traced through Virginia, was closely linked by blood and speech
with the common people of England, and, moulded perhaps by the
influences of feudalism, was still strikingly unchanged; that now it
was the most distinctively national remnant on American soil, and
symbolized the development of the continent, and that with it must
go the last suggestions of the pioneers, with their hardy physiques,
their speech, their manners and customs, their simple architecture
and simple mode of life. It was soon plain to him, too, that a
change was being wrought at last-the change of destruction. The
older mountaineers, whose bewildered eyes watched the noisy
signs of an unintelligible civilization, were passing away. Of the
rest, some, sullen and restless, were selling their homesteads and
following the spirit of their forefathers into a new wilderness;
others, leaving their small farms in adjacent valleys to go to ruin,
were gaping idly about the public works, caught up only too easily
by the vicious current of the incoming tide. In a century the
mountaineers must be swept away, and their ignorance of the
tragic forces at work among them gave them an unconscious
pathos that touched Clayton deeply.

As he grew to know them, their historical importance yielded to a
genuine interest in the people themselves. They were densely
ignorant, to be sure; but they were natural, simple, and hospitable. Their sense of personal worth was high, and their democracy-or aristocracy, since there was no distinction of caste-absolute. For generations, son had lived like father in an isolation hardly credible. No influence save such as shook the nation ever reached them. The Mexican war, slavery, and national politics of the first half-century were still present issues, and each old man would give his rigid, individual opinion sometimes with surprising humor and force. He went much among them, and the rugged old couples whom he found in the cabin porches-so much alike at first-quickly became distinct with a quaint individuality. Among young or old, however, he had found nothing like the half-wild young creature he had met on the mountain that day. In her a type had crossed his path-had driven him from it, in truth-that seemed unique and inexplicable. He had been little more than amused at first, but a keen interest had been growing in him with every thought of her. There was an indefinable charm about the girl. She gave a new and sudden zest to his interest in mountain life; and while he worked, the incidents of the encounter on the mountain came minutely back to him till he saw her again as she rode away, her supple figure swaying with every movement of the beast, and dappled with quivering circles of sunlight from the bushes, her face calm, but still flushed with color, and her yellow hair shaking about her shoulders-not lustreless and flaxen, as hair was in the mountains, he remembered, but catching the sunlight like gold.

Almost unconsciously he laid aside his pencil and leaned from his
window to lift his eyes to the dark mountain he had climbed that
day. The rude melody of an old-fashioned hymn was coming up
the glen, and he recognized the thin, quavering voice of an old
mountaineer, Uncle Tommy Brooks, as he was familiarly known,
whose cabin stood in the midst of the camp, a pathetic contrast to