"You are an intruder on my property," said the master of Ardsley, "and unless I'm much mistaken you havebeen playing ghost in that cabin. I've heard about you. Your gang has been cutting off my timber about long enough, and this game of playing ghost to scare my men won't do."
"Stealing your timber?" And the stranger was clearly surprised. He held his pipe in his hand with his thumb over the bowl and seemed to take a more serious interest in his captor.
"And now," continued Ardmore, "I'm about tired of having this end of the country run by the Appleweights, and their disreputable gang, so I'm going to lock you up."
The stranger turned toward the cabin, one corner of which was plainly visible, and shrugged his shoulders.
"I have nothing to do with the Appleweights, and I assure you I am not a timber thief."
"Then you must be the one who has lifted a few steers out of my herd. It makes no difference just what branch of the business you are engaged in, for we're picking up all the gang and you've got to come along with me."
The captive showed signs of anger for the first time. His face flushed, and he took a step toward Ardmore,who immediately threw up the revolver so that it pointed at the man's head.
"Stop right there! We've got old man Appleweight, so you've lost your leader, and I tell you the jig's up. We'll have you all in jail before another twenty-four hours has passed."
"I judge from the tone of your remarks that you are Ardmore, the owner of Ardsley. Am I right?"
"You are quite right. And you are a member of a disreputable gang of outlaws that has been bringing shame upon the state of North Carolina. Now, I want you to march straight ahead of me. Step lively now!" And Ardmore flourished the pistol menacingly. "March!"
The man hesitated, flung up his head defiantly, then moved slowly forward. The flush in his face had deepened and his eyes flashed angrily; but Ardmore, his cap on the back of his head, himself presented a figure so severe, so eloquent of righteous indignation, that the stranger tamely obeyed him.
"We will cross the creek right here," he ordered; "it's a pretty jump there from that boulder—there, that was bully! Now right along there over the log—see the trail! Good!"
It was warm and the captive was perspiring freely. He moved along docilely, and finding that he manifested no inclination to bolt, Ardmore dropped the revolver to his side, but with his finger on the trigger. He was very proud of himself; for while to Miss Jerry Dangerfield undoubtedly belonged the honor of capturing the thief Appleweight, yet he had single-handed arrested a member of the famous gang, and he had already resolved upon a convenient method of disposing of his prisoner. They paused while Ardmore mounted his horse, silencing the captive, who took the opportunity to break out protestingly against what he termed an infamous outrage upon personal liberty.
"You've taken me from one state into another without due process of law," declared the stranger, thinking to impress Ardmore, as that young gentleman settled himself in his saddle.
"Go right on now; that's a good fellow," replied the master of Ardsley, lifting the revolver warningly. "Whether it's North Carolina or South Dakota—it doesn't make a particle of difference to me. As I remarked before, it's my property, I tell you, and I do what I please here."
"I'll show you whether you do or not," snorted theprisoner, who was trudging along doggedly with the nose of Ardmore's horse occasionally poking his back.
They soon reached a field where some laborers were at work, and Ardmore called them to him for instructions.
"Boys, this is one of the timber thieves; put him in that corn-crib until I come back for him. The nights are warm; the sky is perfectly clear; and you will kindly see that he does not lack for food."
Two of the men jumped forward and seized Ardmore's prisoner, who now broke forth in a torrent of wrath, struggling vigorously in the hands of the sturdy fellows who had laid violent hands on him.
"That's right, boys; that's right; easy there! Now in he goes."
A series of corn-cribs fringed the field, and into one of these, from which half the corn had been removed, the prisoner was thrust sprawling upon the yellow ears, and when he rose and flung himself round, the door of the corn-crib slammed in his face. He bellowed with rage now, seeing that his imprisonment was a serious matter, and that it seemed likely to be prolonged indefinitely.
"They always told me you were a fool," he howled,"but I didn't know that anything as crazy as you are was loose in the world."
"Thank you. The head of your gang is much more polite. He's sitting on his case of Chateau Bizet in my wine cellar, playing solitaire."
"Appleweight in your wine cellar!" bawled the captive in astonishment.
"Certainly. I was afraid to lock him in a room with bath for fear it might give him hydrophobia; but he's perfectly content in the wine cellar."
"What are you going to do with him?"
"I haven't decided yet just what to do with him, but the scoundrel undoubtedly belongs in South Carolina, and I have every intention of making his own state punish him."
The prisoner leaned heavily against his prison door and glared out upon his jailer with a new, fierce interest.
"I tell you I've nothing to do with the Appleweights! I don't want to reveal my identity to you, you young beggar; but I demand my legal rights."
"My dear sir," retorted Ardmore, "you have no legal rights, for the writ of habeas corpus doesn't go here.You seem rather intelligent for a barn burner and timber thief. Come now, what is your name?"
The prisoner gazed down upon the imperturbable figure of his captor through the slats of the corn-crib. Ardmore returned his gaze with his most bland and child-like air. Many people had been driven to the point of madness by Ardmore's apparent dullness. The prisoner realized that he must launch a thunderbolt if he would disturb a self-possession so complete—a tranquillity as sweet as the fading afternoon.
"Mr. Ardmore, I dislike to do it, but your amazing conduct makes it necessary for me to disclose my identity," and the man's manner showed real embarrassment.
"I knew it; I knew it;" nodded Ardmore, folding his arms across his chest. "You're either the King of Siam or the Prince of Petosky. As either, I salute you!"
"No!" roared the captive, beating impotently against the door of the cage with his hands. "No! I'm the governor of South Carolina!"
This statement failed, however, to produce the slightest effect on Mr. Ardmore, who only smiled slightly, a smile less incredulous than disdainful.
"Oh, pshaw! that's nothing," he replied; "I'mthe governor of North Carolina!" and mounting his horsehe gravely lifted his hat to the prisoner and galloped away.
