V.

The shadows of the great dead trees in the midst of the Settlement were

at their minimum in the vertical vividness of the noontide. They bore

scant resemblance to those memorials of gigantic growths which towered,

stark and white, so high to the intensely blue sky; instead, they were

like some dark and leafless underbrush clustering about the sapless

trunks. The sandy stretch of the clearing reflected the sunlight with a

deeply yellow glare, its poverty of soil illustrated by frequent clumps

of the woolly mullein-weeds. The Indian corn and the sparse grass were

crudely green in the enclosures about the grey, weather-beaten

log-houses, which stood distinct against the dark, restful tones of the

forest filling the background. The mountains with each remove wore every

changing disguise of distance: shading from sombre green to a dull

purple; then overlaid with a dubious blue; next showing a true and

turquoise richness; still farther, a delicate transient hue that has no

name; and so away to the vantage-ground of illusions, where the ideal

poises upon the horizon, and the fact and the fantasy are

undistinguishably blended. The intermediate valleys appeared in

fragmentary glimpses here and there; sometimes there was only the

verdure of the tree-tops; one was cleft by a canary-coloured streak

which betokened a harvested wheat-field; in another blazed a sapphire

circle, where the vertical sun burned in the waters of a blue salt

'lick.'

The landscape was still--very still; not the idle floating of a cloud,

not the vague shifting of a shadow, not the flutter of a wing. But the

Settlement on the crags above had known within its experience no similar

commotion. There were many horses hitched to the fences, some girded

with blankets in lieu of saddles. Clumsy waggons stood among the stumps

in the clearing, with the oxen unyoked and their provender spread before

them on the ground. Although the log-cabins gave evidence of hospitable

proceedings within, family parties were seated in some of the vehicles,

munching the dinner providently brought with them. All the dogs in the

Great Smoky, except perhaps a very few incapacitated by extreme age or

extreme youth, were humble participants in the outing, having trotted

under the waggons many miles from their mountain homes, and now lay with

lolling tongues among the wheels. About the store lounged a number of

men, mostly the stolid, impassive mountaineers. A few, however, although

in the customary jeans, bore the evidence of more worldly prosperity

and a higher culture; and there were two or three resplendent in the

'b'iled shirt and store clothes' of civilization, albeit the first was

without collar or cravat, and the latter showed antique cut and reverend

age. These were candidates--talkative, full of anecdote, quick to

respond, easily flattered, and flattering to the last degree. They were

especially jocose and friendly with each other, but amid the fraternal

guffaws and interchanges of 'chaws o' terbacco' many quips were bandied,

barbed with ridicule; many good stories recounted, charged with

uncomplimentary deductions; many jokes cracked, discovering the kernel

of slander or detraction in the merry shell. The mountaineers looked on,

devoid of envy, and despite their stolidity with an understanding of the

conversational masquerade. Beneath this motley verbal garb was a grave

and eager aspiration for public favour, and it was a matter of no small

import when a voter would languidly glance at another with a silent

laugh, slowly shake his head with a not-to-be-convinced gesture, and

spit profusely on the ground.

In and out of the store dawdled a ceaseless procession of free and

enlightened citizens; always emerging with an aspect of increased

satisfaction, wiping their mouths with big bandanna handkerchiefs, and

sometimes with the more primitive expedient of a horny hand. Nathan

Hoodendin sat in front of the door, keeping store after his usual

fashion, except that the melancholy wheeze 'Jer'miah' rose more

frequently upon the air. Jer'miah's duties consisted chiefly in serving

out whisky and apple-jack, and the little drudge stuck to his work with

an earnest pertinacity, for which the privilege of draining the very few

drops left in the bottom of the glass after each dram seemed hardly an

adequate reward.

The speeches, which were made in the open air, the candidate mounted on

a stump in front of the store, were all much alike--the same

self-laudatory meekness, the same inflamed party spirit, the same jocose

allusions to opponents,--each ending, 'Gentlemen, if I am elected to

office I will serve you to the best of my skill and ability. Gentlemen,

I thank you for your attention.' The crowd, close about, stood listening

with great intentness, each wearing the impartial pondering aspect of an

umpire.

