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diff --git a/29851.txt b/29851.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..907d441 --- /dev/null +++ b/29851.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6163 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Dwellers in the Hills, by Melville Davisson Post + +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: Dwellers in the Hills + +Author: Melville Davisson Post + +Release Date: August 30, 2009 [EBook #29851] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DWELLERS IN THE HILLS *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Dwellers in the Hills + + By Melville Davisson Post + + Author of "Randolph Mason", "The Man of Last Resort," etc. + + +G. P. Putnam's Sons +New York and London +The Knickerbocker Press +1901 + +Copyright, 1901 +By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST + +The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + + TO + MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I.--THE OCTOBER LAND + + II.--THE PETTICOAT AND THE PRETENDER + + III.--THE PASSING OF AN ILLUSION + + IV.--CONCERNING HAWK RUFE + + V.--THE WAGGON-MAKER + + VI.--THE MAID AND THE INTRUDERS + + VII.--THE MASTER BUILDERS + + VIII.--SOME REMARKS OF SAINT PAUL + + IX.--CHRISTIAN THE BLACKSMITH + + X.--ON THE CHOOSING OF ENEMIES + + XI.--THE WARDENS OF THE RIVER + + XII.--THE USES OF THE MOON + + XIII.--THE SIX HUNDRED + + XIV.--RELATING TO THE FIRST LIARS + + XV.--WHEN PROVIDENCE IS PAGAN + + XVI.--THROUGH THE BIG WATER + + XVII.--ALONG THE HICKORY RIDGES + + XVIII.--BY THE LIGHT OF A LANTERN + + XIX.--THE ORBIT OF THE DWARFS + + XX.--ON THE ART OF GOING TO RUIN + + XXI.--THE EXIT OF THE PRETENDER + + + + +DWELLERS IN THE HILLS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE OCTOBER LAND + + +I sat on the ground with my youthful legs tucked under me, and the +bridle rein of El Mahdi over my arm, while I hammered a copper rivet +into my broken stirrup strap. A little farther down the ridge Jud was +idly swinging his great driving whip in long, snaky coils, flicking now +a dry branch, and now a red autumn leaf from the clay road. The slim +buckskin lash would dart out hissing, writhe an instant on the hammered +road-bed, and snap back with a sharp, clear report. + +The great sorrel was oblivious of this pastime of his master. The lash +whistled narrowly by his red ears, but it never touched them. In the +evening sunlight the Cardinal was a horse of bronze. + +Opposite me in the shadow of the tall hickory timber the man Ump, +doubled like a finger, was feeling tenderly over the coffin joints and +the steel blue hoofs of the Bay Eagle, blowing away the dust from the +clinch of each shoe-nail and pressing the flat calks with his thumb. No +mother ever explored with more loving care the mouth of her child for +evidence of a coming tooth. Ump was on his never-ending quest for the +loose shoe-nail. It was the serious business of his life. + +I think he loved this trim, nervous mare better than any other thing in +the world. When he rode, perched like a monkey, with his thin legs held +close to her sides, and his short, humped back doubled over, and his +head with its long hair bobbing about as though his neck were +loose-coupled somehow, he was eternally caressing her mighty withers, or +feeling for the play of each iron tendon under her satin skin. And when +we stopped, he glided down to finger her shoe-nails. + +Then he talked to the mare sometimes, as he was doing now. "There is a +little ridge in the hoof, girl, but it won't crack; I know it won't +crack." And, "This nail is too high. It is my fault. I was gabbin' when +old Hornick drove it." + +On his feet, he looked like a clothes-pin with the face of the strangest +old child. He might have been one left from the race of Dwarfs who, +tradition said, lived in the Hills before we came. + +His mare was the mother of El Mahdi. I remember how Ump cried when the +colt was born, and how he sat out in the rain, a miserable drenched rat, +because his dear Bay Eagle was in the mysterious troubles of maternity, +and because she must be very unhappy at being on the north side of the +hill among the black hawthorn bushes, for that was a bad sign--the worst +sign in the world--showing the devil would have his day with the colt +now and then. + +I used, when I was little, to hear talk once in a while of some very +wonderful person whom men called a "genius," and of what it was to be a +genius. The word puzzled me a good deal, because I could not understand +what was meant when it was explained to me. I used to ponder over it, +and hope that some day I might see one, which would be quite as +wonderful, I had no doubt, as seeing the man out of the moon. Then, when +El Mahdi came into his horse estate and our lives began to run together, +I would lie awake at night trying to study out what sort of horse it was +that deliberately walked off the high banks along the road, or pitched +me out into the deep blue-grass, or over into the sedge bushes, when it +occurred to him that life was monotonous, tumbling me upside down like a +girl, although I could stick in my brother's big saddle when the Black +Abbot was having a bad day,--and everybody knew the Black Abbot was the +worst horse in the Hills. + +Wondering about it, the suggestion came that perhaps El Mahdi was a +"genius." Then I pressed the elders for further data on the word, and +studied the horse in the light of what they told me. He fitted snug to +the formula. He neither feared God, nor regarded man, so far as I could +tell. He knew how to do things without learning, and he had no +conscience. The explanation had arrived. El Mahdi was a genius. After +that we got on better; he yielded a sort of constructive obedience, and +I lorded it over him, swaggering like a king's governor. But deep down +in my youthful bosom, I knew that this obedience was only pretended, and +that he obeyed merely because he was indifferent. + +He stood by while I hammered the stirrup, with his iron grey head held +high in the air, looking away over the hickory ridge across the blue +hills, to the dim wavering face of the mountains. He was almost +seventeen hands high, with deep shoulders, and flat legs trim at the +pastern as a woman's ankle, and a coat dark grey, giving one the idea of +good blue steel. He was entirely, I may say he was abominably, +indifferent, except when it came into his broad head to wipe out my +swaggering arrogance, or when he stood as now, staring at the far-off +smoky wall of the Hills, as though he hoped to find there, some day +farther on, a wonderful message awaiting him, or some friend whom he had +lost when he swam Lethe, or some ancient enemy. + +I finished with the stirrup, buckled it back into its leather and +climbed into the saddle. It was one of the bitter things that my young +legs were not long enough to permit me to drive my foot deep into the +wide, wooden stirrup and swing into the saddle as Jud did with the +Cardinal, or as my brother did when the Black Abbot was in a hurry and +he was not. I explained it away, however, by pointing out, like a boy, +not that my legs were short, but that El Mahdi, the False Prophet, was a +very high horse. + +Jud had not dismounted, and Ump was on the Bay Eagle like a squirrel, by +the time I had fairly got into the saddle. Then we started again in a +long, swinging trot, El Mahdi leading, the Cardinal next, and behind him +the Bay Eagle. The road trailed along the high ridge beside the tall +shell-bark hickories, now the granary of the grey squirrel, and the +sumach bushes where the catbirds quarrelled, and the dry old poplars +away in the blue sky, where the woodpecker and the great Indian hen +hammered like carpenters. + +The sun was slipping through his door, and from far below us came a +trail of blue smoke and a smell of wood ashes where some driver's wife +had started a fire, prepared her skillet, and moved out her scrubbed +table,--signs that the supper was on its way, streaked bacon, potatoes, +sliced and yellow, and the blackest coffee in the world. Now and then on +the hillside, in some little clearing, the fodder stood in loose, +bulging shocks bound with green withes, while some old man or half-grown +lad plied his husking-peg in the corn spread out before him, working +with the swiftness and the dexterity of a machine, ripping the husk with +one stroke of the wooden peg bound to his middle finger, and snapping +the ear at its socket, and tossing it into the air, where it gleamed +like a piece of gold. + +Below was the great, blue cattle land, rising in higher and higher hills +to the foot of the mountains. The road swept around the nose of the +ridge and plunged into the woods, winding in and out as it crawled down +into the grass hills. The flat curve at the summit of the ridge was +bare, and, looking down, one could see each twist of the road where it +crept out on the bone of the hill to make its turn back into the woods. + +As I passed over the brow of the ridge, I heard Jud call, and, turning +my head, saw that both he and Ump were on the ground, looking down at +the road below. Jud stood with his broad shoulders bent forward, and Ump +squatted, peering down under the palm of his hand. I rode back just in +time to catch the flash of wheels sweeping into the wood from one of the +bare turns of the road. Yet even in that swift glimpse, I thought I knew +who was below, and so I did not ask, but waited until they should come +into the open space again farther down. I sat with the bridle rein loose +on El Mahdi's neck and my hands resting idly on the horn of the saddle. +I think I must have been smiling, for when Ump looked up at me, his +wizened face was so serious that I burst out into a loud laugh. + +"Well," I said, "it's Cynthia, isn't it? At half a mile she oughtn't to +be so very terrible." And I opened my mouth to laugh again. But that +laugh never came into the world. Just then a big horse with a man's +saddle on him and the reins tied to the horn trotted out into the open, +and behind him Cynthia's bay cob and her high, trim cart, and beside +Cynthia on the seat was a man. + +I saw the red spokes of the wheel, the silver on the harness, the flash +of the grey feather in Cynthia's hat, and even the bit of ribbon +half-way out the long whip-staff. Then they vanished again, while up the +wind came a peal of laughter and the rumble of wheels, and the faint +hammering of horses in the iron road. On the instant, my heart gave a +great thump, and grew very bitter, and my face hardened and clouded. +"Who was it, Jud?" I said. And my jaws felt stiff. "It was surely Miss +Cynthia," he began, "an' it was surely a Woodford cattle-horse." Then he +stopped with his mouth open, and began to rub his chin. I turned to Ump. +"What Woodford?" I asked. + +The hunchback twisted his shaggy head around in his collar like a man +who wishes to have a little more air in his throat. Then he said: "He +was a big, brown horse with a bald face, an' he struck out with his +knees when he trotted. Them's the Woodford horses. The saddle was black +with long skirts, an' it had only one girth. Them's the Woodford +saddles. An' the stirrups was iron, an' there are only one Woodford who +rides with his feet in iron." + +I looked at Jud, searching his face for some trace of doubt on which to +hang a little hoping, but it was all bronze and very greatly troubled. +Then he saw what I wanted, and began to stammer. "May be the horse was +tender, an' that was the reason." But Ump piped in, scattering the +little cloud, "That horse ain't lame. He trots square as a dog." + +Jud looked away and swung up in his saddle. "May be," he stammered, "may +be the horse throwed him, an' that was the reason." Again Ump, the +destroyer of little hopes, answered from the back of the Bay Eagle, "No +horse ever throwed Hawk Rufe." + +I sucked in the air over my bit lips when Ump named him. Rufe Woodford +with Cynthia! I thought for an instant that I should choke. Then I +kicked my heels against El Mahdi and swung him around down-hill. He +galloped from the jump, and behind him thundered the Cardinal, and the +Bay Eagle, with her silk nostrils stretched, jumping long and low like a +great cat. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PETTICOAT AND THE PRETENDER + + +Not least among the things which the devil's imps ought to know from +watching the world is this: that hatred is always big when one is young. +Then, if the heart is bitter, it is bitter through and through. It is +terribly just, and terribly vindictive against the stranger who hurts us +with a cruel word, against our brother when we have misunderstood his +heart, against the traitor who owes us love because we loaned him love. +It is strange, too, how that hatred becomes a great force, pressing out +the empty places of the heart, and making the weak, strong, and the +simple, crafty. + +El Mahdi ran with his jaws set on the bit, jumping high and striking the +earth with his legs half stiff, the meanest of all the mean whims of +this eccentric horse. On the level it was a hard enough gait; and on the +hill road none could have stood the intolerable jamming but one long +schooled in the ugly ways of the False Prophet. Along the skirts of the +saddle, running almost up to the horn, were round, quilted pads of +leather prepared against this dangerous habit. I rode with my knees +doubled and wedged in against the pads, catching the terrible jar where +there was bone and tendon and leather to meet and break it, and from +long custom I rode easily, unconscious of my extraordinary precautions +against the half-bucking jump. + +The fence rushed past. The trees, as they always do, seemed to wait +until we were almost upon them, and then jump by. Still the horse was +not running fast. He wasted the value of his legs by jumping high in the +air like a goat, instead of running with his belly against the earth +like every other sensible horse whose business is to shorten distance. + +He swept around the bare curves with the most reckless, headlong +plunges, and I caught the force of the great swing, now with the right, +and now with the left knee, throwing the whole weight of my body against +the horse's shoulder next to the hill. Once in a while the red nose of +the Cardinal showed by my stirrup and dropped back, but Jud was holding +his horse well and riding with his whole weight in the stirrups and the +strain on the back-webbed girth of his saddle where it ought to be. It +was a dangerous road if the horse fell, only El Mahdi never fell, +although he sometimes blundered like a cow; and the Cardinal never fell +when he ran, and the Bay Eagle, who knew all that a horse ever learned +in the world,--we would as soon have expected to see her fly up in the +air as to fall in the road. + +We were a mile down the long hill, thundering like a drove of mad +steers, when I caught through the tree-tops a glimpse of Cynthia's cart, +and wrenched the bit out of El Mahdi's teeth. He was not inclined to +stop, and plunged, ploughing long furrows in the clay road. But a stiff +steel bit is an unpleasant thing with which to take issue, and he +finally stopped, sliding on his front feet. + +We turned the corner in a slow, deliberate trot, and there, as calmly as +though it were the most natural thing in the world, was Cynthia, sitting +as straight as a sapling on the high seat, with the reins held close in +her left hand, and beside her Woodford, and jogging along before the +cart was the bald-faced cattle-horse. + +A pretty picture in the cool shade of the golden autumn woods. Of +course, Cynthia was the most beautiful woman in the world. My brother +thought so, and that was enough for us. It was true that Ward observed +her from a point of view wonderfully subject to a powerful bias, but +that was no business of ours. Ward said it, and there the matter ended. +If Ward had said that Cynthia was ugly, a trim, splendid figure, brown +hair, and a manner irresistible would not have saved Cynthia from being +eternally ugly so far as we were concerned; and although Cynthia had +lands and Polled-Angus cattle and spent her winters in France, she must +have remained eternally ugly. + +So, when we knew Ward's opinion, from that day Cynthia was moved up to +the head of the line of all the women we had ever heard of, and there +she remained. + +Our opinion of Woodford was equally clear. In every way he was our +rival. His lands joined ours, stretching from the black Stone Coal south +to the Valley River. His renters and drivers were as numerous and as +ugly a set as ours. + +Besides, he was Ward's rival among the powerful men of the Hills, ten +years older, shrewd, clear-headed, and in his business a daring gambler. +Sometimes he would cross the Stone Coal and buy every beef steer in the +Hills, and sometimes Ward bought. It was a stupendous gamble, big with +gain, or big with loss, and at such times the Berrys of Upshur, the +Alkires of Rock Ford, the Arnolds of Lewis, the Coopmans of Lost Creek, +and even the Queens of the great Valley took the wall, leaving the road +to Woodford and my brother Ward. And when they put their forces in the +field and man[oe]uvred in the open, there were mighty times and someone +was terribly hurt. + +I think Woodford lacked the inspiration and something of the swift +judgment of my brother, but he stopped at nothing, and was misled by no +illusions. Woodford and my brother never joined their forces. Ward did +not trust him, and Woodford trusted no man on the face of the earth. +There is an old saying that "the father's rival is the son's enemy"; and +we hated Woodford with the healthy, illimitable hatred of a child. + +I was young, and the arrogance of pride was very great as I pulled up by +the tall cart. I had Cynthia red-handed, and wanted to gloat over the +stammer and the crimson flush of the traitor. I assumed the attitude of +the very terrible. Sharp and jarring and without premonition are the +surprises of youth. This straight young woman turned, for a moment her +grey eyes rested on the False Prophet and me, then a smile travelled +from her red mouth out through the land of dimples, and she laughed like +a blackbird. + +"Of all the funny little boys! Dear me!" And she laughed again. + +I know that the bracing influence of a holy cause has been tremendously +overrated, for under the laugh I felt myself pass into a status of +universal shrinking until I feared that I might entirely disappear, +leaving a wonder about the empty saddle. And the blush and the +stammer,--will men be pleased never to write in books any more, how +these things are marks of the guilty? For here was Cynthia, as composed +as the October afternoon, and here was I stammering and red. + +"Quiller!" she pealed, "what a little savage! Do look!" And she put her +grey glove on her companion's arm. + +Woodford clapped his hand on his knee, and broke out into a jeering +chuckle. "Why!" he said, "it's little Quiller. I thought it must be some +bold, bad robber." + +The jeer of the enemy helped me a little, but not enough. The reply went +in a stammer. "You are all out of breath," said Cynthia; "a hill is no +place to run. The horse might have fallen." + +I gathered my jarred wits and answered. "Our horses don't fall." It was +the justification of the horse first. Woodford stroked his clean-cut +jaw, tanned like leather. "Your brother," he said, "tumbled out of the +saddle some days ago. It is said his horse fell." + +My courage flared. "Do you know how the Black Abbot came to fall?" I +answered. + +"An awkward rider, little Quiller," he said. "Is it a good guess?" + +"You know all about it," I began, breaking out in my childish anger. +"You know how that furrow as long as a man's finger got on the Black +Abbot's right knee. You know--" I stopped suddenly. Cynthia's eyes were +resting on me, and there was something in their grey depths that made me +stop. + +But Woodford went on. "My great aunt," he said, "was thrown day before +yesterday, but she did not take to her bed over it. How is your +brother?" + +"Able to take care of himself," I said. + +"Perhaps," he responded slowly, "to take care of himself." And he +glanced suggestively at Cynthia. + +The innuendo was intolerable. I gaped at the slim, brown-haired girl. +Surely she would resent this. Traitor if she pleased, she was still a +woman. But she only looked up wistfully into Woodford's face and smiled +as artless, winning, merry a smile as ever was born on a woman's mouth. + +In that instant the picture of Ward came up before me. His pale face +with its black hair framed in pillows; his hand, always so suggestive of +unlimited resource, lying on the white coverlid, so helpless that old +Liza moved it in her great black palm as though it were a little +child's; and across on the mantle shelf, where he could see it when his +eyes were open, was that old picture of Cynthia with the funny little +curls. + +I felt a great flood rising up from the springs of life, a hot, +rebellious flood of tears. A moment I held them back at the gateway of +the eyepits, then they gushed through, and I struck the False Prophet +over his iron grey withers, and we passed in a gallop. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PASSING OF AN ILLUSION + + +El Mahdi wanted to run, and I let him go. The swing of the horse and the +rush of fresh, cool air was good. Nothing in all the world could have +helped me so well. The tears were mastered, but I had a sense of +tremendous loss. I had jousted with the first windmill, riding up out of +youth's golden country, and I had lost one of the splendid illusions of +that enchanted land. I was cruelly hurt. How cruelly, any man will know +when he recalls his first jamming against the granite door-posts of the +world. + +Of love and all its mysterious business, I knew nothing. But of good +faith and fair dealing I had a child's conception, the terrible justness +of which is but dimly understood. The new point of view was ugly and +painful. From the time when I toddled about in little dresses and Ward +carried me on his shoulder in among the cattle or hoisted me up on the +broad horn of his saddle, I had looked upon him as a big, considerate +Providence. I did not understand how there could be anything that he +could not do, nor anything in the world worth having at all that he +could not get, if he tried. So when he told me of Cynthia, I considered +that she belonged to us, and passed on to the next matter claiming my +youthful attention. It never occurred to me that Cynthia could be other +than happy to pass under the suzerainty of my big brother. True, I never +thought very much about it, since it was so plainly a glorious +privilege. Still, why had she made her promise, if she could not keep +her shoulder to it like a man? We did not like it when Ward told us. We +did not think much of women, Ump and Jud and I, except old Liza, who was +another of those splendid Providences. Now it was clear that we were +right. + +It all went swimmingly when Ward was by, but no sooner was he stretched +out with a dislocated shoulder from that mysterious blunder of the Black +Abbot, than here was Cynthia trailing over the country with Hawk Rufe. + +I stopped at the old Alestock mill where Ben's Run goes trickling into +the Stone Coal, climbed down from El Mahdi and washed my face in the +water, and then passed the rein under my arm and sat down in the road to +await the arrival of my companions. The echo of the horses' feet was +already coming, carried downward across the pasture land, and soon the +head of the Cardinal arose above the little hill behind me, and then the +Bay Eagle, and in a moment more Ump and Jud were sitting with me in the +road. + +We usually dismounted and sat on the earth when we had grave matters to +consider. It was an unconscious custom like that which takes the wise +man into the mountains and the lover under the moon. I think the Arab +Sheik long and long ago learned this custom as we had learned +it,--perhaps from a dim conception of some aid to be had from the great +earth when one's heart is very deeply troubled. + +I knew well enough that my companions had not passed Woodford without +running the gauntlet of some interrogation, and I waited to hear what +they had to say. I think it was Jud who spoke first, and his face was +full of shadows. "I wouldn't never a believed it of Miss Cynthia," he +began, "I wouldn't never a believed it." + +"Don't talk about her," I broke in angrily. "What did Hawk Rufe say?" + +Jud studied for a moment as though he were slowly arranging the proper +sequence of some distant memory. Then he went on. "He wanted to know +where I got that big red horse, an' if Mr. Ward's men ever walked any, +an' he--" The man's open mouth closed on the broken sentence, and Ump +answered for him, sitting under the Bay Eagle with his arm around her +slim front leg. "An' he wanted to know what we did with little Quiller +when he cried." + +I thought I should die of the intolerable shame. I had cried--blubbered +away as though I were a red-cheeked little girl in a clean calico +petticoat. + +After the dead line which Ump had crossed for him with the brutal +frankness that went along with his dwarfed body, Jud continued with his +report. "He asked me where we was goin', an' I told him we was goin' +home. He asked me if we had had any word from Mr. Ward to-day, an' I +told him we hadn't had any. Then he said we had better take the Hacker's +Creek road because the Gauley was up from the mountain rains, an' +runnin' logs, an' if we got in there in the night we would git you +killed." + +"An'," interrupted Ump, turning round under the Bay Eagle, "an' then +Miss Cynthia looked up sharp at him like a catbird, an' she laughed, an' +she said how that advice wasn't needed, because little boys always went +home by the safest road." + +The taunt sank in as oil sinks into a cloth. I may have blushed and +stammered, and I may have blubbered like a milksop, but it was not +because I was afraid. I would show Woodford and I would show this fickle +Miss Gadabout that I did not need any advice about roads. If my life had +been then in jeopardy, I would not have taken it burdened with a +finger's weight of obligation to Rufus Woodford or Cynthia Carper. It +might have gone out over the sill of the world, for good and all. + +I arose and put the bridle rein over El Mahdi's head while I stood, my +right hand reaching up on his high withers. Jud and Ump got into their +saddles and turned down toward the ford of the Stone Coal on the +Hacker's Creek road, which Woodford had suggested. But under the coat my +heart was stewing, and I would not have gone that way if the devil and +his imps had been riding the other. I climbed into the saddle and +shouted down to them. They turned back at the water of the ford. "Where +are you going?" I called. + +"Home. Where else?" replied the dwarfed Ump. + +"It's a nice roundabout way you're taking," I said. "The Overfield road +is three miles shorter." + +"But the Gauley's boomin'," answered Jud; "Woodford said not to go that +way." + +"It's the first time," I shouted, "that any of our people ever took +directions from Hawk Rufe. As for me, I'm going by the Gauley." And I +turned El Mahdi into the wooded road on the left of the turnpike. + +For a moment the two hesitated, discussing something which I could not +hear. Then they rode up out of the Stone Coal and came clattering after +me. + +It is wonderful how swiftly the night comes in among the boles of the +great oak trees. The dark seems to rise upward from the earth. The +sounds of men and beasts carry over long distance, drifting in among the +trees, and the loneliness of the vast, empty earth comes back to +us,--what is forgotten in the rush of the sunshine,--the constant loom +of the mystery. One understands then why the early men feared the plains +when it was dark, and huddled themselves together in the hills. Who +could say what ugly, dwarfish things, what evil fairies, what dangerous +dead men might climb up over the rim of the world? A man was not afraid +of the grey wolf, or even the huge beast that trumpeted in the morass by +the great water when the light was at his back, but when the world was +darkened old men had seen strange shapes running by the wolf's muzzle, +or groping with the big mastodon in the marsh land, and against these a +stone axe was a little weapon. + +Of all animals, man alone has this fear of the dark. Neither the horse +nor the steer is afraid of shadows, and from these, as he travels +through the night, a man may feed the springs of his courage. I have +been scared when I was little, stricken with panic when night caught me +on the hills, and have gone down among the cattle and stood by their +great shoulders until I felt the fear run off me like water, and have +straightway marched out as brave as any trooper of an empress. And from +those earliest days when I rode, with the stirrups crossed on my +brother's saddle, after some kind old straying ox, I was always +satisfied to go where the horse would go. He could see better than I, +and he could hear better, and if he tramped peacefully, the land was +certainly clear of any evil thing. + +We crossed the long wooded hill clattering like a troop of the queen's +cavalry, and turned down toward the great level bow which the road makes +before it crosses the Gauley. There was a dim light rising beyond the +flat lands where the crooked elves toiled with their backs against the +golden moon. But they were under the world yet, with only the yellow +haze shining through the door. This was the acre of ghosts. Tale after +tale I had heard, sitting on the knee of the old grey negro Clabe, about +the horrors of this haunted "bend" in the Gauley. There, when I was a +child, had lived old Bodkin in a stone house, now a ruin, by the +river,--a crooked, mean old devil with a great hump, and eyes like a +toad. He came to own the land through some suspicious will about which +there clung the atmosphere of crime, as men said. When I saw him first, +I was riding behind my brother, and he stopped us and tried to induce +Ward to buy his land. He was mounted on a red roan horse, and looked +like an old knotty spider. + +I can still remember how frightened I was, and how I hid my face against +my brother's coat and hugged him until my arms ached. When Ward inquired +why he wished to sell, he laughed in a sort of cackle, and replied that +he was going to marry a wife and go to the moon. + +Now, tradition told that he had married many a wife, but that they died +quickly in the poisoned chamber of this spider. Ward looked the +bridegroom over from his twisted feet to his hump, and there must have +been some merry shadow in his face, for Bodkin leaned over the horn of +his saddle and stretched out his hand, a putty-coloured hand, with long, +bony fingers. "Do you see that?" he croaked. "If I ever get that hand on +a woman, she's mine." + +Then I began to cry, and Ward wished the old man a happy voyage to the +cloud island, and we rode on. + +He did marry a wife, and one morning, but little afterwards, two of my +brother's drivers found her hanging to the limb of a dead apple tree +with a bridle rein knotted to her neck, and her bare feet touching the +tops of the timothy grass. When they came to look for Bodkin, he had +disappeared with his red roan horse. Ward explained that he had ridden +through the gap of the mountains into the South, but I thought, with the +negroes, that someone ought to have seen him if he had gone that way; +besides, I had heard him say that he was going to the moon. Later, old +Bart and Levi Dillworth, returning from some frolic, had seen Bodkin +riding his horse in a terrible gallop, with the dead woman across the +horn of his saddle, on his way to the moon. + +It was true that both Bart and Levi were long in the bow arm, and men +who loved truth less than they loved laurels. Still the tale had +splendid conditions precedent, and old Clabe arose to its support with +many an eloquent wag of his head. + +I was running through this very ghost story when El Mahdi stopped in the +road and pricked up his ears. At the same moment Jud and Ump pulled up +beside me. Perhaps their minds were in the same channel. We listened for +full a minute. Far down in the marsh land I could hear the frogs +chanting their mighty chorus to the stars, and the little screech-owl +whining from some tree-top far up against the hill. I was about to ride +on when Jud caught at the rein and put up his hand. Then I heard the +sound that the horse was listening to, but at the great distance it was +only a sound, a faint, wavering, indefinite echo, coming up from the +far-away bend of the Gauley. The rim of the moon was rising now out of +the under world, and I watched the road trailing away into a deep shadow +by the river. As I watched, I saw something rise out of this gloom and +sweep down the dim road. It passed for a moment through a belt of +moonlight, and I saw that it was a horse ridden by a shadow. + +Then we clearly heard long, heavy galloping. Jud dropped my rein and +wrenched the Cardinal around on his haunches. He was not afraid of the +living, but he was afraid of the dead. As the horse reared, Ump caught +the bit under his jaw and, throwing the Bay Eagle against him, wedged +the horse and Jud in between El Mahdi and himself. Ump was neither +afraid of the living nor the dead. He called to me, and I seized the +Cardinal's bit on my side, gripping the iron shank with my fingers +through the rein rings. + +Panic was on the giant Jud, and he lifted the horse into the air, +dragging Ump and myself half out of our saddles. Men in their hopeless +egotism have far underestimated the good sense of the horse. The +Cardinal was in no wise frightened. At once, it seemed to me, he +recognised the irresponsibility of his rider. In some moment of the +struggle the bit slipped forward, and the horse clamped his powerful +jaws on it and set the great muscles in his neck to help us hold. + +The horses rocked and plunged, but we held them together. The Bay Eagle, +quick-witted as any woman, crowded the Cardinal close, throwing her +weight against his shoulders, and El Mahdi, indifferent, but stubborn as +an ox, held his ground as though he were bolted to the road. + +I heard Ump cursing, now Jud for his cowardice, now the ghost for its +infernal riding. "Damn you, fool! Stay an' see it. Stay an' see it." And +then, "Damn Bodkin an' his dead wife! If he rides this way, he stops +here or he goes under to hell." + +As for me, I was afraid. Only the swing and jamming of the struggle held +me. The gallop of the advancing horse was now loud, clear, hammering +like an anvil. It passed for a moment out of sight in a hollow of the +road below. In the next instant it would be on us. The giant Jud made +one last mighty effort. The Cardinal went straight into the air. I clung +to the bit, dragged up out of the saddle. I felt my foot against the +pommel, my knee against the steel shoulder of the great horse, my face +under the Cardinal's wide red throat. + +I heard the reins snap on both sides of the bit--pulled in two. And then +the loud, harsh laugh of the man Ump. + +"Hell! It's Jourdan an' Red Mike." