 1 She sat at the base of the big tree. Her little son Bonnet pushed back. Her arms locked about her knees. Her bare feet gathered under her crimson gown, and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below. Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been steep. And now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. The mountains ran in limitless blue waves towards the mounting sun. But at birth her eyes had opened on them, as on the white mists trailing up the steeps below her. Beyond them was a gap in the next mountain chain, and down in the little valley just visible through it were trailing blue mists as well, and she knew that they were smoke. Where was the great glare of yellow light that the circuit rider had told about, and the leaping tongues of fire? Where was the shrieking monster that ran without horses like the wind, and tossed back rolling black plumes all streaked with fire? For many days now she had heard stories of the furriners who had come into those hills, and were doing strange things down there. And so at last she had climbed up through the dewy morning from the cove on the other side to see the wonders for herself. She had never been up there before. She had no business there now, and if she were found out when she got back she would get a scolding and maybe something worse from her stepmother, and all that trouble and risk for nothing but smoke. So she lay back and rested, her little mouth tightening fiercely. It was a big world, though, that was spread before her, and a vague awe of it seized her straight way, and held her motionless and dreaming. Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills, beyond the blue smoke drifting in the valley, those limitless blue waves must run under the sun on and on to the end of the world. Her dead sister had gone into that far silence, and had brought back wonderful stories of that outer world. And she began to wonder more than ever before whether she would ever go into it and see for herself what was there. With the thought, she rose slowly to her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that dropped sheer ten feet aside from the trail, and stood there like a great scarlet flower in still air. There was the way at her feet. That path that coiled under the cliff and ran down loop by loop through majestic oak and poplar and masses of rhododendron. She drew a long breath and stirred uneasily. She'd better go home now. But the path had a snake-like charm for her, and still she stood, following it as far down as she could with her eyes. Then it went, writhing this way and that, to a spur that had been swept bare by forest fires. Along this spur it travelled straight for a while, and as her eyes eagerly followed it to where it sank sharply into a cupboard of maples, the little creature dropped of a sudden to the ground, and like something wild lay flat. A human figure had filled the leafy mouth that swallowed up the trail, and it was coming towards her. With a thumping heart she pushed slowly forward through the brush until her face, fox-like with cunning and screamed by a blueberry bush, hung just over the edge of the cliff. And there she lay, like a crouched panther-cub looking down. For a moment all that was human seemed gone from her eyes. But as she watched all that was lost came back to them, and something more. She had seen that it was a man, but she had dropped so quickly that she did not see the big black horse that unlead was following him. Now both man and horse had stopped. The stranger had taken off his gray slouched hat, and he was wiping his face with something white. Something blue was tied loosely about his throat. She had never seen a man like that before. His face was smooth and looked different, as did his throat and his hands. His breeches were tight, and on his feet were strange boots that were the color of his saddle, which was deep in seat, high both in front and behind, and had strange long- hooded stirrups. Starting to mount, the man stopped with one foot in the stirrup and raised his eyes towards her so suddenly that she shrank back again, with a quicker throbbing at her heart and pressed closer to the earth. Still, seen or not seen, flight was easy for her, so she could not forbear to look again. Apparently he had seen nothing, only that the next turn of the trail was too steep to ride, and so he started walking again, and his walk, as he strode along the path, was new to her, as was the erect way with which he held his head and his shoulders. In her wonder over him, she almost forgot herself, forgot to wonder where he was going and why he was coming into those lonely hills, until, as his horse turned a bend of the trail, she saw hanging from the other side of the saddle, something that looked like a gun. He was a raider, that man. So cautiously and swiftly then, she pushed herself back from the edge of the cliff, sprang to her feet, dashed past the big tree, and winged with fear sped down the mountain, leaving in a spot of sunlight at the base of the pine, the print of one bare foot in the black earth. CHAPTER 2 OF THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE by John Fox Jr. CHAPTER II He had seen the big pine when he first came to those hills, one morning at daybreak, when the valley was a sea of mist that threw soft clinging spray to the very mountaintops. For even above the mists, that morning, its mighty head arose, sole visible proof that the earth still slept beneath. Straight way, he wondered how it had ever got there, so far above the few of its kind that haunted the green dark ravines far below. Some whirlwind, doubtless, had sent a tiny cone circling heavenward and dropped it there. It had sent others, too, no doubt. But how had this tree faced wind and storm alone, lived to defy both so proudly? Someday he would learn. Thereafter he had seen it at noon, but little less majestic among the oaks that stood about it. Had seen it catching the last light at sunset, clean cut against the afterglow, and like a dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the moon. He had seen it giving place with somber dignity to the passing burst of spring. Had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the gray of winter trees, and still green in a shroud of snow. A changeless promise that the earth must wake to life again. The lonesome pine, the mountaineers called it, and the lonesome pine it always looked to be. From the beginning it had a curious fascination for him, and straight way within him, half-exile that he was, there sprang up a sympathy for it, as for something that was human and a brother. And now he was on the trail of it at last. From every point that morning it had seemed almost to knot down to him as he climbed, and when he reached the ledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the winds murmured among its needles like a welcoming voice. At once he saw the secret of its life. On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms until its trunk had shot upward so far and so straight and so strong that its green crown could lift itself on and on and bend, blow what might, as proudly and securely as a lily on its stalk in a morning breeze. Dropping his bridal rain he put one hand against it as though on the shoulder of a friend. Old man, he said, you must be pretty lonesome up here, and I'm glad to meet you. For a while he sat against it, resting. He had no particular purpose that day, no particular destination. His saddle-bags were across the cantile of his cowboy saddle. His fishing rod was tied under one flap. He was young and his own master. Time was hanging heavy on his hands that day, and he loved the woods and the nooks and crannies of them where his own kind rarely made its way. Beyond, the cove looked dark, forbidding, mysterious, and what was beyond he did not know. So down there he would go. As he bent his head forward to rise, his eye caught the spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it with a smile. In the black earth was a human footprint, too small in slender for the foot of a man, a boy, or a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible, wider apart, and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She was the crimson flash that he saw as he started up the steep and mistook for a flaming bush of sumac. She had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling he rose to his feet. The laurel and rhododendron still reeked with dew in the deep-evershaded ravine. The ferns drenched his stirrups as he brushed through them, and each dripping treetop broke the sunlight and let it drop in tent-like beams through the shimmering undermist. A bird flashed here and there through the green gloom, but there was no sound in the air but the footfalls of his horse and the easy creaking of leather under him. The drip of dew overhead and the running of water below. Now and then he could see the same slender footprints in the rich loam, and he saw them in the sand where the first tiny brook tinkled across the path from a gloomy ravine. There the little creature had taken a flying leap across it, and beyond he could see the prints no more. He little guessed that while he halted to let his horse drink, the girl lay on a rock above him, looking down. She was nearer home now, and was less afraid, so she had slipped from the trail and climbed above it there to watch him pass. As he went on, she slid from her perch and with cat-footed quiet followed him. When he reached the river, she saw him pull in his horse and eagerly bent forward, looking into a pool just below the crossing. There was a bass down there in the clear water, a big one, and the man whistled cheerily and dismounted, tying his horse to a sassapras bush and unbuckling a tin bucket and a curious-looking net from his saddle. With the net in one hand and the bucket in the other, he turned back up the creek and passed so close to where she had slipped aside into the bushes that she came near shrieking, but his eyes were fixed on a pool of the creek above, and to her wonder he strolled straight into the water with his boots on, pushing the net in front of him. He was a raider, sure, she thought now, and he was looking for a moonshine still, and the wild little thing in the bushes smiled cunningly. There was no still up that creek, and as he had left his horse below and his gun, she waited for him to come back, which he did by and by, dripping and soaked to his knees. Then she saw him untie the queer gun on his saddle, pull it out of the case, and her eyes got big with wonder, take it to pieces, and make it into a long limber rod. In a moment he had cast a minnow into the pool and waded out into the water up to his hips. She had never seen so queer a fishing pole, so queer a fisherman. How could he get a fish out with that little switch, she thought contemptuously? By and by something hummed queerly, the man gave a slight jerk, and a shining fish flopped two feet into the air. It was surely very queer, for