with huger flowers and leaves; and, sometimes, a giant
magnolia with a thick creamy flower that the boy could
not have spanned with both hands and big, thin oval
leaves, a man’s stride from tip to stem.
Soon, he was below the sunlight and in the cool shadows
where the water ran noisily and the air hummed with
the wings of bees. On the last spur, he came
upon a cow browsing on sassafras-bushes right in the
path and the last shadow of his loneliness straightway
left him. She was old, mild, and unfearing, and
she started down the road in front of him as though
she thought he had come to drive her home, or as though
she knew he was homeless and was leading him to shelter.
A little farther on, the river flashed up a welcome
to him through the trees and at the edge of the water,
her mellow bell led him down stream and he followed.
In the next hollow, he stooped to drink from a branch
that ran across the road and, when he rose to start
again, his bare feet stopped as though riven suddenly
to the ground; for, half way up the next low slope,
was another figure as motionless as his—with
a bare head, bare feet, a startled face and wide eyes—but
motionless only until the eyes met his: then there
was a flash of bright hair and scarlet homespun, and
the little feet, that had trod down the centuries
to meet his, left the earth as though they had wings
and Chad saw them, in swift flight, pass silently over
the hill. The next moment, Jack came too near
the old brindle and, with a sweep of her horns at
him and a toss of tail and heels in the air, she, too,
swept over the slope and on, until the sound of her
bell passed out of hearing. Even to-day, in lonely
parts of the Cumberland, the sudden coming of a stranger
may put women and children to flight— something
like this had happened before to Chad—but
the sudden desertion and the sudden silence drew him
in a flash back to the lonely cabin he had left and
the lonely graves under the big poplar and, with a
quivering lip, he sat down. Jack, too, dropped
to his haunches and sat hopeless, but not for long.
The chill of night was coming on and Jack was getting
hungry. So he rose presently and trotted ahead
and squatted again, looking back and waiting.
But still Chad sat irresolute and in a moment, Jack
heard something that disturbed him, for he threw his
ears toward the top of the hill and, with a growl,
trotted back to Chad and sat close to him, looking
up the slope. Chad rose then with his thumb on
the lock of his gun and over the hill came a tall
figure and a short one, about Chad’s size and
a dog, with white feet and white face, that was bigger
than Jack: and behind them, three more figures,
one of which was the tallest of the group. All
stopped when they saw Chad, who dropped the butt of
his gun at once to the ground. At once the strange
dog, with a low snarl, started down toward the two
little strangers with his yellow ears pointed, the
hair bristling along his back, and his teeth in sight.
Jack answered the challenge with an eager whimper,
but dropped his tail, at Chad’s sharp command—for
Chad did not care to meet the world as an enemy, when
he was looking for a friend. The group stood dumb
with astonishment for a moment and the small boy’s
mouth was wide-open with surprise, but the strange
dog came on with his tail rigid, and lifting his feet
high.