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CONCERNING HAWK RUFE + + +Old wise men in esoteric idiom, unintelligible to the vulgar, have +endeavoured to write down in books how the human mind works in its +house,--and I believe they have not succeeded very well. They have +broken into this house when it was empty, and laboured to decipher the +mystic hieroglyphics written on its walls, and learn to what uses the +departed craftsman put the strange, delicate implements which they found +fastened so primly in their places. + +They have got at but little, as I have heard them say, deploring the +brevity of life, and the tremendous magnitude of the labour. The +learned, as one put it, had barely time to explain to his successor that +he had found the problem unsolvable. I think they might as well have +gone about tracking the rainbow, for all they have learned of this +mysterious business. + +In fewer moments than a singing maid takes to double back on her chorus, +I had forgotten all about the ghost. I was sitting idly in the saddle +now with the rein over my wrist. Jourdan's message from my brother had +given enough to think of. I knew that Ward in the preceding autumn had +bought the cattle of two great graziers south of the Valley River, to be +taken up during the October month, but I did not know that on a summer +afternoon he had sold these cattle to Woodford, binding himself to +deliver them within three days after they were demanded. + +The trade was fair enough when the two had made it. But now the price of +beef cattle was off almost thirty dollars a bullock, and Woodford was in +a position to lose more money than his bald-faced cattle-horse could +carry in a sack. He had waited all along hoping for the tide to turn. +Suddenly, to-day he had demanded his cattle. + +To-day, when Ward was on his back and the cattle far to the south across +the Valley River. It was the contract, and he had the right to do it, +but it was like Woodford. Ward, helpless in his bed, had sent Jourdan on +Red Mike to find us somewhere over the Gauley and bid us bring up the +cattle if we could. And so the old man had ridden as though the devil +were after him. + +The proportions of Woodford's plan outlined slowly, and with it came a +sense of tremendous responsibility. If we carried out the contract to +the letter,--and to the letter it must be with this man,--I knew that +Woodford would meet the loss, if it stripped the coat off of his +shoulders,--meet it with a smile and some swaggering comment. And I knew +as well that, if by any hook or crook he could prevent the contract from +being carried out, he would do it with the devil's cleverness. + +Only, I knew that the hand of Woodford would never rise against us in +the open. We might be balked by sudden providences of God, planned +shrewdly like those which a great churchman ruling France sometimes +called to his elbow. + +For such gentle business, not old Richelieu was better fitted with a set +of arrant scoundrels. There was the cunning right hand of Hawk Rufe, the +slick, villainous intriguer, Lem Marks. No diplomatic imp, serving his +master in the kingdoms of the world, moved with more unscrupulous +smoothness. There was Malan with his clubfoot, owned by the devil, the +drovers said, and leased to Woodford for a lifetime. And there was +Parson Peppers, singing the hymns of the Lord up the Stone Coal and down +the Stone Coal. As stout a bunch of rogues as ever went trooping to the +eternal bonfire, handy gentlemen to his worship Woodford. + +It was preposterous overmatching for a child. Hawk Rufe had laughed well +when I had heard him laughing last. If Ward were only back in the saddle +of the Black Abbot! But he was stretched out over yonder with the night +shining through his window, and there was on the turning world no one +but me to strip to this duel. + +Still, I had better horses, and perhaps better men than Woodford. Jud +was one of the strongest men in the Hills, afraid of the dead, as I have +written, but not afraid of any living thing on the face of the earth. +They knew this over the Stone Coal; the club-footed giant Malan had a +lot of scars under his shirt that were not born on him. And there was +Ump, a crooked thing of a man truly, but a crooked thing of a man that +would hobnob with the king of all the fiends, banter for banter, and in +whose breast cowardice was as dead as Judas. + +I looked down at the humble giant, shamefaced in the moonlight, tying +his broken bridle reins back in their rings, and drawing the knots tight +with his bronzed fingers that looked like the coupling-pins of a +cart,--and then at the hunchback doubled up in his saddle. Maybe,--and +my blood began to rise with it,--maybe when we looked close, the odds +were not so terrible after all. Here was bone and sinew tougher than +Malan's, and such cunning as might cry Marks a merrier run than he had +gone for many a day. + +Then, as by some sharp turn, I caught a new light on the two hours +already gone. Man alive! We had been in the game for all of those two +blessed hours with our eyes sealed up tight as the lid of a jar. + +"How high was the Gauley?" I almost shouted, pointing my finger at Red +Mike. + +"'Mid sides," answered Jourdan, turning around in his saddle. + +"'Mid sides!" I echoed; "and the logs? Was it running logs?" + +"Nothin' but brush an' a few old rails. You can see the water mark on +Red Mike right here at the bottom of the saddle skirt." And the old man +reached down and put his finger on the smoking horse. "The Gauley ain't +up to stop nothin'." + +I clapped my teeth together. So much for the solicitous care of Hawk +Rufe. If we had gone by the Hacker's Creek road we should have missed +Jourdan and lost the good half of a day. Woodford knew that Ward would +send by the shortest road. It was the first gleam of the wolf tooth +shining for a moment behind the woolly face of the sheepskin. + +I looked down at Ump. The hunchback put his elbow on the horn of his +saddle and rested his jaw in the hollow of his hand. + +"Old Granny Lanum," he said, "her that's buried back on the Dolan Knob, +used to say that God saw for the little pup when it was blind, but after +that it was the little pup's business. An' I reckon she knowed what she +said." + +Wiser heads than mine have pondered that problem since the world began +its swinging,--but with greater elegance, but scarcely more clearly than +Ump had put it. Old Liza used to tell me when I was very little that if +I fought with those who were smaller than myself, I was fighting the +wards of the Father in heaven, and it was a lot better to get a broken +head from some sturdy urchin who was big enough to look out for himself. +And I have always thought that old Liza was about as close to the Ruler +of Events as any one of us is likely to get. Anyway I doubted not that +if the good God rode in the Hills, He was far from stirrup by stirrup +with Woodford. + +Red Mike was beginning to shiver in his wet coat, and Jourdan gathered +up his reins. + +"Mr. Ward," he said, "told me to tell you to stay with old Simon Betts +to-night, an' git an early start in the mornin'." Then he rode away, and +we watched him disappear in the hollow out of which he had come carrying +so much terror. + +We were a sobered three as we turned back into the woods. Ghosts and all +the rumours of ghosts had fled to the chimney corners. No witch rode and +there walked no spirit from among the dead. Above us the oaks knitted +their fantastic tops, but it made no fairy arch for the dancing minions +of Queen Mab. The thicket sang, but with the living voices of the good +crickets, and the owl yelled again, diving across the road, but his +piping notes had lost their eerie treble. + +There is something in the creak of saddle-leather that has a way of +putting heart in a man. To hear the hogskin rubbing its yellow elbows is +a good sound. It means action. It means being on the way. It means that +all the idle talking, planning, doubting is over and done with. Sir +Hubert has cut it short with an oath and a blow of his clenched hand +that made the glasses rattle, and every swaggering cutthroat has his +foot in the stirrup. + +It is good, too, when one feels the horse holding his bit as a man might +hold a child by the fingers. No slave this, but a giant ally, leading +the way up into the enemy's country. Out of the road, weakling! + +We travelled slowly back toward the Stone Coal. Far away a candle in +some driver's window twinkled for a moment and was shut out by the +trees. In the low land a fog was rising, a climbing veil of grey, that +seemed to feel its path along the sloping hillside. + +I heard the boom of the Stone Coal tumbling over the welts in its +bedding as we turned down toward the old Alestock mill. The clouds had +packed together in the sky, and the moon dipped in and out like a +bobbin. As we swept into the turnpike by the long ford, Ump stopped, +and, tossing his rein to Jud, slipped down into the road. El Mahdi +stopped by the Cardinal. When I looked, the hunchback was on his knees. + +"What are you doing?" I said. + +Ump laughed. "I'm lookin' for hawks' feathers. Where they fly thick, +there ought to be feathers." + +He nosed around on the road for some minutes like a dog, and then +disappeared over the bank into the willow bushes. The Stone Coal lay +like a sheet of silver, broken into long hissing ridges, where it went +driving over the ragged strata. On the other side, the Hacker's Creek +road lifted out of the ford and went trailing away through the hills. In +the moonlight it was a giant's ribbon. + +I had no idea of what Ump was up to, but I should learn no earlier by a +volley of questions. So I thrust my hands into my pockets and waited. + +Presently he came clambering up the bank and got into his saddle. + +"Well," I said; "did you find any feathers?" + +"I did," he answered; "fresh ones from the meanest bird of the flock, +an' he's flyin' low. I think that first turn into the Stone Coal fooled +him. But he will know better by midnight." + +Then I understood it was horse tracks he had been looking for. + +"How do you know he's trailing us?" I asked. + +"Quiller," he answered, "when Come-an'-go-fetch-it rides up an' down, +he's lookin' for somethin'. An' I reckon we're are about ready to be +looked for." + +We were clattering up the turnpike while Ump was speaking. All at once, +rising out of the far away hills, I heard a voice begin to bellow: + + "They put John on the island. Fare ye well, fare ye well. + An' they put him there to starve him. Fare ye well, fare ye well." + +It was Parson Peppers, and of his reverence be it said that no Brother +of the Coast, rollicking drunk on a dead man's chest, ever owned a finer +bellow. + +I turned around in my saddle. "Peppers!" I cried. "Man alive! How did +you know that it was the old bell-wether's horse?" + +Ump chuckled. "I saw her shod once. A number six shoe an' a toe-piece." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WAGGON-MAKER + + +A spring of eternal youthfulness gushing somewhere under the bed of the +mountains, was a dream of the Spanish Main, sought long and found not, +as the legends run. But it is no dream that some of us carry our +inheritance of youthfulness shoulder to shoulder with Eld into No Man's +Country. Such an one was Simon Betts the waggon-maker. + +I sat by his smouldering fire of shavings and hickory splinters, and +wondered at the old man in the chimney corner. He was eighty, and yet +his back was straight, his hair was scarcely grey, and his hands, +resting on the arms of his huge wooden chair, were as unshrunken and +powerful, it seemed to me, as the hands of any man of middle life. + +Eighty! It was a tremendous hark back to that summer, long and long ago, +when Simon came through the gap of the mountains into the Hills. The +land was full of wonders then. The people of the copper faces prowled +with the wolf and whooped along the Gauley. The Dwarfs lurked in the +out-of-the-way corners of the mountains, trooping down in crooked droves +to burn and kill for the very joy of doing evil. And who could say what +unearthly thing went by when the wind shouted along the ridges? The folk +then were but few in the Hills, and each busy with keeping the life in +him. The land was good, broad waters and rich hill-tops, where the +blue-grass grew though no man sowed it. A land made ready for a great +people when it should come. With Simon came others from the south +country, who felled the forest and let in the sunlight, and made wide +pastures for the bullock, and so elbowed out the wandering and the evil. + +High against the chimney, on two dogwood forks, rested the long rifle +with its fishtail sight and the brass plate on the stock for the bullets +and the "patching." Below it hung the old powder-horn, its wooden plug +dangling from a string,--tools of the long ago. Closing one's eyes one +could see the tall grandsires fighting in the beech forest, a brown +patch of hide sighted over the brass knife-blade bead, and death, and to +load again with the flat neck of the bullet set in the palm of the hand +and covered with powder. + +That yesterday was gone, but old Simon was doing with to-day. On two +benches was a cart wheel, with its hickory spokes radiating like fingers +from the locust hub, and on the floor were the mallet and the steel +chisel with its tough oak handle. Stacked up in the corner were bundles +of straight hickory, split from the butt of the great shell-bark log; +round cuts of dry locust, and long timbers of white and red oak, and +quarters of the tough sugars, seasoning, hard as iron. With these were +the axe, the wedge, the dogwood gluts, and the mauls made with no little +labour from the curled knots of the chestnut oak, and hooped with an +iron tire-piece. + +It was said on the country side that old Simon knew lost secrets of +woodcraft taught by the early man;--in what moon to fell the shingle +timber that it might not curl on the roof; on what face of the hill the +sassafras root was red; how to know the toughest hickory by hammering on +its trunk; when twigs cut from the forest would grow, if thrust in the +earth; and that secret day of all the year when an axe, stuck into the +bark of a tree, would deaden it to the root. + +Simon Betts was not a man of many words. He smoked in the corner, +stopping now and then to knock the ashes from his pipe, or to put some +brief query. Jud and Ump had come in from the old man's log stable, +throwing their saddles down by the door and spreading the bridles out on +the hearth so that the iron bits would be warm in the morning. + +"How will the day be to-morrow?" I asked of the waggon-maker. + +"Dry," he responded; "great rains in the mountains, but none here for a +week; then storms." + +"Isn't it early for the storms?" + +"Yes," he answered; "but the wild geese have gone over, and the storms +follow." + +Then he asked me where we were riding, and I explained that we were +going to bring up Ward's cattle from beyond the Valley River. He said +that we would find dry roads but high rivers. The gates of the mountains +would be gushing with rains. The old man studied the fire. + +Presently he said, "Mr. Ward is a good man. I have seen him buy a poor +scoundrel's heifers and wink his eye when the scoundrel salted them the +night before they were weighed, and then drove them to the scales in the +morning around by the water trough." + +I laughed. This was a trick originated long ago by one Columbus, an old +grazing thief of the Rock Ford country, who went ever afterward by the +name of "Water Lum." It was a terrible breach of the cattle code. + +Again the old man relapsed into silence. His eyes ran over the shoulders +of the big Jud who squatted by the fire, sewing his broken bridle reins +with a shoemaker's wax-end. + +"Are you the strong man?" he said. + +The giant chuckled and grinned and drew out the end of his thread. + +"Well," continued the waggon-maker, "Mr. Ward spoiled a mighty good +blacksmith when he put you on a horse." Then he turned to me. "Is he the +one that throwed Woodford's club-footed nigger in the wrastle at Roy's +tavern?" + +"Yes," I said, "but one time it was a dog-fall, and Lem Marks says that +Malan slipped the other time." + +"But he didn't slip," put in Jud. "He tried to lift me, an' I +knee-locked him. Then I could a throwed him if he'd been as big as a +Polled-Angus heifer." + +"Was you wrastling back-holts or breeches-holts?" asked old Simon, +getting up from his chair. + +"Back-holts," replied Jud. + +The waggon-maker nodded his head. Doubtless in the early time he had +occasion to learn the respective virtues of these two celebrated +methods. + +"That's best if your back's best," he said; "but I reckon you ain't +willing to let it go with a dog-fall. You might get another chance at +him to-morrow. I saw him go up the road about noon." + +Behind the old man Ump held up two fingers and made a sweeping gesture. +The waggon-maker went back to the corner of his house for some bedding. +Ump leaned over. "Two flyin'," he said. "One went east, an' one went +west, an' one went over the cuckoo's nest. If I knowed where that +cuckoo's nest was, we'd have the last one spotted." + +"What do you think they're up to?" said I. + +Ump laughed. "Oh ho, I think they're out lookin' for the babes in the +woods!" And the fancy pleased him so well that he rubbed his hands and +chuckled in his crooked throat until old Simon returned. + +It was late, and the waggon-maker began his preparations for the night. +He gave me a home-made mattress of corn husks and a hand-made quilt, +heavy and warm as a fur robe. From a high swinging shelf he got two +heifer hides, tanned with the hair on them, soft as cloth. In these Jud +and Ump rolled themselves and, putting the saddles under their heads, +were presently sleeping like the illustrious Seven. The old man fastened +his door with a wooden bar, took off his shoes, and sat down by the +fire. + +I went to sleep with the picture fading into my dream,--the smoked +rafters, the red wampus of the old waggon-maker, and the burning +splinters crumbling into a heap of rosy ash. A moment later, as things +come and go in the land of Nod, Cynthia and Hawk Rufe were also sitting +by this fire. Cynthia held the old picture with the funny curls,--the +one that stands on the mantel shelf at home,--and she was trying to rub +out the curls with her thumb, moistening it in her red mouth. But +somehow they would not rub out, and she showed the picture to Woodford, +who began to count on his outspread fingers, "Eaney, meany, miny mo." +Only the words were names somehow, although they sounded like these +words. + +Then the dream changed, and I was on El Mahdi in a press of fighting +cattle, driven round and round by black Malan and Parson Peppers +bellowing like the very devil. + +When I awoke the fire was blazing and the grey light of the earliest +dawn was creeping in through the chinks of the log wall. Ump and Jud had +gone to the stable and the old waggon-maker was busy with the breakfast. +On the hearth a mighty cake of corn-meal was baking itself brown; +potatoes roasted in the ashes, and on a little griddle about as big as a +man's hat a great cut of half-dried beef was broiling. + +Famous chefs have spent a lifetime fitting beef for the royal table, and +a king of France slighted the business of an empire for the acquirement +of this art, and a king of England knighted a roast; but they all died +and were buried without tasting beef as it ought to go into a man's +mouth. I write it first. A Polled-Angus heifer, fed and watered and +cared for like a child, should be killed suddenly without fright, and +butchered properly; let the choice pieces hang from a rafter by green +withes and be smoked with hickory logs until the fibres begin to dry in +them, then cut down and broil. + +I arose and went out of doors to wash the night off. Between the house +and the log stable, under a giant sugar tree a spring of water bubbled +out through the limestone stratum, ran laughing down a long sapling +spout, and splashed into a huge old moss-covered trough. + +With such food and such water, and the air of the Hills, is it any +wonder that Simon Betts was a man at eighty? Hark ye! my masters of the +great burgs, drinking poison in your smoky holes. + +I plunged my head into the water, and my arms up to the elbows, then +came out dripping and wiped it off on a homespun linen towel which the +old man had given me when I left the house. As I stood rubbing my arms +on the good linen, Ump and Jud came down from the stable and stopped to +dip a drink in the long gourd that hung by the spring. They were about +to pass on, when Ump suddenly stopped and pointed out a man's footprints +leading from the stable path over the wet sod to the road. There were +only one or two of these prints in the damp places below the spring, but +they were fresh, and made by a foot smaller far than the wide one of old +Simon Betts. + +We followed Ump to the road. A horse had been hitched to the "rider" of +the rail fence, and there were his tracks stamped in the hard clay. +There was not light enough to see very clearly, so we struck matches and +got down on the bank to study the details of the tracks. I saw that the +horse had been one of medium size,--a saddle horse, shod with a "store" +shoe, remodelled by some smith. But this knowledge gave no especial +light. + +Ump and Jud lay on their bellies with their noses to the earth searching +the shoe marks. "It's no use," I said, "we can't tell." And I sat up. +The two neither answered nor paid the slightest attention. No +bacteriologist plodding in his eccentric orbit ever studied the outlines +of a new-found germ with deeper or more painstaking care. Presently they +began to compare their discoveries. + +"He was a Hambletonian," began Jud; "don't you see how long the shoe is +from the toe to the cork?" Ump nodded. "An' he was curbed," Jud went on; +"his feet set too close under him fer a straight-legged horse. Still, +that ain't enough." + +"Put this to it," said the hunchback, "an' you've got your hand on him. +Them's store nails hammered into a store shoe, an' the corks are beat +squat. That's Stone's shoein'. Now you know him." + +Then I knew him too. Lem Marks rode a curbed Hambletonian, and Stone was +Woodford's blacksmith. + +Jud got up and waved his great hand towards the south country. + +"They're all ridin'," he said, "every mother's son of the gang. An' they +know where we are." + +"With rings on their fingers, an' bells on their toes," gabbled Ump; +"an' we know where they are." + +Then I heard the voice of the old waggon-maker calling us to breakfast. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE MAID AND THE INTRUDERS + + +There are mornings that cling in the memory like a face caught for a +moment in some crowded street and lost; mornings when no cloud curtains +the doorway of the sun; when the snaffle-chains rattle sharp in the +crisp air and the timber cracks in the frost. They are good to remember +when the wrist has lost its power and the bridle-fingers stiffen, and +they are clear with a mystic clearness, the elders say, when one is +passing to the ghosts. + +It was such a morning when I stood in the doorway of the old +waggon-maker's house. The light was driving the white fogs into the +north. A cool, sweet air came down from the wooded hill, laden with the +smell of the beech leaves, and the little people of the bushes were +beginning to tumble out of their beds. + +We asked old Simon if he had heard a horse in the night, and he replied +that he had heard one stop for a few moments a little before dawn and +presently pass on up the road in a trot. Doubtless, he insisted, the +rider had dismounted for a drink of his celebrated spring water. We kept +our own counsels. If the henchmen of Woodford hunted water in the early +morning, it would be, in the opinion of Ump, "when the cows come home." + +We went over every inch of the horses from their hocks to their silk +noses, and every stitch of our riding gear, to be sure that no deviltry +had been done. But we found nothing. Evidently Marks was merely spying +out the land. Then we led the horses out for the journey. El Mahdi had +to duck his head to get under the low doorway. It was good to see him +sniff the cool air, his coat shining like a maid's ribbons, and then +rise on his hind legs and strike out at nothing for the sheer pleasure +of being alive on this October day. And it was good to see him plunge +his head up to the eyepits into the sparkling water and gulp it down, +and then blow the clinging drops out of his nostrils. + +El Mahdi, if beyond the stars somewhere in those other Hills of the +Undying I am not to find you, I shall not care so very greatly if the +last sleep be as dreamless as the wise have sometimes said it is. + +I spread the thick saddle-blanket and pulled it out until it touched his +grey withers, and taking the saddle by the horn swung it up on his back, +straightened the skirts and drew the two girths tight, one of leather +and one of hemp web. Then I climbed into the saddle, and we rode out +under the apple trees. + +Simon Betts stood in his door as we went by, and called us a "God +speed." Straight, honourable old man. He was a lantern in the Hills. He +was good to me when I was little, and he was good to Ward. In the place +where he is gone, may the Lord be good to him! + +We stopped to open the old gate, an ancient landmark of the early time, +made of locust poles, and swinging to a long beam that rested on a huge +post in perfect balance. Easily pushed open, it closed of its own +weight. A gate of striking artistic fitness, now long crumbled with the +wooden plough and the quaint pack-saddles of the tall grandsires. + +We rode south in the early daylight. Jud whistled some old song the +words of which told about a jolly friar who could not eat the fattest +meat because his stomach was not first class, but believed he could +drink with any man in the Middle Ages,--a song doubtless learned at +Roy's tavern when the Queens and the Alkires and the Coopmans of the +up-country got too much "spiked" cider under their waistbands. I heard +it first, and others of its kidney, on the evening that old Hiram Arnold +bet his saddle against a twenty-dollar gold piece, that he could divide +ninety cattle so evenly that there would not be fifty pounds difference +in weight between the two droves, and did it, and with the money bought +the tavern dry. And the crowd toasted him: + + "Here's to those who have half joes, and have a heart to spend 'em; + But damn those who have whole joes, and have no heart to spend 'em." + +On that night, in my youthful eyes, old Hiram was a hero out of the +immortal _Iliad_. + +We passed few persons on that golden morning. I remember a renter riding +his plough horse in its ploughing gears; great wooden hames, broad +breeching, and rusty trace chains rattling and clanking with every +stride of the heavy horse; the renter in his patched and mud-smeared +clothes,--work-harness too. A genius might have painted him and gotten +into his picture the full measure of relentless destiny and the +abominable indifference of nature. + +Still it was not the man, but the horse, that suggested the tremendous +question. One felt that somehow the man could change his station if he +tried, but the horse was a servant of servants, under man and under +nature. The broad, kindly, obedient face! It was enough to break a +body's heart to sit still and look down into it. No trace of doubt or +rebellion or complaint, only an appealing meekness as of one who tries +to do as well as he can understand. Great simple-hearted slave! How will +you answer when your master is judged by the King of Kings? How will he +explain away his brutality to you when at last One shall say to him, +"Why are these marks on the body of my servant?" + +The Good Book tells us on many a page how, when we meet him, we shall +know the righteous, but nowhere does it tell more clearly than where it +says, he is merciful to his beast. In the Hills there was no surer way +to find trouble than to strike the horse of the cattle-drover. I have +seen an indolent blacksmith booted across his shop because he kicked a +horse on the leg to make him hold his foot up. And I have seen a lout's +head broken because the master caught him swearing at a horse. + +As we rode, the day opened, and leaf and grass blade glistened with the +melting frost. The partridge called to his mate across the fields. The +ground squirrel, in his striped coat, hurried along the rail fence, +bobbing in and out as though he were terribly late for some important +engagement. The blackbirds in great flocks swung about above the corn +fields, man[oe]uvring like an army, and now and then a crow shouted in +his pirate tongue as he steered westward to a higher hill-top. + +All the people of the earth were about their business on this October +morning. Sometimes an urchin passed us on his way to the grist mill, +astride a bag of corn, riding some ancient patriarchal horse which, out +of a wisdom of years, refused to mend his gait for all the kicking of +the urchin's naked heels. And we hailed him for a cavalier. + +Sometimes a pair of oxen, one red, one white, clanked by, dragging, +hooked in the yoke-ring, a log chain that made a jerky trail in the +road, like the track of a broken-backed snake, and we spoke to the +driver, inquiring which one was the saddle horse, and if the team worked +single of a Sunday. And he answered with some laughing jeer that set us +shaking in our saddles. + +We had passed the flat lands, and were half way up Thornberg's Hill, a +long gentle slope, covered with vines and underbrush and second-growth +poplar saplings, when I heard a voice break out in a merry carol,--a +voice free, careless, bubbling with the joy of golden youth, that went +laughing down the hillside like the voice of the happiest bird that was +ever born. It rang and echoed in the vibrant morning, and we laughed +aloud as we caught the words of it: + + "Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? + Can she bake a cherry pie, charming Billy? + She can bake a cherry pie quick as a cat can wink its eye, + She's a young thing and can't leave her mother." + +It required splendid audacity to fling such rippling nonsense at the +feathered choirs in the sassafras thickets, but they were all listening +with the decorous attitude of a conventional audience. I marked one +dapper catbird, perched on a poplar limb, who cocked his head and heard +the singer through, and then made that almost imperceptible gesture with +which a great critic indicates his approval of a novice. "Not half bad," +he seemed to say,--this blase old habitue of the thicket music-halls. "I +shouldn't wonder if something could be made of that voice if it were +trained a trifle." + +We broke into a trot and, rounding a corner of the wood, came upon the +singer. She was a stripling of a girl in a butternut frock, standing +bolt upright on a woman's saddle, tugging away at a tangle of vines, her +mouth stained purple with the big fox-grapes, her round white arms bare +to the elbows, and a pink calico sun-bonnet dangling on her shoulders, +held only by the broad strings around her throat. + +The horse under her was smoking wet to the fetlocks. This piping miss +had been stretching his legs for him. It was Patsy, a madcap protegee of +Cynthia Carper, the biggest tomboy that ever climbed a tree or ran a +saddle-horse into "kingdom come." She slipped down into the saddle when +she saw us, and flung her grapes away into the thicket. We stopped in +the turnpike opposite to the cross road in which her horse was standing +and hailed her with a laugh. + +She looked us over with the dimples changing around her funny mouth. +"You are a mean lot," she said, "to be laughing at a lady." + +"We are not laughing at a lady," I answered; "we're laughing at the fun +your horse has been having. He's tickled to death." + +"Well," she said, looking down at the steaming horse, "I had to get +here." + +"You had to get here?" I echoed. "Goodness alive! Nobody but a girl +would run a horse into the thumps to get anywhere." + +"Stupid," she said, "I've just had to get here,--there, I didn't mean +that. I meant I had to get where I was going." + +"You were in a terrible hurry a moment ago," said I. + +"The horse had to rest," she pouted. + +"You might have thought of that," I said, "a little earlier in your +seven miles' run." Then I laughed. The idea of resting the horse was so +delicious that Ump and Jud laughed too. + +The horse's knees were trembling and his sides puffing like a bellows. +Here was Brown Rupert, the fastest horse in the Carper stable, a horse +that Cynthia guarded as a man might guard the ball of his eye, run +literally off his legs by this devil-may-care youngster. I would have +wagered my saddle against a sheepskin that she had started Brown Rupert +on the jump from the horse-block and held him to a gallop over every one +of those seven blessed miles. + +"Well," she said, "are you going to ride on? Or are you going to sit +there like a lot of grinning hoodlums?" + +Ump pulled off his hat and swept a laughable bow over his saddle horn. +"Where are you goin', my pretty maid?" he chuckled. + +She straightened in the saddle, then dropped him a courtesy as good as +he had sent, and answered, "Fair sir, I ride 'cross country on my own +business." And she gathered up the bridle in her supple little hand. + +Jud laughed until the great thicket roared with the echo. Sir Questioner +had caught it on the jaw. + +"My dear Miss Touch-me-not," I put in, "let me give you a piece of +advice. That horse is winded. If you start him on the gallop, you'll +burst him." + +She lifted her chin and looked me in the eye. "A thousand thank you's," +she said, "and for advice to you, sir, don't believe anything you hear." +Then she turned Brown Rupert and rode down the way she had come, sitting +as straight in the saddle as an empress. For a moment the sunlight +filtering through the poplar branches made queer mottled spots of gold +on her curly head, then the trees closed in, and we lost her. + +I doubled over the pommel of my saddle and laughed until my sides ached. +Jud slapped his big hand on the leg of his breeches. "I hope I may die!" +he ejaculated. It was his mightiest idiom. But the crooked Ump was as +solemn as a lord. He sat looking down his nose. + +I turned to him when I got a little breath in me. "Don't be glum," I +said. "The little spitfire is an angel. You're not hurt." + +The hunchback rubbed his chin. "Quiller," he said, "don't the Bible tell +about a man that met an angel when he was a goin' somewhere?" + +"Yes," I laughed. + +"What was that man's name?" said he. + +"Balaam," said I. + +"Well," said he, "that man Balaam was the second ass that saw an angel, +an' you're the third one." