4   THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS



unclaimed at the roadside would in themselves challenge
curiosity.  But in this instance they gave only the
prefatory note to a stranger story. Near them lay a
tin box, littered with small and unfamiliar-looking tubes
of soft metal, all grotesquely twisted and stained, and
beside the box was a strangely shaped plaque of wood,
smeared with a dozen hues. That this plaque was a
painter's sketching palette was a thing which she could
not know, since the ways of artists had to do with a
world as remote from her own as the life of the moon
or stars. It was one of those vague mysteries that made
up the wonderful life of "down below." Even the
names of such towns as Louisville and Lexington meant
nothing definite to this girl who could barely spell out,
"The cat caught the rat," in the primer. Yet here
beside the box and palette stood a strange jointed tri-
pod, and upon it was some sort of sheet. What it all
meant, and what was on the other side of the sheet
became a matter of keenly alluring interest. Why had
these things been left here in such confusion If there
was a man about who owned them he would doubtless
return to claim them. Possibly he was wandering about
the broken bed of the creek, searching for a spring,
and that would not take long. No one drank creek
water. At any moment he might return and discover
her. Such a contingency held untold terrors for her
shyness, and yet to turn her back on so interesting
a mystery would be insupportable. Accordingly, she
crept over, eyes and ears alert, and slipped around to
the front of the queer tripod, with all her muscles
poised in readiness for flight.
  A half-rapturous and utterly astonished cry broke