The snow was deep upon the ground, drifts filled many a red clay gully,
the dark boughs of the trees all bore a thick white line, the mountains
were ghastly under a gray sky, and still the myriad flakes were falling,
when the noiseless horsemen rode up to the door, and the jury of the
inquisition came filing in. They met upon the threshold the subject of
their deliberations, bluff, burly, with that genial political jocularity
that discounts all other bids for popularity, his heavy bass laughter
mingling with his gay greetings.
“Howdy, boys! Kem in, kem in! That’s right,—stomp the snow off! Ye know
mam’s mighty partic’lar ’bout that thar new rag kyarpet o’ hern. Kem ter
see ef I hev got a bee in my bonnet, hev ye? Waal, waal; we’ll listen ter
hear that same bee buzz!”
The heavy mountaineers looked in blank surprise at each other. This
discourse seemed to them lucid as reason itself. They had expected mere
incoherent babbling, from the reports set a-flying about Broomsedge
Cove. Marcella’s face, smiling yet with a certain proud defiance, and
Mrs. Strobe’s jaunty, debonair salutation betokened scant anxiety,
and did much to annul the effect of what they had heard. There were
others besides the jury,—witnesses, one or two lawyers, and a number of
mountaineers who were merely spectators of the proceeding; some of them
wore a sheepish, hang-dog air, notably Andy Longwood and Pete Minton,
at whose instance the investigation was had. Clem Sanders was one of
the jury, as reluctant a freeholder as could be found in Broomsedge
Cove, or, for the matter of that, in the Great Smoky Mountains. He
carried his shoulders slouched forward in the heavy, aged manner which
he sometimes affected, and he shambled along as if shackled by chains of
his own forging; he looked with humble, beseeching eyes at Marcella, as
if conjuring her to observe that he was not there in any sense of his own
motion.
“Kem up close by the fire, gentlemen,” said Eli. “Airish out’n doors,
ain’t it?”
As they ranged themselves about the broad hearth, they were all staring
hard at Rathburn, who lay quite silent, since his host did not explain
his presence, wondering a trifle within himself to feel so agitated, so
partisan, so eager as to the result of the investigations.
Sundry questions were put to Strobe, to which he listened with his head
a trifle askew, his legs crossed, one hand on his knee, the other arm
akimbo, his eyes quizzically glancing from under his hat-brim. His whole
air was that of gay good-humor, falling in naturally with the current
of events, and in no wise resentful of the course they had taken. The
queries, chiefly relating to matters of business usage and of certain
processes of the law, the functions of his office, were promptly and
decisively answered. Once, Marcella, feigning to misunderstand their
drift, handed him an open book, and the company enjoyed an exhibition of
“dad’s” rare accomplishment of reading, which he did in a full, rotund
drone and with much vigor of emphasis. The girl’s smile of triumph as she
closed the volume and laid it on the high mantel-shelf roused a certain
antagonism in the breasts of several of the diligent inquirers. There was
a momentary pause; the batten shutter was open, the great glowing fire
sufficiently warming the room although thus generously ventilated, and
from where Marcella stood, her hand still on the high mantel-piece, she
could see the silent flakes, falling, falling, limiting the world,—for
hardly the nearest mountain was visible,—a mere dull, dun suggestion of
wood and range and river, like the first faint washings of a scene in
sepia. No sound came from without, although nearly a score of horses
stamped the snow in the shed behind the house. The dog of the “frequent
visitor,” a hospitable animal, stood in the doorway suavely wagging his
tail, pleased to see so many guests at once. They were all looking with
expectant interest at Marcella’s face as the next question was asked; so
fixedly that perhaps it was not unnatural that Eli Strobe should turn
and follow the general glance. A smile dawned in her eyes as they met
his, so replete with an exquisite light, and hope, and love, that had
a sudden sun-burst illumined that white, dead day it could hardly have
seemed brighter. It was a fine display of nerve, of will-power, Rathburn
thought, knowing her as he did.
“How did ye git hurt, Mr. Strobe?” was the significant demand.
“Teck Jepson rid me down,” said the constable, his eyes fixed on his
daughter.
The circle of mountaineers slowly shifted their chairs, and one or two
spit profusely into the fire, aiming carefully at long range.
“Did you-uns hurt him?”
Strobe fixed his gaze on the talismanic brightness of his daughter’s eyes.
“Bein’ ez I war knocked senseless, sir, I couldn’t ondertake ter say.”
