When the nine small gunny-sacks stenciled "Skylark, 1870," were emptied on the floor of the house, the Crustacea of the Atlantic's sands had found a resting-place on the summit of Whiteside Mountain, and might yet furnish evidence to some grave scientist of the future to prove beyond a doubt that the sea at no very remote period had surged above the peaks of the Blue Ridge. Starfish, shells, and bones, and fragments of the legs of spider-crabs, horseshoe-crabs, and crayfish, and some very active sand-fleas afforded much scientific amusement to our exiles, and brought vividly to mind the boom of the sea and the whitebait and whales that wiggle-waggle in its depth.
Neither the telescope nor the army blanket with "U.S." in the center, nor the two combined, had brought any visitors to the three soldiers, nor any information of the real state of affairs in the United States, which would quickly have terminated their exile.
The very pathetic and amusing volume of stories found in the alligator-skin bag caused more tears and healthy laughter than the soldiers had given way to since their great disappointment, and actually brought about such neglect of the October work on the plantation that more than half the potato crop rotted in the ground.
On the 21st of that month in this very balloon year, the area of Sherman Territory was extended by the addition of half an acre of rocks and brambles on the boulder side of the mountain, and afterward of much more, as will be shown in due time.
The twenty-first day of October in the year '70, then, was a lowery day. A strong, humid wind was blowing steadily across the mountain and soughing in the boughs of the pines, while the low clouds, westward bound, flew in ragged rifts overhead. It was a pleasant wind to feel, and the rising and falling cadence of its song reminded the soldiers of a wind from the sea. In the successive seasons they had gleaned the grove so thoroughly, even cutting the dry limbs from the trees, that they were now obliged to search under the carpet of needles for the fat pine-knots which formerly lay in abundance on the surface.
At the extreme southern end of the tongue of land on which the pines grew, a solitary stump clung in the base of the cliff. The outer fiber of the wood had crumbled away, leaving the resinous heart and the tough roots firmly bedded in the soil. They had been chopping and digging for an hour before they loosened and removed the central mass. Continuing their quest for one of the great roots which ran into the earth under the cliff, George dealt a vigorous stroke on the rotten stone and earth behind, which yielded so unexpectedly that he lost his footing, and at the same time his hold on the ax, which promptly disappeared into the bowels of the earth. They heard it ring upon the rocks below with strange echoes, as if it had fallen into a subterraneous cavern. At the same time the wind rushed through the opening in a current warmer than the surrounding atmosphere, and brought with it a strong, offensive smell, as if they had entered a menagerie in August. As soon as the soldiers recovered from their surprise they set vigorously to work for the recovery of the ax, attacking the loose earth with their gold-tipped shovel and with the tough oaken handspike with which they had been prying at the stump. Their efforts rapidly enlarged the opening, and presently the great root itself tumbled in after the ax. Philip ran to the house for a light, and by the time he returned with a blazing torch, Coleman and Bromley had enlarged the opening under the cliff until it was wide enough to admit their bodies easily. All was darkness, even blackness, within, and the rank animal smell was as offensive as ever, so that Philip held his nose in disgust.
By passing the torch into the opening of the cavern they could see the ax lying on the earthen floor ten feet below, and to the right the overlapping strata of granite seemed to offer a rude stairway for their descent. George entered at once, with the torch in one hand, and in the other the handspike with which to test his footing in advance. In another moment he stood on the hard floor by the ax and the light of his torch revealed the rocky sides of the cavern stretching away to the south along the side of the mountain. Coleman provided himself with one of the fattest of the pine-knots, and descended into the cavern after Bromley. With some hesitation Philip followed.
The resinous smoke of the torches relieved the subterraneous atmosphere somewhat of its offensive animal odor, and the flames flooded the walls and ceiling with light. Their voices, calling to each other as they advanced, sounded abnormally loud, and seemed to fill the space about them with a cavernous ring in which they detected no side echoes which would indicate lateral chambers branching off from the main passage. By the current of air flaring the torches back toward the opening they had made, they knew that the passage itself must be open to the day at its other end. The roof seemed to be about eight feet above their heads, although at times it drew nearer, and occasionally it retired to a greater altitude, but never beyond the searching illumination of their torches.
Presently, as they advanced, their attention was drawn to brown masses of something like fungi clinging to the rock overhead, but partaking so closely of the color and texture of the stone that they seemed, after all, to be but flinty lumps on the roof. As Bromley, who was in front, came to a point where the ceiling hung so low as to be within reach, he swept the flame of his torch across one of these brown patches, and straightway the stifling air was filled with a squeaking, unearthly chorus, and with the beating of innumerable wings. Scorched by the flame and blinded by the light, many of these disabled creatures, which proved to be a colony of bats, fluttered to the floor, and dashed against the bare feet of the soldiers with a clammy touch that made the cold chills rise in their hair.
This was too much for Philip, who turned back to join Tumbler in the open air at the mouth of the cavern. At the same time, however, the offensive odor was accounted for, and Bromley and Coleman had no further fear of meeting larger animals as they advanced. As a lover of animals, George was shocked at the cruel consequences of his rash action; as a bold explorer, however, he pushed on into the gruesome darkness at a pace that soon left Coleman's prudent feet far behind. The latter had a wholesome fear of treading on some yielding crust which might precipitate him to other and more terrible depths.
The way seemed to turn somewhat as they advanced; for at times the light of George's torch vanished behind the projection of one or the other wall, and at such times Coleman called eagerly to him to wait. Bromley's cheery voice, evidently advancing, came ringing back so distinctly that his companion was reassured by his seeming nearness. Once, when the darkness had continued for a long time in front, Coleman began to be alarmed at the thought that Bromley's torch must have gone out, and then the fear that he might have fallen into some fissure in the rocks made him cold about the heart.
Lieutenant Coleman was now picking his way more gingerly than ever, and holding his light high above his head, when, to add to his terror, he thought he heard something approaching behind him. Sure enough, when he turned about, in the darkness of the cavern just beyond the illumination of his torch he saw two gleaming eyes. The eyes were fixed upon him, and the head of the animal moved from side to side, but came no nearer. He would have given worlds for the carbine. His blood ran cold in his veins at the thought of his terrible situation. He was utterly helpless, hemmed in by the rocks. It was impossible to go back. He could only go forward. He remembered then that the fiercest of wild animals, even lions and tigers, kept back in the darkness and glared all night with their hungry eyes at the fires of hunters. He was safe, then, to go on, but a dreadful conflict was in store for the two men if the animal should follow them out of the cavern.
"BEYOND THE ILLUMINATION OF HIS TORCH HE SAW TWO GLEAMING EYES.""BEYOND THE ILLUMINATION OF HIS TORCH HE SAW TWO GLEAMING EYES."
Bromley's torch now reappeared in the distance. Coleman was too terrified to call, but instead moved on in silence, occasionally flaring his torch behind him, and always seeing the gleaming eyes when he looked back. Try as he would, he could get no farther from them. There were occasional stumbling-blocks in the way, and once or twice he encountered rocks which he was obliged to pass around. Whenever Coleman turned and waved the torch, the animal whined as if he too were in fear.
