r-step, wondering
whether, if I were to make my way to Salisbury, I could fall in with a
party going across the mountains into Kentucky. And wondering, likewise,
what Polly Ann would do without me. I was cleaning the long rifle,--a
labor I loved,--when suddenly I looked up, startled to see a man
standing in front of me. How he got there I know not. I stared at him.
He was a young man, very spare and very burned, with bright red hair and
blue eyes that had a kind of laughter in them, and yet were sober. His
buckskin hunting shirt was old and stained and frayed by the briers, and
his leggins and moccasins were wet from fording the stream. He leaned his
chin on the muzzle of his gun.

"Folks live here, sonny?" said he.

I nodded.

"Whar be they?"

"Out," said I.

"Comin' back?" he asked.

"To-night," said I, and began to rub the lock.

"Be they good folks?" said he.

"Yes," I answered.

"Wal," said he, making a move to pass me, "I reckon I'll slip in and take
what I've a mind to, and move on."

Now I liked the man's looks very much, but I did not know what he would
do. So I got in his way and clutched the gun. It was loaded, but not
primed, and I emptied a little powder from the flask in the pan. At that
he grinned.

"You're a good boy, sonny," he said. "Do you reckon you could hit me if
you shot?"

"Yes," I said. But I knew I could scarcely hold the gun out straight
without a rest.

"And do you reckon I could hit you fust?" he asked. At that I laughed,
and he laughed.

"What's your name?"

I told him.

"Who do you love best in all the world?" said he.

It was a queer question. But I told him Polly Ann Ripley.

"Oh!" said he, after a pause. "And what's SHE like?"

"She's beautiful," I said; "she's been very kind to me. She took me home
with her from the settlements when I had no place to go. She's good."

"And a sharp tongue, I reckon," said he.

"When people need it," I answered.

"Oh!" said he. And presently, "She's very merry, I'll warrant."

"She used to be, but that's gone by," I said.

"Gone by!" said he, his voice falling, "is she sick?"

"No," said I, "she's not sick, she's sad."

"Sad?" said he. It was then I noticed that he had a cut across his
temple, red and barely healed. "Do you reckon your Polly Ann would give
me a little mite to eat?"

This time I jumped up, ran into the house, and got down some corn-pone
and a leg of turkey. For that was the rule of the border. He took