Had those enterprising spirits who had undertaken to organize a
vigilance committee, modelled upon the old Ku Klux, been avowedly
outlaws, banded together only for the abuse of power, their efforts
would have died of inanition. The sort of lawlessness that has given the
Appalachian mountaineer his wild name is one that the outer world
understands as little as the hillsman understands the outer world, and
the appeal which the organization made was a warped and distorted sense
of justice, none the less sincere.
So now though the organizers of the new body were scheming rascals,
actuated by the basest and meanest motives, the tissue and brawn of
their recruiting was built up from the adventure-love of youth or the
grim and honest insurgency of maturer age.
As yet the membership was small and it met in shifting places of
rendezvous, with weird rites of oath-bound secrecy. To-night it was
gathered around a campfire in a gorge between towering cliffs to which
access was gained by a single and narrow gut of alley-way which was
sentinel-guarded.
The men were notably bi-partisan in make-up, for Sim Squires of the
Harper faction sat on the same short log with young Pete Doane of the
Rowletts, and so it ran with the rest.
"Couldn't ye contrive ter persuade Bas Rowlett ter jine us, Pete?"
inquired one of the two men who had swaggered with Sam Opdyke up the
court-house aisle, and gone out in crestfallen limpness. "Hit looks
like he'd ought ter hold with us. He war entitled ter leadership an'
they cast him over."
Pete shook his head and answered with the importance of an envoy:
"Bas, he's fer us, body an' soul, an' he aims ter succour us every way
he kin but he figgers he kin compass hit best fashion by _seemin'_ ter
stand solid with ther old leaders."
Sim Squires said nothing but he spat contemptuously when the name of Bas
Rowlett was mentioned.
"Ther fust task that lays ahead of us," declared the voice of Rick Joyce
who seemed to be the presiding officer of the meeting, "is ter see that
Sam Opdyke comes cl'ar in cote. When ther Doanes met in council, Sam war
thar amongst 'em an' no man denied he hed as good a right ter be
harkened to as anybody else. But they rid over him rough-shod. A few men
tuck ther bit in their teeth and flaunted ther balance of us. Now we
aims ter flaunt _them_ some."
"How air we goin' ter compass hit?" came a query, and the answer was
prompt.
"When ther panel's drawed ter try Sam we've got ter see that every man
on the jury gits secretly admonished thet atter he finishes up thar,
he's still got ter answer ter _us_--an' meantime we've got ter handle
some two-three offenders in sich a fashion thet men will fear ter
disobey us."
So working on that premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from
the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials
of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though
they were building an engine of menacing power and outlawry, it is
probable that more than half of them were men who might have turned on
their leaders, as a wolf pack turns on a fallen member, had they known
the deceit and the private grudge-serving with which the unseen hand of
Bas Rowlett was guiding them.
The dreamy languor of autumn gave way to the gusty melancholy of winds
that brought down the leaves from the walnut tree until it stretched out
branches disconsolate and reeking with only the more tenacious foliage
left clinging. Then Dorothy Thornton felt that the sand was running low
in the hour glass of respited happiness and that the day when her
husband must face his issue was terribly near.
Indian summer is a false glory and a brief one, with alluring beauty
like the music of a swan-song, and it had been in an Indian summer of
present possession that she had lived from day to day, refusing to
contemplate the future--but that could not go on.
The old journal which had fired her imagination as a door to a new life
had lain through these days neglected--but they had been days of nearer
and more urgent realities and, after all, the diary had seemed to belong
to a world of dreams.
One of these fall afternoons when the skies were lowering and Parish was
out in the woods with Sim Squires she remembered it with a pang of
guilty neglect such as one might feel for an ill-used friend, and went
to the attic to take it out of its hiding and renew her acquaintance.
But when she opened the old horsehide trunk it was not there and panic
straightway seized her.
If the yellowed document were lost, she felt that a guardian spirit had
removed its talisman from the house, and since she was a practical soul,
she remembered, too, that the note-release bearing Bas Rowlett's
signature had been folded between its pages! With her present
understanding of Bas that thought made her heart miss its beat.
Dorothy was almost sure she had replaced it in the trunk after reading
it the last time, yet she was not quite certain, and when Parish came
back she was waiting for him with anxiety-brimming eyes. She told him
with alarm in her face of the missing diary and of the receipt which had
been enclosed and he looked grave, but rather with the air of
sentimental than material interest.
"Thet old diary-book was in ther chist not very long ago," he declared.
"I went up thar an' got ther receipt out when I fared over ter Sam
Opdyke's arraignin'. I tuck hit ter ther co'te-house an' put hit ter
record thet day--ther receipt, I means."
"How did ye git inter ther chist without my unlockin' hit?" she inquired
with a relief much more material than sentimental, and he laughed.
