Dun clouds of tragedy, crimson-streaked with sinister romance, shadow the chronicles of the forty-mile square that makes the Dismal Swamp. Thither, aforetime, even as to-day, men fled into the labyrinthine recesses to escape the justice—or the injustice—of their fellows. Runaway slaves sought asylum within its impenetrable and uncharted mazes of thicket and quaking earth, of fetid pool and slithering quicksands. Such fugitives came no more after the emancipation. Instead of slaves, there were black men who had outraged the law, who fled into the steaming, noxious waste in order to evade the penalty for crime. For a time, these evil-doers were hunted through the tortuous trails in the canebrakes with blood-hounds, even as their predecessors had been. But the kennels of the man-hunting dogs were ravaged by the black tongue, soon after the ending of the Civil War. Poisoners, too, took toll of the too intelligent brutes. The strain rapidly grew less—became extinct. Whereat, the criminals of Dismal Swamp rejoiced in unholy glee. Their numbers waxed. Soon, they came to be 50 a serious menace to the peace and safety of the communities that bordered on the infested region.
One sufferer from these conditions so resented the depredations of marauders that he bought in England two splendid stag-hounds, keen of scent, intelligent, faithful to their task, strong enough to throttle their quarry, be it deer or man. By the aid of these creatures, many criminals were captured. Their owner, by the intrepidity of his pursuit, was given a nickname, “Cyclone” Brant. The speed and force and resistlessness of him justified the designation. Together with his dogs, Jack and Bruno, he won local fame for daring and successful exploits against the lurking swamp devils. It was this man who now, canvas-clad, with rifle in hand, looked in the direction indicated by Zeke. He was dripping wet, plastered with slime of the bogs. For a few seconds, he stood staring in silence. Then a little, gasping cry broke from his lips. He strode forward, and fell to his knees beside the body of the dog. He lifted the face of the hound gently in his two hands, and looked down at it for a long time.
There was a film of tears in Brant’s eyes when, at last, he put the head of the dog softly back on the earth, and stood up, and turned toward the mountaineer. He made explanation with simple directness. The negro was a notorious outlaw, for whose capture the authorities of Elizabeth City offered a 51 reward of five hundred dollars. Half of this sum would be duly paid to Zeke.
This news stirred the young man to the deeps. To his poverty-stricken experience, the amount was princely. The mere mention of it made privations to vanish away, luxuries to flourish. He had roseate visions of lavish expenditures: a warm coat for the old mother, furbelows for Plutina, “straighteners” even, if she would have them. The dreamer blushed at the intimacy of his thought. It did not occur to his frugal soul that now he need not continue on The Bonita, but might instead go easily to New York by train. He was naïvely happy in this influx of good fortune, and showed his emotion in the deepened color under the tan of his cheeks and in the dancing lights of the steady eyes.
“I’m shore plumb glad I kotched him,” he said eagerly, “if thar’s a right smart o’ money in hit. If he’s as right-down bad as ye says he is, I’m powerfully sorry I didn’t wing ’im ’fore he got yer dawg.”
Brant shook his head regretfully.
“It’s my fault,” he confessed. “I oughtn’t to have taken the chance with Bruno alone. I should have had Jack along, too. With more than one dog, a man won’t stand against ’em. He’ll take to a tree.” He shook off the depression that descended as he glanced down at the stiffening body 52 of the beast. There was a forced cheerfulness in his tones when he continued: “But how did you get into the swamp? I take you to be from the mountains.”
Zeke’s manner suddenly indicated no small pride.
“I’m a sailor, suh,” he explained, with great dignity. “I’m the cookin’ chief on the fishin’ steamer, Bonita.”
Brant surveyed the mountaineer with quizzically appraising eyes.
“Been a sailor long?” he questioned, innocently.
“Wall, no, I hain’t,” Zeke conceded. His voice was reluctant. “I was only tuk on las’ night. I hain’t rightly begun sailorin’ yit. Thet’s how I c’d come arter thet gobbler.” He pointed to the bird lying at the foot of the cypress. Abruptly, his thoughts veered again to the reward. “Oh, cracky! Jest think of all thet money earned in two minutes! Hit’s what I come down out o’ the mountains fer, an’ hit ’pears like I done right. I’d shore be tickled to see all thet-thar money in dimes an’ nickels, n’ mebby a few quarters thrown in!”
“You’re tied up near here?” Brant inquired.
“’Bout a mile over,” was the answer. “Will ye take yer nigger thar first?”
