It so happened that mischance led General Dean to go over to see Major Buford about Chad next morning. The Major listened patiently—or tried ineffectively to listen—and when the General was through, he burst out with a vehemence that shocked and amazed his old friend.

"Damn those niggers!" he cried, in a tone that seemed to include the General in his condemnation, "that boy is the best boy I ever knew. I believe he is my own blood, he looks a little like that picture there"—pointing to the old portrait—"and if he is what I believe he is, by ——, sir, he gets this farm and all I have. Do you understand that?"

"I believe he told you what he was."

"He did—but I don't believe he knows, and, anyhow, whatever he is, he shall have a home under this roof as long as he lives."

The General rose suddenly—stiffly.

"He must never darken my door again."

"Very well." The Major made a gesture which plainly said, "In that event, you are darkening mine too long," and the General rose, slowly descended the steps of the portico, and turned:

"Do you really mean, that you are going to let a little brat that you picked up in the road only yesterday stand between you and me?"

The Major softened.

"Look here," he said, whisking a sheet of paper from his coat-pocket. While the General read Chad's scrawl, the Major watched his face.

"He's gone, by ——. A hint was enough for him. If he isn't the son of a gentleman, then I'm not, nor you."

"Cal," said the General, holding out his hand, "we'll talk this over again."

The bees buzzed around the honeysuckles that clambered over the porch. A crow flew overhead. The sound of a crying child came around the corner of the house from the quarters, and the General's footsteps died on the gravel-walk, but the Major heard them not. Mechanically he watched the General mount his black horse and canter toward the pike gate. The overseer called to him from the stable, but the Major dropped his eyes to the scrawl in his hand, and when Miss Lucy came out he silently handed it to her.

"I reckon you know what folks is a-sayin' about me. I tol' you myself. But I didn't know hit wus any harm, and anyways hit ain't my fault, I reckon, an' I don't see how folks can blame me. But I don' want nobody who don' want me. An' I'm leavin' 'cause I don't want to bother you. I never bring nothing but trouble nohow an' I'm goin' back to the mountains. Tell Miss Lucy good-by. She was mighty good to me, but I know she didn't like me. I left the hoss for you. If you don't have no use fer the saddle, I wish you'd give hit to Harry, 'cause he tuk up fer me at school when I was fightin', though he wouldn't speak to me no more. I'm mighty sorry to leave you. I'm obleeged to you cause you wus so good to me an' I'm goin' to see you agin some day, if I can. Good-by."

"Left that damned old mare to pay for his clothes and his board and his schooling," muttered the Major. "By the gods"—he rose suddenly and strode away—"I beg your pardon, Lucy."

A tear was running down each of Miss Lucy's faded cheeks.

Dawn that morning found Chad springing from a bed in a haystack—ten miles from Lexington. By dusk that day, he was on the edge of the Bluegrass and that night he stayed at a farm-house, going in boldly, for he had learned now that the wayfarer was as welcome in a Bluegrass farm-house as in a log-cabin in the mountains. Higher and higher grew the green swelling slopes, until, climbing one about noon next day, he saw the blue foothills of the Cumberland through the clear air—and he stopped and looked long, breathing hard from pure ecstasy. The plain-dweller never knows the fierce home hunger that the mountain-born have for hills.

Besides, beyond those blue summits were the Turners and the school-master and Jack, waiting for him, and he forgot hunger and weariness as he trod on eagerly toward them. That night, he stayed in a mountain-cabin, and while the contrast of the dark room, the crowding children, the slovenly dress, and the coarse food was strangely disagreeable, along with the strange new shock came the thrill that all this meant hills and home. It was about three o'clock of the fourth day that, tramping up the Kentucky River, he came upon a long, even stretch of smooth water, from the upper end of which two black boulders were thrust out of the stream, and with a keener thrill he realized that he was nearing home. He recalled seeing those rocks as the raft swept down the river, and the old Squire had said that they were named after oxen—"Billy and Buck." Opposite the rocks he met a mountaineer.

"How fer is it to Uncle Joel Turner's?"

"A leetle the rise o' six miles, I reckon."

The boy was faint with weariness, and those six miles seemed a dozen. Idea of distance is vague among the mountaineers, and two hours of weary travel followed, yet nothing that he recognized was in sight. Once a bend of the river looked familiar, but when he neared it, the road turned steeply from the river and over a high bluff, and the boy started up with a groan. He meant to reach the summit before he stopped to rest, but in sheer pain, he dropped a dozen paces from the top and lay with his tongue, like a dog's, between his lips.

The top was warm, but a chill was rising from the fast-darkening shadows below him. The rim of the sun was about to brush the green tip of a mountain across the river, and the boy rose in a minute, dragged himself on to the point where, rounding a big rock, he dropped again with a thumping heart and a reeling brain. There it was—old Joel's cabin in the pretty valley below—old Joel's cabin—home! Smoke was rising from the chimney, and that far away it seemed that Chad could smell frying bacon. There was the old barn and he could make out one of the boys feeding stock and another chopping wood—was that the school-master? There was the huge form of old Joel at the fence talking with a neighbor. He was gesticulating as though angry, and the old mother came to the door as the neighbor moved away with a shuffling gait that the boy knew belonged to the Dillon breed. Where was Jack? Jack! Chad sprang to his feet and went down the hill on a run. He climbed the orchard fence, breaking the top rail in his eagerness, and as he neared the house, he gave a shrill yell. A scarlet figure flashed like a flame out of the door, with an answering cry, and the Turners followed:

"Why, boy," roared old Joel. "Mammy, hit's Chad!"

Dolph dropped an armful of feed. The man with the axe left it stuck in a log, and each man shouted:

"Chad!"

The mountaineers are an undemonstrative race, but Mother Turner took the boy in her arms and the rest crowded around, slapping him on the back and all asking questions at once. Dolph and Rube and Tom. Yes, and there was the school-master—every face was almost tender with love for the boy. But where was Jack?

"Where's—where's Jack?" said Chad.

Old Joel changed face—looking angry; the rest were grave. Only the old mother spoke:

"Jack's all right."

"Oh," said Chad, but he looked anxious.

Melissa inside heard. He had not asked for HER, and with the sudden choking of a nameless fear she sprang out the door to be caught by the school-master, who had gone around the corner to look for her.

"Lemme go," she said, fiercely, breaking his hold and darting away, but stopping, when she saw Chad in the doorway, looking at her with a shy smile.

"Howdye, Melissa!"

The girl stared at him mildly and made no answer, and a wave of shame and confusion swept over the boy as his thoughts flashed back to a little girl in a black cap and on a black pony, and he stood reddening and helpless. There was a halloo at the gate. It was old Squire Middleton and the circuit-rider, and old Joel went toward them with a darkening face.

"Why, hello, Chad," the Squire said. "You back again?"

He turned to Joel.

"Look hyeh, Joel. Thar hain't no use o' your buckin' agin yo' neighbors and harborin' a sheep-killin' dog." Chad started and looked from one face to another—slowly but surely making out the truth.

"You never seed the dawg afore last spring. You don't know that he hain't a sheep-killer."

"It's a lie—a lie," Chad cried, hotly, but the school-master stopped him.

"Hush, Chad," he said, and he took the boy inside and told him Jack was in trouble. A Dillon sheep had been found dead on a hill-side. Daws Dillon had come upon Jack leaping out of the pasture, and Jack had come home with his muzzle bloody. Even with this overwhelming evidence, old Joel stanchly refused to believe the dog was guilty and ordered old man Dillon off the place. A neighbor had come over, then another, and an other, until old Joel got livid with rage.

"That dawg mought eat a dead sheep but he never would kill a live one, and if you kill him, by ——, you've got to kill me fust."

Now there is no more unneighborly or unchristian act for a farmer than to harbor a sheep-killing dog. So the old Squire and the circuit-rider had come over to show Joel the grievous error of his selfish, obstinate course, and, so far, old Joel had refused to be shown. All of his sons sturdily upheld him and little Melissa fiercely—the old mother and the school-master alone remaining quiet and taking no part in the dissension.

"Have they got Jack?"

"No, Chad," said the school-master. "He's safe—tied up in the stable." Chad started out, and no one followed but Melissa. A joyous bark that was almost human came from the stable as Chad approached, for the dog must have known the sound of his master's footsteps, and when Chad drew open the door, Jack sprang the length of his tether to meet him and was jerked to his back. Again and again he sprang, barking, as though beside himself, while Chad stood at the door, looking sorrowfully at him.

"Down, Jack!" he said sternly, and Jack dropped obediently, looking straight at his master with honest eyes and whimpering like a child.

"Jack," said Chad, "did you kill that sheep?" This was all strange conduct for his little master, and Jack looked wondering and dazed, but his eyes never wavered or blinked. Chad could not long stand those honest eyes.

"No," he said, fiercely—"no, little doggie, no—no!" And Chad dropped on his knees and took Jack in his arms and hugged him to his breast.



CHAPTER 13.

ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

By degrees the whole story was told Chad that night. Now and then the Turners would ask him about his stay in the Bluegrass, but the boy would answer as briefly as possible and come back to Jack. Before going to bed, Chad said he would bring Jack into the house:

"Somebody might pizen him," he explained, and when he came back, he startled the circle about the fire:

"Whar's Whizzer?" he asked, sharply. "Who's seen Whizzer?"

Then it developed that no one had seen the Dillon dog—since the day before the sheep was found dead near a ravine at the foot of the mountain in a back pasture. Late that afternoon Melissa had found Whizzer in that very pasture when she was driving old Betsy, the brindle, home at milking-time. Since then, no one of the Turners had seen the Dillon dog. That, however, did not prove that Whizzer was not at home. And yet,

"I'd like to know whar Whizzer is now!" said Chad, and, after, at old Joel's command, he had tied Jack to a bedpost—an outrage that puzzled the dog sorely—the boy threshed his bed for an hour—trying to think out a defence for Jack and wondering if Whizzer might not have been concerned in the death of the sheep.

It is hardly possible that what happened, next day, could happen anywhere except among simple people of the hills. Briefly, the old Squire and the circuit-rider had brought old Joel to the point of saying, the night before, that he would give Jack up to be killed, if he could be proven guilty. But the old hunter cried with an oath:

"You've got to prove him guilty." And thereupon the Squire said he would give Jack every chance that he would give a man—HE WOULD TRY HIM; each side could bring in witnesses; old Joel could have a lawyer if he wished, and Jack's case would go before a jury. If pronounced innocent, Jack should go free: if guilty—then the dog should be handed over to the sheriff, to be shot at sundown. Joel agreed.

It was a strange procession that left the gate of the Turner cabin next morning. Old Joel led the way, mounted, with "ole Sal," his rifle, across his saddle-bow. Behind him came Mother Turner and Melissa on foot and Chad with his rifle over his left shoulder, and leading Jack by a string with his right hand. Behind them slouched Tall Tom with his rifle and Dolph and Rube, each with a huge old-fashioned horse-pistol swinging from his right hip. Last strode the school-master. The cabin was left deserted—the hospitable door held closed by a deer-skin latch caught to a wooden pin outside.

It was a strange humiliation to Jack thus to be led along the highway, like a criminal going to the gallows. There was no power on earth that could have moved him from Chad's side, other than the boy's own command—but old Joel had sworn that he would keep the dog tied and the old hunter always kept his word. He had sworn, too, that Jack should have a fair trial. Therefore, the guns—and the school-master walked with his hands behind him and his eyes on the ground: he feared trouble.

Half a mile up the river and to one side of the road, a space of some thirty feet square had been cut into a patch of rhododendron and filled with rude benches of slabs—in front of which was a rough platform on which sat a home-made, cane-bottomed chair. Except for the opening from the road, the space was walled with a circle of living green through which the sun dappled the benches with quivering disks of yellow light—and, high above, great poplars and oaks arched their mighty heads. It was an open-air "meeting-house" where the circuit-rider preached during his summer circuit and there the trial was to take place.

Already a crowd was idling, whittling, gossiping in the road, when the Turner cavalcade came in sight—and for ten miles up and down the river people were coming in for the trial.

"Mornin', gentlemen," said old Joel, gravely.

"Mornin'," answered several, among whom was the Squire, who eyed Joel's gun and the guns coming up the road.

"Squirrel-huntin'?" he asked and, as the old hunter did not answer, he added, sharply:

"Air you afeerd, Joel Turner, that you ain't a-goin' to git justice from ME?"

"I don't keer whar it comes from," said Joel, grimly—"but I'm a-goin' to HAVE it."

It was plain that the old man not only was making no plea for sympathy, but was alienating the little he had: and what he had was very little, for who but a lover of dogs can give full sympathy to his kind? And, then, Jack was believed to be guilty. It was curious to see how each Dillon shrank unconsciously as the Turners gathered—all but Jerry, one of the giant twins. He always stood his ground—fearing nor man, nor dog—nor devil.

Ten minutes later, the Squire took his seat on the platform, while the circuit-rider squatted down beside him. The crowd, men and women and children, took the rough benches. To one side sat and stood the Dillons, old Tad and little Tad, Daws, Nance, and others of the tribe. Straight in front of the Squire gathered the Turners about Melissa and Chad—and Jack as a centre—with Jack squatted on his hanches foremost of all, facing the Squire with grave dignity and looking at none else save, occasionally, the old hunter or his little master.

To the right stood the sheriff with his rifle, and on the outskirts hung the school-master. Quickly the old Squire chose a jury—giving old Joel the opportunity to object as he called each man's name. Old Joel objected to none, for every man called, he knew, was more friendly to him than to the Dillons: and old Tad Dillon raised no word of protest, for he knew his case was clear. Then began the trial, and any soul that was there would have shuddered could he have known how that trial was to divide neighbor against neighbor, and mean death and bloodshed for half a century after the trial itself was long forgotten.

The first witness, old Tad—long, lean, stooping, crafty—had seen the sheep rushing wildly up the hill-side "'bout crack o' day," he said, and had sent Daws up to see what the matter was. Daws had shouted back:

"That damned Turner dog has killed one o' our sheep. Thar he comes now. Kill him!" And old Tad had rushed in-doors for his rifle and had taken a shot at Jack as he leaped into the road and loped for home. Just then a stern, thick little voice rose from behind Jack:

"Hit was a God's blessin' fer you that you didn't hit him."

The Squire glared down at the boy and old Joel said, kindly:

"Hush, Chad."

Old Dillon had then gone down to the Turners and asked them to kill the dog, but old Joel had refused.

"Whar was Whizzer?" Chad asked, sharply.

"You can't axe that question," said the Squire. "Hit's er-er-irrelevant."

Daws came next. When he reached the fence upon the hill-side he could see the sheep lying still on the ground. As he was climbing over, the Turner dog jumped the fence and Daws saw blood on his muzzle.

"How close was you to him?" asked the Squire.

"'Bout twenty feet," said Daws.

"Humph!" said old Joel.

"Whar was Whizzer?" Again the old Squire glared down at Chad.

"Don't you axe that question again, boy. Didn't I tell you hit was irrelevant?"

"What's irrelevant?" the boy asked, bluntly.

The Squire hesitated. "Why—why, hit ain't got nothin' to do with the case."

"Hit ain't?" shouted Chad.

"Joel," said the Squire, testily, "ef you don't keep that boy still, I'll fine him fer contempt o' court."

Joel laughed, but he put his heavy hand on the boy's shoulder. Little Tad Dillon and Nance and the Dillon mother had all seen Jack running down the road. There was no doubt but that it was the Turner dog. And with this clear case against poor Jack, the Dillons rested. And what else could the Turners do but establish Jack's character and put in a plea of mercy—a useless plea, old Joel knew—for a first offence? Jack was the best dog old Joel had ever known, and the old man told wonderful tales of the dog's intelligence and kindness and how one night Jack had guarded a stray lamb that had broken its leg—until daybreak—and he had been led to the dog and the sheep by Jack's barking for help. The Turner boys confirmed this story, though it was received with incredulity.

How could a dog that would guard one lone helpless lamb all night long take the life of another?

There was no witness that had aught but kind words to say of the dog or aught but wonder that he should have done this thing—even back to the cattle-dealer who had given him to Chad. For at that time the dealer said—so testified Chad, no objection being raised to hearsay evidence—that Jack was the best dog he ever knew. That was all the Turners or anybody could do or say, and the old Squire was about to turn the case over to the jury when Chad rose:

"Squire," he said and his voice trembled, "Jack's my dog. I lived with him night an' day for 'bout three years an' I want to axe some questions."

He turned to Daws:

"I want to axe you ef thar was any blood around that sheep."

"Thar was a great big pool o' blood," said Daws, indignantly. Chad looked at the Squire.

"Well, a sheep-killin' dog don't leave no great big pool o' blood, Squire, with the FUST one he kills! He SUCKS it!" Several men nodded their heads.

"Squire! The fust time I come over these mountains, the fust people I seed was these Dillons—an' Whizzer. They sicked Whizzer on Jack hyeh and Jack whooped him. Then Tad thar jumped me and I whooped him." (The Turner boys were nodding confirmation.) "Sence that time they've hated Jack an' they've hated me and they hate the Turners partly fer takin' keer o' me. Now you said somethin' I axed just now was irrelevant, but I tell you, Squire, I know a sheep-killin' dawg, and jes' as I know Jack AIN'T, I know the Dillon dawg naturely is, and I tell you, if the Dillons' dawg killed that sheep and they could put it on Jack—they'd do it. They'd do it—Squire, an' I tell you, you—ortern't—to let—that sheriff—thar—shoot my—dog—until the Dillons answers what I axed—" the boy's passionate cry rang against the green walls and out the opening and across the river—

"WHAR'S WHIZZER?"

The boy startled the crowd and the old Squire himself, who turned quickly to the Dillons.

"Well, whar is Whizzer?"

Nobody answered.

"He ain't been seen, Squire, sence the evenin' afore the night o' the killin'!" Chad's statement seemed to be true. Not a voice contradicted.

