d wheedled, and threatened, and
Puss cried and quarrelled; but Sis was obdurate. She shut herself in
her room and remained there. Woodward was thoroughly miserable. He felt
that he was an interloper in some measure, and yet he was convinced
that he was the victim of a combination of circumstances for which he
was in nowise responsible. He had never made any special study of the
female mind, because, like most young men of sanguine temperament, he
was convinced that he thoroughly understood it; but he had not the
remotest conception of the tragic element which, in spite of social
training or the lack of it, controls and gives strength and potency to
feminine emotions. Knowing nothing of this, Woodward knew nothing of
women.

The next morning he was stirring early, but he saw nothing of Sis. He
saw nothing of her during the morning, and at last, in the bitterness
of his disappointment, he saddled his horse, and made preparations to
go down the mountain.

"I reckon it hain't no use to ast you to make out your visit," said
Teague gloomily. "That's what I says to Puss. I'm a free nigger ef Sis
don't beat my time. You'll be erbleege to stop in Gullettsville
to-night, an' in case er accidents you thes better tie this on your
coat."

The old mountaineer produced a small piece of red woollen string, and
looped it in Woodward's button-hole.

"Ef any er the boys run up wi' you an' begin to git limber-jawed,"
league continued, "thes hang your thum' in that kinder keerless like,
an' they'll sw'ar by you thereekly. Ef any of 'em asts the news, thes
say they's a leak in Sugar Creek. Well, well, well!" he exclaimed,
after a little pause; "hit's thes like I tell you. Wimmin folks is
mighty kuse."

When Woodward bade Puss good-bye, she looked at him sympathetically and
said--

"Sometime when youer passin' by, I'd be mighty thankful ef you 'ud
fetch me some maccaboy snuff."

The young man, unhappy as he was, was almost ready to accuse Mrs.
Poteet of humour, and he rode off with a sort of grim desire to laugh
at himself and the rest of the world. The repose of the mountain
fretted him; the vague blue mists that seemed to lift the valleys into
prominence and carry the hills further away, tantalised him; and the
spirit of spring, just touching the great woods with a faint suggestion
of green, was a mockery. There was a purpose--a decisiveness--in the
stride of his horse that he envied, and yet he was inclined to resent
the swift a