III
"That was pore Grandpap Bill Singleton 'at hollered," explained the old woman, putting her right hand up to meet that of her kinsman. "We calls him the 'Prophet', Little Buck."
She emitted a tiny shriek at his grip; he had forgotten her rheumatism. He apologized quickly, and held his hand down toward the young woman who had been his boyhood sweetheart. Tot Singleton glanced straight into his eyes, seemed suddenly afraid of him, and ran swiftly homeward. Wolfe faced his garrulous grandmother again and opened his lips to speak, but she cut him off short.
"Now don't that beat the devil? She acted like as ef she was afeared ye'd bite her head off, didn't she? Atwixt me and you, Little Buck, wimmen is sawt o' strange critturs. Say, dad-burn it, you jest wait here ontel I step back yander to the aidge o' the basin and git my stick, which same I draped—it lays at that 'ar slim poplar thar—and me and you we'll go to yore pap's house."
Her grandson rode to the foot of the Lost Trail, recovered the sourwood staff and brought it to her. He dismountedthen, and the two walked toward the settlement of the Wolfes, the horse following at the end of its rein.
"And so you're a real, shore-enough officer o' the United States law!" proudly observed Granny Wolfe as they picked their way through a thin copse of sumach.
"A deputy-sheriff, made that at the special request of the new Unaka Lumber Company, of which I am general manager," said Wolfe. He went on, "It was done in order that I might better protect the company's interests in the mountains. What lucky fellow got Tot Singleton, Granny?"
"Lumber was Colonel Mason's line; I might ha' knowed it'd be yore line, too," muttered the old woman. "Hey? Now hain't Tot purty! She hain't a bit like the rest o' the Singletons. Bless yore soul, Tot hain't never married nobody! And her mighty nigh it as old as you, Little Buck. Some says one thing about that, and some another; but me, I say it's acause she han't never seed nobody 'at was quite as good as the boy who beat the devil out o' Cat-Eye Mayfield and throwed him in the creek for a-stickin' pine rawzum chewin' gum in her hair! Ye see, honey, a mountain gyurl at sixteen is mighty nigh it a woman—why, I was married at sixteen—whilst a boy at the same age is gen'ally a durned fool. Hey?"
Wolfe laughed. "And what became of Cat-Eye Mayfield?"
"Him? Huh!" She turned up her thin old nose. "He still lives with his pap up whar the two mountains j'ines at. And he still pesters Tot half to death a-tryin' to git her to marry him. Tot she hates him wuss'n the Old Scratch. And she's been a-havin' a sight o' trouble wi' her heatherns, the same as I have wi' mine. She jest cain't stand the idee o' her people a-fightin' like they does. Some says it was Grandpap Bill Singleton 'at put it into her head; but me, I say it's jest natchelly the goodness of her, Little Buck.
"I know you've come back to he'p yore people, Little Buck," Granny Wolfe ran on. "You seed whar at yore duty laid. Well, we've got me and you, and Tot and her grandpap, on the right side o' the fence. But we'll have a awful time of it, shore. Yore pap he's turrible, turrible! It's allus him who begins the fightin' atwixt us and the Singletons. Them Singletons, 'cept Tot and her grandpap, the Prophet, is as quick to fight as a wildcat; but they don't never take the fust step at it, never."
Twilight, soft and peaceful, had set in when the pair arrived at Old Buck's low and rambling log cabin. Standing or sitting here and there in the yard, all of them grave and silent, was a score of men of the name Wolfe—one of their unwritten laws was that when an outsider married a Wolfe he lost his surname and took that of his wife; it was like that with the Singletons, too, that other wild, princely clan. The house was packed with women and children; and they, also, were grave and silent, save for one babe in arms that whimpered softly because its mother wouldn't give it the clock for a plaything.
The returned son of the Wolfe chief threw his horse's rein over one of the rotting gateposts, and entered the yard with his grandmother limping close behind him.
