CHAPTER XVII.A LIFE AT STAKE.
When Brother Wright early next morning discovered the loss of the brown mare, he was thrown into a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had not a moment’s doubt as to what had happened, nor a moment’s hesitation as to the course he should pursue. He hurried back to the house and without any effort at concealment got out his revolver and stuck it into his belt.
“Wright,” said Mary, his wife, “whatever have you got there?” She was filled with amazement.
“A pistol,” replied he with firmness.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Shoot a damned horse-thief, who has been and broken into the stable and stolen Queen Katharine.”
He jammed down his hat on his head and made for the door, while Mary Winkle gave a scream that would have done credit to the finest lady in the land.
“You shan’t do any such thing! You will be killed! What do you know about pistols? You will be shot by those murderous horse-thieves, and whatwill become of me—and Willette?” Mary Winkle urged the very arguments that have before now been known to make brave men falter and turn back from running risks.
“I—I shan’t do anything rash,” said Wright sheepishly. “I’ll just go round and rouse the neighbours and see if we can’t catch him, he can’t have got very far as yet. What beats me is why Pluto didn’t bark. The dog’s a fool, I’ll drown him.”
“Oh, I am thankful he didn’t bark, for you might have been dead by now if he had. You shan’t drown him, for he has saved your life. Horse-thieves are desperate men and wouldn’t respect our principles of non-resistance,” said Mary Winkle.
“Ahem,” said her husband, tucking the revolver out of sight until required.
“What we’ve got to do is to go to Madame and summon an Assembly of Urgency and talk this matter over, and see what the Community is to do. Wright, you can’t go and rouse the neighbours till you’ve got the sanction of the Assembly. You know that is the rule in all important matters, and this is about the most important matter that has ever come up for discussion.”
“Damn discussion!” said Wright angrily. “While we’re discussing that thief will get away. Sharp is the word for catching horse-thieves.”
“But sharp is not the word for determining the action of Perfection City in an important juncturelike the present. Wright, I am surprised at you, and also at your language,” said his wife severely.
“Oh these infernal horse-thieves would provoke a saint,—not that I am one,” said Wright, still in a rage most unbecoming to a professed non-resistant, and Mary Winkle looked a whole essay full of rebuke at him. She carried the day, however, and together they carried their complaint to Madame.
They found Madame sitting at breakfast along with Uncle David, and being waited upon by a negro-servant, Lucinda, the mother of Napoleon Pompey. The heat of a cooking-stove made Madame ill, therefore she required a servant, and she had what she required, principles of equality to the contrary notwithstanding.
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Uncle David in much excitement and perturbation. “Wal, to think now o’ what big raskills there is in the worl’, an’ we a-settin’ ’em such a good ’xample here o’ honesty an’ uprightness.”
“We must summon the Assembly,” said Mary Winkle firmly. “It is a great pity Brothers Ezra and Dummy are both away, but there are quite enough left to deliberate.”
“If you think that is the best plan, we had better do it at once, there should be no time wasted,” said Madame, looking interrogatively at Brother Wright’s frowning face.
“If you ask me——” he began when his wife interrupted him.
“We don’t ask you, Wright, at least not until the Assembly of Urgency is convened. Your vote doesn’t count for more than mine, and I demand an Assembly.”
Wright shrugged his shoulders, and Madame smiled a little sarcastically. “We will summon it,” she said.
“An’ I’ll jes’ step roun’ an’ fetch Sister Olive,” said Uncle David, putting on his hat as he spoke, “an’ you can bring together the rest of the brethren.”
They came quickly enough when they heard of the loss of the brown mare, only Olive was absent. She was ill in bed with a headache and spoke to Uncle David out of a darkened room.
Brother Wright detailed the loss of the horse, while the Assembly listened in deepest attention.
“What we have to consider is the best means of recovering the horse if possible,” said Madame. “Does anyone know what is usually done under similar circumstances?”
“The neighbours join together and run down the thief as quickly as possible,” said Brother Wright, with sharp emphasis.
“And having run him down, hang him,” added Mary Winkle.
“That course is impossible for us,” observed Madame.
