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[Illustration: She ran out uttering a cry, and turning a dismayed
face to us
Page 192]
THE
LAST REBEL
BY
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
_Author of "A Knight of Philadelphia,"
"The Sun of Saratoga," etc._
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
ELENORE PLAISTED ABBOTT
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1900
Copyright, 1898, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
Copyright, 1899, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
AT ODDS WITH THE COMPASS 7
CHAPTER II.
ON TRIAL 31
CHAPTER III.
AN UNLUCKY SKETCH 56
CHAPTER IV.
AMONG THE PEAKS 86
CHAPTER V.
A CHANGE OF SITUATIONS 111
CHAPTER VI.
AT THE HUT 138
CHAPTER VII.
BESIEGERS AND BESIEGED 168
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RESULTS OF A SNOW-SLIDE 195
CHAPTER IX.
I AM IN FAVOR 215
THE LAST REBEL
CHAPTER I.
AT ODDS WITH THE COMPASS.
East or west, north or south? With all the experience of a man's years
and the knowledge of many wise books of travel, I could not tell. I had
taken no note of the sun when I left, and, neglected then, it would not
serve me now as a guide. To me at that moment all points of the compass
were the same.
The provoking sun which I could not use as a sign-post seemed bent
upon showing how brilliant it really could be. The last shred of white
and harmless cloud had been driven from the heavens, which were a deep
unbroken blue, with the golden lining showing through like a faint,
yellow haze. The glowing light clothed the earth, and intensified the
red and yellow and brown tints of the leaves, painted by the master
artist, autumn. In such a glorious flush the woods and the mountains
were a dazzle and tangle of color. But through all the glow and blaze
of the sun came the crisp and tonic coolness which marks the waning
autumn and makes it best and most beautiful as it goes. It was good to
be alone with forest and mountain. To breathe and to see were enough.
I cared nothing at the moment for the lost camp and my comrades of
the hunt. Yet I was in no Arcady. Take down the map of Kentucky, and
you will see in the east a vast region, roughened over with the dark
scrawls meaning mountains, through which no railroad comes, and few
roads of any kind either. Add to it other large and similar portions
of the map contiguous in Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, and
you have enough country to make a brave kingdom,--a kingdom, too,
over which no man yet has been able to make himself ruler, not even
any governor of the four States, and they have had some fine and fit
governors. In this kingdom of mountain and wilderness I was lost, and
was not mourning it, for the time.
A light wind stirred the currents of air and began that faint, curious
moaning through the drying leaves which I call the swan-song of autumn.
The brilliant foliage quivered before the light touch of the breeze,
and the reds and the yellows and the browns and the lingering bits of
green shifted and changed like shaken pieces of colored silk.
But one must do more than merely breathe and see, or even listen to the
wind playing on the autumn leaves. This kingdom might be mine by right
of sole tenancy, but after a little I preferred--greatly preferred--to
find some partner of my throne who would feed me and house me and show
me my way back to camp. Not knowing any other mode by which to choose,
I chose the direction which indicated the easiest foot-path, though
that might lead me farthest astray. I put my rifle upon my shoulder
and walked through the yellowing grass and the short red bushes, over
hills and down gullies, which were a trial to muscles and the forgiving
spirit. But I came to nothing which looked familiar, not a tree, not a
bush, not a hill, not a rock.
I began to tire of the monotony of the wilderness, which was lately
so beautiful; ever the same reds and yellows and browns and bits of
lingering green; ever the same burnt grass and purpling bushes and
rocky hills; but never a human being except myself, and I am not
company for two. When one grows lonesome beauty departs. I abused the
wilderness in its unchanged garb, and longed for the camp and the ugly
black cook frying strips of bacon over the coals. Hunger will not be
denied its complaints, though in my case they availed nothing.
I wandered about until the spirit and the flesh rebelled sorely and
called upon me for the relief which I had not to give. Both ankles
were in a state of open mutiny; and I sat down upon the crest of a
high hill to soothe them into temporary quiet. I observed then a very
marked change in the skies, real, and not due to the state of my mind.
The sun, as if satisfied with a half-day's splendor, was withdrawing.
Some clouds, dark purple streaks showing in them, hid the blue and made
the skies sombre. All the bright color with which the wilderness had
prinked and primped itself in the sunshine faded and became dull in
this twilight afternoon.
