Emerson Hough 
The Way Out 

‘The Way Out’ by Emerson Hough is a story set in the Cumberland mountains. Emerson Hough (1857–1923) was an American author best known for writing western stories and historical novels.
Excerpt:
‘THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL
‘HUSH! Stop it, Davy. He’s a-comin’!’
The old woman who spoke—a wrinkled dame she was, bowed down by years and infirmity, her face creased by a thousand grimed-in, wrinkled lines—moved with an odd sprightliness as she stepped across the floor. She placed a hand upon the shoulder of the young man whom she accosted, standing between him and the door of the little cabin of which they were the only occupants.’