His vanished star

By Charles Egbert Craddock

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Title: His vanished star

Author: Charles Egbert Craddock

Release date: March 21, 2025 [eBook #75678]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894

Credits: Peter Becker, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS VANISHED STAR ***

HIS VANISHED STAR

BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1894

_All rights reserved._

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

HIS VANISHED STAR.

It was a great property, reckoned by metes and bounds. A day's journey
might hardly suffice to traverse the whole of his domain. Yet there
was no commensurate money value attaching to these leagues of mountain
wilderness, that bore indeed a merely nominal price, and Kenneth
Kenniston's was hardly the temperament to experience an æsthetic
gratulation that his were those majestic domes which touched the clouds
and withstood the lightnings and lifted up an awesome voice to answer
the thunder, or that his title-deeds called for all the vast slopes
thence down to the unimagined abysses of the abandoned mine in the
depths of the gorge. It was the spirit of speculation that informed
his glance with a certain respect for them, as he turned his eye
upon the mountains, and bethought himself how these austere craggy
splendors were calculated to impress the shallow gaze of the wandering
human swallow. He even appraised, in the interest of possible summer
sojourners, the rare, pure, soft air with which his lungs expanded.
Science was presently set a-prying about the margins of rocky springs,
hitherto undiscovered and unnoticed save by oread or deer; a few
blasts of dynamite, a great outgushing of exhaustless mineral waters,
a triumphant chemical analysis ensued, and an infusion of enthusiasm
began to pervade his consciousness. Such resources--infinitely smaller
resources--elsewhere in the world meant a fortune; why not here?

He was an architect by profession, and the aspect of the world seemed
to him parceled out in available sites. It cost his imagination,
trained by study and enriched by travel, no conscious effort to
perceive standing in fair proportions, turreted and terraced, finished
to the last finial, the perfected structure of his projected summer
hotel, on that level space above craggy heights, facing the moon and
the valley, with the background of still greater heights, ever rising,
heavily wooded, to the peak towering above. He saw it, as a true
architect, in completion; as the wren sees his builded nest, not as the
single straw or wisp of hair. Yet the day of small things must needs be
overpassed,--of straws and wisps,--of struts and purlins, plates and
tie-beams. His day of small things was full of wrangling and bitter
bafflings, heart-burnings and discouragements. His partners in the
undertaking had not been induced to cast their lot with his save by the
exercise of infinite suavities of crafty eloquence, overpowering doubt
and fear, and indisputable demonstrations of disproportionate profits
in the very air. One was a seer in a commercial sort, an adept in
prognosticating unexpected expenses for which no covenant of provision
had been entered into, and he beheld full-armed disaster menacing every
plan save that of his own preference. The other had no imagination
whatever, architectural or otherwise. He recognized no needs which
required adornment, and measured the taste of the public by his own
disposition to spend money to gratify it. That Kenniston's plans
should have come through the ordeal of their councils, with the ever
lopping-off incidents common to the moneyed non-professional, retaining
any element of symmetry or grace or beauty argued much for their
pristine value. He regarded them for a time with a sort of pity and
affronted tenderness for their maimed estate, but little by little the
original intentions faded from his mental view, and he could see with
renewed satisfaction the flag flying from the tower without remembering
that he had held this octagonal gaud upon the building by main force,
as it were, against the iconoclastic grasp of the practical men.

Nevertheless he was relieved to be free from their presence. He felt
that it was well that their legitimate business--one as a stock-broker,
the other a real-estate agent--held them to their desks in the city of
Bretonville. The manifest purpose of their creation, he thought, was
fully served in their furnishing forth their quota of the sinews of
war. He was much younger than either, but he had learned something
beyond their knowledge in this internecine strife, and when it
became necessary to provide for them occupation, to prevent further
interference in the venture which had come to be of most hopeful
interest to both, he wrote to them touching the finding of a suitable
man to keep the hotel when built, certain that in this quest for a
Boniface he had set them by the ears, and relying on their different
temperaments to keep them wrangling together and to leave him in peace.

Every sylvan detail of the scene pleased his artistic and receptive
sense, as he stood on the great natural terrace, the site of the
future building, and surveyed the landscape. It was a phenomenally
felicitous opportunity. This plateau projected from a lateral spur of
the Great Smoky chain, and faced the southeast. Thus the main body of
the mountain range, diagonally across the Cove, seemed strangely near
at hand; one could study its chasms and abysses, its jungles of laurel
and vast forests, as it were from mid-air; it was the point of view of
a bird. Through a gap lower down, the parallel lines of the eastern
ranges became visible, elsewhere hidden by the great boundary ridge,--a
wonderful fantasy painted in every gradation of blue, from the slaty
grayish hue near at hand under the shadow of a cloud, the velvet-like
tones of ultramarine beyond, and still further the metallic hardness
of tint as of lapis lazuli, till the most delicate azure outline of
peaks faintly obliterated its identity against the azure eastern sky.
All unflushed the sky was here, although to the right the clouds were
red above the western mountains. They closely hemmed in the Cove,
heavy, massive, purple and bronze and deeply green, in such limited
latitude of color as their lowering shadows would permit. Far down
their slopes the river ran, threading the deep forests with elusive
steely glimmers. He could not hear its voice, but from great cliffs
hard by the silvery melody of the mineral springs beat upon the air
with a rhythm inexpressibly sweet and wild and alluring. So definite
it was that it seemed odd that one did not "catch the tune." In an
open space some scattered sheep were feeding,--the effect pastoral
and pictorial. The whole scene, with its blended solemnity and beauty
and dignity, would well accord with the castellated edifice his fancy
had set in its midst. It might indeed be a mediæval world upon which
the windows should look, instead of the prosaic nineteenth century,
so far it would appear from sordid to-day, so well would the fashion
of the building aid the illusion, were it not for a section of the
foreground immediately below the cliffs of the terrace, where there
stood, bare and open and unsheltered, a primitive log cabin, a stretch
of cornfields, a horse-lot, a pig-pen, and all the accessories of
most modern and unimpressive American poverty and ignorance. Being
near, and bearing human significance, the prosaic little home seemed
the most salient point, in its incongruity, in the whole magnificent
landscape. The methods of the mountaineer furthered, too, the effect
of antagonism. Along the side of one of the ranges near at hand, a
great gaunt blackened area bore token of a "fire-scald." Kenniston's
eyes rested frowningly on this deep burnt scar upon the face of
nature. It came from the pernicious habit of "setting out fire in the
woods" in the autumn, to burn away the undergrowth and dead leaves,
in order to give freer pasturage to wandering cattle. Here, as is not
unfrequently the case, the fire, instead of merely consuming leaves,
twigs, and shoots, had gathered strength and fury, burning the giant
trees to great blackened, deadened skeletons, bleakly standing, and had
devastated some hundred acres. He could see in the sparse shadows the
cattle feeding on the lush herbage, and he ground his teeth to reflect
upon the alarm any future conflagration would spread among the autumnal
lingerers of summer sojourners and the catastrophe that might ensue to
the chateau on the rocks.

"We _must_ buy him out," he muttered. "He _must_ be made to
go."

Kenniston's heart was as heavy with presage as if his flimsy chateau
stood on the cliffs behind him; for it was not to be mediæval in point
of strength of materials.

The project of buying out Luther Tems seemed hardly so feasible as when
first presented to the minds of the company. The proposition to this
effect had already been made to the astounded mountaineer, and rejected
with a plump No. A second and better considered effort, coupled with a
disproportionately large pecuniary consideration, had fared no better.
There Luther Tems was, and there he meant to stay, as his father and
his grandfather had before him to a great age, till Death bethought
himself at last of these loiterers in so obscure a corner of the world,
and, although belated, gathered them in. The company was now at its
wits' end. The place was an eyesore, a trail of the serpent in this
seeming Paradise. It was, too, a source of danger and discomfort, and
to seek to remove it was one of Kenniston's errands here, as well as
to confer with the contractor, in his dictatorial character as one of
the company rather than the architect. His visit was so timed that
he was on the ground a day or so in advance of his coadjutor, and in
furtherance of his project had asked for quarters in Luther Tems's
house.

Far was it from Luther Tems, the fear of being over-persuaded. He was
a lugubrious presentment of obstinacy, as he sat at his hearthstone.
The immovable determination expressed in the lines of his face and the
curve of his lips was incongruous with the other characteristics of his
aspect. He was not of the gigantic build common among the mountaineers.
He was singularly spare and alert, and there was something in his
movements and in the lines of his figure which betokened that when
endowed with more flesh it had expressed an unusual grace. His
features were absolutely regular, and although the eye, sunken amidst
a multitude of wrinkles and half hidden by the beetling eyebrow, no
longer showed the fine lines of its setting and its pristine color
and brilliancy, and his jaw was lank from the loss of teeth, and
his well-cut lips were contorted over his quid of tobacco, he still
exhibited to the discerning gaze of the architect enough traces of
the beauty of his younger days to justify the feminine sobriquet of
"Lucy." A good joke it had been in the Cove forty years before, but
custom had dulled its edge and hallowed its use, and now he would have
had to think twice before he saw aught incongruous in the appellation.
It was a convenience in some sort, too, and averted misunderstandings,
for his son bore his name of Luther. Although inheriting a share of
his father's good looks, it had been admixed with the "favor" of the
Tates, his mother's people, who were a tall, burly folk. He was heavier
far than his father, and slower at twenty-four than "Lucy" Tems would
be at eighty. The strong resemblance in their faces ended there, for
naught could be more unlike the elder than the meditative composure
with which the younger man sat and smoked his pipe, and now slowly rose
and replenished the fire and seated himself anew. He had nothing in
look or motion of the panther-like, dangerous intimation that informed
the old man's every gesture and glance. But this expressed itself
with a certain supple, feline effect in his daughter, a tall girl,
in whom the beauty of his youth was duplicated. She had the chestnut
hair, the exquisitely fair complexion with its shifting roseate
suffusion, the large beautifully set dark blue eye, the high narrow
forehead from which the hair grew backward, but lying on the temples
in delicate fibrous waves,--all the fine detail that had graced her
father's youth, and that had seemed so wasted on the wild scapegrace
boy of the mountains, merely attaining the recognition of ridicule
among his fellows, and unvalued by its possessor. She wore a dark blue
homespun dress that enhanced her fairness, and she sat in a low chair
in the firelit log room and busied herself, with a monotonous gesture
and a certain sleek aspect, in carding cotton. Kenniston had seen her
previously, and in his preoccupied mind she roused no interest, neither
then nor now.

He sat down by the fire, among them, much nettled to observe that there
was a stranger, a man whom he had never before seen here, ensconced
on the opposite side of the hearth. The shadow of the primitive
mantelshelf obscured his face, and even when the fire flashed up it
barely sufficed to show his burly figure in an attitude of composed
waiting and observation.

His presence added an element of doubt and difficulty to the already
troublous negotiation, and Kenniston, accustomed to civilized methods,
and having expected to carry all before him, felt a sinking of the
heart out of proportion to the value of the property he coveted. He
had, in his experience, conducted delicate and difficult negotiations,
involving large considerations, many parties in interest, and
conflicting claims, to a successful issue. And yet, what enterprise
so unpromising as to buy from a man who will not sell! So did the
half-masked presence of the stranger in the shadow shake his confidence
that he did not at once open the subject nearest his heart. A short
silence ensued upon the greetings, and he was fain to lay hold upon the
weather as a subterfuge.

"It holds fair, colonel," he said.

He used the title in secret derision, as the usual sobriquet of men
of dignity and substance in the lowlands. He had scant faith in the
existence of any discerning perceptions and delicate sentiments in
the minds or hearts of people in homespun; it had served to amuse him
at his first meeting with old Tems, when he had not dreamed that so
uncouth a character had a part to play upon the elaborate stage of
his own future, which was a-building with such care and thought and
hope, and he had laughed in his sleeve to observe the simplicity and
acquiescence with which the fine title was accepted. He intended its
use in no military sense, and he did not learn till afterward that
old Tems bore a veritable title, which he had earned on stricken
battlefields, and had later commanded a band of guerrillas whose name
was a terror and a threat.

Tems took his pipe from between his lips. "It holds fair," he
echoed drawlingly; then, "Dunno fur how long," as if to admonish
any speculator in the weather to be not too happy in a vale of such
incertitude.

"All signs favor!" A sudden singing feminine tone pervaded the
conversation.

Kenniston glanced up. In one corner, a stairway from the attic above
came down into the room. A young girl, whom he had not before noticed,
was sitting on the steps midway. From this coigne of vantage she
overlooked the room, and participated in the conversation when moved to
do so.

Kenniston fancied that from some real or affected rustic shyness
because of his presence she had sought this retirement, for she flushed
deeply at his glance, and bent her head over a piece of rough mending
which she seemed to be perpetrating on a jeans coat with a gigantic
needle and a very coarse thread. She could hardly have seen very well
to set the stitches, and as her side was toward him he could ill
distinguish her face for the shadow and her industrious attitude and
her falling hair.

Julia Tems looked up at her with a laughing glance, half raillery, half
sneer. But the brother took up the question with an air of contention;
he wanted rain for his corn crop, and he believed the clouds must
surely hold it in trust for him.

"The fog war a-getherin' along the mountings this evenin', an' I seen
'bout a hour ago a thunder-head a-loafin' round over Piomingo," he
averred with a certain bitterness, as if to protest against the arguing
away of these prospects.

"Waal," the singing voice, curiously vibrant, broke forth once more,
"we air likely ter git a good full rain, ez would holp up the crap
'fore long, but we ain't goin' ter hev no steady set o' bad weather
now. Signs don't favor it."

The old man again took his pipe from his mouth.

"Ye-es. An' a body mought b'lieve from yer talk that ef Satan war ter
cotch us by the right leg this week, he'd be mighty likely ter turn us
loose by the lef leg nex' week." He laughed sarcastically. "All of us
air s'prisin' apt ter be suited, no matter how things turn out." He
replaced his pipe, adding, with the stem between his teeth, "That's
Ad'licia's notion," and then smoked imperturbably.

The little optimist looked at him with an indignant, affronted gaze for
a moment, then bent once more to her sewing.

She had forgotten Kenniston, and her face was fully revealed in the
moment that she had turned it on her critic,--an oval face, with a
little round unassertive chin, a thin, delicate, aquiline nose, a small
mouth with full lips, the indenture in the upper one so deep as to make
it truly like a bow, and widely opened gray eyes that resembled nothing
so much as moss agates. They were veiled by long, reddish lashes, and
the hair that hung curling down about the nape of her neck was of a
dull copper hue. Her complexion was exceedingly white, and she had that
thin-skinned look which is incompatible with freckles as annuals; in
those milk-white spaces about the eyes were sundry tokens of the sunny
weather which even the dark days of winter would not obliterate. Her
figure was slender, and she did not look strong. She wore a brown
homespun dress, and she bit the coarse thread with a double row of
small perfect white teeth as she addressed herself to threading her big
needle anew.

"Studyin' 'bout the weather, an' gittin' onhappy 'bout yer buildin'?"
demanded old Tems of his guest.

There was a slight twist of the lips, suggestive of covert ridicule on
his part, as he asked the question.

Kenniston was totally unaware of furnishing in his proper person
amusement to the mountaineer, but to his host he seemed a fool more
bountifully endowed with folly than any other specimen of the genus
with whom Tems had ever been brought into contact, and the projected
hotel was accounted a ludicrous impossibility. It was Tems's secret
persuasion that most of the population of this country had been slain
in the war; he had himself seen much slaughter in its grim actuality.
The idea that there were people who would wish to come long journeys
to fill that vast projected structure seemed the most preposterous
vaporing of imbecility.

"Ain't they got nowhar ter bide?" he would demand, in incredulous pity
for the homeless summer birds.

He had come at last to treat it in his own mind as a bubble, a mere
brainless figment, and only his courteous instincts prevented this
from becoming apparent, although now and again it was perilously near
revelation.

"Well, no; I think the weather won't affect my building for a good
while yet," answered Kenniston. Then, with a sudden afterthought, and
perceiving the opening, "I'm troubled, though, about the blasting for
the coal cellars and wine cellar. There will of necessity be quite
an avalanche of fragments of the rock falling into the valley, and I
wanted to give you warning of it before it begins."

The look of attention deepened on the old face. The thin old head
suavely nodded.

"Thanky, sir. I feel obligated." And old Tems relapsed into silence.

Kenniston was baffled for a moment, but presently he returned to the
charge.

"You and your family could leave the premises while the blasting was in
progress. It might be inconvenient, but"--

"Yes--ye-es--ef so minded," the ancient householder acquiesced.

"By all means," Kenniston pursued with more energy, stroking his brown
whiskers with one hand, while he looked, keenly interrogative, at his
interlocutor. "There might be danger, positive danger, in remaining."
Then, seeking an ally, and taking hope from the quiescent silence of
the stranger in the corner, "_You_ agree with me surely?"

The stranger laughed, a round, vigorous, elastic tone.

"Waal, I reckon old Cap'n Lucy is about ez good a jedge ez ter the
dangers in dealin' in gunpowder ez ye'll meet up with this side o'
Jordan. I'd be willin' ter leave sech ter him."

"Of course--of course," Kenniston agreed hastily. "Only I am anxious to
have no sort of responsibility,--moral responsibility, I mean,--in case
of an accident to members of his family."

He reflected that two of these were feminine, that the sex is to a unit
a coward by open confession, and he sought to play upon their fears.

But once more Adelicia interfered to show the more hopeful side of
things.

"It's toler'ble fur from hyar, a right good piece," she turned her head
to say before she again bit the thread.

"Not from the site of the first blasting; the wine cellar will be under
the billiard-room, which will be in the pavilion at this end of the
bluffs." He had waxed warm, excited. "The rock could easily be flung
as far as this, and even if no human life were endangered, might kill
horses or cows, or crash through the roof, or break down the chimney."

"Waal, the comp'ny is a good, solid, solvent comp'ny, ain't it?" said
the man in the corner unexpectedly,--"respons'ble in damages?"

Kenniston recoiled suddenly, and Tems pricked up his ears, like the old
war-horse that he was. The prospect of conflict in whatever sort was
grateful to his senses, and he snuffed the battle from afar. In this,
too, he saw his defense and his opportunity. Kenniston would hardly
have conceived it possible that, with such inconsiderable adversaries,
he could be routed in diplomacy. It was not, however, to bring matters
to this point of view that his schemes were designed.

"I hope there will be no need for a demand for damages," he said
stiffly. Then, driven back upon his last resource, the simple truth, he
continued, turning toward the man in the corner, "It has been partly to
avert all dangers and troubles that the company has been trying to buy
out Mr. Tems, at his own price."

"My h'a'thstone hain't got no price," said old Tems acridly.

Kenniston had thrown himself back in his chair with a dogged
exasperation of manner. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his
short flannel coat. His square chin, glimpsed in the parting of his
full beard, was deeply sunken in its lustrous fibres. His lowering blue
eyes were fixed on the fire, all aglow, for at this altitude the chill
summer nights cannot dispense with the smouldering back-log. His legs,
in their somewhat worn integuments of dark flannel and long boots,--for
there are penalties to footgear and garb in clambering about these
rough mountains,--were stretched out before him, and Adelicia's cat
found them convenient to rub against, as she arched her back and purred
in the dull red light. He felt at the moment irritated beyond measure.
This idea of a lawsuit, craftily interjected by the stranger whom he
himself had called into the conversation, might seriously embarrass
the proceedings of the company. It could be held _in terrorem_ at
every point. Nay, it might incite Tems to seek out occasion to make a
pretext of injury. It added a prospect of indefinite discomfort and
jeopardy to the already harassed present.

"I kin b'lieve that, Cap'n Lucy,--I kin b'lieve that," said the
stranger, with a sudden outpouring of his full, mellow, rich voice.
Its sonorousness and sweetness struck Kenniston only vaguely then, but
he remembered it afterward. "Ye want yer _home_, an' the company
wants yer _hut_."

"I don't want thar money,--ain't got no cur'osity 'bout the color of
it," old Tems said tartly.

Neither of the younger Temses uttered a word. Luther smoked
imperturbably, and Julia, as sleek, as lithe, as supple as a panther,
bent her beautiful, clear-cut, distinct face above the cards, which
she moved with a flexible elasticity that made it seem no labor.
Every line about her was sharply drawn; the very plaits of her glossy
hair showed their separate strands, over and under and over again, in
the coil at the back of her head. Against the dark wall, she had a
fixity, a definiteness of effect, like a cameo, in contrast with the
somewhat tousled head which Adelicia held back to observe her completed
industry. She lifted the mended coat in both hands before her, and
contemplated the patch, set on indeed as if it should never come off
again, but with what affront to the art of fine needlework!

She was not so absorbed, however, as to be unmindful of the disaffected
state of feeling in the room below, and she must needs seek to improve
it.

"We ain't so mighty easy tarrified, nohow," she remarked, suavely
addressing the information more directly to Kenniston's pretended fears
for their safety. "An' ez ter rocks fallin' an' sech,"--she turned her
head askew to better observe the effect of the flagrant patch,--"I hev
tuk notice ez trees streck by lightning mostly falls whar thar ain't no
house."

"'Kase thar be mighty few houses whar the trees be lef'," observed old
Tems, whose contradictory faculties were called into play every time
she spoke.

"Waal, fower hev fell, lightning-streck, sence we-uns hev been a-livin'
hyar, an' nare one teched us," she argued.

Kenniston caught his breath. "How long have you been living here,
colonel?" The secret gibe came back to him with the sudden secret
renewal of his hope.

"Five year, or thereabout," growled old Tems.

"Five year this comin' fall," put in Adelicia, with exactitude. "We-uns
lived then nigher sunrise, on the flat o' the mounting, over thar." She
nodded with her wealth of bronze curls toward the east to indicate the
direction of the locality.

"And if you would move then, colonel, why not now?" demanded Kenniston.

It seemed as if old Tems would not reply. So deep a scowl had
corrugated his face that in its wizard-like aspect not the faintest
vestige of his famous ancient beauty remained.

"Burnt out," he growled at last.

"The fire-scald, ye see," explained Adelicia, turning her oval face
upon Kenniston.

It had an old-fashioned, even a foreign cast, was his superficial
thought, as he gazed up at her in the dusky shadows of the staircase;
it reminded him of some antique miniature. But his recognized idea was
expressed in the words, echoed in surprise and with a touch of dismay,
"The fire-scald!"

"Fire war set out in the woods ter burn the bresh; but the wind sprung
up, it did, an' the fire tuk the house an' fence an' all. Ye mus' hev
noticed the fire-scald over yon?" Once more she nodded her head in
intimation of the direction. "Then we-uns moved hyar an' raised this
house."

Old Tems's surly, disaffected look caught her attention. "But this hyar
house air a heap better 'n the burnt one; that war old, fur true, an' I
tell ye the wind used ter shake it whenst stormin'. Roof leaked, too.
Roof war so old that the clapboards war fastened on with wooden paigs
stiddier nails. My great-gran'dad--Cap'n Lucy's gran'dad--didn't hev
much modern improvemints, leastwise in blacksmith's gear, when he kem
hyar ter settle from old Car'liny."

She glanced down, smiling. Her strangely old-fashioned little face was
lovely in smiling, but Kenniston did not heed; he did not even hear her
words; he was absorbed in a train of thought that came to him as she
talked.

She looked slightly ill at ease for a moment, perceiving the defection
of his attention; then, as if to make the best of it, she turned her
head and glanced over her shoulder at the man in the corner.

"Ye hev hearn that?" she said.

He nodded. She saw the gleam of his full blue eye. "They called East
Tennessee the 'Washington Deestric',' arter them days," he said, his
big voice booming out. Then he went on to tell of an old house which he
knew, in which wooden pegs also served as nails, as a set-off, it might
seem, to the ancient dwelling that perished in the "fire-scald," and
presently he was wrangling with old Tems as to the precise route that
certain early settlers were said to have taken through the mountains,
in which discussion even the silent Luther joined, and Kenniston was
left undisturbed to his thoughts.

These thoughts were significant enough. He had seen this vast property
of his only once before in all the years that it had been in his
possession. It had descended to him in due course, with the rest of the
paternal estate, at the death of his father, who had been a successful
merchant of Bretonville. He had had some little but well-restrained
inclination for speculation, and these miles of mountain fastnesses
were a single instance of it, looking to the future development of
mineral resources. The abandoned mine in the gorge expressed the
failure of hopes of silver and lead, which had led him only for a
little while and only a short distance. He himself had never laid
eyes on his purchase; but once, in a college vacation, the son, on a
pedestrian tour, had explored to some purpose the woods up and down
these steeps and across the line. Kenniston remembered now for the
first time how the face of the country had impressed him then, for the
fire-scald had so altered its aspect. The slope where the quaint little
ante-Revolutionary house was perched had then seemed high and steep. In
building anew, Luther Tems had selected a site on more level ground,
considerably removed from the area of the burnt district. Possibly
the fear of disaster when those blackened and decaying trees should
finally complete their doom and fall, or the vicinage of springs for
the essential water supply for man and beast, had served to influence
his decision; but he had certainly made a very considerable journey
from his former situation, and cut a large cantle out of the Cove in
his present settlement.

Kenniston's mind was hard upon the trail of the boundary lines, as
his absorbed eyes dwelt on the red fire. They were ill defined in his
memory, for when the great body of a man's land, numbering thousands of
acres, bears a merely nominal price, a few furlongs amiss here or there
in the wild jungle of the laurel are hardly worth the counting. In this
particular instance the accuracy of metes and bounds made a difference
all apart from actual values. It was his recollection that his lines
included all those slopes to the "backbone," a high craggy ridge that
ran like a spinal column adown the mountain mass. If this were the
case, old Tems had inadvertently set up his staff of rest on his
neighbor's land, was himself a mere trespasser, and might be ejected
without difficulty in due process of law.

Kenniston stirred uneasily as he contemplated this possibility. In its
extreme unpopularity there was a very definite menace. He could ill
afford to antagonize the whole countryside. The lawless, illogical
mountain population would be arrayed as a unit against his interests.
Even single-handed, old Cap'n Lucy seemed formidable, when active
aggressions were contemplated. And he could appreciate, too, the
seeming injustice, from the rustic standpoint, that, for the frivolous
and flippant desire of keeping the landscape sightly for the fastidious
gaze of the gentlefolk, an old man and his family must be turned out
of house and home. Kenniston knew that although he might pay the full
value of Cap'n Lucy's improvements, the popular censor would account
this naught if the mountaineer were forced to quit his home against his
will.

Nevertheless law is law, and Kenniston could easily forecast the
triumphant result of a legal arbitrament. Tems had not been ensconced
here, within his own inclosures, claiming as his own, long enough to
acquire any title under the statute of limitations, even if he could
establish adverse possession. The property was his own, and he would
satisfy even every moral claim upon him in paying the interloper the
full value of his improvements. At all events he would have the line
run out, and perhaps the land formally processioned.

At the idea of prompt action in the matter, his full red lips, only
partially visible through his beard and mustache, were pressed together
firmly; his teeth met with a certain stiffening of the jaw into a
hard, determined expression; his eyes were cast up suddenly over the
primitive humble interior of the cabin with a certain impatience of
its uncouthness, so at variance with the gala trim of modern comforts,
so homely, so American, so hopelessly, desperately, the presentment
of the unprogressive backwoods. Built five years ago, said they!
It might have graced the "Washington Deestric'." His white teeth
showed, as he half sneered and half laughed. He would, if he might,
with a wave of the hand, have swept it and all it represented out of
existence; nay, into oblivion. As his eyes came once more to their
former point of rest, the fire, they suddenly encountered the intent
gaze of the man in the corner. It discomfited Kenniston in some sort,
although he could not have said why. His glance fell; he nervously
uncrossed and recrossed his legs, and thrust his hands deeper into
his pockets. A vague sense of sustaining covert enmity had begun to
pervade his consciousness. He could not say whether this were induced
by the mere inception of the unpopular idea of eviction, or whether
it were a subtle perception of something antagonistic in the mental
attitude toward him of the composed, watchful man who sat in the
corner. It was not a furtive observation. It dwelt upon him openly,
deliberately, steadily. It held no element of offensiveness; it was
so calm, so incidental, so apparently, so naturally, the concomitant
of the thoughtful, contemplative pipe, which now and again his hand
steadied, or removed to release a wreath of the strong tobacco smoke
which pervaded the apartment. Yet Kenniston felt, oddly enough,
that it was not an incidental observation. It was charged with much
discernment. A discriminating analysis was, he instinctively knew,
coupled with it. He began, on his part, to more definitely gauge the
two or three fragmentary contributions which the stranger had flung
into the talk. The allusion to the solvency of a company and its
responsibility in damages savored of a knowledge far beyond the ken
of the Cove, this region of primitive barter where there is neither
currency nor commerce; where the operations of far-away courts are
but faintly echoed, as of retribution overtaking some reckless and
unwary criminal, and the provisions of the law seem merely futile and
disregarded devices of lawyers who seek to live upon the people by
their enforcement. Then the crafty contrast of the differing estimates
of the house, the one as a home, the other as a hut, intimated some
definite capacity to play upon the springs of human emotions. He
wondered if he had ever before seen this man. He had a good memory,
but he did not charge it with the various mountaineers he met, and
sometimes he forgot their names and occasionally their personality.
He was restive under this slow, reflective gaze, and he pushed back
his chair suddenly and walked away to the door. It was open and widely
flaring, and he stood there as if scanning the weather signs.

For so long he had seen the castellated walls of his new building rise
upon the great natural terrace of the mountain, above the series of
crags, that he experienced a sort of subacute surprise to mark the
loneliness and melancholy of the landscape. Only the pinnacles of
the mists glimmered in the moon, as unsubstantial as the turrets of
his fancy. Below were all the darkling spaces of the night-shadowed
forests. Above, the heavily wooded slopes loomed vaguely in the
dim light, for the moon was in her first quarter, here showing the
gaunt face of a crag, and there a ravine made visible by thronging
spectre-like vapors. The stars were bright. Near the great dome he
marked the scintillating circlet of the Northern Crown; its splendors
seemed enhanced, he thought, by the vicinage of that towering densely
dark mass beneath. So still it all was! He heard the silvery tinkle of
the liberated mountain springs near his own site sounding with such
freshness, with such elfin spontaneity, with such flexible fantasies
of cadence, that one would have imagined he must surely have bethought
him how featly the chorusing oreads were singing; it only brought to
his mind anew the chemical analysis, and the hordes of valetudinarians
waiting to bring all their ills, real and imaginary, to lay them, with
more valuable considerations, at the shrine of his Spa.

His sense of difficulties and discouragements took on a new lease, and
as he turned impatiently away from the door he almost ran against young
Luther Tems, who had come to gaze upon the clouds with that humble,
expectant wistfulness characteristic of those votaries of the weather,
the farmer class.

"Would you-uns jedge thar war rain in that batch o' clouds settin'
ter the south?" he drawled seductively, as if he sought to influence
favorably the unprejudiced opinion he asked.

"I'm no judge of weather signs," Kenniston returned succinctly,
although in another mood it would have suited well his satiric bent to
invent and promulgate a formula of fictitious barometrical science.

As he glanced loweringly toward the fireside group, thrusting his
hands into his pockets and advancing with long steps to his former
chair, he was quick to observe that the man in the corner seemed
to have determined on a leisurely departure. He had risen, and was
returning to his pocket a brier-root pipe, taking the sedulous care
to knock all the ashes out of it on the jamb of the fireplace, which
betrays him whose pocket linings have more than once been the scene
of an incipient conflagration. Kenniston regarded him, as he stood in
the full light, with a disaffected interest, a sort of responsive
enmity. And yet there was nothing of itself inimical in this man's
bearing. On the contrary, suggestions of good fellowship predominated
in his open manner and clear blue eye. He was exceedingly tall, not
judging by Cap'n Lucy's elegant and slight proportions, nor by the
burlier Luther's height, but by actual measurement. It had been long
since he had shaved,--his full yellow beard hung like a golden fleece
far down over the breast of his brown jeans coat; his long, straight
yellow hair, of the same tint, had its edges upturned in the semblance
of curl by the obstacle of his collar. He had a large, bony, hooked
nose, which gave a certain strength to his countenance. The fashion of
the feature was such as to suggest sagacity in some sort, as of keen
instinctive faculties, but its expression was as ferocious as that of
an eagle's beak. His mustache hid his lips and was lost in his beard.
He wore great spurred boots drawn high over his brown jeans trousers,
and a wide-brimmed black wool hat. A faded red handkerchief about his
neck now and again showed amidst the hirsute abundance, for he turned
his head quickly and vigilantly. He had an air of self-confidence
which was somewhat imposing. It constrained in his interlocutor a sort
of reluctant acceptance of his own estimate of himself. Kenniston,
looking at him with an unacknowledged respect for the untrained natural
forces his personality expressed, felt him to be formidable; how, or
why, or when it was not manifest, nor in what sort his conciliation
might be compassed, nor how it should be worth the effort. His bland
phrases of departure set the man of etiquette ill at ease. Kenniston
was accustomed to uncouthness in the mountaineers, even to lowering
looks and open expressions of enmity when he or his plans impinged
on their prejudices; polite duplicity, the native of drawing-rooms,
seemed strangely out of place in this region of paradisaic simplicity
of feeling and manner. His own acute social sense and his valued
commercial acumen had given him an intuition of this man's aversion
to him or his projects, or both; but his hand was feeling yet the
stranger's cordial grip, and the sonorous invitation, "Obligated ter
hev a visit over at Lost Time," was ringing in his ears.

"Who is that man?" he abruptly demanded of his host, as soon as the
jingle of the spurs and the sound of the horse's hoofs were silent on
the air. Then, seeking to make his question more incidental, he added,
"Seems to be a friend of yours."

Cap'n Lucy and Luther looked at each other, exchanging a grin of
derision. The two girls seemed unaccountably embarrassed.

"Waal, stranger," said the old man, "he's a widower, a sort of
perfessional widower."

Luther broke out laughing with a hearty joviality. It surely was not
he who had been deluded by the clouds and made the sport of the winds;
it hardly seemed possible that he could take so much pleasure in aught
save good prospects of the fruits of the earth.

"He hev gin me an' Luther a heap o' trouble, an' we-uns hev tuk a power
o' counsel tergether ez ter what we-uns war goin' ter do 'bout it," old
Tems continued.

Kenniston, conscious that he had roused some standing joke, cast his
slightly satirical glance from one to the other, and with a sort of
scornful patience waited their pleasure to enlighten him.

Adelicia, with heightened color and an affronted aspect, was making a
great show of inattention; while Julia, with her sleek, deft grace,
went on impassively carding cotton.

"He kems hyar a-visitin' the whole fambly, an' thar he sets an' sets;
an' Luther loses his sleep, till, follerin' the plough nex' day, he
dunno the share from the ploughtail, nor Gee from Haw; mighty nigh fit
ter fall in the furrow, jes' walkin' in his sleep."

Once more Luther's crude boyish laughter rang against the rafters; this
was at all events no somnambulistic demonstration.

"Ef thar was jes' _one_ gal in the fambly, Luther an' me would
git off gyard jewty: but ez fur ez he lets on he jes' kems ter visit
us all,--_all_; an' hyar we hev got ter set, an' watch him cast
sheep's-eyes fust at one gal, then at t'other, till Luther an' me air
plumb cross-eyed, looking two ways at once."

It was a great mutual possession to have so witty a father and so
appreciative a son.

"A' fust," continued the old man, when the filial hilarity had somewhat
subsided, "I jes' felt like I couldn't spar' either o' the gals.
Whenst my darter was born, the fust thing I done war ter buy me a
shootin' iron, express fur the fust feller ez kem a-sidlin' round,
talkin' 'bout marryin' her, an' takin' her away, an' tryin' ter make
her b'lieve ez he was a finer feller 'n her own dad: an' I didn't
know--the insurance o' some folks is powerful survigrous--but he
_mought_ set up ter purtend ter be _better lookin'_!"

His daughter might seem to have shown her appreciation of his famous
good looks by adopting them all. As she lifted her eyes and smiled
upon the narrator, the brilliant and spirited beauty of her face might
indeed be a welcome reminiscence of the time when he, too, wore so fair
a guise, and might impart a zestful relish of the resemblance.

"An' then Ad'licia, she kem hyar when her mother, my sister Amandy,
died. My sister hed married a second time, a mighty mean man, an'
whenst I tuk Ad'licia--she war 'bout three year old--I jes' said, 'Yer
mam didn't hev much jedgmint in marryin', an' I reckon ye'll take the
failin' arter her; an' ye'll show sech jedgmint ez ye kin l'arn in
marryin' nobody.' An' she agreed: she warn't very young at three, jes'
sorter youngish; an' though people mought think she hedn't hed a chance
ter view the world on sech a p'int, she hed her senses powerful well
in hand. So we made a solemn promise. An' I felt plumb sot up till
lately. I don't want nare one of 'em ter marry. A fust-rate man ain't
wuth a fifth-rate woman, much less a fust-rate woman," he declared
chivalrously. "Leastwise, ye can't git the gals' daddies ter think so.
An' now, jes' ez we air all so sot an' stiddy in our minds, hyar kems
this widower, this _perfessional_ widower; fur he don't show no
signs o' bein' nuthin' else! An' we dunno whether he kems ter listen at
Julia hold her tongue, or Ad'licia talk, or hear Luther praise God fur
the weather, or ter git my best advice on politics. We'd do ennything
ter git shet o' him. He mought hev air one o' the gals, ef he'd only
say _which_."

And he chuckled as he gazed into the fire.

"What's his business? Farmer, I suppose?" suggested Kenniston.

"Naw; he hev got a leetle store,--powerful leetle trade, 'count o' the
cross-roads store at the settlemint, though he trades right smart.
Liberal, too. He'll take ennything,--load o' corn, load o' wood, sech
like heavy truck ez thar ain't no sale fur ginerally, 'count o' the
wagonin' an' roads bein' so heavy. Whenst you-uns git yer railroad
put through,"--he gave him a rallying wink at this aberration, as he
esteemed the projected narrow gauge,--"ye'll mend all that."

"Oh, yes; you'll be in touch with the markets of the world then," said
Kenniston, with his satiric laugh. "Only a little question of freight
rates between you and New York."

This sarcasm did not cut so deeply as one might imagine. It would have
been impossible to insert the idea--save with an axe--into old "Lucy"
Tems's brain that New York was more important and metropolitan than
Colbury, or essentially more remote.

"This Lorenzo Taft ain't been so sociable till lately. That's what
makes me call him a _perfessional_ widower," old Tems went on,
with a peculiar relish for the designation. "He hev two childern, gal
an' boy, an' the gal hev been with her gran'mam down in Blount County
till the old woman died; an' now he hev got 'Sis,' ez he calls her,
with him, an' he wants a step-mammy fur her! He ain't a-courtin' a wife
fur hisself; he's courtin' a step-mammy fur 'Sis.' An' in course his
sheep's-eyes would go cornsider'ble furder with the gals than they do,
ef they didn't know that he air jes' out a-trappin' fur 'Sis.'"

"Waal," said Adelicia suddenly, "I dunno ez folks oughter think hard
of him fur that, 'kase 'Sis' did look powerful lonesome an' pitiful,
settin' up all by herself 'mongst all the men at the store."

"Thar, now!" exclaimed Cap'n Lucy triumphantly, "makin' excuses fur
folks agin! I told ye ez ye couldn't hold out till bedtime 'thout
excusin' this one fur that, an' t'other one fur which."

"Waal," said Adelicia, "it's a mighty late bedtime."

She was rolling up the coat as carefully as if a first-class triumph of
needlework had been accomplished upon it.

"'Sis' didn't 'pear ter me ter need enny lookin' arter whenst I seen
her," said old Tems heartlessly. "She 'peared ter be some fower or
five hunderd year old, an' stiddy an' settled ter accommodate."

"She be 'bout ten year old," said Adelicia gravely.

"I wonder," said Cap'n Lucy, with a twinkle of the eye, "I _do_
wonder ef that thar pernicious way o' makin' excuses fur folks's
faults would hold out ef Ad'licia war ter set out ter be somebody's
step-mammy!"

Luther suddenly held up his hand with an intent look, bespeaking
silence. The rain was coming. From far away one could hear the steady
march of its serried columns, now amongst the resonant woods, and
now through open spaces, and again threading narrow ravines. A bugle
blast of the wind issued suddenly from a rocky defile, and was silent
again, and once more only the sounds of that resistless multitudinous
advance pervaded the mountain wilderness. Already the influx of air
from the open door was freighted with dank suggestions commingled with
the odor of dust. For a panic was astir in the myriad particles that
lay in heaps in the sandy road; they seemed to seek a futile flight
in some inadequate current of the air, and were wafted a few paces
along, to fall again upon the ground, and finally to be annihilated
by the vanguard of the great body of the torrents. A tentative drop
here and there on the clapboards of the roof, increasing presently to
a brisk fusillade, and then all individuality of sound was lost in the
tumultuous downpour under which the cabin rocked.

Perhaps it was because he had seldom been brought into such close
intimacy with the elements that Kenniston found little sleep that night
under the reverberating roof. He could touch it by lifting his hand
in the tiny shed-room beneath the eaves, which was devoted to his use
as a guest-chamber. At arm's length, too, with but the thin barrier
of the clapboards intervening, was the wild, riotous rain. He seemed
in the midst of its continuous beat and thunderous splash, as its
aggregations swept from the eaves into the gullies below, so entirely
did its turmoils dominate his senses. Now and again the shrill fanfare
of the triumphant wind sounded, and a broad, innocuous glare of sheet
lightning illumined the little apartment through the multitudinous
crevices between its unplastered boards; for this addition to the
house was not of logs, like the main structure. He could see, too, at
intervals, as he lay in indescribable discomfort on the top of the
big feather bed, the landscape without through the open door; for the
heavy, close air had induced him to set it ajar. He found a certain
interest for a time in these weird illuminations: the great mountains,
slate-tinted in the searching yellow glare, with clouds of white vapor
hanging about them; the rain, visible in myriads of fine lines drawn
perpendicularly from zenith to valley, apparently stationary, as if it
were some permanent investiture of the atmosphere; the little porch,
low-browed, on which the door of his room opened, and which leaked with
a heavy, irregular pattering. Half a dozen dogs were lying there,
having taken refuge from the storm. A scraggy cedar-tree close beyond
held down its moisture-freighted branches, and amongst them he saw once
a great owl, business interrupted for the nonce, staring at him with
big yellow eyes, as it ruffled up its feathers against the rain.

He was conscious of sustaining the steady, sedate gaze of the nocturnal
fowl even when the whole world would disappear as with a bound into the
depths of darkness. As if the sound had been restrained by the presence
of light, the tumult of rain would seem redoubled upon the roof. The
unmannerly elements evidently disturbed no one else in the house. It
was as silent as if no life beat within the walls. The very dogs were
still. One of them, a fat, callow fellow, with an ill-appreciated sense
of a joke, roused them once by facetiously snapping at a sleeping
confrère's tail, set wagging by the propitious happenings of dreamland.
Whether it was that he had interrupted the gustful gnawing of a
visionary bone, or simply that his elder was of a vicious temperament,
he was soundly cuffed, rolled over on his fat, round sides, and sent
shrieking under the house. He came out after some indulgence of vocal
woe on a piercing key, and, perceiving Kenniston, sought to make his
acquaintance. Being a shaggy shepherd, his rain-laden hair diffused
a peculiarly canine odor throughout the little room; he was used to
rebuffs, and it required but a single tweak of the ear to send him,
depressed and discouraged, to prosaic slumbers among his kindred.

The lightnings failed. The world was plunged into unbroken gloom. The
hours wore on into the deeps of the night. Once, as Kenniston was on
the point of losing himself in sleep, he heard a shrill blood-curdling
cry, searching out every nerve of repulsion in his body,--a panther
shrieking from the terraces of his castle in the air. Even the fierce
dogs, lifting their heads to listen, only whined and huddled closer
together. When at last he dreamed, his mind clung close to the theme
that held his waking thoughts. It was of processioning those wild acres
of mountain fastnesses, and the serpentine lengths of the surveyor's
chain seemed alive as the chain-bearers dragged it writhing through
the grass. And again he was taking off the hospitable roof beneath
which he slept, and riving off the doors, and somehow Cap'n Lucy was
curiously helpless to resist this desolation of his roof-tree. But
the man in the corner was plotting against him, and seeking to excite
public animosity; and while he was busy in counterplotting, suddenly
Julia appeared, with a strange face, subtle and insidious and sinister,
leading the panther which he had heard filling the night with terror.
And he was frightened, and awoke.

II.

Lorenzo Taft met the rain halfway to his own dwelling. He pulled his
hat over his eyes and bent to his mare's neck before its fury, and
although the animal now and again swerved from the bridle-path at the
glare of the lightning, she carried her master steadily and fleetly
enough; and it was not far from his reckoning of the hour that they
should pass the Lost Time mine when a broad illumination of the skies
revealed the great portal, gauntly yawning in the side of the range,
where a tunnel had been made in the search for silver, and abandoned.
He pulled up his dripping steed and seemed to listen. Water had risen
within, evidently, from the infinite enmeshment of the underground
streams and springs that vein the great range; he heard it lapping
upon the rocks, as it came pouring along its channel in the tunnel.
It played around the mare's fetlocks, and now and again the animal
fretfully lifted her forefoot. Another flare of the weird, unearthly
yellow light, more lingering, brighter, than the last, showed the
swift clear flow of the current, the great bleak beetling rocks of
the oval aperture, the trees on the mountain side high above it, and
beyond, three hundred yards or so, a little log cabin set upon the
slope, which was a gentler declivity here, surrounded by a few acres of
cornfield, and the appurtenances of beehives, hen-house, and rickety
barn common to the humbler dwellings of the region. He could even see,
between the house and the steep ascent immediately behind it, the
far-away crags, as the range rounded out, glimmering in the lightning
down the vista thus formed.

It seemed the simplest of domestic establishments, and a forlorn little
family group met his gaze as he opened the door and stepped within. The
fire had dwindled to a few embers; a flickering flare from a handful
of chips flung on in anticipation of his return, heralded by the sound
of the mare's hoofs, showed the unplastered log room of the region,
more unkempt than is usual, and betraying the lack of a woman's hand.
The slight preparation for his reception was not the work of a boy of
twelve, who sat soundly sleeping in a splint-bottomed chair, his whole
attitude one of somnolent collapse, as if he had not a bone in his
body, his round face white and freckled, his curly red hair growing
straight up from his forehead, his slightly open red mouth of a merry
carelessness of expression even in unconsciousness. On the opposite
side of the fireplace a little girl was staidly seated. She had a
narrow, white, formal little face; thin light brown hair, short and
straight and smooth, put primly back behind her ears; a small mouth,
with thin, precise lips; a meek eye, with a gentle lash. Her father
looked at her with a sentiment of awe rising in his stalwart breast.
"Consider'ble older'n the Newnited States, an' I hed ruther keep house
for a regiment o' pa'sons," he commented silently.

She wore a checked homespun dress, spotlessly clean, a dark calico
apron, high-necked, buttoned to the nape in the back, shoes and blue
stockings, which are rare among the children in the mountains at
this season; and despite her limited inches, she was as formidable
a spectacle of perfect precocity and prim perfection as ever a man
who liked to go his own gait had the pleasure of looking upon. Miss
Cornelia Taft was entirely competent to see all that might be going on
in her small world, and she had brought her own unalterable standards
with her, in her pocket as it were, by which to judge.

There was a little unacknowledged weariness in her expression, and a
certain stiffness as she got down out of her chair, which intimated
that she was not quite equal physically to her resolution to sit
up for him. He was about to requite this after the usual manner of
those favored with this feminine attention, but she had begun to rake
out some Irish potatoes roasting in the ashes, and Lorenzo Taft's
remonstrance was subdued from his original intention.

"Look-a-hyar, Sis," he said, "whyn't ye go ter bed? Ye mustn't sit up
waitin' fur me this time o' night. I don't eat no second supper, nohow."

But he was presently disposing of the refection of potatoes, corn
bread, and buttermilk in great gulps, while she looked on with her
inexpressive, unastonished eye.

"Whyn't ye make Joe go to bed?" he demanded, his mouth full, as he
nodded at the sleeping boy.

The vaguest expression of prim repudiation was on her face. "He 'lowed
he warn't sleepy," she said, with some capacity for sarcasm. She
would have mended Joe as if he were a rag doll, but for his stalwart
resistance. She did not expend herself in vain regrets. She had cast
him and his tatters off forever, unless indeed he should come some day
and sue to be made whole.

"Waal," said Lorenzo Taft, bending a perplexed brow upon her, "jes' let
him be, an' ye go on upsteers an' go to bed. Ye'll never grow no higher
ef ye set up so late in the night."

She turned obediently toward the stairs, or rather a rude ladder
that ascended to the loft, while Lorenzo Taft paced back and forth
in the room with a long, elastic stride, troubled and absent, and
only conscious at the last moment that it was a look of the keenest
curiosity that the little girl's placid eyes cast down upon him as she
disappeared amongst the shadows of the loft.

He stood still, disproportionately perturbed, it might seem. Then he
sought to reassure himself.

"I reckon I ain't much similar ter old Mis' Jinaway, nohow; an' ez
she air useter a quiet, percise old 'oman's ways an' talk, I mus'
seem toler'ble comical, bein' so big an' hearty, an' take big bites,
an' talk loud, an' ride in the storm." He paused in the midst of his
sophistry. Her look was so intelligent, so keenly inquisitive. "She's
mighty leetle, but"--his caution had returned--"a ca'tridge o' giant
powder ain't so powerful bulky. I hev got ter git somebody ter take
keer o' her,--or ter take keer o' _me_, sure!"

If the small Cornelia Taft's curiosity had been excited by what she had
already observed, she would have thought his subsequent proceedings
very strange indeed, could she have supervised them. But her placid
little eyelids had closed at last upon her calm little eyes, and a very
few gentle homesick tears for a place where they washed the dishes,
and swept the floors, and slept in an airy room with the firelight
flickering, and mended their garments; if amusement must be had, what
gay times she and her grandmother had enjoyed, to be sure, when they
raced as they knit their stockings, pausing twice or thrice in the
evening to compare speed and measure the accomplished hose! A very
strange man she thought her father, and she would have thought him
stranger still if she could have seen him presently take a lantern
and cross the open passage to the other room of the log hut, which
served as store. There were embers here as well, and as he locked
the door again they showed the array of gear needed for a country
trade,--knives, shoes, shears, saddles, harness, rope, a little calico,
sugar, coffee, salt, and iron. There was a counter at one side, on
which stood the scales. It seemed a very commonplace structure, unless
one should see him open a door into it on the inner side. This was
not a cupboard, which might have been convenient; it gave upon a door
in the puncheon floor, which, lifted, showed a ladder leading to the
cellar. He went through, feet foremost, closing the counter door after
him as well as the other. He lighted his lantern, not with a coal or
flint, as is usual, but with the more modern and progressive match,
and then down the ladder he went very warily, for it was a somewhat
slight structure, and he was a heavy man. It could be removed, too, in
a moment, which added to its insecurity.

And still there was naught apparent which could justify so much
caution. The lantern, now fairly alight, revealed empty boxes and
barrels, and a scanty reserve of stock similar to the goods which the
shelves above showed. He pushed a few boxes aside, took down a board or
two of the wall in the rear, and in another moment was in one of the
tunnels of the abandoned mine, the wall replaced behind him.

Surely, a man was never more ingeniously secure, he thought, as he
went at a brisk pace into the depths of the mountain, and it would all
be jeopardized by the influx into the Cove of a horde of tourists and
summer sojourners that the projected hotel might bring. No exclusive
aristocrat was ever more jealous of his seclusion from the roving of
his kind than Lorenzo Taft. And then this danger of his own household,
his own hearthstone; this silent, disapproving, prying, perfect little
primness!

He crossed water once. He never crossed it without remembering the
instinct of the deer pursued to put a running stream between its
flight and the hunter. The rivulet, very narrow here, flowed in a
rocky bed at a swift rate. This was a tributary of the larger torrent
that had flooded the mine, and, together with the small output and the
inadequate prospect, had caused the work to be abandoned. Two of the
miners had been drowned in the catastrophe, and this circumstance had
doubtless contributed to the solitude of the locality. It was a place
of strange sounds, with the forever-echoing rocks, and few curiosity
seekers had ever ventured farther than the great outer portal of the
Lost Time mine. Into this tunnel, with which Taft had joined a tunnel
of his own secret workmanship, the water had not risen, albeit the
lower excavations were all submerged; and as he went dryshod, he heard
the deft patter of his tread on the well-beaten "dirt" path multiplied
behind him by the echoes into the semblance of many a following
footfall. This illusion might have jarred less accustomed nerves, but
Taft had heard this impalpable pursuit so long with impunity that he
was hardly likely to heed it now. Something, however, that he sometimes
heard, and that was more often silent, he had learned to watch for, to
fearfully mark the sound when it came, and to note its absence with a
shuddering sense of vacancy and a chill suspense. It was like the sound
of a pick continually striking into the earth, not with a hurried or
fitful stroke, but timed with a composed regularity characteristic of
the steady workman. Sometimes it seemed far away, sometimes immediately
overhead, and again just underfoot. Those who heard it accounted for
it readily enough. Who had set the ghastly superstition afoot none
might say, but the belief widely obtained that the two lost miners
thus wrought continually in the depths of the mountain, digging the
graves that had been denied them on the face of the earth. To Taft,
the familiar of the dark, the weird, and the uncanny, it seemed a
likely enough solution of the mystery, and he nothing doubted it. He
could not account for another phenomenon, not so frequent, but often
enough forced upon his contemplation to bring him to an anxious pause.
Sometimes he heard, or thought he heard, voices, loud, resounding,
distinct,--hailing, hallooing voices; and again so uncertain, so
commingled, were these vibrations, so repetitious and faint, that he
could not be sure that they were not merely echoes,--echoes of the
talk and mirth of the group of moonshiners whom another turn of the
underground passage showed him at their work in the broader space of a
chamber of the mine, where the great timbers still stanchly supported
the roofing masses of earth, and the walls of sandstone bore freshly
the gaunt wounds that the blasting had wrought in their rugged sides.

III.

The gloom of the place had a unique underground quality which could
hardly be compassed elsewhere by the mere exclusion of daylight. The
yellow flare from the open door of the furnace seemed chiefly to serve
to render visible the surrounding darkness. The masses of shadow were
densely black. Where the firelight smote them they merged reluctantly
into expositions of the darkest possibilities of umber and burnt
sienna and dismal gradations of duskier brown. The clay wall facing
the furnace door at one side, however, glowed with the reddest of
terra-cotta hues. Against this the group was outlined, motionless, all
eyes turning upon the black aperture of the tunnel along which the
faint, wan gleams of Taft's lantern had preceded him. The moonshiners
had an air of pretermitting work, and the expectant, receptive
attention which characterizes the secluded in colloquy with him from
the world without.

There is a certain rapacity in this demand for developments. Withdrawn
from the scene of action, it seems as if anything definite and decisive
might have happened in the interval of time, when perhaps only
combinations of causes are slowly and imperceptibly tending toward
the precipitation of the event. When the full-voiced greetings were
supplemented by the inquiry for the news, Lorenzo Taft stood for a
moment at a loss, conscious of a need of caution in the recital of his
suspicions and doubts and indeterminate fears. He sat down on the side
of a barrel, looking, in the flickering dusk and the vivid gleams from
the furnace, like some able-bodied, overgrown Bacchus, with his flowing
yellow hair and beard definite against the terra-cotta wall behind him,
his reckless, jovial blue eyes full of life and vigor, and his fair and
florid complexion wearing already the deeper flush painted by brush
whiskey.

"I dunno 'bout _news_, edzac'ly." He hesitated, wiping his mouth
with the back of his hand, as if he could hardly summarize so few
experiences and impressions for the benefit of the debarred.

"That's always the way," sarcastically exclaimed Jack Espey, a slight,
eager-eyed young man, the impersonation of impatience. "'Renzo don't
never hear no news in the Cove; leastwise"--he cast a keen, significant
glance at the others--"none ez he air aimin' ter tell agin."

The facial expression of the other men changed subtly, unmistakably.
Some strong sentiment of disaffection had evidently been set astir in
Taft's absence. As he slowly recognized it, a deep, dismayed gravity
fell upon his features, which were as incongruous with his expression
for the moment as if they were merely component parts of some jovial
mask. It was a petrified look, as if he had suddenly beheld the Gorgon
Head of Trouble.

The other men said nothing, maintaining a sort of wary attention
inimical in its close receptivity. The suggestion had communicated
instant fire to certain inflammable suspicions and antagonisms. All the
work about the still was given over for the nonce, and Lorenzo Taft
had a certain overpowering realization of being brought suddenly to
judgment, without a moment in which to take account with himself and
his agile duplicities and perfect his defense.

There were four of the moonshiners besides Lorenzo Taft. Their
aspect had so little in common that one might wonder at the cohesive
property of the enterprise to hold them together, were it not for
the opportunity of profit so rare in these mountain communities, and
the great and ever-present dangers of the law that served to cement
their association when once they had fallen into the toils of the
illicit worm. One, in his shirt-sleeves, was somewhat beyond middle
age, bearded and grizzled and grave, with a sedate eye, callous hands,
and a steady look as if he might be trusted to do a good deal of hard
work by sheer force of industrial momentum when once about it. He
had distilled much liquor against the law in his time, and even had
an experience in such matters antedating the unpopular whiskey tax.
His was a sober, trusted judgment in questions of pomace and mash,
singlings and doublings, and the successes of the manufacture were his.
Another had a downy lip, full, petulant, passionate; a large blue
eye, deeply bloodshot; a tousle of light curling hair; an overgrown,
large-jointed look,--a mere boy, despite his thickened utterance, his
shaking hand, and his frequent reference to a jug down amongst the
shadows which the others left almost untouched. A far more dangerous
personality was exemplified in the keen-eyed man, of about twenty-five,
called Jack Espey. He had a wild, alert, aggressive look, widely opened
bluish-gray eyes, full of reflections of the world without, straight
black hair, a drooping mustache, a fair complexion, a square jaw, and
about him was the unmistakable intimation of recklessness. He wore a
white wool hat set far back on his head, a blue shirt, and blue jeans
trousers, and he clasped both his hands across one knee above his long
spurred boot, while he sat on a shelf of the rock, half in the shadow
and half in the light. The gleam fell on the handle of the knife in his
belt and his pistols, which he did not lay aside to assist in the work.
Yet it was not toward him that Taft, surprised and overtaken, cast the
first covert glance of anxiety and deprecation. A smiling, dark-eyed
gaze fixed upon his face shook his confidence, in that moment of
detection. The smile was not one of pleasure, but Larrabee's eyes were
seldom without it. It was tinged with a suggestion of contempt; it was
habitually slow; it seemed rather an unintentional emanation from the
spirit within than a means of communication with others of his kind. He
smiled, as it were, to himself. He had a pale, clear-cut, intelligent
face, with fine straight features, dark eyes, and short auburn hair. He
was about twenty three or four years of age, lean but strongly built,
and tall, and was dressed in brown jeans, with great rough boots.
He had a certain inactive, lounging aspect, and laid aside with a
reluctant gesture the worn New Testament which he had been laboriously
reading as he sat close to the door of the furnace and caught its
glimmers.

"Naw," reiterated the keen, eager Espey, with what he intended to be a
sneer, but which was instead a snort of indignation, "ef 'Renzo hears
enny news, he ain't rememberin' ter sheer it with we-uns; he keeps it
from us, moles o' the yearth that we be!"

He dropped his voice dramatically. The others, with a hot sense of
injury, gazed with glowing eyes upon Taft.

"Why, look-a-hyar," Taft felt impelled to defend himself, "what is it I
ain't told ez ye want ter know?"

There was a close understanding among the "moles o' the yearth," for
the united accusation about to be voiced was withheld as Larrabee fixed
his ever-smiling eyes upon him and held up his warning hand.

"Waal, 'Renzo, what _is_ the news ye hev tole hyar?"

It was the pride of intellect which illumined Larrabee's face, that
ineffable sense of power which a conscious mental superiority bestows.
The smile in his eyes extended to his lips; he laughed a little,
showing his strong white teeth, and there was something craftily
brilliant in his expression as he looked down and turned the Testament
in his hands, and looked up and laughed again.

"Yes," exclaimed Espey rancorously, "ye purtend ter go out an' see
nuthin' an' hear nuthin'. I reckon ye air 'feared we'll git skeered too
easy, an' light out an' leave the still, an' sech; so ye tell we-uns
nuthin' 'bout sech ez ye meet up with. Jes' ondertake ter jedge fur us
an' gin us no warnin' nor nuthin'"--

Larrabee broke in suddenly: "_We_'ll ondertake ter tell you-uns
the news, 'Renzo Taft, though we do be 'moles o' the yearth'! _Thar's
a stranger in the Cove!_"

A large, imposing personality is at a peculiar disadvantage when
overtaken by disaster. Lorenzo Taft felt detected in every fibre,
and he was conscious of comprising a good many pounds avoirdupois of
culprit as he sat arraigned before them all. He could only look from
one to the other in flushed doubt and anxiety as to how much they knew
of what he had his own reasons to conceal.

