The ladder was early missed; indeed it was the next morning that old
Corbin puffed and pushed through the laurel to the bare space where his
handiwork had been wont to lie and to grow apace, rung by rung. He did
not at first notice its absence. He put his box of tools on the ground.
Then he sat down on a rock and mopped his brow with his red bandana
handkerchief and gazed meditatively down the vistas of the woods. The
Indian summer was abroad in the land, suffusing it with languor and
light—a subtly tempered radiance; with embellishments of color, soft and
brilliant; with fine illusions of purpling haze; with a pensive joy in
sheer existence. How gracious it was to breathe such air, such aromatic
perfumes; to hear such melodic sounds faintly piped with the wind among
the boughs. Ah, summer, not going, surely! for despite the sere leaf one
must believe it had barely come.
They were not poetic lungs which Mr. Corbin wore, encased in much fat,
but they expanded to the exquisite aroma of the morning as amply as if
they differentiated and definitely appreciated it. He drew several long
luxurious sighs, and then it seemed as if he would breathe no more. He
gasped; turned red; his eyes started from his head. He had taken notice
at last that the ladder had been removed. He arose tremulously and
approached the spot where it usually lay. There was no trace of it. He
staggered a few steps backward in dismayed recoil. His spectacles fell to
the ground, the lenses shattering on the stones.
“Witches!” he spluttered. “Witches!” He cast one terrified appealing look
at the solitudes about him, half-fearing to see the mystic beings that
his superstition deemed lurking there; then he began to waddle—for he
could hardly be said to run—as fast as he could go along the path through
the laurel.
Tremulous alike with his years and the shock of surprise, his condition
was pitiable by the time he reached the store—for he at once sought his
friend and crony the storekeeper. And some time elapsed before he could
be restored to his normal calmness and make intelligible the detail of
what had befallen him. Peter Sawyer was a man of considerable acumen. He
was far more disposed to believe that the ladder had been found by some
freakish boys who had mischievously hidden it in the laurel hard by, than
that it had been spirited away by witches. He considered, however, that
his old friend had been victimized beyond the limits of fun, and before
setting out for the spot he summoned the constable of the district to
their aid, for he felt that arrests for malicious mischief were in order.
Both he and the officer were prepared to beat the laurel and patrol the
neighborhood and ferret out the miscreants. They arranged their plans as
they trudged on together, now and then pausing to wait for old Corbin as
he pounded along behind them. The storekeeper was detailing, too, to the
constable the reasons for the manufacture of the long ladder—for he was
the confidential friend of Jake Corbin, and in fact had suggested the
scheme.
“We mought ez well let ye inter the secret fus’ ez las’, kase this hyar
case air one fur the strong arm o’ the law.” He threw back his narrow
lizard-like head and laughed, showing his closely-set tobacco-stained
teeth.
“Strong ez it air ’tain’t plumb long enough!” he added.
The constable, a thick-set, slow man, cocked his head inquiringly askew.
“’Tain’t long enough,” continued Sawyer, enjoying the involutions of
the method of disclosure he had adopted. “The arm o’ the law ain’t long
enough ter reach up ter them hollows in Keedon Bluffs!”
“In Keedon Bluffs!” echoed the amazed officer.
“Jes’ so,” said Sawyer, laughing and nodding. “So we hev lengthened its
reach by the loan of a ladder.” He strode on silently for a few moments
beside the constable, their two shadows following them down the red clay
road, in advance of old Corbin, who was lumbering on behind attended by
a portly, swaying, lunging image of himself, impudently magnified and
nearly twice as big.
“Ye see,” resumed Sawyer, “Jake Corbin b’lieves ez some o’ old Squair
Torbett’s money an’ sech, what he hid in the war times, air right up
_yander_ in one o’ them holes—’twar this hyar Jerry Binwell, ez war
a slim boy then, an’ Ab Guyther ez holped ter hide it. Waal, ye know
how things turned out. The Squair died ’fore many months were over an’
them boys had run away to the Wars. Waal, ye know how cur’ous the heirs
acted—looked sorter sideways when questioned, an’ swore they never hed
hed no money out’n Keedon Bluffs.”
“I ’member,” said the constable, “Ed declared out he never b’lieved thar
war no money thar.”
