e deceitful than among our mountaineers. The slovenly lout whom
you shrink from approaching against the wind is one of the most
independent and self-satisfied fellows on earth, as quick to resent alms
as to return a blow. And it is wonderful what soap and clean clothes
will do! About the worst specimen of tatter-demalion that I ever saw
outside of trampdom used to come into town every week, always with a
loaded Winchester on his shoulder. He may have washed his face now and
then, but there was no sign that he ever combed his mane. I took him for
one of those defectives alluded to in a previous chapter; but no, I was
told he was "nobody's fool." The rifle, it was explained, never left his
hand when he was abroad: they said that a feud was brewing "over on
'Larky," and that this man was "in the bilin'." Well, it boiled over,
and the person in question killed two men in front of his own door.

When the prisoner was brought into court I could not recognize him. A
bath, the barber, and a new store suit had transformed him into a right
good-looking fellow--anything but a tramp, anything but a desperado. He
bore himself throughout that grilling ordeal like the downright man he
was, made out a clear case of self-defense, was set at liberty
and--promptly reverted to a condition in which he is recognizable once
more.

The women of the back country usually go bareheaded around home and
often barefooted, too, as did the daughters of Highland chiefs a century
or two ago, and for the same reason: simply that they feel better so.
When "visit-in" or expecting visitors their extremities are clad. They
make their own dresses and the style seems never to change. When
traveling horseback they use a man's saddle and ride astride in their
ordinary skirts with an ingenuity of "tucking up" that is beyond my
understanding (as no doubt it should be). Often one sees a man and a
woman riding a-pillion, in which case the lady perches sidewise, of
course.

If I were disposed to startle the reader, after the manner of
impressionistic writers who strive after effect at any cost, I could
fill a book with oddities observed in the mountains, and that without
exaggeration by commission or omission. Let one or two anecdotes
suffice; and then we will get back to our averages again. I took down
the following incident verbatim (save for proper names) from lips that I
know to be truthful. It is introduced here as a specimen of vivid
offhand description in f