As for the two girls and Uncle Billie, they were looking for but one treasure—a stack of yellow gold.
As Florence inserted the chisel in a crack and gave it a pull there came such a screech from the ancient hand-hammered nails as brought a scream of fright from Marion. The next moment the board gave way with a suddenness that all but knocked Florence from the chair upon which she was perched and showered her with an accumulation of aged dust. With a shrill cry she leaped to the floor.
Over their heads, as they regained composure, they saw a broad, black, gaping hole.
“Dark up there,” said Marion with a little shudder.
“Have to use a flashlight.” Florence dug down into her trunk. “Here it is.”
“But it won’t work.”
“Battery’s dead. Have to use a candle.”
A candle was brought. Then while Marion sat on the chair, Florence climbed the back of it and thrust her head and shoulders through the hole.
“See anything?” Marion asked breathlessly.
“No, not a—yes, there’s something, a black bulk over there in the corner. It’s a—”
“A chest, of course!” Marion was quite beside herself with excitement. Without thinking she sprang to her feet. The next instant the chair toppled over and Florence, lighted candle and all, came crashing down upon it.
“Wha—what did you do that for?” she demanded, once she had regained the breath that had been knocked from her by the fall.
“I—I forgot!” said Marion. “Truly I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”
“Not that way,” said Florence, rubbing her bruises. “The bed will be better. Come on, let’s push it over.”
The bed was soon under the hole and a moment later the two girls, closely followed by an agile old man, were creeping from beam to beam toward the bulk in the dark.
“I know it’s the chest of gold,” whispered Marion.
“I—I—someway it don’t look right.”
“Phoo-ee!” chuckled Uncle Billie. “That ain’t no chest. That’s a poundin’ mill. What hit’s doin’ stored up here is more’n I know.”
“A pounding mill? What’s that?” demanded Florence as she held her candle above a great cylindrical block of wood on which there rested a similar block of smaller dimensions.
“A poundin’ mill’s used for poundin’ out corn meal. They ain’t used now on account o’ water wheels, but they was a powerful help in their day. You all never seed ’em work? Well, hit’s this way.”
Uncle Billie lifted the smaller cylinder and dropped it into a hole in the larger block, which was some three feet high and four feet across.
“You put your corn in that there holler, then you tie this block to a saplin’ to help you teeter hit up an’ down, an’ you pound your corn until it are meal. That’s all there are to hit.”
“That’s a powerful heavy block!” he exclaimed, trying to tip it. “Must be made out o’ first growth hickory, as sizeable as hit is.”
“But where’s our gold?” asked Marion. Her voice dropped off into a little disappointed wail.
“Peers to me like we’d been barkin’ up the wrong tree,” said Uncle Billie with a sad shake of his head.
“Might be hidden around somewhere among the rafters,” said Florence. “Let’s have a good look.”
They explored the attic thoroughly. Not a pile of dust but was disturbed that day. Their only reward was a rusty Civil War canteen that, as Uncle Billie expressed it, was “as empty as a bear after a winter’s sleep.”
Just as they were preparing to descend, Marion made an interesting find. Having noticed a circular spot on the dust covered boards that might have been a knot, she put out a hand to pick up a circular disk.
“What’s this?” she exclaimed excitedly. “How heavy it is! It—why, it must be gold!”
“Hit shore are!” exclaimed Uncle Billie, taking it from her and rubbing it clean on his ragged trousers’ leg. “Hit sure are. Hit’s one of them are pieces of Confederate gold.”
“But it doesn’t say Confederate,” whispered Florence after examining it closely. “It says on one side ‘Georgia gold’, and on the other—let’s see.” With a trembling finger she rubbed away the last vestige of dust. “It says: ‘T-e-m-p-l-e R-e-i-d. Temple Reid, Ten Dollars’.”
“Georgia Gold. Temple Reid. Ten Dollars!” exclaimed Marion. “What nonsense! How could a man coin money? Money is made by nations, not by men.”
“But that’s what it says,” insisted Florence.
“Well, anyway, it isn’t Confederate gold,” said Marion, disappointment creeping into her tone. There had been a glamor of romance in her hope of finding some coins struck by that long since dissolved government.
