"But--"

"You said you'd do anything."

"Let's go, Jeff."

With an ease born of long experience, Jeff slipped into the pack.

Knowing that they were going out, Pal leaped to his feet and a doggy grin framed his jaws. Jeff closed the door but did not lock it. The cabin had been rifled only because it was thought abandoned. Known to be occupied, it was safe. The hill men might use force to get what they wanted, or even kill another man for it, but petty pilfering was beneath them.

The sun was warm without being too warm, and a breeze fanned the cheeks of the pair of peddlers. The smile was complete on Jeff's face, and laughter was in his heart. The horizon stretched limitlessly, with no end or definition, and good fortune was a certainty. He couldn't be other than happy.

"Where we going, Jeff?" Dan asked.

"I don't know. Let's follow our noses and go where they lead."

Jeff took the first mule and footpath that branched from the road, for he was sure that most of the people he wanted to see would be back in.

Most hill people preferred plenty of room and they did not, as one hillbilly had expressed it to Jeff, like to be "All cluttered up with people. Ska.s.sly a week pa.s.ses but what three, four go by."

Ranging ahead, Pal flushed a buck from its thicket, chased it a little way, and let it go. He returned to Jeff and Dan, lingered to sniff at some interesting rabbit tracks, and ran to catch up. There came a faint smell of wood smoke.

Jeff sniffed eagerly, trying to determine the smoke's origin, and he thought with some amus.e.m.e.nt that he was doing exactly as he had told Dan they would do. In a very real sense he was following his nose, and when he came to a less-traveled path that swung from the one they were following, he took it.

Pal at his heels, Dan bringing up the rear, he walked fast. In three minutes they came to a clearing. Apparently without plan, it had been hacked out of the forest. It was irregularly-shaped, probably to follow the easiest cutting, and a few large trees had been allowed to stand in it. There were many stumps, a small garden, a mule that hung its head over the topmost of two strands of rusting wire and looked cynical, and four half-wild pigs that squealed and scuttled into the brush. The barn, that had listed badly and seemed in immediate danger of falling, was propped up with saplings. The house, made of hand-hewn timbers, was very small and very old. Rains, snow, sun and wind had so beaten it that it had achieved a unique color all its own and somehow it looked sad.

Jeff knocked confidently and waited. The door opened an inch, then another inch, and in the gloomy interior Jeff saw, not too well, a scowling face that was framed in a veritable haystack of black hair and beard. But he saw very clearly the sinister snout of a rifle that was aimed squarely at his middle and he heard very clearly a growled,

"Git goin' an' start now!"

"Right away," Jeff agreed.

He whirled and started back to the main path. Too over-awed to speak, Dan trotted at his heels and he dared say nothing until they were once more where they had started from. Then,

"Gee!" he breathed. "Weren't you scared?"

"No," Jeff answered wryly, "my heart always pounds."

"Do you think he didn't want us around?"

"I had a slight suspicion."

"What do we do now?"

"Find somebody else," Jeff said cheerfully. "It's part of peddling."

The day was too fine, and too sparkling, to be ruined by any surly mountaineer. They walked on, feet winged and hearts gay. Jeff thought whimsically that the money he made selling or trading was the very smallest part of the reward he received. By far the major portion lay in walks just like this, in the fact that he loved the work he was doing, and in trying to antic.i.p.ate what lay ahead. He always tried to build up a mental picture of his next customer, always failed to do so, and invariably had to discard his carefully-rehea.r.s.ed approach to create a new one on the spur of the moment. Much of the time he knew the sort of house in which his next prospect would live, but nothing in his experience had prepared him for the house they found not a mile from the one they had left.

Rounding a bend, they saw a little hill. There was nothing majestic or imposing about it, for it was a very small hill. But it was a very beautiful one. It was as though the Creator of the mountains, after much deliberation, had decided that the little hill would fit nowhere except exactly where it was.

All the trees save one had been stripped from the side, Jeff and Dan could see, and the gra.s.s growing there was so green and soft that it was almost unreal. The one tree gave it just the right touch, so it was as though this hill were something out of fairyland. A little herd of sheep cropped the gra.s.s. Delighted, Jeff let his gaze stray upward.

