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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Raid Of The Guerilla
+       1911
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23548]
+Last Updated: December 19, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA
+
+By Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+1911
+
+
+Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove--somewhat in advance of the
+expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A certain
+noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern
+intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains,
+and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.
+
+Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early
+days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number.
+Then came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an
+extension of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the
+venerable, thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave.
+Now only the ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male
+population among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in
+the scheme of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.
+
+So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike
+affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit
+of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no
+trifle.
+
+“‘T war Ethelindy’s deed,” her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips
+close to the knob of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands
+trembled as he sat in his armchair on the broad hearth of the main room
+in his little log cabin.
+
+Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled
+old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still
+wore, though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed
+her anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.
+
+“Lawd! ye jes’ now f ‘und that out, dad?” exclaimed her widowed mother,
+busied in her evening task of carding wool on one side of the deep
+chimney, built of clay and sticks, and seeming always the imminent prey
+of destruction. But there it had stood for a hundred years, dispensing
+light and warmth and cheer, itself more inflammable than the great
+hickory logs that had summer still among their fibres and dripped sap
+odorously as they sluggishly burned.
+
+Ethelinda cast a like agitated glance on the speaker, then her gaze
+reverted to the fire. She had the air of being perched up, as if to
+escape the clutching waves of calamity, as she sat on a high, inverted
+splint basket, her feet not touching the puncheons of the rude floor,
+one hand drawing close about her the red woollen skirt of her dress. She
+seemed shrunken even from her normal small size, and she listened to the
+reproachful recital of her political activity with a shrinking dismay on
+her soft, roseate face.
+
+“Nuthin’ would do Ethelindy,” her granny lifted an accusatory voice,
+still knitting briskly, though she looked rebukingly over her spectacles
+at the cowering girl, “when that thar Union _dee_-tachmint rid into
+Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap----”
+
+“Yes,” interposed Mrs. Brusie, “through mistakin’ it fur Greenbrier
+Cove.”
+
+“Nuthin’ would do Ethelindy but she mus’ up an’ offer to show the
+officer the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of
+the mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca’cely one o’ the boys left
+in the Cove would know now.”
+
+“Else he’d hev been capshured,” Ethelinda humbly submitted.
+
+“Yes”--the ruffles of her grandmother’s cap were terrible to view as
+they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection--“an’
+_you_ will be capshured now.”
+
+The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the
+hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud
+in sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious
+silence.
+
+“You-uns mus’ be powerful keerful ter say nuthin’ ‘bout Ethelindy’s
+hand in that escape of the Fed’ral cavalry”--the old grandfather roused
+himself to a politic monition. “Mebbe the raiders won’t find it out--an’
+the folks in the Cove dun’no’ who done it, nuther.”
+
+“Yes, bes’ be keerful, sure,” the gran-dame rejoined. “Fur they puts
+wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;” still glibly
+knitting, she jerked her head toward the western world outside the
+limits of the great ranges. “Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a
+woman what pizened her husband, an’ they kep’ her in jail a consider’ble
+time--a senseless thing ter do ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a
+shif’less no-’count fool, an’ nobody but her would hev put up with him
+ez long ez she did. The jedge an’ jury thunk the same, fur they ‘lowed
+ez she war crazy--an’ so she war, ter hev ever married him! They
+turned her loose, but she never got another husband--I never knowed a
+man-person but what was skittish ‘bout any unhealthy meddlin’ with his
+vittles.”
+
+She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of
+her cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic
+mimicry, while down Ethelinda’s pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at
+the prospect of such immurement.
+
+“Jes’ kase I showed a stranger his path----”
+
+“An’ two hundred an’ fifty mo’--spry, good-lookin’ youngsters, able to
+do the rebs a power o’ damage.”
+
+“I war ‘feared they’d git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped
+me down on the bank o’ the creek whar I war a-huntin’ of the cow, an’ he
+axed ‘bout the roads out’n the Cove, an’ I tole him thar war no way out
+‘ceptin’ by the road he had jes’ come, an’ a path through a sorter cave
+or tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o’ the mounting, ez
+could be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler’ble low, an’ he
+axed me ter show him that underground way.”
+
+“An’ ye war full willin,” said Mrs. Brusie, in irritation, “though ye
+knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin’ heaven an’ earth ter
+overhaul Tolhurst’s command before they could reach the main body. An’
+hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap.”
+
+“I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the
+Cove, would be waitin’ ter capshur them when they kem up the road
+agin--I jes’ showed him how ter crope out through the cave,” Ethelinda
+sobbed.
+
+“How in perdition did they find thar way through that thar dark hole?--I
+can’t sense that!” the old man suddenly mumbled.
+
+“They had lanterns an’ some pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an’
+the leader sent a squad ter ‘reconnoitre,’ ez he called it. An’ whilst
+he waited he stood an’ talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an’
+the lay o’ the land over thar. He war full per-lite an’ genteel.”
+
+“I’ll be bound ye looked like a ‘crazy Jane,’” cried the grandmother,
+with sudden exasperation. “Yer white sun-bonnet plumb off an’ a-hangin’
+down on yer shoulders, an’ yer yaller hair all a-blowsin’ at loose
+eends, stiddier bein’ plaited up stiff an’ tight an’ personable, an’ yer
+face burned pink in the sun, stiddier like yer skin ginerally looks,
+fine an’ white ez a pan o’ fraish milk, an’ the flabby, slinksy skirt o’
+that yaller calico dress ‘thout no starch in it, a-flappin’ an’ whirlin’
+in the wind--shucks! I dun’no’ _whut_ the man could hev thought o’
+you-uns, dressed out that-a-way.”
+
+“He war toler’ble well pleased with me now, sure!” retorted Ethelinda,
+stung to a blunt self-assertion. “He keered mo’ about a good-lookin’
+road than a good-lookin’ gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an’
+reported the passage full safe for man an’ beastis the leader tuk a
+purse o’ money out’n his pocket an’ held it out to me--though he said it
+couldn’t express his thanks.’ But I held my hands behind me an’ wouldn’t
+take it. Then he called up another man an’ made him open a bag, an’
+he snatched up my empty milk-piggin’ an’ poured it nigh full o’ green
+coffee in the bean--it be skeerce ez gold an’ nigh ez precious.”
+
+“An’ _what_ did you do with it, Ethelindy?” her mother asked,
+significantly--not for information, but for the renewal of discussion
+and to justify the repetition of rebukes. These had not been few.
+
+“You know,” the girl returned, sullenly.
+
+“_I_ do,” the glib grandmother interposed. “Ye jes’ gin we-uns a sniff
+an’ a sup, an’ then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an’ shook the rest
+of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an’ sot out an’
+marched yer-self through the laurel--I wonder nuthin’ didn’t ketch ye!
+howsomever naught is never in danger--an’ went ter that horspital camp
+o’ the rebels on Big Injun Mounting--smallpox horspital it is--an’ gin
+that precious coffee away to the enemies o’ yer kentry.”
+
+“Nobody comes nor goes ter that place--hell itself ain’t so avoided,”
+ said Mrs. Brusie, her forehead corrugated with sudden recurrence of
+anxiety. “Nobody else in this world would have resked it, ‘ceptin’ that
+headin’ contrairy gal, Ethelindy Brusie.”
+
+“I never resked nuthin,” protested Ethelinda. “I stopped at the head of a
+bluff far off, an’ hollered down ter ‘em in the clearin’ an’ held up
+the kittle. An’ two or three rebs war out of thar tents in the
+clearin’--thar be a good sight o’ new graves up thar!--an’ them men
+war hollerin’ an’ wavin’ me away, till they seen what I war doin’; jes’
+settin’ down the kittle an’ startin’ off.”
+
+She gazed meditatively into the fire, of set purpose avoiding the eyes
+fixed upon her, and sought to justify her course.
+
+“I knowed ez we-uns hed got used ter doin’ ‘thout coffee, an’ don’t feel
+the need of it now. We-uns air well an’ stout, an’ live in our good home
+an’ beside our own h’a’th-stone; an’ they air sick, an’ pore, an’ cast
+out, an’ I reckon they ain’t ever been remembered before in gifts. An’ I
+‘lowed the coffee, bein’ unexpected an’ a sorter extry, mought put some
+fraish heart an’ hope in ‘em--leastwise show ‘em ez God don’t ‘low ‘em
+ter be plumb furgot.”
+
+She still gazed meditatively at the fire as if it held a scroll of her
+recollections, which she gradually interpreted anew. “I looked back
+wunst, an’ one o’ them rebs had sot down on a log an’ war sobbin’ ez
+ef his heart would bust. An’ another of ‘em war signin, at me agin an’
+agin, like he was drawin’ a cross in the air--one pass down an’ then one
+across--an’ the other reb war jes’ laffin’ fur joy, and wunst in a while
+he yelled out: ‘Blessin’s on ye! Blessin’s! Blessin’s!’ I dun’no’
+how fur I hearn that sayin’. The rocks round the creek war repeatin’
+it, whenst I crossed the f oot-bredge. I dun’no what the feller
+meant--mought hev been crazy.”
+
+A tricksy gust stirred at the door as if a mischievous hand twitched
+the latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening
+children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the
+hounds snored sonorously in the silence.
+
+“Nuthin’ crazy thar ‘ceptin’ you-uns!--one fool gal--that’s all!” said
+her grandmother, with her knitting-needles and her spectacles glittering
+in the firelight. “That is a pest camp. Ye mought hev cotch the
+smallpox. I be lookm’ fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war
+is over an’ the men come back to the Cove, none of ‘em will so much as
+look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked--fair an’ fine as it is now,
+like a pan of fraish milk.”
+
+“But, granny, it won’t be sp’ilt! The camp war too fur off--an’ thar
+warn’t a breath o’ wind. I never went a-nigh ‘em.”
+
+“I dun’no’ how fur smallpox kin travel--an’ it jes’ mulls and mulls in
+ye afore it breaks out--don’t it, S’briny?”
+
+“Don’t ax me,” said Mrs. Brusie, with a worried air. “I ain’t no yerb
+doctor, nor nurse tender, nuther. Ethelindy is beyond my understandin’.”
+
+She was beyond her own understanding, as she sat weeping slowly,
+silently. The aspect of those forlorn graves, that recorded the final
+ebbing of hope and life at the pest camp, had struck her recollection
+with a most poignant appeal. Strangers, wretches, dying alone, desolate
+outcasts, the terror of their kind, the epitome of repulsion--they were
+naught to her! Yet they represented humanity in its helplessness, its
+suffering, its isolated woe, and its great and final mystery; she felt
+vaguely grieved for their sake, and she gave the clay that covered them,
+still crude red clods with not yet a blade of grass, the fellowship of
+her tears.
+
+A thrill of masculine logic stirred uneasily in the old man’s disused
+brain. “Tell me _one_ thing, Ethelindy,” he said, lifting his bleared
+eyes as he clasped his tremulous hands more firmly on the head of his
+stick--“tell me this--which side air you-uns on, ennyhow, Ethelindy?”
+
+“I’m fur the Union,” said Ethelinda, still weeping, and now and then
+wiping her sapphire eyes with the back of her hand, hard and tanned, but
+small in proportion to her size. “I’m fur the Union--fust an’ last an’
+all the time.”
+
+The old man wagged his head solemnly with a blight of forecast on his
+wrinkled, aged face. “That thar sayin’ is goin’ ter be mighty hard
+ter live up to whilst Jerome Ackert’s critter company is a-raidin’ of
+Tanglefoot Cove.”
+
+The presence of the “critter company” was indeed calculated to inspire
+a most obsequious awe. It was an expression of arbitrary power which one
+might ardently wish directed elsewhere. From the moment that the echoes
+of the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely
+sweet and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if
+blown down from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the
+bland blue sky, the denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer
+together, and to skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house.
+Tanglefoot Cove is some four miles long, and its average breadth is
+little more than a mile. On all sides the great Smoky Mountains rise
+about the cuplike hollow, and their dense gigantic growths of hickory
+and poplar, maple and gum, were aglow, red and golden, with the largesse
+of the generous October. The underbrush or the jungles of laurel that
+covered the steeps rendered outlet through the forests impracticable,
+and indeed the only road was invisible save for a vague line among
+the dense pines of a precipitous slope, where on approach it would
+materialize under one’s feet as a wheel track on either side of a line
+of frosted weeds, which the infrequent passing of wagon-beds had bent
+and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.
+
+The blacksmith’s shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had
+soon an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had
+had enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt
+his anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he
+no more bears a part;--a minié-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm,
+and his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. This was
+a half-witted fellow, a giant in strength, but not to be trusted with
+firearms. In these days of makeweights his utility had been discovered,
+and now with the smith’s hammer in his hand he joined the group, his
+bulging eyes all a-stare and his loose lips hanging apart. The old
+justice of the peace, whose office was a sinecure, since the war had
+run the law out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with
+a sense of futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note
+of the distant trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the
+nerves to await helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.
+
+“They say that he is a tumble, tumble man,” the blacksmith averred, ever
+and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which, though
+bundled in its jeans’ sleeve, he had the illusion of the sensation of
+its hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his broad palm to
+eye that significant line which marked the road among the pines on the
+eastern slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and rank of growth
+in the rich bottom-lands.
+
+Ethelinda’s heart sank. All unprescient of the day’s impending event,
+she had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and
+she now stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she
+listened spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a
+great yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough,
+and here a horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by
+a draught; he had ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but
+still stood with his muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping,
+gazing with un-imagined thoughts at the reflection of his big equine
+eyes, the blue sky inverted, the dappling yellow leaves, more golden
+even than the sunshine, and the glimmering flight of birds, with a
+stellular light upon their wings.
+
+“A turrible man?--w-w-well,” stuttered the idiot, who had of late
+assumed all the port of coherence; he snatched and held a part in the
+colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his
+infirmity, “then I’d be obleeged ter him ef--ef--ef he’d stay out’n
+Tanglefoot Cove.”
+
+“So would I.” The miller laughed uneasily. But for the corrugations
+of time, one might not have known if it were flour or age that had so
+whitened his long beard, which hung quivering down over the breast of
+his jeans coat, of an indeterminate hue under its frosting from the
+hopper. “He hev tuk up a tumble spite at Tanglefoot Cove.”
+
+The blacksmith nodded. “They say that he ‘lowed ez traitors orter
+be treated like traitors. But _I_ be a-goin’ ter tell him that the
+Confederacy hev got one arm off’n me more’n its entitled to, an’ I’m
+willin’ ter call it quits at that.”
+
+“‘Tain’t goin’ ter do him no good ter raid the Cove,” an ancient farmer
+averred; “an’ it’s agin’ the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the
+kentry they live off’n--it’s like sawin’ off the bough ye air sittin’
+on.” His eyes dwelt with a fearful affection on the laden fields; his
+old stoop-shouldered back had bent yet more under the toil that had
+brought his crop to this perfection, with the aid of the children whose
+labor was scarcely worth the strenuosity requisite to control their
+callow wiles.
+
+“Shucks! He’s a guerilla--he is!” retorted the blacksmith. “Accountable
+ter nobody! Hyar ter-day an’ thar ter-morrer. Rides light. Two leetle
+Parrott guns is the most weight he carries.”
+
+The idiot’s eyes began to widen with slow and baffled speculation.
+“Whut--w-whut ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w--” his great
+loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry
+from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained
+contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man,
+though a simpleton, was yet a man, and inherently commanded respect.
+
+“A bird o’ the air mus’ hev carried the matter that Tolhurst’s troops
+hed rid inter Tanglefoot Cove by mistake fur Greenbrier, whar they war
+ter cross ter jine the Fed’rals nigh the Cohuttas. An’ that guerilla,
+Ackert, hed been ridin’ a hundred mile at a hand-gallop ter overhaul
+him, an’ knowin’ thar warn’t but one outlet to Tanglefoot Cove, he
+expected ter capshur the Feds as they kem out agin. So he sot himself
+ter ambush Tolhurst, an’ waited fur him _up_ thar amongst the pines an’
+the laurel--an’ he _waited_--an’ _waited!_ But Tolhurst never came! So
+whenst the guerilla war sure he hed escaped by ways unknownst he set out
+ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But Tolhurst had j’ined the
+main body o’ the Federal Army, an’ now Ackert is showing a clean pair o’
+heels comin’ back. But he be goin’ ter take time ter raid the Cove--his
+hurry will wait fur that! Somebody in Tanglefoot--the Lord only knows
+who--showed Tolhurst that underground way out ter Greenbrier Cove,
+through a sorter cave or tunnel in the mountings.”
+
+“Now--now--neighbor--_that’s_ guesswork,” remonstrated the miller, in
+behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility. Perhaps the
+semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the faculties
+beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain connection
+between cause and effect inimical to personal interest.
+
+“Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure,” protested the
+blacksmith. “I tracked ‘em, the ground bein’ moist, kase I wanted
+ter view the marks o’ their horses’ hoofs. They hev got some powerful
+triflin’ blacksmiths in the army--farriers, they call ‘em. I los’ the
+trail amongst the rocks an’ ledges down todes the cave--though it’s more
+like one o’ them tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in
+the army, but this one was never made with hands; jes’ hollowed out by
+Sinking Creek. So I got Jube thar ter crope through, an’ view ef thar
+war any hoof marks on t’other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier
+Cove.”
+
+“An’ a body would think fur sure ez the armies o’ hell had been
+spewed out’n that black hole,” said a lean man whom the glance of the
+blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of
+a racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its
+violence. “Hoof marks hyar--hoof-marks thar--as if they didn’t rightly
+know which way ter go in the marshy ground ‘bout Sinking Creek. But
+at last they ‘peared ter git tergether, an’ off they tracked ter the
+west----” A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the
+group failed to follow the words that they interspersed.
+
+“They tuk a short cut through the Cove--they warn’t in it a haffen
+hour,” stipulated the prudent miller. “They came an’ went like a flash.
+Nobody seen ‘em ‘cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house--an’ ef
+they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it.”
+
+“Ackert ‘lows he’ll hang the guide ef he ketches him,” said the
+blacksmith, in a tone of awe. “Leastwise that’s the word that’s ‘goin’.”
+
+Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
+its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
+horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
+their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on
+the protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller’s
+attention. He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking
+out from their network of wrinkles.
+
+“You didn’t see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns’ house, did
+ye?”
+
+Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
+sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
+sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she
+had never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
+consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
+little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
+phrase. “Naw sir--I never seen thar guide.”
+
+“Thar now, what did I tell you!” the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.
+
+The blacksmith seemed convinced. “Mought hev hed a map,” he speculated.
+“Them fellers in the army _do_ hev maps. I fund that out whenst I war in
+the service.”
+
+The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith’s practical knowledge
+of the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority.
+Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how
+the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed,
+despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to
+the iteration of the trumpet.
+
+Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.
+
+“Right wheel, trot--_march_,” he muttered, interpreting the sound of the
+horses’ hoofs. “It’s a critter company, fur sure!”
+
+There was no splendor of pageant in the raid of the guerilla into the
+Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance
+of the “critter company.” Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon
+flashed on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a
+barren interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant,
+looking the centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs
+made itself felt as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and
+sabre, and now and again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with
+that majestic, sweet sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They
+were coming indubitably, the troop of the dreaded guerilla--indeed, they
+were already here. For while the sun still glinted on carbine and sabre
+among the scarlet and golden tints of the deciduous growths and the
+sombre green of the pines on the loftier slopes, the vanguard in column
+of fours were among the gray shadows at the mountains’ base and speeding
+into the Cove at a hand-gallop, for the roads were fairly good when once
+the level was reached. Though so military a presentment, for they were
+all veterans in the service, despite the youth of many, they were not in
+uniform. Some wore the brown jeans of the region, girt with sword-belt
+and canteen, with great spurs and cavalry boots, and broad-brimmed hats,
+which now and again flaunted cords or feathers. Others had attained the
+Confederate gray, occasionally accented with a glimmer of gold where a
+shoulder-strap or a chevron graced the garb. And yet there was a certain
+homogeneity in their aspect, All rode after the manner of the section,
+with the “long stirrup” at the extreme length of the limb, and the
+immovable pose in the saddle, the man being absolutely stationary, while
+the horse bounded at agile speed. There was the similarity of facial
+expression, in infinite dissimilarity of feature, which marks a common
+sentiment, origin, and habitat. Then, too, they shared something
+recklessly haphazard, gay, defiantly dangerous, that, elusive as it
+might be to describe, was as definitely perceived as the guidon, riding
+apart at the left, the long lance of his pennant planted on his stirrup,
+bearing himself with a certain stately pride of port, distinctly
+official.
+
+The whole effect was concentrated in the face of the leader, obviously
+the inspiration of the organization, the vital spark by which it lived;
+a fierce face, intent, commanding. It was burned to a brick-red, and
+had an aquiline nose and a keen gray-green eagle-like eye; on either side
+auburn hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, after the fashion of
+the time, to his coat collar. And this collar and his shoulders were
+decorated with gold lace and the insignia of rank; the uniform was of
+fine Confederate gray, which seemed to contradict the general impression
+that he was but a free-lance or a bushwhacker and operated on his own
+responsibility. The impression increased the terror his name excited
+throughout the countryside with his high-handed and eccentric methods of
+warfare, and perhaps he would not have resented it if he were cognizant
+of its general acceptance.
+
+It was a look calculated to inspire awe which he flung upon the cowering
+figures before the door of the forge as he suddenly perceived them; and
+detaching himself from the advancing troop, he spurred his horse toward
+them. He came up like a whirlwind.
+
+That impetuous gallop could scarcely have carried his charger over the
+building itself, yet there is nothing so overwhelming to the nerves
+as the approaching rush of a speedy horse, and the group flattened
+themselves against the wall; but he drew rein before he reached the
+door, and whirling in the saddle, with one hand on the horse’s back, he
+demanded:
+
+“Where is he? Bring him out!” as if all the world knew the object of his
+search and the righteous reason of his enmity. “Bring him out! I’ll have
+a drumhead court martial--and he’ll swing before sunset!”
+
+“Good evenin’, Cap’n,” the old miller sought what influence might
+appertain to polite address and the social graces.
+
+“Evenin’ be damned!” cried Ackert, angrily. “If you folks in the coves
+want the immunity of non-combatants, by Gawd! you gotter preserve the
+neutrality of non-combatants!”
+
+“Yessir--that’s reason--that’s jestice,” said the old squire, hastily,
+whose capacities of ratiocination had been cultivated by the exercise of
+the judicial functions of his modest _piepoudre_ court.
+
+Ackert unwillingly cast his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as
+if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
+
+“It’s accordin’ to the articles o’ war and the law of nations,” he
+averred. “People take advantage of age and disability”--he glanced at
+the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of
+his right arm--“as if that could protect ‘em in acts o’ treason an’
+treachery;” then with a blast of impatience, “Where’s the man?”
+
+To remonstrate with a whirlwind, to explain to a flash of lightning, to
+soothe and propitiate the fury of a conflagration--the task before the
+primitive and inexpert Cove-dwellers seemed to partake of this nature.
+
+“Cap’n--ef ye’d listen ter what I gotter say,” began the miller.
+
+“I’ll listen arterward!” exclaimed Ackert, in his clarion voice. He had
+never heard of Jedburgh justice, but he had all the sentiment of that
+famous tribunal who hanged the prisoners first and tried them afterward.
+
+“Cap’n,” remonstrated the blacksmith, breaking in with hot haste,
+hurried by the commander’s gusts of impatience, forgetful that he had
+no need to be precipitate, since he could not produce the recusant if he
+would. “Cap’n--Cap’n--bear with us--we-uns don’t know!”
+
+Ackert stared in snorting amaze, a flush of anger dyeing his red cheeks
+a yet deeper red. Of all the subterfuges that he had expected, he had
+never divined this. He shifted front face in his saddle, placed his
+gauntleted right hand on his right side, and held his head erect,
+looking over the wide, rich expanse of the Cove, the corn in the field,
+and the fodder in the shock set amid the barbaric splendors of the
+wooded autumn mountains glowing in the sunset above. He seemed scenting
+his vengeance with some keen sense as he looked, his thin nostrils
+dilating as sensitively as the nostrils of his high-couraged charger now
+throwing up his head to sniff the air, now bending it down as he pawed
+the ground.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, you have got a mighty pretty piece o’ country
+here, and good crops, too--which is a credit to you, seeing that the
+conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers
+that wouldn’t volunteer--damn ‘em! But I swear by the right hand of
+Jehovah, I’ll burn every cabin in the Cove an’ every blade o’ forage in
+the fields if you don’t produce the man who guided Tol-hurst’s cavalry
+out’n the trap I’d chased ‘em into, or give me a true and satisfactory
+account of him.” He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the
+air. “So help me God!”
+
+There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce
+asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager
+protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein,
+then desisted. A certain _noli me tangere_ influence about the fierce
+guerilla affected even supplication, and the “Squair” resorted to logic
+as the more potent weapon of the two.
+
+“Cap’n, Cap’n,” he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, “be pleased to
+consider my words. I’m a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run
+the law clean out o’ the kentry. We dun’no’ the guide--we never seen
+the troops.” Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: “If ye’ll
+cast yer eye on the lay of the land, ye’ll view how it happened. Thar’s
+the road “--he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the
+foliage that marked the descent into the vale--“an’ down this e-end o’
+the Cove thar’s nex’ ter nobody livin’.”
+
+The spirited equestrian figure was stand-ing as still as a statue;
+only the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the
+nostrils, showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.
+
+“Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove ‘lowed afterward they hearn
+a hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin’ of the ground like the trompin’
+of horses--but them troops mus’ hev passed from the foot o’ the mounting
+acrost the aidge of the Cove.”
+
+“Scant haffen mile,” put in the blacksmith, “down to a sort of cave,
+or tunnel, that runs under the mounting--yander--that lets ‘em out into
+Greenbrier Cove.”