"An' I want to know if Daws seed signs o' killin' on Jack's head when he jumped the fence, why them same signs didn't show when he got home."

Poor Chad! Here old Tad Dillon raised his hand.

"Axe the Turners, Squire," he said, and as the school-master on the outskirts shrank, as though he meant to leave the crowd, the old man's quick eye caught the movement and he added:

"Axe the school-teacher!"

Every eye turned with the Squire's to the master, whose face was strangely serious straightway.

"Did you see any signs on the dawg when he got home?" The gaunt man hesitated, with one swift glance at the boy, who almost paled in answer.

"Why," said the school-master, and again he hesitated, but old Joel, in a voice that was without hope, encouraged him:

"Go on!"

"What was they?"

"Jack had blood on his muzzle, and a little strand o' wool behind one ear."

There was no hope against that testimony. Melissa broke away from her mother and ran out to the road—weeping. Chad dropped with a sob to his bench and put his arms around the dog: then he rose up and walked out the opening while Jack leaped against his leash to follow. The school-master put out his hand to stop him, but the boy struck it aside without looking up and went on. He could not stay to see Jack condemned. He knew what the verdict would be, and in twenty minutes the jury gave it, without leaving their seats.

"Guilty!"

The Sheriff came forward. He knew Jack and Jack knew him, and wagged his tail and whimpered up at him when he took the leash.

"Well, by ——, this is a job I don't like, an' I'm damned ef I'm agoin' to shoot this dawg afore he knows what I'm shootin' him fer. I'm goin' to show him that sheep fust. Whar's that sheep, Daws?"

Daws led the way down the road, over the fence, across the meadow, and up the hill-side where lay the slain sheep. Chad and Melissa saw them coming—the whole crowd—before they themselves were seen. For a minute the boy watched them. They were going to kill Jack where the Dillons said he had killed the sheep, and the boy jumped to his feet and ran up the hill a little way and disappeared in the bushes, that he might not hear Jack's death-shot, while Melissa sat where she was, watching the crowd come on. Daws was at the foot of the hill, and she saw him make a gesture toward her, and then the Sheriff came on with Jack—over the fence, past her, the Sheriff saying, kindly, "Howdy, Melissa. I shorely am sorry ta have to kill Jack," and on to the dead sheep, which lay fifty yards beyond. If the Sheriff expected to drop head and tail and look mean he was greatly mistaken. Jack neither hung back nor sniffed at the carcass. Instead he put one fore foot on it and with the other bent in the air, looked without shame into the Sheriff's eyes—as much as to say:

"Yes, this is a wicked and shameful thing, but what have I got to do with it? Why are you bringing ME here?"

The Sheriff came back greatly puzzled and shaking his head. Passing Melissa, he stopped to let the unhappy little girl give Jack a last pat, and it was there that Jack suddenly caught scent of Chad's tracks. With one mighty bound the dog snatched the rawhide string from the careless Sheriff's hand, and in a moment, with his nose to the ground, was speeding up toward the woods. With a startled yell and a frightful oath the Sheriff threw his rifle to his shoulder, but the little girl sprang up and caught the barrel with both hands, shaking it fiercely up and down and hieing Jack on with shriek after shriek. A minute later Jack had disappeared in the bushes, Melissa was running like the wind down the hill toward home, while the whole crowd in the meadow was rushing up toward the Sheriff, led by the Dillons, who were yelling and swearing like madmen. Above them, the crestfallen Sheriff waited. The Dillons crowded angrily about him, gesticulating and threatening, while he told his story. But nothing could be done—nothing. They did not know that Chad was up in the woods or they would have gone in search of him—knowing that when they found him they would find Jack—but to look for Jack now would be like searching for a needle in a hay-stack. There was nothing to do, then, but to wait for Jack to come home, which he would surely do—to get to Chad—and it was while old Joel was promising that the dog should be surrendered to the Sheriff that little Tad Dillon gave an excited shriek.

"Look up thar!"

And up there at the edge of the wood was Chad standing and, at his feet, Jack sitting on his haunches, with his tongue out and looking as though nothing had happened or could ever happen to Chad or to him.

"Come up hyeh," shouted Chad.

"You come down hyeh," shouted the Sheriff, angrily. So Chad came down, with Jack trotting after him. Chad had cut off the rawhide string, but the Sheriff caught Jack by the nape of the neck.

"You won't git away from me agin, I reckon."

"Well, I reckon you ain't goin' to shoot him," said Chad. "Leggo that dawg."

"Don't be a fool, Jim," said old Joel. "The dawg ain't goin' to leave the boy." The Sheriff let go.

"Come on up hyeh," said Chad. "I got somethin' to show ye."

The boy turned with such certainty that with out a word Squire, Sheriff, Turners, Dillons, and spectators followed. As they approached a deep ravine the boy pointed to the ground where were evidences of some fierce struggle—the dirt thrown up, and several small stones scattered about with faded stains of blood on them.

"Wait hyeh!" said the boy, and he slid down the ravine and appeared again dragging something after him. Tall Tom ran down to help him and the two threw before the astonished crowd the body of a black and white dog. "Now I reckon you know whar Whizzer is," panted Chad vindictively to the Dillons.

"Well, what of it?" snapped Daws

"Oh, nothin'," said the boy with fine sarcasm. "Only WHIZZER killed that sheep and Jack killed Whizzer." From every Dillon throat came a scornful grunt.

"Oh, I reckon so," said Chad, easily. "Look dhar!" He lifted the dead dog's head, and pointed at the strands of wool between his teeth. He turned it over, showing the deadly grip in the throat and close to the jaws, that had choked the life from Whizzer—Jack's own grip.

"Ef you will jes' rickollect, Jack had that same grip the time afore—when I pulled him off o' Whizzer."

"By ——, that is so," said Tall Tom, and Dolph and Rube echoed him amid a dozen voices, for not only old Joel, but many of his neighbors knew Jack's method of fighting, which had made him a victor up and down the length of Kingdom Come.

There was little doubt that the boy was right—that Jack had come on Whizzer killing the sheep, and had caught him at the edge of the ravine, where the two had fought, rolling down and settling the old feud between them in the darkness at the bottom. And up there on the hill-side, the jury that pronounced Jack guilty pronounced him innocent, and, as the Turners started joyfully down the hill, the sun that was to have sunk on Jack stiff in death sank on Jack frisking before them—home.

And yet another wonder was in store for Chad. A strange horse with a strange saddle was hitched to the Turner fence; beside it was an old mare with a boy's saddle, and as Chad came through the gate a familiar voice called him cheerily by name. On the porch sat Major Buford.



CHAPTER 14.

THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS

The quivering heat of August was giving way and the golden peace of autumn was spreading through the land. The breath of mountain woods by day was as cool as the breath of valleys at night. In the mountains, boy and girl were leaving school for work in the fields, and from the Cumberland foothills to the Ohio, boy and girl were leaving happy holidays for school. Along a rough, rocky road and down a shining river, now sunk to deep pools with trickling riffles between—for a drouth was on the land—rode a tall, gaunt man on an old brown mare that switched with her tail now and then at a long-legged, rough-haired colt stumbling awkwardly behind. Where the road turned from the river and up the mountain, the man did a peculiar thing, for there, in that lonely wilderness, he stopped, dismounted, tied the reins to an overhanging branch and, leaving mare and colt behind, strode up the mountain, on and on, disappearing over the top. Half an hour later, a sturdy youth hove in sight, trudging along the same road with his cap in his hand, a long rifle over one shoulder and a dog trotting at his heels. Now and then the boy would look back and scold the dog and the dog would drop his muzzle with shame, until the boy stooped to pat him on the head, when he would leap frisking before him, until another affectionate scolding was due. The old mare turned her head when she heard them coming, and nickered. Without a moment's hesitation the lad untied her, mounted and rode up the mountain. For two days the man and the boy had been "riding and tying," as this way of travel for two men and one horse is still known in the hills, and over the mountain, they were to come together for the night. At the foot of the spur on the other side, boy and dog came upon the tall man sprawled at full length across a moss-covered bowlder. The dog dropped behind, but the man's quick eye caught him:

"Where'd that dog come from, Chad?" Jack put his belly to the earth and crawled slowly forward—penitent, but determined.

"He broke loose, I reckon. He come tearin' up behind me 'bout an hour ago, like a house afire. Let him go." Caleb Hazel frowned.

"I told you, Chad, that we'd have no place to keep him."

"Well, we can send him home as easy from up thar as we can from hyeh—let him go."

"All right!" Chad understood not a whit better than the dog; for Jack leaped to his feet and jumped around the school-master, trying to lick his hands, but the school-master was absorbed and would none of him. There, the mountain-path turned into a wagon-road and the school-master pointed with one finger.

"Do you know what that is, Chad?"

"No, sir." Chad said "sir" to the school-master now.

"Well, that's"—the school-master paused to give his words effect—"that's the old Wilderness Road."

