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diff --git a/26527.txt b/26527.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8778ff --- /dev/null +++ b/26527.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9057 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Judith of the Cumberlands, by Alice MacGowan, +Illustrated by George Wright + + +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: Judith of the Cumberlands + + +Author: Alice MacGowan + + + +Release Date: September 4, 2008 [eBook #26527] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 26527-h.htm or 26527-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h/26527-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527/26527-h.zip) + + + + + +JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS + +by + +ALICE MACGOWAN + +Author of +"The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage," +"The Last Word," "Huldah," "Return," Etc. + +With Illustrations in Colour by George Wright + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "The moonlight flickered on the blade in his hand +as he reeled backward over the bluff" (page 145).] + + + + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers, New York + +Copyright, 1908 +by +Alice MacGowan + +This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers, +G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London + + + +DEDICATION + +To my mountain friends, dwellers in lonely cabins, on winding horseback +trails and steep, precarious roads; or in the tiny settlements that +nestle in the high-hung inner valleys; lean brown hunters on remote paths +in the green shadowed depths of the free forest, light-stepping, +keen-eyed, humorous-lipped, hitting the point as aptly with an instance +as with the old squirrel gun they carry; wielders of the axe by many a +chip pile, where the swinging blade rests readily to answer query or +offer advice; tanned, lithely moving lads following the plough, turning +over the shoulder a countenance of dark beauty; grave, shy girls, pail in +hand, at the milking-bars in dawn or dusk; young mothers in the doorway, +looking out, babe on hip; big-eyed, bare-footed mountain children +clinging hand in hand by the roadside, or clustered like startled little +partridges in the shelter of the dooryard; knitters in the sun and +grandams by the hearth; tellers and treasurers all of tales and legends +couched in racy old Elizabethan English; I dedicate this--their book and +mine. + + + +FOREWORD + +I have been so frequently asked how I, a woman, came by my intimate +acquaintance with life in the more remote districts of the southern +Appalachians, particularly in the matter of illicit distilling, that I +think it not amiss to here set down a few words as to my sources of +knowledge. + +I have always lived in a small city in the heart of the Cumberlands, and +a portion of each year was spent in the mountains themselves. The speech +of Judith and her friends and kin has been familiar to me from childhood; +their point of view, their customs and possessions as well known to me as +my own. Then when I began to write, I was one summer at Roan Mountain, on +the North Carolina-Tennessee line, probably less than two hundred miles +from Chattanooga by the railway, and Gen. John T. Wilder, who had +campaigned all through the fastnesses of that inaccessible region, +suggested to me that I buy a mountain-bred saddle horse, and ride such a +route as he would give me, bringing up, after about a thousand miles of +it, at my home. To follow the itinerary that the old soldier marked out +on the map for me was to leave railroads and modern civilisation as we +know it, penetrate the wild heart of the region, and, depending on the +wayside dwellers for hospitality and lodging from night to night, be +forcibly thrust into an intimate comprehension of a phase of American +life which is perhaps the most primitive our country affords. + +I was more than eight weeks making this trip, carrying with me all +necessary baggage on my capacious, cowgirl saddle with its long and +numerous buckskin tie-strings. At first I shrank very much from riding up +to a cabin--a young woman, alone, with garments and outfit that must +challenge the attention and curiosity of these people--in the dusk of +evening or in a heavy rain-storm, and asking in set terms for lodging. +But it took only a few days for me to find that here I was never to be +stared at, wondered at, nor questioned; and that, proffering my request +under such conditions, I was met by instant hospitality, and a grave, +uninquiring courtesy unsurpassed and not always equalled in the best +society, and I seemed to evoke a swift tenderness that was almost +compassion. + +During this journey I became acquainted with some features of mountain +life which I might never have known otherwise. My best friends in the +mountains in the neighbourhood of my own home had always been a little +shy of discussing moonshine whiskey and moonshiners; but here I earned a +dividend upon my misfortunes, being more than once taken for a revenue +spy; and in the apologetic amenities of those who had misjudged me, which +followed my explanations and proofs of innocence, I have been shown in a +spirit of atonement, illicit still and "hideout." I have heard old +Jephthah Turrentine make his protest against the government's attitude +toward the mountain man and his "blockaded still." I have foregathered +with the revenuers in the settlements at the foot of the circling purple +ranges, and been shown the specially made axes and hooks they carry with +them for breaking up and destroying the simple appurtenances of the +illicit manufacture. Knowing that Blatch Turrentine's still must have +cost him three hundred dollars, I cannot wonder that a mountain man, a +thrifty fellow like Blatch, should have lingered, even in great danger, +over the project of carrying it with him. + +These dwellers in the southern mountain region, the purest American +strain left to us, hold the interest and appeal of a changing, vanishing +type. The tide of enlightenment and commercial prosperity must presently +sweep in and absorb them. And so I might hope that a faithful picture of +the life and manners I have sought to represent in _Judith of the +Cumberlands_ would be the better worth while. + + A. Mac G. + + + +Contents + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. Spring 1 + II. At "The Edge" 20 + III. Suitors 47 + IV. Building 64 + V. The Red Rose and the Briar 83 + VI. The Play-Party 99 + VII. Kisses 112 + VIII. On the Doorstone 124 + IX. Foeman's Bluff 135 + X. A Spy 152 + XI. The Warning 161 + XII. In the Lion's Den 181 + XIII. In the Night 199 + XIV. The Raid 207 + XV. Council of War 221 + XVI. A Message 235 + XVII. The Old Cherokee Trail 244 + XVIII. Bitter Parting 261 + XIX. Cast Out 273 + XX. A Conversion 282 + XXI. The Baptising 302 + XXII. Ebb-Tide 315 + XXIII. The Dumb Supper 326 + XXIV. A Case of Walking Typhoid 340 + XXV. A Perilous Passage 360 + XXVI. His Own Trap 371 + XXVII. Love's Guerdon 382 +XXVIII. A Prophecy 393 + + + + + + +Judith of the Cumberlands + +Chapter I + +Spring + + +"Won't you be jest dressed to kill an' cripple when you get that on! +Don't it set her off, Jeffy Ann?" + +The village milliner fell back, hands on hips, thin lips screwed up, and +regarded the possible purchaser through narrowed eyes of simulated +ecstasy. + +"I don't know," debated the brown beauty, surveying herself in a +looking-glass by means of an awkwardly held hand-mirror. "'Pears to me +this one's too little. Hit makes me look like I was sent for and couldn't +come. But I do love red. I think the red on here is mightly sightly." + +Instantly the woman of the shop had the hat off the dark young head and +in her own hands. + +"This is a powerful pretty red bow," she assented promptly. "I can take +it out just as easy as not, and tack it onto that big hat you like. I +believe you're right; and red certainly does go with yo' hair and eyes." +Again she gazed with languishing admiration at her customer. + +And Judith Barrier was well worth it, tall, justly proportioned, +deep-bosomed, long-limbed, with the fine hands and feet of the true +mountaineer. The thick dusk hair rose up around her brow in a massive, +sculptural line; her dark eyes--the large, heavily fringed eyes of a +dryad--glowed with the fires of youth, and with a certain lambent shining +which was all their own; the stain on her cheeks was deep, answering to +the ripe red of the full lips. + +In point of fact Mrs. Rhody Staggart the milliner considered her a big, +coarse country girl, and thought that a pair of stout corsets well pulled +in would improve her crude figure; but she dealt out compliments without +ceasing as she exchanged the red bow for the blue, and laboriously pinned +the headgear upon the bronze-brown coils, admonishing gravely, "Far over +to one side, honey--jest the way they're a-wearin' them in New York this +minute." + +The buyer once more studied her mirror, and its dumb honesty told her +that she was beautiful. Then she looked about for some human eyes to make +the same communication. + +"What's a-goin' on over yon at the Co't House?" she inquired with languid +interest, looking across the open square. + +"They's a political speakin'," explained the other. "Creed Bonbright he +wants to be elected jestice of the peace and go back to the Turkey Tracks +and set up a office. Fool boy! You know mighty well an' good they'll run +him out o' thar--or kill him, one." + +Although the girl had herself ridden down from Turkey Track Mountain that +morning, and the old Bonbright farm adjoined her own, the news held no +interest for her. She wished the gathering might have been something more +to her purpose; but she solemnly paid for the hat, and with the cheap +finery on her stately young head, which had been more appropriately +crowned with a chaplet of vine leaves, moved to the door. She hoped that +standing there, waiting for the boys to bring her horse, she might +attract some attention by her recently acquired splendour. + +She looked up at the Court House steps. The building was humbly in the +Greek manner, as are so many of the public structures in the South. +Between its great white pillars, flaking paint and half-heartedly +confessing their woodland genesis, stood a tall young man, bareheaded. +The doubtful sunlight of a March day glinted on his uncovered yellow +hair. He was speaking rapidly in a fervid fashion that seemed beyond the +occasion; in his blue eyes shone something of the fanatic's passion; his +bearing was that of a man who conceives himself to have a mission and a +message. + +Judith looked at him. She heard no word of what he was saying--but him +she heard. She heard the high, vibrant voice, saw the fair hair on the +upflung head, the rapt look in the blue eyes with their quick-expanding +pupils. Suddenly her world turned over. In a smother of strange, +uncomprehended emotions, she was gropingly glad she had the new hat--glad +she had it on now, and that Mrs. Staggart herself had adjusted it. On +blind impulse she edged around into plainer view, pushing freely in +amongst the fringe of men and boys, an unheard-of thing for a well taught +mountain girl to do, but Judith was for the moment absolutely unconscious +of their humanity. + +"You never go a-nigh my people," cried Bonbright in that clear thrilling +tenor that is like a trumpet call, "you never go a-nigh them with the +statute--with government--except when the United States marshal takes a +posse up and raids the stills and brings down his prisoners. That's all +the valley knows of the mountain folks. The law's never carried to +anybody up there except the offenders and criminals. The Turkey Track +neighbourhoods, Big and Little, have got a mighty bad name with you-all. +But you ought to understand that violence must come when every man is +obliged to take the law into his own hands. I admit that it's an eye for +an eye and a tooth for a tooth with us now--what else could it be? And +yet we are as faithful to each other, as virtuous, and as God-fearing a +race as those in the valley. I am a mountain man, born and bred in the +Turkey Tracks; and I ask you to send me back to my neighbours with the +law, that they may learn to be good citizens, as they are already good +men and women." + +Upon the word, there broke out at the farthest corner of the square an +abrupt splatter of sound, oaths, cries, punctuated by the swift staccato +of running feet. The ringing voice came to a sudden halt. Out of a little +side street which descended from the mountain, a young fellow burst into +view, running in long leaping bounds, his hands up. Behind him lumbered +Dan Haley the United States marshal, a somewhat heavy-set man, puffing +and panting, yelling, "Halt! halt! halt!" and finally turning loose a +fusillade of shots aimed high over the fleeing lad's head. There was a +drawing back and a scattering in every direction. + +"Hey, Bonbright!" vociferated a man leaping up from the last step where +he had been sitting, pointing to where the marshal's deputy followed +behind herding five or six prisoners from the mountains, "Hey, Bonbright! +There's some of your constituency--some God-fearing Turkey-Trackers--now, +but I reckon you won't own 'em." + +"I will!" shouted Bonbright, whirling upon him, and one got suddenly the +blue fire of his hawk-like eye with the slant brow above. "They _are_ my +people, and the way they're treated is what I've been trying to talk to +you-all about." + +"Well, you better go and take them fellers some law right now," jeered +his interlocutor. "Looks like to me they need it mighty bad." + +"That's just what I'm about," answered Bonbright. "God knows they'll get +no justice unless I do. That's my job," and without another word or a +look behind him he made his way bareheaded through the group on the steps +and down the street. + +Meantime the pursued had turned desperately and dodged into the millinery +store whence Judith Barrier had emerged a little earlier. Instantly there +came out to the listeners the noise of falling articles and breaking +glass, and the squeals and scufflings of the women. The red-faced marshal +dived in after his quarry, and emerged a moment later holding him by one +elbow, swearing angrily. Creed Bonbright came up at the instant, and +Haley, needing some one to whom he could express himself, explained in +voluble anger: + +"The damned little shoat! Said if I'd let him walk a-loose he'd give me +information. You can't trust none of them." + +Bonbright laid a reassuring touch on the fugitive's shoulder as Haley +fumbled after the handcuffs. + +"I ain't been into no stillin', Creed!" panted the squirming boy. + +"Well, don't run then," admonished Bonbright. "You've got no call to. +I'll see that you get justice." + +While he spoke there wheeled into the square, from a nearby waggon-yard, +two young mountaineers on mules, one leading by the bridle-rein a sorrel +horse with a side-saddle on it. At sight of the marshal and those with +him, an almost imperceptible tremor went through the pair. There was a +flicker of nostril, a rounding of eye, as their glance ran swiftly from +one to another of Haley's prisoners. They were like wild game that winds +the hunter. + +"St! You Pony Card, is that them?" whispered Haley, sharply nudging the +prisoner he held. "Turn him a-loose, Bonbright; I've got him handcuffed +now." + +The boy--he was not more than sixteen--choked, reddened, held down his +head, studying the marshal's face anxiously from beneath lowered +flax-coloured brows. + +"Yes, them's Andy and Jeff Turrentine," Bonbright heard the husky, +reluctant whisper. "Now cain't I go?" + +The newcomers were beyond earshot, but the by-play was ominous to them. +The lean young bodies stiffened in their saddles, the reins came up in +their hands. For a moment it seemed as if they would turn and run for it. +But it was too late. Without making any reply Haley shoved his prisoner +into the hands of the deputy and with prompt action intercepted the two +and placed them under arrest. Bonbright observed one of the boys beckon +across the heads of the gathering crowd before he dismounted, and noted +that some one approached from the direction of the Court House steps and +received the three riding animals. In the confusion he did not see who +this was. Haley spoke to his deputy, and then drew their party sharply +off toward the jail, which could be used temporarily for the detention of +United States prisoners. To the last the young Turrentines muttered +together and sent baleful glances toward Bonbright, whom they plainly +conceived to be the author of their troubles. Poor Pony Card plodded with +bent head mutely behind them, a furtive hand travelling now and again to +his eyes. + +Such crowd as the little village had collected was following, Bonbright +with the rest, when he encountered the girl who had come from the +milliner's shop. She stood now alone by the sorrel horse with the +side-saddle on it, holding the bridle-reins of the two mules, and there +was a bewildered look in her dark eyes as the noisy throng swept past her +which brought him--led in the hand of destiny--instantly to her side. + +"What's the matter?" he asked her. "Can I help you?" And Judith who, in +her perturbation, had not seen him before, started violently at the words +and tone. + +"They've tuck the boys," she hesitated, in a rich, broken contralto, that +voice which beyond all others moves the hearts of hearers, "I--I don't +know how I'm a-goin' to get these here mules home. Pete he won't lead so +very well." + +"Oh, were you with the men Haley arrested?" ejaculated Bonbright. + +"Yes, they're my cousins. I don't know what he tuck 'em for," the young, +high-couraged head turned jailward; the dark eyes flashed a resentful +look after the retiring posse. + +"It looks like to me, from what Haley said, that there's nothing against +them," Bonbright reassured her. "But they're likely to be held as +witnesses--that's the worst about this business. + +"I was going over there right now to see what can be done about it--being +a sort of lawyer. But let me help you first. I'm Creed Bonbright--reckon +you know the name--born and raised on Big Turkey Track." + +Judith's heart beat to suffocation, the while she answered in commonplace +phrase, "I shorely do. My name is Judith Barrier; I live with Uncle +Jephthah Turrentine, on my farm. Hit's right next to the old Bonbright +place. We've been livin' thar more'n four years. I hate to go back and +tell Uncle Jep of the boys bein' tuck; and that big mule, Pete, I don't +know how I'm a-goin' to git him out o' the settlement, he's that mean and +feisty about town streets." + +"I reckon I can manage him," Bonbright suggested, looking about. "Oh, +Givens!" he called to a man hurrying past. "When you get over there ask +Haley not to take any definite action--I reckon he wouldn't anyhow. I'm +going to represent the prisoners, and I'll be there inside of half an +hour. Now let me put you on your horse, Miss Judith, and I'll lead the +mules up the road a piece for you." + +And so it came about that Judith sprang to the back of the sorrel nag +from Creed Bonbright's hand. Creed, still bareheaded, and wholly +unconscious of the fact, walked beside her leading the mules. They passed +slowly up the street towards the mountainward edge of Hepzibah, talking +as they went in the soft, low, desultory fashion of their people. + +The noises of the village, aroused from its usual dozing calm, died away +behind them. Beyond the last cabin they entered a sylvan world all their +own. While he talked, questioning and replying gravely and at leisure, +the man was revolving in his mind just what action would be best for the +prisoners whose cause he had espoused. As for Judith, she had forgotten +that such persons existed, that such trivial mischance as their arrest +had just been; she was concerned wholly with the immediate necessity to +charm, to subjugate the man. + +[Illustration: "Creed walked beside her leading the mules."] + +A rustic belle and beauty, used to success in such enterprises, in the +limited time at her command she brought out for Creed's subduing her +little store of primitive arts. She would know, Pete suggesting the +topic, if he didn't despise a mule, adding encouragingly that she did. +The ash, it seemed, was the tree of her preference; didn't he think it +mighty sightly now when it was just coming into bloom? His favourite +season of the year, his favoured colour, of such points she made inquiry, +giving him, in an elusive feminine fashion, ample opportunity to relate +himself to her. And always he answered. When all was spoken, and at the +first sharp rise she drew rein for the inevitable separation, she could +not have said that she had failed; but she knew that she had not +succeeded. + +"Ye can jest turn Pete a-loose now," she told him gently. "He'll foller +from here on." + +Bonbright, on his part, was not quite aware why he paused here, yet it +seemed cold and unfriendly to say good-bye at once, Again he assured her +that he would go immediately to the jail and find what could be done for +her cousins. There was no more to be said now--yet they lingered. + +It was a blowy, showery March day, its lips puckered for weeping or +laughter at any moment, the air full of the dainty pungencies of new +life. Winged ants, enjoying their little hour of glory, swarmed from +their holes and turned stone or stump to a flickering, moving grey. About +them where they stood was the awakening world of nature. Great, pale blue +bird-foot violets were blooming on favoured slopes, and in protected +hollows patches of eyebright made fairy forests on the moss, while under +tatters of dead leaves by the brookside arbutus blushed. Above their +heads the tracery of branches was a lace-work overlaid with fanlike +budding green leaves, except where the maples showed scarlet tassels, or +the Judas tree flaunted its bold, lying, purple-pink promise of fruitage +never to be fulfilled. + +Could two young creatures be wiser than nature's self? It was the new +time; all the gauzy-winged ephemerae in the moist March woods were +throbbing with it, buzzing or flashing about seeking mates and nectar. +The earth had wakened from her winter sleep and set her face toward her +ancient, ardent lover, the sun. In the soul of Judith Barrier--Judith the +nature woman--all this surged strongly. As for the man, he had sent forth +his spirit in so general a fashion, he conceived himself to have a +mission so impersonal, that he scarce remembered what should or should +not please or attract Creed Bonbright. + +Judith dreaded lest he make his farewells before she had from him some +earnest of a future meeting. He could not say good-bye and let her leave +him so! It seemed to her that if he did she should die before she reached +the mountain-top. Dark, rich, earth-born, earth-fast, material, she +looked down at Creed where he stood beside her, his hand on the sorrel's +neck, his calm blue eyes raised to hers. Her gaze lingered on the fair +hair flying in the March breeze, above a face selfless as that of some +young prophet. Her eager, undisciplined nature found here what it craved. +Coquetry had not availed her; it had fallen off him unrecognised--this +man who answered it absently, and thought his own thoughts. And with the +divine pertinacity of life itself she delved in the ancient wisdom of her +sex for a lure to make him rise and follow her. It was not bright eyes +nor red lips that could move or please him? But she had seen him moved, +aroused. The hint was plain. Instantly abandoning her personal siege, she +espoused the cause of her bodiless rival. + +"I--I heard you a-speakin' back there," she said with a little catch in +her breath. + +Bonbright's eyes returned from the far distances to which they had +travelled after giving her--Judith Barrier, so worthy of a blue-eyed +youth's respectful attention--a passing glance. She replied to his gaze +with one full of a meaning to him at that time indecipherable; +nevertheless it was an ardent, compelling look which he must needs answer +with some confession of himself. + +"You wouldn't understand what I was trying to tell about," he began +gently. "Since I've been living in the valley, where folks get rich and +see a heap of what they call pleasure, I've had many a hard thought about +the lives of our people up yonder in the mountains. I want to go back to +my people with--I want to tell them--" + +The girl leaned forward in her saddle, burning eyes fixed on his intent +face, red lips apart. + +"Yes--what?" she breathed. "What is it you want to say to the folks back +home? You ort to come and say it. We need it bad." + +"Do you think so?" asked Bonbright doubtfully. "Do you reckon they would +listen to me? I don't know. Sometimes I allow maybe I'd better stay here +where the Judge wants me to till I'm an older man and more experienced." + +He studied the beautiful, down-bent face greedily now, but it was not the +eye of a man looking at a maid. His thoughts were with the work he hoped +to do. Judith's heart contracted with fear, and then set off beating +heavily. Wait till he was an old man? Would love wait? Somebody else +would claim him--some town girl would find the way to charm him. In sheer +terror she put down her hand and laid it upon his. + +"Don't you never think it," she protested. "You're needed right now. +After a while will be too late. Why, I come a-past your old home in the +rain last Wednesday, and I could 'a' cried to see the winders dark, and +the grass all grown up to the front door. You come back whar you +belong--" she had almost said "honey"--"and you'll find there is need +a-plenty for folks like you." + +"Well, they all allow that I'll be elected next Thursday," Creed +assented, busying himself over the lengthening of Beck's bridle, that she +might lead the mule the more handily. "And if I am I'll be in the Turkey +Tracks along in April and find me a place to set up an office. If I'm +elected----" + +"Elected! An' ef yo'r not?" she cried, filled with scorn of such a paltry +condition. What difference could it make whether or not he were elected? +Wouldn't his hair be just as yellow, his eyes as blue? Would his voice be +any less the call to love? + +He smiled at her tolerantly, handing up the lengthened strap. + +"Well, I don't just rightly know what I will do, then," he debated. + +"But you're a-comin' up to the Turkey Tracks anyhow, to--to see yo' +folks," persisted Judith with a rising triumph in her tone. + +"Yes," acquiesced Bonbright, "I'll come up in April anyhow." + +And with this assurance the girl rode slowly away, leading Beck, the now +resigned Pete following behind. All the sounds from the valley were +gathered as in a vast bowl and flung upward, refined by distance. A +moment she halted listening, then breasted the first rise and entered +that deep silence which waits the mountain dweller. The great forest +closed about her. + +Creed Bonbright stood for a moment in the open road looking after her. +Something she had conveyed to him, some call sent forth, which had not +quite reached the ear of his spirit, and yet which troubled his calm. He +lifted his gaze toward the bulk of the big mountain looming above him. He +passed his hand absently through his fair hair, then tossed his head back +with a characteristic motion. It was good to know he was needed up there. +It was good to know he would be welcomed. So far the girl had made her +point. After this the mountains and Judith Barrier would mean one thing +in the young man's mind. As the shortest way to them both, he turned and +walked swiftly down toward the settlement and to the undertaking which +there awaited him. + + + + +Chapter II + +At "The Edge" + + +The girl on the sorrel nag and the two riderless animals toiled patiently +up the broad, timbered flank of Big Turkey Track, following the raw red +gash in the greenery that was the road. + +She gazed with wondering eyes at the familiar landmarks of the trail. All +was just as it had been when she rode down it at dawn that morning, Andy +and Jeff ahead on their mules whistling, singing, skylarking like two +playful bear cubs. It was herself that was changed. She pushed the cheap +hat off her hot forehead and tried to win to some coherence of thought +and--so far had she already come on a new, strange path--looked back with +wondering uncomprehension, as upon the beliefs and preferences of a crude +primitive ancestress, to the girl who had cared that this hat cost a +dollar and a half instead of a dollar and a quarter--only a few hours +since when she bought it at the store. She went over the bits of talk +that had been between her and Creed Bonbright. What had he said his +favourite colour was? Memory brought back his rapt young face when she +put the question to him. She trembled with delight at the recollection. +His eyes were fixed upon the sky, and he had answered her absently, +"blue." + +Blue! What a fool--what a common thickheaded fool she had been all her +days! She let the sorrel take his own gait, hooked his bridle-rein and +Beck's upon the saddle-horn, and lifting her arms withdrew the hatpins +and took off the unworthy headgear. For a moment she regarded savagely +the cheap red ribbon which had appeared so beautiful to her; then with +strong brown fingers tore it loose and flung it in the dust of the road, +where Pete shied at it, and the stolid Beck coming on with flapping ears +set hoof upon it. + +What vast world forces move with our movements, pluck us uncomprehending +from the station we had struggled for, and make our sorrowful meat of our +attained desires! The stars in their courses pivot and swing on these +subtle attractions, ancient as themselves. Judith Barrier, tearing the +gaudy ribbon from her hat and casting it upon the road under her horse's +feet, stood to learn what the priests of Isis knew thousands of years +ago, that red is the symbol of pleasure and of mere animal comfort, while +blue is the colour of pure reason. + +Halfway up the trail they rode into a cloud that rested trembling on the +mountain-side, passed through it and emerged upon fitful sunlight. Near +the top there came a sudden shower which descended with the souse of an +overturned bucket. It won small attention from Judith, but Pete and Beck +resented it in mule fashion, with a laying back of ears and lashing out +of heels. These amenities were exchanged for the most part across the +intervening sorrel nag and his rider, and Selim replied promptly and in +kind, almost unseating Judith. + +"You Selim!" she cried jerking the rein. "You feisty Pete! You no-account +Beck! What ails you-all? Cain't you behave?" and once more she lapsed +into dreaming. It was Selim who, wise and old, stopped at Aunt Nancy +Card's gate and gave Judith an opportunity to descend if such were her +preference. + +On the porch of the cabin sat a tall, lean, black-eyed old man smoking +his pipe, Jephthah Turrentine himself. Nancy Card, a dry, brown little +sparrow of a woman, occupied a chair opposite him, and negotiated a pipe +quite as elderly and evil-smelling as his own. + +The kerchief folded about her neck was notably white; her clean +check-apron rustled with starch; but the half-grey hair crinkling +rebelliously from its loose coil was never confined by anything more +rigorous than a tucking comb. In moments of stress this always slipped +down, and had to be vigorously replaced, so that stray strands were apt +to be tossing about her eyes--fearless, direct blue eyes, that looked out +of her square, wrinkled, weather-beaten little face with the sincere gaze +of an urchin. Back of her chair lay a bundle of white-oak splits for use +in her by-trade of basket-weaver; above them hung bundles of drying +herbs, for Nancy was a sick-nurse and a bit of an herb-doctor. She had +made a hard and a more or less losing fight against poverty--the men folk +of these hardy, valiant little women seem predestined to be shiftless. + +It came back to Judith dimly as she looked at them--she was in a mood to +remember such things--that her uncle had courted Nancy Card when these +two were young people, that they had quarrelled, both had married, reared +families, and been widowed; and they were quarrelling still! Acrimonious +debate with Nancy was evidently such sweet pain that old Jephthah sought +every opportunity for it, and the sudden shower in the vicinity of her +cabin had offered him an excuse to-day. + +Nancy did not confine her practice to what she would have called humans, +but doctored a horse or a cow with equal success. One cold spring a +little chicken had its feet frozen in the wet barnyard so badly that it +lost one of them, and Nancy, who had taken the poor mite into the house +and nursed it till she loved it, constructed for it a wooden leg +consisting of a small, light peg strapped to the stump. And thereafter +Nicodemus, a rooster who must now belie the name since he could not cling +to a perch with his single foot, became an institution in the Card +household. + +Jephthah Turrentine was a natural bone-setter, and was sent for far and +near to reduce a dislocation or bandage a broken limb. In the pursuit of +this which came to be almost a profession, he acquired a good knowledge +of tending upon the sick, and the bitterness of rival practitioners was +added to the score between him and Nancy. The case of Nicodemus furnished +the man with a chance to call the woman a chicken doctor, and the name +appealing to the humorous side of mountain character stuck to her, +greatly to her disgust. + +Aunt Nancy's dooryard was famous for its flowers, being a riot of pied +bloom from March till December. Even now fire-in-the-bush and bridal +wreath made gay the borders. + +"Good land, Jude Barrier!" called Nancy herself. "You're as wet as a +drownded rat. 'Light and come in." + +Old Turrentine permitted his niece to clamber from Selim, and secure him +and both mules. + +"Whar's the boys?" he inquired in a great, sonorous bass, the deep, +true-pitched voice promised by the contours of strong bony arches under +heavy brows and the strong nose-bridge. + +"In jail," responded Judith laconically, turning to enter the gate. Then, +as she walked up the hard-trodden clay path between the tossing, dripping +heads of daffodils, "Uncle Jep, did you know Creed Bonbright's daddy?" + +"In jail!" echoed Nancy Card, making a pretence of trying to suppress a +titter, and thereby rendering it more offensive. "Ain't they beginnin' +ruther young?" + +Tall old Jephthah got to his feet, knocked the ashes from his pipe and +put it in his pocket. + +"Who tuck 'em?" he inquired briefly, but with a fierce undernote in his +tones. "What was they tuck fer?" + +"I never noticed," said Judith, standing on the step before them, +wringing the wet from her black calico riding skirt. "Nobody named it to +me what they was tuck fer. I was talkin' to Creed Bonbright, and he +'lowed to find out. He said that was his business." + +"Creed Bonbright," echoed her uncle; "what's he got to do with it? He's +been livin' down in Hepzibah studyin' to be a lawyer--did he have Jeff +and Andy jailed?" + +Judith shook her head. "He didn't have nothing to do with it," she +answered. "He 'lowed they would be held for witnesses against some men +Haley had arrested. But he's goin' to come back and live on Turkey +Track," she added, as though that were the only thing of importance in +the world. "He says we-all need law in the mountings, and he's a-goin' to +bring it to us." + +"Well, he'd better let my boys alone if he don't want trouble," growled +old Jephthah but half appeased. + +"I reckon a little touch of law now an' agin won't hurt yo' boys," put in +Nancy Card smoothly. "My chaps always tuck to law like a duck to water. I +reckon I ain't got the right sympathy fer them that has lawless young +'uns." + +"Yo' Pony was arrested afore Andy and Jeff," Judith remarked suddenly, +without any apparent malice. "He was the first one I seen comin' down the +road, and Dan Haley behind him a-shootin' at him." + +Jephthah Turrentine forebore to laugh. But he deliberately drew out his +old pipe again, filled it and stepped inside for a coal with which to +light it. + +"Mebbe yo' sympathies will be more tenderer for me in my afflictions of +lawless sons after this, Nancy," he called derisively over his shoulder. + +"Hit's bound to be a mistake 'bout Pony," declared the little old woman +in a bewildered tone. "Pone ain't but risin' sixteen, and he's the +peacefullest child----" + +"Jest what I would have said about my twin lambs," interrupted old +Jephthah with twinkling eye, as he appeared in the doorway drawing +mightily upon the newly lighted pipe, tossing his great beard from side +to side of his mighty chest. "My chaps is all as peaceful as kittens; but +some old woman gits to talkin' and gives 'em a bad name, and it goes from +lip to lip that the Turrentine boys is lawless. Hit's a sad thing when a +woman's tongue is too long and limber, and hung in the middle so it works +at both ends; the reppytations hit can destroy is a sight." + +"But a body's own child--they' son! They' bound to stan' up for him, +whether he's in the right or the wrong," maintained Nancy stoutly. + +"Huh," grunted Jephthah, "offspring is cur'ous. Sometimes hit 'pears like +you air kin to them, and they ain't kin to you. That Pony boy of your'n +is son to a full mealsack; he's plumb filial and devoted thataway to a +dollar, if so be he thinks you've got one in yo' pocket. The facts in the +business air, Nancy, that you've done sp'iled him tell he's plumb rotten, +and a few of the jailings that you so kindly ricommend for my pair won't +do him no harm." + +Nancy tossed up her head to reply; but at the moment a small boy, +followed by a smaller girl, coming around the corner of the house, +created a diversion. The girl, a little dancing imp with a frazzle of +flying red hair and red-brown eyes, catching sight of Judith ran to her +and flung herself head foremost in the visitor's lap, where Judith cooed +over her and cuddled her, rumpling the bright hair, rubbing her crimson +cheek against the child's peachy bloom. + +"Little Buck and Beezy," said Nancy Card, addressing them both, "Yo' unc' +Pony's in jail. What you-all goin' to do about it?" + +The small brown man of six stopped, his feet planted wide on the sward, +his freckled face grave and stern as became his sex. + +"Ef the boys goes down for to git him out, I'm goin' along," Little Buck +announced seriously. "Is they goin', granny?" + +"I'll set my old rooster on the jail man, an' hit'll claw 'im," announced +Beezy, reckless of distance and likelihood. "My old rooster can claw dest +awful, ef he ain't got but one leg." + +Nancy chuckled. These grandchildren were the delight of her heart. + +The rain had ceased for the moment; the old man moved to the porch edge, +sighting at the sky. + +"I don't know whar Blatch is a-keepin' hisself," he observed. "Mebbe I +better be a-steppin'." + +But even as he spoke a tall young mountaineer swung into view down the +road, dripping from the recent rain, and with that resentful air the best +of us get from aggressions of the weather. Blatchley Turrentine, old +Jephthah's nephew, was as brown as an Indian, and his narrow, glinting, +steel-grey eyes looked out oddly cold and alien from under level black +brows, and a fell of stiff black hair. + +When the orphaned Judith, living in her Uncle Jephthah's family, was +fourteen, the household had removed from the old Turrentine place--which +was rented to Blatchley Turrentine--to her better farm, whose tenant had +proved unsatisfactory. Well hidden in a gulch on the Turrentine acres +there was an illicit still, what the mountain people call a blockade +still; and it had been in pretty constant operation in earlier years. +When Jephthah abandoned those stony fields for Judith's more productive +acres, he definitely turned his own back upon this feature, but Blatch +Turrentine revived the illegal activities and enlisted the old man's boys +in them. Jeff and Andy had a tobacco patch in one corner where the ground +suited, and in another field Jim Cal raised a little corn. Aside from +these small ventures, the place was given over entirely to the secret +still. The father held scornfully aloof; his attitude was +characteristic. + +"Ef I pay no tax I'll make no whiskey," he declared. "You-all boys will +find yourselves behind bars many a time when you'd ruther be out +squirrel-huntin'. Ef you make blockade whiskey every fool that gits mad +at you has got a stick to hold over you. You are good-Lord-good-devil to +everybody, for fear they'll lead to yo' still; or else you mix up with +folks about the business and kill somebody an' git a bad name. These here +blockaded stills calls every worthless feller in the district; most o' +the foolishness in this country goes on around 'em when the boys gits +filled up. I let every man choose his callin', but I don't choose to be +no moonshiner, and ef you boys is wise you'll say the same." + +As Blatchley came up now and caught sight of the animals tethered at the +fence he began irritably: + +"What in the name of common sense did Andy and Jeff leave they' mules +here for? I can't haul any corn till I get the team and the waggon +together." + +"Looks like you've hauled too many loads of corn that nobody knows the +use of," broke out the irrepressible Nancy. "Andy and Jeff's in jail, and +some fool has tuck my little Pone along with the others." + +Blatch flung a swift look at his uncle; but whatever his private +conviction, to dishonour a member of his tribe in the face of the enemy, +on the heels of defeat, was not what Jephthah Turrentine would do. + +"The boys is likely held for witnesses, Jude allows," the elder explained +briefly. "You take one mule and I'll ride 'tother," he added. "I'll he'p +ye with the corn." + +This was a great concession, and as such Blatchley accepted it. + +"All right," he returned. "Much obliged." + +Then he glanced unconcernedly at Judith, and, instead of making that +haste toward the corn-hauling activities which his manner had suggested, +moved loungingly up the steps. Beezy, from her sanctuary in Judith's lap, +viewed him with contemptuous disfavour. Her brother, not so safely +situated, made to pass the intruder, going wide like a shying colt. + +With a sudden movement Blatchley caught the child by the shoulders. There +was a pantherlike quickness in the pounce that was somehow daunting from +an individual of this man's size and impassivity. + +"Hold on thar, young feller," the newcomer remarked. "Whar you a-goin' +to, all in sech haste?" + +"You turn me a-loose," panted the child. "I'm a-goin' over to my Jude." + +"Oh, she's yo' Jude, is she? Well they's some other folks around here +thinks she's their Jude--what you goin' to do about it?" + +All this time he held the small, dignified atom of humanity in a +merciless grip that made Little Buck ridiculous before his beloved, and +fired his childish soul to a very ecstasy of helpless rage. + +"I'll--kill--you when I git to be a man!" the child gasped, between tears +and terror. "I'll thest kill you--and I'll wed Jude. You turn me +a-loose--that's what you do." + +Blatch laughed tauntingly and raised the little fellow high in air. + +"Ef I was to turn you a-loose now hit'd bust ye," he drawled. + +"I don't keer. I----" + +Around the corner of the cabin drifted Nicodemus, the wooden-legged +rooster, stumping gravely with his dot-and-carry-one gait. + +"Lord, Nancy, thar comes the one patient ye ever cured!" chuckled old +Jephthah. "I don't wonder yo're proud enough of him to roof him and +affectionate him for the balance of his life." + +"I reckon you'd do the same, ef so be ye should ever cure one," snapped +Nancy, rising instantly to the bait, and turning her back on the others. +"As 't is, ef they hilt the buryin' from the house of the feller that +killed the patient I reckon Jude wouldn't have nothin' to do but git up +funeral dinners." + +Little Buck, despairing of granny's interference, began to cry. At the +sound Judith came suddenly out of a revery to spring up and catch him +away from the hateful restraining hands. + +"I don't know what the Lord's a-thinkin' about to let sech men as you +live, Blatch Turrentine!" she said almost mechanically. "Ef I was +a-tendin' to matters I'd 'a' had you dead long ago. Ef you're good for +anything on this earth I don't know what it is." + +"Oh, yes you do," Blatchley returned as the old man started down the +steps. "I'd make the best husband for you of any feller in the two Turkey +Tracks--and you'll find it out one of these days." + +The girl answered only with a contemptuous glance. + +"Come again--when you ain't got so long to stay," Nancy sped them sourly. +"Jude, you'd better set awhile and get your skirts dry." She looked after +Blatch as he moved up the road, then at little Buck, so ashamed of his +trembling lip. Her face darkened angrily. She turned slowly to Judith. + +"What you gwine to do with that feller, Jude?" she queried +significantly. + +"Do? Why, nothin'. He ain't nothin' to me," responded the girl +indifferently. + +"He ain't, hey? Well, he's bound to marry ye, honey," said the older +woman. + +"Huh, he ain't the first--and won't be the last, I reckon," assented +Judith easily. + +"Ye'd better watch out fer that man, Jude," persisted Nancy, after a +moment's silence. "He'll git ye, yet. I know his kind. He ain't a-keerin' +fer yo' ruthers--whether you want him or no. He jest aims to have +_you_." + +"Well, I reckon he'll about have to aim over agin," observed the unmoved +Judith. + +"An' Elder Drane? Air ye gwine to take him?--I know he's done axed ye," +pursued Nancy hesitantly. + +"'Bout 'leven times," agreed Judith with perfect seriousness. "No--I +wouldn't have the man, not ef he's made of pure gold." She added with a +sudden little smile and a catch of the breath: "Them's awful nice chaps +o' his; I'd most take him to git them. The baby now--hit's the sweetest +thing!" And she tumbled Beezy tumultuously in her lap, then suddenly +inquired, apparently without any volition of her own, "Aunt Nancy, did +you know Creed Bonbright's folks?" + +"Good Lord, yes!" returned old Nancy. "But come on inside and set, Jude. +This sun ain't a-goin' to dry yo' skirt. Come in to the fire. Don't take +that thar cheer, the behime legs is broke, an' it's apt to lay you +sprawling. I've knowed Creed Bonbright sence he wasn't knee-high to a +turkey, and I knowed his daddy afore him, and his grand-daddy, for the +matter of that." + +Avoiding the treacherous piece of furniture against which she had been +warned, Judith slipped out of her wet riding-skirt and arranged it in +front of the fire to dry, turning then and seating herself on the broad +hearth at Nancy's knee, where she prompted feverishly, + +"And is all the Bonbrights moved out of the neighbourhood?" + +The old woman drew a few meditative whiffs on her pipe. + +"All gone," she nodded; "some of 'em killed up in the big feud, and some +moved away--mostly to Texas." Presently she added: + +"That there Bonbright tribe is a curious nation of folks. They're always +after great things, and barkin' their shins against rocks in the way. +Creed's mammy--she was Judge Gillenwaters's sister, down in +Hepzibah--died when he was no bigger'n Little Buck, and his pappy never +wedded again. We used to name him and Creed Big 'Fraid and Little 'Fraid; +they was always round together, like a man and his shadder. Then the +feuds broke out mighty bad, and the Blackshearses got Esher Bonbright one +night in a mistake for some of my kin--or so it was thort. Anyhow, the +man was dead, and Creed lived with me fer a spell till his uncle down in +Hepzibah wanted him to come and learn to be a lawyer." + +"Lived right here--in this house?" inquired Judith, looking around her, +as she rose and turned the riding-skirt. + +"Lord, yes--why not? You would a-knowed all about it, only your folks +never moved in from the Fur Cove neighbourhood till the year Creed went +down to the settlement." + +The girl sank back on the hearth, but continued to gaze about her, and +the tell-tale expression in her eyes seemed to afford Nancy Card much +quiet amusement. + +"Do you reckon he'll live with you again when he comes back into the +mountains?" she inquired finally. + +"I reckon he'll be weddin' one of them thar town gals and fetchin' a wife +home to his own farm over by yo' house," suggested the inveterate tease. + +Judith went suddenly white, and then red. "You don't know of anybody--you +hain't heard he was promised, have you?" she hesitated. + +"I ain't hearn that he was, and I ain't hearn that he wasn't," returned +Nancy serenely. "The gal that gits Creed Bonbright'll be doin' mighty +well; but also she may not find hit right easy for to trap him. I'll +promise ef he does come up hyer again I'll speak a good word for you, +Jude. The Lord knows I don't see how you make out to live with that thar +old man. You'll deserve a crown and a harp o' gold sot with diamonds ef +you stan' it much longer." + +Judith put on the now thoroughly dried riding-skirt, and the two women +went outside together. + +"Well, good-bye, Aunt Nancy," she said, as she led the sorrel nag to the +edge of the porch and made ready to mount. "I'll be over and bring the +pieces for you to start me out on that Risin' Sun quilt a-Wednesday." + +It was late afternoon as she took her homeward way across the level of +the broad mountain-top to the Turrentine place. She left the +main-travelled road and struck directly into a forest short-cut. After +the rain earth and sky were newly washed; the clear, sweetened air was +full of the scent of damp loam and new-ploughed fields; the colours about +her were freshened and glad, and each distant bird-note rang clear and +vivid. To Mrs. Rhody Staggart and her likes at Hepzibah she might be a +crude, awkward country girl; here she was a princess in her own domain; +and it was a noble realm through which she moved as she went forward +under the great trees that rose straight and tall from a black soil, +making pillared aisles away from her on every side. The fern was thick +under foot--it would brush her saddle-girth, come midsummer. Down the +long vistas under the greening trees, where the moist air hung thick, her +bemused eyes caught the occasional roseflash of azalea through the pearly +mist, her nostril was greeted by their wandering, intensely sweet +perfume, with its curious undernote of earth smell. + +She smiled vaguely at the first butterfly she had seen, and again as she +noted the earliest lizard basking in the sun-warmed hollow of a big rock. +Absently her gaze sought for cinnamon fern in low woods, sweet fern in +the thickets, and exquisite maidenhair just beginning to uncurl from the +black leaf mould of dripping brakes. + +Like a woman in a dream she made her progress, riding through the +wonderful stillness of the vast wild land, an ocean on which each +littlest sound was afloat, so that each was given its true value almost +like a musical tone. An awful, beautiful silence this, brooding back of +every sound; nothing in such a place gives forth mere senseless noise; +the ripple of frogs in marsh and spring branch fall upon the sense as +sweet as bird-songs. The clamour of little falls, the solemn suggestion +of wind in the pines, the sweet broken jangle of cow-bells, a catbird in +a tree--a continuous yet zigzag sort of warble, silver and sibilant notes +alternating,--the rare wild turkey's call along a deeply embowered +creek--one by one all these came to Judith's dreaming ears, clear, +perfect, individual, on the majestic sea of silence about her. + +She turned Selim's head at a little intersecting trail, and rode +considerably out of her way to pass the old Bonbright place and brood +upon its darkened windows and grass-besieged doorstone. Some day all that +would be changed. Still in her waking dream she unsaddled Selim at the +log barn, and turned him loose in his open pasture. She laid off her town +attire, put on her cotton working-dress, kindled afresh the fire on the +broad hearthstone and got supper. Her Uncle Jephthah and Blatch +Turrentine came in late, weary from their work of hauling corn to that +destination which old Nancy had announced as disreputably indefinite. The +second son of the family, Wade, a man of perhaps twenty-four, was with +them, and had already been told of the mishap to Andy and Jeff. + +Old Jephthah sat at the head of the board, his black beard falling to his +lap, his finely domed brow relieved against a background of shadows. +Judith needed the small brass lamp at the hearthstone, and a tallow +candle rather inadequately lit the supper-table. The corners of the room +were in darkness; only the cloth and dishes, the faces and hands of those +about the table showed forth in sudden light or motion. + +Hung on the rough walls, and glimpsed in occasional flickers only, were +Judith's big maple bread-bowl, the churn-dash, spurtle, sedge-broom, and +a round glass bottle for rolling piecrust; cheek by jowl with old +Jephthah's bullet moulds and the pot-hooks he had forged for Judith. +There were strings of dried pumpkin, too, and of shining red peppers. On +a low shelf, scarce visible at all in the dense shadow, stood a keg of +sorghum, and one beside it of vinegar, flanked by the butter-keeler and +the salt piggin with its cedar staves and hickory hoops. And there, too, +was the broken coffee-pot in which garden seeds were hoarded. + +"What's all this I hear about Andy and Jeff bein' took?" inquired a +plaintive voice from the darkened doorway whose door, with its heavy, +home-made latch, swung back against the wall on its great, rude, wooden +hinges, as abruptly out of the shadow appeared a man who set a plump hand +on either jamb and stared into the room with a round, white, anxiously +inquiring face. It was Jim Cal, eldest of the sons of Jephthah +Turrentine, married, and living in a cabin a short distance up the slope. +"Who give the information?" he asked as soon as he had peered all about +the room and found no outsider present. + +"Well, we hearn that _you_ did, podner," jeered Blatch. + +"Come in and set," invited the head of the