It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.
The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still for an instant.
The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the mountain air tasted of the fresh sylvan fragrance that pervaded the forest, the foliage blazed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant Chilhowee heights were delicately blue.
That instant's doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The flock took suddenly to wing,—a flash from among the leaves, the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and down toward the valley.
The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the depths where his game had disappeared.
"Waal, sir," he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If my luck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"
He did not laugh, however. Perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley far below.
As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.
The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and he hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the cliff?
It was risky, Ethan knew,—terribly risky. But then,—if only the vines were strong!
He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off the crag.
He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his downward journey.
Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and strong to the last. Almost before he knew it he stood upon the ledge, and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.
"Waal, that warn't sech a mighty job at last. But law, ef it hed been Peter Birt stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!"
He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These preparations complete, he began to think of going back.
He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.
He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their strength by pulling with all his force.
Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction against the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge instead of midway in his precarious ascent.
"Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin' up, I'd hev been flung plumb down ter the bottom o' the valley, 'kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev cotched me."
He glanced down at the sombre depths beneath. "Thar wouldn't hev been enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!" he exclaimed, with a tardy realization of his foolish recklessness.
The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.
He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to which he might cling.
His strong head was whirling as he again glanced downward to the unmeasured abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink into a sitting posture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths, and addressed himself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible danger in which he was placed.
HOW LONG WAS IT TO LASTHOW LONG WAS IT TO LAST
Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any human being for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the place was far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge.
There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequented portion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct some hunter's step.
It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might elapse before the forest solitude would again be broken by human presence.
His brothers would search for him when he should be missed from home,—but such boundless stretches of forest! They might search for weeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he would starve,—no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall—fall—fall!
He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizes upon those who stand on great heights,—an overwhelming impulse to plunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up to the sky.
And what were these words he was beginning to faintly remember? Had not the circuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow falls to the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in this suggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big blue sky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope.
He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worst should come,—was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrance the sparrow's fall.
He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancy when he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more and more distinct,—a shambling step, that curiously stopped at intervals and kicked the fallen leaves.
He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a sound issued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step came nearer. It would presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth a wild, hoarse cry.
The rocks reverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly there was an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on the verge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering off very fast indeed.
The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on an unimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his sudden cry.
"Stop, bubby!" he shouted; "stop a minute! It's Ethan Tynes that's callin' of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!"
The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boy demanded, "Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?"
"I'm down hyar on the ledge o' the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?"
"George Birt," promptly replied the little boy. "What air ye doin' down thar? I thought it war Satan a-callin' of me. I never seen nobody."
"I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an' I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother's house, an' tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climb up by."
Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with a celerity proportionate to the importance of the errand. On the contrary, the step was approaching the crag.
A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of the broken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair of sharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down on his stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, that he might not fling away his life in his curiosity.
"Did ye git it?" he asked, with bated breath.
"Git what?" demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient.
"The tur-r-key—what ye hev done been talkin' 'bout," said George Birt.
Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey. "Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off'n this hyar place,—I'm gittin' stiff sittin' still so long,—or the wind mought blow me off. The wind is blowin' toler'ble brief."
"Gobbler or hen?" asked George Birt eagerly.
"It air a hen," said Ethan. "But look-a-hyar, George, I'm a-waitin' on ye, an' ef I'd fall off'n this hyar place, I'd be ez dead ez a door-nail in a minute."
"Waal, I'm goin' now," said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. He raised himself from his recumbent position, and Ethan heard him shambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as he went.
Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of the cliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length,—for the mountain children are very careful of the precipices,—snaked along dexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red head cautiously, began to parley once more, trading on Ethan's necessities.
"Ef I go on this yerrand fur ye," he said, looking very sharp indeed, "will ye gimme one o' the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?"
He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The "whing" of the domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and is considered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birt aped the customs of his elders, regardless of sex,—a characteristic of very small boys.
"Oh, go 'long, bubby!" exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at the dilatoriness and indifference of his unique deliverer. "I'll give ye both o' the whings." He would have offered the turkey willingly, if "bubby" had seemed to crave it.
"Waal, I'm goin' now."
George Birt rose from the ground and started off briskly, exhilarated by the promise of both the "whings."
Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back. Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially a deliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan's gratitude would have been great enough to insure that small red head against a vigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was once more cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff.
