully done," he agreed. " Is this his 
 name? " 
 
 "Read it, and I ll tell you," she said, busily seeking 
 among a box of scraps for some tape that would make more 
 secure bandage for the letters. 
 
 " From Jacques Lennardto " 
 
 "What is that?" demanded the senior, suddenly. 
 "Jacques Lennard! How is it spelled? " 
 
 Mr. March handed him the envelope, while Dinah turned 
 around in frank surprise. 
 
 "Just enlighten us, won t you? " she asked. " That last 
 break of yours was quite theatrical. Is it a long-lost cred 
 itor? " 
 
 But the senior was plainly not in a jesting mood. He 
 turned to Miss Lottie. 
 
 " You remember me speaking of him, surely. Jacques 
 Lennard, a Southerner. A brilliant, ambitious fellow I
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 283 
 
 met in Mexico. There is no mistake. I d know the writing 
 anywhere. And to think to think that he is exiled out here 
 in these mountains; and yet Look here," he added, sud 
 denly, to Dinah, " he can t possibly be the man you call 
 the Pagan. Why, this man seemed, to my ignorance, to 
 have all the learning of the universe at his fingers ends. 
 Knew a half-dozen forgotten tongues better than I know 
 English. His mother had been of some Asiatic race. He 
 knew all the minerals in the earth and all the stars in the 
 sky. That can t be your tinker or blacksmith." 
 
 "No, it can not." And Dinah reached for the paper. "But 
 you did not read it all. From Jacques Lennard, for his son, 
 Anton Lennard. The Mountain, 1864. " 
 
 "Son? I never heard of his marriage. He just 
 dropped out of my knowledge during the war. But I would 
 have been less surprised to hear of him turning up as a 
 ruler over Egypt, or as a writer of some poem that would 
 startle the world, than to hear of him located in this 
 region; yet we used to talk of it yes, the last time I 
 saw him, just before the war. I had made a trip out here 
 my last one until now and was telling all about this 
 out-of-the- world corner. Well, well! and to think that he 
 has been living in the very place that seemed to me then 
 uninhabitable." 
 
 Dinah, glancing down the paper, noted writing in the 
 less-practiced hand along the end of it, and handed it to 
 him in silence. 
 
 "Jacques Lennard died on the mountain September, 1865." 
 
 " This other Lennard, the one we know, is his son, then," 
 she said. " What a son from such a father! " 
 
 " I will see him to-morrow, if I have to be carried across 
 to the mountain on a stretcher," decided the senior. " To 
 think I ve heard that man spoken of day after day and 
 never thought to ask if he had any name but the Pagao
 
 284 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 the Pagan! I don t know myself what poor Jacques 
 was in religion. His ideas in all things were too far in 
 advance of me for me to measure him; but we were great 
 friends those two years in the South and now, after more 
 than thirty, I run across his track out here. Well, well! it 
 only proves how small the world is, after all." 
 
 " I should say it proved more than that," ventured Mr. 
 March, who had been listening intently. "To anyone 
 interested in the study of transmitted traits, what a subject 
 in this unlearned fellow groping for the knowledge 
 through doubts, and arriving at conclusions like those you 
 spoke of through the feelings, when the intellect was im 
 prisoned; struggling through ignorance toward the light, 
 and urged on by that blood or brain of scholarship inher 
 ited. Why, I tell you, the idea grows on me, takes posses 
 sion of me. You will not be the only one willing to see 
 that pagan to-morrow. Pagan! Queer paganism! That 
 is just what is a little more curious to me than all the rest. 
 How, without any influence of learning but what the forest 
 gives, he should have grasped just those primitive instincts 
 of the earliest Eastern religions. Well, I do hope, Miss 
 Dinah, you have kept that promised note-book of the char 
 acters you met out here, and that you will give me 
 glimpses of the pages devoted to this unconscious disciple 
 of Budd." 
 
 Dinah looked up wonderingly from the final binding of 
 the papers. 
 
 " Why, that is the man himself Bud ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " It is a nickname, you know," she explained. " They 
 give it to boys, sometimes I never knew why; but he 
 was one of the boys." 
 
 That night the new-comer and Miss Dinah, well con-
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 285 
 
 tented with their world, dreamed dreams and told them to 
 each other, as a man and woman will sometimes, each so 
 sure that the veranda had never before been visited with 
 quite so much of bliss. 
 
