hed heavy on his shoulders,
partly as if his muscles had unconsciously reverted to the easy,
slouching, climbing-stoop of the Kentucky mountaineer. But at sight of
this especial spot his attitude changed utterly, the whole expression,
not of his face, alone, but of his body, altered. His stoop became a
crouch. His hands flew out before him as if, with them, he strove to
ward away the charming scene. His feet paused in their tracks, as if
struck helpless and immovable by what his eyes revealed to him.

For a full moment, almost without moving, he stood there, fascinated by
some old association, plainly, for there was nothing in the prospect
which, to an actual stranger, would have seemed more notable than
details of a dozen other views which he had peered at through his
half-closed, weather-beaten eyes within the hour. Here, clearly, was the
arena of some great event in his past life--an arena which he gladly
would have never seen again. His face went pale beneath its coat of tan,
his shoulders trembled slightly as he tried to shrug them with
indifference to brace his courage up. Twice he started from the spot,
determined, evidently, to shut away the crowding and unpleasant
recollections it recalled to him, twice he returned to it, to carefully,
if with evident repugnance, make closer study of some detail of its
rugged picturesqueness. More than once, as he lingered there against his
will, his hands raised upward to his eyes as if to shut away from them
some vivid memory-picture, but each time they fell, with strangely
hopeless gesture. The picture which they strove to hide plainly was not
before his eyes in the actual scene, but painted in the brain behind
them and not to be shut out with screening, claw-curved fingers.

The effect of this especial spot on the old man, indeed, was most
remarkable. His lips, as he stood gazing there, moved constantly as if
with words unspoken, and, once or twice, the crowding sentences found
actual but not articulate voice. Whenever this occurred he started, to
look about behind him as if he feared that some one, who might overhear,
had crept up upon him slyly. Finally, making absolutely certain that he
had not been observed by any human being, and evidently yielding to an
impulse almost irresistible, he went over the ground carefully,
examining each foot of the little rocky platform with not a loving, but
a fascinated observation.

When he finally left the spot a striking change had c