CHAPTER XIIITHE CODE OF THE HILLS
Standingthere in the doorway, Douglas watched the eyes of the two strangers shift rapidly over him, taking him in from clean-shaven face to laced boots, then returning to the shotgun under his arm. With a cool nod to them, he turned to Uncle Eb—and surprised in the old man’s countenance a look of mingled anxiety and hope.
“Howdy, Uncle Eb,” he said casually. “Thought I’d drop in a minute and smoke a pipe. Didn’t know you had company.”
“Come in! Come right in, son!” The explosive voice was even more abrupt than usual. “Where ye been all the time? I been by yer house twice—stopped to see ye—but ’twas all empty like. I was scairt the ha’nt might o’ got ye. These fellers—I dunno ’em—they ain’t no comp’ny o’ mine. I jest got home—been bee-huntin’—found a good tree, too—bet ther’s a good fifty pound o’ honey into it—these fellers was jest a-comin’ into the yard when I come.”
The jerky sentences, the strained look, told Douglas that Uncle Eb—Uncle Eb, who had previously asserted that he had no reason to fear detectives—was nervous. Now he thought he caught a meaning flutter of one white-lashed lid and a sidewise flicker of the eyes. But he could not interpret the signal—was not evensure it was so intended. So he only nodded carelessly.
“Uh-huh. I’ve been rambling around, or I’d have seen you sooner. Did you get that tobacco for me at High Falls?”
The question was a blind for the benefit of the listening pair. He had given Uncle Eb no commission to bring him more tobacco, and his present stock was more than ample. But the old man snatched instantly at the hint.
“Yas—yas, I did, boy. It’s into my bedroom—I’ll git it. But I dunno if I got what ye want. Ye didn’t tell me what kind, so I got two. Come pick what ye want, an’ I’ll keep t’other for myself.”
He lumbered into another room, Douglas lounging after. The two strangers made slight movements as if to follow, then remained where they were. Uncle Eb had left the door wide open, and the watchers saw that he was taking tobacco cans from the top of an old-fashioned chest of drawers: yellow cans and blue ones.
“They’re both slice-cuts,” rattled the old man. “Some likes one, some wants t’other. Take yer pick.”
Douglas, holding a can in each hand as if considering, knew by their lightness that no tobacco remained in them. They were old tins, saved by the thrifty hillman for any use that might occur to him. He slid a cornerwise glance at Eb.
“Or take both kinds if ye want—I’ve got some more.” Then, hardly moving his lips, the old man breathed: “Steve in barn—go tell him hide in hay!”
Douglas repressed a start. So that was it! UncleEb, loyal to his people though honest in his own life, was sheltering the refugee. And he, Hampton, who previously had had only a passive hand in aiding the fugitive, now must act either to help or to outwit the heavy-handed Law standing beyond the doorway.
According to the smug dictum of all self-righteous society, his duty was plain: to inform the waiting police that an escaped convict lurked within a stone’s throw. What matter if he thereby involved Uncle Eb as an accomplice? What though he tore the heart of a girl and threw a boy back into a living tomb? A convict was a convict, duly sentenced by judicial authority, and those who connived to defeat that authority must suffer the consequences. And the girl—what is a girl’s grief to the Law?
Such was the code of Respectability. Confronting it was the code of the hills, which this old man was instinctively obeying; the code of natural justice, far more ancient and human than the chain-clanking machinery of legislature and court and prison:Stand by your own!On either side of Douglas Hampton they towered, stark and hard as the two great walls of the Traps; and he must either swing on in the Traps current or turn and fight against it.
To a worshipper of codes, the choice might have come hard. To this man it was hardly even a matter for choice. He had his own instinctive code, and backbone enough to follow it through. And now he gave no thought to the beliefs and traditions of either the great world without or the little world within the mountain bowl. He saw only the desperate face ofSteve, heard only the lad’s vehement denial of guilt. And he spent no time in pondering over his course.
Not more than five seconds passed between Uncle Eb’s whisper and his first move. He nodded, slid the empty cans into separate pockets, and turned doorward.
“Thanks. I’ll try ’em both out,” he said. “Pay you the next time I see you. That all right?”
“Sure, sure, that’s all right—any time, son, any time. Mebbe I’ll be drivin’ down your way to-morrer, or anyways the next day—I might go after the honey to-morrer. Want to set in an’ eat ’fore ye go? I ain’t much good of a cook, an’ Marthy an’ Becky ain’t to home to-day—they went a-visitin’—but I got to fix up sumpthin’ for myself, an’——”
“No, I’ll be going. Had my lunch just a little while ago.”
“Wal, g’by. Which way ye goin’—up back? Wal, say, do sumpthin’ for me. Throw down a jag o’ hay to the hoss when ye go ’long. Much ’bliged.”