Ah, did he not know the old, old Wilderness Road! The boy gripped his rifle unconsciously, as though there might yet be a savage lying in ambush in some covert of rhododendron close by. And, as they trudged ahead, side by side now, for it was growing late, the school-master told him, as often before, the story of that road and the pioneers who had trod it—the hunters, adventurers, emigrants, fine ladies and fine gentlemen who had stained it with their blood; and how that road had broadened into the mighty way for a great civilization from sea to sea. The lad could see it all, as he listened, wishing that he had lived in those stirring days, never dreaming in how little was he of different mould from the stout-hearted pioneers who beat out the path with their moccasined feet; how little less full of danger were his own days to be; how little different had been his own life, and was his our pose now—how little different after all was the bourn to which his own restless feet were bearing him.

Chad had changed a good deal since that night after Jack's trial, when the kind-hearted old Major had turned up at Joel's cabin to take him back to the Bluegrass. He was taller, broader at shoulder, deeper of chest; his mouth and eyes were prematurely grave from much brooding and looked a little defiant, as though the boy expected hostility from the world and was prepared to meet it, but there was no bitterness in them, and luminous about the lad was the old atmosphere of brave, sunny cheer and simple self-trust that won people to him.

The Major and old Joel had talked late that night after Jack's trial. The Major had come down to find out who Chad was, if possible, and to take him back home, no matter who he might be. The old hunter looked long into the fire.

"Co'se I know hit 'ud be better fer Chad, but, Lawd, how we'd hate to give him up. Still, I reckon I'll have to let him go, but I can stand hit better, if you can git him to leave Jack hyeh." The Major smiled. Did old Joel know where Nathan Cherry lived? The old hunter did. Nathan was a "damned old skinflint who lived across the mountain on Stone Creek—who stole other folks' farms and if he knew anything about Chad the old hunter would squeeze it out of his throat; and if old Nathan, learning where Chad now was, tried to pester him he would break every bone in the skinflint's body." So the Major and old Joel rode over next day to see Nathan, and Nathan with his shifting eyes told them Chad's story in a high, cracked voice that, recalling Chad's imitation of it, made the Major laugh. Chad was a foundling, Nathan said: his mother was dead and his father had gone off to the Mexican War and never come back: he had taken the mother in himself and Chad had been born in his own house, when he lived farther up the river, and the boy had begun to run away as soon as he was old enough to toddle. And with each sentence Nathan would call for confirmation on a silent, dark-faced daughter who sat inside: "Didn't he, Betsy?" or "Wasn't he, gal?" And the girl would nod sullenly, but say nothing. It seemed a hopeless mission except that, on the way back, the Major learned that there were one or two Bufords living down the Cumberland, and like old Joel, shook his head over Nathan's pharisaical philanthropy to a homeless boy and wondered what the motive under it was—but he went back with the old hunter and tried to get Chad to go home with him. The boy was rock-firm in his refusal.

"I'm obleeged to you, Major, but I reckon I better stay in the mountains." That was all Chad would say, and at last the Major gave up and rode back over the mountain and down the Cumberland alone, still on his quest. At a blacksmith's shop far down the river he found a man who had "heerd tell of a Chad Buford who had been killed in the Mexican War and whose daddy lived 'bout fifteen mile down the river." The Major found that Buford dead, but an old woman told him his name was Chad, that he had "fit in the War o' 1812 when he was nothin' but a chunk of a boy, and that his daddy, whose name, too, was Chad, had been killed by Injuns some'eres aroun' Cumberland Gap." By this time the Major was as keen as a hound on the scent, and, in a cabin at the foot of the sheer gray wall that crumbles into the Gap, he had the amazing luck to find an octogenarian with an unclouded memory who could recollect a queer-looking old man who had been killed by Indians—"a ole feller with the curiosest hair I ever did see," added the patriarch. His name was Colonel Buford, and the old man knew where he was buried, for he himself was old enough at the time to help bury him. Greatly excited, the Major hired mountaineers to dig into the little hill that the old man pointed out, on which there was, however, no sign of a grave, and, at last, they uncovered the skeleton of an old gentleman in a wig and peruke! There was little doubt now that the boy, no matter what the blot on his 'scutcheon, was of his own flesh and blood, and the Major was tempted to go back at once for him, but it was a long way, and he was ill and anxious to get back home. So he took the Wilderness Road for the Bluegrass, and wrote old Joel the facts and asked him to send Chad to him whenever he would come. But the boy would not go. There was no definite reason in his mind. It was a stubborn instinct merely—the instinct of pride, of stubborn independence—of shame that festered in his soul like a hornet's sting. Even Melissa urged him. She never tired of hearing Chad tell about the Bluegrass country, and when she knew that the Major wanted him to go back, she followed him out in the yard that night and found him on the fence whittling. A red star was sinking behind the mountains. "Why won't you go back no more, Chad?" she said.

"'Cause I HAIN'T got no daddy er mammy." Then Melissa startled him.

"Well, I'd go—an' I hain't got no daddy er mammy." Chad stopped his whittling.

"Whut'd you say, Lissy?" he asked, gravely.

Melissa was frightened—the boy looked so serious.

"Cross yo' heart an' body that you won't NUVER tell NO body." Chad crossed.

"Well, mammy said I mustn't ever tell nobody—but I HAIN'T got no daddy er mammy. I heerd her a-tellin' the school-teacher." And the little girl shook her head over her frightful crime of disobedience.

"You HAIN'T?"

"I HAIN'T!"

Melissa, too, was a waif, and Chad looked at her with a wave of new affection and pity.

"Now, why won't you go back just because you hain't got no daddy an' mammy?"

Chad hesitated. There was no use making Melissa unhappy.

"Oh, I'd just ruther stay hyeh in the mountains," he said, carelessly—lying suddenly like the little gentleman that he was—lying as he knew, and as Melissa some day would come to know. Then Chad looked at the little girl a long while, and in such a queer way that Melissa turned her face shyly to the red star.

"I'm goin' to stay right hyeh. Ain't you glad, Lissy?"

The little girl turned her eyes shyly back again. "Yes, Chad," she said.

He would stay in the mountains and work hard; and when he grew up he would marry Melissa and they would go away where nobody knew him or her: or they would stay right there in the mountains where nobody blamed him for what he was nor Melissa for what she was; and he would study law like Caleb Hazel, and go to the Legislature—but Melissa! And with the thought of Melissa in the mountains came always the thought of dainty Margaret in the Bluegrass and the chasm that lay between the two—between Margaret and him, for that matter; and when Mother Turner called Melissa from him in the orchard next day, Chad lay on his back under an apple-tree, for a long while, thinking; and then he whistled for Jack and climbed the spur above the river where he could look down on the shadowed water and out to the clouded heaps of rose and green and crimson, where the sun was going down under one faint white star. Melissa was the glow-worm that, when darkness came, would be a watch-fire at his feet—Margaret, the star to which his eyes were lifted night and day—and so runs the world. He lay long watching that star. It hung almost over the world of which he had dreamed so long and upon which he had turned his back forever. Forever? Perhaps, but he went back home that night with a trouble in his soul that was not to pass, and while he sat by the fire he awoke from the same dream to find Melissa's big eyes fixed on him, and in them was a vague trouble that was more than his own reflected back to him.

Still the boy went back sturdily to his old life, working in the fields, busy about the house and stable, going to school, reading and studying with the school-master at nights, and wandering in the woods with Jack and his rifle. And he hungered for spring to come again when he should go with the Turner boys to take another raft of logs down the river to the capital. Spring came, and going out to the back pasture one morning, Chad found a long-legged, ungainly creature stumbling awkwardly about his old mare—a colt! That, too, he owed the Major, and he would have burst with pride had he known that the colt's sire was a famous stallion in the Bluegrass. That spring he did go down the river again. He did not let the Major know he was coming and, through a nameless shyness, he could not bring himself to go to see his old friend and kinsman, but in Lexington, while he and the school-master were standing on Cheapside, the Major whirled around a corner on them in his carriage, and, as on the turnpike a year before, old Tom, the driver, called out:

"Look dar, Mars Cal!" And there stood Chad.

"Why, bless my soul! Chad—why, boy! How you have grown!" For Chad had grown, and his face was curiously aged and thoughtful. The Major insisted on taking him home, and the school-master, too, who went reluctantly. Miss Lucy was there, looking whiter and more fragile than ever, and she greeted Chad with a sweet kindliness that took the sting from his unjust remembrance of her. And what that failure to understand her must have been Chad better knew when he saw the embarrassed awe, in her presence, of the school-master, for whom all in the mountains had so much reverence. At the table was Thankyma'am waiting. Around the quarters and the stable the pickaninnies and servants seemed to remember the boy in a kindly genuine way that touched him, and even Jerome Conners, the overseer, seemed glad to see him. The Major was drawn at once to the grave school-master, and he had a long talk with him that night. It was no use, Caleb Hazel said, trying to persuade the boy to live with the Major—not yet. And the Major was more content when he came to know in what good hands the boy was, and, down in his heart, he loved the lad the more for his sturdy independence, and for the pride that made him shrink from facing the world with the shame of his birth; knowing that Chad thought of him perhaps more than of himself. Such unwillingness to give others trouble seemed remarkable in so young a lad. Not once did the Major mention the Deans to the boy, and about them Chad asked no questions—not even when he saw their carriage passing the Major's gate. When they came to leave the Major said:

"Well, Chad, when that filly of yours is a year old, I'll buy 'em both from you, if you'll sell 'em, and I reckon you can come up and go to school then."

