"You set right down now, baby," he said, and he made a pretence of having something to do inside the mill, while June watched the creaking old wheel dropping the sun-shot sparkling water into the swift sluice, but hardly seeing it at all. By and by Uncle Billy came outside and sat down and neither spoke a word. Once June saw him covertly looking at his watch and she put both hands to her throat—stifled.

"What time is it, Uncle Billy?" She tried to ask the question calmly, but she had to try twice before she could speak at all and when she did get the question out, her voice was only a broken whisper.

"Five minutes to twelve, baby," said the old man, and his voice had a gulp in it that broke June down. She sprang to her feet wringing her hands:

"I can't stand it, Uncle Billy," she cried madly, and with a sob that almost broke the old man's heart. "I tell you I can't stand it."

* * * * * * *

And yet for three hours more she had to stand it, while the cavalcade of Tollivers, with Rufe's body, made its slow way to the Kentucky line where Judd and Dave and Bub left them to go home for the night and be on hand for the funeral next day. But Uncle Billy led her back to his cabin, and on the porch the two, with old Hon, waited while the three hours dragged along. It was June who was first to hear the galloping of horses' hoofs up the road and she ran to the gate, followed by Uncle Billy and old Hon to see young Dave Tolliver coming in a run. At the gate he threw himself from his horse:

"Git up thar, June, and go home," he panted sharply. June flashed out the gate.

"Have you done it?" she asked with deadly quiet.

"Hurry up an' go home, I tell ye! Uncle Judd wants ye!"

She came quite close to him now.

"You said you'd do it—I know what you've done—you—" she looked as if she would fly at his throat, and Dave, amazed, shrank back a step.

"Go home, I tell ye—Uncle Judd's shot. Git on the hoss!"

"No, no, NO! I wouldn't TOUCH anything that was yours"—she put her hands to her head as though she were crazed, and then she turned and broke into a swift run up the road.

Panting, June reached the gate. The front door was closed and there she gave a tremulous cry for Bub. The door opened a few inches and through it Bub shouted for her to come on. The back door, too, was closed, and not a ray of daylight entered the room except at the port-hole where Bub, with a Winchester, had been standing on guard. By the light of the fire she saw her father's giant frame stretched out on the bed and she heard his laboured breathing. Swiftly she went to the bed and dropped on her knees beside it.

"Dad!" she said. The old man's eyes opened and turned heavily toward her.

"All right, Juny. They shot me from the laurel and they might nigh got Bub. I reckon they've got me this time."

"No—no!" He saw her eyes fixed on the matted blood on his chest.

"Hit's stopped. I'm afeared hit's bleedin' inside." His voice had dropped to a whisper and his eyes closed again. There was another cautious "Hello" outside, and when Bub again opened the door Dave ran swiftly within. He paid no attention to June.

"I follered June back an' left my hoss in the bushes. There was three of 'em." He showed Bub a bullet hole through one sleeve and then he turned half contemptuously to June:

"I hain't done it"—adding grimly—"not yit. He's as safe as you air. I hope you're satisfied that hit hain't him 'stid o' yo' daddy thar."

"Are you going to the Gap for a doctor?"

"I reckon I can't leave Bub here alone agin all the Falins—not even to git a doctor or to carry a love-message fer you."

"Then I'll go myself."

A thick protest came from the bed, and then an appeal that might have come from a child.

"Don't leave me, Juny." Without a word June went into the kitchen and got the old bark horn.

"Uncle Billy will go," she said, and she stepped out on the porch. But Uncle Billy was already on his way and she heard him coming just as she was raising the horn to her lips. She met him at the gate, and without even taking the time to come into the house the old miller hurried upward toward the Lonesome Pine. The rain came then—the rain that the tiny cobwebs had heralded at dawn that morning. The old step-mother had not come home, and June told Bub she had gone over the mountain to see her sister, and when, as darkness fell, she did not appear they knew that she must have been caught by the rain and would spend the night with a neighbour. June asked no question, but from the low talk of Bub and Dave she made out what had happened in town that day and a wild elation settled in her heart that John Hale was alive and unhurt—though Rufe was dead, her father wounded, and Bub and Dave both had but narrowly escaped the Falin assassins that afternoon. Bub took the first turn at watching while Dave slept, and when it was Dave's turn she saw him drop quickly asleep in his chair, and she was left alone with the breathing of the wounded man and the beating of rain on the roof. And through the long night June thought her brain weary over herself, her life, her people, and Hale. They were not to blame—her people, they but did as their fathers had done before them. They had their own code and they lived up to it as best they could, and they had had no chance to learn another. She felt the vindictive hatred that had prolonged the feud. Had she been a man, she could not have rested until she had slain the man who had ambushed her father. She expected Bub to do that now, and if the spirit was so strong in her with the training she had had, how helpless they must be against it. Even Dave was not to blame—not to blame for loving her—he had always done that. For that reason he could not help hating Hale, and how great a reason he had now, for he could not understand as she could the absence of any personal motive that had governed him in the prosecution of the law, no matter if he hurt friend or foe. But for Hale, she would have loved Dave and now be married to him and happier than she was. Dave saw that—no wonder he hated Hale. And as she slowly realized all these things, she grew calm and gentle and determined to stick to her people and do the best she could with her life.

And now and then through the night old Judd would open his eyes and stare at the ceiling, and at these times it was not the pain in his face that distressed her as much as the drawn beaten look that she had noticed growing in it for a long time. It was terrible—that helpless look in the face of a man, so big in body, so strong of mind, so iron-like in will; and whenever he did speak she knew what he was going to say:

"It's all over, Juny. They've beat us on every turn. They've got us one by one. Thar ain't but a few of us left now and when I git up, if I ever do, I'm goin' to gether 'em all together, pull up stakes and take 'em all West. You won't ever leave me, Juny?"

"No, Dad," she would say gently. He had asked the question at first quite sanely, but as the night wore on and the fever grew and his mind wandered, he would repeat the question over and over like a child, and over and over, while Bub and Dave slept and the rain poured, June would repeat her answer:

"I'll never leave you, Dad."



XXXI

Before dawn Hale and the doctor and the old miller had reached the Pine, and there Hale stopped. Any farther, the old man told him, he would go only at the risk of his life from Dave or Bub, or even from any Falin who happened to be hanging around in the bushes, for Hale was hated equally by both factions now.

"I'll wait up here until noon, Uncle Billy," said Hale. "Ask her, for God's sake, to come up here and see me."

"All right. I'll axe her, but—" the old miller shook his head. Breakfastless, except for the munching of a piece of chocolate, Hale waited all the morning with his black horse in the bushes some thirty yards from the Lonesome Pine. Every now and then he would go to the tree and look down the path, and once he slipped far down the trail and aside to a spur whence he could see the cabin in the cove. Once his hungry eyes caught sight of a woman's figure walking through the little garden, and for an hour after it disappeared into the house he watched for it to come out again. But nothing more was visible, and he turned back to the trail to see Uncle Billy laboriously climbing up the slope. Hale waited and ran down to meet him, his face and eyes eager and his lips trembling, but again Uncle Billy was shaking his head.

"No use, John," he said sadly. "I got her out on the porch and axed her, but she won't come."

"She won't come at all?"

"John, when one o' them Tollivers gits white about the mouth, an' thar eyes gits to blazin' and they KEEPS QUIET—they're plumb out o' reach o' the Almighty hisself. June skeered me. But you mustn't blame her jes' now. You see, you got up that guard. You ketched Rufe and hung him, and she can't help thinkin' if you hadn't done that, her old daddy wouldn't be in thar on his back nigh to death. You mustn't blame her, John—she's most out o' her head now."

"All right, Uncle Billy. Good-by." Hale turned, climbed sadly back to his horse and sadly dropped down the other side of the mountain and on through the rocky gap-home.