 " And it is somewhere over on that shadowy peak that 
 Don is?" he remarked, with a sort of commiseration for 
 any man less rapturously situated than himself. " Do you 
 suppose he is going to forsake the world entirely and 
 locate there? " 
 
 " That s the question that troubles the senior. Don is 
 taking to his punishment so much more kindly than he has 
 to many a dearly bought pleasure; and then," she added, 
 laughing, " there is such a pretty girl over the mountain." 
 
 " Really? " 
 
 " Really, she is pretty." 
 
 " Does that account for his generosity in releasing a 
 pretty one on this side of the mountain? " 
 
 "I don t know perhaps, No, it does not, either; he is 
 naturally generous. In fact, Don Edson s friendship is 
 worth more to a girl than many a man s love." 
 
 "Oh! " And the intonation spoke volumes. 
 
 "But you are not one of the many men not yet," 
 she laughed. "But I have grown to like him greatly of 
 late." 
 
 " Tell me of the pretty girl," he suggested; but Dinah 
 shook her head. 
 
 " No, I think not. Wait until you see her, and then I ll 
 listen to your telling. It is not fair to Don for me to tattle 
 on mere supposition. I wish you would tell me if that is a 
 cloud away down there, or only one of the southern mount 
 ains looming up dark on the horizon." 
 
 "A cloud, surely; and the wind seems rising. Are you 
 afraid of the storms up here? " 
 
 "No; but let us go in. I don t want our first evening
 
 ^86 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 \ merr jry of watching clouds, for clouds can mean a heap 
 In this- region. One cloud this summer has made me nerv 
 ous e. /ery time I see one creeping over the peaks. To 
 night I want to look the other way across the valley 
 Vhere the moonlight lies, and there is scarcely a shadow. 
 That is better, is it not? Come, let us go in." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A NIGHT AND A DAWNING. 
 
 Had they waited a little longer, they might have seen 
 rising another cloud, and from the very quarter where the 
 moon s rays had left so few shadows a great funnel- 
 shaped cloud that crept up black over the mists, and then 
 the wind arose and dragged it back and forth until, over 
 the other mountain, a solitary storm seemed raging; and 
 every now and then there would gleam through its dark 
 ness bright flashes, as of lightning that leaped from the 
 earth. For a forest fire had broken loose on the mountain. 
 The origin of it is still a mystery, unless one accept the 
 popular idea that the regions of brimstone and sulphur 
 had somewhere an opening in that vicinity for the accom 
 modation of Bud and Granny, and that out of it had leaped 
 the scourge. Anyway, its wildest revels were along the 
 ghost-walked Ledge, and from there a hurry-scurry of 
 swift feet pattered over the dry leaves. Things winged 
 and things four-footed were joining in a grand stampede 
 for some unsinged harbor. 
 
 They came bounding and fluttering as if carried before 
 some low wind that hugged the earth. The wings of some 
 blinded, frightened thing flapped in the face of Don, who
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 287 
 
 was walking alone on one of the " flats," high up above 
 the forge ravine. 
 
 He could not have told how long he had been there, or 
 why he stayed; only wherever he would go out of the 
 timber he was likely to meet people talk to them, perhaps, 
 and solitude seemed better. He told himself people made 
 him tired. He had told Mr. Keesy the same thing when 
 that person had met him on the forge road with the sur 
 prising statement that the lower regions had yielded up 
 old Moll again (no longer poor Mollie of past recollection). 
 
 But the news cut him loose from present promises 
 regarding the suspected man; even in the midst of the 
 havoc which the heat was making with his head he remem 
 bered that and felt relieved. 
 
 And the sun went down, and took the heat with it that 
 is, took it from every other corner of the mountain except 
 the share that persisted in throbbing through his own brain. 
 
 The stars carn/e out, and the wind arose a trifle; and still 
 he stayed there. Sometimes he lay prone, with the smell 
 of the leaves in his face; sometimes he tried to review the 
 days past and analyze their effect, not only on his own 
 feelings, but to try and apply remembered bits to two other 
 lives there, and account in that way for present results. 
 Sometimes and those times often enough to revolutionize 
 Krin s high faith in him sometimes he swore. The male 
 dictions, however, were not directed to anyone outside a 
 select order of fools an order to which his remarks inti 
 mated that he belonged. 
 
