"Riz outen ther night with black specters at his back,Ter ther numbers of scores upon scores,An' rid straightway ter ther dwellin' house of Bad Jim Towers,Who treemored es they battered down ther doors."
"Riz outen ther night with black specters at his back,Ter ther numbers of scores upon scores,An' rid straightway ter ther dwellin' house of Bad Jim Towers,Who treemored es they battered down ther doors."
"Riz outen ther night with black specters at his back,
Ter ther numbers of scores upon scores,
An' rid straightway ter ther dwellin' house of Bad Jim Towers,
Who treemored es they battered down ther doors."
More than one mountain girl bent forward listening with heightened pulses as the lad who had come "sweet-heartin'" her shrilled out his chorus.
"So his debt fer thet evil Jim Towers hed ter pay,Fer they driv him outen old Kaintuck, afore ther break of day.All sich es follers burnin' down a pore man's happy home,Will hev ter reck ther Bear Cat's wrath an' no more free ter roam."
"So his debt fer thet evil Jim Towers hed ter pay,Fer they driv him outen old Kaintuck, afore ther break of day.All sich es follers burnin' down a pore man's happy home,Will hev ter reck ther Bear Cat's wrath an' no more free ter roam."
"So his debt fer thet evil Jim Towers hed ter pay,
Fer they driv him outen old Kaintuck, afore ther break of day.
All sich es follers burnin' down a pore man's happy home,
Will hev ter reck ther Bear Cat's wrath an' no more free ter roam."
And perhaps as the lass listened, she wondered if her own home-spun cavalier might not be going straight from her door to one of those mysterious meetings where oath-bound men gathered in awful and spectral conclave.
Sometimes, too, it was not only a song but an actual sight as well, which made the flesh creep along the scalp. Sometimes out of the distances came, first low and faint, then swelling into fulness that chorus of male voices along the breeze, and after it came the sight of a long serpent of light crawling the highways.
Through doors opened only to slits wondering eyes peered out into the blackness while that mysterious procession passed, seemingly an endless line of torches shining on black horsemen riding in single file.
When the singing ended and the night-riders went in silence they were even more awe-inspiring and ghost-like than before—and, except by remembering that the man of the house was absent, no woman could guess who any member of the train might be, for they passed with hat brims bent low and black masks coming down to their black slickers, and even their horses were swathed in flowing coverings of the same inky disguise. They were torch-lit silhouettes riding the night, but when they passed, those who saw them knew that some task was being accomplished in which the law had failed and that somewhere black dread would deservedly strike.
Kinnard Towers himself, racking his brain, took a less romantic view, but one of equal concern.
"Hit's done got beyond a hurtful pest now," he grumbled to Black Tom as the two of them sat over their pipes. "Ther longer he goes on unchecked ther more an' more fools will flock ter him. He's gittin' therpeoplebehind him an' hit's a-spreadin' like hawg cholera amongst young shoats."
"Does ye 'low they're all Stacys—or air thar some of our own kin mixed in with 'em?" queried Tom anxiously, and because he, too, had been pondering that vexing question, the Towers leader shook his head moodily.
"Thar hain't no possible way of tellin'. They seems ter possess a means of smellin' a man thet hain't genu-winely fer 'em an' sich-like kain't git inter no meetin's ter find out nothin'."
He puffed out a cloud of smoke and sought to comfort himself with specious optimism. "I reckon folks is misled as ter numbers, though. A few folks ridin' in ther night-time with noise an' torches looks like a whole passel."
"They acts like a whole passel, too," supplemented Black Tom, who had a blunt and unrelieved fashion of speaking his mind. "What does ye aim ter do erbout hit all?"
The florid man brought his great fist down on the table and his bull-like neck swelled with anger.
"I aims ter keep right on twell I gits this damned young night-rider hisself. Ther minute he dies ther rest of hit'll fall in like a roof without no ridge-pole."
He paused, then went on musingly: "I wouldn't be amazed none if Fulkerson's gal knows whar he's at right frequent. I've donedeevised a means ter hev her lead somebody ter him some time when he's by hisself. Ratler Webb seed him walkin' alone in ther woods only yistiddy."
"Why didn't Ratler git him then?"
Kinnard ground his teeth. "Why don't none of 'em ever git him? He claims he hed a bad ca'tridge in his rifle-gun an' hit snapped on him. Folks calls him Bear Cat an' hit 'pears like he's got nine lives in common with other cats. We've got ter keep right on till we puts an end ter all of em."
Black Tom was so inconsiderate as to burst in a raucous laugh of ridicule. "Hit usen't ter be so damn' hard ter kill one man," was his unfeeling comment.
About that time Kinnard's man-pack developed a strong disinclination to take bold chances of falling in with the black army of torches. They moved about their tasks with such constraint that their quarry had a correspondingly greater freedom and latitude. And moonshiners no longer boasted defiance, but dug in and became infinitely secretive. In spite of all these precautions, however, day after day saw new trophies hanging along way-side branches until there were few left to hunt out.
One afternoon, walking alone through the woods, Bear Cat Stacy stooped at the edge of a "spring branch" to quench his thirst, and as he knelt he saw floating past him yellow and broken grains of corn. Cautiously and invisibly he followed the stream upward, worming himself along until he lay looking in upon the tiny plant of a typical illicit still. Its fire was burning under the mash kettle and back far enough to escape the revealing light was a bark roofed, browse-thatched retreat in which sat an old man, reflectively smoking.
As Bear Cat looked on, a startled surprise came into his expression and his face worked spasmodically as if in pain. He wished he might not have seen the floating evidence which had brought him here and confronted him with the hardest tug-of-war between sincerity and blood-loyalty that he had yet encountered.
The man huddled there in his rabbit-warren retreat was old Turner Stacy, brother of Bear Cat's father and the uncle for whom he had himself been named. Bear Cat had not even suspected that this kinsman was operating such a plant. The elder Turner Stacy was a fierce and close-mouthed fellow whose affairs were confided to no one.
Bracing himself for an ordeal, Bear Cat emerged from his concealment and walked forward.
At sight of an unannounced visitor the old man's hand went quickly out toward the rifle lying at his side, but as he recognized the face, he rose without it and stood silently glowering.
"Uncle Turner," began the nephew seriously, "I hain't hardly willin' ter use fo'ce erginst ye—but ye knows what hit would sound like fer folks ter fling hit up erginst me thet I'm favorin' my own blood. I wants thet ye give me yore hand ter quit."
For a moment the aged face worked with passion, its white beard bristling and its eyes flaming.
"Who do ye think ye air—God Almighty?" came the angry question. "Who give ye license ter come brow-beatin' yore elders? Yore own paw's in jail now because somebody betrayed him.... I wonder war hityou!"
The young man recoiled as though an unexpected blow in the face had stunned him.
"My God," he exclaimed in a low voice, "I didn't never expect ter hear a kinsman charge me with sich infamy. I reckon I've got ter look over hit though. Ye're my father's brother an' ye're right aged." He paused and then his voice changed to one crisp and peremptory.
"I reckon ye knows I've got ther power ter compel ye as I've compelled others. Does ye aim ter destroy thet thing yoreself,—now,—or does ye want thet I brings fo'ce?"
There ensued a half hour of storm, but at its end the older Stacy bowed to necessity. He, too, knew of the black army, and though he swore like a baffled pirate into his beard he capitulated. Bear Cat left a demolished place, carrying with him a fresh trophy, but he went with a heavy heart.