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE MASTER BUILDERS + + +The road running into the south lands crosses the Valley River at two +places,--at the foot of Thornberg's Hill and twenty miles farther on at +Horton's Ferry. At the first crossing, the river bed is piled with +boulders, and the river boils through, running like a millrace, a swift, +roaring water without a ford. At Horton's Ferry the river runs smooth +and wide and deep, a shining sheet of clear water, making a mighty bend, +still ford-less, but placid enough to be crossed by a ferry, running +with a heavy current when swollen by the rains, except in the elbow of +the bend where it swings into a tremendous eddy. + +Over the river, where the road meets it first, is a huge wooden bridge +with one span. It is giant work, the stone abutment built out a hundred +feet on either side into the bed of the plunging water, neither rail nor +wall flanking this stone causeway, but the bare unguarded width of the +road-bed leading up into the bridge. + +On the lips of the abutment, the builders set two stone blocks, smooth +and wide, and cut places in them for the bridge timbers. It was a piece +of excellent judgment, since the great stones could not be broken from +the abutment, and they were mighty enough to bear the weight of a +mountain. The bridge rests on three sills, each a log that, unhewn, must +have taken a dozen oxen to drag it. I have often wondered at the +magnitude of this labour; how these logs were thrown across the boiling +water by any engines known to the early man. It was a work for Pharaoh. +On these three giant sleepers the big floor was laid, the walls raised, +and the whole roofed, so that it was a covered road over the Valley. + +The shingle roof and the boarded sides protected the timber framework +from the beating of the elements. Dry, save for the occasional splash of +the hissing water far below, the great bones of this bridge hardened and +lasted like sills of granite. The shingle roof curled, cracked, and +dropped off into the water; the floor broke through, the sides rotted, +and were all replaced again and again. But the powerful grandsires who +had come down from the Hills to lay a floor over the Valley were not +intending to do that work again, and went about their labour like the +giants of old times. + +Indeed, a legend runs that these sills were not laid by men at all, but +by the Dwarfs. As evidence of this folklore tale, it is pointed out that +these logs have the mark of a rough turtle burned on their under surface +like the turtle cut on the great stones in the mountains. And men differ +about what wood they are of, some declaring them to be oak and others +sugar, and still others a strange wood of which the stumps only are now +found in the Hills. It is true that no mark of axe can be found on them, +but this is no great wonder since the bark was evidently removed by +burning, an ancient method of preserving the wood from rot. + +We swung down Thornberg's Hill in a long trot, and on to the bridge. The +river was swollen, a whirling mass of yellow water that surged and +pounded and howled under the timber floor as though the mad spirits of +the river still resented the work of the Dwarfs. It was the Valley's +business to divide the land, and it had done it well, leaving the sons +of Eve to bite their fingers until, on a night, the crooked people came +stumbling down to take a hand in the matter. + +We clattered through, and down a long abutment. It almost made one dizzy +to look over. A rail or a tree limb would ride down into this devil's +maw, or a log would come swimming, its back bobbing in the muddy water, +and then strike the smooth nose of a boulder and go to splinters. + +Beyond the mad river the mild morning world was a land of lazy quiet. +The sky was as blue as a woman's eye, and the sun rose clear in his +flaming cart. Along the roadside the little purple flowers of autumn +peeped about under the green briers. The fields were shaggy with ragweed +and dead whitetop and yellow sedge. The walnut and the apple trees were +bare, and the tall sycamore stood naked in its white skin. Sometimes a +heron flapped across the land, taking a short cut to a lower water, or a +woodpecker dived from the tall timber, or there boomed from the distant +wooded hollow the drum of some pheasant lover, keeping a forgotten +tryst. + +It was now two hours of midday, and the October sun was warm. Tiny +streaks of dampness were beginning to appear on the sleek necks of the +Cardinal and El Mahdi, and the Bay Eagle was swinging her head, a clear +sign that the good mare was not entirely comfortable. + +I turned to Ump. "There's something wrong with that bridle," I said. +"Either the brow-band or the throat-latch. The mare's fidgety." + +He looked at me in astonishment, like a man charged suddenly with a +crime, and slid his long hand out under her slim throat, and over her +silk foretop; then he growled. "You don't know your A, B, C's, Quiller. +She wants water; that's all." + +Jud grinned like a bronzed Bacchus. "The queen might wear Spanish +needles in her shirt," he said, "an' be damned. But the Bay Eagle will +never wear a tight throat-latch or a pinchin' brow-band, or a rough bit, +or a short headstall, while old Mr. Ump warms the saddle seat." + +The hunchback was squirming around, craning his long neck. If the Bay +Eagle were dry, water must be had, and no delay about it. Love for this +mare was Ump's religion. I laughed and pointed down the road. "We are +almost at Aunt Peggy's house. Don't stop to dig a well." And we broke +into a gallop. + +Aunt Peggy was one of the ancients, a carpet-weaver, pious as Martin +Luther, but a trifle liberal with her idioms. The tongue in her head +wagged like a bell-clapper. Whatever was whispered in the Hills got +somehow into Aunt Peggy's ears, and once there it went to the world like +the secret of Midas. + +If one wished to publish a bit of gossip, he told Aunt Peggy, swore her +to secrecy, and rode away. But as there is often a point of honour about +the thief and a whim of the Puritan about the immoral, Aunt Peggy could +never be brought to say who it was that told her. One could inquire as +one pleased. The old woman ran no farther than "Them as knows." And +there it ended and you might be damned. + +The house was a log cottage covered with shingles and whitewash, set by +the roadside under a great chestnut tree, its door always open in the +daytime. As we drew rein by this open door, the old woman dropped her +shuttle, tossed her ball of carpet rags over into the weaving frame, and +came stumbling to the threshold in her long linsey dress that fell +straight from her neck to the floor. + +She pulled her square-rimmed spectacles down on her nose and squinted up +at us. When she saw me, she started back and dropped her hands. "Great +fathers!" she ejaculated, "I hope I may go to the blessed God if it +ain't Quiller gaddin' over the country, an' Mister Ward a-dyin'." + +It seemed to me that the earth lurched as it swung, and every joint in +my body went limber as a rag. I caught at El Mahdi's mane, then I felt +Jud's arm go round me, and heard Ump talking at my ear. But they were a +long distance away. I heard instead the bees droning, and Ward's merry +laugh, as he carried me on his shoulder a babbling youngster in a little +white kilt. It was only an instant, but in it all the good days when I +was little and Ward was father and mother and Providence, raced by. + +Then I heard Ump. "It's a lie, Quiller, a damn lie. Don't you remember +what Patsy said? Not to believe anything you hear? Do you think she ran +that horse to death for nothin'? It was to tell you, to git to you first +before Woodford's lie got to you. Don't you see? Oh, damn Woodford! +Don't you see the trick, boy?" + +Then I saw. My heart gave a great thump. The sunlight poured in and I +was back in the road by the old carpet-weaver's cottage. + +The old woman was alarmed, but her curiosity held like a cable. + +"What's he sayin'," she piped; "what's he sayin'?" + +"That it's all a lie, Aunt Peggy," replied Jud. + +She turned her squint eyes on him. "Who told you so?" she said. + +"Who told you?" growled Ump. + +"Them as knows," she said. And the curiosity piped in her voice. "Did +they lie?" + +"They did," said Ump; "Mister Ward's hurt, but he ain't dangerous." + +"Bless my life," cried the old woman, "an' they lied, did they? I think +a liar is the meanest thing the Saviour died for. They said Mister Ward +was took sudden with blood poison last night, an' a-dyin', the +scalawags! I'll dress 'em down when I git my eyes on 'em." + +"Who were they, Aunt Peggy?" I ventured. + +She made a funny gesture with her elbows, and then shook her finger at +me. "You know I can't tell that, Quiller," she piped, "but the blessed +God knows, an' I hope He'll tan their hides for 'em." + +"I know, too," said Ump. + +The old woman leaned out of the door. "Hey?" she said; "what's that? You +know? Then maybe you'll tell why they come a-lyin'." + +"Can you keep a secret?" said Ump, leaning down from his saddle. + +The old woman's face lighted. She put her hand to her ear and craned her +neck like a turtle. "Yes," she said, "I can that." + +"So can I," said Ump. + +The old carpet-weaver snorted. "Humph," she said, "when you git dry +behind the ears you won't be so peart." Then she waved her hand to me. +"Light off," she said, "an' rest your critters, an' git a tin of +drinkin' water." + +After this invitation she went back to her half-woven carpet with its +green chain and its copperas-coloured widths, and we presently heard the +hum of the wooden shuttle and the bang of the loom frame. We rode a few +steps farther to the well, and Jud dismounted to draw the water. The +appliance for lifting the bucket was of the most primitive type. A post +with a forked top stood planted in the ground. In this fork rested a +long, slender sapling with a heavy butt, and from the small end, high in +the air, hung a slim pole, to the lower end of which the bucket was +tied. + +Jud grasped the pole and lowered the bucket into the well, and then, +while one watched by the door, the others watered the horses in the old +carpet-weaver's bucket. It was the only thing to drink from, and if Aunt +Peggy had caught us with the "critters'" noses in it we should doubtless +have come in for a large share of that "dressing down" which she was +reserving for Lemuel Marks. + +She came to the door as we were about to ride away and looked over the +sweaty horses. "Sakes alive," she said, "you little whelps ride like +Jehu. You'll git them horses ga'nted before you know it." + +"You can't ga'nt a horse if he sweats good," said Ump; "but if he don't +sweat, you can ga'nt him into fiddle strings." + +"They're pretty critters," said the old woman, running her eyes over the +three horses. "Be they Mister Ward's?" + +"We all be Mister Ward's," answered Ump, screwing his mouth to one side +and imitating the old carpet-weaver's voice. + +"Bless my life," said the old woman, looking us up and down, "Mister +Ward has a fine chance of scalawags." + +We laughed and the old woman's face wrinkled into smiles. Then she +turned to me. "Which way did you come, Quiller?" she asked. + +"Over the bridge," said I. Now there was no other way to come, and the +old carpet-weaver turned the counter with shrewd good-nature. + +"Maybe you know how the bridge got there," she said. + +"I've heard that the Dwarfs built it," said I, "but I reckon it's talk." + +"Well, it ain't talk," said the old woman. "A long time ago, folks lived +on the other side of the river, and the Dwarfs lived on this side, an' +the folks tried to git acrost, but they couldn't, an' they talked to the +Dwarfs over the river, an' asked them to build a bridge, an' the Dwarfs +said they couldn't build it unless the river devils was bought off. Then +the folks |asked how to buy off them river devils, an' the Dwarfs said +to throw in a thimble full of human blood an' spit in the river. So, one +night the folks done it, an' next morning them logs was acrost." + +The spectacles of the old woman were fastened around her head with a +shoestring. She removed them by lifting the shoestring over her head, +polished them for a moment on her linsey dress and set them back on her +nose. + +"Then," she went on, "the devilment was done. Just like it allers is +when people gits smarter than the blessed God. The Dwarfs crost over an' +rid the horses in the night an' sucked the cows, an' made faces at the +women so the children was cross-eyed. An' the folks tried to throw down +the bridge an' couldn't do it because the Dwarfs had put a spell on them +logs." + +She stopped and jerked her thumb toward the river. "Did you ever hear +tell of old Jimmy Radcliff?" she asked. + +We had heard of the old-time millwright, and said so. + +"Well," she went on, "they was a-layin' a floor in that bridge oncet, +an' old Jimmy got tight on b'iled cider, an' 'low'd he'd turn one of +them logs over. So he chucked a crowbar under one of 'em an' begun +a-pryin', an' all at oncet that crowbar flew out of his hand an' old +Jimmy fell through, an' the men cotched him by his wampus an' it took +four of 'em to pull him up, because, they said, it felt like somethin' +was a-holdin' his legs." + +"I reckon," said Ump, "it was the cider in Jimmy's legs. If there had +been anything holdin', they could have seen it." + +"'Tain't so certain," said Aunt Peggy, wagging her head, "'tain't so +certain. There's many a thing a-holdin' in the world that you can't +see." And she turned around in the door and went stumping back to her +loom. + +We rode south in no light-hearted mood. Again we had met the far-sighted +cunning of Hawk Rufe, in a trap baited by a master, and had slipped from +under it by no skill of ours. Had we missed those last words of Patsy, +flung back like an angry taunt, I should have believed the tale about my +brother and hurried north, if all the cattle in the Hills had gone to +the devil. It was a master move, that lie, and I began to see the +capacity of these dangerous men. This was merely an outpost strategy, +laid as they passed along. What would it be when we came to the serious +business of the struggle? + +And how came that girl on Thornberg's Hill? Cynthia was shoulder to +shoulder with Woodford. We had seen that with our own eyes. Had Patsy +turned traitor to Cynthia? + +I looked over at Ump. "What did that little girl mean?" I said. + +"I give it up," said he. + +"I don't understand women," said I. + +"If you did," said he, "they'd have you in a side-show." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SOME REMARKS OF SAINT PAUL + + +A great student of men has written somewhere about the fear that hovers +at the threshold of events. And a great essayist, in a dozen lines, as +clean-cut as the work of a gem engraver, marks the idleness of that fear +when above the trembling one are only the gods,--he alone, with them +alone. + +The first great man is seeing right, we know. The other may be also +seeing right, but few of us are tall enough to see with him, though we +stand a-tiptoe. We sleep when we have looked upon the face of the +threatening, but we sleep not when it crouches in the closet of the +to-morrow. Men run away before the battle opens, who would charge first +under its booming, and men faint before the surgeon begins to cut, who +never whimper after the knife has gone through the epidermis. It is the +fear of the dark. + +It sat with me on the crupper as we rode into Roy's tavern. Marks and +Peppers and the club-footed Malan were all moving somewhere in our +front. Hawk Rufe was not intending to watch six hundred black cattle +filing into his pasture with thirty dollars lost on every one of their +curly heads. Fortune had helped him hugely, or he had helped himself +hugely, and this was all a part of the structure of his plan. Ward out +of the way first! Accident it might have been, design I believed it was. +Yet, upon my life, with my prejudice against him I could not say. + +That we could not tell the whims of chance from the plans of Woodford +was the best testimonial to this man's genius. One moved a master when +he used the hands of Providence to lift his pieces. The accident to Ward +was clear accident, to hear it told. At the lower falls of the Gauley, +the road home runs close to the river and is rough and narrow. On the +opposite side the deep laurel thickets reach from the hill-top to the +water. Here, in the roar of the falls, the Black Abbot had fallen +suddenly, throwing Ward down the embankment. It was a thing that might +occur any day in the Hills. The Black Abbot was a bad horse, and the +prediction was common that he would kill Ward some day. But there was +something about this accident that was not clear. Mean as his fame put +him, the Black Abbot had never been known to fall in all of his vicious +life. On his right knee there was a great furrow, long as a man's finger +and torn at one corner. It was scarcely the sort of wound that the edge +of a stone would make on a falling horse. + +Ump and Jud and old Jourdan examined this wound for half a night, and +finally declared that the horse had been shot. They pointed out that +this was the furrow of a bullet, because hair was carried into the +wound, and nothing but a bullet carries the hair with it. The fibres of +the torn muscle were all forced one way, a characteristic of the track +of a bullet, and the edge of the wound on the inside of the horse's knee +was torn. This was the point from which a bullet, if fired from the +opposite side of the river, would emerge; and it is well known that a +bullet tears as it comes out. At least this is always true with a +muzzle-loading rifle. Ward expressed no opinion. He only drew down his +dark eyebrows when the three experts went in to tell him, and directed +them to swing Black Abbot in his stall, and bandage the knee. But I +talked with Ump about it, and in the light of these after events it was +tolerably clear. + +At this point of the road, the roar of the falls would entirely drown +the report of a rifle, and the face of any convenient rock would cover +the flash. The graze of a bullet on the knee would cause any horse to +fall, and if he fell here, the rider was almost certain to sustain some +serious injury if he were not killed. True, it was a piece of good +shooting at fifty yards, but both Peppers and Malan could "bark" a +squirrel at that distance. + +If this were the first move in Woodford's elaborate plan, then there was +trouble ahead, and plenty of trouble. The horses came to a walk at a +little stream below Roy's tavern, and we rode up slowly. + +The tavern was a long, low house with a great porch, standing back in a +well-sodded yard. We dismounted, tied the horses to the fence, and +crossed the path to the house. As I approached, I heard a voice say, "If +the other gives 'em up, old Nicholas won't." Then I lifted the latch and +flung the door open. + +I stopped with my foot on the threshold. At the table sat Lem Marks, his +long, thin legs stretched out, and his hat over his eyes. On the other +side was Malan and, sitting on the corner of the table, drinking cider +from a stone pitcher, was Parson Peppers,--the full brood. + +The Parson replaced the pitcher and wiped his dripping mouth on his +sleeve. Then he burst out in a loud guffaw. "I quote Saint Paul," he +cried. "Do thyself no harm, for we are all here." + +Marks straightened in his chair like a cat, and the little eyes of Malan +slipped around in his head. For a moment, I was undecided, but Ump +pushed through and I followed him into the room. + +There was surprise and annoyance in Marks's face for a moment. Then it +vanished like a shadow and he smiled pleasantly. "You're late to +dinner," he said; "perhaps you were not expected." + +"I think," said I, "that we were not expected, but we have come." + +"I see," said Marks. + +Peppers broke into a hoarse laugh and clapped his hand on Marks's +shoulder. "You see, do you?" he roared; "you see now, my laddie. Didn't +I tell you that you couldn't stop runnin' water with talk?" + +The suggestion was dangerously broad, and Marks turned it. "I recall," +he said, "no conversation with you about running water. That cider must +be up in your hair." + +"Lemuel, my boy," said the jovial Peppers, "the Lord killed Ananias for +lyin' an' you don't look strong." + +"I'm strong enough to keep my mouth shut," snapped Marks. + +"Fiddle-de-dee," said Peppers, "the Lord has sometimes opened an ass's +mouth when He wanted to." + +"He didn't have to open it in your case," said Marks. + +"But He will have to shut it in my case," replied Peppers; "you're a +little too light for the job." + +The cider was reaching pretty well into the Reverend Peppers. This Marks +saw, and he was too shrewd to risk a quarrel. He burst into a laugh. +Peppers began to hammer the table with his stone pitcher and call for +Roy. + +The tavern-keeper came in a moment, a short little man with a weary +smile. Peppers tossed him the pitcher. "Fill her up," he roared, "I +follow the patriarch Noah. He was the only one of the whole shootin' +match who stood in with the Lord, an' he got as drunk as a b'iled owl." + +Then he turned to us. "Will you have a swig, boys?" + +We declined, and he struck the table with his fist. "Ho! ho," he roared; +"is every shingle on the meetin'-house dry?" Then he marked the +hunchback sitting by the wall, and pointed his finger at him. "Come, +there, you camel, wet your hump." + +That a fight was on, I had not the slightest doubt in the world. I +caught my breath in a gasp. I saw Jud loosen his arm in his coat-sleeve. +Ump was as sensitive as any cripple, and he was afraid of no man. To my +astonishment he smiled and waved his hand. "I'm cheek to your jowl, +Parson," he said; "set out the O-be-joyful." + +"Hey, Roy!" called Peppers, "bring another pitcher for Humpty Dumpty." +Then he kicked the table with his great cowhide boots and began to +bellow: + + "Zaccheus he clum a tree + His Lord an' Master for to see; + The limb did break an' he did fall, + An' he didn't git to see his Lord at all." + +Ump and I were seated by the wall, tilted back in the tavern-keeper's +split-bottom chairs, while Jud leaned against the door. + +The rhyme set the Parson's head to humming, and he began to pat his leg. +Then he spied Jud. "Hey, there! Beelzebub," he roared, "can you dust the +puncheons?" + +"When the devil's a-fiddlin'," said Jud. + +"Ho, the devil," hummed the Parson. + + "As I set fiddlin' on a tree + The devil shot his gun at me. + He missed my soul an' hit a limb, + An' I don't give a damn for him." + +He slapped his leg to emphasise the "damn." At this moment Roy came in +with the two stone pitchers, handed one to Ump and put the other down by +the boisterous Parson. + +Peppers turned to him. "Got a fiddle?" he asked. + +"I think there's an old stager about," said Roy. + +"Bring her in," said Peppers. Then he seized the pitcher by its stone +handle and raised it in the air. "Wine's a mocker," he began, "an' +strong drink is ragin', but old Saint Paul said, 'A little for your +stomach's sake.' Here's lookin' at you, Humpty Dumpty. May you grow +until your ears drag the ground." + +The hunchback lifted his pitcher. "Same to you, Parson," he said, "an' +all your family." Then they thrust their noses into the stone pitchers. +Peppers gulped a swallow, then he lowered his pitcher and looked at Ump. + +"Humpty Dumpty," he said, speaking slowly and turning down his thumb as +he spoke, "when you git your fall, it'll be another job for them king's +horses." + +"Parson," said Ump, "I know how to light." + +"How?" said Peppers. + +"Easy," said Ump. + +Peppers roared. "You ain't learned it any too quick," he said. "What +goes up, has got to come down, an' you're goin' up end over appetite." + +"When do I hit the ground, Parson?" asked Ump, with his nose in the +pitcher. + +Peppers spread out two of his broad fingers. "To-day is to-day," he +said, "an' to-morrow is to-morrow. Then--" But the cunning Marks was on +his feet before the sentence was finished. + +"Peppers," he snapped, "you clatter like a feed-cutter. What are you +tryin' to say? Out with it. Let's hear it." + +It was a bold effort to throw us off the scent. Peppers saw the lead, +and for a moment he was sober. + +"I was a-warnin' the lost sinner," he said, "like Jonah warned the +sinners in Nineveh. I'm exhortin' him about the fall. Adam fell in the +Garden of Eden." Then the leer came back into his face. "Ever hear of +the Garden of Eden, Lemuel?" + +"Yes," said Marks, glad to divert the dangerous drunkard. + +"You ought," said Peppers. "Your grandpap was there, eatin' dirt an' +crawlin' on his belly." + +We roared, and while the tavern was still shaking with it, Roy came in +carrying an old and badly battered fiddle under his arm. "Boys," he said +timidly, "furse all you want to, but don't start nothin'." Then he gave +the fiddle to Peppers, and came over to where we were seated. "Quiller," +he said, "I reckon you all want a bite o' dinner." + +I answered that we did. "Well," he apologised, "we didn't have your name +in the pot, but we'll dish you up something, an' you can give it a lick +an' a promise." Then he gathered up some empty dishes from a table and +went out. + +Peppers was thumping the fiddle strings with his thumb, and screwing up +the keys. His sense of melody was in a mood to overlook many a defect, +and he presently thrust the fiddle under his chin and began to saw it. +Then he led off with a bellow, + + "Come all ye merry maidens an' listen unto me." + +But the old fiddle was unaccustomed to so vigorous a virtuoso, and its +bridge fell with a bang. The Parson blurted an expletive, inflected like +the profane. Then he straightened the bridge, gave the fiddle a +tremendous saw, and resumed his bellow. But with the accident, his first +tune had gone glimmering, and he dropped to another with the agility of +an acrobat. + + "In eighteen hundred an' sixty-five + I thought I was quite lucky to find myself alive. + I saddled up old Bald Face my business to pursue, + An' I went to drivin' steers as I used for to do." + +The fiddle was wofully out of tune, and it rasped and screeched and +limped like a spavined colt, but the voice of Peppers went ahead with +the bellow. + + "But the stillhouse bein' close an' the licker bein' free + I took to the licker, an' the licker took to me. + I took to the licker, till I reeled an' I fell, + An' the whole cussed drove went a-trailin' off to hell." + +Ump arose and waved his pitcher. "Hold up, Parson," he said. "Here's to +them merry maids that got lost in the shuffle. 'Tain't like you to lose +'em." + +The suggestion was timely. The song ran to fifty-nine verses, and no +others printable. + +Peppers dropped the fiddle and seized the pitcher. "Correct," he roared. +"Here's to 'em. May the Lord bless 'em, an' bind 'em, an' tie their +hands behind 'em, an' put 'em in a place where the devil can't find +'em." + +"Nor you," mumbled Ump in the echo. + +They drank, and the hunchback eyed his man over the rim of the pitcher. +The throat of the Parson did not move. It was clear that Peppers had +reached the danger line, and, what was fatal to the plan of Ump, he knew +it. He was shamming. The eyes of the hunchback squinted an instant, and +then hardened in his face. + +He lowered his pitcher, took a step nearer to the table, and clashed it +against the Parson's pitcher. "The last one," he said, "to Mister Ward, +God bless 'im!" + +It was plain that the hunchback having failed to drink Peppers maudlin, +was now deliberately provoking a fight. The bloated face of the Parson +grew purple. + +"Woodford!" he roared. + +"I said," repeated Ump slowly, "to Mister Ward. An' his enemies, may the +devil fly away with 'em." + +Peppers hurled down his pitcher, and it broke into a thousand pieces on +the oak floor. I saw the hunchback's eyes blink. I saw Jud take a step +towards Peppers, but he was too late. Lem Marks made a sign to Malan. +The club-footed giant bounded on Peppers, pinned his arms to his sides, +and lifting him from the table carried him toward the door. A fight in +Roy's tavern was not a part of the plan of Hawk Rufe. + +For a moment the Parson's rage choked him, and he fought and sputtered. +Then he began to curse with terrible roaring oaths that came boiling up, +oaths that would have awakened new echoes in the foul hold of any pirate +ship that ever ran. + +His bloodshot eyes rolled and glared at the hunchback over the woolly +head of Malan. There seemed to be something in Ump's face that lashed +the drunkard to a fury. I looked at Ump to see what it was, and unless I +see the devil, I shall never see the like of that expression. It was the +face of a perfectly cool imp. + +Black Malan carried Peppers through the door as though he were a bushel +of corn in a bag, and I marked the build of this powerful man. His neck +had muscle creases like the folds on the neck of a muley bull. His +shoulders were bigger than Jud's. His arms were not so long, but they +were thicker, and his legs stood under him like posts. But he was slow, +and he had but little light in his head. A tremendous animal was the +club-footed Malan. + +Lem Marks stopped at the door, fingered his hat and began to apologise. +He was sorry Peppers was drunk, and we must overlook the vapourings of a +drunkard. He wished us a pleasant journey. + +"To the devil," added Ump when the door had closed on him. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CHRISTIAN THE BLACKSMITH + + +We ate our dinner from the quaint old Dutch blue bowls, and the teacups +with the queer kneeling purple cows on them. Then we went to feed the +horses. Roy brought us a hickory split basket filled with white corn on +the cob, and wiped out a long chestnut trough which lay by the roadside. +We took the bits out of the horses' mouths, leaving the headstalls on +them, and they fell to with the hearty impatience of the very hungry. + +I have always liked to see a horse or an ox eat his dinner. Somehow it +makes the bread taste better in one's own mouth. They look so +tremendously content, provokingly so I used to think when I was little, +especially the ox with the yoke banging his horns. I remember how I used +to fill my pockets with "nubbins" and, holding one out to old Berry or +some other patriarch of the work cattle, watch how he reached for it +with his rough tongue, and how surprised he was when I snatched it away +and put it back in my pocket, or gave it to him, and then thrust my +finger against his jaw, pushing in his cheek so that he could not eat +it. He would look so wofully hurt that I laughed with glee until old +Jourdan came along, gathered me up under his arm, and carried me off +kicking to the kingdom of old Liza. + +My early experience with the horse was not so entirely satisfactory to +my youthful worship. Somewhere on my shoulder to this day are the faint +marks of teeth, set there long ago on a winter morning when I was taking +liberties with the table etiquette of old Charity. + +We lolled in the sunshine while the horses ate, Jud on his back by the +nose of the Cardinal, his fingers linked under his head. I sat on the +poplar horse-block with my hands around my knee, while Ump was in the +road examining El Mahdi's feet. For once he had abandoned the Bay Eagle. + +He rubbed the fetlocks, felt around the top of the hoofs with his +finger, scraped away the clinging dirt with the point of a knife blade, +and tried the firmness of each shoe-nail. Then he lifted the horse's +foot, rested it on his knee, and began to examine the shoe as an expert +might examine some intricate device. + +Ump held that bad shoeing was the root of all evil. "Along comes a +flat-nose," he would say, "with a barefooted colt, an' a gabbin', +chuckle-headed blacksmith nails shoes on its feet, an' the flat-nose +jumps on an' away he goes, hipety click, an' the colt interferes, an' +the flat-nose begins a kickin' an' a cursin', an' then--" Here the +hunchback's fingers began to twitch. "Somebody ought to come along an' +grab the fool by the scruff of his neck an' kick him till he couldn't +set in a saddle, an' then go back an' boot the sole-leather off the +blacksmith." + +I have seen the hunchback stop a stranger in the road and point out with +indignation that the shoe on his horse was too short, or binding the +hoof, or too heavy or too light, and then berate the stranger like a +thief because he would not turn instantly and ride back to a smith-shop. +And I have seen him sit over a blacksmith with his narrow face thrust up +under the horse's belly, and put his finger on the place where every +nail was to go in and the place where it was to come out, and growl and +curse and wrangle, until, if I had been that smith, I should have killed +him with a hammer. + +But the hunchback knew what he was about. Ward said of Ump that, in his +field, the land of the horse's foot, he was as much an expert as any +professor behind his spectacles. His knowledge came from the observation +of a lifetime, gathered by tireless study of every detail. Even now, +when I see a great chemist who knows all about some drug; a great +surgeon who knows all about the body of a man; or a great oculist who +knows all about the human eye, I must class the hunchback with them. + +Ump explored El Mahdi's shoes, pulled at the calks, picked at the nails, +and prodded into the frog of the foot to see if there was any tendency +to gravel. He found a left hind shoe that did not suit him, and put down +the foot and wiped his hands on his breeches. + +"Who shod this horse, Quiller?" he said. + +"Dunk Hodge," I answered. + +The hunchback made a gesture as of one offered information that is +patent. "I know Dunk made the shoes," he said, "by the round corks. But +they've been reset. Who reset 'em?" + +"Dunk," said I. + +"Not by a jugful!" responded Ump. "Old Dunk never reset 'em." + +"I sent the horse to him," I said. + +"I don't care a fiddler's damn where you sent the horse," replied the +hunchback. "Dunk didn't drive them nails. They're beat over at the point +instead of being clinched. It's a slut job." + +"I expect," said Jud, "it was his ganglin' son-in-law, Ab." + +"That's the laddiebuck," said Ump, "an' he ought to be withed. That hind +shoe has pulled loose an' broke. We've got to git it put on." + +"Then we shall have to try Christian," said I; "there's no other shop +this side of the Stone Coal." + +"I know it," mused Ump, "an' when he goes to the devil, flat-nosed +niggers will never shovel dirt on a meaner dog." + +Jud arose and began to bridle the Cardinal. "He's mighty triflin'," said +he; "he uses store nails, an' he's too lazy to p'int 'em." + +Now, to use the manufactured nail was brand enough in the Hills. But to +drive it into a horse's foot without first testing the point was a piece +of turpitude approaching the criminal. + +"Well," said I, "he'll drive no nail into El Mahdi that isn't home-made +and smooth." + +"Then Ump 'ill have to stand over him," replied Jud. + +"Damn it," cried the hunchback, striking his clenched right hand into +the palm of his left, "ain't I stood over every one of the shirkin' +pot-wallopers from the mountains to the Gauley an' showed him how to +shoe a horse, an' told him over an' over just what to do an' how to do +it, an' put my finger on the place? An' by God! The minute my back's +turned, he'll lame a horse with a splintered nail, or bruise a frog with +a pinchin' cork, or pare off the toe of the best mare that ever walked +because he's too damn' lazy to make the shoe long enough." + +Ump turned savagely and went around El Mahdi to the Bay Eagle, put the +bit in her mouth and mounted the mare. I bridled El Mahdi and climbed +into the saddle, and we rode out toward the Valley River, on the way but +an hour ago taken by the lieutenants of Woodford. We had watched them +from the tavern door, Peppers riding between the other two, rolling in +his saddle and brandishing his fist. Both he and Malan rode the big +brown cattle-horses of Woodford, while Lem Marks rode a bay +Hambletonian, slim and nervous, with speed in his legs. The saddles were +all black, long skirted, with one girth,--the Woodford saddles. + +We followed in the autumn midday. It might have been a scene from some +old-time romance--musketeers of the King and guards of his mighty +Eminence setting out on a mission which the one master wished and the +other wished not; or the iron lieutenants of Cromwell riding south in +the wake of the cavaliers of Charles. + +For romance, my masters, is no blear-eyed