+
+“Gawd!” exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched,
+gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight
+the course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of
+their triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the
+intonation was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and
+rare opportunity thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all
+the chaotic chances of the Civil War he could hardly hope for its
+repetition. It was part of a crack body of regulars--Tolhurst’s
+squadron--that he had contrived to drive into this trap, this
+_cul-de-sac_, surrounded by the infinite fastnesses of the Great Smoky
+Mountains. It had been a running fight, for Tolhurst had orders, as
+Ackert had found means of knowing, to join the main body without delay,
+and his chief aim was to shake off this persistent pursuit with which
+a far inferior force had harassed his march. But for his fortuitous
+discovery of the underground exit from the basin of Tanglefoot Cove,
+Ackert, ambushed without, would have encountered and defeated the
+regulars in detail as they clambered in detachments up the unaccustomed
+steeps of the mountain road, the woods elsewhere being almost impassable
+jungles of laurel.
+
+Success would have meant more to Ackert than the value of the service to
+the cause, than the tumultuous afflatus of victory, than the spirit of
+strife to the born soldier. There had been kindled in his heart a great
+and fiery ambition; he was one of the examples of an untaught military
+genius of which the Civil War elicited a few notable and amazing
+instances. There had been naught in his career heretofore to suggest
+this unaccountable gift, to foster its development. He was the son of
+a small farmer, only moderately well-to-do; he had the very limited
+education which a restricted and remote rural region afforded its youth;
+he had entered the Confederate army as a private soldier, with no sense
+of special fitness, no expectation of personal advancement, only carried
+on the wave of popular enthusiasm. But from the beginning his quality
+had been felt; he had risen from grade to grade, and now with a detached
+body of horse and flying artillery his exploits were beginning to
+attract the attention of corps commanders on both sides, to the
+gratulation of friends and the growing respect of foes. He seemed
+endowed with the wings of the wind; to-day he was tearing up railroad
+tracks in the lowlands to impede the reinforcements of an army;
+to-morrow the force sent with the express intention of placing a period
+to those mischievous activities heard of his feats in burning
+bridges and cutting trestles in remote sections of the mountains. The
+probabilities could keep no terms with him, and he baffled prophecy.
+He had a quick invention--a talent for expedients. He appeared suddenly
+when least expected and where his presence seemed impossible. He had a
+gift of military intuition. He seemed to know the enemy’s plans before
+they were matured; and ere a move was made to put them into execution he
+was on the ground with troublous obstacles to forestall the event in
+its very inception. He maintained a discipline to many commanders
+impossible. His troops had a unity of spirit that might well animate an
+individual. They endured long fasts, made wonderful forced marches on
+occasion--all day in the saddle and nodding to the pommel all night; it
+was even said they fought to such exhaustion that when dismounted the
+front rank, lying in line of battle prone upon the ground, would fall
+asleep between volleys, and that the second rank, kneeling to fire above
+them, had orders to stir them with their carbines to insure regularity
+of the musketry. He had the humbler yet even more necessary
+equipment for military success. He could forage his troops in barren
+opportunities; they somehow kept clothed and armed at the minimum of
+expense. Did he lack ammunition--he made shift to capture a supply for
+his little Par-rott guns that barked like fierce dogs at the rear-guard
+of an enemy or protected his own retreat when it jumped with his plans
+to compass a speedy withdrawal himself. His horses were well groomed,
+well fed, fine travellers, and many showed the brand U.S., for he could
+mount his troop when need required from the corrals of an unsuspecting
+encampment. He was the ideal guerilla, of infinite service to his
+faction in small, significant operations of disproportioned importance.
+
+What wonder that his name was rife in rumors which flew about the
+country; that soon it was not only “the grapevine telegraph” that
+vibrated with the sound, but he was mentioned in official despatches;
+nay, on one signal occasion the importance of his dashing exploit
+was recognized by the commander of the Army Corps in a general order
+published to specially commend it. Naturally his spirit rose to
+meet these expanding liberties of achievement. He looked for further
+promotion--for eminence. In a vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and
+clearer, he could see himself in the astral splendor of the official
+stars of a major-general--for in the far day of the anticipated success
+of the Confederacy he looked to be an officer of the line.
+
+And now suddenly this light was dimmed; his laurels were wilting. What
+prestige would the capture of Tolhurst have conferred! Never had a
+golden opportunity like this been lost--by what uncovenanted chance had
+Tolhurst escaped!
+
+“He must have had a guide! Right here in the Cove!” Ackert exclaimed.
+“Nobody outside would know a hole in the ground, a cave, a water-gap, a
+tunnel like that! Where’s the man?”
+
+“Naw, sir--naw, Cap’n! Nobody viewed the troop but one gal person an’
+she ‘lowed she never seen no guide.”
+
+The charger whirled under the touch of the hand on the rein, and
+Ackert’s eyes scanned with a searching intentness the group.
+
+“Where’s this girl--you?”
+
+As the old squire with most unwelcome officiousness seized Ethelinda’s
+arm and hurried her forward, her heart sank within her. For one moment
+the guerilla’s fiery, piercing eyes dwelt upon her as she stood looking
+on, her delicately white face grown deathly pallid, her golden hair
+frivolously blowsed in the wind, which tossed the full skirts of her
+lilac-hued calico gown till she seemed poised on the very wings of
+flight. Her sapphire eyes, bluer than ever azure skies could seem,
+sought to gaze upward, but ever and anon their long-lashed lids
+fluttered and fell.
+
+He was quick of perception.
+
+“_You_ have no call to be afraid,” he remarked--a sort of gruff
+upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in
+reprisal. “Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and
+just where they got out--damn ‘em!”
+
+She could scarcely control her terror when she saw that he intended her
+to ride with him to the spot, yet she feared even more to draw back,
+to refuse. He held out one great spurred boot. Her little low-cut shoe
+looked tiny upon it as she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind
+him, and the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long,
+swift strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to
+catch the guerilla’s belt--to seize, too, with an agitated clutch,
+his right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers
+promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming
+the red sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the
+blacksmith shop, which the cavalrymen had now approached, watering their
+horses at the trough and lifting the saddles to rest the animals from
+the constriction of the pressure of the girths.
+
+Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences
+flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the
+evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains
+had spread its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads.
+Presently the heavy shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now,
+showing only blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon
+them, and the guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among
+boulders and rough ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great
+crags had begun to line the way, first only on one marge of the channel;
+then; the clifty banks appeared on the other side, and at length a
+deep> black-arched opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming
+with sepulchral shadows; in the silence one might hear drops trickling
+vaguely and the sudden hooting of an owl from within.
+
+He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.
+
+“So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
+this tunnel?”
+
+“Yessir!” she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
+squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. “They couldn’t hev
+done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin’ with
+the fust rains.”
+
+“An’ Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide--a guide that
+knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I’ll catch him
+yet, sometime. I’ll hang him! I’ll hang him--if I have to grow a tree
+a-pur-pose.”
+
+What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
+circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of
+the earth. It was a long moment before they were still again--perhaps,
+indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed,
+a new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda’s
+nerves. Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He
+had caught sight of the hoof marks along the moist sandy spaces of the
+channel, mute witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of
+her story. A sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up
+a broken belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon
+it.
+
+“I’ll hang that guide yet,” he muttered, his eyes dark with angry
+conviction, his face lowering with fury. “I’ll hang him--I won’t expect
+to prove it p’int blank. Jes’ let me git a mite o’ suspicion, an’ I’ll
+guarantee the slipknot!”
+
+She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.
+
+“Cap’n Ackert,” she trembled forth. There was so much significance in
+her tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation.
+“I tole ye the truth whenst I say I _seen_ no guide”--he made a gesture
+of impatience; he had no time for twice-told tales--“kase--kase the
+guide war--war--myself.”
+
+The clear twilight fell full on his amazed, upturned face and the storm
+of fury it concentrated.
+
+“What did you do it fur?” he thundered, “you limb o’ perdition!”
+
+“Jes’ ter help him some. He--he--he--would hev been capshured.”
+
+He would indeed! The guerilla was very terrible to look upon as his
+brow corrugated, and his upturned eyes, with the light of the sky within
+them, flashed ominously.
+
+“You little she-devil!” he cried, and then speech seemed to fail him.
+
+She had begun to shiver and shed tears and emit little gusts of quaking
+sobs.
+
+“Oh, I be so feared----” she whimpered.
+
+“But--but--you mustn’t hang--_nobody else_ on s’picion!”
+
+There was a vague change in the expression of his face. He still stood
+beside the saddle, with the reins over his arm, while the horse threw
+his head almost to the ground and again tossed it aloft in his impatient
+weariness of the delay.
+
+“An’ now you are captured yourself,” he said, sternly. “You are
+accountable fur your actions.”
+
+She burst into a paroxysm of sobs. “I never went ter tell! I meant ter
+keep the secret! The folks in the Cove dun’no’ nuthin’. But--oh, ye
+_mustn’t_ s’picion nobody else--ye _mustn’t_ hang nobody else!”
+
+Once more that indescribable change upon his face.
+
+“You showed him the way to this pass yourself? Tell the truth!”
+
+“He war ridin’ his horse-critter--‘tain’t ez fast, nor fine, nor fat ez
+yourn.”
+
+He stroked the glossy mane with a sort of mechanical pride.
+
+“And so he went plumb through the cave?”
+
+“An’ all the troop--they kindled pine-knots fur torches.”
+
+He glanced about him at the convenient growths.
+
+“And they came out all safe in Greenbrier!” He winced. How the lost
+opportunity hurt him!
+
+“Yessir. In Greenbrier Cove.”
+
+“Did he pay you in gold?” sneered Ackert. “Or in greenbacks? Or mebbe in
+Cornfed money?”
+
+“I wouldn’t hev his gold.” She drew herself up proudly, though the tears
+were still coursing down her cheeks. “So he gin me a present--a
+whole passel o’ coffee in my milk-piggin.” Then to complete a candid
+confession she detailed the disposition she had made of this rare and
+precious luxury at the rebel smallpox camp.
+
+His eyes seemed to dilate as they gazed up at her. “Jesus Gawd!” he
+exclaimed, with uncouth profanity. But the phrase was unfamiliar to her,
+and she caught at it with a meaning all her own.
+
+“That’s jes’ it! Folks in gineral don’t think o’ _them_, ‘cept ter git
+out o’ thar way; an’ nobody keers fur _them_, but kase Jesus is Gawd
+He makes _somebody_ remember them wunst in a while! An’ they did seem
+passable glad.”
+
+A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle
+distillation of asters or jewel-weed or “mountain-snow,” and the leafage
+of crimson sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late
+ripening frost-grapes--all in the culmination of autumnal perfection;
+more than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue
+and roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief
+truce stilled the guerilla’s tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand
+beside his horse’s head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle
+blanket.
+
+Suddenly he spoke to an unexpected intent. “Ye took a power o’ risk in
+goin’ nigh that Confederate pest-camp--an’ yit ye’re fur the Union an’
+saved a squadron from capture!” he upbraided the inconsistency in a soft
+incidental drawl.
+
+“Yes, I be fur the Union,” she trembled forth the dread avowal. “But
+somehows I can’t keep from holpin’ any I kin. They war rebs--an’ it war
+Yankee coffee--an’ I dun’no’--I jes’ dun’no’----”
+
+As she hesitated he looked long at her with that untranslated gaze. Then
+he fell ponderingly silent.
+
+Perhaps the revelation of the sanctities of a sweet humanity for a holy
+sake, blessing and blessed, had illumined his path, had lifted his eyes,
+had wrought a change in his moral atmosphere spiritually suffusive,
+potent, revivifying, complete. “She is as good as the saints in the
+Bible--an’ plumb beautiful besides,” he muttered beneath his fierce
+mustachios.
+
+Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.
+
+“I expect to do some courtin’ in this kentry when the war is over,” the
+guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. “I haven’t
+got time now. Will _you_ be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove--if I
+promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?” He glanced up
+with a sudden arch jocularity.
+
+She burst out laughing gleefuly in the tumult of her joyous reassurance,
+as she laid her tremulous fingers in his big gauntlet when he insisted
+that they should shake hands as on a solemn compact. Forthwith he
+mounted again, and the great charger galloped back, carrying double, in
+the red afterglow of the sunset, to the waiting group before the flaring
+doors of the forge.
+
+The fine flower of romance had blossomed incongruously in that eager
+heart in those fierce moments of the bitterness of defeat. Life suddenly
+had a new meaning, a fair and fragrant promise, and often and again he
+looked over his shoulder at the receding scene when the trumpets sang
+“to horse,” and in the light of the moon the guerilla rode out of
+Tanglefoot Cove.
+
+But Ethelinda saw him never again. All the storms of fate overwhelmed
+the Confederacy with many a rootless hope and many a plan and pride. In
+lieu of the materialization of the stalwart ambition of distinction
+that had come to dominate his life, responsive to the discovery of his
+peculiar and inherent gifts, his destiny was chronicled in scarce a line
+of the printed details of a day freighted with the monstrous disaster
+of a great battle; in common with others of the “missing” his bones were
+picked by the vultures till shoved into a trench, where a monument rises
+to-day to commemorate an event and not a commander. Nevertheless, for
+many years the flare of the first red leaves in the cleft among the
+pines on the eastern slope of Tanglefoot Cove brought to Ethelinda’s
+mind the gay flutter of the guidon, and in certain sonorous blasts of
+the mountain wind she could hear martial echoes of the trumpets of the
+guerilla.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
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diff --git a/23548-0.zip b/23548-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by 
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Raid Of The Guerilla
+       1911
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23548]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA
+
+By Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+1911
+
+
+Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove--somewhat in advance of the
+expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A certain
+noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern
+intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains,
+and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.
+
+Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early
+days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number.
+Then came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an
+extension of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the
+venerable, thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave.
+Now only the ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male
+population among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in
+the scheme of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.
+
+So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike
+affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit
+of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no
+trifle.
+
+"'T war Ethelindy's deed," her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips
+close to the knob of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands
+trembled as he sat in his armchair on the broad hearth of the main room
+in his little log cabin.
+
+Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled
+old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still
+wore, though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed
+her anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.
+
+"Lawd! ye jes' now f 'und that out, dad?" exclaimed her widowed mother,
+busied in her evening task of carding wool on one side of the deep
+chimney, built of clay and sticks, and seeming always the imminent prey
+of destruction. But there it had stood for a hundred years, dispensing
+light and warmth and cheer, itself more inflammable than the great
+hickory logs that had summer still among their fibres and dripped sap
+odorously as they sluggishly burned.
+
+Ethelinda cast a like agitated glance on the speaker, then her gaze
+reverted to the fire. She had the air of being perched up, as if to
+escape the clutching waves of calamity, as she sat on a high, inverted
+splint basket, her feet not touching the puncheons of the rude floor,
+one hand drawing close about her the red woollen skirt of her dress. She
+seemed shrunken even from her normal small size, and she listened to the
+reproachful recital of her political activity with a shrinking dismay on
+her soft, roseate face.
+
+"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy," her granny lifted an accusatory voice,
+still knitting briskly, though she looked rebukingly over her spectacles
+at the cowering girl, "when that thar Union _dee_-tachmint rid into
+Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap----"
+
+"Yes," interposed Mrs. Brusie, "through mistakin' it fur Greenbrier
+Cove."
+
+"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy but she mus' up an' offer to show the
+officer the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of
+the mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca'cely one o' the boys left
+in the Cove would know now."
+
+"Else he'd hev been capshured," Ethelinda humbly submitted.
+
+"Yes"--the ruffles of her grandmother's cap were terrible to view as
+they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection--"an'
+_you_ will be capshured now."
+
+The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the
+hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud
+in sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious
+silence.
+
+"You-uns mus' be powerful keerful ter say nuthin' 'bout Ethelindy's
+hand in that escape of the Fed'ral cavalry"--the old grandfather roused
+himself to a politic monition. "Mebbe the raiders won't find it out--an'
+the folks in the Cove dun'no' who done it, nuther."
+
+"Yes, bes' be keerful, sure," the gran-dame rejoined. "Fur they puts
+wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;" still glibly
+knitting, she jerked her head toward the western world outside the
+limits of the great ranges. "Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a
+woman what pizened her husband, an' they kep' her in jail a consider'ble
+time--a senseless thing ter do ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a
+shif'less no-'count fool, an' nobody but her would hev put up with him
+ez long ez she did. The jedge an' jury thunk the same, fur they 'lowed
+ez she war crazy--an' so she war, ter hev ever married him! They
+turned her loose, but she never got another husband--I never knowed a
+man-person but what was skittish 'bout any unhealthy meddlin' with his
+vittles."
+
+She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of
+her cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic
+mimicry, while down Ethelinda's pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at
+the prospect of such immurement.
+
+"Jes' kase I showed a stranger his path----"
+
+"An' two hundred an' fifty mo'--spry, good-lookin' youngsters, able to
+do the rebs a power o' damage."
+
+"I war 'feared they'd git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped
+me down on the bank o' the creek whar I war a-huntin' of the cow, an' he
+axed 'bout the roads out'n the Cove, an' I tole him thar war no way out
+'ceptin' by the road he had jes' come, an' a path through a sorter cave
+or tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o' the mounting, ez
+could be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler'ble low, an' he
+axed me ter show him that underground way."
+
+"An' ye war full willin," said Mrs. Brusie, in irritation, "though ye
+knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin' heaven an' earth ter
+overhaul Tolhurst's command before they could reach the main body. An'
+hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap."
+
+"I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the
+Cove, would be waitin' ter capshur them when they kem up the road
+agin--I jes' showed him how ter crope out through the cave," Ethelinda
+sobbed.
+
+"How in perdition did they find thar way through that thar dark hole?--I
+can't sense that!" the old man suddenly mumbled.
+
+"They had lanterns an' some pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an'
+the leader sent a squad ter 'reconnoitre,' ez he called it. An' whilst
+he waited he stood an' talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an'
+the lay o' the land over thar. He war full per-lite an' genteel."
+
+"I'll be bound ye looked like a 'crazy Jane,'" cried the grandmother,
+with sudden exasperation. "Yer white sun-bonnet plumb off an' a-hangin'
+down on yer shoulders, an' yer yaller hair all a-blowsin' at loose
+eends, stiddier bein' plaited up stiff an' tight an' personable, an' yer
+face burned pink in the sun, stiddier like yer skin ginerally looks,
+fine an' white ez a pan o' fraish milk, an' the flabby, slinksy skirt o'
+that yaller calico dress 'thout no starch in it, a-flappin' an' whirlin'
+in the wind--shucks! I dun'no' _whut_ the man could hev thought o'
+you-uns, dressed out that-a-way."
+
+"He war toler'ble well pleased with me now, sure!" retorted Ethelinda,
+stung to a blunt self-assertion. "He keered mo' about a good-lookin'
+road than a good-lookin' gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an'
+reported the passage full safe for man an' beastis the leader tuk a
+purse o' money out'n his pocket an' held it out to me--though he said it
+couldn't express his thanks.' But I held my hands behind me an' wouldn't
+take it. Then he called up another man an' made him open a bag, an'
+he snatched up my empty milk-piggin' an' poured it nigh full o' green
+coffee in the bean--it be skeerce ez gold an' nigh ez precious."
+
+"An' _what_ did you do with it, Ethelindy?" her mother asked,
+significantly--not for information, but for the renewal of discussion
+and to justify the repetition of rebukes. These had not been few.
+
+"You know," the girl returned, sullenly.
+
+"_I_ do," the glib grandmother interposed. "Ye jes' gin we-uns a sniff
+an' a sup, an' then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an' shook the rest
+of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an' sot out an'
+marched yer-self through the laurel--I wonder nuthin' didn't ketch ye!
+howsomever naught is never in danger--an' went ter that horspital camp
+o' the rebels on Big Injun Mounting--smallpox horspital it is--an' gin
+that precious coffee away to the enemies o' yer kentry."
+
+"Nobody comes nor goes ter that place--hell itself ain't so avoided,"
+said Mrs. Brusie, her forehead corrugated with sudden recurrence of
+anxiety. "Nobody else in this world would have resked it, 'ceptin' that
+headin' contrairy gal, Ethelindy Brusie."
+
+"I never resked nuthin," protested Ethelinda. "I stopped at the head of a
+bluff far off, an' hollered down ter 'em in the clearin' an' held up
+the kittle. An' two or three rebs war out of thar tents in the
+clearin'--thar be a good sight o' new graves up thar!--an' them men
+war hollerin' an' wavin' me away, till they seen what I war doin'; jes'
+settin' down the kittle an' startin' off."
+
+She gazed meditatively into the fire, of set purpose avoiding the eyes
+fixed upon her, and sought to justify her course.
+
+"I knowed ez we-uns hed got used ter doin' 'thout coffee, an' don't feel
+the need of it now. We-uns air well an' stout, an' live in our good home
+an' beside our own h'a'th-stone; an' they air sick, an' pore, an' cast
+out, an' I reckon they ain't ever been remembered before in gifts. An' I
+'lowed the coffee, bein' unexpected an' a sorter extry, mought put some
+fraish heart an' hope in 'em--leastwise show 'em ez God don't 'low 'em
+ter be plumb furgot."
+
+She still gazed meditatively at the fire as if it held a scroll of her
+recollections, which she gradually interpreted anew. "I looked back
+wunst, an' one o' them rebs had sot down on a log an' war sobbin' ez
+ef his heart would bust. An' another of 'em war signin, at me agin an'
+agin, like he was drawin' a cross in the air--one pass down an' then one
+across--an' the other reb war jes' laffin' fur joy, and wunst in a while
+he yelled out: 'Blessin's on ye! Blessin's! Blessin's!' I dun'no'
+how fur I hearn that sayin'. The rocks round the creek war repeatin'
+it, whenst I crossed the f oot-bredge. I dun'no what the feller
+meant--mought hev been crazy."
+
+A tricksy gust stirred at the door as if a mischievous hand twitched
+the latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening
+children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the
+hounds snored sonorously in the silence.
+
+"Nuthin' crazy thar 'ceptin' you-uns!--one fool gal--that's all!" said
+her grandmother, with her knitting-needles and her spectacles glittering
+in the firelight. "That is a pest camp. Ye mought hev cotch the
+smallpox. I be lookm' fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war
+is over an' the men come back to the Cove, none of 'em will so much as
+look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked--fair an' fine as it is now,
+like a pan of fraish milk."
+
+"But, granny, it won't be sp'ilt! The camp war too fur off--an' thar
+warn't a breath o' wind. I never went a-nigh 'em."
+
+"I dun'no' how fur smallpox kin travel--an' it jes' mulls and mulls in
+ye afore it breaks out--don't it, S'briny?"
+
+"Don't ax me," said Mrs. Brusie, with a worried air. "I ain't no yerb
+doctor, nor nurse tender, nuther. Ethelindy is beyond my understandin'."
+
+She was beyond her own understanding, as she sat weeping slowly,
+silently. The aspect of those forlorn graves, that recorded the final
+ebbing of hope and life at the pest camp, had struck her recollection
+with a most poignant appeal. Strangers, wretches, dying alone, desolate
+outcasts, the terror of their kind, the epitome of repulsion--they were
+naught to her! Yet they represented humanity in its helplessness, its
+suffering, its isolated woe, and its great and final mystery; she felt
+vaguely grieved for their sake, and she gave the clay that covered them,
+still crude red clods with not yet a blade of grass, the fellowship of
+her tears.
+
+A thrill of masculine logic stirred uneasily in the old man's disused
+brain. "Tell me _one_ thing, Ethelindy," he said, lifting his bleared
+eyes as he clasped his tremulous hands more firmly on the head of his
+stick--"tell me this--which side air you-uns on, ennyhow, Ethelindy?"
+
+"I'm fur the Union," said Ethelinda, still weeping, and now and then
+wiping her sapphire eyes with the back of her hand, hard and tanned, but
+small in proportion to her size. "I'm fur the Union--fust an' last an'
+all the time."
+
+The old man wagged his head solemnly with a blight of forecast on his
+wrinkled, aged face. "That thar sayin' is goin' ter be mighty hard
+ter live up to whilst Jerome Ackert's critter company is a-raidin' of
+Tanglefoot Cove."
+
+The presence of the "critter company" was indeed calculated to inspire
+a most obsequious awe. It was an expression of arbitrary power which one
+might ardently wish directed elsewhere. From the moment that the echoes
+of the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely
+sweet and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if
+blown down from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the
+bland blue sky, the denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer
+together, and to skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house.
+Tanglefoot Cove is some four miles long, and its average breadth is
+little more than a mile. On all sides the great Smoky Mountains rise
+about the cuplike hollow, and their dense gigantic growths of hickory
+and poplar, maple and gum, were aglow, red and golden, with the largesse
+of the generous October. The underbrush or the jungles of laurel that
+covered the steeps rendered outlet through the forests impracticable,
+and indeed the only road was invisible save for a vague line among
+the dense pines of a precipitous slope, where on approach it would
+materialize under one's feet as a wheel track on either side of a line
+of frosted weeds, which the infrequent passing of wagon-beds had bent
+and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.
+
+The blacksmith's shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had
+soon an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had
+had enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt
+his anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he
+no more bears a part;--a mini�-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm,
+and his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. This was
+a half-witted fellow, a giant in strength, but not to be trusted with
+firearms. In these days of makeweights his utility had been discovered,
+and now with the smith's hammer in his hand he joined the group, his
+bulging eyes all a-stare and his loose lips hanging apart. The old
+justice of the peace, whose office was a sinecure, since the war had
+run the law out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with
+a sense of futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note
+of the distant trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the
+nerves to await helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.
+
+"They say that he is a tumble, tumble man," the blacksmith averred, ever
+and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which, though
+bundled in its jeans' sleeve, he had the illusion of the sensation of
+its hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his broad palm to
+eye that significant line which marked the road among the pines on the
+eastern slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and rank of growth
+in the rich bottom-lands.
