TOGETHER THEY WENT OVER THE CLIFFTOGETHER THEY WENT OVER THE CLIFF
So they knew who had stolen the horse! It was little consolation to Ike, with his mare lying dead at the foot of the cliff, to reflect that if he had had the courage to face the emergency, and rely upon his innocence, his story would only have confirmed their knowledge of the facts.
Although the master of the horse did not know the thief "from Adam," Beemy had been seen with the animal and recognized by others, who, accompanying the sheriff and the owner, had traced him for two days through many wily doublings in the mountain fastnesses.
They now concluded to press on to Beemy's house. Ike knew they would find him there waiting for Jube and the horse. Beemy had feared that he would be followed, and this was the reason that he had desired to rid himself of the animal for a day and night, until he could make sure and feel more secure.
As the horsemen swept round the curve, Ike remembered how close was the road to the cliff. If he had only given the mare her head, she would have carried him safely around it. But there she lay dead, way down in Poor Valley, and he had lost all he owned in the world.
Night had come, and in the dense darkness he did not dare to move. Only a step away was the edge of the precipice, over which the mare had slipped, and he could not tell how dangerous was the bluff he must climb to regain the summit. He felt he must lie here till dawn.
He was badly jarred by his fall. Time dragged by wearily, and his bruises pained him. He knew at length that all the world slept,—all but himself and some distant ravening wolf, whose fierce howl ever and anon set the mists to shivering in Poor Valley where he prowled. This blood-curdling sound and his bitter thoughts were but sorry company.
After a long time he fell asleep. Fortunately, he did not stir. When he regained consciousness and a sense of danger, he found still around him that dense white vapor, through which the pale, drear day was slowly dawning. Above his head was swinging in the mist a cluster of fox-grapes, with the rime upon them, and higher still he saw a quivering red leaf.
It was the leaf of a starveling tree, growing out of a cleft where there was so little earth that it seemed to draw its sustenance from the rock. It was a scraggy, stunted thing, but it was well for him that it had struck root there, for its branches brushed the solid, smooth face of the cliff, which he could not have surmounted but for them and the grape-vine that had fallen over from the summit and entangled itself among them.
As he climbed the tree, he felt it quake over the abysses, which the mists still veiled. He had a sense of elation and achievement when he gained the top, and it followed him home. There it suddenly deserted him.
He found Pearce Tallam in a frenzy of rage at the discovery, which he had made through Jube's confession, that a stolen horse had been stabled on his premises. Despite his tyranny and his fierce, rude temper, he was an honest man and of fair repute. Although he realized that neither boy knew that the animal had been stolen, he gave Jube a lesson which he remembered for many a long day, and Ike also came in for his share of this muscular tuition.
For in the midst of the criminations and recriminations, the violent blacksmith caught up a horseshoe and flung it across the shop, striking Ike with a force that almost stunned him. He was a man in strength, and it was hard for him not to return the blow; but he only walked out of the shop, declaring that he would stay for no more blows.
"Cl'ar out, then!" called out Pearce Tallam after him. "I don't keer ef ye goes fur good."
He met, at the door of the dwelling, a plaintive reproach from his mother. "'Count o' ye not tellin' on Jube, he mought hev been tuk up fur a horse-thief. I dunno what I'd hev done 'thout him," she added, "'long o' raisin' the young tur-r-keys, an' goslin's, an' deedies, an' sech; he hev been a mighty holp ter me. He air more of a son ter me than my own boy."
She did not mean this, but she had said it once half in jest, half in reproach, and then it became a formula of complaint whenever Ike displeased her.
Now he was sore and sensitive. "Take him fur yer son, then!" he cried. "I'm a-goin' out'n Pore Valley, ef I starves fur it. I shows my face hyar no more."
As he shouldered his gun and strode out, he noted the light of the forge-fire quivering on the mist, but he little thought it was the last fire that Pearce Tallam would ever kindle there.
He glanced back again before the dense vapor shut the house from view. His mother was standing in the door, with her baby in her arms, looking after him with a frightened, beseeching face. But his heart was hardened and he kept on,—kept on, with that deft, even tread of the mountaineer, who seems never to hurry, almost to loiter, but gets over the ground with surprising rapidity.
He left the mists and desolation of Poor Valley far behind, but not that frightened, beseeching face. He thought of it more often when he lay down under the shelter of a great rock to sleep than he did of the howl of the wolf which he had heard the night before, not far from here.
Late the next afternoon he came upon the outskirts of a village. He entered it doubtfully, for it seemed metropolitan to him, unaccustomed as he was to anything more imposing than the cross-roads store. But the first sound he heard reassured him. It was the clear, metallic resonance of an anvil, the clanking of a sledge, and the clinking of a hand-hammer.
Here, at the forge, he found work. It had been said in Poor Valley that he was already as good a blacksmith even as Pearce Tallam. He had great natural aptitude for the work, and considerable experience. But his wages only sufficed to pay for his food and lodging. Still, there was a prospect for more, and he was content.
In his leisure he made friends among those of his own age, who took him about the town and enjoyed his amazement. He examined everything wrought in metal with such eager interest, and was so outspoken about his ambition, that they dubbed him Tubal-cain.
He was struck dumb with amazement when, for the first time in his life, he saw a locomotive gliding along the rails, with a glaring headlight and a cloud of flying sparks. Once, when it was motionless on the track, they talked to the engineer, who explained "the workings of the critter," as Ike called it.
The boy understood so readily that the engineer said, after a time, "You're a likely feller, for such a derned ignoramus! Where have you been hid out, all this time?"
"Way down in Pore Valley," said Ike very humbly.
"He's concluded to be a great inventor," said one of his young friends, with a merry wink.
"He's a mighty artificer in iron," said the wit who had named him Tubal-cain.
The engineer looked gravely at Ike. "Why, boy," he admonished him, "the world has got a hundred years the start of you!"
"I kin ketch up," Ike declared sturdily.
"There's something in grit, I reckon," said the engineer. Then his wonderful locomotive glided away, leaving Ike staring after it in silent ecstasy, and his companions dying with laughter.
He started out to overtake the world at a night-school, where his mental quickness contrasted oddly with his slow, stolid demeanor. He worked hard at the forge all day; but everybody was kind.
Outside of Poor Valley life seemed joyous and hopeful; progress and activity were on every hand; and the time he spent here was the happiest he had ever known,—except for the recollection of that frightened, beseeching face which had looked out after him through the closing mists.
He wished he had turned back for a word. He wished his mother might know he was well and happy. He began to feel that he could go no further without making his peace with her. So one day he left his employer with the promise to return the following week, "ef the Lord spares me an' nuthin' happens," as the cautious rural formula has it, and set out for his home.
The mists had lifted from it, but the snow had fallen deep. Poor Valley lay white and drear—it seemed to him that he had never before known how drear—between the grim mountain with its great black crags, its chasms, its gaunt, naked trees, and the long line of flinty hills, whose stunted pines bent with the weight of the snow.
