As the wagon disappeared, Bob called to his daughter, who had been left in charge.
"Mely! Mely! You jes stir up the kitchen fire there, honey, un bile me a cup of coffee, agin I go home un fetch my gun wi' the dogs, un come back." (Bob knew there was no coffee at home.) "I'm a-goin' over onto Broad Run arter bears."
"Aw, now, pap, you're all-ays off fer a hunt at the wrong time. Don' choo go away now, un the folks in sech a world uh trouble. Un besides, mammy hain't got anough to eat in the house to do tell you come back." All this Mely said in a minor key of protest, which she had learned from her mother, who was ever objecting in a good-natured, pathetic, impotent way to her husband's thriftless propensities.
"I know what I'm up to, Mely. They's reasons, un the schoolmaster knows'em. You keep your tongue still in yer head, honey. On'y be shore to remember, 'f anybody axes about me, 't I'm arter bears. Jes say't bears uz been seed over onto Broad Run, un't pap couldn't noways keep still, he wuz so sot on goin' over 'n' sayin' howdy to 'em. That'll soun' like me, un folks 'll never mistrust."
"But mammy hain't akchelly got anough fer the children to eat," responded Mely.
"Well, I 'low to fetch some bear meat home, un you kin borry some meal from Mrs. Grayson's bar'el tell I git back. 'F they knowed what kind uh varmints I wuz arter over there, they wouldn't begrudge me nuthin', Sis. Come, now, hump yer stumps; fer I'll be back in a leetle less'n no time."
And Bob went off in the darkness. In about a dozen minutes he returned with his powder-horn slung about his shoulders over his hunting-shirt and carrying his rifle. He was closely followed by Pup, Joe, and Seizer, his three dogs, whose nervous agitation, as they nosed the ground in every direction, contrasted well with the massive stride of their master. Having swallowed such a breakfast as Mely could get him out of Mrs. Grayson's stores, and put a pone of cold corn-bread into the bosom of his hunting-shirt, McCord was off for the Broad Run region at the very first horizon-streak of daybreak. Though game was but a secondary object in this expedition, he could not but feel an exhilaration which was never wanting when he set out in the early morning with his gun on his shoulder and in the congenial companionship of his dogs. Hercules or Samson could hardly have rejoiced in a greater assurance of physical superiority to all antagonists. The most marked trait in Bob's mental outfit was the hunter's cunning, a craft that took delight in tricks on man and beast. The fact that he was akin to some of the families on Broad Run enhanced the pleasure he felt in his present scheme to get the better of them. He would "l'arn the Broad Run boys a thing or two that'd open their eyes." His great plump form shook with merriment at the thought. Plovers rose beating the air and whistling in the morning light as he passed, and the dogs flushed more than one flock of young prairie-chickens, which went whirring away just skimming the heads of the grass in low level flight, but Bob's ammunition was not to be spent on small game this morning. By 7 o'clock the increasing heat of the sun made the wide, half-parched plain quiver unsteadily to the vision. The sear August prairie had hardened itself against the heat—the grass and the ox-eyes held their heads up without sign of withering or misgiving: these stiff prairie plants never wilt—they die in their boots. But the foliage of the forest which Bob skirted by this time appeared to droop in very expectation of the long oppressive hours of breathless heat yet to come. In this still air even the uneasy rocking poplar-leaves were almost stationary on their edge-wise stems.
Steady walking for more than three hours had brought Bob to the outskirts of the Broad Run region, and had sobered the dogs; these now sought fondly every little bit of shade, and lolled their tongues continuously. The first person that Bob McCord encountered after entering the grateful region of shadow was one Britton—"ole man Britton," his neighbors called him. This old settler led a rather secluded life. Neither he nor his wife ever left home to attend meetings or to share in any social assembly. They had no relatives among the people of the country, and there was a suspicion of mystery about them that piqued curiosity. Some years before, a traveler, in passing through the country, gave out that he recognized Britton, by his name and features, as one whom he had known in Virginia, where he said Britton had been an overseer and had run away with his employer's wife. The neighbors had never accepted the traveler's story in this way; though they were ready to believe that the woman might have run away with Britton. When Bob came in sight of him the saturnine old man was standing looking over the brink of a cliff into a narrow valley through which coursed the waters of Broad Run, steadying himself meanwhile by a sapling. Bob, following his first impulse, deposited his gun, beckoned his close-following little dog back, and crept stealthily towards Britton, keeping a tree between him and the old man when he could. Arrived in reach he made a spring, and laying firm hold of his victim by grasping him under the arms, he held him for a moment over the edge of the precipice. Then he brought him back and set him safely down as one might a child, and said innocently:
"W'y, Mr. Britton, I do declare, 'f I hadn't'a' cotcht you, you'd'a' fell off!"
The shriveled old man drew back to a safe distance from the brink, and tried to force his insipid face into a smile, but he was pale from the deadly fright. Big Bob rubbed his legs and gave way to a spasm of boisterous boyish laughter.
"Seed any bear signs 'round about, Mr. Britton?" he said, when his laugh had died into a broad grin.
"No."
"What wuz you lookin' over the cliff fer?"
"Zeke Tucker. He's workin' fer me, an' he's been gone all the mornin' arter my clay-bank hoss. I'm afeard sumpin's happened."
"'F I find him I'll set the dogs onto him an' hurry him up a leetle," said Bob, laughing again and going on, intent now on encountering Zeke, alone, for purposes of his own.
Then, when he had gone a little way, he stopped and looked back at the retreating old man, and grinned as he noted the doleful way in which his over-large trousers bagged behind.
"Mr. Britton," he called, "which way'd Zeke go?"
"Up the crick; the hoss is up thar sumers."