A week later he learned from the doctor that the chances were even that old Judd would get well, but the days went by with no word of June. Through those days June wrestled with her love for Hale and her loyalty to her father, who, sick as he was, seemed to have a vague sense of the trouble within her and shrewdly fought it by making her daily promise that she would never leave him. For as old Judd got better, June's fierceness against Hale melted and her love came out the stronger, because of the passing injustice that she had done him. Many times she was on the point of sending him word that she would meet him at the Pine, but she was afraid of her own strength if she should see him face to face, and she feared she would be risking his life if she allowed him to come. There were times when she would have gone to him herself, had her father been well and strong, but he was old, beaten and helpless, and she had given her sacred word that she would never leave him. So once more she grew calmer, gentler still, and more determined to follow her own way with her own kin, though that way led through a breaking heart. She never mentioned Hale's name, she never spoke of going West, and in time Dave began to wonder not only if she had not gotten over her feeling for Hale, but if that feeling had not turned into permanent hate. To him, June was kinder than ever, because she understood him better and because she was sorry for the hunted, hounded life he led, not knowing, when on his trips to see her or to do some service for her father, he might be picked off by some Falin from the bushes. So Dave stopped his sneering remarks against Hale and began to dream his old dreams, though he never opened his lips to June, and she was unconscious of what was going on within him. By and by, as old Judd began to mend, overtures of peace came, singularly enough, from the Falins, and while the old man snorted with contemptuous disbelief at them as a pretence to throw him off his guard, Dave began actually to believe that they were sincere, and straightway forged a plan of his own, even if the Tollivers did persist in going West. So one morning as he mounted his horse at old Judd's gate, he called to June in the garden:

"I'm a-goin' over to the Gap." June paled, but Dave was not looking at her.

"What for?" she asked, steadying her voice.

"Business," he answered, and he laughed curiously and, still without looking at her, rode away.

* * * * * * *

Hale sat in the porch of his little office that morning, and the Hon. Sam Budd, who had risen to leave, stood with his hands deep in his pockets, his hat tilted far over his big goggles, looking down at the dead leaves that floated like lost hopes on the placid mill-pond. Hale had agreed to go to England once more on the sole chance left him before he went back to chain and compass—the old land deal that had come to life—and between them they had about enough money for the trip.

"You'll keep an eye on things over there?" said Hale with a backward motion of his head toward Lonesome Cove, and the Hon. Sam nodded his head:

"All I can."

"Those big trunks of hers are still here." The Hon. Sam smiled. "She won't need 'em. I'll keep an eye on 'em and she can come over and get what she wants—every year or two," he added grimly, and Hale groaned.

"Stop it, Sam."

"All right. You ain't goin' to try to see her before you leave?" And then at the look on Hale's face he said hurriedly: "All right—all right," and with a toss of his hands turned away, while Hale sat thinking where he was.

Rufe Tolliver had been quite right as to the Red Fox. Nobody would risk his life for him—there was no one to attempt a rescue, and but a few of the guards were on hand this time to carry out the law. On the last day he had appeared in his white suit of tablecloth. The little old woman in black had made even the cap that was to be drawn over his face, and that, too, she had made of white. Moreover, she would have his body kept unburied for three days, because the Red Fox said that on the third day he would arise and go about preaching. So that even in death the Red Fox was consistently inconsistent, and how he reconciled such a dual life at one and the same time over and under the stars was, except to his twisted brain, never known. He walked firmly up the scaffold steps and stood there blinking in the sunlight. With one hand he tested the rope. For a moment he looked at the sky and the trees with a face that was white and absolutely expressionless. Then he sang one hymn of two verses and quietly dropped into that world in which he believed so firmly and toward which he had trod so strange a way on earth. As he wished, the little old woman in black had the body kept unburied for the three days—but the Red Fox never rose. With his passing, law and order had become supreme. Neither Tolliver nor Falin came on the Virginia side for mischief, and the desperadoes of two sister States, whose skirts are stitched together with pine and pin-oak along the crest of the Cumberland, confined their deviltries with great care to places long distant from the Gap. John Hale had done a great work, but the limit of his activities was that State line and the Falins, ever threatening that they would not leave a Tolliver alive, could carry out those threats and Hale not be able to lift a hand. It was his helplessness that was making him writhe now.

Old Judd had often said he meant to leave the mountains—why didn't he go now and take June for whose safety his heart was always in his mouth? As an officer, he was now helpless where he was; and if he went away he could give no personal aid—he would not even know what was happening—and he had promised Budd to go. An open letter was clutched in his hand, and again he read it. His coal company had accepted his last proposition. They would take his stock—worthless as they thought it—and surrender the cabin and two hundred acres of field and woodland in Lonesome Cove. That much at least would be intact, but if he failed in his last project now, it would be subject to judgments against him that were sure to come. So there was one thing more to do for June before he left for the final effort in England—to give back her home to her—and as he rose to do it now, somebody shouted at his gate:

"Hello!" Hale stopped short at the head of the steps, his right hand shot like a shaft of light to the butt of his pistol, stayed there—and he stood astounded. It was Dave Tolliver on horseback, and Dave's right hand had kept hold of his bridle-reins.

"Hold on!" he said, lifting the other with a wide gesture of peace. "I want to talk with you a bit." Still Hale watched him closely as he swung from his horse.

"Come in—won't you?" The mountaineer hitched his horse and slouched within the gate.

"Have a seat." Dave dropped to the steps.

"I'll set here," he said, and there was an embarrassed silence for a while between the two. Hale studied young Dave's face from narrowed eyes. He knew all the threats the Tolliver had made against him, the bitter enmity that he felt, and that it would last until one or the other was dead. This was a queer move. The mountaineer took off his slouched hat and ran one hand through his thick black hair.

"I reckon you've heard as how all our folks air sellin' out over the mountains."

"No," said Hale quickly.

"Well, they air, an' all of 'em are going West—Uncle Judd, Loretty and June, and all our kinfolks. You didn't know that?"

"No," repeated Hale.

"Well, they hain't closed all the trades yit," he said, "an' they mought not go mebbe afore spring. The Falins say they air done now. Uncle Judd don't believe 'em, but I do, an' I'm thinkin' I won't go. I've got a leetle money, an' I want to know if I can't buy back Uncle Judd's house an' a leetle ground around it. Our folks is tired o' fightin' and I couldn't live on t'other side of the mountain, after they air gone, an' keep as healthy as on this side—so I thought I'd see if I couldn't buy back June's old home, mebbe, an' live thar."

Hale watched him keenly, wondering what his game was—and he went on: "I know the house an' land ain't wuth much to your company, an' as the coal-vein has petered out, I reckon they might not axe much fer it." It was all out now, and he stopped without looking at Hale. "I ain't axin' any favours, leastwise not o' you, an' I thought my share o' Mam's farm mought be enough to git me the house an' some o' the land."

"You mean to live there, yourself?"

"Yes."

"Alone?" Dave frowned.

"I reckon that's my business."

"So it is—excuse me." Hale lighted his pipe and the mountaineer waited—he was a little sullen now.

"Well, the company has parted with the land." Dave started.

"Sold it?"

"In a way—yes."

"Well, would you mind tellin' me who bought it—maybe I can git it from him."

"It's mine now," said Hale quietly.

"YOURN!" The mountaineer looked incredulous and then he let loose a scornful laugh.

"YOU goin' to live thar?"

"Maybe."

"Alone?"

"That's my business." The mountaineer's face darkened and his fingers began to twitch.

"Well, if you're talkin' 'bout June, hit's MY business. Hit always has been and hit always will be."

"Well, if I was talking about June, I wouldn't consult you."

"No, but I'd consult you like hell."

"I wish you had the chance," said Hale coolly; "but I wasn't talking about June." Again Dave laughed harshly, and for a moment his angry eyes rested on the quiet mill-pond. He went backward suddenly.

"You went over thar in Lonesome with your high notions an' your slick tongue, an' you took June away from me. But she wusn't good enough fer you THEN—so you filled her up with yo' fool notions an' sent her away to git her po' little head filled with furrin' ways, so she could be fitten to marry you. You took her away from her daddy, her family, her kinfolks and her home, an' you took her away from me; an' now she's been over thar eatin' her heart out just as she et it out over here when she fust left home. An' in the end she got so highfalutin that SHE wouldn't marry YOU." He laughed again and Hale winced under the laugh and the lashing words. "An' I know you air eatin' yo' heart out, too, because you can't git June, an' I'm hopin' you'll suffer the torment o' hell as long as you live. God, she hates ye now! To think o' your knowin' the world and women and books"—he spoke with vindictive and insulting slowness—"You bein' such a—fool!"

