The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains | Page 5

girth about the animal.
"Ef that air ennybody a-hankerin' ter see me, don't you-uns be a-denyin'
ez I hev been hyar, D'rindy," he said, as he put his foot in the stirrup. "I
reckon they hev fund out by now ez I be in the kentry round about. But

keep 'em hyar ez long ez ye kin, ter gin me a start."
He mounted his horse, and rode noiselessly away along the newly
turned mould of the furrow.
She stood leaning upon her plough-handles, and silently watching him.
His equestrian figure, darkly outlined against the far blue mountains
and the intermediate valley, seemed of heroic size against the landscape,
which was reduced by the distance to the minimum of proportion. The
deep shadows of the woods, encompassing the clearing, fell upon him
presently, and he, too, was but a shadow in the dusky monochrome of
the limited vista. The dense laurel closed about him, and his mountain
fastnesses, that had befriended him of yore, received him once again.
Then up and down the furrows Dorinda mechanically followed the
plough, her pulses throbbing, every nerve tense, every faculty alert. She
winced when she heard the frequent striking of hoofs upon the rocky
slopes of the road below. She was instantly aware when they were
silent and the party had stopped to breathe the horses. She began
accurately to gauge their slow progress.
"'T ain't airish in no wise ter-day," she said, glancing about at the still,
noontide landscape; "an' ef them air valley cattle they mus' git blowed
mightily travelin' up sech steep mountings ez the Big Smoky." She
checked her self-gratulation. "Though I ain't wantin' ter gloat on the
beastis' misery, nuther," she stipulated.
She paused presently at the lower end of the clearing, and looked down
over the precipice, that presented a sheer sandstone cliff on one side,
and on the other a wild confusion of splintered and creviced rocks,
where the wild rose bloomed in the niches and the grape-vine swung.
The beech-trees on the slope below conserved beneath their dense,
umbrageous branches a tender, green twilight. Loitering along in a
gleaming silver thread by the roadside was a mountain rill, hardly
gurgling even when with slight and primitive shift it was led into a
hollow and mossy log, that it might aggregate sufficient volume in the
dry season to water the horse of the chance wayfarer.

The first stranger that rode into this shadowy nook took off a large
straw hat and bared his brow to the refreshing coolness. His grizzled
hair stood up in front after the manner denominated "a roach." His
temples were deeply sunken, and his strongly marked face was long
and singularly lean. He held it forward, as if he were snuffing the air.
He had a massive and powerful frame, with not an ounce of superfluous
flesh, and he looked like a hound in the midst of the hunting season.
It served to quiet Dorinda's quivering nerves when he leisurely rode his
big gray horse up to the trough, and dropped the rein that the animal
might drink. If he were in pursuit he evidently had no idea how close
he had pressed the fugitive. He was joined there by the other members
of the party, six or eight in number, and presently a stentorian voice
broke upon the air. "Hello! Hello!" he shouted, hailing the log cabin.
Mirandy Jane, a slim, long-legged, filly-like girl of thirteen, with a
tangled black mane, the forelock hanging over her wild, prominent eyes,
had at that moment appeared on the porch. She paused, and stared at
the strangers with vivacious surprise. Then, taking sudden fright, she
fled precipitately, with as much attendant confusion of pattering
footfalls, flying mane, and excited snorts and gasps as if she were a
troop of wild horses.
"Granny! Granny!" she exclaimed to the old crone in the chimney
corner, "thar's a man on a big gray critter down at the trough, an' I ain't
s'prised none ef he air a raider!"
The hail of the intruders was regarded as a challenge by some fifteen or
twenty hounds that suddenly materialized among the beehives and the
althea bushes, and from behind the ash-hopper and the hen-house and
the rain-barrel. From under the cabin two huge curs came, their activity
impeded by the blocks and chains they drew. These were silent, while
the others yelped vociferously, and climbed over the fence, and dashed
down the road.
The horses pricked up their ears, and the leader of the party awaited the
onslaught with a pistol in his hand.

The old woman, glancing out of the window, observed this
demonstration.
"He'll kill one o' our dogs with that thar shootin'-iron o' his'n!" she
exclaimed in trepidation. "Run, Mirandy Jane, an' tell him our dogs
don't bite."
The