"I kem back hyar ter tell ye," the doughty deliverer began, with an air of great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme relish, "that I can't go an' tell Pete 'bout'n the rope till I hev done kem back from the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece, with a bag o' corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill. My mother air a-settin' at home now a-waitin' fur that thar corn-meal ter bake dodgers with. An' I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war lent ter my dad las' week. An' I'm afeard ter walk about much with this hyar dime; I mought lose it, ye know. An' I can't go home 'thout the meal; I'll ketch it ef I do. But I'll tell Pete arter I git back from the mill."
"The mill!" echoed Ethan, aghast. "What air ye doin' on this side o' the mounting, ef ye air a-goin' ter the mill? This ain't the way ter the mill."
"I kem over hyar," said the little boy, still with much importance of manner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on his freckled face, "ter see 'bout'n a trap that I hev sot fur squir'ls. I'll see 'bout my trap, an' then I hev ter go ter the mill, 'kase my mother air a-settin' in our house now a-waitin' fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers. Then I'll tell Pete whar ye air, an' what ye said 'bout'n the rope. Ye must jes' wait fur me hyar."
Poor Ethan could do nothing else.
As the echo of the boy's shambling step died in the distance, a redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored to solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.
This idea buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fall into those dread depths beneath.
His patience at last began to give way. His heart was sinking. His messenger had been even more dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell of his danger?
The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and crimson clouds and an opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to the broken vines on the ledge.
And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and there were frowning masses of clouds overhead.
The shadow of the coming night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.
And now came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain ranges, a sombre rain-cloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing on the treetops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his head.
The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down tumultuously, not in columns, but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious brightness within,—too bright for human eyes.
He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was full of that wild symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill tones.
He became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds.
The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was beginning to fail.
George Birt had indeed forgotten him,—forgotten even the promised "whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his trap, for his trap was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.
To sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as grotesque as the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history.
As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top of a large pincushion.
At home, he found the elders unreasonable,—as elders usually are considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for bed when small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement.
"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."
"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild tur-r-key's whings like he promised."
"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his friend.
"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."
"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for generosity.
"Waal,"—there was an expression of embarrassment on the important freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory manner,—"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings—I mean, he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened a—leetle—while—arter dinner-time."
"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.
There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of embarrassment. "Waal,"—the youngster balanced this word judicially,—"I forgot 'bout'n the tur-r-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar yit."
"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed Pete, appalled, and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that thar boy is ter put him on the fire fur a back-log."
Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the well, asked the crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two relative to locality, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.
The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.
When he had hitched his horse to a tree, and set out on foot to find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so intermittent that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.
"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to himself, in one of these eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all night."
The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more indubitably by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He called, but received no response.
"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as though the speaker had just awaked.
"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and flung it over the bluff.
At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to his feet.
He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath. Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over hand, up, and up, and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the crag.
And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'm a-thinkin'," said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyar mounting, from a b'ar ter a copper-head, that could hev got in sech a fix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes."
And Ethan was silent.
"What's this hyar thing at the e-end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as he began to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.
"It air the tur-r-key," said Ethan meekly.
"I tied her ter the e-end o' the rope afore I kem up."
"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.
And George, for duty performed, was remunerated with the two "whings," although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan whether or not he deserved them.
Not far from an abrupt precipice on a certain great mountain spur there stands in the midst of the red and yellow autumn woods a little log "church-house." The nuts rattle noisily down on its roof; sometimes during "evenin' preachin'"—which takes place in the afternoon—a flying-squirrel frisks near the window; the hymns echo softly, softly, from the hazy sunlit heights across the valley.
"That air the doxol'gy," said Tom Brent, one day, pausing to listen among the wagons and horses hitched outside. He was about to follow home his father's mare, that had broken loose and galloped off through the woods, but as he glanced back at the church, a sudden thought struck him. He caught sight of the end of little Jim Coggin's comforter flaunting out through the "chinking,"—as the mountaineers call the series of short slats which are set diagonally in the spaces between the logs of the walls, and on which the clay is thickly daubed. This work had been badly done, and in many places the daubing had fallen away. Thus it was that as Jim Coggin sat within the church, the end of his plaid comforter had slipped through the chinking and was waving in the wind outside.
Now Jim had found the weather still too warm for his heavy jeans jacket, but he was too cool without it, and he had ingeniously compromised the difficulty by wearing his comforter in this unique manner,—laying it on his shoulders, crossing it over the chest, passing it under the arms, and tying it in a knot between the shoulder-blades. Tom remembered this with a grin as he slyly crept up to the house, and it was only the work of a moment to draw that knot through the chinking and secure it firmly to a sumach bush that grew near at hand.