the man didn't put his rod over his shoulder and walk ashore, as did the mountaineers, but stood still, winding something with one hand, and again the fish would flash into the air, and then that humming would start again while the fishermen would stand quiet and waiting for a while, and then he would begin to wind again. In her wonder she rose unconsciously to her feet, and a stone rolled down to the ledge below her. The fisherman turned his head and she started to run, but without a word he turned again to the fish he was playing. Moreover he was too far out in the water to catch her, so she advanced slowly, even to the edge of the stream, watching the fish cut half circles about the man. If he saw her he gave no notice, and it was well that he did not. He was pulling the bass to and fro now through the water, tiring him out, drowning him, stepping backward at the same time. And a moment later the fish slid easily out of the edge of the water, gasping along the edge of a low sand bank, and the fisherman reaching down with one hand caught him in the gills. Then he looked up and smiled, and she had seen no smile like that before. Had ye, little girl? One bare toe went burrowing suddenly into the sand, one finger went to her red mouth, and that was all. She merely stared at him, straight in the eye, and he smiled again. Cat got your tongue? Her eyes fell at the ancient banter, but she lifted them straight away and stared again. You live around here? She stared on. Where? No answer. What's your name, little girl? And still she stared. Oh, well, of course. You can't talk if the cat's got your tongue. The steady eyes leaped angrily, but there was still no answer, and he bent to take the fish off his hook, put on a fresh minnow, turned his back, and tossed it into the pool. It ain't! He looked up again. She surely was a pretty little thing, and more now that she was angry. I should say not, he said teasingly. What did you say your name was? What's your name? The fisherman laughed. He was just becoming accustomed to the mountain etiquette that commands a stranger to divulge himself first. My name's Jack. And mine's Jill. She laughed now, and it was his time for surprise. Where could she have heard of Jack and Jill? His line rang suddenly. Jack, she cried, you got a bite. He pulled, missed the strike, and wound in. The minnow was all right, so he tossed it back again. That isn't your name, he said. If tight, then that tight yarn. Yes, it is, he said, shaking his head affirmatively. A long cry came down the ravine. June! Hey, oh June! That was a queer name for the mountains, and the fisherman wondered if he had heard a right. June. The little girl gave a shrill answering cry, but she did not move. Fire now. She said. Who's that, your Mammy? No, Taint. It's my step, Mammy. I'm going to catch hell now. Her innocent eyes turned sullen, and her baby mouth tightened. Good Lord, said the fisherman, startled, and then he stopped. The words were as innocent on her lips as a benediction. Have you got a father? Like a flash, her whole face changed. I reckon I have. Where is he? Here he is. Drawn the voice from the bushes, and it had a tone that made the fisherman whirl suddenly. A giant mountaineer stood on the bank above him, with a wind chester in the hollow of his arm. How are you? The giant's heavy eyes lifted quickly, but he spoke to the girl. You go on home. What you do when he are gassing with furnace? The girl shrank to the bushes, but she cried sharply back. Don't you hurt him now, Dad. He ain't even got a pistol. He ain't no— SHIT UP! The little creature vanished, and the mountaineer turned to the fisherman, who had just put on a fresh minnow and tossed it into the river. Purt it well, thank you, he said shortly. How are you? Fine, was the nonchalant answer. For a moment there was silence, and a puzzled frown gathered on the mountaineer's face. That's a bright little girl of yours. What did she mean by telling you not to hurt me? You haven't been long in these mountains, have you? No, not in these mountains. Why? The fisherman looked around and was almost startled by the fierce gaze of his questioner. Stop that, please, he said with a humorous smile. He make me nervous. The mountaineer's bushy brows came together across the bridge of his nose, and his voice rumbled like distant thunder. What's your name, stranger, and what's your business over here? Dear me, there you go. You can see I'm fishing. But why does everybody in these mountains want to know my name? You hear me. Yes. The fisherman turned again, and saw the giant's rugged face stern and pale with open anger now, and he too grew suddenly serious. Suppose I don't tell you, he said gravely. What get! said the mountaineer, with a move of one huge hairy hand up the mountain, and get quick. The fisherman never moved, and there was the click of a shell thrown into place in the Winchester, and a guttural oath from the mountaineer's beard. Dammy, he said hoarsely, raising the rifle. I'll give you. Don't, dad! shrieked a voice from the bushes. I know his name, it's Jack! The rest of the name was unintelligible. The mountaineer dropped the butt of his gun to the ground and laughed. Oh, were you the engineer? The fisherman was angry now. He had not moved hand or foot, and he said nothing. But his mouth was set hard, and his bewildered blue eyes had a glint in them that the mountaineer did not at the moment see. He was leaning with one arm on the muzzle of his Winchester. His face has suddenly become suave and shrewd, and now he laughed again. So you're Jack Hale, are you? The fisherman spoke. John Hale, except to my friends. He looked hard at the old man. Do you know that's a pretty dangerous jokie yours, my friend? I might have a gun myself sometimes. Did you think you could scare me? The mountaineer stared in genuine surprise. Twas'nt no joke, he said shortly. And I don't waste time scaring folks. I reckon you don't know who I be. I don't care who you are. Again the mountaineer stared. No use getting mad young filler, he said coolly. I'm a staking ye for somebody else and I ask your pardon. When you get through fishing, come up to the house right up the creek-thar and I'll give you a dram. Thank you, said the fisherman stiffly. And the mountaineer turned silently away. At the edge of the bushes he looked back. The stranger was still fishing. And the old man went on with the shake of his head. He'll come, he said to himself. Oh, he'll come. That very point Hale was debating with himself, as he unavailingly cast his minnow into the swift water and slowly wound it in again. How did that old man know his name? And would the old savage really have hurt him had he not found out who he was? The little girl was a wonder. Evidently she had muffled his last name on purpose, not knowing it herself. And it was a quick and cunning ruse. He owed her something for that. Why did she try to protect him? Wonderful eyes, too, the little thing had, deep and dark, and how the flame did dart from them when she got angry. He smiled, remembering. He liked that. And her hair. It was exactly like the gold bronze on the wing of a wild turkey that he had shot the day before. Well, it was noon now. The fish had stopped biting after the wayward fashion of bass. He was hungry and thirsty. And he would go up and see the little girl and the giant again, and get that promised dram. Once more, however, he let his minnow float down into the shadow of a big rock. And while he was winding in, he looked up to see in the road two people on a gray horse. A man with a woman behind him, both old and spectacled, all three motionless on the bank and looking at him. And he wondered if all three had stopped to ask his name and his business. No, they had just come down to the creek, and both they must know already. Catching any? Called out the old man cheerfully. Only one, answered Hale with equal cheer. The old woman pushed back her bonnet as he waded through the water towards them, and he saw that she was puffin on a clay pipe. She looked at the fisherman and his tackle with the naive wonder of a child. And then she said in a commanding undertone, Go on, Billy. Now, old hun, I wish you'd just wait a minute. Hale smiled. He loved old people, and two kinder faces he had never seen, two gentler voices he had never heard. Ha, ha, Rick, and you got the old man chuckling. But there's a sight of him down there below my old mill. Quietly the old woman hit the horse with a stripped branch of elm, and the old gray with a switch of his tail started. Wait a minute, hon. He said again, appealingly, won't she? But calmly she hit the horse again, and the old man called back over his shoulder. You come on down to the mill, and I'll show you all you can catch a mess. All right, shouted Hale, holding back his laughter, and on they went, the old man remonstrating in the kindliest way, the old woman silently puffing her pipe and making no answer except to flay gently the rump of the lazy old gray. Hesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed his pole, left his minnow-bucket where it was, mounted his horse, and rode up the path. About him the beach-leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little ravine high under the crest of the mottled mountain was on fire with a scarlet of maple. Not even yet the morning chill left the densely shaded path. When he got to the bare crest of a little rise, he could see up the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a stone chimney. Geese and ducks were hunting crawfish in the little creek that ran from a milk-house of logs, half hidden by willows at the edge of the forest, and a turn in the path brought into view a log cabin well chinked with stones and plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence ran around the yard, and there was a meat-house near a little orchard of apple trees, under which there were many hives of bee-gums. This man had things hung up, and was well to do. Down the rise and through a thicket he went, and as he approached the creek that came down past the cabin there was a shrill cry ahead of him. Woe thy buck, gee how I tell ye! An ox wagon evidently was coming on, and the road was so narrow that he turned his horse into the bushes to let it pass. Woe ho, gee gee buck, gee I tell ye! I'll knock your fool head off the first thing you know. Still there was no sound of ox or wagon, and the voice sounded like a child's, so he went on at a walk in the thick sand. And when he turned the bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In the road across the creek was a chubby toe-haired boy with a long switch in his right hand, and a pine dagger and a string in his left. Attached to the string and tied by one hind leg was a frog. The boy was using the switch as a goad and driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest as though both were real. I'll give you a little rest now, buck, he said, shaking his head earnestly. It's a pretty hard pull here, but I know by gum you can make it, if