Plutina had no sleep the night following her encounter with Dan Hodges. Throughout the dragging hours, she was tortured by sinister imaginings. She exhausted her brain in futile strivings for some means of escape from the mesh of circumstance. It was not until the gray twilight of dawn shone through the curtains that a possibility of relief stirred in her mind. It was out of desperation that the idea sprang. She felt herself so utterly forlorn and helpless in her loneliness that the despair was overpowering. It was then, at last, that the inspiration came to her: She would confess everything to her grandfather!
Though she quailed before the prospect, she rejoiced as well. The old man was strong and resourceful. He would know how to meet and overcome the outlaw’s villainy. Moreover, now that her decision had been made, Plutina was surprised to find her alarm over such confession greatly lessened from what she had supposed possible. She began to realize that some intangible change in her grandfather himself was responsible for this. She became 167 convinced that the new gentleness had had its origin in the unselfish abandonment of his marital hopes. It was as if that renunciation had vitally softened him. Perhaps, in this strange mood, he would be less intolerant of her fault in turning informer. His prejudice could find no excuse for her treachery, she knew, yet the peril in which she had involved herself, and him, might arouse his pity. Assuredly, he would be moved to instant action for both their sakes. For that reason alone, if for no other, she must tell him her story without a moment of unnecessary delay.
In the course of the morning, Plutina took advantage of an opportunity, whilst her sister was busy in the garden, and went to her grandfather, who was taking his ease on the porch. She was encouraged by the mild and benignant expression on the old man’s face, which had been more often fierce, as she remembered it through the years. She seated herself quietly, and then proceeded immediately to confession. There was no attempt at palliation of her offense, if offense it were. She gave the narrative of events starkly, from the moment when she had first seen Hodges descending Luffman’s Branch to the time of her separation from him at the clearing, on the yesterday.
Throughout the account, the listener sat sprawled in the big willow rocker, his slippered feet resting 168 on the porch rail. The huge body was crumpled into an awkward posture, which was never changed, once the history was begun. The curved wooden pipe hung from his lips, black against the iron gray cascade of beard, but he did not draw at it again, after the opening-sentences from his granddaughter’s lips. Plutina, looking down, perceived that the folded hands, lying in his lap, were clenched so strongly that the knuckles showed bloodless. Yet, he made no movement, nor offered any word of comment or of question. When the girl had made an end, and sat waiting distressedly for his verdict, he still rested mute, until the silence became more than she could endure, and she cried out in pleading:
“Kain’t ye fergive me, Gran’pap?”
Uncle Dick turned, and looked reproachfully at the distraught girl. A great tenderness shone from the black eyes, in which age had not dimmed the brilliance. As she saw the emotion there, a gasp of rapturous relief broke from Plutina’s lips. The stern restraints of her training were broken down in that moment. She dropped to her knees by the old man’s side, and seized his hands, and kissed them, and pressed them to her bosom. He released one of them presently, and laid it gently on the dusk masses of his grandchild’s hair in silent blessing. 169 His voice, when at last he spoke, was softer than she had heard it ever before.
“Why, Tiny, ye mustn’t be afeared o’ yer ole gran’pap. I thinks a heap o’ my kin, an’ ye’re the clusest. I loves ye gal—more’n anythin’ er anybody else in the world, though I wouldn’t want Alviry to hear thet. I hain’t mindin’ what ye done none. I’d stan’ by ye, Tiny, if he had the hull cussed Gov’ment at yer back. I hain’t got no likin’ fer revenuers, but I got a heap less for Dan Hodges.”
He paused for a moment and lifted his hand from the girl’s head to stroke the gray beard thoughtfully, before he continued:
“I been thinkin’ a right-smart lot o’ things jest lately. I ’low I’m a-gittin’ old, mebby. An’ I opine as ’tween the revenuers and Dan Hodges, I hain’t so much agin the Gov’ment as I was.”
Again, he fell silent, as if in embarrassment over an admission so at variance with the tenets of a lifetime. Then he spoke with sudden briskness:
“But ye’d orter a-killed the critter then an’ thar, Tiny!”
“I jest somehow couldn’t, Gran’pap. I’m shore sorry.” The girl felt poignant shame for the weakness thus rebuked.
“I ’low I hain’t likely to have no sech feelin’s a-holdin’ o’ me back,” Uncle Dick remarked, drily. “Hit’s my foolishness bailin’ ’im out got us in the 170 pizen mess. I ’low I’ll cancel the bond. But, fust, I’d have to take the skunk to the jail-house, dead er alive. He’ll stan’ some urgin’, I reckon.”
“Ye’ll be keerful, Gran’pap,” Plutina exclaimed anxiously, as she stood up.
“Now, don’t ye worrit none,” Uncle Dick ordered, tartly. His usual rather dictatorial manner in the household returned to him. “You-all run along. I want to think.”
