winter's drought, so delayed the usual inundation of the swamp, that the
vegetation, dry as tinder, caught the sparks instantly, and the fierce
expedient to force the fugitive to leave his supposed shelter in the
brake, a vast woodland conflagration, was added to the terror of the
scene. The flames flared frantically upward from the cane, itself twenty
feet in height, and along its dense columns issued forth jets like the
volleyings of musketry from serried ranks of troops, the illusion
enhanced by continuous sharp, rifle-like reports, the joints of the
growth exploding as the air within was liberated by the heat of the
fire. All around this blazing Gehenna were swiftly running figures of
men applying with demoniac suggestion torches here and there, that a new
area might be involved. Others were mounted, carrying flaming torches
aloft, the restive horses plunging in frantic terror of the fiery
furnace in the depths of the brake, the leaping sheets of flame, the
tumultuous clouds of smoke. Oh, a terrible fate, had the forlorn
fugitive sought refuge here! Let us hope that no poor denizen of the
brake, bear or panther or fox, dazed by the tumult and the terror,
forgot which way to flee!
But human energies must needs fail as time wears on. Nerves of steel
collapse at last. The relinquishment of the quest came gradually; the
crowd thinned; now and again the sound of rapid hoof-beats told of
homeward-bound horsemen; languid groups stood and talked dully here and
there, dispersing to follow a new suggestion for a space, then
ultimately disappearing; even the fire began to die out, and the site of
the cane-break had become a dense, charred mass, as far as eye could
reach, with here and there a vague blue flicker where some bed of coals
could yet send up a jet, when at length the pale day, slow and aghast,
came peering along the levels to view the relics of the strange events
that had betided in the watches of the night.
Hoxer had not waited for the light. Deriving a certain strength, a
certain triumph, from the obvious fact that the end was not yet, he
contrived in that darkest hour before the dawn to pull himself into a
sitting posture, then to creep out to the shore. The little dog had
seemed to be dying, but he too experienced a sort of resuscitation, and
while he followed at first but feebly, it was not long before he was at
heel again, although Hoxer was swift of foot, making all the speed he
might toward his temporary home, the shacks that had been occupied by
the construction gang. As he came within view of the poor little
tenements, so recently vacated by the Irish ditchers, all awry and
askew, stretching in a wavering row along the river-bank near the
junction of the levee that he had built with the main line, his eyes
filled. Oh, why had he not gone with the rest of the camp? he demanded
of an untoward fate; why must he have stayed a day longer to bespeak the
correction of an injurious error from that proud, hard man, who,
however, had wrought his last injury on earth? Hoxer was sorry, but
chiefly for his own plight. He felt that his deed was in self-defense,
and but that he had no proof he would not fear to offer the plea at the
bar of justice. As it was, however, he was sanguine of escaping without
this jeopardy. No one had cause to suspect him. No one had seen him
enter the Jeffrey grounds that fatal evening. There had been noised
abroad no intimation of his grievance against the man. He had all the
calm assurance of invisibility as he came to his abode, for a fog lay
thick on the surface of the river and hung over all the land. He did not
issue forth again freshly dressed till the sun was out once more,
dispelling the vapors and conjuring the world back to sight and life.
Nevertheless, he made no secret of having been abroad when an
acquaintance came up the road and paused for an exchange of the news of
the day.
"But what makes ye look so durned peaked?" he broke off, gazing at Hoxer
in surprise.
Hoxer was astonished at his own composure as he replied: "Out all night.
I was in the swamp with the posse."
"See the fire? They tell me 't wuz more'n dangerous to fire the brake
when the woods is so uncommon dry. I dunno what we would do here in the
bottom with a forest fire."
"Pretty big blaze now, sure's ye're born," Hoxer replied casually, and
so the matter passed.
Later in the day another gossip, whose acquaintance he had made during
his levee-building venture, loitered up to talk over the absorbing
sensation, and, sitting down on the door-step of the shack, grew
suddenly attentive to the little dog.
"What makes him limp?" he demanded abruptly.
But Hoxer had not observed that he did limp.