spinster mooning over the +trumpery of a heyday that is gone, but a Miss Mischief offering her +dainty fingers to you before the kiss of your grandfather's lips is yet +dry on them. The damask petticoat, the powdered wig, and the coquettish +little patch by her dimpled little mouth are off and into the garret, +and she sweeps by in a Worth gown, or takes a fence on a thoroughbred, +or waits ankle deep in the clover blossoms for some whistling lover, +while your eyes are yet a-blinking. + +The blacksmith-shop sat at a crossroads under a fringe of hickory trees +that skirted a little hill-top. It was scarcely more than a shed, with a +chimney, stone to the roof, and then built of sticks and clay. Out of +this chimney the sparks flew when the smith was working, pitting the +black shingle roof and searing the drooping leaves of the hickories. +Around the shop was the characteristic flotsam, a cart with a mashed +wheel, a plough with a broken mould-board, innumerable rusted tires, +worn wagon-irons, and the other wreckage of this pioneer outpost of the +mechanic. + +At the foot of the hill as we came up, the Cardinal caught a stone +between the calks of one of his hind shoes, and Jud got off to pry it +out. Ump and I rode on to the shop and dismounted at the door. Old +Christian was working at the forge welding a cart-iron, pulling the pole +of his bellows, and pausing now and then to turn the iron in the glowing +coals. + +He was a man of middle size, perhaps fifty, bald, and wearing an old +leather skull-cap pitted with spark holes. His nose was crooked and his +eyes were set in toward it, narrow and close together. He wore an +ancient leather apron, burned here and there and dirty, and his arms +were bare to the elbows. + +I led El Mahdi into the shop, and Christian turned when he heard us +enter. "Can you tack on a shoe?" said I. + +The smith looked us over, took his glowing iron from the forge, struck +it a blow or two on the anvil, and plunged it sizzling into the tub of +water that stood beside him. Then he came over to the horse. "Fore or +hind?" he asked. + +"Left hind," I answered; "it's broken." + +He went to the corner of the shop and came back with his kit,--a little +narrow wooden box on legs, with two places, one for nails and one for +the shoeing tools, and a wooden rod above for handle and shoe-rack. He +set the box beside him, took up the horse's foot, wiped it on his apron, +and tried the shoe with his fingers. Then he took a pair of pincers out +of his box, and catching one half of the broken shoe, gave it a wrench. + +I turned on him in astonishment. "Stop," I cried, "you will tear the +hoof." + +"It'll pull loose," he mumbled. + +Ump was at the door, tying the Bay Eagle. He came in when he heard me. +"Christian," he said, "cut them nails." + +The blacksmith looked up at him. "Who's shoein' this horse?" he growled. + +The eyes of the hunchback began to snap. "You're a-doin' it," he said, +"an' I'm tellin' you how." + +"If I'm a doin' it," growled the blacksmith, "suppose you go to hell." +And he gave the shoe another wrench. + +I was on him in a moment, and he threw me off so that I fell across the +shop against a pile of horseshoes. The hunchback caught up a sledge that +lay by the door and threw it. Old Christian was on one knee. He dodged +under the horse and held up the kit to ward off the blow. The iron nose +of the sledge struck the box and crushed it like a shell, and, passing +on, bounded off the steel anvil with a bang. + +The blacksmith sprang out as the horse jumped, seized the hammer and +darted at Ump. I saw the hunchback look around for a weapon. There was +none, but he never moved. The next moment his head would have burst like +a cracked nut, but in that moment a shadow loomed in the shop door. +There was a mad rush like the sudden swoop of some tremendous hawk. The +blacksmith was swept off his feet, carried across the shop, and +flattened against the chimney of his forge. I looked on, half dazed by +the swiftness of the thing. I did not see that it was Jud until old +Christian was gasping under the falling mortar of his chimney, his feet +dangling and his sooty throat caught in the giant's fingers, that looked +like squeezing iron bolts. The staring eyes of the old man were glassy, +his face was beginning to get black, his mouth opened, and his extended +bare arm holding the hammer began to come slowly down. + +It rested a moment on the giant's shoulder, then it bent at the elbow, +the fingers loosed, and the hammer fell. Old Christian will never be +nearer to the pit of his imperial master until he stumbles over its rim. + +The hunchback glided by me and clapped his hand on Jud's shoulder. "Drop +him," he cried. + +The blood of the giant was booming. The desperate savage, passed +sleeping from his father and his father's father, had awaked, and awaked +to kill. I could read the sinister intent in the crouch of his +shoulders. + +The hunchback shook him. "Jud," he shouted, "Jud, drop him." + +The giant turned his head, blinked his eyes for a moment like a man +coming out of a sleep, and loosed his hand. The blacksmith slipped to +the floor, but he could not stand when he reached it. His knees gave +way. He caught the side of the leather bellows, and stumbling around it, +sat down on the anvil wheezing like a stallion with the heaves. + +Ump stooped and picked up the hammer. Then he turned to the puffing +giant. "Jud," he said, "you ain't got sense enough to pour rain-water +out of a boot." + +"Why?" said Jud. + +"Why?" echoed the hunchback, "why? Suppose you had wrung the old +blatherskite's neck. How do you reckon we'd get a shoe on this horse?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ON THE CHOOSING OF ENEMIES + + +It has been suggested by the wise that perhaps every passing event +leaves its picture on the nearest background, and may hereafter be +reproduced by the ingenuity of man. If so, and if genius led us into +this mighty gallery of the past, there is no one thing I would rather +look at than the face of a youth who stood rubbing his elbows in the +shop of old Christian, the blacksmith. + +The slides of violent emotion, thrust in when unexpected, work such +havoc in a child's face,--that window to the world which half our lives +are spent in curtaining! + +I wish to see the face of the lad only if the gods please. The canvas +about it is all tolerably clear,--the smoke-painted shop, and the +afternoon sun shining in to it through the window by the forge; and +through the great cracks, vertical sheets of sunlight thrust, wherein +the golden dust was dancing; the blacksmith panting on his anvil, his +bare arms bowed, and his hands pressed against his body as though to +help somehow to get the good air into his lungs, beads of perspiration +creeping from under the leather cap and tracing white furrows down his +sooty face; Jud leaning against the wall, and Ump squatting near El +Mahdi. The horse was not frightened. He jumped to avoid the flying +sledge. That was all. I cannot speak of the magnitude of his courage. I +can only say that he had the sublime indifference of a Brahmin from the +Ganges. + +Presently the blacksmith had gotten the air in him, and he arose +scowling, picked up his tongs, fished the cart-iron out of the water, +thrust it into the coals and began to pump his bellows. + +It was an invitation to depart and leave him to his own business. But it +was not our intention to depart with a barefooted horse, even if the +devil were the blacksmith. + +"Christian," said Ump, "you're not through with this horse." + +The blacksmith paid no attention. He pumped his bellows with his back +toward us. + +"Christian!" repeated the hunchback, and his voice was the ugliest thing +I have ever heard. It was low and soft and went whistling through the +shop. "Do you hear me, Christian?" + +The smith turned like an animal that hears a hissing by his heels, threw +the tongs on the floor, and glared at Ump. "I won't do it," he snarled. + +"Easy, Christian," said the hunchback, with the same wheedling voice +that came so strangely through his crooked mouth. "Think about it, man. +The horse is barefoot. We should be much obliged to you." + +I do not believe that this man was a coward. It was his boast that he +could shoe anything that could walk into his shop, and he lived up to +the boast. I give him that due, on my honour. Many a devil walked into +that shop wearing the hoof and hide of a horse and came out with iron +nailed on his feet; for example, horses like the Black Abbot that fought +and screamed when we put a saddle on him first and rolled on the earth +until he crushed the saddle-tree and the stirrups into splinters; and +horses like El Mahdi that tried to kill the blacksmith as though he were +an annoying fly. It was dangerous business, and I do not believe that +old Christian was a coward. + +But what show had he? An arm's length away was the powerful Jud whose +hand had just now held the smith out over the corner of the world; and +the hunchback squatted on the floor with the striking hammer in his long +fingers, the red glint under his half-closed eyelids, and that dangerous +purring speech in his mouth. What show had he? + +The man looked up at the roof, blackened with the smoke of half a +century, and then down at the floor, and the resolution died in his +face. He gathered up his scattered tools and went over to the horse, +lifted his foot, cut the nails, and removed the pieces of broken shoe. + +Then he climbed on the anvil, and began to move the manufactured shoes +that were set in rows along the rafters, looking for a size that would +fit. + +"Them won't do," said Ump. "You'll have to make a shoe, Christian." + +The man got down without a word, seized a bar of iron and thrust it into +the coals. Jud caught the pole of his bellows, and pumped it for him. +The smith turned the iron in the coals. When it glowed he took it out, +cut off the glowing piece on the chisel in his anvil, caught it up in a +pair of tongs and thrust it back into the fire. Then he waited with his +hands hanging idly while Jud pulled the pole of the old bellows until it +creaked and groaned and the fire spouted sparks. + +When the iron was growing fluffy white, the smith caught it up in his +tongs, lifted it from the fire, flung off a shower of hissing sparks and +began to hammer, drawing it out and beating it around the horn of the +anvil until presently it became a rough flat shoe. + +The iron was cooling, and he put it back into the coals. When it was hot +again, he turned the calks, punched the nail holes and carried it +glowing to where the horse stood, held it an instant to the hoof, noted +the changes to be made, and thrust it back into the fire. + +A moment later the hissing shoe was plunged into a tub of water by the +anvil, and then thrown steaming to the floor. Ump picked it up, passed +his finger over it and then set it against El Mahdi's foot. It was a +trifle narrow at the heel, and Ump pitched it back to the smith, +spreading his fingers to indicate the defect. Old Christian sprung the +calks on the horn of the anvil, and returned the shoe. The hunchback +thrust his hand between the calks, raised the shoe and squinted along +its surface to see if it were entirely level. Then he nodded his head. + +The blacksmith went over to the wall, and began to take down a paper +box. The hunchback saw him and turned under the horse. "We can't risk a +store nail," he said. "You'll have to make 'em." + +For the first time the man spoke. "No iron," he answered. + +Ump arose and began to look over the shop. Presently he found an old +scythe blade and threw it to the smith. "That'll do," he said; "take the +back." + +Old Christian broke the strip of iron from the scythe blade and heating +it in his forge, made the nails, hammering them into shape, and cutting +them from the rod until he had a dozen lying by the anvil. When they +were cool, he gathered them in his hand, smoothed the points, and went +over to El Mahdi. + +The old man lifted the horse's foot, and set it on his knee, and Ump +arose and stood over him. Then he shod the horse as the hunchback +directed, paring the hoof and setting the nails evenly through the outer +rim, clipping the nail ends, and clinching them by doubling the cut +points. Then he smoothed the hoof with his great file and the work was +over. + +We rode south along the ridge, leaving old Christian standing in his +shop door, his face sullen and his grimy arms folded. I flung him a +silver dollar, four times the price of the shoeing. It fell by the shop +sill, and he lifted his foot and sent it spinning across the road into +the bushes. + +The road ran along the ridge. A crumbling rail fence laced with the +vines of the poison ivy trailed beside it. In its corners stood the +great mullein, and the dock, and the dead iron-weed. The hickories, +trembling in their yellow leaves, loomed above the fringe of sugar +saplings like some ancient crones in petticoats of scarlet. Sometimes a +partridge ran for a moment through the dead leaves, and then whizzed +away to some deeper tangle in the woods; now a grey squirrel climbed a +shell-bark with the clatter of a carpenter shingling a roof, and sat by +his door to see who rode by, or shouted his jeer, and, diving into his +house, thrust his face out at the window. Sometimes, far beyond us, a +pheasant walked across the road, strutting as straight as a harnessed +brigadier,--an outlaw of the Hills who had sworn by the feathers on his +legs that he would eat no bread of man, and kept the oath. Splendid +freeman, swaggering like a brigand across the war-paths of the +conqueror! + +We were almost at the crown of the ridge when a brown flying-squirrel, +routed from his cave in a dead limb by the hammering of a hungry +woodpecker, stood for a moment blinking in the sunlight and then made a +flying leap for an oak on the opposite side of the road; but his +estimate was calculated on the moonlight basis, and he missed by a +fraction of an inch and went tumbling head over heels into the weeds. + +I turned to laugh at the disconcerted acrobat, when I caught through the +leaves the glimpse of a horse approaching the blacksmith-shop from one +of the crossroads. I called to my companions and we found a break in the +woods where the view was clear. At half a mile in the transparent +afternoon we easily recognised Lem Marks. He rode down to the shop and +stopped by the door. + +In a moment old Christian came out, stood by the shoulder of the horse +and rested his hand on Marks' knee. It was strange familiarity for such +an acrimonious old recluse, and even at the distance the attitude of +Woodford's henchman seemed to indicate surprise. + +They talked together for some little while, then old Christian waved his +arm toward the direction we had taken and went into his shop, presently +returning with some implements in his hand. We could not make out what +they were. He handed them up to Marks, and the two seemed to discuss the +matter, for after a time Marks selected one and held it out to old +Christian. The smith took it, turned it over in his hand, nodded his +head and went back into his shop, while Marks gathered up his reins and +came after us in a slow fox trot. + +We slipped over the ridge and then straightened in our saddles. + +"Boys," said the hunchback, fingering the mane of the Bay Eagle, "that +was a bad job. We ought to be a little more careful in the pickin' of +enemies." + +"Damn 'em," muttered Jud, "I wonder what mare's nest they're fixin'. I +ought to 'a twisted the old buck's neck." + +The hunchback leaned over his saddle and ran his fingers along the neck +of the splendid mare. "Peace," he soliloquised, "is a purty thing." Then +he turned to me with a bantering, quizzical light in his eyes. + +"Quiller," he said, "don't you wish you had your dollar back in your +pocket?" + +"Why?" said I. + +"It's like this," said he. "One time there was an' old miser, an' when +he was a-dyin' the devil come, an' set down by the bed, an' the devil +said, 'You've done a good deal of work for me, an' I reckon I ought to +give you a lift if you need it. Now, then, if there's any little thing +you want done, I'll look after it for you.' The miser said he'd like to +have an iron fence round his grave, if the devil thought he could see to +it without puttin' himself out any. The devil said it wouldn't be any +trouble, an' then he counted off on his fingers the minutes the miser +had to live, an' lit out. + +"They buried the miser in a poor corner of the graveyard where there was +nothin' but sinkfield an' sand briars, an' that night the devil went +down to the blacksmith an' told him he wanted an iron fence put around +the old feller's grave, an' to git it done before midnight. The +blacksmith throwed his coat an' went to work like a whitehead, an' when +twelve o'clock come he had the iron fence done an' a settin' around the +miser's grave. + +"Just as the clock struck, the devil come along, an' he said to the +blacksmith, standin' there a-sweatin' like a colt, 'Well, I see you got +her all up hunkey dorey.' 'Yes,' said the blacksmith, 'an' now I want my +pay.' 'Let's see about that,' said the devil; 'did you do that job +because you wanted to, or because you didn't want to?' The blacksmith +didn't know what to say, so he hemmed and hawed, an' finally he says, +'Maybe I done it because I wanted to, an' maybe I done it because I +didn't want to.' 'All right,' said the devil; 'if you done it because +you wanted to, I don't owe you nothin', an' if you done it because you +didn't want to, there ain't nothin' I can pay you.' An' he sunk in the +ground, with his thumb to his nose an' his fingers a-wigglin' at the +blacksmith." + +I saw the application of the story. One could settle with money for +labour when the labourer was free, but when the labourer was not free, +when he had used his breath and his muscle under a master, money could +make no final settlement. + +Ugly accounts to run in a world where the scheme of things is eternally +fair, and worse, maybe, if carried over for adjustment into the Court of +Final Equity! The remark of Ump came back like a line of ancient wisdom, +"Peace is a purty thing." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE WARDENS OF THE RIVER + + +While men are going about with a bit of lens and a measure of acid, +explaining the hidden things of this world, I should be very glad if +they would explain why it is that the evening of an autumn day always +recalls the lost Kingdom of the Little. The sun squinting behind the +mountains, the blue haze deepening in the hollows of the hills, the cool +air laden with faint odours from the nooks and corners of the +world,--what have these to do with the land of the work-a-day? + +Long and long ago in that other country it meant that the fairies were +gathering under the hill for another raid on the province of the goblins +across the sedge-fields; that the owls were going up on the ridges to +whisper with the moon; that the elves one by one, in their quaint yellow +coats, were stealing along under the oak trees on the trail of the wolf +spider. But what can it mean in the grown-up country? + +When the Golden Land is lost to us, when turning suddenly we find the +enchanted kingdom vanished, do we give up the hope of finding it again? +We know that it is somewhere across the world, and we ought to find it, +and we know, too, that its out-country is like these October afternoons, +and our hearts beat wildly for a moment, then the truth strikes and we +see that this is not The Land. + +But it brings the memory of the heyday of that other land, where, in my +babyhood, like the kings of Bagdad, I had a hundred bay horses in their +stables, each bridled with a coloured woollen string, and stalled in the +palings of the garden, and each with his high-sounding name, and +princely lineage, and his thrilling history, and where I had a thousand +black cattle at pasture in the old orchard. + +It might be that an ancient, passing, would not see the drove, because +his eyes were hide-bound, but he would see me as I galloped along by the +hot steers, and hear the shouting, and he could not doubt that they were +there. I was tremendously busy in those earlier days. No cattle king of +the Hills had one-half the wonderful business. I dropped to sleep in old +Liza's arms with my mighty plans swimming in my head. I had long rides +and many bunches of cattle to gather on to-morrow, and I must have a +good night's rest. + +Or I rode in Ward's arms, when he went to salt the cattle, and sat in +the saddle while he threw the handfuls of salt on the weeds, and I +noticed all the wonders of the land into which we came. I saw the +golden-belted bee booming past on his mysterious voyage, and he was a +pirate sailing the summer seas. I heard the buzzing curse of the bald +hornet, and I wished him hard luck on his robbing raid. And the swarms +of yellow butterflies were bands of stranger fairies travelling +incognito. I knew what these fellows were about, but I said nothing. The +ancients were good enough folk, but their idea of perspective was +abominably warped. I gave them up pretty early. + +The hills by the great Valley River are a quiet country, sodded deep, +with here and there an open grove like those in which the dreamers +wandered with a garland of meadowsweet, or the fauns piped when the +world was young. Through them, now and then, a little stream goes +laughing, fringed with bulrushes and beds of calamus and fragrant mint, +a narrow stream that runs chuckling through the stiff sod and spreads +dimpling over the road on a bed of white sand, for all the world like a +dodging sprite of the wood who laughs suddenly in some sunlit corner. + +We splashed through one of these little brooks as the sun was setting, +and El Mahdi's feet sank in the white sand. I watched the crystal water +go bubbling over his hoofs and then pour with a gush into the shoe +tracks which held the print like a mould. We left a silver trail or, now +when the sun was slanting, a golden trail, big with the air of enchanted +ventures. + +When we came on the brow of the hills flanking the approaches to the +Valley River it was already night. The outlines of the far-off mountains +were blending into one huge shadow. It was now the wall of the world, +with no path for a human foot. The hills were a purple haze, the trees +along their crests making fantastic pictures against the sky. Beyond the +land of living men, it seemed, an owl hooted, and a belated dove called +and called like a moaning spirit wandering in some lost tarn of the +Styx. + +We rode down to the bend of the Valley River over a stretch of sandy +land pre-empted by the cinque-foil and the running brier, the country of +the woodcock and the eccentric kildee. We could hear the low, sullen +roar of the river sweeping north around this big bend, long before we +came to it. Under the stars there is no greater voice of power. We rode +side by side in the deepening twilight, making huge shadows on the +crunching sand. Up to this hour it seemed to me that we had been idling +through some long and pleasant ride, with the loom of evil afar off in +the front. We had talked of peril merrily together, as men loitering in +a tavern talk easily of the wars. But now in the night, under the spell +of the booming water, the atmosphere of responsibility returned. + +Ward was depending upon me and the two beside me. Woodford's men moved +back yonder in the Hills, and maybe they moved out there beyond the +water, and we could see nothing and hear nothing but the sand grinding +under the iron of a horse's shoe. In the night the face of the Valley +River was not a pleasant thing to see. It ran muddy and swift, even with +its banks, a bed of water a quarter of a mile in width, its yellow +surface gleaming now and then in the dim light of the evening like the +belly of some great snake. + +Standing on its bank we could see the other shore, a line of grey fog. +The yellow tongues of the water lapped the bank, and crept muttering in +among the willows, an ominous, hungry brood. + +The roar of the river, now that one stood beside it, seemed not so +great. It was dull, heavy, low pitched, as though the vast water growled +comfortably. The rains in the mountains had filled the bed brimming like +a cup, even in the drought of summer. The valley was wide and deep in +this bend,--too wide and too deep to be crossed by the ordinary +bridge,--so the early men had set up a sort of ferry when they first +came to this water. + +It was a rude makeshift, the old men said, two dugouts of poplar lashed +together and paddled, a thing that would carry a man and his horse, or +perhaps a yoke of oxen. Now, the ferry was more pretentious. A wire +cable stretched across the river, fastened on the south bank to a post +set deep in the earth, and flanked by an abutment of sandstone, and on +the north bank wound round a huge elm that stood by the road within a +dozen yards of the river. + +On this cable the boat ran, fastened with wire ropes and two pulleys, a +sort of long, flat barge that would carry thirty cattle. The spanning +cable made a great curve down the river, so that the strength of the +current was almost sufficient to force the barge across, striking it +obliquely against the dip of the wire. How the current could be made to +do this work was to me one of the mysteries, but it did do it, guided +and helped by the ferrymen. I have wondered at it a hundred times as I +sat under El Mahdi's nose with my feet dangling over the side of the +boat. + +We stopped on the slope where the boat landed. + +Jud threw back his shoulders and shouted; and someone answered from the +other side, "Who-ee!" a call that is said to reach farther than any +other human sound. It came high up over the water, clear enough, but as +from a great distance. There were no bells at the crossings in this +land. Every man carried a voice in his throat that could reach half a +mile to the grazing steers on the sodded knobs. + +The two sons of old Jonas Horton maintained the ferry as their father +had done before them. It was an inheritance, and it was something more +than this. It was a trust, a family distinction, like a +title,--something which they were born into, as a Hindoo is born into +his father's trade. If they had been ousted from this ferry, they would +have felt themselves as hopelessly wronged as the descendants of an old +house driven from their baronial estate. + +The two, Mart and Danel, lived with the mother, a flat, withered old +woman, in a log house by the river. They were tall, raw-boned, serious +men, rarely leaving the river, and at such times hurrying back uneasy. +Their faces at the church or in the village were anxious, as of one who +leaves his house closed with a fire roaring in the chimney; or better, +perhaps, of some fearful child who has stolen away from his daily +everlasting task. Sometimes the mother would say, "There is no meal in +the barrel," or, "You're drinking the last of the coffee;" and they +would look at each other across the table, troubled, as men dire beset +called upon to decrease the forces of a garrison. Then one would set out +with a bag on his shoulder, throwing his long body forward at each step +and dangling his arms, hurrying as though he ought not to take the time. + +Presently the boat crept towards us out of the water, swung down swiftly +and ground its nose in the bank. The two ferrymen were bareheaded, in +their brown homespun coats. They had possibly been at supper, and turned +around on their bench to answer through the open door. They inquired if +we all wished to be set over, and we rode on to the boat for answer. The +man in the bow reached up and caught the cable with a sort of iron +wrench, and began to pull. The other took a pole lying by the horses' +feet, thrust it against the bank and forced the boat out into the water. +Then he also took a wrench from his pocket, and when his brother, +walking down the length of the barge from bow to stern, reached the end, +he caught the cable and followed, so that the pull on the wire was +practically continuous. + +The warm south wind blew stiffly in our faces and the horses shifted +their feet uneasily. If the Valley River was ugly from its bank it was +uglier from its middle. It tugged at the boat as though with a thousand +clinging fingers, and growled and sputtered, and then seemed to quit it +for a moment and whisper around the oak boards like invisible +conspirators taking counsel in a closet. A scholar on that water nursing +his sallow face in the trough of his hand would have fallen a-brooding +on the grim boatman crossing to the shore that none may leave, or the +old woman of the Sanza, poling her ghostly, everlasting raft; and had he +listened, he could have heard the baying of the three-mouthed hound +arousing the wardens of the Vedic Underworld to their infernal watching +by that water we all must cross. + +I think the hunchback had no idea of the moods of nature; at any rate +they never seemed to affect him. To him all water was something to drink +or something to swim in, and the earth was good pasture or hard road to +ride a horse over. The grasp of no agnostic was more cynical. He +inquired if any of Woodford's men had crossed that day, and was answered +that they had not. + +Then he began to hum a hoary roundelay about the splendid audacity of +old Mister Haystack and his questionable adventures, set to an +unprintable refrain of "Winktum bolly mitch-a-kimo," or some such jumble +of words. I have never heard this song in the mouth of any other man. He +must have found it somewhere among the dusty trumpery of forgotten old +folk-lyrics, and when he sang it one caught the force of the Hebraic +simile about the crackling of thorns under a pot. + +Jud laughed, and the hunchback piped a higher cackle and dangled his +bridle rein. "Humph," he said, "maybe you don't like that song." + +"It ain't the song," replied Jud. + +"Maybe you don't like the way I sing it," said he. + +"It might be different," said Jud. + +"Well," said he, "it wouldn't mean different." + +Here I took a hand in the dialogue. "What does it mean anyhow?" I said. +"It's about the foolest song I ever heard." + +"Quiller," replied the hunchback, propping his fist under his bony jaw, +"you've heard tell of whistlin' to keep up your courage. Well, that song +was made for them as can't whistle." + +Jud turned in astonishment. "Afraid?" he said; "what are you afraid of?" + +The hunchback leaned over as if about to impart a secret. "Ghosts!" he +whispered. I laughed at the discomfiture of the giant, but Ump went on +counterfeiting a deep and weird seriousness which, next to his singing, +was about the most ludicrous thing in the world. "Ghosts, my laddiebuck. +But not the white-sheeted lady that comes an' says, 'Foller me,' nor the +spook that carries his head under his arm tied up in a tablecloth, but +ghosts, my laddiebuck, that make tracks while they walk." + +"I thought ghosts rode broomsticks," said Jud. + +"Nary a broomstick," replied the hunchback. "When they are a-follerin' +Mister Ward's drovers, it's a little too peaked for long ridin'." + +Then he broke off suddenly and called to the ferryman. "Danel," he said, +"how many cattle will this boat hold?" + +"Big cattle or stockers?" inquired the man. + +"Exporters," said Ump. + +"Mart," called the brother, "can we carry thirty exporters?" + +"Are they dehorned?" inquired Mart. + +"Muley," said Ump. + +"We can carry thirty muleys if they ain't nervous," replied the brother +called Mart. "Are you gatherin' up some cattle for Mister Ward?" + +"Yes," said Ump. "We'll be here early in the morning with six hundred, +an' we want to git 'em set over as quick as you can. How long will it +take?" + +"Well," said Danel, "mighty nigh up till noon, I reckon. Do you mind, +Mart, how long we were settin' over them Alkire cattle?" + +"We begun in the morning, and we stopp'd for an afternoon bite. It took +the butt end of the day," replied the brother. + +We had now reached the south bank of the Valley River, and when the boat +slipped up on the wet sod, we rode ashore, and turned into the pike that +runs by the river bank. The ferrymen, with the characteristic +hospitality of the Hills, requested us to dismount and share the evening +meal, but we declined, urging the lateness of the hour. + +Through the open door I could see the unfinished supper, the sweet +corn-pone cut like a great cheese, the striped bacon, and the blue stone +milk pitcher with its broken ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE USES OF THE MOON + + +When I turned about in the saddle I found that El Mahdi had passed both +of my companions who were stock still in the road a half-dozen paces +behind me. I pulled him up and called to them, "What mare's nest have +you found now?" + +They replied that some horse had lately passed in a gallop. One could +tell by the long jumping and the deep, ploughing hoof-prints. "Come on," +said I, "Woodford's devils haven't crossed. What do we care?" + +"But it's mighty big jumpin'," answered the hunchback. + +"Maybe," I responded laughing, "the cow that jumped over the moon took a +running start there." + +"If she did," said Ump, "I'll just find out if any of the Hortons saw +her goin'." Then he shouted, "Hey, Danel, who crossed ahead of us?" + +The long bulk of the ferryman loomed in the door. "It was Twiggs," he +answered. + +I heard Jud cursing under his breath. Twiggs was the head groom of +Cynthia Carper, and when he ran a horse like that the devil was to pay. +I gripped the reins of El Mahdi's bridle until he began to rear. + +"He must have been in a hurry," said Ump. + +"'Pears like it," responded the boatman, turning back into his house. +"He lit out pretty brisk." + +Ump shook the reins of his bridle and went by me in a gallop. The +Cardinal passed at my knee, and I followed, bending over to keep the +flying sand out of my eyes. + +The moon was rising, a red wheel behind the shifting fog. And under its +soft light the world was a ghost land. We rode like phantoms, the +horses' feet striking noiselessly in the deep sand, except where we +threw the dead sycamore leaves. My body swung with the motions of the +horse, and Ump and Jud might have been a part of the thing that galloped +under their saddles. + +The art of riding a horse cannot be learned in half a dozen lessons in +the academy on the avenue. It does not lie in the crook of the knee, or +the angle of the spine. It does not lie in the make of the saddle or the +multiplicity of snaffle reins, nor does it lie in the thirty-nine +articles of my lady's riding-master. But it is embraced in the grasp of +one law that may be stated in a line, and perhaps learned in a dozen +years,--be a part of the horse. + +The mastery of an art--be it what you like--does but consist in the +comprehension of its basic law. The appreciation of this truth is +indispensable. It cannot avail to ape the manner of the initiate. I have +seen dapper youths booted and spurred, riding horses in the park, rising +to the trot and holding the ball of the foot just so on the iron of the +stirrup, and if the horse had bent his body they would have gone +sprawling into the bramble bushes. Yet these youngsters believed that +they were riding like her Majesty's cavalry, the ogled gallants of every +strolling lass. + +I have seen begloved clubmen with an English accent worrying a good +horse that they understood about as well as a problem in mechanics or +any line of Horace. And I have seen my lady sitting a splendid