“Yes, I know Captain Lee. He’ll give me a chance at your gobbler, and then passage to Elizabeth City.” 53
That same afternoon, The Bonita continued her voyage. The captain obligingly made a landing at Elizabeth City, where Brant lodged his prisoner, and where the gratified Zeke stowed in his wallet ten times as much money as he had ever before possessed at one time. Naturally, he was in a mood of much self-complacency, for, in addition to the money gain, his adventure had notably increased his prestige aboard ship, where Brant’s praise for his prompt and efficient action was respectfully accepted. Yet, despite his contentment, the mountaineer found himself strangely troubled as he lay in his bunk, after the ship had got under way. It may be that his perturbation had a physical cause, at least in part, for there was more movement now as the vessel slid through the waves of Pamlico Sound. It was while he tossed restlessly, troubled over this unaccustomed inability to sleep, that there came a memory of the black bag:
“I plumb fergot the dum hoodoo!” Zeke muttered, in huge disgust. “An’ the chief said I must git another the first chance.” Then he grinned vaingloriously into the darkness of the fore-peak. “But I reckon hit hain’t put no cuss on me yit—seein’ as how I got a job an’ a peck o’ money right smack off.” Presently, however, his nervous mood suggested a sinister possibility. “P’rhaps, it don’t work on land—only jest on the sea, or mebby jest whar 54 it happens to be at. Hit wa’n’t ’long with me when I ketched the nigger. I ’low I ought to ’a’ got rid o’ the pesky thing like the chief said.”
Zeke realized that sleep was not for him. If he had had any hope otherwise, it was ended when the fog-horn of The Bonita wound its melancholy blasts, and other trumpetings began to sound over the waste from near and far. Already, by dint of many inquiries, Zeke had acquired enough information to know that the mournful noise was the accompaniment of a fog. Curious to see, he rose, and felt his way to the small port-hole, through which he sought to peer out into the night. His vision compassed no more than a few fathom’s distance; beyond, all was blackness. The port was open, and the cold mist stealing in chilled him. Zeke shivered, but an inexplicable disturbance of spirit kept him from the warmth of the blankets. He chose rather to slip on his trousers, and then again to gaze blindly out into the mysterious dark of this new world. He found himself hearkening intently for the varied calls of warning that went wailing hither and yon. The mellow, softly booming, yet penetrant notes of the conch-shells blown by the skippers of smaller craft, came almost soothingly to his ears. All the others, harsher, seemed tocsins of terror.
Standing there at the port, with the floating drops of mist drenching his face, Zeke fell into a waking dream. He was again clambering over the scarped cliffs of Stone Mountain; beside him Plutina. His arm was about her waist, and their hands were clasped, as they crept with cautious, feeling steps amid the perils of the path. For over the lofty, barren summit, the mist had shut down in impenetrable veils. Yet, through that murk of vapor, the two, though they moved so carefully, went in pulsing gladness, their hearts singing the old, old, new, new mating song. A mist not born of the sea nor of the mountain, but of the heart, was in the lad’s eyes while he remembered and lived again those golden moments in the mountain gloom. It seemed to him for a blessed minute that Plutina was actually there beside him in the tiny, rocking space of the fore-peak; that the warmth of her hand-clasp thrilled into the beating of his pulses. Though the illusion vanished swiftly, the radiance of it remained, for he knew that then, and always, the spirit of the girl dwelt with him.
The mountaineer’s interval of peace was rudely ended. A wild volley of blasts from The Bonita’s whistle made alarum. Bells clanged frantically in the engine-room close at hand. A raucous fog-horn clamored out of the dark. To Zeke, still dazedly held to thought of the mountains, the next sound was like the crashing down of a giant tree, which 56 falls with the tearing, splitting din of branches beating through underbrush. An evil tremor shook the boat. Of a sudden, The Bonita heeled over to starboard, almost on her beams’ ends. Zeke saved himself from falling only by a quick clutch on the open port. From the deck above came a contusion of fierce voices, a strident uproar of shouts and curses. Then, The Bonita righted herself, tremulously, languidly, as one sore-stricken might sit up, very feebly. The sailors in the fore-peak, with a chorus of startled oaths, leaped from the bunks, and fled to the deck. Zeke followed.
Clinging to a stanchion, the mountaineer could distinguish vaguely, in the faint lights of the lanterns, the bows of a three-masted schooner, which had sheared through the port-side of The Bonita. The bowsprit hung far over the smaller ship, a wand of doom. The beating of the waves against the boat’s side came gently under the rasping, crunching complaint of timber against timber in combat. The schooner’s sails flapped softly in the light breeze. Zeke, watching and listening alertly, despite bewilderment, heard the roaring commands of a man invisible, somewhere above him, and guessed that this must be the captain of the schooner. He saw the crew of The Bonita clambering one after another at speed, up the anchor chain at the bow of the destroyer. He realized 57 that flight was the only road to safety. But, even as he was tensed to dart forward, he remembered his treasure of money under the bunk pillow.
