sort, was very capable of lending itself to the promotion of personal
aims and the satisfaction of private grudges. One of Tom Grayson's rash
boyish exploits, soon after he took up his abode with his uncle in town,
had been to avenge himself for an affront put upon him the year before
by Jake Hogan of Broad Run. Jake, while working as a hired man for
Butts, the next neighbor to the Graysons, had taken the side of his
employer in the long-standing quarrel between the Buttses and the
Graysons about pigs in the corn-field and geese in the meadow, "breachy"
horses and line fences. Jake had gone so far one day as to throw Tom,
then a half-grown boy, into the "branch." A boy's memory of such events
is good, and when Jake rode into Moscow, a year later, in company with
his sweetheart to see the circus, Tom repaid the old grudge by taking
the stirrups from Jake's saddle and dropping them into the public well;
so that the consequential Jake had the mortification of escorting a
giggling Broad Run girl to her home with his lank legs and his big boots
dangling, unsupported, against the flanks of his horse. Hogan would have
beaten Tom, if he had not received an intimation that this would perhaps
involve the necessity of his settling the matter a second time with big
Bob McCord. But he laid up his grudge, and from that time he had taken
pleasure in testifying to his settled conviction that Tom "wouldn'
never come t' no good eend." He always lent emphasis to this sinister
prediction by jerking his head back, with the self-confident air of a
man who knows what he knows. From the moment of the shooting of
Lockwood, when Jake found that Tom was on the direct road to the
gallows, he began to twit all his cronies.
"Hain't I all-ays said so? Go to thunder! D'yeh think Jake Hogan don't
know a feller as the rope's already got a slip-knot onto?" And he would
jerk his chin back, and stiffen his neck, as he defiantly waited for a
reply.
Not content with exulting in successful prophecy, Jake got a notion from
the first that it devolved on him now to see that this young scapegrace
should not fail of merited punishment. His neighbors at the Run, having
boasted much of the value of what they called "Broad Run law," were
willing to add a leaf to their laurels as reformers of the county; and
he counted also on finding recruits among the loafers on the outskirts
of the camp-meeting, if the coroner's jury should return a verdict
adverse to Tom.
Bob McCord was able to conjecture something of this state of affairs
from the slender information the schoolmaster had given him. During all
his morning's walk to Broad Run, Bob's thoughts had chiefly revolved
about plans for circumventing Hogan. His first crude scheme was to join
the reformers in their little excursion, and then mislead or betray
them; but his friendly relations with the Graysons were too well known
to Jake for this to be possible. It was not until the old man Britton
had mentioned Zeke Tucker that there occurred to Bob's inventive mind a
proper agent for his purpose. Wishing to have his coming known, he
steered his course near to the rickety cabin of Eleazar Brown, or, as he
was commonly called, "Ole Lazar Brown."
"G'-mornin', S'manthy," Bob called to Lazar Brown's daughter, at the
same time giving his head a little forward jerk,--the very vanishing
point of a bow,--but without stopping his march. S'manthy had buried two
husbands, and had borne eight white-headed children, but she had never
been called by any other name than S'manthy. Just now she was "batting"
clothes on a block in front of the house, turning a wet garment over
with her left hand from time to time, and giving it the most vindictive
blows with a bat held in her right.
"Y' ain't heern nothin' 'v no bears a-cap'rin' 'round h-yer lately, eh?'
Bob asked, relaxing his gait a little.
"They say as they's a b'ar been seed furder upt the run, un I 'low you
mout fine some thar ur tharabouts," replied the woman, intermitting her
batting a moment and pushing back her faded pink sun-bonnet. "But wha'
choo doin' away f'om home, I'd thes like to know, when they's so much
a-goin' on in your diggin's? They say you've had a murder 'n' all that."
"I don't talk, S'manthy. I'm a-lookin' fer bears. They 's times when
yo'd orter hole onto yer tongue with both uh yore han's."
Bob quickened his stride again and was soon out of sight among the
scrubby trees of the rugged valley.