"He air 'bidin' down at old Lucy Tems's house; an' ez ye sot out ter
go thar this evenin', ye air 'bleeged ter hev viewed him," persisted
Larrabee.

"Oh, I viewed him," said Lorenzo Taft, the steadiness of his fixed gaze
beginning to waver somewhat as he sought to assume a more incidental
manner, in the midst of his amazement to hear the details of his visit
to the Tems cabin from these "moles o' the yearth," miles away in the
rain and the mist and the darkness, and locked up in the denser medium
of the depths of the solid ground.

"I'll tell ye his name," continued Larrabee, his eyes still smiling,
but the curves of his mouth fierce, and his breath coming fast. "His
name is Kenn'ston, or sech."

A wild, confusing fear of supernatural agency in this knowledge had
begun to pervade Taft's consciousness. Then he caught himself suddenly.

"Ye mus' hev hearn on _him_ whenst _he_ war hyar afore," he
said.

"Hyar afore!" exclaimed the anxious-eyed men in concert.

"He be the man ez 'lows ter build some sort'n tavern in the Cove, or
sech like. Ye mus' hev hearn 'bout him."

A silence ensued. "That war 'way las' year," the elder moonshiner said
at last.

"He 'pears ter go powerful slow," said the boy, disaffected and
incredulous.

As the grizzled elderly distiller pondered on the matter, the perplexed
wrinkles and lines of his worn face were painful to see. "Ye be
right sure he ain't no revenuer nor nuthin'?" he asked anxiously,
subordinating his own judgment.

"Great Gosh, naw!" exclaimed Taft, with a resonant, confident note.
This idea, so at variance with his knowledge of Kenniston's plans,
had not occurred to him. He broke out into a sonorous laugh at the
fears which for the first time he comprehended. "Revenuer!" he cried
contemptuously. "Moonshining would be a powerful slick bizness ef
revenuers war sech ez him!"

The sense of relief induced a slackening of the tension among the
others. They too laughed, albeit a trifle constrainedly, and glanced
consciously from one to the other. But Larrabee turned the Testament
back and forth doubtfully in his hands, and asked suddenly, without
looking up, "Then, why n't ye tell 'bout him a-fust, ef ye didn't want
us not ter know 'bout him,--jes' ez news?"

Taft was silent for an instant. But the sense of partial success
is a prophetic element in the completion of triumph, and, with an
irreflective dash at the nearest means of exculpation without full
disclosure, he replied precipitately:--

"News! I didn't count _him_ no news. Sech ez him don't count much
whenst a man's a-goin' a-courtin'."

The silence with which this was received was expressive of extreme
surprise. The crackle of the furnace fuel, the roar of the flames,
the rush of the air along one of the unseen shafts near by that had
some immediate communication with the outer atmosphere, and sustained
a strong current through the connecting drift, even the continuous
dripping from the worm, each made itself conspicuous in the absence of
other sound.

Jack Espey had suddenly lifted one spurred boot to his knee, and was
affecting to examine the rowel. "Who be ye a-courtin' thar at old Cap'n
Lucy's?" he gruffly demanded, but with an obvious effort to assume an
off-hand manner.

The steady look which Larrabee fixed upon Taft was, evidently, not
incidental. The blood rushed to Taft's head. He had not dreamed of
this complication. He saw that his answer meant far more to each of
them than to him. And yet it was a difficult answer to give. He could
not even seem to hesitate, and he must needs decide his fate at chance
medley.

"Ad'licia!" he blurted out at a venture. Then, as the recollection of
the handsome, silent Julia came over him with the inevitable sense of
comparison, a pang seized his utilitarian heart; for since an excuse
for his silence as to the details of his visit must needs be framed,
and a stepmother be chosen in such haste, why could he not have
bethought himself of the beauty? The fact that others were touched by
this matter, of which he had so suddenly a subtle perception, rendered
his decision extra hazardous. His own natural interest, his swift
regret for his choice, which was likely to ensue in any event since
his feelings were not involved, dulled his observation for the moment.
It was the least fraction of time which he had failed to improve, but
when his discerning, covert gaze sought the faces of the other two men
it could tell him naught of what he wished to know. Jack Espey still
sedulously examined the rowel of his spur lifted to his knee, and
Larrabee's eyes were fastened upon the worn book which he turned in his
hands.

"I reckon I'm mighty welcome ter my ch'ice of Ad'licia," Taft said
ruefully to himself. "Ad'licia 'd stand no sort'n chance with young
fellers sech ez them, alongside o' sech a lookin' gal ez Julia."

The instinct strong in ambitious human nature to enter the lists for
a prize stirred within him, albeit it was merely his own fancy that
rated Julia at this phenomenal value. Fictitious though it was, it
belittled Adelicia in his estimation. However, the die was cast. He
had openly avowed his preference, and it was hardly to be presumed
that the arrogant Julia would suffer herself to be second choice to
one of her own household. The possibility of defeat from any objection
to him on the part of the lady never occurs to a man of that type.
In his bluff vanity, a concomitant of his other hardy attributes, he
thought he had only to choose. And he had chosen. He began to seek
to reconcile himself to his selection. It would not be judicious to
have a rivalry in a matter of this sort--of which young men are apt to
make so much--between himself and members of his gang; more especially
Espey, who was dangerous because of his hot head, and Larrabee, who
was dangerous because of his cool head. And then Adelicia was of an
easy, acquiescent, optimistic temperament, and was likely to put up
more readily with the two children, Joe and Cornelia. He astutely
reflected that it would probably require all the optimism attainable in
the Cove to put up with "Sis." He began to feel that he was very lucky,
or rather instinctively and intuitively sagacious, to have made such a
choice at a snap shot. A troublous household would the determined and
doubtless exacting beauty make of it. "Sp'iled ter death, I expec', by
Luther an' old Lucy; nare one of 'em dunno _how_ ter say 'no' ter
nuthin' Julia sets her head ter, I reckon. An' I ain't no young feller,
nohow, to go danglin' arter the purtiest gal in the kentry, pickin'
out a second ch'ice fur a wife. Ad'licia hain't got no home, bein'
jes' Cap'n Lucy's niece, an' I reckon she 'd be glad an' pleased ter
hev a house o' her own, with nuthin' ter do but ter keep blinders on
Sis 'bout'n the still an' sech, an' set her a-sewin' or a-hoein' till
she gits some growth an' jedgmint." He began to pluck up. "Purty is ez
purty does. Air one o' them boys is welcome to Julia!"

Then a sudden thought smote him.

"'Pears ter me I oughter hev a cornsider'ble gredge agin you-uns," his
big voice boomed out with all its sonorous confidence once more. "I
kem hyar arter goin', ez ye knowed, ter Tems's, an' durned ef ye don't
haul me over the coals like ez ef I hed hearn suthin' ez I didn't want
you-uns ter know."

"So ye did, so ye did!" said Espey eagerly. "Ye didn't 'low fur we-uns
ter know ez that man war hyar agin surely settin' out ter build his
tavern or sech. 'Kase ef sech a many folks war stirrin' in the Cove,
we-uns would be 'feared they'd nose us out 'fore long, an' quit the
still."

Lorenzo Taft's face once more grew stony, as if he beheld some
petrifying prospect not included in the range of vision of the natural
eye.

"I reckon I hev got ez much call ter be 'feared ez you-uns," he
protested. "I dunno ez enny o' you-uns hev sarved out a prison term fur
illicit distillin' but me."

The others stirred uneasily at the mere mention of the possibility,
their faces, stricken with a deep gravity, all illumined by the
brilliant flare of the flames springing up anew; for the grizzled
elderly man was busying himself in replenishing the fire. The wall
of red earth on one side, on the other the wall of dark gray rock,
alternating with lighter tints, where the blastings had riven its
close texture; the heavy supporting timbers made of great tree boles
(what sordid translation from the noble forests without, where the
unstricken of their kindred still towered toward the stars, and sang
with the winds, and received glad gifts from the seasons in springing
sap and spreading leaf, in acorn and cone, and kept a covenant with
time registering the years in mystic rings in their inmost hearts!);
the black aperture of the tunnel on one hand, and opposite a mysterious
recess leading beyond; even a rat, and his elongated shadow, which,
augmented into frightful proportions, sped after him in a mimic chase
across the trampled red clay floor,--all became visible in detail.
The disorder of the immediate surroundings, the barrels, the tubs,
the sacks full of meal, the great woodpile, the rotting refuse of the
pomace in heaps waiting to be cast down into the half-submerged shaft
close at hand, the copper still, itself, and the spiral worm and its
adjuncts made a definite impression hitherto lost in the gloom. The
shadows of the mountaineers doubled their number, as they sat, grave
and absorbed, and gazed at the deep red and yellow and vivid white
flare within the furnace. They seemed to wait in silence until the
ill-fitting door clanged again, as if their senses recognized an added
safety in the gloom which was not approved by their judgment.

As the door closed the elder distiller spoke.

"I dunno ez I hanker ter sarve no prison term," he said lugubriously.
"An' I kin see full plain ez this hyar still will hev ter quit ef the
Cove gits full o' valley folks. We-uns will hev ter move, sure!"

"Move whar?" demanded Taft. "I been a-movin' afore. That's how kem I
lef' Piomingo Cove, whar the revenue folks knowed me better."

There was another long silence.

"Burn him out!" exclaimed Jack Espey violently, bringing the foot which
he had held on his knee down to the ground with a vehemence that made
the spurs jingle. "Let _him_ move! Burn his shanty every time he
gits it started."

Lorenzo Taft recoiled. The glimmer from the crevices of the furnace
door made a dull red twilight about him, as he sat on the barrel
against the red wall. The suggestion was not new to his mind. He had
not intended, however, that it should take root amongst the moonshiners
and augment their jeopardy. He thought that, if he were any judge of
character, Kenniston would soon have enemies enough here. The stranger
was already busy in antagonizing Cap'n Lucy,--an early collision was
inevitable. This catastrophe to the building might be presumed to be
the natural outcome of their wrangles, and he would fain have silently
awaited this interpretation of the event. As to the old mountaineer he
felt no qualms of conscience; Cap'n Lucy was amply able to take care of
himself.

This was the trend of Lorenzo Taft's plan,--the reason of his avoidance
of the subject of the stranger. How or why his expectation should have
miscarried he could not for the life of him see. The man had before
been in the Cove. His presence would soon be an ordinary accepted fact.
Fate merely would seem to harass Kenniston and his plans. Fire is a
dangerous element in building, nevertheless requisite, in the tinner's,
the plumber's, even the paper-hanger's art, and a conflagration in
remote places is a terrible thing. Kenniston would become discouraged
after a time, and desist.

But Lorenzo Taft had never intended that this work should be through
the united means of moonshiners. Five men were too many to keep the
secrets of arson. The art of moonshining is necessarily worked with
numbers, but the fire-bug's must needs be a solitary trade. He could
not see the rift in his logic. How _had_ they taken the alarm?

He marked with secret fear how the suggestion fared. Larrabee, who had
begun again to read by the knifelike gleam from the crevice of the
furnace door, caught upon the page on his knee, as he sat close beside
it, looked up with a keen, pondering face, his finger still on the line
along which it was wont to guide his wavering comprehension. Surely
he found no thoughts in its wake responsive to the idea now astir in
his active, untaught brain. Law-breaking is a progressive evil. If
he had not been engaged in the crime of illicit distilling,--which
has, however, its apologists from the mere standpoint of economics,
who plead the inherent right of a man to use his own corn and fruit
to serve his own advantage,--this further iniquity of the destruction
of the property of another could not have found lodgment in his
consideration, for he was not naturally a cruel man, nor wicked.
But in the depths of the earth, working at an unlawful vocation, in
jeopardy of his liberty and in fear of his life, viewing the world
only in transient glimpses in the midst of a backwoods community, and
sustaining in effect an assumed character, that of a slothful farmer,
an ignorant man's mind, however good the native essence, is not likely
to develop fairly; and he may read the New Testament, as indeed those
wiser and better than he have done, as a matter of literary interest
and excitement, with not a thought of personal application.

The half-drunken boy pulled himself out of his semi-recumbent position
on the floor.

"That's the dinctum, by Gawd!" he exclaimed, his solemn red face
swollen and somnolent of expression. "Burn him out! Burn him out! Make
_him_ move! Kindle up a leetle hell around him!"

He broke out with a wild, hiccoughing laugh, singing in a queer
falsetto,--

"'Ladybug, Ladybug, fly to yer home!
Yer house is on fire'"--

ending in a shrill cackle of derision and a quavering whoop.

"Shet up, sonny!" said Copley, the veteran moonshiner, who seldom
interfered save upon a question of work. Even he turned from the
examination of the fermentation of a tub of mash which had been in
question, his lantern in his hand, and a slow smile of discovery in
the perplexed, anxious wrinkles of his wooden face. "I reckon our fire
would last ez long ez his buildin' timber."

There was not a protest from among them. Lorenzo Taft, more dismayed
than he could at once realize, again marveled how they had taken the
sudden alarm.

"Ye ain't never tole me yit how it air ez you-uns fund out, sence I
been gone this evenin', ez thar war a stranger in the Cove, an' how ye
knowed 'twar this hyar Kenn'ston down at Tems's."

There was a sudden volley of laughter, and Larrabee closed his book
with a bang of triumph.

"Our turn now! Jack, _he_ wants ter hear the news!" he called out
to Espey.

"Ye mought ez well s'arch the hen-house fur teeth ez ter kem hyar
ter we-uns, 'way down in the ground, axin' fur news!" protested Jack
sarcastically.

A frown was gathering on Taft's face. He no longer had the incentive
to self-command which the welfare of a plot requires. His plot was
shattered; the event was out of his control, at the uncovenanted mercy
of the future. It was almost sheerly from the force of curiosity that
he pressed the question:--

"How _did_ ye know, ennyhow?"

Perhaps he might not have been enlightened save for Larrabee's relish
for detailing the circumstances, in the paucity of incident and
interest in their underground career.

"Waal," he began in a narrative tone, and they all composed themselves
to listen. Even the elderly drudge decanted a jug of doublings into a
keg with marked speed of manner, and shuffled up into the circle, where
he seated himself on a broken-backed chair, which, since he could not
lean backward, rendered him fain to lean forward, his elbows on his
knees,--"waal, this evenin', it bein' sorter lonesome down hyar,--I
knowed 'twar goin' ter rain,--I felt sorter like 'twould be toler'ble
pleasant ter read in my book."

He paused in pride; the respect of the others for this accomplishment
was visible on their faces; it might be said to be almost tangible.

"I couldn't find it, though, nowhar; an' I s'arched an' s'arched. An'
suddint I 'membered I hed lef' it on the counter in the store. So
knowin' 'twar nigh dark, an' nobody likely ter be stirrin', I went up
inter the suller an' listened; an' ez I hearn nuthin', I went up the
ladder inter the room. Ye know I felt plumb safe, fur I thunk the door
war locked on the outside."

"Waal, warn't it?" asked Taft, with a swift look of alarm.

"_It warn't locked at all_; fur, ez I stood thar,--I hed jes' by
accident shet the door o' the counter up an' the suller,--the door of
the room opened."

Taft's breath was fast. He had himself unlocked the door before he came
down to the still. He could have sworn it.

"The door opened, an' a leetle gal kem in," Larrabee went on.

Taft's dismayed eyes were fixed unblinkingly upon him.

"Ye didn't tell her nuthin'!" he exclaimed, for he recognized the
avenging "Sis" without description.

Larrabee laughed at the reminiscence of the humors of the situation.

"I war fit ter drap down dead with plumb skeer at the sight o' her!
But I sorter held up by the counter, an' I say, 'I kem ter see 'Renzo
Taft,--yer dad, I reckon.' An' she owned up ter it. An' I say, 'I
'lowed he kep' the door o' the sto' locked.' An' she say, 'He do.
I think 'twar locked.' 'I reckon not,' I say, 'fur I couldn't hev
walked in ef he hed locked it.' An' she say, 'I couldn't hev locked it
_good_, agin. I _onlocked_ it this evenin' with my grandmam's
key what I brung from her house.'"

Lorenzo Taft gasped. The idea of old Mrs. Jiniway's keys unlocking his
helpless doors gave him a sense of the futility of concealment from the
prying feminine eye which nothing else could so adequately compass.

"An' then," continued Larrabee, with another burst of laughter,--Taft
did not think "Sis" half so funny,--"I axed her what ailed her ter
open the door of her dad's store whilst he war gone. She looked like
she hed a mind not to say another word. But she tuk another notion,--I
reckon she didn't like ter be faulted,--an' 'lowed ez a strange man hed
rid by; an' his horse bein' turrible fractious and hard-mouthed, the
bit hed bruk in the critter's mouth, an' he wanted ter buy another. So
Sis tried ter open the door, and done it, with her granny's key. An'
she sold him a bit. She said he war powerful saaft-spoken an' perlite,
ez ef she 'lowed _I warn't_! An' that gin me a chance ter ax her
what he said. An' she tole his name, an' the word ez he war 'bidin' at
Tems's,--fur Sis axed him. He got away with mighty leetle news that Sis
hed enny cur'osity 'bout."

Lorenzo Taft listened in silent despair. Disaster seemed closing about
him. Certainly this was a field for a stepmother. Adelicia could not
take the enterprising "Sis" in hand a moment too soon.

"How much did she want to know 'bout _you-uns_ that _ye_
didn't tell?" demanded Taft.

"Waal, I fell in line, an' wanted ter buy suthin', too. I purtended I
wanted ter buy a pound o' nails. Sis weighed 'em out fur me,--gin me
mighty scant measure,--an' then I 'lowed I would wait ter see you-uns,
an' I sot down in a cheer. An' she sent Joe ter set with me,--ter see I
never stole nuthin' o' the gear, I reckon,--an' went off in the t'other
room ter spinnin', ter jedge by the sound o' the wheel. An' Joe drapped
off ter sleep, an' arter a while I croped down hyar agin. I reckon she
'lowed, when she missed me, ez I got tired an' went away."

Taft, anxiously canvassing the probabilities, could but deem this more
than likely. He began to breathe freely. The girl was too young to
critically observe any departure from the usual routine, or to reason
about the matter. He doubted if she would know what moonshining was,
or could draw any inference from the fact of concealment should their
precautions chance to fall under her notice. Not that he intended,
however, to submit them to this jeopardy. The finding and fitting of
old Mrs. Jiniway's key to the door, in order that the sale of the bit
might not be lost, savored too much of a precocious intelligence to
be needlessly trusted. "Sis will bear watchin'," he said to himself,
unaware that this was a mutual conclusion.

For early rising was one of the virtues inculcated in old Mrs.
Jiniway's rule of life. Cornelia Taft was awake betimes the following
morning,--a dawn full of rain, of gray mist veiling the mountains,
of low clouds, of heavy, windless air. She saw its melancholy gleams
through the crevices of the clapboards of the roof above her head and
the batten shutter close by her bed. She knew that these fugitive
glimmers were brighter than the dull day slowly breaking without,
from the contrast with the deep tones of intervenient shadow. She lay
looking at them for a time with this thought in her mind, and then
she leaned forward and opened the shutter. It was as she had fancied:
the dusk was almost visible, like a brown mist that seemed subtle
and elusive, and always vaguely withdrew whenever the eye would fain
dwell upon it. A great elm grew just without the window and hung high
above the roof. Its leaves were all lustrous and deeply green with the
moisture; the graceful bole and branches were darker and more definite
than their wont. A bird's-nest was in a crotch. She turned her head
to hear the sleepy chirp of nestlings. She wondered that Joe had not
rifled it,--only because he had not observed it, she felt sure. "That
boy don't take notice o' nuthin'," she commented acridly upon her
senior. The next moment her own powers of observation were brought
into play. She heard steps, voices, a loud laugh, and before she
could experience either fear or surprise very definitely two or three
men passed out of the house, under the elm-tree, and down the road,
vanishing in the mist. She recognized one of them as the man who had so
suddenly appeared in the store the day before; another she had never
seen; the third was very young and very drunk.

Despite the sanctimonious atmosphere that had characterized Mrs.
Jiniway's domicile, the doings of the unregenerate had always been
commented upon with the freedom affected by those who are subject
neither to the temptation nor the transgression. Few gossips were
better informed upon current affairs than she and her youthful charge;
and it might be safe to say that, to all intents and purposes, a United
States marshal knew no more about the revenue laws as applied to
illicit distilling than did Miss Cornelia Taft.

Her small mind received a great enlightenment as she watched the young
moonshiner reel down the road with his two companions, and then she
leaned forward and softly and deftly closed the shutter as before.

IV.

The day proved of variable mood. The mists clung sullenly to slope
and ravine for a time; the clouds hung low, full of menace; even a
muttering of thunder afar off now and again stirred their dense gray
masses. The veiled mountains were withdrawn into invisibility. Below,
the earth lay as if it consisted only of dull levels, limited, silent,
comatose, for the dank, drowsy influence pervaded all energies alike of
the animate and the inanimate; there was no sound of beast or bird, no
stir of wind or rustle of leaf, and a lethargy dulled pulse and muscle
and brain.

The sunburst came with the effect of revelation. A vague tremor
pervaded the tissues of the gray mists, and all at once a great white
glory was on the green mountain sides. The vast spaces to the blue
zenith were filled with radiant flying fleecy forms as the transfigured
vapor took wing. Far in the south the gray cloudage still held its
consistency, and trembled with thunder and sudden elusive palpitating
veins of yellow lightning. But the lithe arc of a rainbow presently
sprang athwart it, and the wind came gayly piping down the gorge. In
the actual perceptible jubilance of the earth, it might seem that the
miracles of the goodness and the gladness of the sun were no common
thing. There was a visible joy among the leaves as they fluttered
together, and lifted up their dank fibres, and lustrously reflected the
pervasive sheen, and tremulously murmured and chanted in elfin wise
beneath the breath. How was it that the plaining river should suddenly
find its melodies again as if light and song were interdependent? A
tumultuous, rollicking stave it flung upon the air; and so, faster
to the valley! The benignant revivification was on the very flocks;
the dull, submissive sheep, huddled drowsily together in the gray
menace of the morning, were astir once more, and dispersed here and
there as they browsed. Even Luther was singing in the barn as he
mended his ploughgear. All day the swift upward flights of the sheeny
white figures continued at intervals, and when Adelicia set forth to
drive the cows home, in the afternoon, only the more radiant aspects
of the world gave token of the storm of the night. She hardly left
the print of her shoe in the wild woodland ways through which she
wandered, so had the warmth and the light dried the dank herbage. She
was out betimes. There was something in the long, meditative strolls
that harmonized with certain moods, and Cap'n Lucy sometimes sourly
commented, "Ad'licia gone ter fotch home the cows? Waal, who be a-goin'
ter fotch home Ad'licia?"

It might be an hour before Spot would think of turning her crumpled
horns homeward. The sun shone aslant through the vast forests, but
still hung well up in the western sky. Through the deeper gloom
amongst the gigantic trees the rays hardly penetrated. She stopped
once to gaze from the midst of the dark green shade of the umbrageous
tangle at the strange effects of the light where it fell into an
open space cleared long ago by "girdling" the trees, which betokened
collapsed agricultural intentions, for the ground had never been
broken by the plough. The enormous dead trees were still standing, and
time and rain and wind had worn them to a pallid whiteness. She could
see the successive clusters of columns, one after another, rising in
the sunlight, until the roofing foliage nearer at hand cut off the
view. To Kenniston's cultured experience they were reminiscent of the
colonnades of some great cathedral, when he had observed the place and
the same effect. She had naught in mind to which she could compare
them, but those white, silent, columnated aisles in the midst of the
savage fastnesses of the great wilderness always impressed her with a
certain solemnity as she passed, and she was wont to pause to gaze at
the spot in awe and with a vague sinking of the heart; for, despite her
optimism, Adelicia's heart was not always light. She was sensible of
its weight this evening, as she wandered on, leaving the still, white
sanctuary in the midst of the forest glooms. Her face was wistful and
pale. Her dark gray lustrous eyes were dreamy. She walked slowly and
aimlessly, her brown dress brushing the undergrowth aside with a gentle
murmur, her yellow calico sunbonnet hanging on her shoulders and
leaving her auburn head bare. Her errand was far from her mind. She did
not even bethink herself to call the cow, until suddenly she noticed
how high upon the great boles of the trees the slanting sunlight
registered the waning of the day. Then, as she set the echoes vibrating
with the long-drawn cry of "Soo, cow! soo!" she turned at right angles,
following the trend of the mountain stream, invisible in the labyrinth
of the woods, but not far distant she knew by the vague murmur of
waters borne by the wind. She had looked for no other listener than the
somewhat arbitrary Spot, who would heed or not as she listed, and who
might now be standing knee-deep in the limpid ripples near at hand,
hearkening, but making no response, intending to fare home at her own
good pleasure. But the long, musical, mellow call, with its trailing
echoes, attracted other and more receptive attention, and as Adelicia
turned suddenly into a straighter section of the path she saw at the
end of the vista, before it curved again, standing beneath a tree and
with his face toward her, a man apparently listening and waiting for
her.

He had dismounted from his horse, a light-tinted yellow roan, who stood
as still as if he were of bronze, while his master leaned against the
saddle, with his hand on the bridle. He held the other arm akimbo, with
his hand on the belt which supported a knife and a pair of pistols.
They were unconcealed by a coat; he wore a blue shirt and blue jeans
trousers, with heavy boots drawn to the knees; and she recognized him
rather by his accoutrements than his face, for his wide white wool hat
was pulled far over it. From under the broad brim he gazed at her with
sullen, lowering eyes.

"I hearn ye callin' the cow, an' I knowed yer voice," he said. "I been
waitin' fur ye."

She faltered for a moment; then, with an evident effort, quickened her
step and went forward to meet him. She apprehended the anger in his
face, apparently, for there was a disarming, deprecating look in her
clear dark eyes as she cast them up at him. Her yellow sunbonnet hardly
served more for shelter than an aureola might have done,--a background
for her auburn head; her dark brown dress and the green shadows of the
trees added a pallor to her white oval face with its small delicate
chin. He did not heed her appealing gaze. It was with a stern, hard
voice that he spoke, and a fiery eye.

"I hev got a word ter say ter ye, Ad'licia," he began, walking slowly
by her side and leading his horse, the reins thrown over his arm and
his uplifted hand near the bit.

The animal's head was close above his shoulder, and as Adelicia met the
creature's large-eyed and liquid gaze it seemed to her as if she were
doubly arraigned before them both.

"Ye needn't ter try ter fool me," said Jack Espey between his teeth.

"I ain't tryin' ter fool ye," protested Adelicia.

He looked at her narrowly, taking note of her evident discomposure, and
placing disastrous construction upon it.

"Ye 'low ye kin fool me 'thout tryin', I reckon," he said, with a
sarcastic smile.

"I ain't a-foolin' ye," gasped Adelicia. "Ye know--why, _ye know_
I ain't!"

He hesitated, half constrained to believe her. He still gazed
searchingly at her from under the broad brim of his hat. Her wild,
agitated look made him doubtful.

"Now, ye jes' ondertake ter fool me," he continued, with an accession
of angry jealousy, "an'"--he laid his hand on the pistol in his
belt--"I'll ondertake ter shoot ye dead on the spot."

The color surged to her face. The tears rushed to her eyes. A sharp
conflict waged in her heart for a moment, and then she walked on beside
him, pale, composed, silent, as if she were alone in the depths of the
primeval wilderness.

Only the sound of the stir of the saddle with the breathing of the
horse as the animal tramped on behind them, their muffled footfalls
barely perceptible on the thick herbage of the cattle path, the light
whisper of the wind in the leaves, broke the pause, while Jack Espey's
touch trembled on the handle of the pistol as he walked beside her.

Her calmness shook his own composure.

"Ad'licia!" he exclaimed petulantly, but with an evident softening of
his fierce mood, "whyn't ye say suthin'? Whyn't ye say suthin' ter me?"

"I dunno what ter say," she responded coolly.

"Ye know what I want ter hear," he declared passionately.

"'Tain't no use ter say it agin." She turned upon him her eyes, soft
and lustrous, like some brownish-greenish moss in the depths of a
crystal spring. "I done said it an' said it."

His hand released the pistol, and pushed his hat far back on his dark
hair with a hasty gesture of impatience. Then, with a sudden calmness,
"Ad'licia, ye oughtn't ter git mad with me! Ye oughtn't ter git mad so
dad-burned easy!"

"Mebbe I oughtn't," she said, with a note of sarcasm in her vibrant
voice. Her eyes were bright, her cheek flushed.

"'Tain't right," he continued didactically. "'Tain't religious." He
looked at her with grave, admonitory eyes.

"Mebbe 'tain't," she responded. She laughed a little, unmirthfully, and
her lip quivered.

He strode on a few steps in silence, at a loss for words for
explanation. He dreaded and deferred it, and yet he longed for its
possible reassurance. As his thoughts canvassed its probabilities, he
broke out tumultuously once more:--

"I hev got good reason ter b'lieve ye air foolin' me,--good reason, I
tell ye, now, Ad'licia!"

"Good reason agin my word?" she demanded, her pride in her eyes.

He stared at her. "A gal's word!" he said lightly, and then he laughed.
As a guaranty it struck him humorously. "I reckon thar ain't many men
ez would be willin' ter stand or fall by sech."

"Ye set store by it wunst," she said humbly.

"'Twar when ye promised ter marry me," he declared precipitately,
unconsciously showing that it was the prospect which he had valued
without trusting the promise. "An' I want ye ter 'bide by it, too," he
sternly added, suddenly perceiving that it was not policy to adduce too
freely precedents as to the friability of feminine promises.

She shook her head, regardless of his keen, fiery eye. "I ain't goin'
ter marry nobody, I reckon," she said slowly. "Ye'll shoot me dead
fust, some day, in one o' yer tantrums."

"Ye ain't a-goin' ter marry 'Renzo Taft, an' that I tell ye, now. I'll
shoot ye fust, sure!" he cried furiously, his eyes blazing upon her.

The look in her face checked his passionate rage. An utter wonderment,
a deep bewilderment, overspread it as she echoed, "_'Renzo Taft!_
The man over yander at Lost Time mine? War ye a-talkin' 'bout
_him_?"

He controlled himself instantly, although his eyes were all ashine and
alertly restless.

"Who war you-uns a-thinkin' 'bout, Ad'licia?" he asked gently and
incidentally.

"Jasper Larrabee, o' course," she answered innocently.

He could only grind a curse between his teeth, and then he was
speechless for a moment.

"I dunno nare nuther good-lookin' young man in the Cove," continued
Adelicia, girlishly talking on, oblivious of the significance of her
disclosures. "Though I b'lieve Jasper ain't studyin' 'bout sech ez
marryin'. He jes' kems thar toler'ble frequent ter read out'n his
book ter uncle Lucy. He kin read powerful well. Uncle Lucy 'lows he
senses the Gorspel better from Jasper's readin' 'n the rider's, 'kase
whenst he don't onderstan' he kin make Jasper stop an' spell it out
an' read it over. An' sometimes"--she broke into a little dimpling
laugh--"whenst the Gorspel goes agin uncle Lucy's policy an' practice,
he makes Jasper spell an' _spell_, an' yit them times he can't
spell it out to suit uncle Lucy. But it's plumb heartsome ter hear
Jasper read of a stormy night," she added, recalling the one spiritual
pleasure of her stunted, starveling spiritual life.

As she glanced at his face, there was something so gruesome, so
strange, in its expression that she was fain to remonstrate. "Ye 'pear
powerful techy, Jack," she said. "Ez ter 'Renzo Taft, it's jes' old
uncle Lucy's foolishness; an' I wish he 'd quit it, too! Though 'tain't
no harm, nuther. Uncle Lucy jes' makes out ez 'Renzo Taft air arter me
or Julia fur a step-mammy fur his leetle gal, an' it tickles him ter
talk 'bout'n it,--it's so foolish! Why, Jack, 'Renzo Taft is old enough
purty nigh ter be _my_ dad; an'--he ain't ugly, edzac'ly--but,
but--nowise desirable. Uncle Lucy air always peckin' at me fur
puttin' myself out ter obligate other folks, but I ain't so powerful
meek-tempered ez ter marry 'Renzo Taft ter be a step-mammy. Though he
ain't axed me, nor nobody else ez I knows on. An' I ain't got nuthin'
agin him."

He walked on beside her, hardly listening, and scarcely caring what
she said or thought of Taft. For him, at the moment, Jasper Larrabee,
and his gift of reading the Scriptures and interpreting them to Cap'n
Lucy's satisfaction and her humble and incidental pleasure, filled all
the horizon. His jealousy had taken a new lease on life with this more
promising object, and with the surer foundation of what she said of
Larrabee rather than of what Taft said of her. He hardly heeded her
presence as he sought to gather together his faculties. He did not
even feel the clumsy caress of the horse now and again rubbing his
head against his master's shoulder, as he minced along behind him,
accommodating his long stride to the shorter compass of the human step.
The young man's eyes were hot; they seemed to burn the dry lids, as he
gazed down through the cool leafy vistas of the forest; but his voice
was calm enough when he suddenly said to her:--

"Ad'licia, ef ye keered ennything 'bout me wuth talkin' 'bout, ye'd
marry me now."

The placidity which her face had resumed as she had talked disappeared
abruptly. She was once more anxious, disquieted, on the brink of tears.

"Ye know, Jack," she expostulated, "I can't marry agin uncle Lucy's
word."

"Ye would ef ye keered a straw, a bare straw."

"Uncle Lucy jes' say, 'Wait awhile.' It's jes' 'awhile,' else I would
go agin his cornsent."

"Ye don't keer," he reiterated dolorously, for her protest was welcome
to him.

"Uncle Lucy jes' say," she went on very fast, "jes' wait till that man
ez you-uns shot in Tanglefoot Cove gits well. He'll git well, I reckon.
Ye said he war powerful hearty an' big. Uncle Lucy say he ain't goin'
ter lemme marry a man ez mought be tried fur his life, ef he kin holp
it."

"Ef ye keered fur me, ye wouldn't gin _that_ fur Cap'n Lucy's
word!" he asseverated, as he lifted his arm high in the air and snapped
his fingers resonantly.

The horse shied suddenly at the sound, and pulled heavily on the hand
that held the bit.

Her eyes were full of tears.

"Jack," she said in deep humiliation, "I can't 'low at this time o' day
ez I don't keer fur uncle Lucy's word. I never eat none o' my own bread
in my life."

She knew that he had turned and was staring at her, although she
could not distinguish him through her tears. If she had never loved
him, her heart might have warmed to him now, for the vehemence, the
partisanship, with which he protested her independence.

"Eat yer own bread!" he cried in a ringing voice that made her shrink.
"Ye never eat nuthin' else! Who churns, an' sweeps, an' mends, an'
cooks, an' milks cows, this many an' many a day? That thar dough-faced
Julia?"

To his amazement she burst out laughing, but the next moment she was
sobbing in good earnest, and he hardly knew whether she was glad or
sorry.

He scarcely paused to wonder. He went tumultuously on to repudiate the
obligations that so lowered her pride and her title to self-respect.
"Who hoes, an' sews, an' weaves, an' spins, an' raises the chickens
an' tur-rkeys an' sech, an' answers old Cap'n Lucy's call 'Ad'licia!
Ad'licia!' all day long? That thar long, lank, limp Julia? Ef I war
ter marry ye an' take ye away from thar, that house would fall down, I
reckon, an' old Cap'n Lucy knows it."

His well-set bluish-gray eyes had brightened as he spoke; he smiled
genially; his face was handsome and intelligent with this expression.
The next moment it clouded heavily. He could not do this as almost any
other man might,--marry a wife and take her home. He was a fugitive
and an exile by reason of the jeopardy of the man whom he had shot in
Tanglefoot Cove, and who still hung between life and death, his own
fate involving that of his enemy. Jack Espey felt sure that he could
have proven self-defense, had he permitted himself to be apprehended at
the time. But from the circumstance of his hasty flight, uncertain what
he had done and animated by ignorant terrors of the law, the lapse of
time, the dispersion of witnesses, he feared to submit his action to a
legal arbitrament now.

The suspense was in itself a terrible retribution, but it is safe
to say that Espey had hardly appreciated its rigors till now, when
it hampered his every prospect in life. He had been a man of some
substance in his native place, according to the humble rating of
the mountaineers, and the lowering of pride involved in his present
situation was very bitter to him. He could not ask to be received
under Cap'n Lucy's roof, and its hospitalities certainly would not be
offered. He repented of his candor in making known his circumstances
when he had "asked for" Adelicia, for in the probation on which he had
been placed he recognized the crafty hope of her uncle that the affair
would soon blow over. He felt it a poor reward for his frankness, and
he determined that it should not go without requital in turn. "Jes'
lemme fix up that cussed bother in Tanglefoot, an' durned ef Cap'n Lucy
ever shell see Ad'licia's face agin!" he often said to himself.

Meanwhile he hung around as best he might, fraternizing secretly with
the moonshiners; for here was the best opportunity of earning enough to
provide for his simple wants, and to keep him out of the observation of
the law, while awaiting the result in Tanglefoot, whence the news had
lately become more hopeful.

He had fallen in with Jasper Larrabee at the blacksmith's shop at the
cross-roads, where he had paused in his flight for his horse to be
shod; the two had "struck up" a mutual liking, and Espey had come
with Larrabee to the Cove, where he divided his time pretty equally
between his new friend's home and the Lost Time mine. His frankness had
not extended to these acquaintances, who knew no reason why he should
shun observation except that which they shared with him concerning the
still. His utility there and its financial advantages were ample to
justify the continuation of his stay in the Cove; and thus, but for his
own attack of conscientiousness in revealing his true circumstances to
Adelicia and Cap'n Lucy, he might have seemed as advantageously placed
as any of his compeers.

"Waal," said Adelicia, unaccountably brightened, "we-uns hev ter 'bide
by uncle Lucy's word an' wait awhile, bein' ez he hev tuk keer o' me
all my days, mighty nigh. An' ye better be toler'ble perlite ter Julia,
too," she added, with a radiant smile. "Julia's cornsider'ble apt ter
take notice o' slights."

He promised humbly, swallowing his pride with a mighty gulp; and as
they came out from the woods into the more open spaces shelving to
the great crags, they encountered Kenniston, a cigar in his mouth, a
memorandum in his hand of the boundaries of his land, taken from the
calls of his title-deed, a good-humored triumph on his face, and a gay,
kind voice as he instantly recognized and greeted Adelicia.

He called her to come and observe the splendor of the view from a
certain craggy point where there would be an observatory, and his
enthusiasm was not dashed even when she gazed off wonderingly into
space, seeing nothing to which she was unaccustomed, and evidently
apprehending naught of what he said. He wondered a trifle, subacutely,
how much the perception of beauty may be promoted by the sense of
contrast. Since she knew no dull levels or discordant scenes, the
sublime was merely the natural daily presentment of creation, no more
a marvel than the rising of the sun, and thus she was bereft of its
appreciation. He wondered, too, if the converse of the proposition
were true,--if those to whom nature is expressed in a meadow, or a
series of knobs, or a pond, can have no mental conception of the
austere splendors of the craggy heights or the stupendous area of
infinite detail spread before the eye within a wide horizon piled
with mountains. He showed her, too, a small drawing of the projected
hotel, which she held awry and almost reversed to gaze upon it. His
good humor extended to her companion, whom he had never before seen.
Although usually aloof and averse to strangers, Espey found the
suave words a salve to his sore heart. He did not know how much less
pleasant Kenniston could be when not pleased. Just now even this new
acquaintance harmonized most aptly with his gracious mood. Artistically
viewed, poor Espey might have graced the romantic stage, as he stood,
in his dark blue shirt and trousers and great spurred boots, defined
against the yellow-bronze horse which he held by the bit, his belt
full of weapons, his broad white hat far back on his black hair, and
his defiant face at once wild and eager and wistful. The man of the
alert pencil was moved to wish that he had the art to do him justice.

Kenniston's kind and ingratiating manner as he explained his plans and
expectations, which could not interest the mountaineer, who was as
foreign to such considerations as deer or bear, secured nevertheless
Espey's attention and respectful silence. He looked now and again with
a sort of reluctant liking at Kenniston's face as he talked, regretting
that, since he attached so much hope and consequence to the project,
it would be necessary to burn the buildings down as fast as they were
erected.

In the plenitude of his access of amiability, Kenniston lagged behind
and let them stroll away homeward together,--as pretty a pair of rustic
lovers, he thought, as one could wish to see.

The sun was well down; the sky was red; the evening star was in a
saffron haze; the nearest mountains had turned a deep purple, with a
vague, translucent, overlaying gray hue like the bloom on a ripe grape;
the distant ranges had vanished in the mystery of night. It was not
dark, but the flare of the fire within the door of Cap'n Lucy's cabin
was visible as it rose and fell on the puncheon floor in transitory
flickers. It was a poor place, but it was home, and to the exile it
looked like paradise. Julia had come to the door, and stood there half
in the soft outer light, and half in the firelight within. Schooled
and docile, Espey remembered his monitor's bidding, and roused his
unwilling, flagging energies and his tired, sad heart to evolve some
pleasantry as he called out a greeting from the bars. She turned her
sleek head and smiled at him. There had never been such eyes in the
Cove, except perhaps those which Cap'n Lucy had opened there first some
sixty years before, nor such long, dark, curling lashes. She might,
however, have been no more comely, for all Jack Espey cared, than old
"T'bithy," Adelicia's cat, who arched her plebeian scantily furred
back in the door, and surveyed the landscape with her yellow eyes, and
yawned from sheer mental vacuity. He got through the interview with
what poor grace he could, and from a sense of duty; and as he was about
to mount, he offered, unobserved by the others, to take Adelicia's
hand. To his amazement, she looked him full in the face with hard,
angry eyes, struck down his hand with a petulant gesture, passed him
like a flash, and disappeared within the door.

Jack Espey, who had no more recognition of the aspect of jealousy than
if he had never felt its power, could but mount and ride away in angry
bewilderment; and Kenniston, hearing the furious speed of his horse's
hoofs as he went headlong down the dark, rocky road, looked wonderingly
after him.

"He'll break his neck, at that rate," he said.

Kenniston's gracious mood was not of long continuance. He was of the
temperament which demands a prerequisite for good nature. Given an
adequate reason to be happy, and he could show you a fine article of
felicity. But his heart would not bubble with gratitude on general
principles for ordinary blessings enjoyed in common by humanity at
large. It was not enough for him that the fried chicken was fat; that
his cigar was good; that as he smoked after supper on the little porch,
the air was so fragrant, so fine, so dry; that the stars were brighter
for the great dark amphitheatre of mountains above whose summits,
serrated against the horizon, his far-reaching gaze sought them; that
Julia, as she sat on the step of the threshold, had an outline and a
coiffure that he would have discriminated as classic in marble; that
every trace of the battered beauty of old Cap'n Lucy's countenance
vanished, leaving it a unique ideal for a gargoyle, when his guest
chanced to intimate that he had written to the register in the county
town, who had furnished him with the calls from his title-deeds, and
that he felt very sure that Cap'n Lucy had inadvertently trespassed on
his neighbor's domain. Harmoniously ugly as his countenance was, Cap'n
Lucy's conduct was more so.

"Waal, sir," he said, after an interval of stunned dismay, during which
Kenniston leaned forward, drawing with his cane an imaginary line on
the floor, and repeating the measurements for the boundaries from the
paper in his hand, "ye an' the register may go to hell, sir, an' brile,
sir!"

Cap'n Lucy's face was very distinct in the light from the fire within
the door, as he sat tilted back in the chair against the post of the
porch, and a sudden sensation ensued amongst his household as they
gazed upon him, astounded by this unprecedented breach of all the
canons of hospitality. There was silence for a moment. Luther stirred
uneasily, the legs of his chair rasping harshly on the rough flooring
of the porch. Even Julia gave signs of having heard by turning her head
slowly, with a certain interest and excitement on her impassive face.
Adelicia's eyes dilated with alarm as she half rose from her seat on
the step of the porch; she had grown pale; her delicate, fine little
chin and her lips quivered with the agitation of the moment.

"Oh, uncle Lucy, ye don't mean that,--ye don't mean that, now!" she
urged.

"Oh, I ain't partic'lar ez ter _when_!" the old man blurted
out. And then he paused to chuckle in sinister fashion over his play
upon the double meaning of the word "now" in this connection. He had
a satisfaction, too, in thwarting the ever-ready peacemaker and
apologist, and in her look of balked surprise as she cogitated upon his
answer.

His grimly jocose pride in his cleverness relieved the tension of the
moment. It suddenly became more practicable for Kenniston to overlook
his rude rage, when the circumstances rendered it hardly possible for
him to take cognizance of it. His indignant repugnance to the situation
was sharply manifest in his face, however, which was of an expressive
type, but he compassed an off-hand manner as he said,--

"Oh, the register and I may be burned indefinitely and to your heart's
content, in due course of spiritual justice; but I fancy it won't be
the direct consequence of anything in the nature of muniments of title,
and it won't change the metes and bounds of this land by one rod,
perch, or pole."

Another voice broke into the discussion abruptly:

"What reason hev ye got ter 'low ez Cap'n Lucy be on yer land?"

The dull irradiation of the porch from the flicker of the fire within
the house barely sufficed to show Lorenzo Taft's burly form standing
beside the post. His approach had been unnoticed by the group, but his
question apprised them that he had joined them some moments previously,
and the pawing of his mare at the gate showed that she had been hitched
in anticipation of passing the evening there. In the excitement of
the situation the usual greetings were dispensed with, and Kenniston
not unwillingly recited anew the calls of the title papers, again
sketching the boundary line with his cane on the floor, and even taking
from his pocket a letter, and drawing upon the back of the envelope
a miniature plat of the irregularly shaped body of land. Even in his
preoccupation he could but note the intelligence of the attention which
the visitor closely bent upon his exposition and the rude draught, the
receptivity of his mind, the pertinence of his questions. Taft stood
leaning over the back of Kenniston's chair, his blue eyes fixed on the
paper in the slim deft fingers of the draughtsman, his own brawny hand
laid meditatively on his long yellow beard.

"Of course," said Kenniston, folding the paper, and by way of
concluding the matter, "I am ready to pay the colonel the full value of
his improvements. He has only to name his price."

The irate glance which Cap'n Lucy shot at him served to steady him a
trifle, to tame his buoyant sense of triumph. He had an ample fund
of physical courage; that is, in his fresh, healthy, normal mental
impulses he never thought of fear. But he had seldom been brought into
actual personal danger, and the details of sundry lawless and furious
feuds that had come to his knowledge during his stay in the mountains
were brought suddenly to his remembrance by that swift, scathing look;
he was further reminded that few of these bloody chronicles recounted
so definite a provocation as the effort at eviction. Nevertheless,
the sense of proprietorship was strong within him, and the active
aggressiveness of a man with the coercions of that weapon in his hand,
the law of the land, made his blood stir when Cap'n Lucy, wagging his
arbitrary old head, retorted, "An' s'pose I say--like I hev said--ez
my h'a'thstone ain't got no price! S'pose I won't sell, an' I won't
gin in, an' I keep my line whar I know my line hev got a right ter
be,--whut then, hey?"

But for his gray head, so did his manner and expression reach the
climax of aggravation, it might have seemed righteousness to smite
him. Kenniston, held in the bonds of such considerations, controlled
himself with difficulty. He was unused to self-restraint, or to
occasions that necessitated it. The color had overspread his face; he
was hot, impatient, indignant. "Why, then, there's nothing for it but
to procession the land and establish the boundary," he declared.

Cap'n Lucy stared in amazement. This possibility seemed never to have
occurred to him as a solution.

"Percession my lan'!" he cried at last, as if the extremity of insult
had been offered him. "Percession my lan'!" His face was scarlet; his
eye blazed; his hand, held out with a gesture of insistence toward
Kenniston, shook with fury.

"Or _my_ land," Kenniston sneered. "'Tisn't capital punishment.
Plenty of men have survived the processioning of land,--thriven on it!
My land, then; the process won't hurt it. Get the line,--that's what I
want."

Once or twice Adelicia sought, in her agitation, to interpose. Now
she rose and came to Cap'n Lucy's side, taking hold of the shaking
hand which he brought ever nearer to Kenniston's face, who would not
draw back, nor mitigate nor postpone his demand, in the front of this
threatening gesture. "Oh, uncle Lucy--don't--don't! Sweet uncle Lucy,
don't! Thar's room enough in the mountings fur all o' we-uns! Look at
the mountings--how big they air--toler'ble roomy fur sure! Don't quar'l
'bout _lan'_, uncle Lucy,--whenst we-uns hev got all out o' doors
fur lan',--an' git in a fight, mebbe, an' git hurt, an'"--

"Ad'licia," snarled "sweet uncle Lucy," with a gasp, pretermitting
his attentions to Kenniston to turn upon her his corrugated face,
"Ad'licia, I tole that man ez war so dead set ter marry ye ez I
wouldn't let him hev ye. But I hev changed my mind. I'll tell him he
kin cart ye off from hyar ter-morrer, an' welcome, mighty welcome, ef
so be he ain't changed his mind; fur I can't abide ye an' yer 'peace
talks,' like a Injun, an' yer interferin' with yer elders, an' yer
purtenses, no mo'! Thar, now!" he exclaimed in triumph, as she fell
back quite speechless because of this disclosure of the matrimonial
proposition. "I reckon ye'll set down now, an' stay set!"

Then he turned to Kenniston with an accession of fury, the fiercer for
the momentary stemming of the tide.

"An' I say, hyar I be, an' yer percessionin' don't tech me nowhar. An'
hyar I'll 'bide, no matter whut! An' I won't sell out, an' I won't take
no price fur my h'a'thstone, no matter whut!"

"Then," said Kenniston hotly, "you'll be ejected in due process of
law,--that's all."

He changed color the next moment and bit his lip, for he had put
himself in a false position.

"That's toler'ble tall talk ter a man under his own roof," said Cap'n
Lucy, suddenly cool, and not without dignity.

Kenniston was out of countenance for the nonce. He felt that there was
scant grace or utility in forcing the matter, which was beyond the
control of either, to this unseemly issue. He had been hurried by his
impatience of contradiction and Cap'n Lucy's illogical and arbitrary
temper far beyond his intention, which was originally merely to propose
to have the surveyor run out the boundary line in order to demonstrate
for the old man's enlightenment the fact that he was a trespasser, and
to offer to pay the full value of the improvements. But he was not of
the type from whom penitents are developed. The acknowledgment of being
in the wrong was inexpressibly repugnant to him. Perhaps he could not
have constrained himself to make it but that he foresaw the reversal of
their mutual position.

"You're more than half right, colonel. I am out of place here. I feel
that. And, under the circumstances, I think I had better take myself
off."

He had intended to get the better of his host. But his most cruel
desire could never have sought to compass the deep humiliation of
vanquishment which had befallen poor Cap'n Lucy. The implied reflection
upon his hospitality, the consciousness that his own hasty words
justified it, the receding and diminishing aspect of the provocation
common to the mental vision at such moments, with the magnifying of
the offense, all combined to render him a chopfallen and lugubrious
old noncombatant in the space of a second. But Cap'n Lucy's talent for
open confession and repentance was not more marked than Kenniston's. He
sat grum, crestfallen, afflicted of mien, but silent. His keen eye had
no longer an alert interest; it was fixed with an absorbed, reflective
stare on an intermediate point some two feet from the floor, with the
air of insight rather than outward vision. Kenniston was not prepared,
either, for the protest from the younger and ordinarily acquiescent
members of the family.

"Thar, now!" exclaimed the apathetic Luther, rising to the occasion
like a man of this world. "Ye hev actially got ter the p'int o'
quar'lin' over yer old land an' worldly goods an' sech. An' what
diff'unce do it make? The line is thar, no matter what air one of ye
say, an' I reckon the county surveyor air man enough ter find it.
Mebbe ye 'low ye air powerful interestin', but I ain't listenin' much,
through wantin' to interjuice this hyar plumb special apple-jack I got
this evenin' from the cross-roads. Ye 'lowed ye hed never tasted sech,
Mr. Kenniston. Now try this, sir, an' ye'll feel good enough ter set
out an' sing psalms an' hymes an' speritchul chunes the rest of the
evenin'."

Adelicia took a pitcher which the languid Julia had alertly fetched.
She spoke for her, as if Julia were dumb. She looked up at Kenniston,
with her delicately tinted old-fashioned oval face set in smiles.

"Ef ye want ter temper it enny?" she suggested.

"Git out'n the way, Ad'licia, with that pernicious jug o' cold water!"
exclaimed Luther, shoving her aside. "Take it straight, stranger; don't
spile the good liquor."

The feminine members of the family had observed that Kenniston's
glass was usually diluted, and in their eagerness to facilitate peace
they gave him no excuse. He hardly liked to nullify his bluster of
incipient farewell by accepting this show of good fellowship and
further hospitality, and yet he could not rudely repel it. He felt
that both he and his host had gone too far, much farther than he had
intended. Yet nevertheless his was not the nature nor the practice to
overlook an affront. He took the glass, with a slight laugh and the
outward show of amity, but he was determined to adhere to his threat of
departure. Their interests were too adverse to make a longer sojourn
appropriate; time would render them even more inimical, and he was
under no obligations to put up with indignities at the hands of Cap'n
Lucy or any other man. Could he have thought anything humorous that
affected his interests, he must have been moved by the serio-comic
aspect of the old man, sedulously silent lest his tongue escape him,
solemnly sampling the new liquor,--for his son had filially and with
great show of courtesy waited upon him,--a sort of aged pallor upon the
wrinkles of his face, where erstwhile his rage had glowed so ruddily.
In drinking, Taft had unconsciously a knowing and discriminating air.
He was comparing the quality of the beverage with the apple brandy
of the Lost Time still. He looked very thoughtful as he lowered the
glass, and let the flavor permeate his palate, and once more took a
careful, considerate draught. It was more like business than pleasure.
Luther himself did not indulge beyond the merest swallow for form's
sake. He was occupied in guiding the conversation clear of difficulties
and bellicose suggestions; and, considering his limited and uncouth
experience, his efforts to reëstablish the decorums of peace were
worthy of praise. He evidently considered that he had failed utterly
when Kenniston rejoined him in the porch, after the rest of the family
had retired for the night, and communicated his intention of immediate
departure. "I can make the cross-roads by daylight or breakfast time,
no doubt," he said, "if you will let me have my horse; and I can rest
there an hour or so, and then ride on and reach the train, the night
express, as it passes the tank and stops for water, about sundown."

In vain Luther protested. Kenniston declared this his original
intention. He would save time, and prevent making both journeys
by daylight. "I don't believe I could stand the sun two days in
succession, at this season. And if I like, I'll lie over at the
cross-roads, and make another night ride." He urged Luther to say
nothing to Cap'n Lucy or the other members of the family, as he did not
want to combat any objections to his departure. "The old cap'n will
think I bear malice, and--really I must go."

Luther's hesitation in the matter was a trifle nettling to a free
agent. He evidently hardly liked to take the responsibility of acting
without the autocratic paternal concurrence. Kenniston himself felt the
irking of leading-strings. "Cap'n Lucy or no Cap'n Lucy, I'm going," he
said to himself, making a dash for liberty, as it were. "I believe the
man thinks Cap'n Lucy owns the earth."

Luther's obduracy gave way presently, although he persisted in
saddling his own horse, also, and accompanying his guest as far as the
cross-roads. Kenniston was oppressed with the sense of so punctilious
a host, and the long ride in the dewy night, along the deserted roads,
under the white silent stars, would have accorded better with his
humor had he been solitary. But the freshening wind that came with the
daybreak had a sense of liberty in the broad spread of its wings. Under
the slow revelation of the clear gray skies of dawn, he marked how
far the tumult of its flight extended in the stirring of the forests
on the mountain sides, awakening from the lethargies of the night.
He experienced a certain quickening interest in the unrolling of an
unfamiliar landscape from the obscurities of the darkness. He had a
keen zest for its beauty, the splendid symmetry of its setting amidst
a new and strange conformation of the mountains; he was responsive,
too, to that touch of pensive melancholy, that sense of loss, which
one must feel in noting the day-star fade, the quenching of that
white, tremulous, supernal lustre in the midst of the roseate mists;
but his strong mundane heart stirred to see the sun sail majestically
up amidst the full argosy of scarlet and amber clouds, freighted with
the future, and the breathless expectation of the quiescent landscape
merge into the certainty of largess to the present moment. And he had a
yet deeper satisfaction: he noted the inferiority of the magnificence
about him to the scene he had left, his own, his very own, and he dwelt
upon the recollection of it with a personal triumph, as if he had
himself designed and built it. It was with an influx of hopefulness,
of content, of renewed interest in the world, that he shook hands with
Luther, glad enough to part with him.

The mountaineer looked after him with a certain wistfulness. His
experience was too limited, his idea of the world beyond too vague,
for his thoughts to follow the traveler. It was only the sudden dim
perception of that fresh, vital, alert turning to fields beyond his ken
that smote upon him with a sense of deprivation or of discontent, too
subtle to be definitely discriminated.

It was, fortunately, fleeting. Luther's satisfaction to discover that
old Cap'n Lucy approved of his course, and in fact was secretly pleased
to be rid of Kenniston's presence, dominated every other consideration.
As the day wore on, the old man's jaunty self-importance returned.
From various meditative pauses, in which he evidently argued anew the
situation, he visibly derived self-justification. He was altogether at
ease and himself again in an indefinitely short time, for the father
was hardly more worldly-wise than the son. He considered Kenniston's
departure final. He assumed that his taunt and his sturdy resistance
had bluffed the man off from the design of processioning the land,
which, being a thing undreamed of hitherto, Cap'n Lucy vaguely feared,
albeit sure enough that he stood well within his own boundaries. As
time went by without incident or news, he began even to speak of the
projected hotel as a thing of the past, a sort of mental mirage of a
crack-brained visionary.

It came upon him, therefore, with the force of an unexpected blow when
Luther one day burst into the house with a paper in his hand giving
notice of the proposed processioning, and blurted out that he had seen
the public notice posted, according to law, at the voting-place of the
district, which was the gristmill on Tomahawk Creek.

Cap'n Lucy, lapsed in the soft securities of peace, was stunned for
a moment. That valiant essence, his temper, of all his faculties
recovered its vitality first. He mounted his horse and rode to Sawyer's
Mill, where, confronting the obnoxious notice, conspicuous upon the
doorpost, he stood for an instant the centre of a curious group of
idlers, frowningly contemplating it; then, with a single irate gesture,
he promptly tore it down, in defiance of the law. He silently got upon
his horse and rode away, leaving Luther and the kindly miller to patch
the fragments together, and to replace the notice as before, where,
the fractions not perfectly adjusted, it haltingly and disconnectedly
continued to proclaim the date, some twenty days hence, when said
Kenneth J. Kenniston designed to cause his land to be processioned,
stating the corner at which he intended to begin, to ascertain and
establish its boundary line.

Kenniston's absence, however, Cap'n Lucy still appreciated as a
boon. He was free to flounder about amongst the dense jungles of the
laurel, "huntin' fur the line ez ef 'twar hid 'mongst the bushes like
a rattlesnake, an' he mought find it by hearin' it rattle," Luther
observed, with his first unfilial criticism. Since the full value of
the improvements would doubtless be paid, should it be ascertained
that the land was Kenniston's, the son could only think it a matter
of inconvenience to be obliged to move, and a misfortune to that
extent. But he regarded the contingency as untenable as a _casus
belli_, having no realization of the reserves of obduracy in Cap'n
Lucy's mind, or of that aversion to change so characteristic of the
home-loving aged. He deemed the surveyor the fit discoverer of the
line, and deprecated his father's long jaunts up and down the mountain
from one "monument of boundary" to the other; for since there was no
adversary to relish the spectacle, Cap'n Lucy's pride did not preclude
him from daily patrolling the extent of his possessions so far as his
strength and his horse's legs might serve. But Luther came to think
this a frivolous objection indeed, in comparison with his view of his
father's standpoint later.

One day Cap'n Lucy rode up to the side of the cornfield, a late
planting, where Luther, with a bull-tongue plough, was industriously
engaged in "bustin' out the middles," since the land had been planted,
in view of the backwardness of the season, without the preliminary
"breaking up." The young man reluctantly came to the fence, his ruddy
countenance shadowy, glimpsed beneath his broad-brimmed hat.

"Mount an' kem along straight," commanded his father.