household, with the +mountaineer's unforgetting hospitality. "Draw up--draw up. Reach and take +off." + +"Well--I--I might," faltered the fleshy one, sidling toward the table and +getting himself into a seat. Without further word his father passed the +great dish of fried potatoes, then the platter of bacon. Judith brought +hot coffee and corn pone for him. She did not sit down with the men, +having quite enough to do to get the meal served. + +Unheedingly she heard the matter discussed at the table; only when Creed +Bonbright's name came up was she moved to listen and put in her word. +Something in her manner of describing the assistance Bonbright offered +seemed to go against Blatch's grain. + +"Got to look out for these here folks that's so free with their offers o' +he'p," he grunted. "Man'll slap ye on the back and tell ye what a fine +feller ye air whilst he's feelin' for your pocket-book--that's town +ways." + +The girl was like one hearkening for a finer voice amid all this +distracting noise; she could hear neither. She made feverish haste to +clear away and wash her dishes, that she might creep to her own room +under the eaves. Through her open casement came up to her the sounds of +the April night: a heightened chorus of little frogs in a rain-fed +branch; nearer in the dooryard a half-dozen tree-toads trilling +plaintively as many different minors; with these, scents of growing, +sharpened and sweetened by the dark. And all night the cedar tree which +stood close to the porch edge below moved in the wind of spring, and, +chafing against the shingles, spoke through the miniature music in its +deep, muffled legato, a soft baritone note like a man's voice--a lover's +voice--calling to her beneath her window. + +It roused her from fitful slumbers to happy waking, when she lay and +stared into the dark, and painted for herself on its sombre background +Creed Bonbright's figure, the yellow uncovered head close to her knee as +he stood and talked at the foot of the mountain trail. And the voice of +the tree in the eager spring airs said to her waiting heart--whispered it +softly, shouted and tossed it abroad so that all might have heard it had +they been awake and known the shibboleth, murmured it in tones of +tenderness that penetrated her with bliss--that Creed was +coming--coming--coming to her, through the April woods. + + + + +Chapter III + +Suitors + + +April was in the mountains. All the vast timbered slopes and tablelands +of the Cumberlands were one golden dapple, as yet differentiated by +darker greens and heavier shadows only where some group of pine or cedar +stood. April in the Cumberlands is the May or early June of New England. +Here March has the days of shine and shower; while to February belongs +the gusty turbulence usually attributed to March. Now sounded the calls +of the first whippoorwills in the dusk of evening; now the first +mocking-bird sang long before day, very sweetly and softly, and again +before moonrise; hours of sun he filled with bolder rejoicings, +condescending in his more antic humour to mimic the hens that began to +cackle around the barn. Every thicket by the water-courses blushed with +azaleas; all the banks were gay with wild violets. + +Throughout March's changeful emotional season, night after night in those +restless vehement impassioned airs, the cedar tree talked ardently to +Judith. Through April's softer nights she wakened often to listen to it. +It went fondly over its first assurances. And the time of Creed +Bonbright's advent was near at hand now. Thought of it made light her +step as she went about her work. + +"Don't you never marry a lazy man, Jude." + +The wife of Jim Cal Turrentine halted on the doorstep, a coarse white cup +containing the coffee she had come to borrow poised in her hand as she +turned to harangue the girl in the kitchen. + +"I ain't aimin' to wed no man. Huh, I say marry! I'm not studyin' about +marryin'," promptly responded Judith in the mountain girl's unfailing +formula; but she coloured high, and bent, pot-hooks in hand, to the great +hearth to shift the clumsy Dutch oven that contained her bread. + +"That's what gals allers says," commented Iley Turrentine discontentedly. +"Huldy's forever singin' that tune. But let a good-lookin' feller come in +reach and I 'low any of you will change the note. Huldy's took her foot +in her hand and put out--left me with the whole wash to do, and Jim Cal +in the bed declarin' he's got a misery in his back. Don't you never wed a +lazy man." + +"Whar's Huldy gone?" inquired Judith, sauntering to the door and looking +out on the glad beauty of the April morning with fond brooding eyes. The +grotesque bow-legged pot-hooks dangled idly in her fingers. + +"Over to Nancy Cyard's to git her littlest spinnin' wheel--so she _said_. +I took notice that she had a need for that wheel as soon as ever she +hearn tell that Creed Bonbright was up from Hepzibah stayin' at the +Cyards's." + +Had not Iley been so engrossed with her own grievances, the sudden heat +of the look Judith turned upon her must have enlightened her. + +"Huldy knowed him right well when she was waitin' on table at Miz. +Huffaker's boarding-house down at Hepzibah," the woman went on. "I ain't +got no use for these here fellers that's around tendin' to the whole +world's business--they' own chil'en is mighty apt to go hongry. But thar, +what does a gal think of that by the side o' curly hair and soft-spoken +ways?" + +For Judith Barrier at once all the light was gone out of the spring +morning. The bird in the Rose of Sharon bush that she had taken for a +thrush--why, the thing cawed like a crow. She could have struck her +visitor. And then, with an uncertain impulse of gratitude, she was glad +to be told anything about Creed, to be informed that others knew his hair +was yellow and curly. + +"Gone?" sounded old Jephthah's deep tones from within, as Mrs. Jim Cal +made her reluctant way back to a sick husband and a house full of work +and babies. "Lord, to think of a woman havin' the keen tongue that Iley's +got, and her husband keepin' fat on it!" + +"Uncle Jep," inquired Judith abruptly, "did you know Creed Bonbright was +at Nancy Card's--stayin' there, I mean?" + +"No," returned the old man, seeing in this a chance to call at the cabin, +where, beneath the reception that might have been offered an interloper, +even a duller wit than his might have divined a secret cordial welcome. +"I reckon I better find time to step over that way an' ax is there +anything I can do to he'p 'em out." + +"I wish 't you would," assented Judith so heartily that he turned and +regarded her with surprise. "An' ef you see Huldy over yon tell her she's +needed at home. Jim Cal's sick, and Iley can't no-way git along without +her." + +"I reckon James Calhoun Turrentine ain't got nothin' worse 'n the old +complaint that sends a feller fishin' when the days gits warm," opined +Jim Cal's father. "I named that boy after the finest man that ever walked +God's green earth--an' then the fool had to go and git fat on me! To +think of me with a _fat_ son! I allers did hold that a fat woman was bad +enough, but a fat man ort p'intedly to be led out an' killed." + +"Jude, whar's my knife," came the call from the window in a masculine +voice. "Pitch it out here, can't you?" + +Judith took the pocket-knife from the mantel, and going to the window +tossed it to her cousin Wade Turrentine, who was shaping an axe helve at +the chip pile. + +"Do you know whar Huldy's gone?" she inquired, setting her elbows on the +sill and staring down at the young fellow accusingly. + +"Nope--an' don't care neither," said Wade, contentedly returning to his +whittling. He was expecting to marry Huldah Spiller, Iley's younger +sister, within a few months, and the reply was thus conventional. + +"Well, you'd better care," urged Judith. "You better make her stay home +and behave herself. She's gone over to Nancy Card's taggin' after Creed +Bonbright. I wouldn't stand it ef I was you." + +"I ain't standin'--I'm settin'," retorted Wade with rather feeble wit; +but the girl noted with satisfaction the quick, fierce spark of anger +that leaped to life in his clear hazel eyes, the instant stiffening of +his relaxed figure. Like a child playing with fire, she was ready to set +alight any materials that came within reach of her reckless fingers, so +only that she fancied her own ends might be served. Now she went uneasily +back to the hearthstone. Her uncle, noting that she appeared engrossed in +her baking, gave a surreptitious glance into the small ancient mirror +standing on the high mantel, made a half-furtive exchange of coats, and +prepared to depart. + +Up at the crib Blatch Turrentine was loading corn, and Jim Cal came +creeping across from his own cabin whence Iley had ejected him. He stood +for a while, humped, hands in pockets, watching the other's strong body +spring lithely to its task. Finally he began in his plaintive, +ineffectual voice. + +"Blatch, I take notice that you seem to be settin' up to Jude. Do ye +think hit's wise?" + +The other grunted over a particularly heavy sack, swung it to the waggon +bed, straightened himself suddenly, and faced his questioner with a look +of dark anger. + +"I'd like to see the feller that can git her away from me!" he growled. + +"I wasn't a-meanin' that," said Jim Cal, patiently but uneasily shifting +from the right foot to the left. "I'll admit--an' I reckon everybody on +the place will say the same--that she's always give you mo' reason than +another to believe she'd have ye. Not but what that's Jude's way, an' +she's hilt out sech hopes to a-many. What pesters me is how you two would +make out, once you was wed. Jude's mighty pretty, but then again she's +got a tongue." + +"Her farm hain't," chuckled Blatch, pulling a sack into place; "and I +'low Jude wouldn't have after her and me had been wed a short while." + +"I don't know, Blatch," maintained the fleshy one, timid yet persisting. +"You're a great somebody for havin' yo' own way, an' Jude's mighty high +sperrity--why, you two would shorely fuss." + +"Not more than once, we wouldn't," returned Blatch with a meaning laugh. +"The way to do with a woman like Jude is to give her a civil beatin' to +start out with and show her who's boss--wouldn't be no trouble after +that. Jude Barrier has got a good farm. She's the best worker of any gal +that I know, and I aim for to have her--an' this farm." + +Within the house now Judith, her cheeks glowing crimson as she bent above +the heaped coals, was going with waxing resentment over the catalogue of +Huldah Spiller's personal characteristics. Her hair, huh! she was mighty +particular to call it "aurbu'n," but a body might as well say red when +they were namin' it, because red was what it was. If a man admired a +turkey egg he would be likely to see beauty in Huldah's complexion--some +folks might wear a sunbonnet to bed, and freckle they would! A vision of +the laughing black eyes and white flashing teeth that went with Huldah +Spiller's red ringlets and freckles, and made her little hatchet face +brilliant when she smiled or laughed, suddenly put Judith on foot and +running to the door. + +"Uncle Jep," she called after the tall receding form, "_Oh_, Uncle Jep!" + +He turned muttering, "I hope to goodness Jude ain't goin' to git the +hollerin' habit. There's Iley never lets Jim Cal git away from the house +without hollerin' after him as much as three times, and the thing he'd +like least to have knowed abroad is the thing she takes up with for the +last holler." + +"Uncle Jep," came the clear hail from the doorway, "don't you fail to +find Huldy and send her straight home. Tell her Iley's nigh about give +out, and Jim Cal's down sick in the bed--hear me?" + +He nodded and turned disgustedly. What earthly difference did it make +about Jim Cal and Huldah and Iley? Why should Judith suddenly care? And +then, being a philosopher and in his own manner an amateur of life, he +set to work to analyze her motives, and guessed obliquely at them. + +The sight of his broad, retreating back evidently spurred Judith to fresh +effort. "Uncle Jep!" she screamed, cupping her hands about her red lips +to make the sound carry. "Ef you see Creed Bonbright tell him--howdy--for +me!" + +The sound may not have carried to the old man's ears, but it reached a +younger pair. Blatch Turrentine was just crossing through the grassy yard +toward the "big road," and Broyles's mill over on Clear Fork, where his +load of corn would be ground to meal with which to feed that blockaded +still on the old Turrentine place which sometimes flung a delicate trail +of smoke out over the flank of the slope across the gulch. As he heard +Judith's bantering cry, Blatch pulled up his team with a muttered curse. +He looked down at her through narrowed eyes, jerking his mules savagely +and swearing at them in an undertone. He was a well-made fellow with a +certain slouching grace about him as he sat on his load of corn; but +there were evil promising bumps on either side of his jaws that spoke of +obstinacy, even of ferocity; and there was something menacing in his +surly passivity of attitude. He looked at the girl and his lip lifted +with a peculiar sidelong sneer. + +"Holler a little louder an' Bonbright hisself'll hear ye," he commented +as he started up his team and rattled away down the steep, stony road. + +Sunday brought its usual train of visitors. The Turrentine place was +within long walking distance of Brush Arbor church, and whenever there +was preaching they could count on a considerable overflow from that +direction. The Sunday after Creed Bonbright put in an appearance at Nancy +Card's, there was preaching at Brush Arbor, but Judith, nourishing what +secret hopes may be conjectured, refused to make any preparation for +attending service. + +"An' ye think ye won't go to meeting this fine sunshiny Sabbath mornin', +Sister Barrier?" Elder Drane put the query, standing anxious and +carefully attired in his best before Judith on the doorstep of her home. + +She shook her dark head, and looked past the Elder toward the distant +ranges. + +"I jest p'intedly cain't git away this morning," she said carelessly. + +The Elder combed his sandy whiskers with a thoughtful forefinger. Not +thus had Judith been wont to reply to him. Always before, if there had +been denial, there were too, reasons adduced, shy looks from the corners +of those dark eyes and tender inquiries as to the health of his +children. + +"Is they--is they some particular reason that you cain't go this +morning?" the widower inquired cautiously. + +There was, and that particular reason lay as far afield as the Edge and +Nancy Card's place, but Judith Barrier did not see fit to name it to this +one of her suitors, who had brought her perhaps more glory than any +other. She was impatient to be rid of him. Like her mother Earth, having +occupied her time for lo! these several years in the building of an ideal +from such unpromising materials as were then at hand, she was ready to +sweep those tentative makings--confessed failures now that she found the +type she really wanted--swiftly, ruthlessly to the limbo of oblivion. + +Elihu Drane stood high among his neighbours; he was a man of some +education as well as comfortable means. His attention had been worth +retaining once; now she smiled at him with a vague, impersonal sweetness, +and repeated her statement that she couldn't go to church. + +"I've got too much to do," she qualified finally. "Looks like the work in +this house never is finished. And there's chicken and dumplin's to cook +for dinner." + +The Elder's pale blue eyes brightened. "Walk down to the gate with me, +won't you?" he said hopefully, "I've got somethin' to talk to you +about." + +When they were out of earshot of the house, he began eagerly, "Sister +Barrier you're workin' yourse'f to death here, in the sweet days of your +youth. I did promise the last time that I never would beg you again to +wed me, but looks like I can't stand by and hold my peace. If you was to +trust yourse'f to me things would be different. I never did hold with a +woman killin' herse'f with hard work. My first and second had everything +that they could wish for, and I was good and ready to do more any time +they named what it was. I've got a crank churn. None of these old +back-breaking, up-and-down dashers for me. I hired a woman whenever my +wife said the word. I don't think either of mine ever killed a chicken or +cut a stick of firewood from the time they walked in the front door as a +bride till they was carried out of it in their coffins." + +He stared eagerly into the downcast face beside him, but somewhere Judith +found strength to resist even these dazzling propositions. + +"I ain't studyin' about gittin' wedded," she told him most untruthfully. +"Looks like I'm a mighty cold-hearted somebody, Elder Drane. I jest can't +fix it no way but to live here with my Uncle Jep and take care of him in +his old days. Oh, would you wait a minute?" as they reached the +horse-block and the Elder began to untie his mount with a discouraged +countenance. "Jest let me run back to the house--I won't keep you a +second. I got some little sugar cookies for Mart and Lucy." + +Mart and Lucy were the Elder's children. He stood looking after her as +she ran lithely up the path, and wondered why she could love them so much +and him so little. She came back laughing and a bit out of breath. + +"I expect we'll have company to-day," she told him comfortably. "We +always do when there's preaching at the church, and I 'low I'd better +stay home and see to the dinner." + +The Elder had scarcely made his chastened adieux when the Lusk girls came +through the grove walking on either side of a young man. + +The Lusk girls were Judith's nearest neighbours--if you excepted Huldah +Spiller at Jim Cal's cabin, and at the present Judith certainly was in +the mind to make an exception of her. The sisters were seldom seen apart; +narrow shouldered, short waisted, thin limbed young creatures, they were +even at seventeen bowing to a deprecating stoop. Their little faces were +alike, short-chinned with pink mouths inclined to be tremulous, the eyes +big, blue, and half-frightened in expression, and the drab hair drawn +away from the small foreheads so tightly that it looked almost grey. They +inevitably reminded one of a pair of blue and white night-moths, scarcely +fitted for a daylight world, and continually afraid of it. + +"Cousin Lacey's over from the Far Cove," called Pendrilla before they +reached Judith. "Ain't it fine? Ef we-all can git up a play-party he says +he'll shore come ef we let him know in time." + +The young fellow with them, their cousin Lacey Rountree, showed +sufficient resemblance to mark the family type, but his light eyes were +lit with reckless fires, and his short chin was carried with a defiant +tilt. + +"What you foolin' along o' that old feller for, Judith?" he asked jerking +an irreverent thumb after the departing Elder. + +"I wasn't fooling with him," returned Judith, her red lips demure, her +brown eyes laughing above them through their thick fringe of lashes. +"Elder Drane was consulting me about church matters--sech as children +like you have no call to meddle with." + +Young Rountree smiled, "I'll bet he was!" picking up a stone and firing +it far into the blue in sheer exuberance of youthful joy. "Did he name +anything about a weddin' in church?" + +"Elder Drane is a mighty fine man," asserted Judith, suddenly sober. "Any +gal might be glad to git him. But its my belief and opinion that his +heart is buried with his first--or his second," and she laughed out +suddenly at the unintentional humorous conclusion she had made. + +"See here, Jude," the boy put it boldly as the four young people strolled +toward the house, "you're too pretty and sweet to be anybody's thirdly. +Next time old man Drane comes pesterin' round you, you tell him that +you're promised to me--hear?" + +Again Judith laughed. It is impossible to talk seriously to a boy with +whom one has played hat-ball and prisoner's base, whose hair one has +pulled, and who has, in retort courteous, rolled one in the dust. + +"I'm in earnest if I ever was in my life," asserted Lacey, taking it +quite as a matter of course that Cliantha and Pendrilla should be made +party to his courting. + +And the two little old maids of seventeen looked with wondering +admiration at Judith's management of all this masculine attention--her +careless, discounting smile for their swaggering young cousin, her calm +acceptance of imposing Elder Drane's humble and persistent wooing. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Building + + +Judith awakened that morning with the song of the first thrush sounding +in her ears. Day was not yet come, but she knew instantly it was near +dawn, so soon as she heard the keen, cool, unmatched thrush voice. Not +elaborate the song like the bobolink, nor passionate like the +nightingale, nor with the bravura of the oriole; but low or loud, its +pure tones are always penetrating, piercing the heart of their hearer +with exquisite sweetness. + +The girl lay long in the dark listening, and it seemed to her half +awakened consciousness that this voice in the April dawn was like Creed +Bonbright. These notes, lucid, passionless, that yet always stirred her +heart strangely, and the selfless personality, the high-purposed soul +that spoke in him, they were akin. The crystal tones flowed on; Judith +harkened, the ear of her spirit alert for a message. Yes, Creed was like +that. And her feeling for him too, it partook of the same quality, a +thing to climb toward rather than concede. + +And then after all her tremulous hopes, her plannings, the dozen times +she had taken a certain frock from its peg minutely inspecting and +repairing it, that it might be ready for wear on the great occasion, the +first meeting with Creed found Judith unprepared, happening in no wise as +she would have chosen. She was at the milking lot, clad in the usual dull +blue cotton gown in which the mountain woman works. She had filled her +two pails and set them on the high bench by the fence while she turned +the calves into the small pasture reserved for them and let old Red and +Piedy out. + +He approached across the fields from the direction of his own house, and +naturally saw her before she observed him. It was early morning. The sky +was blue and wide and high, with great shining piles of white cloud +swimming lazily at the horizon, cutting sharply against its colour. +Around the edges of the cow-lot peach trees were all in blossom and +humming with bees, their rich, amethystine rose flung up against the gay +April sky in a challenge of beauty and joy. The air was full of the +promises of spring, keen, bracing, yet with an undercurrent of languorous +warmth. There was a ragged fleece of bloom, sweet and alive with droning +insects, over a plum thicket near the woods,--half-wild, brambly things, +cousin on the one hand to the cultivated farm, and on the other to the +free forest,--while beyond, through the openings of the timber, dogwood +flamed white in the sun. + +Judith came forward and greeted the newcomer, all unaware of the picture +she made, tall and straight and pliant in her simple blue cotton, under +the wonderful blue-and-white sky and the passionate purple pink of the +blossoms, with the scant folds of her frock outlining the rounded young +body, its sleeves rolled up on her fine arms, its neck folded away from +the firm column of her throat, the frolic wind ruffling the dark locks +above her shadowy eyes. There were strange gleams in those dark eyes; her +red lips were tremulous whether she spoke or not. It was as though she +had some urgent message for him which waited always behind her silence or +her speech. + +"I thought I'd come over and get acquainted with my neighbours," +Bonbright began in his impersonal fashion. + +"Uncle Jep and the boys has gone across to the far place ploughing +to-day," said Judith. "They's nobody at home but Jim Cal and his +wife--and me." She forebore to add the name of Huldah Spiller, though her +angry eye descried that young woman ostentatiously hanging wash on a line +back of the Jim Cal cabin. + +"I won't stop then this morning," said Bonbright. "I'll get along over to +the far place. I wanted to have speech with your uncle. He was at Aunt +Nancy's the other day and we had some talk; he knows more about what I'm +aiming at up here then I do. A man of his age and good sense can be a +sight of help to me." + +"Uncle Jep will be proud to do anything he can," said Judith softly. +"Won't you come in and set awhile?" + +She dreaded that the invitation might hurry him away, and now made hasty +use of the first diversion that offered. He had broken a blooming switch +from the peach-tree beneath which he stood, and she reproached him +fondly. + +"Look at you. Now there won't never be no peaches where them blossoms +was." + +He twisted the twig in his fingers and smiled down at her, conscious of a +singular and personal kindness between them, aware too, for the first +time, that she was young, beautiful, and a woman; before, she had been +merely an individual to him. + +"My mother used to say that to me when I would break fruit blows," he +said meditatively. "But father always pruned his trees when they were in +blossom--they can't any of them bear a peach for every bloom." + +She shook her head as though giving up the argument, since it was after +all a matter of sentiment. Her dark, rich-coloured beauty glowed its +contrast to his cool, northern type. + +At present neither spoke more than a few syllables of the spiritual +language of the other, yet so powerful was the attraction between them +that even Creed began to feel it, while Judith, the primitive woman, all +given over to instinct, promptly laid about her for something to hold and +interest him. + +"The young folks is a-goin' to get up a play-party at our house sometime +soon," she hazarded. "I reckon you wouldn't come to any such as that, +would you?" + +"I'd be proud to come," returned Creed at once. But he spoiled it by +adding, "I've got to get acquainted with people all over again, it's so +long since I lived here; and looks like I'm not a very good mixer." + +"Will you sure come?" inquired Judith insistently, as she saw him +preparing to depart. + +"I sure will." + +"You could stay over night in your own house then--ain't you comin' back, +ever, to live there?" + +"Why, yes, I reckon I might stay there over night, but it's too far from +the main road for a justice's office." + +"Well, if you're going to try to sleep in the house, it ort to be opened +up and sunned a little; you better let me have the key now," observed +Judith, assuming airs of proprietorship over his inept masculinity. + +Smiling, he got the key from his pocket and handed it to her. "Help +yourself to anything you want for the party, or any other time," he said +in mountain fashion. + +She looked down at that key with the pride of one to whom had been given +the freedom of a city. Its possession enabled her to bear it with a fair +degree of equanimity when Huldah Spiller, having "jest slung her clothes +anyway onto that line," as Judith phrased it to herself, came panting and +laughing across the slope between the two houses and called a gay +"Howdy!" to the visitor. The lively little red haired flirt professed +greatly to desire news of certain persons in Hepzibah, and as Creed was +departing sauntered unconcernedly beside him as far as the draw-bars, +detaining him in conversation there as long as possible. She had an +instinctive knowledge that Judith, looking on, was deeply disturbed. + +Creed set his justice's office about a hundred yards from Nancy Card's +cabin, on the main road that led through the two Turkey Track +neighbourhoods out to Rainy Gap and the Far Cove settlement. The little +shack was built of the raw yellow boards which the new saw-mill was +ripping out of pine trees over on the shoulder of Big Turkey Track above +Garyville. Most of the mountain dwellers still preferred log houses, and +the lumber was sent down the mountain by means of a little gravity +railway, whose car was warped up after each trip by a patient old mule +working in a circular treadmill. + +God knows with what high hopes the planks of that humble shanty were put +in place, with what visions sill and window-frame were shaped and joined, +Aunt Nancy going out and in at her household tasks calling good counsel +over to him; Beezy, the irrepressible, adding shaving curls to her red +frazzle; Little Buck, furnished with hammer and tacks, gravely assisting, +pounding his fingers only part of the time. Hens were coming off. Old +Nancy had a great time with notionate mothers hatching out broods under +the floor or in the stable loft, and the plaintive cheep-cheep! of the +"weedies" added its note to the chorus of sounds as the children followed +them about, now and then catching up a ball of fluff to pet it, +undeterred by indignant clucks from the parent. + +As Creed whistled over his work, he saw a shadowy train coming down the +road, the people whom he should help, his people, to whose darkness he +should bring light and counsel. They knew so little, and needed so much. +True, his own knowledge was not great; but it was all freely at their +service. His heart swelled with good-will as he prepared to open his +modest campaign of usefulness. + +To come into leadership naturally a man should be the logical outgrowth +of his class and time, and this Creed knew he was not. Yet he had +pondered the matter deeply, and put it thus to himself: The peasant of +Europe can only rise through stages of material prosperity to a point of +development at which he craves intellectual attainment, or spiritual +growth. But the mountaineer is always a thinker; he has even in his +poverty a hearty contempt for luxury, for material gain at the expense of +personality. With his disposition to philosophy, fostered by solitude and +isolation, he readily overleaps those gradations, and would step at once +from obscurity to the position of a man of culture were the means at +hand. + +"Bonbright," remonstrated Jephthah Turrentine, in the first conversation +the two held upon the subject, "Ye cain't give people what they ain't +ready to take. Ef our folks wanted law and order, don't you reckon they'd +make the move to get it?" + +"That's it exactly, Mr. Turrentine," responded Creed quickly. "They need +to be taught what to want." + +"Oh, they do, do they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the +lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have +a school-house, place of a jestice's office?" + +"Maybe you're right. I reckon you are--exactly right," Creed assented +thoughtfully. "I'd studied about that considerable. I reckon I'm a more +suitable age for a schoolmaster than for a justice; and the children--but +that would take a long time; and I wanted to give the help where it was +worst needed." + +"Oh, well, 'tain't a hangin' matter," old Jephthah smiled at the younger +man's solemn earnestness. "Ef this new fangled buildin' o' yours don't +get used for a jestice's office we can turn it into a school-house; we +need one powerful bad." + +The desultory, sardonic, deep-voiced, soft-footed, mountain carpenters +who worked leisurely and fitfully with Creed were always mightily amused +by the exactness of the "town feller's" ideas. + +"Why lordy! Lookee hyer Creed," remonstrated Doss Provine, over a +question of matching boards and battening joints, "ef you git yo' pen so +almighty tight as that you won't git no fresh air. Man's bound to have +ventilation. Course you can leave the do' open all the time like we-all +do; but when yo're a-holdin' co't and sech-like maybe you'll want to shet +the do' sometimes--and then whar'll ye git breath to breathe?" + +"I reckon Creed knows his business," put in the old man who was helping +Doss, "but all these here glass winders is blame foolishness to _me_. Ef +ye need light, open the do'. Ef somebody comes that you don't want in, +you can shet it and put up a bar. But saw the walls full o' holes an' set +in glass winders, an' any feller that's got a mind to can pick ye off +with a rifle ball as easy as not whilst ye set by the fire of a +evenin'." + +He shook a reprehending head, hoary with the snows of years, and +containing therefore, presumably, wisdom. He had learned the necessary +points of life in his environment, and as always occurs, the younger +generation seemed to him lavishly reckless. + +It was only old Jephthah's criticisms that Creed really minded. + +"Uh-huh," allowed Jephthah, settling his hands on his hips and surveying +the yellow pine structure tolerantly; "mighty sightly for them that likes +that kind o' thing. But I hold with a good log house, becaze it's apt to +be square. These here town doin's that looks like a man with a bile on +his ear never did ketch me. Ef ye hew out good oak or pine timber ye +won't be willin' to cut short lengths for to make such foolishness." + +Creed would often have explained to his critics that he did not expect to +get into feuds and have neighbours pot-hunting him through his glass +windows, that he needed the light from them to study or read, and that +his little house was as square as any log hut ever constructed; but they +lumped it all together and made an outsider of him--which hurt. + +Word went abroad to the farthest confines of the Turkey Track +neighbourhoods, carried by herders who took sheep, hogs, or cows up into +the high-hung inner valleys of Yellow Old Bald, or the natural meadows of +Big Turkey Track to turn them loose for the season, recited where one or +two met out salting cattle, discussed by many a chip pile, where the +willing axe rested on the unsplit block while the wielder heard how Creed +Bonbright had done sot up a jestice's office and made peace between the +Shallidays and the Bushareses. + +"But you know in reason hit ain't a-goin' to hold," the old women at the +hearthside would say, withdrawing their cob pipes to shake deprecating +heads. "The Bushareses and Shallidays has been killin' each other up +sence my gran'pap was a little boy. They tell me the Injuns mixed into +that there feud. I say Creed Bonbright! Nothin' but a fool boy. He better +l'arn something before he sets up to teach. He don't know what he's +meddlin' with." All this with a pride in the vendetta as an ancient +neighbourhood institution and monument. + +The office of the new justice never became, as he had hoped it would, a +lounging place for his passing neighbours. He had expected them to drop +in to visit with him, when he might sow the good seed in season without +appearing to seek an occasion for so doing. But they were shy of him--he +saw that. They went on past the little yellow pine office, on their +mules, or their sorry nags, or in shackling waggons behind oxen, to +lounge at Nancy Card's gate as of old, or sit upon her porch to swap news +and listen to her caustic comments on neighbourhood happenings. And only +an occasional glance over the shoulder, a backward nod of the head, or +jerk of the thumb, told the young justice that he was present in their +recollection. + +But there was one element of the community which showed no disposition to +hold aloof from the newcomer. About this time, by twos and threes--never +one alone--the virgins of the mountain-top sought Nancy Card for flower +seed, soft soap recipes, a charm to take off warts, or to learn exactly +from her at what season a body had better divide the roots of day +lilies. + +Old-fashioned roses begin blooming in the Cumberlands about the first of +May, and when this time came round Nancy's garden was a thing to marvel +at. The spring flowers were past or nearly so, and the advent of the +roses marked the floral beginning of summer. In the forest the dogwood +petals now let go and fell silently one by one through the shadowed +green. But over Nancy's fence of weather-beaten, hand-rived palings +tossed a snow of bloom so like that here they were not missed at all; and +the mock orange adds to the dogwood's simple beauty the soul of an +exquisite odour. Small, heavily thorned roses, yellow as the daffodils +they had succeeded, blushing Baltimore Belles, Seven Sisters all over the +ricketty porch--one who loved such things might well have taken a day's +journey for sight of that dooryard in May. + +"Well, I vow!" said the old woman one day peering through her window that +gave on the road, "ef here don't come Huldy Spiller and the two Lusks. +Look like to me I have a heap of gal company of late. Creed, you're a +mighty learned somebody, cain't you tell me the whys of it?" + +Creed, sitting at a little table deep in some books and papers before +him, heard no word of his friend's teasing speech. It was Doss Provine, +at the big fireplace heating a poker to burn a hole through his +pulley-wheel, who turned toward his mother-in-law and grinned foolishly. + +"I reckon I know the answer to that," he observed. "The boys is all a +warnin' me that a widower is mo' run after than a young feller. They tell +me I'll have to watch out." + +"I say watch out--_you_!" cried Nancy, wheeling upon him with a comically +disproportionate fury. "Jest you let me ketch you settin' up to any of +the gals--you, a father with two he'pless chaps to look after, and nobody +but an old woman like me, with one foot in the grave, to depend on!" + +There was one girl however who, instead of multiplying her visits to the +Card cabin with Creed's advent, abruptly ceased them. Judith Barrier was +an uncertain quantity to her masculine household; unreasonably elated or +depressed, she led them the round of her moods, and they paid for the +fact that Creed Bonbright did not come across the mountain top visiting, +without being at all aware of where their guilt lay. After that interview +at the milking lot one thought, one emotion was with her always. Always +she was waiting for the next meeting with Creed. Through the day she +heard his voice or his footstep in all the little sounds of the woods, +the humble noises of the farm life; and at night there was the cedar +tree. + +Now the cedar tree had affairs of its own. When, with the egotism of her +keen, passionate, desirous youth, the girl in the little chamber under +the eves listened to its voice in April, it was talking in the soft air +of the vernal night about the sap which rose in its veins, spicy, +resinous, odoured with spring, carrying its wine of life into the +farthest green tips, till all the little twigs were intoxicated with it, +and beat and flung themselves in joy. And the tree's deep note was a song +of abiding trust. There was a nest building within its heart--so well +hidden in that dense thicket that it was safe from the eye of any +prowler. Hope and faith and a great devotion went to the building. And +the tree, rich and happy in its own life, cherished generously that other +life within its protecting arms. Its song was of the mating birds, the +building birds, the mother joy and father joy that made the nest ready +for the speckled eggs and the birdlings that should follow. + +But to the listening girl the cedar tree was a harp that the winds +struck--a voice that spoke in the night of love and Creed. + +Finally one morning she saddled Selim and, with something in her pocket +for Little Buck and Beezy, set out for Hepzibah--reckon they's nothin' so +turrible strange in a body goin' to the settlement when they' out o' both +needles _an_' bakin' soda! + +As she rode up Nancy herself called to her to 'light and come in, and +finally went out to stand a moment and chat; but the girl smilingly shook +her head. + +"I got to be getting along, thank ye," she said. "I can't stop this +mornin'. You-all must come and see us, Aunt Nancy." + +"Why, what's Little Buck a-goin' to do, with his own true love a-tearin' +past the house like this and refusin' to stop and visit?" complained +Nancy, secretly applauding the girl's good sense and dignity. + +"Where _is_ my beau?" asked Judith. "I fetched him the first June apples +off the tree." + +"Judy's brought apples to her beau, and now he's went off fishin' with +Doss and she's got nobody to give 'em to," old Nancy called as Creed +stepped from the door of his office and started across to the cabin. +"Don't you want 'em, Creed?" + +The tall, fair young fellow came up laughing. + +"Aunt Nancy knows I love apples," he said. "If you give me Little Buck's +share I'm afraid he'll never see 'em." + +Judith reached in her pocket and brought out the shiny, small red globes +and put them in his outstretched hand. + +"I'll bring Little Buck a play-pretty from the settlement," she said +softly. "He'll keer a sight more for hit than for the apples. I wish I'd +knowed you liked 'em--I'd brought you more. Why don't you come over and +see us and git all you want? We've got two trees of 'em." + + + + +Chapter V + +The Red Rose and the Briar + + +ALL through April Judith's project of a play-party languished. She had to +pull steadily against the elders, for not only were the men hard at it +making ready for the putting in of the year's crops, but it was gardening +time as well, when even the women and children are pressed in to help at +the raking up and brush piling. Wood smoke from the clearing fires +haunted all the hollows. Everybody was preparing for the making of the +truck patch. Down on the little groups would drop a cloud and blot out +the bonfire till it became the mere glowing point at the heart of a +shaken opal--for if you are wise you burn brush on a rainy day. + +Old Jephthah opposed the plan for the girl's festivity on another ground. +"I've got no objection to a frolic, Jude," he observed quietly, on +hearing the first mention of the matter, "but I wouldn't have no +play-party at this house. Hit's too handy to that cussed still of +Blatch's. A passel of fool boys is mighty apt to go over thar an' fill +theirselves up with corn whiskey, an' the party will just about end up in +a interruption." + +He said no more, and Judith made no reply. Though ordinarily she would +have hesitated to go against her uncle's expressed wishes, her heart was +too much set on this enterprise to allow of easy checking. She made no +reply, but her campaign on behalf of the merrymaking went steadily on. + +"I wonder you can have the heart to git up play-parties and the like when +Andy and Jeff's a-sufferin' in the jail," Pendrilla Lusk plucked up +spirit to say when the plan was first mooted to her. + +Andy and Jeff, the wild young hawks, with the glamour upon them of +lawless, adventurous spirits, and bold, proper lovers, equally fascinated +and terrified the Lusk girls--timid, fluttering pair--and were in their +turn attracted to them by an inevitable law of nature. + +"I don't see how it hurts the boys for us to have a dance," rejoined +Judith with asperity. "If we was all to set and cry our eyes out, it +wouldn't fetch 'em back on the mountain any quicker." Then with a teasing +flash, "I'll tell 'em when they git home what you said, though." + +"Now, Jude, you're real mean," pleaded Cliantha Lusk sinking to her knees +beside Judith and raising thin little arms to clasp that young woman +around the waist. "You ain't a-goin' to tell them fool boys any sech +truck as that, air ye? Pendrilly jest said it for a sayin'. We'd love to +come to yo' play-party, whenever it is. I _say_ Andy and Jeff! Let 'em +git out of the jail the way they got in." + +This is the approved attitude of the mountain virgin; yet Cliantha's +voice shook sadly as she uttered the independent sentiments, and +Pendrilla furtively wiped her eyes in promising to attend the +play-party. + +All this was in April. By the time May came in, that dread of a belated +frost which amounts almost to terror in the farmer of the Cumberlands was +ended; the Easter cold and blackberry winter were over, and all the +garden truck was planted. Everybody began whole-heartedly to enjoy the +time of year. The leaves were full size, but still soft; the wind made +hardly any noise among them. In the pasture lot and fence corners near +the house, meadow flowers began to star the green. The frog chorus, so +loud and jubilant in early spring, had subsided now except at night, when +their treble was accompanied by the bass "chug-chug" of the bull-frogs. +The mornings were vocal with the notes of yellow hammer, cuckoos; the +cooing of doves, the squawk of the jay, and the drum of the big +red-headed woodpecker sounded through the summer woods; while always in +the cool of the day came the thrush's song. The early corn was in by mid +April. About the first full moon of May the main crop was planted. + +Early in June Judith, walking in the wood, brought home the splendid red +wood lily, and a cluster too of "ratsbane," with its flowers like a +little crown of white wax. + +The spring restlessness was over throughout all the wild country; life no +longer stirred and rustled; the leaves hung still in the long sunny +noons. The air was clear, rinsed with frequent showers; the woods were +silent except for birds and cow bells. The crops were laid by. The +huckleberries ripened; the "sarvices" hung thick in the forest. Even the +blackberries were beginning to turn and Andy and Jeff had been back at +home more than a week, when Judith finally succeeded in getting her +forces together and her guests promised. Many of them would have to walk +four or five miles to sing and play for a few hours, tramping back at +midnight to lie down and catch what sleep they could before dawn waked +them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On +Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining +eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of the cabin. + +"I wish't you'd sing while I finish my churnin'," the girl said, "I'm so +flustered looks like I can't sca'cely do anything right." + +The sisters clasped hands and raised their childish faces. Cliantha had a +thin, high piping soprano like a small flute, and Pendrilla sang +"counter" to it. They were repositories of all the old ballads of the +mountains--ballads from Scotland, from Ireland, from England, and from +Wales, that set the ferocities and the love-making of Elizabeth's time or +earlier most quaintly amidst the localities and nomenclature of the +Cumberlands. + +"Sing 'Barb'ry Allen,'" commanded Judith as she swung the dasher with +nervous energy. + +The July sunshine filtered through the leaves of the big muscadine vine +that covered and sheltered the tiny side porch. Bees boomed about the +ragged tufts of clover and Bouncing Bet that fringed the side yard. The +old hound at the chip pile blinked lazily and raised his head, then +dropped it and slumbered again. Within, the big room was dim and cool. +The high, thin, quavering voices celebrated the love and woe of cruel +Barbara Allen. Judith's dark eyes grew soft and brooding; the nervous +strokes of her dasher measured themselves more and more to the swing of +the old tune. + +"I don't see how anybody can be hardhearted thataway with a person they +love," she said softly as the song descended to its doleful end. + +The next morning Judith hurried her work that she might get through and +go over to the Bonbright house, there to put in execution her +long-cherished plan of cleaning it and making it fit for Creed's +occupancy that night. Old Dilsey Rust, their tenant, came in to help at +the Turrentine cabin always on occasions like this, or with the churning +or washing; and penetrated with impatience the girl finally left her +assistant in charge of matters and set forth through the woods and across +the fields, the little key which she had carried ever since that morning +in early April in her pocket like a talisman. At last it was to open her +kingdom to her. Behind the bolt that it controlled lay not only the home +of Creed's childhood, but supposably the home of his children. Judith's +heart beat suffocatingly at the thought. + +Halfway across she met Huldah Spiller coming up from the Far spring with +a bucket of sulphur water which was held to be good for Jim Cal's +rheumatism. + +"Whar ye goin'?" asked Huldah, looking curiously at the broom over +Judith's shoulder, the roll of cloths and the small gourd of soft soap +she carried. + +"I'm a-goin' whar I'm a-goin'," returned Judith aggressively. But the +other only smiled. It did not suit her to be offended at that moment. +Instead, "What are you goin' to wear to-night, Judy?" she inquired +vivaciously. It was one of the advantages of waiting on table at a +boarding house in the settlement--pieced out perhaps by the possession of +red hair--that Huldah had the courage to address Judith Barrier as +"Judy." + +The hostess of the evening's festivities was half in the mind to pass on +without reply; then her curiosity as to Huldah's costume got the better +of her, and she compromised, with a laconic, + +"My white frock--what are you?" + +"Don't you know I went down to Hepzibah after you said you was goin' to +have a play-party?" asked Huldah, tossing her head to get the red curls +out of her eyes. "Well, Iley had give me fifty cents on my wages--" +Huldah worked as a servant in her sister's family, which is not uncommon +in the mountains--"an' I tuck it and bought me ten yard of five-cent +lawn, the prettiest blue you ever put yo' eyes on." + +"Blue!" A sudden shock went over Judith. She had forgotten; and here +Huldah Spiller would wear a blue dress, and she--oh, the stupidity, the +bat-like, doltish, blindness of it!--would be in white, because it was +now too late to make a change. Out of the very tragedy of the situation +she managed to pluck forth a smile. + +"I was aimin' to wear blue ribbons," she said finally. It had just come +into her head that she could pull the blue bow from her hat--that blue +bow with which she had zealously replaced the despised and outcast +red--and so make shift. + +"Blue's my best feller's favourite colour," contributed Huldah, picking +up the bucket which she had set down, and starting on. "He 'lows it goes +fine with aurbu'n hair." + +"Wade never said that," muttered Judith to herself as she took her way to +the Bonbright place. + +But after all one could not be long out of tune with such a summer day. +The spicy odour of pennyroyal bruised underfoot, came to her nostrils +like incense. Even the sickly sweet of jimson blossoms by the draw-bars +of the milking lot was dear and familiar, while their white trumpets +whispered of childish play-days and flower-ladies she had set walking in +procession under the shadow of some big green leaf. Blue--the soft stars +of spider-wort opening among the rocks reminded her of the hue; blue +curls and dittany tangled at the path edge; but the very air itself was +beginning to wear Creed's colour and put on that wonderful, luminous blue +in which the Cumberlands of midsummer melt cerulean into a sky of lapis +lazuli. Creed's colour--Creed's colour--her dark eyes misted as they +searched the far reaches of the hills and found it everywhere. + +Jephthah Turrentine used to say that if a man owned enough mountain land +to set his foot on, he owned the whole of the sky above him; it was a +truer word than this old mountain dweller could have known, since the +mere possessor of a city lot, where other tall roofs cut the horizon +high, must content himself with less of the welkin. + +Judith opened the door, went in, closed it behind her, and gazed about. +There lay over everything a fine dust; there was the look of decay which +comes with disuse; and the air bore the musty odour of a shut and long +uninhabited house. The Bonbright home had been a good one for the +mountains, of hewn logs, and with four rooms, and two great stone +chimneys. Inside was the furniture which Mary Gillenwaters brought to it +as a bride when her mountain lover came down to Hepzibah and with the +swift ardour of his tribe--this Bonbright's fires of eloquence were all +kindled upon the altar of his mating romance--charmed the daughter of its +one merchant. These added to the already fairly complete plenishings, +many of which had come over the mountains from Virginia when Sevier +opened up the new State, gave an air of abundance, even of sober elegance +to the room. + +Reverently Judith moved among the dumb witnesses and servitors of +Bonbright generations. Here was the spinning-wheel, here the cards, and +out in the little room off the porch stood the loom. She had dreams of +replacing these with a sewing machine. Nobody wove jeans any more--but a +good carpet-loom now, _that_ might be made useful. Unwilling to hang the +bedding on bushes for fear of a chance tear from twig or thorn, she +rigged a line in the back yard, and spread quilt and homespun blanket, +coarse white sheets and pillowcases that were yellowing with age, out for +the glad gay wind to play with, for the sunshine to sweeten. + +"What a lot of feather beds!" she murmured as she tallied them over. +"That there ticking is better than you can buy in the stores. My, ain't +these light and nice!" + +All the warm, sunny afternoon she toiled at her self-appointed labour of +love. She swept and dusted, she scrubbed and cleaned, with capable +fingers, proud of the strength and skill that made her a good housewife; +then bringing in the fragrant, homely fabrics, made up the beds and +placed all back in due order. + +"He's boun' to notice somebody's been here and put things to rights," she +said over and over to herself. "If it looks sightly, and seems like home, +mebbe he'll give out the notion of stayin' at Nancy Card's, and come and +live here." She brooded on the bliss of the idea as she worked. + +Under the great mahogany four-poster in the front room was slipped a +trundle-bed that she drew out and looked at with fond eyes. No doubt +Creed's boyish head had lain there once. She wished passionately that she +had known him then, all unaware that we never do know our lovers when +they and we are children. Even those playfellows who are destined to be +mates find, all on a day, that the familiar companion who has grown up +beside each has changed into quite a different person. + +She rolled the trundle-bed back into place and turned to lift a pile of +bedding that lay apparently on a chest. When it was raised it revealed +the clumsy old cradle that had rocked three generations of Bonbrights. +She stood looking down at it with quickening pulse, then reached a +fluttering hand and touched its small pillow tenderly. Here had rested +that golden head, so many years ago; beside it his mother had sat and +rocked. At the thought Judith was on her knees, her hands falling +naturally upon the side and rocking the small bed. In a strange conflict +of dreamy emotion, she swayed it back and forth a moment, and then--what +woman could resist it?