"I say, daddy!" called S'manthy, when Bob had had time to get out of
hearing; "looky h-yer, daddy!"
Old Lazar Brown, in answer to this call, came and stood in the door,
taking his cob-pipe from his mouth with his shaky hand and regarding his
daughter.
"Big Bob McCord's thes gone along upt the run a-hunt-in' fer b'ars,"
said S'manthy. "Un they say as the feller that killed t' other feller
las' night's the son uh the woman 't 'e works fer. Bob's the beatinest
hunter! Ef Gaberl wuz to toot his horn, Bob'd ax him to hole on long
anough fer him to git thes one more b'ar, I'll bet."
Lazar Brown had shaking-palsy in his arms, and, being good for nothing
else, could devote his entire time to his congenial pursuits as gossip
and wonder-monger of the neighborhood. Having listened attentively to
S'manthy, he shook his head incredulously.
"Yeh don't think ez he's arter b'ars, do yeh, S'manthy? Bob's got some
trick er 'nother 'n 'is head. W'y, thes you look, he mus' uh le't home
afore daybreak. Now, Bob'd natterly go to the carner's eenques' to-day,
whar they'll be a-haulin' that young feller up that shot t' other feller
las' night. Big Bob's got some ornery trick 'n 'is head." Here Lazar
Brown stopped to replace his pipe in his mouth. He was obliged to use
both hands, but after two or three attempts he succeeded. "Looky h-yer,
S'manthy, you thes keep one eye out fer Bob; I 'low he'll go down the
run towurds ev'nin'. He'll be orful dry by that time, fer he's one of
the _driest_ fellers. Thes you tell him 't I've got a full jug, un ax
him in, un we'll kind-uh twis' it out uh'im. I 'low I'll go 'n find
Jake."
Lazar returned to the house, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and
refilled it. Then with some difficulty he succeeded in taking a live
coal from the ashes; holding it in the leathery palm of his shaking left
hand, he got it deposited at last on the corn-cob bowl of his pipe. As
soon as this operation of firing-up was completed, he set out in a
trotty little walk, glad to have news that would make the neighbors
hearken to him.
Meantime Bob McCord, having passed out of sight of S'manthy in his
progress up the creek, had faced about and come back through the bushes
to a point overlooking Lazar Brown's cabin, where, in a dense patch of
pawpaws, he stood in concealment. This movement greatly perplexed the
old dog Pup, who stood twitching his nose nervously, unable to discover
what was the game that had attracted his master's eye. When at length
Bob saw Lazar start off down the run, he smote his knee with his hand
and gave vent to half-smothered laughter.
"Tuck like the measles!" he soliloquized. "Un it'll spread too. See 'f
it don't! Come, Pup--bears! bears! ole boy!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Why it was that Bob said "bears," and did not say "b'ars,"
as some of his class did, I do not know. Broad as his dialect was, it
was perceptibly less aberrant than that of Lazar Brown's family, for
example. It is impossible to trace the causes for local and family
variations of speech; nor is a word always pronounced in the same way in
a dialect,--it varies in sound sometimes, when more or less stress is
put upon it. The varieties are here set down as they existed, except
that print can never give those shades of pronunciation and inflection
that constitute so large a part of the peculiarities of speech, local,
personal and temporary.]
The dogs took the hint and ceased their nosing about the roots of trees
for squirrels, and in beds of leaves and bunches of grass for hares.
They began to make large circles through the trees about Bob, who moved
forward as the center of a sort of planetary system, the short-legged
dog keeping near the center, while Pup ranged as far away as he could
without losing sight of his master,--the remote Uranus of the hunt. Joe,
having "tairrier" blood in him, ran with his nozzle down; but
long-legged Pup, with a touch of greyhound in his build, carried his
head high and depended on his eyes. The fact that Tom Grayson's life was
at stake afforded no reason, in Bob's view, for giving over the pursuit
of bears. Nor did he hunt in serious earnest merely because there was
neither bread nor meat at home. A cat will catch mice for the mere fun
of it, and with Bob the chase was ever the chief interest of life. But
Bob did not forget his other errand; while the dogs were seeking for
bears, he was eagerly scanning the bushes in every direction for Zeke
Tucker. Half a mile above Lazar Brown's he encountered Zeke, carrying a
blind-bridle on his arm, and still looking in vain for Britton's stray
horse.
