The Last Three Soldiers

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH THE SOLDIERS MAKE A MAP

The forbearance of the captors to disturb their prisoners was puzzling to the three soldiers huddled together on the point of rocks. Through the telescope the men could now be plainly seen, in their rough mountain dress, moving to and fro on their stations, and apparently keeping under cover where trees or outhouses were available as a mask. At one point several men were grouped together behind a fodder-stack, as if in consultation, and on the road could be seen one who seemed to be watching impatiently for some expected arrival.

Holding the telescope soon grew tiresome, and they passed it from one to another, that no movement in the gruesome pantomime might escape their observation; and the observer for the time being broke the silence at intervals with details of what he saw.

"There!" cried Philip, at last, "the men are getting lively behind the fodder-stack. Now the fellow in the road is waving his hat. Hold on! There comes a man—two men—on horseback. Now the sentinels are moving in toward the cabin."

Thus the cordon was drawn close about the house, in which the inmates still showed no signs of life. The horsemen dismounted and tied their horses to the fence, and then, with an armed guard, advanced to the door. Lieutenant Coleman looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes after seven. At seven twenty-eight the old mountaineer appeared, and was passed down the line to the road. Next came the three officers, one after the other, and they were removed to one side under guard. Then the four women seemed to be driven out of the house by the soldiers, and forced along by violence into the road. Some of the men appeared to be breaking the windows of the cabin, and others were running out of the open door, appropriating some objects and ruthlessly destroying others. For the first time the soldier exiles realized how far they were removed, by their own will, from a world in which they had no part. The sufferers were their friends whom they knew not, and to help whom they had no power. They were like spirits looking down from a world above on the passions of mortals—as helpless to interfere as the motionless rocks.

After a brief consultation the mounted men rode away to the north, while the prisoners, with their guards, advanced in the opposite direction and soon disappeared behind that ridge up which Shifless had climbed to look over in the gray of the morning of the day before. A puff of smoke burst from the deserted cabin and rose like a tower into the frosty air. Fire gleamed through the broken windows, and red tongues of flame licked about the dry logs, and lashed and forked under the eaves and about the edges of the shingled roof. The reflection from the flames reddened the snow in the little clearing. The stacks caught fire. The boughs of the orchard withered and crisped in the fierce heat.

Now, as if satisfied with their work of destruction, the men who had remained at the house joined the others behind the ridge, and the armed guards, with their miserable prisoners, soon reappeared, moving over the snow under the bare trees. The three soldiers lay out on the rocks above to watch the poor captives picking their way down a stony, winding trail, forming one straggling file between two flanking columns of mountaineers. Knowing something of the stoical ways of these people, they could feel the silence of that gloomy progress. They even fancied they could hear the crunching of the snow, the rolling of displaced stones on the frosty hillside, the crackling of brittle twigs under foot, and the subdued sobbing of the women.

Steadily the procession of ill omen moved along over the snow under the thin trees, disappearing and reappearing and dwindling in the distance, until it was lost behind the spurs of the mountain called Chimney Top. By this time the roof of the house had fallen into the burning mass between the two stone chimneys; the sun had risen, and the dense column of smoke cast a writhing shadow against the snowy face of Sheep Cliff.

When the glass was brought to bear on the house and road below, it revealed Shifless and the Cove postmaster riding quietly home on their mules, doubtless well satisfied with the evil deed their heads had planned.

As the three soldiers turned back in the direction of their house, Bromley was in a rage, and Philip could no longer command himself. All three were worn and haggard with loss of sleep, and depressed by the outcome of the affair in the valley.

In fact, the disheartening effect of the experiences connected with this first Christmas continued to oppress our exiles well into the next year. If, in the narrow valley on which they were privileged to look down, three officers of the old armies had been thus hunted and dragged off before their eyes, they had reason to believe that fragments of those armies were receiving similar or worse treatment wherever they might be found. Time and their daily work gradually calmed their minds and helped them to forget the pain of what they had seen. They missed the company of the bear, too; for even before this great disturbance of their tranquillity that amusing companion of their solitude had burrowed himself away, to consume his own fat, where not even their telescope could discover him for several months.

Presently the winter snows became deeper on the mountain, and they were confined more and more to the house. The Slow-John was frozen up in the branch, and the fowls, which could no longer forage for their own living, hung about the door for the scraps from the table and an occasional handful of corn. They roosted in the cabin of the old man of the mountain, and now and then, in return for their keep, laid an egg, which was often frozen before it was found.

The soft, clean husks of the corn, added to the pine boughs, made comfortable beds, and the tents spread over the blankets provided abundant covering. Great bunches of catnip and pennyroyal for tea hung from the rafters, and even the wild gentian, potent to cure all ailments, was not forgotten in the winter outfit.

The prayer-book and Army Regulations, which formed their library, were read and re-read, and discussed until theology and the art of clothing and feeding an army were worn threadbare. Philip, who was blessed with a vivid imagination and great originality, made up the most marvelous ghost-stories and the most heartrending and finally soul-satisfying romances, which were recited in the evenings before the fire, to the huge enjoyment of his companions. If it was romance, a fat pine-knot thrust between the logs illumined the interior and searched the farthest corners and crannies of the room with a flood of light; and in case it was a ghost-story, the logs were left to burn low and fall piecemeal into the red coals before the eyes of the three figures sitting half revealed in sympathetic obscurity.

One of the most interesting incidents of the first winter was the construction, by Lieutenant Coleman, of a map of the "old United States," and the plotting thereon of the Confederacy as they supposed it to be. When it is remembered that the map was drawn entirely from memory, the clear topographical knowledge of the officer was, to say the least, surprising.

The first reference to the map is found in Lieutenant Coleman's entry in the diary for the 24th of January, 1865:

"As we were sitting before the fire last night, George introduced a subject which, by common consent, we have rather avoided any reference to or conversation upon. This related to the probable boundaries of the new nation established by the triumphant Confederates. We had no doubt that the Confederacy embraced all the States which were slaveholding States at the outbreak of the Rebellion; and as they doubtless had made Washington their capital, it was more than probable that they had added little Delaware to Maryland on their northern border. We assumed that so long as there were two governments in the old territory, the Ohio River would be accepted as a natural boundary as far as to the Mississippi; but we were of widely different opinions as to the line of separation thence.

