The miracle had happened. The Tollivers, following the Red Fox's advice
to make no attempt at rescue just then, had waited, expecting the old
immunity from the law and getting instead the swift sentence that Rufe
Tolliver should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Astounding and
convincing though the news was, no mountaineer believed he would ever
hang, and Rufe himself faced the sentence defiant. He laughed when he
was led back to his cell:
“I'll never hang,” he said scornfully. They were the first words that
came from his lips, and the first words that came from old Judd's when
the news reached him in Lonesome Cove, and that night old Judd gathered
his clan for the rescue--to learn next morning that during the night
Rufe had been spirited away to the capital for safekeeping until the
fatal day. And so there was quiet for a while--old Judd making ready for
the day when Rufe should be brought back, and trying to find out who it
was that had slain his brother Dave. The Falins denied the deed, but old
Judd never questioned that one of them was the murderer, and he came out
openly now and made no secret of the fact that he meant to have revenge.
And so the two factions went armed, watchful and wary--especially the
Falins, who were lying low and waiting to fulfil a deadly purpose of
their own. They well knew that old Judd would not open hostilities on
them until Rufe Tolliver was dead or at liberty. They knew that the
old man meant to try to rescue Rufe when he was brought back to jail or
taken from it to the scaffold, and when either day came they themselves
would take a hand, thus giving the Tollivers at one and the same time
two sets of foes. And so through the golden September days the two clans
waited, and June Tolliver went with dull determination back to her old
life, for Uncle Billy's sister had left the house in fear and she
could get no help--milking cows at cold dawns, helping in the kitchen,
spinning flax and wool, and weaving them into rough garments for her
father and step-mother and Bub, and in time, she thought grimly--for
herself: for not another cent for her maintenance could now come from
John Hale, even though he claimed it was hers--even though it was in
truth her own. Never, but once, had Hale's name been mentioned in the
cabin--never, but once, had her father referred to the testimony that
she had given against Rufe Tolliver, for the old man put upon Hale the
fact that the sheriff had sneaked into his house when he was away and
had taken June to Court, and that was the crowning touch of bitterness
in his growing hatred for the captain of the guard of whom he had once
been so fond.
“Course you had to tell the truth, baby, when they got you there,” he
said kindly; “but kidnappin' you that-a-way--” He shook his great bushy
head from side to side and dropped it into his hands.
“I reckon that damn Hale was the man who found out that you heard Rufe
say that. I'd like to know how--I'd like to git my hands on the feller
as told him.”
June opened her lips in simple justice to clear Hale of that charge, but
she saw such a terrified appeal in her step-mother's face that she
kept her peace, let Hale suffer for that, too, and walked out into her
garden. Never once had her piano been opened, her books had lain unread,
and from her lips, during those days, came no song. When she was not
at work, she was brooding in her room, or she would walk down to Uncle
Billy's and sit at the mill with him while the old man would talk in
tender helplessness, or under the honeysuckle vines with old Hon, whose
brusque kindness was of as little avail. And then, still silent, she
would get wearily up and as quietly go away while the two old friends,
worried to the heart, followed her sadly with their eyes. At other times
she was brooding in her room or sitting in her garden, where she was
now, and where she found most comfort--the garden that Hale had planted
for her--where purple asters leaned against lilac shrubs that would
flower for the first time the coming spring; where a late rose
bloomed, and marigolds drooped, and great sunflowers nodded and giant
castor-plants stretched out their hands of Christ, And while June thus
waited the passing of the days, many things became clear to her: for the
grim finger of reality had torn the veil from her eyes and let her see
herself but little changed, at the depths, by contact with John Hale's
world, as she now saw him but little changed, at the depths, by contact
with hers. Slowly she came to see, too, that it was his presence in the
Court Room that made her tell the truth, reckless of the consequences,
and she came to realize that she was not leaving the mountains because
she would go to no place where she could not know of any danger that, in
the present crisis, might threaten John Hale.
And Hale saw only that in the Court Room she had drawn her skirts aside,
that she had looked at him once and then had brushed past his helping
hand. It put him in torment to think of what her life must be now,
and of how she must be suffering. He knew that she would not leave her
father in the crisis that was at hand, and after it was all over--what
then? His hands would still be tied and he would be even more helpless
than he had ever dreamed possible. To be sure, an old land deal had come
to life, just after the discovery of the worthlessness of the mine
in Lonesome Cove, and was holding out another hope. But if that, too,
should fail--or if it should succeed--what then? Old Judd had sent back,
with a curt refusal, the last “allowance” he forwarded to June and
he knew the old man was himself in straits. So June must stay in the
mountains, and what would become of her? She had gone back to her
mountain garb--would she lapse into her old life and ever again be
content? Yes, she would lapse, but never enough to keep her from being
unhappy all her life, and at that thought he groaned. Thus far he was
responsible and the paramount duty with him had been that she should
have the means to follow the career she had planned for herself outside
of those hills. And now if he had the means, he was helpless. There was
nothing for him to do now but to see that the law had its way with Rufe
Tolliver, and meanwhile he let the reawakened land deal go hang and set
himself the task of finding out who it was that had ambushed old Dave
Tolliver. So even when he was thinking of June his brain was busy on
that mystery, and one night, as he sat brooding, a suspicion flashed
that made him grip his chair with both hands and rise to pace the porch.
Old Dave had been shot at dawn, and the night before the Red Fox had
been absent from the guard and had not turned up until nearly noon next
day. He had told Hale that he was going home. Two days later, Hale heard
by accident that the old man had been seen near the place of the ambush
about sunset of the day before the tragedy, which was on his way home,
and he now learned straightway for himself that the Red Fox had not
been home for a month--which was only one of his ways of mistreating the
patient little old woman in black.
