[Illustration: HE WAS PALLID AND PANTING]

THE YOUNG MOUNTAINEERS

_SHORT STORIES_

BY

CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MALCOLM FRASER

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYThe Riverside Press, Cambridge1897

Copyright, 1897, BY MARY N. MURFREE. 

_All rights reserved_. 

_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. , U. S. A. _Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 

CONTENTS PAGE

THE MYSTERY OF OLD DADDY'S WINDOW 1'WAY DOWN IN POOR VALLEY 26A MOUNTAIN STORM 63BORROWING A HAMMER 83THE CONSCRIPTS' HOLLOW 103A WARNING 172AMONG THE CLIFFS 186IN THE "CHINKING" 208ON A HIGHER LEVEL 230CHRISTMAS DAY ON OLD WINDY MOUNTAIN 245

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

HE WAS PALLID AND PANTING (see page 221) _Frontispiece. _TOGETHER THEY WENT OVER THE CLIFF 48HOW LONG WAS IT TO LAST 190IN THE MIDST OF THE TORRENT 242

THE MYSTERY OF OLD DADDY'S WINDOW

Picture to yourself a wild ravine, gashing a mountain spur, and withhere and there in its course abrupt descents. One of these is so deepand sheer that it might be called a precipice. 

High above it, from the steep slope on either hand, beetling crags jutout. Their summits almost meet at one point, and thus the space belowbears a rude resemblance to a huge window. Through it you might see theblue heights in the distance; or watch the clouds and sunshine shiftover the sombre mountain across the narrow valley; or mark, after theday has faded, how the great Scorpio draws its shining curves along thedark sky. 

One night Jonas Creyshaw sat alone in the porch of his log cabin, hardby on the slope of the ravine, smoking his pipe and gazing meditativelyat "Old Daddy's Window. " The moon was full, and its rays fell aslant onone of the cliffs, while the rugged face of the opposite crag was in theshadow. 

Suddenly he became aware that something was moving about the precipice, the brink of which seems the sill of the window. Although this precipiceis sheer and insurmountable, a dark figure had risen from it, and stoodplainly defined against the cliff, which presented a comparativelysmooth surface to the brilliant moonlight. 

Was it a shadow? he asked himself hastily. 

His eyes swept the ravine, only thirty feet wide at that point, whichlies between the two crags whose jutting summits almost meet above it toform Old Daddy's Window. 

There was no one visible to cast a shadow. 

It seemed as if the figure had unaccountably emerged from the sheerdepths below. 

Only for a moment it stood motionless against the cliff. Then it flungits arms wildly above its head, and with a nimble springdisappeared--upward. 

Jonas Creyshaw watched it, his eyes distended, his face pallid, his pipetrembling in his shaking hand. 

"Mirandy!" he quavered faintly. 

His wife, a thin, ailing woman with pinched features and an uncertaineye, came to the door. 

"Thar, " he faltered, pointing with his pipe-stem--"jes' a minit ago--Iseen it!--a ghost riz up over the bluff inter Old Daddy's Window!"

The woman fell instantly into a panic. 

"'Twarn't a-beckonin', war it? 'Twarn't a-beckonin'? 'Kase ef it war, ye'll hev ter die right straight! That air a sure sign. "

A little of Jonas Creyshaw's pluck and common sense came back to him atthis unpleasant announcement. 

"Not on _his_ say-so, " he stoutly averred. "I ain't a-goin' ter do thebeck nor the bid of enny onmannerly harnt ez hev tuk up the notion terriz up over the bluff inter Old Daddy's Window, an' sot hisself termotionin' ter me. "

He rose hastily, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and followed hiswife into the house. There he paused abruptly. 

The room was lighted by the fitful flicker of the fire, for the nightswere still chilly, and an old man, almost decrepit, sat dozing in hischair by the hearth. 

"Mirandy, " said Jonas Creyshaw in a whisper, "'pears like ter me ezfather hed better not be let ter know 'bout'n that thar harnt. It moughtskeer him so ez he couldn't live another minit. He hev aged somelately--an' he air weakly. "

This was "Old Daddy. "

Before he had reached his thirtieth year, he was thus known, far andwide. 

"He air the man ez hev got a son, " the mountaineers used to say ingrinning explanation. "Ter hear him brag 'bout'n that thar boy o' his'n, ye'd think he war the only man in Tennessee ez ever hed a son. "

Throughout all these years the name given in jocose banter had clung tohim, and now, hallowed by ancient usage, it was accorded to himseriously, and had all the sonorous effect of a title. 

So they said nothing to Old Daddy, but presently, when he had hobbledoff to bed in the adjoining shed-room, they fell to discussing theirterror of the apparition, and thus it chanced that the two boys, Tad andSi, first made, as it were, the ghost's acquaintance. 

Tad, a stalwart fellow of seventeen, sat listening spellbound before theglowing embers. Si, a wiry, active, tow-headed boy of twelve, perchedwith dangling legs on a chest, and looked now at the group by the fire, and now through the open door at the brilliant moonlight. 

"Waal, sir, " he muttered, "I'll hev ter gin up the notion o' gittin'that comical young ow_el_, what I hev done set my heart onto. 'Kase ef Iwar ter fool round Old Daddy's Window, _now_, whilst I war a-cotchin' o'the ow_el_, the ghost mought--cotch--_Me!_"

A sorry ghost, to be sure, that has nothing better to do than to "cotch"_him!_ But perhaps Si Creyshaw is not the only one of us who has aninflated idea of his own importance. 

He was greatly awed, and he found many suggestions of supernaturalpresence about the familiar room. As the fire alternately flared andfaded, the warping-bars looked as if they were dancing a clumsy measure. The handle of a portly jug resembled an arm stuck akimbo, and its cork, tilted askew, was like a hat set on one side; Si fancied there was amost unpleasant grimace below that hat. The churn-dasher, left upon ashelf to dry, was sardonically staring him out of countenance with itshalf-dozen eyes. The strings of red pepper-pods and gourds and herbs, swinging from the rafters, rustled faintly; it sounded to Si like amoan. 

He wished his father and mother would talk about some wholesome subject, like Spot's new calf, for instance, instead of whispering about themystery of Old Daddy's Window. 

He wished Tad would not look, as he listened, so much like a ghosthimself, with his starting eyes and pale, intent face. He even wishedthat the baby would wake up, and put some life into things with a goodhealthy, rousing bawl. 

But the baby slept peacefully on, and after so long a time Si Creyshawslept too. 

With broad daylight his courage revived. He was no longer afraid tothink of the ghost. In fact, he experienced a pleased importance ingiving Old Daddy a minute account of the wonderful apparition, for he_felt_ as if he had seen it. 

"'Pears ter me toler'ble comical, gran'dad, ez they never tole ye a word'bout'n it all, " he said in conclusion. "Ye mought hev liked ter seenthe harnt. Ef he war 'quainted with ye when he lived in this life, hemought hev stopped an' jowed sociable fur a spell!"

How brave this small boy was in the cheerful sunshine!

Old Daddy hardly seemed impressed with the pleasure he had missed inlosing a sociable "jow" with a ghostly crony. He sat silent, blinkingin the sunshine that fell through the gourd-vines which clambered aboutthe porch where Si had placed his chair. 

"'Twarn't much of a sizable sperit, " Si declared; he seemed courageousenough now to measure the ghost like a tailor. "It warn't more'n fourfeet high, ez nigh ez dad could jedge. Toler'ble small fur a harnt!"

Still the old man made no reply. His wrinkled hands were clasped on hisstick. His white head, shaded by his limp black hat, was bent down closeto them. There was a slow, pondering expression on his face, but anexcited gleam in his eye. Presently, he pointed backward toward a littleunhewn log shanty that served as a barn, and rising with unwontedalacrity, he said to the boy, --

"Fotch me the old beastis!"

Silas Creyshaw stood amazed, for Old Daddy had not mounted a horse fortwenty years. 

"Studyin' 'bout'n the harnt so much hev teched him in the head, " thesmall boy concluded. Then he made an excuse, for he knew hisgrandfather was too old and feeble to safely undertake a solitary jaunton horse-back. 

"I war tole not ter leave ye fur a minit, gran'dad. I war ter stay nighye an' mind yer bid. "

"That's my bid!" said the old man sternly. "Fotch the beastis. "

There was no one else about the place. Jonas Creyshaw had gone fishingshortly after daybreak. His wife had trudged off to her sister's housedown in the cove, and had taken the baby with her. Tad was ploughing inthe cornfield on the other side of the ravine. Si had no advice, and hehad been brought up to think that Old Daddy's word was law. 

When the old man, mounted at last, was jogging up the road, Tad chancedto come to the house for a bit of rope to mend the plough-gear. He saw, far up the leafy vista, the departing cavalier. He cast a look of amazedreproach upon Si. Then, speechless with astonishment, he silentlypointed at the distant figure. 

Si was a logician. 

"I never lef' _him_, " he said. "He lef' _me_. "

"Ye oughter rej'ice in yer whole bones while ye hev got 'em, " Tadreturned, with withering sarcasm. "When dad kems home, some of 'em 'llgit bruk, sure. Warn't ye tole not ter leave him fur _nuthin'_, yetriflin' shoat!"

"He lef' _me_!" Si stoutly maintained. 

Meantime, Old Daddy journeyed on. 

Except for the wonderful mountain air, the settlement, three milesdistant, had nothing about it to indicate its elevation. It was far fromthe cliffs, and there was no view. It was simply a little hollow of aclearing scooped out among the immense forests. When the mountaineersclear land, they do it effectually. Not a tree was left to embellish theyards of any of the four or five little log huts that constituted thehamlet, and the glare was intense. 

As six or eight loungers sat smoking about the door of the store, therewas nothing to intercept their astonished view of Old Daddy when hesuddenly appeared out of the gloomy forest, blinking in the sun and benthalf double with fatigue. 

Even the rudest and coarsest of these mountaineers accord a praiseworthydeference to the aged among them. Old Daddy was held in reverentialestimation at home, and was well accustomed to the respect shown himnow, when, for the first time in many years, he had chosen to jogabroad. They helped him to dismount, and carried him bodily into thestore. After he had tilted his chair back against the rude counter, helooked around with an important face upon the attentive group. 

"My son, " shrilly piped out Old Daddy, --"my son air the strongest manever seen, sence Samson!"

"I hev always hearn that sayin', Old Daddy, " acquiesced an elderlycodger, who, by reason of "rheumatics, " made no pretension to muscle. 

A gigantic young blacksmith looked down at his corded hammer-arm, butsaid nothing. 

A fly--several flies--buzzed about the sorghum barrel. 

"My son, " shrilly piped out Old Daddy, --"my son air the bes' shot onthis hyar mounting. "

"That's a true word, Old Daddy, " assented the schoolmaster, who hadceased to be a Nimrod since devoting himself to teaching the young ideahow to shoot. 

The hunters smoked in solemn silence. 

The shadow of a cloud drifted along the bare sandy stretch of theclearing. 

"My son, " shrilly piped out Old Daddy, --"my son hev got the peartestboys in Tennessee. "

"I'll gin ye that up, Old Daddy, " cheerfully agreed the miller, whosefamily consisted of two small "daughters. "

The fathers of other "peart boys" cleared their throats uneasily, butfinally subsided without offering contradiction. 

A jay-bird alighted on a blackberry bush outside, fluttered all hisblue and white feathers, screamed harshly, bobbed his crested head, andwas off on his gay wings. 

"My son, " shrilly piped out Old Daddy, --"my son hev been gifted with thesight o' what no other man on this mounting hev ever viewed. "

The group sat amazed, expectant. But the old man preserved a statelysilence. Only when the storekeeper eagerly insisted, "What hev Jonasseen? what war he gin ter view?" did Old Daddy bring the fore legs ofthe chair down with a thump, lean forward, and mysteriously pipe outlike a superannuated cricket, --

"My son, --my son hev seen a harnt, what riz up over the bluffa-purpose!"

"Whar 'bouts?" "When?" "Waal, sir!" arose in varied clamors. 

So the proud old man told the story he had journeyed three laboriousmiles to spread. It had no terrors for him, so completely was fearswallowed up in admiration of his wonderful son, who had added to hisother perfections the gift of seeing ghosts. 

The men discussed it eagerly. There were some jokes cracked--as it wasstill broad noonday--and at one of these Old Daddy took great offense, more perhaps because the disrespect was offered to his son rather thanto himself. 

"Jes' gin Jonas the word from me, " said the young blacksmith, meaning noharm and laughing good-naturedly, "ez I kin tell him percisely whatmakes him see harnts; it air drinkin' so much o' this onhealthy whiskey, what hain't got no tax paid onto it. I looks ter see him jes'a-staggerin' the nex' time I comes up with him. "

Old Daddy rose with affronted dignity. 

"My son, " he declared vehemently, --"my son ain't gin over ter drinkin'whiskey, tax or no tax. An' he ain't got no call ter stagger--_like somefolks!_"

And despite all apology and protest, he left the house in a huff. 

His old bones ached with the unwonted exercise, and were rudely enoughjarred by the rough roads and the awful gaits of his ancient steed. Thesun was hot, and so was his heart, and when he reached home, infinitelyfatigued and querulous, he gave his son a sorry account of his receptionat the store. As he concluded, saying that five of the men had sent wordthat they would be at Jonas Creyshaw's house at moon-rise "ter holp himsee the harnt, " his son's brow darkened, and he strode heavily out ofthe room. 

He usually exhibited in a high degree the hospitality characteristic ofthese mountaineers, but now it had given way to a still strongerinstinct. 

"Si, " he said, coming suddenly upon the boy, "put out right now furBently's store at the settle_mint_, an' tell them sneaks ez hang roundthar ter sarch round thar own houses fur harnts, ef they hanker ter seeenny harnts. Ef they hev got the insurance ter kem hyar, they'll seewusser sights 'n enny harnts. Tell 'em I ain't a-goin' ter 'low no manter cross my doorstep ez don't show Old Daddy the right medjure o'respec'. They'd better keep out'n my way ginerally. "

So with this bellicose message Si set out. But an unlucky idea occurredto him as he went plodding along the sandy road. 

"Whilst I'm a-goin' on this hyar harnt's yerrand"----The logical Sibrought up with a shiver. 

"I went ter say--whilst I'm a-goin' on this hyar yerrand fur theharnt"----This was as bad. 

"Whilst, " he qualified once more, "I'm a-goin' on this hyar yerrand_'bout'n_ the harnt, I mought ez well skeet off in them deep woods apiece ter see ef enny wild cherries air ripe on that tree by the spring. I'll hev plenty o' time. "

But even Si could not persuade himself that the cherries were ripe, andhe stood for a moment under the tree, staring disconsolately at thedistant blue ridges shimmering through the heated air. The sunlight wasmotionless, languid; it seemed asleep. The drowsy drone of insectsfilled the forest. As Si threw himself down to rest on the rocky brinkof the mountain, a grasshopper sprang away suddenly, high into the air, with an agility that suggested to him the chorus of a song, which hebegan to sing in a loud and self-sufficient voice:--

 "The grasshopper said--'Now, don't ye see Thar's mighty few dancers sech ez me-- Sech ez _me_!--Sech ez ME!'"

This reminded Si of his own capabilities as a dancer. He rose and beganto caper nimbly, executing a series of steps that were singularly swift, spry, and unexpected, --a good deal on the grasshopper's method. Histattered black hat bobbed up and down on his tow head; his brown jeanstrousers, so loose on his lean legs, flapped about hilariously; his bareheels flew out right and left; he snapped his fingers to mark the time;now and then he stuck his arms akimbo, and cut what he called the"widgeon-ping. " But his freckled face was as grave as ever, and all thetime that he danced he sang:--

 "In the middle o' the night the rain kem down, An' gin the corn a fraish start out'n the ground, An' I thought nex' day ez I stood in the door, That sassy bug mus' be drownded sure! But thar war Goggle-eyes, peart an' gay, Twangin' an' a-tunin' up--'Now, dance away! Ye may sarch night an' day ez a constancy An' ye won't find a fiddler sech ez me! Sech ez _me_!--Sech ez ME!'"

As he sank back exhausted upon the ground, a new aspect of the scenecaught his attention. 

Those blue mountains were purpling--there was an ever-deepening flush inthe west. It was close upon sunset, and while he had wasted the time, the five men to whom his father had sent that stern message forbiddingthem to come to his house were perhaps on their way thither, with everyexpectation of a cordial welcome. There might be a row--even afight--and all because he had loitered. 

How he tore out of the brambly woods! How he pounded along the sandyroad! But when he reached the settlement close upon nightfall, thestorekeeper's wife told him that the men had gone long ago. 

"They war powerful special ter git off early, " she added, "'kase theywanted ter be thar 'fore Old Daddy drapped off ter sleep. Some o' themfoolish, slack-jawed boys ter the store ter-day riled the old man'sfeelin's, an' they 'lowed ter patch up the peace with him, an' let himan' Jonas know ez they never meant no harm. "

This suggestion buoyed up the boy's heart to some degree as he toiledalong the "short cut" homeward through the heavy shades of the gloomywoods and the mystic effects of the red rising moon. But he was notaltogether without anxiety until, as he drew within sight of the logcabin on the slope of the ravine, he heard Old Daddy piping pacificallyto the guests about "my son, " and Jonas Creyshaw's jolly laughter. 

The moon was golden now; Si could see its brilliant shafts of lightstrike aslant upon the smooth surface of the cliff that formed theopposite side of Old Daddy's Window. He stopped short in the deep shadowof the more rugged crag. The vines and bushes that draped its manyjagged ledges dripped with dew. The boughs of an old oak, which grewclose by, swayed gently in the breeze. Hidden by its huge hole, Si castan apprehensive glance toward the house where his elders sat. 

Certainly no one was thinking of him now. 

"This air my chance fur that young ow_el_--ef ever, " he said to himself. 

The owl's nest was in the hollow of the tree. The trunk was far toobulky to admit of climbing, and the lowest branches were well out of theboy's reach. Some thirty feet from the ground, however, one of theboughs touched the crag. By clambering up its rugged, irregular ledges, making a zigzag across its whole breadth to the right and then a similarzigzag to the left, Si might gain a position which would enable him toclutch this bough of the tree. Thence he could scramble along to theowl's stronghold. 

He hesitated. He knew his elders would disapprove of so reckless anundertaking as climbing about Old Daddy's Window, for in venturingtoward its outer verge, a false step, a crumbling ledge, the snapping ofa vine, would fling him down the sheer precipice into the depths below. 

His hankering for a pet owl had nevertheless brought him here more thanonce. It was only yesterday evening--before he had heard of the ghost'sappearance, however--that he had made his last futile attempt. 

He looked up doubtfully. "I ain't ez strong ez--ez some folks, " headmitted. 

"But then, come ter think of it, " he argued astutely, "I don't weighnuthin' sca'cely, an' thar ain't much of me ter hev ter haul up thar. "

He flung off his hat, he laid his wiry hands upon the wild grape-vines, he felt with his bare feet for the familiar niches and jagged edges, andup he went, working steadily to the right, across the broad face of thecliff. 

Its heavy shadow concealed him from view. Only one ledge, at the extremeverge of the crag, jutted out into the full moonbeams. But this, byreason of the intervening bushes and vines, could not be seen by thosewho sat in the cabin porch on the slope of the ravine, and he was gladto have light just here, for it was the most perilous point of hisenterprise. By deft scrambling, however, he succeeded in getting on themoonlit ledge. 

"I clumb like a painter!" he declared triumphantly. 

He rested there for a moment before attempting to reach the vines highup on the left hand, which he must grasp in order to draw himself upinto the shadowy niche in the rock, and begin his zigzag course backagain across the face of the cliff to the projecting bough of the tree. 

But suddenly, as he still stood motionless on the ledge in the fullradiance of the moon, the clamor of frightened voices sounded at thehouse. Until now he had forgotten all about the ghost. He turned, horror-stricken. 

There was the frightful thing, plainly defined against the smoothsurface of the opposite cliff--some thirty feet distant--that formed theother side of Old Daddy's Window. 

And certainly there are mighty few dancers such as that ghost! It lungedactively toward the precipice. It suddenly dashed wildly back--gyratingcontinually with singularly nimble feet, flinging wiry arms aloft andmaintaining a sinister silence, while the frightened clamor at the housegrew ever louder and more shrill. 

Several minutes elapsed before Si recognized something peculiarlyfamiliar in the ghost's wiry nimbleness--before he realized that theshadow of the cliff on which he stood reached across the ravine to thebase of the opposite cliff, and that the figure which had caused so muchalarm was only his own shadow cast upon its perpendicular surface. 

He stopped short in those antics which had been induced by mortalterror; of course, his shadow, too, was still instantly. It stood uponthe brink of the precipice which seems the sill of Old Daddy's Window, and showed distinctly on the smooth face of the cliff opposite to him. 

He understood, after a moment's reflection, how it was that as he hadclimbed up on the ledge in the full moonlight his shadow had seemed torise gradually from the vague depths below the insurmountableprecipice. 

He sprang nimbly upward to seize the vines that shielded him from theobservation of the ghost-seers on the cabin porch, and as he caught themand swung himself suddenly from the moonlit ledge into the gloomy shade, he noticed that his shadow seemed to fling its arms wildly above itshead, and disappeared upward. 

"That air jes' what dad seen las' night when I war down hyar afore, a-figurin' ter ketch that thar leetle ow_el_, " he said to himself whenhe had reached the tree and sat in a crotch, panting and excited. 

After a moment, regardless of the coveted owl, he swung down from branchto branch, dropped easily from the lowest upon the ground, picked up hishat, and prepared to skulk along the "short cut, " strike the road, andcome home by that route as if he had just returned from the settlement. 

"'Kase, " he argued sagely, "ef them skeered-ter-death grown folks warter find out ez _I_ war the _harnt_--I mean ez the _harnt_ war_me_--ennyhow, " he concluded desperately, "I'd KETCH it--sure!"

So impressed was he with this idea that he discreetly held his tongue. 

And from that day to this, Jonas Creyshaw and his friends have beenunable to solve the mystery of Old Daddy's Window. 

'WAY DOWN IN POOR VALLEY

CHAPTER I

There was the grim Big Injun Mountain to the right, with its bare, beetling sandstone crags. There was the long line of cherty hills to theleft, covered by a dark growth of stunted pines. Between lay thatmelancholy stretch of sterility known as Poor Valley, --the poorest ofthe several valleys in Tennessee thus piteously denominated, because ofthe sorry contrast which they present to the rich coves and fertilevales so usual among the mountains of the State. 

How poor the soil was, Ike Hooden might bitterly testify; for ever sincehe could hold a plough he had, year after year, followed the old"bull-tongue" through the furrows of the sandy fields which lay aroundthe log cabin at the base of the mountain. In the intervals of"crappin'" he worked at the forge with his stepfather, for close athand, in the shadow of a great jutting cliff, lurked a dark littleshanty of unhewn logs that was a blacksmith's shop. 

When he first began this labor, he was, perhaps, the youngest strikerthat ever wielded a sledge. Now, at eighteen, he had become expert atthe trade, and his muscles were admirably developed. He was tall androbust, and he had never an ache nor an ill, except in his aching heart. But his heart was sore, for in the shop he found oaths and harshtreatment, and even at home these pursued him; while outside, desolationwas set like a seal on Poor Valley. 

One drear autumnal afternoon, when the sky was dull, a dense white mistoverspread the valley. As Ike plodded up the steep mountain side, thevapor followed him, creeping silently along the deep ravines and chasms, till at length it overtook and enveloped him. Then only a few feet ofthe familiar path remained visible. 

Suddenly he stopped short and stared. A dim, distorted something waspeering at him from over the top of a big boulder. It was moving--itnodded at him. Then he indistinctly recognized it as a tall, conicalhat. There seemed a sort of featureless face below it. 

A thrill of fear crept through him. His hands grew cold and shook in hispockets. He leaned forward, gazing intently into the thick fog. 

An odd distortion crossed the vague, featureless face--like a leer, perhaps. Once more the tall, conical hat nodded fantastically. 

"Ef ye do that agin, " cried Ike, in sudden anger, all his pluck comingback with a rush, "I'll gin ye a lick ez will weld yer head an' theboulder together!"

He lifted his clenched fist and shook it. 

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed the man in the mist. 

Ike cooled off abruptly. He had been kicked and cuffed half his life, but he had never been laughed at. Ridicule tamed him. He was ashamed, and he remembered that he had been afraid, for he had thought the manwas some "roamin' harnt. "

"I dunno, " said Ike sulkily, "ez ye hev got enny call ter pounce sosuddint out'n the fog, an' go ter noddin' that cur'ous way ter folks ezcan't half see ye. "

"I never knowed afore, " said the man in the mist, with mock apology inhis tone and in the fantastic gyrations of his nodding hat, "ez it airyou-uns ez owns this mounting. " He looked derisively at Ike from head tofoot. "Ye air the biggest man in Tennessee, ain't ye?"

"Naw!" said Ike shortly, feeling painfully awkward, as an overgrown boyis apt to do. 

"Waal, from yer height, I mought hev thunk ye war that big Injun thatthe old folks tells about, " and the stranger broke suddenly into ahoarse, quavering chant:--

 "'A red man lived in Tennessee, Mighty big Injun, sure! He growed ez high ez the tallest tree, An' he sez, sez he, "Big Injun, me!" Mighty big Injun, sure!'"

"Waal, waal, " in a pensive voice, "so ye ain't him? I'm powerful glad yetole me that, sonny, 'kase I mought hev got skeered hyar in the woods bymyself with that big Injun. "

He laughed boisterously, and began to sing again:--

 "'Settlers blazed out a road, ye see, Mighty big Injun, sure! He combed thar hair with a knife. Sez he, "It's combed fur good! Big Injun, me!" Mighty big Injun, sure!'"

He broke out laughing afresh, and Ike, abashed and indignant, was aboutto pass on, when the man gayly balanced himself on one foot, as if hewere about to dance a grotesque jig, and held out at arm's length a bigsilver coin. 

It was a dollar. That meant a great deal to Ike, for he earned no moneyhe could call his own. 