Terrified as Lieutenant Coleman was, he could not help noticing that the brown colonies of bats now appeared more frequently on the stone ceiling, and presently the air grew perceptibly fresher as he advanced. He began to realize the presence of a gray light apart from that of his torch; and finally coming sharply around a projecting rock, he saw the welcome light of day streaming in through a wide opening in the rocks, and at one side, thrust into a crevice, George's torch was flaring and smoking in the wind. Coleman placed his torch with the other, hoping that the lights would continue to protect them from the animal and then he sprang out of the cavern into the sweet open air, with that joyous feeling of relief which can be understood only by one who has passed through a similar experience.
George was standing in the dry grass, with a great stone in each hand, as if he already knew their danger and was prepared; but when Coleman told him in hurried words what they had to expect, he dropped the stones, and they began to look about for a place of safety. It was not far to a high rock upon which they both scrambled, and then Bromley let himself down again, and passed up a number of angular stones for ammunition. Whatever the mysterious beast might be, they could keep him off from the rock for a time, but they were not prepared for a siege. They had little to say to each other, and that in whispers as they strained their eyes to look into the entrance to the cavern. Bromley, however, was softly humming a tune, and just as Coleman looked up at him in astonishment he dropped the stones from his hands and burst into laughter; and sure enough, there in the mouth of the cavern stood their tame bear, Tumbler, wagging his head from side to side just as Coleman had seen the mysterious eyes move in the darkness, and, moreover, he was still licking his chops after the feast he had made on the bats.
Lieutenant Coleman had been so alarmed at first, and then so gratified at the happy outcome of his adventure, that he had not noticed the character of the stones which Bromley had been handling. It was not until his attention was called to a flake of mica that he looked about him on the ground, to see every where blocks and flakes of what is commonly called isinglass. They could have something better than wooden shutters for their windows now.
By a certain gnarled chestnut which overhung the cliff above them, growing out of the hill near the spring, they estimated the length of the subterraneous passage to be not less than a quarter of a mile. The sun, which had broken through the clouds, indicated by the angle of his rays that the afternoon was well past. They now thought it advisable to retrace their steps through the unsavory cavern. In view of the stifling passage, Coleman inhaled deep drafts of the sweet outer air, and shuddered involuntarily at the necessity of repeating the experience, even when he knew the animal now following him was only stupid old Tumbler. George handed him a piece of the mica to carry, and his careless, happy mood indicated that he returned to the subterraneous passage as gaily as if it were a pleasant walk overland. As they drew near the entrance to the cavern, with the bear shambling at their heels, an indefinable dread of trouble ahead took possession of Coleman. It might have been the absence of the resinous smell of the torches. At all events, they were presently standing in the gruesome half-light before the empty crevice, through which they could see their pine-knots still burning fifty feet below in an inner cavern. As their torches had burned to the edge of the rock they had fallen through the opening. They were without fire, and if they should succeed in striking it with their flints, they had no means of carrying it a hundred yards into the darkness. The situation was frightful. Outside, the perpendicular cliff rose a matter of sixty feet to the overhanging trees of the plateau, and close to the south ledge, which towered above it. The two men and the bear were prisoners on this barren shelf of rocks, with a quarter of a mile of subterraneous darkness separating them from food and shelter—from life itself. Was it their destiny, Coleman thought, to die of starvation among these inhospitable rocks, hung like a speck between the plateau and the valley, watched by the circling eagles and by the patient buzzards, who would perch on the nearer tree-tops to await their dissolution? The very thought of the situation unmanned him.
EXPLORING THE CAVE OF THE BATS.EXPLORING THE CAVE OF THE BATS.
Lieutenant Coleman was not a man to shrink from enemies whom he could see; but the darkness and the dangers of the half-explored cavern terrified him. Corporal Bromley, on the other hand, was only made angry by the loss of the torches; and the livid expression of his face reminded his comrade of the morning when they had received the news of General Sherman's death before the works at Atlanta. In a moment, however, he was calm. Without a word, he walked away among the rocks, and when he came back he held in his hands a lithe pole ten or twelve feet long.
"Not a very interesting outlook, Fred, for a man who would rather be eating his supper," said George, trying the strength of his pole; "but you must be patient and amuse yourself as best you can."
Lieutenant Coleman stared at Bromley in speechless amazement as he disappeared into the cavern, carrying the pole across his breast. It was something less than courage—it was the utter absence of the instinct of fear which the others had so often noticed in his character. Would he succeed the better for the very want of this quality with which the All-wise has armed animal life for its protection? Perhaps.
The bear was snuffing about Coleman as if he were trying to understand why he remained; and when he failed to attract his attention, he turned about and shambled after Bromley.
Although Coleman was deeply concerned by the dangers which threatened his comrade, he reasoned with certainty that wherever Bromley was, he was as calm as an oyster, regarding his progress as only a question of time and some bruises.
To keep his mind away from the cavern, he rose mechanically, and began to gather up the fragments of mica and heap them together. For an hour he threaded his way among the rocks, thus employed. The glittering heap grew larger, for the supply was quite inexhaustible, and he discovered fresh deposits on every hand.
It was now grown quite dark, and he made his way to the mouth of the cavern, vainly hoping to see a star advancing in the darkness, but only to meet a flight of bats wheeling out into the night. Carefully he crept back and seated himself on a smooth stone by the side of his store of mica, and imagined himself a hunter in the middle of a trackless desert, dying for a drop of water beside a princely fortune in accumulated elephants' tusks. When he looked up the dark mass of the tree-crowned cliff cut softly against a lighter gloom; but when he turned his eyes away from the mountain, the sky or the clouds, or whatever it might be, seemed to surround him and press upon him. Oh, for one star in the distance to lift the sky from his head; or, better yet, the calm face of the moon, and the touch of its yellow light on tree and stone! Instead of anything so cheerful, a patter of raindrops met his up-turned face, as if in mockery of his wish; and then the rain increased to a steady downpour, beating from the east, and he knew the autumnal equinox was upon them. He reflected that George might never feel the rain. Miserable thought! What if he were to perish in the darkness, separated from him and from Philip, after having lived so long together! Coleman might have sought shelter in the mouth of the cavern; but he was indifferent to the rain falling on his bare back and canvas trousers.
How long he had been waiting, two hours or three, he had no means of telling. His watch had long since ceased to run. Up on the plateau they had noon-marks at the house and at the mill, and at night, when it was clear, they went out and looked at the seven stars. He was thoroughly drenched by the rain, which had now been falling for a long time. Certainly George should have returned before this, if all had gone well with him. And then his mind returned to the contemplation of that other possibility with a perverseness over which he could exercise no control. He saw Bromley lost in some undiscovered byway of the subterraneous passage, groping his way hopelessly into the center of the mountain; knowing that he was lost when, go which way he would, his pole no longer reached the walls. He saw him retracing his steps, now going this way, now that, but always going he knew not whither, too brave to yield to despair.
Then he saw him in a lower cavern, where he had fallen through the floor, groping about the rough walls with bleeding hands and staring eyes, patiently searching for a foothold, his indomitable pluck never failing him. Horrible as these fancies were, others more dreadful oppressed his half-wakeful mind; for he was so tired that in spite of the rain he lapsed into a state of unconsciousness, in which he dreamed that the roof of that suffocating cavern, covered with the brown blotches of bats, was settling slowly upon George, until he could no longer walk erect. Lower, lower it came in its fearful descent, until it bumped his head as he crawled. Now the roof grazes his back as he writhes on his belly like a snake.
