Four or five of the children then ran down a chicken, which Phronie killed and fried. She also warmed up a pot of string beans, and made biscuits and coffee, and the visitors sat down to a plentiful supper, occupying the three chairs, while Ben, Phronie's husband, sat on the churn, and the nine children, not greedy and grabbing as most would have been, but always quiet and "civil," stood and ate. The women felt it to be a shame that such well-behaved and apparently bright children should be six miles away from a schoolhouse, and entirely cut off from opportunity. When the guests were ready to start home, Phronie said there was a "nigher" way for them to return by than the one they had taken coming--that the walk might be shortened two miles by going along the ridge-tops. This idea appealed--they knew it could not get very dark, because the full moon would be rising too soon. So Ben took them up the mountain in the rear, and a short way along the ridge, leaving them with the directions: "All you got to do is to keep to the main ridge, whichever way hit winds, and not turn off on no spur; and hit'll fetch you right out over them cloth houses of yourn. And there hain't no varmints to bother you, less'n hit is a few rattlesnakes, which, if you don't step on 'em, won't do you no harm." The sun had long since set, but they went along in the clear evening light, with an exhilarating view of other ridges stretching off on every side. Along the ridge-top was a narrow, hard-rock formation, which had resisted the wear and tear of ages, and which made a good, clear path, and lifted them pretty well above the timber, save where a great yellow poplar thrust its giant head up, here and there. In the narrow valleys below, mist was already gathering. Pale stars came out, and steadily brightened; but the women walked on in the dusk, unafraid. At last, after they had gone on for an hour, Virginia exclaimed: "I think I know where we are now. To the right is the valley of Troublesome, and the land below us must be Fallon's, where Fult and his friends are getting out timber. And oh, there's the flush in the east where the moon is rising!" An instant later, Isabel exclaimed, "Isn't that a light down in the timber just ahead of us?" "Yes, it certainly is; probably Fult and the boys are having a 'possum hunt." "It seems to be a steady glow, not a moving lantern." "Well, a 'possum supper, then."