Suddenly, as we rounded a bend between two gloomy ravages of rock, there stood before us a young girl, in the green light—her hair as black as I had ever seen, with such a face of white and rose! I stared at her helplessly; Coe, I think, cowered behind me. She looked at us inquiringly a moment; and then, as we neither spoke, turned up the side of the ravine, with her fowling-piece, and vanished by some way unknown to us. I would have followed her, I think, but Coe held me back by the coat-tails.
“Don’t,” said he. “She’s quite welcome to a shot, I am sure.”
2.
Nevertheless, after this one moment of chivalrous impulse, Coe set up his levelling-machine and began taking the gradients of the ravine up which this girl had gone. I have never known an Englishman upon whose heart you could make any impression until his stomach was provided for. Meantime I wandered on, admiring the red hibiscus blossom and liana vine that veiled the gorge in tropical luxuriance up to the myrtles of the limestone. Finally I emerged upon the plateau above the river, and found myself in a glorious, green, flowing prairie, many miles broad and apparently as long as the brown Tennessee that lay hid behind me. In the midst of it one iron-furnace was already in blast.
The inn (the International Hotel) at Tuscumbia was very noisy. I was struck by this when I went to my room to dress for supper; I had only been able to get one room for myself and Coe; there were two beds in it, but only one wash-stand. Through the walls, which were very thin, I could hear at least four distinct feminine voices on the one side, and several upon the other. There were also some across the hall that seemed to be engaged in the same conversation; and that the speakers were young ladies I had fleeting but satisfactory evidence when I opened my door to set out my water-jug for a further supply.
“Look here, young man,” said the landlord to me, when I again endeavored to get another room for Coe. “How many rooms do you reckon this yer house’ll hold, with fifty-seven guests all wantin’ em?”
“Fifty-seven!” said I. The International Hotel was a small two-story wooden house with a portico. “How many can the hotel accommodate?”
“Thirty in winter,” said the landlord. “In summer sixty to seventy.”
I stared at the man until he explained.
“You see, in the winter, they’s most from the North. I hev accommodated seventy-four,” added he, meditatively; “but they wuz all Southerners, an’ that wuz befo’ the wo’. They took a good bar’l of whiskey a day, they did—an’ consid’able Bo’bon,” and he ended with a sigh.