When next he saw the river the lunar lustre had dulled on the currents.
No more the long lines of shimmering light trailing off into the deep
shadow of the wooded banks, no more the tremulous reflection of the moon,
swinging like some supernal craft in the great lacustrine sweep where the
stream broadens in rounding the point. Now a filmy veil was over all, yet
the night was so fine that the light filtered through the mist, and
objects were still discernible, though only vaguely visible, like the
furnishings of a dream. A rowboat was rocking on the ripples among the
boulders at the water's edge. As the child made the perilous descent in
the practised clasp of the grandfatherly Clenk, he could look up and see
the jagged portal of the cave he had left, high above the river, though
not so high as the great, tall deciduous trees waving their lofty boughs
on the summit of the cliffs. Certain grim, silent, gaunt figures,
grotesquely contorted in the mist, the child's wide blue eyes traced out,
as the other moonshiners climbed too down the rugged face of the crag,
all burdened with bundles of varying size and unimaginable
contents--food, clothing, or such appliances of their craft as the
hurried revenue raiders had chanced to overlook. The little boy must have
contended with fear in this awesome environment, the child of gentlest
nurture, but he thought he was going to his mother, or perchance he could
not have submitted with such docility, so uncomplainingly. Only when they
had reached the rocky marge of the water and he had been uncoiled from
the rug and set upon his feet did he lift his voice in protest.
Clenk had stepped into the boat and seated himself, the oars rattling
smartly in the rowlocks, the sound sharp on the misty air, as he laid
hold on them. "So far, so good," he exclaimed cheerily.
"Won't they be fur trackin' of _him_?" One of the moonshiners, whom
the child had not seen before, seemed disposed to rebuke this easy
optimism.
"What fur? They will think Bubby went over the bluff too," Clenk declared
definitely.
"There's nuthin' ter show fur it, though," Copenny joined the opposite
opinion.
"Nuthin' needed in that mixtry of horseflesh an' human carcass an'
splintered wood and leather," argued Clenk.
"Yes, they will hev ter gather up them remains in a shovel," acquiesced
Holvey.
The shadowy form of the doubter who had introduced the subject, thick-set,
stoop-shouldered, showed in its attitude that he was lowering and ill at
ease. "Waal, you-uns hev made a powerful botch of the simple little trick
of drawing a bead on a revenuer anyhow. Takin' one man fur another--I
never dreamed o' the beat! Copenny war so sure o' the man an' the mare!
_I_ never purtended to know either. Seems ter me ye oughter be willin'
ter lis'n ter reason now."
"Waal, let's hear reason, then," Copenny's sardonic falsetto tones rasped
on the air, and the little head under the broad white, gayly beribboned
hat turned up attentively, as the child stood so low down among the big
booted feet of the armed moonshiners.
"Why, how easy it would hev been ter throw su'thin' over the bluff----"
the counsellor began.
"Good Lord!" Clenk exclaimed angrily, from his seat in the boat, "ain't
ye got _no_ human feelin's, Jack Drann? We-uns never went ter shed the
innercent blood nohow. We-uns war loaded fur that tricky revenuer, an'
Edward Briscoe war kilt by mistake. An' now ye ter be talkin' 'bout
heavin' the leetle, harmless deedie over the bluff!"
"What ails yer hearin'?" retorted Drann angrily. "I said _su'thin'_--his
coat, his hat--throw _su'thin'_ over, ter make folks think he war in the
accident, too--mare run away and the whole consarn flopped bodaciously
over the bluff! They will scour the kentry fur Bubby ef thar ain't
su'thin' positive ter make them _sure_ ez he be dead, too."
Jubal Clenk, so readily cast down, meditated dolorously, as he sat still
in the boat, on this signal omission in the chain of evidence. "It would
sure hev made it all 'pear a heap mo' like an accident," he said
disconsolately. Then, with suddenly renewing hopefulness, "But 't ain't
too late yet--good many hours 'fore daylight. We kin send the coat an'
hat back an' toss them over the bluff long before it is light good."
Thus it was that the moonshiners laid hold on the boy's simple
possessions, and thus it was that Archie fought and contended for his
own. He clutched at the cuffs as Copenny dragged the sleeves over his
wrists; he held on to his hat with both hands, despite the grip of the
elastic under his chin, and he stamped and screamed in a manner that he
had heretofore known to inspire awe and respect in the nursery and disarm
authority. Alack, it had lost its efficacy now! Most of the men took no
notice whatever of his callow demonstrations of wrath, though old Clenk,
with a curious duality of mental process, laughed indulgently at his
antics of infantile rage, despite his own absorptions, his sense of
danger, his smart of loss and wreck of prospects.
