By and by, Hatfield opened his eyes to find that his horse was nosing his face with his warm, rough lips as if bent on waking him up. Johnse lifted his aching eyes toward the moon. He calculated that he had lain there fully an hour or more. His left arm held him in an agony of torture. His whole body was racked with shooting pains traversing from his head down and back again. His smiling lips were now cracked and bloodless. Gladly he would have exchanged the life left in him for a cup of water. All the events of this night filtered back into his consciousness. He felt instinctively for his guns; then recalled what had become of them.
Remembering where he had seen Orlick lie down in the weeds, he wondered if he was still there. Impelled by a consuming curiosity to know what had become of this hated enemy, he struggled up and, dragging his dead, limp arm along, he hobbled on his knees and one hand toward the chestnut trees. At the end of a few tortuous minutes, which seemed hours of suffering, he saw the bottom of Orlick's feet.
Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he raised on his elbow and looked.
"Aw—hell!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid—yo' wild hawg."
His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.
"Where yo'-all bin—hain't I got ez much right to cum back ez yo' hev?" snarled his weak, wounded foe.
"Naw, yo' hain't—yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' hell—yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't yo'—eh?—didn't yo'—eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't yo'—eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry, didn't yo'—eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo' five year—I'm goin' t' finish yo' now—I'll finish yo'—jest wait til I git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n hell."
Hatfield's head dropped down in the grass and he lay panting.
Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.
The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He fell prone with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand that was reaching for him—then his dull eyes followed the arm down to the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down upon the agony of his wounds:
"Coward—what yo' a runnin' fo'?"
He got no response.
"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', shore—leastways, I plugged yo' gud—eh?"
Orlick's bloodless lips moved now.
"Yo' don't look so damn peert," he groaned back.
"Yo' didn't do hit—by Gad—yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already busted—ha!—ha!—I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly, but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint gurgle in his throat.
"An' yo' 'lowed yo'd git Belle-Ann, eh? Yo' mouse-dog—yo' 'lowed Belle-Ann 'ud parley with sich as yo'—eh? Ef I wusn't so tired I'd laugh 'til I'd bust—say, skunk—yo' 'lowed I didn't know—but I knowed all 'long—I had my eye on yo'—yo' karnsarned wild hawg. I was a watchin' yo'—say—yo' 'member when yo' grabbed Belle-Ann in th' yard thet time—I was ahind th' corn crib, an' I hed a bead on yo'—I'd a kilt yo' then pint-blank ef Belle-Ann hadn't bin so clost—I started after yo', an' when yo' let her loose I got ahind the wagon-bed an' waited. Say—Belle-Ann give yo' the run, didn't she—eh? Didn't she run yo'—eh? Say, louse—Belle-Ann wouldn't spit on yo', she wouldn't—not her. Did she run yo'—eh? Gawd'll Moughty!—I wish I could laugh gud an' plenty—I'm aimin' to finish yo' in a minute—when I rest—then yo' he'pt kill her pap—an' I reckon yo' he'pt kill Lem—eh?"
Orlick now seemed to be beyond all fear of the hand with its menacing fingers that wriggled toward him, and the malicious dying face below. A half grin touched Orlick's pallid lips and curled into the symbol of a pleasing memory as he said:
"I—I—'low—peaches'll be 'round—'fore Lem air——"
This amazing insult threw Johnse into a fit of rage. He mumbled curses, but could not budge. The fingers within a foot of Orlick's neck worked convulsively and rigorously. A siege of coughing choked his maledictions and blood issued from his mouth. His fingers clawed into the soil and closed and, with a mighty effort, he tossed the dirt into Orlick's face. Presently he again found breath and words.
"I'm a cummin' after yo' now—now, I'm a cummin'—I'll guzzle yo' now——" but he did not move.
"Why don't yo' shoot?" inquired Orlick, with no show of concern.
"Why don't yo' shoot—skunk—coward?" wheezed Hatfield through clinched teeth.
"Lend me a cart'age an' I'll shore 'commodate yo'," returned Orlick.
"Yo' shove thet gun down an' I'll shore help yo' 'long a pinch," suggested Johnse, struggling vainly to drag his body just a foot that his hand might close upon Orlick's throat.
The facilities for wreaking final vengeance upon each other was a disjunctive irony divided equally between them. Neither had sufficient strength or vitality left for bodily combat, and Orlick possessed the gun, while Hatfield had the cartridges. Had fate favored one, at that instant, with the possession of both, he could not have possibly missed, with their faces less than four feet apart.
"Say—skunk—we'll draw fo' em both—heer me?" suggested Hatfield. "I got th' cart'ages—we'll draw—I know yore a traitor—but I got t' take a chanct on yo'—we'll draw—heer me? Ef I win, yo' shove me the gun—ef yo' win, I'll shove yo' a cart'age—damn yo'—"
"Damn yo'—I'll take yo' up," agreed Orlick thickly.
While these two helpless belligerents lay in the moonlight, slowly bleeding to death and scowling at each other, Johnse, at length, laid his fingers on a twig which he broke into two parts, attended with infinite pain. Then where his hand lay he clawed up more dirt into a minute mound. Into this he stuck the long stick and beside it the short one. Then he pulled them out again and hissed a scathing reprimand at Orlick.
"Yore a lookin'—traitor——!"
Orlick slowly averted his face.
A brief silence ensued, broken only by the roar of the river and the wheezing of their breaths. Again Johnse stammered:
"Now draw—draw now, coward—take yore pick—heer me?—draw——"
Over in the road a roving hound squatted his gaunt shape, and lifting his muzzle up to the moon, howled long and piteously.
In the meantime Buddy Lutts had dodged along, avoiding the road until he reached a narrow plot of underbrush that separated him from the first row of frame houses. Here he lay and watched for a chance to proceed along the road. He could not see the road directly beneath him, but through an aperture he held a diagonal view of the highway for a distance of some fifty yards.
Like projections of a cinematograph, he saw the forms of men flitting past this moonlit gap, running toward town. But he could not distinguish the pursued from the pursuers. He also saw some horses gallop past with empty saddles. One of these derelicts stopped short, framed in the light of the gap, and turned to cropping at the roadside with reins dragging about his hoofs. Far behind him the noise of the conflict echoed back in desultory, straggling shots. These reports emanated also from a remote quarter of the tobacco field opposite where Buddy lay, and from the direction of the Courthouse.
The boy instinctively knew that the real battle was over; he knew that his people had crushed and annihilated the main body of the McGill forces in less than ten minutes, at the gate of the fated graveyard. He furthermore knew that the tail of this fight was backing toward the town, where it would quiver and stir, and would not die until sunrise. It had dwindled down to a "bush-whacking" contest. It was now a nocturnal game of hide-and-seek, with death lurking in the shadows and behind every object that offered refuge.
As the boy lay concealed, watching and listening with his rifle beside him, his untaught soul was profoundly exercised with the triumph of this victory. In truth, he would have been almost happy had he not been assailed with a sudden, acute apprehension concerning Hatfield. He had seen Johnse's horse tear up the road after Orlick, but he had not, as yet, seen any signs of Hatfield's returning. At the rate the two were going, he deemed it time for Johnse to be on his way back.
