XIII
Five minutes after the coming of the old chief of the Singletons, the Unaka Lumber Company's general manager was the one man left in the immediate vicinity of the piles of ties. Alex Singleton had driven his kinsmen homeward, telling them in no uncertain language as they went just what he thought of them for the grievous mistake they had made. His brother Eli turned upon him angrily, and so did his son Lon; he quite promptly knocked them both down.
Weaver had been sent with the negro laborers to Johnsville, where he was to do the paying off. The Wolfes had disappeared silently from the eastern side of the Gate.
The one man left on the scene of the recent fight did not ponder the situation for long. He took up an ax and went to cut the deadline tree twice and remove the piece. He had not struck half a dozen blows when he saw coming toward him from the basin, as fast as she could possibly walk, his grandmother; the old woman carried her sourwood staff horizontally, and the bowl of her clay pipe was turned carelessly downward. When she saw her grandson alive, she stopped, threw up her hands, and let her pipe fall to the grass at her feet. She appeared tobe unable to believe that he was really safe.
"Little Buck, honey," she called fearsomely, "is 'at shore enough you a-choppin' that 'ar tree the same as ef—as ef ye wasn't hurt none? Or does I see a sperit?"
"I'm all right, grandmother," he answered cheerily; then he asked solicitously concerning her rheumatism.
"My rheumatiz? I'd durn nigh' fo'got it." She picked up her pipe, and limped to him. "But I hain't no 'count, honey, at all. I'm skeered ontel I hain't got as much sense as a last year's bird nest. I was shore 'at ye'd been killed by them devilish fools. I dramp' it last night, too. I wisht I may never git another breath ef it don't jest look like the good Lord has fo'got ye, Little Buck, darlin'! But He ain't. He jest got ye in the pot to b'ile ye down to see what the' is to ye, honey. You stick; you show 'em. Yore pap hain't a-goin' to shoot at ye. Yes, I knows about it. So does the rest o' the Wolfes. They all says 'at he won't shoot at you. Why, he's dang nigh all to pieces!
"Or he was this mornin' early, anyhow," she ran on. "He found a cross cut in his bedroom floor, seven inches by five! And the' hadn't been nobody in the room but him and yore mother, neither; and yore mother she never done it. Now ye needn't to ax me nothin' about it, acause I shore don't know nothin' about it! But it makes me afeared to stay by myself at night, Little Buck; I can tell ye that. Well, what about the shootin'?"
He told her.
"I knowed it was the Singletons, acause most of it was done from the Lost Trail side," she chattered. "Well, Alex he'll hold 'em down fo' ye now. So you jest go right on ahead like ye've been a-goin', and ye're shore to win out, honey."
"I hope to," he said uncertainly, "but I don't see how. I need men, and I can't ask anybody to come in here and risk being sniped. I—I don't know what I'm going to do about it, grandmother."
She cocked her head to one side. "Would Nath he'p any?"
"Yes," quickly. "I'd like to have Nathan. I wonder if he'd dare to come over to me?"
"Little Buck, jest you ax him!" exclaimed the old woman, bringing her staff down on the little poplar with a clatter. "And say, honey, listen; don't call me 'grandmother'. Call me 'grammaw' like ye used to when ye was a weeny teeny boy. Hey?"
"All right, grammaw," without the quiver of an eyelash, "I'll ask Nathan the first chance——"
A man, tall, black-bearded, sad-faced, his mouth still showing signs of the bruise made by an iron-willed father's fist, stepped from the undergrowth and confronted Little Buck Wolfe squarely. There was a repeating rifle in his hand. There was a dimness in his eyes. It was Nathan himself. He shook hands silently with his brother.
The younger of the two men spoke first. "You've just come down from the Lost Trail, Nathan, I see; what were you doing up there with a rifle?"
"I wanted to he'p you out."
"I see," gratefully. "You didn't shoot?"
