United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


He glanced more than once at the different toggery of his companion, evidently a man of cities, whom he had chanced to meet by the wayside, and with whom he had journeyed more than a mile. He had paused again and again to point out the "witch-face" to the stranger, who at first could not discern it at all, and then when it suddenly broke upon him could not be wiled away from it.

A more rugged district could not be found in all that massive upheaval of rocks and tangled wooded fastnesses stretching from the northeast to the southwest some twenty miles, and known as Witch-Face Mountain; a more scantily populated region than its slopes and adjacent coves scarcely exists in the length and breadth of the State of Tennessee.

"I'll jes' step off a leetle way to'des that light, an' view whar it kems from," he observed coolly. "The woods air too wet to burn." He would not listen to protest. "The witch-face ain't never blighted me none," he rejoined stoutly as he set forth.

What distorted impression might not so appalling an event make upon one so young, so feminine, so inexperienced! What exaggerated wild thing might she not say, unintentionally inculpating half Witch-Face Mountain in robbery and murder!

Always the likeness is pointed out and insisted on by the denizens of Witch-Face Mountain, as if they had had long and intimate acquaintance with that sort of unhallowed gentry, and were especially qualified to pronounce upon the resemblance. "Ain't it jes' like 'em, now? Ain't it the very moral of a witch?"

Only on the slopes toward the east did the sunshine rest, and in the midst of a sterile, barren slant it flickered on that semblance of ill omen. "An onlucky day, stranger," Hite said slowly. The man of science had drawn in his restive horse, and had turned with a keen, freshened interest toward the witch-face.

They rode on together into the dense woods, leaving the wind and the sunshine and the flying clouds fluctuating over the broad expanse of the mountains, and the witch-face silently mowing and grimacing at the world below, albeit seen by no human being except perchance some dweller at the little house on the spur, struck aghast by this unwelcome apparition evoked by the necromancy of the breeze and the sheen and the shadow, marking this as an unlucky day.

Nevertheless, under the pressure of the inherent persuasiveness of the suggested retribution, Persimmon Sneed made haste to aver that his errand in the mountains was in no sense at the sheriff's instance. And so radical and indubitable were his protestations that Nick Peters was constrained to discard this fear, and demand, "What brung ye ter Witch-Face Mounting then, Mr. Sneed?"

He 'lows the road will be obligated ter pass by the witch-face arter it gits over yander nigh ter the valley, whar the ruver squeezes through the mounting agin. He be always talkin' 'bout signs an' spells an' sech, an' he 'lows the very look o' the witch-face kerries bad luck, an' it'll taint all ez goes for'ard an' back'ard a-nigh it."

For a long time, it seemed to the curious without, and to the agitated, nervous witnesses peering through the unchinked logs of the wall, they sat on their comfortless perch, half crouching forward, and chewed, and discussed the testimony. There were frequent intervals of silence, and in one of these Con Hite was disturbed to see the sketch of the "witch-face" once more passed from hand to hand.