While Mr. Ardmore was securing his prisoner in the corn-crib it may be interesting to return for a moment to the haunted log cabin on Raccoon Creek, the interior of which was roughly but comfortably furnished. Above were two small sleeping-rooms, and beside the bed in each stood a suit-case and a hand-satchel. In each room hung, on convenient hooks, a long, black frock-coat, a pair of trousers of light cloth, and a broad-brim black felt hat. Coat, trousers and hat were exactly alike.
In the room below sat a man in his shirt-sleeves, his feet on a cheap deal table, blowing rings from a cigar. He presented a picture of the greatest ease and contentment, as he occasionally stroked his short brown beard, or threw up his arms and clasped his hands about his head or caught lazily at the smoke rings. On the table lay an array of playing cards and poker chips.
"It's too good to last forever," the lone occupant reflected aloud, stifling a yawn, and he reached out, with careless indifference, toward a bundle of newspapers tied together with a piece of twine and drew one out and spread it across his knees. He yawned again as though the thought of a world whose affairs werestamped in printer's ink bored him immensely; and then the bold head-lines that shouted at him across half a quarter of the sheet caused him to gasp, and his feet struck the bare floor of the cabin resoundingly. He now bent over the paper with the greatest eagerness, muttering as he read, and some of his mutterings were, it must be confessed, not without profane embellishment.
TWO COWARDLY GOVERNORS MISSINGScandal Affecting Two State ExecutivesIs the Appleweight Case Responsible?Rumors of Fatal Duel on State Line
He read breathlessly the startling story that followed the head-lines, then rose and glanced anxiously at his watch.
"Am I drunk or mad? I must find Osborne and get out of this."
He leaped to the open door, and gazed into the forest from a little platform that commanded all sides of the cabin. And there, to his utter amazement, he saw men in khaki emerging cautiously from the woods. They were unmistakably soldiers of some sort, for an officer was giving sharp commands, and the line opened out like a fan along the creek. The observer of thismaneuver mopped his head with his handkerchief as he watched the alert movements of the figures in khaki.
He was so absorbed that he failed to hear stealthy steps at the rear of the platform, but he was now rudely aroused by two uniformed youngsters with S. C. N. G. on their caps, who sprang upon him and bore him with a crash to the puncheon floor.
"You're our prisoner!" shouted one of them, rising when he found that the prisoner yielded without resistance.
"What for?" blurted the captive, sitting up and rubbing his elbow.
"For being Bill Appleweight,aliasPoteet. Get up, now, and come with us to headquarters, or my instructions are to break your head."
"Who in the devil are you?" panted the prisoner.
"Well, if it's anything to you, we're the South Carolina militia, so you'd better get up and climb."
"It will be better for me to break the news to Colonel Gillingwater," said Jerry, "and you must go out and meet the troops yourself, with Mr. Cooke and that amusing Mr. Collins. There is no telling what effect my tidings will have on Rutherford, or what he will decide to do. He has never before been so near trouble as he is now, and I may have to give him first aid to the injured when he finds out that the South Carolina troops are on Raccoon Creek, all ready to march upon our sacred soil."
"But suppose your adjutant-general shouldn't go back to his troops after he sees you, then what am I to do?"
"If you don't see him by ten o'clock you will take personal command and exercise your own discretion as to the best method of landing Appleweight in a South Carolina jail. After that we must find papa, and it will be up to him to satisfy the newspapers and his constituents with some excuse for his strange disappearance."
Collins had come from Raleigh on the evening train,and he had solemnly assured Ardmore that the present state of affairs could not be maintained another twenty-four hours. He had exhausted his professional resources, and the North Carolina newspapers of all shades of opinion were clamoring for the truth, and were insisting that, for the honor and dignity of the state, Governor Dangerfield should show himself in Raleigh. Even the metropolitan press, which Collins had filled for several days with blithe stories of the administration's vigorous policy in the Appleweight case, had refused further matter from him.
"We've got to find Dangerfield or bust. Now, where is that eminent statesman, Ardmore? You can't tell me you don't know; but if you don't, Miss Dangerfield does, and she's got to tell."
"She hasn't the slightest idea, but if the newspapers find out that he's really and truly missing, he will have to show up; but first we've got to take Appleweight off that case of Chateau Bizet and lodge him in the jail at Turner Court House, and let Governor Osborne have the odium of incarcerating the big chief of the border, to whom he is under the greatest political obligations."
"But it's all over the country now that Osborne hasn't been seen in Columbia since he and Dangerfield had thatrow in New Orleans. Cranks are turning up everywhere, pretending to be governors of various states, and old Dangerfield is seen on all the outgoing steamers. There's been nothing like it since the kidnapping of Charley Ross."
Ardmore drew on his riding-gloves reflectively, and a delighted grin illuminated his countenance.
"I caught a lunatic down on the Raccoon this afternoon who saidhewas the governor of South Carolina, and I locked him up."
"Well, he may be Osborne," remarked Collins, with journalistic suspicion.
"And he may be a Swiss admiral or the king of Mars. I guess I'm a governor myself, and I know what a governor looks like and acts like—you can't fool me. I put this impostor where he'll have a chance to study astronomy to-night."
"Then he isn't on that case of Chateau Bizet with Appleweight?"
"No; I locked him up in a corn-crib until I get time to study his credentials. Come along now!"
Ardmore, Collins and Cooke rode rapidly away through the wide gates of the estate along the Sapphire road, over which, by his last bulletin, theadjutant-general of North Carolina was marching his troops. They had left Cooke's men with Paul's foresters to guard the house and to picket the banks of the Raccoon in the immediate neighborhood of the camp of the South Carolinians.
"I guess those fellows can hold 'em till morning," said Cooke. "We've got to clean up the whole business by to-morrow night. You can't have two states at war with each other this way without shaking up the universe, and if federal troops come down here to straighten things out it won't be funny."
They had ridden about a mile, when Cooke checked his horse with an exclamation.
