The Heart of the Hills | Page 5

then, far down the river, he
saw two figures on horseback come into sight from a strip of woods,
move slowly around a curve of the road, and disappear into the woods
again.
One rode sidewise, both looked absurdly small, and even that far away
the boy knew them for strangers. He did not call Mavis's attention to
them--he had no need--for when he turned, her face showed that she too
had seen them, and she was already moving forward to go with him
down the spur. Once or twice, as they went down, each glimpsed the
coming "furriners" dimly through the trees; they hurried that they might
not miss the passing, and on a high bank above the river road they
stopped, standing side by side, the eyes of both fixed on the arched
opening of the trees through which the strangers must first come into
sight. A ringing laugh from the green depths heralded their coming, and
then in the archway were framed a boy and a girl and two ponies--all
from another world. The two watchers stared silently--the boy noting

that the other boy wore a cap and long stockings, the girl that a strange
hat hung down the back of the other girl's head--stared with widening
eyes at a sight that was never for them before. And then the strangers
saw them--the boy with his bow and arrow, the girl with a
fishing-pole--and simultaneously pulled their ponies in before the
halting gaze that was levelled at them from the grassy bank. Then they
all looked at one another until boy's eyes rested on boy's eyes for
question and answer, and the stranger lad's face flashed with quick
humor.
"Were you looking for us?" he asked, for just so it seemed to him, and
the little mountaineer nodded.
"Yes," he said gravely.
The stranger boy laughed.
"What can we do for you?"
Now, little Jason had answered honestly and literally, and he saw now
that he was being trifled with.
"A feller what wears gal's stockings can't do nothin' fer me," he said
coolly.
Instantly the other lad made as though he would jump from his pony,
but a cry of protest stopped him, and for a moment he glared his hot
resentment of the insult; then he dug his heels into his pony's sides.
"Come on, Marjorie," he said, and with dignity the two little "furriners"
rode on, never looking back even when they passed over the hill.
"He didn't mean nothin'," said Mavis, "an' you oughtn't--"
Jason turned on her in a fury.
"I seed you a-lookin' at him!"
"'Tain't so! I seed you a-lookin' at HER!" she retorted, but her eyes fell

before his accusing gaze, and she began worming a bare toe into the
sand.
"Air ye goin' home now?" she asked, presently.
"No," he said shortly, "I'm a-goin' atter him. You go on home."
The boy started up the hill, and in a moment the girl was trotting after
him. He turned when he heard the patter of her feet.
"Huh!" he grunted contemptuously, and kept on. At the top of the hill
he saw several men on horseback in the bend of the road below, and he
turned into the bushes.
"They mought tell on us," explained Jason, and hiding bow and arrow
and fishing-pole, they slipped along the flank of the spur until they
stood on a point that commanded the broad river-bottom at the mouth
of the creek.
By the roadside down there, was the ancestral home of the Hawns with
an orchard about it, a big garden, a stable huge for that part of the world,
and a meat-house where for three-quarters of a century there had
always been things "hung up." The old log house in which Jason and
Mavis's great-great-grandfather had spent his pioneer days had been
weather-boarded and was invisible somewhere in the big frame house
that, trimmed with green and porticoed with startling colors, glared
white in the afternoon sun. They could see the two ponies hitched at the
front gate. Two horsemen were hurrying along the river road beneath
them, and Jason recognized one as his uncle, Arch Hawn, who lived in
the county-seat, who bought "wild" lands and was always bringing in
"furriners," to whom he sold them again. The man with him was a
stranger, and Jason understood better now what was going on. Arch
Hawn was responsible for the presence of the man and of the girl and
that boy in the "gal's stockings," and all of them would probably spend
the night at his grandfather's house. A farm-hand was leading the
ponies to the barn now, and Jason and Mavis saw Arch and the man
with him throw themselves hurriedly from their horses, for the sun had
disappeared in a black