"I'll bet ye cain't guess who this here feller is!" the old woman chuckled—and told them in the same breath. "It's Little Buck!"
Little Buck had been recognized already. The clan favored him with one quick, sharp glance. There was no other demonstration just then.
Young Wolfe stopped before the doorstep, on which his huge, gaunt father sat as still as a stone image. Old Buck's elbows rested on his knees; his bearded chin was almost hidden in his great, knotty hands. The son who had been named for him saw that a tiny streak of dried blood ran from a wound somewhere under his left shirtsleeve straight to the point of his left little finger.
Then the man of the officer's shield put out his hand and said cordially, "How are you, father?"
The clan leader seemed not to have heard. The silence became oppressive. Little Buck Wolfe's lips quivered, and he saw his father dimly. Granny Wolfe made a choking sound in her leathery throat, and raised her sourwood staff threateningly.
"Buck Wolfe, you old fool," clipped her quick tongue, "you git right up from thar and shake hands wi' yore own flesh and blood, him 'at is a credit to you and me andevery other Wolfe 'at ever slapped the face o' the earth wi' a shoe-bottom."
The stern old mountaineer did not even change his stare.
"How are you, father?" again.
Wolfe the elder suddenly leaped to his feet, seized Little Buck's hand and wrung it savagely, and growled, "I'm all right, damn it; how're you?"
"All right," very quietly. Little Buck's face had brightened.
His mother, who never dared to speak ahead of her iron-hearted husband, came out to meet him then. He kissed her reverently on the forehead, and it brought to her mind an avalanche of memories of happier days; she stole hurriedly back into the cabin, in order that the menfolk might not see signs of the weakness that had come over her. Her son began a round of handshaking with his kinsmen. The ice was broken.
"Nath," bellowed the old clan leader, "you bring him a chair out here! The' hain't no room in the house; the wommen and young'uns is as thick in thar as fiddlers in Tophet. Set the chair so's he can lean back ag'in the wall and rest hisself, Nath. And bring me that 'ar jug o' yaller cawn licker out o' the cubb'ard, too, Nath—the visitor licker. Boy," to Little Buck, "ye'll have to look over my cussfired onperliteness, I reckon. I've been so cussfired mad all day 'at my dang breath would wilt fullgrown pizen-vine."
He dropped back to the doorstep. A few seconds later Little Buck accepted the chair his big and bearded brother Nathan brought for him. Old Buck then drew the corncob stopper from a one-gallon jug with his teeth, and held the jug toward his fifth son. The latter refused it courteously, and it was not pressed upon him. He saw Nathan smile good humoredly.
"Mebbe you're sawt o' like me," said Nathan, as he passed the jug to his Cousin John Ike. "I got on a rip-roarin' big dido last summer—I was so loaded I wouldn't ha' knowed a lightnin'rod agent from a beauty doctor. Whilst I was in that glorious fix, I drunk a bottle o' hawg cholery medicine by mistake, and so I jest hain't had no hankerin' 'atter licker sence."
This elicited a low rumble of laughter. The earthenware receptacle went around, and was returned to Old Buck almost empty. Old Buck raised it to a level with his eyes, looked toward Little Buck, and drawled the only toast he knew.
"'Here's to you, as good as you are, and to me, as bad as I am; and as bad as I am, and as good as you are, I'm as good as you are, as bad as I am!'"
Young Wolfe only smiled. Nathan responded for him, "Drink hearty."
Old Buck went on. "When a feller can say that 'ar toast straight, he natchelly hain't loaded. I don't never 'low none o' my people to git loaded. I tests 'em by that toast; and ef they cain't say it straight, I thrashes 'em. I thrashed Nath atter he'd got over his dido and his mistake last summer. Ax him, ef ye don't believe it."
Nathan pulled at his silky black beard, grinned, and changed the subject, "What'n Tophet brung ye back, Little Buck?" he asked.