mount, +with the reins caught properly in her fingers and her back as straight +as a whip-staff, and I would have wagered my life that every muscle in +her little body was as rigid as a rock, and her knee as numb as the +conscience of a therapeutist. + +Look, if you please, at the mud-stained cavalryman who has lived his +days and his nights in the saddle; or the cattle drover who has never +had any home but this pigskin seat, and mark you what a part of the +horse he is. Hark back to these models when you are listening to the +vapourings of a riding-master lately expatriated from the stables of Sir +Henry. To ride well is to recreate the fabulous centaur of Thessaly. + +We raced over the mile of sand road in fewer minutes than it takes to +write it down here. There was another factor, new come into the problem, +and we meant to follow it close. Expedition has not been too highly +sung. An esoteric novelist hath it that a pigmy is as good as a giant if +he arrive in time. + +At the end of this mile, below Horton's Ferry, the road forks, and there +stands a white signboard with its arms crossed, proclaiming the ways to +the travelling stranger. The cattle Ward had bought were in two droves. +Four hundred were on the lands of Nicholas Marsh, perhaps three miles +farther down the Valley River, and the remaining two hundred a mile or +two south of the crossroads at David Westfall's. + +Ump swung his horse around in the road at the forks. "Boys," he said, +"we'll have to divide up. I'll go over to old Westfall's, an' you bring +up the other cattle. I'll make King David help to the forks." + +"What about Twiggs?" said I. + +"To hell with Twiggs," said he. "If he gits in your way, throat him." +Then he clucked to the Bay Eagle and rode over the hill, his humped back +rising and falling with the gallop of the mare. + +We slapped the reins on our horses' necks and passed on to the north, +the horses nose to nose, and my stirrup leather brushing the giant's +knee at every jump of El Mahdi. The huge Cardinal galloped in the +moonlight like some splendid machine of bronze, never a misstep, never a +false estimate, never the difference of a finger's length in the long, +even jumps. It might have been the one-eyed Agib riding his mighty horse +of brass, except that no son of a decadent Sultan ever carried the bulk +of Orange Jud. And the eccentric El Mahdi! There was no cause for +fault-finding on this night. He galloped low and easily, gathering his +grey legs as gracefully as his splendid, nervous mother. I watched his +mane fluttering in the stiff breeze, his slim ears thrust forward, the +moon shining on his steel-blue hide. For once he seemed in sympathy with +what I was about. Seemed, I write it, for it must have been a mistaken +fancy. This splendid, indifferent rascal shared the sensations of no +living man. Long and long ago he had sounded life and found it hollow. +Still, as if he were a woman, I loved him for this accursed +indifference. Was it because his emotions were so hopelessly +inaccessible, or because he saw through the illusion we were chasing; or +because--because--who knows what it was? We have no litmus-paper test +for the charm of genius. + +Under us the dry leaves crackled like twigs snapping in a fire, and the +flying sand cut the bushes along the roadway like a storm of whizzing +hailstones. In the wide water of the Valley River the moon flitted, and +we led her a lively race. When I was little I had a theory about this +moon. The old folks were all wrong about its uses. Lighting the night +was a piece of incidental business. It was there primarily as a door +into and out of the world. Through it we came, carried down from the +hill-tops on the backs of the crooked men and handed over to the old +black mammy who unwrapped us trembling by the firelight. Then we +squalled lustily, and they said "A child is born." + +When a man died, as we have a way of saying, he did but go back with +these same crooked men through the golden door of the world. Had I not +seen the moon standing with its rim on the eastern ridge of the Seely +Hill when they found old Jerry Lance lying stone-dead in his house? And +had I not predicted with an air of mysterious knowledge that Jourdan +would recover when Red Mike threw him? The sky was moonless and he could +not get out if he wished. + +Besides there was a lot of mystery about this getting into the world. +Often when I was little, I had questioned the elders closely about it, +and their replies were vague, clothed in subtle and bedizzened +generalities. They did not know, that was clear, and since they were so +abominably evasive I was resolved to keep the truth locked in my own +bosom and let them find out about it the best way they could. Once, in a +burst of confidence I broached the subject to old Liza and explained my +theory. She listened with a grave face and said that I had doubtless +discovered the real truth of the matter, and I ought to explain it to a +waiting world. But I took a different view, swore her to secrecy, and +rode away on a peeled gum-stick horse named Alhambra, the Son of the +Wind. + +While the horses ran, I speculated on the possible mission of Twiggs, +but I could find no light, except that, of course, it augured no good to +us. I think Jud was turning the same problem, for once in a while I +could hear him curse, and the name of Twiggs flitted among the +anathemas. We had hoped for a truce of trouble until we came up to +Woodford beyond the Valley River. But here was a minion of Cynthia +riding the country like Paul Revere. My mind ran back to the saucy miss +on the ridge of Thornberg's Hill, and her enigmatic advice, blurted out +in a moment of pique. This Twiggs was colder baggage. But, Lord love me! +how they both ran their horses! + +Three miles soon slip under a horse's foot, and almost before we knew it +we were travelling up to Nicholas Marsh's gate. Jud lifted the wooden +latch and we rode down to the house. Ward said that Nicholas Marsh was +the straightest man in all the cattle business, scrupulously clean in +every detail of his trades. Many a year Ward bought his cattle without +looking at a bullock of them. If Marsh said "Good tops and middlin' +tails," the good ones of his drove were always first class and the bad +ones rather above the ordinary. The name of Marsh was good in the Hills, +and his word was good. I doubt me if a man can leave behind him a better +fame than that. + +The big house sat on a little knoll among the maples, overlooking the +Valley River. The house was of grey stone, built by his father, and +stood surrounded by a porch, swept by the maple branches and littered +with saddles, saddle blankets, long rope halters, bridles, salt sacks, +heavy leather hobbles, and all the work-a-day gear of a cattle grazier. + +There was a certain air of strangeness in the way we were met at +Nicholas Marsh's house. I do not mean inhospitality, rather the reverse, +with a tinge of embarrassment, as of one entertaining the awkward guest. +We were evidently expected, and a steaming supper was laid for us. Yet, +when I sat at the table and Jud with his plate by the smouldering fire, +we were not entirely easy. Marsh walked through the room, backward and +forward, with his hands behind him, and a great lock of his iron-grey +hair throwing shadows across his face. Now and then he put some query +about the grass, or my brother's injury, or the condition of the road, +and then turned about on his heel. His fine open face wore traces of +annoyance. It was plain that there had been here some business not very +pleasing to this honourable man. When I told him we had come for the +cattle, the muscles of his jaw seemed to tighten. He stopped and looked +me squarely in the face. + +"Well, Quiller," he said, with what seemed to me to be unnecessary +firmness, "I shall let you have them." + +I heard Jud turn sharply in his chair. + +"Let me have them? Is there any trouble about it?" + +The man was clearly embarrassed. He bit his lip and twisted his neck +around in his collar. "No," he said, hesitating in his speech, "there +isn't any trouble. Still a man might demand the money at the scales. He +would have a right to do that." + +My pulse jumped. So this was one of their plans, those devils. And we +had never a one of us dreamed of it. If the money were demanded at the +scales it would mean delay, and delay meant that Woodford would win. + +So this was Twiggs's part in the ugly work. No wonder he ran his horse. +Trust a woman for jamming through the devil's business. Nothing but the +good fibre of this honourable man had saved us. But Westfall! He was +lighter stuff. How about Westfall? + +I looked up sharply into the troubled face of the honest man. + +"How about the other cattle," I faltered; "shall we get them?" + +"Who went for them?" he asked. + +"Ump," I replied; "he left us at the crossroads." + +The man took his watch out of his pocket and studied for a moment. +"Yes," he said, "you will get them." + +It was put like some confident opinion based upon the arrival of an +event. + +"Mister Marsh," I said, "are you afraid of Ward? Isn't he good for the +money?" + +"Don't worry about that, my boy," he answered, taking up the +candlestick, "I have said that you shall have the cattle, and you shall +have them. Let me see about a bed for you." + +Then he went out, closing the door after him. + +I turned to Jud, and he pointed his finger to a letter lying on the +mantelpiece. I arose and picked it up. It bore Cynthia's seal and was +open. + +Let us forgive little Miss Pandora. Old Jupiter ought to have known +better. And the dimpled wife of Bluebeard! That forbidden door was so +tremendously alluring! + +I think I should have pulled the letter out of its envelope had I not +feared that this man would return and find it in my fingers. I showed +the seal to Jud and replaced it on the mantelpiece. + +He slapped his leg. "Twiggs brought that," he said, "an' he's gone on to +Westfall's. What does it say?" + +"I didn't read it," I answered. + +The man heaved his shoulders up almost to his ears. "Quiller," he said, +"you can't root, if you have a silk nose." + +I think I should have fallen, but at this moment Nicholas Marsh came +back with his candle, and said we ought to sleep if we wished an early +start in the morning. I followed him up the bare stairway to my room on +the north side of the house. He placed the candlestick on the table, +promised to call me early, then bade me good-night and went away. + +I watched his broad back disappear in the shadow of the hall. Then I +closed the door and latched it. Rigid honesty has its disadvantages. +Here was a man almost persuaded to insist upon a right that was valid +but unusual, and deeply worried because he had almost yielded to the +urging. It takes good men to see the fine shades of such a thing. + +There was a broad window in this room, with the bare limbs of the maples +brushing against its casement. I looked out before I went to bed. Beyond +the Valley River, great smoky shadows cloaked the hills, gilded along +their borders by the rising moon; hills that sat muffled in the foldings +of their robes, waiting for the end,--waiting for man to play out the +game and quit, and the Great Manager to pull down his scenery. + +I blew out the candle, and presently slept as one sleeps when he is +young. Sometime in the night I sat bolt upright in the good bed to +listen. I had heard,--or was I dreaming,--floating up from some far +distance, the last faint echo of that voice of Parson Peppers. + + "An' the ravens they did feed him, fare ye well, + fare ye well." + +I sprang out of bed and pressed my face against the window. There was no +sound in the world. Below, the Valley River lay like a plate of +burnished yellow metal. Under the enchanted moon it was the haunted +water of the fairy. No mortal went singing down its flood, surely, +unless he sailed in the ship that the tailors sewed together, or went +a-dreaming in that mystic barge rowed by the fifty daughters of Danaus. + +I crept back under the woven coverlid. This was haunted country, and +Parson Peppers was doubtless snoring in a bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SIX HUNDRED + + +It is an unwritten law of the Hills that all cattle bought by the pound +are to be weighed out of their beds, that is, in the early morning +before they have begun to graze. This is the hour set by immemorial +custom. + +We were in the saddle while the sun was yet abed. The cattle were on two +great boundaries of a thousand acres, sleeping in the deep blue grass on +the flat hill-tops. Jud and two of Marsh's drivers took one line of the +ridges, and Marsh and I took the other. + +The night was lifting when we came out on the line of level hill-tops, +and through the haze the sleeping cattle were a flock of squatting +shadows. As we rode in among them the dozing bullocks arose awkwardly +from their warm beds and stretched their great backs, not very well +pleased to have their morning rest broken. + +We rode about, bringing them into a bunch, arousing some morose old +fellow who slept by himself in a corner of the hill, or a dozen +aristocrats who held a bedchamber in some windless cove, or a straying +Ishmaelite hidden in a broom-sedge hollow,--all displeased with the +interruption of their forty winks before the sunrise. Was it not enough +to begin one's day with the light and close it with the light? What did +man mean by his everlasting inroads on the wholesome ways of nature? The +Great Mother knew what she was about. All the people of the fields could +get up in the morning without this cursed row. Whoever was one of them +snoozing in his trundle-bed after the sun had flashed him a good +morning? + +The home-life of the steer would be healthy reading in any family. He +never worries, and his temper has no shoal. Either he is contented and +goes about his business, or he is angry and he fights. He is clean, and +as regular in his habits as a lieutenant of infantry. To bed on the +highlands when the dark comes, and out of it with the sun. A drink of +water from the brook, and about to breakfast. + +We gathered the cattle into a drove, and started them in a broken line +across the hills toward the road, the huge black muleys strolling along, +every fellow at his leisure. The sun peeping through his gateway in the +east gilded the tops of the brown sedge and turned the grass into a sea +of gold. Through this Eldorado the line of black cattle waded in deep +grasses to the knee,--curly-coated beasts from some kingdom of the +midnight in mighty contrast to this golden country. I might have been +the Merchant's Son transported by some wicked fairy to a land of +wonders, watching, with terror in his throat, the rebellious jins under +some enchantment of King Solomon travelling eastward to the sun. + +Now a hungry fellow paused to gather a bunch of the good-tasting grass +and was butted out of the path, and now some curly-shouldered +belligerent roared his defiant bellow and it went rumbling through the +hills. We drove the cattle through the open gate of the pasture and down +a long lane to the scales. + +Nicholas Marsh seemed another man, and I felt the first touch of triumph +come with the crisp morning. Woodford was losing. We had the cattle and +there remained only to drive them in. It is a wonderful thing how the +frost glistening on a rail, or a redbird chirping in a thicket of purple +raspberry briers, can lift the heart into the sun. Marks and his crew +were creatures of a nightmare, gone in the daylight, hung up in the dark +hollow of some oak tree with the bat. + +Marsh and the drivers went ahead of the cattle to the scales, and I +followed the drove, stopping to close the gate and fasten it with its +wooden pin to the old chestnut gate-post. High up on this gate-post was +a worn hole about as big as a walnut, door to the mansion of some +speckled woodpecker. As I whistled merrily under his sill, the master of +this house stepped up to his threshold and leered down at me. + +He looked old and immoral, with a mosaic past, the sort of woodpecker +who, if born into a higher estate, would have guzzled rum and gambled +with sailors. His head was bare in spots, his neck frowsy, and his +eyelids scaly. "Young sir," this debauched old Worldly Wiseman seemed to +say, "you think you're a devil of a fellow merely because it happens to +be morning. Gad sooks! You must be very young. When you get a trifle +further on with the mischief of living, you will realise that a +bucketful of sunlight doesn't run the devil out of business. Damme, +sirrah! Please to clear out with your accursed whistling." + +I left him to cool his head in the morning breezes. + +Nicholas Marsh was waiting for me at the scales when I arrived. He +wished me to see that they were balanced properly. He adjusted the beam, +adding a handful of shot or a nail or an iron washer to the weights. +Then we put on the fifty-pound test, and then a horse. When we were +satisfied that the scales were in working order, we weighed the cattle +four at a time. I took down the weights as Marsh called them, and when +we had finished, the drove was turned into the road toward the river. + +Marsh grasped my hand when I turned to leave him. "Quiller," he said, +"it's hard to guard against a liar, but I do not believe there was ever +a time when I would have refused you these cattle. Your brother has done +me more than one conspicuous kindness. I would trust him for the cattle +if he did not own an acre." + +"Mr. Marsh," I said, "what lie did Woodford tell you?" + +"I was told," he replied, "that Mr. Ward had transferred all of his +land, and as these cattle would lose a great deal of money, he did not +intend to pay this loss. I was shown a copy of the court record, or what +purported to be one, to prove that statement. I do not think that I ever +quite believed, but the proof seemed good, and I saw no reason for the +lie." + +He stopped a moment and swept the iron-grey locks back from his face. +"Now," he continued, "I know the reason for that lie. And I know the +paper shown me was spurious. It was high-handed rascality, but I cannot +connect it with Woodford. It may have emanated from him, but I do not +know that. The man who told me disclaimed any relation with him." + +"Twiggs!" I said. + +"No," he answered, "it was not Twiggs. The man was a heifer buyer from +the north country. I would scarcely know him again." + +"Not Twiggs!" I cried, "he was here last night." + +"I know it," Marsh answered calmly. "He brought me this letter from Miss +Cynthia. Will you carry it back to her, and say that your brother's word +is good enough for Nicholas Marsh?" + +He put his hand into his coat and handed me Cynthia's letter; and I +stuffed it into my pockets without stopping to think. I tried to thank +him for this splendid fidelity to Ward, but somehow I choked with the +words pushing each other in my throat. He saw it, wished me a safe +drive, and rode away to his house. + +He was a type which the Hills will do ill to forget in the rearing of +their sons, a man whose life was clean, and therefore a man difficult to +wrong. I should have been sorry to stand before Nicholas Marsh with a +lie in my mouth. He is gone now to the Country of the Silences. He was a +just man, and to such, even the gods are accustomed to yield the wall. + +I followed slowly after the drove, the broad dimensions of Woodford's +plan at last clear in my youthful mind. He had put Ward in his bed, and +out of the way. Then he had sent a stranger to these men with a +dangerous lie corroborated by a bit of manufactured evidence,--a lie +calculated to put any cattleman on his guard, and one that could not be +tracked back to its sources. + +Then, to make it sure, Twiggs had come riding like the devil's imps with +some new warning from Cynthia. How could such planning fail? And failed +it had not but for the honour of this gentleman, or perhaps some design +of the Unknowable behind the machinery of the world. + +Generation of intriguers! Here are the two factors that wreck you. The +high captains of France overlooked the one in the prosecution of an +obscure subordinate. And Absalom, the first great master of practical +politics, somehow overlooked the other. + +In my pocket was the evidence of Cynthia's perfidy, with the envelope +opened, travelling home, as lies are said to. Ward might doubt the +attitude of this woman when she smoothed matters with that dimpled mouth +of hers, or crushed me out with her steel-grey eyes; but he would +believe what she had written when he saw it. Then a doubt began to arise +like the first vapour from the copper pot of the Arabian fisherman. +Could I show it to Ward? Marsh had sent it to Cynthia. Could I even look +at it? I postponed the contest with that genie. + +Suicide is not a more deliberate business than cattle driving. A bullock +must never be hurried, not even in the early morning. He must be kept +strolling along no faster than he pleases. If he is hurried, one will +presently have him panting with his tongue out, or down in a fence +corner with the fat melted around his heart. Yet if he is allowed his +natural gait, he will walk a horse to death. + +Remember, he carries fifteen hundred pounds, and there are casks of +tallow under his black hide. Besides that, he is an aristocrat +accustomed to his ease. In large droves it is advisable to keep the herd +in as long and narrow a line as possible, and to facilitate the driving, +a few bullocks are usually separated from the others and kept moving in +the van as a sort of pace-setter. + +It is surprising how readily the drove falls into the spirit of this +strolling march, some battle-scarred old bull leading, and the others +following him in the dust. + +It is said that neither fools, women, nor children can drive cattle. The +explanation of this adage is not here assumed, nor its community of +relation. I know the handling of these great droves is considered +business for an expert. The cattle owner would no sooner trust a herd to +men picked up by the roadway than the trainmaster would trust the +limited express to a stranger in the railroad station. + +If the cattle are hot they must be rested, in water if possible; if +there is no water, then under some shade. Throw down the fence and turn +them into the stranger's field. If the stranger is a person of good +sense, he will be glad to assist your necessity. If not, he must yield +to it. + +These are laws of the Hills, always remembered as the lawyer remembers +the "statute of frauds." It is impossible to go too slow. Watch the +mouth of the bullock. He is in no danger until his tongue lolls out at +the corner like a dog's. Then rest him. Let no man go through your +drove. He must stop until it passes him. If he refuses, he must be +persuaded. If one bullock runs back, let him alone; he will follow. But +if two, turn them at once with a swift dash of the cattle-horse. Never +run a steer. If the cattle are frightened, sing to them, and ride +through the drove. Old-fashioned, swinging, Methodist hymns are best. +Make it loud. The cattle are not particular about the tune. + +I have heard the profane Ump singing Old Hundred and riding the Bay +Eagle up and down in a bunch of frightened cattle, and it was a piece of +comedy for the gods. I have heard Jud, with no more tune than a tom-tom, +bellowing the doxology to a great audience of Polled-Angus muleys on the +verge of a stampede. And I have sung myself, many a time, like a circuit +rider with a crowded mourner's bench. + +One thing more: know every bullock in your drove. Get his identity in +your mind as you get the features of an acquaintance, so that you would +recognise him instantly if you met him coming up at the end of the +earth. A driver in the Hills would not be worth his salt who did not +know every head of his cattle. Suppose his herd breaks into a field +where there are others of the same breed, or he collides with another +drove, or there is a tremendous mix at a tavern. The facility with which +a cattle man learns to recognise every steer in a drove of hundreds is +an eighth wonder of the world to a stranger. Anyone of us could ride +through a drove of cattle, and when he reached the end know every steer +that followed him in the road, and I have seen a line reaching for +miles. + +Easy with your eyebrows, my masters. When men are trained to a craft +from the time they are able to cling to a saddle, they are very apt to +exhibit a skill passing for witchcraft with the uninitiated. I have met +many a grazier, and I have known but one who was unable to recognise the +individual bullock in his drove, and his name was a byword in the Hills. + +Jud and the Cardinal followed the drove, and I rode slowly through the +cattle, partly to keep the long line thin, but chiefly to learn the +identity of each steer. I looked for no mark, nor any especial feature +of the bullock, but caught his identity in the total as the head waiter +catches the identity of a hat. I looked down at each bullock for an +instant, and then turned to the next one. In that instant I had the cast +of his individuality forever. The magicians of Pharaoh could not +afterwards mislead me about that bullock. This was not esoteric skill. +Any man in the Hills could do it. Indeed it was a necessity. There was +not a branded bullock in all this cattle land. What need for the +barbaric custom when every man knew his cattle as he knew his children? + +Later on, when little men came, at mid-life, to herding on the plains, +they were compelled to burn a mark on their cattle. But we who had bred +the beef steer for three-quarters of a century did no such child's play. +How the crowd at Roy's tavern would have roared at such baby business. I +have seen at this tavern a great mix of a dozen herds, that looked as +like as a potful of peas, separated by an idle loafer sitting on a +fence, calling out, "That one's Woodford's, an' that one's Alkire's an' +that one's Maxwell's, an' the Polled-Angus muley belongs to Flave +Davisson, an' the old-fashioned one is Westfield's. He must have got him +in Roane or Nicholas. An' the Durham's Queen's, an' the big Holstein +belongs to Mr. Ward, an' the red-faced Hereford is out of a Greenbrier +cow an' goes with the Carper's." + +By the time I had gotten through the drove we had reached the +crossroads, and I found Ump waiting with the two hundred cattle of +Westfall. The Bay Eagle was watching the steers, and Ump was sitting +sidewise in his saddle with his hands around his knees. + +I hailed him. "Did you have a hard job?" + +"Easy as rollin' off a log," he answered. "I thought King David would +throw his coat, but he was smooth-mouthed an' cross-legged as a +peddler." + +"Did Twiggs get in?" I asked. + +"Beat me by a neck," answered the hunchback. "But I passed him comin' +out an' I lit in to him." + +"Fist and skull?" said I. + +"Jaw," said he. "I damned every Carper into fiddlestrings from old Adam +to old Columbus." + +"What did he say?" + +"He said we was the purtiest bunch of idiots in the kingdom of +cowtails." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +RELATING TO THE FIRST LIARS + + +The autumn in the Hills is but the afternoon of summer. The hour of the +new guest is not yet. Still the heat lies on the earth and runs bubbling +in the water. The little maid trots barefoot and the urchin goes +a-swimming in the elm-hole by the corner of the meadow. Still the tender +grass grows at the roots of the dead crop, and the little purple flowers +dimple naked in the brown pasture. Still that Pied Piper of Hamelin, the +everlasting Pan, flutes in the deep hollows, squatted down in the +broom-sedge. And still the world is a land of unending summer, of +unfading flowers, of undying youthfulness. Only for an hour or so, far +in the deep night does the distant breath of the Frost King come to +haunt the land, and then when the sun flings away his white samite +coverlid it is summer again, with the earth shining and the water warm. + +It was hot mid-morning when the long drove trailed down toward Horton's +Ferry. The sweat was beginning to trickle in the hair of the fat cattle. +Here and there through the herd a quarrelsome fellow was beginning to +show the effect of his fighting and the heat. His eyes were a bit watery +in his dusty face, and the tip of his tongue was slipping at his lips. +The warm sun was getting into the backs of us all. I had stripped off my +coat and carried it thrown across the horn of the saddle. Ump rode a +mile away in the far front of the drove, keeping a few steers moving in +the lead, while Jud shifted his horse up and down the long line. I +followed on El Mahdi, lolling in the big saddle. Far away, I could hear +Ump shout at some perverse steer climbing up against the high road bank, +or the crack of Jud's driving whip drifted back to me. The lagging +bullocks settled to the rear, and El Mahdi held them to the mark like a +good sergeant of raw militiamen. + +Ump and his leaders had reached the open common by the ferry when the +long line stopped, and I saw Jud go to the front in a gallop. I waited +for the column to go on, but it did not, and I began to drive the cattle +in, bunching them up in the road. + +Presently Jud came down into the turnpike and shouted to me. Then he +dismounted, tied the reins around the horn of the saddle, and started +the Cardinal to the rear. The trained cattle-horse knew very well what +he was to do, and picked his way through the steers until he reached me. +Then he turned in the road, and I left him to watch the drove while I +went to the front to see what the trouble was. + +Both the Cardinal and the Bay Eagle were trained to this business and +guarded the rear of the drove like dogs. The rider might lounge under a +shade-tree, kicking up his heels to the sky. For this work El Mahdi was +a trifle too eccentric, and we did not trust him. + +Jud was gone when I reached the little bank where the road turned into +the common of the ferry. I passed through the van of the cattle as they +stood idly on the sodded open swinging their long tails with comfortable +indifference. Then I came out where I could see the bank of the river +and the blue smoke trailing up from the chimney of the ferrymen. + +Facing the north at the front door of this house, Ump sat on the Bay +Eagle, the reins down on the mare's neck and the hunchback's long hands +crossed and resting on the horn of his saddle. + +The attitude of the man struck me with a great fear. About him lurked +the atmosphere of overwhelming defeat. The shadow of some mighty +disaster loomed over against the almost tragic figure of the motionless +hunchback sitting a horse of stone. + +In such moments of strain the human mind has a mysterious capacity for +trifles. I noticed a wisp of dry sedge bloom clinging to the man's +shoulder,--a flimsy detail of the great picture. + +The hunchback made no sign when I rode by him. What he had seen was +still there beyond him in the sun. I had eyes; I could see. + +On a stone by the landing sat one of the ferrymen, Danel, his hands in +the pockets of his brown homespun coat. Neither Jud nor the other +brother was anywhere in sight. I looked up at the steel cable above the +man's head. It ended twenty feet away in the water. + +I arose in the stirrups and searched the bank for the boat. It was gone. +The Valley River ran full, a quarter of a mile of glistening yellow +water, and no way across it but the way of the bass or the way of the +heron. + +The human mind has caves into which it can crawl, pits where it hides +itself when it wishes to escape; dark holes leading back under the crags +of the abyss. This explains the dazed appearance of one who is told +suddenly of a disaster. The mind has crawled up into these fastnesses. +For the time the distance is great between it and the body of the man +through which it manifests itself. An enemy has threatened, and the +master has gone to hide himself. The mind is a coward, afraid always of +the not-mind. Like the frightened child, it must be given time to creep +back to its abandoned plaything. + +The full magnitude of this disaster to the ferry came slowly, as when +one smooths out a crumpled map. In the great stillness I heard a wren +twittering in the reeds along the bank, and I noted a green grasshopper, +caught in the current, swimming for his life. + +Then I saw it all to the very end, and I sickened. I felt as though some +painless accident had removed all the portion of my body below the +diaphragm. It was physical sickness. I doubled over and linked my +fingers across my stomach, my head down almost to the saddle. Marks and +his crew had done the work for us. The cable had been cut, and the boat +had drifted away or been stolen. We were on the south side of the Valley +River twirling our thumbs, while they rode back to their master with the +answer, "It is done." + +Then, suddenly, I recalled the singing which I had heard in the night. +It was no dream, that singing. Peppers had stolen the boat and floated +it away with the current. I could see Cynthia laughing with Hawk Rufe. +Then I saw Ward, and the sickness left me, and the tears came streaming +through my eyes. I put my arms down on the horn of the saddle and +sobbed. + +Remember, I was only a boy. Men old in the business of life become +accustomed to loss; accustomed to fingers snatching away the gain which +they have almost reached up to; accustomed to the staggering blow +delivered by the Unforeseen. Like gamblers, they learn finally to look +with indifference on the mask that may disguise the angel, or the death; +on the curtain of to-morrow that may cover an Eldorado or a tomb. They +come to see that the eternal forces are unknowable, following laws +unknowable, from the seed sprouting in a handful of earth to the answer +of a woman, "I do not love you." + +But the child does not know the truth. He has been lied to from the +cradle; taught a set of catchwords, a set of wise saws, a set of moral +rules, logarithms by which the equation of life could be worked out, all +arbitrary, and many grossly erroneous. He is led to believe that his +father or the schoolmaster has grasped the scheme of human life and can +explain it to him. + +The nurse says it will come out all right, as though the Unforeseen +could be determined by a secret in her possession. He is satisfied that +these wise ones know. Then he meets the eternal forces, an event +threatens, he marshals his catchwords, his wise saws, his moral rules, +and they fail him. He retires, beaten, as the magicians of Egypt retired +before God. + +His father or the nurse or the schoolmaster explains with some +outlandish fairy story, shifts the catchword or the saw or the rule, as +a physician shifts the prescription of a consumptive, and returns him to +the tremendous Reality. Again he spreads his hands and cries the sacred +formula, the eternal forces advance, he stands fast and is flung +bleeding to the wall, or he flees. Afraid, hidden in some cranny of the +rocks, nursing his hurt, the child begins to see the truth. This passing +from the world as it should be to the world as it is nearly kills him. +It is like the riving of timber. + +Presently I heard Jud speak to me from behind El Mahdi. The full strong +voice of the man was like a dash of cold water in the face. I sat up; he +bade me join Ump and himself to discuss what should be done, then turned +around and went back to the house. + +I slipped down from El Mahdi, washed my face in the river, and wiped it +dry on my sleeve. Then I climbed into the saddle and rode back to where +the little group stood before the door. + +There were Ump and Jud, the two ferrymen, and their ancient mother. +Danel was describing the catastrophe in a low voice, as one might +describe the last illness of a man whose corpse was waiting in his house +for burial. + +"We set Twiggs over pretty late. Then there wasn't anybody else. So we +tied up the boat an' went to bed. Mother sleeps by the fire. Mother has +rheumatiz so she don't sleep very sound. About midnight she called me. +She was sitting up in the bed with a shawl around her. 