No wonder for these reasons and as a
tribute to his infernal shrewdness he was known far and wide as
the Red Fox of the Mountains. But Hale was too tired for further
speculation and presently he yawned.
"Want to lay down?" asked the old man quickly.
"I think I do," said Hale, and they went inside. The little old
woman had her face to the wall in a bed in one corner and the Red
Fox pointed to a bed in the other:
"Thar's yo' bed." Again Hale's eyes fell on the big Winchester.
"I reckon thar hain't more'n two others like it in all these
mountains."
"What's the calibre?"
"Biggest made," was the answer, "a 50 x 75."
"Centre fire?"
"Rim," said the Red Fox.
"Gracious," laughed Hale, "what do you want such a big one for?"
"Man cannot live by bread alone--in these mountains," said the Red
Fox grimly.
When Hale lay down he could hear the old man quavering out a hymn
or two on the porch outside: and when, worn out with the day, he
went to sleep, the Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a
tallow dip. It is fatefully strange when people, whose lives
tragically intersect, look back to their first meetings with one
another, and Hale never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red
Fox.
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