The Call of the Cumberlands

"Why didn't you answer your 'phone?" smiled Lescott, though he knew.

The stout man shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the wall, where

the disconnected receiver was hanging down. "Necessary precaution

against creditors," he explained. "I am out--except to you."

"Busy?" interrogated Lescott. "You seem to have a manuscript in the

making."

"No." The stout man's face clouded with black foreboding. "I shall

never write another story. I'm played out." He turned, and restively

paced the worn carpet, pausing at the window for a despondent glance

across the roofs and chimney pots of the city. Lescott, with the

privilege of intimacy, filled his pipe from the writer's tobacco jar.

"I want your help. I want you to meet a friend of mine, and take him

under your wing in a fashion. He needs you."

The stout man's face again clouded. A few years ago, he had been

peddling his manuscripts with the heart-sickness of unsuccessful middle

age. To-day, men coupled his name with those of Kipling and De

Maupassant. One of his antipathies was meeting people who sought to

lionize him. Lescott read the expression, and, before his host had time

to object, swept into his recital.

At the end he summarized: "The artist is much like the setter-pup. If it's in him, it's as

instinctive as a dog's nose. But to become efficient he must go a-field

with a steady veteran of his own breed."

"I know!" The great man, who was also the simple man, smiled

reminiscently. "They tried to teach me to herd sheep when my nose was

itching for bird country. Bring on your man; I want to know him."

Samson was told nothing of the benevolent conspiracy, but one evening

shortly later he found himself sitting at a café table with his sponsor

and a stout man, almost as silent as himself. The stout man responded

with something like churlish taciturnity to the half-dozen men and

women who came over with flatteries. But later, when the trio was left

alone, his face brightened, and he turned to the boy from Misery.

"Does Billy Conrad still keep store at Stagbone?"

Samson started, and his gaze fell in amazement. At the mention of the

name, he saw a cross-roads store, with rough mules hitched to fence

palings. It was a picture of home, and here was a man who had been

there! With glowing eyes, the boy dropped unconsciously back into the

vernacular of the hills.

"Hev ye been thar, stranger?"