Obedience, implicit and unquestioning, had been Luther's lifelong
habit. He looked with desperation at his suffering corn. "Why, dad, I
ain't got on no shoes," he ventured to urge.

"I aint keerin' ef ye ain't got on no skin," the arbitrary elder
declared. "Git on yer beastis an' kem along with me."

The surprised old plough horse was released, and, with his clanging
gear still rattling about him, and his owner on his saddleless back,
began to take his way, following Cap'n Lucy's lead, up the precipitous
slope of the mountain. The dark forests closed high above their heads.
The change from the glare of the noontide of the open field to the
chill twilight of the shade was grateful to the senses. The undergrowth
and the jungle of the laurel seemed well-nigh impenetrable, except
indeed for the traces in broken boughs and bruised leaves of Cap'n
Lucy's former transits. They had journeyed nearly to the summit, and
Luther was ruefully meditating on the loss of two good hours of farming
weather, when the old man turned his head, glanced over his shoulder,
and drew rein.

"Luther," he said, excitement shining in his blue eyes and the color
rejuvenating his face, "ye know that Kenn'ston 'lows his southeast
corner air at that boulder, 'known ez Big Hollow Boulder,'"--he quoted
from the notice with a sneer,--"ez ef it could hev been known ez a
peegeon-aig boulder or sech."

Luther nodded in surprise.

"Waal, he gins notice ez he begins thar."

Luther nodded again in assent.

"Waal, sir, that thar boulder hev been moved."

The young man stared for a moment. Then a blank alarm settled on his
face.

"Why, dad, it's onpossible!" he exclaimed.

"Kem an' see! Kem an' see." And Cap'n Lucy rode on as before.

Luther was never sure whether he really came upon the old landmark
earlier than he expected to see it, or whether the anticipation of
something novel and incongruous colored his mind. There it was,
presently, lying on the steep slope in the midst of the wilderness,
as he had always known it,--a vast boulder, weighing many tons,
with a cavity in it which almost pierced through its bulk, and was
large enough to accommodate a man standing at full height. The slope
above was bare, for it was near the bald of the mountain, and with
outcropping ledges of rock; athwart these several trees were lying,
one apparently old and lightning-scathed long ago, the others freshly
storm-riven, for the winds had raged in a recent tempest, and instances
of its fury were elsewhere visible in broken branches in the woods.

"The wind couldn't hev done it," observed Luther, as his father pointed
at the boulder with a wave of the hand.

"Wind?--ye sodden idjit!"

"'Pears like ter me it air whar it always war," said Luther, seeking
refuge in conservatism from the hazards of conjecture.

"Luther," said his father impressively, "I know that thar rock war the
fust thing my gran'dad viewed in Tennessee, whenst he wagoned 'crost
the range ter settle. I hev hearn him say that word time an' agin. He
said he camped by it, 'count o' the spring close by, up over thar. I
hev knowed it familiar fur better'n fifty year, an' I tell ye ez it
useter war around the curve o' the bend o' the mounting up over thar,
a-nigh the spring."

"Hev ye viewed that spot lately?" asked Luther, drawing his horse to
one side, and gazing blankly at the big hollow boulder.

"Nuthin' ter view,--jes' rock an' laidges an' sech."

"Why, dad, how could it hev kem down hyar?" demanded Luther.

Old Cap'n Lucy broke into a high, derisive laugh.

"Ax Mr. Kenn'ston; don't ax me. I ain't 'quainted with them things
he talks 'bout by the yard medjure,--'splosives an' giant powder an'
daminite." (Thus Cap'n Lucy profanely denominated a certain cogent
compound.) "Enny one o' them would be ekal ter fetchin' the rock 'known
ez Big Hollow Boulder' down hyar whar he wants it to be."

"Whut fur, dad?" demanded Luther.

"Whut fur, ye fool? Ter make the line run ter suit him, ter take my
house an' lot an' sech in his boundary, ter turn me out 'n house an'
home ter suit his pleasure. He can't buy it, so he's a-fixin' ter take
it,--take it by changing the corner fur the start o' the survey."

His eyes dilated with anger, and his chin shook with the weakness of
age and the vehemence of his emotion.

Luther's face grew grave. "That's agin the law, ain't it?"

"Ter move corner lan'marks or monimints o' boundaries air a felony,
that's whut," said Cap'n Lucy, cavalierly swinging his feet in his
stirrups. "Mr. Kenn'ston hed better gin keerful heed ter his steps."

He grinned fiercely as he took up the reins, and, followed by the
astounded, dismayed, and ruminating Luther, fared cheerfully enough
down the mountain.

VI.

The roof beneath which Jack Espey had found shelter was the readiest
expression of hospitality. Its several expansions beyond its builder's
original gambrel design were betokened by the incongruity of the
additions, and the varying tints and fashion of the warped and worn
old clapboards. Two shed-rooms were obviously of a later date than
the dank and mossy covering of the main building; a queer projection
above a modern porch exhibited an aboriginal inspiration correlated
to a dormer window, albeit lacking the aperture; a section of the
limited porch itself was boarded up to serve further as house-room; and
a valiant disregard of the possibility of leakage characterized the
intrepid domestic architect. It further differed from the conventional
roofs of the district in its surroundings. In lieu of the bare dooryard
and the neighboring fields, or the low tangle of peach and apple
orchards, great forest trees loomed above it, the gigantic poplar and
white oak of the region; for the space about it was rugged with the
outcropping rock that sheered off further down into the great precipice
on the mountain slope, precluding the possibility of cultivation. An
exhaustless freestone spring burst out from the rocks close at hand,
the reason of the selection of its vicinity as a building-site, and
the "gyardin spot" and the cornfields were lower down the slope at the
side, out of view amidst the clustering foliage. So little industrial
were the suggestions that hung about this roof, so allied was it in
its rough, gray, mossy aspect to the rugged bark and gnarled boles
of the great trees, that it too might have seemed some spontaneous
production of the soil, as it rose from the ledges of the rock, mossy
and gray and rugged, too, like the rest. It had an intimation, also, of
an aspiration toward higher things, as it, like the trees, gazed out
upon the environing lofty seclusion of the mountains, the very inner
sanctuary of nature; for, save the mystic mist, or the sun and the
pursuing shadow, or the vagrant wind, naught ventured into that vast
semicircle of mountains and intermediate valleys that lay before it,
refulgent with color, massive, multitudinous, illimitable, the compass
of the human vision failing to trace further than the far horizon the
endless ranges still rising tier upon tier.

Whether the inmates of the house consciously derived aught from the
scene, from its calm, its splendor of extent that might serve to
widen the imagination, its vast resources of suggestion, one of them
spent many idle hours in gazing upon it. Often Jack Espey lay all the
forenoon upon the hay in the loft of the little barn, watching through
the bare logs, guiltless of "chinking," the shadows dwindling on the
hazy indented slopes, blue in the sunshine, amethyst in the shade. The
white clouds would sail when the wind was fair, or in still noontides
would lie at anchor off the great shimmering domes. Sometimes these
loiterings were prolonged till the pageants of sunset-tide were on the
march along the great purple western slopes, and from the shipping of
the skies floated every pennant of splendid color; the sun, with the
burnished dazzling quality quenched in the great blood-red sphere,
would go slowly dropping down behind the western ranges, leaving
the sky of a delicate amber tint with scarlet strata, amongst which
incongruous gorgeousness the evening star would shine with a pure,
pensive white radiance. The loft of the flimsy little barn, but now all
aglow with bars of gold alternating with brown shadow as the sunlight
fell between the logs, gilding even the tissues of cobweb and the
masses of hay, would sink into a dull, dusky monochrome. A shadow would
seem to fall upon his spirit. The anxiety to which the contemplative,
languorous idleness had granted surcease roused itself anew; the voices
from the house, never silent, were reasserted upon his attention,
and the necessity would supervene of joining the family circle,--a
necessity sometimes infinitely repugnant to his troubled soul, craving
solitude for its indulgence of woe, and hardly able to maintain the
cheerful disguise which must needs screen it.

So poor were his arts of deception that perhaps they would scarcely
have served his purpose elsewhere, but here he and his peculiarities
were given scant heed. He could not have found another domicile, in
all the length and breadth of the country, where he could have been
installed and have excited so little attention and curiosity. And
indeed, to Mrs. Larrabee, the head of the house, he was only one more
in addition to the rest of the tribe that must be warmed and fed and
housed, or, as she expressed it, "tucked away somewhar." She always
was equal to the emergency, although whenever Espey entered the large
circle about the fireside it seemed to have been recruited somewhere,
and more numerous than at his last survey.

"Ye 'pear ter hev a cornsider'ble head o' humans hyar, Mis' Haight,"
he observed on one occasion to the old grandam who sat in the corner,
the stepmother-in-law of Mrs. Larrabee, and whose reproval seemed the
natural incident of all that her daughter-in-law did. The world had
gone much awry with her, after the mundane manner, and in the evening
of her days she had neither the softening influence of religion nor the
resources of culture to mitigate the asperities of the result.

"In course,--in course!" she exclaimed rancorously, gazing at him over
her spectacles with little dark eyes, the brighter for exasperation.
"Thar's me an' my old man,--he's got the palsy," as if this rendered
him more numerous; "an' thar's Jerushy, my darter, an' her chil'n,
five, an' her husband; an' S'briny Lar'bee herself, an' her son Jasper.
An' ez ef that warn't enough, she hearn ez Henrietty Timson's husband
war dead, an' they war burnt out an' hed no home, so S'briny Lar'bee
jes' wagons down the mounting an' brung 'em hyar ter stay, seben
of 'em,--seben with thar mammy makes eight. S'briny jes' tucks 'em
away somehows, ez she 'lows, in this hyar leetle house!" She sneered
toothlessly, then laughed aloud. Suddenly she leaned forward, and, with
her knitting-needle in her hand, pointed at the group of floundering
children. "See that thar brat, the leetlest one?"

Espey, turning in his chair, descried a tow-head bobbing not far
above the floor. The significant eye of the old woman fixed him as if
reciting an enormity.

"He war a infant whenst he kem,--a ill-convenient infant in arms,
_with the rickets_!"

As the subject of this criticism scampered out of the crowd, with a
single unbleached cotton garment on, very rotund as to trunk, very
fat and cherubic as to legs, very loud and blatant as to voice, very
arrogant and impudent as to manner, the young man was moved to remark
that he "'peared toler'ble hearty now."

"Course he do," she assented, "through a-gor-mandizin' of so much fat
meat; scandalous, impident shoat,--ez well ez a bear!"

She loved a quiet life, did Mrs. Haight. She had been an only daughter.
She had had only two children. She had always had her house to herself;
and in this congregation of incongruous elements around her widowed
daughter-in-law's hearth she beheld only inconvenience, perversity, and
an unfilial disregard of her own very sage advice. It had even been
advanced to exclude her own daughter.

"Let Jerushy's husband take keer o' her. She would marry him, spite o'
all. Let her 'bide by her ch'ice."

But poor Jerusha's husband was a drunkard, and the forlorn household
had suffered hardship and very nearly grazed starvation before they
made their happy advent into this populous haven.

There were certain sensitive thrills of pride and shame in the
fugitive's heart, as he listened to this arraignment of the numbers
crowded about the hospitable hearth. He said to himself, in
justification, that he was only one more among so many, but he felt
that he was an imposition. There was no such thought, however, in Mrs.
Haight's mind. She regarded him only as a visitor, a personable young
man, and moreover as possessing a certain unique interest for her; for
in her youth she had spent some days in Tanglefoot Cove, and, despite
the wide diversity of their age, occupation, and outlook at life, they
passed sundry companionable hours in gossiping of the people of that
locality, and detailing the various chances that had befallen families
known to both. During these sessions he was wont to hold her yarn for
her to wind. She never slipped the hank across his wrists that he did
not bethink himself of other wristlets destined for him, perchance,
and made of sterner stuff. He was prone to be silent for a time during
the winding of the skeins, but she improved the opportunity to talk
to an attentive listener; for Sabrina was too liable to interruptions
from her various charges to meet her somewhat exacting demands as an
interlocutor, and she was at scornful variance with the other elders of
the family.

"Mis' Lar'bee 'pears ter be fond o' comp'ny," said Jack, as he leaned
forward, with his submissive hands outstretched for the yarn.

The old woman, peering keenly through her spectacles as she sought to
find the end of the thread,--she had a cautious, skillful, alert air,
as of a trapper,--paused suddenly, her knotted, withered hand poised
like a claw.

"'Tain't that!" she exclaimed scornfully. "Nothin' like it! Ye reckon
enny 'oman in her senses likes sech ez that?"

She nodded acrimoniously, and Jack, following the direction of her
eye, glanced over his shoulder at the turmoil of tow-heads scuffling
together in the flickering firelight. Supper was in course of
preparation, and they were even noisier at this glad prospect than
their wont. One of them, under cover of Espey's preoccupation, had
approached, and, slipping his hand under the arm held out for the
skein, was venturing slyly to touch the pistols in his belt, with all
the greed of the small boy for deadly weapons. Espey, his white hat
far back on his head, looked down upon him, his suddenly scowling face
all unshaded, and the little mountaineer fell back affrighted and in
dismay; for, despite his humble estate in life, he had encountered few
frowns.

"Naw, S'briny's reason ain't got no reason in it." Mrs. Haight had
begun the winding now, and the red ball was whirling, ever larger, in
her nimble fingers. "She jes' hed a son kilt in the wars. Leastwise the
tale ez kem back war that he war wounded in a scrimmage, turrible; an'
his folks war all on the run. An' he crawled ter a house nigh by, an'
the 'oman tuk him in. An' he died in her house stiddier on the groun'
or in a fence corner. That war the tale. S'briny never could find out
who war the 'oman, nor edzac'ly whar it happened. But sence then, ter
pay back her debt, she takes 'em all in, an' whenst they gits too
crowded she knocks up a shed or suthin' an' packs 'em in; whenst like
ez not the 'oman lef' Alvin ter die on the hard, cold groun', an' mebbe
sot the dogs on him ter hurry the job."

There was a silence for a few moments, while the firelight flickered
upon Espey's absorbed eyes and intent, listening figure. The wrinkled,
parchment-like face of the old woman was partly in the shadow as she
sat in the corner, but her spectacles gleamed with unwonted brilliancy
as she actively moved and nodded her head under her big ruffled cap.

"S'briny say, too, ez old pa'son Jenks say ez ye mought entertain
angels unaware. An' _I_ say, then agin ye moughtn't! Fur ef enny
o' these hyar that S'briny _hev_ entertained air angels, they air
powerful peart at hidin' it, sure!"

Once more she cast a caustic glance at the group, and her sarcastic
laughter fell upon the air, sharply treble.

If celestial visitants, these were certainly well disguised. Espey
glanced at the bloated face of the inebriate husband of Jerusha,
tremulous, full of sudden fits and starts; at Jerusha herself,
slatternly, slothful, and down at the heel, a snuff brush in her
mouth, and her forlorn discontent with life in general on her weak,
flabby face; at the old, feeble-minded man dozing and muttering in the
corner,--he had once in his life worked in the Lost Time mine, and
he sometimes gave Espey a sudden start by bringing out the name with
a deep, full, blood-curdling curse. Henrietta Timson's thankfulness
had merged into a suspicion that too much gratitude was expected
of her, and she was prone to magnify the lighter tasks which she
selected, and went about with an overworked drudging air, and with
some distinct proclivity for the rôle of martyr. It was a furtive,
jealous eye which she cast upon Mrs. Larrabee, at home, competent, and
emphatically in command. The children, nevertheless, were disposed to
take undue advantage of their protectress; and the smaller they were,
the more capable, by reason of her leniency, of imposing upon her. This
disposition characterized even an infant turkey, which had contracted
some disease by exposure to the inclemency of the weather, and, being
put into a basket of cotton to recuperate, found its way out, from time
to time, with a cotton girdle adhering about its middle, and, with a
fifelike voice, made the grand tour of the hearth, in imminent danger
of catching fire in its cotton gear, causing her acute anguish lest it
should be baked alive and before its time.

Even Mrs. Larrabee herself,--if there were aught spiritual about her,
it must have been in the ends of her fingers. She was much given to
wearing a sunbonnet, in the depths of which her thin, pallid face had
a look like marble, with its keen, straight features. Her busy eye had
not casual observation: she looked at the children to see if they were
sick or cold or hungry; at Jerusha's husband to descry if perchance he
were drunk again; at Jack Espey to discover if he wanted aught, and if
he had no want or ailment she noticed him not at all. He could hardly
have been more free to come and go as he would, and the long hours
when he and Larrabee were away at the still passed altogether without
remark. It was nevertheless to her that he resolved to open his heart.
The door was ajar, and he could see that the long, loitering summer
night had come at last. Through the gap in the trees the stars were
visible, glowing white above the sombre mountains in the distance;
he could not distinguish a constellation,--only a whorl of brilliant
stellular points of light in the scant interval where the black leaves
of the oak, as distinct and as dark as if cut of bronze, failed to
fill the space between the threshold and the zenith. It was not long
now before she would be at leisure, and sleep would silence the
juvenile members of the family, except indeed the turkey, which, though
unclassified amongst nocturnal fowl, was wont to pipe lugubriously
in the dead watches of the night, necessitating the uprising of the
mistress of the house with a draught of water and a light lunch of
corn-meal batter to compose it once more to slumber. As Espey observed
it gadding about on its long legs, disproportioned to the size of its
body even when begirt with the cotton batting, he sagely thought that
Mrs. Larrabee's tolerance toward its exacting idiosyncrasies was the
result of no sense of obligation to it or its kind. "She's a powerful
good-hearted woman, and smart, too," he said to himself; "she's got
enough sense ter hev some feelin's."

The evening, passed in winding the yarn, wore slowly away to him after
his resolve. He was very taciturn and still, and Mrs. Haight, finding
so acquiescent a coadjutor, grew industrious, and hank succeeded
hank upon his motionless and submissive wrists. His silence did not
discourage her flow of words. On the contrary, it assumed the narrative
form in lieu of their usual dialogue; and as the fervor of reminiscence
waxed, her small black eyes grew brighter, her parchment-like cheek
flushed, and, with her red "shoulder shawl" and big white cap and
snowy hair and blue apron, she looked like some fairy godmother. And
indeed, as she briskly wound the thread, now blue, now red, and again
gray "clouded" with white, it might have seemed that she wielded some
sorcery to reduce to this humble fireside utility this wild-eyed,
defiant spirit. The young desperado, his belt stuck full of weapons,
was oddly at variance with the solicitude which he now and again
exhibited when a troublous tangle developed, and the thread perversely
knotted and broke. The firelight that flickered on his face, the fairer
from his sojourn in the sunless depths of the Lost Time mine, his
great boots and spurs, his pliant attitude and submissive gestures,
and his aged and incongruous companion served also to show what speed
was made in disposing of the youthful gentry for the night. With that
perverse disinclination for bedtime which betrays the old Adam in the
youngest infant, they severally resisted, each to the best of his
very respectable capacity. One or two of tender years, having been
hustled up the ladder to the loft, came down again in scant attire,
and he who had triumphed over the rickets, and whose bed was in a box,
resuscitated himself from amongst the bedclothes whenever he was stowed
away, but finally was overtaken, and fell asleep on the old house-dog's
neck as he lay snoring on the hearth.

Espey was of that type of man to whom juvenility is neither comical nor
alluring. Duty was revealed to him in graduated doses adapted to the
age of the taker, and he was disposed to make no allowance to infants
for delinquency. It seemed to him that Mrs. Larrabee's patience was
much misplaced, and he now and again gazed with disapproving eyes at
the group. He was obliged to linger long before she was at leisure and
sitting in front of the hearth with the shovel in her hand, ready to
heap the ashes over the coals to keep the fire till day. The two beds
in the room were edged with the tow-heads of the children, sleeping
crosswise; the baby's box-crib and the turkey's basket had each its
wonted occupant; and if the dreams that went up from the conclave could
have been materialized, what wild display of phantasmagoria they would
have made! The door had been barred up against the possible marauder
of the elder's apprehension, and the black bear of juvenile dread. The
shadows of the two loiterers were on the red, dully illumined ceiling,
two gigantic, distorted heads of dusky brown.

"I war sorter waitin' fur Jasper," observed Espey disingenuously,
having noticed that Mrs. Larrabee looked inquiringly at him. "I reckon
he be a-visitin' down at Tems's."

"Mebbe so," she acquiesced succinctly, rasping the shovel on the
hearth. She seemed indisposed for conversation.

"Mis' Haight's mighty good comp'ny," he continued, leaning sideways in
his chair, with his elbow on its back as he supported his head in his
hand. "Talkin' 'bout old times, an' her courtin' days, an' sech."

For, according to Mrs. Haight's own account, she had been a truculent
heart-breaker in her hey-day. There were few names that one might
mention, native to her locality, which she could not have worn had she
chosen. She always alluded cavalierly to the husband she had and to the
one she had lost as "toler'ble samples o' the whole b'ilin'."

Mrs. Larrabee's immobile face was more inexpressive than before, as the
red light sought it out in the depths of her sunbonnet. She had her
secret doubts as to this wholesale destruction of the peace of youth a
half century ago.

"Toler'ble interestin' ter me!" protested Espey suddenly. "I hev been
sorter in love myse'f--leastwise"--He did not continue to qualify, for
Mrs. Larrabee turned her face, illumined by maternal interest, upon
him. "It's gin me a heap o' trouble, too," he broke out impetuously,
divining her sympathy.

She was looking at him tenderly, remembering her own youth and her
own young lover, dead and gone this many a year. Jacob Larrabee had,
in happier days, laughed retrospectively at his own lackadaisical woe
and wakeful nights and anxious doubts. "Sech a _funny_ fool I
war. Thar may hev been ez _big_ fools, but I'll swar I war the
_funniest_." But his woe had always appealed to her commiseration,
and she was glad she had consciously been no factor in it. "I wouldn't
hev hed ye so tormented fur nuthin', Jacob, ef I hed knowed," she would
say gently.

Jack's young face, worn with fiercer griefs and turmoils and keener
fears, was appealing in its anxious lines; her warm motherly heart
went out to him. He leaned his hands on his knees, and assumed a
confidential tone.

"Now, Mis' Lar'bee," he said, "I 'lowed I'd ax ye what this hyar gal
means. I hev done everything I knowed how ter please her,--even whenst
she tole me ter go a-perlitin' around another gal. I done _jes' like
she ordered_, an' what ye s'pose she done?"

"What?" demanded his partisan confidante angrily, knitting her brows
heavily.

"She hit me."

"Did she hurt ye?" exclaimed Mrs. Larrabee sympathetically, dropping
her voice in contemplation of the enormity.

Remembering the relative proportions and force of Adelicia and himself,
Espey and his woe were out of countenance for the nonce. He laughed a
little sheepishly. "Naw," he admitted reluctantly. "She didn't hurt me
none ter speak on."

Mrs. Larrabee's brow cleared. "Sonny, 'twar jes' love-licks," she
suggested, in old-fashioned maternal phrase.

"Naw, sir! Naw, sir!" Espey shook his head with grave protest. "She war
too leetle ter hurt me, she war bound ter know. She jes' wanted ter
hurt my feelin's. An' she done it, too."

Mrs. Larrabee's face was all commiseration; and suddenly a truly
feminine curiosity became manifest. "Whar do the gal live? Hyarabouts
or in Tanglefoot?"

However far a man may trust a woman, he never trusts her completely.
Jack Espey caught himself sharply. "It's fur off,--mighty fur, 'pears
like ter me," he said mendaciously. "Now, Mis' Lar'bee, I wants ter
git yer advices. What ails the gal ter treat me that-a-way, jes' 'kase
I done her bid an' gin the t'other gal good-evenin', full perlite like
she told me ter do? What ails her?"

"Pride," said Mrs. Larrabee sternly. She could be severe enough with
people whom she did not see, and her mental image of a buxom termagant
was far enough removed from the fragile and shrinking Adelicia.

Espey looked at her with doubtful, troubled eyes. "Jes' turned on me
an' smit me!" he protested. "I feel like I'll never git over that lick.
I'll die of it yit!"

"Pride!" fiercely reiterated Mrs. Larrabee. "An' ef ye wanter make
her repent it, ye jes' perlite up the t'other gal fur true! Whenst I
went back ter Tanglefoot Cove, I'd show sech manners ez it ain't used
ter,--ye'd better b'lieve I would. That thar gal 'lows she kin git ye
too easy, too powerful cheap. T'other gal good lookin'?"

"Waal," drawled Espey uneasily, evidently contemplating apprehensively
this heroic treatment for the small smiter, "nobody don't look purty
ter me but one, an' she's plumb beautiful, ter my mind."

"Oh, shucks!" Mrs. Larrabee exhorted him scornfully.

"T'other gal hev got the name of it, though," he said reluctantly,
plainly jealous for the preëminence of his lady love. "T'other gal is
named a reg'lar gyardin lily fur beauty."

"Waal, then, perlitin' 'round her won't go so turrible hard with ye,"
said Mrs. Larrabee discerningly. "Though mebbe ye hed better let the
'gyardin lily' inter the secret, 'kase she mought fall in love with ye
an' yer perliteness."

But Jack Espey shook his head; he had bitter cause to distrust candor.
"I can't go 'round warnin' the gals against me," he said sturdily. "Ef
she falls in love with me, she'll jes' hev ter fall out agin, that's
all."

He sat for a little time gazing moodily at the fire, and contemplating
the details of this scheme of reprisal. Then, with a curt good-night,
he rose and tramped off to the roof-room, which he shared with Jasper
and a delegation of the larger boys; leaving Mrs. Larrabee covering the
embers, and pausing now and again, as she knelt on the hearth, with the
red light on her statuesque features, to ponder on the lover of her
past youthful days, and the sensible advice she had given Jack Espey to
reduce the inordinate pride of the arrogant, arbitrary damsel of his
heart in Tanglefoot Cove.

But the bars so stoutly made fast against the door were not destined
to keep their place that night. The moon had long before slipped from
the vaguely illumined limited space of the sky, which her own light
had rendered faintly blue, down behind a jutting crag of the western
mountains; it glowed a sombre purple as the crescent passed, with a
pearly gleaming mist half revealed against the black summits about
it. The white stars, whiter still, pulsated in the darkening sky. So
pervasive a sense of silence was in their mute splendor that even the
benighted mountain wilderness seemed to assert many voices, strange,
murmurous, unknown to the light. Espey, stretched upon his pallet in
the recess of the dormer window above the porch, with his wakeful,
troublous thoughts, languidly sought to differentiate the sounds. He
heeded the rustle of a vagrant zephyr, the twitter of a nestling,
the murmur of the spring in the rocks near at hand, the never silent
chirring of the cicada of the Southern summer night. But what was it
in the insensate world of crag and forest and mountain and chasm that
drew a long breath, and paused, and once more sighed heavily, and
again resigned itself to silence? He could see in the rifts of the
clapboards above his head a palpitating white star,--how its heart of
fire beat! He felt his own pulses throb heavily, and the next moment
they seemed to cease. A new sound intruded into the monotony of the
mountain stillness. He heard it once far away, and then silence.
He lifted himself upon his elbow and listened, with dilating eyes.
Only the sense of the noiseless dewfall, the cracking of a sun-dried
clapboard, the swift scurrying of a mouse amongst the rafters, and once
more silence, or that mysterious voice of the night which rose and fell
in the cadence of sighs. He was about to lie down when the sound came
again,--distinct this time, unmistakable, so close at hand that it
seemed the very malice of fate that he should not have distinguished
it earlier. It was the hoofbeat of horses, and they came at a swift
gallop,--so swift that he had hardly a moment to take counsel with
himself, in a turmoil of doubt and fear; his foot was barely on the
stairway when a heavy tread fell upon the little porch, and a sturdy
fist thundered at the door.

Into the dusky red darkness of the room below--for the glow of the
embers could hardly be reckoned as light--a feeble white glimmer was
stealing. Mrs. Larrabee, without her sunbonnet for once, had hustled
on her homespun dress, buttoned all awry, and was striking a light for
a tallow dip. Perhaps its dim flicker revealed the young man standing
high in the deep shadows on the stair that led to the roof-room, or
perhaps she only distinguished his step in the midst of the clamor at
the door, for she called out suddenly to him, "Open the door, Jack,
open the door, sonny, no matter who it be! Every chile in the house
will be a-swarmin' up d'rectly ef that thar bangin' be 'lowed ter go
on, an' I reckon we'll _never_ git the baby inter bed agin!"

The turkey was already awake and alert, its piercing pipe adding to the
confusion and nervous stress of the situation, as Jack Espey, after one
irresolute moment, strode to the door, and Mrs. Larrabee rose from her
knees on the hearth and stood in the dusky brown background, shading
with her hand the timorous flame of the candle.

Perhaps it was well for Jack Espey that the bars went down with so
resolute and hearty a clangor, for, as he confronted the men at the
door, they did not doubt that they faced the son of the house.

"Widder Lar'bee lives hyar?" said a keen, tall, dark-eyed man, with
high cheek-bones and a hooked nose, above which his thick black
eyebrows met. His soft black hat had a sort of peaked crown, and he
wore a suit of plaided "store clothes," as befitted one having access
to the towns, but which were much creased, and his boots were drawn,
country fashion, over his trousers to the knees.

"Air that enny reason ter bust the door down?" demanded Espey, looking
at the stout battens as if expecting to discern injury as it swayed in
his hand.

Mrs. Larrabee interposed blandly, "I be Widder Lar'bee. 'Tain't no use
ter talk loud. I got some mighty fractious chil'n hyar 'sleep."

The fractious turkey stood upon the hearth and piped till the end
of its tail quivered with the energy of its vocalization. A cricket
was shrilling keenly. The trivial sounds seemed to throb in Espey's
brain when the visitor said, "I be dep'ty sher'ff o' this county, Mis'
Lar'bee, an' I hear ez thar war a stranger in the Cove a-puttin' up
hyar."

The two men behind the officer looked over his shoulder, their bearded
faces sharply inquisitive.

"Naw, sir, I ain't got no stranger hyar; not but whut I would take 'em
in,--me an' my son hev made a rule o' that,--but we-uns bide too fur
off'n the road." She did not account Espey a stranger, so accustomed a
figure had he become in the domestic circle.

There was a definite disappointment in the officer's keen,
high-featured face.

Mrs. Larrabee turned to Espey. "Ye ain't hearn o' enny stray man
hyarabouts, hev ye, sonny?"

"Thar be a stranger down at Tems's," said Espey; "though I reckon
he ain't done nuthin' agin the law,--saaft-spoken an' perlite an'
peaceable."

The high-featured face was contorted in a jocose grimace, to which the
meeting of the black eyebrows gave a singularly sinister effect. Espey
felt his heart sink as the official winked at him.

"Perliteness would have been wuth mo' ter this man ef he could hev
showed manners sooner. War mighty onpolite indeed in Tanglefoot Cove,
Mis' Lar'bee, an' shot a man."

"Kilt him?" she demanded in a bated voice, and turning pale. She held
the candle awry, as she spoke, and the flickering light as the tallow
melted and dripped heavily on the floor showed only her own straight
features and masses of brown hair, dulled with gray, coiled at the back
of her head.

Espey's overladen heart thumped heavily. The cold drops stood thick on
his face, all in the shadow, white and drawn with suspense.

"In an' about,--a sorter livin' death. An' sence he hev got so much
worse his folks want the malefactor apprehended straight. We hearn ez
he air hyarabouts or in Persimmon Cove, one. An' ez the constable o'
this deestric' air sick abed,--ailin' old cattle like him oughtn't ter
be 'lowed ter hold office!--the high sher'ff sent me ter look arter
him, ef I could come up with him. Waal,"--he was turning away,--"I'm
sorry I hed ter roust ye and yer son up this time o' night."

Mrs. Larrabee took no note of this misdescription. Her thoughts were
engrossed by a sudden hospitable intention.

"Wouldn't a bite an' a sup hearten ye up sorter, arter so much ridin'
in the night wind?" she drawled amiably.

The deputy, despite his lean, lank, ill-nourished air, was susceptible
to the allurements of the pleasures of the table. He hesitated, and a
very little urgency sufficed to induct him into a chair by the side of
the fire, while Mrs. Larrabee ransacked her stores for the bite and
sup, which were more easily promised than provided.

He was new to his office, and disposed to magnify its dignities and
difficulties, as he and his two companions waited for the refection,
while Espey stirred up the fire and rescued the turkey, which had
burrowed into a mound of dead ashes, still permeated, however, with the
grateful warmth of the embers.

"Ye'd be plumb s'prised, Mis' Lar'bee, at the slyness o' sech
malefactors, an' the trouble they'll gin. Now I be a stranger ter this
e-end o' the county, an' what with the constable sick everybody sorter
holds back 'bout informin' the officer o' the law; turrible 'fraid lest
the folks in gineral takes it out on them, ye know. Some 'lows I be
a-trappin' moonshiners; an' that ain't my business at all. I got no
mo' agin moonshiners 'n I hev agin whiskey. It's all one ter _me_.
I don't c'lect the tax, an' I don't pay it nuther. I drinks mos'ly on
treats, sech ez this." He held up his glass, for Espey had proffered
the product of the Lost Time still, and it seemed to him at the moment
that the very jug looked conscious. "I couldn't git a critter ter kem
with me ter-night 'thout reg'lar summonsin' a posse: one man ailin';
t'other man, sick wife; another man, sore foot; another man, lame
horse. Course _I_ could hev _made_ 'em kem," waving the hand
with the glass in it with a capable gesture; "but I didn't want ter be
harsh an' requirin' with the citizens, 'kase, ye know," with a sudden
sly geniality illumining his countenance, "I mought want ter run fur
sher'ff myse'f some day,--that is, ef the old man was ter git done
with the office," he added, mindful of his tenure through the favor
of the high sheriff. "Now this hyar man," pointing out one of his
followers, who bore with a sort of wooden equanimity the united gaze
of Mrs. Larrabee and Espey, "he be a stranger hyarabouts, too,--kems
from my deestric', frien' o' mine,--so o' course he warn't acquainted
hyarabout, nuther."

Mrs. Larrabee's perceptions detected something embarrassing to a
sensitive nature in this invited survey of the silent, bearded man, who
had not opened his mouth except to put a biscuit into it. As amends,
she handed him the plate anew, and the second biscuit silently went the
way of the first.

"Now this hyar other man,"--the officer indicated a short, square-set
fellow,--"he war powerful leetle 'quainted round hyar, though he kem
from neighboring ways, the Gap; so he ondertook ter p'int out yer
house"--

The short man interposed in great haste, and with his mouth full:--

"Though I hev never hed nuthin' agin you-uns, Mis' Lar'bee, an' I hope
ye won't lay it up agin me, marm. I knowed 't war mighty safe,--'kase
you-uns warn't the sort ter harbor evil-doers 'gainst the law an' sech
ez that,--hevin' been powerful well 'quainted with yer husband whenst
he war a boy; an' this hyar dep'ty war so powerful partic'lar, an' I
didn't see how ter git out'n it, an'"--The crumbs in his throat and
the scruples in his heart combined to choke his utterance, and as the
climax came in a paroxysm of coughing, Mrs. Larrabee turned to the
officer.

"I got nobody hyar wuss'n yerse'f, sher'ff," she drawled, with a slow
smile.

"Waal, now, Mis' Lar'bee," said the officer, probably mindful of
political hopes, "ef ever ye want ennything of me, ye jes' lemme know.
I wanter show ye how I'll remember this hyar squar meal ter-night. I
ain't one o' them ez can't remember dinner till it's dinner time agin."
He smiled gallantly upon her from under his superabundance of brows.
Then he turned to Espey. "I been so well treated it makes me plumb bold
ter ax another favior. I want ye ter git on yer horse an' ride with me
ter set me in the road ter Tems's. Nare one o' these men air 'quainted
with the way."

His dark eyes hardened under his sinister black brows, and Espey, who
had taken heart of grace, felt his hope of escape annihilated in the
instant. His eyes were fastened with a fixed stare on the officer's
face; his nerves were all a-quiver; his heart seemed to stand still;
a cold, insidious thrill crept along the fibres of his skin. The
conviction seized him that the conversation which had seemed so
incidental was merely a blind devised for the purpose of getting him
apart from the women and children, that he might be captured with less
ado or less danger to the bystanders, perhaps further from the chance
of rescue. He thought of rescue, himself, of Jerusha's husband blind
drunk in the shed-room, of Jasper away at the Lost Time mine. Through
some other sense than that of conscious sight he was aware of the
movements of the deputy's comrades: that one, seated in the chair, was
carefully examining his revolver; that the other was standing beside
the door with his hand on the latch. But Espey's eyes never quitted
the face of the sheriff, who apparently took note of this fixed,
unresponsive gaze.

"Air he deef?" he demanded of Mrs. Larrabee, and was about to repeat
his demand in a louder key, when his hostess interposed.

"No deefer than them in gineral be who ain't willin' ter hear," she
muttered. "Go saddle yer critter, Jack. 'Twon't take ye long." Then,
in a lower aside, "Ye'll jes' hev ter guide 'em ez fur ez Tems's,
ennyhow."

Her insistence constrained him; and indeed no alternative was definite
to his mind. He turned with a bewildered, submissive mien toward the
door.

The chill midnight air, blowing freshly on his face as he held it
open and the draught rushed through, revived him like the very breath
of freedom. The obvious opportunity flashed through his mind like an
inspiration. He could give them the slip while saddling the horse.
He would have the start of them even if by only a few paces. Let him
but once get foot in the stirrup again, with the kindly shield of the
darkness about him, and he would give them a good run through this
pathless mountain wilderness. He caught up his saddle that lay upon the
floor, and made for the door again with a sudden eager alacrity.

He heard an abrupt clanging noise, as one hears a sound in sleep,
muffled, unreal, distant. It was only when he saw one of the men stoop
and rise again and follow him that he realized what had happened. One
of the stirrup irons had fallen from the saddle, unbuckled perhaps in
the unwarranted juvenile curiosity of the meddling youngsters of the
house. The deputy sheriff also followed. "I'll put that on agin whilst
ye air a-ketchin' an' a-bridlin' of the nag," he said.

Espey heard the loud, strident tones of his hasty farewells as he took
leave of Mrs. Larrabee,--he evidently intended to return no more,--and
then he was by the young man's side in the barn, followed by his two
companions. For the horse was not in the pasture lot; he had repaired
to the shelter of the barn, and had stretched himself on his bed of
straw. At the first indication of the prospect of journeying the roan
struggled up, and, with a sound of greeting that was almost articulate,
came out from the stall, ready and willing to be saddled and bridled.
Espey experienced a sort of animosity toward the creature for his
unreasoning alacrity. He was even denied the poor respite which the
usual delay in catching the horse might have given.

In his numbing, silent despair as he buckled the girth and slipped
the bridle over the horse's head and the bit into his mouth, he took
no definite heed of his surroundings, and yet they were all impressed
upon his consciousness. He noted, uncaring, how the horse tossed up
his head askance at the stranger's touch, when one of the men laid his
hand on the powerful shoulder and opined that he must be a "toler'ble
good goer." He was aware, somehow, of the blue-black, translucent gloom
of the air, and the differing darkness with its effect of solidity,
of the fodder stack looming close by, of the fantastic roof of the
little log cabin against the stars, and of a vague sense of motion
where the invisible smoke curled up from the chimney, faring off into
the dense shadow of the foliage of the great trees. The door was still
open, and the yellow light fell far out into the darkness; in the
interior he could see the gaunt, tall form of Mrs. Larrabee walking
back and forth, and in her arms the baby, who had been roused by the
falling of the spur. The child needed little tenderness, in his robust
self-sufficiency, and was elderly indeed for such infantile coddling.
His fat legs stuck far out of her arms, and his bawling objections to
the interruption of slumber attested temper rather than delicacy. Espey
realized how her heart would go out to a real trouble,--how she would
feel for him if she only knew! Somehow the thought of that fictitious
anguish of sympathy soothed him for the moment, and he was resigned to
say to himself that it was best as it was. She could have done naught.
He was no child like the others to cling to her in a sort of fervid
faith in her omnipotence. No; resistance would only have endangered her
and hers. And so he was strengthened to put his foot in the stirrup
and ride away, with the sheriff at his right hand, and the other men
close behind, all looking alertly forward into the gloom. The roan
horse, fresh from slumber, was beginning to feel his hay and corn,
snuffing the quickening wind, pulling on the bit, and forging on at a
more speedy gait. The other men noticed this, for now and again, with a
touch of the spur, they closed up, and the roan horse was in the centre
of the squad.

VII.

As they went, the deputy sheriff's manner was little characterized
by an official decorum. He seemed rather some bold roisterer who
himself might have had ample cause to dread the law that he was sworn
to administer. The rough humor of his sallies affected Espey as an
incongruous sort of fun, taken in connection with his interpretation
of their errand, and his recollection of the keen, sinister, thin
face, with its piercing dark eyes, and its sharp hooked nose, and the
straight, menacing eyebrows meeting above it. He had this mental vision
distinctly before his contemplation, as it had impressed him in the
flicker of Mrs. Larrabee's tallow dip, instead of the undistinguishable
equestrian shadow that in the black night pressed close to his horse's
flank, and now and again laid a sinewy hand upon his arm. For the
officer, in a spirit of mock confidence, was detailing, much to that
worthy's discomfort, the spectral fears of his friend from "the t'other
e-end of the county," a believer in ghosts, and making an elaborate
pretense of sharing them. Now and again, with a sepulchral voice and
an agitated manner, he would conjure Espey to say if he saw nothing
flickering, waving white, in some open stretch of the road that lay
vacant and vaguely glimmering in the starlight before them. Then,
hardly waiting for an answer, he would burst into a whoop of derisive
laughter, startling the solemn silence of the night-bound mountain
wilderness, and rousing strange echoes of weird mirth from rock and
ravine. More than once the uncanny tumult of these wild, insensate
cries moved the staid comrades of the deputy sheriff to remonstrance.

In the distance and the night and their repetitiousness, the sounds
seemed curiously unrelated to those that had evoked them.

"That ain't no rocks a-answerin' back," said the man from the Gap. "I
b'lieve somebody is a-hollerin' at ye."

The officer turned alertly in his saddle to look back over his
shoulder. "That wouldn't s'prise me none," said the capable deputy,
whose large experience would seem to furnish precedent for any given
phenomenon. "I knowed a man out our way,--mighty loud talker and a
toler'ble active cusser,--whilst callin' hawgs, hedn't tuk no special
notice o' the rocks answerin', till one day whenst he war 'dad-burnin''
an' 'all-firin'' round till the very shoats looked blue. He stopped
ter take breath, an' he hearn a voice, powerful coarse, out'n the
woods jes' yellin' like sin, 'Fire-burn!' 'Fire-burn!' an' he knowed
that minit who't war. An' in course he jes' hedn't no mo' interes' in
nuthin', an' jes' dwindled away."

He paused abruptly.

"But--but--who war it ez said 'Fire-burn' with a coarse voice?"
breathlessly demanded the believer in spectral manifestations.

"Why, Satan, to be sure, ye fool," replied the deputy. "I useter hear
him myself a-callin' in the woods, 'Fire-burn!' whenst Ad Peters would
git ter cussin' his hawgs! Jes' so"--He lifted his voice in a wild,
fantastic cadence, and throughout the long stretches of the mountain
fastnesses the words, as of some demented incendiary, echoed and
re-echoed, varied presently with mocking cries of unpleasant falsetto
laughter, set astir when the officer's gravity failed.

The patience of his friend had given way. "Look-a-hyar, 'Dolphus Ross,"
he broke out angrily, "this hyar ain't no way ter go ter apperhend
criminals, a-hollerin' like a plumb catamount through the woods."

"I don't want ter s'prise nuthin'," said the crafty deputy sheriff,
"that is nuthin' unyearthly, on its yerrands what no mortial knows
about, an' mebbe git s'prised myself plumb down ter the doors o' the
pit. Ye know them ez sees harnts either draps down dead or loses thar
minds, one. They 'low now'days ez all the crazies kem so from seein'
sperits. An' ye know yerse'f, an off'cer of the law needs brains."

"Ef ye don't know yer bizness no better'n that, I be goin' ter l'arn
it ter ye. Ye 'pear mo' like a jay-hawker'n a off'cer o' the law,"
retorted the other tartly.

But not even with this rude touch upon the sensitive nerves of official
pride could he control the elusive and slippery deputy. "That's a fac',
Pearce. But the truth is, I be all-fired 'feared in these hyar lonesome
places, whar humans air seldom an' few, o' seein' suthin' or hearin'
suthin' what no mortial eyes or ears air expected ter see an' hear. So
I like ter hear the sound o' my own voice,--let 'em know I'm a-comin'.
Even with two or three men with me, it's so darned fur an' lonesome!
I 'pear less like a harnt myself, an' less apt ter meet up with one,
ef I make myself sorter lively. I'm a mighty quiet cuss in town. I'm
a--What's--what's that?" he broke off sharply.

He drew rein suddenly, throwing his horse back upon the haunches.
The two men behind him, coming forward at the swift pace he had set,
collided heavily with the obstacle thus furnished them, a reckless
proceeding here on the narrow rocky road, on the verge above the
abysses of the valley on one side, and with the inaccessible heights
of the mountain rising sheerly on the other. They stood between heaven
and earth, on this craggy beetling promontory, with the pulsating
white stars above and the dark depths of the gorge below. His sight
becoming more accustomed to the night, Espey could distinguish through
the clear darkness the fringed branches of a pine-tree clinging to the
heights above and waving against the instarred sky, and below a vague
moving whiteness which he knew to be the involutions of the mist in
the valley. He too had drawn up his horse, slightly in advance of the
others, and was looking forward in keen expectation of developments.

"What's what?" he demanded of the deputy, who was managing his rearing
horse with considerable skill.

"Something white--beckonin'," gasped the officer of the law.

Espey, with all the ignorant superstitions of his class, felt his blood
run cold. Nevertheless he sought to reassure himself and his comrades.

"Jes' these elder-flowers, mebbe," he said, breaking off a great bough
from a bush rooted in a crevice of the crag, and so profusely blooming
that the black night itself could hardly nullify its whitely gleaming
graces. He received full in his face the cool spray of the dew and
the sweet breath of the flower, all unheeding, for the officer again
protested in a loud, broken voice:--

"Beckonin'--beckonin'--Oh, my friends, somebody in this crowd is
a sinner; somebody hev done wrong! An' he may be a saint in the
church-house, or leastwise familiar with the mourner's bench,--an' he
may escape jedge an' jury,--an' he may cheat hemp,--but in the dead
o' the night an' in the lonely paths o' yearth he'll be betrayed by a
v'ice, or he'll see a beckonin'"--

"Oh, shucks!" interrupted the believer in "harnts." "I'm a-goin'
back ter Mis' Lar'bee's." He was essaying to wheel his horse on the
narrow ledge. "'Tain't my bizness ter go 'long with ye, ter apperhend
crim'nals in the middle o' the night. Ef ye can't take 'em in the
daytime, go 'thout 'em, I say."

"Some truth in that. I wisht I could jine ye," said the deputy. "But my
jewty lies ahead. I be bound ter go on; an' I reckon it can't be so fur
from Tems's now,--air it, frien'?" he asked, turning to Espey.

With a sinking heart, Espey replied that it was not very far, and the
wonder as to what lay before him in the unknown scenes to which he sped
in such haste reasserted itself in his mind, as the deputy rode briskly
up alongside once more.

It required, perchance, only a moment's reflection on the inexpressible
loneliness of the miles of mountain woods, that must of necessity be
traversed before the shelter of Mrs. Larrabee's house could be reached,
to change the design of the deserter from the little party. The beat
of his horse's hoofs annotated his continued presence, which was soon
made even more indisputable by his raucous voice again lifted in
remonstrance.

"Ye mus' see, now, 'Dolphus, ez n'ise an' ribeldry an' gamesomeness
don't purvent ye from viewin' sech ez ye air intended ter view. Sech
goin's-on ain't lawful fur citizens, much less off'cers o' the law."

"Ye ain't gone back, then?" commented 'Dolphus over his shoulder.

There was no answer to this, and after a pause the facetious deputy
went on:--

"_I_ ain't fur hollerin' an' rampagin' an' sech. _I_ be a
mighty quiet cuss in town, like I said,--a mighty quiet cuss indeed.
The old man," he alluded thus to the high sheriff, "he sez ter me
sometimes, 'I dunno, 'Dolphus, whether ye air in yer skin or no. Ye
jes' 'pear ter be settin' thar, 'sleep or dead.' Wunst he tole me ez I
warn't mo' lively 'n jes' a suit o' clothes hangin' outside the store
door, an' a suit would cost less'n my pay ez a dep'ty. I tried ter
brace up arter that."

He had braced up considerably from the quiescent state he described
if the sudden yell that he emitted might be received as evidence of
his more stalwart condition. The sharp exclamations of surprise from
the rest of the party afforded him intense delight, which was not
mitigated by a blood-curdling shriek, as it were in response, set up
by a catamount on the opposite heights, so close at hand by the direct
line across the spaces above the valley through the air, despite the
intervening miles of trackless mountain desert below, that they could
hear the creature snarl before it lifted its thin, keen, inarticulate
voice shrilling again into the black night.

There was no definite remonstrance, for he forestalled their outbreak,
beyond a few words, by declaring tumultuously that he saw it
again,--something a-waving, a-beckoning.

"No use talkin'!" he exclaimed. "The guilty sinner is 'mongst us, an'
hyar he be!"

He leaned out of his saddle and passed one arm around Espey, pinioning
the young fellow's right arm to his side. Espey, startled beyond
control, despite his expectation of this contingency, with which,
however, hope and suspense had juggled painfully, detected with
sharpened senses the dull clanking of handcuffs. He hardly knew how it
came there, he had no definite intention of resisting arrest, but a
pistol was in the hand over which the rude wristlets dangled; a jet of
red light that showed the dark-eyed, laughing, grimacing face near to
his own, the whizzing of a bullet so close between the officer's side
and arm that the blazing powder singed and burned his "store clothes,"
an abrupt report, and once more the night, rent by the sound, clamored
with echoes.

From the dense darkness the officer's voice, with a changed tone, a
sharp note of surprise, was crying, "Look out! Look out!"

The other men were stunned with amazement. They had only a vague sense
of struggling mounted figures which the darkness did not suffer them to
descry. And suddenly a second swift funnel-shaped glare for an instant
invaded the gloom,--it came from the officer's pistol this time,--a
second clamorous report rang amongst the rocks. The frightful, almost
human scream of a wounded horse, a wild plunging on the side of the
rocky bridle-path, and Espey and the yellow roan disappeared over the
verge of the cliff. The three men standing in the road, hearing with
sickening horror the dull thud far below, might judge of the terrors of
the fall by the time elapsing before the sound reached their ears.

VIII.

The household at the Tems cabin were keeping late hours that night.
Except for a certain reserve of cogitation, which at times held him
silent with a burning thought in his eye, his superficially moving
lips framing unspoken words, and occasionally a keen, sarcastic smile
irradiating his features with the light of some satiric expectation,
Cap'n Lucy had resumed his wonted aspect and mental attitude and the
habits of his simple existence.

"Ye fetch yer book out'n yer pocket," he said imperatively to Jasper
Larrabee early in the evening, when the young man had joined them
on the porch. "The gals ain't goin' ter run away,--leastwise 'thout
cornsider'ble mo' incourage_mint_ 'n they hev hed. They'll keep!
Ye jes' sot awhile by that thar taller dip in thar an' read yer book,
an' I'll listen out hyar."

The penalties of the acquisition of knowledge, from the days of the
Garden of Eden to those of the hero of the horn-book, have not been
few. They fell somewhat heavily on Jasper Larrabee, debarred the fresh
air, heavy with perfumed dew; the vicinage of dank vines; the glimmer
of the firefly in the bosky gloom; the scintillating stars in the sky
above the massive mountains; the sweet, low voices of the two girls,
silenced now; and the trivial chatter so dear to the heart of youth.
The room, with the low red glow of the embers, was warm to-night; the
tallow dip melted and sputtered and cast a wan, melancholy, ineffective
radiance into the dusky spaces, rendering the aspect of the familiar
furnishings strange and spare and dull, instead of all ruddily
a-flicker with the dancing firelight in which he was accustomed to see
them. Even the dogs had deserted the hearthstone, and went in and out
with lolling tongues, and hot, sleepy eyes, and an inattentive manner.
Moths and strange winged fire-worshipers, unknown to his observation
hitherto, would fly in from the cool darkness without, circle swiftly
about the white jet of the candle, and now and then, with a sudden
dart, would fall, shriveled cinders but for the convulsive throes of
lingering life, on the page of the volume.

He wondered sometimes, as he droned on and on, if Adelicia were
listening, or if Julia could see him from where she sat. From the
lighted spaces he could not distinguish their shadowy figures, albeit
Cap'n Lucy, close at hand and with the red glow of his pipe, was
plain enough. Sometimes Larrabee felt the vague sense of a gaze fixed
upon his clear-cut face, all etherealized, illumined by the soft
pallid white light within against the brown shadows. He was unaware
of any valid embellishment of his aspect from the pensive gleam,
the irradiated square of the window, the ascetic gravity of his
expression, intent and pondering on the longer words, which it was his
pride that he need not pause to spell. On the contrary, he was often
conscious of cutting a sorry figure when Cap'n Lucy, with the rigor
of a most rational reason and all the fervid insistence of a personal
interest, would plunge at him, and require him to recant, to spell
out syllable by syllable some questioned dogma, and at last, with all
the nonchalance of a sophisticated theologian, take refuge in the
equivalent of a plea of mistranslation.

"Ye can't haffen read, boy!" he would exclaim roughly. "Ye don't
read ekal ter what ye hev done. Keep on goin' back'ards, an' ye'll
git thar arter a while. 'Agree with thine adversary!' My stars! ef
ye war wuth a grain o' gunpowder, ye could see ez that air obleeged
ter be '_Dis_-agree with thine adversary.' It stands ter reason!
'_Dis_-agree' with him, early and often, else the dad-burned
critter will git up the insurance ter disagree with you-uns. I know
thine adversary! Been 'quainted with him this many a year! Read on,
read on, Jasper; git shet o' thine adversary."

Thus it was that, with the shadowy, snarling, intent old face
vaguely visible in the dusk, just at his elbow, outside the window,
ready to spring forward at the first intimation of an unacceptable
doctrine; with the sense of responsibility for all the biblical dogmas
irreconcilable with Cap'n Lucy's tenets and the tenor of his way; with
the spectacle of glamour, lure, catastrophe, and death furnished by
the unrestrainable moths, Jasper Larrabee found his preëminence of
learning a comfortless pinnacle, and even the wonted sweet solaces
of complacence in his superiority were denied him. He was forced to
appear before the eyes of his lady love as an ignorant pretender, of
ridiculous and inadequate assumptions,--and that by a man who could
not read his own name,--humiliated and browbeaten; for how dared he
answer Cap'n Lucy? More than once he wished himself back at the Lost
Time mine, where he knew Espey thought him to be, and where Lorenzo
Taft needed him. The work, unpalatable as he often found it, would be
welcome indeed, and his untutored, unquestioning, often inattentive
audience there a happy exchange from Cap'n Lucy in the character of
polemic. He made some effort to shift the subject, to turn from the
preceptive and doctrinal pages upon which he had chanced to fall to
the chronicle of events in the nature of historical detail, as less
liable to elicit Cap'n Lucy's contradictory faculties. It availed him
naught. Cap'n Lucy's interest was fairly roused, and he imperatively
negatived the proposition. The guest felt, still later, that it was not
hospitality in its truest sense which so flatly declined to heed the
suggestion of departure. And thus constrained, he read on, so conscious
of the shadowy face at his elbow that he seemed to see it, with the
light of excitement in the wide blue eyes, the alertness in every
line, the lips intently parted, the glow of the pipe dying out as it
was supported motionless by the uplifted hand.

"Hey!" shrieked out Cap'n Lucy suddenly, as if he had been poignantly
pinched. "Ef he takes yer coat, gin him yer cloak! Jasper, ye air
demented! Ye ain't 'quainted with the dad-burned ravelings out o' the
alphabit, let alone the weft of it! My sakes!" in an outraged falsetto,
"ye tell me that's sot up ez Christian doctrine in the Book! Take yer
coat, gin yer cloak! Whar's the man ez hev done it! Trot him out! Great
Moses an' Aaron! I'd like ter look at him! Take yer corner-stone an'
monimint o' boundary, an' gin him yer line an' yer lan'!--ha! ha! ha!
Let him take yer rock known ez Big Hollow Boulder, an' gin him yer
corner-stone!--ha! ha!"

Luther rose precipitately. The significance of the paternal discovery
of the removal of the corner-stone was fraught with great perplexity
and foreboding, and he hardly knew what ill-judged disclosure was to
follow. He had intended to interpose, albeit he scarcely had a pretext.
It came to him at the moment.

"What's that? I 'lowed I hearn suthin'!" he exclaimed.

Cap'n Lucy turned upon him with the breathless acrimony of one
interrupted in some cherished pursuit.

"Hearn suthin'? Jes' the rustlin' o' yer own long ears,--that's all.
I"--He stopped abruptly.

In the midst of his strident raised tones an alien sound smote his
attention. There was an approach of horsemen from down the road. Cap'n
Lucy's acrimony was merged in curiosity and excited expectation. Still
holding his pipe, filled with dead ashes, as stiffly and cautiously
before him as if its wonted coals glowed in the cob-bowl, he rose from
his chair, and advanced a pace or two nearer the rude steps, peering
out into the darkness. The two girls had turned their heads toward the
sound. Larrabee was leaning on his arms in the window, and Luther had
started down the path to the bars. His deep bass voice sounded in a
bated, thunderous mutter, as he rebuked the barking dogs, whose menace
subsided into low growls, punctuated now and then by a clamorous yelp.
Perhaps the insistent tone of these canine threats influenced the
new-comers, for it was at a goodly distance that the party called a
halt and hailed the house.

Luther returned the halloo with a ringing response in kind, but Cap'n
Lucy added a genial "'Light and hitch" to the unknown guest that
the midnight had convoyed hither, his habit of broad hospitality
all unmindful of the individuality or intent of the new-comers. "Me
an' Luther air ekal ter all sorts," he would sturdily answer to the
occasional remonstrance that times were not what they once were, and
that he might thus "at sight unseen" be inviting in the marauder or the
devil. "Me an' Luther air ekal ter 'em."

The tone of this hospitality seemed a sore-needed encouragement in
this instance. Rodolphus Ross had flung himself, metaphorically, upon
the fraternal bosom of Luther, as he hastily sought to summarize the
misfortunes that had befallen him; the slow young mountaineer, all
unprepared for so dramatic a recital, staring, uncomprehending and
amazed, at his interlocutor, hardly knowing whether to ascribe his
fluent diction to drink or to histrionic talents; as fact he did not
take it into account.

"Yes, sir!" the wild-eyed Ross was saying as he came up the steps,
"flung over the bluffs, horse an' all,--dead or alive, I dunno!
Cap'n Tems, yes, sir; plumb proud ter shake hands," mechanically
acknowledging the introduction to the head of the house. "Jes'
purtendin' ter handcuff the fool,--jes' fur fun,--an' he fired at me!
Yes, sir, fired at the off'cer o' the law! I dunno what ailed him,
'thout he thunk I war in earnest. But Lord! he war bound ter know I war
arter another man. I tole him so. I hed nuthin' agin this hyar Lar'bee.
I war jes' purtendin' ter handcuff him, jes' shuck the bracelets at
him, jes' fur fun,--ye know, Cap'n Tems, it's powerful dull an' drowsy
a-ridin' so stiddy arter malefactors 'thout no sort'n entertainment
or enjyemint,--an' this hyar Jasper Lar'bee jes' ups an' fires at the
off'cer o' the law, jes' scorched my clothes." He held up his arm, and
caught the pallid light of the candle on his coat and powder-singed
sleeve. "Not that I keer fur the josie, 'ceptin' it's too durned near
the meat fur thar ter be enny fun in shootin' through it."

He laughed in a constrained falsetto tone,--his wonted laugh, but with
all the mirth eliminated from it. It had a sort of wooden quality, and
ended with a nervous catch in his throat. The light falling through the
window showed his dark eyes, set a trifle too close together, and the
straight black brows meeting above them. His teeth gleamed, for the
laugh left his lips mechanically distended. Larrabee, leaning on his
folded arms in the window, a mere silhouette upon the pallid lustre of
the aureola of the candle behind him, gazed silently on the stranger's
face.

One is apt, in thinking of a man of experience, to associate
sophistication with the idea. But life presents varied aspects of
mental development, and the caution, the silence, the reserve of
judgment, with which Cap'n Lucy hearkened might have seemed gleaned
from the observation of the juggle of cause and effect in a far wider
sphere. The two comrades of the deputy sheriff said not a word, and
once more the officer began to elaborate the justification of his
conduct.

