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diff --git a/5306-0.txt b/5306-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15e7c16 --- /dev/null +++ b/5306-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3896 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 5306 *** +DOWN THE RAVINE BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +The new moon, a gleaming scimitar, cleft the gauzy mists above a +rugged spur of the Cumberland Mountains. The sky, still crimson and +amber, stretched vast and lonely above the vast and lonely +landscape. A fox was barking in the laurel. + +This was an imprudent proceeding on the part of the fox, considering +the value of his head-gear. A young mountaineer down the ravine was +reminded, by the sharp, abrupt sound, of a premium offered by the +State of Tennessee for the scalp and ears of the pestiferous red +fox. + +All unconscious of the legislation of extermination, the animal sped +nimbly along the ledge of a cliff, becoming visible from the ravine +below, a tawny streak against the gray rock. Swift though he was, a +jet of red light flashing out in the dusk was yet swifter. The +echoing crags clamored with the report of a rifle. The tawny streak +was suddenly still. Three boys appeared in the depths of the ravine +and looked up. + +"Thar now! Ye can't git him off'n that thar ledge, Birt," said Tim +Griggs. "The contrairy beastis couldn't hev fund a more ill- +convenient spot ter die of he hed sarched the mounting." + +"I ain't goin' ter leave him thar, though," stoutly declared the boy +who still held the rifle. "That thar fox's scalp an' his two ears +air wuth one whole dollar." + +Tim remonstrated. "Look-a-hyar, Birt; ef ye try ter climb up this +hyar bluff, ye'll git yer neck bruk, sure." + +Birt Dicey looked up critically. It was a rugged ascent of forty +feet or more to the narrow ledge where the red fox lay. Although +the face of the cliff was jagged, the rock greatly splintered and +fissured, with many ledges, and here and there a tuft of weeds or a +stunted bush growing in a niche, it was very steep, and would afford +precarious foothold. The sunset was fading. The uncertain light +would multiply the dangers of the attempt. But to leave a dollar +lying there on the fox's head, that the wolf and the buzzard might +dine expensively to-morrow! + +"An' me so tried for money!" he exclaimed, thinking aloud. + +Nate Griggs, who had not before spoken, gave a sudden laugh,--a dry, +jeering laugh. + +"Ef all the foxes on the mounting war ter hold a pertracted meet'n, +jes' ter pleasure you-uns, thar wouldn't be enough scalps an' ears +'mongst 'em ter make up the money ye hanker fur ter buy a horse." + +To buy a horse was the height of Birt's ambition. His mother was a +widow; and as an instance of the fact that misfortunes seldom come +singly, the horse on which the family depended to till their scanty +acres died shortly after his owner. And so, whenever the spring +opened and the ploughs all over the countryside were starting, their +one chance to cultivate a crop was to hire a mule from their nearest +neighbor, the tanner. Birt was the eldest son, and his mother had +only his work to offer in payment. The proposition always took the +tanner in what he called a "jubious time." Spring is the season for +stripping the trees of their bark, which is richer in tannin when +the sap flows most freely, and the mule was needed to haul up the +piles of bark from out the depths of the woods to the tanyard. +Then, too, Jubal Perkins had his own crops to put in. As he often +remarked in the course of the negotiation, "I don't eat tan bark-- +nor yit raw hides." Although the mule was a multifarious animal, +and ploughed and worked in the bark-mill, and hauled from the woods, +and went long journeys in the wagon or under the saddle, he was not +ubiquitous, and it was impossible for him to be in the several +places in which he was urgently needed at the same time. Therefore, +to hire him out on these terms seemed hardly an advantage to his +master. Nevertheless, this bargain was annually struck. The +poverty-stricken widow always congratulated herself upon its +conclusion, and it never occurred to her that the amount of work +that Birt did in the tanyard was a disproportionately large return +for the few days that the tanner's mule ploughed their little +fields. + +Birt, however, was beginning to see that a boy to drive that mule +around the bark-mill was as essential as the mule himself. As +Providence had failed to furnish the tanner with a son for this +purpose--his family consisting of several small daughters--Birt +supplied a long-felt want. + +The boy appreciated that his simple mother was over-reached, yet he +could not see that she could do otherwise. He sighed for +independence, for a larger opportunity. As he drove the mule round +the limited circuit, his mind was far away. He anxiously canvassed +the future. He cherished fiery, ambitious schemes,--often scorched, +poor fellow, by their futility. With his time thus mortgaged, he +thought his help to his mother was far less than it might be. But +until he could have a horse of his own, there was no hope--no +progress. And for this he planned, and dreamed, and saved. + +Partly these considerations, partly the love of adventure, and +partly the jeer in Nate's laugh determined him not to relinquish the +price set upon the fox's head. He took off his coat and flung it on +the ground beside his rifle. Then he began to clamber up the cliff. + +The two brothers, their hands in the pockets of their brown jeans +trousers, stood watching his ascent. Nate had sandy hair, small +gray eyes, set much too close together, and a sharp, pale, freckled +face. Tim seemed only a mild repetition of him, as if Nature had +tried to illustrate what Nate would be with a better temper and less +sly intelligence. + +Birt was climbing slowly. It was a difficult matter. Here was a +crevice that would hardly admit his eager fingers, and again a +projection so narrow that it seemed to grudge him foothold. Some of +the ledges, however, were wider, and occasionally a dwarfed +huckleberry bush, nourished in a fissure, lifted him up like a +helping hand. He quaked as he heard the roots strain and creak, for +he was a pretty heavy fellow for sixteen years of age. They did not +give way, however, and up and up he went, every moment increasing +the depth below him and the danger. His breath was short; his +strength flagged, he slipped more than once, giving himself a great +fright; and when he reached the ledge where the dead fox lay, he +thought, "The varmint don't wuth it." + +Nevertheless he whooped out his triumph to Nate and Tim in a +stentorian halloo, for they had already started homeward, and +presently their voices died in the distance. Birt faced about and +sat down on the ledge to rest, his feet dangling over the depths +beneath. + +It was a lonely spot, walled in by the mountains, and frequented +only by the deer that were wont to come to lick salt from the briny +margin of a great salt spring far down the ravine. Their hoofs had +worn a deep excavation around it in the countless years and +generations that they had herded here. The "lick," as such places +are called in Tennessee, was nearly two acres in extent, and in the +centre of the depression the brackish water stood to the depth of +six feet or more. Birt looked down at it, thinking of the old times +when, according to tradition, it was the stamping ground of buffalo +as well as deer. The dusk deepened. The shadows were skulking in +and out of the wild ravine as the wind rose and fell. They took to +his fancy the form of herds of the banished bison, revisiting in +this impalpable guise the sylvan shades where they are but a memory +now. + +Presently he began the rugged descent, considerably hampered by the +fox, which he carried by the tail. He stopped to rest whenever he +found a ledge that would serve as a seat. Looking up, high above +the jagged summit of the cliff that sharply serrated the zenith, he +saw the earliest star, glorious in the crimson and amber sky. +Below, a point of silver light quivered, reflected in the crimson +and amber waters of the "lick." The fire-flies were flickering +among the ferns; he saw about him their errant gleam. The shadowy +herds trooped down the mountain side. + +Now and then his weight uprooted a bush in his hands, and the clods +fell. He missed his footing as he neared the base, and came down +with a thump. It was a gravelly spot where he had fallen, and he +saw in a moment that it was the summer-dried channel of a mountain +rill. As he pulled himself up on one elbow, he suddenly paused with +dilated eyes. The evening light fell upon a burnished glimmer;--a +bit of stone--was it stone?--shining with a metallic lustre. + +He looked at it for a moment, his eyes glowing in the contemplation +of a splendid possibility. + +What were those old stories that his father used to tell of the gold +excitement in Tennessee in 1831, when the rich earth flung largess +from its hidden wealth along the romantic banks of Coca Creek! Gold +had been found in Tennessee--why not here? And once--why not again? + +The idea so possessed him that while he was skinning the fox his +sharp knife almost sacrificed one of the TWO ears imperatively +required by the statute, in order that the wily hunter may not be +tempted to present one ear at a time, thus multiplying red foxes and +premiums therefor like Falstaff's "rogues in buckram." + +He took his way homeward through the darkening woods, carrying the +pelt in his hand. It was not long before he could hear the dogs +barking, and as he came suddenly upon a little clearing in the midst +of the dense, encompassing wilderness, he saw them all trooping down +from the unenclosed passage between the two log-rooms which +constituted the house. An old hound had half climbed the fence, but +as he laid his fore-paw on the topmost rail, his deep-mouthed bay +was hushed,--he was recognizing the approaching step of his master. +The yellow curs were still insisting upon a marauder theory. One of +them barked defiance as he thrust his head between the rails of the +fence. There was another head thrust through too, about on a level +with Towser's, but it was not a dog's head. As Birt caught a +glimpse of it, he called out hastily, "Stand back thar, Tennessee!" +And then it was lost to view, for at the sound of his voice all the +dogs came huddling over the bars, shrilly yelping a tumultuous +welcome. + +When Birt had vaulted over the fence, the little object withdrew its +head from between the rails and came trotting along beside him, +holding up its hand to clasp his. + +His mother, standing in the passage, her tall, thin figure distinct +in the firelight that came flickering out through the open door, +soliloquized querulously: - + +"Ef that thar child don't quit that fool way o' stickin' her head a- +twixt the rails ter watch fur her brother, she'll git cotched thar +some day like a peeg in a pen, an' git her neck bruk." + +Birt overheard her. "Tennessee air too peart ter git herself hurt," +he said, a trifle ashamed of his ready championship of his little +sister, as a big rough boy is apt to be of gentler emotions. + +If ever infancy can be deemed uncouth, she was an uncouth little +atom of humanity. Her blue checked homespun dress, graced with big +horn buttons, descended almost to her feet. Her straight, awkwardly +cropped hair was of a nondescript shade pleasantly called "tow." As +she came into the light of the fire, she lifted wide black eyes +deprecatingly to her mother. + +"She ain't pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart," Birt used to +say so often that the phrase became a formula with him. + +If she were "powerful peart," it was a fact readily apparent only to +him, for she was a silent child, with the single marked +characteristic of great affection for her eldest brother and a +singular pertinacity in following him about. + +"I dunno 'bout Tennie's peartness," his mother sarcastically +rejoined. "'Pears ter me like the chile hain't never hed good +sense; afore she could walk she'd crawl along the floor arter ye, +an' holler like a squeech-owEL ef ye went off an' lef' her. An' ye +air plumb teched in the head too, Birt, ter set sech store by +Tennie. I look ter see her killed, or stunted, some day, in them +travels o' hern." + +For when Birt Dicey went "yerrands" on the mule through the woods to +the Settlement, Tennessee often rode on the pommel of his saddle. +She followed in the furrow when he ploughed. She was as familiar an +object at the tanyard as the bark-mill itself. When he wielded the +axe, she perched on one end of the woodpile. But so far, she had +passed safely through her varied adventures, and gratifying +evidences of her growth were registered on the door. "Stand back +thar, Tennessee!" in a loud, boyish halloo, was a command when +danger was ahead, which she obeyed with the readiness of a veteran. + +Sometimes, however, this incongruous companionship became irksome to +him. Her trusting, insistent affection made her a clog upon him, +and he grew impatient of it. + +Ah, little Sister! he learned its value one day. + +The great wood fire was all aflare in the deep chimney-place. +Savory odors came from the gridiron and the skillet and the hoe, on +the live coals drawn out on the broad hearth. The tow-headed +children grew noisy as they assembled around the bare pine table, +and began to clash their knives and forks. + +Birt, unmindful, crouched by the hearth, silently turning his +precious specimens about, that he might examine them by the +firelight. Tennessee, her chuffy hand on his shoulder, for she +could reach it as he knelt, held her head close to his, and looked +at them too with wide black eyes. His mother placed the supper on +the table, and twice she called to him to come, but he did not hear. +She turned and looked down at him, then broke out sharply in +indignant surprise. + +"Air ye bereft o' reason, Birt Dicey! Ye set thar nosin' a handful +o' rocks ez ef they war fitten ter eat! An' now look at the boy--a +stuffin' 'em in his pockets ter sag 'em down and tear 'em out fur me +ter sew in ag'in. Waal, waal! Sol'mon say ef ye spare the rod ye +spile the child--mos' ennybody could hev fund that out from thar own +'sperience; but the wisest man that ever lived lef' no receipt how +ter keep a boy's pockets whole in his breeches." + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Birt Dicey lay awake deep into the night, pondering and planning. +But despite this unwonted vigil the old bark-mill was early astir, +and he went alertly about his work. He felt eager, strong, capable. +The spirit of progress was upon him. + +The tanyard lay in the midst of a forest so dense that, except at +the verge of the clearing, it showed hardly a trace of its gradual +despoliation by the industry that nestled in its heart like a worm +in the bud. There were many stumps about the margin of the woods, +the felled trees, stripped of their bark, often lying among them +still, for the supply of timber exceeded the need. In penetrating +the wilderness you might mark, too, here and there, a vacant space, +where the chestnut-oak, prized for its tannin, had once grown on the +slope. + +A little log house was in the midst of the clearing. It had, +properly speaking, only one room, but there was a shed-room +attached, for the purpose of storage, and also a large open shed at +one side. The rail fence inclosed the space of an acre, perhaps, +which was covered with spent bark. Across the pits planks were +laid, with heavy stones upon them to hold them in place. A rude +roof sheltered the bark-mill from the weather, and there was the +patient mule, with Birt and a whip to make sure that he did not fall +into reflective pauses according to his meditative wont. And there, +too, was Tennessee, perched on the lower edge of a great pile of +bark, and gravely watching Birt. + +He deprecated the attention she attracted. He was sometimes ashamed +to have the persistent little sister seen following at his heels +like a midday shadow. He could not know that the men who stopped +and spoke to him and to her, and laughed at the infirmities of the +infant tongue when she replied unintelligibly, thought better of him +for his manifestation of strong fraternal affection. They said to +each other that he was a "peart boy an' powerful good ter the +t'other chill'en, an' holped the fambly along ez well ez a man-- +better'n thar dad ever done;" for Birt's father had been +characterized always as "slack-twisted an' onlucky." + +The shadows dwindled on the tan. The winds had furled their wings. +White clouds rose, dazzling, opaque, up to the blue zenith. The +querulous cicada complained in the laurel. Birt heard the call of a +jay from the woods. And then, as he once more urged the old mule +on, the busy bark-mill kept up such a whir that he could hear +nothing else. He was not aware of an approach till the new-comer +was close upon him; in fact, the first he knew of Nate Griggs's +proximity was the sight of him. Nate was glancing about with his +usual air of questioning disparagement, and cracking a long lash at +the spent bark on the ground. + +"Hello, Nate!" Birt cried out, eagerly. "I'm powerful glad ye +happened ter kem hyar, fur I hev a word ter say ter ye." + +"I dunno ez I'm minded ter bide," Nate said cavalierly. "I hates to +waste time an' burn daylight a-jowin'." + +He was still cracking his lash at the ground. There was a sudden, +half-articulate remonstrance. + +Birt, who had turned away to the bark-mill, whirled back in a rising +passion. + +"Did ye hit Tennessee?" he asked, with a dangerous light in his +eyes. + +"No--I never!" Nate protested. "I hain't seen her till this minute. +She war standin' a-hint ye." + +"Waal, ye skeered her, then," said Birt, hardly appeased. "Quit +snappin' that lash. 'Pears-like ter me ez ye makes yerself powerful +free round this hyar tanyard." + +"Tennie air a-growin' wonderful fast," the sly Nathan remarked +pleasantly. + +Birt softened instantly. "She air a haffen inch higher 'n she war +las' March, 'cordin' ter the mark on the door," he declared, +pridefully. "She ain't pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart." + +"What war the word ez ye war layin' off ter say ter me?" Nate asked, +curiosity vividly expressed in his face. + +Birt leaned back against the pile of bark and hesitated. Last night +he had thought Nate the most desirable person to whom he could +confide his secret whose aid he could secure. There were many +circumstances that made this seem wise. But when the disclosure was +imminent, something in those small, bead-like eyes, unpleasantly +close together, something in the expression of the thin, pale face, +something in Nate's voice and manner repelled confidence. + +"Nate," said Birt, at last, speaking with that subacute conviction, +so strong yet so ill-defined, which vividly warns the ill-judged and +yet cannot stop the tongue constrained by its own folly, "what d'ye +s'pose I fund in the woods yestiddy?" + +The two small eyes, set close together, seemed merged in one, so +concentrated was their gaze. Again their expression struck Birt's +attention. He hesitated once more. "Ef I tell ye, will ye promise +never ter tell enny livin' human critter?" + +"I hope I may drap stone dead ef I ever tell!" Nate exclaimed. + +"I fund a strange metal in the woods yestiddy. What d'ye s'pose 't +war?" + +Nate shook his head. His breath was quick and he could not control +the keen anxiety in his face. A strong flush rose to the roots of +his sandy hair, his lips quivered, and his small eyes glittered with +greedy expectation. His tongue refused to frame a word. + +"GOLD!" cried Birt, triumphantly. + +"Whar be it?" exclaimed Nate. He was about to start in full run for +the spot. + +"I ain't agoin' ter tell ye, without we-uns kin strike a trade." + +"Waal," said Nate, with difficulty repressing his impatience, "what +air you-uns aimin' ter do?" + +"Ye knows ez I hev ter bide hyar with the bark-mill mos'ly, jes' +now," said Birt, beginning to expound the series of ideas which he +had carefully worked out in his midnight vigil, "'kase they hev got +ter hev a heap o' tan ter fill them thar vats ag'in. Ef I war ter +leave an' go a-gold huntin', the men on the mounting would find out +what I war arter, an' they'd come a-grabblin' thar too, an' mebbe +git it all, 'kase I dunno how much or how leetle thar be. I wants +ter make sure of enough ter buy a horse, or a mule, or su'thin', ef +I kin, 'fore I tells ennybody else. An' I 'lowed ez ye an' me would +go pardners. Ye'd take my place hyar at the tanyard one day, whilst +I dug, an' I'd bide in the tanyard nex' day. An' we would divide +fair an' even all we fund." + +Nate did not reply. He was absorbed in a project that had come into +his head as his friend talked, and the two dissimilar trains of +thought combined in a mental mosaic that would have amazed Birt +Dicey. + +"Ye see," Birt presently continued, "I dunno when I kin git shet o' +the tanyard this year. Old Jube Perkins 'lows ez he air mighty busy +'bout'n them hides an' sech, an' he wants me ter holp around +ginerally. He say ef I do mo' work'n I owes him, he'll make that +straight with my mother. An' he declares fur true ef I don't holp +him at this junctry, when he needs me, he won't hire his mule to my +mother nex' spring; an' ye know it won't do fur we-uns ter resk the +corn-crap an' gyarden truck with sech a pack o' chill'n ter vittle +ez we-uns hev got at our house." + +Nate deduced an unexpected conclusion. "Ye oughter gin me more'n +haffen the make," he said. "'Kase ef 'twarn't fur me, ye couldn't +git none. An' ef ye don't say two thurds, I'll tell every critter +on the mounting an' they'll be grabblin' in yer gold mine d'rec'ly." + +"Ye dunno whar it is," said Birt, quietly. + +If a sudden jet from the cold mountain torrent, that rioted through +the wilderness down the ravine hard by, had been dashed into Nate's +thin, sharp face, he could not have cooled more abruptly. The +change almost took his breath away. + +"I don't mean THAT, nuther," he gasped with politic penitence, "kase +I hev promised not ter tell. I dunno whether I kin holp nohow. I +hev got ter do my sheer o' work at home; we ain't through pullin' +fodder off'n our late corn yit." + +Birt looked at him in silent surprise. + +Nate was older than his friend by several years. He was of an +unruly and insubordinate temper, and did as little work as he +pleased at home. He often remarked that he would like to see who +could make him do what he had no mind to do. + +"Mebbe old Jube wouldn't want me round 'bout," he suggested. + +"Waal," said Birt, eager again to detail his plans, "he 'lowed when +I axed him this mornin' ez he'd be willin' ef I could trade with +another boy ter take my place wunst in a while." + +Nate affected to meditate on this view of the question. "But it +will be toler'ble fur away fur me ter go prowlin' in the woods, a- +huntin' fur gold, an' our fodder jes' a-sufferin' ter be pulled. Ef +the spot air fur off, I can't come an' I won't, not fur haffen the +make." + +"'T ain't fur off at all--scant haffen mile," replied