who think nothing of
shouldering a two-bushel sack of corn and carrying it a mile or two
without letting it down.

[Illustration: Moonshine Still-House Hidden in the Laurel]

She flushed, then paled, staring at me round-eyed--frightened, I
thought, by this apparition of a stranger whose approach she had not
detected. To these people of the far backwoods everyone from outside
their mountains is a doubtful character at best.

However, Mistress Kirby quickly recovered her aplomb. Her mouth
straightened to a thin slit. She planted herself squarely across my
path, now regarding me with contracted lids and a hard glint, till I
felt fairly bayoneted by those steel-gray eyes.

"Good-morning. Is Mr. Kirby about?" I inquired.

There was no answer. Instead, the thin slit opened and let out a yell of
almost yodel quality, penetrating as a warwhoop--a yell that would carry
near half a mile. I wondered what she meant by this; but she did not
enlighten me by so much as a single word. It was puzzling, not to say
disconcerting; but, charging it to the custom of a country that still
was new to me, I found my tongue again, and started to give credentials.

"My name is Kephart. I am staying at the Everett Mine on Sugar Fork----"

Another yell that set the wild echoes flying.

"I am acquainted with your husband; we've hunted together. Perhaps he
has told you----"

Yell number three, same pitch and vigor as before.

By this time I was quite nonplussed. I waited for her to speak; but
never a word did the woman deign. So there we stood and stared at each
other in silence--I leaning on my rifle, she with red arms akimbo--till
I grew embarrassed, half wondering, too, if the creature were demented.

Suddenly a light flashed upon my groping wits. This amazon was on
picket. Her three shrieks had been a signal to someone up the branch.
Her attitude showed that there was no thoroughfare in that direction at
present. Circumstances, whatever they were, forbade explanation.
Clearly, the woman thought that I could not help seeing how matters
stood. Not for a moment did she suspect but that her yells, her
belligerent attitude, and her refusal to speak, were the conventional
way, this world over, of intimating that there was a _contretemps_. She
considered that if I was what I claimed to be, an acquaintance of her
husband and on friendly footing, I would be gentleman enough to retire.
If I was something else--an officer, a spy--well, she w