Buddy debated as to whether he should continue on beneath the shadows of the trees which skirted the rear gardens and out-buildings of the frame houses just ahead. He was now deeply perturbed about Hatfield. After a minute's deliberation, he quickly arrived at a determination to face the dangers presented at every turn and push onward and look for Johnse.
With this quest firmly in mind, he reasoned that to pass behind the houses was, on that hand, taking a great risk. He knew that every house in Junction City was in darkness, barred and bolted, with shutters closed and blinds drawn, the inmates not daring so much as to peep out. But he did not know what these back yards held for him.
In hours of strife, mountaineers can never be found in their houses with the women, but they are often found near their homes, hiding out. Besides, Buddy knew that he could not mislead the sagacious senses of the ever-present hounds. Growing more anxious momentarily, he at length decided that it was less perilous to take the open road, where he could at least see around him, and rely upon the wayside shadows for protection.
To this end, the boy crept out of his concealment, making his way noiselessly down the slope through the brush tangle and saplings. He crept down to the corner of a house which had no enclosed front yard, and looked furtively up and down the street. The road was apparently clear now, save the vague outlines of a few wandering horses. Buddy slipped across the highway, to the vista of sable shadows that followed the rail fence and then, in a half-stooping posture, ran toward the main street as fast as his legs could propel him.
As he hastened along with his eyes furtively ahead, a sow jumped out from the thistles in a fence corner and gave Buddy an awful fright. He finally reached the Courthouse square, and hiding behind a wagon, cast his eyes around in every direction. The Courthouse doors and windows were open, and the building was plainly deserted. A sepulchral stillness pervaded the square, and there was no visible sign of the conflict which, the boy knew, was still smouldering, for the night wind still carried the muffled sounds of rifle-shots from the South, and from the distant end of the street westward.
Buddy knew that Hatfield would be compelled to return southward by the same route he had gone. But here the boy was confronted with the problem of the route Orlick had led his pursuer, when the two had reached the square. It was gravely essential that he decide quickly upon some action, for the boy realized fully that his life was in jeopardy every moment he lingered here in the midst of the enemy.
While he hoped vainly to catch sight of some of his own people, and appealed to his judgment to point out to him the direction Hatfield had taken, he suddenly discerned two men trotting down the middle of the road, running close together with rifles at ready position. Buddy fell down flat on the ground and watched through the spokes of the wagon wheels.
The men halted at Eversole's store, and looked up at the windows overhead. Then they whistled softly. Then they went around to the front of the store, and Buddy heard them knock several times on the closed door. Evidently getting no response, they turned about, and the next instant Buddy heard a loud, profane exclamation and saw them pulling something out of the horse-trough. At this distance, in the semi-darkness, Buddy could not distinguish what the object was they labored over, and did not then know it was the dead body of old Eversole.
As the boy was straining his eyes, now for the moment half forgetful of his perilous whereabouts, he was suddenly electrified by voices behind him. He shrank close to the ground, and casting a look in the rear, observed the forms of three men approaching along the South road. Now acutely alive to his danger, Buddy's eyes swept the shadows to the left, the only avenue open for retreat. His searching eyes lit upon a rockaway carriage, with the tongue propped up, standing at the roadside some two hundred feet distant. He crawfished cautiously toward this lone vehicle, dragging his rifle after him through the dust of the road. When the three men had advanced and were on a direct line ahead, bringing the wagon in between, and thereby screening him, the boy darted safely to the shadow of the carriage and peered out at the men, who now quickened their pace toward the two at the horse-trough.
Thinking that the carriage would afford a reasonably safe hiding place for the moment, Buddy decided to climb inside, where he could peep out at the five men in front of Eversole's store, and at the same time watch the highway for Johnse Hatfield. The boy knew that, if he could remain unseen long enough, it was only a question of time ere some of his own faction would come upon the scene, affording him protection and assistance in seeking Hatfield.
Now bent upon secreting himself inside the carriage until the way was clear, and, in the meantime, determine what was the most likely route Orlick had taken to escape Hatfield's vengeance, Buddy opened the carriage door, but fell back, amazed and startled, as the limp body of a dead man tumbled out upon him. Recovering quickly from this surprise, Buddy took a look at the face. The body lolled half out of the vehicle, one arm and the head hanging down between the wheels. Although the face was outward, it was at the same time downward past the step of the vehicle, and in this inverted position the boy could not have recognized his best friend in the wan moonlight.
He shot a swift look around him and across toward Eversole's store—then laying his rifle on the ground, he lifted the dead man's head up and scrutinized it closely. As Buddy had never known Steve Barlow, the face was strange to him, and he was in the act of easing his gruesome burden down, when soft sounds like muffled footsteps startled him. They were close to him, seemingly coming from the opposite side of the carriage.
Without waiting an instant or even looking a second time, Buddy jerked his hands free, grabbed his gun, and made a headlong dive across the plank-walk and sprawled against the picket fence, at bay, but with gun pointed toward the carriage and ready to die fighting and take a toll for his own life.
His little heart beat wildly for the next few seconds. Affrighted, he had dropped his burden so suddenly that its weight had jerked the other arm outside, and now the inverted dead face swung to and fro, and gesticulated between the wheels in the moonlight. Then under and behind this grim pantomime, the boy could discern the vague outlines of legs in the dense shadow cast by the carriage.
Buddy did not court shots from the front, but he had always dreaded a shot in the back, and he knew that the McGills would show no quarter, not even to a boy, much less a Lutts boy. In reality, it was less than fifteen seconds that Buddy lay with finger in the trigger-guard, staring at that veiled, menacing shadow stirring near at hand, but it seemed very much longer to the boy. He could not endure the suspense, and just as he began to crawfish stealthily along the fence, a riderless, unshod horse stepped leisurely from the gloom and walked noiselessly through the thick dust.
Buddy heaved a long breath and leaned back against the fence. The horse was a light dun, with black mane and tail. He wore a saddle and the reins dragged. The animal stopped and pricked up his ears in Buddy's direction, then strolled over in the Courthouse yard, champing his bit noisily, a preface which Buddy thought the horse had previously omitted with mischievous intent.
In an instant Buddy was all action. He slipped across to a tree and peered toward the store. The five men appeared to be carrying something, as nearly as Buddy could make out, into Eversole's side gate. Now was his time to leave this spot. Here he committed a very boyish and extremely indiscreet act. The dun horse stood idly by, waiting for some one to ride him. The empty saddle invited Buddy to mount, with an insistence that the boy could not resist, in the stress of the moment, and his earnest desire to get away quickly. The animal being unshod and the dust being dense, his chances of escape looked favorable, while the men were in Eversole's yard.
Without another moment's deliberation, Buddy succumbed to this sudden impulse. Wherefore, he pulled his gun strap over his head and thrust his arms through, making the weapon fit snugly at his back, and in a jiffy he was in the saddle.
