They are real ones all right

``Dear,'' she said, ``have our room- mates gone?''

Breakfast at dawn.  The mountain girls were ready to go to work.  All looked sorry to have us leave.  They asked us to come back again, and they meant it.  We said we would like to come back--and we meant it--to see them--the kind old mother, the pioneer-like old man, sturdy little Buck, shy little Cindy, the elusive, hard-working, unconsciously shivery Mart, and the two big sisters.  As we started back up the river the sisters started for the fields, and I thought of their stricken brother in the settlements, who must have been much like Mart.

Back up the Big Black Mountain we toiled, and late in the afternoon we were on the State line that runs the crest of the Big Black.  Right on top and bisected by that State line sat a dingy little shack, and there, with one leg thrown over the pommel of his saddle, sat Marston, drinking water from a gourd.

``I was coming over to meet you,'' he said, smiling at the Blight, who, greatly pleased, smiled back at him.  The shack was a ``blind Tiger'' where whiskey could be sold to Kentuckians on the Virginia side and to Virginians on the Kentucky side.  Hanging around were the slouching figures of several moonshiners and the villainous fellow who ran it.

``They are real ones all right,'' said Marston.  ``One of them killed a revenue officer at that front door last week, and was killed by the posse as he was trying to escape out of the back window.  That house will be in ashes soon,'' he added.  And it was.

As we rode down the mountain we told him about our trip and the people with whom we had spent the night--and all the time he was smiling curiously.

``Buck,'' he said.  ``Oh, yes, I know that little chap.  Mart had him posted down there on the river to toll you to his house--to toll YOU,'' he added to the Blight.  He pulled in his horse suddenly, turned and looked up toward the top of the mountain.

``Ah, I thought so.''  We all looked back.  On the edge of the cliff, far upward, on which the ``blind Tiger'' sat was a gray horse, and on it was a man who, motionless, was looking down at us.

``He's been following you all the way,'' said the engineer.

``Who's been following us?'' I asked.

``That's Mart up there--my friend and yours,'' said Marston to the Blight.  ``I'm rather glad I didn't meet you on the other side of the mountain--that's `the Wild Dog.' ''  The Blight looked incredulous, but Marston knew the man and knew the horse.