“You can’t most always tell,” said Uncle Billie with a wise shake of his head. “That ar’s Georgia gold. But hit’s jest one. There were a hundred, mebby four-five hundred. Stands to reason some was Confederate, fer hadn’t Jeff Middelton come from right down thar whar that sort of money were made?”
Uncle Billie’s logic seemed weak, but, that they might not hurt the feelings of the good old man, the girls let it pass. They all adjourned to the rooms below. Dust and dirt were scrubbed off, the hole was nailed up, and there the matter stood, closed for the time being.
One thing was decided upon. The strange gold piece was to be sent to a curator of Field Museum, who was a friend of Marion. He would be able to tell them the origin of the piece, and its value.
“That one coin may be of considerable value,” said Marion. “There are coins worth hundreds of dollars.”
“Yes, and it may be worth just exactly its weight in gold,” laughed Florence. “But send it along. It will do no harm.”
That night the bit of gold went North in the registered mail pouch, and the girls, forgetting their disappointment as quickly as possible, set about two important tasks that lay just before them; the winning of the school election and preparation for Florence’s trial.
It was five days later. It was evening, but there was no sunset. Dull, gray clouds had hung low on the mountains all day. Dull clouds of disappointment and defeat hung heavily on Florence’s spirits. She had taken a long, long walk up Laurel Branch. Her hopes that this walk would revive her drooping spirits had proven vain. Each leaden mile had found her head drooping more and more.
“It’s lost!” she murmured as she marched stolidly on.
It was true; at least Ransom Turner had assured her it was. The school election was lost. Each side had begun work early. The canvass had been taken; the line-up, in so far as anyone could tell, was completed, and at the present Black Blevens and his choice for teacher, Al Finely, were eight votes ahead.
“Eight votes!” she had said to Ransom. “How can we overcome that?”
“Hit can’t be done,” Ransom had said. “Hit’s a fact. That Black Blevens is the election fightenest man I most ever seed. We’re jest as good as licked right now.”
“And yet,” Florence said to herself as, undecided whether to pause for rest or to wander aimlessly on, she paused beside a great flat rock, “it does seem that there is a way to win if only we knew it.”
Just as if in answer to her worrying problem, the fog lifted, revealing before her in startling clearness the natural gateway that led to the horseshoe valley at the head of Laurel Branch.
“The gate,” she breathed. “The gateway to that mysterious valley where strange people live without visiting the outside world, the valley from which men do not return!” Her heart was all a-tremble. Her shaking knees obliged her to drop suddenly upon an inviting rock.
At once her keen mind was at work. She had come farther than she thought and she should turn back at once. Then, too, that gateway held for her an irresistible fascination. Did she hope from this point of vantage to catch some glimpse of the life of those strange beings who lived beyond the gate? Was some good angel whispering to her soul some of the hidden things of the future? Who can say? Enough that she sat there alone while the dull shadows deepened.
It did not seem strange to her that her thoughts at this moment should turn to the little girl, Hallie, who had been so mysteriously thrust into the life that centered in the old whipsawed house. Indeed, she had often enough associated her with this same stone gateway and had wondered if after all she had been brought through this very portal to the outside world.
Wherever she may have come from, Hallie had grown to be the life of that old brown cabin. She had come to them dressed in a water-soaked scarlet dress and a mud smeared tam that shone bright even in their terrible disarray. The bright colors had suited her so well that they had dressed her so ever since. Closing her eyes, Florence could see her now.
“Like a scarlet bird fluttering from branch to branch of an old tree,” she mused as she saw her moving from room to room. “How we’d miss her if someone came for her!”
Imagine her surprise when upon opening her eyes she saw, not twenty yards before her, down the creek, the very person of whom she had been thinking.
Suppressing a cry of surprise, she waited and watched. Walking slowly, as if in a trance, Hallie passed within four feet of her without seeing her, then marched straight on toward the rocky gateway that lay between her and the hidden valley.
At once Florence’s mind was in a whirl. Her lips parted to call the child back, but no sound came forth.