Chad shook his head. Sell that colt? He would as soon have thought of selling Jack. But the temptation took root, just the same, then and there, and grew steadily until, after another year in the mountains, it grew too strong. For, in that year, Chad grew to look the fact of his birth steadily in the face, and in his heart grew steadily a proud resolution to make his way in the world despite it. It was curious how Melissa came to know the struggle that was going on within him and how Chad came to know that she knew—though no word passed between them: more curious still, how it came with a shock to Chad one day to realize how little was the tragedy of his life in comparison with the tragedy in hers, and to learn that the little girl with swift vision had already reached that truth and with sweet unselfishness had reconciled herself. He was a boy—he could go out in the world and conquer it, while her life was as rigid and straight before her as though it ran between close walls of rock as steep and sheer as the cliff across the river. One thing he never guessed—what it cost the little girl to support him bravely in his purpose, and to stand with smiling face when the first breath of one sombre autumn stole through the hills, and Chad and the school-master left the Turner home for the Bluegrass, this time to stay.

She stood in the doorway after they had waved good-by from the head of the river—the smile gone and her face in a sudden dark eclipse. The wise old mother went in-doors. Once the girl started through the yard as though she would rush after them and stopped at the gate, clinching it hard with both hands. As suddenly she became quiet.

She went in-doors to her work and worked quietly and without a word. Thus she did all day while her mind and her heart ached. When she went after the cows before sunset she stopped at the barn where Beelzebub had been tied. She lifted her eyes to the hay-loft where she and Chad had hunted for hens' eggs and played hide-and-seek. She passed through the orchard where they had worked and played so many happy hours, and on to the back pasture where the Dillon sheep had been killed and she had kept the Sheriff from shooting Jack. And she saw and noted everything with a piteous pain and dry eyes. But she gave no sign that night, and not until she was in bed did she with covered head give way. Then the bed shook with her smothered sobs. This is the sad way with women. After the way of men, Chad proudly marched the old Wilderness Road that led to a big, bright, beautiful world where one had but to do and dare to reach the stars. The men who had trod that road had made that big world beyond, and their life Chad himself had lived so far. Only, where they had lived he had been born—in a log cabin. Their weapons—the axe and the rifle—had been his. He had had the same fight with Nature as they. He knew as well as they what life in the woods in "a half-faced camp" was. Their rude sports and pastimes, their log-rollings, house-raisings, quilting parties, corn-huskings, feats of strength, had been his. He had the same lynx eyes, cool courage, swiftness of foot, readiness of resource that had been trained into them. His heart was as stout and his life as simple and pure. He was taking their path and, in the far West, beyond the Bluegrass world where he was going, he could, if he pleased, take up the same life at the precise point where they had left off. At sunset, Chad and the school-master stood on the summit of the Cumberland foothills and looked over the rolling land with little less of a thrill, doubtless, than the first hunters felt when the land before them was as much a wilderness as the wilds through which they had made their way. Below them a farmhouse shrank half out of sight into a little hollow, and toward it they went down.

The outside world had moved swiftly during the two years that they had been buried in the hills as they learned at the farm-house that night. Already the national storm was threatening, the air was electrically charged with alarms, and already here and there the lightning had flashed. The underground railway was busy with black freight, and John Brown, fanatic, was boldly lifting his shaggy head. Old Brutus Dean was even publishing an abolitionist paper at Lexington, the aristocratic heart of the State. He was making abolition speeches throughout the Bluegrass with a dagger thrust in the table before him—shaking his black mane and roaring defiance like a lion. The news thrilled Chad unaccountably, as did the shadow of any danger, but it threw the school-master into gloom. There was more. A dark little man by the name of Douglas and a sinewy giant by the name of Lincoln were thrilling the West. Phillips and Garrison were thundering in Massachusetts, and fiery tongues in the South were flashing back scornful challenges and threats that would imperil a nation. An invisible air-line shot suddenly between the North and the South, destined to drop some day and lie a dead-line on the earth, and on each side of it two hordes of brothers, who thought themselves two hostile peoples, were shrinking away from each other with the half-conscious purpose of making ready for a charge. In no other State in the Union was the fratricidal character of the coming war to be so marked as in Kentucky, in no other State was the national drama to be so fully played to the bitter end.

That night even, Brutus Dean was going to speak near by, and Chad and Caleb Hazel went to hear him. The fierce abolitionist first placed a Bible before him.

"This is for those who believe in religion," he said; then a copy of the Constitution: "this for those who believe in the laws and in freedom of speech. And this," he thundered, driving a dagger into the table and leaving it to quiver there, "is for the rest!" Then he went on and no man dared to interrupt.

And only next day came the rush of wind that heralds the storm. Just outside of Lexington Chad and the school-master left the mare and colt at a farm-house and with Jack went into town on foot. It was Saturday afternoon, the town was full of people, and an excited crowd was pressing along Main Street toward Cheapside. The man and the boy followed eagerly. Cheapside was thronged—thickest around a frame building that bore a newspaper sign on which was the name of Brutus Dean. A man dashed from a hardware store with an axe, followed by several others with heavy hammers in their hands. One swing of the axe, the door was crashed open and the crowd went in like wolves. Shattered windows, sashes and all, flew out into the street, followed by showers of type, chair-legs, table-tops, and then, piece by piece, the battered cogs, wheels, and forms of a printing-press. The crowd made little noise. In fifteen minutes the house was a shell with gaping windows, surrounded with a pile of chaotic rubbish, and the men who had done the work quietly disappeared. Chad looked at the school-master for the first time: neither of them had uttered a word. The school-master's face was white with anger, his hands were clinched, and his eyes were so fierce and burning that the boy was frightened.



CHAPTER 15.

TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS

As the school-master had foretold, there was no room at college for Jack. Several times Major Buford took the dog home with him, but Jack would not stay. The next morning the dog would turn up at the door of the dormitory where Chad and the school-master slept, and as a last resort the boy had to send Jack home. So, one Sunday morning Chad led Jack out of the town for several miles, and at the top of a high hill pointed toward the mountains and sternly told him to go home. And Jack, understanding that the boy was in earnest, trotted sadly away with a placard around his neck:

I own this dog. His name is Jack. He is on his way to Kingdom Come. Please feed him. Uncle Joel Turner will shoot any man who steels him. CHAD.

It was no little consolation to Chad to think that the faithful sheep-dog would in no small measure repay the Turners for all they had done for him. But Jack was the closest link that bound him to the mountains, and dropping out of sight behind the crest of the hill, Chad crept to the top again and watched Jack until he trotted out of sight, and the link was broken. Then Chad went slowly and sorrowfully back to his room.

It was the smallest room in the dormitory that the school-master had chosen for himself and Chad, and in it were one closet, one table, one lamp, two chairs and one bed—no more. There were two windows in the little room—one almost swept by the branches of a locust-tree and overlooking the brown-gray sloping campus and the roofs and church-steeples of the town—the other opening to the east on a sweep of field and woodland over which the sun rose with a daily message from the unseen mountains far beyond and toward which Chad had sent Jack trotting home. It was a proud day for Chad when Caleb Hazel took him to "matriculate"—leading him from one to another of the professors, who awed the lad with their preternatural dignity, but it was a sad blow when he was told that in everything but mathematics he must go to the preparatory department until the second session of the term—the "kitchen," as it was called by the students. He bore it bravely, though, and the school-master took him down the shady streets to the busy thoroughfare, where the official book-store was, and where Chad, with pure ecstasy, caught his first new books under one arm and trudged back, bending his head now and then to catch the delicious smell of the fresh leaves and print. It was while he was standing with his treasures under the big elm at the turnstile, looking across the campus at the sundown that two boys came down the gravel path. He knew them both at once as Dan and Harry Dean. Both looked at him curiously, as he thought, but he saw that neither knew him and no one spoke. The sound of wheels came up the street behind him just then, and a carriage halted at the turnstile to take them in. Turning, Chad saw a slender girl with dark hair and eyes and heard her call brightly to the boys. He almost caught his breath at the sound of her voice, but he kept sturdily on his way, and the girl's laugh rang in his ears as it rang the first time he heard it, was ringing when he reached his room, ringing when he went to bed that night, and lay sleepless, looking through his window at the quiet stars.

For some time, indeed, no one recognized him, and Chad was glad. Once he met Richard Hunt riding with Margaret, and the piercing dark eyes that the boy remembered so well turned again to look at him. Chad colored and bravely met them with his own, but there was no recognition. And he saw John Morgan—Captain John Morgan—at the head of the "Lexington Rifles," which he had just formed from the best blood of the town, as though in long preparation for that coming war—saw him and Richard Hunt, as lieutenant, drilling them in the campus, and the sight thrilled him as nothing else, except Margaret, had ever done. Many times he met the Dean brothers on the playground and in the streets, but there was no sign that he was known until he was called to the blackboard one day in geometry, the only course in which he had not been sent to the "kitchen." Then Chad saw Harry turn quickly when the professor called his name. Confused though he was for a moment, he gave his demonstration in his quaint speech with perfect clearness and without interruption from the professor, who gave the boy a keen look as he said, quietly:

"Very good, sir!" And Harry could see his fingers tracing in his class-book the figures that meant a perfect recitation.