On the extreme outskirts of the audience, however, there was an

unprecedented lapse of attention; a few of the men, seated on stumps or

on the waggon-tongues, now and then whispering together, and casting

excited glances towards the blacksmith's shop. Sometimes one would rise,

approach it stealthily, stoop down, and peer in at the low window. The

glare outside made the interior seem doubly dark, and a moment or two

was needed to distinguish the anvil, the fireless hearth, the sooty

hood. A vague glimmer fell through a crevice in the clapboard roof upon

a shock of yellow hair and gleaming eyes, two sullen points of light in

the midst of the deep shadows. None of the mountaineers had ever seen a

wild beast caged, but Rick Tyler's look of fierce and surly despair, of

defiance, of all vain and vengeful impulses, as he sat bound hand and

foot in the forge, was hardly more human. The faces multiplied at the

window,--stolid, or morbidly curious, awe-struck, or with a grinning

display of long tobacco-stained teeth. Many of them were well known to

Rick Tyler, and if ever he had liked them he hated them now.

There was a stir outside, a clamour of many voices. The 'speaking' was

over. Footsteps sounded close to the door of the blacksmith's shop. The

sheriff was about to enter, and the crowd pressed eagerly forward to

catch a glimpse of the prisoner. Arriving this morning, the sheriff had

been glad to combine his electioneering interests with his official

duty. The opportunity of canvassing among the assemblage gave him, he

thought, an ample excuse for remaining a few hours longer at the

Settlement than was necessary; and when he heard of the impending

diversion of the gander-pulling he was convinced that his horse required

still more rest before starting with his prisoner for Shaftesville jail.

He went briskly into the forge, carrying a pair of clanking handcuffs.

He busied himself in exchanging these for the cord with which the young

fellow's wrists were bound. It had been drawn brutally tight, and the

flesh was swollen and raw. 'It seems ter me, ez 'twas the blacksmith

that nabbed ye, he might hev done better for ye than this, by a darned

sight,' he said in an undertone.

He had not been reluctant at first that the crowd should come in, but he

appreciated unnecessary harshness as an appeal for sympathy, and he

called out to his deputy, who had accompanied him on his mission, to

clear the room.

'We're goin' ter keep him shet up fur an hour or so, an' start down the

mounting in the cool o' the evenin',' he explained; 'so ef ye want ter

view him the winder is yer chance.'

The forge was cleared at last, the broad light vanishing with the

closing of the great barn-like doors. Rick heard the lowered voices of

the sheriff and deputy gravely consulting without, as they secured the

fastenings with a padlock which they had brought with them in view of

emergencies. They had taken the precaution, too, to nail strips of board

at close intervals across the shutterless windows; more, perhaps, to

prevent the intrusion of the curious without than the escape of the

manacled prisoner. The section of the landscape glimpsed through the

bars--the far blue mountains and a cluster of garnet pokeberries, with a

leaf or two of the bush growing close by the wall--sprang into abnormal

brilliancy at the end of the dark vista of the interior. It was a

duskier brown within for that fragment of vivid colour and dazzling

clearness in the window. Naught else could be seen, except a diagonal

view of the porch of one of the log-cabins, and the corn-field beyond.

Curiosity was not yet sated; now and then a face peered in, as Rick sat

bound securely, the cords still about his limbs and feet and the

clanking handcuffs on his wrists. These inquisitive apparitions at the

window grew fewer as the time went by, and presently ceased altogether.

The bustle outside increased: it drowned the drowsy drone of the cicada;

it filled the mountain solitudes with a trivial incongruity. Often

sounded there the sudden tramp of a horse and a loud guffaw. Rick knew

that they were making ready for the gander-pulling, which unique sport

had been selected by the long-headed mountain politicians as likely to

insure the largest assemblage possible from the surrounding region to

hear the candidates prefer their claims.

Electioneering topics were not suspended even while the younger men were

saddling and bridling their horses for the proposed festivity. As

Micajah Green strolled across the clearing and joined a group of elderly

spectators who in their chairs sat tilted against the walls of the

store, which began to afford some shade, he found that his own prospects

were under discussion.

'They tell me, 'Cajah,' said Nathan Hoodendin, who had hardly budged

that day, his conversational activity, however, atoning for his physical

inertia, 'ez ye air bound ter eend this 'lection with yer finger in yer

mouth.'

'Don't know why,' said Micajah Green, with a sharp, sudden effect as of

an angry bark, and lapsing from the smiling mien which he was wont to

conserve as a candidate.

'Waal, word hev been brung hyar ter the Settle_mint_ ez this prophet o'

ourn in the Big Smoky, he say ye ain't goin' ter be re'lected.'

The sheriff laughed scornfully, snapping his fingers as he stood before

the group, and whirled airily on his boot-heel.

Nevertheless, he was visibly annoyed. He knew the strength of a

fantastic superstition among ignorant people, and their disposition to

verify rather than to disprove. There were voters in the Big Smoky

liable to be controlled by a morbid impulse to make the prophet's word

true. It was an unexpected and unmeasured adverse influence, and he

chafed under the realization.

'An' what sets Pa'son Kelsey agin me?' he demanded.