"There's somebody coming like the devil was after him. It must be Gillingwater."
They drew rein and waited, the quick patter of hoofs ringing out sharply in the still night. The moonlight gave them a fair sweep of the road, and they at once saw a horseman galloping rapidly toward them.
"Lordy, the man's on fire!" gasped Ardmore.
"By George, you're right!" muttered Collins, moving nervously in his saddle. "It's a human sunburst."
"It's only his gold braid," explained the practical Cooke.
"He must have on solid gold armor, then," declared Collins.
Seeing three men drawn across the road, the horseman began to check his flight.
"Men!" he shouted, as his horse pawed the air with its forefeet, "is this the road to Ardsley?"
"Right you are," yelled Cooke, and they were aware of a flash, a glitter that startled and dazzled the eye, and Colonel Rutherford Gillingwater thundered on.
Ardmore looked at his watch.
"He's undoubtedly a man of action, if I ever saw one; and I think we are to be congratulated on having so gallant a commander for our troops," said the master of Ardsley; but the sight of Rutherford Gillingwater had filled his soul with jealous forebodings. He had heard that women are prone to fall in worship before warriors in their battle armor, and he was sure that Jerry Dangerfield was a girl of infinitely kind heart, who might not, when face to face with the issue, subject the man she had engaged to marry to any severe test.
They rode on, however, and saw presently the lights of camp-fires, and a little later were ceremoniously halted at the roadside by an armed guard.
It had been arranged that Collins, who had once beena second lieutenant in the Georgia militia, should be presented as an officer of the regular army, detailed as special aide to Governor Dangerfield during the encampment, and that in case Gillingwater failed to return promptly he should take command of the North Carolina forces.
An open field had been seized for the night's camp, and the tents already shone white in the moonlight. The three men introduced themselves to the militia officers, and Collins expressed their regret that they had missed the adjutant-general.
"Governor Dangerfield wished you to move your force on to Ardsley should we fail to meet Colonel Gillingwater; and you had better strike your tents and be in readiness to advance in case he doesn't personally return with orders."
Captain Collins, as he had designated himself, apologized for not being in uniform.
"I lost my baggage train," he laughed, "and Governor Dangerfield is so anxious not to miss this opportunity to settle the Appleweight case that I hurried out to meet you with these gentlemen."
"Appleweight!" exclaimed the group of officers in amazement.
"None other than the great Appleweight!" responded Collins. "The governor has him in his own hands at last, and is going to carry him across the border and into a South Carolina bastile, as a little pleasantry on the governor of South Carolina."
"He's had a sudden change of heart if he's captured Appleweight," remarked a major incredulously. "His policy has always been to let old Bill alone."
"It's only a ripple of the general reform wave that's sweeping the country," suggested Ardmore cheerfully. "Turn the rascals out; put the rascals in; keep the people hopeful and the jails full. That's the Dangerfield watchword."
"Well, I guess Dangerfield knows how to drive the hearse if there's got to be a funeral," observed the quartermaster. "The governor's not a man to ride inside if he can find another corpse."
And they all laughed and accepted the situation as promising better diversion than they had expected from the summer maneuvers.
The militia officers gave the necessary orders for breaking the half-formed camp, and then turned their attention to the entertainment of their guests. Ardmore kept track of the time, and promptly at ten o'clockCollins rose from the log by the roadside where they had been sitting.
"We must obey the governor's orders, gentlemen," said Collins courteously, "and march at once to Ardsley. I, you understand, am only a courier, and your guest for the present."
"If you please," asked Cooke, when the line had begun to move forward, "what is that wagon over there?"
He pointed to a mule team hitched to a quartermaster's wagon that a negro was driving into position across the rough field. It was piled high with luggage, a pyramid that rose black against the heavens. One of the militia officers, evidently greatly annoyed, bawled to the driver to get back out of the way.
"Pardon me," said Collins politely, "but is that your personal baggage, gentlemen?"
"That belongs to Colonel Gillingwater," remarked the quartermaster. "The rest of us have a suit-case apiece."
"Do you mean," demanded Ardmore, "that the adjutant-general carries all that luggage for himself?"
"That is exactly it! But," continued the quartermaster loyally, "you never can tell what will happen when you take the field this way, and our chief is not a man to forget any of the details of military life."
"In Washington we all think very highly of Colonel Gillingwater," remarked Collins, with noble condescension, "and in case we should become involved in war he would undoubtedly be called to high rank in the regular establishment."
"It's too bad," said Cooke, as the three drew aside and waited for a battery of light artillery to rumble into place behind the infantry, "it's too bad, Collins, that it didn't occur to you to impersonate the president of the French Republic or Emperor William. You'll be my death before we finish this job."
"This won't be so funny when Dangerfield gets hold of us," grinned the reporter. "We'd better cheer up all we can now. We're playing with the state of North Carolina as though it were a bean-bag. But what's that over there?"
The pyramidal baggage wagon had gained the road behind them, and lingered uncertainly, with the driver asleep and waiting for orders. The conspirators were about to gallop forward to the head of the moving column, when Collins pointed across the abandoned campground to where a horseman, who had evidently made a wide detour of the advancing column, rode madly toward the baggage wagon.
"The gentleman's trying to kill his horse, I should judge," murmured Ardmore. "By Jove!"
"It's Gillingwater!" chorused the trio.
The rider in his haste had overlooked the men in the road. He dashed through the wide opening in the fence, left by the militiamen, took the ditch by the roadside at a leap, wakened the sleeping driver on the wagon with a roar, and himself leaped upon the box and began turning the horses.
"What do you think he's doing?" asked Cooke.
"He's in a hurry to get back to mother's cooking," replied Ardmore. "He's seen Miss Dangerfield and learned that war is at hand, and he's going to get his clothes out of danger. Lordy! Listen to him slashing the mules!"
"But you don't think—"
The wagon had swung round, and already was in rapid flight. Collins howled in glee.