"Hello, Zeke! the very feller I wuz a-lookin' fer. Don't ax me no
questions about what I'm a-doin' over h-yer, an' I won't tell you no
lies. Let's set down a minute on that air hackberry log."
The writer of a local guide-book to the city of Genoa recounts, among
the evidences of piety exhibited by his fellow-citizens, the hospital
built by them for those "_la quale non e conceduto di bearsi nel sorriso
di un padre_." Zeke was one of those to whom, in the circumlocution of
the Genoese writer, had not been granted the benediction of a father's
smile. Such unfortunates were never wanting in a community like Broad
Run, but no one had ever thought of building an asylum for them, though
there were many ready to make them suffer the odium of sins not their
own. From that unexpected streak of delicacy which is sometimes found in
a rough man of large mold, Bob McCord had always refrained from allusion
to the irregularity of Zeke's paternity, and had frequently awed into
silence those who found pleasure in jibing him. This had awakened in
Zeke a grateful adhesion to Bob, and in the young man's isolation among
his neighbors and his attachment to himself Bob saw a chance to secure
an ally.
"Zeke," said McCord, when once they were seated on the hackberry log,
"you 'n' me's all-ays been frien's, hain't we?"
"Toobshore, Bob! they hain't no man a-livin' I'd do a turn fer quicker."
"Well, now, you tell me this: Is Jake Hogan a-goin' to town weth the
boys to-night?"
"I hadn't no ways orter tell, but I 'low 't 'e is."
"You a-goin' along?"
"I dunno. 'F you don't want me to, I don't reckon ez I shall."
"Yes, but I'd ruther you 'd go. I don't want that air fool boy hung
'thout a fair stan'-up trial, 'n' I may as well tell you 't I don't mean
he shall be nuther, not 'f I have to lick Jake Hogan tell his ornery
good-fer-nothin' hide won't hold shucks. But don't choo tell him a word
't I say."
"Trust _me_." Zeke was pleased to find himself in important confidential
relations with a man so much "looked up to" as Bob McCord. "Jake 's been
the _hardest_ on me 'v all the folks, un they 's been times when I
'lowed to pull up un cl'ar out for the Injun country, to git shed uv
'im. I wish to thunder you _would_ lick him 'thin 'n inch 'viz life.
He's a darn-sight wuss 'n git out."
"Looky h-yer, Zeke; I'll tell you how you kin git even with Jake. You
jest go 'long weth the boys to-night, wherever they go. I'm goin' to fix
it so's they won't do nuthin' to-night. You're livin' 't ole man
Britton's now, ainch yeh?"
"Yes."
"Well, you git off fer half a day f'om Britton's, un go to the eenques'
this arternoon, un fine out all you kin. Arter supper, you go over to
the groc'ry; un jest as soon's you fine out whech way the wind sets,
you've got to let me know. 'T won't do fer me to be seed a-talkin' to
you, ur fer me to loaf aroun' Britton's. But ef Jake makes up his mine
to go to Moscow, you light a candle to-night un put it in the lof'
where you sleep, so 't 'll shine out uv a crack on the south side uv the
chimbley, in the furder eend uv the house."
"But his mine 's already made up," said Zeke.
"They's time to change afore night. Ef he's goin' to Perrysburg----"
"Perrysburg? They ain't no talk uv Perrysburg," said Zeke.
"They may be," answered Bob. "Un ef Perrysburg's the place, you put the
candle at the leetle winder on the north side uv the chimbley. Un when I
shoot you put out the candle, un then I'll know it's you, un you'll know
't I understan'. You see, 't won't do fer me to stop any nearder 'n the
hill, un I'll wait there till I see your candle. Then you go weth Jake."