unwary Birt, +anxious to convince. "It air jes' yander nigh that thar salt lick +down the ravine. I marks the spot by a bowlder--biggest bowlder I +ever see--on the slope o' the mounting." + +The instant this revelation passed his lips, regret seized him. +"But ye ain't ter go thar 'thout me, ye onderstand, till we begins +our work." + +"I ain't wantin' ter go," Nate protested. "I ain't sati'fied in my +mind whether I'll ondertake ter holp or no. That pullin' fodder ez +I hev got ter do sets mighty heavy on my stomach." + +"Tim an' yer dad ALWAYS pulls the fodder an' sech--I knows ez that +air a true word," said Birt, bluntly. "An' I can't git away from +the tanyard at all ef ye won't holp me, 'kase old Jube 'lowed he +wouldn't let me swop with a smaller boy ter work hyar; an' all them +my size, an' bigger, air made ter work with thar dads, 'ceptin' you- +uns." + +Nate heard, but he hardly looked as if he did, so busily absorbed +was he in fitting this fragment of fact into his mental mosaic. It +had begun to assume the proportions of a distinct design. + +He suddenly asked a question of apparent irrelevancy. + +"This hyar land down the ravine don't b'long ter yer folkses--who do +it b'long ter?" + +"Don't b'long ter nobody, ye weasel!" Birt retorted, in rising +wrath. "D'ye s'pose I'd be a-stealin' of gold off'n somebody else's +land?" + +Nate's sly, thin face lighted up wonderfully. He seemed in a fever +of haste to terminate the conference and get away. He agreed to his +friend's proposition and promised to be at the bark-mill bright and +early in the morning. As he trudged off, Birt Dicey stood watching +the receding figure. His eyes were perplexed, his mind full of +anxious foreboding. He hardly knew what he feared. He had only a +vague sense of mischief in the air, as slight but as unmistakable as +the harbinger of storm on a sunshiny summer day. + +"I wisht I hedn't tole him nuthin'," he said, as he wended his way +home that night. "Ef my mother hed knowed bout'n it all, I wouldn't +hev been 'lowed ter tell him. She DEspises the very sight o' this +hyar Nate Griggs--an' yit she say she dunno why." + +After supper he sat gloomy and taciturn in the uninclosed passage +between the two rooms, watching alternately the fire-flies, as they +instarred the dark woods with ever-shifting gold sparks, and the +broad, pale flashes of heat lightning which from time to time +illumined the horizon. There was no motion in the heavy black +foliage, but it was filled with the shrill droning of the summer +insects, and high in the branches a screech-owl pierced the air with +its keen, quavering scream. + +"Tennessee!" exclaimed Birt, as the unwelcome sound fell upon his +ear--"Tennessee! run an' put the shovel in the fire!" + +Whether the shovel, becoming hot among the live coals, burned the +owl that was high in the tree-top outside, according to the +countryside superstition, or whether by a singular coincidence, he +discovered that he had business elsewhere, he was soon gone, and the +night was left to the chorusing katydids and tree-toads and to the +weird, fitful illuminations of the noiseless heat lightning. + +Birt Dicey rose suddenly and walked away silently into the dense, +dark woods. + +"Stop, Tennessee! ye can't go too!" exclaimed Mrs. Dicey, appearing +in the doorway just in time to intercept the juvenile excursionist. +"Ketch her, Rufus! Ef she wouldn't hev followed Birt right off in +the pitch dark! She ain't afeared o' nothin' when Birt is thar. +Git that pomegranate she hed an' gin it ter her ter keep her from +hollerin', Rufe; I hed a sight ruther hear the squeech-owEL." + +Tennessee, overpowered by disappointment, sobbed herself to sleep +upon the floor, and then ensued an interval of quiet. Rufe, a +towheaded boy of ten, dressed in an unbleached cotton shirt and +blue-checked homespun trousers, concluded that this moment was the +accepted time to count the balls in his brother's shot-pouch. This +he proceeded to do, with the aid of the sullen glare from the embers +within and the fluctuating gleams of the lightning without. There +was no pretense of utility in Rufe's performance; only the love of +handling lead could explain it. + +"Ye hed better mind," his mother admonished him. "Birt war powerful +tried the t'other day ter think what hed gone with his bullets. +He'll nose ye out afore long." + +"They hev got sech a fool way o' slippin' through the chinks in the +floor," said the boy in exasperation. "I never seen the beat! An' +thar's no gittin' them out, nuther. I snaked under the house +yestiddy an' sarched, an' sarched!--an' I never fund but two. An' +Towse, he dragged hisself under thar, too--jes' a-growlin' an' a- +snappin'. I thought fur sartin every minit he'd bite my foot off." + +He resumed his self-imposed task of counting the rifle balls, and +now and then a sharp click told that another was consigned to that +limbo guarded by Towse. Mrs. Dicey stood in silence for a time, +gazing upon the unutterably gloomy forest, the distant, throbbing +stars, and the broad, wan flashes at long intervals gleaming through +the sky. + +"It puts me in a mighty tucker ter hev yer brother a-settin' out +through the woods this hyar way, an' a-leavin' of we-uns hyar, all +by ourselves sech a dark night. I'm always afeared thar mought be a +bar a-prowlin' round. An' the cornfield air close ter the house, +too." + +"Pete Thompson--him ez war yander ter the tanyard day 'fore yestiddy +with his dad," said the boy, "he tole it ter me ez how he seen a bar +las' Wednesday a-climbin' over the fence ter thar cornfield, with a +haffen dozen roastin'-ears under his arm an' a watermillion on his +head. But WAR it a haffen dozen? I furgits now ef Pete said it war +a haffen dozen or nine ears of corn the bar hed;" and he paused to +reflect in the midst of his important occupation. + +"I'll be bound Pete never stopped ter count 'em," said Mrs. Dicey. +"Pick that chile up an' come in. I'm goin' ter bar up the door." + +Birt Dicey plodded away through the deep woods and the dense +darkness down the ravine. Although he could not now distinguish one +stone from another, he had an uncontrollable impulse to visit again +the treasure he had discovered. The murmur of the gently bubbling +water warned him of the proximity of the deep salt spring almost at +the base of the mountain, and, guiding himself partly by the sound, +he made his way along the slope to the great bowlder beneath the +cliffs that served to mark the spot. As he laid his hand on the +bowlder, he experienced a wonderful exhilaration of spirit. Once +more he canvassed his scheme. This was the one great opportunity of +his restricted life. Visions of future possibilities were opening +wide their fascinating vistas. He might make enough to buy a horse, +and this expressed his idea of wealth. "But ef I live ter git a +cent out'n it," he said to himself, "I'll take the very fust money I +kin call my own an' buy Tennessee a chany cup an' sarcer, an' a +string o' blue beads an' a caliky coat--ef I die fur it." + +His pleased reverie was broken by a sudden discovery. He was not +standing among stones about the great bowlder; no--his foot had sunk +deep in the sand! He stooped down in the darkness and felt about +him. The spot was not now as he had left it yesterday afternoon. +He was sure of this, even before a fleet, wan flash of the heat +lightning showed him at his feet the unmistakable signs of a recent +excavation. It was not deep, it was not broad; but it was fresh and +it betrayed a prying hand. Again the heat lightning illumined the +wide, vague sky. He saw the solemn dark forests; he saw the steely +glimmer of the lick; the distant mountains flickered against the +pallid horizon; and once more--densest gloom. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +It was Nate who had been here,--Birt felt sure of that; Nate, who +had promised he would not come. + +Convinced that his friend was playing a false part, Birt went at +once to the bark-mill in the morning, confident that he would not +find Nate at work in the tanyard according to their agreement. + +It was later than usual, and Jubal Perkins swore at Birt for his +tardiness. He hardly heard; and as the old bark-mill ground and +ground the bark, and the mule jogged around and around, and the hot +sun shone, and the voices of the men handling the hides at the +tanpit were loud on the air, all his thoughts were of the cool, +dark, sequestered ravine, holding in its cloven heart the secret he +had discovered. + +Rufus happened to come to the tanyard today. Birt seized the +opportunity. + +"Rufe," he said, "ye see I can't git away from the mill, 'kase I'm +'bleeged ter stay hyar whilst the old mule grinds. But ef ye'll go +over yander ter Nate Griggs's house an' tell him ter come over hyar, +bein' ez I want to see him partic'lar, I'll fix ye a squir'l-trap +before long ez the peartest old Bushy-tail on the mounting ain't got +the gumption ter git out'n. An' let me know ef Nate ain't thar." + +Rufe was disposed to parley. He stood first on one foot, then on +the other. He cast calculating eyes at the bark-mill and out upon +the deep forest. The exact date on which this promise was to be +fulfilled had to be fixed before he announced his willingness to set +out. + +Ten to one, he would have gone without the bribe, had none been +suggested, for he loved the woods better than the woodpile, and a +five-mile tramp through its tangles wearied his bones not so much as +picking up a single basketful of chips. Some boys' bones are +constituted thus, strange as it may seem. + +So he went his way in his somewhat eccentric gait, compounded of a +hop, and a skip, and a dawdle. He had made about half a mile when +the path curved to the mountain's brink. He paused and parted the +glossy leaves of the dense laurel that he might look out over the +precipice at the distant heights. How blue--how softly blue they +were!--the endless ranges about the horizon. What a golden haze +melted on those nearer at hand, bravely green in the sunshine! From +among the beetling crags, the first red leaf was whirling away +against the azure sky. Even a buzzard had its picturesque aspects, +circling high above the mountains in its strong, majestic flight. +To breathe the balsamic, sunlit air was luxury, happiness; it was a +wonder that Rufe got on as fast as he did. How fragrant and cool +and dark was the shadowy valley! A silver cloud lay deep in the +waters of the "lick." Why Rufe made up his mind to go down there, +he could hardly have said--sheer curiosity, perhaps. He knew he had +plenty of time to get to Nate's house and back before dark. People +who sent Rufe on errands usually reckoned for two hours' waste in +each direction. He had no idea of descending the cliffs as Birt had +done. He stolidly retraced his way until he was nearly home; then +scrambling down rocky slopes he came presently upon a deer-path. +All at once, he noticed the footprint of a man in a dank, marshy +spot. He stopped and looked hard at it, for he had naturally +supposed this path was used only by the woodland gentry. + +"Some deer-hunter, I reckon," he said. And so he went on. + +With his characteristic curiosity, he peered all around the "lick" +when he was at last there. He even applied his tongue, calf-like, +to the briny earth; it did not taste so salty as he had expected. +As he rolled over luxuriously on his back among the fragrant summer +weeds, he caught sight of something in the branches of an oak tree. +He sat up and stared. It looked like a rude platform. After a +moment, he divined that it was the remnant of a scaffold from which +some early settler of Tennessee had been wont to fire upon the deer +or the buffalo at the "lick," below. Such relics, some of them a +century old, are to be seen to this day in sequestered nooks of the +Cumberland Mountains. Rufe had heard of these old scaffolds, but he +had never known of the existence of this one down by the "lick." He +sprang up, a flush of excitement contending with the dirt on his +countenance; he set his squirrel teeth resolutely together; he +applied his sturdy fingers and his nimble legs to the bark of the +tree, and up he went like a cat. + +He climbed to the lower branches easily enough, but he caused much +commotion and swaying among them as he struggled through the +foliage. An owl, with great remonstrant eyes, suddenly looked out +of a hollow, higher still, with an inarticulate mutter of mingled +reproach, and warning, and anxiety. Rufe settled himself on the +platform, his bare feet dangling about jocosely. Then, beating his +hands on either thigh to mark the time he sang in a loud, shrill +soprano, prone now and then to be flat, and yet, impartially, prone +now and then to be sharp: - + + Thar war two sun-dogs in the red day-dawn, + An' the wind war laid--'t war prime fur game. + I went ter the woods betimes that morn, + An' tuk my flint-lock, "Nancy," by name; + An' thar I see, in the crotch of a tree, + A great big catamount grinnin' at me. + A-kee! he! he! An' a-ho! ho! he! + A pop-eyed catamount laffin' at me! + +And, as Rufe sang, the anger and remonstrance in the owl's demeanor +increased every moment. For the owl was a vocalist, too! + + Bein' made game of by a brute beastis, + War su'thin' I could in no ways allow. + I jes' spoke up, for my dander hed riz, + "Cat--take in the slack o' yer jaw!" + He bowed his back--Nance sighted him gran', + Then the blamed old gal jes' flashed in the pan! + A-kee! he! he! An' a-ho! ho! he! + With a outraged catamount rebukin' of me! + +As Rufe finished this with a mighty CRESCENDO, he was obliged to +pause for breath. He stared about, gaspily. The afternoon was +waning. The mountains close at hand were a darker green. The +distant ranges had assumed a rosy amethystine tint, like nothing +earthly--like the mountains of a dream, perhaps. The buzzard had +alighted in the top of a tree not far down the slope, a tree long +ago lightning-scathed, but still rising, gaunt and scarred, above +all the forest, and stretching dead stark arms to heaven. Somehow +Rufe did not like the looks of it. He was aware of a revulsion of +feeling, of the ebbing away of his merry spirit before he saw more. + +As he tried to sing: - + + I war the mightiest hunter that ever ye see + Till that thar catamount tuk arter me! - + +his tongue clove suddenly to the roof of his mouth. + +He could see something under that tree which no one else could see, +not even from the summit of the crags, for the tree was beyond a +projecting slope, and out of the range of vision thence. + +Rufe could not make out distinctly what the object was, but it was +evidently foreign to the place. He possessed the universal human +weakness of regarding everything with a personal application. It +now seemed strange to him that he should have come here at all; +stranger still, that he should have mounted this queer relic of days +so long gone by, and thus discovered that peculiar object under the +dead tree. He began to think he had been led here for a purpose. +Now Rufe was not so good a boy as to be on the continual lookout for +rewards of merit. On the contrary, the day of reckoning meant with +him the day of punishment. He had heard recounted an unpleasant +superstition that when the red sunsets were flaming round the +western mountains, and the valleys were dark and drear, and the +abysses and gorges gloomed full of witches and weird spirits, Satan +himself might be descried, walking the crags, and spitting fire, and +deporting himself generally in such a manner as to cause great +apprehension to a small person who could remember so many sins as +Rufe could. His sins! they trooped up before his mental vision now, +and in a dense convocation crowded the encompassing wilderness. + +Rufe felt that he must not leave this matter in uncertainty. He +must know whether that strange object under the tree could be +intended as a warning to him to cease in time his evil ways-- +tormenting Towse, pulling Tennessee's hair, shirking the woodpile, +and squandering Birt's rifle balls. He even feared this might be a +notification that the hour of retribution had already come! + +He scuttled off the platform, and began to swing himself from bough +to bough. He was nervous and less expert than when he had climbed +up the tree. He lost his grip once, and crashed from one branch to +another, scratching himself handsomely in the operation. The owl, +emboldened by his retreat, flew awkwardly down upon the scaffold, +and perched there, its head turned askew, and its great, round eyes +fixed solemnly upon him. + +Suddenly a wild hoot of derision rent the air; the echoes answered, +and all the ravine was filled with the jeering clamor. + +"The wust luck in the worl'!" plained poor Rufe, as the ill-omened +cry rose again and again. "'Tain't goin' ter s'prise me none now, +ef I gits my neck bruk along o' this resky foolishness in this +cur'ous place whar owELS watch from the lookout ez dead men hev +lef'." + +He came down unhurt, however. Then he sidled about a great many +times through "the laurel," for he could not muster courage for a +direct approach to the strange object he had descried. The owl +still watched him, and bobbed its head and hooted after him. When +he drew near the lightning-scathed tree, he paused rooted to the +spot, gazing in astonishment, his hat on the back of his tow head, +his eyes opened wide, one finger inserted in his mouth in silent +deprecation. + +For there stood a man dressed in black, and with a dark straw hat on +his head. He had gray whiskers, and gleaming spectacles of a mildly +surprised expression. He smiled kindly when he saw Rufe. +Incongruously enough, he had a hammer in his hand. He was going +down the ravine, tapping the rocks with it. And Rufe thought he +looked for all the world like some over-grown, demented woodpecker. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +As Rufe still stood staring, the old gentleman held out his hand +with a cordial gesture. + +"Come here, my little man!" he said in a kind voice. + +Rufe hesitated. Then he was seized by sudden distrust. Who was +this stranger? and why did he call, "Come here!" + +Perhaps the fears already uppermost in Rufe's mind influenced his +hasty conclusion. He cast a horrified glance upon the old gentleman +in black, a garb of suspicious color to the little mountaineer, who +had never seen men clad in aught but the brown jeans habitually worn +by the hunters of the range. He remembered, too, the words of an +old song that chronicled how alluring were the invitations of Satan, +and with a frenzied cry he fled frantically through the laurel. + +Away and away he dashed, up steep ascents, down sharp declivities, +falling twice or thrice in his haste, but hurting his clothes more +than himself. + +It was not long before he was in sight of home, and Towse met him at +the fence. The feeling between these two was often the reverse of +cordial, and as Rufe climbed down from rail to rail, his sullen +"Lemme 'lone, now!" was answered by sundry snaps at his heels and a +low growl. Not that Towse would really have harmed him--fealty to +the family forbade that; but in defense of his ears and tail he +thought it best to keep fierce possibilities in Rufe's +contemplation. + +Rufe sat down on the floor of the uninclosed passage between the two +rooms, his legs dangling over the sparse sprouts of chickweed and +clumps of mullein that grew just beneath, for there were no steps, +and Towse bounded up and sat upright close beside him. And as he +sought to lean on Towse, the dog sought to lean on him. + +They both looked out meditatively at the dense and sombre +wilderness, upon which this little clearing and humble log-cabin +were but meagre suggestions of that strong, full-pulsed humanity +that has elsewhere subdued nature, and achieved progress, and +preempted perfection. + +Towse soon shut his eyes, and presently he was nodding. Presumably +he dreamed, for once he roused himself to snap at a fly, when there +was no fly. Rufe, however, was wide awake, and busily canvassing +how to account to Birt for the lack of a message from Nate Griggs, +for he would not confess how untrustworthy he had proved himself. +As he reflected upon this perplexity, he leaned his throbbing head +on his hand, and his attitude expressed a downcast spirit. + +This chanced to strike his mother's attention as she came to the +door. She paused and looked keenly at him. + +"Them hoss apples ag'in!" she exclaimed, with the voice of +accusation. She had no idea of youthful dejection disconnected with +the colic. + +Rufe was roused to defend himself. "Hain't teched 'em, now!" he +cried, acrimoniously. + +"Waal, sometimes ye air sorter loose-jointed in yer jaw, an' ain't +partic'lar what ye say," rejoined his mother, politely. "I'll waste +a leetle yerb-tea on ye, ennyhow." + +She started back into the room, and Rufe rose at once. This cruelty +should not be practiced upon him, whatever might betide him at the +tanyard. He set out at a brisk pace. He had no mind to be long +alone in the woods since his strange adventure down the ravine, or +he might have hid in the underbrush, as he had often done, until +other matters usurped his mother's medicinal intentions. + +When Rufe reached the tanyard, Birt was still at work. He turned +and looked eagerly at the juvenile ambassador. + +"Did Nate gin ye a word fur me?" he called sonorously, above the +clamor of the noisy bark-mill. + +"He say he'll be hyar ter-morrer by sun-up!" piped out Rufe, in a +blatant treble. + +A lie seemed less reprehensible when he was obliged to labor so +conscientiously to make it heard. + +And then compunction seized him. He sat down by Tennessee on a pile +of bark, and took off his old wool hat to mop the cold perspiration +that had started on his head and face. He felt sick, and sad, and +extremely wicked,--a sorry contrast to Birt, who was so honest and +reliable and, as his mother always said, "ez stiddy ez the +mounting." Birt was beginning to unharness the mule, for the day's +work was at an end. + +The dusk had deepened to darkness. The woods were full of gloom. A +timorous star palpitated in the sky. In the sudden stillness when +the bark-mill ceased its whir, the mountain torrent hard by lifted a +mystic chant. The drone of the katydid vibrated in the laurel, and +the shrill-voiced cricket chirped. Two of the men were in the shed +examining a green hide by the light of a perforated tin lantern, +that seemed to spill the rays in glinting white rills. As they +flickered across the pile of bark where Rufe and Tennessee were +sitting, he noticed how alert Birt looked, how bright his eyes were. + +For Birt's hopes were suddenly renewed. He thought that some +mischance had detained Nate to-day, and that he would come to-morrow +to work at the bark-mill. + +The boy's blood tingled at the prospect of being free to seek for +treasure down the ravine. He began to feel that he had been too +quick to distrust his friend. Perhaps the stipulation that Nate +should not go to the ravine until the work commenced was more than +he ought to have asked. And perhaps, too, the trespasser was not +Nate! The traces of shallow delving might have been left by another +hand. Birt paused reflectively in unharnessing the mule. He stood +with the gear in one hand, serious and anxious, in view of the +possibility that this discovery was not his alone. + +Then he strove to cast aside the thought. He said to himself that +he had been hasty in concluding that the slight excavation argued +human presence in that lonely spot; a rock dislodged and rolling +heavily down the gorge might have thus scraped into the sand and +gravel; or perhaps some burrowing animal, prospecting for winter +quarters, had begun to dig a hole under the bowlder. + +He was perplexed, despite his plausible reasoning, and he continued +silent and preoccupied when he lifted Tennessee to his shoulder and +trudged off homeward, with Rufe at his heels, and the small boy's +conscience following sturdily in the rear. + +That sternly accusing conscience! Rufe was dismayed, when he sat +with the other laughing children about the table, to know that his +soul was not merry. Sometimes a sombre shadow fell upon his face, +and once Birt asked him what was the matter. And though he laughed +more than ever, he felt it was very hard to be gay without the +subtle essence of mirth. That lie!