"George, who is inclined to the darker view, is of the opinion that the Southern republic, if it be a republic at all, would certainly demand an opening to the Pacific Ocean, and therefore must embrace a part, if not the whole, of California.

"February 16. We have been confined to the house two days by a driving snow-storm, and the territorial extent of the Confederacy has come up again, not, however, for the first time since the discussion on the 23d of January. As we still have one stormy month before the opening of spring, I have determined to enter upon the construction of a map which shall lay down the probable boundaries of the two nations. When George and I are unable to agree, the point in dispute will be argued before Philip, and settled by the votes of the three."

On February 17, then, this map was begun on the inner side of one of the rubber ponchos after buttoning down and gluing with pitch the opening in the center. It was stretched on a frame, and thus provided a clean white canvas five feet square on which to draw the map.

If Lieutenant Coleman and his companions had known that General Sherman, after whom they had named their island in the sky and whom they mourned as dead, was that very morning marching into the city of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, with all his bands playing and flags flying, the map would never have been made, and the life on the mountain would have come to a sudden end. Fortunately for the continuance of this history, they were ignorant of that fact, and Lieutenant Coleman on this very day began plotting his map with charcoal. After going over the coasts and watercourses and establishing the boundaries of States, and that greatest and most difficult of all boundaries, the one between "the two countries," he would blow off the charcoal and complete the details with ink. Of this necessary fluid there was a canteen full, which had been made in the fall from oak-galls (lumps or balls produced on the oak-leaves by tiny insects) and the purple pokeberries which had been gathered from the field below the ledge. The oak-leaves had been steeped in warm water, and this mixture, together with the berries, had been strained through a cloth and bottled up in the canteen.

While at West Point, Cadet Coleman, of the class of '63, had devoted himself to mapping, and he believed he was tolerably familiar with his subject until, at the very outset, difficulties began to arise. He found that his knowledge about the Northwestern Territories was shaky, and it was difficult to convince Bromley that Arkansas was not west of Kansas.

They finally gave little Delaware to the Confederacy, accepting the bay and river as a natural geographical separation. Thence they followed the southern boundary of Pennsylvania to the Ohio River, the Ohio and Mississippi to the southern boundary of Iowa, and thence west and south on the northern and western frontiers of Missouri. The Indian Territory became the first point of disagreement.

Under date of March 1, 1865, Lieutenant Coleman says:

"With the aid of Philip, I pressed the boundary line south to the Red River. We all conceded Texas to the Confederacy. I was disposed to establish the extreme western boundary of the Confederacy as identical with the western frontier of Texas. George allowed this so far as the Rio Grande formed a natural boundary along the frontier of Mexico, but stoutly insisted that the successful Southerners would never consent to a settlement which did not extend their borders to the Pacific Ocean. To this claim on the part of the South he contended that the imbecility of Congress and the timidity of Northern leaders would offer little or no opposition. He held that if they took part of California, they might as well take the whole; and in either case they would take New Mexico and Arizona as the natural connection with their Pacific territory.

"I contended that California had never been a slave State, and would never consent to such an arrangement. To this George replied that California was without troops, and that her wishes would not be a factor in the solution of the problem; that the South, flushed with victory, could not be logically expected to content itself with less; that it would be a matter to be settled between the two governments, and that, for his part, he saw no reason to believe that the North, in view of its blunders civil and its failures military, would have the power or the courage to prevent such seizure by the enemy. Philip leaned to this view, and was even willing to throw in Utah for sentimental reasons."

Bromley showed great skill and cleverness in advocating his peculiar views. When he had a point to gain, with the natural cunning of a legal mind, he took care to begin his argument by claiming much more than he expected to establish. Thus, not content with the concession of California and the southern tier of Territories leading thereto, he called the attention of the others to the great Rocky Mountain range, offering itself, from the north-western extremity of Texas to the British possessions, as a natural geographical wall between nations. He admitted that the Western men had been the bone and sinew of the late fruitless struggle; but they were the hardy soldiers of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas, still far to the east of the great mountain-range, with vast uncivilized Territories between.

To this view Lieutenant Coleman opposed the jealousy of the great ally of the South as not likely to favor an unequal partition; he said that England would certainly not lend her aid to bringing the more aggressive of the two nations up to her own colonial borders. Besides, he contended, the South was without a navy, and at the outset could never defend such a great addition to her already vastly superior coast-line.

This long argument resulted in a compromise, and by the decision of Philip, California, Arizona, and New Mexico were given to the Confederacy, and half the Pacific coast was saved to the old government.

Bromley's matter-of-fact character had no sentimental side. He was a worker, and no dreamer. He threw himself with all the weight of his convictions and the force of his well-trained mind into the discussion of the extent of the Confederate victory; but the moment the boundary was settled he seemed to forget the existence of the map and to lose himself in the next piece of work.

After completing the outlines of the map in ink, Lieutenant Coleman began laying a tone of lines over the whole Confederacy. As the work progressed, the three soldiers watched the new power creeping like an ominous shadow over the map. The one break in the expanse of gloom was the white star at the northwestern corner of North Carolina, which marked the location of Sherman Territory. When the map was finished and hung on the logs, the Confederacy looked like nothing so much as a huge dragon crouching on the Gulf of Mexico, with the neck and head elevated along the Pacific and the tail brushing Cuba.

Although they accepted the map without further discussion, its white face, looking down on them from the wall as they sat about the evening fire, provoked many a talk about affairs in the world below. The time for the election of a new President had passed since they had been on the mountain. After the complete and pitiful collapse of Lincoln's administration, they had no doubt that McClellan had been elected. Philip thought the new capital should be located at Piqua, Ohio (which was where his uncle lived), as it was near the center of population!

But Bromley favored the city of Cleveland. Ohio, he pointed out, extended entirely across the Union, and, as the State which linked the two parts together, it would need to be strongly guarded, and the capital with its troops and fortifications would strengthen that weak link in the chain. Cincinnati was too close to the enemy's territory to be thought of as a capital.

