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Hale opened his eyes next morning on the little old woman in
black, moving ghost-like through the dim interior to the kitchen.
A wood-thrush was singing when he stepped out on the porch and its
cool notes had the liquid freshness of the morning. Breakfast
over, he concluded to leave the yellow mule with the Red Fox to be
taken back to the county town, and to walk down the mountain, but
before he got away the landlord's son turned up with his own
horse, still lame, but well enough to limp along without doing
himself harm. So, leading the black horse, Hale started down.

The sun was rising over still seas of white mist and wave after
wave of blue Virginia hills. In the shadows below, it smote the
mists into tatters; leaf and bush glittered as though after a
heavy rain, and down Hale went under a trembling dew-drenched
world and along a tumbling series of water-falls that flashed
through tall ferns, blossoming laurel and shining leaves of
rhododendron. Once he heard something move below him and then the
crackling of brush sounded far to one side of the road. He knew it
was a man who would be watching him from a covert and,
straightway, to prove his innocence of any hostile or secret
purpose, he began to whistle. Farther below, two men with
Winchesters rose from the bushes and asked his name and his
business. He told both readily. Everybody, it seemed, was prepared