The blacksmith looked up with a twinkling leer; the violinist recovered his full height, and drew the bow dashingly across the strings; then let his arm fall.
“Roger,” the blacksmith said, “dad-burned ef I kin read ennything hyar.”
The young musician looked over his brawny shoulder in silence.
“Whar d'ye make out enny letters, Roger?” persisted Spears.
Purdee leaned over and eagerly pointed with his ramrod to a curious corrugation of the surface of the rock. Again the blacksmith bent down; the musician craned forward, his yellow hair hanging about his bronzed face.
“I hev been toler'ble well acquainted with the alphabit,” said Spears, “fur goin' on thirty year an' better, an' I'll swar ter Heaven thar ain't nare sign of a letter thar.”
Purdee stared at him in wild-eyed amazement for a moment. Then he flung himself upon his knees beside the great rock, and guiding his ramrod over the surface, he exclaimed, “Hyar, Spears; right hyar!”
The blacksmith was all incredulous as he lent himself to a new posture, and leaned forward to look with the languid indulgence of one who will not again entertain doubt.
“Nare A, nor B, nor C, nor none o' the fambly,” he declared. “These hyar rocks ain't no Moses' tables sure enough; Moses never war in Tennessee. They be jes like enny other rock, an' thar ain't a word o' writin' on 'em.”
He looked up with a curious questioning at Pur-dee's face—a strange face for a man detected in a falsehood, a trick. The deep-set eyes were wide as if straining for perception denied them. Despite the chill, rare air, great drops had started on his brow, and were falling upon his beard, and upon his hands. These strong hands were quivering; they hovered above the signs on the rocks. The mystic letters, the inspired words, where were they? Grope as he might, he could not find them. Alas! doubt and denial had climbed the mountain—the awful limitations of the more finite human creature—and his inspiration and the finer enthusiasms of the truth were dead.