XVI
When the first afternoon's sawing was done, Little Buck Wolfe went to his adoring old grandmother's cabin for his supper. He had been taking his meals at the new house; but his mother was now entertaining the Masons and the Fairs, and she had her hands full without caring for him. Shortly after nightfall, he turned toward a small, rough building that stood not far from the mill. This little building had two rooms; one of them was furnished with a cheap bed and a cheap dresser, while the other contained a desk and a chair, a table, and an iron safe that now held four weeks' pay for the twenty-six carpenters, masons, and millwrights. Wolfe stopped at the door of his office and looked upward; except for a thick bank of clouds that lay low in the west, the sky was filled from horizon to zenith with very bright stars.
A moment later, he sank into his swivel chair, took a tally-sheet from his desk, and began to figure by the light of an oil lamp. The mill had, he found, cut two thousand dollars' worth of choice lumber in five hours! There were, he told himself, big gold mines that did not pay as this sawmill was going to pay.
Just then there came to his ears the hum of merry voices, which was followed by a sharp rap at the door. He called out an invitation to enter. The door swung stiffly inward, and the Masons, the Fairs, Granny Wolfe, Tot Singleton and her father and a spotted hound came trooping in. Fair and the colonel wore overcoats; the women wore wraps.
"You be the spokesman, Alex," said Colonel Mason, with a sly wink at the general manager.
Old Singleton tugged at his sunburned, black beard and laughed like a happy, healthy boy.
"How about a 'possum-hunt, Little Buck?" he asked.
"It's too dry, isn't it?" said Wolfe. "I'm afraid a dog couldn't pick up a trail at all, tonight."
"It hain't rained—durned ef I know when it was!" chattered Granny Wolfe. "Wisht I may die ef ever I seed another sech a dry summer and fall sence I was borned. Would ye gi' me a match, Little Buck, honey? This here contrary old pipe it's gone out ag'in."
"Why not have a cigar?" Whitney Fair suggested sportively, drawing a light-brown weed from a vest pocket.
"I be consarned ef I don't try it oncet, anyhow!" laughed the garrulous old woman. "I allus would try 'most anything oncet."
She applied a burning match to the cigar, and went to puffing with all her might, greatly to Whitney Fair's amusement.
"Yes," Alex Singleton agreed seriously, "it's too dry fo' a dawg to trail good. A feller just couldn't catfoot atter squirrels at all now! But these here folks they're all dead sot on a 'possum-hunt, and I've done j'ined my symp'thies wi' their'n. The's a lot o' pe'simmon-trees jest a-hangin' full down thar clost to whar yore little railroad meets the big railroad, and we might find a 'possum or two in them trees 'thout havin' to depend on the dawg to trail. And as the steam hain't went down in the ingyne yit, we wondered ef we couldn't have what Miss Alice thar calls a 'scursion as well as a 'possum-hunt. We could put some chairs on a lumber flat, ye know."
"Come along, like a good fellow," urged Fair, smiling a cold smile that temporarily effaced the cleft from his chin. "The safe will be all right, won't it?"
"I don't see why it shouldn't be," Wolfe answered. He threw off his weariness, and entered into the spirit of the thing. "I'll run up to the mill and get the locomotive and a flat," he continued, "and pick you up somewhere on the track below. While you're waiting for me, Alex, you might ask my mother for half a dozen chairs, and get about two lanterns ready, eh?"
Singleton nodded joyously. The seven callers and the dog then hastened into the cool, starry night.
Wolfe shaved himself and put on his one presentable suit of clothing, which required fifteen minutes. When this was done, he thrust a pair of buckskin gloves and a small flashlight into his pocket, and hurried toward the mill.
His brother Nathan, the watchman, challenged him faithfully. He instructed Nathan in case of trouble to call Weaver, who was now the mill's foreman, and who stayed at the big and rough boarding-house that had been erected for the accommodation of the "furriners" of the operating crew. Then Wolfe went to the geared locomotive, threw fresh coal into the furnace, and coupled to a lumber flat.
He met the others at a point close to the new dwelling that was to be given to his father, and took them aboard. Alex Singleton rode on the fireman's seat with his dog in his lap.
They stopped near the C. C. & O. siding. Granny Wolfe knocked the fire from her first cigar, and put the half-smoked weed in her pocket to save it. Alex Singleton took up one of the lighted lanterns, and set his feet in a narrow, laurel-lined trail that led off westward. Behind him in the order named went Granny Wolfe, the Masons, the Fairs, young Wolfe, and Tot Singleton.
Miss Alice Fair began to lag purposely, and soon there was a distance of some fifteen yards between her and her father, who carried the second lantern.
"That bank of clouds ahead looks like rain, Arnold," she said—plainly, to make conversation.
"Yes," agreed Wolfe; "and we need it."
"You've been avoiding me, Arnold."
He admitted it.
"Because you didn't want to be near me—which, of course, is a very simple conclusion!"
"Er, yes," he said.
"Why didn't you want to be near me?"
"Because we have nothing in common now, Alice," he told her. "It's—er, your own decree, and it's the best for both of us, I'm sure. I'm not the kind of fellow you'd care for with the only affection worth while. We'd be unhappy if we were married to each other. The time to part ways is now. Don't you agree with me, Alice?"
