The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. Mary Noailles Murfree

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      'An' the law holds me the same ez 'Bednego Tynes, who killed Joel Byers, jes' ter keep his hand in—hevin' killed another man afore—an' I never so much ez lifted a finger agin him!'

      He pondered much on his past, and the future that he had lost. Sometimes he gave himself to adjusting, from the meagre circumstances of their common lot on Big Smoky, the future of those with whose lives his own had heretofore seemed an integral part, and from which it should for evermore be dissevered. All the pangs of penance were in that sense of irrevocability. It was done, and here was his choice: to live the life of a skulking wolf, to prowl, to flee, to fight at bay, or to return and confront an outraged law. He experienced a frenzy of rage to realize how hardily his world would roll on without him. Big Smoky would not suffer! The sun would shine, and the crops ripen, and the harvest come, and the snows sift down, and the seasons revolve. The boys would shoot for beef, and there was to be a gander-pulling at the Settlement when the candidates should come 'stumpin' the Big Smoky' for the midsummer elections. And when, periodically, 'the mountings' would wake to a sense of sin, and a revival would be instituted, all the people would meet, and clap their hands, and sing, and pray, and that busy sinner, D'rindy, might find time to think upon grace, and perhaps upon the man whom she likened to the prophets of old.

      Then Rick Tyler would start up from his bed of boughs, and stride wildly about among the boulders, hardly pausing to listen if he heard a wolf howling on the lonely heights. An owl would hoot derisively from the tangled laurel. And oh, the melancholy moonlight in the melancholy pines, where the whip-poor-will moaned and moaned!

      'I'd shoot that critter ef I could make out ter see him!' cried the harassed fugitive, his every nerve quivering.

      It all began with Dorinda; it all came back to her. He drearily foresaw that she would forget him; and yet he could not know how the alienation was to commence, how it should progress, and the process of its completion. 'All whilst I'm a-roamin' off with the painters an' sech!' he exclaimed bitterly.

      And she—her future was plain enough. There was a little log-cabin by the grist-mill: the mountains sheltered it; the valley held it as in the palm of a hand. Hardly a moment since, his jealous heart had been racked by the thought of the man she likened to the prophets of old, and now he saw her spinning in the door of Amos James's house in the quiet depths of Eskaqua Cove.

      This vision stilled his heart. He was numbed by his despair. Somehow, the burly young miller seemed a fitter choice than the religious enthusiast, whose leisure was spent in praying in the desert places. He wondered that he should ever have felt other jealousy, and was subacutely amazed to find this passion so elastic.

      With wild and haggard eyes he saw the day break upon this vision. It came in at the great gate—a pale flush, a fainting star, a burst of song, and the red and royal sun.

      The morning gradually exerted its revivifying influence and brought a new impulse. He easily deceived himself, and disguised it as a reason.

      'This hyar powder is a-gittin' mighty low,' he said to himself, examining the contents of his powder-horn. 'An' that thar rifle eats it up toler'ble fast sence I hev hed ter hunt varmints fur my vittles. Ef that war the sher'ff a-ridin' arter me the day I war at Cayce's, he's done gone whar he b'longs by this time—'twar two weeks ago; an' ef he ain't gone back, he wouldn't be layin' fur me roun' the Settlemint, nohow. An' I kin git some powder thar, an' hear 'em tell what the mounting air a-doin' of. An' mebbe I won't be so durned lonesome when I gits back hyar.'

      He mounted his horse, later in the day, and picked his way slowly down the banks of the stream and through the great gate.

      The Settlement on a spur of the Big Smoky illustrated the sacrilege of civilization. A number of trees, girdled years ago, stretched above the fields their gigantic skeletons, suggesting their former majesty of mien and splendid proportions. Their forlorn, leafless branches rattled together with a dreary sound, as the breeze stirred among the gaunt and pallid assemblage. The little log-cabins, five or six in number, were so situated among the stumps which disfigured the clearing, that if a sudden wind should bring down one of the monarchial spectres of the forest, it would make havoc only in the crops. The wheat was thin and backward. A little patch of cotton in a mellow dip served to show the plant at its minimum. There was tobacco, too, placed, like the cotton, where it was hoped it would take a notion to grow. Sorghum flourished, and the tasselled Indian corn, waving down a slope, had aboriginal suggestions of plumed heads and glancing quivers. A clamour of Guinea fowls arose, and geese and turkeys roved about in the publicity of the clearing with the confident air of esteemed citizens. Sheep were feeding among the ledges.

      It was hard to say what might be bought at the store except powder and coffee, and sugar perhaps, if 'long-sweetenin'' might not suffice; for each of the half-dozen small farms was a type of the region, producing within its own confines all its necessities. Hand-looms could be glimpsed through open doors, and as yet the dry-goods trade is unknown to the homespun-clad denizens of the Settlement. Beeswax, feathers, honey, dried fruit, are bartered here, and a night's rest has never been lost for the perplexities of the currency question on the Big Smoky Mountains.

      The proprietor of the store, his operations thus limited, was content to grow rich slowly, if needs were to grow rich at all. In winter he sat before the great wood fire in the store and smoked his pipe, and his crony, the blacksmith, often came, hammer in hand and girded with his leather apron, and smoked with him. In the summer he sat all day, as now, in front of the door, looking meditatively at the scene before him. The sunlight slanted upon the great dead trees; their forms were imposed with a wonderful distinctness upon the landscape that stretched so far below the precipice on which the little town was perched. They even touched, with those bereaved and denuded limbs, the far blue mountains encircling the horizon, and with their interlacing lines and curves they seemed some mysterious scripture engraven upon the world.

      It was just six o'clock, and the shadow of a bough that still held a mass of woven sticks, once the nest of an eagle, had reached the verge of the cliff, when the sound of hoofs fell on the still air, and a man rode into the clearing from the encompassing woods.

      The storekeeper glanced up to greet the new-comer, but did not risk the fatigue of rising. Women looked out of the windows, and a girl on a porch, reeling yarn, found a reason to stop her work. A man came out of a house close by, and sat on the fence, within range of any colloquy in which he might wish to participate. The whole town could join at will in a municipal conversation. The forge fire showed a dull red against the dusky brown shadows in the recesses of the shop. The blacksmith stood in front of the door, his eyes shielded with his broad blackened right hand, and looked critically at the steed. Horses were more in his line than men. He was a tall, powerfully built fellow of thirty, perhaps, with the sooty aspect peculiar to his calling, a swarthy complexion, and a remarkably well-knit, compact, and muscular frame. He often said in pride, 'Ef I hed hed the forgin' o myself, I wouldn't hev welded on a pound more, or hammered out a leader differ.'

      Suddenly detaching his attention from the horse, he called out, 'Waal, sir! Ef thar ain't Rick Tyler!' This was addressed to the town at large. Then, 'What ails ye, Rick? I hearn tell ez you-uns war on yer way ter Shaftesville along o' the sher'ff.' He had a keen and twinkling eye. He cast it significantly at the man on the fence. 'Ye kem back, I reckon, ter git yer handcuffs mended at my shop. Gimme the bracelets.' He held out his hand in affected anxiety.

      'I ain't a-wearin' no bracelets now.' Rick Tyler's hasty impulse had its impressiveness. He levelled his pistol. 'Ef ye hanker ter do enny mendin', I'll gin ye repairs ter make in them cast-iron chit'lings o' yourn,' he said coolly.

      He was received at the store with a distinct accession of respect. The blacksmith stood watching him, with angry eyes, and a furtive recollection of the reward offered by the governor for his apprehension.

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