Having secured this information, Bob went on, descending the cliff to the valley through which Broad Run rattled its shallow waters—a valley so broken and rugged as to render it almost unfit for cultivation. This glen was settled, as such regions are wont to be, by a race of "poor whiteys," or rather by a mixture of people belonging to two stocks originally different. The one race was descended from the lowest of the nomads, vagrants, and other poverty-stricken outcasts that had been spirited away from England by means legal and illegal, to be sold for a long term into bondage in the American colonies; the other, from the roughest wing of the great Scotch-Irish immigration of the last century—the hereditary borderers who early fought their way into the valleys and passes of the Alleghanies. Equally thriftless in their habits, and equally without any traditions of their origin, members of these two tribes mingled easily. The people in whom the Scotch-Irish blood preponderates are more given to violence, but their humor, their courage, and their occasional bursts of energy indicate that they have a chance of emerging from barbarism; while the poor whiteys of English descent are most of them beyond the reach of evolution, foreordained to extinction by natural selection, whenever the pressure of overpopulation shall force them into the competition for existence.
With that instinctive unthriftiness which is the perpetual characteristic of the poor whitey in all his generations, the Broad Run people had chosen the least inviting lands within a hundred miles for their settlement, as though afraid that by acquiring valuable homes they might lose their aptitude for migration; or afraid, perhaps, that fertile prairies might tempt them to toil. The convenience of a brook by their doors, and a wood that was uncommonly "handy," had probably determined their choice. Then, too, the circumjacent cliffs gave them a sense of being shut in from prairie winds, and put some limit to the wanderings of their half-starved "critters." For the rest, their demands upon the land were always very modest—a few bushels of "taters," for roasting in the ashes; a small field of maize, for roasting-ears, hominy, and corn-dodgers; and such pumpkins and beans as could be grown intermingled with the hills of corn, were about all that one of these primitive families required, beyond what could be got with a gun or a fishing-line. The only real luxuries affected were onions and melons—"ing-uns un watermillions," in Broad Run phrase. Their few pigs and cows ran at large, and lived as they could. Oxen they rarely owned, but whenever a man was in the least prosperous he was sure to possess a single inferior saddle-horse, though he sometimes had no saddle but a blanket girt with a surcingle. A horse was kept at the service of neighbors; for, like other savages, the Broad Run people were hospitable and generous to members of their own tribe, and the only economy they understood was that of borrowing and lending, by which a number of families were able to make use of the same necessary articles. This happy device, for example, enabled one circulating flat-iron to serve an entire neighborhood.
The Broad Run people entertained a contempt for the law that may have been derived from ancestors transported for petty felonies. It seemed to them something made in the interest of attorneys and men of property. A person mean enough to "take the law onto" his neighbor was accounted too "triflin'" to be respectable; good whole-souled men settled their troubles with nature's weapons,—fists, teeth, and finger-nails,—and very rarely, when the offense was heinous and capital, with bullets or buckshot. Men who were habitually disgraceful in any way—as, for example, those who could not get drunk without beating their wives—were punished, without the delay of trial, by the infliction of penalties more ancient than statutes, such as ducking, riding on a rail, whipping, or sudden banishment. Hanging by lynch-law was reserved for the two great crimes of horse-stealing and murder.
They put the killing of George Lockwood into the category of grudge-murder, since he was shot at night "without giving him a show for his life." But the shooting did not immediately concern Broad Run, and Broad Run folks would not have felt themselves responsible for seeing justice done, if it had not been for concurring circumstances. Lynch law is an outbreak of the reformatory spirit among people of low or recent civilization. Like other movements for reform, it is often carried by its own momentum into unforeseen excesses. It had happened recently that two brothers, thieves of the worst class, who had infested the country and had long managed to escape from the law, had been sent to prison for four years. They were believed to be guilty of an offense much blacker than the robbery for which they were sentenced; but the murder of a strange peddler had escaped notice until the body had been discovered two years after the crime, and the crime could not then be brought home by legal evidence. Their attorney, a lawyer notorious for chicanery, had, by appeal, got a new trial on account of some technical error in the proceedings of the lower court. The county had already been heavily taxed to defray the expense of convicting them, and the people were exasperated by the prospect of a new expense with the possible escape of the criminals. Public expenses, it is true, sat lightly on Broad Run; the taxes levied on its barren patches and squalid cabins were not considerable, but Broad Run made much of the taxes it did pay, and it caught the popular indignation, and was indignant in its own prompt and executive fashion. The very night before the new trial was to begin, the doors of the jail were forced, and the two prisoners were shot to death by a mob. On the jail door was left a notice, warning the attorney of the criminals to depart from the county within thirty hours, on pain of suffering a like fate. Though Broad Run got most of the credit for this prompt vindication of justice, the leaving of this legible notice upon the door was taken as evidence of the complicity of some whose education was better than that of the settlers at the Run. This execution had taken place but three months before the shooting of George Lockwood, and the mob was like a were-wolf. Perhaps I ought rather to liken it to those professional reformers who, having abolished slavery, or waved their hats while others abolished it, proceed to inquire for the next case on the docket, and undertake forthwith to do away with capital punishment or the marriage relation. Having found its local self-complacency much increased by success in discovering a method cheaper and more expeditious than those of the courts, Broad Run was readily inclined to apply its system of criminal jurisprudence to a new case.
