one
called out from the road--

"Hello, Poteet!"

"Ah-yi!"

"You hearn the racket?"

"My gal-baby keeps up sich a hollerin' I can't hear my own years."

"_Oh!_"

"You better b'lieve! Nine hours ole, an' mighty peart. What's them
Restercrats in the valley cuttin' up the'r scollops fer?"

"Whoopin' up se_say_sion. Sou' Ca'liny done plum gone out, an' Georgy
a-gwine."

Teague Poteet blew a long, thin cloud of home-made tobacco-smoke
heavenward, leaned back heavily in his chair, and replied--

"Them air Restercrats kin go wher' they dang please; I'm a-gwine to
stay right slambang in the United States."

There was a little pause, as if the man on horseback was considering
the matter. Then the response came--

"Here's at you!"

"Can't you 'light?" asked Poteet.

"Not now," said the other; "I'll git on furder."

The man on horseback rode on across the mountain to his home. Another
mountaineer, seeing the rockets and hearing the sound of the cannon,
came down to Poteet's for information. He leaned over the brush-fence.

"What's up, Teague?"

"Gal-baby; reg'lar surbinder."
"_Shoo!_ won't my ole 'oman holler! What's up down yan?"

"Them dad-blasted Restercrats a secedin' out'n the United States."

"They say theyer airter savin' of the'r niggers," said the man at the
fence.

"Well, I hain't got none, and I hain't a wantin' none; an' it hain't
been ten minnits sence I ups an' says to Dave Hightower, s' I, 'The
United States is big enough for me.'"

"Now you er makin' the bark fly," said the man at the fence.

During the night other men came down the mountain as far as Poteet's,
and always with the same result.

The night broadened into day, and other days and nights followed. In
the valley the people had their problem of war, and on the mountain
Teague Poteet had the puzzle of his daughter. One was full of doubt and
terror, and death, and the other full of the pleasures of peace. As the
tide of war surged nearer and nearer, and the demand for recruits
became clamorous, the people of the valley bethought them of the gaunt
but sturdy men who lived on the mountain. A conscript officer,
representing the necessities of a new government, made a journey
thither--a little excursion full of authority and consequence. As he
failed to return, another officer, similarly equipped and commissioned,
rode forth and disappeared, and then another and another; and it was
not until a little search expedition had been fi