Douglas nearly grinned at the old man’s adroitness in thus openly turning him toward the barn. But he kept his face expressionless and, with a nod both to Uncle Eb and to the silent man-hunters, loafed toward the exit. Then one of the sinister pair moved and spoke.
“Wait a minute,” he commanded bruskly. “What you carryin’ that gun for? This ain’t huntin’ season.”
“No?” was the careless retort. “It’s always hunting season—for foxes and other vermin.”
The second bristled.
“Whatcha mean by voimin?” he growled.
Douglas turned an amused face to him.
“Hello, Brooklyn!” he laughed. “This is the foist time I’ve hoid that Sands-Street accent since I came up here. How’s your thoist?”
The first grinned at the mimicry of his mate. The second, though he still looked truculent, blinked.
“Takes an oily boid to catch a woim up here,” gibed the blond man. “But who’s the woim? I haven’t hoid of any squoiming around on this toif.”
Whereat the first man chuckled and the second turned brick-color.
“Whatcha mean by that stuff?” he rasped. “How’d ya git the idear I was lookin’ for anybody? You know too much, you do. Come on, now, I guess me and you’ll have a little talk. And you can lay that gun down on the floor, see?”
Douglas laughed derisively.
“I know I can—but I won’t. Just go easy, Mister Bull, and don’t monkey with the works. You’re talking to a big-town boy now, and that stuff doesn’t go. And if you think you’re disguised so that I can’t spot you, think again. Those flatfoot shoes are a dead give-away, not to mention your hip-bump and your cop face.”
“Yeah? Guess you’re in the habit of watchin’ for them things, hey? And whatcha doin’ up here, my fine boid? Kind of a funny place for a big-town boy to hang out, ain’t it, huh? What was the last name you went by?”
He was moving, almost imperceptibly, to get Douglasbetween him and his companion. The blond man foiled the attempt by taking one swift side-step and getting his back to the open doorway.
“Don’t make a fool of yourself,” he advised wearily. “You can’t scare me that way in a year of Sundays. Just to satisfy you—though it’s none of your business—I’m Hampton, of the New YorkWhirl, up here on a vacation. If you get too obstreperous, Mister Man, I can give you a lovely write-up when I get back to town—that kind that may let you out of your job. Go easy.”
The other halted where he was. The name of theWhirland the thinly veiled threat coupled with it stopped him dead; for it conjured up the vision dreaded by every officer, even though he may affect to scoff at it—the possibility of being held up to scorn in the public prints. He understood now why this fellow refused to be bulldozed, why he laughed in his face—he was “one o’ them newspaper guys,” than whom there is no more nervy and disrespectful tribe on earth; whose friendship is worth much to any police officer, and whose enmity is not to be lightly incurred. Naturally, he did not know that Hampton was no longer connected with newspaperdom.
“You on theWhoil?” he growled, a crafty light in his eyes. “Who’s city editor there now?”
“Chapman, of course. Same old grouch he always was, too.”
The other nodded grudgingly. City Editor Chapman was known far and wide in both newspaper and police circles for his uncanny news ability and hisvitriolic temper. This fellow’s knowledge of Chapman and his impudent assurance carried conviction.
“All right, Hampton. Guess you’re O. K. Know this fella?” He nodded toward Uncle Eb.
“Sure. He’s as honest as they make ’em. What are you fellows in here for? Got anything good?”
“Nope—nothin’ you’d want,” was the hasty cover-up. “I ain’t woikin’ in the big town now—this is a little up-river stuff. Me and my pal’s jest lookin’ round for some small-fry. Don’t let us keep ya. So long.”
Douglas laughed openly. The burly man now was even more anxious to be rid of him than he was to go to the barn.
“Oh, all right. Let’s see, who did you say you were? And from where?”
“Didn’t say. So long, fella. So long.”
He turned his back squarely on his questioner. The other man, who had been searchingly watching Douglas, now directed his gaze elsewhere and also turned an aloof shoulder to him. Douglas shot a wink at Uncle Eb and strolled out.
“G’by, son,” called the old man. “Don’t forgit the hoss.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll fix him up. See you later.”
With lazy step he sauntered up to the little yellow barn, whose sliding door stood open a few inches. Once inside, he dropped his languid air in a flash.
“Steve!” he called softly, peering around. “Steve!”
No answer came. In a dark stall a horse moved andstamped. Somewhere down below sounded the grunts of hogs which had heard his steps. But of human movement, of human voice, there was no sign.
“Steve!” he whispered loudly. “Where are you? Get into the hay! Quick!”
Again there was no sound. But movement came. Under a stair-flight leading aloft in the dimmest corner, something slipped cautiously into sight—first an ear, then a cheek, then a peeping eye. It hung there, waist-high, watching the man go squinting into the stalls and around him.
