``You ricollect, dad,'' says Jim, ``her
mammy?''
``Yes, Jim,'' I says; ``all the better
reason not to be too hard on Rosie.''
I'm a-lookin' fer 'em both back right
now, stranger; an' ef you will, I'll be
mighty glad to have ye stay right hyeh
to the infair this very night. Thar nuver
was a word agin Rosie afore, thar hain't
been sence, an' you kin ride up an' down
this river till the crack o' doom an' you'll
nuver hear a word agin her ag'in. Fer,
as I tol' you, my boy, Jim is the shoot-
in'es' feller on this crick, I reckon, 'cept
ONE, an', stranger, that's ME!
THE SENATOR'S LAST TRADE
A drove of lean cattle were swinging
easily over Black Mountain, and
behind them came a big man with
wild black hair and a bushy beard.
Now and then he would gnaw at his
mustache with his long, yellow teeth,
or would sit down to let his lean horse
rest, and would flip meaninglessly at
the bushes with a switch. Sometimes
his bushy head would droop over on
his breast, and he would snap it up
sharply and start painfully on. Robber,
cattle-thief, outlaw he might have
been in another century; for he filled
the figure of any robber hero in life
or romance, and yet he was only the
Senator from Bell, as he was known
in the little Kentucky capital; or, as
he was known in his mountain home,
just the Senator, who had toiled and
schemed and grown rich and grown poor;
who had suffered long and was kind.
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