Here Bob got up and strained his longsighted eyes at some object in the
bushes on the other side of the brook. "Is yon hoss yourn, on t' other
side of the branch?"
"I don't see no hoss," said Zeke.
"Well, you watch out a minute un you'll ketch sight uv 'im. He's gone in
there to git shed of the flies."
"That's our clay-bank, I believe," said Zeke, getting up and carefully
scanning the now half-visible horse.
"Mine! you hain't seen nor heern tell of me, un you b'long to Jake's
crowd weth all your might."
With these words Bob set out again for his bear-hunt, while the barefoot
Zeke waded through the stream, which was knee-deep, and set himself to
beguile Britton's clay-bank horse into standing still and forfeiting his
liberty.
XIII
A BEAR HUNT
Bob McCord had that quick, sympathetic appreciation of brute impulses
which is the mark of a great hunter. Given a bear or a deer in a certain
place, at a certain hour of the day, and Bob would conjecture, without
much chance of missing, in which direction he would go and what he would
be about. In a two-hours' beating-up the ravine he found no traces of
bears. He then faced almost about and bent his course to where the
illimitable western prairie set into the woods in a kind of bay. Why he
thought that on a hot day like this a bear might be taking a sunning in
the open grass I cannot tell; he probably suspected Bruin of an
excursion to the corn-fields for "roas'in' ears." At any rate his
conjecture was correct. Pup, beating forward in great leaps, with his
head above the grass, caught sight of a female bear making her way to a
point of timber farther down the run known as Horseshoe Neck. When the
bear saw the dogs she quickened her leisurely pace into a lumbering
gallop. Pup's long legs were stretched to their utmost in eager leaps
which presently brought him in front of her; Joe, when he came up,
annoyed her at the side; and stout little Seizer, watching the chance
whenever she was making an angry lunge at Pup, would bravely nip her
heels and so make her turn about. Before she could get her head fairly
around the fiste would turn tail and run for his life. Bob tried to get
within range before the bear should disappear in the forest, but as soon
as she saw herself near the timber she charged straight for it, refusing
to strike at Pup, and wholly disregarding the barking of bob-tail Joe,
or the proximity to her heels of Seizer. She quickly disappeared from
sight in the underbrush, and the embarrassed dogs came near losing her.
A few moments too late to get a shot, McCord came running to the woods
at the point of her entrance. He examined the brush and listened a
moment.
"She's gone up stream," he said, "bound to make her hole at Coon's Den,
'f I don't git there fust."
He returned to the prairie and ran breathlessly along the edge of the
woods for the better part of a mile; then he dashed into the timber, and
pushing through the brush until he reached a cliff, he clambered down
and stood with his back to the head of a ravine tributary to the valley
in which Broad Run flowed. He was breathless, and his flimsy lower
garments had been almost torn off him by the violence of his exertion
and the resistance of underbrush and rocks; in fact, raiment never
seemed just in place on him; the vigorous form burst through it now on
this side, and now on that. Hearing the dogs still below him, he knew
that he had come in time to intercept the progress of the bear toward
the heap of rocky debris at the head of the ravine. Once in these
fastnesses, no skill of hunter or perseverance of dogs would have been
sufficient to get her out.
The bear was soon in sight, and Bob saw that the nearly exhausted dogs
were taking greater risks than ever. Little Seizer was particularly
venturesome, and was so much overcome with heat and fatigue, and so
breathless with barking, that it was hard for him to get out of the way
of the bear's retorts. "She'll smash that leetle ijiot the very nex'
time, shore," muttered Bob with alarm; and though he knew the range to
be a long one, he took aim and fired. Unluckily the infuriated Seizer
gave the bear's heel a particularly savage bite, and at the very instant
of Bob's pulling the trigger she turned on the little dog, and thus
caused the ball to lodge in her right shoulder just as she was striking
out with her left paw. She barely reached the dog, and failed to crush
him with the full weight of her arm, but she lacerated his side and sent
him howling out of the fray. Now, wounded and enraged, she recognized in
the hunter her chief enemy; and, neglecting the dogs, she rushed up the
ravine toward McCord. Bob poured a large charge of powder into his gun,
and, taking a bullet from his pouch, he felt in his pocket for the
patching. A moment he looked blankly at the oncoming bear and muttered
"Gosh!" between his set teeth. There was not a patch in his pocket. He
had put some pieces of patching there in the darkness of the morning
before leaving home, without remembering that his pocket was bottomless.