He reached up to an overhanging bough and possessed himself of a keen switch and, wheeling the dun horse, was ready for a dash down the road. As a precaution, he urged the horse up close into the shadow of the Courthouse to make sure the men had disappeared. The horse, eager to be away, was prancing now and rattling his bit noisily. As Buddy leaned out from the saddle, with his eyes fixed intently on the store, a shot echoed up from the distant river, and oddly enough, Buddy determined in that instant to take toward the river, instead of the north road. But in that same instant a disastrous thing happened which sent Buddy afoot down that river road faster than he had intended to go, and sorely worsted.
When he turned his head, a man was standing at the horse's head with a firm hold on the bridle. Without a word, the man led the horse out of the shadows into the moonlight. This man was hatless, and his head was swathed about with bandages, and his right arm was trussed up in a sling. When he lifted his face and scowled up at Buddy, a shiver traversed the boy's spine and made the perspiration start in his hair.
Buddy could not mistake. It was the evil, murderous visage of Sap McGill. The boy was in the hands of the enemy at last. The hand that held the rein also clutched a pistol. Dropping the rein, McGill pulled Buddy off the horse.
"So besides bein' a Lutts—yore a hoss thief t' boot, air ye?—well—by-damn!"
Sap cursed Buddy eloquently and long. Buddy said not a word. He felt that his time had come. He only gazed fixedly at the ugly face over him, convulsed and working with passion. McGill jerked the boy around and called out loudly toward the store:
"Hey—Stump—yo', Stump—cum out!"
After calling several times, two men appeared in response, at the side gate, back of the store.
"Cum on over, Stump—I keetched this fuzzy little Lutts runt a stealin' my hoss—hain't thet th' all-firedest beatenst nerve ye ever heerd tell on—cum git thes hoss while I ring thes little cuss's neck."
Sap's left hand clutching Buddy's shoulder, also retained the pistol which encumbered his grip, and as the two men advanced, Buddy threw all his strength into a sudden twist, breaking loose, and fled down the road toward the river with all the might that was in his skinny legs.
In his flight he stooped, and straightened, and ran azigzag; performing every trick known to him calculated to dodge a bullet. Buddy did artfully dodge two balls which Sap sent after him, but the third bullet tripped between his arm and his body, burning a furrow on both sides, and the fourth pinched a piece out of his shoulder. But these sensations only lent wings to Buddy's feet, and handicapped as he was, with his rifle double hitched over his shoulders, he fairly sailed.
When he reached the black shadows of the line of trees that reached out toward the river, he ventured a look over his shoulder. Sap had stopped, but the other two men were in hot pursuit. Buddy could not possibly travel any faster than he was going then, but his pace soon distanced his pursuers. When the boy observed that they were losing ground, he darted across a vacant plot between the shacks and continued on, stumbling now along the darkened, unfamiliar paths back of the houses, leading toward the river. Finally he paused and stood panting and listening. Amid these shades it was too dark for him to see more than fifty feet distant. He could hear nothing but the barking of hounds and the beating of his own heart. The men who had started out after him had evidently given up the chase. But wishing to place a safe distance between himself and these prowling enemies, the boy ran onward, and did not stop until he was a quarter of a mile past the last house.
Here he slackened to a walk and, turning over, crossed into the road. He felt of his shoulder gingerly. It did not appear to be bleeding much, but the wound under his arm stung and burned and he could feel the warm blood trickling down his side, and along his arm, also.
As he stood in the road extricating himself from the unusual manner in which he had harnessed his rifle to his shoulders, he was startled by the rapid hoofbeats of an approaching horse. Believing that the McGills were coming after him again, Buddy ran across the road, then hurried toward the river under cover of the wayside brush. He came suddenly upon a broken-down shack, and as the sounds of the galloping hoofs grew more distinct, Buddy dropped to his knees and crawled through a rent in the dilapidated fence and lay down in the weeds with his face toward the road, and waited for a few seconds.
Then he thrust his head between the broken pickets and looked up the road. A horse was coming onward at a fearful, breakneck pace, and behind him followed three or four other horsemen. In the moonlight, Buddy could plainly see the white cloths around the foremost rider's head. It was Sap McGill on the dun horse. Judging from the terrific rate at which the lead horse was leaping over the road, Buddy felt sure that they would pass him by. The boy drew his head in and waited, breathlessly. Then Sap McGill dashed past, and just as he did so two shots rang out, and McGill tumbled out of the saddle and sprawled in the middle of the road, where he lay still, while his horse continued on.
At this unexpected turn, a great light broke in upon Buddy, and his heart went apatter with joy. He knew now that the men following McGill were his own people. He scurried through the aperture in the fence, but the men had wheeled about and were galloping back as swiftly as they had come.
Buddy hallooed at the top of his lungs, but the noise of their horses' feet drowned his voice and they raced on and away. As Buddy reached back through the fence and pulled his rifle to him, preparatory to running after the men, he was arrested by the sound of a human voice. He stood puzzled and mystified. He could see nothing, but the voice was uncannily near; seemingly at his very feet.
Buddy cast an awesome look toward the battered, deserted shack with its yawning, sinister windows, and a grave suspicion stole upon him, and mounted to a fear that embraced his soul, and set his knees atremble. The house was haunted!
Buddy shrank away from the fence, moved by a fear that nothing else could inspire, and which has no kindred terror, but he only made two steps. The same voice held him rooted to the spot. This time there was a timbre in the inarticulate utterance that was strangely familiar to Buddy. Then the mysterious voice formed words that were clearly intelligible: "Now draw—draw now—coward—take yore pick—hear me?—draw——"
Buddy knew that voice too well to question it further. He hurried around the corner of the fence, and out under the chestnut tree, where he stopped short for the space of a moment, spellbound and dismayed, mutely gazing at the two prostrate forms stretched eerily before him in the gleam of the moon. The next instant Buddy was on his knees beside Hatfield.
"Johnse—Johnse—air yo' kilt—air yo' hurted bad——?"
"Air thet yo'—little Cap?" inquired Johnse feebly.
"Sho'—I bin a huntin' yo'—air yo' hit bad, Johnse?"
"I'm scratched up some, boy; twixt us two, I don't feel as skeetish as I ded 'bout sun-down. Say, Buddy, th' coward won't draw—I knowed he wouldn't—I jest knowed he'd throw in some ornery trick. Say, Buddy, give me yore rifle-gun down heah—an' fix th' muzzle in his ear fo' me—I lost my Colts—hurry long—han' yore gun down, Buddy——"
The boy had been making a hasty examination of the familiar form that lay inert beside Hatfield. He now leaned over Johnse again.
"Orlick's daid," announced the boy.
"Oh, air he?" said Johnse. "I 'low I'll scuse em then fo' not drawin'—I knowed I hit em hard—but I didn't think he 'lowed to die—th' way he jest naturally hung on—he air so karnsarned tricky. Say, Buddy—how is hit a goin'—air th' fellers at em yit?"
"Sho'—we'uns licked 'em bully, Johnse—they's jest a playin' tag now up in town—Sap plugged me twict up by ole Hank's store, as I cum by—Johnse, I got t' rack out now an' git th' men to tote yo' to th' wagons—I reckon th' doc-man kin peert yo' up a pinch—does yo' hurt bad, Johnse?"
