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A woman came floundering along the trail at the edge of the cornfield. "It's Miss Thompson. Ah wants Miss Gray." "She seems excited," observed Emma. "What is it, Mrs. Thompson?" called Grace, stepping out to meet the mountaineer's wife. "The chilern has took a frenzy, an' Ah don't know what t' do," cried the woman, wringing her hands.
The fact only gradually claimed its share in her consciousness as the tension of anxiety for Absalom's sake relaxed, for the young mountaineer's strength and vitality were promptly reasserted, and he rallied from the wound and his pallid and forlorn estate with the recuperative power of the primitive man.
"Presently, however, the woman that he had spoken of came over to our camp. She was a mountaineer's wife, and very willing and helpful. But I was a little frightened, as I had never seen any one quite like her before."
This helps to delimit the people, classifying them with Pennsylvanians and Westerners: a linguistic grouping that will prove significant when we come to study the origin and history of this isolated race. An editor who had made one or two short trips into the mountains once wrote me that he thought the average mountaineer's vocabulary did not exceed three hundred words.
It would do for 'The Mountaineer's Bride' superbly, or," continued the little man, warming through the blue-black border of his face with professional enthusiasm, "it's enough to make a play itself. 'The Cot on the Crags. Last scene moonlight the struggle on the ledge! The Lady of the Crags throws herself from the beetling heights! A shriek from the depths a woman's wail!"
"I'd like to, ever so much, Uncle Eli," the boy answered, as he got up from the step and started for the big loft where he slept with the mountaineer's two sons, "but, even if I don't get a chance, I've learned a lot from you about the folk on the mountains and about the South generally." The mountaineer nodded a good-night as the boy disappeared.
We must admit that the voice in which he sang the andante of the Swiss mountaineer's chorus resembled a reed pipe more than a hautboy; but, to make amends when he reached the presto, his voice, a rather good bass, struck the horse's ears with such force that the latter redoubled his vigor as if this melody had produced upon him the effect of a trumpet sounding the charge on the day of battle.
And he realized fully that these were the last hours. For the first time he had seen MacDonald fill his pockets with the finger-long cartridges for his rifle, and he had noted how carefully he had looked at the breech of that rifle. Without questioning, he had followed the mountaineer's example. There were fifty spare cartridges in his own pockets. His .303 was freshly cleaned and oiled.
And I don't take orders from you in the matter, understand?" The mountaineer's lips drew back, his body quivered, and the finger on the rifle's trigger trembled. Above him, Donald stood equally tense and pale.
To his surprise he now saw Brent quickly make up the intervening space, grasp Dale by the shoulder and spin him around with every evidence of tremendous anger, then shake his fist in the mountaineer's face as though he were emphasizing a speech. To the Colonel's further astonishment he then saw Dale walk meekly back to the mare, put out his hand, and for several moments stroke her nose.
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