alked, he looked searchingly into the mists on
every hand, and paused frequently as if questioning the proper
course. Suddenly he stepped quickly forward. His ear had caught
the sharp ring of a horse's shoe on a flint rock somewhere in the
mists on the mountain side above. It was Jed Holland coming down
the trail with a week's supply of corn meal in a sack across his
horse's back.

As the figure of the traveler emerged from the mists, the native
checked his horse to greet the newcomer with the customary
salutation of the backwoods, "Howdy."

The man returned Jed's greeting cordially, and, resting his
satchel on a rock beside the narrow path, added, "I am very glad
to meet you. I fear that I am lost."

The voice was marvelously pure, deep, and musical, and, like the
brown eyes, betrayed the real strength of the man, denied by his
gray hair and bent form. The tones were as different from the high
keyed, slurring speech of the backwoods, as the gentleman himself
was unlike any man Jed had ever met. The boy looked at the speaker
in wide-eyed wonder; he had a queer feeling that he was in the
presence of a superior being.

Throwing one thin leg over the old mare's neck, and waving a long
arm up the hill and to the left, Jed drawled, "That thar's Dewey
Bal'; down yonder's Mutton Holler." Then turning a little to the
right and pointing into the mist with the other hand, he
continued, "Compton Ridge is over thar. Whar was you tryin' to git
to, Mister?"

"Where am I trying to get to?" As the man repeated Jed's question,
he drew his hand wearily across his brow; "I--I--it doesn't much
matter, boy. I suppose I must find some place where I can stay to-
night. Do you live near here?"

"Nope," Jed answered, "Hit's a right smart piece to whar I live.
This here's grindin' day, an' I've been t' mill over on Fall
Creek; the Matthews mill hit is. Hit'll be plumb dark 'gin I git
home. I 'lowed you was a stranger in these parts soon 's I ketched
sight of you. What might YER name be, Mister?"

The other, looking back over the way he had come, seemed not to
hear Jed's question, and the native continued, "Mine's Holland.
Pap an' Mam they come from Tennessee. Pap he's down in th' back
now, an' ain't right peart, but he'll be 'round in a little, I
reckon. Preachin' Bill he 'lows hit's good fer a feller t' be down
in th' back onct in a while; says if hit warn't fer that we'd git
to standin' so durned proud an' straight we'd go plumb ove