you ain't too darn lazy. Now get up, buck! He yelled suddenly, flaying the sand with a switch. Get up! Woe ho, gee gee! The frog hopped several times. Woe now! said the little fellow, panting in sympathy. I knowed you could do it. Then he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified, but he did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted the pine dagger over to his right hand and the string to his left. Here, boy, said the fisherman with affected sternness, what are you doing with that dagger? The boy's breast heaved and his dirty fingers clenched tight around the whittled stick. Don't you talk to me that away, he said with an ominous shake of his head. I'll gut you! The fisherman threw back his head, and his peel of laughter did what his sternness failed to do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his feet spurned the sand around the bushes for home. The astonished frog dragged bumping after him. Well! said the fisherman. For more information, or how to volunteer, please visit Even the geese in the creek seemed to know that he was a stranger and to distrust him, for they cackled, and, spreading their wings, fled cackling up the stream. As he neared the house, the little girl ran around the stone chimney, stop-short, shaded her eyes with one hand for a moment, and ran excitedly into the house. A moment later, the verded giant slouched out, stooping his head as he came through the door. Hitched that hour post, y'all hauls, and come right in, he thundered cheerily. I'm waitin' for ye. The little girl came to the door, pushed one brown slender hand through her tangled hair, caught one barefoot behind a deer-like ankle, and stood motionless. Behind her was the boy, his dagger still in hand. Come right in, said the old man. We are pretty poor folks, but you're welcome to what we have. The fisherman, too, had to stoop as he came in, for he, too, was tall. The interior was dark, in spite of the wood fire and the big stone fireplace. Strings of herbs and red pepper pods, and twisted tobacco, hung from the ceiling, and down the wall on either side of the fire. And in one corner, near the two beds in the room, handmade quilts of many colors were piled several feet high. On wooden pegs above the door, where ten years before would have been buck antlers and an old-fashioned rifle, lay a winchester. On either side of the door were auger holes. Through the logs, he did not understand that they were portholes. And another winchester stood in the corner. From the mantle, the butt of a big forty-four-colts revolver protruded ominously. On one of the beds in the corner, he could see the outlines of a figure lying under a brilliantly-figured quilt. And at the foot of it, the boy, with pine dagger, had retreated for refuge. From the moment he stooped at the door, something in the room had made him vaguely uneasy. And when his eyes and swift survey came back to the fire, they passed the blaze swiftly, and met on the edge of the light another pair of eyes burning on him. Howdy, said Hale. Howdy, said the low, un-propitiating answer. The owner of the eyes was nothing but a boy, in spite of his length. So much of a boy, that a slight crack in his voice showed, that it was just past the throes of changing. But those black eyes burned on without swerving, except once when they flashed at the little girl who, with her chin in her hand and one foot on the top rung of her chair, was gazing at the stranger with equal steadiness. She saw the boy's glance. She shifted her knees, impatiently, and her little face grew sullen. Hale smiled inwardly, for he thought he could already see the lay of the land. And he wondered that, at such an age, such fierceness could be so every now and then, he looked at the boy, and every time he looked, the black eyes were on him. The mountain youth must have been almost six feet tall. Young as he was, and while he was lanky and limb, he was well knit. His jean trousers were stuffed in the top of his boots, and were tight over his knees, which were well molded, and that is rare with a mountaineer. A loop of black hair curved over his forehead, down almost to his left eye. His nose was straight and almost delicate, and his mouth was small, but extraordinarily resolute. Somewhere he had seen that face before, and he turned suddenly, but he did not startle the lad with his abruptness, nor make him turn his gaze. Why haven't I, he said, and then he suddenly remembered. He had seen that boy not long since on the other side of the mountains, riding his horse at a gallop down the county road with his reins and his teeth, and shooting a pistol alternately at the sun and the earth with either hand. Perhaps it was as well not to recall the incident. He turned to the old mountaineer. Do you mean to tell me that man can't go through these mountains without telling everybody who asked him what his name is? The effect of his question was singular. The old man spat into the fire and put his hand to his beard. The boy crossed his leg suddenly, and shoved his muscular fingers deep into his pockets. The figure shifted position on the bed, and the infant at the foot of it seemed to clench his toy dagger a little more tightly. Only the little girl was motionless. She still looked at him, unwinking. What sort of wild animals had he fallen among? No, he can't. And keep healthy, the giant spoke shortly. Why not? Well, if a man ain't up to some devilment, what reason he's got for not telling his name? That's his business. Tane over ya. It's mine. If a man don't want to tell his name over ya, he's a spy or a raider or an officer looking for somebody or he added carelessly, but with a quick covert look at his visitor. He's got some kind of business that he don't want nobody to know about. Well, I came over here just to, well, I hardly know why I did come. Just so, said the old man, dryly. And if he ain't looking for trouble, he'd better tell your name in these mountains whenever you're axed. If enough people are back in a custom, Aniwar, he goes, don't it? His logic was good, and Hale said nothing. Presently the old man rose with a smile in his face that looked cynical, picked up a black lump and threw it into the fire. It caught fire, crackled, blazed, almost oozed with oil, and Hale leaned forward and leaned back. Pretty good coal. Ain't it, though? The old man picked up a sliver that had flown to the hearth and held a match to it. The piece blazed and burned in his hand. I never see no coal in these mountains like that, did you? Not often. Findered around here? Right here on this farm, about five feet thick. What? I know parton. No parton. It was not often that he found a mountaineer who knew what a parting in a coal bed was. Friend of mine, on the other side, a light dawn for the engineer. Oh, he said quickly, that's how you knew my name. Ratched your air, stranger. He told me you was an expert. The old man laughed loudly. And that's why you come over here? No, it isn't. Coast not. The old fellow laughed again. Hale shifted the talk. Well, now that you know my name, suppose you tell me what yours is. Tolliver. Judd Tolliver. Hale started. Not devil Judd. That's what some evil folks call me. Again, he spoke shortly. The mountaineers do not like to talk about their feuds. Hale knew this, and the subject was dropped. But he watched the huge mountaineer with interest. There was no more famous character in all those hills than the giant before him. Yet his face was kind and was good-humored. But the nose and eyes were the beak and eyes of some bird of prey. The little girl had disappeared for a moment. She came back with a blue-backed spelling-book, a second reader, and a worn copy of Mother Goose. And she opened the first one and then the other until the attention of the visitor was caught. The black-haired youth watching her, meanwhile, with lowering brows. Where did you learn to read? Hale asked. The old man answered. A preacher come by our house on the north folk about three years ago. And before I knowed it, he made me promise to send her sister Sally to some school up there on the edge of the settlement. And after she come home, Sally learned that little gallant and read and spell. Sally died about a year ago. Hale reached over and got the spelling-book. And the old man grinned at the quick, unerring responses of the little girl. And the engineer looked surprised. She read, too, with unusual facility, and her pronunciation was very precise and not at all like her speech. You ought to send her to the same place, he said. But the old fellow shook his head. I couldn't get along without her. The little girl's eyes began to dance suddenly. And without opening mother Goose, she began. Jack and Joe went up a hill. And then she broke into a laugh. And Hale laughed with her. Abruptly the boy opposite rose to his great length. I reckon I better be going. That was all he said, as he caught up a Winchester, which stood unseen by his side, and out he stalked. There was not a word of good-bye, not a glance at anybody. A few minutes later, Hale heard the creak of a barn door on wooden hinges. A cursing command to a horse in four feet, going in a gallop down the path. And he knew there went an enemy. That's a good-looking boy. Who is he? The old man spat into the fire. It seemed that he was not going to answer. And the little girl broke in. Hits my cousin Dave. He lives over on the North Fork. That was the seat of the Tolliver Fallon Feud. Of that Feud, too, Hale had heard. And so no more along that line of inquiry. He, too, soon rose to go. Why, ain't she going to have something to eat? Oh, no, I've got something in my saddlebags. And I must be getting back to the gap. Well, I reckon he ain't. You're just going to take a snack right here. Hale hesitated. But the little girl was looking at him with such unconscious eagerness in her dark eyes that he sat down again. All right, I will. Thank you. At once she ran to the kitchen and the old man rose and pulled a bottle of white liquor from under the quilts. I reckon I can trust thee. The liquor burned Hale like a fire. And the old man, with a laugh at the face, the stranger made, tossed off a tumbler full. Gracious, said Hale, can he do that often? A four breakfast, dinner and supper, said the old man. But I don't. Hale felt a plucking at his sleeve. It was the boy with the dagger at his elbow. Let's see you laugh that away again, said Bub, was such deadly serious that Hale unconsciously broke into the same peel. Now, said Bub, unwinking, I ain't afraid of you no more. End of Chapter 4 The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, Jr. Recording by Bologna Times, Tampa, Florida Chapter 5 of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, Jr. Chapter 5 Awaiting dinner, the mountaineer and the ferner sat on the porch while Bub carved away another pine dagger on the stoop. As Hale passed out the door, a quarrelous voice said, Howdy? from the bed in the corner, and he knew it was the step-mother from whom the little