The Call of the Cumberlands - Page 175/205

But, again, he crushed her in his arms, and his voice rose triumphantly: "Sally, I have no promises to take back, and you have made none that

I'm ever going to let you take back--not while life lasts!"

Her laugh was the delicious music of happiness. "I don't want to take

them back," she said. Then, suddenly, she added, importantly: "I wear

shoes and stockings now, and I've been to school a little. I'm awfully--

awfully ignorant, Samson, but I've started, and I reckon you can teach

me."

His voice choked. Then, her hands strayed up, and clasped themselves

about his head.

"Oh, Samson," she cried, as though someone had struck her, "you've cut

yore ha'r."

"It will grow again," he laughed. But he wished that he had not had to

make that excuse. Then, being honest, he told her all about Adrienne

Lescott--even about how, after he believed that he had been outcast by

his uncle and herself, he had had his moments of doubt. Now that it was

all so clear, now that there could never be doubt, he wanted the woman

who had been so true a friend to know the girl whom he loved. He loved

them both, but was in love with only one. He wanted to present to Sally

the friend who had made him, and to the friend who had made him the

Sally of whom he was proud. He wanted to tell Adrienne that now he

could answer her question--that each of them meant to the other exactly

the same thing: they were friends of the rarer sort, who had for a

little time been in danger of mistaking their comradeship for passion.

As they talked, sitting on the stile, Sally held the rifle across her

knees. Except for their own voices and the soft chorus of night sounds,

the hills were wrapped in silence--a silence as soft as velvet.

Suddenly, in a pause, there came to the girl's ears the cracking of a

twig in the woods. With the old instinctive training of the mountains,

she leaped noiselessly down, and for an instant stood listening with

intent ears. Then, in a low, tense whisper, as she thrust the gun into

the man's hands, she cautioned: "Git out of sight. Maybe they've done found out ye've come back--maybe

they're trailin' ye!"

With an instant shock, she remembered what mission had brought him

back, and what was his peril; and he, too, for whom the happiness of

the moment had swallowed up other things, came back to a recognition of

facts. Dropping into the old woodcraft, he melted out of sight into the

shadow, thrusting the girl behind him, and crouched against the fence,

throwing the rifle forward, and peering into the shadows. As he stood

there, balancing the gun once more in his hands, old instincts began to

stir, old battle hunger to rise, and old realizations of primitive

things to assault him. Then, when they had waited with bated breath

until they were both reassured, he rose and swung the stock to his

shoulder several times. With something like a sigh of contentment, he

said, half to himself: "Hit feels mighty natural ter throw this old rifle-gun up. I reckon

maybe I kin still shoot hit."