'He ain't in no ways _sot agin you-uns_ ez I knows on,' discriminated

Nathan Hoodendin, studious impartiality expressed among the graven

wrinkles of his face. 'Not ez it war _sot agin_ ye; but ye jes' 'lows ez

that air the fac'. Ye ain't goin' ter be 'lected agin.'

'The pa'son hev got a gredge agin the old man, hyar,' said the deputy.

He was a stalwart fellow of about twenty-five years of age. He had sandy

hair and moustache, a broad freckled face, light grey eyes, and a

thin-lipped, defiant mouth. He bore himself with an air of bravado which

conveyed as many degrees of insult as one felt disposed to take up. 'He

lit out on me fust--I war with Amos Jeemes thar,--an' the pa'son put us

out'n the meet'n'-house. He did! He don't want no sorter sher'ff's in

the Big Smoky. An' he called Gid Fletcher, the blacksmith, "Judas" fur

arrestin' that lot o' bacon yander in the shop, when he kem hyar ter the

Settle_mint_ fur powder, ter keep him able to resis' the law! Who sold

Rick Tyler that powder, Mister Hoodendin?' he added, turning his eyes on

the proprietor of the store.

Old Hoodendin hesitated. 'Jer'miah,' he wheezed feebly.

His anxious eyes gleamed from out their perplexed wrinkles like a ray of

sunlight twinkling through a spider-web.

There was an interchange of glances between the sheriff and his deputy,

and the admonished subordinate continued:

''Twar jes' the boy, eh; an' I reckon he war afeard o' Rick's

shootin'-irons an' sech.'

''Twar Jer'miah,' repeated the storekeeper, his discreet eyes upon the

bosom of his blue-checked homespun shirt.

'Waal, the pa'son, ez I war sayin', he called the blacksmith "Judas" fur

capturing the malefactor, an' the gov'nor's reward "blood-money,"'

continued the deputy, expertly electioneering, since his own tenure was

on the uncertain continuance of the sheriff in office. 'An' now he's

goin' round the kentry prophesyin' as 'Cajah Green ain't goin' ter be

'lected. Waal, thar war false prophets 'fore his time, an' will be agin,

I'm thinkin'.'

There was a sudden clamour upon the air; a vibrant, childish voice, and

then a great horse-laugh. An old crone had come out of one of the cabins

and was standing by the fence, holding out to Gid Fletcher, who seemed

master of ceremonies, a large white gander. The fowl's physiognomy was

thrown into bold prominence by a thorough greasing of the head and neck.

His wings flapped, he hissed fiercely, he dolorously squawked. A little

girl was running frantically by the side of the old woman, clutching at

her skirt and vociferously claiming the 'gaynder.' Hers it was, since

'Mam gin me the las' aig when the grey goose laid her ladder out, an' it

war sot under the old Dominicky hen ez kem off'n her nest through

settin' three weeks, like a hen will do. An' then 'twar put under old

Top-knot, an' 'twar the fust aig hatched out'n old Top-knot's settin'.'

This unique pedigree, shrieked out with a shrill distinctness, mixed

with the lament of the prescient bird, had a ludicrous effect. Fletcher

took the gander with a guffaw, the old crone chuckled, and the young men

laughed as they mounted their horses.

The blacksmith hardly knew which part he preferred to play. The element

of domination in his character gave a peculiar relish to the role of

umpire; yet with his pride in his deftness and strength it cost him a

pang to forego the competition in which he felt himself an assured

victor. He armed himself with a whip of many thongs, and took his stand

beneath a branch of one of the trees, from which the gander was

suspended by his big feet, head downward. Aghast at his disagreeable

situation, his wild eyes stared about; his great wings flapped

drearily; his long neck protruded with its peculiar motion, unaware of

the clutch it invited. What a pity so funny a thing can suffer!

