Judith of the Cumberlands

								

espoused the cause of her bodiless rival.
"I--I heard you a-speakin' back there," she said with a little catch in
her breath.
Bonbright's eyes returned from the far distances to which they had
travelled after giving her--Judith Barrier, so worthy of a blue-eyed
youth's respectful attention--a passing glance. She replied to his gaze
with one full of a meaning to him at that time indecipherable;
nevertheless it was an ardent, compelling look which he must needs answer
with some confession of himself.
"You wouldn't understand what I was trying to tell about," he began
gently. "Since I've been living in the valley, where folks get rich and
see a heap of what they call pleasure, I've had many a hard thought about
the lives of our people up yonder in the mountains. I want to go back to
my people with--I want to tell them--"
The girl leaned forward in her saddle, burning eyes fixed on his intent
face, red lips apart.
"Yes--what?" she breathed. "What is it you want to say to the folks back
home? You ort to come and say it. We need it bad."
"Do you think so?" asked Bonbright doubtfully. "Do you reckon they would
listen to me? I don't know. Sometimes I allow maybe I'd better stay here
where the Judge wants me to till I'm an older man and more experienced."
He studied the beautiful, down-bent face greedily now, but it was not the
eye of a man looking at a maid. His thoughts were with the work he hoped
to do. Judith's heart contracted with fear, and then set off beating
heavily. Wait till he was an old man? Would love wait? Somebody else
would claim him--some town girl would find the way to charm him. In sheer
terror she put down her hand and laid it upon his.
"Don't you never think it," she protested. "You're needed right now.
After a while will be too late. Why, I come a-past your old home in the
rain last Wednesday, and I could 'a' cried to see the winders dark, and
the grass all grown up to the front door. You come back whar you
belong--" she had almost said "honey"--"and you'll find there is need
a-plenty for folks like you."
"Well, they all allow that I'll be elected next Thursday," Creed
assented, busying himself over the lengthening of Beck's bridle, that she
might lead the mule the more handily. "And if I am I'll be in the Turkey
Tracks along in April and find me a place to set up an office. If I'm
elected----"
"Elected! An' ef yo'r not?" she cried, filled with scorn of such a paltry
condition. What difference could it make whether or not he were elected?
Wouldn't his hair be just as yellow, his eyes as blue? Would his voice be
any less the call to love?
He smiled at her tolerantly, handing up the lengthened strap.
"Well, I don't just rightly know what I will do, then," he debated.
"But you're a-comin' up to the Turkey Tracks anyhow, to--to see yo'
folks," persisted Judith with a rising triumph in her tone.
"Yes," acquiesced Bonbright, "I'll come up in April anyhow."
And with this assurance the girl rode slowly away, leading Beck, the now