"I'm going away," she added, "to see if there is any place for me in the life abroad. If there is I want to find it. If I were the sort of woman who went in for good works, my problem would be easier; but you see I'm not."

I smiled. I could not see her as a worker in organized charity, parceling out benefits tied with red tape. It was no effort, however, to picture her doing many human and beautiful kindnesses in her own way.

We talked of Europe. I had never been there. She spoke of northern Africa, of rides over Morocco hills, of a caravan journey from Tangier to Fez, of Algerian nights, of camping in the desert, of palms and ripe figs and of tropical gardens. It was fascinating talk in the purple lights of my driftwood fire, with a snow-storm beating at my windows. Suddenly she checked herself.

"I think, after all," she said, lightly, "you're rather good for me.

You've done me good to-night. You did me good the day you visited me at Fairview. You were so young, so much in earnest, so much in love with life, and you saw so much with your big, solemn eyes. You gave me something new to think about, and I needed it. So--don't regret anything."

I felt the tears spring to my eyes.

She drew on her gloves and b.u.t.toned them slowly, still smiling at me.

"I might never even have seen your story," she went on, quietly, "if my maid had not brought it to me. I don't read _The Woman's Friend_."

There was a hint of the old superciliousness in her tone and about her upper lip as she spoke. "On the whole, I don't think it did me any harm. The opinion of strangers is the least important thing in my little arctic circle. So, forget me. Good night--and good-by."

I kept her hand in mine for a moment. "Good-by," I said. "Peace be with you."

She drew her veil down over her face, and moved to the door. I followed and opened it for her. On the threshold she stopped and hesitated, looking straight at me; and in that instant I knew as surely as I ever knew anything in my life that now at last her guard was down--that from the fastness of her soul something horrible had escaped and was leaping toward me. She cast a quick glance up and down the outer hall. It was dim and empty. I hardly dared to breathe.

"There is one thing more," she said, and her words rushed out with an odd effect of breathlessness under the continued calm of her manner.

"The only really human emotion I've felt in a long time is--an upheaval of curiosity."

I looked at her, and waited.

She hesitated an instant longer, then, standing very close to me, gripped my shoulders hard, her eyes deep in mine, her voice so low I hardly caught her meaning.

"Oh, wise young judge!" she whispered. "Tell me, before we part--_how did you know_?"

VI

THE LAST OF THE MORANS

On my right rose a jagged wall of rock, hundreds of feet high and bare of vegetation save for a few dwarfed and wind-swept pines. On my left gaped the wide mouth of what seemed to be a bottomless ravine. Between the two was a ledge not more than six feet wide, along which "Jef'son Davis," my mountain horse, was slowly and thoughtfully making his difficult way. Occasionally from the pit's depths a hawk or turkey-buzzard rose, startling me with the flapping of its strong wings, and several times the feet of Jef'son Davis dislodged a bit of rock which rattled across the ledge, slipped over the side, and started on a downward journey whose distance I dared not estimate.

For more than an hour I had not met a human being. I had not seen a mountain cabin or even a nodding plume of smoke. I had not heard the bark of a dog, the tinkle of a cow-bell, nor any other rea.s.suring and homely testimony that I was in a world of men. Yet I knew that somewhere around me must be lurking figures and watchful eyes, for I was in the stronghold of the Morans and the Tyrrells, and the Morans and Tyrrells were on the war-path, and therefore incessantly on guard.

This journey through the Virginia mountains to "write up family feuds"

was the result of an inspiration recently experienced by Colonel Cartwell, our editor-in-chief. He was sure I could uncover "good dramatic stuff."

"They're potting at each other every minute down there," he explained to me when he sent me off on the a.s.signment. "Give their time to it.

Morans and Tyrrells are the worst. Tyrrell has killed six Morans. Get his story before the Morans get him. See? And find out what it's all about, anyway."

According to the map I had made that morning under the direction of the postmaster of Jayne's Crossroads, I knew I must be even now within a mile of the cabin of the Morans.

"'Tain't healthy travelin' fo' men," that gentleman had volunteered languidly, "but I reckon a lady's safe 'nuff, 'specially ef yo' leave the jou'ney to the hawse. Jef'son Davis, he knows ev'ry inch of that thar trail. All yo' got t' do is t' give Jef'son his haid."