Shortly before undertaking the map, Lieutenant Coleman had the good fortune to bring down a large gray eagle, which, although soaring high above the valleys, was but just skimming the mountain-top. This was a fortunate event, because the very last steel pen had become very worn and corroded. Lieutenant Coleman had been longing above all things for quills, and now that he wrote again with an easy and flowing hand, he seems to have forgotten that his supply of paper was limited. In the controversy over the map the entries are of unusual length, and then suddenly they become brief and cramped, and are written in so small a hand that there can be no doubt the writer took sudden alarm on discovering how few blank pages were left in the book.

Since Christmas the telescope had rarely been taken from its place on the chimney, and if they looked over into the Cove or the valley without it, those snow-covered regions below were far-off countries, where the houses showed only as rounded forms, and the human ants who lived in them were scarcely visible.

CHAPTER XII

HOW THE BEAR DISGRACED HIMSELF

At last the long winter came to an end. By the middle of March the warm sun and soft south winds began to thaw the February snows. On such a day, when the afternoon sun beat with unusual warmth on the northern face of the mountain, the three soldiers stood together in front of the house, noting everywhere the joyful signs of the approach of spring. The snow, where it lay thickest in the hollows of the plateau, was soft and porous and grimy with dirt. There were bare spaces here and there on the ground, and where a stick or a stone showed through the thin crust the snow had retired around it as if it gave out a heat of its own. The melting icicles pendent from the eaves glittered in the sun and dripped into the channels alongside the walls.

They had a great longing to see the grass and the leaves again and welcome the early birds of spring. As they looked about on these hopeful signs in the midst of the great stillness to which they had become used, a sudden deafening crash rang in their startled ears. The sound was like the explosion of a mine or the dull roar of a siege-mortar at a little distance away. It came from the Cove to the north, and the first crash was followed by lesser reports, and each sound was echoed back from the mountains beyond.

The first thought of the three soldiers was of the opening of a battle. Their first fear was that a great mass of earth and rock had fallen from the edge of the plateau to the base of the mountain. They made their way cautiously in the direction of the sound, almost distrusting the ground under their feet. The gnarled chestnuts on the edge of the cliff were as firmly rooted as ever. When they had advanced to where Philip's sharp eyes caught the first view of the postmaster's cabin through the twisted tree-trunks, he remembered the words of Andy, the guide, on the night when they had waited for the moon to go down. He quickly caught the arms of his companions.

"It's the avalanche," he said—"the icicles and the ice falling into the Cove from the face of the great boulder."

They could see tiny figures standing about the cabin, and they shrank back lest they, too, might be seen by the people, who were evidently gazing with all their eyes at the top of the mountain.

Just then there was another deafening crash, and at intervals all day long they heard the falling of the ice.

"They are the opening guns of spring," said Lieutenant Coleman; and now that they knew what the sound was, they listened eagerly for each report.

Late on that very afternoon, as they sat together outside the house, they saw Tumbler, the bear, shambling down the hillside in front of the house, and they had no doubt he had been awakened from his winter's nap by the roar of the avalanche. He was thin of flesh and ragged of fur, and so weak on his clumsy legs that he sat down at short intervals to rest. He made his way first to the branch, where he refreshed himself with a drink, and then came on with renewed vigor toward the house. He was such a very disreputable-looking bear, and had been gone so long, and must be so dangerously hungry, that the men stood up doubtfully at his approach until they saw a weak movement of his stumpy tail and the mild look in his brown eyes as he seated himself on the chips and lolled out his red tongue.

Philip brought him a handful of roast potatoes, which he devoured with a relish, and then stood up so handsomely to ask for more that they rolled him raw ones until his hunger was satisfied, after which he waddled through the open door, and lay down for another nap in his old place by the fire, just as if he had gone out but yesterday, which was probably just what he thought he had done.

By this time the last page of the station journal had been used, and Lieutenant Coleman had added to it the five fly-leaves of the precious Blue Book, which he had cut out neatly with his knife. Paper was so scarce at last that on this March 16, which was the day the bear woke up, the circumstance of the avalanche alone was recorded, and that was entered after the date in the most wonderfully small and cramped letters you can imagine. Now, Philip was of the opinion that the return of the bear was of quite as much importance as the falling of the ice. It happened that he had in his breast pocket a letter which had been written to him by his uncle. It was postmarked, "Piqua, Ohio," and addressed, "Philip Welton, Co. C, 2d Ohio Infy., Camp near Resaca, Ga." Philip had been looking over Coleman's shoulder as he made the cramped entry in the diary.

"Now look here," said he, taking up the quill as it was laid down; "if you don't choose to make a record of the bear, I will." So taking from his pocket the letter, he wrote across the top of the envelop:

                    "WHITESIDE MOUNTAIN, March 16, 1865.
"Tumbler, the bear, woke up to-day.
"(Signed) PHILIP WELTON,
                    "GEORGE BROMLEY,
                    "FREDERICK HENRY COLEMAN."

"Well," said Coleman, "what are you going to do with that? Drop it over into the Cove?"

"Not a bit of it," said Philip. "I am just going to keep the record out of respect to the bear"; and with that, as it happened, he put the envelop back in one pocket and the letter in another. But a few weeks later, when the snow had quite gone and the buds were beginning to swell on the trees, Philip was chopping on the hill where the boulder side of the mountain joined the cliff above the spring; and as he grew warm with his work he cast off his cavalry jacket, and it happened in some way that the envelop on which he had written fell out into the grass. Philip did not notice this loss at the time, and it was a week before he missed the envelop. He kept his loss to himself at first, but as he became alarmed lest it should blow over into the Cove and disclose their hiding-place, he confessed to Lieutenant Coleman what had happened.