"Come on! We can't miss a show like this!"
"Leave the horses then! There's a hill there that will break his neck. We'd better stop him if we can!" cried Cooke, dismounting.
They threw their reins to the driver of the wagon, who had been brushed from his seat by the impatientadjutant-general, and was chanting weirdly to himself at the roadside.
The wagon, piled high with trunks and boxes, was dashing forward, Gillingwater belaboring the mules furiously, and, hearing the shouts of strange pursuers, yelling at the team in a voice shrill with fear.
"Come on, boys!" shouted Ardmore, thoroughly aroused, "catch the spy and traitor!"
The road dipped down into the shadow of a deep cut, where the moon's dim rays but feebly penetrated, and where the flow of springs had softened the surface; but the pursuers were led on by the rumble of the wagon, which swung from side to side perilously, the boxes swinging about noisily and toppling threateningly at the apex. Down the sharp declivity the wagon plunged like a ship bound for the bottom of the sea.
The pursuers bent gamely to their task in the rough road, with Cooke slightly in the lead. Suddenly he shouted warningly to the others, as something rose darkly above them like a black cloud, and a trunk fell with a mighty crash only a few feet ahead of them. The top had been shaken off in the fall, and into it head first plunged Ardmore.
"There's another coming!" yelled Collins, and a muchlarger trunk struck and split upon a rock at the roadside. Clothing of many kinds strewed the highway. A pair of trousers, flung fiercely into the air, caught on the limb of a tree, shook free like a banner, and hung there somberly etched against the stars.
Ardmore crawled out of the trunk, screaming with delight. The fragrance of toilet water broke freshly upon the air.
"It's his ammunition!" bawled Ardmore, rubbing his head where he had struck the edge of a tray. "His scent bottles are smashed, and it's only by the grace of Providence that I haven't cut myself on broken glass."
"Thump! Bump!" sounded down the road.
"Are those pants up there?" asked Cooke, pointing, "or is it a hole in the sky?"
"This," said Collins, picking up a garment from the bush over which it had spread itself, "has every appearance of being his little nightie. How indelicate!"
"No," said Ardmore, taking it from him, "it's a kimona of the most expensive silk, which the colonel undoubtedly wears when they get him up at midnight to hear the reports of his scouts."
They went down the road, stumbling now and then over a bit of debris from the vanished wagon.
"It's like walking on carpet," observed Cooke, picking up a feathered chapeau. "I didn't know there were so many clothes in all the world."
They abandoned the idea of farther pursuit on reaching a trunk standing on end, from which a uniform dress-coat drooped sadly.
"This is not our trouble; it's his trouble. I guess he's struck a smoother road down there. We'd better go back," said Cooke.
"Whom the gods would destroy they first dress in glad rags," piped Collins.
They sat down and laughed until the negro approached warily with the horses.
"He's lost his raiment, but saved his life," sputtered Collins, climbing into his saddle.
"He's lost more than that," remarked Ardmore, and his flushed countenance, noted by the others as he lighted a cigarette, was cheerfuller than they had ever seen it before.
In a moment they had climbed the hill and were in hot pursuit of the adjutant-general's abandoned army.
"Who goes there?"
"A jug."
"What kind of a jug?"
"A little brown jug from Kildare."
Thus Mr. Thomas Ardmore tested his pickets with a shibboleth of his own devising. The sturdy militiamen of North Carolina patrolled the northern bank of Raccoon Creek at midnight, aware that that riotous flood alone separated them from their foes. The terraces at Ardsley bristled with the guns of the First Light Battery, while, upon a cot in the wine cellar beneath, Mr. Bill Appleweight,aliasPoteet, slept the sleep of the just.
He was rudely aroused, however, at one o'clock in the morning by Ardmore, Cooke and Collins, and taken out through the kitchen to one of the Ardsley farm wagons. Big Paul held the reins, and four of Cooke's detectives were mounted as escort. Ardmore, Cooke and Collins were to accompany the party as a board of strategy inthe movement upon Turner Court House, South Carolina.
Appleweight, the terror of the border, blinked at the lanterns that flashed about him in the courtyard. He had been numbed by his imprisonment, and even now he yielded himself docilely to the inevitable. His capture in the first instance at Mount Nebo had been clear enough, and he could have placed his hand on the men who did it if he had been free for a couple of hours. This he had pondered over his solacing solitaire as he sat on the case of Chateau Bizet in the Ardsley wine cellar; but the subsequent events had been altogether too much for him. He had been taken from his original captors by a girl, and while the ignominy of this was not lost on the outlaw, his wits had been unequal to the further fact, which he had no ground for disbelieving, that this captivity within the walls of Ardsley had been due to a daughter of that very governor of North Carolina whom he had counted his friend. Why the girl had interested herself in his seizure and incarceration; why he had been carried to the great house of a New York gentleman whom he had never harmed in the least; and why, more than all, he should have been locked in a room filled with bottles bearing absurd andunintelligible titles, and containing, he had learned by much despairing experiment, liquids that singularly failed to satisfy thirst—these were questions before which Appleweight,aliasPoteet, bowed his head helplessly.
"The road between Kildare and Turner's is fairly good," announced Cooke, "though we've got to travel four miles to strike it. Griswold evidently thinks that holding the creek is all there is of this business, and he won't find out till morning that we've crawled round his line and placed Appleweight in jail at Turner's where he belongs."
"You must have a good story ready for the press, Collins," said Ardmore. "The North Carolina border counties don't want Appleweight injured, and Governor Dangerfield don't want any harm to come to him—you may be sure of that, or Bill would have been doing time long ago. The moral element in the larger cities and the people in Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts, who only hear of Appleweight in the newspapers, want him punished, and we must express to them our righteous indignation that he has been kidnapped and dragged away from our vengeance by the governor of South Carolina, who wants him in his own state merely to protect him. We can come pretty near pleasingeverybody if you work it right, Collins. Our manner of handling the matter will do much to increase Governor Dangerfield's popularity with all classes."
