At last we were on a saddle of the divide, a mile above sea-level, in a hut built years ago for temporary lodgment of cattle-men herding on the grassy “balds” of the Smokies. A sagging clapboard roof covered its two rooms and the open space between them that we called our “entry.” The State line between North Carolina and Tennessee ran through this uninclosed hallway. The Carolina room had a puncheon floor and a clapboard table, also better bunks than its mate; but there had risen a stiff southerly gale that made the chimney smoke so abominably that we were forced to take quarters in the neighbor State.
Granville lifted the lid from a big Dutch oven and reported “Bread’s done.”
There was a flash in the frying-pan, a curse and a puff from Little John. The coffee-pot boiled over. We gathered about the hewn benches that served for tables, and sat à la Turc upon the ground. For some time there was no sound but the gale without and the munching of ravenous men.
“If this wind ’ll only cease afore mornin’, we’ll git us a bear to-morrow.”
A powerful gust struck the cabin, by way of answer; a great roaring surged up from the gulf of Defeat, from Desolation, and from the other forks of Bone Valley—clamor of ten thousand trees struggling with the blast.
“Hit’s gittin’ wusser.”
“Any danger of this roost being blown off the mountain?” I inquired.
“Hit’s stood hyur twenty year through all the storms; I reckon it can stand one more night of it.”
“A man couldn’t walk upright, outside the cabin,” I asserted, thinking of the St. Louis tornado, in which I had lain flat on my belly, clinging to an iron post.
The hunchback turned to me with a grave face. “I’ve seed hit blow, here on top o’ Smoky, till a hoss couldn’t stand up agin it. You’ll spy, to-morrow, whar several trees has been wind-throwed and busted to kindlin’.”