On the instant, he rushed to the fore-peak, seized the wallet and the black bag, and fled again to the deck. At the moment when he reappeared, a gust of quickening breeze filled the schooner’s sails. The canvas bellied taut. The grinding, clashing clamor of the timbers swelled suddenly. The schooner wrenched herself free, and slipped, abruptly silent, away into the night and the mist. Ere Zeke reached the rail in his leap, the schooner had vanished. For a minute, he heard a medley of voices. Then, while he stood straining his eyes in despair, these sounds lessened—died. The mountaineer stood solitary and forsaken on the deck of a sinking ship.
Finally, Zeke spoke aloud in self-communion. The words rang a little tremulous, for he realized that he was at grips with death.
“Hit’s what I gits fer fergittin’,” was his regretful comment. “I reckon, if so be I’d ever got onto thet-thar schooner with this-hyar damn’ bag, she’d ’a’ sunk, too. Or, leastways, they’d have chucked me overboard like Jonah, fer causin’ the hull cussed trouble with this pesky black bag o’ mine.”
Zeke perceived that the doomed vessel was settling by the head. He surmised that time was short. 58 Nevertheless, he took leisure for one duty he deemed of prime importance. With all his strength in a vicious heave, he cast the black bag from him into the sea.
“I hain’t superstitious,” he remarked, sullenly; “thet is, not exzackly. An’ I reckon I’m gittin’ rid o’ that conjure satchel a mite late. I guess hit’s done hit’s damnedest a’ready.”
Inquiries during the leisurely voyaging through the canal had given Zeke knowledge concerning the life-belts. Now, he buckled one of them about his body hastily, for even his ignorance could not fail to interpret the steady settling of the vessel into the water. The strain of fighting forebears in the lad set him courageous in the face of death. But his blood was red and all a-tingle with the joy of life, and he was very loath to die. His heart yearned for the girl who loved him. His desire for her was a stabbing agony. The thought of his mother’s destitution, deprived of him in her old age, was grievous. But his anguish was over the girl—anguish for himself; yet more for her. The drizzle of the fog on his cheeks brought again a poignant memory of the mist that had enwrapped them on the stark rocks of the mountain. A savage revolt welled in him against the monstrous decree of fate. He cried out roughly a challenge to the elements. Then, in the next instant, he checked the futile 59 outburst, and bethought him how best to meet the catastrophe.
The instinct of flight from the rising waters led Zeke to mount the pilot-house. The lanterns shed a flickering light here, and the youth uttered a cry of joy as his eyes fell on the life-raft. The shout was lost in the hissing of steam as the sea rushed in on the boilers. All the lights were extinguished now, save the running lamps with their containers of oil. Quickly, the noise from the boiler-room died out, and again there was silence, save for the occasional bourdoning of the horns or the mocking caress of the waves that lapped the vessel’s sides—like a colossal serpent licking the prey it would devour betimes. In the stillness, Zeke wrought swiftly. He wasted no time over the fastenings. The blade of his knife slashed through the hemp lashings, and the raft lay clear. He made sure that it was free from the possibility of entanglement. Then, as the boat lurched sickeningly, like a drunken man to a fall, Zeke stretched himself face downward lengthwise of the tiny structure, and clenched his hands on the tubes. There was a period of dragging seconds, while The Bonita swayed sluggishly, in a shuddering rhythm. Came the death spasm. The stern was tossed high; the bow plunged for the depths. Down and down—to the oyster rocks 60 of Teach’s Hole, in Pamlico Sound. As the vessel sank, the raft floated clear for a moment, then the suction drew it under, buffeted it—spewed it forth. It rode easily on the swirling waters, at last. As the commotion from the ship’s sinking ceased, the raft moved smoothly on the surface, rocking gently with the pulse of the sea. Zeke, half-strangled, almost torn from his place by the grip of the water in the plunge, clung to his refuge with all the strength that was in him. And that strength prevailed. Soon, he could breathe fully once again, and the jaws of the sea gave over their gnawing. After the mortal peril through which he had won, Zeke found his case not so evil. The life was still in him, and he voiced a crude phrase of gratefulness to Him who is Lord of the deep waters, even as of the everlasting hills.
Near Teach’s Hole, Ocracoke Inlet offers a shallow channel between the dunes from Pamlico Sound to the open sea. Here the varying tides rush angrily, lashed by the bulk of waves behind. To-night, the ebb bore with it a cockle-shell on which a lad clung, shivering. But the soul was still strong in him for all his plight. He dared believe that he would yet return safe to the mountains, to the love that awaited him there.
Once the castaway smiled wryly: 61
“I hain’t superstitious none—leastways, I dunno’s I be,” he muttered, doubtfully. “But hit’s plumb lucky I got rid o’ thet-thar dum black bag jest as I did, or I’d ’a’ been a goner, shore!”