It would have surprised him had he known that, left alone, his uncle's wrath had turned suddenly to amusement for some private joke of his own.
As the old man watched the retreating figure he chuckled and mumbled to himself.
"Hit's right good fortune thet he came this week 'stid of next," he soliloquized as he refilled his pipe's bowl, still smiling. "I'm glad he didn't know I'd done ordered me a brand-new worm—an' thet hit's due ter get hyar right soon."
As he puffed at the home grown tobacco, the elder Turner Stacy added: "I reckon, though, I'd better pick out a fresh spot afore I sets ther new one up."
Since Blossom had realized her neglect of Turner's mother that day in the grave yard she had sought to make amends by many small attentions and frequent visits.
One afternoon as she came into the house, she found Mrs. Stacy, who had been bed-ridden with a deep cold, dressing herself with weak and trembling hands. The girl's face became instantly stern.
"I told ye not ter rise from yore bed ter-day," she began and the other woman dropped into a chair in pure feebleness.
"I don't seem ter hev no stren'th lef' in me," she complained. "Seems like I've got a thousand bones inside me—an' all on 'em achin'."
"You must go back to bed, straightway. I'll brew ye somethin' hot an' kiver ye up, an' read ter ye twell ye goes ter sleep."
But Mrs. Stacy responded with a short laugh that rasped bitterly.
"Turney air a hidin' out ter-night in thet small cavern whar ye tuck Mr. Henderson oncet. I've done carried him victuals over thar twict since he's been livin' like a varmint in the woods. I war jest makin' ready ter sot out ergin. Ther riders hain't a-meetin' ter-night an' he's thar all by hisself."
"Whar's George Kelly?" demanded Blossom quickly, for she was to some degree initiated in the operating methods of Turner and his followers.
"He's done fared over inter Virginny ter visit his wife. She's ailin'."
"But I don't understand. What does Turner need?"
The mother trembled with a sudden access of the terror she had been fighting back. Her voice rose shrilly and broke: "He needs ter be fore-warned. His enemies hev diskivered whar he's at—an' they aims ter trap him thar ter-night."
The color went out of the girl's face as she questioned tensely. "How—how did ye hear tell of this?"
"A leetle while back I heered a shout outside, an I riz' up an' went ter ther door. Thar wasn't nobody in sight, but I found this hyar letter stuck thar with a pin. Whosoever hit war thet left hit, hed done went away." She held out a clenched, talon-like hand and opened it, and on a small sheet of ruled paper, printed out unevenly, Blossom read the anonymous message: "I can't be seen giving you this letter because I'm accounted to be Kinnard's man. They knows where Bear Cat is hiding to-night and are planning according. Git him warned straightway.—A Friend."
"Thet's all I knows," moaned the mother, "but thar hain't nobody with him—an' he don't suspicion nothin'."
The girl was already throwing her discarded shawl about her shoulders.
"You go right back ter bed. I reckon ye kin trust me ter warn him." Her eyes were full of warlike fire. "I kin go quicker then you, an' I won't pause till I've got thar an' told him."
"Ye'll fare right back again, won't ye?" quavered the sick woman. "An' fotch me tidin's—thet he got away safe."
Blossom had been a little stoop-shouldered of late with that carelessness of carriage that comes from grief, but now again she was lance-like in her straightness and vibrant with the determination of a Valkyr.
"I'll come back ter ye," she vowed and then she burst out: "I reckon this day I kin pay back some leetle part of ther debt I owes to Turney. God knows he's done enough fer me!"
She went over the steep path with the light fleetness of some wild thing—and of course she did not know that after her, unseen and silent as a shadow, followed a slouching figure, using her as a guide. She did not know either that, as she left the more traveled ways and turned abruptly into the thicketed forest, that figure was joined by two others, or that one of them, after a few whispered words, struck off to communicate with more distant members of the hidden pack.
A wild haste drove her for she knew that Turner trusted the secrecy of that cave, known, as he thought, only to his friends. Every moment she could gain for him would mean a distance put between him and his peril.
Several times she paused just long enough to look about and assure herself that she was not being followed—and then went forward again, falsely reassured by the silence and seeming emptiness of the wintry woods.
Pantingly she came to the mouth of the cave. Before it lay a small plateau, gashed across by a gulch that went down a sheer hundred feet and littered with piles of broken and gigantic rock. The opening to the grotto itself was tucked back between these great bowlders, and for that reason had remained so nearly undiscovered. Just outside the fissure, she halted and gave the old signal of the owl's call. Thrice she repeated it, and then as she stood with her hands pressed to her heart, she saw a face appear, and a moment later Bear Cat had thrust himself lengthwise out of the bottle neck, and stood at her side, his face glowing with surprised delight for her coming.
"Blossom!" he cried. "What brought ye?" and in his voice throbbed the rebirth of wild hope for the miracle which, he had told himself, would never come back into his life.
But Blossom laid a sobering hand on his arm and talked rapidly.
"Thar's dire need of haste an' little time fer speech. Yore enemies know you're here an' ter-night they're comin' ter hem ye in—an slay ye. Fer God's sake go—swiftly!"
The man's face, which had softened into tenderness, stiffened. He gulped down his disappointment and said simply, "I'm obleeged ter ye, Blossom," then went into the black cranny. The girl could see the dim glow of his electric torch flashing there, but as she waited she heard something from the other direction which made her heart miss its beat; the sound of furtively guarded voices somewhere in the litter of bowlders. Instantly she, too, disappeared into the fissure.
"They're hyar a'ready," she panted. "I've done come too late. Thar hain't but ther one way out, neither, is thar?"
For an instant Turner Stacy stood immovable, listening as his thumb slid back the hammer of his rifle.
"Thar hain't but one wayyoukin go out," he told her—"ther same way ye come in."
His face was grim and hurriedly he went on: "But hyar of late I diskivered a leetle hole jest big enough ter crawl through—way back at ther end of a small gulch. Thar's a tree-top nigh by—but ye hes ter dive fer hit offen ther edge of ther clift—and trust God ter aid ye when ye seeks ter ketch hold of a limb. I reckon mebby I mout go out thet way—ef I war by myself."
But Blossom's eyes had lighted with a sudden hope.
"Ye've got ter try hit, then, Turney," she declared staunchly. "Take yore pistol an' leave me yore rifle. I'll make 'em think ye're still hyar fer a spell anyhow."
"Does ye reckon I'd go away an' leave ye hyar ter them wolves?" questioned the man scornfully, and with palms against his chest, as if she would push him bodily back to the one chance of escape, she spoke urgently:
"In thet leetle hole thar, one gun kin hold back a whole mob an' ef ye gits away I reckon ye kin git some friends an' come back, kain't ye?"
"Ef I kin make Pinnacle Rock an' light a fire thar—I kin hev a score of men hyar in two hours' time—but two hours——" He broke off with a groan.
"Then do hit. I kin hold 'em back longer then thet. Ef they does git in, I'll pretend ye jest left by ther backway. They won't harm me nowhow."
He doubted that, but he knew that his staying meant ultimate death for both of them, and that once outside he had a chance to rally his forces for her rescue. For a little longer his reluctance to abandon her even temporarily held him in quandary, then realizing that it offered the only hope, he seized her fingers in a tight grasp and whispered:
"Farewell—then. God be with ye twell I gits back."
