Young Matt was like a captive, tugging at his bonds.  Mr. Lane’s words had stirred the fire, and the girl’s presence by his side added fuel to the flame.  He could not speak.  He dared not even look at her, but rode with his eyes fixed upon the ground, where the sunlight fell in long bars of gold.  Sammy, too, was silent.  She felt something that was strangely like fear, when she found herself alone with her big neighbor.  Now and then she glanced timidly up at him and tried to find some word with which to break the silence.  She half wished that she had not come.  So they rode together through the lights and shadows down into the valley, the only creatures in all the free life of the forest who were not free.

At last the girl spoke, “It’s mighty good of you to take me over to Mandy’s to-night.  There ain’t no one else I could o’ gone with.”  There was no reply, and Sammy, seeming not to notice, continued talking in a matter-of-fact tone that soon—­for such is the way of a woman—­won him from his mood, and the two chatted away like the good comrades they had always been.

Just after they had crossed Fall Creek at Slick Rock Ford, some two miles below the mill, Young Matt leaned from his saddle, and for a little way studied the ground carefully.  When he sat erect again, he remarked, with the air of one who had reached a conclusion, “Wouldn’t wonder but there’ll be doin’s at Ford’s to-night, sure enough.”

“There’s sure to be,” returned the girl; “everybody’ll be there.  Mandy’s folks from over on Long Creek are comin’, and some from the mouth of the James.  Mandy wanted Daddy to play for ’em, but he says he can’t play for parties no more, and they got that old fiddlin’ Jake from the Flag neighborhood, I guess.”

“There’ll be somethin’ a heap more excitin’ than fiddlin’ and dancin’, accordin’ to my guess,” returned Young Matt.

“What do you mean?” asked Sammy.

Her escort pointed to the print of a mule’s shoe in the soft soil of the low bottom land.  “That there’s Wash Gibbs’s dun mule, and he’s headed down the creek for Jennings’s still.  Wash’ll meet a lot of his gang from over on the river, and like’s not they’ll go from there to the party.  I wish your dad was goin’ to do the playin’ to-night.”

It was full dark before they reached the Ford clearing.  The faint, far away sound of a violin, seeming strange and out of place in the gloomy solitude of the great woods, first told them that other guests had already arrived.  Then as they drew nearer and the tones of the instrument grew louder, they could hear the rhythmic swing and beat of heavily shod feet upon the rough board floors, with the shrill cries of the caller, and the half savage, half pathetic sing-song of the backwoods dancers, singing, “Missouri Gal.”