The Little River news., 1920-11-24
never raises.

never raises.
 He ref1lled the cup with cool water. rummaged spade out of the locker under the forward deck, and was just on the point of leaping to the bank when he heard her speaking. He polSed his head back inside the cur tains. and she repeated what she had just said:
 "Isnt the Flatwoods where the Wild Man lives? Seems to me I once heard that there is such a man in these woods"
 He felt carelessly along the rusty bit of the spade with his thumb.
 "I believe this is the woods"
 Maybe he's-I mean-he's not dan gerous?"
 Dangerous! A gray ghost of a man with pitiful face. They say he goes through the woods as still as smoke, and leaves as little trail"
 minute later he had leaped ashore. climbed the bluffs and plunged into the deep woods.
 The root of the elecampane was much esteemed as remedy for coughs, but it was by no means abun- ti;nt. No one knew this fact better han the Pearlhunter.
 The small stream that feeds the wa terfall at Fallen Rock is known as Wolf run. Following up along its curse the Pearlhunter presently came 'o tiny thread of water that joined 1t rom the west--probably the outlet of >olne small pond tucked away among
 he hills It is along the open margins
 f swamps and ponds, and never in
 sie thick woods, that the elecampane grows. Believing from the warmth and dullness of it's water that the tiny stream came from pond rather than from a spring, the Pearlhunter fol lowed it.
 Pearlhunter began to fear it would disappear altogether, when there came a break in the forest line just ahead. A scramble through dense fringe of hazel, and there it lay-a little pond in the midst of narrow glade in pocket of the hills, delicate inlay in the forest
 The man glanced at the sun; turned, and hurriedly looked about for the elecampane Along the east edge of the glade, not far out from the fringe of hazel, he found it-a clump of some dozen stalks, three or four of them ready to bloom. The rusty spade was soon at their rOots-probably the first ground ever broken on the mar gin of that pond. Three plants he digged, cut their stems close to the ground, shook the dirt from their clus- ters of fieshy roots, and hurried down the tiny outlet back to Wolf run.
 It was upon the gravelly margin of a pool that the Pearlhunter stopped to wash the elecampane roots, and cut them loose from the clusters in which he had been carrying them. He had finished the task and was storing them away in the pockets of his blouse when the song of thrush from some where up the stream gradually worked itself across his consciousness.
 The song puzzled him. There were notes-certain little foreign flights; deeper witchery-that he could not have believed possible to thrush's throat. The Pearlhunter had nice ear for the sounds of the woods. He stole cautiously up the bank. The sound, when he had drawn quite near, did not appear to come from any tree, but from some place down close to the water of another pool-anOther spot just ahead where the water stopped to rest.
 Parting the bushes with the utmost caution, he crept up to the edge of the pool and peered forth. A woman "a girl-sat on a flat rock jutting out from the opposite bank, her bare feet swinging in the water, her body bent slightly back and propped on her hands, her face uplifted, her puckered lips pouring forth the song that had drawn him to the spot. A sunbonnet swung from her arm; her shoes and stockings lay upon the rock beside half an armful of wild roses.
 A twig Tipped back into place as the Pearlhunter strained his face little closer The song stopped; the girl I 1& NXV7TMNNH NT1NNT1 m