The girl went obediently. The reaction from despair brought joyousness. Of a sudden, she became aware of the blending perfumes of the wild flowers and the lilting of an amorous thrush in the wood. Her lids narrowed to dreamy contemplation of the green-and-gold traceries on the ground, where the sunlight fell dappled through screening foliage. Fear was fled from her. Her thought flew to Zeke, in longing as always, but now in a longing made happy with hopes. There might be a letter awaiting her from New York—perhaps even with a word of promise for his return. She smiled, radiant with fond anticipations. Then, after a word of explanation to Alvira, she set off at a brisk pace over the trail toward Cherry Lane.
The girl went blithely on her way, day-dreaming of the time when Zeke should be come home to her again. She stopped at the Widow Higgins’ cabin, to receive felicitations over the escape of Uncle
Dick from Fanny Brown. Plutina was not minded to harass the older woman with the tale of Dan Hodges. The outlaw’s threats against Zeke would only fill the mother’s heart with fears, against which she could make no defense. Otherwise, however, the tongues of the two ran busily concerning the absent one. And then, soon, Plutina was again hurrying over the trail, which the bordering wild flowers made dainty as a garden walk. Once, her eyes turned southward, to the gloomy grandeur of Stone Mountain, looming vast and portentous. The blur of shadow that marked the Devil’s Cauldron touched her to an instant of foreboding, but the elation of mood persisted. She raised her hand, and the fingers caressed the bag in which was the fairy crystal, and she went gaily forward, smiling.
Uncle Dick, meantime, was busy with sterner thoughts, and his task was harmonious to his musings, for he was cleaning and oiling his rifle with punctilious care. He did not hasten over-much at either the thinking or the work. The shades of night were drawing down when, finally, he hung the immaculate weapon on its hooks. He ate in solitary silence, served by Alvira, who ventured no intrusion on this mood of remoteness with which she was familiar from experience. The old man had determined to go forth and seize, and deliver 172 to the custody of the law, the person of Dan Hodges. At the best, he would surprise the outlaw, and the achievement would be simple enough; at the worst, there would be a duel. Uncle Dick had no fear over the outcome. He believed himself quicker and surer with the rifle than this scoundrel of half his years. At grips, of course he would have no chance. But the affair would not come to grips. He would see to that. He went to bed contentedly, and slept the peaceful sleep of wholesome age, undisturbed by any bickerings of conscience.
It was while he was dressing, next morning, that a measure of prudence occurred to Uncle Dick. During the period of his absence, it would be well for Plutina to avoid risk by keeping in the cabin, with her rifle at hand. There was no telling how audacious the moonshiner might become in his rage over the ignominy to which the girl had subjected him.
At the breakfast-table, he spoke sharply to Alvira, as she placed the plate of fried ham and eggs before him.
“Tell Tiny, I’m a-wantin’ her.”
“Tiny hain’t hyar yit,” was the answer. “Hit’s time she was.”
“Whar’s she gone!” Uncle Dick demanded, gruffly. He detested any interruption of his plans.
“Tiny stayed over to the Widder Higgins’s las’ 173 night,” Alvira explained. “Hit’s time she come back.”
Uncle Dick snorted with indignation.
“She didn’t say nothin’ to me ’bout stayin’ over thar,” he said crossly.
“Nor to me, nuther,” Alvira declared. “She never does beforehand. When the Widder Higgins kind o’ hangs on, Tiny jest stays, an’ comes back in the mornin’. She orter been ’ere afore now.”
Uncle Dick pushed away the plate of food, half-eaten. Dread had fallen on him suddenly. He tried to thrust it off, but the weight was too heavy for his strength of will. Perforce he yielded to alarm for the girl’s safety. A great fear was upon him lest it be too late for the warning he had meant to give. He growled a curse on his own folly in not guarding against immediate attack by the outlaw. It was with small hope of finding his apprehensions groundless that he set forth at once, rifle in hand, for the cabin of the Widow Higgins. There, his fears were confirmed. The old woman had seen nothing of Plutina, since the short pause on the way to the post-office. Uncle Dick groaned aloud over the fate that might have come on the girl. He told enough to give the Widow Higgins some understanding of the situation, and bade her go to his own house, there to remain and to comfort Alvira. For himself, he would first search over the 174 Cherry Lane trail for any trace of his vanished granddaughter, and thereafter raise the hue-and-cry to a general hunt through the mountains for the capture or killing of the villain, and the recovery of the girl, dead or alive. Not for an instant did the old man doubt that Hodges had done the deed.
Uncle Dick had no more than passed Luffman’s Branch on his way over the Cherry Lane Trail, when a joyous hail caused him to lift his eyes from their close scrutiny of the beaten earth. Descending the trail, a little way in front of him, appeared the slender, erect form of the one-armed veteran. The bridegroom moved with a jaunty step, and his wrinkled features radiated gladness. But, as he came near, his face sobered at sight of the other’s expression. His voice was solicitous.