The three soldiers searched everywhere for this dangerous paper, except in the snug place under the tuft of grass where it lay. It was suspected that Philip was repenting of the agreement he had made to remain on the mountain, and both Coleman and Bromley lectured him roundly for his carelessness. While Philip was still chafing under the suspicions of his comrades, all the more that he was conscious of his perfect loyalty to the old flag and to the compact they had made together for its sake, the bear was growing stronger every day and more mischievous. Although he had the whole plateau to roam over, nothing seemed to please Tumbler so much as to nose about and dig into the grave of the old man of the mountain. He was such a wicked bear that the more they kicked and cuffed him away, the more stubbornly he came back to his unholy work; and then it appeared that the light soil of the mound had been taken possession of by a colony of ants. It was a temptation such as no hungry bear could resist, and the sacrilege was so offensive to the three soldiers that they resolved to remove the last remnant of the ant-hill and fill it in with clay in which no insect could live. It was after supper when they came to this resolution, and they fell to work at once with the wooden spade and a piece of tent-cloth, in which Philip carried the dirt a stone's-throw away and piled it into a new mound. The bear seemed to think this was all for his benefit, and while the work went merrily on he rooted into the new heap and wagged his stumpy tail with every evidence of gratitude and satisfaction.

It was a sufficiently disagreeable task for Coleman and Bromley, whose legs and bodies were bitten by the ants until they danced with pain. At the same time the little pests went up Philip's sleeves and came out on his neck. Bad as the business was, they set their teeth and kept at work, determined to finish it now they had begun. Of course the colony was mostly near the surface of the ground; but when they had gone down three feet into the sandy soil there were still ants burrowing about.

Now, Bromley was a man of great resolution and perseverance, and although it was growing dark he had no thought of stopping work; so he called for a pine torch, which Coleman held on the bank above. When the earth gave way, the oak slab with the peculiar inscription, "One who wishes to be forgotten," was tenderly removed and leaned against the hut, to be reverently reset the next day. Annoying as the ants were, the soldiers continued their work with that feeling of awe which always attends the disturbing of a grave; and as they dug they spoke with charity and tenderness of the old man of the mountain. It made them think of the time when they themselves would be laid to rest in the same soil; and if they breathed any inward prayer, it was that their remains might sleep undisturbed. Although they were young, and death seemed a long way off, the thought came to them of the last survivor, and how lonely he would be, and how, when he should die, there would be no one left to bury his poor body in the ground.

"Whatever happens," said Philip, "I don't want to be the last."

The pine torch flared and smoked in the cool night wind, and lighted the solemn faces of the three soldiers as well as the hole in the earth, where Bromley still stood to his middle. There was yet a little loose earth to be thrown out before they left the work for the night, and Philip had brought some sticks of wood to lay over the grave lest in the morning the bear should begin to dig where they had left off. He had, in fact, come up and seated himself in the circle of light, and was looking on with great interest at their proceedings.

"I declare," said Bromley, just then, straightening himself, "I have gone too far already. My spade struck on the coffin—that is, I think it did. Perhaps I had better see what condition it is in. What do you think, Fred?"

"No," said Philip; "cover it up."

"It will be as well," said Lieutenant Coleman, "now that we have the opportunity, to see that everything is all right. I can't help feeling that the old man's remains are in our care."

"Hold the light nearer, then," said Bromley, as he got down on his knees and commenced to paw away the loose earth with his hands.

Philip was silent, and, soldier though he was, his face blanched in the neighborhood of one poor coffin.

Both the men outside were staring intently into the open grave. The torch-light fell broadly on Bromley's back, and cast a black shadow from his bent body into the space below, where his hands were at work.

"Well, this is queer!" said he, straightening his back and showing a surprised face to the light. "I've struck the chime of a cask."

"No!" cried Coleman and Philip together.

"Yes, I have," said Bromley. "Hand me the spade."

Now the work of digging was begun in good earnest, and, I am afraid, with less awe than before of what lay below. Light as the soil was, the opening had to be enlarged, and it was hard upon midnight when the small beer-keg was free enough to be moved from its resting-place. With the first joggle Bromley gave it, there was a sound of chinking like coin.

"Do you hear that?" exclaimed Bromley. "That's not the sound of bones."

"It's money!" cried Philip.

Lieutenant Coleman said nothing, but jumping down to the aid of Bromley, they lifted it out on the grass, where it rolled gently down a little slope, chink-a-ty-chink, chink-a-ty-chink.

"Bring the ax!"

"No; let's roll it into the house!"

"It's money!"

"It's nails!"

"Bring it in to the fire," said Lieutenant Coleman, going ahead with the torch. So they rolled the tough old cask, chink-a-ty-chink, around the cabin and up to the house, into the open door and across the earthen floor, and set it on end on the stone hearth. They were reeking with perspiration. Coleman threw the torch upon the smoldering logs, and by the time Bromley had the ax there was a ruddy light through the room.

"Stand back," he cried as he swung the ax aloft.

Three times the ax rang on the head of the cask, the firelight glittering in the eyes of the soldiers, before the strong head gave way on one side, and three golden guineas bounced out on to the hearth. Bromley dropped the ax, and then all three, without deigning to notice the gold pieces upon the floor, thrust their hands deep down into the shining mass of gold coin.

All hustled and pushed one another at the opening. Philip was on the point of striking out right and left in sheer excitement; and in their scramble the cask was overturned so that the yellow pieces poured out upon the floor and the hearth, and some flopped into the fire, while others rolled here and there into the dark corners of the room. The golden guineas which first appeared were now covered with gold double-eagles, and there were a few silver coins in the bottom of the cask.

The three soldiers hugged one another with delight.

"We are rich!" cried Philip.

"Let's count our treasure," said Coleman. "The double-eagles first—fifty to a thousand."

Forgotten was the old man of the mountain, forgotten were their weariness and the lateness of the hour, as they eagerly fell a-counting.

They piled the shining yellow columns on the mantel-piece; and when that was full, without stopping to count the thousands, they began bunches of piles on the hard floor.

They could hardly believe that such a treasure had fallen to their possession.

In their greedy delight they utterly forgot the old flag of the thirty-five stars, and the total defeat of the Union armies, as they toiled and counted.

Philip was the first to yield to the demands of tired nature. With his hands full of gold, he sank down on his bunk and fell asleep. Lieutenant Coleman was the next; and as the cock began to crow at earliest dawn, Bromley bolted the door for the first time since the house had been built, and crept exhausted into his blankets.

The treasure was found, as shown by the diary, on Friday, April 14, in the year 1865, on the very night of the murder of the good President whom the three soldiers believed to be living somewhere, a monument of failure and incapacity.