It never occurred to him that the resounding doxology could fail to rouse that small, tow-headed, freckle-faced boy, or that the congregation might slowly disperse without noticing him as he sat motionless and asleep in the dark shadow.
The sun slipped down into the red west; the blue mountains turned purple; heavy clouds gathered, and within three miles there was no other human creature when Jim suddenly woke to the darkness and the storm and the terrible loneliness.
Where was he? He tried to rise: he could not move. Bewildered, he struggled and tugged at his harness,—all in vain. As he realized the situation, he burst into tears.
"Them home-folks o' mine won't kem hyar ter s'arch fur me," he cried desperately, "kase I tole my mother ez how I war a-goin' ter dust down the mounting ter Aunt Jerushy's house ez soon ez meet'n' war out an' stay all night along o' her boys."
Still he tried to comfort himself by reflecting that it was not so bad as it might have been. There was no danger that he would have to starve and pine here till next Sunday, for a "protracted meeting" was in progress, service was held every day, and the congregation would return to-morrow, which was Thursday.
His philosophy, however, was short-lived, for the sudden lightning rent the clouds, and a terrific peal of thunder echoed among the cliffs.
"The storm air a-comin' up the mounting!" he exclaimed, in vivacious protest. "An' ef this brief wind war ter whurl the old church-house off'n the bluff an' down inter the valley whar-r—would—I—be?"
All at once the porch creaked beneath a heavy tread. A clumsy hand was fumbling at the door. "Strike a light," said a gruff voice without.
As a lantern was thrust in, Jim was about to speak, but the words froze upon his lips for fear when a man strode heavily over the threshold and he caught the expression of his face.
It was an evil face, red and bloated and brutish. He had small, malicious, twinkling eyes, and a shock of sandy hair. A suit of copper-colored jeans hung loosely on his tall, lank frame, and when he placed the lantern on a bench and stretched out both arms as if he were tired, he showed that his left hand was maimed,—the thumb had been cut off at the first joint.
A thickset, short, swaggering man tramped in after him.
"Waal, Amos Brierwood," he said, "it's safes' fur us ter part. We oughter be fur enough from hyar by daybreak. Divide that thar traveler's money—hey?"
They carefully closed the rude shutters, barred the door, and sat down on the "mourners' bench," neither having noticed the small boy at the other end of the room.
Poor Jim, his arms akimbo and half-covered by his comforter, stuck to the wall like a plaid bat,—if such a natural curiosity is imaginable,—feverishly hoping that the men might go without seeing him at all.
For surely no human creature could be more abhorrent, more incredibly odious of aspect, than Amos Brierwood as he sat there, his red, brutish face redder still with a malign pleasure, his malicious eyes gloating over the rolls of money which he drew from a pocket-book stolen from some waylaid traveler, snapping his fingers in exultation when the amount of the bills exceeded his expectation.
The leaves without were fitfully astir, and once the porch creaked suddenly. Brierwood glanced at the door sharply,—even fearfully,—his hand motionless on the rolls of money.
"Only the wind, Amos, only the wind!" said the short, stout man impatiently.
But he, himself, was disquieted the next moment when a horse neighed shrilly.
"That ain't my beastis, Amos, nor yit your'n!" he cried, starting up.
"It air the traveler's, ye sodden idjit!" said Brierwood, lifting his uncouth foot and giving him a jocose kick.
But the short man was not satisfied. He rose, went outside, and Jim could hear him beating about among the bushes. Presently he came in again. "'Twar the traveler's critter, I reckon; an' that critter an' saddle oughter be counted in my sheer."
Then they fell to disputing and quarreling,—once they almost fought,—but at length the division was made and they rose to go. As Brierwood swung his lantern round, his malicious eyes fell upon the poor little plaid bat sticking against the wall.
He stood in the door staring, dumfounded for a moment. Then he clenched his fist, and shook it fiercely. "How did ye happen ter be hyar this time o' the night, ye limb o' Satan?" he cried.
"Dunno," faltered poor Jim.
The other man had returned too. "Waal, sir, ef that thar boy hed been a copper-head now, he'd hev bit us, sure!"
"He mought do that yit," said Amos Brierwood, with grim significance. "He hev been thar all this time,—'kase he air tied thar, don't ye see? An' he heveyes, an' he hevears. What air ter hender?"
The other man's face turned pale, and Jim thought that they were afraid he would tell all he had seen and heard. The manner of both had changed, too. They had a skulking, nervous way with them now in place of the coarse bravado that had characterized them hitherto.
Amos Brierwood pondered for a few minutes. Then he sullenly demanded,—
"What's yer name?"
"It air Jeemes Coggin," quavered the little boy.