--began to croon an old mountain cradle song. +Suddenly the westering sun got to the level of a half shrouded window and +sent a beam in across Judith's bent head. + +"My land!" she whispered, getting to her feet. "I ain't got no call to +stay foolin' here all day. Dilsey'll jest about burn them cakes I told +her to bake, and I ain't fixed my blue bow for my hair yet." + +She swept a glance around the speckless room, gathered up her +paraphernalia of cleaning, passed out, locked the door, and set her face +toward home. + +In Mary Bonbright's garden, now given over to weeds as the gardens of +dead women are so apt to be, there had grown a singular, half wild rose. +This flower was of a clear blood red, with a yellow heart which its five +broad petals, flinging wide open, disclosed to view, unlike the crimped +and guarded loveliness of the more evolved sisters of the green-house. +Mowed down spring after spring by the scythe of Strubley, the renter, the +vigorous thing had spread abroad, and as Judith stepped from the door its +exultant beauty caught her eye. Flaming shields of crimson, bearing each +its boss of filagree gold, the hosts of the red rose stood up bravely in +the choking grass to which the insensate scythe blade had so often +levelled them, and shouted to the girl of love and joy, and of youth +which was the time for both. Wide petalled, burning red, their golden +hearts open to sun and bee, they were the blossoms for the earth-woman. +She ran and knelt down beside them. + +He had said that his favourite colour was blue--but there are no blue +roses. She did not follow it far enough to guess that the man who was +content with the colour of the sky might not get his gaze down close +enough to earth to care for roses. She bent above them gloating on their +fierce, triumphant splendour. Was there ever such a colour? But the stems +were dreadfully short. A sudden purpose grew in her mind. With hasty, +tremulous fingers she gathered an apronful of the blossoms. Once more she +unlocked the front door, hurried back to that bed which she had so +lovingly spread, and on its white coverlet began arranging a great, +glowing wreath, fashioned by setting a circle of red roses petal to +petal. + +As she worked Cliantha Lusk's ballad came into her head, and she sang it +under her breath. + + "'And they grew and they grew to the old church top + Till they couldn't grow any higher, + And there they twined in a true lover's knot, + The red rose and the briar.' + +"No--that ain't it-- + + "'And there they twined in a true lover's knot, + For all true lovers to admire.'" + +True lovers--she crooned the word over and over. It was sweet to say it. +She thrilled through all her strong young body with the delight of what +she was doing. + +"He'll wonder who put 'em there," she whispered to herself. "Ef nothin' +else don't take his eye, these here is shore to." + + + + +Chapter VI + +The Play-Party + + +Long lanes of light crossed the grass from window and door of the +Turrentine house; Judith's play-party was in full swing. They were +dancing or playing in the big front room which was lit only by the rich +broken shimmer and shine from a fire of pine sticks in the cavernous +black chimney. Though it was early July the evening, in those altitudes, +had its own chill, and the heat from this was not unpleasant, while its +illumination became necessary, for all the lamps and candles available +were in use out where the tables were spread. + +Old Jephthah held state in his own quarters, a detached log cabin +standing about thirty feet from the main structure, and once used +probably to house the loom or for some such extra domestic purpose. Here +too a fire smoldered on the hearthstone, for the head of the Turrentine +clan was tormented by rheumatism, that plague of otherwise healthy +primitive man. He lounged now on the doorstep, smoking, ready to +intercept and entertain any of the older men who might come with their +women folk. Occasionally somebody rode up, or came tramping down the +trail or through the woods--a belated merrymaker hurrying in to ask who +had arrived and who was expected. + +To the father's intense disgust Jim Cal had elected to sit with the +elders that night, and obstinately held his place before the hearthstone +in the cabin room. Jephthah Turrentine's sons were none of them +particularly satisfactory to their progenitor. A man of brains, a +creature to whom an argument was ever more than the mere material thing +argued about, these male offspring, who took their traits naturally after +the spindle side, vexed him with resemblance to their handsome, +high-tempered, brainless mother. But Jim Cal was worse than a bore to his +father; the old fellow regarded a son who weighed above two hundred +pounds as a disgrace. And to-night the fact that the door of his room +commanded a sidelong view of the tables which were being spread, and +about which Iley circled and scolded, furnished so fair a reason for +James Calhoun's selection of it as an anchorage that his father was the +more offended. + +"You thar, Unc' Jep?" sounded Blatchley Turrentine's careless voice from +the dark. + +"I make out to be," returned his uncle lazily. + +Blatchley came into the circle of dim light about the door, Andy and Jeff +at his shoulder. Wade followed a moment later. + +"Why ain't you-all boys down thar whar the gals is at, playin'?" inquired +Jim Cal fretfully. "Looks like to me ef I was a young feller an' not +wedded I wouldn't hang around whar the old men was." + +"Is Creed Bonbright comin' over here to-night?" inquired Andy abruptly, +in obedience apparently to a nudge from Blatch. + +"I reckon he is," observed the old man dispassionately. "Jude has purty +well bidden the whole top of the mountain." + +"Is Pone Cyard comin'?" put in Jeff. The twins usually spoke alternately, +the sum of their conversation counting thus for one. + +"That I can't say," returned the old man with mildly ironic emphasis. +"Mebbe him and the chaps and the lame rooster--_and_ Nancy--will come +along at the tail of the procession." + +"Well," persisted Andy, breaking a somewhat lengthened silence in which +all the newcomers stood, and through which their breathing could be +distinctly heard, "well I think Creed Bonbright has got the impudence! He +come to the jail, whar me and Jeff was at, an' he had some talk with us, +an' I let him know my mind. He stood in with that marshal--I know it--and +so does Jeff. Pone Cyard got out quicker becaze Bonbright tipped the +marshal the wink; but I don't hold with him nor his doin's." + +The parent of the twins regarded them both with sardonic black eyes half +shut. "_You_ don't? And who-all might you be, young fellers?" he asked. +"This here Bonbright man has come up on Turkey Track to give us a show at +law. If they's persons engaged in unlawful practices on this here +mountain top, mebbe he'll knock up against 'em. Them that keeps the law +and lives decent has no reason to fear the law. Ain't that what you say, +Blatch?" turning suddenly to his nephew. + +The big swart mountaineer drew up his shoulders with a sort of shrug. + +"Ef you stand in with Bonbright, Unc' Jep," he said, bluntly, "we might +as well all go down to Hepzibah and give ourselves up. You've done rented +me the land, and yo' boys is in the still with me--air ye a-goin' to +stand from under, and have the marshal forever keepin' us on the jump?" + +Old Jephthah looked wordless contempt at the nephew who knew little +enough to impute such a course to him. + +"That's what I say," put in Jim Cal's thin, querulous tones from the back +of the room--the voice of a fat man in trouble; can anyone say why the +sorrows of the obese are always comic to the rest of the world? "A body +cain't sleep nights for thinkin' what may chance." + +"Oh,--air you thar, podner?" inquired Blatch, with a sort of ferocious +banter in his tone which he frequently used toward his fleshy associate. +"I thort ye was down in the bed sick." + +"I was," said Jim Cal sulkily; "but Iley she said--Iley 'lowed----" + +Blatch burst into a great horse laugh, which the others joined. + +"I know'd in reason ye'd be down when they came any trouble at the +still," he commented. "Hit always affects yo' health thataway; but I +didn't know Iley had seed reason to dig ye out. What you goin' to do +about Bonbright, Unc' Jep--stand in with him?" + +"Well--you _air_ a fool," observed the old man meditatively. "Who named +standin' in with Bonbright, or standin' out agin' him? When I rented you +my farm for five year I had no thought of yo' starting up that pesky ol' +still on it. But I never was knowed to rue a trade. My daddy taught me +when I made a bad bargain to freeze the tighter to it, and I've no mind +to do other." + +"They'd been a still thar," said Blatch defensively. + +The old man nodded. + +"Oh, yes," he agreed. "Hit had been,--I put it thar. I've made many a run +of whiskey in my young days--and I've seed the folly of it. I reckon you +fool boys'll have to see the folly of it too befo' yo've got yo' satisfy. +As for Creed Bonbright, he 'pears to think that if we have plenty of law +in the Turkey Tracks we'll all go to heaven in a hand-basket. Mebbe he's +right, and then agin mebbe he's wrong; but this I know, ain't anybody +goin' to jump on him in my house, and he gets a fair show when fightin' +time comes." + +"Well, if he ain't standin' in with the marshal, what does he--" began +Andy's high-pitched boyish voice, when somebody called, "Good evening," +in pleasant tones, and Bonbright himself got off a light-stepping mule, +tethered him to the fence, and came toward the cabin. + +He had just returned from a meeting of the County Court at Hepzibah, +where he did good service in representing the needs of his district, +fighting hard for more money for schools--the plan heretofore had been to +let them have only their own pro rata of the school tax. + +"It'll pay you a heap better to educate the mountain people than to hire +their keep in jail," he said to his fellow justices of the valley. "The +blue-backed speller is the best cure for crime in the mountains that I +know of." + +He failed to get this; but he succeeded in another matter, one less near +his heart, but calculated to appeal perhaps more strongly to his +constituents; he secured the opening of a highway for which the people in +the two Turkey Tracks had struggled and prayed more than twenty years. It +was with the pride of this victory strong in him that he had set out for +Judith's play-party. The young fellow might have been pardoned a half +wistful belief that this first success was the entering wedge and would +lead swiftly to that standing with his neighbours lacking which he was +helpless. Yet the sons of the house replied but gruffly to his greeting, +and, as though his coming had been a signal, the younger group promptly +disappeared in the direction of the main cabin. + +At the old man's hearty invitation, Creed seated himself on the doorstep, +while his host went in for a coal from the smouldering hearth to light +his pipe, and joined the guest a moment later. + +"Well sir, and how's the law coming on these days?" inquired old Jephthah +somewhat humorously. + +"I reckon it's doing pretty well," allowed Creed. "The law's all right, +Mr. Turrentine; it's what our people need; and if there comes any failure +it's bound to be in me, not in the law." + +"That's right," old Jephthah commended him. "Stand up for yo' principles. +Ef you go into a thing, back it. I never could get on with these here +good-Lord-good-devil folks. I like to know whar a man's at--cain't hit +him unless 'n you do." + +"That's what I say," piped Jim Cal's reedy voice from the interior. "Is +it true that you've done made up the Shalliday fuss over that thar cow, +Creed? I thort a jestice of the peace was to he'p folks have fusses, +place o' settlin' 'em up." + +"That's what everybody seems to think," replied Creed rather dolefully. +"I can't say I'm very proud of my part in the Shalliday matter. It seemed +to be mighty hard on the widow; but the law was on her brother-in-law's +side; so I gave my decision in favour of Bill Shalliday, and paid the +woman for the cow. And now they're both mad at me." + +Old Jephthah narrowed his eyes and chuckled in luxurious enjoyment of the +situation. + +"To be shore they air. To be shore they air," he repeated with unction. +"Ain't you done a favour to the both of 'em? Is they anything a man will +hate you worse for than a favour? If they is I ain't met up with it +yet." + +"That's what I say," iterated Jim Cal. "What's the use o' tryin' to he'p +folks to law and order when they don't want it, and you've got to buy 'em +to behave? When you git to be a married man with chaps, like me, you'll +keep yo' money in yo' breeches pocket and let other folks fix it up +amongst themselves about their cows an' sech." + +"I had hoped to get a chance to do something that amounted to more than +settling small family fusses," Creed said in a discouraged tone. "I hoped +to have the opportunity to talk to many a gathering of our folks about +the desirability of good citizenship in a general way. This thing of +blockaded stills keeps us forever torn up with a bad name in the valley +and the settlement." + +Old Jephthah stirred not a hair; Jim Cal sat just as he had; yet the two +were indefinably changed the moment the words "blockaded still" were +uttered. + +"Do you know of any sech? Air ye aimin' to find out about em?" quavered +the fat man finally, and his father looked scornfully at him, and the +revelation of his terror. + +"No. I don't mean it in that personal way," Creed answered impatiently. +"Mr. Turrentine, I wish you'd tell me what you think about it. You've +lived all your life in the mountains; you're a man of judgment--is there +any way to show our people the folly as well as the crime of illicit +distilling?" + +Jephthah surveyed with amusement the youth who came to an old moonshiner +for an opinion as to the advisability of the traffic. He liked the +audacity of it. It tickled his fancy. + +"Well sir," he said finally, "the guv'ment sets off thar in Washington +and names a-many a thing that I shall do and that I shan't do. +Howsomever, they is but one thing hit will come here and watch out to see +ef I keep rules on--and that's the matter o' moonshine whiskey. +Guv'ment," he repeated meditatively but with rising rancour, "what has +the guv'ment ever done fer me, that I should be asked to do so much for +hit? I put the case thisaway. That man raises corn and grinds it to meal +and makes it into bread. I raise corn and grind hit to meal and make +clean, honest whiskey. The man that makes the bread pays no tax; guv'ment +says I shall pay a tax--an' I say I will not, by God!" + +The big voice had risen to a good deal of feeling before old Jephthah +made an end. + +"Nor I wouldn't neither," bleated Jim Cal in comical antiphon. + +In the light from the open doorway Creed's face looked uneasy. + +"But you don't think--you wouldn't--" he began and then broke off. + +Old Jephthah shook his head. + +"I ain't got no blockade still," he asserted sweepingly. "I made my last +run of moonshine whiskey many a year ago. I reckon two wrongs don't make +a right." + +Creed's dismay increased. Inexperienced boy, he had not expected to +encounter such feeling in the discussion of this the one topic upon which +your true mountaineer of the remote districts can never be anything but +passionate, embittered, at bay. + +"You name the crime of makin' wildcat whiskey," the old man's deep, +accusing voice went on, after a little silence. "It ain't no crime--an' +you know it--an' no guv'ment o' mortal men can make a crime out'n it. As +for the foolishness of it," he dropped his chin on his breast, his black +eyes looked out broodingly, his great beard rose against his lips and +muffled his tones, "I reckon the foolishness of a thing is what each +feller has to find out for hisself," he said. "Daddies has been tryin' +since the time of Adam to let their knowin' it sarve for their sons; but +ef one of 'em has made the plan work yit, I ain't heard on it. Nor the +guv'ment can't neither. A man'll take his punishment for a meanness an' +l'arn by it; but to be jailed for what's his right makes an outlaw of +him, an' always will. Good Lord, Creed! What set you an' me off on this +tune? Young feller, you ort to be down yon dancin' with the gals, instead +of here talking foolishness to a old man like me." + +Creed arose to his tall young height and glanced uncertainly from his +host to the lighted room from which came the sounds of fiddle and +stamping feet. It was a little hard for a prophet on his own mountain-top +to be sent to play with the children; yet he went. + + + + +Chapter VII + +Kisses + + +With the advent of the four Turrentine boys festivities had taken on a +brighter air, the game became better worth while. + +"Wade, you've got to fiddle," cried Judith peremptorily. A chair was set +upon a table in the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted to it, and +soon "Weevily Wheat," as the twitting tune comes from the country +fiddler's jigging bow, was filling the room. + +"I reckon I ought to have asked your ruthers before I took Wade out of +the game," Judith said to Huldah Spiller as they joined hands to begin. + +"Like I cared!" retorted Huldah, tossing her red head till the curls +bobbed. She was wearing the new blue lawn dress, made by a real store +pattern cut out of tissue paper, and was supremely conscious of looking +her best. + +The Lusk girls in spotted calico frocks, the dots whereof were pink on +Cliantha's dress, and blue on Pendrilla's, had bridled and glanced about +shamefaced when Andy and Jeff came in; they now "balanced" demurely with +down dropped eyes as the game moved to the music. + +Judith had left the supper preparations with the elder women, pieced out +by the assistance of old Dilsey Rust, and was most active in the games. +In the white muslin, washed and ironed by her own skilful, capable +fingers, with the blue bow confining the heavy chestnut braids at the +nape of her neck, her dark beauty glowed richly. Now the players shifted +to "Drop the Handkerchief." Judith delighted in this game because, +fleeter of foot, quicker of hand and eye than the others, she continually +disappointed any daring swain who thought to have a kiss from her. Her +shining eyes were ever on the doorway, till Blatch Turrentine left his +seat at the back of the room and elected to lounge there watching the +play with the tolerant air of a man contemplating the sports of children. +It apparently gave him satisfaction that Judith time after time eluded a +pursuer, broke into the ring and left him to wander in search of a less +alert and resolute fair. + +"Cain't none of the boys kiss yo' gal," panted Huldah Spiller, pausing +beside him. "I doubt mightily ef ye could do it yo'self 'less'n she had a +mind to let ye'." + +Judith heard, and the carmine on her cheek deepened and spread, while the +dark eyes above gleamed angrily. + +"Come on and play, Blatch," called Wade, jigging away valiantly at his +fiddle. "We all know who it is you want to kiss--most of us is bettin' +that you're scared to try." + +"Play!" echoed Blatchley in a contemptuous tone. "I say play! When I want +to buss a gal, I walk up and take my ruthers--like this." + +Again that daunting panther quickness of movement from the big slouching +figure; the powerful lines seemed to melt and flow as he flung himself in +Judith's direction, and cast one arm firmly about her in such a way that +it pinioned both her elbows to her side. + +"You turn me a-loose!" she cried, even as Little Buck had cried. "That +ain't fair. I wasn't ready for ye, 'caze ye said ye wouldn't play. You +turn me a-loose or ye'll wish ye had." + +"No fair--no fair!" came the cries from the boys in the ring. "Either you +stay out or come in. Jude's right." + +"Well, some of ye put me out," suggested Blatchley, significantly. He had +brought a jug of moonshine whiskey over from the still and it was flowing +freely, though unknown to Old Jephthah, in the loft where most of his +possessions were kept. + +No man moved to lay finger on him. He held Judith--scarlet of face and +almost in tears--by her elbows, and lowered his mocking countenance to +within a few inches of her angry eyes. + +"Now kiss me pretty, and kiss me all yo'self. I ain't got nothin' to do +with this; hit's yo' play. You been wantin' to git a chance to kiss me +this long while," he asserted with derisive humour. "Don't you hold off +becaze the others is here; that ain't the way you do when we're--" + +"Wade--Jim Cal! Won't some o' you boys pull this fool man away," appealed +Judith. "I wish somebody'd call Uncle Jep. You can hold yo' ugly old face +there till yo' hair turns grey," she suddenly and furiously addressed her +admirer. "I'll never kiss ye." + +"Oh, yes you will--you always do," Blatchley maintained. "Ef I was to +tell the folks how blame lovin' ye are when jest you and me is alone +together----" + +He looked over his shoulder to enjoy the triumph of the moment. Blatchley +Turrentine's delight was to traverse the will of every other human being +with his own preference. Judith's gaze, tormented, tear-blurred, followed +his and saw across the shoulders of the others, the shine of Creed +Bonbright's fair hair, in the doorway. The sight brought from her an +inarticulate cry. It fired Blatchley to take the kiss which he had vowed +should be given him. As he bent to do so, Creed stepped forward and laid +a hand upon his shoulder. The movement was absolutely pacific, but the +fingers closed with a viselike grip, and there was so sharp a backward +jerk that the proffered salute was not delivered. + +In the surprise of the moment Judith pulled herself free and stood at +bay. For an instant the two men looked into each other's eyes. Creed's +blue orbs were calm, impersonal, and without one hint of yielding or +fear. + +"If you don't play fair," he said in argumentative tone, "there's no use +playing at all. Let's close up the ring and try it again." + +All eyes in the room turned to Blatchley Turrentine, the women in a +flutter of terrified apprehension, the men with a brightening of +interest; surely he would resent this interference in some notable +manner. But Blatch was in fact too deadly to be merely high-tempered, +quick in anger. For a moment he stared at Bonbright, trying to look him +down; then those odd, whitey-grey eyes narrowed to mere slits. He laid +the matter up in his mind; this was not the time for settling it--here +before Judith Barrier and the women. He did not mean to content himself +with mere fisticuffs, or even a chance pocket-knife which might double in +his grasp and cut his own hand. To the immense surprise of everybody he +stretched out his long arms, caught carelessly at the fingers of a player +on either side of him, and, mending the line, began to move in rhythmic +time to the fiddle. + +It was soon observable that Creed Bonbright's presence caused Huldah +Spiller's spirits to mount several notes in the octave. Whether it was +that her own betrothed was looking on, and this an excellent chance to +show him that even the town feller felt her charm, or merely Creed's +personal attractions could hardly be guessed. + +"Come on," she cried recklessly, "let's play 'Over the River to Feed my +Sheep.' Strike up the tune, Wade." + +The game she mentioned was also a forfeit play, with the difference that +the kiss was more certain, being taken of mere choice--though delivered, +of course, with due maidenly reluctance and a show of resisting--whenever +the girl facing one could be caught over the line. All the young people +played it; all the elders deprecated it. At the bottom of Judith's heart +lay one reason for making a play-party and bidding Creed Bonbright to it; +and now Huldah Spiller was blatantly calling out the unconfessed, the +unconfessable; Wade was sullenly dropping into the old Scotch air; the +long lines were forming, men opposite the girls--and the red-headed minx +had placed herself directly across from Creed! + +The laughing chains swayed back and forth to the measure of the +music--advancing, retreating, pursuing, evading, choosing, rejecting, in +a gay parody of courtship. Voices were added to that of the fiddle. + + "Hit's over the river to feed my sheep, + Hit's over the river to Charley; + Hit's over the river to feed my sheep + An' to kiss my lonesome darling," + +they sang. + +Shadows crouched in the corners, flickering, dancing, threatening to come +out and play, then shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room +widened. The rough brown walls took the shine and broidered themselves +with a thread of golden tracery. In such an illumination the eyes shone +with added luster, flying locks were all hyacinthine, the frocks might +have been silks and satins. + +In the movement of the game girls and boys divided. The girls tossed +beribboned heads in unwonted coquetry, yet showed always, in downcast +eyes and the modest management of light draperies, the mountain ideal of +maidenhood. Across from them the line of youthful masculinity swayed; +tall, lean, brown-faced, keen-eyed young hunters these, sinewy and light +and quick of movement, with fine hands and feet, and a lazy pride of +bearing. A very different type from that found in the lowlands, or in +ordinary rustic communities. + +Judith noted the other players not at all; her hot reprehending eyes were +on the girl in the blue dress. She did not observe that she herself was +dancing opposite Andy, while Pendrilla Lusk dragged with drooping head in +the line across from the amiably grinning Doss Provine. Finding herself +suddenly in the lead and successful, Huldah began to preen her feathers a +bit. She withdrew a hand from the girl on her right to arrange the small +string of blue glass beads around her neck. + +"Jest ketch to my skirt for a minute," she whispered loudly. "I reckon +hit won't rip, though most of 'em is 'stitches taken for a friend'--I was +that anxious to get it done for the party. Oh, Law!" + +And then--nobody knew how it happened--she was over the line, her hold on +the hands of her mates broken, she had tripped and fallen in a giggling +blue lawn heap fairly at Bonbright's feet. He was in a position where the +least gallant must offer the salute the game demanded, but to make +assurance doubly sure Huldah put out her hands like a three-year-old, +crying, + +"He'p me up, Creed, I b'lieve I've sprained my ankle." + +The young fellow from Hepzibah was in a mood for play. After all he was +only a big boy, and he had been long barred out from young people's +frolics. Here was a gay, toward little soul, who seemed to like him. He +stooped and caught her by the waist, picking her up as one might a small +child, and holding her a moment with her feet off the floor. Something in +the laughing challenge of her face as she protested and begged to be put +down prompted him as to what was expected. He kissed her lightly upon the +cheek before he released her. + +As he set her down he encountered Wade Turrentine's eye. A spark of tawny +fire had leaped to life in its hazel depth. The fiddler still clung +faithfully to his office. If he missed a note now and again, or played +off key, he might be forgiven. It is to be remembered that he sawed away +without a moment's pause throughout the entire episode. + +Creed reached out to join the broken line and touched Jeff's arm. The boy +flung away from the contact with a muttered word. He looked helplessly at +Judith, but she would not glance at him; head haughtily erect, long +lashes on crimson cheeks, red lip curled to an expression of offence and +disdain, the young hostess mended the line by joining the hands of the +two girls on each side of her. + +"You-all can go on playin' without me," she said in a constrained tone. +"I got to see to something in the other room." + +"See here, Mister Man," remarked Blatch, as Judith prepared to leave. +"You're mighty free and permisc'ous makin' rules for kissin' games, but I +take notice you don't follow none of 'em yo'se'f." + +Judith halted uncertainly. To stop and defend Creed was out of the +question. She was about to interpose with the general accusation that +Blatch was trying to pick a fuss and break up her play-party, when Iley's +voice, for once a welcome interruption, broke in from the doorway. + +"Jude, we ain't got plates enough for everybody an' to put the biscuit +on," called Jim Cal's wife. "Ax Creed Bonbright could we borry a few from +his house." + +Judith closed instantly with the diversion. She moved quickly toward the +door; Bonbright joined her. + +"Why yes," he said. "You know I told you to help yourself. Let me go over +now and get what you want. Is there anything else?" + +"That's mighty kind of you, Creed," Judith thanked him. "I reckon I +better go along with ye and see. I don't think of anything else just now. +Iley, we'll be back quick as we can with all the plates ye need." + +Together they stepped out into the soft dusk of the summer night, +followed by the narrowed gaze of Blatch Turrentine's grey eyes. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +On the Doorstone + + +Behind them the play was resumed in the lighted room; the whining of the +fiddle, the thud and stamp of many feet, came to them softened and +refined by a little distance. They were suddenly drawn together in that +intimacy of two who leave the company and the lights on a special +expedition. Judith made an impatient mental effort to release the +incident of Huldah and the kiss, which had so unreasonably irritated +her. + +"If we was to go acrosst fields hit would be a heap better," she advised +softly, and they moved through the odorous, myriad-voiced darkness of the +midsummer night, side by side, without speech, for a time. Then as Creed +halted at a dim, straggling barrier which crossed their course and laid +down a rail fence partially that she might the more easily get over in +her white frock, she returned to the tormenting subject once more, +opening obliquely: + +"You and Huldy Spiller is old friends I reckon. Don't you think she's a +powerful pretty girl?" + +"Mighty pretty," echoed Creed absently. All girls were of an even +prettiness to him, and Huldah Spiller was a pleasant little thing. He was +wondering what he had done back there in the play-room that had set them +all against him. + +"Her and Wade is goin' to be wedded come September," put in Judith +jealously. + +"Yo' cousin will be getting a mighty fine wife." + +The mountain man is apt to make his comments on the marriages of his +friends with dignified formality, and Creed uttered the accustomed phrase +without heat or enthusiasm; but it seemed to Judith that he might have +said less--or more. + +"Well, I never did like red hair," the girl managed to get out finally; +"but I reckon hit's better than old black stuff like mine." + +"My mother's hair was sorter sandy," Creed answered in his gentle, +tolerant fashion. "Mine favours it." And he had not the wit to add that +dark hair, however, pleased him best. + +Judith stepped beside him for some moments in mortified silence. +Evidently he was green wood and could by none of her old methods be +kindled. Then, their eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, they came +out into a modified twilight in the clearing about the Bonbright house. +"You better unlock the door and go in first," suggested Judith, in a +depressed tone. + +"Why, I ain't got the key," Creed reminded her. "I left it with +you--didn't you bring it?" + +They drew unconsciously close together in the dark with something of the +guilty consternation of childish culprits. A mishap of the sort ripens an +acquaintance swiftly. + +"What a gump I was!" Judith breathed with sudden low laughter. He could +see her eyes shining in the gloom, and the dim outline of her figure. "I +knowed well an' good you didn't have the key--hit's in the blue bowl on +the fire-board at home." + +"I ought to have thought of it," asserted Creed shouldering the blame. +"And I'm sorry; I wanted to show you my mother's picture." + +"An' _I'm_ sorry," echoed Judith, remembering fleetingly the swept and +garnished rooms, the wreath of red roses; "I had something to show you, +too." + +Nothing was said of the dishes for the merrymakers at Judith's house. +Another interest was obtruding itself into the simple, practical +expedition, crowding aside its original purpose. The girl looked around +the dim, weed-grown garden, its bushes blots of deeper shadow upon the +darkness, its blossoms vaguely conjectured by their odour. + +"There used to be a bubby bush--a sweet-scented shrub--over in that +corner," Creed hesitated. "I'd like to get you some of the bubbies. My +mother used to pick 'em and put 'em in the bureau drawers I remember, and +they made everything smell nice." + +He had taken her hand and led her with him, advancing uncertainly toward +the flowers. He felt her shiver, and halted instantly. + +"Yo' cold!" he said. "Let me take my coat off and put it around ye--I +don't need it. You got overheated playing back there, and now you'll +catch a cold." + +"Oh, no," disclaimed Judith, whose little shudder had been as much from +excitement as from the sharp chill of the night air after the heated +play-room. "I reckon somebody jest walked over my grave--I ain't cold." + +But he had pulled off the coat while he spoke, and now he turned to put +it about her, and drew her back to the doorstep. Judith was full of a +strange ecstasy as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. The lover's +earliest and favourite artifice--the primitive kindness of wrapping her +in his own garment! Even Creed, unready and unschooled as he was, felt +stir within him its intimate appeal. + +A nebulous lightening which had been making itself felt behind the +eastern line of mountains now came plainly in view, late moon, melancholy +and significant, as the waning moon always is. By its dim illumination +Creed saw Judith Barrier standing at the door of his own house, smiling +at him tremulously, with the immemorial challenge in her dark eyes. To +that challenge the native man in him--the lover--so long usurped by the +zealot, the would-be philanthropist, rose thrilling, yet still bewildered +and uncertain, to respond. Something heady and ancient and eternally +young seemed to pass into his soul out of the night and the moonlight and +the shining of her eyes. He was all alive to her nearness, her +loveliness, to the sweet sense that she was a young woman, he a young +man, and the loveliness and the dearness of her were his for the +trying--for the winning. His breath caught in his throat. + +"Wait a minute," he whispered hurriedly, though she had not moved. With +eager hands he wrapped the coat close about her. "Let's sit here on the +doorstep and talk awhile. There are a heap of things I want to ask you +about--that I want to tell you." + +Young beauty and belle that she was, Judith had been sought and courted, +in that most primitive society, since she was fourteen. She was love's +votary by birthright, and her wit and her emotions were schooled in +love's game: to lure, to please, to exploit, to defend, evade, deny; in +each postulant seeking, testing, trying for the right man to whom should +be made love's final surrender. But Creed, always absorbed in vague +altruistic dreams, had no boyish sweethearting behind him to have taught +him the ways of courtship. + +Fire-flies sparkled everywhere, thickest over the marshy places. A mole +cricket was chirring in the grass by the old doorstone. Sharp on the soft +dark air came the call of that woodland night bird which the mountain +people say cries "chip-out-o'-white-oak," and which others translate +"chuck-wills-widow." + +"I--" he began, hesitated momentarily, then daunted, grasped at the +familiar things of his life--"I don't get on very well up here. I'm +afraid I've made a failure of it; but"--he turned to her in a curious, +groping entreaty, his hat in his hands, the dim moonlight full on his +fair head and in his eager eyes--"but if you would help me--with you--I +think I ought to----" + +"I say made a failure!" cooed Judith in her rich, low tones. "You ax me +whatever you want to know. You tell me what it is that you're aimin' to +do--I say made a failure!" + +Her trust was so hearty, so wholesale, she filled so instantly the +position not only of sweetheart but of mother to a small boy with an +unsatisfactory toy--that would always be Judith Barrier--that Creed's +heart--the man's heart--a lonely one, and beginning to feel itself +misunderstood and barred out from its kind--melted in his bosom. There +was silence between them, a silence vibrant with the coming utterance. +But even as the dark, fond, inviting eyes and the troubled, kindling blue +ones encountered, as Creed lifted the girl's hand timidly, and essayed +speech, the voice of that one who had stepped on her grave harshly +aroused them both. + +"I vow--I thort it was thieves, an' I was a-goin' to see could I pick off +you-all," drawled Blatchley Turrentine's level tones from the shadow of +the garden. Mutely, with a sense of chill and disappointment that was +like the shock of a physical blow to each, the two young creatures got to +their feet and turned to leave the place, preparing to go by the high +road, without consultation. As they passed him near the gate, Blatch +Turrentine fell in on the other side of the girl and walked with them +silently for a time. + +"Iley sont me over," he said finally. "She was skeered you-all wouldn't +bring any plates." + +Neither Judith nor Creed offered any explanation. Instead: + +"Well, I don't see how you're goin' to help anything," said the girl +bitterly--any presence must have been hateful to her which interrupted or +forestalled what Creed would certainly have said, that for which her +whole twenty years had waited. + +"Oh, I've got the plates," chuckled Blatch, jingling a bulky package +under his arm. + +"Why, how did you----" began Judith in amazement. + +"Uh-huh, I've got my own little trick of gittin' in whar I choose to go," +declared Turrentine. He leaned around and looked meaningly at the man on +her other side, then questioned, "How long do you-all reckon I'd been +thar?" and examined them keenly in the shadowy half light. + +But neither hastened to disclaim or explain, neither seemed in any degree +embarrassed, though to both his bearing was plainly almost intolerable. +Thereafter they walked in silence which was scarcely broken till they +reached the gate and Iley came shrilling out to meet them demanding, + +"Did you get them thar plates from Miz. Lusk's, you Blatch Turrentine?" + +Judith looked at him with angry scorn. It was the old tyrannical trick +which she had known from her childhood up, the attempt to maintain an +ascendency over her by appearing to know everything and be +everywhere--"like he was the Lord-a'mighty Hisself," she muttered +indignantly, as Creed joined a group of young men, and she passed in to +her necessary activities as hostess. + +Judith Barrier's play-party won to its close with light hearts and light +feet, with heavy hearts which the weary body would fain have denied, with +love and laughter, with jealousy and chagrin, with the slanted look of +envy, of furtive admiration, or of disparagement, from feminine eyes at +the costumes of other women, just as any ball does. + +The two who had trembled upon the brink of some personal revelation, a +closer communion, were not again alone together that evening. Amid the +moving figures of the others, now to his eyes as painted automatons, +Creed Bonbright watched with strong fascination in which there was a +tincture that was almost terror, the beautiful girl who had suddenly +emerged from her class and become for him the one woman. + +So adequate, so competent, Judith dominated the situation; passing among +her guests, the thick dark lashes continually lowered toward her crimson +cheeks. Some subtle sense told her that the spell was working. Smiles +from this sweet inner satisfaction curved her red lips. No need to +look--she knew how his eyes were following her. The exultant knowledge of +it sang all through her being. Gone were her perturbations, her chilling +uncertainties. She was at once stimulated and quieted. + +Their good-byes were said in the most public manner, yet one glance +flashed between them which asked and promised an early meeting. + + + + +Chapter IX + +Foeman's Bluff + + +It was near midnight when Creed sought his patient mule at the rack, to +find that Doss Provine had ridden the animal away. + +"He said you was a-goin' to stay at yo' own house to-night, an' he 'lowed +ye wouldn't need the mule, an' he was mighty tired. He 'lowed hit was a +mighty long ja'nt out to the Edge whar he was a-goin'," contributed Blev +Straley, who seemed to have been admitted to Provine's confidence. + +"Mighty long ja'nt--I say long ja'nt!" ejaculated old man Broyles, who +was engaged in saddling his ancient one-eyed mare. "Ef I couldn't spit as +fur as from here to the Edge I'd never chaw tobacker agin! Plain old +fashioned laziness is what ails Doss Provine. I'd nacher'ly w'ar him out +for this trick, Bonbright, ef I was you." + +"Well, I did aim to stay over at my house to-night," said Creed, "But I +can't. I've got a case to try in the morning, soon, that I've got to look +up some points on yet to-night. I reckon I'll have to foot it out to Aunt +Nancy's." + +As Creed spoke a fellow by the name of Taylor Stribling, a sort of +satellite of Blatchley Turrentine's came slouching from the shadows of +the nearby smoke-house. He watched old man Broyles ride away, and Blev +Straley take a leisurely departure. + +"Mighty bad ye got to hoof it, Creed," he observed. "Ef you've a mind to +come with me I can show you a short cut through the woods by Foeman's +Bluff. Hit's right on the first part of my way." + +Creed had been long out of the mountains or he would have known that a +short cut which led by Foeman's Bluff would certainly be a strange route +toward Nancy Card's cabin; but it was characteristic of the man that +without question or demur he accepted the proffered friendly turn at its +face value, and he and Stribling at once took the way which led across +the gulch to the still. They walked for some time, Stribling leading, +Creed following, deep in his own thoughts. + +"Looks like this is a queer direction to be going," he roused himself to +comment wonderingly as they dipped into the sudden hollow. + +"The trail turns a piece up yon," explained the guide briefly. + +Again they toiled on in silence, crossing the dry boulder-strewn bed of a +stream, travelling always in the dense darkness of the tall timber, +finally striking the rise, which was so abrupt and steep that they had to +catch by the path-side bushes to pull themselves up. It was lighter here, +as the trail mounted toward a region of rocky bluffs where there was no +big timber, running obliquely across the great promontory that had got +the name of Foeman's Bluff, from old Ab Foeman whose hideout, still +unknown, was said to be somewhere in its front. + +"Ain't it mighty curious to be goin' up so?" Creed panted. "Aunt Nancy's +place lies lower than the Turrentines'. By the road it's down hill mighty +near all the way." + +"Thishyer's a short cut," growled the other evasively. "Mind how you +step. Hit's a fur ways down thar ef a body was to fall." + +With the words they came out suddenly on the Bluff itself where the +trail widened into a natural terrace, and the great rock, solemn with +majestic peace, faced an infinity of sky with bared brow. As they +emerged into the light Creed took off his hat and lifted his +countenance, inhaling the beauty of the summer night. The late moon +had climbed a third of the way up the heavens; now she looked down with +a chastened, tarnished light, yet with a dusky, diminished beauty that +held a sort of mild pathos. Great timbered slopes, inky black in this +illumination, fell away on every hand down to where the mists lay +death-white in the valley; behind them was a low, irregular bulk of +brush-grown rock; and all about the whirr of katydids, a million voices +blended into one. From a nearby thicket came to them the click and liquid +gurgle, "Chip-out-o'-white-oak!" It sent Creed's heart and fancy questing +back to the past hour with the girl on the doorstone. What would he have +asked, she answered, if Blatch had not interrupted them? He scarcely heard +the wavering cry of a screech-owl that followed hard upon the +remembered notes. Stribling, however, noted the latter promptly, and +began edging toward the shadow as his companion spoke. + +"This is mighty sightly," said Creed, looking about him musingly; "I do +love a moonshiny night." + +For a moment there was only the noise of the katydids, backgrounded and +enfolded by the deep silence of the great mountains. Then someone broke +out into what was evidently a forced laugh, a long-drawn, girding, +mirthless haw-haw, the laboured insult of which stung Creed into a +certain resentment of demeanour. + +"What's the joke?" he inquired dryly, turning toward Taylor Stribling. +But Stribling had silently melted away among the shadows of distant trees +along the trail. It was Blatchley Turrentine who stood before him +thrusting forward a jeering face in the uncertain half light, while three +vaguely defined forms moved and shouldered behind him. The apparition was +sinister, but if Blatch looked for demonstrations of fear he was +disappointed. + +"What's the joke?" Creed repeated. + +"I couldn't hold in when I heared your pretty talk," drawled Blatch, +setting his hands on his hips and barring the way. "Whar might you be +a-goin', Mr. Creed Bonbright?" + +"Home," returned Creed briefly. "Get out of my road, and I'll be obliged +to you." + +"Yo' road--_yo'_ road!" echoed Blatch. "Well, young feller, besides this +here road runnin' acrosst the south eend o' the property that I've rented +on a five-year lease, ef so be that yo're a-goin' to Nancy Cyard's house +this is a mighty curious direction for you to be travellin' in." + +"I was told it was a short cut," said Bonbright controlling his temper. A +man who was justice of the peace, going home to get ready to try a case +on the morrow, must not embroil himself. + +"Good Lord!" scoffed Blatch. "You claim to be mountain raised, and tell +me you think this is a short cut from whar you was at to Nancy Cyard's? I +reckon you'll have to make up another tale." + +Bonbright became suddenly aware that he was surrounded, two of the men +who were with Turrentine having slipped past him and appearing now as +blots of blacker shadow against the trees on either side of the path by +which he had come. Turrentine and the remaining man barred the way ahead; +on the one side was the sheer descent of the bluff; on the other the +rough, broken rise. + +It was like a bad dream. With his usual forthright directness he spoke +out. + +"What is it you want of me--all of you? This meeting never came about by +chance." + +Blatch shook his head. "Yo' mighty right it didn't," he said. "Me an' the +boys has a word to speak with you, and when we ketch you walkin' on our +land in the middle o' the night--with whatever intentions--we think the +time has come for talkin'." + +"Andy! Jeff! Is that you?" Creed, the rash, called over his shoulder to +the two behind him. + +An inarticulate growl answered, and then a boyish voice began, + +"Yo' mighty free with folks' names, you Creed Bonbright. Me and my +brother both told you what we thought o' you when you come to the jail. I +told you then you'd be run out of the Turkey Tracks ef you tried to come +up here. We don't want no spies." + +"Spies!" echoed Creed with a rising note of anger in his voice. "Who said +I was a spy? What should I be spying on?" + +"Yo' friend Mr. Dan Haley might 'a' said you was a spy," suggested Andy's +higher pitched tones. "As for what you'd be a-spyin' on you know best. +We're all mighty peaceable, law-abidin' folks in the Turkey Tracks. I +don't know of nothin' that we're apt to break the law about 'less'n it +would be beatin' up and runnin' out a spy that----" + +The childish bravado of this speech evidently displeased Blatch, who +wanted the thing done and over with. His heavier, grating tones broke +in, + +"They's jest one thing to be said to you, Creed Bonbright. You've got to +get out of the Turkey Tracks--and get quick. Air ye goin'?" + +"No!" Creed flung back at him. "When I take my orders from you it will be +a mighty cold day. I came up here in the Turkey Tracks to do a good work +among my own people. I'm going to stay here and do it in my own way. Is +that you, Wade Turrentine? What have you got to say to me?" + +The second of the men who faced him stirred uneasily at the mention of +his name. It rankled in the expectant bridegroom's heart that all he +could complain of concerning Creed Bonbright was that Huldah had thrown +herself in his way and forced a kiss upon him--not that Bonbright had +been the amatory aggressor! + +"I say what Blatch says," growled Wade as though the words stuck in his +throat. + +More and more the whole thing was like a nightmare to Creed; he felt as +though with sufficient effort he might throw it off and wake. The four +men hung at the path-side eyeing him, motionless if he were still, moving +only if he stirred. Even this scarcely gave him a complete understanding +of the gravity of his situation. + +"Well," he said finally, "I'm going on home. If any of you boys has +anything to say to me, to-morrow or any day after--you know where to find +me." + +He made as though to pass; but Blatch Turrentine stepped swiftly to the +middle of the pathway and stood breathing a little short. + +"No, by God, we don't!" he panted. "Ef we let you to go this night--we +don't know whar we'll ever find you again. Mebbe you've got yo' budget +made up--on yo' way to yo' friend Mr. Dan Haley right now. _Ye don't go +from here_!" + +Instinctively Creed fell back a step. It was out at last--this was +neither more nor less than a waylaying. Did they mean to kill him? Blatch +Turrentine had crouched where he stood, and even as the question went +through the victim's mind, he launched himself with that sudden frightful +quickness bodily upon Creed. + +It would seem that the slighter man must be borne down by the onset. But +Bonbright gathered himself, his arms shot out and gripped his assailant +midway. Struggling, panting, gasping, stamping, they wrenched and swayed, +the three who watched them holding aloof. Then with a sheer effort of +strength Creed tore the heavier man from his footing and lifted him clear +of the ground. + +With a little sobbing oath Andy ran in. Bonbright could have heaved the +man he held over his shoulder in that terrific fall well known to deadly +wrestling. Wade's stern, "Sst! Git back there!" stopped the boy. Even as +Creed's muscles knotted themselves to the supreme effort came sudden +memory of what he must stand for to these people. It was his right to +defend his own life; he must not, in any extremity, take that of another. +His grip relaxed. Turrentine partially got his feet again; his arms were +free; the right made a swift movement, and Creed caught the gleam of a +knife-blade. Without volition of his own he flung all his weight and +strength into one mighty movement that hurled man and weapon from him. + +Plunging, staggering, clutching at the air, Turrentine gave ground. The +moonlight flickered on the blade in his upflung hand as, with a strangled +hoarse cry he reeled backward over the bluff. + +There was a rending sound of breaking branches, a noise of rolling rocks; +then deadly silence. For a long moment the men left standing on the cliff +strained eyes and ears to where Blatch had gone down, then, + +"Keep off!" shouted Creed as the three others began silently to close in +on him. "Stand back, boys. We've had enough of this. Draw off and let me +get down and see what's happened to him." He kept slowly backing away, +striving not to be hemmed in against the rock behind him. The others +warily followed. + +"Let you down and finish him, ye mean--don't ye?" screamed Andy with all +a boy's senseless rage. + +"You're a fine one to bring law and order into the Turkey Tracks," Wade +taunted savagely. "You've brought murder--that's what you've done." + +"He drew a knife on me," cried Bonbright. "You all saw that. I only +shoved him away. I never meant to throw him over the bluff." + +"Nobody seen no knife but you, Creed Bonbright," Jeff doggedly +asseverated. "All three of us seen you fling Blatch over the bluff. You +ain't in no court of law now. Yo' lies won't do you no good. Yo' where we +kill the feller that done the killin'." + +"How?" said Creed, still backing, feeling his way slowly, seeking for +some break in the rise behind, the others coming a little closer. "By +jumpin' on to him somewhere out at night, four to one--or even three to +one?" + +"Yes, by God! thataway, ef we cain't do it no better way," panted Wade. + +Years before--heaven knows how many--a little seep of water began to +gather between two huge stones in the small broken bluff behind Creed. +Winter after winter the crevice through which the trickle came enlarged, +the water caught in a natural basin and froze with all its puny might to +heave the stones apart. The winter before this slow process had closed +leaving a wedge of rock trembling upon its base, ready to fall into a +crevice. Yet the opening was masked with vine leaves, and when the spring +rains finally washed away the mould and the crude doorway tottered and +sank, the gap thus left was unnoted, invisible to