, before the bursting of thunder heads
among the crags. Then Bear Cat spoke again somewhat gropingly and with
inarticulate faultiness, as though a flood pressure were seeking egress
through a choked channel. The words were crude, but back of them was a
dammed-up meaning like the power of hurricane and forest fire. "Thar's
somethin' in me--I don't know how ter name it--thar's somethin' in me
sort of strugglin' an' a-drivin' me like a torment! Thet weakness fer
licker--I hates hit like--like all hell--but I hain't _all_ weakness!
Thet thing, whatever hit be--sometimes jest when hit seems like hit
ought ter raise me up--hit crushes me down like the weight of ther
mountings themselves."

He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the house where he deposited
his book on the mantel-shelf and from behind the door swung a grain
sack to his shoulder. Then he left the house.

Lone Stacy turned to his wife and lifted his hands with a gesture of
baffled perplexity as he inquired, "Does ye understand ther boy? He's
our own blood an' bone, but sometimes I feels like I was talkin' ter a
person from a teetotally diff'rent world. Nobody round hyar don't
comprehend him. I've even heered hit norated round amongst foolish
folks thet he talks with graveyard ha'nts an' hes a witch-craft charm
on his life. Air he jest headstrong, maw, or air he so master big thet
we kain't comprehend him? No man hain't never called me a coward, but
thar's spells when I'm half-way skeered of my own boy."

"Mebby," suggested the woman quietly, "ef ye gentled him a leetle mite
he wouldn't contrary ye so much."

Lone Stacy nodded his head and spoke with a grim smile. "Seems like
I've got ter be eternally blusterin' at him jest ter remind myself thet
I'm ther head of this fam'ly. Ef I didn't fo'ce myself ter git mad, I'd
be actin' like he was my daddy instid of me bein' his'n."

CHAPTER II

The afternoon was half spent and the sun, making its way toward the
purpled ridges of the west, was already casting long shadows athwart
the valleys. Along a trail which wound itself in many tortuous twists
across forested heights and dipped down to lose itself at intervals in
the creek bed of Little Slippery, a mounted traveler rode at a
snail-like pace. The horse was a lean brute through whose rusty coat
the ribs showed in under-nourished prominence, but it went
sure-footedly up and down broken stairways of slimy ledges where tiny
waterfalls licked at its fetloc