CHAPTER I

|FROM the window of her husband's shop in the mountain-village of

Grayson, Cynthia Tye stood peering out on the Square. She was tall,

gaunt, and thin-so thin, in fact, that her fingers, pricked by her

needle and gnarled at the joints, had a hold in energy only, as she

pressed them down on her contourless hips. She had left her work in the

living-room and kitchen back of the shop and come in to question the

shoemaker as to what he wanted for his dinner, the boiling and stewing

hour having arrived.

Silas, whose sedentary occupation had supplied him with the surplus

flesh his wife needed, and whose genial pate was as bald as an egg, save

for a bare fringe of gray which overlapped his ears on the sides and

impinged upon his shirt-collar behind, looked up and smiled broadly.

“I wish you'd quit that, Cynthy. I really do.” Every outward and inward

part of the man lent itself to his smile, the broad, clean-shaven Irish

lip, the big, facile mouth, the almost wrinkleless pink cheeks, the

clear, twinkling blue eyes, the besmirched goatee--in fact, all his

rotund, satisfied self between his chin and the bench on which he sat

shook like a mass of animated jelly.

“Quit what?” She turned on him suddenly. “Why, quit always and

_eternally_ comin' to me when I'm chock full o' breakfast, and askin'

me what I want to eat for dinner. I can still taste my coffee. I reckon

settin' humped over this way between meals ain't exactly accordin' to

nature in its best state. I'd ruther live in a boardin'-house and take

what was served, hit or miss, than to digest a meal in my mind three

hours before I eat it.”

“Huh! I say!” Cynthia sniffed, “and what about me, who not only has

to think about it beforehand, but has to pick it in the garden, git it

ready for the pots, smell the fumes of it from daylight till dark, and

worry all night for fear something, will sour or be ate up by the cat,

dog, or chickens?”

Silas laughed till his tools--last, hammer, and knife--rattled in his

leather apron. “You got the best o' that argument,” he chuckled, as he

pressed the shoe he was repairing down between his fat knees, crossed

his short feet, and reached for a box of nails which had fallen to the

floor. Then his merriment ceased. He bent a tender glance on the woman

and a gentle cadence crept into his voice: “The Lord knows you _do_ have

a hard time, Cynthy, an' no jokin'. I wish thar was some way around it.

I lie awake many and many a night just thinkin' how happy me'n you'd be

if we could take a trip off some'rs and not have nothin' to bother about

for one week anyway. What are you gazin' at out thar so steady?”

“I'm watchin' that pore boy, Paul Rundel,” Cynthia returned, with a

sigh. “I never see 'im without my heart achin'. He's haulin' bark for

Jim Hoag's tannery. He driv' up on a big load to the post-office while I

was out gatherin' beans just now. You remember them two devilish Harris

boys that picked the row with 'im at the hitchin'-rack last week? Well,

I saw 'em at the corner and thought they looked suspicious. Then I

knowed they was waitin' for 'im, for they nudged one another and picked

up brickbats, and went to Paul's wagon. I couldn't hear what was said,

but it looked like they was darin' Paul to git down, for they kept

swingin' their bricks and shakin' their fists at 'im.”

“What a pity, what a pity!” The shoemaker sighed. “That boy is tryin'

his level best to live right, and thar was two ag'in' one, and both

bigger and stronger.”

“Well, Paul kin take care of hisself,” Cynthia said, with a chuckle.

“It looked like he was in for serious trouble, and I was runnin' to the

fence to try to call somebody to help him, when, lo and behold! I saw

him reach back on the load o' bark and pick up a double-barreled gun

and stick the butt of it to his shoulder. I am a Christian woman, and

I don't believe in bloodshed, but when them scamps drapped the'r bricks

and broke for the blacksmith shop like dogs with their tails twixt their

legs I shouted and laughed till I cried. Paul got down and was makin'

for the shop, when the marshal--Budd Tibbs--stopped 'im and made 'im put

up the gun and go back to his wagon. The next minute I saw the Harris

boys slip out the back door of the shop and slink off out o' sight.”

“It's bad, bad, bad!” Silas deplored. “Sometimes I wonder why the Lord

lets things run slipshod like that. Paul has a bright mind. He is as

sharp as a brier. He loves to read about what's goin' on over the world.

If thar ever was a boy that needed good advice and trainin' he is one.

He's right at the turnin'-point, too; he's got a high temper, a lot o'

sperit, and won't stand naggin' from high or low. And what's he got

at home? Nothin' that wouldn't take life and hope out of any ambitious

boy--a daddy that is half dead, and won't work a lick--”

“And a mammy,” Cynthia broke in, with indignation, “Si, that is the

vainest, silliest woman that ever breathed, traipsin' out to meetin'

in her flimsy finery bought by that boy's hard work. They say, because

she's passably good-lookin' and can sing well, that she thinks herself

too good to lay her hands to a thing. She don't love Ralph Rundel, nor

_never_ did, or she couldn't act that way when he is sick. I've heard,

on good authority, that she never cared much for Paul, even when he was

a baby--folks say she didn't want 'im to come when he did, and she never

took care of 'im like a mother ought to.”

“I've watched Paul a long time,” Silas remarked. “Me'n him are purty

good friends. He's rough on the outside, but now and then I see away

down into his heart. He worries about his daddy's bad health constantly.

They are more like two brothers than father and son, anyway, and as

Ralph grows weaker he leans more and more on his boy. It certainly is

sad. I saw 'em both down at Hoag's cotton-gin last fall. Paul had run

across some second-hand school-books somewhar, and was tryin' to explain

'em to his pa, but he couldn't make any impression on him. Ralph looked

like he was tryin' to show interest, but it wasn't in 'im. I tell you,

Cynthy, the hardest job our Creator ever put on his creatures is for 'em

to have unbounded faith in the perfection in the unseen when thar is so

much out o' joint always before our eyes.”

“Yes, but _you_ never lose faith,” Cynthia said, proudly. “I'd have let

loose long ago if I hadn't had you to keep me agoin'.”

“You see, Cynthy, I've noticed that something bright always follows on

the heels of what is dark.” Silas hammered the words in with the tacks,

which he held in his mouth. “Peace hovers over war and drops down after

it like rain on dry soil; joy seems to pursue sorrow like sunshine

pushin' clouds away, and, above all, love conquers hate, and you know

our Lord laid particular stress on that.”

“Paul has just left the post-office,” Cynthia said. “He's left his

hosses standin' and is headed this way.”

“He's comin' after his daddy's shoes,” Silas replied. “I've had 'em

ready for a week. I took 'em out to his wagon one day, but he didn't

have the money, and although I offered to credit him he wouldn't hear to

it. He's as independent as a hog on ice. I tell you thar's lots in that

boy.”

Cynthia, as the youth was crossing the street, turned back into her

kitchen. A moment later Paul entered the shop. He was thin almost to

emaciation, just merging into the quickly acquired height of a boy of

sixteen, and had the sallow complexion that belongs to the ill-nourished

mountaineers of the South. His coarse brown hair fought against the

restrictions of the torn straw hat, which, like a miniature tent, rested

on the back part of his head. The legs of his trousers were frayed at

the bottoms and so crudely patched at the knees that the varicolored

stitches were observable across the room. He wore no coat, and his

threadbare shirt of heavy, checked cotton had lost its buttons at the

sleeves and neck. He had a finely shaped head, a strong chin, and a good

nose. A pair of dreamy brown eyes in somber sockets were still ablaze

from their recently kindled fires. His mouth was large and somehow,

even in the grasp of anger, suggested the capacity for tenderness and

ideality.

“Hello, young man!” Silas greeted him as he peered at the boy above his

brass-rimmed spectacles and smiled genially. “Here at last. I was afraid

you'd let them shoes take the dry-rot in my shop, and just because you

wouldn't owe me a few cents for a day or two.”

Paul made no reply. His restless glance roved sullenly over the heap

of mended shoes and boots on the floor, and, selecting the pair he was

looking for, he ran a quivering finger along the freshly polished edge

of the soles and bent the leather testingly.

“Some o' the white oak you helped tan out thar at Hoag's,” Silas jested.

“If it ain't the best the brand on it is a liar, and I have been buncoed

by your rich boss.”

This also evoked no response. Thrusting the shoes under his arm, the boy

put his hand into his pocket and drew out some small coins and counted

them on the low window-sill close to the shoemaker. He was turning away

when Silas stopped him. Pointing to a chair bottomed with splints of

white oak and strengthened by strips of leather interlaced and tacked to

the posts he said:

“Take that seat; I hain't seed you in a coon's age, Paul, and I want to

talk to you.”

With a slightly softened expression, the boy glanced through the open

doorway out into the beating sunshine toward his horses and wagon.

“I've got to move on.” He drew his tattered sleeve across his damp brow

and looked at the floor. “I got another load to bring down from the

mountain.”

Silas peered through the window at the horses and nodded slowly. “Them

pore pantin' brutes need the rest they are gettin' right now. Set down!

set down! You don't have to hurry.”

Reluctantly the youth complied, holding the shoes in his lap. Silas

hammered diligently for a moment, and then the furrows on his kindly

brow deepened as he stared steadily through his glasses, which were

seldom free from splotches of lampblack and beeswax.

“I wonder, Paul, if you'd git mad if I was to tell you that I've always

had a whoppin' big interest in you?”

The boy made as if about to speak, but seemed to have no command of tact

or diplomacy. He flushed faintly; his lashes flickered; he fumbled the

shoes in his lap, but no words were forthcoming. However, to Silas this

was answer enough, and he was encouraged to go on.

“You see, Paul, I've knowed you since you was so high”--Silas held his

hammer out on a level with his knee--“and I have watched you close ever

since. Yore daddy--that was in his palmy days--used to take you with 'im

when he'd go afishin', and I used to meet you an' him on the creek-bank.

You was as plump and pink a toddler as I ever laid eyes on, just the age

of the only one the Lord ever sent us. When mine was alive I was so full

of the joy of it that I just naturally wanted to grab up every baby I

met and hug it. I never could hear a child cry over a stubbed toe, a

stone-bruise, or any little disappointment without actually achin' at

the heart. But our son was taken, Paul, taken right when he was the very

light an' music of our lives. And, my boy, let me tell you, if ever a

Christian come nigh wagin' open war with his Maker I did on that day.

God looked to me like a fiend incarnate, and His whole universe, from

top to bottom, seemed a trap to catch an' torture folks in. But as time

passed somehow my pain growed less, until now I am plumb resigned to the

Lord's will. He knowed best. Yes, as I say, I always felt a big interest

in you, and have prayed for you time after time, for I know your life

is a tough uphill one. Paul, I hope you will excuse me, but a thing took

place out thar in front of my window just now that--”

A grunt of somnolent rage escaped the boy, and Silas saw him clench

his fist. His voice quivered with passion: “Them two devils have been

picking at me for more than a year, calling me names and throwing rocks

at me from behind fences. Yesterday they made fun of my father, and so I

got ready, and--”

“I know, I know!”--the shoemaker sighed, reproachfully--“and so you

deliberately, an' in a calm moment, laid that gun on yore load of bark,

and--”

“Yes, and both barrels was loaded with heavy buck-shot!” the boy

exulted, his tense face afire, his eyes flashing, “and if they hadn't

run like two cowardly pups I'd have blowed holes in 'em as big as a

hat.”

Silas made a derogatory sound with his tongue and lips. “Oh, how blind

you was, my pore boy--you was too mad to see ahead; folk always are when

they are wrought up. Paul, stop for one minute and think. If you had

killed one or both of 'em, that wouldn't have settled the trouble.

You don't think so now, but you'd have gone through bottomless pits of

remorse. The Lord has made it that way. Young as you are, you'd have

died on the scaffold, or toiled through life as a convict, for it would

have been murder, and deliberate at that.”

The youth shrugged his thin shoulders. “I wouldn't have cared,” he

answered. “I tell you it ain't ended, Uncle Si. Them fellows has got to

take back what they said about my father. They've got to take it back, I

tell you! If they don't, I'll kill 'em if it takes a lifetime to do it.

I'll kill 'em!”

Silas groaned. A pained look of concern gathered in his mild eyes. He

reached for the polishing-iron which was being heated in the flame of

a smoking lamp on his bench and wiped it on his dingy apron. “It won't

do!” he cried, and his bald head seemed drawn down by fear and anxiety.

“Something has got to be done; they are a pair of low, cowardly whelps

that are try in' to bully you, but you've got to quit thinkin' about

murder. It won't do, I say; the devil is behind it. You stand away above

fellows like them. You've got the makin' of a big man in you. You love

to read and inquire, and they don't know their a b c's and can't add two

figures. You mustn't lower yourself to such riffraff, and you wouldn't

if you didn't let the worst part o' yourself get the upper hand.”

When the boy had left the shop Silas stood watching him from the

doorway. It was a pathetic figure which climbed upon the load of bark,

and swung the long whip in the air.

“What a pity! What a pity!” the old man exclaimed, and he wrung

his hands beneath his apron; then seating himself on his bench he

reluctantly resumed his work. “As promising as he is, he may go clean to

the dogs. Poor boy!”

CHAPTER II

|IT was now near noon, as was indicated by the clock on the low,

dome-capped tower of the Court House in the center of the village

square. Paul recognized several idlers who stood on a street-corner as

he drove past. They looked at him and smiled approvingly, and one cried

out:

“Bully for you, Paul! You are all wool and a yard wide.”

“And guaranteed not to tear or shrink!” another added, with a laugh

over his borrowed wit; but the boy neither answered nor smiled. A sudden

breeze from the gray, beetling cliffs of the near-by mountain fanned his

damp brow, and he gazed straight ahead down the long road. Hot

broodings over his wrongs surged within him, and the fact that he had so

completely routed his enemies failed to comfort him at all. They could

still laugh and sneer and repeat behind his back what they had dared to

say to his face about a helpless man who had offended no one. Cowards

that they were, they would keep their lies afloat, and even add to them.

His road took him past the lumber-yard, sawmills, brick and lime kilns,

and through the sordid negro quarter, which was a cluster of ramshackle

shanties made of unpainted upright boards grown brown and fuzzy, with

now and then a more primitive log cabin, a relic of pioneer and Cherokee

days. Vast fields of fertile lands belonging to his employer, James

Hoag, lay on both sides of the road just outside the village. There were

stretches of corn, cotton, and wheat in the best state of cultivation,

beyond which, on a gentle rise, stood the planter's large two-story

house, a white frame structure with a double veranda and outside blinds

painted green. Beyond the house, at the foot of the slope, could be seen

the dun roofs of the long sheds and warehouses of Hoag's tannery, to

which Paul was taking the bark. A big gate had to be opened, and the boy

was drawing rein with the intention of getting down when Hoag himself,

astride a mettlesome bay mare, passed.

“Wait, I'll open it,” he said, and spurring his mount close to the

gate he kicked the wooden latch upward and swung the gate aside. “Drive

ahead” he ordered. “I can pull it to.”

Paul obeyed, indifferent even to the important man's presence. He would

have forgotten Hoag's existence had the mare not borne him alongside

the wagon again. The horseman was a middle-aged man of sturdy physique,

fully six feet in height, and above two hundred pounds in weight. His

skin was florid, his limbs were strong, firm, and muscular, his hands

red and hair-grown. There was a cold, cruel expression in the keen

blue eyes under the scraggy brows, which was not softened by a sweeping

tobacco-stained mustache. He wore well-fitting top-boots which reached

above the knee, and into which the legs of his trousers had been neatly

folded. A wheeled spur of polished brass was strapped to the heel of

his right boot. He sat his horse with the ease and grace of a cavalry

officer. He held his mare in with a tense hand, and scanned the load of

bark with a critical eye.

“How much more of that lot is left up there?” he asked.

“About two cords, or thereabouts,” the boy said, carelessly.

“Well,” Hoag said, “when you get that all stacked under the shed I want

you to haul down the lot on Barrett's ridge. There is a good pile of

it, and it's been exposed to the weather too long. I don't know exactly

where it lies; but Barrett will point it out if he ain't too lazy to

walk up to it.”

“I know where it is,” Paul informed him. “I helped strip it.”

“Oh, well, that's all right. You might put on higher standards and rope

'em together at the top. That dry stuff ain't very heavy, and it is down

grade.”

He showed no inclination to ride on, continuing to check his mare.

Presently his eyes fell on the stock of the gun which was half hidden by

the bark, and his lips curled in a cold smile of amusement.

“Say,” he said, with a low laugh, “do you go loaded for bear like this

all the time?”

A slow flush of resentment rose into the boy's face. He stared straight

at Hoag, muttered something inarticulately and then, with a distinct

scowl, looked away.

The man's careless smile deepened; the boy's manner and tone were too

characteristic and genuine, and furnished too substantial a proof of a

quality Hoag admired to have offended him. Indeed, there was a touch of

tentative respect in his voice, a gleam of callous sympathy in his eyes

as he went on:

“I was at the post-office just now. I saw it all. I noticed them fellows

layin' for you the other day, and wondered what would come of it. I

don't say it to flatter you, Paul”--here Hoag chuckled aloud--“but I

don't believe you are afraid of anything that walks the earth. I reckon

it is natural for a man like me to sorter love a fair fight. It may be

because you work for me and drive my team; but when I looked out the

post-office window as I was stampin' a letter, and saw them whelps lyin'

in wait for you, I got mad as hell. I wasn't goin' to let 'em hurt you,

either. I'd have kicked the breath out of 'em at the last minute, but

somehow I was curious to see what you'd do, and, by gum! when that first

brickbat whizzed by you, and you lit down with your gun leveled, and

they scooted to shelter like flyin' squirrels, I laid back and laughed

till I was sore. That was the best bottle of medicine they ever saw, and

they would have had a dose in a minute. They slid into the blacksmith's

shop like it was a fort an' shut the door. I reckin you'd have shot

through the planks if Budd Tibbs hadn't stopped you.”

No appreciation of these profuse compliments showed itself in the boy's

face. It was rigid, colorless and sullen, as if he regarded the man's

observations as entirely too personal to be allowed. An angry retort

trembled on his lips, and even this Hoag seemed to note and relish. His

smile was unctuous; he checked his horse more firmly.

“They won't bother you no more,” he said, more seductively. “Such skunks

never run ag'in' your sort after they once see the stuff you are made

of. That gun and the way you handled it was an eye-opener. Paul, you are

a born fightin' man, and yore sort are rare these days. You'll make

yore way in the world. Bein' afraid of man or beast will stunt anybody's

growth. Pay back in the coin you receive, and don't put up with insult

or abuse from anybody. Maybe you don't know why I first took a sorter

likin' to you. I'd be ashamed to tell you if I didn't know that you was

jest a boy at the time, and I couldn't afford to resent what you said.

You was a foot shorter than you are now, and not half as heavy. You

remember the day yore pa's shoats broke through the fence into my potato

field? You was out in the wet weeds tryin' to drive 'em home. I'd had a

drink or two more than I could tote, and several things had gone crooked

with me, and I was out o' sorts. I saw you down there, and I made up my

mind that I'd give you a thrashin'”--Hoag was smiling indulgently--“and

on my way through the thicket I cut me a stout hickory withe as big

at the butt as my thumb, and taperin' off like a whip at the end. You

remember how I cussed and ripped and went on?”

“You bet I remember,” Paul growled, and his eyes flashed, “and if you'd

hit me once it would have been the worst day's work you ever did.”

The planter blinked in mild surprise, and there was just a hint of

chagrin in his tone. “Well, I didn't touch you. Of course I wasn't

afraid of you or the rock you picked up. I've never seen the _man_ I was

afraid of, much less a boy as little as you was; but as you stood there,

threatenin' to throw, I admit I admired your grit. The truth is, I

didn't have the heart, even drunk as I was, to lick you. Most boys of

your size would have broke and run. My boy, Henry, would, I know.”

“He'll fight all right,” Paul said. “He's no coward. I like him. He's

been a friend to me several times. He is not as bad as some folks think.

He drinks a little, and spends money free, and has a good time; but

he's not stuck up. He doesn't like to work, and I don't blame him. I

wouldn't, in his place. Huh! you bet I wouldn't.”

“Well, I'm goin' to put 'im between the plow-handles before long,” the

planter said, with a frown. “He's gettin' too big for his britches. Say,

you'll think I'm a friend worth havin' some time. Just after that thing

happened at the post-office, and you'd gone into Tye's shop, Budd Tibbs

turned to me and said he believed it was his duty as marshal to make a

council case against you for startin' to use that gun as you did. I saw

the way the land lay in a minute. Them skunks are akin to his wife, and

he was mad. I told him, I did, that he might summon me as a witness,

and that I'd swear you acted in self-defense, and prefer counter-charges

against the dirty whelps. Huh, you ought to have seen him wilt! He knows

how many votes I control, and he took back-water in fine shape.”

“I reckon I can look after my own business,” the boy made answer, in a

surly tone. “I ain't afraid o' no court. I'll have my rights if I die

gettin' 'em.” Hoag laughed till his sides shook. “I swear you are the

funniest cuss I ever knew. You ain't one bit like a natural boy. You act

and talk like a man that's been through the rubs.” Hoag suddenly

glanced across a meadow where some men were at work cutting hay, and his

expression changed instantly. “I never told 'em to mow thar,” he swore,

under his breath. “Take your bark on. You know where to put it,”

and turning his horse he galloped across the field, his massive legs

swinging to and from the flanks of his mare.

CHAPTER III

|THAT afternoon at dusk Paul drove down the mountain with his last load

of bark for the day. The little-used road was full of sharp turns around

towering cliffs and abrupt declivities, worn into gullies by washouts,

and obstructed by avalanchine boulders. In places decayed trees had

fallen across the way, and these the young wagoner sometimes had to

cut apart and roll aside. The high heap of bark on the groaning vehicle

swayed like a top-heavy load of hay, and more than once Paul had to

dismount from the lead horse he rode, scotch the wheels with stones, and

readjust the bark, tightening the ropes which held the mass together.

At times he strode along by the horses, holding the reins between his

teeth, that his hands might be free to combat the vines and bushes

through which he plunged as blindly as an animal chased by a hunter. His

arms, face, and ankles were torn by thorns and briers, his ill-clad feet

cut to the bone by sharp stones. Accidents had often happened to him

on that road. Once he had fallen under the wheels, and narrowly escaped

being crushed to death, a perilous thing which would have haunted many a

man's life afterward, but which Paul forgot in a moment.

Near the foot of the mountain the road grew wide, smooth, and firm; his

team slowed down, and he took a book from the wagon, reading a few pages

as he walked along. He was fond of the history of wars in all countries;

the bloodshed and narrow escapes of early pioneer days in America

enthralled his fancy. He thought no more of a hunter's killing a redskin

than he himself would have thought of shooting a wild duck with a rifle.

As he started down the last incline between him and Grayson he replaced

his book on the wagon. The dusk had thickened till he could scarcely

see the print on the soiled pages. Below, the houses of the village were

scattered, as by the hand of chance, from north to south between gentle

hills, beyond which rose the rugged mountains now wrapped in darkness.

He made out the sides of the Square by the lights in the various

buildings. There was the hotel, with its posted lamps on either end of

the veranda. Directly opposite stood the post-office. He could make

no mistake in locating the blacksmith's shop, for its forge gave out

intermittent, bellows-blown flashes of deep red. Other dots of light

were the open doors of stores and warehouses. Like vanishing stars some

were disappearing, for it was closing-time, and the merchants were

going home to supper. This thought gave the boy pleasant visions. He was

hungry.

It was quite dark when he had unloaded the wagon at the tannery and

driven on past Hoag's pretentious home to the antiquated cottage in

which he lived. It had six rooms, a sagging roof of boards so rotten and

black with age that they lost thickness in murky streams during every

heavy rain. There was a zigzag fence in front, which was ill cared for,

as the leaning comers and decayed rails testified. Against the fence,

at the edge of the road, stood a crude log barn, a corn-crib made of

unbarked pine poles, above which was a hay-loft. Close about was a

malodorous pig-pen, a cow-lot, a wagon-shed, and a pen-like stall for

horses.

The chickens had gone to roost; the grunting and squealing of the pigs

had been stilled by the pails of swill Paul's father, Ralph Rundel, had

emptied into their dug-out wooden troughs. In the light of the kitchen

fire, which shone through the open door and the glassless windows,

Paul saw his father in his favorite place, seated in a chair under an

apple-tree at the side of the house. Ralph rose at the sound of the

clanking trace-chains and came to the gate. He rubbed his eyes drowsily,

as if he had just waked from a nap, and swung on the gate with both

hands.

“No use puttin' the wagon under shelter,” he said, in a querulous tone,

as his slow eyes scanned the studded vault overhead. “No danger o' rain

this night--no such luck for crops that are burnin' to the roots. The

stalks o' my upland cotton-patch has wilted like sorghum cut for the

press. Say, Paul, did you fetch me that tobacco? I'm dyin' for a smoke.”

He uttered a low laugh. “I stole some o' yore aunt's snuff and filled my

pipe; but, by hunkey, I'd miscalculated--I sucked the whole charge down

my throat, and she heard me a-coughin' and caught me with the box in my

hand.”

Paul thrust his hand into his hip-pocket and drew forth a small white

bag with a brilliant label gummed on it. “Bowman was clean out o' that

fine cut,” he said, as he gave it into the extended hand. “He said this

was every bit as good.”

“I'll not take his word for it till I've tried it,” Ralph Rundel

answered, as he untied the bag and tested the mixture between thumb and

forefinger. “Storekeepers sell what they have in stock, and kin make

such fellers as us take dried cabbage-leaves if they take a notion.”

Ralph was only fifty years of age, and yet he had the manner,

decrepitude, and spent utterance of a man of seventy. His scant,

iron-gray hair was disheveled; his beard, of the same grizzled texture,

looked as if it never had been trimmed, combed, or brushed, and was

shortened only by periodical breaking at the ends. Despite his crude

stoicism, his blue eyes, in their deep sockets, had a wistful, yearning

look, and his cheeks were so hollow that his visage reminded one of a

vitalized skull. His chest, only half covered by a tattered, buttonless

shirt, was flat; he was bent by rheumatism, which had left him stiff,

and his hands were mere human talons.

Paul was busy unhooking the traces from the swingletrees and untying the

straps of the leather collars, when Ralph's voice came to him above the

creaking of the harness and impatient stamping of the hungry horses.

“I noticed you took yore gun along this mornin'. Did you kill me a bird,

or a bushy-tail? Seems like my taste for salt pork is clean gone.”

“I didn't run across a thing,” Paul answered, as he lifted the harness

from the lead horse and allowed the animal to go unguided to his stall

through the gate Ralph held open. “Besides, old Hoag counts my loads,

and keeps tab on my time. I can't dawdle much and draw wages from him.”

“Did he pay you anything to-day?” Ralph was filling his pipe, feebly

packing the tobacco into the bowl with a shaky forefinger.

“He had no small change,” Paul answered. “Said he would have some

to-morrow. You can wait till then, surely.”

“Oh yes, I'll have to make out, I reckon.”

At this juncture a woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was

a blue-eyed, blond-haired creature of solid build in a soiled gray

print-dress. She was Paul's aunt, Amanda Wilks, his mother's sister, a

spinster of middle age with a cheerful exterior and a kindly voice.