"That may all be true, but I think you can talk better outside that gate." The mountaineer, deceived by Hale's calm voice, sprang to his feet in a fury, but he was too late. Hale's hand was on the butt of his revolver, his blue eyes were glittering and a dangerous smile was at his lips. Silently he sat and silently he pointed his other hand at the gate. Dave laughed:

"D'ye think I'd fight you hyeh? If you killed me, you'd be elected County Jedge; if I killed you, what chance would I have o' gittin' away? I'd swing fer it." He was outside the gate now and unhitching his horse. He started to turn the beasts but Hale stopped him.

"Get on from this side, please."

With one foot in the stirrup, Dave turned savagely: "Why don't you go up in the Gap with me now an' fight it out like a man?"

"I don't trust you."

"I'll git ye over in the mountains some day."

"I've no doubt you will, if you have the chance from the bush." Hale was getting roused now.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "you've been threatening me for a long time now. I've never had any feeling against you. I've never done anything to you that I hadn't to do. But you've gone a little too far now and I'm tired. If you can't get over your grudge against me, suppose we go across the river outside the town-limits, put our guns down and fight it out—fist and skull."

"I'm your man," said Dave eagerly. Looking across the street Hale saw two men on the porch.

"Come on!" he said. The two men were Budd and the new town-sergeant. "Sam," he said "this gentleman and I are going across the river to have a little friendly bout, and I wish you'd come along—and you, too, Bill, to see that Dave here gets fair play."

The sergeant spoke to Dave. "You don't need nobody to see that you git fair play with them two—but I'll go 'long just the same." Hardly a word was said as the four walked across the bridge and toward a thicket to the right. Neither Budd nor the sergeant asked the nature of the trouble, for either could have guessed what it was. Dave tied his horse and, like Hale, stripped off his coat. The sergeant took charge of Dave's pistol and Budd of Hale's.

"All you've got to do is to keep him away from you," said Budd. "If he gets his hands on you—you're gone. You know how they fight rough-and-tumble."

Hale nodded—he knew all that himself, and when he looked at Dave's sturdy neck, and gigantic shoulders, he knew further that if the mountaineer got him in his grasp he would have to gasp "enough" in a hurry, or be saved by Budd from being throttled to death.

"Are you ready?" Again Hale nodded.

"Go ahead, Dave," growled the sergeant, for the job was not to his liking. Dave did not plunge toward Hale, as the three others expected. On the contrary, he assumed the conventional attitude of the boxer and advanced warily, using his head as a diagnostician for Hale's points—and Hale remembered suddenly that Dave had been away at school for a year. Dave knew something of the game and the Hon. Sam straightway was anxious, when the mountaineer ducked and swung his left Budd's heart thumped and he almost shrank himself from the terrific sweep of the big fist.

"God!" he muttered, for had the fist caught Hale's head it must, it seemed, have crushed it like an egg-shell. Hale coolly withdrew his head not more than an inch, it seemed to Budd's practised eye, and jabbed his right with a lightning uppercut into Dave's jaw, that made the mountaineer reel backward with a grunt of rage and pain, and when he followed it up with a swing of his left on Dave's right eye and another terrific jolt with his right on the left jaw, and Budd saw the crazy rage in the mountaineer's face, he felt easy. In that rage Dave forgot his science as the Hon. Sam expected, and with a bellow he started at Hale like a cave-dweller to bite, tear, and throttle, but the lithe figure before him swayed this way and that like a shadow, and with every side-step a fist crushed on the mountaineer's nose, chin or jaw, until, blinded with blood and fury, Dave staggered aside toward the sergeant with the cry of a madman:

"Gimme my gun! I'll kill him! Gimme my gun!" And when the sergeant sprang forward and caught the mountaineer, he dropped weeping with rage and shame to the ground.

"You two just go back to town," said the sergeant. "I'll take keer of him. Quick!" and he shook his head as Hale advanced. "He ain't goin' to shake hands with you."

The two turned back across the bridge and Hale went on to Budd's office to do what he was setting out to do when young Dave came. There he had the lawyer make out a deed in which the cabin in Lonesome Cove and the acres about it were conveyed in fee simple to June—her heirs and assigns forever; but the girl must not know until, Hale said, "her father dies, or I die, or she marries." When he came out the sergeant was passing the door.

"Ain't no use fightin' with one o' them fellers thataway," he said, shaking his head. "If he whoops you, he'll crow over you as long as he lives, and if you whoop him, he'll kill ye the fust chance he gets. You'll have to watch that feller as long as you live—'specially when he's drinking. He'll remember that lickin' and want revenge fer it till the grave. One of you has got to die some day—shore."

And the sergeant was right. Dave was going through the Gap at that moment, cursing, swaying like a drunken man, firing his pistol and shouting his revenge to the echoing gray walls that took up his cries and sent them shrieking on the wind up every dark ravine. All the way up the mountain he was cursing. Under the gentle voice of the big Pine he was cursing still, and when his lips stopped, his heart was beating curses as he dropped down the other side of the mountain.

When he reached the river, he got off his horse and bathed his mouth and his eyes again, and he cursed afresh when the blood started afresh at his lips again. For a while he sat there in his black mood, undecided whether he should go to his uncle's cabin or go on home. But he had seen a woman's figure in the garden as he came down the spur, and the thought of June drew him to the cabin in spite of his shame and the questions that were sure to be asked. When he passed around the clump of rhododendrons at the creek, June was in the garden still. She was pruning a rose-bush with Bub's penknife, and when she heard him coming she wheeled, quivering. She had been waiting for him all day, and, like an angry goddess, she swept fiercely toward him. Dave pretended not to see her, but when he swung from his horse and lifted his sullen eyes, he shrank as though she had lashed him across them with a whip. Her eyes blazed with murderous fire from her white face, the penknife in her hand was clenched as though for a deadly purpose, and on her trembling lips was the same question that she had asked him at the mill:

"Have you done it this time?" she whispered, and then she saw his swollen mouth and his battered eye. Her fingers relaxed about the handle of the knife, the fire in her eyes went swiftly down, and with a smile that was half pity, half contempt, she turned away. She could not have told the whole truth better in words, even to Dave, and as he looked after her his every pulse-beat was a new curse, and if at that minute he could have had Hale's heart he would have eaten it like a savage—raw. For a minute he hesitated with reins in hand as to whether he should turn now and go back to the Gap to settle with Hale, and then he threw the reins over a post. He could bide his time yet a little longer, for a crafty purpose suddenly entered his brain. Bub met him at the door of the cabin and his eyes opened.

"What's the matter, Dave?"

"Oh, nothin'," he said carelessly. "My hoss stumbled comin' down the mountain an' I went clean over his head." He raised one hand to his mouth and still Bub was suspicious.

"Looks like you been in a fight." The boy began to laugh, but Dave ignored him and went on into the cabin. Within, he sat where he could see through the open door.

"Whar you been, Dave?" asked old Judd from the corner. Just then he saw June coming and, pretending to draw on his pipe, he waited until she had sat down within ear-shot on the edge of the porch.

"Who do you reckon owns this house and two hundred acres o' land roundabouts?"

The girl's heart waited apprehensively and she heard her father's deep voice.

"The company owns it." Dave laughed harshly.

"Not much—John Hale." The heart out on the porch leaped with gladness now.

"He bought it from the company. It's just as well you're goin' away, Uncle Judd. He'd put you out."

"I reckon not. I got writin' from the company which 'lows me to stay here two year or more—if I want to."

"I don't know. He's a slick one."

"I heerd him say," put in Bub stoutly, "that he'd see that we stayed here jus' as long as we pleased."

"Well," said old Judd shortly, "ef we stay here by his favour, we won't stay long."

There was silence for a while. Then Dave spoke again for the listening ears outside—maliciously:

"I went over to the Gap to see if I couldn't git the place myself from the company. I believe the Falins ain't goin' to bother us an' I ain't hankerin' to go West. But I told him that you-all was goin' to leave the mountains and goin' out thar fer good." There was another silence.

"He never said a word." Nobody had asked the question, but he was answering the unspoken one in the heart of June, and that heart sank like a stone.

"He's goin' away hisself-goin' ter-morrow—goin' to that same place he went before—England, some feller called it."

Dave had done his work well. June rose unsteadily, and with one hand on her heart and the other clutching the railing of the porch, she crept noiselessly along it, staggered like a wounded thing around the chimney, through the garden and on, still clutching her heart, to the woods—there to sob it out on the breast of the only mother she had ever known.