“That is a point I should like to debate,” said Brother Wright. “If we are to live here we must have horses, and we can’t keep horses if it is known to be against our principles to shoot a horse-thief. That is all I’ve got to say.”
“An’ I want to notice the p’int o’ Injuns,” said Aunt Ruby. “Ef there’s Injuns as will do any wickedness un’er the sun, I want to know are we to sit still an’ be roasted on our own fires by wile savages like that, or will the men-folks defen’ us as other men do? An’ I likewise would wish to p’int out to the ’Sembly as border ruffians is mos’ly as bad as Injuns, an’ it stan’s to reason as horse-thieves is ’bout the same.”
“It seems to me,” said Brother Green, speaking with great deliberation, “that our principles were formed and adopted because we thought them right. I don’t see in what we should differ from anybody else if we took to the usual prairie arms the moment we felt the shoe pinch! If non-resistance is right, it should be practised against horse-thieves; if it is wrong, then we should be prepared to shoot the thieves of other men’s horses. There is no middle course. The throwing away of our settled convictions just because our horse has been stolen is not consistent.”
“I’ll vote for non-resistance and the maintenance of our principles,” said Mary Winkle severely, “and I further think that what is decided by themajority in this meeting should bind all the members.”
She fixed her eye upon Wright with meaning.
“It is a most difficult juncture,” remarked Madame. “I wish much we had the help of Brother Ezra’s wisdom to guide us.”
“Yes,” said Uncle David cordially, “an’ sister Olive too.”
“I do not see how Sister Olive can have any experience that would enable her to give good advice on this subject,” said Madame acidly.
“Oh, Sister Olive has consider’ble ’cuteness,” remarked Uncle David. “Now you’d be ’stonished to hear the wise things she says, an’ she as purty as a kitten or a rose all the while.”
“Then I guess we’ll just do nothing at all? Is that the decision of this Assembly?” asked Brother Wright abruptly.
“There is great force in passive resistance,” said Brother Carpenter, a boneless individual who counted for little either for work in the fields, or for advice in the councils, of Perfection City. “Where passive resistance has been applied by large numbers and for a long time it has effected great changes,” he observed conversationally.
“I think principles are principles,” said Brother Green, “and may not be lightly set aside.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go home then, since nothing is going to be done,” said Brother Wright angrily,“and I’ll try and keep hold of the last horse, else that thief will come and take him too, when he finds what fools he’s got to deal with.”
The Assembly broke up, having decided nothing at all, and having only succeeded in embittering the feelings of several persons, and in widening the chasm of differences which had revealed itself in the course of the debate, a result that has often followed the meeting of larger and more notorious Assemblies.
Although Brother Wright could not now violate one of the fundamental doctrines of Perfection City, it was open to him to use a little worldly wisdom in the way of setting others upon the track of the thief. Accordingly, without saying a single word to Mary Winkle or anyone else, he mounted Rebel and proceeded to rouse the neighbours who were not at all bound by non-resistant theories. Nothing gets up a prairie man’s anger quicker than the knowledge that a horse-thief has begun active operations in his vicinity. Horses are absolutely necessary to his daily life, and to be suddenly deprived of his horses is one of the greatest calamities that can overtake a settler. They can take a merciful view of homicide at times, but never of horse-stealing. Brother Wright relied on this known propensity, and by visiting the most hardy of his neighbours had before night started as relentless a set of hunters after Queen Katharine as ever put leg over horse or drew pistol from belt.