The days dragged heavily for Plutina, after the departure of her lover. She endured the period of tense waiting as best she might, since endure she must, but this passive loneliness, without a word from the man of her heart, was well-nigh intolerable. She did not weep—after that single passionate outburst while yet her lips were warm from his kiss. She was not of the weak fiber to find assuagement in many tears, nor had she nerves that needed the chemical soothing of flooded eyes. She had, indeed, strength sufficient for the trial. She bore her sorrow bravely enough, but it pierced her through and through. She knew her lover, and she knew herself. Because of that knowledge she was spared the shameful suffering of a woman who fears, with deadly fear, lest her lover be untrue. Plutina had never a doubt as to the faith of the absent one. A natural jealousy sometimes leaped in her bosom, at thought of him exposed to the wiles of women whom she suspected of all wantonness. But she had no cowardly thought that the fairest and most cunning of them 63 could oust her from the shrine of Zeke’s heart. Her great grief lay in the failure of any word from the traveler. The days became weeks; almost a month had gone since he held her in his arms, and still no message came. This was, in truth, strange enough to justify alarm. It was with difficulty that she drove back a temptation to imagine evil happenings. She went oftener the six miles to the Cherry Lane post-office.
When she descended the trail toward Thunder Branch this morning, she saw Zeke’s mother standing in the doorway of the cabin on the far side of the stream. The bent figure of the old woman rested motionless, with one hand lifted to shade her eyes from the vivid sunlight, as she watched the girl’s approach.
“Mornin’, Tiny,” she said tenderly, as the girl crossed the clearing. “On yer way to the Lane, I reckon?”
“Mornin’, Mis’ Higgins,” came the cheery answer. “Yes, I ’lowed as how ye’d love to hear, an’ I c’d git away. The corn’s laid by; the sorghum cane’s done hoed. Alviry’s gone to he’p Gran’pap with a bee-tree. Hit’s a big yaller poplar, up ’twixt Ted Hutchins’ claim an’ the ole mine-hole. Gran’pap ’lows as how hit ’ll have to be cut an’ split, an’ wuth hit—over a hundred pounds, all sour-wood honey, ’cept ’bout ten pounds early poplar. Gran’pap’s 64 right-smart tickled. I told Alviry to watch out he don’t go an’ tote half of it up to thet-thar Widder Brown. You-all must come over an’ git what ye kin use o’ the honey, Mis’ Higgins, afore the widder gits her fingers in the jar.”
“Ye don’t opine thet-thar gran’pap o’ your’n aims to git hitched ag’in at his age, do ye, Tiny? Hit’d be plumb scand’lous—an’ him eighty past. At thet age, he’s bound to have one foot in the grave, fer all he’s so tarnation spry an’ peart in his carryin’s on.”
“Lord knows what he’ll do,” the girl replied, carelessly. “He’s allers been given credit fer havin’ fotchin’ ways with women. I hope he won’t, though. They say, folks what marry upwards o’ eighty is mighty short-lived.”
The topic led Zeke’s mother to broach apprehension of her own:
“Tiny, ye don’t have no idee thet our Zeke’s gone daffy on some o’ them Evish-lookin’ critters down below, like ye showed me their picters in the city paper oncet?”
“Naw, no danger o’ thet,” was the stout assurance. “Zeke’s got too much sense. Besides, he hain’t had no time to git rich yit. The paper done said as how them kind’s arter the coin.”
As she went her way, the girl’s mind reveled in thoughts of the days to come, when Zeke should be 65 rich in sooth, and his riches for her. She swung her sun-bonnet in vigorous slaps against her bare legs, to scatter the ravenous mosquitoes and yellow flies, swarming from the thickets, and she smiled contentedly.
“P’r’aps, them women’s got more edication ’n me,” she mused aloud, complacently, “but I kin fill them silk stockin’s plumb up.” Her face grew brooding with a wistful regret in the sudden droop of the tender red lips. “I ’low I jest orter ’a’ swung onto thet-thar neck o’ his’n an’ hollered fer Parson, and got spliced ’fore he went.” She shook her head disconsolately. “Why, if he don’t come back, I’ll be worse nor the widders. Humph, I knows ’em—cats. They’ll say: ‘Tiny Siddon didn’t never have no chance to git married—her disperzition an’ her looks wa’n’t compellin’ ’nough to ketch a man.’”
The great dark eyes were clouded a little with bitter disappointment, when, two hours later, the girl came swiftly down the steep slopes from Cherry Lane, for once again there had been no letter for her. Despite her courage, Plutina felt a chill of dismay before the mystery of this silence. Though faith was unshaken, bewilderment oppressed her spirit. She could not understand, and because she could not understand, her grief was heavy to bear. Then, presently, she chanced upon 66 a new mystery for her distraction—though this was the easier to her solving.