There was no smoke from the chimney of the blacksmith's shop. There were no footprints about the door. An atmosphere charged with calamity seemed to hang over the dwelling. Somehow he knew that a dreadful thing had happened even before he opened the door and saw his mother's mournful white face.
She sprang up at the sight of him with a wild, sobbing cry that was half grief, half joy. He had only a glimpse of the interior,—of Jube, looking anxious and unnaturally grave; of the listless children, grouped about the fire; of the big, burly blacksmith, with a strange, deep pallor upon his face, and as he shifted his position—why, how was that?
The boy's mother had thrust him out of the door, and closed it behind her. The jar brought down from the low eaves a few feathery flakes of snow, which fell upon her hair as she stood there with him.
"Don't say nuthin' 'bout'n it," she implored. "He can't abide ter hear it spoke of."
"What ails dad's hand?" he asked, bewildered.
"It's gone!" she sobbed. "He war over ter the sawmill the day ye lef'—somehow 'nuther the saw cotched it—the doctor tuk it off."
"His right hand!" cried Ike, appalled.
The blacksmith would never lift a hammer again. And there the forge stood, silent and smokeless.
What this portended, Ike realized as he sat with them around the fire. Their sterile fields in Poor Valley had only served to eke out their subsistence. This year the corn-crop had failed, and the wheat was hardly better. The winter had found them without special provision, but without special anxiety, for the anvil had always amply supplied their simple needs.
Now that this misfortune had befallen them, who could say what was before them unless Ike would remain and take his stepfather's place at the forge? Ike knew that this contingency must have occurred to them as well as to him. He divined it from the anxious, furtive glances which they one and all cast upon him from time to time,—even Pearce Tallam, whose turn it was now to feel that greatest anguish of calamity, helplessness.
But must he relinquish his hopes, his chance of an education, that plucky race for which he was entered to overtake the world that had a hundred years the start of him, and be forever a nameless, futureless clod in Poor Valley?
His mother had the son she had chosen. And surely he owed no duty to Pearce Tallam. The hand that was gone had been a hard hand to him.
He rose at length. He put on his leather apron. "Waal—I mought ez well g' long ter the shop, I reckon," he remarked calmly. "'Pears like thar's time yit fur a toler'ble spot o' work afore dark."
It was a hard-won victory. Even then he experienced a sort of satisfaction in knowing that Pearce Tallam must feel humiliated and of small account to be thus utterly dependent for his bread upon the boy whom he had so persistently maltreated. In his pale face Ike saw something of the bitterness he had endured, of his broken spirit, of his humbled pride.
The look smote upon the boy's heart. There was another inward struggle. Then he said, as if it were a result of deep cogitation,—
"Ye'll hev ter kem over ter the shop, dad, wunst in a while, ter advise 'bout what's doin'. 'Pears ter me like mos' folks would 'low ez a boy no older 'n me couldn't do reg'lar blacksmithin' 'thout some sperienced body along fur sense an' showin'."
The man visibly plucked up a little. Was he, indeed, so useless? "That's a fac', Ike," he said gently. "I reckon ye kin make out toler'ble—cornsiderin'. But I'll be along ter holp."
After this Ike realized that he had been working with something tougher than iron, harder than steel,—his own unsubdued nature. He traced an analogy from the forge; and he saw that those strong forces, the fires of conscience and the coercion of duty, had wrought the stubborn metal of his character to a kindly use.
Gradually the relinquishment of his wild, vague ambition began to seem less bitter to him; for it might be that these were the few things over which he should be faithful,—his own forge-fire and his own fiery heart. And so he labors to fulfill his trust.
The spring never comes to Poor Valley. The summer is a cloud of dust. The autumn shrouds itself in mist. And the winter is snow. But poverty of soil need not imply poverty of soul. And a noble manhood may nobly exist "'Way Down in Poor Valley."
"Ef the filly war bridle-wise"—
"The fillyairbridle-wise."
A sullen pause ensued, and the two brothers looked angrily at each other.
The woods were still; the sunshine was faint and flickering; the low, guttural notes of a rain-crow broke suddenly on the silence.
Presently Thad, mechanically examining a bridle which he held in his hand, began again in an appealing tone: "'Pears like ter me ez the filly air toler'ble well bruk ter the saddle, an' she would holp me powerful ter git thar quicker ter tell dad 'bout'n that thar word ez war fotched up the mounting. They 'lowed ez 'twar jes' las' night ez them revenue men raided a still-house, somewhar down thar in the valley, an' busted the tubs, an' sp'iled the coppers, an' arrested all the moonshiners ez war thar. An' ef they war ter find out 'bout'n this hyar still-house over yander in the gorge, they'd raid it, too. An' thar be dad," he continued despairingly, "jes' sodden with whiskey an' ez drunk ez a fraish b'iled owel, an' he wouldn't hev the sense nor the showin' ter make them off'cers onderstand ez he never hed nothin' ter do with the moonshiners—'ceptin' ter go ter thar still-house, an' git drunk along o' them. An' I dunno whether the off'cers would set much store by that sayin' ennyhow, an' I want ter git dad away from thar afore they kem."
"I don't believe that thar word ez them men air a-raidin' round the mountings no more 'nthat!" and Ben kicked away a pebble contemptuously.
Thad was in a quiver of anxiety. While Ben indulged his doubts, the paternal "B'iled Owel" might at any moment be arrested on a charge of aiding and abetting in illicit distilling.
"Ye never b'lieve nothin' till ye see it—ye sateful dunce!" he exclaimed excitedly.
Thus began a fraternal quarrel which neither forgot for years.
Ben turned scarlet. "Waal, then, jes' leave my filly in the barn whar she be now; ye kin travel on Shank's mare!"
Thad started off up the steep slope. "Ef ye ain't a-hankerin' fur me ter ride that thar filly, ez air ez bridle-wise ez ye be, jes' let's see ye kem on, an'—hender!"
"I hopes she'll fling ye, an' ye'll git yer neck bruk," Ben called out after him.
"I wish ennything 'ud happen, jes' so be I mought never lay eyes on ye agin," Thad declared.
As he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that his brother was not following, and when he reached the flimsy little barn, there was nothing to prevent him from carrying out his resolution.
Nevertheless, he hesitated as he stood with the door in his hand. A clay-bank filly came instantly to it, but with a sudden impulse he closed it abruptly, and set out on foot along a narrow, brambly path that wound down the mountain side.
He had descended almost to its base before the threatening appearance of the sky caught his attention. A dense black cloud had climbed up from over the opposite hills, and stretched from their jagged summits to the zenith. There it hung in mid-air, its sombre shadow falling across the valley, and reaching high up the craggy slope, where the boy's home was perched. The whole landscape wore that strange, still, expectant aspect which precedes the bursting of a storm.