'Danel,' she +said, 'there's something lumbering around the boat. Hadn't you better +slip down an' see about it?' I told mother I reckoned it was a swimmin' +tree. Sometimes they hit against the boat when they go down. Then I +waked Mart up an' told him mother heard somethin' bumpin' against the +boat, an' I reckoned it was a swimmin' tree. Mart was sleepy an' he said +he reckoned it was. Then I turned over an' went to sleep again. When we +got out this mornin', the cable was broke loose an' the boat swum off. +We s'pose," here he paused and looked gravely at his brother, who as +gravely nodded his head, "we s'pose the cable pulled loose somehow." + +"It was cut in two," said I. + +The ferryman screwed his head around on his neck as though he had not +heard correctly. "Did you say 'cut in two'?" he repeated. + +"Yes," said I, "cut in two. That cable was cut in two." + +The man began to rub his chin with his hand. "I reckon not, Quiller," he +said. "I reckon there ain't no person ornery enough to do that." + +"It might be," piped the old woman, thrusting in. "There's been sich. +Oncet, a long time ago, when your pap was a boy, goin' girlin' some, +about when he begun a settin' up to me, a feller stole the ferryboat, +but he was a terrible gallus feller." + +"Granny," said Ump, "the devil ain't dead by a long shot. There is +rapscallions lickin' plates over the Valley that's meaner than +gar-broth. They could show the Old Scratch tricks that would make his +eyes stick out so you could knock 'em off with a clapboard." + +Danel protested. He pointed out that neither he nor his brother had ever +done any man a wrong, and therefore no man would wrong them. It was one +of those rules which children discover are strangely not true. He said +the ferry was for the good of all, and therefore all would preserve +rather than injure that good. Another wise saw, verbally sound, but +going to pieces under the pitiless logic of fact. + +This man, who had spent his life as one might spend it grinding at a +mill, now, when he came to reckon with the natures of men, did it like a +child. Ump cut him short. "Danel," he said, "you talk like a +meetin'-house. Old Christian cut that cable with a cold chisel, an' +Black Malan or Peppers stole your boat. They have nothing against you. +They wanted to stop us from crossin' with these cattle, an' I guess +they've done it." + +Then he turned to me. The vapourings of the ferryman were of no +importance. "Quiller," he said, "we're in the devil's own mess. What do +you think about it?" + +"I don't know," I answered; "what does Jud think?" + +The face of the giant was covered with perspiration standing in beads. +He clenched his hands and clamped his wet fists against the legs of his +breeches. "God damn 'em!" he said. It was the most terrible oath that I +have ever heard. Then he closed his mouth. + +Ump looked at the man, then rode his horse over to me. + +"Quiller," he said slowly, "we're gone up unless we can swim the drove +across, an' it's a hell of a risky job. Do you see that big eddy?" and +he pointed his finger to the middle of the Valley River where the yellow +water swung around in a great circle. "If the steers bunched up in that +hole, they'd drown like rats." + +I looked at the wide water and it scared me. "Ump," I said, "how long +could they stay in there without giving out?" + +"They wouldn't give out," replied the hunchback, "if we could keep 'em +above the eddy. A steer can swim as long as a horse if he ain't crowded. +If we could keep 'em goin' in a long loop, we could cross 'em. If they +bunched up, it would be good-bye, pap." + +"Do you think they would grind in there if they happened to bunch?" said +I. + +"To kindlin'," responded Ump, "if they ever got at it good." + +"Ump," I said, looking him squarely in the face, "I'm afraid of it." + +The man chewed his thin upper lip. "So am I, Quiller," he answered. "But +there ain't much choosin'; we either swim 'em or we go up the spout." + +"Well," said I, "do we do it, or not do it?" + +The hunchback studied the river. "Quiller," he said finally, "if we +knowed about that current----" + +I cut him short. "I'll find out about the current," I said. Then I threw +away my hat, pitched my coat down on the sod and gathered up my bridle +reins. + +"Wait!" cried the hunchback. Then he turned to Jud. "Wash your face in +the tub by the spout yonder, an' bring up your horse. Take Danel with +you. Open Tolbert's fence an' put the cattle in the grove. Then come +back here. Quiller's the lightest; he's goin' to try the current." + +Then he swung around and clucked to the mare. I spoke to El Mahdi and we +rode down toward the river. On the bank Ump stopped and looked out +across the water, deep, wide, muddy. Then he turned to me. + +"Hadn't you better ride the Bay Eagle?" he said. "She knows more in a +minute than any horse that was ever born." + +"What's wrong with El Mahdi?" I said, piqued a little. + +"He ain't steady," responded the hunchback; "an' he knows more tricks +than a meetin'-house rat. Sometimes he swims an' sometimes he don't +swim, an' you can't tell till you git in." + +"This," said I, "is a case of 'have to.' If he don't like the top, +there's ground at the bottom." Then I kicked the false prophet in the +flanks with my heels. The horse was standing on the edge of the sodded +bank. When my heels struck him, he jumped as far as he could out into +the river. + +There was a great splash. The horse dropped like a stone, his legs stiff +as ramrods, his neck doubled under and his back bowed. It was a bucking +jump and meant going to the bottom. I felt the water rush up and close +over my head. + +I clamped my legs to the horse, held my breath, and went down in the +saddle. I thought we should never reach the bottom of that river. The +current tugged, trying to pull me loose and whirl me away. The horse +under me felt like a millstone. The weight of water pressed like some +tremendous thumb. Then we struck the rock bottom and began to come up. +The sensation changed. I seemed now to be thrust violently from below +against a weight pressing on my head, as though I were being used by +some force under me to drive the containing cork out of the bottle in +which we were enclosed. I began to be troubled for breath, my head rang. +The distance seemed interminable. Then we popped up on the top of the +river, and I filled with the blessed air to the very tips of my fingers. + +The horse blew the water out of his nostrils and doubled his long legs. +I thought he was going down again, and, seizing the top of the saddle +horn, I loosed my feet in the stirrups. If El Mahdi returned to the +deeps of that river, he would go by himself. + +He stretched out his grey neck, sank until the water came running over +the saddle, and then began to swim with long, graceful strokes of his +iron legs as though it were the easiest thing in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WHEN PROVIDENCE IS PAGAN + + +The strength of the current did not seem to be so powerful as I had +judged it. However, its determination was difficult. The horse swam with +great ease, but he was an extraordinary horse, with a capacity for doing +with this apparent ease everything which it pleased him to attempt. I do +not know whether this arose from the stirring of larger powers +ordinarily latent, or whether the horse's manner somehow concealed the +amount of the effort. I think the former is more probable. + +Half-way across the river, we were not more than twenty yards +down-stream from the ferry landing. Ump shouted to turn down into the +eddy, and I swung El Mahdi around. A dozen long strokes brought us into +the almost quiet water of the great rim to this circle, a circle that +was a hundred yards in diameter, in which the water moved from the +circumference to the centre with a velocity increasing with the +contracting of its orbit, from almost dead water in its rim to a +whirling eddy in its centre. + +I pulled El Mahdi up and let him drift with the motion of the water. We +swung slowly around the circle, moving inward so gently that our +progress was almost imperceptible. + +The panic of men carried out in flood water can be easily understood. +The activity of any power is very apt to alarm when that power is +controlled by no intelligence. It is the unthinking nature of the force +that strikes the terror. Death and the dark would lose much if they lost +this attribute. The water bubbled over the saddle. The horse drifted +like a chip. To my eyes, a few feet above this flood, the water seemed +to lift on all sides, not unlike the sloping rim of some enormous yellow +dish, in which I was moving gradually to the centre. + +If I should strike out toward the shore, we should be swimming up-hill, +while the current turning inward was apparently travelling down. This +delusion of grade is well known to the swimmer. It is the chiefest +terror of great water. Expert swimmers floating easily in flood water +have been observed to turn over suddenly, throw up their arms, and go +down. This is probably panic caused by believing themselves caught in +the vortex of a cone, from which there seems no escape, except by the +impossible one of swimming up to its rim, rising on all sides to the +sky. + +In a few minutes El Mahdi was in the centre of the eddy, carried by a +current growing always stronger. In this centre the water boiled, but it +was for the most part because of a lashing of surface currents. There +seemed to be no heavy twist of the deep water into anything like a +dangerous whirlpool. Still there was a pull, a tugging of the current to +a centre. Again I was unable to estimate the power of this drag, as it +was impossible to estimate how much resistance was being offered by the +horse. + +In the vortex of the eddy the delusion of the vast cone was more +pronounced. It was one of the dangerous elements to be considered. I +observed the horse closely to determine, if possible, whether he +possessed this delusion. If he did, there was not the slightest evidence +of it. He seemed to swim on the wide river with the indifference of +floating timber, his head lying flat, and the yellow waves slipping over +him to my waist. The sun beat into this mighty dish. Sometimes, when it +caught the water at a proper angle, I was blinded and closed my eyes. +Neither of these things seemed to give El Mahdi the slightest annoyance. +I heard Ump shout and turned the horse toward the south shore. He swam +straight out of the eddy with that same mysterious ease that +characterised every effort of this eccentric animal, and headed for the +bank of the river on the line of a bee. He struck the current beyond the +dead water, turned a little up stream and came out on the sod not a +hundred paces below the ferry. Both Ump and Jud rode down to meet me. + +El Mahdi shook the clinging water from his hide and resumed his attitude +of careless indifference. + +"Great fathers!" exclaimed Jud, looking the horse over, "you ain't +turned a hair on him. He ain't even blowed. It must be easy swimmin'." + +"Don't fool yourself," said the hunchback. "You can't depend on that +horse. He'd let on it was easy if it busted a girt." + +"It was easy for him," I said, rising to the defence. + +"Ho, ho," said Ump, "I wouldn't think you'd be throwin' bokays after +that duckin'. I saw him. It wasn't so killin' easy." + +"It couldn't be so bad," said Jud; "the horse ain't a bit winded." + +"Laddiebuck," cried the hunchback, "you'll see before you get through. +That current's bad." + +I turned around in the saddle. "Then you're not going to put them in?" I +said. + +"Damn it!" said the hunchback, "we've got to put 'em in." + +"Don't you think we'll get them over all right?" said I, bidding for the +consolation of hope. + +"God knows," answered the hunchback. + +"It'll be the toughest sleddin' that we ever went up against." Then he +turned his mare and rode back to the house of the ferrymen, and we +followed him. + +Ump stopped at the door and called to the old woman. "Granny," he said, +"set us out a bite." Then he climbed down from the Bay Eagle, one leg at +a time, as a spider might have done. + +"Quiller," he called to me, "pull off your saddle, an' let Jud feed that +long-legged son of a seacook. He'll float better with a full belly." + +Jud dismounted from the Cardinal. "When does the dippin' begin?" he +said. "Mornin' or afternoon service?" + +The hunchback squinted at the sun. "It's eleven o'clock now," he +answered. "In an hour we'll lock horns with Hawk Rufe an' hell an' high +water, an' the devil keeps what he gits." + +Jud took off the saddles and fed the horses shelled corn in the grass +before the door, and after the frugal dinner we waited for an hour. The +hunchback was a good general. When he went out to the desperate sally he +would go with fresh men and fresh horses. I spent that hour on my back. + +Across the road under the chestnut trees the black cattle rested in the +shade, gathering strength for the long swim. On the sod before the door +the horses rolled, turning entirely over with their feet in the air. Jud +lay with his legs stretched out, his back to the earth, and his huge +arms folded across his face. + +Ump sat doubled up on the skirt of his saddle, his elbows in his lap, +his long fingers linked together, and the shaggy hair straggling across +his face. He was the king of the crooked men, planning his battle with +the river while his lieutenants slept with their bellies to the sun. + +I was moving in some swift dream when the stamping of the horses waked +me and I jumped up. Jud was tightening the girth on El Mahdi. The +Cardinal stood beside him bridled and saddled. Ump was sitting on the +Bay Eagle, his coat and hat off, giving some order to the ferrymen who +were starting to bring up the cattle. The hunchback was saving every +breath of his horses. He looked like some dwarfish general of old times. + +I climbed up on El Mahdi bareheaded, in my shirt sleeves, as I had +ridden him before. Jud took off his coat and hat and threw them away. +Then he pulled off his shirt, tied it in a knot to the saddle-ring, +tightened the belt of his breeches, and got on his horse naked to the +waist. It was the order of the hunchback. + +"Throw 'em away," he said; "a breath in your horse will be worth all the +duds you can git in a cart." + +Danel and Mart laid down the fence and brought the cattle into the +common by the ferry. Directed by the hunchback they moved the leaders of +the drove around to the ferry landing. The great body of the cattle +filled the open behind the house. The six hundred black muleys made the +arc of a tremendous circle, swinging from the ferry landing around to +the road. It was impossible to get farther up the river on this side +because of a dense beech thicket running for a quarter of a mile above +the open. + +It was our plan to put the cattle in at the highest point, a few at a +time, and thereby establish a continuous line across the river. If we +could hold this line in a reasonable loop, we might hope to get over. If +it broke and the cattle drifted down-stream we would probably never be +able to get them out. + +When the drove stood as the hunchback wished it, he rode down to the +edge of the river, Jud and I following him. I felt the powerful +influence exerted by the courage of this man. He leaned over and patted +the silk shoulders of the Bay Eagle. "Good girl," he said, "good girl." +It was like a last caress, a word spoken in the ear of the loved one on +the verge of a struggle sure to be lost, the last whisper carrying all +the devotion of a lifetime. Did the man at heart believe we could +succeed? If the cattle were lost, did he expect to get out with his +life? I think not. + +Against this, the Cardinal and his huge naked rider contrasted +strangely. They represented brute strength marching out with brute +fearlessness into an unthinking struggle. Fellows and mates, these, the +bronze giant and his horse. They might go under the yellow water of the +Valley River, but it would be the last act of the last struggle. + +As for me, I think I failed to realise the magnitude of this desperate +move. I saw but hazily what the keen instinct of the hunchback saw so +well,--all the possibilities of disaster. I went on that day as an aide +goes with his general into a charge. I lacked the sense of understanding +existing between the other men and their horses, but I had in its stead +an all-powerful faith in the eccentric El Mahdi. No matter what +happened, he would come out of it somehow. + +Domestic cattle will usually follow a horse. It was the plan that I +should go first, to lead fifty steers put in with me. Then Jud should +follow to keep the bunch moving, while Ump and the two ferrymen fed the +line, a few at a time, keeping it unbroken, and as thin as possible. + +This was the only plan offering any shadow of hope. We could not swim +the cattle in small bunches because each bunch would require one or two +drivers, and the best horse would go down on his third trip. That course +was out of the question, and this was the only other. + +I think Ump had another object in putting me before the drove. If +trouble came, I would not be caught in the tangle of cattle. I rode into +the river, and they put the fifty leaders in behind me. This time El +Mahdi lowered himself easily into the water and began to swim. I held +him in as much as I could, and looked back over my shoulder. + +The muleys dropped from the sod bank, went under to their black noses, +came up, shook the water from their ears, and struck out, following the +tail of the horse. They all swam deep, the water running across the +middle of their backs, their long tails, the tips of their shoulders, +and their quaint inky faces visible above the yellow water. + +One after another they took the river until there were fifty behind me. +Then Jud rode in, and the advance of the line was under way. Ump shouted +to swing with the current as far as I could without getting into the +eddy, and I forced El Mahdi gradually down-stream, holding his bit with +both hands to make him swim as slow as he could. + +We seemed to creep to the middle of the river. A Polled-Angus bullock +with an irregular white streak running across his nose led the drove, +following close at the horse's tail. That steer was Destiny. No criminal +ever watched the face of his judge with more desperate interest than I +watched the dish-face of that muley. I was now at the very middle of the +river, and the turn must be made against the current. Would the steer +follow me, or would he take the natural line of least resistance into +the swinging water of the eddy? It was not a dozen yards below, whirling +around to its boiling centre. The steer swam almost up to the horse's +tail. I turned El Mahdi slowly against the current, and watched the +black bullock over my shoulder. He turned after the horse. The current +struck him in the deep forequarters; he swung out below the horse, threw +his big chest to the current, and followed El Mahdi's tail like a fish +following a bait. I arose in the stirrups and wiped the sweat off my +face with my sleeve. + +I could have shouted as I looked back. Jud and the fifty were turning +the loop as though they were swinging at the end of a pendulum, every +steer following his fellow like a sheep. Jud's red horse was the only +bit of colour against that long line of black bobbing heads. + +Behind him a string of swimming cattle reached in a long curve to the +south bank of the Valley River. We moved slowly up the north curve of +the long loop to the ferry landing. It was vastly harder swimming +against the current, but the three-year-old steer is an animal of great +strength. To know this, one has but to look at his deep shoulders and +his massive brisket. The yellow water bubbled up over the backs of the +cattle. The strong current swung their bodies around until their tails +were down-stream, and the little waves danced in fantastic eddies around +their puffing muzzles. But they clung to the crupper of El Mahdi with +dogged tenacity, and when he climbed the north bank of the Valley River, +the blazed face of the Polled-Angus leader came up out of the water at +his heels. + +I rode out on the good hard ground, and turned the horse's head toward +the river. My heart sang and shouted under my shirt. The very joy of +what I saw seemed to fill my throat choking full. The black heads dotted +across the river might have been strung on a string. There were three +hundred cattle in that water. + +Jud and the first fifty were creeping up the last arm of the mighty +curve, swimming together like brothers, the Cardinal sunk to his red +head, and the naked body of his rider glistening in the sun. + +When they reached the bank below me, I could restrain my joy no longer. +I rose in the stirrups and whooped like the wildest savage that ever +scalped a settler. I think the devil's imps sleeping somewhere must have +heard that whooping. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THROUGH THE BIG WATER + + +Crowds of cattle, like mobs, are strangely subject to some sudden +impulse. Any seamy-faced old drover will illustrate this fact with +stories till midnight, telling how Alkire's cattle resting one morning +on Bald Knob suddenly threw up their heads and went crashing for a mile +through the underbrush; and how a line of Queen's steers charged on a +summer evening and swept out every fence in the Tygart's valley, without +a cause so far as the human eye could see and without a warning. + +Three hundred cattle had crossed, swimming the track of the loop as +though they were fenced into it, and I judge there were a hundred in the +water, when the remainder of the drove on the south shore made a sudden +bolt for the river. The move was so swift and uniform, and the distance +to the water so short, that Ump and the ferrymen had barely time to +escape being swept in with the steers. The whole drove piled up in the +river and began to swim in a black mass toward the north shore. I saw +the Bay Eagle sweep down the bank and plunge into the river below the +cattle. I could hear Ump shouting, and could see the bay mare crowding +the lower line of the swimming cattle. + +The very light went out of the sky. We forced our horses into the river +up to their shoulders, and waited. The cattle half-way across came out +all right, but when the mass of more than two hundred reached the loop +of the curve, they seemed to waver and crowd up in a bunch. I lost my +head and plunged El Mahdi into the river. "Come on," I shouted, and Jud +followed me. + +If Satan had sent some guardian devil to choose for us an act of folly, +he could not have chosen better than I. It is possible that the cattle +would have taken the line of the leaders against the current if we had +kept out of the river, but when they saw our horses they became +bewildered, lost their sense of direction and drifted down into the +eddy,--a great tangle of fighting cattle. + +We swung down-stream, and taking a long circle came in below the drove +as it drifted around in the outer orbit of the eddy. The crowd of cattle +swam past, butting each other, and churning the water under their +bellies, led by a half-blood Aberdeen-Angus steer with a ring in his +nose. Half-way around we met Ump. He was a terrible creature. His shirt +was in ribbons, and his hair was matted to his head. He was trying to +force the Bay Eagle into the mass of cattle, and he was cursing like a +fiend. + +I have already said that his mare knew more than any other animal in the +Hills. She dodged here and there like a water rat, slipped in among the +cattle and shot out when they swung together. On any other horse the +hunchback would have been crushed to pulp. + +We joined him and tried to drive a wedge through the great tangle to +split it in half, Jud and the huge Cardinal for a centre. We got +half-way in and were flung off like a plank. + +We floated down into the rim of the eddy below the cattle, spread out, +and endeavoured to force the drove up stream. We might as well have +ridden against a floating log-jam. The mad, bellowing steers swam after +their leader, moving in toward the vortex of the eddy. The half-blood +Aberdeen-Angus, whom the cattle seemed to follow, was now on the inner +border of the drove, the tangle of steers stretched in a circle around +him. It was clear that in a very few minutes he would reach the centre, +the mass of cattle would crowd down on him, and the whole bunch would go +to the bottom. We determined to make another effort to break through +this circle, and if possible capture the half-blood and force him out +toward the shore. A more dangerous undertaking could not be easily +imagined. + +The chances of driving this steer out were slight if we should ever +reach him. The possibility of forcing a way in was remote, and if we +succeeded in penetrating to the centre of the jam and failed to break +it, we should certainly be wedged in and crushed. If Ump's head had been +cool, I do not think he would ever have permitted me to join in such +madness. We were to select a loose place in the circle, the Cardinal and +El Mahdi to force an opening, and the Bay Eagle to go through if she +could. + +We waited while the cattle passed, bellowing and thrashing the +water,--an awful mob of steers in panic. Presently in this circle there +was a rift where a bull, infuriated by the crowding, swam by, fighting +to clear a place around him. He was a tremendous creature, glistening +black, active and dangerous as a wild beast. He charged the cattle +around him, driving them back like a battering ram. He dived and butted +and roared like some sea monster gone mad. Ump shouted, and we swam into +the open rift against this bull, Jud leading, and El Mahdi at his +shoulder. + +The bull fighting the cattle behind him did not see us until the big +sorrel was against him. Then he swung half around and tried to butt. +This was the danger which we feared most. The ram of a muley steer is +one of the most powerful blows delivered by any animal. For this reason, +no bull with horns is a match for a muley. The driving power of sixteen +hundred pounds of bone and muscle is like the ram of a ship. Striking a +horse fair, it would stave him in as one breaks an egg shell. Jud leaned +down from his horse and struck the bull on the nose with his fist, +beating him in the nostrils. The bull turned and charged the cattle +behind him. We crowded against him, using the mad bull for a great +driving wedge. + +I have never seen anything in the world to approach the strength or the +fury of this muley. With him we broke through the circle of steers +forcing into the centre of the eddy. We had barely room for the horses +by crowding shoulder to shoulder to the bull. The cattle closed in +behind us like bees swarming in a hive. + +I was accustomed to cattle all my life. I had been among them when they +fought each other, bellowing and tearing up the sod; among them when +they charged; among them when they stampeded; and I was not afraid. But +this caldron of boiling yellow water filled with cattle was a hell-pot. +In it every steer, gone mad, seemed to be fighting for dear life. + +I caught something of the terror of the cattle, and on the instant the +delusion of the cone rising on all sides returned. The cattle seemed to +be swarming down upon us from the sides of this yellow pit. I looked +around. The Bay Eagle was squeezing against El Mahdi. Jud was pressing +close to the nose of the bull, keeping him turned against the cattle by +great blows rained on his muzzle, and we were driving slowly in like a +glut. + +My mouth became suddenly dry to the root of my tongue. I dropped the +reins and whirled around in the saddle. Ump, whose knee was against El +Mahdi's flank, reached over and caught me by the shoulder. The grip of +his hand was firm and steady, and it brought me back to my senses, but +his face will not be whiter when they lay him finally in the little +chapel at Mount Horeb. + +As I turned and gathered up the reins, the water was boiling over the +horses. Sometimes we went down to the chin, the horses entirely under; +at other times we were flung up almost out of the water by the surging +of the cattle. The Cardinal was beginning to grow tired. He had just +swam across the river and half-way back, and been then forced into this +tremendous struggle without time to gather his breath. He was a horse of +gigantic stature and great endurance, but his rider was heavy. He had +been long in the water, and the jamming of the cattle was enough to wear +out a horse built of ship timber. + +His whole body was sunk to the nose and he went entirely under with +every surge of the bull. The naked back of Jud reeked with sweat, washed +off every minute with a flood of muddy water, and the muscles on his +huge shoulders looked like folds of brass. + +He held the bridle-rein in his teeth and bent down over the saddle so as +to strike the bull when it tried to turn back. At times the man, horse, +and bull were carried down out of sight. + +Suddenly I realised that we were on the inside. The river was a bedlam +of roars and bellows. We had broken through the circle of cattle, and it +drifted now in two segments, crowding in to follow the half-blood +Aberdeen-Angus. This steer passed a few yards below us, making for the +centre of the eddy. As he went by, Ump shot out on the Bay Eagle, dodged +through the cattle, and, coming up with the steer, reached down and +hooked his finger in the ring which the half-blood wore in his nose. +Then, holding the steer's muzzle against the shoulder of the mare, he +struck out straight through the vortex of the eddy, making for the +widest opening in the broken circle. + +I watched the hunchback breathless. It was not difficult to lead the +steer. An urchin could have done it with a rope in the nosering, but the +two segments of the circle might swing together at any moment, and if +they did Ump would be penned in and lost and we would be lost also, +locked up in this jam of steers. + +For a moment the hunchback and the steer passed out of sight in the +boiling eddy, then they reached the open, went through it, and struck +up-stream for the ferry landing. + +The cattle on the inner side of the circle followed the Aberdeen-Angus, +streaming through the opening in a great wedge that split the jam into +the two wings of an enormous V. The whole drove swung out and followed +in two lines, as one has seen the wild geese following their pilot to +the south. + +Jud and I, wedged in, were tossed about by the surging of the cattle, as +the jam broke. We were protected a little by the bull, whose strength +seemed inexhaustible. Every moment I looked to see some black head rise +under the fore quarters of El Mahdi, throw him over, and force him down +beneath the bellies of the cattle, or some muley charge the fighting +bull and crush Jud and his horse. But the very closeness of the jamming +saved us from these dangers. + +It was almost impossible for a bullock to turn. We were carried forward +by the press as a child is carried with a crowd. When the cattle split +into the wings of the V, we were flung off and found ourselves swimming +in open water between the two great lines. + +I felt like a man lifted suddenly from a dungeon into the sunlit world. +I was weak. I caught hold of the horn, settled down nerveless in the +saddle, and looked around me. The cattle were streaming past in two long +lines for the shore, led by Ump and the Aberdeen-Angus, now half-way up +the north arm of the loop. + +The river was still roaring with the bellowings of the cattle, as though +all the devils of the water howled with fury at this losing of their +prey. + +The steers had now room to swim in, and they would reach the shore. I +looked down at El Mahdi. He floated easily, pumping the air far back +into his big lungs. He had been roundly jammed, but he was not +exhausted, and I knew he would be all right when he got his breath. + +Then I looked for Jud. He was a few yards below me, staring at the +swimming cattle. The water was rising to his armpits. It poured over the +Cardinal, and over the saddle horn. It was plain that the horse was +going down. Only his muzzle hung above the water, with the nostrils +distended. + +I shouted to Jud. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups, dropped into +the water and caught his horse by the shank of the bit. He went down +until the water bubbled against his chin. But he held the horse's head +above the river, treading water and striking out with his free arm. + +I turned El Mahdi and swam to the Cardinal. When I reached him I caught +the bit on my side, and together Jud and El Mahdi held the exhausted +horse until he gathered his breath and began to swim. Presently, when he +had gotten the air back in his chest, I took the bridle-rein, and Jud, +loosing his hold on the bit, floated down behind the cattle, and struck +out for the shore. I saw him climb the bank among the water beeches when +El Mahdi and the Cardinal came up out of the river at the ferry landing +behind the last bullock. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ALONG THE HICKORY RIDGES + + +The human analyst, jotting down in his note-book the motives of men, is +often strangely misled. The master of a great financial house, working +day and night in an office, is not trading away his life for a system of +railroads. Bless you! sir, he would not give a day of those precious +hours for all the steel rails in the world. Nor is my lady spending her +life like water to reach the vantage-point where she may entertain Sir +Henry. That tall, keen-eyed woman with the brains crowded in her head +does not care a snap of her finger if the thing called Sir Henry be +flying to the devil. + +Look you a little further in, good analyst. It is the passion of the +chess-player. Each of these is up to the shoulders in the grandest game +you ever dreamed of. Other skilful men and other quick-witted women are +there across the table with Chance a-meddling. The big plan must be +carried out. The iron trumpery and the social folderol are bits of stuff +that have to be juggled about in this business. They have no more +intrinsic value than a bank of fog. Providence made a trifling +miscalculation when it put together the human mind. As the thing works, +there is nothing worth while but the thrills of the game. And these +thrills! How they do play the devil with the candle! Thus it comes about +that when one pulls his life or his string of playthings out of a hole +he does not seem to have made a gain by it. I learned this on the north +bank of the Valley River, listening to Ump's growls as he ran his hands +over the Bay Eagle, and the replies of Jud lying by the Cardinal in the +sun. + +Gratitude toward the man helper is about as rare as the splinters of the +true cross. When one owes the debt to Providence, one depends always +upon the statute of limitations to bar it. Here sat these grateful +gentlemen, lately returned by a sort of miracle to the carpet of the +green sod, swapping gibes like a couple of pirates. + +"Old Nick was grabbin' for us this time," said Jud, "an' he mighty nigh +got us." + +"I reckon," answered Ump, "a feller ought to git down on his +marrow-bones." + +"I wouldn't try it," said Jud. "You might cork yourself." + +"It was like the Red Sea," said I; "all the cattle piled up in there, +and going round and round." + +"Just like the good book tells about it," added Ump; "only we was them +Egyptians, a-flounderin' an' a-spittin' water." + +"Boys," said Jud, "that Pharaoh-king ought to a been bored for the +holler horn. I've thought of it often." + +"Why?" I asked. + +"You see," he answered, "after all them miracles, locusts, an' frogs an' +sich, he might a knowed the Lord was a-layin' for him. An' when he saw +that water piled up, he ought a lit out for home. 