But this local reformatory tendency, like many large movements of the sort, was very capable of lending itself to the promotion of personal aims and the satisfaction of private grudges. One of Tom Grayson's rash boyish exploits, soon after he took up his abode with his uncle in town, had been to avenge himself for an affront put upon him the year before by Jake Hogan of Broad Run. Jake, while working as a hired man for Butts, the next neighbor to the Graysons, had taken the side of his employer in the long-standing quarrel between the Buttses and the Graysons about pigs in the corn-field and geese in the meadow, "breachy" horses and line fences. Jake had gone so far one day as to throw Tom, then a half-grown boy, into the "branch." A boy's memory of such events is good, and when Jake rode into Moscow, a year later, in company with his sweetheart to see the circus, Tom repaid the old grudge by taking the stirrups from Jake's saddle and dropping them into the public well; so that the consequential Jake had the mortification of escorting a giggling Broad Run girl to her home with his lank legs and his big boots dangling, unsupported, against the flanks of his horse. Hogan would have beaten Tom, if he had not received an intimation that this would perhaps involve the necessity of his settling the matter a second time with big Bob McCord. But he laid up his grudge, and from that time he had taken pleasure in testifying to his settled conviction that Tom "wouldn' never come t' no good eend." He always lent emphasis to this sinister prediction by jerking his head back, with the self-confident air of a man who knows what he knows. From the moment of the shooting of Lockwood, when Jake found that Tom was on the direct road to the gallows, he began to twit all his cronies.
"Hain't I all-ays said so? Go to thunder! D'yeh think Jake Hogan don't know a feller as the rope's already got a slip-knot onto?" And he would jerk his chin back, and stiffen his neck, as he defiantly waited for a reply.
Not content with exulting in successful prophecy, Jake got a notion from the first that it devolved on him now to see that this young scapegrace should not fail of merited punishment. His neighbors at the Run, having boasted much of the value of what they called "Broad Run law," were willing to add a leaf to their laurels as reformers of the county; and he counted also on finding recruits among the loafers on the outskirts of the camp-meeting, if the coroner's jury should return a verdict adverse to Tom.
Bob McCord was able to conjecture something of this state of affairs from the slender information the schoolmaster had given him. During all his morning's walk to Broad Run, Bob's thoughts had chiefly revolved about plans for circumventing Hogan. His first crude scheme was to join the reformers in their little excursion, and then mislead or betray them; but his friendly relations with the Graysons were too well known to Jake for this to be possible. It was not until the old man Britton had mentioned Zeke Tucker that there occurred to Bob's inventive mind a proper agent for his purpose. Wishing to have his coming known, he steered his course near to the rickety cabin of Eleazar Brown, or, as he was commonly called, "Ole Lazar Brown."
"G'-mornin', S'manthy," Bob called to Lazar Brown's daughter, at the same time giving his head a little forward jerk,—the very vanishing point of a bow,—but without stopping his march. S'manthy had buried two husbands, and had borne eight white-headed children, but she had never been called by any other name than S'manthy. Just now she was "batting" clothes on a block in front of the house, turning a wet garment over with her left hand from time to time, and giving it the most vindictive blows with a bat held in her right.
"Y' ain't heern nothin' 'v no bears a-cap'rin' 'round h-yer lately, eh?' Bob asked, relaxing his gait a little.
"They say as they's a b'ar been seed furder upt the run, un I 'low you mout fine some thar ur tharabouts," replied the woman, intermitting her batting a moment and pushing back her faded pink sun-bonnet. "But wha' choo doin' away f'om home, I'd thes like to know, when they's so much a-goin' on in your diggin's? They say you've had a murder 'n' all that."
"I don't talk, S'manthy. I'm a-lookin' fer bears. They 's times when yo'd orter hole onto yer tongue with both uh yore han's."
Bob quickened his stride again and was soon out of sight among the scrubby trees of the rugged valley.
"I say, daddy!" called S'manthy, when Bob had had time to get out of hearing; "looky h-yer, daddy!"
Old Lazar Brown, in answer to this call, came and stood in the door, taking his cob-pipe from his mouth with his shaky hand and regarding his daughter.
"Big Bob McCord's thes gone along upt the run a-hunt-in' fer b'ars," said S'manthy. "Un they say as the feller that killed t' other feller las' night's the son uh the woman 't 'e works fer. Bob's the beatinest hunter! Ef Gaberl wuz to toot his horn, Bob'd ax him to hole on long anough fer him to git thes one more b'ar, I'll bet."
Lazar Brown had shaking-palsy in his arms, and, being good for nothing else, could devote his entire time to his congenial pursuits as gossip and wonder-monger of the neighborhood. Having listened attentively to S'manthy, he shook his head incredulously.
"Yeh don't think ez he's arter b'ars, do yeh, S'manthy? Bob's got some trick er 'nother 'n 'is head. W'y, thes you look, he mus' uh le't home afore daybreak. Now, Bob'd natterly go to the carner's eenques' to-day, whar they'll be a-haulin' that young feller up that shot t' other feller las' night. Big Bob's got some ornery trick 'n 'is head." Here Lazar Brown stopped to replace his pipe in his mouth. He was obliged to use both hands, but after two or three attempts he succeeded. "Looky h-yer, S'manthy, you thes keep one eye out fer Bob; I 'low he'll go down the run towurds ev'nin'. He'll be orful dry by that time, fer he's one of thedriestfellers. Thes you tell him 't I've got a full jug, un ax him in, un we'll kind-uh twis' it out uh'im. I 'low I'll go 'n find Jake."
Lazar returned to the house, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and refilled it. Then with some difficulty he succeeded in taking a live coal from the ashes; holding it in the leathery palm of his shaking left hand, he got it deposited at last on the corn-cob bowl of his pipe. As soon as this operation of firing-up was completed, he set out in a trotty little walk, glad to have news that would make the neighbors hearken to him.
Meantime Bob McCord, having passed out of sight of S'manthy in his progress up the creek, had faced about and come back through the bushes to a point overlooking Lazar Brown's cabin, where, in a dense patch of pawpaws, he stood in concealment. This movement greatly perplexed the old dog Pup, who stood twitching his nose nervously, unable to discover what was the game that had attracted his master's eye. When at length Bob saw Lazar start off down the run, he smote his knee with his hand and gave vent to half-smothered laughter.
