He did not reply, perhaps appreciating that no answer was expected. "Ye don't like ter herd up hyar, an' the Lord knows I ain't keerin' ter hev ye. Ye hev gin me ez much trouble ez all the cattle an' thar owners besides. When ye wanted ter kem so bad, an' sorter go partners with me, I 'lowed ye'd be lively, an' a toler'ble good critter ter hev along. An' ye hev been ez lonesome an' ez onconsiderate an' ez ill-convenient ez a weanin' baby," he declared, rising to hyperbole. "What do ye like ter do?" Once more Mink refrained from reply. He looked absently at an isolated drift of mist, gigantic of outline, reaching from the zenith to the depths of Piomingo Cove, and slowly passing down the valley between the Great Smoky and the sunflooded Chilhowee Mountain, obscuring for the moment the red clay banks of the Scolacutta River, whose current seems a mere silver thread twining in and out of the landscape. not "Look-a-hyar at the way ye go on," said Doaks, warming to the subject, for there are few exercises so entertaining as to preach with no sense of participation in sin. "Ye went ter work at that thar silver mine in North Car❜lina, an' thar ye stayed sorter stiddy an' peaceful till ye seen yer chance. An' Pete Rood, he kem an' stayed too, an' he war sorter skeered o' the ways, bein' used ter minin.' An' then yer minkish tricks began. Fust, when that thar feller war let down inter the shaft an' ye hed a-holt o' the windlass, ye rapped a few clods o' dirt in on him, an then a leetle gravel, an' then mo' dirt. Then he bellered that the shaft war cavin' in on him, an' plead an' prayed with ye ter wind him up quick. An' ye would n't pull. An' when the t'other fellers run thar an' drawed that man out he war weak enough ter drap." "I'member!" cried Mink, with a burst of unregenerate laughter. "He said, Lemme git out'n this spindlin' hell o' a well!"" He sprang up, grotesquely imitating the gesture of exhaustion with which the man had stepped out of the bucket to firm ground. "Waal, it mought hev turned out a heap wus," said Doaks, "kase they 'lowed down yander 'bout Big Injun Mounting, whar Rood hails from, ez he hev got some sort'n heart disease. An' a suddint skeer mought hev killed him." "Shucks!" said Mink, incredulously. He looked disconcerted, however, and then sat down on the rock as before. Ben Doaks went on: "An' that war n't enough fur ye. When they hed Rood thar a-pumpin' out water, all by himself all night, nuthin' would do ye but ye must hide up thar in the Lost-Time mine in the dark o' the midnight an' the rain, an' explode a lot o' gunpowder, an' kem a-bustin' out at him from the mouth o' the tunnel, wropped in a sheet an' howlin' like a catamount. He run mighty nigh a mile." 66 Waal," said Mink, in sturdy argument, "I ain't 'sponsible kase Peter Rood air toler❜ble easy skeered." "They never hired ye ter work thar no mo', bein' ez that war 'bout all the use ye put yerse'f ter in the silver mine in North Car'liny.” Despite the reproof, Doaks was looking kindly at him, for the wayward Mink had evidently endeared himself in some sort to the elder herder, who was weakly conscious of not regarding his enormities with the aversion they merited. The young man's countenance fell. His mischief differed from that of his namesake in all the sequelæ of an accusing conscience. But stay! What do we know of the mink's midday meditations, his sober, ex post facto regrets? "An' what do ye do then, - kase they turned ye off? Ye go thar of a night, when nobody's at the windlass, an' ye busts it down an' flings the bucket an' rope an' all down the shaft." Mink was embarrassed. "How d'ye know?" he retorted, with acrid futility. "How d' ye know 't war me?" "Kase it air fairly kin ter yer actions, - know it by the family favor," said Doaks. "Ax enny body enny whar round the Big Smoky who did sech an' sech, an' they'd all say, Mink. Ye know the word they hev gin ye, Mink by name an' Mink by natur.'" Lorey made no further feint of denial. He seemed a trifle out of counte nance. He glanced over his shoulder at the rugged horizontal summit line of Chilhowee, rising high above the intervenient mountains, and sharply imposed upon the mosaic of delicate