IT was Crump, and fifty yards behind him was Isom, slipping through the
brush after him--Isom's evil spirit--old Gabe, Raines, "conviction,"
blood-penalty, forgotten, all lost in the passion of a chase which has
no parallel when the game is man.
Straight up the ravine Crump went along a path which led to Steve
Marcum's cabin. There was a clump of rhododendron at the head of the
ravine, and near Steve's cabin. About this hour Marcum would be chopping
wood for supper, or sitting out in his porch in easy range from the
thicket. Crump's plan was plain: he was about his revenge early, and
Isom was exultant.
"Oh, no, Eli, you won't git Steve this time. Oh, naw!"
The bushes were soon so thick that he could no longer follow Crump by
sight, and every few yards he had to stop to listen, and then steal on
like a mountain-cat towards the leaves rustling ahead of him. Half-way
up the ravine Crump turned to the right and stopped. Puzzled, Isom
pushed so close that the spy, standing irresolute on the edge of
the path, whirled around. The boy sank to his face, and in a moment
footsteps started and grew faint; Crump had darted across the path, and
was running through the undergrowth up the spur. Isom rose and hurried
after him; and when, panting hard, he reached the top, the spy's
skulking figure was sliding from Steve's house and towards the Breathitt
road; and with a hot, puzzled face, the boy went down after it.
On a little knob just over a sudden turn in the road Crump stopped, and
looking sharply about him, laid his gun down. Just in front of him were
two rocks, waist-high, with a crevice between them. Drawing a long knife
from his pocket, he climbed upon them, and began to cut carefully away
the spreading top of a bush that grew on the other side. Isom crawled
down towards him like a lizard, from tree to tree. A moment later the
spy was filling up the crevice with stones, and Isom knew what he was
about; he was making a "blind" to waylay Steve, who, the boy knew, was
going to Breathitt by that road the next Sunday. How did Crump know
that--how did he know everything? The crevice filled, Crump cut branches
and stuck them between the rocks. Then he pushed his rifle through the
twigs, and taking aim several times, withdrew it. When he turned away
at last and started down to the road, he looked back once more, and Isom
saw him grinning. Almost chuckling in answer, the lad slipped around the
knob to the road the other way, and Crump threw up his gun with a gasp
of fright when a figure rose out of the dusk before him.
"Hol' on, Eli!" said Isom, easily. "Don't git skeered! Hit's nobody but
me. Whar ye been?"
Crump laughed, so quick was he disarmed of suspicion. "Jes up the river
a piece to see Aunt Sally Day. She's a fust cousin o' mine by marriage."
Jsom's right hand was slipping back as if to rest on his hip. "D'you say
you'd been 'convicted,' Eli?"