What should she do? Evidently something had happened to the child. She was in a daze again. Perhaps the old fever that had wiped out her memory had returned. Had memory accompanied it? Was she now groping her way back to her own home?
“Home!” Florence spoke the word softly. Home had meant so much to her. Like a moving panorama she saw before her twilight scenes at home by the fireplace, bed time and prayer beside her bed with her mother bending over, joyous mornings and sunny afternoons. Home! Ah, yes, home! And perhaps this little girl was going home. Could she stop her? And yet, could she allow her to wander alone in the gathering darkness through those forbidding portals?
The answer came quickly. She dropped down into the path, turned toward the stone gateway, then marched steadily forward until both she and the child were lost to view beyond the rocky pillars.
Had Florence chanced to look behind she might have caught sight of a person following at a distance. A skulking figure it was that moved by quick starts and stops from shadow to shadow. And, had her backward glance been rightly timed, had it come as a sudden last feeble burst of sunlight illumined his face, she would have seen that this person was Bud Wax.
Had she seen him her heart would doubtless have been filled with misgivings and wild questions. Why was the boy following her? Was this a trap? What did he know about little Hallie? What of the land beyond the forbidden gateway?
Since she did not look behind her, but walked straight on, she asked herself no such questions. So the three passed into the mysterious beyond, the child as in a dream, the teacher sturdily on duty bound, the boy skulking from shadow to shadow. Hardly had they disappeared when sudden night came down to close the gate with a curtain of darkness.
Have you ever stepped out into a night so dark that you could scarcely see your hand before you, and have you, after taking a few steps from your own doorstep, tried to imagine that you were alone in the dark in lands that were strange to you? If you have, then you can imagine the feeling of Florence as she moved forward into the unknown. Scarcely had the second hand on her watch ticked round three times than she found it necessary to follow the child by sound rather than by sight. Such is the darkness that at times fills rockbound mountain valleys.
So, tripping over rocks, splashing into spring fed pools, slipping on damp moss, she made her way forward. Always following the child, always followed by the skulking figure of the boy, she came at last to a sudden turn in the road, and there, just before her, shone a mellow square of yellow light.
“A home!” she breathed.
At that instant there came the baying challenge of a hound. He was joined by two others, and at once the hills were roaring with echoes of their clamor.
For a second Florence stood there trembling, irresolute. Her mind worked rapidly. To flee would be folly. There was no escaping those roaring beasts. The treatment she might hope to receive from her bitterest enemy would be better. At once, having decided this question, she dashed toward the light.
Hardly had she gone a dozen paces when, with a little cry of surprise and terror, she stumbled over something soft and yielding, then went down sprawling.
At once she was on hand and knees, feeling for the thing that had tripped her. In a second her hands were upon it. Not another second was needed to tell her what it was.
“Hallie,” she whispered. “Hallie! What has happened? Hallie! Get up!”
But the form beside her neither answered nor moved.
In desperation she groped about her for a stone. Having found two of the right size, she crouched there like a panther beside her wounded young. At the same time, in as steady a tone as she could command, she shouted:
“Hey there, you! Call off your dogs! Do you want them to murder an innocent child?”
One instant there came a flood of light from a large door, the next the light was blocked by the form of the largest man Florence had ever seen, and there came such a giant’s roar as quite drowned the baying of the dogs and set the rocks fairly shaking with echoes.
The echoes died away and the dogs were silent. The giant did not speak again, but stood there peering into the darkness. The girl caught the snap-snap of a bat’s jaws as he flew over. She heard the steady tick of her watch. Then of a sudden there came a movement close behind her. Wheeling about, she tried to peer into the darkness but saw nothing. There came no other sound.
So a moment passed on into eternity, and yet another. Then the giant’s voice boomed again:
“Whoever y’ be, come! Them hounds won’t harm you narry bit. There’s chill and right smart of mounting fever in the night air.”
Rising unsteadily, a great fear tugging at her heart, Florence lifted the child in her arms and stumbled along toward the doorway.
As she came nearer, the man turned to speak a word to someone inside and at once the light from within brought out his profile in clear relief. A massive, full-bearded face it was, with a powerful jaw, a large hawk-like nose, and a full forehead. All this was crowned by a tangled mass of iron gray hair.