As she descended into a hollow by Luffman’s branch, which joins Thunder Branch a little way above the Higgins’ clearing, Plutina’s alert ears caught a sound that was not of the tumbling waters. Through all the noises of the stream where it leaped and sprayed in miniature falls over cluttering bowlders and fallen pines, she could distinguish the splashing of quick footsteps in the shallows. Some instinct of caution checked the girl’s advance. Instead of going forward openly, she turned aside and approached the bank where crowding alders and ivy formed a screen. Here, she parted the vines stealthily, and peered up the water-course.
A man was descending the run with hurried strides, wading with bare feet, or springing from rock to rock where were the deeper pools. A Winchester nestled in the crook of his left arm; two huge bear-traps, the jaws wickedly fanged, were swung from a rope over his right shoulder; a short-helved ax was thrust within his belt. He wore only a cotton shirt open at the neck, dirty throughout, patched jeans trousers, and a soft hat, green from long use. Beneath the shading brim showed a loutish face, the coarse features swollen from dissipation, the small black eyes bleared, yet alert and penetrating in their darting, furtive glances. It 67 was Dan Hodges, a man of unsavory repute. The girl, though unafraid, blessed the instinct that had guided her to avoid a meeting.
There were two prime factors in Plutina’s detestation of Hodges. The first was due to his insolence, as she deemed it, in aspiring for her favor. With little training in conventional ideas of delicacy, the girl had, nevertheless, a native refinement not always characteristic of her more-cultured sister women. There was to her something unspeakably repugnant in the fact that this bestial person should dare to think of her intimately. It was as if she were polluted by his dreaming of her kisses, of her yielding to his caresses. That he had so aspired she knew, for he had told her of his desire with the coarse candor of his kind. Her spurning of the uncouth advances had excited his wrath; it had not destroyed his hopes. He had even ventured to renew his suit, after the news of an engagement between Plutina and Zeke had gone abroad. He had winced under the scourge of the girl’ scorn, but he had shown neither penitence nor remorse. Plutina had forborne any account of this trouble to her lover, lest, by bad blood between the two men, a worse thing befall.
The second cause of the girl’s feeling was less direct, though of longer standing, and had to do with the death of her father. That Siddon, while 68 yet in his prime, had been slain in a raid on a still by the revenue officers, and that despite the fact that he was not concerned in the affair, save by the unfortunate chance of being present. Plutina, though only a child at the time, could still remember the horror of that event. There was a singular personal guiltiness, too, in her feeling, for, on the occasion of the raid, her grandfather had been looking out from a balcony, and had seen the revenue men urging their horses up the trail, the sunlight glinting on their carbines. He had seized the great horn, to blow a warning to those at the secret still on the mountain above. Plutina could remember yet the grotesque bewilderment on his face, as no sound issued—then the wrath and despair. The children, in all innocence, had stuffed the horn with rags. The prank had thus, in a way, cost two lives—one, that of “Young” Dick Siddon. The owner of the raided still had been Dan Hodges, and him Plutina despised and hated with a virulence not at all Christian, but very human. She had all the old-time mountaineer’s antipathy for the extortion, as it was esteemed, of the Federal Government, and her father’s death had naturally inflamed her against those responsible for it. Yet, her loathing of Hodges caused her to regret that the man himself had escaped capture thus far, though twice his still had been destroyed, once within the year.
A high, jutting wall of rock hid the stream where it bent sharply a little way from Plutina’s shelter. Presently, she became aware that Hodges had paused thus beyond the range of her vision, and was busy there. She heard the blows of the ax. General distrust of the man stirred up in her a brisk curiosity concerning the nature of his action in this place. On a previous day, she had observed that the limpid waters of the brook had been sullied by the milky refuse from a still somewhere in the reaches above. Now, the presence of Dan Hodges was sufficient to prove the hidden still his. But the fact did not explain his business here. That it was something evil, she could not doubt, for the man and his gang were almost outlaws among their own people. They were known, though unpunished, thieves, as well as “moonshiners,” and there were whispers of more dreadful things—of slain men vanished into the unsounded depths of the Devil’s Cauldron. The gorge of the community—careless as it had been of some laws in the past, and too ready to administer justice according to its own code—had risen against the vicious living of the gang that accepted Hodges as chief. It seemed to Plutina that duty conspired with curiosity to set her spying on the man.
The espionage, though toilsome enough, was not otherwise difficult. Toward the bend, the banks 70 rose sharply on both sides of the stream, forming a tiny cañon for the channel. The steep slope on the east side, where the girl now ascended, was closely overgrown with laurel and little thickets of ground pine, through which she was hard beset to force her way—the more since she must move with what noiselessness she might. But her strength and skill compassed the affair with surprising quickness. Presently, she came to the brim of the little cliff, and lying outstretched, cautiously looked down. Already, a hideous idea had entered her mind, but she had rejected it with horror. What she now saw confirmed the thought she had not dared to harbor.