“You'd better come on in and git yore supper, Paul,” she called out.

“You like yore mush hot, and it can't be kept that away after it's done

without bakin' it like a pone o' bread. You've got to take it with

sour blue-john, too. Yore ma forgot to put yesterday's milk in the

spring-house, and the cow kicked over to-night's supply just as I

squirted the last spoonful in the bucket. Thar is some cold pork and

beans. You'll have to make out.”

“I didn't expect to get anythin' t'eat!” Paul fumed, hot with a healthy

boy's disappointment, and he tossed the remainder of the harness on to

the wagon and followed the horse to the stall. He was in the stable for

several minutes. His father heard him muttering inarticulately as he

pulled down bundles of fodder from the loft, broke their bands, and

threw ears of corn into the troughs. Ralph sucked his pipe audibly,

slouched to the stable-door under a burden of sudden concern, and looked

in at his son between the two heads of the munching animals.

“Come on in,” he said, persuasively. “I know you are mad, and you have

every right to be after yore hard work from break o' day till now; but

nobody kin depend on women. Mandy's been makin' yore ma a hat all day.

Flowery gewgaws an' grub don't go together.”

Paul came out. “Never mind,” he said. “It don't make no difference.

Anything will do.” Father and son walked side by side into the

fire-lighted kitchen. A clothless table holding a few dishes and pans

stood in the center of the room. Just outside the door, on a little

roofless porch, there was a shelf which held a tin basin, a cedar pail

containing water, and a gourd dipper with a long, curved handle. And

going to this shelf, Paul filled the basin and bathed his face and

hands, after which he turned to a soiled towel on a roller against the

weatherboarding and wiped himself dry, raking back his rebellious hair

with a bit of a comb, while his father stood close by watching him with

the gaze of an affectionate dog.

“That'll do, that'll do,” Ralph attempted to jest. “Thar ain't no

company here for you to put on airs before. Set down! set down!”

Paul obeyed, and his father remained smoking in the doorway, still

eying him with attentive consideration. Amanda brought from the fire a

frying-pan containing the hot, bubbling mush, and pushed an empty brown

bowl and spoon toward him.

“Help yoreself; thar's the milk in the pan,” she said. “If it is too

sour you might stir a spoonful o' 'lasses in it. I've heard folks say it

helps a sight.”

Paul was still angry, but he said nothing, and helped himself abundantly

to the mush. However, he sniffed audibly as he lifted the pan and poured

some of the thin, bluish fluid into his bowl.

“It wasn't my fault about the cow,” Amanda contended. “Scorchin' weather

like this is the dickens on dumb brutes. Sook was a-pawin' an' switchin'

'er tail all the time I had hold of 'er tits. It must 'a' been a

stingin' fly that got in a tender spot. Bang, bang! was all the warnin'

I had, an' I found myself soaked from head to foot with milk. I've heard

o' fine society folks, queens an' the like, washin' all over in it to

soften their skins and limber their joints; but I don't need nothin'

o' that sort. Yore ma's not back yet. She went over to see about the

singin'-class they want her in. She had on 'er best duds an' new hat,

and looked like a gal o' twenty. She was as frisky as a young colt.

I ironed 'er pink sash, an' put in a little starch to mash out the

wrinkles and make it stand stiff-like. They all say she's got the best

alto in Grayson. I rolled 'er hair up in papers last night, an' tuck it

down to-day. You never saw sech pretty kinks in your life. Jeff Warren

come to practise their duet, an' him and Addie stood out in the yard an'

run the scales an' sung several pieces together. It sounded fine, an'

if I had ever had any use for 'im I'd have enjoyed it more; but I never

could abide 'im. He gits in too many fights, and got gay too quick after

he buried his wife. He was dressed as fine as a fiddle, an' had a joke

for every minute. Folks say he never loved Susie, an' I reckon they

wasn't any too well matched. She never had a well day in 'er life, and

I reckon it was a blessed thing she was took. A tenor voice an' a dandy

appearance are pore consolations to a dyin' woman. But he treats women

polite--I'll say that for 'im.”

Paul had finished his mush and milk, and helped himself to the cold

string-beans and fat boiled pork. His father had reached for a chair,

tilted it against the door-jamb, and seated himself in it. He eyed his

son as if the boy's strength and rugged health were consoling reminders

of his own adolescence. Suddenly, out of the still twilight which

brooded over the fields and meadows and swathed the mountain-tops, came

the blending voices of two singers. It was a familiar hymn, and its

rendition was not unmelodious, for it held a sweet, mystic quality that

vaguely appealed.

“That's Jeff an' Addie now!” Amanda eagerly exclaimed. She went to the

door and stood leaning against the lintel. She sighed, and her voice

became full and round. “Ain't that just too sweet for anything? I reckon

they are both puffed up over the way folks take on over their music.

Ever since they sang that duet at Sleepy Hollow camp-meetin' folks

hain't talked of anything else.”

Paul sat with suspended knife and fork and listened. His father clutched

the back of his chair stiffly, bore it into the yard, and eased himself

into it. Paul watched him through the doorway, as he sat in the shadows,

now bent over, his thin body as rigid and still as if carved from stone.

The singing grew nearer and nearer. It seemed to float on the twilight

like a vibrant vapor. The boy finished his supper and went out into the

yard. His aunt had seated herself on the door-step, still entranced by

the music. Paul moved softly across the grass to his father; but Ralph

was unconscious of his presence. Paul saw him take in a deep, trembling

breath, and heard him utter a long, suppressed sigh.

“What's the matter, Pa?” the boy asked, a touch of somnolent tenderness

in his tone.

“Matter? Me? Why, nothin', nothin'!”

Ralph started, lifted his wide-open eyes, in which a far-away expression

lay.

“What did you ax me _that_ for?”

“I thought you looked bothered,” Paul made answer, and he sank on the

grass at his father's feet.

“Me? No, I'm all right.” Ralph distinctly avoided his son's eyes, and

that was a departure. He fumbled in his pocket for his pipe and tobacco,

and finally got them out, only to hold them in inactive hands.

The singing was over. There was a sound of merry laughter beyond the

stable and corn-crib, and Jeff Warren's voice rose quite audibly:

“I thought I'd split my sides laughin',” he was heard to say, with a

satisfied chuckle, “when Bart Perry riz an' called for order and began

to state what the plan was to be. He was electin' hisself chief leader,

an' never dreamt the slightest opposition; but I'd told a round dozen or

more that if he led me'n you'd pull out, an' so I was lookin' for just

what happened. Old Thad Thomas winked at me sorter on the side and

jumped up an' said, 'All in favor of electin' Jeff Warren leader make

it known by standin', an' every woman an' man-jack thar stood up, an' as

Bart already had the floor, an' was ashamed to set down, he hisself made

it unanimous. But Lord! he was as red as a turkey-gobbler an' mad as

Tucker.”

The low reply of the woman did not reach the trio in the yard, and a

moment later the couple parted at the front gate. Mrs. Rundel came

round the house through the garden, walking hurriedly and yet with a

daintiness of step that gave a certain grace to her movement. She wore

a neat, cool-looking white muslin dress, was slender, and had good,

regular features, light-brown eyes, abundant chestnut hair, which was

becomingly arranged under a pretty hat.

“Supper's over, I know,” she said, lightly, as she paused at the

door-step and faced her sister. “Well, they all just wouldn't break up

earlier. They sang and sang till the last one was ready to drop. Singers

is that a way when they haven't been together in a long time. Don't

bother about me. I ain't a bit hungry. Mrs. Treadwell passed around some

sliced ham an' bread, an' we had all the buttermilk we could drink.”

“Tell me about it,” Amanda demanded, eagerly. “What was it Jeff was

sayin' about Bart Perry?”

“Oh, Bart was squelched in good fashion.” Mrs. Rundel glanced at the

shadowy shapes of her husband and son, and then back to the eager face

of the questioner. “You know what a stuck-up fool he is. He come there

to run things, and he set in at it from the start. He hushed us up when

we was all havin' a good time talkin', and begun a long-winded tirade

about the big singin' he'd done over at Darley when he was workin' in

the cotton-mill. He pointed to our song-books, which have shaped notes,

you know, and sniffed, and said they belonged to the backest of the

backwoods--said the notes looked like children's toy play-blocks,

chickencoops, dog-houses, an' what not. He laughed, but nobody else did.

He was in for burnin' the whole pile and layin' out more money for the

new-fangled sort.”

“I always knowed he was a fool for want o' sense,” Amanda joined in,

sympathetically. “A peddler tried to sell me a song once that he said

was all the go in Atlanta; but when I saw them mustard-seed spots, like

tadpoles on a wire fence, I told him he couldn't take _me_ in. Anybody

with a grain o' sense knows it's easier to sing notes that you can tell

apart than them that look pine blank alike.”

“Some folks say it don't take long to learn the new way,” Mrs. Rundel

remarked, from the standpoint of a professional; “but as Jeff said, we

hain't got any time to throw away when we all want to sing as bad as we

do.”

“Well, you'd better go in and take that dress off,” Amanda advised, as

she reached out and caught the hem of the starched skirt and pulled it

down a little. “It shrinks every time it's washed, and you'll want to

wear it again right off, I'll bound you.”

“I don't want to wrinkle it any more than I have to,” Mrs. Rundel

answered. “I want it to look nice next Sunday. We hold two sessions,

mornin' and evenin'; and next week--the day hasn't been set yet--we are

goin' to have a nip-and-tuck match with the Shady Grove class.”

“That will be a heap o' fun,” Amanda said, as her sister passed her and

disappeared within. For a few minutes the trio in the yard were silent.

Ralph Rundel's pipe glowed in the darkness like a thing of fitful moods.

Paul had not heard a word of the foregoing conversation. Young as he

was, he had many things to think of. The affair with the Harris boys

flitted across his mind; in that, at least, he was satisfied; the vision

of the fleeing ruffians vaguely soothed him. Something he had read in

his book that day about Napoleon came back to him.

It was the flashing of her sister's candle across the grass, as Mrs.

Rundel passed before a window, that drew Amanda's thoughts back to a

subject of which she was fond.

“Folks has always said I spoiled Addie,” she said to her brother-in-law,

in a plaintive tone, “an' it may be so. Bein' ten year older when ma

died, I was a mother to 'er in my best days. I had no chance myself, and

somehow I determined she should have what I missed. I certainly made it

easy for 'er. When she started to goin' to parties and out with young

men I was actually miserable if she ever missed a chance. You know that,

Rafe--you know what a plumb fool I was, considerin' how pore pa was.”

Ralph turned his head toward the speaker, but no sound came from him.

His head rocked, but whether it was meant as a form of response, or was

sinking wearily, no one but himself could have told. After that silence

fell, broken only by the grinding tread on the floor within.

CHAPTER IV

|PAUL stood up, threw his arms backward languidly, and stretched

himself.

“Goin' to bed?” his father inquired, absent-mindedly.

“No, down to the creek; there was a plenty of cats and eels running last

night. Where's my cup of bait?”

“I hain't touched it--I hain't dropped a hook in water for over two

years. My hands shake, an' I can't hold a pole steady. The bait's with

your tackle, I reckon.”

Paul went to the wagon-shed adjoining the stable, and from the slanting

roof took down a pair of long canes, from the tapering ends of which

dangled crude, home-twisted lines, to which were attached rusty hooks

and bits of hammered lead, and, with the poles on his shoulder and the

bait-cup in his hand, he went down the path to the creek near by. He

had a subtle fondness for Nature, in any mood or dress, and the mystic

landscape to-night appealed to a certain famished longing within him--a

sense of an unattainable something which haunted him in his reflective

moods. The stars were coming out in the unclouded skies, revealing the

black outlines of the mountain, the intervening foot-hills, the level

meadows, where the cattle and sheep lay asleep, and over which fireflies

were darting and flashing their tiny search-lights. The sultry air held

the aroma of new-cut hay, of crushed and dying clover-blossom. The snarl

of the tree-frog and the chirp of the cricket were heard close at hand,

and in the far distance the doleful howling of a dog came in response to

the voice of another, so much farther away that it sounded softer than

an echo.

Presently Paul reached a spot on the creek-bank where the creeping

forest-fires had burned the bushes away, and where an abrupt curve of

the stream formed a swirling eddy, on the surface of which floated a

mass of driftwood, leaves, twigs, and pieces of bark. Baiting his hooks,

he lowered them into the water, fastening one pole in the earth and

holding the other in his hands. He had not long to wait, for soon there

was a vigorous jerking and tugging at the pole in his hands.

“That's an eel now!” the sportsman chuckled; “an' I'll land 'im, if he

don't wind his tail round a snag and break my line.”

Eels are hard to catch, and this one was seen to be nearly a yard in

length when Paul managed to drag it ashore. Even out of water an eel is

hard to conquer, for Nature has supplied it with a slimy skin that aids

it to evade the strongest human grip. The boy sprang upon his prey and

grasped it, but it wriggled from his hands, arms, and knees, and like an

animated rubber tube bounded toward the stream.

“Nail 'im, nail 'im!” cried out Ralph Rundel, excitedly, quickening his

stride down the path. “Put sand on yore hands! Lemme show you--thar

now, you got 'im--hold 'im till I--” But the snakelike thing, held for a

moment in Paul's eager arms, was away again. The boy and the man bumped

against each other as they sprang after it, and Ralph was fortunate

enough to put the heel of his shoe on it's head and grind it into the

earth. The dying thing coiled its lithe body round the man's ankle like

a boa, and then gradually relaxed.

Now, fully alive to the sport, Paul gave all his attention to rebaiting

his hook. “This one raised such a racket he has scared all the rest

off,” he muttered, his eyes on his line.

“They'll come back purty soon,” Ralph said, consolingly. He sat down

on the sand and began to fill his pipe. His excitement over the eel's

capture had lived only a moment. There was a fixed stare in his eyes, a

dreamy, contemplative note of weariness in his voice, which was that of

a man who had outgrown all earthly interests.

“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord!”

It was the mellow, sonorous voice of Jeff Warren singing at his home

across the fields.

“Humph! He gits a heap o' fun out of that, fust an' last,” Ralph

remarked, sardonically, and he shrugged his frail shoulders. “It ain't

so much the singin' he loves--if I'm any judge--as what it fetches to

his net, as the sayin' is. He is a born lady's man. Jeff knows exactly

when an' how to say the things that tickle a woman's fancy. I think--I

think yore ma loves to hear 'im talk mighty nigh as well as she loves to

hear 'im sing. I don't know”--a slight pause--“I say I don't know, but I

_think_ so.”

Paul thought he had a bite, and he raised his hook to see if the bait

was intact. Ralph sighed audibly. He embraced his thin knees with his

arms, and held the unlighted pipe in his hands. The hook was back in the

water; the boy's face was half averted.

“Thar's a good many points about Jeff that women like,” Ralph resumed,

in a forced, tentative tone. “He's a strappin', fine-lookin' feller, for

one thing; young, strong, an' always gittin' in fights over some'n or

other. The impression is out amongst women an' gals that he won't let

nobody pass the slightest slur ag'in' one o' the sex in his hearin'.

That will take a man a long way in the opinion of females; but all the

same, he's a sly devil. He'll do to watch--in my opinion, that is.

I've thought some that maybe--well, I don't know that I'd go that fur

neither; but a feller like me, for instance, will have odd notions once

in a while, especially if he ain't actively engaged an' busy, like I am

most o' the time since I've been so porely. I was goin' to say that I

didn't know but what I ort to sorter, you know”--Ralph hesitated, and

then plunged--“warn yore mother to--to go it sorter slow with Jeff.”

Paul turned his back on the speaker and began to examine the bait on

his hook; he shrugged his shoulders sensitively, and even in the

vague starlight evinced a certain show of awkwardness. But Ralph was

unobservant; his mental pictures were evidently more clear to him than

material ones.

“Yore aunt Mandy is right,” Ralph resumed. “She shorely did spoil yore

ma for any real responsibility in life. La me! it was the talk of the

neighborhood--I mean Mandy's love-affair was. She was just a gal when

she took a big fancy to a Yankee soldier that come along in one o'

Sherman's regiments. He was to come back after the war was over, but he

never did. It mighty nigh killed 'er; but yore ma was then growin' up,

and Mandy just seemed to find comfort in pamperin' and indulgin' her.

Addie certainly got all that was a-goin'! No gal in the neighborhood had

nicer fixin's; she was just like a doll kept in a bandbox. Stacks and

stacks o' fellows was after her, me in the bunch, of course. At first it

looked like I didn't stand much of a show; but my grandfather died about

then an' left me the farm I used to own. I reckon that turned the

scale, for the rest o' the fellows didn't own a foot o' land, a stick o'

timber, or a head o' stock. I say it turned the scale, but I don't mean

that Addie cared much one way or the other. Mandy had it in hand. I

begun to see that she sorter held the rest off and throwed me an' Addie

together like at every possible chance--laughin' an' jokin' an' takin'

a big interest an' tellin' me she was on my side. You see, it was a case

o' the real thing with me. From the fust day I ever laid eyes on yore

ma, an' heard 'er talk in her babyish way, I couldn't think o' nothin'

else. I felt a little squeamish over bein' so much older 'an her; but

Mandy laughed good an' hearty, an' said we'd grow together as time

passed. Addie kept me in hot water for a long while even after

that--looked like she didn't want Mandy to manage for her, an' kicked

over the traces some. I remember I had to beg an' beg, an' Mandy argued

an' scolded an' nagged till Addie finally consented. But, la me! how a

feller's hopes kin fall! Hard times came. I borrowed on my land to keep

Addie supplied with nice things, an' my crops went crooked. I lost money

in a sawmill, an' finally got to be a land-renter like I am now, low

in health an' spirits, an' dependent on you for even my

tobacco--_tobacco_.” Ralph repeated the word, for his voice had become

indistinct.

“That's all right,” Paul said, testily. “Go on to bed. Settin' up like

this ain't goin' to do you no good.”

“It does me more good'n you think,” Ralph asserted. “I hold in all day

long with not a soul to talk to, an' dyin' to say things to somebody. I

ain't hardly got started. Thar's a heap more--a heap that I'm afraid you

are too young to understand; but you will some day. Yore time will come,

too. Yore lady-love will cross yore track, an' you'll see visions in her

eyes that never was on land or sea. I look at you sometimes an' think

that maybe you will become a great man, an' I'll tell you why. It is

because you are sech a hard worker an' stick to a job so steady, and

because you've got sech a hot, spicy temper when folks rile you by

treatin' you wrong. Folks say thar is some'n in blood, an' I don't

want you to think because I'm sech a flat failure that you have to be.

Experts in sech matters say that a body is just as apt to copy after

far-off kin as that which is close by, and I want to tell you something.

It is about the Rundel stock. Three year ago, when I was a witness in

a moonshine case at government court, in Atlanta, my expenses was paid,

an' I went down, an' while I was in the city a feller called on me at my

boardin'-house. He said the paper had printed my name in connection with

the case, an' he looked me up because he was interested in everybody by

the name o' Rundel. He was writin' a family history for some rich

folks that wanted it all down in black an' white to keep for future

generations to look at. He was dressed fine, and talked like a presidin'

elder or a bishop. He told me, what I never had heard before, that the

name ought to be spelled with an A in front--Arundel. He had a short way

o' twistin' it that I can't remember. He said thar was several ways o'

callin' the name, an' he laughed an' said he met one old backwoods chap

in Kentucky that said his was 'Runnels' because his neighbors called

'im that, an' he liked the sound of it. He set for a good hour or more

tellin' me about the ups an' downs of folks by the name. He said what

made the whole thing so encouragin' was that the majority of 'em was

continually on the rise. He'd knowed 'em, he said, to be plumb down an'

out for several generations, an' then to pop up an' produce a man of

great fame an' power. He had a list o' big guns as long as yore arm. I

knowed I was too far gone to benefit by it myself, but I thought about

you, an' I felt comforted. I've always remembered with hope an' pride,

too, what Silas Tye told me about the tramp phrenologist that examined

heads at his shop one day. He said men was payin' the'r quarters an'

listenin' to predictions an' hearin' nothin' of any weight; but that the

feller kept lookin' at you while you set waitin', an' finally Tye said

the feller told the crowd that you had sech a fine head an' eye an'

shaped hands an' feet an' ankles, like a blooded hoss, that he would

pass on you for nothin'. Tye said you got mad an' went off in a big

huff; but the feller stuck to what he'd said. He declared you'd make

yore way up in the world as sure as fate, if you wasn't halted by some

accident or other.”

Paul saw his line moving forward, his tense hands eagerly clutching his

rod, but the swishing cord suddenly became slack on the surface of the

water. An impatient oath slipped from his lips.

“Snapped my line right at the sinker!” he cried. “He was a jim-dandy,

too, bigger than that one.” He threw the pole with the broken line on

the bank and grasped the other. If he had heard the rambling talk of his

father it was completely forgotten.

“Folks laugh at me'n you both,” Ralph ran on, a softer cadence in his

voice. “They say I've been a mammy to you, a nuss' an' what not. Well, I

reckon thar's truth in it. After I found--found that me'n yore ma wasn't

the sweethearts I thought we would be, an' you'd come an' looked so

little an' red an' helpless in the pore little cradle I made out of a

candle-box with wobbly rockers--I say, I reckon then that I did sorter

take yore ma's place. She wasn't givin' milk, an' the midwife advised a

bottle, and it looked like neither one o' the women would keep it filled

an' give it at the right time. I'd go to the field an' try to work, but

fearin' you was neglected I'd go to the house an' take you up an' tote

you about. It was turnin' things the wrong way, I reckon, but I was a

plumb fool about you. Yore mother seemed willin' to shift the job, an'

yore aunt was always busy fixin' this or that trick for her to wear. But

I ain't complainin'--understand that--I liked it. Yore little warm, soft

body used to give me a feelin' no man kin describe. An' I suffered, too.

Many a night I got up when you was croupy, an' uncovered the fire an'

put on wood an' set an' rocked you, fearin' every wheezy breath you

drawed would stop in yore throat. But I got my reward, if reward was

deserved, for you gave me the only love that I ever knowed about. Even

as a baby you'd cry for me--cry when I left you, an' coo an' chuckle,

an' hold out yore little chubby hands whenever I come. As you got older

you'd toddle down the field-road to meet me, yore yaller, flaxen head

hardly as high as the broom-sedge. I loved to tote you even after you

got so big folks said I looked ridiculous. You was about seven when my

wagon run over me an' laid me up for a spell. I'll never forget how you

acted. You was the only one in the family that seemed a bit bothered.

You'd come to my bed the minute you got home from school, an' set thar

an' rub my head. While that spell lasted I was the baby, an' you the

mammy, an' to this day I ain't able to recall a happier time.”

Ralph rose and stood by his son for a moment, his gaze on the steady

rod. “I'll take the eel to the house,” he said, “an' skin it an' slice

it up an' salt it down for breakfast. You may find me in yore bed. This

is one o' the times I feel like sleepin' with you--that is, if you don't

care?”

“It is all right, go ahead,” Paul said; “there is plenty of room.”

With the eel swinging in his hand, his body bent, Ralph trudged toward

the house, which, a dun blur on the landscape, showed in the hazy

starlight. A dewy robe had settled on every visible object. An owl

was dismally hooting in the wood, which sloped down from the craggy

mountain. In the stagnant pools of the lowlands frogs were croaking,

hooting, and snarling; the mountain-ridge, with its serried

trees against the sky, looked like a vast sleeping monster under

cloud-coverings.

Now and then Jeff Warren was heard singing.

CHAPTER V

|AT certain times during the year Paul was en abled to earn a little

extra money by hauling fire-wood to the village and selling it to the

householders. One morning he was standing by his wagon, waiting for

a customer for a load of oak, when Hoag came from the bar-room at the

hotel and steered toward him. The planter's face was slightly flushed

from drink, and he was in a jovial mood.

“Been playing billiards,” he said, thickly, and he jerked his thumb

toward the green, swinging doors of the bar. “Had six tilts with a St.

Louis drummer, an' beat the socks off of 'im. I won his treats an' I'm

just a little bit full, but it will wear off. It's got to. I'm goin' in

to eat dinner with my sister--you've seen 'er--Mrs. Mayfield. She's up

from Atlanta with her little girl to git the mountain air an' country

cookin'.”

At this moment Peter Kerr, the proprietor of the hotel, came out ringing

the dinner-bell. He was a medium-sized man of forty, with black eyes and

hair, the skin of a Spaniard, and an ever-present, complacent smile. He

strode from end to end of the long veranda, swinging the bell in front

of him. When Kerr was near, Hoag motioned to him to approach, and Kerr

did so, silencing the bell by catching hold of the clapper and swinging

the handle downward. Hoag laid his hand on Paul's shoulder and bore down

with unconscious weight.

“Say, Pete,” he said, “you know this boy?”

“Oh, yes, everybody does, I reckon,” Kerr answered patronizingly.

“Well, he's the best hand I've got,” Hoag said, sincerely enough; “the

hardest worker in seven States. Now, here's what I want. Paul eats

out at my home as a rule an' he's got to git dinner here at my expense

to-day. Charge it to me.”

Paul flushed hotly--an unusual thing for him--and shook his head.

“I'm goin' _home_ to dinner,” he stammered, his glance averted.

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Hoag objected, warmly. “You've got that

wood to sell, an' nobody will buy it at dinner-time. Every livin'

soul is at home. Besides, I want to talk over some matters with you

afterward. Fix 'im a place, Pete, an' make them niggers wait on 'im.”

There was no way out of it, and Paul reluctantly gave in. With burly

roughness, which was not free from open patronage, the planter caught

him by the arm and drew him up the steps of the hotel and on into the

house, which Paul knew but slightly, having been there only once or

twice to sell game, vegetables, or other farm produce.

The office was noisily full of farmers, traveling salesmen, lawyers,

merchants, and clerks who boarded there or dropped in to meals at the

special rate given to all citizens of the place and vicinity. On the

right hand was a long, narrow “wash-room.” It had shelves holding basins

and pails of water, sloping troughs into which slops were poured, towels

on wooden rollers, and looking-glasses from the oaken frames of which

dangled, at the ends of strings, uncleanly combs and brushes.

When he had bathed his face and hands and brushed his hair, Paul

returned to the office, where the proprietor--with some more

patronage--took him by the arm and led him to the door of the big

dining-room. It was a memorable event in the boy's life. He was

overwhelmed with awe; he had the feeling that his real ego was

encumbered with those alien things--legs, arms, body, and blood which

madly throbbed in his veins and packed into his face. He would not have

hesitated for an instant to engage in a hand-to-hand fight with a man

wearing the raiment of an emperor's guard, if occasion had demanded it;

but this new thing under the heavens gave him pause as nothing else ever

had done. The low-ceiled room, with its many windows curtained in white,

gauzy stuff, long tables covered with snowy linen, glittering glass,

sparkling plated-ware, and gleaming china, seemed to have sprung into

being by some enchantment full of designs against his timidity. There

was a clatter of dishes, knives, forks, and spoons; a busy hum of

voices; the patter of swift-moving feet; the jar and bang of the door

opening into the adjoining kitchen, as the white-aproned negroes darted

here and there, holding aloft trays of food.