tints known as the valley of East Tennessee, which stretches so far that, despite its sharp inequalities, it seems to have the level monotony of the sea till Walden's Ridge, the great outpost of the Cumberland Mountains, meets the concave sky. Then, as his wandering attention returned to those sterner heights close at hand, the inexpressible gravity, the significant solemnity, which he could not apprehend, which baffled every instinct of his limited nature, smote upon him. He broke out irritably : "What do ye jes' set thar a-jowin' at me fur, Ben, like a long-tongued woman, 'bout what I done an' what I hain't done, in this hyar lonesome place whar I hev been tolled ter by you-uns? I never begged ter be 'lowed ter herd along of ye, nohow. When I kem an' axed ye 'bout'n it, ye 'lowed ye'd be powerful glad. An' ye tole me, ez so many o' the farmers in the flat woods hed promised ter bunch thar cattle an' send 'em up ter ye fur the summer season, that ye war plumb skeered 'bout thar bein' too many fur one man ter keer fur, an' ye did n't see how ye'd git along 'thout a partner. An' ye 'lowed ye 'd already rented Piomingo Bald right reasonable, an' the owners o' the cattle would pay from seventy-five cents to a dollar a head; an' ye'd gin me a sheer ef I'd kem along an' holp ye, an' all sech ez that. An' I kem up in the spring, an' I hev been on this hyar durned pinnacle o' perdition ever sence. It 'minds me all the time o' that thar high mounting in the Bible whar the Tempter showed off all the kingdoms o' the yearth. What ails ye ter git arter me? I hain't tried no minkish tricks on you-uns." "Ye hev, Mink. Yes, ye hev." Mink looked bewildered for a moment. Then a shade of consciousness settled on his face. He lifted one foot over his knee and affected to examine the sole of his boot. The light zephyr was tossing his long, tangled locks, the sun shone through their filaments. No vanity was expressed in wearing them thus,-only some vague preference, some prosaic prejudice against shears. Their fineness and lustre did nothing to commend them, and they had been contemptuously called a "sandy breshheap." His bright eyes had a fringe of the same unique tint that softened their expression. He dropped his boot presently, and fixed his gaze upon a flitting yellow butterfly, lured by some unexplained fascination of fragrance to these skyey heights. "Ye can't make out ez I stand in yer way, enny," he said at last, enigmatically. Doaks's face flushed suddenly. "No, I ain't claimin' ez I hev enny chance. Ef I hed, an' ye war in my way," he continued, abruptly, with a sudden flare of spirit, "I'd choke the life out'n ye, an' fling yer wu'thless carcass ter the wolves. I'd crush yer skull with the heel o' my boot!" He stood up for a moment; then turned suddenly, and sat down again. Mink looked at him curiously, with narrowing lids. Doaks's hands were trembling. His eyes were alert, alight. The blood was casual gaze revealed themselves to him day by day. He had made discoveries. In some seeming indefiniteness of the horizon he found the added beauty of distant heights, as if, while he looked, the softened outline of blue peaks, given to the sight of no other creature, were sketched into the picture. Once it was a sudden elusive silver glinting, imperceptible to eyes less trained to the minutiæ of these long distances, that told him the secret source of some stream, unexplored to its head-waters in a dark and bosky ravine. Sometimes he distinguished a stump which he had never seen before in a collection of dead trees, girdled long ago, and standing among the corn upon so high and steep a slope "Waal," Mink said presently, "that war one reason I wanted ter herd along o' you-uns this year. I'lowed I'd make right smart money through the summer season, an' then me an' Lethe would git married nex' fall, mebbe. Lethe's folks air so pore an' shiftless, an' I'd ez lief live along of a catamount as her mother, an' so I 'lowed we'd try ter git a leetle ahead an' set up for ourselves." Doaks trembled with half-repressed that the slant justified the descriptive excitement. "Ye tole me ez ye an' she hed quar"led," he said. "Ye never dreampt o' sech a thing ez