--it seemed to grow; before +supper was over it was as big as the warping-bars, and when they all +sat in a semicircle in the open passage, Rufe felt that his +conscience was the most prominent member of the party. The young +moon sank; the night waxed darker still; the woods murmured +mysteriously. And he was glad enough at last to be sent to bed, +where after so long a time sleep found him. + +The morrow came in a cloud. The light lacked the sunshine. The +listless air lacked the wind. Still and sombre, the woods touched +the murky, motionless sky. All the universe seemed to hold a sullen +pause. Time was afoot--it always is--but Birt might not know how it +sped; no shadows on the spent tan this dark day! Over his shoulder +he was forever glancing, hoping that Nate would presently appear +from the woods. He saw only the mists lurking in the laurel; they +had autumnal presage and a chill presence. He buttoned his coat +about him, and the old mule sneezed as he jogged round the bark- +mill. + +Jubal Perkins and a crony stood smoking much of the time to-day in +the door of the house, looking idly out upon the brown stretch of +spent bark, and the gray, weather-beaten sheds, and the dun sky, and +the shadowy, mist-veiled woods. The tanner was a tall, muscular +man, clad in brown jeans, and with boots of a fair grade of leather +drawn high over his trousers. As he often remarked, "The tanyard +owes ME good foot-gear--ef the rest o' the mounting hev ter go +barefoot." The expression of his face was somewhat masked by a +heavy grizzled beard, but from beneath the wide brim of his hat his +eyes peered out with a jocose twinkle. His mouth seemed chiefly +useful as a receptacle for his pipe-stem, for he spoke through his +nose. His voice was strident on the air, since he included in the +conversation a workman in the shed, who was scraping with a two- +handled knife a hide spread on a wooden horse. This man, whose name +was Andrew Byers, glanced up now and then, elevating a pair of +shaggy eyebrows, and settled the affairs of the nation with +diligence and despatch, little hindered by his labors or the +distance. + +Birt took no heed of the loud drawling talk. In moody silence he +drove the mule around and around the bark-mill. The patient old +animal, being in no danger of losing his way, closed his eyes +drowsily as he trudged, making the best of it. + +"I'll git ez mild-mannered an' meek-hearted ez this hyar old +beastis, some day, ef things keep on ez disapp'intin' ez they hev +been lately," thought Birt, miserably. "They do say ez even he used +ter be a turrible kicker." + +Noon came and went, and still the mists hung in the forest closely +engirdling the little clearing. The roofs glistened with moisture, +and the eaves dripped. A crow was cawing somewhere. Birt had +paused to let the mule rest, and the raucous sound caused him to +turn his head. His heart gave a bound when he saw that on the other +side of the fence the underbrush was astir along the path which +wound through the woods to the tanyard. Somebody was coming; he +hoped even yet that it might be Nate. He eagerly watched the +rustling boughs. The crow had flown, but he heard as he waited a +faint "caw! caw!" in the misty distance. Whoever the newcomer might +be, he certainly loitered. At last the leaves parted, and revealed- +-Rufe. + +Birt's first sensation was renewed disappointment. Then he was +disposed to investigate the mystery of Nate's non-appearance. + +"Hello, Rufe!" he called out, as soon as the small boy was inside +the tanyard, "be you-uns SURE ez Nate said he'd come over by sun- +up?" + +Rufe halted and gazed about him, endeavoring to conjure an +expression of surprise into his freckled face. He even opened his +mouth to exhibit astonishment--exhibiting chiefly that equivocal +tongue, and a large assortment of jagged squirrel teeth. + +"Hain't Nate come yit?" he ventured. + +The tanner suddenly put into the conversation. + +"War it Nate Griggs ez ye war aimin' ter trade with ter take yer +place wunst in a while in the tanyard?" + +Birt assented. "An' he 'lowed he'd be hyar ter-day by sun-up. Rufe +brung that word from him yestiddy." + +Rufe's conscience had given him a recess, during which he had +consumed several horse-apples in considerable complacence and a +total disregard of "yerb tea." He had climbed a tree, and sampled a +green persimmon, and he endured with fortitude the pucker in his +mouth, since it enabled him to make such faces at Towse as caused +the dog to snap and growl in a frenzy of surprised indignation. He +had fashioned a corn-stalk fiddle--that instrument so dear to rural +children!--and he had been sawing away on it to his own satisfaction +and Tennessee's unbounded admiration for the last half-hour. He had +forgotten that pursuing conscience till it seized upon him again in +the tanyard. + +"Oh, Birt," he quavered out, suddenly, "I hain't laid eyes on Nate." + +Birt exclaimed indignantly, and Jubal Perkins laughed. + +"I seen sech a cur'ous lookin' man, down in the ravine by the lick, +ez it sot me all catawampus!" continued Rufe. + +As he told of his defection, and the falsehood with which he had +accounted for it, Jubal Perkins came to a sudden decision. + +"Git on that thar mule, Birt, an' ride over ter Nate's, an' find out +what ails him, ef so be ye hanker ter know. I don't want nobody +workin' in this hyar tanyard ez looks ez mournful ez ye do--like ez +ef ye hed been buried an' dug up. But hurry back, 'kase there ain't +enough bark ground yit, an' I hev got other turns o' work I want ye +ter do besides 'fore dark." + +"War that Satan?" asked Rufe abruptly. + +"Whar?" exclaimed Birt, startled, and glancing hastily over his +shoulder. + +"Down yander by the lick," plained Rufe. + +"Naw!" said Birt, scornfully, "an' nuthin' like Satan, I'll be +bound!" + +He was, however, uneasy to hear of any man down the ravine in the +neighborhood of his hidden treasure, but he could not now question +Rufe, for Jube Perkins, with mock severity, was taking the small boy +to account. + +Byers was looking on, the knife idle in his hands, and his lips +distended with a wide grin in the anticipation of getting some fun +out of Rufe. + +"Look-a-hyar, bub," said Jubal Perkins, with both hands in his +pockets and glaring down solemnly at Rufe; "ef ever I ketches ye +goin' of yerrands no better'n that ag'in, I'm a-goin' ter--TAN that +thar hide o' yourn." + +Rufe gazed up deprecatingly, his eyes widening at the prospect. +Byers broke into a horse laugh. + +"We've been wantin' some leetle varmints fur tanning ennyhow," he +said. "Ye'll feel mighty queer when ye stand out thar on the spent +tan, with jes' yer meat on yer bones, an 'look up an' see yer skin +a-hangin' alongside o' the t'other calves, an' sech--that ye will!" + +"An' all the mounting folks will be remarkin' on it, too," said +Perkins. Which no doubt they would have done with a lively +interest. + +"I reckon," said Byers, looking speculatively at Rufe, "ez't would +take a right smart time fur ye ter git tough enough ter go 'bout in +respect'ble society ag'in. 'T would hurt ye mightily, I'm thinkin'. +Ef I war you-uns, I'd be powerful partic'lar ter keep inside o' sech +an accommodatin'-lookin' little hide ez yourn be fur tanning." + +Rufe's countenance was distorted. He seemed about to tune up and +whimper. "An' ef I war you-uns, Andy Byers, I'd find su'thin' +better ter do'n ter bait an' badger a critter the size o' Rufe!" +exclaimed Birt angrily. + +"That thar boy's 'bout right, too!" said the man who had hitherto +been standing silent in the door. + +"Waal, leave Rufe be, Jubal!" said Byers, laughing. "YE started the +fun." + +"Leave him be, yerself," retorted the tanner. + +When Birt mounted the mule, and rode out of the yard, he glanced +back and saw that Rufe had approached the shed; judging by his +gestures, he was asking a variety of questions touching the art of +tanning, to which Byers amicably responded. + +The mists were shifting as Birt went on and on. He heard the acorns +dropping from the chestnut-oaks--sign that the wind was awake in the +woods. Like a glittering, polished blade, at last a slanting +sunbeam fell. It split the gloom, and a radiant afternoon seemed to +emerge. The moist leaves shone; far down the aisles of the woods +the fugitive mists, in elusive dryadic suggestions, chased each +other into the distance. Although the song-birds were all silent, +there was a chirping somewhere--cheerful sound! He had almost +reached his destination when a sudden rustling in the undergrowth by +the roadside caused him to turn and glance back. + +Two or three shoats lifted their heads and were gazing at him with +surprise, and a certain disfavor, as if they did not quite like his +looks. A bevy of barefooted, tow-headed children were making mud +pies in a marshy dip close by. An ancient hound, that had renounced +the chase and assumed in his old age the office of tutor, seemed to +preside with dignity and judgment. He, too, had descried the +approach of the stranger. He growled, but made no other +demonstration. + +"Whar's Nate?" Birt called out, for these were the children of +Nate's eldest brother. + +For a moment there was no reply. Then the smallest of the small +boys shrilly piped out, "He hev gone away!--him an' gran'dad's +claybank mare." + +Another unexpected development! "When will he come back?" + +"Ain't goin' ter come back fur two weeks." + +"Whar 'bouts hev he gone?" asked Birt amazed. + +"Dunno," responded the same little fellow. + +"When did he set out?" + +There was a meditative pause. Then ensued a jumbled bickering. The +small boys, the shoats, and the hound seemed to consult together in +the endeavor to distinguish "day 'fore yestiddy" from "las' week." +The united intellect of the party was inadequate. + +"Dunno!" the mite of a spokesman at last admitted. + +Birt rode on rapidly once more, leaving this choice syndicate +settling down again to the mud pies. + +The woods gave way presently and revealed, close to a precipice, +Nate's home. The log house with its chimney of clay and sticks, the +barn of ruder guise, the fodder-stack, the ash-hopper, and the rail +fence were all imposed in high relief against the crimson west and +the purpling ranges in the distance. The little cabin was quite +alone in the world. No other house, no field, no clearing, was +visible in all the vast expanse of mountains and valleys which it +overlooked. The great panorama of nature seemed to be unrolled for +it only. The seasons passed in review before it. The moon rose, +waxing or waning, as if for its behoof. The sun conserved for it a +splendid state. + +But the skies above it had sterner moods,--sometimes lightnings +veined the familiar clouds; winds rioted about it; the thunder spoke +close at hand. And then it was that Mrs. Griggs lamented her +husband's course in "raisin' the house hyar so nigh the bluffs ez ef +it war an' aigle's nest," and forgot that she had ever accounted +herself "sifflicated" when distant from the airy cliffs. + +She stood in the doorway now, her arms akimbo--an attitude that +makes a woman of a certain stamp seem more masterful than a man. +Her grizzled locks were ornamented by a cotton cap with a wide and +impressive ruffle, which, swaying and nodding, served to emphasize +her remarks. She was conferring in a loud drawl with her husband, +who had let down the bars to admit his horse, laden with a newly +killed deer. Her manner would seem to imply that she, and not he, +had slain the animal. + +"Toler'ble fat," she commented with grave self-complacence. "He +'minds me sorter o' that thar tremenjious buck we hed las' +September. HE war the fattes' buck I ever see. Take off his hide +right straight." + +The big cap-ruffle flapped didactically. + +"Lor'-a--massy, woman!" vociferated the testy old man; "ain't I a- +goin' ter? Ter hear ye a-jowin', a-body would think I had never +shot nothin' likelier'n a yaller-hammer sence I been born. S'pos'n +ye jes' takes ter goin' a-huntin', an' skinnin' deer, an' cuttin' +wood, an' doin' my work ginerally. Pears-like ye think ye knows mo' +'bout'n my work'n I does. An' I'll bide hyar at the house." + +Mrs. Griggs nodded her head capably, in nowise dismayed. "I dunno +but that plan would work mighty well," she said. + +This conjugal colloquy terminated as she glanced up and saw Birt. + +"Why, thar's young Dicey a-hint ye. Howdy Birt! 'Light an' hitch!" + +"Naw'm," rejoined Birt, as he rode into the enclosure and close up +to the doorstep. "I hain't got time ter 'light." Then +precipitately opening the subject of his mission. "I kem over hyar +ter see Nate. Whar hev he disappeared ter?" + +"Waal, now, that's jes' what I'd like ter know," she replied, her +face eloquent with baffled curiosity. "He jes' borried his dad's +claybank mare, an' sot out, an' never 'lowed whar he war bound fur. +Nate hev turned twenty-one year old," she continued, "an' he 'lows +he air a man growed, an' obligated ter obey nobody but hisself. +From the headin' way that he kerries on hyar, a-body would s'pose he +air older 'n the Cumberland Mountings! But he hev turned twenty- +one--that's a fac'--an' he voted at the las' election." + +(With how much discretion it need not now be inquired.) + +"I knows that air true," said Birt, who had wistfully admired this +feat of his senior. + +"Waal--Nate don't set much store by votin'," rejoined Mrs. Griggs. +"Nate, he say, the greatest privilege his kentry kin confer on him +is ter make it capital punishment fur wimmen ter ax him questions!-- +Which I hev done," she admitted stoutly. + +And the ruffle on her cap did not deny it. + +"Nate air twenty-one," she reiterated. "An' I s'pose he 'lows ez I +hev no call nowadays ter be his mother." + +"Hain't ye got no guess whar he be gone?" asked Birt, dismayed by +this strange new complication. + +"Waal, I hev been studyin' it out ez Nate mought hev rid ter Parch +Corn, whar his great-uncle, Joshua Peters, lives--him that merried +my aunt, Melissy Baker, ez war a widder then, though born a Scruggs. +An' then, ag'in, Nate MOUGHT hev tuk it inter his head ter go ter +the Cross-roads, a-courtin' a gal thar ez he hev been talkin' about +powerful, lately. But they tells me," Mrs. Griggs expostulated, as +it were, "that them gals at the Cross-roads is in no way desirable,- +-specially this hyar Elviry Mills, ez mighty nigh all the boys on +the mounting hev los' thar wits about,--what little wits ez they +ever hed ter lose, I mean ter say. But Nate thinks he hev got a +right ter a ch'ice, bein' ez he air turned twenty-one." + +"Did he say when he 'lowed ter come back?" Birt asked. + +"'Bout two or three weeks Nate laid off ter be away; but whar he hev +gone, an' what's his yerrand, he let no human know," returned Mrs. +Griggs. "I hev been powerful aggervated 'bout this caper o' Nate's. +I ain't afeard he'll git hisself hurt no ways whilst he be gone, for +Nate is mighty apt ter take keer o' Nate." She nodded her head +convincingly, and the great ruffle on her cap shook in +corroboration. "But I hain't never hed the right medjure o' respec' +out'n Nate, an' his dad hain't, nuther." + +Birt listened vaguely to this account of his friend's filial +shortcomings, his absent eyes fixed upon the wide landscape, and his +mind busy with the anxious problems of Nate's broken promises. + +And the big red ball of the setting sun seemed at last to roll off +the plane of the horizon, and it disappeared amidst the fiery +emblazonment of clouds with which it had enriched the west. But all +the world was not so splendid; midway below the dark purple summits +a dun, opaque vapor asserted itself in dreary, aerial suspension. +Beneath it he could see a file of cows, homeward bound, along the +road that encircled the mountain's base. He heard them low, and +this reminded him that night was near, for all that the zenith was +azure, and for all that the west was aglow. And he remembered he +had a good many odd jobs to do before dark. And so he turned his +face homeward. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Birt had always been held in high esteem by the men at the tanyard. +Suddenly, however, the feeling toward him cooled. He remembered +afterward, although at the time he was too absorbed to fully +appreciate it, that this change began one day shortly after he had +learned of Nate's departure. As he went mechanically about his +work, he was pondering futilely upon his friend's mysterious +journey, and his tantalizing hopes lying untried in the depths of +the ravine. He hardly noticed the conversation of the men until +something was said that touched upon the wish nearest his heart. + +"I war studyin' 'bout lettin' Birt hev a day off," said the tanner. +"An' ye'll bide hyar." + +"Naw, Jube--naw!" Andy Byers replied with stalwart independence to +his employer. "I hev laid off ter attend. Ef ye want ennybody ter +bide with the tanyard, an' keer fur this hyar pit, ye kin do it +yerse'f, or else Birt kin. _I_ hev laid off ter attend." + +Andy Byers was a man of moods. His shaggy eyebrows to-day +overshadowed eyes sombre and austere. He seemed, if possible, a +little slower than was his wont. He bore himself with a sour +solemnity, and he was at once irritable and dejected. + +"Shucks, Andy! ye knows ye ain't no kin sca'cely ter the old woman; +ye couldn't count out how ye air kin ter her ter save yer life. +Now, I'M obleeged ter attend." + +It so happened that the tanner's great-aunt was distantly related to +Andy Byers. Being ill, and an extremely old woman, she was supposed +to be lying at the point of death, and her kindred had been summoned +to hear her last words. + +"I hed 'lowed ter gin Birt a day off, 'kase I hev got ter hev the +mule in the wagon, an' he can't grind bark. I PROMISED Birt a day +off," the tanner continued. + +"That thar's twixt ye an' Birt. I hain't got no call ter meddle," +said the obdurate Byers. "Ye kin bide with the tanyard an' finish +this job yerse'f, of so minded. I'm goin' ter attend." + +"I reckon half the kentry-side will be thar, an' _I_ wants ter see +the folks," said Jubal Perkins, cheerfully. + +"Then Birt will hev ter bide with the tanyard, an' finish this job. +It don't lie with me ter gin him a day off. I don't keer ef he +never gits a day off," said Byers. + +This was an unnecessarily unkind speech, and Birt's anger flamed +out. + +"Ef we-uns war of a size, Andy Byers," he said, hotly, "I'd make ye +divide work a leetle more ekal than ye does." + +Andy Byers dropped the hide in his hands, and looked steadily across +the pit at Birt, as if he were taking the boy's measure. + +"Ye mean ter say ef ye hed the bone an' muscle ye'd knock me down, +do ye?" he sneered. "Waal, I'll take the will fur the deed. I'll +hold the grudge agin ye, jes' the same." + +They were all three busied about the pit. The hides had been taken +out, and stratified anew, with layers of fresh tan, reversing the +original order,--those that had been at the bottom now being placed +at the top. The operation was almost complete before Jubal Perkins +received the news of his relative's precarious condition. He had no +doubt that Birt was able to finish it properly, and the boy's +conscientious habit of doing his best served to make the tanner's +mind quite easy. As to the day off, he was glad to have that +question settled by a quarrel between his employees, thus relieving +him of responsibility. + +Birt's wrath was always evanescent, and he was sorry a moment +afterward for what he had said. Andy Byers exchanged no more words +with him, and skillfully combined a curt and crusty manner toward +him with an aspect of contemplative dreariness. Occasionally, as +they paused to rest, Byers would sigh deeply. + +"A mighty good old woman, Mrs. Price war." He spoke as if she were +already dead. "A mighty good old woman, though small-sized." + +"A little of her went a long way. She war eighty-four year old, an' +kep' a sharp tongue in her head ter the las'," rejoined the tanner, +adopting in turn the past tense. + +Rufe listened with startled interest. Now and then he cocked up his +speculative eyes, and gazed fixedly into the preternaturally solemn +face of Byers, who reiterated, "A good old woman, though small- +sized." + +With this unaccustomed absorption Rufe's accomplishment of getting +under-foot became pronounced. The tanner jostled him more than +once, Birt stumbled against his toes, and Byers, suddenly turning, +ran quite over him. Rufe had not far to fall, but Byers was a tall +man. His arms swayed like the sails of a windmill in the effort to +recover his balance. He was in danger of toppling into the pit, and +in fact only caught himself on his knees at its verge. + +"Ye torment!" he roared angrily, as he struggled to his feet. +"G'way from hyar, or I'll skeer ye out'n yer wits!" + +The small boy ruefully gathered his members together, and after the +men had started on their journey he sat down on a pile of wood hard +by to give Birt his opinion of Andy Byers. + +"He air a toler'ble mean man, ain't he, Birt?" + +But Birt said he had no mind to talk about Andy Byers. + +"SKEER ME!" exclaimed Rufe, doughtily. "It takes a heap ter skeer +ME!" + +He got up presently, and going into the shed began to examine the +tools of the trade which were lying there. He had the two-handled +knife, with which he was about to try his skill on a hide that was +stretched over the beam of the wooden horse, when Birt glanced up +and came hastily to the rescue. Rufe was disposed to further +investigate the appliances of the tanyard left defenseless at his +mercy, but at last Birt prevailed on him to go home and play with +Tennessee, and was glad enough to see his tow-head, with his old hat +perched precariously on it, bobbing up and down among the low +bushes, as he wended his way along the path through the woods. + +The hides had all been replaced between layers of fresh tan before +the men left, and Birt had only to fill up the space above with a +thicker layer, ten or fifteen inches deep, and put the boards +securely across the top of the pit, with heavy stones upon them