girl expected some netherworld punishment for an offence of which he was ignorant. He had heard of the feud that had been going on between the Red Fallons and the Black Tollivers for a quarter of a century, and this was Devil Judd, who had earned his nickname when he was the leader of his clan by his terrible strength, his marksmanship, his cunning, and his courage. Some years since, the old man had retired from the leadership, because he was tired of fighting or because he had quarreled with his brother Dave and his foster brother, Bad Roof, known as the Terror of the Tollivers, or from some unknown reason, and in consequence there had been peace for a long time. The Fallons fearing that Devil Judd would be led into the feud again, the Tollivers wary of starting hostilities without his aid. After the last trouble, Bad Roof Tolliver had gone west, and old Judd had moved his family as far away as possible. He looked around him. This, then, was the home of Devil Judd Tolliver. The little creature inside was his daughter, and her name was June. All around the cabin the wooded mountains towered except where, straight before his eyes, lonesome creek slipped through them to the river, and the old man had certainly picked out the very heart of silence for his home. There was no neighbor within two leagues, Judd said, except old Squire Billy Beams, who ran a mill a mile down the river. No wonder the spot was called Lonesome Cove. You must accede Uncle Billy and old Hun passin', he said. I did. Devil Judd laughed, and Hale made out that Hun was short for honey. Uncle Billy used to drink right smart. Old Hun broke him. She followed him down to the grocery one day and walked in. Come on, boys, let's have a drink. And she set him up and set him up until Uncle Billy most went crazy. He had hard work gettin' her home, and Uncle Billy ain't touched a draught since, and the old mountaineer chuckled again. All the time Hale could hear noises from the kitchen inside. The old stepmother was a bed. He had seen no other woman about the house, and he wondered if the child could beat cooking dinner. Her flush face answered when she opened the kitchen door and called them in. She had not only cooked, but now she served as well. And when he thanked her, as he did every time she passed something to him, she would color faintly. Once or twice her hand seemed to tremble, and he never looked at her but her questioning dark eyes were full upon him, and always she kept one hand busy pushing her thick hair back from her forehead. He had not asked her if it was her footprints he had seen coming down the mountain, for fear that he might betray her. But apparently she had told on herself, for Bub, after a while, burst out suddenly, June Dyer thought you was a reader. The little girl flushed, and the old man laughed. So did you, Pap, she said quietly. That's right, he said. So did anybody. I reckon you're the first man that ever came over here just to go a-fishing, and he laughed again. The stress on the last words showed that he believed no man had yet come just for that purpose, and Hale merely laughed with him. The old fellow gulped his food, pushed his chair back, and when Hale was through he wasted no more time. Want to see that, Cole? Yes, I do, said Hale. All right, I'll be ready in a minute. The little girl followed Hale out on the porch and stood with her back against the railing. Did you catch it? he asked. She nodded, unsmiling. I'm sorry. What were you doing up there? She showed no surprise that he knew that she had been up there, and while she answered his question he could see that she was thinking of something else. I'd heard so much about what you ferners was a-doing over there. You must have heard about a place farther over, but it's coming over there, too, some day. And still she looked an unspoken question. The fish that Hale had caught was lying where he had left it on the edge of the porch. That's for you, June, he said, pointing to it, and the name as he spoke it was sweet to his ears. I'm much obliged, she said, shyly. I'd have cooked it for you if I had to knowed you wasn't going to take it home. That's the reason I didn't give it to you at first. I was afraid you'd do that. I wanted you to have it. Much obliged, she said again, still unsmiling, and then she suddenly looked up at him. The deeps of her dark eyes troubled. Are you ever coming back again, Jack? Hale was not accustomed to the familiar form of address common in the mountains, independent of sex or age, and he would have been staggered had not her face been so serious. And then few women had ever called him by his first name, and this time his own name was good to his ears. Yes, June, he said soberly. Not for some time, maybe, but I'm coming back again, sure. She smiled then with both lips and eyes, radiantly. I'll be looking for you, she said simply. End of chapter. THE TRAIL OF THE LONDSON PINE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Vendetti. MikeVendetti.com THE TRAIL OF THE LONDSON PINE BY JOHN FOX Jr. Chapter 6 Bill Mann went with him up the creek, and passing the milk house turned up a brush-bordered little branch in which the engineers saw signs of coal. Up the creek the mountaineer led him some thirty yards above the water level, and stopped. An entry had been driven through the rich earth, and ten feet within was a shining bed of coal. There was no parting except two inches of mother of coal midway. Which would make it but easier to mine, who had taught that old man to open coal in such a way, to make such a facing. He looked as though the old fellow were in some scheme with another to get him interested. As he drew closer he saw radiations of some twelve inches, all over the face of the coal, star-shaped, and he almost gassed. It was not only cattle coal, but bird's-eye cattle. Heavens, what a fine! Instantly he was the conscious man of business, alert, cold, and communicative. Looks like a good, pretty good, he drawled. Last two words, vein of coal. I'd like to take a sample over to the gap and analyze it. His hammer, which he always carried, was in his saddle pockets. But he did not have to go down to his horse. There were pieces on the ground, to suit his purpose. Left there to a doubt by his predecessor. Now I reckon you know, I know why you came over here. He'll start to answer, but he saw it and it was no use. Yes, I'm coming again for the same reason. Sure, come again and come often. The little girl was standing on the porch as he rode past the milk-house. He waved his hand to her. But she did not move nor answer. What a life for a child! That keen-eyed, sweet-faced child. But that cold handle, rich his oil above water. Five feet of thickness, easy to mine with a solid roof. And perhaps self-drainage, if he could judge from the dip of the vein. And a market everywhere, England, Spain, Italy, Brazil. The coal, to be sure. Might not be persistent. Thirty yards within it might change in quality to ordinary bituminous coal. But he could settle that only with a steam drill. Steam drill. He would as well ask for the wagon that he had long go hitched to a star. And then there might be a fault in the formation. The wine-bother now, the coal would stay there, and now he had other plans that made even that find insignificant. And yet if he'd bought that coal now, what a bargain. It was not that the ideals of his college days were tarnished, but he was a man of business now, and if he would take the old man's land for a song, it was because others of his kind would do the same. Wine-bother, he asked himself again, when his brain was in a ferment with a colossal scheme that would make dizzy the magnets who would someday drive their roadways of steel into those wild hills. So he shook himself free of the question which passed from his mind only with a transient wonder as to who it was of told of him to the old mountaineer, and had so paved his way for an investigation. And then he wheeled suddenly in his saddle. The bushes had rustled gently behind him, and out of them stepped an extraordinary human shape, wearing a coonskin cap, felted with two rows of big cartridges, carrying a big winchester over one shoulder, and a circular tube of brass in his left hand. With his right leg straight, his left thigh drawn into the hollow of his saddle, and his left hand on the brunt of his horse, Hale simply stared his eyes dropping by and by from the pale blue eyes and stubby red beard of the stranger, down past the cartridge belts to the man's feet, on which were moccasins, with them heels forward into what sort of world had he dropped. So narrow his soul can tell which way I'm going, said the red-haired stranger with a grin, that loosed a hollow chuckle far behind it. Would you mind telling me what difference it can make to me which way you are going? Every moment he was expecting the stranger to ask his name, but again that chuckle came. Makes a mighty side of difference to some folks, but none to me. I ain't wearing them for you, I know you. Oh, you do. The stranger suddenly lowered his winchester and turned his face with his ear, conch like an animal. There was some noise on the spur above. Nothing but a hickory nut, said the chuckle again. Hale had been studying that strange face. One sign of it was calm, kindly, philosophic, benevolent, but when the other was turned, a curious twitch of the muscles at the left side of the mouth showed the teeth and made a snarl there, that was wolfish. Yes, and I know you, he said slowly. Self-satisfaction straight away was ardent on the face. I know you would get to know me in time, if you didn't now. This was the red fox of the mountains, of whom he had heard so much. Yarb, Doctor, and Swindon Brogan Preacher, Revenue Officer and some said cold-blooded murderer. He would walk twenty miles to preach, or would start at any hour of the day or night to minister to the sick, and would charge for neither service. At other hours he would be searching for moonshine stills, or watching in his enemies in the valley from some mountaintop, with that huge spyglass. Hale could see now that the brass tube was a telescope, that he might slip down and, unawares, take a pot shot at them. The red fox communicated with spirits, had visions and superhuman powers of locomotion, stepping mysteriously from the bushes people said to walk at a traveller's side, and as mysteriously disappearing into them again, to be heard of in a few hours, an indescribable distance away. I've been watching you from up there, you said, with a wave of his hand. I see'd you go up the creek, and then the bushes hid you. I know what you was after, but did you see any signs up there of anything he wasn't looking for? Hale laughed. Well, I've been in these mountains long enough not to tell you if I had. The red fox chuckled. I wasn't sure you had. Hale coughed and spat to the other side of the horse. When he looked around, the red fox was gone, and he had heard no sound of his going. Well, I'll be. Hale chuckled to his horse, and as he climbed the last steepen, drew near the big pine he again heard a noise out in the woods, and he knew this time it was the fall of a human foot, and not of a human night. He was right, and as he rode by the pine he saw again, at its base, the print of the little girl's foot, wandering afresh at the reason that had led her up there, and dropped down through the afternoon shadows towards the smoke and steam and bustle and greed of the twentieth century. A long, lean, black-eyed boy, with a wave of black hair over his forehead was pushing his horse the other way along the big black, and dropping down through the dusk into the middle ages, both all but touching on either side of the outstretched hands of the wild little creature, left in the shadows of lonesome coal. