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It was the third of August, and one of the warmest days of the summer. The extremely dry weather had withered all small vegetation; even the leaves of the laurel, that evergreen chaplet of the hills, were curled into little tubes and drooping. The majestic bald peak called Picketts Dome shimmered in the pale blue heat-haze. The ragged fringe of jackpines on the uneven, rockbound crest of the Big Blackfern stood motionless for lack of a breeze, seeming much like soldiers turned to stone in a battle-line that had previously suffered from the galling fire of some invincible enemy.
Grandpap Singleton, the Prophet, mopped his old brow frequently with a faded bandana as he followed the Devil's Gate trail, going northward. He walked with a dogwood cane, his other hand resting on his rheumatic left hip; but in spite of his decrepitude there was about his movements an eagerness that suggested an objective point of no little importance.
When he was barely through the Gate, he came upon old Granny Wolfe, who was kneeling beside the trail and trying to tie the ends of a 'coonhide shoestring that was somewhat too short.
Before she knew that he was anywhere near her, he leaned over, touched her lightly on the shoulder, and cried out like some mischievous boy, "Boa!"
The old hillwoman, startled, went stiffly to her feet.
"Well, I wisht I may never! My sakes, Grandpap Bill Singleton, you skeered me mighty durned nigh it to death! Now what'n Tophet do ye mean, anyhow, a-slippin' up on folks that a-way?" She tried to appear very angry, and failed altogether.
"Huh-huh!" laughed Grandpap Singleton, tugging at his long white beard. "How's yore old bones this mornin', Jane Wolfe?"
Granny Wolfe smiled the smile she had been holding in with difficulty for half a minute.
"Bill Singleton," she said, bending toward him, "ef it wasn't fo' the dad-burned old rheumatiz', I'd feel like a yearlin' colt! I've been a-totin' a buckeye-nut in my pocket, but it never done me a hoot's wo'th o' good. 'Bout the onliest thing 'at ever helped me any was good luck, lampile, and tarpentine. Ever try it, Bill, honey?"
Some thirty feet back in the laurel, a huge and gaunt man whose black hair and beard were not without threads of silver, knelt before a ginseng plant. He had been listening, and he had heard every word of the little conversation that had just passed between his mother and the father of his bitterest enemy. Once hehad whispered to himself, "Well, I'll be danged!"
"I've tried everything, Jane," nodded Grandpap Singleton. "Well, I'm a-goin' down to the upper end o' Little Buck's railroad to see Little Buck, Jane. My pore son Alex his trial was to take place over in town yeste'day, and Little Buck he'll shore know about it, o' course. I shorely am a-hopin' they've done went and turned Alex loose; and yit—and yit, Jane, he ain't never come back home!"
"And when is Cat-Eye Mayfield to have his trial?" Granny Wolfe wanted to know.
"Done had it," the Prophet answered. "He got a-lackin' one day of a year in jail, at hard labor. May I ax whar you'd started to, Jane Wolfe?"
"Me? Oh, I'd jest started down to gass wi Little Buck fo' awhile, Bill. My shoe it got ontied, and I was a-tryin' to fix it up when here comes you to skeer me mighty nigh to death. I've allus heerd, Bill Singleton, 'at when anybody's shoe it got untied it was a shore sign 'at somebody was a-thinkin' about 'em. Hain't you?"
The aged hillman nodded. Then he went to his knees before her, drew up the ends of the 'coonhide lace, and tied them securely.
"I reckon ye ain't no objections ef we walk down thar together, ha' ye Jane?" he asked as he straightened.
"Shorely I hain't, Bill," with a twinkle in her old eyes. "Jest so's ye don't try to flirt wi' me like ye used to do! When me and you was young and frolicsome, a-livin' with our folks back in the Balsam Cone section, Bill, ye know; hey? Do ye rickollect, Bill Singleton, that 'ar night when me and you was a-goin' home from Mariar Spinnett's weddin' dance, and you slipped one o' yore arms around my waist?"
"Heh?" The old man almost jumped. "O' course I rickollect it, Jane. Perish me ef you didn't slap my jaw so hard I couldn't taste nothin' but red pepper fo' two weeks!"
Then his lined countenance became very sober. "And may I ax ye now, Jane, atter so many years is gone sence, why it was you married Sackett Wolfe 'stid o' me? I allus felt like I wanted to know, Jane."
"Well, I'll be danged!" Old Buck Wolfe muttered into his beard.
"Well," Granny Wolfe creaked, "I thought ye begun to boss me too soon, Bill. But don't misonderstand me; I hain't no regrets about a-marryin' who I did, though the day I tied up to Sack I reckon I loved you the best."
Back in the laurel, Old Buck Wolfe sank down on his heels, the ginseng root entirely forgotten. Grandpap Singleton took off his hat and shook his snowy head sadly.
"And so come on, Bill, honey," smiled Granny Wolfe, "and le's me and you go down to see Little Buck; hey?"
Together, side by side, they limped down the narrow trail, each of them wondering what the difference would have been if they had married each other in the wild and glorious morning of their lives. Old Buck Wolfe crept from the thick underbrush and followed them stealthily, for he, too, wished to know the outcome of Alex Singleton's trial.
The bed of the toy railroad had forged its way, like the path of some monstrous serpent, to a point easily within three miles of Devil's Gate. The geared locomotive had been put into service, and the laying of light steel rails was progressing rapidly. Already the sawmill and logging machinery had been unloaded from the new siding that the C. C. & O. had put in for the Unaka Lumber Company.
The aged couple found the company's general manager talking with his foreman under a great yellow poplar that was to be cut to make way for the road's bed. Wolfe dismissed Weaver, and turned to shake hands very cordially with his visitors.
"What about the trial o' pore Alex, my son?" Grandpap Singleton asked forthwith.
Wolfe had been expecting inquiry of this nature. He had his answer cut and dried, as the saying is.
"Alex will be back pretty soon—" and Old Buck the eavesdropper clenched his fists—"according to what Tot says about it. The trial was postponed, and now they'll have tobring Cat-Eye from jail to testify. Alex will stick to a straight story, and claim self-defence. Mayfield will be the only witness the State will have, and we think Alex will be cleared altogether.
"I hope the devil gits Cat-Eye Mayfield afore night!" cried Granny Wolfe. "The rawzum-chawin' pup—his durned eyes allus 'minded me of a spread-head snake's in dawg days!"
"And how's Tot a-comin' along in town?" asked Grandpap Singleton.
"She's doing remarkably well under Mrs. Mason's teaching," Wolfe told them. "You'd hardly know her, already! She's studying grammar almost day and night, and she wears her clothes like a lady."
"And when," inquired the garrulous grandmother, "is you and her a-goin' to marry, Little Buck?"
Wolfe gave the old woman an odd look. "Never, perhaps."
"Well, now, that 'ar beats the Old Scratch." Granny Wolfe's face was troubled. "Shorely, honey, you hain't never axed her!"
Old Buck pressed forward a little in the concealing laurel that he might not fail to catch the rest of it.
"No," said his son, "I haven't asked her. And I probably won't, because she wouldn't accept me if I did. I learned that much, anyway!"
Old Buck clicked his teeth. "Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered into his beard.