E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 26527-h.htm or 26527-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h/26527-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h.zip) JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS by ALICE MACGOWAN Author of "The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage," "The Last Word," "Huldah," "Return," Etc. With Illustrations in Colour by George Wright [Illustration: "The moonlight flickered on the blade in his hand as he reeled backward over the bluff" (page 145).] Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, New York Copyright, 1908 by Alice MacGowan This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London DEDICATION To my mountain friends, dwellers in lonely cabins, on winding horseback trails and steep, precarious roads; or in the tiny settlements that nestle in the high-hung inner valleys; lean brown hunters on remote paths in the green shadowed depths of the free forest, light-stepping, keen-eyed, humorous-lipped, hitting the point as aptly with an instance as with the old squirrel gun they carry; wielders of the axe by many a chip pile, where the swinging blade rests readily to answer query or offer advice; tanned, lithely moving lads following the plough, turning over the shoulder a countenance of dark beauty; grave, shy girls, pail in hand, at the milking-bars in dawn or dusk; young mothers in the doorway, looking out, babe on hip; big-eyed, bare-footed mountain children clinging hand in hand by the roadside, or clustered like startled little partridges in the shelter of the dooryard; knitters in the sun and grandams by the hearth; tellers and treasurers all of tales and legends couched in racy old Elizabethan English; I dedicate this--their book and mine. FOREWORD I have been so frequently asked how I, a woman, came by my intimate acquaintance with life in the more remote districts of the southern Appalachians, particularly in the matter of illicit distilling, that I think it not amiss to here set down a few words as to my sources of knowledge.