"Coggin, hey?" exclaimed Brierwood, with a new idea bringing back the malicious twinkle to his eyes. He laughed as though mightily relieved, and threw up his left hand and shook it exultingly.
The shadow on the dark wall of that maimed hand with only the stump of a thumb was a weird, a horrible thing to the child. He had no idea that his constant notice of it would stamp it in his memory, and that something would come of this fact. He was glad when the shadow ceased to writhe and twist upon the wall, and the man dropped his arm to his side again.
"What's a-brewin', Amos?" asked the other, who had been watching Brierwood curiously.
They whispered aside for a few moments, at first anxiously and then with wild guffaws of satisfaction. When they approached the boy, their manner had changed once more.
"Waal, I declar, bubby," said Brierwood agreeably, "this hyar fix ez ye hev got inter air sateful fur true! It air enough ter sot enny boy on the mounting cat-a-wampus. 'Twar a good thing ez we-uns happened ter kem by hyar on our way from the tan-yard way down yander in the valley whar we-uns hev been ter git paid up fur workin' thar some. We'll let ye out. Who done yer this hyar trick?"
"Dunno—witches, I reckon!" cried poor Jim, bursting into tears.
"Witches!" the man exclaimed, "the woods air a-roamin' with 'em this time o' the year; bein', ye see, ez they kem ter feed on the mast."
He chuckled as he said this, perhaps at the boy's evident terror,—for Jim was sorrowfully superstitious,—perhaps because he had managed to cut unnoticed a large fragment from the end of the comforter. This he stuffed into his own pocket as he talked on about two witches, whom he said he had met that afternoon under an oak-tree feeding on acorns.
"An' now, I kem ter remind myself that them witches war inquirin' round 'bout'n a boy—war his name Jeemes Coggin? Le''s see! That boy's namewarJeemes Coggin!"
While Jim stood breathlessly, intently listening, Brierwood had twisted something into the folds of his comforter so dexterously that unless this were untied it would not fall; it was a silk handkerchief of a style never before seen in the mountains, and he had made a knot hard and fast in one corner.
"Thar, now!" he exclaimed, holding up the fragment of knitted yarn, "I hev tore yer comforter. Never mind, bubby, 'twar tore afore. But it'll do ter wrop up this money-purse what b'longs ter yer dad. He lef' it hid in the chinking o' the wall over yander close ter whar I war sittin' when I fust kem in. I'll put it back thar, 'kase yer dad don't want nobody ter know whar it air hid."
He strode across the room and concealed the empty pocket-book in the chinking.
"Ef ye won't tell who teched it, I'll gin a good word fur ye ter them witches what war inquirin' round fur ye ter-day."
Jim promised in hot haste, and then, the rain having ceased, he started for home, but Brierwood stopped him at the door.
"Hold on thar, bub. I kem mighty nigh furgittin' ter let ye know ez I seen yer brother Alf awhile back, an' he axed me ter git ye ter go by Tom Brent's house, an' tell Tom ter meet him up the road a piece by that thar big sulphur spring. Will ye gin Tom that message? Tell him Alf said ter come quick."
Once more Jim promised.
The two men holding the lantern out in the porch watched him as he pounded down the dark road, his tow hair sticking out of his tattered black hat, the ends of his comforter flaunting in the breeze, and every gesture showing the agitated haste of a witch-scared boy. Then they looked at each other significantly, and laughed loud and long.
"He'll tell sech a crooked tale ter-morrer that Alf Coggin an' his dad will see sights along o' that traveler's money!" said Brierwood, gloating over his sharp management as he and his accomplice mounted their horses and rode off in opposite directions.
When Jim reached Tom Brent's house, and knocked at the door, he was so absorbed in his terrors that, as it opened, he said nothing for a moment. He could see the family group within. Tom's father was placidly smoking. His palsied "gran'dad" shook in his chair in the chimney-corner as he told the wide-eyed boys big tales about the "Injuns" that harried the early settlers in Tennessee.
"Tom," Jim said, glancing up at the big boy,—"Tom, thar's a witch waitin' fur ye at the sulphur spring! Go thar, quick!"
"Not ef I knows what's good fur me!" protested Tom, with a great horse-laugh. "What ails ye, boy? Ye talk like ye war teched in the head!"
"I went ter say ez Alf Coggin air thar waitin' fur ye," Jim began again, nodding his slandered head with great solemnity, "an' tole me ter tell ye ter kem thar quick."
He took no heed of the inaccuracy of the message; he was glancing fearfully over his shoulder, and the next minute scuttled down the road in a bee-line for home.