"How are you, Chad?" he said in the hallway afterward.

"Howdye!" said Chad, shaking the proffered hand.

"I didn't know you—you've grown so tall. Didn't you know me?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you speak to me?"

"'Cause you didn't know ME."

Harry laughed. "Well, that isn't fair. See you again."

"All right," said Chad.

That very afternoon Chad met Dan in a football game—an old-fashioned game, in which there were twenty or thirty howling lads on each side and nobody touched the ball except with his foot—met him so violently that, clasped in each other's arms, they tumbled to the ground.

"Leggo!" said Dan.

"S'pose you leggo!" said Chad.

As Dan started after the ball he turned to look at Chad and after the game he went up to him.

"Why, aren't you the boy who was out at Major Buford's once?"

"Yes." Dan thrust out his hand and began to laugh. So did Chad, and each knew that the other was thinking of the tournament.

"In college?"

"Math'matics," said Chad. "I'm in the kitchen fer the rest."

"Oh!" said Dan. "Where you living?" Chad pointed to the dormitory, and again Dan said "Oh!" in a way that made Chad flush, but added, quickly:

"You better play on our side to-morrow."

Chad looked at his clothes—foot-ball seemed pretty hard on clothes—"I don't know," he said—"mebbe."

It was plain that neither of the boys was holding anything against Chad, but neither had asked the mountain lad to come to see him—an omission that was almost unforgivable according to Chad's social ethics. So Chad proudly went into his shell again, and while the three boys met often, no intimacy developed. Often he saw them with Margaret, on the street, in a carriage or walking with a laughing crowd of boys and girls; on the porticos of old houses or in the yards; and, one night, Chad saw, through the wide-open door of a certain old house on the corner of Mill and Market Streets, a party going on; and Margaret, all in white, dancing, and he stood in the shade of the trees opposite with new pangs shooting through him and went back to his room in desolate loneliness, but with a new grip on his resolution that his own day should yet come.

Steadily the boy worked, forging his way slowly but surely toward the head of his class in the "kitchen," and the school-master helped him unwearyingly. And it was a great help—mental and spiritual—to be near the stern Puritan, who loved the boy as a brother and was ever ready to guide him with counsel and aid him with his studies. In time the Major went to the president to ask him about Chad, and that august dignitary spoke of the lad in a way that made the Major, on his way through the campus, swish through the grass with his cane in great satisfaction. He always spoke of the boy now as his adopted son and, whenever it was possible, he came in to take Chad out home to spend Sunday with him; but, being a wise man and loving Chad's independence, he let the boy have his own way. He had bought the filly—and would hold her, he said, until Chad could buy her back, and he would keep the old nag as a broodmare and would divide profits with Chad—to all of which the boy agreed. The question of the lad's birth was ignored between them, and the Major rarely spoke to Chad of the Deans, who were living in town during the winter, nor questioned him about Dan or Harry or Margaret. But Chad had found out where the little girl went to church, and every Sunday, despite Caleb Hazel's protest, he would slip into the Episcopal church, with a queer feeling—little Calvinist of the hills that he was—that it was not quite right for him even to enter that church; and he would watch the little girl come in with her family and, after the queer way of these "furriners," kneel first in prayer. And there, with soul uplifted by the dim rich light and the peal of the organ, he would sit watching her; rising when she rose, watching the light from the windows on her shining hair and sweet-spirited face, watching her reverent little head bend in obeisance to the name of the Master, though he kept his own held straight, for no Popery like that was for him. Always, however, he would slip out before the service was quite over and never wait even to see her come out of church. He was too proud for that and, anyhow, it made him lonely to see the people greeting one another and chatting and going off home together when there was not a soul to speak to him. It was just one such Sunday that they came face to face for the first time. Chad had gone down the street after leaving the church, had changed his mind and was going back to his room. People were pouring from the church, as he went by, but Chad did not even look across. A clatter rose behind him and he turned to see a horse and rockaway coming at a gallop up the street, which was narrow. The negro driver, frightened though he was, had sense enough to pull his running horse away from the line of vehicles in front of the church so that the beast stumbled against the curb-stone, crashed into a tree, and dropped struggling in the gutter below another line of vehicles waiting on the other side of the street. Like lightning, Chad leaped and landed full length on the horse's head and was tossed violently to and fro, but he held on until the animal lay still.

"Unhitch the hoss," he called, sharply.

"Well, that was pretty quick work for a boy," said a voice across the street that sounded familiar, and Chad looked across to see General Dean and Margaret watching him. The boy blushed furiously when his eyes met Margaret's and he thought he saw her start slightly, but he lowered his eyes and hurried away.

It was only a few days later that, going up from town toward the campus, he turned a corner and there was Margaret alone and moving slowly ahead of him. Hearing his steps she turned her head to see who it was, but Chad kept his eyes on the ground and passed her without looking up. And thus he went on, although she was close behind him, across the street and to the turnstile. As he was passing through, a voice rose behind him:

"You aren't very polite, little boy." He turned quickly—Margaret had not gone around the corner: she, too, was coming through the campus and there she stood, grave and demure, though her eyes were dancing.

"My mamma says a NICE little boy always lets a little GIRL go FIRST."

"I didn't know you was comin' through."

"Was comin' through!" Margaret made a little face as though to say—"Oh, dear."

"I said I didn't know you were coming through this way."

Margaret shook her head. "No," she said; "no, you didn't."

"Well, that's what I meant to say." Chad was having a hard time with his English. He had snatched his cap from his head, had stepped back outside the stile and was waiting to turn it for her. Margaret passed through and waited where the paths forked.

"Are you going up to the college?" she asked.

"I was—but I ain't now—if you'll let me walk a piece with you." He was scarlet with confusion—a tribute that Chad rarely paid his kind. His way of talking was very funny, to be sure, but had she not heard her father say that "the poor little chap had had no chance in life;" and Harry, that some day he would be the best in his class?

"Aren't you—Chad?"

"Yes—ain't you Margaret—Miss Margaret?"

"Yes, I'm Margaret." She was pleased with the hesitant title and the boy's halting reverence.

"An' I called you a little gal." Margaret's laugh tinkled in merry remembrance. "An' you wouldn't take my fish."

"I can't bear to touch them."

"I know," said Chad, remembering Melissa.

They passed a boy who knew Chad, but not Margaret. The lad took off his hat, but Chad did not lift his; then a boy and a girl and, when only the two girls spoke, the other boy lifted his hat, though he did not speak to Margaret. Still Chad's hat was untouched and when Margaret looked up, Chad's face was red with confusion again. But it never took the boy long to learn and, thereafter, during the walk his hat came off unfailingly. Everyone looked at the two with some surprise and Chad noticed that the little girl's chin was being lifted higher and higher. His intuition told him what the matter was, and when they reached the stile across the campus and Chad saw a crowd of Margaret's friends coming down the street, he halted as if to turn back, but the little girl told him imperiously to come on. It was a strange escort for haughty Margaret—the country-looking boy, in coarse homespun—but Margaret spoke cheerily to her friends and went on, looking up at Chad and talking to him as though he were the dearest friend she had on earth.

At the edge of town she suggested that they walk across a pasture and go back by another street, and not until they were passing through the woodland did Chad come to himself.

"You know I didn't rickollect when you called me 'little boy.'"

"Indeed!"

"Not at fust, I mean," stammered Chad.

Margaret grew mock-haughty and Chad grew grave. He spoke very slowly and steadily. "I reckon I rickollect ever'thing that happened out thar a sight better'n you. I ain't forgot nothin'—anything."

The boy's sober and half-sullen tone made Margaret catch her breath with a sudden vague alarm.

Unconsciously she quickened her pace, but, already, she was mistress of an art to which she was born and she said, lightly:

"Now, that's MUCH better." A piece of pasteboard dropped from Chad's jacket just then, and, taking the little girl's cue to swerve from the point at issue, he picked it up and held it out for Margaret to read. It was the first copy of the placard which he had tied around Jack's neck when he sent him home, and it set Margaret to laughing and asking questions. Before he knew it Chad was telling her about Jack and the mountains; how he had run away; about the Turners and about Melissa and coming down the river on a raft—all he had done and all he meant to do. And from looking at Chad now and then, Margaret finally kept her eyes fixed on his—and thus they stood when they reached the gate, while crows flew cawing over them and the air grew chill.

"And did Jack go home?"

Chad laughed.

"No, he didn't. He come back, and I had to hide fer two days. Then, because he couldn't find me he did go, thinking I had gone back to the mountains, too. He went to look fer me."

"Well, if he comes back again I'll ask my papa to get them to let you keep Jack at college," said Margaret.

Chad shook his head.

"Then I'll keep him for you myself." The boy looked his gratitude, but shook his head again.

"He won't stay."