Olive meanwhile remained at home all unconsciousof what had taken place at the Assembly, and of the pursuit organized afterwards as the effect of Brother Wright’s embassies. She had decided in her own mind that the best course for her to adopt was to keep absolute silence until Ezra should come home. To him she would explain everything, and she felt convinced that he was just enough, albeit no friend of Cotterell’s, to be ready to sacrifice a horse in order to facilitate his escape. She did not feel at all so sure about some of the other members of the Community. At all events Cotterell’s best chance of safety lay in her keeping firmly to her resolution of silence about him. The best way for her to keep silent without exciting suspicion was not to talk with anyone, and feeling pretty well convinced that somebody would come to talk over the great calamity with her, she resolved to be out of the way. In any case she was very miserable and very anxious, and could not stay at home, so she wandered off for a walk. She went to the spring, then she went to Weddell’s Gully and looked at the black burnt waste. She tried to think about the interest and excitement of the fire, but could think of nothing but Cotterell riding for his life and of the men who were riding after him. Olive knew nothing of the second set of men sent after the horse-thief; her mind was still anxiously dwelling on the probability of his being captured by those who had “wanted” him for the murder of Jake Mills. The fact was, however, that this first hunting-party had givenover their quest, for a man must be caught by the second day on the prairie if he is to be caught at all. This, however, Olive did not know, and she kept wondering and picturing all sorts of terrible possibilities. Had the men found the trail? Would Queen Katharine hold out till he got to the border? True she had been resting for a whole day, but then a man’s life depended on her endurance, and Olive remembered with a cold dread that Queen Katharine was only a farm-horse and not trained to such desperate efforts as this. Then she remembered the others, those dreadful hunters, were also mounted on farm horses, and this thought gave her some small comfort. She came home again after a most wretched day spent in aimless rambling over the hopeless black prairie and crept up to the outside platform to scan once more that dreary waste towards the endless western horizon. Far away towards the north-west she saw a band of horsemen huddled together and moving rapidly in an easterly direction. Olive’s heart stood still with terror. Oh! who were they? And why were they riding rapidly? Men rode in bands to funerals, but then they went slowly: they rode fast only when out on a man-hunt. She did not call up Napoleon Pompey, although he could see like a hawk; she dreaded to hear what his explanation would be. She watched with straining eyes until the men had disappeared within the belt of timber that marked the course of the Creek, then she came downstairswith her miserable discovery hidden in her heart.
The next day dragged slowly by, Olive feeling more and more wretched and anxious each moment, and longing for Ezra’s return. Napoleon Pompey did nothing but speculate about the horse-thief and the probabilities of his capture. He regaled Olive with accounts of the numbers of men out on the hunt, the desperate character of their courage, and the murderous accuracy of their aim with revolvers. Sick at heart she had to listen to him and try and collect her terrified senses in order to make occasional comments and replies. Again she hid herself away from her neighbours and spent most of the day in a corn-stack, not two hundred yards from the house, whence she could see plainly without being seen. Uncle David came and stayed so long waiting for her, that she nearly smothered in the corn-stack before he went away, and she was able to come out and catch a breath of fresh air. Then Aunt Ruby came and peered all about everywhere, even down into the cellar, and stayed a good while there examining Olive’s milkpans, until Olive bethought herself of the device of sending off Diana to hasten Aunt Ruby’s exit from the cellar. This device succeeded: Aunt Ruby was so dismayed at seeing that redoubtable puppy lolloping up to her that she incontinently fled, and Olive emerged once more from the suffocation of the corn-stack.
Mary Winkle came twice, fortunately without Willette, for that astute young person would instantly have discovered Olive, owing to the pertinacious company of Diana. A dog does not hang around a corn-stack the live-long day unless there is something interesting inside it claiming attention. Olive began to feel like a hunted criminal herself.
Napoleon Pompey had been sent away in the morning to look for some young cattle that had not been seen since the fire, and having to go on foot he did not come back till the afternoon. He burst in upon her with these appalling words:
“Dey’s done cotch him!”
“Who told you?” asked Olive, not pretending any miscomprehension of what was only too plain to her mind.
“Ole nigger seed ’em. Dey bringin’ him back. Ole man Cotterell he de hoss-thief, him ridin’ Queen Katharine when dey cotch him. Nigger tole me he seed ’em yonder.”
“Have they shot him?” asked Olive with white lips.
“No, dey’s gwine ter jury-try him, den dey hang him ’cause he done stole hoss and he kill ole Mill’s Jake.” Napoleon Pompey licked his lips and grinned. Olive turned from him in horror.
“Where have they taken him to?”
“Dunno. Nigger he ’lowed dey gwine ter Jacksonville.”