Dave was gone when she came back from the woods—calm, dry-eyed, pale. Her step-mother had kept her dinner for her, and when she said she wanted nothing to eat, the old woman answered something querulous to which June made no answer, but went quietly to cleaning away the dishes. For a while she sat on the porch, and presently she went into her room and for a few moments she rocked quietly at her window. Hale was going away next day, and when he came back she would be gone and she would never see him again. A dry sob shook her body of a sudden, she put both hands to her head and with wild eyes she sprang to her feet and, catching up her bonnet, slipped noiselessly out the back door. With hands clenched tight she forced herself to walk slowly across the foot-bridge, but when the bushes hid her, she broke into a run as though she were crazed and escaping a madhouse. At the foot of the spur she turned swiftly up the mountain and climbed madly, with one hand tight against the little cross at her throat. He was going away and she must tell him—she must tell him—what? Behind her a voice was calling, the voice that pleaded all one night for her not to leave him, that had made that plea a daily prayer, and it had come from an old man—wounded, broken in health and heart, and her father. Hale's face was before her, but that voice was behind, and as she climbed, the face that she was nearing grew fainter, the voice she was leaving sounded the louder in her ears, and when she reached the big Pine she dropped helplessly at the base of it, sobbing. With her tears the madness slowly left her, the old determination came back again and at last the old sad peace. The sunlight was slanting at a low angle when she rose to her feet and stood on the cliff overlooking the valley—her lips parted as when she stood there first, and the tiny drops drying along the roots of her dull gold hair. And being there for the last time she thought of that time when she was first there—ages ago. The great glare of light that she looked for then had come and gone. There was the smoking monster rushing into the valley and sending echoing shrieks through the hills—but there was no booted stranger and no horse issuing from the covert of maple where the path disappeared. A long time she stood there, with a wandering look of farewell to every familiar thing before her, but not a tear came now. Only as she turned away at last her breast heaved and fell with one long breath—that was all. Passing the Pine slowly, she stopped and turned back to it, unclasping the necklace from her throat. With trembling fingers she detached from it the little luck-piece that Hale had given her—the tear of a fairy that had turned into a tiny cross of stone when a strange messenger brought to the Virginia valley the story of the crucifixion. The penknife was still in her pocket, and, opening it, she went behind the Pine and dug a niche as high and as deep as she could toward its soft old heart. In there she thrust the tiny symbol, whispering:

"I want all the luck you could ever give me, little cross—for HIM." Then she pulled the fibres down to cover it from sight and, crossing her hands over the opening, she put her forehead against them and touched her lips to the tree.



"Keep it safe, old Pine." Then she lifted her face—looking upward along its trunk to the blue sky. "And bless him, dear God, and guard him evermore." She clutched her heart as she turned, and she was clutching it when she passed into the shadows below, leaving the old Pine to whisper, when he passed, her love.

* * * * * * *

Next day the word went round to the clan that the Tollivers would start in a body one week later for the West. At daybreak, that morning, Uncle Billy and his wife mounted the old gray horse and rode up the river to say good-by. They found the cabin in Lonesome Cove deserted. Many things were left piled in the porch; the Tollivers had left apparently in a great hurry and the two old people were much mystified. Not until noon did they learn what the matter was. Only the night before a Tolliver had shot a Falin and the Falins had gathered to get revenge on Judd that night. The warning word had been brought to Lonesome Cove by Loretta Tolliver, and it had come straight from young Buck Falin himself. So June and old Judd and Bub had fled in the night. At that hour they were on their way to the railroad—old Judd at the head of his clan—his right arm still bound to his side, his bushy beard low on his breast, June and Bub on horseback behind him, the rest strung out behind them, and in a wagon at the end, with all her household effects, the little old woman in black who would wait no longer for the Red Fox to arise from the dead. Loretta alone was missing. She was on her way with young Buck Falin to the railroad on the other side of the mountains. Between them not a living soul disturbed the dead stillness of Lonesome Cove.



XXXII

All winter the cabin in Lonesome Cove slept through rain and sleet and snow, and no foot passed its threshold. Winter broke, floods came and warm sunshine. A pale green light stole through the trees, shy, ethereal and so like a mist that it seemed at any moment on the point of floating upward. Colour came with the wild flowers and song with the wood-thrush. Squirrels played on the tree-trunks like mischievous children, the brooks sang like happy human voices through the tremulous underworld and woodpeckers hammered out the joy of spring, but the awakening only made the desolate cabin lonelier still. After three warm days in March, Uncle Billy, the miller, rode up the creek with a hoe over his shoulder—he had promised this to Hale—for his labour of love in June's garden. Weeping April passed, May came with rosy face uplifted, and with the birth of June the laurel emptied its pink-flecked cups and the rhododendron blazed the way for the summer's coming with white stars.

Back to the hills came Hale then, and with all their rich beauty they were as desolate as when he left them bare with winter, for his mission had miserably failed. His train creaked and twisted around the benches of the mountains, and up and down ravines into the hills. The smoke rolled in as usual through the windows and doors. There was the same crowd of children, slatternly women and tobacco-spitting men in the dirty day-coaches, and Hale sat among them—for a Pullman was no longer attached to the train that ran to the Gap. As he neared the bulk of Powell's mountain and ran along its mighty flank, he passed the ore-mines. At each one the commissary was closed, the cheap, dingy little houses stood empty on the hillsides, and every now and then he would see a tipple and an empty car, left as it was after dumping its last load of red ore. On the right, as he approached the station, the big furnace stood like a dead giant, still and smokeless, and the piles of pig iron were red with rust. The same little dummy wheezed him into the dead little town. Even the face of the Gap was a little changed by the gray scar that man had slashed across its mouth, getting limestone for the groaning monster of a furnace that was now at peace. The streets were deserted. A new face fronted him at the desk of the hotel and the eyes of the clerk showed no knowledge of him when he wrote his name. His supper was coarse, greasy and miserable, his room was cold (steam heat, it seemed, had been given up), the sheets were ill-smelling, the mouth of the pitcher was broken, and the one towel had seen much previous use. But the water was the same, as was the cool, pungent night-air—both blessed of God—and they were the sole comforts that were his that night.

The next day it was as though he were arranging his own funeral, with but little hope of a resurrection. The tax-collector met him when he came downstairs—having seen his name on the register.

"You know," he said, "I'll have to add 5 per cent. next month." Hale smiled.

"That won't be much more," he said, and the collector, a new one, laughed good-naturedly and with understanding turned away. Mechanically he walked to the Club, but there was no club—then on to the office of The Progress—the paper that was the boast of the town. The Progress was defunct and the brilliant editor had left the hills. A boy with an ink-smeared face was setting type and a pallid gentleman with glasses was languidly working a hand-press. A pile of fresh-smelling papers lay on a table, and after a question or two he picked up one. Two of its four pages were covered with announcements of suits and sales to satisfy judgments—the printing of which was the raison d'etre of the noble sheet. Down the column his eye caught John Hale et al. John Hale et al., and he wondered why "the others" should be so persistently anonymous. There was a cloud of them—thicker than the smoke of coke-ovens. He had breathed that thickness for a long time, but he got a fresh sense of suffocation now. Toward the post-office he moved. Around the corner he came upon one of two brothers whom he remembered as carpenters. He recalled his inability once to get that gentleman to hang a door for him. He was a carpenter again now and he carried a saw and a plane. There was grim humour in the situation. The carpenter's brother had gone—and he himself could hardly get enough work, he said, to support his family.

"Goin' to start that house of yours?"

"I think not," said Hale.

"Well, I'd like to get a contract for a chicken-coop just to keep my hand in."

There was more. A two-horse wagon was coming with two cottage-organs aboard. In the mouth of the slouch-hatted, unshaven driver was a corn-cob pipe. He pulled in when he saw Hale.

"Hello!" he shouted grinning. Good Heavens, was that uncouth figure the voluble, buoyant, flashy magnate of the old days? It was.

"Sellin' organs agin," he said briefly.

"And teaching singing-school?"

The dethroned king of finance grinned.

"Sure! What you doin'?"

"Nothing."

"Goin' to stay long?"

"No."

"Well, see you again. So long. Git up!"