Suddenly a vivid white flash quivered through the sky. The hills, suffused with its ghastly light, started up in bold relief against the black clouds; even the faint outlines of distant ranges that had disappeared with the strong sunlight reasserted themselves in a pale, illusive fashion, flickering like the unreal mountains of a dream about the vague horizon. A ball of fire had coursed through the air, striking with dazzling coruscations the top of a towering oak, and he heard, amidst the thunder and its clamorous echo, the sharp crash of riving timber.
All at once he had a sense of falling, a sudden pain shot through him, darkness descended, and he knew no more.
When he gradually regained consciousness, it seemed that a long time had elapsed since he was trudging down the mountain side. He could not imagine where he was now. He put out his hand in the intense darkness that enveloped him, and felt the damp mould beside him,—above—below.
For one horrible instant he recalled a sickening story of a man who was negligently buried alive. He had always believed that this was only a fireside fiction invented in the security of the chimney corner; but was it to have a strange confirmation in his own fate? He was pierced with pity for himself, as he heard the despair in his voice when he sent forth a wild, hoarse cry. What a cavernous echo it had!
Again and again, after his lips were closed, that voice of anguish rang out, and then was silent, then fitfully sounded once more on another key. He strove to rise, but the earth on his breast resisted. With a great effort he finally burst through it; he felt the clods tumbling about him; he sat upright; he rose to his full height; and still all was merged in the densest darkness, and, when he stretched up his arms as high as he could reach, he again felt the damp mould.
The truth had begun vaguely to enter his mind even before, in shifting his position, he caught sight of a rift in the deep gloom, some fifteen feet above his head. Then he realized that at the moment of the flash of lightning, unmindful of his footing, he had strayed aside from the path, stumbled, fallen, and, as it chanced, was received into one of those unsuspected apertures in the ground which are common in all cavernous countries, being sometimes the entrance to extensive caves, and which are here denominated "sink-holes."
These cavities were exceedingly frequent in the valley, on the boundary of which Thad lived, and his familiarity with them did away for the moment with all appreciation of the perplexity and difficulty of the situation. He laughed aloud triumphantly.
Instantly these underground chambers broke forth with wild, elfish voices that mimicked his merriment till it died on his lips. He preferred utter loneliness to the vague sense of companionship given by these weird echoes. Somehow the strangeness of all that had happened to him had stirred his imagination, and he could not rid himself of the idea that there were grimacing creatures here with him, whom he could not see, who would only speak when he spoke, and scoffingly iterate his tones.
He was faint, bruised, and exhausted. He had been badly stunned by his fall; but for the soft, shelving earth through which he had crashed, it might have been still worse. He could scarcely move as he began to investigate his precarious plight. Even if he could climb the perpendicular wall above his head, he could not thence gain the aperture, for, as his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, he discovered that the shape of the roof was like the interior of a roughly defined dome, about the centre of which was this small opening.
"An' a human can't walk on a ceilin' like a fly," he said discontentedly.
"Can't!" cried an echo close at hand.
"Fly!" suggested a distant mocker.
Thad closed his mouth and sat down.
He had moved very cautiously, for he knew that these sink-holes are often the entrance of extensive caverns, and that there might be a deep abyss on any side. He could do nothing but wait and call out now and then, and hope that somebody might soon take the short cut through the woods, and, hearing his voice, come to his relief.
His courage gave way when he reflected that the river would rise with the heavy rain which he could hear steadily splashing through the sink-hole, and for a time all prudent men would go by the beaten road and the ford. No one would care to take the short cut and save three miles' travel at the risk of swimming his horse, for the river was particularly deep just here and spanned only by a footbridge, except, perhaps, some fugitive from justice, or the revenue officers on their hurried, reckless raids. This reminded him of the still-house and of "dad" there yet, imbibing whiskey, and sharing the danger of his chosen cronies, the moonshiners.
Ben, at home, would not have his anxiety roused till midnight, at least, by his brother's failure to return from the complicated feat of decoying the drunkard from the distillery. Thad trembled to think what might happen to himself in the interval. If the volume of water pouring down through the sink-hole should increase to any considerable extent, he would be drowned here like a rat. Was he to have his wish, and see his brother never again?
And poor Ben! How his own cruel, wicked parting words would scourge him throughout his life,—even when he should grow old!
Thad's eyes filled with tears of prescient pity for his brother's remorse.
"Ef ennything war ter happen hyar, sure enough, I wish he mought always know ez I don't keer nothin' now 'bout'n that thar sayin' o' his'n," he thought wistfully.
He still heard the persistent rain splashing outside. The hollow, unnatural murmur of a subterranean stream rose drearily. Once he sighed heavily, and all the cavernous voices echoed his grief.
When that terrible flash of lightning came, Ben was still on the slope of the mountain where his brother had left him. The next moment he heard the wild whirl of the gusts as they came surging up the valley. He saw the frantic commotion of the woods on distant spurs as the wind advanced, preceded by swirling columns of dust which carried myriads of leaves, twigs, and even great branches rent from the trees, as evidence of its force.
Ben turned, and ran like a deer up the steep ascent. "It'll blow that thar barn spang off'n the bluff, I'm thinkin'—an' the filly—Cobe—Cobe!" he cried out to her as he neared the shanty.
He stopped short, his eyes distended. The door was open. There was no hair nor hoof of the filly within. He could have no doubt that his brother had actually taken his property for this errand against his will.
"That thar boy air no better 'n a low-down horse-thief!" he declared bitterly.
The gusts struck the little barn. It careened this way and that, and finally the flimsy structure came down with a crash, one of the boards narrowly missing Ben's head as it fell. He had a hard time getting to the house in the teeth of the wind, but its violence only continued a few minutes, and when he was safe within doors he looked out of the window at the silent mists, beginning to steal about the coves and ravines, and at the rain as it fell in serried columns. Long after dark it still beat with unabated persistence on the roof of the log cabin, and splashed and dripped with a chilly, cheerless sound from the low eaves. Sometimes a drop fell down the wide chimney, and hissed upon the red-hot coals, for Ben had piled on the logs and made a famous fire. He could see that his mother now and then paused to listen in the midst of her preparations for supper. Once as she knelt on the hearth, and deftly inserted a knife between the edges of a baking corn-cake and the hoe, she looked up suddenly at Ben without turning the cake. "I hearn the beastis's huff!" she said.
Ben listened. The fire roared. The rain went moaning down the valley.
"Ye never hearn nothin'," he rejoined.
Nevertheless, she rose and opened the door. The cold air streamed in. The firelight showed the mists, pressing close in the porch, shivering, and seeming to jostle and nudge each other as they peered in, curiously, upon the warm home-scene, and the smoking supper, and the hilarious children, as if asking of one another how they would like to be human creatures, instead of a part of inanimate nature, or at best the elusive spirits of the mountains.