Jef'son Davis was having his head, and he had thus far been true to his trust. At a certain point on the trail I was to look for huge boulders in a strange position, with a big and lonely cedar standing guard near them. At the right of this cedar was an almost hidden trail, which, followed for twenty minutes, would lead me to the Moran cabin. I was not to be alarmed if a bullet whispered its sinister message in my ear. To kill women was no part of the Moran traditions, and a fatality to me would be a regrettable incident, due wholly, if it occurred at all, to the impulsive nature of Samuel Tyrrell, who had formed the careless habit of firing at moving objects without pausing to discover what they were. It was because of this eccentricity, I gathered, that the sympathy of the mountain people lay largely with Moran--who, moreover, though both men were the last of their respective lines, was a boy of twenty-two, while Tyrrell was well on in middle life.

I rode slowly along the trail, which, clear in the high lights of the noonday sun, was now widening and turning to the right. The ravine appeared to be growing more shallow. Flashes of red haw and scarlet dogwood began to leap out at me from the edges. Presently, beyond the turn, I discovered the boulders, silhouetted sharply against the soft October sky. Near them was the lonely cedar, and after twice pa.s.sing it I found the side-trail, and rode peacefully down its dim corridor.

There was nothing to mark the Moran home, and that, too, I almost pa.s.sed before I noticed it, a strongly built log cabin, backed against the side of a hill, and commanding from its three barred windows the approaches on every side. As I rode up, the door opened and an old woman in a homespun dress stood before me. Her shoulders sagged under the burden of seventy-five years, but the flame of an unconquerable spirit burned in the keen black eyes set bead-like in her withered little brown face. This, I knew, was Betsy Moran, who had helped to bury her husband, four sons, and a grandson, all killed by the Tyrrells, and who was said finally to have seized a gun herself and added at least one Tyrrell to the row in the family burial-lot.

"How do you do?" I asked, cheerfully. "May I come in and rest for a few moments?"

Her face did not soften, nor did she speak, but there was neither suspicion nor fear in her steady regard; it held merely a dispa.s.sionate curiosity. I slipped from the back of Jef'son Davis and hesitated, looking around for a post or tree to tie him to, and the old woman, stirred to a quick instinct of hospitality, looked uncertainly behind her into the cabin. At the same instant a young giant appeared behind her, pushed her lightly to one side, and strode toward me with a nod of greeting. Then, taking the bridle-rein from my hand, and still in silence, he led the horse away. Evidently the Morans were not a talkative family.

Wholly forgetting the old woman, I stared after him. Here, obviously, was young "Shep," the last of the Morans; and from the top of his curly black hair to the boot-soles six feet two inches below it, he looked extremely well able to take care of himself. He was powerfully built, and he moved with the natural grace of the superb young animal he was. He wore a rough homespun blue shirt, open at the neck, and a pair of corduroy trousers tucked into high boots. From the swing of his back as he strode off with Jef'son Davis I should hardly have been surprised to see him throw that weary animal across his mighty shoulders.

When he had disappeared I walked thoughtfully to the cabin door, meeting again the level gaze of my hostess. A sudden gleam in her eyes and a quick lift of her white head showed me she had caught my unconscious tribute to the strength and beauty of the young man, who was not only the last of her line, but, according to mountain traditions, the "apple of her eye."

"Come 'long in," she said, quietly; and she added as I crossed her threshold, "Ef yo' rid 'crost th' Gap, yo' mus' be mi-i-ghty ti'ed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IT WAS YOUNG "SHEP," THE LAST OF THE MORANS]

She pushed a chair in front of the great fireplace which filled one side of the cabin, and I dropped gladly into it and took off my hat, while she bustled about with hospitable enterprise, heating water and rattling tea-cups. Suddenly she disappeared, and in another instant I heard the despairing, final squawk of an unfortunate hen. I knew that within the hour it would be served to me in a strange dish in which the flavors of burnt feathers and of tough, unseasoned meat would struggle for recognition, and I sighed. But the great logs burning in the old fireplace were good to watch, and their warmth was comforting, for the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud and an autumn wind had begun to whine around the cabin and in the big chimney.

There were only five pieces of furniture in the room--a narrow, home-made wooden bed occupying one corner, a large spinning-wheel, a pine table, a rough log settle, and the chair in which I sat. At the right of the fireplace a ladder led to a trap-door which evidently opened into a low attic--young Moran's quarters, I a.s.sumed. Just outside the open door stood a low, flat-topped tree-trunk, holding a tin basin full of water; a homespun towel on a nail below it testified mutely to its past usefulness. While I was regarding these, the master of the house reappeared, plunged his black head into the basin, flung the water in a spray over his face and hands, wiped them on the towel, and entered the cabin, ready for dinner. His immediate impulse was to attend to the fire, and as he approached it he cast a side glance at me, as shy and curious as that of some half-tamed creature of the open. When he had put on another log he spoke without looking at me, his brown cheeks flushing with the effort.

