VII
There was a heavy step on the veranda. A big and poorly-dressed man, wearing a sunburned black beard and carrying a rifle by its muzzle, appeared on the threshold.
"Whar's my little gyurl?" he asked jerkily.
The colonel's wife looked with instant pity upon him. There was something very forlorn about Alex Singleton, the repentant. His gaunt and haggard face, his ragged clothing, his run-over cowhide boots, all were covered with the dust of travel. Just under his eyes, which were wide and hungry-looking, his cheeks were mottled faintly, and it was chiefly by this pathetic little token that Mrs. Mason read the story of his remorseful sorrow. He stared straight at her; he appeared to be wholly unaware of the presence beside her of old Buck Wolfe's son.
"Whar is she at?" he asked again, this time almost in a whisper.
"She went back to the hills last night," Mrs. Mason answered kindly.
"I'd ort to be shot fo' a-runnin' her off," muttered Alex Singleton. In louder tones, "Might I ax ye fo' a big drink o' whisky, mis'?"
Mrs. Mason's eyes twinkled. "I think we have some. Sit down and wait, and I'll go for it."
It was then that she noticed that his left shirtsleeve had been ripped open to the shoulder; that a rawhide thong did service as a tourniquet just above his left elbow; and that his left forearm, wrist and hand were swollen and discolored.
"Copperhead bit me as I was a-creepin' through a fence jest outside o' town," the mountaineer explained apologetically. "Got me afore I knowed it was anywhar nigh me. That's what I wanted with a big drink o' whisky, mis', it a-bein' good fo' snakebite."
"Oh, you must have Doctor Rice!" the little woman cried frightenedly. Already she was fairly pushing him toward a veranda chair that Wolfe had hurriedly provided; he sat down as obediently as a child would have done. "Arnold, phone Doctor Rice——"
"But there's no time to be lost in waiting for Rice, mother," said Wolfe. "Look at that arm! I can treat snakebite; I've got some potassium permanganate that I bought to take to the hills with me——"
He ran to his bedroom and returned with a small bottle. Alex Singleton rose angrily.
"I hain't a-goin' to letyoudo it!" he declared.
"You'll have to," replied Wolfe. "You don't want to die, do you?"
"But thar's whisky——"
"Whisky," old Buck Wolfe's son interrupted, "is as bad as it is good. It stimulates the heart action, but it spreads the poison through the system rapidly. Thispermanganate—we just cut right through the marks of the fangs with a knife; then we draw out as much poison as will come; then we fill the wounds with this stuff, and pretty soon you'll be as good as new. You see, you evidently got the tourniquet on quick, which is a big thing."
"Me, a Singleton, and you, a Wolfe?" The mountain man was suffering much. He was a stranger in a strange land, dazed and bewildered, and heart-broken because of his treatment of his only daughter. He weakened.
"You'd do that fo' me, a Singleton? Ef you would, I hain't a-goin' to be lowdown enough to keep ye from it. Yank out yore knife and cut the whole danged arm off, Little Buck, ef ye want to!"
He held out the swollen, discolored hand. Wolfe took a sharp knife from his pocket, and with it split the fang-marks two ways. With his mouth he succeeded in drawing out some of the virulent yellow poison. After that he filled the wounds with permanganate crystals. The colonel came up and tried to help.
"We'll loosen your thong at intervals," smiled Wolfe. "There's some poison in that arm that the permanganate won't reach, but it won't hurt much if we let it into the circulation a little at a time. It's the shock of the whole dose, you know, that kills."
Some hours later, the leader of the Singletons put out his good right hand.
"Boy," he said with a great deal of feeling, "you've got one friend, anyhow, which no time, nor no change, nor no thing on earth can ever take away from ye. I want ye to shake wi' me, Little Buck."
They shook.
"Now will ye please tell me, ef ye know," Singleton went on, "how come it Louisiany left here in the night?"
Wolfe told him briefly.
"Cat-Eye Mayfield!" growled the big hillman. "Well, I reckon I'm a-goin' to haf to kill Cat-Eye sometime. Goodness knows I hates to do it, but fo' pore little Louisiany I will, as shore as green apples. Le' me tell ye this here, folks—thar's the lowdownest man 'at ever stuck a boot-track on the face o' the world."
After two more hours, the rawhide thong was removed entirely. Singleton's constitution was like iron. He rose, and took up his rifle and hat.
"I guess I'll be a-movin' toward home," he drawled softly. "I feel good enough to thrash my weight in wildcats now. I shore won't fo'git this."
"Better wait until tomorrow," advised the always hospitable colonel.
"I'll go with you," said Wolfe. "Tot may need help, you know. We'll separate at the Gate, in order that my people——"
"No!" old Alex broke in stoutly. "You cain't go to the mountains now. Mayfield would be plumb shore to snipe ye off, plum' shore. You must stay here fo' three days, at least. I tell you, I knows jest edzactly what I'm a-talkin' about, Little Buck."
"But he wouldn't have got away, if I hadn't been such a boob!" frowned Wolfe. "It's up to me, as the saying is, to bring him back."
Singleton shook his head. "Oh, no! Ef I'm a-goin' to be yore friend, you must le' me have my way about it. Don't be a-skeered but what Louisiany can take blamed good keer o' herself. Cat-Eye, he wouldn't hurt her, anyhow. He knows me too dang well to hurt her. And so good-by to ye all!"
Half a minute later, he had left the house and was hurrying toward the great, dim-blue ranges.
The young general manager of the new Unaka Lumber Company began immediately the building of his toy railroad. Before twilight of the next day, more than a dozen tents had been staked on a level spot near where Wolfes Creek flowed under the C. C. & O., and the mountain air was filled with the songs of weary negro laborers. Early on the following morning, under the supervision of a young foreman named Weaver, the narrow roadbed began to creep toward the basin. The hills everlastingly rang with the staccato of the axe, the keen tenor of the saw, and the low bass thunder of exploding dynamite as tree after tree and ledge after ledge of stone fell victims of the hand of progress.
Late in the afternoon of the day following, Wolfe left the work entirely in charge of his foreman, and started to Johnsville for news. No person had passed by way of the trail that led downthe creek from Devil's Gate, but those for whom he had been watching might possibly have taken another trail.
He found no news awaiting him in Johnsville. Nothing more had been seen or heard of the Singletons or of Mayfield. Wolfe feared that some evil had befallen Tot. Before he went to bed that night, he decided that he would be in the hills at daybreak on a search for her.
Colonel Mason wished to accompany his foster-son, but he awoke too late. Whereupon he gallantly wagered his wife a silk dress against a peach pie that he would overtake Arnold before he reached Devil's Gate—and he won the peach pie.