There was nothing to be seen without but the mists.
"Thad tuk the filly, ye say fur true?" she asked, recurring to the subject when supper was over.
Ben nodded. "I hopes ter conscience she'll break his neck," he declared cruelly.
His mother took instant alarm. She turned and looked at him with a face expressive of the keenest anxiety. "'Pears like to me ez the only reason Thad kin be so late a-gittin' back air jes' 'kase it air a toler'ble aggervatin' job a-fotchin' of dad home," she said, striving to reassure herself.
"That air a true word 'bout'n dad, ennyhow," Ben assented bitterly.
His old grandfather suddenly lifted up his voice.
"This night," said the graybeard from out the chimney corner,—"this night, forty years ago, my brother, Ephraim Grimes, fell dead on this cabin floor, an' no man sence kin mark the cause."
A pause ensued. The rain fell. The pallid, shuddering mists looked in at the window.
"Ye ain't a-thinkin'," cried the woman tremulously, "ez the night air one app'inted fur evil?"
The old man did not answer.
"This night," he croaked, leaning over the glowing fire, and kindling his long-stemmed cob-pipe by dexterously scooping up with its bowl a live coal,—"this night, twenty-six years ago, thar war eleven sheep o' mine—ez war teched in the head, or somehows disabled from good sense—an' they jumped off'n the bluff, one arter the other, an' fell haffen way down the mounting, an' bruk thar fool necks 'mongst the boulders. They war dead. Thar shearin's never kem ter much account nuther. 'Twar powerful cur'ous, fust an' last."
The woman made a gesture of indifference. "I ain't a-settin' of store by critters when humans is—is—whar they ain't hearn from."
But Ben was susceptible of a "critter" scare.
"I hope, now," he exclaimed, alarmed, "ez that thar triflin' no-'count Thad Grimes ain't a-goin' ter let my filly lame herself, nor nothin', a-travelin' with her this dark night, ez seems ter be a night fur things ter happen on ennyhow. Oh, shucks! shucks!" he continued impatiently, "I jes' feels like thar ain't no use o' my tryin' ter live along."
Three of the children who habitually slept in the shed-room had started off to go to bed. As they opened the connecting door, there suddenly resounded a wild commotion within. They shrieked with fright, and banged the door against a strong force which was beginning to push from the other side.
The old grandfather rose, pale and agitated, his pipe falling from his nerveless clasp.
"This night," he said, with white lips and mechanical utterance,—"this night"—
"Satan is in the shed-room!" shouted the three small boys, as they held fast to the door with a strength far beyond their age and weight. Nevertheless, they were hardly able to cope with the strength on the other side of the door, and it was alternately forced slightly ajar, and then closed with a resounding slam. Once, as the firelight flickered into the dark shed-room, the ignorant, superstitious mountaineers had a fleeting glimpse of an object there which convinced them: they beheld great gleaming, blazing eyes, a burnished hoof, and—yes—a flirting tail.
"I believe it is Satan himself!" cried Ben, with awe in his voice.
In the wild confusion and bewilderment, Ben was somehow vaguely aware that Satan had often been in the shed-room before,—in the antechamber of his own heart. Whenever this heart of his was full of unkindness, and hardened against his brother, although those better fraternal instincts which he kept repressed and dwarfed might repudiate this cruelty under the pretext that he did not really mean it, still the great principle of evil was there in the moral shed-room, clamoring for entrance at the inner doors. And this, we may safely say, may apply to wiser people than poor Ben.
In the midst of the general despair and fright, something suddenly whinnied. At the sound the three small boys fell in a limp, exhausted heap on the floor, and, as the door no longer offered resistance, the unknown visitor pranced in: it was the filly, snorting and tossing her mane, and once more whinnying shrilly for her supper.
In a moment Ben understood the whole phenomenon. Thad had left the barn door unfastened, and, when that terrible flash of lightning came and the wind arose, the frightened animal had instantly fled to the house for safety. She had doubtless pushed open the back door of the shed-room easily enough, but it had closed behind her, and she had remained there a supperless prisoner.
The small boys picked themselves up from among the filly's hoofs, with disconnected exclamations of "Wa-a-a-l, sir!" while Ben led the animal out, with a growing impression that he would try to "live along" for a while, at all events.
He had led Satan out of the moral shed-room, as well. The reappearance of the filly without Thad had raised a great anxiety about his brother's continued absence. All at once he began to feel as if those brutal wishes of his were prophetic,—as if they were endowed with a malignant power, and could actually pursue poor Thad to some violent end. He did not understand now how he could have framed the words.
When a fellow really likes his brother,—and most fellows do,—there is scant use or grace or common-sense in keeping up, from mere carelessness, or through an irritable habit, a continual bickering, for these germs of evil are possessed of a marvelous faculty for growth, and some day their gigantic deformities will confront you in deeds of which you once believed yourself incapable.
Ben's hands were trembling as he folded a blanket, and laid it on the animal's back to serve instead of a saddle.
"I'm a-goin' ter the still-house ter see ef Thad ever got thar," he said, when his mother appeared at the door.
He added, "I'm a-gittin' sorter skeered ez su'thin' mought hev happened ter him."
His grandfather hobbled out into the little porch. "Them roads air turrible rough fur that thar filly, ez ain't fairly broke good yit, nor used ter travel," he suggested.
"I'd gin four hunderd fillies, ef I hed 'em, jes' ter know that thar boy air safe an' sound," Ben declared, as he mounted.
He took the short cut, judging that, at the point where it crossed the river, the stream was still fordable. When he heard his brother's piteous cries for help, he quaked to think what might have happened to Thad if he had not recognized the presence of Satan in the moral shed-room, and summarily ejected him. The rainfall had been sufficient to aggregate considerable water in the gullies about the sink-hole, and these, emptying into the cavity and sending a continuous stream over the boy, had served to chill him through and through, and he had a pretty fair chance of being drowned, or dying from cold and exhaustion. Ben pressed on to the still-house at the best speed he could make, and such of the moonshiners as were half sober came out with ropes and a barrel, which they lowered into the cavity. Thad managed to crawl into the barrel, and, after several ineffectual attempts, he was drawn up through the sink-hole.
There was no formal reconciliation between the two boys. It was enough for Ben to feel Thad's reluctance to unloose his eager clutch upon his brother's arms, even after he had been lifted out upon the firm ground. And Thad knew that that complicated sound in Ben's throat was a sob, although, for the sake of the men who stood by, he strove to seem to be coughing.
"Right smart of an idjit, now, ain't ye?" demanded Ben, hustling back, so to speak, the tears that sought to rise in his eyes.
"Waal, stranger, how's yer filly?" retorted Thad, laughing in a gaspy fashion.
There was a tone of forgiveness in the inquiry. The answer caught the same spirit.