The acquaintance had taken the little animal up on his knee and was
examining into his condition. "Gee! how did he get so footsore?"
"Following me around, I reckon," Hoxer hazarded. But he saw, or thought
he saw, a change on the stolid face of the visitor, who was unpleasantly
impressed with the fact that the officers investigating the case had
made inquiries concerning a small dog that, to judge by the prints in
the road, had evidently followed the big, barefooted man who had fled
from the Jeffrey precincts after the shooting. A rumor, too, was going
the rounds that a detective, reputed preternaturally sharp, who had
accompanied the sheriff to the scene of action, had examined these
tracks in the road, and declared that the foot-print was neither that of
a negro nor a tramp, but of a white man used to wearing shoes something
too tightly fitting.
The visitor glanced down at the substantial foot-gear of the contractor,
fitting somewhat snugly, and thereafter he became more out of
countenance than before and manifested some haste to get away. Hoxer
said to himself that his anxiety whetted his apprehension. He had given
his visitor no cause for suspicion, and doubtless the man had evolved
none. Hoxer was glad that he was due and overdue to be gone from the
locality. He felt that he could scarcely breathe freely again till he
had joined the gang of Irish ditchers now establishing themselves in a
new camp in the adjoining county, where the high stage of the river gave
him employment in fighting water. He made up his mind, however, that he
would not take the train thither. He dreaded to be among men, to
encounter question and speculation, till he had time to regain control
of his nerves, his facial expression, the tones of his voice. He
resolved that he would quietly drift down the river in a rowboat that
had been at his disposal during his employment here, and join his force
already settled at their destination, without running the gauntlet of
inspection by the neighborhood in a more formal departure. He had
already bidden farewell to those few denizens of the Bend with whom his
associations had been most genial. "And I'll clear out now, as I would
have done if nothing had happened."
He said no more of his intention of departure, but when night had come
he fastened the door of the little shanty, in which were still some of
the rude belongings of his camping outfit, with the grim determination
that it should not soon be opened again. How long the padlock should
beat the summons of the wind on the resounding battens he did not dream!
It was close on midnight when he climbed the steep interior slope of the
levee and stood for a moment gazing cautiously about him. The rowboat
lay close by, for one might embark from the summit of the levee. It was
a cloudy night, without a star. A mist clung to the face of the waters
on the Arkansas side, but on the hither shore the atmosphere was clear,
for he could see at a considerable distance up the river the fire of a
"levee-watch," the stage of the water being so menacing that a guard
must needs be on duty throughout the night. The leaping flames of the
fire cast long lines of red and yellow and a sort of luminous brown far
into the river, where the reflection seemed to palpitate in the
pulsations of the current. No other sign of life was in the night scene,
save in the opposite direction, amidst the white vapors, the gem-like
gleam of a steamer's chimney-lights, all ruby and emerald, as a packet
was slowly rounding the neighboring point. Hoxer could hear the impact
of her paddles on the water, the night being so still. He had seated
himself in the middle of the rowboat and laid hold on the oars when his
foot struck against something soft on the bottom of the craft, partly
under the seat in the stern. It was his bundle, he thought, containing
the spoiled clothing that he had worn in the swamp, and which he
intended to sink in mid-stream. His nerve was shaken, however; he could
not restrain a sudden exclamation--this must have seemed discovery
rather than agitation. It was as a signal for premature action. He was
suddenly seized from behind, his arms held down against his sides, his
hands close together. The bundle in the stern rose all at once to the
stature of a man. The touch of cold metal, a sharp, quick click,--and
he was captured and handcuffed within the space of ten seconds.
A terrible struggle ensued, which his great strength but sufficed to
prolong. His wild, hoarse cries of rage and desperation seemed to beat
against the sky; back and forth the dark riparian forests repeated them
with the effect of varying distance in the echoes, till all the sombre
woods seemed full of mad, frantic creatures, shrieking out their
helpless frenzy. More than once his superior muscle sufficed to throw
off both the officers for a moment, but to what avail? Thus manacled, he
could not escape.
