away thar
time visitin' me an' makin' tallow-dips skeerce." The sudden gleam
of mirth on her face was like an illuminating burst of sunshine, and
somehow it cast an irradiation into the heart of the fugitive, for,
after she was gone out of sight, he pondered upon it.

But the early dusk fell from a lowering sky, and the night came on
beclouded and dark. Some turbulent spirit was loosed in the air, and the
wind was wild. Great, surging masses of purple vapor came in a mad rout
from the dank west and gathered above the massive and looming mountains.
The woods bent and tossed and clashed their boughs in the riot, of
gusts, the sere leaves were flying in clouds, and presently rain began
to fall. The steady downpour increased in volume to torrents; then the
broad, pervasive flashes of lightning showed, in lieu of myriad lines,
an unbroken veil of steely gray swinging from the zenith, the white foam
rebounding as the masses of water struck the earth. The camp equipage,
tents and wagons succumbed beneath the fury of the tempest, and, indeed,
the hunters had much ado to saddle their horses and grope their way
along the bridle-path that led to old Kettison's house.

The rude comfort of the interior had a heightened emphasis by reason
of the elemental turmoils without. True, the rain beat in a deafening
fusillade upon the roof, and the ostentation of the one glass window, a
source of special pride to its owner, was at a temporary disadvantage in
admitting the fierce and ghastly electric glare, so recurrent as to seem
unintermittent. But the more genial illumination of hickory flames, red
and yellow, was streaming from the great chimney-place, and before
the broad hearth the guests were ensconced, their outstretched boots
steaming in the heat. Strings of scarlet peppers, bunches of dried
herbs, gourds of varied quaint shapes, hung swaying from the rafters.
The old man's gay, senile chirp of welcome was echoed by his wife,
a type of comely rustic age, who made much of the fact that, though
housebound from "rheumatics," she had reared her dead daughter's "two
orphin famblies," the said daughter having married twice, neither man
"bein' of a lastin' quality," as she seriously phrased it. Meddy, "the
eldest fambly," had been guide, philosopher, and friend to the swarm
of youngsters, and even now, in the interests of peace and space and
hearing, was seeking to herd them into an adjoining room, when a sudden
stentorian hail from withou