unobtrusively bent his efforts toward convincing his new acquaintances
that, although he was alien to their ways, he was sympathetic and to be
trusted. Once that assurance was given, the family talk went on much as
though he had been absent, and, as he sat with open ears, he learned
the rudiments of the conditions that had brought the kinsmen together
in Samson's defense.

At last, Spicer South's sister, a woman who looked older than himself,
though she was really younger, appeared, smoking a clay pipe, which she
waved toward the kitchen.

"You men kin come in an' eat," she announced; and the mountaineers,
knocking the ashes from their pipes, trailed into the kitchen.

The place was lit by the fire in a cavernous hearth where the cooking
was still going forward with skillet and crane. The food, coarse and
greasy, but not unwholesome, was set on a long table covered with
oilcloth. The roughly clad men sat down with a scraping of chair legs,
and attacked their provender in businesslike silence.

The corners of the room fell into obscurity. Shadows wavered against
the sooty rafters, and, before the meal ended, Samson returned and
dropped without comment into his chair. Afterward, the men trooped
taciturnly out again, and resumed their pipes.

A whippoorwill sent his mournful cry across the tree-tops, and was
answered. Frogs added the booming of their tireless throats. A young
moon slipped across an eastern mountain, and livened the creek into a
soft shimmer wherein long shadows quavered. The more distant line of
mountains showed in a mist of silver, and the nearer heights in blue