to +weight them down. But this kept him busy all the rest of the +afternoon. + +Rufe was pretty busy too. When he came in sight of home Tennessee +was the first object visible in the open passage. The sunshine +slanted through it under the dusky roof, and the shadows of the +chestnut-oak, hard by, dappled the floor. Lying there was an old +Mexican saddle, for which there was no use since the horse had died. +Tennessee was mounted upon it, the reins in her hands, the headstall +and bit poised on the peaked pommel. She jounced back and forth, +and the skirts of the saddle flapped and the stirrups clanked on the +floor, and the absorbed eyes of the little mountaineer were fixed on +space. + +Away and away she cantered on some splendid imaginary palfrey, +through scenes where conjecture fails to follow her: a land, +doubtless, where all the winds blow fair, and sparkling waters run, +and jeopardy delights, and fancy's license prevails--all very +different, you may be sure, from the facts, an old saddle on a +puncheon floor, and a little black-eyed mountaineer. + +How far Tennessee journeyed, and how long she was gone, it is +impossible to say. She halted suddenly when her attention was +attracted to a phenomenon within one of the rooms. + +The door was ajar and the solitary Rufe was visible in the dusky +vista. He stood before a large wooden chest. He had lifted the +lid, and kept it up by resting it upon his head, bent forward for +the purpose, while he rummaged the contents with vandal hands. + +Tennessee stared at him, with indignant surprise gathering in her +widening eyes. + +Now that chest contained, besides a meagre store of quilts and +comforts, her own and her mother's clothes, the fewer garments of +the boys of the family being alternately suspended on the clothes- +line and their own frames. She resented the sacrilege of Rufe's +invasion of that chest. She turned on the saddle and looked around +with an air of appeal. Her mother, however, was down the hill +beside the spring, busy boiling soap, and quite out of hearing. +Tennessee gazed vaguely for a moment at the great kettle with the +red and yellow flames curling around it, and her mother's figure +hovering over it. Then she looked back at Rufe. + +He continued industriously churning up the contents of the chest, +the lid still poised upon that head that served so many other useful +purposes--for the gymnastic exhibition involved in standing on it; +for his extraordinary mental processes; for a lodgment for his old +wool hat, and a field for his crop of flaxen hair. + +All the instinct of the proprietor was roused within Tennessee. She +found her voice, a hoarse, infantile wheeze. + +"Tum out'n chist!" she exclaimed, gutturally. "Tum out'n chist!" + +Rufe turned his tow-head slowly, that he might not disturb the poise +of the lid of the chest resting upon it. He fixed a solemn stare on +Tennessee, and drawing one hand from the depths of the chest, he +silently shook his fist. And then he resumed his researches. + +Tennessee, alarmed by this impressive demonstration, dismounted +hastily from the saddle as soon as his threatening gaze was +withdrawn. She tangled her feet in the stirrups and her hands in +the reins, and lost more time in scrambling off the floor of the +passage and down upon the ground; but at last she was fairly on her +way to the spring to convey an account to her mother of the outlaw +in the chest. In fact, she was not far from the scene of the soap- +boiling when she heard her name shouted in stentorian tones, and +pausing to look back, she saw Rufe gleefully capering about in the +passage, the headstall on his own head, the bit hanging on his +breast, and the reins dangling at his heels. + +Now this beguilement the little girl could never withstand, and +indeed few people ever had the opportunity to drive so frisky and +high-spirited a horse as Rufe was when he consented to assume the +bit and bridle. He was rarely so accommodating, as he preferred the +role of driver, with what he called "a pop-lashEE!" at command. She +forgot her tell-tale mission. She turned with a gurgle of delight +and began to toddle up the hill again. And presently Mrs. Dicey, +glancing toward the house, saw them playing together in great amity, +and rejoiced that they gave her so little trouble. + +They were still at it when Birt came home, but then Tennessee was +tired of driving, and he let her go with him to the wood-pile and +sit on a log while he swung the axe. No one took special notice of +Rufe's movements in the interval before supper. He disappeared for +a time, but when the circle gathered around the table he was in his +place and by no means a non-combatant in the general onslaught on +the corn-dodgers. Afterward he came out in the passage and sat +quietly among the others. + +The freshened air was fragrant, and how the crickets were chirring +in the grass! On every spear the dew was a-glimmer, for a lustrous +moon shone from the sky. Somehow, despite the long roads of light +that this splendid pioneer blazed out in the wilderness, it seemed +only to reveal the loneliness of the forests, and to give new +meaning to the solemnity of the shadows. The heart was astir with +some responsive thrill that jarred vaguely, and was pain. Yet the +night had its melancholy fascination, and they were all awake later +than usual. When at last the doors were barred, and the house grew +still, and even the vigilant Towse had ceased to bay and had lodged +himself under the floor of the passage, the moon still shone in +isolated effulgence, for the faint stars faded before it. + +The knowledge that in all the vast stretch of mountain fastnesses he +was the only human creature that beheld it, as it majestically +crossed the meridian, gave Andy Byers a forlorn feeling, while +tramping along homeward. He had made the journey afoot, some eight +miles down the valley, and was later far in returning than others +who had heeded the summons of the sick woman. For she still lay in +the same critical condition, and his mind was full of dismal +forebodings as he toiled along the road on the mountain's brow. The +dark woods were veined with shimmering silver. The mists, hovering +here and there, showed now a blue and now an amber gleam as the +moon's rays conjured them. On one side of the road an oak tree had +been uptorn in a wind-storm; the roots, carrying a great mass of +earth with them, were thrust high in the air, while the bole and +leafless branches lay prone along the ground. This served as a +break in the density of the forest, and the white moonshine +possessed the vacant space. + +As he glanced in that direction his heart gave a great bound, then +seemed suddenly to stand still. There, close to the verge of the +road, as if she had stepped aside to let him pass, was the figure of +an old woman--a small-sized woman, tremulous and bent. It looked +like old Mrs. Price! As he paused amazed, with starting eyes and +failing limbs, the wind fluttered her shawl and her ample sunbonnet. +This shielded her face and he could not see her features. Her head +seemed to turn toward him. The next instant it nodded at him +familiarly. + +To the superstitions mountaineer this suggested that the old woman +had died since he had left her house, and here was her ghost already +vagrant in the woods! + +The foolish fellow did not wait to put this fancy to the test. With +a piercing cry he sprang past, and fled like a frightened deer +through the wilderness homeward. + +In his own house he hardly felt more secure. He could not rest--he +could not sleep. He stirred the embers with a trembling hand, and +sat shivering over them. His wife, willing enough to believe in +"harnts"* as appearing to other people, was disposed to repudiate +them when they presumed to offer their dubious association to +members of her own family circle. + +* Ghosts. + +"Dell-law!" she exclaimed scornfully. "I say harnt! Old Mrs. +Price, though spry ter the las', war so proud o' her age an' her +ailments that she wouldn't hev nobody see her walk a step, or stand +on her feet, fur nuthin'. Her darter-in-law tole me ez the only way +ter find out how nimble she really be war ter box one o' her +gran'chill'n, an' then she'd bounce out'n her cheer, an' jounce +round the room after thar daddy or mammy, whichever hed boxed the +chill'n. That fursaken couple always hed ter drag thar chill'n out +in the woods, out'n earshot of the house, ter whip 'em, an' then +threat 'em ef they dare let thar granny know they hed been struck. +But elsewise she hed ter be lifted from her bed ter her cheer by the +h'a'th. She wouldn't hev HER sperit seen a-walkin' way up hyar a- +top o' the mounting, like enny healthy harnt, fur nuthin' in this +worl'. Whatever 'twar, 'twarn't HER. An' I reckon of the truth war +knowed, 'twarn't nuthin' at all--forg, mebbe." + +This stalwart reasoning served to steady his nerves a little. And +when the moon went down and the day was slowly breaking, he took his +way, with a vacillating intention and many a chilling doubt, along +the winding road to the scene of his fright. + +It was not yet time by a good hour or more to go to work, and +nothing was stirring. A wan light was on the landscape when he came +in sight of the great tree prone upon the ground. And there, close +to the edge of the road, as if she had stepped aside to let him +pass, was the figure of a little, bent old woman--nay, in the +brightening dawn, a bush--a blackberry bush, clad in a blue-checked +apron, a red plaid shawl, and with a neat sunbonnet nodding on its +topmost spray. + +His first emotion was intense relief. Then he stood staring at the +bush in rising indignation. This sandy by-way of a road led only to +his own house, and this image of a small and bent old woman had +doubtless been devised, to terrify him, by some one who knew of his +mission, and that he could not return except by this route. + +Only for a moment did he feel uncertain as to the ghost-maker's +identity. There was something singularly familiar to him in the +plaid of the shawl--even in the appearance of the bonnet, although +it was now limp and damp. He saw it at "meet'n" whenever the +circuit rider preached, and he presently recognized it. This was +Mrs. Dicey's bonnet! + +His face hardened. He set his teeth together. An angry flush +flared to the roots of his hair. + +Not that he suspected the widow of having set this trap to frighten +him. He was not learned, nor versed in feminine idiosyncrasies, but +it does not require much wisdom to know that on no account whatever +does a woman's best bonnet stay out all night in the dew, +intentionally. The presence of her bonnet proved the widow's alibi. + +Like a flash he remembered Birt's anger the previous day. "Told me +he'd make me divide work mo' ekal, an' ez good ez said he'd knock me +down ef he could. An' I told him I'd hold the grudge agin him jes' +the same--an' I will!" + +He felt sure that it was Birt who had thus taken revenge, because he +was kept at work while his fellow-laborer was free to go. + +Byers thought the boy would presently come to take the garments +home, and conceal his share in the matter, before any one else would +be likely to stir abroad. + +"An' I'll hide close by with a good big hickory stick, an' I'll gin +him a larrupin' ez he won't furgit in a month o' Sundays," he +resolved, angrily. + +He opened his clasp-knife, and walked slowly into the woods, looking +about for a choice hickory sprout. He did not at once find one of a +size that he considered appropriate to the magnitude of Birt's +wickedness, and he went further perhaps than he realized, and stayed +longer. + +He had a smile of stern satisfaction on his face when he was lopping +off the leaves and twigs of a specimen admirably adapted for +vengeance. He was stealthy in returning, keeping behind the trees, +and slipping softly from bole to bole. At last, as the winding road +was once more in view, he crouched down behind the roots of the +great fallen oak. + +"I don't want him ter git a glimge of me, an' skeer him off afore I +kin lay a-holt on him," he said. + +He intended to keep the neighboring bush under close watch, and +through the interlacing roots he peered out furtively at it. His +eyes distended and he hastily rose from his hiding-place. + +The blackberry bush was swaying in the wind, clothed only in its own +scant and rusty leaves. A wren perched on a spray, chirped cheerful +matins. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +His scheme was thwarted. The boy had come and gone in his absence, +all unaware of his proximity and the impending punishment so +narrowly escaped. + +But when Andy Byers reached the tanyard and went to work, he said +nothing to Birt. He did not even allude to the counterfeit +apparition in the woods, although Mrs. Price's probable recovery was +more than once under discussion among the men who came and went,-- +indeed, she lived many years thereafter, to defend her lucky +grandchildren against every device of discipline. Byers had given +heed to more crafty counsels. On the whole he was now glad that he +had not had the opportunity to make Birt and the hickory sprout +acquainted with each other. This would be an acknowledgment that he +had been terrified by the manufactured ghost, and he preferred +foregoing open revenge to encountering the jocose tanner's ridicule, +and the gibes that would circulate at his expense throughout the +country-side. But he cherished the grievance, and he resolved that +Birt should rue it. He had expected that Birt would boast of having +frightened him. He intended to admit that he had been a trifle +startled, and in treating the matter thus lightly he hoped it would +seem that the apparition was a failure. + +However, day by day passed and nothing was said. The ghost vanished +as mysteriously as it had come. Only Mrs. Dicey, taking her bonnet +and apron and shawl from the chest, was amazed at the extraordinary +manner in which they were folded and at their limp condition, and +when she found a bunch of cockle-burs in the worsted fringes of the +shawl she declared that witches must have had it, for she had not +worn it since early in April when there were no cockle-burs. She +forthwith nailed a horseshoe on the door to keep the witches out, +and she never liked the shawl so well after she had projected a +mental picture of a lady wearing it, riding on a broomstick, and +sporting also a long peaked nose. + +Birt hardly noticed the crusty and ungracious conduct of Andy Byers +toward him. He worked on doggedly, scheming all the time to get off +from the tanyard, and wondering again and again why Nate had gone, +and where, and when he would return. + +One day--a gray day it was and threatening rain--as he came suddenly +out of the shed, he saw a boy at the bars. It was Nate Griggs! No; +only for a moment he thought this was Nate. But this fellow's eyes +were not so close together; his hair was less sandy; there were no +facial indications of extreme slyness. It was only Nathan's humble +likeness, his younger brother, Timothy. + +He had Nate's coat thrown over his arm, and he shouldered his +brother's rifle. + +Tim came slouching slowly into the tanyard, a good-natured grin on +his face. He paused only to knock Rufe's hat over his eyes, as the +small boy stood in front of the low-spirited mule, both hands busy +with the animal's mouth, striving to open his jaws to judge by his +teeth how old he might be. + +"The critter'll bite ye, Rufe!" Birt exclaimed, for as Rufe stooped +to pick up his hat the mule showed some curiosity in his turn, and +was snuffling at Rufe's hay-colored hair. + +Rufe readjusted his head-gear, and ceasing his impolite researches +into the mule's age, came up to the other two boys. Tim had paused +by the shed, and leaning upon the rifle, began to talk. + +"I war a-passin' by, an' I thought I'd drap in on ye." + +"Hev you-uns hearn from Nate since he hev been gone away?" demanded +Birt anxiously. + +"He hev come home," responded Tim. + +"When did he git home?" Birt asked with increasing suspicion. + +"Las' week," said Tim carelessly. + +Another problem! Why had Nate not communicated with his partner +about their proposed work? It seemed a special avoidance. + +"I onderstood ez how he aimed ter bide away longer," Birt remarked. + +"He did count on stayin' longer," said Tim, "but he rid night an' +day ter git hyar sooner. It 'pears like ter me he war in sech a +hurry so ez ter start ME ter work, and nuthin' else in this worl'. +I owe Nate a debt, ye see, an' I hev ter work it out. I hev been so +onlucky ez I couldn't make out ter pay him nohow in the worl'. Ye +see, I traded with Nate fur a shoat, an' the spiteful beastis +sneaked out'n my pen, an' went rootin' round the aidge o' the +clearin', an' war toted off bodaciously by a bar ez war a-prowlin' +round thar. An' I got no good o' that thar shoat, 'kase the bar hed +him, but I hed to pay fur him all the same. An' dad gin his +cornsent ter Nate ter let me work a month an' better fur him, ter +pay out'n debt fur the shoat." + +"What work be you-uns goin' ter do?" Birt had a strong impression, +amounting to a conviction, that there was something behind all this, +which he was slowly approaching. + +"Why," said Tim, in surprise, "hain't ye hearn bout'n Nate's new +land what he hev jes' got 'entered' ez he calls it? He hev got a +grant fur it from the land-office down yander in Sparty, whar he hev +been." + +"New land--'ENTERED!'" faltered Birt. + +Tim nodded. "Nate fund a trac' o' land a-layin' ter suit his mind +what b'longed ter nobody but the State--vacant land, ye see--an' so +he went ter the 'entry-taker,' they calls him, an' gits it +'entered,' an' the surveyor kem an' medjured it, an' then Nate got a +grant fur it, an' now it air his'n. The Gov'nor o' the State hev +sot his name ter that thar grant--the Gov'nor o' Tennessee!" +reiterated Tim pridefully. "An' the great seal o' the State!" + +"Whar be the land?" gasped Birt, possessed by a dreadful fear. + +His face was white, its muscles rigid. Its altered expression could +not for an instant have escaped the notice of Timothy's brother +Nathan. + +"Why, it lays bout'n haffen mile off--all down the ravine nigh that +thar salt-lick; but look-a-hyar, Birt--what ails ye?" + +The stunned despair in the white face had at last arrested his +careless attention. + +"Don't ye be mindin' of me--I feel sorter porely an' sick all of a +suddint; tell on 'bout the land an' sech," said Birt. + +He sat down on the end of the wood-pile, and Tim, still leaning on +the rifle, recommenced. He was generally much cowed and kept down +by Nate, and was unaccustomed to respect and consideration. +Therefore he felt a certain gratification in having so attentive a +listener. + +"Waal, I never hearn o' this fashion o' enterin' land like Nate done +in all my life afore; though dad say that's the law in Tennessee, +ter git a title ter vacant land ez jes' b'longs ter the State. +Mebbe them air the ways ez Nate l'arned whilst he war a-hangin' +round the Settlemint so constant, an' forever talkin' ter the men +thar." + +Birt's precocity had never let him feel at a disadvantage with Nate, +although his friend was five years older. Now he began to +appreciate that Nate was indeed a man grown, and had become +sophisticated in the ways of his primitive world by his association +with the other men at the Settlement. + +There was a pause. But the luxury of being allowed to talk without +contradiction or rebuke presently induced Tim to proceed. + +"He war hyar mighty nigh all day long," he said reflectively. "He +eat his dinner along of we-uns." + +"Who? the Gov'nor o' the State?" exclaimed Birt, astounded. + +"Naw, 'twarn't HIM," Tim admitted somewhat reluctantly, since Birt +seemed disposed to credit "we-uns" with a gubernatorial guest. +"It's the surveyor I'm talkin' 'bout. Nate hed ter pay him three +dollars an' better fur medjurin' the land. He tole Nate ez his land +war ez steep an' rocky a spot ez thar war in Tennessee from e-end +ter e-end. He axed Nate what ailed him ter hanker ter pay taxes on +sech a pack o' bowlders an' bresh. He 'lowed the land warn't wuth a +cent an acre." + +"What did Nate say?" asked Birt, who hung with feverish interest on +every thoughtless word. + +"Waal, Nate 'lows ez he hev fund a cur'ous metal on his land; he say +it air GOLD!" Tim opened his eyes very wide, and smacked his lips, +as if the word tasted good. "He 'lowed ez he needn't hev been in +sech a hurry ter enter his land, 'kase the entry-taker told it ter +him ez it air the law in Tennessee ez ennybody ez finds a mine or +val'able min'ral on vacant land hev got six months extry ter enter +the land afore ennybody else kin, an' ef ennybody else wants ter +enter it, they hev ter gin the finder o' the mine thirty days' +notice." + +Tim winked, an impressive demonstration but for the insufficiency of +eyelashes: - + +"The surveyor he misdoubted, an' 'lowed ez gold hed never been fund +in these parts. He said they fund gold in them mountings furder +east 'bout twenty odd year ago--in 1831, I believe he said. He +'lowed them mountings hain't got no coal like our'n hev, an' the +Cumberland Mountings hain't got no gold. An' then in a minit he tuk +ter misdoubtin' on the t'other side o' his mouth. He 'lowed ez +Nate's min'ral MOUGHT be gold, an' then ag'in it moughtn't." + +The essential difference between these two extremes has afforded +scope for vacillation to more consistent men than the surveyor. + +"Thar's the grant right now, in the pocket o' Nate's coat," said +Tim, shifting the garment on his arm to show a stiff, white folded +paper sticking out of the breast pocket. "I reckon when he tole me +ter tote his gun an' coat home, he furgot the grant war in his +pocket, 'kase he fairly dotes on it, an' won't trest it out'n his +sight." + +Nate was in the habit of exacting similar services from his +acquiescent younger brother, and Tim had his hands full, as he tried +to hold the gun, and turn the coat on his arm. He finally hung the +garment on a peg in the shed, and shouldered the weapon. Suddenly +he whirled around toward Rufe, who was still standing by. + +"What in the nation air inside o' that thar boy?" he exclaimed. "A +chicken, ain't it?" + +For a musical treble chirping was heard proceeding apparently from +Rufe's pocket. This chicken differed from others that Rufe had put +away, in being alive and hearty. + +The small boy entered into the conversation with great spirit, to +tell that a certain hen which he owned had yesterday come off her +nest with fourteen of the spryest deedies that ever stepped. One in +especial had so won upon Rufe by its beauty and grace of deportment +that he was carrying it about with him, feeding it at close +intervals, and housing it in the security of his pocket. + +The deedie hardly made a moan. There was no use in remonstrating +with Rufe,--everything that came within his eccentric orbit seemed +to realize that,--and the deedie was contentedly nestling down in +his pocket, apparently resigned to lead the life of a portemonnaie. + +Rufe narrated with pardonable pride the fact that, some time before, +his great-uncle, Rufus Dicey, had sent to him from the "valley +kentry" a present of a pair of game