"Tuck like the measles!" he soliloquized. "Un it'll spread too. See 'f it don't! Come, Pup—bears! bears! ole boy!"[1]
The dogs took the hint and ceased their nosing about the roots of trees for squirrels, and in beds of leaves and bunches of grass for hares. They began to make large circles through the trees about Bob, who moved forward as the center of a sort of planetary system, the short-legged dog keeping near the center, while Pup ranged as far away as he could without losing sight of his master,—the remote Uranus of the hunt. Joe, having "tairrier" blood in him, ran with his nozzle down; but long-legged Pup, with a touch of greyhound in his build, carried his head high and depended on his eyes. The fact that Tom Grayson's life was at stake afforded no reason, in Bob's view, for giving over the pursuit of bears. Nor did he hunt in serious earnest merely because there was neither bread nor meat at home. A cat will catch mice for the mere fun of it, and with Bob the chase was ever the chief interest of life. But Bob did not forget his other errand; while the dogs were seeking for bears, he was eagerly scanning the bushes in every direction for Zeke Tucker. Half a mile above Lazar Brown's he encountered Zeke, carrying a blind-bridle on his arm, and still looking in vain for Britton's stray horse.
"Hello, Zeke! the very feller I wuz a-lookin' fer. Don't ax me no questions about what I'm a-doin' over h-yer, an' I won't tell you no lies. Let's set down a minute on that air hackberry log."
The writer of a local guide-book to the city of Genoa recounts, among the evidences of piety exhibited by his fellow-citizens, the hospital built by them for those "la quale non è conceduto di bearsi nel sorriso di un padre." Zeke was one of those to whom, in the circumlocution of the Genoese writer, had not been granted the benediction of a father's smile. Such unfortunates were never wanting in a community like Broad Run, but no one had ever thought of building an asylum for them, though there were many ready to make them suffer the odium of sins not their own. From that unexpected streak of delicacy which is sometimes found in a rough man of large mold, Bob McCord had always refrained from allusion to the irregularity of Zeke's paternity, and had frequently awed into silence those who found pleasure in jibing him. This had awakened in Zeke a grateful adhesion to Bob, and in the young man's isolation among his neighbors and his attachment to himself Bob saw a chance to secure an ally.
"Zeke," said McCord, when once they were seated on the hackberry log, "you 'n' me's all-ays been frien's, hain't we?"
"Toobshore, Bob! they hain't no man a-livin' I'd do a turn fer quicker."
"Well, now, you tell me this: Is Jake Hogan a-goin' to town weth the boys to-night?"
"I hadn't no ways orter tell, but I 'low 't 'e is."
"You a-goin' along?"
"I dunno. 'F you don't want me to, I don't reckon ez I shall."
"Yes, but I'd ruther you 'd go. I don't want that air fool boy hung 'thout a fair stan'-up trial, 'n' I may as well tell you 't I don't mean he shall be nuther, not 'f I have to lick Jake Hogan tell his ornery good-fer-nothin' hide won't hold shucks. But don't choo tell him a word 't I say."
"Trustme." Zeke was pleased to find himself in important confidential relations with a man so much "looked up to" as Bob McCord. "Jake 's been thehardeston me 'v all the folks, un they 's been times when I 'lowed to pull up un cl'ar out for the Injun country, to git shed uv 'im. I wish to thunder youwouldlick him 'thin 'n inch 'viz life. He's a darn-sight wuss 'n git out."
"Looky h-yer, Zeke; I'll tell you how you kin git even with Jake. You jest go 'long weth the boys to-night, wherever they go. I'm goin' to fix it so's they won't do nuthin' to-night. You're livin' 't ole man Britton's now, ainch yeh?"
"Yes."
"Well, you git off fer half a day f'om Britton's, un go to the eenques' this arternoon, un fine out all you kin. Arter supper, you go over to the groc'ry; un jest as soon's you fine out whech way the wind sets, you've got to let me know. 'T won't do fer me to be seed a-talkin' to you, ur fer me to loaf aroun' Britton's. But ef Jake makes up his mine to go to Moscow, you light a candle to-night un put it in the lof' where you sleep, so 't 'll shine out uv a crack on the south side uv the chimbley, in the furder eend uv the house."
"But his mine 's already made up," said Zeke.
"They's time to change afore night. Ef he's goin' to Perrysburg——"
"Perrysburg? They ain't no talk uv Perrysburg," said Zeke.
"They may be," answered Bob. "Un ef Perrysburg's the place, you put the candle at the leetle winder on the north side uv the chimbley. Un when I shoot you put out the candle, un then I'll know it's you, un you'll know 't I understan'. You see, 't won't do fer me to stop any nearder 'n the hill, un I'll wait there till I see your candle. Then you go weth Jake." Here Bob got up and strained his longsighted eyes at some object in the bushes on the other side of the brook. "Is yon hoss yourn, on t' other side of the branch?"
"I don't see no hoss," said Zeke.
"Well, you watch out a minute un you'll ketch sight uv 'im. He's gone in there to git shed of the flies."
"That's our clay-bank, I believe," said Zeke, getting up and carefully scanning the now half-visible horse.
"Mine! you hain't seen nor heern tell of me, un you b'long to Jake's crowd weth all your might."
With these words Bob set out again for his bear-hunt, while the barefoot Zeke waded through the stream, which was knee-deep, and set himself to beguile Britton's clay-bank horse into standing still and forfeiting his liberty.
