STARVATION
Following their first visit, the three soldiers returned during four
successive days to the deserted house and the field surrounding it. By
this time they had carried home the last of the books by pailfuls,
making the long journey through the cave of the bats by torch-light;
but they had arrived no nearer to the solution of the riddle of the
cattle. In fact, so long as any part of the library remained where
they had found it, they had come to wander hopelessly in the early
morning along the ledges which upheld the smaller plateau, and then
retire to the cool house to read.
After the books had been removed by the soldiers to their own side of
the dividing cliff, they found it so hard to leave them that they
stopped at home for a whole week, reading by turns and worrying
themselves thin about the bones of the cattle. They had abundant need
at this time to keep their flesh and spirits, for two more of the nine
sacks of corn had been ground in the mill, and the prospect for the
future was more dismal than ever. The end of this week of inaction,
however, found the three soldiers in the early morning again standing
by the deserted house.
Lieutenant Coleman had a systematic, military mind, and, now the
diverting books were out of their reach, he stated the problem to his
companions in this direct and concise way:
"We know that two cattle have lived and died on this field."
"Undoubtedly," replied Bromley and Philip.
"We have examined three sides of the field, and found that the cattle
could not have come from either of those directions. Is not that so?"
"It is absolutely certain," said the others.
"Therefore," continued Lieutenant Coleman, "they must have come by the
fourth side."
This conclusion was admitted to be logical; but it provoked a storm of
argument, in the course of which the soldiers got wild-eyed and red in
the face. In the end, however, they consented to trim out the bushes
which formed a thicket along the base of the ledge. It seemed to
Lieutenant Coleman that they must find some passage here, and, sure
enough, not far from the middle of this natural wall they came upon a
low-browed opening, which presently narrowed down to a space not much
more than five feet square. The farther end of this tunnel was closed
by a pile of loose earth, which was spread out at the base, and had
every appearance of having been thrown in from the other side of the
ledge. The rusty shovel was brought from the fireplace of the house,
and after a few minutes of vigorous digging, a ray of light broke
through the roots and grass near the roof of the hole. The soldiers
gave a wild cheer, and rushed out into the fresh air to cool off.
"That settles it," said Lieutenant Coleman. "Hezekiah Wallstow was the
old man of the mountain, and after Josiah Woodring buried him he filled
up this passage. The treasure he was searching for was the very cask
of gold we dug out of the fake grave--thanks to the sacrilegious
behavior of the bear."
"But how about the cattle?" said Bromley, still skeptical.
"Easy enough," said Coleman, triumphantly. "They brought two young
calves up the ladders."
This hitherto unsuspected passage through the ledge made everything
clear. It had evidently been wide open during all the years the old
man had lived on the mountain. It might have been screened by bushes
so that any chance visitors, like the hunters who came over the bridge,
would be easily deceived, and not disposed to look farther than the
ruined cabin and the non-committal gravestone.
It was not strange that the three soldiers had never suspected that
there was an opening here through the rocks, for a four-pronged
chestnut had taken firm root in the grassy bank which Josiah had thrown
up, and the old man had been dead six years when they first arrived on
the mountain. How soon after the burial the passageway had been
closed, it was not so easy to determine, but numerous hollows which
were afterward found near certain trees and rocks on the smaller
plateau made it look as if Josiah had spent a good many moonlight
nights in digging for the treasure before he gave it up altogether.
According to the story of Andy, the guide, Josiah himself must have
died soon after his strange patron, and most likely he closed the
entrance to the passage in despair when he felt his last illness
approaching. There was still much for the soldiers to learn about the
motive of the hermit in burying his surplus gold. The comforts with
which he had surrounded himself would indicate that he was no miser,
and his devotion to the cause of the slave made it extremely probable
that he had willed his treasure to some emancipation society, which had
not succeeded in reclaiming it before the war, and which, for plenty of
reasons, had not been able to secure it since.
