XX
Little Buck Wolfe seemed much like a soldier fitted out in heavy marching order with his blanket-roll on his shoulder, and his pack on his back, and his rifle in his hand. He stopped and faced about when he had reached the crest of the Big Blackfern. The darkness of the night could not conceal from him the desolation that lay below; he saw it with his eyes shut! The candles in the cabins of the basin's bottom glowed like pale yellow stars in the gloom.
He centered his attention upon the light that shone from the nearest window of old Alex Singleton's cabin, and wondered whether Tot had put it there as a last pitiful shred of farewell to him. He was glad that he had kissed her—it had been an act of impulse—when they parted. The memory of that would be with him, sweet and tender, throughout the years that he must spend buried in the hardest work before the colossal debt could be paid in full. He was convinced now that he really loved Tot Singleton. And he did. He wouldn't have been human if he hadn't. As for marrying her—there was the debt! He couldn't afford to marry.
It was with a painful swelling of heart and throat that he turned away. Just then a feminine voice called his name. He halted quickly and looked around. A slender figure was hurrying up the dim path toward him.
"Tot!" he cried.
"Yes," she panted. "Wait!"
In her hands she carried a rifle. Over one of her shoulders was a blanket-roll that contained two spare dresses and some other things. She wore dark-blue, and about her head and neck was a heavy scarf that Wolfe himself had bought and given her as a birthday present.
"Where are you going, Tot?" he asked, as she drew up before him.
She hung her head. The butt of the repeater that had been the pride of her brother Lon's heart dropped heavily to the ground. Wolfe stepped closer to her, and took one of her hands.
"Where are you going, Tot?" he repeated softly.
She looked up. "I want to go with you!" in a certain desperation, and more or less tearfully. After all, she was more child than woman.
"But——"
Tot Singleton interrupted, "You'll be lonesome away out there in the cold Northwest. You'll need me. I can do so many things for you. I can cook for you, and wash and mend your clothes and keep 'em nice for you, and—and maybe I can comfort you when the blue days come. I couldn't ever bear it back here now, knowin' that you was so far away and so much alone. I—I wa-want you to m-m-marry me and take me with you, Little Buck! I wanted to ask you when you t-t-told me good-by, but I just c-c-couldn't——"
It ended smotheredly. She had recited it; she had been saying that speech over and over to herself all the way up the tortuous side of the Blackfern. But the simple earnestness of even the recital was one of the most striking things that had come into the life of Little Buck Wolfe.
He drew her hand to his breast and caressed it. The action was wholly involuntary.
"I wish I could take you, Tot," he told her sadly. "I know that I'll need you in a thousand ways. But because I do love you, I can't cheat you of the education that is only fairly begun; I can't take you from the worthwhile things and put half my load on your shoulders. Besides, I'm a fugitive now, you know. And there'll be real hardship. I'm not going straight to the Northwest, Tot."
"But you said——"
"Yes," he nodded. "I decided since leaving your father's house that I'd spend the winter in the wilderness that lies about the head of Doe River, which is probably the wildest place in America; it is very rarely that anybody goes in there, even to hunt. You see, Tot, I won't be safe anywhere out in the world until my so-called crimes"—in spite of himself, he winced—"are sort of forgotten. And there's another reason.
"When I was a small boy, Tot, there came to my father's cabin one day a stranger, a youngish man, who was about ready to die. We gathered from his delirious talk that he had come to the mountains for his health. He had with him a funny-looking pointed hammer, and a big magnifying-glass. Just before he passed out, we caught this from his babbling—I haven't forgotten a single syllable of it:
"'It's a trick of fate. Wealth—hundreds of thousands—and I've got to die and leave it all—after having been poor all my life! Fate, old girl, you're a damned trickster.'
"He had mentioned Doe River Wilderness," Wolfe pursued. "My father thought he must have found gold there. Not very long after the stranger's death, my father and my Uncle Brian went to Doe River Wilderness and spent a few days in a half-hearted search for gold. They found nothing that even looked like it.
