owled at each other under a long bunk of poles and hay that
spanned one side of our cabin. The fire glared out upon the middle of an
unfloored and windowless room. Deep shadows clung to the walls and
benches, charitably concealing much dirt and disorder left by previous
occupants, much litter of our own contributing.

At last we were on a saddle of the divide, a mile above sea-level, in a
hut built years ago for temporary lodgment of cattle-men herding on the
grassy "balds" of the Smokies. A sagging clapboard roof covered its two
rooms and the open space between them that we called our "entry." The
State line between North Carolina and Tennessee ran through this
uninclosed hallway. The Carolina room had a puncheon floor and a
clapboard table, also better bunks than its mate; but there had risen a
stiff southerly gale that made the chimney smoke so abominably that we
were forced to take quarters in the neighbor State.

Granville lifted the lid from a big Dutch oven and reported "Bread's
done."

There was a flash in the frying-pan, a curse and a puff from Little
John. The coffee-pot boiled over. We gathered about the hewn benches
that served for tables, and sat _a la Turc_ upon the ground. For some
time there was no sound but the gale without and the munching of
ravenous men.

"If this wind 'll only cease afore mornin', we'll git us a bear
to-morrow."

A powerful gust struck the cabin, by way of answer; a great roaring
surged up from the gulf of Defeat, from Desolation, and from the other
forks of Bone Valley--clamor of ten thousand trees struggling with the
blast.

"Hit's gittin' wusser."

"Any danger of this roost being blown off the mountain?" I inquired.

"Hit's stood hyur twenty year through all the storms; I reckon it can
stand one more night of it."

"A man couldn't walk upright, outside the cabin," I asserted, thinking
of the St. Louis tornado, in which I had lain flat on my belly, clinging
to an iron post.

The hunchback turned to me with a grave face. "I've seed hit blow, here
on top o' Smoky, till a hoss couldn't stand up agin it. You'll spy,
to-morrow, whar several trees has been wind-throwed and busted to
kindlin'."

I recalled that several, in the South, means many--"a good many," as our
own tongues phrase it.

"Oh, shucks! Bill Cope," put in "Doc" Jones, "whut do you-uns know about
windstorms? Now, _I've_ hed some experiencin' up hyur that 'll do to tell
about. You remember the big storm th