"It takes a toler'ble stiff backbone ter set on a saddle an' let a man
shoot at ye fur nuthin'. It 'stonished me powerful. I war jes' funnin',
an' purtended ter be aimin' ter handcuff this young rooster, an' he
jes' whurled roun' an' let the bullet fly. I b'lieve he 'lowed I war in
earnest, yes, sir. This hyar Lar'bee hev been up ter suthin' agin the
law,--moonshinin', I reckon,--else he wouldn't hev been so dad-burned
handy with his fi'crackers."

"Why--why"--blurted out Luther, amazed at the lack of symmetry in the
situation, and incapable of the paternal wisdom of silently awaiting
developments, with the incongruity of the sight of Larrabee in the
window mutely hearkening to the reflections upon the "Larrabee" who
took so vehement a part in the officer's reminiscences--"'twarn't
Lar'bee, mebbe; some other fellow."

"Naw, sir," returned the deputy. "This hyar man," laying his hand
on his bulky companion's shoulder, "knowed whar Lar'bee's mother, a
widder lady, lived, an' we-uns called him 'Lar'bee' an' 'Jasper,' an'
he answered ter 'em both; an' his mother called him 'Sonny.' He's a
wild-catter, sure. He's"--He caught himself suddenly, remembering the
prepossession against the revenue force which often animates even
law-abiding citizens of this region. "But he needn't hev fired at
_me_! I got nuthin' agin moonshiners. I b'long ter the County, not
ter the Nunited States,--to the County!"

"Whar's this man now?" demanded Cap'n Lucy circumspectly.

The alert, sinister face of the deputy changed. But he sought to bluff
off the anxieties and conscious criminations which crowded upon him. He
swung his hat, which had a bullet-hole in it, gayly in his light grasp,
and his dark eyes twinkled as he met the gaze of his host.

"Ye air a powerful good hand at axin' riddles, but this'n air too
hard fur me! I _dunno_, an' these men _dunno_! I fired back
in self-defense at the miserable fool--I hed been funnin' all along,
cap'n. I shot his horse, I know, an' the critter slipped, an' the whole
caboodle went back'ards over the bluffs--an'--an'--he mought be dead or
alive--Air--air that a cheer?"

He had suddenly lost his self-control; he sank back into a seat and
seemed gasping for breath.

The details of their immediate errand thus devolved upon his
comrades,--a lantern and a guide to search the slope where the victim
of the deputy's pleasantry had fallen.

"'Dolphus air sech a turrible bouncin' wild buck," said his friend
from "the t'other e-end o' the county," who had begun to resume
his remonstrant air, as of "I-told-you-so." He was a slow and
serious-minded man, with a scant appreciation of even the most
symmetrical jest, but when the joke seemed furnished with such
distortions of sequelæ his gravity grew aggressive. "'Dolphus kin crack
a toler'ble funny joke wunst in a while, but this hyar one air goin'
ter make him laff on the t'other side o' his mouth."

"Who war it ez ye war arter, sure enough?" asked Cap'n Lucy.

"A stranger what they 'lowed war puttin' up with you-uns, Cap'n Tems."

"Hey?" cried Cap'n Lucy, with a high quaver of excited delight. "He hev
gone; but, my stars! what a hearty welcome ye mought hev hed with him!"

"What's he done?" demanded Larrabee, speaking for the first time,
addressing the friend of the deputy.

"Shot a man in Tanglefoot Cove," he replied, looking somewhat intently
at the silhouette in the window.

"What did ye 'low his name war?" asked Larrabee, placing one hand
behind his ear as if he had not heard what indeed they had not
disclosed.

"Espey,--John Espey from Tanglefoot, o' course. He hev been hidin' out
cornsider'ble time."

There was a sudden significant silence which the stranger felt, but did
not comprehend. Then Cap'n Lucy, recovering his poise, remarked:--

"Waal, the stranger ez we-uns hev hed hyar air named Kenneth Kenn'ston,
from Bretonville. He air a town man, an' aimin' ter build some sort'n
tavern in the Cove."

The three men--for the officer was himself again--looked at one another
with the pathetic helpless disgust of hunting dogs on a false trail.

It seemed that their quest was hopeless from the beginning, and in its
interests they had deeply involved themselves in the toils of the law
which they sought to aid.

"Waal," said the deputy's friend, "we-uns hed better git the lantern,
an' take ter the woods agin an' find the corpse,"--the deputy winced at
the word so palpably that even his sturdy, literal-minded companion
was moved to seek some euphemism; "leastwise find out what's the damage
we-uns hev been an' done."

His stolid, unflinching shouldering of such responsibility in the
matter as might fall to his share was oddly contrasted with the nervous
excitement and agitation of the man from the Gap, who had served as
guide to the party to Mrs. Larrabee's house.

"Waal, _I_ ain't done none o' the damage," he protested, nodding
his head emphatically. "I thunk I hed ter kem along o' the off'cer o'
the law whenst required. I hed no idee o' junketin' 'roun' with the
wildes' buck this side o' hell, a-caperin' like a possessed lunatic,
an' a-shootin' of 'spectable citizens off'n the bluffs. Jasper Lar'bee
done nuthin' ter me,--never laid eyes on him afore. _I_ done none
o' the damage. I call ye ter witness, Cap'n Tems, ez I hed nuthin' ter
do with his takin' off."

Cap'n Lucy, always adorning the opposition, gave a high, fleering
laugh. "_Me ter witness!_ Me! Why, man, I been settin' hyar sence
dark, a-readin' o' the Holy Scriptur's. I hev no part in yer ridin' an'
raidin'."

That repulsion to the idea of taking life, and all its ramifications of
moral responsibility, apart from the legal consequence, natural to the
civilized man, had yielded in the deputy sheriff to his habitual mental
impulses. His wild, fierce, shallow personality was in the ascendant
once more.

"I'll guarantee ye, Bob," he declared, with his wonted swift smile of
dark eyes and red lips and lifted meeting eyebrows. "Ef the g'loot is
dead, he died resistin' arrest by the off'cer o' the law. Ef he be
'live, I be durned ef he don't hev cause ter resist the off'cer o'
the law, fur I'll swar ter glory I'll nose out what this hyar Jasper
Lar'bee hev been a-doin' of ter be so monst'ous afeard o' the bracelets
bein' put onto him,--murder or moonshinin', it's all the same ter me.
I'll set the bloodhounds o' the law onto him, sure! He hain't gin me
sech a skeer ez this fur nuthin'!"

As the blood came surging hotly along its accustomed channels, his fury
mounted higher. It jumped with his humor to threaten as living the man
who he feared was dead. He sought to spurn that possibility from his
consciousness. It renewed his confidence in himself, too, to protest
so jauntily that if the man had lost his life it was in resisting the
law legitimately enforced. He reviewed, with a burst of anger, the
fright of the other two men and his own anxiety that had suffered this
lapse of attention to his own interest, and allowed the true detail
of the case to be rehearsed here publicly. Naught could obliterate
this; naught could justify him save to prove that the surprised Jasper
Larrabee had been guilty of some offense against the law, and was
resisting arrest legally attempted.

"I'll fix him! I'll follow him like a bloodhound! I'll nose him out and
pull him down! Bless God, I will!" he cried out with sudden vehemence.
Then he turned roughly to his two companions. "Kem on, ye two
mud-turkles! Ye got jes' about ez much life an' sperit ez a couple o'
old tarripin. Stir yer stumps, bubby," to Luther. "Git yer lantern, an'
bring yer slow bones along ter aid the off'cer o' the law! An' ye, too,
my frien' in the winder, ez quiet ez a cat stealin' cream; ye 'pear ter
be young an' able-bodied. I summons ye ter kem an' aid the off'cer o'
the law!"

The tallow dip, which had been for some moments sputtering in the
socket of the candlestick, suddenly flared up with a wide illumination,
then sunk as suddenly almost to extinction, feebly rose again, and,
in a gust of wind, was extinguished, leaving a tuft of red sparks
on the drooping wick, and a pervasive odor of burning grease in the
room and porch. Perhaps it was because of the brighter light for the
moment, perhaps because of the keener observation of the officer, whose
faculties were once more well in hand, but no one else had noticed a
strange stillness in the figure of Adelicia, as she sat in her wonted
place on the edge of the floor of the porch, leaning back against the
post.

"One o' yer darters hev fainted, I b'lieve," he said to Cap'n Lucy.
"Suthin' ails her." Then, turning away, "Kem on, fellers; mount an' git
out'n this. We-uns hev been hyar too long now."

As Jasper Larrabee rode away in the little troop toward the scene of
the disaster, to search for the body of the supposititious Jasper
Larrabee, his mental faculties began to recover from the torpor of
surprise which had benumbed them. That cautious self-control which
sometimes seems an added faculty in a certain type of law-breaker had
held him mute as he watched the development of events. Now, as he began
to take cognizance of the disclosures of the evening, he adhered of
sober intention to the policy he had intuitively adopted. He feared
the acknowledgment that he had received and harbored Jack Espey, a
fugitive from justice, more than the acrimonious search of the deputy
sheriff for the misdeeds of Jasper Larrabee. This, indeed, might result
in his apprehension for the violation of the revenue laws, and the
discovery of the moonshiner's lair, and this would mean many years of
imprisonment; but the other might involve him, and possibly his mother
as well, in a trial for murder, as accessories after the fact. It might
be impossible to establish their ignorance of Espey's crime, and their
lack of connivance in his escape. He had that pervasive terror of the
law, as of technical and arbitrary construction of crime, common to
the unlearned. His heart burned with rancor against his whilom friend.
He would not recognize Espey's share in these ignorant terrors of the
law. He argued that if his friend had been open with him, he would at
least have been a free agent in receiving him, have had some voice in
the degree of responsibility he assumed. As it was, his open-handed
hospitality had been grossly imposed upon, and as a return he was given
the choice of the jeopardy of a charge as accessory to a murder, or
of an infringement of the revenue laws. He realized the whole drama
as it had been enacted. He understood that Espey, conniving at the
officer's mistake, and allowing him to suppose him to be Larrabee, had
thus shielded his own identity as the fugitive from justice whom they
sought. And this ruse Espey fancied was discovered, when the deputy,
in his wild horse-play, had facetiously endeavored to handcuff him; he
had therefore strenuously resisted, and thus had possibly come to his
death. This possibility did not soften Larrabee toward him; perhaps
he did not altogether accredit it at once, for death is difficult to
realize even when a certainty. He dwelt upon his own danger, even more
upon his mother's possible jeopardy; upon her untiring and laborious
hospitality; upon his own labors which had rendered such entertainment
practicable, for the money earned without her knowledge at the still
went, much of it, to this pious use.

The sharpest sting of ingratitude is often the sense that the giver
has been a fool. Larrabee harbored a surly grudge against himself as
he rode silently on, and Luther, uncomprehending his friend's reason
for not disclosing his identity, and suspecting that Jack Espey was
the man they sought, was silent too. The loud voices of the others in
acrimonious criminations and recriminations accented the stillness of
the night, and the sound of their horses' hoofs as they filed along the
mountain passes, multiplied by rock and ravine, and far echoes from
distant heights, might have seemed the march of squadrons of cavalry.

The skies had taken on that unfamiliar aspect of the hours which
straitly precede the dawn. Far, far, on their pauseless way the
constellations fared. Stars were low in the west, which on these summer
nights had seemed the familiars of the meridian. A strange sense
of loneliness, of silence, pervaded the firmament. The breathless
pause that heralds the miracle of dawn bated the pulses of nature.
No more song of cicada, no more stir of wind. Once a meteor, with
an incongruous irrelevance of effect, shot athwart the sky with its
gleaming trail as of star-dust; the motion was like a sacrilege in the
holy stillness and breathlessness of the world.

And suddenly in the midst of the myriad scintillations a brilliant
white jewel was ablaze, which Jasper Larrabee could have sworn was not
there before; pellucid, splendid, tremulous, a star of stars. He knew
the skies only as the herder or the shepherd knows them in lonely,
lowly paths of earth, but even an ignorant man may feel that the
circuit below is narrow and the ways above are wide, and the heart is
lifted up. Not the name of one of the stellular glories visible to the
naked eye could he syllable, but he had marked them all; he was wont
to dwell for hours upon their contemplation; he knew the contour of
their most brilliant whorls and scintillating arabesques as he knew
the intricacies of the woodland ways in the wilderness. He had drawn
his horse hastily back upon the haunches, and again his eyes sought
the alignment of the stars as his fancy had marshaled them. There was
one more,--one that he had never before seen; one unknown to all the
splendid nights that had ever shone upon the earth.

The voices of the men patrolling the slope below the point, where they
had paused, rose excitedly on the still air. The horse was found, he
gathered vaguely, dead, shot through the brain. The man was gone. The
officer, in a frenzy of energy, beat the bushes far and near, lest the
fugitive, wounded and disabled, might have crept away in the midst of
them, and still lay hidden in the leafy covert. The hour wore away; the
dawn came on apace, and, with the quest still fruitless, the officer
presently mounted his horse and rode speedily off, fearing less,
perchance, the review of his conduct by his superiors in the county
town than the arbitration of the few citizens of the scantily settled
region, who might take an inimical view of the disappearance of the
guide of the jocose officer.

Only when the gray day came with the tremulous wind over the mountains,
and the craggy ranges grew darkly distinct, and the unpeopled wooded
valley distinct and vaguely drear, and the deep blue sky faded and was
colorless, and one by one the stars noiselessly, invisibly slipped away
without a trace, like some splendid promise never to be fulfilled, did
Jasper Larrabee turn rein, perplexed and disquieted and greatly awed.
For in his unlettered ignorance he had never heard of that simple fact
known to astronomy as a temporary star.

IX.

In the days that ensued, no trace of the fugitive was developed. Cap'n
Lucy experienced a certain relief in the fruitless result of the
extended search instituted by the friends that Espey had made in the
Cove. In their opinion the conclusion was inevitable that, despite
the lack of his horse, he had made good his escape, and did not lie
wounded or dead in the jungle of laurel, awaiting their humane succor,
or burial at their hands. He was glad that Espey was gone, doubtless
never to return, and that the matrimonial problem was gone with him.
He was not quite frank with Adelicia in regard to this expectation.
Her constitutional hopefulness instantly adopted the general belief of
Espey's safety as fact, and she fixed her expectant eyes on the future
with such fidelity of certainty that it seemed they must constrain the
return she so definitely awaited.

"He'll find out ez them off'cers 'lowed 'twar Jasper Lar'bee, an' never
knowed they hed _him_. An' then, uncle Lucy, he won't be 'feared
ter kem back," she said many times a day.

"Course not," assented Cap'n Lucy. "He'll be hyar afore long, jes' ez
good lookin 'ez he knows how ter be."

It was perhaps a pious fraud, for the girl's despair and grief had been
so wild that Cap'n Lucy was glad for her optimism to be reasserted on
whatever terms and to have the pleasant thing in the house once more.

Luther had necessarily been enlightened by the recent events as to the
sentimental phase of the matter; for Cap'n Lucy had hitherto sedulously
kept it secret, since he did not favor a fugitive from justice as a
suitor for his niece, and was determined to break off the affair at
all hazards. Luther looked with disapproval upon his father's crafty
methods.

"I dunno what ails ye ter make Ad'licia b'lieve ez Espey will kem
back," he once ventured to say aside to his father. "He air sure ter
'low ez they never tuk him fur Lar'bee, else he wouldn't hev tried ter
break away."

"Luther," said Cap'n Lucy, "I hev noticed ez a man air obleeged ter hev
a powerful strong stommick ter be able ter tell the truth at all times.
An' ez I git old, I hev sorter got the deespepsy."

The son merely gazed at him with a sort of literal-minded bovine
stare, as he sought to entertain this statement of the moral effect of
debility.

"An' then, whenst I war a leetle boy," continued Cap'n Lucy, "I war bit
by a rattlesnake; an' sometimes whenst I hear myself sayin' sech ez air
agin the actial fac' it don't s'prise me none, fer I know it air jes'
a leetle meanderin' o' the venom o' the sarpient in me yit, 'kase, ye
know, he war a deceiver from the beginning."

What impression the strange and unexpected events had made upon the
impassive and reserved Julia, none had taken thought to observe. The
demonstrative, expressive characteristics of the other members of the
household filled the domestic stage. It was only when the poignancy of
Adelicia's grief and anxiety had given way to a resolutely patient and
hopeful waiting, and Cap'n Lucy's vehement interest had subsided into
a trivial occupation with the passing details of life, that it chanced
to be noticed that Julia was wont to sit idle at her spinning, the
thread in one hand, the other lifted as if to regulate the whirl of the
motionless flax-wheel; her wonderful blue eyes fixed upon the distant
purple mountains, glimpsed through the parting of the gourd vines above
the porch; her head, with its smooth plaits of glossy hair, held up and
alert; some unspoken thought upon her marble face that filled every
still line with meaning.

"Ye 'pear ter be palsied, Julia," said the unobservant Luther, smoking
his pipe on the porch one evening. "Ye hain't moved hand or foot fur a
solid hour."

She started slightly at the sound of his voice, fixing her attention
on him with obvious effort. Her mind was evidently coming back
from distant removes, and Adelicia, with vague curiosity, demanded
suddenly,--

"What air you-uns studyin' 'bout, Julia, whenst ye air lookin' like
that?"

"Studyin' an' a-studyin'," said Julia, dropping her hands in her lap
and leaning back in the chair, her eyes once more turning to the
high, massive mountains afar off as if they possessed some magnetic
attraction, "'bout'n whar pore, pore Jack Espey kin be now, an' how
powerful cur'ous 'twar ez ye wouldn't marry him whenst he axed ye."

The fore-legs of Luther's tilted chair came down to the floor with a
thump. With a hand on either knee, and the cinders and burning tobacco
dropping from his pipe unheeded to the floor, he sat fixedly staring at
his silent sister. To his comprehension she was speaking her mind very
unequivocally now. Despite the vaunted feminine quickness, Adelicia
heard in it only personal upbraiding, for a certain remorse had made
her sensitive on this score, and prone to protest her constraining
dutifulness.

"I hed uncle Lucy's word agin it!" she exclaimed, with a rising flush
and angry bright eyes.

Julia slowly shook her head, her eyes, her thoughts, far, far away.
"I wouldn't hev keered fur no 'uncle Lucy's' word," she declared
iconoclastically. "I reckon, ef the truth war knowed, dad hisself
married ter suit his own taste. Leastwise, I ain't never hearn o' no
old uncle or aunt or dad, or sech kinfolks, ez ondertook ter make a
ch'ice in marryin' fur him."

"Waal, sir," Luther interposed, in a tone of shocked propriety,
"settin' up hyar an' talkin' by the yard medjure 'bout marryin' an'
men-folks, an' I'd bet my best heifer that Jack Espey ain't gin
air one o' ye a single thought sence he lef' hyar. No, nor nare
'nother man. Ef the truth war knowed, ye hain't got a haffen chance
apiece,--without it air 'Renzo Taft, down yander at the Lost Time
mine, an' he can't make out which air the hardest favored 'twixt ye!
Ye hed both better go ter work. Jack Espey'll never kem back agin. Dad
jes' say he will ter pledjure Ad'licia. An', Julia, ef ye don't spin
up that thar truck,"--he pointed with fraternal imperiousness at the
wheel,--"ye'll be toler'ble scant o' new clothes, an' ye'll look wuss
like a skeercrow 'n ye do now."

Julia received this taunt to her beauty with the equanimity of one
whose title is unimpugnable; but Adelicia, all unheeding any subtler
sense than the obvious meaning his words conveyed, protested against
even this conjectural banishment of poor Jack Espey. He would come
back, she declared. He had doubtless found out by this time that he was
mistaken in supposing the officers cognizant of his true identity, and
that they were jesting, thinking him still Larrabee. And now that the
nine days' wonder had blown over, and people were interested in it no
more, and so much was going on in the Cove to usurp public attention,
she looked for him any time just to slip back in his old place. "I
never kem out on the porch but I look ter see him in that thar cheer
whar Luther be. I hev 'peared ter see him thar."

"That ain't the way I 'pear ter see him," said Julia suddenly. "I
dreampt he war a-kemin' on his claybank horse, a-lopin' down the road,
a-wavin' his big white hat at we-uns like he done that day he kilt the
wolf an' fotched home the pelt. That's the way I view him ever sence I
dreampt that dream."

"Then ye hev the nightmare," said Luther, surly and helpless to stem
the tide of sentiment, "an' ye hain't got no mo' sense sleepin' than
wakin'; fur that claybank roan will lope down these rocky roads no mo',
partly through bein' dead, an' partly through old Miser Miggins hevin'
gone down the gorge an' tuk off the critter's shoes. Ye better content
yerself with the claybank roan ez a nightmare, fur ye ain't goin' ter
view Espey an' the critter a-lopin' round no mo', no matter how much be
a-goin' on in the Cove."

For the Cove was indeed in a phenomenal ferment. To the astonishment of
the leisurely and dilatory mountaineers, the work on the new hotel had
begun, and was being pushed forward on parallels inconceivable to their
ideas of progress.

Cap'n Lucy, his mind recalled to his more immediate personal interests,
watched it with a sort of avidity of observation from the porch of
his own house, where he was wont to sit with his pipe. His sneer, his
silent laugh, his acrid enigmatical phrases, grew frequent as the
blasting for the cellars proceeded, and the flying fragments of rock,
which had elicited such formidable prognostication, fell far short of
his cabin or his inclosures, indeed seldom coming to the ground beyond
the jungle of laurel at the base of the great natural terrace, the site
of the work.

"He didn't git the edzact range, Luther," he would say in affected
surprise; or, sarcastically, "This hyar Kenn'ston would hev made a
powerful spry gunner in the old war times,--sech a eye for distances!"

Adelicia, observing the circumstance, also remembering Kenniston's
expressions of fear for their safety, only saw cause for gratulation.

"Mr. Kenn'ston 'lowed ez we-uns mought hev ter move an' leave home
whilst the blastin' war goin' on!" she exclaimed. "An' he made a
powerful mistake, uncle Lucy."

"So he did," said Cap'n Lucy, with a twinkling eye. "He air a great man
fur movin' ginerally. He b'lieves in movin' things."

Luther, remembering the peripatetic corner-stone and the impending
processioning, understood the allusion, but he had a foreboding of
trouble, and his heart sunk within him. He was glad when the blasting
was concluded, which it was shortly; for he feared a premature or
ill-advised accusation, and it seemed to him that the meaning of those
thinly veiled sarcasms must presently be revealed to others as well as
to himself. The foundations were laid, and the framing of the building
followed promptly; soon the gaunt skeleton of the hotel, an outline
of modern frivolity and summer pleasuring and flimsy vastness, was
incongruously imposed upon the silent, solemn mountain behind it, with
the rugged, austere crags below it; with the unfamiliar mists shifting
through it and drifting along corridor and ball-room and scaling the
tower; with its prophetic shadow, like a line engraving, flung by the
moonlight on the dark surface of the top of the dense forest below.
More than once furious mountain storms assailed it; but its builder's
philosophy had taken account of these inimical forces, and it held fast.

The unbroken mountain wind, however, played havoc with the light
shanties of the workmen in this exposed situation on the promontory of
rock, and when rebuilt the camp was moved below the terrace, down in a
sort of gorge, shielded and safe, albeit the distance from the work was
a matter of some inconvenience.

They proved civil folk, the town mechanics, and answered gravely
many a queer question put from a vast distance in civilization and
sophistication, albeit at arm's length from the natural body; for from
far and near the mountaineers visited the unfinished structure. Often
a wagon with a yoke of oxen would stand, the patient beasts humbly
a-drowse, for an hour or so in the sandy road, while the jeans-clad
owner would patrol the new building, solemnly stepping from timber to
timber over the depths of the cellar, or with the utmost simplicity
of assurance make a critical circuit about the whole, and offer
suggestions looking toward improvements. Sometimes the visitor was of
shyer gentry: a red fox was glimpsed early one morning, with brush in
air, speeding along the joists of the ball-room; it might seem they
would never know the weight of aught more graceful or agile; a deer,
doubtless a familiar of the springs, was visible once, leaping wildly
down the rocks in great elastic bounds, evidently hitherto unaware
of the invaders of these preëmpted sylvan wilds. Others, too, of the
ancient owners of the soil came on a more prosaic quest, but in the
dead hour of darkness or the light of the midnight moon. A young bear,
who had long harbored predatory designs upon a certain fat shoat, a
denizen of that pig-pen of Cap'n Lucy's upon which the owner and Mr.
Kenniston looked with such differing eyes, was brought to a pause,
in a cautious reconnoitre, by the fragments of food, scraps from the
workmen's dinner, which might be found by nosing about among the
shavings. Perhaps it was this alone that led him about the angles and
turns of the building; but as he went between the sparse substance of
the timbers and their scant linear shadows that, in the sorcery of the
moonlight, appeared hardly less real, he seemed as censorious a critic
as Cap'n Lucy himself. Sometimes he would pause in his clumsy shamble,
and, with the moonlight a-glitter in his small eyes, lift himself on
his hind feet and gaze about the solitary building, indescribably
melancholy in the loneliness and the wan, pensive sheen; grin with his
white teeth, a-gleam with a sarcastic, snarling contempt; fall to all
fours again; and, shrugging his heavy shoulders to his ears, scud along
with the aspect of clumsy sportiveness common to his kind.

It chanced that a light, portable forge had been in use that day,
in the process of the work; the foreman had himself looked to the
extinction of the fire, albeit the scene of the operation was upon the
solid rock, and far from any possible communication with the building.
The wind could never have turned over the low apparatus set in the
hollow of the ledges, but the bear could, and did. Then he sat down
suddenly to lick his singed paw, for the metal was still hot. The fuel
had been charcoal; it still sustained heat, and even combustion. There
was a steady spark in a few of the scattered cinders, quickening,
reddening, as the eager night air touched them. The shavings amongst
which they had fallen, further down the slope, were slightly astir
for a moment; then a timorous blaze sprang up along the more tenuous,
lace-like, curling edges.

How the destructive element fared, whether by slow, insidious, fearful
degrees, as of conscious but furtive evil intent, or as animated by
a wild, tumultuous, riotous impulse, more and more rapacious with
impunity, as of some turbulent, maddened thing escaping control, none
but Bruin might say, for, save the impassive, neutral night, the event
had no other witness. Before the flames had fairly taken hold of the
studs and joists his cowardly fears had gained the ascendency over his
gluttony. More than once he paused, in gnawing his trophy of a beef
bone, to growl fiercely, his remonstrant, surprised eyes illuminated
by this alien flicker. As the skies began to redden, and the pale
moonlight to fail, and the great massive mountains to appear, dark and
weird, from the deep and silent seclusions of the night, he left his
booty and retreated toward the verge of the woods, pausing now and
again in the dun-colored shadows, all veined with shifting pulsations
of red and white, to look with eyes aglow, reflecting the fire, upon
its ravages, growling fiercely at times; then, with his recurrent
fears, setting out once more on a lumbering run.

Perchance the reflection flung upon the clouds, all lurid and alight,
before which the stars shrank away invisible, apprised the traveler
journeying in far-away coves and ranges, or the herder of the lofty
solitudes of the balds, or the hunter in distant coverts, of the
disaster in progress before the nearest neighbors were roused. The
angry glare of the conflagration seemed to pervade the world, like the
vivid searching terrors of the red day of doom, when the workmen, down
in their sheltered nook beneath the crags and the dense shadows of
the forest, discovered the untoward fate of their handiwork. Into the
crevices of the batten shutters of Cap'n Lucy's glassless windows the
keen rays at last pierced, like some sinister, pestilential, dazzling
sunburst, illuminating the homely scenes with an uncanny flare, and
displacing the broken dreams with a terrified awakening.

Naught could be done. It might be accounted a spectacle in some
sort,--to watch the airy acrobatic feats of the lithe flames leaping
from beam to brace, from joist to rafter, of the three tall stories,
seeming of vaster proportions with all their detail illustrated in
these living tints upon the subsidiary, flickering night. There was a
series of wild, dancing, tangled blazes a-whirl in the lengths of the
ball-room, white and red and orange and blue, an uncanny rout. High up
on the battlemented turret a vermilion banner flaunted suddenly out to
the moon, and then it was struck amidst a myriad of sparks, and the
echoes clamored out against the crashing of the tower.

For days thereafter the smoking, charred ruin was the terminus of many
a pilgrimage amongst the simple folk of the region, who had never
beheld wreckage on such a scale. The idle workmen hovered about it,
dispirited and anxious, awaiting orders. There was much mysterious
talk of incendiarism, and a rumor pervaded the Cove that the matter
had already been reported in this light to the authorities, and that
Rodolphus Ross was on his way to the scene of action.

Cap'n Lucy, seated on the rocks about the limpid spring, at a
comfortable distance from the hot, smouldering mass, smoked his pipe,
as he contemplated it, in more placidity of mind than had for some
time fallen to his share. He was not a man who would deliberately
seek to injure his enemy in person or property; but Cap'n Lucy was
eminently human, and he could but admire the wisdom of the uncovenanted
dispensations of Providence, through which Mr. Kenniston's game was, as
he conceived it, so handsomely blocked. He had a most buoyant sense of
irresponsibility in the matter.

"I ain't so much as once spoke to the Lord 'bout'n that man," he said
privately to Luther, as if his prayers must needs have been inflammable.

He was not the only one of the spectators who thought, in view of the
magnitude of the ruin, that the whole project was necessarily ended,
and who looked on Kenniston's invasion of the Cove as a thing already
of the past. It was a matter of very general surprise when the "town
man" suddenly reappeared upon the scene in a bounding fury, and, in
the metaphorical phrase of the mountaineers, "primed and loaded for
b'ar." They little dreamed how literal a reason he had to hold a grudge
against Bruin.

The season seemed full of menace to the troglodytes of the Lost Time
mine. The work went on about the still as hitherto, but with added
precaution--various and vain, for the limits of their ingenuity had
already been reached--and with a heavy sense of presage. The old moods
that had prevailed here were gone, whether of brag and bluster, or wild
hilarity, or jocose horse-play, or the leisurely and languid spinning
of yarns to help the hour to pass. Even the industry of old Zeb Copley,
the veteran of the force, was mitigated by sudden long pauses and a
disposition to hearken fearfully for unaccustomed noises, and by eager
and earnest urgency that the work should be pretermitted for a time.
The youngest moonshiner of all felt it a dreary world to look at with
sober eyes, and, despite his morose abstinence and surly staidness, a
less discerning judgment than Taft's might have foreseen the brevity
of this enforced drought and the danger of a relapse, with all his
reminiscences at his thick tongue's end, were he free to fare about the
world without. Espey's vacant place was ever significant of the reason
for it, and Larrabee would sit for hours brooding over the untoward
chances of his own fortunes; his gloomy eyes on the ever-glinting line
of light playing through the furnace door, his motionless pipe full
only of dead ashes in his heedless hand.

"Ye air a toler'ble dangersome neighbor," Taft remarked one day; for
the complication of the mistaken identity had come to his ears during
a sortie from his stronghold, and the threats of the deputy sheriff
against the supposed Jasper Larrabee coupled with his suspicions as to
moonshining.

Larrabee looked up fiercely. "Move, then, ef ye don't like yer
neighbor."

He was like a fox run to earth; he had no further resource. His
one idea of dealing with the law was by evasion and subterfuge and
concealment. He had no remote expectation of justification. By a series
of deceits he had persuaded his mother to go on an immediate visit to
a bedridden great-aunt who lived in an adjoining county. The horse
she rode belonged to a neighbor of the aged relative, who chanced to
be in this locality, and who was taking home with him a led horse, a
recent purchase. Jasper himself was to go after her in the indefinite
period when the corn should be laid by and her own horse at leisure.
The infant conqueror of the rickets went with her, mounted behind her,
his chubby arms stretched at their utmost length clasping her gaunt
waist, and with as unchastened a vainglory and pride in the earnest of
this great journey and the envious wonderment of the other children as
if his bourne were the north pole. Thus Mrs. Larrabee set out, with
the grim-visaged neighbor of the aunt in advance, and with a frisky,
dapper colt--already _en rapport_ with the pilgrim youth by reason
of mutual juvenility, irresponsibility, and frivolity--kicking up his
admired heels in the rear. And Henrietta Timson reigned in her stead
under the queer little sylvan roof that seemed no more made with hands
than the cups of a triple acorn.

Thus it was that Jasper Larrabee was roofless for the nonce, save for
the strata of the Lost Time mine.

That Lorenzo Taft would fain be rid of him he saw grimly enough, and
this he grimly refused to heed. He had incurred the suspicion of
moonshining by reason of Espey's choosing to wear his name for an hour
or so. He had incurred it through no fault of his own. The infringement
of the law was common to them all, and involved a danger which they
should share.

At all events, there would be nobody to answer for harboring the
fugitive, should Espey's true identity become known to the law, and
Rodolphus Ross find his way again to the little house on its airy
perch. Taft had thought it wise that Larrabee, already tainted with
suspicion in the mind of the officer of the law, and thus a source of
great danger, should follow Espey to parts unknown. But the world, to
the unlodged of earth, is doubtless of aspect like the face of the
waters to the dove when first loosed from the ark, without foothold or
friendly sign.

Larrabee replied even to the innuendo:--

"Go whar? An' leave you-uns a-cuddled down hyar so snug in the groun'
that the devil hisse'f will sca'cely nose ye out on the Jedgmint Day?
Naw, sir. I see nuthin' but resk fur me on all sides, but less hyar
'n ennywhars. I hev stood in ez much danger ez enny of ye. I hev tuk
my sheer o' the resk 'thout wingin', but I won't be kicked out like a
stray dog an' gin up ter the law 'kase you-uns air 'feared 'Dolphus
Ross 'lows I be a moonshiner. He can't find or hear o' me hyar. I got
ez much right hyar ez you-uns, 'Renzo Taft. I own my sheer in the
business, an' hyar I be goin' ter 'bide."

The other two moonshiners, Copley and young Dan Sykes, regarded him
askance and with sullen eyes. This minority might seem to be fraught
with no small danger. His chief fear lest Espey should be overtaken,
and the details of his refuge with the Larrabees be elicited, involving
himself and his mother as accessories to the crime, he never mentioned.
It so absorbed his thoughts, however, that for a time he did not
observe a symptom of the antagonism of his confrères which deeply
augured its seriousness.

A shaft hard by the still-room, if such the nook where the apparatus
was worked might be called, which was sunk into the very deepest
limits of the mine, came near relieving them of their perplexity on
this score, one day. Larrabee's foot slipped in the rotting refuse of
pomace on the verge while he was handling the bags of grain, and as he
came heavily to the floor, barely saving himself, he saw like a flash
a sudden irradiation of hope on the flushed, foolish face of the boy,
a keen expectation in Taft's eyes, and even in the elderly drudge's
wooden wrinkles a sort of disappointed resignation as he scrambled to
his feet, that daunted him more than the immediate danger.

His precious book he read no more by the light of the furnace
flicker, after this. Not that he now brooded over his cares, but his
watchfulness never flagged. Whether the accident suggested the idea to
Taft, or whether it were the flimsy fiction of the inimical atmosphere
and his own alert apprehensiveness, Larrabee thought that he was given
several opportunities to take leave inadvertently of the world. Once,
in cleaning a pistol said to be unloaded, the ball in the last chamber
whizzed sharply by his head. Again and again he was set to handle the
heavy bags of grain on the slippery verge of the shaft. After a time
a new cause of alarm was developed. Despite his crafty vigilance in
his determination to remain at all hazards, he did not notice, until
it became very marked, their unwillingness that he should leave the
still at all, and Taft's expertness in disallowing every pretext. The
truth dawned upon him at last, with its most valid reason. Although
they would be glad were he to quit the country, yet, since his
permanent absence could not be compassed, any chance excursion into
the Cove or neighborhood was fraught with danger, as he might be seen,
identified as Larrabee, and followed by the man who had spotted him
as a moonshiner to Taft's house, where, spending days and nights, the
mystery would soon be unfolded.

Larrabee came upon this discovery with a suffocating sense as of a
prisoner. Instantly he was possessed by a wild urgency for the outer
air and the freedom beyond that seemed as if its own impetus might
break through the barriers of a thousand feet of the solid ground. He
almost felt the wind blow in the strength of his keen desire; and when
he set himself instantly to compass his deliverance, eagerness outran
tact in his first demonstration.

"Hello, 'Renzo," he said in a cheerful, incidental voice, strikingly
at variance with the gruff tones that had of late served him in the
absolutely essential colloquies between them touching the work.

Taft's keen senses instantaneously apprehended the difference. He
glanced around with a quick eye, illumined by the feeble white gleam of
the lantern in his hand, for he had but just emerged from the tunnel.
He did not simulate. He looked as he felt, interrogative, expectant, as
he sat down on the side of a barrel without pausing to extinguish the
lantern. Its pallid glow suffused his florid face and yellow beard, and
brought out the tint and effect of translucency in his blue eyes. They
were fixed steadily on Larrabee, who was suddenly out of countenance.
He had intended a more casual disclosure of his project than the
impending interview permitted,--a sort of unpremeditated announcement
of his determination, as of being free to do as he would. He felt
that his face had changed, and he knew that the change was noted. A
new rush of alarm seemed to surge through his nerves. For, guarded as
Taft evidently was, he too had betrayed somewhat the importance which
he attached to the plans, even the words, of his employee, or his
partner, or his prisoner, as Larrabee might be variously regarded. It
daunted Larrabee: the latent ferocity that lurked in Taft's character,
repudiated in his burly good comradeship of manner and in his florid
face,--save for a certain beaklike outline of the nose that gave a
rapacious, cruel intimation,--was instinctively known to the young
mountaineer, who was not skilled in the craft of a knowledge of his
kind, and had no habit of analysis. He somehow flinched to be made
anew so definitely aware that he was a factor, and a troublous one, in
Taft's schemes. He felt no match for the elder tactician. He wished
he had gone long before, when the moonshiner sought so openly to be
rid of him. At all events, he would go now, and without chicanery or
subterfuge. He blurted out his plan, which he had intended to trench
upon with great care and circumspection, and which should have appeared
a natural evolution and outcome of the conversation.

"'Renzo," he said, with a distinct abatement of his former genial
inflections, but still with a pliable, amiable tone,--and for his life
he could not suppress an intonation of appeal,--"'Renzo, I'm a-studyin'
'bout takin' yer advice. Ye air old'n me an' hev got mo' 'speriunce
an'"--

"What advice?" Taft interrupted succinctly. The sentence seemed very
short in his big, mellow, sonorous voice; it was like a key struck
inadvertently on some great organ; the heavy vibrations in themselves
seemed to promise continuity.

"'Bout goin' out'n the Cove. I been studyin' it all out, an' I 'low
'twould be safer fur all consarned ef I war ter cut an' run."

Taft remained silent. His illumined eyes were glassy and fixed;
somehow, the absorbed, introspective thought seemed to eliminate their
expression.

"Jes' cl'ar out," said Larrabee, as if in explanation; he could not
repress the manner of asking a permission, although he raged inwardly
at himself.

"Whar'bouts?" Taft's great voice boomed out once more as it were
inadvertently.

"Ter Buncombe County in old Car'liny, whar I got some kinfolks
a-livin'," said Larrabee. "That's what I war a-studyin' 'bout," he
added, still striving for a more incidental effect.

The furnace door was open, for the fire was low, the still but just
emptied, and the work intermitted for the nonce. The bed of red coals
filled the place with a dull glow. In its dreamy light he saw suddenly
the broad, flabby face of Dan Sykes, the youngest of the moonshiners,
distorted with silent mirth, like the face of a caricature. He sat upon
a billet of wood in a lowly attitude, frog-like with his upturned head
which was supported by his two hands, his elbows resting on his knees
drawn high under his chin. His distended grin of evident delight in
Taft's answer showed that it was not unexpected.

"Why, law, Jasper," exclaimed Taft,--but the unctuous tone would not
mix with the lie of the intent, and floated in its midst like oil
on water,--"I couldn't make out _now_, jes' _now_, 'thout
you-uns. I be short-handed now, 'count o' Espey, an' I got word ter-day
from the cross-roads fur two barrels o' corn juice quick ez it kin be
got thar. Yer kin in Buncombe,"--his eye twinkled, for he suspected
the kin in Buncombe to be of that airy folk known only to dreams and
deceits,--"they'll keep. Ye'll hev jes' ter put off goin' fur a leetle
spell,--bein' so short-handed, ye know."

"What air they aimin' ter pay fur them bar'ls?" demanded Larrabee
calmly.

Thus he drew the conversation aside to the commercial aspects of the
situation, as if he acquiesced in Taft's view, and recurred to his
proposition no more. He controlled his voice, but his heart sunk like
lead. He had not dreamed but that they would be glad to let him go if
he quitted the region. He had not even feared that this resource was
in jeopardy. He could not imagine the turn of events which must needs
preclude his flight abroad, as well as his familiar appearance in his
wonted haunts about the Cove. He cursed his fatuity again and again
that he had not escaped when he could. What were the dangers of the
world at large in comparison with the mysterious menace that environed
him here? He dwelt continuously on these thoughts for a time, and it
was only gradually, and chiefly by reason of Sykes's leering grin and
secretly gleeful eye, that he became aware that this Benjamin amongst
them had been specially deputed to watch him. In the days of his own
terrors of the world without, he had ceased to go out for his meals or
to sleep. He subsisted on "snacks" which Taft fetched down from his own
table,--which abstraction caused no surprise to his small housekeeper,
for Miss Cornelia Taft had long since exhausted her capacities for
astonishment at any prodigies of food consumption on the part of her
father, who took such big bites in comparison with old Mrs. Jiniway's
custom,--and he slept at broken intervals, as his uneasy thoughts
permitted, on the empty meal sacks in the shadow of the piles of
barrels. This life continued now of necessity, as formerly of choice.
Larrabee's apparent acquiescence, he had a vague idea, surprised and
perturbed the others. They were evidently prepared for resistance
and harsh measures. They had lost their balance in some sort; their
attitude was like that of one who makes ready for a running leap,
and stops short of the jump. Thus, their unsteady, balked surprise
bore scant relation to their persistent, unchanged purpose, for their
watch upon him was not for one moment relaxed. Even in the network
of wrinkles about the sunken eyes of the elder distiller, a sort of
staggered, dumfounded suspicion expressed itself, in conjunction with
an observant heed of Larrabee's every movement which hitherto would not
have been allowed to absorb so much of the attention he was wont to
bestow on the still.

At first the discovery came near to breaking down Larrabee's reserve of
endurance. His heart thumped so loudly, so heavily, that he sometimes
thought they must hear its treacherous clamors as he sat and smoked in
the dull red glow, assuming a calm and somnolent, satisfied aspect.
Occasionally, with that terrible sense of the key turned, the door
closed, the realization of restricted liberty, so overwhelming to the
free habit of the mountaineer and the woodsman, with a charter to
wander as wide as the wilderness, the blood would surge to his head,
the copper boiler spin round and round, his companions slowly wheel
about in that dim space of shadow and light; and he thought he lost
consciousness at these times. But always when he came to himself he
was sitting as before, calmly smoking in his wonted place, seeming
a trifle disposed to shirk his work, perchance; and latterly he had
begun to drink heavily, as it were upon the sly. He could not have
said how the idea had come to him: it was not gradual; the scheme
was full fledged in an instant. He knew that his every movement was
under surveillance, and that he was under the special guard of the
young drunkard, who had been longer sober now, perhaps, than for many
a month. Dan Sykes watched with glistening eyes Larrabee's furtive
hand reaching for the jug of whiskey, the trick of the hasty swallow
aside, and presently Larrabee had a companion in his covert potations.
He trembled lest the young fellow's scanty powers of self-restraint
should not be adequate to conceal long enough to serve his plan the
swift ravages of drink in his recent abstinence. He seemed insatiable
and frantically keen of thirst, and the necessity of concealing his
indulgence from Taft, who had evidently sent forth some fiat against
it, developed an almost incredible deftness of craft. On the day that
the liquor was barreled and removed, Sykes had been drinking almost
without cessation. His share in the work was scant, his duties as guard
serving in substitution. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps because of
the absorption in the enterprise, neither of the two elder moonshiners
noticed his condition; and indeed he had become singularly skilled
in assuming a sort of veneer of sobriety. It passed muster in this
instance.

Taft got away early in the night with his load, taking note,
apparently, of nothing beyond some extra hazard of the enterprise, as
Larrabee gathered from the caution with which he loaded his revolvers
and his frequent conferences aside with Copley, who enjoyed his special
confidence, being his near kinsman as well as coadjutor. The barrels
were to be concealed in the wagon under bags of feathers, dried fruit,
ginseng, and other strictly rural commodities of barter. Two barrels of
innocent and saccharine sorghum found themselves, too, in the unholy
company of those barrels that the still had furnished forth. It was
somewhat difficult to make out the load. Copley was eager for it to be
off, notwithstanding, but Taft persisted until all the probabilities
had been satisfied. There was much passing back and forth in the
tunnel; through its long lengths Larrabee could hear the commotion
in the room beneath the store. When the preparations were completed
at last, he knew as well as if he had seen it how the great white
canvas-covered wagon looked, standing with its two stanch mules before
the door of the store, under the early dusky night sky and the burly
overhanging purple heights, the yellow light streaming out from the
open door upon it, and all the cheerful bustle of departure rife as it
were in the very air. Taft came back at the last moment for his coat.
As he swung himself alertly into it, and crushed his big hat down on
his big yellow head, he had all the breezy impetus of one who is about
to start on a pleasant and successful journey.

"All loaded!" he cried cheerfully. "A kentry merchant a-goin' ter buy
goods can't be too keerful--oughter take along all the gear he kin ter
trade--ha! ha! ha! Good-by! Take keer o' yerse'fs!"

And thus he strode out with his light, elastic tread. Larrabee listened
as it beat on the dirt path, and then to the echoes that duplicated its
progress, till it ceased to sound.

Somehow the void about the circle was not without melancholy
intimations, the normal incident of departure, whether it be regretted
or cause for gratulation. Perhaps because of the sudden disordered
quiet and loneliness in the quitted scene, the unoccupied mind must
needs always reach forward into the unknown journeyings, meeting in
speculation the varied events denied to the home-abiding. Larrabee sat
still for a time in the low red glow of the furnace fire, exchanging
now and again an incidental comment with his companions on the subject
of the journey and its chances. The intervals of silence grew longer;
the shadows gathered and deepened; the younger man's head occasionally
nodded grotesquely in sleep, but more than once, as Larrabee was about
to rise to his feet, he saw in the obscurity the large bloodshot eyes
opened and fixed soberly upon him. He had waited long; long for the
certainty that Taft would not return on some forgotten errand; long
for the drunken sleep that must needs overcome the inimical vigilance
of the young moonshiner. He could wait no longer. With an abrupt,
shrill cry like that of a savage panther, he flung himself upon his
elder companion. Copley was a man of powerful physique, and his every
muscle was developed by the heavy labor in which it was exercised. In
his undiminished strength his age gave no advantage to his adversary,
whose slight bulk he might have flung from him with a single arm but
for the surprise and suddenness of the attack in which he was borne to
the ground. All Larrabee's strength hardly sufficed to hold him there
for a moment. There was a fierce struggle; a pistol ball whizzed by
Larrabee's head, and the narrow precincts were filled with the echoes
and with Copley's hoarse calls upon Sykes for help. The young fellow
rose in response, stupidly echoing the cries of his own name, took
one tottering step forward, and fell like a log, flabby, nerveless,
helpless, on the floor. Larrabee wondered afterward that it could all
be so quickly done. It was by virtue of surprise, desperation, sleight
of hand, deftness, and quickness rather than by strength or courage. A
meal bag served as a gag, and a rope, used in transporting the heavy
barrels up the steep incline to the store, to pinion the arms and
shackle the feet. Larrabee was almost exhausted by the capture of the
first prisoner, and it was perhaps auspicious for his freedom that
the young drunkard, beyond an ill-directed blow or two, could make no
resistance. The rope was made fast around the solid masonry of the
furnace; and as Larrabee contemplated his work, he felt sure that the
two prisoners, one yet vainly struggling, the other already sleeping
the sleep of the very drunk, would find no means of deliverance till
Taft's return the next day.

Again and again in his durance Larrabee had prefigured how swift would
be his flight along the tunnel to the free outer air. Now he feebly
plodded, and trembled, and faltered, and again went groping along
the densely black way, essaying to keep a straight line, but feeling
himself continually touching the wall, now on the right, and again on
the left, in his zigzag course. Once he paused with an alert start. A
sound of human voices had struck his ear, and at the merest possibility
that his escape was not complete, certain, every flaccid, exhausted
muscle was tense again. He lifted up his head, hardly breathing, that
he might listen, but heard only the uncontrolled motion of his own
heart plunging like an unruly horse. All else was silent in the black
stillness of the deeps of the earth, save for the slight purling of the
thread of a stream which farther on intersected the tunnel. No stir,
no sound from the still-room, his late prison-house, where his jailers
lay bound hand and foot; and yet he had thought he heard voices--human
voices--words--he could almost have sworn it. And suddenly the sound
came again. This time he recognized it,--louder than its custom, more
distinct, for he had heard it before,--the sound of the strange,
unexplained voices that at long intervals were wont to reverberate
along the tunnel of the Lost Time mine, and that were accounted by
the moonshiners echoes from their own wrangles or mirth or talk as
they toiled. He was certain that it did not come now from the still;
his fear that his work had been slack, and that his comrades were
liberated, was without foundation, but an earthly rational fear is a
wonderful exorcist of a ghostly terror. Otherwise, when he thought
of it afterward, he felt that he must have been struck dead with the
horror of it, when he suddenly heard, close at hand, the sound dulled
by the dense medium of the earth, a word of command, as it were, in a
queer, strained, false-ringing voice, and then the regular strokes of
a pick cleaving the earth with a workmanlike steadiness and precision.
His blood ran cold; for his credulity harbored no doubts. It was the
sound of the drowned miners, lost in the flooded shafts, still vainly
digging the graves that the niggard earth denied them. The thought
mended his speed; he flew like a shuttlecock from side to side of the
narrow passage, where he could but grope, for the lack of a lantern;
and although he often put forth his hands expecting to touch the boards
of the partition at the further end, he thrust into his palms a score
of the hairy splinters of the reverse side of the rude puncheons long
before he could have reasonably expected to reach his goal. He observed
none of the precautions and silence common to the moonshiners in their
exits from the still; and indeed the feat was hardly expected to be
attempted in the dense darkness. He dropped one of the boards, and the
deep, cavernous, clamorous echo coming up from the hollow vaults below
almost overwhelmed him, as it resounded again and again. He had lost
control of his nerves. He stumbled over the empty boxes and barrels in
the room beneath the store, tumbled up the ladder, and as he clambered
from the door beneath the counter he realized for the first time that
the room was built, as were many of the meaner cabins of the region,
without a window, depending on the door for ventilation and light. This
was a matter of precaution with Taft, and being a not uncommon feature
in the district occasioned no surprise; but Larrabee trembled as he
remembered that it was Taft's cautious habit to lock the door when
he himself was not in the store. Feeling that the bars were in place
against the battens, he was apprised that it had been thus secured
by the worthies down at the still, and perchance the key was now in
Copley's pocket. His only resource would be to retrace his way, all the
toil and risk of his escape to be repeated. But no, the bolt turned
in his hand, and as he stepped into the passage outside his eyes were
dazzled almost to blindness by a tallow dip blazing in the hand of
little Cornelia Taft, summoned by the noise to investigate its source.
Behind her, looking over her head, was Joe's round, careless, plump
face. Larrabee was little less staggered by the monition that there
might be other persons at hand in the house than by the expression
of Cornelia's prim, disapproving, unfriendly, intelligent little
countenance. The next instant he cared for neither; a salient change
in the aspect of the cabin claimed his attention. The open passage
between the two rooms had been boarded up, and a stout door fitted in,
barred and bolted, on which gleamed a strong new lock. There was no key
visible. He gazed at the lock with greedy eyes, silent, till the girl's
question had been twice repeated.

"Me--doin' hyar? Oh, I been doin' some work fur yer dad," he said,
more at ease, for he had seen her occasionally as he came and went,
presumably in the character of customer, and he detected recognition in
her calm and non-committal countenance. "I got shut up in thar,--mought
hev been noddin',--an' I war 'feared the door war locked." He advanced
upon the outer door.

"Ye can't git out'n that one," said the little girl coolly; "hit's
locked on the outside, an' dad hev goned away ter the cross-roads with
the key in his pocket."

Larrabee's first impulse was to try his strength to burst it open, and
once more that salutary monition of the probable presence of others in
the house controlled him. He turned toward the door of the opposite
room, partly to settle this doubt, and partly to discover--it had never
before occurred to him to notice--whether it had a window. The room was
vacant, and his eager eyes ranged the walls in vain for an aperture.

"It's like a trap," he muttered, as he sunk exhausted into a chair.
"What ails 'Renzo ter lock up the house an' make off with the key, an'
leave you-uns inside by yerse'fs?" he demanded.

The two children had followed him into the room. Joe stood by the
door, holding by the frame, swaying back and forth, attempting some
distortion of attitude impossible to the human configuration; but the
little girl had seated herself staidly in a chair opposite, and showed
herself not averse to conversation.

"'Kase thar be sech a lot o' strange, idle folks in the Cove," said the
prim Miss Cornelia, with an expression of strong disapprobation.

Larrabee could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. It was indeed
like a new world, the familiar Cove, so long he had been shut out of it.

"What folks?" he asked succinctly.

"Them ez hev been building the new hotel," said Sis. "Them, in course."

"What they doin' now? Ain't they buildin'?" he hazarded tentatively.

"Naw,"--the small Cornelia Taft pursed up her lips
contemptuously,--"jes' a-roamin' round the Cove in gangs, a-foolin' an'
a-idlin', an', my sakes, a-drinkin' whiskey, thick ez bees!"

A new light was breaking in on Larrabee. Taft had at first desired
that he should leave the Cove,--slip away quietly; now, since it was
infested with a troop of scattered workmen, apparently out of a job,
all of whom had doubtless spent an idle hour agape over the story
of the supposed Jasper Larrabee, the last nine days' wonder of the
Cove,--the facetious freak of the pretended arrest, the miraculous
escape of the fall from the cliffs, the mysterious disappearance, the
suspicion of moonshining, and the threatened vengeance of the deputy
sheriff,--it was scarcely probable that he could get away without
exciting notice which might lead to recognition, pursuit, and arrest.
He was safer at the still,--this he himself admitted now,--far safer in
the depths of the earth; except, indeed, for Taft and his fellows.

"Did you-uns see the fire?" demanded Joe suddenly, still writhing and
twisting against the door frame. "_I_ did!" in triumph.

"Ye wouldn't ef I hedn't a-woke ye up," said Sis, with acerbity. "I
'low ye didn't see much nohows, bein' so sleepy-headed."

Larrabee sat looking in surprise from one to the other, his questions
anticipated by their eager relish of the subject.

"Dad never seen nuthin'!" cried the boy triumphantly.

"Dad wouldn't b'lieve thar war a fire till he went an' viewed the
cinders of the hotel," said the girl.

The hotel! A sudden suspicion smote Larrabee, a recollection of
the threat to burn the building which had originated amongst the
moonshiners before a stone was laid in mortar or a timber lifted. He
did the craft injustice in this instance; Taft and his associates
had no part in the conflagration. But with Espey out of control, and
Larrabee touched with the suspicion of moonshining, a chance word might
fix upon the distillers this far more serious crime known to them both
to have already been broached here. There was much reason for his
detention,--too much. He must be going, and that shortly.

"I wonder ye all ain't 'feared o' burnin' up in hyar, locked up," he
said suddenly, the catastrophe seeming to render the danger of fire
more imminent, although he knew it to be the habit of the country folk
to lock small children in when convenient to leave home without them.

The little girl's thin lip curled.

"Ef we-uns hain't got no mo' sense 'n ter set the house or ourse'fs
afire, I reckon we'd be wuth ez much roasted ez raw," she replied.

"Dad, he locked the door so we-uns kin tell them stragglers ez he be
gone, an' they can't git in ter trade fur drink," put in Joe.

Larrabee said nothing more. He knew full well that the children were
not so alone as they seemed, since Copley, who was their mother's
half-brother, was wont to be in the store, in Taft's absence, often
enough to be at hand should he be required to suppress any disturbance;
and being a near relative, he had a personal interest in their safety.
Miss Cornelia Taft was a fine combination of her father's shrewdness
and her grandmother's preciseness. As Larrabee felt her small,
discerning eyes studying him, he became conscious that he was looking
about wildly and with manifest anxiety as to his next step. He made an
effort to allay her dawning curiosity.

"Things look powerful nice an' cle'n up in hyar," he remarked casually.

He was unprepared for the effect of his words. If Miss Cornelia Taft
had a soul, it was expressed in her housewifely instincts. In a dozen
frantic and funny juvenile misconceptions, the precepts brought from
Mrs. Jiniway's domicile were put into practice here. The basis of
them all, cleanliness and an effort for order, was plainly apparent,
and Sis spent the better part of her days in seeking to impress upon
Joe's unwilling mind the value of an occasional dish-washing, and
the utility of wood ashes in scouring. An evil day, Joe considered
it, when she came into his ragged, soapless, happy-go-lucky life; but
Taft connived at their wranglings over their primitive housekeeping
and Joe's subjection. "Keeps Sis busy, an' lets me git on her blind
side,--ef she hev got enny blind side," he added grimly.

Her pallid face flushed, her eyes sparkled; she cast a glance of
triumph at Joe, who had seated himself in a chair, and was twisting his
bare feet in and out of the rungs in a way painful to witness, if not
to experience, writhing his body to and fro, and rolling his head from
side to side over the high back of the chair in a restless frivolity of
motion that certainly had no family resemblance to the staid "manners"
which Mrs. Jiniway's disciple exhibited.

She had entered volubly upon a detail of her exploits here in reforming
Joe's misrule amongst the pots and pans and kettles.

"Dad's so 'way from home, an' Joe's so tur'ble shif'less," she
complained.

The task of redding up the Augean stables was slight in comparison, one
might believe, to judge from her show of horror now and then, and there
was considerable difference between the size of Sis and of Hercules.
She had succeeded in reaching some sense of culinary propriety in
Joe, or pride, for he now and again became sufficiently still to look
poutingly sullen, and to ejaculate, "'Tain't true!" "'Twarn't!" and
similar disaffected negations.

"I l'arnt all that whenst I lived with my granny," she concluded her
exposition of the true methods of dealing with the trivet and the
skillet and setting the house in order. "An' when we war done, we'd
knit stockings an' tell tales."

"Tales 'bout what?" asked Larrabee, seeking to conciliate her, for he
began to have a shrewd suspicion that she could aid him if she would.
His interest was the more easily simulated, for he had a literary taste
himself.

"Oh," she cried, with a little bounce forward, not unlike Joe's
elasticity, "them in gineral we-uns hearn the rider read,--'bout Sam'l."

"I hev read 'bout Sam'l," said Larrabee quickly, with an air of playing
willingly to her lead; and indeed she had struck him on his strong
suit. "An' old Eli. Eli war an able man, but he never 'peared ter me
ter hev much jedgmint."

"I jes' _lo-o-oved_ ter hear 'bout leetle Sam'l an' his mother,
an' her a-bringin' of him new clothes. He wore a white shut, an' she
brung him a leetle coat every year," continued Sis, with placid eyes
shining with the delighted reminiscence of the little prophet's fine
gear.

"Eli never could hev led the children of Isrul through the wilderness
like Moses done," said Larrabee meditatively, reverting naturally to
the elder character; whereas with Sis the _personnel_ of the Bible
was chiefly juvenile, rarely attaining a greater height than four feet.

"Jes' ter think," she cried, "they put Moses whenst a baby in a leetle
dug-out, an' anchored him 'mongst the willows under the ruver bank, an'
lef' him by hisself! Don't ye know, he hollered an' hollered! An' he
wondered whar all the folks war gone."

"An' Dan'l I hev read about," continued Larrabee.

"In the painters' den! Oo--oo!" The little girl shivered with a sort of
enjoyment of the terror of the situation, drawing up her shoulders, and
holding both hands over her mouth.

"He warn't 'feared. I reckon he mus' hev been a powerful hunter whenst
young. I wonder ef he ever hed enny 'speriunce with wolf an' bar, an'
sech?" Larrabee speculated.

"Them bars! Warn't that awful,--plumb turrible!" exclaimed Sis
suddenly, her scanty brows knitted as she frowningly recoiled into the
back of her chair, and her small eyes grew large. "Them two bars what
eat them forty childern,--though 'tain't manners, an' it never war, ter
make game o' yer elders."