"Done fed th' critter," he announced, laconically.

I thanked him, and mercifully kept my eyes on the fire. For a time he remained there, too, with occasional darting glances at me, which finally, as I seemed unaware of them, settled into a steady and close inspection. I realized what a strange, new type I presented to him--a young woman from New York, wearing a riding-habit and riding-boots, trim and slim and tailor-made. His glance lingered a long time on my hair and my hands. There was nothing offensive about it. At first merely curious, it had finally become reflective and friendly. At last I began to talk to him, and after several false starts he was able to respond, sprawling opposite me on the big settle, his hands clasped behind his curly head, his legs extended toward the fire, while I told him of New York and answered his extraordinary questions.

It had seemed somehow fitting that the sun should go behind a cloud when I entered this tragic home; but for a long time there was no intimation in our talk of the other shadows that lay over the cabin, of the b.l.o.o.d.y trail that led to it, of the tragic row of graves on the hill beside it, or of the bullets that had whispered the failure of their mission in this boy's ears. We were a fairly cheerful company as we drew up to the pine table when the old woman announced dinner, and even the stoic calm of her face relaxed over the story of some of my experiences on the trail with Jef'son Davis. She did the honors of her house a little stiffly, but with dignity; and always, except when she was thus engaged, her black eyes focused on the face of her grandson and clung there, fixed. Her contribution to our talk consisted of two eloquent sentences:

"Sometimes we got but'r," she remarked, as we sat down, "sometimes we hain't. T'day we hain't."

We had, however, the expected chicken, with corn bread and tea, and in the perfect flowering of his hospitality, young Shep Moran heaped these high upon my plate, and mourned when I refused to devour the entire repast. He was chatting now with much self-possession, while under his talk and his occasional shy but brilliant smile his grandmother expanded like a thirsty plant receiving water. He had, he told me proudly, learned to read, and he owned two books--the Bible and some poems by a man named Whittier. He knew most of the poems "by hea't." He had never ridden on a railroad-train, but he could ride any animal that traveled on four legs, and he had heard a fiddle played upon during his one expedition out into the great world--his solitary visit to Jayne's Crossroads, two years before.

When dinner was over he smoked a clay pipe before the fire, and gradually his talk grew more intimate. He and his grandmother were going to leave the cabin, he said, and live on the other side of the mountain. A man had offered him a job in some coal-mines that were being opened up. But he could not go yet--there was something he had to do first. The shadow over the cabin seemed to deepen as he spoke. I knew what he had to do--he had to kill Samuel Tyrrell, who had killed his father. His uncles, his brother, and Samuel Tyrrell's sons had killed one another. There were only himself and Samuel Tyrrell left.

He turned and looked at me. His whole expression had changed--his brow was somber, his eyes brooding, his lips drawn back from his teeth in an odd, unconscious snarl. Quite naturally he took it for granted that I knew of him and his feud.

"Sam Tyrrell, he'd--" he hesitated, then added under his breath, as he glanced at the old woman moving toward the cupboard with her dishes--"he'd even shoot at gran ef he ketched 'er on the trail."

I rose and put on my hat. Before my eyes my mountain demiG.o.d had suddenly been transformed into a young beast, l.u.s.ting for blood. I felt that I must get away from the oppression of the place. He made no comment, but picked up his hat and went for my horse. When he returned he was leading Jef'son Davis and riding his own horse, a rough-coated mountain animal which, powerful though it was, seemed hardly up to the huge bulk astride it. With a jerk of his head, he checked my protest and the little cry that broke from his grandmother's lips.

"I'm jes' gwine ter th' bend," he told her, "t' p'int aout th' trail t' Clapham's. She's gwine t' stay all night thar. Look fo' me home 'fore sundown."

The grandmother cast a quick glance at me, then dropped her eyes. The fire seemed to have flickered and died out. Her steps dragged. In an instant she had become a feeble, apprehensive old woman.

"Don't you take Shep no furder 'n th' bend," she quavered. "Will yuh?"

I met her look squarely. "You may be sure I will not," I promised, and we rode away.