Olive made up her mind and took her resolution. She questioned Napoleon Pompey very carefully, found exactly what negro it was from whom he had obtained his information concerning the capture of Cotterell. He worked with the Halls who lived over the other side of Cotton Wood Creek, and she made minute inquiries as to how to reach their house. Then she told the boy to give Rebel a double feed of corn and to bring in the new lariat-rope and mallet and pin. Rebel had been removed back to his own stable by Brother Wright’s desire, as he had no belief now in Pluto as a watch-dog. Napoleon Pompey was open-mouthed with wonder at Olive’s directions about the horse, and asked “whar she gwine?” She told him to do as she bid him and to say nothing to anybody about it, whereat he was still more open-mouthed. Olive got a large shawl and rolled it up into a tight bundle, and then dressed herself in a strong serviceable stuff dress and went to supper with Napoleon Pompey, to whom she never spoke a single word. When supper was over she sent him down to his mother to ask her to bake a pumpkin-pie for her. Napoleon Pompey said he would go “fust thing in de mornin’,” and she told him sternly to go at once and do as he was bid. When Napoleon Pompey came back Olive was gone, and so was Rebel, with lariat-rope picket-pin and mallet, and so was her tightly rolled shawl.
Perfection City had further cause for amazement and hurried meeting in Assembly.
Olive, meanwhile, was riding fast towards Cotton Wood Creek which she reached and crossed by the last shreds of daylight. She stumbled up out of the bottom-lands on to the high prairie, then perceiving by the sound of Rebel’s hoofs that at last she had struck grass again, for the fire had not crossed the Creek, she determined to camp. It was a black night, but she knew how to drive her picket and unsaddle her horse blindfold. Taking her saddle and shawl out of the circle of Rebel’s night-range, she wrapped herself up to wait until daylight should permit her again to go forward. She was not in the least frightened, although the prairie wolves were yelping in the distance. The nervous terrors that had beset her when sitting in her own comfortable little kitchen with her dog at her feet, and a stout lad in the room overhead, were quite gone. Yet there was enough to frighten a more valiant person than our poor little Olive, with her half-defined thoughts and her generous impulses.
What was it she proposed to herself in this expedition? First of all to overtake Cotterell and his captors, and then to do what the wit of woman could devise to save him from their fury. In her ignorance of prairie feelings and ideas she attached no importance to the fact that he would have been captured riding the well-known brown mare belonging to Perfection City. He would of course explain that she had lent him the animal, and that question would at oncedrop out of the debate. Then the terrible one of the shooting of Jake Mills would have to be settled. That was what she feared for Cotterell, and that was where her testimony and pleading might avail. She knew from his own lips how the fatal affray had occurred, and she would be able in some measure, perhaps, to counteract the evidence of that wicked lying negro who out of revenge was going to swear away Cotterell’s life. Olive hated to do it, but she knew she could say things to any western jury that would make it difficult for them to admit negro evidence. For once in a way the mighty race-prejudice could be relied upon to work for justice, and poor Olive, fanatical friend of the negro, had to confess she was glad to have so strong a lever to her hand in this dreadful emergency.
Meanwhile the never-ending night wore on. How long, how unutterably long are the hours of darkness to them who wait sleeplessly for the dawn! The twinkling stars passed over her head, and Olive tried to fix her eyes steadily on one or two of them in order to convince herself that they really did move after all. Thus staring at the stars, her eyes became weary, and the lids dropped slowly over them, and she fell into a troubled sleep, haunted with fearsome visions.
She must have slept some little time, for when she awoke the stars had certainly changed places and were moreover becoming pale in the first grey streaks of morning. Olive awoke shivering with cold anddrenched with the heavy prairie dew. Her teeth chattered, so she could hear them like a piece of broken machinery moving inside her head, while her fingers were almost numb. As soon as she could make out Rebel in the approaching dawn, she saddled him, and, woman-like, did not forget the lariat-rope, picket-pin and mallet, even in the midst of her terrible anxiety. She thought of Cotterell in the hands of his foes, and the recollection came back to her, like a blow that almost stunned her, that this would be the last time he would ever see the sun rise unless she hurried to his rescue. The thought spurred her to renewed activity, the horror of it drove the chilled blood with a rush to her heart. She caught her breath, and then felt hot. She did not shiver any more, and her chattering teeth were set in a desperate resolve. She clambered up on the horse’s back and set off at a gallop towards that house where she would get positive news which would help her to find the lynching-party quickly. Ah! merciful God! The lynching-party! She urged Rebel into a harder gallop, for the sun was just beginning to appear over the horizon, and she could see where she was going. She reached the cabin where the Halls lived in due course. They didn’t know her, but they invited her to breakfast with prairie courtesy. She saw the negro man who had told the news to Napoleon Pompey.
