The Call of the Cumberlands

nd as comes from fully conscious lips, but rather that of a brain dulled into coma. His lids drooped

he stood for a moment with one hand on the dripping walls of rock, looking down while her hair fell about her face. Then, dropping to her kn

forearms well-enough sinewed, but instead of being browned to the hue of a saddle-skirt, they were white underneath and pinkly red above. Moreover, they were scaling in the fashion of a skin not inured to weather beating. Though the man had thought on setting out from civilization that he was suiting his appearance to the environment, t

was clean shaven and smooth of skin. Long locks of brown hair fell away from t

felt, as she raised the head and propped the shoulders

sed a broken bone. But unconsciousness must have come from the blow on the

th for bathing and bandaging the wound. It required several trips through the littered cleft, for the puddles between the rocks were stale and brackish; but these journ

icker," she mused. "Thet air

el. On the flat surface, she began unstrapping the saddlebags, and, after a few moments of rummaging among their contents, she smiled with satisfaction. Her hand brought out a leather-covered flask with a

its in the alligator-skin covering, she saw the deep color of the contents; and, as she lifted the nozzle

s scornfully with t

t be better'n nuthin'." She was accustomed to seeing whiskey freely drunk,

neeling once more on the stones, she lifted the stranger's head in her supporting arm, and pressed the flask to his lips. After that, she chafed the wrist which was not hurt, and once more administered the tonic. Finally, the man's lids fluttered, and his lips moved. Then, he opened his eyes. He opened them waveringly, and

It was a friendly, understanding smile, and the girl, fighting hard the shy impulse to dr

l offen the rock,

len into worse circumstan

kin set up a

in the support of her bent arm. He attempted to prop himself on his hurt hand, and relaxed with a twinge of extreme pain. The color, which

r busted," announced t

t ter be

of course; but her eyes mirrored a pleased surprise at the stranger's good-natured nod and

painter, "that I've been a

yes were sober

thet's a

to be more trouble. Did you

ook he

I ask to whom I'm indebted for

know what

ness; her solemn-pupiled eyes were unblinking, unsmiling. Unaccustomed to the gravity of the mountaineer in th

who are you

y much. I jest

the man, "surely

no

's S

ally, I want

er eyes drop, while she sat nursing her knees. Final

what mout y

-George

ye gi

ok his

o absorbed in the work. I stepped backward to look at the

rtly up to see if at last he had discovered a flash of humor. He had the idea that her lips would shape thems

against the wall of ragged stone. The blow on his h

ed, "that I'm not quite ready fo

pointed up the mountainside. "I'll light out a

he valley would shortly thicken into darkness, and that the way out, ung

further description of one so celebrated would be

arters of

else could thre

ll it take y

in the fur-hill field. He'll hev ter co

days. In places two miles an hour had been his rate of speed, though mounted and following so-called roads. She

it in a half-h

a nod was gone. The man rose, and made his way carefully over to a mossy

to pause, and then to begin painting. The place had not

nst a background of evergreen thicket, and a catalpa tree loaned the perfume of its white blossoms with their

hts. Once only, she stopped and drew back. There was a sinister rustle in the grass, and something glided into her path and lay coiled there, challenging her with an ominous rattle, and with wicked, beady eyes glittering out of a swaying, arro

attlesnake," she called back, as she went. "Ef I

gination saw beyond the haze of the last far rim. Against the fence rested his abandoned hoe, and about him a number of lean hounds scratched and dozed in the sun. Samson South had little need of hounds; but, in another century, his people, turning their backs on Virginia affluence to invite the hardships of pioneer life, had brought with them certain of the cavaliers' instincts. A hundred years in the stagnant back-waters of the world had brought to their descendants a lapse into illiteracy and semi-squalor, but through it all had fought that thin, insistent flame of instinct. Such a survi

al of the Kentucky mountaineer. His face was strongly individual, and belonged to no type. Black brows and lashes gave a distinctiveness to gray eyes so clear as to be luminous. A high and splendidly molded forehead and a squarely blocked chin were free of that degeneracy which marks the wasting of an in-bred people. The nose was straight, and the mouth firm yet mobile. It was the face of the instinctive philosopher, tanned to a hickory brown. In a stature of medium size, there was still