Within this bend of the brook, the lessening volume of the channel had left a patch of rich soil, heavily overgrown with lush grasses and clusters of flowering weeds. A faint trace of passing steps ran across the bit of dry ground, the path of those that followed the stream’s course. Fair in this dim trail, near the center of the plot, a stake had been driven deep. At the moment, Hodges was driving into the ground a similar stake, a yard further down. It was evident that the stakes had been previously left here in readiness, since he had not carried them in his descent, and the iron rings bound to them must have been attached in a forge. The two massive traps were lying half-hidden in 71 the luxuriant growth close by. As Plutina watched with affrighted intentness, the man finished driving the second stake. He lifted one of the traps, and carried it to the upper stake. With the aid of a stone for anvil, he succeeded in clumsily riveting the trap’s length of chain to the ring on the stake. The like was done with the other trap at the lower stake. Then, the man undertook the setting of the traps. The task was accomplished very quickly for both, though the strength of the jaws taxed his muscles to their utmost. Finally, he strewed leaves, and bent grass, until no least gleam of metal betrayed the masked peril of the trail. Plutina, sick with the treacherous deviltry of the device, heard the grunt of satisfaction with which Hodges contemplated his finished work. Forthwith, he picked up his rifle, thrust the ax-helve within his belt, and set off up the gulch.
There could be no doubt. Those massive traps, with their cruel teeth of steel, meant by the makers for the holding of beasts, had been set here by Hodges for the snaring of men. The contrivance was fiendishly efficient. From her coign of vantage on the cliff top, Plutina could see, on a height above, the brush-covered distillery. A thin, blue column of smoke rose straight in the calm air, witness that the kettle was boiling over hickory logs, that a “run” of the liquor was being made. Plutina recalled that, in a recent raid against Hodges, the still had been captured and destroyed though the gang had escaped. Such loss was disastrous, for the new copper and worm and fermenters meant a cost of a hundred dollars, a sum hard to come on in the mountain coves. Usually, the outfit is packed on the men’s backs to hiding in the laurel, afterward shifted to another obscure nook by running water. It was plain that Hodges had grown more than ever venomous over the destruction of his still, and had no scruples as to the means he would employ to prevent a repetition 73 of such catastrophe. No need now to fear lest sentinels be not alert. The natural path to the still was along the course of the stream. The unwary passer over the tiny stretch of greensward on which the girl looked down, would follow the dim trail of footsteps, and so inevitably come within the clutch of the great jaws, which would hurl themselves together, rending and crunching the flesh between. The victim’s shrieks of anguish under the assault would be a warning to the lawless men above. They would make ready and flee with their possessions, and be lost in the laurel once again. Yes, the device was simple, diabolically simple, and adequate. It required only that its executant should be without bowels of compassion.
Plutina, strong-nerved as she was, found herself shuddering as she realized the heinousness of this thing. The soft bloom of the roses in her cheeks faded to white; the dark radiance of the eyes was dimmed with horror; the exquisite lips were compressed harshly against their own quivering weakness. For Plutina, despite strength of body and sane poise of soul, was a gentle and tender woman, and the brutal project spread before her eyes was an offense to every sensibility. Then, very soon, the mood of passive distress yielded to another emotion: a lust for vengeance on the man who would insure his own safety thus, reckless of another’s 74 cost. A new idea came to the girl. At its first advent, she shrank from it, conscience-stricken, for it outraged the traditions of her people. But the idea returned, once and again. It seemed to her that the evil of the man justified her in any measure for his punishment. She had been bred to hate and despise a spy, but it was borne in on her now that duty required of her to turn informer against Dan Hodges. There was more even than the inflicting of punishment on the outlaw; there was the necessity of safeguarding the innocent from the menace of those hidden man-traps. Any “furriner” from down below might wander here, whipping the stream; or any one of the neighborhood might chance on the spot. The Widow Higgins’ heifers sometimes strayed; the old woman might come hither, seeking them. Plutina shuddered again, before the terrible vision of the one who was like a mother to her, caught and mangled by the pointed fangs waiting amid the grasses below.
