lips I never knew. Every day I saw him at work, and he never failed to
give me a surly look. Every dusk I saw him in his door-way, waiting,
and I could guess for what. It was easy to believe that the stern
purpose in his face would make its way through space and draw her to
him again. And she did come back one day. I had just limped down the
mountain with a sprained ankle. A crowd of women was gathered at the
edge of the woods, looking with all their eyes to the shanty on the
river-bank. The girl stood in the door-way. The mountaineer was
coming back from work with his face down.

"He hain't seed her yit," said one. "He's goin' to kill her shore. I
tol' her he would. She said she reckoned he would, but she didn't
keer."

For a moment I was paralyzed by the tragedy at hand. She was in the
door looking at him when he raised his head. For one moment he stood
still, staring, and then he started towards her with a quickened step.
I started too, then, every step a torture, and as I limped ahead she
made a gesture of terror and backed into the room before him. The door
closed, and I listened for a pistol-shot and a scream. It must have
been done with a knife, I thought, and quietly, for when I was within
ten paces of the cabin he opened the door again. His face was very
white; he held one hand behind him, and he was nervously fumbling at
his chill with the other. As he stepped towards me I caught the handle
of a pistol in my side pocket and waited. He looked at me sharply.

"Did you say the preacher lived up thar?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, breathlessly.

In the door-way just then stood the girl with a bonnet in her hand, and
at a nod from him they started up the hill towards the cottage. They
came down again after a while, he stalking ahead, and she, after the
mountain fashion, behind. And after this fashion I saw them at sunset
next day pass over the bridge and into the mouth of the Gap whence they
came. Through this Gap come strange people and strange tales from the
Kentucky hills. Over it, sometimes, is the span of a rainbow.

A TRICK O' TRADE

Stranger, I'm a separATE man, an' I don't inQUIZite into no man's
business; but you ax me straight, an' I tell ye straight: You watch
ole Tom!

Now, I'll take ole Tom Perkins' word agin anybody's 'ceptin' when hit
comes to a hoss trade ur a piece o' land. Fer in the tricks o' sech,
ole Tom 'lows--well, hit's diff'ent; an' I reckon, stranger,