THE journey to the mountains was made with a heavy heart.In his absence everything seemed to have suffered a change.Jellico had never seemed so small,so coarse,so wretched as when he stepped from the dusty train and saw it lying dwarfed and shapeless in the afternoon sunlight.The State line bisects the straggling streets of frame-houses.On the Kentucky side an extraordinary spasm of morality had quieted into local option.Just across the way in Tennessee was a row of saloons.It was "pay-day"for the miners,and the worst element of all the mines was drifting in to spend the following Sabbath in unchecked vice.Several rough,brawny fellows were already staggering from Tennessee into Kentucky,and around one saloon hung a crowd of slatternly negroes,men and women.Heartsick with disgust,Clayton hurried into the lane that wound through the valley.Were these hovels,he asked himself in wonder,the cabins he once thought so poetic,so picturesque?How was it that they suggested now only a pitiable poverty of life?From each,as he passed,came a rough,cordial shout of greeting.Why was he jarred so strangely?Even nature had changed.
The mountains seemed stunted,less beautiful.The light,streaming through the western gap with all the splendor of a mountain sunset,no longer thrilled him.The moist fragrance of the earth at twilight,the sad pipings of birds by the wayside,the faint,clear notes of a wood-thrush-his favorite-from the edge of the forest,even the mid-air song of a meadow-lark above his head,were unheeded as,with face haggard with thought and travel,he turned doggedly from the road and up the mountain toward Easter's home.The novelty and ethnological zeal that had blinded him to the disagreeable phases of mountain life were gone;so was the pedestal from which he had descended to make a closer study of the people.For he felt now that he had gone among them with an unconscious condescension;his interest seemed now to have been little more than curiosity-a pastime to escape brooding over his own change of fortune.And with Easter-ah,how painfully clear his mental vision had grown!Was it the tragedy of wasting possibilities that had drawn him to her-to help her-or was it his own miserable selfishness,after all?
No one was visible when he reached the cabin.The calm of mountain and sky enthralled it as completely as the cliff that towered behind it.
The day still lingered,and the sunlight rested lightly on each neighboring crest.
As he stepped upon the porch there was a slight noise within the cabin,and,peering into the dark interior,he called Easter's name.There was no answer,and he sank wearily into a chair,his thoughts reverting homeward.
By this time his mother and sister must know why he had come back to the mountains.
He could imagine their consternation and grief.Perhaps that was only the beginning;he might be on the eve of causing them endless unhappiness.He had thought to involve them as little as possible by remaining in the mountains;but the thought of living there was now intolerable in the new relations he would sustain to the people.What should he do?where go?As he bent fQrward in perplexity,there was a noise again in the cabin-this time the stealthy tread of feet-and before he could turn,a rough voice vibrated threateningly in his ears:
Say who ye air,and what yer business is,mighty quick,er ye hain't got a minute to live."Clayton looked up,and to his horror saw the muzzle of a rifle pointed straight at his head.At the other end of it,and standing in the door,was a short,stocky figure,a head of bushy hair,and a pair of small,crafty eyes.The fierceness and suddenness of the voice,in the great silence about him,and its terrible earnestness,left him almost paralyzed.
"Come,who air ye?Say quick,and don't move,nother"Clayton spoke his name with difficulty.The butt of the rifle dropped to the floor,and with a harsh laugh its holder advanced to him with hand outstretched:
So ye air Easter's feller,air ye?Well,I'm yer dad-that's to be.Shake."
Clayton shuddered.Good heavens!this was Easter's father!More than once or twice,his name had never been mentioned at the cabin.
