As he grew to know them,their historical importance yielded to a genuine interest in the people themselves.They were densely ignorant,to be sure;but they were natural,simple,and hospitable.
Their sense of personal worth was high,and their democracy-or aristocracy,since there was no distinction of caste-absolute.For generations,son had lived like father in an isolation hardly credible.
No influence save such as shook the nation ever reached them.
The Mexican war,slavery,and national politics of the first half-century were still present issues,and each old man would give his rigid,individual opinion sometimes with surprising humor and force.
He went much among them,and the rugged old couples whom he found in the cabin porches-so much alike at first-quickly became distinct with a quaint individuality.Among young or old,however,he had found nothing like the half-wild young creature he had met on the mountain that day.
In her a type had crossed his path-had driven him from it,in truth-that seemed unique and inexplicable.He had been little more than amused at first,but a keen interest had been growing in him with every thought of her.
There was an indefinable charm about the girl.She gave a new and sudden zest to his interest in mountain life;and while he worked,the incidents of the encounter on the mountain came minutely back to him till he saw her again as she rode away,her supple figure swaying with every movement of the beast,and dappled with quivering circles of sunlight from the bushes,her face calm,but still flushed with color,and her yellow hair shaking about her shoulders-not lustreless and flaxen,as hair was in the mountains,he remembered,but catching the sunlight like gold.
Almost unconsciously he laid aside his pencil and leaned from his window to lift his eyes to the dark mountain he had climbed that day.The rude melody of an old-fashioned hymn was coming up the glen,and he recognized the thin,quavering voice of an old mountaineer,Uncle Tommy Brooks,as he was familiarly known,whose cabin stood in the midst of the camp,a pathetic contrast to the smart new houses that had sprung around it.The old man had lived in the glen for nearly three-quarters of a century,and he,if any one,must know the girl.With the thought,Clayton sprang through the window,and a few minutes later was at the cabin.The old man sat whittling in the porch,joining in the song with which his wife was crooning a child to sleep within.Clayton easily identified Europa,as he had christened her;the simple mention of her means of transport was sufficient.
Ridin'a bull,was she?"repeated the old man,laughing."Well,that was Easter Hicks,old Bill Hicks'gal.She's a sort o'connection o'mine.Me and Bill married cousins.
She's a cur'us critter as ever I seed.She don'seem to take atter her dad nur her mammy nother,though Bill allus had a quar streak in 'im,and was the wust man I ever seed when he was disguised by licker.Whar does she live?Oh,up thar,right on top o'Wolf Mountain,with her mammy."Alone?
"Yes;fer her dad ain't thar.No;'n'he ain't dead.I'll tell ye"-the old man lowered his tone-"thar used to be a big lot o'moonshinin'done in these parts,'n'a raider come hyeh to see 'bout it.Well,one mornin'he was found layin'in the road with a bullet through him.
Bill was s'picioned.Now,I ain't a-sayin'as Bill done it,but when a whole lot more rode up thar on hosses one night,they didn't find Bill.They hain't found him yit,fer he's out in the mountains somewhar a-hidin'.""How do they get along without him?"asked Clayton.