"Free an' enlightened citizen o' these Nunited States, " the manaddressed him with mock solemnity, "I brung this dollar hyar furyou-uns. "

"What air ye layin' off fur me ter do?" asked Ike. 

The man grew abruptly grave. "Jes' stable this hyar critter fur a nightan' day. "

For the first time Ike became aware of a horse's flank, dimly seen onthe other side of the boulder. 

"Ter-morrer night ride him up ter my house on the mounting. Ye hev hearntell o' me, hain't ye, Jedge? My name's Grig Beemy. Don't kem tillnight, 'kase I won't be thar till then. I hev got ter stopyander--yander"--he looked about uncertainly, "yander ter the sawmilltill then, 'kase I promised ter holp work thar some. I'll gin ye thedollar now, " he added liberally, as an extra inducement. 

"I'll be powerful glad ter do that thar job fur a dollar, " said Ike, thinking, with a glow of self-gratulation, of the corn which he hadraised in his scanty leisure on his own little patch of ground, andwhich he might use to feed the animal. 

"But hold yer jaw 'bout'n it, boy. Yer stepdad wouldn't let the beastisstay thar a minute ef he knowed it, 'kase--waal--'kase me an' him hevhed words. Slip the beastis in on the sly. Pearce Tallam don't feed an'tend ter his critters nohow. I hev hearn ez his boys do that job, so heain't like ter find it out. On the sly--that's the trade. "

Ike hesitated. 

Once more the man teetered on one foot, and held out the cointemptingly. But Ike's better instincts came to his aid. 

"That barn b'longs ter Pearce Tallam. I puts nuthin' thar 'thout hisknowin' it. I ain't a fox, nur a mink, nur su'thin wild, ter go skulkin''bout on the sly. "

Then he pressed hastily on out of temptation's way. 

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed the man in the mist. 

There was no mirth in the tones now; his laugh was a bitter gibe. As itfollowed Ike, it reminded him that the man had not yet moved from besidethe boulder, or he would have heard the thud of the horse's hoofs. 

He turned and glanced back. The opaque white mist was dense about him, and he could see nothing. As he stood still, he heard a muttered oath, and after a time the man cleared his throat in a rasping fashion, as ifthe oath had stuck in it. 

Ike understood at last. The man was waiting for somebody. And this wasstrange, here in the thick fog on the bleak mountainside. But Ike saidto himself that it was no concern of his, and plodded steadily on, tillhe reached a dark little log house, above which towered a flaring yellowhickory tree. 

Within, ranged on benches, were homespun-clad mountain children. Ahigh-shouldered, elderly man sat at a table near the deep fireplace, where a huge backlog was smouldering. Through the cobwebbed window-panesthe mists looked in. 

Ike did not speak as he stood on the threshold, but his greedy glance atthe scholars' books enlightened the pedagogue. "Do you want to come toschool?" he asked. 

Then the boy's long-cherished grievance burst forth. "They hev tole meez how it air agin the law, bein' ez I lives out'n the _dee_stric'. "

The teacher elevated his grizzled eyebrows, and Ike said, "I kem hyarter ax ye ef that be a true word. I 'lowed ez mebbe my dad tole me thatword jes' ter hender me, an' keep me at the forge. It riles me powerfulter hev ter be an ignorunt all my days. "

To a stranger, this reflection on his "dad" seemed unbecoming. Theteacher's sympathy ebbed. He looked severely at the boy's pale, anxiousface, as he coldly said that he could teach no pupils who residedoutside his school district, except out of regular school hours, andwith a charge for tuition. 

Ike Hooden had no money. He nodded suddenly in farewell, the doorclosed, and when the schoolmaster, in returning compassion, opened itafter him, and peered out into the impenetrable mist, the boy wasnowhere to be seen. He had taken his despair by the hand, and togetherthey went down, down into the depths of Poor Valley. 

He stood so sorely in need of a little kindness that he felt gratefulfor the friendly aspect of his stepbrother, whom he met just before hereached the shop. 

"'Pears like ye air toler'ble late a-gittin' home, Ike, " said Jube. "Idone ye the favior ter feed the critters. I 'lowed ez ye would do ezmuch fur me some day. I'll feed 'em agin in the mornin', ef ye'll forgeme three lenks ter my trace-chain ter-night, arter dad hev gone home. "

Now this broad-faced, sandy-haired, undersized boy, who was two or threeyears younger than Ike, and not strong enough for work at the anvil, wasa great tactician. It was his habit, in doing a favor, rigorously toexact a set-off, and that night when the blacksmith had left the shop, Jube slouched in. 

The flare of the forge-fire illumined with a fitful flicker the darkinterior, showing the rod across the corner with its jingling weight ofhorseshoes, a ploughshare on the ground, the barrel of water, the lowwindow, and casting upon the wall a grotesque shadow of Jube's dodgingfigure as he began to ply the bellows. 

Presently he left off, the panting roar ceased, the hot iron was laid onthe anvil, and his dodging image on the wall was replaced by an immenseshadow of Ike's big right arm as he raised it. The blows fell fast; thesparks showered about. All the air was ajar with the resonant clamor ofthe hammer, and the anvil sang and sang, shrill and clear. When the ironwas hammered cold, Jube broke the momentary silence. 

"I hev got, " he droned, as if he were reciting something made familiarby repetition, "two roosters, 'leven hens, an' three pullets. "

There was a long pause, and then he chanted, "One o' the roosters air aDominicky. "

He walked over to the anvil and struck it with a small bit of metalwhich he held concealed in his hand. 

"I hev got two shoats, a bag o' dried peaches, two geese, an' I'mtradin' with mam fur a gayn-der. "

He quietly slipped the small bit of shining metal in his pocket. 

"I hev got, " he droned, waxing very impressive, "a red heifer. "

Ike paused meditatively, his hammer in his hand. A new hope was dawningwithin him. He knew what was meant by Jube, who often recited the listof his possessions, seeking to rouse enough envy to induce Ike toexchange for the "lay out" his interest in a certain gray mare. 

Now the mare really belonged to Ike, having come to him from hispaternal grandfather. This was all of value that the old man had left;for the deserted log hut, rotting on another bleak waste farther down inPoor Valley, was worth only a sigh for the home that it oncewas, --worth, too, perhaps, the thanks of those it sheltered now, the ratand the owl. 

The mare had worked for Pearce Tallam in the plough, under the saddle, and in the wagon all the years since. But one day, when the boy fellinto a rage, --for he, too, had a difficult temper, --and declared thathe would sell her and go forth from Poor Valley never to return, he wasmet by the question, "Hain't the mare lived off'n my fields, an' hain'tI gin ye yer grub, an' clothes, an' the roof that kivers ye?"

Thus Pearce Tallam had disputed his right to sell the mare. But it hadmore than once occurred to him that the blacksmith would not object toJube's buying her. 

Hitherto Ike had not coveted Jube's variegated possessions. But now hewanted money for schooling. It was true he could hardly turn these intocash, for in this region farm produce of every description is receivedat the country stores in exchange for powder, salt, and similarnecessities, and thus there is little need for money, and very little isin circulation. 

Still, Ike reflected that he might now and then get a small sum at thestore, or perhaps the schoolmaster might barter "l'arnin'" for theheifer or the shoats. 

His hesitation was not lost upon Jube, who offered a culminatinginducement to clinch the trade. He suddenly stood erect, teeteredfantastically on one foot, as if about to begin to dance, and held out aglittering silver dollar. 

The hammer fell from Ike's hands upon the anvil. "'Twar ye ez GrigBeemy war a-waitin' fur thar on the mounting in the mist!" he cried out, recognizing the man's odd gesture, which Jube had unconsciouslyimitated. 

Doubtless the dollar was offered to Jube afterward, exactly as it hadbeen offered to him. And Jube had taken it. The imitative monkey thrustit hastily into his pocket, and came down from his fantastic toe, andstood soberly enough on his two feet. 

"Grig Beemy gin ye that thar dollar, " said Ike. 

Jube sullenly denied it. "He never, now!"

"His critter hev got no call ter be in dad's barn. "

"His critter ain't hyar, " protested Jube. "This dollar war gin me intrade ter the settle_mint_. "

Ike remembered the queer gesture. How could Jube have repeated it if hehad not seen it? He broke into a sarcastic laugh. 

"That's how kem ye war so powerful 'commodatin' ez ter feed thecritters. Ye 'lowed ez I wouldn't see the strange beastis, an' then telldad. Foolin' me war a part o' yer trade, I reckon. "

Jube made no reply. 

"Ef ye war ez big ez me, or bigger, I'd thrash ye out'n yer boots furthis trick. Ye don't want no lenks ter yer chain. Ye jes' want ter besure o' keepin' me out'n the barn. Waal--thar air yer lenks. "

He caught up the tongs and held the links in the fire with one handwhile he worked the bellows with the other. Then he laid them red-hotupon the anvil. His rapid blows crushed them to a shapeless mass. "Andnow--thar they ain't. "

Jube did not linger long. He was in terror lest Ike should tell hisfather. But Ike did not think this was his duty. In fact, neither boyimagined that the affair involved anything more serious than stabling ahorse without the knowledge of the owner of the shelter. 

When Ike was alone a little later, an unaccustomed sound caused him toglance toward the window. 

Something outside was passing it. His position was such that he couldnot see the object itself, but upon the perpendicular gray wall of thecrag close at hand, and distinctly defined in the yellow flare thatflickered out through the window from the fire of the forge, thegigantic shadow of a horse's head glided by. 

He understood in an instant that Jube had slipped the animal out of thebarn, and was hiding him in the misty woods, expecting that Ike wouldacquaint his father with the facts. He had so managed that these factswould seem lies, if Pearce Tallam should examine the premises and findno horse there. 

All the next day the white mist clung shroud-like to Poor Valley. Theshadows of evening were sifting through it, when Ike's mother went tothe shop, much perturbed because the cow had not come, and she could notfind Jube to send after her. 

"Ike kin go, I reckon, " said the blacksmith. 

So Ike mounted his mare and set out through the thick white vapor. Hehad divined the cause of Jube's absence, and experienced no surprisewhen on the summit of the mountain he overtook him, riding the strangehorse, on his way to Beemy's house. 

"I s'pose that critter air yourn, an' ye mus' hev bought him fur a poundo' dried peaches, or sech, up thar ter the settle_mint_, " sneered Ike. 

Jube was about to reply, but he glanced back into the dense mist with achanging expression. 

"Hesh up!" he said softly. "What's that?"

It was the regular beat of horses' hoofs, coming at a fair pace alongthe road on the summit of the mountain. The riders were talkingexcitedly. 

"I tell ye, ef I could git a glimpse o' the man ez stole that tharhorse, it would go powerful hard with me not to let daylight throughhim. I brung this hyar shootin'-iron along o' purpose. Waal, waal, though, seein' ez ye air the sheriff, I'll hev ter leave it be ezyou-uns say. I wouldn't know the man from Adam; but ye can't miss thecritter, --big chestnut, with a star in his forehead, an'"--

Something strange had happened. At the sound of the voice the horsepricked up his ears, turned short round in the road, and neighedjoyfully. 

The boys looked at each other with white faces. They understood at last. Jube was mounted on a stolen horse within a hundred yards of thepursuing owner and the officers of the law. Could explanations--words, mere words--clear him in the teeth of this fact?

"Drap out'n the saddle, turn the critter loose in the road, an' take terthe woods, " urged Ike. 

"They'll sarch an' ketch me, " quavered Jube. 

He was frantic at the idea of being captured on the horse's back, but ifit should come to a race, he preferred trusting to the chestnut's fourlegs rather than to his own two. 

Ike hesitated. Jube had brought the difficulty all on himself, andsurely it was not incumbent on Ike to share the danger. But he wasswayed by a sudden uncontrollable impulse. 

"Drap off'n the critter, turn him loose, an' I'll lope down the road apiece, an' they'll foller me, in the mist. "

He might have done a wiser thing. But it was a tough problem at best, and he had only a moment in which to decide. 

In that swift, confused second he saw Jube slide from the saddle anddisappear in the mist as if he had been caught up in the clouds. Heheard the horse's hoofs striking against the stones as he trotted off, whinnying, to meet his master. There was a momentary clamor among themen, and then with whip and spur they pressed on to capture the supposedmalefactor. 

CHAPTER II

All at once it occurred to Ike, as he galloped down the road, that whenthey overtook him, they would think that he was the thief, and that hehad been leading the horse. He had been so strong in his own innocencethat the possibility that they might suspect him had not before enteredhis mind. 

He had intended only to divert the pursuit from Jube, who, although freefrom any great wrong-doing, was exposed to the most seriousmisconstruction. The knowledge of the pursuers' revolvers had made thisa hard thing to do, but otherwise he had not thought of himself, nor ofwhat he should say when overtaken. 

They would question him; he must answer. Would they believe his story?Could he support it? Grig Beemy of course would deny it. And Jube--hadhe not known how Jube could lie? Would he not fear that the truth mightsomehow involve him with the horse-thief?

Ike, with despair in his heart, urged his mare to her utmost speed, knowing now the danger he was in as a suspected horse-thief. Suddenly, from among his pursuers, a tiny jet of flame flared out into the densegray atmosphere, something whizzed through the branches of the treesabove his head, and a sharp report jarred the mists. 

Perhaps the officer fired into the air, merely to intimidate thesupposed criminal and induce him to surrender. But now the boy could notstop. He had lost control of the mare. Frightened beyond measure by thereport of the pistol, she was in full run. 

On she dashed, down sharp declivities, up steep ascents, and then awayand away, with a great burst of speed, along a level sandy stretch. 

The black night was falling like a pall upon the white, shrouded day. Ike knew less where he was than the mare did; he was trusting to herinstinct to carry him to her stable. More than once the low branches ofa tree struck him, almost tearing him from the saddle, but he clungfrantically to the mane of the frightened animal, and on and on sheswept, with the horsemen thundering behind. 

He could hear nothing but their heavy, continuous tramp. He could seenothing, until suddenly a dim, pure light was shining in front of him, on his own level, it seemed. He stared at it with starting eyeballs. Itcleft the vapors, --they were falling away on either side, --and theyreflected it with an illusive, pearly shimmer. 

In another moment he knew that he was nearing the abrupt precipice, forthat was the moon, riding like a silver boat upon a sea of mist, with aglittering wake behind it, beyond the sharply serrated summit line ofthe eastern hills. 

He could no longer trust to the mare's instinct. He trusted toappearances instead. He sawed away with all his might on the bit, striving to wheel her around in the road. 

She resisted, stumbled, then fell upon her knees among a wild confusionof rotting logs and stones that rolled beneath her, as, snorting andangry, she struggled again to her feet. Once more Ike pulled her to theleft. 

There was a great displacement of earth, a frantic scramble, andtogether they went over the cliff. 

The descent was not absolutely sheer. At the distance of twelve orfourteen feet below, a great bulging shelf of rock projected. They fellupon this. The boy had instantly loosed his hold of the reins, andslipped away from the prostrate animal. The mare, quieted only for amoment by the shock, sprang to her feet, the stones slipped beneath her, and she went headlong over the precipice into the dreary depths of PoorValley. 

The pursuers heard the heavy thud when she struck the ground far below. They paused at the verge of the crag, and talked in eager, excitedtones. They did not see the boy, as he sat cowering close to the cliffon the ledge below. 

Ike listened in great trepidation to what they were saying; heexperienced infinite surprise when presently one of them mentioned GrigBeemy's name. 

[Illustration: TOGETHER THEY WENT OVER THE CLIFF]

So they knew who had stolen the horse! It was little consolation to Ike, with his mare lying dead at the foot of the cliff, to reflect that if hehad had the courage to face the emergency, and rely upon his innocence, his story would only have confirmed their knowledge of the facts. 

Although the master of the horse did not know the thief "from Adam, "Beemy had been seen with the animal and recognized by others, who, accompanying the sheriff and the owner, had traced him for two daysthrough many wily doublings in the mountain fastnesses. 

They now concluded to press on to Beemy's house. Ike knew they wouldfind him there waiting for Jube and the horse. Beemy had feared that hewould be followed, and this was the reason that he had desired to ridhimself of the animal for a day and night, until he could make sure andfeel more secure. 

As the horsemen swept round the curve, Ike remembered how close was theroad to the cliff. If he had only given the mare her head, she wouldhave carried him safely around it. But there she lay dead, way down inPoor Valley, and he had lost all he owned in the world. 

Night had come, and in the dense darkness he did not dare to move. Onlya step away was the edge of the precipice, over which the mare hadslipped, and he could not tell how dangerous was the bluff he must climbto regain the summit. He felt he must lie here till dawn. 

He was badly jarred by his fall. Time dragged by wearily, and hisbruises pained him. He knew at length that all the world slept, --all buthimself and some distant ravening wolf, whose fierce howl ever and anonset the mists to shivering in Poor Valley where he prowled. Thisblood-curdling sound and his bitter thoughts were but sorry company. 

After a long time he fell asleep. Fortunately, he did not stir. When heregained consciousness and a sense of danger, he found still around himthat dense white vapor, through which the pale, drear day was slowlydawning. Above his head was swinging in the mist a cluster offox-grapes, with the rime upon them, and higher still he saw a quiveringred leaf. 

It was the leaf of a starveling tree, growing out of a cleft where therewas so little earth that it seemed to draw its sustenance from the rock. It was a scraggy, stunted thing, but it was well for him that it hadstruck root there, for its branches brushed the solid, smooth face ofthe cliff, which he could not have surmounted but for them and thegrape-vine that had fallen over from the summit and entangled itselfamong them. 

As he climbed the tree, he felt it quake over the abysses, which themists still veiled. He had a sense of elation and achievement when hegained the top, and it followed him home. There it suddenly desertedhim. 

He found Pearce Tallam in a frenzy of rage at the discovery, which hehad made through Jube's confession, that a stolen horse had been stabledon his premises. Despite his tyranny and his fierce, rude temper, hewas an honest man and of fair repute. Although he realized that neitherboy knew that the animal had been stolen, he gave Jube a lesson which heremembered for many a long day, and Ike also came in for his share ofthis muscular tuition. 

For in the midst of the criminations and recriminations, the violentblacksmith caught up a horseshoe and flung it across the shop, strikingIke with a force that almost stunned him. He was a man in strength, andit was hard for him not to return the blow; but he only walked out ofthe shop, declaring that he would stay for no more blows. 

"Cl'ar out, then!" called out Pearce Tallam after him. "I don't keer efye goes fur good. "

He met, at the door of the dwelling, a plaintive reproach from hismother. "'Count o' ye not tellin' on Jube, he mought hev been tuk up fura horse-thief. I dunno what I'd hev done 'thout him, " she added, "'longo' raisin' the young tur-r-keys, an' goslin's, an' deedies, an' sech; hehev been a mighty holp ter me. He air more of a son ter me than my ownboy. "

She did not mean this, but she had said it once half in jest, half inreproach, and then it became a formula of complaint whenever Ikedispleased her. 

Now he was sore and sensitive. "Take him fur yer son, then!" he cried. "I'm a-goin' out'n Pore Valley, ef I starves fur it. I shows my facehyar no more. "

As he shouldered his gun and strode out, he noted the light of theforge-fire quivering on the mist, but he little thought it was the lastfire that Pearce Tallam would ever kindle there. 

He glanced back again before the dense vapor shut the house from view. His mother was standing in the door, with her baby in her arms, lookingafter him with a frightened, beseeching face. But his heart was hardenedand he kept on, --kept on, with that deft, even tread of the mountaineer, who seems never to hurry, almost to loiter, but gets over the groundwith surprising rapidity. 

He left the mists and desolation of Poor Valley far behind, but not thatfrightened, beseeching face. He thought of it more often when he laydown under the shelter of a great rock to sleep than he did of the howlof the wolf which he had heard the night before, not far from here. 

Late the next afternoon he came upon the outskirts of a village. Heentered it doubtfully, for it seemed metropolitan to him, unaccustomedas he was to anything more imposing than the cross-roads store. But thefirst sound he heard reassured him. It was the clear, metallic resonanceof an anvil, the clanking of a sledge, and the clinking of ahand-hammer. 

Here, at the forge, he found work. It had been said in Poor Valley thathe was already as good a blacksmith even as Pearce Tallam. He had greatnatural aptitude for the work, and considerable experience. But hiswages only sufficed to pay for his food and lodging. Still, there was aprospect for more, and he was content. 

In his leisure he made friends among those of his own age, who took himabout the town and enjoyed his amazement. He examined everything wroughtin metal with such eager interest, and was so outspoken about hisambition, that they dubbed him Tubal-cain. 

He was struck dumb with amazement when, for the first time in his life, he saw a locomotive gliding along the rails, with a glaring headlightand a cloud of flying sparks. Once, when it was motionless on the track, they talked to the engineer, who explained "the workings of thecritter, " as Ike called it. 

The boy understood so readily that the engineer said, after a time, "You're a likely feller, for such a derned ignoramus! Where have youbeen hid out, all this time?"

"Way down in Pore Valley, " said Ike very humbly. 

"He's concluded to be a great inventor, " said one of his young friends, with a merry wink. 

"He's a mighty artificer in iron, " said the wit who had named himTubal-cain. 

The engineer looked gravely at Ike. "Why, boy, " he admonished him, "theworld has got a hundred years the start of you!"

"I kin ketch up, " Ike declared sturdily. 

"There's something in grit, I reckon, " said the engineer. Then hiswonderful locomotive glided away, leaving Ike staring after it in silentecstasy, and his companions dying with laughter. 

He started out to overtake the world at a night-school, where his mentalquickness contrasted oddly with his slow, stolid demeanor. He workedhard at the forge all day; but everybody was kind. 

Outside of Poor Valley life seemed joyous and hopeful; progress andactivity were on every hand; and the time he spent here was the happiesthe had ever known, --except for the recollection of that frightened, beseeching face which had looked out after him through the closingmists. 

He wished he had turned back for a word. He wished his mother might knowhe was well and happy. He began to feel that he could go no furtherwithout making his peace with her. So one day he left his employer withthe promise to return the following week, "ef the Lord spares me an'nuthin' happens, " as the cautious rural formula has it, and set out forhis home. 

The mists had lifted from it, but the snow had fallen deep. Poor Valleylay white and drear--it seemed to him that he had never before known howdrear--between the grim mountain with its great black crags, its chasms, its gaunt, naked trees, and the long line of flinty hills, whose stuntedpines bent with the weight of the snow. 

There was no smoke from the chimney of the blacksmith's shop. There wereno footprints about the door. An atmosphere charged with calamity seemedto hang over the dwelling. Somehow he knew that a dreadful thing hadhappened even before he opened the door and saw his mother's mournfulwhite face. 

She sprang up at the sight of him with a wild, sobbing cry that was halfgrief, half joy. He had only a glimpse of the interior, --of Jube, looking anxious and unnaturally grave; of the listless children, groupedabout the fire; of the big, burly blacksmith, with a strange, deeppallor upon his face, and as he shifted his position--why, how was that?

The boy's mother had thrust him out of the door, and closed it behindher. The jar brought down from the low eaves a few feathery flakes ofsnow, which fell upon her hair as she stood there with him. 

"Don't say nuthin' 'bout'n it, " she implored. "He can't abide ter hearit spoke of. "

"What ails dad's hand?" he asked, bewildered. 

"It's gone!" she sobbed. "He war over ter the sawmill the day yelef'--somehow 'nuther the saw cotched it--the doctor tuk it off. "

"His right hand!" cried Ike, appalled. 

The blacksmith would never lift a hammer again. And there the forgestood, silent and smokeless. 

What this portended, Ike realized as he sat with them around the fire. Their sterile fields in Poor Valley had only served to eke out theirsubsistence. This year the corn-crop had failed, and the wheat washardly better. The winter had found them without special provision, butwithout special anxiety, for the anvil had always amply supplied theirsimple needs. 

Now that this misfortune had befallen them, who could say what wasbefore them unless Ike would remain and take his stepfather's place atthe forge? Ike knew that this contingency must have occurred to them aswell as to him. He divined it from the anxious, furtive glances whichthey one and all cast upon him from time to time, --even Pearce Tallam, whose turn it was now to feel that greatest anguish of calamity, helplessness. 

But must he relinquish his hopes, his chance of an education, thatplucky race for which he was entered to overtake the world that had ahundred years the start of him, and be forever a nameless, futurelessclod in Poor Valley?

His mother had the son she had chosen. And surely he owed no duty toPearce Tallam. The hand that was gone had been a hard hand to him. 

He rose at length. He put on his leather apron. "Waal--I mought ez wellg' long ter the shop, I reckon, " he remarked calmly. "'Pears like thar'stime yit fur a toler'ble spot o' work afore dark. "

It was a hard-won victory. Even then he experienced a sort ofsatisfaction in knowing that Pearce Tallam must feel humiliated and ofsmall account to be thus utterly dependent for his bread upon the boywhom he had so persistently maltreated. In his pale face Ike sawsomething of the bitterness he had endured, of his broken spirit, of hishumbled pride. 

The look smote upon the boy's heart. There was another inward struggle. Then he said, as if it were a result of deep cogitation, --

"Ye'll hev ter kem over ter the shop, dad, wunst in a while, ter advise'bout what's doin'. 'Pears ter me like mos' folks would 'low ez a boyno older 'n me couldn't do reg'lar blacksmithin' 'thout some speriencedbody along fur sense an' showin'. "

The man visibly plucked up a little. Was he, indeed, so useless? "That'sa fac', Ike, " he said gently. "I reckon ye kin make outtoler'ble--cornsiderin'. But I'll be along ter holp. "

After this Ike realized that he had been working with something tougherthan iron, harder than steel, --his own unsubdued nature. He traced ananalogy from the forge; and he saw that those strong forces, the firesof conscience and the coercion of duty, had wrought the stubborn metalof his character to a kindly use. 

Gradually the relinquishment of his wild, vague ambition began to seemless bitter to him; for it might be that these were the few things overwhich he should be faithful, --his own forge-fire and his own fieryheart. And so he labors to fulfill his trust. 

