"

"Nance Owens?"

"That's her name."

"Lord, everybody knows old Nance!" was the smiling answer.

"She ain't got good sense!" the tow-headed boy spoke up.

"Sh!" the mother warned, boxing his ears.

"She's a little queer, that's all. Everybody knows her in Buncombe and
Yancey counties. Her house is built across the county line. She eats in
Yancey and sleeps in Buncombe----"

"Yes," broke in the boy joyously, "an' when the Sheriff o' Yancey comes,
she moves back into Buncombe. She's some punkin's on a green gourd vine,
she is--if she ain't got good sense."

His mother struck at him again, but he dodged the blow and finished his
speech without losing a word.

"Could you tell us the way to her house?"

"Keep right on this road, and you can't miss it."

"How far is it?"

"Oh, not far."

"No; right at the bottom o' the Cat's-tail," the boy joyfully explained.

"He means the foot o' Cat-tail Peak!" the mother apologized.

"How many miles?"

"Just a little ways--ye can't miss it; the third house you come to on
this road."

"You'll be there in three shakes of a sheep's tail--in that thing!" the
boy declared.

Jim waved his thanks, threw in his gear, and the car shot forward on
the level stretch of road beyond the house. He slowed down when out of
sight.

"Gee! I'd love to have that kid in a wood-shed with a nice shingle all
by ourselves for just ten minutes."

"The people spoil him," Mary laughed. "The people who stop there for the
Mount Mitchell climb. He was a baby when I was there six years ago"--she
paused and a rapt look crept into her eyes--"a beautiful little baby,
her first-born, and she was the happiest thing I ever saw in my life."

Her voice sank to a whisper.

A vision suddenly illumined her own soul, and she forgot her anxiety
over Jim's queer moods.

Deeper and deeper grew the shadows of crag, gorge, and primeval forest.
The speedometer on the foot-board registered five miles from the Mount
Mitchell house. They had passed two cabins by the way, and still no sign
of the third.

"Why couldn't she tell us how many miles, I'd like to know?" Jim
grumbled.

"It's the way of the mountain folk. They're noncommittal on distances."

He stopped the car and lighted the lamps.

"Going to be dark in a minute," he said. "But I like this place," he
added.

He picked his way with care over the narrow road. They crossed the
little stream they were trailing, and the car crawled over the rocks