the sharpest eye. + +Bonbright pressing close against the rock to pass, stepping warily when +it was forward, but hugging his barrier as a safety, missed his footing, +and slipped almost without a sound into this opening. For a moment he +sustained himself holding to tree roots, hearkening to the voices of +those above him. + +"Wade--you fool! What did you let him get a-past you for?" + +And then Wade's heavier tones, "I didn't. He run back yo' way." + +He could hear their footsteps pounding to and fro, their hoarse cries +which finally settled down into a demand for a lantern. + +"We can't find Blatch nor do nothing for him, nor git on the track of +Bonbright nor nothin' else, without a lantern. You Jeff, run round to the +still; me and Andy'll go back and fetch pap." + +Creed sought cautiously for footing, lost all hold, and began a headlong +descent. + +Low limbs thrashed his face and body; again and again his head was dashed +against rocks or tree stems; his forehead was gashed; the blood poured +into his eyes; he rolled and bounded and slid down and down and down the +crevice, and into the ravine, bruised, bleeding, breathless, blinded and +choked by blood and earth and gravel. He was more than half unconscious +when he brought up at last with a rib-smashing thump upon a sapling, and +there he clung like a dazed animal, gasping. + +Slowly, as his breath came back to him, and he cleared the blood and dust +from his eyes, Creed became aware of a dim glow coming through the bushes +in one direction. For some time he watched it, making ready to get away +as quickly as possible, since this must be on Blatch Turrentine's land, +and the light came probably from some of Blatch's party searching for +Turrentine himself, or for Creed. + +But when he noted that the illumination was steady and stationary, he +began to move hesitatingly in its direction. He had gone probably two or +three hundred feet when he came to a place whence he had an unobstructed +view. The light shone out from the cramped opening of a cave. He went +nearer in a sort of daze. There was nobody to intercept him, Blatch and +the boys, whom he had left on the bluff above, when he so unexpectedly +descended from it, being the only sentinels out. No approach was looked +for from the quarter where he now was, and he found himself, gazing +directly into Blatch Turrentine's blockaded still. He could distinctly +see Jim Cal and the fellow Taylor Stribling moving about within the cave. +They were attending to a run of whiskey. While Bonbright stood +motionless, not yet fully comprehending the sinister colour his presence +might wear, there was the thud of running footsteps, Jeff Turrentine +rounded the boulder on the other side of the cave and called aloud to +those within, + +"Jim Cal! Taylor! Buck! Creed Bonbright's killed Blatch--flung him clean +over the bluff--and got plumb away from us! Bring a lantern you-all. +We've got to hunt for Blatch in under Foeman's Bluff--I'll show you +whar." + +Silently Creed drew back into the dense undergrowth. He knew where he +was, now. As he retreated swiftly in the opposite direction from that in +which Jeff had approached, he could vaguely hear the excited voices at +the still, questioning, replying, denouncing, exclaiming. Presently he +came out upon the main trail, rounded the Gulch, heading for the big road +and Nancy Card's cabin, his soul sick within him at the events of the +evening, bitterly regretting the explicit and unwelcome knowledge of the +secret still which had been forced upon him, feeling himself now a spy +indeed--a spy and a murderer. + +He walked with long nervous strides; beaten and bruised though he was, he +was unconscious of fatigue; the grief and regret that surged within him +were as an anodyne to physical pain, and it was less than half an hour +later that he opened the door of Nancy Card's cabin, his white face +scratched and bleeding, his torn hands, too, covered with blood, his +clothing rent and earth-stained, his eyes wild and pain-bright. + +"Good Lord, boy! What's the matter with ye?" cried the old woman, coming +toward him in terror, both hands out. "I sot up for ye, 'caze Pony he +jest come from Hepzibah an' said that spiled-rotten Andy an' that feisty +Jeff 'lowed ye was a spy an' they was a-goin' to run ye out of the Turkey +Tracks." + +She laid hold of him and examined him with anxious eyes. + +"I was plumb werried about ye. I knowed in reason they was a-goin' to be +trouble at that fool play-party." + +"No, I ain't hurt, Aunt Nancy," said Creed desolately, and he stared past +her at the wall. "But looks to me like I'm cursed. I meant so well----" +He choked on the word. "I'd just had a talk with--She said--we--I thought +that everything was about to come right. And now--I've killed Blatch +Turrentine, and I've just got away from the others. They was all after +me." + + + + +Chapter X + +A Spy + + +Old Jephthah was winding the clock when the door--which he had closed +some time ago after the last retiring guests--flung violently open, Andy +paused, flying foot on the threshold, and gasped out hoarsely, + +"Pap--Creed Bonbright's killed Blatch and got away from us!" + +The Lusk girls had staid to help Judith clear up, intending to remain +over night unless Andy and Jeff returned in time to take them home. The +three young women working at the table lifted pale faces; Pendrilla let +fall the plate in her hand and broke it. Unconscious of the fact, she +stood staring with open mouth at the fragments by her feet. Jephthah took +one more turn mechanically, then withdrew the key and laid it down. + +"Whar at?" he inquired briefly. + +"Up on our place," said Wade who now appeared at the boy's side. +"Bonbright throwed him over Foeman's Bluff." + +"How come it?" queried the head of the tribe. + +"They was a fussin'," began Andy, but his father interrupted him in a +curious tone. + +"Foeman's Bluff," he repeated. "What tuck Bonbright thar at this time o' +night?" + +"That's what I say," panted Jim Cal's voice in the darkness outside. He +had come straight from the still instead of going with Jeff and the +others to search; and for all his flesh he had overtaken his brothers. +But there was none now to demand sardonically why he fled the seat of war +and ran to the paternal shelter for re-enforcements. "Ef folks go nosin' +around whar they ain't wanted, sometimes they git what they don't like," +he concluded. + +Judith, very pale, had parted her lips to utter words of indignant +defence, and denial of this broad imputation, but before she could speak +Huldah Spiller irrupted into the room, her red curls flying, her bodice +clutched about her in such a fashion as to suggest she had been +undressing when the news reached her. + +The mountain woman with temperament is reduced to the outlets of such +occasions as these, or revival seasons and funerals; and Huldah Spiller, +having abandoned the protesting Iley with her babies, whom the mother +could not leave alone, meant to make the most of the occasion. + +"You-all ain't got no right to talk the way you do about Creed," the +red-haired girl burst out. "Him and me's been friends ever sence I went +to Hepzibah, and there ain't a better man walks the earth. Ef he done +anything to Blatch hit was becaze Blatch laywayed him an' jumped on him, +an' he had to. Oh, Lord!" and she began to weep, "I wish't my daddy was +here--I jest wish Pap Spiller was here. Pore Creed! Ef you-all git yo' +hands on him, mad thisaway, the Lord knows what will be did!" + +Jephthah regarded his postulant daughter-in-law from under lowered, bushy +brows. + +"Kin you make her hush?" he inquired of Wade. + +"I ain't got no interest in makin' her hush nor makin' her holler," +returned Wade contemptuously. Dishonoured before his clan, his male +dignity sadly shorn, his woman shrieking out the wrongs and excellences +of another man--and that man a young and well-favoured enemy--his +bitterness may be forgiven. + +"Fetch the lantern," ordered Jephthah briefly. "We-all have got to git +over thar and see to this business." + +"Well, I'll hush--but I'm goin' along," volleyed Huldah. + +"Le's us go too, Jude," pleaded Cliantha Lusk in a trembling whisper. +"I'm scared to be left here in the house with the men all gone. He might +take a notion to come and raid the place and kill us. They do thataway in +feud times. My gran' mammy----" + +"Do hush!" choked Judith. But she hurried out in the wake of the +departing men, Cliantha clinging to one arm, Pendrilla to the other. + +They left the doors open, the candles flaring, and nobody to guard but +the toothless old hound who slept and snored on the chip pile. + +The journey to Foeman's Bluff, following the flicker of the lantern in +Wade's hand, with the voices of the men coming back to her, hoarse, +fragmentary, ejaculatory, reciting Creed's offences asseverating that +they had expected nothing else, was like a nightmare to Judith. When +Cliantha screamed and clung to her and said she thought she saw Creed +Bonbright in the bushes by the path-side, Judith shook her off angrily, +but let the clamouring little thing creep back and make her peace. + +"I forgot about you and Blatch--Oh, po' Judy!" moaned Cliantha. "Ef hit +was me goin' to s'arch for the murdered body of my true love I don't know +as I could put foot befo' foot!" + +"The trail's mighty narrow here--I'll go in front," said Judith. She +freed herself, and thereafter walked alone with bent head. + +As they descended into the hollow Andy began to hoo-ee; and finally he +was answered from the neighbourhood of the bluff. Up this they climbed, +since on this side they were cut off from the region below it by an +impassable gulley. Halting on the top and looking down, they could see a +lantern moving about and catch faint sound of the men's voices. + +"Who's down thar?" Jephthah's big rolling bass sent out the call. There +was an ominous hesitation before Jeff's perturbed tones replied, + +"Hit's me, pap, me an' Buck Shalliday an' Taylor Stribling." + +Andy found a tall tree at the bluffs edge, and began to descend through +its branches with the swiftness and agility of a monkey. + +"How is he--is he alive?" + +The old man put the query at the edge of the gulf, stooping, peering +over. Jim Cal sat down suddenly and began wiping his forehead. The +moonlight showed his round face very pale under its beaded sweat. + +"Andy'll git hisself killed!" whimpered Pendrilla. + +And Huldah broke into loud hysteric weeping, on the tide of which +"Creed--Pap Spiller--Blatch Turrentine" were cast up now and again. + +"Hush, cain't ye?" demanded Jephthah, angrily; "I cain't hear one word +they answer me down thar. Hello, boys. Is he livin'?" + +Andy had evidently reached the searchers at the foot of the cliff. Loud, +confused voices came up to those above. Finally, + +"W'y, Pap, we ain't never found him," Jeff called. + +"Ye _what_?" demanded the father incredulously. + +"We ain't--never--found him," reiterated Jeff doggedly. + +The old man drew back sharply with a look of swift anger in his face. + +"Well, ef ye hain't found him by now ye better quit lookin', hadn't ye?" +he suggested as he straightened to his full height and turned his back. + +"Creed Bonbright's jest about been here an' hid the body, that's what +he's done," Taylor Stribling clamoured after him in futile explanation. +But the old man gave no heed. Lantern in hand, he was already addressing +himself to a careful examination of the scene of the struggle. The torn +vines where Creed had fallen through the fissure instantly caught his +eye. + +"Come up here, you-all!" he turned and shouted toward the gulf. He swung +his lantern far out over the crevice. "Look at that," he said quietly. +"Thar's whar yo' man got away from ye." He handed the lantern to Wade, +and swung himself lightly down where Creed had fallen. + +"Better let me go, Pap," said Wade, and Judith mutely stared after the +old man as he disappeared into the dark. + +For fifteen minutes or more the watchers on the cliff waited and +trembled, straining ears and eyes. In that time they were joined by those +from the foot of the bluff, all but Stribling, who, the boys said, had +"gone on home." Then they heard sounds of clambering in the cleft, and +the old man's face appeared in the well of inky shadow, pale, the black +eyes burning, the great black beard flowing backward to join the darkness +behind him. Wade held his lantern high. It lit a circle of faces on which +terror, anger, and distress wrought. Judith could scarcely look at her +uncle, and a great trembling shook her limbs, so that she laid hold of a +little sapling by which she stood, and closed her eyes. + +"Well," said the old man on a falling note, and his voice sounded +hollowly from the cleft, "well, I reckon this does settle it--whether +Blatch is hurt or no. How many of ye was a-workin' in the still +to-night?" + +"I was," quavered Jim Cal; "me and Taylor Stribling and Buck Shalliday. +Blatch had left a run o' whiskey that had to be worked off, and when he +didn't come I turned in to 'tend to it--why, Pap?" + +"Ef Bonbright wanted to find out about the still he shore made it, that's +all," answered Jephthah. "Ye can see right into it from whar he went. Ef +you-all boys wants to stay out o' the penitentiary I reckon Creed +Bonbright's got to leave the Turkey Tracks mighty sudden," and he swung +himself heavily to the level of the cliff. + +"That's what I say," whispered Jim Cal, pasty pale and quivering. "We've +got it to do." + +Old Jephthah looked darkly upon his sons. + +"Well, settle it amongst ye, how an' when. I'll neither meddle nor make +in this business. I don't know how all o' this come about, nor what +you-all an' Blatch Turrentine air up to. You've made an outsider o' me, +an' an outsider I'll stay. Ef ye won't tell me the truth, don't tell me +no lies. Come on, gals." + +He strode into the homeward trail, the four girls falling in behind his +tall figure. Judith was sick with misery and uncertainty; the Lusk girls +looked back timidly at Andy and Jeff; even Huldah was mute. + + + + +Chapter XI + +The Warning + + +Five o'clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of +Nancy's home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but +otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine table in his little shack, +working over the references which applied to the case he was to try that +morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah Provine to the door to +borrow the threading of a needle with white thread. + +"I hearn they had an interruption," she began, pushing in past Nancy and +the two children, "but thar--you kin hear anything these days and times. +They most gen'ally does find trouble at these here play-parties, that's +why I'm sot agin 'em." + +Poor old soul, it was not on account of her rheumatic legs, her toothless +jaws, nor her half-blind eyes that she objected to play-parties, of +course. + +"I got no use for 'em," she pursued truthfully, "specially when they're +started up too close to a blockade still. They named it to me that Creed +had done killed one of the Turrentine boys--is that so?" + +"No," returned Nancy stoutly. "By the best of what I kin git out o' +Creed, him and Blatch was walkin' along, an' Blatch missed his footin' +and fell off o' Foeman's Bluff. Creed tried to he'p him, an' fell an' got +scratched some. I reckon the Turrentines'll tell it different, but that's +what I make out from what Creed says." + +"Lord, how folks will lie!" admired Keziah, piously. "Now they tell that +Blatch was not only killed up, but that some one--Creed, or some o' them +that follers him--tuck the body away befo' they could git to it. They say +they was blood all over the bushes, an' a great drug place whar Blatch +had been toted off. One feller named a half-dug hole sorter like a grave; +but thar! I never went over to see for myse'f, an' ye cain't believe the +half o' what ye hear." + +"Well, I'd say not," snapped Nancy. "Not ef hit was sech a pack o' lies +as that." + +Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley Kittridge came with his +mother's baking-pan and request for a little risin'. Arley it seemed had +been commissioned to find out what he could on behalf of the Kittridge +family. And so it went till breakfast-time. + +How these things travel in a neighbourhood where there is no telephone, +postman, milkman, nor morning paper, and where the distances are +considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains--yet travel they +do, and when time came for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd +which would at any other juncture have been highly gratifying. + +Every man that came in glanced first at the cut on his cheek, swiftly +noted the pale face, sunken, purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands, +then looked hastily away. Several made proffers of an alliance with him, +being at outs with the Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the +missing body. + +"You done exactly right," old Tubal Kittridge told him. "With a man like +Blatchley Turrentine, hit's hit first or git hit. I wonder he ever let ye +git as far as Foeman's Bluff; but if you made good use o' yo' time, I +reckon you found out what you aimed to," and he winked laboriously at +poor Creed's crimsoning countenance. + +"I wasn't trying to find out anything, Mr. Kittridge. Blatch forced the +quarrel upon me. I was on my way home at the time." + +"Well, a lee-tle out of yo' way, wasn't ye?" objected Kittridge, slightly +offended at not being offered Bonbright's confidence. + +The case on the docket, one that had interested Creed deeply, being the +curious matter of a mountain creek which in the spring storms had changed +its direction, scoured off a good field and flung it to the opposite side +of the road, thus giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who cared +about the question of a few rods of mountain land, even if it had raised +good tobacco, when the slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood +sat before them--a man who had not only killed his victim but had, within +fifteen minutes, hidden all traces of the body--and the opening of a new +feud was taking place before their eyes? + +At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court, setting a new date for +trial, explaining that this Turrentine matter ought to be looked into, +and he believed it was not a proper day for him to be otherwise engaged. +Then he sought old Tubal Kittridge. + +"There's something I want you to do for me," he said. + +"Shore--shore; anything in the world," Kittridge agreed eagerly. + +"Aunt Nancy won't hear of my going over to the Turrentines'," hesitated +Creed. "I looked for them to be here--some of them--long before this." + +"Huh-uh; ah, Law, no--they won't come in the daytime," smiled Kittridge. + +Creed looked annoyed. + +"They will be welcome, whenever they come," he asserted. "What I want you +to do is to go to Jephthah Turrentine and say to him that I thought I +ought to go over, and that I'll do so now if he wants me to--or I'll meet +him here at the office, or anywhere he says." + +"Huh-uh--uh!" Old Tubal shook his head, his eyes closed in quite an +ecstasy of negation. "You cain't git Jep Turrentine in the trap as easy +as all that," he said half contemptuously. "Why, he'd know what you was +at a leetle too quick." + +Bonbright looked helpless indignation for a moment, then thought better +of it and repeated: + +"I want you to go and tell him that I'm right here, ready to answer for +anything I've done, and that I would like to talk to him about it. Will +you do it?" + +"Oh,--all right," agreed Kittridge in an offended tone. "There's plenty +would stand by ye; there's plenty that would like to see the Turrentines +run out of the country; but if ye want to fix it some new-fangled way I +reckon you'll have to." And to himself he muttered as he took the road +homeward, "I say go to the Turrentines with sech word at that! That boy +must think I'm as big a fool as he is." + + * * * * * + +At the Turrentine home life dragged on strangely. Jephthah in his own +cabin, busied himself overhauling some harness. The boys had been across +at the old place, presumably making a thorough inspection of the scene of +the trouble. Judith went mechanically about her tasks, cooking and +serving the meals, setting the house in order. Only once did she rouse +somewhat, and that was when Huldah Spiller flounced in and flung herself +tempestuously down in a chair. + +"How you come on, Judy?" inquired the red-haired damsel. + +"About as usual," returned Judith coldly, and would fain have added, +"none the better for seeing you." + +"I jest had to run over and see how you was standin' it," Huldah pursued +vivaciously. "I cried all night--didn't you?" + +"What for?" inquired Judith angrily. + +"Oh--I don't know. I'm jest thataway. Git me started an' thar's no +stoppin' me. But then I've knowed Creed so mighty long--him an' me was +powerful good friends, and my feelin's is more tenderer than some folks's +anyhow." + +"Huldy," said Judith in a tone so rigidly controlled that it made the +other jump, "ef you'll jest walk yo'self out of here I'll be obliged to +you. I've stood all I can. I don't want to say anything plumb bad to you, +but ef you set thar an' talk to me like that for another minute I will." + +"Oh, you po' thing!" cried Huldah, jumping to her feet. "I declare to +goodness I forgot all about you an' Blatch. Here I've been carryin' on +over Creed Bonbright--and you mighty near a widder. You po' thing!" + +Judith faced around with such blazing eyes from the biscuits she was +moulding that Huldah beat a hasty retreat, dodged out of the door, and +ran up the slope. At Jim Cal's cabin she paused and looked about her +uncertainly. Iley had the toothache, and for various reasons was proving +a poor audience for her younger sister's conversation. The day had been a +trying one to Huldah's excited nerves, a sad anti-climax after the +explosions of the night before. It was five o'clock. The men were all +over at the old place. If she but had an excuse to follow them, now. Why, +the whole top of the Bald above Foeman's Bluff, and the broad shelf below +it, were covered with huckleberry bushes! She put her head in at the +door. Iley looked up from the hot brick which she was wrapping in a wet +cloth with ten drops of turpentine on it preparatory to applying the same +to her cheek above the swollen tooth. + +"Ef you say 'Creed Bonbright'--or 'kill'--or 'Blatch Turrentine,'--to me, +I vow I'll hit ye," she warned shrilly. "I ain't never raised hand on ye +yet sence ye was a woman grown, but do it I will!" + +"I wasn't goin' to say nothin' about nothin'," asserted Huldah +sweepingly. "I was jest goin' to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and +git a pail to pick some." + +She sought out a small tin lard bucket as she spoke, and Iley's silence +presumably assenting, within twenty minutes was picking away eagerly on +the Bald above the bluff. + +Below her stretched meadows drunk with sun--breathless. A rain crow +called from time to time "C-c-c-cow! cow! cow!" The air was still heavy +with faint noon-day smells, the sky tarnished with heat. + +"I wonder where in all creation them boys has got theirselves to," she +ruminated as she peered about, dragging green berries and leaves into her +bucket, for which Mrs. Jim Cal would afterward no doubt scold her +soundly. "'Pears to me like I hearn somebody talkin' somewhars." + +She pushed cautiously down to the edge of the rocks where the bushes grew +scatteringly, pretending to herself that she wanted a bit of wild +geranium that flourished in a crevice far below the top. Setting down her +pail she threw herself on her face, her arms over the edge, and reached. +But the fingers hung suspended, opened in air, her mouth open too, and +she listened greedily to faint sounds of men's voices. + +"I'll bet it's old Ab Foeman's hideout that nobody but him and the +Cherokees knowed of," she muttered to herself. "Some one's found it +and--Lord, look at that!" + +From the bushes below her, coming apparently out of the living rock +itself, crept Andy, and then Jeff Turrentine. Now she could see the +narrow, door-like opening of the cave which had given them up, and +realised how, from below, it passed for a mere depression in the rock. + +Huldah drew back silently, inch by inch, and instinctively pulled her +black calico sunbonnet over her red curls as she crouched down among the +huckleberry bushes. When she looked again Andy and Jeff had disappeared, +but she could see the head and shoulders of a man who still lay at the +cave's mouth--and that man was Blatch Turrentine! + +At first she shuddered, thinking that she had come upon the dead body; +then she noted a tiny trail of smoke, and, by craning a little farther +around, saw that Blatchley lay at ease with a pipe in his mouth, +smoking. + +"The triflin', low-down, lyin' hound!" she muttered to herself. "I'm +a-goin' this very minute and tell Creed Bonbright." + +She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the +Turrentine cabin, then bent dubiously and set up her overturned bucket. +Not a berry had spilled from it, yet the sight of its mishap gave her an +idea. Quietly slipping through the bushes till she was far enough away to +dare run, she hurried home to the cabin. + +"Iley," she gasped, as soon as she put her head in at the door, "I upsot +my berry pail and lost most of the fruit. Can you make out with that?" +and she set the little bucket on the table. + +"I reckon I'll have to, ef you've got so work-brickle ye won't pick any +more," returned Iley. + +"I would--I'd git ye all ye need," protested Huldah with unexpected +meekness, "but I'm jest obliged to go over to--" she had all but said +Creed Bonbright's, but she caught herself in time and concluded lamely. +"I jest have obliged to run down to Clianthy Lusk's and see can she let +me have her crochet needle for to finish up my shawl." + +She delayed for no criticism or demur on Iley's part, but was off with +the last word, and once out of sight of Jim Cal's cabin she took a short +cut through the woods and ran; but in spite of her best efforts darkness +began to gather before she won to the high road, for the evening had +closed in early, thick and threatening; a mountain thunder-storm was +brewing. Opposite a tempestuous, magnificent sunset, there had reared in +the eastern sky a tremendous thunder-head, a palace of a thousand snowy +domes, turning to gold, and then flushing from base to crown like a +gigantic many-petalled rose. It swept steadily up and over, hiding the +sky, and leaving the earth in almost complete darkness. There were low +rolls of thunder, at first mellow and almost musical, crashing always +louder and stronger as they came nearer. The wind thrashed and yelled +through the tossing forest; and as she approached the Card cabin she +heard the banging of barn shutters, the whipping of tree boughs against +the windows. There were the first spears of rain flung at roof and door; +and it was in the torrent itself which followed fast that Huldah beat +upon that closed door, giving her name and demanding entrance. Within, +Creed Bonbright sprang up from where he sat with a book in his hand, his +eyes fixed on vacancy, and would have answered her, but Old Nancy put a +hasty palm over his lips. + +"Hush--for God's sake," she whispered. + +They stood in the lighted cabin, all on foot by this time, and listened +intently, tall Creed, the little grey-haired woman clinging to him and +restraining him, Doss with his light eyes goggling, and Little Buck and +Beezy hand in hand, studying their grandmother's face, not their +father's. + +"Who is it?" quavered Nancy. "I'm all alone in here, and I'm scared to +let wayfarers in." + +"It's me--Huldy Spiller--Aunt Nancy," called back the voice in the rain. + +"Well, I vow! You know how things air, Huldy--what do ye want, chile?" + +"I want Creed Bonbright. I've got something to tell him." + +"Thar--ye see now," breathed the old woman, turning toward Creed. Then +she raised her voice. + +"He ain't here, honey," she lied unhesitatingly. + +"Why don't ye go to his office--that's whar he stays at." + +"Oh, for the Lord's sake--Aunt Nancy!" came back the girl's shrill, +terrified tones. "I've done been to the office; I know in reason Creed +ain't there, or he'd a-answered me. Please let me in; I'm scared some of +the Turrentines'll come an' ketch me." + +At this Creed strode to the door, Nancy dragging back on his arm and Buck +and Beezy seconding her with all their small might, while Provine +spluttered ineffectually in the background. + +"Hit's a lie," hissed Nancy. "She's a decoy. Ef you open that thar do' +with the light on ye, they'll shoot ye over her shoulders. Hit was did to +my man thataway in feud times. Don't you open the do' Creed." + +"Why, Aunt Nancy," remonstrated Creed, almost smiling, "this isn't like +you. There's nothing but a girl there in the rain. Keep out of range if +you're scared. I'm sure going to open that door." + +[Illustration: "They stood in the lighted cabin and listened intently."] + +As he made ready to do so Nancy flew back to the table and blew out the +light, and the next minute Huldah Spiller, dripping like a mermaid, was +standing in the middle of the darkened room, and Doss Provine, breathing +short, was barring the door behind her. + +"Who's here?" gasped the girl peering about the gloom. "What air you-all +a-goin' to do to me?" + +Nancy relighted the lamp and set it on the table, and Huldah discovered +with a long-drawn sobbing sigh of relief that there was no one save the +immediate family present. + +"I came quick as I could," she began in the middle of her story, grasping +Creed by the arm and shaking him in the violence of her emotion and +insistence. "Blatch Turrentine's alive. Andy and Jeff have got him hid +out. I seed him myse'f with my own eyes, in a hideout thar below Foeman's +Bluff, not more'n a hour ago. I'll bet he aims to layway you, ef he +cain't git ye hung for murderin' of him. You got to git out o' here. It +was as much as my life was worth to come over and tell ye. I'm afraid to +go back. I'm goin' right on down to Hepzibah and stay thar." + +"Come up closeter to the fire," commanded Nancy, who had watched the girl +keenly throughout her recital. "Doss, put some sticks on and git a little +blaze so she can dry herself. Huldy, you're a good girl to come over and +warn Creed--when was you aimin' to go to Hepzibah?" She looked up from +the hearth where she knelt with the frankest inquiring gaze. + +"To-night--right now," half whimpered Huldah. "I'm scared to go back. I'm +scared to be here on the mountain at all." + +"And did ye aim to have Creed go along of ye?" old Nancy questioned +mildly. + +"Yes--yes--he'd better," agreed Huldah hysterically. "Hit's the onliest +way for him now." + +Nancy caught Creed's eye above the girl's drenched head, and shook her +own warningly. Leaving Doss to look after the newcomer, she drew the +young justice into the kitchen. + +"Whatever ye do," she warned him hastily, "don't you put out with that +red-headed gal in the dark. Things may be adzackly as she says--looks to +me like she thinks she's a-speakin' the truth; but then agin the +Turrentines might a' sent her for to draw you out. They wouldn't like to +shoot ye in my cabin, 'caze they know me and my kinfolks would be apt to +raise a fuss; but halfway down the mountain with this sweetheart of +Wade's--huh-uh, boy; I reckon they could tell their own tale then, of how +you come by yo' death. Don't you go with her." + +"I wasn't aiming to, Aunt Nancy," said Creed quietly. "As soon as I heard +that Blatch Turrentine was alive, I intended to go right over and have a +talk with old Jephthah. He's a fair-minded man, and if he is informed +that his nephew is living I think he and I can come to terms." + +"Fa'r-minded man!" echoed Nancy contemptuously. "Jephthah Turrentine a +fa'r-minded man! Well, Creed, ef I hadn't no better eye for a fat chicken +than you have for a fa'r-minded man, you wouldn't enjoy yo' dinner at my +table as well as you do. I say fa'r-minded! This thing has got into a +feud, boy, and in a feud you cain't trust nobody--_nobody_!" + +Creed went back into the room, and Nancy reluctantly followed him. Huldah +was getting dry and warm, and that fluent tongue of hers was impatiently +silent. As soon as she saw the returning pair she began to repeat again +the details of her information--how she had glimpsed the hidden man +through the bushes, how she knew in reason he could be none other than +Blatch. Nancy exchanged a glance of intelligence with Creed. + +"Ye see!" she murmured, aside. "Ef she _ain't_ a decoy they've sont, she +don't know nothin' for sartin." + +"I'm scared of all the Turrentines," Huldah declared. "They're awful +folks. From the old man down to Jude, they scare me. I reckon Jude's had +a big hand in this," she went on excitedly. "Her and Blatch is goin' to +wed shortly, and she'd be shore to know any meanness he was into. I'll be +glad to git shet of sech. When you're ready to be a-steppin' Creed, I +am." + +She looked up at the young fellow with a sort of unwilling worship. + +"I don't aim to go with you, Huldah," he said gently. "You love Wade +Turrentine, and Wade loves you; you was to be wedded this fall. I don't +aim for any affairs of mine to part you two." + +The girl hung her head, painfully flushed, her eyes full of tears. + +"I don't care nothin' about Wade," she choked. "Him and me has----" + +"I reckon you've quarrelled" said Creed, sympathetically. "That needn't +come to anything. I'm going over and talk to Jephthah Turrentine +to-morrow morning, and I want you to come with me!" + +"No," said Huldah getting to her feet and looking strangely at him. "The +rain's about done now; the moon'll be comin' up in half a hour--I'm +a-goin' on down to Hepzibah, like I said I was. Ef Wade Turrentine wants +me, he knows whar to come for me. Ef he thinks of me as he said he did +the last time we had speech together--w'y, I never want to put eyes on +his face again. Oh--Creed, I wish't you'd come with me!" + +"But it was me you quarrelled about," remonstrated Bonbright with that +sudden clear vision which ultra-spiritual natures often show, and that +startling forthrightness of speech which amazes and daunts the +mountaineer. "I'm the last man you ought to leave the mountain with, +Huldah, if you want to make up with Wade." + +"How--how did you know?" whispered the girl, staring at him. "Well, +anyhow, I ain't never a-goin' back thar." + +She could not be prevailed on to go to bed with Aunt Nancy, when Doss +Provine and the children were asleep, and Creed had gone to his quarters +in the little office building, but sat by the fire all night staring into +the embers, occasionally stirring them or putting on a stick of wood. At +the earliest grey of dawn she waked Nancy, bidding the elder woman fasten +the door after her. Declining in strangely subdued fashion her hostess's +offer of hot coffee, she stepped noiselessly out and, with a swift look +about, dived into the steep short-cut trail which led almost straight +down the face of Big Turkey Track, from turn to turn of the main road. + +A cloud clung to the Side; the foliage of only the foremost trees emerged +from its blur, and these were dimmed and flatted as though a soft white +veil were tangled among their leaves. Into this white mystery of dawn the +girl had vanished. + +Nancy looked curiously after her a moment, then glanced swiftly about as +Huldah had done, her eyes dwelling long on Creed's little shack, standing +peaceful in the morning mists. Softly she turned back, and closed and +barred the door. + + + + +Chapter XII + +In the Lion's Den + + +At seven o'clock, despite entreaties and warnings, Creed mounted his mule +and set out for the Turrentine place. + +"Don't you trust nothin' nor nobody over thar," Nancy followed him out to +the gate to reiterate. "Old Jephthah Turrentine's as big a rascal as +they' is unhung. No--I wouldn't trust Judith neither (hush now, Little +Buck; you don't know what granny's a-talkin' about); she's apt to git +some fool gal's notion o' being jealous o' Huldy, or something like that, +and see you killed as cheerful as I'd wring a chicken's neck. (For the +Lord's sake, Doss, take these chil'en down to the spring branch; they +mighty nigh run me crazy with they' fussin' an' cryin'!) Don't you trust +none on 'em, boy." + +"Why, Aunt Nancy, I trust everybody on that whole place, excepting +Blatchley Turrentine," said Creed sturdily. "Even Andy and Jeff, if I had +a chance to talk to them, could be got to see reason. They're not the +bloodthirsty crew you make them out. They're good folks." + +She looked at him in exasperation, yet with a sort of reluctant approval +and admiration. + +"Well," she sighed, as she saw him mount and start, "mebbe yo' safer +goin' right smack into the lion's den, like Dan'el, than you would be to +sneak up." + +Summer was at full tide, and the world had been new washed last night. +Scents of mint and pennyroyal rose up under his mule's slow pacing feet. +The meadow that stretched beyond Nancy's cabin was a green sea, with +flower foam of white weed and dog-fennel; and the fence row was a long +breaker with surf of elder blossom, the garden a tangle of bean-vine +arbours. The corn patch rustled valiantly; the pastures were streaked +with pale yellow primroses; and Bob Whites ran through the young crops, +calling. + +Creed rode forward. A gay wind was abroad under the blue sky. Every +tiniest leaf that danced and flirted on its slender stem sent back gleams +of the morning sunlight from its wet, glistening surface. The woods were +full of bird songs, and the myriad other lesser voices of a midsummer +morning sounded clear and distinct upon the vast, enfolding silence of +the mountains. + +It seemed beyond reason out in that gay July sunshine that anything dark +or tragic could happen to one. But after all man cannot be so different +from Nature which produces him, and the night before had given them a +passionate, brief, destructive thunder-storm. Creed noted the ravages of +it here and there; the broken boughs, the levelled or uprooted herbage, +the washed and riven soil, as his mule moved soberly along. + +At the Turrentine cabin all was quiet. The young men of the house had +been out the entire night before guarding the trails that Creed Bonbright +should not leave the mountains secretly. A good deal of moonshine whiskey +went to this night guarding, particularly when there was the excuse of a +shower to call for it, and the watchers of the trails now lay in their +beds making up arrears of sleep. Jephthah stood looking out of his own +cabin door when, about fifteen minutes ahead of Creed, Taylor Stribling +tethered his half-broken little filly in the bushes at the edge of the +clearing, and ran across the grassy side yard. + +"Bonbright's out an' a-headin' this way!" he volleyed in a hoarse whisper +as he approached the head of the clan. + +"Who's with him?" asked Jephthah, turning methodically back into the room +for the squirrel gun over the door. + +"Nobody. He ain't got no rifle. I reckon he's packin' a pistol, though, +of course. Nancy Cyard bawled an' took on considerable when he started. +Shall I call the boys?" + +"No," returned Jephthah briefly, replacing the clean brown rifle on its +fir pegs. "No, I don't need nobody, and I don't need Old Sister. I reckon +I can deal with one young feller alone." + +He walked unhurriedly toward the main house. Stribling stood looking +after him a moment, uncertainly. The spy's errand was performed. He had +now his dismissal; it would not do to be seen about the place at this +time. He went reluctantly back to the waiting filly, mounted and turned +her head toward a high point that commanded the big road for some +distance. A little later Jephthah Turrentine sat in the open +threshing-floor porch of the main house smoking, Judith within was busy +looking over and washing a mess of Indian lettuce and sissles in a +piggin, when Creed rode into the yard. + +The ancient hound thumped twice with a languid tail on the floor; Judith, +back in her kitchen, stayed her hand, and stared out at the newcomer with +parted lips which the blood forsook; Jephthah's inscrutable black eyes +rose to Creed's face and rested there; nothing but that aspect, pale, +desolate, ravaged, the strip of plaster running from brow to cheek, +marked the difference between this visit and any other. + +Yet the old house seemed to crouch close, to regard him askance from +under lowering eyes, as though through all its timbers ran the message +that the enemy was here. + +"Good morning," he hailed. + +"Howdy. 'Light--'light and come in," Jephthah adjured him, without +rising, "I'm proud to see ye." + +His own countenance was worn and haggard with sleeplessness and anxiety, +but with the mountaineer's dignified reticence he passively ignored the +fact, assuming a detached manner of mild jocularity. + +Creed, under inspection from six pairs of eyes, though there was only one +individual visible to him, got from his mule, tethered the animal, and +came and seated himself on the porch edge. + +"Aunt Nancy didn't want me to come over this morning," he began with that +directness which always amazed his Turkey Track neighbours and put them +all astray as to the man, his real meaning and intentions. + +"Well, now--didn't she?" inquired the other innocently. "Hit was a fine +mornin' for a ride, too, and I 'low ye' had yo' reasons for comin' in +this direction--not but what we're proud to see ye on business or on +pleasure." + +"Are any of the boys about?" asked Creed, suddenly looking up. + +"I don't know adzackly whar the boys is at," compromised Jephthah, +soothing his conscience with the fiction that one might be lying in one +bed and another in some place to him unknown. "Was there any particular +one you wanted to see?" + +"I was looking for Wade," said Creed briefly, and a silent shock went +through one of the men kneeling on the bed inside the log wall, peering +through a chink at the visitor. + +Judith could bear the strain no longer. Torn by diverse emotions, she +snatched up a bucket, ran out of the back door and down to the spring. +Returning with it, and her composure somewhat repaired, she dipped a cool +and dripping gourdful, walked swiftly through the front room and stood +abruptly before Creed, presenting it with almost no word of greeting, +only the customary, "Would ye have a fresh drink?" + +"Thank you," said Creed taking the gourd from her hand and lifting his +eyes to her face. He needed no prompting now; his own heart spoke very +clearly; he knew as he looked at her that she was all the world to +him--and that he was utterly lost and cut off from her. + +Jephthah, on the porch, and those unseen eyes within, watched the two +curiously, while Creed drank from the gourd, emptied out what water +remained, and returned it to Judith, and she all the while regarded him +with a burning gaze, finally bursting out: + +"What do you want to see Wade about? Is it--is it Huldy?" + +"Yes, Miss Judith, it's Huldah," Creed assented quietly. + +"I don't know as its worth while talkin' to Wade about that thar gal," +put in Jephthah meditatively. "She sorter sidled off last night and left +the place, and I think he feels kinder pestered and mad like. My boys is +all mighty peaceful in their dispositions, but it ain't the best to talk +to any man when he's had that which riles him." + +"Whar is Huldy Spiller?" demanded Judith standing straight and tall +before the visitor, disdaining the indirection of her uncle's methods. +"Is she over at you-all's?" + +"That's what I wanted to talk to Wade about," returned Creed evasively. +"Huldah's a good girl, and I'm sorry if he thinks--I'd hate to be the one +that----" + +For a moment Judith stared at him with incredulous anger, then she +wheeled sharply, went into the house and shut the door. Creed turned +appealingly to the older man. He had great faith in Jephthah Turrentine's +good sense and cool judgment. But the young justice showed in many ways +less comprehension of these, his own people, than an outsider born and +bred. Jephthah Turrentine was no longer to be reckoned with as a man--he +was the head of a tribe, and that tribe was at war. + +"I don't know as that thar gal is worth namin' at this time," he +vouchsafed, almost plaintively. "Ef she had taken Jim Cal's Iley 'long +with her, I could fergive the both of 'em and wish ye joy. As it is, +she's neither here nor thar. Ef you had nothin' better to name to my son +Wade, mebbe we'd as well talk of the craps, and about Steve Massengale +settin' out to run for the Legislature." + +Creed stood up, and in so doing let the little packet of papers he held +in his hand drop unnoted to the grass. He scorned to make an appeal for +himself, yet it seemed worth while to let his adversaries know that he +was aware what they would be at. + +"Who found Blatch Turrentine's body and removed it?" he asked abruptly. + +Blatch's body,--unknown to his uncle and Judith--at that moment reposing +comfortably upon a bed in the loft room adjoining the porch, heaved with +noiseless chuckles. + +Old Jephthah's eyes narrowed. "We 'low that ye might answer that question +for yo'self," he said coolly. "Word goes that you've done hid the body, +so murder couldn't be proved." + +The visitor sighed. He was disappointed. He had hoped the old man might +have admitted--to him--that Blatch had not been killed. + +"Mr. Turrentine," he began desperately, "I know what you people believe +about me--but it isn't true; I'm not a spy. When I came upon that still, +I was running for my life. I never wanted to know anything about +blockaded stills." + +"Ye talked sort o' like ye did, here earlier in the evenin'," said the +old man, rearing himself erect in his chair, and glaring upon the fool +who spoke out in broad daylight concerning such matters. + +"I didn't mean that personally," protested Creed. "I wish to the Lord I +didn't know anything about it. I'm sorry it chanced that I looked in the +cave there and saw your son----" + +"You needn't go into no particulars about whar you looked in, nor what +you seed, nor call out no names of them you seed," cut in the old man's +voice, low and menacing; and around the corner of the house Jim Cal, +where he had stolen up to listen, trembled through all the soft bulk of +his body like a jelly; and into his white face the angry blood rushed. + +"Wish ye didn't know nothin? Yes, and you'll wish't it wuss'n that befo' +yo're done with it," he muttered under his breath. + +"I don't intend to use that or any other information against a neighbour +and a friend," Creed went on doggedly. "But they can't make me leave the +Turkey Tracks. I'm here to stay. I came with a work to do, and I mean to +do it or die trying." + +The old man's head was sunk a bit on his breast, so that the great black +beard rose up of itself and shadowed his lower face. "Mighty fine--mighty +fine," he murmured in its voluminous folds. "Ef they is one thing finer +than doin' what you set out to do, hit's to die a-tryin'. The sort of +sentiments you have on hand now is the kind I l'arned myself out of the +blue-backed speller when I was a boy. I mind writin' em out big an' plain +after the teacher's copy." + +Creed looked about him for Judith. He had failed with the old man, but +she would understand--she would know. His hungry heart counselled him +that she was his best friend, and he glanced wistfully at the door +through which she had vanished; but it remained obstinately closed as he +made his farewells, got dispiritedly to his mule and away. + +Judith watched his departure from an upper window, smitten to the heart +by the drooping lines of the figure, the bend of the yellow head. +Inexorably drawn she came down the steep stairs, checking, halting at +every step, her breast heaving with the swift alternations of her mood. +The door of the boys' room swung wide; her swift glance descried Wade's +figure just vanishing into the grove at the edge of the clearing. + +The tall, gaunt old man brooded in his chair, his black eyes fixed on +vacancy, the pipe in his relaxed fingers dropped to his knee. Up toward +the Jim Cal cabin Iley, one baby on her hip and two others clinging to +her skirts, dodged behind a convenient smoke-house, and peered out +anxiously. + +Judith stepped noiselessly into the porch; the old man did not turn his +head. Her quick eye noted the paper Creed had dropped. She stooped and +picked it up unobserved, slipped into the kitchen, studying its lines of +figures which meant nothing to her, caught up her sunbonnet and, glancing +warily about, made an exit through the back door. She ran through a long +grape-arbour where great wreathing arms of Virgin's Bower aided to shut +the green tunnel in from sight, then took a path where tall bushes +screened her, making for the short cut which she guessed Creed would +take. + +Down the little dell through which she herself had ridden that first day +with what wonderful thoughts of him in her heart, she got sight of him, +going slowly, the lagging gait of the old mule seeming to speak his own +depression. The trees were all vigorous young second growth here, and +curtained the slopes with billows of green. The drying ground sent up a +spicy mingling of odours--decaying pine needles, heart leaf, wintergreen +berries, and the very soil itself. + +Bumblebees shouldered each other clumsily about the heads of milk-weed +blossoms. Cicada droned in long, loud crescendo and diminuendo under the +hot sun of mid forenoon. A sensitive plant, or as Judith herself would +have said, a "shame briar," caught at her skirts as she hastened. Dipping +deeper into the hollow, the man ahead, riding with his gaze upon the +ground, became aware of the sound of running feet behind him, and then a +voice which made his pulses leap called his name in suppressed, cautious +tones. He looked back to see Judith hurrying after him, her cheeks aflame +from running, the sunbonnet carried in her hand, and her dark locks +freeing themselves in little moist tendrils about her brow where the tiny +beads of perspiration gathered. + +"You dropped this," she panted, offering the paper when she came abreast +of him. + +For a moment she stood by the old mule's shoulder looking up into the +eyes of his rider. It was the reversal of that first day when Creed had +stood so looking up at her. Some memory of it struggled in her, and +appealed for his life, anyhow, from that fierce primitive jealousy which +would have sacrificed the lover of the other woman. + +"I--I knowed the paper wasn't likely anything you needed," she told him. +"I jest had to have speech with you alone. I want to warn you. The boys +is out after you. They ain't no hope, ef the Turrentines gits after you. +Likely we're both watched right now. You'll have to leave the +mountains." + +Creed got quickly from the mule and stood facing her, a little pale and +very stern. + +"Do you hold with them?" he asked. "I had no intention of killing Blatch. +The quarrel was forced on me, as they would say if they told the truth." + +"Well, they won't tell the truth," said Judith impatiently. "What differ +does it make how come it? They're bound to run ye out. Hit's a question +of yo' life ef ye don't go. I--I don't know what makes me come an' warn +ye--but you and Huldy had better git to the settlement as soon as ye +can." + +Creed saw absolutely nothing in her coupling of his name with Huldah +Spiller's, but the fact that both were under the displeasure of the +Turrentines. She searched his face with hungry gaze for some sign of +denial of that which she imputed. Instead, she met a look of swift +distress. + +"I've got to see Wade about Huldah," Creed asserted doggedly. "I promised +her--I told her----" + +Judith drew back. + +"Well, see Wade then!" she choked. "There he is," and she pointed to the +wall of greenery behind which her quicker eyes had detected a man who +stole, rifle on shoulder, through the bushes toward a point by the +path-side. + +"What do I care?" she flung at him. "What is it to me?