Wheel-spokes whirred in the air and he saw a buggy, with the top down, rattling down another street in a cloud of dust. It was the same buggy in which he had first seen the black-bearded Senator seven years before. It was the same horse, too, and the Arab-like face and the bushy black whiskers, save for streaks of gray, were the same. This was the man who used to buy watches and pianos by the dozen, who one Xmas gave a present to every living man, woman and child in the town, and under whose colossal schemes the pillars of the church throughout the State stood as supports. That far away the eagle-nosed face looked haggard, haunted and all but spent, and even now he struck Hale as being driven downward like a madman by the same relentless energy that once had driven him upward. It was the same story everywhere. Nearly everybody who could get away was gone. Some of these were young enough to profit by the lesson and take surer root elsewhere—others were too old for transplanting, and of them would be heard no more. Others stayed for the reason that getting away was impossible. These were living, visible tragedies—still hopeful, pathetically unaware of the leading parts they were playing, and still weakly waiting for a better day or sinking, as by gravity, back to the old trades they had practised before the boom. A few sturdy souls, the fittest, survived—undismayed. Logan was there—lawyer for the railroad and the coal-company. MacFarlan was a judge, and two or three others, too, had come through unscathed in spirit and undaunted in resolution—but gone were the young Bluegrass Kentuckians, the young Tide-water Virginians, the New England school-teachers, the bankers, real-estate agents, engineers; gone the gamblers, the wily Jews and the vagrant women that fringe the incoming tide of a new prosperity—gone—all gone!

Beyond the post-office he turned toward the red-brick house that sat above the mill-pond. Eagerly he looked for the old mill, and he stopped in physical pain. The dam had been torn away, the old wheel was gone and a caved-in roof and supporting walls, drunkenly aslant, were the only remnants left. A red-haired child stood at the gate before the red-brick house and Hale asked her a question. The little girl had never heard of the Widow Crane. Then he walked toward his old office and bedroom. There was a voice inside his old office when he approached, a tall figure filled the doorway, a pair of great goggles beamed on him like beacon lights in a storm, and the Hon. Sam Budd's hand and his were clasped over the gate.

"It's all over, Sam."

"Don't you worry—come on in."

The two sat on the porch. Below it the dimpled river shone through the rhododendrons and with his eyes fixed on it, the Hon. Sam slowly approached the thought of each.

"The old cabin in Lonesome Cove is just as the Tollivers left it."

"None of them ever come back?" Budd shook his head.

"No, but one's comin'—Dave."

"Dave!"

"Yes, an' you know what for."

"I suppose so," said Hale carelessly. "Did you send old Judd the deed?"

"Sure—along with that fool condition of yours that June shouldn't know until he was dead or she married. I've never heard a word."

"Do you suppose he'll stick to the condition?"

"He has stuck," said the Hon. Sam shortly; "otherwise you would have heard from June."

"I'm not going to be here long," said Hale.

"Where you goin'?"

"I don't know." Budd puffed his pipe.

"Well, while you are here, you want to keep your eye peeled for Dave Tolliver. I told you that the mountaineer hates as long as he remembers, and that he never forgets. Do you know that Dave sent his horse back to the stable here to be hired out for his keep, and told it right and left that when you came back he was comin', too, and he was goin' to straddle that horse until he found you, and then one of you had to die? How he found out you were comin' about this time I don't know, but he has sent word that he'll be here. Looks like he hasn't made much headway with June."

"I'm not worried."

"Well, you better be," said Budd sharply.

"Did Uncle Billy plant the garden?"

"Flowers and all, just as June always had 'em. He's always had the idea that June would come back."

"Maybe she will."

"Not on your life. She might if you went out there for her."

Hale looked up quickly and slowly shook his head.

"Look here, Jack, you're seein' things wrong. You can't blame that girl for losing her head after you spoiled and pampered her the way you did. And with all her sense it was mighty hard for her to understand your being arrayed against her flesh and blood—law or no law. That's mountain nature pure and simple, and it comes mighty near bein' human nature the world over. You never gave her a square chance."

"You know what Uncle Billy said?"

"Yes, an' I know Uncle Billy changed his mind. Go after her."

"No," said Hale firmly. "It'll take me ten years to get out of debt. I wouldn't now if I could—on her account."

"Nonsense." Hale rose.

"I'm going over to take a look around and get some things I left at Uncle Billy's and then—me for the wide, wide world again."

The Hon. Sam took off his spectacles to wipe them, but when Bale's back was turned, his handkerchief went to his eyes:

"Don't you worry, Jack."

"All right, Sam."

An hour later Hale was at the livery stable for a horse to ride to Lonesome Cove, for he had sold his big black to help out expenses for the trip to England. Old Dan Harris, the stableman, stood in the door and silently he pointed to a gray horse in the barn-yard.

"You know that hoss?"

"Yes."

"You know whut's he here fer?"

"I've heard."

"Well, I'm lookin' fer Dave every day now."

"Well, maybe I'd better ride Dave's horse now," said Hale jestingly.

"I wish you would," said old Dan.

"No," said Hale, "if he's coming, I'll leave the horse so that he can get to me as quickly as possible. You might send me word, Uncle Dan, ahead, so that he can't waylay me."

"I'll do that very thing," said the old man seriously.

"I was joking, Uncle Dan."

"But I ain't."

The matter was out of Hale's head before he got through the great Gap. How the memories thronged of June—June—June!

"YOU DIDN'T GIVE HER A CHANCE."

That was what Budd said. Well, had he given her a chance? Why shouldn't he go to her and give her the chance now? He shook his shoulders at the thought and laughed with some bitterness. He hadn't the car-fare for half-way across the continent—and even if he had, he was a promising candidate for matrimony!—and again he shook his shoulders and settled his soul for his purpose. He would get his things together and leave those hills forever.

How lonely had been his trip—how lonely was the God-forsaken little town behind him! How lonely the road and hills and the little white clouds in the zenith straight above him—and how unspeakably lonely the green dome of the great Pine that shot into view from the north as he turned a clump of rhododendron with uplifted eyes. Not a breath of air moved. The green expanse about him swept upward like a wave—but unflecked, motionless, except for the big Pine which, that far away, looked like a bit of green spray, spouting on its very crest.

"Old man," he muttered, "you know—you know." And as to a brother he climbed toward it.

"No wonder they call you Lonesome," he said as he went upward into the bright stillness, and when he dropped into the dark stillness of shadow and forest gloom on the other side he said again:

"My God, no wonder they call you Lonesome."

And still the memories of June thronged—at the brook—at the river—and when he saw the smokeless chimney of the old cabin, he all but groaned aloud. But he turned away from it, unable to look again, and went down the river toward Uncle Billy's mill.

* * * * * * *

Old Hon threw her arms around him and kissed him.

"John," said Uncle Billy, "I've got three hundred dollars in a old yarn sock under one of them hearthstones and its yourn. Ole Hon says so too."

Hale choked.

"I want ye to go to June. Dave'll worry her down and git her if you don't go, and if he don't worry her down, he'll come back an' try to kill ye. I've always thought one of ye would have to die fer that gal, an' I want it to be Dave. You two have got to fight it out some day, and you mought as well meet him out thar as here. You didn't give that little gal a fair chance, John, an' I want you to go to June."

"No, I can't take your money, Uncle Billy—God bless you and old Hon—I'm going—I don't know where—and I'm going now."



XXXIII

Clouds were gathering as Hale rode up the river after telling old Hon and Uncle Billy good-by. He had meant not to go to the cabin in Lonesome Cove, but when he reached the forks of the road, he stopped his horse and sat in indecision with his hands folded on the pommel of his saddle and his eyes on the smokeless chimney. The memories tugging at his heart drew him irresistibly on, for it was the last time. At a slow walk he went noiselessly through the deep sand around the clump of rhododendron. The creek was clear as crystal once more, but no geese cackled and no dog barked. The door of the spring-house gaped wide, the barn-door sagged on its hinges, the yard-fence swayed drunkenly, and the cabin was still as a gravestone. But the garden was alive, and he swung from his horse at the gate, and with his hands clasped behind his back walked slowly through it. June's garden! The garden he had planned and planted for June—that they had tended together and apart and that, thanks to the old miller's care, was the one thing, save the sky above, left in spirit unchanged. The periwinkles, pink and white, were almost gone. The flags were at half-mast and sinking fast. The annunciation lilies were bending their white foreheads to the near kiss of death, but the pinks were fragrant, the poppies were poised on slender stalks like brilliant butterflies at rest, the hollyhocks shook soundless pink bells to the wind, roses as scarlet as June's lips bloomed everywhere and the richness of mid-summer was at hand.