It needed no weather-wise prophet to guess quickly the meaning of
these changes. In the mountains a whiff of snow sometimes comes very
early,--now and then so early that it whitens the skirt of lingering
autumn. The clouds and the misty air with the chilly damp in it
betokened such an arrival. Once more I longed for our snug little
valley, with the camp, half tent, half cabin, and the sight of the fat
black cook frying strips of bacon over the glowing coals.
I had no fear of a heavy snow. The season was too early, I thought, for
anything more than a mere spatter of white. But snow, whether in large
or small quantities, is wet and cold, and it was sufficient to be lost,
without these new troubles.
From the hill I thought I could see a valley far to the northeast, with
the blue and silver waters of a brook or small river shining here and
there through the foliage. I decided to make all haste toward it, for
in these mountains human life seeks the valleys, and if I found food
and shelter at all it would most likely be there.
I took small account of the rough way, and almost ran over the stones
and through the scrub. I was in some alarm, for which there was ample
cause. The clouds thickened, and clothed the higher peaks. Yet I was
cheered by my belief that in truth I had seen a valley of some extent;
the patches of blue and silver water showed more plainly through the
distant foliage, which looked greener than the withering leaves on the
mountain, indicating a sheltered and warmer zone. Rising hope brought
back some of my strength, and when I reached the summit of a new hill
in the long rows of hills that thrust themselves before me as if to bar
my way, I was ready to shout for gladness at the sight of smoke.
The smoke rose from the valley, merely a faint spiral of blue, slowly
ascending, and melting so imperceptibly into the clouds that I could
not tell where it ended. Yet there was never a more welcome sight to me
than that little smoky wisp which told so plainly of man's presence.
I pushed on with new zeal, stumbled against a stone, and rose with
an ankle that made bitter complaints. It was not a sprain, but it
was unpleasantly near one, and I doubted my ability to walk with the
cripple over so wicked a way to the valley. I abused the cruelty of
fate, which was but my own carelessness and haste, and then tried to
think out the matter. My first impulse was to throw aside my gun and
escape its weight; that led to my second, which was to fire it in the
hope of attracting attention.
I had plenty of cartridges. I discharged a bullet into the air. The
echo was carried from hill-top to hill-top, until at last I heard it
faintly speeding away through the distant mountains. If any one were
near, such a report could not escape his ears; but the only answer was
the snow, which began to fall as if my shot had been the signal for
its coming. The soft flakes descended gently, but they would soon put
a sheet of white over all the ridges. Some melted on my face, and the
damp chilled me. It was not a time to spare my crippled ankle. I limped
on, firing my rifle a second, third, and fourth time. I could still see
the spiral of smoke, a true beacon to me, though it was all but hid by
the increasing clouds.
I fired the fifth time, and while the echo was yet travelling among the
peaks I heard a faint and very distant halloo. I had no doubt that it
was an answer to my shot, and, to be sure, I emptied a sixth cartridge
into the air. Back came the far cry. Like the shot, it too was taken up
by the echo: ridge repeated it to ridge, faint and far away, until I
could not tell from what point of the compass the true sound had come.
I was perplexed, but hopeful. I believed that help of some kind was
near. I sat down on a rock and expended much ammunition. The snow was
still coming down in the same gentle undecided way, but I was compelled
to stop between shots and brush the damp, white patches off my clothing.
Presently the answering halloo sounded very near me, and I ceased to
fire, replying with a shout.
Two large dogs scampered through the bushes, and, approaching me, began
to bark as if they had brought game to bay. A strong voice ordered them
to be quiet, and then the owner of dogs and voice came into view.
I had expected the usual mountaineer, sallow, angular, and shabby, but
I saw at once that this man was different. The clean-featured, keen,
intelligent face could not belong to one of the ignorant dwellers
in cabins. He was tall, thin, and past sixty, well dressed in a gray
uniform, upon which the brass buttons shone with peculiar brightness.
I had seen such uniforms before, but they were relics, and men do not
often wear them nowadays.
He approached me, walking in the upright fashion of a military man, and
showed much strength and activity for one so far advanced in years.
"I must apologize for my dogs, sir," he said. "They see strangers but
seldom, and when they do see one they must lift up their voices and
announce it to all the world."
"The sight of your dogs, and still more that of their master, is very
welcome to me," I replied.
He bowed with ancient grace and thanked me for my courtesy.
"I must ask your help," I said. "I've lost my way, and I've bruised my
ankle so badly on a stone that I fear I cannot walk many more miles."
"It is not far to my place," he replied, "and I will be glad to offer
you such hospitality as it can afford."