A little later, the Red Fox gave it out that he was trying to ferret out
the murderer himself, and several times he was seen near the place of
ambush, looking, as he said, for evidence. But this did not halt Hale's
suspicions, for he recalled that the night he had spent with the Red
Fox, long ago, the old man had burst out against old Dave and had
quickly covered up his indiscretion with a pious characterization of
himself as a man that kept peace with both factions. And then why had he
been so suspicious and fearful when Hale told him that night that he had
seen him talking with a Falin in town the Court day before, and had he
disclosed the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver and guided the guard to his
hiding-place simply for the reward? He had not yet come to claim it, and
his indifference to money was notorious through the hills. Apparently
there was some general enmity in the old man toward the whole Tolliver
clan, and maybe he had used the reward to fool Hale as to his real
motive. And then Hale quietly learned that long ago the Tollivers
bitterly opposed the Red Fox's marriage to a Tolliver--that Rufe, when a
boy, was always teasing the Red Fox and had once made him dance in his
moccasins to the tune of bullets spitting about his feet, and that the
Red Fox had been heard to say that old Dave had cheated his wife out of
her just inheritance of wild land; but all that was long, long ago, and
apparently had been mutually forgiven and forgotten. But it was enough
for Hale, and one night he mounted his horse, and at dawn he was at the
place of ambush with his horse hidden in the bushes. The rocks for
the ambush were waist high, and the twigs that had been thrust in the
crevices between them were withered. And there, on the hypothesis that
the Red Fox was the assassin, Hale tried to put himself, after the deed,
into the Red Fox's shoes. The old man had turned up on guard before
noon--then he must have gone somewhere first or have killed considerable
time in the woods. He would not have crossed the road, for there were
two houses on the other side; there would have been no object in going
on over the mountain unless he meant to escape, and if he had gone over
there for another reason he would hardly have had time to get to the
Court House before noon: nor would he have gone back along the road
on that side, for on that side, too, was a cabin not far away. So Hale
turned and walked straight away from the road where the walking was
easiest--down a ravine, and pushing this way and that through the bushes
where the way looked easiest. Half a mile down the ravine he came to
a little brook, and there in the black earth was the faint print of a
man's left foot and in the hard crust across was the deeper print of his
right, where his weight in leaping had come down hard. But the prints
were made by a shoe and not by a moccasin, and then Hale recalled
exultantly that the Red Fox did not have his moccasins on the morning
he turned up on guard. All the while he kept a sharp lookout, right and
left, on the ground--the Red Fox must have thrown his cartridge shell
somewhere, and for that Hale was looking. Across the brook he could see
the tracks no farther, for he was too little of a woodsman to follow so
old a trail, but as he stood behind a clump of rhododendron, wondering
what he could do, he heard the crack of a dead stick down the stream,
and noiselessly he moved farther into the bushes. His heart thumped in
the silence--the long silence that followed--for it might be a hostile
Tolliver that was coming, so he pulled his pistol from his holster, made
ready, and then, noiseless as a shadow, the Red Fox slipped past him
along the path, in his moccasins now, and with his big Winchester in his
left hand. The Red Fox, too, was looking for that cartridge shell, for
only the night before had he heard for the first time of the whispered
suspicions against him. He was making for the blind and Hale trembled
at his luck. There was no path on the other side of the stream, and Hale
could barely hear him moving through the bushes. So he pulled off his
boots and, carrying them in one hand, slipped after him, watching for
dead twigs, stooping under the branches, or sliding sidewise through
them when he had to brush between their extremities, and pausing every
now and then to listen for an occasional faint sound from the Red Fox
ahead. Up the ravine the old man went to a little ledge of rocks, beyond
which was the blind, and when Hale saw his stooped figure slip over that
and disappear, he ran noiselessly toward it, crept noiselessly to the
top and peeped carefully over to see the Red Fox with his back to him
and peering into a clump of bushes--hardly ten yards away. While
Hale looked, the old man thrust his hand into the bushes and drew out
something that twinkled in the sun. At the moment Hale's horse nickered
from the bushes, and the Red Fox slipped his hand into his pocket,
crouched listening a moment, and then, step by step, backed toward the
ledge. Hale rose:
“I want you, Red!”
The old man wheeled, the wolf's snarl came, but the big rifle was too
slow--Hale's pistol had flashed in his face.
“Drop your gun!” Paralyzed, but the picture of white fury, the old man
hesitated.
“Drop--your--gun!” Slowly the big rifle was loosed and fell to the
ground.
“Back away--turn around and hands up!”
With his foot on the Winchester, Hale felt in the old man's pockets and
fished out an empty cartridge shell. Then he picked up the rifle and
threw the slide.
“It fits all right. March--toward that horse!”
Without a word the old man slouched ahead to where the big black horse
was restlessly waiting in the bushes.
“Climb up,” said Hale. “We won't 'ride and tie' back to town--but I'll
take turns with you on the horse.”
The Red Fox was making ready to leave the mountains, for he had been
falsely informed that Rufe was to be brought back to the county seat
next day, and he was searching again for the sole bit of evidence that
was out against him. And when Rufe was spirited back to jail and was on
his way to his cell, an old freckled hand was thrust between the bars of
an iron door to greet him and a voice called him by name. Rufe stopped
in amazement; then he burst out laughing; he struck then at the pallid
face through the bars with his manacles and cursed the old man bitterly;
then he laughed again horribly. The two slept in adjoining cells of the
same cage that night--the one waiting for the scaffold and the other
waiting for the trial that was to send him there. And away over the blue
mountains a little old woman in black sat on the porch of her cabin
as she had sat patiently many and many a long day. It was time, she
thought, that the Red Fox was coming home.