THE FORD
In an hour the banks about the place where the country road forded the
Rocky Fork in low water, were studded with what seemed from a distance
large, unblinking fireflies. And on the stream itself two or three
other fireflies in a cluster moved back and forth, here and there. Bad
news need not be telegraphed in the country. It flies faster than the
wind. The whole neighborhood on each side the Rocky Fork knew that
Doctor Garde had been carried down in the Rocky Fork, and men of all
ages turned out in the search.
The Furnace-men brought dried pine sticks for torches. Three people
paddled Ridenour’s canoe about, trailing light on the muddy water.
The trees took on a weird appearance as these torches lit up the
inner mystery of their branches, and some sleepy birds that had just
comfortably settled for the night, chirped inquiringly. Overhead the
stars appeared by ones and groups through a clear sky, from which the
trailing mists were blown away.
The men in the canoe had a log-chain and hook which they trailed along
the bottom. Others followed the banks down stream, being obliged to
go around deep bogs and back-waters which nearly covered what had
been grape-vine thickets. Doctor Garde’s felt hat had been found in
a thicket by one of the boys, and Abram had ridden off home with it:
but when he got there he had not had the heart to carry the soaked and
dreadful token in, but had laid it in a corner of the porch while he
entered to tell about it and state his convictions.
Mr. Runnels remained by the ford, walking his borrowed steed here and
there, and stretching fearfully toward every object which attracted
notice.
“They say Pancost come nigh losin’ his old gray,” said Mr. Willey
grimly, laying his hand on the neck of this steed.
“I barely got out,” replied Mr. Runnels. “It seemed as if we were both
to go.”
“What possessed ye to try the Rocky Fork when it’s so high?”
“I wanted to carry around word to all my pupils on this side that the
lessons would be stopped till the water went down. I was about to turn
back, but Doctor Garde was just venturing in, and I thought a man might
follow where he went.”
“Oh, but Doctor Garde wouldn’t turn back from anything! And he had the
prettiest piece o’ horse-flesh in the whole country. She could swim
like a duck, and take a straight up-and-down bank, and in the darkest
night he could give her the bridle and go to sleep. The trouble with
Doctor Garde, sir, was that he didn’t know danger when he saw it. This
is a rough piece o’ country, but he’d cut right across the hills, and
once he got his eyelid cut open riding against a branch, and it hung
down to his cheek. But he goes home and sews it up himself, and keeps
on ridin’ as if nothing had happened. Ain’t many men could stand what
he could.”
“I should think not.”
“No, sir. I couldn’t. And he was the best doctor, sir, I ever had in
my family. There’s Hall over yonder. His mill went with these high
waters, but I believe he feels a sight worse about the doctor.”
The men with the grapple-chain hooked something. It was no easy matter
to keep out of the current and the course of limbs and various flotsam
from wood-cutters’ piles. They got into a still place scummed over with
powdered rotten-wood, and here they carefully drew in the laden hook.
Men on the opposite bank called to each other and came running to the
verge, while those by the scummy bay knotted together and held their
lights down.
“Have you got anything?” they called.
Those around the hook fell back and looked up:
“No, nothing but a little stump.”