"'Tain't true! No two bar ever eat forty childern. They'd hev bust!"
Joe interposed realistically. "Sis jes' made that up out'n her own
head."

"It air true," protested the little Biblical student. "I hearn the
rider read it myself."

"Them childern war obleeged ter be sorter sizable ter hev quit bein'
bald-headed tharse'fs, ef they war able ter run an' p'int thar fingers.
An' shucks! I hev been sassier 'n that a many a time, an' no bar hev
eat me yit," said Joe hardily.

"Ye air savin' up fur Satan, I reckon," retorted Miss Taft, with
acerbity. "I hev a heap o' trouble with this boy," she added, turning a
dreary, disgusted little face toward Larrabee.

Their unity of literary interest had fostered a degree of sympathy for
her. "Ye oughter go down sometimes an' set at Tems's," he suggested.
"He hev got a darter an' a niece, though they air older 'n ye be."

"I don't mind old folks," said Cornelia, evidently with no idea of the
gradations of age. "I be used ter granny. I wisht dad would marry one
of 'em at Tems's," she added.

Larrabee glanced keenly at her.

"What ails ye, ter say that?" he asked jealously.

"I'd like ter see a tuck took in Joe," said Sis bitterly.

She obviously spoke without further information or meaning. Larrabee
rose restlessly, the interest of the literary symposium at an end.

"I wisht ye could let me out'n hyar somehows," he said, glancing
uneasily about. Then, with a sudden recollection, "Ain't you-uns got a
key ez would open the sto' door, what ye brung from yer granny's house?
Mebbe 'twould open t'other."

"Dad took it; he didn't want the sto' do' opened whenst he hed locked
it."

"Hain't you-uns got no mo' keys, no kind o' keys?"

She hesitated, but he had won upon her somewhat obdurate predilections;
his acquaintance with the heroes of the tales that she had learned at
her grandmother's home was a pleasing and fresh bond of interest. She
divined his sympathy, and had seen his approval of the works she had
wrought in the service of order and cleanliness; he saw in her little
prim face that she had keys at hand, and presently she nodded brightly.

"Let's try 'em," he urged, as if the experiment had a mutual interest.

It was a bunch of two or three rusty old keys which she produced,
held together with a rough leather string, but they meant liberty
and life to Larrabee. He could hardly be still long enough to clean
and oil them before the attempt which should be decisive. The little
girl rubbed one with a will, while he busied himself with the other.
She held the candle as he knelt tremulously on the floor and applied
them successively to the lock. One slipped in and turned futilely all
round,--too small. The other would not even enter the keyhole.

As he knelt there, the tallow dip showed a white, set face. He was
remembering his comrades, bound hand and foot down at the still, and
prefiguring Taft's alarm,--which was in itself formidable in its
valiant disregard of all but his own safety,--his resentment and
revenge, when their imprisoned estate should be discovered to him.
Whatever might betide in the world without, it was death, indubitably,
to remain. He rose suddenly, almost overturning the child at his
elbow, starting toward the door of the store to get some implement to
serve to break the lock.

"Try a file," said Sis reasonably, misunderstanding his intention.

She was still holding the candle as he came back, its white light on
her precise little face and smooth hair put primly behind her ears,
and a tall womanly caricature of her aped her gestures as her shadow
stretched up on the new poplar weather-boarding of the partition.

Her suggestion worked like a charm. A few moments of a sharp, rasping
noise, while she set her little teeth, a second essay at the lock: the
bolt slipped back as if made for the rusty old key that had worked no
miracles before save that of opening old Mrs. Jiniway's "chist;" the
door swung open. A glimpse of the windy night, the clouds, the tossing
woods, and Sis, putting up the bars again, heard the last echo of
Larrabee's swift step as he strode away.

XI.

The day fixed for processioning Kenniston's land dawned with an element
of perplexity all its own to add to the troublous questions which it
was expected to decide. The weather was the aptest illustration of
uncertainty. The first gray light came with a rolling cloud and a dank
wind sweeping along quick gusts of rain; then the sun rose, diffusive,
promissory, with a great lavishness of red and yellow suffusions, a
range and degree of rank, heavy color that seemed nearer to the hues
of sunset than to the luminous purity and delicacy of wonted matutinal
freshness. The slate-tinted clouds were massed once more, the beams
failed, the wind brought the rain anew, and when it ceased at last,
light mists were stealing along the heavy purple mountains, and rising
from every chasm and depression; even far away amongst those vague
contours, gray and dun-tinted and brown, that were like the first
lifeless sketch of the dazzling azure ranges that the sunny days were
wont to paint with such brilliant softness upon the fair field of the
horizon, these vapors, white, soft, opaque, flocculent, could be seen.
So from the furthermost reaches to the nearest limits invisibility was
visibly garnered.

As Kenniston, perturbed because of the weather signs, turned ever
and anon in his saddle, as he rode up and up the mountain to the
tryst at the Big Hollow Boulder, he saw now the great outward bend
of the mountain, with heavily wooded green slopes under the gray
sky, all the coloring heightened by the impending tufty white of the
masses of silent approaching vapor; the surly crags of the terrace
dark with the moisture and the shadow; and the great black mass of
the charred wood still sending up a slow, melancholy thread of smoke
where the hotel lay in ruins. And again, looking over his shoulder to
verify some half-forgotten detail of the scene, the trees twenty feet
away were barely visible in the encompassing medium, so fleetly did
the impalpable cloud press upon them. To him, unversed in mountain
weather, the enterprise of the day seemed impracticable; and he was
half surprised to see the surveyor, with his Jacob's staff and his
chain-bearers, already waiting at the boundary corner. The figures
of the group of men, with their horses picketed hard by, stood out
against the inexpressive whiteness about them with the distinctness
of sketches on otherwise blank paper. They were easily recognizable
even from a distance, and Cap'n Lucy's slim proportions and grace of
movement further served to differentiate him from the burlier forms of
the others.

"Ah, colonel," called out Kenniston as he dismounted, "you here?"

It might hardly be believed by one who had experienced its causticity,
but Cap'n Lucy's tongue was blunted of much of its capacities under
his own roof-tree by the exactions of hospitality. Now he felt the
franchise of the free outer air.

"I'm a mighty confidin' young critter, I know," he replied, advancing
a few paces with his hands thrust in his pockets, "but this hyar
man"--he nodded at the surveyor and affected to lower his voice
confidentially--"hev got the name o' bein' sorter tricky, an' I 'lowed
I hed better kem along like a good neighbor ter holp ye some, else he
mought cheat ye out'n a passel o' lan'."

The surveyor, a tall, saturnine, businesslike body, took not the
slightest notice of this fling, but his two young chain-bearers grinned
their appreciation, and the other men laughed outright with evident
enjoyment, notably a tall, dark-eyed fellow, whom Kenniston presently
recognized as the deputy sheriff, with whom he had already had some
slight colloquy touching the possibly incendiary origin of the fire
that had destroyed the new building. The recollection furnished him
with a retort. He had flushed darkly, and his eyes were angry.

"I shouldn't be surprised to be ill treated in any way now in the
Cove--after what _has_ happened."

The laughter was checked by his tone. The men glanced at one
another constrainedly. Before his coming, the event had promised
to the volunteer assistants an episode of sociability affording
the interchange of ideas and jocular converse, the interest of the
developments sufficiently great to repay them for the hardship of
the steep scramble down the mountain side. The significance of the
proceeding was reasserted, and the silence was unbroken until the
surveyor, busily adjusting his compass, remarked to Kenniston that he
had noted one or two blazes indicating an old line, as he came up the
mountain.

"Ye won't go a-nigh them blazes!" cried Cap'n Lucy sarcastically,
waving his hand along an imaginary line. "Ye take my word fur it, ye
won't see them blazes 'twixt hyar an' the mounting's foot."

Kenniston detected a covert meaning in the tone, and glanced keenly
around at the speaker. But Cap'n Lucy's face was as enigmatically
satiric as his laughter; and as Kenniston's questioning stare sought
out the son, Luther turned away to avoid meeting his eyes, lowering,
anxious, and it seemed somehow conscious. Conscious, too, was the
hang-dog manner with which the usually bluff young mountaineer spoke to
the deputy sheriff Ross, observing that he did not see how the surveyor
could get his bearings such a shut-in day as this.

The deputy sheriff had found it easily compatible with his
interpretation of his duty to spare the time to assist as idle
spectator at anything promising so much interest and excitement as
the processioning of the Kenniston tract. For the antagonism between
the disputants had already been noised abroad, and Rodolphus Ross,
albeit a "peace officer" within the meaning of the statute, was not
so attached to the service of the white-winged goddess that he did not
cherish a lively expectation of whatever sport could be extracted from
Cap'n Lucy's and Kenniston's belligerent idiosyncrasies. He protested
now so clamorously that it might seem he feared that this unique
opportunity would be wrested from him, and, assuming the rôle of a
trustworthy weather prophet, maintained that whenever it rained before
twelve o'clock, noon, an early clearance was the certain sequel. The
discussion and the aspect of the weather diverted the general attention
from Cap'n Lucy's singular words, and from Luther's unwillingness to
proceed and surly disaffection.

But Kenniston, whose already keen observation was whetted by the
appreciation of the enmity he sustained and the magnitude of the
disaster that had befallen him, followed Luther's motion with an alert,
apprehending eye, and hardly lost sight of him even when the mists
swept between them and gave him but a distorted looming presentment
of the young mountaineer; though thus caricatured, Luther never lost
for a moment his uncharacteristic and already significant demeanor.
Small as the group was, the figures of two or three were now and again
abstracted from it, as if literally caught up in the clouds, slowly
materializing again as the mists shifted. The horses hard by were
sometimes invisible in the dense white medium, and anon only their
heads would appear here and there in various attitudes, like studies
for a cavalry subject. Even the Big Hollow Boulder, the corner of
the lines, seemed to recede, and again was near at hand, in a manner
altogether inconsistent with its accepted attributes of immovability as
a monument of boundary. The great felled trees, lying close by athwart
the outcropping ledges of rock,--traces of the mountain tempest,--were
obliterated and invisible in the encompassing whiteness. The chilly
sound of the rain beating heavily below in the valley rose on the dank
air, and more than once the white gauzy suffusions of the encompassing
vapor were pervaded with a transient yellow glow, broad and innocuous
reflections of the lightning of the storm-cloud of the lower levels.

The surveyor was a tall, well-knit man of forty-five or fifty, with a
square, short, grizzled beard decorating his chin, high cheek-bones, a
blunt nose, a far-seeing gray eye, and a quid of tobacco that seemed to
render him indifferent to the joys of conversation. His high boots were
drawn to the knees over his trousers,--a style affected by the rest
of the party; Kenniston's correct equestrian garb being sufficiently
dissimilar to give him that air of peculiarity and modishness that
somehow seems so unworthy and flippant among plain and humble folk, as
if they cared for better things than fashion. It made him a trifle ill
at ease, and he had a sense of being out of his sphere, added to the
conviction of the vicinage of enemies. He stood with his riding-whip in
his hand beside the surveyor as he adjusted his instrument, conscious
of sustaining the curious attention of the chain-bearers, two stalwart
young fellows arrayed in brown jeans and heavy boots, amply competent
for the task of carrying the chain through that rugged wilderness;
conscious, too, of Cap'n Lucy's brilliant, laughing, handsome eyes, the
doubtful, furtive glances of the others, and Luther's anxious, troubled
gaze.

Suddenly, with an infinitely light, elastic effect that permeated
all its vast area, the cloud began to uplift; the great grassy bald
of the mountain towering above them showed its vast green dome as it
were between precipitous white cliffs of still higher cloud mountains.
An eagle's wing caught the sunlight as he soared above, beyond rifle
range, and as he felt the rising wind his keen, exultant cry floated
down to them. A tempered white glister suffused all the clouds about
them; the sun was out, and as the illumined masses parted, the blue
mountains afar off now glimmered with a dusky section of the quiet
valley below, and again were veiled with the gleaming gauze. Between
its shining folds a glittering green avenue opened out down the woods,
as the surveyor, bending first to take sight, then holding his Jacob's
staff stiffly before him, set out from the Big Hollow Boulder with a
fair start and a long, elastic step; the two chain-bearers in file
alertly followed, alternately bowing down and rising again, while the
chain writhed through the grass between them like some living sinuous
thing, ever and again drawn out tense and straight, and the echoes
rang with the strophe and antistrophe of their sudden short cry,
"Stick!" "Stuck!" "Stick!" "Stuck!"

It might seem that all the oreads of the Great Smoky were set to flight
by this invasion of their sylvan haunts, so many a flitting white robe
fluttered elusive among the dense shadows of the trees, gone ere you
could look again; so often a glistening white arm was upflung in the
deepest green jungle of the laurel. They sprang up by every shadowy
cliff and lurking chasm, by every hidden spring and trickling stream,
and fled with tattered white scarfs streaming in the wind behind them.
All the way the rout continued as Science came down the slope, led by
a compass rather than the sun or the shadow, and with her votaries to
mete out the freedom of the wilds, and the grace of the contour of the
slopes, and the beauty of herbage and flowering growth, and the largess
of the gracious earth, and to reduce all to an arbitrary scale, and
judge it by the rod or perch or pole.

The grizzly old surveyor saw naught of this,--not even when, in
advance of all the company, he threaded the sun-glinted green glade,
and strode almost in the midst of a bevy of white gauze-draped
fleeing figures. Nor his chain-bearers, young though they were,
and presumably impressionable,--not even when they rose from their
alternate genuflections, and their sudden call "Out!" resounded on the
air, though they stood idle and looked about them while the surveyor
paused to mark the "out." Nor Cap'n Lucy, as light and swift on his
feet as the youngest, fierce, jaunty, with his clear, defiant eye. Nor
Rodolphus Ross, finding great opportunity for mirth behind Cap'n Lucy's
back as he scuffled along amongst the knot of spectators, keeping up
as best they might, skirting the barriers that the surveyor and his
chain-bearers, constrained by duty, went over, and tumbling, pulling,
and struggling with each other now and then for the best and foremost
place. "Look at old Cap'n Tems!" cried Ross. "Ain't he the very model
of a game rooster? He ain't big, an' he ain't strong, an' he ain't
heavy, but Lord! how he thinks he is!" Nor Kenneth Kenniston, beginning
to pause now and again,--albeit he did not flag, despite the hard pull
over the impracticable ground, for he was a man of stalwart physique
and a practiced pedestrian,--to look instead at the memorandum of the
calls of the title-deed, which original paper the surveyor held in his
hand, in doubt at first, in growing dismay, then in hot and mounting
anger. At the next "out," when the surveyor set down his Jacob's staff,
Kenniston strode over and tapped him somewhat imperatively on the
shoulder.

"My good friend," he said, with an evident effort at self-repression,
"are you not making some mistake? You surely are not following the
calls as they are set forth in these papers?"

To the professor of an exact science the suggestion of mistake is an
imputation of incapacity. The claims of the quid of tobacco were
disregarded for the nonce. The surveyor spoke, albeit with his mouth
full, and spoke to the point:--

"I reckon I know what I'm about, Mr. Kenn'ston. If you don't like the
way I'm runnin' this line, run it yerse'f."

"The blazes on those trees on the side of the mountain, that you called
my attention to, indicating the old line, are away over yonder on that
sharp ridge." Kenniston waved his hand with the paper in it toward
a high rocky crest to the left; then he fixed insistent eyes on the
surveyor, and stroked his full brown whiskers mechanically with the
other hand.

The surveyor followed with perplexed eyes the direction pointed out. He
gave a little puzzled sniff, as if he sought to smell the line. Then he
reverted to that prop of common sense, his Jacob's staff.

"D'ye want me to run the line according to the compass and the calls
of the title papers, or by the old blazes scattered about in the woods
on the trees?" he demanded. "You don't know whether they ever were
intended to mark the line, nor who put 'em thar, nor for what. I know
they ain't no kin ter the line I'm runnin' now, 'cordin' ter the calls
an' the compass."

Once more he took his bearings, and, holding his Jacob's staff before
him, walked steadily forward into the deeps of the wilderness; the two
sworn chain-bearers, who had listened with indignant, sullen brows to
the wrangle, and reflection on the work, again began diligently to bow
down and rise up, as they ejaculated their "Stick!" "Stuck!" "Stick!"
"Stuck!"--the clanking of the chain sounding loud and metallic in the
sylvan quiet. The other men, with their shadows, all pressed forward in
a close squad, for the pause had given the stragglers time to gather.

Kenniston was aware that Cap'n Lucy carried the sympathies and good
wishes of all the company, save perhaps the impartial surveyor, who
would suffer himself to be influenced by nothing less just than his
compass. He realized that he was looked upon as the "town man," and a
rich one, desirous of wresting, by a slight technicality of the law, a
very little land from a poor man who had in good faith built his house
upon it. He had grown extremely bitter in his sentiment toward the
people of the section because of the fire in which so much of value had
perished, for he believed its origin incendiary. He was conscious of
sustaining much antagonism, and he had fiercely resolved to deserve it.
He had, in his first uncontrolled rush of anger, declared that he would
punish somebody,--the true culprit, if possible; but _somebody_
should kick his heels in jail for a while, and go to the penitentiary
if might be. He did not in reality go so far in feeling as in
expression, but his was not a prudent tongue. He earnestly desired
success in the matter of the processioning; the scheme of the new
hotel had grown very close to him; it seemed to him that one log cabin
might serve the mountaineer as well as another, and that, moreover,
in justice to himself, he should claim his own. He had felt sure,
perfectly sure, that his deed called for the land that Cap'n Lucy held.
For the first time, as he clambered with the rest down the rugged
slopes, a doubt of this entered his mind. It made him wince from the
probable result. He was not prepared to occupy the position of having
sought to despoil a man, and a poor man, of his own, his very own, and
fail. He knew that if he succeeded the countryside would wish that he
had failed, and Cap'n Lucy would be a popular and picturesque object of
commiseration. But he could not endure the idea of the rejoicings in
his failure. To work a hardship to another was bad, indeed, and he had
never contemplated it without the salve of an ample money compensation.
To futilely seek to work a hardship was far worse. Again and again he
knit his brows, as he gazed at the treacherous annotations in his hand,
while the interchange of glances behind him commented on his attitude
and his evident state of mind. Cap'n Lucy, who could not have read a
word of the notes, strode on, apparently indifferent to fate, the "very
model of a game rooster," esteeming Kenniston's show of anxiety the
merest subterfuge; for would that monument of boundary known as the Big
Hollow Boulder have become so nimbly peripatetic, despite its tons of
weight, if the line run out therefrom were not to be materially altered
for the betterment of the claimant at whose instance the processioning
was held?

And still the chain clanked and writhed its length along the ground,
and the cries "Stick!" "Stuck!" of the chain-bearers alternated as
before, until the sudden call "Out!" resounded, and the surveyor paused
to mark the "out" once more.

XII.

As the surveyor planted his Jacob's staff anew he drew a long sigh of
fatigue, and gazed out discerningly at the weather signs from over a
craggy, jutting precipice at one side, which in its savage bareness
disclosed from the midst of the dense forest a vast expanse of the
tremulous mountain landscape below. The uncertain flicker of the
sunshine was now on the green of the wooded valley, which presently
dulled to the colorless neutrality of the persistent shadow, albeit the
summits of the far horizon line gleamed delicately azure, as if the
tint possessed some luminous quality and glowed inherently blue. To the
right hung masses of vaporous gray; and beneath, fine serried lines
were drawn in myriads against the darker tints of half-seen slopes,
where the rain was falling. Still beyond, a great glamourous sunburst
appeared in the mist, with so rayonnant an effect of the divergent
splendors from its dazzling focus that it might seem a fleeting glimpse
of the actual wheel of the chariot of the sun. It rolled away speedily.
A rainbow barely flaunted its chromatic glories across the sky, and
faded like an illusion, and all the world was gray again; from a dead
bough starkly thrust out of the wooded slopes half way to the valley a
rain crow was calling and calling.

The other men, too, were looking over the valley, so long obscured by
the dense forest trees and still denser undergrowth through which they
had taken their way. It seemed much nearer than when they had last seen
it from the dome, even allowing for the distance they had traversed,
and they noted, with that interest always excited by a familiar scene
from a new standpoint, the aspect of the well-known landmarks, all
changed and strange. Kenniston had drawn near the verge; he stood
sharply outlined against the sky, a field-glass in his hand, which
again and again he brought to bear upon the smouldering black mass on
the cliffs far below that once was the new hotel, only to be located
now by the thinly curling smoke from its ruins. The instrument was
familiar enough to the mountaineers, who had most of them observed its
use during the war; but to a certain type of rustic an affectation of
ignorance is the prettiest of jests.

"Say, mister," Rodolphus Ross adjured him, with a show of eager
anxiety, "air yer contraption strong enough ter view enny insurance on
that thar buildin'?"

The echo caught his laughter and blended it with the rain crow's call.
He was not sensitive himself, and he could not appreciate sensitiveness
in others. The fact that the building had perished in the flames,
without insurance, was well known to the community; and how could it
help or hinder that he should sharpen his wits by a little exercise on
the theme?

Kenniston made no reply, still sweeping the landscape with his glass.
As the surveyor bent to take sight, Kenniston suddenly turned.

"Stop," he said; "you will stop this farce right here. This is a
conspiracy!"

The surveyor, still in his stooping posture, looked at him in amazement.

"Hey?" he exclaimed, as if he did not believe his senses.

"A conspiracy!" Kenniston reiterated.

The surveyor, in the course of his brawny career, had been offered
few insults, and these he had promptly requited with stout blows. But
the sight of a man who has lost reason, temper, and policy together
has sometimes a steadying effect on the spectator. Besides, he was in
the performance of a sworn duty, and, being a faithful and efficient
officer of the county, he had a high ideal of the functions of his
office. He was nettled by Kenniston's self-magnifying attitude, but
it was obviously in order to give him the correct measurements, not
of himself, but of his land, and although he retorted, it was in good
enough temper.

"Conspirin' with the meridian line?" he demanded, with a sneer,
thrusting his quid of tobacco into his leather jaw with a tongue
grown expert by long practice in thus clearing the way for its own
utterances. "Or maybe ye think the points o' the compass have got in a
mutiny against ye?"

Cap'n Lucy came alongside the Jacob's staff, and gave Kenniston a
rallying wink, sly, malicious, sarcastic, and altogether unworthy of
the fine eye that it eclipsed. "Conspirin' with a monimint o' boundary
knowed ez Big Hollow Boulder?" he said.

Luther turned away suddenly, with an accession of hang-dog furtiveness
in his manner, and Kenniston's fury was stemmed for the moment by his
surprise and doubt and bewilderment. Still with choleric color mantling
his face, his eyes bright and wide, his white teeth pressing on the
lip which he was biting visibly despite the thick abundance of beard,
with all the fire eliminated from the angry facial expression that he
yet retained, he stared silently at Captain Lucy, who was scornfully
laughing. The surveyor took advantage of the seeming lucidity of the
interval to seek to rehabilitate pacific relations.

"I can't help _how_ ye expected the line ter run out, Mr.
Kenniston. I'm runnin' it 'cordin' ter the calls an' the compass. Ye
an' Cap'n Tems are here as owners o' the adjoinin' tracts, ter see it
done fur yerselves."

"Not me!" cried Cap'n Lucy. "I ain't looked at yer durned bodkin" (thus
he demeaned the magnetic needle) "sence I kem out. It mought waggle
todes the north pole, like ye sez it do,--'pears onstiddy enough fur
ennything,--or it mought waggle todes the east pole. I ain't keerin'.
It may know the poles whenst it sees 'em,--though I dunno ef that
needle hev got an eye. My main dependence air in that monimint o'
boundary knowed ez the Big Hollow Boulder--corner rock--corner o' the
lines--oh my!--yes!"

The significance of this was hardly to be overlooked.

"See here, Cap'n Lucy," said Kenniston, suddenly dropping his
aggressions even to the unusual point of giving the old man his
accustomed title, "what do you mean by that?"

Cap'n Lucy gave him a broadside of big bright eyes.

"Why, don't you-uns know that monimint o' boundary knowed ez Big Hollow
Boulder--corner mark--been thar so long?"

"Well, what about it?" demanded Kenniston impatiently.

"Why, it's _known_ ez Big Hollow Boulder, 'cordin' ter yer own
notice posted up at the mill," said Cap'n Lucy tantalizingly.

Kenniston still stared, and the surveyor, seeking to cut short a futile
waste of time, bent once more to take sight. "The only way ter git
things settled is ter run out the line 'cordin' ter the calls an' the
compass, an' I'm a-doin' of it fair an' square."

"There is something radically wrong," persisted Kenniston angrily. Then
turning to Cap'n Lucy, he continued vehemently, "I know--and _you_
know--that Wild Duck River is on my land, and doesn't touch yours in
any of its windings; and look there!--Wild Duck Falls!"

He pointed diagonally across a ravine, where, amidst the dusky depths
of green shadows, and close to a gray cloud that came surging through
the valley, a narrow, gleaming, white, feathery mountain cataract, with
an impetus and a motion like the flight of an arrow smartly sped from
the bow, shot down into the gorge.

It transfixed Cap'n Lucy. He stood staring at it, motionless, amazed,
it might seem aghast. For the boundary line that the surveyor was
running according to the compass and calls had thrown within his tract
this mountain torrent, this wayward alien, which he had known for many
a year as the native of the Kenniston woods.

"It makes no difference, gentlemen, what ye hev 'lowed ye owned, an'
what ye didn't," interposed the surveyor: "this boundary line I'm
runnin' out will show ye the exac' extent o' yer possessions." And once
more he bent to take sight.

Then he rose and stalked forward, his Jacob's staff held before him,
his eyes intent and fixed, the links of the chain once more dully
clanking as it writhed through the grass, and the chain-bearers, with
their cabalistic refrain, "Stick!" "Stuck!" bowing down and rising up,
as they ever and again drew it out taut to its extreme length between
them.

The spectators followed on either hand, plunging into the deeper
forest, which, as it interposed before the cliffs, cut off the view
of the wide landscape, that seemed lifted into purer light and more
transparent color by the contrast with the bosky shadows as it
disappeared, and again was vaguely glimpsed between the boles and
hanging branches, and once more vanished, leaving the aspect of the
world the bare breadth of the herder's trail through the laurel.

Two of the men--shaggy of beard and of hair, and shabbier far of
garb than the others--gazed at the proceeding with the eyes of deep
wonderment and reluctant acceptance, as if it were some formula of
necromancy which revolted credulity. They were denizens of a deeply
secluded cove near by, lured hither by the report of the processioning,
and looking for the first time upon the simple paraphernalia of
land-surveying,--the chain, the Jacob's staff, and the compass; even
the surveyor and the chain-bearers were only the verification of wild
rumors that had reached them. They were not unintelligent; they were
only uninformed. The knowledge and experience of the commonplace
process which the others possessed might hardly be considered an
adequate set-off against such fresh and illimitable capacities of
impressionability. Few people can so enjoy a day of sight-seeing as
fell to the share of these denizens of "Painter Flats."

Kenniston lingered for a few minutes, still sweeping with the
field-glass the rugged ravine where Wild Duck Falls gleamed white,
swift, amidst the deep, dusky green shadows: disappearing beneath the
approaching gray cloud as its filmy gauzes expanded and floated into
the larger spaces of the ravine, then piercing its draperies with a
keen, glimmering shaft of white light, and vanishing again as the cloud
thickened and condensed in its passage through the narrowing limits
of the gorge. He turned away at last, the glass still in his hand,
following hard on the steps of the surveyor, marking all the successive
stages of the proceedings with a keen, alert, inimical observation. He
wore a grim, set face, and his manner expressed a sustained abeyance,
watchfulness, and a dangerous readiness.

The landmarks were such as were easily common to any line. When the
deed had called for four hundred and fifteen poles northwest to a white
oak-tree, the chain-bearers had brought up, without a link amiss, at
the gnarled foot of one of a cluster of such trees. A half-obliterated
indentation upon it the surveyor accepted as the specific mark of
identification, although others considered it an old "blaze" indicating
an ancient trail, and Kenniston declared it merely a "cat-face." Again,
the line, diverging, ran due north eight hundred poles to a stake
in the middle of Panther Creek. The chain found the middle easily
enough, though not the stake, which was, of course, in the nature of
things, a temporary mark, and liable to be carried away in a freshet,
or broken down by floating logs or other obstruction. The stream,
however, kept an almost perfectly straight line--barring the slight
sinuous meandering inherent to a natural channel which did not affect
the general direction--for more than a mile through a grassy glade
almost free of undergrowth, purling along under the shadow of the great
trees and rocks. Thus, if the previous markings were correct, this of
necessity depended upon them. The surveyor had a stub driven down, in
place of the missing stake, in the middle of the stream, re-marking the
line according to the law. Once more the chain-bearers, dripping like
spaniels from their excursions into the water, began their series of
genuflections and their ringing outcry, "Stick!" "Stuck!"

All had observed Kenniston curiously during the halt, and the doubt
and discussion as to the missing mark, expectant of some wrathful
demonstration. If he did not coincide with the surveyor's opinion, he
made no sign. In one sense, his demeanor balked them of the amusement
which they had ravenously looked for. He made no protest, which,
reasonable or unreasonable, they would have relished. His attitude,
his face, his words, were constrained to a stern neutrality and
inexpressiveness. He seemed only grimly watchful, waiting. The change
itself afforded food for speculation, an entertainment more subtle
and of keener interest than his previous outbreaks, although less
alluring to the maliciously mirthful spectator. It seemed, however, to
disconcert the surveyor more than active interference and aggression.
Submissiveness is so abnormal a trait in a man of Kenniston's type
that its symptoms indicate a serious moral crisis. Now and again, the
surveyor, pausing to mark the "out," appealed directly to him. To be
sure, the remark was in relation to the weather, for the clouds were
gathering overhead, a slate-tinted canopy, seeming close upon the
summits of the tall trees, till a white lace-like film scudding across
it in contrary currents of the wind served to show, by the force of
comparison, the true distance of the higher vapors. Kenniston had only
monosyllables for reply, and the man of the compass could but mop his
brow, and listen anxiously to the distant rumblings of thunder, and
wish this troublous piece of work well over, and take his bearings
anew. When the call in the deed for a girdled and dead poplar-tree was
found to have no correspondent mark on the face of the earth, being,
as he observed, a mark bound to be obliterated in the course of time,
since the tree was dead when the deed, which was of remote date, was
written, Kenniston's silence had evidently an unnerving effect.

"Why, look here," the surveyor broke out in self-defense at length. "I
ain't got no sort o' interest in the line except to run it according
ter the calls an' the compass. I'll git my fees, whether or no. 'Tain't
nuthin' ter me which gits the most lan', you or Cap'n Tems."

As Kenniston still continued silent, he looked appealingly at Cap'n
Lucy, and, receiving no encouragement, set his teeth, addressed himself
to his work, and communed thenceforward with naught more responsive
than his Jacob's staff.

But what, alack, had befallen Cap'n Lucy? Did ever a gamecock, that
had never so much as felt his adversary's gaff, drop his feathers so
suddenly? He was all at once old, tired, anxious, troubled. He tugged
along at the rear of the party, lagging and flagging as he had never
done on certain forced marches that had seemed a miracle of endurance.
For Cap'n Lucy's frame had been upborne by his spirit in those ordeals,
and now that ethereal valiance had deserted him. For what mystery was
this? The moving of the monument of boundary "known as the Big Hollow
Boulder"--he thought of it thus for the first time without the sneer
of inscrutable offense which the rotund phrasing had occasioned--had,
instead of stripping him of his possessions, resulted in throwing much
land, which he doubted not belonged to his neighbor, within his own
lines. That Kenniston had himself moved the corner landmark or connived
at the commission of this felony, if not otherwise preposterous, was
thus rendered absolutely incredible. But who, then, could have moved
it? When? How? For what unimaginable reason? How strange that he should
have discovered the change! And what mad freak of fate was it that it
should be he, he himself, who should profit by it, acquiring the legal
title to hundreds of acres at Kenniston's expense? Cap'n Lucy was
an honest man, and the thought made him gasp. Had it been possible,
he would at that moment have flung all the Great Smoky Mountains at
Kenniston's feet. No recantation was too bitter, no renunciation was
too complete, rather than be suspected, with any show of reason, as
he had suspected Kenniston. Not that he cared for the groundless
suspicion, but for its justification. This consideration summoned his
tardy policy. He must needs have time to think. Were he bluntly to
declare the corner-stone to have been moved, it might seem to criminate
himself; for albeit the line was running to his advantage here, who
could say how its divergences might affect his possessions lower down
on the mountain? "Windin' an' a-twistin' like the plumb old tarnation
sarpient o' hell!" Cap'n Lucy vigorously described it in a mutter to
his beard.

Moreover, even if the later results were also to his benefit, as it
had been notoriously contrary to his wishes that the land should be
processioned at all, it might seem that moving the boulder had been
his scheme to thus thwart any definite establishment of the line of
boundary,--and this was a felony.

Cap'n Lucy experienced a sudden affection of the spine which seemed
to him abnormal, and, at the moment, possibly fatal, so curious, so
undreamed of heretofore, were its symptoms. A cold chill trembled along
its fibres; responsive cold drops bedewed his forehead. His hand had
lost its normal temperature, and was cold to the touch. For the first
time in all his life Cap'n Lucy's nerves were made acquainted with
the shock of fear. He did not identify it; he could not recognize it.
He was spared this acute mortification. He only felt strangely ill
and undecided and tremulous, and he doubted his survival. He began
to wonder if Kenniston suspected aught. He no longer questioned the
genuineness of his enemy's demeanor earlier in the day, when each
unexpected divergence of the line had seemed by turns to perturb and
to anger him. Cap'n Lucy noted the cessation of the protestations, the
grimly set jaw, the smouldering fire of the eye, the attitude of tense
expectancy and waiting. He wondered if Kenniston were "laying for" him
now as he had been "laying for" Kenniston. He thought of the intention
deferred from "out" to "out" to loudly proclaim his discovery of the
removal of the corner landmark, of his relish of his enemy's fancied
security in outwitting him. He had only given Kenniston a little line,
a little more, as it were, that he might hang himself with it, and now,
forsooth, this noose was at his own service.

He felt a moderate and tempered gratulation that he had not been
precipitate in the matter, that as yet no one knew of his discovery;
but suddenly he remembered his ill-starred confidence to Luther. For
the first time he marked his son's furtive, skulking, downcast manner.

"Like a sheep-killin' dog!" said Cap'n Lucy to himself, in a towering
rage. "What ef he do know it's been moved: did I move it?"

He remembered, too, his reiterated allusions to the perambulatory
boulder, and Kenniston's amazement, which then he had thought
affectation, but which he now believed to be quite genuine. Were they
the exciting cause, so to speak, of that grim air of abeyance and
biding his time?

"The boulder can't be put back," said Cap'n Lucy to himself, suddenly
on the defensive. "Nobody could make out whar it kem from fust, 'kase
it never lef' a trace on the rock; an' a dozen horse couldn't haul it
up sech a steep slope. It mus' hev been blowed down by dam-i-nite."

It was a fine illustration of a moral descent, impossible to be
retraced; but Cap'n Lucy did not think of that. His mind was full of
the complications of his position, the dangers of disclosure, and
the impossibility to him of accepting the boundary line, thus taking
possession of another man's land, even if the owner would compose
himself to sleep upon his rights. Judging from Kenniston's looks, it
was easily to be argued that he would prove very wide awake in this
emergency.

But for the changing weather signs the old man's altered demeanor might
have encountered other notice than Kenniston's keen watchfulness.
Now and again the thunder pealed among the mountain tops, and the
slate-colored cloud had spread until it overhung all the visible world,
when they once more drew so near to the verge of the precipice as to
have glimpses of the densely wooded cove and the circling mountains.
The ranges were all sombre gray or deeply purple, save far away, where
some rift in the clouds admitted a skein of sunbeams suspended in
fibrous effect over a distant slope that was a weird yellowish-green
in this scant illumination which had fallen to its share, rendered
more marked by the dull estate of its dun-tinted and purple compeers.
Nearer at hand, the shadows were deepening momently in the forest.
Once or twice, when the sharp blades of the lightnings cleft them, the
lifeless bronze aisles of the woods sprang into a transient glare of
brilliant green that was hardly less dazzling, and again the thunder
pealed.

Two or three of the mountaineers left the party, evidently with no
mind to be drenched. A man with a hacking cough remained, animated by
that indisposition to self-denial, that avidity of enjoyment, that
determination to seize all which niggard life holds out, characteristic
of a type of consumptive invalids. "'Tain't goin' ter rain," he
declared buoyantly. It might seem that nothing less potent than powder
and lead could wean from the sight of processioning the land the two
denizens of Panther Flats. They patrolled every step that the surveyor
took. Whenever he paused, they came up and stared, fascinated, and at
close quarters, at the Jacob's staff. They counted the chains from
"out" to "out." As one of them observed to the other, he "was just
beginning to get the hang of the thing." He could keep under shelter at
a more convenient season.

A sudden flash that seemed to pierce the very brain, so did it
outdazzle the capacity of vision, a simultaneous deafening detonation,
beneath which the mountains appeared to quake and to cry out with
a terrible voice, while again and again the echoes repeated the
thunderous menace, and then all the air was permeated by a swift
electrical illumination, visibly transient, but so instantly succeeded
by a similar effect that it seemed permanent,--in this weird glare the
surveyor bent once more to take sight.

"Old man sticks ter his contrac' like a sick kitten ter a hot brick!"
cried Rodolphus Ross to one of the chain-bearers.

But the chain-bearers had scant sympathy for the spectators, and
visited upon the company in general their displeasure because of the
reflections upon the "old man's" work, for which Kenniston alone was
responsible.

"Whyn't ye wear yer muzzle, 'Dolphus?" the one addressed retorted
gruffly.

Most of the party had now deserted the spectacle, in deference to a
timely admonition as to the fate of the horses picketed on the "bald,"
and their peculiar susceptibility to the fear of lightning. When the
progress of the surveying again brought its adherents to the verge of
the mountain and an extended outlook over the valley, there remained
only the two men from Panther Flats, Rodolphus Ross, Cap'n Lucy, the
chain-bearers, the surveyor, Luther, and the owner of the tract at
whose instance the processioning was made.

As they looked out over the gray valley, distinct under the sombre sky,
as though only color, and not light, were withdrawn,--Cap'n Lucy's
cabin, the inclosures, the grim black crags beyond, the smouldering
mass of the ruins of the burnt building, even the shanties of the
workmen in the gorge at the foot of the cliffs, all perfectly
distinguishable in their varied interpretation of gray and brown and
blurring unnamed gradations of neutral tones, all overhung by the
storm-cloud definitely and darkly purplish-black, with now and again,
one knew not how, fleeting lurid green reflections,--Kenniston, brisk
and dapper, lightly tapping his spurred boots with his riding-whip,
smiling debonairly, but with a dangerous sarcastic gleam in his fiery
eyes, stepped up to the surveyor. He carried his field-glass in one
hand.

"Now, if you will come a few paces this way,--and you, colonel," in
parenthesis to poor Cap'n Lucy,--"and use your telescope, you are
obliged to see that if you run out the line seventeen hundred poles
to the north, according to the deed, you will go beyond the site of
the hotel. I seem to have built my house on the colonel's land. It was
_your_ house that was destroyed, colonel. Let me beg you to accept
my condolences,--ha, ha, ha!"

A flash brighter than all that had preceded it, and his satiric
laughter was lost in the roll and the reverberation of the thunder.
A sudden darkening overspread the landscape, like a visible
thickening of the clouds; the form of a horse darted along the verge
of the precipice, so swift, so gigantic, defined against the green
suffusions of that purple-black storm-cloud, that it seemed like the
materialization of the hero of some equine fable. A wild cry went up
that the horses had broken loose, and were stampeding through the
woods. A terrible wrenching, riving sound followed another flash,
and they could see a stricken tree on the slope below, in the instant
before the blinding descent of the torrents. The wind rose with a wild,
screaming cry; the forests bent and writhed; no one of the party could
discern his neighbor's face; and, despite the pluck of the surveyor,
the processioning of the Kenniston tract remained unfinished.

XIII.

Cap'n Lucy enjoyed in his own family an immunity from interference,
criticism, and filial insurgency that was truly patriarchal. His word
was law; his every thought was wisdom; all his dealings embodied the
fullest expression of justice. Until his unlucky disclosure to Luther
of his discovery of the strange removal of the Big Hollow Boulder,
and the interpretation he placed upon it, imputing to Kenniston a
crime of such importance, involving consequences so grave, his son had
never entertained a moment's doubt of the sufficiency of his prudence,
the absolute infallibility of his judgment, the integrity of all his
prejudices, notwithstanding his arbitrary temper, his high-handed
methods, and his frequent precipitancy. Such remonstrance as ever was
ventured upon usually emanated from Adelicia, in the interest of her
pacific proclivities; or to sue uncle Lucy's clemency for some object
of his most righteous displeasure; or to prevail upon him to blindly
consider some untoward chance a blessing in disguise. Now and then,
too, she indulged in some solicitude lest the affluence of his courage
should lead him into danger. But to his own children "dad" had always
seemed more than capable of coping with all the forces of nature,
animate and inanimate; and as the day of the processioning of the land
wore on, Julia listened, with her silent smile of sarcastic comment,
to Adelicia's monologue of argument of alternate fears and reassurance
for uncle Lucy's sake. First, lest Mr. Kenniston succeed in unjustly
wresting some of his land from him. "But," she declared buoyantly, "the
surveyor won't let him!" Then, lest a personal collision ensue, to her
bellicose relative's injury. "But uncle Lucy ain't been often tackled;
ennybody kin see he'd hev a mighty free hand in a fight." And again she
was reduced to fear simply that things in general might fall out to the
magnate's dissatisfaction. "But uncle Lucy's been mighty mad a heap o'
times before, an' 'tain't set him back none," she argued blithely. And
so the atmosphere within cleared as the sky without darkened, and the
domestic industries went forward apace.

It was during one of the deceptive withdrawals of the lowering
storm-cloud, revealing great expanses of blue sky, when the sunshine
was a-flicker once more over the landscape, albeit somewhat wan and
tremulous, and a wind had sprung up, faint and short of breath, and
disposed to lulls and sighs, but still setting mists and clouds astir,
that Julia went forth upon an errand some distance up the Cove. It had
chanced that a hen, with the preposterous hopefulness of the species,
had gone to "setting" in the orchard upon an unremunerative assemblage
of fallen apples, in default of more appropriate material; for, in
ignorance of the fowl's intention, Adelicia had fried the last eggs
for breakfast. Her momentary dismay was dispelled by the recollection
that Mrs. Larrabee had promised her a "settin' of special an percise
tur-r-key aigs," and, equipping Julia with a basket, she sent her forth
to claim this pledge.

But in lieu of the hospitable welcome and the eager fulfillment of
the promise, the reminder of which Mrs. Larrabee would have regarded
in the light of a courtesy and a favor, Julia encountered at the door
of the queer little house Henrietta Timson, her snuffbrush, her small
unlighted eyes, her narrow discontented face, and her little brief
authority oppressively in evidence.

"Waal, I do declar'," she said, regarding Julia sourly, when the errand
was made known. "I dunno what Sist' Lar'bee means,"--for Mrs. Timson
was unfailing in the appellation of church-membership, and enjoyed no
closer relation to Mrs. Larrabee. "She done gone off a-pleasurin' an'
a-jauntin', an' lef' me hyar with this whole houseful ter 'tend ter,
an' ter work fur, an' ter feed, an' ter mend, an' the neighbors ter
pervide with aigs--an' tur-r-key aigs at that!"

Julia Tems's experience of life had been crude and scanty and
monotonous. She had lived the successive uneventful years since her
infancy at the little cabin down in the Cove in the humble domestic
routine, without education of any sort, except perchance such as might
be gleaned from the sermon of a stray circuit rider; without the
opportunity of observation; with the simplest, most untutored, most
limited association. It was to be doubted if she knew a score of people
in the world. But this was her first encounter with discourtesy.

She flushed scarlet under the shade of her brown sunbonnet, not with
anger, but with shame: she was ashamed for Mrs. Timson. She hardly
felt the affront to herself at first; the flout at the proprieties
in the abstract nullified for the moment all personal consideration.
She was not conscious of a retrograde movement, for her instinct was
to terminate the interview. She found herself murmuring, "It's jes'
ez well,--jes' ez well," in an apologetic cadence which would have
befitted Mrs. Timson's voice, and moving backward continuously, in her
eager haste to be gone. Rather than prolong the ordeal for a moment she
could with philosophy have beheld every hen that had ever owned the
Tems sway in the grotesque catastrophe of patiently seeking to hatch
apples.

But Henrietta Timson had hardly anticipated routing the invader so
promptly. Noting Julia's eagerness to be gone, she perversely thwarted
it by stepping briskly down out of the door, remembering to put her
hand to her side, with a suffering look and an affected limp.

"I 'lowed ez I hed _hed_ tribulation, but I never seen none sech
ez now. Sist' Lar'bee gone,--tuck one o' my chil'n with her!" She shook
her head with a dolorous accusation that might have become her if
"Sist' Lar'bee" had been a kidnapper, and if the hero of the rickets
had gone for aught but to insure being properly fed and provided for.
"Jasper Lar'bee's disappeared; an' old man Haight I do b'lieve hev gone
deranged,--sets an' cusses the Lost Time mine all day; an' Jerushy's
husband's drunk,--'pears like a rat-hole, ye can't fill him up;
an'--hev ye seen Jasper Lar'bee down yer ways?"

"Not fur a long time," faltered Julia, still retreating a few steps at
intervals down the rocky, ledgy dooryard.

"Waal, I'll tell him ez ye war hyar, an' 'lowed it 'peared like a long
time sence ye seen him," said Mrs. Timson perversely, with the air
of taking a message. "An'"--her small eyes narrowed--"ef I find enny
tur-r-key aigs, I'll let ye know."

She looked with a sour smile after the girl's light figure, for Julia
was now fairly routed.

"I'll let ye know, too," she muttered, "ez we ain't got none o' Mis'
Lar'bee's slack-twisted ways hyar now,--givin' away a settin' of
tur-r-key aigs, I say! Ef I find enny tur-r-key aigs, I'll send 'em
down ter the store ter trade. I be mos' out o' snuff now."

Then she meditated swiftly upon her theory that Mrs. Larrabee had
reasons of her own for all her good works; that they were subtle
investments, as it were, sure of a return in better kind, and
quadrupled in value. She could evolve no view in which the promised
"settin' of tur-r-key aigs" could figure as assets save for a general
conciliatory purpose; and then she remembered that Cap'n Lucy was
a widower. A sneering smile stole over her face, arrested suddenly
by a grave afterthought; if for this reason the family were worth
conciliating for Mrs. Larrabee's sake, surely more for her own. "Lord
knows, I need a house, an' home, an' land, an' horse critters, an'
cows, an' sheep, an' hawgs--he hev jes' two childern, an' them growed,
an' that niece gal could be turned out" (she hastily went over the list
of Cap'n Lucy's earthly gear, omitting only that important possession,
himself)--"a sight more 'n Mis' Lar'bee do, ennyhows."

With a sudden change of heart, she ran to the road, holding her hand
to the level of her eyes to shade them from the glare of the sun; but
look as she might, there was not a flitting vestige to be seen of the
dark brickdust red, the color of the dress which Julia wore. She called
again and again without response. She thought the girl must surely have
heard; then she reassured herself by the reflection that the wind was
blowing a gale, and doubtless the sound of her voice went far afield.

Its shrill pipe might have been easily enough distinguishable to ears
that would heed, although the surges of the wind beat loud on every
rock and slope. Julia took angry note as she went swiftly on and on,
her skirts flying, her bonnet blown back, her heart hot with wrath
against Mrs. Timson, against herself, against Adelicia who had sent her
on so ill starred an errand. Her eyes and her gesture were singularly
like Cap'n Lucy's, as, threading the narrow path above the precipice,
she paused and flung the empty basket into the wilderness below,
and then walked on less swiftly, her tense nerves relaxed by this
ebullition of rage. Like Cap'n Lucy, too, she felt the better for it,
albeit she realized as he never would have done that the basket would
be sorely missed at home. With the riddance she somehow discharged her
mind of the thought of the Larrabee threshold, of her inhospitable
reception there, of the whole ignoble episode. She looked out with a
sort of enjoyment at the muster of the clouds, the gathering of rank
after rank; ever and again her unaffrighted eyes followed the swift
yellow lightnings darting through the gray masses, and she seemed to
be just opposite them as she stood on the verge of the precipice on
the mountain side. Lower down on the wooded slope across the narrow
valley, she could see the track of the wind, which never touched those
silent, vaporous congregations, motionless, or coming with contrary
currents from opposite directions. The trees below bent and sprang
back into place, and she could hear the sibilant shouting of the
leaves. It was like a myriad of shrill tiny voices, but they combined
into a massive chorus. The growths hard by were adding a refrain; the
wind was winning new territory as it came up the mountain. She could
see far away a cloud torn into fringes, and presently the rain was
falling. It was coming nearer and nearer; she would meet it long
before she could reach home. She quickened her steps at the thought.
Sometimes the growths intervened on both sides of the path, and shut
out the observation of the coming storm. Whenever she emerged, she
noted the darkening aspect. More than once the thunder shook the very
mountains. Suddenly, a searching, terrible illumination, the rising
of the tumultuous wind, a frightful succession of peals, brought her
to a pause. She hardly dared to face a storm like this, shelterless,
and the store at the Lost Time mine was close at hand. Nevertheless
she hesitated for a moment. Cap'n Lucy's well-worn jest as to the
"perfessional widower" was hardly so funny to her as to him. She stood,
disconcerted, conscious, averse, in the teeth of the storm, her dress
fluttering, her bonnet tossed back from her shining coiled hair, her
eyes bright and wide and wistful, and the breath almost blown back
from her lips. Then she noted suddenly the portal of the Lost Time
mine. She did not pause to reflect; to dread the long, darkening,
solitary afternoon in its dim recesses; to remember the terrors of
its traditions, and what ghastly presence she might meet, and what
sepulchral voices she might hear, in the awful isolations of the coming
storm, when all the laws that govern the outside world seemed set at
naught; for if ever the supernatural should break bounds, it might be
at a place like this. She ran against the wind as swiftly as she might;
skirted the water on the stones in the channel at the mouth of the
cave, now more deeply submerged than their wont, for the stream was
rising visibly, its underground tributaries already fed by the rains
falling elsewhere; felt with a shiver the chill of the place, as the
high, grim, rough-hewn rocks towered above her head; climbed up on the
inner ledges; and as the first floodlike outbreak of the torrents came
down with a crash of thunder, and a glare of lightning, and a wild
shrieking of swirling winds, she sat down, high and dry, and drew a
breath of relief.

The next instant her heart gave a great plunge, and then seemed to
stand still. She was not alone. A man in a further recess appeared
suddenly, approaching cautiously. He evidently had not seen her. Her
entrance into the place had preceded his appearance only by a few
seconds. He was watching the rain with intense interest. She would have
said that he had been apprised of it by the rise of the water within.
He bestowed an eager, careful, calculating scrutiny upon the stream
below the high shadowy point where he stood; then he looked toward
the portal where the descending sheets of rain cut off all glimpse of
the world without. He was turning away, with the furtive, skulking,
cautious air that had characterized his approach, when his eyes fell
upon her. He dropped out of sight as if he had been shot.

She sat there, silent, trembling, her eyes fixed upon the spot where
he had disappeared, her heart beating wildly. She heard the flow of
the stream below, its volume and momentum continually increasing, and
the foaming turmoil where the currents met the dash of the rain at the
outlet of the mine; now and again she was conscious that lightning
flashed through the gray and white descending torrents without, and lit
up this dreary subterranean recess with its uncanny glare for a space,
till distance annulled its power, and she heard the thunder roar. But
she did not withdraw her eyes, and she wondered if he had known her in
that short moment as she had recognized him. For it was Jack Espey.

It seemed so long while she sat there, waiting for some sign, or token,
or further intimation, that she might have thought the apparition
a mere illusion, had she ever heard enough of the tricks of the
imagination to learn to doubt her senses. She was trembling still,
although her voice was calm enough as at last she called his name.

"Jack Espey!" the echoes cried out, as promptly as if it were a
familiar sound and long ago conned. They fell to silence gradually. She
did not call again, but, with her slow and composed manner, she waited
for him to answer.

When he finally approached, apparently ascending an incline from depths
below, he met her intent gaze fixed upon him; but she seemed to him as
impassive and as unmoved of aspect as if this were a daily occurrence
in her life.

"I war in hopes ye didn't know me, Julia," he said, dully sad, as he
came up near her.

He stood leaning his elbow on one of the shelves of rock, looking up
at her, mechanically shielding himself behind the jagged ledges from
observation without, although it might seem naught could stand in the
storm that raged beyond.

His plight was forlorn. His clothes were worn and torn, and miry with
clay; it adhered in flakes and smears to his long boots, incongruously
spurred. His face was lined and white. His hat was pushed far back on
his black hair, as of yore, and his long-lashed grayish-blue eyes had
an appealing look which she had not seen before.

"What fur ye wished I wouldn't know ye?"

He looked hard at her. "'Kase it's dangersome. I'm a man hunted fur my
life, I reckon. It's dangersome fur me, an' fur ye too, ter know I be
hyar."

"It's jes' ez well I ain't one of the skeery kind, then," said Julia
hardily. "I be powerful glad I seen ye hyar."

She seemed curiously unfamiliar to him in some sort. So alert had his
faculties become in the suspense of jeopardy that this slight point
perturbed him, until he bethought himself that he had hitherto heard
her speak so seldom, and had observed her so little, that the very
inflections of her voice were strange. It was of a different timbre
from Adelicia's. It did not vibrate. It had a conclusive, flutelike
quality, without a trailing sequence of resonance.

"Waal, I 'lowed ez mos' ennybody mought be sorry ter see me in sech a
fix as this," he said dolorously.

The deliberate, impassive Julia was almost in haste to avert this
apparent misconstruction. "Oh, I war glad ter view ye, 'kase a heap o'
folks 'lowed ye couldn't hev got away 'thout yer horse, him bein' kilt,
an' ez ye war a-lyin' in the laurel somewhar, dead, yit."

She turned her head, and looked steadily at him. Her deep, dark,
translucent eyes were full of shoaling lights of variant blue, like
the heart of some great sapphire. The long, curling lashes flung a
fibrous shadow on her cheek; its texture, as the light fell upon it,
was so fine, so soft, its tints so fair, its curve so delicate. Her
lips, chiseled like some triumph of ideal beauty, but that no sculpture
could express their mobile sweetness, parted suddenly in her rare and
brilliant smile.

Many a man, under its glamours, might have taken heart of grace to be
glad that he was alive; but Espey's face hardened.

"'T would be jes' ez well, jes' ez well, lying dead in the laur'l,"
he said bitterly. Then, with an afterthought, "Let them folks stay
'feared. They won't spile thar health quakin' an' shudderin' 'bout
me," he added cynically. As he marked her expression change, her smile
vanish, he realized the necessity to please, to propitiate. He knew
her so slightly; his temper must not be too savage and surly with so
complete a stranger, and perhaps earn her antagonism, especially since
he and his refuge were at her mercy.

"Course," he went on, with a clumsy effort at amends, "I don't mean
Ad'licia. Ye knowed we-uns war keepin' comp'ny?"

She nodded gravely.

"I know Ad'licia hev quaked an' shuddered 'bout me a heap mo' 'n I be
wuth," he added.

Was the day darker outside, or how was quenched that subtle brightness
of aspect that had made the girl's face radiant? It was beautiful
still, that statuesque contour, but as chill and unresponsive as if
indeed its every line had been wrought with a chisel. The smooth
hair, with its sheen of silken fineness, caught the light on its
coiled and plaited chestnut-tinted strands. One hand rested on her
brown sunbonnet, laid on the ledge of the gray rock, and she leaned
her weight upon it. Her head and her fair complexion--so fair that it
transmitted to the surface an outline of the blue veins in her temple
and throat, and even her eyelids--and the roseate fluctuations in her
cheek were very distinct against the yellow clay of the bank of earth
behind her. Her little rough low-quarter shoes and the brown stockings
showed a trifle beneath the skirt of the brick-dust-colored homespun
dress she wore, as they were placed on a boulder that stood out of the
tawny rushing stream below.

He noted the change. He could not account for it other than as a
vicarious resentment.

"I ain't faultin' Ad'licia," he said, more emphatically. "She war
tormented powerful 'bout me, warn't she?"

"A-fust," said Julia veraciously. Her voice was as inexpressive as her
eyes. "But Ad'licia is one ez always hopes fur the best."

He drew back with a sudden recoil. "Waal, now, by the Lord!" he cried
furiously, "she's welcome ter her hope! Settin' thar in the house,
warm, an' dry, an' fed, an' clean,"--he looked down with a sort of
repulsion upon his miry garments,--"a-hopin' fur the bes', an' makin'
herself mighty comfort'ble an' contented, an' _me_ hyar, freezin'
in this cold hole, an' mighty nigh starvin', in rags an' mis'ry, an'
sick, an' sorry, an' lonesome enough ter die, an' shet out o' the
light! My God, ef I warn't 'feared o' my life, I'd let the off'cer take
me! The State hain't got no sech term o' imprisonment ez this!"

Julia was leaning forward, each line of her impassive face replete with
meaning, reflecting his every sentiment, but with the complement of
sympathy and acquiescence and responsive anger in his anger.

He turned suddenly, lifting his arm with a scornful gesture toward
the low vault with its dank, earthy odor, the ledges of barren,
inhospitable rock, the cold stream rushing forth from the darkness
within, seen in an appalling blackness adown the tunnel, against which
his white-lined face looked whiter, his form taller in his closely
belted garb and with his long boots drawn up to the knees. He waved his
arm as if to include it all. "An' Ad'licia,--she hopes for the bes'."

He broke out into a harsh laugh, which the echoes repeated so
promptly, and with apparently so malignant an intent, that he checked
it hastily, and the sound died on his colorless lips; but far down the
black tunnel something uncanny seemed to fall to laughing suddenly, and
as suddenly to break off; and again a further voice still was lifted in
weird mirth, and the laughter failed midway.

He waited for silence, and then he leaned against a higher ledge near
which she was sitting, and, resting his elbow on it, looked at her once
more, wondering how he might best revert to his object of propitiation.
He was remembering that Adelicia had told him how prone was Julia to
notice slights, and how quick to take offense. He felt hardly equal
to the effort of repairing the damage of his outbreak against her
relative, so spent was his scanty strength by the violence of his anger
and his agitation. He could only look at her silently, more forlorn,
more pallid, more appealing, than before.

"I oughtn't ter think hard o' Ad'licia," he said at last. "Nobody else
would, I know. Would they?" he added.

For, with Julia's silent habit, conversation was somewhat difficult
without a direct appeal. It was a direct appeal. She liked to remember
that afterward.

"Waal," she said, slowly and judicially, as if weighing matters
submitted for arbitrament, "I 'low Ad'licia treated ye right mean, fust
an' las'."

"Why?" he rejoined, in genuine interest, his face resuming its normal
expression before flight and hardship and darkness and loneliness and
fear and privation had so marked it.

"'Kase," she went on in that soft, unfamiliar voice that the echoes
seemed hardly to follow, so complete, so indivisible, was every
flutelike tone, "she oughter married ye whenst ye axed her--ef she
liked ye."

A faint surprise was dawning in his eyes.

"Cap'n Lucy wouldn't gin his cornsent," he said succinctly.

"I reckon he 'lowed 't war his jewty ter say no. But ef Ad'licia hed
married ye ennyhows, do ye reckon dad would hev let that leetle fice
o' the law, 'Dolphus Ross, jail _his_ nephew-in-law 'kase a man
he fought in Tanglefoot Cove _mought_ die ef he didn't hev the
industry ter git well? Naw, sir: ye'd hev hed dad an' Luther fur
backers, an' they air toler'ble stiff backers, fur enny man. Dad would
hev fixed a way out'n it fur ye, fur sure, count o' Ad'licia. She war a
turr'ble fool not ter marry ye, an' I tole her so."

The surprise, the doubt, and at last the conviction successively
expressed in Espey's face might have been easily discriminated by one
skilled in reading the human physiognomy. But Julia possessed no such
craft, and when he spoke she appreciated no change in his manner,
albeit it was not guarded; for he did not conceive it necessary to
closely screen the discovery of a secret of which he perceived that
Julia was herself unconscious.

"Julia," he said appealingly, "ye see how I be hunted an' harried, an'
nobody keers fur me. Jes' let the folks shudder an' quake fur a while
longer 'thout knowin' what's kem o' me. Don't tell nobody ez ye hev
seen me hyar."

