CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN THE REFUGE.
Far on the western slopes of Clingman Dome in the great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, a broad, low-built bungalow stood facing the setting sun.

Vast stretches of pine forest shut it off from civilization and the prying activities of Plutocracy.

The nearest settlement was Ravens, twenty miles away to eastward, across inaccessible ridges and ravines.
Running far to southward, the railway left this wilderness untouched.
High overhead, an eagle soared among the "thunder-heads" that presaged a storm up Sevier Pass.

And, red through the haze to westward, the great huge sunball slid down the heavens toward the tumbled, jagged mass of peaks that rimmed the far horizon.
Within the bungalow, a murmur of voices sounded; and from the huge stone chimney a curl of smoke, arising, told of the evening meal, within, now being made ready.

On the wide piazza sat a man, writing at a table of plain boards roughly pegged together.