“Yes, he seed ’em totin’ ole man Cotterell back.” There was never any doubt in Olive’s mind as to thefact that they had caught him, what she wanted to know was the destination of the party. “He ’lowed dey was gwine ter Jacksonville, ’cause down yonder was whar dey hang de las’ man; den dey jury-try him, an’ Jacksonville mighty handy anyhow, dar heaps o’ trees dar.”
Olive could not repress a shudder of horror which the negro saw, and so did the Halls. She would not stop a moment to eat a bit of breakfast, notwithstanding their urgent entreaties, but got directions as to the shortest road to Jacksonville and hastened away on her errand of mercy.
Mrs. Hall looking after her rapidly vanishing figure, and remembering the look of misery on her face, “reckoned ’twas one o’ them po’ silly gals as is cotched by a yaller ’stache. She was powerful sorry for her anyhow, she ’peared mos’ broke down an’ sick. She ’lowed if the boys hed hung ole man Cotterell when Glover’s gal shot herself ’cause he wouldn’t marry her, ’twould hev been a sight better anyhow.” Her husband was of opinion that “gals was fules gapin’ a’ter strangers an’ furrin fellers, not bein’ content along o’ their nat’ral men-folks as b’longed to ’em, app’inted by the hand o’ Providence.”
Olive rode through the hot September day feeling very faint and tired, but never for a moment faltering in her determination; and well on in the afternoon she came to Jacksonville, a place with two houses standing and the stakes for three more stuck into theground to signify possession. There was only one woman in the place along with a flock of children. No sign of men anywhere. The woman did not know much about the movements of the “boys.” “They hadn’t passed that way at all, but she hearn tell they had been out catching a horse-thief and murderer, and they had caught him too, a Britisher, she was told, and it was a shame those foreigners should be allowed to come to America to steal honest folks horses, and true born Americans too, as always worked for every cent before they spent it. They had taken him to Union Mills to try him and she hoped—well she didn’t want to say anything unbecoming to a professing Christian, but wouldn’t Olive come in and eat a bit and rest before going further, she didn’t look fit for such hard riding.” Olive, feeling sick with disappointment, accepted a morsel of food, and asking her way to Union Mills started off. She had come thirty-eight miles already, and if she had only known where to go she would have been there hours ago. It was nearly twenty miles to Union Mills, she could not hope to reach it that night, but she started nevertheless although the sun was getting low in the west. The horrid thought kept pressing against her heart: was she already too late? But no, she would force it out of her mind, and come what might she would never stop until she had done her utmost to save him. She therefore pressed forward, but Rebel showed signs of giving out. He lay down with her suddenly andtried to roll. This would never do. All depended on her horse, if he failed her then Cotterell’s last chance of life was gone. She rode slowly, now following a prairie track and now riding along side it, because Rebel stumbled in the ruts. It got dark, she did not know where she was, but followed the track for some time mechanically. A light suddenly showed up on her left. Rebel pricked up his ears and turned towards it. After some difficulty she reached the door. Could they harbour her for the night? She was caught out and could go no further.
“Land o’ Goshen! ’course they could, an’ whar in sin was she gwine that time o’ night ’thout nobody, not even a dawg?” Olive said it was a case of life and death and she must do it. They were deeply sorry, they fed her with corn-bread and bacon, they fed her horse, and were kindness itself. The cabin had only one room with a bed in one corner for the man and his wife. Olive was desperately tired. The wife said “she’d be doggauned sick ’less she went to bed.” So Olive lay down on the bed, and the settler’s wife lay down beside her, and the man slept on the floor with his head on a pile of corn-shucks. Long before daylight he went out and fed her horse. The wife cooked a good breakfast and pressed Olive again and again “to scrouge down suthin’ more,” and sent her off with many good wishes as to her finding her husband better, who, she was sure, ’ud be tickled to death at seeing her.