"Gentlemen, it was very impolite of you not to tell me you were ready to start!" and Jerry came briskly from the side entrance, dressed for the saddle and nibbling a biscuit.
"But you are not to go! I thought that was understood!" cried Ardmore.
"It may have been understood by you, Mr. Ardmore, but not by me! I should never forgive myself if, after all the trouble I have taken to straighten out this little matter, I should not be in at the finish. Will you kindly get me a horse?"
Miss Dangerfield's resolution was not to be shaken, and a few minutes later the party moved out from the courtyard. Cooke rode several hundred yards ahead; then two detectives preceded the wagon, in which Appleweight sat on a cross-seat with two more of Cooke's men on a seat just behind him. He was tied and gagged, and an old derby hat (supplied by Paul) had been clapped upon the side of his head at an angle that gave him a jaunty air belied by his bonds. Though his tongue was silenced, his eyes were at once eloquent ofwonderment, resignation and impotent rage. Beside the wagon rode Miss Jerry Dangerfield, alert and contented. Ardmore and Collins were immediately behind her, and she indulged the journalist in some mild chaff from time to time, to his infinite delight, though considerably to Ardmore's distress of heart; for, though no words had passed between him and Jerry as to the disgraceful flight of the adjutant-general, yet the master of Ardsley was in a jealous mood. The moon had left the conspirators to the softer radiance of the stars, but there was sufficient light for Ardmore to mark the gentle lines of Jerry's face, as she lifted it now and then to scan the bright globes above.
Paul drove his team at a trot over the smooth road of the estate to a remote and little-used gate on the southern side, but still safely removed from the South Carolina pickets along the Raccoon.
"It's all right over there," remarked Collins, jerking his head toward the creek. "The fronting armies are waiting for morning and battle. I suppose that when we send word to Griswold that Appleweight is in a South Carolina jail it will change the scene of operations. It will then be Governor Osborne's painful task to dance between law-and-order sentiment and the loud cursingof his border constituents. The possibilities of this rumpus grow on me, Ardmore."
"There is no rumpus, Mr. Collins," said Jerry over her shoulder. "The governor of North Carolina is merely giving expression to his civic pride and virtue."
Leaving Ardsley, they followed a dismal stretch of road until they reached the highway that connects Turner's and Kildare.
"It's going to be morning pretty soon. We must get the prisoner into Turner's by five o'clock. Trot 'em up, Paul," ordered Cooke.
They were all in capital spirits now, with a fairly good road before them, leading straight to Turner's, and with no expectation of any trouble in landing their prisoner safely in jail. A wide publication of the fact that Appleweight had been dragged from North Carolina and locked in a South Carolina jail would have the effect of clearing Governor Dangerfield's skirts of any complicity with the border outlaws, while at the same time making possible a plausible explanation by Governor Dangerfield to the men in the hills of the contemptible conduct of the governor of South Carolina in effecting the arrest of their great chief.
They were well into South Carolina territory now,and were jogging on at a sharp trot, when suddenly Cooke turned back and halted the wagon.
"There's something coming—wait!"
"Maybe Bill's friends are out looking for him," suggested Collins.
"Or it may be Grissy," cried Ardmore in sudden alarm.
"Your professor is undoubtedly asleep in his camp on the Raccoon," replied Collins contemptuously. "Do not be alarmed, Mr. Ardmore."
Cooke impatiently bade them be quiet.
"If we're accosted, what shall we say?" he asked.
"We'll say," replied Jerry instantly, "that one of the laborers at Ardsley is dead, and that we are taking his remains to his wife's family at Turner's. I shall be his grief-stricken widow."
The guards already had Appleweight down on the floor of the wagon, where one of them sat on his feet to make sure he did not create a disturbance. At her own suggestion Jerry dismounted and climbed into the wagon, where she sat on the side board, with her head deeply bowed as though in grief.
"Pretty picture of a sorrowing widow," mumbled Collins. Ardmore punched him in the ribs to make himstop laughing. To the quick step of walking horses ahead of them was now added the whisper and creak of leather.
"Hello, there!" yelled Cooke, wishing to take the initiative.
"Hey-O!" answered a voice, and all was still.
"Give us the road; we're taking a body into Turner's to catch the morning train," called Cooke.
"Who's dead?"
"One of Ardmore's Dutchmen. Shipping the corpse back to Germany."
The party ahead of them paused as though debating the case.
The north-bound party was a blur in the road. Their horses sniffed and moved restlessly about as their riders conferred.
"Give us the road!" shouted Cooke. "We haven't much time to catch our train."
"Who did you say was dead?"
"Karl Schmidt," returned Paul promptly.
Ardmore's heart sank, fearful lest an inspection of the corpse should be proposed. But at this moment a wail, eerie and heart-breaking, rose and fell dismally upon the night. It was Jerry mourning her deadhusband, her slight figure swaying back and forth over his body in an abandon of grief.
"De poor vidow—she be mit us," called out big Paul, forsaking his usual excellent English for guttural dialect.
"Who areyoufellows?" demanded Cooke, spurring his horse forward. The horsemen, to his surprise, seemed to draw back, and he heard a voice speak out sharply, followed by a regrouping of the riders at the side of the road.
"We been to a dance at Turner's, and air goin' back home to Kildare," came the reply.
"That seems all right," whispered Ardmore to Collins.
"Thus," muttered Collins, "in the midst of death we are in life," and this, reaching Jerry, caused her to bend over the corpse at her feet as though in a convulsive spasm of sorrow, whereupon, to add color to their story, Paul rumbled off a few consolatory sentences in German.
"Give us the road!" commanded Cooke, and without further parley they started ahead, closing about the wagon to diminish, as far as possible, the size of the caravan. Paul kept the horses at a walk, as becametheir sad errand, and Jerry continued to weep dolorously.