He stood between a wounded bear and her cubs, and there was no time for
deliberation. He might evade the attack if he could succeed in getting
up the cliff where he had come down, but in that case she would reach
her hole and he would lose the battle. He promptly tore a piece from the
ragged leg of his trousers, and, wrapping his ball in it, rammed it
home. Then he took a cap from a hole in the stock of his gun and got it
fixed just in time to shoot when the bear was within a dozen feet of
him. Uncultivated man that he was, he had the same refined pleasure in
the death-throes of his victim that gentlemen and ladies of the highest
breeding find in seeing a frightened and exhausted fox torn to pieces by
hounds with bloody lips.
Bob's first care was to look after Seizer, who was badly wounded, but
whose bones were whole. The afternoon had passed its middle when he shot
the bear, and by the time he had cared for the dog and dressed his game
the sun was low and McCord was troubled lest he should have delayed too
long the execution of his stratagem for the confusion of Jake Hogan.
Another man might have been considerably embarrassed to dispose of the
bear. But Bob proceeded first to divest it of every part that was of
little value. Then he hoisted the carcass to his shoulder and tossed the
bear-skin on top. Taking up his rifle and balancing his burden carefully
before starting, he went swaying to and fro down the ravine, choosing
with care the securest places among the rocks to set his feet in. It was
thus that Samson went off with the great gates of Gaza. McCord was a
primitive, Pelasgic sort of man, accustomed to overmatch the ferocities
of Nature with a superior strength and cunning. Lacking the refinement
and complexity of the typical modern, this antique human is more simple
and statuesque; even the craft of such a man has little involution.
There was joy in his bloody victory over the most formidable beast in
his reach that was virile and unalloyed by ruth or scruple--a joy like
that which vibrates in the verses of Homer.
It was a good mile to Lazar Brown's, where Bob hoped to find a horse to
take his bear home. When at length he stopped to unshoulder his burden
on a salient corner of old Lazar's rail fence, sunset had begun to bless
the overheated earth.
"Got a b'ar, did n' choo?" said Old Lazar, who was in wait for Bob.
"To be shore, Uncle Lazar. Whadje expeck?"
"Come in, Bob, wonch yeh? I got a fresh jug full uv the critter
yisterday, un I 'low you're purty consid'able dry agin this time. You
purty much all-ays air dry, Bob."
"Well, Uncle Lazar, I _am_ tol'able dry un _no_ mistake. I hain't had
nuthin' to drink to-day 'ceppin' jes branch water, un clear water's a
mighty weak kind uv a drink fer a pore stomick like mine. 'N, I'm hungry
too. Don' choo 'low S'manthy could rake up a cole dodger summers about?"
"Oh, stay tell she gits you some supper."
"No, Uncle Lazar; I could n' stop a minute noways. They hain't got nary
thing t' eat 't our house. Len' me your mare to git this 'ere varmint
home?"
"I could n', Bob. I'm thes uz willin' to 'commodate ez anybody kin be,
but I've promised the mar' to one uv the boys to-night--to--to go
a-sparkin' weth."
"Oh, sparkin' kin wait. What's a feller want to go sparkin' a Friday
night fer? Tell him to wait tell Sunday, so 's the gal 'll have a clean
dress on."
"But I've gi'n my word, Bob."
"Your word hain't no 'count, un you don't fool me, Uncle Lazar," said
Bob, with a broad grin. "Your mare's a-goin' to town to-night, un ef she
sh'd git a bullet-hole put into her who'd pay the funeral ixpenses?"
This consideration went for a good deal with Lazar.
"I say, Bob," he said, coming closer and speaking low, "_is_ they goin'
to be shootin' to-night?"