He worked his way along a twisting passage hitherto known only to spiders and bats until at length he could see a yellow shred of westering sky through a narrow rent in the blackness. As he edged his body through the rift he heard a rifle shot reverberating brokenly through the twisting tunnels, followed by a dogged spatter of response—or was it only echo? He ground his teeth and poised himself precariously on a foothold, inches wide, and treacherously insecure. He measured the distance to a hickory branch that the wind rocked and between its support and himself was emptiness. The scaly bark of the limb for which he must leap was near the top of a tree whose roots were planted fifty feet lower.
Turner gathered his muscles into elastic readiness—and plunged outward. There was an instant of terrific uncertainty, then he swung pendulum-like, upon a support that sagged and gave under his weight as he hooked his knees about the branch and drank in a deep breath of thanksgiving.
Blossom, kneeling unseen and partly protected by a sandstone barricade, had been peering out at the broken gulches which were already filling with a dusky gray. She must keep those alley ways clear and there were two of them. A twilight depression gnawed at her heart.
Finally she saw a furtive and leering face thrust slowly and cautiously around the angle of stone. Her pulses pounded, but her rifle was trained, and her hands unshaking. For the first time since Henderson's murder, something like a thrill warmed her veins. Now she could hit back and avenge and take a man's chance of death in doing it. Then the man, bent on reconnaissance, ventured a forward step. He had not come quite far enough to see the opening itself though he knew that it must be hidden somewhere among those bowlders. He peered with lynx-like eagerness—ready to leap back if need be—and Blossom pressed her trigger. Without a groan the figure wilted down and lay in grotesque shapelessness between the rocks.
The fusillade which came in response was random and ineffective, and the girl, nerved to battle, found the long and anxious silence which ensued a purgatory of suspense. At the end she knew they would attempt to overwhelm defense in a charge and the passing minutes ate like decay into the tissue of her courage. Then what she dreaded came. They were making a rush through both alleys at once. If they succeeded in crossing the twenty feet of open danger, they could spread out on each side of the cave's mouth, themselves safe by reason of the angle, and seal the place up like a tomb.
Yet the first assault broke into demoralized flight under her fierce welcome of fire and two other assailants fell wounded. Once more soundless minutes dragged by in interminable suspense—then as the second charge was launched, Blossom's rifle jammed its mechanism and became dead in her hands. She threw it down and ran toward the passage at the back. As it narrowed until she had to go on hands and knees, she heard voices inside the cave—and then for the first time her nerves snapped and she fainted.
CHAPTER XXV
Whenthe curtain of unconsciousness rolled up again Blossom was no longer in the cave, but was lying on the ground between the rocks outside. It was dark now, but a lantern was lighted near at hand, and her wrists and ankles ached with the bite of knotted ropes.
Although she could see no one, she had the distinct sense of eyes gazing at her from somewhere beyond the narrow circle of light and as she stirred uneasily, she heard a voice that seemed to come from behind the sandstone at her right. "She's done come ter herself. Now we've need ter hasten." Then from her left a sugar-loaf bowlder appeared to question her.
"Whar did he go to? You knows an' we knows ye know—an' we don't aim ter be trifled with neither. Ef ye speaks out honest an' ready, we'll go an' git him fust an' then come back an' sot ye free afterwards."
Blossom writhed with a realization that she was in the hands of creatures as savagely merciless as wolves, but she set her teeth.
"I hain't never a-goin' ter tell ye," she declared staunchly, "not ef ye kills me!" A satirical laugh drifted from the shadows.
"All right, then, we've done made provision fer thet, too. Ef ye won't tell us whar he's at we'll find out fer ourselves, but we aims ter leave one man hyar with ye when we goes. He's done been drinkin' right-smart licker—an' he natch'rally won't want ye ter go away an' tell his name ter nobody."
The unseen speaker paused significantly, then added with a deliberate brutality: "I reckon ye'll have ter be mighty sweet ter thet man ef ye hopes ter go away from hyar alive."
The girl lay blanched but unyielding. She did not dare to hope that the threat was empty and her single chance lay in parrying for time. Bear Cat had said he would come back with reinforcements in two hours—if he won through—but he, too, was facing desperate odds and already they might have overwhelmed him: he might have failed in his dive from precipice to tree-top.
Her heart sank into a nausea of terror. No outrage was beyond these human jackals, but she was bred to iron courage and the warlike blood in her veins welled up in defiance.
"I've done already give ye my answer," she retorted, forgetting her ideals of diction. "I don't aim ter alter hit none—damn ye!"
"We aims ter be plumb fa'r an' reasonable," wheedled the voice of the spokesman with an evil sneer. "Deespite yore contrary muleishness, we're goin' ter tarry hyar jest precisely five minutes by ther watch ter afford ye a chanst ter study ther matter over, but don't make no mistake. We means, in sum an' substance, jest what we says ... most anythin's liable ter happen ter ye when we goes away."
Blossom's pulses pounded so furiously that her sanity reeled through a thousand nightmare tortures before she heard the detestable voice once more drawling, "Wa'al, time's up. Ef ye fo'ces us now, hit's jest plain suicide—thet's all."
After that, for a while, she remembered nothing save the delusion that she was drowning—sinking down and still more deeply down through eternities. Her next definite impression came when she found herself inside the cave, with her head resting against the muddied knees of a man who sat cross-legged on the ground. At the mouth of the grotto was a lantern with its dimming shield turned outward so that, inside, its light fell in a grotesque effect of ragged formlessness.
As she stirred into returning consciousness, the creature who was cradling her aching head on his marrow-bones, took down the tin cup which just then obscured his face.
Blossom recognized Ratler Webb and the breath stopped in her tightened throat.
The degenerate face was unshaven and bristling. Its blood-shot eyes smirked at her with the brutalized leer of a satyr. The man bent over a little and with grimy fingers fondled the hair on her neck and temples.
"Jest tek yore time, sweetheart," he said. "Don't hasten ter rouse yoreself up. We've got ther night afore us."
As the girl flinched and struggled away from the beast-light of those predatory eyes, her captor only clasped her the closer so that his alcoholic breath came sickeningly close to her face. He chuckled thickly as he added, "I reckon I kin allow ye a leetle time—because we're beholden ter ye. We didn't hev no notion whar yore beau war a-hidin' at twell we left thet note over thar. Then ye led us straight ter ther place."
Turner Stacy had clambered and slid precariously down the hickory tree without greater mishap than raw and bleeding hands. Once more on the ground, he ran like a madman, bending low in the timber.
The signal fire which he meant to build on the bald crest of Pinnacle Rock, would send out a flare visible to three states. Already he was twenty-five hundred feet above sea-level, but there remained a climb of almost a thousand more, and he was taking the direct and well-nigh perpendicular route.
Breathless, panting, vaulting from rock to rock; gripping, on faith, root and sapling, he climbed the steep stairway—where sometimes the earth shelved away underfoot—and he clutched wildly out for fresh support. Once there, with a fire blazing, he would have twenty or more of his nearest adherents riding to the rescue. They would rally on the highway just below the signal fire itself and there seek instructions—or signs. Fortunately for the present need, the night-riders had developed a mysterious but thorough system of communication. Their code of signals embraced a series of crude emblems, which to the initiated designated the zone into which they were called for action.
With frenzied haste Bear Cat laid and lighted his fire on the bald summit—pausing only long enough to see its red glare leaping upward. Then he plunged downward again.
Along the highroad, which, for a little way, he followed boldly, he placed peeled twigs bent into circles at various conspicuous places, knowing that those who were to come would read from them the course to follow.
