The Call of the Cumberlands

He had anticipated impatient contempt for his artist's impedimenta,

but to his surprise the mountain boy climbed the rock, and halted

before the sketch with a face that slowly softened to an expression of

amazed admiration. Finally, he took up the square of academy board with

a tender care of which his rough hands would have seemed incapable, and

stood stock still, presenting an anomalous figure in his rough clothes

as his eyes grew almost idolatrous. Then, he brought the landscape over

to its creator, and, though no word was spoken, there flashed between

the eyes of the artist, whose signature gave to a canvas the value of a

precious stone and the jeans-clad boy whose destiny was that of the

vendetta, a subtle, wordless message. It was the countersign of

brothers-in-blood who recognize in each other the bond of a mutual

passion.

The boy and the girl, under Lescott's direction, packed the outfit,

and stored the canvas in the protecting top of the box. Then, while

Sally turned and strode down creek in search of Lescott's lost mount,

the two men rode up stream in silence. Finally. Samson spoke slowly and

diffidently.

"Stranger," he ventured, "ef hit hain't askin' too much, will ye let

me see ye paint one of them things?"

"Gladly," was the prompt reply.

Then, the boy added covertly: "Don't say nothin' erbout hit ter none of these folks. They'd devil me."

The dusk was falling now, and the hollows choking with murk. Over the

ridge, the evening star showed in a lonely point of pallor. The peaks,

which in a broader light had held their majestic distances, seemed with

the falling of night to draw in and huddle close in crowding herds of

black masses. The distant tinkling of a cow-bell came drifting down the

breeze with a weird and fanciful softness.

"We're nigh home now," said Samson at the end of some minutes' silent

plodding. "Hit's right beyond thet thar bend."

Then, they rounded a point of timber, and came upon a small party of

men whose attitudes even in the dimming light conveyed a subtle

suggestion of portent. Some sat their horses, with one leg thrown

across the pommel. Others stood in the road, and a bottle of white

liquor was passing in and out among them. At the distance they

recognized the gray mule, though even the fact that it carried a double

burden was not yet manifest.

"Thet you, Samson?" called an old man's voice, which was still very

deep and powerful.

"Hello, Unc' Spicer!" replied the boy.