The spring never comes to Poor Valley. The summer is a cloud of dust. The autumn shrouds itself in mist. And the winter is snow. But povertyof soil need not imply poverty of soul. And a noble manhood may noblyexist "'Way Down in Poor Valley. "

A MOUNTAIN STORM

"Ef the filly war bridle-wise"--

"The filly _air_ bridle-wise. "

A sullen pause ensued, and the two brothers looked angrily at eachother. 

The woods were still; the sunshine was faint and flickering; the low, guttural notes of a rain-crow broke suddenly on the silence. 

Presently Thad, mechanically examining a bridle which he held in hishand, began again in an appealing tone: "'Pears like ter me ez the fillyair toler'ble well bruk ter the saddle, an' she would holp me powerfulter git thar quicker ter tell dad 'bout'n that thar word ez war fotchedup the mounting. They 'lowed ez 'twar jes' las' night ez them revenuemen raided a still-house, somewhar down thar in the valley, an' bustedthe tubs, an' sp'iled the coppers, an' arrested all the moonshiners ezwar thar. An' ef they war ter find out 'bout'n this hyar still-houseover yander in the gorge, they'd raid it, too. An' thar be dad, " hecontinued despairingly, "jes' sodden with whiskey an' ez drunk ez afraish b'iled ow_el_, an' he wouldn't hev the sense nor the showin' termake them off'cers onderstand ez he never hed nothin' ter do with themoonshiners--'ceptin' ter go ter thar still-house, an' git drunk alongo' them. An' I dunno whether the off'cers would set much store by thatsayin' ennyhow, an' I want ter git dad away from thar afore they kem. "

"I don't believe that thar word ez them men air a-raidin' round themountings no more 'n _that_!" and Ben kicked away a pebblecontemptuously. 

Thad was in a quiver of anxiety. While Ben indulged his doubts, thepaternal "B'iled Ow_el_" might at any moment be arrested on a charge ofaiding and abetting in illicit distilling. 

"Ye never b'lieve nothin' till ye see it--ye sateful dunce!" heexclaimed excitedly. 

Thus began a fraternal quarrel which neither forgot for years. 

Ben turned scarlet. "Waal, then, jes' leave my filly in the barn wharshe be now; ye kin travel on Shank's mare!"

Thad started off up the steep slope. "Ef ye ain't a-hankerin' fur me terride that thar filly, ez air ez bridle-wise ez ye be, jes' let's see yekem on, an'--hender!"

"I hopes she'll fling ye, an' ye'll git yer neck bruk, " Ben called outafter him. 

"I wish ennything 'ud happen, jes' so be I mought never lay eyes on yeagin, " Thad declared. 

As he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that his brother was notfollowing, and when he reached the flimsy little barn, there was nothingto prevent him from carrying out his resolution. 

Nevertheless, he hesitated as he stood with the door in his hand. Aclay-bank filly came instantly to it, but with a sudden impulse heclosed it abruptly, and set out on foot along a narrow, brambly paththat wound down the mountain side. 

He had descended almost to its base before the threatening appearance ofthe sky caught his attention. A dense black cloud had climbed up fromover the opposite hills, and stretched from their jagged summits to thezenith. There it hung in mid-air, its sombre shadow falling across thevalley, and reaching high up the craggy slope, where the boy's home wasperched. The whole landscape wore that strange, still, expectant aspectwhich precedes the bursting of a storm. 

Suddenly a vivid white flash quivered through the sky. The hills, suffused with its ghastly light, started up in bold relief against theblack clouds; even the faint outlines of distant ranges that haddisappeared with the strong sunlight reasserted themselves in a pale, illusive fashion, flickering like the unreal mountains of a dream aboutthe vague horizon. A ball of fire had coursed through the air, strikingwith dazzling coruscations the top of a towering oak, and he heard, amidst the thunder and its clamorous echo, the sharp crash of rivingtimber. 

All at once he had a sense of falling, a sudden pain shot through him, darkness descended, and he knew no more. 

When he gradually regained consciousness, it seemed that a long time hadelapsed since he was trudging down the mountain side. He could notimagine where he was now. He put out his hand in the intense darknessthat enveloped him, and felt the damp mould beside him, --above--below. 

For one horrible instant he recalled a sickening story of a man who wasnegligently buried alive. He had always believed that this was only afireside fiction invented in the security of the chimney corner; but wasit to have a strange confirmation in his own fate? He was pierced withpity for himself, as he heard the despair in his voice when he sentforth a wild, hoarse cry. What a cavernous echo it had!

Again and again, after his lips were closed, that voice of anguish rangout, and then was silent, then fitfully sounded once more on anotherkey. He strove to rise, but the earth on his breast resisted. With agreat effort he finally burst through it; he felt the clods tumblingabout him; he sat upright; he rose to his full height; and still all wasmerged in the densest darkness, and, when he stretched up his arms ashigh as he could reach, he again felt the damp mould. 

The truth had begun vaguely to enter his mind even before, in shiftinghis position, he caught sight of a rift in the deep gloom, some fifteenfeet above his head. Then he realized that at the moment of the flash oflightning, unmindful of his footing, he had strayed aside from the path, stumbled, fallen, and, as it chanced, was received into one of thoseunsuspected apertures in the ground which are common in all cavernouscountries, being sometimes the entrance to extensive caves, and whichare here denominated "sink-holes. "

These cavities were exceedingly frequent in the valley, on the boundaryof which Thad lived, and his familiarity with them did away for themoment with all appreciation of the perplexity and difficulty of thesituation. He laughed aloud triumphantly. 

Instantly these underground chambers broke forth with wild, elfishvoices that mimicked his merriment till it died on his lips. Hepreferred utter loneliness to the vague sense of companionship given bythese weird echoes. Somehow the strangeness of all that had happened tohim had stirred his imagination, and he could not rid himself of theidea that there were grimacing creatures here with him, whom he couldnot see, who would only speak when he spoke, and scoffingly iterate histones. 

He was faint, bruised, and exhausted. He had been badly stunned by hisfall; but for the soft, shelving earth through which he had crashed, itmight have been still worse. He could scarcely move as he began toinvestigate his precarious plight. Even if he could climb theperpendicular wall above his head, he could not thence gain theaperture, for, as his eyes became more accustomed to the darkness, hediscovered that the shape of the roof was like the interior of a roughlydefined dome, about the centre of which was this small opening. 

"An' a human can't walk on a ceilin' like a fly, " he saiddiscontentedly. 

"Can't!" cried an echo close at hand. 

"Fly!" suggested a distant mocker. 

Thad closed his mouth and sat down. 

He had moved very cautiously, for he knew that these sink-holes areoften the entrance of extensive caverns, and that there might be a deepabyss on any side. He could do nothing but wait and call out now andthen, and hope that somebody might soon take the short cut through thewoods, and, hearing his voice, come to his relief. 

His courage gave way when he reflected that the river would rise withthe heavy rain which he could hear steadily splashing through thesink-hole, and for a time all prudent men would go by the beaten roadand the ford. No one would care to take the short cut and save threemiles' travel at the risk of swimming his horse, for the river wasparticularly deep just here and spanned only by a footbridge, except, perhaps, some fugitive from justice, or the revenue officers on theirhurried, reckless raids. This reminded him of the still-house and of"dad" there yet, imbibing whiskey, and sharing the danger of his chosencronies, the moonshiners. 

Ben, at home, would not have his anxiety roused till midnight, at least, by his brother's failure to return from the complicated feat of decoyingthe drunkard from the distillery. Thad trembled to think what mighthappen to himself in the interval. If the volume of water pouring downthrough the sink-hole should increase to any considerable extent, hewould be drowned here like a rat. Was he to have his wish, and see hisbrother never again?

And poor Ben! How his own cruel, wicked parting words would scourge himthroughout his life, --even when he should grow old!

Thad's eyes filled with tears of prescient pity for his brother'sremorse. 

"Ef ennything war ter happen hyar, sure enough, I wish he mought alwaysknow ez I don't keer nothin' now 'bout'n that thar sayin' o' his'n, " hethought wistfully. 

He still heard the persistent rain splashing outside. The hollow, unnatural murmur of a subterranean stream rose drearily. Once he sighedheavily, and all the cavernous voices echoed his grief. 

When that terrible flash of lightning came, Ben was still on the slopeof the mountain where his brother had left him. The next moment he heardthe wild whirl of the gusts as they came surging up the valley. He sawthe frantic commotion of the woods on distant spurs as the windadvanced, preceded by swirling columns of dust which carried myriads ofleaves, twigs, and even great branches rent from the trees, as evidenceof its force. 

Ben turned, and ran like a deer up the steep ascent. "It'll blowthat thar barn spang off'n the bluff, I'm thinkin'--an' thefilly--Cobe--Cobe!" he cried out to her as he neared the shanty. 

He stopped short, his eyes distended. The door was open. There was nohair nor hoof of the filly within. He could have no doubt that hisbrother had actually taken his property for this errand against hiswill. 

"That thar boy air no better 'n a low-down horse-thief!" he declaredbitterly. 

The gusts struck the little barn. It careened this way and that, andfinally the flimsy structure came down with a crash, one of the boardsnarrowly missing Ben's head as it fell. He had a hard time getting tothe house in the teeth of the wind, but its violence only continued afew minutes, and when he was safe within doors he looked out of thewindow at the silent mists, beginning to steal about the coves andravines, and at the rain as it fell in serried columns. Long after darkit still beat with unabated persistence on the roof of the log cabin, and splashed and dripped with a chilly, cheerless sound from the loweaves. Sometimes a drop fell down the wide chimney, and hissed upon thered-hot coals, for Ben had piled on the logs and made a famous fire. Hecould see that his mother now and then paused to listen in the midst ofher preparations for supper. Once as she knelt on the hearth, anddeftly inserted a knife between the edges of a baking corn-cake and thehoe, she looked up suddenly at Ben without turning the cake. "I hearnthe beastis's huff!" she said. 

Ben listened. The fire roared. The rain went moaning down the valley. 

"Ye never hearn nothin', " he rejoined. 

Nevertheless, she rose and opened the door. The cold air streamed in. The firelight showed the mists, pressing close in the porch, shivering, and seeming to jostle and nudge each other as they peered in, curiously, upon the warm home-scene, and the smoking supper, and thehilarious children, as if asking of one another how they would like tobe human creatures, instead of a part of inanimate nature, or at bestthe elusive spirits of the mountains. 

There was nothing to be seen without but the mists. 

"Thad tuk the filly, ye say fur true?" she asked, recurring to thesubject when supper was over. 

Ben nodded. "I hopes ter conscience she'll break his neck, " he declaredcruelly. 

His mother took instant alarm. She turned and looked at him with a faceexpressive of the keenest anxiety. "'Pears like to me ez the only reasonThad kin be so late a-gittin' back air jes' 'kase it air a toler'bleaggervatin' job a-fotchin' of dad home, " she said, striving to reassureherself. 

"That air a true word 'bout'n dad, ennyhow, " Ben assented bitterly. 

His old grandfather suddenly lifted up his voice. 

"This night, " said the graybeard from out the chimney corner, --"thisnight, forty years ago, my brother, Ephraim Grimes, fell dead on thiscabin floor, an' no man sence kin mark the cause. "

A pause ensued. The rain fell. The pallid, shuddering mists looked in atthe window. 

"Ye ain't a-thinkin', " cried the woman tremulously, "ez the night airone app'inted fur evil?"

The old man did not answer. 

"This night, " he croaked, leaning over the glowing fire, and kindlinghis long-stemmed cob-pipe by dexterously scooping up with its bowl alive coal, --"this night, twenty-six years ago, thar war eleven sheep o'mine--ez war teched in the head, or somehows disabled from goodsense--an' they jumped off'n the bluff, one arter the other, an' fellhaffen way down the mounting, an' bruk thar fool necks 'mongst theboulders. They war dead. Thar shearin's never kem ter much accountnuther. 'Twar powerful cur'ous, fust an' last. "

The woman made a gesture of indifference. "I ain't a-settin' of store bycritters when humans is--is--whar they ain't hearn from. "

But Ben was susceptible of a "critter" scare. 

"I hope, now, " he exclaimed, alarmed, "ez that thar triflin' no-'countThad Grimes ain't a-goin' ter let my filly lame herself, nor nothin', a-travelin' with her this dark night, ez seems ter be a night fur thingster happen on ennyhow. Oh, shucks! shucks!" he continued impatiently, "I jes' feels like thar ain't no use o' my tryin' ter live along. "

Three of the children who habitually slept in the shed-room had startedoff to go to bed. As they opened the connecting door, there suddenlyresounded a wild commotion within. They shrieked with fright, and bangedthe door against a strong force which was beginning to push from theother side. 

The old grandfather rose, pale and agitated, his pipe falling from hisnerveless clasp. 

"This night, " he said, with white lips and mechanical utterance, --"thisnight"--

"Satan is in the shed-room!" shouted the three small boys, as they heldfast to the door with a strength far beyond their age and weight. Nevertheless, they were hardly able to cope with the strength on theother side of the door, and it was alternately forced slightly ajar, andthen closed with a resounding slam. Once, as the firelight flickeredinto the dark shed-room, the ignorant, superstitious mountaineers had afleeting glimpse of an object there which convinced them: they beheldgreat gleaming, blazing eyes, a burnished hoof, and--yes--a flirtingtail. 

"I believe it is Satan himself!" cried Ben, with awe in his voice. 

In the wild confusion and bewilderment, Ben was somehow vaguely awarethat Satan had often been in the shed-room before, --in the antechamberof his own heart. Whenever this heart of his was full of unkindness, andhardened against his brother, although those better fraternal instinctswhich he kept repressed and dwarfed might repudiate this cruelty underthe pretext that he did not really mean it, still the great principle ofevil was there in the moral shed-room, clamoring for entrance at theinner doors. And this, we may safely say, may apply to wiser people thanpoor Ben. 

In the midst of the general despair and fright, something suddenlywhinnied. At the sound the three small boys fell in a limp, exhaustedheap on the floor, and, as the door no longer offered resistance, theunknown visitor pranced in: it was the filly, snorting and tossing hermane, and once more whinnying shrilly for her supper. 

In a moment Ben understood the whole phenomenon. Thad had left the barndoor unfastened, and, when that terrible flash of lightning came and thewind arose, the frightened animal had instantly fled to the house forsafety. She had doubtless pushed open the back door of the shed-roomeasily enough, but it had closed behind her, and she had remained therea supperless prisoner. 

The small boys picked themselves up from among the filly's hoofs, withdisconnected exclamations of "Wa-a-a-l, sir!" while Ben led the animalout, with a growing impression that he would try to "live along" for awhile, at all events. 

He had led Satan out of the moral shed-room, as well. The reappearanceof the filly without Thad had raised a great anxiety about his brother'scontinued absence. All at once he began to feel as if those brutalwishes of his were prophetic, --as if they were endowed with a malignantpower, and could actually pursue poor Thad to some violent end. He didnot understand now how he could have framed the words. 

When a fellow really likes his brother, --and most fellows do, --there isscant use or grace or common-sense in keeping up, from merecarelessness, or through an irritable habit, a continual bickering, forthese germs of evil are possessed of a marvelous faculty for growth, andsome day their gigantic deformities will confront you in deeds of whichyou once believed yourself incapable. 

Ben's hands were trembling as he folded a blanket, and laid it on theanimal's back to serve instead of a saddle. 

"I'm a-goin' ter the still-house ter see ef Thad ever got thar, " hesaid, when his mother appeared at the door. 

He added, "I'm a-gittin' sorter skeered ez su'thin' mought hev happenedter him. "

His grandfather hobbled out into the little porch. "Them roads airturrible rough fur that thar filly, ez ain't fairly broke good yit, norused ter travel, " he suggested. 

"I'd gin four hunderd fillies, ef I hed 'em, jes' ter know that thar boyair safe an' sound, " Ben declared, as he mounted. 

He took the short cut, judging that, at the point where it crossed theriver, the stream was still fordable. When he heard his brother'spiteous cries for help, he quaked to think what might have happened toThad if he had not recognized the presence of Satan in the moralshed-room, and summarily ejected him. The rainfall had been sufficientto aggregate considerable water in the gullies about the sink-hole, andthese, emptying into the cavity and sending a continuous stream over theboy, had served to chill him through and through, and he had a prettyfair chance of being drowned, or dying from cold and exhaustion. Benpressed on to the still-house at the best speed he could make, and suchof the moonshiners as were half sober came out with ropes and a barrel, which they lowered into the cavity. Thad managed to crawl into thebarrel, and, after several ineffectual attempts, he was drawn up throughthe sink-hole. 

There was no formal reconciliation between the two boys. It was enoughfor Ben to feel Thad's reluctance to unloose his eager clutch upon hisbrother's arms, even after he had been lifted out upon the firm ground. And Thad knew that that complicated sound in Ben's throat was a sob, although, for the sake of the men who stood by, he strove to seem to becoughing. 

"Right smart of an idjit, now, ain't ye?" demanded Ben, hustling back, so to speak, the tears that sought to rise in his eyes. 

"Waal, stranger, how's yer filly?" retorted Thad, laughing in a gaspyfashion. 

There was a tone of forgiveness in the inquiry. The answer caught thesame spirit. 

"Middlin', --thanky, --jes' middlin', " said Ben. 

And then they and "dad" fared home together by the light of themoonshiners' lantern. 

BORROWING A HAMMER

On a certain bold crag that juts far over a steep wooded mountain slopea red light was seen one moonless night in June. Sometimes it glowedintensely among the gray mists which hovered above the deep and sombrevalley; sometimes it faded. Its life was the breath of the bellows, fora blacksmith's shop stands close beside the road that rambles along thebrink of the mountain. Generally after sunset the forge is dark andsilent. So when three small boys, approaching the log hut through thegloomy woods, heard the clink! clank! clink! clank! of the hammers, andthe metallic echo among the cliffs, they stopped short in astonishment. 

"Thar now!" exclaimed Abner Ryder desperately; "dad's at it fur true!"

"Mebbe he'll go away arter a while, Ab, " suggested Jim Gryce, anotherof the small boys. "Then that'll gin us our chance. "

"Waal, I reckon we kin stiffen up our hearts ter wait, " said Abresignedly. 

All three sat down on a log a short distance from the shop, andpresently they became so engrossed in their talk that they did notnotice when the blacksmith, in the pauses of his work, came to the doorfor a breath of air. They failed to discreetly lower their voices, andthus they had a listener on whose attention they had not counted. 

"Ye see, " observed Ab in a high, shrill pipe, "dad sets a heap o' storeby his tools. But dad, ye know, air a mighty slack-twisted man. He gitshis tools lost" (reprehensively), "he wastes his nails, an' then he'lows ez how it war _me_ ez done it. "

He paused impressively in virtuous indignation. A murmur of surprise andsympathy rose from his companions. Then he recommenced. 

"Dad air the crankiest man on this hyar mounting! He won't lend me noneo' his tools nowadays, --not even that thar leetle hammer o' his'n. An'I'm obleeged ter hev that thar leetle hammer an' some nails ter fix abox fur them young squir'ls what we cotched. So we'll jes' hev ter goter his shop of a night when he is away, an'--an'--an' borry it!"

The blacksmith, a tall, powerfully built man, of an aspect far fromjocular, leaned slightly out of the door, peering in the direction wherethe three tow-headed urchins waited. Then he glanced within at a leatherstrap, as if he appreciated the appropriateness of an intimate relationbetween these objects. But there was no time for pleasure now. He wasback in his shop in a moment. 

His next respite was thus entertained:--

"What makes him work so of a night?" asked Jim Gryce. 

"Waal, " explained Ab in his usual high key, "he rid ter the settle_mint_this mornin'; he hev been a-foolin' round thar all day, an' the crap airjes' a-sufferin' fur work! So him an' Uncle Tobe air layin' thar ploughsin the shop now, kase they air goin' ter run around the cornter-morrer. Workin', though, goes powerful hard with dad enny time. Itole old Bob Peachin that, when I war ter the mill this evenin'. Him an'the t'other men thar laffed mightily at dad. An' I laffed too!"

There was an angry gleam in Stephen Ryder's stern black eyes as heturned within, seized the tongs, and thrust a piece of iron among thecoals, while Tobe, who had been asleep in the window at the back of theshop, rose reluctantly and plied the bellows. The heavy panting brokeforth simultaneously with the red flare that quivered out into the darknight. Presently it faded; the hot iron was whisked upon the anvil, fiery sparks showered about as the rapid blows fell, and the echoingcrags kept time with rhythmic beats to the clanking of the sledge andthe clinking of the hand-hammer. The stars, high above thefar-stretching mountains, seemed to throb in unison, until suddenly theblacksmith dealt a sharp blow on the face of the anvil as a signal tohis striker to cease, and the forge was silent. 

As he leaned against the jamb of the door, mechanically adjusting hisleather apron, he heard Ab's voice again. 

"Old Bob say he ain't no 'count sca'cely. He 'lowed ez he had knowed himmany a year, an' fund him a sneakin', deceivin' critter. "

The blacksmith was erect in a moment, every fibre tense. 

"That ain't the wust, " Ab gabbled on. "Old Bob say, though't ain't knownginerally, ez he air gin ter thievin'. Old Bob 'lowed ter them men, hangin' round the mill, ez he air the biggest thief on the mounting!"

The strong man trembled. His blood rushed tumultuously to his head, thenseemed to ebb swiftly away. That this should be said of him to theloafers at the mill! These constituted his little world. And he valuedhis character as only an honest man can. He was amazed at the boldnessof the lie. It had been openly spoken in the presence of his son. Onemight have thought the boy would come directly to him. But there he sat, glibly retailing it to his small comrades! It seemed all so strangethat Stephen Ryder fancied there was surely some mistake. In the nextmoment, however, he was convinced that they had been talking of him, andof no one else. 

"I tole old Bob ez how I thought they oughtn't ter be so hard on him, ezhe warn't thar to speak for hisself. "

All three boys giggled weakly, as if this were witty. 

"But old Bob 'lowed ez ennybody mought know him by his name. An' then hetold me that old sayin':--

 'Stephen, Stephen, so deceivin', That old Satan can't believe him!'"

Here Ben Gryce broke in, begging the others to go home, and come to"borry" the hammer next night. Ab agreed to the latter proposition, butstill sat on the log and talked. "Old Bob say, " he remarked cheerfully, "that when he do git 'em, he shakes 'em--shakes the life out'n 'em!"

This was inexplicable. Stephen Ryder pondered vainly on it for aninstant. But the oft-reiterated formula, "Old Bob say, " caught hisears, and he was absorbed anew in Ab's discourse. 

"Old Bob say ez my mother air one of the best women in this world. Butshe air so gin ter humoring every critter a-nigh her, an' tends ter 'emso much, an' feeds 'em so high an' hearty, ez they jes' gits good furnothin' in this world. That's how kem she air eat out'n house an' homenow. Old Bob say ez how he air the hongriest critter! Say he jes'despise ter see him comin' round of meal times. Old Bob say ef he hevgot enny good lef' in him, my mother will kill it out yit withkindness. "

The blacksmith felt, as he turned back into the shop and roused thesleepy-headed striker, that within the hour all the world had changedfor him. These coarse taunts were enough to show in what estimation hewas held. And he had fancied himself, in countrified phrase, "respectedby all, " and had been proud of his standing. 

So the bellows began to sigh and pant once more, and kept the red lightflaring athwart the darkness. The people down in the valley looked up atit, glowing like a star that had slipped out of the sky and lodgedsomehow on the mountain, and wondered what Stephen Ryder could be aboutso late at night. When he left the shop there was no sign of the boyswho had ornamented the log earlier in the evening. He walked up the roadto his house, and found his wife sitting alone in the rickety littleporch. 

"Hev that thar boy gone ter bed?" he asked. 

"Waal, " she slowly drawled, in a soft, placid voice, "he kem hyar'bout'n haffen hour ago so nigh crazed ter go ter stay all night withJim an' Benny Gryce ez I hed ter let him. Old man Gryce rid by hyar inhis wagon on his way home from the settle_mint_. So Ab went off with theGryce boys an' thar gran'dad. "

Thus the blacksmith concluded his tools were not liable to be "borrowed"that night. He had a scheme to insure their safety for the future, butin order to avoid his wife's remonstrances on Ab's behalf, he told hernothing of it, nor of what he had overheard. 

Early the next morning he set out for the mill, intending to confront"old Bob" and demand retraction. The road down the deep, wild ravine wasrugged, and he jogged along slowly until at last he came within sight ofthe crazy, weather-beaten old building tottering precariously on thebrink of the impetuous torrent which gashed the mountain side. Cragstowered above it; vines and mosses clung to its walls; it was a dank, cool, shady place, but noisy enough with the turmoil of its primitivemachinery and the loud, hoarse voices of the loungers striving to makethemselves heard above the uproar. There were several of these idlemountaineers aimlessly strolling among the bags of corn and wheat thatwere piled about. Long, dusty cobwebs hung from the rafters. Sometimes arat, powdered white with flour and rendered reckless by high living, raced boldly across the floor. The golden grain poured ceaselesslythrough the hopper, and leaning against it was the miller, a tall, stoop-shouldered man about forty years of age, with a floury smilelurking in his beard and a twinkle in his good-humored eyes overhung byheavy, mealy eyebrows. 

"Waal, Steve, " yelled the miller, shambling forward as the blacksmithappeared in the doorway. "Come 'long in. Whar's yer grist?"

"I hev got no grist!" thundered Steve, sternly. 

"Waal--ye're jes' ez welcome, " said the miller, not noticing the rigidlines of the blacksmith's face, accented here and there by cinders, northe fierceness of the intent dark eyes. 

"I reckon I'm powerful welcome!" sneered Stephen Ryder. 

The tone attracted "old Bob's" attention. "What ails ye, Steve?" heasked, surprised. 

"I'm a deceivin', sneakin' critter--hey, " shouted the visitor, shakinghis big fist; he had intended to be calm, but his long-repressed furyhad found vent at last. 

The miller drew back hastily, astonishment and fear mingled in a pallidpaste, as it were, with the flour on his face. 

The six startled on-lookers stood as if petrified. 

"Ye say I'm a thief!--a thief!--a thief!"