They passed the horsemen at a slight rise in the rolling road. The party bound for Turner's moved steadily forward, the horsemen huddled about the wagon, with Jerry's led horse between Ardmore and Collins at the rear. At the top of the knoll hung the returning dancers, well to the left of the road, permitting with due respect the passing of the funeral party. One of the men, Ardmore could have sworn, lifted his hat until the wagon had passed. Then some one called good night, and, looking back, Ardmore saw them—a dozen men, he judged—regain the road and quietly resume their journey toward Kildare.
"Pretty peaceable for fellows who've been attending a dance," suggested Collins, craning his neck to look after them.
Cooke turned back with the same observation, and seemed troubled.
"I was afraid to look too closely at those men. They seemed rather too sober, and I was struck with the fact that they bunched up pretty close, as though they were hiding something."
"They were afraid of the corpse," remarked Collinsreadily. "To meet a dead man on a lonely road at this hour of the morning is enough to sober the most riotous."
"One fellow lifted his hat as we passed, and I thought—"
"Well, what did you think, Mr. Ardmore?" demanded Cooke impatiently.
"Well, it may seem strange, but I thought there was something about that chap that suggested Grissy. It would be like Grissy to lift his hat to a corpse under any circumstances. He has spent a whole lot of time in Paris, and besides, he never forgets his manners."
"But suppose it was Griswold," said Cooke, wishing to dispose of the suspicion, "what could he be doing out here?Hehasn't Appleweight—we know that; and he has just now missed his chance of ever getting him."
They paused to allow Jerry to resume her horse, and one of the detectives joined in the conference to venture his opinion that the men they had passed were in uniform. "They looked like militia to me," and as he was a careful man, Cooke took note of his remark, though he made no comment.
"Suppose they were in uniform," said Jerry lightly; "they can do no harm, and as we are now in SouthCarolina, and they are not our troops, it would not be proper for us to molest them. Let us go on, for Mr. Appleweight's widow is not anxious to miss her train back to the fatherland."
"If they were a detail of the enemy's militia, they would have held us up," declared Cooke with finality.
But as they moved on toward Turner's, Ardmore was still troubled over what had seemed to him the remarkable Parisian courtesy of the returning reveler who had lifted his hat as the corpse passed. Grissy, he kept saying over and over to himself, was no fool by any manner of means, and he was unable to conjecture why the associate professor of admiralty, known to be detached on special duty for the governor of South Carolina, should be riding to Kildare, unless he contemplated somecoupof importance.
The stars paled under the growing light of the early summer dawn. Appleweight, with shoulders wearily drooping, contemplated the attending cortege with the gaze of one who sullenly accepts a condition he does not in the least understand.
A few early risers saw the strange company enter and proceed to the jail; but before half the community had breakfasted, Bill Appleweight, the outlaw, was securelylocked in jail in Turner Court House, the seat of Mingo County, in the state of South Carolina, and the jailer, moreover, was sharing the distinguished captive's thraldom.
Collins, at the railway station, was announcing to the world the fact that at the very moment when Governor Dangerfield was about to seize Appleweight and punish him for his crimes, the outlaw had been kidnapped in North Carolina and taken under cover of night to a jail in South Carolina where Governor Osborne might be expected to shield him from serious prosecution with all the power of his high office.
Mrs. Atchison met the returning adventurers at the door.
"Your conduct, Jerry Dangerfield, is beyond words!" she exclaimed, seizing the girl's hands. "And so you really locked that horrid person in a real jail! Well, we shan't miss him! We have been kept up all night by the arrival here of other prisoners—brought in like parcels from the grocer's."
"More prisoners!" shouted Ardmore.
"Dragged here at an unearthly hour of the morning, and flung into the most impossible places by your soldiers! You can hear them yelling without much trouble from the drawing-room, and we had to give up breakfast because the racket they are making was so annoying."
The captain of the battery whose guns frowned upon the terraces came up and saluted.
"Mr. Ardmore," he said, "I have been trying forseveral hours to see Governor Dangerfield, but this lady tells me that he has left Ardsley."
"That is quite true; the governor was called away last night on official business, and he will not return for an hour or two. You will kindly state your business to me."
The captain was peevish from loss of sleep, and by no means certain that he cared to transact business with Mr. Ardmore. He glanced at Miss Dangerfield, whom he had met often at Raleigh, and the governor's daughter met the situation promptly.
"Captain Webb, what prisoners have you taken, and why are they not gagged to prevent this hideous noise?"
Seemingly from beneath the ample porte-cochère, where this colloquy occurred, rose yells, groans and curses, and the sound of thumps, as of the impact of human bodies against remote subterranean doors.
"They're trying to get loose, Miss Dangerfield, and they refuse to stay tied. The fiercest row is from the fellows we chucked into the coal bins."
"It's excellent anthracite, the best I can buy; they ought to be glad it isn't soft coal," replied Ardmore defensively. "Who are they?"
"They're newspaper men, and they're most terriblyenraged," answered Captain Webb. "We picked them up one at a time in different places on the estate. They say they're down here looking for Governor Dangerfield."
Collins grinned his delight.
"Oh, perfect hour!" he sang. "We'll keep them until they promise to be good and print what we tell them. The little squeaky voice you hear occasionally—hark!—that's Peck, of the Consolidated Press. He scooped me once on a lynching, and here is where I get even with him."
"You have done well, Captain Webb," said Jerry with dignity, "and I shall urge your promotion upon papa at the earliest moment possible. Are these newspaper gentlemen your only prisoners?"
"No; we gathered up two other parties, and one of them is in the servants' laundry; the other, a middle-aged person, I lodged in the tower, where he can enjoy the scenery."
He pointed to the tower, from which the flag of North Carolina waved gently in the morning breeze.
