Before the mountain roads were mired with the coming of the rains, and
while the air held its sparkle of autumnal zestfulness, Samson South
wrote to Wilfred Horton that, if he still meant to come to the hills
for his inspection of coal and timber, the time was ripe. Soon, men
would appear bearing transit and chain, drawing a line which a railroad
was to follow to Misery and across it to the heart of untouched forests
and coal-fields. With that wave of innovation would come the
speculators. Besides, Samson's fingers were itching to be out in the
hills with a palette and a sheaf of brushes in the society of George
Lescott.
For a while after the battle at Hixon, the county had lain in a torpid
paralysis of dread. Many illiterate feudists on each side remembered
the directing and exposed figure of Samson South seen through eddies of
gun smoke, and believed him immune from death. With Purvy dead and
Hollman the victim of his own hand, the backbone of the murder
syndicate was broken. Its heart had ceased to beat. Those Hollman
survivors who bore the potentialities for leadership had not only
signed pledges of peace, but were afraid to break them; and the
triumphant Souths, instead of vaunting their victory, had subscribed to
the doctrine of order, and declared the war over.
Souths who broke the
law were as speedily arrested as Hollmans. Their boys were drilling as
militiamen, and--wonder of wonders!--inviting the sons of the enemy to
join them. Of course, these things changed gradually, but the
beginnings of them were most noticeable in the first few months, just
as a newly painted and renovated house is more conspicuous than one
that has been long respectable.
Hollman's Mammoth Department Store passed into new hands, and
trafficked only in merchandise, and the town was open to the men and
women of Misery as well as those of Crippleshin.
These things Samson had explained in his letters to the Lescotts and
Horton. Men from down below could still find trouble in the wink of an
eye, by seeking it, for under all transformation the nature of the
individual remained much the same; but, without seeking to give
offense, they could ride as securely through the hills as through the
streets of a policed city--and meet a readier hospitality.
And, when these things were discussed and the two men prepared to
cross the Mason-and-Dixon line and visit the Cumberlands, Adrienne
promptly and definitely announced that she would accompany her brother.
No argument was effective to dissuade her, and after all Lescott, who
had been there, saw no good reason why she should not go with him. He
had brought Samson North. He had made a hazardous experiment which
subsequent events had more than vindicated, and yet, in one respect, he
feared that there had been failure. He had promised Sally that her
lover would return to her with undeflected loyalty. Had he done so?
Lescott had been glad that his sister should have undertaken the part
of Samson's molding, which only a woman's hand could accomplish, and he
had been glad of the strong friendship that had grown between them.
But, if that friendship had come to mean something more sentimental,
his experiment had been successful at the cost of unsuccess. He had
said little, but watched much, and he had known that, after receiving a
certain letter from Samson South, his sister had seemed strangely quiet
and distressed. These four young persons had snarled their lives in
perplexity. They could definitely find themselves and permanently
adjust themselves, only by meeting on common ground. Perhaps, Samson
had shone in an exaggerated high-light of fascination by the strong
contrast into which New York had thrown him. Wilfred Horton had the
right to be seen also in contrast with mountain life, and then only
could the girl decide for all time and irrevocably. The painter learns
something of confused values.