"Ded Sap plug yo', Buddy?"
"Yep—hit don't hurt powerful bad though—an' our men jest plugged Sap, jest now—didn't yo'-all heer th' shoots?"
"I mought hev, Buddy,—but I wus powerful busy arguing with Orlick—yo' sho' they got Sap?"
"Sho," reassured Buddy. "He air a layin' up on th' road yonder now—I got t' rack out an' git yo' away from heah now."
"An' I got ole Hank—Gawd'll Moughty!—hain't we'uns in luck?"
Hatfield's voice sunk now to a thin, lingering whisper.
"Buddy," he muttered wearily, "'fore yo' go—kin yo' fetch me a speck o' water—jest a mouthful o' water somehow——"
The boy hurried behind the old shack in quest of something that would hold water. He found an old tomato can, but there was a rent in its bottom. Presently, he caught sight of a rusty tin bucket hanging by a wire, against a rotting porch post. He dumped the earth and dried roots out of this and held the bucket up to the moon. Then he ran toward the river. When he returned a few minutes later with the water, he was trailing Hatfield's piebald mare after him. The wounded man gulped the water greedily and Buddy unknotted the handkerchief about his neck and bathed his head.
"I air goin' now, Johnse," said Buddy. "Yo' jest lay easy like, an' I'll be back with somebuddy 'fore a goat kin wig his tail."
Whereupon, Buddy mounted the mare and galloped toward the courthouse, unafraid. In less than half an hour, Buddy galloped back, accompanied by six horsemen. They lifted the maimed, unconscious Hatfield and bore him away. As the cortège moved slowly up the moonlit road bearing their wounded leader, little Buddy turned the mare back, and cantered down toward the river to the spot where he had seen Sap McGill tumble out of the saddle when the Lutts' had fired upon him. But the boy was acutely disappointed. McGill was gone. And three bony, starved dogs with ravenous, wolfish eyes that gleamed in the moonlight, wore licking at a pool of blood in the road.
The immeasurable canopy above the hills was clear and pearly, save a narrow reef of low clouds that anchored over the serried peaks of Southpaw. Clouds frowning against the sun, grim and somber and splotched with a sable film that seemingly reflected a stratum of despair and gloom that tides of time could not erase.
Down upon the Moon mountain range, the sun smiled with an affiliating mellowness that found grateful response in the hearts of the denizens, despite the fact that the coves were scarred with new-made mounds, and their cabins were not without the wounded.
And dividing these two mighty ranges of victory and defeat, the frenzied waters of Hellsfork dinned a neutral warning, reiterating an idiom that boomed like the omen of a tom-tom.
For the past three weeks the Lutts' cabin had been utilized as an improvised hospital. Three of the men who had lingered there had departed to their respective homes, leaving Johnse Hatfield propped up in the "four-poster" alone.
Buddy Lutts' hurts, while painful and stubborn, were flesh wounds, and the boy had spurned the bed. Slab, the negro, was a willing and deft helper. And Buddy attended Johnse with the devotion born of idolization. In Buddy's boyish appreciation Johnse Hatfield was now a hero, seconded only by his dead father's memory. One bullet had gone entirely through Hatfield, leaving six lodged therein. The surgeon from Hazard had extracted every other one, leaving three inside of Johnse. The doctor did not advance any prophecies direct, because he was not interrogated, but he told the "Ridin' parson" who had been up to the Lutts' house, that in two weeks more Johnse would be up and out, a little heavier, but sound as a grind-stone.
Just at dawn each day, Johnse would open his eyes, yawn and vent an observation he had repeated regularly for three weeks:
"Well—I 'low I'll go up t' th' still long 'bout noontime, Buddy—air yo' a goin' long?—little Cap?"
Whereupon, Buddy would bring in the breakfast which old Slab had ready for him. Then Buddy would go to the "what-not" and get the treasured newspaper, and without protest, Johnse would read it all over to the boy, just as he had done each day since the paper had arrived. Logan, the audacious lawyer from the Blue-Grass, who had bearded the McGill faction in their own courthouse, had, thoughtfully, sent Johnse Hatfield a Frankfort newspaper, as a significant token of some sort of respect. The front side of this daily bore a picture, gotten up from description, of Johnse Hatfield. And under this spurious representation were three full-length columns presenting a graphic description of the "Bloodiest Clash in the History of Feudal Warfare," followed by details of the "Graveyard Massacre" by an eye-witness.
According to these reporters, out of some eighty-eight men, who dashed down the road on that fateful night to slaughter the Lutts clan, forty-two of them never got away alive from the graveyard facade.
To Buddy Lutts' keen appreciation, the only flaw in this wholesome narrative was the printed rumor that Sap McGill had escaped and was slowly recuperating over in Southpaw.
'Twas some days ere Belle-Ann fitted her mood to her strange environments. The Mission School at Proctor was a beautiful place—a great rambling structure on the apex of a hill overlooking the picturesque Kentucky River. The building was girded with a continuous, spacious porch, and hemmed about with flowers, the identity of which was unknown to her. The grounds behind were unstinting, and reached half a mile back to the mountain abutting it.
Flanking the building proper, on the verdant esplanade, stood a superb statue of Daniel Boone, embellished with a gurgling fountain which the State had recently reared on this spot where Boone had built his historic fortress.
Belle-Ann was allotted a cozy little room with white enamel furniture, and pretty curtains, and quaint Japanese matting, the like of which had never met her admiring eyes.
Withal, Belle-Ann was deeply pleased with her new surroundings—with the other scholars and with the teachers. But so much had been crowded into her young life of late, coupled with the pang of parting from her home, that it was days before her mood aroused itself to the necessity of application.
When she did begin her lessons, it was with an assiduous energy and receptive aptitude that not only attracted the teachers, but the other pupils likewise. From the outset, she developed an inordinate thirst for grammar. Indeed, a great part of the time out of study hours, she carried her grammar about with her, peeping into it anon, spelling, repeating, and pondering over its phrases—never tiring of its dawning mysteries and vast possibilities.
The Mission School, familiarly designated as the Chapel, was not an academic institution of classics and national renown, but it was of State-wide repute and an oasis of preparatory learning amidst the barren lives of mountain youth, hitherto isolated and deprived of the advantages of his more fortunate Blue-Grass cousins.
Miss Virginia Worth, in charge of the Chapel, was as agreeably impressed with Belle-Ann as the girl was pleased with the charming teacher. Miss Worth was a woman of thirty-seven, with an abundance of perfectly white hair and the fresh, smooth face of a girl of twenty. Upon this benign, wholesome countenance there dwelt an ever-present sympathy and love for mankind. In her gray eyes was a look of succor that beckoned suffering to her. Oddly enough, a woman of private wealth, she had made the uplift of the mountain folk her life work.