"Middlin',—thanky,—jes' middlin'," said Ben.
And then they and "dad" fared home together by the light of the moonshiners' lantern.
On a certain bold crag that juts far over a steep wooded mountain slope a red light was seen one moonless night in June. Sometimes it glowed intensely among the gray mists which hovered above the deep and sombre valley; sometimes it faded. Its life was the breath of the bellows, for a blacksmith's shop stands close beside the road that rambles along the brink of the mountain. Generally after sunset the forge is dark and silent. So when three small boys, approaching the log hut through the gloomy woods, heard the clink! clank! clink! clank! of the hammers, and the metallic echo among the cliffs, they stopped short in astonishment.
"Thar now!" exclaimed Abner Ryder desperately; "dad's at it fur true!"
"Mebbe he'll go away arter a while, Ab," suggested Jim Gryce, another of the small boys. "Then that'll gin us our chance."
"Waal, I reckon we kin stiffen up our hearts ter wait," said Ab resignedly.
All three sat down on a log a short distance from the shop, and presently they became so engrossed in their talk that they did not notice when the blacksmith, in the pauses of his work, came to the door for a breath of air. They failed to discreetly lower their voices, and thus they had a listener on whose attention they had not counted.
"Ye see," observed Ab in a high, shrill pipe, "dad sets a heap o' store by his tools. But dad, ye know, air a mighty slack-twisted man. He gits his tools lost" (reprehensively), "he wastes his nails, an' then he 'lows ez how it warmeez done it."
He paused impressively in virtuous indignation. A murmur of surprise and sympathy rose from his companions. Then he recommenced.
"Dad air the crankiest man on this hyar mounting! He won't lend me none o' his tools nowadays,—not even that thar leetle hammer o' his'n. An' I'm obleeged ter hev that thar leetle hammer an' some nails ter fix a box fur them young squir'ls what we cotched. So we'll jes' hev ter go ter his shop of a night when he is away, an'—an'—an' borry it!"
The blacksmith, a tall, powerfully built man, of an aspect far from jocular, leaned slightly out of the door, peering in the direction where the three tow-headed urchins waited. Then he glanced within at a leather strap, as if he appreciated the appropriateness of an intimate relation between these objects. But there was no time for pleasure now. He was back in his shop in a moment.
His next respite was thus entertained:—
"What makes him work so of a night?" asked Jim Gryce.
"Waal," explained Ab in his usual high key, "he rid ter the settlemintthis mornin'; he hev been a-foolin' round thar all day, an' the crap air jes' a-sufferin' fur work! So him an' Uncle Tobe air layin' thar ploughs in the shop now, kase they air goin' ter run around the corn ter-morrer. Workin', though, goes powerful hard with dad enny time. I tole old Bob Peachin that, when I war ter the mill this evenin'. Him an' the t'other men thar laffed mightily at dad. An' I laffed too!"
There was an angry gleam in Stephen Ryder's stern black eyes as he turned within, seized the tongs, and thrust a piece of iron among the coals, while Tobe, who had been asleep in the window at the back of the shop, rose reluctantly and plied the bellows. The heavy panting broke forth simultaneously with the red flare that quivered out into the dark night. Presently it faded; the hot iron was whisked upon the anvil, fiery sparks showered about as the rapid blows fell, and the echoing crags kept time with rhythmic beats to the clanking of the sledge and the clinking of the hand-hammer. The stars, high above the far-stretching mountains, seemed to throb in unison, until suddenly the blacksmith dealt a sharp blow on the face of the anvil as a signal to his striker to cease, and the forge was silent.
As he leaned against the jamb of the door, mechanically adjusting his leather apron, he heard Ab's voice again.
"Old Bob say he ain't no 'count sca'cely. He 'lowed ez he had knowed him many a year, an' fund him a sneakin', deceivin' critter."
The blacksmith was erect in a moment, every fibre tense.
"That ain't the wust," Ab gabbled on. "Old Bob say, though't ain't known ginerally, ez he air gin ter thievin'. Old Bob 'lowed ter them men, hangin' round the mill, ez he air the biggest thief on the mounting!"
The strong man trembled. His blood rushed tumultuously to his head, then seemed to ebb swiftly away. That this should be said of him to the loafers at the mill! These constituted his little world. And he valued his character as only an honest man can. He was amazed at the boldness of the lie. It had been openly spoken in the presence of his son. One might have thought the boy would come directly to him. But there he sat, glibly retailing it to his small comrades! It seemed all so strange that Stephen Ryder fancied there was surely some mistake. In the next moment, however, he was convinced that they had been talking of him, and of no one else.
"I tole old Bob ez how I thought they oughtn't ter be so hard on him, ez he warn't thar to speak for hisself."
All three boys giggled weakly, as if this were witty.
"But old Bob 'lowed ez ennybody mought know him by his name. An' then he told me that old sayin':—'Stephen, Stephen, so deceivin',That old Satan can't believe him!'"
Here Ben Gryce broke in, begging the others to go home, and come to "borry" the hammer next night. Ab agreed to the latter proposition, but still sat on the log and talked. "Old Bob say," he remarked cheerfully, "that when he do git 'em, he shakes 'em—shakes the life out'n 'em!"
This was inexplicable. Stephen Ryder pondered vainly on it for an instant. But the oft-reiterated formula, "Old Bob say," caught his ears, and he was absorbed anew in Ab's discourse.
"Old Bob say ez my mother air one of the best women in this world. But she air so gin ter humoring every critter a-nigh her, an' tends ter 'em so much, an' feeds 'em so high an' hearty, ez they jes' gits good fur nothin' in this world. That's how kem she air eat out'n house an' home now. Old Bob say ez how he air the hongriest critter! Say he jes' despise ter see him comin' round of meal times. Old Bob say ef he hev got enny good lef' in him, my mother will kill it out yit with kindness."
The blacksmith felt, as he turned back into the shop and roused the sleepy-headed striker, that within the hour all the world had changed for him. These coarse taunts were enough to show in what estimation he was held. And he had fancied himself, in countrified phrase, "respected by all," and had been proud of his standing.
So the bellows began to sigh and pant once more, and kept the red light flaring athwart the darkness. The people down in the valley looked up at it, glowing like a star that had slipped out of the sky and lodged somehow on the mountain, and wondered what Stephen Ryder could be about so late at night. When he left the shop there was no sign of the boys who had ornamented the log earlier in the evening. He walked up the road to his house, and found his wife sitting alone in the rickety little porch.
"Hev that thar boy gone ter bed?" he asked.
"Waal," she slowly drawled, in a soft, placid voice, "he kem hyar 'bout'n haffen hour ago so nigh crazed ter go ter stay all night with Jim an' Benny Gryce ez I hed ter let him. Old man Gryce rid by hyar in his wagon on his way home from the settlemint. So Ab went off with the Gryce boys an' thar gran'dad."