"Fred! Old boy! Fred!"
And there stood Bromley in the flesh, as calm as if nothing unusual had happened, the raindrops hissing in the flame of his torch.
Owing to the difficulties of the passage through the cave of the bats, and the utter barrenness of the rocky half-acre which lay at its other end, the three soldiers never entered it again during the fall and winter which followed its discovery. The two blocks of isinglass which they had brought away on their first visit were ample for their purpose; and as soon as they had secured their supply of fat pine-knots for light in the long winter evenings, they set about constructing two windows to take the place of the sliding boards which closed those openings in the cold, snowy days. It is true, they could not look out through the new windows, but much light could enter where all had been darkness before. Time was nothing to the soldiers in these late autumn days; and, indeed, the more of it they could spend on any work they undertook, the more such work contributed to their contentment and happiness. They wished to have their windows ornamental as well as useful; and it was Philip's suggestion that they should try an imitation of stained glass.
They had some of the carbine cartridges left; and as they no longer killed any creatures, the bullets would supply them with lead to unite the small pieces of isinglass and outline their designs. One of the mica blocks chanced to be of a pale-green color, and they made many experiments to produce reds and blues. Oxide of iron, or the common red iron-rust, gave a rich carmine powder, which, mixed with the white of an egg, adhered to the inner side of the small panes. They found a few dried huckleberries, from which they extracted a strong blue by boiling. They could procure yellow only by beating a small bit of gold to the thinnest leaf, which they pasted upon the flake of mica. The reds and blues as they applied them were only water-colors; but the inner side of the glass was not exposed to the rain. After the one square window, which looked toward the Cove and consequently let in the afternoon sun, was finished in a fantastic arrangement of the three rich colors, bordered by pale green, it was decided, with great enthusiasm, to reproduce in the opposite window their dear old flag with its thirty-five stars. To do this, they cut away the logs on one side until they had doubled the area of the opening. They managed to stiffen the frame on the inner side with strips of dogwood, which made a single cross against the light, leaving the blue field of stars unobstructed.
It was a great comfort to their patriotic hearts to see the sun glowing on their United States window when they awoke in the morning, or to see the ruddy firelight dancing on the old flag, if one of them came in from the mill or the branch in the evening. In fact, when this work was finished, the three soldiers, wrapped in their faded blue overcoats, were never tired of walking about outside their house, in the chilly November evenings, to admire their first art-work illuminated by the torch-light within. Their tough, bare feet, insensible to the sharp stones and the gray hoar-frost, wore away the withered grass opposite to each of their stained-glass windows; but the patch of trodden earth outside the window which showed the glowing stripes and gleaming stars of the old flag was much the larger.
Otherwise their prospects for the winter were by no means as brilliant as their windows; for besides the failure in the potato crop, the white grubs had made sad havoc with their corn in two successive plantings, and the yield in October had been alarmingly light. Even the chestnuts had been subject to a blight; and altogether it was what the farmers would call "a bad year." The fowls had increased to an alarming extent, considering the necessity of feeding so many, and as winter approached their eggs were fewer than ever. The case was not so bad that it would be necessary to shorten their rations, as they had done before the harvest of the first year; but with so many mouths to feed, there was danger that they would find themselves without seed for the next planting. Then, too, there was a very grave danger that before spring these stubborn vegetarians would be forced to resort to broiled chicken, spiced with gunpowder, which was nearly as repulsive to their minds as leaving the mountain and going down into a triumphant Confederacy.
The bear, at least, would require no feeding, and with the very first snow old Tumbler disappeared as usual, making the soldiers rather wish that, for this particular winter, hibernation could be practised by human animals as well as by bears.
After Christmas the weather became unusually cold, and the winds swept with terrific force across the top of the mountain. The snow was so deep that the path they dug to the mill was banked above their heads as they walked in it, and the mill itself showed only its half-roof of shingles and its long water-trough above the surface of the snow. From the trough huge icicles were pendent, and it was ornamented with great curves of snow; and when Philip set the wheels in motion, a gray dust rose above the bank, and the whir of the grinding as heard at the house was subdued and muffled like the very ghost of a sound. The soldiers dug open spaces to give light, outside the stained-glass windows, and through these the evening firelight repeated the gorgeous colors on the snow.
From the path to the mill they dug a branch to the forge, and tunneled a passage to the water, from which they broke the ice every day. Short as was their supply of corn, they were obliged to feed it to the fowls with a lavish hand as long as the deep snow remained. This necessity kept them busy shelling the ears by the fire in the warm house, after they had brought them in from the mill or the forge, and half a gunny-sack of corn was thrown out on the snow at the morning and evening feeding. Since the hut of the old man of the mountain had been made into a forge, the fowls had roosted in the branches of the old chestnuts, and had got on very well, even in the winters that were past. With full crops, they seemed to be thriving equally well during the severe cold which attended the period of deep snow.
The 15th of January in the new year, which was 1871, was the first of a four days' thaw. The sun beamed with unusual heat on the mountain, and under his rays the snow rapidly disappeared, and the ground came to light again with its store of dry seeds. The three-pronged tracks of the fowls were printed everywhere in the soft top-soil, where they scampered about in pursuit of grubs and worms. On the fourth day the avalanche fell from the great boulder into the Cove, with the usual midwinter crashes and reverberations, which reminded Philip of his narrow escape the winter before.
On the evening of this fourth day the thaw was followed by a light rain, which froze as it fell, and developed into a regular ice-storm during the night. When the three soldiers looked out on the morning of the 19th, they found their house coated with ice, and the mountain-top a scene of glittering enchantment. Every tree and bush was coated with a transparent armor of glass. The lithe limbs of the birches and young chestnuts were bent downward in graceful curves by the weight of the ice, which, under the rays of the rising sun, guttered and scintillated with all the colors of the rainbow. Every rock and stone had its separate casing, and every weed and blade of grass was stiffened with a tiny shining overcoat. The stalks on the plantation stood up like a glittering field of pikes.
Despite the difficulty of walking over the uneven ground and the slippery rocks, they made their way, not without occasional falls, to the western side of the plateau to observe the effect in the Cove. Philip was in raptures over the prismatic variety of colors, picking out and naming the tints with a childish glee and with a subtle appreciation of color that far outran the limited vision of his comrades, and made them think that Sherman Territory had possibly defrauded the world below of a first-rate painter.
As they turned back toward the house, after their first outburst of enthusiasm over the beauties of the ice-storm, Bromley remarked that it was strange they had not been awakened as usual by the crowing of the cocks. Indeed, the stillness of the hour was remarkable. It was strange that while they had lain in their bunks after daybreak they had not heard the cocks answering one another from one end of the plateau to the other.
Usually they heard first the clear, ringing note of some knowing old bird burst loud and shrill from under the very window, and then the pert reply of some upstart youngster who had not yet learned to manage his crow drifting faintly back from the rocks to the west; then straightway all the crowers, of all ages and of every condition of shrillness and hoarseness, tried for five mortal minutes to crow one another down; and when one weak, far-away chicken seemed to have got the last word, another would break the stillness, and the strident contest would begin again.
