hyme and pressing them against his lips.
Far off, above the folds of the nearer hills, the Mountain thrust itself
up menacingly against a yellow sunset.

"I must go up there some day: I want to see it," he continued.

Her heart-beats slackened and she turned again to examine his profile.
It was innocent of all unfriendly intention.

"What'd you want to go up the Mountain for?"

"Why, it must be rather a curious place. There's a queer colony up
there, you know: sort of out-laws, a little independent kingdom. Of
course you've heard them spoken of; but I'm told they have nothing to
do with the people in the valleys--rather look down on them, in fact.
I suppose they're rough customers; but they must have a good deal of
character."

She did not quite know what he meant by having a good deal of character;
but his tone was expressive of admiration, and deepened her dawning
curiosity. It struck her now as strange that she knew so little about
the Mountain. She had never asked, and no one had ever offered to
enlighten her. North Dormer took the Mountain for granted, and implied
its disparagement by an intonation rather than by explicit criticism.

"It's queer, you know," he continued, "that, just over there, on top of
that hill, there should be a handful of people who don't give a damn for
anybody."

The words thrilled her. They seemed the clue to her own revolts and
defiances, and she longed to have him tell her more.

"I don't know much about them. Have they always been there?"

"Nobody seems to know exactly how long. Down at Creston they told me
that the first colonists are supposed to have been men who worked on the
railway that was built forty or fifty years ago between Springfield
and Nettleton. Some of them took to drink, or got into trouble with the
police, and went off--disappeared into the woods. A year or two later
there was a report that they were living up on the Mountain. Then I
suppose others joined them--and children were born. Now they say there
are over a hundred people up there. They seem to be quite outside the
jurisdiction of the valleys. No school, no church--and no sheriff ever
goes up to see what they're about. But don't people ever talk of them at
North Dormer?"

"I don't know. They say they're bad."

He laughed. "Do they? We'll go and see, shall we?"

She flushed at the suggestion, and turned her face to his. "You never
heard, I suppose--I come from there. They brought me down when I was