+
+Ethelinda's heart sank. All unprescient of the day's impending event,
+she had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and
+she now stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she
+listened spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a
+great yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough,
+and here a horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by
+a draught; he had ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but
+still stood with his muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping,
+gazing with un-imagined thoughts at the reflection of his big equine
+eyes, the blue sky inverted, the dappling yellow leaves, more golden
+even than the sunshine, and the glimmering flight of birds, with a
+stellular light upon their wings.
+
+"A turrible man?--w-w-well," stuttered the idiot, who had of late
+assumed all the port of coherence; he snatched and held a part in the
+colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his
+infirmity, "then I'd be obleeged ter him ef--ef--ef he'd stay out'n
+Tanglefoot Cove."
+
+"So would I." The miller laughed uneasily. But for the corrugations
+of time, one might not have known if it were flour or age that had so
+whitened his long beard, which hung quivering down over the breast of
+his jeans coat, of an indeterminate hue under its frosting from the
+hopper. "He hev tuk up a tumble spite at Tanglefoot Cove."
+
+The blacksmith nodded. "They say that he 'lowed ez traitors orter
+be treated like traitors. But _I_ be a-goin' ter tell him that the
+Confederacy hev got one arm off'n me more'n its entitled to, an' I'm
+willin' ter call it quits at that."
+
+"'Tain't goin' ter do him no good ter raid the Cove," an ancient farmer
+averred; "an' it's agin' the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the
+kentry they live off'n--it's like sawin' off the bough ye air sittin'
+on." His eyes dwelt with a fearful affection on the laden fields; his
+old stoop-shouldered back had bent yet more under the toil that had
+brought his crop to this perfection, with the aid of the children whose
+labor was scarcely worth the strenuosity requisite to control their
+callow wiles.
+
+"Shucks! He's a guerilla--he is!" retorted the blacksmith. "Accountable
+ter nobody! Hyar ter-day an' thar ter-morrer. Rides light. Two leetle
+Parrott guns is the most weight he carries."
+
+The idiot's eyes began to widen with slow and baffled speculation.
+"Whut--w-whut ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w--" his great
+loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry
+from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained
+contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man,
+though a simpleton, was yet a man, and inherently commanded respect.
+
+"A bird o' the air mus' hev carried the matter that Tolhurst's troops
+hed rid inter Tanglefoot Cove by mistake fur Greenbrier, whar they war
+ter cross ter jine the Fed'rals nigh the Cohuttas. An' that guerilla,
+Ackert, hed been ridin' a hundred mile at a hand-gallop ter overhaul
+him, an' knowin' thar warn't but one outlet to Tanglefoot Cove, he
+expected ter capshur the Feds as they kem out agin. So he sot himself
+ter ambush Tolhurst, an' waited fur him _up_ thar amongst the pines an'
+the laurel--an' he _waited_--an' _waited!_ But Tolhurst never came! So
+whenst the guerilla war sure he hed escaped by ways unknownst he set out
+ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But Tolhurst had j'ined the
+main body o' the Federal Army, an' now Ackert is showing a clean pair o'
+heels comin' back. But he be goin' ter take time ter raid the Cove--his
+hurry will wait fur that! Somebody in Tanglefoot--the Lord only knows
+who--showed Tolhurst that underground way out ter Greenbrier Cove,
+through a sorter cave or tunnel in the mountings."
+
+"Now--now--neighbor--_that's_ guesswork," remonstrated the miller, in
+behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility. Perhaps the
+semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the faculties
+beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain connection
+between cause and effect inimical to personal interest.
+
+"Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure," protested the
+blacksmith. "I tracked 'em, the ground bein' moist, kase I wanted
+ter view the marks o' their horses' hoofs. They hev got some powerful
+triflin' blacksmiths in the army--farriers, they call 'em. I los' the
+trail amongst the rocks an' ledges down todes the cave--though it's more
+like one o' them tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in
+the army, but this one was never made with hands; jes' hollowed out by
+Sinking Creek. So I got Jube thar ter crope through, an' view ef thar
+war any hoof marks on t'other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier
+Cove."
+
+"An' a body would think fur sure ez the armies o' hell had been
+spewed out'n that black hole," said a lean man whom the glance of the
+blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of
+a racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its
+violence. "Hoof marks hyar--hoof-marks thar--as if they didn't rightly
+know which way ter go in the marshy ground 'bout Sinking Creek. But
+at last they 'peared ter git tergether, an' off they tracked ter the
+west----" A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the
+group failed to follow the words that they interspersed.
+
+"They tuk a short cut through the Cove--they warn't in it a haffen
+hour," stipulated the prudent miller. "They came an' went like a flash.
+Nobody seen 'em 'cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house--an' ef
+they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it."
+
+"Ackert 'lows he'll hang the guide ef he ketches him," said the
+blacksmith, in a tone of awe. "Leastwise that's the word that's 'goin'."
+
+Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
+its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
+horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
+their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on
+the protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller's
+attention. He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking
+out from their network of wrinkles.
+
+"You didn't see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns' house, did
+ye?"
+
+Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
+sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
+sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she
+had never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
+consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
+little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
+phrase. "Naw sir--I never seen thar guide."
+
+"Thar now, what did I tell you!" the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.
+
+The blacksmith seemed convinced. "Mought hev hed a map," he speculated.
+"Them fellers in the army _do_ hev maps. I fund that out whenst I war in
+the service."
+
+The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith's practical knowledge
+of the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority.
+Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how
+the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed,
+despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to
+the iteration of the trumpet.
+
+Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.
+
+"Right wheel, trot--_march_," he muttered, interpreting the sound of the
+horses' hoofs. "It's a critter company, fur sure!"
+
+There was no splendor of pageant in the raid of the guerilla into the
+Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance
+of the "critter company." Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon
+flashed on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a
+barren interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant,
+looking the centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs
+made itself felt as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and
+sabre, and now and again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with
+that majestic, sweet sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They
+were coming indubitably, the troop of the dreaded guerilla--indeed, they
+were already here. For while the sun still glinted on carbine and sabre
+among the scarlet and golden tints of the deciduous growths and the
+sombre green of the pines on the loftier slopes, the vanguard in column
+of fours were among the gray shadows at the mountains' base and speeding
+into the Cove at a hand-gallop, for the roads were fairly good when once
+the level was reached. Though so military a presentment, for they were
+all veterans in the service, despite the youth of many, they were not in
+uniform. Some wore the brown jeans of the region, girt with sword-belt
+and canteen, with great spurs and cavalry boots, and broad-brimmed hats,
+which now and again flaunted cords or feathers. Others had attained the
+Confederate gray, occasionally accented with a glimmer of gold where a
+shoulder-strap or a chevron graced the garb. And yet there was a certain
+homogeneity in their aspect, All rode after the manner of the section,
+with the "long stirrup" at the extreme length of the limb, and the
+immovable pose in the saddle, the man being absolutely stationary, while
+the horse bounded at agile speed. There was the similarity of facial
+expression, in infinite dissimilarity of feature, which marks a common
+sentiment, origin, and habitat. Then, too, they shared something
+recklessly haphazard, gay, defiantly dangerous, that, elusive as it
+might be to describe, was as definitely perceived as the guidon, riding
+apart at the left, the long lance of his pennant planted on his stirrup,
+bearing himself with a certain stately pride of port, distinctly
+official.
+
+The whole effect was concentrated in the face of the leader, obviously
+the inspiration of the organization, the vital spark by which it lived;
+a fierce face, intent, commanding. It was burned to a brick-red, and
+had an aquiline nose and a keen gray-green eagle-like eye; on either side
+auburn hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, after the fashion of
+the time, to his coat collar. And this collar and his shoulders were
+decorated with gold lace and the insignia of rank; the uniform was of
+fine Confederate gray, which seemed to contradict the general impression
+that he was but a free-lance or a bushwhacker and operated on his own
+responsibility. The impression increased the terror his name excited
+throughout the countryside with his high-handed and eccentric methods of
+warfare, and perhaps he would not have resented it if he were cognizant
+of its general acceptance.
+
+It was a look calculated to inspire awe which he flung upon the cowering
+figures before the door of the forge as he suddenly perceived them; and
+detaching himself from the advancing troop, he spurred his horse toward
+them. He came up like a whirlwind.
+
+That impetuous gallop could scarcely have carried his charger over the
+building itself, yet there is nothing so overwhelming to the nerves
+as the approaching rush of a speedy horse, and the group flattened
+themselves against the wall; but he drew rein before he reached the
+door, and whirling in the saddle, with one hand on the horse's back, he
+demanded:
+
+"Where is he? Bring him out!" as if all the world knew the object of his
+search and the righteous reason of his enmity. "Bring him out! I'll have
+a drumhead court martial--and he'll swing before sunset!"
+
+"Good evenin', Cap'n," the old miller sought what influence might
+appertain to polite address and the social graces.
+
+"Evenin' be damned!" cried Ackert, angrily. "If you folks in the coves
+want the immunity of non-combatants, by Gawd! you gotter preserve the
+neutrality of non-combatants!"
+
+"Yessir--that's reason--that's jestice," said the old squire, hastily,
+whose capacities of ratiocination had been cultivated by the exercise of
+the judicial functions of his modest _piepoudre_ court.
+
+Ackert unwillingly cast his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as
+if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
+
+"It's accordin' to the articles o' war and the law of nations," he
+averred. "People take advantage of age and disability"--he glanced at
+the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of
+his right arm--"as if that could protect 'em in acts o' treason an'
+treachery;" then with a blast of impatience, "Where's the man?"
+
+To remonstrate with a whirlwind, to explain to a flash of lightning, to
+soothe and propitiate the fury of a conflagration--the task before the
+primitive and inexpert Cove-dwellers seemed to partake of this nature.
+
+"Cap'n--ef ye'd listen ter what I gotter say," began the miller.
+
+"I'll listen arterward!" exclaimed Ackert, in his clarion voice. He had
+never heard of Jedburgh justice, but he had all the sentiment of that
+famous tribunal who hanged the prisoners first and tried them afterward.
+
+"Cap'n," remonstrated the blacksmith, breaking in with hot haste,
+hurried by the commander's gusts of impatience, forgetful that he had
+no need to be precipitate, since he could not produce the recusant if he
+would. "Cap'n--Cap'n--bear with us--we-uns don't know!"
+
+Ackert stared in snorting amaze, a flush of anger dyeing his red cheeks
+a yet deeper red. Of all the subterfuges that he had expected, he had
+never divined this. He shifted front face in his saddle, placed his
+gauntleted right hand on his right side, and held his head erect,
+looking over the wide, rich expanse of the Cove, the corn in the field,
+and the fodder in the shock set amid the barbaric splendors of the
+wooded autumn mountains glowing in the sunset above. He seemed scenting
+his vengeance with some keen sense as he looked, his thin nostrils
+dilating as sensitively as the nostrils of his high-couraged charger now
+throwing up his head to sniff the air, now bending it down as he pawed
+the ground.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, you have got a mighty pretty piece o' country
+here, and good crops, too--which is a credit to you, seeing that the
+conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers
+that wouldn't volunteer--damn 'em! But I swear by the right hand of
+Jehovah, I'll burn every cabin in the Cove an' every blade o' forage in
+the fields if you don't produce the man who guided Tol-hurst's cavalry
+out'n the trap I'd chased 'em into, or give me a true and satisfactory
+account of him." He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the
+air. "So help me God!"
+
+There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce
+asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager
+protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein,
+then desisted. A certain _noli me tangere_ influence about the fierce
+guerilla affected even supplication, and the "Squair" resorted to logic
+as the more potent weapon of the two.
+
+"Cap'n, Cap'n," he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, "be pleased to
+consider my words. I'm a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run
+the law clean out o' the kentry. We dun'no' the guide--we never seen
+the troops." Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: "If ye'll
+cast yer eye on the lay of the land, ye'll view how it happened. Thar's
+the road "--he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the
+foliage that marked the descent into the vale--"an' down this e-end o'
+the Cove thar's nex' ter nobody livin'."
+
+The spirited equestrian figure was stand-ing as still as a statue;
+only the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the
+nostrils, showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.
+
+"Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove 'lowed afterward they hearn
+a hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin' of the ground like the trompin'
+of horses--but them troops mus' hev passed from the foot o' the mounting
+acrost the aidge of the Cove."
+
+"Scant haffen mile," put in the blacksmith, "down to a sort of cave,
+or tunnel, that runs under the mounting--yander--that lets 'em out into
+Greenbrier Cove."
+
+"Gawd!" exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched,
+gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight
+the course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of
+their triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the
+intonation was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and
+rare opportunity thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all
+the chaotic chances of the Civil War he could hardly hope for its
+repetition. It was part of a crack body of regulars--Tolhurst's
+squadron--that he had contrived to drive into this trap, this
+_cul-de-sac_, surrounded by the infinite fastnesses of the Great Smoky
+Mountains. It had been a running fight, for Tolhurst had orders, as
+Ackert had found means of knowing, to join the main body without delay,
+and his chief aim was to shake off this persistent pursuit with which
+a far inferior force had harassed his march. But for his fortuitous
+discovery of the underground exit from the basin of Tanglefoot Cove,
+Ackert, ambushed without, would have encountered and defeated the
+regulars in detail as they clambered in detachments up the unaccustomed
+steeps of the mountain road, the woods elsewhere being almost impassable
+jungles of laurel.
+
+Success would have meant more to Ackert than the value of the service to
+the cause, than the tumultuous afflatus of victory, than the spirit of
+strife to the born soldier. There had been kindled in his heart a great
+and fiery ambition; he was one of the examples of an untaught military
+genius of which the Civil War elicited a few notable and amazing
+instances. There had been naught in his career heretofore to suggest
+this unaccountable gift, to foster its development. He was the son of
+a small farmer, only moderately well-to-do; he had the very limited
+education which a restricted and remote rural region afforded its youth;
+he had entered the Confederate army as a private soldier, with no sense
+of special fitness, no expectation of personal advancement, only carried
+on the wave of popular enthusiasm. But from the beginning his quality
+had been felt; he had risen from grade to grade, and now with a detached
+body of horse and flying artillery his exploits were beginning to
+attract the attention of corps commanders on both sides, to the
+gratulation of friends and the growing respect of foes. He seemed
+endowed with the wings of the wind; to-day he was tearing up railroad
+tracks in the lowlands to impede the reinforcements of an army;
+to-morrow the force sent with the express intention of placing a period
+to those mischievous activities heard of his feats in burning
+bridges and cutting trestles in remote sections of the mountains. The
+probabilities could keep no terms with him, and he baffled prophecy.
+He had a quick invention--a talent for expedients. He appeared suddenly
+when least expected and where his presence seemed impossible. He had a
+gift of military intuition. He seemed to know the enemy's plans before
+they were matured; and ere a move was made to put them into execution he
+was on the ground with troublous obstacles to forestall the event in
+its very inception. He maintained a discipline to many commanders
+impossible. His troops had a unity of spirit that might well animate an
+individual. They endured long fasts, made wonderful forced marches on
+occasion--all day in the saddle and nodding to the pommel all night; it
+was even said they fought to such exhaustion that when dismounted the
+front rank, lying in line of battle prone upon the ground, would fall
+asleep between volleys, and that the second rank, kneeling to fire above
+them, had orders to stir them with their carbines to insure regularity
+of the musketry. He had the humbler yet even more necessary
+equipment for military success. He could forage his troops in barren
+opportunities; they somehow kept clothed and armed at the minimum of
+expense. Did he lack ammunition--he made shift to capture a supply for
+his little Par-rott guns that barked like fierce dogs at the rear-guard
+of an enemy or protected his own retreat when it jumped with his plans
+to compass a speedy withdrawal himself. His horses were well groomed,
+well fed, fine travellers, and many showed the brand U.S., for he could
+mount his troop when need required from the corrals of an unsuspecting
+encampment. He was the ideal guerilla, of infinite service to his
+faction in small, significant operations of disproportioned importance.
+
+What wonder that his name was rife in rumors which flew about the
+country; that soon it was not only "the grapevine telegraph" that
+vibrated with the sound, but he was mentioned in official despatches;
+nay, on one signal occasion the importance of his dashing exploit
+was recognized by the commander of the Army Corps in a general order
+published to specially commend it. Naturally his spirit rose to
+meet these expanding liberties of achievement. He looked for further
+promotion--for eminence. In a vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and
+clearer, he could see himself in the astral splendor of the official
+stars of a major-general--for in the far day of the anticipated success
+of the Confederacy he looked to be an officer of the line.
+
+And now suddenly this light was dimmed; his laurels were wilting. What
+prestige would the capture of Tolhurst have conferred! Never had a
+golden opportunity like this been lost--by what uncovenanted chance had
+Tolhurst escaped!
+
+"He must have had a guide! Right here in the Cove!" Ackert exclaimed.
+"Nobody outside would know a hole in the ground, a cave, a water-gap, a
+tunnel like that! Where's the man?"
+
+"Naw, sir--naw, Cap'n! Nobody viewed the troop but one gal person an'
+she 'lowed she never seen no guide."
+
+The charger whirled under the touch of the hand on the rein, and
+Ackert's eyes scanned with a searching intentness the group.
+
+"Where's this girl--you?"
+
+As the old squire with most unwelcome officiousness seized Ethelinda's
+arm and hurried her forward, her heart sank within her. For one moment
+the guerilla's fiery, piercing eyes dwelt upon her as she stood looking
+on, her delicately white face grown deathly pallid, her golden hair
+frivolously blowsed in the wind, which tossed the full skirts of her
+lilac-hued calico gown till she seemed poised on the very wings of
+flight. Her sapphire eyes, bluer than ever azure skies could seem,
+sought to gaze upward, but ever and anon their long-lashed lids
+fluttered and fell.
+
+He was quick of perception.
+
+"_You_ have no call to be afraid," he remarked--a sort of gruff
+upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in
+reprisal. "Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and
+just where they got out--damn 'em!"
+
+She could scarcely control her terror when she saw that he intended her
+to ride with him to the spot, yet she feared even more to draw back,
+to refuse. He held out one great spurred boot. Her little low-cut shoe
+looked tiny upon it as she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind
+him, and the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long,
+swift strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to
+catch the guerilla's belt--to seize, too, with an agitated clutch,
+his right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers
+promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming
+the red sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the
+blacksmith shop, which the cavalrymen had now approached, watering their
+horses at the trough and lifting the saddles to rest the animals from
+the constriction of the pressure of the girths.
+
+Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences
+flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the
+evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains
+had spread its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads.
+Presently the heavy shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now,
+showing only blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon
+them, and the guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among
+boulders and rough ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great
+crags had begun to line the way, first only on one marge of the channel;
+then; the clifty banks appeared on the other side, and at length a
+deep> black-arched opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming
+with sepulchral shadows; in the silence one might hear drops trickling
+vaguely and the sudden hooting of an owl from within.
+
+He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.
+
+"So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
+this tunnel?"
+
+"Yessir!" she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
+squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. "They couldn't hev
+done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin' with
+the fust rains."
+
+"An' Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide--a guide that
+knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I'll catch him
+yet, sometime. I'll hang him! I'll hang him--if I have to grow a tree
+a-pur-pose."
+
+What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
+circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of
+the earth. It was a long moment before they were still again--perhaps,
+indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed,
+a new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda's
+nerves. Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He
+had caught sight of the hoof marks along the moist sandy spaces of the
+channel, mute witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of
+her story. A sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up
+a broken belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon
+it.
+
+"I'll hang that guide yet," he muttered, his eyes dark with angry
+conviction, his face lowering with fury. "I'll hang him--I won't expect
+to prove it p'int blank. Jes' let me git a mite o' suspicion, an' I'll
+guarantee the slipknot!"
+
+She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.
+
+"Cap'n Ackert," she trembled forth. There was so much significance in
+her tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation.
+"I tole ye the truth whenst I say I _seen_ no guide"--he made a gesture
+of impatience; he had no time for twice-told tales--"kase--kase the
+guide war--war--myself."
+
+The clear twilight fell full on his amazed, upturned face and the storm
+of fury it concentrated.
+
+"What did you do it fur?" he thundered, "you limb o' perdition!"
+
+"Jes' ter help him some. He--he--he--would hev been capshured."
+
+He would indeed! The guerilla was very terrible to look upon as his
+brow corrugated, and his upturned eyes, with the light of the sky within
+them, flashed ominously.
+
+"You little she-devil!" he cried, and then speech seemed to fail him.
+
+She had begun to shiver and shed tears and emit little gusts of quaking
+sobs.
+
+"Oh, I be so feared----" she whimpered.
+
+"But--but--you mustn't hang--_nobody else_ on s'picion!"
+
+There was a vague change in the expression of his face. He still stood
+beside the saddle, with the reins over his arm, while the horse threw
+his head almost to the ground and again tossed it aloft in his impatient
+weariness of the delay.
+
+"An' now you are captured yourself," he said, sternly. "You are
+accountable fur your actions."
+
+She burst into a paroxysm of sobs. "I never went ter tell! I meant ter
+keep the secret! The folks in the Cove dun'no' nuthin'. But--oh, ye
+_mustn't_ s'picion nobody else--ye _mustn't_ hang nobody else!"
+
+Once more that indescribable change upon his face.
+
+"You showed him the way to this pass yourself? Tell the truth!"
+
+"He war ridin' his horse-critter--'tain't ez fast, nor fine, nor fat ez
+yourn."
+
+He stroked the glossy mane with a sort of mechanical pride.
+
+"And so he went plumb through the cave?"
+
+"An' all the troop--they kindled pine-knots fur torches."
+
+He glanced about him at the convenient growths.
+
+"And they came out all safe in Greenbrier!" He winced. How the lost
+opportunity hurt him!
+
+"Yessir. In Greenbrier Cove."
+
+"Did he pay you in gold?" sneered Ackert. "Or in greenbacks? Or mebbe in
+Cornfed money?"
+
+"I wouldn't hev his gold." She drew herself up proudly, though the tears
+were still coursing down her cheeks. "So he gin me a present--a
+whole passel o' coffee in my milk-piggin." Then to complete a candid
+confession she detailed the disposition she had made of this rare and
+precious luxury at the rebel smallpox camp.
+
+His eyes seemed to dilate as they gazed up at her. "Jesus Gawd!" he
+exclaimed, with uncouth profanity. But the phrase was unfamiliar to her,
+and she caught at it with a meaning all her own.
+
+"That's jes' it! Folks in gineral don't think o' _them_, 'cept ter git
+out o' thar way; an' nobody keers fur _them_, but kase Jesus is Gawd
+He makes _somebody_ remember them wunst in a while! An' they did seem
+passable glad."
+
+A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle
+distillation of asters or jewel-weed or "mountain-snow," and the leafage
+of crimson sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late
+ripening frost-grapes--all in the culmination of autumnal perfection;
+more than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue
+and roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief
+truce stilled the guerilla's tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand
+beside his horse's head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle
+blanket.
+
+Suddenly he spoke to an unexpected intent. "Ye took a power o' risk in
+goin' nigh that Confederate pest-camp--an' yit ye're fur the Union an'
+saved a squadron from capture!" he upbraided the inconsistency in a soft
+incidental drawl.
+
+"Yes, I be fur the Union," she trembled forth the dread avowal. "But
+somehows I can't keep from holpin' any I kin. They war rebs--an' it war
+Yankee coffee--an' I dun'no'--I jes' dun'no'----"
+
+As she hesitated he looked long at her with that untranslated gaze. Then
+he fell ponderingly silent.
+
+Perhaps the revelation of the sanctities of a sweet humanity for a holy
+sake, blessing and blessed, had illumined his path, had lifted his eyes,
+had wrought a change in his moral atmosphere spiritually suffusive,
+potent, revivifying, complete. "She is as good as the saints in the
+Bible--an' plumb beautiful besides," he muttered beneath his fierce
+mustachios.
+
+Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.
+
+"I expect to do some courtin' in this kentry when the war is over," the
+guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. "I haven't
+got time now. Will _you_ be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove--if I
+promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?" He glanced up
+with a sudden arch jocularity.
+
+She burst out laughing gleefuly in the tumult of her joyous reassurance,
+as she laid her tremulous fingers in his big gauntlet when he insisted
+that they should shake hands as on a solemn compact. Forthwith he
+mounted again, and the great charger galloped back, carrying double, in
+the red afterglow of the sunset, to the waiting group before the flaring
+doors of the forge.
+
+The fine flower of romance had blossomed incongruously in that eager
+heart in those fierce moments of the bitterness of defeat. Life suddenly
+had a new meaning, a fair and fragrant promise, and often and again he
+looked over his shoulder at the receding scene when the trumpets sang
+"to horse," and in the light of the moon the guerilla rode out of
+Tanglefoot Cove.