Thus the blacksmith concluded his tools were not liable to be "borrowed" that night. He had a scheme to insure their safety for the future, but in order to avoid his wife's remonstrances on Ab's behalf, he told her nothing of it, nor of what he had overheard.
Early the next morning he set out for the mill, intending to confront "old Bob" and demand retraction. The road down the deep, wild ravine was rugged, and he jogged along slowly until at last he came within sight of the crazy, weather-beaten old building tottering precariously on the brink of the impetuous torrent which gashed the mountain side. Crags towered above it; vines and mosses clung to its walls; it was a dank, cool, shady place, but noisy enough with the turmoil of its primitive machinery and the loud, hoarse voices of the loungers striving to make themselves heard above the uproar. There were several of these idle mountaineers aimlessly strolling among the bags of corn and wheat that were piled about. Long, dusty cobwebs hung from the rafters. Sometimes a rat, powdered white with flour and rendered reckless by high living, raced boldly across the floor. The golden grain poured ceaselessly through the hopper, and leaning against it was the miller, a tall, stoop-shouldered man about forty years of age, with a floury smile lurking in his beard and a twinkle in his good-humored eyes overhung by heavy, mealy eyebrows.
"Waal, Steve," yelled the miller, shambling forward as the blacksmith appeared in the doorway. "Come 'long in. Whar's yer grist?"
"I hev got no grist!" thundered Steve, sternly.
"Waal—ye're jes' ez welcome," said the miller, not noticing the rigid lines of the blacksmith's face, accented here and there by cinders, nor the fierceness of the intent dark eyes.
"I reckon I'm powerful welcome!" sneered Stephen Ryder.
The tone attracted "old Bob's" attention. "What ails ye, Steve?" he asked, surprised.
"I'm a deceivin', sneakin' critter—hey," shouted the visitor, shaking his big fist; he had intended to be calm, but his long-repressed fury had found vent at last.
The miller drew back hastily, astonishment and fear mingled in a pallid paste, as it were, with the flour on his face.
The six startled on-lookers stood as if petrified.
"Ye say I'm a thief!—a thief!—a thief!"
With the odious word Ryder made a frantic lunge at the miller, who dodged his strong right arm at the moment when his foot struck against a bag of corn lying on the floor and he stumbled. He recovered his equilibrium instantly. But the six bystanders had seized him.
"Hold him hard, folkses!" cried honest Bob Peachin. "Hold hard! I'll tell ye what ails him—though ye mustn't let on ter him—he air teched in the head!"
He winked at them with a confidential intention as he roared this out, forgetting in his excitement that mental infirmity does not impair the sense of hearing. This folly on his part was a salutary thing for Stephen Ryder. It calmed him instantly. He felt that he had need for caution. A fearful vista of possibilities opened before him. He remembered having seen in his childhood a man reputed to be suddenly bereft of reason, but who he believed was entirely sane, bound hand and foot, and every word, every groan, every effort to free himself, accounted the demonstration of a maniac. This fate was imminent for him. They were seven to one. He trembled as he felt their hands pressing upon the swelling muscles of his arms. With an abrupt realization of his great strength, he waited for a momentary relaxation of their clutch, then with a mighty wrench he burst loose from them, flung himself upon his mare, and dashed off at full speed.
He did no work that afternoon, although the corn was "suffering." He sat after dinner smoking his pipe on the porch of his log cabin, while he moodily watched the big shadow of the mountain creeping silently over the wooded valley as the sun got on the down grade. Deep glooms began to lurk among the ravines of the great ridge opposite. The shimmering blue summits in the distance were purpling. A redbird, alert, crested, and with a brilliant eye, perched idly on the vines about the porch, having relinquished for the day the job of teaching a small, stubby imitation of himself to fly. The shocks of wheat in the bare field close by had turned a rich red gold in the lengthening rays before Stephen Ryder realized that night was close at hand.
All at once he heard a discordant noise which he knew that Ab Ryder called "singing," and presently the boy appeared in the distance, his mouth stretched, his tattered hat stuck on the back of his tow-head, his bare feet dusty, his homespun cotton trousers rolled up airily about his knees, his single suspender supporting the structure. His father laughed a little at sight of him, rather sardonically it must be confessed, and saying to his wife that he intended to go to the shop for a while, he rose and strolled off down the road.
When supper was over, however, Ab was immensely relieved to see that his father had no idea of continuing his work. Consequently the usual routine was to be expected. Generally, when summoned to the evening meal, the blacksmith hastily plunged his head in the barrel of water used to temper steel, thrust off his leather apron, and went up to the house without more ado. He smoked afterward, and lounged about, enjoying the relaxation after his heavy work. He did not go down to lock the shop until bed-time, when he was shutting up the house, the barn, and the corn-crib for the night. In the interval the shop stood deserted and open, and this fact was the basis of Ab's opportunity. To-night there seemed to be no deviation from this custom. He ascertained that his father was smoking his pipe on the porch. Then he went down the road and sat on the log near the shop to wait for the other boys who were to share the risks and profits of borrowing the hammer.
All was still—so still! He fancied that he could hear the tumult of the torrent far away as it dashed over the rocks. A dog suddenly began to bark in the black, black valley—then ceased. He was vaguely over-awed with the "big mountings" for company and the distant stars. He listened eagerly for the first cracking of brush which told him that the other boys were near at hand. Then all three crept along cautiously among the huge boles of the trees, feeling very mysterious and important. When they reached the rude window, Ab sat for a moment on the sill, peering into the intense blackness within.
"It air dark thar, fur true, Ab," said Jim Gryce, growing faint-hearted. "Let's go back."
"Naw, sir! Naw, sir!" protested Ab resolutely. "I'm on the borry!"
"How kin we find that thar leetle hammer in sech a dark place?" urged Jim.
"Waal," explained Ab, in his high key, "dad air mightily welded ter his cranky notions. An' he always leaves every tool in the same place edzactly every night. Bound fur me!" he continued in shrill exultation as he slapped his lean leg, "I know whar that thar leetle hammer air sot ter roost!"
He jumped down from the window inside the shop, and cut a wiry caper.
"I'm a man o' bone and muscle!" he bragged. "Kin do ennything."
The other boys followed more quietly. But they had only groped a little distance when Jim Gryce set up a sharp yelp of pain.
"Shet yer mouth—ye pop-eyed catamount!" Ab admonished him. "Dad will hear an'—ah-h-h!" His own words ended in a shriek. "Oh, my!" vociferated the "man of bone and muscle," who was certainly, too, a man of extraordinary lung-power. "Oh, my! The ground is hot—hot ez iron! They always tole me that Satan would ketch me—an' oh, my! now he hev done it!"
