THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE

She sat at the base of the big tree--her little sunbonnet pushed back,
her arms locked about her knees, her bare feet gathered under her
crimson gown and her deep eyes fixed on the smoke in the valley below.
Her breath was still coming fast between her parted lips. There were
tiny drops along the roots of her shining hair, for the climb had been
steep, and now the shadow of disappointment darkened her eyes. The
mountains ran in limitless blue waves towards the mounting sun--but at
birth her eyes had opened on them as on the white mists trailing up the
steeps below her. Beyond them was a gap in the next mountain chain and
down in the little valley, just visible through it, were trailing blue
mists as well, and she knew that they were smoke. Where was the great
glare of yellow light that the "circuit rider" had told about--and
the leaping tongues of fire? Where was the shrieking monster that ran
without horses like the wind and tossed back rolling black plumes all
streaked with fire? For many days now she had heard stories of the
"furriners" who had come into those hills and were doing strange things
down there, and so at last she had climbed up through the dewy morning
from the cove on the other side to see the wonders for herself. She had
never been up there before. She had no business there now, and, if she
were found out when she got back, she would get a scolding and maybe
something worse from her step-mother--and all that trouble and risk
for nothing but smoke. So, she lay back and rested--her little mouth
tightening fiercely. It was a big world, though, that was spread before
her and a vague awe of it seized her straightway and held her motionless
and dreaming. Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills, beyond the
blue smoke drifting in the valley, those limitless blue waves must run
under the sun on and on to the end of the world! Her dead sister had
gone into that far silence and had brought back wonderful stories of
that outer world: and she began to wonder more than ever before whether
she would ever go into it and see for herself what was there. With the
thought, she rose slowly to her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that
dropped sheer ten feet aside from the trail, and stood there like a
great scarlet flower in still air. There was the way at her feet--that
path that coiled under the cliff and ran down loop by loop through
majestic oak and poplar and masses of rhododendron. She drew a long
breath and stirred uneasily--she'd better go home now--but the path had
a snake-like charm for her and still she stood, following it as far down
as she could with her eyes. Down it went, writhing this way and that
to a spur that had been swept bare by forest fires. Along this spur it
travelled straight for a while and, as her eyes eagerly followed it
to where it sank sharply into a covert of maples, the little creature
dropped of a sudden to the ground and, like something wild, lay flat.