"The prisoner up there made an awful rumpus. He declares he will ruin the whole state of North Carolina for this. Here is his card, which, in a comparativelylucid interval, he gave me to hand you at the earliest possible moment," and Captain Webb placed a visiting card in Ardmore's hands.
A smile struggled for possession of Ardmore's countenance, but he regained control of himself promptly, and his face grew severe.
He gave the card to Jerry, who handed it to Mrs. Atchison, and that lady laughed merrily.
"Your prisoner, Captain Webb, is George P. Billings, secretary of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company of New York. What was he doing when you seized him?" demanded Ardmore.
"He was chasing the gentleman who's resting on the anthracite. He chased him and chased him, around a tea-house out here somewhere on the place; and finally this person in the coal hole fell, and they both rolled over together. The gentleman in the coal hole declares that he's Foster, the state treasurer of North Carolina, but his face got so scratched on the shrubbery that he doesn't look in the least like Mr. Foster."
"I have sent him witch hazel and court plaster, and we can get a doctor for his wounds, if necessary," said Mrs. Atchison.
A sergeant rushed up in hot haste with a demandfrom Colonel Daubenspeck, of the North Carolina First, to know when Governor Dangerfield could be seen.
"The South Carolina pickets have been withdrawn, and our officers want orders from the governor in person," said the messenger.
"Then they shall have orders!" roared Ardmore. "If our men dare abandon their outposts—"
He turned and rode furiously toward the border, and in his rage he had traversed a thousand yards before he saw that Jerry was close behind him. As they passed the red bungalow the crack of scattering rifle-shots reached them.
"Go back! Go back! The war's begun!" cried Ardmore; but, though he quickened the pace of his horse, Jerry clung to his side.
"If there's war, and I hope there is, I shall not shrink from the firing line, Mr. Ardmore."
As they dashed into their own lines they came upon the regimental officers, seated in comfortable chairs from the red bungalow, calmly engaged in a game of cards.
"Great God, men!" blurted Ardmore, "why do you sit here when the state's honor is threatened? Where was that firing?"
"You seem rather placid, gentlemen, to say the least,"added Jerry, coldly bowing to the officers, who had risen at her approach. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, that is the flag of South Carolina I see flaunted in yonder field." And she pointed with a gauntleted hand to a palmetto flag beyond the creek.
"It is, Miss Dangerfield," replied the colonel politely, "and you can see their pickets occasionally, but they have been drawn back from the creek, and I apprehend no immediate advance."
"No advance! Who are we to wait for them to offer battle? Who are we to play bridge and wait upon the pleasure of a cowardly enemy?" and Jerry gazed upon the furious Ardmore with admiration, as he roared at the officers, who stood holding their caps deferentially before the daughter of their commander-in-chief. Ardmore, it was clear, they did not take very seriously, a fact which she inwardly resented.
"I don't think it would be quite fair," said the colonel mildly, "to force issues to-day."
"Not force issues!" yelled Ardmore. "With your brave sons of our Old North State, not force battle! In the name of the constitution, I ask you, why not?"
"For the reason," replied the colonel, "that the South Carolina troops ate heavily of green apples last night inan orchard over there by their camp, and they have barely enough men to maintain their pickets this morning. These, you can see, they have withdrawn a considerable distance from the creek."
"Then tell me why they have been firing upon our lines? Why have they been permitted to shoot at our helpless and unresisting men if they are not ready for war?"
"They were not shooting at our men, Mr. Ardmore. Their pickets are very tired from loss of sleep, and they were trying to keep awake by shooting at a buzzard that hung over a field yonder, where there is, our scouts inform us, a dead calf lying in one of your pastures."
"They shall have better meat! Buzzards shall eat the whole state of South Carolina before night! Colonel, I order you to prepare at once to move your troops across that creek."
The colonel hesitated.
"I regret to say, sir, that we have no pontoons!"
"Pontoons! Pontoons! What, by the shade of Napoleon, do you want with pontoons when you have legs? Again, sir, I order you to advance your men!"
It was at this crisis that Jerry lifted her chin a trifle and calmly addressed the reluctant colonel.
"Colonel Daubenspeck, in my father's name, I order you to throw your troops across the Raccoon!"
A moment later the clear notes of the bugle rose above the splash and bubble of the creek. There was no opportunity for a grand onward sweep; it must be a scramble for the southern shore over the rocks and fallen timber in that mad torrent.
And the Raccoon is a stream from all time dedicated to noble uses and destined to hold mighty kingdoms in leash. One might well hesitate before crossing this wayward Rubicon. The Mississippi is merely an excuse for appropriations, the Potomac the sporting ground of congressmen and shad. No other known stream is so happily calculated as the foamy Raccoon to delight at once the gods of battle and the gentle sons of song. It marks one of those impatient flings of nature in which, bored with creating orderly, broadly-flowing streams, or varying the landscape with quiet woodlands or meadows, she abandons herself for a moment to madness and, shaking water and rock together as in a dice-box, splashes them out with joyous laughter.
Jerry Dangerfield, seated upon her horse on a slight rise under a clump of trees a little way back from the stream, coolly munched a cracker and sipped coffee froma tincup. Ardmore, again calm, now that Daubenspeck had been spurred to action, smoked his pipe and watched the army prepare to advance.
Beyond the creek, and somewhat removed from it on the South Carolina side, a rifle cracked, and far against the blue arch a huge, black, languorous object, rising with a last supreme effort, as though to claim refuge of heaven, fell clawing at space with sprawling wings, then collapsed and pitched earthward until the trees on the farther shore hid it from sight. A feeble cheer rose in the distance.
"They sound pretty tame over there," remarked Ardmore critically. "There's no ginger in that cheer."
"The ginger," suggested Colonel Daubenspeck ironically, "is probably all in their stomachs."