+
+But Ethelinda saw him never again. All the storms of fate overwhelmed
+the Confederacy with many a rootless hope and many a plan and pride. In
+lieu of the materialization of the stalwart ambition of distinction
+that had come to dominate his life, responsive to the discovery of his
+peculiar and inherent gifts, his destiny was chronicled in scarce a line
+of the printed details of a day freighted with the monstrous disaster
+of a great battle; in common with others of the "missing" his bones were
+picked by the vultures till shoved into a trench, where a monument rises
+to-day to commemorate an event and not a commander. Nevertheless, for
+many years the flare of the first red leaves in the cleft among the
+pines on the eastern slope of Tanglefoot Cove brought to Ethelinda's
+mind the gay flutter of the guidon, and in certain sonorous blasts of
+the mountain wind she could hear martial echoes of the trumpets of the
+guerilla.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by 
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
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+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      The Raid of the Guerilla, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Raid Of The Guerilla
+       1911
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23548]
+Last Updated: December 19, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Charles Egbert Craddock <br /> <br /> 1911
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove&mdash;somewhat in advance of
+      the expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A
+      certain noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern
+      intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains,
+      and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early
+      days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number. Then
+      came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an extension
+      of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the venerable,
+      thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave. Now only the
+      ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male population
+      among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in the scheme
+      of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike
+      affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit
+      of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no trifle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;T war Ethelindy&rsquo;s deed,&rdquo; her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips
+      close to the knob of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands
+      trembled as he sat in his armchair on the broad hearth of the main room in
+      his little log cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled
+      old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still wore,
+      though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed her
+      anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lawd! ye jes&rsquo; now f &lsquo;und that out, dad?&rdquo; exclaimed her widowed mother,
+      busied in her evening task of carding wool on one side of the deep
+      chimney, built of clay and sticks, and seeming always the imminent prey of
+      destruction. But there it had stood for a hundred years, dispensing light
+      and warmth and cheer, itself more inflammable than the great hickory logs
+      that had summer still among their fibres and dripped sap odorously as they
+      sluggishly burned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethelinda cast a like agitated glance on the speaker, then her gaze
+      reverted to the fire. She had the air of being perched up, as if to escape
+      the clutching waves of calamity, as she sat on a high, inverted splint
+      basket, her feet not touching the puncheons of the rude floor, one hand
+      drawing close about her the red woollen skirt of her dress. She seemed
+      shrunken even from her normal small size, and she listened to the
+      reproachful recital of her political activity with a shrinking dismay on
+      her soft, roseate face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nuthin&rsquo; would do Ethelindy,&rdquo; her granny lifted an accusatory voice, still
+      knitting briskly, though she looked rebukingly over her spectacles at the
+      cowering girl, &ldquo;when that thar Union <i>dee</i>-tachmint rid into
+      Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; interposed Mrs. Brusie, &ldquo;through mistakin&rsquo; it fur Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nuthin&rsquo; would do Ethelindy but she mus&rsquo; up an&rsquo; offer to show the officer
+      the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of the
+      mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca&rsquo;cely one o&rsquo; the boys left in the
+      Cove would know now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Else he&rsquo;d hev been capshured,&rdquo; Ethelinda humbly submitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&rdquo;&mdash;the ruffles of her grandmother&rsquo;s cap were terrible to view as
+      they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection&mdash;&ldquo;an&rsquo; 
+      <i>you</i> will be capshured now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the
+      hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud in
+      sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You-uns mus&rsquo; be powerful keerful ter say nuthin&rsquo; &lsquo;bout Ethelindy&rsquo;s hand
+      in that escape of the Fed&rsquo;ral cavalry&rdquo;&mdash;the old grandfather roused
+      himself to a politic monition. &ldquo;Mebbe the raiders won&rsquo;t find it out&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      the folks in the Cove dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; who done it, nuther.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, bes&rsquo; be keerful, sure,&rdquo; the gran-dame rejoined. &ldquo;Fur they puts
+      wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;&rdquo; still glibly knitting,
+      she jerked her head toward the western world outside the limits of the
+      great ranges. &ldquo;Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a woman what
+      pizened her husband, an&rsquo; they kep&rsquo; her in jail a consider&rsquo;ble time&mdash;a
+      senseless thing ter do ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a shif&rsquo;less
+      no-&rsquo;count fool, an&rsquo; nobody but her would hev put up with him ez long ez
+      she did. The jedge an&rsquo; jury thunk the same, fur they &lsquo;lowed ez she war
+      crazy&mdash;an&rsquo; so she war, ter hev ever married him! They turned her
+      loose, but she never got another husband&mdash;I never knowed a man-person
+      but what was skittish &lsquo;bout any unhealthy meddlin&rsquo; with his vittles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of her
+      cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic mimicry,
+      while down Ethelinda&rsquo;s pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at the prospect
+      of such immurement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jes&rsquo; kase I showed a stranger his path&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; two hundred an&rsquo; fifty mo&rsquo;&mdash;spry, good-lookin&rsquo; youngsters, able
+      to do the rebs a power o&rsquo; damage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I war &lsquo;feared they&rsquo;d git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped me
+      down on the bank o&rsquo; the creek whar I war a-huntin&rsquo; of the cow, an&rsquo; he axed
+      &lsquo;bout the roads out&rsquo;n the Cove, an&rsquo; I tole him thar war no way out
+      &lsquo;ceptin&rsquo; by the road he had jes&rsquo; come, an&rsquo; a path through a sorter cave or
+      tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o&rsquo; the mounting, ez could
+      be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler&rsquo;ble low, an&rsquo; he axed me
+      ter show him that underground way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; ye war full willin,&rdquo; said Mrs. Brusie, in irritation, &ldquo;though ye
+      knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin&rsquo; heaven an&rsquo; earth ter
+      overhaul Tolhurst&rsquo;s command before they could reach the main body. An&rsquo; 
+      hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the Cove,
+      would be waitin&rsquo; ter capshur them when they kem up the road agin&mdash;I
+      jes&rsquo; showed him how ter crope out through the cave,&rdquo; Ethelinda sobbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How in perdition did they find thar way through that thar dark hole?&mdash;I
+      can&rsquo;t sense that!&rdquo; the old man suddenly mumbled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had lanterns an&rsquo; some pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an&rsquo; 
+      the leader sent a squad ter &lsquo;reconnoitre,&rsquo; ez he called it. An&rsquo; whilst he
+      waited he stood an&rsquo; talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an&rsquo; the
+      lay o&rsquo; the land over thar. He war full per-lite an&rsquo; genteel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be bound ye looked like a &lsquo;crazy Jane,&rsquo;&rdquo; cried the grandmother, with
+      sudden exasperation. &ldquo;Yer white sun-bonnet plumb off an&rsquo; a-hangin&rsquo; down on
+      yer shoulders, an&rsquo; yer yaller hair all a-blowsin&rsquo; at loose eends, stiddier
+      bein&rsquo; plaited up stiff an&rsquo; tight an&rsquo; personable, an&rsquo; yer face burned pink
+      in the sun, stiddier like yer skin ginerally looks, fine an&rsquo; white ez a
+      pan o&rsquo; fraish milk, an&rsquo; the flabby, slinksy skirt o&rsquo; that yaller calico
+      dress &lsquo;thout no starch in it, a-flappin&rsquo; an&rsquo; whirlin&rsquo; in the wind&mdash;shucks!
+      I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; <i>whut</i> the man could hev thought o&rsquo; you-uns, dressed out
+      that-a-way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He war toler&rsquo;ble well pleased with me now, sure!&rdquo; retorted Ethelinda,
+      stung to a blunt self-assertion. &ldquo;He keered mo&rsquo; about a good-lookin&rsquo; road
+      than a good-lookin&rsquo; gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an&rsquo; reported the
+      passage full safe for man an&rsquo; beastis the leader tuk a purse o&rsquo; money
+      out&rsquo;n his pocket an&rsquo; held it out to me&mdash;though he said it couldn&rsquo;t
+      express his thanks.&rsquo; But I held my hands behind me an&rsquo; wouldn&rsquo;t take it.
+      Then he called up another man an&rsquo; made him open a bag, an&rsquo; he snatched up
+      my empty milk-piggin&rsquo; an&rsquo; poured it nigh full o&rsquo; green coffee in the bean&mdash;it
+      be skeerce ez gold an&rsquo; nigh ez precious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; <i>what</i> did you do with it, Ethelindy?&rdquo; her mother asked,
+      significantly&mdash;not for information, but for the renewal of discussion
+      and to justify the repetition of rebukes. These had not been few.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; the girl returned, sullenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i> do,&rdquo; the glib grandmother interposed. &ldquo;Ye jes&rsquo; gin we-uns a
+      sniff an&rsquo; a sup, an&rsquo; then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an&rsquo; shook the rest
+      of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an&rsquo; sot out an&rsquo; 
+      marched yer-self through the laurel&mdash;I wonder nuthin&rsquo; didn&rsquo;t ketch
+      ye! howsomever naught is never in danger&mdash;an&rsquo; went ter that horspital
+      camp o&rsquo; the rebels on Big Injun Mounting&mdash;smallpox horspital it is&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      gin that precious coffee away to the enemies o&rsquo; yer kentry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody comes nor goes ter that place&mdash;hell itself ain&rsquo;t so avoided,&rdquo;
+       said Mrs. Brusie, her forehead corrugated with sudden recurrence of
+      anxiety. &ldquo;Nobody else in this world would have resked it, &lsquo;ceptin&rsquo; that
+      headin&rsquo; contrairy gal, Ethelindy Brusie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never resked nuthin,&rdquo; protested Ethelinda. &ldquo;I stopped at the head of a
+      bluff far off, an&rsquo; hollered down ter &lsquo;em in the clearin&rsquo; an&rsquo; held up the
+      kittle. An&rsquo; two or three rebs war out of thar tents in the clearin&rsquo;&mdash;thar
+      be a good sight o&rsquo; new graves up thar!&mdash;an&rsquo; them men war hollerin&rsquo; 
+      an&rsquo; wavin&rsquo; me away, till they seen what I war doin&rsquo;; jes&rsquo; settin&rsquo; down the
+      kittle an&rsquo; startin&rsquo; off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gazed meditatively into the fire, of set purpose avoiding the eyes
+      fixed upon her, and sought to justify her course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knowed ez we-uns hed got used ter doin&rsquo; &lsquo;thout coffee, an&rsquo; don&rsquo;t feel
+      the need of it now. We-uns air well an&rsquo; stout, an&rsquo; live in our good home
+      an&rsquo; beside our own h&rsquo;a&rsquo;th-stone; an&rsquo; they air sick, an&rsquo; pore, an&rsquo; cast
+      out, an&rsquo; I reckon they ain&rsquo;t ever been remembered before in gifts. An&rsquo; I
+      &lsquo;lowed the coffee, bein&rsquo; unexpected an&rsquo; a sorter extry, mought put some
+      fraish heart an&rsquo; hope in &lsquo;em&mdash;leastwise show &lsquo;em ez God don&rsquo;t &lsquo;low
+      &lsquo;em ter be plumb furgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She still gazed meditatively at the fire as if it held a scroll of her
+      recollections, which she gradually interpreted anew. &ldquo;I looked back wunst,
+      an&rsquo; one o&rsquo; them rebs had sot down on a log an&rsquo; war sobbin&rsquo; ez ef his heart
+      would bust. An&rsquo; another of &lsquo;em war signin, at me agin an&rsquo; agin, like he
+      was drawin&rsquo; a cross in the air&mdash;one pass down an&rsquo; then one across&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      the other reb war jes&rsquo; laffin&rsquo; fur joy, and wunst in a while he yelled
+      out: &lsquo;Blessin&rsquo;s on ye! Blessin&rsquo;s! Blessin&rsquo;s!&rsquo; I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; how fur I hearn
+      that sayin&rsquo;. The rocks round the creek war repeatin&rsquo; it, whenst I crossed
+      the f oot-bredge. I dun&rsquo;no what the feller meant&mdash;mought hev been
+      crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tricksy gust stirred at the door as if a mischievous hand twitched the
+      latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening
+      children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the hounds
+      snored sonorously in the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nuthin&rsquo; crazy thar &lsquo;ceptin&rsquo; you-uns!&mdash;one fool gal&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      all!&rdquo; said her grandmother, with her knitting-needles and her spectacles
+      glittering in the firelight. &ldquo;That is a pest camp. Ye mought hev cotch the
+      smallpox. I be lookm&rsquo; fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war
+      is over an&rsquo; the men come back to the Cove, none of &lsquo;em will so much as
+      look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked&mdash;fair an&rsquo; fine as it is
+      now, like a pan of fraish milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, granny, it won&rsquo;t be sp&rsquo;ilt! The camp war too fur off&mdash;an&rsquo; thar
+      warn&rsquo;t a breath o&rsquo; wind. I never went a-nigh &lsquo;em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; how fur smallpox kin travel&mdash;an&rsquo; it jes&rsquo; mulls and mulls
+      in ye afore it breaks out&mdash;don&rsquo;t it, S&rsquo;briny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ax me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Brusie, with a worried air. &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t no yerb
+      doctor, nor nurse tender, nuther. Ethelindy is beyond my understandin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was beyond her own understanding, as she sat weeping slowly, silently.
+      The aspect of those forlorn graves, that recorded the final ebbing of hope
+      and life at the pest camp, had struck her recollection with a most
+      poignant appeal. Strangers, wretches, dying alone, desolate outcasts, the
+      terror of their kind, the epitome of repulsion&mdash;they were naught to
+      her! Yet they represented humanity in its helplessness, its suffering, its
+      isolated woe, and its great and final mystery; she felt vaguely grieved
+      for their sake, and she gave the clay that covered them, still crude red
+      clods with not yet a blade of grass, the fellowship of her tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thrill of masculine logic stirred uneasily in the old man&rsquo;s disused
+      brain. &ldquo;Tell me <i>one</i> thing, Ethelindy,&rdquo; he said, lifting his bleared
+      eyes as he clasped his tremulous hands more firmly on the head of his
+      stick&mdash;&ldquo;tell me this&mdash;which side air you-uns on, ennyhow,
+      Ethelindy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fur the Union,&rdquo; said Ethelinda, still weeping, and now and then
+      wiping her sapphire eyes with the back of her hand, hard and tanned, but
+      small in proportion to her size. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fur the Union&mdash;fust an&rsquo; last
+      an&rsquo; all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man wagged his head solemnly with a blight of forecast on his
+      wrinkled, aged face. &ldquo;That thar sayin&rsquo; is goin&rsquo; ter be mighty hard ter
+      live up to whilst Jerome Ackert&rsquo;s critter company is a-raidin&rsquo; of
+      Tanglefoot Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The presence of the &ldquo;critter company&rdquo; was indeed calculated to inspire a
+      most obsequious awe. It was an expression of arbitrary power which one
+      might ardently wish directed elsewhere. From the moment that the echoes of
+      the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely sweet
+      and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if blown down
+      from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the bland blue sky, the
+      denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer together, and to
+      skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house. Tanglefoot Cove is
+      some four miles long, and its average breadth is little more than a mile.
+      On all sides the great Smoky Mountains rise about the cuplike hollow, and
+      their dense gigantic growths of hickory and poplar, maple and gum, were
+      aglow, red and golden, with the largesse of the generous October. The
+      underbrush or the jungles of laurel that covered the steeps rendered
+      outlet through the forests impracticable, and indeed the only road was
+      invisible save for a vague line among the dense pines of a precipitous
+      slope, where on approach it would materialize under one&rsquo;s feet as a wheel
+      track on either side of a line of frosted weeds, which the infrequent
+      passing of wagon-beds had bent and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blacksmith&rsquo;s shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had soon
+      an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had had
+      enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt his
+      anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he no more
+      bears a part;&mdash;a minié-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm, and
+      his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. This was a
+      half-witted fellow, a giant in strength, but not to be trusted with
+      firearms. In these days of makeweights his utility had been discovered,
+      and now with the smith&rsquo;s hammer in his hand he joined the group, his
+      bulging eyes all a-stare and his loose lips hanging apart. The old justice
+      of the peace, whose office was a sinecure, since the war had run the law
+      out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with a sense of
+      futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note of the distant
+      trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the nerves to await
+      helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say that he is a tumble, tumble man,&rdquo; the blacksmith averred, ever
+      and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which, though
+      bundled in its jeans&rsquo; sleeve, he had the illusion of the sensation of its
+      hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his broad palm to eye
+      that significant line which marked the road among the pines on the eastern
+      slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and rank of growth in the
+      rich bottom-lands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethelinda&rsquo;s heart sank. All unprescient of the day&rsquo;s impending event, she
+      had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and she now
+      stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she listened
+      spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a great
+      yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough, and here a
+      horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by a draught; he had
+      ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but still stood with his
+      muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping, gazing with un-imagined
+      thoughts at the reflection of his big equine eyes, the blue sky inverted,
+      the dappling yellow leaves, more golden even than the sunshine, and the
+      glimmering flight of birds, with a stellular light upon their wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A turrible man?&mdash;w-w-well,&rdquo; stuttered the idiot, who had of late
+      assumed all the port of coherence; he snatched and held a part in the
+      colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his
+      infirmity, &ldquo;then I&rsquo;d be obleeged ter him ef&mdash;ef&mdash;ef he&rsquo;d stay
+      out&rsquo;n Tanglefoot Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So would I.&rdquo; The miller laughed uneasily. But for the corrugations of
+      time, one might not have known if it were flour or age that had so
+      whitened his long beard, which hung quivering down over the breast of his
+      jeans coat, of an indeterminate hue under its frosting from the hopper.
+      &ldquo;He hev tuk up a tumble spite at Tanglefoot Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blacksmith nodded. &ldquo;They say that he &lsquo;lowed ez traitors orter be
+      treated like traitors. But <i>I</i> be a-goin&rsquo; ter tell him that the
+      Confederacy hev got one arm off&rsquo;n me more&rsquo;n its entitled to, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;m
+      willin&rsquo; ter call it quits at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tain&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; ter do him no good ter raid the Cove,&rdquo; an ancient farmer
+      averred; &ldquo;an&rsquo; it&rsquo;s agin&rsquo; the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the
+      kentry they live off&rsquo;n&mdash;it&rsquo;s like sawin&rsquo; off the bough ye air sittin&rsquo; 
+      on.&rdquo; His eyes dwelt with a fearful affection on the laden fields; his old
+      stoop-shouldered back had bent yet more under the toil that had brought
+      his crop to this perfection, with the aid of the children whose labor was
+      scarcely worth the strenuosity requisite to control their callow wiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shucks! He&rsquo;s a guerilla&mdash;he is!&rdquo; retorted the blacksmith.
+      &ldquo;Accountable ter nobody! Hyar ter-day an&rsquo; thar ter-morrer. Rides light.
+      Two leetle Parrott guns is the most weight he carries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The idiot&rsquo;s eyes began to widen with slow and baffled speculation. &ldquo;Whut&mdash;w-whut
+      ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w&mdash;&rdquo; his great loose lips
+      trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry from one to
+      another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained contemptuously
+      unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man, though a
+      simpleton, was yet a man, and inherently commanded respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bird o&rsquo; the air mus&rsquo; hev carried the matter that Tolhurst&rsquo;s troops hed
+      rid inter Tanglefoot Cove by mistake fur Greenbrier, whar they war ter
+      cross ter jine the Fed&rsquo;rals nigh the Cohuttas. An&rsquo; that guerilla, Ackert,
+      hed been ridin&rsquo; a hundred mile at a hand-gallop ter overhaul him, an&rsquo; 
+      knowin&rsquo; thar warn&rsquo;t but one outlet to Tanglefoot Cove, he expected ter
+      capshur the Feds as they kem out agin. So he sot himself ter ambush
+      Tolhurst, an&rsquo; waited fur him <i>up</i> thar amongst the pines an&rsquo; the
+      laurel&mdash;an&rsquo; he <i>waited</i>&mdash;an&rsquo; <i>waited!</i> But Tolhurst
+      never came! So whenst the guerilla war sure he hed escaped by ways
+      unknownst he set out ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But
+      Tolhurst had j&rsquo;ined the main body o&rsquo; the Federal Army, an&rsquo; now Ackert is
+      showing a clean pair o&rsquo; heels comin&rsquo; back. But he be goin&rsquo; ter take time
+      ter raid the Cove&mdash;his hurry will wait fur that! Somebody in
+      Tanglefoot&mdash;the Lord only knows who&mdash;showed Tolhurst that
+      underground way out ter Greenbrier Cove, through a sorter cave or tunnel
+      in the mountings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now&mdash;now&mdash;neighbor&mdash;<i>that&rsquo;s</i> guesswork,&rdquo; remonstrated
+      the miller, in behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility.
+      Perhaps the semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the
+      faculties beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain
+      connection between cause and effect inimical to personal interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure,&rdquo; protested the blacksmith.
+      &ldquo;I tracked &lsquo;em, the ground bein&rsquo; moist, kase I wanted ter view the marks
+      o&rsquo; their horses&rsquo; hoofs. They hev got some powerful triflin&rsquo; blacksmiths in
+      the army&mdash;farriers, they call &lsquo;em. I los&rsquo; the trail amongst the rocks
+      an&rsquo; ledges down todes the cave&mdash;though it&rsquo;s more like one o&rsquo; them
+      tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in the army, but this
+      one was never made with hands; jes&rsquo; hollowed out by Sinking Creek. So I
+      got Jube thar ter crope through, an&rsquo; view ef thar war any hoof marks on
+      t&rsquo;other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; a body would think fur sure ez the armies o&rsquo; hell had been spewed
+      out&rsquo;n that black hole,&rdquo; said a lean man whom the glance of the blacksmith
+      had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of a racking cough
+      that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its violence. &ldquo;Hoof
+      marks hyar&mdash;hoof-marks thar&mdash;as if they didn&rsquo;t rightly know
+      which way ter go in the marshy ground &lsquo;bout Sinking Creek. But at last
+      they &lsquo;peared ter git tergether, an&rsquo; off they tracked ter the west&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the group failed to
+      follow the words that they interspersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They tuk a short cut through the Cove&mdash;they warn&rsquo;t in it a haffen
+      hour,&rdquo; stipulated the prudent miller. &ldquo;They came an&rsquo; went like a flash.
+      Nobody seen &lsquo;em &lsquo;cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      ef they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ackert &lsquo;lows he&rsquo;ll hang the guide ef he ketches him,&rdquo; said the
+      blacksmith, in a tone of awe. &ldquo;Leastwise that&rsquo;s the word that&rsquo;s &lsquo;goin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
+      its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
+      horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
+      their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on the
+      protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller&rsquo;s attention.
+      He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking out from their
+      network of wrinkles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns&rsquo; house, did ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
+      sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
+      sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she had
+      never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
+      consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
+      little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
+      phrase. &ldquo;Naw sir&mdash;I never seen thar guide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thar now, what did I tell you!&rdquo; the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blacksmith seemed convinced. &ldquo;Mought hev hed a map,&rdquo; he speculated.
+      &ldquo;Them fellers in the army <i>do</i> hev maps. I fund that out whenst I war
+      in the service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith&rsquo;s practical knowledge of
+      the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority.
+      Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how
+      the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed,
+      despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to the
+      iteration of the trumpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right wheel, trot&mdash;<i>march</i>,&rdquo; he muttered, interpreting the
+      sound of the horses&rsquo; hoofs. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a critter company, fur sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no splendor of pageant in the raid of the guerilla into the
+      Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance
+      of the &ldquo;critter company.&rdquo; Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon flashed
+      on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a barren
+      interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant, looking the
+      centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs made itself felt
+      as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and sabre, and now and
+      again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with that majestic, sweet
+      sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They were coming indubitably,
+      the troop of the dreaded guerilla&mdash;indeed, they were already here.
+      For while the sun still glinted on carbine and sabre among the scarlet and
+      golden tints of the deciduous growths and the sombre green of the pines on
+      the loftier slopes, the vanguard in column of fours were among the gray
+      shadows at the mountains&rsquo; base and speeding into the Cove at a
+      hand-gallop, for the roads were fairly good when once the level was
+      reached. Though so military a presentment, for they were all veterans in
+      the service, despite the youth of many, they were not in uniform. Some
+      wore the brown jeans of the region, girt with sword-belt and canteen, with
+      great spurs and cavalry boots, and broad-brimmed hats, which now and again
+      flaunted cords or feathers. Others had attained the Confederate gray,
+      occasionally accented with a glimmer of gold where a shoulder-strap or a
+      chevron graced the garb. And yet there was a certain homogeneity in their
+      aspect, All rode after the manner of the section, with the &ldquo;long stirrup&rdquo;
+       at the extreme length of the limb, and the immovable pose in the saddle,
+      the man being absolutely stationary, while the horse bounded at agile
+      speed. There was the similarity of facial expression, in infinite
+      dissimilarity of feature, which marks a common sentiment, origin, and
+      habitat. Then, too, they shared something recklessly haphazard, gay,
+      defiantly dangerous, that, elusive as it might be to describe, was as
+      definitely perceived as the guidon, riding apart at the left, the long
+      lance of his pennant planted on his stirrup, bearing himself with a
+      certain stately pride of port, distinctly official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole effect was concentrated in the face of the leader, obviously the
+      inspiration of the organization, the vital spark by which it lived; a
+      fierce face, intent, commanding. It was burned to a brick-red, and had an
+      aquiline nose and a keen gray-green eagle-like eye; on either side auburn
+      hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, after the fashion of the time, to
+      his coat collar. And this collar and his shoulders were decorated with
+      gold lace and the insignia of rank; the uniform was of fine Confederate
+      gray, which seemed to contradict the general impression that he was but a
+      free-lance or a bushwhacker and operated on his own responsibility. The
+      impression increased the terror his name excited throughout the
+      countryside with his high-handed and eccentric methods of warfare, and
+      perhaps he would not have resented it if he were cognizant of its general
+      acceptance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a look calculated to inspire awe which he flung upon the cowering
+      figures before the door of the forge as he suddenly perceived them; and
+      detaching himself from the advancing troop, he spurred his horse toward
+      them. He came up like a whirlwind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That impetuous gallop could scarcely have carried his charger over the
+      building itself, yet there is nothing so overwhelming to the nerves as the
+      approaching rush of a speedy horse, and the group flattened themselves
+      against the wall; but he drew rein before he reached the door, and
+      whirling in the saddle, with one hand on the horse&rsquo;s back, he demanded:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he? Bring him out!&rdquo; as if all the world knew the object of his
+      search and the righteous reason of his enmity. &ldquo;Bring him out! I&rsquo;ll have a
+      drumhead court martial&mdash;and he&rsquo;ll swing before sunset!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evenin&rsquo;, Cap&rsquo;n,&rdquo; the old miller sought what influence might
+      appertain to polite address and the social graces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evenin&rsquo; be damned!&rdquo; cried Ackert, angrily. &ldquo;If you folks in the coves
+      want the immunity of non-combatants, by Gawd! you gotter preserve the
+      neutrality of non-combatants!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yessir&mdash;that&rsquo;s reason&mdash;that&rsquo;s jestice,&rdquo; said the old squire,
+      hastily, whose capacities of ratiocination had been cultivated by the
+      exercise of the judicial functions of his modest <i>piepoudre</i> court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ackert unwillingly cast his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as
+      if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s accordin&rsquo; to the articles o&rsquo; war and the law of nations,&rdquo; he
+      averred. &ldquo;People take advantage of age and disability&rdquo;&mdash;he glanced at
+      the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of his
+      right arm&mdash;&ldquo;as if that could protect &lsquo;em in acts o&rsquo; treason an&rsquo; 
+      treachery;&rdquo; then with a blast of impatience, &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To remonstrate with a whirlwind, to explain to a flash of lightning, to
+      soothe and propitiate the fury of a conflagration&mdash;the task before
+      the primitive and inexpert Cove-dwellers seemed to partake of this nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n&mdash;ef ye&rsquo;d listen ter what I gotter say,&rdquo; began the miller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll listen arterward!&rdquo; exclaimed Ackert, in his clarion voice. He had
+      never heard of Jedburgh justice, but he had all the sentiment of that
+      famous tribunal who hanged the prisoners first and tried them afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n,&rdquo; remonstrated the blacksmith, breaking in with hot haste, hurried
+      by the commander&rsquo;s gusts of impatience, forgetful that he had no need to
+      be precipitate, since he could not produce the recusant if he would.