Perhaps they had heard all this and not noticed it. They were so used to the noise; it was like the ticking of a clock or the measured pounding of the Slow-John; but it was certain that nothing of the kind was going on at present.
In leaving the house they had been so enchanted by the hues of the ice-storm that they now remembered they had not so much as turned their eyes in the direction of the roost. When they came upon the brow of the hill which overlooked the mill,—which was a silver mill now,—the limbs of the trees which stretched along the bank beyond were crowded with the fowls, at least four hundred of them, sitting still on their perches. Philip, who fell down in his eagerness, and rolled over on the ice, remarked as he got upon his feet that it was too knowing a flock of birds to leave the sure hold it had on the limbs to come down onto the slippery ground.
As the soldiers came nearer, however, they noticed that their fowls in the sunlight were quite the most brilliantly prismatic objects they had seen; for their red combs and party-colored feathers made a rich showing through the transparent coating of ice which enveloped them like shells and held them fast to the limbs where they sat. Whether they had been frozen stiff or smothered by the icy envelop, they were unable to determine; but they could see that all the fowls had met with a very beautiful death, except two or three of the toughest old roosters, who had managed to crack the icy winding-sheet about their bills. One of these, who had more life in him than the others, made a dismal attempt to crow.
Bromley hastened to get the ladder from the mill, and the hatchet, and wherever a living bird was to be seen he put up the ladder regardless of the dead ones, which broke off and fell down, and chipping the ice about its claws, removed it tenderly to the ground. In the end the three soldiers carried just two apiece, one under each arm, of these tough old veterans into the house, and not daring to bring them near the fire, set them up to thaw gradually against the inner side of the door. Then they made a pot of hasty-pudding for their own breakfast; but before they touched it themselves they fed a little of it, steaming hot, to each reviving old bird. In fact, the poor fowls looked so much like colored-glass images, when tilted against the door, that, fearing at any moment they might topple over and break into fragments, they laid each rooster carefully on his side, where the ice melted by degrees into sloppy pools on the floor.
The oldest of these unhappy survivors had come up the mountain tied to a pack-saddle, and consequently was more than six years old. He was big of frame and tawny of color, and had long, sharp spurs curved like small powder-horns, and his crow when he was in good health proclaimed him the leader of the flock. The other five cocks, although but a trifle younger, belonged to the next generation, for they came of the first summer's hatching. Their plumage was red and black, and their long, sweeping tail-feathers cased in ice would certainly have been snapped off if they had had the least power to move their bodies. As the ice melted from their heads, they looked about the house with their round red eyes, and otherwise lay quite helpless on their sides, their claws drawn up to their crops, and curved as they had been taken from the limbs.
The soldiers looked on, full of sympathy, and fed their patients now and then with a small portion of warm pudding; and finally, remembering their medicine-chest, which they had never yet had occasion to use, they waited patiently until the ice melted, so that they could handle the fowls without danger of breaking, and then they held each rooster up by the neck and dosed him with a spoonful of whisky and quinine.
Following this prescription they laid the old birds in a row on a warm blanket, sufficiently elevating their heads, and covering them up to their bills, and left them to sleep and sweat after the most approved hospital practice.
And now, having done their duty by the living, they went outside to look at the dead, which were, if possible, more beautiful than ever. The sun was unusually warm, and by this time everything was dripping and glittering in the light, which was half blinding, and the thin ice was snapping everywhere as the lightened limbs sought to regain their natural positions. As to the dead fowls, a few had fallen to the ground, but most of them remained rigidly perched on the great limbs, dripping a shower of raindrops upon the ice below. Here and there, where a few rays of the sun had found passage to a particular limb, a section of the icy coating had turned so that a half-dozen fowls hung heads downward, or the casing of a hen had melted, while her claws were still frozen fast, leaving her to lop over against her neighbor for support.
By afternoon they began to fall off the branches like ripened fruit, and drop on the ground with a thud like apples in an orchard on a windy day. It was a dismal sound in the ears of the three soldiers, and a sad sight to see the heaps of dead fowls as they accumulated on the ground.
The military training of these young men had taught them to make the most of every reverse, and if possible to turn defeat into victory; and so they fell to work and plucked off a great quantity of soft feathers, and all the next day was spent in skinning the breasts, which they would find some way to cure and make into covers for their beds, or even garments for themselves. A portion of the carcases they tried out over the fire, and made a brave supply of oil for the mill, and then the poor remains were thrown over the cliff.
The six old roosters remained alive in a crippled and deformed condition, some having three stumpy toes to a foot, and others two or one, on which they wabbled and limped about with molting feathers and abbreviated combs, the most dismal-looking fowls that can be imagined. The old yellow patriarch was paralyzed as to his legs and thighs, so that he was nearly as helpless as a tailor's goose, and had to be set about and fed like an infant. For the five red ones Bromley fixed a roost in the corner of the house behind the door, where some of them had to be helped up at night, and where they crowed hoarsely in the morning, over against the window of the stained-glass flag.
Philip, in pursuance of a brilliant idea which he kept to himself, selected a dozen of the new-laid eggs which they happened to have in the house, and put them away in a warm place where no breath of frost could reach them. When the first warm days of spring came, he made a nest of corn-husks and feathers on a sunny shoulder of rock. Into this nest he put the eggs he had saved, and covered them with the old paralyzed yellow rooster, who had never been known to move from where he was set down since the night he was frozen on the limb. The indignant old bird certainly gave Philip a look of remonstrance as he left him in this degrading position; and when Philip came a few hours later to feed him, this cunning old rooster, strengthened perhaps by his outraged feelings, had in some way managed to turn over so that he lay on his side on the rock, his helpless claws extending stiffly over the nest. As often as he was set back he managed to accomplish the same feat, when if left on the ground he would sit for a week where he was placed, as stolid and immovable as a decoy-duck.
The loss of the fowls had left an abundance of corn for planting; but when the warm days came after this trying winter, it was a queer sight to see the three soldiers walking about the top of the mountain, with their five sad roosters wabbling at their heels.
The long, cold winter of 1870, which froze all the fowls except the six sad roosters, and followed the failure of the potato and corn crops, was also disastrous to the bees. The hives had increased to a fine long row in the years that followed the capture of the first swarm discovered by Tumbler, the bear, and the honey had been a welcome addition to the soldiers' simple fare; but the cold weather had destroyed every swarm, leaving only bee-bread and some half-consumed old combs from which the dead bees had fallen in a dry mass upon the bench below.