"Thet old brass key," he responded, "war in yore key basket--an ye
warn't in ther house right then, so I jest holped myself."
That brass key and that ancient record became the theme of conversation
for two other people about the same time.
In the abandoned cabin which had come to be the headquarters of Bas
Rowlett in receiving reports from, and giving instructions to, his
secret agents, he had a talk with his spy Sim Squires, who had come by
appointment to meet him there. In the sick yellow of the lantern light
the lieutenant had drawn from his pocket and handed to his chief the
sheaf of paper roughly bound in home-made covers of cloth which he had
been commissioned to abstract from its hiding place.
"Hit's done tuck ye everlastin'ly ter git yore hands on this thing,"
commented Rowlett, sourly, as he held it, still unopened, before him.
"But seems like ye've done got holt of hit at last."
"Hit warn't no facile matter ter do," the agent defended himself as his
face clouded resentfully. "Ef I let folks suspicion me I wouldn't be no
manner of use ter ye in thet house."
"How did ye compass hit finally?"
"Thornton's woman always kep' hit in the old hoss-hair chist in ther
attic an' she always kep' ther chist locked up tight as beeswax." Sim
paused and grinned as he added, "But woman-fashion--she sometimes fergot
ter lock up ther key."
Rowlett was running through the pages whose ancient script was as
meaningless to him as might have been a papyrus roll taken from the
crypts of a pyramid.
"Old Caleb," he mused, "named hit ter me thet he'd done put thet paper I
wanted betwext ther leaves old this old book inside ther chist."
He ran through the yellow pages time after time and finally shook them
violently--without result. His face went blank, then anxious, and after
that with a profane outcry of anger he flung the thing to the floor and
wheeled with a livid face on Sim Squires.
"Hit hain't thar!" he bellowed, and as his passion of fury and
disappointment mounted, his eyes spurted jets of fury and suspicion.
"Afore God," he burst out with eruptive volleys of abuse, "I halfway
suspicions ye're holdin' thet paper yore own self ter barter an' trade
on when ye gits ther chanst ... an' ef ye be, mebbe ye've got thet other
document, too, thet ye pretends ye hain't nuver seed thar--ther one in
ther sealed envellup!"
He broke off suddenly, choked with his wrath and panting crazily.
Suppose this hireling who had once or twice shown a rebellious
disposition held his own signed confession! Suppose he had even read it!
Bas had never suspected the real course which Parish Thornton had taken
to safeguard that other paper and he had not understood why Sim had been
unable to locate it and abstract it from the house. Thornton had, in
fact, turned it over to the safekeeping of Jase Burrell, who was to hold
it, in ignorance of its contents, and only to produce it under certain
given conditions. Now Bas stood glaring at Sim Squires with eyes that
burned like madness out of a face white and passion distorted, and Sim
gave back a step, cringing before the man whose ungoverned fury he
feared.
But after an unbridled moment Bas realized that he was acting the
muddle-headed fool in revealing his fear to a subordinate, his hold over
whom depended on an unbroken pose of mastery and self-confidence.
He drew back his shoulders and laughed shamefacedly.
"I jest got red-headed mad fer a minute, Sim," he made placating avowal.
"Of course I knows full well ye done ther best ye could; I reckon I
affronted ye with them words, an' I craves yore pardon."
But Sim, who had never served for love, found the collar of his slavery,
just then, galling almost beyond endurance, and his eyes were sombrely
resentful.
"I reckon, Bas, ye'd better hire ye another man," he made churlish
response. "I don't relish this hyar job overly much nohow.... Ye fo'ced
me ter layway ther man ... but when ye comes ter makin' a common thief
outen me, I'm ready ter quit."
At this hint of insubordination Rowlett's anger came back upon him, but
now instead of frothy self-betrayal it was cold and domineering.
He leaned forward, gazing into the face upon which the lantern showed
spots of high-light and traceries of deep shadow, and his voice was one
of deliberate warning:
"I counsels ye ter take sober thought, Sim, afore ye contraries me too
fur. Ye says I compelled ye ter layway Parish Thornton--but ye kain't
nuver prove thet--an' ef I hed ther power ter fo'ce ye then hit war
because I knowed things erbout ye thet ye wouldn't love ter hev told. I
knows them things still!" He paused to let that sink in, and Sim Squires
stood breathing heavily. Every sense and fibre of his nature was in that
revolt out of which servile rebellions are born. Every element of hate
centred about his wish to see this arrogant master dead at his feet--but
he acknowledged that the collar he wore was locked on his neck.
So he schooled his face into something like composure and even nodded
his head.
"You got mad unduly, Bas," he said, "an' I reckon I done ther same. I
says ergin ef ye hain't satisfied with ther way I've acted, I'm ready
ter quit. If ye _air_ satisfied, all well an' good."