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n&mdash;Cap&rsquo;n&mdash;bear with us&mdash;we-uns don&rsquo;t know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ackert stared in snorting amaze, a flush of anger dyeing his red cheeks a
+      yet deeper red. Of all the subterfuges that he had expected, he had never
+      divined this. He shifted front face in his saddle, placed his gauntleted
+      right hand on his right side, and held his head erect, looking over the
+      wide, rich expanse of the Cove, the corn in the field, and the fodder in
+      the shock set amid the barbaric splendors of the wooded autumn mountains
+      glowing in the sunset above. He seemed scenting his vengeance with some
+      keen sense as he looked, his thin nostrils dilating as sensitively as the
+      nostrils of his high-couraged charger now throwing up his head to sniff
+      the air, now bending it down as he pawed the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, gentlemen, you have got a mighty pretty piece o&rsquo; country here, and
+      good crops, too&mdash;which is a credit to you, seeing that the
+      conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers
+      that wouldn&rsquo;t volunteer&mdash;damn &lsquo;em! But I swear by the right hand of
+      Jehovah, I&rsquo;ll burn every cabin in the Cove an&rsquo; every blade o&rsquo; forage in
+      the fields if you don&rsquo;t produce the man who guided Tol-hurst&rsquo;s cavalry
+      out&rsquo;n the trap I&rsquo;d chased &lsquo;em into, or give me a true and satisfactory
+      account of him.&rdquo; He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the
+      air. &ldquo;So help me God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce
+      asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager
+      protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein, then
+      desisted. A certain <i>noli me tangere</i> influence about the fierce
+      guerilla affected even supplication, and the &ldquo;Squair&rdquo; resorted to logic as
+      the more potent weapon of the two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n, Cap&rsquo;n,&rdquo; he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, &ldquo;be pleased to
+      consider my words. I&rsquo;m a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run the
+      law clean out o&rsquo; the kentry. We dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; the guide&mdash;we never seen the
+      troops.&rdquo; Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: &ldquo;If ye&rsquo;ll cast
+      yer eye on the lay of the land, ye&rsquo;ll view how it happened. Thar&rsquo;s the
+      road &ldquo;&mdash;he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the
+      foliage that marked the descent into the vale&mdash;&ldquo;an&rsquo; down this e-end
+      o&rsquo; the Cove thar&rsquo;s nex&rsquo; ter nobody livin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirited equestrian figure was stand-ing as still as a statue; only
+      the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the nostrils,
+      showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove &lsquo;lowed afterward they hearn a
+      hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin&rsquo; of the ground like the trompin&rsquo; of
+      horses&mdash;but them troops mus&rsquo; hev passed from the foot o&rsquo; the mounting
+      acrost the aidge of the Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scant haffen mile,&rdquo; put in the blacksmith, &ldquo;down to a sort of cave, or
+      tunnel, that runs under the mounting&mdash;yander&mdash;that lets &lsquo;em out
+      into Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd!&rdquo; exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched,
+      gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight the
+      course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of their
+      triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the intonation
+      was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and rare opportunity
+      thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all the chaotic chances of
+      the Civil War he could hardly hope for its repetition. It was part of a
+      crack body of regulars&mdash;Tolhurst&rsquo;s squadron&mdash;that he had
+      contrived to drive into this trap, this <i>cul-de-sac</i>, surrounded by
+      the infinite fastnesses of the Great Smoky Mountains. It had been a
+      running fight, for Tolhurst had orders, as Ackert had found means of
+      knowing, to join the main body without delay, and his chief aim was to
+      shake off this persistent pursuit with which a far inferior force had
+      harassed his march. But for his fortuitous discovery of the underground
+      exit from the basin of Tanglefoot Cove, Ackert, ambushed without, would
+      have encountered and defeated the regulars in detail as they clambered in
+      detachments up the unaccustomed steeps of the mountain road, the woods
+      elsewhere being almost impassable jungles of laurel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Success would have meant more to Ackert than the value of the service to
+      the cause, than the tumultuous afflatus of victory, than the spirit of
+      strife to the born soldier. There had been kindled in his heart a great
+      and fiery ambition; he was one of the examples of an untaught military
+      genius of which the Civil War elicited a few notable and amazing
+      instances. There had been naught in his career heretofore to suggest this
+      unaccountable gift, to foster its development. He was the son of a small
+      farmer, only moderately well-to-do; he had the very limited education
+      which a restricted and remote rural region afforded its youth; he had
+      entered the Confederate army as a private soldier, with no sense of
+      special fitness, no expectation of personal advancement, only carried on
+      the wave of popular enthusiasm. But from the beginning his quality had
+      been felt; he had risen from grade to grade, and now with a detached body
+      of horse and flying artillery his exploits were beginning to attract the
+      attention of corps commanders on both sides, to the gratulation of friends
+      and the growing respect of foes. He seemed endowed with the wings of the
+      wind; to-day he was tearing up railroad tracks in the lowlands to impede
+      the reinforcements of an army; to-morrow the force sent with the express
+      intention of placing a period to those mischievous activities heard of his
+      feats in burning bridges and cutting trestles in remote sections of the
+      mountains. The probabilities could keep no terms with him, and he baffled
+      prophecy. He had a quick invention&mdash;a talent for expedients. He
+      appeared suddenly when least expected and where his presence seemed
+      impossible. He had a gift of military intuition. He seemed to know the
+      enemy&rsquo;s plans before they were matured; and ere a move was made to put
+      them into execution he was on the ground with troublous obstacles to
+      forestall the event in its very inception. He maintained a discipline to
+      many commanders impossible. His troops had a unity of spirit that might
+      well animate an individual. They endured long fasts, made wonderful forced
+      marches on occasion&mdash;all day in the saddle and nodding to the pommel
+      all night; it was even said they fought to such exhaustion that when
+      dismounted the front rank, lying in line of battle prone upon the ground,
+      would fall asleep between volleys, and that the second rank, kneeling to
+      fire above them, had orders to stir them with their carbines to insure
+      regularity of the musketry. He had the humbler yet even more necessary
+      equipment for military success. He could forage his troops in barren
+      opportunities; they somehow kept clothed and armed at the minimum of
+      expense. Did he lack ammunition&mdash;he made shift to capture a supply
+      for his little Par-rott guns that barked like fierce dogs at the
+      rear-guard of an enemy or protected his own retreat when it jumped with
+      his plans to compass a speedy withdrawal himself. His horses were well
+      groomed, well fed, fine travellers, and many showed the brand U.S., for he
+      could mount his troop when need required from the corrals of an
+      unsuspecting encampment. He was the ideal guerilla, of infinite service to
+      his faction in small, significant operations of disproportioned
+      importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What wonder that his name was rife in rumors which flew about the country;
+      that soon it was not only &ldquo;the grapevine telegraph&rdquo; that vibrated with the
+      sound, but he was mentioned in official despatches; nay, on one signal
+      occasion the importance of his dashing exploit was recognized by the
+      commander of the Army Corps in a general order published to specially
+      commend it. Naturally his spirit rose to meet these expanding liberties of
+      achievement. He looked for further promotion&mdash;for eminence. In a
+      vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and clearer, he could see himself in
+      the astral splendor of the official stars of a major-general&mdash;for in
+      the far day of the anticipated success of the Confederacy he looked to be
+      an officer of the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now suddenly this light was dimmed; his laurels were wilting. What
+      prestige would the capture of Tolhurst have conferred! Never had a golden
+      opportunity like this been lost&mdash;by what uncovenanted chance had
+      Tolhurst escaped!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have had a guide! Right here in the Cove!&rdquo; Ackert exclaimed.
+      &ldquo;Nobody outside would know a hole in the ground, a cave, a water-gap, a
+      tunnel like that! Where&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naw, sir&mdash;naw, Cap&rsquo;n! Nobody viewed the troop but one gal person an&rsquo; 
+      she &lsquo;lowed she never seen no guide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The charger whirled under the touch of the hand on the rein, and Ackert&rsquo;s
+      eyes scanned with a searching intentness the group.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s this girl&mdash;you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the old squire with most unwelcome officiousness seized Ethelinda&rsquo;s arm
+      and hurried her forward, her heart sank within her. For one moment the
+      guerilla&rsquo;s fiery, piercing eyes dwelt upon her as she stood looking on,
+      her delicately white face grown deathly pallid, her golden hair
+      frivolously blowsed in the wind, which tossed the full skirts of her
+      lilac-hued calico gown till she seemed poised on the very wings of flight.
+      Her sapphire eyes, bluer than ever azure skies could seem, sought to gaze
+      upward, but ever and anon their long-lashed lids fluttered and fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quick of perception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>You</i> have no call to be afraid,&rdquo; he remarked&mdash;a sort of gruff
+      upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in
+      reprisal. &ldquo;Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and
+      just where they got out&mdash;damn &lsquo;em!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could scarcely control her terror when she saw that he intended her to
+      ride with him to the spot, yet she feared even more to draw back, to
+      refuse. He held out one great spurred boot. Her little low-cut shoe looked
+      tiny upon it as she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind him, and
+      the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long, swift
+      strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to catch
+      the guerilla&rsquo;s belt&mdash;to seize, too, with an agitated clutch, his
+      right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers
+      promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming the red
+      sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the blacksmith
+      shop, which the cavalrymen had now approached, watering their horses at
+      the trough and lifting the saddles to rest the animals from the
+      constriction of the pressure of the girths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences
+      flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the
+      evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains had spread
+      its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads. Presently the
+      heavy shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now, showing only
+      blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon them, and the
+      guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among boulders and rough
+      ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great crags had begun to
+      line the way, first only on one marge of the channel; then; the clifty
+      banks appeared on the other side, and at length a deep> black-arched
+      opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming with sepulchral shadows; in
+      the silence one might hear drops trickling vaguely and the sudden hooting
+      of an owl from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
+      this tunnel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yessir!&rdquo; she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
+      squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. &ldquo;They couldn&rsquo;t hev
+      done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin&rsquo; with
+      the fust rains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide&mdash;a guide that
+      knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I&rsquo;ll catch him yet,
+      sometime. I&rsquo;ll hang him! I&rsquo;ll hang him&mdash;if I have to grow a tree
+      a-pur-pose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
+      circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of the
+      earth. It was a long moment before they were still again&mdash;perhaps,
+      indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed, a
+      new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda&rsquo;s nerves.
+      Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He had caught
+      sight of the hoof marks along the moist sandy spaces of the channel, mute
+      witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of her story. A
+      sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up a broken
+      belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hang that guide yet,&rdquo; he muttered, his eyes dark with angry
+      conviction, his face lowering with fury. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hang him&mdash;I won&rsquo;t
+      expect to prove it p&rsquo;int blank. Jes&rsquo; let me git a mite o&rsquo; suspicion, an&rsquo; 
+      I&rsquo;ll guarantee the slipknot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n Ackert,&rdquo; she trembled forth. There was so much significance in her
+      tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation. &ldquo;I
+      tole ye the truth whenst I say I <i>seen</i> no guide&rdquo;&mdash;he made a
+      gesture of impatience; he had no time for twice-told tales&mdash;&ldquo;kase&mdash;kase
+      the guide war&mdash;war&mdash;myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clear twilight fell full on his amazed, upturned face and the storm of
+      fury it concentrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do it fur?&rdquo; he thundered, &ldquo;you limb o&rsquo; perdition!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jes&rsquo; ter help him some. He&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;would hev been
+      capshured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would indeed! The guerilla was very terrible to look upon as his brow
+      corrugated, and his upturned eyes, with the light of the sky within them,
+      flashed ominously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You little she-devil!&rdquo; he cried, and then speech seemed to fail him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had begun to shiver and shed tears and emit little gusts of quaking
+      sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I be so feared&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she whimpered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;you mustn&rsquo;t hang&mdash;<i>nobody else</i> on
+      s&rsquo;picion!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a vague change in the expression of his face. He still stood
+      beside the saddle, with the reins over his arm, while the horse threw his
+      head almost to the ground and again tossed it aloft in his impatient
+      weariness of the delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; now you are captured yourself,&rdquo; he said, sternly. &ldquo;You are
+      accountable fur your actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She burst into a paroxysm of sobs. &ldquo;I never went ter tell! I meant ter
+      keep the secret! The folks in the Cove dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; nuthin&rsquo;. But&mdash;oh, ye
+      <i>mustn&rsquo;t</i> s&rsquo;picion nobody else&mdash;ye <i>mustn&rsquo;t</i> hang nobody
+      else!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more that indescribable change upon his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You showed him the way to this pass yourself? Tell the truth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He war ridin&rsquo; his horse-critter&mdash;&lsquo;tain&rsquo;t ez fast, nor fine, nor fat
+      ez yourn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stroked the glossy mane with a sort of mechanical pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so he went plumb through the cave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; all the troop&mdash;they kindled pine-knots fur torches.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced about him at the convenient growths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they came out all safe in Greenbrier!&rdquo; He winced. How the lost
+      opportunity hurt him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yessir. In Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he pay you in gold?&rdquo; sneered Ackert. &ldquo;Or in greenbacks? Or mebbe in
+      Cornfed money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t hev his gold.&rdquo; She drew herself up proudly, though the tears
+      were still coursing down her cheeks. &ldquo;So he gin me a present&mdash;a whole
+      passel o&rsquo; coffee in my milk-piggin.&rdquo; Then to complete a candid confession
+      she detailed the disposition she had made of this rare and precious luxury
+      at the rebel smallpox camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes seemed to dilate as they gazed up at her. &ldquo;Jesus Gawd!&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed, with uncouth profanity. But the phrase was unfamiliar to her,
+      and she caught at it with a meaning all her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s jes&rsquo; it! Folks in gineral don&rsquo;t think o&rsquo; <i>them</i>, &lsquo;cept ter
+      git out o&rsquo; thar way; an&rsquo; nobody keers fur <i>them</i>, but kase Jesus is
+      Gawd He makes <i>somebody</i> remember them wunst in a while! An&rsquo; they did
+      seem passable glad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle distillation
+      of asters or jewel-weed or &ldquo;mountain-snow,&rdquo; and the leafage of crimson
+      sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late ripening
+      frost-grapes&mdash;all in the culmination of autumnal perfection; more
+      than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue and
+      roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief truce
+      stilled the guerilla&rsquo;s tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand beside
+      his horse&rsquo;s head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle blanket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he spoke to an unexpected intent. &ldquo;Ye took a power o&rsquo; risk in
+      goin&rsquo; nigh that Confederate pest-camp&mdash;an&rsquo; yit ye&rsquo;re fur the Union
+      an&rsquo; saved a squadron from capture!&rdquo; he upbraided the inconsistency in a
+      soft incidental drawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I be fur the Union,&rdquo; she trembled forth the dread avowal. &ldquo;But
+      somehows I can&rsquo;t keep from holpin&rsquo; any I kin. They war rebs&mdash;an&rsquo; it
+      war Yankee coffee&mdash;an&rsquo; I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo;&mdash;I jes&rsquo; dun&rsquo;no&rsquo;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she hesitated he looked long at her with that untranslated gaze. Then
+      he fell ponderingly silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the revelation of the sanctities of a sweet humanity for a holy
+      sake, blessing and blessed, had illumined his path, had lifted his eyes,
+      had wrought a change in his moral atmosphere spiritually suffusive,
+      potent, revivifying, complete. &ldquo;She is as good as the saints in the Bible&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      plumb beautiful besides,&rdquo; he muttered beneath his fierce mustachios.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect to do some courtin&rsquo; in this kentry when the war is over,&rdquo; the
+      guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t
+      got time now. Will <i>you</i> be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove&mdash;if
+      I promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?&rdquo; He glanced up
+      with a sudden arch jocularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She burst out laughing gleefuly in the tumult of her joyous reassurance,
+      as she laid her tremulous fingers in his big gauntlet when he insisted
+      that they should shake hands as on a solemn compact. Forthwith he mounted
+      again, and the great charger galloped back, carrying double, in the red
+      afterglow of the sunset, to the waiting group before the flaring doors of
+      the forge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fine flower of romance had blossomed incongruously in that eager heart
+      in those fierce moments of the bitterness of defeat. Life suddenly had a
+      new meaning, a fair and fragrant promise, and often and again he looked
+      over his shoulder at the receding scene when the trumpets sang &ldquo;to horse,&rdquo;
+       and in the light of the moon the guerilla rode out of Tanglefoot Cove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ethelinda saw him never again. All the storms of fate overwhelmed the
+      Confederacy with many a rootless hope and many a plan and pride. In lieu
+      of the materialization of the stalwart ambition of distinction that had
+      come to dominate his life, responsive to the discovery of his peculiar and
+      inherent gifts, his destiny was chronicled in scarce a line of the printed
+      details of a day freighted with the monstrous disaster of a great battle;
+      in common with others of the &ldquo;missing&rdquo; his bones were picked by the
+      vultures till shoved into a trench, where a monument rises to-day to
+      commemorate an event and not a commander. Nevertheless, for many years the
+      flare of the first red leaves in the cleft among the pines on the eastern
+      slope of Tanglefoot Cove brought to Ethelinda&rsquo;s mind the gay flutter of
+      the guidon, and in certain sonorous blasts of the mountain wind she could
+      hear martial echoes of the trumpets of the guerilla.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Raid Of The Guerilla
+       1911
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23548]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA
+
+By Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+1911
+
+
+Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove--somewhat in advance of the
+expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A certain
+noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern
+intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains,
+and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.
+
+Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early
+days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number.
+Then came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an
+extension of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the
+venerable, thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave.
+Now only the ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male
+population among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in
+the scheme of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.
+
+So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike
+affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit
+of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no
+trifle.
+
+"'T war Ethelindy's deed," her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips
+close to the knob of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands
+trembled as he sat in his armchair on the broad hearth of the main room
+in his little log cabin.
+
+Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled
+old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still
+wore, though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed
+her anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.
+
+"Lawd! ye jes' now f 'und that out, dad?" exclaimed her widowed mother,
+busied in her evening task of carding wool on one side of the deep
+chimney, built of clay and sticks, and seeming always the imminent prey
+of destruction. But there it had stood for a hundred years, dispensing
+light and warmth and cheer, itself more inflammable than the great
+hickory logs that had summer still among their fibres and dripped sap
+odorously as they sluggishly burned.
+
+Ethelinda cast a like agitated glance on the speaker, then her gaze
+reverted to the fire. She had the air of being perched up, as if to
+escape the clutching waves of calamity, as she sat on a high, inverted
+splint basket, her feet not touching the puncheons of the rude floor,
+one hand drawing close about her the red woollen skirt of her dress. She
+seemed shrunken even from her normal small size, and she listened to the
+reproachful recital of her political activity with a shrinking dismay on
+her soft, roseate face.
+
+"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy," her granny lifted an accusatory voice,
+still knitting briskly, though she looked rebukingly over her spectacles
+at the cowering girl, "when that thar Union _dee_-tachmint rid into
+Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap----"
+
+"Yes," interposed Mrs. Brusie, "through mistakin' it fur Greenbrier
+Cove."
+
+"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy but she mus' up an' offer to show the
+officer the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of
+the mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca'cely one o' the boys left
+in the Cove would know now."
+
+"Else he'd hev been capshured," Ethelinda humbly submitted.
+
+"Yes"--the ruffles of her grandmother's cap were terrible to view as
+they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection--"an'
+_you_ will be capshured now."
+
+The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the
+hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud
+in sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious
+silence.
+
+"You-uns mus' be powerful keerful ter say nuthin' 'bout Ethelindy's
+hand in that escape of the Fed'ral cavalry"--the old grandfather roused
+himself to a politic monition. "Mebbe the raiders won't find it out--an'
+the folks in the Cove dun'no' who done it, nuther."
+
+"Yes, bes' be keerful, sure," the gran-dame rejoined. "Fur they puts
+wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;" still glibly
+knitting, she jerked her head toward the western world outside the
+limits of the great ranges. "Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a
+woman what pizened her husband, an' they kep' her in jail a consider'ble
+time--a senseless thing ter do ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a
+shif'less no-'count fool, an' nobody but her would hev put up with him
+ez long ez she did. The jedge an' jury thunk the same, fur they 'lowed
+ez she war crazy--an' so she war, ter hev ever married him! They
+turned her loose, but she never got another husband--I never knowed a
+man-person but what was skittish 'bout any unhealthy meddlin' with his
+vittles."
+
+She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of
+her cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic
+mimicry, while down Ethelinda's pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at
+the prospect of such immurement.
+
+"Jes' kase I showed a stranger his path----"
+
+"An' two hundred an' fifty mo'--spry, good-lookin' youngsters, able to
+do the rebs a power o' damage."
+
+"I war 'feared they'd git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped
+me down on the bank o' the creek whar I war a-huntin' of the cow, an' he
+axed 'bout the roads out'n the Cove, an' I tole him thar war no way out
+'ceptin' by the road he had jes' come, an' a path through a sorter cave
+or tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o' the mounting, ez
+could be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler'ble low, an' he
+axed me ter show him that underground way."
+
+"An' ye war full willin," said Mrs. Brusie, in irritation, "though ye
+knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin' heaven an' earth ter
+overhaul Tolhurst's command before they could reach the main body. An'
+hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap."
+
+"I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the
+Cove, would be waitin' ter capshur them when they kem up the road
+agin--I jes' showed him how ter crope out through the cave," Ethelinda
+sobbed.
+
+"How in perdition did they find thar way through that thar dark hole?--I
+can't sense that!" the old man suddenly mumbled.
+
+"They had lanterns an' some pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an'
+the leader sent a squad ter 'reconnoitre,' ez he called it. An' whilst
+he waited he stood an' talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an'
+the lay o' the land over thar. He war full per-lite an' genteel."
+
+"I'll be bound ye looked like a 'crazy Jane,'" cried the grandmother,
+with sudden exasperation. "Yer white sun-bonnet plumb off an' a-hangin'
+down on yer shoulders, an' yer yaller hair all a-blowsin' at loose
+eends, stiddier bein' plaited up stiff an' tight an' personable, an' yer
+face burned pink in the sun, stiddier like yer skin ginerally looks,
+fine an' white ez a pan o' fraish milk, an' the flabby, slinksy skirt o'
+that yaller calico dress 'thout no starch in it, a-flappin' an' whirlin'
+in the wind--shucks! I dun'no' _whut_ the man could hev thought o'
+you-uns, dressed out that-a-way."
+
+"He war toler'ble well pleased with me now, sure!" retorted Ethelinda,
+stung to a blunt self-assertion. "He keered mo' about a good-lookin'
+road than a good-lookin' gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an'
+reported the passage full safe for man an' beastis the leader tuk a
+purse o' money out'n his pocket an' held it out to me--though he said it
+couldn't express his thanks.' But I held my hands behind me an' wouldn't
+take it. Then he called up another man an' made him open a bag, an'
+he snatched up my empty milk-piggin' an' poured it nigh full o' green
+coffee in the bean--it be skeerce ez gold an' nigh ez precious."
+
+"An' _what_ did you do with it, Ethelindy?" her mother asked,
+significantly--not for information, but for the renewal of discussion
+and to justify the repetition of rebukes. These had not been few.
+
+"You know," the girl returned, sullenly.
+
+"_I_ do," the glib grandmother interposed. "Ye jes' gin we-uns a sniff
+an' a sup, an' then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an' shook the rest
+of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an' sot out an'
+marched yer-self through the laurel--I wonder nuthin' didn't ketch ye!
+howsomever naught is never in danger--an' went ter that horspital camp
+o' the rebels on Big Injun Mounting--smallpox horspital it is--an' gin
+that precious coffee away to the enemies o' yer kentry."
+
+"Nobody comes nor goes ter that place--hell itself ain't so avoided,"
+said Mrs. Brusie, her forehead corrugated with sudden recurrence of
+anxiety. "Nobody else in this world would have resked it, 'ceptin' that
+headin' contrairy gal, Ethelindy Brusie."
+
+"I never resked nuthin," protested Ethelinda. "I stopped at the head of a
+bluff far off, an' hollered down ter 'em in the clearin' an' held up
+the kittle. An' two or three rebs war out of thar tents in the
+clearin'--thar be a good sight o' new graves up thar!--an' them men
+war hollerin' an' wavin' me away, till they seen what I war doin'; jes'
+settin' down the kittle an' startin' off."
+
+She gazed meditatively into the fire, of set purpose avoiding the eyes
+fixed upon her, and sought to justify her course.