It was Copenny who undertook to carry the coat and rug back to the spot,
and they willingly agreed to this on the score that he knew best the
precise locality where the catastrophe had befallen. Secretly, however,
he had resolved not to rejoin his companions at a named rendezvous, for
he had bethought himself that if all fled but him, remaining in his
accustomed home, he would necessarily avoid implication in the crime with
them. The boat had been provisioned with a view to their escape by water
when the ambush of the revenue officer had been planned, and they were
now congratulating themselves on their foresight as they prepared to
embark. Clenk had an ill-savored story to tell of the apprehension of a
malefactor through the coercion of hunger, constrained to stop and beg a
meal as he fled from justice, and Drann had known a man whose neck was
forfeited by the necessity of robbing a hen-roost, the cackling poultry
in this instance as efficient in the cause of law and order as the geese
that saved Rome. Copenny, listening sardonically, could not be thankful
for such small favors. His venture as a moonshiner at all events was, so
to speak, a side line of employ. He was trained a blacksmith, and had a
pretty fair stake in the world, according to the rating of a working-man
of this region, now in jeopardy of total loss. The rest had nothing to
lose, and as ever and anon they fell to canvassing the opportunities of
beginning anew in a fresh place the dubious struggle for bare
subsistence, his determination to slip free of them was confirmed. The
morrow would see him in his appointed place--nay, he perceived a sure
means of hoodwinking any possible suspicion of the authorities by finding
a conspicuous position in the searching parties who would go out, he
knew, as the night wore on and the alarm was given that the owner of the
bungalow had not returned.
The boat with the others embarked was far up the river before the child
had ceased to sob and plain for his precious gear. He began to listen
curiously to the splash of the oars as they marked time and the boat rode
the waves elastically. There was no other sound in all the night-bound
world, save once the crisp, sharp bark of a fox came across the water
from the dense, dark riparian forests. The mists possessed all the upper
atmosphere, but following the boat were white undiscriminated
presentments on the sombre surface of the river, elusive in the vapor and
suggestive of something swimming in pursuit. Once Archie pointed his
mittened hand at this foaming wake, but the question died on his lips as
the dank autumnal air buffeted his chill cheek. He shivered in his thin
little white linen dress, meant for indoor wear only, with its smart red
leather belt clasped low and loose about it, and the hardship of cold and
hunger tamed him. He was glad to nestle close to the pasty-faced Holvey,
who had not yet recovered the normal glow of complexion, and to stick his
yellow head under the moonshiner's arm for warmth while he steered the
craft. Indeed, when the boat was at length run into one of the small,
untenanted islands and the party disembarked, the little boy began to
chirp genially and to laugh for joy as a fire was kindled amidst the
rocks and brush of the interior, invisible from the shores. He basked in
the blaze and grew pink and gay, and even sought to initiate a game of
peek-a-boo from behind his white mittens with one of the ruffians; and
although a bit dashed when the surly, absorbed eyes stared unresponsively
at him, he plucked up spirit to ask if they were going to have supper,
and to say that he wanted some, and that he was a very good boy.
"Breakfast, Bub--this is the 'tother end of the day," Clenk explained,
preparing to broil slices of meat on the coals. There was soon a
johnny-cake baked on a board set up before the flames, but the pork was
evidently a new proposition to the small captive, and although he eyed it
greedily he could make no compact with it. Now and again he licked with a
grimace of distaste the unsavory chunk given him, and desisted, to watch
with averse curiosity the working jaws of the men and the motion of the
muscles in their temples as they hastily gobbled the coarse fare which
they cut with their clasp-knives. The fire duplicated their number with
their shadows, and occasionally he eyed these semblances speculatively as
they stretched on the sandy ground or skulked in the underbrush behind
their unconscious principals. Once or twice he lifted his own arm with an
alert gesture in imitative energy, and looked over his shoulder at his
squat little image, to note its obedience to his behest. One might have
thought he had put the greater part of the fat meat in smears about his
rosy cheeks and fresh baby lips, and certainly the pleated bosom of his
immaculate linen suit had received a generous remembrance. The remnant
was still in his hand when he began to nod in the drowsy influences of
the heat of the fire; he had collapsed into insensibility long before the
coals were raked apart to dull and die. He had no knowledge of the fact
when he was borne away by Holvey, who had been delegated to assume charge
of him, and who sulked in disaffection under the responsibility and his
doubts of the success of their plan.