The question as to her right conduct in the affair remained with the girl, as she descended from the cliff, and made her way slowly homeward. She temporized by a precautionary measure. At the widow’s cabin, she secured the old woman’s promise not to go beyond the clearing in quest of the cattle. But the difficulty as to her course was not 75 abated. Inclination urged her to advise the authorities concerning the locations of still and traps, and inclination was reinforced by justice. Yet, over against this, there were the powerful influence of her upbringing, the circumstances of her environment, the tragedy of her father’s death, the savage resentment of her grandfather, already virulent against her lover—all forces to inspire enmity against the representatives of a law regarded as the violation of inalienable rights. True, there was growing an insidious change in the sentiment of the community. Where all had once been of accord, the better element were now becoming convinced that the illicit liquor-making cursed the mountains, rather than blessed. Undoubtedly, some effect of this had touched the girl herself, without her knowledge, else she had never thought to betray even such a miscreant as Hodges. There was, however, an abiding hate of the informer here, as always among decent folk, though along with it went reprobation of the traffic in moonshine. Plutina felt that she could never justify her action in the sight of her people, should she bring the revenue men into the mountain. Her own grandfather would curse her, and drive her forth. His feeling had been shown clearly in the case of Zeke. So, in her period of uncertainty and stress, there was none of whom the girl could take counsel. But, in the end, she decided 76 that she must give warning to the United States marshal. The task demanded care. On absolute secrecy depended, in all likelihood, her very life.
The trove of honey had come opportunely, since the sale of a portion afforded Plutina plausible excuse for her trip to Joines’ store. There, a telephone had been recently installed, and it was the girl’s intention to use this means of communication with the marshal. That the danger of detection was great, she was unhappily aware, but, she could devise no plan that seemed less perilous. So, early in the morning of the day following her discovery, she made her way along the North Wilkesboro’ road, carrying twenty pounds of the sour-wood honey. At the store, she did her trading, and afterward remained loitering, as is the custom of shoppers in the region. The interval of waiting seemed to her interminable, for trade was brisk. There was always someone near enough the telephone to overhear, for it was unprotected by a booth. But, finally, the customers lessened. The few remaining were in the front of the store, at a safe distance from the instrument which was on a shelf at the back. Plutina believed that her opportunity was come. She knew the amount of the toll, and had the necessary silver in her hand to slip into the box. Then, just as she was about to take down the 77 receiver, her apprehensive glance, roving the room, fell on Ben York, who entered briskly, notwithstanding his seventy years, and came straight toward her. Plutina’s lifted hand fell to her side, and dread was heavy on her. For Ben York was the distiller in Hodges’ gang.
The old man had a reputation almost as notorious as that of Hodges himself. The girl felt a wave of disgust, mingled with alarm, as she caught sight of the face, almost hidden behind a hoary thicket of whiskers. The fellow was dirty, as always, and his ragged clothes only emphasized the emaciation of his dwarfed form. But the rheumy eyes had a searching quality that disturbed the girl greatly. She knew that the man was distinguished for his intelligence as well as for his general worthlessness. In the experience of years, he had always escaped the raiders, nor had they been able ever to secure any evidence against him. He was, in fact, as adroit of mind as he was tough of body. He had lived hard all his days, either in drunken carouse or lying out in the laurel to escape the summons of the courts. Where, alas! a holier man might have been broken long ago, the aged reprobate thrived, and threatened to infest the land for years to come. Now, he greeted the girl casually enough, made a purchase, and took his departure. He seemed quite unsuspicious, but Plutina felt that his coming on her 78 thus was an evil omen, and, for a moment, she faltered in her purpose.
A hand went to her bosom, and touched the tiny leather bag that hung from a cord about her neck inside the gown. Within it was the fairy crystal. The touch of it strengthened her in some subtle fashion. It was as if to her weakness there came miraculously something vital, something occultly helpful in her need, from the distant lover. The superstition, begotten and nourished always in the fastnesses of the heights, stirred deeply within her, and comforted her. Of a sudden, courage flowed back into her. She took down the receiver.
After all, nothing was accomplished. The marshal was not in his office, but absent somewhere in the mountains. Plutina would not risk giving information to any other than the officer himself, whom she knew, and respected. Disconsolate, she abandoned the attempt for the time being, and set out to get a bag of wheat flour from the mill close by, on the other side of Roaring River.
As Plutina, with the bag of flour on shoulder, was making her way back from the mill, across the big sycamore trunk that serves as a foot bridge, a horse splashed into the ford alongside. The girl looked up, to see the very man she sought. Marshal Stone called a cheery greeting, the while his horse dropped its head to drink. 79
“Howdy, Plutina?”
“Howdy, Mr. Stone,” she answered. Her free hand went again to the talisman in her bosom. Surely, its charm was potent!
“All’s well as common, at home?” Stone continued. His critical eyes delighted in the unconscious grace of the girl, as she stood poised above the brawling stream, serene in her physical perfection; and above the delicately modeled symmetry of form was the loveliness of the face, beautiful as a flower, yet strong, with the shining eyes and the red lips, now parted in eagerness. The marshal wondered a little at that eagerness. He wondered still more at her hurried speech after one quick glance to make sure that none could overhear:
“I mustn’t be seed talkin’ to ye, but I got somethin’ to say ’ll he’p ye arn yer pay. Kin ye meet me in an hour by the sun, at the ole gate on the east end o’ Wolf Rock?”