+
+"I knowed ez we-uns hed got used ter doin' 'thout coffee, an' don't feel
+the need of it now. We-uns air well an' stout, an' live in our good home
+an' beside our own h'a'th-stone; an' they air sick, an' pore, an' cast
+out, an' I reckon they ain't ever been remembered before in gifts. An' I
+'lowed the coffee, bein' unexpected an' a sorter extry, mought put some
+fraish heart an' hope in 'em--leastwise show 'em ez God don't 'low 'em
+ter be plumb furgot."
+
+She still gazed meditatively at the fire as if it held a scroll of her
+recollections, which she gradually interpreted anew. "I looked back
+wunst, an' one o' them rebs had sot down on a log an' war sobbin' ez
+ef his heart would bust. An' another of 'em war signin, at me agin an'
+agin, like he was drawin' a cross in the air--one pass down an' then one
+across--an' the other reb war jes' laffin' fur joy, and wunst in a while
+he yelled out: 'Blessin's on ye! Blessin's! Blessin's!' I dun'no'
+how fur I hearn that sayin'. The rocks round the creek war repeatin'
+it, whenst I crossed the f oot-bredge. I dun'no what the feller
+meant--mought hev been crazy."
+
+A tricksy gust stirred at the door as if a mischievous hand twitched
+the latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening
+children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the
+hounds snored sonorously in the silence.
+
+"Nuthin' crazy thar 'ceptin' you-uns!--one fool gal--that's all!" said
+her grandmother, with her knitting-needles and her spectacles glittering
+in the firelight. "That is a pest camp. Ye mought hev cotch the
+smallpox. I be lookm' fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war
+is over an' the men come back to the Cove, none of 'em will so much as
+look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked--fair an' fine as it is now,
+like a pan of fraish milk."
+
+"But, granny, it won't be sp'ilt! The camp war too fur off--an' thar
+warn't a breath o' wind. I never went a-nigh 'em."
+
+"I dun'no' how fur smallpox kin travel--an' it jes' mulls and mulls in
+ye afore it breaks out--don't it, S'briny?"
+
+"Don't ax me," said Mrs. Brusie, with a worried air. "I ain't no yerb
+doctor, nor nurse tender, nuther. Ethelindy is beyond my understandin'."
+
+She was beyond her own understanding, as she sat weeping slowly,
+silently. The aspect of those forlorn graves, that recorded the final
+ebbing of hope and life at the pest camp, had struck her recollection
+with a most poignant appeal. Strangers, wretches, dying alone, desolate
+outcasts, the terror of their kind, the epitome of repulsion--they were
+naught to her! Yet they represented humanity in its helplessness, its
+suffering, its isolated woe, and its great and final mystery; she felt
+vaguely grieved for their sake, and she gave the clay that covered them,
+still crude red clods with not yet a blade of grass, the fellowship of
+her tears.
+
+A thrill of masculine logic stirred uneasily in the old man's disused
+brain. "Tell me _one_ thing, Ethelindy," he said, lifting his bleared
+eyes as he clasped his tremulous hands more firmly on the head of his
+stick--"tell me this--which side air you-uns on, ennyhow, Ethelindy?"
+
+"I'm fur the Union," said Ethelinda, still weeping, and now and then
+wiping her sapphire eyes with the back of her hand, hard and tanned, but
+small in proportion to her size. "I'm fur the Union--fust an' last an'
+all the time."
+
+The old man wagged his head solemnly with a blight of forecast on his
+wrinkled, aged face. "That thar sayin' is goin' ter be mighty hard
+ter live up to whilst Jerome Ackert's critter company is a-raidin' of
+Tanglefoot Cove."
+
+The presence of the "critter company" was indeed calculated to inspire
+a most obsequious awe. It was an expression of arbitrary power which one
+might ardently wish directed elsewhere. From the moment that the echoes
+of the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely
+sweet and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if
+blown down from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the
+bland blue sky, the denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer
+together, and to skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house.
+Tanglefoot Cove is some four miles long, and its average breadth is
+little more than a mile. On all sides the great Smoky Mountains rise
+about the cuplike hollow, and their dense gigantic growths of hickory
+and poplar, maple and gum, were aglow, red and golden, with the largesse
+of the generous October. The underbrush or the jungles of laurel that
+covered the steeps rendered outlet through the forests impracticable,
+and indeed the only road was invisible save for a vague line among
+the dense pines of a precipitous slope, where on approach it would
+materialize under one's feet as a wheel track on either side of a line
+of frosted weeds, which the infrequent passing of wagon-beds had bent
+and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.
+
+The blacksmith's shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had
+soon an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had
+had enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt
+his anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he
+no more bears a part;--a minie-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm,
+and his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. This was
+a half-witted fellow, a giant in strength, but not to be trusted with
+firearms. In these days of makeweights his utility had been discovered,
+and now with the smith's hammer in his hand he joined the group, his
+bulging eyes all a-stare and his loose lips hanging apart. The old
+justice of the peace, whose office was a sinecure, since the war had
+run the law out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with
+a sense of futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note
+of the distant trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the
+nerves to await helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.
+
+"They say that he is a tumble, tumble man," the blacksmith averred, ever
+and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which, though
+bundled in its jeans' sleeve, he had the illusion of the sensation of
+its hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his broad palm to
+eye that significant line which marked the road among the pines on the
+eastern slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and rank of growth
+in the rich bottom-lands.
+
+Ethelinda's heart sank. All unprescient of the day's impending event,
+she had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and
+she now stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she
+listened spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a
+great yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough,
+and here a horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by
+a draught; he had ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but
+still stood with his muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping,
+gazing with un-imagined thoughts at the reflection of his big equine
+eyes, the blue sky inverted, the dappling yellow leaves, more golden
+even than the sunshine, and the glimmering flight of birds, with a
+stellular light upon their wings.
+
+"A turrible man?--w-w-well," stuttered the idiot, who had of late
+assumed all the port of coherence; he snatched and held a part in the
+colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his
+infirmity, "then I'd be obleeged ter him ef--ef--ef he'd stay out'n
+Tanglefoot Cove."
+
+"So would I." The miller laughed uneasily. But for the corrugations
+of time, one might not have known if it were flour or age that had so
+whitened his long beard, which hung quivering down over the breast of
+his jeans coat, of an indeterminate hue under its frosting from the
+hopper. "He hev tuk up a tumble spite at Tanglefoot Cove."
+
+The blacksmith nodded. "They say that he 'lowed ez traitors orter
+be treated like traitors. But _I_ be a-goin' ter tell him that the
+Confederacy hev got one arm off'n me more'n its entitled to, an' I'm
+willin' ter call it quits at that."
+
+"'Tain't goin' ter do him no good ter raid the Cove," an ancient farmer
+averred; "an' it's agin' the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the
+kentry they live off'n--it's like sawin' off the bough ye air sittin'
+on." His eyes dwelt with a fearful affection on the laden fields; his
+old stoop-shouldered back had bent yet more under the toil that had
+brought his crop to this perfection, with the aid of the children whose
+labor was scarcely worth the strenuosity requisite to control their
+callow wiles.
+
+"Shucks! He's a guerilla--he is!" retorted the blacksmith. "Accountable
+ter nobody! Hyar ter-day an' thar ter-morrer. Rides light. Two leetle
+Parrott guns is the most weight he carries."
+
+The idiot's eyes began to widen with slow and baffled speculation.
+"Whut--w-whut ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w--" his great
+loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry
+from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained
+contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man,
+though a simpleton, was yet a man, and inherently commanded respect.
+
+"A bird o' the air mus' hev carried the matter that Tolhurst's troops
+hed rid inter Tanglefoot Cove by mistake fur Greenbrier, whar they war
+ter cross ter jine the Fed'rals nigh the Cohuttas. An' that guerilla,
+Ackert, hed been ridin' a hundred mile at a hand-gallop ter overhaul
+him, an' knowin' thar warn't but one outlet to Tanglefoot Cove, he
+expected ter capshur the Feds as they kem out agin. So he sot himself
+ter ambush Tolhurst, an' waited fur him _up_ thar amongst the pines an'
+the laurel--an' he _waited_--an' _waited!_ But Tolhurst never came! So
+whenst the guerilla war sure he hed escaped by ways unknownst he set out
+ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But Tolhurst had j'ined the
+main body o' the Federal Army, an' now Ackert is showing a clean pair o'
+heels comin' back. But he be goin' ter take time ter raid the Cove--his
+hurry will wait fur that! Somebody in Tanglefoot--the Lord only knows
+who--showed Tolhurst that underground way out ter Greenbrier Cove,
+through a sorter cave or tunnel in the mountings."
+
+"Now--now--neighbor--_that's_ guesswork," remonstrated the miller, in
+behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility. Perhaps the
+semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the faculties
+beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain connection
+between cause and effect inimical to personal interest.
+
+"Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure," protested the
+blacksmith. "I tracked 'em, the ground bein' moist, kase I wanted
+ter view the marks o' their horses' hoofs. They hev got some powerful
+triflin' blacksmiths in the army--farriers, they call 'em. I los' the
+trail amongst the rocks an' ledges down todes the cave--though it's more
+like one o' them tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in
+the army, but this one was never made with hands; jes' hollowed out by
+Sinking Creek. So I got Jube thar ter crope through, an' view ef thar
+war any hoof marks on t'other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier
+Cove."
+
+"An' a body would think fur sure ez the armies o' hell had been
+spewed out'n that black hole," said a lean man whom the glance of the
+blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of
+a racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its
+violence. "Hoof marks hyar--hoof-marks thar--as if they didn't rightly
+know which way ter go in the marshy ground 'bout Sinking Creek. But
+at last they 'peared ter git tergether, an' off they tracked ter the
+west----" A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the
+group failed to follow the words that they interspersed.
+
+"They tuk a short cut through the Cove--they warn't in it a haffen
+hour," stipulated the prudent miller. "They came an' went like a flash.
+Nobody seen 'em 'cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house--an' ef
+they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it."
+
+"Ackert 'lows he'll hang the guide ef he ketches him," said the
+blacksmith, in a tone of awe. "Leastwise that's the word that's 'goin'."
+
+Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
+its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
+horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
+their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on
+the protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller's
+attention. He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking
+out from their network of wrinkles.
+
+"You didn't see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns' house, did
+ye?"
+
+Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
+sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
+sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she
+had never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
+consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
+little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
+phrase. "Naw sir--I never seen thar guide."
+
+"Thar now, what did I tell you!" the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.
+
+The blacksmith seemed convinced. "Mought hev hed a map," he speculated.
+"Them fellers in the army _do_ hev maps. I fund that out whenst I war in
+the service."
+
+The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith's practical knowledge
+of the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority.
+Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how
+the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed,
+despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to
+the iteration of the trumpet.
+
+Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.
+
+"Right wheel, trot--_march_," he muttered, interpreting the sound of the
+horses' hoofs. "It's a critter company, fur sure!"
+
+There was no splendor of pageant in the raid of the guerilla into the
+Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance
+of the "critter company." Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon
+flashed on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a
+barren interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant,
+looking the centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs
+made itself felt as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and
+sabre, and now and again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with
+that majestic, sweet sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They
+were coming indubitably, the troop of the dreaded guerilla--indeed, they
+were already here. For while the sun still glinted on carbine and sabre
+among the scarlet and golden tints of the deciduous growths and the
+sombre green of the pines on the loftier slopes, the vanguard in column
+of fours were among the gray shadows at the mountains' base and speeding
+into the Cove at a hand-gallop, for the roads were fairly good when once
+the level was reached. Though so military a presentment, for they were
+all veterans in the service, despite the youth of many, they were not in
+uniform. Some wore the brown jeans of the region, girt with sword-belt
+and canteen, with great spurs and cavalry boots, and broad-brimmed hats,
+which now and again flaunted cords or feathers. Others had attained the
+Confederate gray, occasionally accented with a glimmer of gold where a
+shoulder-strap or a chevron graced the garb. And yet there was a certain
+homogeneity in their aspect, All rode after the manner of the section,
+with the "long stirrup" at the extreme length of the limb, and the
+immovable pose in the saddle, the man being absolutely stationary, while
+the horse bounded at agile speed. There was the similarity of facial
+expression, in infinite dissimilarity of feature, which marks a common
+sentiment, origin, and habitat. Then, too, they shared something
+recklessly haphazard, gay, defiantly dangerous, that, elusive as it
+might be to describe, was as definitely perceived as the guidon, riding
+apart at the left, the long lance of his pennant planted on his stirrup,
+bearing himself with a certain stately pride of port, distinctly
+official.
+
+The whole effect was concentrated in the face of the leader, obviously
+the inspiration of the organization, the vital spark by which it lived;
+a fierce face, intent, commanding. It was burned to a brick-red, and
+had an aquiline nose and a keen gray-green eagle-like eye; on either side
+auburn hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, after the fashion of
+the time, to his coat collar. And this collar and his shoulders were
+decorated with gold lace and the insignia of rank; the uniform was of
+fine Confederate gray, which seemed to contradict the general impression
+that he was but a free-lance or a bushwhacker and operated on his own
+responsibility. The impression increased the terror his name excited
+throughout the countryside with his high-handed and eccentric methods of
+warfare, and perhaps he would not have resented it if he were cognizant
+of its general acceptance.
+
+It was a look calculated to inspire awe which he flung upon the cowering
+figures before the door of the forge as he suddenly perceived them; and
+detaching himself from the advancing troop, he spurred his horse toward
+them. He came up like a whirlwind.
+
+That impetuous gallop could scarcely have carried his charger over the
+building itself, yet there is nothing so overwhelming to the nerves
+as the approaching rush of a speedy horse, and the group flattened
+themselves against the wall; but he drew rein before he reached the
+door, and whirling in the saddle, with one hand on the horse's back, he
+demanded:
+
+"Where is he? Bring him out!" as if all the world knew the object of his
+search and the righteous reason of his enmity. "Bring him out! I'll have
+a drumhead court martial--and he'll swing before sunset!"
+
+"Good evenin', Cap'n," the old miller sought what influence might
+appertain to polite address and the social graces.
+
+"Evenin' be damned!" cried Ackert, angrily. "If you folks in the coves
+want the immunity of non-combatants, by Gawd! you gotter preserve the
+neutrality of non-combatants!"
+
+"Yessir--that's reason--that's jestice," said the old squire, hastily,
+whose capacities of ratiocination had been cultivated by the exercise of
+the judicial functions of his modest _piepoudre_ court.
+
+Ackert unwillingly cast his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as
+if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
+
+"It's accordin' to the articles o' war and the law of nations," he
+averred. "People take advantage of age and disability"--he glanced at
+the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of
+his right arm--"as if that could protect 'em in acts o' treason an'
+treachery;" then with a blast of impatience, "Where's the man?"
+
+To remonstrate with a whirlwind, to explain to a flash of lightning, to
+soothe and propitiate the fury of a conflagration--the task before the
+primitive and inexpert Cove-dwellers seemed to partake of this nature.
+
+"Cap'n--ef ye'd listen ter what I gotter say," began the miller.
+
+"I'll listen arterward!" exclaimed Ackert, in his clarion voice. He had
+never heard of Jedburgh justice, but he had all the sentiment of that
+famous tribunal who hanged the prisoners first and tried them afterward.
+
+"Cap'n," remonstrated the blacksmith, breaking in with hot haste,
+hurried by the commander's gusts of impatience, forgetful that he had
+no need to be precipitate, since he could not produce the recusant if he
+would. "Cap'n--Cap'n--bear with us--we-uns don't know!"
+
+Ackert stared in snorting amaze, a flush of anger dyeing his red cheeks
+a yet deeper red. Of all the subterfuges that he had expected, he had
+never divined this. He shifted front face in his saddle, placed his
+gauntleted right hand on his right side, and held his head erect,
+looking over the wide, rich expanse of the Cove, the corn in the field,
+and the fodder in the shock set amid the barbaric splendors of the
+wooded autumn mountains glowing in the sunset above. He seemed scenting
+his vengeance with some keen sense as he looked, his thin nostrils
+dilating as sensitively as the nostrils of his high-couraged charger now
+throwing up his head to sniff the air, now bending it down as he pawed
+the ground.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, you have got a mighty pretty piece o' country
+here, and good crops, too--which is a credit to you, seeing that the
+conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers
+that wouldn't volunteer--damn 'em! But I swear by the right hand of
+Jehovah, I'll burn every cabin in the Cove an' every blade o' forage in
+the fields if you don't produce the man who guided Tol-hurst's cavalry
+out'n the trap I'd chased 'em into, or give me a true and satisfactory
+account of him." He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the
+air. "So help me God!"
+
+There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce
+asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager
+protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein,
+then desisted. A certain _noli me tangere_ influence about the fierce
+guerilla affected even supplication, and the "Squair" resorted to logic
+as the more potent weapon of the two.
+
+"Cap'n, Cap'n," he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, "be pleased to
+consider my words. I'm a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run
+the law clean out o' the kentry. We dun'no' the guide--we never seen
+the troops." Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: "If ye'll
+cast yer eye on the lay of the land, ye'll view how it happened. Thar's
+the road "--he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the
+foliage that marked the descent into the vale--"an' down this e-end o'
+the Cove thar's nex' ter nobody livin'."
+
+The spirited equestrian figure was stand-ing as still as a statue;
+only the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the
+nostrils, showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.
+
+"Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove 'lowed afterward they hearn
+a hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin' of the ground like the trompin'
+of horses--but them troops mus' hev passed from the foot o' the mounting
+acrost the aidge of the Cove."
+
+"Scant haffen mile," put in the blacksmith, "down to a sort of cave,
+or tunnel, that runs under the mounting--yander--that lets 'em out into
+Greenbrier Cove."
+
+"Gawd!" exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched,
+gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight
+the course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of
+their triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the
+intonation was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and
+rare opportunity thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all
+the chaotic chances of the Civil War he could hardly hope for its
+repetition. It was part of a crack body of regulars--Tolhurst's
+squadron--that he had contrived to drive into this trap, this
+_cul-de-sac_, surrounded by the infinite fastnesses of the Great Smoky
+Mountains. It had been a running fight, for Tolhurst had orders, as
+Ackert had found means of knowing, to join the main body without delay,
+and his chief aim was to shake off this persistent pursuit with which
+a far inferior force had harassed his march. But for his fortuitous
+discovery of the underground exit from the basin of Tanglefoot Cove,
+Ackert, ambushed without, would have encountered and defeated the
+regulars in detail as they clambered in detachments up the unaccustomed
+steeps of the mountain road, the woods elsewhere being almost impassable
+jungles of laurel.
+
+Success would have meant more to Ackert than the value of the service to
+the cause, than the tumultuous afflatus of victory, than the spirit of
+strife to the born soldier. There had been kindled in his heart a great
+and fiery ambition; he was one of the examples of an untaught military
+genius of which the Civil War elicited a few notable and amazing
+instances. There had been naught in his career heretofore to suggest
+this unaccountable gift, to foster its development. He was the son of
+a small farmer, only moderately well-to-do; he had the very limited
+education which a restricted and remote rural region afforded its youth;
+he had entered the Confederate army as a private soldier, with no sense
+of special fitness, no expectation of personal advancement, only carried
+on the wave of popular enthusiasm. But from the beginning his quality
+had been felt; he had risen from grade to grade, and now with a detached
+body of horse and flying artillery his exploits were beginning to
+attract the attention of corps commanders on both sides, to the
+gratulation of friends and the growing respect of foes. He seemed
+endowed with the wings of the wind; to-day he was tearing up railroad
+tracks in the lowlands to impede the reinforcements of an army;
+to-morrow the force sent with the express intention of placing a period
+to those mischievous activities heard of his feats in burning
+bridges and cutting trestles in remote sections of the mountains. The
+probabilities could keep no terms with him, and he baffled prophecy.
+He had a quick invention--a talent for expedients. He appeared suddenly
+when least expected and where his presence seemed impossible. He had a
+gift of military intuition. He seemed to know the enemy's plans before
+they were matured; and ere a move was made to put them into execution he
+was on the ground with troublous obstacles to forestall the event in
+its very inception. He maintained a discipline to many commanders
+impossible. His troops had a unity of spirit that might well animate an
+individual. They endured long fasts, made wonderful forced marches on
+occasion--all day in the saddle and nodding to the pommel all night; it
+was even said they fought to such exhaustion that when dismounted the
+front rank, lying in line of battle prone upon the ground, would fall
+asleep between volleys, and that the second rank, kneeling to fire above
+them, had orders to stir them with their carbines to insure regularity
+of the musketry. He had the humbler yet even more necessary
+equipment for military success. He could forage his troops in barren
+opportunities; they somehow kept clothed and armed at the minimum of
+expense. Did he lack ammunition--he made shift to capture a supply for
+his little Par-rott guns that barked like fierce dogs at the rear-guard
+of an enemy or protected his own retreat when it jumped with his plans
+to compass a speedy withdrawal himself. His horses were well groomed,
+well fed, fine travellers, and many showed the brand U.S., for he could
+mount his troop when need required from the corrals of an unsuspecting
+encampment. He was the ideal guerilla, of infinite service to his
+faction in small, significant operations of disproportioned importance.
+
+What wonder that his name was rife in rumors which flew about the
+country; that soon it was not only "the grapevine telegraph" that
+vibrated with the sound, but he was mentioned in official despatches;
+nay, on one signal occasion the importance of his dashing exploit
+was recognized by the commander of the Army Corps in a general order
+published to specially commend it. Naturally his spirit rose to
+meet these expanding liberties of achievement. He looked for further
+promotion--for eminence. In a vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and
+clearer, he could see himself in the astral splendor of the official
+stars of a major-general--for in the far day of the anticipated success
+of the Confederacy he looked to be an officer of the line.
+
+And now suddenly this light was dimmed; his laurels were wilting. What
+prestige would the capture of Tolhurst have conferred! Never had a
+golden opportunity like this been lost--by what uncovenanted chance had
+Tolhurst escaped!
+
+"He must have had a guide! Right here in the Cove!" Ackert exclaimed.
+"Nobody outside would know a hole in the ground, a cave, a water-gap, a
+tunnel like that! Where's the man?"
+
+"Naw, sir--naw, Cap'n! Nobody viewed the troop but one gal person an'
+she 'lowed she never seen no guide."
+
+The charger whirled under the touch of the hand on the rein, and
+Ackert's eyes scanned with a searching intentness the group.
+
+"Where's this girl--you?"
+
+As the old squire with most unwelcome officiousness seized Ethelinda's
+arm and hurried her forward, her heart sank within her. For one moment
+the guerilla's fiery, piercing eyes dwelt upon her as she stood looking
+on, her delicately white face grown deathly pallid, her golden hair
+frivolously blowsed in the wind, which tossed the full skirts of her
+lilac-hued calico gown till she seemed poised on the very wings of
+flight. Her sapphire eyes, bluer than ever azure skies could seem,
+sought to gaze upward, but ever and anon their long-lashed lids
+fluttered and fell.
+
+He was quick of perception.
+
+"_You_ have no call to be afraid," he remarked--a sort of gruff
+upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in
+reprisal. "Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and
+just where they got out--damn 'em!"
+
+She could scarcely control her terror when she saw that he intended her
+to ride with him to the spot, yet she feared even more to draw back,
+to refuse. He held out one great spurred boot. Her little low-cut shoe
+looked tiny upon it as she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind
+him, and the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long,
+swift strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to
+catch the guerilla's belt--to seize, too, with an agitated clutch,
+his right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers
+promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming
+the red sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the
+blacksmith shop, which the cavalrymen had now approached, watering their
+horses at the trough and lifting the saddles to rest the animals from
+the constriction of the pressure of the girths.
+
+Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences
+flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the
+evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains
+had spread its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads.
+Presently the heavy shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now,
+showing only blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon
+them, and the guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among
+boulders and rough ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great
+crags had begun to line the way, first only on one marge of the channel;
+then; the clifty banks appeared on the other side, and at length a
+deep> black-arched opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming
+with sepulchral shadows; in the silence one might hear drops trickling
+vaguely and the sudden hooting of an owl from within.
+
+He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.
+
+"So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
+this tunnel?"
+
+"Yessir!" she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
+squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. "They couldn't hev
+done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin' with
+the fust rains."
+
+"An' Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide--a guide that
+knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I'll catch him
+yet, sometime. I'll hang him! I'll hang him--if I have to grow a tree
+a-pur-pose."
+
+What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
+circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of
+the earth. It was a long moment before they were still again--perhaps,
+indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed,
+a new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda's
+nerves. Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He
+had caught sight of the hoof marks along the moist sandy spaces of the
+channel, mute witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of
+her story. A sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up
+a broken belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon
+it.
+
+"I'll hang that guide yet," he muttered, his eyes dark with angry
+conviction, his face lowering with fury. "I'll hang him--I won't expect
+to prove it p'int blank. Jes' let me git a mite o' suspicion, an' I'll
+guarantee the slipknot!"
+
+She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.
+
+"Cap'n Ackert," she trembled forth. There was so much significance in
+her tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation.
+"I tole ye the truth whenst I say I _seen_ no guide"--he made a gesture
+of impatience; he had no time for twice-told tales--"kase--kase the
+guide war--war--myself."
+
+The clear twilight fell full on his amazed, upturned face and the storm
+of fury it concentrated.
+
+"What did you do it fur?" he thundered, "you limb o' perdition!"
+
+"Jes' ter help him some. He--he--he--would hev been capshured."
+
+He would indeed! The guerilla was very terrible to look upon as his
+brow corrugated, and his upturned eyes, with the light of the sky within
+them, flashed ominously.
+
+"You little she-devil!" he cried, and then speech seemed to fail him.
+
+She had begun to shiver and shed tears and emit little gusts of quaking
+sobs.
+
+"Oh, I be so feared----" she whimpered.
+
+"But--but--you mustn't hang--_nobody else_ on s'picion!"