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Past the big pine, swerving with a smile at his horse's side, that he might not obliterate the footprint of the black earth and down the mountain, his brain busy with his big purpose went John Hale, by instinct, inheritance, blood and tradition, pioneer. One of his forefathers had been with Washington on the father's first historic expedition into the wilds of Virginia. His great-grandfather had accompanied Boone when that hunter first penetrated the dark and bloody ground, had gone back to Virginia and come back again with a surveyor's chain and compass, to help rest it from the red men, among whom there had been an in-memorial conflict for possession and a never-recognized claim of ownership. That compass and that chain his grandfather had fallen heir to, and with that compass and chain his father had earned his library-hood amid the wrecks of the Civil War. Hale went to the Old Transylvania University at Lexington. The first seat of learning planted beyond the Alleghenies. He was fond of history, of the sciences and literature, was unusually adept in Latin and Greek, and had a passion for mathematics. He was graduated with honors. He taught two years and got his degree of Masters of Arts. But the pioneer spirit in his blood would still out, and his polite learning he then threw to the winds. Other young Kentuckians had gone west in shoals. But he kept his eye on his own state, and one autumn he added a pick to the old compass and the ancestral chain. Struck the old wilderness trail that his grandfather had traveled to look for his own fortune in a land which the old gentleman had passed over as worthless. At the Cumberland River he took canoe and drifted down the river into the wild, cold, swollen hills. Through the winter he froze, starved and prospected, and a year later he was opening up a region that became famous after his trust and inexperience had let others worm out of him an interest that would have made him easy for life. With the vision of a seer he was as innocent as boom. Strip clean. He got out his map, such geological reports as he could find, and went into a studious trance for a month, emerging mentally with the freshness of a snake that had shed his skin. What had happened in Pennsylvania must happen all along the great Allegheny chain in the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee. Someday the avalanche must sweep south. It must. It must. That he might be a quarter of a century too soon in his calculations never crossed his mind. Someday it must come. Now there was not an ounce of coal immediately southeast of the Cumberland Mountains, not an ounce of iron ore immediately northeast. All the coal lay to the northeast, all the iron ore to the southeast. So said geology. For three hundred miles there were only four gaps through that mighty mountain chain, three at water level and one at historic Cumberland Gap, which was not at water level and would have to be tunneled. So said geography. All railroads to east and to west would have to pass through those gaps. Through them the coal must be brought to the iron ore or the ore to the coal through three gaps water flowed between ore and coal and the very hills between were limestone. Was there any such juxtaposition of the four raw materials for the making of iron in the known world? When he got that far in his logic the sweat broke from his brows. He felt dizzy and he got up and walked into the open air. As the vastness and certainty of the scheme, what fool could not see it rushed through him full force. He could scarcely get his breath. There must be a town in one of those gaps, but in which, no matter, he would buy all of them, all of them he repeated over and over again. For some day there must be a town in one. And some day a town in all. And from all he would reap his harvest. He optioned those four gaps at a low purchase price that was absurd. He went back to the bluegrass. He went to New York. In some way he managed to get to England. It had never crossed his mind that other eyes could not see what he so clearly saw, and yet everywhere. He was pronounced crazy. He failed and his options ran out, but he was undaunted. Picked his choice of the four gaps and gave up the other three. This favorite gap he had just finished optioning again. And, now again, he meant to keep at his old west. That gap he was entering now from the north side and the north fork of the river, was hurrying to enter two. On his left was a great gray rock, projecting edgewise, covered with laurel and rhododendrum. And under it was the first big pool from which the stream poured faster still. There had been a terrific convulsion in that gap when the earth was young. The strata had been tossed upright and planted almost vertical for all time. And a little further, one mighty ledge, moss grown, horse covered, sentineled with grim pines, their bases unseen, seemed to be making a heavy flight toward the clouds. Big boulders began to pop up in the river bed and against them. The water dashed and whirled and eddyed backward in deep pools, while above him the song of a cataract drop down a tree-choked ravine. Just there the drop came, and for a long space you could see the river lashing, rock, and cliff, with increasing fury as though it were seeking shelter from some relentless pursuer in a dark thicket where it disappeared. Straight in front of him another ledge lifted itself. Beyond that loomed a mountain which stopped in mid-air and dropped sheer to the eye. Its crown was bare, and Hale knew that up there was a mountain farm. The refuge of a man who had been involved in that terrible feud beyond Black Mountain behind him. Five minutes later he was at the yawning mouth of the gap, and there lay before him a beautiful valley shut in tightly. For the eye could see, with mighty hills, it was the heaven-born sight for the unborn city of his dreams, and his eyes swept every curve of the valley lovingly. The two forks of the river ran around it. He could follow their course by the trees that lined the banks of each, curving within a stone's throw of each other across the valley, and then looping away from the neck of an ancient loot and, like its framework, coming together again down the valley, where they surged together, slipped through the hills, and sped on with the song of a sweeping river. Up that river could come the track of commerce. Out of the south fork too it could go. Though it had to turn eastward back through that gap, it could be traced north and west, and so none could come as heralds into those hills, but their footprints could be traced through that wild, rocky, water-worn castle. Hale drew breath and raised in his stirrups. It's a cinch, he said aloud. It's a shame to take the money. Yet nothing was in sight now but a valley farmhouse above the ford, where he must cross the river and one log cabin on the hill beyond. Still on the other river was the only woollen mill and miles around. Further up was the only grist mill and, nearby, the only store, the only blacksmith's shop and the only hotel. That much of a start the gap had had for three quarters of a century. Only from the south now a railroad was already coming. From the east another was traveling like a wounded snake, and from the north still another creep to meet them. Every road must run through the gap, and several had already run through it, lines of survey. The coal was at one end of the gap and the iron ore at the other. The cliffs between were limestone, and the other elements to make at the iron center of the world flowed through it like a torrent. Sheila, it's a shame to take the money. He splashed into the creek in his big black horse, thrust his nose into the clear running water. Minnows were playing about him. A hogfish flew for shelter under a rock and, below the ripples, a two-pound bass shot like an arrow into deep water. Above and below him the stream was arched with beach, popular and water maple, and the banks were thick with laurel and rhododendrum. His eye had never rested on a lovelier stream, and on the other side of the town site, which nature had kindly lifted twenty feet above the water level, the other fork was of equal clearness, swiftness, and beauty. Such a drainage, remembered his engineering instinct. Such a drainage. It was Saturday. Even if he had forgotten, he would have known that it must be Saturday when he climbed the bank on the other side. Many horses were hitched under the trees, and here and there was a farm wagon with fragments of paper, bits of food, and an empty bottle or two lying around. It was the hour when the alcoholic spirits of the day were usually most high. Evidently they were running quite high that day, and something distinctly was going on up town. A few yells, the high, clear, penetrating yell of a fox hunter, rent the air. Chorus of pistol shots rang out, and the thunder of horses who have started beyond the little slope he was climbing. When he reached the top, a merry youth, with his red, hatless head, was splitting the dirt road toward him, his reins and his teeth in a pistol in each hand, which he was letting off alternately into the inoffensive earth and toward the unrebuking heavens. That seemed a favorite way in those mountains of defying God and the Devil, and behind him galloping a dozen horsemen to the music of throat, pistol and iron hoof. The fiery-headed youth horse swerved and shot by. Hale hardly knew that the rider even saw him, but the coming one saw him afar, and they seemed to be charging him in close array. Hale stopped his horse a little to the right of the center of the road, and being equally helpless against an inherited passion for maintaining his own rights, and a similar disinclination to get out of anybody's way, he sat motionless. Two of the coming horsemen, side by side, were little in advance. Gull road! they yelled, and he made the motion of an arm they might have written or shot him down. But the simple quietness of him, as he sat with hands crossed on the pommel of his saddle, faced calm and set, eyes unwavering and fearless, had the effect that nothing else he could have done would have brought about, and they swerved to either side of him, while the rest were too like sheep. One stirruped brushing his as they swept by. Hale rode slowly on. He could hear the mountaineers yelling on top of the hill, but he did not look back. Several bullets sang over his head, most likely they were simply bantering him. But no matter, he rode on. The blacksmith, the storekeeper, and one passing drummer were coming in from the woods when he reached the hotel. Gang of those felons, said the storekeeper, they come over looking for young Dave Toliver. They didn't find him, so they thought they'd say have some fun. And he pointed to the hotel sign which was punctuated with pistol bullet periods. Hale's eyes flashed once, but he said nothing. He turned his horse over to a stable boy, went across to the little frame cottage that served his office and home for him. While he sat on the veranda that almost hung over the mill-pond of the other stream, three of the felons came running back. One of them had left something at the hotel, and while he was gone in for it, another put a bullet through the sign, and seeing Hale rode over to him, Hale's blue eyes looked anything then friendly. Don't you like it? asked the horseman. I do not, said Hale calmly. The horseman seemed amused. Well, what are you going to do about it? Nothing, at least not now. All right, whenever you get ready, you ain't ready now. No, said Hale, not now. The fellow laughed. It's a damn good thing for you that you ain't. Hale looked long after the three as they galloped down the road. When I start to build this town, he thought gravely and without humor. I'll put a stop to all that. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Trail of the Lonesome Pine This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Vendetti, mikevendetti.com The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox Jr. Chapter 8 On a spur of black mountain beyond the Kentucky line, a lean horse was tied to a sassapras bush. And in a clump of rhododendron ten yards away, a lean black-haired boy sat with a winchester between his stomach and thighs, waiting for the dusk to drop. His chin was in both hands. The brim of his slouch hat was curved crescent-wise over his forehead. And his eyes were on the sweeping bend of the river below him. That was the bad bend down there. Peopled with ancestral enemies and the headquarters of their leader for the last ten years. Though they had been at peace for some time now, it had been Saturday in the country town ten miles down the river as well. And nobody ever knew what a Saturday night might bring forth between his people and them. So he would not risk riding through that bend by the light of day. All the long way up spur after spur and along ridge after ridge, all along the still, tree-crested top of the big black, he had been thinking of the man, the ferner whom he had seen at his uncle's cabin in Lonesome Cove. He was thinking of him still as he sat there waiting for darkness to come. And the two vertical lines in his forehead that it had already relaxed once during his climb got deeper and deeper as his brain puzzled into the problem that was worrying it. Who the stranger was. What his business was over in the cold. And his business with the red fox, with whom the boy had seen him talking. He had heard of the coming of the ferner's on the Virginia side. He had seen some of them. He was suspicious as well of them, just like them all. This man he hated straight away. He hated his boots, his clothes, the way he sat and talked. Though he owned the earth, under that snorted contemptuously under his breath, called pants trousers. It was a fearful indictment. And he snorted again, trousers. The ferner might be a spy or a revenue officer, but deep down in the boy's heart the suspicion had been working that he had gone over there to see his little cousin, the girl whom, boy that he was, he had marked when she was even more of a child than he was now, for his own. His people understood it as did her father, and child though she was she too understood it. The difference between her and the ferner, difference in age, condition, way of life, education meant nothing to him. And as his suspicion deepened his hands dropped and gripped his winchester. And through his gritting teeth came vaguely, by God if he does, if he just does. A way down at the lower end of the river's curving sweep the dirt road was visible for a hundred yards or more. And even while he was cursing to himself a group of horsemen rode into sight. All seemed to be carrying something across their saddle-bows, and as the boy's eyes caught them he sank sideways out of sight and stood upright. Peering through a bush of rhododendrum, something had happened in town that day. For the horsemen carried winchesters, and every foreign thought in his brain passed like breath from windowpane. While his dark, thin face whitened a little with anxiety and wonder, swiftly stepped backward, keeping the bushes between him and his faraway enemies. Another knot he gave the reins around the sassafras bush, and then, winchester in hand, he dropped noiseless as an idiot. From rock to rock, tree to tree. Down the sheer spur on the other side. Twenty minutes later he lay behind a bush that was sheltered by the top boulder of the rocky point under which the road ran. His enemies were in their own country. They would probably be talking over the happenings in town that day. From them he would learn what was going on. So long he lay that he got tired not of patience, and he was about to creep around the boulder when the clink of a horseshoe against a stone told him they were coming. He flattened to the earth and closed his eyes that his ears might be more keen. The fountains were riding silently, but as the first two passed under him he once said, I rock to know who the hell warned him. Where's Red Fox? Was the significant answer? The boy's heart leaped. There had been devilry abroad, but his kinsmen had escaped. No one uttered a word as they rode two by two under him. But one voice came back to him as they turned the point. I wonder if the other boys catched young Dave? He could not catch the answer to that. Only the oath that was in it, and when the sound of the horses hooves died away, he turned over on his back and stared up at the sky. Some trouble had come and, through his own caution, in the mercy of Providence that had kept him away from the gap. He had his escape from death that day. He would tempt that Providence know more, even by climbing back to his horse in the waning light, and was not until dusk had fallen that he was leading the beast down the spur and into a ravine that sank to the road. There he waited an hour, and when another horseman passed he still waited a while. Cautiously then, with ears alert, eyes straining through the darkness and winchester ready. He went down the road at a slow walk. There was a light in the first house, but the front door was closed, and the road was deep with sand, as he knew, so he passed noiselessly. To the second house, the light streamed through the open door. He could hear talking on the porch, and he halted. He could neither cross the river nor get around the house by the rear. Ridge was too steep, so he drew off into the bushes, where he had to wait another hour before the talking ceased. There was only one more house now between him and the mouth of the creek, where he would be safe. And he made up his mind to dash by it. That house too was lighted, and the sound of fiddling struck his ears. He would give them a surprise. So he gathered his reins from Winchester in his left hand, drew his revolver with his right, and within thirty yards started his horse into a run yelling like an Indian and firing his pistol in the air, as he swept by two or three figures, dashed Pell-Mell indoors, and he shouted derisively, RUN DAMMY RUN! They were running for their guns, he knew, but the taunt would hurt and he was pleased. As he swept by the edge of a cornfield, there was a flash of light from the base of a cliff straight across, and a bullet sang over him, then another, and another. But he sped on, cursing and yelling and shooting his own Winchester up in the air. All harmless, useless, but just too hurl defiance and taunt with his safety. His father's house was not far away, there was no sound of pursuit. And when he reached the river, he drew down to a walk and stopped short in a shadow. Something had clicked in the bushes above him and he bent over his saddle and laid close to his horse's neck. The moon was rising behind him and its light was creeping toward him through the bushes. In a moment he would be full in its yellow light, and he was slipping from his horse to dart aside into the bushes when a voice ahead of him called sharply. There you, Dave. It was his father, and the boy's answer was a loud laugh. Several men stepped from the bushes. They had heard firing and fearing that young Dave was the cause of it. They had run to his help. What the hell you mean, boy, kicking up such a racket? Oh, I know what something happened and I wanted to scare him a little. Yes, and you never thought of the trouble you might have been causing us. Don't you bother them about me. I can take care of myself. Old Dave Tolberg grunted, though at heart he was deeply pleased. Well, you come on home. All went silently, the boy getting meager, monosyllabic answers to his eager questions, but by the time they reached home he had gathered the story of what had happened in town that day. There were more men on the porch of the house and all were armed. The women of the house moved about noiselessly with drawn faces. There were no lights lit, and nobody stood long even in the light of the fire where he could be seen through a window, and doors were opened and passed through quickly. The Fallons had opened the feud that day for the boy's foster-uncle Bad Roof Tolberg. Contrary to the terms of the last truths had come home from the West, and one of his kinsmen had been wounded. The boy told what he had heard while he lay over the road along which some of his enemies had passed, and his father nodded. The Fallons had learned in some way that the lad was going to the gap that day, and had sent men after him. Who was this boy? You told me you was going to the gap, said Old Dave. Where was you? I didn't get that far, said the boy. The old man and Loretta Young Dave's sister laughed, and quiet smiles passed between the others. Well, you better be careful about getting even as far as you did get wherever that was from now on. I had feared, boy said solemnly, and he turned into the kitchen, still sullen. He ate his supper in silence, and his mother asked him no questions. He was worried that bad roof had come back to the mountains, for roof was always teasing June, and there was something in his bold black eyes that made the lad furious, even when the foster uncle was looking at Loretta or the little girl in Lonesome Cove. And yet that was nothing to his new trouble. For his mind hung persistently to the stranger, and