chickens, and that this deedie +was from the first egg hatched in the game hen's brood. + +But Rufe was not selfish. He offered to give Tim one of the chicks. +Now poultry was Tim's weakness. He accepted with more haste than +was seemly, and at once asked for the deedie in the small boy's +pocket. Rufe, however, refused to part from the chick of his +adoption, and presently Tim, with the gun on his shoulder, left the +tanyard in company with Rufe, to look over the brood of game chicks, +and make a selection from among them. + +Birt hardly noticed what they did or said. Every faculty was +absorbed in considering the wily game which his false friend had +played so successfully. It was all plain enough now. The fruit of +his discovery would be plucked by other hands. There was to be no +division of the profits. Nate Griggs had coveted the whole. His +craft had secured it for himself alone. He had the legal title to +the land, the mine--all! There seemed absolutely no vulnerable +point in his scheme. With suddenly sharpened perceptions, Birt +realized that if he should now claim the discovery and the +consequent right of thirty days' notice of Nate's intention, by +virtue of the priority of entering land accorded by the statute to +the finder of a mine or valuable mineral, it would be considered a +groundless boast, actuated by envy and jealousy. He had told no one +but Nate of his discovery--and would not Nate now deny it! + +However, one thing in the future was certain,--Nathan Griggs should +not escape altogether scathless. For a long time Birt sat +motionless, revolving vengeful purposes in his mind. Every moment +he grew more bitter, as he reflected upon his wrecked scheme, his +wonderful fatuity, and the double dealing of his chosen coadjutor. +But he would get even with Nate Griggs yet; he promised himself +that,--he would get even! + +At last the falling darkness warned him home. When he rose his +limbs trembled, his head was in a whirl, and the familiar scene +swayed, strange and distorted, before him. He steadied himself +after a moment, finished the odd jobs he had left undone, and +presently was trudging homeward. + +A heavy black cloud overhung the woods; an expectant stillness +brooded upon the sultry world; an angry storm was in the air. The +first vivid flash and simultaneous peal burst from the sky as he +reached the passage between the two rooms. + +"Ye air powerful perlite ter come a-steppin' home jes' at supper- +time," said his mother advancing to meet him. "Ye lef' no wood +hyar, an' ye said ye would borry the mule, an' come home early a- +purpose to haul some. An' me hyar with nuthin' to cook supper with +but sech chips an' blocks an' bresh ez I could pick up off'n the +groun'." + +Birt's troubles had crowded out the recollection of this domestic +duty. + +"I clean furgot," he admitted, penitently. Then he asked suddenly, +"An' whar war Rufe, an' Pete, an' Joe, ez YE hed ter go ter pickin' +up of chips an' sech off'n the groun'?" + +He turned toward the group of small boys. "Air you-uns all disabled +somehows, ez ye can't pick up chips an' bresh an' sech?" he said. +"An' ef ye air, whyn't ye go ter the tanyard arter me?" + +"They war all off in the woods, a-lookin' arter Rufe's trap ez ye +sot fur squir'ls," Mrs. Dicey explained. "It hed one in it, an' I +cooked it fur supper." + +Birt said that he could go out early with his axe and cut enough +wood for breakfast tomorrow, and then he fell silent. Once or twice +his preoccupied demeanor called forth comment. + +"Whyn't ye eat some o' the squir'l, Birt?" his mother asked at the +supper table. "Pears-like ter me ez it air cooked toler'ble tasty." + +Birt could not eat. He soon rose from the table and resumed his +chair by the window, and for half an hour no word passed between +them. + +The thunder seemed to roll on the very roof of the cabin, and it +trembled beneath the heavy fall of the rain. At short intervals a +terrible blue light quivered through crevices in the "daubin'" +between the logs of the wall, and about the rude shutter which +closed the glassless window. Now and then a crash from the forest +told of a riven tree. But the storm had no terrors for the inmates +of this humble dwelling. Pete and Joe had already gone to bed; +Tennessee had fallen asleep while playing on the floor, and Rufe +dozed peacefully in his chair. Even Mrs. Dicey nodded as she +knitted, the needles sometimes dropping from her nerveless hand. + +Birt silently watched the group for a time in the red light of the +smouldering fire and the blue flashes from without. At length he +softly rose and crept noiselessly to the door; the fastening was the +primitive latch with a string attached; it opened without a sound in +his cautious handling, and he found himself in the pitchy darkness +outside, the wild mountain wind whirling about him, and the rain +descending in steady torrents. + +He had stumbled only a few steps from the house when he thought he +indistinctly heard the door open again. He dreaded his mother's +questions, but he stopped and looked back. + +He saw nothing. There was no sound save the roar of the wind, the +dash of the rain, and the commotion among the branches of the trees. + +He went on once more, absorbed in his dreary reflections and the +fierce anger that burned in his heart. + +"I'll git even with Nate Griggs," he said, over and again. "I'll +git even with him yit." + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +When Birt reached the fence, he discovered that the bars were down. +Rufe had forgotten to replace them that afternoon when he drove in +the cow to be milked. Despite his absorption, Birt paused to put +them up, remembering the vagrant mountain cattle that might stray in +upon the corn. He found the familiar little job difficult enough, +for it seemed to him that there was never before so black a night. +Even looking upward, he could not see the great wind-tossed boughs +of the chestnut-oak above his head. He only knew they were near, +because acorns dropped upon the rail in his hands, and rebounded +resonantly. But an owl, blown helplessly down the gale, was not +much better off, for all its vaunted nocturnal vision. As it +drifted by, on the currents of the wind, its noiseless, out- +stretched wings, vainly flapping, struck Birt suddenly in the face, +and frightened by the collision, it gave an odd, peevish squeak. + +Birt, too, was startled for a moment. Then he exclaimed irritably, +"Oh, g'way owEL"--realizing what had struck him. + +The next moment he paused abruptly. He thought he heard, close at +hand, amongst the glooms, a faint chuckle. Something--was it?-- +SOMEBODY laughing in the darkness? + +He stood intently listening. But now he heard only the down-pour of +the rain, the sonorous gusts of the wind, the multitudinous voices +of the muttering leaves. + +He said to himself that it was fancy. "All this trouble ez I hev +hed along o' Nate Griggs hev mighty nigh addled my brains." + +The name recalled his resolve. + +"I'll git even with him, though. I'll git even with him yit," he +reiterated as he plodded on heavily down the path, his mind once +more busy with all the details of his discovery, his misplaced +confidence, and the wreck of his hopes. + +It seemed so hard that he should never before have heard of +"entering land," and of that law of the State according priority to +the finder of mineral. The mine was his, but he had hid the +discovery from all but Nate, who claimed it himself, and had secured +the legal title. + +"But I'll git even with him," he said resolutely between his set +teeth. + +He had thought it a lucky chance to remember, in his reverie before +the fire-lit hearth, that peg in the shed at the tanyard on which +Tim had hung his brother's coat. Somehow the episode of the +afternoon had left so vivid an impression on Birt's mind that hours +afterward he seemed to see the dull, clouded sky, the sombre, +encircling woods, the brown stretch of spent tan, the little gray +shed, and within it, hanging upon a peg, the butternut jeans coat, a +stiff white paper protruding from its pocket. + +That grant, he thought, had taken from him his rights. He would +destroy it--he would tear it into bits, and cast it to the turbulent +mountain winds. It was not his, to be sure. But was it justly +Nate's?--he had no right to enter the land down the ravine. + +And so Birt argued with his conscience. + +Now wherever Conscience calls a halt, it is no place for Reason to +debate the question. The way ahead is no thoroughfare. + +Birt did not recognize the tearing of the paper as stealing, but he +knew that all this was morally wrong, although he would not admit +it. He would not forego his revenge--it was too dear; he was too +deeply injured. In the anger that possessed his every faculty, he +did not appreciate its futility. + +There were other facts which he did NOT know. He was ignorant that +the deed which he contemplated was a crime in the estimation of the +law, a penitentiary offense. + +And toward this terrible pitfall he trudged in the darkness, saying +over and again to himself, "I'll git even with Nate Griggs; he'll +hev no grant, no land, no gold--no more 'n me. I'll git even with +him." + +His progress seemed incredibly slow as he groped along the path. +But the rain soon ceased; the wind began to scatter the clouds; +through a rift he saw a great, glittering planet blazing high above +their dark turmoils. + +How the drops pattered down as the wind tossed the laurel!--once +they sounded like footfalls close behind him. He turned and looked +back into the obscurities of the forest. Nothing--a frog had begun +to croak far away, and the vibrations of the katydid were strident +on the damp air. + +And here was the tanyard, a denser area of gloom marking where the +house and shed stood in the darkness. He did not hesitate. He +stepped over the bars, which lay as usual on the ground, and walked +across the yard to the shed. The eaves were dripping with moisture. +But the coat, still hanging within on the peg, was dry. + +He had a thrill of repulsion when he touched it. His hand fell. + +"But look how Nate hev treated me," he remonstrated with his +conscience. + +The next moment he had drawn the grant half-way out of the pocket, +and as he moved he almost stepped upon something close behind him. +All at once he knew what it was, even before a flash of the distant +lightning revealed a little tow-head down in the darkness, and a +pair of black eyes raised to his in perfect confidence. + +It was the little sister who had followed him to-night, as she +always did when she could. + +"Stand back thar, Tennessee!" he faltered. + +He was trembling from head to foot. And yet Tennessee was far too +young to tell that she had seen the grant in his hands, to +understand, even to question. But had he been seized by the whole +Griggs tribe, he could not have been so panic-stricken as he was by +the sight of that unknowing little head, the touch of the chubby +little hand on his knee. + +He thrust the grant back into the pocket of Nate's coat. His +resolve was routed by the presence of love and innocence. Not here- +-not now could he be vindictive, malicious. With some urgent, +inborn impulse strongly constraining him, he caught the little +sister in his arms, and fled headlong through the darkness, +homeward. + +As he went he was amazed that he should have contemplated this +revenge. + +"Why, I can't afford ter be a scoundrel an' sech, jes' 'kase Nate +Griggs air a tricky feller an' hev fooled me. Ef Tennessee hedn't +stepped up so powerful peart I moughtn't hev come ter my senses in +time. I mought hev tore up Nate's grant by now. But arter this I +ain't never goin' ter set out ter act like a scamp jes' 'kase +somebody else does." + +His conscience had prevailed, his better self returned. And when he +reached home, and opening the door saw his mother still nodding over +her knitting, and Rufe asleep in his chair, and the fire smouldering +on the hearth, all as he had left it, he might have thought that he +had dreamed the temptation and his rescue, but for his dripping +garments and Tennessee in his arms all soaking with the rain. + +The noise of his entrance roused his mother, who stared in drowsy +astonishment at the bedraggled apparition on the threshold. + +"Tennie follered me ter the tanyard 'fore I fund her out," Birt +explained. "It 'pears ter hev rained on her, considerable," he +added deprecatingly. + +Tennie was looking eagerly over her shoulder to note the effect of +this statement. Her streaming hair flirted drops of water on the +floor; her cheeks were ruddy; her black eyes brightened with +apprehension. + +"Waal, sir! that thar child beats all. Never mind, Tennie, ye'll +meet up with a wild varmint some day when ye air follerin' Birt off +from the house, an' I ain't surprised none ef it eats ye! But +shucks!" Mrs. Dicey continued impersonally, "I mought ez well save +my breath; Tennie ain't feared o' nuthin', ef Birt air by." + +The word "varmint" seemed to recall something to Tennessee. She +began to chatter unintelligibly about an "owEL," and to chuckle so, +that Birt had sudden light upon that mysterious laugh which he had +heard behind him at the bars. + +In his pride in Tennessee he related how the owl had startled him, +and the little girl, invisible in the darkness, had laughed. + +"Tennessee ain't pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart," he +said, affectionately, as he placed her upon her feet on the floor. + +Birt was out early with his axe the next day. The air was +delightfully pure after the rain-storm; the sky, gradually becoming +visible, wore the ideal azure; the freshened foliage seemed tinted +anew. And the morning was pierced by the gilded, glittering +javelins of the sunrise, flung from over the misty eastern +mountains. As the day dawned all sylvan fascinations were alert in +the woods. The fragrant winds were garrulous with wild legends of +piney gorges; of tumultuous cascades fringed by thyme and mint and +ferns. Every humble weed lent odorous suggestions. The airy things +all took to wing. And the spider was a-weaving. + +Birt had felled a slender young ash, and was cutting it into lengths +for the fireplace, when he noticed a squirrel, sleek woodland dandy, +frisking about a rotten log at some little distance, by the +roadside. + +Suddenly the squirrel paused, then nimbly sped away. There was the +sound of approaching hoofs along the road, and presently from around +the curve a woman appeared mounted on a sorrel mare, and with a +long-legged colt ambling in the rear. + +It was Mrs. Griggs, setting out on a journey of some ten miles to +visit her married daughter who lived on a neighboring spur. She had +taken an early start to "git rid o' the heat o' the noon," as she +explained to Mrs. Dicey, who had run out to the rail fence when she +reined up beside it. Birt dropped his axe and joined them, +expecting to hear more about Nate's grant and the gold mine. Rufe +and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. +Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All +the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to +investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the +turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an +attentive aspect, as if he, too, relished the gossip. + +Mrs. Griggs's pink calico sunbonnet surmounted the cap with the +explanatory ruffle. She carried a fan of turkey feathers, and with +appropriate gesticulation, it aided in expounding to Mrs. Dicey the +astonishing news that Nate had found a gold mine on vacant land, and +had entered the tract. They intended to send specimens to the State +Assayer, and they were all getting ready to begin work at once. + +Another surprise to Birt! The ignorant mountain boy had never heard +of the Assayer. But indeed Nate had only learned of the existence +of the office and its uses during that memorable trip to Sparta. + +The prideful Mrs. Griggs from her elevation, literal and +metaphorical, supplemented all this by the creditable statements +that Nate had turned twenty-one, had cast his vote, and had a right +to a choice at the Cross-roads. + +Then she chirruped to the rawboned sorrel mare, and jogged off down +the road, followed by the frisky colt, whose long, slender legs when +in motion seemed so fragile that it was startling to witness the +temerity with which he kicked up his frolicsome heels. The dogs, +with that odd canine affectation of having just perceived the +intruders, pursued them with sudden asperity, barking and snapping, +and at last came trotting nimbly home, wagging their tails and with +a dutiful mien. + +Mrs. Dicey went back into the house, and sat for a time in envious +meditation, fairly silenced, and with her apron flung over her face. +Then she fell to lamenting that she had been working all her life +for nothing, and it would take so little to make the family +comfortable, and that her children seemed "disabled somehow in thar +heads, an' though always rootin' around in the woods, hed never fund +no gold mine nor nuthin' else out o' the common." + +Birt kept silent, but the gloom and trouble in his face suddenly +touched her heart. + +"Thar now, Birt!" she exclaimed, with a world of consolation in her +tones, "I don't mean ter say that, nuther. Ain't I a-thinkin' day +an' night o' how smart ye be--stiddy an' sensible an' hard-workin' +jes' like a man--an' what a good son ye hev been to me! An' the +t'other chill'n air good too, an' holps me powerful, though Rufe air +hendered some, by the comical natur o' the critter." + +She broke out with a cheerful laugh, in which Birt could not join. + +"An' I mus' be gittin' breakfus fur the chill'n," she said, kneeling +down on the hearth, and uncovering the embers which had been kept +all night under the ashes. + +"Don't ye fret, sonny. I ain't goin' ter grudge Nate his gold mine. +I reckon sech a good son ez ye be, an' a gold mine too, would be too +much luck fur one woman. Don't ye fret, sonny." + +Birt's self-control gave way abruptly. He rose in great agitation, +and started toward the door. Then he paused, and broke forth with +passionate incoherence, telling amidst sobs and tears the story of +the woodland's munificence to him, and how he had flung the gift +away. + +In recounting the hopes that had deluded him, the fears that had +gnawed, and the despair in which they were at last merged, he did +not notice, for a time, her look as she still knelt motionless +before the embers on the hearth. + +He faltered, and grew silent; then stared dumbly at her. + +She seemed as one petrified. Her face had blanched; its lines were +as sharp and distinct as if graven in stone; only her eyes spoke, an +eloquent anguish. Her faculties were numbed for a moment. But +presently there was a quiver in her chin, and her voice rang out. + +And yet did she understand? did she realize the loss of the mine? +For it was not this that she lamented + +"Birt Dicey!" she cried in an appalled tone. "Did ye hide it from +yer MOTHER--an' tell NATE GRIGGS?" + +Birt hung his head. The folly of it! + +"What ailed ye, ter hide it from me?" she asked deprecatingly, +holding out her worn, hard-working hands. "Hev I ever done ye +harm?" + +"Nuthin' but good." + +"Don't everybody know a boy's mother air bound ter take his part +agin all the worl'?" + +"Everybody but me," said the penitent Birt. + +"What ailed ye, ter hide it from me? What did ye 'low I'd do?" + +"I 'lowed ye wouldn't want me ter go pardners with Nate," he said +drearily. + +"I reckon I wouldn't!" she admitted. + +"Ye always said he war a snake in the grass." + +"He hev proved that air a true word." + +"I wisht I hedn't tole him!" cried Birt vainly. "I wisht I hedn't." + +He watched her with moody eyes as she rose at last with a sigh and +went mechanically about her preparations for breakfast. + +There was a division between them. He felt the gulf widening. + +"I jes' wanted it fur you-uns, ennyhow," he said, defending his +motives. "I 'lowed ez I mought make enough out'n it ter buy a +horse." + +"I hain't got time ter sorrow 'bout'n no gold mine," she said +loftily. "I used ter believe ye set a heap o' store by yer mother, +an' war willin' ter trust her--ye an' me hevin' been through mighty +hard times together. But ye don't--I reckon ye never did. I hev +los' mo' than enny gold mine." + +And this sorrow for a vanished faith resolved itself into tears with +which she salted her humble bread. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +If she had had any relish for triumph, she might have found it in +Birt's astonishment to learn that she understood all the details of +entering land, which had been such a mystery to him. + +"'Twar the commonest thing in the worl', whenst I war young, ter +hear 'bout'n folks enterin' land," she said. "But nowadays thar +ain't no talk 'bout'n it sca'cely, 'kase the best an' most o' the +land in the State hev all been tuk up an' entered--'ceptin' mebbe a +trac', hyar an' thar, full o' rock, an' so steep 't ain't wuth +payin' the taxes on." + +Simple as she was, she could have given him valuable counsel when it +was sorely needed. He hung about the house later than was his wont, +bringing in the store of wood for her work during the day, and +"packing" the water from the spring, with the impulse in his +attention to these little duties to make what amends he might. + +When at last he started for the tanyard, he knew by the sun that he +was long over-due. He walked briskly along the path through the +sassafras and sumach bushes, on which the rain-drops still clung. +He was presently brushing them off in showers, for he had begun to +run. It occurred to him that this was no time to seem even a trifle +remiss in his work at the tanyard. Since he had lost all his hopes +down the ravine, the continuance of Jube Perkins's favor and the +dreary routine with the mule and the bark-mill were his best +prospects. It would never do to offend the tanner now. + +"With sech a pack o' chill'n ter vittle ez we-uns hev got at our +house," he muttered. + +As he came crashing through the underbrush into view of the tanyard, +he noticed instantly that it did not wear its usual simple, +industrial aspect. A group of excited men were standing in front of +the shed, one of them gesticulating wildly. + +And running toward the bars came Tim Griggs, panting and white- +faced, and exclaiming incoherently at the sight of Birt. + +"Oh, Birt," he cried, "I war jes' startin' to yer house arter you- +uns; they tole me to go an' fetch ye. Fur massy's sake, gimme +Nate's grant. I'm fairly afeared o' him. He'll break every bone I +own." He held out his hand. "Gimme the grant!" + +"Nate's grant!" exclaimed Birt aghast. "I hain't got it! I hain't" +- + +He paused abruptly. He could not say that he had not touched it. + +Tim's wits were sharpened by the keen anxiety of the crisis. He +noticed the hesitation. "Ye hev hed it," he cried wildly. "Ye know +ye hev been foolin' with it. Ye know 'twar you-uns!" + +He changed to sudden appeal. "Don't put the blame off on me, Birt," +he pleaded. "I'm fairly afeared o' Nate." + +"Ain't the grant in the pocket o' his coat--whar ye left it hangin' +on a peg in the shed?" asked Birt, dismayed. + +"Naw--naw!" exclaimed Tim, despairingly. "He missed his coat this +mornin', bein' the weather war cooler, an' then the grant, an' he +sent me arter it. An' I fund the coat a-hangin' thar on the peg, +whar I hed lef' it, bein' ez I furgot it when I went off with Rufe +ter look at his chickens, an' the pocket war empty an' the paper +gone! Nate hev kem ter sarch, too!" + +Once more he held out his hand. "Gimme the grant. Nate 'lows 'twar +you-uns ez tuk it, bein' ez I lef' it hyar." + +Birt flushed angrily. "I'll say a word ter Nate Griggs!" he +declared. + +And he pushed past the trembling Tim, and took his way briskly into +the tanyard. + +There was a vague murmur in the group as he approached, and Nate +Griggs came out from its midst, nodding his head threateningly. His +hat, thrust far back on his sandy hair, left in bold relief his +long, thin face with its small eyes, which seemed now so close +together that his glance had the effect of a squint. He scanned +Birt narrowly. + +This was the first time the two had met since Birt's ill-starred +confidence there by the bark-mill. + +"What ails ye, ter 'low ez it air ME ez hev got yer grant, Nate +Griggs?" Birt asked, steadily meeting the accusation. + +The excitement had impaired for the moment Nate Griggs's cunning. + +"'Kase," he blurted out, "ye hev been a-tryin' ter purtend ez ye +fund the mine fust, an' hev been a-tellin' folks 'bout'n it." + +"Prove it," said Birt, in sudden elation. "Who war it I tole, an' +when?" + +The sly Nathan caught his breath with a gasp. His craft had +returned. + +Admit that to HIM Birt had divulged the discovery of the mine! +Confess, when! This would invalidate the entry! + +"Ye tole TIM," Nate said shamelessly, "an' ez ter when--'twar +yestiddy evenin' at the tanyard. Didn't he, Tim?" And he whirled +around to his younger brother for confirmation of this audacious and +deliberate falsehood. + +The abject Tim--poor tool!