The quivering heat of August was giving way and the golden peace of autumn was spreading through the land. The breath of mountain woods by day was as cool as the breath of valleys at night. In the mountains, boy and girl were leaving school for work in the fields, and from the Cumberland foothills to the Ohio, boy and girl were leaving happy holidays for school. Along a rough, rocky road and down a shining river, now sunk to deep pools with trickling riffles between--for a drouth was on the land--rode a tall, gaunt man on an old brown mare that switched with her tail now and then at a long-legged, rough-haired colt stumbling awkwardly behind. Where the road turned from the river and up the mountain, the man did a peculiar thing, for there, in that lonely wilderness, he stopped, dismounted, tied the reins to an overhanging branch and, leaving mare and colt behind, strode up the mountain, on and on, disappearing over the top. Half an hour later, a sturdy youth hove in sight, trudging along the same road with his cap in his hand, a long rifle over one shoulder and a dog trotting at his heels. Now and then the boy would look back and scold the dog and the dog would drop his muzzle with shame, until the boy stooped to pat him on the head, when he would leap frisking before him, until another affectionate scolding was due. The old mare turned her head when she heard them coming, and nickered. Without a moment's hesitation the lad untied her, mounted and rode up the mountain. For two days the man and the boy had been "riding and tying," as this way of travel for two men and one horse is still known in the hills, and over the mountain, they were to come together for the night. At the foot of the spur on the other side, boy and dog came upon the tall man sprawled at full length across a moss-covered bowlder. The dog dropped behind, but the man's quick eye caught him:
"Where'd that dog come from, Chad?" Jack put his belly to the earth and crawled slowly forward--penitent, but determined.
"He broke loose, I reckon. He come tearin' up behind me 'bout an hour ago, like a house afire. Let him go." Caleb Hazel frowned.
"I told you, Chad, that we'd have no place to keep him.""Well, we can send him home as easy from up thar as we can from hyeh--let him go.""All right!" Chad understood not a whit better than the dog; for Jack leaped to his feet and jumped around the school-master, trying to lick his hands, but the school-master was absorbed and would none of him. There, the mountain-path turned into a wagon-road and the school-master pointed with one finger.
"Do you know what that is, Chad?"
"No, sir." Chad said "sir" to the school-master now.
"Well, that's"--the school-master paused to give his words effect--"that's the old Wilderness Road."Ah, did he not know the old, old Wilderness Road! The boy gripped his rifle unconsciously, as though there might yet be a savage lying in ambush in some covert of rhododendron close by. And, as they trudged ahead, side by side now, for it was growing late, the school-master told him, as often before, the story of that road and the pioneers who had trod it--the hunters, adventurers, emigrants, fine ladies and fine gentlemen who had stained it with their blood; and how that road had broadened into the mighty way for a great civilization from sea to sea. The lad could see it all, as he listened, wishing that he had lived in those stirring days, never dreaming in how little was he of different mould from the stout-hearted pioneers who beat out the path with their moccasined feet; how little less full of danger were his own days to be; how little different had been his own life, and was his our pose now--how little different after all was the bourn to which his own restless feet were bearing him.
Chad had changed a good deal since that night after Jack's trial, when the kind-hearted old Major had turned up at Joel's cabin to take him back to the Bluegrass. He was taller, broader at shoulder, deeper of chest; his mouth and eyes were prematurely grave from much brooding and looked a little defiant, as though the boy expected hostility from the world and was prepared to meet it, but there was no bitterness in them, and luminous about the lad was the old atmosphere of brave, sunny cheer and ****** self-trust that won people to him.
The Major and old Joel had talked late that night after Jack's trial. The Major had come down to find out who Chad was, if possible, and to take him back home, no matter who he might be. The old hunter looked long into the fire.