Seeing Paul hesitating where the proprietor had left him, the negro head

waiter came and led him to a seat at a small table in a corner somewhat

removed from the other diners. It was the boy's rough aspect and poor

clothing which had caused this discrimination against him, but he was

unaware of the difference. Indeed, he was overjoyed to find that his

entrance and presence were unnoticed. He felt very much out of place

with all those queer dishes before him. The napkin, folded in a goblet

at his plate, was a thing he had heard of but never used, and it

remained unopened, even after the waiter had shaken it out of the goblet

to give him ice-water. There were hand-written bills of fare on the

other tables, but the waiter simply brought Paul a goodly supply of food

and left him. He was a natural human being and unusually hungry, and

for a few moments he all but forgot his surroundings in pure animal

enjoyment. His appetite satisfied, he sat drinking his coffee and

looking about the room. On his right was a long table, at which sat

eight or ten traveling salesmen; and in their unstudied men-of-the-world

ease, as they sat ordering cigars from the office, striking matches

under their chairs, and smoking in lounging attitudes, telling yams and

jesting with one another, they seemed to the boy to be a class quite

worthy of envy. They dressed well; they spent money; they knew all the

latest jokes; they traveled on trains and lived in hotels; they had seen

the great outer world. Paul decided that he would like to be a drummer;

but something told him that he would never be anything but what he was,

a laborer in the open air--a servant who had to be obedient to another's

will or starve.

At this moment his attention was drawn to the entrance. Hoag was coming

in accompanied by a lady and little girl, and, treading ponderously,

he led them down the side of the room to a table on Paul's left. Hoag

seemed quite a different man, with his unwonted and clumsy air of

gallantry as he stood holding the back of his sister's chair, which he

had drawn out, and spoke to the head waiter about “something special” he

had told the cook to prepare. And when he sat down he seemed quite out

of place, Paul thought, in the company of persons of so much obvious

refinement. He certainly bore no resemblance to his sister or his niece.

Mrs. Mayfield had a fair, smooth brow, over which the brown tresses fell

in gentle waves; a slender body, thin neck, and white, tapering hands.

But it was Ethel, the little girl, who captured and held from that

moment forth the attention of the mountain-boy. Paul had never beheld

such dainty, appealing loveliness. She was as white and fair as a lily.

Her long-lashed eyes were blue and dreamy; her nose, lips, and chin

perfect in contour. She wore a pretty dress of dainty blue, with white

stockings and pointed slippers. How irreverent, even contaminating,

seemed Hoag's coarse hand when it rested once on her head as he smiled

carelessly into the girl's face! Paul felt his blood boil and throb.

“Half drunk!” he muttered. “He's a hog, and ought to be kicked.”

Then he saw that Hoag had observed him, and to his great consternation

the planter sat smiling and pointing the prongs of his fork at him. Paul

heard his name called, and both the lady and her daughter glanced at him

and smiled in quite a friendly way, as if the fork had introduced them.

Paul felt the blood rush to his face; a blinding mist fell before his

eyes, and the whole noisy room became a chaos of floating objects.

When his sight cleared he saw that the three were looking in another

direction; but his embarrassment was not over, for the head waiter came

to him just then and told him that Mr. Hoag wanted him to come to his

table as soon as his dinner was finished.

Paul gulped his coffee down now in actual terror of something

intangible, and yet more to be dreaded than anything he had ever before

encountered. He was quite certain that he would not obey. Hoag

might take offense, swear at him, discharge him; but that was of no

consequence beside the horrible ordeal the man's drunken brain had

devised. Hoag was again looking at him; he was smiling broadly,

confidently, and swung his head to one side in a gesture which commanded

Paul to come over. Mrs. Mayfield's face also wore a slight smile of

agreement with her brother's mood; but Ethel, the little girl, kept

her long-lashed and somewhat conscious eyes on the table. Again the

hot waves of confusion beat in Paul's face, brow, and eyes. He doggedly

shook his head at Hoag, and then his heart sank, for he knew that he was

also responding to the lady's smile in a way that was unbecoming in a

boy even of the lowest order, yet he was powerless to act otherwise.

Like a blind man driven desperate by encroaching danger that could not

be located, he rose, turned toward the door, and fairly plunged forward.

The toe of his right foot struck the heel of his left, and he stumbled

and almost fell. To get out he had to pass close to Hoag's table, and

though he did not look at the trio, he felt their surprised stare on

him, and knew that they were reading his humiliation in his flaming

face. He heard the planter laugh in high merriment, and caught the

words: “Come here, you young fool, we are not goin' to bite you!”

It seemed to the boy, as he incontinently fled the spot, that the whole

room had witnessed his disgrace. In fancy he heard the waiters laughing

and the amused comments of the drummers.

The landlord tried to detain him as he hurried through the office.

“Did you git enough t'eat?” he asked; but, as if pursued by a horde of

furies, Paul dashed on into the street.

He found a man inspecting his load of wood and sold it to him, receiving

instructions as to which house to take it to and where it was to be

left. With the hot sense of humiliation still on him, he drove down the

street to the rear fence of a cottage and threw the wood over, swearing

at himself, at Hoag, at life in general, but through it all he saw

Ethel Mayfield's long, golden hair, her eyes of dreamy blue, and pretty,

curving lips. She remained in his thoughts as he drove his rattling

wagon home through the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. She was in

his mind so much, indeed, from that day on, that he avoided contact with

the members of his family. He loved to steal away into the woods alone,

or to the hilltops, and fancy that she was with him listening to his

wise explanation of this or that rural thing which a girl from a city

could not know, and which a girl from a city, to be well informed, ought

to know.

CHAPTER VI

|BY chance he met her a week or so later. She and her mother were

spending the day at Hoag's, and near noon Ethel had strolled across the

pasture, gathering wild-flowers. Paul had been working at the tannery

assisting a negro crushing bark for the vats, and was starting home to

get his dinner when he saw her. She wore a big sailor hat and a very

becoming dress of a different color from the one he had first seen her

in. He wanted to take a good look at her, but was afraid she would see

him. She had her hands full of flowers and fern leaves, and was daintily

picking her way through the thick broom-sedge. He had passed on, and his

back was to her when he heard her scream out in fright, and, turning,

he saw her running toward him. He hurried back, climbed over the rail

fence, and met her. “A snake, a snake!” she cried, white with terror.

“Where?” he asked, boyishly conscious that his moment had arrived for

showing contempt for all such trivialities.

“There,” she pointed, “back under those rocks. It was coiled up right

under my feet and ran when it saw me.”

There was a fallen branch of a tree near by, and coolly picking it up

he broke it across his knee to the length of a cudgel, then twisted the

twigs and bark off. He swung it easily like a ball-player handling a

bat.

“Now, come show me,” he said, riding on a veritable cloud of

self-confidence. “Where did it go?”

“Oh, I'm afraid!” she cried. “Don't go, it will bite you!”

He laughed contemptuously. “How could it?” he sneered. “It wouldn't

stand a ghost of a chance against this club.” He advanced to the pile

of rocks she now indicated, and she stood aloof, holding her breath, her

little hands pressed to her white cheeks, as he began prying the stones

and boldly thrusting into crevices. Presently from the heap a brownish

snake ran. Ethel saw it and screamed again; but even as he struck she

heard him laugh derisively. “Don't be silly!” he said, and the next

moment he had the dying thing by the tail, calmly holding it up for her

inspection, its battered and flattened head touching the ground.

“It's a highland moccasin,” he nonchalantly instructed her. “They are as

poisonous as rattlers. It's a good thing you didn't step on it, I tell

you. They lie in the sun, and fellers mowing hay sometimes get bit to

the bone.”

“Drop it! Put it down!” Ethel cried, her pretty face still pale. “Look,

it's moving!”

“Oh, it will wiggle that way till the sun goes down,” he smiled down

from his biological height; “but it is plumb done for. Lawsy me! I've

killed more of them than I've got fingers and toes.”

Reassured, she drew nearer and looked at him admiringly. He was

certainly a strong, well-formed lad, and his courage was unquestionable.

Out of respect for her fears he dropped the reptile, and she bent down

and examined it. Again the strange, new power she had from the first

exercised over him seemed to exude from her whole being, and he felt

a return of the cold, insecure sensation of the hotel dining-room. His

heart seemed to be pumping its blood straight to his face and brain. Her

little white hands were so frail and flower-like; her golden tresses,

falling over her proud shoulders like a gauzy mantle, gave out a

delicate fragrance. What a vision of loveliness! Seen close at hand,

she was even prettier than he had thought. He had once admired Sally

Tibbits, whom he had kissed at a corn-husking, as a reward for finding

the red ear which lay almost in Sally's lap, and which, according to

the game, she could have hidden; but Sally had never worn shoes, that

he could remember, and as he recalled her now, by way of comparison, her

legs were ridiculously brown and brier-scratched; her homespun dress was

a poor bag of a thing, and her dingy chestnut hair seemed as lifeless as

her neglected complexion. And Ethel's voice! He had never heard anything

so mellow, soft, and bewitching. She seemed like a princess in one of

his storybooks, the sort tailors' sons used to meet and marry by rubbing

up old lamps.

“What are you going to do with it?” She looked straight at him, and he

felt the force of her royal eyes.

“Well, I don't intend to take it to the graveyard,” he boldly jested.

“I'll leave it here for the buzzards.” He pointed to the cloud-flecked

sky, where several vultures were slowly circling. “They'll settle here

as soon as our backs are turned. Folks say they go by the smell of

rotten flesh, but I believe their sense is keener than that. I wouldn't

be much surprised if they watched and seed me kill that snake.”

“How funny you talk!” Ethel said, in no tone of disrespect, but rather

that of the mild inquisitiveness of a stranger studying a foreign

tongue. “You said _seed_ for _saw_. Why, my teacher would give me awful

marks if I made a mistake like that. Of course, it may be correct here

in the mountains.” Paul flushed a deeper red; there was a touch of

resentment in his voice.

“Folks talk that way round here,” he blurted out; “grown-up folks. We

don't try to put on style like stuck-up town folks.”

“Please forgive me.” Ethel's voice fell; she put out her hand and

lightly touched his. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, and I never

will say such a thing again--never, on my honor.”

He bitterly repented it afterward, but he rudely drew his hand away, and

stood frowning, his glance averted.

“I am very sorry,” Ethel said, “and I can't blame you--I really can't.

What I said was a great deal worse than your little mistake. My mother

says rudeness is never excusable.”

“Oh, it's all right,” he gave in, as gracefully as he could.

“And are you sure you aren't mad with me?” she pursued, anxiously.

“Nothin' to be mad about,” he returned, kicking the snake with his foot.

“Well, I hope you won't hate me,” she said. “I feel that I know you

pretty well. Uncle told us a lot about you that day at the hotel. He

said you were the bravest boy he ever saw and the hardest worker. I saw

you looked embarrassed that day, and he had no right to tease you as he

did; but he was--of course, you know what was the matter with him?”

Paul nodded. “I wasn't going to pay any attention to him,” he declared.

“I wasn't--wasn't fixed up fit to--to be seen by anybody, any more than

I am now, for that matter; but I can't do the work I have to do and go

dressed like a town dude.”

“Of course not--of course not,” Ethel agreed, sympathetically, “and

Uncle says you spend all you make on others, anyway. He was telling us

about how you loved your father and took care of him. You know, I think

that is wonderful, and so does mama. Boys are not like that in Atlanta;

they are lazy and spoiled, and bad, generally. People in a city are so

different, you know. Mama says the greatest men were once poor country

boys. I'd think that was encouraging, if I was--if I _were_ you--see,

I make slips myself! After _if_ you must always say were to be strictly

correct. Just think of it, when I am grown up you may be a great man,

and be ashamed even to know me.”

He shrugged his shoulders and frowned. The flush had partly left his

face, leaving splotches of white here and there. “No hopes of me ever

mak-in' any sort of rise,” he declared. “There is too much to do at

home; I don't get time to go to school or study.”

“What a pity!” Ethel sighed. She swept him from head to foot critically.

Touches of pink lay on her cheeks just below her earnest eyes. “You are

good-looking--you--you really are handsome, and so strong and brave!

Somehow I feel certain that you are going to be successful. I--I am

going to pray for it. They say God answers prayers when they are the

right kind, and I know mine would be right.”

“I don't believe any of that rubbish,” he said, loftily. “I've heard

your uncle Jim laugh at the preachers and folks that get converted one

day and are plumb over it the next. He says they are the biggest fools

in the world.”

“I know he talks that way, and it worries mama awfully,” the girl said.

“I'm afraid he's terribly bad. You see, he drinks, plays cards, curses,

and is hard on the negroes who work for him. Now, the truth is that

the people who go to church really are better than he is, and that, in

itself, ought to show he's wrong--don't you think so?”

“He just uses his natural brain,” Paul returned, philosophically. “He

says there is just one life, an' he's goin' to get all he can out of it.

I don't blame him. He's rich--he can buy and sell the folks round here

that say he don't know what he's talkin' about. He says there ain't no

God, and he can prove it. He made it purty plain one day while he was

talking to a crowd at the tan-yard. He told 'em, if they believed there

was any such thing, for 'em to pray for some'n and see if they'd get it.

He told about a gang of Methodists that was praying for money to make a

church bigger, and the lightning struck it and burned it down.”

“Did you never pray yourself?” Ethel questioned, quite irrelevantly.

He hesitated; his color flamed again in his face, and he avoided her

gentle, upward gaze. “Not--not since I was very little,” he

said, awkwardly. “I don't believe in it; the whole shoutin',

singin-and-prayin' bunch of meetin'-folks make me sick.

“Uncle is responsible for all that,” Ethel declared. “You naturally

would look up to him; but I believe he is wrong--I really do. I like

good people, and, while he is my uncle, I--well, I don't feel the same

toward him as I would if he were a different sort of man.”

“He's all right,” Paul defended. “He's rough, and curses some when

he's mad, but you can count on him to keep his word in a deal. He's no

hypocrite. Lots of folks believe as he does, but are afraid to own it;

he stands his ground and tells them all exactly what he thinks, and says

they can lump it.”

They had been walking side by side across the grass, and had reached

the point where their ways parted. He was turning homeward, when she

advanced impulsively and touched him almost timidly on the arm. Her

pretty red lip was quivering and her hand shook visibly.

“I don't care what uncle says--or what _any one_ says. I believe there

is a God, and I believe He is good, and I am going to pray to Him to

make you have faith.”

There were incipient tears in her eyes, and, as if to avoid his

wondering stare, she lowered her head suddenly and walked away.

At the front gate his father stood waiting for him, a mild look of

excitement in his weary eyes. “Heard the news?” he inquired.

“No; what's happened?” Paul answered.

“Enough, I reckon, to them that's hit by it,” Ralph returned. “Old Alf

Rose, over t'other side o' the mountain, was found dead in a thicket

close to his house. He was beat bad, his skull was all mashed in.”

“Who did it?” Paul asked.

“They don't know for sure; but he was robbed of all he had in his

pockets, an' his hat was gone. A nigger, Pete Watson, is missin', and

they say the sheriff and a passle o' deputies, an' half the county, are

out scourin' the woods for 'im. Ef they ketch 'im thar 'll be a lynchin'

as sure as preachin'.”

A voice now came from the farm-house. It was Amanda leaning out of the

kitchen window.

“Come on in an' git yore dinner,” she cried. “Don't listen to that stuff

or you won't eat a bite. Yore pa's chatter has already turned my stomach

inside out.”

“That's the woman of it,” Ralph sniffed, wearily. “They both begged an'

begged for particulars, an' wormed every bit they could out o' me, an'

now they talk about its gaggin' em.”

CHAPTER VII

|THAT evening, after Hoag had put his sister and niece into his phaeton,

and told Cato, the negro driver, to take them to Grayson, he went back

to the veranda where his wife and her mother, Mrs. Sarah Tilton, stood

waving their handkerchiefs at the departing guests. Mrs. Hoag was a

thin, wanfaced woman of questionable age and health. In honor of the

visitors she wore her best black-silk gown, and its stiff, rigid folds

and white-lace collar gave her a prim and annual-excursion look. There

was a tired expression in her gray eyes, a nervous twitching of her

needle-pricked fingers. Her mother was of a lustier type, having a

goodly allotment of flesh, plenty of blood and activity of limb and

brain, and a tongue which occupied itself on every possible occasion

with equal loquacity in small or large affairs.

“I couldn't help from thinkin' what an awful time we'd have had,” she

was saying to her daughter, “if they had stayed here this summer instead

of at the hotel. I can stand it for a day or two, but three months on

a stretch would lay me stark and stiff in my grave. Did you ever in all

yore bom days see such finicky ways? They nibbled at the lettuce like

tame rabbits eatin' cabbage-leaves, and wiped their lips or fingers

every minute, whether they got grease on 'em or not, and then their

prissy talk! I _presume_, if Harriet said _presee-um_ once she did fully

a dozen times, an' I didn't know any more what it meant than if she'd

been talkin' Choctaw.”

“They are simply not used to our country ways,” Mrs. Hoag sighed. “I

don't feel like they are, to say, stuck up. I think they was just tryin'

to be easy an' natural-like.”

“Maybe she'd find it easier to go back to the way she used to live

before her pa sent 'er off to that fine boardin'-school in Macon,”

Mrs. Tilton retorted, with a smile that froze into a sort of grimace of

satisfaction. “She used to go barefooted here in the mountains; she was

a regular tomboy that wanted to climb every tree in sight, slide down

every bank, and wade in every mud-puddle and branch anywheres about. She

was eternally stuffin' her stomach with green apples, raw turnips, an'

sweet potatoes, an' smearin' her face with 'lasses or preserves. She

laid herself up for a week once for eatin' a lot o' pure licorice an'

cinnamon-bark that she found in the drug-store her uncle used to keep at

the cross-roads.”

Hoag sat down in a chair, tilted it back against the wall, and cast a

summarizing glance toward his com, wheat, and cotton fields beyond the

brown roofs of the long sheds and warehouses of the tannery at the

foot of the hill. He seldom gave the slightest heed to the current

observations of his wife or her mother. If they had not found much to

say about the visitors, it would have indicated that they were unwell

and needed a doctor, and of course that would have meant money out of

his pocket, which was a matter of more moment than the most pernicious

gossip. Hoag's younger son, Jack, a golden-haired child three years of

age, toddled round the house and putting his chubby hands on the lowest

of the veranda steps, glanced up at his father, and smiled and cooed.

Hoag leaned forward, crude tenderness in his look and movement.

“That's right!” he cried, gently, and he held his hands out

encouragingly. “Crawl up to daddy, Jack. I was lookin' for you, little

boy. I was wonderin' where you was at. Got scared o' the fine town

folks, an' hid out, didn't you?”

Slowly, retarded as Jack was by his short skirt, he mounted step after

step, constantly applauded by his father, till, red in the face and

panting, he reached the top and was eagerly received into the extended

arms.

“Bully boy!” Hoag cried. “I knew you'd stick to it and never say die.

You are as full o' pluck as an egg is of meat.” And the planter pressed

the bonny head against his breast and stroked the soft, curling hair

with his big, red hand.

Few of Hoag's friends knew of his almost motherly tenderness and

fondness for his child. In returning home at night, even if it was very

late, he never would go to bed without looking into his wife's room to

see if Jack was all right. And every morning, before rising, he would

call the child to him, and the two would wake The rest of the family

With their romping and laughter. Sometimes Hoag would dress the boy,

experiencing a delight in the clumsy action which he could not have

analyzed. His devotion to Jack seemed all the more remarkable for his

indifferent manner toward his older son, Henry, a lad of fifteen, who

had a mischievous disposition which made him rather unpopular in

the neighborhood. Many persons thought Henry was like his father in

appearance, though quite the reverse in the habit of thrift or business

foresight. Mrs. Tilton, the grandmother, declared that the boy was being

driven to the dogs as rapidly as could be possible, for he had never

known the meaning of paternal sympathy or advice, and never been made

to do any sort of work. Be that as it might, Henry was duly sworn at or

punished by Hoag at least once a week.

The phaeton returned from the village. Cato drove the horses into the

stable-yard and put them into their stalls, whistling as he fed them

and rubbed them down. The twilight was thickening over the fields

and meadows. The dew was falling. The nearest hills were no longer

observable. Jack, still in his father's arms on the veranda, was

asleep; the touch of the child's breath on the man's cheek was a subtle,

fragrant thing that conveyed vague delight to his consciousness. Henry

rode up to the stable, turned his horse over to Cato, and came toward

the house. He was, indeed, like his father in shape, build, and

movement. He paused at the foot of the steps, glanced indifferently at

Hoag and said:

“I passed Sid Trawley back on the mountain-road. He said, tell you he

wanted to see you to-night without fail; he said, tell you not to leave

till he got here.”

“Oh, all right,” Hoag said, with a steady, interested stare at his son,

who now stood beside him. “I'll be here.”

His voice waked the sleeping child. Jack sat up, rubbed his eyes, and

then put a little hand on his father's face. “Dack hungry; Dack want his

supper,” he lisped.

Hoag-swung him gently to and fro like a woman rocking an infant to

sleep. “Hold on!” He was speaking to Henry, and his tone was harsh and

abrupt. “Did you water that horse?”

Henry leaned in the doorway, idly lashing his legs with his riding-whip.

“No; the branch was a quarter of a mile out of the way. Cato will lead

him to the well.”

“You know better than that,” Hoag growled. “You didn't even tell Cato

the horse hadn't been watered. He would let him stay in the lot all

night without a drop, hot as he is. Go water 'im now. _Go_, I tell you!

You are getting so triflin' you ain't fit to live.”

Henry stared, and his stare kindled into a resentful glare. His whip

hung steadily by his side. It was as if he were about to retort, but

kept silence.

“Go 'tend to that horse,” Hoag repeated, “an' don't you ever do a thing

like that again. You are none too good to do work o' that sort; I did

plenty of it at your age. I had to work like a nigger an' I'm none the

worse for it.”

Henry stood still. He had his father's temper, and it was being roughly

handled. Jack, now thoroughly awake, put both his hands on his father's

face and stroked his cheeks soothingly, as if conscious of the storm

that was about to break. Then, slowly and with inarticulate mutterings,

Henry turned and retraced his steps down the path to the stable. Hoag

leaned over till Jack had to clutch the lapels of his coat to keep from

falling.

“An' don't you raise a row with that nigger, neither,” Hoag called out.

“I won't have it. You are not boss about this place.”

Henry paused in the path, turned a defiant face toward his father, and

stood still for several seconds, then slowly went on to the stable.

“Dack want his supper, daddy,” Jack murmured.

“All right, baby,” Hoag said, in a tone of blended anger and gentleness,

and with the child in his arms he went through the dark hall into the

diningroom adjoining the kitchen in the rear of the house. Here, at the

table next to his own place, he put Jack into the child's high-chair,

and sat down beside him, his massive arm and hand still encircling the

tiny shoulders.

“Now, make Dilly bring Jack's mush an' milk!” Hoag said, with a laugh.

“Call 'er--call 'er loud!”

“Dilly!” Jack obeyed. “Oh, Dilly!”

“Louder; she didn't hear you.” Hoag shook with laughter, and patted the

child on the head encouragingly.

“Dilly! Oh, Dilly!” Jack cried.

“Oh, I hear you, young marster,” the portly negress laughed, as she

shuffled into the room. “I was gittin' yo' mush en milk, honey. I

'clar', 'fo' de Lawd you make me jump out'n my skin, I was so scared.”

“Where's the rest o' the folks?” Hoag inquired, with an impatient glance

toward the door.

“Bofe of 'em say dey don't want er bite after eatin' all dat watermelon

dis evenin',” the cook answered. “Miz Hoag say she gwine ter lie down

right off, kase she got off dat hot dress en feel weak after so much

doin's terday. She ain't er well 'oman, Marse Hoag--she ain't, suh. I

know, kase I seed er lots of um in my day en time. She hain't got no

spirit, suh; en when 'omen git dat way it's er bad sign o' what may

come.”

Hoag showed no interest in the comment. He reached for the big platter

of cold string-beans and boiled pork, and helped himself abundantly.

He poured out his own coffee, and drank it hot from the saucer without

sugar or cream. He used both hands in breaking the big, oval-shaped pone

of corn-bread. He enjoyed his food as a hungry beast might, and yet he

paused every now and then to feed the child with a spoon or to wipe the

mush from the little chin. It was Jack's drooping head and blinking eyes

that caused Hoag to hasten through the meal. He took the child to the

little bed in its mother's room and put it down gently.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “Now go to sleep.”

CHAPTER VIII

|HE went back to the veranda through the unlighted hall, and stood

looking across the lawn toward the gate. There was no moon; but the

stars were out, and cast a soft radiance over the undulating landscape.

Along the steep side of the nearest mountain forest fires in irregular

lines pierced the thicker darkness of the distance, and their blue smoke

drifted in lowering wisps over the level fields.

“Some'n's surely up, if Trawley wants to see me to-night,” Hoag mused.

“I wonder if my men--” He saw a horse and rider emerge from the gloom

down the road leading on to Grayson. There was no sound of hoofs, for

the animal was moving slowly, as if guided with caution. Nearer and

nearer the horse approached, till it was reined in at the barnyard gate.

“That's him,” Hoag muttered, and with a furtive look into the hall

behind him he tiptoed softly down the steps, and then, his feet muffled

by the grass, he strode briskly down to the gate. As he drew near the

horseman, who was a slender young man in a broad-brimmed slouch hat,

easy shirt, and wide leather belt, and with a heavy blond mustache,

dismounted and leaned on the top-rail of the fence.

“Hello, Cap,” was his greeting. “'Fraid you might not be at home. Henry

didn't know whether you would be or not, but I come on--wasn't nothin'

else to do. The klan is all worked up in big excitement. They didn't

want to move without your sanction; but if you'd been away we'd 'a' had

to. Business is business. This job has to go through.”

“What's up now?” Hoag asked, eagerly.

“They've caught that nigger Pete Watson.”

“Who has--my boys?”

“No; the sheriff--Tom Lawler an' three o' his deputies.”

“You don't say; where?”

“In the swamp, in the river-bottom just beyond Higgins's farm. Ten of

the klan happened to be waiting at Larkin's store when Lawler whizzed by

with 'em in a two-hoss hack.”

Hoag swore; his voice shook with excitement. “An' you fellers didn't try

to head 'em off, or--”

“Head 'em off, hell! an' them with three cocked Winchesters 'cross their

laps an' it broad daylight. Besides, the boys said you'd be mad--like

you have been every time they've moved a peg without orders. You

remember how you cursed an' raved when--”

“Well, never mind that!” Hoag fumed. “Where did they take the black

devil?”

“To jail in Grayson; he's under lock an' key all right. We followed, and

saw 'im put in. He's the blue-gum imp that killed old Rose. Lawler told

some o' our boys that he hain't owned up to it yet, but he's guilty.

Sam and Alec Rose are crazy--would 'a' gone right in the jail an' shot

everything in sight if we all hadn't promised 'em you'd call out the

klan an' take action at once.”

“I see, I see.” Hoag's head rose and fell like a buoy on a wave of

self-satisfaction. “The boys are right. They know nothin' can be done in

any sort o' decent order without a leader. You know yourself, Sid,

that every time they've gone on their own hook they've had trouble, an'

fetched down public criticism.”