--you and your +Huldy, and your grand plans, and your killin' up folks and a-gittin' run +out o' the Turkey Tracks! Settle it as best ye may--I've said my last +word!" + +Her breast heaved convulsively. Bitter, corroding tears burned in her +flashing eyes; rage, jealousy, thwarted passion, tenderness denied, and +utter terror of the outcome--the time after--all these tore her like wild +wolves, as she turned and fled swiftly up the path she had come. + +The pale young fellow with the marred, stricken face, standing by the +mule, looked after her heavily. Those flying feet were carrying away from +him, out of his life, all that made that life beautiful and blest. Yet +Creed set his jaw resolutely, and facing about once more, addressed +himself to the situation as it was. + +"Wade--Wade Turrentine!" he called. "Come out of there. I see you. Come +out and talk to me." + +With all the composure in life Wade slouched into the opening of the +path. + +"You've got good eyes," was his sole comment. Then, as the other seemed +slow to begin, "What might you want speech with me about?" he inquired. + +"It's about Huldah," Creed opened the question volubly now. "You love +her, and she loves you. She came over to warn me because we are old +acquaintances and friends, and I guess she don't want you to get into +trouble. Is it true that her life is not safe if she stays here on the +mountain?" + +Wade's pleasant hazel eyes narrowed and hardened. + +"You're a mighty busy somebody about things that don't consarn ye," he +remarked finally. + +"But this does concern me," Creed insisted. "I can't be the cause of +breaking up a match between you and Huldah----" + +He would have gone further, but Wade interrupted shaking his head. + +"No--I reckon you cain't. Hit'd take more than you to break up any match +I was suited with. Mebbe I don't want no woman that's liable to hike out +and give me away whenever she takes the notion." + +"Oh, come now, Wade," said Bonbright, with good-natured entreaty in his +voice. "You know she wouldn't give you away. She didn't mean any harm to +you. I'll bet you've done plenty of things twice as bad, if Huldah had +the knowing of them." + +"Mebbe I have," agreed Wade, temperately, and suddenly one saw the +resemblance to his father. "Mebbe I have--but ye see I ain't the one +that's bein' met up with right now. I ain't carin' which nor whether +about Huldy Spiller; but _you've_ got to walk yo'self from the Turkey +Tracks--and walk sudden and walk straight, Mr. Creed Bonbright--or you'll +come to more trouble with the Turrentines. I tell ye this in pure good +will." + + + + +Chapter XIII + +In the Night + + +In dark silence Judith made ready a late breakfast for the boys, leaving +her coffee-pot as of custom on its bed of coals in the ashes, hot bread +in the Dutch oven, and a platter of meat on the table. Jeff and Andy +straggled in and ate, helping themselves mutely, with sidelong glances at +her stormy face. + +During the entire forenoon Wade was off the place, but the twins put in +their time at the pasture over the breaking of a colt to harness. Old +Jephthah was in his room with the door shut. Jim Cal, almost immediately +on Creed's departure, had retired to the shelter of his own four walls, +and, sick and trembling, taken to his bed, after his usual custom when +the skies of life darkened. + +Dinner was got ready with the same fury of mechanical energy. During its +preparation Iley stole to the door and looked in. The only women on the +place, held outside the councils of the men, she longed to make some +unformulated appeal to Judith, to have at least such help and comfort as +might come from talking over the situation with her. But when the +desolate dark eyes looked full into hers, and uttered as plainly as words +the question that the sister dreaded, Jim Cal's wife turned and fled. + +"She might as well 'a' said 'Huldy,'" whimpered the vixen, plucking at +her lip and hurrying back, head down, to her own cabin. + +The day dragged its slow length. The sun in the doorway had crept to the +noon-mark, and away again. Flies buzzed. A cicada droned without. The old +hound padded in to lie down under the bed. + +After dinner Jephthah went away somewhere, and the boys gathered in their +room, whence Judith could hear the clink and snap which advised her that +the guns were having a thorough overhauling, cleaning, and oiling. She +looked helplessly at the door. What could she do? Follow Creed as Huldah +had done? At the thought, all her bitterness surged back upon her. What +had she been able to accomplish when she stood face to face alone with +him on the woods-path? Nothing. She turned and addressed herself once +more savagely to her tasks. That was what women were for--women and +mules. Men had the say-so in this world. She--she the owner of this +house, its real mistress--was to cook three meals a day for the men +folks, and see nothing and say nothing. + +Supper was the only meal at which the entire family gathered that day. It +was eaten in an almost unbroken silence, the younger boys plainly +hesitating to speak to either Judith or their father. Save for elliptical +requests for food, the only conversation was when Wade offered the +opinion that it looked like it might rain before morning, and his father +replied that he did not think it would. Leaving the table without further +word, Jephthah returned to his own quarters; the boys drifted away one by +one giving no destination. + +The light that used to wink out in friendly fashion from the smaller +cabin across the slope was darkened. Jim Cal had crawled out of bed after +a somewhat prolonged conversation with Wade. A little later he had +sullenly harnessed up a mule of Blatch's and, with Iley and the children, +started for old Jesse Spiller's, out at Big Buck Gap, the sister +maintaining to the last that Huldah must certainly have gone out to +pap's, and would be found waiting for them at the old home. + +There was nobody left on the place but Judith and her uncle. The girl +went automatically about her Saturday evening duties, working doggedly, +trying to tire herself out so that she might sleep when the time came +that there was nothing to do but go to bed. As she passed from her +storeroom, which she had got Wade to build in the back end of the +threshing-floor porch, to the great open fireplace where a kettle hung +with white beans boiling that would be served with dumplings for the +Sunday dinner, as she took down and sorted over towels and cloths that +were not needed, but which made a pretext for activity, her mind ground +steadily upon the happenings of the past days. She could see Creed's face +before her as he had looked the night of the play-party. What coarse, +crude animals the other men were beside him! She could hear his voice as +it spoke to her in the dark yard at the Bonbright place, and her breath +caught in her throat. + +She must be up and away; she must go to him and warn him, protect him +against these her fierce kindred. + +Then suddenly came the vision of Creed's laughing mouth as he bent to +claim the forfeited kiss when Huldah Spiller had openly pushed herself +across the line "and mighty nigh into his arms." Huldah had run hot-foot +to warn him. Arley Kittridge brought word of having seen her dodge into +the Card orchard on her way to the house on the evening before, and +nobody had had sight of her since. + +Judith's was a nature swayed by impulse, more capable than she herself +was aware of noble action, but capable also of sudden, irrational +cruelty. Just now her soul was at war with itself, embittered by rage, by +what she had done, by what she had left undone, by her helplessness, by +what she desired to do. Finally, despairing of any weariness bringing +sleep--she had tried that the night before and failed--she put by her +work and went up to her room, undressed and lay down in the dark. + +For a long time she interrogated the blackness about her with wide open +eyes. The house was strangely still. She could hear the movement and +squawk of a chicken in one of the trees in the side yard when some fellow +lodger disturbed it, or a sudden breeze shook the limb upon which it +roosted. She wondered if the boys had come back yet and slipped in +quietly. Had she slept at all? About eleven o'clock there arose an +unquiet, gusty, yet persistent wind, that moved the cedar tree against +the edge of the porch roof and set it complaining. For a time it moaned +and protested like a man under the knife. Then its deep baritone voice +began to cry out as though it were calling upon her. The tree had long +ceased to mean anything other than Creed to Judith, and now its outcry +aroused her to an absolute terror. Again and again as the wind the tree, +so those tones shook her heart with their pain and love and anguish of +entreaty. + +Finally she arose in a kind of torture, slipped on her clothes and went +through all the rooms. They were silent and empty. Not a bed had been +disturbed. She breathed loud and short in irrepressible excitement. + +"They're all over at the still," she whispered, clutching at the breast +of her dress, and shivering. But the old man never went near the still, +she knew that. For a while she struggled with herself, and then she said, +"I'll just go and listen outside of Uncle Jep's door. That won't do any +harm. Ef so be he's thar, then the boys is shore at the still. Ef he +ain't----" + +She left her mentally formed sentence unfinished and, on feet that fear +winged, stole through the side yard, across the long, lush, uncut grass +to her uncle's door. + +The old man must have been a light sleeper, or perhaps he was awake +before she approached, for he called out while she yet stood irresolute, +her hand stretched toward the big wooden latch. + +"Who's thar?" + +Startled, abashed, she replied in a choked, hesitating tone. + +"It's only me--Jude. I reckon I'm a fool, Uncle Jep. I know in reason +there ain't nothin' the matter. But I jest couldn't sleep, and I got up +and looked through the house, and the boys is all gone, and I got sorter +scared." + +He was with her almost instantly. + +"I reckon they're all over 'crost the gulch," he said in his usual +unexcited fashion, though she noted that he did not go back into his +room, but joined her where she lingered in the dark outside. + +"Of course they air," she reassured herself and him. "Whar else could +they be?" + +"Now I'm up, I reckon I mought go over yon myself," the old man said +finally. "My foot hurts me this evening; I believe I'll ride Pete. I took +notice the boys had all the critters up for an early start in the +mornin'." + +Both knew that this was a device for investigating the stables, and +together they hurried to the huddle of low log buildings which served to +house forage and animals on the Turrentine place. Not a hoof of anything +to ride had been left. The boys would not have taken mules or horse to go +to the still--so much was certain. In the light of the lantern which +Jephthah lit the two stood and looked at each other with a sort of +consternation. Then the old man fetched a long breath. + +"Go back to the house, Jude," he said not unkindly, putting the lantern +into her hand; and without another word he set off down the road running +hard. + + + + +Chapter XIV + +The Raid + + +Earlier that same Saturday evening, while Judith Barrier was fighting out +her battle, and trying to tire down the restless spirit that wrung and +punished her, Nancy Card, mindful of earlier experiences in feud times, +was getting her cabin in a state of defence. + +"You know in reason them thar Turrentines ain't a-goin' to hold off +long," she told Creed. "They're pizen fighters, and they allus aim to hit +fust. No, you don't stay out in that thar office," as Creed made this +proffer, stating that it would leave her and her family safer. "I say +stay in the office! Why, them Turrentines would ask no better than one +feller for the lot of 'em to jump on--they could make their brags about +it the longest day they live of how they done him up." + +So it came to pass that Creed was sitting in the big kitchen of the Nancy +Card cabin while Judith wrought at her fruitless labours in her own home. +Despite the time of year, Nancy insisted on shutting the doors and +closing the battened shutters at the windows. + +"A body gets a lot of good air by the chimney drawin' up when ye have a +bit of fire smokin'," she said. "I'd ruther be smothered as to be shot, +anyhow." + +Little Buck and Beezy, infected by the excitement of their elders, +refused peremptorily to go to bed. "Let me take the baby," said Creed +holding out his arms. "She's always good with me. She can go to sleep in +my lap." + +"Beezy won't go to sleep in _nobody's_ lap," that young lady announced +with great finality. "Beezy never go to sleep _no_ time--_nowhere_." + +"All right," agreed the young fellow easily, cutting short a futile +argument upon the grandmother's part. "You needn't go to sleep if you can +stay awake, honey. You sit right here in Creed's lap and stay awake till +morning and keep him good company, won't you?" + +The red head nodded till its flying frazzles quivered like tongues of +flame. Then it snuggled down on the broad breast, that moved rhythmically +under it, and very soon the long lashes drooped to the flushed cheeks and +Beezy was asleep. + +Aunt Nancy had picked up Little Buck, but that young man had the +limitations of his virtues. Being silent by nature he had not so much to +keep him awake as the loquacious Beezy, and by the time his father on the +other side of the hearth had dropped asleep and nearly fallen into the +fire a couple of times, been sternly admonished by the grandmother, and +gone to fling himself face down upon a bed in the corner, Little Buck was +sounder asleep than his sister. + +The old woman got up and carried her grandson to the bed, laid him down +upon it and, taking basin and towel, proceeded to wipe the dusty small +feet before she took off his minimum of clothing and pushed him in +between the sheets. + +"Minds me of a foot-washin' at Little Shiloh," she ruminated. "Here's me +jest like the preacher and here's Little Buck gettin' all the sins of the +day washed off at once." + +She completed her task, and was taking Beezy from Creed's arms to lay her +beside her brother on the bed, when a tap--tap--tapping, apparently upon +the window shutter, brought them both to their feet, staring at each +other with pale faces. + +"What's that?" breathed Nancy. "Hush--hit'll come again. Don't you answer +for your life, Creed. Ef anybody speaks, let it be me." + +Again the measured rap--rap--rap! + +"You let my Nick in," murmured Beezy sleepily, and Creed laughed out in +sudden relief. It was the wooden-legged rooster, coming across the little +side porch and making his plea for admission as he stepped. + +Something in the incident brought the situation of affairs home to Creed +Bonbright as it had not been before. + +"Aunt Nancy," he said resolutely, "I'm going to leave right now and walk +down to the settlement. I've got no business to be here putting you and +the children in danger. It's a case of fool pride. They told me down at +Hepzibah that I'd be run out of the Turkey Tracks inside of three months +if I tried to set up a justice's office here. I felt sort of ashamed to +go back and face them and own up that they were right--that I had been +run out. I ought to have been too much of a man to feel that way. It +makes no difference what they say--the only thing that counts is that I +have failed." + +"You let me catch you openin' that do' or steppin' yo' foot on the road +to-night!" snorted Nancy belligerently. "Why, you fool boy, don't you +know all the roads has been guarded by the Turrentines ever since they +fell out with ye? They 'lowed ye would run of course, and they aimed to +layway ye as ye went. I could have told 'em ye wasn't the runnin' kind; +but thar, what do they know about----" + +She broke off suddenly, her mouth open, and stood staring with +fear-dilated eyes at Creed. + +"Hello!" came the hail from outside. + +Nancy let the baby slip from her arms to the floor, and the little thing +stood whimpering and rubbing her eyes, clinging to her grandmother's +skirts. + +"Hush--hush!" cautioned the old woman, barely above her breath. + +"Hello! Hello in thar! You better answer--we see yo' light. Hello in +thar!" + +"Whose--voice--is that?" breathed old Nancy. + +"It sounded like Blatch Turrentine's," Creed whispered back as softly. + +"Hit do," she agreed with conviction. + +Suddenly a shot rang out, and Doss Provine sat up on the edge of the bed +with a gurgle of terror. Little Buck wakened at the same instant, and ran +to his grandmother. + +"I ain't scared, Granny," he asseverated, "I kin fight fer ye." + +"Hush--hush!" cautioned Nancy, bending to gather in the sun-burned tow +head at her knee. + +Another shot followed, and after it a voice crying, + +"You've got Creed Bonbright in thar. You let him come out and talk to us, +or we'll batter yo' do' in." + +"You Andy--you Jeff!" shouted the old woman in sudden rage. "Ef you want +Creed Bonbright you know whar to find him. You go away and let my do' +alone." + +"You quit callin' out names, Nancy Cyard," responded the first, menacing +voice out of the darkness. "We know Bonbright's in thar, and we aim to +have him out--or burn yo' house--accordin' to yo' ruthers." + +Creed had parted his lips to answer them, when old Nancy sprang at him +and set her hand over his open mouth. + +"You hush--and keep hushed!" she whispered urgently. + +"I just wanted to call to the boys and tell them I'm here," Creed +whispered to her. "Aunt Nancy, I'm bound to go out there and talk to them +fellows. I cain't stay in here and let you and the children suffer for +it." + +"Aw, big-mouthed, big-talkin' brood--what do I keer for them?" demanded +Nancy, tossing her head with a characteristic motion to get the grey +curls away from her fearless blue eyes; whereupon the tucking comb +slipped down and had to be replaced, "You ain't a-goin' out thar," she +whispered vehemently from under her raised arm, as she redded back the +straying locks with it. Nancy had the reckless, dare-devil courage those +blue eyes bespoke. Presuming a bit, perhaps, on her age and sex, she yet +ran risks that many men would have shunned without deeming themselves +cowards. "You ain't a-goin' out thar, I tell ye," she reiterated. "I +wouldn't let ye ef they burnt the house down over our heads. Pony'll be +along pretty shortly from Hepzibah, and when he sees 'em I reckon he's +got sense enough to git behind a bush and fire at 'em--that'll scatter +'em." + +As if inspired to destroy this one slender hope, the voice outside spoke +again, tauntingly. + +"Nancy Cyard, we've got yo' son Pony here--picked him up on the road--an' +ef yo'r a mind to trade Creed Bonbright for him, we'll trade even. Better +dicker with us. Somepin' bad might happen this young 'un." + +At the words, Creed wheeled and made for the door, Nancy gripping him +frantically but mutely. + +"Creed--boy--honey!"--she breathed at last, "they's mo' than one kind o' +courage. This is jest fool courage--to go an' git yo'se'f killed up. Them +Turrentines won't hurt Pone. But you--oh, my Lord!" + +"I reckon ye better let him go, maw," Doss Provine chattered from the +bed's edge where he still crouched. "Hit's best that it should be one, +ruther than all of us." + +Old Nancy flung him a glance of wordless contempt. Beezy ran and tangled +herself in the tall young fellow's legs, halting him. + +"Creed," the old woman urged, still below her breath, holding to his arm. +"Creed, honey, as soon as you open that do' and stand in the light, yo'r +no better than a dead man. Listen!" + +All caution had been thrown aside by the besiegers. Hoarse voices +questioned and answered outside, sounds of stumbling footsteps surrounded +the house. + +"Boys," called Creed in that clear, ringing voice of his that held +neither fear nor great excitement, "I'm coming out to talk to you. Aunt +Nancy, take the children away. You've got it to do." + +"Well, come on," replied the voice without. "Talk--that's all we want. +You'll be as safe outside as in--and a damn' sight safer." + +Nancy gathered up her youngsters, flung them in a heap into their +father's lap, and, overturning and putting out the candle as she went, +sprang to the hearth to quench a small flame which had risen among the +embers there. + +"Ye might have some sense!" she panted angrily. "The idea of walkin' +yo'se'f into a lighted doorway for them fellers to shoot at! For God's +sake don't open that do' till I get the lights out!" + +But Creed was not listening. He had pulled the big pine bar that held the +battened door in place, and now flung it wide, stepping to the threshold +and beginning again, + +"Boys----" + +He uttered no further word. A rifle spoke, a bullet sang, passed through +the cabin and buried itself in the old-fashioned chimneypiece. Creed fell +where he stood. As he went down across the threshold, Nancy whirling +around to the door, bent over his prostrate form. + +Outside, the ruddy, shaken shine from a couple of lightwood torches which +stood alone, where they had been thrust deep into the garden mould made +strange gouts and blotches of colour on Nancy's flower beds. A group of +men halted, drawn together, muttering, just beyond the palings. Each had +a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face, a simple but +effectual disguise. + +Her groping hand came away from the prostrate man, red with blood; she +dashed it across her brow to clear her eyes of blowing hair. At the +moment a figure burst through the grove of saplings by the roadside, a +tall old man whose long black beard blew across his mighty chest that +laboured as he ran. His hat was off in his hand, his face raised; he had +no weapon. With a gasp of relief Nancy recognised him, yet rage mounted +in her, too. + +"Yes--come a-runnin'," she muttered fiercely. "Come look at what you and +yo'rn have done!" + +As he leaped into the clearing the old man's great black eyes, full of +sombre fire, swept the scene. They took in the prone figure across the +threshold, the blood upon the doorstone, and on Nancy's brow and hair. + +"Air ye hurt? Nancy, air ye hurt?" he cried, in such a tone as none there +had ever heard from him. + +"Am I hurt?--No!" choked the old woman, trying to get a hold on Creed's +broad shoulders and drag him back into the room. "I ain't hurt, but it's +no credit to them wolves that you call sons of yo'rn. They've got Pone +out thar, ef they hain't shot him yit. And they've killed the best man +that ever come on this here mountain. Oh, Creed--my pore boy! You Doss +Provine! Come here an' he'p me lift him." She reared herself on her knees +and glared at the group by the gate. "He had no better sense than to take +ye for men--to trust the word ye give, that he was safe when he opened +the do'. Don't you come a step nearer, Jep Turrentine," she railed out at +him suddenly, as the old man drew toward the gate. "I've had a plenty o' +you an' yo' sons this night. They're jest about good enough to shoot me +while I'm a-tryin' to git this po' dead boy drug in the house, an' then +burn the roof down over me an' my baby chil'en. You Doss Provine, walk +yo'se'f here an' he'p me." + +Doss, who found the presence of Jephthah Turrentine reassuring, whatever +his mother-in-law might say, slouched forward, and between them they +lifted the limp figure. + +"God knows I don't blame ye, Nancy," muttered the old man in his beard, +as the heavy door was dragged shut, and the bar dropped into place. Then +he advanced upon the men at the palings. + +At Jephthah's first appearance the tallest of these had dropped swiftly +back into the shadows on the other side of the road and was gone. +Unsupported, the four or five who were left shuffled uneasily, beneath +the old man's fierce eye. + +"Where's Pone Cyard?" he demanded. + +"We hain't tetched him, pap. We never seed him. We said that to draw +'em." + +"Huh!" ejaculated Jephthah, as though further comment were beyond him. +"Git yo' ridin' critters," he gave the short, sharp order. "Fetch Pete to +me." And he whirled his back, and stalked out into the main road. + +A hundred yards or so up, there was a sound of hoofs and tearing bushes, +as the boys came through the greenery with their mules. Pete was led up +and the bridle-rein presented in meek silence. By the dim, presaging +light of the little waning moon, delaying somewhere down below the +shoulder of Big Turkey Track, old Jephthah took it, set foot in stirrup, +and made ready to swing to saddle. Then he slowly withdrew the foot and +turned back. + +"Take them cussed rags off o' yo' faces!" he burst out in a fury of +contempt. "Now. Who laid out this night's work? Well, speak up--how come +it?" + +Dead silence answered. Of the three who faced him not one--lacking the +leader who had skulked away at Jephthah's approach--could have explained +just why he was there. And none of them would betray the man who had led +them there and left them to answer as best they might for their actions +to the head of the tribe. + +"Uh-huh, I thort so," nodded the old man bitterly, as they yet stood +mute. "Ain't got a word to say for yo'selves. No, and they ain't a word +to be said. Yo' sons in my house. I was thar--I was standin' with ye +about this business. Why couldn't this be named to me? What call had ye +to sneak around me--to make a fool o' me, an' shame me?" + +He waited. Receiving no response, he concluded as he got to the mule's +back, + +"You do me thisaway once mo'--jest once mo'--and hit will be a plenty." + +With that he gave Pete the rein, and the mule's receding heels flung dust +in the dismayed countenances he left behind him. + + + + +Chapter XV + +Council of War + + +The Turrentine clan was gathering for consultation, Judith knew that. It +was Sunday, and much of this unwonted activity passed as the ordinary +Sabbath day coming and going. But there was a steady tendency of tall, +soft-stepping, slow-spoken, keen-eyed males toward old Jephthah's +quarters, and Judith had got dinner for the two long-limbed, black-avised +Turrentine brothers, Hawk and Chantry, from over in Rainy Gap; and old +Turrentine Broyles, a man of Jephthah's age, had ridden in from Broyles's +Mill that morning. + +With the natural freedom of movement that Sunday offers, information from +the Card neighbourhood came in easily. Inevitably Judith learned all the +details of last night's raid; and everybody on the place knew that Creed +Bonbright was alive, and that he was not even seriously wounded. He had +been observed through the open door of Nancy's cabin moving about the +rooms inside. Arley Kittridge declared that he had seen Bonbright, in the +grey of early morning, his head bound up and his left arm in a sling, +cross from Nancy's house to his office and back again, alone. + +Sunday brought the Jim Cals home, too. Iley, humiliated and savage, +bearing in her breast galling secret recollections of Pap Spiller's +animadversions on her management of Huldah, raged all day with the +toothache, and a pariah dog might have pitied the lot of the fat man. + +All day, as Judith cooked, and washed her dishes, and entertained her +visitors, the events of last night's raid were present with her. When at +the table one of the boys stretched a hand to receive the food she had +prepared, she looked at it with an inward shuddering, wondering, was this +the hand that fired the shot? + +All day as she talked to her women visitors of patchwork patterns, or the +making of lye soap, as she admired their babies and sympathised with +their ailments, her mind was busy with the inquiry what part she should +take in the final inevitable crisis. She remembered with a remorse that +was almost shame how, at their last interview, she had plucked back from +Creed her rescuing hand in jealous anger. That big mother kindness that +there was in her spoke for him, pleaded loud for his life, when her hot +passionate heart would have had revenge for his slight. + +Yes, she had to save Creed Bonbright if she could, and to be of any use +to him she must know what was planned against him. It was dark by the +time the women-folk had gone their ways and the men remaining had +assembled definitely in old Jephthah's separate cabin. No gleam of light +shone from its one window. Judith watched for some time, then taking a +bucket as a pretext walked down the path to the cow-lot, which led her +close in to the cabin. She could hear as she approached the murmur of +masculine voices. Secure from observation in the darkness, she crept to +the window and listened, her head leaned against the wooden shutter. Old +Jephthah was speaking, and she realised from his words that she had +chanced upon the close of their council. + +The big voice came out to her in carefully lowered tones. + +"Well, Broyles, yo' the oldest, an that's yo' opinion. Hawk an' Chantry +says the same. Now as far as I'm concerned--" the commanding accents +faltered a little--"I'm obliged to agree with you. The matter has got +where we cain't do no other than run him out. I admit it. I'll say yes to +that." + +Judith trembled, for she knew they spoke of Creed. + +"Well, Jep, you better not put too many things in the way," came accents +she recognised as Turrentine Broyles's, "or looks like these-here boys is +liable to find theirselves behind bars befo' snow flies." + +"Huh-uh," agreed the old man's voice. "I know whar I'm at. I ain't lived +this long and got through without disgrace or jailin' to take up with it +at my age; but they don't raid no more cabins. I freed my mind on that +last night; I made myself cl'ar; an' that's the one pledge I ax for. Toll +him away from the place and layway him, if you must, to run him out. But +they's to be no killin', an' no mo' shootin' up houses whar they is women +and chil'en. This ain't no feud." + +"All right--we've got yo' word for it, have we?" inquired Buck Shalliday +eagerly. "You'll stand by us?" + +Suddenly a brand on the hearth flamed up, and Judith peering through a +crack of the board shutter had sight of her uncle standing, his height +exaggerated by the flickering illumination, tall and black on the +hearthstone. About him the faint light fell on a circle of eager, drawn +faces, all set toward him. As she looked he raised his hand above his +head and shook the clenched fist. + +"I've got obliged to," he groaned. "God knows I had nothing against Creed +Bonbright. And I can't say as I've got anything against him yit. But I've +got a-plenty against rottin' in jail. I'd ruther die." + +"Will ye come with us, pap?" Jim Cal instantly put the question, and as +he spoke the light went suddenly out. + +"No," returned old Jephthah doggedly. "I won't make nor meddle. I've give +you my best advice; I sont for Hawk an' Chantry, here, an' for Turn +Broyles, to do the same. We've talked it over fa'r an' squar', aimin' to +have ye do this thing right--" He broke off, and then amended sombrely, +"--As near right as sech a thing can be did. But you-all boys run into +this here agin' my ruthers, an' you'll jest have to git out yo'selves. +All I say is, no killin', and no raidin' of folks' homes." + +"No _mo'_ killin', ye mean,--don't ye?" asked Jim Cal. The fat man, +goaded beyond reason, was ready to turn and fight at last. + +"No, I don't," answered his father. "When I mean a thing I can find the +words to say it without any advice. As for Blatch bein' killed--you boys +think yo' mighty smart, but you'd show yo' sense to tote fair with me and +tell me all that's goin' on. I wasn't born yesterday. I've seen +interruptions and killin's befo' I seen any of you. An' I'll say right +here in front o' yo' kinfolks that's come to he'p you out with their +counsels--an' could do a sight better ef you'd tell 'em the truth--that I +never did think it was likely that Creed Bonbright made away with a body +inside of fifteen minutes. That tale's too big for me--but I'm askin' no +questions. Settle it your own way--but for God's sake settle it. Him +knowin' what he does an' havin' been did the way you boys have done him, +he's got to go. Run him out--an' run him out quick. Don't you dare tell +me how, nor when, nor what!" + +Judith started back as the sounds within told her that the men were +groping their way to the door. As she stood concealed by darkness, they +issued, made their quiet adieux, and went over to the fence where she +could hear the stamping of the tethered animals. Cut off from the house, +she retreated swiftly down the path toward the stable and would have +entered, but some instinct warned her back. As she paused uncertain, +hearing footsteps approaching from behind, indefinably sure that there +was danger in front, there sounded a cautious low whistle. Those who came +from the cabin answered it. She drew back beneath one of the peach-trees +by the milking-pen--the very one from which Creed had broken the +blossoming switch, with which she reproached him. Flat against its trunk +she crouched, as six men went past her in the gloom. + +"Who's here?" demanded a voice like Blatch Turrentine's, and at the sound +she began suddenly to shudder from head to foot. Then she pulled herself +together. This was no ghost talking. It was the man himself. + +"Me," answered Jim Cal's unmistakable tones, "an' Wade, an' Jeff, an' +Andy. Buck and Taylor's both with us--and that's all." + +The man within opened the grain-room door, and the six newcomers +entered. + +"Whar's old man Broyles, an' Hawk an' Chantry?" questioned Blatch. + +"They rid off home," said Shalliday. + +"Well, what does Unc' Jep say?" demanded Blatch, plainly not without some +anxiety. + +Before anyone could answer, + +"Hark ye!" came Jim Cal's tones tremulously. "Didn't I hear somebody +outside? Thar--what was that?" + +In her excitement and interest Judith had moved nearer with some noise. + +"I vow, podner," came Blatch's rich, rasping tones. "Ef I didn't know it +was you I'd be liable to think they was a shiverin' squinch-owl in here +with us. Buck, step out and scout, will ye? Git back as soon as ye can, +'caze we're goin' to have a drink." + +She heard the rattle of a tin cup against the jug. As she moved carefully +down the way toward the spring, Blatch's voice followed her, saying +unctuously: + +"Had to go through hell to get this stuff--spies a-follerin' ye about, +an' U.S. marshals a-threatenin' ye with jail--might as well enjoy it." + +She dipped her bucket in the spring branch, and bore it dripping up the +path a short way. If Buck Shalliday met her, she had an errand and an +excuse for her presence which might deceive him. When she came within +sight of the stables once more she set down her bucket and stood +listening long. Something moved outside the logs. They had posted their +sentry then. She groaned as she realised that what she had heard was +inadequate and insufficient. The knowledge was there to be had for a +little daring, a little cunning. + +Just as she had become almost desperate enough to walk up to the place +and make pretence of being one with them, a stamp from the figure outside +the corner told her that it was a tethered mule instead of a man. +Emboldened she stole nearer, and found a spot where she could crouch by +the wall so hidden among some disused implements that she might even have +dared to let them emerge from their hiding-place and pass her. Again +Blatch was speaking. + +Blatchley Turrentine had come to his uncle's house, a youth of +seventeen--a man, as mountain society reckons things. At that time Andy +and Jeff were seven-year-olds, Wade a big boy of thirteen; and even Jim +Cal, of the same years but less adventurous in nature, had been so +thoroughly dominated by the newcomer that the leadership then established +had never been relinquished. And now the artfully introduced whiskey had +done its work; these boys were quite other than those who had gone in +sober and grave less than half an hour before, their father's admonitions +and the counsels of old man Broyles and their Turrentine kindred lying +strongly upon them. + +Judith heard no demur as Blatch detailed their plans. + +"They's no use to go to Unc' Jep with what I've been a-tellin' ye," the +voice of natural authority proclaimed. "I tell ye Polk Sayles says he's +seen Bonbright meet Dan Haley about half way down the Side--thar whar Big +Rock Creek crosses the corner of the Sayles place--mo' than once sense +he's been on the mountain. Now with what that man knows, and with the +grudges he's got, you let him live to meet Dan Haley once mo' and even +Unc' Jep is liable to the penitentiary--but tell it to Unc' Jep an' he +won't believe ye. He's got a sort of likin' for the feller." + +"That's what I say," Jim Cal seconded in a voice which had become +pot-valiant. "Pap is a old man, and we-all that air younger have obliged +to take care on him." + +At any other time these pious sentiments would have brought a volley of +laughter from Blatchley, but this evening Judith judged from the sounds +that he clapped the fat man on the shoulder as he said heartily: + +"Mighty right you air, James Calhoun. Unc' Jep is one of the finest men +that ever ate bread, but his day is pretty well over. Ef we went by him +and old man Broyles and Hawk and Chantry, we'd find ourselves in trouble +mighty shortly. They's but one way to toll Bonbright out to whar we want +him. We've got to send word that Unc' Jep will meet him at moonrise and +talk to him. The fool is plumb crazy about talkin' to folks, and looks +like he cain't get it through his head that Unc' Jep ain't his best +friend. It'll fetch him whar nothin' else will." + +"And we've got to hunt up something else for you to ride, Blatch, ef Jim +Cal an' me takes the mules," Jeff remarked. "Jude mighty nigh tore up the +ground when she found we'd had Selim last night. She give it out to each +and every that nobody is to lay a hand on him day or night from this +on." + +The girl outside heard Blatch's hateful laugh, and knew with a great +throb of rage who had ridden her horse the night before. + +There was a stir among the men seated, Judith conjectured, on the +grain-room floor, and a little clinking, as the jug of corn whiskey was +once more brought into play by Blatch. Presently, + +"All right," said Buck Shalliday. "I'll bring Lige's mule. And I'll have +a message got to Bonbright that Jephthah Turrentine wants to see and talk +with him out at Todd's corner at moonrise a-Monday night. Will that suit +ye?" + +"Hit'll answer," returned Blatch. "Let's see," he calculated; "that'll be +about two o'clock. Ef he comes up to the scratch we'll git Mr. Man as he +goes by the big rock in the holler acrosst from the spring. That rock and +the bushes by it gives plenty of cover. They's bound to be light enough +to see him by, with the moon jest coming up, and I want to hear from +every man present that he'll shoot at the word. I don't want any feller +in the crowd that'll say he didn't pull trigger on Bonbright. Ef we all +aim and shoot, nary a one of us can say who killed him--and killed he's +got to be." + +The listening girl hoped for some demur, but Blatch Turrentine and his +potent counsellor, the jug, dominated the assembly, and there came a +striking of hands on this, a hoarse murmuring growl of agreement. She +doubled low to avoid being seen against the sky and hurried back toward +the cabin as she heard the men preparing to leave the grain-room. + +Brave as any one of them there, enterprising and full of the spirit of +leadership, Judith addressed herself promptly to saving Creed Bonbright. +She went straight to her uncle's cabin. No mountaineer ever raps on a +door. Judith shook the latch, at first gently, then, getting no response, +more and more imperatively, at length opening and walking in, with a +questioning, "Uncle Jep?" + +There was no answer, no sound or movement. With hasty fingers she raked +together the brands of the fire; they flickered up and showed her an +untenanted room. The bed was untouched, the old man's hat and coat were +gone. The pegs above the door where Old Sister always rested were empty. + +Instantly there flashed upon Judith the intuition that her uncle, +heartsick and ill-affected toward the quarrel, had silently withdrawn +until it should have been settled one way or another. Well, she must work +alone. + + + + +Chapter XVI + +A Message + + +When Judith stole noiselessly into the house and up to her room, she +could hear the boys preparing for bed in their own quarters, with +unwonted jesting and laughter, and even some occasional stamping about +which suggested horse-play; and her lip curled angrily as she recalled +Blatch's jug of corn whiskey. + +She lay thinking, thinking; and at length there evolved itself in her +mind a plan for getting Creed safely out of the mountains by way of an +ancient Cherokee trail that ran down the gulch through a distant corner +of the old Turrentine place. By this route they would reach the railroad +town of Garyville, quite around the flank of Big Turkey Track from +Hepzibah. She could do that. She knew every step of the way. The trail +was a disused, forgotten route of travel, long fenced across in several +places, and scoured out of existence at certain points by mountain +streams; but she had known every foot of it in years past; she could +travel it the darkest night; and Selim was her own horse; she need ask +nobody. + +When she got so far, came the pressing question of how to send word to +Creed. She must see and warn him before the men put their plan into +practice. But she was well aware that she herself was under fairly close +espionage, and that her first move in the direction of Nancy Card's cabin +would bring the vague suspicions of her household to a certainty. Where +to find a messenger? How to so word a message that Creed would answer it? +These were the questions that drove sleep from her pillow till almost +morning. + +She rose and faced the dawn with haggard eyes. Unless she could do +something this was the last day of Creed's life. In a tremor of +apprehension she got through her morning duties, cooking and serving a +breakfast to the three boys, who made no comment on their father's +absence, and whose curious looks she was aware of upon her averted face, +her down-dropped eyelids. She felt alone indeed, with her uncle gone, and +the boys who had been as brothers to her almost since babyhood suddenly +become strangers, their interests and hers hostile, destructive to each +other. + +Woman will go to woman in a pinch like this, and in spite of her +repugnance at the thought of Huldah, Judith late in the afternoon made +her way over to the Jim Cal cabin and asked concerning its mistress' +toothache. + +"Hit's better," said Iley briefly. Her head was tied up in a medley of +cloths and smelled loud of turpentine, camphor, and a lingering bouquet +of assafoetida. She was not a hopeful individual to enlist in a +chivalrous enterprise. + +"Huldy git back yet?" Judith asked finally. + +"No, an' she needn't never git back," snapped Iley. "Her and Creed +Bonbright kin make out best they may. I don't know as I mind her bein' +broke off with Wade. One Turrentine in the fambly's enough fer me." + +"Air her and Creed Bonbright goin' to be wedded?" inquired Judith +scarcely above her breath. + +"_Air_ they?" echoed Xantippe, settling her hands on her hips and +surveying Judith with an angry stare, the dignity of which was sadly +impaired by a yellow flannel cloth-end which persisted in dabbling in her +eye. "Well, I should hope so! I don't know what gals is comin' to in this +day an' time--follerin' 'round after the young men like you do. Ef I'd a' +done so when I was a gal my mammy'd have took a hickory to me. That's +what she would. Here's Jim Cal be'n rarin' around here like a chicken +with its head off 'caze Huldy run away with Creed Bonbright, and here +_you_ air askin' me do I think Creed and Huldy is apt to marry. What kind +of women do ye 'low the Spiller gals is, anyhow?" + +Judith turned away from so unpromising an ally. She was accused of +running after Creed Bonbright. When he got her message it would be with +Huldah Spiller beside him to help him read it. The thought was bitter. It +gave that passionate heart of hers a deadly qualm; but she put it down +and rose above it. Huldah or no Huldah, she could not let him die and +make no effort. + +Leaving Jim Cal's cabin she walked out into the woods, and only as she +turned at the edge of the clearing and looked back to find Iley furtively +peering after her from the corner of the house did she realise that the +woman's words had been dictated because she had been taken into the +confidence of the men and set to keep an eye on Judith. + +At the conviction a feeling of terror began to gain ground. She was like +a creature enmeshed in a net weak in its cordage, but many-stranded and +hampering; turn whichever way she would some petty restriction met her. +She moved aimlessly forward, reasonably sure that she was not followed or +observed, since she was going away from rather than toward the Card +place. About a mile from the cabin of old Hannah Updegrove, a weaver of +rag carpet, she suddenly came upon two little creatures sitting at a +tree-foot playing about one of those druidical-looking structures that +the childhood of the man and the childhood of the race alike produce. It +was Little Buck and Beezy come to spend the day with old Hannah who, on +their father's side, was kin of theirs, and making rock play-houses in +the tree-roots to put over the time. Judith ran to the children, gathered +them close, and hugged them to her with whispered endearments in which +some tears mingled. + +Then for half an hour followed the schooling of Little Buck for the +message which he was to carry, and which Beezy must be so diverted that +she would not even hear. + +Judith plaited grass bracelets for the fat little wrists, fashioned +bonnets of oak leaves, pinning them together with grass stems, and then +sending Beezy far afield to gather flowers for their trimming. On long +journeys the little feet trudged, to where the beautiful, frail, white +meadow lilies rose in clumps from the lush grass of the lowlands. She +fetched cardinal flowers from the mud and shallow water beyond them, or +brought black-eyed Susans from the sun of open spaces. And during these +expeditions Judith's catechism of the boy went on. + +"How you goin' to git home, Little Buck?" + +"Pappy's a-comin' by to fetch us." + +"When?" + +"A little befo' sundown?" + +"You goin' straight home?" + +"Yes, Jude, we' goin' straight home to Granny, why?" + +"Never mind, honey. Is Creed there at yo' house?" + +A silent nod. + +"Is--honey, tell Jude the truth--is it true that he ain't bad hurt? Could +he ride a nag?" + +Little Buck looked all around him, drew close to his big sweetheart, and +pulled her down that he might whisper in her ear. + +"I know somethin' that Granny and Creed don't know I know, but I mus'n't +tell it to anybody--only thest you. Creed--no, he ain't so awful bad +hurt--he walks everywheres most--he's a-goin' to take the old nag and go +over to Todd's corner to see yo' Unc' Jep, about moonrise to-night. They +said that--Granny an' Creed. An' they fussed. Granny, she don't want him +to go; but Creed, he thest will--he's bull-headed, Creed is." + +Judith caught her breath. They had got the message to him then, and he +was going. Well, her appointment with him must be first. + +"Little Buck, honey, ef you love me don't you forget one word I say to +you now," she whispered chokingly, holding the child by both hands. + +He rounded eyes of solemn adoration and acquiescence upon her. + +"You say to Creed Bonbright that Judith Barrier says he must come to her +at the foot of Foeman's Bluff--on yon side--as soon after dark as he can +git there. Tell him to come straight through by the short cut; hit'll be +safe; nobody'll ever study about him comin' in this direction. As soon +after hit's plumb dark as he can git there--will ye say that? Will ye +shore tell Creed an' never tell nobody but Creed?" + +"But he won't go," said Little Buck wisely. "Granny's scared to have him +go to talk to yo' Unc' Jep, but she'd be a heap scareder to have him come +to you, 'caze you' one o' the Turrentines too--ain't ye, Judith?" + +Judith's face whitened at the weakness of her position. + +"I would come, Judith, becaze I love you an' you love me--but Creed, he +won't," said the boy. + +"You tell him Little Buck," she whispered huskily, terror and shame +warring in her face, "tell him that I do love him. Tell him I said for +God's sake to come--if he loves me." + +The child's eyes slowly filled. He dropped them and stood staring at the +ground, saying nothing because of the blur. Finally: + +"I'll tell him that--ef you say I must," he whispered. And loving, tender +Judith, in her desperate preoccupation, never noted what she had done to +her little sweetheart. + + + + +Chapter XVII + +The Old Cherokee Trail + + +"The supper's all ready for you boys," Judith called in to Wade whose +whistle sounded from his own room. "Hit's a settin', kivered, on the +hearth; the coffee-pot's on the coals. Would you-all mind to wait on +yo'selves, an' would you put the saddle on Selim for me? I'm goin' over +to Lusks'. I'll eat supper there; I may stay all night; but I'll be home +in the mornin' soon to git you-all's breakfast." + +"Why--why, pap 'lowed----" + +"Well, Uncle Jep ain't here. Ef you don't want to----" + +"Oh, that's all right Judith. Of course it's all right. But you say +you're goin' to ride to Lusks'?--to ride?" hesitated Wade uneasily. +Judith flung up her head and stared straight at him with angry eyes. + +"Yes," she said finally, "when I leave this place for over night I'd +ruther know whar my hoss is at. I'll take him along." + +"Oh,--all right," her cousin hastened to agree; "I never meant to make +you mad, Jude. Of course I'd jest as soon saddle up for you. I don't +wonder you feel thataway. I never like to have anybody use my ridin' +critter." + +Judith had made her point. She let it pass, and went sombrely on with her +preparation for departure. Wade still hesitated uneasily. Finally he said +deprecatingly, + +"Ef ye don't mind waitin' a minute I'll eat my supper, an' ride over with +ye--I was a-goin' after supper anyhow; I want to see Lacey Rountree ef +he's not gone back home yit." + +"I'll be glad to have ye," answered Judith quietly. "I don't mind +waitin'." And Wade, plainly relieved, hurried out to the stables. + +They rode along quietly in the late summer afternoon; the taciturn habit +of the mountain people made the silence between them seem nothing +strange. Arrived at the Lusks', both girls came running out to welcome +their visitor. She saw Wade's sidelong glance take note of the fact that +Grandpap Lusk led away Selim to the log stable. Lacey Rountree was gone +home to the Far Cove, and Wade lingered in talk with Grandpap Lusk a +while at the horse-block, then got on his mule and, with florid +good-byes, rode back home, evidently at rest as to Judith. + +The evening meal was over. Judith helped Cliantha and Pendrilla prepare a +bit of supper for herself, aided in the clearing away and dish-washing, +and after they had sat for a while with Granny Lusk and the old man in +the porch, listening to the whippoorwills calling to each other, and all +the iterant insect voices of a July night, went to their own room. + +"Girls," said Judith softly, drawing the two colourless little creatures +to the bed, and sitting down with one on each side of her, "girls," and +her voice deepened and shook with the strain under which she laboured, "I +want you to let me slip out the back door here, put my saddle on Selim, +and go home, quiet, without tellin' the old folks. I was goin' home by +daylight in the mornin' anyhow, to get the boys' breakfast," as the girls +stared at her in wordless surprise. "I've got a reason why I'd ruther go +now--and I'd ruther the old folks didn't know. Will ye do this for me?" + +The sisters looked at each other across their guest's dark eager face, +and fluttered visibly. They would have been incapable of deceit to serve +any purpose of their own; they were too timid to have initiated any +actions not in strict accordance with household laws; but the same gentle +timidity which made them subservient to the rules of their world, made +them also abject worshippers at the shrine of Judith's beauty and force +and fire. + +"Shore, shore," they both whispered in a breath. + +"I hate to have ye go Jude--" began Cliantha; but Pendrilla interrupted +her. + +"An' yit ef Jude would ruther go--and wants to slip out unbeknownst, why +we wouldn't say nothin' about it, and jest tell granny and grandpap in +the mornin' that she left soon to git the boys' breakfast." + +They watched her pass quietly out the back door and toward the log +stable, their big blue eyes wide with childish wonder and interest. +Judith with her many suitors, moving in an atmosphere of romance, was to +them a figure like none other, and she was now in the midst of tragic +doings; the glamour that had always been upon her image was heightened by +the last week's occurrences. They turned back whispering and shut the +door. + +Thus it was that Judith found herself on Selim, moving, free from +suspicion or espionage, toward the point below Foeman's Bluff where she +had sent word to Creed to meet her. + +The big oaks shouldered themselves in black umbels against the horizon; +pointed conifers shot up inky spires between them. The sky was only +greyish black, lit by many stars, and Judith trembled to note that their +dim illumination might almost permit one to recognise an individual at a +few paces distance. Without misadventure she came to the spot designated, +urged Selim in under the shadow of a tree, dismounted, and stood beside +him waiting. Would Creed come? Would Huldah persuade him that the message +was only a decoy? Would he come too late? Would some of the boys +intercept him, so that he should never come at all? + +At the last thought she started and leaned out recklessly to search the +dark path with desperate eyes. Perhaps she had better venture forward and +meet him. Perhaps after all it would be possible for her to get closer to +Nancy Card's. Then in the midst of her apprehensions came the sound of +shod hoofs. + +She had chosen this point for two reasons: first the old trail she meant +to follow down the mountain passed in close to the spot; and second it +was the last place they would expect Bonbright to approach; his way to it +would never be guarded. But of course she ran the risk of Blatch himself +or some of his friends and followers appearing. And now she held her +breath in intense anxiety as the trampling came nearer. + +There appeared out of the dense shadow of the bluff a man walking and +leading a mule by its bridle. She knew the mule, because she got the +silhouette of it against the sky, and directly after she saw that the man +who led it was tall, with a bandaged head, which he carried in a manner +unmistakable, and one shoulder gleaming white--she guessed that that was +because his coat was off where the bandages lay under his white shirt and +over the wound in his shoulder. It was Creed. With a throb of unspeakable +thankfulness she realised that she had till now dreaded that if he came +at all Huldah would be with him. She moved out from the dense shadow. + +"Whar--whar's Huldy?" she questioned before she would trust herself to +believe. But Creed, full of the wonder of her message, dropped the mule's +bridle and came toward her his uninjured arm outstretched. He put the +inquiry by almost impatiently. + +"Huldah? She went on down to Hepzibah soon Saturday morning," he said. "O +Judith, did you mean it--that word you sent me by Little Buck?" + +He came swiftly up to her, snatching her hand eagerly, pressing it hard +against his breast, leaning close in the twilight to study her face. + +"You couldn't mean it," he hurried on passionately, tremulously, "not +now; you just pity me. Little Buck cried when he told me what you said, +honey. He was jealous. But he needn't have been--need he Judith? You just +pity me." + +Creed's manner and his words were instant reassurance to Judith's womanly +pride. But immediately on the relaxation of that pain rose clamouring her +anxiety for his safety--his life. + +"Yes, yes, Creed," she murmured vehemently. "I did mean it--I sure meant +every word of it. But we got to get right away from here. Do ye reckon ye +can stand it to ride as far as the foot of the mountain? Ye got to +go--and I'm here to take ye." + +They drew out of the path and into the deep blackness beneath the trees. +There was but a hundredth chance that anybody would be passing here, or +watching this point, yet that hundredth chance must be guarded against. + +Poor Creed, he detained her, he clung to her hands hungrily, and invoked +the sound of her voice. So much hate had daunted him, the strength and +sweetness of her presence, the warm tenderness of her tones, were like +balm to his lacerated spirit. + +"I couldn't go to-night--dear----" he faltered, abashed that the first +word he uttered to her must be a denial. "You're mighty sweet and good to +offer to take me--I don't know what I have ever done that you should risk +this for me--but I'm to have a chance to talk to your Uncle Jephthah at +moonrise to-night, and I can't turn my back on that. He's a fair-minded +man and I'll make this thing right yet." + +Judith shuddered. "Don't you never believe it," she urged in a panting +whisper. "Uncle Jep hadn't a thing on earth to do with that word goin' to +you. He's left home. I can't find him nowhars, or I'd have went straight +to him and begged him to help me out when I found what the boys was +aimin' to do. Hit was Blatch planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch +Turrentine is alive--you never killed him when you flung him over the +bluff--and while he lives you can't stay here. He's bound to kill ye." + +"Have you seen Blatch, yourself, Judith?" Creed asked quickly. + +"Oh, laws, no. He's a layin' out in the woods somewheres, aimin' to make +Uncle Jep believe you killed him. But I heard him plain enough--I heard +him and the boys fix it all up--hid out from Uncle Jep down in the +grain-room. There's to be seven of 'em a-waitin' down by the big hollow, +and when they git you betwixt them an' the sky at moonrise they're all +promised to shoot at once, so that nary man dast to go back on the others +when you're killed." + +Wounded, appalled, the young fellow drew back from her and clung to the +saddle of the old mule, with a boyish desire to hide his face against the +arm which he threw over it. + +"How they hate me!" he breathed at last. "Oh, I've failed--I've failed. I +meant so well by them all--and I've got nothing but their hate. But I +won't run. I never ran from anything yet. I'll stay here and take what +comes." + +Perhaps in his extremity the despair of this speech was but an +unconscious reaching out for Judith's expressed affection, the warmth and +consolation of her love. If this were so, the movement brought him what +he craved. In terror she laid hold upon him, holding to his unwounded +arm, pressing her cheek upon his shoulder, making her protest in swift +passionate sentences. + +"What good will it do for you to get yourself killed--tell me that? Every +one of them men will be murderers, when you've stayed and seen it +through. Lord, what differ is it whether sech critters as them love you +or hate you? 