THE MAYBOB TWINS.
Emmett Darke went into the forest in search of game; and he was
successful, for in an hour’s time he had shot and dressed a large buck.
He only took the choicest portions of the deer, which he rolled
carefully up in the skin, leaving the remainder to the wolves, panthers,
and other beasts of prey that infested the forest. He bound the pelt
around the meat he had selected by means of deer-skin thongs through a
firmly tied loop, in which he thrust his gun-barrel; and throwing his
burden across his shoulder, set out for home.
He was very anxious to reach the cabin; for he could not keep his mind
from dwelling on his conversation with Vinnie that afternoon, and he did
not like to leave her alone longer than was necessary.
The blood-hound, Death, who had rendered his master valuable service in
securing the deer, trotted along after him, as if pleased with the idea
of returning to the cabin so soon.
The hunter had proceeded but a short distance, however, when he met with
an accident that nearly cost him his life.
As the afternoon advanced, the chill November wind blew harder and
colder, till its moanings changed to a fierce roar, and it was evident,
even to eyes less accustomed to weather signs than Darke’s, that a
fearful storm was approaching—one of those cold, gusty rains peculiar to
the North-west.
As he was passing a dead oak, whose barkless, decayed trunk and bare,
broken branches bore marks of the storms and winds of a hundred years,
he was startled by a loud crash overhead.
Looking up, he saw that a fearful gust of wind that just then swept
through the wood, blowing the dried leaves and twigs hither and thither
and everywhere in wild confusion, had broken off a massive limb, which
was falling with lightning velocity directly toward him. Dropping his
burden, he sprung aside, but though the movement saved his life, he did
not escape the full force of the blow.
The ponderous mass came whirling down, one end of it striking him on the
back of the head.
He reeled and staggered two or three steps, and then sunk down
insensible among the fallen leaves.
After surveying his fallen master a minute or two, the blood-hound
advanced and lay down by his side, as if to keep guard over him. For
several minutes he remained in this position, then probably not noting
any signs of vitality in the unconscious man, he arose, and, after
whining several times in a low key, the sagacious creature took the
sleeve of his hunting-shirt between his teeth and pulled it gently. This
action was repeated several times; and at last, receiving no reply from
his master, the faithful dog set out as fast as his feet would carry him
for the cabin.
Had he forsaken his master, or gone after assistance?
How long Darke remained unconscious, he knew not.
When consciousness returned, he found himself in a sort of cavern fitted
up as a hunter’s lodge, apparently, for great piles of skins were to be
seen in different parts of the place, and a couple of rifles leaned
against the rocky wall at one side, while a small keg, that evidently
contained powder, stood near by, half concealed by a deer-skin
hunting-shirt, which was thrown carelessly over it, with a bullet-pouch
and powder-horn secured to the belt.
He noticed also that the cave was divided into apartments, for a curtain
made of the skins of various wild animals was suspended from a cord
overhead.
A dull, hard pain in his head caused him to think of himself, and he now
saw, for the first time, that it was bandaged, and he was reclining on a
bed made of the pelts of the bear and the panther at one side of the
place.
If any further evidence was required to satisfy the hunter that the
place was inhabited, it was forthcoming in the shape of a savory odor of
broiling venison that was wafted from the inner apartment.
“Where was he? Who had brought him to this place?”
These and many other questions he asked himself, but after five minutes
had been consumed in vain conjecture, he was as far from the solution of
the mystery as at the moment when he first awoke to consciousness. He
remembered the circumstance of the falling limb in the forest, and after
that, all was blank. He did not know when he came, or who had brought
him to this place. He was familiar with the country for miles around, he
thought, and yet he did not know that there was such a cavern in the
vicinity of his cabin.
Of one thing, however, he was assured.
The people who occupied the place must be friendly, else why had they
brought him here and cared for him so tenderly?
Soon he heard a voice in the other part of the cave—a coarse, heavy
voice, evidently that of a man. It said:
“Give us the whis’, ’Lon. I guess he’s comin’ round all correct. A good
pull at this’ll fetch his idees back, I reckon.”
A corner of the curtain was raised, and a man appeared, carrying a small
bottle of liquor—so Darke inferred from the words he had just heard.
“Well, stranger, how do you feel?” said he, approaching the hunter. “I
reckon you got a right smart of a swat along side yer poll with that ar’
twig out yender. I shouldn’t wonder if it’d ’a’ splintered when it
struck _terry-firmy_ if you hadn’t ’a’ happened along jest in the nick
o’ time to break its fall. I was a witness of the lamentationable
catastofy, and see the stick when it broke off; but I obsarved that
’twas bound to fall, and knowin’ I couldn’t stop its wild career, I let
it fall; and then started to go to you, but I had to stop and watch that
ar’ pup o’ your’n. He’s a nation cute plant, he is, and I reckoned he
was a-goin’ to snake you home; but after awhile he give up and started
off for help. Then I went out and picked you up and brought you here and
laid you out. Here, take a little pull at the whis’. It’ll kinder
regulate yer pulse, set yer heart in stidy operation and ile up yer
thinkin’ merchine. Don’t say a word. I ain’t ready for you to talk yet,
and, besides, I don’t b’lieve as how you’re a nat’ral talker anyhow. Now
I’m a nat’ral-born talker. When I was an infant and didn’t weigh but
fourteen pounds, my uncle Peter informed my ma that he thought I’d
become a preacher or an auctioneer with the proper advantages—and my
uncle Peter was a physionologist and a powerful judge of live-stock!”