“We all know that well enough, Cap,” Trawley said, “an' the last one of

the gang is dependent on you. It is wonderful how they stick to you,

an' rely on yore judgment. But, say, we hain't got a minute to lose. The

thing is primed an' cocked. We kin pass the word along an' have every

man out by twelve o'clock. I just need your sanction; that's all I'm

here for.”

In the starlight the lines, protuberances, and angles of Hoag's face

stood out as clearly as if they had been carved from stone. He stroked

his mustache, lips, and chin; he drew himself erect and threw his

shoulders back with a sort of military precision. He felt himself to be

a pivot upon which much turned, and he enjoyed the moment.

“Wait,” he said, “let me study a minute. I--”

“Study hell! Look here, Jim Hoag--”

“Stop!” Hoag broke in sternly, and he leaned on the fence and glared at

Trawley. “You know you are breakin' rules--you know the last one of you

has sworn never to speak my name at a time like this. I was to be called

'Captain,' an' nothin' else; but here you go blurtin' out my name. There

is no tellin' when somebody may be listenin'.”

“Excuse me, Cap, you are dead right. I was wrong; it was a slip o' the

lip. I won't let it happen again.”

Hoag's anger was observable even in the dim light. It trembled in his

tone and flashed in his eyes.

“Beggin' pardon don't rectify a mistake like that when the damage is

done,” he muttered. “You fellers ain't takin' any risk. I'd be the

one to hold the bag if the authorities got onto us. They would nab the

leader first.”

“You are too shaky and suspicious,” the other retorted, in sanguine

contempt of caution. “We hain't got a man but would die ruther than turn

traitor, an' thar ain't no court or jury that could faze us. As you said

in yore speech at the last regular meetin', we are a law unto ourselves.

This is a white man's country, Cap, an' we ain't goin' to let a few lazy

niggers run it.”

“The boys sort o' liked that speech, didn't they?” Hoag's voice ran

smooth again.

“It was a corker, an' tickled 'em all,” Trawley smiled. “They will put

you in the legislature by a big vote whenever you say the word.”

“I don't want it--I ain't that sort,” Hoag said, grandiloquently. “I'm

satisfied if I can help a little here at home--sorter hold you boys

together an' make you cautious. A thing like this to-night has to be

managed in a cool-headed way that will convince the public that there

is a power that can be relied on outside o' the tardy one that costs

taxpayers so much to keep up. It would tickle a black whelp like Pete

Watson to be tried at our expense. He'd love the best in the world to

set up in court an' be looked at as some'n out o' the general run, an'

incite others o' his stripe to go an' kill helpless white men an' insult

white women. The rope, the torch, an' our spooky garb an' masks are the

only things niggers are afraid of.”

“You think that is it, do you?” Trawley said, with a low, pleased laugh.

“More'n anything else,” affirmed Hoag, “along with our swift action.

Say, I've been thinkin' over some'n Sid. You said when you fust rid

up that the klan won't act without a leader, an' my business sometimes

calls me off to Atlanta or Augusta--now it is important, in case I'm

away at any time, to have some sort o' head, an' I've been thinkin'

that, as you are sech an active member, you ought to be made my

lieutenant--”

“You don't mean that, do you, Cap--you don't surely--” Trawley's voice

seemed submerged in a flood of agreeable surprise.

“I do, an' I'm goin' to propose it at the next full meetin'. I want a

young man like you that I can confer with now and then an' chat over

matters. A feller can't always git at a big body like ours by hisself,

an' you seem to be better fitted to the office than any other member.”

“I'm much obliged, Cap.” Trawley beamed, and his voice was round and

full. “I'd like to stand in with you an' I'll do my best. I promise you

that. The whole thing is fun to me.”

“You've been more help to me already than anybody else,” Hoag said, “and

I'm goin' to propose yore name an' see that it goes through. Now, we

haven't got any time to lose in this job to-night. Send the word

along the line, Tell all hands to meet at Maxwell's cove by eleven

o'clock--that will give us plenty o' time to git things in shape.”

The dawn of the following day was on the point of breaking when Henry

Hoag crossed the garden behind the farm-house, stealthily unlocked

the front door, and crept up the stairs to his room. He had been out

“skylarking” with some of his friends, and did not want his parents to

know the hour of his return home. He did not light the candle on his

bureau, but proceeded to undress in the dark. Suddenly he paused, as he

sat on the edge of his bed removing his shoes, and listened. It was a

soft footfall on the steps of the veranda, the gentle turning of a key

in the lock of the door, the creaking of the hinges, followed by the

clicking of the latch as the door was closed. A moment later a clumsy

tread slurred along the lower corridor to Hoag's room.

Henry chuckled. “Got in by the skin of my teeth,” he said. “If he knew

I watched that thing from start to finish he'd beat me 'in an inch o' my

life. He tried to change his voice, but he was too excited to hide it.

Gee! didn't that poor nigger beg? Ugh, I'm afraid I'll see 'im in my

sleep, and hear that last gurgle.”

Henry cautiously lowered a shoe to the floor and sat still for a moment.

“Poor old Pete!” he mused. “He swore he didn't do it, and somehow it

seemed to me that he wasn't lyin'. I'd have turned him loose and risked

it. Poor fellow! Poor fellow!”

CHAPTER IX

|HOAG was in a reflective mood as he rode along his field-road in the

crisp morning air. The sockets of his eyes were puffed out, and he

looked like a man who had lost much sleep, and was braced up for the

duties of the day by drink. Within certain material limits he was

satisfied with himself. The dew seemed to have added succulence to

his fat corn-stalks and sugar-cane; his wheat and cotton were in prime

condition, especially the latter, of which his judgment had prompted an

unusually large planting, and according to the market reports the staple

would bring a fine price.

The affair of the preceding night had gone off with quiet, order, and

dignity. His followers had listened to his usual speech with respect and

close attention, and he was sure he had never spoken better. His threat

that if his wishes were disobeyed in the slightest he would renounce the

leadership had had the desired effect of proving that he was not a man

to be trifled with. He told them he was giving his valuable time to the

office, and had held himself in duty bound to answer every call, and

would continue to do so as long as they realized the importance of his

advice and services.

As he rode into Grayson he saw the sheriff and Budd Tibbs, the village

marshal, on a one-horse dray, followed by a motley group of men, women,

and children afoot, and Hoag knew that they were bound for the spot

where the body of the lynched man was still hanging. The sheriff would

cut the rope, an inquest would be held, and the corpse would be taken

away for burial. On the street-corners at the Square stood groups of

storekeepers without their hats and coats, blandly gazing after the

dray and officers. The thought came to Hoag that some of the men on the

street might wonder why he did not stop and chat about the matter, as

would be natural for an ordinary citizen to do, who, living out of the

village, might only just have heard of the happening; but Hoag was not

in the mood for the adroit part he would have to play. His brain felt

heavy and his thoughts were sluggish. The sight of the grave faces

stirred a vague, unaccountable discontent within him, and he urged his

horse to move faster. Suddenly the crude sign of a boot and shoe

painted on a swinging board over the door of Silas Tye's shop caught

his attention, and reminded him of something he wanted to say to the

cobbler, so he dismounted at the door, hitched his horse to a post in

front, and went into the shop.

Silas was at work putting a half-sole on a shoe which he held tightly

clamped between his knees, and looked up over his murky spectacles and

nodded.

“Good momin', Brother Hoag,” he said. “Some'n I kin do for you?”

“Not at present, Uncle Si.” Hoag sat down in a chair, thrust his hand

into his hip-pocket, and taking out a piece of plug-tobacco, bit off the

corner and rolled it about in his mouth. “No, I hain't got no work for

you to-day. In fact, I come to sponge on you--to see if you can't give

me a piece o' business advice. They say every man to his line, an'

I reckon you know as much about ready-made shoes as anybody else at

Grayson.”

“Oh, I don't know; I don't know much about manufactured stuff.” Silas

shook his bald head gently. “I kin tell good leather by the feel,

look, an' smell of it; but mendin' has got to be my chief work now, an'

mendin' shoddy goods at that. I kin make as good a boot as you or any

other man would wear, but not at the machine-made price. A pair o' my

boots will outwear any three from a box sold over a counter, but nobody

round here will believe it.”

“I don't doubt it--I don't doubt it for a minute,” Hoag agreed, “and

this is what I want to consult you about. I want your opinion. You know

I've got that tannery, and I sometimes tan bigger quantities of hides,

Uncle Si, than I am willin' to let go at the average price offered in

Atlanta by the jobbers. So you see, in turnin' it over in my mind, it

struck me all at once that I might put up a little factory on my place

for makin' plain shoes by machinery, an' in that way work off surplus

stock, increase my output of leather, and make the middleman's profit.

If you will look out on the Square any day you'll see it perfectly black

with idle niggers, an' I could put some of 'em to work, an'--”

The shoemaker glanced up and smiled faintly. “I reckon you won't see

many in sight this momin',” he sighed, as he resumed his work. “The pore

devils are scared out o' their senses by that thing last night. It's

awful, awful!”

There was a pause. Hoag's eyelashes fluttered. “Yes, yes, I reckon so,”

he said. “I was goin' on to say--”

But some sound in the street had caught Tye's attention and, forgetful

of his customer, he rose and stood at the door and looked out. The

wrinkles on his brow and about his kindly eyes were drawn and deepened

as he peered over the brass rims of his glasses. Hoag heard him sigh

again, and saw him rubbing the sole of the shoe absent-mindedly.

“What's goin' on?” the tanner asked, without moving from his chair.

“It's that poor nigger Pete Watson's wife an' daughters,” was the

answer. “They've come to claim the body--Dick Morgan is showin' 'em

which way to go. Lord, Lord, they do look pitiful! They ain't even

cryin'--niggers seldom do at sech a time. Looks like they won't shed

tears before the whites for fear it will make 'em mad. They learnt who

the'r masters was before the war, an' they ain't over it. I knowed Pete

Watson--I've mended shoes for 'im. He was always a civil nigger, an'

clever enough. I've had talks with 'im, an' I've been astonished to

hear what sensible ideas he had. He appeared to me to be a Christian--a

Christian that understood what the Lord really meant when he was here on

earth, an' that's rare even among the whites.”

Silas came back to his bench and slowly sat down. “Lord, Lord, what a

pity, what a pity!” he continued to mutter.

“They say he was undoubtedly guilty.” Hoag felt his anger rising, and

yet he realized that he must restrain himself. “That is the current

report, anyway,” he said.

“It always _is_ the report,” Silas said. “Even if a mistake was made

the public would never know it. The gang that did the work would see to

that.”

“We are gittin' away from what we was talkin' about,” Hoag said. “I was

asking you what you thought about me startin' a little shoe-plant?”

“I'm afraid it wouldn't pay,” Silas said, deliberately. “They make shoes

a sight cheaper in the big works up North than you possibly could down

here in the backwoods with untrained help. It's been tried, without

success, several times here an' thar. The Yankees understand the knack

o' splittin' leather an' usin' both halves, an' even the middle, for

different purposes. You can't make shoes right an' put in good stock at

the prices Northern made-up goods fetch.” Silas selected a woman's shoe

from a pile on the floor, and with his blackened thumb pried the worn

bottom open. “Look at that--stuffed with leather shavin's an' glue!

That's what you'd have to contend with. When folks go to buy they go

by looks, not quality. Then yore help would fall down on you. You can't

turn easy-goin', jolly singin' an' dancin' black boys an' gals into

drudgin' machines all at once. They come from a drowsy, savage race

an' a hot climate, an' you can't make 'em over in a day. La, la--” The

shoemaker bent sideways to look out of the doorway toward the spot where

the lynching had occurred. “That's why that thing seems so pitiful.”

Hoag felt his ire rising, but he curbed himself. “They say--folks

say, I'm told--that the nigger was _guilty_,” he muttered. “When the

neighbors first went to his house they found the old hat Rose had on

when he was murdered. That fact may not be generally known.”

“Yes, it is,” Silas replied; “but if that's all the mob acted on they

acted on powerful flimsy evidence. I've heard men say so this

mornin'--good lawyers right here in town. Besides, I myself heard--why,

a man set right whar you are a-settin' at this minute, Brother Hoag, an'

told me not ten minutes ago that he seed Pete with his own eyes pick up

the hat on the side o' the road long after the killin'. Now, you see,

the fact that Pete had Rose's hat wouldn't actually condemn 'im in a

court of law, while it would be proof enough for a drunken gang o'

hotheaded nigger-haters. For all we know, somebody else done the killin'

an' thro wed the hat down. I myself don't believe that even a _fool_

nigger would kill a man an' tote his hat along a public road for

everybody to see, an' take it home an' give it to one o' his boys to

wear. It don't stand to reason.”

A grim look of blended anger and chagrin had settled on Hoag's face, He

crossed his legs and tapped the heel of his boot with the butt of his

riding-whip.

“I'm not takin' up for the--the men that did the job,” he said. “I

have no idea who they are or whar they come from--all abouts in the

mountains, I reckon; but any man with an eye in his head can see that

the niggers in this country are gettin' out of all bounds. Thar is not a

day that some white woman ain't mistreated or scared out o' her

senses. I wouldn't trust a nigger an inch. I've seed the best of

'em--psalm-singers an' exhorters in meetin'--turn right round an' commit

acts that only hell itself could devise.”

“I know, I know,” Silas sighed; “an' in my opinion that's exactly why

we need law--an' good law at that. Niggers are natural imitators of the

whites; they see lawlessness, an' they git lawless. Mob law stirs up the

worst that's in 'em. They see injustice done--the wrong man lynched,

for instance--an' they brood over it in secret an' want to hit back, an'

they do it the first chance. I don't see you at meetin' often, Brother

Hoag, an' you may not depend much on Scripture--many busy men don't,

these days; but it is my chief guide, an' our Lord an' Master laid down

rules of conduct that if they was half obeyed thar wouldn't be a speck

o' strife betwixt white an' black. Lovin' the humblest--'the least of

these,' as our Saviour put it--an' turnin' t'other cheek as a daily

practice wouldn't leave an openin' for such as that last night.”

Silas put some wooden pegs into his mouth, and began to make holes

in the shoe-bottom with an awl and a flat-headed hammer. Hoag glared

steadily at the bald pate for a moment, and then, shrugging his

shoulders, he stood up. There was a red spot on each of his cheeks, a

sullen, thwarted sort of flare in his eyes.

“Well, I'll have to be goin',” he said, winding his pliant whip around

his hand. “I see you won't help me build that shoe-factory. I may do it,

an' I may not. Thar is another deal I may put the money in, but that's

plumb out o' your line. So long.”

The cobbler raised his eyes and muttered an inarticulate something from

his peg-filled mouth, and watched Hoag as he went out and unhitched his

horse.

“He's one o' the big men o' the county,” Silas mused, “an' yet he don't

seem to have the slightest inkling o' what rail justice means. I reckon

the almighty dollar has plumb blinded him. He wasn't any more concerned

with what I told 'im about that pore darky than if I'd been talkin'

about a dead hog. Well, they say he's give up believin' in a God or a

future life, an' if he has he's livin' up to his lights, or _down_ to

'em--I don't know which.”

CHAPTER X

|IN morbid ill-humor, and vaguely discontented under an intangible

something that seemed to press upon him from external sources, Hoag went

to his horse. At another time the conviction that a mere cobbler had

convinced him of his lack of judgment in regard to a business venture

would have irritated him beyond expression; but, strange to say, Silas

had said other things that were even more objectionable, and Hoag had

been obliged to sit and listen, and by his silence leave the impression

on the stupid lout that he was right. The fellow was no doubt talking

that way to others, and others were talking to him in the same vein.

Diagonally across the street was the front entrance to a big

livery-stable. It had a high board front, on which was painted a horse

in a racing-gig and a driver in a jockey's cap leaning forward whip in

hand, feet firmly braced. Beneath the picture were the words:

“TRAWLEY'S FEED AND SALE STABLES”

And thither Hoag led his horse. On the edge of the sidewalk a negro was

washing the dust from a new buggy with a sponge and a pail of water.

Another negro close by was trimming the mane and tail of a horse with

a big pair of clicking shears. They had been conversing in low, earnest

tones, but they ceased and applied themselves vigorously to work as the

tanner approached.

“Hold my hoss,” he said to the man with the pail. “Is Sid about?”

“Back inside, boss.” The negro touched his hat, swept a broad, flat foot

backward, and took the bridle. “Leastwise, he was, suh, des er minute

ergo. He was talkin' ter er gipsy dat had er muel ter swap. Dey didn't

come ter no trade, dough. I know, kase de gipsy rid his muel off up de

street.”

Hoag turned into the stable, which was a spacious structure with wide

doors at each end, bare, brown rafters overhead, and a storm-shattered

shingle roof, which in places let in rifts of sunshine and exposed

bits of sky. On either side of a wide passage, from end to end of the

building, were stalls, some occupied by horses, and all smelling of

manure and musty hay. There was a sound of the champing of feeding

animals, the swishing of tails, for the flies were plentiful, and the

satisfied accompaniment of pawing hoofs on the soggy ground.

In the rear doorway stood a man who had just stepped into view from the

yard in the rear. It was Trawley. He had a stick of soft pine in his

hand, and was nervously whittling with a big pocket-knife, his broad,

slouch hat pushed back on his head and turned up in front. Sid was quite

as well known for the good stable he ran as for his fighting tendencies,

the quick use of a “gun,” and general habits of brave recklessness.

Toward him, with a forced smile of companionship, Hoag walked,

cautiously looking into the stalls as he passed.

“They are all in front,” Trawley said, reassuringly when they met; “but

we don't want to be seen confabbin' together, to-day of all days.” He

jerked his knife toward the yard. “Come out here whar it's quiet.”

With a steady stare of awakening wonder over Sid's unwonted caution Hoag

followed, first into the open glare of the sun and then under the roof

of a wagon-shed.

“If you hadn't come in, I was goin' to ride out to see you,” Trawley

said, with a frown which lay heavily on his sharp-cut features. “I

reckon you've heard--bad news travels fast.”

“News? I hain't heard nothin'.” Hoag held the butt of his whip against

his lower lip and stared questioningly. “Say, what's up?”

“Enough, God knows--hell's to pay. We've got to git together right away

an' take action o' some sort. Say--wait a minute.”

The negro who had been cleaning the buggy was drawing it through the

stable toward them, and his master strode angrily to the rear door.

“Leave that buggy thar,” he ordered, “an' go back to the front an' stay

till I come.”

With a blank look of astonishment the negro dropped the tongue of the

buggy, and turned back to the front. Hoag heard Trawley softly grumbling

as he came back.

“I'll break a board over that nigger's head one o' these days,” he

growled. “He was try in' to get back here to see what me'n you are up

to.”

“Oh, I reckon not--I reckon not,” Hoag said, his gaze anxiously fixed on

Trawley's face. “Just now you said somethin' about news.”

“You'll think it's news when you hear it,” the stable-man said, taking

off his hat and mopping his hot brow with a soiled handkerchief. “Cap,

the last thing me or you could possibly expect has done happened. The

sheriff of Canton County has just telegraphed that he's got the man that

killed old Rose.”

“Got the man that--bosh! Why _we_--” The words fell from Hoag's lips

like bits of metal, and he broke off with a low oath. For a moment

neither he nor Trawley spoke. Hoag laughed defiantly, mechanically, and

without mirth. Then his face glowed faintly. “Oh, I see, the sheriff

over thar don't know what--what took place here last night. He's nabbed

some triflin' nigger that had a suspicious look, an' is holdin' 'im

for--”

“'Twasn't no nigger,” Trawley said. “It is a tramp--a white man that the

sheriff says passed Rose's farm yesterday afoot.”

“Well, what o' that?” Hoag showed irritability. “We'll have to wire the

sheriff to turn the man loose--that's all--that's all!”

“If that _was_ all, it _would_ be easy; but it ain't, by a long shot,”

Trawley sniffed. “The tramp had Rose's old silver watch with his name

cut on it!”

“You mean--” But Hoag knew well what he meant, and was in no mood for

idle remarks. When thwarted in anything, justly or unjustly, he became

angry; he felt his rage rising now over his sheer inability to cope

with a situation which certainly demanded all his poise, all his mental

forces.

“We are simply in a hole,” Trawley muttered, still wiping the sweat from

his brow. “In a hole, an' a deep one at that.”

“What makes you think so?” Hoag was glaring into the eyes of his

companion, as a man in dense darkness trying to see.

“Because we are,” Trawley answered. “The sheriff over thar in Canton

won't want to admit he's made a mistake with the proof he holds. He'll

bring his man to trial an' the fellow will be convicted. The fact that

we--that us boys in this county strung up a nigger for the crime won't

make any difference over thar, but it will make a lot here.”

“I don't see how.”

“Well, I do, if you don't, Cap. We are in, an' we are in deep. You have

a curious way about you--you git so mad when things go ag'in' you that

you won't admit facts when they are before you. As for me, I've been

here thinkin' over it all momin'. It is nasty--the whole damn thing is

nasty. The niggers are gittin' bold enough anyway, along with what the

Atlanta papers have been sayin' in their favor, an' the Governor talkin'

about orderin' troops out, an' the like, an' now this will simply stir

up the State. We kin keep the main body of niggers down by what we

done--what was done last night; but thar are some sly ones with white

blood an' hell in 'em. We are all in danger. Look at this stable.”

Trawley waved his damp handkerchief toward the big building and

surrounding wagon-sheds. “One of the devils could sneak up here any

night and set fire to all I got an' burn it to the ground. It is so dry

it would go up like powder. I've got several thousand dollars' worth of

vehicles, to say nothin' of live-stock that can't be driv' out at such

a time, an' I don't carry insurance, because the rate is too high,

owin' to the risk bein' so heavy; Land as for you--your tannery, house,

cotton-gin, warehouse, an'--”

“Thar's no good talkin' about all _that!_” Hoag broke in, with a

lowering frown. “We've got to do something, an' do it quick.”

“Wait a minute,” Trawley said. “I hear one o' them niggers whistlin' for

me; it may be one o' our--one of--may be somebody lookin' for us now.

Thar'll be excitement, big excitement, when it spreads about through the

mountains.”

There was an oak in the yard which shaded the well, and Hoag went to the

well and sat down on the end of a long dug-out watering-trough. He was

beginning to perspire freely, and he took off his hat and fanned himself

in a nervous, jerky fashion. His hands were damp, and on their red

backs, and along his heavy wrists, the hairs stood like dank reeds in

a miniature swamp. He was in high dudgeon; everything seemed to have

turned against him. Tye's unconscious lecture and crude object-lessons,

combined with the old man's spiritual placidity and saintly aloofness

from the horrors he shrank from, were galling in the extreme. Then

Trawley's fears that certain property might be destroyed by way

of retaliation were worth considering; and, lastly, there was the

humiliation of such a grave mistake becoming public, even though the

perpetrators themselves might not be known. From where Hoag sat he

could look into the stable, and he saw Trawley going from stall to

stall showing the horses to a well-dressed stranger, who looked like

a traveling salesman of the better class. Presently the man left the

stable, and Trawley, still holding his stick and knife in hand, came

back to Hoag.

“Damn fool from up North,” he explained, angrily. “Wanted to hire a rig

an' hosses to go over the mountain, whar he's got some lumber interests.

He talked to me like--I wish you'd a-heard 'im. I couldn't hardly pin

'im down to business, he was so full o' the hangin'. He happened to see

'em cut down the body an' haul it away. Of course, he had no idea that

I--he seemed to lay it to a gang o' cutthroats from over whar he was

to go, an' wondered if it would be safe for a Northern man to drive out

unarmed an' without a bodyguard.”

“Why didn't you slap his jaw?” Hoag growled, inconsistently.

“Yes, an' had 'im ax what it was to me,” Trawley snarled. “I did, in

a roundabout way, try to show up our side, an' what we have to contend

with; but he just kept groanin', 'My Lord, my Lord,' an' sayin' that

old woman an' her children was the pitifulest sight he ever saw! He

said”--Trawley shrugged his shoulders and made a grimace as he tugged

at his mustache--“he said all of us _civilized_ citizens--them was his

words--ought to band together an' 'force law an' order--that it was

killin' our interests. He had been countin' on locatin' here, he said,

but was afeard, when the thing got in the papers, his company would back

out an' not develop their property. He seemed awfully put out. I tried

to tell 'im that if he knowed niggers as we do he'd see it our way; but

the truth is, I was so bothered over that dang tramp's arrest that--”

“I've been studyin' over that.” Hoag dismissed the stranger from his

mind with a fierce frown. “There is only one thing to do. Set down

here--set down!”

Sid complied. “If you can think of any way out o' the mess you can beat

me,” he said, dejectedly.

“Thar is just one thing for us to do.” Hoag was to some extent regaining

his self-possession, his old autocratic mien had returned. “You fellows

are all goin' to git rattled an' somebody's got to keep a clear head an'

plan how to act. The klan will naturally look to me; it is really on my

shoulders; we'll sink or fall by my judgment. Some of us have got to git

together to-night an' march over thar to the Canton jail an' take that

tramp out.”

“An' lynch 'im? Good Lord, Cap--”

“No, fool, not lynch 'im--that wouldn't do--that never would do in

the world; we must send 'im about his business--hustle 'im out o' the

country an'--an' circulate the report that he was arrested by mistake,

which--which I've no doubt he was. Pete Watson sold 'im the watch.

That's plain enough.”

“Oh, ah, I see--by gum, I see; but what about the sheriff over thar?

Fellers o' that sort are sometimes proud o' makin' an arrest in a case

like that.”

“That's the only hill to climb an' we may fail; but we've got to try it.

I know 'im purty well. He expects to be re-elected, an' half of our boys

live in his county an' vote thar. We must show 'im the damage the thing

would work among the niggers, an' sort o' make a--a political issue of

it; show 'im that he'll git beat, an' beat bad, if he goes ag'in' so

many.”

“By gum, you _are_ a corker, Cap--you sure are.” Hoag's eyes gleamed,

a look of pride settled on his face; he crossed his legs and tapped the

spur on his heel with the butt of his whip till the little pronged wheel

spun like a circular saw, “When I'm driv' clean to the wall like this

I generally see a loophole,” he said. “Now, let's set to work; you send

out the word in the usual way, an' have 'em meet at the Cove.”

“Good, good! It's worth tryin', anyway.” Trawley breathed more freely.

“I'll notify most o' the boys--especially them that live in Canton

County.”

“Order out as many as you can,” Hoag said. “At night it will be hard

for the sheriff to know who they all are, an' the bigger the crowd the

better; but, say--I've just thought of something important. You'll have

to leave Sam an' Alec Rose out. You see it stands to reason that they'd

never consent to let the tramp off, an'--an'--well, we can't kill 'im.

He's got to go free.”

“Yes, Sam an' Alec will have to be left out--they are crazy enough as it

is. I'll caution the other boys not to let 'em know a thing about it.”

“That's the idea.” Hoag was starting away, when Trawley, still seated on

the trough, called him back.

“Wait; thar was something else I had on my mind to tell you, but it has

clean slipped away. I intended to tell you last night, but we had so

much to do, an' thar was so much excitement. Lemme see--oh yes, now

I remember!” Trawley stood up and caught the lapel of Hoag's thin coat.