Margaret asked for the placard again as they moved down the street.

"You've got it spelled wrong," she said, pointing to "steel." Chad blushed. "I can't spell when I write," he said. "I can't even talk—right."

"But you'll learn," she said.

"Will you help me?"

"Yes."

"Tell me when I say things wrong?"

"Yes."

"Where'm I goin' to see you?"

Margaret shook her head thoughtfully: then the reason for her speaking first to Chad came out.

"Papa and I saw you on Sunday, and papa said you must be very strong as well as brave, and that you knew something about horses. Harry told us who you were when papa described you, and then I remembered. Papa told Harry to bring you to see us. And you must come," she said, decisively.

They had reached the turnstile at the campus again.

"Have you had any more tournaments?" asked Margaret.

"No," said Chad, apprehensively.

"Do you remember the last thing I said to you?"

"I rickollect that better'n anything," said Chad.

"Well, I didn't hate you. I'm sorry I said that," she said gently. Chad looked very serious.

"That's all right," he said. "I seed—I saw you on Sunday, too."

"Did you know me?"

"I reckon I did. And that wasn't the fust time." Margaret's eyes were opening with surprise.

"I been goin' to church ever' Sunday fer nothin' else but just to see you." Again his tone gave her vague alarm, but she asked:

"Why didn't you speak to me?"

They were nearing the turnstile across the campus now, and Chad did not answer.

"Why didn't you speak to me?"

Chad stopped suddenly, and Margaret looked quickly at him, and saw that his face was scarlet. The little girl started and her own face flamed. There was one thing she had forgotten, and even now she could not recall what it was—only that it was something terrible she must not know—old Mammy's words when Dan was carried in senseless after the tournament. Frightened and helpless, she shrank toward the turnstile, but Chad did not wait. With his cap in his hand, he turned abruptly, without a sound, and strode away.



CHAPTER 16.

AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER

And yet, the next time Chad saw Margaret, she spoke to him shyly but cordially, and when he did not come near her, she stopped him on the street one day and reminded him of his promise to come and see them. And Chad knew the truth at once—that she had never asked her father about him, but had not wanted to know what she had been told she must not know, and had properly taken it for granted that her father would not ask Chad to his house, if there were a good reason why he should not come. But Chad did not go even to the Christmas party that Margaret gave in town, though the Major urged him. He spent Christmas with the Major, and he did go to a country party, where the Major was delighted with the boy's grace and agility dancing the quadrille, and where the lad occasioned no little amusement with his improvisations in the way of cutting pigeon's wings and shuffling, which he had learned in the mountains. So the Major made him accept a loan and buy a suit for social purposes after Christmas, and had him go to Madam Blake's dancing school, and promise to go to the next party to which he was asked. And that Chad did—to the big gray house on the corner, through whose widespread doors his longing eyes had watched Margaret and her friends flitting like butterflies months before.

It intoxicated the boy—the lights, music, flowers, the little girls in white—and Margaret. For the first time he met her friends, Nellie Hunt, sister to Richard; Elizabeth Morgan, cousin to John Morgan; and Miss Jennie Overstreet, who, young as she was, wrote poems—but Chad had eyes only for Margaret. It was while he was dancing a quadrille with her, that he noticed a tall, pale youth with black hair, glaring at him, and he recognized Georgie Forbes, a champion of Margaret, and the old enemy who had caused his first trouble in his new home. Chad laughed with fearless gladness, and Margaret tossed her head. It was Georgie now who blackened and spread the blot on Chad's good name, and it was Georgie to whom Chad—fast learning the ways of gentlemen—promptly sent a pompous challenge, that the difficulty might be settled "in any way the gentleman saw fit." Georgie insultingly declined to fight with one who was not his equal, and Chad boxed his jaws in the presence of a crowd, floored him with one blow, and contemptuously twisted his nose. Thereafter open comment ceased. Chad was making himself known. He was the swiftest runner on the football field; he had the quickest brain in mathematics; he was elected to the Periclean Society, and astonished his fellow-members with a fiery denunciation of the men who banished Napoleon to St. Helena—so fiery was it, indeed, that his opponents themselves began to wonder how that crime had ever come to pass. He would fight at the drop of a hat, and he always won; and by-and-by the boy began to take a fierce joy in battling his way upward against a block that would have crushed a weaker soul. It was only with Margaret that that soul was in awe. He began to love her with a pure reverence that he could never know at another age. Every Saturday night, when dusk fell, he was mounting the steps of her house. Every Sunday morning he was waiting to take her home from church. Every afternoon he looked for her, hoping to catch sight of her on the streets, and it was only when Dan and Harry got indignant, and after Margaret had made a passionate defence of Chad in the presence of the family, that the General and Mrs. Dean took the matter in hand. It was a childish thing, of course; a girlish whim. It was right that they should be kind to the boy—for Major Buford's sake, if not for his own; but they could not have even the pretence of more than a friendly intimacy between the two, and so Margaret was told the truth. Immediately, when Chad next saw her, her honest eyes sadly told him that she knew the truth, and Chad gave up then. Thereafter he disappeared from sports and from his kind every way, except in the classroom and in the debating hall. Sullenly he stuck to his books. From five o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night, he was at them steadily, in his room, or at recitation except for an hour's walk with the school-master and the three half-hours that his meals kept him away. He grew so pale and thin that the Major and Caleb Hazel were greatly worried, but protest from both was useless. Before the end of the term he had mounted into college in every study, and was holding his own. At the end he knew his power—knew what he COULD do, and his face was set, for his future, dauntless. When vacation came, he went at once to the Major's farm, but not to be idle. In a week or two he was taking some of the reins into his own hands as a valuable assistant to the Major. He knew a good horse, could guess the weight of a steer with surprising accuracy, and was a past master in knowledge of sheep. By instinct he was canny at a trade—what mountaineer is not?—and he astonished the Major with the shrewd deals he made. Authority seemed to come naturally to him, and the Major swore that he could get more work out of the "hands" than the overseer himself, who sullenly resented Chad's interference, but dared not open his lips. Not once did he go to the Deans', and neither Harry nor Dan came near him. There was little intercourse between the Major and the General, as well; for, while the Major could not, under the circumstances, blame the General, inconsistently, he could not quite forgive him, and the line of polite coolness between the neighbors was never overstepped. At the end of July, Chad went to the mountains to see the Turners and Jack and Melissa. He wore his roughest clothes, put on no airs, and, to all eyes, save Melissa's, he was the same old Chad. But feminine subtlety knows no social or geographical lines, and while Melissa knew what had happened as well as Chad, she never let him see that she knew. Apparently she was giving open encouragement to Dave Hilton, a tawny youth from down the river, who was hanging, dog-like, about the house, and foolish Chad began to let himself dream of Margaret with a light heart. On the third day before he was to go back to the Bluegrass, a boy came from over Black Mountain with a message from old Nathan Cherry. Old Nathan had joined the church, had fallen ill, and, fearing he was going to die, wanted to see Chad. Chad went over with curious premonitions that were not in vain, and he came back with a strange story that he told only to old Joel, under promise that he would never make it known to Melissa. Then he started for the Bluegrass, going over Pine Mountain and down through Cumberland Gap. He would come back every year of his life, he told Melissa and the Turners, but Chad knew he was bidding a last farewell to the life he had known in the mountains. At Melissa's wish and old Joel's, he left Jack behind, though he sorely wanted to take the dog with him. It was little enough for him to do in return for their kindness, and he could see that Melissa's affection for Jack was even greater than his own: and how incomparably lonelier than his life was the life that she must lead! This time Melissa did not rush to the yard gate when he was gone. She sank slowly where she stood to the steps of the porch, and there she sat stone-still. Old Joel passed her on the way to the barn. Several times the old mother walked to the door behind her, and each time starting to speak, stopped and turned back, but the girl neither saw nor heard them. Jack trotted by, whimpering. He sat down in front of her, looking up at her unseeing eyes, and it was only when he crept to her and put his head in her lap, that she put her arms around him and bent her own head down; but no tears came.



CHAPTER 17.

CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

And so, returned to the Bluegrass, the midsummer of that year, Chadwick Buford gentleman. A youth of eighteen, with the self-possession of a man, and a pair of level, clear eyes, that looked the world in the face as proudly as ever but with no defiance and no secret sense of shame It was a curious story that Chad brought back and told to the Major, on the porch under the honeysuckle vines, but it seemed to surprise the Major very little: how old Nathan had sent for him to come to his death-bed and had told Chad that he was no foundling; that one of his farms belonged to the boy; that he had lied to the Major about Chad's mother, who was a lawful wife, in order to keep the land for himself; how old Nathan had offered to give back the farm, or pay him the price of it in livestock, and how, at old Joel's advice he had taken the stock and turned the stock into money. How, after he had found his mother's grave, his first act had been to take up the rough bee-gum coffin that held her remains, and carry it down the river, and bury her where she had the right to lie, side by side with her grandfather and his—the old gentleman who slept in wig and peruke on the hill-side—that her good name and memory should never again suffer insult from any living tongue. It was then that Major took Chad by the shoulders roughly, and, with tears in his eyes, swore that he would have no more nonsense from the boy; that Chad was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone; that he would adopt him and make him live where he belonged, and break his damned pride. And it was then that Chad told him how gladly he would come, now that he could bring him an untarnished name. And the two walked together down to the old family graveyard, where the Major said that the two in the mountains should be brought some day and where the two brothers who had parted nearly fourscore years ago could, side by side, await Judgment Day.

