Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/37

 Rh Cowan I ever hooked up with afore. Yer don't talk none like mountin' folks."

I drew a quick breath, sensing the return of suspicion.

"That's true," I admitted readily. "You see I went to school at Covington; they were going to make a preacher out of me."

"The hell they wus!" and he chuckled to himself. "A blue-bellied Presbyterian I'll bet a hog. Their the ol' stock—them Cowans—hell fire, infant damnation. So you wus goin' fer ter be a preacher—hey?"

"That was the program."

Taylor stared into my face, his vague suspicion seemingly gone.

"Well, I'll de [sic] damned—a preacher."

He rode on into the dusk, chuckling, and I followed, smiling to myself, glad that the man's good humor had been so easily restored.

We were fed at a hut far back in the foot-hills, where an old couple, the man lame, were glad enough to exchange their poor food for late news from the army, in which they had a son. Then we rode on steadily to the south along a deserted, weed-bordered road, meeting no one to obstruct our progress. Earlier in the war the Army of the Kanawa had passed along this way on forced march,