to the way June had behaved in the cabin in Lonesome Cove. Before he went to bed, he slipped out to the old well behind the house, sat on the water-trop and gloomy unrest, looking now and then at the stars that hung over the Cove, and over the gap beyond, where the stranger was bound. The would have pleased him a good deal could he have known that the stranger was pushing his big black horse on his way under those stars, toward the outer world. CHAPTER IX It was gort day at the county seat across the Kentucky line. Hale had risen early, as everyone must, if he would get his breakfast in the mountains, even in the hotels in the county seats, and he sat with his feet on the railing of the hotel porch which fronted the main street of the town. He had had his heartbreaking failure since the autumn before, but he was in good cheer now, for his feverish enthusiasm had at last clutched a man who would take up not only his options on the great gap beyond Black Mountain, he was riding across from the bluegrass to meet this man at the railroad in Virginia, nearly 200 miles away. Opposite was the brick courthouse, every window lacking at least one pane. The steps yellow with dirt and tobacco juice, the doorway and the bricks about the upper windows, bullet-dented and eloquent, with memories of the feud which had long embroiled the whole county. Not that everybody took part in it, but on the matter, everybody, as an old woman told him, had feelings. It had begun, so he learned just after the war. Two boys were playing marbles in the road along the Cumberland River, and one had a patch on the seat of his trousers. The other boy made fun of it, and the boy with the patch went home and told his father. As a result, there had already been 30 years of local war. In the last race for legislature, political issues were submerged, and the feud was the sole issue. And a tolliver had carried that boy's trouser patch like a flag to victory and was sitting in the lower house at that time, helping to make laws for the rest of the state. Now Bad Roof Tolliver was in the hills again, and the end was not yet. Already people were pouring in, men, women, and children. The men slouch-hatted and stalking through the mud in the rain, or filing in on horseback, riding double sometimes, two men or two women, or a man with his wife or daughter behind him, or a woman with a baby in her lap, and two more children behind, all dressed in homespun or store clothes, and the paint from artificial flowers on her hat streaking the face of every girl who had unwisely scanned the heavens that morning. Soon the square was filled with hitched horses, and an auctioneer was bidding off cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses to the crowd of mountaineers about him, while the women sold eggs and butter and bought things for use at home. Now and then an open feud'sman with a Winchester passed, and many a man was belted with cartridges for the big pistol dangling on his hip. When court opened, the rain ceased, the sun came out, and hail made his way through the crowd to the battered temple of justice. On one corner of the square, he could see the chief store of the town marked Buck-Felon General Merchandise. And the big man in the door with the bushy redhead, he guessed, was the leader of the Felon clan. Outside the door stood a smaller replica of the same figure, whom he recognized as the leader of the band that had nearly ridden him down at the gap, when they were looking for young Dave Tolliver, the autumn before. That doubtless was young Buck. For a moment he stood at the door of the courtroom. A felon was on trial, and the grizzled judge was speaking angrily. This is the third time you've had this trial postponed because you ain't got no lawyer. I ain't gonna put it off. Have you got you a lawyer now? Yes, judge, said the defendant. Well, where is he? Over there on the jury. The judge looked at the man on the jury. Well, I reckon he better leave him where he is. He'll do you more good there than anywhere else. He'll laugh out loud. The judge glared at him, and he turned quickly upstairs to his work in the deed room. Till noon he worked, and yet there was no trouble. After dinner, he went back, and in two hours his work was done. An atmospheric difference, he felt as soon as he reached the door. The crowd had melted from the square. There were no women in sight. But eight armed men were in front of the door, and two of them, a red felon and a black Tolliver, bad roof it was, were quarreling. In every doorway stood a man cautiously looking on, and in a hotel window he saw a woman's frightened face. It was so still that it seemed impossible that a tragedy could be imminent. And yet, while he was trying to take the conditions in, one of the quarreling men, bad roof Tolliver whipped out his revolver, and before he could level it, a felon struck the muzzle of a pistol into his back. Another Tolliver flashed his weapon on the felon. This Tolliver was covered by another felon. And in so many flashes of lightning, the eight men in front of him were covering each other. Every man afraid to be the first to shoot, since he knew that the flash of his own pistol meant instantaneous death for him. As he shrank back, he pushed against somebody who thrust him aside. It was the judge. Why don't somebody shoot? He asked sarcastically. You're a pretty set of fools, ain't you? I want you all to stop this damn foolishness. Now, when I give the word, I want you, Jim Felon, and a roof Tolliver there to drop your guns. Already, roof was grinning like a devil over the absurdity of the situation. Now, said the judge, and the two guns were dropped. Put them in your pockets. They did. Drop! All dropped, and with those two, all put up their guns. Each man, however, watching now the man who had just been covering him. It is not wise for the stranger to show too much interest in the personal affairs of mountain men. And Hale left the judge berating them, and went to the hotel to get ready for the gap. Little dreaming how fixed the faces of some of those men were, in his brain, and how later they were to rise in his memory again. His horse was lame, but he must go on. So he hired a yaller mule from the landlord. And when the beast was brought around, he overheard two men talking at the end of the porch. You don't mean to say they've made peace? Yes, roof's gone away again, and they shook hands all of them. The other laughed. Roof ain't gone yet. The Cumberland River was rain-swallowing. The homegoing people were helping each other across it, and as Hale approached the fort of a creek half a mile beyond the river, a black-haired girl was standing on a boulder looking helplessly at the yellow water, and two boys were on the ground below her. One of them looked up at Hale. I wish he'd helped this lady across. Certainly, said Hale. And the girl giggled when he laboriously turned his old mule up to the boulder, not accustomed to have ladies right behind him. Hale had turned the wrong side. Again, he laboriously wheeled around, and then in the yellow torrent, he went with the girl behind him. The old beast stumbling over the stones, where at the girl unafraid, made sounds of much merriment. Across, Hale stopped and said courteously, If you are going up this way, you are quite welcome to ride on. Well, I wasn't crossing that creek just exactly for fun, said the girl, and then she murmured something about her cousins and looked back. They had gone down to a shallower ford, and when they too had waited across, they said nothing, and the girl said nothing. So, Hale started on, the two boys following. The mule was slow, and being in a hurry, Hale urged him with his whip. Every time he struck the beast would kick up, and once the girl came near going off. You must watch out when I hit him, said Hale. I don't know. When you're going to hit him, she drawled unconcernedly. Well, I'll let you know, said Hale, laughing. Now! And as he whacked the beast again, the girl laughed, and they were better acquainted. Presently they passed two boys. Hale was wearing riding boots and tight breeches, and one of the boys ran his eyes up boot and leg, and if they were lifted higher, Hale could not tell. Where'd you get him? He squeaked. The girl turned her head as the mule broke into a trot. Ain't got time to tell. They are my cousins, explained the girl. What is your name? asked Hale. Loretty Tolliver. Hale turned in a saddle. Are you the daughter of Dave Tolliver? Yes. Then you got a brother named Dave? Yes. This, then, was the sister of the black-haired boy he had seen in the Lonesome Cove. Haven't you got some kin folks over the mountain? Yes. I got an uncle living over there. Devil Judd folks calls him, said the girl simply. This girl was cousins to Little June in Lonesome Cove. Every now and then she would look behind them, and when Hale turned again inquiringly, she explained. I'm worried about my cousins back there. I'm afraid something might happen to them. Shall we wait for them? Oh no, I reckon not. Soon they overtook two men on horseback, and after they had passed and were fifty yards ahead of them, one of the men lifted his voice jestingly. Is that your woman, stranger? Or have you just borrowed her? Hale shouted back. No, I'm sorry to say I've just borrowed her. And he turned around to see how she would take his answering pleasantry. She was looking down shyly, and she did not seem much pleased. There, kin folks of mine too, she said, and whether it was an explanation or as a review, Hale could not determine. You must be kind to everybody around here. Most everybody, she said simply. By and by they came to a creek. I have to turn up here, said Hale. So do I, she said, smiling, now directly at him. Good, he said, and they went on. Hale asking more questions. She was going to school at the county seat, the coming winter, and she was fifteen years old. That's right. The trouble in the mountains is that you girls marry so early that you don't have time to get an education. She wasn't going to marry early, she said, but Hale learned now that she had a sweetheart who had been in town that day and apparently the two had had a quarrel. Who it was, she would not tell. And Hale would have been amazed had he known the sweetheart was none other than young buck Falon and that the quarrel between the lovers had sprung from the opening quarrel that day between the clans. Once again, she came near going off the mule. And Hale observed that she was holding to the cantile of his saddle. Look here, he said suddenly, hadn't you better catch hold of me? She shook her head vigorously and made two not-to-be-rendered sounds that meant, no, indeed. Well, if this were your sweetheart, you'd take hold of him, wouldn't you? Again, she gave a vigorous shake of the head. Well, if he saw you riding behind me, he wouldn't like it woody. She didn't care, she said, but Hale did, and when he heard the galloping of horses behind him, saw two men coming and heard one of them shouting, Hey, a