After that he disappeared into the thickets again and traveled swiftly. Twice, as he hurried, soft-footed, through the woods he halted and threw himself flat while members of the pursuing party well-nigh ran over him. But eventually he reached a litter of giant rocks that stood like undisciplined sentinels guarding the cave's entrance. Then he stopped and listened, and when he heard no sound he crept forward obsessed with apprehension. He could not escape the feeling that this seeming of calm was dangerously deceptive.
Finally as he lay flattened and listening with all his faculties razor-edged, he heard something that electrified him—a woman's scream.
Clawing out his pistol, he threw all caution to the winds and raced for the entrance of the cave, and as he went he heard it again, now sharp and terrified, and he recognized Blossom's voice.
In his haste it did not even occur to him to feel surprised that no rifles greeted him. An exaltation of wrath intoxicated him with superlative confidence. He could meet and overcome a host of enemies! His voice rose in Berserker frenzy. "I'm a-comin', Blossom! I'm a-comin'!"
For perhaps three-quarters of an hour after Blossom had recovered consciousness the second time, it had pleased her captor to sit across the narrow way from her, gloating with a bestial satisfaction over her helplessness, while he poured white stuff from bottle to tin cup.
Despite the advantages of his position, Ratler had thoughts which were disconcerting. At his hands lay the final opportunity to glut his long-starved hunger for revenge: to glut it fully and in a fashion of beastly brutality, and for that he had waited with a singleness of thought and purpose.
But behind him to-night he must leave no witness, and as he approached his task, he found that his nerves needed the steadying of strong drink—and yet more strong drink. Out of the flask he was not only drawing appeasement of thirst, but fuel for determination.
For a while he had even dozed while the girl, bound hand and foot, had shudderingly watched his dissolute and depraved face.
Then at the end he had risen, stretched his long arms and sauntered insolently over, looking down while he phrased repulsive compliments to her beauty.
Tiring eventually of his cat-and-mouse deliberateness, Ratler leaned down and, putting his arm about her waist, drew her up to him. Then it was that with all the revulsion that was in her she had screamed not once but until his hand had choked off her breath—and at that instant she had heard the shout from beyond the cave's entrance.
Webb heard it, too, and hurled the woman away from him, suddenly brought back to something nearer sobriety by the shock. He wheeled and trained his pistol on the entrance. He had laid aside his rifle and there was no time now to hunt for it. Bear Cat would have to stoop and edge his way into the place and in the process he could be easily dispatched.
But while he waited Ratler's knees shook and when, instead of crawling, he saw a shape dive almost horizontally through the aperture his courage evaporated. The lantern was badly placed and it confused the man inside because it darkened the opening while it left him in plain sight. Ratler's revolver was spitting venomously but ineffectually. His hand was unsteady and his eye confused. The drunkard was reeling as he fought and after a dazed moment he felt himself caught in a bone-breaking embrace while the butt of a pistol hammered the consciousness out of his skull.
Turner Stacy was a wild man now. He stumbled blindly out of the cave dragging a limp figure behind him, and when he straightened up again and wiped his sweat-streaming face he had hurled the thing bodily outward, where the ravine dropped down a hundred feet.
He came back, palsied and shaken, and as he bent over the girl and cut away her bonds, his voice struggled through dry sobs.
"Blossom," he pleaded brokenly, "Blossom, tell me ye're only affrighted. Tell me thet ye didn't come ter no harm—fer my sake."
"I hain't hurt—Turney," she managed to whisper. "Ye came back—in time—jest barely in time."
She stood leaning weakly against the rock wall with her hands pressed tightly to her face.
The man stood, panting with excitement and exertion, but into his pupils came a sudden light of hope.
"Blossom," he whispered huskily, "Blossom—ye didn't ... come over ... hyar ... because ye ... because ye keered fer me, did ye?"
She took her hands away from her temples and looked at him with a white face, and in the unhappy honesty of her eyes the man read his answer. It was as if she had said, "My heart lies over there inhisgrave," and slowly, gravely Turner nodded his head. His face had gone gray, but through its misery it held a stamp of gentleness.
"I understands ye," he said simply. "I won't never pester ye no more." Then as some note of alarm came to his ears he wheeled, all alertness again and his hand was once more gripping his pistol.
"I've only got three ca'tridges left," he said to himself. "Hit's nip an' tuck now which git hyar fust."
As he reached the mouth of the cave a shout came out of the darkness. "Ratler, air ye in thar?" and out into the night went the defiant response. "No, Ratler hain't hyar, but Bear Cat Stacy's hyar. Come on an' git me ef ye wants me."
There was a silence after that, which he knew meant a parley. As he knelt waiting he felt a hand on his shoulder and with eyes still searching the ominous darkness he spoke low, in a trained effort at self-control:
"Blossom, hit looks like we're trapped. Ye came inter this peril in an effort ter save me—an' I fears hit's goin' ter be hopeless. I hain't got but three ca'tridges left."
"Save one of 'em, Turney," she said without a tremor in her voice. "Shoot twice ef ye wants ter do hit—an' then give ther pistol ter me. I kain't bear ter fall inter their hands again."
Then as they counted the seconds they heard another sound. From across the nearer crests lusty voices, raised in unison, were chanting. Turner even fancied he could distinguish the familiar words, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." There was a clatter of gravel under dispersing footsteps and a low wake of frightened oaths—and the night had taken the attacking party to itself.
The Stacys had pressing topics to discuss. The activities of their young kinsman were no longer a matter of theory but a condition, and their clan attitude toward him must be determined. Was he to be regarded as a renegade or as one still entitled to recognition?
At the house of Joe Stacy on a cold winter day a dozen of the elders gathered to discuss this matter.
"Bear Cat's done cast off all regards fer fam'ly loyalty," cried out a turbulent spirit whose eyes and voice bespoke fellowship with the jug. "He's makin' war on everything we've ever stood fer. Thet damned furriner bewitched him, I reckon. He's jest rampagin' round with a passel of wuthless Stacys and Towerses alike, destroyin' propitty. He's stirrin' up ther cast-offs an' woods-colts of both factions an' he hain't nuthin' more ner less then a damn' traitor."
But Joe Stacy, steadier of balance, thrust himself into the discussion.
"Thet hain't no fa'r ner rightful statement," he said slowly with the weight of thoughtful force. "Thar's some amongst us thet don't hold with Bear Cat an' some thet does—but he hain't no traitor. He told us out-spoken what he aimed ter do afore he commenced doin' hit, an' thet needed courage. Myself, I thinks he's a man with a vision, an' afore we casts him out I aims ter be heered."
There was a hum of discussion and while it was at its height, the elder Turner Stacy burst tempestuously into the midst of the gathering. The old man shook with rage and his voice quavered.
"By God," he roared, "thet boy's plumb crazed. He's got ter be handled—an' checked. I suffered him ter bust up my old still 'cause I knowed ther new one was a-comin', but now he's busted up ther new one, too. Hit war a beautiful piece of copper—an' right hard ter smuggle in."
The group of elders regarded the old blockader with varying emotions, as he stood glaring with an ember-like ferocity which he genuinely believed to be righteous indignation. But Joe Stacy, his own brother, permitted his shrewd eyes to twinkle as he laid a calming hand on the anger-palsied shoulder of the new arrival.
"Wa'al now, Turner," he suggested dryly, "by yore own showin' ye lied ter ther boy an' consented ter quit stillin'. Hit's right sensibly like these-hyar other outrages thet's done been reported. He hain't nuver interfered with no man'slawfulbusiness yit—an' albeit I don't know who ther fellers air thet rides with him by night, I kin discarn right well by thar way they does things thet thar hain't no licker-befuddled folks amongst 'em." Suddenly the speaker's voice rose. "An', by God, I knows another thing besides thet! I knows thet some fellers roundabout, thet used ter be red-eyed an' sullen-visaged, kin look a man straight in ther face ter-day, clear-sighted an' high-headed. I've got a notion thet ye kin jest erbout identify these-hyar outlaws by ther way they carries thar chins high."