While Coleman and Bromley were engaged in planting, Philip was making an effort to find a new bee-tree. He had noticed some bees buzzing about the wild flowers on the ridge by the old flagging-station, and he determined to "line" them by a method he had seen his uncle practise when he was a boy in Ohio. He made a little box with a sliding cover, into which he put a small honeycomb, and taking the old yellow rooster under one arm for company,—or perhaps for luck,—he went over to where the flowers grew near the northern end of the plateau. He set down the old rooster on the ground, and opened the box on a stone in front of him, and waited, watching his bait. It was something like fishing in the old mill-pond, of which he had once been fond, and he found a singular fascination about watching the opening in the box as he used to watch his bobber. The June weather on the mountain was like May in the Ohio valley, and the sweet smell of the flowers carried his mind back to his old home. He had no longer to wait for the first nibble than he had waited in the old days for the first stir of his cork and the spreading ring on the water. A bee lighted on the lid and then made his way down into the box. After loading his legs with honey, the bee reappeared, and rising into the air, flew away to the south. Philip followed the small insect with his eyes, and then, picking up the old rooster, he came on for a hundred yards in the same direction, and set his bait as before. This time he had two bees in his box, and when they had loaded themselves they flew away in the same direction as the first. They disappeared so soon above the tree-tops that he thought the swarm was not far away; but every time he advanced, the loaded bees continued to fly south, until he had moved the paralyzed old rooster by easy stages the whole length of the plateau; and the bees, which came in greater numbers now, rose into the air and flew in a "bee-line" over the top of the southern cliff.
Philip was disgusted at this result of his bee-hunt, as any fisherman, after wading to his middle in a cold river to humor a fine trout, might be, to lose his victim at last in the foaming rapids; but he knew to a certainty that there was a bee-tree somewhere beyond the thus far unscalable southern cliff.
For the present the vision of honey was abandoned, and the economy of the camp, where food was now alarmingly low, was cunningly exercised to discover edible things in lieu of the corn, which, after the planting, was all stored in the nine gunny-sacks which had fallen from the balloon. The sacks were piled one upon another in a small heap behind the hopper in the mill, and the six sad roosters had to shift for themselves as best they could, except the old fellow who was paralyzed, and for him they gathered grubs and worms, and saved the crumbs that fell from the table.
It appeared possible to the minds of the soldiers that the liver-colored slabs of fungus which grew out of the sides of the chestnut-trees and the birches might be as palatable and nourishing as mushrooms. They broke off one of these pieces one day, which was shaped like the half of an inverted saucer, and was moist and clammy on the under side. They had a suspicion that such things were poison. They had never heard of any one eating the like, and after they had stewed it in their camp-kettle, inviting as its odor was, they sniffed and hesitated and feared to taste it. In the end they shook their heads, and spilled the contents of the kettle on the ground, where as soon as their backs were turned Tumbler and the five sad roosters fell to devouring the rejected food.
When the soldiers discovered what their domestic animals were about, the bear was licking his chops and the old roosters were waltzing about in the grass picking up the last morsels of the feast. They regretted their carelessness, and rather expected that before night the old paralyzed rooster would be their only living companion on the mountain.
When, however, the bear and the five sad roosters survived the test, and seemed rather to flourish on the new food, the soldiers took heart, and found the fungus not only good, but so much like meat that it was quite startling to their vegetarian palates.
After eating all of this peculiar food-product that grew on the plateau, they gleaned the field above the deep gorge, and as a last resort they made a hunting expedition to the half-acre of rocks and brambles where they had found the mica. Terrible as the passage through the cavern had at first seemed to the mind of Lieutenant Coleman, the lapse of time and a better acquaintance with the interior of the subterraneous tunnel made it but a commonplace covered way to the field of mica. Not that the soldiers had any further use for the mineral wealth which was so lavishly strewn among the rocks. It was as valueless to them now as the button-hook found in the hand-bag of alligator-skin. To go now and then through the underground passage, however, if only for the purpose of looking at the world outside from the view-point of their newest territorial possession, was a temptation which no landed proprietors could resist. The little shelf afforded them a glimpse to the south of the Cove road, which on account of certain intervening trees was not to be had from the plateau above. Several cabins could be seen smoking in the small clearings which surrounded them, but since the telescope had gone into the avalanche with Philip there was but poor satisfaction in looking at them.
They found a single piece of the liver-colored fungus growing on the root of a half-decayed old chestnut, and even this they regarded as well worth their journey. They spent some time wandering about the mica shelf, and when Lieutenant Coleman and Philip were boring their torches into the ground, one after the other, to rid them of the dead coal, and getting ready for the start back, Bromley, who had been poking about among the rocks, called to them in a tone of voice that indicated a pretty important discovery in the stone line. He was down on his hands and knees on the turf, boring his toes into the soil, and as his comrades approached him, he exclaimed:
"I haven't touched it yet. Just come here and look!"
"HE WAS DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES UPON THE TURF.""HE WAS DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES UPON THE TURF."
Naturally, Coleman and Philip thought he had found some curious reptile. Instead, however, of this being the case, Bromley was kneeling over a scrap of newspaper which was impaled on a dead twig under the shelter of a rock where neither the sun nor the rain could reach it. The torn fragment was scarcely larger than the palm of one's hand, and snugly as it was now protected from the weather, it was yellow from former exposure, and the print was much faded, so that parts of it were illegible. It was possible, however, to decipher enough of the small advertisements on the exposed side to show that it was a Charleston paper, and they knew of course that it must have come by the balloon almost a year before. Undoubtedly it had lain for a long time on the plateau above, exposed to the storms, before the wind had tossed it over the cliff and landed it in such a wonderful way on the twig under the cover of the rock.
On the reverse side most of the print was fairly legible. The scrap was torn from the top of the paper, and had on it a capital G, which was the only letter left of the name of the paper. The line below read: "September [date of month gone], 18-0." The center column was headed:
"FOREIGN WORLD
"The Hon. Charles Snowden, M.P., goes down with hisyacht—Earthquake in Spain; four distinct shocks felt—Nodam——e done—Movement of specie
"London, September 4. The steam-yacht of theHonorable Charles Snowden, M.P., which was wreckedyesterday off the old Head of Kinsale on the south coast ofIreland, was this morning looted by thieves. The ri——,plate, carpets, upholstery, and fittings, as well asquantity of storage, sails, and stores, were taken. Lightswere seen from the mainland at two o'clock this morning,when a heavy sea was running.
"Later. The Hon. Charles Snowden and the first officerof the boat lost their lives by the swamping of theraft on which they had embarked.
"Madrid, September 4. Four distinct shocks of anearthquake this morning were felt in the provinceof Granada, in the south of Spain. Coming as tshocks have, twenty-four hours later than theances reported on the coast of Italy by yws, would indicate that the disturbanceNo damage is reported. Infrom the vineyards."
What remained of the right-hand column bore, to the soldiers, these surprising words, in sentences and parts of sentences:
"Local Happenings—Charleston—R. E. Lee as General—Sherman at the War Office
"The controversy just concluded between the CouriMercury on the strategic merits of the two commanddeveloped nothing new. The Sherman camending at the city of Atlantaably discussed and withjustice to the dead commaThe great March to the Sea, bMore brilliant achievementof the war and itsin another columSouth is satisfiehappy endin"
When Coleman and Philip caught the first glimpse of the scrap of paper, tattered and yellow, they believed it to be some fragment of the Blue Book which they themselves had discarded. The exposed surface was almost as free of print as if it had been treated with potash, and looked as insignificant as a dried leaf or a section of corn-husk. Bromley, on the other hand, had examined it more closely, and just as Coleman began to laugh at him, he put out his hand and removed the scrap of paper from the twig which held it fast; and as he turned it over to the light, he was nearly as much surprised as his companions.
The three were down on their knees in an instant, eagerly devouring the words of the head-lines; and Philip being on the right, it happened that his eyes were the first to fall on the name of General Sherman.