Tom hurried off briskly through the woods. "Waal, sir! I'm mighty nigh crazed ter know what Alf Coggin kin want o' me; goin' coon-huntin', mebbe," he speculated, as he drew within sight of an old lightning-scathed tree which stood beside the sulphur spring and stretched up, stark and white, in the dim light.
The clouds were blowing away from a densely instarred sky; the moon was hardly more than a crescent and dipping low in the west, but he could see the sombre outline of the opposite mountain, and the white mists that shifted in a ghostly and elusive fashion along the summit. The night was still, save for a late katydid, spared by the frost, and piping shrilly.
He experienced a terrible shock of surprise when a sudden voice—a voice he had never heard before—cried out sharply, "Hello there! Help! help!"
As he pressed tremulously forward, he beheld a sight which made him ask himself if it were possible that Alf Coggin had sent for him to join in some nefarious work which had ended in leaving a man—a stranger—bound to the old lightning-scathed tree.
Even in the uncertain light Tom could see that he waspallid and panting, evidently exhausted in some desperate struggle: there was blood on his face, his clothes were torn, and by all odds he was the angriest man that was ever waylaid and robbed.
"Ter-morrer he'll be jes' a-swoopin'!" thought Tom, tremulously untying the complicated knots, and listening to his threats of vengeance on the unknown robbers, "an' every critter on the mounting will git a clutch from his claws."
And in fact, it was hardly daybreak before the constable of the district, who lived hard by in the valley, was informed of all the details of the affair, so far as known to Tom or the "Traveler,"—for thus the mountaineers designated him, as if he were the only one in the world.
By reason of the message which Jim had delivered, and its strange result, they suspected the Coggins, and as they rode together to the justice's house for a warrant, this suspicion received unexpected confirmation in a rumor that they found afloat. Every man they met stopped them to repeat the story that Coggin's boy had told somebody that it was his father who had robbed the traveler, and hid the empty pocket-book in the chinking of the church wall. No one knew who had set this report in circulation, but a blacksmith said he heard it first from a man named Brierwood, who had stopped at his shop to have his horse shod.
It was still early when they reached Jim Coggin's home; the windows and doors were open to let out the dust, for his mother was just beginning to sweep. She had pushed aside the table, when her eyes suddenly distended with surprise as they fell upon a silk handkerchief lying on the floor beside it. The moment that she stooped and picked it up, the strange gentleman stepped upon the porch, and through the open door he saw it dangling from her hands.
He tapped the constable on the shoulder.
"That's my property!" he said tersely.
The officer stepped in instantly. "Good-mornin', Mrs. Coggin," he said politely. "'T would pleasure me some ter git a glimpse o' that handkercher."
"Air it your'n?" asked the woman wonderingly. "I jes' now fund it, an' I war tried ter know who had drapped it hyar."
The officer, without a word, untied the knot which Amos Brierwood had made in one corner, while the Coggins looked on in open-mouthed amazement. It contained a five-dollar bill, and a bit of paper on which some careless memoranda had been jotted down in handwriting which the traveler claimed as his own.
It seemed a very plain case. Still, he got out of the sound of the woman's sobs and cries as soon as he conveniently could, and sauntered down the road, where the officer presently overtook him with Alf and his father in custody.
"Whar be ye a-takin' of us now?" cried the elder, gaunt and haggard, and with his long hair blowing in the breeze.
"Ter the church-house, whar yer boy says ye hev hid the traveler's money-purse," said the officer.
"My boy!" exclaimed John Coggin, casting an astounded glance upon his son.
Poor Alf was almost stunned. When they reached the church, and the men, after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to save trouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, he could only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally he burst into tears.
"Ax the t'other one—the leetle boy," suggested an old man in the crowd.
Alf's heart sank—sank like lead—when Jim, suddenly remembering the promised "good word" to the witches, piped out, "I war tole not ter tell who teched it,—'kase my dad didn't want nobody ter know 'twar hid thar."
John Coggin's face was rigid and gray.
"The Lord hev forsook me!" he cried. "An' all my chillen hev turned liars tergether."
Then he made a great effort to control himself.
"Look-a-hyar, Jim, ef ye hev got the truth in ye,—speak it! Ef ye know whar I hev hid anything,—find it!"
Jim, infinitely important, and really understanding little of what was going on, except that all these big men were looking at him, crossed the room with as much stateliness as is compatible with a pair of baggy brown jeans trousers, a plaid comforter tied between the shoulder-blades in a big knot, a tow-head, and a tattered black hat; he slipped his grimy paw in the chinking where Amos Brierwood had hid the pocket-book, and drew it thence, with the prideful exclamation,—
"B'longs ter my dad!"