Suddenly a wild, new clamor resounded from the shore. In the dusky
uncertainty, a group of men were running down the bank, shouting out to
the barely descried boatmen imperative warnings that they would break
the levee in their commotion, coupled with violent threats if they did
not desist. For the force with which the rowboat dashed against the
summit of the levee, rebounding again and again, laden with the weight
of three ponderous men, and endowed with all the impetus of their
struggle, so eroded the earth that the waves had gained an entrance,
the initial step to a crevasse that would flood the country with a
disastrous overflow. As there was no abatement of the blows of the boat
against the embankment, no reply nor explanation, a shot from the gun of
one of the levee-watch came skipping lightsomely over the water as Hoxer
was borne exhausted to the bottom of the skiff. Then, indeed, the
sheriff of the county bethought himself to shout out his name and
official station to the astonished group on shore, and thus,
bullet-proof under the aegis of the law, the boat pulled out toward the
steamer, lying in mid-stream, silently awaiting the coming of the
officer and his prisoner, a great, towering, castellated object, half
seen in the night, her broadside of cabin lights, and their reflection
in the ripples, sparkling through the darkness like a chain of golden
stars.
They left no stress of curiosity behind them; naught in the delta can
compete in interest with the threatened collapse of a levee in times of
high water. Before the rowboat had reached the steamer's side, its
occupants could hear the great plantation-bell ringing like mad to
summon forth into the midnight all available hands to save the levee,
and, looking back presently, a hundred lanterns were seen flickering
hither and thither, far down in the dusk--no illusion this, for all
deltaic rivers are higher in the centre than their banks--where the busy
laborers, with thousands of gunny-sacks filled with sand, were fighting
the Mississippi, building a barricade to fence it from the rich spoils
it coveted.
The packet, which, as it happened, was already overdue, had been
telephoned by the officers at her last landing, and a number of men
stood on the guards expectant. Hoxer had ceased to struggle. He looked
up at the steamer, his pallid face and wide, distended eyes showing in
the cabin lights, as the rowboat pulled alongside. Then as the sheriff
directed him to rise, he stood up at his full height, stretched his
manacled hands high above his head, and suddenly dived into deep water,
leaving the boat rocking violently, and in danger of capsizing with the
officers.
A desperate effort was made to recover the prisoner, alive or dead--all
in vain. A roustabout on the deck declared that in the glare of the
steamer's search-light, thrown over the murky waters, he was seen to
come to the surface once, but if he rose a second time it must have been
beneath the great bulk of the packet, to go down again to the death
awaiting him in the deeps.
On the bank a little dog sat through sunshine and shadow in front of the
door of the shack of the contractor of the levee-construction gang, and
awaited his return with the patient devotion of his kind. Sometimes, as
the padlock wavered in the wind, he would cock his head briskly askew,
forecasting from the sound a step within. Sometimes the grief of absence
and hope deferred would wring his humble heart, and he would whimper in
an access of misery and limp about a bit. But presently he would be
seated again, alertly upright, his eyes on the door, for the earliest
glimpse of the face that he loved. When the overflow came at last the
shacks of the construction gang were swept away, and the little dog was
seen no more.
UNA OF THE HILL COUNTRY
The old sawmill on Headlong Creek at the water-gap of Chilhowee Mountain
was silent and still one day, its habit of industry suggested only in
the ample expanse of sawdust spread thickly over a level open space in
the woods hard by, to serve as footing for the "bran dance" that had
been so long heralded and that was destined to end so strangely.
A barbecue had added its attractions, unrivalled in the estimation of
the rustic epicure, but even while the shoats, with the delectable
flavor imparted by underground roasting and browned to a turn, were
under discussion by the elder men and the sun-bonneted matrons on a
shady slope near the mill, where tablecloths had been spread beside a
crystal spring, the dance went ceaselessly on, as if the flying figures
were insensible of fatigue, impervious to hunger, immune from heat.
Indeed the youths and maidens of the contiguous coves and ridges had
rarely so eligible an opportunity, for it is one of the accepted tenets
of the rural religionist that dancing in itself is a deadly sin, and all
the pulpits of the country-side had joined in fulminations against it.