“I ’low somethin’ air wrong,” he ventured.
Uncle Dick in his distress welcomed the note of sympathy. Somehow, he felt curiously drawn to this successful rival, and he was sure that his feeling was returned. Between the two men there was a curious mutual respect, as if each relied on the entire good sense of one who had loved Fanny Brown. The older man craved a confidant; he was avid for counsel and every possible assistance in this emergency. He told the facts as concisely as possible, while Seth Jones, wedded raptures forgot, 175 listened in growing sorrow and dismay. At the end, he spoke simply:
“I’ll take a look ’long with ye, Mister Siddon. I done a heap o’ trackin’ in my time, out West. Perhaps, I kin he’p ye some.”
Uncle Dick put out his hand, and the two palms met in a warm clasp, witness of friendship’s pact. Forthwith, they gave themselves to minute examination of the trail for any sign of the missing girl.
For a time, their patient search went unrewarded. But, about a half-mile beyond Luffman’s Branch, they came on an area still affected by one of the small showers so frequent in the mountains. Here, the veteran’s alert eyes distinguished a footprint outlined in the damp dust.
“Yer gal was barefut, I reckon,” he said. He pointed to the imprint just before where he was standing.
“Yep,” Uncle Dick answered. There was a little mist over his eyes, as he glanced down. “Yep; hit’s her’n.”
The veteran went forward confidently now.
“She was a-steppin’ plumb brisk,” he declared; “feelin’ pretty peart, I ’low; feet kind o’ springy-like.”
Uncle Dick shivered at the words. He had a ghastly vision of Plutina moving at this moment with painfully dragging steps somewhere afar in 176 the fastnesses of the mountains. But he said nothing of the worst fears to his companion. He only followed on, watching closely lest something escape the other’s survey. Almost, he found himself hoping they might come on the girl’s dead body. Death is not the worst of evils.
After a mile, or a little less, the area of the shower was passed. Uncle Dick could hardly distinguish any sign of the footprints in the heavy dust of the trail, but he accepted without question the veteran’s assertion that they were easily perceptible to the trained sight. Suddenly, Seth Jones halted, and peered intently, stooping low. Uncle Dick, too, bent to look, but the faint markings in the dirt were without significance to him. The veteran moved to the roadside and searched on hands and knees over the yard of grass between the trail and a thicket. When he stood erect again, he regarded his companion inquiringly.
“They seem to be the tracks o’ some mighty-big, hefty cuss, what come out o’ these-hyar bushes, an’ tuk along arter her. Kin ye make a guess who hit mout be, Mister Siddon?”
Uncle Dick’s face grew black with a rage that was the more frightful because it had no object on which to vent itself.
“Hit’s him!” he mumbled thickly, choking over the effort for self-control. Abruptly, he abandoned 177 the attempt. His big voice boomed forth in a torrent of blasphemous imprecations. When, finally, he rumbled into silence, and stood panting for breath, the veteran, who had appeared to listen with great interest and perhaps some pleasure, spoke soothingly:
“You-all was shore some eloquent, an’ I ’low the ornery critter deserves every mite on hit. An’, anyhow, I reckon ye done saved yerse’f a stroke. Ye was a-lookin’ like ye’d bust, but ye let off the steam a-cussin’ ’im out. Now, let’s see.” He went back to the trail, and advanced very slowly, for the markings were faint even to his skilled eyes. Uncle Dick, trembling a little from the violence of his outburst, followed faithfully, but he could no longer detect traces of the passing of either man or girl.
Thus, in slow progress, they came at last to the fork of the trail. This is at the extreme easterly slope of Bull Head Mountain, which rises from the north side of the valley as if in sullen rivalry of Stone Mountain below. In the division of the trail here, one branch ascends toward Glade Creek, across the mountain, while the other keeps on straight to Cherry Lane. Within the fork of the trails lies a fallen giant of the coves, a huge yellow poplar, almost hidden along its length by the embowering thickets. Toward this, in an advance 178 tediously slow, the veteran made his way. When, finally, he was come up to the great bole, he stood quietly for minutes, gazing everywhere round about. Uncle Dick, emulating his companion, peered earnestly, and soon he, too, perceived the evidences that something out of the ordinary had occurred just here. Over a considerable space next the trunk there were signs of a struggle. Broken branches showed on some of the bushes; leaves from the poplar shoots were lying on the grass; the turf was freshly torn here and there. The veteran bent over, and picked up an object from the ground, which he held out. Uncle Dick gave one glance, and uttered a cry of despair. He recognized it as a button from the dress Plutina had been wearing the day before.
The further search of the veteran achieved little. He was able only to make sure that the footprints led off through the forest toward the south. But, now, the impressions were no longer of one following the other. Instead, it was revealed that the two walked side by side. Uncle Dick groaned as his companion told him of this. Plutina had been attacked; she had fought; she had been overcome—and she was still alive!