The entry was in a few brief words, and by the Sunday which followed, Lieutenant Coleman would not have exchanged the four blank leaves of the diary for the whole treasure they had dug up. After the first excitement of their discovery they began to realize that the yellow stamped pieces were of no value except as a medium of exchange, and that, as there was nothing on the mountain for which to exchange them, they were of no value at all. If they had found a saucepan or a sack of coffee in the cask, they would have had some reason to rejoice.

So it fell out that within a week's time the gold was looked upon as so much lumber, and the cask which held it was kicked into a dark corner, neglected and despised. Some of the coins were even trodden under foot, and others lay among the chips at the door.

On the evening of the second Sunday after the discovery of the gold, they sat together outside the door of the house, and tried to think of some likely thing the cask might have held more useless than the guineas and double-eagles; and, hard as they tried, they could name nothing more worthless. The result was that they turned away to their beds, feeling poor and dissatisfied, and down on their luck.

Now it happened, as the three soldiers lay asleep in their bunks that night, and while Tumbler slept too, with his nose and his hairy paws in the light, cool ashes of the fireplace (for the nights were warm now), there came up a brisk wind which blew across the mountain from the southwest. This rising wind went whistling on its way, tossing the tree-tops, up on the hill above the birches, whirling the dry leaves across the plateau, scattering them on the field below the ledge, and even dropping some stragglers away down into the Cove far below.

At first this wind only shook the tuft of grass that overhung the lost envelop, and then, as it grew stronger, whirled it from its snug hiding-place, and tumbled it over and over among the dry chestnut-burs and the old, gray, dead limbs.

If the envelop came to a rest, this wind was never content to leave its plaything alone for long. When it landed the little paper against a stump and held it fluttering there until that particular gust was out of breath, the envelop fell to the ground of its own weight, only to be picked up again and tossed on, little by little, always in the same direction, until at last it lay exposed on the brow of the hill to a braver and stronger blast, which lifted it high into the air and sent it sailing over the roof of the house.

This envelop, with the names of the three soldiers and their hiding-place written out in a fair, round hand, might have sailed along on the southwest wind until it fell at the door of the post-office in the Cove but for the queer way it had of navigating the air. It would turn over and over on its way, or shoot up, or dart to one side, or take some unexpected course; and so just as it was sailing smoothly above the house, its sharp edge turned in the wind, and with a backward dive it struck hard on the rock below Philip's leach. Just a breath of wind turned it over and over on the stone, until it fell noiselessly into the pool of lye.

Now, Lieutenant Coleman chanced to come out first in the morning; and when he saw the lost envelop floating on the dark-brown pool alongside a hen's egg, which had been placed there to test the strength of the liquid, he was glad it had blown no farther. The paper had turned very yellow in the strong potash, and so he fished it out with a twig, and carried it across to the branch by the Slow-John, and dipped it into the water. When he picked it out it was still slimy to the touch, and the letters had faded a little. He brushed a word with his finger, and the letters dissolved under his eyes.

He gave a great cry of joy; for in that instant he saw the possibility of converting into blank paper, for keeping their records, the five hundred and ninety-four pages of the Revised Army Regulations of 1863.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW THE BEAR DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF

If the old man of the mountain was not in his grave, where was he? He had certainly not gone back to the world and left the buried treasure behind him. If the grave had been empty, the soldiers might have suspected foul play. Josiah Woodring, who had been his agent and provider, had already been five years in his own grave at the time they had arrived on the mountain. As long as they believed that the bones of the old man were quietly at rest under the oak slab in the garden spot, the condition of the hut, neglected and going to decay, was sufficient evidence that he had died there, and that no one had occupied it for more than five years before. With almost his last breath Josiah had announced his death to the doctor from the settlement; and under such solemn circumstances it was impossible to believe that he had stated anything but the truth. He had not mentioned, it is true, the precise time when the old man died.

After the night when the treasure was found, the three soldiers, to thoroughly satisfy themselves, had cleared away the earth down to the bed-rock. Indeed, the cask itself was evidence enough that the bones of the old man were not below it, for he himself must have buried that. If Josiah had known of its existence, it would certainly have traveled down through the settlement in his two-steer cart, like any other honest cask, and neither cattle nor driver would have ever come back. After taking such a load to market, Josiah would have established himself in luxury in his ignorant way, and probably cut a great splurge in the "low country," with no end of pomp and vulgarity.

The three soldiers studied this problem with much care, weighing all the evidence for and against. They even hit upon a plan of determining when the old man came limping through the settlement of Cashiers behind Josiah's cart, covered with dust, and staggering under the weight of his leathern knapsack. They emptied out the little keg of gold on the earthen floor a second time, and began a search for the latest date on the coins. Some were remarkably old and badly worn. A few of the guinea pieces bore the heads of the old Georges and "Dei gratia Rex," and 17— this and 17— that, and some of the figures were as smooth as the pate, and as blind as the eyes, of the king on the coin. The newest double-eagles—and there were quite a number of them—bore the date 1833, so it must have been in that year or the year following that the old man without a name had given up the world and become a hermit on the mountain.

They decided that he must have had his own ideas about the vanity of riches, and that after doling out his gold, or, more likely, his small silver pieces, with exceeding stinginess to Josiah for the small services rendered him, when he saw his end approaching, he had buried the cask of treasure, and set up the slab above it, trusting to the superstition with which the mountain people regarded the desecration of a grave to protect the gold for all time. It would certainly have protected it from any examination by the soldiers but for the strange behavior of the bear, who had no delicate scruples. The old man had probably told Josiah, with a cunning leer in his eyes, that the empty grave was a blind to deceive any one who might climb to the top of the mountain, as the hunters had done long before, and very likely he had given him a great big silver half-dollar to wink at this little plan. When death did really come at last to claim its own, it was evident that Josiah, faithful to the old man's request, had either taken his remains down the mountain or buried them somewhere on the plateau without mound or slab to reveal the place, and, as likely as not, he had found enough small change in the old miser's pockets to pay him for his trouble.

Thus the mystery of the old man of the mountain was settled by the three soldiers, after much discussion, and the cask of gold was trundled back into the dark corner of the house, where they threw their waste, and such guineas and double-eagles as had joggled out upon the floor were kicked after it.