With the odious word Ryder made a frantic lunge at the miller, whododged his strong right arm at the moment when his foot struck against abag of corn lying on the floor and he stumbled. He recovered hisequilibrium instantly. But the six bystanders had seized him. 

"Hold him hard, folkses!" cried honest Bob Peachin. "Hold hard! I'lltell ye what ails him--though ye mustn't let on ter him--he air techedin the head!"

He winked at them with a confidential intention as he roared this out, forgetting in his excitement that mental infirmity does not impair thesense of hearing. This folly on his part was a salutary thing forStephen Ryder. It calmed him instantly. He felt that he had need forcaution. A fearful vista of possibilities opened before him. Heremembered having seen in his childhood a man reputed to be suddenlybereft of reason, but who he believed was entirely sane, bound hand andfoot, and every word, every groan, every effort to free himself, accounted the demonstration of a maniac. This fate was imminent for him. They were seven to one. He trembled as he felt their hands pressing uponthe swelling muscles of his arms. With an abrupt realization of hisgreat strength, he waited for a momentary relaxation of their clutch, then with a mighty wrench he burst loose from them, flung himself uponhis mare, and dashed off at full speed. 

He did no work that afternoon, although the corn was "suffering. " He satafter dinner smoking his pipe on the porch of his log cabin, while hemoodily watched the big shadow of the mountain creeping silently overthe wooded valley as the sun got on the down grade. Deep glooms began tolurk among the ravines of the great ridge opposite. The shimmering bluesummits in the distance were purpling. A redbird, alert, crested, andwith a brilliant eye, perched idly on the vines about the porch, havingrelinquished for the day the job of teaching a small, stubby imitationof himself to fly. The shocks of wheat in the bare field close by hadturned a rich red gold in the lengthening rays before Stephen Ryderrealized that night was close at hand. 

All at once he heard a discordant noise which he knew that Ab Rydercalled "singing, " and presently the boy appeared in the distance, hismouth stretched, his tattered hat stuck on the back of his tow-head, hisbare feet dusty, his homespun cotton trousers rolled up airily about hisknees, his single suspender supporting the structure. His father laugheda little at sight of him, rather sardonically it must be confessed, andsaying to his wife that he intended to go to the shop for a while, herose and strolled off down the road. 

When supper was over, however, Ab was immensely relieved to see thathis father had no idea of continuing his work. Consequently the usualroutine was to be expected. Generally, when summoned to the eveningmeal, the blacksmith hastily plunged his head in the barrel of waterused to temper steel, thrust off his leather apron, and went up to thehouse without more ado. He smoked afterward, and lounged about, enjoyingthe relaxation after his heavy work. He did not go down to lock the shopuntil bed-time, when he was shutting up the house, the barn, and thecorn-crib for the night. In the interval the shop stood deserted andopen, and this fact was the basis of Ab's opportunity. To-night thereseemed to be no deviation from this custom. He ascertained that hisfather was smoking his pipe on the porch. Then he went down the road andsat on the log near the shop to wait for the other boys who were toshare the risks and profits of borrowing the hammer. 

All was still--so still! He fancied that he could hear the tumult of thetorrent far away as it dashed over the rocks. A dog suddenly began tobark in the black, black valley--then ceased. He was vaguely over-awedwith the "big mountings" for company and the distant stars. He listenedeagerly for the first cracking of brush which told him that the otherboys were near at hand. Then all three crept along cautiously among thehuge boles of the trees, feeling very mysterious and important. Whenthey reached the rude window, Ab sat for a moment on the sill, peeringinto the intense blackness within. 

"It air dark thar, fur true, Ab, " said Jim Gryce, growing faint-hearted. "Let's go back. "

"Naw, sir! Naw, sir!" protested Ab resolutely. "I'm on the borry!"

"How kin we find that thar leetle hammer in sech a dark place?" urgedJim. 

"Waal, " explained Ab, in his high key, "dad air mightily welded ter hiscranky notions. An' he always leaves every tool in the same placeedzactly every night. Bound fur me!" he continued in shrill exultationas he slapped his lean leg, "I know whar that thar leetle hammer airsot ter roost!"

He jumped down from the window inside the shop, and cut a wiry caper. 

"I'm a man o' bone and muscle!" he bragged. "Kin do ennything. "

The other boys followed more quietly. But they had only groped a littledistance when Jim Gryce set up a sharp yelp of pain. 

"Shet yer mouth--ye pop-eyed catamount!" Ab admonished him. "Dad willhear an'--ah-h-h!" His own words ended in a shriek. "Oh, my!"vociferated the "man of bone and muscle, " who was certainly, too, a manof extraordinary lung-power. "Oh, my! The ground is hot--hot ez iron!They always tole me that Satan would ketch me--an' oh, my! now he hevdone it!"

He joined the "pop-eyed catamount" in a lively dance with their barefeet on the hot iron bars which were scattered about the ground in everydirection. These were heated artistically, so that they might not reallyscorch the flesh, but would touch the feelings, and perhaps theconscience. As the third boy's scream rent the air, and told that he, too, had encountered a torrid experience, Ab Ryder became suddenly awarethat there was some one besides themselves in the shop. He could seenothing; he was only vaguely conscious of an unexpected presence, and hefancied that it was in the corner by the barrel of water. 

All at once a gruff voice broke forth. "I'm on the borry!" it remarkedwith fierce facetiousness. "I want ter borry a boy--no! a man o' bonean' muscle--fur 'bout a minit and a quarter!" A strong arm seized Ab byhis collar. He felt himself swept through the air, soused head foremostinto the barrel of water, then thrust into a corner, where he wasthankful to find there was no more hot iron. 

"I want to borry another boy!" said the gruff voice. And the "pop-eyedcatamount" was duly ducked. 

"'Twould pleasure me some ter borry another!" the voice declared withgrim humor. But Ben was the youngest and smallest, and only led intomischief by the others. They never knew that the blacksmith relentedwhen his turn came, and that he got a mere sprinkle in comparison withtheir total immersion. 

Then Stephen Ryder set out for home, followed by a dripping procession. "I'll l'arn ye ter 'borry' my tools 'thout leave!" he vociferated as hewent along. 

When they had reached the house, he faced round sternly on Ab. "Whyn'tye kem an' tell me ez how the miller say I war a sneakin', deceivin'critter, an'--an'--an' a thief!"

His wife dropped the dish she was washing, and it broke unheeded uponthe hearth. Ab stretched his eyes and mouth in amazement. 

"Old Bob Peachin never tole me no sech word sence I been born!" hedeclared flatly. 

"Then what ailed ye ter go an' tell sech a lie ter Gryce's boys las'night jes' down thar outside o' the shop?" Stephen Ryder demanded. 

Ab stared at him, evidently bewildered. 

"Ye tole 'em, " continued the blacksmith, striving to refresh his memory, "ez Bob Peachin say ez how ye mought know I war deceivin' by my bein'named Stephen--an' that I war the hongriest critter--an'"--

"'Twar the t-a-a-a-rrier!" shouted Ab, "the little rat tarrier ez we wara-talkin' 'bout. He hev been named Steve these six year, old Bob say. Hegimme the dog yestiddy, 'kase I 'lowed ez the rats war eatin' us out'nhouse an' home, an' my mother hed fed up that old cat o' our'n till hewon't look at a mice. Old Bob warned me, though, ez Steve, _thetarrier_, air a mighty thief an' deceivin' ginerally. Old Bob say hereckons my mother will spile the dog with feedin' him, an' kill out whatlittle good he hev got lef' in him with kindness. But I tuk him, an'brung him home ennyhow. An' las' night arter we hed got through talkin''bout borryin' (he looked embarrassed) the leetle hammer, we tuk totalkin' 'bout the tarrier. An' yander he is now, asleep on thechil'ren's bed!"

A long pause ensued. 

"M'ria, " said the blacksmith meekly to his wife, "hev ye tuk notice howthe gyarden truck air a-thrivin'? 'Pears like ter me ez the peas aira-fullin' up consider'ble. "

And so the subject changed. 

He had it on his conscience, however, to explain the matter to themiller. For the second time old Bob Peachin, and the men at the mill, "laffed mightily at dad. " And when Ab had recovered sufficiently fromthe exhaustion attendant upon borrowing a hammer, he "laffed too. "

THE CONSCRIPTS' HOLLOW

CHAPTER I

"I'm a-goin' ter climb down ter that thar ledge, an' slip round ter thehollow whar them conscripts built thar fire in the old war times. "

Nicholas Gregory paused on the verge of the great cliff and cast asidelong glance at Barney Pratt, who was beating about among the redsumach bushes in the woods close at hand, and now and then stooping tosearch the heaps of pine needles and dead leaves where they had beenblown together on the ground. 

"Conscripts!" Barney ejaculated, with a chuckle. "That's precisely whatthem men war determinated _not_ ter be! They war a-hidin' in themountings ter git shet o' the conscription. "

"Waal, I don't keer ef _ye_ names 'em 'conscripts' or no, " Nicholasretorted loftily. "That's what other folks calls 'em. I'm goin' down terthe hollow, whar they built thar fire, ter see ef that old missin'tur-r-key-hen o' our'n hain't hid her nest off 'mongst them dead chunks, an' sech. "

"A tur-r-key ain't sech a powerful fool ez that, " said Barney, coming tothe edge of the precipice and looking over at the ledge, which ran alongthe face of the cliff twenty feet below. "How'd she make out ter fotchthe little tur-r-keys up hyar, when they war hatched? They'd fall off'nthe bluff. "

"A tur-r-key what hev stole her nest away from the folks air fool enoughfur ennything, " Nicholas declared. 

Perhaps he did not really expect to find the missing fowl in such anout-of-the-way place as this, but being an adventurous fellow, the sightof the crag was a temptation. He had often before clambered down to theledge, which led to a great niche in the solid rock, where one nightduring the war some men who were hiding from the conscription hadkindled their fire and cooked their scanty food. The charred remnants oflogs were still here, but no one ever thought about them now, except thetwo boys, who regarded them as a sort of curiosity. 

Sometimes they came and stared at them, and speculated about them, anddeclared to each other that _they_ would not consider it a hardship togo a-soldiering. 

Then Nick would tell Barney of a wonderful day when he had driven to thecounty town in his uncle's wagon. There was a parade of militia there, and how grand the drum had sounded! And as he told it he would shouldera smoke-blackened stick, and stride about in the Conscripts' Hollow, andfeel very brave. 

He had no idea in those days how close at hand was the time when his owncourage should be tried. 

"Kem on, Barney!" he urged. "Let's go down an' sarch fur the tur-r-key. "

But Barney had thrown himself down upon the crag with a long-drawn sighof fatigue. 

"Waal, " he replied, in a drowsy tone, "I dunno 'bout'n that. I'm sorterbanged out, 'kase I hev had a powerful hard day's work a-bilin' sorghumat our house. I b'lieves I'll rest my bones hyar, an' wait fur ye. "

As he spoke, he rolled up one of the coats which they had both thrownoff, during their search for the nest on the summit of the cliff, andslipped it under his head. He was far the brighter boy of the two, buthis sharp wits seemed to thrive at the expense of his body. He was smalland puny, and he was easily fatigued in comparison with big burly Nick, who rarely knew such a sensation, and prided himself upon his toughness. 

"Waal, Barney, surely ye air the porest little shoat on G'liathMounting!" he exclaimed scornfully, as he had often done before. But hemade no further attempt to persuade Barney, and began the descent alone. 

It was not so difficult a matter for a sure-footed mountaineer likeNick to make his way down to the ledge as one might imagine, for in acertain place the face of the cliff presented a series of jagged edgesand projections which afforded him foothold. As he went along, too, hekept a strong grasp upon overhanging vines and bushes that grew outfrom earth-filled crevices. 

He had gone down only a short distance when he paused thoughtfully. "This hyar wind air blowin' powerful brief, " he said. "I mought getchilled an' lose my footin'. "

He hardly liked to give up the expedition, but he was afraid to continueon his way in the teeth of the mountain wind, cold and strong in theOctober afternoon. If only he had his heavy jeans coat with him!

"Barney!" he called out, intending to ask his friend to throw it over tohim. 

There was no answer. 

"That thar Barney hev drapped off ter sleep a'ready!" he exclaimedindignantly. 

He chanced to glance upward as he was about to call again. There he sawa coat lying on the edge of the cliff, the dangling sleeve flutteringjust within his reach. When he dragged it down and discovered that itwas Barney's instead of his own, he was slightly vexed, but itcertainly did not seem a matter of great importance. 

"That boy hev got _my_ coat, an' this is his'n. But law! I'd ruthersqueeze myself small enough ter git inter his'n, than ter hev ter yelllike a catamount fur an hour an' better ter wake him up, an' make himgimme mine. "

He seated himself on a narrow projection of the crag, and began tocautiously put on his friend's coat. He had need to be careful, for aprecarious perch like this, with an unmeasured abyss beneath, the farblue sky above, the almost inaccessible face of a cliff on one side, andon the other a distant stretch of mountains, is not exactly the kind ofplace in which one would prefer to make a toilet. Besides the dangers ofhis position, he was anxious to do no damage to the coat, which althoughloose and baggy on Barney, was rather a close fit for Nick. 

"I ain't used ter climbin' with a coat on, nohow, an' I mus' be mightykeerful not ter bust Barney's, 'kase it air all the one he hev got, " hesaid to himself as he clambered nimbly down to the ledge. 

Then he walked deftly along the narrow shelf, and as he turned abruptlyinto the immense niche in the cliff called the Conscripts' Hollow, hestarted back in sudden bewilderment. His heart gave a bound, and then itseemed to stand still. 

He hardly recognized the familiar place. There, to be sure, were thewalls and the dome-like roof, but upon the dusty sandstone floor werescattered quantities of household articles, such as pots and pails andpans and kettles. There was a great array of brogans, too, and piles ofblankets, and bolts of coarse unbleached cotton and jeans cloth. 

"Waal, sir!" he exclaimed, as he gazed at them with wild, uncomprehending eyes. 

Then the truth flashed upon him. A story had reached Goliath Mountainsome weeks before, to the effect that a cross-roads store, some milesdown the valley, had been robbed. The thieves had escaped with thestolen goods, leaving no clue by which they might be identified andbrought to justice. 

Nick saw that he had made a discovery. Here it was that the robbers hadcontrived to conceal their plunder, doubtless intending to wait untilsuspicion lulled, when they could carry it to some distant place, whereit could safely be sold. 

Suddenly a thought struck him that sent a shiver through every fibre ofhis body. This store was robbed in a singular manner. No bolt wasbroken, --no door burst open. There was a window, however, that lackedone pane of glass. The aperture would not admit a man's body. It wasbelieved that the burglars had passed a boy through it, who had handedout the stolen goods. 

And now, Nick foolishly argued, if any one should discover that _he_knew where the plunder was hidden, they would believe that _he_ was thatboy who had robbed the store!

He began to resolve that he would say nothing about what he hadseen, --not even to Barney. He thought his safety lay in his silence. Still, he did not want his silence to be to the advantage of wicked men, so he tried to persuade himself that the burglars would soon be tracedand captured without the information which he knew it was his duty togive. "Ter be sartain, the officers will kem on this place arter awhile, " he said meditatively. 

Then he shook his head doubtfully. The crag was far from any house, andexcept the dwellers on Goliath Mountain, few people knew of this greatniche in it. "They war sly foxes what stowed away thar plunder hyar!" heexclaimed in despair. 

Often, when Nick had before stood in the Conscripts' Hollow, he hadimagined that he would make a good soldier. But his idea of a soldierwas a fine uniform, and the ra-ta-ta of martial music. He had noconception of that high sense of duty which nerves a man to face danger;even now he did not know that he was a coward as he faltered and fearedin the cause of right to encounter suspicion. 

Courage!--Nick thought that meant to crack away at a bear, if you werelucky enough to have the chance; or to kill a rattlesnake, if you had abig heavy stone close at hand; or to scramble about among crags andprecipices, if you felt certain of the steadiness of your head and thestrength of your muscles. But he did not realize that "courage" couldmean the nerve to speak one little word for duty's sake. 

He would not speak the word, --he had determined on that, --for might theynot think that _he_ was the boy who had robbed the store?

He was quivering with excitement when he turned and began to walk alongthe ledge toward those roughly hewn natural steps by which he haddescended. He knew that his agitation rendered his footing insecure. Hewas afraid of falling into the depths beneath, and he pressed closeagainst the cliff. 

On the narrow ledge, hardly two yards distant from the Conscripts'Hollow, a clump of blackberry bushes was growing from a crevice in therock. They had never before given him trouble; but now, as he brushedhastily past, they seemed to clutch at him with their thorny branches. 

As he tore away from them roughly, he did not observe that he had left afragment of his brown jeans clothing hanging upon the thorns, as awitness to his presence here close to the Conscripts' Hollow, where thestolen goods lay hidden. There was a coarse, dark-colored horn buttonattached to the bit of brown jeans, which was a three-cornered scrap ofhis coat. No! of _Barney's_ coat. And was it to be a witness againstpoor Barney, who had not gone near the Conscripts' Hollow, but was lyingasleep on the summit of the crag, supposing he had his own coat underhis own head?

He did not discover his mistake until some time afterward, for when Nickhad slowly and laboriously climbed up the steep face of the cliff, hestripped off his friend's torn coat before he roused him. Barney wasawakened by having his pillow dragged rudely from under his head, andwhen at last he reluctantly opened his eyes on the hazy yellowsunlight, and saw Nick standing near on the great gray crag, he had noidea that this moment was an important crisis in his life. 

The wind was coming up the gorge fresh and free; the autumnal foliage, swaying in it, was like the flaunting splendors of red and gold banners;the western ranges had changed from blue to purple, for the sun wassinking. 

"It's gittin' toler'ble late, Barney, " said Nick. "Let's go. " He had onhis own coat now, and he was impatient to be off. 

"Did ye find the tur-r-key's nest in the Conscripts' Hollow?" askedBarney, with a lazy yawn, and still flat on his back. 

"No, " said Nick curtly. 

Then it occurred to him that it would be safer if his friend shouldthink he had not been in the Hollow. "No, " he reiterated, after a pause, "I didn't go down ter the ledge arter all. "

He had begun to lie, --where would it end?

"Whyn't you-uns go?" demanded Barney, surprised. 

"The wind war blowin' so powerful brief, " Nick replied without a qualm. "So I jes' s'arched fur a while in the woods back thar a piece. "

In a moment more, Barney rose to his feet, picked up his coat, and putit on. He did not notice the torn place, for the garment was old andworn, and had many ragged edges. It lacked, however, but one button, andthat missing button was attached to the triangular bit of brown jeansthat fluttered on the thorny bush close to the Conscripts' Hollow. 

All unconscious of his loss, he went away in the rich autumnal sunset, leaving it there as a witness against him. 

CHAPTER II

After this, Nicholas Gregory was very steady at his work for a while. Hekept out of the woods as much as possible, and felt that he knew morealready than was good for him. Above all, he avoided that big sandstonecliff and the Conscripts' Hollow, where the goods lay hidden. 

He heard no more of the search that had been made for the burglars andtheir booty, and he congratulated himself on his caution in keepingsilent about what he had found. 

"Now, ef it hed been that thar wide-mouthed Barney, stid o' me, he'd hevblabbed fust thing, an' they'd all hev thunk ez he war the boy what themscoundrels put through the winder ter steal the folkses' truck. They'dhev jailed him, I reckon. "

He had begun to forget his own part in the wrong-doing, --that hissilence was helping to screen "them scoundrels" from the law. 

This state of mind continued for a week, perhaps. Then he fell tospeculating about the stolen goods. He wondered whether they were allthere yet, or whether the burglars had managed to carry them away. Hiscuriosity grew so great that several times he was almost at the point ofgoing to see for himself; but one morning, early, when an opportunityto do so was suddenly presented, his courage failed him. 

His mother had just come into the log cabin from the hen-house with awoe-begone face. 

"I do declar'!" she exclaimed solemnly, "that I'm surely theafflictedest 'oman on G'liath Mounting! An' them young fall tur-r-keysair so spindlin' an' delikit they'll be the death o' me yit!"

They were so spindling and delicate that they were the death ofthemselves. She had just buried three, and her heart and her larder werealike an aching void. 

"Three died ter-day, an' two las' Wednesday!" As she counted them on herfingers she honored each with a shake of the head, so mournful that itmight be accounted an obituary in dumb show. "I hev had no sort'n luckwith this tur-r-key's brood, an' the t'other hev stole her nest away, an' I hev got sech a mean no-'count set o' chillen they can't find her. Waal! waal! waal! this comin' winter the Lord'll be _obleeged_ terpervide. "

This was washing-day, and as she began to scrub away on the noisywashboard, a sudden thought struck her. "Ye told me two weeks ago an'better, Nick, that ye hed laid off ter sarch the Conscripts' Hollow; ye'lowed ye hed been everywhar else. Did ye go thar fur the tur-r-key?"

She faced him with her dripping arms akimbo. 

Nick's face turned red as he answered, "That thar tur-r-key ain't a-nighthar. "

"What ails ye, Nick? thar's su'thin' wrong. I kin tell it by yer looks. Ye never hed the grit ter sarch thar, I'll be bound; did ye, now?"

Nick could not bring himself to admit having been near the place. 

"No, " he faltered, "I never sarched thar. "

"Ye'll do it now, though!" his mother declared triumphantly. "I'm afeardter send Jacob on sech a yerrand down the bluffs, kase he air so littlehe mought fall; but he air big enough ter go 'long an' watch ye go downter the Hollow--else ye'll kem back an' say ye hev sarched thar, whenye ain't been a-nigh the bluff. "

There seemed for a moment no escape for Nick. His mother was lookingresolutely at him, and Jacob had gotten up briskly from his seat in thechimney-corner. He was a small tow-headed boy with big owlish eyes, andNick knew from experience that they were very likely to see anything hedid _not_ do. He must go; and then if at any time the stolen goodsshould be discovered, Jacob and his mother, and who could say how manybesides, would know that he had been to the Conscripts' Hollow, and musthave seen what was hidden there. 

In that case his silence on the subject would be very suspicious. Itwould seem as if he had some connection with the burglars, and for thatreason tried to conceal the plunder. 

He was saying to himself that he would not go--and he must! How could heavoid it? As he glanced uneasily around the room, his eyes chanced tofall on a little object lying on the edge of the shelf just above thewashtub. He made the most of the opportunity. As he slung his hat uponhis head with an impatient gesture, he managed to brush the shelf withit and knock the small object into the foaming suds below. 

His mother sank into a chair with uplifted hands and eyes. 

"The las' cake o' hop yeast!" she cried. "An' how air the bread ter beraised?"

To witness her despair, one would think only jack-screws could do it. 

"Surely I _am_ the afflictedest 'oman on G'liath Mounting! An'ter-morrer Brother Pete's wife an' his gals air a-comin', and I hed laidoff ter hev raised bread. "

For "raised bread" is a great rarity and luxury in these parts, thenimble "dodgers" being the staff of life. 

"I never went ter do it, " muttered Nick. 

"Waal, ye kin jes' kerry yer bones down the mounting ter SisterMirandy's house, an' ax her ter fotch me a cake o' her yeast when shekems up hyar ter-day ter holp me sizin' yarn. Arter that I don't keerwhat ye does with yerself. Ef ye stays hyar along o' we-uns, ye'll haulthe roof down nex', I reckon. 'Pears like ter me ez boys an' men-folksair powerful awk'ard, useless critters ter keep in a house; they oughterhev pens outside, I'm a-thinkin'. "

She had forgotten about the turkey, and Nick was glad enough to escapeon these terms. 

It was not until after he had finished his errand at Aunt Mirandy'shouse that he chanced to think again of the Conscripts' Hollow. As hewas slowly lounging back up the mountain, he paused occasionally on thesteep slope and looked up at the crags high on the summit, which hecould see, now and then, diagonally across a deep cove. 

When he came in sight of the one which he had such good reason toremember, he stopped and stood gazing fixedly at it for a long time, wondering again whether the robbers had yet carried off their plunderfrom its hiding-place. 

He was not too distant to distinguish the Conscripts' Hollow, but fromhis standpoint, he could not at first determine where was the ledge. Hethought he recognized it presently in a black line that seemed drawnacross the massive cliff. 

But what was that upon it? A moving figure! He gazed at it spell-boundfor a moment, as it slowly made its way along toward the Hollow. Then hewanted to see no more; he wanted to know no more. He turned and fled atfull speed along the narrow cow-path among the bushes. 

Suddenly there was a rustle among them. Something had sprung out intothe path with a light bound, and as he ran, he heard a swift step behindhim. It seemed a pursuing step, for, as he quickened his pace, it camefaster too. It was a longer stride than his; it was gaining upon him. Ahand with a grip like a vise fell upon his shoulder, and as he waswhirled around and brought face to face with his pursuer, he glanced upand recognized the constable of the district. 

This was a tall, muscular man, dressed in brown jeans, and with a bushyred beard. He knew Nick well, for he, too, was a mountaineer. 

"Ye war a-dustin' along toler'ble fast, Nicholas Gregory, " he exclaimed;"but nothin' on G'liath Mounting kin beat me a-runnin' 'thout it air adeer. Ye'll kem along with me now, and stir yer stumps powerful lively, too, kase I hain't got no time ter lose. "

"What am I tuk up fur?" gasped Nick. 

"S'picious conduc', " replied the man curtly. 

Nick knew no more now than he did before. The officer's next words madematters plainer. "Things look mightily like ye war set hyar ter watchthat thar ledge. Ez soon ez ye seen our men a-goin' ter the Conscripts'Hollow ter sarch fur that thar stole truck, ye war a-goin' ter scuttleoff an' gin the alarm ter them rascally no-'count burglars. I saw ye andyer looks, and I suspicioned some sech game. Ye don't cheat the law in_this_ deestrick--not often! Ye air the very boy, I reckon, whatholped ter rob Blenkins's store. Whar's the other burglars? Ye'd bettertell!"

"I dunno!" cried Nick tremulously. "I never had nothin' ter do with'em. "

"Ye hev told on yerself, " the man retorted. "Why did ye stand a-gapin'at the Conscripts' Hollow, ef ye didn't know thar was suthin specialthar?"