"'Sherman at the War Office'!" he cried. "What does that mean?"
"It means we have been deceived," said Coleman. "I—"
"Hurrah!" cried Philip, leaping up and dancing about until the rags of his tattered clothing fluttered in the sunlight. "Hurrah! Uncle Billy is alive! He never was killed at all! If that message was false, they were all false—all lies! lies! What fools we have been! We must leave the mountain to-morrow—to-night."
"We have been the victims of an infamous deception," exclaimed Lieutenant Coleman. "Let us go back to the house at once, and determine what is to be done."
Against this undue haste Bromley remonstrated feebly, for he himself was laboring under unusual excitement. His eyes were so dimmed by a suffusion of something very like tears—tears of anger—that he could read no further for the moment, and he put the paper carefully into his pocket, and picked up his torch and followed his comrades sulkily into the cavern.
Upon Bromley's peculiar character this new revelation had a depressing effect. He still entertained doubts. If the new hope was finally realized, his joy would be as deep and sincere as that of the others. For the present, the thought that they might have been deceived all along angered him. He had an inclination to stop even then and examine the paper more fully by torch-light; but the underground passage was long, and the pine-knot he carried was burning low. He felt obliged to hasten on after Coleman and Philip, who were now considerably in advance. They were still in view, however, and as he held the torch to one side that which he saw far up the narrowing cavern had a softening effect on his conflicting emotions. He even laughed at the grotesque exhibition; for the small figures of Coleman and Philip were dancing and hugging each other and dashing their torches against the rocks in a way that made them look like mad salamanders in the circling flames and sparks.
Such reckless enthusiasm was a condition of mind which George could not understand; but the possibility occurred to him that in their wild excitement they might set fire to the house as a beacon-light to the people in the valley; for they could never get away from the plateau without help from beyond the deep gorge.
To prevent, if possible, any rash action on the part of his more excited comrades, Bromley hurried his pace, and, in the effort to overtake them, soon found himself leaping over obstacles and dodging corners of the rocky wall in a wild race, which tended to excite even his phlegmatic nature. As he ran on, that magical sentence, "Sherman at the War Office," stood out in black letters before his eyes. What war office? If the paper referred to the war office of the United States, it certainly would have so designated a department of a foreign government. If there were two governments, it would be necessary to say which war office was meant. If the old government in whose military service he had enlisted as a boy had regained its own, the phrase "Sherman at the War Office" would be natural and correct; and with this triumphant conviction he ran on the faster. On the other hand, if the Confederacy had gained everything!—at the sickening thought his feet became so heavy that his speed relapsed into a labored walk, and the oppressive air of the cavern seemed to stifle him.
He would reach his companions as soon as possible, and compel them to examine the scrap of paper and weigh its every word. It was beginning to dawn upon Bromley that they had acted like children; and when he finally came out at the entrance to the cave of the bats into the subdued light under the dark pines, he found Philip and Coleman waiting for him, and clamoring for another look at the scrap of paper.
There was not much to read in the fraction of a column that interested them most, but Philip and Coleman were determined to twist the reading to the support of their new hopes, and Bromley naturally took the opposite view, heartily wishing, however, that the others might prove him mistaken. There was something in the reading of the broken sentences that tended to quiet the enthusiasm of Lieutenant Coleman, and when Bromley could make himself heard, he called attention to the second sentence, "The Sherman campaign ending at the —— Atlanta, ably discussed," and "Justice to the dead commander." What dead commander, if not General Sherman? If he had lived his campaign would not have ended at Atlanta. It was evident that there had been a newspaper controversy in Charleston on the merits of two campaigns by Sherman and Lee—the Atlanta campaign and the March to the Sea—whatever that might be. The latter, Bromley thought, was clearly some achievement of Lee's. And then he remembered his prophecy on the night when they had changed the name of the plateau from Lincoln to Sherman Territory.
"It proves," cried Bromley, "just what I foresaw: that, after the capture of Washington, Lee led his army across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, living on the country, to meet the foreign allies of the Confederacy in the harbor of New York. It was certainly a brilliant military movement. Look," he cried, when the others were silent, "'South is satisfied—happy ending—'"
"But," said Philip, still obstinate, "what do you make of those five words, 'Sherman at the War Office'? How do you get around that?"
"Why, my dear boy," said Bromley, "this is only the heading of a newspaper article. It does not mean that General Sherman was at the war office in person. It simply refers to General Sherman's record in the War Department."
After all their excitement, Coleman and Philip were obliged to give way to the convincing evidence revealed in the broken sentences. They were too tired by this time to consider the bits of foreign news, or notice the dates, and it was quite dark when they reached the house and went dejected and supperless to bed.
"THE SCRAP OF PAPER.""THE SCRAP OF PAPER."
The next morning they got down the map, and looked ruefully at the States which Lee must have devastated in his triumphant march. With the consent of the others, Bromley took a pen and traced the probable route by Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Trenton to the Jersey coast of New York harbor. Bromley was determined to lay out the line of march by Harrisburg, and was restrained only by physical force, which resulted in blotting the map at the point where his clumsy line was arrested. They agreed, however, that Lee's victorious army had undoubtedly camped on the lower bay and along the Raritan River, in the country between Perth Amboy and the old battle-field of Monmouth. They were convinced that the map was utterly wrong, for after such a march it was doubtful if there were any United States at all. The disaster appeared more overwhelming than ever, and they hung the map back on the wall—in another place, however, for it was discovered that the rain had beaten through the logs and run down across the Pacific side. Poor as it was, they were determined to preserve it.
It was not until late in the afternoon of the day on which they had altered the map that the three soldiers returned to the examination of the scrap of paper which they had agreed from the first could have reached the mountain-top only by falling from the balloon the year before.
"How is this?" cried Coleman, pointing excitedly to the dates of the foreign telegrams. "This piece of newspaper could not have come by the balloon. The balloon passed over the mountain on September 5, having left the city of Charleston, as declared by the tall aeronaut, at 3:30 o'clock of the afternoon before, which was the 4th of September. Look at the dates for yourself," he continued, handing the paper to Bromley. "Wasn't the Honorable M.P. drowned on the morning of September 4? Can't you read there that the earthquake in Spain was on the 4th?"
"What of that?" said Bromley; "you can't make out the date of the paper."
"I don't care what the date of publication was," replied Coleman. "If it came by the balloon it was published before September 5. Now please tell me how it could bring European news of the 4th."
"Hum!" said Bromley, somewhat puzzled. "If it had been published on the 3d, it couldn't bring news of the 4th—that's certain."
"I have it," cried Philip; "Fred has got the dates of the diary more than a week out of the way. We thought the balloon passed on September 5. It was nearer the 15th."
"No," exclaimed Coleman, glaring at Philip; "there is no mistake in the record; not a date is omitted. Leap-year was added to the days in February when it came around.Imake a mistake in the date! No, sir! There is no mistake. Whatever happens, I will stand on the rec—"
"You are right, old man," cried Bromley, interrupting him; "and the paper proves it. Don't you see the point? They have got the Atlantic cable down at last, and working like a charm. The paper was published on the 4th of September. It was an afternoon paper, and this piece fell from the balloon on the 5th of September."