The officer held it up empty before the traveler,—he held up, too, the bit of comforter in which it was folded, and pointed to the small boy's shoulders. The gentleman turned away, thoroughly convinced. Alf and his father looked from one to the other, in mute despair. They foresaw many years of imprisonment for a crime which they had not committed.
The constable was hurrying his prisoners toward the door, when there was a sudden stir on the outskirts of the crowd. Old Parson Payne was pushing his way in, followed by a tall young man, who, in comparison with the mountaineers, seemed wonderfully prosperous and well-clad, and very fresh and breezy.
"You're all on the wrong track!" he cried.
And his story proved this, though it was simple enough.
He was sojourning in the mountains with some friends on a "camp-hunt," and the previous evening he had chanced to lose his way in the woods. When night and the storm came on, he was perhaps five miles from camp. He mistook the little "church-house" for a dwelling, and dismounting, he hitched his horse in the laurel, intending to ask for shelter for the night. As he stepped upon the porch, however, he caught a glimpse, through the chinking, of the interior, and he perceived that the building was a church. There were benches and a rude pulpit. The next instant, his attention was riveted by the sight of two men, one of whom had drawn a knife upon the other, quarreling over a roll of money. He stood rooted to the spot in surprise. Gradually, he began to understand the villainy afoot, for he overheard all that they said to each other, and afterward to Jim. He saw one of the men cut the bit from the comforter, wrap the pocket-book in it, and hide it away, and he witnessed a dispute between them, which went on in dumb show behind the boy's back, as to which of two bills should be knotted in the handkerchief which they twisted into the comforter.
The constable was pressing him to describe the appearance of the ruffians.
"Why," said the stranger, "one of them was long, and lank, and loose-jointed, and had sandy hair, and"—He paused abruptly, cudgeling his memory for something more distinctive, for this description would apply to half the men in the room, and thus it would be impossible to identify and capture the robbers.
"He hedn't no thumb sca'cely on his lef' hand," piped out Jim, holding up his own grimy paw, and looking at it with squinting intensity as he crooked it at the first joint, to imitate the maimed hand.
"No thumb!" exclaimed the constable excitedly. "Amos Brierwood fur a thousand!"
Jim nodded his head intelligently, with sudden recollection. "That air the name ez the chunky man gin him when they fust kem in."
And thus it was that when the Coggins were presently brought before the justice, they were exonerated of all complicity in the crime for which Brierwood and his accomplice were afterward arrested, tried, and sentenced to the State Prison.
Jim doubts whether the promised "good word" was ever spoken on his behalf to the witches, who were represented as making personal inquiries about him, because he suspects that the two robbers were themselves the only evil spirits roaming the woods that night.
As Jack Dunn stood in the door of his home on a great crag of Persimmon Ridge and loaded his old rifle, his eyes rested upon a vast and imposing array of mountains filling the landscape. All are heavily wooded, all are alike, save that in one the long horizontal line of the summit is broken by a sudden vertical ascent, and thence the mountain seems to take up life on a higher level, for it sinks no more and passes out of sight.
This abrupt rise is called "Elijah's Step,"—named, perhaps, in honor of some neighboring farmer who first explored it; but the ignorant boy believed that here the prophet had stepped into his waiting fiery chariot.
He knew of no foreign lands,—no Syria, no Palestine. He had no dream of the world that lay beyond those misty, azure hills. Indistinctly he had caught the old story from the nasal drawl of the circuit-rider, and he thought that here, among these wild Tennessee mountains, Elijah had lived and had not died.
There came suddenly from the valley the baying of a pack of hounds in full cry, and when the crags caught the sound and tossed it from mountain to mountain, when more delicate echoes on a higher key rang out from the deep ravines, there was a wonderful exhilaration in this sylvan minstrelsy. The young fellow looked wistful as he heard it, then he frowned heavily.
"Them thar Saunders men hev gone off an' left me," he said reproachfully to some one within the log cabin. "Hyar I be kept a-choppin' wood an' a pullin' fodder till they hev hed time ter git up a deer. It 'pears ter me ez I mought hev been let ter put off that thar work till I war through huntin'."
He was a tall young fellow, with a frank, freckled face and auburn hair; stalwart, too. Judging from his appearance, he could chop wood and pull fodder to some purpose.
A heavy, middle-aged man emerged from the house, and stood regarding his son with grim disfavor. "An' who oughter chop wood an' pull fodder but ye, while my hand air sprained this way?" he demanded.