Once more in the boat, the chill of the dank river atmosphere awakened
little Archie. He sent forth a peevish, imperative call, "Mamma!" so
shrill and constraining, reaching so far across the dark water, that a
hand before his lips smothered its iteration in his throat. "Bee-have!"
Holvey hissed in his ear, and as the child struggled into a sitting
posture his involuntary bleat, "Mamma!" was so meekened by fear and
plaintive recollection and submissive helplessness that it could scarcely
have been distinguished a boat's length distant.
The moon was down, but the morning star was in the sky, splendid,
eloquent, charged with a subtle message expressed in no other sidereal
scintillation, heralding not only the dawn, but palpitant with the
prophecy and the assurance of eternal day. There was a sense of light
about the eastern mountains, albeit so heavily looming. And suddenly, all
at once, the faces of the shadowy men who had borne him hither were fully
revealed, and as he sat and shivered in his thin little dress he eyed
them, first one for a long time, and then another, and he shivered
throughout with a fear more chilly than the cold. Perhaps it was well for
the equilibrium of his reason that fear so acute could not continue. He
presently began to cough, and when he sought to reply to a question he
could only wheeze. An infantile captive wields certain coercions to fair
treatment peculiar to nonage. The moonshiners had suddenly before their
eyes the menace of croup or pneumonia, and, to do them justice, the
destruction of the child had not been part of their project. There ensued
gruff criminations and recriminations among them before the baby was
rolled up in a foul old horse-blanket, and a dose of the pure moonshine
whisky, tempered with river water, was poured down his throat. It may
have been the slumber induced by this potent elixir, or it may have been
the effects of fever, but he was not conscious when they reached the
forks of the Tennessee and were pulling up the Oconalufty River. He only
knew vaguely when once more they had disembarked, though now and then he
sought vainly to rouse himself to the incidents of a long march. Finally
he was still and silent so long in old Clenk's arms as to excite
immediate fears. Now and again as they forged along at the extreme limit
of their endurance they took the time to shake up the poor baby and seek
by suggestion to induce him to say that he felt better. But his head had
begun to roll heavily from side to side, and they could not disguise from
themselves that he looked at them with uncomprehending eyes, and, left to
himself, sank immediately into stupor that simulated slumber.
"Fellows," said old Clenk drearily, "I believe this leetle chap be agoin'
ter make a die of it!"
But he was still alive the following morning when the chill, clouded day
broke, and a happy thought occurred to old Clenk. Throughout his illness
the child had instinctively refused the coarse food proffered him, and
this was brought anew to their notice when they paused to eat their
scanty rations in a deep, secluded dell. A stream ran foaming, crystal
clear, amidst great rocks hemming it in on every side, save where a
jungle of undergrowth made close to the verge. A sudden sound from these
bosky recesses set every nerve of the fugitives a-quiver. Only the tinkle
of a cow-bell, keen and clear in the chill rare air! There was the
exchange of a sheepish grin as the tones were recognized, when suddenly
Clenk arose, a light as of inspiration on his dull old face. "Soo, cow,
soo!" he called softly; then listened intently for a responsive stir in
the bushes. A muttered low--and he pressed into the covert in the
direction of the sound. The docile animal lifted her head at an approach,
then calmly fell a-grazing again. She let down her milk readily, though
looking over her shoulder questioningly during the process, for Clenk was
no practised hand. He contrived, however, to fill a "tickler" in which
there was a small residue of whisky, which possibly aided the efficacy of
the milk, for the child was perceptibly revived after the first draught
was forced down his throat, and when an hour or two afterward the bottle
was put to his lips he voluntarily drank a few swallows with obvious
relish.
"Ye leetle old toper," cried Clenk delightedly, waxing jocose in his
relief, "ye been swindling me! Ye hev been playin' sick to trick me out
'n this fine milk punch!"