--frightened and cowering, nodded to admit +it. "Gimme the grant, Birt," he faltered, helplessly. "I oughtn't +ter hev furgot it." + +"Look-a-hyar, Birt," said the tanner with a solemnity which the boy +did not altogether understand, "gin Nate the grant." + +"I hain't got it," replied Birt, badgered and growing nervous. + +"Tell him, then, ye never teched it." + +Birt's impulse was to adopt the word. But he had seen enough of +falsehood. He had done with concealment. + +"I did tech it," he said boldly, "but I hain't got it. I put it +back in the pocket o' the coat." + +Jube Perkins laid a sudden hand upon his collar. "'Tain't no use +denyin' it, Birt," he said with the sharp cadence of dismay. "Gin +the grant back ter Nate, an' mebbe he won't go no furder 'bout'n it. +Stealin' a paper like that air a pen'tiary crime!" + +Birt reeled under the word. He thought of his mother, the children. +He had a bitter foretaste of the suspense, the fear, the +humiliation. And he was helpless. For no one would believe him! +His head was in a whirl. He could not stand. He sank down upon the +wood-pile, vaguely hearing a word here and there of what was said in +the crowd. + +"His mother air a widder-woman," remarked one of the group. "An' +she air mighty poor." + +Andy Byers was laughing cynically. + +Absorbed though he was, Birt experienced a subacute wonder that any +one could feel so bitterly toward him as to laugh at a moment like +this. How had he made Andy Byers his enemy! + +Nobody noticed it, for Nate was swaggering about in the crowd, +enjoying this conspicuous opportunity to display all the +sophistications he had acquired in his recent trip to Sparta. He +was calling upon them to witness that he did not care for the loss +of the grant--the PAPER was nothing to him!--for it was on record in +the land office, and he could get a certified copy from the register +in no time at all. But his rights were his RIGHTS!--and ten +thousand Diceys should not trample on them. Birt had doubtless +thought, being ignorant, that he could destroy the title by making +away with the paper; and if there was law in the State, he should +suffer for it. + +And after this elaborate rodomontade, Nate strode out of the +tanyard, with the obsequious Tim following humbly. + +Birt told his story again and again, to satisfy curious questioners +during the days that ensued. And when he had finished they would +look significantly at one another, and chuckle incredulously. + +The tanner seemed to earnestly wish to befriend him, and urged him +to confess. "The truth's the only thing ez kin save ye, Birt." + +"I'm tellin' the truth," poor Birt would declare. + +Then Jube Perkins argued the question: "How kin ye expec' ennybody +ter b'lieve ye when ye say Tennessee purvented ye from takin' the +grant--ennything the size o' leetle Tennie, thar." + +And he pointed at the little sister, who was perched upon the wood- +pile munching an Indian peach. + +Somehow Birt did not accurately define the moral force which she had +wielded, for he was untaught, and clumsy of speech, and could not +translate his feelings. And Jube Perkins was hardly fitted to +understand that subtle coercion of affection. + +When he found that Birt would only reiterate that Tennie "kem along +unbeknown an' purvented" him, Jube Perkins gave up the effort at +last, convinced of his guilt. + +And Andy Byers said that he was not surprised, for he had known for +some little time that Birt was a "most MISCHIEVIOUS scamp." + +Only his mother believed in him, requiting his lack of confidence in +her with a fervor of faith in him that, while it consoled, +nevertheless cut him to the heart. It has been many years since +then, for all this happened along in the fifties, but Birt has never +forgotten how staunchly she upheld him in every thought when all the +circumstances belied him. Now that misfortune had touched him, +every trace of her caustic moods had disappeared; she was all +gentleness and tenderness toward him. And day by day as he went to +his work, meeting everywhere a short word, or a slighting look, he +felt that he could not have borne up, save for the knowledge of that +loyal heart at home. + +He was momently in terror of arrest, and he often pondered on Nate's +uncharacteristic forbearance. Perhaps Nate was afraid that Birt's +story, told from the beginning in court, might constrain belief and +affect the validity of the entry. + +Birt vainly speculated, too, upon the strange disappearance of the +grant. There it was in the pocket of the coat late that night, and +the next morning early--gone! + +Sometimes he suspected that Nate had only made a pretense of losing +the grant, in order to accuse him and prejudice public opinion +against him, so that he might not be believed should he claim the +discovery of the mineral down the ravine. + +His mother sought to keep him from dwelling upon his troubles. "We +won't cross the bredge till we git thar," she said. "Mebbe thar +ain't none ahead." But her fears for his sake tortured her silent +hours when he was away. When he came back from his work, there +always awaited him a bright fire, a good supper, and cheerful words +as well, although these were the most difficult to prepare. The +dogs bounded about him, Tennessee clung to his hand, the boys were +hilarious and loud. + +By reason of their mother's silence on the subject, that Birt might +be better able to go, and work, and hold up his head among the men +who suspected him, the children for a time knew nothing of what had +happened. + +Now Rufe, although his faults were many and conspicuous, was not +lacking in natural affection. Had he understood that a cloud +overhung Birt, he could not have been so merry, so facetious, so +queerly and quaintly bad as he was on his visits to the tanyard, +which were peculiarly frequent just now. If Birt had had the heart +for it, he might have enjoyed some of Rufe's pranks at the expense +of Andy Byers. The man had once found a sort of entertainment in +making fun of Rufe, and this had encouraged the small boy to +retaliate as best he could. + +At this time, however, Byers suddenly became the gravest of men. He +took little notice of the wiles of his elfish antagonist, and +whenever he fell into a snare devised by Rufe, he was irritable for +a moment, and had forgotten it the next. He had never a word or +glance for Birt, who marveled at his conduct. He seemed perpetually +brooding upon some perplexity. Occasionally in the midst of his +work he would stand motionless for five minutes, the two-handled +knife poised in his grasp, his eyes fixed upon the ground, his +shaggy brows heavily knitted, his expression doubting, anxious. + +The tanner commented upon this inactivity, one day. "Hev ye tuk +root thar, Andy?" he asked. + +Byers roused himself with a start. "Naw," he replied reflectively, +"but I hev been troubled in my mind some, lately, an' I gits ter +studyin' powerful wunst in a while." + +As he bent to his work, scraping the two-handled knife up and down +the hide stretched over the wooden horse, he added, "I hev got so ez +I can't relish my vittles sca'cely, bein' so tormented in my mind, +an' my sleep air plumb broke up; 'pears like ter me ez I hev got a +reg'lar gift fur the nightmare." + +"Been skeered by old Mis' Price's harnt lately?" Rufe asked suddenly +from his perch upon the wood-pile. + +Byers whirled round abruptly, fixing an astonished gaze upon Rufe, +unmindful that the knife slipped from his grasp, and fell clanking +upon the ground. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +This grave, eager gaze Rufe returned with the gayest audacity. + +"Been skeered by old Mis' Price's harnt lately?" he once more +chirped out gleefully. + +He was comical enough, as he sat on the top of the wood-pile, +hugging his knees with both arms, his old, bent, wool hat perched on +the back of his tow head, and all his jagged squirrel teeth showing +themselves, unabashed, in a wide grin. + +Jubal Perkins laughed lazily, as he looked at him. + +Then, with that indulgence which Rufe always met at the tanyard, and +which served to make him so pert and forward, the tanner said, +humoring the privileged character, "What be you-uns a-talkin' 'bout, +boy? Mrs. Price ain't dead." + +"HE hev viewed old Mis' Price's harnt," cried Rufe, pointing at Andy +Byers, with a jocosely crooked finger. "HE air so peart an' +forehanded a-viewin' harnts, he don't hev to wait till folkses be +dead. HE hev seen Mis' Price's harnt--an' it plumb skeered the wits +out'n him." + +Perkins did not understand this. His interest was suddenly alert. +He took his pipe from his mouth, and glanced over his shoulder at +Byers. "What air Rufe aimin' at, Andy?" he asked, surprised. + +Byers did not reply. He still gazed steadfastly at Rufe; the knife +lay unheeded on the ground at his feet, and the hide was slipping +from the wooden horse. + +At last he said slowly, "Birt tole ye 'bout'n it, eh?" + +"Naw, sir! Naw!" Rufe rocked himself fantastically to and fro in +imminent peril of toppling off the wood-pile. "'Twar Tom Byers ez +tole me." + +"TOM!" exclaimed Byers, with a galvanic start. + +For Tom was his son, and he had not suspected filial treachery in +the matter of the spectral blackberry bush. + +Rufe stared in his turn, not comprehending Byers's surprise. + +"TOM," he reiterated presently, with mocking explicitness. "Tom +Byers--I reckon ye knows him. That thar freckled-faced, snaggled- +toothed, red-headed Tom Byers, ez lives at yer house. I reckon ye +MUS' know him." + +"Tom tole ye--WHAT?" asked the tanner, puzzled by Byers's grave, +anxious face, and Rufe's mysterious sneers. + +Rufe broke into the liveliest cackle. "Tom, he 'lowed ter me ez he +war tucked up in the trundle-bed, fast asleep, that night when his +dad got home from old Mis' Price's house, whar he had been ter hear +her las' words. Tom, he 'lowed he war dreamin' ez his gran'dad hed +gin him a calf--Tom say the calf war spotted red an' white--an' jes' +ez he war a-leadin' it home with him, his dad kem racin' inter the +house with sech a rumpus ez woke him up, an' he never got the calf +along no furder than the turn in the road. An' thar sot his dad in +the cheer, declarin' fur true ez he hed seen old Mis' Price's harnt +in the woods, an' b'lieved she mus' be dead afore now. An' though +thar war a right smart fire on the h'a'th, he war shiverin' an' +shakin' over it, jes' the same ez ef he war out at the wood-pile, +pickin' up chips on a frosty mornin'." + +And Rufe crouched over, shivering in every limb, in equally +excellent mimicry of a ghost-seer, or an unwilling chip-picker under +stress of weather. + +"My!" he exclaimed with a fresh burst of laughter; "whenst Tom tole +me 'bout'n it I war so tickled I war feared I'd fall. I los' the +use o' my tongue. I couldn't stop laffin' long enough ter tell Tom +what I war laffin' at. An' ez Tom knowed I war snake-bit las' June, +he went home an' tole his mother ez the p'ison hed done teched me in +the head, an' said he reckoned, ef the truth war knowed, I hed fits +ez a constancy. I say--FITS!" + +Once more the bewildered tanner glanced from one to the other. + +"Why, ye never tole me ez ye hed seen su'thin' strange in the woods, +Andy," he exclaimed, feeling aggrieved, thus balked of a sensation. +"An' the old woman ain't dead, nohow," he continued reasonably, "but +air strengthenin' up amazin' fast." + +"Waal," put in Rufe, hastening to explain this discrepancy in the +spectre, "I hearn you-uns a-sayin' that mornin', fore ye set out +from the tanyard, ez she war mighty nigh dead an' would be gone +'fore night. An' ez he hed tole me he'd skeer the wits out'n me, I +'lowed ez I could show him ez his wits warn't ez tough ez mine. +Though," added the roguish Rufe, with a grin of enjoyment, "arter I +hed dressed up the blackberry bush in mam's apron an' shawl, an' sot +her bonnet a-top, it tuk ter noddin' and bowin' with the wind, an' +looked so like folks, ez it gin ME a skeer, an' I jes' run home ez +hard ez I could travel. An Towse, he barked at it!" + +Andy Byers spoke suddenly. "Waal, Birt holped ye, then." + +"He never!" cried Rufe, emphatically, unwilling to share the credit, +or perhaps discredit, of the enterprise. "Birt dunno nuthin' 'bout +it ter this good day." Rufe winked slyly. "Birt would tell mam ez +I hed been a-foolin' with her shawl an' bonnet." + +Andy Byers still maintained a most incongruous gravity. + +"It warn't Birt's doin', at all?" he said interrogatively, and with +a pondering aspect. + +Jubal Perkins broke into a derisive guffaw. "What ails ye, Andy?" +he cried. "Though ye never seen no harnt, ye 'pear ter be fairly +witched by that thar tricked-out blackberry bush." + +Rufe shrugged up his shoulders, and began to shiver in imaginary +terror over a fancied fire. + +"Old--Mis'--Price's--harnt!" he wheezed. + +The point of view makes an essential difference. Jube Perkins +thought Rufe's comicality most praiseworthy--his pipe went out while +he laughed. Byers flushed indignantly. + +"Ye aggervatin' leetle varmint!" he cried suddenly, his patience +giving way. + +He seized the crouching mimic by the collar, and although he did not +literally knock him off the wood-pile, as Rufe afterward declared, +he assisted the small boy through the air with a celerity that +caused Rufe to wink very fast and catch his breath, when he was +deposited, with a shake, on the soft pile of ground bark some yards +away. + +Rufe was altogether unhurt, but a trifle subdued by this sudden +aerial excursion. The fun was over for the present. He gathered +himself together, and went demurely and sat down on the lowest log +of the wood-pile. After a little he produced a papaw from his +pocket, and by the manner in which they went to work upon it, his +jagged squirrel teeth showed that they were better than they looked. + +Towse had followed his master to the tanyard, and was lying asleep +beside the woodpile, with his muzzle on his forepaws. + +He roused himself suddenly at the sound of munching, and came and +sat upright, facing Rufe, and eyeing the papaw gloatingly. He +wagged his tail in a beguiling fashion, and now and then turned his +head blandishingly askew. + +Of course he would not have relished the papaw, and only begged as a +matter of habit or perhaps on principle; but he was given no +opportunity to sample it, for Rufe hardly noticed him, being +absorbed in dubiously watching Andy Byers, who was once more at +work, scraping the hide with the two-handled knife. + +Jubal Perkins had gone into the house for a coal to re-kindle his +pipe, for there is always a smouldering fire in the "smoke-room" for +the purpose of drying the hides suspended from the rafters. He came +out with it freshly glowing, and sat down on the broad, high pile of +wood. + +As the first whiff of smoke wreathed over his head, he said, "What +air the differ ter ye, Andy, whether 't war bub, hyar, or Birt, ez +dressed up the blackberry bush? ye 'pear ter make a differ a-twixt +'em." + +Still Byers was evasive. "Whar's Birt, ennyhow?" he demanded +irrelevantly. + +"Waal," drawled the tanner, with a certain constraint, "I hed been +promisin' Birt a day off fur a right smart while, an' I tole him ez +he mought ez well hev the rest o' ter-day. He 'lowed ez he warn't +partic'lar 'bout a day off, now. But I tole him ennyhow ter go +along. I seen him a while ago passin' through the woods, with his +rifle on his shoulder--gone huntin', I reckon." + +"GONE HUNTIN'!" ejaculated Rufe in dudgeon, joining unceremoniously +in the conversation of his elders. "Now, Birt mought hev let me +know! I'd hev wanted ter go along too." + +"Mebbe that air the reason he never tole ye, bub," said Perkins +dryly. + +For he could appreciate that Rufe's society was not always a boon, +although he took a lenient view of the little boy. Any indulgence +of Birt was more unusual, and Andy Byers experienced some surprise +to hear of the unwonted sylvan recreations of the young drudge. He +noticed that the mule was off duty too, grazing among the bushes +just beyond the fence, and hobbled so that he could not run away. +This precaution might have seemed a practical joke on the mule, for +the poor old animal was only too glad to stand stock still. + +Rufe continued his exclamatory indignation. + +"Jes' ter go lopin' off inter the woods huntin', 'thout lettin' ME +know! An' I never gits ter go huntin' nohow! An' mam won't let me +tech Birt's rifle, 'thout it air ez empty ez a gourd! She say she +air feared I'll shoot my head off, an' she don't want no boys, +'thout heads, jouncin' round her house--shucks! Which way did Birt +take, Mister Perkins?--'kase I be goin' ter ketch up." + +"He war headed fur that thar salt lick, whenst I las' seen him," +replied the tanner; "ef ye stir yer stumps right lively, mebbe ye'll +overhaul him yit." + +Rufe rose precipitately. Towse, believing his petition for the +papaw was about to be rewarded, leaped up too, gamboling with a +display of ecstasy that might have befitted a starving creature, and +an elasticity to be expected only of a rubber dog. As he uttered a +shrill yelp of delight, he sprang up against Rufe, who, reeling +under the shock, dropped the remnant of the papaw. Towse darted +upon it, sniffed disdainfully, and returned to his capers around +Rufe, evidently declining to believe that all that show of gustatory +satisfaction had been elicited only by the papaw, and that Rufe had +nothing else to eat. + +Thus the two took their way out of the tanyard; and even after they +had disappeared, their progress through the underbrush was marked by +an abnormal commotion among the leaves, as the saltatory skeptic of +a dog insisted on more substantial favors than the succulent papaw. + +The tanner smoked for a time in silence. + +Then, "Birt ain't goin' ter be let ter work hyar ag'in," he said. + +Byers elevated his shaggy eyebrows in surprise. + +"Ye see," said the tanner in a confidential undertone, "sence Birt +hev stole that thar grant, I kin argufy ez he mought steal su'thin' +else, an' I ain't ekal ter keepin' up a spry lookout on things, an' +bein' partic'lar 'bout the count o' the hides an' sech. I can't +feel easy with sech a mischeevious scamp around." + +Byers made no rejoinder, and the tanner, puffing his pipe, vaguely +watched the wreaths of smoke rise above his head, and whisk +buoyantly about in the air, and finally skurry off into +invisibility. A gentle breeze was astir in the woods, and it set +the leaves to whispering. The treetoads and the locusts were +trolling a chorus. So loudly vibrant, it was! So clamorously gay! +Some subtle intimation they surely had that summer was ephemeral and +the season waning, for the burden of their song was, Let us now be +merry. The scarlet head of a woodpecker showed brilliantly from the +bare dead boughs of a chestnut-oak, which, with its clinging lichens +of green and gray, was boldly projected against the azure sky. And +there, the filmy moon, most dimly visible in the afternoon sunshine, +swung like some lunar hallucination among the cirrus clouds. + +"Ye 'lows ez I ain't doin' right by Birt?" the tanner suggested +presently, with more conscience in the matter than one would have +given him credit for possessing. + +"I knows ye air doin' right," said Byers unexpectedly. + +All at once the woodpecker was solemnly tapping--tapping. + +Byers glanced up, as if to discern whence the sudden sound came, and +once more bent to his work. + +"Ye b'lieves, then, ez he stole that thar grant from Nate Griggs?" +asked Perkins. + +"I be SURE he done it," said Byers, unequivocally. + +The tanner took his pipe from his lips. "What ails ye ter say that, +Andy?" he exclaimed excitedly. + +Andy Byers hesitated. He mechanically passed his fingers once or +twice across the blunt, curved blade of the two-handled knife. + +"Ye'll keep the secret?" + +"In the sole o' my boot," said the tanner. + +"Waal, I KNOWS ez Birt stole the grant. I hev been powerful +changeful, though, in my thoughts bout'n it. At fust I war glad +when he war suspicioned 'bout'n it, an' I war minded to go an' +inform on him an' sech, ter pay him back; 'kase I held a grudge +ag'in him, believin' ez he hed dressed out that thar blackberry bush +ez Mrs. Price's harnt. An' then I'd remember ez his mother war a +widder-woman, an' he war nothin' but a boy, an' boys air bound ter +be gamesome an' full o' jokes wunst in a while, an' I'd feel like I +war bound ter furgive him 'bout the harnt. An' then ag'in I got +toler'ble oneasy fur fear the Law mought hold ME 'sponsible fur +knowin' 'bout Birt's crime of stealin' the grant an' yit not tellin' +on him. An' I'd take ter hopin' an' prayin' the boy would confess, +so ez I wouldn't hev ter tell on him. I hev been mightily pestered +in my mind lately with sech dilly-dallyin'." + +Again the sudden tapping of the woodpecker filled the pause. + +"Did ye SEE him steal the grant, Andy?" asked the tanner, with bated +breath. + +"Ez good ez seen him. I seen him slyin' round, an' I HEV FUND THE +PLACE WHAR HE HEV HID IT." + +And the woodpecker still was solemnly tapping, high up in the +chestnut-oak tree. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Birt, meanwhile, was trudging along in the woods, hardly seeing +where he went, hardly caring. + +He had not had even a vague premonition when the tanner told him +that he might have the rest of the day off. He did not now want the +holiday which would once have so rejoiced him, and he said as much. +And then the tanner, making the disclosure by degrees, being truly +sorry to part with the boy, intimated that he need come back no +more. + +Birt unharnessed the mule by the sense of touch and the force of +habit, for blinding tears intervened between his vision and the +rusty old buckles and worn straps of leather. The animal seemed to +understand that something was amiss, and now and then turned his +head interrogatively. Somehow Birt was glad to feel that he left at +least one friend in the tanyard, albeit the humblest, for he had +always treated the beast with kindness, and he was sure the mule +would miss him. + +When he reached home he loitered for a time outside the fence, +trying to nerve himself to witness his mother's distress. And at +last his tears were dried, and he went in and told her the news. + +It was hard for him nowadays to understand that simple mother of +his. She did nothing that he expected. To be sure her cheek paled, +her eyes looked anxious for a moment, and her hands trembled so that +she carefully put down upon the table a dish which she had been +wiping. But she said quite calmly, "Waal, sonny, I dunno but ye hed +better take a day off from work, sure enough, an' go a-huntin'. +Thar's yer rifle, an' mebbe ye'll git a shot at a deer down yander +by the lick. The chill'n haint hed no wild meat lately, 'ceptin' +squir'ls out'n Rufe's trap." + +And then he began to cry out bitterly that nobody would give him +work, and they would all starve; that the tanner believed he had +stolen the grant, and was afraid to have him about the hides. + +"'Tain't no differ ez long ez 'tain't the truth," said his mother +philosophically. "We-uns will jes' abide by the truth." + +He repeated this phrase over and over as he struggled through the +tangled underbrush of the dense forest. + +It was all like some terrible dream; and but for Tennessee, it would +be the truth! How he blessed the little sister that her love for +him and his love for her had come between him and crime at that +moment of temptation. + +"So powerful peart!" he muttered with glistening eyes, as he thought +of her. + +The grant was gone, to be sure; but he did not take it. They +accused him--and falsely! + +It was something to be free and abroad in the woods. He heard the +wind singing in the pines. Their fine, penetrating aroma pervaded +the air, and the rusty needles, covering the ground, muffled his +tread. Once he paused--was that the bleat of a fawn, away down on +the mountain's slope? He heard no more, and he walked on, looking +about with his old alert interest. He was refreshed, invigorated, +somehow consoled, as he went. O wise mother! he wondered if she +foresaw this when she sent him into the woods. + +He had not before noted how the season was advancing. Here and +there, in the midst of the dark green foliage, leaves shone so +vividly yellow that it seemed as if upon them some fascinated +sunbeam had expended all its glamours. In a dusky recess he saw the +crimson sumach flaring. And the distant blue mountains, and the +furthest reaches of the azure sky, and the sombre depths of the +wooded valley, and the sheeny splendors of the afternoon sun, and +every incident of crag or chasm--all appeared through a soft purple +haze that possessed the air, and added an ideal embellishment to the +scene. Down the ravine the "lick" shone with the lustre of a silver +lakelet. He saw the old oak-tree hard by, with the historic +scaffold among its thinning leaves, and further along the slope were +visible vague bobbing figures, which he recognized as the "Griggs +gang," seeking upon the mountain side the gold which he had +discovered. + +Suddenly he heard a light crackling in the brush,--a faint footfall. +It reminded him of the deer-path close at hand. He crouched down +noiselessly amongst the low growth and lifted his rifle, his eyes +fixed on the point where the path disappeared in the bushes, and +where he would first catch a glimpse of the approaching animal. + +He heard the step again. His finger was trembling on the trigger, +when down the path leisurely walked an old gentleman attired in +black, a hammer in his hand, and a pair of gleaming spectacles +poised placidly upon the bridge of an intellectual Roman nose. And +this queer game halted in the middle of the deer-path, all +unconscious of his deadly danger. + +It was a wonder that the rifle was not discharged, for the panic- +stricken Birt had lost control of his muscles, and his convulsive +finger was still quivering on the trigger as he trembled from head +to foot. He hardly dared to try to move the gun. For a moment he +could not speak. He gazed in open-mouthed amazement at the +unsuspecting old gentleman, who was also unaware of the far more +formidable open mouth of the rifle. + +"Now, ain't ye lackin' fur head-stuffin'?" suddenly yelled out Birt, +from his hiding-place. + +The startled old man jumped, with the most abrupt alacrity. In +fact, despite his age and the lack of habit, he bounded as +acrobatically from the ground as the expected deer could have done. +He was, it is true, a learned man; but science has no specific for +sudden fright, and he jumped as ignorantly as if he did not know the +difficult name of any of the muscles that so alertly exercised +themselves on this occasion. + +Birt rose at last to his feet and looked with a pallid face over the +underbrush. "Now, ain't ye lackin' fur head-stuffin'," he faltered, +"a-steppin' along a deer-path ez nat'ral ez ef ye war a big fat +buck? I kem mighty nigh shootin' ye." + +The old gentleman recovered his equilibrium, mental and physical, +with marvelous rapidity. + +"Ah, my young friend,"--he motioned to Birt to come nearer,--"I want +to speak to you." + +Birt stared. One might have inferred, from the tone, that the +gentleman had expected to meet him here, whereas Birt had just had +the best evidence of his senses that the encounter was a great +surprise. + +The boy observed his interlocutor more carefully than he had yet +been able to do. He remembered all at once Rufe's queer story of +meeting, down the ravine, an eccentric old man whom he was disposed +to identify as Satan. As the stranger stood there in the deer-path, +he looked precisely as Rufe had described him, even to the baffling +glitter of his spectacles, his gray whiskers, and the curiously +shaped hammer in his hand. + +Birt, although bewildered and still tremulous from the shock to his +nerves, was not so superstitious as Rufe, and he shouldered his gun, +and, pushing out from the tangled underbrush, joined the old man in +the path. + +"I want," said the gentleman, "to hire a boy for a few days--weeks, +perhaps." + +He smiled with two whole rows of teeth that never grew where they +stood. Birt wished he could see the expression of the stranger's +eyes, indistinguishable behind the spectacles that glimmered in the +light. + +"What do you say to fifty cents a day?" he continued briskly. + +Birt's heart sank suddenly. He had heard that Satan traded in souls +by working on the avarice of the victim. The price suggested seemed +a great deal to Birt, for in this region there is little cash in +circulation, barter serving all the ordinary purposes of commerce. + +As he hesitated, the old man eyed him quizzically. "Afraid of work, +eh?" + +"Naw, sir!" said Birt, sturdily. + +Ah, if the bark-mill, and the old mule, and the tan-pit, and the +wood-pile, and the cornfield might testify! + +"Fifty cents a day--eh?" said the stranger. + +At the repetition of the sum, it occurred to Birt, growing more +familiar with the eccentricity of his companion, that he ought not +in sheer silliness to throw away a chance for employment. + +"Kin I ask my mother?" he said dubiously. + +"By all means ask your mother," replied the stranger heartily. + +Birt's last fantastic doubt vanished. Oh no! this was not Satan in +disguise. When did the enemy ever counsel a boy to ask his mother! + +Birt still stared gravely at him. All the details of his garb, +manner, speech, even the hammer in his hand, were foreign to the +boy's experience. + +Presently he ventured a question. "Do you-uns hail from hyar- +abouts?" + +The stranger was frank and communicative. He told Birt that he was +a professor of Natural Science in a college in one of the "valley +towns," and that he was sojourning, for his health's sake, at a +little watering-place some twelve miles distant on the bench of the +mountain. Occasionally he made an excursion into the range, which +was peculiarly interesting geologically. + +"But what I wish you to do is to dig for--bones." + +"BONES?" faltered Birt. + +"Bones," reiterated the professor solemnly. + +DID his spectacles twinkle? + +Birt stood silent, vaguely wondering what his mother would think of +"bones." Presently the professor, seeing that the boy was not +likely to ask amusing questions, explained. + +He informed Birt that in the neighborhood of salt licks--"saline +quagmires" he called them--were often found the remains of animals +of an extinct species, which are of great value to science. He gave +Birt the extremely long name of these animals, and descanted upon +such conditions of their existence as is known, much of which Birt +did not understand. Although this fact was very apparent, it did +not in the least affect the professor's ardor in the theme. He was +in the habit of talking of these things to boys who did not +understand, and alack! to boys who did not want to understand. + +One point, however, he made very clear. With the hope of some such +"find," he was anxious to investigate this particular lick,--about +which indeed he had heard a vague tradition of a "big bone" +discovery, such as is common to similar localities in this region,-- +and for this purpose he proposed to furnish the science and the +fifty cents per diem, and earnestly desired that some one else +should furnish the muscle. + +He was accustomed to think much more rapidly than the men with whom +Birt was associated, and his briskness in arranging the matter had +an incongruous suggestion of the giddiness of youth. He said that +he would go home with Birt to fetch the spade, and while there he +could settle the terms with the boy's mother, and then they could +get to work. + +He started off at a dapper gait up the deer-path, while Birt, with +his rifle on his shoulder, followed. + +A sudden thought struck Birt. He stopped short. + +"Now _I_ dunno which side o' that thar lick Nate Griggs's line runs +on," he remarked. + +"Never mind," said the professor, waving away objections with airy +efficiency; "I shall first secure the consent of the owner of the +land." + +Birt cogitated for a moment. "Nate Griggs ain't goin' ter gin his +cornsent ter nobody ter dig ennywhar down the ravine, ef it air +inside o' his lines," he said confidently, "'kase I--'kase he-- +leastwise, 'kase gold hev been fund hyar lately, an' he hev entered +the land." + +The professor stopped short in the path. + +"Gold!" he ejaculated. "Gold!" + +Was there a vibration of incredulity in his voice? + +Birt remembered all at once the specimens which he had picked up +that memorable evening, down the ravine, when he shot the red fox. +Here they still were in his pocket. They showed lustrous, metallic, +yellow gleams as he placed them carefully in the old man's +outstretched hand, telling how he came by them, of his mistaken +confidence, the betrayed trust, and ending by pointing at the group +of gold-seekers, microscopic in the distance on the opposite slope. + +"I hev hearn tell," he added, "ez Nate air countin' on goin' +pardners with a man in Sparty, who hev got money, to work the gold +mine." + +Now and then, as he talked, he glanced up at his companion's face, +vaguely expecting to discover his opinion by its expression, but the +light still played in a baffling glitter upon his spectacles. + +Birt could only follow when the professor suddenly handed back the +specimens with a peremptory "Come--come! We must go for the spade. +But when we reach your mother's house I will test this mineral, and +you shall see for yourself what you have lost." + +Mrs. Dicey's first impression upon meeting the stranger and learning +of his mission was not altogether surprise as Birt had expected. +Her chief absorption was a deep thankfulness that the floors all +preserved their freshly scoured appearance. + +"Fur ef Rufe hed been playin' round hyar ter-day, same ez common, +the rubbish would have been a scandal ter the kentry," she +reflected. + +In fact, all was so neat, albeit so poor, that the stranger felt as +polite as he looked, while he talked to her about employing Birt in +his researches. + +Birt, however, had little disposition to listen to this. He was +excited by the prospect of testing the mineral, and he busied +himself with great alacrity in preparing for it under the +professor's directions. He suffered a qualm, it is true, as he +pounded the shining fragments into a coarse powder, and then he drew +out with the shovel a great glowing mass of live coals on the +hearth. + +The dogs peered eagerly in at the door, having followed the stranger +with the liveliest curiosity. Towse, bolder than the rest, entered +intrepidly with a nonchalant air and a wagging tail, for he and +Rufe, having failed to find Birt, had just returned home. The small +boy paused on the threshold in amazed recognition of the old +gentleman who had occasioned him such a fright that day down the +ravine. + +The professor gesticulated a great deal as he bent over the fire and +gave Birt directions, and, with his waving hands and the glow on his +hoary hair and beard, he looked like some fantastic sorcerer. +Somehow Rufe was glad to see the familiar countenances of Pete and +Joe, and was still more reassured to note that his mother was +quietly standing beside the table, as she stirred the batter for +bread in a wooden bowl. Tennessee had pressed close to Birt, her +chubby hand clutching his collar as he knelt on the hearth. He held +above the glowing coals a long fire shovel, on which the pulverized +mineral had been placed, and his eyes were very bright as he +earnestly watched it. + +"If it is gold," said the old man, "a moderate heat will not affect +it." + +The shovel was growing hot. The live coals glowed beneath it. The +breath of the fire stirred Tennessee's flaxen hair. And Birt's +dilated eyes saw the yellow particles still glistening unchanged in +the centre of the shovel, which was beginning to redden. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Suddenly--was the glistening yellow mineral taking fire? It began +to give off sulphurous fumes. And drifting away with them were all +Birt's golden visions and Nate's ill-gotten wealth--ending in smoke! + +The sulphurous odor grew stronger. Even Towse stopped short, and +gazed at the shovel with a reprehensive sniff. + +"Ker-shoo!" he sneezed. + +And commenting thus, he turned abruptly and went hastily out, with a +startled look and a downcast tail. + +His sneeze seemed to break the spell of silence that had fallen on +the little group. + +"It be mighty nigh bodaciously changed ter cinders!" exclaimed Birt, +staring in amaze at the lustreless contents of the shovel from which +every suggestion of golden glimmer had faded. "What do it be, ef +'tain't gold?" + +"Iron pyrites," said the professor. "'Fools' gold,' it is often +called." + +He explained to Birt that in certain formations, however, gold is +associated with iron pyrites, and when the mineral is properly +roasted, this process serving to expel the sulphur, the fine +particles of gold are found held in the resulting oxide of iron. +But the variety of the mineral discovered down the ravine he said +was valueless, unless occurring in vast quantities, when it is +sometimes utilized in the production of sulphur. + +"I wonder," Birt broke out suddenly, "if the assayer won't find no +gold in them samples ez Nate sent him." + +The professor laughed. "The assayer will need the 'philosopher's +stone' to find gold in any samples from this locality." + +"Ye knowed then, all the time, ez this stuff warn't gold?" asked +Birt. + +"All the time," rejoined the elder. + +"An' Nate hev got the steepest, rockiest spot in the kentry ter pay +taxes on," resumed Birt, reflectively. "An' he hev shelled out a +power o' money ter the surveyor, an' sech, a'ready. I reckon he'll +be mightily outed when he finds out ez the min'ral ain't gold." + +Birt stopped short in renewed anxiety. + +That missing grant! Somehow he felt sure that Nate, balked of the +great gains he had promised himself, would wreak his disappointment +wherever he might; and since the land was of so little value, he +would not continue to deny himself his revenge for fear that an +investigation into the priority of the mineral's discovery might +invalidate the entry. Once more Birt was tortured by the terror of +arrest--he might yet suffer a prosecution from malignity, which had +hitherto been withheld from policy. If only the mystery of the lost +grant could be solved! + +The conversation of the elders had returned to the subject of the +investigations around the "lick" and the terms for Birt's services. +As so much time had been consumed with the pyrites, the professor +concluded with some vexation that they could hardly arrange all the +preliminaries and get to work this afternoon. + +"I dare say we had best begin to-morrow morning," he said at last. + +"Birt can't go a-diggin' no-ways, this evenin'," put in the +officious Rufe, who stood, according to his wont, listening with his +mouth and eyes wide open, "'kase ez I kem home by the tanyard Jube +Perkins hollered ter me ter tell Birt ter come thar right quick. I +furgot it till this minit," he added, with a shade of embarrassment +that might pass for apology. + +Birt felt a prophetic thrill. This summons promised developments of +importance. Only a few hours ago he was discharged under suspicion +of dishonesty; why this sudden recall? He did not know whether hope +or fear was paramount. He trembled with eager expectancy. He +seized his hat, and strode out of the house without waiting to hear +more of the professor's plans or the details of the wages. + +He had reached the fence before he discovered Tennessee close at his +heels. He cast his troubled eyes down upon her, and met her +pleading, upturned gaze. He was about to charge her to go back. +But then he remembered how she had followed him with blessings--how +mercy had kept pace with her steps. He would not deny her the +simple boon she craved, and if she were troublesome and in his way, +surely he might be patient with her, since she loved him so! He +lifted her over the fence, and then started briskly down the path, +the sturdy, light-footed little mountain girl delightedly trudging +along in the rear. + +When he entered the tanyard no one was there except Jube Perkins and +Andy Byers the tanner, lounging as usual on the wood-pile, and the +workman, with scarcely less the aspect of idleness, dawdlingly +scraping a hide on the wooden horse. Birt discerned a portent in +the unwonted solemnity of their faces, and his heart sank. + +"Waal, Birt, we-uns hev been a-waitin' fur ye," said the tanner in a +subdued, grave tone that somehow reminded Birt of the bated voices +in a house of death. "Set down hyar on the wood-pile, fur Andy an' +me hev got a word ter say ter ye." + +Birt's dilated black eyes turned in dumb appeal from one to the +other as he sank down on the wood-pile. His suspense gnawed him +like an actual grief while Jubal Perkins slowly shifted his position +and looked vaguely at Andy Byers for a suggestion, being uncertain +how to begin. + +"Waal, Birt," he drawled at last, "ez yer dad is dead an' ye hev got +nobody ter see arter ye an' advise ye, Andy an' me, we-uns agreed ez +how we'd talk ter ye right plain, an' try ter git ye ter jedge o' +this hyar matter like we-uns do. Andy an' me know more 'bout the +law, an' 'bout folks too, than ye does. These hyar Griggs folks hev +always been misdoubted ez a fractious an' contrary-wise fambly. Ef +enny Griggs ain't aggervatin' an' captious, it air through bein' +plumb terrified by the t'others. They air powerful hard folks--an' +they'll land ye in the State Prison yet, I'm thinkin'. I wonder +they hain't started at ye a'ready. But thar's no countin' on 'em, +'ceptin' that they'll do all they kin that air ha'sh an' grindin'." + +"That air a true word, Birt," said Andy Byers, speaking to the boy +for the first time in many days. "Ef they hev thar reason fur it, +they mought hold thar hand fur a time, but fust or las' they'll hev +all out'n ye ez the law will allow 'em." + +Birt listened in desperation. All this was sharpened by the +certainty that the mineral was only valueless pyrites, and the +prescience of Nate's anger when this fact should come to his +knowledge, and prudence no longer restrain him. His rage would vent +itself on his luckless victim for every cent, every mill, that the +discovery of the "fools' gold" had cost him. + +"They'll be takin' ye away from the mountings ter jail ye an' try +ye, an' mebbe ye'll go ter the pen'tiary arter that. An' how will +yer mother, an' brothers, an' sister, git thar vittles, an' +firewood, an' corn-crap an' clothes, an' sech--Rufe bein' the oldest +child, arter you-uns?" demanded the tanner. "An' even when ye git +back--I hate ter tell ye this word--nobody will want ye round. +They'll be feared ye'd be forever pickin' an' stealin'." + +"But we-uns will stand up fur ye, bein' ez ye air the widder's son," +said Byers eagerly. "We-uns will gin the Griggs tribe ter +onderstand that." + +"An' mebbe the Griggses won't want ter do nuthin', ef they hain't +got no furder cause fur holdin' a grudge," put in the tanner. + +"What be ye a-layin' off fur me ter do?" asked Birt wonderingly. + +"Ter gin Nate's grant back ter him," they both replied in a breath. + +"I hev not got it!" cried poor Birt tumultuously. "I never stole +it! I dunno whar it be!" + +The tanner's expression changed from paternal kindliness to +contemptuous anger. + +"Air ye goin' ter keep on bein' a liar, Birt, ez well ez a thief?" +he said sternly. + +"I dunno whar it be," reiterated Birt desperately. + +"_I_ know whar it be," said Byers. Birt gazed at him astounded. + +"Whar?" he cried eagerly. + +"Whar ye hid it," returned Byers coolly. + +Birt's lips moved with difficulty as he huskily ejaculated "I never +hid it--I never!" + +"Ye needn't deny it. I ez good ez seen ye hide it." + +Birt looked dazed for a moment. Then the blood rushed to his face +and as suddenly receded, leaving it pale and rigid. He was cold and +trembling. He could not speak. + +The tanner scrutinized him narrowly. Then he said, "Tell him 'bout +it, Andy. Tell him jes' ez ye tole me. An' mebbe he'll hev sense +enough ter gin it up when he sees he air fairly caught." + +"Waal," said Byers, leaning back against the wall of the smoke- +house, and holding the knife idly poised in his hand, "I kem down +ter the tanyard betimes that mornin' arter the storm. Both ye an' +Birt war late. I noticed Nate Griggs's coat hangin' thar in the +shed, with a paper stickin' out'n the