'Pears to me I would ruther have their ill-will as their +good-will. Don't you have no regards for them that is good friends to +you? _I_ care. _I_ understand what it was you was tryin' to do. I thort +it was fine. Air you goin' to break my heart by stayin' here to git +yourself killed? Oh, don't do it, Creed. You let me take you out of the +mountains, or I'll never know what it is to sleep in peace." + +His arm slipped softly round her waist and drew her close against his +side, so close that the two young creatures, standing silent in the midst +of the warm summer night, could almost hear the beating of each other's +heart. In spite of their desperate situation they were tremulously +happy. + +"I thank my God for you, Judith," murmured Creed, bending to lay his +cheek timidly against hers. "Never was a man in trouble had such a sweet +helper. It's mighty near worth it all to have found you. Maybe you never +would have cared for me at all if this hadn't come about--if I hadn't +needed you so bad." + +Judith's lavish heart would have hastened to break its alabaster jar of +ointment at love's feet with the impetuous avowal that he had been dear +to her since first she looked on him. But there was instant need of +haste; the situation was full of danger; that confession, with all its +sweetness, might well wait a more secure time and place. She got to her +horse glowing with hope, feeling herself equal to the dubious enterprise +before them. + +"Whatever you say honey," Creed assured her. "Do with me as you will. I'm +your man now." + +They had wheeled their mounts toward the open. + +"Hark! What's that?" whispered Judith. + +The quavering cry of a screech-owl came across the gulch to them. The +girl crouched in her saddle, shivering slightly, and stroking Selim's +nose so that he might make no stir nor sound. + +"They use--that--for a signal," she breathed at last. "The boys is out +guardin' the trails. And 'pears like they're a-movin'. We got to go +quick." + +They set forth in silence; Judith riding ahead, skirted at a considerable +distance the buildings on the old Turrentine place, then followed down a +rocky stream-bed, dry now and leading abruptly into a ravine. Here the +girl took her bearings by the summits she could see black against the +star-lit sky, and, avoiding the open, made for the old Indian trail which +would lead them directly down to Garyville. They could ride abreast +sometimes, and they began to talk together in these broken intervals. + +"And Little Buck cried when he told you," Judith said, in that tender, +brooding voice of hers. "That was my fault. I'm mighty sorry. I wouldn't +'a' hurt the child's feelings for anything; but I never thought." + +"I fixed it up with him some," said her lover, quickly. "I told him you +only said that because I was hurt and you was sorry for me. I thought I +was telling the truth." + +"Uncle Jep feels mighty bad about this business," she began another time, +hastening to offer what consolation she could. "Nothin' would have made +him willin' to it, but the fear that when you brought the raiders up he'd +get took hisself. He ain't had nothin' to do with stillin' for more'n six +year, but of course hit's on his land, and the boys is his sons. He says +he's too old to go to the penitentiary." + +Creed reached out in the gloom and got the girl's hand. + +"Oh, Judith, darling!" he said eagerly. "Let me tell you right now, and +make you understand--I never had any more notion of bringing raiders into +the mountains than you have yourself. I do know that blockaded stills and +what they mean are the ruin of this country; but honey, you've got to +believe me when I say I never wanted to get any information about them or +break them up." + +The girl harkened, with close attention to the man--the lover--but with +simple indifference to the gist of what he was saying. It was plain that +she would have loved and followed him had he been a revenue officer +himself. + +"I'll tell Uncle Jep," she said presently. "He'll be mighty proud. He +does really set a heap of store by you, and they all know it. But I ain't +never goin' to let you talk like that to him," she added, the note of +proud possession sounding in her voice. "Ef you're goin' to live in the +mountains you'll have to learn not to have much to say about moonshine +whiskey and blockaded stills--you never do know who you might be +hittin'." + +"You'll take good care of me, won't you Judith?" he said fondly, pressing +the hand he held. "And I reckon I need it--I surely do manage to get into +misunderstandings with people. But that wasn't the trouble with Blatch +Turrentine--he never thought any such thing as that I was a spy. He was +mad at me about something else--and I don't know yet what it was." + +Judith laughed softly, low in her throat, so far had they come from the +uncertainty, strain, and distress of an hour before. When next the trail +narrowed and widened again, she came up on his left, the side of the +injured arm, but which brought her nearer to him, leaned close and laying +her hand on his shoulder, whispered, + +"I reckon I know. I reckon you'll have to blame me with Blatch's +meanness." + +"Why, of course that was it!" exclaimed Creed. He looped the bridle on +his saddle horn, reached up and drew her hand across his shoulders and +around his neck. "That's what comes of getting the girl that everybody +else wants," he said with fond pride. "But nobody else can have her now, +can they? Say it Judith--say it to me, dear." + +Judith made sweet and satisfying response, and they rode in silence a +moment. Then she halted Selim thoughtfully. + +"This path takes off to Double Springs, Creed," she said, mentioning the +name of a little watering place built up about some wells of chalybeate +and sulphur water. "We might--do ye think mebbe we'd better go there?" + +Creed, who felt his strength ebbing, calculated the distance. They had +seen, as they made the last turn under the bluff, the lights flaring at +the Garyville station. Double Springs was more than a mile farther. "I +reckon Garyville will be the best, dear," he returned gently. Then, "I +wish I had cut a little better figure in this business--on account of +you," he added wistfully. "You're everything that a man could ask. I +don't want you to be ashamed of me." + +"Ashamed of you!" Judith's deep tones carried such love, such scorn of +those who might not appreciate the man of her choice, that he was fain to +be comforted. + +"If we had known each other better from the first I reckon you would have +kept me out of these fool mistakes I've made," the young fellow said +humbly. + +"You ain't made no mistakes," Judith declared with reckless loyalty, +"Hit's the other folks--Blatch Turrentine and them that follers him--no +good person could git along with them. Are you much tired Creed? Does yo' +shoulder pain you?" + +"No, dear," he said softly, laying his cheek against the hand which he +had drawn around his neck. "Nothing pains me any more. I'm mighty +happy." + +And together thus they rode forward in darkness, toward Garyville and +safety. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + +Bitter Parting + + +In the sickly yellow flare of the kerosene lamps around the Garyville +station Judith got her first sight of Creed's face: sunken, the blood +drained from it till it was colourless as paper, the eyes wild, purple +rimmed, haggard--it frightened her. She was off of Selim in a moment, +begging him to get down and sit on the edge of the platform with her, +here on the dark side where nobody would notice them, and they could +decide what was to be done next. + +He dismounted slowly, stumblingly, gained the edge of the platform, and +there sat with drooping head. Judith tied the two animals and ran to sit +beside him. + +"Ye ain't goin' to faint air ye?" she asked anxiously. "Lean on me, +Creed. I wish't I knew what to do for ye!" + +The young fellow, half unconscious indeed, put his head down upon her +shoulder with a great shuddering sigh. + +"I'll be better in a minute, dear," he whispered. "I reckon I got a +little tired--riding so far." + +For some time Judith sat there, Creed's head on her shoulder, the black +night all about them, the little lighted station empty save for the +clicking of the telegraph instrument, and the footsteps of the station +master who had opened up for the midnight train. She was desperately +anxious and at a loss which way to turn. And yet through all her being +there rolled a mighty undernote of joy. As to the dweller on the coast +the voice of the sea is the undertone to all the sounds of man's +activities, so beneath all her virginal hesitancies, her half terror of +what she had done, surged and sang the knowledge that Creed was hers, her +avowed lover. She, Judith, had him here safe; she had brought him away +out of the mountains, from those who would have harmed him--and those who +would have loved him too well. In all her plannings up to this time she +had never quite been able to see clearly what should come after getting +Creed down into the valley. Over her stormily beating heart now there +rose and fell a little packet of bills, savings above necessary +expenditures on the farm, and her own modest expenses, savings which had +been accumulating since Uncle Jephthah rented the place, and now amounted +to some hundreds of dollars. These she had put in the bosom of her frock +when she set out on this enterprise, with, as she now realised, the +vaguest expectation of ever returning to her uncle's house. + +"Creed," she whispered, "air ye better?" + +"Yes," responded her charge, "yes--I'm better." But he made no movement +to raise his head, and with eyes long accustomed to darkness she was able +to see that his lids were still closed. + +"Creed," she began again, "what shall I do for you now? Must I go ask at +the hotel will they give you a room? Have you--have you got money with +you?" + +Bonbright roused himself. + +"I'm all right now," he said in a strained tone. "Yes, dear, I've got +some money with me, and a little more in the bank at Hepzibah. I can get +hold of that any time I want to. I don't know just what I'll do," he +looked around him bewildered. This had not been his plan, and the long +ride down the mountain, and above all the happiness of being with Judith, +of her avowals had made him forgetful of its exigencies. "I reckon I'll +make out. You needn't worry about me any more, Judith. I'm safe down +here." + +These words sounded dreadfully like a dismissal to the girl. She locked +her hands hard together in her lap and fought for composure. An older or +a more worldly woman would have said to him promptly that she could not +leave him in this case, and that if they were ever to be married it must +be now. But all the traditions of the mountain girl's life and upbringing +were against such a course. She gazed at him helplessly. + +"I ain't got but one friend on this earth, looks like," began Creed +wearily, as he got to his feet, "and now I'm obliged to send her away +from me." + +It was more than Judith could bear. She lifted her swimming eyes to him +in the dusk; he was recovering self command and strength, but he was +still white, shaken, the bandaged head and shoulder showing how close he +had been to death. Her love overbore virgin timidity and tradition. + +"Don't send me away then," she said in the deepest tones of that rich, +passionate voice of hers. "Ef hit's me you're namin' when you speak of +having but one friend--don't send me away, Creed." + +He came close and caught her hand, looking into her face with wondering +half comprehension of her words. That face was dyed with sudden, burning +red. She hoped and expected that he would make the proffer which must +come from him. When he did not, she burst out in a vehement, tense +whisper, + +"If--if you love me like you said you did----" + +Creed hesitated, bewildered. He was too ill to judge matters aright, but +he knew one thing. + +"I do love you," he said with mounting firmness. "I may be a mighty poor +sort of a fellow--I've begun to think so of late--but I love you." + +Judith put out both hands blindly toward him whispering, + +"And I love you. I don't want nothin' but to be with you an' help you, +an' take keer of you. I'll never leave you." + +For a moment the young fellow felt only the dizzy rapture of her frank +confession. In that instant he saw himself accepting her sacrifice, +taking her in his arms; in anticipation he tasted the sweetness of her +lips. Then pure reason, that shrew who had always ruled his days, spoke +loud, as the bitterness of his situation rolled back upon him. + +"No--no!" he cried. "Judith--honey--I can't do that. Why, I'd be robbing +you of everything in the world. Your kin would turn against you. Your +farm would be lost to you, I reckon--I don't know when I'll be able to go +back and claim mine." + +In the moment of strained silence that followed this speech, with a sense +of violent painful revulsion the girl pushed him back when he would +timidly have clung to her. What woman ever appreciated prudence in a +lover? It is not a lover's virtue. Her farm--her farm! He could listen to +her confession of love for him, and speculate upon the chances of her +losing her farm by it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when she +would have been glad to deny the words she had spoken. Then Creed, +reading her anger and despair by the light of his own sorrows, said +brokenly: + +"You feel--you're offended at me now--but Judith, you wouldn't love me if +I had taken you at your word, and ruined all your chances in life. +I--Judith--dear--I'll make this thing right yet. I'll come back--and +you'll forgive me then." + +With a sudden flaring up of strength he took quiet mastery of the +situation. He kissed her tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either +could ever have imagined their first would be. + +"I love you too well to let you wed a man that's fixed like I am--a man +that's made such a failure of life--a fugitive--a fellow that has nothing +to offer you, and no more standing with your people than a hound dog. I +love you better than I do myself or my comfort--or even my life." + +In anguished silence Judith received the caress; dumb with misery she got +to her horse. Creed stood looking up at her for their last words, when, +with a rattle and clang, the train from the North swept in and halted. +Selim jibed and fought the bit as any sensible mountain horse feels +himself entitled to do under similar circumstances; but Judith heeded him +almost not at all. + +"My Lord--who's that?" she cried, staring toward the lighted train where +the figure of a man mounted the platform. + +"What is it?" queried Creed. + +"Hit looked like Blatch," whispered the girl; "but I reckon it couldn't +a-been." + +"Blatch!" echoed Creed, all on fire in an instant--where now was her poor +invalid whose head she had pillowed, of whom she had thought to take +care? "Blatch Turrentine!--Good-bye, honey--you mustn't be seen with me. +If Blatch is here I've got to find and face him. You see that, don't +you?--You understand." + +And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men, with their quarrels and +their nice points of honour--while a woman's heart bleeds under the +scuffling feet! + +She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering step advertising how +unfit he was for any such attempt, watched him mount the platform where +she had seen the man that looked like Blatch; and then the conductor +swung his lantern, the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out, and +Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with her and never stopped +running till he had topped the rise above the village. + +Here, with some ado, she got him quieted, brought to a standstill, got +off and tightened the girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously. She +climbed on once more, mounting from a fallen tree, and was moving again +up the trail when, down toward Garyville, someone called her name. + +"Judith!" + +She did not turn her head. She knew to whom the voice belonged. As he +rode up to her: + +"What you doin' here, Blatch Turrentine?" she demanded fiercely, "an' +what'll the boys say to you for slippin' away from 'em to-night?" + +He took her inferred knowledge of all his enterprises without a word of +comment. Bringing his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he +answered: + +"The boys know whar I'm at. We got word last evenin' that the man I sell +to was waitin' for me in Garyville. He don't know nobody but me in the +business, and nobody but me could do the arrent. I hauled a load down, +an' I would have been back in plenty time, ef I hadn't met you and +Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail comes into the +Garyville road." + +Judith started, her face burned in the darkness, but she said nothing. +Blatch peered curiously at her as he went on: + +"I reckon you never took notice of the waggon that was under the bluff +thar by the turn, but that was my waggon, and I was a-settin' on it. I +wheeled myse'f round, when I seed 'twas Bonbright, and follered you two +down to Garyville, and put up my mules." + +Again he peered sharply at her. + +"Jude," as she still sat silent, "I won't tell the boys what kept me--I +won't tell them nary thing about you. I'll just let on that I happened to +see Bonbright at Garyville." + +"You tell what you're a mind to," said Judith bitterly. "I don't keer +what you say." + +Blatchley took the retort coolly. But his light grey eyes narrowed under +the black brows. + +"Bonbright seemed mightily upsot," he commented. "Went off on the train +an' left his mule a-standin'." + +_Went off on the train!_ Judith's heart leaped, then stood still. + +"Ye needn't werry about it--I had Scomp put it up, 'long o' my other 'n. +He'll send 'em both up a Wednesday. I reckon it ain't to be wondered at +Bonbright was flustered. Who do you 'low he went with on the railroad +train? Jude, air you so easy fooled as to think it was a new notion for +him to go to Garyville? Didn't he name it to you that it was a better +place than Double Springs?" + +Leaning close and watching her face, he saw in it confirmation. + +"Shore. They was a little somebody on the railroad train waitin' to go on +with him--after he'd done kissed you good-bye--and _left_ you!" + +Judith sat, head up, staring at him. Her less worthy nature was always +instantly roused by this man's approach. Savage resentment, jealousy, +hate, stirred in her crushed spirit; they raised their heads; their +movement crowded out grief and humiliation. It must be true--she had +proposed Double Springs, and he had said Garyville would be better. He +had refused in so many words her offer of herself. He had kissed her---- + +"No!--no!--no!" she cried to the man before her, "don't you look at +me--don't you speak to me." + +"Why, Judith," he protested, hanging on Selim's flank and talking to her +as she whirled the sorrel into the road and put him at the slope at a +pace which that petted animal very much resented, "why Judith, ef one +feller goes back on you thataway you be mad at him--he's the one to be +mad at. Here's me, I stand willin' to make it up. Creed Bonbright has +shamed you--he's left you; but you could make him look like a fool if you +would only say the word--and you and me would----" + +"Now you go back!" Judith turned upon him as one speaks to a dog who is +determined to follow. "I ain't nary 'nother word to say to you. Leave me +alone!" + +"But Judith, hit ain't safe for you to be ridin' up here in the night +time, thisaway," Blatch insisted. "Lemme jest go along with you----" + +"I'll be a mighty heap safer alone than I'd be with you," Judith told +him, urging Selim ahead, "and anybody that knows you well will say so. +You--go--back." + + + + +Chapter XIX + +Cast Out + + +Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn. +The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not +yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that pallid line of greyish +white that precedes sunrise. + +She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse stumbling with drooping +head over the familiar stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The +huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable. There was light +here enough to see the life which in daytime made all homelike, but which +now, quenched and hidden, left all desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes +on the semblance of death, so the sleeping house took on the semblance of +desertion. The chickens were still humped on their perches in the trees, +the cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their calves lay in a little +bunch by the fence fast asleep. To the girl's heavy heart it seemed a +spot utterly forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the +slow-coming morning. + +She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and put her horse out. As she +was coming back past her uncle's cabin, she saw the old man himself +sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his hat lay on the doorstone +beside him, and against the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up at her +with a sort of indifferent, troubled gaze. + +"So you got back, Jude," he said quietly. + +"Yes, Uncle Jep," she returned as quietly. + +He made no comment on her riding skirt which she held up away from the +drenching dew. He asked no questions as to where she had been, or what +her errand. She noted that he looked old and worn. + +"I'm mighty sorry it happened," he began abruptly, quite as though he was +continuing a conversation which they had intermitted but a few moments, +"mighty sorry; but I don't see no other way. I've studied a heap on it. +Folks that stirs up trouble, gits trouble. I----" + +He broke off and sat brooding. + +"I'm glad you ain't mad at me for the part I've tuck in it," Judith began +finally. + +"Don't tell me." He raised a hasty, protesting hand. "I don't want to +know nothin' about it. All is, _I_ couldn't have things according to my +ruthers, and they had to go as they must. Hit ain't what a man means that +makes the differ--hit's what he does that we count. Them that stirs up +trouble, finds trouble." + +"I reckon so, Uncle Jep," said the girl, drooping as she stood. + +"They ain't been a roof between my head and the sky sence I left this +house," the old man's big voice rumbled on monotonously, hollowly. "I +tromped the ridges over to'ds Yeller Old Bald. I left mankind and their +works behind me, and I have done a power of thinking; but I can't make +this thing come out no other way." + +He ceased and sat looking down. The girl could fancy his solitary meals +where he cooked what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under the sky +and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing to the desert to be alone with +God and their sorrow. She envied him the privilege. She had no heart to +repeat to him Creed's statements that he was not a spy. That was all +past--wiped out by the parting between her and her lover. + +"Yes, Uncle Jep," she uttered low, and with bent head she moved +dejectedly on toward the house. + +Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after their vigils of the night +before. About three o'clock, or a little after, they had come home to +find their father turning in at the gate. With their disappointment fresh +upon them they broke through his command of silence, and Wade told him +how they and Blatch had planned the ambush, how Blatch had been called +away, how they had waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised to +"come and talk to them," how he had never come, but how Arley Kittridge a +few minutes ago had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright was gone from +Nancy Card's, and that the mule was gone with him. None of the watchers +could say what direction he took, except to give earnest assurances that +he had not left by any trail leading down the mountain. "He's bound to be +over here somewhars," Wade concluded, "and Blatch not havin' got back +from Garyville, they two has met somewhars." + +The old man listened in silence, and when his son had made an end offered +neither comment nor reply. He passed over without a word the revelation +of the deceit about Blatch's supposed killing. It was as though, weary +and foredone, he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of events--to +life itself--for response, explanation, or punishment. + +Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face, and set about preparing +breakfast. And that was a strange meal when she had finally put it on the +table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in their places like chidden +schoolboys, furtively studying their father's ravaged visage, looking at +each other and muttering requests or replies. They were all aware of the +ugliness of their several offences. Creed's strange disappearance, +Blatch's failure to return, the utter collapse of their errand, these had +shaken them terribly. + +About a third of the way through the meal Jim Cal shuffled in. + +"Do you mind givin' me some breakfast, Jude?" he asked humbly. "Iley an' +the chaps is all sound asleep. I hate to wake 'em, an' I never was no +hand to do for myse'f." + +"Set and welcome," said Judith, mechanically placing a chair for the one +who had been most resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that +they were all seated about the board when Blatch Turrentine, without a +word, made his appearance in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah +turned those sombre eyes of his upon his nephew, and regarded him +steadily. The younger man stopped where he was on the threshold. + +"So ye ain't dead?" inquired his uncle finally. + +"I reckon that ain't news to you, is it?" asked Blatch, making as though +to come in and take his place at the table. + +For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the +mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah's heart with deep, strong resentment +against this man. Then he said without rising, + +"Yes, hit's news. But you may take it that hit's news I ain't heard. I +reckon we'll just leave it that you _air_ dead. The lease on the ground +over thar runs tell next spring. I'll not rue my bargain, but no son of +mine sets his foot on yo' land and stays my son, and you don't put yo' +foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead--stay dead." + +"Oh, I see," said Blatch. "Yo' a-blamin' the whole business on me, air +ye? Well, that's handy. What about them fine fellers that's settin' at +meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led 'em into all their +meanness." + +Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy +fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in +leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look. + +"Blatch," began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, "yo' my +brother's son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store +by him. Sam's been gone more than ten year, and in that time I've aimed +to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something +I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit's been paid out. Yo' Sam's son, but +also yo' a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in +ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that +I don't aim to have you walk with 'em, I say what is my right. What I +owed yo' daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out--hit's been paid +plumb out." + +Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily. Perhaps he +had been more or less prepared for it, knowing as he would have phrased +it that his uncle wanted but half a chance to break with him. He was +aware, too, that the secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old +man's hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a point to defend him +for the name's sake if for nothing else. + +"All right," he said, "ef them's yo' ruthers, hit suits me. What do +you-all boys say?--I reckon Unc' Jep'll let ye speak for yo'selves--this +one time." + +"I say what pap says," came promptly from Wade. And, "Jeff an' me thinks +it's about time pap's word went with his boys," put in the younger and +more emotional Andy. + +"All right, all right," agreed Blatch in some haste, finding the battle +to go thus sweepingly against him. "I wont expect no opinions from you, +podner, tell you've had time to run home an' ax Iley what air they. Ye +ain't named Judith, Unc' Jep," he went on, glancing to where the girl +knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn pones from the Dutch oven. +"Cain't she come over and visit me when she has a mind?" + +"Judith's her own mistress. She can use her ruthers," returned Jephthah +briefly, "but I misdoubt that you'll be greatly troubled with her +company." + +"Help me git my things out of the cupboard thar, Jude, won't ye?" asked +Blatch civilly enough. + +Without reply, without glancing at him, Judith preceded him into the +fore-room, opened the doors and sought out his clean clothing, making it +into a neat pile on the table. + +"You come over and see me sometimes, won't ye, Judy?" whispered the tall +man as he bundled these up. "I won't tell who I seen you with." + +Judith looked at him with wordless contempt. Her own pain was so great +that even anger was swallowed up in it. + +"Tell anybody you're a mind to," she said listlessly. "I ain't +a-carin'." + +"I may git word of him, Jude," persisted Blatch as he was departing. "Ef +I do would you wish to hear it? Ef you say yes, I'll send ye notice." + +Again she glanced at him with that negligent disdain. What could he do to +her now who had lost all? She was beyond the reach of his love or his +malice. + + + + +Chapter XX + +A Conversion + + +And now Judith's days strung themselves on the glowing thread of +midsummer weather like black beads on a golden cord, a rosary of pain. +She told each bead with sighs, facing the morning with a heavy heart that +longed for darkness, lying down when day was over in dread of the night +and a weariness that brought no sleep. And the cedar tree, swayed in the +raw autumn air, talking to itself sombrely of the empty nest in its +heart, sounded upon her wakeful ears a note of desolation and despair. +For all the Turkey Tracks soon knew that Blatch Turrentine was sound and +whole; all Hepzibah knew it eventually--and Creed Bonbright neither +returned nor made any sign. + +The embargo being removed, Judith went straight to Nancy Card. + +In the preoccupation of her sorrow, she might have forgotten Little +Buck's wounded heart; but when as of custom Beezy came rioting out to +meet her, the man child hung back with so strange a countenance that she +needs must note it. + +"Come here, honey," she urged tenderly--her own suffering made her very +pitiful to the childish grief. + +Little Buck came slowly up to his idol, lifting doubtful eyes to her +face. The girl's ready arm went swiftly round the small figure. + +"Are you pestered about that word I sent Creed Bonbright by you?" she +whispered. + +The little boy nodded solemnly, and you could see the choke in his +throat. + +"Well, you don't need to be," she reassured him. "I had to send jest that +word, Little Buck--jest that very word; nothin' less would 'a' brought +him." + +Again the child nodded, twisting around to look in her face, his own +countenance clearing a bit. + +"But it don't make any differ between you an' me, does it, honey?" she +pursued. "You're Jude's man, jest the same as you ever was, ain't ye? You +wouldn't never need to be jealous of anybody; 'cause you know all the +time that Judy loves you." + +Silently the small man put his arms round her neck and hugged her +hard--an unusual demonstration for Little Buck. And during her entire +stay he hung close about, somewhat to Nancy's annoyance, seeming to find +plentiful joy in the contemplation of his recovered treasure. + +The loss of Creed had meant a good deal to Nancy. More like a son than a +boarder in her house, he had brought with him a sense of support and +competence such as the hard-worked little woman had never known. With his +going, she was back again in the old helpless, moneyless situation, with +Pony on her hands a growing problem and anxiety, and Doss Provine but a +broken reed on which to lean. Such inquiries after Creed as they managed +to set afoot fetched no return. + +"Hit ain't like Creed to be scared and keep runnin'," she would repeat +pathetically. "I know in reason something awful has chanced to that boy. +Either that, or it's like they're all beginning to say, he's wedded and +gone to Texas same as his cousin Cyarter done. Cyarter Bonbright run away +with a gal on the night she was to have wedded another feller--tuck her +right out of the country and went to Texas. That's Bonbright nature: they +ain't much on sweet-heartin' an' sech, but when they git it, they git it +hard." + +She laid a loving hand on the girl's shoulder, and leaned around to look +frankly into the beautiful, melancholy, dark face with the direct, honest +grey eyes that would admit no concealments between herself and those whom +she really cared for. + +"I speak right out to you, Jude," she said kindly, "'caze I see how hit's +been between you an' Creed, an' hit'll hurt you less if you get used to +the idy of givin' him up. Him treated the way he was, I don't know as I'd +blame him." + +But Judith could have blamed him. It was only when despair pressed too +hard that she could say she would be glad to know he was alive even +though he belonged to somebody else. Yet to credit Blatch's story for a +moment, to think he had gone that night with Huldah Spiller, was to open +the heart's door on such a black vista of treachery and double-dealing in +Creed's conduct, to so utterly discredit his caring for herself, that she +had no defence but to disbelieve the whole tale, and this she was +generally able to do. + +But as far away as Hepzibah a small event was preparing that should break +the monotony of Judith's grievous days. Venters Drane, the elder's +twelve-year-old boy, going to school in the village, fell ill of +diphtheria. When word was brought to the father--a widower and wise--he +loaded his three younger children and their small belongings into the +waggon and drove over to the Turrentine place. + +"I jest p'intedly ain't got nary another place to leave 'em, Sister +Barrier, nor nary another soul on earth that I could trust 'em with like +I could with you," he said wistfully, after he had explained the +necessities of the case. "I'm on my way down now to get Venters and bring +him home--look at that, will ye!" as the baby made a dash for Judith who +stood by the wheel looking up. + +"They're mighty welcome, Elder Drane," Judith declared warmly, receiving +the little fellow in open arms. "I'll be glad to do for 'em." + +Martin and Lucy were old-fashioned, repressed, timid children, with the +pathetic outlook of young persons brought up by a melancholy, ancient +hireling. But the baby, glowing-eyed, laughing-mouthed rogue, staggering +valiantly on sturdy, emulous legs, taking tribute everywhere with all +babyhood's divine audacity, walked straight into her heart. He slept +beside her at night, for him she darkened and quieted the house of +afternoons, lying down with him to watch his slumbers, to brood with +mother fondness upon the round, rosy, small face, and the even, placid +breathing. + +Drane had brought such clothing as they had, but Judith found them +ill-provided, and set to work for them at once. Being a capable +needlewoman she soon had them apparelled more to her liking, and the +labour physicked pain. Sitting in the porch sewing, with the baby +tumbling about the floor at her feet and Mart and Lucy building +play-houses in the yard under the trees, Judith began dimly to realise +that life, somewhere and at some time, might lack all she had so +passionately craved, all she so piercingly regretted, and yet hold some +peace, some satisfaction. True she was still desolate, robbed, +despairing, yet with the children to tend there were hours when she +almost lost sight of her own sorrow, in the sweet compulsion of doing for +them. + +Jim Cal shook his head over these arrangements. "Looks like to me ef I +was a widower with chaps, trying to wed a fine lookin', upheaded gal like +Jude, I'd a' kep' the little 'uns out of her sight as much as I could, +'stid of fetchin' 'em right to her. Hit seems now as though she muched +them greatly, but she's sartin shore to find out what a sight o' trouble +chaps makes, and ain't any woman wantin' more work than she's 'bleeged to +have." + +Lacking active concerns of his own, James Calhoun was always greatly +interested in those of the persons about him. Judith's doings, on account +of her reticence, beauty and high spirit, proved a theme of unending, +mild interest. + +"Jude," he opened out one day as he sat on the edge of the porch while +his cousin was busy with some sewing for her little visitors, "did ye +hear 'bout Lace Rountree?" + +Judith never moved her eyes from her work. "I know they's sech a person," +she said evenly, "if that's what you mean." + +"No, but have ye heared of how he's a-doin' here lately?" persisted the +fat man. "I don't know as anybody has named anything special to me about +Lacey Rountree or his doin's," Judith returned with a rising irritation. +"Why should they?" + +Jim Cal heaved a wheezy sigh. "'Caze yo' said to be the cause of it," he +expounded with lugubrious enjoyment. "Lace Rountree is fillin' hisse'f up +on corn whiskey and givin' it out to each and every that he's goin' plumb +straight _di_-rect to the dav-il, an' all on yo' accounts--'caze you +wouldn't have 'im. Now what do you make out o' that?" + +"I make out that some folks are mighty big fools," retorted Judith with +asperity. "Lace Rountree is no older than Jeff and Andy--he's two years +younger'n I am--why, he's like a child to me. I never no more thought of +Lace Rountree than I'd think of--well, not so much as I would of Little +Buck Provine." + +"Uh-huh," agreed Jim Cal shaking his head dolefully, "that's the way you +talk; but you-all gals had ort to have a care how you toll fellers on. +Here's Huldy got Wade so up-tore about her that he's a-goin' to dash out +and git him a place on the railroad whar he's mighty apt to be killed up; +and you----" + +"I what?" prompted Judith sharply, as he came to a wavering pause. + +"Well--they was always one man that you give good reason to expect you'd +wed him. I myse'f have heared you, more'n forty times I reckon, say to +Blatch Turrentine--or if not say it in so many words, at least----" + +"Cousin Jim," broke in Judith, carefully ignoring this last charge, "so +far as that Lace Rountree is concerned, did you ever know of a reckless +feller that come to no good but what he had some gal at whose door he +could lay it all? I vow I never did. They ain't a drinkin' whiskey becaze +they like it; they don't git into no interruptions becaze they're +mad--it's always 'count o' some gal that has give 'em the mitten. I'll +thank you not to name Lace Rountree to me again, nor--nor anybody else," +as she saw his eyes wander to the sewing in her lap. + +"Well, Drane's old enough to look out for hisse'f," said Jim Cal, rising +and trying his joints apparently for a movement toward home. "Ef you +choose to toll him on by takin' care of his chaps, that's yo' lookout, +and his lookout--'taint mine; but 'ef I was givin' the man advice, I'd +say to him that he might about as well take 'em home, or hunt up some +other gal to leave 'em with, 'caze yo' apt to much the chil'en and then +pop the do' in the daddy's face." + +The weeks brought piecemeal confirmation of Jim Cal's dismal forebodings. +Elihu Drane took advantage of every pretext to haunt about the roof that +sheltered his children. Though he was not with the sick boy, he made the +presence of a "ketchin' town disease" in his home, reason for not coming +near the little ones, but called Judith down to the draw-bars to talk to +him. When he had her there at such disadvantage, he so pertinaciously +urged his unwelcome suit that he made her finally glad to be rid of the +children, to see him, when Venters was once more well, take them away +with him and give her respite from his importunities. + +In the case of Wade, too, the fat man's pessimistic expectations were +realised; the young man did, early in August, dash out and secure a place +on the railroad. Mountain people write few letters. They heard nothing +from him after the first message which told them where he was employed +and what wages he was to have. + +It was September when Iley announced to Judith that she had word from +some of Pap Spiller's kin who were living in Garyville, that +acquaintances of theirs from Hepzibah, coming down to the circus at the +larger town, had given them roundabout and vague news of Huldah. The girl +had delayed in Hepzibah but a few days. The story as it came up on the +mountain was that she had married "some feller from Big Turkey Track, and +gone off on the railroad." + +"Them Tuels is mighty po' hands to remember names," Iley said. "But all +ye got to do is to look around and take notice of anybody that's gone +from Big Turkey Track here lately. Ye can fix it to suit yo'se'f. But I +reckon Huldy has made a good match, and I'm satisfied." + +Judith looked upon the floor in silence. In silence she left the cabin +and took her way to her own home. And that night, while the cedar tree +talked to her in the voice of love--Creed's voice--she fought with +dragons and slew them, and was slain by them. + +When Blatchley Turrentine had asserted this thing to her at Garyville, +she found somewhere--after her first gust of unreasoning resentment was +past--strength to disbelieve it utterly. But now it came again in more +plausible guise. It gained likeliness from mere repetition. And hardest +of all to bear, she was totally unsupported in her trust. She knew Creed, +knew his love for her; yet to cling to it was to fly in the face of +probabilities, and of everything and everybody about her. The lover who +is silent, absent from her who loves him, at such a time, runs tremendous +risks. + +It was the set or turn of the year's tide; sunsets were full, rich, +yellow, and a great round, golden moon swung in the evening sky above the +purple hills. A soft, purring monotone of little tree crickets in the +night forest replaced the shriller insect chorus of midsummer. Garden +patches, about through their summer yield, were a tangle of bubble-tinted +morning glories, the open woods misty with wild asters, bell flowers +trembling from the crevices of rocks; and along fence-row and watercourse +turkey-pea, brook sunflower, queen of the meadow, and joepye-weed made +gay the land. + +Such farm work as remained was only garnering--fodder-pulling, pea-hay +and millet hay to gather; with a little sowing of wheat, rye, or turf +oats. + +In late midsummer and early fall revivalists, preachers, and exhorters go +through the Cumberlands holding protracted meetings in the little +isolated churches. At this time of year the men as well as the women are +most at liberty. To a people who live scattered through a remote and +inaccessible region, who have few and scanty public gatherings and +diversions, this season of religious activity offers the one emotional +outlet which their conception of dignity permits them, and it is +proportionately precious in their eyes. In addition to the women and the +girls and boys, who usually make up the rank and file of religious +gatherings elsewhere, here at this favoured season old fellows, heads of +families and life-long pillars of the Church, give up their entire time +to the meetings. The family is put into the waggon with a basket of +dinner, and they make a day of it. Services hold as late as twelve and +one o'clock, and after them this contained, stoic folk will go home +through the woods, carrying pine torches, singing, shouting, laughing, +sobbing. + +Hiram Bohannon came into the two Turkey Tracks this year and held +services at Brush Arbour church. He was very much in earnest, Brother +Bohannon, a practical man with a rough native eloquence that spoke loud +to his hearers. + +Every afternoon the wild, sweet hymns rang out over the little cup-like +valley in which Brush Arbour church stood. The month was extremely warm, +and they used the outside brush arbour from which the schoolhouse-church +received its name. + +Judith went day and night in a feverish attempt to get away from herself +and her sorrows. Even the fact that Elihu Drane was very much to the fore +in these gatherings could not deter her. Sitting in the open there, her +hands clasped upon her knee, her sombre eyes on the ground, or +interrogating the distance with an unseeing stare, she would let hymn and +sermon, prayer and the weeping and shouting which always close night +meeting, go past her ears well-nigh unheard. Before those darkened, +bereaved eyes, turn where they would, Love's ever-renewed idyl of rustic +courtship was enacting, since Big Meetin' was the time and occasion of +all the year for Corydon to encounter Phyllis, to stroll or sit beneath +the trees with her, possibly to "carry her home." + +Andy and Jeff began taking the Lusk girls to meeting, and within a week's +time two very pale young men--the twins always acted in concert--stumbled +up the earthen aisle between the puncheon seats to join the group at the +mourners' bench and ask for the prayers of the congregation. Brother +Bohannon knew what quarry he had netted, and he hurried down at once, +half in doubt that this was another scheme of these young daredevils to +make game of his meeting. But both boys were on their knees, and the +tears with which they began confessing to him past sins, the penitence of +their shaking voices, proclaimed the genuineness of their conversion. + +Cliantha and Pendrilla left behind--they had been sober church members +since they were twelve years old--fluttered to Judith and demanded her +instant attention to the miracle. + +"Oh, Judith, ain't it jest too good to be true?" panted little Cliantha. +"Jeff never did lack anything of bein' the best man that ever walked this +earth except to jine the church--an' now look at him!" + +"And Andy, too," put in Pendrilla jealously. "I do believe Andy is a +prayin' the loudest--I'm shore he is." + +Judith roused herself. "I'm mighty glad--for the both of ye," she said +kindly. + +And then she looked at their tremulous, happy faces, at the kneeling boys +up among the press of figures about the pulpit, and burst into a storm of +weeping. Where was her lover? Where was Creed? Dead--or he had forgotten +her. + +"Are you under conviction of sin, sister?" inquired one of the helpers. + +Judith let it pass at that, and flung herself on her knees beside the +bench to wait until the last hymn and the dismissal. + +Brother Bohannon was an extremely practical Christian; his creed applied +to every day in the year and to the most commonplace acts. He adjured his +converts not only to quit their meanness, but to go and acknowledge past +errors, to repair such evil as they could, and if possible to seek +forgiveness from man, certain that God's forgiveness would follow. Such +counsel as this brought the twins to their father's cabin early on the +morning after their conversion at Brush Arbour church. + +"Pap," began Andy standing before his parent with an odd suggestion of +the small boy caught in mischief, "me and Jeff are aimin' to join the +church." + +"That's right, son," said the old man rising and clapping a hearty hand +on each young shoulder. "I'm mighty proud to hear it. Hit's a good way +for fellers like you to start out in this world." + +"Well, befo' we do so," Jeff took up the burden, "the preacher says we +ort to confess our sins and git forgiveness from them we have done wrong +by. Creed Bonbright ain't here. Mebbe he's never goin' to be back any +mo'. We talked it over and 'lowed we'd better come tell you, pap." + +At Creed Bonbright's name a pathetic change went over old Jephthah's +pleased countenance. He had received the opening words with satisfaction, +not untinctured by the mild, patronising indulgence we show to children. +But when Bonbright was mentioned he sat back in his chair, nervously +knocking the ash from his pipe, anxiously staring at the boys. + +"I'm mighty proud," he repeated, "to hear what you say." He spoke gravely +and with dignity; but a note of uncontrollable eagerness stole into his +voice, as he added in a lower tone, "What mought you-all have to tell me +about Creed Bonbright?" + +"Pap, we done you a meanness in that business," hastened Jeff. "We had no +call to lie to you like we done, and send the feller word in yo' name." + +"Wade, he was mad about his gal," agreed Andy thoughtfully, "but what +possessed me and Jeff I'll never tell ye. Spy or no spy, we done that man +wrong." + +Jephthah looked expectantly and in silence from one young face to the +other. + +"Blatch let on to you hit was the still; but of course we knowed hit was +Jude that ailed him. He got Taylor Stribling to toll Creed to Foeman's +Bluff that night," Jeff supplied. "Blatch picked the quarrel, and drawed +a knife when they was wrastlin', and when Bonbright pushed Blatch away +from him, he fell over the cliff. That's God's truth about the business, +pappy, ef I ever spoke it. Me an' Andy an' Wade was all into it." + +The boyish countenance was pale, and Jeff drew a nervous hand across his +brow as he concluded. There followed a lengthened silence. Old Jephthah +sat regarding his own brown right hand as it lay upon his knee. + +"Ye tolled him thar," he said finally. "Ye tolled him thar. Then Creed +Bonbright wasn't no spy." He lifted his head. "I never could make it +figure up right for that feller to be a spy. Curious he was, and he had +some idees that I couldn't agree with; but a spy----" + +He broke off suddenly, and one saw how strong had been the bond between +him and the young justice, how greatly he cared that the memory of the +man even should be cleared. + +The boys looked at each other, and with a gulp Jeff began again: + +"I reckon you knowed well enough we stood in with Blatch when he hid out +and let folks believe the killin' had been did. We knowed you seen +through it all; but when ye git started in a business like that, one +thing leads on to another, and befo' you're done with it, ye do a plenty +that you'd ruther not." + +"Well, hit's over and cain't be he'ped, but you've done what's right at +last," Jephthah assured them. "The church is a mighty good thing for +young fellers like you. A good wife'll do a sight to he'p along." + +He looked at them kindly. He had never liked his boys half so well. + +"I'm mighty proud of the both of ye," he concluded heartily. "Ef Creed +Bonbright ever does come back in the mountains, we'll show him that the +Turrentines can be better friends than