"Of course, Tot, I know that the sick man might have been the victim of hallucinations. The chances are strong that he was. But as it's best that I stay hidden for a few months, I may as well try my luck; it will keep my mind occupied, anyway. So you see, Tot, there'll be real hardship."
"But you said you loved me," and one of the arms of the innocent temptress crept slowly around his neck. "If you love me, Little Buck, Doe River Wilderness will be the finest place in the world to me; it'll be parad-d-d-dise. And I'd do all I could to make it the finest place in the world for you, too. I'd rather lie down and die than to stay behind! Please, won't you let me go?"
Wolfe was entirely human. His resolve began to tremble.
"You might get sick out there," he said uncertainly. "We might not be able to get a doctor at all."
"I'm never sick, Little Buck," she replied quickly. "As for the hardship, I'm used to that; what mountain woman isn't? Listen. I sent Lon to Johnsville for a marriage license, and I've got it here. We can pass by old Preacher Longley Thrash's cabin, and get him to marry us. Oh, Little Buck, honey, you must—I just can't stay here now. Why, I—I'll be your d-d-dog!"
He stared at her in amazement. She continued.
"If you think I'm oversteppin'—I'd been believin' you loved me; when you kissed me good-by tonight, I knew it, I knew! I told myself you didn't ask me to go with you because you loved me too much to ask me; and that was exactly the way of it. You're lookin' at it wrong. I'll not stand between you and that old d-debt; I'll help you pay it! Can't you see, Little Buck, you ol' dahlin'?"
Her rifle fell to the ground. Both her arms were around his neck and drawing his face down to hers. Among the stars that were mirrored in her sea-blue eyes was the tenderness that few ever look upon save in the eyes of young mothers when they behold first their first-born. Her countenance was enraptured with the spirit of an adoration that was beyond the understanding of mortals, and that was strong enough to defy utterly the rules and conventions of the world.
All this he saw, and it wrought the ordinarily warm feeling he had for her into the grand passion, the great flame that burns never more than once. He knew that she was his mate, his woman, just as she knew that he was her mate, her man; he put his arms around her fine shoulders, and pressed her to him with a fervor that might have frightened another woman.
"And you'll let me go, won't you?" she rejoiced.
"Let you go?" he laughed. "Why, I'd steal you and carry you off now, if you didn't want to go!"
She gave the man who was soon to be her husband a folded paper, which he thrust into an inside pocket. They hastened to the mountaineer minister's home, and were married. According to his custom, old Longley Thrash gave them his blessing, an ax, and a side of acorn-fatted, pepper-cured bacon. Wolfe gave the preacher a banknote.
Because of the hawk-eyed deputy, the couple dared not spend the night anywhere in the Wolfe's Basin country. It was only after more than four hours of brisk walking that they stopped under a giant hemlock that stood beside a dashing creek, and made a bed of boughs and the blankets they had brought.
Two and a half days were required for the completion of their exceedingly unusual wedding journey. They were footsore and weary, and their clothing was somewhat torn, when at last they reached the heart of Doe River Wilderness.
But their eyes brightened at the sight which greeted them there. Before them lay an open and level space of half a dozen acres, which was dotted sparsely with big gray-barked, leafless beeches. In the very center of it was the source of Doe River, a small lake, or great spring, of such depth that the water was bluish-black. Wolfe and his wife went to it, their tired feet swish-swishing in the thin carpet of brown and yellow beech leaves. Had they known that it was here the iron chalice—but they couldn't know.
They threw up a temporary shelter of hemlock boughs. On the next morning, Wolfe set out alone to the eastward, and found his nearest neighbor at a distance of eight miles. This neighbor, for a consideration, agreed to go to Conradsville—which was in North Carolina and twenty-four miles away—for nails, traps, window-lights and a few other articles. Then Wolfe bought a bag of cornmeal from the man, promised to return three days later, and hurried back to his waiting and naturally anxious wife.
Just ten days from the time of their starting their little log cabin, Wolfe nailed the last split board on the roof and finished the lumpy stone-and-clay chimney. It was all very crude, of course. The two narrow doors were made of split-oak slabs; there were but two small windows; the floor of flat stones was rough and uneven; the few pieces of furniture were homemade and unsightly. But the man and the woman who dwelled there loved each other, and were happy in spite of all there was to make them unhappy, and it was home—that dearest of all earth's places.