"_Uv_ course they is, un plenty uv it. Don' choo know't the sheriff's
gi'n bonds, un 'f 'e lets a prisoner go he's got to pay the damages? Un
them town fellers is sot agin lynchin'." Seeing S'manthy in the cabin
door straining her attention to the utmost, Bob spoke loud enough to
reach her ears. "Lookey h-yer, Uncle Lazar," he went on; "d'you reckon
't that feller that's a-goin' to git your mare shot to-night 'll gin you
a whole quarter uv bear-meat fer the use _an'_ the damages ef she's
shot?"
This last hint had the desired effect.
"'T ain't no use a-talkin', Daddy," S'manthy called out; "I hain't
a-go'n' to let a'ole frien' like Bob Mcord pack that-ar great big b'ar
all the way over to Timber Crick on his shoulders ez long 's my name's
S'manthy. Un I hain't a-go'n' to have the mar' shot. So thar 's 'n eend
auv it." S'manthy's common "uv" or "uh" for "of" became "auv" when she
wished to be particularly emphatic and full-mouthed in a declaration.
"Good fer _you_, S'manthy," said Bob. "You sh'll have the best leg this
critter's got. Take yer ch'ice."
A rusty ax was brought out, and Bob stopped a moment to examine its
serrated edge. "I say, Uncle Lazar, ez this a' ax _ur_ a saw? From the
aidge uv it _I_ sh'd call it a saw, but the back uv it _is_ sumpin like
a' ax." Then with a laugh he proceeded to cut off a liberal quarter of
the bear, while S'manthy's ten-year-old tow-headed boy was sent to
"ketch up the mar'," which was nibbling grass on the farther side of a
patch of broad-leaved cotton-weeds. When the quarter of bear-meat had
been hung up at the north end of the cabin, Lazar got out his jug and
Bob began to satisfy the longings of his colossal thirst, while S'manthy
set out on the poplar table which stood in the middle of the floor some
"Kaintucky corn-dodger," as she called it; and despite Bob's protest
against staying till she could cook some supper, she put a bit of fat
salt pork in the skillet to fry. Meantime the old man plied Bob with
more whisky, both before and after eating. When he thought it time for
this to have taken effect, he began to try to satisfy his own
curiosity.
"D'joo h-yer about the carner's eenquest, Bob?" he said cautiously,
feeling his way toward his point.
"No, I didn't. You see, I hain't seed nobody but the bear, un she wuz
the ign'rantest critter. Could n't tell me nuthin'." And Bob laughed at
his own wit, as was his custom. "How 'd it go?" Bob had wanted to ask
this question, but he wished to let Uncle Lazar begin.
"Well, I hyern f'om Raphe Jackson, thes now, that the jury said 's
Lockwood come to 'is final eend ut the han's uv Tom Grayson, ur sumpin
like that; un they said 't wuz reg'lar bloody murder in the fust degree.
My! ef that wuz n't a mad crowd! They made a rush fer Grayson, but the
depitty shurriff 'd got 'im away. Ef they 'd 'a' cotcht him they would
n't 'a' made two bites uv him."
"You don't say!" Bob was a little stunned. He had not thought of Tom's
being at the inquest. He felt that perhaps in coming away he had made a
mistake that had come near to being a fatal one.
"They wuz thes a-howlin', Raphe said, un they had n't lef' the place
when he come away. They wuz made madder by the way the young scoundrel
stood up un _de_clared 't he did n' know nuthin' about the murder, arter
't wuz proved on him, plain 's the nose on a man's face, an' the dead
man a-layin' right thar afore 'is own eyes."
Bob was in a brown study, and nothing was said on either side for half a
minute. It made Bob uncomfortable to reflect that he had come near
losing the game at the outset.
"I 'low 't 'll go hard weth the young feller to-night."
This roused McCord from the reverie produced from his surprise.
"I reckoned the boys'u'd be a-goin' to Moscow to-night," he said; and
added, "Let 'em go!" And then he laughed as though he knew something.