Directly after the lost envelop had turned up in the pool of lye, Lieutenant Coleman had made his arrangements for the manufacture of blank paper for the diary. The Blue Book was his personal property, but before commencing its destruction he counseled with Bromley, who, as a man of letters, he felt, under the circumstances, had an equal interest with himself in the fate of one half of their common library. Bromley, seated on the bank alongside the leach, was engaged at the time in making a birch broom, and as he threw down the bunch of twigs a shade of disappointment overspread his handsome face. He said that he had never thoroughly appreciated the work of the learned board of compilers until his present exile, and that it contained flights of eloquence and scraps of poetry—if you read between the lines.

"But, putting all joking aside," said Bromley, "begin with a single leaf by way of experiment, and let us see first what will be the effect on the fiber of the paper; and then, if everything works well, we will first sacrifice the index and the extracts from the Acts of that renegade Congress whose imbecility has blotted a great nation from the map of the world."

Lieutenant Coleman had more confidence in the result of the experiment they were about to make than had Bromley, for the increased length of his entry in the diary shows that he was no longer economizing paper:

"April 26, 1865. Wednesday. We have cut out ten leaves of the index of the Blue Book, which we scattered loosely on the surface of the lye in the cavity of the rock. After twenty minutes I removed a leaf which had undergone no perceptible change in appearance, and washed it thoroughly in running water. While so doing I was pleased to find that with the lightest touch of my fingers the ink dissolved, leaving underneath only a faint trace of the letters, which would in no way interfere with my writing. It required much patience to cleanse the paper of the slimy deposit of potash.

"Thursday, April 27, 1865. Of the leaves prepared yesterday, two, which were less carefully washed than the others, are somewhat yellowed by the potash and show signs of brittleness.

"April 30. We have continued our paper-making experiments, and find that a longer bath in a weaker solution of lye has the same effect on the ink, and is less injurious to the fiber of the paper. Philip has burned a lot of holes in one of the cracker-boxes, in which we place the leaves, leaving them to soak in the running water."

Thus it turned out that the dangerous envelop, by a freak of the sportive wind, was made to play an important part in the economy of the exiles, while the cask of gold stood neglected in the corner, and the summer of 1865 began with no lack of paper on which to record its events. Both Philip and the bear had been in temporary disgrace, the one for losing the tell-tale envelop, and the other for disturbing the sacred quiet of a grave. Both cases of misbehavior had resulted in important discoveries, but the mishap of Philip had produced such superior benefits that the bear was fairly distanced in the race. This may have been the reason that prompted Tumbler to try his hand, or rather his paw, again, for he was a much cleverer bear than you would think to look at his small eyes and flat skull. At any rate, one hot morning in July he put his foot in it once more, and very handsomely, too, for the benefit of his masters.

It was Philip who caught the first view of him well up on the trunk of the tallest chestnut on the plateau, which, growing in a sheltered place under the northwest hill, had not been dwarfed and twisted by the winds like its fellows higher up. At the moment he was discovered, he was licking his paw in the most peaceful and contented way, while the air about his head was thick with a small cloud of angry bees, darting furiously among the limbs and thrusting their hot stings into his shaggy coat, seeming to disturb him no more than one small gnat can disturb an ox. The soldiers had been deprived of sweets since the last of the sugar had been used, in the early winter, and a supply of honey would just fit the cravings of their educated taste. Share and share alike, bear and man, was the unwritten law of Sherman Territory, and so, while Philip shouted for the ax, he began to throw clubs at Tumbler, which were so much larger and more persuasive than the stings of the bees that the bear began promptly to back his way down the trunk of the tree.

Coleman and Bromley appeared in a jiffy, casting off their jackets and rolling up their sleeves as they came. When the chips began to fly, Tumbler sat down to watch, evidently feeling that some superior intelligence was at work for his benefit, while the stupid bees kept swarming about the hole above, except a few stray ones who had not yet got tired of burrowing into the shaggy coat of the bear, and these now turned their attention to the men and were promptly knocked down by wisps of grass in the hands of Coleman and Philip, while Bromley plied the ax. If only they had had a supply of sulphur, by waiting until the bees were settled at night, they could have burned some in the opening made by the ax, and with the noxious fumes destroyed the last bee in the tree. Then, too, if they had been in less of a hurry they might have waited until a frosty morning in November had benumbed the bees; but in that case Tumbler would have eaten all the honey he could reach with his paws.

As it was, the swarm extended so low that, as soon as the ax opened the first view into the hollow trunk, the bees began to appear, and the opening had to be stuffed with grass, and a bucket of water which Philip brought did not come amiss before the chopping was done. All this time Tumbler licked his jaws, and kept his beady eyes fixed on the top of the tree, like a good coon dog, and never stirred his stumps until, with the last blow of the ax, the old tree creaked, and swayed at the top, and fell with a great crash down the hill.

The three soldiers ran off to a safe distance as soon as the tree began to fall, while Tumbler, after regarding their flight with a look of disgust, walked deliberately into the thick of the battle, and began to crunch the dripping comb as coolly as a pig eats corn. The brittle trunk of the old tree had split open as it fell, and for twenty feet of its length the mass of yellow honey lay exposed to the gaze of the men, while the infuriated bees darkened the air above it, and made a misty halo about the head of the happy bear.

The happiness of Tumbler was not altogether uninterrupted, for the soldiers drove him off now and again with sticks and stones; but however far he retired from the tree, he was surrounded and defended by such an army of bees that it was quite out of the question to capture him. There was no end of the honey; but the worst of it was, the bear was eating the whitest and newest of the combs, and when at last his greedy appetite was satisfied, and he came of his own accord to the house, he brought such disagreeable company with him that the soldiers got out through the door and windows as best they could, leaving him in undisputed possession—very much as his lamented mother had held the fort on that night when her little cub, Tumbler, had slept in the ashes the year before.

There was nothing else to be done but to walk about for the rest of the day; for until nightfall there was a line of bees from the house to the tree. The soldiers secured the bear by closing the door and windows, but it was not yet clear how they could obtain the honey. Coleman and Bromley were city-bred, but Philip had been brought up in the country, and he had received some other things from his uncle besides kicks and cuffs and a knowledge of how to run a mill. He remembered the row of hives under the cherry-trees beyond the race, and how the new swarms had come out, and been sawed off with the limbs in great bunches, or called out of the air by drumming on tin pans, and how at last they had been enticed into a hive sprinkled inside with sweetened water.