I looked at him with the greatest curiosity, a curiosity, too, that
increased with all he said. He had no weapon, nothing to indicate that
he was a hunter; and the uniform of a fashion that went out of style
forever, I thought, more than thirty years ago, with its gleaming brass
buttons and freshness of texture, drew more than one inquiring glance
from me, despite my effort not to appear curious to a stranger upon
whom I had become dependent. But if he noticed my curiosity it did not
appear in his manner.
The dogs, secure in the judgment of their master, sniffed about me in
friendly fashion. The man pointed toward the corkscrew of smoke which
the clouds and the film of snow had not yet hidden.
"My home is there," he said. "Come, let us start. This is no place for
a man in your condition to linger. If your ankle gives way I can help
you."
But rest had improved my ankle, and I found that I could walk in a
tolerable manner. He took my gun from me, put it over his own shoulder,
and whistled to the dogs. They were leaping about like two panthers in
play, but at his whistle they ceased the sport and marched sedately,
neck and neck, toward the rising smoke, leading the way for us.
The old man chose the way as if he knew it, avoiding the rougher slopes
and winding about in a sort of path which made the walking much easier
for me. As if good luck brought good luck, the snow ceased, and the
sun, returning, drove all the clouds out of the heavens. The lustrous
sunshine again gilded all the colors of mountains and forest and
brought out the fine and delicate tints of the reds and yellows and
browns. The white skim of snow over the earth dissolved in tears, and
the warm sun that made them drank them up.
The valley lying fresh and yet green below us broadened. The coil of
smoke grew into a column.
"Did you say your camp lay there?" I asked, pointing toward the valley.
We had been silent hitherto.
"I did not say my camp, sir; I said my home," he replied, with some
haughtiness. "Twenty yards farther, and you can see through the trees a
corner of the roof of Fort Defiance."
I did not understand him. I saw no reason for his high tone, and much
was strange in what he said. Yet he had the manner and bearing of a
gentleman, and he had been a timely friend to me. I had no right to ask
him curious questions.
He did not seem inclined to further talk, and I too was silent. But
I found employment for my eyes. We were descending the first slopes
of the valley, and it lay before us a welcome oasis in the weary
wilderness of mountains.
It must have been several miles in length and a good mile or more
across. Down the centre of it flowed a creek of clear, cool water,
almost big enough to call itself a river, and the thickness of the
tree-trunks and the long grass browned by the autumn breath showed the
fertility of the soil. Through the trees, which still retained much
of their foliage, the corners of house-roofs appeared. There are many
such secluded and warm little valleys in the Alleghanies, and I saw
no occasion for surprise. In truth, what I saw was most welcome: it
indicated the comfort of which I stood in need.
"I haven't asked you your name," said my host, suddenly.
"Arthur West," I replied.
"I would infer from your accent that you are a Northerner, a Yankee,"
he said, looking at me closely, and in a way I did not quite
understand.
"You are right on the first point, but not on the second," I replied.
"I am a Northerner, but not a Yankee. I am not from New England, but
from New York City."
"It's all the same," he replied, frowning. "You're a Yankee, and I
knew it from the first. We call the people of all the Northern States
Yankees."
"Have it so," I replied, with a laugh. "But abroad they call us all
Yankees, whether from the Northern or the Southern States."
"Luckily I never go abroad," he replied, frowning still more deeply.
"You have not asked me my own name," he continued.
"No, but I confess I would like to hear it," I replied. "I wish to know
whose hospitality I am about to enjoy, a hospitality for which I can
never thank you too much, for if I had not met you I might have starved
or frozen to death in this wilderness."
"I am Colonel John Greene Hetherill, C.S.A.," he replied.
"C.S.A.?" I said, looking at his gray uniform.
"Yes, 'C.S.A.,'" he replied. His tone was emphatic and haughty.
"Confederate States of America. What have you to say against it?"
"Nothing," I replied. "I leave that to the historians."
"Who are mostly liars," he said.
He looked at me with an expression of undoubted hostility.
"I would have liked it much better had you been a Southerner and not a
Yankee," he said. "How can I trust you?"
"I hope I am a gentleman," I replied. "At any rate, I am lame and in
straits, and under no circumstances would I violate your hospitality."
His expression softened. He even looked at me with pity.
"Well, it's the word of a Yankee," he said, "but still--it may be the
truth. Remember that on your word of honor you are to tell nothing
about Fort Defiance, its approaches or its plans."
"Certainly," I said, though secretly wondering.
He seemed to be relieved of his doubts, and, descending the last slope,
we walked at a brisk pace down the valley.