Another pause, so silent that naught could be heard save the roar of the
flames in the wide chimney, and the footfalls of the dog turning away
and trotting along to the end of the porch, where he presently found
entertainment, peculiarly pleasing to his kind, in barking in a frenzy of
affectation at the horses of the visitors.
“Didn’t ye tell Andy Longwood one day ez ye hed killed Teck Jepson in
that scuffle?”
“Sartainly I said so! Somebody tole me that fur news an’ bein’ ez I
war knocked senseless, I disremembered what happened. An’ this hyar
mischievious gal o’ mine, fur a joke on her ole dad, tole me whar they
hed buried him. I ’lowed they wouldn’t hev buried him ’thout he war dead.
Ha! ha! ha!” his burly bass laugh rang out.
Clem Sanders had plucked up his spirits. He looked about amongst his
confrères with a curling lip of scorn. Andy Longwood hung his abashed
head. The political antagonists of Eli Strobe were visibly disconcerted.
“Only one more question now: Hev ye seen Teck lately?”
Eli Strobe nodded.
“How did he look, an’ what did he talk ’bout?”
“Toler’ble nat’ral, cornsiderin’.” The long strain was beginning to
tell on the constable’s nerves. His glance had wandered from Marcella’s
face, out of which the light died suddenly, leaving it livid, with wild,
dilated eyes. “Ye never would hev tuk him fur a harnt! He talked same ez
ever, ’bout G’liath an’ Sol’mon an’ them, ez he used ter set sech store
by.”
There was a moment of terrible suspense to his mother and his daughter.
Then the querist, evidently accepting the reply as partly jocose, and
taken in connection with his previous denials and declarations as
satisfactory, said, “That will do for you!”
Mrs. Strobe’s admirable elasticity was amply demonstrated by her rebound
from this ordeal. She furnished the jury with a test for sanity which
they all declined to apply. When asked if she considered her son sane,
she declared he was as sane as any man could be, but in her opinion no
men were sane.
“I never seen one ez could thread a needle,” she declared, with her
specious gravity. “An’ yit enny woman kin do that, an’ kin do men’s work
too,—plow, an’ drive, an’ ride, an’ shoot a gun. Nare one o’ ye kin
thread a needle. I’ll try _ye_, sher’ff; I’ll favor ye with a big-eyed
needle an’ a small, thin thread. I’ll wax it,” she conceded alluringly,
reaching out for the big brown gourd that served as work-basket.
But the officer precipitately declined, and the examination broke up
in a general laugh. After the jury had consulted apart and agreed upon
their verdict, there was a more genial closing up of the circle about
the fire. Mrs. Strobe and Marcella sat among the guests, indifferent to
the conversation for a time and mentally exhausted. They perceived how
signal a victory they had won against the facts and in defiance of the
law,—hardly so potent a force as the crafty affection of a mother and a
daughter,—and they experienced a glow of deep gratulation. But it was
necessary to keep a guard upon Eli Strobe’s words, and Marcella roused
herself to listen as he made known to the coterie how Rathburn had fared
at the hands of Jake Baintree, and the fact that the criminal had fled
the country.
“Yestiddy I rid up ter his folkses’ house, countin’ on arrestin’ him,
bein’ constable o’ Brumsaidge,”—he rolled the fine phrase under his
tongue,—“an’ his folks declared out they hedn’t seen nor hearn o’ him fur
weeks. He done this crime jes’ ’count o’ Eugene Rathburn’s makin’ him
tell whar Sam’l Keale los’ his life, kase Eugene air mighty sharp set
fur riches, an’ he b’lieves the silver air thar in that cave on Jepson’s
land.”
“I’ll tell ye who hain’t lef’ the kentry,” said Bassett, with a grim nod
and a fiery eye,—“Teck Jepson. Air one o’ you off’cers o’ the law hev got
my cornsent ter arrest Teck Jepson!”
Eli Strobe’s eyebrows were lifted in surprise; his lips had parted, but
the quick little mother struck in first:—
“Arrest Teck Jepson for what?”
“Let the sher’ff say.” Bassett evaded a direct reply. “I seen him
’bout five days ago a-standin’ in his porch,—’twar arter a heavy
rain,—a-shakin’ hands with this same man Baintree what he purtended wunst
ter b’lieve so guilty, an’ then purtected agin the lynchers,—_they say
so_,” he interpolated, becoming suddenly mindful of the significance of
the presence of the sheriff,—“this man ez war tried fur killin’ Sam’l
Keale ez be dead, an’ his body hid all these years in a cave on Jepson’s
land. Shakin’ hands with him, sir, ez ef they war partners,—an’ I say
they _war_ partners!”