"Gee but it's pretty!" Dan breathed.

"It is that," Jeff agreed. "Look at the house."

There were trees on the very top of the hill. Silhouetted against the blue sky, they seemed to be outlined against a gentle sea. A log house nestled in the grove. Something--at first Jeff thought it must be the whitewash that outlined all the windows and then he knew it was not--set the house apart. Like the hill, it was a fairyland house and Jeff knew that they must visit there.

The hill rose in undulating waves, with no harsh angles or uncouth lines to mar it. But it was not a park-like perfection. Some person, or persons, must have expended enormous labor to make the hill look as it did. But every line, every patch of gra.s.s, seemed to belong naturally just where it was.

Jeff could decide only that this was a happy hill and that whoever lived in the house was either the owner of a rare talent or blessed beyond belief by the angels. Or perhaps some of both.

They came to the house and marveled. It was made of logs and c.h.i.n.ked with clay, but nothing haphazard had gone into its making. Even the c.h.i.n.king was not just slapped on and troweled in, but flowed in graceful lines as though it had always been part of the logs. As old as the cabin they had left, the house had a sheen instead of a sad and aged appearance. Whoever lived here must love it greatly.

"Howdy, boys."

The woman came around the house so silently and so unexpectedly that for a moment Jeff was startled. The top of her head reached scarcely to his shoulder. Her silver hair glowed like a halo, but there was something which was far from angelic in the remarkable eyes that dominated her unusual face. She wore a simple blue dress. Highlighted in silver, an exquisitely-st.i.tched blue-bird in flight adorned the front of it. Her movements were quick and graceful. But there was no suggestion of frailty, and the muzzle loading rifle that swung easily from her right hand might have been a strong man's weapon.

Without any hesitation, Pal went forward to receive her caress. In a sudden rush of feeling, Jeff forgot his amazement and felt entirely at home. He knew all at once that everything and everybody was welcome on this hill.

"And howdy to you, Granny!" he said graciously. "I'm--" Jeff thought of introducing himself as Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., but did not. "I'm Jeff Tarrant and this is Dan Blazer."

Her head flitted like a bird's. "And I'm Granny Wilson."

"Wilson?" Jeff remembered. "I met an Ike Wilson in Cressman."

"Did you now? Ike's one of my boys. What was he doin'?"

"He was--" Jeff fumbled. "Darned if I haven't forgotten!"

Her laugh was like rippling water. "He was in jail for stealin'

chickens. You can say it, Jeff. It takes all kinds to make a family. My Tommy's a doctor, my Joel's a lawyer, my Billy's a sailor--" She named four more sons, all of whom were in some useful occupation, and finished, "They all followed their natural bent and Ike just naturally took to chicken stealin'." She turned to Dan. "You kin to Johnny Blazer?"

Dan said bashfully, "He was my pop."

"Come in," she invited. "Come in and set down to gingerbread and milk. I vow I've missed Johnny and I'm glad to have his kin! You come, too, Jeff, and fetch your dog!"

Jeff looked at the rifle. "Have you been hunting?"

"Land no!" She laughed. "I was shootin' at Brant Severance!"

"You--!"

"Didn't hit him," she said. "Didn't aim to hit him. Just wanted to show him he couldn't pester my sheep."

"But--isn't there--"

She antic.i.p.ated and forestalled his question. "Nope, I'm all alone. My boys, they want me to come with them. Land! I'd grow old and shrively in a city! Two houses are one too many! Do come in."

Granny opened the door that was made of carefully-mortised, hand-polished boards and adorned with an excellent wood carving that depicted a running buck chased by wolves. Jeff and Dan breathed their delight.

Except for the stove, the pots and pans that hung behind it, the lamps, and a few other articles that would be very difficult to fashion with hand tools, every bit of furniture had been made of whatever materials were available. But whoever made it had not been contented with something merely useful. Strict utility had received consideration, but beauty was in vast abundance.