“Say, Cap, I want to warn you, as a friend, you are goin' to have more

trouble with Jeff Warren. He hain't never been satisfied since you an'

him had that fight last spring. He says he licked you, an' that you've

been denying it. He was here at the stable yesterday talkin' about what

he was goin' to do with you when he meets you. He's heard some'n he

claims you said about him an' Ralph Rundel's wife. I reckon he is actin'

the fool about 'er, an' maybe he is takin' advantage of a sick man; but

nobody knows, for sure. Some think Jeff is honorable. Anyway,

you'll have to look out an' not let 'im git the drop on you. He's a

bloodthirsty devil when he's mad, an' he hain't got sense enough to know

that he'd compromise the woman worse by fightin' for her than lettin'

the matter blow over.”

Hoag stood silent, facing his companion. His countenance became rigid

and his heavy brows fell together; there was a peculiar twitching about

his nostrils. “I don't know what I said about him an' her, an' I care

less.” He spoke in halting, uncertain tones. “I've got no use for 'im,

an' never had.”

“Well, I thought there'd be no harm in puttin' you on yore guard.”

Trawley looked at his chief as if perplexed over his mood. “He's a

hot-headed devil, that will shoot at the drop of a hat.”

Hoag stood rigid. There was a fixed stare in his eyes. His lips

quivered, as if on the verge of utterance, and then he looked down at

the ground. Trawley eyed him in slow surprise for a moment, then he

said:

“I hope, Cap, you don't think I am meddlin' in yore private business. It

is not often that I tote any sort o' tale betwixt two men; but Jeff is

such a rampant daredevil, an' so crazy right now, that--”

“I'm not afraid of 'im. Good God, don't think that!” Hoag was quite

pale. “It was only--say, Sid, it's like this: do you think that a man

like me, with all I've got at stake, one way or another, can afford

to--to take even chances with a shiftless fool like Jeff Warren?”

“It ain't what you, or me, or anybody can _afford_ to do,” the

stable-owner returned, “or _want_ to do, for that matter; when a chap

like Jeff is loaded for bear an' on our trail we've either got to git

ready for 'im or--or swear out a peace-warrant, an' me or you'd rather

be hung than do the like o' that. As for me, in all rows I treat

everybody alike. If a black buck nigger wants satisfaction out o' me he

can git it--you bet he can.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Hoag said, his eyes shifting restlessly in their

deep sockets, his fingers fumbling his whip. “I was just wondering; did

he--did you notice whether Warren was totin' a gun or not?”

“I think he was; that's why I mentioned the matter to you. In fact, he

was inquiring if anybody had seen you--said he knowed enough law to know

that if he went to yore house on such serious business that he'd be held

accountable, wharas, if you an' him met on a public highway it would be

all right, beca'se it was your unjustified remark ag'in' a woman that

started the thing.”

Hoag stared into the face of his companion for another minute. It was as

if he wanted some sort of advice and did not know how to ask for it. He

shrugged his shoulders, lashed the hot air with his whip, cleared his

throat, and said:

“I hope you don't think I'm afraid o' the dirty puppy, Sid?”

“Afraid, oh no!” Trawley replied, indifferently. “Of course not. You kin

shoot as straight as he can. Besides, if it come to the worst--if he did

happen to git the best of it--you are in as good a shape to die as any

man I know. You'd leave your wife an' family well provided for. Take my

advice and don't give 'im a chance to draw a gun. Pull down, and pull

down quick!”

Trawley led the way back into the stable, and at the front the two men

parted. Hoag was on the sidewalk when Trawley called to him, and came to

his side.

“If you hain't got a gun on you, you kin take mine,” he said, in a low

tone.

“I've got one,” Hoag answered, a far-off look in his eyes, and he slid a

hand over his bulging hip-pocket. “I never go without it.”

“Well, if nothin' happens, then I'll meet you tonight,” Trawley reminded

him. “We must put that thing through.”

Hoag nodded. “All right,” he returned, abstractedly. “All right--all

right.”

“If nothin' happens!” The words fairly stung his consciousness as he

walked away. “If nothin' happens!” His feet and legs felt heavy. There

was a cold, tremulous sensation in the region of his pounding heart.

CHAPTER XI

|HOAG had some important business to transact in the little bank on one

of the comers of the Square, and he was detained there half an hour or

more. The thought flashed on him, as he sat alone at the banker's desk

in the rear, that a prudent man at such a time would make a will; but

the idea chilled him, horrified him. This feeling was followed by a

desperate sort of anger over the realization that a low, shiftless

clodhopper could so materially upset a man of his importance. He had

recalled the idle remark which had reached Warren's ears, and knew it

was the kind of thing the man would fight to the death about. And there

was no way out of it--no way under the sun. He could not--as Trawley had

said--appeal to the law for protection; such a course would make him

the laughing-stock of all his followers, who thought him to be a man

of unquestioned courage. Hoag drew a sheet of paper to him and began to

write, but was unable to fix his mind on the matter in hand. It seemed

utterly trivial beside the encroaching horror. Jeff Warren might walk

in at any moment and level his revolver; Jeff Warren would kill the

traducer of a woman in a church or in a group of mourners over a new

grave and feel that he had done his duty. Hoag crumpled up the sheet of

paper and dropped it into a waste-paper basket under the desk. He thrust

his hand behind him and drew out his revolver and looked at it. He

noticed, as he twirled the polished cylinder, that his fingers shook. He

ground his teeth, uttered a low oath, and put the revolver back into his

pocket. How could he defend himself with nerves such as the combination

of tobacco and whisky had given him? He rose and went through the bank

to the street, returning the banker's smiling salutation from the little

grated window as he passed out.

He drew a breath of relief when he reached the sidewalk, for Warren was

not in sight. To Hoag an irrelevant sort of mocking placidity rested

on the scene. Storekeepers, clerks, and cotton-buyers were moving about

without their coats, pencils behind their ears. Countrymen from the

mountains in white-hooded wagons were unloading grain, potatoes, apples,

chickens in coops, and bales of hay, with their hearts in their work,

while he, the financial superior of them all, was every minute expecting

to grapple with a bloody and ignominious death. He had a deed to record

at the Court House, and he went into the big, cool building and turned

the document over to the clerk with instructions to keep the paper till

he called for it. Two lank, coatless farmers, seated near the desk, were

playing checkers on a worn, greasy board.

“Ah, ha!” one of them said, “cap that un, an' watch me swipe the

balance.”

Hoag was going out when he saw, carelessly leaning in the doorway at the

front of the hall, the man he was dreading to meet. For an instant he

had an impulse to fall back into the clerk's office, and then the sheer

futility of such a course presented itself. Besides, the tall, slender

man, with dark hair and eyes and waxed mustache, who had no weapon in

sight, was calmly addressing him.

“I want to see you, Jim Hoag,” he said. “Suppose we step back in the

yard at the end o' the house?”

“Oh, hello, Warren, how are you?” Hoag said, forcing a desperate smile

to his stiff mouth and chilled cheeks.

“I'll try to show you how I am in a few minutes,” Warren answered,

coldly, and he led the way down the hall, his high-heeled boots ringing

on the bare floor, toward the door at the end. “Or maybe it will be

t'other way--you may show me. Well, if you can, you are welcome.”

“I see you are lookin' for trouble, Jeff,” Hoag began. “I heard you

wanted to see me, an' I heard you was mad at some fool lie or other

that--”

“You step out here on the grass,” Warren said. “I never seed the day

I wouldn't give even a bloated skunk like you a fair chance. Draw your

gun. You've got more money 'an I have, Hoag; but, by God! my honor an'

the honor of a respectable lady of my acquaintance is worth as much to

me as--”

“Look here, Jeff, I ain't armed.” Hoag lied flatly as he saw Warren

thrust his hand behind him. “You say you want to act fair, then be

fair--be reasonable. The truth is--”

“Oh, I see--well, if you ain't ready, that alters it! No man can't

accuse me of pullin' down on a feller that ain't fixed. I know you ain't

a-goin' to back down after what I've said to your teeth, an' I'll

set here on this step an' you go across to the hardware store an' fix

yourself. Mine's a thirty-eight. I don't care what size you git. I want

you to be plumb satisfied. Don't tell anybody, either. We don't want

no crowd. This is our affair.” Hoag moved a step nearer to the offended

man. He smiled rigidly. His voice fell into appealing, pleading

gentleness.

“Looky here, Jeff, you an' me 've had differences, I know, an' thar's

been plenty o' bad blood betwixt us; but as God is my judge I never had

any deep ill-will ag'in' you. I've always known you was a brave man,

an' I admired it in you. You are mad now, an' you are not seein' things

straight. You've heard some'n or other; but it ain't true. Now, I don't

want any trouble with you, an--”

“Trouble!” Warren's dark eyes flashed; his voice rang like steel

striking steel. It was an odd blending of threat and laughter. “If we

don't have trouble the sun won't set to-night. I'm talkin' about what

you said at the post-office t'other day to a gang about me an' a certain

neighbor's wife.”

“I think I can guess what you are talkin' about, an' you've got it plumb

crooked, Jeff.” Hoag bent toward the man and laid a bloodless hand full

of soothing intent on his shoulder. “You say you are a fair man, Jeff,

an' I know you are, an' when a man like me says he's sorry and wants to

fix things straight--without bloodshed--be reasonable. I didn't mean to

reflect on the lady. I just said, if I remember right, that it looked

like she admired you some. An' if you say so, I'll apologize to her

myself. No man could ask more than that.”

The fierce dark eyes blinked; their glare subsided. There was a

momentous pause.

“I wouldn't want 'er to hear a thing like that,” Warren faltered. “Too

much has been said anyway, one way an' another, by meddlin' gossips,

an' it would hurt her feelin's. I didn't want to fight about it, but

couldn't hold in. An' if you say you didn't mean nothin' disrespectful,

why, that will have to do. We'll drop it. I don't want bloodshed myself,

if I kin get around it.”

“I don't want any either, Jeff,” Hoag said, still pacifically, and yet

his fury, contempt for himself, and hatred for the man before him were

already returning, “so we'll call it settled?”

“All right, all right,” Warren agreed; “it will have to do. When a man

talks like you do nothin' more is to be said. I never yet have whipped

a man that didn't want to fight. I'd as soon hit a suckin' baby.” They

parted, Warren going into the Court House and Hoag to the stable for his

horse. Trawley was at the front waiting for him.

“Hello,” he cried, “I see he didn't plug you full o' holes. I watched

'im follow you into the Court House, an' expected to hear a whole volley

o' shots.”

“He _did_ want to see me,” Hoag sneered, loftily. “In fact, he come

while I was havin' a paper recorded an' wanted to see me. He tried to

git me to admit I was slanderin' that woman, an' I gave 'im a piece o'

my mind about it. Her son works for me, an' I think a lot of the boy. I

wouldn't have Paul hear a thing like that for anything. He's all right

an' is tryin' hard to make his way. I told Jeff if he wanted bloodshed

to git up some other pretext an' I'd give 'im all he wanted. A triflin'

scamp like he is can't stamp me in public as a traducer of women.”

“I see, I see,” said Trawley, in vague approval. “Well, that's out of

the way, an' we can attend to the other matter. It's a serious thing,

Jim Hoag. The sheriff over in Canton may tell us to mind our own

rat-killin', and then we _would_ be in a box.”

“We've got to bring all our force to bear an' pull 'im round,” Hoag

said. “I'm goin' to see a few of our main men here in town, an' sorter

map out a plan. If we go at it right, we'll pull it through. I'll meet

you all at the Cove to-night.”

CHAPTER XII

|IT was late in the afternoon when Hoag rode up to his house and

delivered his horse to Cato, with instructions to feed and water the

animal and rub him down carefully, as he had to “use him again after

supper.”

In the hall he met his wife. She had a tired, anxious look on her face,

which seemed flushed by the heat of the cooking-stove, over which she

had been working.

“Have the cows come up?” he asked her.

“Yes.” She glanced at him timidly. “Mother is down attendin' to the

milkin' with Dilly. I'm watchin' the meat in the stove.”

“You'd better take it up as soon as it's good done,” he said. “I don't

want supper to be late ag'in--not to-night, anyway. I've got to ride out

to see a man that's got a lot o' land to sell.”

“It's about done,” she answered, wearily, “an' I'll take it up an' set

the table.”

He passed on to the kitchen, filled a dipper with water from the pail,

and drank; then he returned to the front veranda and sat down in a

latticed corner, over which honeysuckles climbed. He removed his coat,

for the air was close and hot. He opened the bosom of his moist shirt,

and fanned his face, big neck, and hairy chest with his hat. He was

upset, dissatisfied, angry. So many things had gone contrary to his

wishes. Why had he allowed Silas Tye to talk to him in such a vein? Why

had he not defended the worthy principle he and his followers stood

for? What could an ignorant shoemaker know of such grave and important

issues? Then there was the memory of Jeff Warren's grimly determined

mouth, set jaws, and flaming eyes, as he stood placidly demanding

satisfaction of him--_of him_. Hoag's rage ran through him like streams

of liquid fire, the glow of which hung before his eyes like a mist of

flame. Why had he not--he clenched his brawny fist and the muscles of

his arm drew taut--why had he not beaten the insolent fellow's face to

a pulp for daring to talk of satisfaction to him? The man, even now,

was perhaps recounting what had happened in his stoical, inconsequential

way, and there were some persons--_some_, at least--who would think that

the apology was the last resort of a coward. Men who didn't really

know him might fancy such to be the case. Yes, he must have it out with

Warren. Some day--before long, too--he would call him down publicly

on some pretext or other in which a woman's fame was not involved, and

prove himself to others and, yes--to himself.

There was a soft step in the hallway behind him. It was his wife. He

felt rather than saw her presence in the doorway.

“What is it--what is it?” he demanded, impatiently.

He heard her catch her breath, and knew the delay in replying was due

to habitual timidity. He repeated his question fiercely, for there was

satisfaction in being stern to some one after the humiliating manner in

which he had received Warren.

“You say you are goin' out after supper?” she faltered. “I hope you

ain't goin' far, because--”

“I'm goin' as far as I _want_ to go,” he hurled at her. “I won't let

you nor your mammy dabble in my affairs. I don't have to make excuses

neither. My business is my business. I'll have to be late; but that's

neither here nor thar, whether I am or not. I see you both with your

heads together now and then, and I know what you say--I know what you

think--but I'll be my own boss in this establishment, an' you may as

well count on it.”

“Don't, don't! Please don't talk so loud!” she implored him, for his

voice had risen almost to a shriek. “Didn't Paul Rundel tell you? I sent

'im in town to find you. Surely you know--”

“To find me? What for?”

“Why, the baby's awful sick; he's just dropped to sleep. Paul got Dr.

Lynn as quick as he could, an' then went on after you.”

“Sick--sick--is Jack sick?”

Hoag lowered the front part of his chair to the floor and stood up. He

stared into the shrinking face for a moment, and then he spoke in a low,

startled voice.

“What did the doctor say ailed him?”

“He said he couldn't tell yet. Jack's got a powerful high fever. Dr.

Lynn said it might be very serious, and it might not. He left some

medicine, an' told me to watch the child close. He said he'd be back

as soon as he could possibly get here. He'd have stayed on, but he was

obliged to attend to Mrs. Petty, who ain't expected to last through the

night.”

Silence fell as the woman ceased speaking. Hoag's breathing through his

big, hair-lined nostrils was audible. He put his hand on the door-facing

and swayed toward it. Every trace of his anger had vanished.

“I didn't see Paul.” He had lowered his voice to an undertone. “I had no

idea Jack was sick. When--when did you first notice it?”

“About four o'clock. He was playin' in the yard, as usual, an' I didn't

dream anything was wrong till Aunt Dilly come to me an' said Jack acted

odd. She said she'd been watchin' 'im through the window, an' he'd quit

playin' an' would lie down on the grass awhile an' then git up an' play

a little an' then lie down ag'in. I went out and found him with the

hottest skin I ever felt an' a queer, glassy look in his eyes. I toted

'im in an' put 'im on the bed, an' then I saw he was plumb out o' his

head, thinkin' he saw ugly things which he said was comin' to git 'im.

He was that way, off an' on, till the doctor come.”

One of Hoag's greatest inconsistencies was the tendency to anger

whenever anything went contrary to his desires. He was angry now, angry

while he was filled with vague fear and while certain self-accusing

thoughts flitted about him like winged imps of darkness. He wanted to

charge some one with having neglected the child, and he would have done

so at any moment less grave. Just then a low moan came from Mrs. Hoag's

room on the right of the hall, and she hastened to Jack's bedside. Hoag

followed on tiptoe and bent over the child, who lay on his little bed

before a window through which the fading light was falling.

The child recognized his father and held up his flushed arms.

“Daddy, Dack's hick. It's hot--hot!”

“I know--I know,” Hoag said, soothingly, his hand on the child's brow;

“the medicine will cool you off after a while.”

“Black' things come to catch Dack--oh, Daddy, don't let 'em--don't let

'em!”

“You was out o' your head,” Hoag heard himself saying, almost cooingly.

“It was a bad dream--that's all--a mean, bad dream.”

Then a vague stare of coming unconsciousness crept into the child's eyes

and the long lashes drooped to the flushed cheeks. Hoag drew himself

erect, held his breath lest his exhaling might waken the child, and

crept quietly from the room back to the veranda.

The twilight was thickening over the fields and meadows. The mountains

loomed up like sinister monsters against the sky. Clouds of blue smoke

from forest fires, far and near, hovered over the valley. The sultry air

was laden with the odor of burning twigs, leaves, and underbrush. There

was a step on the back porch, and, turning, he saw Mrs. Tilton coming

in, bowed between two pails of milk. He went to her as she stood at the

kitchen-table straining the warm, fragrant fluid into a brown jar. “What

do you think ails the baby?” he inquired. “Looks to me like scarlet

fever,” she answered, with the stoicism of her age and sex. “I hain't

seen many cases in my time, but from the indications--” He swore

under his breath, angry at her for even suggesting such a horrible

possibility. “I reckon you don't know much about such things. Wait till

the doctor says it's as bad as that before you jump at it so quick.”

“I didn't _say_ I knowed for sure,” Mrs. Tilton flared, resentfully.

“But thar's one thing certain, the doctor is worried--I saw that plain

enough; he is worried, an' I never would 'a' thought o' scarlet fever if

he hadn't said a lot of it was goin' round about.”

“Who's got it?” Hoag demanded, as fiercely as a lawyer browbeating a

refractory witness.

“Why, the McKinneys' youngest gal. They sent 'er over here to borrow

salt t'other day just before she was took down, an' her an' Jack--”

“I reckon you'll say you let Jack play with 'er next,” Hoag blustered,

in the tone of a rough man to a rough man.

“How could we tell?” was the admission, calmly enough made. “She hadn't

broke out--she _did_ look sort o' red; but it was a hot day, an' I

thought she'd been runnin', as children will do. Jack was playin' in the

straw that was cut last week, an' she come by an'--”

“Pack of fools--pack of idiots!” Hoag thundered, and he went back to the

veranda, where for several minutes he stood staring dejectedly into the

night. He was there holding his unlighted pipe in his hand, his ears

bent to catch any sound from the sick-room, when Aunt Dilly, the fat

cook, came shuffling in her slipshod way up behind him.

“Supper's on de table, Marse Jim,” she announced, in a low tone of

concern. “Miss Sarah an' 'er ma say dey don't feel like eatin' a

bite--dey is so clean upset an' outdone.”

Hoag was not conscious of any desire for food, but as a matter of form

or habit he followed the negress to the dining-room across the hall from

where the child lay and took his usual seat at the long table. A lamp

with a pink paper shade stood in the center of the board, and threw

a rosy glow over the dishes and cold vegetables and meat. Hoag helped

himself to the cabbage and beans, and broke the corn pone, and poured

out his coffee. He ate slowly and yet without due mastication, for he

was constantly listening, with knife and fork poised in the air, for any

sound from the sick-room. The sight of the high, empty chair in

which the baby usually sat next to him sent a shudder through him and

tightened his throat. Hurrying through his supper, he rose and went back

to his seat on the veranda. The fear that was on him was like a

palpable weight which crushed him physically as well as mentally. Recent

disagreeable occurrences flitted before his mind's eye like specters. It

seemed to him, all at once, that a malignant destiny might be taking

him in hand. An evil sun had risen on him that day, and this was its

setting. Jack, the flower of his life--the only creature he had ever

really loved--was going to die--to die, actually to die! Hoag stifled

an upsurging groan. His head sank till his chin touched his bare breast,

and then he drew himself up in resentful surprise over his weakness. The

night crept on like a vast thing full of omnipotent and crafty design.

It was twelve o'clock, and yet he had not thought of sleep, although

he had not closed his eyes the night before. He heard voices in the

sick-room, and was about to go thither, when the door opened and Mrs.

Tilton came along the hall and stopped at his chair.

“I thought you was in bed,” she said, in a strange, reserved tone. “I'm

awfully worried. I'm afraid it's goin' ag'in' Sarah. She ain't strong

enough to stand up under it. If Jack goes she'll go too. Mark my

prediction.”

“How's the baby?” Hoag impatiently demanded.

“I don't know; he's tossin' awful. Looks like Dr. Lynn would have been

here by this time; but he said the only thing to do was to wait an' see

how the medicine acted. Are you goin' to stay up?”

Hoag's head rocked. “Yes, I want to hear what he says. I'll be out here

if--if you--need me.”

“All right.” And the old woman slipped away in the unlighted hall, and

he heard her softly opening the door of the sick-room. The silence of

the night grew profound. The moon was rising like a flaming world above

the mountain, throwing its mystical veil over the landscape. There was

a sound of a closing gate at the foot of the lawn, and some one entered

and came up the walk. It was Henry. He had a cane in his hand, and was

idly slashing the flowers which bordered the walk. He was whistling in

a low, contented way. Down the steps crept his father, and they met a

little distance from the house.

“Stop that infernal noise!” Hoag commanded. “Hain't you got an ounce o'

sense? The baby's sick an' you'll wake 'im. Whar 've you been?”

“Over at John Wells's house,” the boy replied. “Tobe is going off to

Texas, and everybody was saying good-by.”

“I'll believe that when I have to,” Hoag growled. “I can smell liquor on

you now. You fairly stink with it.”

“'Twasn't nothing but an eggnog Mrs. Wells made,” the boy said, slowly,

studying the face before him.

“Well, you go on to bed,” Hoag ordered. “An' don't you make a bit o'

noise goin' in, either. Don't wake that child.”

“I ain't agoin' to wake 'im,” Henry answered, as he turned away. “I'm

sorry he's sick. Can I see him?”

“No, you can't! Go to bed an' let 'im alone.”

When his son had disappeared into the house Hoag stood for a moment

staring at the light which filtered through the green blinds of his

wife's room, and then, hearing the beating of hoofs on the road, he

moved on to the gate with an eager, tentative step.

“That's the doctor now,” he thought. “What the hell's he creepin' along

like a snail for when we've been waitin'--” But the horse had stopped

in the shadow of the barn, and Hoag saw the rider still in the saddle

leaning sideways and peering at him.

“What's the matter, Doc?” Hoag called out. “Want me to hitch yo' hoss?”

“It hain't the doctor--it's me, Cap. Anybody in sight--road clear?”

An oath of combined surprise and disappointment escaped Hoag's tense

lips. It was Trawley, and for the first time since he had parted with

the man that afternoon he recalled his appointment. He said nothing, but

opened the gate, passed out, and went along the fence to the horse and

rider.

“I come by to report.” Trawley threw a leg over the rump of his steaming

horse and stood down on the ground. “Met Paul Rundel in town searchin'

high an' low for you, an' heard your baby was purty bad off, so when I

met the boys--eighty odd--an' we'd waited as long as we possibly

could, I explained to 'em and took command, an' we went on; we just had

to--time was powerful short, you know. We rode fast, goin' an' comin'.”

Trawley ceased speaking and looked at his chief in slow astonishment,

for Hoag was blankly staring at the ground.

“My God, Cap, the little chap hain't--dead, is he?”

“No, no, not yet--not yet,” Hoag muttered; “but he may be before

mornin'.”

“You don't say! That's bad, powerful bad, for I know what a great pet

he is, an' a bright, knowin' child, too, if thar ever was one. Well, I

reckon you want to know what we done? We got thar in the neighborhood o'

nine o'clock, an' rid straight to the jail. The sheriff was thar hisself

on guard, an' at first he thought we was a gang bent on lynchin', an'

shet all doors an' talked about firin' on us; but I'd appointed Sim

Cotes as spokesman, an' we raised a white flag an' called the sheriff

out. Then Sim laid down the law in a speech as smooth as goose grease.

As fast as the sheriff would raise an objection Sim would knock it into

a cocked hat, till finally the feller didn't have a leg to stand on. Sim

told 'im that if he didn't act sensible five hundred men would be out in

the mornin' workin' for his defeat in the next election. He wiggled,

an' argued, an' mighty nigh prayed--they say he's a deacon or some'n

or other; but he had his price, an' he finally tumbled. He went in an'

talked with the jailer an' his wife. The woman was on our side; said she

didn't want to see the tramp strung up nohow. It was funny; we had 'im

whar the wool was short, as the sayin' is, an' so--”

Trawley stopped, for Hoag had turned abruptly and was looking past him

to the cross-roads at the corner of his property.

“That must be Doc Lynn now,” he said, excitedly.

“No, it ain't,” Trawley answered. “That is a drummer in a rig o' mine.

He went over to Tyler Station before daylight, an' was to git back

to-night. I know the hoss's trot. Say, Cap, we shore did act in

hot blood last night. We kin say what we like to the public, but we

certainly sent one innocent coon to judgment. That measly tramp was as

guilty as ever a man was.”

“You think so?” Hoag said, listlessly.

“Yes; we led 'im down the road apiece after we left the jail. He hadn't

heard our dicker with the sheriff, an' made shore we was in for hangin'

'im. He must o' had a streak o' good old-fashioned religion in 'im, for

all the way we heard 'im prayin' like rips. Even when we all got around

'im to explain he drapped on his knees in the road and confessed to the

whole dern business. He didn't ax for mercy, either, but just begged for

a few minutes to pray. The boys was all feelin' purty good over the way

things was goin' an' was in for some fun, so nobody let on for a while,

an' Sim Cotes, in as solemn a voice as a judge, called out that we'd

'low 'im three minutes, an' we all set down on the grass like Indians

smokin' a pipe o' peace, an' tuck it in like a show. It seemed he didn't

really intend to kill old Rose; he just wanted to stun 'im so he could

get what he had, but the old man put up a regular wild-cat fight, an'

was yellin' so loud for help, that he had to settle 'im to save his own

skin.”

“Then you let 'im go,” Hoag prompted. “Hurry up, I don't want to stay

here all night.”

“Yes; some o' the boys was in for givin' the poor devil a sound lashin';

but he really looked like he wasn't strong enough to stand up under it,

an' we didn't dare disable 'im, so when we explained to 'im that he was

free if he'd get clean out o' the country an' hold his tongue, he was

the funniest lookin' sight you ever saw. By gum, he actually tried to

kiss our hands; he crawled about on his knees in the road, cryin' an'

whimperin' an' beggin' the Lord to bless us. It actually unstrung some

o' the boys--looked like they hardly knowed what to do or say. The tramp

started off, lookin' back over his shoulder like he was afraid somebody

would shoot, an' when he got to the top o' the rise he broke into a run

an' he hit the grit like a scared rabbit.”