 He was passing his time in that way, and getting some 
 physical exercise at the same time by tramping back and 
 forward, when that fugitive bird awakened him to the real 
 ization that things were moving in the forest. And his 
 horse neighed to him a warning or a protest. 
 
 "There are some ideas," he remarked, in confidential
 
 288 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 apology, as he untied the animal and led him out through 
 the nearest cut to the road "there are some ideas that 
 make a fool of a man, to the extent of forgetting horse- 
 feed. I ve been one of that sort to-day, and you have not 
 had a bite since breakfast. Hard lines on you to have 
 such a rider. But there are some knocks, fortunately, that 
 a man don t get every day of his life not more than once in 
 six months, say. So you needn t be afraid of this develop 
 ing into a steady thing. I may yet reform. " 
 
 The horse whinnied low at the sound of his voice, as 
 if willing to accept the dubious promise; but his persist 
 ence in pulling back as if unwilling to follow was a thing 
 to try his master s patience. 
 
 " He acts as he did that other night when we got lost," he 
 thought " that other night when " But he stopped 
 there. A man can t reform if he clings to old weaknesses; 
 and at a word one had awakened the ghost that had smiled 
 on him over the laurels that night that had passed with 
 him through the twilight to the road, and the chasm be 
 tween them always the charm! 
 
 All at once the wind that was now creaking through the 
 trees brought him the strong smell of the smoke, account 
 ing in a flash for the frightened things of the forest, and 
 even the reluctant steps of the horse, that wanted to go the 
 other way. 
 
 A forest fire! He had heard dire tales of their ravages, 
 of the overpowering force of them, when let loose on the 
 mountains; but with the leaves yet green 
 
 Then he remembered hearing them say that the woods 
 were dry enough for fire. The smoke was already darken 
 ing the woods, and clouds lay low on the mountain, while 
 afar off he heard from time to time the roll of thunder that 
 threatened a storm. 
 
 He heard something more than that voices that came
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 289 
 
 up from the basin below. People made him tired, he said, 
 yet he was just inconsistent enough to be rather pleased 
 than otherwise at that sound of humanity. They might 
 help him get his bearings, and find the nearest way out, 
 for glimpses of the fire were coming to him now across the 
 timbered valley. It was in the direct path by which he had 
 reached his haven of rest, and it was moving in two direc 
 tions. It looked like a traveling branch of hades, and sharp 
 reports like explosions came from the shifting flames; yet 
 through it all he heard those voices. Then hurrying as 
 best he could, his arm was wrenched by the horse he was 
 leading suddenly leaping aside with a snort of terror. 
 
 Was it a ghost he saw? Don felt himself grow cold as his 
 eyes rested on a pale face that shone from out the shadows. 
 The moon, whose gleams were growing more fitful, yet gave 
 some light, and its whiteness lent an added spectral likeness 
 to the apparition. 
 
 Was it, then, Dick s ghost that walked the Ledge? Don 
 asked himself the question in one swift terror-touched 
 instant; the next he had jumped forward with outstretched 
 hand. 
 
 "You scoundrel! " 
 
 Dick s ghost tried to wriggle free, but failed. Don s 
 fright seemed to give him added strength. 
 
 " Look here, now," objected his prisoner, " what you 
 raisin Cain about? You hain t any need to let on you 
 didn t know. It was you took us the notice." 
 
 " The notice?" His fingers relaxed now that the reality 
 of the figure was established. 
 
 "Yes, the notice down to the Ledge the notice to tote 
 Granny home, an all." 
 
 "Oh!" He looked at the fugitive contemplatively. 
 "Then it s been you all along! It s been you that has 
 frightened that poor girl half to death. You, who ought 
 
 19
 
 290 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 to be taking care of her instead of leaving her like this to 
 to the worst of troubles." 
 
 "Pshaw! She s all right," said Dick, with his elegant 
 air of unconcern. " Her an the young one, too. I ve 
 heerd of them all the time." 
 
 "Well, you ll do more than hear now," said the other, 
 grimly. " You ll go down there to Riker s this night and 
 let her know you re alive. If she ll go with you, you can 
 leave here and make a living for her where folks don t know 
 you. She sha n t be worried another day like this. Good 
 God! man, you don t know the harm you have done; but 
 now you ve got to look after her." 
 