The marshal’s answer wasted no words:
“Go on, gal—I’ll be there.”
Wolf Rock, a huge, jutting mass of barren cliff, though tiny beside the bulk of Stone Mountain, which overshadows it, lies between Garden Creek and Thunder Branch, a little to the north of where these streams flow into Roaring River. Its situation, nearly midway between the mill and the Siddon Cabin, made it a convenient point for the 80 meeting between Plutina and the officer. Its loneliness lessened the element of danger. Both were prompt to the rendezvous. Well under the hour, man and girl were standing together within a bower of newly blossoming rhododendrons. Above them, the naked rock bent sharply, its granite surface glistening in the hot noonday sun. They had withdrawn some score of yards from the old wooden gate that barred the lane here, lest a chance passer-by see them together. Plutina opened her mind without hesitation. The decision once made, she had no thought of drawing back.
“I ’low I kin trust ye, Mister Stone,” she said simply, and the sincerity of the lustrous eyes as they met his confirmed her words. “Afore you-all’s time in the revenue service, raiders done kilt my daddy. I kain’t never fergive them men, but they’s out o’ the service now, er I wouldn’t have come to ye. Gran’pap says they’s a better lot o’ revenuers now ’n what used to be an’ he says as how Marshal Stone don’t do no dirt. Thet’s why I’m a-trusting ye, so’s ye kin kotch the pizen-meanest white man a-makin’ likker in the hull Stone Mountain country—him an’ his gang an’ his still.”
The marshal’s eyes sparkled.
“I reckon you’re talking about Dan Hodges,” he interjected.
Plutina nodded her head in somber acquiescence.
“Then you needn’t have any scruples about giving information,” Stone continued, urgently. “He and his gang are a menace to the peace of the settlement. I’ll keep you out of it, of course, to save you embarrassment.”
“Ye’d better,” Plutina retorted, “to save my life. I don’t know’s I mind bein’ embarrassed so much, but I don’t feel called to die yit.”
“No, no; there won’t be anything like that,” the marshal exclaimed, much disconcerted. “I’ll see no trouble comes to you. Nobody’ll know your part.”
“’Cept me!” was the bitter objection. “If ’twas anybody but that ornery galoot, I wouldn’t say a word. Ye know that.”
“I know,” Stone admitted, placatingly.
In his desire to change her mood, he blundered on:
“And there’s the reward for getting the ‘copper’—twenty dollars for you Plutina. If we get Hodges, I’ll give you another fifty out of my own pocket. That’ll buy you a nice new dress or two, and a hat, and some silk stockings for those pretty legs of yours.”
Plutina flared. The red glowed hot in her cheeks, and the big eyes flashed. The mellow voice deepened to a note of new dignity, despite her anger.
“I hain’t come hyar to gas ’bout rewards, an’ money outten yer pocket, Mister Stone, or ’bout 82 my clothes an’ sech. I’m an engaged woman. When I wants to cover my legs with stockin’s Zeke Higgins’ money’ll do the payin’, an’ he won’t need no he’p from no damned revenuer.”
Stone, realizing too late the error in his diplomacy, made what haste he could to retrieve it. His smile was genial as he spoke. He seemed quite unabashed, just heartily sympathetic, and his manner calmed the girl’s irritation almost at once.
“Oh, you little mountain hornet! Well, you are telling me news now. And it’s the kind to make any old bachelor like me weep for envy. Lucky boy, Zeke! I guess he knows it, too, for he’s got eyes in his head. About the money—why, you’ve a right to it. If Dan Hodges and his gang ain’t rounded up quick, they’ll be killing some good citizen—like me, perhaps.”
Plutina had recovered her poise, but she spoke no less firmly:
“No, suh, I won’t tech the money. I kin show ye how to kotch the hull gang, but not fer pay, an not fer love o’ no revenuer, neither. Hit’s jest fer the good o’ this country hyarbout. Dan Hodges has done sot b’ar-traps to kotch you-all. An’ anybody might walk plumb into ’em, but not if I kin he’p hit.”
Forthwith, she made the situation clear to her eager listener. 83
“Kin you-all meet me, an hour by the sun in the mornin’, on the trail to Cherry Lane post-office jest beyond the Widder Higgins’ clearin’? I’ll take ye to the place, whar ye kin see the still, an’ the traps.”
“I’ll have to move lively,” the marshal answered, with a somewhat rueful laugh. “Twenty miles’ ride to North Wilkesboro’, and back. But I’ll do it, of course. I wouldn’t miss it for a good deal. I’ll have my men waiting at Trap Hill. If things shape right, I’ll make the raid to-morrow night.”