With the news of the event, a flame of wrath swept through the coves. Everywhere, the men gathered in parties, to hunt, rifle in hand, for some trace of the outlaw. There was none to give him favor, save the outcasts numbered among his dependants. The usual sympathy for the illicit distiller ceased utterly, destroyed by hatred for the criminal’s final offense. For the first time in the history of the mountains, there was no voice raised to protest—nor any rifle pointed in the laurel—against the Federal officers, who wandered at will in the wild places. In execration of Dan Hodges for his sin against the peace and dignity of the community, the people forgot for the nonce their ancient enmity against the Government. With one accord, the folk of the mountains joined in abhorrence of Hodges, sullenly anxious to bring about his punishment, to avenge his victim at least, if too late to save her.
Seth Jones turned from the joys of the belated honeymoon to give every aid in his power. His counsel and the comfort of his presence were boons 180 to Uncle Dick. The veteran had learned from his bride concerning the disfavor in which Zeke was held, and the reason for it. It seemed to him the part of wisdom, in this crisis, to feign ignorance, and he blandly suggested, on the return of the two from the fallen poplar, that they should ride to Joines’ store in the evening, there, over the telephone, to dispatch a telegram to Zeke in New York. It was the psychological moment for success. There was not even a flicker of resentment aroused. Uncle Dick remembered that the Quaker school-teacher spy had been saved by Zeke from Dan Hodges. In his new mood, that fact was enough to overcome all rancor against the lad. Moreover, he realized the tragedy of Plutina’s fate to her lover, and he was moved to compassion. He accepted the veteran’s suggestion without a word of remonstrance.
It was Seth Jones, too, who broke down the old man’s last prejudice by persuading him to summon Marshal Stone. Uncle Dick yielded with an odd mingling of emotions—shame and relief: shame over such trafficking with the “revenuers,” whom he had consistently fought and despised through three generations; relief that he had gained the strong arm of the law to his side. He had been greatly heartened when Stone answered over the wire that he would set out with a posse at midnight for the Siddon cabin, so that, after a conference there, the 181 active work of searching could be begun promptly at dawn.
Thus, it came about that, for the first time in history, Uncle Dick Siddon welcomed the sound of hoofbeats pounding up the trail through the darkness. Where, aforetime, he would have leaped to wind a blast of warning to the moonshiners above against the coming of the “revenuers,” the old man now hastened to the cabin door, and flung it wide, and went forth on the porch to give grateful greeting.
When a council had been held, three parties set forth. Seth Jones was the guide for one, which went to the northeast, through the Bull Head Mountain region, whither, in all likelihood, the outlaw would make his way, if he meant to escape out of the country. The marshal, with one companion, skirted Stone Mountain. Uncle Dick led two of the posse to the yellow poplar where the struggle had occurred, after which they would follow the general direction of the tracks. The marshal expected to make a circuit of the mountain rapidly enough to effect a junction with Uncle Dick’s party by noon, at the Woodruff Gate. The veteran and his two men, who would have by far the roughest going, were not to report until sundown at the Siddon cabin.
From the poplar, Uncle Dick and the deputies 182 were able, with great difficulty, to follow the tracks of the outlaw and his prisoner toward the south for a full mile. But at this point, an expanse of outcropping rock baffled them completely. Search as they would, there was no least sign of footsteps anywhere. After an hour of futile questing, they gave up in despair, and hurried to the rendezvous at the Woodruff Gate.
The marshal and his men had already reached the gate, and Stone had wherewith to give the distraught grandfather new hope.
“I came on their tracks a mile below where you lost them,” he explained. “They still keep to the south. We followed as far as the sand bar below Sandy Creek Falls.”
“Come on!” Uncle Dick cried, fiercely. “Let’s arter ’im this-yer minute.”
The marshal shook his head at the old man’s enthusiasm.
“We’re not much better off yet,” he declared. “We found the place where he camped last night. ’Twasn’t far. I reckon the girl made his going as slow as she could. She naturally would.” Uncle Dick nodded somberly. “But the trouble is, the trail ends at the sand bar—ends absolutely.”
“We’ll find hit ag’in,” Uncle Dick exclaimed, stoutly. “We jest got to find hit. Come on!”
The marshal urged the other to rest in preparation 183 for the hard climb—down the ridge, and then up the sharp slopes and ledges of the mountainside. But the old man would have none of it. So, straightway, the two moved off, leaving the others, less hardy, to repose, and in due time they came to the bar below Sandy Creek Falls.