“Steve! This is Hamp! Uncle Eb says——”
“Awright!”
The whispered reply, hoarse and penetrating, cut short his speech and turned him stairward. The eye became two, and the face rose as if the concealed youth were getting up from his knees.
“What’s he say?” demanded Steve.
“Get into the hay! Two bulls are here—in the house—may come here any minute—get under cover quick.”
“Uh-huh.” Steve darted forth. “I seen ’em. Figgered I better hide into this ’ere hole an’ mebbe duck out if they went up ’bove. Would of skipped outen here, but the side house-winder looks right to the barn an’ I ’spicioned they’d see me.”
He was already on his way upward. Douglas followed close behind. They emerged into a small hay-loft, crammed with the season’s crop of horse-fodder. At each end, high up in the peak but now level with the piled hay, a small window let in light. Inthat light the two stood an instant looking at each other.
Though the desperate look of the hunted still was on the fugitive’s face, he looked far better than when Douglas had carried him into the den among the bowlders. Then he had been wan, pinched, utterly exhausted. Now his cheeks were more round, his eyes unrimmed by blue crescents, his swarthy skin tinged by healthy color. Food and sleep in plenty had transformed him from a hatchet-faced wreck to a not unhandsome young man. But the hard set of the mouth and the glitter of the dark eyes still were there.
“I’ll never go back!” he whispered fiercely. “I had three years o’ misery—for a job I never done—an’ them dicks wunt git me back. I’ll kill ’em—I’ll git shot—I’ll jump offen the ledges an’ bust my neck—anythin’—but I ain’t a-goin’ back! An’ I got to git Snake ’fore anybody gits me. I——Shuh!What’s that? They comin’?”
He bounded up on the great mound and peered out. Douglas flashed a glance around. His eyes halted on the other window—the rear one. It was open.
“They’re a-comin’! They’re a-going to look round into here! I got to git under!”
Outside sounded Uncle Eb’s loud voice, angrily protesting against search of his premises. The two man-trailers were stonily silent.
“No!” decided Douglas. “If they’re suspicious they’ll look in the hay. You get outside! Through that window—I’ll steady you—swing up over the eaves and hug the roof. And lie quiet!”
Steve, with the ruthless Law almost upon him, blindly obeyed. Across to the rear window they plunged over the hay. The boy wriggled through the opening, turned his face inward, reached for the eaves above. Douglas braced himself, grasped the bare ankles, heaved upward. A clawing sound above—a spasmodic kick—a squirming struggle—the legs broke free and vanished. Followed a soft bump or two, a short scraping sound—and silence.
“I tell ye, ye ain’t got no right into my place without a search warrant!” stormed Uncle Eb below. “I ain’t got nothin’ to hide, but I got the same rights any other honest man’s got. Show yer warrant! I forbid ye into this place!”
“Ah, call in yer lawyer and we’ll talk to him,” sounded the sneering answer. “Go sit down and hold yer head. We won’t damage nothin’. Looks bad, too, you gittin’ so woiked up when you got nothin’ to hide. Hey, Ward?”
Douglas reached down and rapidly loosened the lacing of one boot. Then he went back across the hay and sat down. At once a heavy foot sounded on the stairs.
“Hey, up there! You, Hampton?”
“Right both times—there’s hay up here, and I’m Hampton,” drawled the man above.
“Huh! Bill, go up and take a look. I’ll see that nothin’ slides out down here.”
The red face of Bill, ex-Brooklynite, rose above the floor, glowering around.
“Well, whatcha doin’, Hampton?” he growled.“Thought ya was feedin’ the horse, but I notice he ain’t fed yet. Slow, ain’t ya?”
“Oh, I take my time. And right now I’m straightening up my sock. Ever have a sock wrinkle under your heel? Makes a beautiful blister. Horses can wait until my foot is fixed to suit me.”
Red-Face grunted and keenly surveyed the mow. Douglas coolly laced up the boot, as if completing what he had been doing when interrupted; stretched his leg, worked his foot up and down, and nodded as if satisfied.
“That feels better,” he announced. “Well, Statue of Liberty, what’s all the heavy thinking about? Or are you only trying to look wise and pretending to think?”
The other’s heavy mouth twisted in an ugly grin. He reached for a pitchfork standing near, yanked it free from the hay, inspected its long gleaming tines.
“Funny as a toothache, ain’t ya! One of these days, fella, that mouth o’ yourn’ll git ya into a box,” he predicted. “Right now I got other things to poke into. Jest come down off that hay—unless you’re coverin’ somethin’ up. That’s right. Ya mind like ma’s angel-face, don’t ya? Now watch what I toin up!”
With a leap he came up. And with a shrewd jab he drove the fork down into the hay on which Douglas had been sitting.