The man addressed swept the half-circle before him with his eyes. They were all smiling upon him now, and he was glad indeed to note that they were disposed to be so friendly. He moistened his lips and began.
"I decided some little time ago to come back. I had heard, through Oliver, about——"
"How's Oliver?" broke in his father.
"Oliver's all right. I had heard, through Oliver, about the fighting, and I wanted to see——"
"You say Oliver he's all right?" interrupted his mother, who now stood in the doorway.
"Absolutely. The fighting didn't seem worth while to me, and I wanted——"
"I'm shore glad pore Oliver he's all right," said Oliver Wolfe's wife.
"——To see if I could do anything to stop it," Little Buck pursued doggedly. "When I was ready to start out here, I learned that the Thorntons, some of whom have owned the basin land since the days of the old North Carolina land grant, were about to sell out to some cattlemen, who wanted the basin for grazing purposes. I investigated, and found out that the cattlemen hadn't offered a very good price because of the trouble they expected to have with the Wolfes and Singletons——"
"Them cattlemen," his father cut in grimly, "had right good hoss sense."
"Well, I knew the basin better than any of them, and I knew the coves of the inner sides of the two mountains were filled with virgin white oak and yellow poplar, timber without a peer in the world. I organized a company—lumber was ColonelMason's line, you know, and it's mine, also—and we bought both timber and land from mountain's crest to mountain's crest at a very reasonable figure. Then we ordered machinery for a big sawmill, a geared locomotive and cars, and enough light steel rails to run a narrow-gauge road over the six miles that lie between this point and the new C. C. & O. Railway. Everything is in our favor. The logging is all either down grade or on a level; there never was a finer location for a mill and yards than can be had here in the basin; and the little railroad can follow the creek all the way down to the C. C. & O."
A number of the faces before him had hardened. He rose; it was like him to meet the adverse on his feet.
"But I haven't told you the best of it," he went on convincingly. "I have an agreement with the other members of the company by which I am to have any of the land that I may want, when the sawing is done, at two dollars an acre, and I'm willing to pass it on to you at the same price; also, I am willing to give you all work at good wages. I say I'm willing; I mean that I'm anxious. It's for you, my own people, that I'm doing—what I'm doing.
"I want to see every Wolfe by name living in his own comfortable cottage home, on his own little farm, here in Wolfe's Basin. I want us to have a school for the children, a little church, and a post office. I want us to have an ideal community here in this, one of the finest spots on the Almighty's earth. If you'll all stick to me, we'll have it. Now, men, I want to know who's going to stick?"
The eyes of all were turned upon Old Buck Wolfe. When he spoke, he would speak for the others. He sat with his shaggy head bent, a huge and actionless figure in the deepening dusk.
"Ef we don't fall in wi' yore idee, then what?" he asked, without raising his head.
"It's like this," Little Buck told him in a very businesslike voice: "my foster-parents, the Masons, sold every dollars' worth of property they had—except their home, and they even mortgaged that as heavily as it would stand—to get money enough to back me up, such was their faith in me. I've given them my promise that they shan't lose a single penny. If I don't get your help, I—I'll have to develop the timber interest without it. But I want your help!"
"Son," and the stern old mountaineer sat up straight, "onless the' happens to be somethin' ahind of it that I cain't yit see, we're all with ye, lock, stock, ramrod, barrel, and sights!"
"And I say God bless ye, Buck Wolfe!" cried a creaking, but happy old voice from behind him. "Nath, run to my house and let my little dawg out; he's been shet up all day, pore little devil."
Before he went in to super, the Arnold Mason that was exacted an ironclad promise from his father. Old Buck gave his word that, no matter what might happen, the Wolfes would nevermore take the first step in a fight with the Singletons.
The young general manager of the newly organized Unaka Lumber Company refused the visitor-bed that night, and crept up to his boyhood bed in the loft. His dreams were filled with dazzlingly pretty women who kept giving him back diamond rings.