



Produced by Mary Starr and Martin Robb.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME


by

JOHN FOX, JR.




  To
  CURRIE DUKE
  DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF
  AMONG
  MORGAN'S MEN

  KENTUCKY, APRIL, 1898





CONTENTS

   1. TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME
   2. FIGHTING THEIR WAY
   3. A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME
   4. THE COMING OF THE TIDE
   5. OUT OF THE WILDERNESS
   6. LOST AT THE CAPITAL
   7.  A FRIEND ON THE ROAD
   8. HOME WITH THE MAJOR
   9. MARGARET
  10. THE BLUEGRASS
  11. A TOURNAMENT
  12. BACK TO KINGDOM COME
  13. ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE
  14. THE MAJOR IN THE MOUNTAINS
  15. TO COLLEGE IN THE BLUEGRASS
  16. AGAIN THE BAR SINISTER
  17. CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN
  18. THE SPIRIT OF '76 AND THE SHADOW OF '61
  19. THE BLUE OR THE GRAY
  20. OFF TO THE WAR
  21. MELISSA
  22. MORGAN'S MEN
  23. CHAD CAPTURES AN OLD FRIEND
  24. A RACE BETWEEN DIXIE AND DAWN
  25. AFTER DAWS DILLON--GUERILLA
  26. BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER AT LAST
  27. AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN
  28. PALL-BEARERS OF THE LOST CAUSE
  29. MELISSA AND MARGARET
  30. PEACE
  31. THE WESTWARD WAY




THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME



CHAPTER 1

TWO RUNAWAYS FROM LONESOME

The days of that April had been days of mist and rain. Sometimes, for
hours, there would come a miracle of blue sky, white cloud, and yellow
light, but always between dark and dark the rain would fall and the
mist creep up the mountains and steam from the tops--only to roll
together from either range, drip back into the valleys, and lift,
straightway, as mist again. So that, all the while Nature was trying to
give lustier life to every living thing in the lowland Bluegrass, all
the while a gaunt skeleton was stalking down the Cumberland--tapping
with fleshless knuckles, now at some unlovely cottage of faded white
and green, and now at a log cabin, stark and gray. Passing the mouth of
Lonesome, he flashed his scythe into its unlifting shadows and went
stalking on. High up, at the source of the dismal little stream, the
point of the shining blade darted thrice into the open door of a cabin
set deep into a shaggy flank of Black Mountain, and three spirits,
within, were quickly loosed from aching flesh for the long flight into
the unknown.

It was the spirit of the plague that passed, taking with it the breath
of the unlucky and the unfit: and in the hut on Lonesome three were
dead--a gaunt mountaineer, a gaunt daughter, and a gaunt son. Later,
the mother, too, "jes' kind o' got tired," as little Chad said, and
soon to her worn hands and feet came the well-earned rest. Nobody was
left then but Chad and Jack, and Jack was a dog with a belly to feed
and went for less than nothing with everybody but his little master and
the chance mountaineer who had sheep to guard. So, for the fourth time,
Chad, with Jack at his heels, trudged up to the point of a wooded spur
above the cabin, where, at the foot of a giant poplar and under a
wilderness of shaking June leaves, were three piles of rough boards,
loosely covering three hillocks of rain-beaten earth; and, near them,
an open grave. There was no service sung or spoken over the dead, for
the circuit-rider was then months away; so, unnoticed, Chad stood
behind the big poplar, watching the neighbors gently let down into the
shallow trench a home-made coffin, rudely hollowed from the half of a
bee-gum log, and, unnoticed, slipped away at the first muffled stroke
of the dirt--doubling his fists into his eyes and stumbling against the
gnarled bodies of laurel and rhododendron until, out in a clear sunny
space, he dropped on a thick, velvet mat of moss and sobbed himself to
sleep. When he awoke, Jack was licking his face and he sat up, dazed
and yawning. The sun was dropping fast, the ravines were filling with
blue shadows, luminous and misty, and a far drowsy tinkling from the
valley told him that cows were starting homeward. From habit, he spr