Chapter I

“Good morning,” said the young fellow, lifting his cap.

“Good morning,” said the girl.

It was the third time they had met; they had never before spoken. The young fellow buttoned his tweed jacket to the throat, glanced over the wooden railing of the foot-bridge, and then looked up at the sky. The sky was pale blue, fleckless and untroubled save for a shred of filmy vapour floating all alone in the zenith;—that was all, except the gilt incandescent disc of the sun;—all, except a speck, high in the scintillating vault, that circled slowly, slowly southwards, and vanished in mid-air.

The speck was a buzzard.

The young fellow turned from the glimmering water and looked diffidently at the girl. She bent her grey eyes upon the stream.

“Would you mind telling me whether there are trout in this river?” he asked, moving a step toward her.

She raised her head instantly, smiling.

“Gay Brook was a famous trout stream—once,” she answered.

“Then I suppose there are a few still left in it,” he asked, also smiling.

“But,” continued the girl, “that was very, very long ago.” She was looking again at the water, pensively.

“How long ago?” he persisted, drawing a little nearer.

“About seventy-five years ago,” she replied without raising her head; “Buck Gordon says so. Do you know Buck Gordon? His boys are the telegraph agents at the station above. I don’t know the Gordon boys; I have spoken twice with old man Gordon. I do not suppose,” she continued reflectively, “that there has been a trout in Gay Brook for fifty years. Do you know why?”

“No,” he said, “but I should be glad to know.”

He had drawn a little nearer and now leaned on the wooden railing of the bridge, his back to the water, his hands in his pockets. A leather rod-case was slung over one shoulder. The southern sun crisped the edges of his short hair and shorter moustache.

“The reason,” said the girl, gazing dreamily into the stream again,—“the reason is because they cut off so much timber in the mountain notch yonder that now the freshets come every spring, and for weeks the water is nothing but yellow mud. Trout can’t live in mud,—can they?”

After a silence he said: “And so there are no more trout.” She shook her head. The sun burnished her dark hair and tinged the delicate contour of cheek and throat with a warmer flush. Her white cambric sun-bonnet swung from her waist by both strings. Presently she put it on and turned toward him, holding the tips of the strings between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand. Her right hand lay indolently along the grey railing of the bridge. It was dimpled and tanned to a creamy tint.

“I have seen you three times here at the bridge,” she observed.

“And I have seen you,” he said; “I wish I had spoken before.”

She tore a tiny splinter from the sun-bleached railing and dropped it into the water. It danced away through the trembling sunbeams.

“I wondered why you came to fish in Gay Brook,” she went on; “I might have told you that there are nothing but minnows here;—I nearly did tell you—”

“I wish I had asked the first time we—I saw you,” he said; “it would have saved me no end of disappointment. Why did you not tell me?”

“Because—you didn’t ask me. I might have told you anyway if I had not seen that you were from the North.”

“You dislike Northern people?”

“I? Oh, no,—I don’t know any.”

“But you say that if—”

“I mean that I do not understand Northern strangers.”

The young fellow looked at her curiously.

“Why, I thought you also were from the North,” he said; “you do not speak with a Southern accent—”

“I am from Maryland, but I have lived here in North Carolina nearly all of my life. The reason that I do not speak with a Southern accent is because my uncle is from the North and I have lived alone with him,—ever since I can remember.”

“Here?”

“Yes. I am very glad you spoke to me. When do you go away to the North again?”

The young fellow touched his short moustache and gave her a sharp glance. His sunburned cheeks were tinged with a faint colour.

“I am very glad too,” he said; “I find it a bit lonely at the hotel.”

“The hotel,” she repeated; “there are two hundred people there.”

“And I am lonely,” he said again.

“You can’t be,—how can you be?” she persisted, raising her grey eyes to his.

“Because,” he replied; “I haven’t anything in common with any of them,—except Tom O’Hara.”

“I don’t understand,” she insisted. “It seems to me that if I had the happiness of being with a great many people I should have all in the world that I long for. I have nobody,—except my uncle.”

“You have your friends,” he said.

“No, nobody except my uncle. I do not count Zeke, and the boys.”

“Zeke?”

“Zeke Chace.”

“Oh,” he said; “I’ve heard of him. He runs the blockade, doesn’t he?”

“Does he?” she asked demurely.