Quietly Hale walked the paths, taking a last farewell of plant and flower, and only the sudden patter of raindrops made him lift his eyes to the angry sky. The storm was coming now in earnest and he had hardly time to lead his horse to the barn and dash to the porch when the very heavens, with a crash of thunder, broke loose. Sheet after sheet swept down the mountains like wind-driven clouds of mist thickening into water as they came. The shingles rattled as though with the heavy slapping of hands, the pines creaked and the sudden dusk outside made the cabin, when he pushed the door open, as dark as night. Kindling a fire, he lit his pipe and waited. The room was damp and musty, but the presence of June almost smothered him. Once he turned his face. June's door was ajar and the key was in the lock. He rose to go to it and look within and then dropped heavily back into his chair. He was anxious to get away now—to get to work. Several times he rose restlessly and looked out the window. Once he went outside and crept along the wall of the cabin to the east and the west, but there was no break of light in the murky sky and he went back to pipe and fire. By and by the wind died and the rain steadied into a dogged downpour. He knew what that meant—there would be no letting up now in the storm, and for another night he was a prisoner. So he went to his saddle-pockets and pulled out a cake of chocolate, a can of potted ham and some crackers, munched his supper, went to bed, and lay there with sleepless eyes, while the lights and shadows from the wind-swayed fire flicked about him. After a while his body dozed but his racked brain went seething on in an endless march of fantastic dreams in which June was the central figure always, until of a sudden young Dave leaped into the centre of the stage in the dream-tragedy forming in his brain. They were meeting face to face at last—and the place was the big Pine. Dave's pistol flashed and his own stuck in the holster as he tried to draw. There was a crashing report and he sprang upright in bed—but it was a crash of thunder that wakened him and that in that swift instant perhaps had caused his dream. The wind had come again and was driving the rain like soft bullets against the wall of the cabin next which he lay. He got up, threw another stick of wood on the fire and sat before the leaping blaze, curiously disturbed but not by the dream. Somehow he was again in doubt—was he going to stick it out in the mountains after all, and if he should, was not the reason, deep down in his soul, the foolish hope that June would come back again. No, he thought, searching himself fiercely, that was not the reason. He honestly did not know what his duty to her was—what even was his inmost wish, and almost with a groan he paced the floor to and fro. Meantime the storm raged. A tree crashed on the mountainside and the lightning that smote it winked into the cabin so like a mocking, malignant eye that he stopped in his tracks, threw open the door and stepped outside as though to face an enemy. The storm was majestic and his soul went into the mighty conflict of earth and air, whose beginning and end were in eternity. The very mountain tops were rimmed with zigzag fire, which shot upward, splitting a sky that was as black as a nether world, and under it the great trees swayed like willows under rolling clouds of gray rain. One fiery streak lit up for an instant the big Pine and seemed to dart straight down upon its proud, tossing crest. For a moment the beat of the watcher's heart and the flight of his soul stopped still. A thunderous crash came slowly to his waiting ears, another flash came, and Hale stumbled, with a sob, back into the cabin. God's finger was pointing the way now—the big Pine was no more.



XXXIV

The big Pine was gone. He had seen it first, one morning at daybreak, when the valley on the other side was a sea of mist that threw soft, clinging spray to the very mountain tops—for even above the mists, that morning, its mighty head arose, sole visible proof that the earth still slept beneath. He had seen it at noon—but little less majestic, among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching the last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the moon. He had seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing burst of spring, had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green in the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow—a changeless promise that the earth must wake to life again. It had been the beacon that led him into Lonesome Cove—the beacon that led June into the outer world. From it her flying feet had carried her into his life—past it, the same feet had carried her out again. It had been their trysting place—had kept their secrets like a faithful friend and had stood to him as the changeless symbol of their love. It had stood a mute but sympathetic witness of his hopes, his despairs and the struggles that lay between them. In dark hours it had been a silent comforter, and in the last year it had almost come to symbolize his better self as to that self he came slowly back. And in the darkest hour it was the last friend to whom he had meant to say good-by. Now it was gone. Always he had lifted his eyes to it every morning when he rose, but now, next morning, he hung back consciously as one might shrink from looking at the face of a dead friend, and when at last he raised his head to look upward to it, an impenetrable shroud of mist lay between them—and he was glad.

And still he could not leave. The little creek was a lashing yellow torrent, and his horse, heavily laden as he must be, could hardly swim with his weight, too, across so swift a stream. But mountain streams were like June's temper—up quickly and quickly down—so it was noon before he plunged into the tide with his saddle-pockets over one shoulder and his heavy transit under one arm. Even then his snorting horse had to swim a few yards, and he reached the other bank soaked to his waist line. But the warm sun came out just as he entered the woods, and as he climbed, the mists broke about him and scudded upward like white sails before a driving wind. Once he looked back from a "fire-scald" in the woods at the lonely cabin in the cove, but it gave him so keen a pain that he would not look again. The trail was slippery and several times he had to stop to let his horse rest and to slow the beating of his own heart. But the sunlight leaped gladly from wet leaf to wet leaf until the trees looked decked out for unseen fairies, and the birds sang as though there was nothing on earth but joy for all its creatures, and the blue sky smiled above as though it had never bred a lightning flash or a storm. Hale dreaded the last spur before the little Gap was visible, but he hurried up the steep, and when he lifted his apprehensive eyes, the gladness of the earth was as nothing to the sudden joy in his own heart. The big Pine stood majestic, still unscathed, as full of divinity and hope to him as a rainbow in an eastern sky. Hale dropped his reins, lifted one hand to his dizzy head, let his transit to the ground, and started for it on a run. Across the path lay a great oak with a white wound running the length of its mighty body, from crest to shattered trunk, and over it he leaped, and like a child caught his old friend in both arms. After all, he was not alone. One friend would be with him till death, on that border-line between the world in which he was born and the world he had tried to make his own, and he could face now the old one again with a stouter heart. There it lay before him with its smoke and fire and noise and slumbering activities just awakening to life again. He lifted his clenched fist toward it:

"You got ME once," he muttered, "but this time I'll get YOU." He turned quickly and decisively—there would be no more delay. And he went back and climbed over the big oak that, instead of his friend, had fallen victim to the lightning's kindly whim and led his horse out into the underbrush. As he approached within ten yards of the path, a metallic note rang faintly on the still air the other side of the Pine and down the mountain. Something was coming up the path, so he swiftly knotted his bridle-reins around a sapling, stepped noiselessly into the path and noiselessly slipped past the big tree where he dropped to his knees, crawled forward and lay flat, peering over the cliff and down the winding trail. He had not long to wait. A riderless horse filled the opening in the covert of leaves that swallowed up the path. It was gray and he knew it as he knew the saddle as his old enemy's—Dave. Dave had kept his promise—he had come back. The dream was coming true, and they were to meet at last face to face. One of them was to strike a trail more lonesome than the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and that man would not be John Hale. One detail of the dream was going to be left out, he thought grimly, and very quietly he drew his pistol, cocked it, sighted it on the opening—it was an easy shot—and waited. He would give that enemy no more chance than he would a mad dog—or would he? The horse stopped to browse. He waited so long that he began to suspect a trap. He withdrew his head and looked about him on either side and behind—listening intently for the cracking of a twig or a footfall. He was about to push backward to avoid possible attack from the rear, when a shadow shot from the opening. His face paled and looked sick of a sudden, his clenched fingers relaxed about the handle of his pistol and he drew it back, still cocked, turned on his knees, walked past the Pine, and by the fallen oak stood upright, waiting. He heard a low whistle calling to the horse below and a shudder ran through him. He heard the horse coming up the path, he clenched his pistol convulsively, and his eyes, lit by an unearthly fire and fixed on the edge of the bowlder around which they must come, burned an instant later on—June. At the cry she gave, he flashed a hunted look right and left, stepped swiftly to one side and stared past her-still at the bowlder. She had dropped the reins and started toward him, but at the Pine she stopped short.

"Where is he?"

Her lips opened to answer, but no sound came. Hale pointed at the horse behind her.

"That's his. He sent me word. He left that horse in the valley, to ride over here, when he came back, to kill me. Are you with him?" For a moment she thought from his wild face that he had gone crazy and she stared silently. Then she seemed to understand, and with a moan she covered her face with her hands and sank weeping in a heap at the foot of the Pine.

