Call of the Cumberlands | Page 8

at least seemed to do so.
"I reckon ye'd better let me holp ye up on thet old mule," he said; "hit's a-comin' on ter be night."
With the mountaineer's aid, Lescott clambered astride the mount, then he turned dubiously.
"I'm sorry to trouble you," he ventured, "but I have a paint box and some materials up there. If you'll bring them down here, I'll show you how to pack the easel, and, by the way," he anxiously added, "please handle that fresh canvas carefully--by the edge--it's not dry yet."
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.
Then, followed a silence unbroken until the mule reached the group, revealing that besides the boy another man--and a strange man--had joined their number.
"Evenin', stranger," they greeted him, gravely; then again they fell silent, and in their silence was evident constraint.
"This hyar man's a furriner," announced Samson, briefly. "He fell offen a rock, an' got hurt. I 'lowed I'd fotch him home ter stay all night."
The elderly man who had hailed the boy nodded, but with an evident annoyance. It seemed that to him the others deferred as to a commanding officer. The cortege remounted and rode slowly toward the house. At last, the elderly man came alongside the mule, and inquired:
"Samson, where was ye last night?"
"Thet's my business."
"Mebbe hit hain't." The old mountaineer spoke with no resentment, but deep gravity. "We've been powerful oneasy erbout ye. Hev ye heered the news?"
"What news?" The boy put the question non-committally.
"Jesse Purvy was shot soon this morning."
The boy vouchsafed no reply.
"The mail-rider done told hit.... Somebody shot five shoots from the laurel.... Purvy hain't died yit.... Some says as how his folks has sent ter Lexington fer bloodhounds."
The boy's eyes began to smolder hatefully.
"I reckon," he spoke slowly, "he didn't git shot none too soon."
"Samson!" The old man's voice had the ring of determined authority. "When I dies, ye'll be the head of the Souths, but so long es I'm a-runnin' this hyar fam'ly, I keeps my word ter friend an' foe alike. I reckon Jesse Purvy knows who got yore pap, but up till now no South hain't never busted no truce."
The boy's voice dropped its softness, and took on a shrill crescendo of excitement as he flashed out his retort.
"Who said a South has done busted the truce this time?"
Old Spencer South gazed searchingly at his nephew.
"I hain't