That hand had been sprained for many a long day, but the boy made no reply; perhaps he knew its weight. He walked to the verge of the cliff, and gazed down at the tops of the trees in the valley far, far below.
The expanse of foliage was surging in the wind like the waves of the sea. From the unseen depths beneath there rose again the cry of the pack, inexpressibly stirring, and replete with woodland suggestions. All the echoes came out to meet it.
"I war promised ter go!" cried Jack bitterly.
"Waal," said his mother, from within the house, "'tain't no good nohow."
Her voice was calculated to throw oil upon the troubled waters,—low, languid, and full of pacifying intonations. She was a tall, thin woman, clad in a blue-checked homespun dress, and seated before a great hand-loom, as a lady sits before a piano or an organ. The creak of the treadle, and the thump, thump of the batten, punctuated, as it were, her consolatory disquisition.
Her son looked at her in great depression of spirit as she threw the shuttle back and forth with deft, practiced hands.
"Wild meat air a mighty savin'," she continued, with a housewifely afterthought. "I ain't denyin' that."
Thump, thump, went the batten.
"But ye needn't pester the life out'n yerself 'kase ye ain't a-runnin' the deer along o' them Saunders men. It 'pears like a powerful waste o' time, when ye kin take yer gun down ter the river enny evenin' late, jes' ez the deer air goin' ter drink, an' shoot ez big a buck ez ye hev got the grit ter git enny other way. Ye can't do nothin' with a buck but eat him, an' a-runnin' him all around the mounting don't make him no tenderer, ter my mind. I don't see no sense in huntin' 'cept ter git somethin' fitten ter eat."
This logic, enough to break a sportsman's heart, was not a panacea for the tedium of the day, spent in the tame occupation of pulling fodder, as the process of stripping the blades from the standing cornstalks is called.
But when the shadows were growing long, Jack took his rifle and set out for the profit and the pleasure of still-hunting. As he made his way through the dense woods, the metallic tones of a cow-bell jangled on the air,—melodious sound in the forest quiet, but it conjured up a scowl on the face of the young mountaineer.
"Everything on this hyar mounting hev got the twistin's ter-day!" he exclaimed wrath-fully. "Hyar is our old red cow a-traipsing off ter Andy Bailey's house, an' thar won't be a drap of milk for supper."
This was a serious matter, for in a region where coffee and tea are almost unknown luxuries, and the evening meal consists of such thirst-provoking articles as broiled venison, corn-dodgers, and sorghum, one is apt to feel the need of some liquid milder than "apple-jack," and more toothsome than water, wherewith to wet one's whistle.
In common with everything else on the mountain, Jack, too, had the "twistin's," and it was with a sour face that he began to drive the cow homeward. After going some distance, however, he persuaded himself that she would leave the beaten track no more until she reached the cabin. He turned about, therefore, and retraced his way to the stream.
There had been heavy rains in the mountains, and it was far out of its banks, rushing and foaming over great rocks, circling in swift whirlpools, plunging in smooth, glassy sheets down sudden descents, and maddening thence in tumultuous, yeasty billows.
An old mill, long disused and fallen into decay, stood upon the brink. It was a painful suggestion of collapsed energies, despite its picturesque drapery of vines. No human being could live there, but in the doorway abruptly appeared a boy of seventeen, dressed, like Jack, in an old brown jeans suit and a shapeless white hat.
Jack paused at a little distance up on the hill, and parleyed in a stentorian voice with the boy in the mill.
"What's the reason ye air always tryin' ter toll off our old red muley from our house?" he demanded angrily.
"I ain't never tried ter toll her off," said Andy Bailey. "She jes' kem ter our house herself. I dunno ez I hev got enny call ter look arter other folkses' stray cattle. Mind yer own cow."
"I hev got a mighty notion ter cut down that thar sapling,"—and Jack pointed to a good-sized hickory-tree,—"an' wear it out on ye."
"I ain't afeard. Come on!" said Andy impudently, protected by his innocence, and the fact of being the smaller of the two.
There was a pause. "Hev ye been a-huntin'?" asked Jack, beginning to be mollified by the rare luxury of youthful and congenial companionship; for this was a scantily settled region, and boys were few.
Andy nodded assent.
Jack walked down into the rickety mill, and stood leaning against the rotten old hopper. "What did ye git?" he said, looking about for the game.
"Waal," drawled Andy, with much hesitation, "I hain't been started out long." He turned from the door and faced his companion rather sheepishly.