"I never got thar in time," said Nathan Wolfe. "When old Alex he comes a-runnin' up to you, I was jest a-fixin' to let Fightin' Lon have it atween the eyes; and ef I'd ha' pulled the trigger, they'd shorely ha' been another buryin' in the Lost Trail dirt. Little Buck, I heerd ye a-wonderin' to Granny thar ef I would dare to come over to ye. Yes, I would dare. I'm to ye, wi' pick or shovel, rifle or club, sink or swim, live or die, ef ye reelly do want me."
"I really do want you," his brother hastened to assure him. "Well, we'll go to work right now. While you finish cutting this piece out of the deadline tree, I'll go back and throw some ties and rails on the upper lumber flat. We'll try to get the track here by nightfall. The grading is all done this far, you see, and the rest of it is all level ground."
Nathan put his rifle down on the leaves. "Gi' me that 'ar ax," he grinned; and soon the woodland began to ring as his powerful arms drove the steel blade up to the eye at each blow in the soft yellow wood.
By the coming of darkness, the two perspiration-soaked men had finished the narrow-gauge road to the deadline. Then they sat themselves down before a crackling brushwood fire, and ate heartily a meal of their grandmother's cooking.
They slept beside the fire that night.
Granny Wolfe also furnished them with breakfast on the following morning. When they had eaten, they rose silently, each thinking the same thought, a thought concerned with the driving of a certain very important railroad spike. The shadow of the Big Blackfern was slowly falling fromthe crest of the Lost Trail and the base of bald Pickett's Dome. A few birds were singing their good-by songs to the lingering spirit of summer. A few sleek squirrels ran here and there in the trees or on the ground, choosing only the finest of nuts or none at all, now and then shaking their bushy tails saucily.
The old hillwoman was hopeful. She wore her red petticoat wrong side out; she had seen, the evening before, the new moon over her left shoulder and not through brush; she had dreamed of being at a wedding, too, a wedding that had taken place in a big white house that stood in the very center of a wide garden of flowers. All this, of course, could mean nothing but good luck!
"It was you and Tot!" she whispered to Little Buck. "And how her blue eyes was a-shinin'! Blast me ef I cain't see 'em yit, her eyes. Now I keep a-wonderin', honey, how Tot she's a-gittin' along in town? Is she a great, fine lady now, Little Buck? She shorely hain't got to be stuck-uppish, has she; hey?"
"Not a bit," smilingly. "She's getting along well, and learning fast; it's remarkable, they say. She's a fine lady, all right! But she's hardly 'stuck-uppish,' grammaw. No fine lady could possibly be stuck-uppish, you know."
"Well, I wisht—now hain't that the truth! Well, I'm a-botherin' of ye, honey. You and Nath wants to go to work. So go ahead. Yore pap he'll break his word, and 'en the goin'll be as smooth as ile. He—honey, ef here don't come pore old Grandpap Bill Singleton, the Prophet! How d'ye come on this fine mornin', Bill Singleton?"
The aged mountaineer's lips wore a smile, but there was worry in his eyes. He limped up to the trio.
"Ef ever I've seed a drier summer and fall," he began, "I don't know when it was. Why, what'm I a-talkin' about? I don't keer nothin' about the weather now; what I want to know now, Jane Wolfe, is what has become o' pore little Tot?"
Granny Wolfe straightened. "Hain't she at Johnsville, Bill?"
"She 'cided to come back wi' her pap yeste'day," said Grandpap Singleton, "and he hain't seed her—nor none of us has—sence he outrun her when he heerd the shootin'. Alex he's s'arched the woods all down thar below, and mighty nigh it everywhar else, and he never found no sign of her at all. Little Buck, please try to find her!"
"Perhaps she went back to the Masons—though it's not likely that she'd run from a fight that her own people were mixed up in," young Wolfe muttered. "We've a 'phone at the camp. Maybe I'd better go down there and 'phone the Masons."
The old mountain man's eyes flitted to the silent locomotive.
"Ef ye go on the ingyne, I'd like to go wi' ye," he said. "I hain't never—heh!—rid on no train nor nothin' like it."
"All right," nodded Wolfe. "Want to go with us, grammaw?"
"Shore," eagerly; "I hain't never rid on no train neither."
Wolfe helped the two old people to the cab seats, uncoupled the locomotive, sprang aboard and loosed the brakes. They were off for the now deserted camp.