"I certainly do!" There was a tiny note of desperation in her voice; she had tried to make up, and failed. "I don't wonder at your forgetting me so easily," she went on. "You fell in love with me so easily, you know."
"Yes. I'm twenty-four. I felt the real need of the fine, understanding companionship of a good woman. You were the only young woman I knew intimately; I'd studied almost day and night trying to make up for a youth that had been entirely lost, so far as education was concerned, and I hadn't time to be a sociable fellow. I didn't stop to consider whether we'd be suited to each other—you were so pretty, you know, Alice."
"Thanks!" with stinging sarcasm. "But I'm fading now—am I?"
"I think you'll always be pretty," he said very seriously.
She looked backward and laughed at him scornfully. "But the impossible Miss Singleton——"
"She's not impossible," interrupted Wolfe, who was now somewhat incensed. "In fact, she's one of the finest specimens of humanity I've ever met."
Without another word, Miss Fair hurried on and overtook her father.
Suddenly a hand was placed lightly on Wolfe's arm from behind. He stopped and faced about, and confronted a slender, but well-rounded figure, a feminine figure in dark blue. It was Tot Singleton, and she was trembling violently.
"I overheard—I eavesdropped!" she whispered nervously. "I feel mean about it, Little Buck, and I wanted to tell you for my conscience's sake. To—to think that you, after the way I treated you this afternoon, would take up for me to Miss Alice! It hurts, and I'm ashamed o' myself. Please forgive me, if you can, will you?"
He took both her hands and pressed them warmly. The touch gave him a comfortable thrill. "Forget it!" he smiled.
"You're so nice to me," she cried softly. "But you're mistaken in what you told Miss Alice. I'm little, and mean. I'm just beginnin' to l'arn about myself. I'm a-findin' that half o' the fruit o' the tree o' knowledge istears. Listen, will you—mountain dialect again! I wonder if I'll ever quit thinking in it? Understand me, Little Buck; I'm not exactly ashamed of the mountain dialect."
Wolfe laughed. "You can't go all the way at one leap, Tot, of course; be patient, and keep trying!"
"In some ways, I'm worse than I used to be," she said dejectedly. "I've got so afraid of the dark that it was easy enough for me to make myself believe that I kept close to you and Miss Alice because I didn't dare to stay far enough behind to be out of hearing. I wasn't afraid of the night when I lived back here in these hills. I wonder a lot about that, Little Buck. Maybe it was because I was a part of the night myself then!"
Wolfe looked at her with increased interest. She was beginning to show new facets. There was something quite wonderful about her.
"I'll be falling in love with you, Tot," he told her, "the very first thing you know."
"That's not likely," laughed Tot.
She hurried past him, and soon disappeared around a sharp bend in the narrow trail.
Wolfe walked on rapidly, and overtook the rest of the party just as the deep music of the dog's baying fell upon the chilly air.
The voice of Alex Singleton boomed out, "By the Eternal, ef he hain't treed a'ready! Treed by sight! Hold the 'possum, Rock! Hi, thar, Rock—don't ye lose him! Good old dawg, Rock!"
"I'll be durned ef this here hain't good luck," said Granny Wolfe. "Light out atter him, Alex!"
They followed their guide, who turned to his right and picked his way through a copse of laurel, and drew up at a persimmon tree laden with frost-bitten fruit. Singleton kept his lantern swaying behind him, while his alert gaze searched the branches of the tree for a pair of round and glistening black eyes. He wished he had a good pine torch!
"I see him!" he cried finally. "Le's hide the lights onder our hats, Mr. Fair, and everybody look right in the tiptop o' the tree."
They saw between them and the starry sky a round, dark bulk that was as motionless as the mountain under their feet. The old hillman passed his lantern to Colonel Mason, sat down, and removed his boots. A few minutes, and he had climbed to a point within ten feet of the persimmon-eater.
"Look out below thar!" he shouted.
He began to shake the uppermost branch with both hands. There was a sudden dull thump on the ground below. With a yelp of delight, the spotted dog dashed forward and seized the little animal by the throat. The opossum stiffened, and feigned death perfectly, but the hound was not one whit deceived. Alex Singleton climbed down, tied a stick in the 'possum's mouth to prevent its sharp teeth doing damage, pulled on his boots, rose and led the others proudly to another persimmon. For one night, old Alex was king.
The sport kept up until midnight, when Colonel Mason suggested that they return to the basin.
Just as those on the flat were settling themselves for the run, just as Wolfe was reaching for the throttle-lever, there came tearing through the stillness the dull but mighty roar of the sawmill whistle. It was somehow like a death-knell. It blanched the cheeks of every member of the party. The long blast died out in its own echoes. Then there came a short blast that ended abruptly; it was as thoughthe hand that had held the whistle-cord had been suddenly stricken down.
Wolfe opened the throttle as far as he dared. With the other hand he opened the valve to the sandbox.
When they had covered three miles, a voice from the flat ahead sent tremors to Wolfe's heart. The voice said but one small word, but that one small word meant destruction.
"Fire!"
Fire, when the fine, new mill had run but half a day!
It was a cataclysm.