+
+There was a vague change in the expression of his face. He still stood
+beside the saddle, with the reins over his arm, while the horse threw
+his head almost to the ground and again tossed it aloft in his impatient
+weariness of the delay.
+
+"An' now you are captured yourself," he said, sternly. "You are
+accountable fur your actions."
+
+She burst into a paroxysm of sobs. "I never went ter tell! I meant ter
+keep the secret! The folks in the Cove dun'no' nuthin'. But--oh, ye
+_mustn't_ s'picion nobody else--ye _mustn't_ hang nobody else!"
+
+Once more that indescribable change upon his face.
+
+"You showed him the way to this pass yourself? Tell the truth!"
+
+"He war ridin' his horse-critter--'tain't ez fast, nor fine, nor fat ez
+yourn."
+
+He stroked the glossy mane with a sort of mechanical pride.
+
+"And so he went plumb through the cave?"
+
+"An' all the troop--they kindled pine-knots fur torches."
+
+He glanced about him at the convenient growths.
+
+"And they came out all safe in Greenbrier!" He winced. How the lost
+opportunity hurt him!
+
+"Yessir. In Greenbrier Cove."
+
+"Did he pay you in gold?" sneered Ackert. "Or in greenbacks? Or mebbe in
+Cornfed money?"
+
+"I wouldn't hev his gold." She drew herself up proudly, though the tears
+were still coursing down her cheeks. "So he gin me a present--a
+whole passel o' coffee in my milk-piggin." Then to complete a candid
+confession she detailed the disposition she had made of this rare and
+precious luxury at the rebel smallpox camp.
+
+His eyes seemed to dilate as they gazed up at her. "Jesus Gawd!" he
+exclaimed, with uncouth profanity. But the phrase was unfamiliar to her,
+and she caught at it with a meaning all her own.
+
+"That's jes' it! Folks in gineral don't think o' _them_, 'cept ter git
+out o' thar way; an' nobody keers fur _them_, but kase Jesus is Gawd
+He makes _somebody_ remember them wunst in a while! An' they did seem
+passable glad."
+
+A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle
+distillation of asters or jewel-weed or "mountain-snow," and the leafage
+of crimson sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late
+ripening frost-grapes--all in the culmination of autumnal perfection;
+more than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue
+and roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief
+truce stilled the guerilla's tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand
+beside his horse's head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle
+blanket.
+
+Suddenly he spoke to an unexpected intent. "Ye took a power o' risk in
+goin' nigh that Confederate pest-camp--an' yit ye're fur the Union an'
+saved a squadron from capture!" he upbraided the inconsistency in a soft
+incidental drawl.
+
+"Yes, I be fur the Union," she trembled forth the dread avowal. "But
+somehows I can't keep from holpin' any I kin. They war rebs--an' it war
+Yankee coffee--an' I dun'no'--I jes' dun'no'----"
+
+As she hesitated he looked long at her with that untranslated gaze. Then
+he fell ponderingly silent.
+
+Perhaps the revelation of the sanctities of a sweet humanity for a holy
+sake, blessing and blessed, had illumined his path, had lifted his eyes,
+had wrought a change in his moral atmosphere spiritually suffusive,
+potent, revivifying, complete. "She is as good as the saints in the
+Bible--an' plumb beautiful besides," he muttered beneath his fierce
+mustachios.
+
+Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.
+
+"I expect to do some courtin' in this kentry when the war is over," the
+guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. "I haven't
+got time now. Will _you_ be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove--if I
+promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?" He glanced up
+with a sudden arch jocularity.
+
+She burst out laughing gleefuly in the tumult of her joyous reassurance,
+as she laid her tremulous fingers in his big gauntlet when he insisted
+that they should shake hands as on a solemn compact. Forthwith he
+mounted again, and the great charger galloped back, carrying double, in
+the red afterglow of the sunset, to the waiting group before the flaring
+doors of the forge.
+
+The fine flower of romance had blossomed incongruously in that eager
+heart in those fierce moments of the bitterness of defeat. Life suddenly
+had a new meaning, a fair and fragrant promise, and often and again he
+looked over his shoulder at the receding scene when the trumpets sang
+"to horse," and in the light of the moon the guerilla rode out of
+Tanglefoot Cove.
+
+But Ethelinda saw him never again. All the storms of fate overwhelmed
+the Confederacy with many a rootless hope and many a plan and pride. In
+lieu of the materialization of the stalwart ambition of distinction
+that had come to dominate his life, responsive to the discovery of his
+peculiar and inherent gifts, his destiny was chronicled in scarce a line
+of the printed details of a day freighted with the monstrous disaster
+of a great battle; in common with others of the "missing" his bones were
+picked by the vultures till shoved into a trench, where a monument rises
+to-day to commemorate an event and not a commander. Nevertheless, for
+many years the flare of the first red leaves in the cleft among the
+pines on the eastern slope of Tanglefoot Cove brought to Ethelinda's
+mind the gay flutter of the guidon, and in certain sonorous blasts of
+the mountain wind she could hear martial echoes of the trumpets of the
+guerilla.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Raid of the Guerilla, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
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+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raid Of The Guerilla, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Raid Of The Guerilla
+       1911
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock  (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23548]
+Last Updated: December 19, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Charles Egbert Craddock <br /> <br /> 1911
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove&mdash;somewhat in advance of
+      the expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A
+      certain noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern
+      intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains,
+      and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early
+      days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number. Then
+      came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an extension
+      of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the venerable,
+      thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave. Now only the
+      ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male population
+      among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in the scheme
+      of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compass a warlike
+      affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit
+      of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no trifle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;T war Ethelindy&rsquo;s deed,&rdquo; her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips
+      close to the knob of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands
+      trembled as he sat in his armchair on the broad hearth of the main room in
+      his little log cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled
+      old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still wore,
+      though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed her
+      anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lawd! ye jes&rsquo; now f &lsquo;und that out, dad?&rdquo; exclaimed her widowed mother,
+      busied in her evening task of carding wool on one side of the deep
+      chimney, built of clay and sticks, and seeming always the imminent prey of
+      destruction. But there it had stood for a hundred years, dispensing light
+      and warmth and cheer, itself more inflammable than the great hickory logs
+      that had summer still among their fibres and dripped sap odorously as they
+      sluggishly burned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethelinda cast a like agitated glance on the speaker, then her gaze
+      reverted to the fire. She had the air of being perched up, as if to escape
+      the clutching waves of calamity, as she sat on a high, inverted splint
+      basket, her feet not touching the puncheons of the rude floor, one hand
+      drawing close about her the red woollen skirt of her dress. She seemed
+      shrunken even from her normal small size, and she listened to the
+      reproachful recital of her political activity with a shrinking dismay on
+      her soft, roseate face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nuthin&rsquo; would do Ethelindy,&rdquo; her granny lifted an accusatory voice, still
+      knitting briskly, though she looked rebukingly over her spectacles at the
+      cowering girl, &ldquo;when that thar Union <i>dee</i>-tachmint rid into
+      Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; interposed Mrs. Brusie, &ldquo;through mistakin&rsquo; it fur Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nuthin&rsquo; would do Ethelindy but she mus&rsquo; up an&rsquo; offer to show the officer
+      the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of the
+      mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca&rsquo;cely one o&rsquo; the boys left in the
+      Cove would know now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Else he&rsquo;d hev been capshured,&rdquo; Ethelinda humbly submitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&rdquo;&mdash;the ruffles of her grandmother&rsquo;s cap were terrible to view as
+      they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection&mdash;&ldquo;an&rsquo; 
+      <i>you</i> will be capshured now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the
+      hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud in
+      sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You-uns mus&rsquo; be powerful keerful ter say nuthin&rsquo; &lsquo;bout Ethelindy&rsquo;s hand
+      in that escape of the Fed&rsquo;ral cavalry&rdquo;&mdash;the old grandfather roused
+      himself to a politic monition. &ldquo;Mebbe the raiders won&rsquo;t find it out&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      the folks in the Cove dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; who done it, nuther.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, bes&rsquo; be keerful, sure,&rdquo; the gran-dame rejoined. &ldquo;Fur they puts
+      wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;&rdquo; still glibly knitting,
+      she jerked her head toward the western world outside the limits of the
+      great ranges. &ldquo;Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a woman what
+      pizened her husband, an&rsquo; they kep&rsquo; her in jail a consider&rsquo;ble time&mdash;a
+      senseless thing ter do ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a shif&rsquo;less
+      no-&rsquo;count fool, an&rsquo; nobody but her would hev put up with him ez long ez
+      she did. The jedge an&rsquo; jury thunk the same, fur they &lsquo;lowed ez she war
+      crazy&mdash;an&rsquo; so she war, ter hev ever married him! They turned her
+      loose, but she never got another husband&mdash;I never knowed a man-person
+      but what was skittish &lsquo;bout any unhealthy meddlin&rsquo; with his vittles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of her
+      cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic mimicry,
+      while down Ethelinda&rsquo;s pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at the prospect
+      of such immurement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jes&rsquo; kase I showed a stranger his path&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; two hundred an&rsquo; fifty mo&rsquo;&mdash;spry, good-lookin&rsquo; youngsters, able
+      to do the rebs a power o&rsquo; damage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I war &lsquo;feared they&rsquo;d git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped me
+      down on the bank o&rsquo; the creek whar I war a-huntin&rsquo; of the cow, an&rsquo; he axed
+      &lsquo;bout the roads out&rsquo;n the Cove, an&rsquo; I tole him thar war no way out
+      &lsquo;ceptin&rsquo; by the road he had jes&rsquo; come, an&rsquo; a path through a sorter cave or
+      tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o&rsquo; the mounting, ez could
+      be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler&rsquo;ble low, an&rsquo; he axed me
+      ter show him that underground way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; ye war full willin,&rdquo; said Mrs. Brusie, in irritation, &ldquo;though ye
+      knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin&rsquo; heaven an&rsquo; earth ter
+      overhaul Tolhurst&rsquo;s command before they could reach the main body. An&rsquo; 
+      hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the Cove,
+      would be waitin&rsquo; ter capshur them when they kem up the road agin&mdash;I
+      jes&rsquo; showed him how ter crope out through the cave,&rdquo; Ethelinda sobbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How in perdition did they find thar way through that thar dark hole?&mdash;I
+      can&rsquo;t sense that!&rdquo; the old man suddenly mumbled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had lanterns an&rsquo; some pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an&rsquo; 
+      the leader sent a squad ter &lsquo;reconnoitre,&rsquo; ez he called it. An&rsquo; whilst he
+      waited he stood an&rsquo; talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an&rsquo; the
+      lay o&rsquo; the land over thar. He war full per-lite an&rsquo; genteel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be bound ye looked like a &lsquo;crazy Jane,&rsquo;&rdquo; cried the grandmother, with
+      sudden exasperation. &ldquo;Yer white sun-bonnet plumb off an&rsquo; a-hangin&rsquo; down on
+      yer shoulders, an&rsquo; yer yaller hair all a-blowsin&rsquo; at loose eends, stiddier
+      bein&rsquo; plaited up stiff an&rsquo; tight an&rsquo; personable, an&rsquo; yer face burned pink
+      in the sun, stiddier like yer skin ginerally looks, fine an&rsquo; white ez a
+      pan o&rsquo; fraish milk, an&rsquo; the flabby, slinksy skirt o&rsquo; that yaller calico
+      dress &lsquo;thout no starch in it, a-flappin&rsquo; an&rsquo; whirlin&rsquo; in the wind&mdash;shucks!
+      I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; <i>whut</i> the man could hev thought o&rsquo; you-uns, dressed out
+      that-a-way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He war toler&rsquo;ble well pleased with me now, sure!&rdquo; retorted Ethelinda,
+      stung to a blunt self-assertion. &ldquo;He keered mo&rsquo; about a good-lookin&rsquo; road
+      than a good-lookin&rsquo; gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an&rsquo; reported the
+      passage full safe for man an&rsquo; beastis the leader tuk a purse o&rsquo; money
+      out&rsquo;n his pocket an&rsquo; held it out to me&mdash;though he said it couldn&rsquo;t
+      express his thanks.&rsquo; But I held my hands behind me an&rsquo; wouldn&rsquo;t take it.
+      Then he called up another man an&rsquo; made him open a bag, an&rsquo; he snatched up
+      my empty milk-piggin&rsquo; an&rsquo; poured it nigh full o&rsquo; green coffee in the bean&mdash;it
+      be skeerce ez gold an&rsquo; nigh ez precious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; <i>what</i> did you do with it, Ethelindy?&rdquo; her mother asked,
+      significantly&mdash;not for information, but for the renewal of discussion
+      and to justify the repetition of rebukes. These had not been few.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; the girl returned, sullenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i> do,&rdquo; the glib grandmother interposed. &ldquo;Ye jes&rsquo; gin we-uns a
+      sniff an&rsquo; a sup, an&rsquo; then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an&rsquo; shook the rest
+      of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an&rsquo; sot out an&rsquo; 
+      marched yer-self through the laurel&mdash;I wonder nuthin&rsquo; didn&rsquo;t ketch
+      ye! howsomever naught is never in danger&mdash;an&rsquo; went ter that horspital
+      camp o&rsquo; the rebels on Big Injun Mounting&mdash;smallpox horspital it is&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      gin that precious coffee away to the enemies o&rsquo; yer kentry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody comes nor goes ter that place&mdash;hell itself ain&rsquo;t so avoided,&rdquo;
+       said Mrs. Brusie, her forehead corrugated with sudden recurrence of
+      anxiety. &ldquo;Nobody else in this world would have resked it, &lsquo;ceptin&rsquo; that
+      headin&rsquo; contrairy gal, Ethelindy Brusie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never resked nuthin,&rdquo; protested Ethelinda. &ldquo;I stopped at the head of a
+      bluff far off, an&rsquo; hollered down ter &lsquo;em in the clearin&rsquo; an&rsquo; held up the
+      kittle. An&rsquo; two or three rebs war out of thar tents in the clearin&rsquo;&mdash;thar
+      be a good sight o&rsquo; new graves up thar!&mdash;an&rsquo; them men war hollerin&rsquo; 
+      an&rsquo; wavin&rsquo; me away, till they seen what I war doin&rsquo;; jes&rsquo; settin&rsquo; down the
+      kittle an&rsquo; startin&rsquo; off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gazed meditatively into the fire, of set purpose avoiding the eyes
+      fixed upon her, and sought to justify her course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knowed ez we-uns hed got used ter doin&rsquo; &lsquo;thout coffee, an&rsquo; don&rsquo;t feel
+      the need of it now. We-uns air well an&rsquo; stout, an&rsquo; live in our good home
+      an&rsquo; beside our own h&rsquo;a&rsquo;th-stone; an&rsquo; they air sick, an&rsquo; pore, an&rsquo; cast
+      out, an&rsquo; I reckon they ain&rsquo;t ever been remembered before in gifts. An&rsquo; I
+      &lsquo;lowed the coffee, bein&rsquo; unexpected an&rsquo; a sorter extry, mought put some
+      fraish heart an&rsquo; hope in &lsquo;em&mdash;leastwise show &lsquo;em ez God don&rsquo;t &lsquo;low
+      &lsquo;em ter be plumb furgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She still gazed meditatively at the fire as if it held a scroll of her
+      recollections, which she gradually interpreted anew. &ldquo;I looked back wunst,
+      an&rsquo; one o&rsquo; them rebs had sot down on a log an&rsquo; war sobbin&rsquo; ez ef his heart
+      would bust. An&rsquo; another of &lsquo;em war signin, at me agin an&rsquo; agin, like he
+      was drawin&rsquo; a cross in the air&mdash;one pass down an&rsquo; then one across&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      the other reb war jes&rsquo; laffin&rsquo; fur joy, and wunst in a while he yelled
+      out: &lsquo;Blessin&rsquo;s on ye! Blessin&rsquo;s! Blessin&rsquo;s!&rsquo; I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; how fur I hearn
+      that sayin&rsquo;. The rocks round the creek war repeatin&rsquo; it, whenst I crossed
+      the f oot-bredge. I dun&rsquo;no what the feller meant&mdash;mought hev been
+      crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tricksy gust stirred at the door as if a mischievous hand twitched the
+      latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening
+      children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the hounds
+      snored sonorously in the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nuthin&rsquo; crazy thar &lsquo;ceptin&rsquo; you-uns!&mdash;one fool gal&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      all!&rdquo; said her grandmother, with her knitting-needles and her spectacles
+      glittering in the firelight. &ldquo;That is a pest camp. Ye mought hev cotch the
+      smallpox. I be lookm&rsquo; fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war
+      is over an&rsquo; the men come back to the Cove, none of &lsquo;em will so much as
+      look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked&mdash;fair an&rsquo; fine as it is
+      now, like a pan of fraish milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, granny, it won&rsquo;t be sp&rsquo;ilt! The camp war too fur off&mdash;an&rsquo; thar
+      warn&rsquo;t a breath o&rsquo; wind. I never went a-nigh &lsquo;em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; how fur smallpox kin travel&mdash;an&rsquo; it jes&rsquo; mulls and mulls
+      in ye afore it breaks out&mdash;don&rsquo;t it, S&rsquo;briny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ax me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Brusie, with a worried air. &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t no yerb
+      doctor, nor nurse tender, nuther. Ethelindy is beyond my understandin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was beyond her own understanding, as she sat weeping slowly, silently.
+      The aspect of those forlorn graves, that recorded the final ebbing of hope
+      and life at the pest camp, had struck her recollection with a most
+      poignant appeal. Strangers, wretches, dying alone, desolate outcasts, the
+      terror of their kind, the epitome of repulsion&mdash;they were naught to
+      her! Yet they represented humanity in its helplessness, its suffering, its
+      isolated woe, and its great and final mystery; she felt vaguely grieved
+      for their sake, and she gave the clay that covered them, still crude red
+      clods with not yet a blade of grass, the fellowship of her tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thrill of masculine logic stirred uneasily in the old man&rsquo;s disused
+      brain. &ldquo;Tell me <i>one</i> thing, Ethelindy,&rdquo; he said, lifting his bleared
+      eyes as he clasped his tremulous hands more firmly on the head of his
+      stick&mdash;&ldquo;tell me this&mdash;which side air you-uns on, ennyhow,
+      Ethelindy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fur the Union,&rdquo; said Ethelinda, still weeping, and now and then
+      wiping her sapphire eyes with the back of her hand, hard and tanned, but
+      small in proportion to her size. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fur the Union&mdash;fust an&rsquo; last
+      an&rsquo; all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man wagged his head solemnly with a blight of forecast on his
+      wrinkled, aged face. &ldquo;That thar sayin&rsquo; is goin&rsquo; ter be mighty hard ter
+      live up to whilst Jerome Ackert&rsquo;s critter company is a-raidin&rsquo; of
+      Tanglefoot Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The presence of the &ldquo;critter company&rdquo; was indeed calculated to inspire a
+      most obsequious awe. It was an expression of arbitrary power which one
+      might ardently wish directed elsewhere. From the moment that the echoes of
+      the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely sweet
+      and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if blown down
+      from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the bland blue sky, the
+      denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer together, and to
+      skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house. Tanglefoot Cove is
+      some four miles long, and its average breadth is little more than a mile.
+      On all sides the great Smoky Mountains rise about the cuplike hollow, and
+      their dense gigantic growths of hickory and poplar, maple and gum, were
+      aglow, red and golden, with the largesse of the generous October. The
+      underbrush or the jungles of laurel that covered the steeps rendered
+      outlet through the forests impracticable, and indeed the only road was
+      invisible save for a vague line among the dense pines of a precipitous
+      slope, where on approach it would materialize under one&rsquo;s feet as a wheel
+      track on either side of a line of frosted weeds, which the infrequent
+      passing of wagon-beds had bent and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blacksmith&rsquo;s shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had soon
+      an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had had
+      enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt his
+      anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he no more
+      bears a part;&mdash;a minié-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm, and
+      his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. This was a
+      half-witted fellow, a giant in strength, but not to be trusted with
+      firearms. In these days of makeweights his utility had been discovered,
+      and now with the smith&rsquo;s hammer in his hand he joined the group, his
+      bulging eyes all a-stare and his loose lips hanging apart. The old justice
+      of the peace, whose office was a sinecure, since the war had run the law
+      out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with a sense of
+      futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note of the distant
+      trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the nerves to await
+      helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say that he is a tumble, tumble man,&rdquo; the blacksmith averred, ever
+      and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which, though
+      bundled in its jeans&rsquo; sleeve, he had the illusion of the sensation of its
+      hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his broad palm to eye
+      that significant line which marked the road among the pines on the eastern
+      slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and rank of growth in the
+      rich bottom-lands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethelinda&rsquo;s heart sank. All unprescient of the day&rsquo;s impending event, she
+      had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and she now
+      stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she listened
+      spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a great
+      yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough, and here a
+      horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by a draught; he had
+      ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but still stood with his
+      muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping, gazing with un-imagined
+      thoughts at the reflection of his big equine eyes, the blue sky inverted,
+      the dappling yellow leaves, more golden even than the sunshine, and the
+      glimmering flight of birds, with a stellular light upon their wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A turrible man?&mdash;w-w-well,&rdquo; stuttered the idiot, who had of late
+      assumed all the port of coherence; he snatched and held a part in the
+      colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his
+      infirmity, &ldquo;then I&rsquo;d be obleeged ter him ef&mdash;ef&mdash;ef he&rsquo;d stay
+      out&rsquo;n Tanglefoot Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So would I.&rdquo; The miller laughed uneasily. But for the corrugations of
+      time, one might not have known if it were flour or age that had so
+      whitened his long beard, which hung quivering down over the breast of his
+      jeans coat, of an indeterminate hue under its frosting from the hopper.
+      &ldquo;He hev tuk up a tumble spite at Tanglefoot Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blacksmith nodded. &ldquo;They say that he &lsquo;lowed ez traitors orter be
+      treated like traitors. But <i>I</i> be a-goin&rsquo; ter tell him that the
+      Confederacy hev got one arm off&rsquo;n me more&rsquo;n its entitled to, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;m
+      willin&rsquo; ter call it quits at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tain&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; ter do him no good ter raid the Cove,&rdquo; an ancient farmer
+      averred; &ldquo;an&rsquo; it&rsquo;s agin&rsquo; the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the
+      kentry they live off&rsquo;n&mdash;it&rsquo;s like sawin&rsquo; off the bough ye air sittin&rsquo; 
+      on.&rdquo; His eyes dwelt with a fearful affection on the laden fields; his old
+      stoop-shouldered back had bent yet more under the toil that had brought
+      his crop to this perfection, with the aid of the children whose labor was
+      scarcely worth the strenuosity requisite to control their callow wiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shucks! He&rsquo;s a guerilla&mdash;he is!&rdquo; retorted the blacksmith.
+      &ldquo;Accountable ter nobody! Hyar ter-day an&rsquo; thar ter-morrer. Rides light.
+      Two leetle Parrott guns is the most weight he carries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The idiot&rsquo;s eyes began to widen with slow and baffled speculation. &ldquo;Whut&mdash;w-whut
+      ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w&mdash;&rdquo; his great loose lips
+      trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry from one to
+      another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained contemptuously
+      unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man, though a
+      simpleton, was yet a man, and inherently commanded respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bird o&rsquo; the air mus&rsquo; hev carried the matter that Tolhurst&rsquo;s troops hed
+      rid inter Tanglefoot Cove by mistake fur Greenbrier, whar they war ter
+      cross ter jine the Fed&rsquo;rals nigh the Cohuttas. An&rsquo; that guerilla, Ackert,
+      hed been ridin&rsquo; a hundred mile at a hand-gallop ter overhaul him, an&rsquo; 
+      knowin&rsquo; thar warn&rsquo;t but one outlet to Tanglefoot Cove, he expected ter
+      capshur the Feds as they kem out agin. So he sot himself ter ambush
+      Tolhurst, an&rsquo; waited fur him <i>up</i> thar amongst the pines an&rsquo; the
+      laurel&mdash;an&rsquo; he <i>waited</i>&mdash;an&rsquo; <i>waited!</i> But Tolhurst
+      never came! So whenst the guerilla war sure he hed escaped by ways
+      unknownst he set out ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But
+      Tolhurst had j&rsquo;ined the main body o&rsquo; the Federal Army, an&rsquo; now Ackert is
+      showing a clean pair o&rsquo; heels comin&rsquo; back. But he be goin&rsquo; ter take time
+      ter raid the Cove&mdash;his hurry will wait fur that! Somebody in
+      Tanglefoot&mdash;the Lord only knows who&mdash;showed Tolhurst that
+      underground way out ter Greenbrier Cove, through a sorter cave or tunnel
+      in the mountings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now&mdash;now&mdash;neighbor&mdash;<i>that&rsquo;s</i> guesswork,&rdquo; remonstrated
+      the miller, in behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility.
+      Perhaps the semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the
+      faculties beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain
+      connection between cause and effect inimical to personal interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure,&rdquo; protested the blacksmith.
+      &ldquo;I tracked &lsquo;em, the ground bein&rsquo; moist, kase I wanted ter view the marks
+      o&rsquo; their horses&rsquo; hoofs. They hev got some powerful triflin&rsquo; blacksmiths in
+      the army&mdash;farriers, they call &lsquo;em. I los&rsquo; the trail amongst the rocks
+      an&rsquo; ledges down todes the cave&mdash;though it&rsquo;s more like one o&rsquo; them
+      tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in the army, but this
+      one was never made with hands; jes&rsquo; hollowed out by Sinking Creek. So I
+      got Jube thar ter crope through, an&rsquo; view ef thar war any hoof marks on
+      t&rsquo;other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; a body would think fur sure ez the armies o&rsquo; hell had been spewed
+      out&rsquo;n that black hole,&rdquo; said a lean man whom the glance of the blacksmith
+      had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of a racking cough
+      that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its violence. &ldquo;Hoof
+      marks hyar&mdash;hoof-marks thar&mdash;as if they didn&rsquo;t rightly know
+      which way ter go in the marshy ground &lsquo;bout Sinking Creek. But at last
+      they &lsquo;peared ter git tergether, an&rsquo; off they tracked ter the west&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the group failed to
+      follow the words that they interspersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They tuk a short cut through the Cove&mdash;they warn&rsquo;t in it a haffen
+      hour,&rdquo; stipulated the prudent miller. &ldquo;They came an&rsquo; went like a flash.