The officer turned a serious face. “This must be investigated. I’ll go
thar ter-night.”
“Jepson oughter be ’rested, or he’ll foller Baintree, an’ git away too.
An’ he mought be warned. Ye know”—Bassett turned to Rathburn’s couch—“ye
war warned yerse’f.”
Rathburn shifted his position a trifle. He was flushed and conscious.
He hardly dared to glance at Marcella; and when the firelight leaped up
presently he saw that she had silently left the room. He was glad of
that. In her presence he felt that he was not sure of keeping the secret
of who had warned him under the lynx-eyed vigilance of these savage men,
more than one of whom he suspected of belonging to the band of lynchers.
The night had come,—hardly to be called darkness, for the white earth
seemed possessed of a pallid persistence that asserted itself against
the gloom of the sky. And the sky was not all gloom. Behind the clouds
a moon lurked; now and then in thin folds of vapor showing a spectral,
half-veiled face, and anon shifting along the highways of the skies, its
presence barely suggested behind the denser mediums. A dreary night it
seemed to Marcella. Never had she so revolted from the world. The great
chestnut-tree at the gate was laden with snow; every gnarled, twisted
bough, how gaunt against the gray sky! The zigzag rail fence was all
made definite, too, by its alternations of white and black lines. Why
should her hands be cold—so cold? Had she not just come from the fire?
She felt its warmth still in the folds of her dress. And why should she
shiver so? She was choking,—a cord was stretched across her throat; her
heart was beating fast and loud. She presently recognized her intention
in astonishment, as if it were projected by another entity than herself.
She was out among the horses. A score, at least, stood in her father’s
shed. One, a clean-built black mare, turned a shapely head, and gazed at
her in surprise with luminous, moonlit eyes, for the moon was suddenly
shining, and many a shadow was on the snow. She slipped under the neck
of a raw-boned bay, who snorted and tossed up his head in fright. The
fleetest,—the fleetest she must have, and her eyes dilated as she stood
next a powerful iron-gray, full of spirit, that shied away as she caught
his mane with one hand and pulled herself upon his unsaddled back. His
bridle had not been removed; she slipped the hitching-rein, and the
next moment the creature was speeding away upon the hardening snow with
a snort of delight in the keen frosty air. The sound roused the men
brooding over the fire within.
“Who’s that gone?” said the sheriff, suddenly lifting his head.
Not a man had left the room. In vague agitation the group rose
uncertainly.
“Somebody’s after them horses,” suggested one.
There was a pell-mell rush to the door. A wild excitement of horses
kicking and pawing at close quarters ensued in the shed. Then a sharp
cry, “My horse! My horse is gone!” exclaimed the sheriff. “Some man has
got my good gray horse!”
The moon was out again,—a chill glitter, and the earth very white; and on
the brow of the hill, speeding toward Jepson’s cabin, was visible a swift
equestrian figure. A score of men, save one, were in the saddle. A wild
halloo rang through the air, and then, with all the fervor of the chase
kindling in their blood, they were in pursuit. When the moon was out it
showed rank after rank of the wild mountain men of the region; when the
moon was in, a mystic company of mounted shadows slipped noiselessly
over the snow. Swift as they were, their speed would not avail. They
did not gain on the fugitive. The long lengths of glittering, moonlit
snow or shadowy whiteness still remained the same between them and the
sheriff’s horse. It behooves an officer of the law in that country to
be well mounted, and the iron-gray had no equal for speed or spirit.
Only a bullet could be swifter, and presently one whizzed past. The gray
horse had heard the like before, and plunged and snorted in fright.
Another,—so close that it seemed to Marcella that it must have grazed her
flying hair, all streaming backward in the wind of her flight, for she
was bareheaded as she clung to the reins with one hand, with the other
beating the horse with her sun-bonnet. The bullets served to accelerate
his pace. The distance from the pursuers was widening. She came over the
hill at a tremendous rush, and saw, to her joy, a light in Jepson’s cabin.
It seemed to him at the time as if he were dreaming. He heard the thud of
hoofs; he saw, as he opened the door, the equestrian figure reining up on
the snow; he heard Marcella’s voice beseeching him to fly, fly at once,
for his enemies were upon his track; and then, straggling over the hill,
came, one by one, the distanced pursuers. They had lost the fugitive long
ago, but they noted, as she had done, the light in the cabin. As they
approached, they saw Jepson advancing to meet them,—advancing boldly. His
figure was very distinct in the light of the moon, which had shaken off
its besetting clouds, and was crystal-clear in the sky, while the snowy
earth responded with an opaque white lustre. His pose suggested all his
arrogance. His arms were folded on his breast; his head was held very
erect.