Nick, in his confusion, could invent no reply, and he was afraid to tellthe truth. He looked mutely at the officer, who held his arm and lookeddown sternly at him. 

"Ye air a bad egg, --that's plain. I'll take ye along whether I ketchesthe other burglars or no. "

They toiled up the steep ascent in silence, and before very long were onthe summit of the mountain, and within view of the crag. 

There on the great gray cliff, in the midst of the lonely woods, wereseveral men whom Nick had never before seen. Their busy figures weredarkly defined against the hazy azure of the distant ranges, and as theymoved about, their shadows on the ground seemed very busy too, andblotted continually the golden sunshine that everywhere penetrated thethinning masses of red and bronze autumn foliage. 

A wagon, close at hand, was already half full of the stolen goods, and anumber of men were going cautiously up and down the face of the cliff, bringing articles, or passing them from one to another. 

"Well, this _is_ a tedious job!" exclaimed the sheriff, John Stebbins byname. He was a quick-witted, good-natured man, but being active intemperament, he was exceedingly impatient of delay. "How long did ittake 'em to get all those heavy things down into the Conscripts'Hollow, --hey, bub?" he added, appealing to Nick, who had been brought tohis notice by the constable. It was terrible to Nick that they shouldall speak to him as if he were one of the criminals. He broke out withwild protestations of his innocence, denying, too, that he had had anyknowledge of what was hidden in the Conscripts' Hollow. 

"Then what made ye run, yander on the slope, when ye seen thar warsomebody on the ledge?" demanded the constable. 

Nick had a sudden inspiration. "Waal, " he faltered, with an explanatorysob, which was at once ludicrous and pathetic, "I war too fur off termake out fur sure what 'twar on the ledge. 'Twar black-lookin', an' I'lowed 'twar a b'ar. "

All the men laughed at this. 

"I sot out ter run ter Aunt Mirandy's house ter borry Job's gun ter kemup hyar, an' mebbe git a crack at him, " continued Nick. 

"That doesn't seem unnatural, " said the sheriff. Then he turned to theconstable. "This ain't enough to justify us in holding on to the boy, Jim, unless we can fix that scrap with the button on him. Where is it?"

"D'ye know whose coat this kem off'n?" asked the constable, producing abit of brown jeans, with a dark-colored horn button attached to it. "How'd it happen ter be stickin' ter them blackberry-bushes on theledge?"

Nick recognized it in an instant. It was Barney Pratt's button, and abit of Barney Pratt's coat. But he knew well enough that he himself musthave torn it when he wore it down to the Conscripts' Hollow. 

He realized that he should have at once told the whole truth of what heknew about the stolen goods. He was well aware that he ought not tosuffer the suspicion which had unjustly fallen upon him to be unjustlytransferred to Barney, who he knew was innocent. 

But he was terribly frightened, and foolishly cautious, and he did notcare for justice, nor truth, nor friendship, now. His only anxiety wasto save himself. 

"That thar piece o' brown jeans an' that button kem off'n Barney Pratt'scoat. I'd know 'em anywhar, " he answered, more firmly than before. Henoted the fact that the searching eyes of both officers were fixed uponhis own coat, which was good and whole, and lacked no buttons. He hadnot even a twinge of conscience just now. In his meanness and cowardicehis heart exulted, as he saw that suspicion was gradually lifting itsdark shadow from him. He cared not where it might fall next. 

"We'll have to let you slide, I reckon, " said the sheriff. "But whatsize is this Barney Pratt?"

"He air a lean, stringy little chap, " said Nick. 

"Is that so?" said the sheriff. "Well, this is a bit of his coat and hisbutton; and they were found on the ledge, close to the Conscripts'Hollow where the plunder was hid; and he's a small fellow, that maybecould slip through a window-pane. That makes a pretty strong showingagainst him. We'll go for Barney Pratt!"

CHAPTER III

Barney Pratt expected this day to be a holiday. Very early in themorning his father and mother had jolted off in the wagon to attend thewedding of a cousin, who lived ten miles distant on a neighboringmountain, and they had left him no harder task than to keep thechildren far enough from the fire, and his paralytic grandmother closeenough to it. 

This old woman was of benevolent intentions, although she had a stickwith which she usually made her wants known by pointing, and in herconvulsive clutch the stick often whirled around and around like thesails of a windmill, so that if Barney chanced to come within the circleit described, he got as hard knocks from her feeble arm as he could havehad in a tussle with big Nick Gregory. 

He was used to dodging it, and so were the smaller children. Without anyfear of it they were all sitting on the hearth at the old woman'sfeet, --Ben and Melissa popping corn in the ashes, and Tom and Andywatching Barney's deft fingers as he made a cornstalk fiddle for them. 

Suddenly Barney glanced up and saw his grandmother's stick whirling overhis head. Her eyes were fastened eagerly upon the window, and her lipstrembled as she strove to speak. 

"What d'ye want, granny?" he asked. 

Then at last it came out, quick and sharp, and in a convulsivegasp, --"Who air all that gang o'folks a-comin' yander down the road?"

Barney jumped up, threw down the fiddle, and ran to the door with thechildren at his heels. There was a quiver of curiosity among them, forit was a strange thing that a "gang o'folks" should be coming down thislonely mountain road. 

They went outside of the log cabin and stood among the red sumach bushesthat clustered about the door, while the old woman tottered after themto the threshold, and peered at the crowd from under her shaking hand asshe shaded her eyes from the sunlight. 

Presently a wagon came up with eight or ten men walking behind it, orriding in it in the midst of a quantity of miscellaneous articles ofwhich Barney took no particular notice. As he went forward, smiling ina frank, fearless way, he recognized a familiar face among the crowd. Itwas Nick Gregory's, and Barney's smile broadened into a grin of pleasureand welcome. 

Then it was that Nick's conscience began to wake up, and to lay holdupon him. 

As the sheriff looked at Barney he hesitated. He balanced himselfheavily on the wheel, instead of leaping quickly down as he might havedone easily enough, for he was a spare man and light on his feet. Nickoverheard him speak in a low voice to the constable, who stood justbelow. 

"_That_ ain't the fellow, is it, Jim?"

"That's him, percisely, " responded Jim Dow. 

"He don't _look_ like it, " said Stebbins, jumping down at last, butstill speaking under his breath. 

"Waal, thar ain't no countin' on boys by the _outside_ on 'em, " returnedthe constable emphatically; he had an unruly son of his own. 

The sheriff walked up to Barney. 

"You're Barney Pratt, are you? Well, youngster, you'll come along withus. "

There was silence for a moment. Barney stared at him in amaze. Not untilhe had caught sight of the constable, whom he knew in his officialcharacter, did he understand the full meaning of what had been said. Hewas under arrest!

As he realized it, everything began to whirl before him. The yellowsunshine, the gorgeously tinted woods, the blue sky, and the silverymists hovering about the distant mountains, were all confusedly mingledin his failing vision. 

He looked as if he were about to faint. But in a few minutes he hadpartially recovered himself. 

"I dunno what this air done ter me fur, " he said tremulously, glancingup at the officer whose hand was on his shoulder. 

"Hain't ye been doin' nothin' mean lately?" demanded Jim Dow sternly. 

Barney shook his head. 

"Let's see ef this won't remind ye, " said the constable, producing thebit of jeans and the button. 

As Nick watched Barney turning the piece of cloth in his hand andexamining the button, he felt a terrible pang of remorse. But he wasnone the less resolved to keep the freedom from danger which he hadsecured at the expense of his friend. To explain would be merely toexchange places with Barney, and he was silent. 

"This hyar looks like a scrap o' my coat, " said Barney, utterly unawareof the significance of his words. As he fitted it into the jagged edgesof the garment, the officers watched the proceeding closely. "'Pearslike ter me ez it war jerked right out thar--yes--kase hyar air themissin' button, too. "

His air of unconsciousness puzzled the sheriff. "Do you know where youlost this scrap?" he asked. 

"Somewhars 'mongst the briers in the woods, I reckon, " replied Barney. 

"No; you tore it on a blackberry bush on the ledge of a bluff; it wasclose to the Conscripts' Hollow, where some burglars have hidden stolenplunder. I found the scrap and the button there myself. "

Barney felt as if he were dreaming. How should his coat be torn on thatledge, where he had not been since the cloth was woven!

The next words almost stunned him. 

"Ye see, sonny, " said the constable, "we believes ye're the boy whatholped to rob Blenkins's store by gittin' through a winder-pane an'handin' out the stole truck ter the t'other burglars. Ye hev holpedabout that thar plunder somehows, --else this hyar thing air a liar!" andhe shook the bit of cloth significantly. 

"We'd better set out, Jim, " said Stebbins, turning toward the wagon. "We'll pass Blenkins's on the way, and we'll stop and see if this chapcan slip through the window-pane. If he can't, it's a point in hisfavor, and if he can, it's a point against him. As we go, we can try toget him to tell who the other burglars are. "

"Kem on, bubby; we can't stand hyar no longer, a-wastin' the time an'a-burnin' of daylight, " said the constable. 

Barney seemed to have lost control of his rigid limbs, and he washalf-dragged, half-lifted into the wagon by the two officers. The crowdbegan to fall back and disperse, and he could see the group of"home-folks" at the door. But he gave only one glance at the little logcabin, and then turned his head away. It was a poor home, but if it hadbeen a palace, the pang he felt as he was torn from it could not havebeen sharper. 

In that instant he saw granny as she stood in the doorway, her headshaking nervously and her stick whirling in her uncertain grasp. He knewthat she was struggling to say something for his comfort, and he had aterrible moment of fear lest the wagon should begin to move and herfeeble voice be lost in the clatter of the wheels. But presently hershrill tones rang out, "No harm kin kem, sonny, ter them ez hev done noharm. All that happens works tergether fur good, an' the will o' God. "

Little breath as she had left, it had done good service to-day, --it hadbrought a drop of balm to the poor boy's heart. He did not look at heragain, but he knew that she was still standing in the doorway among theclustering red leaves, whirling her stick, and shaking with the palsy, but determined to see the last of him. 

And now the wagon was rolling off, and a piteous wail went up from thechildren, who understood nothing except that Barney was being carriedaway against his will. Little four-year-old Melissa--she always seemed abeauty to Barney, with her yellow hair, and her blue-checked cottondress, and her dimpled white bare feet--ran after the wagon until thetears blinded her, and she fell in the road, and lay there in the dust, sobbing. 

Then Barney found his voice. His father and mother would not returnuntil to-morrow, and the thought of what might happen at home, withnobody there but the helpless old grandmother and the little children, made him forget his own troubles for the time. 

"Take good keer o' the t'other chillen, Andy!" he shouted out to thenext oldest boy, thus making him a deputy-guardian of the family, "an'pick Melissy up out'n the dust, an' be sure ye keeps granny's cheerclose enough ter the fire!"

Then he turned back again. He could still hear Melissa sobbing. Hewondered why the two men in the wagon looked persistently in theopposite direction, and why they were both so silent. 

The children stood in the road, watching the wagon as long as they couldsee it, but Nick had slunk away into the woods. He could not bear thesight of their grief. He walked on, hardly knowing where he went. Hefelt as if he were trying to get rid of himself. He appreciated fullynow the consequences of what he had done. Barney, innocent Barney, wouldbe thrust into jail. 

He began to see that the most terrible phase of moral cowardice is itscapacity to injure others, and he could not endure the thought of whathe had brought upon his friend. Soon he was saying to himself thatsomething was sure to happen to prevent them from putting Barney inprison, --he shouldn't be surprised if it were to happen before the wagoncould reach the foot of the mountain. 

In his despair, he had flung himself at length upon the rugged, stonyground at the base of a great crag. When this comforting thought ofBarney's release came upon him, he took his hands from his face, andlooked about him. From certain ledges of the cliff above, the road whichled down the valley was visible at intervals for some distance. There hecould watch the progress of the wagon, and see for a time longer whatwas happening to Barney. 

There was a broad gulf between the wall of the mountain and the crag, which, from its detached position and its shape, was known far and wideas the "Old Man's Chimney. "

It loomed up like a great stone column, a hundred feet above the woodedslope where Nick stood, and its height could only be ascended bydexterous climbing. 

He went at it like a cat. Sometimes he helped himself up by sharpprojections of the rock, sometimes by slipping his feet and hands intocrevices, and sometimes he caught hold of a strong bush here and there, and gave himself a lift. When he was about forty feet from the base, hesat down on one of the ledges, and turning, looked anxiously along thered clay road which he could see winding among the trees down themountain's side. 

No wagon was there. 

His eyes followed the road further and further toward the foot of therange, and then along the valley beyond. There, at least two milesdistant, was a small moving black object, plainly defined upon the redclay of the road. 

Barney was gone! There was no mistake about it. They had taken him awayfrom Goliath Mountain! He was innocent, and Nick knew it, and Nick hadmade him seem guilty. There was no one near him now to speak a good wordfor him, not even his palsied old grandmother. 

It all came back upon Nick with a rush. His eyes were blurred withrising tears. Unconsciously, in his grief, he made a movement forward, and suddenly clutched convulsively at the ledge. 

He had lost his balance. There was a swift, fantastic whirl of vagueobjects before him, then a great light seemed flashing through his verybrain, and he knew that he was falling. 

He knew nothing else for some time. He wondered where he was when hefirst opened his eyes and saw the great stone shaft towering high above, and the tops of the sun-gilded maples waving about him. 

Then he remembered and understood. He had fallen from that narrow ledge, hardly ten feet above his head, and had been caught in his descent bythe far broader one upon which he lay. 

"It knocked the senses out'n me fur a while, I reckon, " he said tohimself. "But I hev toler'ble luck now, sure ez shootin', kase I moughthev drapped over this ledge, an' then I'd hev been gone fur sartainsure!"

His exultation was short-lived. What was this limp thing hanging to hisshoulder? and what was this thrill of pain darting through it?

He looked at it in amazement. It was his strong rightarm--broken--helpless. 

And here he was, perched thirty feet above the earth, weakened by hislong faint, sore and bruised and unnerved by his fall, and with only hisleft arm to aid him in making that perilous descent. 

It was impossible. He glanced down at the sheer walls of the columnbelow, shook his head, and lay back on the ledge. Reckless as he was, herealized that the attempt would be fatal. 

Then came a thought that filled him with dismay, --how long was this tolast?--who would rescue him?

He knew that a prolonged absence from home would create no surprise. Hismother would only fancy that he had slipped off, as he had often done, to go on a camp-hunt with some other boys. She would not grow uneasy fora week, at least. 

He was deep in the heart of the forest, distant from any dwelling. Noone, as far as he knew, came to this spot, except himself and Barney, and their errand here was for the sake of the exhilaration and thehazard of climbing the crag. It was so lonely that on the Old Man'sChimney the eagles built instead of the swallows. His hope--his onlyhope--was that some hunter might chance to pass before he should die ofhunger. 

The shadow of the great obelisk shifted as the day wore on, and left himin the broad, hot glare of the sun. His broken arm was fevered and gavehim great pain. Now and then he raised himself on the other, and lookeddown wistfully at the cool, dusky depths of the woods. He heardcontinually the impetuous rushing of a mountain torrent near at hand;sometimes, when the wind stirred the foliage, he caught a glimpse of thewater, rioting from rock to rock, and he was oppressed by an intolerablethirst. 

Thus the hours lagged wearily on. 

CHAPTER IV

When the wagon was rolling along the road in the valley, Barney at firstkept his eyes persistently fastened upon the craggy heights and the redand gold autumnal woods of Goliath Mountain, as the mighty rangestretched across the plain. 

But presently the two men began to talk to him, and he turned around inorder to face them. They were urging him to confess his own guilt andtell who were the other burglars, and where they were. But Barney hadnothing to tell. He could only protest again and again his innocence. The men, however, shook their heads incredulously, and after a whilethey left him to himself and smoked their pipes in silence. 

When Barney looked back at the mountains once more, a startling changeseemed to have been wrought in the landscape. Instead of the frowningsandstone cliffs he loved so well, and the gloomy recesses of the woods, there was only a succession of lines of a delicate blue color drawnalong the horizon. This was the way the distant ranges looked from thecrags of his own home; he knew that they were the mountains, but whichwas Goliath?

Suddenly he struck his hands together, and broke out with a bitter cry. 

"I hev los' G'liath!" he exclaimed. "I dunno whar I live! An' whar _is_Melissy?"

A difficult undertaking, certainly, to determine where among all thosegreat spurs and outliers, stretching so far on either hand, was thatlittle atom of dimpled pink-and-white humanity known as "Melissy. "

The constable, being a native of these hills himself, knew something byexperience of the homesickness of an exiled mountaineer, --far moreterrible than the homesickness of low-landers; he took his pipepromptly from between his lips, and told the boy that the second blueridge, counting down from the sky, was "G'liath Mounting, " and that"Melissy war right thar somewhar. "

Barney looked back at it with unrecognizing eyes, --this gentle, misty, blue vagueness was not the solemn, sombre mountain that he knew. Hegazed at it only for a moment longer; then his heart swelled and heburst into tears. 

On and on they went through the flat country. The boy felt that he couldscarcely breathe. Even tourists, coming down from these mountains to thevalley below, struggle with a sense of suffocation and oppression; howmust it have been then with this half-wild creature, born and bred onthose breezy heights!

The stout mules did their duty well, and it was not long before theywere in sight of the cross-roads store that had been robbed. It was apart of a small frame dwelling-house, set in the midst of the yellowsunlight that brooded over the plain. All the world around it seemed tothe young backwoodsman to be a big cornfield; but there was a gardenclose at hand, and tall sunflowers looked over the fence and seemed tonod knowingly at Barney, as much as to say they had always suspectedhim of being one of the burglars, and were gratified that he had beencaught at last. 

Poor fellow! he saw so much suspicion expressed in the faces of a crowdof men congregating about the store, that it was no wonder he fancied hedetected it too in inanimate objects. 

Of all the group only one seemed to doubt his guilt. He overheardBlenkins, the merchant, say to Jim Dow, --

"It's mighty hard to b'lieve this story on this 'ere boy; he's a manlylooking, straight-for'ard little chap, an' he's got honest eyes in hishead, too. "

"He'd a deal better hev an honest heart in his body, " drawled Jim Dow, who was convinced that Barney had aided in the burglary. 

When they had gone around to the window with the broken pane, Barneylooked up at it in great anxiety. If only it should prove too small forhim to slip through! Certainly it seemed very small. 

He had pulled off his coat and stood ready to jump. 

"Up with you!" said Stebbins. 

The boy laid both hands on the sill, gave a light spring, and wentthrough the pane like an eel. 

"That settles it!" he heard Stebbins saying outside. And all the idlerswere laughing because it was done so nimbly. 

"That boy's right smart of a fool, " said one of the lookers-on. "Now, ifthat had been me, I'd hev made out to git stuck somehows in that winder;I'd have scotched my wheel somewhere. "

"Ef ye hed, I'd have dragged ye through ennyhow, " declared Jim Dow, whohad no toleration of a joke on a serious subject. "This hyar boy air adeal too peart ter try enny sech fool tricks on _Me_!"

Barney hardly knew how he got back into the wagon; he only knew thatthey were presently jolting along once more in the midst of the yellowglare of sunlight. It had begun to seem that there was no chance forhim. Like Nick, he too had madly believed, in spite of everything, thatsomething would happen to help him. He could not think that, innocent ashe was, he would be imprisoned. Now, however, this fate evidently wasvery close upon him. 

Suddenly Jim Dow spoke. "I s'pose ye war powerful disapp'inted kase yecouldn't git yerself hitched in that thar winder; ye air too well usedto it, --ye hev been through it afore. "

"I hev never been through it afore!" cried Barney indignantly. 

"Well, well, " said Stebbins pacifically, "it wouldn't have done you anygood if you hadn't gone through the pane just now. I'd have only thoughtyou were one of those who stood on the outside. You see, the _main_point against you is that scrap of your coat and your button found rightthere by the Conscripts' Hollow, --though, of course, your going throughthe window-pane so easy makes it more complete. "

Barney's tired brain began to fumble at this problem, --how did ithappen?

He had not been on the ledge nor at the Conscripts' Hollow for sixmonths at least. Yet there was that bit of his coat and his button foundon the bush close at hand only to-day. 

Was it possible that he could have exchanged coats by mistake with Nickthe last afternoon that they were on the crag together?

"Did Nick wear _my_ coat down on the ledge, I wonder, an' git it tored?Did Nick see the plunder in the Conscripts' Hollow, an' git skeered, an'then sot out ter lyin' ter git shet o' the blame?"

As he asked himself these questions, he began to remember, vaguely, having seen, just as he was falling asleep, his friend's head slowlydisappearing beneath the verge of the crag. 

"Nick started down ter the ledge, anyhow, " he argued. 

Did he dream it, or was it true, that when Nick came back he seemed atfirst strangely agitated?

All at once Barney exclaimed aloud, --

"This hyar air a powerful cur'ous thing 'bout'n that thar piece what wartored out'n my coat!"

"What's curious about it?" asked Stebbins quickly. 

Jim Dow took his pipe from his mouth, and looked sharply at the boy. 

Barney struggled for a moment with a strong temptation. Then a noblerimpulse asserted itself. He would not even attempt to shield himselfbehind the friend who had done him so grievous an injury. 

He _knew_ nothing positively; he must not put his suspicions and hisvague, half-sleeping impressions into words, and thus possibly criminateNick. 

He himself felt certain now how the matter really stood, --that Nick hadno connection whatever with the robbery, but having accidentallystumbled upon the stolen goods, he had become panic-stricken, had liedabout it, and finally had saved himself at the expense of an innocentfriend. 

Still, Barney had no _proof_ of this, and he felt he would rather sufferunjustly himself than unjustly throw blame on another. 

"Nothin', nothin', " he said absently. "I war jes' a-studyin' 'bout'n itall. "

"Well, I wouldn't think about it any more just now, " said good-naturedStebbins. "You look like you had been dragged through a keyhole insteadof a window-pane. This town we're coming to is the biggest town you eversaw. "

Barney could not respond to this attempt to divert his attention. Hecould only brood upon the fact that he was innocent, and would bepunished as if he were guilty, and that it was Nick Gregory, his chosenfriend, who had brought him to this pass. 

He would not be unmanly, and injure Nick with a possibly unfoundedsuspicion, but his heart burned with indignation and contempt when hethought of him. He felt that he would go through fire and water to bejustly revenged upon him. 

He determined that, if ever he should see Nick again, even though yearsmight intervene, he would tax him with the injury he had wrought, andmake him answer for it. 

Barney clenched his fists as he looked back at the ethereal blue shadowsthat they said were the solid old hills. 

Perhaps, however, if he had known where, in the misty uncertainty thatenveloped Goliath Mountain, Nick Gregory was at this moment, --far awayin the lonely woods, helpless with his broken arm, perched high up onthe "Old Man's Chimney, "--Barney might have thought himself the morefortunately placed of the two. 

Before he was well aware of it, the wagon was jolting into the town. Hetook no notice of how much larger the little village was than any he hadever seen before. His attention was riveted by the faces of the peoplewho ran to the doors and windows, upon recognizing the officers, tostare at him as one of the burglars. 

When the wagon reached the public square, a number of men came up andstopped it. 

Barney was surprised that they took so little notice of him. They weretalking loudly and excitedly to the officers, who grew at once loud andexcited, too. 

The boy roused himself, and began to listen to the conversation. Theburglars had been captured!--yes, that was what they were saying. Thedeputy-sheriff had nabbed the whole gang in a western district of thecounty this morning early, and they were lodged at this moment in jail. Barney's heart sank. Would he be put among the guilty creatures? Heflinched from the very idea. 

Suddenly, here was the deputy-sheriff himself, a young man, dusty andtired with his long, hard ride, but with an air of great satisfaction inhis success. He talked with many quick gestures that were veryexpressive. Sometimes he would leave a sentence unfinished except by abrisk nod, but all the crowd caught its meaning instantly. Thispeculiarity gave him a very animated manner, and he seemed to Barney toenjoy being in a position of authority. 

He pressed his foaming horse close to the wagon, and leaning over, looked searchingly into Barney's face. 

The poor boy looked up deprecatingly from under his limp and droopinghat-brim. 

All the crowd stood in silence, watching them. After a moment of thiskeen scrutiny, the deputy turned to the constable with an interrogativewave of the hand. 

"This hyar's the boy what war put through the winder-pane ter thievefrom Blenkins, " said Jim Dow. "Thar's consider'ble fac's agin him. "

"You mean well, Jim, " said the deputy, with a short, scornful laugh. "But your performance ain't always equal to your intentions. "

He lifted his eyebrows and nodded in a significant way that the crowdunderstood, for there was a stir of excitement in its midst; but poorBarney failed to catch his meaning. He hung upon every tone and gesturewith the intensest interest. All the talk was about him, and he couldcomprehend no more than if the man spoke in a foreign language. 

Still, he gathered something of the drift of the speech from theconstable's reply. 

"That thar boy's looks hev bamboozled more'n one man ter-day, jes' atfust, " Jim Dow drawled. "_Looks_ ain't nothin'. "

"I'd believe 'most anything a boy with a face on him like that wouldtell me, " said the deputy. "And besides, you see, one of those scamps, "with a quick nod toward the jail, "has turned State's evidence. "

Barney's heart was in a great tumult. It seemed bursting. There was ahot rush of blood to his head. He was dizzy--and he could notunderstand!

State's evidence, --what was that? and what would that do to him?

CHAPTER V

Barney observed that these words produced a marked sensation. The crowdbegan to press more closely around the deputy-sheriff's foaming horse. 

"Who hev done turned State's evidence?" asked Jim Dow. 

"Little Jeff Carew, --you've seen that puny little man a-many atime--haven't you, Jim? He'd go into your pocket. "

"He would, I know, powerful quick, ef he thunk I hed ennything in it, "said Jim, with a gruff laugh. 