The forgotten pistol dropped, full cocked to the soft earth, and Hale with bewildered eyes went slowly to her.

"Don't cry,"—he said gently, starting to call her name. "Don't cry," he repeated, and he waited helplessly.

"He's dead. Dave was shot—out—West," she sobbed. "I told him I was coming back. He gave me his horse. Oh, how could you?"

"Why did you come back?" he asked, and she shrank as though he had struck her—but her sobs stopped and she rose to her feet.

"Wait," she said, and she turned from him to wipe her eyes with her handerchief. Then she faced him.

"When dad died, I learned everything. You made him swear never to tell me and he kept his word until he was on his death-bed. YOU did everything for me. It was YOUR money. YOU gave me back the old cabin in the Cove. It was always you, you, YOU, and there was never anybody else but you." She stopped for Hale's face was as though graven from stone.

"And you came back to tell me that?"

"Yes."

"You could have written that."

"Yes," she faltered, "but I had to tell you face to face."

"Is that all?"

Again the tears were in her eyes.

"No," she said tremulously.

"Then I'll say the rest for you. You wanted to come to tell me of the shame you felt when you knew," she nodded violently—"but you could have written that, too, and I could have written that you mustn't feel that way—that" he spoke slowly—"you mustn't rob me of the dearest happiness I ever knew in my whole life."

"I knew you would say that," she said like a submissive child. The sternness left his face and he was smiling now.

"And you wanted to say that the only return you could make was to come back and be my wife."

"Yes," she faltered again, "I did feel that—I did."

"You could have written that, too, but you thought you had to PROVE it by coming back yourself."

This time she nodded no assent and her eyes were streaming. He turned away—stretching out his arms to the woods.

"God! Not that—no—no!"

"Listen, Jack!" As suddenly his arms dropped. She had controlled her tears but her lips were quivering.

"No, Jack, not that—thank God. I came because I wanted to come," she said steadily. "I loved you when I went away. I've loved you every minute since—" her arms were stealing about his neck, her face was upturned to his and her eyes, moist with gladness, were looking into his wondering eyes—"and I love you now—Jack."

"June!" The leaves about them caught his cry and quivered with the joy of it, and above their heads the old Pine breathed its blessing with the name—June—June—June.



XXXV

With a mystified smile but with no question, Hale silently handed his penknife to June and when, smiling but without a word, she walked behind the old Pine, he followed her. There he saw her reach up and dig the point of the knife into the trunk, and when, as he wonderingly watched her, she gave a sudden cry, Hale sprang toward her. In the hole she was digging he saw the gleam of gold and then her trembling fingers brought out before his astonished eyes the little fairy stone that he had given her long ago. She had left it there for him, she said, through tears, and through his own tears Hale pointed to the stricken oak:

"It saved the Pine," he said.

"And you," said June.

"And you," repeated Hale solemnly, and while he looked long at her, her arms dropped slowly to her sides and he said simply:

"Come!"

Leading the horses, they walked noiselessly through the deep sand around the clump of rhododendron, and there sat the little cabin of Lonesome Cove. The holy hush of a cathedral seemed to shut it in from the world, so still it was below the great trees that stood like sentinels on eternal guard. Both stopped, and June laid her head on Hale's shoulder and they simply looked in silence.

"Dear old home," she said, with a little sob, and Hale, still silent, drew her to him.

"You were never coming back again?"

"I was never coming back again." She clutched his arm fiercely as though even now something might spirit him away, and she clung to him, while he hitched the horses and while they walked up the path.

"Why, the garden is just as I left it! The very same flowers in the very same places!" Hale smiled.

"Why not? I had Uncle Billy do that."

"Oh, you dear—you dear!"

Her little room was shuttered tight as it always had been when she was away, and, as usual, the front door was simply chained on the outside. The girl turned with a happy sigh and looked about at the nodding flowers and the woods and the gleaming pool of the river below and up the shimmering mountain to the big Pine topping it with sombre majesty.

"Dear old Pine," she murmured, and almost unconsciously she unchained the door as she had so often done before, stepped into the dark room, pulling Hale with one hand after her, and almost unconsciously reaching upward with the other to the right of the door. Then she cried aloud:

"My key—my key is there!"

"That was in case you should come back some day."

"Oh, I might—I might! and think if I had come too late—think if I hadn't come now!" Again her voice broke and still holding Hale's arm, she moved to her own door. She had to use both hands there, but before she let go, she said almost hysterically:

"It's so dark! You won't leave me, dear, if I let you go?"

For answer Hale locked his arms around her, and when the door opened, he went in ahead of her and pushed open the shutters. The low sun flooded the room and when Hale turned, June was looking with wild eyes from one thing to another in the room—her rocking-chair at a window, her sewing close by, a book on the table, her bed made up in the corner, her washstand of curly maple—the pitcher full of water and clean towels hanging from the rack. Hale had gotten out the things she had packed away and the room was just as she had always kept it. She rushed to him, weeping.

"It would have killed me," she sobbed. "It would have killed me." She strained him tightly to her—her wet face against his cheek: "Think—think—if I hadn't come now!" Then loosening herself she went all about the room with a caressing touch to everything, as though it were alive. The book was the volume of Keats he had given her—which had been loaned to Loretta before June went away.

"Oh, I wrote for it and wrote for it," she said.

"I found it in the post-office," said Hale, "and I understood."

She went over to the bed.

"Oh," she said with a happy laugh. "You've got one slip inside out," and she whipped the pillow from its place, changed it, and turned down the edge of the covers in a triangle.

"That's the way I used to leave it," she said shyly. Hale smiled.

"I never noticed that!" She turned to the bureau and pulled open a drawer. In there were white things with frills and blue ribbons—and she flushed.

"Oh," she said, "these haven't even been touched." Again Hale smiled but he said nothing. One glance had told him there were things in that drawer too sacred for his big hands.

"I'm so happy—so happy."

Suddenly she looked him over from head to foot—his rough riding boots, old riding breeches and blue flannel shirt.

"I am pretty rough," he said. She flushed, shook her head and looked down at her smart cloth suit of black.

"Oh, you are all right—but you must go out now, just for a little while."

"What are you up to, little girl?"

"How I love to hear that again!"

"Aren't you afraid I'll run away?" he said at the door.

"I'm not afraid of anything else in this world any more."

"Well, I won't."

He heard her moving around as he sat planning on the porch.

"To-morrow," he thought, and then an idea struck him that made him dizzy. From within June cried:

"Here I am," and out she ran in the last crimson gown of her young girlhood—her sleeves rolled up and her hair braided down her back as she used to wear it.

"You've made up my bed and I'm going to make yours—and I'm going to cook your supper—why, what's the matter?" Hale's face was radiant with the heaven-born idea that lighted it, and he seemed hardly to notice the change she had made. He came over and took her in his arms:

"Ah, sweetheart, my sweetheart!" A spasm of anxiety tightened her throat, but Hale laughed from sheer delight.

"Never you mind. It's a secret," and he stood back to look at hen She blushed as his eyes went downward to her perfect ankles.

"It is too short," she said.

"No, no, no! Not for me! You're mine now, little girl, mine—do you understand that?"

"Yes," she whispered, her mouth trembling, Again he laughed joyously.

"Come on!" he cried, and he went into the kitchen and brought out an axe:

"I'll cut wood for you." She followed him out to the wood-pile and then she turned and went into the house. Presently the sound of his axe rang through the woods, and as he stooped to gather up the wood, he heard a creaking sound. June was drawing water at the well, and he rushed toward her:

"Here, you mustn't do that."

She flashed a happy smile at him.

"You just go back and get that wood. I reckon," she used the word purposely, "I've done this afore." Her strong bare arms were pulling the leaking moss-covered old bucket swiftly up, hand under hand—so he got the wood while she emptied the bucket into a pail, and together they went laughing into the kitchen, and while he built the fire, June got out the coffee-grinder and the meal to mix, and settled herself with the grinder in her lap.

"Oh, isn't it fun?" She stopped grinding suddenly.

"What would the neighbours say?"

"We haven't any."

"But if we had!"

"Terrible!" said Hale with mock solemnity.

"I wonder if Uncle Billy is at home," Hale trembled at his luck. "That's a good idea. I'll ride down for him while you're getting supper."