They agreed that this was wonderful as explaining without doubt what at first seemed impossible, and at the same time verifying the accuracy of the dates in the diary which Lieutenant Coleman had conducted for more than six years at the time the balloon passed. Coleman and Bromley remembered distinctly the unsuccessful attempts at laying the Atlantic cable in the summer of 1858, and the fame of Cyrus Field as its projector; and now by the discovery of this scrap of yellow and tattered paper they were made aware that the great project had been continued to a successful issue. Possibly they were the more keenly interested in this evidence of progress in the world below from having been themselves connected with telegraphing in a modest way. At all events, they regarded the yellow messenger as one of their most significant possessions, and skewered it against the chimney through the very hole made by the dry twig which had held it so long under the cover of the rock awaiting their inspection.
It was near the end of July now, and the spears of corn which had thrust their tiny dark-green lances out of the mellow earth had first turned yellow, and then withered and died. A few plants here and there had escaped the ravages of the grubs, but the yield would be insignificant, and they were good enough farmers by this time to know that to plant more would be only a waste of the small store of food they had left. If the lives of the fowls had been spared, it might have been different. At the time the ground had been spaded the five sad roosters had done all that lay in their power to exterminate the grubs, but their capacity was not the capacity of the four hundred fowls of the season before.
The potatoes had suffered, though in less degree, from the same hidden enemy; and unless something could be done to increase their food-supply the three soldiers would be reduced to the verge of starvation before another winter came around. They might yet be forced to abandon their vegetarian principles and to eat the bear and the six old roosters. Rather than do anything so inhuman, they declared they would find some way to open communication with the people in the valley. They might easily have planted a larger area in former years, and stored up corn against a failure in the crop, but of this they had never thought.
The morning after they had discovered the scrap of paper on the mica shelf, they all went solemnly to the mill and watched Philip set the machinery in motion and grind the first of the nine small sacks of corn. The whir of the wheels and the hum of the stones in the midst of the splashing of the water outside made the sweetest of music in their ears, but the song of the mill was of brief duration. When the last kernels began to dance on the old cavalry boot-leg in the bottom of the hopper, the miller shut off the water, and in the silence that followed the three soldiers looked ruefully at the small heap of yellow meal on the floor of the dusty bin. It was not more than enough to keep themselves and the paralyzed old rooster alive for a week. If they relied upon the meal alone, in nine weeks they would be out of bread, and the golden mill would be a useless possession.
Discovery was their only hope of further subsistence. They had made some remarkable finds in the past, but at the beginning of their eighth year on the mountain it would seem that no secrets of the plateau had escaped the prying eyes of these enterprising young men. Philip reminded his comrades of the bee-tree, which was undoubtedly stored with honey, beyond the southern cliff, but this they had always regarded as impassable. From the mica shelf they could see that it was a narrow ledge, and not a higher level; and although the small shelf extended a trifle beyond it, the soldiers had seen no way of scaling the rocks which rose from the brambles and mica, so as to reach the territory beyond the southern ledge.
They had never seen these rocks from above, nor any part of the brambly half-acre, for the reason that the edge of the plateau shelved off in a dangerous incline of smooth granite, which it was not possible to look over. Otherwise they might have discovered the outside half-acre long before they found the cavernous path which led to it. Bromley now proposed to be lowered to the outer edge of the shelving rock by means of the breeches-buoy which had lifted Philip from his perilous seat on the avalanche. It was not at all a dangerous experiment, and as soon as he was in a position to examine the rocks below the base of the southern cliff, he saw a narrow ledge which would afford a sure foothold, and which led away upward until it was lost behind the rocks. Although invisible from below, it could be reached by their longest ladder.
Whether the path along the ledge would enable them to reach the top of the mountain to the south remained to be determined. They were all on fire with the fever of exploration; and they had no doubt that the rich bee-tree would reward their efforts with new stores of honey. That night, by means of the canvas strap, they lowered their ladder over the ledge until it rested on the mica shelf.
Next morning, bright and early, Philip got out his small honey-box, and would have taken the old paralytic rooster along but for the implements it was necessary to carry. Besides their torches, in passing through the cavern their hands would be full with the ax and a pail for water, and another in which to bring back the honey.
It was a clear July day, with a soft south wind breathing on the mountain; and when the three soldiers arrived on their brambly half-acre they found their ladder leaning safely against the rocks where they had lowered it. After they had smothered their torches and laid them by to await their return, they tried the ladder, which proved to be too short by a couple of rungs to reach the path on the cliff. At first they thought they should be obliged to return and make a longer one, but Lieutenant Coleman was something of an engineer on fortifications, and under his directions they fell to work building a platform of stones and timber, which afforded the ladder a secure foundation and raised it safely to the brow of the ledge.
Bromley went ahead with the ax, and Coleman and Philip followed with the pails. The soldiers had brought along their overcoats for the fight with the bees; and when they put them on after the rough exercise of handling the stones, they found them rather oppressive to their brown shoulders, whose summer costume usually consisted of one suspender. Bromley was very red in the face as he pushed along on the rocky path, cutting away a root or an overhanging limb which obstructed their passage.
The path up which the three soldiers were climbing was not a path at all in the sense of its having been worn by the feet of men or animals. It was at first a narrow ledge, and then the dry bed of a watercourse, which overflowed for a few days when the snows melted in the spring, and was walled in by an outer ledge, and turned upward at an easy incline which offered no serious obstacle to the progress of the explorers. The soldiers halted midway, and took off their oppressive overcoats and wiped their red faces.
The top of the mountain beyond the southern wall was about half the area of their own plateau, and, to the consternation of the three soldiers, in the very center of the tract stood a log house flanked by some tumble-down sheds. This unexpected discovery was so startling that they retreated below the bank for consultation. They had no doubt that the bees Philip had lined came from the hives of these people. If there were a bee-tree at all, they would not be allowed to cut it. Lieutenant Coleman was at first disposed to return without revealing themselves to the strangers. Their curiosity, however, was so roused, and their desire was so great to learn something of their neighbors, that the three soldiers crept back until only their heads were above the edge of the bank, and their wondering eyes fixed on the house. There might be women there, and from a sense of modesty each man got back into his old blue overcoat. They talked in husky whispers as they stared through the bushes, expecting every moment to see some one come out for a pail of water or an armful of wood.
"There's a man down there by the shed," whispered Philip; and so timid of their kind had the soldiers become after seven years of seclusion, during which they had not spoken to a human being, that they ducked their three heads in a tremble of excitement. Presently Bromley looked again, and almost laughed out loud; for the man was only a stump with something thrown over it that stirred with the wind.
There was no smoke from the chimney; but it was mid-way between breakfast and dinner, and fire was not to be expected at that hour in midsummer. There were no clothes hung out to dry, and no growing crops in sight; but there were small stacks of corn-stalks at different points on the field, and these were in every stage of decay, from the conical heap overgrown with vines to the flat mound of gray stalks through which the young chestnuts had sprouted and grown to a thrifty height. A forest of hop-vines grew over the eaves of the house, flaunting their green tendrils in the soft south wind, and giving an unmistakably home-like air to the place. As no one appeared after an hour's watching, it was more than likely that the family was absent for the day or asleep inside. The longer the soldiers waited, the greater their curiosity became, and then they remembered their scarcity of food, and felt the gold coins in their pockets. It would be foolish to return without buying something from these neighbor-people. Their vow was not to go down from the mountain; and if they neglected this opportunity to supply their wants, starvation would soon drive them into the Confederacy, vow or no vow.