"I didn't mean that, though it's true enough. I only went ter say thathe's small enough to go into any ordinary-sized fellow's pocket. Some ofthe rest of them wanted to turn State's evidence, but they weren'tallowed. They were harder customers even than Jeff Carew, --regular oldjail-birds. "

Barney began to vaguely understand that when a prisoner confesses thecrime he has committed, and gives testimony which will convict hispartners in it, this is called turning "State's evidence. "

But how was it to concern Barney?

An old white-haired man had pushed up to the wagon; he polished hisspectacles on his coat-tail, then put them on his nose, and focused themon Barney. Those green spectacles seemed to the boy to have a solemnlyaccusing expression on their broad and sombre lenses. He shrank as theold man spoke, --

"And is this the boy who was slipped through the window to steal fromBlenkins?"

"No, " said the deputy, "this ain't the boy. "

Barney could hardly believe his senses. 

"Fact is, " continued the deputy, with a brisk wave of his hand, "therewasn't any boy with 'em, --so little Jeff Carew says. _He_ jumped throughthe window-pane _himself_. We wouldn't believe that until we measuredone there at the jail of the same size as Blenkins's window-glass, andhe went through it without a wriggle. "

Barney sprang to his feet. 

"Oh, tell it ter me, folkses!" he cried wildly; "tell it ter me, somebody! Will they keep me hyar all the same? An' when will I seeG'liath Mounting agin, an' be whar Melissy air?"

He had burst into tears, and there was a murmur of sympathy in thecrowd. 

"Oh, that lets you out, I reckon, youngster, " said Stebbins. "I'm gladenough of it for one. "

The old man turned his solemnly accusing green spectacles on Stebbins, and it seemed to Barney that he spoke with no less solemnly accusing avoice. 

"He ought never to have been let in. "

Stebbins replied, rather eagerly, Barney thought, "Why, there was enoughagainst that boy to have clapped him in jail, and maybe convicted him, if this man hadn't turned State's evidence. "

"We hed the fac's agin him, --dead agin him, " chimed in Jim Dow. 

"That just shows how much danger an innocent boy was in; it seems to methat somebody ought to have been more careful, " the old man protested. 

"That's so!" came in half a dozen voices from the crowd. 

Barney was surprised to see how many friends he had now, when a momentbefore he had had none. But he ought to have realized that there is agreat difference between _being_ a young martyr, and _seeming_ a youngthief. 

"I want to see the little fellow out of this, " said the old man with theterrible spectacles. 

He saw him out of it in a short while. 

There was an examination before a magistrate, in which Barney wasdischarged on the testimony of Jeff Carew, who was produced and sworethat he had never before seen the boy, that he was not among the gang ofburglars who had robbed Blenkins's store and dwelling-house, and that hehad had no part in helping to conceal the plunder. In opposition tothis, the mere finding of a scrap of Barney's coat close to theConscripts' Hollow seemed now of slight consequence, although it couldnot be accounted for. 

When the trial was over, the old man with the green spectacles tookBarney to his house, gave him something to eat, and saw him start outhomeward. 

As Barney plodded along toward the blue mountains his heart was verybitter against Nick Gregory, who had lied and thrown suspicion upon himand brought him into danger. Whenever he thought of it he raised hisclenched fist and shook it. He was a little fellow, but he felt thatwith the strength of this grievance he was more than a match for bigNick Gregory. He would force him to confess the lies that he had toldand his cowardice, and all Goliath Mountain should know it and despisehim for it. 

"I'll fetch an' kerry that word to an' fro fur a thousand mile!" Barneydeclared between his set teeth. 

Now and then a wagoner overtook him and gave him a ride, thus greatlyhelping him on his way. As he went, there was a gradual change in theblue and misty range that seemed to encircle the west, and which heknew, by one deep indentation in the horizontal line of its summit, wasGoliath Mountain. It became first an intenser blue. As he drew nearerstill, it turned a bronzed green. It had purpled with the sunset beforehe could distinguish the crimson and gold of its foliage and itsbeetling crags. Night had fallen when he reached the base of themountain. 

There was no moon; heavy clouds were rolling up from the horizon, andthey hid the stars. Nick Gregory, lying on the ledge of the "Old Man'sChimney, " thirty feet above the black earth, could not see his handbefore his face. The darkness was dreadful to him. It had closed upon adreadful day. The seconds were measured by the throbs and dartings ofpain in his arm. He was almost exhausted by hunger and thirst. Hethought, however, that he could have borne it all cheerfully, but forthe sharp remorse that tortured him for the wrong he had done to hisfriend, and his wild anxiety about Barney's fate. Nick felt that he, himself, was on trial here, imprisoned on this tower of stone, cut offfrom the world, from everything but his sternly accusing conscience andhis guilty heart. 

For hours he had heard nothing but the monotonous rushing of the waterclose at hand, or now and then the shrill, quavering cry of a distantscreech-owl, or the almost noiseless flapping of a bat's wings as theyswept by him. 

He had hardly a hope of deliverance, when suddenly there came a newsound, vague and indistinguishable. He lifted himself upon his leftelbow and listened again. He could hear nothing for a moment except hisown panting breath and the loud beating of his heart. But there--thesound came once more. What was it? a dropping leaf? the falling of afragment of stone from the "Chimney"? a distant step?

It grew more distinct as it drew nearer; presently he recognizedit, --the regular footfall of some man or boy plodding along the path. That path!--a recollection flashed through his mind. No one knew thatshort cut up the mountain but him and Barney; they had worn the pathwith their trampings back and forth from the "Old Man's Chimney. "

He thought he must be dreaming, or that he had lost his reason; still heshouted out, "Hold on, thar! air it ye, Barney?"

The step paused. Then a reply came in a voice that he hardly recognizedas Barney's; it was so fierce, and so full of half-repressed anger. 

"Yes, it air Barney, --ef _ye_ hev any call ter know. "

"How did ye git away, Barney?--how did ye git away?" exclaimed Nick, with a joyous sense of relief. 

"A _thief's_ word cl'ared me!"

This bitter cry came up to Nick, sharp and distinct, through the darkstillness. He said nothing at the moment, and presently he heard Barneyspeak again, as he stood invisible, and enveloped in the gloom of thenight, at the foot of the mighty column. 

"'Twar my bes' frien' ez sunk me deep in trouble. But the _thief_, hefished me up. He 'lowed ter the jestice ez I never holped him ter stealnothin' nor ter hide it arterward, nuther. "

Nick said not a word. The hot tears came into his eyes. Barney, hethought, could feel no more bitterly toward him than he felt towardhimself. 

"How kem my coat ter be tored down thar on the ledge, close ter theConscripts' Hollow, whar I hain't been sence the cloth war wove?"

There was a long pause. 

"I wore it thar, Barney, 'stid o' mine, " Nick replied at last. "I neverknowed, at fust, ez I hed tored it. I was so skeered when I seen thestole truck, I never knowed nothin'. "

"An' then ye spoke a lie! An' arterward, ye let the folks think ez 'twarme ez hed tored that coat close by the Conscripts' Hollow!"

"I was skeered haffen ter death, Barney!"

Nick was very contemptible in his falsehood and cowardice, --even in hisrepentance and shame and sorrow. At least, so the boy thought who stoodin the darkness at the foot of the great column. Suddenly it occurred toBarney that this was a strange place for Nick to be at this hour of thenight. His indignation gave way for a moment to some natural curiosity. 

"What air ye a-doin' of up thar on the Old Man's Chimney?" he asked. 

"I kem up hyar this mornin' early, ter watch the wagon a-takin' ye off. Then I fell and bruk my arm, an' I can't git down 'thout bein' holped alittle. "

There was another silence, so intense that it seemed to Nick as if hewere all alone again in the immensity of the mountains, and the blacknight, and the endless forests. He had expected an immediate proffer ofassistance from Barney. He had thought that his injured friend wouldrelent in his severity when he knew that he had suffered too; that hewas in great pain even at this moment. 

But not a word came from Barney. 

"I hed laid off ter ax ye ter holp me a little, " Nick faltered meekly, making his appeal direct. 

There was no answer. 

It was so still that the boy, high up on the sandstone pillar, couldhear the wind rising among the far spurs west of Goliath. The foliagenear at hand was ominously quiet in the sultry air. Once there was aflash of lightning from the black clouds, followed by a low mutteringof thunder. Then all was still again, --so still!

Nick raised himself upon his left arm, and leaned cautiously over theverge of the ledge, peering, with starting eyes, into the darkness, andhoping for another flash of lightning that he might see below for aninstant. A terrible suspicion had come to him. Could Barney have slippedquietly away, leaving him to his fate?

He could see nothing in the impenetrable gloom; he could hear nothing inthe dark stillness. 

Barney had not yet gone, but he was saying to himself, as he stood atthe foot of the great obelisk, that here was his revenge, far morecomplete than he had dared even to hope. 

He could measure out his false friend's punishment in any degree hethought fit. He could leave him there with his broken arm and his pangsof hunger for another day. He deserved it, --he deserved it richly. Therecollection was still very bitter to Barney of the hardships he hadendured at the hands of this boy, who asked him now for help. Why did henot refuse it? Why should he not take the revenge he had promisedhimself?

And then he knew there was danger in now trying to climb the jaggededges of the Old Man's Chimney. His nerves were shaken by theexcitements of the day; he was fagged out by his long tramp; the windwas beginning to surge among the trees; it might blow him from hisuncertain foothold. But when it gained more strength, might it not driveNick, helpless with his broken arm, from that high ledge?

As this thought crossed his mind, he tore off his hat, coat, and shoes, and desperately began the ascent. He thought he knew every projectionand crevice and bush so well that he might have found his wayblindfolded, and guided by the sense of touch alone. But he did not lackfor light. Before he was six feet up from the ground, the clouds wererent by a vivid flash, and an instantaneous peal of thunder woke allthe echoes. This was the breaking of the storm; afterward, there was acontinuous pale flickering over all the sky, and at close intervals, dazzling gleams of lightning darted through the rain, which was nowfalling heavily. 

"I'm a-comin', Nick!" shouted Barney, through the din of the elements. 

Somehow, as he climbed, he felt light-hearted again. It seemed to himthat he had left a great weight at the foot of the gigantic sandstonecolumn. Could it be that bitter revenge he had promised himself? He hadthought only of Nick's safety, but he seemed to have done himself akindness in forgiving his friend, --the burden of revenge is so heavy!His troubles were already growing faint in his memory, --it was so goodto feel the rain splashing in his face, and his rude playfellow, themountain wind, rioting around him once more. He was laughing when atlast he pulled himself up, wet through and through, on the ledge besideNick. 

"It's airish up hyar, ain't it?" he cried. 

"Barney, " said Nick miserably, "I dunno how I kin ever look at ye agin, squar' in the face, while I lives. "

"Shet that up!" Barney returned good-humoredly. "I don't want ter everhear 'bout'n it no more. I'll always know, arter this, that I can'tplace no dependence in ye; but, law, ye air jes' like that old gun o'mine; sometimes it'll hang fire, an' sometimes it'll go off athalf-cock, an' ginerally it disapp'ints me mightily. But, somehows, Ican't determinate to shoot with no other one. I'll hev ter feel by yejes' like I does by that thar old gun. "

The descent was slow and difficult, and very painful to Nick, andfraught with considerable danger to both boys. They accomplished it insafety, however, and then, with Barney's aid, Nick managed to draghimself through the woods to the nearest log cabin, where his arm wasset by zealous and sympathetic amateurs in a rude fashion that probablywould have shocked the faculty. They had some supper here, and aninvitation to remain all night; but Barney was wild to be at home, andNick, in his adversity, clung to his friend. 

The rain had ceased, and they had only half a mile further to go. Barney's heart was exultant when he saw the light in the window of hishome, and the sparks flying up from the chimney. He had some curiosityto know how the family circle looked without him. 

"Ye wait hyar, Nick, a minute, an' I'll take a peek at 'em afore Ibounce in 'mongst 'em, " he said. "I'm all eat up ter know what Melissyair a-doin' 'thout me. "

But the sight smote the tears from his eyes when he stole around to thewindow and glanced in at the little group, plainly shown in the flarefrom the open fire. 

Granny looked ten years older since morning. The three small boys, instead of popping corn or roasting apples and sweet potatoes, as wastheir habit in the evenings, sat in a dismal row, their chins on theirfreckled, sunburned hands, and their elbows on their knees, and gazedruefully at the fire. And Melissy, --why, there was Melissy, a littleblue-and-white ball curled up on the floor. Asleep? No. Barney caughtthe gleam of her wide-open blue eyes; but he missed something fromthem, --the happy expression that used to dwell there. 

He went at the door with a rush. And what an uproar there was when hesuddenly sprang in among them! Melissy laughed until she cried. Grannywhirled and whirled her stick, and nodded convulsively, and gasped outeager questions about the trial and the "jedge. " The little boys jumpedfor joy until they seemed strung on wire. 

Soon they were popping corn and roasting apples once more. The flamesroared up the chimney, and the shadows danced on the wall, and as thehours wore on, they were all so happy that when midnight came, it caughtthem still grouped around the fire. 

A WARNING

It was night on Elm Ridge. So black, so black that the great crags andchasms were hidden, the forest was lost in the encompassing gloom, thevalley and the distant ranges were gone, --all the world had disappeared. 

There was no wind, and the dark clouds above the dark earth hung low andmotionless. Solomon Grow found it something of an undertaking to gropehis way back from the little hut of unhewn logs, where he had stabledhis father's horse, to the door of the cabin and the home-circle within. 

He fumbled for the latchstring, and pulling it carelessly, the door flewopen suddenly, and he almost fell into the room. 

"Why d' ye come a-bustin' in hyar that thar way, Sol?" his motherdemanded rather tartly. "Ef ye hed been raised 'mongst the foxes, yecouldn't show less manners. "

"Door slipped out'n my hand, " said Sol, a trifle sullenly. 

"Waal--air ye disabled anywhar so ez ye can't shet it, eh?" asked hisfather, with a touch of sarcasm. 

Sol shut the door, drew up an inverted tub, seated himself upon it, andlooked about, loweringly. He thought he had been needlessly affronted. Still, he held his peace. 

Within, there was a great contrast to the black night outside. The ashand hickory logs in the deep fireplace threw blue and yellow flames highup the wide stone chimney. The flickering light was like some genial, cheery smile forever coming and going. 

It illumined the circle about the hearth. There sat Sol's mother, idleto-night, for it was Sunday. His grandmother, too, was there, so oldthat she seemed to confirm the story told of these healthy mountains, tothe effect that people are obliged to go down in the valley to die, elsethey would live forever. 

There was Sol's father, a great burly fellow, six feet three inches inheight, still holding out his hands to the blaze, chilled through andthrough by his long ride from the church where he had been to hear thecircuit-rider preach on "Forgiveness of Injuries. "

He was beginning now to quarrel vehemently with his brother-in-law, Jacob Smith, about the shabby treatment he had recently experienced inthe non-payment of work, --for work in this country is a sort ofcirculating medium; a man will plough a day for another man, oncondition that the favor is rigorously reciprocated. 

Jacob Smith had been to the still, and apparently had imbibed the spiritthere prevailing, to more effect than Sol's father had absorbed thespirit that had been taught in church. 

In plain words, Jacob Smith was very drunk, and very quarrelsome, andvery unreasonable. The genial firelight that played upon his bloatedface played also over objects much pleasanter to look upon, --over thestrings of red pepper-pods hanging from the rafters; over the brightvariegations of color in the clean patchwork quilt on the bed; over theshining pans and pails set aside on the shelf; over the great, curiousframe of the warping-bars, rising up among the shadows on the other sideof the room, the equidistant pegs still holding the sized yarn thatSolomon's mother had been warping, preparatory to weaving. 

On the other side of the room, too, was a little tow-headed childsitting in a cradle, which, small as he was, he had long ago outgrown asa bed. 

It was only a pine box placed upon rude rockers, and he used it for arocking-chair. His bare, fat legs hung out on one side of the box, andas he delightedly rocked back and forth, his grotesque little shadowwaved to and fro on the wall, and mocked and flouted him. 

What he thought of it, nobody can ever know; his grave eyes were fixedupon it, but he said nothing, and the silent shadow and substance swayedjoyously hither and thither together. 

The quarrel between the two men was becoming hot and bitter. One mighthave expected nothing better from Jacob Smith, for when a man is drunk, the human element drops like a husk, and only the unreasoning brute isleft. 

But had John Grow forgotten all the good words he had heard to-day fromthe circuit-rider? Had they melted into thin air during his long ridefrom the church? Were the houseless good words wandering with the risingwind through the unpeopled forest, seeking vainly a human heart wherethey might find a lodgment?

The men had risen from their chairs; the drunkard, tremulous with anger, had drawn a sharp knife. John Grow was not so patient as he might havebeen, considering the great advantage he had in being sober, and thegood words with which he had started out from the "meet'n'-house. "

He laid his heavy hand angrily upon the drunken man's shoulder. 

In another moment there would have been bloodshed. But suddenly thedark shadows at the other end of the room swayed with a strange motion;a great creaking sound arose, and the warping-bars tottered forward andfell upon the floor with a crash. 

The wranglers turned with anxious faces. No one was near the bars, itseemed that naught could have jarred them; but there lay the heavy frameupon the floor, the pegs broken, and the yarn twisted. 

"A warning!" cried Sol's mother. "A warning how you-uns spen' theevenin' o' the Lord's Day in yer quar'lin', an' fightin', an' sech. An'ye, John Grow, jes' from the meet'n'-house!"

She did not reproach her brother, --nobody hopes anything from adrunkard. 

"A sign o' bad luck, " said the grandmother. "It 'minds me o' the timelas' winter that the wind blowed the door in, an' straight arter thatthe cow died. "

"Them signs air ez likely ter take hold on folks ez on cattle, " saidJacob Smith, half-sobered by the shock. 

There was a look of sudden anxiety on the face of Solomon's mother. Shecrossed the room to the youngster rocking in the cradle. 

"Come, Benny, " she said, "ye oughter go ter bed. Ye air wastin' yerstrength sittin' up this late in the night. An' ye war a-coughin' las'week. Ye must go ter bed. "

Benny clung to his unique rocking-chair with a sturdy strength whichpromised well for his muscle when he should be as old as his great, strong brother Solomon. He had been as quiet, hitherto, as if he weredumb, but now he lifted up his voice in a loud and poignant wail, andafter he was put to bed, he resurrected himself from among thebedclothes, ever and anon, with a bitter, though infantile, jargon ofprotest. 

"I'm fairly afeard o' them bars, " said Mrs. Grow, looking down upon theprostrate timbers. "It's comical that they fell down that-a-way. I hopes'tain't no sign o' bad luck. I wouldn't hev nothin' ter happen furnothin'. An' Benny war a-coughin' las' week. "

She had not even the courage to put her fear into words. And shetenderly admonished tow-headed Benny, who was once more getting out ofbed, to go to sleep and save his strength, and remember how he wascoughing last week. 

"He hed a chicken-bone acrost his throat, " said his father. "No wonderhe coughed. "

Solomon rose and went out into the black night, --so black that he couldnot distinguish the sky from the earth, or the unobstructed air from thedense forest around. 

He walked about blindly, dragging something heavily after him. Theweight of concealment it was. He knew something that nobody knewbesides. 

At the critical moment of the altercation, he had stepped softly amongthe shadows to the warping-bars, --a strong push had sent the great framecrashing down. He was back in an instant among the others, and by reasonof the excitement his agency in the sensation was not detected. 

Like his biblical namesake, Solomon was no fool. Had he been reared in acultivated community, with the advantages of education, he might havebeen one of the bright young fellows who manage other young fellows, whocontrol debating societies, who are prominent in mysteriousassociations, the secret of which is at once guarded and represented bya Cerberus of three Greek letters. 

But, wise as he was, Solomon was not a prophet. He had intended only toeffect a diversion, and stop the quarrel. He had had no prevision of thepanic of superstition that he had raised in the minds of these simplepeople; for the ignorant mountaineer is a devout believer in signs andwarnings. 

As Solomon wandered about outside, he heard his father stumbling fromthe door of the house to the barn to see if aught of evil had come tothe cow or the horse. He knew how his grandmother's heart was wrung withfear for her heifer, and he could hardly endure to think of his mother'sanxieties about Benny. 

No prophetic eye was needed to foresee the terrors that would beset herin the days to come, when she would walk back and forth before thebars, warping the yarn to be woven into cloth for his and Benny'sclothes; how she would regard the harmless frame as an uncanny thing, endowed with supernatural powers, and look askance at it, and shrinkfrom touching it; how she would watch for the sign to come true, andtremble lest it come. 

He turned about, dragging and tugging this weight of concealment afterhim, reëntered the house, and sat down beside the fire. 

His uncle Jacob Smith had gone to his own home. The others were tellingstories, calculated to make one's hair stand on end, about signs andwarnings, and their horrible fulfillment. 

"Granny, " said Solomon suddenly. 

"Waal, sonny?" said his grandmother. 

When the eyes of the family group were fixed upon him, Solomon's couragefailed. 

"Nothin', " he said hastily. "Nothin' at all. "

"Why, what ails the boy?" exclaimed his mother. 

"I tell ye now, Solomon, " said his grandmother, with an emphatic nod, "ye hed better respec' yer elders, --an' a sign in the house!"

Solomon slept little that night. Toward day he began to dream of thewarping-bars. They seemed to develop suddenly into an immense animatedmonster, from which he only escaped by waking with a sudden start. 

Then he found that a great white morning, full of snow, was breakingupon the black night. And what a world it was now! The mountain wasgraced with a soft white drapery; on every open space there were vaguesuggestions of delicate colors: in this hollow lay a tender purpleshadow; on that steep slope was an elusive roseate flush, and when youlooked again, it was gone, and the glare was blinding. 

The bare black branches of the trees formed strangely interlacedhieroglyphics upon the turquoise sky. The crags were dark and grim, despite their snowy crests and the gigantic glittering icicles that hereand there depended from them. A cascade, close by in the gorge, hadbeen stricken motionless and dumb, as if by a sudden spell; and stilland silent, it sparkled in the sun. 

The snow lay deep on the roof of the log cabin, and the eaves weredecorated with shining icicles. The enchantment had followed the zigzaglines of the fence, and on every rail was its embellishing touch. 

All the homely surroundings were transfigured. The potato-house was avast white billow, the ash-hopper was a marble vase, and thefodder-stack was a great conical ermine cap, belonging to some mountaingiant who had lost it in the wind last night. 

"I mought hev knowed that we-uns war a-goin' ter hev this spell o'weather by the sign o' the warpin'-bars fallin' las' night, " said JohnGrow, stamping off the snow as he came in from feeding his horse. 

"I hope 'tain't no worse sign, " said his wife. "But I misdoubts. " Andshe sighed heavily. 

"'Tain't no sign at all, " said Solomon suddenly. He could keep hissecret no longer. "'Twar me ez flung down them warpin'-bars. "

For a moment they all stared at him in silent amazement. 

"What fur?" demanded his father at last. "Just ter enjye sottin' 'em upagin? I'll teach ye ter fling down warpin'-bars!"

"Waal, " said the peacemaker, hesitating, "it 'peared ter me ez UncleJacob Smith war toler'ble drunk, --take him all tergether, --an' ez he heddrawed a knife, I thought that ye an' him hed 'bout quar'led enough. An'so I flung down the warpin'-bars ter git the fuss shet up. "

"Waal, sir!" exclaimed his grandmother, red with wrath. "Ez ef _my_ soncouldn't stand up agin all the Smiths that ever stepped! Ye must flingdown the warpin'-bars an' twist the spun-truck--fur Jacob Smith!"

"Look-a-hyar, Sol, " said his father gruffly, "'tend ter yerself, an' yerown quar'ls, arter this, will ye!"

Then, with a sudden humorous interpretation of the incident, he brokeinto a guffaw. "I hev lived a consider'ble time in this tantalizin'world, an' ez yit I dunno ez I hev hed any need o' Sol ter pertect_me_. "

But Sol had unburdened his mind, and felt at ease again; not the lessbecause he knew that but for his novel method of making peace, theremight have been something worse than a sign in the house. 

AMONG THE CLIFFS

It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the windamong the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground. 

The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry ofhalf-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was stillfor an instant. 

The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the mountain airtasted of the fresh sylvan fragrance that pervaded the forest, thefoliage blazed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant Chilhoweeheights were delicately blue. 

That instant's doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeysstood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathersto a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. Theflock took suddenly to wing, --a flash from among the leaves, the sharpcrack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff anddown toward the valley. 

The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. Hecame running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into thedepths where his game had disappeared. 

"Waal, sir, " he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If myluck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"

He did not laugh, however. Perhaps his luck was calculated to stir onlyequine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth oftwenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheerdescent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valleyfar below. 

As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with asudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey. 

The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and hehated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, anidea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down tothe ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of thecliff?

It was risky, Ethan knew, --terribly risky. But then, --if only the vineswere strong!

He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several ofthe largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly offthe crag. 

He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods ofearth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until thesehad ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin hisdownward journey. 

Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again abranch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough andstrong to the last. Almost before he knew it he stood upon the ledge, and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose. 

"Waal, that warn't sech a mighty job at last. But law, ef it hed beenPeter Birt stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on thishyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!"

He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to oneof the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending todraw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. Thesepreparations complete, he began to think of going back. 

He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he hadfairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way. 

He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried theirstrength by pulling with all his force. 

Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction againstthe sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with astrong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one ofintense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledgeinstead of midway in his precarious ascent. 

"Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin' up, I'd hev been flung plumbdown ter the bottom o' the valley, 'kase this ledge air too narrer terhev cotched me. "

He glanced down at the sombre depths beneath. "Thar wouldn't hev beenenough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!" he exclaimed, with a tardyrealization of his foolish recklessness. 

The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? Toregain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility. 

He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as awall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub towhich he might cling. 

His strong head was whirling as he again glanced downward to theunmeasured abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink into a sittingposture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths, and addressedhimself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible danger in whichhe was placed. 

[Illustration: HOW LONG WAS IT TO LAST]

Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any humanbeing for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the placewas far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge. 

There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequentedportion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct somehunter's step. 