"I hopes ye ain't been poppin' off that rifle o' your'n along that deer-path down in the hollow, an' a-skeerin' off all the wild critters," said Jack Dunn, with sudden apprehension. "Ef I war ez pore a shot ez ye air, I'd go a-huntin' with a bean-pole instead of a gun, an' leave the game ter them that kin shoot it."
Andy was of a mercurial and nervous temperament, and this fact perhaps may account for the anomaly of a mountain-boy who was a poor shot. Andy was the scoff of Persimmon Ridge.
"I hev seen many a gal who could shoot ez well ez ye kin,—better," continued Jack jeeringly. "But law! I needn't kerry my heavy bones down thar in the hollow expectin' ter git a deer ter-day. They air all off in the woods a-smellin' the powder ye hev been wastin'."
Andy was pleased to change the subject. "It 'pears ter me that that thar water air a-scuttlin' along toler'ble fast," he said, turning his eyes to the little window through which the stream could be seen.
Itwasrunning fast, and with a tremendous force. One could obtain some idea of the speed and impetus of the current from the swift vehemence with which logs and branches shot past, half hidden in foam.
The water looked black with this white contrast. Here and there a great, grim rock projected sharply above the surface. In the normal condition of the stream, these were its overhanging banks, but now, submerged, they gave to its flow the character of rapids.
The old mill, its wooden supports submerged too, trembled and throbbed with the throbbing water. As Jack looked toward the window, his eyes were suddenly distended, his cheek paled, and he sprang to the door with a frightened exclamation.
Too late! the immense hole of a fallen tree, shooting down the channel with the force and velocity of a great projectile, struck the tottering supports of the crazy, rotting building.
It careened, and quivered in every fibre; there was a crash of falling timbers, then a mighty wrench, and the two boys, clinging to the window-frame, were driving with the wreck down the river.
The old mill thundered against the submerged rocks, and at every concussion the timbers fell. It whirled around and around in eddying pools. Where the water was clear, and smooth, and deep, it shot along with great rapidity.
The convulsively clinging boys looked down upon the black current, with its sharp, treacherous, half-seen rocks and ponderous driftwood. The wild idea of plunging into the tumult and trying to swim to the bank faded as they looked. Here in the crazy building there might be a chance. In that frightful swirl there lurked only a grim certainty.
The house had swung along in the middle of the stream; now its course was veering slightly to the left. This could be seen through the window and the interstices of the half-fallen timbers.
The boys were caged, as it were; the doorway was filled with the heavy debris, and the only possibility of escape was through that little window. It was so small that only one could pass through at a time,—only one could be saved.
Jack had seen the chance from far up the stream. There was a stretch of smooth water close in to the bank, on which was a low-hanging beech-tree,—he might catch the branches.
They were approaching the spot with great rapidity. Only one could go. He himself had discovered the opportunity,—it was his own.
Life was sweet,—so sweet! He could not give it up; he could not now take thought for his friend. He could only hope with a frenzied eagerness that Andy had not seen the possibility of deliverance.
In another moment Andy lifted himself into the window. A whirlpool caught the wreck, and there it eddied in dizzying circles. It was not yet too late. Jack could tear the smaller, weaker fellow away with one strong hand, and take the only chance for escape. The shattered mill was dashing through the smoother waters now; the great beech-tree was hanging over their heads; an inexplicable, overpowering impulse mastered in an instant Jack's temptation.
"Ketch the branches, Andy!" he cried wildly.
His friend was gone, and he was whirling off alone on those cruel, frantic waters. In the midst of the torrent he was going down, and down, and down the mountain.
Now and then he had a fleeting glimpse of the distant ranges. There was "Elijah's Step," glorified in the sunset, purple and splendid, with red and gold clouds flaming above it. To his untutored imagination they looked like the fiery chariot again awaiting the prophet.
The familiar sight, the familiar, oft-repeated fancy, the recollection of his home, brought sudden tears to his eyes. He gazed wistfully at the spot whence he believed the man had ascended who left death untasted, and then he went on in this mad rush down to the bitterness of death.
Even with this terrible fact before him, he did not reproach himself with his costly generosity. It was strange to him that he did not regret it; perhaps, like that mountain, he had suddenly taken up life on a higher level.
The sunset splendor was fading. The fiery chariot was gone, and in its place were floating gray clouds,—the dust of its wheels, they seemed. The outlines of "Elijah's Step" were dark. It looked sad, bereaved. Its glory had departed.
Suddenly the whole landscape seemed full of reeling black shadows,—and yet it was not night. The roar of the torrent was growing faint upon his ear, and yet its momentum was unchecked. Soon all was dark and all was still, and the world slipped from his grasp.