Bromley, as usual, was the first to come to a decision; and then all three climbed boldly out upon the bank and prepared to visit the house. As they advanced over the grass they buttoned their overcoats more closely about their throats, and jingled the coins in their pockets to keep up their courage. They looked down at their bare feet and legs, which naturally made them timid at the prospect of meeting women; and so, huddled together for support, they crossed the dry chip dirt, and came around the corner of the house. The door stood open above the smooth stone step, and Bromley struck it with his knuckles, while his comrades waited behind him, feeling instinctively, in their momentary embarrassment, for their collars and wristbands, which had never before been out of their reach in the presence of the other sex. If they had been less embarrassed they would have noticed the utter absence of all signs of habitation outside the house, and that the door itself was sagging inward from its rusty hinges. The interior was darkened by the sliding boards which closed the windows, and gave forth a musty, earthy smell.
THE DESERTED HOUSE.THE DESERTED HOUSE.
"There's nobody lives here," said Bromley, in his strong, natural voice, at which Coleman and Philip were startled into a small spasm of feeling again for their shirt-collars; and then, as he gave a kick to the lurching door, they dropped their nervous fingers and followed him in. Bromley opened one of the windows, which let in but a dim light because of the thick mat of hop-vines which had overgrown it. The first object that caught the eyes of the soldiers was a considerable library of books crowded together on three shelves above the fireplace.
Philip had his hand at once on the familiar cover of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; Bromley took down a faded volume of the "Anti-Slavery Record" for the year 1836; and Coleman went outside the door to examine a small book which bore in gilded letters on the cover, "The Branded Hand." On the title-page there was a woodcut of a hand with two S's on the open palm. The story was of the trial and imprisonment of Jonathan Waller, or Walker, at Pensacola, Florida; and a few pages on, the author was shown dripping with perspiration in the pillory. This book had been published in 1845, and Lieutenant Coleman dropped it on the door-step and hastened back to find something more modern. In fact, the three soldiers were moved by the same desire to find something—anything—that had been printed since the year 1864. So it was with the greatest disgust that they took from the lower shelf and threw down, one after another, such ancient history as "Captain Canot; or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver," 1854; "The Alton Riots," by Rev. Edward Beecher, 1838; "Abolition a Sedition," 1839; "Memoir of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy," 1838; and "Slavery Unmasked," 1856. There were other curious works on the same subject, bearing equally remote dates.
On the second shelf there was a mixed collection of thin periodicals in blue, yellow, and gray covers, such as "The Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine," "The Emancipator," and "The Slave's Friend," and several volumes of speeches by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, bearing date as late as 1858.
The upper shelf was filled with small books and pamphlets on temperance and prohibition, not one of which had been published since the year 1852.
Lieutenant Coleman and Bromley were so keenly disappointed at finding among so many books nothing that threw any light on the state of the country since their arrival on the mountain, that they were almost tempted to throw the library into the fireplace and burn it up by starting a fire with their flints.
The perfect order in which the books had been arranged was strangely in contrast with the otherwise wrecked condition of the room. The excitement of the soldiers on seeing the library had prevented them from noticing that the hearthstone had been wrenched from its original position, and that the earth had been dug out to some depth beneath it and thrown in a heap against the edge of the single bunk by the south wall. Stones had been pried from the back of the chimney, and there was abundant evidence that some person had been hunting for treasure. The rusty spade with which the digging had been done lay in the fireplace, where it had been thrown by the baffled robber. The bedtick had been ripped open with a knife, and the straw with which it had been filled was scattered over the dry earth on the floor. The blankets and everything of value in the house had been carried away. It might be that murder had been committed here as well as robbery. As there was no stain of blood on the mattress or on the floor, Lieutenant Coleman concluded that the robber was only a cowardly thief who had stolen the property from the deserted cabin. It would seem, however, that this man had had some knowledge of the dead mountaineer which had caused him to suspect that there was hidden treasure in the house. Possibly he had found what he sought.
The discovery of the house and its contents was so startling that the soldiers forgot all about the bee-tree they had come in search of. The absence of everything in the nature of food forced itself upon their minds, as they felt the coins in their pockets. There might be corn in one of the tumbledown outhouses. Both were sadly decayed and broken by the winds and storms to which the strong walls and good roof of the house had not yet yielded. The first shed contained a small heap of wood and a rusty ax, and the other appeared to have been used as a cow-stall.
The paths were overgrown with grass, which indicated that years had passed since the place had been inhabited. The good order in which the books had been left led the soldiers to doubt if the place had been visited since the robber had gone away. It was true that the library was of a character that would be undesirable in a slaveholding Confederacy; and if any one had seen it since the robbery, it was strange that he had not destroyed the objectionable books.
This state of things was so puzzling to Lieutenant Coleman and his comrades that they set out at once to make the circuit of this small tract on the mountain-top, which they naturally believed must be somewhat difficult of access. There must be a road that led to it. The robber might have climbed over the rocks, through some difficult pass, and so might the owner of the house; but the cow-shed would make it seem that domestic animals had been driven up from the valley. The western front was the boulder side of the mountain, and as unapproachable here as on their own plateau. After the most careful exploration, the remaining sides were found to be of the same character as the Cashiers valley side beyond the dividing cliff. This smaller tract of mountain-top was supported by sheer ledges which rose above the forest below. There might be some point in the wall where a man could scale it with the help of a long ladder, but it was evident that no cow had ever fed in that stall.
It was past noon now, and the soldiers sat down on a rock in the mild sunlight which poured over the dividing ledge, and talked of the strange situation.
"There have been human beings here," said Bromley; "at least two of them: the fellow who lived in that house, and the robber who looted it. Now I am not much of a detective, but it is certainly our business to find out how they got here and how they got away."
"How the robber got away," suggested Coleman; "for there is no doubt in my mind that the man who lived here was his victim."
"Yes," said Philip, "I am certain there was a murder committed here. Don't you see that if the murderer had carried off the books they would have been evidence against him sufficient to have convicted him of the crime?"
This view of Philip's was so plausible that the others adopted it. They assumed that the unfortunate victim had been shot in the open field, and buried where he fell. If the crime had been committed so long ago that the grass had found time to take root in the hard paths, it would have long since overgrown the shallow grave. Then it occurred to the soldiers, who had helped to bury the dead on more than one battle-field, that as time passes a shallow grave has a way of sinking. The murderer would have been careful not to raise a mound, and the very place of his crime should by this time be plainly marked by a long grassy hollow.
They started at once to search for the grave; but they were thirsty, not to say hungry, after their exertions of the morning, and so they went first to a spring which they had seen near the head of the path where they had climbed up. It was a large bubbling spring, and flowed under the rocks so nearly opposite to where the branch appeared on the other side that they knew it was the source of their own supply. It was not pleasant to think how easily their neighbor in his lifetime might have turned it in some other direction, thus stopping the wheels of their mill, and possibly leaving them to perish of thirst.