After the soldiers had reopened the passage through the dividing cliff
so that they could pass readily from one plateau to the other, they
suspended further investigation and yielded to the luxury of reading,
which had been denied them so long. The more they read of this
peculiar literature from the library left by Hezekiah Wallstow, the
more interested they became in the cause of the slave who, they
believed, had been made free on paper by the impotent proclamation of
Abraham Lincoln, only to have his fetters more firmly riveted than ever
by the success of the Confederate arms.
Among the other books there was one entitled "Two-fold Slavery of the
United States." This book had been published in London in the year
1854, and contained as a frontispiece a black-and-white map, which, so
far west as it extended, was remarkably like the one which hung on the
wall of their house. Philip shed new tears over the pathetic lives of
Uncle Tom and little Eva, and Lieutenant Coleman and George Bromley
grew more and more indignant as they read of the sufferings of the Rev.
Elijah P. Lovejoy, and the self-confessed cruelties of Captain Canot.
However much the soldiers were wrought up by these books, it was left
to the mass of pamphlets and periodicals to fill their hearts with an
unspeakable bitterness toward the institution which the united efforts
of their comrades in arms had failed to overthrow.
It was evident that the old man had kept up some sort of communication
by mail with the Boston abolitionists, and that his agent, Josiah, had
yielded his views, if he had any, to a liberal supply of gold; for up
to the time of his death he had continued to receive these periodicals.
As long as he received such dangerous publications, he must have
maintained correspondence with their editors; and the more the soldiers
became imbued by their reading with the ideas which had made a hermit
of Hezekiah Wallstow, the more certain they became that he had willed
his money to the cause of abolition, or perhaps that he only held it in
trust from the first. Otherwise, why should he have adopted so crafty
a method of hiding it from Josiah? To speculate on the cunning of
these two men became a favorite occupation of Coleman and Bromley when
their eyes were worn out with reading. They were sure that every fresh
lot of pamphlets had come, through the settlement and up the mountain,
at the bottom of a cask of meal. The old man had no mill or other
means of grinding his corn, which he must have cultivated for his
cattle, relying upon Josiah for most of his food. Undoubtedly the very
keg which the hunters had seen Josiah carrying up by moonlight, and
which they believed was filled with whisky, contained seditious
literature enough, if they had ever found it, to have put them to the
unpleasant necessity of hanging the bearer to the nearest limb.
So the soldiers continued to read, to the neglect of every other duty,
through the entire month of August, except that Lieutenant Coleman made
a brief entry in the diary each morning, and, when they were out of
food, Philip laid by his book long enough to grind another sack of the
corn. The few ears which had shown themselves on the plantation had
been eaten green, and the yellow and shriveled stalks which had escaped
the grub at the root stood in thin, sickly rows. It was an off year
even for the chestnuts. When, in addition to this, it was found in
September that the potato crop had rotted in the ground, the reading
was brought to a sudden end, and the soldiers found themselves face to
face with a condition which threatened starvation, and that before the
winter began. They remembered the bee-tree, and took up the line where
Philip had left it, at the edge of the southern wall, only to find that
the bees flew on to some tree in the forest below and beyond the
plateau.
When it was quite settled that they would have no supplies for the
winter unless they bought them from the people in the valley with their
gold pieces, as the old man had done before them, they settled down to
their reading again, foraging by turns for every edible thing they
could find, and putting off the evil hour when they should be forced to
reveal themselves. The more they read of these fiery periodicals the
more they loathed their neighbors in the valley and shrank from
communicating with them. They knew that these people in the mountains
seldom owned slaves themselves; but they felt that they were in full
sympathy with all the cruelties of which the yellow-and-blue covered
pamphlets treated. If the guineas in the hoard of Hezekiah Wallstow
meant anything, they represented the proportion of the gold which had
been contributed by antislavery societies in England; and they began
seriously to consider their moral obligation to return the entire sum
to its rightful owners. In order to accomplish this just purpose,
their lives must be preserved during the approaching winter, and seeds
secured for another planting. After that, they would find means to
replace with iron the gold they had used in the construction of the
mill and of various domestic utensils; and when the treasure was
restored to the cask, they would find some way to open communication
with the benevolent antislavery societies.