Trawley laughed impulsively; but no sign of amusement escaped Hoag. His

eyes were fixed on a horse and buggy down the road.

“That must be the doctor,” he said. “You go on to town.”

“All right, all right, Cap,” was the reply. “I just thought I'd stop by

an' let you know how it come out. Good night.”

“Good night,” Hoag gloomily echoed, and he went back to the gate, where

he stood waiting for the doctor.

The physician was a man past middle age, full-bearded, iron-gray, and

stockily built. He got out of his buggy with the deliberation of his

profession.

“How is the child now?” he asked, as he hitched his horse to the fence.

“I don't know, Doc; you'd better hurry in an' look at 'im. You think he

is dangerous, don't you?”

“I thought so when I saw 'im; but I can't tell sure yet. Couldn't get

here a bit sooner--tried my best, but couldn't.”

Hoag opened the gate, and they both passed through. On the still air the

trotting of Trawley's horse fell faintly on their ears. As they neared

the house the light in the sick-room was turned up and Mrs. Tilton came

to the front door.

“Walk in, Doctor,” Hoag said, and he remained at the foot of the steps,

his bare head catching the silvery beams of the moon. Hoag heard his

mother-in-law speaking in a low, explanatory tone, as she led the doctor

along the dark hall.

What would the verdict be? Hoag asked himself. Other men had lost their

children, why should not he--he, of all men, take his turn at that sort

of fatality? He paced the grass in front of the house impatiently.

He shrank from seeing the child. There was something in the small,

suffering face which he felt would unman him. The minutes seemed to drag

like hours. There was a constant grinding and rumbling of feet on the

floor within, the mumbling of low voices. Hoag strained his ears for the

sound of Jack's voice, but it did not come. Perhaps--perhaps the little

fellow was sinking; children died that way, often without pain or

struggle. Hoag for one instant leaned toward the hereditary instinct

of prayer, and then shrugged his shoulders as he remembered that he had

long since given all that up. Belief in God and a future life belonged

to a period far back in his memory, when, as a smooth-faced youth, he

had erroneously thought himself converted at a revival in which the

whole countryside had given itself over to tears, rejoicings, and

resolutions. No; if Jack was dying, that was the end of the little

life--marvelous as it was--it was the end, the very end. Hoag sat down

on the lowest step of the veranda, gripped his big hands between his

knees, and stared at the pale, pitiless moon.

The sound of a closing door fell on his ears; a heavy step rang in

the hall. The doctor was coming out. Hoag stood up and faced him as

he crossed the veranda, his medicine-case in hand. How damnably placid

seemed the bearded face; how like that of an official executioner or an

undertaker bent on mere profit.

“Well, well?” Hoag gulped. “Well, how is it?”

“I had my scare for nothing.” The doctor bent his body to look around

a tree to see if his horse was where he had left it. “It isn't scarlet

fever. The child has eaten something that went against him. He had a

raging fever; but it's down now, and if you will look to his diet for a

day or two he'll be all right.”

Hoag said nothing; something like a blur fell before his eyes, and the

fence, trees, bam, and stables rose and fell like objects floating on

a turbulent cloud. “Good night,” he heard the doctor saying as from a

distance. “Goodnight”--it seemed an echo from within him, rather than

a product of his lips. The blur lifted; he steadied himself, and stood

watching the doctor as he unhitched his horse and got into the buggy.

CHAPTER XIII

|ON this same night certain things were happening at Ralph Rundel's

cottage. The hour was late. Paul, who was suddenly roused from the

profound slumber of a tired toiler, was sure of this, though he had no

means of ascertaining the exact time.

“Don't you dare hit 'er, Rafe Rundel, don't you--don't you, I say!”

was the cry which at first seemed to the boy to be a part of a confused

dream, and which resolved itself into distinct utterance as his eyes and

ears gradually opened.

“I wasn't tryin' to hit 'er, Mandy, an' you know it.” It was Ralph

Rundel's despondent and yet accusing voice which broke the pale

stillness of the night. “I just want 'er to tell me the plain,

unvarnished truth, an' she's got to! She cayn't be a wife o' mine an'

carry on like that, an' do it underhand. I want to know if they met by

agreement. I was on the hill an' saw Jeff waitin' at the creek ford. He

had no business thar, an' stood behind the bushes, an' kept peepin' at

our house till she come out an' went down to 'im. Then they walked to

the spring an' set for a good hour, Jeff bent toward 'er, an' she was

a-listenin' close, an' a-lookin' toward the house every minute like she

was afeard somebody would come.”

It was Amanda Wilks who now spoke as the startled boy put his feet on

the floor and sat on the bed, grimly alert.

“Looks like Rafe is axin' a reasonable enough question, Addie,” she was

heard to say. “At least it seems so to me, an' I know I am tryin' to be

fair to both sides, so I am.”

“It _is_ fair,” Ralph passionately supplemented, “an' if she is honest

an' wants to do right she will talk straight an' be as open as day. As

my wife the law gives me the right to--”

“Law? What's law amount to when a woman's plumb miserable?” Mrs. Rundel

said, in a low, rebellious tone, and Paul heard her bare feet thump on

the floor as she flounced about the room. “I hate you. I've hated you

all along. I can't remember when I didn't hate you. No livin' woman with

any refined feelin's could help it. I want liberty, that's all. I won't

have you prowlin' about in the woods and watchin' me like a hawk every

time a neighbor speaks decent to me. Lemme tell you some'n; you'd better

never let Jeff Warren know you make charges ag'in' me like you are

a-doin'. He'd thrash you 'in an inch o' your life, if you _are_ married

to me. I'll not tell you why I happened to go down to the spring. That's

_my_ business.”

Paul heard his father utter a low, despairing groan as he left the room

and stalked through the corridor and out at the front door. Going to the

window, the boy looked out just as Ralph turned the corner and paused in

the moonlight, his ghastly profile as clear-cut as if it had been carved

in stone. Paul saw him raise his stiff arms to the sky, and heard him

muttering unintelligible words. The window-sash was up, the sill low to

the ground, and dressed only in his night-shirt, the boy passed through

the opening and stood on the dewy grass.

There he paused a moment, for he heard his aunt speaking to her sister

admonishingly: “Rafe's jest got a man's natural pride an' jealousy. You

know folks in a out-o'-the-way settlement like this will talk, an'--”

“Well, let 'em talk! Let 'em talk! Let 'em talk!” the wife retorted,

fiercely. “I don't care what they say. I won't be a bound slave to

Rafe Rundel if I _did_ marry 'im. I'm entitled to my natural likes and

dislikes the same now as I ever was. No woman alive could care for a

man hawkin' an' spittin' an' coughin' about the house, with water in his

eyes--sneezin' an' snifflin' an' groanin', as peevish as a spoilt child,

an' wantin' to know every single minute where I am and what I am doin'.

I'm finished with 'im, I tell you--I'm plumb finished with 'im, an' he

knows it. Yes, he knows it, an' that's why he was in sech a tantrum just

now, pullin' my bedclothes off, shakin' his fist like a crazy fool, an'

stormin' around in the dead o' night.”

The pacific voice of Amanda Wilks here broke in; but Paul did not wait

to hear what she was saying, for his father, with bowed and shaking

form, was tottering away in the moonlight toward the cow-lot. Ralph

reached the rail fence, and with an audible moan he bent his head upon

it. Paul's feet fell noiselessly on the dewy grass as he crept toward

him. Reaching him he touched him on the shoulder.

“Father,” Paul said, softly, “what's the matter? Are you sick?”

Slowly Ralph Rundel raised his head and stared at his son, but he

said nothing. His tattered nightshirt was carelessly stuffed under

the waistband of his gaping trousers, which were supported by a single

suspender over his shoulder. The other suspender hung in a loop over

his hip. His grizzled head was bare, as were his attenuated feet. He

continued to stare, as if he had no memory of the speaker's face,

his lip hanging loose, quivering, and dripping with saliva. The

damp, greenish pallor of death itself was on him, and it gleamed like

phosphorus in the rays of the moon. A tremulous groan passed out from

his low chest, and his head sank to the fence again.

“Father, father, don't you know me? _Paul!_ Don't you know me?” The boy

touched the gray head; he shook it persuasively, and it rocked like a

mechanical tiling perfectly poised. The man's knees bent, quivered, and

then straightened up again.

“Father, father, it's me--_Paul!_--your son! What's the matter?”

Ralph turned his face slowly to one side.

“Oh, it's you!--my boy! my boy! I thought--” He looked about the cow-lot

vacantly, and then fixed his all but glazed eyes on his son's face, and

said: “You go back to bed, my boy; you can't do me no good--nobody on

earth can. I'm done for. I feel it all over me like the sweat o' death.”

“Father, tell me”--Paul stood erect, his head thrown back, and his young

voice rang sharply on the still air--“do you believe that dirty whelp--”

There was an insane glare in Rundel's watery eyes, and his head rocked

back and forth again.

“He's after your ma, Paul.” Ralph emitted another groan. “He's took with

'er purty face, an' has set in to make a plumb fool of 'er, and make 'er

hate me. He's the kind o' devil that won't pick and choose for hisself,

like an honest man, out in the open among free gals an' women, but

thinks that nothin' ain't as good as another man's holdin's. He thinks

he is sorry fer 'er because she's tied to a sick man; but it hain't

that--it's the devil in 'im!”

The boy laid his arm on his father's shoulders; his lips moved, but no

sound issued; his face was rigid and white.

“I ain't talkin' without grounds.” Ralph's faint voice trailed away on

its wave of agony. “Friends have come to me an' reported the doin's of

the two at singin'. He fetches her a bunch of flowers every day,

an' they set an' sing out o' the same book with the'r heads plumped

together. He walks mighty nigh all the way home with her through the

woods, an' sneaks off as soon as they git in sight o' the house. He

makes all manner o' fun o' me--tellin' folks, so I've been told, that

I can't last long, an' that she never knowed what rale healthy love was

nohow.”

Paul's hand was now on his father's head, and he was gently stroking the

long, thick hair, though his eyes were blazing, his breast heaving, as

from an inner tempest.

Ralph turned and looked toward the house. The light was out now, and

there was no sound.

“I reckon she's gone back to sleep,” Ralph wailed, bitterly. “What does

she care how I feel? She could have no idea, you couldn't neither, Paul,

fur you are too young. But maybe some day you will know the awful, awful

sting o' havin' the world look on in scorn, while a big strappin' brute

of a daredevil an' the mother o' yore child--oh, my God! I can't stand

it--I jest _can't!_ I'd die a million deaths rather than--it's in the

Rundel blood, I reckon, planted thar deep by generations an' generations

o' proud folks. I'm goin' to kill 'im, Paul. I don't know when or how,

exactly, but it's got to be done, if God will only give me the strength.

It won't be no sin; it couldn't be; it would be just wipin' out one o'

the slimy vipers o' life.”

“If you don't, I will, father. I swear it here an' now,” the boy

solemnly vowed, removing his hand from the cold brow and looking off in

the mystical light which lay over the fields.

“Huh, we won't _both_ have to do it!” Ralph spoke as if half dreaming,

certainly not realizing his son's frame of mind. “It never would be any

satisfaction to have it said that it took two of us to fix 'im, even if

he _is_ rated high on his fightin' record. No, that's _my_ job; you keep

clean out of it!”

“Come to my bed, father.” Paul caught his arm and drew him gently

from the fence. “You are shakin' from head to foot; your teeth are

chatterin', an' you are cold through an' through.”

Ralph allowed himself to be led along; now and then he would stumble

over a tuft of grass, as if he had lost the power of lifting his feet.

Once he paused, threw his arms about his son's shoulder, and said,

almost in fright, as he bore down heavily:

“I feel odd, powerful odd. I feel cold clean through to my insides, like

my entrails was turnin' to rock. I can hardly git my breath. I don't

seem to--to send it clean down. It stops in my chest like, an' I am all

of a quiver, an' weak, an' dizzy-like. I can't see a yard ahead of me.”

“You'll feel better when you are in bed,” Paul said, soothingly, and he

led his father on to the quiet, house and into his room. He undressed

him, wiped the dew from his numb, bloodless feet on a towel, and made

him lie down.

“I feel drowsy,” Ralph sighed. “Everything is in a sort of dreamy

jumble. I hardly remember what me'n you was--was talkin' about. I'm

weak. I've been so bothered that I hain't eat much in several days.”

Presently Paul saw that he was asleep, and lay down beside the still

form. After a while he, too, fell into slumber, and the remainder of the

night crept along.

The first hint of dawn was announced by the crowing of cocks, the far

and near barking of dogs, the grunting of pigs, the chirping of early

birds, as they flew about in the dewy branches of the trees. Paul waked

and went to his window and looked out. The gray light of a new day lay

like an aura on the brow of the mountain. The recollection of what had

taken place in the night flashed upon him with startling freshness. He

recalled Jeff Warren's visage, his mother in her dainty dress, ribbons

and flowers, and his blood began to throb and boil. In a storm of hot

pity he glanced toward his father, who in the dark corner lay as still

as the cracked plastering, against which his grim profile was cast.

Suddenly Paul had a great fear; he held his breath to listen, and

strained his eyes to pierce the shadows. Was Ralph Rundel breathing? Did

ever living man lie so still, so silent? Paul went to the bed, drew down

the sheet, and bent over the face. Eyes and mouth open--Ralph was dead.

Paul shook him gently and called to him, but there was no response. The

body was still slightly warm, but fast growing stiff.

Quickly dressing, Paul went across the corridor and knocked on the door

of his aunt's room.

“What is it now? Oh, what do you want now?” Amanda called out, in drowsy

impatience. “You've kept me awake nearly all night with your fussin',

an' jest as I am gittin' my fust bit o' rest--”

“Aunt Manda, you'd better come--” Paul's voice faltered and broke.

“You'd better come see if you think--”

“What is it? Oh, what is it now?” He heard her feet strike the floor

and the loose planks creak as she groped her way to the door, which she

unlocked and drew open. “It ain't nigh day.” She cast inquiring eyes

toward the yard. “What's got into you wantin' breakfast earlier an'

earlier every mornin' you live?”

Paul swallowed a lump in his throat, mutely jerked his head toward his

room. “I think--I think father's dead,” he said, simply.

“Dead? Dead?” the woman gasped, incredulously. She stared blankly at

her nephew, and then, holding her unbuttoned nightgown at the neck,

she strode across the corridor into Paul's room. He followed to the

threshold, and dumbly watched her as she made a quick examination of

the body. She drew herself up, uttered a little scream, and came to him

wringing her hands.

“Oh, God will punish us!” she said. “The Almighty will throw a blight on

this house! He's gone, an' his last words was a curse on your ma, an' on

me for spoilin' 'er. O God--God, have mercy! An' he went with revenge in

his heart an' hate in his soul. Oh, Rafe's gone--Rafe's gone!”

Amanda stood leaning against the wall moaning and ejaculating bits of

prayers. The door of Mrs. Rundel's room opened, and with her hair rolled

up in bits of paper she peered out.

“What is it?” she inquired, peevishly. “What's the matter? Gone? Did you

say he was gone? What if he _has_ gone? He's been threatening to leave

all summer. He'll be back. You can count on that. He knows a good thing

when he sees it, and he'll lie around here till he dies of old age or

dries up an' is blown away.”

“No, he won't be back!” Paul strode to her and stood coldly staring at

her. “He's dead. He died of a broken heart, an' you done it--you an'

Jeff Warren between you.”

“Dead--dead, you say?” And, as if to make sure, Mrs. Rundel stalked

stiffly across the corridor to Ralph's body and bent over it. They saw

her raise one of the limp hands and pass her own over the pallid brow.

Then, without a word, she drew herself erect and came back to her son

and sister. Her face was white and rigid; the coming wrinkles in her

cheeks and about her mouth seemed deeper than ever before. She faced

Paul, a blended expression of fear and dogged defiance in her eyes.

“Don't you ever _dare_ to--to talk to me like you did just now,” she

said, fiercely. “I won't stand it. You are too young a boy to dictate to

me.”

“I may be that,” he snarled, “but I'll dictate to somebody else if I'm

hung for it. You hear me--if I'm _hung_ for it!”

She shrank under this bitter onslaught. She seemed to waver a moment,

then she went into her room, lighted her candle, and began to dress.

Her sister followed and stood beside her. “Don't take on,” Amanda said.

“Don't go an' fancy it is yore fault. Paul is out o' his head with grief

an' don't know what he's sayin'. Rafe was a sick, dyin' man, anyway; his

mind was unhinged; that was plain by the way he suspicioned you. Now,

I'll git breakfast an' attend to everything; don't set in to cryin' an'

make yourself sick; what is done is done, an' can't be helped.”

CHAPTER XIV

|LIKE a human machine obeying the laws of habit, Paul went about his

usual morning duties, feeding and currying the horses, taking slop to

the pigs, driving up the cow from the pasture, and chopping wood for the

fire. Amanda came to him at the woodpile, rolling the flakes of dough

from her fingers. The first direct rays of the sun were breaking over

the brow of the hill.

“I'll have the coffee an' biscuits done right off,” she said, in a

motherly tone, which seemed to be borrowed from some past memory or the

long-worn habit of protecting her sister. “I'll call you purty soon.

Paul, you'll have to make the best of it. I've been expectin' it for

a long time. He's been gettin' peevish an' losin' flesh an' strength.

Then, like most folks in that fix, he let his fancy run rife, an' that

hurried him on. It's awful--awful havin' a dead person right here in

the house; but it comes to high an' low alike. I know you are cut to the

quick, an' inclined to fix the blame on somebody; but that will wear off

an' you 'll git reconciled. You'll miss 'im, I know--an' that sharp, for

he leaned on you as if you an' 'im had swapped places.”

Paul said nothing. He filled his arms with the wood and started into

the kitchen. Amanda saw his dull, bloodshot eyes above the heap as he

turned.

She followed, and as he noiselessly lowered the wood to the stone

hearth, she stood over him.

“There is a thing that must be attended to,” she said. “I sort o' hate

to be left with just me an' Addie alone with him in thar like that; but

you'll have' to go to town an' order a coffin. Webb an' Wiggins keeps

'em at the furniture-store, an' in hot weather like this they will

want the order early. You just pick out the sort you think we kin

afford--they're got all grades--an' they will trim it. If I was you I'd

make them send it. It would look more decent than for you to haul it

out on the wagon. We'll keep your poor pa till to-morrow; it won't look

right to be in too great a hurry; thar is sech a sight o' talk these

days about bury in' folks alive, here among the ignorant whites an'

blacks.” When he had finished his morning's work Paul came in and sat

down at the table to the coffee and eggs and hot cakes his aunt had

prepared, but he ate without his usual relish. He was just finishing

when Abe Langston, a neighboring farmer, a tall, thin man about forty

years of age, with long, brown beard, and without a coat, collar, or

necktie, appeared, hat in hand, at the door.

“We've just heard it over our way,” he said to Amanda. “I told my wife

I'd come over before I set in to cuttin' hay in the bottom. Powerful

sudden an' unexpected, wasn't it?”

“Yes, he seemed to pass away in his sleep like.” Amanda was wiping

her red eyes on her apron. “It was a weak heart, no doubt, an' it is a

comfort to feel that he never suffered.”

“I'll go take a look at 'im,” Langston said, laying his hat on the

door-sill. “I sent my oldest gal over after John Tobines an' Andy

Warner, an' when they git here we three will lay 'im out. John's handy

with a razor--he used to work in a barber's shop--an' he'll shave the

pore fellow an' trim his hair. Some o' the young men an' women will want

to set up here to-night, an' give you an' Addie a chance to snatch a

little sleep.”

“That will be obligin' of 'em,” Amanda answered, still wiping her

eyes. “You kin tell 'em I'll fix a nice snack an' some coffee to sorter

freshen 'em up. How many do you reckon will come?”

“Oh, I'd fix for four couples, anyway. Thar is a certain crowd that

always count on sech occasions--you know who they are as well as I do, I

reckon?”

“Yes, Polly Long an' her bunch.” Amanda followed the man across the

corridor into the room where the corpse lay, and as Paul was leaving he

heard her continuing, plaintively: “Death is just the awfulest,

awfulest thing we come across in this life, Brother Langston. We know

so little--so powerful little about it. One minute we see the sparkle of

the soul in the eye, hear a voice full of life; you catch a smile, or a

knowin' look, an' maybe the next minute just a empty shell lies before

you. Rafe was a good, patient man, an' he suffered a lot, fust an'

last.”

“Did he make his _peace?_” Langston inquired. “That is the fust thought

I have when a body dies. Do you think he was all right? He didn't go to

meetin' often, an' I never happened to hear 'im say what his hopes of

reward was.”

“I don't know--I really don't know,” Amanda returned, and Paul,

lingering in the kitchen doorway, heard her voice falter. “Brother

Langston, sometimes I was bothered purty sharp on that score. Him and

Paul both used to repeat some o' Jim Hoag's terrible sayin's like they

thought they was smart an' funny, an' neither one of 'em ever would read

the Bible, or seek spiritual advice, an' sech a thing as family prayer,

or a blessin' asked at the table was never heard in this house.”

“I know.” The masculine voice sounded louder now, as if its owner had

come back into the corridor. “That's why I was axin'. Folks cayn't

take up notions like Hoag has in a God-fearin' community like our'n an'

flaunt 'em about without causin' comment. My own opinion is that Jim

Hoag is a devil in the garb of a man. He's larnt Paul all the awful

things the boy believes, an' a man that will lead the young off like

that ought to be tarred an' feathered an' rid out o' the community on

a sharp rail. If he didn't have so much money he'd 'a' been called down

long ago.”

Paul was in the stable-yard when Amanda came out to him.

“I forgot to tell you,” she said. “Your pa won't have to have new

clothes; his Sunday suit will do for weather like this when I've ironed

out the wrinkles; but you ought to buy 'im some black slippers, an' a

pair o' white store socks an' a plain black necktie--they keep all sech

at the furniture-store. You just tell 'em what's lackin' an' they will

put 'em in.”

She glanced at her nephew's face in surprise, for it was flushed, and

his eyes were flashing angrily.

“What's the matter?” she asked, leaning on the fence and eying him in

growing wonder.

“I heard you an' Langston talkin' in thar, standin' right over 'im,”

Paul blurted out, “an' him cold an' dead an' unable to take up for

hisse'f. Make his peace nothin'! He died before he could settle the

things he had to settle. If thar _was_ sech a fool thing as a heaven,

how could he enjoy it with Jeff Warren here gloatin' over him? But that

will be settled. You hear me--that will be settled, an' before many

days, too.”

“I know you are not goin' to act the fool, if you are just a hot-headed

boy,” Amanda said. “You are all wrought up now ag'in' your ma an'

everybody; but that will wear off. I know when my _own_ father died I--”

But the boy refused to hear. He turned into a stall and began to put a

bridle on a horse, which he led out into the yard with only a blanket

on its back. There was uncurbed fury in the very spring he made from

the ground to his seat. His face was fire-red, and he thrust his heels

against the horse's flanks with such force that the animal gave a loud

grunt as he lurched toward the open gate.

“Wait, Paul, wait!” Amanda cried after him. “You've forgot some'n. I

wouldn't stop you, but you can't do without it.”

He drew rein and glared down on her.

“You haven't got the measure of--of the body. I never thought of it just

now when Brother Langston was here, an' he's gone to hurry up Tobines

an' Warner. I'd go an' do it myself, but it ain't exactly a woman's

place. I'll hold yo' hoss.”

He stared at her for a moment, the color dying down in his face. Then,

with obvious reluctance, he slid off the horse and went into the room

where the corpse lay covered with a sheet. He was looking about for a

piece of string with which to take the required measurement, when he

recalled that he and his father were exactly the same height, and, with

a sense of relief, he was turning from the room when an uncontrollable

impulse came over him to look upon the face beneath the covering. He

hesitated for a moment, then, going to the bed, he drew the sheet down

and gazed at the white, set countenance. A storm of pity and grief broke

over him. He had a mother's yearning to kiss the cold, pale brow, to

fondle the wasted form, to speak to the closed eyes, and compel the

rigid lips to utter some word of recognition. Glancing furtively toward

the door, then toward the window, and with his face close to the dead

one, he said:

“Don't you bother about Jeff Warren, father. I'll attend to him. I'll

do it--I'll do it. He sha'n't gloat over you, an' you like this. He

sha'n't--he sha'n't!”

His voice clogged up, and he tenderly drew the sheet back over the

still, white face. Across the corridor he heard his mother moving about

in her room; but the door was closed, and he could not see her. Going

out, he took the bridle from Amanda's hands, threw it back on the neck

of his horse, clutched a collar-worn tuft of the animal's mane, and

sprang astride of its back.

“I won't have to bother about a new dress for yore ma,” Amanda remarked,

her slow eyes studying the boy's grief-pinched face. “We ain't got time

to get one ready, an' she kin put on my black alpaca an' borrow Mrs.

Penham's veil that she's about through with. I know she didn't wear it

two Sundays ago, an' I reckon her mournin's over. It's in purty good

condition.”

Paul rode toward the village. In the first cotton-field on the left-hand

side of the way the two Harris brothers were cutting out weeds with hoes

that tinkled on the buried stones and flashed in the slanting rays of

the sun. They both paused, looked at him steadily and half defiantly,

and then, as if reminded of the gruesome thing which had come upon him

in the night, they looked down and resumed their work.

Further on was the farm-house belonging to Jeff Warren, and at the well

in the yard Paul descried Warren turning the windlass to water a mule

which stood with its head over a big tub. Paul saw the man looking at

him, but he glanced away. He swung his heels against the flanks of his

horse and rode on through a mist which hung before his sight.

Paul went straight to the furniture-store and gave his order, and was

leaving when Mrs. Tye came hastily across the street from her husband's

shop. There was a kindly light in her eyes, and her voice shook with

timid emotion.

“I saw you ride past jest now,” she began. “We heard the news a few

minutes ago, an' me an' Si was awfully sorry. He told me to run across

an' beg you to stop at the shop a minute. He wants to see you. I don't

know when I've seed 'im so upset. Thar, I see 'im motionin' to us now.

Let's go over.”

Paul mechanically complied, and as they turned she laid her hand gently

on his arm.

“Thar is nothin' a body kin say that will do a bit o' good at sech a sad

time,” she gulped. “I've got so I jest hold my tongue when sech a blow

falls. But I wish the Lord would show me some way to comfort you. It

must be awful, for I know how you doted on yore pore pa, an' how he

worshiped you. Maybe it will comfort you if I tell you what he said to

me t'other day. I reckon he was pulled down in sperits by ill health or

some'n, for he told me that if it hadn't been for you he'd 'a' killed

hisse'f long ago. Of course that was a wicked thought, but I reckon he

hardly knowed what he was sayin'. He jest couldn't git through talkin'

about you, an' the way you loved 'im an' looked after 'im at all times.

That will be a comfort, Paul--after a while it will all settle down an'

seem right--his death, I mean; then the recollection that you was so

good to him will be a sweet memory that will sustain an' strengthen you

all through life.”