The gaping crowd at the store, on the cabin porches, on the fences,

watched the competitors with wide-eyed, wide-mouthed delight. There were

gallant figures amongst them, shown to advantage on young horses whose

spirit was not yet quelled by the plough. They filed slowly around the

prescribed space once, twice; then each made the circuit alone at a

break-neck gallop. As the first horseman rode swiftly along the crest of

the precipice, his head high against the blue sky, the stride of the

steed covering mountain and valley, he had the miraculous effect of

Prince Firouz Shah and the enchanted horse in their mysterious aerial

journeys. When he passed beneath the branch whence hung the frantic,

fluttering bird, the blacksmith, standing sentinel with his whip of many

thongs, laid it upon the flank of the horse, and despite the wild and

sudden plunge the rider rose in his stirrups and clutched the greased

neck of the swaying gander. Tough old fowl! The strong ligaments

resisted. The first hardly hoped to pluck the head, and after his hasty,

convulsive grasp his frightened horse carried him on almost over the

bluff. The slippery neck refused to yield at the second pull, and the

screams of the delighted spectators mingled with the shrieks of the

gander. The mountain colt, a clay-bank, with a long black tail full of

cockle-burrs, bearing the third man, reared violently under the surprise

of the lash. As the rider changed the balance of his weight, rising in

his stirrups to tug at the gander's neck, the colt pawed the air wildly

with his fore feet, fell backward, and rolled upon the ground, almost

over the hapless wight. The blacksmith was fain to support himself

against the tree for laughter, and the hurrahing Settlement could not

remember when it had enjoyed anything so much. The man gathered himself

up sheepishly, and limped off; the colt being probably a mile away,

running through the woods at the height of his speed.

The gander was in a panic by this time. If ever a fowl of that gender

has hysterics, that gander exhibited the disease. He hissed; he flapped

his wings; he squawked; he stared; he used every limited power of

expression with which nature has gifted him. He was so funny one could

hardly look at him.

As Amos James was about to take his turn, amid flattering cries of

'Amos'll pull his head!' 'Amos'll git his head!' a man who had suddenly

appeared on horseback at the verge of the clearing, and had paused,

contemplating the scene, rode swiftly forward to the tree.

'Ye can't pull out'n turn--ye can't pull out'n turn, pa'son!' cried half

a dozen voices from the younger men. The elders stared in amaze that the

preacher should demean his calling by engaging in this public sport.

Kelsey checked his pace before he reached the blacksmith, who, seeing

that he was not going to pull, forbore to lay on the lash. The next

moment he thought that Kelsey was going to pull; he had risen in his

stirrups with uplifted arm.

'What be you-uns a-goin' ter do?' demanded Gid Fletcher, amazed.

'I'm a-goin' ter take this hyar critter down.'

His words thrilled through the settlement like a current of electricity.

The next phrase was lost in a wild chorus of exclamations.

'Take the gaynder down?'

'What fur?'

'Hi Kelsey hev los' his mind; surely he hev!'

Then above the angry, undistinguishable tumult of remonstrance the

preacher's voice rose clear and impressive:

'The pains o' the beastis He hev made teches the Lord in heaven; fur He

marks the sparrow's fall, an' minds Himself o' the pitiful o' yearth!'

He spoke with the authority appertaining to his calling. 'The spark o'

life in this fow-_el_ air kindled ez fraish ez yourn--fur hevin' a soul,

ye don't ginerally prove it; an' hevin' no soul ter save, this gaynder

hain't yearned the torments o' hell, an' I'm a-goin' ter take the

critter down.'

''Tain't yer gaynder!' conclusively argued the blacksmith, applying the

swage of his own conviction.

'He air _my_ gaynder!' shrieked out a childish voice. 'Take him

down--take him down!'

This objection to the time-honoured sport seemed hardly less eccentric

than an exhibition of insanity. To apply a dignified axiom of humanity

to that fluttering, long-suffering tumult of anguish familiarly known as

the 'gaynder' was regarded as ludicrously inappropriate. To refer to the

Lord and the typical sparrow in this connection seemed almost blasphemy.

Nevertheless, with the rural reverence for spiritual authority and the

superior moral perception of the clergy, the crowd wore a submissively

balked aspect, and even the young men who had not yet had their tug at

the fowl's neck succumbed, under the impression that the preacher's fiat

had put a stop to the gander-pulling for this occasion.

As Kelsey once more lifted his hand to liberate the creator of the day's

merriment, the blacksmith, his old grudge reinforced by a new one, gave

the horse a cut with his whip. The animal plunged under the unexpected

blow, and carried the rider beyond the tree. Reverence for the cloth

had no longer a restraining influence on the young mountaineers. They

burst into yells of laughter.

'Cl'ar out, pa'son!' they exclaimed delightedly. 'Ye hev hed yer pull.

Cl'ar out!'

There was a guffaw among the elders about the store. A clamour of

commenting voices rose from the cabin porches, where the feminine

spectators stood. The gander squawked dolorously. The hubbub was

increased by the sudden sharp yelping of hounds that had started game

somewhere near at hand. Afterward, from time to time, canine snarls and

yaps rose vociferously upon the air--unheeded, since the inherent

interests of a gander-pulling were so enhanced by the addition of a

moral discussion and the jeopardy of its conclusion.