Bob McCord had that quick, sympathetic appreciation of brute impulses which is the mark of a great hunter. Given a bear or a deer in a certain place, at a certain hour of the day, and Bob would conjecture, without much chance of missing, in which direction he would go and what he would be about. In a two-hours' beating-up the ravine he found no traces of bears. He then faced almost about and bent his course to where the illimitable western prairie set into the woods in a kind of bay. Why he thought that on a hot day like this a bear might be taking a sunning in the open grass I cannot tell; he probably suspected Bruin of an excursion to the corn-fields for "roas'in' ears." At any rate his conjecture was correct. Pup, beating forward in great leaps, with his head above the grass, caught sight of a female bear making her way to a point of timber farther down the run known as Horseshoe Neck. When the bear saw the dogs she quickened her leisurely pace into a lumbering gallop. Pup's long legs were stretched to their utmost in eager leaps which presently brought him in front of her; Joe, when he came up, annoyed her at the side; and stout little Seizer, watching the chance whenever she was making an angry lunge at Pup, would bravely nip her heels and so make her turn about. Before she could get her head fairly around the fiste would turn tail and run for his life. Bob tried to get within range before the bear should disappear in the forest, but as soon as she saw herself near the timber she charged straight for it, refusing to strike at Pup, and wholly disregarding the barking of bob-tail Joe, or the proximity to her heels of Seizer. She quickly disappeared from sight in the underbrush, and the embarrassed dogs came near losing her. A few moments too late to get a shot, McCord came running to the woods at the point of her entrance. He examined the brush and listened a moment.
"She's gone up stream," he said, "bound to make her hole at Coon's Den, 'f I don't git there fust."
He returned to the prairie and ran breathlessly along the edge of the woods for the better part of a mile; then he dashed into the timber, and pushing through the brush until he reached a cliff, he clambered down and stood with his back to the head of a ravine tributary to the valley in which Broad Run flowed. He was breathless, and his flimsy lower garments had been almost torn off him by the violence of his exertion and the resistance of underbrush and rocks; in fact, raiment never seemed just in place on him; the vigorous form burst through it now on this side, and now on that. Hearing the dogs still below him, he knew that he had come in time to intercept the progress of the bear toward the heap of rocky débris at the head of the ravine. Once in these fastnesses, no skill of hunter or perseverance of dogs would have been sufficient to get her out.
The bear was soon in sight, and Bob saw that the nearly exhausted dogs were taking greater risks than ever. Little Seizer was particularly venturesome, and was so much overcome with heat and fatigue, and so breathless with barking, that it was hard for him to get out of the way of the bear's retorts. "She'll smash that leetle ijiot the very nex' time, shore," muttered Bob with alarm; and though he knew the range to be a long one, he took aim and fired. Unluckily the infuriated Seizer gave the bear's heel a particularly savage bite, and at the very instant of Bob's pulling the trigger she turned on the little dog, and thus caused the ball to lodge in her right shoulder just as she was striking out with her left paw. She barely reached the dog, and failed to crush him with the full weight of her arm, but she lacerated his side and sent him howling out of the fray. Now, wounded and enraged, she recognized in the hunter her chief enemy; and, neglecting the dogs, she rushed up the ravine toward McCord. Bob poured a large charge of powder into his gun, and, taking a bullet from his pouch, he felt in his pocket for the patching. A moment he looked blankly at the oncoming bear and muttered "Gosh!" between his set teeth. There was not a patch in his pocket. He had put some pieces of patching there in the darkness of the morning before leaving home, without remembering that his pocket was bottomless. He stood between a wounded bear and her cubs, and there was no time for deliberation. He might evade the attack if he could succeed in getting up the cliff where he had come down, but in that case she would reach her hole and he would lose the battle. He promptly tore a piece from the ragged leg of his trousers, and, wrapping his ball in it, rammed it home. Then he took a cap from a hole in the stock of his gun and got it fixed just in time to shoot when the bear was within a dozen feet of him. Uncultivated man that he was, he had the same refined pleasure in the death-throes of his victim that gentlemen and ladies of the highest breeding find in seeing a frightened and exhausted fox torn to pieces by hounds with bloody lips.
Bob's first care was to look after Seizer, who was badly wounded, but whose bones were whole. The afternoon had passed its middle when he shot the bear, and by the time he had cared for the dog and dressed his game the sun was low and McCord was troubled lest he should have delayed too long the execution of his stratagem for the confusion of Jake Hogan.
Another man might have been considerably embarrassed to dispose of the bear. But Bob proceeded first to divest it of every part that was of little value. Then he hoisted the carcass to his shoulder and tossed the bear-skin on top. Taking up his rifle and balancing his burden carefully before starting, he went swaying to and fro down the ravine, choosing with care the securest places among the rocks to set his feet in. It was thus that Samson went off with the great gates of Gaza. McCord was a primitive, Pelasgic sort of man, accustomed to overmatch the ferocities of Nature with a superior strength and cunning. Lacking the refinement and complexity of the typical modern, this antique human is more simple and statuesque; even the craft of such a man has little involution. There was joy in his bloody victory over the most formidable beast in his reach that was virile and unalloyed by ruth or scruple—a joy like that which vibrates in the verses of Homer.
It was a good mile to Lazar Brown's, where Bob hoped to find a horse to take his bear home. When at length he stopped to unshoulder his burden on a salient corner of old Lazar's rail fence, sunset had begun to bless the overheated earth.
"Got a b'ar, did n' choo?" said Old Lazar, who was in wait for Bob.
"To be shore, Uncle Lazar. Whadje expeck?"
"Come in, Bob, wonch yeh? I got a fresh jug full uv the critter yisterday, un I 'low you're purty consid'able dry agin this time. You purty much all-ays air dry, Bob."
