The Call of the Cumberlands

Before the mountain roads were mired with the coming of the rains, and

while the air held its sparkle of autumnal zestfulness, Samson South

wrote to Wilfred Horton that, if he still meant to come to the hills

for his inspection of coal and timber, the time was ripe. Soon, men

would appear bearing transit and chain, drawing a line which a railroad

was to follow to Misery and across it to the heart of untouched forests

and coal-fields. With that wave of innovation would come the

speculators. Besides, Samson's fingers were itching to be out in the

hills with a palette and a sheaf of brushes in the society of George

Lescott.

For a while after the battle at Hixon, the county had lain in a torpid

paralysis of dread. Many illiterate feudists on each side remembered

the directing and exposed figure of Samson South seen through eddies of

gun smoke, and believed him immune from death. With Purvy dead and

Hollman the victim of his own hand, the backbone of the murder

syndicate was broken. Its heart had ceased to beat. Those Hollman

survivors who bore the potentialities for leadership had not only

signed pledges of peace, but were afraid to break them; and the

triumphant Souths, instead of vaunting their victory, had subscribed to

the doctrine of order, and declared the war over.

Souths who broke the

law were as speedily arrested as Hollmans. Their boys were drilling as

militiamen, and--wonder of wonders!--inviting the sons of the enemy to

join them. Of course, these things changed gradually, but the

beginnings of them were most noticeable in the first few months, just

as a newly painted and renovated house is more conspicuous than one

that has been long respectable.

Hollman's Mammoth Department Store passed into new hands, and

trafficked only in merchandise, and the town was open to the men and

women of Misery as well as those of Crippleshin.

These things Samson had explained in his letters to the Lescotts and

Horton. Men from down below could still find trouble in the wink of an

eye, by seeking it, for under all transformation the nature of the

individual remained much the same; but, without seeking to give

offense, they could ride as securely through the hills as through the

streets of a policed city--and meet a readier hospitality.

And, when these things were discussed and the two men prepared to

cross the Mason-and-Dixon line and visit the Cumberlands, Adrienne

promptly and definitely announced that she would accompany her brother.

No argument was effective to dissuade her, and after all Lescott, who

had been there, saw no good reason why she should not go with him. He

had brought Samson North. He had made a hazardous experiment which

subsequent events had more than vindicated, and yet, in one respect, he

feared that there had been failure. He had promised Sally that her

lover would return to her with undeflected loyalty. Had he done so?

Lescott had been glad that his sister should have undertaken the part

of Samson's molding, which only a woman's hand could accomplish, and he

had been glad of the strong friendship that had grown between them.

But, if that friendship had come to mean something more sentimental,

his experiment had been successful at the cost of unsuccess. He had

said little, but watched much, and he had known that, after receiving a

certain letter from Samson South, his sister had seemed strangely quiet

and distressed. These four young persons had snarled their lives in

perplexity. They could definitely find themselves and permanently

adjust themselves, only by meeting on common ground. Perhaps, Samson

had shone in an exaggerated high-light of fascination by the strong

contrast into which New York had thrown him. Wilfred Horton had the

right to be seen also in contrast with mountain life, and then only

could the girl decide for all time and irrevocably. The painter learns

something of confused values.