Nothing less than a political necessity had compassed this joyous
occasion. It was said to have been devised by the "machine" to draw
together the largest possible crowd, that certain candidates might
present their views on burning questions of more than local importance,
in order to secure vigorous and concerted action at the polls in the
luke-warm rural districts when these measures should go before the
people, in the person of their advocates, at the approaching primary
elections. However, even the wisdom of a political boss is not
infallible, and despite the succulent graces of the barbecue numbers of
the ascetic and jeans-clad elder worthies, though fed to repletion,
collogued unhappily together among the ox-teams and canvas-hooded wagons
on the slope, commenting sourly on the frivolity of the dance. These
might be relied on to cast no ballots in the interest of its promoters,
with whose views they were to be favored between the close of the feast
and the final dance before sunset.
The trees waved full-foliaged branches above the circle of sawdust and
dappled the sunny expanse with flickering shade, and as they swayed
apart in the wind they gave evanescent glimpses of tiers on tiers of the
faint blue mountains of the Great Smoky Range in the distance, seeming
ethereal, luminous, seen from between the dark, steep, wooded slopes of
the narrow water-gap hard by, through which Headlong Creek plunged and
roared. The principal musician, perched with his fellows on a hastily
erected stand, was burly, red-faced, and of a jovial aspect. He had a
brace of fiddlers, one on each side, but with his own violin under his
double-chin he alone "called the figures" of the old-fashioned
contradances. Now and again, with a wide, melodious, sonorous voice, he
burst into a snatch of song:
"Shanghai chicken he grew so tall,
In a few days--few days,
Cannot hear him crow at all----"
Sometimes he would intersperse jocund personal remarks in his
Terpsichorean commands: "Gents, forward to the centre--back--swing the
lady ye love the best." Then in alternation, "Ladies, forward to the
centre--back----" and as the mountain damsels teetered in expectation of
the usual supplement of this mandate he called out in apparent
expostulation, "_Don't_ swing him, Miss--he don't wuth a turn."
Suddenly the tune changed and with great gusto he chanted forth:
"When fust I did a-courtin' go,
Says she 'Now, _don't_ be foolish, Joe,'"
the _tempo rubato_ giving fresh impetus to the kaleidoscopic whirl of
the dancers. The young men were of indomitable endurance and manifested
a crude agility as they sprang about clumsily in time to the scraping of
the fiddles, while their partners shuffled bouncingly or sidled
mincingly according to their individual persuasion of the most apt
expression of elegance. Considered from a critical point of view the
dance was singularly devoid of grace--only one couple illustrating the
exception to the rule. The youth it was who was obviously beautiful, of
a type as old as the fabled Endymion. His long brown hair hung in heavy
curls to the collar of his butternut jeans coat; his eyes were blue and
large and finely set; his face was fair and bespoke none of the mid-day
toil at the plow-handles that had tanned the complexion of his compeers,
for Brent Kayle had little affinity for labor of any sort. He danced
with a light firm step, every muscle supplely responsive to the strongly
marked pulse of the music, and he had a lithe, erect carriage which
imparted a certain picturesque effect to his presence, despite his much
creased boots, drawn over his trousers to the knee, and his big black
hat which he wore on the back of his head. The face of his partner had a
more subtle appeal, and so light and willowy was her figure as she
danced that it suggested a degree of slenderness that bordered on
attenuation. Her unbonneted hair of a rich blonde hue had a golden
lustre in the sun; her complexion was of an exquisite whiteness and with
a delicate flush; the chiseling of her features was peculiarly fine, in
clear, sharp lines--she was called "hatchet-faced" by her
undiscriminating friends. She wore a coarse, flimsy, pink muslin dress
which showed a repetitious pattern of vague green leaves, and as she
flitted, lissome and swaying, through the throng, with the wind
a-flutter in her full draperies, she might have suggested to a spectator
the semblance of a pink flower--of the humbler varieties, perhaps, but
still a wild rose is a rose.