savin' fur a house an' sech till this minit. Ye ain't been ter see her sence ye hev been on the Big Smoky till ye fund out ez I went down thar wuust in a while, an' the old folks favored me." "Waal," said Mink, hardily, "I know she'd make it up with me enny minit I axed her." Doaks said nothing for a time. Then suddenly, "Waal, then, ef ye air layin' off ter marry Lethe Sayles, why n't ye quit hangin' round Elviry Crosby, an' tarryfyin' Peter Rood out'n his boots? They'd hev been married afore now, ef ye hed lef' 'em be." gibe of the region, "fields hung up to He had become peculiarly sensitive to the electric conditions of the atmosphere, and was forewarned of the terrible storms that are wont to break on the crest of the great mountain. Often Mink appealed to him as he did now, imputing a certain responsibility. "Enny thunder in that thar cloud?" he demanded, with the surly distrust which accompanies the query, "Does yer dog bite?" "Naw; no thunder, nor rain nuther." "I'm powerful glad ter hear it, kase I don't 'sociate with this hyar bald when thar's enny lightning around." He had heard the many legends of "lightning balls" that are represented as ploughing the ground on Piomingo, and he spoke his fears with the frank ness of one possessed of unimpeachable courage. “That's what makes me despise this hyar spot," he said, irritably. Things 'pear so cur'ous. I feel like I hev accidentally stepped off'n the face o' the yearth. An' I hev ter go mighty nigh spang down ter the foot o' the mounting 'fore I feel like folks agin." He glanced downward toward the first trees that asserted the right to growth about this strange and barren place. "Ye can't git used ter nuthin', nuther. Them cur'ous leetle woods air enough ter make a man 'low he hev the jim-jams ez a constancy. I dunno what's in 'em! My flesh creeps whenever I go through 'em. I always feel like ef I look right quick I'll see suthin' awful, witches, or harnts, or I dunno!" He looked down again at them, quickly; but he was sure not quickly enough. And the woods were of a strange aspect, chiefly of oaks with gnarled limbs, full-leaved, bulky of bole, but all uniformly stunted, not one reaching a height greater than fifteen feet. This characteristic gave a weird, unnatural effect to the long avenues beneath their lowspreading boughs. They encircled Piomingo Bald, and stretched along the summit of the range, unbroken save where other domes - Silar's Bald, Gregory's Bald, and Parsons' Bald — rose bare and gaunt against the sky. "Ez ter witches an' harnts an' them, I ain't never seen none hyar on Piomingo Bald," said Doaks. "It ain't never hed the name o' sech, like Thunderhead." Mink placed his elbows on his knees, and held his chin in his hand. His roving dark eyes were meditative now; some spell of the imagination lay bright in their depths. "Hev he been viewed lately?" he asked. "That thar Herder on Thunderhead," said Mink, lowering his voice. The fibrous mist, hovering about the summit of Thunderhead and stretching its long, fine lines almost over to Piomingo Bald, might in some mysterious telegraphy of the air transmit the mat ter. Not ez I knows on," said Doaks. "He ain't been viewed lately. But Joe Boyd, he's a-herdin' over thar now: I kem acrost him one day las' week, an' he 'lowed ez his cattle hed been actin' powerful strange. Joe 'lowed the cattle mus' hev viewed him, an' mebbe he war tryin' ter 'tice 'em off." "Ef ye 'll b'lieve me," said Mink ruminatively, after a pause, " I never hearn tell o' that thar harnt of a herder on Thunderhead whilst I war in Eskaqua Cove, nor in Piomingo Cove nuther." "Ye don't hear nuthin' in them outo'-the-way places," said Doaks, with contempt. "But then, them other herders on Thunderhead don't hanker ter talk 'bout him, noways. 'bout him, noways. It's powerful hard ter git a word out'n 'em 'bout it; they're mighty apt ter laff, an' 'low it mus' be somebody ridin' roun' from cross the line. But it'll make euny of 'em bleach ef ye ax 'em suddint ef all o' Joshua Nixon's bones war buried tergether." The mists had spanned the abyss of the valley in a sheer, gossamer-like network, holding the sunbeams in a glittering entanglement. They elusively caressed the mountain summit, and hung about the two lounging figures of the herders, a sort of ethereal eavesdropping of uncomfortable suggestions to Mink, and slipped into the dwarfed woods, where they lurked spectrally. 