She was gazing out at the steely lines of the rain curtain, so dense as
to be like a veritable fabric, as it swayed in the wind at the rugged
mouth of the mine, and its foaming white fringes that seemed to trail
upon the brown water where the continuous downfall splashed into its
currents. The peculiarly clear, colorless light of a gray day, which,
in its adequacy for all the purposes of mere vision, would seem to
point the munificence and splendid lavishness of the sun's bestowals
in the interests of beauty and growths and the gladdening of the heart
of man, was upon her face, which responded with a sort of subdued
glister like marble. Her eyes and the shadowy long black lashes were
meditatively downcast. She was evidently reviewing the course of action
which she had just sketched for him, for Adelicia, for Cap'n Lucy. He
did not hold her undivided attention, and he realized that it was only
a mechanical assent as she nodded, her face still reflective, absorbed.

"Not even Cap'n Lucy," he urged eagerly. "Not Jasper Lar'bee"--He
paused suddenly.

The word seemed to arrest, to enchain, her elusive attention. The
delicate roseate tints of her fair complexion deepened from throat
to brow; her cheek was vividly red. She was remembering the Larrabee
threshold, the greeting she had encountered there, the grotesque
indignity of Henrietta Timson's affronts. But hers was a reticent
habit, and she had a reserved nature. She only said, conclusively,
slowly, "Ye may be sure I won't tell Jasper Lar'bee."

Somehow Espey felt a sense of loss; and he had so little to lose,
poor fellow, that albeit her affection was unsought, uncared for,
unsuspected till a moment ago, the doubt of it afflicted him as if his
heart were cruelly rifled. That flush at Larrabee's name! To him it
was conclusive. He had no other indication by which to judge. He had
mistaken her sympathy, her idle talk; she was wont to talk so seldom
that it was not surprising that he hardly knew how to take her words;
he knew so little of her and her mental processes. She cared for
Larrabee, not for him. Nobody cared for him. And Adelicia was hoping
for the best.

"This be a mighty pore shelter an' home an' hope," he said, grimly
looking about him. "I hed prayed I mought crope inter a hole ter hide
or die, like a hunted fox or bar or painter be 'lowed ter do sometimes.
That didn't 'pear ter me much fur a man ter ax of the Lord."

He stood off from the rock for an instant, his big white wool hat in
one hand, the other in his leather belt where that formidable array of
weapons still gleamed. His head was thrown back from the loose collar
of his blue-checked shirt; his straight hair was tossed from his brow;
his gray eyes, scornfully bitter, surveyed the dripping walls,--so
dark that in the recesses here and there clusters of bats hung head
downward, dimly descried, awaiting the night,--the rugged obtrusion
of rock through the clay, the chill, chill flowing of the brown
water in the channel below, as ceaseless, as cold, as heedless, as
relentless, as in the days of yore when it broke its allotted bounds,
rose into alien hewn-out caverns, and flooded the mine, wrecking the
humble industry of man, wresting away with its grasping currents two
struggling human lives, and carrying not even a gruesome memory or
token of its deeds upon its sleek waves out into the sunshine, and the
free air, and the genial warmth of the upper world.

"'Tain't much I hev axed,--this hole ter starve an' die in,--but mebbe
it's too much!" Then, turning, with an eye alight, and a furious flush
that made him look all at once well and strong and alert and reckless
again, "But tell whar I be hid out--tell--tell who ye want! Tell
ennybody--everybody! Cap'n Lucy! the sher'ff! Taft! Jasper Lar'bee!"

And what miracle was this! The silent, impassive, reserved, reticent
Julia fixed her eyes upon him for a moment, amazed, troubled, and then,
as she suddenly comprehended, full of a keen but tender reproach. And
until that moment he had not known how beautiful those much-vaunted
eyes could be. The next they were full of tears, and Julia, leaning
back against the wall behind her, had burst into sobs.

"Tell! Why, Jack Espey, how kin ye think I could be made to tell whar
ye be hid out?" She turned her head to look at him again with hurt and
indignant amazement. "I'd die first! Powder an' lead"--she hesitated
for hyperbole that might express this impossibility--"all the powder
and lead the men shot away in the war times couldn't git a word from me
o' what I hev fund out this evenin'!"

"I know it!" he protested, coming up close to her, as she sat on the
ledge. "I oughtn't ter hev said that, but ye see, Julia, I feel so
s'picious, sometimes; I be so hunted an' harried, an' nobody keers fur
me or whar I be--'ceptin' the sher'ff." He lifted his eyebrows, with a
fleering laugh at his own forlorn estate.

"I keer," said Julia stoutly. "I won't tell nobody whar ye be hid
out,--not even dad, nor Luther, nor nobody, 'ceptin' Ad'licia."

He gasped in haste for utterance. He caught at her hand as if he were
drowning,--as if she might be gone before he could stay her for a word.

"Not Ad'licia! Oh my Lord, no! Jes' leave her a-hopin' fur the bes'!"
He had hardly realized how deeply he had resented Adelicia's optimistic
resignation to his fate. His sarcastic laugh was broken off halfway in
his eager resumption of his argument. "Ad'licia mought feel obligated
ter tell Cap'n Lucy, an' 'bide by his word. With her a-hopin' fur
the bes', an' Cap'n Lucy's foolin' long o' his jewty ter his orphin
niece, I'll git the sher'ff's bracelets locked round my wrists; an'
the jail ain't ez sightly a place ez this beautisome spot. I be a man
fur myself, an' I can't ondertake ter cut out all my cloth with Cap'n
Lucy's scissors. Ad'licia's contented. Leff her be! She'll hope fur the
bes' with a twenty horse power."

He did not remember Mrs. Larrabee's astute remark in the advice she
had given him to the effect that "perlitin' round the t'other gal
wouldn't go so hard with him," if she were really a "gyardin lily" for
beauty. He only felt vaguely that he had not heretofore appreciated the
radiance of the face that Julia bent upon him; he did not understand
that it was the moment, the unrealized thought, which so embellished
it, as she said cogitatingly, "Naw, 't won't do ter tell Ad'licia. I
won't tell her."

"See ter it that ye don't," he sternly urged her. And once more he
was impressed with the idea that he really had not before known how
singularly beautiful she was.

"Ye see, Julia," he said, lowering his voice confidentially, "I can't
git away, 'kase I got no horse; an' ef I hed one, I hev got no money,
an' I'd jes' be tuk somewhar, now that the folks hev got sot onto
the trail of me. So I 'lowed I'd hide hyarabout till I git news from
Tanglefoot ez that man hev got better. Ye see I be hopin' fur the bes',
too," he added, with a pathetic smile. "It's all I kin do."

"How do ye git suthin' ter eat?" she asked suddenly.

Espey looked embarrassed. "Oh, I makes out," he said evasively. "I gits
out at night sometimes."

She assumed that he hunted or trapped at night for provisions. He noted
that she did not argue nor contend, as Adelicia was wont to do. She
accepted his arrangements as intrinsically the best.

"I could fetch ye suthin' wunst in a while," she suggested.

He looked aghast at the idea.

"Don't ye do that, Julia," he said warningly. "It mought git ye or
Cap'n Lucy liable ter the law. Don't ye do it. I'll make out somehows."
Then seeing her reluctance, "Ef I need ennything, or want ter git
communication with folks outside, I'll let ye know. I'll--I'll put this
hyar pipe in a nick in them rocks, jes' west, clost inter the freestone
spring nigh yer dad's house."

She listened, breathless, and beamed with delight at the feasibility of
this plan.

"An' whenever I pass hyar," she said, with wide, illumined eyes and a
flickering flush of excitement,--"an' I'll kem frequent,--I'll drap
wild flowers in the road. An' ye will see 'em, an' know I hev been by
an' been a-studyin' 'bout you-uns. An' that will be plumb comp'ny fur
ye."

"'Twill that!" he cried. His eyes were soft and bright and dewy.
Somehow it seemed to bind him--that chain of flowers--to the fair world
without, which had been slipping away, away forever.

He turned, and looked out toward the rocky egress of the cave as if he
almost expected to see already a cardinal flower flaming in the sun on
the gray rock.

There was no sun. The rain fell, dense still,--dense enough, doubtless,
to preclude all observation from without; but from among the shadows
within his practiced eyes descried through the shifting, shimmering
veil, now white and gray in shoaling effects, all blown aslant by the
wind, a canvas-covered wagon lumbering by, albeit for the rush of the
stream and the fall of the torrent she could not hear the slow creak of
its wheels. His heart was a-flutter, although he knew that the danger
of observation was past, as the swaying white hood had disappeared.

"That's 'Renzo Taft," he remarked. "He's gittin' back late from the
cross-roads. I reckon the storm cotch him an' kep' him."

He hesitated. Then, with a sort of falter of humiliation, "I reckon I'd
better go back ter my hidin' place, Julia. The rain's slackening so
somebody passin' mought view me. Ye jes' set hyar right quiet an' wait
fur the rain ter hold up."

He turned away; then looked back over his shoulder.

"Good-by," he said.

The girl's luminous eyes dwelt smilingly upon him.

"Good-by," she answered softly.

He took his way along the ledges above the treacherous stream to that
blacker recess where the way deflected and the light failed; he turned
once more.

"I'll be a-watchin' fur them flowers," he said.

Her smile itself was like a bloom; he, unaware, treasured the
recollection. He seemed to reflect it in some sort. He was smiling
himself, as he went down into those sunless depths.

He could not forbear partly retracing his way once, and looking at
her as she sat, quite still, gazing out with her eyes of summer and
sunshine upon the rain, and the dreary, sad, tear-stained aspect of the
world without, whence sounded the sobbing of the troubled wind.

When he came yet another time, the rain had ceased, and she was gone.

XIV.

Lorenzo Taft's arrival at his home, that afternoon, might have seemed
to the casual observer an event of the simplest significance. It is
true, a country trader, on his return from a bout of barter at that
emporium the cross-roads store, seldom casts about him so vigilant
an eye, or sustains so controlled and weighty a manner, or wears a
countenance of such discernment, its alert sagacity hardly at variance
with certain predatory suggestions,--on the contrary, finding in them
its complement of expression. But these points might only have argued
ill for the profits of the bargainer with whom he had dealt. As the
great lumbering canvas-hooded wagon came to a halt in the space beneath
the loft of the log barn, under partial shelter, at least, and he
began to unharness and turn out the two mules, the anxious glances
he cast toward the house might have betokened impatient expectation
of assistance in unloading the ponderous vehicle, and carrying into
the store the cumbrous additions to its stock represented in saddles,
cutlery, sugar, bolts of calico, stacks of hats,--the integrity of
all more or less endangered by the weather. But no one emerged from
the house, and after feeding the mules he turned hastily, took his
way in great strides through the rain across the yard, which was half
submerged in puddles and running water, and unlocked the door. As he
entered, big, burly, and dripping with rain, prophetically at odds
with the falling out of the yet unknown events, he gazed about the dim
interior with a dissatisfied, questioning eye. All was much as usual,
save dimmer and drearier for the storm without. Here the unseen rain
asserted its presence by the fusillade on the roof and the plashing
from the eaves. The wind rushed furiously in recurrent blasts against
the windowless walls. Since the denizens within could not mark how it
bent the greatest tree, they might thus judge of its force, and quake
beneath its tempestuous buffets. Now and again the writhen boughs of
the elm just outside beat as in frantic appeal on the clapboards of
the roof. The chimney piped a tuneless, fifelike note, and occasional
drops fell a-sputteriug into the dull blaze of the fire. Cornelia Taft
herself was dull and spiritless of mien, as she sat on a low stool
on the hearth knitting a blue yarn stocking. The room, lurking in a
state of semi-obscurity, seemed the dreariest possible expression of
a dwelling; only as the fitful blaze flared and fell were distortions
of its simple furniture distinguishable,--the table with its blue
ware, the bed and its gaudy quilt, the spinning-wheel, and the old
warping-bars, where now merely skeins of cobwebs were wont to hang from
peg to peg, since Cornelia Taft's precocity did not extend to weaving.
A black cat sat blinking her yellow eyes before the fire. She had so
conversational an aspect that it might seem that Taft had interrupted
some conference,--of a dismal nature, doubtless, for there were traces
of recent tears on the little girl's face, and a most depressed
expression.

"Whar's Copley? Whar's yer uncle Cop?" he demanded, looking hastily
about the shadowy place.

She paused to roll up her work methodically, and thrust the
knitting-needles through the ball of yarn.

"He ain't hyar," she said, lifting reproachful eyes; "an' he ain't been
hyar since ye been gone."

He stared down at her in silent surprise.

"Ye jes' went off an' lef' me an' Joe hyar by ourse'fs, an' we been
mos' skeered ter death," she added, with a sob.

A sudden apprehension crossed Taft's face.

"I lef Cop hyar. Ain't he been in ter git his vittles?"

She shook her head.

"Did ye call him in the store?"

She nodded.

"Mebbe he war in the barn."

"I blowed the hawn fur him; he ain't eat a mite sence ye been gone."

Taft turned hastily toward the door, his florid face paling. Then he
turned back. "Whar's Joe?"

"He hev runned away!" cried Sis, with a burst of sobs. "Las' night
we-uns hearn sech a cur'ous hurrah--somewhar--I dunno--sech cur'ous
talk an' hollerin' 'way down in the groun'--an'--an'--diggin'--an'"--

He had paused, looking amazed at her. Then his face changed, with a
sort of aghast certainty upon it. "Jes' some boys diggin' in the Lost
Time mine," he urged, however, plausibly.

"But--but"--she protested--"Joe, _he_ say, they--they
air--_dead_."

She looked at him, hoping for some sufficient adult denial of this
terrible fantasy; but his face betokened only its confirmation, and she
fell to shivering and sobbing afresh.

"Whenst it got so turrible in the middle o' the night, Joe, he looked
out'n the winder upsteers, an' the moon hed riz. An' he clomb down by
the tree. He 'lowed he wouldn't bide no mo' an' listen. So he jes' skun
the cat out'n the winder. He war 'feared."

And once more she covered her face with her hands and wept.
Nevertheless, between her fingers, as the tears trickled down them, she
furtively surveyed him.

"Wunst," she said tentatively, "I 'lowed 'twar revenuers. An' then I
wisht 'twar. I hed ruther hev hearn _them_ 'n--'n--dead ones."

His countenance did not change a muscle.

She was now alarmed by her own temerity. In the long ordeal of solitude
and fright she had lost control of her small nerves, or she would not
have overstepped her habitual caution so far. "Revenuers arter what?"
he demanded. His incidental, unconcerned manner reassured her.

"Arter the 'wild-cat,' I reckon," she hazarded.

He affected to consider the suggestion.

"Some boys _mought_ be talkin' 'bout startin' a still down thar
in the Lost Time mine. I'll roust 'em out mighty quick, ef they do! Ef
thar's enny whiskey sold round hyar, I'm countin' on doin' it out'n my
store, sure. I got a license ter sell."

She looked at him narrowly, suspiciously, hardly more credulous than he
himself.

"I won't hev _my_ profits sp'iled. Whiskey's the best trade I
got," he added, as he turned about. "Waal, I 'lowed Copley would be in
hyar ter holp me tote the truck in; but, howsever, set a rock afore the
door ter hold it open, Sis, whilst I make a start, ennyhow."

His show of industry as he toiled across the rainy yard, now with a
keg, now with a box, on his shoulder, of anxiety for the safety of
his goods, his sedulous care in displaying them to the best advantage
on the shelves to lure customers, might have deceived a wiser head
than Cornelia Taft's. Her long-cherished suspicions were gradually
dispelled, as she ran hither and thither, carrying the lighter packages
in her arms, eagerly helping to bestow them, making place for them when
she could do no more. It was not until she had gone back briskly to her
task of preparing an early supper that he ventured to descend from the
store to the room below, and take his way along the dark tunnel to the
still in the recess of the mine. He paused surprised at the disordered
and careless disarray about the entrance to the tunnel: some of the
boards of the partition were on the ground, others aslant, none as
they were habitually adjusted. With a steady hand he rectified this,
and went forward forthwith, his lantern swinging in his grasp. Once he
paused to listen: no voice, no stir; only the heavy windless silence.
As he progressed, the faint tinkling of the running water smote his
ear, and presently he had crossed it. No sound came from about the
still; there was no suffusion of red light on the terra-cotta walls
that sometimes glowed at the terminus of the tunnel when the furnace
door stood open. He could hardly be said to have had a premonition. He
was prepared for disaster by the previous events; but he could scarcely
realize its magnitude, its conclusiveness, when the timid flare of
the lantern illumined the dreary walls of the moonshiners' haunt, the
dead cold furnace, the tubs of mash,--on the margin of one of which a
rat was boldly feeding, scarcely pausing to look around with furtive,
sinister bright eyes,--and his two lieutenants, whom he had left to
guard Larrabee, bound and gagged upon the floor.

The craft which characterized Lorenzo Taft was hardly predicable of
so massive an organization. It was an endowment of foxlike ingenuity,
sinuous, lithe, suggestive of darting swiftness and of doubled tracks.
The expression of blunt dismay on his big jowl dropping visibly beneath
his broad yellow beard, the widening stare in his round blue eyes as
he gazed about the dismal place, his heavy, lumbering motion as he
carefully set the lantern down upon the cold masonry of the fireless
furnace, gave no intimation of the speed with which his mind had
canvassed the situation, accepted the inevitable, and fixed upon his
future course. It was hardly a moment before he was on one knee beside
the prostrate form of the elder moonshiner, and had drawn from over his
head the grain sack that had served both to obscure his countenance
and more completely secure his gag. The glimmer of the lantern, like
a slow rill of light trickling feebly through the darkness, illumined
the expression of eager appeal in the haggard, wild face and eyes of
Copley. An instant longer was too long to wait, yet wait he must!
Taft jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the other prostrate form,
convulsed now in a frenzied effort to attract the attention of the
new-comer, whose footsteps had brought the only hope of speedy
deliverence.

"Drunk agin?" he asked, in a low voice.

Copley made shift to nod his head affirmatively. Then again that
frantic plea for release illumined his eyes and contorted his anxious
features.

Taft, regardless, rose, with the swinging motion which was
characteristic of him, and, with the lantern swaying in his hand, made
his way to the opposite side of the furnace, where the young drunkard
lay--very sober now, in good truth--cramped in every hard-bound limb,
racked with the tortures of thirst, and half famished. Taft had partly
unbound the ropes from about the furnace and cut them in twain, thus
dissevering the companions in misery; he swiftly knotted those that
held the elder moonshiner, while the ends of Dan Sykes's bonds lay
loose along the floor.

"Why, Dan," he cried roughly, "what sort'n caper is this?"

The prostrate young fellow made an effort to rise, so strong that the
already loosened cords relaxed; and as Taft emphasized his demand by a
sharp kick in the ribs, and an urgent exhortation to the young sot to
"quit this damned fooling," the sack which Sykes had worn some twenty
hours as hood and gag, and which, since his wakening from his long
drunken sleep, he had strained in every fibre by his mad lurches of
fright and efforts for freedom, rolled off, his pinioned arms were at
liberty, and it seemed he had naught to do but to sit up and untie his
craftily bound feet and legs.

"Ye demented gopher!" cried Taft angrily, as Sykes sat up stupidly,
blinking in the gleam of the lantern. "What ails ye? Drunk agin?"

If his bursting skull were admissible testimony,--but he shook his head
stoutly in pious negation. Taft kicked him once more in the side with a
scornful boot.

"Then the worse fool you-uns! Look-a-hyar!" he cried furiously, as he
caught the young man by the collar and pulled him to his staggering
feet, cutting with one or two quick passes with the knife the ropes
about his legs. "Look-a-hyar, ye gallus-bird, what ye hev done in yer
drunken tantrums! Murder! murder! or mighty nigh it!"

He swung the lantern round, so that its flickering gleams might rest
on the figure of Copley, whose genuine bonds so closely resembled the
plight which Sykes had thought his own. His bloodshot eyes distended,
as he groped bending toward it in the darkness.

"Who's that? Lar'bee?" he said.

"Lar'bee!" exclaimed Taft scornfully. "Lar'bee's been out'n the still
ever since yestiddy evenin'."

It was Sykes's drunken recollection that Larrabee was here when Taft
departed; but alack! in a cranium which is occupied by a headache
of such magnitude, memory has scarce a corner to be reckoned on.
Nevertheless he blurted out:--

"Ye tole me ter watch him,"--he set his teeth in a sort of snarl,
and glanced up under his eyebrows with a leer still slightly
spirituous,--"ter gyard him like, a dog. 'Hold fast!' ye said, 'hold
fast!'"

Taft suddenly shifted the lantern, to throw its full glare upon his own
serious, grim, threatening face as he loomed up in the shadows.

"Sykes," he said, "this is a bad business fur you, an' ye'll swing fur
it, I'm a-thinkin'. Nobody never set sech a besotted cur ez ye ter
watch nobody. I let Lar'bee out myse'f. Ye an' Copley war lef' hyar
ter keep sober an' run the still; an' what do ye do? Ye murder him!"

As he lowered his big, booming, dramatic voice, the young fellow's
blood ran cold.

"Ye murder him, an' tie him up like that, an' then do yerse'f up sorter
fancy with bags an' a rope. Ye'll hev closer dealin's with a rope yit;
I kin spy out that in the day that's kemin'." His eyes gleamed with a
sinister smile.

Sykes's knees shook.

"Oh, my Lord!" he exclaimed wildly. "Air--air he dead? 'Twarn't me! God
A'mighty knows 'twarn't me!" The ready tears rushed to his eyes. "'Twar
Lar'bee! 'Twar Lar'bee!"

"Shucks!" Taft turned wearily away. "Ain't I tole ye I seen Lar'bee
set out 'fore I did? Blackenin' Lar'bee won't save ye, Dan!
_Drink--drink!_ I tole ye drink would ruinate ye; always brings
a man to a bad e-end. Pity ye hed n't put some water in the jug
beforehand, stiddier all them tears in the dregs o' yer spree." He
shook his head. "So it is! So it is!"

"Oh, is he dead,--air ye sure he is dead?" cried the young fellow in a
heart-rending voice of appeal, flinging himself upon his knees beside
the still, stark, motionless form of the elder moonshiner.

Taft swung the lantern slightly, and its lurid gleams played over
the haggard, cadaverous face, ghastly with fatigue and the pallor of
anxiety.

The boy drew back, with a shudder of repulsion. "Oh, I never went ter
do it! I never went ter do it! I war drunk! crazy drunk! devil drunk!
Oh"--

"They say," Taft interrupted suddenly,--"leastwise the lawyers do,--ez
a man bein' drunk in c'mittin' a crime ought n't ter influence a
jury,--the law makes no allowance; but," with an encouraging nod, "they
say, too, ez it _do_ influence the jury _every time_. An' the
court can't holp it. The jury _will_ allow suthin' fur a man bein'
drunk."

The white face of the boy, imposed against the darkness with all the
contour of youth, had hardly a characteristic that was not expressive
of age, so pinched, so lined, so drawn, so bloodless, was every
sharpened feature. The natural horror of his supposed deed, his
simple, superficial repentance of the involuntary crime, were suddenly
expunged; his whole being was controlled by a single impulse; a passion
of fear possessed him. Jury, crime, lawyer,--these words looking to
a legal arraignment first brought to his horror-stricken mind the
idea of a responsibility other than moral for his deed. What slight
independence of thought he had, what poor capacity for sifting and
judging and weighing the probabilities his easily influenced mind might
have exerted as he more and more recovered from his recent inebriation,
became nullified upon the instant. He did not look once again back to
the past, but to the future, wild, quaking, frenzied, as Taft elected
to foretell the event.

"That's why," Taft coolly said, nodding sagely, and inclining his head
toward the breathless, frantic, almost petrified creature, "I'd leave
it ter men."

Sykes recoiled, with a shudder.

"Yes," reiterated Taft, weightily and slowly. "The jury would take yer
drunk inter account; an' on the witness-stand I'd testify ez ye war gin
over ter the failin'."

The young fellow's gray, stony face did not change as Taft ceased to
speak. Taft felt its fixed look upon him as he stood, his head bent,
and his big hat thrust back on his yellow hair; one hand was laid
meditatively on his long beard, as he gazed down on the prostrate
figure of Copley; with the other hand he held the lantern, whose spare
white glimmers of light thrown out into the surrounding obscurity
seemed very meagre in the darksome place, which was never cheerful at
best, but without the roar and heat of the furnace, the keen, brilliant
glinting from the crevice of the door when closed or the red, suffusive
flare when it was swung ajar, the still-room was the dreariest
presentment of subterranean gloom.

"Yes," Taft continued thoughtfully, "I'd ruther leave it ter men--ter
the courts, ye know--'n ter hev the folks round hyar ez war frien'ly
ter Copley ondertake ter settle ye fur it; they'd--Hey?" he interrupted
himself.

For the young fellow had reached out his arm and laid his hand with
a vise-like grip upon Taft's wrist. His head was thrust forward;
he seemed about to speak, but his parted lips, drawn tight across
his large, prominent teeth, emitted not a sound, although his wild,
dilated, bloodshot eyes looked an eager protest. His voice had failed
in framing the obnoxious words, which, however, Taft spoke patly enough.

"Why, ye know, they would--they would. Jedge Lynch is the only court
fur this kentry. What sati'faction is it ter the folks hyarabout, ter
hev a man kerried ter jail, thirty mile away, ter stan' his trial in
the courthouse year arter nex', mebbe, an' then arter all's come an'
gone cheat hemp at las'? Yes, that's yer bes' chance; set out fur
Colbury straight, an' s'render yerse'f thar."

He paused, apparently thinking deeply.

"Ef ye hed enny kin, though, in enny out'n-the-way place, my advices
ter ye would be ter cut an' run, an' bide along o' them; fur this hyar
air a mighty bad job, an' it's goin' ter go hard with the man ez done
it."

Once more the pallid, evasive light flickered in feeble vibrations
across the long, motionless, rope-bound figure, and the stark face
curiously distorted and painfully repulsive with the gag in its
stretched jaws.

"Ye ain't got no kin in no'th Georgy?" Taft demanded.

"Naw," replied the boy huskily.

The suggestion seemed to have restored his voice, albeit muffled and
shaken; into his eyes, staring, wide and bloodshot, into the gloom,
was creeping a definiteness of expression, as if he beheld, instead of
the vacant black darkness, some scene projected there as a possibility
and painted by his expectation. His grip on Taft's arm had relaxed. It
had been close and hard, and Taft rubbed the wrist a trifle with the
hand that still held the lantern, setting the feeble glimmer a-swinging
swiftly about the dark walls.

"That's a pity,--that's a tur'ble pity," Taft averred gloomily; then,
with an air of rousing himself, "Waal, ye'll jes' hev ter leave it ter
men. That's the bes' ye kin do." He was turning briskly toward the
tunnel. "I'll ondertake ter gin ye the matter of a two hours' start of
the folks 'bout hyar by not tellin' 'bout old Copley till then. But ye
hed bes' ride with speed, fur they'll be hot shod on yer tracks, sure."

As he went forward with his swinging, elastic stride, swaying the
lantern back and forth, according to his wont, to illumine the path,
his manner, his words, his expression, so tallied with the situation he
had invented and the role he had played that even the most discerning
might have descried no discrepancy in point of fact. The young
moonshiner, barely sobered and wholly frightened, was easily to be
deluded by a verisimilitude far less complete. He followed, his clumsy
feet stumbling and stepping awry, as if his gait were still subject
to spirituous influences from which his brain was freed. His cramped
limbs yet felt the numbness of their long constraint and the pain of
his bonds, for Larrabee's ropes had not been adjusted with due regard
to the free circulation of the blood. His progress was far slower than
his host's, who paused from time to time and waited to be overtaken.
On these occasions it soon became apparent that there was something
in his mind on which he had begun to ponder deeply; for whereas at
first he had visibly hastened to join Taft on seeing him whirl around,
the lantern describing in the distance a wheel of pallid white light
against the dense darkness of the tunnel, he now continued to plod
heavily, slower and slower, even when the light settled to a shining
focus, again motionless. Taft lifted it once as Sykes approached,
throwing its force full upon the swollen, mottled, absorbed face,
the fixed introspective eyes, the heavy slouching shoulders and bent
head. At that moment of careful reconnoitre a genuine expression was
on Taft's face, keen, furtive, triumphant; it passed unobserved. He
whirled around again, leading the way with the lantern, and it was with
a perfectly cloaked satisfaction that he began to observe the young
fellow's convulsive haste to depart as they neared the exit from the
tunnel, his flimsy pretense of heed to his elder's advice, and finally
his heedlessness altogether, no longer able to maintain attention or
its semblance.

He was gone at last, and Taft, returning to his prostrate comrade in
the still, dismissed him from his mind, and thenceforward from his
life, with a single comment. "That drunken shoat hev got an uncle in
north Texas," he said, as he placed the lantern on the cold brick-work
of the dead and fireless furnace. "I knowed that, so I fixed it so ez
he'd light out fur them furrin parts d'rec'ly. He ain't dawdlin', I'm
thinkin'."

Then, as he addressed himself to removing the gag and cutting the bonds
of the elder distiller, his brow darkened.

"That cuss Lar'bee's work, hey?" he demanded gruffly; and as the
liberated Copley gasped out an assent Taft growled a deep oath, his
face scarlet, his hands trembling with rage, his anger unleashed, and
his whole nature for the nonce unmasked.

"That kems from sparin' powder an' lead," he declared vindictively.
"Whyn't ye or Sykes shoot him?"

"He war too suddint," gasped Copley. "Ye never see a painter so suddint
an' sharp."

"An' whyn't ye be suddint, too?" retorted Taft aggressively.

Copley might have protested that in his own interest he had been as
"suddint" as he could, and had done his best. He evidently felt,
however, much in fault, and as, in silence, he ruefully rubbed his numb
limbs, just free from their ligatures, tingling painfully with the
renewal of the circulation of the blood, he gazed about, crestfallen
and humbled, and even grief-stricken, at the scene of his wonted
labors. It was but faintly revealed by the lantern on the masonry of
the furnace,--the dimly white focus with divergent filaments of rays
weaving only a tenuous web of light in the darkness which encompassed
all. The great burly forms of tubs and barrels were but vaguely
glimpsed as brownish suggestions in the blackness; a yellow gleam from
the copper still gave the effect of an independent illumination rather
than the resources of reflection, so dull and unresponsive was all else
upon which the lantern cast its glimmer. Taft sat, according to his
habit, upon the side of a barrel, his legs crossed, his elbow on one
knee, his head bowed upon his hand, his big hat intercepting all view
of his face. Copley gave a long sigh, as his spiritless glance noted
the dejection of his friend; but his grooved and wrinkled face seemed
as incapable of expressiveness as before, and, with its tanned tints
and blunt, ill-cut features, resembled some unskillful carving in wood
or a root. His thoughts swerved presently, almost with the moment of
re-attaining his liberty, from the immediate disaster to the details of
his drudgery which so habitually occupied his every waking faculty.

"That thar mash must be plumb ripe by this time," he remarked, his eyes
fixed upon a spot in the darkness where presumably the tub in question
was situated. "'Twar nigh ripe whenst Lar'bee jumped up demented, it
'peared like, an' tuk arter we-uns."

Taft lifted a red face and a scowling brow. With an air of reckless
desperation he strode to the tub, and the next moment Copley heard the
splash as the contents were poured out down the shaft.

"Laws-a-massy, 'Renzo!" with the decisive ring of anger in his voice
and all the arrogations of the expert, "whyn't ye let me examinate it?
Ye ain't got my 'speriunce; ye ain't ekal ter jedge like me. Whyn't
ye"--

"Ye miser'ble mole!" Taft retorted angrily. "Ye may be a jedge o'
fermentin' an' stillin' an' sech like, but ye hev got powerful leetle
gumption 'bout'n the signs o' the times. Thar ye sit, a-yawpin' away
'bout yer mash, ripe or raw, an' I'm lookin' fur the shootin' irons o'
the marshal's men under my nose every time I turn my head."

He suited the action to the word at the moment, looking down with a
sudden squint which gave a frightfully realistic suggestion of the
muzzle of a weapon held at his very teeth.

"The thing's busted!" Taft cried desperately. "It's done! Kin ye
onderstan' that? We-uns hev got ter the jumpin'-off place!"

The bewildered Copley looked vaguely at the verge of the deep shaft,
perilously near.

"That Lar'bee's loose now, full o' gredges fur bein' helt hyar," Taft
continued. "We-uns oughter shot him, or let him shoot himself. An'
the dep'ty sher'ff's on his track, 'lowin' ez Espey be Lar'bee an'
s'picionin' moonshinin'. The dep'ty sher'ff ain't got nuthin' ter do
with sech ez moonshinin' hisse'f, but he air tryin' ter find Lar'bee,
an' settle his gredges with him; so he'll gin the revenue dogs the
word 'bout Lar'bee an' distillin', an' whenst Lar'bee's tuk he'll take
a heap o' pleasure in guidin' 'em hyar, I'll be bound. He mought even
turn informer hisse'f, ter git even."

He sunk down suddenly on the barrel.

"It's powerful hard on me!" he cried. "I hev treated them boys like
they war my own sons." He had forgotten, in this arrogation of age and
paternal feeling, his recent youthfulness of matrimonial pretensions.
"I hev tuk 'em in,"--he did not say in what sense,--"an' divided fair
with 'em; an' they hev gotten mo' money out'n me than they'd ever
elsewise view in thar whole lifetime. An' I hev been keerful an' kep'
the place secret an' quiet. I hev tuk good heed ter all p'ints. An'
we-uns mought hev gone on peaceful an' convenient till the crack o'
doom, ef it hedn't been fur them. Oh, thar never war sech a place!"
He looked round with the eyes of gloating admiration on the gruesome,
shadowy den about him, so singularly suited to his vocation. "An' even
the danger 'bout'n the hotel is done with, an' the lan' percessioned by
now, I reckon, an' thar won't be no mo' packs o' strangers in the Cove;
an' yit--an' yit--all fur nuthin'!"

He took off his hat, and rubbed his corrugated brow with his hand with
a gesture of desperation.

It is a singular trait of what might perhaps be called sentimental
economy that every individual in this world should be the object of
the hero worship of some other. It may be submitted that there are
no conditions so sterile as to induce a dearth of this perfectly
disinterested, unrewarded admiration and acceptation of some embodied
ideal. It is familiar enough in the higher walks of life and with
worthy objects. But there may be a champion among beggars. It is a
potent agent. Its purblind flatteries have advanced many a dullard
to a foremost place. The plainest face has some devotee of its
beauty; and even the most unpromising infant is a miracle of grace
and genius to a doting grandmother. Hardly a hero of the world's
history is more dignified on his elevated plane than was Lorenzo Taft
in the eyes of his humble coadjutor. His wiliness was wisdom; his
dictatorial aggressiveness, the preëminence of a natural captaincy; his
self-seeking a cogent prudence; and his natural courage--with which,
indeed, be was well endowed--the finest flower of the extravaganza of
valor.

Copley looked at him now with the respectful sympathy which one
might well feel in witnessing the fall of a very great man. He
scarcely remembered his own interests, inextricably involved. Every
inflection of the mellow, sonorous voice raised to a declamatory
pitch found a vibrating acquiescence in chords of responsive emotion.
Every unconscious gesture of the massive and imposing figure--as
histrionically appropriate as if acquired by labor and tuition,
since it was indeed the nature that art simulates--was marked with
appreciative eyes. A rat in a trap is hardly esteemed a fit object
for sympathy by civilized communities, but consider the aspect and
magnitude of the catastrophe to his friends and neighbors, consider the
emotional melodrama within the small circuit of the wires!

"Don't take it so tur'ble hard, 'Renzo," expostulated Copley, still
seated on the floor.

For Taft was standing motionless, his eyes staring and fixed, his hat
far back on his head, exposing his set, drawn face with its teeth hard
clenched, one hand mechanically clutching his flowing yellow beard, the
other continually closing and unclosing on the handle of a pistol which
he had half drawn from his pocket,--a habit of his in moments of mental
perplexity, as if he instinctively appealed to this summary arbiter to
decide on questions far enough removed from its jurisdiction.

"Don't be so tur'ble desolated; some way out'n it, sure ez ye air
born," urged Copley in a consolatory wheeze.

The sound of his voice seemed to rouse Taft. He caught himself with
a start and turned hastily away, looking about as if in search of
something. He took the lantern presently to aid him in this, and when
it came back, glimmering through the dusk, he carried a box of tools in
the other hand.

"Thar's one way out'n it, sure," he said in a muffled, changed voice,
"though it's gone powerful hard with me ter git my own cornsent ter
take it."

He placed the lantern upon the furnace, and, as he went vigorously to
work, the astounded Copley, still upon the ground, began to perceive
that he was taking the apparatus carefully apart; he was disconnecting
the worm from the neck, when his amazed coadjutor found his voice.

"Hold on, 'Renzo," he remonstrated; "ye ain't a-goin' ter take the
contraption down, surely"--

"Ruther hev the revenuers do it?" said Taft, showing his teeth in a
sarcastic smile as he looked up. "They'll make wuss slarter with the
worm 'n I will." Then, pausing, with a frown of rancorous reminiscence,
"I hed a still o' bigger capacity 'n this one over yander in Persimmon
Cove, an' they cut it up in slivers, an' the worm war lef' in pieces
no longer 'n that," measuring with both hands, "an' the furnace all
tore up. I never seen sech a sight ez whenst I croped back ter view
the wreck. I 'lowed I'd never git forehanded enough ter start ter
manufacture sperits agin in this worl'."

He stood idly gazing down these vistas of memory grimly enough for a
moment; then, turning back to the still, "I'll make a try ter save the
property this time, so when the storm blows over we kin git started
agin another way an' another day. I'll fix it so ez when Lar'bee tells,
his words will be cast back in his teeth fit ter knock 'em all down his
own throat. He'll be sorry enough, sure's ye air born. They'll be hard
swallowin'."

The natural fortitude of Taft's character, the elastic quality of
his strength, his big, bluff mental methods, combined to support him
in this ordeal to a degree which contrasted advantageously with the
weak, almost supine grief that Copley manifested. Perhaps, too, Taft's
dinner was a material element which gave cohesion and decision to his
mental resolves. Now, Copley, half starved, nervous, wild with anxiety,
dread for the future, regret for the past, doubt of the present, would
angrily protest, even while he aided in dismantling the apparatus;
and then, after a word or two of argument, would admit its necessity,
its urgency, and again lament it as futile. He almost wept when the
object of his solicitude, which he had served as if it were a fetich,
was finally dismembered, and he found only a partial consolation in
being himself permitted to pack it, secure from injury, in boxes
which Taft brought down from the store. This scanty satisfaction was
short-lived, for, despite his objection, Taft poured out upon the
ground the liquor which remained after the shipment of the two barrels
to the cross-roads. The tubs were cut into pieces in true "revenuer"
fashion, the mash was poured out, the furnace was demolished out of
all semblance to its former proportions and uses, before Taft began to
lay the train to blow the place up, and thus effectually silence its
testimony forever.

"S'pos'n'--s'pos'n'"--Copley shivered--"s'pos'n' somebody war in the
Lost Time mine down thar"--

Taft paused, with a lot of tow in his hands which he was arranging
for a fuse; he glanced around, the lantern swinging on his arm, as if
waiting for the sequel to the unfinished sentence; then, as Copley
remained vaguely staring as if at a vision of possible laborers in the
Lost Time mine, "Skeer 'em powerful, I reckon," he said casually, and
bent once more to his work.

"But--but"--Copley recommenced, in a tone so urgent that Taft once
more desisted to listen, with an inquiring look on his half-turned
face--"but--but--s'pos'n' the--a--'splosion o' the powder war--war ter
bring down the rocks an' the timbers in some o' them tunnels an' open
shafts, an' somebody war in thar, hey? hey?" with eager insistence.

"Shut 'em in thar fur good an' all, I reckon,--git buried a leetle
before thar time, that's all," said Taft coolly, and went on with his
work as before.

Perhaps some vague premonition, perhaps an intuition of subterranean
proximity to an unsuspected wanderer in the Lost Time mine, perhaps
only a morbid aversion to the whole project, induced by the lack of
that conscience-fortifying force, dinner, actuated Copley, but for the
third time he sought to disaffect Taft's mind toward it.

"Mebbe somebody mought be passin' an' hear the 'splosion; moughtn't
they low 'twar cur'us? What would they make of it?"

Taft did not now pause in his work; he answered still bending down to
the ground laying the train.

"Yearthquake," he said composedly, "or else jes' some o' the rottin'
timbers o' the mine settlin' an' givin' way. Besides," he added,
straightening himself up, "nobody's passin' at this time o' night,
nohow."

"Night!" exclaimed Copley. "Is it night?"

"Midnight," replied Taft laconically.

He stood silent, thinking, a moment, and resting after the labor of
cautiously adjusting the charges of powder; and then, so quiet it all
was, not the stir of a breath, not the whisper of a word, not the
silken rustle of a ribbon of flame in the demolished furnace, he heard,
what he had never before heard so far as here in the still-room, the
reiterated strokes of a pick echoing down the tunnel, and cleaving the
ground with the regularity of a practiced workman. He said not a word
to Copley; he walked along the tunnel toward the sound, a chill thrill
stealing over him despite the fact that his temerity was a trifle more
pronounced than usual because he was about to leave the place forever.
The strokes continued, now growing louder, now more muffled, always
accurately timed; and suddenly the faint clamors of that high, queer,
false-ringing voice that seemed to seek out and shock every nerve
within him. He recoiled with fright and an unreasoning anger. He turned
himself about, and swiftly changed the position of a can filled with
powder which was to aid in the demolition of the place, arranging it in
a niche in the earth close to the wall whence the sound came.

"I make ye my partin' compliments," he said, with a sarcastic smile and
a mocking wave of the hand to the gruesome unknown. The next moment
his expression changed to a frightened gravity, and he ran through the
black tunnel as if he consciously had the devil at his heels, pausing
not until he was safe in the cellar beneath the store.

The paroxysm, if so it might be called, passed in a moment, and he
was laughing as he stood at the aperture of the tunnel, holding the
lantern, red-faced and a trifle shamefaced, when Copley, left far
behind, came hobbling up slowly and painfully. Taft was quite restored;
it was with his own assured, definite manner and elastic stride that
he presently took his way along the tunnel again and applied the match
to the fuse. He evidently accomplished his work thoroughly, for he had
no doubts of its efficacy when he returned and stood leaning against
a pile of boxes, waiting quite carelessly as here and there tiny
stellular lights sprang up along that darksome way that was not wont to
blossom out such constellations.

Stars? No; lines of fire, vermicular, writhing, growing, serpentine,
swiftly gliding, armed with venom, with destruction under their forked
tongues; for suddenly a flare, a frightful clap as of thunder, a wrench
as if the foundations of the earth were torn asunder, and the two men
were thrown to the ground and the lantern extinguished in the jar.

The reverberations were slow to die away; only gradually quiet came.
A stillness ensued, stifling with dust, and with such strong sense of
alternation with that moment of deafening detonation that the pulses
quivered with expectancy, and the slightest movement set the nerves to
jarring. Taft had groped for a light, and as the faint coruscation of
a match, then the steadier gleam of the lantern, pierced the darkness,
the nearest results of the explosion were open to view. The timbers
roofing the tunnel had been shaken down, and close at hand masses of
earth had fallen with them and lay banked at the very door. If Taft
had been warned in a dream, he could hardly have made his defense more
perfect. He and his one trusted adherent worked there the rest of
the night. The old original timbers of the house, partly rotten and
time-stained, were replaced as formerly, leaving no trace that there
had ever been an entrance into the abandoned mine; and when at last
Taft clambered through the aperture of the counter into the store, he
left the door broadly flaring after him.

"Trust Sis ter notice it," he remarked. "She'll git used ter it in ten
minits, an' it'll 'pear like she always knowed 't war thar."

The still was conveyed some miles away and buried in a marked spot,
and thus the business of moonshining was abandoned at the moment when
the project of the summer hotel, from which it had so much to fear,
was pretermitted amidst its varied entanglements, and the Cove, which
certainly could not have comfortably contained both, was left without
either for the nonce.

XV.

As Julia entered her father's house, quite fresh and dry after the
tumults of the storm, each of the group gathered about the fireside was
too insistently preoccupied at the moment to notice the discrepancy
between her spotless attire and the aspects of the weather, except
indeed Luther. The details of their attire she marked at once, and
dimpled at the sight. These rain-lashed victims of the processioning
had hustled themselves into their cast-off gear; and albeit the
fashions of the day were not exigent in the Cove, very forlorn appeared
these ancient garments, having long ago seen the best of their never
very good days. Cap'n Lucy's brown coat was like a russet old crinkled
leaf, as it clung, out of shape and ruffled by unskillful folding,
about him; Luther wore one of his own of former years, far too small
now for his burly shoulders that threatened to burst out of it at every
seam, and his long arms that protruded their blue shirt-sleeves only
half covered from the elbow. He met her glance with a resentful glare,
as if he could imagine now no cause for mirth, which was untimely in
its best estate. His Sunday coat graced the form of Jasper Larrabee,
who sat on the other side of the fire, and who albeit not of the
processioning party, had been caught in the rain in coming hither.
Although as tall as Luther, he was much more slender, and he seemed to
have shrunk, somehow, in the amplitude of his host's big blue coat.
He gave Julia a formal greeting, and was apparently much perturbed by
the untoward state of mind in which he found Cap'n Lucy. And indeed
Cap'n Lucy's face seemed to have adopted sundry wrinkles from his
coat, so old, so awry, so crinkled, so suggestive of better days, had
it suddenly become. Julia was reminded all at once of the business
interests at stake.

"How did the percessionin' turn out, dad?" she inquired, as she stood
with her hand on the back of a chair, and looked across the fire at him.

If any eyes might watch Fortune's wheel undismayed, whether it swing
high or low, one might deem them these surely, with perpetual summer
blooming there, as if there were no frosts, no winter's chill, no
waning of time or love or life. What cared she for land or its lack?

The fore-legs of Cap'n Lucy's chair came to the floor with an irascible
thump. He turned and surveyed the room; then, looking at her, "Air yer
eyesight good?" he demanded.

"Toler'ble," she admitted.

"D'ye see that thar contraption?" he continued, leaning forward, and
pointing with great _empressement_ at a spinning-wheel in the
corner.

"I see it," she said, meeting his keen return glance.

"D'ye know what it's made fur?" he inquired, dropping his voice, and
with an air of being about to impart valuable information.

"Fur spinning" she answered wonderingly.

"Oh, ye know, do ye? Then--mind it."

And thus he settled the woman question, in his own house at least,
and repudiated feminine interest and inquisitiveness in his business
affairs, and spurned feminine consolation and rebuke as far as he
could,--poor Cap'n Lucy!

Larrabee had that sense of being ill at ease which always characterizes
a stranger whose unhappy privilege it is to assist at a family quarrel.
He was divided by the effort to look as if he understood nothing of ill
temper in the colloquy, and the doubt as to whether he did not appear
to side with one or the other,--to relish Julia's relegation to the
spinning-wheel, or to resent Cap'n Lucy's strong measures; or perhaps
he might seem lightly scornful of both.

He gazed steadily out of the open door, where a great lustrous
copper-tinted sky glassed itself in myriads of gleaming copper-tinted
ponds made in every depression by the recent rains; between were
the purplish-black mountains cut sharply on the horizon. He heard a
mocking-bird singing, and what a medley the frogs did pipe! Then rushed
out into the midst the whir of Julia's spinning-wheel, which made all
other songs of the evening only its incidental burden. She sat near
the door, her figure imposed upon those bright hues of sky and water
as if she were painted on some lustrous metal. Their reflection was
now and again on her hair; she might have seemed surrounded by some
glorious aureola. Not that he definitely discerned this. He only felt
that she was fairer than all women else, and that the evening gleamed.
The bird's song struck some chord in his heart that silently vibrated,
and the whir of her wheel was like a hymn of the fireside. He wished
that he had never left it for Taft and his gang, and the hope of
making money for a home of his own, since his mother's hospitality had
well-nigh left him homeless. The thought roused him to a recollection
of his errand.

"I kem hyar ter git yer advices, Cap'n Lucy," he began.

Cap'n Lucy turned upon him a silent but snarling face. He needed all
his "advices" for himself.

"I ain't got nuthin' ter hide from you-uns," Larrabee continued,
after a pause for the expected reply. "Ye know all I do,"--a fleeting
recollection of the still came over him,--"that I'm able ter tell," he
added; for the idea of betraying the secrets involving Taft and the
other moonshiners had never entered his mind.

Cap'n Lucy's scornful chin was tossed upward.

"We-uns feel toler'ble compliminted," he averred, "ter hev it 'lowed ez
we-uns knows _all_ you-uns do, fur that's a heap, ez ye air aimin'
ter tell."

"I mean--I went ter say, Cap'n Lucy"--Jasper Larrabee's words, in
their haste, tripped one over the other, as they sought to set their
meaning in better array.

"He jes' means, uncle Lucy, ez it ain't no new thing," Adelicia
interposed to expound, touched by the anxious contrition of the younger
man, who was leaning eagerly forward, his elbow on his knee, toward the
elder, and to allay the contrariety of spirit of "uncle Lucy."

"An' meddlin' ain't no new thing, nuther, with you-uns, Ad'licia,"
snarled Cap'n Lucy, much overwrought. "I wish ter Gawd, with all the
raisin' an' trainin' I hev hed ter gin ye, I could hev larnt ye ter
hold yer jaw wunst in a while whenst desir'ble, an' show sech manners
ez--ez T'bithy thar kin." He pointed at the cat on the hearth, and gave
a high, fleering laugh, in which the sarcastic vexation overmastered
every suggestion of mirth.

A slight movement of Tabitha's ears might have intimated that
she marked the mention of her name. Otherwise she passed it with
indifference. With her skimpy, shabby attire,--her fur seemed never to
flourish,--her meek air of disaffection with the ways of this world,
her look of adverse criticism as her yellow eyes followed the movements
of the family, her thankless but resigned reception of all favors as
being less than she had a right to expect, her ladylike but persistent
exactions of her prerogatives, gave her, somehow, the style of a
reduced gentlewoman, and the quietude and gentle indifference and air
of superiority of the manners on which Cap'n Lucy had remarked were
very genteel as far as they went.

Adelicia seemed heedless of the mentor thus pointed out. She noisily
gathered up her work, somewhat cumbrous of paraphernalia, since it
consisted of a small cedar tub, a large wooden bowl, and a heavy sack
of the reddest of apples which she was paring for drying, and carried
it all around the fireplace to seat herself between the two parties to
this controversy.

"Now, uncle Lucy, ye jes' got ter gin Jasper yer advices, an' holp him
out'n whatever snap he hev got inter."

Her deep gray eyes smiled upon the young man, as the firelight flashed
upon her glittering knife and the red fruit in her hand, although her
delicate oval face was grave enough. Ever and again she raised her
head, as she worked, to toss back the tendrils of her auburn hair which
were prone to fall forward as she bent over the task. There was a
moment's silence as Jasper vainly sought to collect his ideas.

"Tell on, Jasper," she exhorted him. "I'm by ter pertect ye now. An'
ennyhows, uncle Lucy's bark is a long shakes wuss'n his bite."

She smiled encouragingly upon the suppliant for advice; her own face
was all unmarred by the perception that matters had gone much amiss
with the processioning of the land, for uncle Lucy was a man often
difficult to please, and sometimes only a crumple in his rose leaf was
enough to make him condemn the queen of flowers as a mere vegetable,
much overrated. The girl's aspect was all the brighter as she wore
a saffron-tinted calico blouse and apron with her brown homespun
skirt, and she seemed, with her lighted gray eyes, her fair, colorless
face, and her ruddy auburn hair, a property of the genial firelight,
flickering and flaring on the bright spot of color which she made in
the brown shadows where she sat and pared the red apples. She reverted
in a moment to that proclivity to argue with Cap'n Lucy which was so
marked in their conversation.

"An' who is the young men ter depend on in thar troubles, uncle Lucy,
ef not the old ones?" she demanded.

"On the young gals, 'pears like," promptly retorted "uncle Lucy,"
pertinently and perversely.

Then he caught himself suddenly. In the impossibility, under the
circumstances, to concentrate his mind exclusively on his own affairs,
his interest in correlated matters was reasserted. It occurred to him
that it behooved him to foster any predilection that Adelicia might
show for any personable man other than the fugitive Espey. He could
see naught but perplexity and complication of many sorts to ensue for
himself and his household should Espey return; and although Cap'n Lucy
selfishly hoped and believed that this was, in the nature of things,
impossible, still he had reluctantly learned by bitter experience
the fallibility of his own judgment. It seemed to him a flagrant
instance of inconstancy on Adelicia's part, but Cap'n Lucy gave that no
heed. Few men truly resent a woman's cruelty to another man. Adelicia
might have brought all the youth in the county to despair, for all
hard-hearted Cap'n Lucy would have cared. And thus her appeal for
Jasper Larrabee was not altogether disregarded.

"Goin' ter set thar an' chaw on it _all_ day, Jasper?" he demanded
acridly. "Whyn't ye spit it out?"

"Why," said Larrabee, "it's 'bout this hyar Jack Espey."

The apple dropped from Adelicia's hand, and rolled unheeded across
the hearth; the spinning-wheel was suddenly silent, and Julia, all
glorified in the deeply yellow glare about her, sat holding it still
with one hand on its rim. Cap'n Lucy's head was canted to one side,
as if he were prepared to deliberate impartially on some difficult
proposition.

"This Jack Espey,--I met up with him at the cross-roads store, an'
struck up a likin' fur him, an' brung him home an' tuk him in, an' he
hev been thar with me fur months an' months--an'--an' he never tole me
ez he hed enny cause ter shirk the law."

"He war 'feared ter, I reckon, Jasper," said Adelicia.

"He never meant no harm, Jasper," the silent Julia broke in from where
she sat in her dull red dress against the tawnily gilded glories of the
western sky.

Beyond a mechanical "Hesh up, Ad'licia," Cap'n Lucy gave them no heed,
but Luther glanced sharply from one to the other.

Jasper Larrabee replied in some sort: "Then he never treated me with
the same confidence I done him. An', Cap'n Lucy," he continued, "ye
yerse'f seen the e-end o' it. He purtended ter the sher'ff ter be
_me_, an' tuk advantage o' my mother's callin' him 'sonny,' an'
wore my name, an' went with 'em a-sarchin' fur hisse'f; an' whenst he
got skeered, thinkin' ez they knowed him, he resisted arrest, an' kem
nigh ter takin' the off'cer's life, whilst purtendin' ter be _me_,
in my name!"

"He never meant no harm," faltered Adelicia, aghast at this showing
against her absent lover.

"None in the worl'; he never went ter harm nuthin'," protested Julia's
flutelike tones.

"Did ye kem hyar ter git my advices fur Jack Espey?" demanded Cap'n
Lucy sourly. "He needs 'em, I know, but"--

"Naw, Cap'n Tems. I kem ter git 'em fur myse'f, fur I dunno which way
ter turn. You-uns hyar saw the e-end o' it,--the night the dep'ty kem
a-sarchin' fur Jasper Lar'bee, who he 'lowed he hed flung over the
bluffs, an' I went along at his summons, knowin' 'twar Espey ez hed got
away from him, purtendin' ter be _me_."

Cap'n Lucy nodded.

"Now I have hearn that dep'ty air in the Cove agin."

Cap'n Lucy remembered the dark, facetious, malicious face that the
officer had borne as a spectator of the processioning of the land. He
nodded again. "I hev seen him hyar ter-day."

"Ef I war knowed ter him ez Lar'bee, whenst he finds out 'twar
Espey ez escaped that night, I mought be 'rested fur harborin' a
fugitive, ez holpin' out the murder arter the fac'--an'--an' my
mother--Espey gin me no chance, no ch'ice! Wouldn't ye 'low ez
ennybody--_ennybody_--would hev tole me that, Cap'n Lucy, ter gin
me the ch'ice o' dangerin' myse'f afore he tuk so much from me an'
mine?"

Cap'n Lucy changed countenance. This was a new view of the matter. He
had not judged from Larrabee's standpoint; for he himself had had full
knowledge of the circumstances and the fact that they were withheld
from Espey's entertainer. This was made suddenly manifest.

"Why, Jasper," expostulated Adelicia, her eyes full of tears, her
vibrant tones tremulous with emotion, "he 'lowed ter we-uns ez he war
sure the man wouldn't die o' the gunshot wound, bein' powerful big an'
hearty; but he tuk out an' run, bein' turr'ble 'feared o' the law,
and arrest an' lyin' in jail fur a long time, waitin', an' uncle Lucy
said"--

She paused suddenly, for Jasper Larrabee had leaned forward in
his chair, scanning the faces about him with a blank amazement so
significant that it palsied the words on her tongue.

"Espey tole _you-uns_! An' Espey tole yer _uncle Lucy_! Why,
then ye all knowed him ter be a runaway, an' ye knowed ez he war
a-playin' his deceits on nobody but me an' my mother ez hed got him
quartered on us, an' mebbe war liable ter the law fur it."

Adelicia, trembling, leaned back in her chair. Cap'n Lucy cast an
infuriated glance upon her, and then, with a hasty, nervous hand,
rubbed his brow back and forth, as if to stimulate his brain that
offered no solution of the difficulty. Jasper Larrabee still sat
leaning forward, his clear-cut face full of keen thought, a flush on
his pale cheek, a fire kindling in his brown eyes, and a sarcastic
smile curving his angry lips.

"My Gawd!" he exclaimed, "it is a cur'ous thing ez my mother ain't got
a frien' in this worl'! She says she don't work fur thanks, an' I'll
take my livin' oath she don't git 'em. That thar door o' the widder's
cabin on the Notch hev stood open ter the frien'less day an' night
since I kin remember. Her table's spread for the hongry. Her h'a'th's
the home o' them ez hev no welcome elsewise an' elsewhere. An' her nigh
neighbor an' old frien' sees a s'pected murderer quarter himself thar,
an' bring s'picion an' trouble _ennyhow_, an' danger mebbe, on her
an' hern. Ye mought hev advised Espey ter gin her her ch'ice, or leave.
Ye mought hev done ez much ez that! My mother's a old 'oman; an' she's
a proud 'oman, though ye moughtn't think it, an' the bare idee o' sech
talk ez that,--of s'picion, an' arrest, an' jail,--it would kill her!
it would kill her!"

Cap'n Lucy sat almost stunned, as under an arraignment. He pulled
mechanically at his pipe, but his head was sunk on his breast, and his
face was gray and set. The circumstances so graphically placed before
him seemed to have no relation to those of his recollection; they wore
a new guise. He had known all his life instances of collision in which
powder and lead had played more or less a tragic part; but the rôle of
the law had always been subsidiary and inadequate in the background
of the scene, sometimes represented only by an outwitted officer, and
the jollity of details of hairbreadth escapes. This construction of
crime was beyond his purview of facts. He did not know, or he did not
remember, that aught that others than the principal could do subsequent
to a crime might render them liable as accessory after the fact. Espey
had, in a fight, shot his antagonist,--such things were of frequent
occurrence in Cap'n Lucy's memory. He never expected to see or to hear
of the beagles of the law on the trail of the fugitive; his care, and
his only care, was to prevent his niece from marrying an expatriated
man while expatriated.

He thought now with a grievous sense of fault of old "Widder
Lar'bee,"--her softness, her kindness, her life of care for others;
and then he thought of Rodolphus Ross and his crude brutality, his
imperviousness to any sanctions, his rough interpretation of fun, his
eagerness to shield his own lapses of official vigilance, his grudges
against the supposed Larrabee, and his threats. What mischief might a
chance word work!

The dusky red of the last of the evening glow was creeping across the
floor. All the metallic yellow glare was tarnished in the sky. Instead
were strata of vaporous gray and slate tints alternating with lines of
many-hued crimson, graduated till the ethereal hue of faintest rose
ended the ascending scale of color. Still the frogs chorused and still
the bird sang, but shadows had fallen, and they were not all of the
night. Something of melancholy intimations drew his eyes to the purple
heights without as Jasper Larrabee spoke.

"Waal, I'm her friend, ef she ain't got nare nother." And then, as if
he felt he were arrogating unduly to his purpose, "An' I s'pose I'm a
friend o' my own, too, an' I know _I_ ain't got nare nother. I
kem hyar ter-night fur yer advices, Cap'n Tems; but ez ye don't 'pear
ter have none ter gimme, I b'lieve I'll take my own. I'll settle this
thing for myse'f. I'll find Jack Espey! I'll track him out. I'll run
him down. I'll arrest him myse'f, an' I'll deliver him ter the law.
An' let the door o' the jail that he opened fur me be shut an' barred
on him!" There was a concentrated fury in his face as he said this. "I
won't hide no mo' like a beast o' the yearth in a den in the ground,
consortin' with wuss'n wolves an' bar an' painters. I won't skulk
homeless like a harnt no mo' through the woods. I won't shirk the
sher'ff no mo' fur Jack Espey's crimes, an' 'kase I done him nuthin'
but good an' kindness! I'll find him,--the yearth can't kiver him so I
can't find him,--an' I'll deliver him ter the law!"

