Raymond S. Spears

“ Old Hathaway loved the young people. He liked to see the stalwart young mountaineer “steal his girl,” in spite of opposition, and “run her” to some new home.
He knew Gene Dundon and Hattie Brown, Why shouldn't he? Hattie was a pretty girl who sang at revivals, and Gene could shoot the head off a squirrel at sixty yards, What Hathaway did not know was the existence of Lottie Kemple, up Neuman's Ridge way, where Dundon had been a frequent visitor. ”

“ I'm goin' to steal a man—hue!” Lottie answered.
Mrs. Campbell laughed at that, and Lottie remained with her over the next night. Then she rode on down the valley where there was a second cousin, beyond whose home she had neither friends nor relatives.
Three days later she rode through Knoxville at noon, sunbonneted, rosy-cheeked, with her rifle across her lap. She had heard of Dundon on the riverside just above the Holston-French Broad fork. He had gone by the week before in a little red shanty-boat, and the girl with him had been all smiles. Dundon was good to her. ”

“ All night she rode, but not at a gallop, because it was a long race, and she must save her horse. She knew the way—she had read the stars many a night by Dundon's side, from some point of rock above the valleys. ”

“ Just before sundown, she spied a shanty-boat making toward the south bank in the bend below her. She ran her canoe into the shadow of the trees and floated slowly toward the craft. The man at the sweeps was Gene Dundon, and the woman by his side was the one who had been Hattie Brown. Catching a branch, Lottie Kemple waited for the night to fall. She dropped down to within a hundred yards of the boat, and then tied fast.
She could hear the sound of voices; she heard Hattie begin to sing. The sound cut the deserted girl to the heart. The shadow on the window-curtain was that of Gene ”

“ She galloped up the trail till she was out of sight of the parson's house. Then she trained her pony into the woods, up the ridge back to the hill-path. Turning her face southward, she started down the river. ”