"What law air thar fer a man ter sot out compellin' other men ter adopt his notions, I wants ter know?" came the fierce demand, and Joe Stacy smiled.
"Thet's a fa'r question," he admitted, "an' I'll meet hit with an answer ther minit' ye tells me what law thar air fer blockadin'."
One morning Bear Cat was coming along the road when he heard voices beyond the bend, and turned into the brush. Looking out, he saw such a strange procession that he emerged again.
A man whose back was stooped, and whose face wore a dull stamp of hopelessness, trudged along, carrying a bundle over his shoulder and a dilapidated carpet-bag in one hand. Behind him trailed three small children, the largest two also staggering under rough bundles.
"Whar be ye a-goin', Matthew Blakey?" hailed Stacy, and the man halted. He opened a mouth well-nigh toothless, though he was yet young, and replied in a tone of deep depression. "I'm farin' over ter thet new school, with fotched-on teachers in Fletcher County. I aims ter ask 'em ter take in these-hyar chil'len."
"Hain't ye goin' ter house 'em an' tend 'em no longer yore own self?" was the somewhat stern interrogation, and the man's pale blue eyes filled suddenly with a suspicion of tears.
"Since thar mother died three y'ars back, I've done sewed an' washed all thar clothes my own self—an' gone out inter ther field an' wucked for 'em," he said humbly. "I've done raised 'em es right es I knows, but I kain't do what I ought fer 'em. When I has ter leave 'em I kain't holp but study, s'pose ther house war ter ketch fire? They're all sleepy-headed leetle shavers."
"Why don't ye git married again?"
The voice shook a little. "Young 'uns oughtn't ter hev but just one mammy—an' I couldn't nuver be content with no other woman." He paused. "Hit's forty mile ter thet school, an' mebby they're full up—but I've done been over thar an' seed hit." The weary eyes lighted. "God knows I nuver 'lowed thet tharwarsich fine places ter raise chil'len to'rds humanity an' l'arn 'em all manner of wisdom!"
"All right, go on over thar, Matthew," said Bear Cat in a matter-of-fact voice, but in his own pupils gleamed a soft light, "an' when ye come back jine with me. I'm seekin' ter bring hit erbout thet we kin hev a school like thet over hyar—whar yore children wouldn't be so far away."
The father stood twisting his broganed toe in the mud. "I heers thet ye don't tolerate licker, Bear Cat," he said sheepishly. "Hit hain't nuver made me mean ner nuthin' like thet—but since my woman died I've done tuck ter drinkin' hit—I misdoubts ef I could plumb stop."
Bear Cat Stacy smiled. "Ter-morrer drink half what ye've been usin' an' next day cut thet down a leetle. Anyhow come an' hev speech with me."
Matthew nodded and Turner watched the little procession trail out of sight behind the gray screen of the timber-line. "All sore-eyed, an' all sickly," he commented under his breath. "Not one of 'em gittin' a chanst ter grow straight! Mebby over thar, they will, though."
CHAPTER XXVI
"Takea cheer an' sit down, an' light a pipe—unless ye've got a cigar." The invitation came from the Honorable William Renshaw, circuit judge, seated in the same small chamber adjoining the court-room in Marlin Town, from which Kinnard Towers had issued orders on that afternoon of Big-meetin' time.
"Co'te don't meet till two o'clock—an' I'm always glad to have the chance to chat with distinguished counsel from down below—I don't get down thar oftentimes myself."
The man to whom Judge Renshaw spoke seemed conspicuously out of his own environment in this musty place of unwashed windows, cob-webbed walls and cracking plaster.
His dress bespoke the skill of a good tailor and his fingers were manicured. He drew out a cigar case and proffered a perfecto to his honor, then deliberately snipped the end from his own. Evidently he had something embarrassing to say.
"Judge," he began briefly, "I've been here now for upwards of a week, trying to get this business under way. You know what the results have been—or rather have not been. I've encountered total failure."
"Hasn't the prosecutin' attorney afforded you every facility, Mr. Sidney?" The inquiry was put in a tone of the utmost solicitude.
"That's not the difficulty," objected the visiting lawyer. "Mr. Hurlburt has shown me every courtesy—in precisely the way you have. Your instructions to the grand jurors were admirable. The prosecutor consented at once that I should participate in getting the evidence before them, and in assisting him to punish the guilty when indicted. It is now February. Jerry Henderson was murdered before the first snow flew. Those subpoenas which we have sent out have for the most part come back—unserved. What witnesses we have secured might as well be mutes. The thing is inexplicable. Surely the judge can do something to energize the machinery of his court out of utter lethargy. I appeal to you, sir. We all know that Henderson was murdered ... we all suspect who had it done, yet we make no progress."
Judge Renshaw nodded his head affirmatively.
"It looks right considerably that way." Then seeing the impatient expression on the other face, he spoke again—in a different voice, leaning forward. "Mr. Sidney, I reckon I know what's in your mind. You're thinkin' that both me and the prosecutin' attorney ain't much better than tools of Kinnard Towers.... Maybe there's a grain of truth in it. I'm judge of a district that takes in several county seats and I ride the circuit. Before I was elected to the bench I was a backwoods lawyer that sometimes knew the pinch of hunger. You say Kinnard Towers is dishonest—and worse. If I said it, Imighthold office till the next election—but more likely I wouldn't live that long."
As the notable attorney from the city sought to disarm his smile of its satirical barb, the other proceeded: "That strikes you as a thing that's exaggerated—and a thing that a man ought to be ashamed to admit even if it was true. All right. Do you know that when you took the Henderson matter to the grand jury, nine men on the panel sought to be excused from service in fear of their lives? Do you know that on every day they did serve all twelve got anonymous letters threatenin' them with death? They know it anyhow—and you see they haven't brought in any true bills an' I predict that no matter what evidence you put before them—they won't."
"Why were those letters not presented to the Court? You have power to protect your panels with every company of militia in the state if need be."
"So I told 'em." The reply was laconic, and it was supplemented in a slow drawl. "But you see they've known militia protection before—and that guarantee didn't satisfy them. They figure that the soldiers go away after awhile—but there's other forces that stay on all the time—and those other forces can wait months or years without forgetting or forgiving."
"And this terrorization paralyzes your courts of justice?"
"Well, no. It lets 'em run along in a fashion—as you've seen."
Mr. Sidney strove to repress his choler, but his manner was icy as he remarked: "That's a strange utterance for a judge on the bench."
"Is it?" Renshaw's quiet eyes showed just a glint of repressed anger. "Doesn't it work the same way in your district—or materially the same? Are your judges free from the coercion of strong interests? Are your jurors all willing to die for their duty?" After a brief silence he added: "Why, Mr. Sidney, you came here yourself ostensibly in the interest of friends and relatives who were unwilling to let this murder go 'unwhipped of justice'—them were your words. Yet we all know that you're the chief lawyer for a railroad that hasn't ever been famed for altruism."
The visitor flushed.
"While you were working up this evidence," inquired his honor, "did you go out and try to talk to Bear Cat Stacy?"
"Certainly not. He's an outlaw—whom your deputies failed to bring in when I had a subpoena issued. My life wouldn't be worth tuppence if I tried to get to him."