They had reached the open door of the shop, and Silas rose from his

bench, shaking the shavings of leather and broken wooden pegs from his

apron. In his left hand he held the coarse shoe he was repairing and the

right he gave to Paul.

“I hain't done nothin' but set here an' pray since I heard it,” he

began, sympathetically, his rough fingers clinging to Paul's. “In a

case like this God is the only resort. I sometimes think that one of the

intentions of death is to force folks to look to the Almighty an'

cry out for help. That seems to me to be proof enough to convince the

stoutest unbelievers of a higher power, for when a blow like this falls

we jest simply beg for mercy, an' we know down inside of us that

no human aid can be had, an' that help naturally ought to come from

some'r's.”

Paul made no response. Mrs. Tye had placed a chair for him near her

husband's bench, and the boy sank into it, and sat staring dumbly at the

floor.

“I've got some hot coffee on the stove,” Mrs. Tye said, gently. “You'd

feel better, Paul, maybe, if you'd take a cup along with some o' my

fresh biscuits and butter.”

He shook his head, mumbled his thanks, and forgot what she had said. He

was contrasting Jeff Warren as he stood at the well in the full vigor

of health with a still, wasted form under a sheet in a silent, deserted

room. Mrs. Tye left the shop, and her husband continued his effort at

consolation.

“I know exactly how you feel, Paul, for I've been through it. I've

served my Heavenly Master as well as I know how ever since His redeemin'

light broke over me away back when I was young; but when He took my only

child He took all that seemed worth while in my life. Folks will tell

you that time will heal the wound; but I never waste words over that,

for I know, from experience, that when a body is bowed down like you

are, that it ain't the future you need as a salve, but somethin' right

now. Thar is one thing that will help, an' I wish I actually knowed you

had it. Paul, empty-minded men like Jim Hoag may sneer and poke fun, but

jest as shore as that light out thar in the street comes from the sun

thar is a spiritual flood from God hisse'f that pores into hearts that

are not wilfully closed ag'in' it. I don't want to brag, but I don't

know how I can make it plain without tellin' my own experience. My boy,

I'm a pore man; I make my livin' at the humblest work that man ever

engaged in, an' yet from momin' till night I'm happy--I'm plumb happy.

As God is my judge, I wouldn't swap places with any millionaire that

ever walked the earth, for I know his money an' gaudy holdin's would

stand betwixt me an' the glory I've got. If I had an idle hour to spare,

do you know whar I'd be? I'd be on the side o' that mountain, starin'

out over the blue hills, a-shoutin' an' a-singin' praises to God. Some

folks say I'm crazy on religion--let 'em--let 'em! History is chock full

of accounts of great men, learned in all the wisdom of earth--princes,

rulers, poets, who, like St. Paul an' our Lord, declared that all things

which was not of the sperit was vanity, dross, an' the very dregs an'

scum of existence. So you see, as I look at it--an' as maybe you don't

just yet--yore pa ain't like you think he is. You see 'im lyin' thar

like that, an' you cayn't look beyond the garment of flesh he has

shucked off, but I can. He's beat you 'n me both, Paul; his eyes are

opened to a blaze o' glory that would dazzle and blind our earthly

sight. Death is jest a ugly gate that we pass through from a cloudy,

dark, stuffy place out into the vast open air of Eternity. O Paul, Paul,

I want you to try to get hold of this thing, for you need it. This is a

sharp crisis in yore life; you've let some things harden you, an' if you

don't watch out this great stunnin' blow may drag you even deeper into

the mire. I feel sech a big interest in you that I jest can't hold in.

I know I'm talkin' powerful plain, an' uninvited, too, but I can't help

it. Knowin' that you've been about Jim Hoag a good deal, an' rememberin'

little remarks you've dropped now an' then, I'm afraid you hain't got as

much faith in the goodness of God as--”

“Goodness of God! Huh--poof!” Paul snorted, his stare on the ground.

“Paul, Paul, don't, don't say that!” Tye pleaded, his kindly eyes

filling. “I can't bear to hear it from a young boy like you. Youth is

the time most folks believe in all that's good; doubts sometimes come

on later in life. It sounds awful to hear you say sech rebellious things

when you stand so much in need of, the _only help in all the universe_.”

“I don't believe there _is_ any God,” Paul muttered, fiercely, “and if I

did I'd not believe he was a good one, when I know what's took place an'

what's goin' on. The wild beasts in the woods come from the same source

as me, an' they fight for what they get; bugs and worms and flying

things and crawling things live on one another. That's the only way for

us to do if we expect to live. The only difference in men and beasts is

that men can remember wrongs longer and know how to plan revenge, an'

_git_ it.”

“Oh, my Lord!” The shoemaker lowered his head and seemed to be praying.

Presently he looked up, grasped his beard with his blackened fingers,

and pulled his lips apart. “I see, you are like most folks when they are

under a great, fresh grief. I've knowed some o' the best Christians to

turn square ag'in' the'r Maker at sech times--especially women who

had lost the'r young in some horrible way--but even they'd come around

finally to admit that God knowed best. Take my own case. Would I want

my boy back now? No, no, Paul; as great as the pride an' joy would be I

know he's in better hands than mine. It's hard on you now; but, sad

as it is, this may result in good--good that you can't begin to see in

advance. If we had the all-seein' eye we might pass judgment; but we are

blind--blind as moles. You can't see that yore pore pa is better off,

but he is--he is. I know he is--God knows he is.”

CHAPTER XV

|AT the end of the main street, as he rode homeward, Paul saw Ethel

Mayfield coming toward him, her head down as if in deep thought. His

first impulse was to turn aside, to avoid meeting her, but he saw that

such a thing would be unpardonable. In spite of the weight that was on

him, he felt the warm blood of embarrassment rushing to his face as the

distance shortened between them.

There was a sweet, startled look of concern in her childish eyes as she

raised them to him.

“Stop a minute,” she said; and as he awkwardly drew rein she continued:

“I've just heard about your father. Two men were talking over there by a

fence on the side of the road and I listened. Oh, it is awful, awful! I

am so sorry for you, for they say you loved him so much, an' were always

so good to him.”

A strange sense of confused helplessness surged over Paul. As she looked

up at him so frankly he feared that she would read in his face the fact

that she had been in his mind almost constantly since their meeting that

day in the meadow. This disturbed him, and also the realization that

common politeness demanded some sort of reply in accord with the

refinement of her easy expression of sympathy. But that was beyond him.

He felt his blood beating into his eyes. She appeared like a spirit

thing poised upon an evanescent cloud; not for him save in fancy, not

for any boy outside of dreams. In sheer desperation, and under the

intuition that he ought not to sit on his horse while she stood, he

dismounted.

“Thank you, thank you.” He seemed to hear the words as if they were

spoken by other lips than his own, and again he had the exquisite sense

of nearness to her, which had so enthralled him before. A wondrous,

delectable force seemed to radiate from her and play upon his whole

enraptured being.

“I have never seen any one die,” she went on, “and they say you were

there alone with him. Oh, how very sad, and you--you are not much older

than I am. Sad things are coming to you very early. I wish I could say

something, or do something, Paul, but I don't really know how. I'm just

a girl. My mother seems to know what to say at such times, but I don't.

Grief like this simply overpowers me. I feel as if--as if I must cry,

I'm so sorry for you.”

He saw her pretty lips quivering, her glorious eyes filling, and he

dug the toe of his worn shoe into the sand of the road. He was becoming

conscious of the tattered appearance of his working-clothes, his

saddleless horse, his rough, perspiring hands and cuffless wrists. How

odd that she, who was so daintily dressed, so wholly detached from his

sordid life, could stand talking to him so kindly, so intimately!

“You are very good--very!” he stammered. “Better than anybody else. If

they were all like you it wouldn't seem so--so bad.”

“It may seem forward of me and bold,” Ethel returned, “for really we

have only been together once before, and yet (I don't know how _you_

feel)--but _I_ feel, somehow, Paul, as if we were very old friends. I

admire you because you are brave and strong. You are not like--like the

boys in Atlanta. You are different (uncle says you are not afraid of

anything on earth). You know a girl could not keep from wanting _that_

sort of a friend. I don't mean that I'd want to see you hurt ever--ever;

but it is nice for a girl to feel that she has a friend who would take

any risk for her. My mother says I get a lot of notions that are not

good for me out of novels. Well, I don't know how that is, but I like

you, and I am very, very sad about your father. If I had not met you

here I would have written you a note. Can you tell me when--when he is

to be buried?”

He told her that the funeral would be at the village church the next

day, and therewith his voice broke, and for the first time his heart

heaved and his eyes filled.

“I wanted to know because I am going to send some flowers,” she said;

and then, observing the signs of his emotion and his averted face, she

suddenly and impulsively caught his hand and pressed it between both of

her own. “Don't, don't cry!” she pleaded. “I couldn't stand to see it!”

Her own lashes were wet and her sweet mouth was drawn tight. “Oh, I wish

there was something I could do or say, but I can't think of a thing.

Yes, there is one thing, and it must help, because the Bible and the

wisest men say it will at such times. I have been praying for you, and I

am going to keep on doing it. Paul, from what you said the other day, I

suppose you--have never been converted?”

He shook his head, swallowed, but kept his face turned away, conscious

that it was distorted by contending emotions.

“I have been,” she said, still pressing his hand, “and, O Paul, it was

glorious! It happened at a camp-meeting where mother took me and my

cousin, Jennie Buford, in the country below Atlanta, last summer. It

was all so wonderful--the singing, shouting, and praying. I was so happy

that I felt like flying. Since then I have felt so good and secure and

contented. The Bible is full of meaning to me now. I love to read it

when I am alone in my room. It is beautiful when you begin to understand

it, and know that it is actually the Word of our Creator. I am sure I

shall lead a Christian life, as my mother is doing. It has made Jennie

happy, too. We are like two twins, you know. We have been together

nearly every day since we were babies. There is only a fence between our

houses in Atlanta, and she sleeps with me or I with her every night. She

was sick last winter, and they thought she was going to die. She thought

so, too; she told me so, but would not tell her mother because she would

be so broken-hearted. I prayed for Jennie all that night--all night. I

hardly stopped a minute.”

“And she didn't die?” Paul looked at her with a glance of mild

incredulity in his eyes.

“No; the doctor said she was better and she got well. It would have

killed me if she had been taken, I love her so much. We are so much

alike that I often read her thoughts and she reads mine. Many and many a

time we have told each other exactly what we were thinking about.”

“Thought transference,” he said. “I've read about that. It may be true.”

Ethel now released his hand and flushed slightly. “Excuse me,” she

faltered, her lashes touching her cheeks. “I hardly knew what I was

doing.”

It was his turn to color now, and they stood awkwardly facing each

other. She, however, recovered herself quickly.

“I am going to pray for you more and more now,” she went on, soothingly.

“It will surely help you. I know that God answers prayers when they

are made in the right spirit. He must help you bear this sorrow, and He

will--He will.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Paul muttered, his wavering eyes on the road

leading between zigzag rail fences on to his home. “I must be going now.

I've got a good many things to attend to.”

“Of course, I know--I know,” Ethel responded, gravely.

A wagon was approaching from the direction of the village. It was drawn

by two sturdy mules, which thrust their hoofs into the dust of the road

so deeply that a constant cloud of the fine particles hovered over the

vehicle. A negro man wearing a tattered straw hat, soiled shirt and

trousers, and without shoes, was driving. Ethel caught Paul's hand

impulsively, and drew him and his horse to the side of the road.

“Wait till they pass,” she said. “Oh, what nasty dust!”

She saw him staring at the wagon, a rigid look on his face. “It's the

coffin,” he explained. “It is going out home.”

The wagon rumbled on. There was an unpainted wooden box behind the

negro's seat, and on it rested a plain walnut coffin, thickly coated

with dust. The sun had warmed the new varnish, and there was an odor of

it in the air.

“Oh, it is so sad!” Paul caught the words from the averted lips of his

companion. “I wish I could do something, or say something, but I can't.”

Again his despair fell upon him. As he mounted his horse it seemed

to him that he was a moving thing that was dead in all its parts. He

couldn't remember that he had ever tipped his hat to any one in his

life, and yet he did so now gracefully enough. He felt that he ought to

reply to the words she had so feelingly uttered, but the muscles of

his throat had tightened. A great sob was welling up within him and

threatening to burst. He started his horse, and with his back to her,

his head bent toward the animal's neck, he slowly rode away.

“Poor boy!” Ethel said, as the mules, the wagon, the coffin, and Paul

floated and vanished in the mist before her eyes. She turned and moved

on toward the village, her head lowered, softly crying and earnestly

praying.

CHAPTER XVI

|ACCORDING to rural custom the young men and young women of the

neighborhood came that evening to keep watch over Ralph Rundel's body.

In an open coffin resting on two chairs, it occupied the center of the

room in which he died.

Amanda had been busy all day cooking dainties--pies, cakes, custards,

and making cider from apples gathered in the orchard. She had swept and

dusted the house throughout, put the candles into their places, cleaned

and filled the lamps, and altered her black dress to fit the slender

form of her sister, who had been in her room all day, refusing to show

herself to the constant stream of curious, inquiring visitors--men,

women, and children who sat about the front and rear doors, leaned on

the fences of the yard and cow-lot, and even invaded the kitchen.

As for Paul, no one seemed to notice him, and of sympathy for him

little was expressed. Mute and dejected he moved about, attending to his

father's former duties as well as his own.

The night fell. The stars came out. There was a low hum of good cheer

and merriment from the assembled company inside. To escape it, Paul

slipped behind the house and threw himself down on the grass sward

beneath the apple-trees. His awful sorrow, weird and gruesome, for which

there was no outlet, gave him actual physical pain.

There was singing within the house. The young persons were practising

hymns for the funeral service the next day. Mistakes were made, and

there was merry, spontaneous laughter, which grated on the boy's ears.

He buried his face in the cool, fragrant grass, and thus subdued

the rising sob of which he was ashamed. In his mind's eye he saw the

exquisite face of Ethel Mayfield, but even it held scant comfort, for

how could such as she belong to such deplorable surroundings? The tones

of her gentle voice, as she promised to pray for him, seemed a part of

some vague dream from which sordid fact had roused him.

“Prayers?” he sneered. “What puny mortal could pray this away, or undo

the damnable thing even by the weight of a hair? There isn't any God to

pray to--there isn't anything but pain, torment, and death.” There was a

tentative step on the grass. Amanda was groping her way around the well.

He saw her peering here and there in the shadows under the trees. “Oh!”

she exclaimed, on seeing him, as he suddenly sat up and turned his face

toward her. “You gave me a scare. At sech a time a body is apt to think

they see ghosts, whether they do or not. I've been lookin' high an'

low for you, an' axin' the company whar you was at. You hain't had no

supper, have you?”

He answered briefly in the negative.

“Well, come on in the kitchen,” she pursued. “I've kept some 'taters and

pork-chops hot, an' thar's plenty o' cold buttermilk.”

“I don't want anything,” he said, impatiently, and even roughly.

“I couldn't swallow a bite to save my life--not to save my life, I

couldn't!”

Her hands on her hips, Amanda stared down at him. “This ain't a-goin' to

do, Paul,” she gently protested. “This ain't no time for you to pout an'

be cranky. You are our only man now. Yore ma's shet up in her room with

a mad cryin' spell every half-hour, an' I have to lay down my work an'

run, pacify, an' pet 'er. She's got all sorts o' finicky notions in 'er

head that folks are a-talkin' about her an' a certain party. She heard

'em a-laughin' in thar jest now, an' actually started in to give 'em a

piece o' 'er mind. I got to 'er in time--thank the Lord! She's now in

bed cryin' like 'er heart is broke.”

“Huh, I see, I see!” Paul sniffed. “An' well she may be afraid o' talk,

an' _you_ too, for bringing her up as you have. Folks say she's jest a

doll, and she is--she is, and a fool flimsy one at that!”

“I ain't a-goin' to listen to you, boy,” Amanda broke in, firmly. “You

are too young an' inexperienced to talk that way about the woman that

fetched you into the world an' gave you what life you got. If your ma

was petted an' sp'ilt, that was _my_ fault, not her'n, an' bein' sp'ilt

only makes sech things as this go harder with 'er. If her an' yore pa

wasn't the most lovin' match that could be imagined, that wasn't her

fault, nor his'n either. God made 'em both, an' for all I know He may

have fetched 'em together, an' in makin' a mess o' that He didn't act no

wuss than in lettin' some other folks--folks that I know about--live a

lifetime without _any_ sort o' try at the game. Now, jest shet up, an'

he'p me tote this sad thing through. I got to go set the table for them

folks, an' then I'll slide into bed. Whar do you intend to sleep? That's

what I wanted to see you about. That crowd has got yore room. I can lay

you a pallet down on the floor in the kitchen. It would be sort o' hard,

but--”

“I'm going to stay outside,” he told her. “I'm going down to the

haystack. The house is too hot, anyway; I couldn't go to sleep in there

with all that ding-dong and racket.”

“Well, I'm goin' in,” answered Amanda, who was really not listening to

his observations. “It won't hurt you to sleep out once on such a warm

night, anyway, an' they _are_ making' a lot o' noise. They don't get

many such chances through the year. It is the fust time I've fixed

for young folks in a long time. Thar's one pair in thar”--Amanda

tittered--“that will set up housekeepin' inside o' six months. Mark my

predictions. I ketched 'em a-huggin' on the front steps as I come out.”

When his aunt left him Paul threw himself back on the grass and gazed

up at the sky and the far-off blinking stars. How unreal seemed the dead

face and stark form of his father as he had last looked upon it! Could

it be actually all that was left of the gentle, kindly and patient

parent who had always been so dear? Whence had flown the soft, halting

voice, the flash of the eye, the only caressing touch Paul had ever

known? That--that thing in there boxed and ready for burial was all

there ever was, or ever could be again, of a wonderfully appealing

personality, and to-morrow even that would sink out of sight forever and

forever.

There was an audible footfall at the fence near the farther side of

the cottage. Paul sat up and stared through the semi-darkness. It was a

tall, slender figure of a man in a broad-brimmed hat. He was cautiously

moving along the fence, as if trying to look into the room where the

corpse lay. Suddenly a stream of light from within fell on his face. It

was Jeff Warren. Paul sprang to his feet and stood panting, his muscles

drawn.

“Don't, don't!” a voice within him seemed to caution him. “Not now--not

now! Be ashamed!” At this juncture some one called out in a low, subdued

tone:

“Is that you, Jeff?”

“Yes, Andy. Kin I come in thar with you all?”

“I dunno; wait a minute, Jeff.” Andrew Warner emerged from the shadow

of the house and advanced to the fence. “I railly don't believe I would,

Jeff, if I was you. We've got a-plenty, an' they all intend to spend the

night.”

“I see, I see. Well, I didn't know how you was fixed, an' I heard you

all a-singin' clean across the bottom. Say, Andy, Mrs. Rundel ain't in

thar with you, is she?”

“No, we hain't any of us seed 'er; she's been shet up tight all day.”

There was a noticeable pause. Paul crept closer and stood behind a trunk

of an apple-tree, the branches of which, laden with unripe fruit, almost

touched the ground. He could still see the two men, and their voices

were quite audible.

“I see, I see.” Jeff Warren was speaking now. “Have you heard anybody

say--do you happen to know, Andy, how she is--takin' it?”

“Purty hard, purty hard, it looks like, Jeff. We've heard 'er cryin' an'

takin' on several times; she seems powerful upset.”

“I see, I see,” Warren repeated, and Paul saw him lean toward his

companion. “Say, Andy, I want you to do me a favor, if you will. I want

you to git Mrs. Rundel to come out here a minute--jest a minute. You

needn't let on to anybody else. The little woman must be awful troubled,

an' me an' her are powerful good friends. I reckon if you told 'er I was

out here, maybe she--”

Paul saw the other man turn his head and stand, staring irresolutely at

the house. “I can't do that, Jeff,” he was heard to say presently. “That

may be all right from the way you look at it, but I don't want no hand

in such. If I was you, I'd wait--that's all, I'd wait. Out of respect

for what folks would say or think, I'd put it off. Seems to me like

she'd want that 'erse'f--in fact, I'm shore any sensible woman would.”

“All right, Andy, all right!” Warren answered, awkwardly, as his hand

tugged at his mustache. “I was jest sorter bothered, that's all. I'll

take yore advice. I know you are a friend an' mean well. I'll go home

an' git to bed. As you say, I kin afford to wait. What surprises me is

to hear you say she's takin' on. I reckon she's sorter upset by havin' a

death in the house. Rafe was at the end o' his string, anyway; you know

that as well as I do.”

“If the poor fellow had lived he would have called you to taw,” was the

significant and yet not unfriendly reply. “The devil's light was in his

eye, Jeff. Rafe Rundel was talkin' a lot an' growin' wuss an' wuss.”

“I knowed all that, too,” Warren was heard to say. “His wife kept me

posted. Well, well, so long, Andy! I'll git to bed.”

“Not now, not now!” Paul's inner voice cautioned, as with actual lips,

and invisible hands seemed to detain him. “Wait, wait; there is plenty

of time!” He leaned against the tree and saw Warren's form disappear in

the starlight. The man's confident whistle came back on the hot, still

air as he strode along the road, becoming more and more indistinct in

the misty distance.

Paul went down to the hay-field, looking here and there for a bed to lie

upon. Presently he found a heap of freshly cut, succulent clover, full

of the crushed perfume of the white and pink blossoms, and damp and cool

with the dew. Upon this lair he sank, his tense young face upturned

to the stars. How he loathed the silly woman who had borne him! How he

detested the happy-go-lucky man who had caught her fancy! How he yearned

for the living presence of the dead! His throat felt tight. Unshed tears

seemed to trickle down within him. There was a dull aching about his

heart. Again, as in a dream, the gentle face of Ethel Mayfield came

before him. Her voice was as sweet and soothing as transcendent music.

The lovely child had said she was going to pray for him. Perhaps even

now she was doing so; and she had declared that prayers were answered.

The belief was silly. It was like an inexperienced little city girl to

entertain such thoughts, yet what she had said and the way she had said

it were strangely comforting. A fiercely fought sob broke within him.

Tears swept down his cheeks and trickled into the clover. The pain

within him lessened. He became drowsy. The vision of the child with her

beautiful hair and eyes became an airy, floating thing; the heavens

were full of sweet musical laughter. Ethel seemed to be taken up into

a sunlit cloud, and for a moment was hidden from view. Then he saw her

returning. She was not alone. Holding her hand was Ralph Rundel--Ralph

Rundel transfigured, spirit-like, and yet himself. He was full of the

glow of youth. There were no lines, no shadows in his face. His body was

erect; he was smiling at his son in a fathomless, eternal way.

“If they tell you I'm dead, don't you believe a word of it,” he said.

“For I ain't--I ain't!”

Paul awoke with a start. The moon was rising; the whole landscape was

flooded with the pale light of a reflected day. Subdued laughter and the

drone of voices came from the window of the room where the body lay.

CHAPTER XVII

|EARLY in the morning following the funeral Hoag sent Cato with a

message to Paul. There was some work to be done, and the boy was to come

at once and see about it. Mrs. Rundel, in her black dress, was near and

heard the negro speaking, but she turned indifferently into her room and

closed the door.

“Well, I'd go,” Amanda advised her nephew. “Mopin' around home like this

won't do any good. At sech a time a body ought to keep the hands an'

feet an' even the brain busy. I'd go stark crazy if I'd allow myself

to set an' brood. It seems to me that I see yore pore pa's white face

everywhar I turn, an' when I ain't seein' that I seem to hear his voice

talkin' like nothin' out o' the way had happened. I even git a whiff

o' his tobacco now an' then. Do you know, I think maybe death is made

horrible like this to warn each of us of what is ahead. Me'n you, as

little as we count on it, have got to be put away exactly like Rafe was,

an' we may not have any more notice than he had, neither. Some o' the

sanctified folks doubt whar he's gone, but I don't--much. Somehow I

can't believe that he's gone to a bad place, because he had sech a hard

time of it here for sech a long, long time. His pride was cut to the

quick, an' he had a lot more o' that than most folks knowed about. Of

course, you can't remember his young sparkin' days like I do. He used to

dress as fine as a fiddle an' held his head powerful high; but time, an'

poverty, an' trouble, an' one thing or other, kept pullin' it down an'

down, till it struck the pillow he died on. Well, well, he's gone, an'

we 'll miss 'im. I shall, I know, for I already do, an' they say the

worst time ain't always right after the buryin'. Thar's always a stir

and excitement over puttin' a person away that keeps you from lookin'

the thing square in the face.”

Fires of anger and resentment were smoldering in the boy's breast,

but he said nothing, and turned down the road to Hoag's. He found the

planter moving about in the bark-strewn tan-yard between the vats, the

black contents of which were on a level with the ground. He was giving

blunt orders to three or four negroes who were piling up and sorting out

a great heap of green hides. The day was dry and hot, and a disagreeable

odor of decaying flesh was on the still air. He noticed Paul, and

carelessly nodded, but for a moment was too busy to speak to him. He

held a note-book in his hand, in which he had found some mistakes of

record and calculations. They were his own errors, but he was no less

angry for that. Finally he approached Paul, and as he moved was actively

scratching, erasing, stabbing the paper with his pencil, and muttering

oaths.

“How the hell can I do head-work,” he growled, giving the boy a blazing

glance, “an' have to watch these black devils like a hawk all the time?

The minute my back is turned they set down an' sulk an' shirk. They

need a thousand lashes on their bare backs. That's the only thing they

understand. Look how that whelp, Sambo, is skulkin'. I hit 'im with a

piece o' plank just now, an' he thinks he's threatening me. Huh! I know

'em from the ground up. Did Cato tell you I wanted to see you?”

“Yes, an' I come right over,” Paul stolidly replied.

Hoag closed his note-book, keeping the pencil between the leaves, and

thrust it into his pocket. “I saw you comin' back from the graveyard

yesterday, an' I decided I'd try to find regular work for you. I kin

always depend on you gittin' a job done, an' that's sayin' a lot. You

hain't got a lazy bone in your body, if I do say it, an' it will be the

makin' of you in the long run. Now, my mill-race has washed in till the

flow is gittin' sluggish an' thin. The bottom of it, for fully a quarter

of a mile, has got to be shoveled out an' lowered to an even grade. It

will take you a month at least, but it will be regular work. The dam's

all right, so we don't have to bother with that. I want you to come over

every day after breakfast, an' then go to my house for yore dinner. It

will save you the walk home, an' you kin git in more time. How would you

like the job at the old wages?”

“I'm willin',” Paul answered, listlessly.

“Well, pick you out a spade in the tool-house right now, an' go to the

dam an' begin to work toward the mill. The mill's shut down, an' the

race bed's just wet enough to make the shovelin' soft. Some o' the banks

are purty steep an' you 'll have to throw purty high, but you are equal

to it.”

Paul went at once to the mill-dam. The work was really arduous, but the

spot was shaded by thickly foliaged trees, and the shallow water, in

which he stood in his bare feet, cooled his blood. Bending under his

heavy implement filled with the heavier mud he worked like a machine,

the sweat streaming from him, and constantly conscious of that strange,

aching vacancy in his heart which nothing could fill.

At noon he put down his spade and went to Hoag's, as he had often done

before, for his lunch. No one else was in the dining-room, and Mrs.

