The little cabin shrank back against the steep side of the mountain as
though half terrified at the hollow immensity of the welkin above, or
the almost sheer drop to the valley five hundred feet beneath. A sidling
mountain trail passed the front of its rail fence, and stones
continually rolled from the upper to the lower side of this highway.

The day was darkening rapidly. A low line of red still burned behind the
massive bulk of Big Unaka, and the solemn purple mountains raised their
peaks against it in a jagged line. Within die single-roomed cabin the
rich, broken light from the cavernous fireplace filled the smoke-browned
interior full of shadow and shine in which things leaped oddly into
life, or dropped out of knowledge with a startling effect. The four
corners of the log room were utilized, three of them for beds, made by
thrusting two poles through auger holes bored in the logs of the walls,
setting a leg at the corner where these met and lacing the bottom with
hickory withes. The fourth had some rude planks nailed in it for a
table, and a knot-hole in one of the logs served the primitive purpose
of a salt-cellar. A pack of gaunt hounds quarrelled under the floor, and
the sick woman stirred uneasily on her bed and expressed a wish that her
emissaries would return.

Uncle Pros had taken the cradle to a back door to get the last of the
evening sun upon his task. One would not have thought that he could hear
what the women were saying at this distance, but the old hunter's ears
were sharp.

"Never you mind, Laurelly," he called cheerfully. "Wrop the baby up some
fashion, and I'll hike out and get clothes for her, time I mend
this cradle."