Judge Renshaw smiled somewhat grimly.
"Yes, they call him an outlaw—but he swings a power right now that this high court doesn't pretend to have. He's the one man that Kinnard fears—and maybe he'd help you if the two of you could get together."
"A lawyer should not have to be his own process-server," was the retort of offended dignity.
"No—neither ought a judge." Renshaw took the cigar from his mouth and studied it. Then he spoke slowly:
"Mr. Sidney, there's nothing further I can do, but—put it on whatever ground you like—I'll make a suggestion. I'm beginning to doubt if Kinnard Towers is going to remain supreme here much longer. I think his power is on the wane. If you will make a motion to swear me off the bench for the duration of these proceedin's—and can persuade the governor to send a special judge and prosecutor here—I'll gladly vacate. Then you can bring your soldier boys and see what that will effect. That's the best satisfaction I can give you—but if I were you, since you have no patience with men that consider personal risks—I'd talk with this Stacy first. Of course, Kinnard Towers won't like that."
Mr. Sidney rose, piqued at the suggestion of timidity, into a sudden announcement. "Very well," he said, "I'll ride over there to Little Slippery to-night—to hell with this bugaboo Towers!"
"If I lived as far away as you do," suggested the judge, "I might allow myself to say, Amen to that sentiment."
Mr. Sidney did not, in point of fact, go that night, but he did a few days later. Had he known it, he was safe enough. Kinnard Towers had no wish just then to hurl a challenge into the teeth of the whole state by harming a distinguished member of the metropolitan bar, but before George Sidney started out, the Quarterhouse leader had knowledge of his mission, and surmised that he would be sheltered at the house of Joel Fulkerson.
When the lawyer arrived the old preacher was standing by the gate of his yard with a letter in his hand, that had arrived a little while before. It was from an anonymous writer and its message was this: "If you aid the lawyer from Louisville, in any fashion whatsoever, or take him into your house, it will cost you your life."
Brother Fulkerson had been wondering whether to confide to any one the receipt of that threat. Heretofore factional bitterness had always passed him by. Now he decided to dismiss the matter without alarming his friends with its mention.
As he strode forward to welcome the stranger, he absently tore the crumpled sheet of paper to bits and consigned it to the winds.
"I am George Sidney," announced the man who was sliding from his saddle, stiff-limbed from a long ride. "I'm trying to effect the punishment of your son-in-law's murder, and I've come to your house."
"Ye're welcome," said the evangelist simply, and there was no riffle of visible misgiving in his eyes. "Come right in an' set ye a cheer."
Two days later Mr. Sidney rode away again, but in an altered frame of mind. He had met Bear Cat Stacy and was disposed to talk less slightingly of outlaws. He had even seen a thing that had made the flesh creep on his scalp and given to his pulses such a wild thrill as they had not known since boyhood. He had watched a long line of black horsemen, masked and riding single-file with flambeaux along a narrow road between encompassing shadows. He had heard the next day of a "blind tiger" raided, and of an undesirable citizen who had been sentenced to exile—though related by blood ties to the leader of the vigilance committee.
It was sitting in the lounging-room of his Louisville Club a week later that he unfolded his morning paper and read the following item—and the paper dropped from his hand which had become suddenly nerveless.
"Joel Fulkerson," he read, after the first shock of the head-lines, "a mountain evangelist, whose work had brought him into prominence even beyond the hills of Marlin County, was shot to death yesterday while riding on a mission of mercy through a thickly wooded territory. Since, even in the bitterest feud days, Fulkerson was regarded as the friend of all men and all factions, it is presumed that the unknown assassin mistook him for some one other than himself."
George Sidney took an early train to Frankfort, and that same day sat in conference with the governor.
"It's a strange story," said the chief executive at length, "and the remedy you suggest is even stranger—but this far I will go. If you swear Renshaw off the bench, I will name a temporary judge and set a special term of court, to convene at once. The rest comes later, and we will take it up as we reach it."
Once more, just after that, Bear Cat Stacy stood again with Blossom by a new-made grave, but this time he came openly. Those kinsmen who saw him there were of one mind, and had he spoken the word, they would have followed him through blood to vengeance. But Stacy, with the hardest effort of his life, held them in check. It would mar the peaceful sleep of that gentle soul whom they were laying to rest, he thought, to punish bloody violence with other bloody violence—and in his mind a more effective plan was incubating.
All that he would tell the grim men who met in conclave that night, ready to don their masks and fare forth, was that this was, above all others, an occasion for biding their time. "But I pledges ye faithful," he declared in a voice that shook with solemn feeling, "ye won't hev need ter grow wearied with waitin'...."
No Towers watchmen came in these days to Turner's house. They contented themselves with keeping a vindictive vigil along the creeks and tributaries where they were numerically stronger. Each day Turner came to watch over Blossom with the quiet fidelity of a great dog. There was little enough that he could do, but he came and looked at her with hungry eyes out of a hungry heart, speaking no word of his own love, but listening as she talked of her father. He sought in a hundred small ways to divert her thoughts from the grim thing that had twice scarred her life and taken the light out of her eyes. As he trudged back to his house, where he had again taken up his residence, after these visits, he walked with a set jaw and registered oaths of reprisal to take a form new to the hills.
As the days passed it was reported that on the motion of the commonwealth, alleging bias and prejudice, Judge Renshaw had vacated the bench, and that the governor had named a pro-tem. successor from another district—and called a special term of court, to sit at Marlin Town.
Kinnard Towers heard that news with a smile of derision. "Let 'em bring on thar jedges an' soldiers," he said complacently. "Ther law still fo'ces 'em ter put native names in ther jury wheel an' I reckon no grand jury thet dwells hyar-abouts won't hardly indict me ner no petty jury convict me."
So it was something of a shock to his confidence when he heard that he, Black Tom Carmichael and Sam Carlyle had been indicted for conspiracy to commit murder. Even that he regarded as merely an annoyance, for as one of the grand jurors had hastened to assure him: "Hit war jest a sort of a formality, Kinnard. We knowed ther little jury would cl'ar you-all an' hit looked more legal-like ter let hit come up fer trial."
But the bringing of those indictments was really a tribute to the dawning power of Kinnard's enemies. The thing was intended as a compromise by which the grand jury should satisfy the Stacys and the petit jury should mollify Towers by acquitting him later.
Kinnard knew that Sam Carlyle had gone to Oklahoma, and that without him any prosecution must fail—but he did not know that the prosecution had already located him there and taken steps to extradite him.
Then one day, Bear Cat received a summons by mail to meet George Sidney in Frankfort, and since secrecy was the essence of the plan they had already discussed in embryo, he went in a roundabout way through Virginia and came back into Kentucky at Hagen. He was absent for a week and toward its end he found himself, under the escort of the Louisville lawyer, standing in the private office of the chief executive himself. Turner had never seen a city before. He had never met a man of such consequence, but the governor himself brought to the interview a dignity no more unabashed.
"This is the young man of whom I spoke, governor," said Sidney. "He has given his community the nearest approach it has known to placing sobriety and humanity above lawlessness. There are two men down there who run things. Towers owns the courts and—maintains feudalism. This young man heads an organization of night-riders—and challenges Towers. It's the young against the old: the modern spirit against the ancient habit."
The governor subjected Bear Cat Stacy to an inquisitorial scrutiny—which was met with a glance as undeviating.
"I am told that it has been impossible in your country," he began, "to enforce the attendance of witnesses and even of defendants at court. I am also told that you believe you can alter this."