Darke took the flask, drank some of its contents, and handed it back to
the man, whom he had been regarding attentively from head to foot all
the while he had been speaking.
He was very tall—nearer seven feet than six—and his frame was massive in
proportion. He was, to judge from his face, which was partially obscured
by a thin growth of sandy beard, thirty-five years of age, though one
might easily have called him five years older or five years younger. He
had pale watery-blue eyes; a capacious mouth, from which projected the
points of a few large, scraggy teeth; very high and sharp cheek-bones;
enormous ears; long, sunken jaws, with hollow cheeks, and a high,
sloping forehead, blowing about which, and streaming down his back, were
a few long, thin locks of red hair, escaping from beneath the rim of a
battered and dirty old silk hat that had once been white, though
evidently a good while since.
This ancient tile was secured to the giant’s great head by means of a
light strap of deer-skin, which was lost to view under his chin among
his sparse, bristling whiskers.
He was dressed in a fur garment, part coat, part pantaloons, that
enveloped his entire person from his chin to his feet, which were
enormously large, and incased in a pair of cowhide boots that looked, so
extensive were they, and at the same time so old, as if they might have
seen service, in the removal of the baggage of the patriarchal Noah and
his sons and daughters from the family mansion to the ark, when they
were compelled to pull up stakes and emigrate at the time of the
universal deluge.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
This Darke asked after the “natural talker” had stopped to take breath.
“Why, stranger, or Mr. Darke, I might say—for I’ve known you by sight
this four year—you’re right here, and safe, I reckon. I’ve lived here
six years, and I’ve never seen any r’al ginewine ghosts yet. I’m Leander
Maybob, formerly of Maybob Center, down in old Massachusetts. If I was
real up in etiquette, I s’pose I’d ’a’ introduced myself afore; but I
ain’t polite. Now my uncle Peter was a master polite man. I remember
once, when he went down to Bosting to sell his wool—wool was ’way down
that season, he lost on that wool awful—and got kinder turned ’round
like. Well, he kept wanderin’ all over for a right smart of a while, but
he couldn’t nohow see his way clear back to the ‘Full Bottle Inn’—he was
a-puttin’ up there. My uncle Peter was a master polite man, and didn’t
consider it proper to speak to folks as hadn’t been introducted to him,
and so he kept right on wanderin’ about without inquirin’ the way till
late in the afternoon, when he begun to experience the gnawin’ pangs of
an empty stummick; and he made up his mind as ’twould be better to be
guilty of a breach of politeness than to starve. But he wasn’t quite
certain, and so he took out his etiquette book—he always carried one, my
uncle Peter did, Deacon Checkerfield’s, I believe—and looked to see if
there was any rules touchin’ this very peculiar case o’ his’n. Well, he
set down on a bar’l in a shed, for ’twas a-rainin’ hard by this time,
and studied his book till it got so dark he couldn’t see to read any
longer, and then he concluded to break etiquette or bu’st. Etiquette was
a master fine thing, he argu’d, the very foundation o’ society; but
’twasn’t hardly the thing for an empty stummick. So he got up and went
into a big house right across the way. Here he see a feller as looked
kinder nat’ral. ‘Pardin,’ sez he, ‘your countenance looks f’miliar.’ He
made a master bow as he spoke. ‘Will you be so kind as to tell me the
way to go to the Full Bottle Inn?’ ‘’Tain’t no way in p’tickler’, sez
the feller. ‘Beg pardon,’ sez my uncle Peter. He was a master polite
man. ‘But I want to know how fur ’tis to the Full Bottle Inn.’ ‘’Tain’t
no distance at all,’ sez the feller, ‘It’s right here.’ My uncle give in
and begged the feller’s pardon—he was a master polite man, my uncle
Peter was. He’d been settin’ right in front of the inn for hours
studyin’ his etiquette book, cause he didn’t know nobody to ask. He
didn’t tell of it for five years afterward.”
At this moment the curtain which divided the cavern was pushed back at
one side, and another person advanced toward Darke and his Titanic
companion.
He came and stood by Leander Maybob, and the hunter looked from one to
the other in astonishment.
He was scarcely four feet in hight, the top of his head barely reaching
the giant’s waist.
His apparel resembled that of his more portly companion, with the
exception of the covering for the head and feet.
The dwarf’s round little pate was surmounted by a grotesquely
broad-brimmed wool hat, and he appeared, as his small keen eyes flashed
quick, nervous glances about, not unlike the traditional “toad under a
cabbage-leaf,” while his lower extremities were adorned by a pair of
nicely-fitting deer-skin moccasins.
“He’s my little brother,” the giant said, by way of introduction. “We’re
the Maybob twins. We ain’t much alike you see. He’s a little mite of a
feller, and I’m big enough to be his daddy; he’s dumb—can’t speak a
word—and I’m a nat’ral talker. Now uncle Peter said as how he thought
’twasn’t hardly fair, makin’ me so big and so complete in every way, and
him so little and scarce; but says daddy, says he—and he was a univarsal
smart man daddy was—says he it’s all in the family, and they’ll both
together make a couple of middlin’ good-sized men—they’ll about average,
and it’s all in the family. My little brother’s name’s Alonphilus. But
if we’re different in sich respects, we’re alike as fur as the one great
principle of our lives goes. Ain’t we, ’Lon?”
There was a scintillant glow in the dwarf’s little black eyes as he
nodded assent.