"Gee! But you're a sociable old wild-cat!" he exclaimed, starting back as if she had struck him a blow.

His eye caught the dried skin of a young wildcat hanging on the log wall.

"No wonder you skinned your neighbor and hung her up to dry," he added moodily.

He took in the room with deliberate insolence while the old woman stood awkwardly watching him, shifting her position uneasily from one foot to the other.

In all his miserable life in New York he could not recall a room more bare of comforts. The rough logs were chinked with pieces of wood and daubed with red clay. The door was made of rough boards, the ceiling of hewn logs with split slabs laid across them. An old-fashioned, tall spinning wheel, dirty and unused, sat in the corner. A rough pine table was in the middle of the floor and a smaller one against the wall.

On this side table sat two rusty flat-irons, and against it leaned an ironing board. A dirty piece of turkey-red calico hung on a string for a portiere at the opening which evidently led into a sort of kitchen somewhere in the darkness beyond.

The walls were decorated at intervals. A huge bunch of onions hung on a wooden peg beside the wild-cat skin. Over the window was slung an old-fashioned muzzle-loading musket. The sling which held it was made of a pair of ancient home-made suspenders fastened to the logs with nails.

Beneath the gun hung a cow's horn, cut and finished for powder, and with it a dirty game-bag. Strings of red peppers were strung along each of the walls, with here and there bunches of popcorn in the ears. A pile of black walnuts lay in one corner of the cabin and a pile of hickory nuts in another.

A three-legged wooden stool and a split-bottom chair stood beside the table, and a haircloth couch, which looked as if it had been saved from the Ark, was pushed near the wall beside the door.

Across this couch was thrown a ragged patchwork quilt, and a pillow covered with calico rested on one end, with the mark of a head dented deep in the center.

Jim shrugged his shoulders with a look of disgust, stepped quickly to the door and called:

"Come on in, Kid!"

Nance fumbled her thin hands nervously and spoke with the faintest suggestion of a sob in her voice.

"I ain't got nothin' for ye to eat----"

"We've had dinner," he answered carelessly.

He stepped to the door and called:

"Bring that little bag from under the seat, Kiddo."

He held the door open, and the light streamed across the yard to the car. He watched her steadily while she raised the cushion of the rear seat, lifted the bag and sprang from the car. His keen eye never left her for an instant until she placed it in his hands.

"Mercy, but it's heavy!" she panted, as she gave it to him.

He took it without a word and placed it on the table in the center of the room.

Nance glared at him sullenly.

"There's no place for ye, I tell ye----"

Jim faced her with mock politeness.

"For them kind words--thanks!"

He bowed low and swept the room with a mocking gesture.

"There ain't no room for ye," the old woman persisted.

Jim raised his voice to a squeaking falsetto with deliberate purpose to torment her.

"I got ye the first time, darlin'!" he exclaimed, lifting his hands above her as if to hold her down. "We must linger awhile for your name--anyhow, we mustn't forget that. This is Mrs. Nance Owens?"

The old woman started and watched him from beneath her heavy eyebrows, answering with sullen emphasis:

"Yes."

Again Jim lifted his hands above his head and waved her to earth.

"Well! Don't blame me! I can't help it, you know----"

He turned to his wife and spoke with jolly good humor.

"It's the place, all right. Set down, Kiddo--take off your hat and things. Make yourself at home."

Nance flew at him in a sudden frenzy at his assumption of insolent ownership of her cabin.

"There's no place for ye to sleep!" she fairly shrieked in his face.

Again Jim's arms were over her head, waving her down.

"All right, sweetheart! We're from New York. We don't sleep. We've come all the way down here to the mountains of North Carolina just to see you. And we're goin' to sit up all night and look at ye----"

He sat down deliberately, and Nance fumbled her hands with a nervous movement.

Mary's heart went out in sympathy to the forlorn old creature in her embarrassment. Her dress was dirty and ragged, an ill-fitting gingham, the elbows out and her bare, bony arms showing through. The waist was too short and always slipping from the belt of wrinkled cloth beneath which she kept trying to stuff it.

Mary caught her restless eye at last and held it in a friendly look.

"Please let us stay!" she pleaded. "We can sleep on the floor--anywhere."

"You bet!" Jim joined in. "Married two weeks--and I don't care whether it rains or whether it pours or how long I have to stand outdoors--if I can be with you, Kid."

The old woman hesitated until Mary's smile melted its way into her heart.

Her lips trembled, and her watery blue eyes blinked.

"Well," she began grumblingly, "thar's a little single bed in that shed-room thar for you--ef he'll sleep in here on the sofy."

Jim leaped to his feet.

"What do ye think of that? Bully for the old gal! Kinder slow at first.

As the poet sings of the little bed-bug, she ain't got no wings--but she gets there just the same!"

He drew the electric torch from his pocket and advanced on Nance.

"By Golly--I'll have another look at you."

Nance backed in terror at the sight of the revolver-like instrument.