So, under Philip's directions, a section of a hollow log was prepared, covered at the top and notched at the bottom, and pierced with cross-sticks to support the comb. As a temporary bench for it to rest upon, they blocked up against the back wall of the house the oak slab, which they no longer respected as a gravestone.

After it became quite dark, the bees had so far settled that a few broken pieces of honeycomb, which had been tossed off into the grass from the falling tree, were secured to sweeten the new hive, and it was finally propped up on the rubber poncho in front of the thickest bunch of bees. Tumbler was kept a close prisoner in the house, and early the next morning the bees began crowding after their queen into their new house, and by the afternoon they were carrying in the honey and wax on their legs. So it was the second night after cutting the bee-tree before the soldiers removed the hive, wrapped about with a blanket, to the bench behind the house, and got access to the honey in the broken log. There was so much of it that, after filling every dish they could spare, they were forced to empty the gold on to the earthen floor, and fill the cask with some of the finest of the combs.

What remained was given up to the bear and the bees, who got on more pleasantly together than you can think; and in time they cleaned out the old log and scoured the wood as if they had been so many housemaids.

During the remainder of the summer the gold lay neglected in the corner together with certain wilted potatoes and fat pine-knots and the sweepings of the floor. If a shining coin turned up now and then in some unexpected place, it doubtless served to remind Coleman how handy these small tokens of exchange might be if there were any other person in all their world of whom they could buy an iron pot or an onion; or it may have suggested to the clever brain of Bromley some scheme of utilizing the pile as raw material. Worthless as the gold was in its present form, in the hands of the soldiers so fertile of resource and so clever in devices to accomplish their ends, it was not possible for so much good metal to remain altogether useless. They soon saw that, if they had the appliances of a forge, they could tip their wooden spades with gold, and make many dishes and household goods. So after the harvest they set to work in good earnest to build a smithy, and equip it in all respects as well as their ingenuity and limited resources would permit.

The first thing they did was to dig a charcoal pit, into which they piled several cords of dry chestnut wood, setting the sticks on end in a conical heap. Over this they placed a layer of turf and a thick outer covering of earth, leaving an opening at the top. Several holes for air were pierced about the base of the heap, and then some fat pine-knots which had been laid in about the upper opening, or chimney, were set on fire. These burned briskly at first, and then died down to a wreath of smoke, which was left to sweat the wood for three days, after which the holes at the base were stopped and others made half-way up the pile. Late in November the dry, warm earth about the charcoal pit was a favorite resort of Tumbler, and he tried several times to dig into the smoldering mass, with results more amusing to the soldiers and less satisfactory to himself than those of any digging he had ever tried before.

When the smoke ceased to come out of these holes at the sides, they were closed up and others pierced lower down, and so on until the process was complete.

While this slow combustion was going on, a pen was built about the fireplace of the old hut and filled in with earth to a convenient height for the forge. The flue was narrowed down to a small opening for the proper draft, and a practical pumping-bellows, made of two pointed slabs of wood and the last rubber blanket, was hung in place. Besides nailing, the edges were made air-tight with a mixture of pitch and tarry sediment from the bottom of the charcoal pit, and the first nozzle of the bellows was a stick of elder, which was very soon replaced by a neat casting of gold.

Bromley was the smith, and his first pincers were rather weak contrivances of platted wire; but after half the barrel of one of the carbines had with the head of the hatchet been hammered out on a smooth stone into a steel plate to cover their small anvil-block, it was possible to make of the iron that remained a few serviceable tools.

While they now had good reason to be sorry that the gold was not iron, they were thankful for their providential supply of the softer metal, and Bromley toiled and smelted and hammered and welded and riveted, in the smoke of the forge and the steam of the water-vat, and turned out little golden conveniences that would have made a barbaric king or a modern millionaire green with envy. So it came about that, poor as they were, the three exiled soldiers, without friends or country they could call their own, sat on three-legged stools shod with hundred-dollar casters, and drank spring-water from massy golden cups fit for the dainty lips of a princess.

CHAPTER XIV

WHICH GIVES A NEARER VIEW OF THE NEIGHBOR CALLED "SHIFLESS"

With the events which closed the last chapter the three soldiers had been more than a year on the mountain. They had become thoroughly settled in their delusion, and more contented in their way of living than they would have thought it possible, in the beginning, ever to become.

The long war had come to an end in a way of its own, and without any regard for the messages flagged from Upper Bald. The soldiers of both armies had been disbanded, and the good news had found its way into the mountain settlements at about the time the bear had discovered the bee-tree.

Far and near the Union outliers had come in from their hiding-places among the rocks, and were gradually settling their differences with their Confederate neighbors, in which delicate process there was just enough shooting to prevent peace from settling too abruptly among the mountains. In Cashiers valley there was scarcely any difference of opinion, and the old postmaster in the Cove, who had attended strictly to his duties and never spied on his neighbors, was not molested under the new order of things, or even deprived of his office.

On the very evening when the fires were first lighted under the charcoal pit, it happened that two men were driving along a stony road which led into the valley over a spur of Little Terrapin. All day the rain had been falling steadily, and the team showed unmistakable signs of weariness, the sodden ears of the mule flapping dejectedly outward, and the steer halting to rest on every shelf of the descent, as the light wagon creaked and splashed down the mountain in full view of the wooded face of old Whiteside, now relieved boldly against a twilight sky which showed signs of clearing. The two men sat crouched on the wet seat, with a border of sodden bedquilt showing under their rubber coats, their wool hats dripping down their shining backs, and the barrels of their guns pointing to right and left out of the dry embrace in which the locks rested. As they mounted the next ridge, the major was getting a little comfort out of a spluttering pipe, and Sandy was looking hopefully between the horns of the steer at the patch of clearing sky.

"There's some humans a-outlyin' on old Whiteside to-night," said Sandy. "I 'lowed them critters had all come in."

"What yer talkin' 'bout?" growled the major.

"I'm a-sayin'," said the other, "that there's somebody campin' on the mountain. It 'pears to be gone now, but I certainly seen a light up thar."

