Hell Fer Sartain | Page 4

(ef he
ain't in it), a-bitin' his thumbs!

THROUGH THE GAP
When thistles go adrift, the sun sets down the valley between the hills;
when snow comes, it goes down behind the Cumberland and streams
through a great fissure that people call the Gap. Then the last light
drenches the parson's cottage under Imboden Hill, and leaves an
after-glow of glory on a majestic heap that lies against the east.
Sometimes it spans the Gap with a rainbow.
Strange people and strange tales come through this Gap from the
Kentucky hills. Through it came these two, late one day--a man and a
woman-- afoot. I met them at the foot- bridge over Roaring Fork.
``Is thar a preacher anywhar aroun' hyeh?'' he asked. I pointed to the
cottage under Imboden Hill. The girl flushed slightly and turned her

head away with a rather unhappy smile. Without a word, the
mountaineer led the way towards town. A moment more and a
half-breed Malungian passed me on the bridge and followed them.
At dusk the next day I saw the mountaineer chopping wood at a shanty
under a clump of rhododendron on the river-bank. The girl was cooking
supper inside. The day following he was at work on the railroad, and on
Sunday, after church, I saw the parson. The two had not been to him.
Only that afternoon the mountaineer was on the bridge with another
woman, hideously rouged and with scarlet ribbons fluttering from her
bonnet. Passing on by the shanty, I saw the Malungian talking to the
girl. She apparently paid no heed to him until, just as he was moving
away, he said something mockingly, and with a nod of his head back
towards the bridge. She did not look up even then, but her face got hard
and white, and, looking back from the road, I saw her slipping through
the bushes into the dry bed of the creek, to make sure that what the
half-breed told her was true.
The two men were working side by side on the railroad when I saw
them again, but on the first pay-day the doctor was called to attend the
Malungian, whose head was split open with a shovel. I was one of two
who went out to arrest his assailant, and I had no need to ask who he
was. The mountaineer was a devil, the foreman said, and I had to club
him with a pistol-butt before he would give in. He said he would get
even with me; but they all say that, and I paid no attention to the threat.
For a week he was kept in the calaboose, and when I passed the shanty
just after he was sent to the county-seat for trial, I found it empty. The
Malungian, too, was gone. Within a fortnight the mountaineer was in
the door of the shanty again. Having no accuser, he had been
discharged. He went back to his work, and if he opened his lips I never
knew. Every day I saw him at work, and he never failed to give me a
surly look. Every dusk I saw him in his door-way, waiting, and I could
guess for what. It was easy to believe that the stern purpose in his face
would make its way through space and draw her to him again. And she
did come back one day. I had just limped down the mountain with a
sprained ankle. A crowd of women was gathered at the edge of the
woods, looking with all their eyes to the shanty on the river-bank. The

girl stood in the door-way. The mountaineer was coming back from
work with his face down.
``He hain't seed her yit,'' said one. ``He's goin' to kill her shore. I tol' her
he would. She said she reckoned he would, but she didn't keer.''
For a moment I was paralyzed by the tragedy at hand. She was in the
door looking at him when he raised his head. For one moment he stood
still, staring, and then he started towards her with a quickened step. I
started too, then, every step a torture, and as I limped ahead she made a
gesture of terror and backed into the room before him. The door closed,
and I listened for a pistol-shot and a scream. It must have been done
with a knife, I thought, and quietly, for when I was within ten paces of
the cabin he opened the door again. His face was very white; he held
one hand behind him, and he was nervously fumbling at his chill with
the other. As he stepped towards me I caught the handle of a pistol in
my side pocket and waited. He looked at me sharply.
``Did you say the