It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might elapse before theforest solitude would again be broken by human presence. 

His brothers would search for him when he should be missed fromhome, --but such boundless stretches of forest! They might search forweeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he wouldstarve, --no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall--fall--fall!

He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizesupon those who stand on great heights, --an overwhelming impulse toplunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up tothe sky. 

And what were these words he was beginning to faintly remember? Had notthe circuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow fallsto the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in thissuggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big bluesky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope. 

He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worstshould come, --was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrancethe sparrow's fall. 

He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancywhen he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more andmore distinct, --a shambling step, that curiously stopped at intervalsand kicked the fallen leaves. 

He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a soundissued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step camenearer. It would presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth awild, hoarse cry. 

The rocks reverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly therewas an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on theverge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering offvery fast indeed. 

The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on anunimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his suddencry. 

"Stop, bubby!" he shouted; "stop a minute! It's Ethan Tynes that'scallin' of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!"

The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boydemanded, "Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?"

"I'm down hyar on the ledge o' the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?"

"George Birt, " promptly replied the little boy. "What air ye doin' downthar? I thought it war Satan a-callin' of me. I never seen nobody. "

"I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an'I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother'shouse, an' tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climbup by. "

Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with a celerityproportionate to the importance of the errand. On the contrary, the stepwas approaching the crag. 

A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of thebroken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair ofsharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down onhis stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, thathe might not fling away his life in his curiosity. 

"Did ye git it?" he asked, with bated breath. 

"Git what?" demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient. 

"The tur-r-key--what ye hev done been talkin' 'bout, " said George Birt. 

Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey. "Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off'n this hyar place, --I'm gittin' stiff sittin'still so long, --or the wind mought blow me off. The wind is blowin'toler'ble brief. "

"Gobbler or hen?" asked George Birt eagerly. 

"It air a hen, " said Ethan. "But look-a-hyar, George, I'm a-waitin' onye, an' ef I'd fall off'n this hyar place, I'd be ez dead ez a door-nailin a minute. "

"Waal, I'm goin' now, " said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. Heraised himself from his recumbent position, and Ethan heard himshambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as hewent. 

Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of thecliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length, --for themountain children are very careful of the precipices, --snaked alongdexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red headcautiously, began to parley once more, trading on Ethan's necessities. 

"Ef I go on this yerrand fur ye, " he said, looking very sharp indeed, "will ye gimme one o' the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?"

He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The "whing" ofthe domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and isconsidered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birt aped thecustoms of his elders, regardless of sex, --a characteristic of verysmall boys. 

"Oh, go 'long, bubby!" exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at thedilatoriness and indifference of his unique deliverer. "I'll give yeboth o' the whings. " He would have offered the turkey willingly, if"bubby" had seemed to crave it. 

"Waal, I'm goin' now. "

George Birt rose from the ground and started off briskly, exhilarated bythe promise of both the "whings. "

Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back. Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially adeliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan's gratitudewould have been great enough to insure that small red head against avigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was oncemore cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff. 

"I kem back hyar ter tell ye, " the doughty deliverer began, with an airof great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme relish, "that I can't go an' tell Pete 'bout'n the rope till I hev done kem backfrom the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece, with a bago' corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill. My motherair a-settin' at home now a-waitin' fur that thar corn-meal ter bakedodgers with. An' I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war lent termy dad las' week. An' I'm afeard ter walk about much with this hyardime; I mought lose it, ye know. An' I can't go home 'thout the meal;I'll ketch it ef I do. But I'll tell Pete arter I git back from themill. "

"The mill!" echoed Ethan, aghast. "What air ye doin' on this side o' themounting, ef ye air a-goin' ter the mill? This ain't the way ter themill. "

"I kem over hyar, " said the little boy, still with much importance ofmanner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on hisfreckled face, "ter see 'bout'n a trap that I hev sot fur squir'ls. I'llsee 'bout my trap, an' then I hev ter go ter the mill, 'kase my motherair a-settin' in our house now a-waitin' fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers. Then I'll tell Pete whar ye air, an' what ye said 'bout'n the rope. Yemust jes' wait fur me hyar. "

Poor Ethan could do nothing else. 

As the echo of the boy's shambling step died in the distance, aredoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavoredto solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to thesquirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, andbefore a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag. 

This idea buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then helifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff inevery muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change hisconstrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fallinto those dread depths beneath. 

His patience at last began to give way. His heart was sinking. Hismessenger had been even more dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tellof his danger?

The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and crimson cloudsand an opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The last rays fell on thebronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to the broken vines onthe ledge. 

And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; andthere were frowning masses of clouds overhead. 

The shadow of the coming night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in thedeep valley; in the place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist. 

And now came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain ranges, asombre rain-cloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing on thetreetops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his head. 

The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came downtumultuously, not in columns, but in livid sheets. The lightnings rentthe sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the gloriousbrightness within, --too bright for human eyes. 

He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rushof wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air wasfull of that wild symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the pealingthunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he thought hecould hear his own name ringing again and again through all the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill tones. 

He became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and themoon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. 

The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear itnow. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousnesswas beginning to fail. 

George Birt had indeed forgotten him, --forgotten even the promised"whings. " Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in histrap, for his trap was empty, but when he reached the mill, he foundthat the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention. 

To sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as grotesque as thecub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggyjeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching tohis shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. Hisred head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat;and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with whichthe cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history. 

As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did GeorgeBirt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on oldSorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the topof a large pincushion. 

At home, he found the elders unreasonable, --as elders usually areconsidered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of mealfor dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impairhis appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough forbed when small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before thefire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement. 

"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn, " said his mother. "I'lltake my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire. "

"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wildtur-r-key's whings like he promised. "

"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in hisfriend. 

"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings. "

"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-forgenerosity. 

"Waal, "--there was an expression of embarrassment on the importantfreckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatorymanner, --"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings--I mean, he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' hecouldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotchhim a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happeneda--leetle--while--arter dinner-time. "

"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete. 

There was again on the important face that indescribable shade ofembarrassment. "Waal, "--the youngster balanced this word judicially, --"Iforgot 'bout'n the tur-r-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's tharyit. "

"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimedPete, appalled, and rising hastily. "I tell ye now, " he added, turningto his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that thar boy is ter put himon the fire fur a back-log. "

Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from thewell, asked the crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or tworelative to locality, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a fewminutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night. 

The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring towhich George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and thebroken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon. 

When he had hitched his horse to a tree, and set out on foot to find thecliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so intermittent that hisprogress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk shone outfull and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the cloudsintervened, he stood still and waited. 

"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it, " he said tohimself, in one of these eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all night. "

The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of thecrag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and moreindubitably by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. Hecalled, but received no response. 

"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay andalarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as though the speaker had just awaked. 

"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one endof the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, andflung it over the bluff. 

At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his handand grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose tohis feet. 

He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath. Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand overhand, up, and up, and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of thecrag. 

And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'ma-thinkin', " said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyarmounting, from a b'ar ter a copper-head, that could hev got in sech afix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes. "

And Ethan was silent. 

"What's this hyar thing at the e-end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as hebegan to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended. 

"It air the tur-r-key, " said Ethan meekly. 

"I tied her ter the e-end o' the rope afore I kem up. "

"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise. 

And George, for duty performed, was remunerated with the two "whings, "although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan whether or nothe deserved them. 

IN THE "CHINKING"

Not far from an abrupt precipice on a certain great mountain spur therestands in the midst of the red and yellow autumn woods a little log"church-house. " The nuts rattle noisily down on its roof; sometimesduring "evenin' preachin'"--which takes place in the afternoon--aflying-squirrel frisks near the window; the hymns echo softly, softly, from the hazy sunlit heights across the valley. 

"That air the doxol'gy, " said Tom Brent, one day, pausing to listenamong the wagons and horses hitched outside. He was about to follow homehis father's mare, that had broken loose and galloped off through thewoods, but as he glanced back at the church, a sudden thought struckhim. He caught sight of the end of little Jim Coggin's comforterflaunting out through the "chinking, "--as the mountaineers call theseries of short slats which are set diagonally in the spaces between thelogs of the walls, and on which the clay is thickly daubed. This workhad been badly done, and in many places the daubing had fallen away. Thus it was that as Jim Coggin sat within the church, the end of hisplaid comforter had slipped through the chinking and was waving in thewind outside. 

Now Jim had found the weather still too warm for his heavy jeans jacket, but he was too cool without it, and he had ingeniously compromised thedifficulty by wearing his comforter in this unique manner, --laying it onhis shoulders, crossing it over the chest, passing it under the arms, and tying it in a knot between the shoulder-blades. Tom remembered thiswith a grin as he slyly crept up to the house, and it was only the workof a moment to draw that knot through the chinking and secure it firmlyto a sumach bush that grew near at hand. 

It never occurred to him that the resounding doxology could fail torouse that small, tow-headed, freckle-faced boy, or that thecongregation might slowly disperse without noticing him as he satmotionless and asleep in the dark shadow. 

The sun slipped down into the red west; the blue mountains turnedpurple; heavy clouds gathered, and within three miles there was no otherhuman creature when Jim suddenly woke to the darkness and the storm andthe terrible loneliness. 

Where was he? He tried to rise: he could not move. Bewildered, hestruggled and tugged at his harness, --all in vain. As he realized thesituation, he burst into tears. 

"Them home-folks o' mine won't kem hyar ter s'arch fur me, " he crieddesperately, "kase I tole my mother ez how I war a-goin' ter dust downthe mounting ter Aunt Jerushy's house ez soon ez meet'n' war out an'stay all night along o' her boys. "

Still he tried to comfort himself by reflecting that it was not so badas it might have been. There was no danger that he would have to starveand pine here till next Sunday, for a "protracted meeting" was inprogress, service was held every day, and the congregation would returnto-morrow, which was Thursday. 

His philosophy, however, was short-lived, for the sudden lightning rentthe clouds, and a terrific peal of thunder echoed among the cliffs. 

"The storm air a-comin' up the mounting!" he exclaimed, in vivaciousprotest. "An' ef this brief wind war ter whurl the old church-houseoff'n the bluff an' down inter the valley whar-r--would--I--be?"

All at once the porch creaked beneath a heavy tread. A clumsy hand wasfumbling at the door. "Strike a light, " said a gruff voice without. 

As a lantern was thrust in, Jim was about to speak, but the words frozeupon his lips for fear when a man strode heavily over the threshold andhe caught the expression of his face. 

It was an evil face, red and bloated and brutish. He had small, malicious, twinkling eyes, and a shock of sandy hair. A suit ofcopper-colored jeans hung loosely on his tall, lank frame, and when heplaced the lantern on a bench and stretched out both arms as if he weretired, he showed that his left hand was maimed, --the thumb had been cutoff at the first joint. 

A thickset, short, swaggering man tramped in after him. 

"Waal, Amos Brierwood, " he said, "it's safes' fur us ter part. Weoughter be fur enough from hyar by daybreak. Divide that thar traveler'smoney--hey?"

They carefully closed the rude shutters, barred the door, and sat downon the "mourners' bench, " neither having noticed the small boy at theother end of the room. 

Poor Jim, his arms akimbo and half-covered by his comforter, stuck tothe wall like a plaid bat, --if such a natural curiosity isimaginable, --feverishly hoping that the men might go without seeing himat all. 

For surely no human creature could be more abhorrent, more incrediblyodious of aspect, than Amos Brierwood as he sat there, his red, brutishface redder still with a malign pleasure, his malicious eyes gloatingover the rolls of money which he drew from a pocket-book stolen fromsome waylaid traveler, snapping his fingers in exultation when theamount of the bills exceeded his expectation. 

The leaves without were fitfully astir, and once the porch creakedsuddenly. Brierwood glanced at the door sharply, --even fearfully, --hishand motionless on the rolls of money. 

"Only the wind, Amos, only the wind!" said the short, stout manimpatiently. 

But he, himself, was disquieted the next moment when a horse neighedshrilly. 

"That ain't my beastis, Amos, nor yit your'n!" he cried, starting up. 

"It air the traveler's, ye sodden idjit!" said Brierwood, lifting hisuncouth foot and giving him a jocose kick. 

But the short man was not satisfied. He rose, went outside, and Jimcould hear him beating about among the bushes. Presently he came inagain. "'Twar the traveler's critter, I reckon; an' that critter an'saddle oughter be counted in my sheer. "

Then they fell to disputing and quarreling, --once they almostfought, --but at length the division was made and they rose to go. AsBrierwood swung his lantern round, his malicious eyes fell upon the poorlittle plaid bat sticking against the wall. 

He stood in the door staring, dumfounded for a moment. Then he clenchedhis fist, and shook it fiercely. "How did ye happen ter be hyar thistime o' the night, ye limb o' Satan?" he cried. 

"Dunno, " faltered poor Jim. 

The other man had returned too. "Waal, sir, ef that thar boy hed been acopper-head now, he'd hev bit us, sure!"

"_He mought do that yit_, " said Amos Brierwood, with grim significance. "He hev been thar all this time, --'kase he air tied thar, don't ye see?An' he hev _eyes_, an' he hev _ears_. What air ter hender?"

The other man's face turned pale, and Jim thought that they were afraidhe would tell all he had seen and heard. The manner of both had changed, too. They had a skulking, nervous way with them now in place of thecoarse bravado that had characterized them hitherto. 

Amos Brierwood pondered for a few minutes. Then he sullenly demanded, --

"What's yer name?"

"It air Jeemes Coggin, " quavered the little boy. 

"Coggin, hey?" exclaimed Brierwood, with a new idea bringing back themalicious twinkle to his eyes. He laughed as though mightily relieved, and threw up his left hand and shook it exultingly. 

The shadow on the dark wall of that maimed hand with only the stump of athumb was a weird, a horrible thing to the child. He had no idea thathis constant notice of it would stamp it in his memory, and thatsomething would come of this fact. He was glad when the shadow ceased towrithe and twist upon the wall, and the man dropped his arm to his sideagain. 

"What's a-brewin', Amos?" asked the other, who had been watchingBrierwood curiously. 

They whispered aside for a few moments, at first anxiously and then withwild guffaws of satisfaction. When they approached the boy, their mannerhad changed once more. 

"Waal, I declar, bubby, " said Brierwood agreeably, "this hyar fix ez yehev got inter air sateful fur true! It air enough ter sot enny boy onthe mounting cat-a-wampus. 'Twar a good thing ez we-uns happened ter kemby hyar on our way from the tan-yard way down yander in the valley wharwe-uns hev been ter git paid up fur workin' thar some. We'll let ye out. Who done yer this hyar trick?"

"Dunno--witches, I reckon!" cried poor Jim, bursting into tears. 

"Witches!" the man exclaimed, "the woods air a-roamin' with 'em thistime o' the year; bein', ye see, ez they kem ter feed on the mast. "

He chuckled as he said this, perhaps at the boy's evident terror, --forJim was sorrowfully superstitious, --perhaps because he had managed tocut unnoticed a large fragment from the end of the comforter. This hestuffed into his own pocket as he talked on about two witches, whom hesaid he had met that afternoon under an oak-tree feeding on acorns. 

"An' now, I kem ter remind myself that them witches war inquirin' round'bout'n a boy--war his name Jeemes Coggin? Le''s see! That boy's name_war_ Jeemes Coggin!"

While Jim stood breathlessly, intently listening, Brierwood had twistedsomething into the folds of his comforter so dexterously that unlessthis were untied it would not fall; it was a silk handkerchief of astyle never before seen in the mountains, and he had made a knot hardand fast in one corner. 

"Thar, now!" he exclaimed, holding up the fragment of knitted yarn, "Ihev tore yer comforter. Never mind, bubby, 'twar tore afore. But it'lldo ter wrop up this money-purse what b'longs ter yer dad. He lef' ithid in the chinking o' the wall over yander close ter whar I war sittin'when I fust kem in. I'll put it back thar, 'kase yer dad don't wantnobody ter know whar it air hid. "

He strode across the room and concealed the empty pocket-book in thechinking. 

"Ef ye won't tell who teched it, I'll gin a good word fur ye ter themwitches what war inquirin' round fur ye ter-day. "

Jim promised in hot haste, and then, the rain having ceased, he startedfor home, but Brierwood stopped him at the door. 

"Hold on thar, bub. I kem mighty nigh furgittin' ter let ye know ez Iseen yer brother Alf awhile back, an' he axed me ter git ye ter go byTom Brent's house, an' tell Tom ter meet him up the road a piece by thatthar big sulphur spring. Will ye gin Tom that message? Tell him Alf saidter come quick. "

Once more Jim promised. 

The two men holding the lantern out in the porch watched him as hepounded down the dark road, his tow hair sticking out of his tatteredblack hat, the ends of his comforter flaunting in the breeze, and everygesture showing the agitated haste of a witch-scared boy. Then theylooked at each other significantly, and laughed loud and long. 

"He'll tell sech a crooked tale ter-morrer that Alf Coggin an' his dadwill see sights along o' that traveler's money!" said Brierwood, gloating over his sharp management as he and his accomplice mountedtheir horses and rode off in opposite directions. 

When Jim reached Tom Brent's house, and knocked at the door, he was soabsorbed in his terrors that, as it opened, he said nothing for amoment. He could see the family group within. Tom's father was placidlysmoking. His palsied "gran'dad" shook in his chair in the chimney-corneras he told the wide-eyed boys big tales about the "Injuns" that harriedthe early settlers in Tennessee. 

"Tom, " Jim said, glancing up at the big boy, --"Tom, thar's a witchwaitin' fur ye at the sulphur spring! Go thar, quick!"

"Not ef I knows what's good fur me!" protested Tom, with a greathorse-laugh. "What ails ye, boy? Ye talk like ye war teched in thehead!"

"I went ter say ez Alf Coggin air thar waitin' fur ye, " Jim began again, nodding his slandered head with great solemnity, "an' tole me ter tellye ter kem thar quick. "

He took no heed of the inaccuracy of the message; he was glancingfearfully over his shoulder, and the next minute scuttled down the roadin a bee-line for home. 

Tom hurried off briskly through the woods. "Waal, sir! I'm mighty nighcrazed ter know what Alf Coggin kin want o' me; goin' coon-huntin', mebbe, " he speculated, as he drew within sight of an oldlightning-scathed tree which stood beside the sulphur spring andstretched up, stark and white, in the dim light. 

The clouds were blowing away from a densely instarred sky; the moon washardly more than a crescent and dipping low in the west, but he couldsee the sombre outline of the opposite mountain, and the white miststhat shifted in a ghostly and elusive fashion along the summit. Thenight was still, save for a late katydid, spared by the frost, andpiping shrilly. 

He experienced a terrible shock of surprise when a sudden voice--a voicehe had never heard before--cried out sharply, "Hello there! Help! help!"

As he pressed tremulously forward, he beheld a sight which made him askhimself if it were possible that Alf Coggin had sent for him to join insome nefarious work which had ended in leaving a man--a stranger--boundto the old lightning-scathed tree. 

Even in the uncertain light Tom could see that he was pallid andpanting, evidently exhausted in some desperate struggle: there was bloodon his face, his clothes were torn, and by all odds he was the angriestman that was ever waylaid and robbed. 

"Ter-morrer he'll be jes' a-swoopin'!" thought Tom, tremulously untyingthe complicated knots, and listening to his threats of vengeance on theunknown robbers, "an' every critter on the mounting will git a clutchfrom his claws. "

And in fact, it was hardly daybreak before the constable of thedistrict, who lived hard by in the valley, was informed of all thedetails of the affair, so far as known to Tom or the "Traveler, "--forthus the mountaineers designated him, as if he were the only one in theworld. 

By reason of the message which Jim had delivered, and its strangeresult, they suspected the Coggins, and as they rode together to thejustice's house for a warrant, this suspicion received unexpectedconfirmation in a rumor that they found afloat. Every man they metstopped them to repeat the story that Coggin's boy had told somebodythat it was his father who had robbed the traveler, and hid the emptypocket-book in the chinking of the church wall. No one knew who had setthis report in circulation, but a blacksmith said he heard it first froma man named Brierwood, who had stopped at his shop to have his horseshod. 

It was still early when they reached Jim Coggin's home; the windows anddoors were open to let out the dust, for his mother was just beginningto sweep. She had pushed aside the table, when her eyes suddenlydistended with surprise as they fell upon a silk handkerchief lying onthe floor beside it. The moment that she stooped and picked it up, thestrange gentleman stepped upon the porch, and through the open door hesaw it dangling from her hands. 

He tapped the constable on the shoulder. 

"That's my property!" he said tersely. 

The officer stepped in instantly. "Good-mornin', Mrs. Coggin, " he saidpolitely. "'T would pleasure me some ter git a glimpse o' thathandkercher. "

"Air it your'n?" asked the woman wonderingly. "I jes' now fund it, an' Iwar tried ter know who had drapped it hyar. "

The officer, without a word, untied the knot which Amos Brierwood hadmade in one corner, while the Coggins looked on in open-mouthedamazement. It contained a five-dollar bill, and a bit of paper on whichsome careless memoranda had been jotted down in handwriting which thetraveler claimed as his own. 

It seemed a very plain case. Still, he got out of the sound of thewoman's sobs and cries as soon as he conveniently could, and sauntereddown the road, where the officer presently overtook him with Alf and hisfather in custody. 

"Whar be ye a-takin' of us now?" cried the elder, gaunt and haggard, andwith his long hair blowing in the breeze. 

"Ter the church-house, whar yer boy says ye hev hid the traveler'smoney-purse, " said the officer. 

"_My boy_!" exclaimed John Coggin, casting an astounded glance upon hisson. 

Poor Alf was almost stunned. When they reached the church, and the men, after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to savetrouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, hecould only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally he burst intotears. 

"Ax the t'other one--the leetle boy, " suggested an old man in the crowd. 

Alf's heart sank--sank like lead--when Jim, suddenly remembering thepromised "good word" to the witches, piped out, "I war tole not ter tellwho teched it, --'kase my dad didn't want nobody ter know 'twar hidthar. "

John Coggin's face was rigid and gray. 

"The Lord hev forsook me!" he cried. "An' all my chillen hev turnedliars tergether. "

Then he made a great effort to control himself. 

"Look-a-hyar, Jim, ef ye hev got the truth in ye, --speak it! Ef ye knowwhar I hev hid anything, --find it!"

Jim, infinitely important, and really understanding little of what wasgoing on, except that all these big men were looking at him, crossed theroom with as much stateliness as is compatible with a pair of baggybrown jeans trousers, a plaid comforter tied between the shoulder-bladesin a big knot, a tow-head, and a tattered black hat; he slipped hisgrimy paw in the chinking where Amos Brierwood had hid the pocket-book, and drew it thence, with the prideful exclamation, --

"B'longs ter my dad!"

The officer held it up empty before the traveler, --he held up, too, thebit of comforter in which it was folded, and pointed to the small boy'sshoulders. The gentleman turned away, thoroughly convinced. Alf and hisfather looked from one to the other, in mute despair. They foresaw manyyears of imprisonment for a crime which they had not committed. 

The constable was hurrying his prisoners toward the door, when there wasa sudden stir on the outskirts of the crowd. Old Parson Payne waspushing his way in, followed by a tall young man, who, in comparisonwith the mountaineers, seemed wonderfully prosperous and well-clad, andvery fresh and breezy. 

"You're all on the wrong track!" he cried. 

And his story proved this, though it was simple enough. 

He was sojourning in the mountains with some friends on a "camp-hunt, "and the previous evening he had chanced to lose his way in the woods. When night and the storm came on, he was perhaps five miles from camp. He mistook the little "church-house" for a dwelling, and dismounting, hehitched his horse in the laurel, intending to ask for shelter for thenight. As he stepped upon the porch, however, he caught a glimpse, through the chinking, of the interior, and he perceived that thebuilding was a church. There were benches and a rude pulpit. The nextinstant, his attention was riveted by the sight of two men, one of whomhad drawn a knife upon the other, quarreling over a roll of money. Hestood rooted to the spot in surprise. Gradually, he began to understandthe villainy afoot, for he overheard all that they said to each other, and afterward to Jim. He saw one of the men cut the bit from thecomforter, wrap the pocket-book in it, and hide it away, and hewitnessed a dispute between them, which went on in dumb show behind theboy's back, as to which of two bills should be knotted in thehandkerchief which they twisted into the comforter. 

The constable was pressing him to describe the appearance of theruffians. 

"Why, " said the stranger, "one of them was long, and lank, andloose-jointed, and had sandy hair, and"--He paused abruptly, cudgelinghis memory for something more distinctive, for this description wouldapply to half the men in the room, and thus it would be impossible toidentify and capture the robbers. 

"He hedn't no thumb sca'cely on his lef' hand, " piped out Jim, holdingup his own grimy paw, and looking at it with squinting intensity as hecrooked it at the first joint, to imitate the maimed hand. 

"No thumb!" exclaimed the constable excitedly. "Amos Brierwood fur athousand!"

Jim nodded his head intelligently, with sudden recollection. "That airthe name ez the chunky man gin him when they fust kem in. "

And thus it was that when the Coggins were presently brought before thejustice, they were exonerated of all complicity in the crime for whichBrierwood and his accomplice were afterward arrested, tried, andsentenced to the State Prison. 

Jim doubts whether the promised "good word" was ever spoken on hisbehalf to the witches, who were represented as making personal inquiriesabout him, because he suspects that the two robbers were themselves theonly evil spirits roaming the woods that night. 

ON A HIGHER LEVEL

As Jack Dunn stood in the door of his home on a great crag of PersimmonRidge and loaded his old rifle, his eyes rested upon a vast and imposingarray of mountains filling the landscape. All are heavily wooded, allare alike, save that in one the long horizontal line of the summit isbroken by a sudden vertical ascent, and thence the mountain seems totake up life on a higher level, for it sinks no more and passes out ofsight. 

This abrupt rise is called "Elijah's Step, "--named, perhaps, in honor ofsome neighboring farmer who first explored it; but the ignorant boybelieved that here the prophet had stepped into his waiting fierychariot. 