Moreover, Miss Worth was a woman of deep and unerring penetration,—of careful and soothing diplomacy—she had made a life study of the ways of the human heart. With true divinity, she had stepped out into the world, smiling, amidst the trivialities and dissensions, and weaknesses that assail and tempt and twist and scar the lives of humanity.
In the fountain of her spontaneous Christian soul, she had a lotion for them all. From the first, it was this benevolent woman's smile that drew Belle-Ann to her—a look that reminded the girl keenly of Maw Lutts' perennial smile, and spread an aftermath that carried her back to days of utter happiness.
Ill things of the soul are oft concealed through the measures of a lifetime. Thus, when its tenancy is predestined,—but when a spirit is unmated to evil, its odious residue gravitates like cork to the surface and speedily floats in the eyes.
From the beginning there was an indefinable underlying something permeating this sweet-faced girl that had come to her from out of the wilderness—a something that sorely puzzled the good Miss Worth. It was like a single elusive carbon spot hidden away in the core of an otherwise perfect diamond—a spot that reflected through the eyes in fleeting transitory glints—a mote-flash that could not be located—baffling discernment only under powerful, expert analysis.
Miss Worth loved the girl. She loved her straightway from the minute that she had held her small, shapely hand, and listened to the timbre of that shy, dulcet voice. She had never seen eyes tinted like these. She marvelled at her curls. Her perfect delicate, Grecian features filled Miss Worth with a lasting wonder.
Through the Reverend Peterson she heard the tragic history of the girl's comely mother, but she could not conceive a heredity sufficiently generous to give the beauty made adorably manifest in this girl of the hills. In every movement her natural artless grace was as a rhythm of poetry.
Miss Worth then recognized an extraordinary character—the fibre of a beautiful, wonderful, lovable womanhood—a girl who could, with the embellishments of education and adornments of fashion, go into the sphere of any secular circle of society in any municipality and create a furore. She was quick to foresee an interesting future for her new protégée, if she could only discover the elusive defect that she could not name, but which was palpably present to her keen senses, versed in thought reading and the pathology of organic character ailments.
Very many times, as the days slipped by, she observed flashes of that sober, mystifying light in Belle-Ann's eyes—a sudden quick, almost vindictive dropping of the sweet lips that showed, otherwise, a dimpled upturn. It followed that Miss Worth devoted extra care to Belle-Ann's tutorage—all the while bent upon deftly angling for that alien, shifting thing that a casual observer would have passed unnoticed.
The second Sunday following Belle-Ann's arrival at the school, Miss Worth presented to her an elderly gentleman of distinguished mien and marked personality, and of whom the girl was destined to see much thereafter. This engaging personage was Colonel Amos Tennytown, who resided down Blue-Grass way, and who visited the school, sometimes during the week, but most generally on a Sunday.
Belle-Ann ever remembered her first meeting with this man, whose deferential manner was rich with little original courtesies which were innate manifestations of gentility that were born with the man. And his voice, in particular, carried a charm that was soothing and totally irresistible.
All this appealed to a certain latent delicacy that wove its hereditary fibre through this untaught mountain girl's being and stirred a response which had hitherto been dormant. She had known true hearts, honest and courageous, but she had never known polished mannerisms in men.
She recalled the radiant face and the suppressed tremor in Miss Worth's voice when that lady glided into Belle-Ann's room and announced that she wished to introduce her to a gentleman friend. Belle-Ann remembered her poignant embarrassment as she stood before him on the porch, shyly and acutely conscious of her own glaring deficiencies and simple gown, and of her determination at that first instant to excuse herself quickly and slip away—and of the manner in which she was instantly reassured.
Later, she recalled the keen interest he took in her at this first meeting, and how her case of blues vanished temporarily as she listened to his pleasing voice and was distracted by his courtly, cheery, easy manner. Her shyness forsook her straightway and she experienced a sense of having always known him. He came, ostensibly, to see Miss Worth, they being friends of long standing, and Belle-Ann remembered how he had gallantly bowed to Miss Worth, on leaving that first day, when he laughingly removed the nosegay from his lapel and stuck it into Belle-Ann's curls.
She remembered that she was sorry when he departed, and stood on the porch with Miss Worth's arm around her, and helped her tutoress watch the tall, commanding figure of the Colonel receding down the sinuous path toward the ferry.
Many months had elapsed since that day, and it had come to pass that now Belle-Ann looked forward to Colonel Tennytown's coming with an eagerness that rendered her almost wistful. This had grown upon her in a subtle way, and in these days he was seemingly a vital connecting link between herself and some indefinable but palpable mystery that hung over her life, veiled by the opaque future.
Tom-John Benson had always, in his rough way, been thoughtful of his only child. Of late years, through necessity, he had been compelled to be away from her, working for a paltry wage. The Kentucky spirit, ever ready to give, is slow to take and, though sorely pressed, stands aloof from charity.
Long since, the good Reverend Peterson of the Diocese of Lexington had volunteered to give Tom-John Benson a free scholarship for his girl—an offer influenced mainly by the Christian spirit of his true missionary heart, and partially because he was sympathetically familiar with the pathos that enveloped the life of Belle-Ann's beautiful mother, who had deserted a luxurious home in Lexington and immured herself in the cloister of the Cumberlands, never to emerge. But free scholarship did not appeal to Benson. His pride was less crude than his exterior. He bided his time, and by dint of saving from his meagre wage, paid in full for Belle-Ann's schooling.
The fruits of Belle-Ann's close application to her studies were now made manifest in a way little short of marvelous. It was plain from the outset that she possessed a natural aptitude for the tasks set before her. She developed a love for books that grew into such ceaseless, indefatigable zeal that Miss Worth and Miss Ackerman, her under teacher, were often obliged to remonstrate with her. While the other girls were at tennis or some other diversion after hours, Belle-Ann was poring over her books with as deep absorption as if it were play. Very many times in the night Miss Worth, knowing her propensity for night study, would slip into her room and implore her to retire. She was fast winnowing out her mountain dialect, but there were some words that clung to her tongue tenaciously, despite her efforts to eliminate them.
She was the recipient of a letter each month from her father, always containing a small sum of money, calculated to maintain her simple wardrobe. Then one day she was delighted to receive a postal order for fifty dollars from her father, who stated that the company for whom he worked had given him entire charge of the mill at Catletsburg, and had advanced his pay. He stated, furthermore, that he wished her to buy some nice clothes with the money accompanying the letter.
Miss Worth, having three other schools to supervise in different sections of the county, was unable to spend more than two or three days at a time at Proctor. She being absent now, Miss Ackerman accompanied Belle-Ann across the river to Beattyville, where they purchased two very neat and becoming dresses for Belle-Ann, together with various other needful articles. And now being able to write an intelligent and commendably legible letter, Belle-Ann indited an epistle to her father which abounded with original expressions of love, and wherein she expressed her gratitude to him, describing at length the things she had purchased with the money he had so thoughtfully allowed her.
One evening after class hours, Belle-Ann was in her room engrossed in the pages of her grammar when Miss Worth entered. As the girl leaned over her book, her black curls tumbled about her face, she did not look up until Miss Worth spoke.