He joined the "pop-eyed catamount" in a lively dance with their bare feet on the hot iron bars which were scattered about the ground in every direction. These were heated artistically, so that they might not really scorch the flesh, but would touch the feelings, and perhaps the conscience. As the third boy's scream rent the air, and told that he, too, had encountered a torrid experience, Ab Ryder became suddenly aware that there was some one besides themselves in the shop. He could see nothing; he was only vaguely conscious of an unexpected presence, and he fancied that it was in the corner by the barrel of water.
All at once a gruff voice broke forth. "I'm on the borry!" it remarked with fierce facetiousness. "I want ter borry a boy—no! a man o' bone an' muscle—fur 'bout a minit and a quarter!" A strong arm seized Ab by his collar. He felt himself swept through the air, soused head foremost into the barrel of water, then thrust into a corner, where he was thankful to find there was no more hot iron.
"I want to borry another boy!" said the gruff voice. And the "pop-eyed catamount" was duly ducked.
"'Twould pleasure me some ter borry another!" the voice declared with grim humor. But Ben was the youngest and smallest, and only led into mischief by the others. They never knew that the blacksmith relented when his turn came, and that he got a mere sprinkle in comparison with their total immersion.
Then Stephen Ryder set out for home, followed by a dripping procession. "I'll l'arn ye ter 'borry' my tools 'thout leave!" he vociferated as he went along.
When they had reached the house, he faced round sternly on Ab. "Whyn't ye kem an' tell me ez how the miller say I war a sneakin', deceivin' critter, an'—an'—an' a thief!"
His wife dropped the dish she was washing, and it broke unheeded upon the hearth. Ab stretched his eyes and mouth in amazement.
"Old Bob Peachin never tole me no sech word sence I been born!" he declared flatly.
"Then what ailed ye ter go an' tell sech a lie ter Gryce's boys las' night jes' down thar outside o' the shop?" Stephen Ryder demanded.
Ab stared at him, evidently bewildered.
"Ye tole 'em," continued the blacksmith, striving to refresh his memory, "ez Bob Peachin say ez how ye mought know I war deceivin' by my bein' named Stephen—an' that I war the hongriest critter—an'"—
"'Twar the t-a-a-a-rrier!" shouted Ab, "the little rat tarrier ez we war a-talkin' 'bout. He hev been named Steve these six year, old Bob say. He gimme the dog yestiddy, 'kase I 'lowed ez the rats war eatin' us out'n house an' home, an' my mother hed fed up that old cat o' our'n till he won't look at a mice. Old Bob warned me, though, ez Steve,the tarrier, air a mighty thief an' deceivin' ginerally. Old Bob say he reckons my mother will spile the dog with feedin' him, an' kill out what little good he hev got lef' in him with kindness. But I tuk him, an' brung him home ennyhow. An' las' night arter we hed got through talkin' 'bout borryin' (he looked embarrassed) the leetle hammer, we tuk to talkin' 'bout the tarrier. An' yander he is now, asleep on the chil'ren's bed!"
A long pause ensued.
"M'ria," said the blacksmith meekly to his wife, "hev ye tuk notice how the gyarden truck air a-thrivin'? 'Pears like ter me ez the peas air a-fullin' up consider'ble."
And so the subject changed.
He had it on his conscience, however, to explain the matter to the miller. For the second time old Bob Peachin, and the men at the mill, "laffed mightily at dad." And when Ab had recovered sufficiently from the exhaustion attendant upon borrowing a hammer, he "laffed too."
"I'm a-goin' ter climb down ter that thar ledge, an' slip round ter the hollow whar them conscripts built thar fire in the old war times."
Nicholas Gregory paused on the verge of the great cliff and cast a sidelong glance at Barney Pratt, who was beating about among the red sumach bushes in the woods close at hand, and now and then stooping to search the heaps of pine needles and dead leaves where they had been blown together on the ground.
"Conscripts!" Barney ejaculated, with a chuckle. "That's precisely what them men war determinatednotter be! They war a-hidin' in the mountings ter git shet o' the conscription."
"Waal, I don't keer efyenames 'em 'conscripts' or no," Nicholas retorted loftily. "That's what other folks calls 'em. I'm goin' down ter the hollow, whar they built thar fire, ter see ef that old missin' tur-r-key-hen o' our'n hain't hid her nest off 'mongst them dead chunks, an' sech."
"A tur-r-key ain't sech a powerful fool ez that," said Barney, coming to the edge of the precipice and looking over at the ledge, which ran along the face of the cliff twenty feet below. "How'd she make out ter fotch the little tur-r-keys up hyar, when they war hatched? They'd fall off'n the bluff."
"A tur-r-key what hev stole her nest away from the folks air fool enough fur ennything," Nicholas declared.
Perhaps he did not really expect to find the missing fowl in such an out-of-the-way place as this, but being an adventurous fellow, the sight of the crag was a temptation. He had often before clambered down to the ledge, which led to a great niche in the solid rock, where one night during the war some men who were hiding from the conscription had kindled their fire and cooked their scanty food. The charred remnants of logs were still here, but no one ever thought about them now, except the two boys, who regarded them as a sort of curiosity.
Sometimes they came and stared at them, and speculated about them, and declared to each other thattheywould not consider it a hardship to go a-soldiering.
Then Nick would tell Barney of a wonderful day when he had driven to the county town in his uncle's wagon. There was a parade of militia there, and how grand the drum had sounded! And as he told it he would shoulder a smoke-blackened stick, and stride about in the Conscripts' Hollow, and feel very brave.
He had no idea in those days how close at hand was the time when his own courage should be tried.
"Kem on, Barney!" he urged. "Let's go down an' sarch fur the tur-r-key."
But Barney had thrown himself down upon the crag with a long-drawn sigh of fatigue.
"Waal," he replied, in a drowsy tone, "I dunno 'bout'n that. I'm sorter banged out, 'kase I hev had a powerful hard day's work a-bilin' sorghum at our house. I b'lieves I'll rest my bones hyar, an' wait fur ye."
As he spoke, he rolled up one of the coats which they had both thrown off, during their search for the nest on the summit of the cliff, and slipped it under his head. He was far the brighter boy of the two, but his sharp wits seemed to thrive at the expense of his body. He was small and puny, and he was easily fatigued in comparison with big burly Nick, who rarely knew such a sensation, and prided himself upon his toughness.
"Waal, Barney, surely ye air the porest little shoat on G'liath Mounting!" he exclaimed scornfully, as he had often done before. But he made no further attempt to persuade Barney, and began the descent alone.
It was not so difficult a matter for a sure-footed mountaineer like Nick to make his way down to the ledge as one might imagine, for in a certain place the face of the cliff presented a series of jagged edges and projections which afforded him foothold. As he went along, too, he kept a strong grasp upon overhanging vines and bushes that grew out from earth-filled crevices.
He had gone down only a short distance when he paused thoughtfully. "This hyar wind air blowin' powerful brief," he said. "I mought get chilled an' lose my footin'."