Tilton brought him his dinner, putting it before him in a gentle,

motherly way.

“I told Aunt Dilly to let me wait on you,” she said, a note of sympathy

creeping into her voice. “I was sorry I couldn't get out to the funeral

yesterday. I've got Jackie to watch now, an' he's just gettin' on his

feet, after his spell. His mother ain't a bit well, either; she ain't

touched hardly a bite since he was so bad off. I think she ought to go

to Atlanta to consult a special doctor, but Jim won't hear to it. He

says, when a body gits too sick for home treatment their natural time's

come, anyway, an' the money would be throwed away. I wish I could tell

you how sorry I am about your pa. I know how much you both thought of

each other. La, he used to come here while you was choppin' wood on the

mountain, an' set in the kitchen door an' talk an' talk with tears in

his old eyes about how sorry he was not to be stronger, so you wouldn't

have to work so hard. He said you was the best boy that ever lived. Now,

I'm just goin' to shet up,” Mrs. Tilton said, regretfully. “I see you

are about to cry.” She went to the window quickly and looked out into

the yard. “I see Jackie makin' his mud-pies. Oh,” she turned to Paul,

“thar's something I wanted to say. You left your gun here t'other day.

It's loaded, an' I don't like to see it around. Jackie might git hold of

it. I wish you would take it home.”

“I'll take it to work with me now,” Paul promised, “and take it home

from there.”

Paul toiled diligently that afternoon till the sun was down. He had just

come out of the water, put on his shoes, and with his gun under his arm

was starting home, when Hoag appeared on the embankment of the race and

surveyed the work which had been done.

“Good, good; prime, prime!” he said, approvingly. “You've done as much

as a couple of buck niggers would have done in twice the time. Keep

up that lick an' you 'll reach the sluice earlier than I counted on. I

won't split hairs with you on the pay for this job. If it goes through

at this rate I'll tack on something extra.”

Paul said nothing. He tried to feel grateful for the praise he had

received, but he was too tired in body and mind to care for anything.

Throughout the long day he had constantly deliberated over the thought

that it would now be impossible for him to continue the life he was

leading. With the death of his father his heart and soul seemed to have

died.

Hoag joined him as he walked homeward, the gun under his arm.

“I could see the graveyard from the hill yesterday,” he remarked, “an'

I picked you out in the bunch. You looked powerfully lonely, an' the

thought struck me that you was about the only real mourner. Women don't

grieve for any but their own babies, an' them two from your house would

have acted about the same at any other funeral. I was sorry for your

daddy, Paul. He never made much headway in the world, but he deserved

a better shake o' the dice. In his last days he toted an awful load.

He used to talk purty free to me--just like a child would at times. He

talked purty plain to _me_, I reckon, because he knowed I hain't a

speck o' use for the damn snake-in-the-grass that was takin' sech a low,

underhanded advantage of him behind his back. You needn't repeat this;

I'm tellin' it just to you in private. If--you see, Paul--if it ever

does come to words betwixt me an' Jeff Warren, I'll have to shoot 'im as

I would a dog, an' a thing like that is troublesome, especially when I

look on 'im as mud under my feet. I'd hate to have to stand trial for

killin' a puppy, an' the law would demand _some_ form-o' settlement..

Your pa would have killed 'im if he lived. I was lookin' for it every

day; he was lyin' low for his chance. Preachers, slobberin' revivalists,

an' fools like old Tye will talk to you about turnin' the other cheek;

but the great, all-important first law of life is to fight for what you

git, hold on to it when you git it, an' mash hell out of everything that

tries to run over you. That's been my rule, an' it works like a charm.

If I'd been your daddy I'd have shot that dirty whelp two months ago.”

They had reached the point _where_ their ways parted. The gray twilight

was thickening. Hoag's big white house gleamed through the trees

surrounding it. There were lights in the kitchen and diningroom. All

Nature seemed preparing for sleep. The tinkling of sheep and cow bells

came drowsily to the ear; the church-bell, a creaking, cast-iron affair,

was ringing for the singing-class to meet.

“Well, so long,” Hoag finished, with a wave of his fat hand in the dusk.

“Set in bright an' early in the momin' an' let's see how many yards

you'll wipe out before sundown.”

Paul walked on, so weary now that the gun he was carrying almost slipped

from his inert arm. Presently his own home came into view, beyond the

field of corn. Ralph Rundel had planted and hoed so feebly. Paul's heart

sank into the very ooze of despair. How incongruous was the thought that

his father would not be at the gate to meet him, as had been his habit

for so many years! The boy stopped in a corner of the rail fence at the

roadside and leaned on his gun. An indescribable pain, which was at once

physical and mental, had his whole young being in a crushing grasp. The

kitchen door was open, and the red logs of an open fire shone out on the

sward about the house. Tree-frogs were snarling, fireflies were flashing

here and there over the dewy meadows like tiny, short-lived meteors.

Paul heaved a sigh, stifled a groan, bit his lip, and trudged on.

As he got nearer to the house, he suddenly became aware of the fact that

two figures, that of a man and a woman, were standing at the bars of

the barnyard. He recognized the white-clad form on the inside as his

mother's. The tall, slender man with the broad hat and square shoulders

was Jeff Warren--that would have been plain even if his voice in some

indistinct utterance had not been heard. The blood of fury, goaded to

the point of insanity, raged within the youth. He felt its close, hot

pressure above his eyes, and a red veil fell before his sight. Hoag's

recent words rang in his ears. Revenge, revenge! Yes, that was the only

thing worth having. Paul bent lower. His gun trailed the ground like the

gun of a pioneer hunter. He crept silently forward, keeping the fence

between him and the pair, till he was close enough to overhear the

colloquy. It was Jeff Warren's voice and his suave, daredevil tone.

“Oh, I know the boy hates me. I've seed it in the little scamp's

face many a time. Rafe must 'a' put 'im up to it when his mind was so

flighty; but we'll straighten him out between us when we git things

runnin' smooth. He'll think I'm a rip-snortin' stepdaddy when _I_ git

through with 'im.”

The hot pressure on Paul's brain increased. Pausing in a corner of

the fence, he grasped his gun in both hands and cocked it with tense,

determined fingers. His father's dead face rose before him. It seemed

to smile approvingly. Hoag's words came to him like the advice of an

oracle. He strained his ears to hear what his mother was saying, but

her low utterance failed to reach him. Jeff Warren was turning away, his

broad hat gallantly swung toward the ground.

“Well, I'll see you ag'in 'fore long,” he said merrily. “I know how you

feel, but all that will soon wear off. We kin wait a decent time, but

I'm in the race, I tell you. I'll talk all them notions out o' your

purty head.”

Paul saw his mother vanish in the dusk, and, merrily intoning the tune

of a hymn, Warren came on toward Paul. On he Strode, still swinging his

hat. Paul heard him softly chuckling.

“Halt, you dirty coward!” Paul cried, as he stepped in front of him, the

gun leveled at the broad chest.

“What--what? Good God!” Warren gasped. “Put down that gun, you young

fool! Drop it, I say, or I'll--”

Warren was about to spring forward as the only means of self-protection,

but before he could do so there was a flash, a ringing report, a puff of

smoke, and with a groan Warren bent forward, his hands on his breast.

He swayed back and forth, groaning. He reeled, tottered sideways, made a

strenuous effort to keep erect, then fell forward, gasping audibly, and

lay still.

Paul lowered his gun, and for a moment stood looking at the fallen man.

His blood was wildly beating in his heart and brain. There was a barking

of dogs far and near. Glancing toward the house, he noticed the forms of

his mother and aunt framed by the kitchen doorway, the firelight behind

them.

“It may be somebody shootin' bats”--Amanda's voice held a distinct note

of alarm--“but I was shore I heard somebody speak sharp-like just before

the shot was fired. Let's run down thar an' look.”

They dropped out of sight. Paul heard the patter of their feet, knew

they were coming, and, for no reason which he could fathom, he retreated

in the direction from which he had come. As if in a flash he caught and

held the idea that, having done his duty, he would turn himself over

to an officer of the law, as he had read of men doing in similar

circumstances.

He had gone only a few hundred yards when he heard the two women

screaming loudly; and why he did so he could not have explained, but he

quickened his gait into a slow, bewildered sort of trot, the gun

still in his hands. Perhaps it was due to the thought that he wanted

voluntarily to give himself up before any one should accuse him of

trying to flee. He was nearing Hoag's barn, and thinking of making a

short cut to the village across the fields, when a man suddenly burst

from the thicket at the side of the road and faced him. It was Hoag

himself.

“Hold thar!” he cried, staring through the dusk at Paul. “What's

all that screamin' mean? I heard a gun go off, an' rememberin' that

you--say, did you--Good God! What you comin' back this way for?”

“I've killed Jeff Warren,” Paul answered, calmly. “I'm goin' to Grayson

to give myself up.”

“Good Lord, you don't say--why, why--” Hoag's voice trailed away into

silence, silence broken only by the voices of the two women in the

distance calling for help.

“Yes, I shot 'im--you know why; you yourself said--”

Hoag suddenly laid a trembling hand on Paul's arm. The boy had never

seen his employer turn pale before, or show so much agitation. “Looky'

here, you didn't go an'--an' do that because I--on account o' anything

_I_ said. Shorely you didn't--shorely you didn't! Come into the thicket,

quick! Folks will be passin' here in a minute. Them fool women will rip

the'r lungs out. Say, you didn't really _kill_ 'im, did you--actually

kill 'im?”

Paul avoided his eyes. “You go back there an' see if I didn't,” he said,

doggedly.

Hoag stared incredulously for a moment, then, with a firm grip on Paul's

arm, he drew him deeper into the thicket.

“Something's got to be done,” he panted. “If you give yourself up for

trial they will worm out o' you that I said--that I was talkin' to you,

an'--Looky' here, boy, do you know what this means? Are you plumb out o'

your senses?”

“I don't care _what_ it means,” Paul retorted. “I've put _him_ out o'

the way for good and all.”

“Good Lord, you are a cool un! Wait here; don't stir! I'll come back.

I'll run down thar to make sure.”

Hoag moved excitedly toward the road. He had just reached it when a man

came running past at full speed in the direction of the village. “Hold,

hold!” Hoag cried. “What's wrong?”

The runner slackened his speed a little; but did not stop. It was Abe

Langston.

“Somebody's shot Jeff Warren down thar by the fence. He's as dead as a

door-nail. I'm goin' to send out the alarm an' git the sheriff.”

In a cloud of self-raised dust Langston dashed away. Hoag stood

hesitating for a moment, then turned back to Paul, finding him seated

on the decaying trunk of a fallen tree, the gun resting on his slender

knees. Hoag stood before him.

“You've got to git out o' this,” he panted, excitedly. “You've done a

thing that the court will hold you responsible for. I ain't sure you was

justified nohow. The fellow was just in love, that's all. A jury will

call it unprovoked, cold-blood, deliberate, what-not. You ain't in no

fix to fight it, an' you'd be a plumb idiot to stay here an' let 'em lay

hold of you.' The only sensible thing for you to do is to show a clean

pair o' heels, an' git out for good an' all. You don't seem overly

satisfied here with them women on your hands nohow, an' the world is big

and wide. I don't want my name used--_mind that_. If you _do_ git caught

an' fetched back, I hope you'll have the decency not to lug me an'

this advice in even under oath. I'm tryin' to help you. Make a bee-line

through the mountains to North Carolina an' board the first train.

Throw that gun down. Don't be caught red-handed; it would be a plumb

give-away.”

“What's the use?” Paul shifted his feet, and raised his sullen eyes.

“Thar's a heap o' use,” Hoag returned, impatiently. “You may not think

so now, but you will after you've laid in that dang dirty jail in town,

an' been tuck to court to be gazed at by the public, with no money to

pay fees with, no friends on hand, an' nothin' before you but to be hung

by the neck till you are dead, dead, dead. Take my advice. Git away off

some'r's in the world, change your name, burn yore bridges behind you,

an' start life 'new all for yoreself without any load like the one

you've always had like a millstone round your neck.”

Paul rose to his feet, rested the stock of his gun on the trunk of the

tree; he looked off through the twilight wistfully.

“You really think that would be best?” he faltered.

“It certainly will, if you kin manage to git away,” Hoag said. “Why, if

you stay here, you will be in a damn sight wuss fix than the skunk you

shot. He's out o' _his_ trouble, but if you stay here yours will just be

beginnin'.”

“Well, I'll go,” Paul consented. “I can get away all right. I know the

woods and mountains.”

“Well, throw your gun down behind that log an make off. Say, if they

press you hard on your way through the country, an' you find yourself

near the farms of Tad Barton, Press Talcot, Joe Thomas, or old man

Jimmy Webb, say this to 'em--tell 'em I said--No, I won't give you no

password. I haven't got the right to do it without due form. It's ag'in'

the rules; but you tell either of 'em that I said put you out of sight,

give you grub or a place to sleep, an' that I said pass you along to

the railroad. Got any money? Here is five dollars. I owe you that much,

anyway, and it's all I happen to have in my pocket. Now, you hit the

grit.”

Paul took the money and indifferently thrust it into his pocket. Hoag

held out his hand. “I don't want you to go away with the idea that I

had anything much ag'in' the feller you shot; that's done away with now.

We've had one or two little scraps, but they didn't amount to anything.

Say”--Hoag pointed to the creek--“if I was you I'd wade along that

watercourse for a mile or two. The sheriff might take a notion to put

bloodhounds on your track, an' the stream will wash away the scent.

Good-by. Make the best of it. I'd ask you to drop me a line, but that

wouldn't be safe for me or you either. Cut this section clean out--it's

been tough on you, anyway. You can make a livin'. You've got a great

head on you for learnin'--I've heard plenty o' sensible folk say so.

Good-by.” They parted. Hoag went deliberately toward the constantly

growing group where Jeff Warren had fallen. He had almost reached it

when he met Aunt Dilly, who had been anxiously inquiring for him. She

was whimpering and wiping her eyes on her apron.

“Oh, Marse Hoag,” she cried, “I'se been searchin' fer you everwhar. Dey

want you up at de house right off.”

“Want me? What's the matter?”

“I dunno, suh; but Miz Hoag drapped off ter sleep-like in 'er chair, en

her ma cayn't wake 'er up. Cato done run fer de doctor. Suppen's wrong,

suh, suppen powerful wrong. Hit don't look lak des er faintin' spell.”

Hoag stifled an oath of impatience, glanced at the silent group,

hesitated a moment, and then turned homeward. At the gate he saw Mrs.

Tilton waving her hands wildly in a signal for him to hurry.

“She's dead!” she sobbed. “She's growing cold.” Hoag passed through the

gate which she held open.

“Keep the baby away,” he said. “There is no use lettin' 'im look at her.

He's too young to--to see a thing like that.”

II

CHAPTER I

|SEVEN years passed. It was early summer.

Externally James Hoag had changed. He was a heavier man; his movements

were more sluggish, his hair was turning white, his face was wrinkled

and had the brown splotches indicative of a disordered liver. There was

on him, at times, a decided nervousness which he more or less frankly,

according to mood, attributed to his smoking too much at night and the

habit of tippling. He had grown more irritable and domineering. Beneath

the surface, at least, he had strongly objected to his mother-in-law's

continuing to look to him for support after her daughter's death. But

Mrs. Tilton had told him quite firmly that she now had only one duty in

life, and that was the care of her grandchild, Jack; and Hoag, quick,

harsh, and decided in his dealings with others, knew no way of refusing.

He had really thought of marrying again; but the intimate presence of

the mother-in-law and his inability to quite make up his mind as to

which particular woman of his acquaintance could be trusted not to have

motives other than a genuine appreciation of himself had delayed the

step. Indeed, he had given the subject much thought, but objections

more or less real had always arisen. The girl was too young, pretty, and

spoiled by the attention of younger and poorer men, or the woman was too

old, too plain, too settled, or too wise in the ways of the world. So

Hoag had all but relinquished the thought, and if he had any heart he

gave it to Jack, for whom he still had a remarkable paternal passion,

as for his son Henry he still had little love or sympathy. For the last

three or four years he had regarded Henry as an idle fellow who would

never succeed in anything.

The “klan” of which Hoag was still the leader continued to hold its

secret meetings, framed crude laws under his dictation, and inflicted

grim and terrible punishment. And these men honestly believed their

method to be more efficacious than the too tardy legal courts of the

land.

Hoag had been to one of these meetings in a remote retreat in the

mountains one moonlit night, and about twelve o'clock was returning.

He was just entering the gate of his stable-yard when his attention

was attracted to the approach along the road of a man walking toward

Grayson, a traveler's bag in his hand. It was an unusual thing at that

hour, and, turning his horse loose in the yard, Hoag went back to

the gate and leaned on it, curiously and even officiously eying the

approaching pedestrian. As the man drew nearer, lightly swinging his

bag, Hoag remarked the easy spring in his stride, and noted that he was

singing softly and contentedly. He was sure the man was a stranger, for

he saw nothing familiar in the figure as to dress, shape, or movement.

“Must be a peddler in some line or other,” he said to himself; “but a

funny time o' night to be out on a lonely road like this.”

It would have been unlike Hoag to have let the pedestrian pass without

some sort of greeting, and, closing the gate, he stepped toward the

center of the road and stood waiting.

“Good evening,” he said, when the man was quite close to him.

“Good evening.” The stranger looked up suddenly, checking his song,

and stared at Hoag steadily in apparent surprise. Then he stopped and

lowered his bag to the ground. “I wonder,” he said, “if this is--can

this possibly be Mr. Jim Hoag?”

“That's who it is,” was the calm reply; “but I don't know as I've ever

laid eyes on you before.”

“Oh yes, you have.” The stranger laughed almost immoderately. “You look

closely, Mr. Hoag, and you'll recognize a chap you haven't seen in many

a long, long year.”

Hoag took the tall, well-built young man in from head to foot. He was

well and stylishly dressed, wore a short, silky beard, and had brown

eyes and brown hair. Hoag dubiously shook his head.

“You've got the best o' me,” he said, slowly. “I'm good at recollectin'

faces, as a rule, too; but my sight ain't what it used to be, an' then

bein' night-time--”

“It was after dark the last time you saw me, Mr. Hoag.” The stranger

was extending his hand and smiling. “Surely you haven't forgotten Ralph

Rundel's son Paul?”

“Paul Rundel--good Lord!” Hoag took the extended hand clumsily, his eyes

dilating. “It can't be--why, why, I thought you was dead an' done for

long ago. I've thought many a time that I'd try to locate you. You

see, after advisin' you--after tellin' you, as I did that night, that I

thought you ought to run away, why, I sort o' felt--”

Hoag seemed unable to voice his train of thought and slowed up to an

awkward pause.

“Yes, I know--I understand,” Paul Rundel said, his face falling into

seriousness, his voice full and earnest. “I know I'm late about it;

but it is better to be late than never when you intend to do the right

thing. I committed a crime, Mr. Hoag, and the kind of a crime that can't

be brushed out of a man's conscience by any sort of process. I've fought

the hardest battle that any man of my age ever waged. For years I tried

to follow your advice, and live my life in my own way, but I failed

utterly. I started out fair, but it finally got me down. I saw I had to

do the right thing, and I am here for that purpose.”

“You don't mean--you can't mean,” Hoag stammered, “that you think--that

you actually _believe_--”

“I mean exactly what I say.” The young, bearded face was all

seriousness. “I stood it, I tell you, as long as I could in my own way,

and finally made up my mind that I'd let God Almighty take me in hand.

It was like sweating blood, but I got to it. In my mind, sleeping and

waking, I've stood on the scaffold a thousand times, anyway, and now,

somehow, I don't dread it a bit--not a bit. It would take a long time to

explain it, Mr. Hoag, but I mean what I say. There is only one thing I

dread, and that is a long trial. I'm going to plead guilty and let them

finish me as soon as possible. I want to meet the man I killed face to

face in the Great Beyond and beg his pardon in the presence of God. Then

I will have done as much of my duty as is possible at such a late day.”

“Oh, I see!” Hoag fancied he understood. One of his old shrewd looks

stoic into his visage. If Paul Rundel thought he was as easily taken

in as that, he had mistaken his man, that was certain. Hoag put his big

hand to his mouth and crushed out an expanding smile, the edge of which

showed itself' in his twinkling eyes. “Oh, I see,” he said, with the

sort of seduction he used in his financial dealings; “you hain't heard

nothin' from here since you went off--nothin' at all?”

“Not a word, Mr. Hoag, since I left you down there seven years ago,” was

the reply. “I must have walked thirty miles that night through the worst

up-and-down country in these mountains before day broke. I struck a band

of horse-trading gipsies at sun-up in the edge of North Carolina, and

they gave me breakfast. They were moving toward the railroad faster than

I could walk. I was completely fagged out, and they took pity on me and

let me lie down on some straw and quilts in one of their vans. I slept

soundly nearly all day. I wasn't afraid of being caught; in fact, I

didn't care much one way or the other. I was sick at heart, blue and

morbid. I suppose conscience was even then getting in its work.”

“I see.” Hoag was studying the young man's face, voice, and manner in

growing perplexity. There was something so penetratingly sincere about

the fellow. Hoag had heard of men being haunted by conscience till they

would, of their own volition, give themselves up for punishment, but he

had never regarded such things as possible, and he refused to be misled

now. “Then you took a train?” he said, like a close cross-questioner.

“You took the train?”

“Yes, I left the gipsies at Randal's Station, on the B: A. & L., and

slipped into an unlocked boxcar bound for the West. It was an awful

trip; but after many ups and downs I reached Portland in about as sad a

plight as a boy of my age could well be in. I found work as a printer's

devil on a newspaper. From that I began to set type. I studied hard at

night, and finally got to be an editorial writer. You see, I kept myself

out of view as much as possible--stayed at my boardinghouse from dark

till morning, and, having access to a fine library, I read to--to kill

time and keep my mind off my crime.”

“Your _crime?_ Oh, you mean that you thought--”

“I couldn't possibly get away from it, Mr. Hoag.” Paul's voice quivered,

and he drew his slender hand across his eyes. “Night or day, dark or

light, Jeff Warren was always before me. I've seen him reel, stagger,

and fall, and heard him groan millions and millions of times. It

would take all night to tell you about those awful years of sin and

remorse--that soul-racking struggle to defy God, which simply had to

end, and did end, only a few days ago. When I left here I believed as

you did about spiritual things, Mr. Hoag, and I thought I could live my

life out as I wished, but I know better now. My experience during those

seven years would convince any infidel on earth that God is in every

atom of matter in the universe. The human being does not live who will

not, sooner or later, bow down under this truth--if not here, he will in

the Great Beyond.”

“Bosh!” Hoag growled, his heavy brows meeting in a fierce frown of

displeasure.

“Oh, I see you still think as you used to think,”

Paul went on, regretfully; “but you'll come to it some day--you'll come

to it in God's own good time. It is a satisfaction to me to know that I

am giving you a proof of _my_ reformation, anyway. You know, if you will

stop to think about it, Mr. Hoag, that I am giving vital proof that I,

at least, am convinced or I would not be willing to give my life up

like this. It isn't hard to die when you know you are dying to fulfil

a wonderful divine law; in fact, to mend a law which you yourself have

broken!”

“I don't know what you are trying to git at, an' I don't care,” Hoag

blustered. “I don't know what your present object is, what sort of an

ax you got to grind; but I'll tell you what I think, Paul, an' you kin

smoke it in your pipe if you want to. Somebody round here has kept you

posted. You know how the land lays, an' have made up your mind to turn

preacher, I reckon--if you ain't already one--an' you think it will be

a fine card to make these damn fools here in the backwoods think you

really _was_ ready to go to the scaffold, an' the like o' that. But

the truth will leak out. Sooner or later folks--even the silliest of

'em--will git onto your game. You can't look _me_ square in the eye,

young man, an' tell _me_ that you don't know Jeff Warren didn't die, an'

that when he married your mammy an' moved away the case ag'in' you was

dismissed. Huh, I ain't as green as a gourd!”

Paul started, stared incredulously at the speaker, his mouth falling

open till his white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. He leaned forward,

his breath coming and going audibly, his broad chest swelling. He laid

his hand on Hoag's shoulder and bore down on it heavily. Hoag felt

it quivering as if it were charged with an electric current. Paul

was trying to speak, trying to be calm. He swallowed; his lips moved

automatically; he put his disengaged hand on Hoag's other shoulder and

forced him to look at him. He shook him. In his face was the light of a

great nascent joy.

“Don't say he's alive unless--my God, unless it's true!” he cried,

shaking Hoag again. “That would be the act of a fiend in human shape.

I couldn't stand it. Speak, speak, speak, man! Don't you understand?

Speak! Is it true--is it possible that--” Paul's voice broke in a great

welling sob of excitement and his quivering head began to sink.

Hoag was quite taken aback. This was genuine; of that he was convinced.

“Thar's no use gittin' so worked up,” he said. “Jeff is sound an' well.

I'm sorry I talked like I did, for I see you must 'a' been in the dark,

an'--”

He went no further. Paul had removed his hands. A light was on his face

that seemed superhuman. He raised his eyes to the sky. He swerved toward

the side of the road like a man entranced till he reached the fence, and

there he rested his head on his arms and stood bowed, still, and silent.

“Huh, this is a purty pickle!” Hoag said to himself. He stood nonplussed

for several minutes, and then advanced to Paul, treading the ground

noiselessly till he was close to him. And then he heard the young man

muttering an impassioned prayer.

“I thank thee, O God, I thank thee! O, blessed Father! O, merciful

Creator, this--this is thy reward!”

Hoag touched him on the shoulder, and Paul turned his eyes upon him,

which were full of exultant tears. “Say,” Hoag proposed, kindly enough,

“thar ain't no need o' you goin' on to Grayson to-night. The hotel ain't

runnin' this summer, nohow. Pete Kerr an' his wife closed it for a month

to go off on a trip. I've got a big, cool room in my house that ain't

occupied. Stay with me as long as you like. We are sort o' old friends,

an' you are entirely welcome. I'd love the best in the world to have

you.”

“It is very good of you.” Paul was calmer now, though his countenance

was still aglow with its supernal light. “I really am very tired. I've

walked ten miles--all the way from Darby Crossroads. The hack broke

down there a little after dark, and as I wanted to give myself up before

morning--before meeting anybody--I came on afoot. The driver was a new

man, and so he had no idea of who I was or what my intentions were. Oh,

Mr. Hoag, you can't imagine how I feel. You have given me such a great

joy. I know I am acting like a crazy man, but I can't help it. It is so

new, so fresh--so glorious!”

“The _whole thing_ seems crazy to me,” said Hoag, with a return of his

old bluntness; “but that's neither here nor thar. You seem to be in

earnest. Pick up yore valise an' let's go in the house.”

“Are you sure you have room for me?” Paul asked, as he went for his bag.

“Plenty, plenty. My sister, Mrs. Mayfield, an' Ethel, from Atlanta--you

remember them--they are spending the summer here, as they always do

now. They went to Atlanta yesterday--some o' their kin is sick--Jennie

Buford. They will be back tomorrow by dinner-time. But when they come

you needn't stir. We've got plenty o' room. You are welcome to stay as

long as you like. I want to talk to you about the West.”