The Call of the Cumberlands

They came before noon to the mouth of Dryhole Creek, and the house of

Wile McCager. Already, the picket fence was lined with tethered horses

and mules, and a canvas-covered wagon came creeping in behind its yoke

of oxen. Men stood clustered in the road, and at the entrance a woman,

nursing her baby at her breast, welcomed and gossiped with the arrivals.

The house of Wile McCager loaned itself to entertainment. It was not

of logs, but of undressed lumber, and boasted a front porch and two

front rooms entered by twin doors facing on a triangular alcove. In the

recess between these portals stood a washstand, surmounted by a china

basin and pitcher--a declaration of affluence. From the interior of the

house came the sounds of fiddling, though these strains of "Turkey in

the Straw" were only by way of prelude. Lescott felt, though he could

not say just what concrete thing told him, that under the shallow note

of merry-making brooded the major theme of a troublesome problem. The

seriousness was below the surface, but insistently depressing. He saw,

too, that he himself was mixed up with it in a fashion, which might

become dangerous, when a few jugs of white liquor had been emptied.

It would be some time yet before the crowd warmed up. Now, they only

stood about and talked, and to Lescott they gave a gravely polite

greeting, beneath which was discernible an undercurrent of hostility.

As the day advanced, the painter began picking out the more

influential clansmen, by the fashion in which they fell together into

groups, and took themselves off to the mill by the racing creek for

discussion. While the young persons danced and "sparked" within, and

the more truculent lads escaped to the road to pass the jug, and

forecast with youthful war-fever "cleanin' out the Hollmans," the

elders were deep in ways and means. If the truce could be preserved for

its unexpired period of three years, it was, of course, best. In that

event, crops could be cultivated, and lives saved. But, if Jesse Purvy

chose to regard his shooting as a breach of terms, and struck, he would

strike hard, and, in that event, best defense lay in striking first.

Samson would soon be twenty-one. That he would take his place as head

of the clan had until now never been questioned--and he was talking of

desertion. For that, a pink-skinned foreigner, who wore a woman's bow

of ribbon at his collar, was to blame. The question of loyalty must be

squarely put up to Samson, and it must be done to-day. His answer must

be definite and unequivocal. As a guest of Spicer South, Lescott was

entitled to that consideration which is accorded ambassadors.