Turner nodded gravely. "I kin fetch 'em in—dead or alive," he said with bold directness. "All I needs air ter be told who ter git."
"Dead witnesses," remarked the chief executive, "are very little use to any tribunal. If these men are your avowed enemies and in your power, why have you held your hand?"
Bear Cat flushed and though he spoke quietly there was the bell-like ring of ardor in his voice. "My power hain't ther law," he said. "I aims fer sich betterment as kain't come save by law: a betterment that kin last when I'm dead an' gone."
"This is the case, governor," interposed the lawyer. "The courts there are a bitter jest. Kinnard Towers operates a stronghold which is a pest-spot and breeding-nest of crime and debauchery. There is one agency only that can drag him out of it. That agency this man represents—and heads."
"Then if you are sent out, during this session of court," inquired the executive, "you agree to bring in whatever men are called to attendance?"
"Dead or alive—yes," reiterated Stacy with inflexible persistency.
"Unfortunately," smiled the great man, "the legislature, in its wisdom, has vested in me no power to instruct any citizen to deprive other citizens, however undesirable, of their lives. Whoever undertakes such an enterprise must do so on his own responsibility—and, despite the worthiness of his motive, he faces a strong chance of the death penalty."
There was a brief pause, as the lawyer and his protegé rose to depart, and the governor shook Bear Cat's hand. "You are a picturesque person, Mr. Stacy. I hope to hear more of you." Then as a quizzical twinkle wrinkled the corner of his eyes he added: "I almost think it is a pity that I have no power to authorize your wading in free-handed—but it's not within my official scope."
Bear Cat was standing straight and looking with searching gravity into the face of the governor. There seemed an odd variance between the words and the spirit back of the words, and then he saw the tall man with the distinguished face engage his glance with something intangibly subtle—and he saw one dignified eye deliberately close leaving its mate open. The governor of the commonwealth had winked at him—and he understood the perplexing variance between words and spirit.
Outside, in a corridor of the state building, Bear Cat laid a hand on Sidney's arm.
"When ther time comes," he said shortly, "I'll be ready. I wants thet ye should hev hit give out in Marlin Town, thet ye sought ter persuade me, but that I wouldn't hev nuthin' more ter do with aidin' state co'tes then I would with revenuers." And that was the message that percolated through the hills.
When Turner returned home he went first to Blossom's cabin, his heart full of thoughts of her and sympathy for her loneliness. Old days there swarmed into memory, and just to see her, even now that he counted for so little, meant a great deal to him. But in the road, at first sight of the house, he halted in astonishment—for the chimney was smokeless—and when he hurried forward his dismay grew into something like panic as he found the windows blankly shuttered and the door nailed up.
Hastening to his own house, he demanded in a strained voice of fright. "Whar air she, maw? Whar's Blossom at?"
The old woman rose and took from the mantel-shelf a folded sheet of paper which she handed him without a word of explanation, and with shaking fingers he opened and read it.
"Dear Turney," she said, and her round chirography had run wild as weeds with the disturbed mood of that composition, "I can't bear it here any longer. I'm going away—for always. Jerry left a little money and the lawyers have paid it to me. It's not much, but it's enough. These mountains are beautiful—but they are full of misery—and memories that haunt me day and night. You have been more than good to me and I'll always pray for you. I don't know yet where I'll go. With love, Blossom."
Turner sagged into a chair by the hearth-stone and the paper dropped from his inert fingers. His face became very drawn and he silently licked lips which burned with a dry feverishness.
The special session of court convened in Marlin Town with a quiet that lacked any tang of genuine interest. These fiascos had come before and passed without result. Since Bear Cat Stacy had permitted it to be understood that he would hold aloof, no strength would challenge the sway of Kinnard Towers, save a "fotched on" judge and a few white-faced lawyers who wore stiff collars. They had not even brought tin soldiers this time nor dignified the occasion with a Gatling gun.
Towers himself remained comfortably at the Quarterhouse, and if he had about him a small army of men its protection of rifle-muzzles pointed toward Little Slippery rather than Marlin Town. A posse would come, of course, since even his own courts must follow the forms and pretenses of the statutes made and provided, but their coming, too, would be a formality.
Outside a late winter storm had turned into a blizzard and though he did not often spend his evenings at the bar, Kinnard was to-night leaning with his elbow on its high counter. His blond face was suave and his manner full of friendliness, because men who were anxious to display their solicitude were coming in to denounce the farce of the trial inagurated by "furriners" and to proclaim their sympathy. It was all incense to his undiminished dominance, thought Towers, and it pleased him to meet such amenities with graciousness.
"Any time now—any time at all," he laughed, "them turrible deputy sheriffs air liable ter come bustin' through thet door, and drag me off ter ther jail-house." As he uttered this pleasantry, the assembled cohorts shouted their laughter. It was as diverting as to hear a battle-scarred tom-cat express panic over a mouse. "Howsoever, I hain't a shettin' no doors. They all stands open," added Kinnard.
Then, even as he spoke, the telephone jangled. It was a neighborhood wire which connected only a few houses in a narrow radius, but the voice that sounded through the receiver was excited. The proprietor of the lawless stronghold listened and made some unruffled reply, then turned to his audience a smiling face on which was written amusement.
"Well, boys," he genially inquired, "what did I tell ye? Thar's a scant handful of deputy sheriffs a-ridin' over hyar right now. They're within a measured mile of this place at ther present minute."
A low hum of voices rose in apprehensive notes, but Kinnard lifted his hand.
"You men needn't feel no oneasiness, I don't reckon," he assured them. "They hain't got nothin' erginst ther balance of ye. Hit's jest me they aims ter drag off ter ther calaboose—an' es I said afore, I'm leavin' my doors wide open."
As an indication of his confidence he ordered his bartender to fill all glasses, and beamed benignly on the recipients of his hospitality, while he awaited the minions of the law.
"They hed ought ter be hyar by now, them turrible fellers," he suggested at length, and as if in answer to his speech a sound of heavy steps sounded just outside the door.
A small posse stamped into the room, and the excellent jest of the entire situation became more pointed as men noted with what a shamefaced bearing they presented themselves.
"Kinnard," began the chief-deputy in an embarrassment which almost choked him, "I've got ter put ye under arrest. You an' Tom Carmichael thar, both. Ye're charged with murder."
The crowd wanted to laugh again, but because of their curiosity they desisted. Towers himself stepped back two paces.
"Gentlemen," he said blandly, "ye'll hev ter git papers fust from ther governor of Virginny." He swept his hand toward the white line on the floor. "Ye hain't hardly got no license ter foller me outen old Kaintuck. Thar's ther leetle matter of a state line lyin' atween us."
They had all known that Towers would handle the situation with a triumph of resource, and a subdued murmur of applause and adulation rose from many bewhiskered lips, as the posse withdrew slowly to the threshold over which it had entered.
Then they became deadly quiet, for a voice had spoken from the Virginia door. "Hold on!"
They wheeled and saw a single figure there, unarmed, and hands began going to holsters.
"Virginny and Kaintuck looks right-smart alike ter me," said Bear Cat Stacy with the level voice of one who has long waited his moment and finds it at hand. "Will ye all lay down yore arms, and surrender ther men we wants—or will ye stand siege an' have this pest-house burnt down over yore heads? I'll wait outside for an answer."