The days stole into the past rapidly, as joyful days always go, and the last of February came. Wolfe had searched faithfully for the treasure that the stranger of the long ago had babbled about on his deathbed, but to no avail; he had found nothing that in any way resembled gold. The trapping had been good, however, and neighbor Ivins had been accommodating, and Wolfe had succeeded in saving enough money to take him and his wife to Oregon in the spring. As for Tot—Tot was a full blown rose of a woman now, and to her husband, quite properly, the most wonderful person he had ever known.
One of the last of the winter's snows had just ceased to fall. The white blanket was nearly a foot in depth on the ground; it lay heavily upon the branches of the trees. They stood together at one of the small windows, watching the twilight shadows fall in the forest. The full moon peeped above the crest of the long, low mountain that formed the eastern horizon, and heaven's own pure white began to glisten like a field of diamonds. Over the whole scene hung a silence so deep that Wolfe and his wife felt that they could touch it, almost, with their hands.
"So you're through with the gold hunt," Tot murmured.
Her husband nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "It seems useless to go any farther with it. If I hadn't known that gold has been found in these hills now and then for ages, I wouldn't have had the heart to stick to the search these three and a half months. When this snow is gone, if you don't mind, Tot, we'll start for Oregon."
"I don't mind, of course," Tot replied dutifully. "Whenever you think we oughtto go, we'll go. Little Buck, the stranger's treasure surely wasn't gold."
Her surmise was correct!
Wolfe suddenly leaned forward and pulled the mealbag window-curtain into place, and led his wife from the window. There was a look of mild concern on his countenance. Tot found herself in the grip of a nameless fear.
"I saw something glint in the moonlight; it was a gun barrel, I think," Wolfe said quietly. "I'll go out and investigate, and I'll let myself out by the back door; drop the bar into place after me, Tot, and don't be a bit afraid."
"Do you think it's an officer?" she whispered breathlessly.
He shook his head. "Probably not. But I'll see, anyway."
But there was the possibility that it was an officer, and Wolfe carried no weapon with him; he would run from the law, but he wouldn't fight it. He went, stooping low, the instinct of the woodsman strong within him, across the open space; as noiselessly as a shadow, he stole along the edge of the forest, going from bush to bush and from tree to tree, and crept up very near to an angular, slouching figure that was peering toward the cabin from behind a huge oak. The unknown had an old-fashioned, single-barreled muzzle-loading shotgun in his hands; it was a gun that no officer would carry, and Wolfe drew a breath of relief.
Then the fellow meant mischief. Of that there was no doubt. It angered Wolfe to see this serpent in his Garden of Eden. He crouched low, and with a spring like that of a panther landed on the back of the unknown and bore him to the snow on his face.
"What are you snooping around here for?" he demanded hotly. "Who are you, anyway?"
He tried to turn the other's face upward. The stranger was strong and wiry; he kept his countenance hidden very effectively. Wolfe rose, seized the man by his collar and jerked him to his feet.
"I'll see you, all right," he growled.
The stranger wheeled with all the quickness of a cat, and struck Wolfe in the chest, staggering him. Wolfe loosed his hold on the man's collar, and struck out hard. His fist met only the air. The unknown turned and ran through the deep snow and into the denser shadows of the woodland, leaving the shotgun lying under the oak. Wolfe followed and caught the fellow by his ragged coat; there was a tearing sound, and something that jingled musically dropped to the snow.
The stranger, seeming spurred by a sudden frenzy of fear, doubled his efforts, ran into a thick copse of underbrush—and escaped.
When Little Buck Wolfe picked up the thing that had dropped with a musical jingle from inside the lining of the mysterious person's coat, he was filled with amazement. It was a canvas bag containing more than twenty-four hundred dollars in banknotes, gold and silver.
The robber who had dynamited the Unaka Lumber Company's safe on the night of the fire had just slipped through his fingers!