pocket, ez I started inter the +smoke-house ter tend ter the fire. I reckon I mus' hev made +consider'ble racket in thar, 'kase I never hearn nuthin' till I sot +down afore the fire on a log o' wood, an' lit my pipe. All of a +suddenty thar kem a step outside, toler'ble light on the tan. I +jes' 'lowed 't war ye or Birt. But I happened ter look up, an' thar +I see a couple o' big black eyes peepin' through that thar crack in +the wall." + +He turned and pointed out a crevice where the "daubin'" had fallen +from the "chinkin'" between the logs. + +"Ye can see," he resumed, "ez this hyar crack air jes' the height o' +Birt. Waal, them eyes lookin' in so onexpected didn't 'sturb me +none. I hev knowed the Dicey eye fur thirty year, an' thar ain't +none like 'em nowhar round the mountings. But I 'lowed 't war +toler'ble sassy in Birt ter stand thar peerin' at me through the +chinkin'. I never let on, though, ez I viewed him. An' then, them +eyes jes' set up sech a outdacious winkin' an' wallin', an' +squinchin', ez I knowed he war makin' faces at me. So I jes' riz +up--an' the eyes slipped away from thar in a hurry. I war aimin' +ter larrup Birt fur his sass, but I stopped ter hang up a skin ez I +hed knocked down. It never tuk me long, much, but when I went out, +thar warn't nobody ter be seen in the tanyard." + +He paused to place one foot upon the wooden horse, and he leaned +forward with a reflective expression, his elbow on his knee, and his +hand holding his bearded chin. + +The afternoon was waning. The scarlet sun in magnified splendor was +ablaze low down in the saffron west. The world seemed languorously +afloat in the deep, serene flood of light. Shadows were lengthening +slowly. The clangor of a cow-bell vibrated in the distance. + +The drone of Andy Byers's voice overbore it as he recommenced. + +"Waal, I was sorter conflusticated, an' I looked round powerful +sharp ter see whar Birt hed disappeared to. I happened ter cut my +eye round at that thar pit ez he hed finished layin' the tan in, an' +kivered with boards, an' weighted with rocks that day ez ye an' me +hed ter go an' attend on old Mrs. Price. Ye know we counted ez that +thar pit wouldn't be opened ag'in fur a right smart time?" + +The tanner nodded assent. + +"Waal, I noticed ez the aidge o' one o' them boards war sot sorter +catawampus, an' I 'lowed ez 't war the wind ez hed 'sturbed it. Ez +I stooped down ter move it back in its place, I seen su'thin' white +under it. So I lifted the board, an' thar I see, lyin' on the tan +a-top o' the pit, a stiff white paper. I looked round toward the +shed, an' thar hung the coat yit--with nuthin' in the pocket. I +didn't know edzactly what ter make of it, an' I jes' shunted the +plank back over the paper in the pit like I fund it, an' waited ter +see what mought happen. An' all the time ez that thar racket war +goin' on bout'n the grant, I knowed powerful well whar 't war, an' +who stole it." + +Birt looked from one to the other of the two men. Both evidently +believed every syllable of this story. It was so natural, so +credible, that he had a curious sense of inclining toward it, too. +Had he indeed, in some aberration, taken the grant? Was it some +tricksy spirit in his likeness that had peered through the chinking +at Andy Byers? + +He could find no words to contend further. He sat silent, numb, +dumfounded. + +"Birt," said the tanner coaxingly, "thar ain't no use in denyin' it +enny mo'. Let's go an' git that grant, an' take it ter Nate an' +tell the truth." + +The words roused Birt. He clutched at the idea of getting +possession of the paper that had so mysteriously disappeared and +baffled and eluded him. He could at least return it. And even if +this should fail to secure him lenient treatment, he would feel that +he had done right. He rose suddenly in feverish anxiety. + +Andy Byers and Perkins, exchanging a wink of congratulation, +followed him to the pit. + +"It air under this hyar board," said Byers, moving one of the heavy +stones, and lifting a broad plank. + +Perkins pressed forward with eager curiosity, never having seen this +famous grant. + +The ground bark on the surface was pretty dry, the layer being ten +or fifteen inches thick, and the tanning infusion had not yet risen +through it. + +Byers stared with a frown at the tan, and lifted another board. +Nothing appeared beneath it on the smooth surface of the bark. + +In sudden alarm they took away the boards, one after another, till +all were removed, and the whole surface of the pit was exposed. + +Then they looked at each other, bewildered. For once more the grant +was gone. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Jubal Perkins broke the silence. + +"Andy Byers," he exclaimed wrathfully, "what sort 'n tale is this ez +ye air tryin' ter fool me with?" + +Byers, perturbed and indignant, was instantly ready to accuse Birt. + +"Ye hev been hyar an' got the grant an' sneaked it off agin, hev +ye!" he cried, scowling at the boy. + +Then he turned to the tanner. "I hope I may drap dead, Jube," he +said earnestly, "ef that grant warn't right hyar"--he pointed at the +spot--"las' night whenst I lef' the tanyard. I always looked late +every evenin' ter be sure it hedn't been teched, thinkin' I'd make +up my mind in the night whether I'd tell on Birt, or no. But I +never could git plumb sati'fied what to do." + +His tone carried conviction. The tanner looked at Birt with +disappointment in every line of his face. There was severity, too, +in his expression. He was beginning to admit the fitness of harsh +punishment in this case. + +"Ye don't wuth all this gabblin' an' jawin' over ye, ye miser'ble +leetle critter," he said. "An' I ain't goin' ter waste another +breath on ye." + +Birt stood vacantly staring at the tan. All the energy of the truth +was nullified by the futility of protestation. + +The two men exchanged a glance of vague comment upon his silence, +and then they too looked idly down at the pit. + +Tennessee abruptly caught Birt's listless hand as it hung at his +side, for Towse had suddenly entered the tanyard, and prancing up to +her in joyous recognition, was trying to lick her face. + +"G'way, Towse," she drawled gutturally. She struck vaguely at him +with her chubby little fist, which he waggishly took between his +teeth in a gingerly gentle grip. + +"Stand back thar, Tennessee," Birt murmured mechanically. + +As usual, Towse was the precursor of Rufe, who presently dawdled out +from the underbrush. He quickened his steps upon observing the +intent attitude of the party, and as he came up he demanded +vivaciously, "What ails that thar pit o' yourn, Mister Perkins?-- +thought ye said 't warn't goin' ter be opened ag'in fore-shortly." + +For a moment the tanner made no reply. Then he drawled absently, +"Nuthin' ails the pit, Rufe--nuthin'." + +Rufe sat down on the edge of it, and gazed speculatively at it. +Presently he began anew, unabashed by the silence of the grave and +contemplative group. + +"This hyar tan hev got sorter moist atop now; I wonder ef that thar +grant o' Nate's got spi'led ennywise with the damp." + +Birt winced. It had been a certain mitigation of his trouble that, +thanks to his mother's caution, the children at home knew nothing of +the disgrace that had fallen upon him, and that there, at least, the +atmosphere was untainted with suspicion. + +The next moment he was impressed by the singularity of Rufe's +mention of the missing grant and its place of concealment. + +"Look-a-hyar, Rufe," he exclaimed, excitedly; "how d'ye know +ennything 'bout Nate's grant an' whar 't war hid?" + +Rufe glanced up scornfully, insulted in some occult manner by the +question. + +"How did I know, Birt Dicey? How d'ye know yerse'f?" he retorted. +"I knows a heap, ginerally." + +Perkins, catching the drift of Birt's intention, came to the rescue. + +"Say, bub, how d'ye know the grant war ever put hyar?" + +"Kase," responded Rufe, more amicably, "I seen it put hyar--right +yander." + +He indicated the spot where the paper lay, according to Byers, when +it was discovered. + +Birt could hardly breathe. His anxieties, his hopes, his fears, +seemed a pursuing pack before which he was almost spent. He panted +like a hunted creature. Tennessee was swinging herself to and fro, +holding by his hand. Sometimes she caught at Towse's unlovely ear, +as he sat close by with his tongue lolled out and an attentive air, +as if he were assisting at the discussion. + +"Who put it thar, bub?" demanded Perkins. + +It would not have surprised Birt, so perverse had been the course of +events, if Rufe had accused him on the spot. + +"Pig-wigs Griggs," replied Rufe, unexpectedly. + +A glance of intelligence passed between the men. + +"Tell 'bout it, Rufe," said the tanner, suppressing all appearance +of excitement. + +"Ye ain't goin' ter do nuthin' ter Pig-wigs fur foolin' with yer +pit, ef I tell ye?" asked Rufe, quickly. + +"Naw, bub, naw. Which Griggs do ye call 'Pig-wigs?'" + +"Why--PIG-WIGS," Rufe reiterated obviously. + +Then he explained. "He air Nate's nevy. He air Nate's oldest +brother's biggest boy,--though he ain't sizable much. He air 'bout +haffen ez big ez me--ef that," he added reflectively, thinking that +even thus divided he had represented Pig-wigs as more massive than +the facts justified. + +"Ye see," he continued, "one day when his uncle Tim war over hyar +ter the tanyard, I gin him one o' my game deedies; an' ez soon ez he +got home he showed 'em all that thar deedie--powerful, spryest +poultry ye ever see!" + +Rufe smiled ecstatically as only a chicken fancier can. + +"An' Pig-wigs war plumb DE-stracted fur a deedie too. An' he run +all the way over hyar ter git me ter gin him one. But the deedies +hed all gone ter bed, an' the old hen war hoverin' of 'em, an' I +didn't want ter 'sturb 'em," said Rufe considerately. "So I tole +Pig-wigs ter meet me at the tanyard early, an' I'd fetch him one. +An' ez his granny war goin' visitin' her merried daughter, she let +him ride behind her on thar sorrel mare ez fur ez the tanyard. So +he got hyar 'fore I did. An' I kem an' gin him the deedie." + +Rufe paused abruptly, as if, having narrated this important +transaction, he had exhausted the interest of the subject. + +Byers was about to speak, but the tanner with a gesture repressed +him. + +"Ye hain't tole 'bout the pit an' the grant yit, bubby," he reminded +the small boy. + +Byers's display of impatience was not lost upon Rufe, and it added +to the general acrimony of their relations. + +"Waal," the small boy began alertly, "we-uns hed the deedie behind +the smoke-house thar, an' I seen HIM"--Rufe pointed at Byers with +disfavor--"a-comin' powerful slow inter the tanyard, an' I whispered +ter Pig-wigs Griggs ter be quiet, an' not let HIM know ez we-uns war +thar, 'kase he war always a-jawin' at me, 'thout the tanner war by +ter keep him off'n me. So we-uns bided thar till HE went inter the +smoke-house. An' then ez we-uns kem by the shed, Pig-wigs seen his +uncle Nate's coat hangin' on a peg thar, 'kase that thar triflin' +Tim hed furgot, an' lef' it thar when he went ter see the deedies. +An' Pig-wigs Griggs, he 'lowed he knowed the coat war his uncle +Nate's by the favior of it, an' he reckoned the paper stickin' out'n +the pocket war the grant he hed hearn Nate talkin' 'bout. An' I +whispered ter him ez he hed better ondertake ter tote it home ter +Nate. An' Pig-wigs said he couldn't tote the coat, bein' so +lumbered up with the deedie. But he would tote the grant in one +hand an' the deedie in t'other. He couldn't put the deedie in one +o' his pockets, 'kase his mother sews 'em all up, bein' ez he WOULD +kerry sech a passel o' heavy truck in 'em,--rocks an' sech, reg'lar +bowlders," added Rufe, with a casual remembrance of the museum in +his own pockets. "So Pig-wigs's mother sewed 'em all up, 'kase she +said they war tore out all the time, an' she seen no sense in a boy +hevin' a lot o' slits in his clothes ter let in the air slanchwise +on him. An' Pig-wigs 'lowed he'd tote the grant ef I would git it +fur him. An' I did." + +"How did you-uns reach up ter that thar peg?" demanded Byers, +pointing to the peg on which the coat had hung, far beyond Rufe's +reach. + +"Clumb up on the wooden horse," said Rufe promptly. "I peeked +through the chinkin' an' seen ye thar a-smokin' yer pipe over the +fire." + +Rufe winked audaciously, suddenly convincing Byers as to the +possessor of the big black eyes, which he had recognized as +characteristic of the Dicey family, when they had peered through the +chinking. + +"Waal, how did the grant git inter the pit, Rufe, an' what hev +become of it?" asked Byers, overlooking these personalities, for he +felt a certain anxiety in the matter, being the last person known to +have seen the grant, which, by reason of his delay and indecision, +had again been spirited away. + +"Pig-wigs put it thar, I tell ye," reiterated Rufe. "Ye see, I hed +got outside o' the gate, an' Pig-wigs war a good ways behind, +walkin' toler'ble slow, bein' ez he hed ter kerry the grant in one +hand an' the deedie in t'other. An' thar I see a-cropin' along on +the ground a young rabbit--reg'lar baby rabbit. An' I motioned ter +Pig-wigs ter come quick--I hed fund suthin'. An' ez Pig-wigs +couldn't put the deedie down, he laid the grant on top o' the boards +ez kivered the pit. But the wind war brief, an' kem mighty nigh +blowin' that grant away. So Pig-wigs jes' stuck it down 'twixt two +planks, an' kem ter holp me ketch the rabbit. But Pig-wigs warn't +no 'count ter holp. An' the rabbit got away. An' whilst Pig-wigs +war foolin' round, he drapped his deedie, an' stepped on it--tromped +the life out'n it." Rufe's expression was of funereal gravity. +"An' then he follered me every foot o' the way home, beggin' an' +beggin' me ter gin him another. But I wouldn't. I won't gin no +more o' my deedies ter be tromped on, all round the mounting." + +Rufe evidently felt that the line must be drawn somewhere. + +"An' what hev gone with that thar grant? 'T war hyar yestiddy." + +"I dunno," responded Rufe, carelessly. "Mebbe Pig-wigs reminded +hisself 'bout'n it arter awhile, an' kem an' got it." + +This proved to be the case. For Andy Byers concerned himself enough +in the matter to ride the old mule over to Nate's home, to push the +inquiries. Nate was just emerging from the door. The claybank +mare, saddled and bridled, stood in front of the cabin. He was +evidently about to mount. + +"Look-a-hyar, ye scamp!" Byers saluted him gruffly, "whyn't ye let +we-uns know ez ye hed got back that thar grant o' yourn, ez hev sot +the whole mounting catawampus? Pig-wigs hearn ye talkin' 'bout it +at las', and tole ye ez he hed it, I s'pose?" + +Nate affected to examine the saddle-girth. He looked furtively over +the mare's shoulder at Andy Byers. He could not guess how much of +the facts had been developed. In sheer perversity he was tempted to +deny that he had the grant. But Byers was a heavy man of scant +patience, and he wore a surly air that boded ill to a trifler. + +Nate nodded admission. + +"Pig-wigs fotched it home, eh?" demanded Byers, leaning downward. + +Once more Nate lifted his long, thin questioning face. His craft +had no encouragement. + +"Ef ye be minded to call him 'Pig-wigs'--his right name air +Benjymen--'t war him ez fotched it home." + +"Now ye air a mighty cantankerous, quar'lsome, aggervatin' critter!" +Byers broke out irritably. "Ain't ye 'shamed o' this hyar hurrah ye +hev kicked up fur nuthin'? accusin' o' Birt wrongful, an' sech?" + +"Naw; I ain't 'shamed o' nuthin'!" said Nate hardily, springing into +the saddle. "I'm a-ridin' ter the SettleMINT ter git word from the +assayer 'bout'n the gold ez I hev fund. An' when I rides back I'll +be wuth more'n enny man in the mountings or Sparty either!" + +And he gave the mare the whip, and left Andy Byers, with his mouth +full of rebukes, sitting motionless on the dozing old mule. + +The mare came back from the Settlement late that night under lash +and spur, at a speed she had never before made. Day was hardly +astir when Nate Griggs, wild-eyed and haggard, appeared at the +tanyard in search of Birt. He was loud with reproaches, for the +assayer had pronounced the "gold" only worthless iron pyrites. He +had received, too, a jeering letter from his proposed partner in +Sparta, who had found sport in playing on his consequential +ignorance and fancied sharpness. And now Nate declared that Birt, +also, had known that the mineral was valueless, and had from the +first befooled him. In some way he would compel Birt to refund all +the money that had been expended. How piteous was Nate as he stood +and checked off, on his trembling fingers, the surveyor's fee, the +entry-taker's fee, the register's fee, the secretary of State's fee, +the assayer's fee--Oh, ruin, ruin! And what had he to show for it! +a tract of crags and chasms and precipitous gravelly slopes and +gullies worth not a mill an acre! And this was all--for the office +of laughing-stock has no emoluments. Where was Birt? He would hold +Birt to account. + +Andy Byers, listening, thought how well it was for Birt that Nate no +longer had the loss of the grant as a grievance. + +Perkins mysteriously beckoned Nate aside. "Nate," he said in a low +voice, "Birt air powerful mad 'bout that thar accusin' him o' +stealin' the grant, when 't war some o' yer own folks, 'Pig-wigs,' +ez hed it all the time. I seen him goin' 'long towards yer house a +leetle while ago. I reckon he air lookin' fur you. He hed that big +cowhide, ez I gin him t'other day, in one hand. Ye jes' take the +road home, an' ye'll ketch up with him sure." + +Nate's wits were in disastrous eclipse. Could he deduce nothing +from the tanner's grin? He spent the day at the Settlement without +ostensible reason, and only at nightfall did he return home, and by +a devious route, very different from that indicated by Jubal +Perkins. + +Inquiry developed the fact that the boundaries of Nate's land did +not include the salt lick, and his talents as an obstructer were not +called into play. The professor was free to dig as he chose for the +antique bones he sought, and many a long day did he and Birt spend +in this sequestered spot, with the great crags towering above and +the darkling vistas of the ravine on either hand. There was a long +stretch of sunny weather, and somehow that shifting purple haze +accented all its languorous lustres. It seemed a vague sort of +poetry a-loose in the air, and color had license. The law which +decreed that a leaf should be green was a dead letter. How +gallantly red and yellow they flared; and others, how tenderly pink, +and gray, and purplish of hue! What poly-tinted fancies underfoot +in the moss! Strange visitants came from the north. Flocks of +birds, southward bound, skimmed these alien skies. Sometimes they +alighted on the tree-tops or along the banks of the torrent, +chattering in great excitement, commenting mightily on the country. + +Birt had never been so light-hearted as during these days. The +cessation of anxiety was itself a sort of happiness. The long, hard +ordeal to which the truth had subjected him had ended triumphantly. + +"Mighty onexpected things happen in this worl'," he said, +reflectively. "It 'pears powerful cur'ous to me, arter all ez hev +come an' gone, ez _I_ ain't no loser by that thar gold mine down the +ravine." + +He himself was surprised that he did not rejoice in Nate's +mortification and defeat. But somehow he had struck a moral +equilibrium; in mastering his anger and thirst for revenge, he had +gained a stronger control of all the more unworthy impulses of his +nature. + +Meantime there was woe at the tanyard. Jube Perkins had been +anxious to have Birt resume his old place on the old terms. The +professor, however, would not release the boy from his engagement. +It seemed that this man of science could deduce subtle distinctions +of character in the mere wielding of a spade. He had never seen, he +said, any one dig so conscientiously and so intelligently as Birt. +The tanner suddenly found that conscience might prove a factor even +in so simple a matter as driving the old mule around the bark-mill. +The boy who had taken Birt's place was a sullen, intractable fellow, +and brutal. When he yelled and swore and plied the lash, the old +mule would occasionally back his ears. The climax came one day when +the rash boy kicked the animal. Now this reminded the mild-mannered +old mule of his own youthful prowess as a kicker. He revived his +reputation. He seemed to stand on his fore-legs and his muzzle, +while his hind-legs played havoc behind him. The terrified boy +dared not come near him. The bark-mill itself was endangered. Jube +Perkins had not done so much work for a twelvemonth as in his +efforts to keep the boy, the mule, and the bark-mill going together. + +There were no "finds" down by the lick to rejoice the professor, and +he went away at last boneless, except in so far as nature had +provided him. He left Birt amply rewarded for his labor. So +independent did Mrs. Dicey feel with this sum of money in reserve, +that she would not agree that Birt should work on the old terms with +the tanner. Birt was dismayed by this temerity. Once more, +however, he recognized her acumen, for Jubal Perkins, although he +left the house in a huff, came back again and promised good wages. +Ignorant and simple as she was, her keen instinct for her son's best +interest, his true welfare, endowed her words with wisdom. +Thenceforth he esteemed no friend, no ally, equal to his mother. + +It delighted him to witness her triumph in the proof of his +innocence, and indeed she did not in this matter bear herself with +meekness. It made him feel so prosperous to note her relapse into +her old caustic habit of speech. Ah, if he were hurt or sore beset, +every word would be tenderness. + +Birt shortly compassed a much desired object. The mule's revival of +his ancient glories as a "turrible kicker" had injured his market +value, and Birt's earnings enabled him to purchase the animal at a +low price. The mule lived to a great age, always with his master as +"mild-mannered" as a lamb. + +For some time Birt saw nothing of Nate, but one day the quondam +friends met face to face on a narrow, precipitous path on the +mountain side. Abject fear was expressed in Nate's sharp features, +for escape was impossible. + +There was no need of either fear or flight. + +"How air ye, I'on Pyrite!" cried Birt cheerfully. + +The martyr's countenance changed. + +"Ye never done me right 'bout that thar mine, Birt Dicey," Nate said +reproachfully. "Ye mus' hev knowed from the fust ez them thar rocks +war good fur nuthin'." + +"Ye air the deceivinest sandy-headed Pyrite that ever war on the top +o' this mounting, an' ye knows it," Birt retorted in high good +humor; "an' ef it war wuth my while I'd gin ye a old-fashion +larrupin' jes' ter pay ye fur the trick ez ye played on me. But I +ain't keerin' fur that, now. Stan' back thar, Tennessee!" + +Since then, Tennessee, always preserving the influence she wielded +that memorable night, has grown to be a woman--never pretty, but, as +her brother still stoutly avers, "powerful peart." + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 5306 *** |