High among the embattled cliffs of Stone Mountain’s eastern end, Sandy Creek races in tumultuous course. The limpid stream cascades in vertical sheen of silver from ledge to ledge. It writhes with ceaseless noisy complainings through the twisting ways of bowlder-strewn gorges. Here and there, in some placid pool, it seems to pause, languid, resting from its revels of flight. Such a pool lay at the foot of the longest fall. A barrier of sand circled from the cliff as the brim for this bowl of the waters. To this point, Marshal Stone and Uncle Dick were now come. The tracks were plainly discernible in the sand, along the edge of the pool. There were the huge misshapen outlines of the outlaw’s bare feet, deep-sunken from the heavy weight of the man. Beside them showed the slender prints made by the captive, lightly pressed. These tracks followed the curving bar, along the water’s edge. They reached to the foot of the cliff, close to where was the outer edge of the cataract. There they ceased.
The marshal, already familiar with the mystery, 184 and baffled by it, searched again perfunctorily. Uncle Dick hunted hither and yon with feverish activity, at first confidently, then doubtfully, finally in despair. He, in his turn, could find no further clue. He gave over his efforts eventually, and stood silent beside the marshal, staring bewilderedly. About the amphitheatre formed by the pool, pines grew in a half-circle, save where the narrow channel of the stream descended. But between the barricade of the trees and the basin of water lay the smooth stretch of sand, slightly moist from out-flung spray of the falls. Upon that level surface, the tracks showed forth—undeniable, inexplicable. They marched without deviation straight to the base of the great cliff. There, within a little space, they grew confused, as from much trampling. But they did not return; they did not go elsewhere. There was a clear distance of a rod over the sand to the rocky ground where the trees grew. On the other side lay the deeps of the pool. Before them reared the impassible wall of the precipice. And there the tracks ended.
Uncle Dick knew the place well, and on that account the mystery was the greater. He could find no possible explanation, however wildly improbable, of that disappearance. The broad sheet of the falls fell close to the cliff’s face. The rock was unworn by the torrent, without recess or cavern. 185 And that precipice, twice the pool’s width, mounted sheer a hundred feet, the height of the cascade. The front was unbroken save by tiny rifts and narrow ledges, where dwarfed ground pines clung precariously. With a muttered curse, the old man turned from his vain contemplation of the cliff, and let his troubled eyes rest on the pool. Suddenly, he started. He remained motionless for a moment, then, with nervous haste threw off his shirt, and trousers. Marshal Stone, chancing to look that way, was astonished to see his companion naked, poised at the water’s edge. He had time to note with admiration the splendid figure, still supple and strongly muscled despite the four-score years. Then Uncle Dick leaped, and dived. It was long seconds before he reappeared, only to dive again. He paid no attention to the marshal’s remonstrances. Only when he was convinced of the uselessness of further search in the pool’s depths, did he give over the task, and cast himself down on the sand to rest, panting and trembling a little from fatigue.
“They hain’t thar,” he said, with grim conviction. Then he voiced the question that hammered in his brain: “Whar be they?”
But the marshal had no answer.
As they made their way drearily back toward the Woodruff Gate, the officer broke a long silence: 186
“Only a blood-hound can trail them!”
The gloom of Uncle Dick’s expression did not lighten.
“They hain’t nary one in the mountings,” he answered, heavily.
“None nearer than Suffolk, Virginia,” the marshal said. “Cyclone Brant has a couple of good ones. But it would cost a lot.”
The old man flared.
“Fer God’s sake, git thet-thar feller an’ his dawgs. I hain’t axin’ what hit ’ll cost. Hit was my money got thet-thar damned cuss out o’ the jail-house. I hain’t likely to begrudge anythin’ hit ’ll cost to git him kotched. An’ Plutiny!—why, money don’t matter none, if I can save Plutiny!”
“I’ll send for Brant to-night,” the marshal promised, with new cheerfulness. “Let’s hope he’s not off somewhere. They send for him all over the country. If the dogs start day after to-morrow, they’ll still find the scent.”
Uncle Dick groaned.
“An’ her a-lyin’ out with thet-thar wolf all thet while,” he mumbled, in despair. “Mebby, this very minute, she’s a-screamin’—callin’ to her ole gran’pap to save her. My Plutiny!” He walked with lagging steps; the tall form, usually so erect, was bowed under the burden of tormenting fears. The 187 marshal, understanding, ventured no word of comfort.
It was late afternoon when the dispirited searchers reached the Siddon clearing on their return from the fruitless day’s work. There, they were astonished to see the Widow Higgins come down the path toward them, at a pace ordinarily forbidden by her rheumatic joints. She waved a paper in her hand.
“Hit’s a telegraph,” she called shrilly. Her voice held something of the awe with which remoter regions still regard that method of communication. But there was a stronger emotion still that thus sent the old woman dancing in forgetfulness of her chronic pains. It was explained in her next sentence, cried out with a mother’s exultation in the homecoming of her beloved. Almost, in joy over seeing her son again, she forgot the misery that was bringing him.
“Hit’s from Zekie! Zekie’s comin’ home!”