I was surprised at the evidences of care and cultivation, though the
fat, black soil of the valley would justify all the labor that might
be put upon it. The fences were good, the fields well trimmed, and we
soon entered a smooth road. Everything seemed to have the neatness and
precision of the proprietor, the man with whom I was walking. I looked
at him again, and was struck with the evidences of long military habit;
not alone his uniform, but even more decidedly his manner and bearing.
We passed some outhouses built in a better manner than I had seen
elsewhere in the mountain valleys, and approached a large square
building which I knew at first sight to be Fort Defiance, since it
could be nothing else. It was of two stories, made of heavy logs,
unhewn on the outside, the upper story projecting over the lower, after
the fashion of the block-houses of the frontier time. I supposed it to
be some such building, standing here after the lapse of a hundred years
in all its ancient solidity and devoted now to more peaceful uses.
The valley was no less pleasant to eye than to mind. When one is sore
and hungry, mountains lose their picturesqueness and grandeur; a crust
and a bed are infinitely more beautiful, and this valley promised both
and better. The house stood upon a hill which rose to some height and
was shaped like a truncated cone. The little river flowed around three
sides of the hill in a swift, deep current. The fourth side I could
not see, but the three washed at the base by the river were so steep
a man could climb them only with great difficulty. It was a position
of much natural strength, and in the old times, when rifles were the
heaviest weapons used in these regions, it must have been impregnable
except to surprise.
The road we were following curved around and approached the house from
the south side, the side which at first had been hidden from me, and
then I saw it was the only ordinary way by which one could enter Fort
Defiance. But even here art had been brought to the aid of nature. A
wide, deep ditch leading from the river had been carried around the
south side, and the mound was completely encircled by water. We crossed
the ditch on a drawbridge let down by an old man in Confederate gray
like his master, though his was stained and more ancient.
Had the architecture of the fort been different, had it been stone
instead of logs, I could easily have imagined myself back in some
mediæval castle of Europe, and not here in the mountains of Kentucky.
The fort looked very peaceful. Smoke rose from three or four chimneys,
and, drifting, finally united, floating off into the clouds. This was
the lazy coil which I had seen, and which perhaps had saved my life.
We climbed some stone steps, and when I reached the top I found a
little old-fashioned brass field-piece confronting me. But there was no
rust on its muzzle, which looked at me with the semblance of a threat.
"One would think from your preparations, colonel, that we were in a
state of war," I said, jestingly.
"Have you any weapons on you?" he asked, frowning again, and not
answering my jest.
"No," I replied; "I had nothing but the rifle, and you have that."
"I will keep it for the present," he said, curtly.
We paused before a heavy door of oak. While the colonel knocked, I
looked up at the overhanging edges of the second floor and saw that
they were pierced for sharpshooters. But before I had time to look
long, the door was opened by a man in a suit of Confederate gray,
like his fellow at the drawbridge. He saluted the colonel in military
fashion as the others had done, and we entered a wide hall which
seemed to run the entire width of the house. Many of the old houses in
Kentucky are built in this fashion. The hall was decorated, I might
almost say armed, with weapons,--rifles, pistols, bayonets, swords,
many of them of the most modern type. Tanned skins of bear, deer, and
wolf were on the floor. Had it not been for the late style of the
weapons, I could have maintained the fiction that it was a castle of
the Middle Ages and this the baronial hall.
He led me up a flight of steps, and opened the door of a small room
on the second floor. The room contained nothing but a small table, a
camp-bed, a three-legged stool, and two or three other articles of
furniture equally plain. There was but a single window, and it was
cross-barred heavily with iron. It looked more like a cell than a
chamber. Nor did it belie its looks.
"This will be your prison for the present," said the colonel. "Lie down
on the bed there and rest, and Crothers will be up in ten minutes with
food for you."
"Prison!" I exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes, prison," he repeated, "but that is all. I do not intend to deal
harshly with you otherwise. You are a Yankee, and I must see that you
do not meddle."
He cut short my protest by leaving the room, slamming the door, and
locking it. The door was so thick I could not hear his retreating
footsteps. As the colonel had said, I was a prisoner, but I did not
feel much alarm. I had confidence in his promise that I would come to
no harm. I looked between the bars of the window, which opened upon a
small space like a court. One side of the court was open and ran sheer
up to the edge of the cliff, which dropped away thirty or forty feet to
the river below. The torrent foamed around the mound with a tumult like
a mill-race. Beyond were open fields, ending abruptly at the foot of
steep and rough mountains.