 The lips, sneering and supercilious, as of old, curled in an 
 ugly way at the command in the tone. Dick had never 
 been used to commands. 
 
 " Tears to me," he said, with watchful, insulting slowness, 
 "that most o the men on this here mountain are oneasy 
 about my woman bein looked after. May be, now, you d like 
 to take the job off my hands an look after her yourself." 
 
 And then there was a quick blow, and the sneering lips 
 were silenced. Was it forever? As Don turned the face over 
 with no gentle hand he thought it must be so. 
 
 " You hain t any call to worry," said the serious tones of 
 Bud, that startled Don as much as the ghost had done. 
 " He took his chance o life in his hand when he said that; 
 the rest is his lookout. Come, leave him. He s got a 
 friend hiding in the brush there; he ll see to him. I was 
 following them when I saw the fire; but there ain t 
 time to bother with them now, for the fire s a traveling 
 traveling fast." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 That was all. He looked at the man on the ground 
 her husband and at the man standing there the one she 
 loved, and felt no further surprise at anything said or done.
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 291 
 
 " Well, if it keeps on to the south it ll reach the forge and 
 the cabin. That man ain t dead " and he bent over him a 
 moment " so let him be if you re coming along. She ll be 
 about wild. She s always dreadful scared o forest fires." 
 
 Don was leading his horse past that heap on the ground. 
 
 " Who is? " he asked. 
 
 "Why, Corinny." 
 
 "It won t cross the run to Riker s." He wondered slightly 
 at his own calmness, apathy almost. His voice sounded in 
 his own ears many tones lower than his usual speech. 
 After that one outburst to Dick, words grew scarce. 
 
 " She ain t at Riker s, she s up to the cabin again, her an 
 Granny. That s what Becky Ann told me. And the fire 
 is like to get there. I ll take a short cut across, whilst you 
 tie your beast somewhere in safety. I ll start a fire above 
 their house to fight the big one with, and as soon as you 
 can get there you d better come. To fight a fire takes work." 
 
 The strangeness of Don s silence must have touched Bud, 
 for he turned and looked at him questioningly. 
 
 " You ve trouble at your heart to-night," he said, kindly; 
 " an I reckon I ve helped make it, not intending. I d never 
 spoke if I d thought him alive. But would you mind say 
 ing you don t bear grudge for for anything, and will you 
 shake hands on it? " 
 
 Don reached out his hand without a word. 
 
 " I ll remember that when I m gone," said Bud; " and 
 may be you will too, and be glad." 
 
 When the horse was safely hidden on the opposite side 
 of the little brook and his owner hurried back for that short 
 cut to the cabin, the fire had been before him. It had 
 blocked with blazing sentinels all access from the bluff. 
 To attempt fighting through it was impossible, to circle it 
 seemed equally so. There was only one thing he could 
 think of to do, and that was to fire against it. He had a
 
 292 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 wild, hopeless sort of hope that the line of quick flame that 
 had blown along the bluff was only a narrow one, a wedge 
 driven by the wind into the standing timber, and that on 
 the other side the wall the cabin still stood safe on the 
 rocks, and that Bud had reached it in time; and then there, 
 he and Krin 
 
 Something from behind struck him a blow that put an 
 end to conjecture, and with the vision of those leaping 
 flames overpowering him he sunk into unconsciousness. 
 
 When he awoke it was with the feel of the rain in his 
 face. That cloud Dinah had espied on the south range 
 was not an empty one; a storm had raged under it, one of 
 wind as well as rain, for a tree uprooted by it lay broken 
 but a" few rods from him. It had left its track on the 
 mountain, and it had conquered its rival, the fire. He had 
 lain there under it for hours. Its last shower had aroused 
 him. 
 
 The dawn was breaking, softly and sleepily, and the 
 birds, reassured, were sending up greetings to the morning 
 star; the others were paling one by one, slipping into their 
 sheaths; the last dash of rain had gone by on the last hour 
 of darkness. The night was over. 
 
 He arose, yet dizzy and unsteady, and looked about. 
 All was smoking surlily; a glowing coal could yet be seen 
 in some shadowy place, but the flames were dead. He could 
 get through. He could see what was on the other side. 
 His horse was gone, though he had been careful to fasten 
 it securely. Its absence made him remember that blow on 
 the head explained it. Not caring, he started over the 
 track of the flames. 
 