He stood for one moment more, and then he strode across the room to the
door, his shadow blotting out the last red light of the day, leaving
the circle about the fire gazing wistfully and aggrieved after him,
except Luther, who was picking up the borrowed coat which Larrabee had
tossed aside as he passed.

Outside the night had fallen suddenly. The west was clouded, despite
the lingering red strata, and the twilight curtailed. He looked through
purple tissues of mists that appeared to have the consistency of a
veil, to where yellow lights already gleamed through the shadows. They
came from the shanties of the workmen beneath the cliffs, on which the
ruins of the hotel had at last ceased to smoke. He hardly knew whither
to turn. What pressure for explanations, what unbearable inquisitive
insistence, would meet him at home, where Henrietta Timson reigned
in the stead of his mother, he could well forecast; to venture near
the Lost Time mine, within reach of Taft, was, he knew, as much as
his life was worth. He hesitated now and again, as he went aimlessly
up the road; regretting his outbreak at the Tems cabin; coveting its
shelter, its fireside, the companionship of the home group; half
minded to return thither; but resentment because of their half-hearted
friendship, as he deemed it, pride and anger and shame, conspired
to withhold him. Once again, as he ascended the mountain, he turned
and looked down at the cluster of orange-tinted lights from the
workmen's shanties that clung so close together in the depths of the
purple valley, and he hesitated anew. White mists were abroad on their
stealthy ways; a brooding stillness held the clouds; the mountains
loomed sombre, melancholy, against them, indistinguishable and blent
with them toward the west, save when the far-away lightnings of the
past storm fluctuated through their dense gray folds, and showed the
differing immovable outline of the purple heights. In the invisible
pools below these transient flashes were glassed, shining through
the gloom. The reflection of stars failed midway, because of the
mist. There were few as yet in the sky, but as he lifted his eyes he
beheld again, immeasurably splendid in the purple dusk, that sudden
kindling of ethereal, palpitating, white fire which he had marked once
before,--that new and supernal star, strange to all familiar ways
of night hitherto, shining serene, aloof, infinitely fair above the
melancholy piping mountain wilds and the troublous toils of the world.

XVI.

Jasper Larrabee stood transfixed, gazing at that tremulous, luminous
astral presence with a strange superstitious thrill at his heart.
It hardly seemed merely a star, so alien to his mind was its aspect
in the erst untenanted spaces whence it blazed, so freighted with
occult significance. Had the moment been charged with some wonderful
apotheosis, some amplification of its pure white lustre into the
benignant splendors of a vision of angels, the transformation could
scarcely have exceeded the capacities of that breathless, insistent
expectation which the ignorant mountaineer lifted toward it. For his
was a simple faith, and his untaught mind had learned no doubts. And
had never these nights of ours communion with celestial pursuivants?
Did never the flutter of an angel's wing illumine far perspectives that
darkle heavily over the earth? Was this rare fluid, which we call the
air, so dense; were its sensitive searching vibrations, known as waves
of light and sound, so dull, that it should feel naught, reveal naught,
when the angel of the Lord flashed through the stars and the wind,
through blossoming woods or bleak snows of deserts, and into the haunts
and the homes of men?

So many had come! He did not know that they were alien to the
nineteenth century, and that the most spiritual-minded of to-day would
account for their sudden vision as from prosaic natural causes,--as
mental aberration, or the distortions of a diseased fancy, or the
meaningless phantasmagoria of somnolent cerebration. To him it seemed
that they had been with man from the very beginning; and why should
their presence here be stranger than his own? Their very numbers
served to coerce credibility. So many had come! To kings, to wanderers
in the wilderness, to prophets, to shepherds, in dreams and in the
broad daylight, they came: to stand with a gleaming sword before the
gates of Paradise, and to sing in the starry advent of a new day,--On
earth peace, good will toward men; to bring the immortal lilies of the
Annunciation, and to tread the ways of the fiery furnace; to touch the
bursting bonds of saints in prison, and to roll away the stone from
the sepulchre of all the world; to minister to the Christ alike in the
shadows of Gethsemane and amongst the splendors of the Mount of the
Transfiguration!

Larrabee was trembling in every limb, as the scenes trooped out before
him in the vivid actuality of his recollections of the pages of the
much-thumbed volume which he had left behind him when he had fled from
the still in the Lost Time mine. He sank down upon the rocky verge of
the precipice, amongst the clinging verdure of its jagged crevices.
Some sweet-scented herb sent out its delicate incense under the
pressure of his hands. A drowsy twitter of half-awakened nestlings came
from the feathery boughs of a cedar-tree that a niche in the cliff hard
by half nourished, half starved. The melancholy antiphony of the voices
of the wilderness rose and fell in alternating strains, and at long
intervals in a vague undiscriminated susurrus the night seemed to sigh.

He heard naught; he heeded naught. His unwinking gaze was fixed upon
the wondrous star in the heavens, with that thronging association
of angelic ministrants so definitely in his mind that he might have
thought to see an amaranthine crown expanding from the rayonnant
sidereal points, or the outline of a nearing pinion stretched strongly
to cleave the ether. For so many had come!

But no! His imagination could compass no such apotheosis. The star
remained a star. The exaltation of that moment of wild, vague, and
breathless expectation exhaled slowly. A poignant sense of loss
succeeded it. The prosaic details of the actual outer life pressed once
more on his realization. He looked about him on the sombre wilderness,
the black surly mountains, the itinerant mists, heedless whither, the
steely glimmer here and there of the ponds where the water made shift
to catch the reflection of the sky amidst the dun shadows, and sighed
drearily with the sighing night.

He was penniless, shelterless, his life at the mercy of any chance
that might favor his crafty enemy, his confidence betrayed by the
fugitive whom he had succored, his liberty endangered, already a
criminal in the eyes of the law,--an outcast, in truth, within a
league of his home. From the nullity of the begloomed landscape the
glance naturally rebounded, and the very obscuration of the earth lent
glister and definiteness to the wonderful precision of the march of
the constellations, as, phalanx after phalanx, they deployed, each in
its allotted space and sequence, toward the west. And again his eyes
dwelt upon that new splendor in the midst of them. How strange that it
should suddenly blossom whitely forth among these old, old stars that
had lighted the bosky ways of the garden of Eden! How strange that the
sight of it should be vouchsafed to him--and why!

His pulses were tumultuously astir. All at once the thought that had
been slowly framing itself in his mind took definite form. He wondered
if it could be a sign for him, and of what!

In the arrogations of poor humanity of the higher things, in the
infinite breadth of the claim of an immortal soul, vast incongruities
meet. The extreme might seem reached in the ignorant mountaineer,
the moonshiner obnoxious to the law, the poverty-stricken laborer,
seeing with the wild preëmptions of fancy this star, all newly and
miraculously alight in the sky, as charged with some mysterious
relation to his infinitesimally petty and restricted life. But once
admit the idea of an immortal spirit, heir of all knowledge, made a
little lower than the angels, to be crowned with glory and honor, the
climax of development, and even the splendors of the star are as naught.

Larrabee had no cultivated sense of comparison. His tenacious nature
laid hold upon the idea of an intimate personal intention, a sign in
the heavens, with a blunt and stalwart appropriation.

He rose swiftly to his feet. So different a spirit animated him that it
seemed a different path from that which he had trod as he had plodded
slowly up the mountain, with hesitating steps and frequent uncertain
pauses. Now he went deftly down the rugged and far darker way, brushing
amongst bushes and vines, and be-showered with the perfumed drops that
his hasty transit shook from their boughs; swiftly slipping through the
shifting mists that now hid the sky, and again revealed the glister
of that great star amidst a myriad others at the vanishing point of a
perspective of seemingly precipitous white ascents, as the uncertain
light cleft the glimmering vapors. He looked up to it, as it were,
through a defile between these impalpable white cliffs, from the
dark abysses of the night; and then the gauzy medium interposed, and
without the faint light of the stars the night was black again. His
pace did not slacken. He went forward as confidently in the darkness
as if he were led by the definite capacity of sight, trusting to that
instinct of woodcraft almost as keen as sense itself. Sometimes,
indeed, his foot struck against a branch, torn by the wind from the
trees and left to wither in the rugged path; or the splash of a pool
beneath his inadvertent step broke the silence of his journey, as these
unaccustomed incidents of the way asserted their presence as obstacles.
He never hesitated, nor doubted, nor deviated. He seemed led through
the darkness by his will. He was aware in some mysterious sort of the
looming propinquity of great trees or the locality of jagged rocks;
he avoided the verge of cliffs and abysses with that keen, accurate
discernment of an unascertained faculty, as a somnambulist might have
done. As far as his recognized intelligence was concerned, he was down
in the Cove before he knew it, for the way was still sloping, the
footing rocky and uneven. A long slanting burnished gleam of orange
light appearing suddenly before him, revealing the white mists, and
making the darkness a definite visible blackness rather than merely
charged with a sense of sightlessness, he deemed only one of those
transient lines of lightning reflected in the temporary ponds that
he had marked earlier in the evening. It did not flicker, however,
and die away. As he stared forward, he perceived, beyond a darkly
lustrous interval, a parallel line of yellow brilliance,--another, and
still another; and he became aware that he was amongst the workmen's
shanties, the lights of which were mirrored in the water. Presently
illusory shimmering squares were visible in the mists which marked the
open doors. A croaking frog by the waterside ceased suddenly, as,
with more decided step, Larrabee skirted the pool and approached. He
felt rather than saw the shadowy creature's leap from before his foot,
again an elastic spring along the margin, and a splash as the frog
jumped into the water, and the long lines of gilded light were broken
into a thousand concentric shoaling curves. Voices sounded close at
hand, and then the whole little settlement became vaguely visible,--the
cabins further apart than they had seemed at the distance; a banjo
was strumming at the most remote, and as Larrabee walked up to the
nearest, boldly, in the avenue of light that the open door blazed out
in the darkness, he saw within the man whom he sought, bending his
frowning brow over a paper in his hand. In the other hand Kenniston
held a cigar, which at long intervals he put between his lips; then he
pulled energetically at it as if merely to keep it alight, and with
no definite experience or expectation of nicotian solace. The county
surveyor, on the contrary, on the other side of the table, puffed
his pipe systematically, his eyes half closed, his grizzled bearded
face showing in repose amongst the wreaths of smoke, his conscience
discharged of every detail of the great science of mensuration which he
sought to apply to the various parcels of land owned or claimed by his
fellow-man. He had answered so much at random the occasional remarks
of his host on the subject of the processioning that it became very
apparent to Kenniston that he did not propose to work at his vocation
out of office hours, as it were. From the consideration of futility
as well as decorum, Kenniston had relapsed into silently comparing the
calls of the deed with the notes he had made of the day's work, and
only unconsciously did an interjection of irritation and disgust escape
him.

"I ain't responsible for any disputed p'int, Mr. Kenniston," said the
surveyor, sibilantly sucking his pipestem, his eyes quite closed, his
feet upon the fender of the little stove. "Ye kin hev a jury o' good
and lawful men ter examinate an' decide upon it; my business is ter run
the line 'cordin' ter the calls an' the compass. That's all!"

Kenniston looked up, a sarcastic comment in his eyes; the mere
possibility of submitting the question of the boundary of his land to
the wild will of a jury of mountaineers, qualified by the surveyor,
according to the law of processioning land, and met in those tangled
precipitous woods to discriminate in matters mathematical and to settle
questions of topographical fact, seemed to him so happy a travesty of
the theory of law and justice that he could not forbear a scornful
smile at his own probable plight when he should come forth from such
unique adjudication of his interests.

"There's no disputed '_p'int_,'" he said, laughing satirically.
"It's the whole confounded line from the Big Hollow Boulder to Wild
Duck Falls!"

"'Cordin' ter the calls an' the compass," muttered the surveyor, fast
succumbing to the unholy fascinations of a dream in which he found
that in seeking to ascertain the area of a triangular body of land he
achieved the petrifying result of transforming it to a square. Reason
revolted; he woke with a snort, filliped off the ash from his pipe,
adjusted himself anew in his chair, looked very wide awake, to be
overtaken again by the same irreconcilable process and result.

In the diversion of Kenniston's attention he had lost the run of his
ideas; he paused, puffed his cigar into a glow, pushed his chair
slightly back from the table, glanced with lowering disaffection
at the slumbering surveyor, and then mechanically about him at his
surroundings.

The house was the roughest of shells, and hardly compact enough to
withstand the floods of rain that had descended upon it to-day. In one
corner the floor was still damp, the eaves outside dripped. Beyond a
cot, a table, and a few chairs there was no furniture save Kenniston's
valise, his gun in its case, which was never opened, and a monkey
stove, an object of aversion to its æsthetic owner; for, despite its
utility, its outline and atmosphere were a continual affront to him,
and it suffered grossly from the comparison with the great open fires
of the mountaineers' hearths, the incense of hickory and ash and pine,
the flash and flame and sparkle of those humble illumined interiors.

The shadowy figure of a man standing in the doorway Kenniston did not
immediately notice. Beyond a slight start, a mere matter of nerve (for
he could hardly be surprised by aught that the mountaineers could say
or do), he did not betray the unexpectedness of the apparition. He
smoked silently, eying the intruder without salutation, as if he sought
to shift the discourtesy of the lack of formality upon one who merely
paused at the door of his domicile and surveyed its occupant; it was
his rule not to encourage the mountaineers to come about, and he felt
at liberty, with so untutored a folk, to depart from the decrees of
decorum in such small matters, which were, however, exigent even with
them. In this instance no offense seemed to be taken, no intentional
lack perceived. Larrabee stood, his smiling dark eyes scanning
Kenniston with a steadiness which apparently had other actuation than
mere curiosity, his pale clear-cut face, his auburn hair, his alert
strong pose, distinct in the crude white light of the unshaded kerosene
lamp. Whether it were the natural commendation of a face and figure
regularly handsome by the line and rule by which Kenniston was wont to
apportion beauty; whether the exaltation of the discovery of the star,
the spiritual audacity of the arrogation of a personal intimation in
its manifestation, had touched Larrabee's expression with something
strange, something aloof from the day, the time, and the people,
Kenniston's jaded interest was stirred.

"Did you want to see me?" he demanded, at length. "Then come in."

Larrabee remained at the threshold, but he leaned against the wall, his
big brown hat on the back of his head, as it rested against the rich
veined amber and creamy tints of the yellow pine wood.

"Air you-uns the stranger-man ez hev been hyarabouts, buildin' the
hotel an' sech?" he asked slowly.

Kenniston's eye became intent, hardening as he nodded. His thoughts
flew instantly to that fair edifice and the collapse of all his plans,
with the quick inference that here was information to come touching the
incendiary. He felt his blood leap; by his pulsing veins he knew how
it was burning into his face. He had that desire toward justice which
should animate every civilized man, but although he sought to hold
himself impartial, calm, circumspect to receive what might be a false
accusation, it would have fared ill with Larrabee's enemy had he an old
score to settle thus.

As he remained silent Kenniston spoke, with a view of urging forward
the disclosure. "Have I ever seen you here before?"

Larrabee shook his head. "I hev never viewed you-uns ez I knows on."
Then, after a pause, "Air you-uns a book-l'arned man?"

"Reasonably so," Kenniston said, with a slight laugh. He leaned his
elbows on the table, holding his chin in his hand, which was half
obscured by his full beard, and while he looked impatiently at his
visitor his white teeth gnawed his underlip.

Larrabee hesitated. "Hev ye met up with the stars in yer readin'?" he
finally blurted out.

A sudden look of blank disappointment crossed Kenniston's face.

"Stars!" he echoed in dismay. "Why, I thought you had come to give me
some information about the cur that set fire to my house."

(It was a different kind of brute, but the fact of Bruin's agency was
relegated to the state of things not revealed, which we denominate
mystery.)

It was Larrabee's turn for impatience, and an affronted sense of
interruption.

"I dunno nuthin' 'bout who burnt yer hotel"--He paused suddenly, the
conviction all at once fully fledged in his mind that it was the deed
of the moonshiners, to rid the Cove of its prospect of troublesome
invaders. The recollection of Espey's threat rang in his ears as if the
very vibrations of the words were audible upon the air: "Burn him out!
Burn his shanty every time he gits it started!"

Larrabee suffered the sense of a nervous shock, so great was
the revulsion from the subject that had engrossed him; for this
reminiscence of all things he had least expected to meet here. He could
hardly cope with it in the free outer air. It belonged so essentially
to that other life of his, that underground world where he bore so
different an identity, that it seemed to have thoughts and intentions
and a conscience peculiar to itself. He had realized the dangers of
the isolation in which he stood amongst those of his association, but
he had thought himself safe here. Kenniston knew him neither by name
nor face, and he was a stranger to all the workmen; since their advent
into the Cove he had been held a prisoner in the Lost Time mine. Even a
chance encounter with Rodolphus Ross he did not dread, for the officer
had not been apprised of his identity on the night he had summoned him
to search for the escaped Espey masquerading under the name of Larrabee.

The abrupt pause, the introverted look, the sudden recollection
advertised in unmistakable characters upon his unguarded face, did
not escape Kenniston's observation, now keen and all on the alert.
For his heart was in this reprisal. If he had had naught to gain and
much to risk, indeed much of certain loss, he would have pursued this
injury to its ultimate and bitterest requital. All that was manly in
him--his courage, his pugnacity, his tenaciousness, his self-respect,
his vehement, insistent, vigorous personality, that could neither
make nor keep covenant with concession, compromise, or defeat--rose
to the occasion. He had cursed in his heart the lukewarmness of the
authorities, who had opined that the mountaineers were mighty rough
folks, mighty hard to catch, lived in a mighty difficult country, and
who had offered him the half-veiled advice that they were mighty bad to
run against, in lieu of the formulated and disciplined suspicions which
he had expected, the canvassing of possible "fire-bugs," involving
as sequence warrants for arrest, indictments, and other fierce and
formidable engines of the law, set to work with full intent and
expectation.

Here was a clue,--the first; and fortunately it had fallen into his
own hands. However, it behooved him to be cautious, or the suggestion
might be of as little ultimate value as if it were already given to
the turbulent, ill-advised, precipitate deputy, or to his unsanguine,
dubious, dilatory principal, with his wise saws about the lack of
prudence involved in running against mountain folks, who were mighty
hard to catch in the wilds of their difficult country.

Now and again the family of Cap'n Lucy had had an intimation of how
pleasant Mr. Kenniston could be when he chose. It was reserved for
Jasper Larrabee to experience the fascination of the full and ripened
flavor, the bouquet, so to speak, of his geniality and good will. A
second rapid covert survey from that altered point of view which one is
apt to adopt when a personal interest looms in the background convinced
Kenniston that his visitor was no fool. Although he intended to drop
the subject for the present, he did not quit it abruptly.

"I was in hopes you could name some suspicious characters, or had heard
some threatening talk, or"--

Once more he saw from his visitor's face that, inadvertently, he had
again struck the nail on the head. His secret self-applause aided his
self-denial in relinquishing so promising a line of investigation. The
man must be made to talk freely, to disclose; his confidence must be
secured.

"I have had heavy losses in this matter, and the officers seem of
mighty little account. Every now and then I hope I'll hear of something
some other way. I'm afraid to build again unless I know the fire-bug
is somewhere else, or discover what I've done to set people against
_me_."

Larrabee's face was at once softened and troubled. "Burn his shanty
every time he gits it started," quoth Espey. And he that would work
ill to one man would work ill to another: witness his own plight. His
conscience began to stir. If, he thought, the whiskey tax were not in
itself so tyrannical, so impracticable and obnoxious a thing, he might
have admitted for the nonce that moonshining was in itself wrong.

Kenniston's eyes were studying his unconscious countenance. "Well," he
said suddenly, "since it's nothing about my affairs, what can I do for
you? Won't you have a chair?"

Larrabee shook his head silently. He stood for a few moments undecided.
It might seem that his enthusiasm, so ruthlessly dragged down to earth,
might hardly make shift to rise again; but it was strong of wing, as
behooves that ethereal essence, and in his ignorant assumptions he
thought that he had seen a sign in the heavens, a sign for him. The
fervor of all that he had half doubting believed, and half believing
doubted, fired his pulses once more. He cared naught for Espey and
his troublous usurpations, the officer of the law, the moonshiner
and his deadly feud, the incendiary, the necessity of heed to his
words. He cared for naught under the moon. Once more his face had that
illumined, exalted expression. As he leaned suddenly forward, with a
keen anxiety, and said, "Air ye 'quainted with the stars by name, bein'
a book-l'arned man?" Kenniston had a swift doubt of his sanity.

"Yes," he replied. And after a pause he asked the counter-question,
"Are you interested in the stars?"

But Larrabee, still under the influence of the strong excitement that
possessed him, did not answer directly.

"I kin read, but I hain't got but one book. The teacher what l'arned me
ter read 'lowed ez the stars air named; they air numbered in a book.
Hev ye l'arned sech?"

"Oh yes; I have studied astronomy," replied Kenniston capably. "I know
their names."

"I know _them_; I dunno thar names," said Larrabee, making a
definite distinction. "That's the reason I kem ter you-uns, hearin' ez
ye air a book-l'arned man."

He turned his head and looked out into the night as he stood on the
threshold. The mists had gone their ways. The clouds were far in
the west. Above all, the clear, sombre field of the sky was thickly
bespangled with stars, chill, keenly glittering, for below the night
was very dark.

"Thar's a new one," he declared excitedly, "a new one never viewed
afore! I seen it kindle up a matter of three week ago, three week an'
better, an' it's thar now!"

Kenniston sat in silent amazement, looking steadily at him.

"Kem out!" Larrabee insisted, in tones strangely urgent. "Kem out an'
see!"

Some subtle monition apprised Kenniston that there was something in
the man's disclosure withheld; that it was not merely to bring his
book-learning to bear upon the array of the stars that he was asked to
step out of his door at this hour of the night. How often he had heard,
as the climax of a feud, of a man in these mountains being summoned
on some pretext out of his door to meet a murderous bullet fired
by an enemy hidden in the dark! He was momentarily ashamed of this
recollection as he glanced at the surveyor asleep close at hand; as he
heard the rhythmic beat of feet on the shaking, ill-laid floor, and the
patting of hands as some jovial young blade danced a "break-down" in
one of the workmen's shanties to the strumming of the banjo, finding
this far more congenial an occupation than shoving the jack plane.

Nevertheless, he had enemies, virulent, unscrupulous, powerful, as
his short stay here might seem to attest, and what strange, fantastic
vagary was this touching a new star! He would not refuse; that would
impugn his courage even to himself, and he held it dear; and as
he looked at Larrabee's face with its ever-smiling eyes, despite
the intimation of something withheld, of trafficking with a mere
subterfuge, he doubted as causeless his prudence. Moreover, this was
a man of whom he must keep track, of whom he must know more. He was
looking about the room as he rose. "Wait a minute," he said. "I have a
strong glass here that may be of use."

The door of the maligned monkey stove standing ajar emitted a ruddy
glow of embers upon the yellow pine walls of the room, and toned down
the white glare of the kerosene lamp. A deep, restful red hue might
have attracted the eye from the farther side amongst the shadows, as
Kenniston tossed a rug aside upon a chair to obscure a quick search
through his valise. A pernicious habit, that of carrying his pistols at
the bottom of his luggage, amongst his clean shirts, and he promised
himself this should be the end of it. At the moment that he thrust the
revolver into his pistol-pocket he picked up the field-glass from the
cot. "Here it is," he said, and he followed his guest out of the door
and into the dusky night.

It was still all vibrant with the twanging drone of the cicada and
the windy note of the booming frogs. The air, damp and of clarified
freshness, was pervaded with indeterminate fragrance, the blent perfume
of some flower and the pungent aroma of weed and shrub and the balsamic
fir. A cluster of great trees rose just outside of the little shell,
and though many a star shone down in the interstices of the black
fibrous foliage, Larrabee led the way out beyond them and into an
open space. It was nearer the other cottages instead of farther away,
as Kenniston had half expected. The suspicion, the half-dormant fear,
the doubt in his mind, were giving place anew to his determination to
keep his hand on this man, to win his confidence or to surprise his
secret. All those genial arts of ingratiation at his command were once
more brought into play. It was he who introduced the subject of their
mission, as they paused on a slight eminence, with a clear view of the
great fields of heaven before them.

"Now which is the star that you want to know more about?" he demanded,
lifting the glass with a free gesture, and adjusting it to his eye.

"Don't ye see nuthin' oncommon?" the mountaineer asked, in a tense
voice.

The strained tone struck Kenniston's attention, and he lowered the
glass and looked through the baffling darkness at his companion,
whose form could only be discriminated by some fine sense from the
surrounding darkness by an effect of solidity, given one could hardly
say how.

Kenniston, the glass swaying useless in his hand, gazed upward once
more.

"No, I can't say I do," he replied wonderingly.

Larrabee suddenly came up close to him, taking him by the arm.

"Now, hyar, todes the east, an' yit a leetle todes the north, sorter
slanchwise todes Big Injun Mounting, setting a mite ter the west from
that, an' plumb west from Chilhowee, a bright, bright star,--with," he
added, in a surprised tone, as if he had not before discerned this, "a
sorter silver shine onto it."

Kenniston laughed slyly in his sleeve. One can hardly better appreciate
the immense distance that mechanical appliance has brought man from
his normal state of natural, unassisted faculties than in the effort
to point out, with such accuracy as to enable another to distinguish,
an object in those fair and foreign fields of heaven, by the unaided
means of the index finger. A suffusion of self-gratulatory pride is
apt to overspread the consciousness, the unit assuming the credit of
all that the genius of invention has achieved in the generic name of
mankind. Kenniston had not even a slight expectation of being able to
distinguish the particular star, but the affectation of effort, in his
own interests, in some sort constrained his will. He looked about the
skies with that vague sense of recollection which animates one who
turns the leaves of a volume written in a half-forgotten language. He
had not been the familiar of the stars. His choicest ambitions had
lifted him no further than a reasonably safe height for an attic, or
those fantastic simulations of turrets, with which the new architecture
apes _haud passibus æquis_ the old. He had naught in common with
the full-pulsed aspiring audacity of those architects of eld who
builded in the plain of Shinar; his was but a low-studded Babel. He
had not cared for a higher outlook, and his building had no definite
designs touching heaven. It had been so long since he had regarded
the upper atmosphere other than barometrically that he hardly made
shift to see the Swan arch her snowy neck from those great lakes of
ether, whose indented shores seemed marked and foliage-fringed by the
wooded summits of the Great Smoky Mountains. The assertive brilliance
of Lyra he noted near the meridian, with the harp-strings all vibrant,
doubtless, with that music of the spheres which we are told by the
scientist is no longer a mere figment of poesy. The Cor Caroli gleamed
pure and splendid amongst the mists of a struggling recollection. And
where was Scorpio?--how low in the sky, how far to the southwest, how
near to its setting! Through a water-gap of Chilhowee, cloven to the
very heart of the range, he marked the gleaming coils. Of strangely
melancholy intimations were the stars, seen so far through the steep
wooded defile, dark and rugged on either hand; but he only remembered
the relation of its early setting and the season, for it was near the
end of September. How little building weather the year might spare
him yet! How heavy the rains of to-day, and the west still harbored
portents! Unless he relinquished all and left the field, baffled and
beaten, he must have the incendiary behind the bars. To jail a suspect,
at all events, would intimidate the lawless population, and point the
moral of "Hands off!"

"I don't see it," he said, reverting to the prosecution of his
intention to win the mountaineer's secret information as to the origin
of the fire. "I'm sorry I can't see it, Mr.--Excuse me, what did you
say your name is?"

His visitor had not said, but all thrown off his guard the young man
replied promptly, "Lar'bee,--Jasper Lar'bee. Ef ye look jes' a leetle
ter the right of that thar batch o' stars ez 'pears some similar ter a
kyart-wheel"--He raised once more the futile inefficiency of his index
finger.

But Kenniston was not looking. This name,--he placed it at once. In
the short interview which he had had with the deputy sheriff touching
the incendiary, without whose apprehension he feared to recommence the
building, it had recurred repeatedly to Rodolphus Ross's lips coupled
with many an imprecation. Kenniston had paid scant heed at the time
to the story of the search for Espey, of the pretended arrest, of
the escape of the supposed Larrabee and the inference of some crime
which his flight fostered. It had all happened during his absence from
the Cove, and shortly before the beginning of the building of the
hotel. He could not conceive of any reasons for connecting one with
the other; but this man indubitably knew something of the crime; his
long and mysterious disappearance had baffled all the devices of the
officers, and surely it was a strange subterfuge which had brought him
hither. Strange to the minds of others as well, for sundry figures
were detached now and again from the illumined thresholds near at
hand; presently the foreman had joined the two, and several of the
workmen approached, all pausing at intervals and craning their necks
up toward the sky, having noticed the intent scrutiny of it, and
expectant of some _lusus naturæ_,--comet, or aurora borealis, or
other phenomenon,--the observation of which might serve to break the
monotony. The resonant tone of the banjo now and again sounded loud
in the damp air, as the musician who carried it under his arm jostled
against one of the other men. Their attitudes and faces expressed an
alert curiosity, for they were not altogether indistinguishable, the
two star-gazers having insensibly changed their positions, and come
within the line of light falling from one of the open doors.

"Some ter the right o' that batch o' stars ez be some similar ter a
kyart-wheel," repeated Larrabee urgently.

"I don't know which you mean," replied Kenniston, drawing himself back
to the subject with difficulty.

"Don't ye view one ez ye never viewed afore?" demanded Jasper
breathlessly. "Ef ye know 'em, ye air 'bleeged ter see that thar one
air strange!"

"Mr. Jackson,"--Kenniston turned to the foreman,--"do you see anything
unusual in that sky?"

The foreman answered with a prompt and businesslike negative, and then
appealed in turn to one of the workmen. None of them could perceive
aught amiss, although they all turned about and critically surveyed
the majesty of the heavens.

"It's a new star," protested Larrabee, unconsciously adopting the
scientific term of description. "I seen it kindle up myself 'bout three
weeks ago."

There was an astounded silence; then a resonance broke out abruptly as
the young musician smote his bullet head with the banjo, apparently
inadvertently, but with the view of intimating to his fellows that all
was not accurately adjusted in the cranium of their queer visitor.

Kenniston hesitated for a moment. There lay in his mind the residuum,
so to speak, of an impression that new stars or temporary stars are not
of infrequent occurrence in the economy of worlds, rating time by the
long astral lengths. He could not say at once,--such scant commerce
he had had with the stars of late years, to be sure! His mind had
reverted instantly to the question upon what pretext he should seek
to detain the man. He only saw rather than noted the workmen slowly
turning aside, the long lane of yellow light streaming through the
door, the lustrous mirror-like suggestions in the darkness hard by
where the pools lurked and the frogs were still croaking, the outlines
of the clustering roofs of the other little buildings, shadowy in the
deeper shadow, the dense woods surrounding all, and above the great
amphitheatre of the mountains on every side. The voice of the foreman
recalled him:--

"That's a queer customer. First crank I've seen here."

"Where is he?" cried Kenniston, with a start, the freedom of the
criticism notifying him of the absence of its subject. "Stop him! Call
him! Hold on to him!"

But the effort was vain. Larrabee had departed as suddenly, as
tracklessly, as if the night had swallowed him up.

XVII.

It was a buoyant, elated spirit that Jasper Larrabee bore as he slipped
swiftly away through the darkness and the woods, unaware of the sudden
vehement search for him, unhearing the hue and cry. He had put his
discovery to the test,--the most searching that he could devise. And
not the man learned in letters, who even knew the stars by name, not
the clear-headed, prosperous, efficient foreman, not the humbler
handicraftsmen, could see that gracious, splendid stellular presence
still shining,--shining down into the wilderness, doubtless with some
message, some token, some personal relation, that would be in due
season made known. He had no uncertainties; he had said to himself that
if it were invisible to others he would accept it as a revelation to
himself. For had he not seen it even as it first kindled in the blank
spaces of the midnight sky?

He felt with a sort of surprise that his limbs were trembling as
he went, his breath was short; more than once he paused, with a
reeling sense as if he should fall, and he beheld the summit line of
demarkation where the dark woods touched the clear sky describe a
long curve upward, and once more sink to its place. He had not known
the physical exhaustion that ensues upon strong and long-continued
mental excitement. Beyond the moment's impatient realization he gave
it no heed. He was glad, glad beyond all power of analysis, expectant,
breathless, his eyes continually fixed upon the star, unmindful whither
his failing feet carried him. He passed without a thought the door of
the store of the Lost Time mine, from which so lately he had escaped
as it were with his life in his hand. He might have seen, if he had
chosen, the twinkle of Cornelia Taft's fire through the chinking, as
she nodded on the hearth and vainly waited for her father's return to
supper. He heard naught,--no voice from the woods, no stir of leaf, no
sigh of wind, no lapsing of the alien sheets of water, not even the
full rush of the stream from the portal of the Lost Time mine, loud,
sinister, seemingly charged with cavernous echoes from those hidden
haunted recesses whence it came, wild, turbulent, with thrice its
normal volume hurling out into the black night. Only once he paused.
The unseen air and the invisible moisture were at their jugglery again,
weaving from nothingness wondrous symmetries of scrolls tenuous to the
eye, marvelous winged suggestions endowed with the faculty of flight
and airy poise, graces of fabric, tissues, fold on fold of impalpable
pearl-tinted consistencies; and now a floating film passed before
the star, and again it shone out more splendid still, and anon dimly
through the gathering haze, and so was lost to sight.

Larrabee stood for a time spellbound, still gazing up into heaven. But
winds were astir in the region of the clouds. Heavy purple masses, with
here and there flocculent white drifts in their midst, and showing
lines of white at their verges, were spreading over the sky; the
temperature had fallen suddenly; he was shivering. Vagrant gusts seemed
to issue from defiles of the mountain, and he heard the awakening of
the pines. Out of sight of the star his flagging energies failed. The
definite realization of his fatigue, his hunger, his faintness, pressed
upon his aroused senses. He could hardly support his tottering limbs to
the door of the Lost Time mine, and drag himself up on the rocks, out
of the reach of the water, to rest, as he waited till the clouds should
pass, till the sight of the star should be renewed to his longing gaze.
Even in its eclipse, in a certain yearning sense of bereavement, in his
disappointment, he had a patience and calm acquiescence begotten of
confidence. For he should see it again. Was it not his own, his very
own, charged with some unimagined significance to him? He shifted his
posture once, reckoning upon its position in the sky, that it might
not fail his sight the moment the baffling clouds should withdraw.
He was conscious of a high degree of happiness despite his tremulous
thrills of suspense. He gazed upward, as he reclined on the ledge of
rock, with smiling eyes and a heart full of deep content. He had gone
far enough within to have an upward view through the jagged portal
of rough-hewn rocks. Beyond their edges the sky seemed of lighter
tint, so black it was within. He could mark here how the clouds made
sail, how swiftly the wind sped them. He watched a section of a branch
close at hand sway in sight, and swing back on the wind, and once more
wave, nodding, plumelike, into view. He heard the sharp bark of a fox
outside in the woods; it roused far-away baying of drowsy hounds,
and again all was still, but for the reverberation of the water loud
against the echoing walls of the darksome place. The sound affected
his nerves; he was dizzy for a moment. Then something cold, clammy,
suddenly struck him in the face. His heart seemed to stand still with
the recollection of the spectral terrors of the place. The soft chill
buffet came again and again, and the air was vaguely fanned about his
brow before he recognized the noiseless flight of bats on their way to
the outer darkness. He lay back upon the ledge, finding a solace in the
mere posture of rest in his extreme fatigue, and once more watched the
jagged black portal and the purple clouds with their hoary drifts, as
in endless unbroken folds they rolled before the serene white splendors
of that wondrous star. Again and again he would lift himself upon his
elbow, fancying that the cloud textures waxed thin, and that presently,
when they should fall away from before it, he would behold anew the
sidereal incandescent glory that meant so much, that should mean
more to him. Not once did his faith fail him. Not once did he doubt
that the white fires of this star, which none else could see, were
miraculously kindled and charged with some deep significance for him,
with the vouchsafed will of God. For were not stars messengers in the
olden time? Had he not read of one, supremely blessed and brilliant,
which had led men, the wisest men, to the cradled Christ? As he lay
back in the dense darkness, with the gathering clouds outside, and
the air freighted with the sense of black noiseless invisible wings
of creatures of ill favor and ill omen, he seemed to have a vision
of that guiding star,--not a chill splendid crystalline glitter like
his own, high, high in the sky, but low down in the dark east, and
of a soft supernal silver sheen in the purple shadowy mist above the
shadowy purple hills of Judea, that stretched out in ever-lengthening
perspectives, as it fared on and slowly on its mystic way, for
Bethlehem might still be far to seek.

And suddenly, with a start, Larrabee became aware that it was a real
light at which he was gazing far down in the Lost Time mine. He had
slept he knew not how long, nor in what danger, for the lantern whose
starry lustre shone so far in the dark cavernous depths was swinging in
the hands of one of two men who must have passed him as he lay dreaming
and unconscious. He hardly dared move at first, so far those slanting,
divergent rays extended from the white focus into the darkness. He
lay still, struggling for a moment with the idea of the traditional
spectres of the place, whose grisly renown had served to make it so
solitary. It was the lantern which proved so redoubtable an exorcist.
The sight of the little mundane contrivance appealed to his logical
faculty as no mere theory of the impossibility of spectres could have
done. He lifted himself cautiously on his elbow, and gazed down the
vistas of the gloomy place with a suspicious, inquisitive worldly pulse
beating in every vein. These were men in truth; and what was their
mission here? One of them was singularly gesticulatory of manner.
The other slouched heavily. It was the latter who had just lighted
the lantern, for he was evidently throwing away a match, an article
which the Lost Time store had made common in the Cove. Suddenly they
were joined by a third figure, somehow detached from the darkness,
for Larrabee could hardly have said whence he had approached, and
who turned with a light, lithe motion, swinging to his shoulder an
implement which the thickset man had handed him. It was a pick. How
often Larrabee had heard its vibrations ring through these storied
depths while he threaded the dark tunnel to the still, and shivered at
the thought of the two dead miners digging and digging the graves these
thirty years for their bones which only the waters had buried!

The lantern swayed, the shadows all flickered, the group was on the
move. Larrabee sprang hastily to his feet to follow.

He could not easily judge how far the feeble glimmer led them, so
rugged and winding was the way. Once, as the mouth of a submerged
shaft yawned suddenly before his unprescient feet, he hesitated,
half deterred; he was fain to skulk with the skulking shadows, lest
the light should reveal his presence, and thus the dangers which his
precursors braved menaced him doubly. He marveled that they dared the
possibilities of the place, as he noted that the half-fallen timbers
in a cross-cut through which they passed barely supported the masses
of earth which any jar might dislodge. Everywhere was the sound of
water working its secret will still on the ruins that it had made, and
its tone added to the awe of the place, and the desolation, and the
darkness, and the eerie effect of the bats that flew after the lantern
and smote blindly against it.

The light was set down presently, and as the men seemed stirring about
their work Larrabee ventured to approach nearer behind a pile of
broken rock in the darkness, and mopped the cold perspiration from his
brow. He caught his breath at the sight of the faces which the lantern
revealed.

For they were all recruited from his mother's hearth. Some crazy folly,
doubtless, of old man Haight had drawn him here. He had been one of
the miners before that catastrophe which had closed the work forever;
Larrabee remembered in what deep, blood-curdling tones he was wont
to curse the Lost Time mine. And his daughter Jerusha's husband,--it
had always been a marvel where and how he obtained the whiskey he
so indubitably consumed; perhaps, in consideration of his age and
infirmities, Mrs. Larrabee furnished a too ample allowance of liquor
to old man Haight, who, for services rendered in this wild enterprise,
furnished his son-in-law.

"We-uns hev been toler'ble good customers o' the Lost Time still,"
Larrabee muttered sarcastically.

And there was Jack Espey! The sanity of _his_ presence here was
easily demonstrable; nowhere else could he so safely be. How he had
chanced to coöperate in this strange work with the dotard and the sot
was soon explained.

"Gimme a holt o' that thar grub," he said gruffly, with a look of
poignant hunger on his thin face.

Old Haight, with a deprecatory expression and shaking hand, made haste
to give him a small basket, of the queer shape and aspect which bespoke
the work of the Indians of Quallatown. The young man voraciously
thrust his hand into its narrow mouth, and as he drew forth its meagre
contents gave vent to his disappointment.

"My Lord!" he exclaimed, "is that all? An' ye expec' me ter kem hyar
night arter night--from--from"--the effort of his heavy flight of
imagination showed in his face--"from 'way over yander whar I live now,
an' holp ye dig an' sech, an' gin me sech forage ter work on ez that!"
He pointed contemptuously at the food, albeit his mouth was full.

"Now, now, Jack, now, bubby, lemme tell you," expostulated the old man,
his jaw quivering painfully as he spoke, and his wrinkled face showing,
in the glimmer of the lantern, at once grotesque and piteous, encircled
as it was by the brilliant hues of a little shawl of Mrs. Larrabee's,
in which his head was tied up for protection against the weather, and
which was surmounted by his hat. "Ye dunno how durned hard it war ter
git that much. This hyar Henrietty Timson hev got us down on half
rations, mighty short commons. 'Tain't like 'twar whenst you-uns lived
with us, Jack. Oh my! Oh my, no!" and he shook his queerly upholstered
head as he sat quaking and shivering on a ledge of the rock. He
impressed Larrabee as much out of place,--so habituated was he to the
sight of the old man in the chimney corner,--as the oven, or pot, or
crane, or any other naturalized appurtenance of the fireside might have
been. He let his veinous old shaking hands fall on his knees with a
gesture deeply significant of grief. "I wisht ter Gawd," he cried, "ez
S'briny war hyar!"

He pronounced her name as if she were a sort of minor providence, as
indeed she had been to him.

"Leetle as ye hed, ye mought hev brung it sooner," grumbled Jack,
stuffing the half of a very fat, very heavy biscuit into his mouth.

"Law, Jack," cried the old man, "we-uns air plumb 'feared ter leave the
house sooner,--even arter all war bedded up for the night. That thar
'oman hev got her pryin' nose in every mortal thing; 'pears ter me the
longest, sharpest nose I even seen," he added injuriously, and with
sudden sprightly interest, "ain't it, Tawm?"

His fellow-sufferer from its pointed inquisitiveness had seemed about
to fall asleep in a heavy, shapeless lump, but he roused himself at
this to add his testimony with some sincere acridity.

"Longes' an' sharpes' _I_ ever seen," he protested thickly, "an' I
hev known 'em p'inted an' drawn out to _de_-straction." His snore
followed so promptly that one might have doubted whether he had spoken
at all; his remark presented the phenomenon of a waking parenthesis, as
it were, in the midst of the somnolent text.

"I tell ye, it's good fur S'briny ter go, ter let we-uns savor how we
miss her," said the old man. "Sech a house, Jack, sech quar'lin' an'
scufflin' an' tormentin', f'om mornin' till night,--crowdin' _Me_
up on the h'a'thstone, an' shovin' _my_ cheer, an' talkin' 'bout
useless cumberers, whenst I hev been treated with sech _re_-spec'
by S'briny Lar'bee ez ef I hed been her own dad, stiddier jes' her
husband's step-dad,--sech _re_-spec' an' hot vittles, an' the fus'
sarved, an' the bes' o' everything!" His old face flushed with the
recollection of the recent indignities offered him. "The pa'son tells
ye ter lean on the Lord. Ef ye ain't got the grace ter do that, S'briny
Lar'bee's a mighty good help!"

For the life of him, Jasper Larrabee could not harden his heart.

"Her pet tur-rkey air dead," old man Haight presently observed
disconnectedly.

"Glad of it," said Jack callously. "I never seen a beast so pompered,
an' fairly hanker ter git stepped on, forever flusterin' 'roun' the
floor underfoot."

"_She_'ll be powerful sorry. She sot a heap o' store by it, an'
doctored it cornsider'ble. She 'lowed it hed the quinsy." Then after a
pause, "Whenst I gits my money back," said the old man meditatively, "I
be goin' ter buy S'briny Lar'bee suthin' ez will s'prise her,--I dunno
what. I studies on it some mighty nigh every day. A spry young filly,
mebbe, or a good cow an' calf,--I dunno. I'd gin her the money, ef she
wouldn't be sure ter fool it away on them wuthless triflin' cattle of
chil'n an' folks she contrives fur all the time. I'd gin S'briny half
o' the cold cash, an' ennyhow I lay off ter spend half fur a presint
fur her."

Espey, his energies recruited by food, and perhaps willing to postpone
the evil hour of shoveling and digging, looked up with a satiric eye
and a rallying laugh.

"Whar's my sheer, ef ye be goin' ter gin Mis' Lar'bee haffen the money?
Ye 'lowed Tawm hed hed his pay in whiskey,"--he cast a side glance at
the bloated slumbering face and collapsed figure in the shadow,--"an'
he's hed a plenty, too, fur he's nuthin' but a cag o' liquor set
a-goin' on two legs; but I'm durned ef I'll take my pay out in Mis'
Timson's sour yeast an' raw dough." He twirled the empty basket
over contemptuously. "Ye 'lowed that night, three weeks ago, whenst
I--ye--whenst we run on one another, an' s'prised one another, ez ye'd
pay me solid silver ef I wouldn't tell nobody, but holp ye; now didn't
ye?"

Espey's tone was so obviously that of one who speaks in flagrant jest
that Larrabee perceived he gave the unknown enterprise no serious
support or credence, and that he was only utilizing some preposterous
delusion of the old man touching his work in the Lost Time mine to
secure food to sustain him while he evaded the pursuit of the law.

"Ye 'low ez 'tain't enough money!" screamed the old man shrilly, and
Larrabee recognized the clamors of the queer cracked voice which he
had been wont to shudderingly mark in the tunnel that led to the
still. "Ain't I done tole ye what I ain't never tole no other livin'
man--I don't count Tawm--it air eighty-seben dollars! Yes, sir, nigh
on ter a hundred, what I hed done sold my cabin an' lan' fur on Big
Injun Mounting whenst I kem over hyar ter settle,--eighty-seben
dollars in hard silver"--He broke off abruptly. Then, in the deep,
hollow, blood-curdling tone which Larrabee had so often heard about
the fireside, he cursed the Lost Time mine. His excitement was painful
to witness, as Larrabee, still looking round the pile of broken
rock, noted his feverish illumined eyes, the flush on his withered
parchment-like cheek, the aimlessness and the quaking of his fluttering
nerveless hand. Espey was gazing at him calmly, his face lighted by
the lantern placed on the ground between them, and evidently believing
that not a syllable he uttered had any foundation in fact.

"'Twar the day o' the floodin' o' the mine," old Haight mouthed and
gesticulated vehemently. "Every durned thing went wrong that day! I war
hyar a-workin'. I hed worked in mines over in Car'liny, an' war ekal
ter all. I war toler'ble young an' nimble,--knowed ter be ez nimble
ez a painter! An' one o' them durned buzzards workin' of the windlass
drapped the whole contrivance, winch, rope, bucket, man, an' all, down
inter the bottom o' the shaft; an' they couldn't make the man answer,
an' 'lowed he war kilt. An' I--the devil's own fool--mus' ups an'
volunteer ter go down an' git the windlass an' let 'em hoist it out,
an' then let down the bucket agin an' fetch up the man--(I furgits his
name, dad-burn him!--Tom, Jim, Pete, cuss him, whatever he be!) An' ez
they war a sort o' harnessin' me up with ropes under my arms an' around
my middle, I felt my leetle bag o' money a-poppin' 'bout in my pocket,
an' 'peared ter me it mought pop out down in that deep onhandy shaft.
An' I handed it ter the foreman ter keep fur me in his pocket,--he
war a clever trusted man; I never tole the t'others, kase they war
toler'ble hard cases, an' some men would kill a man fur a dollar an'
a half; an' bless Gawd--eighty-seben dollars! An' down I goes! I hed
about teched bottom when--hell broke loose! I 'lowed I hearn thunder:
'twar the water on a plumb tear, breakin' down the walls an' cavortin'
like a herd o' wild cattle through the mine. Sech screechin's! The men
ez helt the rope drapped it on my head an' run fur thar lives!"

With open mouth and shaking jaw, he rose up, and gazed eagerly about,
while Espey wearily yawned and passed his hands across his eyes.

"It bust through about thar." He pointed about in real or fancied
recognition of the course of the flood. "But over yander--the whole
thing hev fell down an' caved in sence then, mighty nigh--'twar higher
'n the level o' the overflow, an' I stayed down thar in the shaft dry
ez a bone. I stayed two days along o' that dead man. I furgits his
name," he broke off in peevish irritation.

He sat down, readjusted his plaid shawl about his head, surmounted it
again with his big broad hat, and recommenced:--

"Wall, they 'lowed at fust they'd work the mine agin,--didn't know
what the damage war; an' ez they war pokin' 'bout, somebody 'membered
me, an' when they fished me out'n the shaft I hed these hyar jiggets."
He held up his shaking hands, and looked in exasperation from one
to the other. "Some calls it the palsy, but the doctor, he 'lowed
it kem from the narvous shock. An' the foreman, he hed done hed ter
git drowned with my leetle bag o' money in his pocket." He rose to
his feet, with a sudden steady blazing fire in his eyes. "But it's
silver,--eighty--seben--dollars!" He pronounced the words as if
they expressed the wealth of the Indies. "They air silver,--silver
metal. Water can't hurt 'em, an' the leetle leather bag kep' 'em from
scatterin'. The foreman's got 'em in his pocket. Mebbe he hain't got
no pocket by this time, but he hain't got rid o' all his bones. The
money'll be nigh his bones, an' I be goin' ter foller the wash o' that
flood, afore the walls fell in on it, till I find 'em."

There was something pathetic to Jasper Larrabee's sympathetic gaze
in the record of the gradual failure of the old man's mental powers
registered on the walls. He could easily distinguish, of course, the
difference in the work wrought by numbers and with the expectation
of valuable ore and this unique subterranean burrowing with only the
object of old Haight's search in prospect. But at first accepted
methods of mining had been held in regard with a due consideration of
safety. The excavations had been carefully timbered, the débris of the
ancient lumber serving for the purpose; the nature of the earth and
rock all capably recognized either in the avoidance of obstacles or the
seizure of advantage; the exact location of an old cross-cut definitely
ascertained and intersected by the new tunnel, and utilized to further
him on the way to some objective point, doubtless once definite in his
mind, but now hazy and intermittent, or possibly lost altogether, for
here and there, evidently at random, great vaults had been hollowed
out and abandoned, and for a long time every precaution or thought of
safety had been discarded. His plan and its feasibility were gone, and
only his inadequate intention remained.

Larrabee started violently as the walls rang suddenly with the weird
old voice, which, with its keen, false intonation, had so often struck
terror to the stout hearts of the moonshiners of the Lost Time still.
It was a voice of insistent command. He was urging his comrades to the
work, and presently the regular strokes of the pick wielded by the
stalwart "Tawm" set the echoes of the place to a hollow, melancholy
iteration dreary to hear, and dismally blent with the rush of the
cruel torrent. Espey's stroke seemed, in comparison, incidental and
ineffective; but albeit both men worked apparently with a will, it was
evidently quite at random, obeying implicitly now and again a gesture
or command given in pursuance of some weak, wavering intention, and
changed in a moment.

The accident which had put the secret into Larrabee's hands seemed
to him now so natural that he marveled that it had not been earlier
revealed. But doubtless the vocation of the lost miners had served
to connect the stroke of the pick with their gruesome fate, and thus
the very fact of the sound, which must otherwise have betrayed the
enterprise, aided the spectral traditions and the consequent avoidance
of the place to preserve it. Would Espey have dared, he asked himself,
to venture within, had he not feared the living more than the dead? And
but for his own recognition of the humble lantern and its necessarily
human uses he would, for fear of the spectral miners, hardly have
tracked the old miner to his new lead.

And suddenly, with the very thought, notwithstanding the perfectly
natural solution of the mystery, he was solicitous as to the means of
departure. He could not wait to follow that feeble lantern far enough
in the background to insure his invisibility. He would not issue upon
them now and advertise his discovery, and dismay the old dotard with
his hopeless scheme. "I don't want to torment the pore old man," he
said. He felt a keen thrill of savage joy to have discovered Espey's
lair, but he would need some thought to secretly entrap him. "Fur ye
air a mighty slick shirk, brother Jack," he said, with scorn. He was
feeling some matches in his pockets, and judging of their number.
Should they fail him before he reached the outer air, he could step
aside and wait till the men should pass with the lantern. Its glimmer
served now as long as the passage was comparatively straight; when it
turned, himself out of the possibility of view, he struck the first
match. The way was shorter than he had fancied. His store was not yet
exhausted when he felt the warmer temperature from without, and saw the
jagged outline of the portal and heard the melancholy dash of the rain;
for it was once more "falling weather," and the sky was cloaked and
gray.

As he hesitated outside, his mind intent upon Espey and the incidents
of his career since he had been among them, there came to him the
thought of the barn in which his whilom friend had been wont to
spend so many idle and meditative hours. A good refuge, to be sure,
for a fugitive from the law. The idea of comforts allured him as he
recollected the great fragrant elastic masses of hay. A hiding-place
as well. Here even Henrietta Timson would hardly find him, for the
rotting ladder, from which many a rung was missing, afforded scant
footing for a barn swallow, or a flying squirrel, or an athlete like
himself or his friend. Sleep would recruit his energies, quiet solace
his mind, a vacant interval of time clarify his intentions and fortify
his resolves. He started up the mountain briskly; the thought of home,
even in this humble, secret, half-outcast guise, warmed his heart.
He did not feel the rain dash in his face. A prescience of October
was unheeded in the melancholy cadences of the midnight wind. He
hardly noted the deep gloom of the Cove, where an owl was wailing at
intervals, and whence all the orange-tinted lights had vanished. As the
chill of the failing season struck him, he shivered, but unconsciously.
He had forged on past the Lost Time store almost to the crest of
the ridge, where the homeward way diverged, when suddenly a dull
subterranean thunder shook the air, and the earth seemed to tremble. He
paused in astonishment.

"Why, they air a-blastin' down thar in the Lost Time mine. Espey
oughtn't ter let two bereft folks tech sech ez that; 'tain't safe."

Then he reflected that Espey himself had doubtless superintended the
charges with due regard to their safety and his own. Nevertheless, he
shook his head as he stood looking over his shoulder into the blank,
unresponsive darkness. He heard no more, and presently he turned again
and went his homeward way in the dark persistent dripping of the early
autumn rain.

XVIII.

The anomaly of administering upon one's own estate Lorenzo Taft was
permitted in some sort to experience. A definite realization of
finality attended his meditations, at he sat bending over the embers in
the great fireplace of the store, in the rain-clouded morning that rose
upon the conclusion of his labors of removing the still and destroying
all its approaches. His vocation was gone, and naught remained. He had
no more affinity than a fox or a wolf for a law-abiding occupation.
The possible profits that might stick to his hands in the process of
the conversion of the goods upon the shelves from the wholesale ratio
to the retail failed to allure him, for the store had never been aught
but a "blind." The furrow was no thoroughfare. That wild gambling with
the chances of the sun and wind and the rain in its season, and often
out of its season, known as farming, and doubtless permitted by the law
only because it insures its own punishment, was risky enough to jump
with his humor, but the stakes were hopelessly inadequate. He could not
look forward, and the glance backward over the shoulder needs a good
conscience to commend the prospect.

Now and again he lifted his heavy boot and kicked the embers together
fiercely, as if at great odds with his thoughts and his own counsels.
Like many another, he undervalued his success, its hairbreadth
jeopardies and its difficulty of attainment, now that it was fairly
secured. It seemed to him a slight thing, the device of his quick
wits to insure his safety, and his satisfaction in its triumphant
exploitation had already evanesced. Had it been possible to reëstablish
the status of yesterday, doubtless he would have hardily risked the
discovery of the still, the disclosure of Larrabee, the capture of
Espey, Dan Sykes's drunken tongue, and, as a result of these, the
"shootin'-irons" of the "revenuers" and the sentence of the federal
court. But gunpowder as a factor in a scheme admits of no second
thoughts.

He even upbraided his own acumen that, in the emergency, he had sought
with an eye single the safety of himself, his one remaining comrade,
and the apparatus, regardless of all considerations of enmity. But now
that judgment was satisfied and escape certain, vengeance clamored.

Whenever he thought of Larrabee outside, triumphant, free, enjoying
an absolute immunity from the law by reason of the destruction of the
moonshiners' lair, which rendered the discovery of his complicity
impossible, Taft frowned heavily and swore beneath his breath, and
kicked the unoffending embers into a new adjustment, so bitter was the
fact that his own safety made Larrabee's protection complete. Even poor
Dan Sykes's exile--and doubtless the young sot was well on the way to
Texas by this time--was as necessarily a measure taken in Larrabee's
behalf as if it were the dearest desire of Taft's heart to shield and
screen him. The realization that, despite himself, Larrabee shared his
security cheapened it. Less and less he realized its value. A turbulent
pulse began to stir within his veins. His heavy cheek was red and
pendulous beneath his yellow beard. Occasionally he dropped his lower
jaw with an expression of angry dismay, so ill had the event fallen out
with his liking. The sight of Copley wandering about the half-darkened
house, lighted only by the fire and the pallid grayness from the door
ajar opening upon the rainy outside world, as uneasy as a homeless cat,
able to settle to nothing, his face a palimpsest of care and trouble
and failure, overwritten again and again above the half-obliterated
script of years agone, irritated him vaguely. Taft eyed him loweringly,
as the two children in the opposite room besieged him for the detail of
the adventures and dramatic "taking off" of a certain "black b'ar," a
vanquished enemy of his earlier days, which he recounted as aimlessly
as if the story were elicited by a wooden crank; but responding to a
spirited encore, he plucked up heart of grace to add new and fresh
particulars. His worn and not unkindly face did not ill become the
armchair and the propinquity of the juvenile heads. His serenity, as
the two resorted from contradiction to blows, smartly administered
across him to his own great jeopardy, bespoke a grandfatherly
tolerance, nearly related to affection, for the combatants. Without
more masterful leading than his own mind could originate or his own
propensities could furnish, he might spend the rest of his life at the
plough-handles, and ask no better society, and hope for naught beyond
his coarse garb and his coarser fare. He was growing old, and this
might be a better prospect than the still could promise, with always
the possibility of a federal prisoner's cell at the vanishing point of
the long perspective.

Taft could preëmpt no such demesne of mild content. His rankling regret
for all that he had done, and done so well, in that it served his enemy
perforce as one with himself, deepened as he began to realize that in
escaping so great and imminent a danger none sustained appreciable
injury but himself. He alone seemed at the end. He could not for years,
perhaps, safely rehabilitate the still. A new place must be sought, a
new trade established, new dangers guarded against; and complicated
by his relations with Larrabee, at large and at enmity, a removal
unobserved and a reëstablishment without pursuit seemed impossible.
He dwelt with futile persistence on the peculiar adaptability of his
hiding-place, now demolished forever. Nowhere else could he have
commanded such advantages of seclusion. Surely nowhere else could his
dangerous vocation have been so safely plied. He enumerated the varied
precautions that he had observed, the dangers that he had successfully
balked. All the chances of the world outside had run in his favor; even
the mysterious burning of the hotel was strangely calculated to aid his
design in preventing the advent into the Cove of summer sojourners,
that might lead to the discovery of his lair. Doubtless, too, by this
time, in addition, Kenniston's plans were definitely and forever
baffled by the untoward result of processioning the land. And as the
thought of it recurred to him he started suddenly, the color deepened
in his face, and he beheld the events of which he had elected to play
the motive power in a new and baleful light.

