The Trail of the Lonesome Pine | Page 5

bushes. "I know his name, hit's Jack--" the rest of the name was unintelligible. The mountaineer dropped the butt of his gun to the ground and laughed.
"Oh, air YOU the engineer?"
The fisherman was angry now. He had not moved hand or foot and he said nothing, but his mouth was set hard and his bewildered blue eyes had a glint in them that the mountaineer did not at the moment see. He was leaning with one arm on the muzzle of his Winchester, his face had suddenly become suave and shrewd and now he laughed again:
"So you're Jack Hale, air ye?"
The fisherman spoke. "JOHN Hale, except to my friends." He looked hard at the old man.
"Do you know that's a pretty dangerous joke of yours, my friend--I might have a gun myself sometimes. Did you think you could scare me?" The mountaineer stared in genuine surprise.
"Twusn't no joke," he said shortly. "An' I don't waste time skeering folks. I reckon you don't know who I be?"
"I don't care who you are." Again the mountaineer stared.
"No use gittin' mad, young feller," he said coolly. "I mistaken ye fer somebody else an' I axe yer pardon. When you git through fishin' come up to the house right up the creek thar an' I'll give ye a dram."
"Thank you," said the fisherman stiffly, and the mountaineer turned silently away. At the edge of the bushes, he looked back; the stranger was still fishing, and the old man went on with a shake of his head.
"He'll come," he said to himself. "Oh, he'll come!"
That very point Hale was debating with himself as he unavailingly cast his minnow into the swift water and slowly wound it in again. How did that old man know his name? And would the old savage really have hurt him had he not found out who he was? The little girl was a wonder: evidently she had muffled his last name on purpose--not knowing it herself--and it was a quick and cunning ruse. He owed her something for that--why did she try to protect him? Wonderful eyes, too, the little thing had--deep and dark--and how the flame did dart from them when she got angry! He smiled, remembering--he liked that. And her hair--it was exactly like the gold-bronze on the wing of a wild turkey that he had shot the day before. Well, it was noon now, the fish had stopped biting after the wayward fashion of bass, he was hungry and thirsty and he would go up and see the little girl and the giant again and get that promised dram. Once more, however, he let his minnow float down into the shadow of a big rock, and while he was winding in, he looked up to see in the road two people on a gray horse, a man with a woman behind him--both old and spectacled--all three motionless on the bank and looking at him: and he wondered if all three had stopped to ask his name and his business. No, they had just come down to the creek and both they must know already.
"Ketching any?" called out the old man, cheerily.
"Only one," answered Hale with equal cheer. The old woman pushed back her bonnet as he waded through the water towards them and he saw that she was puffing a clay pipe. She looked at the fisherman and his tackle with the naive wonder of a child, and then she said in a commanding undertone.
"Go on, Billy."
"Now, ole Hon, I wish ye'd jes' wait a minute." Hale smiled. He loved old people, and two kinder faces he had never seen--two gentler voices he had never heard.
"I reckon you got the only green pyerch up hyeh," said the old man, chuckling, "but thar's a sight of 'em down thar below my old mill." Quietly the old woman hit the horse with a stripped branch of elm and the old gray, with a switch of his tail, started.
"Wait a minute, Hon," he said again, appealingly, "won't ye?" but calmly she hit the horse again and the old man called back over his shoulder:
"You come on down to the mill an' I'll show ye whar you can ketch a mess."
"All right," shouted Hale, holding back his laughter, and on they went, the old man remonstrating in the kindliest way--the old woman silently puffing her pipe and making no answer except to flay gently the rump of the lazy old gray.
Hesitating hardly a moment, Hale unjointed his pole, left his minnow bucket where it was, mounted his horse and rode up the path. About him, the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight, and a little ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on fire with the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the