Two other facts the girl noted with a shudder. The giant’s right sleeve hung limp at his side; in his powerful left arm he held a rifle of gigantic proportions which might suit equally well for either firearm or club.
“It’s the one-armed giant that Ransom Turner told about!” she whispered to herself, more frightened than ever.
Yet, mindful of the good of the child who lay limp in her arms, she trudged sturdily on until the light from the doorway fell full upon her.
Instantly, at sight of them, a change came over the man’s face. The ruddy touch to his cheek turned to ashen. He tottered as if for a fall but, gripping the doorpost, he held his ground and continued his glassy stare until at last words escaped his lips:
“Hit’s Hallie!”
Then, and not till then, did Florence know that she had brought the child to her home.
But the giant? The moment his force of will had loosed his tongue, like some lion who stunned by a shot comes back to life, he became a terrifying creature of tremendous action.
“Hit’s her!” he roared. “They killed her!”
“She’s not dead,” said Florence in as calm a tone as she could command. “Let me by.”
Mechanically the giant moved to one side.
As Florence stepped into the room she took in the interior at a glance. It was the largest room she had seen in the mountains and its walls were of logs. The cracks were well chinked. The floor was clean and the wooden table, on which rested three large candles, was scrubbed to a snowy whiteness. Two beds in a corner were well in order. A burned down fire glowed dully in a broad fireplace.
In the corner by the fireplace stood two women; one tall and young, with the sturdy erectness of her kind; the other bent with age. They had risen from their chairs and were pointing at the child in her arms.
“They’ve killed her!” the giant roared again. The working of his face in rage or sorrow was a terrible thing to see. “You have killed her. Hit’s enough. Give her to me.” He gripped Florence’s arm in a way that brought white lines of pain to her face.
At that instant an astonishing thing happened. A body hurdling through the doorway struck the giant amidship and sent him bowling over like a ten-pin. As he fell he crashed into the table and overturned it. The three candles cut circles through the air, then sputtered out, leaving the place in darkness.
At once Florence’s head was in a whirl. What should she do? Try to escape? Perhaps. But where was the door? She had lost her sense of direction. As she took a step forward her foot caught in some garment and, loosing her hold on the child, she fell heavily.
Stunned by the fall, she lay motionless. As her wandering senses returned she became conscious of the beings about her. She caught the heavy breathing of the old man. No sound came from the corner by the fire. Like all those of their race, the mountain women were neither whining nor sobbing over this sudden commotion in their home, but stood stolidly waiting the next surprising turn of fortune’s wheel.
Darkness continued. Two red coals on the hearth glowed like eyes, but gave forth no light.
Suddenly, as Florence listened, she heard the sharp drawn breath of one in pain.
Who could this be? The person who had leaped through the door? Perhaps, but who was he?
All these wandering thoughts were put to flight by the sudden wail of a child.
“Hit’s Hallie,” said a woman’s voice from the corner. “She hain’t dead. Not near. Betsy Anne, make a light.”
Florence heard a shuffle in that corner, sensed a groping in the dark, then saw a trembling tube of paper thrust against one of the live coals. At once the coal began to brighten.
“Someone blowing it,” she thought.
Five seconds later the tube burst into bright flame, throwing fantastic shadows over the room. A few seconds more and a candle was found. It illumined the cabin with a faint but steady light.
Scarcely knowing whether to flee or stay, Florence glanced hurriedly around her. The giant, having risen to his knees, was bending over the child who was now silently sobbing. The two women were standing nearby and in the corner was the last person Florence had expected to see.
“Bud Wax!” she exclaimed.
Then catching the look of pain on his face, she said with a look of compassion.
“You’re hurt!”
“I—I guess it’s broken,” said the boy, touching the arm that hung limp at his side.
“But why—”
“I—I thought he’d hurt you, and I—I couldn’t—”
“You did it for me! You—” Florence was beginning to understand, or at least to wonder. Bud had done this—Bud, of all persons. Kin of her bitterest enemy, the boy whose choicest possession she had destroyed! And how had he come to be here at that moment? Her head was in a whirl.