The Masons hadn't seen Tot Singleton since the morning of the day before! Wolfe frowned hard at the tidings. After a few minutes spent in talking with the colonel, he hastened back to the locomotive, which was now trembling under a fair head of steam. He delivered his message to Grandpap Singleton, and reached for the throttle-lever.
"Honey," smiled Granny Wolfe, seeming somehow like a guilty child, "ef you won't git mad at me—I know whar Tot is! As we left the aidge o' the basin, I seed her a-peepin' down at us from the laurels on the Lost Trail side! I know I'd orter told ye, honey; but I hadn't never rid on no train afore, and I—I was jest mighty nigh it a-dyin' to ride!"
"That's all right, grammaw," said her grandson. "I wonder why she didn't go to her father's?"
Neither of his hearers could answer the question. He opened the throttle, and a sharp staccato of exhaust shattered the woodland peace.
When he stepped from the cab at a point near the upper end of the track, Nathan met him and said in a series of hoarse whispers, "The's dozens and dozens o' eyes on us right now, Little Buck. Gethered up thar on the Lost Trail is the Singletons, men, wimmen, childern, and dawgs; the Wolfes is the same way on the Blackfern side. I cain't locate pap, whichain't no good sign, Little Buck. I've been a-thinkin' purty hard, sence you left fo' the camp. Pap he's plum wild. He's a-goin' to shoot the man who drives the fust spike, and 'an he's a-goin' to shoot hisself—to keep his word is his religion, and it's his only way out. That's why he's hid out away from the rest of 'em. You don't think he'll do it, hey? None o' the rest of 'em does. But he will! Now, I've b'iled it all down to this here, Little Buck; listen clost——
"Ef you was to have pap and t'others o' the clan arrested and kep' in jail ontel ye could git through wi' buildin' the road and the mill, they'd burn the mill and the timber-woods as shore as shootin' when they got out. Then the law'd come out here wi' big posses, or mebbe the militia, and the'd be a awful fight, and deaths and deaths. So ye cain't do that. The one thing left is fo' me to drive the spike, and let pap shoot me and keep his word; that'd turn all o' our people over to you, acause they'd never stand fo' pap a-shootin' his own son. This way, they'd be jest pap and me killed; t'other way, they'd be dozens killed, and more dozens o' pore, daddyless little childerns left to suffer.
"So I'll drive that spike, Little Buck," he smiled. "I hain't a-goin' to let you do it. You're wo'th so much more'n what I am. You can carry on the business, and I couldn't. Asides, I've been a awful mean man in my day, and I want to do this here to sawt o' square things up wi' the Almighty. And so good-by, Little Buck, and good luck to ye as long as ye live!"
He caught up a hammer and a spike, and ran toward the section of loose rails his own hands had placed the proper distance apart just beyond the deadline.
His brother, shaken with emotion, started after him, to catch him and hold him back, to take the hammer and the spike from him and to drive the spike himself; but he tripped and fell, and before he found his feet again Nathan had placed the big iron nail and was raising the hammer to strike it.
"Wait, Nathan!" cried Little Buck Wolfe frantically. "Stop!"
Nathan did not wait. The hammer fell with a force that sent the big iron nail halfway to the heart of the oaken tie. Again the fine, muscular arms lifted the pointed hammer, and again did the hammer fall—then there came from the eastern jaw of Devil's Gate the roaring, murderous sound of a shot.
But Nathan paid no attention to it! He worked on determinedly. Before the echoes of the report had died completely away, two more spikes had been driven up to the head beyond the deadline. Little Buck Wolfe went to help, and soon the entire section of rails was made fast. A victory was won. For the first time in his life, Old Buck Wolfe had failed to keep his word.
The two brothers straightened then, and looked in all directions. A moment later, they saw Sheriff Alvin Starnes and a posse of men that represented the flower of the county's manhood, step into the Gate trail from the undergrowth; and they held as prisoners Old Buck Wolfe and nineteen other Wolfes, all of them disarmed and handcuffed!
The general manager of the Unaka Lumber Company went pale. He ran toward the sheriff's party.