It was a frenzied impulse which animated them, for they did not connect
him in any sense with the fugitive on the sheriff’s horse. Perhaps it
arose from the lack of a recognized head of the expedition, for the
dismounted officer was still far behind at Strobe’s house. They were
wild, fevered, riotous, their minds still full of the suspicions bruited
about the hearth this evening. Most of all, it may be, they felt that
fierce, chafing wish to break away from control which they had shared
with every mob turning against its erstwhile leader. Jepson did not
realize that he was reënacting the history of many a despot, when a
sharp, whizzing sound split the night air, and he felt, in amazement, a
keen tingle in his folded right arm,—another, striking above the elbow.
Their aim was good for men who rode at full gallop.
He did not flee. He walked on, silent, proud, erect, toward them. They
were upon him now, the smoking horses snorting and curveting as they
closed about him, the earth seeming to shake beneath their hoofs; and
suddenly this Cæsar of the Great Smoky Mountains sank down in the
reddening snow.
No one knew afterward quite accurately who fired the shots. There were
many mutual criminations and recriminations amongst the little mob,
but the pistols were not available in evidence because of the frequent
discharges at the fugitive on the sheriff’s horse. These were considered
justifiable, and thus the responsibility was never placed. Marcella was
much reproved for her unwomanly interference in matters with which she
had no concern. The sheriff, however, declared gallantly, “Ef I hed known
’twar you-uns, Marcelly, I’d hev loant ye my horse an’ welcome.” And more
than one of the pursuers averred that it was frightful to think of having
had to fire off pistols at “leetle Marcelly Strobe by mistake, whilst she
war a-skitterin’ along on that wild-goose chase through the snow on the
sher’ff’s horse.”
Jepson felt that it was a forlorn and maimed existence that stretched out
before him after Dr. Boyce came and took off his arm. Physical prowess
was a sort of religion with him, and he could not call to mind any
Biblical worthy thus afflicted. It was well that he had so much pride and
so much courage, or he might have been more white-faced and cast down
than he was, one afternoon, when Mrs. Strobe and Marcella went to his
cabin to inquire concerning his well-being. The girl persisted in sitting
on the doorstep, for the door stood open, the snow having melted and the
air being fine and dry, and from his chair within, by the fireside, he
could not see her face,—only the lustrous waves of her long curling hair
tossing on her shoulders.
When Mrs. Strobe, interested in a matter of horticulture, stepped out
on the back porch to cull sundry seed-pods from a vine sheltered by the
eaves, he boldly offered his advice on a point on which he considered it
sorely needed.
“Ye mus’ quit these hyar dangerous ways, Marcelly,” he said, in his
domineering tone. “Leave the men’s affairs alone. Ye’ll git kilt some
time. Ye mought hev been kilt kemin’ ter warn me, an’ ’twar powerful
dangerous warnin’ Rathburn.”
“I reckon ’twarn’t none too much ter do fur a man I’m goin’ ter marry,”
she retorted tartly, her back toward him, her elbow on her knee, her chin
in her hand.
He had grown used to the idea that she would marry Rathburn. “I wish he
war a better man!” he said bitterly.
“He ain’t got no religion, sca’cely, I know,” she resumed presently, “but
_he_ don’t feel no lack.”
“He ain’t a hypercrite, then,—like ye called me wunst?” he said
desolately.
“Oh, yes,” she declared lightly, “jes’ about yer size of a hypercrite.”
“Waal—I hope he’ll be good ter ye,” he sighed.
“Dunno ’bout that,—he gits mad mighty easy,” she responded cavalierly.
“Tole me wunst ez he would never furgive me ez long ez he lived.”
“Fur what?” Jepson demanded angrily.
She had risen from the doorstep. She was looking casually around, as if
she were about to go. Her voice had sunk unaccountably. “Jes’ kase I
’lowed it mought hev been him ez treated leetle Bob Bowles mean.”
There was a pause. “Marcelly,” he cried at last, “who be ye a-talkin’
’bout?”
“You-uns!” She turned away her scarlet cheek, then flashed a bright
glance over her shoulder. “But I’m mos’ wore out tryin’ ter git it inter
yer head,—ye ’pear so sodden in folly.”
And then she was off.
Rathburn had bitter reproaches for her. “I thought you would marry me—not
Jepson. I thought you cared for me.”
“I never knowed my mind,” she admitted, “till that night whenst I hearn
’em plottin’ agin him, an’ seen he war in danger. _Then_ I fund out
mighty quick who I keered fur.”