66 Waal, ef ye ax 'em ef Joshua Nixon's bones war all buried tergether they'll bleach," Doaks repeated. "See that thar sort'n gap yander?" he continued, pointing at a notch on the slope "Who?" demanded Doaks, rousing of Thunderhead. "They fund his bones himself. thar under a tree streck by lightning. They 'lowed that war the way he died. But the wolves an' the buzzards hed n't lef enough ter make sure. They hed scattered his bones all up and down the slope. He hed herded over thar a good many year, an' some o' the t'other boys keered fur the cattle till the owners kem in the fall." He recounted slowly. Time was no object on Piomingo Bald. "Waal, nobody hearn nuthin' mo' 'bout'n it fur a right smart time, till one day the cattle war all fund, runned mighty nigh ter death, an' a-bellerin' an' a-cavortin' ez ef they war witched. An' one o' the herders, Ike Stern, kem in thar ter the cabin an' 'lowed he hed seen a lot o' strange cattle 'mongst theirn, an' a herder ridin' 'mongst 'em. 'T war misty, bein' a rainy spell, an' he lost the herder in the fog. Waal, they jes' 'lowed 't war some o' we-uns from Piomingo Bald, huntin' fur strays, or somebody from 'cross the line. So they jes' went on fryin' thar meat, an' bakin' thar hoe-cake, an' settin' roun' the fire; but this byar man kept on complainin' he could n't holp seein' that thar herder. An' wunst in a while he'd hold his hand afore his eyes. An' one o' the old herders, Rob Carrick 't war, — he jes' axed him what that herder looked like. An' Ike jes' sot out ter tell. An' the coffee war a-bilin', an' the meat a-sizzlin', an' Carrick war a-squattin' afore the fire a-listenin' an' a-turnin' the meat, till all of a sudden he lept up an' drapped his knife, yellin', My God! ye lyin' buzzard, don't ye set thar a-tellin' me ez Josh Nixon hev kem all the way from hell ter herd on Thunderhead! Don't ye do it! Don't ye do it!' An' Ike Stern, he looked like he seen Death that minit; his eyes war like coals o' fire, an' he trembled all over, - he jes' said, I see I hev been visited by the devil, fur I hev been gin ter view a dead man, apin' the motions o' life.'" Doaks pulled at his pipe for a few moments, his eyes still absently fixed on the purple peak shimmering in the gauzy white mists and the yellow sunshine. "I never shall furgit that night. Thar war fower men thar: two hed herded along o' Josh on Thunderhead, but Ike Stern had never seen him in life, an' me not at all. Waal, sir! the rain kem down on the roof, an' the wind war like the tromplin' o', a million o' herds o' wild cattle. We 'lowed we hed never hearn sech a plungin' o' the yellemints. The night war ez dark ez a wolf's mouth, 'cept when it lightened, au' then we could see we war wropped in the clouds. An' through all them crackin' peals them men talked 'bout that thar harnt o' a Herder on Thunderhead. Waal, nex' mornin' Stern jes' gin up his job, an' went down the mounting ter Piomingo Cove. An' he stayed thar, too. They 'lowed he done no work fur a year an' a day. His time war withered an' his mind seemed darkened.” "He 'pears ter hev toler'ble good sense now," said Mink, striving against credulity. "Yes, he hev spryed up powerful." "Waal," said Mink, constrained by the fascination of the supernatural, “ I hev hearn ez Carrick seen the Herder, too." He did," replied Doaks. "Arter a while a week, mebbe - Rob kem up ter me an axed, Whar's them cattle a-bellerin'?' I listened, but I never hearn nuthin'. We hed missed some steers arter Ike hed seen the Herder, an' Rob war sorter 'feard they'd run down inter the cove. He jumped on a halfbruk clay-bank colt an' rid off, thinkin' the bellerin' mought be them. Waal, time passed. I hed nuthin' in partic'lar ter do cattle war salted the day before. Time passed. I jes' sot thar. I 'lowed I'd wait till Rob kem back, then I'd go a-huntin'. Time passed. I 'lowed I'd furgit how ter talk of I war n't herdin' along o' sech a sociable critter ez Rob, an' I wondered ef I war |