“There’s right smart of a rock right outside the door,” the boy grinned. “I were a watchin’ from up there an’ when I seed him grab yore arm I just naturally jumped. I reckon hit were to far.”
“But if your arm is broken, it must be set.”
“Yes’m, I reckon.”
At that moment there was a sound of shuffling feet at the door. Turning about, Florence found herself staring into the face of a man, a face she recognized instantly. The beady eyes, hooked nose, unshaven chin—there could be no mistaking him. It was he who had twice frightened Marion and at one time all but driven little Hallie into hysterics.
“What more could happen in one crowded night?” she asked herself, deep in despair.
Strangely enough, Bud Wax was the one person in the room who brought her comfort. Oddly enough, too, the person she feared most was the one she saw for the first time that very moment, the man at the door.
Even as she stared at this man with a fascination born of fear, the man spoke:
“What you all so shook up about?” he drawled.
“Hit’s Hallie,” the grizzled old man said, running his hand across his brow. “She’s come back. They brung her back. Might nigh kilt her, I reckon, then brung her back.”
Florence’s lips parted in denial, but no words came out. Her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. There she sat, staring dumbly, while a cheap nickel plated alarm clock on the mantelpiece rattled loudly away as if running a race with time, and faintly, from far away, there came the notes of some bird calling to his mate in the night.
* * * * * * * *
At this moment, back in the whipsawed cabin, Marion found herself at once highly elated and greatly depressed.
“If only we can find the rest of them—a whole sack of them!” she whispered excitedly to herself one moment, and the next found herself pacing the floor, murmuring: “Where can they have gone? Why don’t they come back?”
There was no connection between the two emotions which she was experiencing. The first had to do with a letter which had just been brought to her from the little postoffice down the creek; the last with the mysterious disappearance of Florence and Hallie.
The letter was from her friend, the curator at Field Museum. It read:
“Dear Marion:You have made quite a find. How did you happen upon it? But then, I suppose one may find many rare articles back there in the Cumberlands so far from the main channels of commerce and life.The gold piece you sent me is not properly a coin, but a token minted by a private individual. There are enough such tokens in bronze, but the gold ones are rare. Just why any were made is hard to tell. We know they were made, however. Two kinds are known to exist; one made in Georgia, the other in North Carolina.You may not know it, but way back in 1830 gold was mined in Lumpkin County, Georgia, and Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Temple Reid, of Georgia, and a Mr. Bechtler of Rutherfordton, made their gold into tokens and the specimen you have found is a true sample of Georgia gold, very rare and quite valuable. Should you care to sell this one, and should you find others, I have no doubt they might be readily disposed of at something like sixty or seventy dollars for each piece.”
“Dear Marion:
You have made quite a find. How did you happen upon it? But then, I suppose one may find many rare articles back there in the Cumberlands so far from the main channels of commerce and life.
The gold piece you sent me is not properly a coin, but a token minted by a private individual. There are enough such tokens in bronze, but the gold ones are rare. Just why any were made is hard to tell. We know they were made, however. Two kinds are known to exist; one made in Georgia, the other in North Carolina.
You may not know it, but way back in 1830 gold was mined in Lumpkin County, Georgia, and Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Temple Reid, of Georgia, and a Mr. Bechtler of Rutherfordton, made their gold into tokens and the specimen you have found is a true sample of Georgia gold, very rare and quite valuable. Should you care to sell this one, and should you find others, I have no doubt they might be readily disposed of at something like sixty or seventy dollars for each piece.”
“Sixty or seventy dollars!” Marion exclaimed as she read the letter for a third time. “At that rate a mere handful of them would be worth quite a small fortune, and even the price of one is not to be sneered at. It would help toward repairing the schoolhouse.”
“It wouldn’t go far,” smiled Mrs. McAlpin. “That schoolhouse needs a new roof, a new floor, doors, windows, blackboards and seats. Otherwise it is a very good schoolhouse. But then, what is the use of your dreaming about that? Ransom Turner says the election is lost, and he should know.”
“Yes, he should.” A cloud spread over Marion’s face as she sat down. The cloud was replaced by a frown as she sprang to her feet to pace the floor and exclaim for the fourth time:
“Where can they have gone? Why don’t they come back?”