“Waal, Ed’s dead, an’ the tother heir moved ter Arkansas, an’ the
kentry-side ginerally b’lieved like them—that thar warn’t no money
thar—big fool tale. Waal, hyar kems back Jerry Binwell, arter twenty
year, bein’ pore ez Job’s tur-r-key, an’ takes ter a-loafin’ roun’
them Bluffs; I seen him thar twict myself. An’ Ab Guyther hev tuk ter
declarin’ he wants ter climb down Keedon Bluffs an’ lay his hand on that
thar old cannon-ball.”
“Wants ter lay his hand on Squair’s old money-box, ye better say,”
exclaimed Corbin.
“Waal now, I ain’t goin’ ter b’lieve nuthin’ ag’in Ab!” exclaimed the
constable excitedly.
“Ennyhow,” wheezed old man Corbin, “we-uns ’lowed we’d git a ladder an’
summons a officer an’ take down that box, ef we could git a boy ter climb
in, an’ turn it over ter the law. Jerry Binwell ain’t done nuthin’ ez yit
ter warrant arrestin’ him, but we jes’ ’lowed we-uns warn’t a-goin ter
set by an’ let him put folks on beams an’ steal money, an’ loaf around ef
thar war enny way ter pervent it.”
The constable seemed to approve of the plan, and only muttered a
stipulation that he did not believe Ab had anything to do with any
rascality.
Little was said as they pushed through the tangle of the laurel. The
storekeeper was ahead, leading the way, for he knew it well, having
often come to consult his crony. “Waal, sir!” he exclaimed in indignant
ruefulness when the bare rocky space was revealed along which the great
ladder was wont to stretch. He glanced around excitedly at the constable,
directing his attention to the spot, then called aloud, “Why, Jake,” in a
voice of exasperated compassion.
A cold chill was upon old Corbin as he waddled through the last of the
tangled bushes; it required no slight nerve for him to again approach the
place. He quivered from head to foot and wailed forth tumultuously, “I
hev been snared by the witches. Le’s git out’n these hyar witched woods!
Don’t ye reckon ’twar the witches? It mus’ hev been the witches!”
A new idea suddenly struck Peter Sawyer. “’Twarn’t no witches,” he
declared abruptly. “An’ ’twarn’t no mischievous boys! ’Twar Jerry
Binwell; that’s who hev got that ladder. Ef we-uns could ketch him a-nigh
hyar I’d git him ’rested sure. He hev fund out what we air wantin’ ter
do.”
“Better find the ladder an’ git the box fust. We-uns don’t want him—a
rascal—ez much ez the law wants the Squair’s money-box ter gin it back
ter the heirs,” said the cautious constable. “Go slow an’ sure. Besides
I don’t wanter make no foolish arrests. The jestice would jes’ discharge
him on sech evidence ag’in him ez we kin show—kase we can’t tell all we
know,—fur the word would git all over the Cove, an’ some limber-legged
fellow mought climb up thar, an’ ef he didn’t break his neck he mought
git the box. I tell ye—I’m a-goin’ ter set a watch on them Bluffs from
day-dawn till it’s cleverly dark. An’ ef that thar ladder be in these
hyar woods I’ll find it.”
These wise counsels were heeded. Old Corbin started back to the store
with his friend after one more apprehensive, tremulous, and searching
glance for the witches’ lair in the laurel which he dreaded to discover,
and the constable took his way cautiously through the woods toward the
river.
The morning wore on to the vertical noontide when the breeze died, and
the shadows collapsed, and the slumberous purple haze could neither
shift nor shimmer, but brooded motionless over the ravines and along the
mountain slopes; the midday glowed, and burned with color more richly
still, until the vermilion climax of the sunset made splendid the west,
and tinged the east with gold and pink reflections. And all day the
constable himself, hidden in a clump of crimson sour-wood, knelt on the
summit of the Bluffs, watching the deep silent gliding of the river and
the great sand-stone cliffs—with here a tuft of grass or a hardy bush in
a niche, with sheer reaches and anon crevices, and on a ledge the ball
from the deadly gun, lying silent and motionless in the sun.
Nothing came except a bird that perched on the cannon-ball; a
mocking-bird, all newly plumed. He trimmed his jaunty wing, and turned
his brilliant eye and his delicately poised head upward. Then, with his
white wing-feathers catching the light, away he went to where the echoes
awaited him. A star was in the river—its silver glitter striking through
the roseate reflections of the clouds; and presently the darkness slipped
down.
And the constable’s joints were very stiff when he clambered out of the
clump of sour-wood shoots.