foes to a man." + + + + +Chapter XXI + +The Baptising + + +October had led forth her train across the Cumberlands. One night the +forest was fairly green, but early risers next morning found that in the +darkness while they slept the hickories had been touched to gold, the +oaks smitten with a promise of the glowing mahogany-red which was to be +theirs. Sourwood and sumach blazed; the woodbine flung its banner of +blood, chestnuts were yellow where the nuts dropped through them from +loosened burs. The varying dark greens of balsam and fir, pine and cedar, +heightened by contrast the glow of colour, while the dim blue sky above +set its note of tender distance and forgetfulness. On a thousand mountain +peaks smoked and smouldered, flared and flamed the altar fires of +autumn. + +After that each day saw a deepening of the glory in the hills. It was +like a noble overture a multitudinous chorus made visible. The marvel of +it was that one sense should be so clamorously challenged while the other +was not addressed. The ear hearkened ever amid that grand symphony of +colour for some mighty harmony of sound. But even the piping song-birds +were gone, and the cry of a hawk wheeling high in the blue, the voice of +a woman calling her cow, these sounded loud in the autumnal hush. + +The streams were shrunken to pools whose clear jade reaches reflected the +blazing banners above them, and offered mimic seas for the sailing of +painted argosies when the wind shook the leaves down. There was a fruity +odour of persimmon and wild grape forever in the air. The salmon-pink +globes stood defined against the blue on leafless twigs, while the frost +sweetened them to sugary jelly, and the black wild grape by the +water-courses yielded an odour that was only less material than the +flavour of its juices. Every angle of the rail fences became a parterre +with golden-rod, cat-brier, and the red-and-yellow pied leaves of +blackberries, while a fringe of purple and white asters thrust fragile +fingers through the rails below, or the stout iron-weed pushed its +purple-red blooms into view at the head of tall, lance-like stems. + +Judith walking in the woods one day found a great nest of Indian pipe. +She bent listlessly to pick the waxen mystic blossoms, thinking to +herself that they were like some beautiful dead thing; and then she came +upon a delicate flush on the side of their clear, translucent pearl, and +wondered if it were an omen. + +It was a gorgeous October Sabbath when the boys were baptised. Baptisms +always took place from Brush Arbour in a sizable pool of Lost Creek which +flows through one corner of the little valley that holds the church +building. The sward which ran down to its clear mirror was yet green, but +the maples and sourwoods above it were coloured splendidly. Among their +clamant red and yellow laurel and rhododendron showed glossy green, and +added to the gay tapestry. The painted leaves let go their hold on twig +or bough and dropped whispering into the water, like garlands flung to +dress the coming rite. + +Morning meeting was over. The women-folks who had come far spread dinner +on the grass near the church, joining together occasionally, the children +wandering about in solemn delight with a piece of corn pone in hand, +whispering among the graves in the tiny God's acre, spelling out the +words upon some wooden head-board, or the rarer stone. + +The Big Spring was the customary gathering place of the young people +before church, and during intermissions, about its clear basin, on the +slopes above the great rock from under which it issued, might be seen a +number of couples, the boys in Sunday best of jeans or store-bought +clothing, the girls fluttering in cheap lawns or calicoes, and wearing +generally hats instead of the more becoming sunbonnet. Judith had been +used to lead her following here, and the number of her swains would have +been a scandal in any one else: but there was a native dignity about +Judith Barrier that kept even rural gossip at bay. This morning, however, +when Elder Drane gave her the customary invitation to walk down there for +a drink, she refused, and all during the first service the widower had +sat tall and reproachful on the men's side and reminded her of past +follies. She was aware of his accusing eyes even when she did not look in +his direction, and uncomfortably aware too that others saw what she saw. + +Throughout the pleasant picnic meal, shared with its group of neighbours, +the sight of Andy and Jeff with Cliantha and Pendrilla aggravated a dull +pain which dragged always in her heart, and when dinner was over and they +had packed the basket once more, and set it in the back of the waggon, +she left them, to wander by herself on the farther side of Lost Creek, +sitting down finally in the shade of a great sourwood, and looking +moodily at the water. All afternoon she sat there wrapt in her own +emotions, forgetful of time and place. The congregation straggled back +into the little log church, and the second service was begun. The +preacher's voice came floating out to her softened by distance, and with +it the sound of singing; as the meeting drew to its close an occasional +more vociferous "Amen!" or "Glory!" or "Praise God!" made itself heard. +The sun was beginning to slant well from the west when she got suddenly +to her feet with the startled realisation that afternoon preaching was +over, the people were pouring from the church door, streaming across the +green toward the baptising pool. They were in the middle of a hymn. + + "Oh, wanderer return--return," + +came their musical tones across the water. The grey-haired old preacher +was in the lead, his black coat blowing about him, the congregation +spreading out fan-wise as they followed after, Andy and Jeff arm in arm, +the half-dozen others who were to be baptised walking with them. + +Her fretted, pining spirit had no appreciation left for the appeal of the +picture. She gazed, and looked away, and groaned. "Oh, wanderer return," +they sang--almost her heart could not bear the words. + +She sighed. Ought she to cross the foot-log and be with them when the +boys were dipped? But while she hesitated the singers struck up a +different hymn, a louder, more militant strain. Brother Bohannon was at +the water; he was wading in; he was up to his knees now--up to his +waist. + +"Send 'em in, Brother Drane," she heard him call. "This is about deep +enough. That's right--give me the young men first. When the others see +them dipped they'll have no fear." + +Elihu Drane took Andy's arm, and another helper laid hold of Jeff. + +"Sing--sing brethren and sisters," admonished the preacher. "Make a +joyful noise unto the Lord. This is the time for Hallelujahs. Ef ye don't +sing now, when will ye ever?" + +Andy spoke low in the elder's ear, whereupon he was released, and turned +to his brother; hand-in-hand the two stepped into the water alone. Judith +saw the pale, boyish faces, strangely refined by the exaltation of spirit +which was upon them, as the twins waded out toward the preacher. Bohannon +called to Jeff, shook hands with him, shouted, "Praise God, brother. +Glory! Glory! Now--make yo'se'f right stiff. Let me have ye. Don't be +scared. I won't drop ye. I've baptised a many before you was born, son." +His right hand was lifted dripping above the dark head. "I baptise ye, +Thomas Jefferson Turrentine, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and +the Holy Ghost, Amen." + +"Amen--Amen!" came the deep chorus from the bank, the high, plaintive +women's voices undertoned by the masculine bass. + +The black coat sleeve went around the white-clad shoulders, the preacher +dropped his new convert gently backward into the shining water, dipped +him, and Jeff who was not an excellent swimmer for nothing, came up +quiet, smiling, and stood aside to wait for his brother. + +"Sing--sing!" cried the preacher. "Here goes another soul on its way to +glory," and he reached forth to take Andy. A moment later he sent him, +drenched, but washed clean of his sins, so far as mountain belief goes, +after his twin. The hallelujahs burst forth to greet the boys: joyful +shouts, amens, and some sobbing when, hand-in-hand--even as they had gone +in--they came up out of the water. + +"Mighty pretty to look at, ain't it?" said a voice at Judith's shoulder. + +She turned to find Blatch Turrentine standing behind her. + +"I reckon Andy and Jeff is goin' to be regular little prayin' Sammies +from this out," jeered the newcomer. + +"Granny Lusk has given her consent for them and the gals to be wedded," +remarked Judith softly. To her--and perhaps to Cliantha and Pendrilla +also--the main importance of the twins' conversion was in this +permission, which had been withheld so long as they were wild and had a +bad name. + +"I heared of another weddin' that might interest ye," Blatch insinuated. +"Want to come and walk a piece over by the Big Spring, Judy?" + +Judith turned uncertainly. The boys had passed on up to the sheds to get +on dry clothing. It was nearly time for her to be going back to the +waggon. Bohannon was dipping Doss Provine's sister Luna. A group of +trembling, tearful candidates, mostly young girls, were being heartened +and encouraged for the ordeal by the helpers on the bank. + +"Tell me here--cain't ye?" she said listlessly. + +"I heared from a feller that got it from another feller," Blatch began +smilingly, "that Huldy Spiller an' Creed Bonbright was wedded and gone to +Texas. I reckon hit's true, becaze the man that told me was aimin' to buy +the Bonbright farm." + +Judith did not cry out. She hoped her colour did not change very much, +for Blatch's eyes were on her face. After a while she managed to say in a +fairly steady voice, + +"Does Wade know? Have ye sent any word to him?" + +"No," drawled Blatch. "Unc' Jep aimed to break off with me, and he left +you the only one o' the family that dared speak with me. Mebbe you would +like to write an' tell Wade?" + +"I don't know," sighed Judith hopelessly. "What's the use?" + +"Farewell," said Blatch, using a common mountain form of adieu. "I reckon +Unc' Jep won't want to see me standin' around talkin' to ye. You tell +Wade," significantly. "The sooner he gets Huldy out of his head the +better for him. No use cryin' over spilt milk. They's as good fish in the +sea as ever come out of it." + +He looked long at her downcast face. + +"Jude, the man that told me that about Bonbright," he said, speaking +apparently on sudden impulse, "'lowed that the feller had left you--give +ye the mitten. You're a fool ef ye let that be said, when his betters is +wantin' ye." + +Without another word, without a glance, he turned and slouched swiftly +away down the path behind the fringe of bushes by the creek side. + +The baptising was over. Judith, crossing the stream, saw her uncle's +waggon, Beck and Pete already hitched to it, being loaded with Jim Cal +and his tribe. Andy and Jeff were horseback with the Lusk girls. She +hurried forward to join them and make ready for departure when, to her +dismay, she encountered Drane at the foot of the slope coming toward +her. + +"Wasn't that thar Blatchley Turrentine?" inquired the elder. + +The girl nodded. + +"I didn't see him in the church," Drane pursued. + +"I reckon he wasn't there," assented Judith lifelessly, making as though +to pass on. + +"He jest came here to have speech with you, did he?" inquired the man, +nervously, brushing his sandy whiskers with unquiet fingers. + +"I reckon he did," acknowledged Judith without coquetry, without +interest. + +"Jude!" burst out the widower, "I promised you I never would again ax you +to wed; but I'm obliged to know ef you're studyin' about takin' that +feller." + +"No," said Judith, resenting nothing, "I never did aim to wed Blatch +Turrentine, and I never will." + +The elder stood directly in her path, blocking the way and staring down +at her miserably for a long minute. + +"That's what you always used to tell me," he remarked finally with a +heavy sigh. "Back in them days when you let me hope that I'd see you +settin' by my fireside with my children on your knees, you always talked +thataway about Blatch--I reckon you talked thataway of me to him." + +Judith's pale cheek slowly crimsoned. She looked upon the ground. "I'm +mighty sorry," she said slowly. + +Elihu Drane's faded eyes lighted with fresh fires. He caught the hand +that hung by her side. + +"Oh, Jude--do you mean it?" he cried. "Do you care? You don't know how +the chaps all love ye and want ye. That old woman I've got doin' for 'em +ain't fittin' to raise 'em. Everybody tells me I've got to marry and give +'em a mother, but I cain't seem to find nobody but you. If you feel +thataway--if you'll----" + +Judith drew her hand away with finality, but her eyes were full of +pitying kindness. She knew now what she had done to this man. By the +revealing lamp of her own suffering she read his. Back in the old days +she had counted him only one more triumph in her maiden progress. + +"No," she said gravely, "I ain't studyin' about marryin' anybody. I'm +mighty sorry that I done thataway. I'm sorry, and ashamed; but I have to +say no again, Elder Drane. There ain't never goin' to be no other +answer." + +"Hit's that feller Bonbright," declared the elder sternly as he stood +aside to let her pass. "Good Lord, why ain't the man got sense enough to +come back and claim his own!" + + + + +Chapter XXII + +Ebb-Tide + + +Life closed in on Judith after that with an iron hand. She missed sorely +the children's demands upon her, their play and prattle and movement +about the place. Huldah was gone. Wade was gone. She could get no news of +Creed. The things to love and hate and be jealous of seemed to have +dropped out of her existence, so that the heart recoiled upon itself, the +spirit wrestled blindly in darkness with an angel which was but its own +self in other guise. + +Day by day she turned from side to side for an exit from the fiery path +she trod, and cried out to Heaven that she could not bear it--she could +not stand it--there must be some way other than this! + +The Lusk girls and the Turrentine twins were to have a double wedding. +The preparations for this event were torture to Judith. Everybody, it +seemed, could be happy but her own poor self. Even the fact that Jeff and +Andy were changed, kinder to her, more considerate, better men in every +way, had its own sting. If this could have been so before, the wreck of +her world need not have come about. + +Blatch kept rigorously to his own side of the Gulch, yet once in a while +Judith met him on the highroad; and then, while he approached her with +the carefullest efforts toward pleasing, he showed the effects of +anxiety, the hard life, and the fact that he had begun to drink +heavily--a thing he had never done before. + +Spring would terminate his lease of the Turrentine farm, and then he must +seek other quarters for his illicit traffic. His situation was doubled in +danger by the fact that it could not be disguised how his uncle had +turned upon him. Now that one did not, supposably, incur the displeasure +of the Turrentines by giving information concerning Blatch and his still, +the enterprise was a much safer one, and he trembled in hourly terror of +its being undertaken by some needy soul. This terror gave a certain +ferocity to his manner. Also the man who had come in with him to take Jim +Cal's place in the partnership was a more undesirable associate even than +Buck Shalliday. + +Judith watched all these things with an idle lack of interest that was +strangely foreign to her vivid human temperament. As time passed and she +could hear nothing from Creed Bonbright, nor of him beyond what Blatch +had told her, and the connection she made between it and Iley's report of +Huldah's marriage, the inaction of her woman's lot was almost more than +she could endure. Of an evening after her milking was over she would +stand at the draw-bars under the wide, blue, twilight sky, and stare with +her great, black, passionate eyes into the autumn dusk, and her whole +being went forth with such an intensity of longing that it seemed some +part of it must find Creed, wherever he was, and speak for her to him. + +After Iley's announcement in September Judith never approached her nor +talked to her again, though the shrew was growing strangely mild and +disciplined since Jim Cal had broken with Blatch Turrentine and was +become a partner in his father's affairs--a husband who is out of the +good books of other people is a scold-maker with the type of woman Jim +Cal had married. To go near Pendrilla and Cliantha was to be overwhelmed +instantly with the joyous details of their wedding preparations. Judith +flinched from bringing her troubles before such happy eyes. She had but +Aunt Nancy. + +It was bitter hard times at the little cabin on The Edge. Doss Provine +had begun actively looking for a "second," and his courting operations +sorely interfered with the making of the small crop. Nancy took the field +behind the plough; but her efforts came late and availed little. There +was scarcely food for their mouths; she was continually harassed by +anxiety concerning Pony, who had got to running with a bad crowd in +Hepzibah. And finally the thing happened which had not been since Big +Turkey Track was a mountain and Nancy Card was born in that small cabin. +At her wit's end, she took Little Buck and Breezy and went away to visit +a married daughter whose husband worked in a machine-shop in a valley +settlement, leaving Doss Provine to stay with his kin for the time. There +was plenty at her daughter's table, and a warm welcome awaiting her and +the children; besides, the man of the house had promised to find a job +for her spoiled boy, and give him the masculine oversight and discipline +he needed. At Hepzibah she gathered up that rather astonished young man, +exerting for once the real authority that was in her, and with him set +out on this formidable journey. + +Just once old Jephthah went past that closed door. Just once he looked on +the little front yard spilling over its rived palings with autumn +blossoms. And he came home so out of joint with life, in so altogether +impossible a mood, that it was fairly unsafe to mention as innocent a +matter as the time of day to him. Up to now perhaps he had not known what +a very large place in his life those almost daily quarrels with his old +sweetheart filled. Now the restlessness which had come with the trouble +over Creed Bonbright was renewed; he wandered about aimlessly, with a +good word for nothing and nobody, and opined darkly that his liver was +out of order. + +"Aunt Nancy told me one time that she would almost be willin' to wed you +to get a chance to give you a good course of spring medicine for that +thar liver," remarked Judith casually. And then she looked up with a wan +little smile, to find an expression in her uncle's eyes that set her +wondering. + +Oh, dear Heaven--was it like that? Would she grieve for Creed all her +life long, till she was an old, old woman? She declared it should not be +so. Love would never be within her reach--within the reach of her utmost +efforts--and escape her, leave her an empty husk to be blown by the wind +of years to the dust pile of death. One day in this mood she broke down +and talked to the Lusk girls. + +"He said he'd shore come back," she concluded hopelessly. "Well, anyhow, +he named things that would be done when he come back. I call that a +promise. I keep thinking he'll come back." + +Pendrilla sat, her great china-blue eyes fixed on Judith's tense, pale, +working face, and the big tears of pure emotional enjoyment began to slip +down her pink cheeks. In the glow of Judith's splendid, fiery nature, the +two pale little sisters warmed themselves like timid children at a chance +hearth. As the full, vibrant voice faltered into silence, Cliantha went +forward and took her favourite position on her knees beside Judith, her +arms raised and slipped around the taller girl's waist. + +"Oh," she began, with a sort of frightened assurance. "Ef my lover had +gone from me thataway, and I didn't know whar he was at, an' couldn't git +no news to him nor from him, I know mighty well and good what _I'd_ do." + +"What?" whispered Judith, young lioness that she was, reduced to taking +counsel from this mouse, "what would you do, Clianthy?" + +"I'd make me a dumb supper and call him," asserted the Lusk girl with +tremulous resolution. + +"A dumb supper!" echoed Judith, and then again, on a different key, "a +dumb supper. I never studied about such as that." + +She brooded a moment on the thought, and the girls said nothing, watching +her breathlessly. + +"Do you reckon hit'd do me any good?" she questioned then, +half-heartedly. "Why, dumb suppers always seemed to me jest happy +foolishness for light-hearted gals that had sweethearts." + +"Oh, no!" disclaimed Pendrilla, joining her sister on the floor at +Judith's feet. "They ain't nothin' like foolishness about a shore-enough +dumb supper. Why, Judith, Granny Peavey, our maw's mother, told us oncet +about a dumb supper that her and two other gals made when she was but +sixteen year old, and her sweetheart away from her in Virginny, and she +didn't know whar he was at, an' they brought her tales agin him." + +"Well?" prompted Judith feverishly. "Did it do any good? Did she find out +anything?" + +"Her and two others went to a desarted house at midnight--you know that's +the way, Jude." + +Judith nodded impatiently. + +"They tuck 'em each some bread an' salt, an' a candle to put the pins in +and name. They done everything backwards--ye have to do everything +backwards at a dumb supper. I don't know what happened when the candle +burned down to the other girls' pins--I forget somehow--but when the pin +Granny had stuck in the candle an' named for her lover was melted out and +fell, the do' opened and in he walked and set down beside her. They +wasn't a word said betwixt 'em. He tasted her salt, an' he et her bread; +and then he was gone like a flash! And at that very same identical time +that thar young man was a-crossin' the mountains of Virginny. It drawed +him--don't you see, Judith?--it drawed him to Granny. He came back to +her, shore enough, three months after, and they was wedded. He was our +grandpap, Adoniram Peavey--and every word of that's true." + +Judith sank lower in her splint-bottomed chair, looking fixedly above the +flaxen heads at her knees, out through the open door, across the chip +pile, and away to the bannered splendours of the autumn slopes. + +Cliantha laid her head in Judith's lap and began to whimper. + +"They's awful things chanced at them thar dumb suppers," she shivered. "I +hearn tell of one gal that never had no true-love come, but jest a big +black coffin hopped in at the do' and bumped around to her place and +stopped 'side of her. My law, I believe I'd die ef sech as that should +chance whar I was at!" + +Judith's introverted gaze dropped to the girl's face. + +"I reckon that gal died," she suggested musingly, "I don't know as I'd +care much ef the coffin come for me. Unless--he--was to come, I'd ruther +it would be the coffin. Pendrilly," with a sudden upflash of interest, +"what is it that comes? Is it the man hisself--or a ghost?" + +"'T ain't a ghost--a shore-enough ha'nt," argued Pendrilla soberly, +sitting back on her heels, "not unless 'n the man's dead, hit couldn't +be. Hit wasn't no ha'nt of Grandpap Peavey--and yet hit wasn't grandpap +hisself. I reckon it was a sort of seemin'--jest like a vision in the +Bible. Don't you, Jude?" + +"I 'low," put in Cliantha doubtfully, "that if the right feller is close +by when he's called by a dumb supper, he comes hisself. But ef he's away +off somewhars that he cain't git to the place, then this here seemin' +comes. An' ef he's dead and gone--why you'll see his ha'nt." + +"They's jest three of us," whispered Pendrilla. "Three is the right +number--but I know in my soul I'd be scared till I wouldn't be no manner +of use to anybody." + +"Hit's comin' close to Hollow Eve," suggested Cliantha. "That's the time +to hold a dumb supper ef one ever should be held. Hit'll work then, ef it +wouldn't on no other night of the year." + +"It has to be held in a desarted house," Pendrilla reiterated the +condition. "Ef you was to hold a dumb supper, Jude, we could go to the +old Bonbright house itse'f--ef we had any way to git in." + +"I've got the key," said Judith scarcely above her breath. "Creed left it +with me away last April, to get things for the--for the play-party." + + + + +Chapter XXIII + +The Dumb Supper + + +It was the thirty-first of October, All Souls' eve, that mystic point of +contact between the worlds when quick and dead are fabled to walk the +ways of earth together, to meet eye to eye, and hold converse. A web of +mountain legend clings dimly about this season. + +The spirit of it--weird, elfin--was abroad, the air was full of it as, +alone out in the gusty darkness of the autumn night, at eleven o'clock, +Judith walked swiftly toward the Lusk place. Wrapped in a little packet +she carried bread and salt, and a length of candle. She went across +fields, and thus cut down the distance till it was possible to walk it in +fifteen minutes. + +As she approached the house, Speaker, a barely grown hound-pup, came +rollicking out to meet her, leaping about her shoulder-high, frisking +back toward the porch and waiting for her, all the while barking +joyously. + +"My Lord!" said Pendrilla's sleepy small voice when Judith tapped on +their window in the wing of the building where the girls roomed. "Ef that +thar fool hound-pup ain't loose! I hope he don't wake up Grandpap. Cain't +you make him hush, Judith?" + +Judith stooped and caressed the dog for a moment, quieting him. The girls +presently appeared in the doorway fully dressed and, as it seemed, with +their packets made, in addition to which Cliantha carried an old lantern +unlighted in her hand. + +"I'll light it as soon as we get out in the road," she announced +whisperingly. + +When they would have secured the dog that he might not follow them, they +found that he, wise for his age, had disappeared. + +"I bet he's run down the road apiece; he'll be a-hidin' in the bushes +waitin' for us," Cliantha opined pessimistically. But there was nothing +to be done about it, and they set out, to be intercepted in just such +manner as she foretold. + +"I vow, I ain't so mighty sorry Speaker's along of us," Pendrilla said +after they had vainly browbeaten, threatened, and stoned the hound to +drive him back through the gate. "He's a mighty heap of company and +protection out thisaway in the night." + +"Girls," said Judith, suddenly halting them all in the little byroad +which they were travelling, "don't you think we'd better cut across here? +Hit'll be a lot nearer." + +"Grandpap's jest ploughed that thar field to put in his winter wheat," +objected Pendrilla. "Hit'll make mighty bad walkin'." + +"But we'll get there quicker," urged Judith feverishly, and that closed +the argument. Between them the Lusk girls had succeeded in lighting the +old lantern; by its illumination the party climbed the rail fence, and +struggled for some distance across the loose hillocks of ploughed +ground. + +"Hit wouldn't make such awful walkin' if it had been drug," Cliantha +murmured. In the mountains they hitch a horse to a log or a large piece +of brush and, dragging this over the ploughed ground, make shift to +smooth it without a harrow. + +They had hobbled about one third of the toilsome way when there came a +rush of galloping hoofs, the girls had barely time to crouch and cry out, +Speaker barked loud, and suddenly half a dozen young calves ran almost +into them. + +"Oh landy!" cried Pendrilla. "Ef them thar calves ain't broke the fence +again! Grandpap will be so mad--and we don't darst to tell him that we +know of it." + +"Come on," urged Judith. "We've got to get over there." + +But it was found when they would have moved forward that they could not +shake off their unwelcome escort. The calves had been tended occasionally +in the dusk by a man with a lantern, and they hailed this one as a beacon +of hope. Finally even Judith, desperately impatient to be gone, agreed +that they would have to turn back and put the meddlesome creatures into +their pasture and lay up the fence before they could make any progress. + +"Hit'll save time," she commented briefly, as though time were the only +thing worth considering now. + +At last, one after the other, they climbed the fence at the side of the +Bonbright place. The air was soft, heavy with coming rain. Up through the +weed-grown yard they went, greeted and beckoned by the odours of Mary +Bonbright's garden, thyme and southernwood, herbs by the path-side, +clumps of brave chrysanthemums, a wandering spray or two of late-blooming +honeysuckle. Judith trembled and locked her teeth together in anguish as +she remembered that other night in the odorous dusk when she and Creed +had stood under these trees and sought in the darkness for the bush of +sweet-scented shrub. + +The empty house bulked big and black before them in the gloom. She took +the key from her pocket and opened the front door, Pendrilla and Cliantha +clinging to her in an ecstasy of delicious terror. She stepped into the +front room, struck a match, and lighted her candle. It was half-past +eleven by the small nickel alarm-clock which she carried. Its busy, +bustling, modern tick roused strange, incongruous echoes in the old +house, and reproved their errand. + +Speaker made himself at home, coming in promptly, seeking out the corner +he preferred, and turning around dog-fashion before he lay down and +composed himself to half-waking slumbers. + +"I reckon in here will be the best place," murmured Cliantha, seeking a +candlestick from the mantel for their light. "We could set around this +table." + +"It's more better ef we-all set on the flo'," reminded Pendrilla +doubtfully. "Don't ye ricollect? all the dumb suppers we ever hearn tell +of was held thataway. Set on the flo' and put yo' bread and salt on the +flo' in front of you." + +"Mebbe that's becaze they was held in desarted houses, and most generally +desarted houses don't have no tables nor chairs in 'em," Cliantha +speculated. + +From the moment the lantern revealed the room to them, Judith had stood +drawn back against the wall curiously rigid, her hand at her lip, her +over-bright eyes going swiftly from one remembered object to another. +This fleeting gaze fixed itself at last on the inner door. + +"I'll go in the other room a minute for--for something," she whispered +finally. "You gals set here. I'll be right back. I've got two candles." + +She lighted the second candle, left the girls arranging the dumb supper, +and stole, as though some one had called her, into that room which she +had made ready for Creed's occupancy on the night of the play-party. It +had reverted to its former estate of dust and neglect. She looked about +her with blank, desolate eyes which finally found upon the bed a withered +brown something that held her gaze as she crept toward it--the wreath of +red roses! + +There it was, the pitiful little lure she had put forward to Love, the +garland she had set in place to show Creed how fine a housewife she was, +how grandly she would keep his home for him. The brave red roses, the +bold laughing red roses, their crimson challenge was shrivelled to +darkened shreds, each golden heart was a pinch of black dust; only the +thorny stems remained to show what queen of blossoms had been there. + +She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long +absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling +passionate sobs in its white covering. + +"It's most twelve o'clock, Jude," whimpered Cliantha. + +"Hit's come on to rain," supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty +spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls +went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor +with the three portions of bread and salt about it. + +The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith, +wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their +anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when +she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely +about her and wept so much. + +"Pendrilly an' me has done put our pins in close to the bottom," Cliantha +explained deprecatingly. "Hit wouldn't do any good to have Andy an' Jeff +come trompin' in here--though I shore would love to see either or both of +'em this minute," she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and +the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the +opening. + +"Push the candle back whar the draught won't git a fair chance at it," +quavered Pendrilla. "We're obliged to have the do' open, or what comes +cain't git in. An' we mustn't ne'er a one of us say a word from now on, +or hit'll break the charm." + +Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top +where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a +passionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then +she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and +the three waited with pale faces. + +The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of +mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads, +and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head, +cocked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath. + +"What's that?" gasped Cliantha. "Didn't you-all hear somethin'?" + +Judith was staring at the candle flame and made no reply. Her big dark +eyes had the look of one self-hypnotised. + +"Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn't to talk at a dumb supper--but I thort I hearn +somebody walkin' out thar in the rain!" chattered Pendrilla. + +The old house creaked and groaned in the rising autumn storm, as old +houses do. The rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping. The wind +stripped dry leaves from the bough, or scooped them up out of the hollows +where they lay, and carried them across the window, or drove them along +the porch, in a gliding, whispering flight that was infinitely eerie. + +In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They saw that she was not +with them. Her gaze was on the pin in the candle. Back over her heart +swept the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She could see him +stand talking to her, the lifted face, the blue eyes--should she ever see +them again? + +Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the tallow melted swiftly on +one side, and Judith's pin fell to the floor. + +"Hit's a-comin'!" hissed Cliantha frantically. + +"Oh, Lord! I wish 't we hadn't--" Pendrilla moaned. + +The dog uttered a protesting sound between a growl and a yelp. He raised +on his forelegs, and the hair of his head and neck bristled. + +Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the walk. It halted at the +half-open door. That door was flung back, and in the square of dripping +darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death white, his eyes wide and +fixed, the rain gemming his uncovered yellow hair. + +A moment he stood so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of +leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew +out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner +and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and +was in the room with them. + +"Jude--Jude!" shrieked Cliantha. "Run! Come on, Pendrilly!" + +Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward her in the darkness. It +clasped hers; the arm went around her; she raised her face, and the cold +lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones. + +For an instant she had no thought but that Creed had returned from the +dead to claim her--and she was willing to go. Then she was aware of a +swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them, and the patter of the +hound's feet following. Slowly the newcomer's weight sagged against her; +he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her down in his fall. + +"Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!" she cried as she crouched there, clinging +to the prostrate form. "Don't leave me--it's Creed himself. You got to +he'p me!" + +[Illustration: "The door was flung back and in the darkness stood +Creed Bonbright."] + +But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in +the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the +lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine +as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that +finally melted into the far multitudinous whisper and rustle of the +storm. + +She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, passing a light, +tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man. + +"Creed," she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or +response. + +"Creed," raising her voice. "O my God! Creed, darlin' cain't you hear me? +It's me. It's Jude--poor Jude that loves you so--cain't you answer her?" + +There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it, +it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while +she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her +candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named +for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw +them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the +corner. No--she couldn't lift him to lay him there; but she ran and +brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him +softly in the other. + +When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry +home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a +lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run--he +might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened +room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank +and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in +hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she +locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged, +toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing +palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah +Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms +against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried +upon him. + +"Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God's sake get up quick and help me. Creed +Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over +there." + + + + +Chapter XXIV + +A Case of Walking Typhoid + + +"Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long +examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid, +an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him +out." + +He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound +nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the +chest. + +"Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my +lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been +puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended +up in this here spell of fever." + +"Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her +dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's +countenance. "What must we do for him?" + +"N-no--I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at +her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from +here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p +us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can." + +As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made +carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the +feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look +of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his +head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble +came. + +Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift +the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's +lap, for the journey home. + +"You mind now, Judy," he admonished, almost sternly, "ef he comes to +hisse'f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don't you set to +cryin'--don't you make no fuss. 'Tain't every gal I'd trust thisaway. +Nothin' worse for a sick man than to get him excited." He took the lines +and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse. + +But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in +which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man +undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front +room that was given to any guest of honour. + +Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and +Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge. + +"Yo' uncle sont fer me," the old woman said. "He 'lowed he needed yo' +he'p takin' keer o' Bonbright." + +Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went +out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her +recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its +silent occupant with a bursting heart. + +Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come +back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where +the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of +the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked +her longing with a semblance of her lover's return! + +There was a sound at the door. Andy and Jeff came awkwardly in, and while +they all stood looking, Creed's eyes opened suddenly upon them. Andy put +out a hand swiftly. + +"I'm mighty sorry for--for all that chanced," he said huskily. + +"So 'm I," Jeff instantly seconded him. + +Creed looked at them both with a little puzzled drawing of the brows; +then the ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, and his hand that +lay on the covers moved weakly toward theirs. + +"It's all right," he said, scarcely above a whisper--the first words he +had uttered. "I told--Aunt Nancy--you were good--boys--" he faltered to a +hesitating close, his eyelids drooped over the tired eyes; but they +flashed open once more with a smile that included Judith and her uncle +standing back of the two. + +"You're all--mighty--good--to me," said Creed Bonbright. And again he +sank into that lethargic sleep. + +As the day advanced came the visitors that are the torment of a sick-room +in the country. It would scarcely have been thought that a bare land like +that could produce so many. Finally Judith went to her uncle and begged +that Creed be no longer made a show of, and that old Dilsey set out food +in the other room and entertain those who came, without promising that +they should see the sick man. + +"Uh--huh," agreed Jephthah, understandingly, "I reckon yo' about right, +Jude. Creed's obliged to lay there like a baby an' sleep ef he's to have +any chance for his life. I don't want to fall out with the neighbours, +but we'll see if we cain't make out with less visitin'." + +But this prohibition was not supposed to apply to Iley Turrentine, a +member of the family. About eight o'clock that morning, having then for +the first time heard of the arrival at the cabin, she came hurrying +across the slope with the baby on her hip. Long abstinence had made keen +that temper of hers, and here was a situation where virtue itself cried +to arms. She was eager to give Creed Bonbright a piece of her mind. + +"You cain't go in unless'n you'll promise to be plumb quiet--not to open +yo' mouth," Judith told her sharply. "Uncle Jep ain't here right now--but +that's what he said." + +"Don't Bonbright know folks? Cain't a body talk to him? Is he plumb outen +his head?" demanded Iley, somewhat taken aback. + +"He knew some of us a while ago," admitted Judith, "but mostly he doesn't +notice nothing--jest stares right in front of him, and Uncle Jep said we +mustn't let him be talked to nor werried." + +The big red-headed woman, considerably lowered in note, stepped inside +the door of the sick-room, hushing the child in her arms. A moment she +stood staring at the bed and its single occupant, at the pale face on the +pillow, then she burst suddenly into tempestuous sobs and fled. + +Judith followed her out. + +"What's the matter, Iley? You never set much store by Creed +Bonbright--what you cryin' about?" she asked. + +"Hit's--Huldy," choked the sister. "I reckon you thort I talked mighty +big about the business the last time you an' me had speech consarnin' +hit; but the facts air that I don't know a thing about whar she's at, nor +how she's doin'. Judy, ef yo' a-goin' to take keer o' the man, cain't ye +please ax him for me when did he see Huldy last, an'--an' is they +wedded?" + +Judith assented. She knew what her uncle would think of such an inquiry +being put to the sick man, yet her own heart so fiercely demanded +knowledge on this point that she promised Iley she would ask the question +as soon as she dared. + +The week that followed was a strange one to active Judith Barrier, used +to out-door life under the sky for such a large part of her days. Now +those same days were bounded by the four walls of a sick-room, the sole +matter of importance in them whether the invalid took his gruel well, +whether he had seemed better, whether her uncle spoke encouragingly of +the eventful outcome of this illness. Old Jephthah himself nursed Creed, +and Judith was but a helper; yet, such was her torture of uncertainty, of +anxiety, that she often left to go to her own room and get some sleep, +only to return and beg that she might be allowed to sit outside the +threshold for the rest of the night and be ready if she were needed. + +"Ain't no use wearin' yourself out thataway," her uncle used to say +kindly. "That won't do Creed no good, nor you neither. I wish to the Lord +I had Nancy here to he'p me!" + +For in this day of real need he dropped all banter about Nancy's value in +sick-room practice, and longed openly for her assistance. Creed had been +in the house nearly a week and was showing marked improvement, when +Judith got a message from Blatch Turrentine--Would she be at the +draw-bars 'long about sundown? He had something to tell her. + +She paid no attention to the request, but it put her in mind to do +finally what she had long contemplated--write to her cousin Wade. It was +but a short scrawl, stating that Creed Bonbright was sick at their house, +and not able to tell them anything concerning Huldah, and that Iley and +the others were troubled. Would Wade please ask information in Hepzibah, +and write to his affectionate cousin. + +Every day Iley made a practice of coming up and sitting dejectedly in the +kitchen till Judith entered the room, when she would draw her +mysteriously to one side and say: + +"Have ye axed him yet? What did he tell ye? I'm plumb wo' out and +heart-broke' about it, Jude." + +Though Judith realised fully just how much of this display proceeded from +a desire on Iley's part for notice, yet her own passionate, rebellious +heart seconded the idle woman, and allowed the continual harping on that +string to finally drive her to the set determination that, as soon as +Creed could talk to her at all, she would ask him about Huldah. + +Had she lacked resolution, the patient himself would have supplied and +hardened it. About this time he developed a singular form of low delirium +in which he would lie with closed eyes, murmuring--murmuring--murmuring +to himself in a hurried, excited whisper. And always the burden of his +distress was: + +"I must get to her. Where is she? It's a long ways. Oh, I've got to get +to her--there's nobody else." + +Kneeling by his bed, her burning gaze upon his shut eyes and moving lips, +Judith racked her soul with questioning. Often she heard her own name in +those fevered whisperings; once he said with sudden determination, "I'm +going home." But she listened in vain for mention of Huldah. + +And what might that mean? All that she hoped? Or all that she dreaded? +Oh, she could not bear this; she must know; she must--must--must ask +him. + +The Evil One, having provided the counsel, was not slow in following it +up with the necessary opportunity. Judith was sitting with Creed alone, +on a Wednesday night--he had come to them the preceding Tuesday. Her +uncle being worn out had planned to sleep till midnight, thus dividing +the watch with her. About eleven o'clock Creed opened his eyes and asked +in what seemed to her a fairly natural tone for a drink. She brought it +to him, and when he had drank he began speaking very softly. + +"I'm glad I came back to the mountains," he said in a weak, whispering +voice. "I promised you I'd come, and I did come, Judith." + +"Yes," answered Judith, putting down the glass and seating herself at the +bedside, taking his hand and stroking it softly, studying his face with +intent, questioning eyes. "You know where you are now, don't you, +Creed?" + +He smiled at her. + +"I'm in the front room at your house where we-all danced the night of the +play-party," he said. "I loved you that night, Judith--only I hadn't +quite found out about it." + +The statement was made with the simplicity of a child--or of a sick man. +It went over Judith with a sudden, sweet shock. Then her jealous heart +must know that it was really all hers. Nerve racked as only a creature of +the open can be after weeks of confinement in a sick-room, torn with the +possessive passion of her earth-born temperament, she stood up suddenly +and asked him in a voice of pain that sounded harsh and menacing, + +"Creed, whar's Huldy?" + +"I don't know," returned Creed tremulously. The blue eyes in their great +hollows came up to her face in a frightened gaze. Instantly they lost +their clearness; they clouded and filmed with that look of confusion +which had been in them from the first. + +"You're married to her--ain't you?" choked Judith, horrified at what she +had done, loathing herself for it, yet pushed on to do more. + +"Yes," whispered Creed miserably. "Sit down by me again, Judith. Don't be +mad. What are you mad about? I forget--there was awful trouble, and +somebody was shot--oh, how they all hate me!" + +The fluttering moment of normal conditions was gone. The baffled, +confused eyes closed; the thin hands began to fumble piteously about the +covers; the pale lips resumed their rapid motion, while from between them +flowed the old, swift stream of broken whispers. + +Judith had quenched the first feeble flame of intelligence that flickered +up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then +covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon +her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her +from the room. + +"Thar now!" he said with carefully repressed violence, lest his tones +should disturb the sick man. "You've raised up a pretty interruption with +my patient. I 'lowed I could trust you, Jude. What in the world you +fussin' with Creed about? For God's sake, did you see him? You've +nigh-about killed him, I reckon. Didn't I tell you not to name anything +to him to werry him?" + +"He says he's married Huldy," said Judith in a strangled voice. + +"Say! He'd say anything--like he is now," retorted her uncle, +exasperated. "An' he'd shore say anything on earth that was put in his +mouth. I don't care if he's married forty Huldy's; what I want is for him +to get well. Lord, I do wish I had Nancy here, and not one of these fool +young gals with their courtin' business and their gettin' jealous and +having to have a rippit with a sick man that don't know what he's talkin' +about," he went on savagely. + +But high-spirited Judith paid no attention to the cutting arraignment. + +"Do you think that's true--oh, Uncle Jep, do you reckon he didn't mean +it?" was all she said. + +"I don't see as it makes any differ," retorted her uncle, testily. +"Marryin' Huldy Spiller ain't no hangin' matter--but hit'll cost that boy +his life ef you fuss with him and git him excited and all worked up." + +Judith turned and felt her way blindly up the steep little stair to her +own room. That night she prayed, not in a formulated fashion, but to some +vague, over-brooding goodness that she hoped would save her from cruelty +to him she loved. + +The next morning Creed was plainly set back in his progress toward sound +rationality, though there seemed little physical change. He recognised no +one, and was much as he had been on those first days. While this +condition of affairs held, and it lasted nearly a week, there was no need +for Jephthah to repeat his caution. But one morning when Judith went in +to relieve her uncle, Creed smiled at her again with eyes that knew. + +As soon as they were alone together, he asked her to come and sit by him, +and told her with tolerable clearness how he had followed Blatch +Turrentine onto the train at Garyville, how he had fainted there, and +only recovered consciousness when they were halfway to the next station. + +"I was too bad off for them to leave me anywhere, and they carried me +plumb to Atlanta. I was in the hospital there a long while. Looks like I +might have written to you--but I thought the best I could do was to let +you alone--I'd made you trouble enough," he ended with a wistful, +half-hopeful glance at her face. + +Judith, taught by bitter experience, tried to meet this with the gentle, +reassuring cheerfulness of the nurse. It was all right. He mustn't talk +too much. He was here now. They didn't need any letter. But strive as she +might she could not keep out of her voice a certain alien tone; and +afterward the bitter thought dogged her that he had told her nothing +definite. She knew nothing, after all, about his relations with Huldah; +the girl might even, as Blatch declared, have been on the train, and gone +to Atlanta with him, and he have held back this information. + +Perhaps, considering her temperament, Judith did as well as could have +been expected in the three days that followed--days in which Creed seemed +to make fair physical gain, but to grow worse and worse mentally. Never +once did she put into words the query that ate into her very soul, quite +innocent of the fact that it spoke in every tone of her voice, in every +movement of her head or hand, and kept the ailing mind to which she +ministered at tremble with the strain to answer. + +On the fourth day, fretted past endurance by the situation, Judith +permitted herself some oblique hints and suggestions, on the heels of +which she left to prepare his breakfast. Returning to the sick-room with +the bowl of broth, she met the strange, unexpected, unsolicited reply to +all these withheld demands. Creed greeted her with a half-terrified +smile. + +"Did you meet her goin' out?" he asked. + +"Did I meet who, Creed?" inquired Judith, setting the bowl down on a +splint-bottomed chair, spreading a clean towel across the quilts, and +preparing for his breakfast. "Has there been somebody in here to see you +a'ready?" + +"It was only Huldah," deprecated Creed. "You said--you asked--and she +just slipped in a minute after you went out." + +Judith straightened up with so sudden a movement that the chair rocked +and the contents of the bowl slopped dangerously. + +"Which way did she go?" came the sharp challenge. + +"Out that door," indicating with an air of childlike alarm the front way +which led directly into the yard. + +Judith ran and flung it open. Nobody was in sight. Heedless of the sharp +wintry air that blew in upon the patient, she stood searching the way +over toward Jim Cal's cabin. + +"I don't see her," she called across her shoulder. "Mebbe she's in the +house yet." + +She closed the door reluctantly and came back to the bedside. + +"No," said Creed plaintively, lifting a doubtful hand to his confused +head, "she ain't here. She allowed you-all were mad at her, and I reckon +she'll keep out of sight." + +"But she had to come to see you--her wedded husband," accused Judith +sternly. + +He nodded mutely with a motion of assent. He seemed to hope that the +admission would please Judith. The broth stood untouched, cooling on the +chair. + +"Is she stayin' down at Jim Cal's?" came Judith's next question. + +"She never named it to me where she was stayin'," returned Creed wearily. +As before, Judith's ill-concealed anger and hostility was as a sword of +destruction to him; yet now he had more strength to endure with. "She +just come--and now she's gone." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head +back among his pillows. The white face looked so sunken that Judith's +heart misgave her. + +"Won't you eat your breakfast now, Mr. Bonbright?" she said stiffly. + +"I don't want any breakfast, thank you. I can't eat," returned Creed very +low. + +Judith pressed her lips hard together to refrain from mentioning Huldah +again. She knew that she had injured Creed, yet for the life of her she +could not get out one word of kindness. Finally she took her mending and +sat down within sight of the bed, deceiving herself into the belief that +he slept. + +The next day an almost identical scene pushed Judith's strained nerves to +the verge of hysteria. In the afternoon when the old man came to relieve +her he returned almost immediately from the sick-room, called her +downstairs once more, and complained of Creed's progress. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "Look like somethin' has went wrong here +right lately. Ever sence you got that fool notion in yo' head that Creed +and Huldy was man and wife, he's been goin' down in his mind about as +fast as his stren'th come up. The best thing you can do is to put it out +of yo' head." + +"Well, they _air_ wedded," returned Judith passionately. "They ain't no +use to fergit it, 'caze she's done been here--she's down at Jim Cal's +right now; and when we-all are out of the room he says she slips in to +visit him." + +The girl stood trembling; her rounded cheeks that used to blush with such +glowing crimson were white; she was a figure to move any one who loved +her to pity; but the old man regarded her with strong contempt. + +"Good Lord--is _that_ what's ailin' ye?" he burst out. "You might at +least have had the sense you was born with, and asked somebody is Huldy +here. You know in reason it shows that Creed's out of his head--when he +tells you a tale like that. The Lord knows there's no fool in the world +like a jealous woman. Do ye want to kill the boy?--or run him crazy?" + +Judith struggled with her tears. + +"Uncle Jep," she finally choked out without actually sobbing. "I won't +say another word--now that I know. I ain't got nothin' agin' Creed +Bonbright, nor his wife--why should I have?" + +Some ruth came into the scornful glance those old black eyes bent on +her. + +"You're a good gal, Jude," Jephthah said softly, "ef ye air somethin' +unusual of a fool in this business. But I reckon I got to take this boy +out o' yo' hands someway. I'm obliged to leave Creed with ye for one +short while--an' agin' my grain it goes to do it--an' go fetch him a +nurse that won't take these tantrums. But mind, gal, it's Creed's reason +I'm leavin' with you; mebbe his life--but sartain shore his reason. I +won't be gone to exceed two days. Ye can hold out that long, cain't ye?" + +"I'll do the best I can, Uncle Jep," said Judith with unexpected +mildness. "An' ef Huldy 's here----" + +"My Lord!" broke in Jephthah. "Why don't ye go to Iley an' set yo' mind +at rest about Huldy?" + +"Hit is at rest," returned Judith darkly. "When Creed come here, Iley was +at me every day to ask him whar was Huldy; but I take notice that sence +that day he named Huldy visitin' him Iley ain't been a-nigh the place." + +The old man heaved a heavy sigh. + +"Well, ye say ye'll do yo' best? Hit's apt to be a good best, Jude. In +two days, ef I live, I'll be back here, an' I'll bring he'p." + + + + +Chapter XXV + +A Perilous Passage + + +It was a strange thing to Judith to be left alone in the house, in charge +of it and the sick man. Old Dilsey did the cooking and all the domestic +labour. Had Wade been at home, and the patient any other than Creed +Bonbright, she would have had a capable assistant at the nursing. Andy +and Jeff tried to be as kind as they could. But they were an untamed, +untrained pair, helpless and hapless at such matters, and their +approaching wedding kept them often over at the Lusk place. From Iley +Judith held savagely aloof. + +It was on the second morning of her uncle's absence that Dilsey Rust +brought again that message from Blatch, and Judith caught at it. She had +done her best; she had refrained from any questions; but the night before +Creed told her without asking that Huldah had been in to see him twice +again. As her patient's physical strength notably increased, his appeal +to her tender forbearance of course lessened, and the raw insult of the +situation began to come home to her. + +She put a shawl over her head and ran swiftly down through the chill +November weather to the draw-bars, where in the big road outside +Turrentine slouched against a post waiting for her. The man spoke over +his shoulder. + +"Howdy, Jude--you did come at last." + +"Ef yo' goin' to say anything to me, you'll have to be mighty quick, +Blatch," she notified him, shivering. "I got to get right back." + +"They's somebody new--and yet not so new--a-visitin' in the Turkey Tracks +that you'd like to know of," he prompted coolly. "Ain't that so?" + +"Huldy," she gasped, her dark eyes fixed upon his grey ones. + +He nodded. + +"I 'lowed you'd take an intrust in that thar business, an' I thort as a +friend you ort to be told of it," he added virtuously. + +"Where's she at?" demanded Judith. + +"Over at my house," announced Turrentine easily, with a backward jerk of +his head. + +"At _yo'_ house!" echoed Judith; "at _yo'_ house! Why, hit ain't +decent." + +"Huh," laughed Blatch. "I don't know about decent. She was out thar +takin' the rain; she had nobody to roof her; an' I bid her in, 'caze I'm +in somewhat the same fix myse'f." + +"No one to roof her," repeated Judith. "What's henderin' her from comin' +over this side the Gulch?" + +"Well, seein' the way she's done Wade I reckon she 'lows she'd better +keep away from his pap's house. She's at the outs with Iley--Jim Cal's +lady sont her word she needn't never show her face thar agin. She gives +it out to everybody that'll listen at her talk that she's skeered o' you +'count o' Bonbright." + +Judith studied his face with half-incredulous eyes. + +"How long has she been there?" she interrogated keenly. + +Turrentine seemed to take time for reflection. + +"Lemme see," he ruminated, "she come a Wednesday night. Hit was rainin', +ef you remember, an' I hearn something outside, and it scairt me up some, +fer fear it was revenuers. When I found hit was Huldy, I let her in, an +she's been thar ever sence." + +Wednesday night! It was Thursday morning that Creed had first announced +the visit of his wife. Oh, it must be true! Judith trembled all through +her vigorous young body with a fury of despair. As always, Blatchley had +found the few and simple words to bid her worser angel forth. She even +felt a kind of hateful relish for the quarrel. They had tricked her. They +had made a fool of her. She had suffered so much. She longed to be +avenged. + +"Judy," murmured Blatch softly, bending toward her but not laying a hand +upon her, "you white as a piece o' paper, an' shakin' from head to foot. +That's from stayin' shet up in the house yonder nussin' that feller +Bonbright night an' day like a hirelin'. W'y, he never did care nothin' +for ye only becaze ye was useful to him. Ye stood betwixt him an' danger; +ye he'ped him out when he needed it wust. An' he had it in mind to fool +ye from the first. Now him and Huldy Spiller has done it. Don't you let +'em. You show 'em what you air. I've got a hoss out thar, and Selim's +down in the stable. I'll put yo' saddle on him. Git yo' skirt, honey. +Let's you and me ride over to Squire Gaylord's and be wedded. Then we'll +have the laugh on these here smart folks that tries to fool people." + +He leaned toward her, all the power of the man concentrated in his gaze. +Perhaps he had never wanted anything in his twenty-seven years as he now +wanted Judith Barrier and her farm and the rehabilitation that a union +with her would give him. Once this girl's husband, he could curtly refuse +to rent to Jephthah Turrentine, who had, he knew, no lease. He could call +into question the old man's stewardship, and even up the short, bitter +score between them. He could reverse that scene when he was sent packing +and told to keep his foot off the place. + +"Judy," he breathed, deeply moved by all this, "don't ye remember when we +was--befo' ever this feller come--Why, in them days I used to think shore +we'd be wedded." + +Judith rested a hand on the bars and, lips apart, stared back into the +eager eyes of the man who addressed her. Blatchley had always had some +charm for the girl. Power he did not lack; and his lawlessness, his +license, which might have daunted a feebler woman, liberated something +correspondingly brave and audacious in her. He had been the first to pay +court to her, and a girl does not easily forget that. + +For a moment the balance swung even. Then it bore down to Blatch's side. +She would go. Yes, she would. Creed might have Huldah. The girl might be +his wife, or his widow. She, Judith Barrier, would show them--she would +show them. Her parted lips began to shape to a reckless yes. The word +waited in her mind behind those lips all formed. Her swift imagination +pictured to her herself riding away beside Blatch leaving the sick man +who had been cause of so many humiliations to her to die or get well. +Blatch, watching narrowly, read the coming consent in her face. His hand +stole forward toward the draw-bars. + +Her salvation was in a very small and commonplace thing. The picture of +herself riding beside Blatch Turrentine brought back to her, with an +awakening shock, the recollection of herself and Creed riding side by +side, her arm across his shoulder, his drooping head against it. How +purely happy she had been then--how innocent--how blest! What were these +fires of torment that raged in her now? No, no! That might be lost to +her; but even so, she could not decline from its dear memory to a mating +like this. Without a word she turned and ran back to the house, never +looking over her shoulder in response to the one or two cautious calls +that Blatch sent after her. + +Judith's day was mercifully full of work. When Creed did not require her, +Dilsey demanded help and direction, and one or two errands from outside +kept her mind from sinking in upon itself. It was night-fall, Andy was +lending her his awkward aid in the sick-room, when Jeff came in and +beckoned the two of them out mysteriously. + +"How's Bonbright this evenin', Jude? Do you reckon I could have speech +with him?" he asked in a troubled tone. + +Judith shook her head. Her own near approach to absolute failure in her +charge that morning made her the more punctilious now. + +"No." She spoke positively. "Uncle Jep said he wasn't to be werried about +anything." + +"Why, he's settin' up some, ain't he?" said the boy in surprise. "I thort +he looked right peart." + +"Yes," agreed Judith dejectedly, "he's gettin' his strength all right; he +does look well. But you ax him questions, or name anything to him to +trouble him, an' it throws him right back. Uncle Jep says hit's more his +mind than his body now. What is it ye want from Creed? Cain't I tend to +it?" + +"I don't reckon a gal like you could he'p any," Jeff said doubtfully. His +eye wandered toward his twin. "I reckon this is men's business. I've got +word that Huldy Spiller--or some say Huldy Bonbright--is over at Blatch's +cabin, and he's got her shut up." + +Judith's heart gave a great leap as of terror; the thing was out at +last--people knew it. Then that heavily beating heart sank sickeningly; +what difference to her, though all the world knew it? Yet she held to her +trust. + +"Oh, shore not, Jeff. You cain't _nigh_ talk to him about nothin' like +that," she maintained. "Uncle Jep made me promise that nothin' should be +named to him to excite him." + +"Well, then," pursued Jeff, "pappy not bein' here, nor Wade, and Jim Cal +over at Spiller's, an' the gal not havin' no men folks in reach, me an' +Andy has got to look after this thing. Fact is, Blatch sent word that ef +we wanted her we could come over and git her." + +"I don't know as we do want her--I don't know as we do," put in Andy. +"And we both promised pappy that we wouldn't set foot on the land whilst +Blatch had it rented." + +"Then ag'in," debated Jeff--"Oh, no, buddy, we cain't leave the gal thar. +We're plumb obliged to find out if she wants to come away, anyhow." + +Andy turned to his cousin. + +"What do you say, Jude? Ort we to go?" + +Judith locked her hands hard together and held down her head, fighting +out her battle. She longed to say no. She longed to shout out that Huldah +Spiller might take care of herself, since she had been so unwomanly as to +run after men and bring all this trouble on them. What she did say, at +the end of a lengthened struggle, was: + +"Yes, I think both of you ort to go. Can it be did quiet? You got to +think of her good name." + +Jeff nodded. + +"Well, how air we goin' to be sure that gal's over there?" inquired Andy, +still half reluctant. + +"Oh, she's there," returned Judith heavily; and when the boys regarded +her with startled looks, "I ain't seen her, but she's been on the +mountain since Thursday. She's been slippin' over to visit--her--Creed +named it to me then." + +"Well that does settle it," Andy concluded. "Reckon Blatch has shut her +up for pure meanness. When was we to go? Was there any time sot?" + +"To-night," Jeff informed them. "Any time after ten o'clock'll do--that +was the word I got." + +"Well, that'll be all right," agreed Andy; "I can fix Creed up for the +night, and ef we git Huldy away in the dark nobody need know of the +business--not even Bonbright." + +A slow flush rose in Judith's pale cheeks. But she offered no comment on +this aspect of the case. She only said: + +"Just do what you think best, and don't name it to me again, please." +Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, "I've +got enough to werry over--with a sick man here on my hands, an' Uncle Jep +gone." + +She went to her room. When at midnight she slipped down as of custom to +see how all fared in the sick-room, she found the patient sleeping +quietly, and Andy ready for the trip across the Gulch. The boys were +going unarmed; they felt no fear of treachery on Blatch's part--it could +profit him nothing to injure either of them in so public a way, and +indeed he had never shown them any ill-will. + + + + +Chapter XXVI + +His Own Trap + + +"I reckon that'll about do for you, my pretty young men," remarked +Blatchley Turrentine as he put the last knot in the line with which he +was securing Andy to a splint-bottomed chair. + +His concluding words were the refrain of a familiar old ballad, and he +continued to hum this as he straightened up and set his hands on his +hips, regarding the twins through wickedly narrowed eyes. He was flushed +with drink and inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with a sort +of savage playfulness. + +"Scalf, you ain't got yo' feller half tied," he broke out, jerking the +cord around Jeff. "Why, Lord A'mighty! I could pull myse'f a-loose from +that mess o' rope inside o' five minutes," and he set to work to make his +cousin secure. + +"Do yo' own dirty work," growled Scalf. "Yo' the only one that's a-goin' +to profit by it." + +It was after midnight. When the two boys had approached Blatch's cabin as +agreed, they had been set upon from behind, pinioned, and taken to the +cave where the still was. Here they now sat bound and helpless. + +"What do you aim to make out of it, Blatch?" asked Jeff, offering the +first remark that had come from either of them since their capture. + +"Is--uh--" Andy glanced at Scalf, and strove to keep Huldah's name out of +it--"is what we come for here yet?" + +Blatch burst into a great horse laugh and slapped his thigh. + +"What you come after," he repeated enjoyingly. "Lord--Lord! What you come +after! You was easy got. I counted on Jude to set you on, and I see I +never counted none too much." + +"What do you aim to make out of it?" persisted Andy. + +The light from the fire built at the back of the cave, whose smoke went +up a cleft and entered the chimney of the cabin far above, illuminated +the dark interior flickeringly. Blatch went to a jug on a shelf, noisily +poured a drink into a tin cup, swallowed it, and then addressed himself +to his cousins. + +"Yo' pappy ordered me off his land. My lease is up next month. I got to +git out of here anyhow, and I aimed to raise a stir befo' I went. This +here town podner what I got after you-all quit me," glancing negligently +at Scalf, "has many a little frill to his plans, and he knows Dan Haley, +the marshal, right well. Sometimes I misdoubt that he come up on Turkey +Track to git in with me and git the reward that I'm told Haley has out +for the feller that can ketch me stillin'." + +He wheeled and looked fully at Scalf with these words, and the town man +made haste to turn his back, warming his hands at the blaze. Blatch +laughed deep in his throat. + +"Scalf's on the make," he asserted with grim humour. "He needed somebody +to give up to Dan Haley, and as I hain't got no likin' for learnin' to +peg shoes in the penitentiary, I 'lowed mebbe the trade would suit +you-all boys, an' I sont over for ye." + +The twins writhed in their chairs as much as their tight bandings would +permit. How simple they had been to trust the mercy of a desperate man. +And they knew Blatch Turrentine. In days past, they had been on the +inside, pupils and assistants in such work as this. They stole sheepish +looks at each other. But the message he had sent them was yet to be +explained. If Huldah was not with him, how had he known she was on the +mountain at all? + +"What made you send the word you did?" burst out Andy wrathfully. + +Blatch had moved over by the fire. + +"Oh, I hearn through old Dilsey Rust--that I've had a-listenin' at +key-holes and spyin' through chinks--about Bonbright's talk concernin' +Huldy, and I thort----" + +At these words ancient Gideon Rust, posted as sentinel outside the cave's +entrance, keeping himself warily from view of the prisoners, craned +forward and stared with fallen jaw, reckless of observation. Humble +tenants, pensioners of Judith and the Turrentines, with these words +Blatch had wantonly stripped the poor roof from above their grey heads, +and turned them out defenceless, to the anger of that strong family. Come +what would, he must protest. + +"Now Blatch," he whined, "you ort not to go a-namin' names like you do. +You said that Dilsey nor me, nary one, needn't be known in this +business." + +In his excitement he came fully into the light. + +"I hope you-all boys understand that I didn't aim to do ye a meanness. +Yo' pap--I--I hope he won't hold this agin' us. The Turrentines has been +mighty good friends to Dilsey--and here's Blatch lettin' on to 'em like +she was a spy." + +"Well, what else is she?" asked Blatch with an oath. "What else are any +of ye? The last one of ye would sell yo' own fathers and mothers. Don't I +know ye? A man's only chance is to get ye scared of him, or give ye +somebody else to tell tales on--and that's what I've done." + +He turned his attention once more to Andy and Jeff, and left the old man +staring aghast, plucking at his beard. + +"I've bought me a good team, an' I'm goin' to move my plunder out of +here," he told them. "I've done picked me a fine place over yon," jerking +his head vaguely in the direction of the Far Cove. "Every stick and +ravellin' that belongs to me I'll take, exceptin' the run of whiskey that +I'll leave in the still here for to make the marshal shore he's got the +right thing. You might expect him any time to-morrow. Old Gid here will +lead him in, or Scalf, and the testimony they stand ready to give means +penitentiary to you two." + +"I reckon you-all won't deny that you have made many a run of blockaded +whiskey right here in this cave," put in Scalf, nervously. + +"That's so--that's so, boys, I've seed ye many a time," whimpered Gideon +Rust, almost beside himself with terror. "I hope ye won't hold it ag'in +us that we he'ped to have ye took instead of Blatch here. Blatch is a +hard man to deal with--he's been too much fer me--and hit wouldn't do you +all no manner of good ef he was took along with ye. I don't see that yo' +any worse off ef he goes free." + +The twins looked at each other and forebore to reply. Blatch moved over +to Scalf, and after some muttered parley with the town partner strode +away into the dark. Scalf himself waited only long enough to be sure that +Blatch had left, then slipped away, posting the old man down the path as +lookout. + +Alone in the cave, it was long before either boy spoke. Then came a rush +of angry comment and bitter reflection which interrogated the situation +from all sides, tending always to the conclusion that it was mighty hard, +when a man had given up his evil courses, when he had just joined the +church and was about to get married, to have the whole ugly score to pay. +They sat cramped and miserable in their splint-bottomed chairs and the +hours wore away till dawn in this dismal converse. Pappy was right--he +was mighty right. If they ever got out of this--But there, Blatch wasn't +apt to make a failure. + +It was broad daylight when at last Blatch Turrentine brought his team up +and as close to the cave's mouth as he dared. It was loaded already with +a considerable amount of furniture and clothing from the cabin, and he +climbed down the steep approach to take from the cave the jugged whiskey, +and the keg or two which was aging there. His eyes were reddened; but the +dark flush which had been on his face had now given place to a curious +pallor. There was a new element in his mood, a different note in his +bearing, a suggestion of furtive hurry and anxiety. + +He was not afraid of the marshal. Haley could not be on the mountain +before noon. But he had left that behind in the little log stable from +which his team came that cried haste to his going. + +Gord Bosang from whom he was to buy the horses was a man somewhat of +Blatch's own ilk. Cavalierly called out of bed after midnight and offered +only a partial cash payment--all that Blatch had been able to raise--he +had angrily refused to let the team be taken off the place. Turrentine's +situation was desperate. He must have the horses. In the quarrel that +followed, he struck to clear this obstacle from his path; but whether he +had left a dead man lying back there on the hay--whether it was a +possible charge of murder he was now fleeing from--he had not stopped to +find out. He had got back to his cabin with all haste, pitched his ready +belongings into the wagon, and now he came down to the still to get the +last, and see that all there was working out right. + +As his foot reached the opening he uttered a loud exclamation, then +leaped into the cave. Both chairs were empty, the ropes lying cut beside +them. He sprang back to the rude doorway and gave the usual signal--the +screech-owl's cry. It was inappropriate at this time, yet he could not +risk less, and he sent it forth again and again. + +Getting no answer he ventured cautiously to call Gideon Rust's name, and +when this failed he looked about him and came to a decision. The boys +were gone. The fat was in the fire. Yet--he returned to it--the marshal +could not be there before noon. He had time to remove the whiskey if he +worked hard enough. He glanced at the still. The worm and appurtenances +were of value. He had saved money for nearly two years to buy the new +copper-work. He wondered if he might empty and take it also. + +For half an hour he toiled desperately, carrying filled jugs up the steep +and hiding them carefully in his loaded wagon. The kegs he could not move +alone, and set to work jugging the fluid from them. Sweat poured down his +face, to which, though he drank repeatedly from the tin cup, no flush +returned. His teeth were set continually on his under lip. His breath +came heavily as he lifted and stooped. In the midst of his labours a +slight noise at the cave entrance brought him to his feet, staring in +terror. The sight of trembling Gideon Rust in the opening reassured him. + +"Come in here, you old davil, and help me jug this whiskey," he cried +out. "Whar's Scalf? How come you an' him to let them boys git away? What +do you reckon I'm a-goin' to do to you for it?" + +"Why, is them fellers gone?" quavered the old man, craning his neck to +look gingerly in. "I never seen nothin' movin' up here, but--they was a +gal or so come norratin' past on the path; I 'lowed when I seed calicker +that it mought be Huldy, you named her so free." + +"Well, shut yo' fool mouth and get yo'se'f to work," ordered Blatch. +"I've got to be out o' this." + +He turned his back on old Gid and forgot him. + +"Ef I thort I had time I'd take my still with me," he ruminated, going +close to it and laying a fond touch upon the copper-work. "I'm a mind to +try it." + +"Hands up, Turrentine!" came a short sharp order from outside. Blatch +whirled like a flash, and looked past Gideon Rust in the doorway. Over +the old man's shaking shoulders, he saw the levelled rifles of the +marshal and his posse. + +"Thar," whispered ancient Gideon fairly weeping, as they closed in on +Turrentine and snapped the handcuffs on his wrists, "now mebbe ye won't +name a pore old woman's name so free, ef you _have_ bought her to yo' +will, and set her to spy on them that's been good friends to her." + + + + +Chapter XXVII + +Love's Guerdon + + +When Judith left Andy in charge of her patient and mounted the ladderlike +stair to her own small room under the eaves, she felt no disposition to +sleep. She did not undress, but sat down by the window and stared out +into the black November night. Despite everything, there had come a sort +of peace over her tumult, a stilling that was not mere weariness. She was +like a woman who has just been saved from a shipwreck, snatched away from +the imminent jaws of doom--chastened, and wondering a little. Intensely +thankful for what she had escaped, she sat there in the dark, cold little +room, Judith Barrier, safe from the sin of a godless union, from the life +that would have been hers as Blatchley Turrentine's wife. + +In the light of her danger, familiar things took on a new face, strange, +yet dear and welcome. She turned and gazed with childish eyes up at the +decent beams of her rooftree, glad that they still sheltered her a maid, +glad that the arms of her home were about her. + +With remorseless honesty she went back over her years. Always in the past +months of suffering she had blamed this or that extraneous circumstance +with her undoing; now she saw and recognised and acknowledged that +nothing and nobody had brought disaster upon her but herself. It was not +because Blatchley Turrentine was a bad, lawless man, not because the boys +were reckless fellows, led and influenced by him, that all this trouble +had come. If she, Judith Barrier, had dealt fairly and humbly by her +world, she might have had the lover of her choice in peace as other girls +had--even as Cliantha and Pendrilla had. But no, such enterprises as +contented these, such stir as they made among their kind, would not do +her. She must seek to cast her spells upon every eligible man within her +reach. She must try her hand at subjugating those who were difficult, +pride herself on the skill with which she retained half a dozen in +anxious doubt as to her ultimate intentions concerning them. + +Her forehead drooped to the window pane and her cheeks burned as she +recollected times and seasons and scenes that belonged to the years when +Blatch was building up his firm belief that she loved him, and would +sometime marry him. It had been a spirited, dangerous game to her then, +nothing more. + +Her passionate, possessive nature was winning to higher ground, leaving, +with pain and travail of spirit, the plane on which her twenty years had +been lived. The past months of thwarting, failure, and heart-hunger had +prepared for this movement, to-night it was almost consciously making. +She was coming to the place where, if she might not have love, she could +at least be worthy of it. The little clock which had measured her vigils +that night of the dumb supper slanted toward twelve. She got to her feet +with a long sigh. She did not know yet what she meant to do or to forbear +doing; but she was aware, with relief, of a radical change within her, a +something awakened there which could consider the right of Creed--even of +Huldah; which could submit to failure, to rejection--and be kind. Slowly +she gathered up her belongings and took her way downstairs. + +When the door of the sick-room closed behind the boys, she went and knelt +down beside the bed and looked fixedly at the sleeper. With the birth of +this new spiritual impulse the things Blatch Turrentine had said of Creed +and Creed's intentions dropped away from her as fall the dead leaves from +the bough of that most tenacious of oak trees which holds its withered +foliage till the swelling buds of a new spring push it off. He was a good +man. She felt that to the innnermost core of her heart. She loved him. +She believed she would always love him. As for his being married to +Huldah, she would not inquire how that came about, how it could have +happened while she felt him to be promised to herself. There was--there +must be--a right way for even that to befall. She must love him and +forgive him, for only so could she face her life, only so could she patch +a little peace with herself and still the gnawing agony in her breast. +Long she knelt thus. + +Who that knows even a little the wonders of the subjective mind, who that +has tested the marvellous communication between the mood of nurse and +patient, will doubt that the sick man, lying passive, receptive, got now +Judith's message of peace and relaxation. The girl herself, powerful, +dominating young creature, had been fought to a spiritual standstill. She +was at last forced to her knees, and the atmosphere which her passionate +struggles had long disturbed grew serene about her. Even a wavering note +of something more joyous than mere peace, a courage, a strength that +promised happiness must have radiated from her to him. For Creed's eyes +opened and looked full into hers with a wholly rational expression which +had long been absent from their clear depths. + +"Judith--honey," he whispered, and fumbled vaguely for her hand upon the +coverlet. + +"Yes, Creed--what is it? What do you want?" she asked tremulously, taking +the thin fingers in her warm clasp. + +"Nothing--so long as I've got you," he returned contentedly. "Can't I sit +up--and won't you sit down here by me and talk awhile?" + +Gently smiling, Judith helped him to sit up, and piled the pillows back +of his head and shoulders, noting almost with surprise how well he +looked, how clear and direct was his gaze. + +"I've been sick a long time, haven't I?" he asked. + +"Yes," the girl replied, drawing up a chair and seating herself. "Hit's +more'n six weeks that Uncle Jep an' me has been takin' care of you." + +He lifted her hand and stroked it softly. + +"A body gets mighty tired of a sick fellow," he said wistfully. + +Judith's eyes filled at the pitiful little plea, but she could not offer +endearments to Huldah's husband. + +"I ain't tired of you," she returned in a low, choked voice. "I most +wisht I was. Creed----" + +She slipped from her chair dropping on her knees beside him. + +"Creed, I want to tell you now while I can do it that the boys is gone to +get Huldy. She can take care of you after this--but I'll help. I ain't +mad about it. I was aimin' to tell you that the next time she come in you +should bid her stay. God knows I want ye to be happy--whether it's me or +another." + +Bewilderment grew in the blue eyes regarding her so fixedly. + +"Huldah?" he repeated. And then again in a lower, musing tone, "Huldah." + +"Yes--yo' wife, Huldy Spiller," Judith urged mildly. "Don't you mind +namin' it to me the first time she slipped in to visit you?" + +An abashed look succeeded the expression of bewilderment. A faint, fine +flush crept on the thin, white cheek. + +"I--I do," Creed whispered, with a foolish little smile beginning to +curve his lips; "but there wasn't a word of truth in it--dear. I've never +seen the girl since she left Aunt Nancy's that Saturday morning." + +"What made you say it then?" breathed Judith wonderingly. + +"I--I don't know," faltered the sick man. "It seemed like you was mad +about something; and then it seemed like Huldah was here; and then--I +don't know Judith--didn't I say a heap of other foolishness?" + +The simple query reproved his nurse more than a set arraignment would +have done. He had indeed babbled, in his semi-delirium, plenty of "other +foolishness," this was the only point upon which she had been credulous. + +"Oh Creed--honey!" she cried, burying her face in the covers of his bed, +"I'm so 'shamed. I've got such a mean, bad disposition. Nobody couldn't +ever love me if they knew me right well." + +She felt a gentle, caressing touch on her bowed head. + +"Jude, darling," Creed's voice came to her, and for the first time it +sounded really like his voice, "I loved you from the moment I set eyes on +you. I didn't sense it for a spell, but I come to see that you were the +one woman in the world for me. There never was a man done what went more +against the grain than I the night I parted from you down at the railroad +station and let you go back when you would have come with me--so +generous--so loving--" + +He broke off with a choking sigh, and Judith raised her head in a sort of +consternation. Were these the exciting topics that her Uncle Jep would +have banished from the sick-room? she wondered. But no, Creed had never +looked so nearly a well man as now. He raised himself from the pillows. + +"Don't!" she called sharply, as she sprang up and slipped a capable arm +under his shoulders, laying his head on her breast. "You ort not to do +thataway," she reproached him. "When you want anything I'll git it." + +"I don't want a thing, but this," whispered Creed, looking up into her +eyes. "Nothing, only----" + +Judith read the mute prayer aright, and tears of exquisite feeling +blinded her. As she looked at him, there was loosed upon her soul the +whole tide of passionate tenderness which had gathered there since first +she saw him standing, eager, fearless, selfless, on the Court House steps +at Hepzibah. The yellow head lay on her arm now; those blue eyes which, +in many bitter hours since that time, had seemed as unattainable to her +love as the sky itself, were raised to her own, they were pleading for +her kiss. She bent her face; the full red lips met Creed's. The weary +longing was satisfied; the bitterness was washed away. + +They remained quietly thus, Creed drinking in new life from her nearness, +from her dearness. When she would have lifted her head, his thin hand +went up and was laid over the rounded cheek, bringing the sweet mouth +back to his own. + +"I'll need a heap of loving, Judith," he whispered,--"a heap. I've been +such a lone fellow all my days. You'll have to be everything and +everybody to me." + +[Illustration: "They had forgotten all the world save themselves +and their love."] + +Judith's lavish nature, so long choked back upon itself, trembled to its +very core with rapture at the bidding. It seemed to her that all of +Heaven she had ever craved was to do and be everything that Creed +Bonbright needed. She answered with an inarticulate murmur of tenderness, +a sound inexpressibly wooing and moving. All that she had felt, all that +she meant for the future, surged strong within her--was fain for +utterance. But Judith was not fluent; she must content herself with doing +and being--Creed could speak for her now. She cherished the fair hair +with loving touch, nestling the thin cheek against her soft, warm one. + +The beautiful storm-rocked craft of Judith's passion was safe at last in +Love's own harbour; the skies were fair above it, and only Love's tender +airs breathed about its weary sails. + +"We'll be wedded in the spring," Creed's lips murmured against her own. +"I'll carry home a bride to the old place. Oh, we'll be happy, Judith." + +All through the latter part of the night, while the two lovers were +drawing out of the ways of doubt and pain and misunderstanding, into so +full and sweet a communion, the November breeze had been rising; toward +dawn it moved quite steadily. And with its impulse moved the cedar tree, +a long, smooth swaying, that set free that tender, baritone legato to +which Judith's ears had harkened away last March, when she came home from +Hepzibah after first seeing Creed Bonbright. It was the voice which had +talked to her throughout the spring, the early summer, through autumn's +desolate days, when the waiting in ignorance of his whereabouts and of +his welfare seemed almost more than she could bear; it was the voice +which had called upon her so tragically, so insistently, the night of the +raid on Nancy Card's cabin. But Creed himself was here now; Creed's own +lips spoke close to her ear. The cedar tree had its song to itself once +more; she no longer needed its music. Its sound was unheard by her, as +the flame of a candle is unseen in the strong light of the sun. + + + + +Chapter XXVIII + +A Prophecy + + +Over the shoulder of Yellow Old Bald up came the sun, bannered and +glorious; the distant ranges glowed in his splendours; the sere fields +about the place were all gilded. The small-paned eastern window of the +sick-room let in a flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir that +used to welcome his earliest rays, swept south by the great tide of +migration. Those that remained, snowbird, cardinal, and downy +woodpecker--the "checkerbacker" of the mountaineer,--harboured all night +and much of the day in the barn loft and in Judith's cedar tree. Their +twittering sounded cheerily about the eaves. + +Back and forth in the puncheon-floored kitchen trudged old Dilsey Rust's +heavy-shod foot, carrying her upon the appointed tasks of the day. + +In the quiet sick-room, where the low, alternating voices had subsided +into an exchange of murmured words, suddenly Creed dropped his head back +to stare at his companion with startled eyes. + +"Judith!" he exclaimed. "Where are the boys?" + +He glanced at the window, then about the room. + +"It's broad day. That word Blatch sent was a decoy; Huldah Spiller isn't +on the mountain. Somebody must go over there." + +Judith rose swiftly to her feet. + +"My Lord, Creed! I forgot all about 'em," she said contritely. "Ye don't +reckon Blatch would harm the boys? And yet yo' right--it does look bad. I +don't know what to do, honey. They ain't a man on the place till Uncle +Jep comes. But maybe he'll be along in about an hour." + +She hurried to the window and stared over toward the Gulch; and at the +moment a group of people topped the steep, rising into view one after the +other out of the ravine, and coming on toward the house. + +"Here they are now," she said with relief in her tones. "Thar's +Andy--Jeff, Pendrilly--why, whatever--The Lusk girls is with 'em! They's +another--Creed, they _have_ got Huldy! And that last feller--no, 'tain't +Blatch--of all things--it's Wade! They're comin' straight to this door. +Shall I let them in?" + +"Yes," said Creed's steady voice. "Let them right in." + +She ran swiftly to slip an extra pillow under her patient's shoulders, +straighten the covers of the bed, and put all in company trim. Her eye +brightened when she saw him sitting so erect and alert almost like his +old self. Somebody rattled the latch. + +"Come in, folks," Creed called, speaking out with a roundness and +decision that it did her heart good to hear. + +They all pushed into the room, the men shouldering back a little, +glancing anxiously at the sick man, the Lusk girls timid, but Huldah +leading the van. + +"How's Creed?" cried the irrepressible one, bounding into the room and +looking about her. "Wade got yo' letter, Cousin Judy, an' I says to him +that right now was the time for us to make a visit home. Wade's got him a +good place on the railroad, and I like livin' in the settlement; but +bridal towers is all the go down thar, and we 'lowed we'd take one." + +Every inch of her raiment bespoke the bride, and it did not take Creed +many moments to understand the situation, put out a thin white hand and, +smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade received them with some +low-toned, hesitating words of apology. + +"Law, Cousin Creed's ready to let bygones be bygones, Wade, honey!" his +wife admonished him. + +"_Cousin_ Creed?" echoed the obtuse Jeff. + +Wade's wife whirled to put a ready arm around Judith's waist. "Why, you +an' him is a-goin' to be wedded, ain't you Judy? I always knowed, and I +always said to everybody that I named it to, that you was cut out and +made for each other. We heared tell from everybody in the Turkey Tracks +that you an' Creed was goin' to be wedded as soon as he got well--then I +reckon he'll be my cousin, won't he?" + +Creed looked past the whispering girls to where Andy and Jeff stood. As +the boys moved toward the bed. + +"Did you find Blatch?" he asked, with a man's directness. "How did +you-all make out?" + +Andy opened his lips to answer, when there was a clatter of hoofs +outside. As they all turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine's big +voice, with a new tone in it, called out to somebody. + +"Hold on thar, honey--lemme lift ye down." + +"Ain't Uncle Jep goin' to be proud when he sees how well you air?" +Judith, stooping, whispered to Creed. "He went off to get somebody to +he'p nurse you, because he said I done you more harm than good." + +"Your Uncle Jep don't know everything," returned Creed softly. + +No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made +considerable racket with the latch before he entered the room. + +"Oh--you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the +others, "an' got company so airly in the mornin'." He glanced from the +newcomers to his patient. "You look fine--fine!" he asserted with high +satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in, +honey--Creed'll be proud to see ye." + +He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling +after him Nancy Card--who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was +in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith +had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people +scarcely fathomed the situation. + +"Creed," cried the old man, "I've brung ye the best doctor and nurse +there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go +after her, and I 'lowed I'd make sartain that she'd never run away from +me again, so I've jest--we jest----" + +"Ye ain't married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her. + +"We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly. + +"Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him +with the rheumatics every spring, an' bound and determined that he'd lay +out in the bushes deer-huntin' like he done when he was twenty, and me +knowin' in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my +liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up--why, I jest _had_ to take +him." + +She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected +quarter. + +"Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a +silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I'm mighty glad I've +got a new mother-in-law, 'caze I know Pap Turrentine's apt to be well +taken keer of in his old days." + +His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her +bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth. + +"Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst +we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and +bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit--hit's got my bundle of yarbs +in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you befo' I set down." + +"All right, Nancy--but I reckon I'll have to clear these folks out of +this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We're apt to have +too much goin' on for Creed." + +But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the +kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to +admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with +voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim +Cal's cabin till that moment. + +"You an' Wade are wedded? Why couldn't you let a body know?" inquired +Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for +somewhat hostile inspection. + +"That's what I say," echoed Jim Cal's voice from the doorway where he +harboured, a trifle out of sight. "Ef you-all gals would be a little mo' +open an' above-bo'd about yo' courtin' business hit would save lots of +folks plenty of trouble. Here's Iley got some sort o' notion that Huldy +was over at Blatch's, an' she put out an' run me home so fast that I +ain't ketched my breath till yit." + +"Over at Blatch's?" old Jephthah looked angrily about him, and Judith +made haste to explain the whole matter, detailing everything that had led +up to the trouble. + +"We-all talked it over, Uncle Jep, and as you wasn't here we made out to +do the best we could, and the boys went." + +"After me!" crowed Huldah. "An' thar I was on the train 'long o' Wade +comin' to Garyville that blessed minute." + +"Well, Blatch had us hog-tied an' waitin' for the marshal to come an' +cyart us down and send us to the penitentiary," Jeff set forth the case. +"But you know how Blatch is, always devilin' folks; he made old Gid Rust +mad, an' when Clianthy an' Pendrilly met the old man out on the road soon +this mornin', he told 'em to take a knife and come up to the cave an' +they could keep what they found." + +"I never was so scairt in my life," Cliantha asseverated. Her china-blue +eyes had not yet resumed their normal size or contour, and the assertion +was easily believed. + +"Nor me neither," agreed Pendrilla. "I says to him, says I, 'Now you, Gid +Rust, do you 'low we're crazy? We're a-lookin' for old Boss and Spot, an' +we ain't a-goin' up yon nary step.' An' he says to us, says he, 'Gals, +you never mind about no cows,' he says. 'Hit'll shore be the worse for +Andy and Jeff Turrentine ef you don't git yo'selves up thar an' git up +thar quick.' An' with that he gives us his knife out of his pocket, 'caze +we didn't have none, and we run the whole blessed way, and cut the boys +a-loose." + +"I was that mad when I seen 'em tied up thataway," chimed in Cliantha, +"that I wouldn't a 'cared the rappin' o' my finger ef old Blatch +Turrentine hisself had been thar. I'd 'a' stood right up to him an' told +him what I thort o' him an' his works." There are conditions, it is said, +in which even the timid hare becomes militant, and doves will peck at the +intruder. + +"Well, I reckon I got to get you folks out of here now for sartain," said +Jephthah as she made an end. "Nancy, honey, is the yarbs you wanted for +Creed in with them you're a-goin' to use on me?" + +The little old woman felt of Creed's fingers, she laid a capable hand +upon his brow. Then she flashed one of her quick, youthful smiles at her +husband. + +"You named it to me about Jude and Creed being at the outs," she said +frankly; "but I see they've made up their troubles. The boy don't need no +medicine." + +Jephthah stared at his transformed patient, and admitted that it was so. + +"Well he does need some peace and quiet," the head of the house +maintained as he ushered his clan into the adjoining room. + +"Uncle Jephthah," called Creed's quiet voice, with the ring of the old +enthusiasm in it, as his host was leaving the room. "Do you remember +telling me that the trouble with my work on the mountain was, I was one +man alone? Do you remember saying that if I was a member of a big +family--a great big tribe--that I'd get along all right and accomplish +what I set out for?" + +"I say sech a lot of foolishness, son, I cain't ricollect it all. Likely +I did say that. Hit mought have some truth in it." + +"Well," said Creed, carrying the hand he held to his lips, "I reckon I'll +be a member of a big tribe now; maybe I can take up the work yet, and do +some good." + +The old man looked at him. Here was the son of his heart--of his mind and +nature--the congenial spirit; the welcome companion, interested like +himself in abstractions, willing to stake all on an idea. Days of good +comradeship stretched before these two. He reached down a brown right +hand, and Creed's thin white one went out to meet it in a quick, nervous +clasp. + +"Son," spoke out Jephthah in that deep, sonorous voice of his, "Creed, +boy, what you set out to do was a work for a man's lifetime; but God made +you for jest what you aimed then to do and be. Yo' mighty young yet, but +you air formed for a leader of men. To the last day of its life an oak +will be an oak and a willer a willer; and yo' head won't be grey when you +find yo' work and find yo'self a-doin' it right." + +"Pap Turrentine!" called Huldah from the kitchen, "Maw wants ye out +here." + +The door swung wide; it showed a vision of Nancy Turrentine, flushed, +bustling, capable, the crinkled grey hair pushed back above those bright +eyes of hers with a prideful hand, entering upon the administration of +her new realm. Oh, it had not been easy for one of her spirit to be a +poor little widow, living out on the Edge, with nobody but slack Doss +Provine to do for her, hardly dishes enough to set the table, often not +much to put in them, eking out a scanty living by weaving baskets of +white-oak splits. When Judith rode up to the cabin on the Edge that +evening of late March, it was the hardest time of the year; now was the +mountaineer's season of cheer and abundance--his richest month. Outside, +nuts were gathering, hunting was good, and she had for her provider of +wild meat the mightiest hunter in the Turkey Tracks. Jephthah +Turrentine's home was ample and well plenished. There was good store of +root crops laid up for winter. Judith had neglected such matters to tend +on Creed, but Nancy was already putting in hand the cutting and drying of +pumpkins, the threshing out of beans. Here were milk vessels a-plenty to +scald and sun--and filling for them afterward. Oh, enough to do +with!--the will to do had always been Nancy's--and for yokefellow in the +home, one who would carry his share and pull true--a real man--the only +one there had ever been for Nancy. + +"Pap," called Huldah's insistent voice again. + +"All right--I'm a-comin'," declared Jephthah, then, with the door in his +hand, turned back, meaning to finish what had been in his mind to say to +Creed. + +Jephthah Turrentine was himself that day a bridegroom, wedded to the one +love of his life; he appreciated to the full that which had come to +Creed. He had thought to say to the boy that now was the opening of great +things, to remind him that one must first live man's natural life, must +prove himself as son, brother, husband, father, and neighbour, before he +will be accepted or efficient in the larger calling. He would have said +that life must teach the man before the man could teach his fellows. + +But the words of homely wisdom in which he would have clothed this truth +remained unspoken. He glanced back and saw the dark head bent close above +the yellow one, as Judith performed some little service for Creed. The +girl's rich brown beauty glowed and bloomed before the steady, blue fire +of her lover's eyes. She set down her tumbler and knelt beside him. Their +lips were murmuring, they had forgotten all the world save themselves and +their love. Jephthah looked at the rapt young faces; these two were on +the mount of transfiguration; the light ineffable was all about them. + +"Lord, what's the use of a old fool like me sayin' I, ay, yes or no to +sech a pair as that?" he whispered as he went out softly and closed the +door. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS*** + + +******* This file should be named 26527.txt or 26527.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/5/2/26527 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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