"No, you won't," said June, "I can't spare you. Is that old horn here yet?"

Hale brought it out from behind the cupboard.

"I can get him—if he is at home."

Hale followed her out to the porch where she put her red mouth to the old trumpet. One long, mellow hoot rang down the river—and up the hills. Then there were three short ones and a single long blast again.

"That's the old signal," she said. "And he'll know I want him bad." Then she laughed.

"He may think he's dreaming, so I'll blow for him again." And she did.

"There, now," she said. "He'll come."

It was well she did blow again, for the old miller was not at home and old Hon, down at the cabin, dropped her iron when she heard the horn and walked to the door, dazed and listening. Even when it came again she could hardly believe her ears, and but for her rheumatism, she would herself have started at once for Lonesome Cove. As it was, she ironed no more, but sat in the doorway almost beside herself with anxiety and bewilderment, looking down the road for the old miller to come home.

Back the two went into the kitchen and Hale sat at the door watching June as she fixed the table and made the coffee and corn bread. Once only he disappeared and that was when suddenly a hen cackled, and with a shout of laughter he ran out to come back with a fresh egg.

"Now, my lord!" said June, her hair falling over her eyes and her face flushed from the heat.

"No," said Hale. "I'm going to wait on you."

"For the last time," she pleaded, and to please her he did sit down, and every time she came to his side with something he bent to kiss the hand that served him.

"You're nothing but a big, nice boy," she said. Hale held out a lock of his hair near the temples and with one finger silently followed the track of wrinkles in his face.

"It's premature," she said, "and I love every one of them." And she stooped to kiss him on the hair. "And those are nothing but troubles. I'm going to smooth every one of them away."

"If they're troubles, they'll go—now," said Hale.

All the time they talked of what they would do with Lonesome Cove.

"Even if we do go away, we'll come back once a year," said Hale.

"Yes," nodded June, "once a year."

"I'll tear down those mining shacks, float them down the river and sell them as lumber."

"Yes."

"And I'll stock the river with bass again."

"Yes."

"And I'll plant young poplars to cover the sight of every bit of uptorn earth along the mountain there. I'll bury every bottle and tin can in the Cove. I'll take away every sign of civilization, every sign of the outside world."

"And leave old Mother Nature to cover up the scars," said June.

"So that Lonesome Cove will be just as it was."

"Just as it was in the beginning," echoed June.

"And shall be to the end," said Hale.

"And there will never be anybody here but you."

"And you," said June.

While she cleared the table and washed the dishes Hale fed the horses and cut more wood, and it was dusk when he came to the porch. Through the door he saw that she had made his bed in one corner. And through her door he saw one of the white things, that had lain untouched in her drawer, now stretched out on her bed.

The stars were peeping through the blue spaces of a white-clouded sky and the moon would be coming by and by. In the garden the flowers were dim, quiet and restful. A kingfisher screamed from the river. An owl hooted in the woods and crickets chirped about them, but every passing sound seemed only to accentuate the stillness in which they were engulfed. Close together they sat on the old porch and she made him tell of everything that had happened since she left the mountains, and she told him of her flight from the mountains and her life in the West—of her father's death and the homesickness of the ones who still were there.



"Bub is a cowboy and wouldn't come back for the world, but I could never have been happy there," she said, "even if it hadn't been for you—here."

"I'm just a plain civil engineer, now," said Hale, "an engineer without even a job and—" his face darkened.

"It's a shame, sweetheart, for you—" She put one hand over his lips and with the other turned his face so that she could look into his eyes. In the mood of bitterness, they did show worn, hollow and sad, and around them the wrinkles were deep.

"Silly," she said, tracing them gently with her finger tips, "I love every one of them, too," and she leaned over and kissed them.

"We're going to be happy each and every day, and all day long! We'll live at the Gap in winter and I'll teach."

"No, you won't."

"Then I'll teach you to be patient and how little I care for anything else in the world while I've got you, and I'll teach you to care for nothing else while you've got me. And you'll have me, dear, forever and ever——"

"Amen," said Hale.

Something rang out in the darkness, far down the river, and both sprang to their feet. "It's Uncle Billy!" cried June, and she lifted the old horn to her lips. With the first blare of it, a cheery halloo answered, and a moment later they could see a gray horse coming up the road—coming at a gallop, and they went down to the gate and waited.

"Hello, Uncle Billy" cried June. The old man answered with a fox-hunting yell and Hale stepped behind a bush.

"Jumping Jehosophat—is that you, June? Air ye all right?"

"Yes, Uncle Billy." The old man climbed off his horse with a groan.

"Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, but I was skeered!" He had his hands on June's shoulders and was looking at her with a bewildered face.

"What air ye doin' here alone, baby?"

June's eyes shone: "Nothing Uncle Billy." Hale stepped into sight.

"Oh, ho! I see! You back an' he ain't gone! Well, bless my soul, if this ain't the beatenest—" he looked from the one to the other and his kind old face beamed with a joy that was but little less than their own.

"You come back to stay?"

"My—where's that horn? I want it right now, Ole Hon down thar is a-thinkin' she's gone crazy and I thought she shorely was when she said she heard you blow that horn. An' she tol' me the minute I got here, if hit was you—to blow three times." And straightway three blasts rang down the river.

"Now she's all right, if she don't die o' curiosity afore I git back and tell her why you come. Why did you come back, baby? Gimme a drink o' water, son. I reckon me an' that ole hoss hain't travelled sech a gait in five year."

June was whispering something to the old man when Hale came back, and what it was the old man's face told plainly.

"Yes, Uncle Billy—right away," said Hale.

"Just as soon as you can git yo' license?" Hale nodded.

"An' June says I'm goin' to do It."

"Yes," said Hale, "right away."

Again June had to tell the story to Uncle Billy that she had told to Hale and to answer his questions, and it was an hour before the old miller rose to go. Hale called him then into June's room and showed him a piece of paper.

"Is it good now?" he asked.

The old man put on his spectacles, looked at it and chuckled:

"Just as good as the day you got hit."

"Well, can't you——"

"Right now! Does June know?"

"Not yet. I'm going to tell her now. June!" he called.

"Yes, dear." Uncle Billy moved hurriedly to the door.

"You just wait till I git out o' here." He met June in the outer room.

"Where are you going, Uncle Billy?"

"Go on, baby," he said, hurrying by her, "I'll be back in a minute."

She stopped in the doorway—her eyes wide again with sudden anxiety, but Hale was smiling.

"You remember what you said at the Pine, dear?" The girl nodded and she was smiling now, when with sweet seriousness she said again: "Your least wish is now law to me, my lord."

"Well, I'm going to test it now. I've laid a trap for you." She shook her head.

"And you've walked right into it"

"I'm glad." She noticed now the crumpled piece of paper in his hand and she thought it was some matter of business.

"Oh," she said, reproachfully. "You aren't going to bother with anything of that kind now?"

"Yes," he said. "I want you to look over this."

"Very well," she said resignedly. He was holding the paper out to her and she took it and held it to the light of the candle. Her face flamed and she turned remorseful eyes upon him.

"And you've kept that, too, you had it when I——"

"When you were wiser maybe than you are now."

"God save me from ever being such a fool again." Tears started in her eyes.

"You haven't forgiven me!" she cried.

"Uncle Billy says it's as good now as it was then."

He was looking at her queerly now and his smile was gone. Slowly his meaning came to her like the flush that spread over her face and throat. She drew in one long quivering breath and, with parted lips and her great shining eyes wide, she looked at him.

"Now?" she whispered.

"Now!" he said.

Her eyes dropped to the coarse gown, she lifted both hands for a moment to her hair and unconsciously she began to roll one crimson sleeve down her round, white arm.

"No," said Hale, "just as you are."

She went to him then, put her arms about his neck, and with head thrown back she looked at him long with steady eyes.

"Yes," she breathed out—"just as you are—and now."

Uncle Billy was waiting for them on the porch and when they came out, he rose to his feet and they faced him, hand in hand. The moon had risen. The big Pine stood guard on high against the outer world. Nature was their church and stars were their candles. And as if to give them even a better light, the moon had sent a luminous sheen down the dark mountainside to the very garden in which the flowers whispered like waiting happy friends. Uncle Billy lifted his hand and a hush of expectancy seemed to come even from the farthest star.

THE END