He hardly liked to give up the expedition, but he was afraid to continue on his way in the teeth of the mountain wind, cold and strong in the October afternoon. If only he had his heavy jeans coat with him!
"Barney!" he called out, intending to ask his friend to throw it over to him.
There was no answer.
"That thar Barney hev drapped off ter sleep a'ready!" he exclaimed indignantly.
He chanced to glance upward as he was about to call again. There he saw a coat lying on the edge of the cliff, the dangling sleeve fluttering just within his reach. When he dragged it down and discovered that it was Barney's instead of his own, he was slightly vexed, but it certainly did not seem a matter of great importance.
"That boy hev gotmycoat, an' this is his'n. But law! I'd ruther squeeze myself small enough ter git inter his'n, than ter hev ter yell like a catamount fur an hour an' better ter wake him up, an' make him gimme mine."
He seated himself on a narrow projection of the crag, and began to cautiously put on his friend's coat. He had need to be careful, for a precarious perch like this, with an unmeasured abyss beneath, the far blue sky above, the almost inaccessible face of a cliff on one side, and on the other a distant stretch of mountains, is not exactly the kind of place in which one would prefer to make a toilet. Besides the dangers of his position, he was anxious to do no damage to the coat, which although loose and baggy on Barney, was rather a close fit for Nick.
"I ain't used ter climbin' with a coat on, nohow, an' I mus' be mighty keerful not ter bust Barney's, 'kase it air all the one he hev got," he said to himself as he clambered nimbly down to the ledge.
Then he walked deftly along the narrow shelf, and as he turned abruptly into the immense niche in the cliff called the Conscripts' Hollow, he started back in sudden bewilderment. His heart gave a bound, and then it seemed to stand still.
He hardly recognized the familiar place. There, to be sure, were the walls and the dome-like roof, but upon the dusty sandstone floor were scattered quantities of household articles, such as pots and pails and pans and kettles. There was a great array of brogans, too, and piles of blankets, and bolts of coarse unbleached cotton and jeans cloth.
"Waal, sir!" he exclaimed, as he gazed at them with wild, uncomprehending eyes.
Then the truth flashed upon him. A story had reached Goliath Mountain some weeks before, to the effect that a cross-roads store, some miles down the valley, had been robbed. The thieves had escaped with the stolen goods, leaving no clue by which they might be identified and brought to justice.
Nick saw that he had made a discovery. Here it was that the robbers had contrived to conceal their plunder, doubtless intending to wait until suspicion lulled, when they could carry it to some distant place, where it could safely be sold.
Suddenly a thought struck him that sent a shiver through every fibre of his body. This store was robbed in a singular manner. No bolt was broken,—no door burst open. There was a window, however, that lacked one pane of glass. The aperture would not admit a man's body. It was believed that the burglars had passed a boy through it, who had handed out the stolen goods.
And now, Nick foolishly argued, if any one should discover thatheknew where the plunder was hidden, they would believe thathewas that boy who had robbed the store!
He began to resolve that he would say nothing about what he had seen,—not even to Barney. He thought his safety lay in his silence. Still, he did not want his silence to be to the advantage of wicked men, so he tried to persuade himself that the burglars would soon be traced and captured without the information which he knew it was his duty to give. "Ter be sartain, the officers will kem on this place arter a while," he said meditatively.
Then he shook his head doubtfully. The crag was far from any house, and except the dwellers on Goliath Mountain, few people knew of this great niche in it. "They war sly foxes what stowed away thar plunder hyar!" he exclaimed in despair.
Often, when Nick had before stood in the Conscripts' Hollow, he had imagined that he would make a good soldier. But his idea of a soldier was a fine uniform, and the ra-ta-ta of martial music. He had no conception of that high sense of duty which nerves a man to face danger; even now he did not know that he was a coward as he faltered and feared in the cause of right to encounter suspicion.
Courage!—Nick thought that meant to crack away at a bear, if you were lucky enough to have the chance; or to kill a rattlesnake, if you had a big heavy stone close at hand; or to scramble about among crags and precipices, if you felt certain of the steadiness of your head and the strength of your muscles. But he did not realize that "courage" could mean the nerve to speak one little word for duty's sake.
He would not speak the word,—he had determined on that,—for might they not think thathewas the boy who had robbed the store?
He was quivering with excitement when he turned and began to walk along the ledge toward those roughly hewn natural steps by which he had descended. He knew that his agitation rendered his footing insecure. He was afraid of falling into the depths beneath, and he pressed close against the cliff.
On the narrow ledge, hardly two yards distant from the Conscripts' Hollow, a clump of blackberry bushes was growing from a crevice in the rock. They had never before given him trouble; but now, as he brushed hastily past, they seemed to clutch at him with their thorny branches.
As he tore away from them roughly, he did not observe that he had left a fragment of his brown jeans clothing hanging upon the thorns, as a witness to his presence here close to the Conscripts' Hollow, where the stolen goods lay hidden. There was a coarse, dark-colored horn button attached to the bit of brown jeans, which was a three-cornered scrap of his coat. No! ofBarney'scoat. And was it to be a witness against poor Barney, who had not gone near the Conscripts' Hollow, but was lying asleep on the summit of the crag, supposing he had his own coat under his own head?
He did not discover his mistake until some time afterward, for when Nick had slowly and laboriously climbed up the steep face of the cliff, he stripped off his friend's torn coat before he roused him. Barney was awakened by having his pillow dragged rudely from under his head, and when at last he reluctantly opened his eyes on the hazy yellow sunlight, and saw Nick standing near on the great gray crag, he had no idea that this moment was an important crisis in his life.
The wind was coming up the gorge fresh and free; the autumnal foliage, swaying in it, was like the flaunting splendors of red and gold banners; the western ranges had changed from blue to purple, for the sun was sinking.
"It's gittin' toler'ble late, Barney," said Nick. "Let's go." He had on his own coat now, and he was impatient to be off.
"Did ye find the tur-r-key's nest in the Conscripts' Hollow?" asked Barney, with a lazy yawn, and still flat on his back.
"No," said Nick curtly.
Then it occurred to him that it would be safer if his friend should think he had not been in the Hollow. "No," he reiterated, after a pause, "I didn't go down ter the ledge arter all."
He had begun to lie,—where would it end?
"Whyn't you-uns go?" demanded Barney, surprised.
"The wind war blowin' so powerful brief," Nick replied without a qualm. "So I jes' s'arched fur a while in the woods back thar a piece."
In a moment more, Barney rose to his feet, picked up his coat, and put it on. He did not notice the torn place, for the garment was old and worn, and had many ragged edges. It lacked, however, but one button, and that missing button was attached to the triangular bit of brown jeans that fluttered on the thorny bush close to the Conscripts' Hollow.
All unconscious of his loss, he went away in the rich autumnal sunset, leaving it there as a witness against him.