“Have no doubt,” said Mrs. McAlpin, “that they went together to a cabin for supper or to spend the night.”
They—Florence and Hallie—had indeed gone to a cabin to spend the night; but such a cabin, and such a night!
Marion knew that Mrs. McAlpin did not feel half the assurance she tried to express. Little Hallie had disappeared, leaving no trail behind. Florence had left the whipsawed cabin, saying she was going for a walk but would return for supper. She had not returned. Darkness had come, supper time had passed. Their supper stood untouched and cold on the table.
“I still have hopes of finding the rest of that Georgia gold,” said Marion, talking more to herself than to Mrs. McAlpin. “Perhaps it isn’t all Georgia gold. There may be some Confederate gold mixed in with it. One never can tell. It certainly would be thrilling to discover some real Confederate gold. I’m not at all satisfied with our search of the attic.”
“Was there anything up there beside this one bit of gold?” On Mrs. McAlpin’s face there was such an amused smile as one might expect to find there had a child told her he meant to go in search of the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.
“Nothing but a heavy old pounding mill,” replied Marion.
“Why should one wish to store a pounding mill in an attic? They are always used out of doors.”
“I don’t know,” said the girl thoughtfully. “Might be sort of an heirloom.”
“Rather ponderous I should say.”
Marion caught her breath. Uncle Billie had said that old block of a pounding mill was uncommonly heavy. Here was food for thought. The first thing in the morning she would go up there. She would—
At this moment her thoughts were cut short by a sudden burst of thunder that went rolling and reverberating down the mountain.
“We’re in for a storm!” she exclaimed, dashing toward the door.
They were in for a storm indeed; such a storm as had not been known on Laurel Branch in years. For an hour Marion sat by the doorway watching the play of lightning as it flashed from peak to peak on Big Black Mountain. The deafening peals of thunder, like the roar of gigantic cannons in some endless battle, came rumbling down from the hills to shake the very cabin floor. Through all this one thought was uppermost in Marion’s mind, one question repeated itself again and again:
“Where is Florence and little Hallie?”
At the very moment when Marion was wondering and worrying about her pal, Florence was learning how truly one might trust the providence of God.
Being cornered, with the grizzled giant before her accusing her of “might nigh killing” little Hallie, and with the beady-eyed individual, whom she feared most of all, blocking the door before her, and with Bud Wax, whom she had always thought of as a member of the enemy’s clan, groaning with pain in the corner, she had reached the point of utter distraction when of a sudden the man in the doorway spoke.
He had just been told that little Hallie had returned home, “might nigh killed.”
“T’ain’t so!” he exclaimed, looking first at the one-armed giant and then at Florence. “Hain’t narry a word of truth in what you just been saying, Job Creech. Them thar folks never hurt Hallie. They never teched one hair on her head. They was plumb kind an’ gentle with her. I been watchin’. I knowed whar she was. She was so pert and contented hit were a shame to tote her away.”
Nothing could have more surprised Florence than this speech; nothing could have more quickly released her pent-up powers and set her brain working on the needs of the moment.
“Hain’t nobody been totin’ Hallie back,” grumbled the giant. “This here fureign lady brung her back.”
Florence did not hear this speech. She was already bending over the silently sobbing child. After loosening her clothes, she chafed her cold hands and feet until a warm red glow returned to them; then, picking her up, she placed her on the bed and covered her in home woven blankets. In less than a minute Hallie fell into a peaceful sleep.
“She’ll be all right when she wakens,” Florence smiled reassuringly at the younger woman, who she thought might be the little girl’s mother. “When she wakes up she may even recognize you all. I hope so.”
The woman stared at her as if she had spoken to them in a foreign language.
Disregarding this, she turned to the man at the door. “This boy has broken his arm,” she said, nodding at Bud. “It will have to be set. Have you anything that will do for splints?”
“I reckon thar’s right smart of shakes outen the shed.”
“Will you get me some?”
The man disappeared.
After a search she found in the corner an old, faded calico dress which was quite clean.