'Stead of that, he +went asailin' in like the unthinkin' horse." + +The hunchback cocked his eye and began to whistle. Then he broke into a +ditty: + + "When Pharaoh rode down to the ragin' Red Sea, + Rode down to the ragin' Red Sea, + He hollered to Moses, 'Just git on to me, + A-ridin' along through the sea.' + + "An' Moses he answered to hollerin' Pharaoh, + The same as you'd answer to me, + 'You'll have to have bladders tied on to your back, + If you ever git out of the sea.'" + +Thus I learned that the man animal long ago knocked Young Gratitude on +the head, heaved him overboard into a leaky gig, and left him behind to +ogle the seagulls. He is a healthy pirate, this man animal, accustomed +with great complacency to maroon the trustful stowaway when he comes to +nose about the cargo of his brig, or thrusts his pleading in between the +cutthroat and his pleasant sins. + +As for me, I was desperately glad to be safe out of that pot of muddy +water. I was ready like the apostle of old time to build here a +tabernacle, or to go down on what Ump called my "marrow-bones." As it +was, I dismounted and hugged El Mahdi, covering up in his wet mane a bit +of trickling moisture strangely like those tears that kept getting in +the way of my being a man. + +I had tried to laugh, and it went string-halt. I had tried to take a +hand in the passing gibes, and the part limped. I had to do something, +and this was my most dignified emotional play. The blue laws of the +Hills gave this licence. A fellow might palaver over his horse when he +took a jolt in the bulwarks of his emotion. You, my younger brethren of +the great towns, when you knock your heads against some corner of the +world and go a-bawling to your mother's petticoat, will never know what +deeps of consolation are to be gotten out of hugging a horse when one's +heart is aching. + +I wondered if it were all entirely true, or whether I should knock my +elbow against something and wake up. We were on the north bank of the +Valley River, with every head of those six hundred steers. Out there +they were, strung along the road, shaking their wet coats like a lot of +woolly dogs, and the afternoon sun wavering about on their shiny backs. +And there was Ump with his thumbs against the fetlocks of the Bay Eagle, +and Jud trying to get his copper skin into the half-dried shirt, and the +hugged El Mahdi staring away at the brown hills as though he were +everlastingly bored. + +I climbed up into the saddle to keep from executing a fiddler's jig, and +thereby proving that I suffered deeply from the curable disease of +youth. + +We started the drove across the hills toward Roy's tavern, Jud at his +place in front of the steers, walking in the road with the Cardinal's +bridle under his arm, and Ump behind, while El Mahdi strayed through the +line of cattle to keep them moving. The steers trailed along the road +between the rows of rail fence running in zigzag over the country to the +north. I sat sidewise in my big saddle dangling my heels. + +There were long shadows creeping eastward in the cool hollows when we +came to the shop of old Christian the blacksmith. I was moving along in +front of the drove, fingering El Mahdi's mane and whistling lustily, and +I squared him in the crossroads to turn the plodding cattle down toward +Roy's tavern. I noticed that the door of the smith's shop was closed and +the smoke creeping in a thin line out of the mud top of the chimney, but +I did not stop to inquire if the smith were about his work. I held no +resentment against the man. He had doubtless cut the cable, as Ump had +said, but his provocation had been great. + +The settlement was now made fair, skin for skin, as the devil put it +once upon a time. I whistled away and counted the bullocks as they went +strolling by me, indicating each fellow with my finger. Presently Ump +came at the tail of the drove and pulled up the Bay Eagle under the tall +hickories. + +"Well," he said, "the old shikepoke must be snoozin'." + +"It's pretty late in the day," said I. + +"He lost a lot of sleep last night," responded Ump. "When a feller +travels with the devil in the night, he can't work with the Lord in the +day." + +"He hasn't been at it long," said I, pointing to the faint smoke +hovering above the chimney; "or the fire would be out." + +"Right," said Ump. "An, that's a horse of another colour. I think I +shall take a look." + +With that he swung down from his saddle, crossed to the shop, and flung +open the door. Then he began to whistle softly. + +"Hot nest," he said, "but no sign of the shikepoke." + +"He may be hiding out until we pass," said I. + +"Not he," responded the hunchback. + +Then I took an inspiration. "Ump," I cried, "I'll bet the bit out of the +bridle that he saw us coming and lit out to carry the word!" + +The hunchback struck his fist against the door of the shop. "Quiller," +he said, "you ought to have sideboards on your noggin. That's what he's +done, sure as the Lord made little apples!" + +Then he got on his horse and rode her through the hickories out to the +brow of the hill. Presently I heard him call, and went to him with El +Mahdi on a trot. He pointed his finger north across the country and, +following the pointed finger, I saw the brown coat of a man disappearing +behind a distant ridge. It was too far away to see who it was that +travelled in that coat, but we knew as well as though the man's face had +passed by our stirrups. + +"Hoity-toity!" said Ump, "what doin's there'll be when he gits in with +the news!" + +"The air will be blue," said I. + +"Streaked and striped," said he. + +"I should like to see Woodford champing the bit," said I. + +"I'd give a leg for the sight of it," replied the hunchback, "an' they +could pick the leg." + +I laughed at the hunchback's offer to the Eternal Powers. Of all the +generation of rogues, he was least fitted to barter away his +underpinning. + +We rode back to the shop and down the hill after the cattle, Ump +drumming on the pommel with his fingers and firing a cackle of fantastic +monologue. "Quiller," he said, "do you think Miss Cynthia will be glad +to see the drove comin' down the road?" + +"Happy as a June bug," said I. + +"Old Granny Lanham," continued the hunchback, "used to have a song that +went like this: + + "'God made man, an' man made money; + God made bees, an' bees made honey; + God made woman, an' went away to rest Him, + An' along come the devil, an' showed her how to best Him.'" + +"Meaning what?" said I. + +"Meanin'," responded Ump, "that if you think you know what a woman's +goin' to do, you're as badly fooled as if you burned your shirt." + +"Ump," I said sharply, "what do you know about women?" + +"Nothin' at all," said he, "nothin' at all. But I know about mares. An' +when they lay back their ears, it don't always mean that they're goin' +to kick you." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BY THE LIGHT OF A LANTERN + + +It was a hungry, bareheaded youngster that rode up at sundown to Roy's +tavern. The yellow mud clinging to my clothes had dried in cakes, and as +my hat was on the other side of the Valley River, my head, as described +by Ump, was a "middlin' fair brush heap." + +Adam Roy gaped in astonishment when I called him to the door to ask +about a field for the cattle. + +"Law! Quiller," he cried, "where in the name o' fathers have you been +a-wallerin'?" + +"We went swimming in the Valley," I answered. + +"Mercy sakes!" said the tavern-keeper, "you must a mired down. You've +got mud enough on you to daub a chimney, an' your head looks like a +chaff-pen on a windy mornin'. What did you go swimmin' for?" + +"Hobson's choice," said I. + +"Was the ferry washed out?" he asked. + +"It was out," I said. "How it got out is a heifer of another drove." + +"An' did you swim the cattle?" The man leaned out of the door. + +I pointed my finger to the drove coming down the road. "There they are," +said I. "Do you see any wings on them?" + +"Lord love me!" cried the tavern-keeper, "I'd never put cattle in the +Valley when it was up, unless I wanted to see their tails a stickin' out +o' the drift-wood. Why didn't you wait until they fixed the ferry? What +was your hurry?" + +"No matter about that hurry," said I. "Just now we have another hurry +that is a trifle more urgent. We want a field for the cattle, and corn +and clover hay and plenty of bedding for the horses, and something hot +for supper. We are all as hungry as Job's turkey." + +"One thing at a time, Quiller," said the man, spreading his hands. "Turn +the cattle into the north boundary an' come along to the house." + +I went back up the road, threw down the bars to the pasture, and counted +the cattle as they went strolling in. The Polled-Angus muleys seemed +none the worse for their long swim, and they began to crop the brown +grass the moment they were out in the field. + +Jud and the Cardinal came up after the first hundred, and took a place +by El Mahdi. + +I think I know now the joy of the miser counting his gold pieces at +midnight in his cellar, looking at each yellow eagle lovingly, and +passing his finger over the milled rim of each new-minted coin, while +the tallow candle melts down on the bench beside him. + +I could close my eyes and see a black mass going down in the yellow +water, with here and there a bullock drifting exhausted in the eddy, or +heaps of bloated bodies piled up on a sandbar of the Valley River. And +there, with my eyes wide open, was the drove spreading out along the +hillside as it passed in between the two chestnut bar-posts. + +I was as happy as a man can be when his Armada sails in with its sunlit +canvas; and yet, had that Armada gone to pieces on a coast, I think my +tears over its wreckage had been the deeper emotion. Our conception of +disaster outrides by far our conception of felicity. + +It is a thing of striking significance that old, wise poets have on +occasion written of hell so vividly that we hear the fire crackle and +see the bodies of the lost sizzling; but not one of them, burning the +candle of genius at both ends, has ever been able to line out a heaven +that a man would live in if he were given the key to it. + +Ump came along after the last of the cattle and burst into a great +laugh. "Damme," he said, "you're as purty a pair of muskrats as ever +chawed a root. Why don't you put up the bars instead of settin' gawkin' +at the cattle! They're all there." + +"Suppose they were not all there?" said I. + +"Quiller," said he, "I'm not goin' back over any burnt bridges. When the +devil throws a man in a sink hole an' the Lord comes along an' pulls him +out, that man ought to go on about his business an' not hang around the +place until the devil gits back." + +Jud got down from his horse and began to lay up the bars. "But," said +he, "suppose we hadn't split the bunch?" + +"Jud," answered the hunchback, "hell's full of people who spent their +lives a-'sposin'." + +Jud jammed the top bar into the chestnut post. "Still," he persisted, +"where would we a been now?" + +"If you must know," said Ump, "we'd a been heels up in the slime of the +Valley with the catfish playin' pussy-in-the-corner around the butt of +our ears." + +We trotted over to the tavern, flung the bridle-reins across the +hitching post, and went bursting into the house. Roy was wiping his oak +table. "Mother Hubbard," cried the hunchback, "set out your bones. We're +as empty as bee gums." + +The man stopped with his hands resting on the cloth. "God save us!" he +said, "if you eat like you look, it'll take a barbecue bull to fill you. +Draw up a chair an' we'll give you what we've got." + +"Horses first," said Ump, taking up a split basket. + +"Suit yourself," said Roy; "there's nobody holdin' you, an' there's corn +in the crib, hay in the mow, an' oats in the entry." + +Jud and I followed Ump out of the house, put the horses in the log +stable, pulled off the bridles and saddles, and crammed the racks with +the sweet-smelling clover hay. Then we brushed out the mangers and threw +in the white corn. When we were done we went swaggering back to the +house. + +From threatened disaster we had come desperately ashore. Whence arises +the strange pride of him who by sheer accident slips through the fingers +of Destiny? + +We ate our supper under the onslaughts of the tavern-keeper. Roy had a +mind to know why we hurried. He scented some reason skulking in the +background, and he beat across the field like a setter. + +"You'll want to get out early," he said. "Men who swim cattle won't be +lettin' grass grow under their feet." + +"Bright an' early," replied Ump. + +"It appears like," continued Roy, "you mightn't have time enough to get +where you're goin'." + +"Few of us have," replied Ump. "About the time a feller gits a good +start, somethin' breaks in him an' they nail him up in quarter oak." + +"Life is short," murmured the tavern-keeper, retiring behind a platitude +as a skirmisher retires behind a stone. + +Ump bent the prongs of the fork against his plate. "An' yit," he +soliloquised, "there is time enough for most of us to do things that we +ought to be hung for." + +Roy withdrew to the fastnesses of the kitchen, re-formed his lines and +approached from another quarter. "If I was Mr. Ward," he opened, jerking +his thumb toward Ump, "I'd give it to you when you got in." + +The hunchback poured out his coffee, held up the saucer with both hands +and blew away the heat. "What for?" he grunted, between the puffings. + +"What for?" said Roy. "Lordy! man, you're about the most reckless +creature that ever set on hog leather." + +"The devil you say!" said Ump. + +"That's what I say," continued the tavern-keeper, waving his arm to add +fury to his bad declamation. "That's what I say. Suppose you'd got +little Quiller drownded?" + +The hunchback seemed to consider this possibility with the gravity of +one pointed suddenly to some defect in his life. He replaced the saucer +on the table, locked his fingers and thrust his thumbs together. + +"If had got little Quiller drownded," he began, "then the old women +couldn't a said when he growed up, 'Eh, little Quiller didn't amount to +much after all. I said he wouldn't come to no good when I used to see +him goin' by runnin' his horse.' An' when he got whiskers to growin' on +his jaw, flat-nose niggers fishin' along the creek couldn't a' cussed +an' said, 'There goes old skinflint Quiller. I wish he couldn't swallow +till he give me half his land.' An' when he got old an' wobbly on his +legs, tow-headed brats a-waitin' for his money couldn't a-p'inted their +fingers at him an' said, 'Ma, how old's grandpap?' An' when he died, +nobody could a wrote on his tombstone, 'He robbed the poor an' he +cheated the rich, an' he's gone to hell with the balance a' sich.'" + +Routed in his second man[oe]uvre, Roy flung a final sally with a sort of +servile abandon. "You're a queer lot," he said. "Marks an' that +club-footed Malan comes along away before day an' wants their breakfast, +an' gits it, an' lights out like the devil was a-follerin' 'em. An' when +I asked 'em what they'd been doin', they up an' says they'd been fixin' +lay-overs to ketch meddlers an' make fiddlers' wives ask questions. An' +then along come you all a-lookin' like hell an' shyin' at questions." + +We took the information with no sign, although it confirmed our theory +about the ferry. Ump turned gravely to the tavern-keeper. + +"I'll clear it all up for you slick as a whistle." Then he arose and +pressed his fingers against the tavern-keeper's chest. "Roy," he said, +"this is the marrow out of that bone. We're the meddlers that they +didn't ketch, an' you're the fiddler's wife." + +The laughter sent the tavern-keeper flying from the field. We borrowed +some odd pieces of clothing, got the lantern, and went down to the +stable to groom our horses. + +A man might travel about quite as untidy as Nebuchadnezzar when events +were jamming him, but his horse was rubbed and cleaned if the heavens +tumbled. I held the lantern, an old iron frame with glass sides, while +Jud and Ump curried the horses, rubbing the dust out of their hair, and +washing their eyes and nostrils. + +We were speculating on the mission of the blacksmith, and the +destination of Parson Peppers, of whose singing I had told, when the +talk came finally to Twiggs. + +"I'd give a purty," said Ump, "to know what word that devil was +carryin'." + +"Quiller had a chance to find out," answered Jud, "an' he shied away +from it." + +"What's that?" cried the hunchback, coming out from under the Bay Eagle. +He wore a long blue coat that dragged the ground, the sleeves rolled up +above his wrists, a coat that Roy had fished out of a box in the loft of +his tavern and hesitated over, because on an evening in his youthful +heyday, he had gone in that coat to make a bride of a certain Mathilda, +and the said Mathilda at the final moment did most stubbornly refuse. +The coat had brass buttons, a plenteous pitting of moth-holes, and a +braided collar. + +Jud went on without noticing the interruption. "The letter that Twiggs +brought was a-layin' on the mantelpiece, tore open. Quiller could a +looked just as easy as not, an' a found out just what it said, but he +edged off." + +The hunchback turned around in his blue coat without disturbing the +swallowtails lying against his legs. "Is Jud right?" he said. + +I nodded my head. + +"An' you didn't look?" + +Again I nodded. + +"Quiller," cried Ump, "do you know how that way of talkin' started? The +devil was the daddy of it. He had his mouth crammed full of souls, an' +when they asked him if he wanted any more, he begun a-bobbin' his head +like that." + +"It's every word the truth," said I. "There was the letter lying open, +with Cynthia's monogram on the envelope, and I could have looked." + +"Why didn't you?" said Ump. + +"High frollickin' notions," responded Jud. "I told him a hog couldn't +root with a silk nose." + +The hunchback closed his hand and pressed his thumb up under his chin. +"High frollickin' notions," he said, "are all mighty purty to make +meetin'-house talk, but they're short horses when you try to ride 'em. +It all depends on where you're at. If you're settin' up to the Lord's +table, you must dip with your spoon, but if you're suppin' with the +devil, you can eat with your fingers." + +I cast about for an excuse, like a lad under the smarting charge of +having said his prayers. "It wasn't any notion," said I; "Mr. Marsh came +back too quick." + +"Why didn't you yank the paper, an' we'd a had it," said he. + +"We have got it," said I, putting my hand in my breeches pocket and +drawing forth the letter. I stood deep in the oak leaves of the horses' +bedding. The light of the candle squeezing through the dirty glass sides +brought every log of the old stable into shadow. + +Jud came out of El Mahdi's stall like something out of a hole. He wore a +rubber coat that had gone many years about the world, up and down, and +finally passed in its decay to Roy. + +"You've got that letter?" he said. + +I told him that I had the very letter, that it had got wet in the river; +I had dried it in the sun, and here it was. + +"How did you get it?" he asked. + +I told him all the conversation with Marsh, and how I was to give it to +Cynthia and the message that went along with it. + +The two men came over to me and took the lantern and the letter from my +hands, Jud holding the light and Ump turning the envelope around in his +fingers, peering curiously. They might have been some guardians of a +twilight country examining a mysterious passport signed right but writ +in cipher, and one that from some hidden angle might be clear enough. + +Presently they handed the letter gravely back to me and set the lantern +down in the leaves. Jud was silent, like a man embarrassed, and Ump +stood for a moment fingering the buttons on his blue coat. + +Finally he spoke. "What's in it?" he said. + +"I don't know," I answered. I was sure that the man's face brightened, +but it might have been a fancy. Loud in the hooting of a principle, we +sometimes change mightily when it comes to breaking that principle +bare-handed. + +"Are you goin' to look?" he said. + +The letter was lying in my hand. I had but to plunge my fingers into the +open envelope, but something took me by the shoulder. "No," I answered, +and thrust the envelope in my pocket. + +I take no airs for that decision. There was something here that these +men did not like to handle, and, in plain terms, I was afraid. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ORBIT OF THE DWARFS + + +We slept that night in the front room of Roy's tavern, and it seemed to +me that I had just closed my eyes when I opened them again. Ump was +standing by the side of the bed with a candle. The door was ajar and the +night air blowing the flame, which he was screening with his hand. For a +moment, with sleep thick in my eyes, I did not know who it was in the +blue coat. "Wake up, Quiller," he said, "an' git into your duds." + +"What's the matter?" I asked. + +"There's devilment hatchin', I'm afraid," he answered. "Wait till I wake +Jud." + +He aroused the man from his snoring in the chimney corner, and I got +into my clothes. It was about three o'clock and grey dark. I looked over +the room as I pulled on the roundabout borrowed of Roy. Ump's bed had +not been slept in, and there was about him the warm smell of a horse. + +Jud noticed the empty bed. "Ump," he said, "you ain't been asleep at +all." + +"I got uneasy about the cattle," answered the hunchback, "an I've been +up there with 'em, an' it was dam' lucky. I was settin' on the Bay Eagle +in a little holler, when somebody come along an' begun to take down the +bars. I lit out for him, an' he run like a whitehead, jumped the fence +on the lower side of the road an' went splashin' through the creek, but +he left some feathers in the bushes when he jumped, an' I got 'em." + +He put his hand into the bosom of his coat and drew out a leather cap. +"Christian," I cried, pointing to the seared spots on the leather. + +Jud crushed the cap in his fingers. "He's got back," he said. "Was he +ridin' a horse?" + +"Footin' it," answered Ump, "an' by himself. That's what makes me leary. +Them others are up to somethin' or they'd a come with him. He's had just +about time to make the trip on Shank's mare by takin' short cuts. +They've put him up to turn out the cattle an' drive 'em back while we +snoozed." + +"Maybe they did come with him," said Jud, "an' they're waitin' +somewhere. It would be like 'em to come sneakin' back an' try to drive +the cattle over, an' put 'em in the river in the night, so it would look +like they had got out an' gone away themselves." + +Ump's forehead wrinkled like an accordion. "That's fittin' to the size +of 'em," he said, "an' about what they're up to. But old Christian was +surely by himself, an' I don't understand that. If they'd a come with +him, I'd a seen 'em, or a heard the horses." + +"I don't believe they came with him," said I. + +"Why not?" said Jud. + +"Because," I answered, "if they came with him they would have put +Christian on a horse, and they would have stopped here to locate us. +They could tell by looking in the stable. They'd never wait until they +got to the field. They're a foxy set, and there's something back that we +don't know." + +"What could they do?" put in Jud. "There's no more ferries." + +"But there's a bridge," said I. + +Ump, standing stock still in the floor, stumbled like a horse struck +over the knees. Jud bolted out of the house on a dead run. We followed +him to the stable, Ump galloping like a great rabbit. + +We flung open the stable door, thrust the bits into the horses' mouths, +and slapped on our saddles. It was murky, but we needed no light for +business like this. We knew every part of the horse as a man knows his +face, and we knew every strap and buckle. + +Ump sat on his mare, waiting until we should be ready, kicking his +stirrups with impatience, but his tongue, strangely enough, quiet. He +turned his mare across the road before us when we were in our saddles. + +"Jud," he said, "don't go off half-cocked. An' if there's hell raised, +look out for Quiller. I'll stay here an' bring up the cattle as soon as +it's light." Then he pulled his mare out of the way. El Mahdi was on his +hind legs while Ump was speaking. When the Bay Eagle turned out, he came +down with a great jump and began to run. + +I bent over and clamped my knees to the horse and let him go. He was +like some engine whose throttle is thrown open. In the first few plunges +he seemed to rock with energy, as though he might be thrown off his legs +by the pent-up driving-power. He and one other horse, the Black Abbot, +started like this when they were mad. And, clinging in the saddle, one +felt for a moment that the horse under him would rise out of the road or +go crashing into the fence. + +You will not understand this, my masters, if you have ridden only +trained running horses or light hunters. They go about the business of a +race with eagerness enough, but still as a servant goes about his task. +Imagine, if you please, how a horse would run with you in the night if +he was seventeen hands high and a barbarian! + +We passed the tavern in a dozen plunges. I saw the candle which Ump had +flung down, flickering by the horse-block, a little patch of light. Then +the Cardinal's shoe crushed it out. + +My coat sleeves cracked like sails. The wind seemed to whistle along my +ribs. The horse's shoulders felt like pistons working under a cloth. I +was a part of that horse. I fitted my body to him. I adjusted myself to +the drive of his legs, to the rise and fall of his shoulders, to the +play of every muscle. I rode when his back rocked, like a sort of loose +hump fastened on it. His mane blew over my face and went streaming back. +My nostrils were filled with the steam from his sweating skin. + +Jud rode after the same manner, reducing the area of wind resistance to +the smallest space. One watching the horses pass would have seen no +rider at all. He might have marked a heavy outline as though something +were bound across the saddle or clung flat to it. + +You, my masters, who are accustomed to the horse as a slave, cannot know +him as a freeman. That docked thing standing by the curb is a long +bred-out degenerate. In the Hills a horse was born and bred up to be a +freeman. When the time came, he yielded to a sort of human suzerainty, +but he yielded as a cadet of a noble house yields to the discipline of a +commandant, with the spirit in him and as one who condescended. + +There were certain traditions which these horses seemed to hold. The Bay +Eagle would never wear harness, nor would any of her blood, to the last +one. The Black Abbot would never carry a woman's saddle, nor would his +father nor his father's father. I have seen them fight like barbarian +kings, great, tawny, desperate savages, bursting the straps and buckles +as Samson burst the withes of the Philistines, fighting to kill, +fighting to tear in pieces and destroy, fighting as a man fights when +his standards are all down and he has lost a kingdom. + +The earth was grey, with a few stars above it. The moon had gone over +the mountains to make it day in the mystic city of Zeus, and the sun was +still lagging along the other side of the world. + +We thundered by the old weaver's little house squatting by the roadside, +shut up tight like a sleeping eye. Then we swung down into the sandy +strip of bottom leading to the bridge. The river was not a quarter of a +mile away. + +I began to pull on the bridle-reins. El Mahdi held the bit clamped in +his teeth. I shifted a rein into each hand and tried to saw the bit +loose, but I could not do it. Then, lying down on the saddle, I wound +the slack of the reins around my wrists, caught out as far as I could, +braced myself against the horn, and jerked with all the strength of my +arms. + +I jammed the tree of the saddle up on the horse's withers, but the bit +held in his jaws. I knew then that the horse was running away. The devil +seemed to be in him. He started in a fury, and he had run with a sort of +rocking that ought to have warned me. I twisted my head around to look +for Jud. + +He had begun to pull up the Cardinal and had fallen a little behind, but +he understood at once, shook out his reins, and leaned over in his +saddle. The nose of the Cardinal came almost to my knee and hung there. +Jud caught at my bridle, but he could not reach it. I wedged my knees +against the leather pads of the saddle skirts, caught one side of the +bridle-rein with both hands, and tried to throw the horse into the +fence. I felt the leather of the rein stretch. + +Then I knew that it was no use to try any further. Even if Jud could +reach my bridle, he would merely tear it off at the bit-rings, and not +stop the horse. + +In a dozen seconds we would reach the stone abutment and go over into +the river. I had no doubt that the bridge was down, or, if not, that its +flooring was torn up. + +I realised suddenly that it was my turn to go out of the world. I had +seen people going out as though their turn came in a curious order, not +unlike games which children play. But somehow I never thought that my +turn would come. I was not really in that game. I was looking on when my +name was called out. + +El Mahdi struck the stone abutment and the bridge loomed. I dropped the +reins and clung to the saddle, expecting the horse to fall with his legs +broken, drive me against the sleepers and crash through. + +We went on to the bridge like a rattle of musketry and thundered across. +Horses, resembling women, as I have heard it said, are sometimes +diverted from their purpose by the removal of every jot of opposition. +With the reins on his neck, El Mahdi stopped at the top of the hill and +I climbed down to the ground. My legs felt weak and I held on to the +stirrup leather. + +Jud dismounted, seized my bit, and ran his hand over El Mahdi's face. "I +can't make head nor tail of that runnin'," he said. "He ain't scared nor +he ain't mad." + +"You couldn't tell with him," I answered. + +"There never was a scared horse," responded Jud, "that wasn't nervous, +an' there never was a mad one that wasn't hot. But this feller feels +like a suckin' calf. It must have been devilment, an' he ought to be +whaled." + +"It wouldn't do any good," said I; "he'd only fight you and try to kill +you." + +"He's a dam' curious whelp," said Jud. "He must a knowed that the bridge +was all right." + +"How could he have known?" said I. + +"They say," replied Jud, "that horses an' cattle sees things that folks +don't see, an' that they know about what's goin' to happen. It's +powerful curious about the things they do know." + +We slipped the reins over the horses' heads and walked back to the +bridge. Jud went on with his talking. + +"Now, you can't get a horse on to a dangerous bridge, to save your life, +an' you can't get him on ice that ain't strong enough to hold him, an' +you can't get him to eat anything that'll hurt him, an' you can't get +him lost. An' old Clabe says there's Bible for it that a horse can see +spooks. I tell you, Quiller, El Mahdi knowed about that bridge." + +Deep in my youthful bosom I was convinced that El Mahdi knew. But I put +it wholly on the ground that he was a genius. + +We crossed the river, led the horses down to the end of the abutment, +and tied them to a fence. Then we went back and examined the bridge as +well as we could in the dark. It stood over the river as the early men +and Dwarfs had built it,--solid as a wall. + +Woodford had given the thing up, and the road was open to the north +country. + +We sat down on the corner of the abutment near the horses, to wait for +the daylight, Jud wearing old Christian's cap, and I bareheaded. We sat +for a long time, listening to the choke and snarl of the water as it +crowded along under the bridge. + +Then we fell to a sort of whispering talk. + +"Quiller," he began, "do you believe that story about the Dwarfs +buildin' the bridge?" + +"Ump don't," I answered. "Ump says it's a cock-and-bull story, and there +never were any Dwarfs except once in a while a bad job like him." + +"You can't take Ump for it," said he. "Ump won't believe anything he +can't put his finger on, if it's swore to on a stack of Bibles. Quiller, +I've seen them holes in the mountains where the Dwarfs lived, with the +marks on the rocks like's on them logs, an' I've seen the rigamajigs +that they cut in the sandstone. They could a built the bridge, if they +took a notion, just by sayin' words." + +He was quiet a while, and then he added, "An' I've seen the path where +they used to come down to the river, an' it has places wore in the solid +rock like you'd make with your big toe." + +Jud stopped, and I moved up a little closer to him. I could see the +ugly, crooked men crawl out of their caves and come sneaking down from +the mountains to strangle the sleeping and burn the roof. I could see +their twisted bare feet, their huge, slack mouths, and their long hands +that hung below their knees when they walked. And then, on the hill +beyond the Valley River, I heard a sound. + +I seized my companion by the arm. "Jud," I said under my breath, "did +you hear that?" + +He leaned over me and listened. The sound was a sort of echo. + +"They're comin'," he whispered. + +"The Dwarfs?" said I. + +"Lem Marks," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ON THE ART OF GOING TO RUIN + + +The sound reached the summit of the hill, and then we heard it +clearly,--the ringing of horseshoes on the hard road. They came in a +long trot, clattering into the little hollow at the foot of the abutment +to the bridge. We heard men dismounting, horses being tied to the fence, +and a humming of low talk. We listened, lying flat beside El Mahdi and +the Cardinal. + +It was difficult to determine how many were in the hollow, but all were +now afoot but one. We could hear his horse tramping, and hear him +speaking to the others from the saddle above them. + +A man with his back toward us lighted a lantern. When he turned to lead +the way up the abutment into the bridge, we caught a flickering picture +of the group. I could make out Lem Marks as the man with the lantern, +and Malan behind him, and I could see the brown shoulder of the horse +and the legs of the rider, but the man's face was above the reach of the +light. It was perhaps Parson Peppers. + +They stopped at the sill of the bridge, and the man with the lantern +began to examine the flooring and the ends of the logs set into the +stone of the abutment. + +He moved about slowly, holding the lantern close to the ground. Malan +stopped by the horse. I could see the dingy light now moving