"Sheriff Starnes," he protested hotly, "this is my own affair! You must let my people go. I never can do anything with them if you take them to jail, never! I promised my father that—at least, I told him—that I would not resort to law. He can't ever be made to believe that I didn't send for you; he thinks I've lied to him, don't you see? They didn't harm me, or my brother Nathan. The fact that you found them with rifles amounts to little; they're never without rifles. Please let them go!"
"One minute, Mr. Mason!" the illiterate, but brave Sheriff Starnes was somewhat angry. "We didn't arrest these men for nothin'. It was like this. One o' my deputies and me watched your father, while the rest o' the posse watched the other nineteen; your dad was some little distance away from the other nineteen, y'see. When the first spike your brother drove was goin' down, your dad lifted his rifle and said to hisself, and loud enough for me to hear, 'I'll git him in the edge o' the leg, anyhow, and keep my word.' I fired off my revolver as a signal for my men to cover the rest of 'em, and my pardner and me took charge o' your father.
"They've got to stay in jail, sir," he continued sharply, "until they can give a peace bond; and they cain't give a peace bond until they promise to not harm you or the business you're managin'. Maybe you don't know it yet, Mr. Mason, but Mr. Whitney Fair is buyin' out all o' the stock-holders in this thing but you and the colonel, which will give him a controllin' interest—and you know how he stands on sentiment!"
Whitney Fair! Alice's father. It was very bad news, indeed. Wolfe clenched his fists instinctively. Whitney Fair was a—a hog.
"We'll make no sech of a promise to nobody!" stormed the ashen-faced old clan chief.
The nineteen others repeated the declaration grimly, and some of them striped it with oaths.
"If I was to let 'em go," the sheriff went on, his voice now not so hard, "what then? You couldn't finish buildin' your operations, and you couldn't operate your operations even if you had 'em built. Jail's the only cure for this contrary twenty, sir. It'll take some o' the pepper out of 'em, and it won't do the everlastin' harm you think it will, either."
Thereupon Starnes and his posse half led, half dragged, their prisoners toward Johnsville.
Once more young Wolfe found himself in despair. What meddlesome person had brought the interference of the law? Whitney Fair? Who had told Fair about the crisis? Had it not been for that interference, the day would have been signally won for him. True, Nathan would have been shot in the leg.
But what was a fleshwound to such a victory! For his people would have discountenanced even that slight wounding of Nathan, who had so nobly laid himself on the altar of sacrifice, so much that they would have ceased to look to his father. His people would have come over as Nathan had come over. Thrown down, broken-spirited, his father himself might—possibly—have come over to the right way of thinking.
He didn't blame Starnes for taking the nineteen others also. Starnes could not have taken any one of the clan; he had to take the entire faction or none of it.
Weaver arrived from Johnsville. The moment Wolfe saw his foreman, he did something that was rather unusual for him; he jumped at a conclusion.
"What right had you to send the sheriff out here?" he thundered. "If you would take care of your own affairs, and leave mine to me, no doubt you would——"
The look of intense hurt he saw on the face of his friend stopped his speech abruptly. It was long before he forgot that look.
"They'll pay you what's due you at the office," he went on grimly, and Weaver went off down the track.
A slender figure in a blue dress sprang out of the laurels and confronted Wolfe. It was the missing Tot Singleton!
"He didn't do it!" she breathed. "I did it—I did it because I just c-c-couldn't bear the thought o' you being killed. I met Mr. Weaver going to town yesterday, and I made him tell me everything. Then I went for the sheriff and a posse—but I made the sheriff promise he wouldn't act unless it was to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Weaver took all o' the blame to save me. Call him b-back and ask him to excuse—to pardon you!"
Wolfe had been seeing her too often, and he had been too busy, to fully appreciate the vast improvement she had made in her language—even when he wasn't beside himself with anger. He gave her a queer, narrow smile now, then called Weaver back and apologized.
"And will you forgive me, Little Buck?" plaintively whispered Tot, when the foreman had turned away.
The bitter answer of Little Buck Wolfe, who in this black hour was mostly mountaineer, came promptly.
"I don't think I will," he said.