e poorness of patched trousers and hickory shirt, and he
tramped the snowy hills coatless with ankles innocent of socks. The long
hickory with which he tapped the ground as he walked might have been the
staff of a biblical pilgrim, and they chatted affably until he reached
the question inevitable in all wayside meetings among hillmen.

"My name's Cyrus Spradling, ma'am. What mout your'n be?"

"Anne Masters," she told him. "My father is the superintendent of the
coal mine here."

She was unprepared for the sudden and baleful transformation of face and
manner that swept over him with the announcement. A moment before he had
been affable, and her own eyes had sparkled delightedly at the
mother-wit of his observations and the quaint idiom and metaphor of his
speech. Now, in an instant, he stiffened into affronted rigidity, and
made no effort to conceal the black, almost malignant, wave of hostility
that usurped the recent mildness of his eyes.

"Ye're ther same one that used ter be Boone Wellver's gal," he declared
scornfully; and the girl, accustomed to local idiosyncrasies, flushed
less at the direct personality of the statement than at the accusing
note of its delivery.

"Used to be?" The question was the only response that for the instant of
surprise came to her mind.

Cyrus Spradling spat on the ground as his staff beat a tattoo.

"Wa'al, thet war y'ars back, an' ye hain't nuver wedded with him yit."
The old man stood there actually trembling with a rage induced by
something at which she had no means of guessing.

She, too, drew herself up with a sudden stiffness and would have turned
away, but he was prompter.

"Hit 'pears like no woman won't hev him! I reckon I don't blame 'em
none, nuther. I disgusts ther feller my own self," and before she could
gather any key to the extraordinary incident, he had gone trudging on,
mumbling the while into his unshaven beard.

Anne walked perplexedly homeward, and out of it all she could winnow
only one kernel of comprehensible detail. Obviously she had met an enemy
of Boone's, and yet she had heard Mr. McCalloway speak with warmth of
the neighbourly kindness of Cyrus Spradling.

When she entered the house her father was sitting before the hearth,
somewhat emaciated after his tedious convalescence, and his eyes
followed her with a wistful dependence as she measured his medicine and
rearranged the pillows at his back.

When, finally, she, too, drew a chair close to the