“This will do for binding,” she said, looking at the women. “You don’t mind if I use it?”
“’T’ain’t no account noways.”
“All right. Thanks.”
She was obliged to hurt Bud severely while getting the bone in place and binding it, but the boy uttered never a groan.
By the time this task was completed, finding herself quite shaky and weak, Florence somehow made her way to a splint-bottomed chair by the fire. Fresh fuel had been put on. In spite of the deluge of water that now and again came dashing down the chimney, the fire burned brightly. The thunder storm was now in full progress. Florence was surprised at noting this.
So preoccupied had she been with her errands of mercy that she had neither heard nor seen anything of it until this moment.
Strange indeed were her thoughts as she sat there staring at the fire. At times it was the fire itself that held her attention. Led on by the challenge of wind and storm, it went roaring and laughing up the chimney, for all the world as if it meant to dispel the damp and cold from every cabin in the mountains. A moment later, slapped squarely in the face by a deluge of rain, it shrunk down within itself until the whole cabin was in darkness.
“It—it’s given up,” Florence would whisper to herself with a half sob. “But no! There it is rising from its own blackened ruins to roar with cheer again.
“It’s like life,” she told herself. And, indeed, how like her own life it was. Only a few days before she had been fired with hope and desire to be of service to these mountain people. Now, with hopes drowned and courage well nigh gone, she waited only to battle her way through the coming trial and the election that seemed certain defeat. A lump rose in her throat at the thought.
But again, as the fire battling its way once more up the chimney flung free its challenge to the elements, she was driven to believe that courage, hope and desire to serve would again burn brightly in her heart.
“Hope!” she whispered. “What hope can there be? The election is lost! The winter school a thing of the past. How can it be otherwise? And yet I do hope!”
These thoughts passed. She had become suddenly conscious of her immediate surroundings. She was well within the natural stone gateway through which entrance had been forbidden heretofore. She was in the midst of a strange and mysterious people, in the very cabin of their leader. Of this last she felt sure.
She recalled with a sudden shock the weird tales she had heard told of these people, of the peddler with his rich pack of linens and box of jewelry, and of the one-armed fiddler who had passed this way to be seen no more.
“And now I am here,” she whispered, her limbs trembling with terror. “And on such a night!”
Even as she spoke there came such a rolling crash of thunder as set the dishes in the little wall cupboard rattling and brought a huge cross-log on the fire down with a thud and sputter that sent sparks flying everywhere. She caught the rush of water outside, not alone the constant beating of the rain, but louder and more terrifying than that, the mighty rush and roar of a cataract. Swollen to twenty times its natural size, Laurel Creek had become a mighty Niagara.
Turning about, she allowed her gaze to sweep the room. In one corner on a bed little Hallie slept peacefully. In the opposite corner the man with the hooked nose had thrown himself across the other bed. The two women had vanished, probably into the other room of the cabin. In the corner, with head pillowed on his uninjured arm, Bud Wax slept.
“He doesn’t look to be such a bad fellow,” Florence told herself. And so he didn’t. On his face there was such an expression as one might expect to find upon the countenance of one who, having lived through a long and hard fought battle for self and self interests, had at last found peace in service for another.
Florence read the look pictured there, but she could not account for it. She could not guess why the boy was there at all, nor why he had made the attack that had resulted in the broken arm. It was all very strange and puzzling.
Strangest of all was the thing the one-armed giant was engaged in at that particular moment. On a small chair that emphasized his hugeness, with head bent low and lips constantly moving, he sat whispering over an old Bible, spelling out the words one by one. As the fire regained courage to do its best, lighting up his aged face with a sort of halo, the girl thought she had never seen upon any face before a look so restful, benevolent and benign.
At that moment a hand touched her shoulder. She turned about and found herself looking into the wrinkled face of the old woman.
“Thought y’ might like to lay down a spell,” she said, jerking her thumb toward a door that led to the other room.
Without a word Florence followed her and, fifteen minutes later, buried beneath a pile of home woven coverlids, she lay lost in dreamless sleep.