"Belle-Ann," said Miss Worth, with a twinkle in her clear eyes. "I see I shall be obliged to lock all your books up in the closet."
"And I shan't complain if you-all allow me to carry the key," returned Belle-Ann.
"But I would guard the key, dear," declared her teacher, pushing the grammar aside and drawing Belle-Ann over to a sofa.
"But I can whittle—Lem taught me to whittle—I can make lots of funny things—and I would make a key with my pencil knife and open the door."
"Then I would take away your wooden key and lock you, together with your books, in the closet."
"Then I would pull the shortest hair from my crown and blow on both ends and make a wish and turn into an elf—no, a gnome,—no, that isn't it either—anyhow, I would turn into something very thin and flat and slide out under the door."
"But you couldn't get your books out, dear—and it would be too lonesome and dark to study in the closet."
"But I would catch some fire-flies out thah and slide back under the door—then I would have a light, and when I study I don't get lonesome."
"Then a sad thing would happen, my dear—I would be compelled to switch you——"
Belle-Ann vented a peal of pent-up glee and pulled the prematurely white head toward her.
"Then I would kiss you thah and thah and thah—I would do what you always tell me—I would give good for evil—and I would not switch you back, and would only squeeze you hard—like this——"
The woman in turn touched the dimpled, mischievous face fondly and kissed the red mouth, so temptingly close to her. Miss Worth the while had held a free hand behind her and in this hand she secreted something.
"I really didn't come in to frolic, Belle-Ann," she said. "I came to tell you something—rather to ask you to do something for us."
"Who's us, Miss Virginia?" quizzed Belle-Ann, her roguish, child-like curiosity superseding her levity.
"I mean for me—of course, I have talked this matter over with Colonel Tennytown—in fact, we have had it in mind a long time. As you already know, I have private means and an income that accumulates until I hardly know at times where to place it."
Miss Worth toyed with the ringlets of silky jet that crossed the girl's low brow.
"I love all my pupils," she went on, "but your little self has taken a hold upon my affections in a way that no other pupil has ever done—and we feel—I feel that you have gifts and natural aptitudes that should not be neglected—and cultivation costs money, Belle-Ann, and I want you to borrow some money from me."
Belle-Ann's round violet eyes had grown wider with wonder, as she studied the youthful countenance of the woman with the white hair.
"But am I not at school heah?" she observed. "Besides, I don't need money—deah daddy sent me fifty dollars last month and I have lots of that left, and heah it is near the end of the month and he will send more, too. I thank you-all so much, Miss Virginia—but——"
The teacher placed her hand over the ravishing mouth and left only the eloquent eyes protesting.
"You don't seem to catch the import of my suggestion clearly, Belle-Ann," admonished Miss Worth. "Your kind father is not in a position to afford you the kind of training and education that your energy and latent talents warrant. At the rate of your present progress, you will soon outstrip the advantages which a school like this can offer you. In less than another year, you will know all that we have here. I well know that you are not the girl to grow vain—but your voice has always stirred me like a miracle. I should accuse my own conscience if your voice went amiss for want of culture. You plainly possess musical instincts that are suffering now. We think that you should go, very shortly now, down to Lexington to the Seminary, where the facilities for your musical training are sufficiently good for the beginning—and eventually you can go abroad—to Germany—and the means will be forthcoming!"
"You mean—mean across the ocean?" cried Belle-Ann in amazement.
"Yes."
"Alone—by myself?" she ejaculated.
"Well, we can't tell—I may go with you," predicted Miss Worth with an amused smile.
As the import of Miss Worth's proposition filtered into her comprehension, an efflux of joy and gratitude bubbled up from the girl's heart and tinged her dimples with carmine and overspread her cheeks. She sat for a minute beyond words. Her eyes strayed to the open window, and her gaze continued on over the pine tops, as though fixed intently upon a tiny mote that had bobbed about and gesticulated on the horizon of her child-dreams, but which was now resolved out of mythical vagueness into a poignant reality that was growing and speeding toward her with her own humble life for a goal, and with a pageantry of opportunity that dazzled and overwhelmed her senses.
Slowly, very slowly, she turned her flushed face and fixed her eyes, now moist and brimming with love, gratitude and homage upon Miss Worth. Her bosom lifted as she looked mutely into the face that smiled down upon her. Then Belle-Ann's round chin lowered and her curls were on the woman's breast and her arms crept up and around and locked about the neck of her benefactress. Miss Worth patted her shoulder, and whispered words through her curls, and presently Belle-Ann whispered back to her.
"But can I be worth it—could I ever—ever—be worth it? Besides, I could never, never, pay you-all back," she deplored tremulously.
"Surely you can, sometime—you will have money of your own—that is, you may become a great prima-donna," she ended optimistically. Belle-Ann sat up straight.
"Prima-donna," she repeated uncertainly.
"Yes—you know, Belle-Ann, even in your simple old-timey song, 'Kitty Wells,' I have wondered at the volume and peculiar quality of your voice, and have compared the strength of that peculiar cadence to that of great singers I have heard. I believe that your voice holds all the fundamental requisites of an operatic singer. Anyhow, we are going to have your voice cultivated to its highest perfection—and who can tell—you may in time become a prima-donna."
Belle-Ann hung upon Miss Worth's utterances with an intentness that lent to her an attitude of listening to some seductive melody coming from afar.
"Prima-donna—prima-donna," she murmured softly and wonderingly. "Prima-donna—but don't tell me—let me find it, Miss Worth—I am not sure of its meaning." Whereupon, she skipped across the room and returning with her dictionary, flurried over its pages eagerly and swiftly.
"P-r—p-r-i—prima—prima-donna—heah, I have it," she said. "'Prima-donna—the principal female singer in an opera;'—and do they make lots of money?" she inquired quickly.
"They surely do," responded Miss Worth with growing amusement. Belle-Ann reflected for a moment.
"Maybe—fifty dollars a month?" she ventured timidly.
"That sum wouldn't interest a prima-donna, Belle-Ann. It is said that some of them enjoy salaries of one thousand dollars per week and more."
"One thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast.
"Yes."
Belle-Ann slowly closed her dictionary and a look of deep disappointment touched her pretty oval features.
"Oh, no, Miss Virginia," she sighed, clasping her little hands hopelessly. "I could never make one thousand dollars in one week—I just know I couldn't."
Miss Worth laughed outright—then kissed her twice.
"Let's talk about what we are to do to-morrow," suggested Miss Worth cheerily. "I have another pleasant surprise for you, dearest." Belle-Ann showed her winsome dimples and waited expectantly.
"It is very necessary that you have some nice clothes and have them immediately. I mean some stylish apparel suitable to appear in city society, because you have some friends in Lexington who are anxious to have us visit them shortly, so to-morrow morning you and I are going to the city and I will take you to a modiste and have some pretty gowns made up for you. Here is the money." At this juncture, Miss Worth dropped five one hundred dollar bills into Belle-Ann's lap. The girl was utterly stupefied with a surging joy, and her exclamations of delight were varied and many as she tossed her curls in sheer exultation and rapture.