Bas Rowlett picked up the diary of the revolutionary Dorothy Thornton
and twisted it carelessly into a roll which he thrust out of sight
between a plate-girder of the low cabin and its eaves.
* * * * *
Jerry Black came one Saturday night about that time to the wretched
cabin where he and his wife, a brood of half-clothed children, two
hound-dogs, three cats, and a pig dwelt together--and beat his wife.
For years Jerry had been accustomed to doing precisely the same thing,
not with such monotonous regularity as would have seemed to him
excessive, but with periodical moderation. Between times he was a
shiftless, indulgent, and somewhat henpecked little man of watery eyes,
a mouth with several missing teeth, and a limp in one "sprung leg." But
on semi-annual or quarterly occasions his lordliness of nature asserted
itself in a drunken orgy. Then he went on a "high-lonesome" and whooped
home with all the corked-up effervescence of weeks and months bubbling
in his soul for expression. Then he proved his latent powers by knocking
about the woman and the brattish crew, and if the whole truth must be
told, none of those who felt the weight of his hand were totally
undeserving of what they got.
But on this occasion Jerry was all unwittingly permitting himself to
become a pawn in a larger game of whose rules and etiquette he had no
knowledge, and his domestic methods were no longer to pass uncensored in
the privacy and sanctity of the home.
His woman, seizing up the smallest and dirtiest of her offspring, fled
shrieking bloody murder to the house of the nearest neighbour, followed
by a procession of other urchins who added their shrill chorus to her
predominant solo. When they found asylum and exhibited their bruises,
they presented a summary of accusation which kindled resentment and
while Jerry slept off his spree in uninterrupted calm this indignation
spread and impaired his reputation.
For just such a tangible call to arms the "riders," as they had come to
be termed in the bated breath of terror, had been waiting. It was
necessary that this organization should assert itself in the community
in such vigorous fashion as would demonstrate its existence and
seriousness of purpose.
No offence save arson could make a more legitimate call upon a body of
citizen regulators than that of wife-beating and the abuse of small
children. So it came about that after the wife had forgiven her
indignities and returned to her ascendency of henpecking, which was a
more chronic if a less acute cruelty than that which she had suffered, a
congregation of masked men knocked at the door and ordered the quaking
Jerry to come forth and face civic indignation.
He came because he had no choice, limping piteously on his sprung leg
with his jaw hanging so that the missing teeth were abnormally
conspicuous. Outside his door a single torch flared and back of its
waver stood a semicircle of unrecognized avengers, coated in black
slickers with hats turned low and masks upon their faces. They led him
away into the darkness while more lustily than before, though for an
opposite reason, the woman and the children shrieked and howled.
Jerry trembled, but he bit into his lower lip and let himself be
martyred without much whimpering. They stripped him in a lonely gorge
two miles from his abode and tied him, face inward, to a sapling. They
cow-hided him, then treated him to a light coat of tar and feathers and
sent him home with most moral and solemn admonitions against future
brutalities. There the victims of that harshness for which he had been
"regulated" wept over him and swore that a better husband and father had
never lived.
But Jerry had suffered for an abstract idea rather than a concrete
offence, and both Parish Thornton and Hump Doane recognized this fact
when with sternly set faces they rode over and demanded that he give
them such evidence as would lead to apprehension and conviction of the
mob leaders.
Black shivered afresh. He swore that he had recognized no face and no
voice. They knew he lied yet blamed him little. To have given any
information of real value would have been to serve the public and the
law at too great a cost of danger to himself.
But Parish Thornton rode back, later and alone, and by diplomatic
suasion sought to sift the matter to its solution.
"I didn't dast say nuthin' whilst Hump war hyar," faltered the first
victim of the newly organized "riders," "an' hit's plum heedless ter
tell ye anything now, but yit I did recognize one feller--because his
mask drapped off."
"I hain't seekin' ter fo'ce no co'te evidence outen ye now, Jerry," the
young leader of the Thorntons assured him. "I'm only strivin' ter
fethom this matter so's I'll know whar ter start work myself. Ye needn't
be afeared ter trust me."
"Wa'al, then, I'll tell ye." They were talking in the woods, where
autumnal colour splashed its gorgeousness in a riot that intoxicated the
eye, and no one was near them, but the man who had been tarred and
feathered lowered his voice and spoke with a terrorized whine.
"Thet feller I reecognized ... hit war old Hump Doane's own boy ... Pete
Doane."
Parish Thornton straightened up as though an electric current had been
switched through his body. His face stiffened in amazement and the pain
of sore perplexity.
"Air ye plum onmistakably shore, Jerry?" he demanded and the little man
nodded his head with energetic positiveness.
"I reckon ye're wise not ter tell nobody else," commented Parish. "Hit
would nigh kill old Hump ter larn hit. Jest leave ther matter ter me."