When they went back into the house the Major went to the sideboard.

"Have a drink, Chad?"

Chad laughed: "Do you think it will stunt my growth?"

"Stand up here, and let's see," said the Major.

The two stood up, back to back, in front of a long mirror, and Chad's shaggy hair rose at least an inch above the Major's thin locks of gray. The Major turned and looked at him from head to foot with affectionate pride.

"Six feet in your socks, to the inch, without that hair. I reckon it won't stunt you—not now."

"All right," laughed Chad, "then I'll take that drink." And together they drank.

Thus, Chadwick Buford, gentleman, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, came back to his own: and what that own, at that day and in that land, was!

It was the rose of Virginia, springing, in full bloom, from new and richer soil—a rose of a deeper scarlet and a stronger stem: and the big village where the old University reared its noble front was the very heart of that rose. There were the proudest families, the stateliest homes, the broadest culture, the most gracious hospitality, the gentlest courtesies, the finest chivalry, that the State has ever known. There lived the political idols; there, under the low sky, rose the memorial shaft to Clay. There had lived beaux and belles, memories of whom hang still about the town, people it with phantom shapes, and give an individual or a family here and there a subtle distinction to-day. There the grasp of Calvinism was most lax. There were the dance, the ready sideboard, the card table, the love of the horse and the dog, and but little passion for the game-cock. There were as manly virtues, as manly vices, as the world has ever known. And there, love was as far from lust as heaven from hell.

It was on the threshold of this life that Chad stood. Kentucky had given birth to the man who was to uphold the Union—birth to the man who would seek to shatter it. Fate had given Chad the early life of one, and like blood with the other; and, curiously enough, in his own short life, he already epitomized the social development of the nation, from its birth in a log cabin to its swift maturity behind the columns of a Greek portico. Against the uncounted generations of gentlepeople that ran behind him to sunny England, how little could the short sleep of three in the hills count! It may take three generations to make a gentleman, but one is enough, if the blood be there, the heart be right, and the brain and hand come early under discipline.

It was to General Dean that the Major told Chad's story first. The two old friends silently grasped hands, and the cloud between them passed like mist.

"Bring him over to dinner on Saturday, Cal—you and Miss Lucy, won't you? Some people are coming out from town." In making amends, there was no half-way with General Dean.

"I will," said the Major, "gladly."

The cool of the coming autumn was already in the air that Saturday when Miss Lucy and the Major and Chad, in the old carriage, with old Tom as driver and the pickaninny behind, started for General Dean's. The Major was beautiful to behold, in his flowered waistcoat, his ruffled shirt, white trousers strapped beneath his highly polished, high-heeled boots, high hat and frock coat, with only the lowest button fastened, in order to give a glimpse of that wonderful waistcoat, just as that, too, was unbuttoned at the top that the ruffles might peep out upon the world. Chad's raiment, too, was a Solomon's—for him. He had protested, but in vain; and he, too, wore white trousers with straps, high-heeled boots, and a wine-colored waistcoat and slouch hat, and a brave, though very conscious, figure he made, with his tall body, well-poised head, strong shoulders and thick hair. It was a rare thing for Miss Lucy to do, but the old gentlewoman could not resist the Major, and she, too, rode in state with them, smiling indulgently at the Major's quips, and now, kindly, on Chad. A drowsy peace lay over the magnificent woodlands, unravaged then except for firewood; the seared pastures, just beginning to show green again for the second spring; the flashing creek, the seas of still hemp and yellow corn, and Chad saw a wistful shadow cross Miss Lucy's pale face, and a darker one anxiously sweep over the Major's jesting lips.

Guests were arriving, when they entered the yard gate, and guests were coming behind them. General and Mrs. Dean were receiving them on the porch, and Harry and Dan were helping the ladies out of their carriages, while, leaning against one of the columns, in pure white, was the graceful figure of Margaret. That there could ever have been any feeling in any member of the family other than simple, gracious kindliness toward him, Chad could neither see nor feel. At once every trace of embarrassment in him was gone, and he could but wonder at the swift justice done him in a way that was so simple and effective. Even with Margaret there was no trace of consciousness. The past was wiped clean of all save courtesy and kindness. There were the Hunts—Nellie, and the Lieutenant of the Lexington Rifles, Richard Hunt, a dauntless-looking dare-devil, with the ready tongue of a coffee-house wit and the grace of a cavalier. There was Elizabeth Morgan, to whom Harry's grave eyes were always wandering, and Miss Jennie Overstreet, who was romantic and openly now wrote poems for the Observer, and who looked at Chad with no attempt to conceal her admiration of his appearance and her wonder as to who he was. And there were the neighbors roundabout—the Talbotts, Quisenberrys, Clays, Prestons, Morgans—surely no less than forty strong, and all for dinner. It was no little trial for Chad in that crowd of fine ladies, judges, soldiers, lawyers, statesmen—but he stood it well. While his self-consciousness made him awkward, he had pronounced dignity of bearing; his diffidence emphasized his modesty, and he had the good sense to stand and keep still. Soon they were at table—and what a table and what a dinner that was! The dining-room was the biggest and sunniest room in the house; its walls covered with hunting prints, pictures of game and stag heads. The table ran the length of it. The snowy tablecloth hung almost to the floor. At the head sat Mrs. Dean, with a great tureen of calf's head soup in front of her. Before the General was the saddle of venison that was to follow, drenched in a bottle of ancient Madeira, and flanked by flakes of red-currant jelly. Before the Major rested broiled wild ducks, on which he could show his carving skill—on game as well as men. A great turkey supplanted the venison, and last to come, and before Richard Hunt, Lieutenant of the Rifles, was a Kentucky ham. That ham! Mellow, aged, boiled in champagne, baked brown, spiced deeply, rosy pink within, and of a flavor and fragrance to shatter the fast of a Pope; and without, a brown-edged white layer, so firm that the lieutenant's deft carving knife, passing through, gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. There had been merry jest and laughter and banter and gallant compliment before, but it was Richard Hunt's turn now, and story after story he told, as the rose-flakes dropped under his knife in such thin slices that their edges coiled. It was full half an hour before the carver and story-teller were done. After that ham the tablecloth was lifted, and the dessert spread on another lying beneath; then that, too, was raised, and the nuts and wines were placed on a third—red damask this time.

Then came the toasts: to the gracious hostess from Major Buford; to Miss Lucy from General Dean; from valiant Richard Hunt to blushing Margaret, and then the ladies were gone, and the talk was politics—the election of Lincoln, slavery, disunion.

"If Lincoln is elected, no power but God's can avert war," said Richard Hunt, gravely.

Dan's eyes flashed. "Will you take me?"

The lieutenant lifted his glass. "Gladly, my boy."

"Kentucky's convictions are with the Union; her kinship and sympathies with the South," said a deep-voiced lawyer. "She must remain neutral."

"Straddling the fence," said the Major, sarcastically.

"No; to avert the war, if possible, or to act the peacemaker when the tragedy is over."

"Well, I can see Kentuckians keeping out of a fight," laughed the General, and he looked around. Three out of five of the men present had been in the Mexican war. The General had been wounded at Cerro Gordo, and the Major had brought his dead home in leaden coffins.

"The fanatics of Boston, the hot-heads of South Carolina—they are making the mischief."

"And New England began with slavery," said the lawyer again.

"And naturally, with that conscience that is a national calamity, was the first to give it up," said Richard Hunt, "when the market price of slaves fell to sixpence a pound in the open Boston markets." There was an incredulous murmur.

"Oh, yes," said Hunt, easily, "I can show you advertisements in Boston papers of slaves for sale at sixpence a pound."

Perhaps it never occurred to a soul present that the word "slave" was never heard in that region except in some such way. With Southerners, the negroes were "our servants" or "our people"—never slaves. Two lads at that table were growing white—Chad and Harry—and Chad's lips opened first.

"I don't think slavery has much to do with the question, really," he said, "not even with Mr. Lincoln." The silent surprise that followed the boy's embarrassed statement ended in a gasp of astonishment when Harry leaned across the table and said, hotly:

"Slavery has EVERYTHING to do with the question."

The Major looked bewildered; the General frowned, and the keen-eyed lawyer spoke again:

"The struggle was written in the Constitution. The framers evaded it. Logic leads one way as well as another and no man can logically blame another for the way he goes."

"No more politics now, gentlemen," said the General quickly. "We will join the ladies. Harry," he added, with some sternness, "lead the way!"

As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his glass. His face was pale and his lips trembled.

"May I propose a toast, General Dean?"

"Why, certainly," said the General, kindly.

"I want to drink to one man but for whom I might be in a log cabin now, and might have died there for all I know—my friend and, thank God! my kinsman—Major Buford."