Uncle Dick could not share the mother’s delight. The lover’s coming could hardly avail anything toward saving the girl. Nevertheless, he took the sheet of paper, which carried the message sent on by telephone from North Wilkesboro’ to Joines’ store. He read it aloud, that the marshal might hear: 188
Suffolk, Va.
Richard Siddon,
Joines’ Mill, N. C.,
Via Telephone from North Wilkesboro’.
Arrive to-night with bloodhound.
Ezekiel.
Uncle Dick’s voice faltered a little in the reading. The black eyes were glowing with new hope beneath the beetling white brows, as he lifted his gaze to the mountain peaks. For the first time, he felt a thrill of jubilation over the young man whom he had rejected, whom now he accepted—jubilation for the fresh, virile, strength of the lad, for the resourcefulness that this message so plainly declared. The old man’s lips moved in vague, mute phrases, which were the clumsy expressions of emotions, of gratitude to Providence for the blessing of another’s energy, on which to lean in this time of trial. There had been desperate need of haste in getting the hounds on the trail. Now, they were coming—to-night. Zeke was bringing them. Perhaps, after all, an old man’s declining years would know the fond tenderness of a daughter’s care—and a son’s. Thank God that Zeke was coming!
Zeke, in his new life, found little leisure for loneliness, though nightly he fell asleep with an ache of nostalgia in his heart, longing for the mountains of home and the girl who dwelt among them. But his days were filled with various activities that held his whole attention. With a mind keen and apt to receive impressions, and hungry for knowledge, he gave himself joyously to learning the details of Sutton’s tree-nail manufacture. The processes were, in fact, simple, and he mastered them with ease. Then, he was instructed more broadly in business methods, with the purpose of making him competent when he should become a manager of the projected factory in the Blue Ridge region. His time was thus so fully occupied that he had neither opportunity nor inclination for social pleasures.
He spent a week-end in his employer’s Long Island home, and surprised that gentleman mightily by the propriety of his manners, which he had acquired on the yacht. On this occasion, Sutton spoke definitely of his plans. The railroad branch north 190 from the main line was now a certainty, and the construction would soon start. At that time, Zeke would return to North Carolina, and set about securing options on the best available timber. A mill would be built, and the manufacture of tree-nails carried on. Zeke, in addition to an adequate salary, would receive a certain share of the profits. The prospect was one to delight any ambitious young man, and Zeke appreciated it to the full. But most of all he rejoiced that his success should come to him in the place he loved, where the girl waited.
Zeke had a companion, who shared with him the tiny hall-room, and kept at his side in long evening rambles through the city streets. It came about in this wise:
It was one afternoon when he had been in New York for a week, that a visitor entered, unannounced, the office where he was listening intently to Sutton’s crisp explanations of business routine. Zeke looked up at the sound of the opening door. Then, his jaw dropped, his eyes widened. Next moment, he sprang to his feet, his face radiant with welcome. His phrases, in the excitement of this meeting, were the mountaineer’s idioms, which new associations were beginning to modify in his ordinary speech.
“Why, hit’s shorely Miss Josephine!” he cried, as he advanced upon her, with outstretched hand. 191 He saw the dog, straining toward him on the leash. “An’ thet-thar man-faced dawg!”
There was a little interval of confusion, while greetings were exchanged amid the demonstrative antics of the bull-terrier. Sutton was called away presently, and then the girl explained the object of her visit.
“You never noticed it,” she said somewhat pettishly; “but one time on the yacht, I came up on deck with Chubbie. You were over by the rail. You snapped your fingers to him. I ordered him to stay with me. He wouldn’t mind. He went to you. Well, I decided right then what I’d do.”
“Why, shucks, Miss Josephine!” Zeke exclaimed, in much distress. “He jest nacherly didn’t mean nothin’ by thet.”
“He showed something by it, though,” was the retort. “He showed that he belonged to you, and not to me. So, here he is.” She held out the leash to Zeke, who took it doubtfully, only half-comprehending. As he was about to speak, a gesture checked him.
“I’m not really a bit generous in giving him to you. My dog must like me better than anyone else in the world. That’s why I really don’t want Chubbie any longer. You’re first in his heart, and I’m second. And, though I’m quite selfish about 192 it, I know I’m doing him the greatest favor in the world—that is, if you’re willing to take him.”
“I’d shore be tickled to death to have him,” Zeke admitted. “But it don’t seem right.”
“Providence seems to have arranged it that way, anyhow,” Josephine declared, airily. “Perhaps, if a surgeon operated on him for the dent you put in his skull, he might cease loving you. But nothing else seems likely to stop him.”
The dog, thrusting its cold muzzle against Zeke’s palm, whined assent. Josephine regarded her disloyal pet a little regretfully.
“He’s a good dog,” she said, softly. “He deserves to be happy.”