 Others were evidently creeping out with the creeping 
 dawn. He was high up on the brow of the bluff above the 
 forge road, and sounds floated up, voices of men, but far 
 off, from toward Riker s. Below him, along the gorge,
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 293 
 
 smoke curled up white and blue in wavering little columns; 
 the laurel was blackened and the ferns seared, but below all 
 the stream wound and gurgled no fire from above could 
 check its flow. 
 
 Something whiter than the ashes suddenly came within 
 range of his vision down there. Was it a white paper flutter 
 ing? He told himself so, but lessened none of the fear at his 
 heart by the telling. All the dizziness was forced back as 
 he went down over the wall, slipping along timbers still 
 hot, plunging into beds of coals that left his boots crisped, 
 on down to the level where such a few hours ago poor Krin 
 had sobbed out her unforgivable crime. 
 
 And there he saw her, just below the level where the 
 forge stood. At the very bottom of the steep ravine she 
 lay, with her head on Bud s shoulder white, white with 
 the child stirring whimperingly between them, and raising its 
 pink face sleepily toward those two dead ones. 
 
 The fire had not touched them; the beech that had 
 spanned the chasm, and that now lay smoking and broken 
 below, told the story. His neck was broken; but she 
 
 Opinion varied on the mountain as to the cause of Krin s 
 death. There was no mark or sign of injury. Occult 
 causes were not wanting. Legends of the devil claiming 
 her are yet to be heard. Her friendship for the Pagan had 
 met its own retribution and their entwined arms ! 
 
 The man who found them was the only one who had no 
 opinion to offer. But had Krin in her last twenty-four hours 
 of life grasped the gift of prophecy, that she had leaped to 
 sudden knowledge of how dependent her own existence 
 was on the life of another ? That question came to him as 
 he looked at the peace on her lips, and lifted gently the 
 little one from their cold embrace. 
 
 The voices were coming closer. He carried the child 
 up over the bank, and saw in the shadow of the forge rock
 
 294 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 the face of Granny, as she raised herself up from a sleep 
 on the bench. 
 
 She groaned as she straightened out the lame leg, and 
 looked glad to see him. 
 
 " Lord ! I d be glad to see Old Nick after last night," 
 she confessed. " An you have the young one ? It squalled 
 there for a plum hour, but I couldn t budge. Walk here ? 
 Lord-a-mighty ! no. Bud, he toted me the whole cut; 
 then he went back for Krin. Got her along all right, an 
 the young one, till right there afore my eyes, an then the 
 log went down. It had been burnin* some, I reckon. 
 1 couldn t more n see em for the smoke. Then Krin, she 
 hollered, an that was all. I yelled an yelled to them, but 
 twa n t any good; an* when the young one quit squallin I 
 must a gone asleep." 
 
 Among the 61ite of the neighborhood, opinion ran 
 high as to the laying of heathens inside the palings of a 
 Christian graveyard. The Pagan was utterly tabooed; 
 and since there was. no proof to be had that Krin had 
 even been baptized, and since her conduct in going to the 
 Pagan s house (in the dead of night, said the reporters) 
 was known, and since 
 
 They were laid side by side on the highest point of land 
 on the heathen s homestead. Don heard the comments 
 made, but heeded not at all. The authority of the 
 heathen himself seemed to have passed into his hands. 
 And when the worldlings from the other mountain came 
 over to look in the dead face of the man who had 
 awakened their late interest, they dared not even smile at 
 the incongruous picture of Don laying the babe in Miss 
 Lottie s arms. 
 
 " She is my ward," he said " so the summer has done 
 something for me; I have something to work for."
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 295 
 
 And, as usual, his friends liked him a little bit better for 
 the quixotic whim than for a more practical investment. 
 In fact, Dinah, with a strange look in her eyes, turned 
 from the sleeping face of Krin and kissed him. 
 
 " It is well you got rid of me when you did, and that 
 Ned immediately gobbled me up, or I might have been 
 tempted to marry you, after all, Don," she said, whimsically; 
 " not that you are any different from what you were, only 
 I see you different." 
 