* * * * * * * *
Marion sat upon a bed of moss well up the side of Big Black Mountain. Three days had passed since the mysterious disappearance of Florence and little Hallie, three days of tormenting anxiety. Every creek and runway had been searched, but to no purpose. They had vanished as completely as they might had the earth swallowed them up.
Only one spot remained to be searched—the head of Laurel Creek, beyond the natural gateway.
“They can’t have gone up there,” Mrs. McAlpin had said in a tone of deep conviction. “Florence knew well enough the reputation of those strange people. Nothing could have induced her to pass that forbidden barrier.”
Not satisfied with this, Marion had gone to Ransom Turner about it.
“Hit’s past reason!” he said emphatically. “Them’s the killingest folks in the mountains. That’s a fact, though they’ve never been made to stand trial. She’d never dare to go up there. An’ besides, if hit were best to go there to search, you’d have to git you up half the men in these here mountains, and there’d sure be a big fight right thar.”
So the other hillsides had been searched and the tongues of local gossipers had wagged incessantly. Bitter enemies had it that, seeing herself defeated in the coming election and being ashamed or afraid to stand trial for carrying concealed weapons, the girl had fled in the night and had taken the child with her to the “Outside.” All this, they argued, was known well enough by Mrs. McAlpin and Marion, but they did not care to admit it.
In spite of all this, Ransom Turner and Marion had continued, almost against hope, to carry on the election fight. Black Blevens had sent word to Lige Howard up on Pounding Mill Creek that his mortgage would be foreclosed if he and his three boys did not promise to come down on election day and vote for him as trustee. Ransom Turner, on hearing this had sent word to Lige that his mortgage would be taken care of—that he was to vote for the best man.
Mary Anne Kelly, a niece of Black Blevens, who lived down at the mouth of Ages Creek, sent word to her fiance, Buckner Creech, that if he did not vote right she would break her engagement. That had put Buckner on the doubtful list. Pole Cawood’s wife, who was a daughter of Black Blevens, threatened to leave him and his four small children if he did not vote for her father.
“Such,” said Marion, rubbing her forehead with a groan, “is a school election in the Cumberlands. Nothing is too low or mean if only it helps to gain an advantage. We have fought fair, and lost, as far as I can see. Ransom says we will lack ten or twelve votes, and he doesn’t know where we can find a single other one.”
And yet, with the cheerful optimism of youth, the girl still hoped against hope and looked forward with some eagerness the coming of to-morrow and the election.
Needless to say, with worry over Florence and Hallie, and interest in the election, she had found neither time nor interest for further exploration of the attic nor a search for Jeff Middleton’s treasure.
* * * * * * * *
Strange were the circumstances that had held Florence within the forbidden gates these three long days.
She had wakened with a start on the morning following the storm and her strange experiences in the cabin. The sun, streaming through a small window, had awakened her. At first she had been utterly unable to account for her strange surroundings. Then, like a flash, it all came to her. The aged giant, Bud Wax with his arm in a sling, the women, the other man, little Hallie, the storm,—all the strange and mysterious doings of the night flashed through her mind and left her wondering.
The very window through which the sunlight streamed suggested mystery. Whence had it come? These mysterious people who lived beyond the stone gateway had come from below, had travelled up Laurel Creek and had not come back to the settlement. Where had the glass for the window come from? Had it been taken from some older cabin? This log cabin seemed quite new. Had these strange people some hidden trail to the outside world? Ransom Turner had said there was no mountain pass at the head of Laurel Branch. Could it be possible that he was wrong?
All the wondering was cut short by thought of little Hallie. How was she? Had consciousness returned? Perhaps she needed care at this very moment.
With this thought uppermost in her mind, Florence sprang from her bed, drew on her outer garments, then pushed open the door that led to the other room.
She found Hallie feverish, and somewhat delirious. Upon discovering this, without begging leave of her strange host and with not one thought for her own safety, she set herself about the task of bringing the bloom of health back to the child’s cheek.
The people about her brought the things she asked for, then stood or sat quietly about as they might had she been a doctor.
During the course of the day some twenty men and women, and quite as many children, came to peek shyly in at the door, or to enter and sit whispering together.
“More people in this neighborhood than one would think,” was Florence’s mental comment.