“Plutiny’ll be plumb tickled to see the critter I’ve wrote sech a heap about,” Zeke remarked. His eyes were suddenly grown dreamy.
“You and your Plutina!” she railed. But her voice was very kindly. When she had learned of the young man’s prospects and the nearness of his return home, she uttered a remark that puzzled Zeke.
“You don’t need to envy anyone.” There was a light almost of jealousy in the blue eyes.
“Why, I never thought o’ sech a thing!” he answered indignantly. “Why should I?”
“Why, indeed?” Josephine repeated, and she sighed. She sighed again on taking leave, when she 193 observed that the bull-terrier made no movement to accompany her, but stood steadfastly by Zeke’s side.
Into the happy, busy routine of Zeke’s life in New York, Uncle Dick’s telegram came with the crash of catastrophe. It was merely with innocent wondering that he opened the yellow envelope, which a messenger delivered in Sutton’s office on a pleasant summer afternoon. It was the first missive of the sort in Zeke’s experience, yet he felt no slightest chill of apprehension. His mood was too firmly joyous to be easily shaken. He merely wondered, and felt no fear whatever, as he pulled out the sheet of flimsy paper, and unfolded it, while his employer sat looking on curiously, himself already suspicious of trouble. Zeke read the typewritten words through stupidly, under the first shock uncomprehending. Then, he repeated the message aloud, as if challenging its meaning.
“Plutina been stolen,” ran the summons. “Dan Hodges done it. Need help.”
The name of Richard Siddon as the sender in itself told how desperate must be the situation, else Uncle Dick would not have summoned the suitor he had rejected. Zeke stared pitifully at Sutton. His eyes had the pathos of a stricken animal’s. For a little, he seemed dazed by the unexpectedness of this evil. Then, very soon, rage mounted blackly. 194 Sutton, listening, could not repress a shudder before the deadly hate in Zeke’s voice.
“I’ll kill Dan Hodges!” was the promise. The voice was low and even, but it roared in the ears of the listener. There was something terrifying in the stark savagery that showed in the mountaineer’s tones and in the drawn, pallid face.
But, after the one outburst, Zeke maintained an appearance of hypocritical calm. Only in the tremulousness of his voice when he thanked Sutton did he betray the depth of his feeling.
In truth, he had new reason for gratitude in this emergency to the man who already had so befriended him.
“You’ll want to start at once, of course,” Sutton said.
Zeke nodded assent.
“Well, I think I’ll go with you. Perhaps, I might help. It’ll be better for you with somebody along.”
Zeke offered a protest, but it was disregarded.
“I know Plutina,” Sutton said, earnestly, “and I know you, Zeke. I want to help. Now, I wonder—”
He fell silent for a space, thinking deeply. When he spoke again it was with curt decisiveness:
“It’s hurrying things a bit, but not too much. I’ll have you stay down there, Zeke, and get after the timber as soon as you have Plutina back.” 195
Then, as the young man regarded him in bewilderment, he explained fully:
“I’ve just heard a rumor that Grearson and Company are going to send a man down there. I’ll beat them to it. I meant to start you off in a month or so. But you’ve learned all you need to here, and it’s better to hurry, so as not to run any risk of my competitors getting in ahead. We’ll get away on the train to-night.”
So it came about that the two reached Norfolk late in the afternoon of the following day, after what had seemed to the tortured lover an eternity of listless crawling toward the mountains. Now Zeke felt no longer dismay over the rapid flight of the train, as in his first journeying, but only a fierce longing to cover the miles more swiftly. For he appreciated how great was the crisis. Plutina had written him of her part in the raid on Hodges’ still, and she had expressed in some degree the apprehensions she felt. Zeke was sure that, somehow, Plutina’s betrayal of the still had become known to the outlaw, and on this account the man had sought vengeance. The lover sickened at the thought of the form that brutal vengeance might take. Often, Sutton, covertly watchful, averted his glance that he might not see the despair on the mountaineer’s face.
The two travelers were on their way to the ferry 196 in Norfolk, when inspiration came to Zeke: He bethought him of Cyclone Brant, and the stag-hound, Jack. A few words sufficed for explanation of the matter to Sutton, who welcomed the idea of securing such assistance for the search.
“I kin git ’im, if he’s home,” Zeke declared, eagerly. “He lives in Suffolk, ’bout twenty miles toward Wilkes. I’ll try an’ git ’im on the ’phone.”
In this, he was successful, and he was greatly cheered by the anxiety displayed by Brant to be of assistance. But the detective was distressed over the delay of twelve hours that must ensue before they could get a train to North Wilkesboro’. Sutton removed this difficulty by ordering a special, which should be made up at once, and should stop at Suffolk to take on Brant and his dog. So, within the hour, the three men and the hound were rushing at rocking speed along the tortuous river course that led into the mountains. Instructions had been sent ahead, by Brant’s suggestion, to have an automobile and driver in readiness for the arrival of the party at the North Wilkesboro’ station.
