During this journey I became acquainted with some features of mountain life which I might never have known otherwise. My best friends in the mountains in the neighbourhood of my own home had always been a little shy of discussing moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but here I earned a dividend upon my misfortunes, being more than once taken for a revenue spy; and in the apologetic amenities of those who had misjudged me, which followed my explanations and proofs of innocence, I have been shown in a spirit of atonement, illicit still and "hideout." I have heard old Jephthah Turrentine make his protest against the government's attitude toward the mountain man and his "blockaded still." I have foregathered with the revenuers in the settlements at the foot of the circling purple ranges, and been shown the specially made axes and hooks they carry with them for breaking up and destroying the simple appurtenances of the illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch Turrentine's still must have cost him three hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain man, a thrifty fellow like Blatch, should have lingered, even in great danger, over the project of carrying it with him. These dwellers in the southern mountain region, the purest American strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of the life and manners I have sought to represent in _Judith of the Cumberlands_ would be the better worth while. A. Mac G. Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. Spring 1 II. At "The Edge" 20 III. Suitors 47 IV. Building 64 V. The Red Rose and the Briar 83 VI. The Play-Party 99 VII. Kisses 112 VIII. On the Doorstone 124 IX. Foeman's Bluff 135 X. A Spy 152 XI. The Warning 161 XII. In the Lion's Den 181 XIII. In the Night 199 XIV. The Raid 207 XV. Council of War 221 XVI. A Message 235 XVII. The Old Cherokee Trail 244 XVIII. Bitter Parting 261 XIX. Cast Out 273 XX. A Conversion 282 XXI. The Baptising 302 XXII. Ebb-Tide 315 XXIII. The Dumb Supper 326 XXIV. A Case of Walking Typhoid 340 XXV. A Perilous Passage 360 XXVI. His Own Trap 371 XXVII. Love's Guerdon 382 XXVIII. A Prophecy 393 Judith of the Cumberlands Chapter I Spring