"Well, Uncle Lazar, Iamtol'able dry unnomistake. I hain't had nuthin' to drink to-day 'ceppin' jes branch water, un clear water's a mighty weak kind uv a drink fer a pore stomick like mine. 'N, I'm hungry too. Don' choo 'low S'manthy could rake up a cole dodger summers about?"
"Oh, stay tell she gits you some supper."
"No, Uncle Lazar; I could n' stop a minute noways. They hain't got nary thing t' eat 't our house. Len' me your mare to git this 'ere varmint home?"
"I could n', Bob. I'm thes uz willin' to 'commodate ez anybody kin be, but I've promised the mar' to one uv the boys to-night—to—to go a-sparkin' weth."
"Oh, sparkin' kin wait. What's a feller want to go sparkin' a Friday night fer? Tell him to wait tell Sunday, so 's the gal 'll have a clean dress on."
"But I've gi'n my word, Bob."
"Your word hain't no 'count, un you don't fool me, Uncle Lazar," said Bob, with a broad grin. "Your mare's a-goin' to town to-night, un ef she sh'd git a bullet-hole put into her who'd pay the funeral ixpenses?"
This consideration went for a good deal with Lazar.
"I say, Bob," he said, coming closer and speaking low, "isthey goin' to be shootin' to-night?"
"Uvcourse they is, un plenty uv it. Don' choo know't the sheriff's gi'n bonds, un 'f 'e lets a prisoner go he's got to pay the damages? Un them town fellers is sot agin lynchin'." Seeing S'manthy in the cabin door straining her attention to the utmost, Bob spoke loud enough to reach her ears. "Lookey h-yer, Uncle Lazar," he went on; "d'you reckon 't that feller that's a-goin' to git your mare shot to-night 'll gin you a whole quarter uv bear-meat fer the usean'the damages ef she's shot?"
This last hint had the desired effect.
"'T ain't no use a-talkin', Daddy," S'manthy called out; "I hain't a-go'n' to let a'ole frien' like Bob Mcord pack that-ar great big b'ar all the way over to Timber Crick on his shoulders ez long 's my name's S'manthy. Un I hain't a-go'n' to have the mar' shot. So thar 's 'n eend auv it." S'manthy's common "uv" or "uh" for "of" became "auv" when she wished to be particularly emphatic and full-mouthed in a declaration.
"Good feryou, S'manthy," said Bob. "You sh'll have the best leg this critter's got. Take yer ch'ice."
A rusty ax was brought out, and Bob stopped a moment to examine its serrated edge. "I say, Uncle Lazar, ez this a' axura saw? From the aidge uv itIsh'd call it a saw, but the back uv itissumpin like a' ax." Then with a laugh he proceeded to cut off a liberal quarter of the bear, while S'manthy's ten-year-old tow-headed boy was sent to "ketch up the mar'," which was nibbling grass on the farther side of a patch of broad-leaved cotton-weeds. When the quarter of bear-meat had been hung up at the north end of the cabin, Lazar got out his jug and Bob began to satisfy the longings of his colossal thirst, while S'manthy set out on the poplar table which stood in the middle of the floor some "Kaintucky corn-dodger," as she called it; and despite Bob's protest against staying till she could cook some supper, she put a bit of fat salt pork in the skillet to fry. Meantime the old man plied Bob with more whisky, both before and after eating. When he thought it time for this to have taken effect, he began to try to satisfy his own curiosity.
"D'joo h-yer about the carner's eenquest, Bob?" he said cautiously, feeling his way toward his point.
"No, I didn't. You see, I hain't seed nobody but the bear, un she wuz the ign'rantest critter. Could n't tell me nuthin'." And Bob laughed at his own wit, as was his custom. "How 'd it go?" Bob had wanted to ask this question, but he wished to let Uncle Lazar begin.
"Well, I hyern f'om Raphe Jackson, thes now, that the jury said 's Lockwood come to 'is final eend ut the han's uv Tom Grayson, ur sumpin like that; un they said 't wuz reg'lar bloody murder in the fust degree. My! ef that wuz n't a mad crowd! They made a rush fer Grayson, but the depitty shurriff 'd got 'im away. Ef they 'd 'a' cotcht him they would n't 'a' made two bites uv him."
"You don't say!" Bob was a little stunned. He had not thought of Tom's being at the inquest. He felt that perhaps in coming away he had made a mistake that had come near to being a fatal one.
"They wuz thes a-howlin', Raphe said, un they had n't lef' the place when he come away. They wuz made madder by the way the young scoundrel stood up undeclared 't he did n' know nuthin' about the murder, arter 't wuz proved on him, plain 's the nose on a man's face, an' the dead man a-layin' right thar afore 'is own eyes."
Bob was in a brown study, and nothing was said on either side for half a minute. It made Bob uncomfortable to reflect that he had come near losing the game at the outset.
"I 'low 't 'll go hard weth the young feller to-night."
This roused McCord from the reverie produced from his surprise.
"I reckoned the boys'u'd be a-goin' to Moscow to-night," he said; and added, "Let 'em go!" And then he laughed as though he knew something.
"Say, Bob," said Uncle Lazar, whose curiosity was piqued beyond endurance, "what's in the wind? What wuz it fotcht you all the way over h-yer un the eenquest a-goin' on so closte to your house?"
"Had n' got no meat," said Bob, with a wink.
"They's sumpin more'nthat ar. You've got sumpin ur nuther on Jake, I'll bet."
"I 'ke speck you know a whole lot, Uncle Lazar," said Bob. "I sh'd think you'd jest right up un guess now."
"Well, I can't seem to."
"Well, I'm not a-goin' to let 't out, Uncle Lazar, 'thout this 'ere whisky uh yourn's a leetletoopowerful fer me."