you-man on that yaller mule will stop there. He shifted his revolver, pulled in, and waited with some uneasiness. They came up, reeling in their saddles, neither one the girl's sweetheart as he saw it once from her face, and began to ask what the girl characterized afterward as unnecessary questions. Who he was, and who she was, and where they were going. Hale answered so shortly that the girl thought there was going to be a fight, and she was on the point of slipping from the mule. Sit still, said Hale quietly. There's not going to be a fight so long as you are here. All right, said one of the men. Well, then he looked sharply at the girl and turned his horse. Come on, Bill, that's old Dave Tolliver's gal. The girl's face was on fire. That mean felons, she said contemptuously, and somehow the mere fact that Hale had been, even for the moment, antagonistic to the other faction, seemed to put him in the girl's mind at once on her side, and straight away she talked freely of the feud. Devil Judd had taken no active part in it for a long time, she said, except to keep it down, especially since he and her father had had a fallen out, and the two families did not visit much, though she and her cousin June sometimes spent the night with each other. You won't be able to get over there till long after dark, she said, and she caught her breath so suddenly and so sharply that Hale turned to see what the matter was. She searched his face with her black eyes, which were like Junes without the depths of Junes. I was just wondering if maybe you wasn't the same fellow that was over in Lonesome last fall. Maybe I am. My name's Hale. The girl laughed. Well, if this ain't the beatin'est, I've heard Junes talk about you. My brother Dave don't like you over much, she added, frankly. I reckon we'll see Dave pretty soon. If this ain't the beatin'est, she repeated, and she laughed again, as she always did laugh. It seemed to Hale, when there was any prospect of getting him into trouble. You can't get over there till long after dark, she said again presently. Is there any place on the way where I can get to stay all night? You can stay all night with the red fox on top of the mountain. The red fox repeated Hale. Yes, he lives right on top of the mountain. You can't miss his house. Oh yes, I remember him. I saw him talking to one of the phalons in town today, behind the barn, when I went to get my horse. You see'd him a-talkin' to a-failin' a-for the trouble came up? The girl asked slowly, and with such significance, that Hale turned to look at her. He felt straight away that he ought not to have said that, and the day was to come when he would remember it to his cost. He knew how foolish it was for the stranger to show sympathy with or interest in one faction or another in a mountain feud. But to give any kind of information of one to the other, that was unwise indeed. Ahead of them now, a little stream ran from a ravine across the road. Beyond was a cabin, in the doorway were several faces, and sitting on a horse at the gate was young Dave Tolliver. Well, I get down here, said the girl, and before his mule stopped, she slid from behind him and made for the gate without a word of thanks or goodbye. Howdy, said Hale, taking in the group with his glance, but leaving his eyes on young Dave. The rest nodded, but the boy was too surprised for speech, and the spirit of deviltry took the girl when she saw her brother's face and at the gate she turned. Much a bleach, she said, tell June not coming over to see her next Sunday. I will, said Hale, and he wrote on. To his surprise when he had gone a hundred yards, he heard the boy spurring after him, and he looked around inquiringly as young Dave drew alongside. But the boy said nothing, and Hale, amused, kept still, wondering when the lad would open speech. At the mouth of another little creek, the boy stopped his horse as though he was to turn up that way. You come back again, he said, searching Hale's face with his black eyes. Yes, said Hale. I've come back. You going over to Lonesome Cove? Yes. The boy hesitated, and a sudden change of mind was playing to Hale in his face. I wish you'd tell Uncle Judd about the trouble in town today, he said, looking fixedly at Hale. Certainly. Did you tell the Red Fox that day you seed him when you was going over to the gap last fall that you seeded me at Uncle Judd's? No, said Hale. But how did you know that I saw the Red Fox that day? The boy laughed unpleasantly. So long, he said, see you again some day. The way was steep, the sun was down, and darkness gathering before Hale reached the top of the mountain. So he hallowed at the yard fence of the Red Fox, who peered cautiously out of the door, and asked his name before he came to the gate. And there, with a grin on his curious mismatched face, he repeated young Dave's words. You come back again. And Hale repeated his, yes, I've come back. You going over to Lonesome Cove? Yes, said Hale impatiently. I'm going over to Lonesome Cove. Can I stay here all night? Sure, said the old man hospitably. That's a fine horse you got there, he added with a chuckle. Been swapping? Hale had to laugh as he climbed down from the bony, ear-flopping beast. I left my horse in town, he's lame. Yes, I see'd you there. Hale could not resist. Yes, and I see'd you. The old man almost turned. Why, again, the temptation was too great. Talking to the Fallon, who started the row, this time the Red Fox wheeled sharply, and his pale blue eyes filled with suspicion. I keeps friends with both sides, he said. Ain't many folks can do that. I reckon not. Said Hale calmly. But in the pale eyes he still saw suspicion. When they entered the cabin a little old woman in black, dumb and noiseless was cooking supper. The children of the two he learned had scattered, and they lived there alone. On the mantel were two pistols, and in one corner was the big Winchester, he remembered, and behind it was the big brass telescope. On the table was a Bible, and a volume of Swedenborg. And among the usual strings of pepper pods and beans and twisted long green tobacco were drying herbs in roots of all kinds, and about the fireplace were bottles of liquids that had been stewed from them. The little old woman served, and opened her lips not at all. Supper was eaten with no further reference to the doings in town that day, and no word was said about their meeting when Hale first went to Lonesome Cove until they were smoking on the porch. I hear'd you found some mighty fire coal over in Lonesome Cove. Yes. Young Dave Tolliver thinks you found something else there, too. Chuckled the Red Fox. I did, said Hale Cooley, and the old man chuckled again. She's a pretty little gal, sure. Who is, asked Hale, looking calmly at his questioner, and the Red Fox lapped into baffled silence. The moon was brilliant, and the night was still. Suddenly the Red Fox cocked his ear like a hound, and without a word, slipped swiftly within the cabin. A moment later, Hale heard the galloping of a horse, and from out the dark woods loaked a horseman with a Winchester across his saddle-bow. He pulled in at the gate, but before he could shout hello, the Red Fox had stepped from the porch into the moonlight, and was going to meet him. Hale had never seen a more easy, graceful, daring figure on horseback, and in the bright light he could make out the reckless face the man who had been the first to flash his pistols in town that day. Bad Roof Tolliver. For ten minutes the two talked and whispers. Roof bent forward with one elbow on the withers of his horse, but lifting his eyes every now and then to the stranger seated in the porch. And then the horseman turned, with an oath, engulfed into the darkness once he came, while Red Fox slouched back to the porch and dropped silently into his seat. Who was that? asked Hale. Bad Roof Tolliver. I've heard of him. Most everybody in these mountains has. He's the feller that's always causing trouble. Him and Joe Phelan agreed to go west last fall to end the war. And now Roof claims Joe don't count now, and he's got the right to come back. Soon as he comes back, things get frog-some again. He swore he wouldn't go back unless another Phelan goes too. Work Phelan agreed. And that's how they made peace today. Now Roof says he won't go at all. Truths are no truths. My wife and daughter is a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of them. No doubt he did, to Hale thought. Keep peace or mischief with or against anybody with that face of his. That was a common type of bad man, that horseman who had galloped away from the gate. But this old man with his dual face, who preached the word on Sundays and on other days was a walking arsenal, who dreamed dreams and had visions and slipped through the hills in his mysterious moccasins, on errands of mercy or chasing men from vanity, personal enmity, or for fun, and still appeared so sane, he was a type that confounded. No wonder, for these reasons, and as tribute to his infernal shudness, he was known far and wide as the Red Fox of the Mountains. But Hale was too tired for further speculation and presently a yawned. Want to lay down? asked the old man quickly. I think I do sit Hale, and they went inside. The old man had her face to the wall in the bed in one corner, and the Red Fox pointed to a bed in the other. There's your bed. Again Hale's eyes fell on the big winchester. Want to lay down? asked the old man quickly. I think I do sit Hale, and they went inside. The little old woman had her face to the wall in a bed in one corner, and the Red Fox pointed to a bed in the other. There's your bed. Again Hale's eyes fell on the big winchester. I reckon there ain't more than two others like it in all these mountains. What's the caliber? Biggest made, was the answer, a fifty by a seventy-five. Centerfire? Rim, said the Red Fox. Gracious left Hale, what do you want such a big one for? Man cannot live by bread alone in these mountains, said the Red Fox grimly. When Hale lay down, he could hear the old man quivering out a hymn or two on the porch outside, and when worn out with the day, he went to sleep. The Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a tallow dip. It is faithfully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red Fox, for had Bad Roof Tolliver, while he whispered at the gate, known the part, the quiet young man silently seated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where he sat. And could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was to play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay. It is faithfully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red Fox, for had Bad Roof Tolliver, while he whispered at the gate, known the part, the quiet young man silently seated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where he sat. And could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was to play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay. End of Chapter 9 Recording by Steve Bell, Becker, Texas.