The mere anticipation and the purpose of this intended sojourn filled Belle-Ann's untutored, pleasure-starved heart with ecstasy.
She talked volubly along, her cheeks aflush, in a transport at the prospect of possessing herself of an assortment of pretty modern dresses for which her girl-heart now yearned,—particularly since she came to the school and observed the dainty, modish clothes of some of the girls who came over from Beattyville on Sunday to visit Miss Worth and Miss Ackerman.
And thus it was that a new and alluring vista of probabilities opened up before her imagination that set her blood a-tingle and made her eyes sparkle with anticipation. The elusive dimples came and went, and she was very beautiful in this sudden, new happiness. Belle-Ann never forgot the joys of that shopping sojourn to Lexington.
That night her mind teemed with processions of fantastic imaginings that, strive as she would, she could not dispel. Notwithstanding that her slumber had been scant, she arose earlier than usual fresh and bright and charged with an enthusiasm profuse and spontaneous. At eight-thirty the following morning, Belle-Ann and Miss Worth crossed the ferry to Beattyville. Here they took the train for Lexington and Belle-Ann had her first ride in a Pullman car.
Arriving at Lexington, the girl was confronted with her first sight of a city. Belle-Ann was agreeably surprised to meet Colonel Tennytown, who had been awaiting their arrival at the station. The Colonel was plainly as pleased as was Belle-Ann, and helped the two into his big limousine with many courtesies and a radiant countenance. And here the girl whose head was a-whirl with child-like rapture, was treated to her first automobile ride.
The Colonel's first thoughtful act was to present Miss Worth and Belle-Ann with a great cluster of roses he had in the car for them. He then directed the liveried chauffeur to drive out to his homestead, but in this he was artfully thwarted by Miss Worth, who hastily and firmly protested with a meaning look, declaring that their time was limited and that by complying with his kind invitation, the shopping would suffer. In lieu of that pleasure, the persistent Colonel, not to be denied, took the ladies to a big hotel where they had luncheon and spent an enlivened hour in his company, after which, Colonel Tennytown went his way, sending the ladies onward in his car to do their shopping.
The wonder and mysteries of the big shops inspired Belle-Ann with amazement and delight unbounded, and her spontaneous and original comments and profuse inquiries concerning these sights kept her companion's face in one perpetual wreath of amused and happy smiles.
After purchasing a number of suitable fabrics, Miss Worth took Belle-Ann to a modiste where they were detained for more than two hours. By the time they had completed their shopping, it was dusk and their automobile dashed up to the station barely in time to make the train. Colonel Tennytown was there to see them off, and had only time to bid them a hurried good-by.
Miss Worth had arranged for all her minor purchases to be delivered to the school the same day that the gowns were sent. In the meantime, Belle-Ann had made three hurried trips with Miss Worth to the modiste in Lexington for fittings. Then, one memorable day, a horde of boxes arrived at the school for Belle-Ann. There were four exquisite dresses cut in the latest fashion. There were three beautiful imported hats. There were delicate veils and gloves and shoes and three dainty pairs of pumps embellished with oddly carved silver buckles. There were lingerie of the finest texture and stockings of many hues, so soft and fine that Belle-Ann marvelled at their resiliency. Also, there was a great brass-bound trunk, with compartments, with Belle-Ann's name stamped thereon, and a smart buff-leather traveling bag.
There was everything calculated to inspire a girl-heart to the heights of inexpressible happiness,—particularly a girl who had never before known a luxurious life. Miss Worth and Belle-Ann spent half the night in the girl's room amid a deluge of tissue paper and boxes.
The following Tuesday Miss Worth and Belle-Ann went to Lexington to visit Colonel Tennytown and his sister. The girl's figure had rounded and she had grown a head taller during the past winter. Her appearance in a city in her simple mountain garb would have challenged attention,—not because of the quaintness of the garb, but by merit of her natural grace and fresh, startling beauty. But to-day this wealth of beauty was enhanced a hundred fold. When she alighted at the station in Lexington, she presented a vision of loveliness that arrested the admiring eyes of people who had become inured to the sight of pretty girls, from the nearby newsboys, up to a group of loquacious old ladies who wore suffragist badges.
Belle-Ann wore a dark blue creation that fell in clinging, Parisian grace about her supple form. The yoke and sleeves were trimmed with pleated lace of exquisite richness, and a jabot of lace fell down the front from the yoke midway to the waistline. On her feet were dark blue pumps with silver buckles and hose to match. She wore a large Panama hat caught up at one side, drooping at the other side and back and girded with a wide Persian ribbon knotted at the back and ending in a silk fringe that trailed toward the hair. Her mass of black, lustrous curls were caught up in the back in the embrace of a large Oriental clasp of unique design.
In one hand she carried a beautiful Oriental purse suspended by a dragon-skin thong, which was hemmed with a camel's-hair braid. In the other hand, she balanced a long-stemmed white silk parasol. The apparel might have been duplicated; but the oval face under the Panama hat had no replica. There was no vestige of powder or cosmetics on the girl's complexion, which was left in all the rich purity that nature decreed to her.
The chin was indescribably fascinating. A little mouth with curved carmine lips that turned upward at the corners flanked by dimples. A short, thin little nose, white like the soft white of a rose petal. Above that, a pair of round, wondrous eyes—eyes that harbored a depth of unfathomable eloquence—black-fringed, steadfast eyes, of a peculiar deep violet hue, merging into that matchless pigment that tones the blue of a robin's egg. Above that, were exquisitely penciled brows, and then the soft, shiny, raven-black ringlets that rippled beneath the hat.
It was this beautiful Grecian countenance that inspired even the well-bred people about her in the station to pause for a second covert look. They had waited several minutes in the station when Colonel Tennytown's tall figure appeared coming toward them. He apologized contritely for his tardiness, stating that his car had suffered a "blow-out" which had delayed him.
They were whirled along the shell road four miles outside of Lexington to the Colonel's magnificent homestead surrounded by acres of level pasturage and numerous modern out-buildings. As Belle-Ann learned afterward, this estate represented the highest type of a modern stock farm and was one of international repute. Colonel Tennytown's pedigreed horses were periodically shipped abroad.
The Colonel was a gracious and fascinating host. He was a widower and had now in his household his maiden sister a few years his junior. There was no conceivable hospitality these two did not lavish upon their guests. Colonel Tennytown's proud prototype is met frequently throughout Kentucky.
He was tall and of commanding carriage and manner and attired immaculately. He was a polished man whose courtesy was effervescent. He wore the regulation broad-brimmed hat, white moustache and goatee, and while his thin face was florid, it was at once refined and intellectual. His hobby was horses bred in the purple, but there was an utter absence of horsey vulgarism about him, his very presence irradiating breeding and culture.
It was made convincingly clear, by every look and word and gesture, that the Colonel's stately maiden sister had fallen in love with Belle-Ann at first sight. The house was a great square structure and one could walk around its four sides on a broad, spacious porch. A wide hall ran through the center directly to the back. This roomy hall was appointed with massive, quaintly carved furniture of colonial design. The walls and ceilings throughout the house were paneled and frescoed in artistic and unique patterns and painted in harmonious tints that indicated taste of the highest order.