Bob did not fear the whisky: it was rare that whisky could get the better of such a frame as his; and, moreover, he was inured to it. He only threw out this hint to persuade his host to be more liberal in dispensing it.
But it appeared that Lazar's liberality with his whisky was probably exhausted; and Bob rose to go, affecting to be unsteady on his legs.
"Seddown, Bob; seddown, while I see about the mar'."
"Well, I 'low I will, Uncle Lazar. That air whisky uh yourn has sort-uh settled into my feet a leetle."
Lazar went out to see if the boy had brought the horse, making a signal to his daughter to try her skill at coaxing Bob to tell. Meantime Bob ogled S'manthy, who, like Delilah, was debating how she could win this Samson's secret. Presently he said, in a half-tipsy tone:
"S'manthy, you 'n' me wuz all-ays good frien's, wuz n't we?"
"Toobshore, Bob."
"I used to think you wuzsomeat a hoe-down; you wuz the best-lookin' un the liveliest dancer uv all. How youdidslam-bang the floor!"
S'manthy smiled in her faded way. "Bob, that's all saf'-sodder, un you know it. Say, Bob, ef you're sech a frien' why on yerth don' choo tell a-body what fotcht you over h-yer to-day?"
"Aw, well, I'd tell, on'y I'm afeared you'd go un let out."
"Not me. 'T a'n't like me to blab."
"Well, I don' mine tellin'you, S'manthy, 'f yeh won't tell the ole man tell mornin'."
"Oh! I'd never tellhim. He'd go potterin' all over Broad Run Holler weth it, fust thing."
"'S the bes' joke," said Bob, rubbing his knees exultingly; "but I'm afeared you'll tell," he added, rousing himself.
"'Pon my word 'n' honor, I won't. Nobody'll ever git 't out uh me." And S'manthy emphasized this assurance by a boastful nodding of the head forward and to one side.
"Well, 'f you think you kin keep the sekert overnight—Don' choo tell no livin' critter tell mornin'."
"I hain't no hand to tell sekerts, an' you 'd orter know that, Bob."
"Well, you jes let Jake 'n' his crowd go to Moscow to-night," said Bob, chuckling in a semi-tipsy, soliloquizing tone. "I come over to make shore theywuza-goin', un I wuz to let the sher'f know ef they had got wind uv anything. I saw Markham, the deppitty, about one o'clock this mornin', un he tole me he 'd look arter the eenques' un I mus' keep a lookout over h-yer. Jake 'll have a rousin' time, un no mistake."
"Shootin'?" queried S'manthy, with eagerness.
"Naw! I wuz on'y a-lettin' on about shootin' to fool Uncle Lazar. Hain't got no needcessity to shoot. Better 'n that! Gosh!"
"Goin' to take the young feller away?"
"I 'low they did n't never take him back to Moscow arter the eenques'."
"Tuh law! You don't say? Whar 've they tuck 'm to?"
"I sha'n't tell," said Bob. "I sha'n't tell evenyou, S'manthy."
"Perrysburg?"
"You all-ays wuz some at guessin'. But I sha'n't say nary nuther word, on'y he 's whar Jake won't find him ef he goes to Moscow. They went summers, un that's anough. Perrysburg jail 's ruther stronger 'n ourn, I'll saythat. 'T wuz all fixed, 'fore I lef' home, to run him off afore the verdick wuz in, un not to keep to the big road nuther, so 's Jake would n' git wind uv 'em. Don't you whisper Perrysburg to a livin' soul. You jes' let Jake go down to Moscow! I'm comin' over 'n the mornin' to fetch your mare home un git my little Seizer that 's got to stay h-yer to-night, un then I'll fine out how they come out." And Bob chuckled as he left the house, only turning back to say:
"You keep closte, S'manthy, ur you'll spile it all. 'F you do tell, I won'tneverforgive yeh."
Bob now went out and down to the brookside, where he cut up and stripped three or four leatherwood bushes, and tied the tough, fibrous bark into one strong rope. With this he girded the bear to the horse's back, meantime resisting all of old Lazar's inquiries about the reason for his coming. At length he walked off in the dusk, unsteadily leaning against the horse on which the bear-meat was tied, and was soon out of sight.
"Bob won't tell me," said the old man plaintively, as he came into the house.
"He won't, won't he?" demanded S'manthy, with exultation in her voice. "You don' know how. Takes me to git at a sekert."
"Did he tellyou, S'manthy?" Uncle Lazar looked a little crest-fallen.
"Incoursehe did. Think I couldn' make him tell? W'y, I kin thes twis' Big Bob 'roun' my little finger."
"Well, what on yerth did he come over yer fer, S'manthy?"
"I promised not to tell you."
"To be shore you did. But you're a-goin' to."
"Yes; but you'll let it out, un then what'll Bob say to me?"
"What'll Jake say to you fer lettin' yer mar' go off, when one uv his boys had the promise? Un what 'll the folks say when they find out you knowed, un let 'em be fooled by Big Bob? You 've got to tell, S'manthy, ur else have all the Holler down on yeh. Besides, you could n' keep that sekert tell bed-time, noways, un you know you couldn'. 'T ain't in you to keep it, un you might thes ez well out weth it now ez arter awhile."
"Aw, well, Daddy, Bob didn' say much, on'y ut Jake wouldn' fine the feller that done the shootin' when he got to Moscow."
"Tuh law!" exclaimed the old man, waiting with open eyes for more.
"He wuz tuck off, afore the eenques' wuz over, to Perrysburg, un Bob come over to see 't Jake didn' git no wind uv it. That 's all they istoit. Un you need n' go un tell it, h-yeran'yan, nuther."
S'manthy knew well that this caution was of no avail. But by tacking the proviso to the information, she washed her hands of responsibility, and convinced herself that she had not betrayed a secret. It was an offering that she felt bound to make to her own complacency.
