ONTENTS
    I. The Blight in the Hills
    II. On the Wild Dog's Trail
    III. The Auricular Talent of the Hon.Samuel Budd
    IV. Close Quarters
    V. Back to the Hills
    VI. The Great Day
    VII. At Last--The Tournament
    VIII.The Knight Passes
    THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS
    High noon of a crisp October day, sunshine flooding the earth with the warmth and light of old wine and, going single-file up through the jagged gap that the dripping of water has worn down through the Cumberland Mountains from crest to valley-level, a gray horse and two big mules, a man and two young girls. On the gray horse, I led the tortuous way. After me came my small sister--and after her and like her, mule- back, rode the Blight--dressed as she would be for a gallop in Central Park or to ride a hunter in a horse show.
    I was taking them, according to promise, where the feet of other women than mountaineers had never trod--beyond the crest of the Big Black--to the waters of the Cumberland--the lair of moonshiner and feudsman, where is yet pocketed a civilization that, elsewhere, is long ago gone. This had been a pet dream of the Blight's for a long time, and now the dream was coming true. The Blight was in the hills.