Archie did not comprehend the banter, but he smiled feebly in response to
the jovial tone, and after a time babbled a good deal in a faint little
voice about a train of steam-cars, exponent of a distant civilization,
that with a roar of wheels and clangor of machinery and scream of
whistles and clouds of smoke went thundering through the wild and wooded
country. To the old man's delight, he sought to lift himself to a sitting
posture in Clenk's arms, and asked if they were to travel soon on the
"choo-choo train." Yes, indeed, he was assured, and he seemed to
experience a sort of gratified pride in the prospect. With this fiction
in mind, he presently fell into a deep and refreshing slumber.
Suddenly the child was all himself again, glad, hopeful, expectant, with
the sense of being once more under a roof, touched by a woman's hand.
Then he looked keenly into the face before him--such a strange face! He
was tempted to cry out in terror; but the mind is plastic in early youth:
he had learned the lesson that now his protests and shrieks availed
naught. A strange face, of a copper hue, with lank black hair hanging
straight on both sides, a high nose, a wide, flat, thin-lipped mouth, and
great, dark, soft eyes amidst many wrinkles. He could not have thus
enumerated its characteristics, nor even described its impression on his
mind; but he realized its fundamental difference from all the faces he
had ever seen, and its unaccustomed aspect appalled him. He was petrified
by his uncomprehending amazement and an intensity of grief that was not
meet for his tender years in this extreme. He could hardly realize his
own identity. He did not seem himself, this child on the floor in front
of a dull wood fire, squalid, wrapped in an old horse-blanket, facing
this queer woman, sitting opposite him on the uneven flagging of the
hearth.
All at once his fortitude gave way. He broke forth into sobs and cries;
his heart was heavy with the sense of desertion, for he wept not for his
home, his mother, his kind friends, Ned and Gad-ish--on these blessings
he had lost all hold, all hope. He mourned for his late companions,
forsooth!--the big men, the boat, the river, the star. They had so
cruelly forsaken him, and here he was so poignantly unfamiliar and
helpless. When the woman held out a finger to him and smiled, he bowed
his head as he wept and shook it to and fro that he might not see her,
for her yellow teeth had great gaps among them, and as she laughed a
strange light came into her eyes, and he was woe--woe!--for his comrades
of the rowlocks and the Tennessee River.
It would have seemed a strange face to others as well as to the poor
baby. For this was indeed an Indian woman. A late day, certainly, for a
captive among the Cherokees, but the moonshiners felt that they had
scored a final victory when they left the little creature within the
Qualla Boundary, the reservation where still lingers a remnant of that
tribe, the "Eastern Band," on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky
Mountains, a quaint survival of ancient days amidst the twentieth
century. The moonshiners had represented the little boy as the son of one
of their party, recently a widower. They stated that they were seeking
work among the laborers employed in a certain silver mine beyond the
Qualla Boundary, and that they had lost his kit with the rest of his
clothes in the Oconalufty River hard by. Leaving some goods, purchased at
a cross-roads store on the way, to supply this need, with a small sum of
money for his board in advance, and fixing an early day for their return,
they departed.
Their story excited no suspicion at Quallatown: the craft of the
Cherokees is an antiquated endowment, and has not kept pace with modern
progress. Even the woman, who arrogated a spirit of prophecy and had long
practised the devices of a fortune-teller, thus accustomed to scan the
possibilities and in some degree versed in the adjustment of the
probabilities, accorded the homely verisimilitude of their worldly-wise
representations the meed of a simple and respectful credulity. The
mountaineers were ignorant indeed in their sort, but far too
sophisticated to entertain aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in
her pretensions of special foresight and mysterious endowment. They did
not fear her discrimination, and told their story, through an
interpreter, with a glib disregard of any uncanny perspicacity on her
part. She was one of the many Indians of the reservation who speak no
English. Her cabin was far from Quallatown, and indeed at a considerable
distance from any other dwelling. With her and her few associates, the
moonshiners thought the child would soon forget his name, his language,
and his terrible experience, and they promised themselves that when all
was buried in oblivion they would come and reclaim him and place him more
suitably among themselves, and see to it that he should have some chance,
some show in the world to make a man of himself. All of this had served
to soothe the vague pricks of conscience, which from time to time had
harassed them as the attractions of the child began to make an impress
even on their indurated hearts, and all was forgotten as soon as they
caught the first glimpse of the red clay embankment of the new railroad,
crawling across the valley country far away in one of the adjoining
States; for they sought employment in the construction gangs here, and
the silver mines of their pretended destination held all its treasures
unmolested for any pick or shovel of their wielding.