in the +bridge, now held over the edge of the abutment, now creeping along the +borders of the sill. + +Once it passed close to the horse, and I saw his hoofs clearly and his +brown legs, and the club feet of Malan, and the gleam of an axe. They +were on the far side of the river, and the howling of the water tumbled +their voices into a sort of jumble. The man on the horse seemed to give +some directions which were carried out by the one with the lantern. Then +they gathered in a little group and put the thing under discussion. + +Lem Marks talked for some minutes, and once Malan pointed with the axe. +I could see the light slip along its edge. Then they all went into the +bridge together. + +The tallow candle struggling through the dingy windows of the lantern +lighted the bridge as a dying fire lights a forest, in a little space, +half-heartedly, with all the world blacker beyond that space. They +stopped at the bridge-mouth on our side of the river, and Marks carried +the lantern over the lower end of the abutment. Then he called Malan. +The clubfoot got down on his knees and held the light over by the log +sleeper of the bridge. + +I could see where the bark had been burned along the log. I heard Marks +say that this was the place to cut. Then the man on the horse rode out +close to Malan and bent over to look. The clubfoot raised his lantern, +and the rider's face came into the play of the light. My heart lifted +trembling into my throat. It was Woodford! + +I grabbed for Jud, and my fingers caught the knee of his breeches. He +was squatted down in the road with a stone in his hand. + +Woodford nodded his head, gave some order which I could not hear, and +moved his horse back from the edge of the abutment. Malan arose and +picked up his axe. Marks took the lantern, trying to find some place +where the light could be thrown on the face of the log. He shifted to +several positions and finally took a place at the corner of the bridge, +holding the light over the side. + +Malan stood with his club feet planted wide on the log, leaned over, and +began to hack the bark off where he wished to take out his great chip. + +I could hear the little pieces of charred bark go rattling down into the +river. Malan notched the borders of his chip, then shifted his weight a +little to his right leg and swung the axe back over his shoulder. It +came down gleaming true, it seemed to me, but the blade, turning as it +descended, dealt the log a glancing blow and wrenched the handle out of +the man's hand. I saw the axe glitter as it passed the smoked glass of +the lantern. Then it struck the side of the bridge with a great ripping +bang, and dropped into the river. + +I jumped up with a cry of "the Dwarfs!" + +The swing of the axe carried Malan forward. He lost his balance, threw +up his hands and began to topple. I saw the shadow of the horse fall +swiftly across the light. Malan was seized by the collar and flung +violently backward. Then Woodford caught the lantern from Marks and came +on down the abutment toward us. + +He rode slowly with the lantern against his knee. The horse, blinded by +the light, did not see us until he was almost upon us. Then he jumped +back with a snort. Woodford raised the lantern above his head and looked +down. + +Bareheaded, in Roy's roundabout, I was a queer looking youngster. Jud, +with old Christian's leather cap pulled on his head and a stone in his +fist, might have been brother to any cutthroat. Stumbled upon in the +dark we must have looked pretty wild. + +Woodford regarded us with very apparent unconcern. "Quiller," he said, +as one might have announced a guest of indifferent welcome. Then he set +the lantern down on his saddle horn. "Well," he said, "this is a piece +of luck." + +I was struck dumb by the man's friendly voice and my resolution went to +pieces. I began to stammer like a novice taken in a wrong. Then Woodford +did a cunning thing. + +He assumed that I was not embarrassed, but that I was amused at his +queer words. + +"Upon my life, Quiller," he said, "I don't wonder that you laugh. It was +a queer thing to go blurting out, you moving the very devil to get your +cattle over the Valley, and I using every influence I may have with that +gentleman to prevent it. Now, that was a funny speech." + +I got my voice then. "I don't see the luck of it," I said. + +"And that," said he, "is just what I am about to explain. In the +meantime Jud might toss that rock into the river." There was a smile +playing on the man's face. + +"If it's the same to you," said Jud, "I'll just hold on to the rock." + +"As you please," replied Woodford, still smiling down at me. "I'd like a +word with you, Quiller. Shall we go out on the road a little?" + +"Not a foot," said I. + +On my life, the man sighed deeply and passed his hand over his face. "If +I had such men," he said, "I wouldn't be here pulling down a bridge. +Your brother, Quiller, is in great luck. With such men, I could twist +the cattle business around my finger. But when one has to depend upon a +lot of numbskulls, he can expect to come out at the little end of the +horn." + +I began to see that this Woodford, under some lights, might be a very +sensible and a very pleasant man. He got down from his saddle, held up +the lantern and looked me over. Then he set the light on the ground and +put his hands behind his back. "Quiller," he began, as one speaks into a +sympathetic ear, "there is no cement that will hold a man to you unless +it is blood wetted. You can buy men by the acre, but they are eye +servants to the last one. A brother sticks, right or wrong, and perhaps +a son sticks, but the devil take the others. I never had a brother, and, +therefore, Providence put me into the fight one arm short." + +He began to walk up and down behind the lantern, taking a few long +strides and then turning sharply. "Doing things for one's self," he went +on, "comes to be tiresome business. A man must have someone to work for, +or he gets to the place where he doesn't care." He stopped before me +with his face full in the light. "Quiller," he said, and the voice +seemed to ring true, "I meant to prevent your getting north with these +cattle. I hoped to stop you without being compelled to destroy this +bridge, but you force me to make this move, and I shall make it. Still, +on my life, I care so little that I would let the whole thing go on the +spin of a coin." + +His face brightened as though the idea offered some easy escape from an +unpleasant duty. "Upon my word," he laughed, "I was not intending to be +so fair. But the offer is out, and I will stand by it." + +He put his hand in his pocket and took out a silver dollar. "You may +toss, Quiller, heads or tails as you choose." + +I refused, and the man pitched the coin into the air, caught it in his +hand and returned it to his pocket. + +"Perhaps you think you will be able to stop me," he said in a voice that +came ringing over something in his throat. "We're three, and Malan is a +better man than Jud." + +"He is not a better man," said I. + +"There is a way to tell," said he. + +"And it can't begin too quick," said I. + +"Done," said he. "At it they go, right here in the road, and the devil +take me if Malan does not dust your man's back for you." + +He spun around, caught up the lantern, and we all went up to the level +floor of the abutment at the bridge sill. Lem Marks and the clubfoot +were waiting. Woodford turned to them. + +"Malan," he said, "I've heard a great deal of talk out of you about a +wrestle with Jud at Roy's tavern. Now I'm going to see if there's any +stomach behind that talk." + +I thrust in. "It must be fair," I said. + +"Fair it shall be," said he; "catch-as-catch-can or back-holds?" And he +turned to Malan. + +"Back-holds," said the clubfoot, "if that suits Jud." + +"Anything suits me," answered Jud. + +The two men stripped. Jud asked for the lantern and examined the ground. +It was the width of the abutment, perhaps thirty feet, practically +level, and covered with a loose sand dust. There was no railing to this +abutment, not even a coping along its borders. + +I followed Jud as he went over every foot of the place. I wanted to ask +him what he thought, but I was afraid. Presently he came back to the +bridge, set down the lantern, and announced that he was ready. + +There was not a breath of air moving. The door of the lantern stood +open, and the smoke from the half-burned tallow candle streamed straight +up and squeezed out at the peaked top. + +The two men took their places, leaned over, and each put his big arms +around the other. Malan had torn the sleeves out of his shirt, and Jud +had rolled his above the elbow. + +Woodford picked up the lantern, nodded to me to follow him, and we went +around the men to see if the positions they had taken were fair. Each +was entitled to one underhold, that is, the right arm around the body +and under the left arm of his opponent, the left arm over the opponent's +right, and the hands gripped. It is the position of the grizzly, +hopeless for the weaker man. + +The two had taken practically the same hold, except that Malan locked +his fingers, while Jud gripped his left wrist with his right hand. Jud +was perhaps four inches taller, but Malan was heavier by at least twenty +pounds. + +We came back and stood by the floor of the bridge, Woodford holding the +lantern with Lem Marks and I beside him. Malan said that the light was +in his eyes, and Woodford shifted the lantern until the men's faces were +in the dark. Then he gave the word. + +For fully a minute, it seemed to me, the two men stood, like a big +bronze. Then I could see the muscles of their shoulders contracting +under a powerful tension as though each were striving to lift some heavy +thing up out of the earth. It seemed, too, that Malan squeezed as he +lifted, and that Jud's shoulder turned a little, as though he wished to +brace it against the clubfoot's breast, or was troubled by the +squeezing. + +Malan bent slowly backward, and Jud's heels began to rise out of the +dust. Then, as though a crushing weight descended suddenly through his +shoulder, Jud threw himself heavily against Malan, and the two fell. I +ran forward, the men were down sidewise in the road. + +"Dog fall," said Woodford; "get up." + +But the blood of the two was now heated. They hugged, panted, and rolled +over. Woodford thrust the lantern into their faces and began to kick +Malan. "Get up, you dog," he said. + +They finally unlocked their arms and got slowly on their legs. Both were +breathing deeply and the sweat was trickling over their faces. + +Woodford looked at the infuriated men and seemed to reflect. Presently +he turned to me, as the host turns to the honourable guest. "Quiller," +he said, "these savages want to kill each other. We shall have to close +the Olympic games. Let us say that you have won, and no tales told. Is +it fair?" + +I stammered that it was fair. Then he came over and linked his arm +through mine. He asked me if I would walk to the horses with him. I +could not get away, and so I walked with him. + +He pointed to the daylight breaking along the edges of the hills, and to +the frost glistening on the bridge roof. He said it reminded him how, +when he was little, he would stand before the frosted window panes +trying to understand what the etched pictures meant, and how sure he was +that he had once known about this business, but had somehow forgotten. +And how he tried and tried to recall the lost secret. How sometimes he +seemed about to get it, and then it slipped away, and how one day he +realised that he should never remember, and what a blow it was. + +Then he said a lot of things that I did not understand. He said that +when one grew out of childhood, he lost his sympathy with events, and +when that sympathy was lost, it was possible to live in the world only +as an adventurer with everything in one's hand. + +He said a sentinel watched to see if a man set his heart on a thing, and +if he did the sentinel gave some sign, whereupon the devil's imps +swarmed up to break that thing in pieces. He said that sometimes a man +beat off the devils and saved the thing, but it was rare, and meant a +life of tireless watching. From every point of view, indifference was +better. + +Still, he said, it was a mistake for a man to allow events to browbeat +him. He ought to fight back, hitting where he could. An event, once in a +while, was strangely a coward. Besides that, if Destiny found a man +always ready to strip, she came after a while to accord to him the +courtesies of a duellist, and if he were a stout fellow, she sometimes +hesitated before she provoked a fight. Of course the man could not +finally beat her off, but she would set him to one side, as a person +with whom she was going to have trouble, and give him all the time she +could. + +He said a man ought to have the courage to strike out for what he +wanted; that the ship-wrecked who got desperately ashore was a better +man than the hanger-back; that a great misfortune was a great +compliment. It measured the resistance of the man. Destiny would not +send artillery against a weakling. It was sometimes finer to fight when +the lights were all out; I would not understand that, men never did +until they were about through with life. But, above everything else, he +said, a man ought to go to his ruin with a sort of princely +indifference. God Almighty could not hurt the man who did not care. + +Then he gave me a friendly direction about the cattle, to put them in +his boundary on our road home, bade me remember our contract of no tales +told, and got into his saddle. + +I watched him cross the bridge, and ride away through the Hills with his +men, humming some song about the devil and a dainty maid, and I wished +that I might grow up to have such splendid courage. His big galleon had +gone down on the high seas with a treasure in her hold that I could not +reckon, and he went singing like one who finds a kingdom. + +Then Jud called to me to get out of the road, and a muley steer went by +at my elbow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE EXIT OF THE PRETENDER + + +I sat in the saddle of El Mahdi on the hill-top beyond the bridge, and +watched the day coming through the gateway of the world. It was a work +of huge enchantment, as when, for the pleasure of some ancient caliph, +or at the taunting of some wanton queen, a withered magus turned the +ugly world into a kingdom of the fairy, and the lolling hangers-on +started up on their elbows to see a green field spreading through the +dirty city and great trees rising above the vanished temples, and wild +roses and the sweet dew-drenched brier trailing where the camel's track +had just faded out, and autumn leaves strewn along pathways of a wood, +and hills behind it all where the sunlight flooded. + +It was like the mornings that came up from the sea by the Wood +Wonderful, or those that broke smiling when the world was newly +minted,--mornings that trouble the blood of the old shipwreck sunning by +the door, and move the stay-at-home to sail out for the Cloud Islands. +Full of the joy of life was this October land. + +I could almost hear the sunlight running with a shout as it plunged in +among the hickory trees and went tumbling to the thickets of the hollow. +The mist hanging over the low meadows was a golden web, stretched by +enchanted fingers across some exquisite country into which a man might +come only through his dreams. + +I waited while the drove went by, counting the cattle to see that none +had been overlooked in the night. The Aberdeen-Angus still held his +place in the front, and the big muley bull marched by like a king's +governor, keeping his space of clear road at the peril of a Homeric +struggle. + +I knew every one of the six hundred, and I could have hugged each great +black fellow as he trudged past. + +Jud and the Cardinal went by in the middle of the long line and passed +out of sight behind a turn of the hill below. The giant rode slowly, +lolling in his saddle and swinging his big legs free of the stirrups. + +Then the lagging rear of the drove trailed up, and the hunchback +followed on the Bay Eagle. He was buttoned to the chin in Roy's blue +coat and looked for all the world like some shrivelled old marshal of +the empire, a hundred days out of Paris, covering the retreat of the +imperial army. + +El Mahdi stood on the high bank by the roadside, in among the dead +blackberry briers, and I sat with the rein under my legs and my hands in +my pockets. + +The hunchback stopped his horse in the road below me, squared himself in +his saddle, and looked up with a great supercilious grin. + +"Well," he said, "I'll be damn!" + +"What's the trouble?" said I. + +"Humph!" he snorted, "are them britches I see on your legs?" + +"That's what they call them," said I. + +"Well," said he, "when you git home, take 'em off, an' hand 'em over to +old Liza, an' ask her to bring your kilts down out of the garret. For +you're as innocent a little codger as ever sucked his hide full of +milk." + +"What are you driving at?" I asked. + +Ump shook out his long arms and folded them around the bosom of his blue +coat. "Jud told me," he said; "an' the pair of you ought to be put in a +cradle with a rock-a-by-baby. Woodford was done when that axe fell in +the river, an' he knowed it. He was ridin' out when he saw you an' Jud, +an' he said to himself, 'God's good to you, Rufus, my boy; here's a pair +of little babies a long way from their ma, an' it ought to count you +one.' Then he lit off an' offered to wrastle you, heads I win an' tails +you lose, for the cake in your pocket, an' then he chucked you under the +chin, an' you promised not to tell." + +The hunchback set his two fingers against his teeth and whistled like a +hawk, a long, shrill, hissing whistle that startled the little +partridges on the sloping hillside and sent them scurrying under the +dead grass, and brought the drumming pheasant to his feathered legs. + +Then he threw his chin into the air and squinted. "Quiller," he piped, +with the long echo still whining in his throat, "that whistle fooled you +an' it fooled Jud, but it wouldn't fool a Bob White with the shell on +its back. When the old bird hears it, she don't wait to see the long +shadow travellin' on the grass, but she hollers, 'Into the weeds, boys, +if you want to save your bacon.' An' you ought to see the little codgers +scatter. Let it be a lesson to you, Quiller, my laddiebuck; when you +hear that whistle, light out for the tall timber. When you're a fightin' +the devil, half the winnin' 's in the runnin'." + +Then he opened his great cavernous mouth and began to bellow, + + "Ho! ho! for the carrion crow, + But hark to the sqawk of the carrion hawk," + +gathered up his reins and set out after the drove in a hand gallop, all +doubled over in his blue coat. + +I got El Mahdi into the road and we went swinging down the hill. I had a +light flashed into the deeps of Woodford, and I saw dimly how able and +how dangerous a man he was. I began to comprehend something of the long +complex formula that goes to make up a human identity, and it was a +discovery as startling as when a fellow perched on his grandfather's +shoulder sees through the key-hole a tangle of wheels all going behind +the white face of the clock. + +I had been deftly handled by this Woodford, and yet I had not seemed to +be. He had striven to move me to his will with a sort of masked edging, +and, failing in that, left me with the bitterness drawn out. More than +that,--shrewd and far-sighted man,--taken hot against him, I was almost +won over to his star. + +Under the hammering of the hard-headed Ump, I saw Woodford in another +light. But I carried no ill will. He had jousted hard and lost, and +youth holds no post-mortems. But the flock of night birds had not flown +out into the sun. Dislodged from one quarter, they flapped across my +heart to another ridgepole. + +Woodford had been holding the blue hills with his men, and we knew what +it meant to go up against him. But down yonder in among the Lares of our +house, one worked against us with her nimble fingers. My heart went hard +against the woman. + +If she drew back from our floorboard, there was the tongue in her head +to say it. No obligation bound her. True, we had given her of our love +freely. But it was a thing no man could set a price on, and no man could +pay, save as he told back the coin which he had borrowed. And failing in +that coin, it was a debt beyond him. + +The door to our house stood pulled back on its hinges. Nothing barred it +but the sun. If the god Whim was piping, she could follow to the world's +end. One might as well bow out the woman when her blood is cooling. +Against the human heart the king's writs have never run. + +I slapped my pocket above the letter. The current had turned and was +running landward. The evil thing cast out upon its flood was riding +back. I hoped it might sting cruelly the hand that flung it. + +I rose in my stirrups and shook my youthful fists at the hills beyond +the Gauley. I could see the smile dying on her red mouth when one came +to say that her plans were ship-wrecked. + +Then I thought of Ward, and something fluttered in my throat. He was +under the spell of this slim, brown-haired witch. She was in his blood, +running to his finger-tips. She was on him like the sun. Why could not +the woman see what the good God was handing down to her? It was the +treasure worth a kingdom. Did she think to find this thing at any +crossroads? Oh, she would see. She would see. This thing was found +rarely by the luckiest, so rarely that many an old wise man held that +there was no such treasure under the sun, and the quest of it was but a +fool's errand. + +I was a mile behind the drove, and when I came up it had reached the +borders of Woodford's land. Jud had thrown down the high fence, +staked-and-ridered with long chestnut rails, and the stream of cattle +was pouring through and spreading out over the great pasture. I watched +the little groups of muleys strike out through the deep broom-sedge +hollows and the narrow bulrush marshes and the low gaps of the good +sodded hills, spying this new country, finding where the grass was +sweetest and where the water bubbled in the old poplar trough, and what +wind-sheltered cove would be warmest to a fellow's belly when he lay +sleeping in the sun. + +Then we rode north through the Hills, over the Gauley where the oak +leaves carpeted the ford, and the little trout darted like a beam of +light, and the old fish-hawk sat on the hanging limb of the dead +beech-tree with his shoulders to his ears and his beak drooping, like +some worn-out voluptuary brooding on his sins. + +On we went through the deep wooded lanes where the redbird stepped about +in his long crimson coat, jerring at the wren, who worked in the deep +thicket as though the Master Builder had gone away to kingdom come and +left her behind to finish the world. + +We came to many a familiar landmark of my golden babyhood, the enchanted +grove on the Seely Hill where I had hunted fabled monsters and gone +whooping down among the cattle, the Greathouse meadow where Red Mike +pitched me out of the saddle when he grew tired of having his bit +jerked, and I sat up in my little petticoats and solemnly demanded that +Jourdan should cut his head off, a thing the old man promised on his +sacred honour when he could borrow the ax of the man in the moon; the +high gate-post by the cattle-scales where I perched bareheaded in a +calico dress and watched old Bedford make his last fight against human +government, Bedford, a bull of mysterious notions, that would kill you +if he found you walking in his field, and lick your stirrup if you came +riding on a horse. + +It was now a country of rich meadow-land, and blue-grass hills rising to +long, flat ridges that the hickories skirted; but in that other time it +was a land of wonders, where in any summer morning, if a fellow set out +on his chubby legs, he might come to enchanted forests, lost rivers, +halcyon kingdoms guarded by some spell where the roving fairies hunted +the great bumblebee to the doorway of his house, and slew him on its +sill and carried off his treasure. + +Through the fringe of locust bushes along the roadside we caught the +first glimpse of home, and the three horses pricked up their ears and +swung out in a longer trot. We clattered down the wide lane and tumbled +out of the saddles at the gate, leaving the Bay Eagle standing proudly +like some victorious general, and the Cardinal like a tired giant who +has done his work, and El Mahdi with his grey head high above the gate +looking away as of old to the far-off mountains as though he wondered +vaguely if the friend or the message or the enemy would never come. + +We marched over the flagstone walk and into the house and up the +stairway. Old Liza flung us some warning through a window to the garden, +which we failed to catch and bellowed back a welcome. Then we gained the +door to the library, threw it open and went crowding in. + +A step beyond that door we halted with a jerk. Ward was lounging in a +big chair with a pillow behind his shoulder, and over by the open window +where the sun danced along the casement was Cynthia Carper setting a +sheaf of roses in a jar. + +Ward looked us down to the floor, and then he laughed until the great +chair tottered on its legs. "Cynthia," he cried, "will you drop a +courtesy to the gallant troopers?" She spun around with a fear kindling +in her eyes. + +"The cattle!" she said. "Did you get them over?" + +I had the situation in my fingers, and I felt myself grow taller with +it. "Yes," I said harshly. Then I put my hand into my pocket, drew out +the letter and handed it to her with a mocking bow. "I was asked to +carry this letter back to you, and say that my brother's word is good +enough for Nicholas Marsh." + +She took the envelope and stood twisting it in her slim fingers, while a +light came up slowly in the land beyond her eyelids. + +Ward held out his hand for the letter. And then I looked to see her +flutter like a pinned fly. She grew neither red nor white, but crossed +to his chair and put the letter in his hand. + +He tore off the envelope and ran his eyes down the written page. "Your +order for the money!" he cried; "this was not mentioned in our plan. +What is this?" + +"That," said the straight young woman, "is a field order of the +commanding general issued without the knowledge of the war department." + +Then I saw the whole underpinning of the scheme, and my heart stumbled +and went groping about the four walls of its house. I tramped out of the +room and down the stairway to the big window at the first landing. I +stopped and leaned out over the walnut casement. El Mahdi stood as I had +left him, staring at the far-off wall of the Hills; and below me in the +garden old Liza stooped over her vines, not a day older, it seemed to +me, than when I galloped at her long apron-strings on Alhambra the Son +of the Wind. + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +NEW FICTION + + +THE FOREST SCHOOLMASTER + +By Peter Rosegger. Authorized translation by Frances E. Skinner. + +This is the first English version of the popular Austrian novelist's +work, and no better choice from his writings could have been made +through which to introduce him to the American public. It is a strange, +sweet tale, this story of an isolated forest community civilized and +regenerated by the life of one man. The translator has caught the spirit +of the work, and Rosegger's virile style loses nothing in the +translation. + + +LOVE AND HONOUR + +By M. E. Carr. + +A thrilling story that carries the reader from the closing incidents of +the French Revolution, through various campaigns of the Napoleonic wars, +to the final scene on a family estate in Germany. The action of the plot +is well sustained, and the style might be described as vivid, while the +old battle between love and honor is fought out with such freshness of +treatment as to seem new. + + +DWELLERS IN THE HILLS + +By Melville D. Post. + +Mr. Post is to be congratulated upon having found a new field for +fiction. The scene of his latest story is laid amidst the hills of West +Virginia. Many of the exciting incidents are based upon actual +experience on the cattle ranges of the South. The story is original, +full of action, and strong, with a local color almost entirely new to +the reading public. + + +DUPES + +By Ethel Watts Mumford. + +A novel more thoroughly original than "Dupes," both in character and in +plot, has not appeared for some time. The "dupes" are society people, +who, like the Athenians, "spent their time in nothing else but either to +tell or to hear some new thing." Apart from its charm as a love story, +the book makes some clever hits at certain "new things." While this is +Mrs. Mumford's first book, she is well known as a writer of short +stories. + + +Love Letters of a Musician + +By Myrtle Reed. + +"Miss Reed's book is an exquisite prose poem--words strung on +thought-threads of gold--in which a musician tells his love for one whom +he has found to be his ideal. The idea is not new, but the opinion is +ventured that nowhere has it been one-half so well carried out as in the +'Love Letters of a Musician.' The ecstacy of hope, the apathy of +despair, alternate in these enchanting letters, without one line of +cynicism to mar the beauty of their effect."--_Rochester Herald._ + + +Later Love Letters of a Musician + +By Myrtle Reed. + +"It was with considerable hesitation that Myrtle Reed's second volume of +a musician's love letters was taken up, a natural inference being that +Miss Reed could scarcely hope to repeat her first success. Yet that she +has equalled, if not surpassed, the interest of her earlier letters is +soon apparent. Here will be found the same delicate fancy, the same +beautiful imagery, and the same musical phrases from well-known +composers, introducing the several chapters, and giving the key to their +various moods. Miss Reed has accomplished her purpose successfully in +both series of the letters."--_N. Y. Times Saturday Review._ + + +The Diary of a Dreamer + +By Alice Dew-Smith, author of "Soul Shapes," "A White Umbrella" + +"A book to be read as a sedative by the busy and overworked. The scene +is laid in England, and is bathed in a peculiarly English atmosphere of +peace and leisure. Contains much domestic philosophy of a pleasing if +not very original sort, and, incidentally, no little good-natured social +satire."--_N. Y. Evening Post._ + +"This is a book of the meditative order. The writer expresses her +thoughts in a manner that is a delightful reminder of 'Reveries of a +Bachelor' of Ike Marvel.... In parts it is amusing, in the manner of +Mark Twain's 'Sketches.' The combination of humor and sensible +reflection results to the reader's delight."--_Albany Times Union._ + +"'The Diary of a Dreamer' is a charming treatment of the every-day +topics of life. As in 'Reveries of a Bachelor' and 'Elizabeth and her +German Garden,' we find an engaging presentation, from the feminine +point of view, of the scenes and events that make up the daily living. +The 'Diary' is one of those revelations of thought and feeling that fit +so well into the reader's individual experience."--_Detroit Free Press._ + + * * * * * + + +By Melville D. Post + + +THE STRANGE SCHEMES OF RANDOLPH MASON + +"This book is very entertaining and original ... ingeniously constructed +... well worth reading."--_New York Herald._ + +"One of the best three volumes of stories produced within a year, as +will be recalled by those who are attentive to such matters, is 'The +Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason.' They are stories of adventure in the +every-day field of judicial procedure. The talent required to make +adventures of this order interesting is a rare one, how rare may be +inferred from the fact that almost the only famous example of the kind +in English letters is the trial in that obsolete novel, 'Ten Thousand a +Year.'"--_New York Sun._ + + +THE MAN OF LAST RESORT + +"The author makes a strong plea for moral responsibility in his work, +and his vivid style and undeniable earnestness must carry great weight +with all thinking readers. It is a notable book."--_Boston Times._ + +"Mr. Post has created for himself a new field in literature, just as +Conan Doyle by his Sherlock Holmes created for himself a new field. He +shows in this book that he is not only a lawyer but a story writer of +the very highest skill and literary style. The stories are most +thrilling and hold one's interest to the end."--_Law Students' Journal._ + + +DWELLERS IN THE HILLS + +Mr. Post is to be congratulated upon having found a new field for +fiction. The scene of his latest story is laid amidst the hills of West +Virginia. Many of the exciting incidents are based upon actual +experience on the cattle ranges of the south. The story is original, +full of action, and strong with a local color almost entirely new to the +reading public. + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + + +SONS OF THE MORNING + +By Eden Phillpotts, author of "Children of the Mist," etc. + +"Here we have not only literature, but we have character drawing, humor, +and descriptive powers that Blackmore only equalled once, and that was +in 'Lorna Doone.'... He knows the heart as well as the trees; he knows +men and women as well as he knows nature, and he holds them both in the +hollow of his hand."--_Chicago Tribune._ + + +CHILDREN OF THE MIST + +By Eden Phillpotts. + +R. D. Blackmore, the author of "Lorna Doone," said of this: "Knowing +nothing of the writer or of his works, I was simply astonished at the +beauty and power of this novel. But true as it is to life and place, +full of deep interest and rare humor and vivid descriptions, there +seemed to be risk of its passing unheeded in the crowd, and rush, and +ruck of fiction.... Literature has been enriched with a wholesome, +genial, and noble tale, the reading of which is a pleasure in store for +many." + + +HILDA WADE + +A Woman with Tenacity of Purpose. By Grant Allen, author of "Miss +Cayley's Adventures," etc. + +"Mr. Allen's text, as in all his writings, is singularly picturesque and +captivating. There are no commonplaces, and, although the outcome is +perfectly evident early in the story, the reader will find his attention +chained.... It is one of the best of the summer books, and as an +artistic bit of light reading ranks high. It is a pity that such a +vivid imagination and high-bred style of discourse are no longer in +the land of the living to entertain us with further stories of +adventure."--_Boston Times._ + + +THE SECRET OF THE CRATER + +(A Mountain Moloch.) By Duffield Osborne, author of "The Spell of +Ashtaroth," etc. + +"The author is a novelist with a genuine gift for narrative. He knows +how to tell a story, and he is capable of conceiving a plot as wild as +was ever imagined by Jules Verne or Rider Haggard.... The reader will +find himself amused and interested from the first page to the +last."--_N. Y. Herald._ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dwellers in the Hills, by Melville Davisson Post + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DWELLERS IN THE HILLS *** + +***** This file should be named 29851.txt or 29851.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/5/29851/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +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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