The major only grunted as if the matter were of no consequence, and then both relapse into silence as the creaking wheels jolt over the rocks and grind down the mountain behind the bracing cattle. The form of the steer grows whiter in the gathering darkness. The men are evidently familiar with the country, for presently they turn off the big road into a cart-track, the sides of the wagon brushing against the dripping bushes as they push through the darkness with the fewest possible words. Now and then they see a light in the settlement, glimmering damply through the trees, and dancing and disappearing before them, as the wagon lurches and rolls upon the weary animals struggling for a foothold on the shelving rocks. At last they trot out on a sandy level and pass a log barn, where a group of men are playing cards by a fire. A little farther on a low line of lights becomes a row of windows casting a ruddy glow under the dripping trees, and shining out upon the very wood-pile where, according to Philip, the man he had named "Shifless" was wont to sit and watch the milking.

"Hello, inside!" cried the major, hailing the house. "Is Elder Long to home?"

"Well, he ain't fur off," replied a tall woman in a calico sunbonnet and a homespun gown, who came out on the side porch, shading her eyes with her hand. "Jest light out o' yer hack an' come in to the fire, an' I'll carry the critters round to the stable."

Sandy and the major clambered out of the wagon upon the chip dirt, with a polite inquiry after the news, to which the woman, as she seated herself on the bedquilt and gathered up the reins, replied that "the best news she knowed of was that the war was done ended."

The travelers walked stiffly into the house, carrying their guns, besides which the major held a cow-skin knapsack by the straps, which he dropped on the floor inside the door. Both men said "Howdy" as they stalked over to the fireplace, peering from under their hats at the shadowy forms of a number of women sitting in the uncertain light, who answered "Howdy" in return; and then, while the men took off their rubber coats, one woman, bolder than the others, stirred the fire and thrust a pine-knot behind the backlog.

Presently the ruddy flames leaped up in the stone chimney and picked out the brass buttons on two butternut-and-gray uniforms, and revealed the faces of the women, evidently not over-pleased at what they saw. There was an awkward silence in the room for a moment, and then a tall man entered, followed by two others, and then a party of three. Each man carried his gun, and each said "Howdy," to which the strangers responded; but the conversation showed no signs of being general until the elder came in, unarmed, as became his peaceful calling.

His gun and powder-horn, however, were handy in a rack over the door, and as soon as his benevolent face appeared in the firelight the man Sandy advanced from the corner behind the chimney and held out his hand.

"Ye may have disremembered me, elder, in three years' time," said Sandy, rather sheepishly.

"I hain't forgot ye," said the elder, gravely, stepping back a pace and crossing his hands behind his back. "I hain't forgot ye. Been in the Confederate army, I reckon,"—at which remark there was a rustle among the elder's friends and a murmur from the women.

"Jes so," said Sandy, not at all disturbed by his cold reception; "an' likewise my friend the major—Major McKinney."

"Sir to you," said the major, with a wave of his hand.

"We're a-studyin'," said Sandy, "'bout campin' down in this yer valley—"

"We're all o' one mind here, Sandy Marsh," exclaimed. Mrs. Long, who had come in from the stable. "We're Union to a man."

"That's what we be in Cashiers," snapped one of the neighbors, who was fondling his gun; and then there followed a little movement of boots and rifle-stocks on the floor, which caused the major to get upon his feet with the intention of making an explanation. There was a hostile flash in his eye, however, which Elder Long observed, and stretching out his long arm, he pointed to the major's chair.

"Now set down, comrade, do," said the elder, and then, to the others: "These two men are my guests to-night. They'll have the best that the house affords, an' ye'd better be layin' the supper-table, mother. We'll feed them an' their critters, an' welcome, an' when day comes they'll move on. Like mother put hit, we're of one way of thinkin' in Cashiers. No offense, gentlemen, but hit's plumb certain we shouldn't agree."

Under the advice of the elder, the men stacked their weapons together, the long rifles with the army guns; and after supper was over the whole party returned to the fire in an amiable and talkative mood, but with a perfect understanding that the two Confederates would move on in the morning.

This point having been settled, the travelers were listened to with the interest the stranger always receives in remote settlements where new faces and new ideas seldom come; and the men of the valley, who had been sullen and suspicious before they had broken bread, now laughed at the droll adventures of the major and vied with him in story-telling on their own account.

The women had mostly been silent listeners up to the time when Sandy mentioned the light he had seen on the crest of Whiteside Mountain, as they came over Little Terrapin. The major hastened to express a doubt of his companion having seen anything of the kind, which the other as stoutly contended he had seen with his eyes open, and that the light was not lightning or a stray star among the trees, but real fire.

"Ye needn't waste time studyin' 'bout that light, Sandy Marsh," said Mrs. Long, throwing the last stick on the fire, which was only a heap of glowing embers. "'T ain't worth the candle, since everybody in Cashiers knows that mountain is harnted."

"And has been ever since the little old man died up thar all by hisself," chimed in little Miss Bennett.

"I ain't a great believer in harnts," said the elder, "but if you viewed anything like fire up thar, hit certainly wa'n't built by human hands, for there ain't no possible way for a human to git there."

"There's the bridge Josiah Woodring built," Sandy ventured to say. "I crossed over to hit myself once afore the war-time."

"Hit fell into the gorge of its own weight an' rottenness, more 'n a year back," said the elder, "an' hit's certain that no man has set foot on the top of Whiteside since."

The fresh stick, which was only a branch, burned up and threw a flickering light on the grave faces about the shadowy room, in the midst of a general silence which was broken by the harsh voice of the mistress of the house.

"Hit's obleeged to be the harnts, an' comes 'long o' the bones o' the little old man not havin' had Christian burial up yonder."

"You see," said the elder, "his takin' off wa'n't regular, bein' altogether unbeknownst, otherwise I'd 'a' seen he had gospel service said over him that would 'a' left him layin' easy in his grave."

"Which hit stands to reason he can't do now," put in Mrs. Long, "under that heathen inscription they do say is writ on his headstone. If he really wanted to be forgot, he'd better left word with Jo-siah to bury him without so much as markin' the place; an' everybody knows that unmarked graves holds uneasy spirits."