its disparagement by an intonation rather than by explicit criticism.

"It's queer, you know," he continued, "that, just over there, on top of
that hill, there should be a handful of people who don't give a damn for
anybody."

The words thrilled her. They seemed the clue to her own revolts and
defiances, and she longed to have him tell her more.

"I don't know much about them. Have they always been there?"

"Nobody seems to know exactly how long. Down at Creston they told me
that the first colonists are supposed to have been men who worked on the
railway that was built forty or fifty years ago between Springfield
and Nettleton. Some of them took to drink, or got into trouble with the
police, and went off--disappeared into the woods. A year or two later
there was a report that they were living up on the Mountain. Then I
suppose others joined them--and children were born. Now they say there
are over a hundred people up there. They seem to be quite outside the
jurisdiction of the valleys. No school, no church--and no sheriff ever
goes up to see what they're about. But don't people ever talk of them at
North Dormer?"

"I don't know. They say they're bad."

He laughed. "Do they? We'll go and see, shall we?"

She flushed at the suggestion, and turned her face to his. "You never
heard, I suppose--I come from there. They brought me down when I was
little."