“I believe it will kill me,” he declared.
“Oh, no, ’twon’t!” she reassured him. “I hev hearn fower or five young
men say that very thing, an they air walkin’ round in Brumsaidge now,
well an’ hearty, an’ likely ter last a good while yit.”
Mrs. Strobe was not surprised. “Whenst young gals gits ter talkin’ ’bout
’despisin’ handsome sinners with eyes blue an’ deep ez a well,’ thar’s
apt ter be a heap o’ foolishness in the wind.” She earnestly counseled
her granddaughter to wait until after an investigation of the cave was
had, lest Jepson should be in some sort inculpated by the testimony which
the dark and gruesome caverns might yield at last. “Ye could turn him off
then,” she argued, “ef ye ain’t married ter him.”
Her remonstrances had the unexpected effect of hastening the wedding. “I
don’t believe he hev done nuthin’ underhand an’ mean. An’ I’m willin’ ter
share ennythin’ they kin prove agin him,” Marcella declared.
The first superficial investigation of those unexplored underground
recesses resulted in naught. There was then some delay while the
sheriff secured and had brought from Colbury the requisite means for an
extensive, safe, and efficient search,—lamps, ropes, etc.; and by the
time they were in readiness Rathburn was sufficiently recovered to be
with the party. He was in high hopes of realizing his dreams of rich
deposits of ore, and eagerly examined the rock about the opening of the
cave and within its passages. The only “find” was a ghastly spectacle.
Not so far down the gloomy aisles of the cave, half hidden by a great
fragment of rock, and by it supported in an upright posture, was the
skeleton of a young man, clad in tatters and shreds of brown jeans, his
grasp still upon the handle of a hunting-knife held out straight before
him, kept in position since its strong blade had pierced the heart of
a great panther, now but a skeleton too, rampant, its claws and fangs
fixed in the ribs where its savagery had dealt death. It was the simplest
explanation of the mystery: the antagonists in this primitive duel—the
hunter and the beast—had each perished because of the other. Keale had
doubtless tracked the creature to the cave, rashly ventured within her
den, and she had fought with the courage of desperation. There were the
skeletons of the panther kittens, having died of starvation, perhaps,
scattered about on the floor, but no indications of precious metal, no
sign that this gaunt thing that once was the adventurous mountaineer had
ever sought it, save that in his pocket was a bit of float identical with
the specimen which had so long proved a lure to Rathburn. The secret
where he had found it perished with him.
Its influences were hardly so fleeting. Many a long and thoughtful hour
Rathburn pondered on Baintree’s fate: innocent of the crime of which
he was accused; tempted by his cowardly terror of it to commit its
counterpart, which though failing had left him its legacy of remorse, its
brand of Cain to bear as long as he should live. Never again came news of
him to Broomsedge Cove, although Rathburn, with a condoning compassion, a
certain sense of responsibility, remembering his own sordid schemes and
their pitiless pursuit, which provoked Baintree’s crime, and a wish to
lift the weight which must oppress him, sought him far and wide.
Rathburn lost his desire for wealth; somehow that bit of float, with
all its unfulfilled promises, with all its inchoate curses, was a
talisman to reconcile him to poverty. No one might know in after years,
when he was notably one of the “poor collectors” of his profession,
how strong a proclivity for gains at all hazards he had conquered. He
never became altogether unworldly, however, and when he had returned
to his appropriate place in the heart of a city he was easily consoled
for Marcella’s choice, and esteemed it in the nature of an escape;
for none could realize so well as he how the charming mountain flower
would have lost grace and beauty, all its fascinations wilting, in the
transplantation to an incongruous sphere. Nevertheless he suffers a pang
occasionally—the finer æsthetic function of the heart—when he hears from
Broomsedge Cove. Latterly it has been reported that Eli Strobe, whose
mental malady has quite disappeared, has been elected justice of the
peace, and that the “dad” formerly so frequent a word on Marcella’s lips
has become a stranger to her vocabulary; for ever since she has solemnly
spoken of him by the ambitious title of his office, as “the squair.” Even
while Rathburn laughed at this, he saw, with the vividness of reality,
and a yearning pain like homesickness, the stretches of the tawny
broomsedge waving over all the abandoned land; the high encircling purple
mountains touching the lofty sky; the trees bowing in homage to the
passing of the royal wind; the river’s silver gleam; the smoke curling
up from the stick-and-clay chimneys of the little hamlet, so still, so
still, while above the white clouds set sail.