In the center of the hall, midway, was stationed a great fountain, some six feet in diameter, where the crystal drops rained down upon myriad fishes and the moss and coral-built submarine castle. Magnificent paintings and various rare statuary subjects and huge palms and foreign plants and flowers abounded on every hand. And the sweet notes of an enraptured mocking-bird came from somewhere mingled with the silvery tinkling melody of unseen music.
Profusely scattered about were pieces of odd furniture, strange bric-a-brac, curious pottery and miniature idols, relics collected from every quarter of the globe. Big Turkish couches and willow rockers and cane sofas with red and green velvet pads, and little upholstered stools and bamboo tables were everywhere. Mammoth gilt-framed mirrors reached from the floor to the ceiling, and the wide doors and windows were draped in various-colored portières and curtains of silk and velvet in gold brocade.
The great dining room was a spot that awed Belle-Ann with its intrinsic resplendence. The mahogany and the dazzling array of silver and mirrors and prismed chandeliers and greenery held this demure mountain girl entranced. She caught herself wondering what Lem would say, if he could look in upon her at this moment, and behold her dressed in "Blue-grass style," being entertained in this mystic realm of a grandee, the opulence of which even her own active fancy had never pictured.
After luncheon, the Colonel conducted his visitors to the stables where he pridefully exhibited a hundred or more blooded horses. Straggling groups of horses and colts were observable grazing in the rank pastures that stretched beyond as far as the eye could reach.
While en route through the stables, Belle-Ann thoughtlessly gave the party a scare. Colonel Tennytown had directed a hostler who followed the party to bring out a sorrel gelding of which he was especially proud. All of the compartments for the animals on one side were box-stalls. Before the man had time to bring forth the gelding, Belle-Ann noted an extra-high compartment built of heavy oak boards with an iron gate. Attracted by this, she stepped away from the others to see what this strong box-stall contained.
The girl beheld a most magnificent black stallion. An ardent lover of horses and naturally fearless, she was so delighted at sight of this proud, silken-coated animal, that she drew the iron pin and slipped inside with the horse. The animal stood for a moment as though deeply and curiously surprised at this effrontery. Then his fire-rimmed eyes flashed. His little ears lay flat to his head. With a snort, he started toward her. Belle-Ann advanced a step to meet him, and at sound of her voice the great beast paused and pricked up his ears. Talking to him the while, the girl walked unhesitatingly over to him and laid a hand gently upon his massive neck. The feel of his satiny body pulsing with salient power was a joy to Belle-Ann. The stallion nosed her clothing with mild little snorts. With soothing, coined horse-words, the girl ran her hand over him. She then lay one hand on his back and with the other slapped his side playfully. To this ticklish overture the horse responded instantly.
He reared on his hind legs. He clashed his bared teeth, he plunged, pawed the straw, and kicked and squealed. Belle-Ann stood perfectly still and laughed outright at his antics. Then the animal threw his ears back and his fore feet in the air and lunged toward her, only to pluck at her sleeve with his rough lips and push her gently with his shoulder, taking care not to tread upon her feet.
The sorrel gelding had been brought out and the Colonel was deeply engrossed in rehearsing his pedigree to Miss Worth and did not at the moment notice Belle-Ann's absence. The girl had her arms about the stallion's head and was smilingly engaged in scratching his ears, when Colonel Tennytown's white face appeared at the iron gate of the box-stall, together with that of the scared, shaky hostler.
"Come out—come out!" importuned the Colonel in hoarse, unsteady tones. Through the thick boards Belle-Ann heard Miss Worth's appeal.
"Belle-Ann! Belle-Ann! come out of there, dear—this instant—do, please."
The horse, catching sight of the faces at the gate, jumped forward, wheeled like a flash, and lashed out with his heels, striking the gate a terrific whack with both feet. The gate, which opened inward, clashed against its iron sleeper with a frightful noise. The horse then returned to Belle-Ann's side and lowered his head for her to resume the scratching process.
"For God's sake, Miss Benson, I beg of you to come out," called the distressed Colonel. Then Belle-Ann stepped safely and serenely without.
Miss Worth, who knew the stallion's reputation, stood with hands gripping each other tensely and with averted, pallid face. The hostler was quaking visibly, and the Colonel seized her arm as though rescuing a drowning person.
"Miss Benson," said the Colonel, "I implore you never to do that again,—please, never, never go near that gate."
"My dear," spoke up Miss Worth, "I shall have to hold you by the hand until I get you out of here. Whatever prompted you to go in with that vicious horse?"
The hostler mumbled to himself:
"I'll sho' slap er padlock on dat hoss 'fore sun-down."
"Why," said Belle-Ann laughingly, "you-all talk as though he were a big tiger instead of a big, beautiful horse—I love him."
"Ponce is the meanest horse I have ever owned," interjected the Colonel. "I would not dare go in to him. If it were not for for his strain, I would have gotten rid of him long ago—he killed a hostler last summer. The men have to feed him through a trap door—the men could not be induced to go in to him as you did, Miss Benson. They have to rope him from both sides to lead him. He not only kicks, but he fights with his fore feet and bites like a dog. You have had a narrow escape, I assure you, dear Miss Benson. How happy I am that you were not hurt."
"Why, Colonel Tennytown," interrupted the girl, "he was only playing with me—why I can go in thah now and make him walk around on his hind legs."
"Tut-tut! No you can't, my dear," interposed the Colonel monitively, "not while we are here to watch you, I assure you."
"Oh, I would love to ride him—may I ride him some time, Colonel?" she persisted laughingly.
"It pains me deeply to refuse you any request—I have any number of others you may ride, but never Ponce," he declared emphatically.
After dinner it developed that there was plainly a conspiracy afoot to have Belle-Ann sing. Without the slightest demur or embarrassment the girl took her stand beside the piano while Miss Worth played the accompaniment. She sang an excerpt from Il Trovatore which Miss Worth had taught her with infinite care. The voice held the listeners spellbound.
When her last lingering notes had swelled and died away, the Colonel's sister hurried to her with profuse praises that were plainly sincere and kissed her cheek. The Colonel strode to her side and pressed her hand, and Miss Worth beamed upon her.
As dusk approached, the visitors climbed into the big limousine en route to the train, and rolled through the richest plateau in the world, flooded with the erubescent splendor of a setting sun. At the station Colonel Tennytown carried the handbags into the Pullman, and here he lingered until he heard the hiss of the reservoir that released the car brakes. With his farewell, he lifted Belle-Ann's white soft hand, and slipped a ring on her finger. Concealing it under his own hand, he said:
"It is there with a wish which I hope will come true," and he hurried out and away. As the train pulled out, the lights were turned on in the car, and Belle-Ann was holding one hand up before two pairs of admiring eyes. It was a marquis ring with an oval turquoise in the center, hemmed with eight rubies and bordered with ten beautifully cut diamonds. And as Belle-Ann gazed at this lovely present, her violet eyes emulated the sparkling lustre of the ring.