The three men talked but little during the trip. The tenseness of suspense held them in thrall, and, for the most part, they sat in grim silence, staring out of the windows at the swiftly flitting panorama of moonlit landscape, wherein the fertile level areas changed to narrowing valleys, and these, in turn, 197 to wild gorges, where the river ran in bellowing riot beneath lofty ramparts of stone. Sutton’s thoughts veered from pity for his young friend to keen calculation of profits to come from the locust timber of the slopes. Cyclone Brant mused on his past adventurings in these wilds. From time to time, he pulled at the ears of the stag-hound, which sat on its haunches in the aisle, balancing its big bulk elastically against the erratic joltings of the car, and regarding its master with patient adoration in the reddened eyes.
Zeke, too, had the single comfort of a dog’s faithful fondness. The bull-terrier crouched on the seat beside its master. The squat-featured face was thrust forward, with the heavy jaw resting on Zeke’s lap. Often, the dog whined, with a soft, whimpering note. It was as if the creature knew its master’s grief, and wished to tell its sympathy. There was a curious help to the young man’s courage in the eager, caressing thrusts of the cold nose against his palm. And he had need of every help, even the least, for, in this period of inactivity, the spirit within him was near to fainting. Because he knew fully the depraved nature of Hodges, he could not blind himself to the frightful peril of Plutina in the outlaw’s power. The girl’s plight was one to inspire horror in any decent breast; to the lover, worshiping her as something ineffably holy, 198 the possibility of her pollution by the brute who had stolen her away was a thing too monstrous for belief, yet not to be denied. He strove to drive the hideous thought from his mind, but, ever, it crept again into his consciousness. The sickness of his soul found its only relief in bursts of fury against the cause of this wickedness. His manhood asserted itself in a primitive lust to torture and to destroy.
There were intervals of softer emotion, when he lived again the sweet raptures of hours alone with Plutina in the mountain solitude. But the moods of retrospection were short, perforce. They weakened him too greatly. The very heart seemed to flow from him like water, as memories crowded. The contrast of the present was too hideous for endurance. Again, the ghastly despair—the black rage, the whining of the dog, and the thrust of the cold muzzle to distract for a moment. Then, once more, the agonizing round.
The grinding of brakes, as the train drew to a standstill at North Wilkesboro’, came as a poignant relief to the three travelers. Even the dogs seemed to relax from strain, and a covert hostility, which had marked their first meeting, vanished while they sniffed at each other in inquisitive, friendly fashion.
The automobile was in waiting. Zeke jumped in beside the driver. The bull-terrier was held firmly between his legs. Sutton, Brant and the hound established 199 themselves in the tonneau. Within a minute after the stopping of the train, the car was rolling rapidly over the highway toward Joines’ mill. The chauffeur made the best speed possible under Zeke’s urging, and the run was short.
Beyond the mill, the trail branching off the main road was rough and narrow, traversed only by horsemen and the clumsy vehicles of the mountaineers. No automobile had ever passed over it, and the party had planned to secure mounts at the mill, and to continue the journey on horseback. Zeke, however, realized the advantage in continuing by machine, were this possible, and he suggested it to the driver. The man was doubtful, but, too, he was an enthusiast in his work, and the opportunity of thus climbing the mountains, where no other car had been, appealed strongly to his ambition. In the end, he consented, with a prudent stipulation concerning possible damages. So, without pause, the automobile shot forward past mill and store, and went clambering along the trail toward the northern coves. The driver ran cautiously enough, despite Zeke’s impatience, but, at the best, the trip was a strain on the men and on the mechanism that bore them, for the car lurched and bounced over the uneven surface, and more than once was near to being overturned. Their ultimate safety was due, in great measure, to Zeke himself. Familiar with 200 every foot of the way, he was able to advise the chauffeur of the more dangerous points. Neither Sutton nor Brant had uttered a word of protest against undertaking the perils of this final stage, but both breathed a sigh of relief, when, at last, the car stopped in the clearing before the Siddon cabin, and the journey was safely done.
The wooden wheels of the poplar clock in the cabin were whirring for the striking of midnight, when their noise was overborne by the grotesque, unfamiliar honkings of an automobile horn. With the second of the three blasts, the cabin’s door swung open, and in the light of it was silhouetted the tall form of Uncle Dick.
“Zeke!” he called; and his voice was a little broken.
Then, with instinctive delicacy of feeling, he stepped aside, as the young man sprang up the steps, and he stood silent, while mother and son were folded in each other’s arms, murmuring endearments. But, when Zeke at last turned to face the old man, Uncle Dick’s hand went out to a powerful clasp that told how profoundly he was moved.
“I’m glad ye’ve come, boy,” he said, simply. And Zeke knew that the old distrust and suspicion were gone forever, and in their stead were come affection and faith.