Uncle Lazar, for his part, made no bones. He only tarried long enough to set his pipe to smoking.
Bob McCord had stopped in the growing darkness under the shade of a box elder, a little beyond the forks of the road. He presently had the satisfaction of seeing the head of the old man as he trotted away through the patch of stunted corn toward a little grocery, which was located where the big road crossed Broad Run Hollow, and which was the common center of resort and intelligence for the neighborhood.
Hiram Mason managed with difficulty to drive the first two miles of forest road—over roots and stumps, through ruts and mud-holes, and with no light but that of a waning moon. When he reached Timber Creek bridge he got down and led the horse on its unsteady floor. Then came, like a dark spot in the pale moonlight, the log school-house, which reminded him that he was running away from his day's work. He stopped at the new log-house of John Buchanan, a Scotch farmer who had been one of his predecessors, and called him up to beg him to take his place. Buchanan, whose knowledge was of the rudimentary kind, had ceased to teach because he had not been able to meet the increased demands of the patrons of the school; it was a sort of consolation to his thwarted ambition to resume the beech-scepter if only for a day.
When Buchanan's house had been left behind, the road passed into an outskirt of small poplars, and then finally shook off this outer fringe of forest and lay straight away over the dead level of the great prairie. By the time the wagon reached this point the dawn was beginning to reveal the landscape, though as yet the world consisted only of masses of shadow interspersed with patches of a somber gray. But the smooth road was sufficiently discernible for Hiram to put the horse into a trot, which afforded no little relief to the impatient Barbara. Up to this time they had traveled in silence, except for the groans and sighs of Mrs. Grayson. But at length Barbara took the lead.
"I can't believe that Tom did that shooting," she said to Mason. "He promised me after supper last night that he would put all hard feelings against George Lockwood out of his mind. Tom is n't the kind of a fellow to play the hypocrite. Oh, I do hope he is innocent!"
"So do I," said Mason.
"To be sure he is," said Mrs. Grayson, with a touch of protest in her voice.
Barbara had detected a note of effort in Hiram's reply, that indicated a prevailing doubt of Tom's innocence, and she did not speak again during the whole ride. When they entered the village, Mason drove first to the sheriff's house, and went in, leaving Barbara and her mother in the wagon. Sheriff Plunkett had not yet had his breakfast. He was a well-built man, of obliging manners, but with a look of superfluous discreetness in his face. Mason explained in few words that the mother and sister of Tom Grayson, who had not seen him since the shooting of Lockwood, were at the door in a wagon and wished to be admitted to the jail. The sheriff regarded Mason awhile in silence; it was his habit to examine the possible results of the simplest action before embarking in it. He presently went upstairs and came down bringing with him the jail keys. Mason drove the wagon to the jail, tied the horse to a tree, and suggested to Mrs. Grayson and Barbara that it would be better for him to go in first. He had a vague fear that there might be something in Tom's situation to shock the feelings of his mother and sister. The sheriff had walked briskly along the wagon track in the middle of the street to avoid the dew-laden grass on either side of the road. When he came to the door of the jail he said in an undertone as he shoved the great iron key into the door:
"Tom's in the dungeon."
"Why did you put him in the dungeon?" asked Mason.
"We always put prisoners accused of murder in there."
"You might put an innocent man in that place," said Mason.
"Well, there ain't much doubt about Tom's being guilty; and anyways the jail's so weak that we have to put anybody accused of murder in the dungeon, where there ain't any outside windows."
By the time he had finished this speech, Plunkett had admitted Mason and himself to the jail and locked the outside door behind them. The prison was divided into two apartments by a hall-way through the middle. The room to the left, as one entered, was called the dungeon; it was without any light except the little that came through at second-hand from the dusky hall by means of a small grating in the door; the hall itself was lighted by a simple grated window at the end farthest from the outside door.
When the sheriff had with difficulty opened the door of the dungeon, he could not see anything inside.
"Tom, come out," he called.
Mason was barely acquainted with Tom, but he was shocked to see the fine-looking fellow in handcuffs as he came to the door, blinking his eyes at the light, and showing a face which wounded pride and anxiety had already begun to make haggard.
"Mr. Mason, I didn't expect to see you," said Tom. "Did you hear anything from mother and Barbara?"
"They're outside," said Mason. "I thought I'd just take your place at home for a few days."
The sheriff had gone along the hall to open the door leading into the room on the side opposite the dungeon. Tom regarded Mason a moment in silence, and presently said with emotion:
"How can I make anybody believe the truth? They'll say that a man who'd kill another would lie about it. I believe I should n't care so much about the danger of being hung, if I could only make a few people know that I did n't kill George Lockwood. I can't make you believe it, but I'm not guilty." As he said this, Tom dropped his eyes from Mason's face, and an expression of discouragement overspread his own.
"You certainly don't seem like a guilty man," said Hiram.
"The worst of it is," said Tom, as they followed the sheriff into the eastern room of the jail, "I can't think, to save my life, who 'twas that could have done the shooting. I don't know of any enemy that Lockwood had, unless you might have called me one. I hated him and talked like a fool about shooting, but I never seriously thought of such a thing."
The eastern room of the wretched little jail was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. In it were confined from time to time ordinary prisoners and occasionally lunatics, without separation on account of character or sex. Fortunately Tom had the jail now to himself.
The sheriff, who in those days was also the jailer, locked Mason and Tom in the eastern room while he opened the outside door and admitted Mrs. Grayson and Barbara to the hall. Then he locked the front door behind them and proceeded to unlock the door of the eastern room. Barbara ran in eagerly and threw her arms about Tom.
"Tell me truly, Tom," she whispered in his ear, "did you do it? Tell me the solemn truth, between you and me."