The amazement of the moment had held them gripped in tableau as he spoke, but when he stepped swiftly back, a dozen pistols spat and barked at him, and then, louder than the firing, they heard a circle of song—compassing the stockaded building on all sides—a giant chorus that swelled in the frosty air: "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord."
Kinnard Towers' self-assurance fell away from him. His hand was unsteady as he raised it and said huskily; "Boys, we needs must fight."
CHAPTER XXVII
Thevolume of the singing out there and the flare of the ruddy torches, left no doubt as to the substantial strength of the force which had swept aside such legal technicalities as state jurisdiction.
When Bear Cat had trusted himself so recklessly on the threshold while the opposite door still stood open, the spectral figures with masked faces could have streamed in, wave on wave, to smother out any up-flaming spirit of resistance, but in doing that there would have been hand-to-hand conflict, in which the innocent must pay as heavy and ultimate a penalty as the guilty.
So Turner had withdrawn, and permitted the barring of the doors—though he knew that the structure had the solid strength of square-sawed oak and that the besieged scores were fully armed. Now from the outside he hammered on the massive panels with a rifle butt.
"Ef ye wants ter send a man out hyar ter parley with me," he shouted through the heavy barrier, "I gives ye my pledge that he kin go back safe. Ef ye don't see fit ter do thet, we've got ter believe thet ye're all one stripe, resistin' arrest, and we aims ter set this hell-house ter ther torch."
"Let me have five minutes ter study erbout hit," Towers gave answer, then he turned to the men inside. "Go upsta'rs, Tom," he directed swiftly, "an' look out. Let me know how many thar seems ter be of 'em."
Carmichael, peering out of dark windows above, saw against the snow, innumerable sable figures bulking formidably in the red flare of blazing pine fagots. Other torches burned with a menacing assurance of power beyond them along the road, and far up the distant slopes glittered reinforcements of scattered tongues of flame.
The figures nearest at hand stood steady with an ominous and spectral stillness, and their ghostliness was enhanced by the fitful torch-light in which the whole picture leaped and subsided with a phantom uncertainty of line and mass.
Black Tom came back and shook his head. "Hit hain't no manner of use," he announced. "We mout es well give up. I reckon we kin still come cl'ar in co'te."
But the old lion, whose jaws and fangs had always proved strong enough to crush, was of no mind to be caged now.
"Come cl'ar! Hell's blazes!" he roared with a livid face. "Don't ye see what's done come ter pass? He'll take these damn' outlaws over thar an' no jury won't dast ter cl'ar us. If we quits now we're done."
Towers leaped, with an astonishing agility to the counter of the bar and raised his clenched fists high above his head.
"Men!" he thundered, "hearken ter me! Don't make no mistake in thinkin' thet ef ye goes out thar, ye'll hev any mercy showed ye. This is ther finish fight betwixt all ther customs of yore blood—an' this damn' outlaw's new-fangled tyranny! He don't aim jest ter jail me an' Tom—he aims ter wipe out every mother's son thet's ever been a friend ter me.
"We've got solid walls around us now—but any man thet goes out thar, goes straight ter murder. Es fer me I don't aim ter be took alive—air ye of ther same mind? Will ye fight?"
His flaming utterance found credence in their befuddled minds. They could not conceive of merciful treatment from the man they had hounded and sought for months to murder from ambush. Inside at least they could die fighting, and nods of grim assent gave their answer.
"Ther stockade hain't no good now," Towers reminded them. "They're already inside hit, but from them upsta'r winders we kin still rake 'em severe an' plentiful whilst they're waitin' fer our answer. Let them winders be filled with men, but don't let no man shoot till he heers my pistol—then all tergether—an' give 'em unshirted hell."
So, answering the reprieve with deceit, the block house, which had, for a generation, been an infamous seat of power, remained silent until a pistol snapped out and then from every window leaped spiteful jets of powder lightning and the solid roar of a united volley. That was the answer and as a light clatter of sliding breech bolts followed the crescendo, its defenders went on shooting, more raggedly now, as fast as each man could work his repeater. A chorused bellow of defiance was hurled outward as they fired.
Yet from out there came no response of musketry and, after all, the deceitful effort to convert the period of parley into a paralyzing blow had failed. Few flambeaux had been blazing in the space between the stockade and the house itself, and the ponderous eight-foot wall of logs built to make the place a fortress had become a protection for the besiegers so that only a few scattered figures fell. Then, with amazing unanimity of action, the torches were thrust down and quenched in the snow.
But Bear Cat Stacy himself had remained flattened against the door, too close to be seen from any window, and at his feet was a can of kerosene.
The glow from a match-end became first a slender filament of flame which widened to a greedy blanket as it lapped at the oil and spread crackling up the woodwork of the door's frame. Then, gathering a swift and mighty force, it laid a frenzied and roaring mantle of destruction upon the integrity of the walls themselves.
From inside came a chorused howl of bitter wrath and despair, and as Bear Cat turned and ran for it, crossing the space between door and stockade, he went through a hail of lead—and went with the old charm still holding him safe.
The Quarterhouse was strong enough to laugh at rifles, but to flame it was tinder-like food. The roar and crackle of its glutting soon drowned the howls of its imprisoned victims. Maddened with the thought that, having refused parley, their lives were forfeit unless they could cut their way out, they raved like dying maniacs. The glare reddened and inflamed the skies and sent out a rain of soaring sparks that was seen from many miles away.
The Virginia door was obliterated in a blanket of flame, but abruptly the Kentucky door vomited a stream of desperate men, running and shooting as they came. Then, for the first time, the cordon of rifles that held them in its grip gave voice.
Between the house-door and the stockade, figures fell, grotesque in the glare, and those that did not fall wheeled and rushed back within the blazing walls. But in there was an unendurable furnace. They shouted and raved, choking with the suffocation of foul smoke waves like the demoralized shapes of madmen in some lurid inferno.
Then standing at the one door which still afforded a chance of exit, Kinnard Towers for the last time raised his arms.
"Throw down yore guns, men, an' go out with yore hands up," he yelled, seeking to be heard above the din of conflagration. "Myself, I aims ter stay hyar!"
A few caught the words and plunged precipitately out, unarmed, with hands high in surrender; and others, seeing that they did not fall, followed with a sheep-like imitation—but some, already struggling with the asphyxiation that clawed at their throats, writhed uneasily on the floor—and then lay motionless.
Kinnard Towers, with a bitter despair in his eyes, and yet with the leonine glare of defiance unquenched, stood watching that final retreat. He saw that at the stockade gate, they were being passed out and put under guard. It was in his own mind, when he had been left quite alone to walk deliberately out, fighting until he fell.
About him the skies were red and angry. His death would come with a full and pyrotechnic illumination, seen of all men, and it would at least be said of him that he had never yielded.
So picking up a rifle from the floor, he deliberately examined its magazine and efficiency. After that he stepped out, paused on the doorstep, and fired defiantly at the open gate of the stockade.
There was a spatter of bullets against the walls at his back, but he stood uninjured and defiantly laughing. Without haste he walked forward. Then a tall figure, with masked face came running toward him and he leveled the rifle at its breast. But he was close to the gate now, and the man plunged in, in time to strike his barrel up and bear him to the ground.
Outside the stockade stood, herded, the prisoners, and at their front, the posse of deputies brooded over Kinnard Towers and Tom Carmichael, both shamefully hand-cuffed.
Bear Cat Stacy looked over his captives who, taking their cue from Towers himself, remained doggedly silent.
"You men," he said crisply, "all save these two kin go home now—but when ther co'te needs ye ye've got ter answer—an ye've got ter speak ther truth."