Even the longest dance must have an end; even the stanchest mountain
fiddler will reach at last his limit of endurance and must needs be
refreshed and fed. There was a sudden significant flourish of frisky
bowing, now up and again down, enlisting every resonant capacity of
horsehair and catgut; the violins quavered to a final long-drawn scrape
and silence descended. Dullness ensued; the flavor of the day seemed to
pall; the dancers scattered and were presently following the crowd that
began to slowly gather about the vacated stand of the musicians, from
which elevation the speakers of the occasion were about to address their
fellow-citizens. One of the disaffected old farmers, gruff and averse,
could not refrain from administering a rebuke to Brent Kayle as crossing
the expanse of sawdust on his way to join the audience he encountered
the youth in company with Valeria Clee, his recent partner.
"Ai-yi, Brent," the old man said, "the last time I seen you uns I
remember well ez ye war a-settin' on the mourner's bench." For there had
been a great religious revival the previous year and many had been
pricked in conscience. "Ye ain't so tuk up now in contemplatin' the
goodness o' God an' yer sins agin same," he pursued caustically.
Brent retorted with obvious acrimony. "I don't see no 'casion ter doubt
the goodness o' God--I never war so ongrateful nohow as that comes to."
He resented being thus publicly reproached, as if he were individually
responsible for the iniquity of the bran dance--the scape-goat for the
sins of all this merry company. Many of the whilom dancers had pressed
forward, crowding up behind the old mountaineer and facing the flushed
Brent and the flower-like Valeria, the faint green leaves of her muslin
dress fluttering about her as her skirts swayed in the wind.
"Ye ain't so powerful afeard of the devil _now_ ez ye uster was on the
mourner's bench," the old man argued.
"I never war so mighty afeard of the devil," the goaded Brent broke
forth angrily, for the crowd was laughing in great relish of his
predicament--they, who had shared all the enormity of "shaking a foot"
on this festive day. Brent flinched from the obvious injustice of their
ridicule. He felt an eager impulse for reprisal. "I know ez sech dancin'
ez I hev done ain't no sin," he blustered. "I ain't afeared o' the devil
fur sech ez that. I wouldn't be skeered a mite ef he war ter--ter--ter
speak right out now agin it, an' I'll be bound ez all o' you uns would.
I--I--look yander--_look_!"
He had thrown himself into a posture of amazed intentness and was
pointing upward at the overhanging boughs of a tree above their heads. A
squirrel was poised thereon, gazing down motionless. Then, suddenly--a
frightful thing happened. The creature seemed to speak. A strange
falsetto voice, such as might befit so eerie a chance, sounded on the
air--loud, distinct, heard far up the slope, and electrifying the
assemblage near at hand that was gathering about the stand and awaiting
the political candidates.
"Quit yer foolin'--quit yer foolin'," the strange voice iterated. "I'll
larn ye ter be afeared o' the devil. Long legs now is special grace."
So wild a cry broke from the startled group below the tree that the
squirrel, with a sudden, alert, about-face movement, turned and swiftly
ran along the bough and up the bole. It paused once and looked back to
cry out again in distinct iteration, "Quit yer foolin'! Quit yer
foolin'!"
But none had stayed to listen. A general frantic rout ensued. The
possibility of ventriloquism was unknown to their limited experience.
All had heard the voice and those who had distinguished the words and
their seeming source needed no argument. In either case the result was
the same. Within ten minutes the grounds of the famous barbecue and bran
dance were deserted. The cumbrous wagons, all too slow, were wending
with such speed as their drivers could coerce the ox-teams to make along
the woodland road homeward, while happier wights on horseback galloped
past, leaving clouds of dust in the rear and a grewsome premonition of
being hindmost in a flight that to the simple minds of the mountaineers
had a pursuer of direful reality.
The state of a candidate is rarely enviable until the event is cast and
the postulant is merged into the elect, but on the day signalized by the
barbecue, the bran dance, and the rout the unfortunate aspirants for
public favor felt that they had experienced the extremest spite of fate;
for although they realized in their superior education and
sophistication that the panic-stricken rural crowd had been tricked by
some clever ventriloquist, the political orators were left with only the
winds and waters and wilderness on which to waste their eloquence, and
the wisdom of their exclusive method of saving the country.
* * * * *