The Delta independent., 1915-05-28
CHAPTER !.

Close to the serried backbone Of the
Cumberland ridge through a sky of
mountain clarity, the sun seemed hesi-
Eon. The sugar-loaf cone that tow
cred above creek called Misery was
pointed and edged with emerald trac
cry where the loftiest timber thrust
up its crest plumes into the sun. On
the hillsides it would be light for
more than an hour yet, but below,
where the waters tossed themselves
along in a chorus of tiny cascades, the
light was already thickening into a
cathedral gloom. Down there the fur
riner" would have seen only the rough
course of the creek between moss
velveted and shaded powders of
titanic proportions. The native would
have recognized the country road in
these tortuous twistings. A great block
of sandstone, to whose summit man
standing in his saddle could scarcely
reach his fingertips, lowered above
the stream, with a gnarled scrub oak
clinging tenaciously to its apex. Loft
fly on both sides climbed the noun
tains cloaked in laurel and timber.
Suddenly the LEAKAGE was thrust
aside from above by cautious hand,
and a shy, half-wild girl appeared in
the opening. For an instant she halt
ed, with her brown fingers holding
back the brushwood, and raised her
face as though listening. AS she
stood with the toes of one bare foot
twisting in the gratefully cool moss
she laughed with the sheer exhilara-
ton of life and youth, and started out
on the table top of the huge rock.
But there she halted suddenly with a
startled exclamation and drew instinc-
lively back. What she saw might well
have astonished her, for it was thing
she had never seen before and of
which she had never heard. Finally,
reassured by the silence, she slipped
across the broad face of the fat rock
for a distance of twenty-five feet and
paused again to listen.
At the. far edge lay pair of saddle
bags, such as form the only practical
equipment for mountain travellers.
Near them lay a tin box, Uttered with
small and Misunderstanding tubes of
soft metal, all grotesquely twisted and
stained, and beside the box was a
strangely shaped plaque of wood
smeared with a dozen hues. That this
plaque was a painters sketching pal
cite was a thing which she could not
know, since the ways of artists had
to do with world as remote from
her own as the life of the moon or
stars. 1t was one of those vague mys-
teries that made up the wonderful life
Of down below" Why had these
things been left here in such confu-
sion? II there was man about who
owned them he would doubtless return
to claim them. She crept over, eyes
and ears alert, and slipped around to
the front of the queer tripod, with all
her muscles poised in readiness for
night
A half-rapturous and utterly aston
1shed cry broke from her lips. She
stared moment, then dropped to the
moss-covered rock. leaning back on
her brown hands and gazing intently.
Hits purty!" she approved, in a
low, musical murmur. Hits plumb,
dead beautiful"
OF course it was not a finished pic.
ture-merely a study of what lay be-
fore her-but the hand that had
placed these brush strokes on the
academy board was the sure, deft
hand Of a master of landscape, who
had caught the splendid spirit of the
thing and fixed 1t immutably in true
and glowing appreciation. Who he
was; where he had gone; why his
work stood there unfinished and aban
doned, were details which for the mo
ment this half-savage child-woman for
got to question. She was conscious
emily OF sense of revelation and awe
Then she saw other boards, like the
one upon the easel. piled near the
paint box. These were dry, and rep
resented the work Of other days; but
they were all pictures of her own
in this one, was something that made
her heart leap.
To her own people these steep hill.
sides and "coves" and valleys we're a
matter of course. In their stony soil
they labored by day, and in their shad.
ows slept when work was done. Yet
someone had discovered that they held
q picturesque and rugged beauty; that
they were not merely steep fields
where the plow was useless and the
hoe must be used. She must tell Sam
son-Samson, whom she held in an
artless exaltation of hero worship;
Samson, who was SO smart" that he
thought about things beyond her un-
derstanding; Samson, who could not
only read and write. but speculate on
problematical matters.
Suddenly she came to her feet with
. swlrt-darting impulse of alarm Her
ear had caught sound She cast
searching glances about her, but the