One gun from the battery was brought down and placed on a slight eminence to support the advance, for which all was now in readiness. The bugle sang again, and the men of one company sprang forward and began leaping from rock to rock, silently, steadily moving upon the farther shore. Here and there some brown khaki-clad figure slipped and splashed into the stream with a wild confusion of brown leggings; but on they went intrepidly. The captain, leading his men throughthe torrent, was first to gain the southern shore. He waved his sword, and with a shout his men clambered up the bank and formed in neat alignment. This was hardly accomplished before a uniformed figure dashed from a neighboring blackberry thicket and waved a white handkerchief. He bore something in his hand, which to Ardmore's straining vision seemed to be a small wicker basket.
"It's a flag of truce!" exclaimed Colonel Daubenspeck, and a sigh that expressed incontestable relief broke from that officer.
"The cowards!" cried Ardmore. "Does that mean they won't fight?"
"It means that hostilities must cease until we have permitted the bearer of the flag to carry his message into our lines."
The man with the basket was already crossing the creek in charge of a corporal.
"I have read somewhere about being careful of the Greeks bearing gifts," said Jerry. "There may be something annoying in that basket."
The bearer of the basket gained the North Carolina shore and strode rapidly toward Miss Dangerfield, Ardmore and Colonel Daubenspeck. He handed the trifleof a basket to the colonel, who gazed upon its contents for a moment with unspeakable rage. The color mounted in his neck almost to the point of apoplexy, and his voice bellowed forth an oath so bleak, so fraught with peril to the human race, that Jerry shuddered and turned away her head as from a blast of flame. The colonel cast the wicker basket from him with a force that nearly tore him from his saddle. It struck against a tree, spilling upon the earth six small, hard, bright green apples.
"My letter," said the emissary soberly, "is for Mr. Thomas Ardmore, and, unless I am mistaken, you are that gentleman."
Ardmore seized a long envelope which the man extended, tore it open, and read:
Thomas Ardmore, Esq.,Acting Governor of North Carolina,In the Field:Sir—As I understand the present unhappy differences between the states of North and South Carolina, they are due to a reluctance on the part of the governor of North Carolina to take steps toward bringing to proper punishment in North Carolina an outlaw named Appleweight. I have the honor to inform you that that person is now in jail at Kildare, Dilwell County, North Carolina, properly guarded by men who will not flinch. If necessary I will support them with every South Carolinian able to bear arms. This being the case, acasus bellino longer exists, and to prevent theeffusion of blood I beg you to cease your hostile demonstrations on our frontier.Our men seized a few prisoners during the night, and I am willing to meet you to arrange an exchange on the terms proper in such cases.I am, sir, your obedient servant,Henry Maine Griswold,For the Governor of South Carolina.
Thomas Ardmore, Esq.,Acting Governor of North Carolina,In the Field:
Sir—As I understand the present unhappy differences between the states of North and South Carolina, they are due to a reluctance on the part of the governor of North Carolina to take steps toward bringing to proper punishment in North Carolina an outlaw named Appleweight. I have the honor to inform you that that person is now in jail at Kildare, Dilwell County, North Carolina, properly guarded by men who will not flinch. If necessary I will support them with every South Carolinian able to bear arms. This being the case, acasus bellino longer exists, and to prevent theeffusion of blood I beg you to cease your hostile demonstrations on our frontier.
Our men seized a few prisoners during the night, and I am willing to meet you to arrange an exchange on the terms proper in such cases.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Henry Maine Griswold,For the Governor of South Carolina.
"The nerve of it! The sublime cheek of it!" exclaimed Ardmore, though the sight of Griswold's well-known handwriting had shaken him for the moment.
"As a bluffer your little friend is quite a wonder," was Jerry's only comment when she had read the letter.
Ardmore promptly wrote on the back of Griswold's letter this reply:
Henry Maine Griswold, Esq.,Assistant Professor of Admiralty,Camp Buzzard, S. C.:Sir—Appleweight is under strong guard in the jail at Turner Court House, Mingo County, South Carolina. I shall take pleasure in meeting you at Ardsley at five o'clock this afternoon for the proposed exchange of prisoners. To satisfy your curiosity the man Appleweight will be produced there for your observation and identification.I have the honor, sir, to remain, with high regard and admiration, your obliged and obedient servant,Thomas Ardmore,Acting Governor of North Carolina.
Henry Maine Griswold, Esq.,Assistant Professor of Admiralty,Camp Buzzard, S. C.:
Sir—Appleweight is under strong guard in the jail at Turner Court House, Mingo County, South Carolina. I shall take pleasure in meeting you at Ardsley at five o'clock this afternoon for the proposed exchange of prisoners. To satisfy your curiosity the man Appleweight will be produced there for your observation and identification.
I have the honor, sir, to remain, with high regard and admiration, your obliged and obedient servant,
Thomas Ardmore,Acting Governor of North Carolina.
"Putting 'professor' on that will make him crazy," remarked Ardmore to Jerry.
The messenger departed, but recrossed the Raccoon shortly with a formal note agreeing to an armistice until after the meeting proposed at Ardsley.
"Colonel Daubenspeck, you may withdraw your men and go into camp until further orders," said Jerry, and the notes of the bugle singing the recall rose sweetly upon the air.
"By George," said Ardmore, as he and Jerry rode away, "we'll throw it into old Grissy in a way that will jar the professor. But when it comes to the exchange of prisoners, I must tell the boys to bring up that chap I locked in the corn-crib. I had clean forgotten him."
"I don't think you mentioned him, Mr. Ardmore, but I suppose he's one of the Appleweight ruffians."
"Undoubtedly," replied Ardmore, whose spirits had never been higher, "though the fellow was not without his pleasant humor. He insisted with great vigor that he is the governor of South Carolina."
"I wonder"—and Jerry spoke wistfully—"I wonder where papa is!"
"Well, he's not in the corn-crib; be sure of that."
"Papa looks every inch the statesman," replied Jerry proudly, "and in his frock-coat no one could ever mistake him for other than the patriot he is."