+      Nobody seen &lsquo;em &lsquo;cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      ef they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ackert &lsquo;lows he&rsquo;ll hang the guide ef he ketches him,&rdquo; said the
+      blacksmith, in a tone of awe. &ldquo;Leastwise that&rsquo;s the word that&rsquo;s &lsquo;goin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
+      its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
+      horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
+      their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on the
+      protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller&rsquo;s attention.
+      He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking out from their
+      network of wrinkles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns&rsquo; house, did ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
+      sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
+      sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she had
+      never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
+      consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
+      little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
+      phrase. &ldquo;Naw sir&mdash;I never seen thar guide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thar now, what did I tell you!&rdquo; the miller exclaimed, triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blacksmith seemed convinced. &ldquo;Mought hev hed a map,&rdquo; he speculated.
+      &ldquo;Them fellers in the army <i>do</i> hev maps. I fund that out whenst I war
+      in the service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The group listened respectfully. The blacksmith&rsquo;s practical knowledge of
+      the art of war had given him the prestige of a military authority.
+      Doubtless some of the acquiescent wights entertained a vague wonder how
+      the army contrived to fare onward bereft of his advice. And, indeed,
+      despite his maimed estate, his heart was the stoutest that thrilled to the
+      iteration of the trumpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearer now it was, and once more echoing down the sunset glen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right wheel, trot&mdash;<i>march</i>,&rdquo; he muttered, interpreting the
+      sound of the horses&rsquo; hoofs. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a critter company, fur sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no splendor of pageant in the raid of the guerilla into the
+      Cove. The pines closing above the cleft in the woods masked the entrance
+      of the &ldquo;critter company.&rdquo; Once a gleam of scarlet from the guidon flashed
+      on the sight. And again a detached horseman was visible in a barren
+      interval, reining in his steed on the almost vertical slant, looking the
+      centaur in literal presentation. The dull thud of hoofs made itself felt
+      as a continuous undertone to the clatter of stirrup and sabre, and now and
+      again rose the stirring mandate of the trumpet, with that majestic, sweet
+      sweep of sound which so thrills the senses. They were coming indubitably,
+      the troop of the dreaded guerilla&mdash;indeed, they were already here.
+      For while the sun still glinted on carbine and sabre among the scarlet and
+      golden tints of the deciduous growths and the sombre green of the pines on
+      the loftier slopes, the vanguard in column of fours were among the gray
+      shadows at the mountains&rsquo; base and speeding into the Cove at a
+      hand-gallop, for the roads were fairly good when once the level was
+      reached. Though so military a presentment, for they were all veterans in
+      the service, despite the youth of many, they were not in uniform. Some
+      wore the brown jeans of the region, girt with sword-belt and canteen, with
+      great spurs and cavalry boots, and broad-brimmed hats, which now and again
+      flaunted cords or feathers. Others had attained the Confederate gray,
+      occasionally accented with a glimmer of gold where a shoulder-strap or a
+      chevron graced the garb. And yet there was a certain homogeneity in their
+      aspect, All rode after the manner of the section, with the &ldquo;long stirrup&rdquo;
+       at the extreme length of the limb, and the immovable pose in the saddle,
+      the man being absolutely stationary, while the horse bounded at agile
+      speed. There was the similarity of facial expression, in infinite
+      dissimilarity of feature, which marks a common sentiment, origin, and
+      habitat. Then, too, they shared something recklessly haphazard, gay,
+      defiantly dangerous, that, elusive as it might be to describe, was as
+      definitely perceived as the guidon, riding apart at the left, the long
+      lance of his pennant planted on his stirrup, bearing himself with a
+      certain stately pride of port, distinctly official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole effect was concentrated in the face of the leader, obviously the
+      inspiration of the organization, the vital spark by which it lived; a
+      fierce face, intent, commanding. It was burned to a brick-red, and had an
+      aquiline nose and a keen gray-green eagle-like eye; on either side auburn
+      hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, after the fashion of the time, to
+      his coat collar. And this collar and his shoulders were decorated with
+      gold lace and the insignia of rank; the uniform was of fine Confederate
+      gray, which seemed to contradict the general impression that he was but a
+      free-lance or a bushwhacker and operated on his own responsibility. The
+      impression increased the terror his name excited throughout the
+      countryside with his high-handed and eccentric methods of warfare, and
+      perhaps he would not have resented it if he were cognizant of its general
+      acceptance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a look calculated to inspire awe which he flung upon the cowering
+      figures before the door of the forge as he suddenly perceived them; and
+      detaching himself from the advancing troop, he spurred his horse toward
+      them. He came up like a whirlwind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That impetuous gallop could scarcely have carried his charger over the
+      building itself, yet there is nothing so overwhelming to the nerves as the
+      approaching rush of a speedy horse, and the group flattened themselves
+      against the wall; but he drew rein before he reached the door, and
+      whirling in the saddle, with one hand on the horse&rsquo;s back, he demanded:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he? Bring him out!&rdquo; as if all the world knew the object of his
+      search and the righteous reason of his enmity. &ldquo;Bring him out! I&rsquo;ll have a
+      drumhead court martial&mdash;and he&rsquo;ll swing before sunset!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evenin&rsquo;, Cap&rsquo;n,&rdquo; the old miller sought what influence might
+      appertain to polite address and the social graces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evenin&rsquo; be damned!&rdquo; cried Ackert, angrily. &ldquo;If you folks in the coves
+      want the immunity of non-combatants, by Gawd! you gotter preserve the
+      neutrality of non-combatants!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yessir&mdash;that&rsquo;s reason&mdash;that&rsquo;s jestice,&rdquo; said the old squire,
+      hastily, whose capacities of ratiocination had been cultivated by the
+      exercise of the judicial functions of his modest <i>piepoudre</i> court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ackert unwillingly cast his eagle eye down upon the cringing old man, as
+      if he would rather welcome contradiction than assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s accordin&rsquo; to the articles o&rsquo; war and the law of nations,&rdquo; he
+      averred. &ldquo;People take advantage of age and disability&rdquo;&mdash;he glanced at
+      the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of his
+      right arm&mdash;&ldquo;as if that could protect &lsquo;em in acts o&rsquo; treason an&rsquo; 
+      treachery;&rdquo; then with a blast of impatience, &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To remonstrate with a whirlwind, to explain to a flash of lightning, to
+      soothe and propitiate the fury of a conflagration&mdash;the task before
+      the primitive and inexpert Cove-dwellers seemed to partake of this nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n&mdash;ef ye&rsquo;d listen ter what I gotter say,&rdquo; began the miller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll listen arterward!&rdquo; exclaimed Ackert, in his clarion voice. He had
+      never heard of Jedburgh justice, but he had all the sentiment of that
+      famous tribunal who hanged the prisoners first and tried them afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n,&rdquo; remonstrated the blacksmith, breaking in with hot haste, hurried
+      by the commander&rsquo;s gusts of impatience, forgetful that he had no need to
+      be precipitate, since he could not produce the recusant if he would.
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n&mdash;Cap&rsquo;n&mdash;bear with us&mdash;we-uns don&rsquo;t know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ackert stared in snorting amaze, a flush of anger dyeing his red cheeks a
+      yet deeper red. Of all the subterfuges that he had expected, he had never
+      divined this. He shifted front face in his saddle, placed his gauntleted
+      right hand on his right side, and held his head erect, looking over the
+      wide, rich expanse of the Cove, the corn in the field, and the fodder in
+      the shock set amid the barbaric splendors of the wooded autumn mountains
+      glowing in the sunset above. He seemed scenting his vengeance with some
+      keen sense as he looked, his thin nostrils dilating as sensitively as the
+      nostrils of his high-couraged charger now throwing up his head to sniff
+      the air, now bending it down as he pawed the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, gentlemen, you have got a mighty pretty piece o&rsquo; country here, and
+      good crops, too&mdash;which is a credit to you, seeing that the
+      conscription has in and about drafted all the able-bodied mountaineers
+      that wouldn&rsquo;t volunteer&mdash;damn &lsquo;em! But I swear by the right hand of
+      Jehovah, I&rsquo;ll burn every cabin in the Cove an&rsquo; every blade o&rsquo; forage in
+      the fields if you don&rsquo;t produce the man who guided Tol-hurst&rsquo;s cavalry
+      out&rsquo;n the trap I&rsquo;d chased &lsquo;em into, or give me a true and satisfactory
+      account of him.&rdquo; He raised his gauntleted right hand and shook it in the
+      air. &ldquo;So help me God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was all the solemnity of intention vibrating in this fierce
+      asseveration, and it brought the aged non-combatants forward in eager
+      protestation. The old justice made as if to catch at the bridle rein, then
+      desisted. A certain <i>noli me tangere</i> influence about the fierce
+      guerilla affected even supplication, and the &ldquo;Squair&rdquo; resorted to logic as
+      the more potent weapon of the two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n, Cap&rsquo;n,&rdquo; he urged, with a tremulous, aged jaw, &ldquo;be pleased to
+      consider my words. I&rsquo;m a magistrate sir, or I was before the war run the
+      law clean out o&rsquo; the kentry. We dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; the guide&mdash;we never seen the
+      troops.&rdquo; Then, in reply to an impatient snort of negation: &ldquo;If ye&rsquo;ll cast
+      yer eye on the lay of the land, ye&rsquo;ll view how it happened. Thar&rsquo;s the
+      road &ldquo;&mdash;he waved his hand toward that vague indentation in the
+      foliage that marked the descent into the vale&mdash;&ldquo;an&rsquo; down this e-end
+      o&rsquo; the Cove thar&rsquo;s nex&rsquo; ter nobody livin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirited equestrian figure was stand-ing as still as a statue; only
+      the movement of the full pupils of his eyes, the dilation of the nostrils,
+      showed how nearly the matter touched his tense nerves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some folks in the upper e-end of the Cove &lsquo;lowed afterward they hearn a
+      hawn; some folks spoke of a shakin&rsquo; of the ground like the trompin&rsquo; of
+      horses&mdash;but them troops mus&rsquo; hev passed from the foot o&rsquo; the mounting
+      acrost the aidge of the Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scant haffen mile,&rdquo; put in the blacksmith, &ldquo;down to a sort of cave, or
+      tunnel, that runs under the mounting&mdash;yander&mdash;that lets &lsquo;em out
+      into Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawd!&rdquo; exclaimed the guerilla, striking his breast with his clenched,
+      gauntleted hand as his eyes followed with the vivacity of actual sight the
+      course of the march of the squadron of horse to the point of their
+      triumphant vanishment. Despite the vehemence of the phrase the intonation
+      was a very bleat of desperation. For it was a rich and rare opportunity
+      thus wrested from him by an untoward fate. In all the chaotic chances of
+      the Civil War he could hardly hope for its repetition. It was part of a
+      crack body of regulars&mdash;Tolhurst&rsquo;s squadron&mdash;that he had
+      contrived to drive into this trap, this <i>cul-de-sac</i>, surrounded by
+      the infinite fastnesses of the Great Smoky Mountains. It had been a
+      running fight, for Tolhurst had orders, as Ackert had found means of
+      knowing, to join the main body without delay, and his chief aim was to
+      shake off this persistent pursuit with which a far inferior force had
+      harassed his march. But for his fortuitous discovery of the underground
+      exit from the basin of Tanglefoot Cove, Ackert, ambushed without, would
+      have encountered and defeated the regulars in detail as they clambered in
+      detachments up the unaccustomed steeps of the mountain road, the woods
+      elsewhere being almost impassable jungles of laurel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Success would have meant more to Ackert than the value of the service to
+      the cause, than the tumultuous afflatus of victory, than the spirit of
+      strife to the born soldier. There had been kindled in his heart a great
+      and fiery ambition; he was one of the examples of an untaught military
+      genius of which the Civil War elicited a few notable and amazing
+      instances. There had been naught in his career heretofore to suggest this
+      unaccountable gift, to foster its development. He was the son of a small
+      farmer, only moderately well-to-do; he had the very limited education
+      which a restricted and remote rural region afforded its youth; he had
+      entered the Confederate army as a private soldier, with no sense of
+      special fitness, no expectation of personal advancement, only carried on
+      the wave of popular enthusiasm. But from the beginning his quality had
+      been felt; he had risen from grade to grade, and now with a detached body
+      of horse and flying artillery his exploits were beginning to attract the
+      attention of corps commanders on both sides, to the gratulation of friends
+      and the growing respect of foes. He seemed endowed with the wings of the
+      wind; to-day he was tearing up railroad tracks in the lowlands to impede
+      the reinforcements of an army; to-morrow the force sent with the express
+      intention of placing a period to those mischievous activities heard of his
+      feats in burning bridges and cutting trestles in remote sections of the
+      mountains. The probabilities could keep no terms with him, and he baffled
+      prophecy. He had a quick invention&mdash;a talent for expedients. He
+      appeared suddenly when least expected and where his presence seemed
+      impossible. He had a gift of military intuition. He seemed to know the
+      enemy&rsquo;s plans before they were matured; and ere a move was made to put
+      them into execution he was on the ground with troublous obstacles to
+      forestall the event in its very inception. He maintained a discipline to
+      many commanders impossible. His troops had a unity of spirit that might
+      well animate an individual. They endured long fasts, made wonderful forced
+      marches on occasion&mdash;all day in the saddle and nodding to the pommel
+      all night; it was even said they fought to such exhaustion that when
+      dismounted the front rank, lying in line of battle prone upon the ground,
+      would fall asleep between volleys, and that the second rank, kneeling to
+      fire above them, had orders to stir them with their carbines to insure
+      regularity of the musketry. He had the humbler yet even more necessary
+      equipment for military success. He could forage his troops in barren
+      opportunities; they somehow kept clothed and armed at the minimum of
+      expense. Did he lack ammunition&mdash;he made shift to capture a supply
+      for his little Par-rott guns that barked like fierce dogs at the
+      rear-guard of an enemy or protected his own retreat when it jumped with
+      his plans to compass a speedy withdrawal himself. His horses were well
+      groomed, well fed, fine travellers, and many showed the brand U.S., for he
+      could mount his troop when need required from the corrals of an
+      unsuspecting encampment. He was the ideal guerilla, of infinite service to
+      his faction in small, significant operations of disproportioned
+      importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What wonder that his name was rife in rumors which flew about the country;
+      that soon it was not only &ldquo;the grapevine telegraph&rdquo; that vibrated with the
+      sound, but he was mentioned in official despatches; nay, on one signal
+      occasion the importance of his dashing exploit was recognized by the
+      commander of the Army Corps in a general order published to specially
+      commend it. Naturally his spirit rose to meet these expanding liberties of
+      achievement. He looked for further promotion&mdash;for eminence. In a
+      vague glimmer, growing ever stronger and clearer, he could see himself in
+      the astral splendor of the official stars of a major-general&mdash;for in
+      the far day of the anticipated success of the Confederacy he looked to be
+      an officer of the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now suddenly this light was dimmed; his laurels were wilting. What
+      prestige would the capture of Tolhurst have conferred! Never had a golden
+      opportunity like this been lost&mdash;by what uncovenanted chance had
+      Tolhurst escaped!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have had a guide! Right here in the Cove!&rdquo; Ackert exclaimed.
+      &ldquo;Nobody outside would know a hole in the ground, a cave, a water-gap, a
+      tunnel like that! Where&rsquo;s the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naw, sir&mdash;naw, Cap&rsquo;n! Nobody viewed the troop but one gal person an&rsquo; 
+      she &lsquo;lowed she never seen no guide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The charger whirled under the touch of the hand on the rein, and Ackert&rsquo;s
+      eyes scanned with a searching intentness the group.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s this girl&mdash;you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the old squire with most unwelcome officiousness seized Ethelinda&rsquo;s arm
+      and hurried her forward, her heart sank within her. For one moment the
+      guerilla&rsquo;s fiery, piercing eyes dwelt upon her as she stood looking on,
+      her delicately white face grown deathly pallid, her golden hair
+      frivolously blowsed in the wind, which tossed the full skirts of her
+      lilac-hued calico gown till she seemed poised on the very wings of flight.
+      Her sapphire eyes, bluer than ever azure skies could seem, sought to gaze
+      upward, but ever and anon their long-lashed lids fluttered and fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quick of perception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>You</i> have no call to be afraid,&rdquo; he remarked&mdash;a sort of gruff
+      upbraiding, as if her evident trepidation impugned his justice in
+      reprisal. &ldquo;Come, you can guide me. Show me just where they came in, and
+      just where they got out&mdash;damn &lsquo;em!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could scarcely control her terror when she saw that he intended her to
+      ride with him to the spot, yet she feared even more to draw back, to
+      refuse. He held out one great spurred boot. Her little low-cut shoe looked
+      tiny upon it as she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind him, and
+      the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long, swift
+      strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to catch
+      the guerilla&rsquo;s belt&mdash;to seize, too, with an agitated clutch, his
+      right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers
+      promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming the red
+      sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the blacksmith
+      shop, which the cavalrymen had now approached, watering their horses at
+      the trough and lifting the saddles to rest the animals from the
+      constriction of the pressure of the girths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences
+      flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the
+      evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains had spread
+      its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads. Presently the
+      heavy shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now, showing only
+      blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon them, and the
+      guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among boulders and rough
+      ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great crags had begun to
+      line the way, first only on one marge of the channel; then; the clifty
+      banks appeared on the other side, and at length a deep> black-arched
+      opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming with sepulchral shadows; in
+      the silence one might hear drops trickling vaguely and the sudden hooting
+      of an owl from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
+      this tunnel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yessir!&rdquo; she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
+      squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. &ldquo;They couldn&rsquo;t hev
+      done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin&rsquo; with
+      the fust rains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide&mdash;a guide that
+      knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I&rsquo;ll catch him yet,
+      sometime. I&rsquo;ll hang him! I&rsquo;ll hang him&mdash;if I have to grow a tree
+      a-pur-pose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
+      circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of the
+      earth. It was a long moment before they were still again&mdash;perhaps,
+      indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed, a
+      new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda&rsquo;s nerves.
+      Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He had caught
+      sight of the hoof marks along the moist sandy spaces of the channel, mute
+      witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of her story. A
+      sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up a broken
+      belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hang that guide yet,&rdquo; he muttered, his eyes dark with angry
+      conviction, his face lowering with fury. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hang him&mdash;I won&rsquo;t
+      expect to prove it p&rsquo;int blank. Jes&rsquo; let me git a mite o&rsquo; suspicion, an&rsquo; 
+      I&rsquo;ll guarantee the slipknot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cap&rsquo;n Ackert,&rdquo; she trembled forth. There was so much significance in her
+      tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation. &ldquo;I
+      tole ye the truth whenst I say I <i>seen</i> no guide&rdquo;&mdash;he made a
+      gesture of impatience; he had no time for twice-told tales&mdash;&ldquo;kase&mdash;kase
+      the guide war&mdash;war&mdash;myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clear twilight fell full on his amazed, upturned face and the storm of
+      fury it concentrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do it fur?&rdquo; he thundered, &ldquo;you limb o&rsquo; perdition!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jes&rsquo; ter help him some. He&mdash;he&mdash;he&mdash;would hev been
+      capshured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would indeed! The guerilla was very terrible to look upon as his brow
+      corrugated, and his upturned eyes, with the light of the sky within them,
+      flashed ominously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You little she-devil!&rdquo; he cried, and then speech seemed to fail him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had begun to shiver and shed tears and emit little gusts of quaking
+      sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I be so feared&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she whimpered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;you mustn&rsquo;t hang&mdash;<i>nobody else</i> on
+      s&rsquo;picion!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a vague change in the expression of his face. He still stood
+      beside the saddle, with the reins over his arm, while the horse threw his
+      head almost to the ground and again tossed it aloft in his impatient
+      weariness of the delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; now you are captured yourself,&rdquo; he said, sternly. &ldquo;You are
+      accountable fur your actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She burst into a paroxysm of sobs. &ldquo;I never went ter tell! I meant ter
+      keep the secret! The folks in the Cove dun&rsquo;no&rsquo; nuthin&rsquo;. But&mdash;oh, ye
+      <i>mustn&rsquo;t</i> s&rsquo;picion nobody else&mdash;ye <i>mustn&rsquo;t</i> hang nobody
+      else!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more that indescribable change upon his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You showed him the way to this pass yourself? Tell the truth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He war ridin&rsquo; his horse-critter&mdash;&lsquo;tain&rsquo;t ez fast, nor fine, nor fat
+      ez yourn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stroked the glossy mane with a sort of mechanical pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so he went plumb through the cave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An&rsquo; all the troop&mdash;they kindled pine-knots fur torches.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced about him at the convenient growths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they came out all safe in Greenbrier!&rdquo; He winced. How the lost
+      opportunity hurt him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yessir. In Greenbrier Cove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he pay you in gold?&rdquo; sneered Ackert. &ldquo;Or in greenbacks? Or mebbe in
+      Cornfed money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t hev his gold.&rdquo; She drew herself up proudly, though the tears
+      were still coursing down her cheeks. &ldquo;So he gin me a present&mdash;a whole
+      passel o&rsquo; coffee in my milk-piggin.&rdquo; Then to complete a candid confession
+      she detailed the disposition she had made of this rare and precious luxury
+      at the rebel smallpox camp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes seemed to dilate as they gazed up at her. &ldquo;Jesus Gawd!&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed, with uncouth profanity. But the phrase was unfamiliar to her,
+      and she caught at it with a meaning all her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s jes&rsquo; it! Folks in gineral don&rsquo;t think o&rsquo; <i>them</i>, &lsquo;cept ter
+      git out o&rsquo; thar way; an&rsquo; nobody keers fur <i>them</i>, but kase Jesus is
+      Gawd He makes <i>somebody</i> remember them wunst in a while! An&rsquo; they did
+      seem passable glad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A vague sweet fragrance was on the vesperal air; some subtle distillation
+      of asters or jewel-weed or &ldquo;mountain-snow,&rdquo; and the leafage of crimson
+      sumac and purple sweet-gum and yellow hickory and the late ripening
+      frost-grapes&mdash;all in the culmination of autumnal perfection; more
+      than one star gleamed whitely palpitant in a sky that was yet blue and
+      roseate with a reminiscence of sunset; a restful sentiment, a brief truce
+      stilled the guerilla&rsquo;s tempestuous pulse as he continued to stand beside
+      his horse&rsquo;s head while the girl waited, seated on the saddle blanket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he spoke to an unexpected intent. &ldquo;Ye took a power o&rsquo; risk in
+      goin&rsquo; nigh that Confederate pest-camp&mdash;an&rsquo; yit ye&rsquo;re fur the Union
+      an&rsquo; saved a squadron from capture!&rdquo; he upbraided the inconsistency in a
+      soft incidental drawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I be fur the Union,&rdquo; she trembled forth the dread avowal. &ldquo;But
+      somehows I can&rsquo;t keep from holpin&rsquo; any I kin. They war rebs&mdash;an&rsquo; it
+      war Yankee coffee&mdash;an&rsquo; I dun&rsquo;no&rsquo;&mdash;I jes&rsquo; dun&rsquo;no&rsquo;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she hesitated he looked long at her with that untranslated gaze. Then
+      he fell ponderingly silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the revelation of the sanctities of a sweet humanity for a holy
+      sake, blessing and blessed, had illumined his path, had lifted his eyes,
+      had wrought a change in his moral atmosphere spiritually suffusive,
+      potent, revivifying, complete. &ldquo;She is as good as the saints in the Bible&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      plumb beautiful besides,&rdquo; he muttered beneath his fierce mustachios.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more he gazed wonderingly at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect to do some courtin&rsquo; in this kentry when the war is over,&rdquo; the
+      guerilla said, soberly, reaching down to readjust the reins. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t
+      got time now. Will <i>you</i> be waiting fur me here in Tanglefoot Cove&mdash;if
+      I promise not to hang you fur your misdeeds right off now?&rdquo; He glanced up
+      with a sudden arch jocularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She burst out laughing gleefuly in the tumult of her joyous reassurance,
+      as she laid her tremulous fingers in his big gauntlet when he insisted
+      that they should shake hands as on a solemn compact. Forthwith he mounted
+      again, and the great charger galloped back, carrying double, in the red
+      afterglow of the sunset, to the waiting group before the flaring doors of
+      the forge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fine flower of romance had blossomed incongruously in that eager heart
+      in those fierce moments of the bitterness of defeat. Life suddenly had a
+      new meaning, a fair and fragrant promise, and often and again he looked
+      over his shoulder at the receding scene when the trumpets sang &ldquo;to horse,&rdquo;
+       and in the light of the moon the guerilla rode out of Tanglefoot Cove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ethelinda saw him never again. All the storms of fate overwhelmed the
+      Confederacy with many a rootless hope and many a plan and pride. In lieu
+      of the materialization of the stalwart ambition of distinction that had
+      come to dominate his life, responsive to the discovery of his peculiar and
+      inherent gifts, his destiny was chronicled in scarce a line of the printed
+      details of a day freighted with the monstrous disaster of a great battle;
+      in common with others of the &ldquo;missing&rdquo; his bones were picked by the
+      vultures till shoved into a trench, where a monument rises to-day to
+      commemorate an event and not a commander. Nevertheless, for many years the
+      flare of the first red leaves in the cleft among the pines on the eastern
+      slope of Tanglefoot Cove brought to Ethelinda&rsquo;s mind the gay flutter of
+      the guidon, and in certain sonorous blasts of the mountain wind she could
+      hear martial echoes of the trumpets of the guerilla.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>