He laughed and rested his head on his wrist, looking into her face. Her face was half hidden in the shadow of her sun-bonnet, so she met his gaze placidly.

“Doesn’t Zeke Chace run the blockade?” he repeated.

“What blockade?” she asked. Her grey eyes were very round and innocent.

“Have you never heard of blockade whisky?” he insisted.

She had to laugh.

“I might have heard something about it,” she admitted.

His pleasant serious face questioned hers and her lips parted in the merriest laugh again.

“How silly!” she cried; “everybody has heard of blockade whisky.”

“Oh,” he said, “I have often asked, but the people around here won’t talk about it!”

“Perhaps they take you for a Revenue Officer,” she ventured gravely.

“Very probably,” he answered.

At this she laughed outright. It occurred to him that she was making fun of him and he glanced at her again sharply.

“How do you know that I am not a Revenue Officer?” he asked.

Her laughing eyes met his.

“Can you tell a coon from a possum?” she asked in return.

“I? Of course.”

“So can I,” she said, trying hard to look serious. After a moment they both laughed outright.

“You have teased me unmercifully,” he said; “don’t you think you ought to tell me where I can catch a trout or two?”

“Then I will,” she answered impulsively, moving a step nearer; “but Zeke won’t like it. There are trout in the Buzzard Run.”

“The Buzzard Run?”

“It’s yonder, behind Mist Mountain. Zeke won’t like it,” she repeated.

“Why? Does Zeke fish too?”

“Zeke? Hm! Not exactly. Never mind,—I shall tell Zeke about you and nobody will bother you. But you must be a little careful; there are snakes on Mist Mountain.”

“Not dangerous snakes,—are there?”

“I don’t know what kind you are used to,” she said; “there are rattlers in the rocks on Mist Mountain.”

After a pause he asked her if there were many rattlesnakes there.

“Sometimes one sees two or three, sometimes none at all,” she answered. “They give you warning; they run if you let them. It might be better if you kept to the path. There is a path all the way.”

“Then I’ll stick to it,” he said lightly; “I suppose it’s too late to go to-day.” He looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows. “Why, it’s twelve o’clock!” he exclaimed.

She refused to believe it and bent her dainty head over his shoulder to see.

“Dear me!” she cried, “uncle will question me!”

They stood looking at each other with new-born awkwardness. She took one short step backward.

“Are you going?” he asked, scarcely conscious of what he said.

“Why, yes,—I must.”

He leaned over the bridge railing and looked at the crinkling ripples. After a while she also bent over, resting her elbows on the railing. A brilliant green beetle ran across the bleached board, halted, spread its burnished wings, and buzzed away across the stream. A small fluffy honey-wasp alighted between her elbows and crept quickly into a hole in the splintering plank.

“Yes,” she repeated, “I must go.”

He raised his head and looked her frankly in the eyes:

“I should like to see you again,” he said.

“Really? Oh, I suppose I shall pass the bridge again before you go.”

“How do you know? Suppose I should go to-morrow?”

“You said you were going fishing to-morrow,—didn’t you?”

“Why no,—I didn’t say so,” he said eagerly; “I would rather talk with you.”

“Why don’t you go fishing?”

“I would rather talk to you,” he repeated.

“What shall we talk about—blockade whisky?”

They both laughed. He had moved up beside her again.

“I want to see you again,” she said, “I think you can see that I do. I could come to the bridge to-morrow. I would rather the people at the hotel did not know. My uncle has forbidden me to speak to anybody except Zeke and the boys. When I was a child I did not feel very lonely; now I have the greatest longing to know people—girls of my own age. I dare not.”

“Have you no girl friend at all?”

“No. I should like to know older women too. At night in bed I often cry and cry—there!—I should not tell you such things—”

“Tell me,” he said soberly.

But she only smiled and shook her head saying; “It is lonely at Yo Espero.”

He looked into her grey eyes; they troubled him.

“I dare not wait any longer,” she said,—“good-bye,—will you come to-morrow?”

“Here? Yes. Shall I come early?”

“Oh, yes.”

“At seven?”

“Yes.”

He offered her his hand but she did not take it.

“Wait,” she said, “I do not know your name,—no,—don’t tell me now,—let me think a little of what I have done. If I come to-morrow—then you may tell me.”

He watched her hurry away up the woodland path that leads to Yo Espero. When she was gone he stood still, idly tearing dried splinters from the bridge railing.