 Among the papers that left him executor, and that left 
 the " Lennard place " to Krin or her children, there was 
 another, bearing the legend: 
 
 "To Corinne when I am dead." 
 
 Don found food for curious conjecture in those few 
 words, and then slipped it under Krin s clasped hands. 
 
 " Are your unspoken secrets known to each other 
 now ? " he said and looked into the inscrutable faces 
 touched by the secret of death " they and the mystery of 
 life itself ? Could you now, if you chose, tell me why our 
 lives should have become entangled ? for some plan of 
 good that is yet to be ? But you leave me without a clew 
 to its direction only the child the child, and a sense of 
 having been close to natures stronger than I guessed; 
 strong in repression of self and in purity of heart. Out of 
 that certainty is any future thing of good to grow ? Is 
 that why I have been the one left I and the child ? " 
 
 What numberless wondering questions have been 
 asked just so above dead faces; and for answer there is 
 only that sense of an unseen presence that tries to soothe, 
 and only chills, and the closed lips seem always to have 
 back of their faint smile the message " Wait." 
 
 A plea of love and loneliness was brought forward by 
 Grandam Le Fevre, in view of compensation for her
 
 296 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 granddaughter; but from ner landlord scant sympathy 
 came. 
 
 "You will get just money enough to leave the State 
 with," he answered, " and you can follow your son and my 
 horse whenever you choose; and if ever either of you cause 
 further annoyance here, I will have him hunted and brought 
 back to trial." 
 
 And Granny took the money. Before the snow fell, she 
 and Bach again disappeared. They have not returned yet, 
 though there are many to believe that she will reappear, 
 as before. Never a native passes her cabin, unless it is 
 unavoidable, and then wary eyes turn to the one door, or 
 the one window, in fearful expectation of seeing her face. 
 
 The ghosts, of course, still abide on the "ha nted" cor 
 ner of the forest; the coffins are still supposed to be 
 carried by the coffinless ones, and lights are still seen 
 along the swamp in the sultry weather. Never do you 
 hear the supposition of their being will-o -the-wisps. It is 
 " jest ole man Le Fevre shut out o hell for cussedness." 
 
 People are not quite sure but the range of the ghosts 
 takes in those two graves where the laurels whisper all the 
 year, and rear their crowns of pink in the spring-time. It is 
 natural to think that a pagan ghost ought to walk, and that 
 even Krin should come back with spectral protest against 
 leaving life in such companionship; but proof absolute of 
 their discontent, there is none. Whatever life they met 
 beyond the death-gate, their allotted time and work on the 
 mountain seem ended; and the prophecies of that pagan 
 second-sight touched some truths strangely, and are still 
 quoted as evidence of the clear sight granted to evil 
 powers. 
 
 But there are two people, at least, on the mountain for 
 whom the evil powers or associations have no fear the 
 child who toddles often with her guardian up to those
 
 A PAGAN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 297 
 
 mounds that are symbols of mysteries, and is carried back 
 on his shoulder into the old home of the Pagan, on one wall 
 of which glows a face of a Daphne a Daphne with the 
 black shadows of the brittle wood back of her, and the 
 pale pink of the blossoms that borrow color from her fair 
 face. 
 
 It was a thing done by Dinah at the last, and hung 
 without a word on the wall of Don s hermitage. 
 
 " You may want it for the child," she said, when he 
 thanked her; "and some day, when she grows old enough 
 to leave you and the nurse, you must remember that 
 Auntie and I stand pledged to her care. In this new life 
 and interest that you find fascinating, you must not let her 
 grow entirely wild, sweet though some of the untaught 
 things may be." 
 
 " Dinah," said her fiance", turning for a last look over 
 the valley the morning of their departure for the world 
 of people over the Ligonier and the guardian mountains, 
 where nothing ever happens "Dinah, in all this turmoil of 
 the fire, and Don turning into a fatherly granger, I had 
 forgotten all about that pretty girl you said he had some 
 where across there. Were you afraid she would steal my 
 affections if you brought her in sight?" 
 
 But his sweetheart had no light retort; she only clasped 
 his hand a little closer a little more fondly. 
 
 "You won t ever see her, Ned; and when we corce out 
 here for the summers, you must never say even a word 
 before Don of that fancy of mine; for, after all, it was only 
 a fancy." 
 
 THE END.
 
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