A Knight of the Cumberland | Page 4

Blight had heard
much talk of moonshine stills and mountain feuds and the men who run
them and I took the risk of denying her nothing. Up and up we went,
those two mules swaying from side to side with a motion little short of
elephantine and, by and by, the Blight called out:
``You ride ahead and don't you DARE look back.''
Accustomed to obeying the Blight's orders, I rode ahead with eyes to
the front. Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly. It was
nothing--my little sister's mule had gone near a steep cliff--perilously
near, as its rider thought, but I saw why I must not look back; those two
little girls were riding astride on side-saddles, the booted little right foot
of each dangling stirrupless--a posture quite decorous but ludicrous.
``Let us know if anybody comes,'' they cried. A mountaineer descended
into sight around a loop of the path above.
``Change cars,'' I shouted.
They changed and, passing, were grave, demure--then they changed
again, and thus we climbed.

Such a glory as was below, around and above us; the air like
champagne; the sunlight rich and pouring like a flood on the gold that
the beeches had strewn in the path, on the gold that the poplars still
shook high above and shimmering on the royal scarlet of the maple and
the sombre russet of the oak. From far below us to far above us a deep
curving ravine was slashed into the mountain side as by one stroke of a
gigantic scimitar. The darkness deep down was lighted up with cool
green, interfused with liquid gold. Russet and yellow splashed the
mountain sides beyond and high up the maples were in a shaking blaze.
The Blight's swift eyes took all in and with indrawn breath she drank it
all deep down.
An hour by sun we were near the top, which was bared of trees and
turned into rich farm-land covered with blue-grass. Along these upland
pastures, dotted with grazing cattle, and across them we rode toward
the mountain wildernesses on the other side, down into which a zigzag
path wriggles along the steep front of Benham's spur. At the edge of the
steep was a cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer, who looked like a
brigand, answered my hail. He ``mought'' keep us all night, but he'd
``ruther not, as we could git a place to stay down the spur.'' Could we
get down before dark? The mountaineer lifted his eyes to where the sun
was breaking the horizon of the west into streaks and splashes of
yellow and crimson.
``Oh, yes, you can git thar afore dark.''
Now I knew that the mountaineer's idea of distance is vague--but he
knows how long it takes to get from one place to another. So we started
down--dropping at once into thick dark woods, and as we went looping
down, the deeper was the gloom. That sun had suddenly severed all
connection with the laws of gravity and sunk, and it was all the darker
because the stars were not out. The path was steep and coiled
downward like a wounded snake. In one place a tree had fallen across it,
and to reach the next coil of the path below was dangerous. So I had the
girls dismount and I led the gray horse down on his haunches. The
mules refused to follow, which was rather unusual. I went back and
from a safe distance in the rear I belabored them down. They cared

neither for gray horse nor crooked path, but turned of their own devilish
wills along the bushy mountain side. As I ran after them the gray horse
started calmly on down and those two girls shrieked with laughter--they
knew no better. First one way and then the other down the mountain
went those mules, with me after them, through thick bushes, over logs,
stumps and bowlders and holes--crossing the path a dozen times. What
that path was there for never occurred to those long-eared half asses,
whole fools, and by and by, when the girls tried to shoo them down
they clambered around and above them and struck the path back up the
mountain. The horse had gone down one way, the mules up the other,
and there was no health in anything. The girls could not go up--so there
was nothing to do but go down, which, hard as it was, was easier than
going up. The path was not visible now. Once in a while I would
stumble from it and crash through the bushes to the next coil below.
Finally I went down, sliding one foot ahead all the time--knowing that
when leaves rustled under that foot I was on the point of going astray.
Sometimes I had to light a match