She rose and replaced the slate and primer. Then, she took tenderly

from its corner the rifle, which the boy had confided to her keeping,

and unwrapped its greasy covering. She drew the cartridges from chamber

and magazine, oiled the rifling, polished the lock, and reloaded the

piece.

"Thar now," she said, softly, "I reckon ther old rifle-gun's ready."

As she sat there alone in the shuck-bottomed chair, the corners of the

room wavered in huge shadows, and the smoke-blackened cavern of the

fireplace, glaring like a volcano pit, threw her face into relief. She

made a very lovely and pathetic picture. Her slender knees were drawn

close together, and from her slim waist she bent forward, nursing the

inanimate thing which she valued and tended, because Samson valued it.

Her violet eyes held the heart-touching wistfulness of utter

loneliness, and her lips drooped. This small girl, dreaming her dreams

of hope against hope, with the vast isolation of the hills about her,

was a little monument of unflinching loyalty and simple courage, and,

as she sat, she patted the rifle with as soft a touch as though she had

been dandling Samson's child--and her own--on her knee. There was no

speck of rust in the unused muzzle, no hitch in the easily sliding

mechanism of the breechblock. The hero's weapon was in readiness to his

hand, as the bow of Ulysses awaited the coming of the wanderer.

Then, with sudden interruption to her reflections, came a rattling on

the cabin door. She sat up and listened. Night visitors were rare at

the Widow Miller's. Sally waited, holding her breath, until the sound

was repeated.

"Who is hit?" she demanded in a low voice.

"Hit's me--Tam'rack!" came the reply, very low and cautious, and

somewhat shamefaced.

"What does ye want?"

"Let me in, Sally," whined the kinsman, desperately. "They're atter

me. They won't think to come hyar."

Sally had not seen her cousin since Samson had forbidden his coming to

the house. Since Samson's departure, the troublesome kinsman, too, had

been somewhere "down below," holding his railroad job. But the call for

protection was imperative. She set the gun out of sight against the

mantle-shelf, and, walking over unwillingly, opened the door.

The mud-spattered man came in, glancing about him half-furtively, and

went to the fireplace. There, he held his hands to the blaze.

"Hit's cold outdoors," he said.

"What manner of deviltry hev ye been into now, Tam'rack?" inquired the

girl. "Kain't ye never keep outen trouble?"




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