The next man in turn, Amos James, put his horse to a canter, and came in

a cloud of yellow dust toward the objective point under the tree. In

another moment there was almost a collision, for Kelsey had wheeled and

ridden back so swiftly that he reined up under the bough where the fowl

hung as Amos James, rising in his stirrups, dashed toward it. His horse

shied, and carried him past, out of reach, while the blacksmith stepped

precipitately toward the bole, exclaiming angrily:

'Don't ride me down, Hi Kelsey!'

He recovered his presence of mind and the use of his whip immediately,

and laid a stinging lash upon the parson's horse, as once more the

champion of the bird reached up to release it. The next instant Gid

Fletcher recoiled suddenly; there was a significant gesture, a steely

glimmer, and the blacksmith was gazing with petrified reluctance down

the muzzle of a six-shooter. He dared not move a muscle as he stood,

with that limited field of vision, and with more respectful acquiescence

in the opinion of another man than he had ever before been brought to

entertain. The horseman looked at his enemy in silence for a moment, the

broad-brimmed hat shading his face, with its melancholy expression, its

immobile features, and its flashing eyes.

'Drap that lash,' Kelsey said.

Gid Fletcher's grasp relaxed; then the parson with his left hand reached

up and contrived to unloose the fluttering gander. He handed the bird

down to the little girl, who had been fairly under the horse's heels at

the tree since the first suggestion of its deliverance. She clutched it

in great haste, wrapped her apron about it, and carrying it baby-wise,

ran fleetly off, casting apprehensive glances over her shoulder.

So the gander was saved, but in its fright, its woe, and the frantic

presage in whatever organ may serve it for mind, the fowl had a pretty

fair case against the Settlement for exemplary damages.

The sport ended in great disaffection and a surly spirit. Several small

grievances among the younger men promised to result in a disturbance of

the peace. The blacksmith, held at bay only by the pistol, flared out

furiously when relieved of that strong coercion. His pride was roused in

that he should be publicly balked and terrorized.

'I'll remember this,' he said, shaking his fist in the prophet's face.

'I'll save the gredge agin ye.'

But he was pulled off by his brethren in the church, who thought it

unwise to have a member in good standing again assault the apostle of

peace.

Amos James--a tall, black-eyed fellow of twenty-three or four, with

black hair, slightly powdered with flour, and a brown jeans suit, thus

reminiscent also of the mill--sighed for the sport in which he had hoped

to be victorious.

'Pa'son talked like the gaynder war his blood relation--own brothers,

I'm a-thinkin',' he drawled disconsolately.

The sheriff was disposed to investigate prophecy.

'I've heard, pa'son,' he said, with a smile ill concealing his vexation,

'ye have foreseen I ain't goin' ter be lucky with this here 'lection;

goin' ter come out o' the leetle eend o' the horn.'

The prophet, too, was perturbed and out of sorts. The sustaining grace

of feeling a martyr was lacking in the event of to-day, in which he

himself had wielded the coercive hand. He marked the covert

aggressiveness of the sheriff's manner, and revolted at being held to

account and forced to contest. He fixed his gleaming eyes upon the

officer's face, but said nothing.

'I'm a-hustlin' off now,' said Micajah Green, 'an' ez I won't be up in

the Big Smoky agin afore the 'lection, I lowed ez I'd find out what ails

yer ter set sech a durned thing down as a fac'. Why ain't I goin' ter be

'lected?' he reiterated, his temper flaring in his face, his eyes

fierce.

But for the dragging block and chain of his jeopardized prospects he

could not have restrained himself from active insult. With his peculiar

qualifications for making enemies, and the opportunities afforded by the

difficult office he had filled for the past two years, he illustrated at

this moment the justice of the prophecy. But his evident anxiety, his

eagerness, even his fierce intolerance, had a touch of the pathetic to

the man for whom earth held so little and heaven nothing. It seemed

useless to suggest, to admonish, to argue.

'I say the word,' declared the prophet. 'I can't ondertake ter gin the

reason.'

'Ye won't gin the reason?' said the sheriff, between his teeth.

'Naw,' said the prophet.

'An' I won't be 'lected, hey?'

'Ye won't be 'lected.'

The deputy touched the sheriff on the shoulder.

'I want ter see ye.'

'In a minute,' said the elder man impatiently.

'I want ter see ye.'

Something in the tone constrained attention. The sheriff turned, and

looked into a changed face. He suffered himself to be led aside.

'Ye _ain't_ goin' ter be 'lected,' said the deputy grimly, 'an' for a

damned good reason. Look-a-thar!'

They had walked to the blacksmith's shop. The deputy motioned to him to

look into the window.

'Damn ye, what is it?' demanded Micajah Green, mystified.

The other made no reply, and the officer stooped, and looked into the

dusky interior.