He knew of no foreign lands, --no Syria, no Palestine. He had no dream ofthe world that lay beyond those misty, azure hills. Indistinctly he hadcaught the old story from the nasal drawl of the circuit-rider, and hethought that here, among these wild Tennessee mountains, Elijah hadlived and had not died. 

There came suddenly from the valley the baying of a pack of hounds infull cry, and when the crags caught the sound and tossed it frommountain to mountain, when more delicate echoes on a higher key rang outfrom the deep ravines, there was a wonderful exhilaration in this sylvanminstrelsy. The young fellow looked wistful as he heard it, then hefrowned heavily. 

"Them thar Saunders men hev gone off an' left me, " he said reproachfullyto some one within the log cabin. "Hyar I be kept a-choppin' wood an' apullin' fodder till they hev hed time ter git up a deer. It 'pears terme ez I mought hev been let ter put off that thar work till I warthrough huntin'. "

He was a tall young fellow, with a frank, freckled face and auburn hair;stalwart, too. Judging from his appearance, he could chop wood and pullfodder to some purpose. 

A heavy, middle-aged man emerged from the house, and stood regarding hisson with grim disfavor. "An' who oughter chop wood an' pull fodder butye, while my hand air sprained this way?" he demanded. 

That hand had been sprained for many a long day, but the boy made noreply; perhaps he knew its weight. He walked to the verge of the cliff, and gazed down at the tops of the trees in the valley far, far below. 

The expanse of foliage was surging in the wind like the waves of thesea. From the unseen depths beneath there rose again the cry of thepack, inexpressibly stirring, and replete with woodland suggestions. Allthe echoes came out to meet it. 

"I war promised ter go!" cried Jack bitterly. 

"Waal, " said his mother, from within the house, "'tain't no good nohow. "

Her voice was calculated to throw oil upon the troubled waters, --low, languid, and full of pacifying intonations. She was a tall, thin woman, clad in a blue-checked homespun dress, and seated before a greathand-loom, as a lady sits before a piano or an organ. The creak of thetreadle, and the thump, thump of the batten, punctuated, as it were, herconsolatory disquisition. 

Her son looked at her in great depression of spirit as she threw theshuttle back and forth with deft, practiced hands. 

"Wild meat air a mighty savin', " she continued, with a housewifelyafterthought. "I ain't denyin' that. "

Thump, thump, went the batten. 

"But ye needn't pester the life out'n yerself 'kase ye ain't a-runnin'the deer along o' them Saunders men. It 'pears like a powerful waste o'time, when ye kin take yer gun down ter the river enny evenin' late, jes' ez the deer air goin' ter drink, an' shoot ez big a buck ez ye hevgot the grit ter git enny other way. Ye can't do nothin' with a buck buteat him, an' a-runnin' him all around the mounting don't make him notenderer, ter my mind. I don't see no sense in huntin' 'cept ter gitsomethin' fitten ter eat. "

This logic, enough to break a sportsman's heart, was not a panacea forthe tedium of the day, spent in the tame occupation of pulling fodder, as the process of stripping the blades from the standing cornstalks iscalled. 

But when the shadows were growing long, Jack took his rifle and set outfor the profit and the pleasure of still-hunting. As he made his waythrough the dense woods, the metallic tones of a cow-bell jangled on theair, --melodious sound in the forest quiet, but it conjured up a scowl onthe face of the young mountaineer. 

"Everything on this hyar mounting hev got the twistin's ter-day!" heexclaimed wrath-fully. "Hyar is our old red cow a-traipsing off ter AndyBailey's house, an' thar won't be a drap of milk for supper. "

This was a serious matter, for in a region where coffee and tea arealmost unknown luxuries, and the evening meal consists of suchthirst-provoking articles as broiled venison, corn-dodgers, and sorghum, one is apt to feel the need of some liquid milder than "apple-jack, "and more toothsome than water, wherewith to wet one's whistle. 

In common with everything else on the mountain, Jack, too, had the"twistin's, " and it was with a sour face that he began to drive the cowhomeward. After going some distance, however, he persuaded himself thatshe would leave the beaten track no more until she reached the cabin. Heturned about, therefore, and retraced his way to the stream. 

There had been heavy rains in the mountains, and it was far out of itsbanks, rushing and foaming over great rocks, circling in swiftwhirlpools, plunging in smooth, glassy sheets down sudden descents, andmaddening thence in tumultuous, yeasty billows. 

An old mill, long disused and fallen into decay, stood upon the brink. It was a painful suggestion of collapsed energies, despite itspicturesque drapery of vines. No human being could live there, but inthe doorway abruptly appeared a boy of seventeen, dressed, like Jack, inan old brown jeans suit and a shapeless white hat. 

Jack paused at a little distance up on the hill, and parleyed in astentorian voice with the boy in the mill. 

"What's the reason ye air always tryin' ter toll off our old red muleyfrom our house?" he demanded angrily. 

"I ain't never tried ter toll her off, " said Andy Bailey. "She jes' kemter our house herself. I dunno ez I hev got enny call ter look arterother folkses' stray cattle. Mind yer own cow. "

"I hev got a mighty notion ter cut down that thar sapling, "--and Jackpointed to a good-sized hickory-tree, --"an' wear it out on ye. "

"I ain't afeard. Come on!" said Andy impudently, protected by hisinnocence, and the fact of being the smaller of the two. 

There was a pause. "Hev ye been a-huntin'?" asked Jack, beginning to bemollified by the rare luxury of youthful and congenial companionship;for this was a scantily settled region, and boys were few. 

Andy nodded assent. 

Jack walked down into the rickety mill, and stood leaning against therotten old hopper. "What did ye git?" he said, looking about for thegame. 

"Waal, " drawled Andy, with much hesitation, "I hain't been started outlong. " He turned from the door and faced his companion rathersheepishly. 

"I hopes ye ain't been poppin' off that rifle o' your'n along thatdeer-path down in the hollow, an' a-skeerin' off all the wild critters, "said Jack Dunn, with sudden apprehension. "Ef I war ez pore a shot ez yeair, I'd go a-huntin' with a bean-pole instead of a gun, an' leave thegame ter them that kin shoot it. "

Andy was of a mercurial and nervous temperament, and this fact perhapsmay account for the anomaly of a mountain-boy who was a poor shot. Andywas the scoff of Persimmon Ridge. 

"I hev seen many a gal who could shoot ez well ez ye kin, --better, "continued Jack jeeringly. "But law! I needn't kerry my heavy bones downthar in the hollow expectin' ter git a deer ter-day. They air all off inthe woods a-smellin' the powder ye hev been wastin'. "

Andy was pleased to change the subject. "It 'pears ter me that that tharwater air a-scuttlin' along toler'ble fast, " he said, turning his eyesto the little window through which the stream could be seen. 

It _was_ running fast, and with a tremendous force. One could obtainsome idea of the speed and impetus of the current from the swiftvehemence with which logs and branches shot past, half hidden in foam. 

The water looked black with this white contrast. Here and there a great, grim rock projected sharply above the surface. In the normal conditionof the stream, these were its overhanging banks, but now, submerged, they gave to its flow the character of rapids. 

The old mill, its wooden supports submerged too, trembled and throbbedwith the throbbing water. As Jack looked toward the window, his eyeswere suddenly distended, his cheek paled, and he sprang to the doorwith a frightened exclamation. 

Too late! the immense hole of a fallen tree, shooting down the channelwith the force and velocity of a great projectile, struck the totteringsupports of the crazy, rotting building. 

It careened, and quivered in every fibre; there was a crash of fallingtimbers, then a mighty wrench, and the two boys, clinging to thewindow-frame, were driving with the wreck down the river. 

The old mill thundered against the submerged rocks, and at everyconcussion the timbers fell. It whirled around and around in eddyingpools. Where the water was clear, and smooth, and deep, it shot alongwith great rapidity. 

The convulsively clinging boys looked down upon the black current, withits sharp, treacherous, half-seen rocks and ponderous driftwood. Thewild idea of plunging into the tumult and trying to swim to the bankfaded as they looked. Here in the crazy building there might be achance. In that frightful swirl there lurked only a grim certainty. 

The house had swung along in the middle of the stream; now its coursewas veering slightly to the left. This could be seen through the windowand the interstices of the half-fallen timbers. 

The boys were caged, as it were; the doorway was filled with the heavydebris, and the only possibility of escape was through that littlewindow. It was so small that only one could pass through at atime, --only one could be saved. 

Jack had seen the chance from far up the stream. There was a stretch ofsmooth water close in to the bank, on which was a low-hangingbeech-tree, --he might catch the branches. 

They were approaching the spot with great rapidity. Only one could go. He himself had discovered the opportunity, --it was his own. 

Life was sweet, --so sweet! He could not give it up; he could not nowtake thought for his friend. He could only hope with a frenziedeagerness that Andy had not seen the possibility of deliverance. 

In another moment Andy lifted himself into the window. A whirlpoolcaught the wreck, and there it eddied in dizzying circles. It was notyet too late. Jack could tear the smaller, weaker fellow away with onestrong hand, and take the only chance for escape. The shattered mill wasdashing through the smoother waters now; the great beech-tree washanging over their heads; an inexplicable, overpowering impulse masteredin an instant Jack's temptation. 

"Ketch the branches, Andy!" he cried wildly. 

His friend was gone, and he was whirling off alone on those cruel, frantic waters. In the midst of the torrent he was going down, and down, and down the mountain. 

Now and then he had a fleeting glimpse of the distant ranges. There was"Elijah's Step, " glorified in the sunset, purple and splendid, with redand gold clouds flaming above it. To his untutored imagination theylooked like the fiery chariot again awaiting the prophet. 

The familiar sight, the familiar, oft-repeated fancy, the recollectionof his home, brought sudden tears to his eyes. He gazed wistfully at thespot whence he believed the man had ascended who left death untasted, and then he went on in this mad rush down to the bitterness of death. 

Even with this terrible fact before him, he did not reproach himselfwith his costly generosity. It was strange to him that he did not regretit; perhaps, like that mountain, he had suddenly taken up life on ahigher level. 

The sunset splendor was fading. The fiery chariot was gone, and in itsplace were floating gray clouds, --the dust of its wheels, they seemed. The outlines of "Elijah's Step" were dark. It looked sad, bereaved. Itsglory had departed. 

Suddenly the whole landscape seemed full of reeling black shadows, --andyet it was not night. The roar of the torrent was growing faint uponhis ear, and yet its momentum was unchecked. Soon all was dark and allwas still, and the world slipped from his grasp. 

[Illustration: IN THE MIDST OF THE TORRENT]

"They tell me that thar Jack Dunn war mighty nigh drownded when them menfished him out'n the pond at Skeggs's sawmill down thar in the valley, "said Andy Bailey, recounting the incident to the fireside circle at hisown home. "They seen them rotten old timbers come a-floatin' ezpeaceable on to the pond, an' then they seen somethin' like a humana-hangin' ter 'em. The water air ez still ez a floor thar, an' deep an'smooth, an' they didn't hev no trouble in swimmin' out to him. Theycouldn't bring him to, though, at fust. They said in a little more hewould hev been gone sure! Now"--pridefully--"ef he hed hed the grit terketch a tree an' pull out, like I done, he wouldn't hev been in sech adanger. "

Andy never knew the sacrifice his friend had made. Jack never told him. Applause is at best a slight thing. A great action is nobler than themonument that commemorates it; and when a man gives himself into thecontrol of a generous impulse, thenceforward he takes up life on ahigher level. 

CHRISTMAS DAY ON OLD WINDY MOUNTAIN

The sun had barely shown the rim of his great red disk above the sombrewoods and snow-crowned crags of the opposite ridge, when Rick Herne, hisrifle in his hand, stepped out of his father's log cabin, perched highamong the precipices of Old Windy Mountain. He waited motionless for amoment, and all the family trooped to the door to assist at thetime-honored ceremony of firing a salute to the day. 

Suddenly the whole landscape catches a rosy glow, Rick whips up hisrifle, a jet of flame darts swiftly out, a sharp report rings all aroundthe world, and the sun goes grandly up--while the little tow-headedmountaineers hurrah shrilly for "Chris'mus!"

As he began to re-load his gun, the small boys clustered around him, their hands in the pockets of their baggy jeans trousers, their headsinquiringly askew. 

"They air a-goin' ter hev a pea-fow_el_ fur dinner down yander terBirk's Mill, " Rick remarked. 

The smallest boy smacked his lips, --not that he knew how pea-fowltastes, but he imagined unutterable things. 

"Somehows I hates fur ye ter go ter eat at Birk's Mill, they air sech aset o' drinkin' men down thar ter Malviny's house, " said Rick's mother, as she stood in the doorway, and looked anxiously at him. 

For his elder sister was Birk's wife, and to this great feast he wasinvited as a representative of the family, his father being disabled by"rheumatics, " and his mother kept at home by the necessity of providingdinner for those four small boys. 

"Hain't I done promised ye not ter tech a drap o' liquor this Chris'musday?" asked Rick. 

"That's a fac', " his mother admitted. "But boys, an' men-folksginerally, air scandalous easy ter break a promise whar whiskey is init. "

"I'll hev ye ter know that when I gin my word, I keeps it!" cried Rickpridefully. 

He little dreamed how that promise was to be assailed before the sunshould go down. 

He was a tall, sinewy boy, deft of foot as all these mountaineers are, and a seven-mile walk in the snow to Birk's Mill he considered a meretrifle. He tramped along cheerily enough through the silent solitudes ofthe dense forest. Only at long intervals the stillness was broken by thecracking of a bough under the weight of snow, or the whistling of a gustof wind through the narrow valley far below. 

All at once--it was a terrible shock of surprise--he was sinking! Wasthere nothing beneath his feet but the vague depths of air to the baseof the mountain? He realized with a quiver of dismay that he hadmistaken a huge drift-filled fissure, between a jutting crag and thewall of the ridge, for the solid, snow-covered ground. He tossed hisarms about wildly in his effort to grasp something firm. The motion onlydislodged the drift. He felt that it was falling, and he was goingdown--down--down with it. He saw the trees on the summit of Old Windydisappear. He caught one glimpse of the neighboring ridges. Then he wasblinded and enveloped in this cruel whiteness. He had a wild idea thathe had been delivered to it forever; even in the first thaw it wouldcurl up into a wreath of vapor, and rise from the mountain's side, andtake him soaring with it--whither? How they would search these bleakwintry fastnesses for him, --while he was gone sailing with the mist!What would they say at home and at Birk's Mill? One last thought of the"pea-fow_el_, " and he seemed to slide swiftly away from the world withthe snow. 

He was unconscious probably only for a few minutes. When he came tohimself, he found that he was lying, half-submerged in the great drift, on the slope of the mountain, and the dark, icicle-begirt cliff toweredhigh above. He stretched his limbs--no bones broken! He could hardlybelieve that he had fallen unhurt from those heights. He did notappreciate how gradually the snow had slidden down. Being so denselypacked, too, it had buoyed him up, and kept him from dashing against thesharp, jagged edges of the rock. He had lost consciousness in the jarwhen the moving mass was abruptly arrested by a transverse elevation ofthe ground. He was still a little dizzy and faint, but otherwiseuninjured. 

Now a great perplexity took hold on him. How was he to make his way backup the mountain, he asked himself, as he looked at the inaccessiblecliffs looming high into the air. All the world around him wasunfamiliar. Even his wide wanderings had never brought him into thisvast, snowy, trackless wilderness, that stretched out on every side. Hewould be half the day in finding the valley road that led to Birk'sMill. He rose to his feet, and gazed about him in painful indecision. The next moment a thrill shot through him, to which he wasunaccustomed. He had never before shaken except with the cold, --but thiswas fear. 

For he heard voices! Not from the cliffs above, --but from below! Notfrom the dense growth of young pines on the slope of the mountain, --butfrom the depths of the earth beneath! He stood motionless, listeningintently, his eyes distended, and his heart beating fast. 

All silence! Not even the wind stirred in the pine thicket. The snow layheavy among the dark green branches, and every slender needle wasencased in ice. Rick rubbed his eyes. It was no dream. There was thethicket; but whose were the voices that had rung out faintly frombeneath it?

A crowd of superstitions surged upon him. He cast an affrighted glanceat the ghastly snow-covered woods and sheeted earth. He was rememberingfireside legends, horrible enough to raise the hair on a sophisticated, educated boy's head; much more horrible, then, to a young backwoodsmanlike Rick. On this, the most benign day that ever dawns upon the world, was he led into these endless wastes of forest to be terrified by the"harnts"?

Suddenly those voices from the earth again! One was singing a drunkencatch, --it broke into falsetto, and ended with an unmistakable hiccup. 

Rick's blood came back with a rush. 

"I hev never hearn tell o' the hoobies gittin' boozy!" he said with alaugh. "That's whar they hev got the upper-hand o' humans. "

As he gazed again at the thicket, he saw now something that he had beentoo much agitated to observe before, --a column of dense smoke that rosefrom far down the declivity, and seemed to make haste to hide itselfamong the low-hanging boughs of a clump of fir-trees. 

"It's somebody's house down thar, " was Rick's conclusion. "I kin findout the way to Birk's Mill from the folkses. "

When he neared the smoke, he paused abruptly, staring once more. 

There was no house! The smoke rose from among low pine bushes. Abovewere the snow-laden branches of the fir. 

"Ef thar war a house hyar, I reckon I could see it!" said Rickdoubtfully, infinitely mystified. 

There was a continual drip, drip of moisture all around. Yet a thaw hadnot set in. Rick looked up at the gigantic icicles that hung to thecrags and glittered in the sun, --not a drop trickled from them. But thisfir-tree was dripping, dripping, and the snow had melted away from thenearest pine bushes that clustered about the smoke. There was heat belowcertainly, a strong heat, and somebody was keeping the fire up steadily. 

"An' air it folkses ez live underground like foxes an' sech!" Rickexclaimed, astonished, as he came upon a large, irregularly shaped riftin the rocks, and heard the same reeling voice from within, beginning tosing once more. But for this bacchanalian melody, the noise of Rick'sentrance might have given notice of his approach. As it was, theinhabitants of this strange place were even more surprised than he, when, after groping through a dark, low passage, an abrupt turn broughthim into a lofty, vaulted subterranean apartment. There was a greatflare of light, which revealed six or seven muscular men grouped about alarge copper vessel built into a rude stone furnace, and all the air waspervaded by an incomparably strong alcoholic odor. The boy started backwith a look of terror. That pale terror was reflected on each man'sface, as on a mirror. At the sight of the young stranger they all sprangup with the same gesture, --each instinctively laid his hand upon thepistol that he wore. 

Poor Rick understood it all at last. He had stumbled upon a nest ofdistillers, only too common among these mountains, who were hiding fromthe officers of the Government, running their still in defiance of thelaw and eluding the whiskey-tax. He realized that in discovering theirstronghold he had learned a secret that was by no means a safe one forhim to know. And he was in their power; at their mercy!

"Don't shoot!" he faltered. "I jes' want ter ax the folkses ter tell methe way ter Birk's Mill. "

What would he have given to be on the bleak mountain outside!

One of the men caught him as if anticipating an attempt to run. Two orthree, after a low-toned colloquy, took their rifles, and creptcautiously outside to reconnoitre the situation. Rick comprehended theirsuspicion with new quakings. They imagined that he was a spy, and hadbeen sent among them to discover them plying their forbidden vocation. This threatened a long imprisonment for them. His heart sank as hethought of it; they would never let him go. 

After a time the reconnoitring party came back. 

"Nothin' stirrin', " said the leader tersely. 

"I misdoubts, " muttered another, casting a look of deep suspicion onRick. "Thar air men out thar, I'm a-thinkin', hid somewhar. "

"They air furder 'n a mile off, ennyhow, " returned the first speaker. "We never lef' so much ez a bush 'thout sarchin' of it. "

"The off'cers can't find this place no-ways 'thout that thar chap fur aguide, " said a third, with a surly nod of his head at Rick. 

"We're safe enough, boys, safe enough!" cried a stout-built, red-faced, red-bearded man, evidently very drunk, and with a voice that rose intoquavering falsetto as he spoke. "This chap can't do nothin'. We hev gothim bound hand an' foot. Hyar air the captive of our bow an' spear, boys! Mighty little captive, though! hi!" He tried to point jeeringly atRick, and forgot what he had intended to do before he could fairlyextend his hand. Then his rollicking head sank on his breast, and hebegan to sing sleepily again. 

One of the more sober of the men had extinguished the fire in order thatthey should not be betrayed by the smoke outside to the revenue officerswho might be seeking them. The place, chilly enough at best, was growingbitter cold. The strange subterranean beauty of the surroundings, thelimestone wall and arches, scintillating wherever they caught thelight; the shadowy, mysterious vaulted roof; the white stalactites thathung down thence to touch the stalagmites as they rose up from thefloor, and formed with them endless vistas of stately colonnades, allwere oddly incongruous with the drunken, bloated faces of thedistillers. Rick could not have put his thought into words, but itseemed to him that when men had degraded themselves like this, eveninanimate nature is something higher and nobler. "Sermons in stones"were not far to seek. 

He observed that they were making preparations for flight, and once morethe fear of what they would do with him clutched at his heart. He wassomething of a problem to them. 

"This hyar cub will go blab, " was the first suggestion. 

"He will keep mum, " said the vocalist, glancing at the boy with ajovially tipsy combination of leer and wink. "Hyar is the persuader!" Herapped sharply on the muzzle of his pistol. "This'll scotch his wheel. "

"Hold yer own jaw, ye drunken 'possum!" retorted another of the group. "Ef ye fire off that pistol in hyar, we'll hev all these hyar rocks"--hepointed at the walls and the long colonnades--"answerin' back an'yelpin' like a pack o' hounds on a hot scent. Ef thar air folks outside, the noise would fotch 'em down on us fur true!"

Rick breathed more freely. The rocks would speak up for him! He couldnot be harmed with all these tell-tale witnesses at hand. So silent now, but with a latent voice strong enough for the dread of it to save hislife!

The man who had put out the fire, who had led the reconnoitring party, who had made all the active preparations for departure, who seemed, inshort, to be an executive committee of one, --a long, lazy-lookingmountaineer, with a decision of action in startling contrast to hiswhole aspect, --now took this matter in hand. 

"Nothin' easier, " he said tersely. "Fill him up. Make him ez drunk ez afraish b'iled ow_el_. Then lead him to the t'other eend o' the cave, an' blindfold him, an' lug him off five mile in the woods, an' leave himthar. He'll never know what he hev seen nor done. "

"That's the dinctum!" cried the red-bearded man, in delighted approval, breaking into a wild, hiccupping laugh, inexpressibly odious to the boy. Rick had an extreme loathing for them all that showed itself withimpolitic frankness upon his face. He realized as he had never donebefore the depths to which strong drink will reduce men. But that thevery rocks would cry out upon them, they would have murdered him. 

In the preparations for departure all the lights had been extinguished, except a single lantern, and a multitude of shadows had come throngingfrom the deeper recesses of the cave. In the faint glimmer the figuresof the men loomed up, indistinct, gigantic, distorted. They hardlyseemed men at all to Rick; rather some evil underground creatures, neither beast nor human. 

And he was to be made equally besotted, and even more helpless thanthey, in order that his senses might be sapped away, and he shouldremember no story to tell. Perhaps if he had not had before him so vividan illustration of the malign power that swayed them, he might not haveexperienced so strong an aversion to it. Now, to be made like themseemed a high price to pay for his life. And there was his promise tohis mother! As the long, lank, lazy-looking mountaineer pressed thewhiskey upon him, Rick dashed it aside with a gesture so unexpected andvehement that the cracked jug fell to the floor, and was shivered tofragments. 

Rick lifted an appealing face to the man, who seized him with a stronggrip. "I can't--I won't, " the boy cried wildly. "I--I--promised mymother!"

He looked around the circle deprecatingly. He expected first a guffawand then a blow, and he dreaded the ridicule more than the pain. 

But there were neither blows nor ridicule. They all gazed at him, astounded. Then a change, which Rick hardly comprehended, flitted acrossthe face of the man who had grasped him. The moonshiner turned awayabruptly, with a bitter laugh that startled all the echoes. 

"_I--I_ promised _my_ mother, too!" he cried. "It air good that in hergrave whar she is she can't know how I hev kep' my word. "

And then there was a sudden silence. It seemed to Rick, strangelyenough, like the sudden silence that comes after prayer. He wasreminded, as one of the men rose at length and the keg on which he hadbeen sitting creaked with the motion, of the creaking benches in thelittle mountain church when the congregation started from their knees. And had some feeble, groping sinner's prayer filled the silence and themoral darkness!

The "executive committee" promptly recovered himself. But he made nofurther attempt to force the whiskey upon the boy. Under some whisperedinstructions which he gave the others, Rick was half-led, half-draggedthrough immensely long black halls of the cave, while one of the menwent before, carrying the feeble lantern. When the first glimmer ofdaylight appeared in the distance, Rick understood that the cave had anoutlet other than the one by which he had entered, and evidently milesdistant from it. Thus it was that the distillers were well enabled tobaffle the law that sought them. 

They stopped here and blindfolded the boy. How far and where theydragged him through the snowy mountain wilderness outside, Rick neverknew. He was exhausted when at length they allowed him to pause. As heheard their steps dying away in the distance, he tore the bandage fromhis eyes, and found that they had left him in the midst of the wagonroad to make his way to Birk's Mill as best he might. When he reachedit, the wintry sun was low in the western sky, and the very bones of the"pea-fow_el_" were picked. 

On the whole, it seemed a sorry Christmas Day, as Rick could not knowthen--indeed, he never knew--what good results it brought forth. Foramong those who took the benefit of the "amnesty" extended by theGovernment to the moonshiners of this region, on condition that theydiscontinue illicit distilling for the future, was a certain long, lank, lazy-looking mountaineer, who suddenly became sober and steady and alaw-abiding citizen. He had been reminded, this Christmas Day, of abroken promise to a dead mother, and this by the unflinching moralcourage of a mere boy in a moment of mortal peril. Such wise, sweet, uncovenanted uses has duty, blessing alike the unconscious exemplar andhim who profits by the example. 

The Riverside Press

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