Certainly there was no flaw in his reasoning that stormy night when
he had betaken himself in company with the wind and the rain, high up
into the solitudes of the "bald" of the mountain. A wild night, with
none else abroad save perchance a stray marauder of the furry gentry.
Only the mists dogged his steps, and only the lightnings searched out
his path. The gigantic boulder that seemed immovable, grim, gaunt,
forbidding, the agency of giant powder set astir easily enough; and
although the charge, accurately calculated for the purpose, was not
sufficient to fracture the great mass, its equilibrium on the steep
slope was destroyed. A wild turbulent dance it had as it hurled down
the slope from the spot where the ebbing seas of centuries agone had
left it stranded. A thunderous crashing voice it lifted as it went, and
the thunder of the clouds seemed to reply. In the pallid dawn of the
rainy day, Taft had crept back through the wet clouds of the summits
and the spent winds lingering in the dank woods, to behold it lying
there in this alien stop, as immovable of aspect as of yore, with great
trees uprooted by the tempest athwart the rocky ledges about its path,
and every trace of the action of powder effaced by the persistent rain.
It marked a new corner for the beginning of Kenniston's survey; on a
line with the old, it is true, but full five furlongs distant. It was
a north-westerly line to be run out thence; the greater divergence
would occur in the Cove, which fact Taft had learned as Kenniston made
a swift plat of his irregularly shaped land with his cane on the floor
of Cap'n Lucy's cabin porch. A simple scheme enough, this,--that the
one available site for the hotel should be thrown within the lines
of Cap'n Lucy, who would not bargain, sell, or convey, and thus the
ill-omened caravansary crowded out of the space it was expected to
occupy; for as yet Bruin's intervention as incendiary was among the
uncovenanted things, and since the unlucky threat to burn the building
had originated among the moonshiners Taft feared discovery should he
apply the torch himself. A simple scheme, well planned and carried out
with full effect,--and how should its completion so ill please its
projector?

The fact that Cap'n Lucy should profit by it Taft had heretofore hardly
heeded, since this was the necessary incident of his own greater
profit. Now, however, that treachery, as he esteemed it, had riddled
the whole finespun web and brought it to naught, a turmoil of rage
possessed him. It seemed some curious chicanery of fate that he alone
should sustain loss, and that to others should accrue all the advantage
of his subtle weavings of chance and fact, as if the threads still
held fast. Cap'n Lucy was in possession, doubtless, of many hundred
acres of Kenniston's land. He suddenly grudged them to Cap'n Lucy as
he had never bethought himself to grudge them to Kenniston. Jealousy
is an intimate passion, and insistently of the soil. The neighbor, the
associate, the friend's friend,--it makes no far casts. Kenniston was
beyond its restricted bounds.

Cap'n Lucy's causticity, his arrogance, his insulting courage which
belittled the possibilities of another man's wrath, his intrenchment in
the subservience of his household, and his preëminence in the esteem
of his small world did not serve to commend him to his unwilling
benefactor, who stood in immediate contemplation of his own loss.
And as the radiant face of Julia appeared in the dim midst of Taft's
recollection, he rose to his feet, his resolution taken in the instant.
He had not forgotten the look in Larrabee's eyes when Espey had
demanded of him whom he had been "a-courtin' at Tems's." Now, with
Espey gone, and Larrabee foot-loose and free, it might chance that
these hundreds of acres of which he had bereft Kenniston would one day
fall into Larrabee's possession as his wife's inheritance, when Cap'n
Lucy should go to his account,--which Taft doubted not would be a long
one.

"I'll be dad-burned," he cried, "ef I'll stand by an' see Kenniston
choused fur old Lucy or Lar'bee, air one!"

Few human motives are simple. The travesty of restitution served to
cloak even to himself jealousy and grudging and revenge, and that
mad impulse to hurl down and wreak woe upon those who had chanced
to prosper in the dispensations which he had ordered himself, and
which had wrought perversely to his injury. He had, however, nothing
of the appearance or the manner of a subtle villain when he was on
horseback in the slanting lines of rain, that multiplied till they
hid the mountains near at hand, and erased the Cove, and nullified
all the conditions of the familiar world. On the contrary, his bluff,
bold, open aspect was of a reassuring geniality, notwithstanding its
overbearing intimations, and served to identify him to Kenniston, as
he lounged in his unsubstantial domicile, and looked out ruefully at
the dull day with the gray rain and the grayer mist and the ochreous
pools of water, seeing naught else till this massive equestrian figure
materialized in its vaporous midst and seemed to ride straight out of
it. Taft flung himself from his saddle with a decision which implied a
mission; and despite Kenniston's intention to discourage the visits of
the mountaineers, he could not, with so assured a guest, have withheld
the customary greeting of hospitality without more definite rudeness
than he had expected to adventure.

The new-comer was the more welcome since Kenniston's companion in
keeping the monkey stove warm was Rodolphus Ross, who had come to the
Cove for the purpose of examining the scene of the fire, and ferreting
out the incendiary. He had, under the guise of questioning Kenniston
on the subject, inflicted his society upon his restive host for the
better part of an hour, now and then desisting from the discussion to
work away at the damper of the monkey stove, which he patronizingly
denominated a "smart little trick," albeit by reason of the heavy
air and ill adjustment and the lack of adequate draught it was doing
itself no credit. Ross experimented with an ardor and uninformed energy
which threatened the total wreck of its constitution. The clatter of
the metal was hardly more grating upon Kenniston's educated nerves
than were his guest's speech and bearing. There was something in the
exaggeration of the deputy's urban boorishness, the plaid of his
ill-fitting garments, the hilarity of his vulgar townish impudence,
that daunted a charitable acceptation of his foibles. So distasteful to
Kenniston's cultured taste was the degree of sophistication acquired
by the deputy sheriff, and with many a misconception adapted to his
personality, that the absence of it seemed dignity in the mountaineer,
and Taft's unvarnished address the unpolished substratum of good
manners.

"How's ducks in the hills?" Ross greeted him, dropping the small
poker, and looking up with bright dark eyes, the two prominent front
teeth visible beneath the short upper lip. There was a moment of
rabbit-like expectancy of expression; then his lips widened to a laugh
as the burly stranger turned his serious, impressive face toward him.

"Air you-uns speakin' ter me, sir?" demanded Taft, in a grave, direct
manner, his steady eye full upon him.

The airy deputy shifted ground for once. "Good day fur ducks," he
modified his speech.

"Cornsider'ble fallin' weather," admitted Taft incidentally, and,
seating himself in the chair indicated by Kenniston, he proceeded
to take part in the conversation, his big booming voice rendering
interruption impossible save as he listed.

"I hev viewed you-uns afore at old Cap'n Lucy Tems's house," he said to
Kenniston, crossing his legs, and eying the steam casually as it rose
from the damp boots under the persuasive heat of the stove. "Yes, sir,
Taft is my name."

"I remember you very well," said Kenniston affably. "Won't you light
your pipe?" He pushed a match holder and tobacco pouch across the table
to him.

Taft, without comment, filled his pipe from an inexhaustible supply of
tobacco that seemed always loose in his pocket; it was far stronger
than that of his host, as the rank odor which rose on the air presently
demonstrated. Rodolphus Ross had looked at him with a grin of hopeful
anticipation, which shrunk at once when he recognized and adapted to
his own needs the uses of the lucifer match.

"Yes, sir," Taft resumed, "I war toler'ble sorry ter hear 'bout'n yer
hotel bein' burnt. I didn't view it at the time." He puffed the coals
into a glow, and pulled away comfortably.

"Meanes' people on yearth, these hyar mountaineers!" cried Ross. "They
jes' so durned ignorant they don't know sin from salvation, nor law
from lying."

"Then they ain't 'sponsible," remarked Taft coolly. He pressed down the
burning tobacco in the bowl with a callous forefinger indurated by long
practice to crowding his pipe, and resumed: "I 'lowed it mought gin ye
a start ef I war ter tell ye I hearn sev'ral men talkin' 'bout burnin'
it,--long time ago, 'fore it war begun."

Kenniston was leaning back in his chair, much at his ease, noting with
a sort of languid interest the intimations of force and ferocity in
his visitor's face: the keen sagacity, rather as of the instinctive
endowment of one of the lower orders of creation than an enlightened
intelligence; the beaklike nose; the contradictory geniality of the
full blue eye and broad floridity. He brought his tilted chair suddenly
to the floor, leaned forward on the table, with a slight exclusive
gesture toward Rodolphus Ross, which, although it escaped that worthy,
caused Taft a sharp regret for his precipitancy.

The deputy sheriff was all a-clamor.

"Why, now, my big bull o' Bashan, ye hev got ter make that statement
under oath with full partic'lars,--names, dates, and place!" He rose up
on the opposite side of the monkey stove, with the lifter in his hand,
with which he gesticulated imperatively.

Kenniston could hardly repress his impatience.

"Of course, Mr. Ross, of course,--all in due season," he said irritably.

"But abuse the authorities, in season an' out, an' 'low the devil will
ketch the officer, in due course o' jestice, 'fore the officer'll ketch
the malefactor. I ain't a-goin' ter lose you, Mr. Durham, ye bet high
on that!" he added, turning to Taft.

"Mr. Taft expects to swear to the facts, of course," said Kenniston. He
paused abruptly, meditating a remonstrance with the tumultuous brute;
but Ross's very vulgarity, his clamorous brutality, the impossibility
of reaching through his hardened exterior any sensitiveness, or pride,
or sense of decorum, or whatever sanction may control the heart of a
man who is a gentleman in jeans, gave him an advantage over a man of
breeding which no culture could compass. Kenniston could not cope with
him; his training had prepared him for no such encounter.

Only Taft's great sonorous voice could overbear the deputy's words,
which sounded in his first utterance with the disjointed effect of
Christmas firecrackers enlivening the booming of Christmas guns.

"I'll make oath ter statements ez ter date an' person, but not
place,--I hev no call ter drag other folks inter sech. I dunno ez they
fired the hotel; I only heard 'em threat it."

"But why?" demanded Kenniston eagerly.

"Deviltry,--deviltry, o' course," protested Ross. He had contrived to
smirch his face in the careless handling of the poker of the monkey
stove, which added a certain grotesque effect to his appearance, if one
were in the mood to be amused by it.

Kenniston's mood was far from such influences.

"I must ask you to be quiet, sir," he said, with acridity.

"Ye must?" sneered Rodolphus Ross. "An' who war that ez 'lowed ef the
local force war so 'torpid,'--_torpid_, ye hed it,--ye'd hev up
private detectives from Bretonville ter settle the hash o' these kentry
varmints?"

He threw up his eyebrows almost to the smirches obliquely laid across
his forehead, laughed with a gleam of white teeth and an intent
widening of the dark eyes, the whole facial expression gone in an
instant.

"Waal, we ain't 'torpid' no longer. 'Wake up, snakes!' Now, old buck,
answer my questions, an' tell me why they warn't willin' ter let Mr.
Kenniston build his hotel in the Cove."

Kenniston folded his arms as he tilted himself back in his chair, and
resigned the conversation to its unique leadership. The ceaseless
motion of the falling lines of rain gave a spurious effect of motion
to the great monastic forms of the mountains cowled with mists and
robed in dreary hue, seeming continually in sad processional along the
horizon. The ochreous pools near at hand had lost all capacity for
reflection, although the dark green branches of the firs here and there
bent above them, and the gray rain dripping from the fibrous fringes
upon the unquiet tremulous surface took its color, and was seen no
more. His returning glance met Taft's eye as he was about to speak, and
somehow in that momentary contact a quiet understanding was established
between them.

"The reason, I reckon, they didn't want Mr. Kenniston ter build his
hotel hyar war 'kase 'twould bring too many strangers round."

"An' what's the objection to strangers?" asked Kenniston anxiously. It
was not merely a retrospective interest that the question served. He
asked for the future.

"Waal, I reckon they hed some moonshinin' or sech on hand," returned
Taft coolly.

"Thar, now! what did I tell ye?" vociferated Rodolphus Ross, appealing
to Kenniston. "An' I'll bet this hyar Larrabee war one of 'em."

Taft nodded, and Kenniston meditatively eyed the dull flashes from the
stove, recollecting the strange conversation of Larrabee here, and his
sudden significant betrayal of secret knowledge of the origin of the
fire when it was mentioned.

"Strangers air powerful onhealthy fur the moonshinin' business," said
Taft, as a sort of corollary of his former statement.

"Speak from experience?" sneered Rodolphus Ross.

"I do so," declared Taft unequivocally. Then turning to Kenniston, "I
sarved a prison term fur illicit distillin' whenst I war a young man.
I 'lowed, like all these other young muskrats, ez I could do what I
pleased with my own corn an' apples. But whenst I traveled all through
six or seben States goin' to the North, an' seen this big kentry an'
sech, I knowed I warn't ekal ter runnin' agin its laws; an' whether
thar's reason in 'em or no, I ondertook ter keep 'em arterward."

This unexpected confession disconcerted Ross in some sort. He silently
eyed Taft, whose criminal experience seemed rather an error of an
unripe judgment than the turpitude of law-breaking, and his candor in
admitting it bluntly did not detract from the serious impression he
had evidently made upon Kenniston. With Ross nothing was serious long.
There was a sudden breaking up of the gloss of intentness in his round
dark eyes, and as they shifted they fell upon the poker of the stove,
and he once more thrust it through the bars and rattled it smartly.

"I oughter say," said Taft, meditatively sucking his pipestem, "that
'twar Espey ez fust 'lowed ter burn ye out. 'Burn his shanty!' he say."

A picture as definite as if it were the reality of pigments and canvas
glowed suddenly before his contemplation,--the red walls of his den
a-flicker in the flare of the furnace fire, the burnished gleam of the
copper, the burly forms of the tubs of mash, familiars of the brown
gloom, and the circle of faces, definite with those sharply marked
shadows and striking high lights that a strong artificial glow elicits
from the darkness. For his life he could not repress a long-drawn sigh,
and then he shifted his position and cleared his throat raucously. But
the picture, like many another masterpiece of the painter Memory, was
not on general exhibition. For all its close detail and strong salience
and brilliant reality of hue, it was invisible to Kenniston. As to the
regretful sigh, fat men are often wont to sigh for very fatness, and it
passed without significance.

After a meditative pause, "Did it ever occur to you that this Larrabee
is a crank," asked Kenniston, "what you call, and very aptly,
touched-in-the-head?"

"Who? Larrabee?" exclaimed Taft vehemently, all alert once more, his
eyes on fire, his angry breath quick. "He's smart ez the very devil!
Don't you let him pull the wool over yer eyes with the lunacy purtense."

Rodolphus Ross gave a final rasping clatter of the poker between the
bars; then flung it, resounding, down upon the floor. He rose to his
feet, stamping with first one and then the other to shake out his
trousers from their persistent kneed effect, and, turning to Taft, he
said, with an off-hand manner, "Now, look-a-hyar, Prize Beef, when did
ye an' this sca'ce buzzard Lar'bee meet the last time?"

The "Prize Beef" apparently perceived no sort of offense in this form
of address.

"I ain't viewed him in--I dunno when. I 'lowed he hed lef' the kentry
till he war up at my store, a few nights ago. I warn't thar, but my
leetle gal, she seen him."

The sly, predatory look was in Rodolphus Ross's eyes. He lifted his
knee and smote it as if he had discovered a very apt coincidence.

Taft hesitated; then he said, "Ye'd better go up yander an' talk ter
my leetle darter 'bout'n it." He hesitated once more. He feared that
Copley might be inadequate to the situation, but, with his ever alert
suspicions, he would doubtless fly at the very sight of a stranger; and
as to Sis, he could rely upon Rodolphus Ross's address and manner to
arouse the enmity of old Mrs. Jiniway's disciple in etiquette, and he
knew of old that Sis was wont to give her adversary no quarter. A dozen
of such as Rodolphus Ross would hardly be a handful for Sis. He would
learn naught from her which he wanted to know. "Take my mare out thar,
bein' ready saddled," he said hospitably. "I'll wait hyar till ye kem
back."

Contrariety was the breath of the deputy's life. The congeniality of
his vocation lay much in the opposition of his duties to the desires of
those of his fellow-men with whom he was brought into official contact.
He earnestly wished to negative Taft's suggestion, but the possibility
of getting at closer quarters with Larrabee, of once more finding his
trail, which had seemed to disappear from the face of the earth, was
stronger for the moment. His enmity had not grown cold; it was the more
vehement the more it was baffled. He lingered a moment; then, turning
up his collar, and pulling down the broad rim of his hat all around to
afford eaves to conduct the rain from his head, he plunged out into the
steady torrents with a discordant yawp that made the little shanty ring.

Taft gazed thoughtfully after him as he vaulted into the saddle and
rode off with a good deal of unnecessary heel-and-toe exercise in the
region of the animal's ribs. The restive mare apparently resented the
ungentle treatment, for the last that was seen of mount and rider was
a profile rampant against the blank white expanse of the closing mists
ere they were enveloped in the opaque multitudinous folds.

"They tell me that Gawd made man," said Taft at last. "'Pears ter me ez
the Almighty slighted _that_ job, sure."

Kenniston was a man of painfully orderly instincts. He could not
satisfactorily resume the conversation without gathering up the poker,
the lifter, and other appurtenances of the stove which Ross had
scattered about the little zinc square on which it sat, replacing them,
rearranging the writing materials, newspapers, tobacco, and cigars
on the table, and stirring the fire to brightness and a possibility
of burning. As he threw himself into his chair he marked how the
encroaching mists had invested the house. Not half a dozen paces
of the path remained visible from the door; even upon the threshold
the vapor hung in vague white wreaths, to vanish in the heat, and be
replaced by white clouds floating in with a rolling motion,--never
disappearing utterly, but venturing no further. On the roof and in the
invisibilities of the white mists outside they could hear the chilly
rain still steadily falling. The seeming isolation gave a certain
confidential character to the conversation even before its developments
warranted this.

"How did the percessionin' turn out?" Taft demanded.

"The rain stopped it," returned Kenniston, gloomily eying the
thickening mists, while Taft critically but covertly observed him.

"Satisfied ez fur ez it went, I s'pose?" Taft flicked off the ashes
from his pipe, and pressed down the remainder of its contents with that
salamander of a forefinger.

"No," said Kenniston irritably. "It is a great surprise to me."

"Mr. Kenniston," said Taft, with that blunt directness which so
commended him to the experienced man and so warped his judgment,
"that thar Big Hollow Boulder, the beginning o' yer survey, hev been
bodaciously moved."

Kenniston lifted his head suddenly, the excitement of the moment
showing red in his face. A half-scornful incredulity was in his eyes,
almost on his lips. He was about to speak; then paused doubtfully. The
testimony of his recollections of Cap'n Lucy's significant insistence
on the phrase "Big Hollow Boulder" and a thousand satiric allusions to
the stationary functions of a monument of boundary overwhelmed him for
the moment; for their incongruity with a culpable knowledge or agency
in the fact was more than inexplicable; it was mysterious. There needed
no dexterous jugglery with phrase and fact, however, to account for
Luther's furtive, hang-dog manner and averted eye.

"It seems impossible! But I will not believe that old man Lucy had
anything to do with moving it," Kenniston began. He suddenly caught his
lip and bit it hard. It was evident from his flaunting remarks that the
old mountaineer had not been similarly generous to his neighbor.

"A heap o' land," suggested the politic Taft. "But then I s'pose ter
run yer eastern line out would show whar yer corner is?" He asked the
question eagerly.

"Oh no. Calls for permanent natural objects usually control calls
for distance. I suppose that rule would hold fast in this instance.
My eastern line can only run to the boulder, which is presumably
immovable."

Taft's countenance fell. He had thought that the further survey of
the eastern boundary would serve to reëstablish the corner where the
boulder should be; on the contrary, Cap'n Lucy was invested with many
hundred acres for which he had given no equivalent in goods, or money,
or even occupancy.

"I saw that something was mighty wrong with the line that the surveyor
was running; and so did Cap'n Lucy, for that matter," said Kenniston,
revolving the events of the processioning. "He looked dumfounded when
he saw Wild Duck Falls in his boundary, and the hotel,--or rather the
place where the hotel ought to be."

Taft caught a quick inspiration. "That's it,--them boys is
a-moonshinin' fur true. They must hev moved the boulder ter crowd ye
out of a buildin' site. An' then they burnt the hotel."

"Well, they've got me pretty badly crowded,--I'll say that for them."

Kenniston was looking out of the door, with that sullen sense of
injury and hopelessness which oppresses a city man in the country
in bad weather. The world had slipped away, somehow; he was left to
the vague unresponsiveness of the inexpressive white mists; the rain
would probably continue forever; the day was of a longevity known to
no other that had ever dawned; without the prompting of his watch he
could not have said if it were morning or afternoon. The roof leaked;
the boots of his uncouth visitors tracked up the floor with red clay
mud. A saddle in one corner gave out an obtrusive odor of leather,
and the monkey stove, despite all this dankness, filled the room with
that baking, dry, afflicting aroma common to all its kindred. His
pugnacity was abated under these untoward conditions; his enthusiasms
were overwhelmed beneath the depression of the rain. He thought
wistfully of Bretonville, and of a cosy corner in the reading-room of
a certain club, and of his office, and sighed as his mind reverted to
the jeopardy of the present, the futility of the money and thought he
had spent here, and the froward tangle which must needs be untwisted if
these unpromising assets were to be utilized at all.

"Mus' hev been Lar'bee an' Espey a-moonshinin'." Taft once more sought
to prompt that inimical sense of injury. "An' moved the boulder
bodaciously,--the corner landmark."

"A felony," said Kenniston thoughtfully.

The patter of the rain came heavily through the silence, and in that
bleak whiteness without they heard far away the wind rousing from its
lair in furthest denies. The terrors of its voice did not shake the
mists; only the sound touched a responsive chord of feeling, and the
day was the drearier for the broken stillness.

"A felony," he said, and fell a-musing. He vaguely repudiated the
idea, and then bethought himself, contradictorily, of the strange
subterfuge with which he had been summoned to the door. For no harm,
surely, he argued. There was a certain fascination in the thought of
the new star that the mountaineer had brought to his contemplation. Not
a bad face, this star-gazer's, and with a coloring which had always
commended itself to his artistic sense. A good face and finely cut, he
would have said but for that association of ideas, "a felony," that
sudden conscious expression as of some guilty knowledge of the burning
of the hotel. He could not believe it of his star-gazer, with his
elated upward look! He remembered afterward that he thought then that
the dankness of the weather, in relaxing all manner of tension, had
slackened his rigid standards and his taut personal exactions. He was
morally limp, doubtless, as well as physically; but he shrunk from the
phrase in this application, and he considered that the most definite
sensation of that most indefinite day was the relief he experienced
when Rodolphus Ross came plunging out of the mists.

In high dudgeon the deputy was with the events and results of his
mission, and he had wreaked his resentment on the unoffending animal
which he rode. The mare's sides showed the marks of his stinging lash,
and she had retaliated as well as she could by perversely refusing to
pause where he wished to dismount to avoid the pools. A false start
or two dragged him through water knee-deep, and as he came into the
house his eyes were flashing with his various anger, and his lip curled
scornfully.

"I tell ye," he said to Taft, with his fractious mirthfulness, "thar's
money in that brat o' yourn, that Cornelia Taft! Buy her a muzzle an' a
chain an' jine a show, an' she'll draw a crowd ez the Leetle She-B'ar
o' Persimmon Cove! Bless my boots! I'm glad I'm all hyar. The leetle
b'ar like ter tore me ter fringes!" he exclaimed metaphorically. He
canted his head mockingly to one side as he threw himself into a chair
beside the stove, seized the poker, and administered a rousing shake.
"I tell you what," he said, eying Taft gloweringly, "I'd keep her nails
an' teeth well pruned, my friend."

For Miss Cornelia Taft and Rodolphus Ross had failed signally to hit it
off amicably. Copley had watched the interview through the open door
of the store with varying emotions of anxiety: first, lest Ross was a
"revenuer" or a spy; then, lest, as an officer of the state law, he had
some charge against them; again, lest he cause Sis some apprehension;
and lastly, lest the temerity of the doughty Sis bring woe and wreck
upon the devoted household. Joe cowered in a corner of the fireplace,
leaning against the great jamb, essaying only a few of the writhings
and twistings of his anatomy which he affected, and sometimes sitting
still altogether, so did the interest of the colloquy over-master the
tendency of his muscles.

"Hello, youngsters!" was Ross's affable greeting as he tramped in when
Joe opened the door. He flung himself into a chair before the fire,
then turned and surveyed Cornelia, whose prim, pale, precise face
looked more unfriendly and forbidding and negative than usual, as she
sat, her hands demurely crossed on her lap, on the opposite side of the
fireplace.

"My Lord! is this all? I 'lowed yer dad hed a heap bigger gal 'n you.
Some similar ter a shrunk-up gran'mammy; ye look like ye mought hev
lasted sence the flood. How's yer fambly, ma'am?"

The juvenile heart resents a scoff. Cornelia Taft's faculties were
limited, but she gathered herself for revenge.

"Waal, then," he demanded, as she sat stiffly silent and insulted,
"how's rats?"

"I couldn't jedge," she piped up suddenly. "We-uns hain't hed a terrier
happen in hyar afore now fur a consider'ble time."

He was fairly silenced for the nonce. Elated by the execution of her
sally, and not propitiated by his subsequent effort to ignore this
passage at arms, she took full advantage of the opportunity to harass
him which was presented when he announced himself an officer of the
law, and demanded to know when and where she had seen Larrabee the last
time. No perverse adult witness could have more dexterously baffled him
with indefinite statements; and when he appealed from her to Joe, whose
clumsy efforts to remember were hopelessly inadequate, her open glee
was peculiarly tantalizing to Ross; for none can so resent a jest as a
confirmed joker. Then it was that he made his fatal false step.

"Look-a-hyar, Small Female, leetle ez ye be, I'll arrest you-uns an'
kerry ye off ter jail, ef ye don't spry up an' answer my question."

And then it was that Sis, bracing her small back, defied the majesty
of the State of Tennessee as exemplified in Rodolphus Ross. So it came
to open war. She was animated, too, by a partisan spirit for Larrabee.
She remembered, with her infrequent approval, how he had conducted
himself on the occasion in question; how quiet, how gentle, he was,
how observant of the graces of her housekeeping, how commendatory of
her dominion over Joe. Their conversation had since been often in her
mind; she had rehearsed it, as she sat in the gloaming on her stool
before the flickering fire, with the history of the Biblical worthies
of which it was redundant. With no one else could she talk of these
things. With quick adulation she had transformed Larrabee into a hero,
and she longed to see him again. Her tongue, being feminine, could not
be held altogether, but she told Ross naught which he desired to hear.
She sounded the praises of Larrabee on many a key, and "disremembered"
persistently whether it was Friday or Monday, or last week or week
before, when she had seen him.

"Waal, what war he a-doin' of hyar, ennyhows?" queried Ross.

"Talkin'."

"'Bout what, gal?"

"'Bout no gal," Miss Taft responded, with a flash of the eye.

"Waal, then,"--even he was fain to concede, in the hope of finding some
thoroughfare in thus beating about the bush,--"'bout what boy?"

She hesitated. She had not intended to cheapen the subject of her
interest and enthusiasm by mention in this queer symposium. The talk
with Larrabee had been in the nature of a confidence, as in the
admiring canvass of mutual friends; she had a sense as if it were not
the thing for general public and unworthy conversation. Nevertheless,
her affinity for the subject constrained her. There was a light in her
face, a placid softening of feature. Her flabby little colorless cheek
mustered up a dimple.

"'Bout Sam'l," she said, with a smile.

"Sam'l who?" he demanded keenly.

Sis hesitated, suddenly posed. "I--I disremember his--his--surname,"
she admitted.

"Did ye see him with Lar'bee?" he asked, his big pertinacious eyes on
her face, expectant of immediate developments.

"I--I ain't never seen _him_. I--I reckon"--it seemed too terrible
to contemplate--"I reckon he mus' be--daid." She had never before
looked upon it in this light, and her heart sank.

"Friend o' Lar'bee's?" he persisted.

"I reckon so; he hed read 'bout him."

"Read 'bout him? Whar? In the 'Colb'ry Gazette'?" He lowered his voice
respectfully, for to him personal mention in the 'Colbury Gazette'
meant fame.

"Naw. In the Bible, o' course," said Sis, stiffly reproving.

He stared at her in blank amaze for a moment; then he smote his leg a
sounding thwack, and burst into a howl of derisive laughter.

"Ye an' Lar'bee hed a pray'r-meetin', did ye? An', my son," he
continued through his nose with a sanctimonious whine, turning to Joe,
"did ye lead the saints in supplication, or raise the hyme-chune?"

Joe responded with a fat chuckle of delighted laughter, rejoiced to
see his Mentor, the professor of many novel and distasteful arts of
household economy, put to ridicule and out of countenance.

It was only for a moment. She turned acridly against the domestic
insurgent.

"_He_ tuned up arterward. Joe done _his_ quirin' arter
Lar'bee war gone, an' the wind riz, an' the rain kem down. He wisht an'
wisht Lar'bee hed bided. He fairly blated fur skeer!"

"I never!" protested Joe in pouting indignation. "_I_ warn't
'feared o' the wind an' rain, nare one! 'T war the racket them dead
ones kep' up in the Los' Time mine diggin' thar graves. This hyar house
air right over the mine."

Ross's great shifting wild eyes widened as he looked from one to the
other.

"Thar _ain't_ no dead ones diggin' thar graves!" cried Sis
didactically. She must needs spend too many lonely hours here for that
suggestion to be a welcome one. "Them ez dig ain't dead. Dad say jes'
some boys, he reckon, a-moonshinin' or sech of a night in the Lost Time
mine."

Rodolphus Ross rose to his feet. He was elated, confident. He snapped
his fingers noisily in the air as he took two or three of the sideway
paces usually preliminary to a clog dance, which accomplishment he
had acquired by viewing what he termed a "minstrel show." He had
long suspected Larrabee of moonshining, and here was the _locus in
quo_. He had said that Larrabee's trail had seemed to disappear from
the face of the earth; with what literal reason he had not dreamed.
Notwithstanding his haste, however, he must needs tarry for a fleer.

"Gran'mammy Taft," he said, leering at the little girl, with her prim,
antique aspect, "I never thunk ter find ye hobnobbin' with moonshiners."

"Lar'bee ain't no moonshiner," she protested, with swift alarm.

He joyed in her evident flutter.

"Ah, gran'mammy Taft, ye kin consider yerse'f under arrest fur aidin'
an' abettin' in moonshinin', ye an' all yer fambly."

"Ye ain't no revenuer!" cried Sis, moving back a step, however. "Ye
ain't 'lowed ter _purtend_ ter be one, nuther. I hearn o' a man in
Persimmon Cove ez _purtended_ ter be a off'cer o' the law, an' got
'rested hisse'f. An' I would hev thunk enny-ways ez ye hed hed enough
o' arrestin' folks fur fun, sence that time ye flung Lar'bee over the
bluffs, an' nigh kilt him. Ef ye be so sharp set ter 'rest ennybody, go
find Jack Espey an' 'rest him."

Ross was out of countenance. Nevertheless--"How many j'ints hev her
tongue got?" he demanded of Joe, with a feint of serious interest.

But Joe had deserted to the enemy. He thought that Sis was in the
ascendant, and Ross's threat at once angered and terrified him. He
received with pouting silence the officer's aside, while Sis went on
triumphantly:--

"Dad say my granny Jiniway air kin somehows ter the high sher'ff's
wife; an' whenst I go ter Colb'ry nex' week with dad, I be goin' ter
go ter her house an' ax the high sher'ff ef he 'lows his dep'ties ter
arrest people fur joke, an' _purtend_ ter be revenue off'cers, an'
skeer leetle gals by arrestin' 'em, an' 'lowin' he'll take the whole
fambly fur moonshinin'. My granny Jiniway's third cousin air the high
sher'ff's wife!"

In the face of this genealogical detail, it was with a somewhat subdued
spirit that Ross mounted the mare and set forth on his return; for the
high sheriff was a man with a most attenuated sense of humor, a literal
interpretation of the duties of his office, and notwithstanding the
fact that Ross's willingness to ride long distances, in all manner of
weather, relieved him of this the most irksome of duties to an inert
temperament, he had begun to look doubtfully upon him, particularly
since the untoward result of the facetious arrest of the supposed
Larrabee, and Ross felt that his tenure was not altogether secure. As
he passed the portal of the Lost Time mine, the thought of his quest
recurred to his mind, and the important clue which he deemed he had
obtained from the little girl's conversation. He no longer considered
it important, for from the rough-hewn portal of the cavern poured forth
the compressed stream of the divers subterranean currents, gathered
together and hurled forth in a great spout, and with a plunging force
that astonished him, remembering as he did the far tamer flow of the
earlier season. He ascribed the change to the persistent autumn rains
flooding some watercourse that doubtless pierced the hidden chambers.
It filled the outlet within a few feet of the summit of the arch. Any
entrance here was impossible; as for another opening to the mine, he
looked about him upon the limitless tangled wilderness of wood and
rock, the shifting beclouding mists, the endless skeins of the rain,
and he swore between his big front teeth an oath which, despite the
grotesque humor of its phraseology, had within it all the bitter
profanity of his baffling disappointment. And in default of aught else
on which to wreak his anger, he cruelly lashed Taft's mare; and so
he went down to join the others at Kenniston's quarters amongst the
shanties of the workmen in the Cove.

XIX.

That night, the rain, beating out its strong staccato rhythm on the old
clapboards roofing the barn, made scant impression on Jasper Larrabee's
senses; he slept soundly amongst the great elastic billows of the hay.
As by degrees the downpour slackened, the comparative silence affected
his half-dormant consciousness as sound had failed to do. He roused
slightly from time to time, and presently was broad awake, to hear only
the melancholy drip from the eaves and the chorus of far-away frogs
beginning to pipe anew along the pools. He did not welcome his other
self, that mysterious essence of thought and will that was torn with
hopes and fed on regrets, and was prone to hold troublous disputations
with yet another inner self, which on its part was always keen to find
out every fault, to upbraid each cherished sin, and had an ugly trick
of unmasking and setting in a strong unflattering light motives which
might otherwise seem to be above suspicion. The humbler obvious entity
known as Jasper Larrabee would, he often thought, be happier without so
definite a development of either of these endowments, his mind or his
conscience; for thus he learned from their functions to differentiate
them. When this Jasper Larrabee was well fed, he was hearty and happy.
The sun shone on him, and he sang till the woods rang. When he went
down into the sunless depths of the Lost Time mine, every strong muscle
rejoiced in the work, and his steady nerve, which is called courage,
gave a zest to danger, whether the menace were of the law, or of the
wild beast in the wilderness, or of the civilized savage amongst his
own associates. If it had not been for his mind forever asking "Why?"
and his conscience grimly protesting "Because," what a thriving,
well-balanced physical organization Jasper Larrabee might have been! He
knew others who were little more than body, who asked no questions and
heard no answers; he held them far the happier for it, and he did not
realize how much the duller. And so he hated the "Why?" and flinched
from the "Because." And here they were in company, these choice
spirits, in the suddenly silent midnight, with only the melancholy drip
at long intervals from the eaves, the vague piping of frogs sounding
afar off and failing again, and that strange preponderating sense of
the proximity of the mountains although enshrouded and invisible in
the mist. The sibilant rustle of the hay was loud in the stillness
as he shifted his posture. He shifted it often, being anxious and
restless, for his brace of companions were more censorious even than
their wont as to that limited cheerful physique which he accounted
Jasper Larrabee. He had had naught to eat but a few handfuls of
grapes from the vines that clambered over the gable of the barn, and
some unpalatable raw eggs found among the hay; and this fact of hunger
gave a mighty grip to the poignancy of "Because." He had had naught to
do all the long rainy day but to lie in the hay and look out through
the crevices of the logs at the queer acorn-like roof of his mother's
house, that had welcomed so many, and had no place now for him or for
her. He watched with all the grief of an exile the children coming
and going, and the gaunt Mrs. Timson wielding an unbridled authority,
making the most of her usurpations; he heard, with the indignant
objection that naturally appertains to the heir to the throne, her
raucous raised voice in objurgation or command. Again and again these
sounds came from the opaque blankness of the mist; for often the
clouds obscured the little house altogether, and crowded through the
crevices of the barn, and shifted back and forth. For the reason of
the continuous fog he had delayed to inform the officer of the law and
deliver Espey to him. Doubtless, in the idleness of his solitary day in
the mine, Espey would be alert and hear an approach, and might escape
through some aperture of the cavern other than the main entrance; the
thick mists would then conceal him indubitably, and further his flight
without the slightest scruple as to responsibility as accessory after
the fact. Larrabee was waiting for the darkness that he might take
Espey the more certainly, while his vigilance was relaxed in working at
the forlorn enterprise of old Haight and his lieutenant "Tawm" in the
mine. But in waiting Larrabee had fallen asleep, and the iteration of
the steady rainfall was somnolent in its effects, and the hours drowsed
by. He knew that it was past midnight before he noted the slant of a
late-risen moon, golden, lustrous, dreamlike, softly shining through
the crevices of the logs in one corner of the ramshackle old place.
The sky was clearing, then. He rose hastily to his feet, and leaned
out of the window. Clear! It was of a deeply limpid and definite blue,
with white and gray clouds, moon-illumined, drawing back swiftly from
vast expanses of this lucid ether all a-sparkle with the whiteness of
the stars. With the dank earth so dark below, and the dully glamourous
light of the moon in her last quarter, it seemed to him that he had
never seen the stars so splendidly white. The next moment a sudden pang
of suspense, of fear, that was like a bodily throe had wrested away his
breath. He hardly realized that he had moved; he only knew that he had
sprung down the rotting rungs of the old ladder and through the barn
below, because he was standing outside the door upon the ground, gazing
up, bareheaded, wild-eyed, in a frenzy of doubt, of anxiety, of a sort
of unreasoning terror, at the skies. For the star--his star--was gone!
It had vanished! Again and again, with the strong pulse of hope, he
swept the heavens with eager search. Afterward he thought he remembered
a dull leaden-hued minute object in the place of that splendid silver
shining that had made his heart so glad. It had vanished,--its message
withheld, its mystery unrevealed, like an illusion, like a fagged-out
enthusiasm, like the futile words of a prayer without the fervor
of faith. He could not believe it. Again and again he sought a new
posture, a new hope. He followed its closer neighbors along the steeps
of the mountain as they journeyed toward the west in the sky above.
The tint of the heavens was changing presently,--a lighter blue. The
golden moon grew of a pearl-like lustre. The stars waxed faint. The
clouds were red. And here was the gray day hard upon him, and in the
earth naught of value, for in the sky he had lost a star. How strong,
how resistless of advance, was the riding up of the great sun! Get ye
away, illusions, and glamours, and dreamers of dreams! Such a definite
visible world! How full of fixed facts! He saw, as he stood, the
shanties of the workmen in the Cove, where the mists were hustling off
in great haste, as if too tenuous, too unsubstantial, too inutile, to
hold ground in the face of the strong practicalities dawning over the
horizon. The smoke was curling up from the chimney of Cap'n Lucy's
cabin, where breakfast was cooking. The cows were at the bars. All the
woods were lustrous with moisture, and splendidly a-glint with the
yellow sunbeams striking aslant through them. The distant mountains
were blue and amethyst and violet and purple,--a rhapsody of color.
Here and there, as if the rain had painted them, boughs of sumach and
sourwood were scarlet in the woods; the sweet-gum showed flecks of
purple leaves, and the hickory had occasional flares of yellow. The
goldenrod had burst into bloom, and with this seal of the autumnal
season stamped upon the land came Julia along the road, her bonnet
hanging on her shoulders, her head bare, her face like spring itself,
her hands full of flowers that she scattered as she sang. How her fresh
young voice rang against the turmoil of the current from the Lost Time
mine, like some sudden burst of joy from out the fretted tides of a
troubled life! As she tossed the flowers, and glanced over her shoulder
to see where they fell, Larrabee crossed the log laid from one deeply
gullied bank to the other side of the road, to serve foot passengers
when the water was high in wet weather. She paused, and looked at him
with a frown. The unwonted corrugations in her fair young brow changed
her inexpressive face almost out of recognition. He stood in silent
deprecation for a moment. His heart was sore. His life was full of
trouble of many sorts and degrees. That æsthetic loss, that sense of
bereavement because of his vanished star, outrankled them all.

Courage is of the nature of an essence; one may not judge how it will
pull the beam, nor is it dispensed by dry measure. Something seemingly
inadequate, a breath of wind, a change of mind, or the chilling of the
fervors of some futile and foolish enthusiasm, and behold the volatile
element is dispersed through the air. The strain on Larrabee's nerves
had been great. His sensibilities had waxed tender. He faltered before
the definite bending of those delicately marked brows.

"Ye air out betimes, Julia?" he ventured propitiatingly, as she stoutly
maintained silence. "What be ye a-doin' of with them flowers?"

"Sowin' 'em," said Julia instantly. "I expec' 'em ter bloom thar in the
road ter mo' purpose 'n they ever did afore."

He cast a glance of wonderment at her. But her unfriendly manner, her
cold eye, disconcerted him afresh, and nullified his surprise at her
words.

"Air you-uns mad at me down at yer house?" he demanded eagerly.

"What fur?" she asked, with a keen, belligerent look that was mightily
like Cap'n Lucy.

"'Bout my speakin' so free 'bout Espey, an' Cap'n Lucy not warnin' me
an' my mother, knowin' him ter be sought fur murder?"

"Oh!" she cried, with airy causticity. "I hed furgot it."

He felt the covert fleer of this speedy dismissal. But with him pride
was at a low ebb. He silently looked at her as she held a cardinal
flower to her red lips, while her long-lashed blue eyes scanned the
dewy bunch of jewel-weed and mountain snow and wild asters that filled
her hands. The wind swayed her dark blue skirt as she stood on a great
fragment of rock beside the running stream. It gave a certain volant
effect to her pose, her flower-laden hands, her singular beauty;
she seemed the very genius of the flowering season, its perfect
personification.

"Waal, I'm glad o' that," he said humbly. "I need all my friends, an'
all the comfort I kin git."

He paused, daunted in a measure by her unresponsiveness. But she was
always silent, always undemonstrative, and perhaps her manner in this
instance went for less than its worth.

"Julia," he said, "I hev hed a powerful strange 'sperience lately. An'
it hev cast me down mightily. Not religious,--though I expected suthin'
leadin' an' speritual out'n it. I viewed a new star in the sky."

She was looking at the flowers on the soggy road as if she cared for
no other radiance than their gleam of earthy hue, albeit an evanescent
glow.

"Nobody but me viewed it," he went on after a moment of unfruitful
expectation. "I tried other folks, an' they seen nuthin'. An' by that
I 'lowed it hed some charge fur me, some leadin'. Stars hev been
messengers afore this." He interposed this affirmation of precedent
for proof. His senses were keen. He had not failed to note the ring
of incredulity in Kenniston's voice. He paused, thinking again of the
wise men of the East, and the blessed path to the cradled Christ as the
Star guided them. He sighed deeply as he plucked off the yellow plumes
of a wayside spray of goldenrod. The fragments floated away on the
stream, and he drearily lifted his haggard eyes to the broad whiteness
of the day brightening over all the purple mountains and bronze-green
valleys; here all miracles exhaled with the mists of the night and the
evanescence of the stars. The atmosphere of the practical, the prosaic,
the recognized and thrice-tried forces of nature was paramount.
Naught seemed to exist that man in his ignorant cognoscence had not
explored. But he had expected no miracle; he had sought no wonderful
worldly gifts or graces. True, the will of God is much to know, but
he had thought that with so signal an intimation a leading might be
vouchsafed. Had not other men followed a star to Christ? And was there
naught for him, no little thing for him to do? Did that gracious
supernal stellular presence shine on him, and him alone, only to amaze,
to baffle, to dismay him,--to find his life but poorly furnished, and
to leave it empty?

"I got no leadin' out'n it," he said drearily. "It jes' disappeared
somehows. I dunno ef ez suddint ez it kem or no, bein' ez several
nights war rainy and clouded over. It's gone!"

Something in his dreary tone smote upon Julia's preoccupied faculties.
Whether she harbored rancor against him for Jack Espey's sake, whether
she resented his criticism of her father, whether she repelled the
intrusion of the consciousness of any other emotion than the paramount
emotion which possessed her, and love crowded out and trampled on pity,
she spoke with a keen fling of satire.

"Waal, ef yer star hev petered out, ye hed better go an' get Ad'licia
ter hearten ye up by tellin' ye ter take notice how many stars thar be
lef'. Ye'll be lighted full well on occasion."

He flushed at the taunt, but love is of long patience.

"Air ye mad at Ad'licia?" he queried, interested in aught that touched
Julia.

"Naw--yes"--She hesitated, interested herself. "That is, I can't holp
bein' mad with the idjit fur bein' _sech_ a idjit."

"How is she a idjit?" demanded Larrabee.

"Fur not marryin' Jack Espey whenst she hed the chance. Dad an' Luther
would hev stood off Ross an' sech cattle, or gin bond fur him an'
patched up things somehow. Ye know they would. Ef I hed been in her
place, now, an' ef he hed axed _me_"--

She paused abruptly, with a sort of appalled recognition of the
sentiment that animated her. A sudden illumination had broken in upon
her; her heart throbbed tumultuously with pleasure, or was it pain? For
she loved Jack Espey; and he--oh, was it true that he loved Adelicia
still? She hardly heeded or realized her self-betrayal. She did not
see--so little did she care--the pallid dismay, the heartbreak, on
Jasper Larrabee's face. He could not deceive himself,--it was too
patent. He turned away with a bitter sense of resentment, another
grudge toward Jack Espey for thus slyly and completely supplanting him.
At that moment his eye fell upon the jagged rock about the entrance of
the Lost Time mine, and he drew back in amazement.

"Why, where does all this water come from?" he exclaimed sharply. He
wondered that he had not marked it before, despite his preoccupation.
For the flow of the stream was quadrupled, its momentum every instant
greater. Naught could enter now. The interior must be flooded anew. As
he gazed at it, wide-eyed and dumfounded, a sudden enlightenment as to
the phenomenon broke upon him. The blasting which he had heard,--he
remembered it now; doubtless the concussion had brought down some mass
of rock or earth, damming an underground current, and forcing its
waters into the channel of the stream which partially emptied here,
while the residue backed up and filled the spaces. He thought that
Espey and the old man and "Tawm" had possibly made good their escape
before it happened; but if not--and Taft--He remembered how close were
the ghostly voices when he had last heard the false, cracked tones of
command ring through the tunnel. Those ill-timbered galleries would
fall to a certainty. He turned pale at the very thought of a living
burial in the den of the still-room.

He did not hesitate. Without a word he sprang upon the log, crossed
the water, and sped away like the wind, leaving Julia gazing in
astonishment after him. He thought his worst fears were realized, when
he reached the store of the Lost Time mine. His hasty question elicited
from the children only the fact of the absence of Taft and Copley. He
ran down into the cellar, to find the obliteration of the traces of the
old door, which he recognized only as an added precaution since his
departure. Doubtless some other method of entering the tunnel had been
devised. An axe hacking through the chinking served to reveal the ruin
of the tunnel, and to admit a strong and pervasive odor of gunpowder.

Lorenzo Taft's plans were very perfectly calculated and adjusted to
the probabilities. There had been no rift in his judgment. Nowhere
could he find fault or flaw in his reasoning. A lucky chance had fired
the hotel, and freed his hands from the smirch of the firebrand and
the possible penalties of arson. The moving of the great monument
of boundary had thrown the only available site for the hotel on the
Kenniston tract well within Cap'n Lucy's lines when the land was
processioned, and thus the summer swallow must needs alight elsewhere,
and the commercial interests of moonshining would thereby be promoted.
Each detail had fallen out exactly as he had planned. Success seemed
the essential sequence. Only Espey's frantic fear of arrest had
precipitated all the untoward events which had advanced parallel after
parallel, and forced him to his last defenses. And these one might
think were most sagacious and adequate. The foolish drunken boy,
whose tongue might work mischief, was within the hour hustled out of
the country. Every trace of the forbidden vocation was demolished
beyond the possibility of detection. If Larrabee should seek revenge
by informing, he could prove naught, not even his own complicity. It
would seem but the groundless accusation of malice. And Taft had even
taken time by the forelock by avowing his former illegal practices,
his prison record, his familiarity with the motives and manœuvres of
moonshiners, and insidiously casting suspicion on Larrabee, ascribing
to him an adequate motive for moving the Big Hollow Boulder, in the
eyes of the law a felony.

No possible flaw in his reasoning from the premises from which
he argued. He had guarded himself logically, boldly, with great
perspicacity, from enmity, from revenge. It never for one moment
occurred to him to devise protection from good will!

Kenniston and Ross, even in the excitement of the emergency, and the
tumultuous tide of Larrabee's eager explanations when he suddenly burst
in upon them as they sat smoking together after breakfast, could but
take heed of the subtler sub-current of significance in his disclosure.
More than once they exchanged glances charged with a meaning deeper
than he wot of.

"Thar's a shaft," he cried, "an old air-shaft, a-nigh that thar tunnel!
Ef ye'll rig up a windlass, or let yer men put me down with a rope,
I'll find Taft, an' the t'others too, ef they be thar yit."

"You'll drown yourself, or fall, or suffocate with gas," Kenniston said
tentatively, looking about for his hat, and pausing to cast a keen
glance at Larrabee.

"I'll resk it--I'll resk it--fur him and Espey too--an' I dunno what
my mother would do ef old grand-daddy Haight war ter kem ter sech an
e-end! Oh, I'll resk it! An' Taft, he ain't a bad man when all's said.
Taft's mighty clever sometimes."

"I think he's the worst man I ever saw," said Kenniston, as he flung
away his cigar.

A call for volunteers and the offer of a reward by Kenniston secured
no companion to Larrabee in his venture when the workmen looked down
into the dark shaft, with its crumbling sides, and sound of tumbling
waters, and chill dank foul breath. They only manifested their good
will in their alacrity in adjusting and adapting such appliances as
they could to insure Larrabee's safety as far as possible. Kenniston
doubted at the time whether he ought to permit the jeopardy; being
assured, however, that the effort would be made at all events, but
without the advantage of the heavy cables and pulleys which had been
used in building the hotel, and which his compliance offered, he
yielded. Afterward he was disposed to take great credit to himself
for several devices which facilitated the enterprise, and from his
knowledge of mechanical resources he doubtless insured its success;
he bore the honors of the rescue,--which Larrabee at the peril of his
life achieved,--with all the unblushing effrontery of an officer whose
command has won a battle.

He was in a glow of enthusiasm for the nonce, and he continued the rôle
of benefactor with more genuine pleasure than had lately fallen to his
jaded susceptibility. He placed eighty-seven silver dollars in a worn
leather bag, a tobacco pouch of one of the workmen, to be given to old
Haight when he should be sufficiently recovered, with the pious fiction
that his own money had been found in the shaft. "This will keep the old
mole from burrowing again," he said.

His abounding good nature was very thorough when once aroused. His
heart was touched by Espey's forlorn plight, as he lay panting on the
grass, and the pallor of his young face marked by the dread of life
that had just succeeded the dread of death.

"Can't you make out to let up on Espey, somehow?" he said aside to
Rodolphus Ross, whose clumsy pranks of delight at the successful
outcome of this most exciting episode were like the extravagant
joviality of a gamboling Newfoundland dog, and not unpleasing to his
interlocutor from their common bond of sympathy.

"Who? Espey?" He paused, turning his lighted dark eyes on Kenniston,
his peaked hat shading his elevated eyebrows and surprised face. "I
ain't hyar arter Espey no more. I'm arter the fire-bug, ye know. That
thar man ez Espey shot in Tanglefoot Cove hev got well o' the pip, or
the gapes, or whatever the weak-kneed chicken took from the bullet; an'
this hyar warrant fur arrest hev been kerried round in my pocket till
it's mighty nigh wore out." He took the ragged paper from his pocket
and shook out its tatters, and laughed and grimaced in the very face of
its august authority. "Go on, boy, go on! I wouldn't put the county
ter charges ter board ye!" he said to Espey.

A supply of whiskey was on hand, for the ostensible purpose of reviving
the victims of the Lost Time mine, as they were drawn up one by one
from those treacherous depths, limp and pallid and fainting. But the
quantity was sufficient to enable the company of rescuers subsequently
to refresh themselves, and Kenniston genially treated the crowd. Some
of the men now and then began to coil up the ropes, and again fell to
discussing the jeopardy and the disastrous possibilities; and much
hilarity and gratulation prevailed amongst the group in the dewy woods,
still filled with the slant of the early morning sunshine, when Espey
slipped away from it. His heart was still sore, as if it had forgotten
to beat except with a dull throb of pain, unrealizing his change of
fortune except to sullenly rebel against all the unnecessary woe that
had fallen to his lot. As he went along the road, he scarcely noted a
flower here and there on the soggy ground. The dash and fret of the
stream from the portal of the Lost Time mine caught his attention. He
marked its added volume, and, with his familiarity with the terrible
subterranean chambers, he could picture to himself the obstacles
which lay in its course, and which the blasting from the tunnel or
the still-room had brought down. He trembled and grew cold with the
thought of his jeopardy. He mechanically cursed anew Taft's name, as he
had done again and again since his voice, his "partin' compliments,"
had been audible before the charge in the tunnel had been fired. He
shuddered again as he recalled the sound of the water backing up ever
higher and higher through those black dungeons, lisping and hissing
its insidious threat through all the long night. How woeful it had
been--with the wild terror of his companions to contemplate, till
he was as wild with the terror of them as of his own fate--to look
momently to meet death here, without a soul on earth to truly care,
to anguish for him as he was anguished--He paused, the tenor of his
thought breaking abruptly. Had he seen it before, or had he only
fancied that cardinal flower lying in the sun on the gray rock by the
water? Was it not thus that he should know that Julia had passed and
had thought of him,--was not this their covenant? He doubtfully picked
up the delicate spray--another; still, it might be an accident, a
coincidence. A cluster of jewel-weeds lay caught in the bark of the log
that served as footbridge, and swayed and glowed in the sun; it was in
his hand when he reached the further bank. As far as one might hope to
command a glimpse from the mine, the fragile tokens were scattered.
They were full of dew; their breath allured him. They trembled as with
some shy, timorous thought in his trembling hand. The color had come
into his face; a light was in his eyes; his tired, troubled pulses were
beating fast, strong, with a new rhythm. And as Julia, still loitering
homeward, her head bare, her hands empty, heard a footstep behind her
and turned, she saw him, all her garnered blossoms in his grasp, and
all his heart in his eyes.

* * * * *

Kenniston, still elated, but somewhat tired out with the morning's
excitements, upon reaching his quarters among the workmen's shanties,
found Cap'n Lucy there awaiting an audience, and all unaware of the
progress of events of so much moment elsewhere to-day. A rousing
"cock-a-doodle-doo" might be a fair summary of Cap'n Lucy's discourse.
His perplexities had vanished with the tangled twists of the rain, and
he set forth boldly and with much detail his discovery of the moving of
the boulder, the corner monument of boundary, his anxiety and doubt as
to his proper course, and his realization that the surveyor's line had
thrown much land which he knew was Kenniston's within his own domain.

A man of tact was Cap'n Lucy in his own way. He so glossed over his
suspicions of Kenniston that albeit the latter detected them rather
through the correlated circumstances than through the veneer of that
section of his mind which it pleased Cap'n Lucy to present, he did not
look upon them seriously. He was a stranger; the old man was densely
ignorant, and his experience of life and comparative knowledge of men
were limited indeed; and in truth it was apparently impossible to
deduce from the facts any other interest than Kenniston's to be served
by the moving of the boulder. Thus he silently forgave Cap'n Lucy for
his suspected suspicions.

And Cap'n Lucy was heartily ashamed of them now.

"I know it air moved bodaciously--Big Hollow Boulder--corner
mark--monimint o' boundary; an' now what air ye an' me goin' ter do
'bout that thar dad-burned line what's gone an' coiled itself like the
plumb old Scorpion o' the Pit?"

"Procession the land again, and prosecute the man who moved the
boulder," said Kenniston coolly.

And indeed justice had hardily overtaken Lorenzo Taft, for Kenniston's
unwonted leniency did not hold out to include his offending. It seemed
to him a very pretty play of cause and effect that so close upon the
heels of Taft's accusations of Larrabee, and his subtle and successful
hoodwinking of the practiced man of business, who made a point of
knowing men, Taft should be hurrying to Colbury and the county jail,
under the escort of the jubilant Rodolphus Ross and a posse of two
or three stout fellows, to answer these very charges of arson and of
feloniously moving a corner monument of boundary,--all because of
Larrabee's voluntarily putting his life in jeopardy for his sake.

Nevertheless, Kenniston listened mildly enough to Adelicia's earnest
intercessions for Taft that evening, when he sat as of yore with the
family circle around Cap'n Lucy's fireside; he seemed to find a
certain fascination in the incongruities of her ingenious palliations
and extenuations of his crime.

"He moughtn't hev been acquainted with the boulder ez a monimint o'
boundary," she urged; and when the fallacy of this was demonstrated,
"He mought hev been sorry an' wanted to put it back, but it war too
heavy an' the hill war too high."

Whereupon Kenniston burst into satiric laughter.

"He's sorry enough now, I'll warrant you; and he'll be sorrier still
before I'm through with him."

But although Adelicia's expertness in excuses for other people failed
in this instance, Kenniston's purposes were frustrated by a wholesale
jail delivery which occurred at Colbury shortly after, and Taft was
among the jail-birds who took flight thence. He was never heard of
again in the Cove. The thought of him at large and at enmity served to
postpone the building of the hotel for a time. The plans for a great
public edifice in Bretonville absorbed Kenniston in the immediate
future, and finally he grew indifferent to the project of the mountain
resort, and it was definitely abandoned.

Larrabee profited by Kenniston's advice, and availed himself of the
"amnesty" proffered by the government to moonshiners about that time,
and thenceforward the still knew him no more. The manufacture of
"brush whiskey" was never resumed at the Lost Time mine. The store
there became truly a centre of barter under the ministrations of old
Copley and the power behind the throne, his niece, Cornelia Taft, who
developed much of her father's decision and definiteness and shrewdness
of character as she grew older, always tempered by Mrs. Jiniway's
precepts, to which she rigidly adhered. She received much countenance,
and guidance too, in these early years, from Adelicia, who persisted
in following the bent of her own lenient inclination toward others,
making the most of their good qualities and light of their foibles. It
was a certain solace in the bitter loss of other illusions for which
she was less charitable. She never could be brought to believe that
Julia had not intentionally wiled her lover's heart away from her. It
was a relief when these strained relations were at an end, when Julia
and Espey were married, in defiance of Cap'n Lucy's opposition, and had
gone to Tanglefoot Cove. Cap'n Lucy argued their much-mooted points of
difference with Adelicia less than before, and deferred in silence to
her. It was only when, in the winter evenings, Jasper Larrabee was wont
to come and read aloud, as in the old days, that Cap'n Lucy rose to
his normal temperature of contradiction, and controverted sundry hard
sayings difficult to be incorporated in the life of a willful man, and
contemned Jasper Larrabee's learning, and accused him of ignorantly
perverting the Scriptures. Then it was that Adelicia's talents of
optimism became transcendently apparent. She developed a wonderful
craft of interpretation. Leaning over one arm of Cap'n Lucy's chair,
while Jasper Larrabee leaned over the other with his book and page to
show,--Cap'n Lucy, flustered and red-faced, acrid and belligerent,
vociferating between them,--Adelicia would demonstrate that this
doubtless meant the other, or it was plain to see that the reference
was not general, thus including Cap'n Lucy, but was made directly to
the character under discussion; whereby Cap'n Lucy, perceiving that no
added burden of meekness or other Christian grace was to be laid upon
him as essential to salvation, would permit himself to be pacified. And
Adelicia's gifts grew by much exercise. Even Cap'n Lucy, always acute,
became reluctantly aware of this, in some sort. "Ad'licia hav got so
durned smart she kin mighty nigh explain away the devil," he fretted,
unaware that this feat had already been accomplished by other and more
pretentious theologians than Adelicia. The gossips said, in the Cove,
that it was in the process of trying to "'square' Cap'n Lucy to the
Scriptur's, or ter square the Scriptur's ter Cap'n Lucy," that Adelicia
and Jasper fell in love with each other. Certain it is the days came
in which neither had aught to regret, and Adelicia's optimism was
triumphantly justified.

Even his vanished star came to be a tender memory to Larrabee rather
than a poignant bereavement. Sometimes thinking of that dread descent
into the crumbling old shaft of the Lost Time mine, with the chill
sound of the tumbling waters below, the thick foul air in his every
breath, the desperate straining of the ropes that so shook his nerves,
the fragments of rock falling about his head, and his heart fairly
failing him for fear, he deemed he had found the "leading" he had asked
and had followed it. For since he could do naught for Christ, whose
humble humanity is merged in the majesty of the great King of heaven,
he might do somewhat for man whom He died to save.

He did not know that his star remained for a time a faint telescopic
object and interested the speculation of astronomers, whose outlook
from their wisdom was also limited as his from his ignorance. They
merely accounted it one of those mysterious, unwonted apparitions, a
stranger to all the astral hierarchy, prettily called "guest-stars"
in the ancient Chinese records, and they knew after a time that the
"Ke-sing dissolved." They did not dream that this celestial visitant
could be charged with a moral mission; for in all the discoveries
and advances of science, what mystic lens might serve to reveal the
amaranthine wreath and the nearing pinion?

* * * * *

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