Presently he began the rugged descent, considerably hampered by the
fox, which he carried by the tail. He stopped to rest whenever he
found a ledge that would serve as a seat. Looking up, high above
the jagged summit of the cliff that sharply serrated the zenith, he
saw the earliest star, glorious in the crimson and amber sky.
Below, a point of silver light quivered, reflected in the crimson
and amber waters of the "lick." The fire-flies were flickering
among the ferns; he saw about him their errant gleam. The shadowy
herds trooped down the mountain side.
Now and then his weight uprooted a bush in his hands, and the clods
fell. He missed his footing as he neared the base, and came down
with a thump. It was a gravelly spot where he had fallen, and he
saw in a moment that it was the summer-dried channel of a mountain
rill. As he pulled himself up on one elbow, he suddenly paused with
dilated eyes. The evening light fell upon a burnished glimmer;--a
bit of stone--was it stone?--shining with a metallic lustre.
He looked at it for a moment, his eyes glowing in the contemplation
of a splendid possibility.
What were those old stories that his father used to tell of the gold
excitement in Tennessee in 1831, when the rich earth flung largess
from its hidden wealth along the romantic banks of Coca Creek! Gold
had been found in Tennessee--why not here? And once--why not again?
The idea so possessed him that while he was skinning the fox his
sharp knife almost sacrificed one of the TWO ears imperatively
required by the statute, in order that the wily hunter may not be
tempted to present one ear at a time, thus multiplying red foxes and
premiums therefor like Falstaff's "rogues in buckram.
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