By the end of October they had eaten the last of their meal. There
were a few clusters of purple grapes on the vines, and to these they
turned for food, still dreading to make any signs to their enemies,
with a dread which was born of the pamphlets they were reading. For
two days more they stained their hands and faces with the juice of the
grapes, until an exclusive fruit diet, and meditation day and night on
the awful wickedness of men, weakened their bodies and began to affect
their minds.
The dread hour had finally come, and they could no longer delay making
signs of their distress. To this end they collected a pile of dry
wood, and heaped it on the point of rocks, in full view of the
settlement of Cashiers. It was growing dusk when everything was ready
to start the fire, and Philip had come from the house with a lighted
torch. At the moment he was about to touch it to the dry wood, Bromley
snatched the torch from his hand and extinguished it in the dirt.
Coleman and Philip tried to prevent this rash act of their comrade, and
in their excitement gave free expression to their anger; but Bromley
stamped out the last spark of the fire without paying any heed to their
bad language and frantic gestures.
"Are you mad?" he then cried, retreating a little from what threatened
to be an assault. "What do you think will be our fate at the hands of
these people, when we are found in possession of such books as we have
been reading? We should be imprisoned like Lovejoy, or branded like
Walker. We might pay with our lives for your recklessness to-night."
Philip and Coleman were shocked at the danger they had so narrowly
escaped, and thanked Bromley for his forethought and prompt action.
Of course they must bury the books, but they would have all of the next
day to attend to that; and with many expressions of thankfulness they
returned to the house and crept into their bunks. When morning came
they were weak and hungry, with nothing whatever to eat; but in spite
of all this they heaped the antislavery books and pamphlets on the
earthen floor, carefully separating them from the works on temperance.
They had come to regard these books as little less than sacred, and
they naturally shrank from burying them in the ground. Happy
thought!--there was the cave of the bats. So, packing them into the
pails, the soldiers carried the books in two toilsome journeys by
torch-light to the middle of the cavernous passage, and laid them
carefully together on the stone floor. They were well-nigh exhausted
by this exertion; but after a rest they found strength to close the
entrance with brush and earth, and to cover their work with
pine-needles.
Half famished as Lieutenant Coleman and his comrades were, they could
only drink from the branch and wait patiently for night. The poor old
paralyzed rooster, sitting in the chips by the door, looked so forlorn
and hungry that Philip set him out among the dry weeds, and lay down on
the ground beside him, so as to be ready to turn him about and set him
along when he had plucked the few seeds in his front. As for the bear
and the five crippled roosters, they shambled and hobbled about, and
shifted bravely for themselves.
There were still many things to consider as to how they would be
received by these people, and what success they would have in
exchanging United States gold pieces for food and clothing. Perhaps
they would be obliged to buy Confederate notes at ruinous rates of
exchange. Perhaps their visitors would confiscate their gold pieces at
sight, and take them down the mountain as State prisoners. They must
keep some coins in their pockets for barter, which was their object in
summoning their dubious neighbors; but it would certainly be prudent to
conceal the bulk of their money. So the last thing the soldiers did on
this November afternoon was to dump the gold that remained in the cask
into a hole in the ground, and cover it up.
As soon as it began to grow dark on the mountain they set fire to the
pile of wood, which was presently a great tower of flame, lighting up
the rocks and trees, and forming a beacon which must be seen from
valley and mountain for miles around. At that hour, and in the glare
of their own fire, they could see nothing of its effect in the
settlement; but they were sure it would be watched by the families
outside every cabin; and in this belief they moved about to the right
and left of the flames, waving their arms in token of their distress.
[Illustration: THE BEACON FIRE.]
Surely a fire on this mountain-top, where no native had set foot for
seven long years, would excite the wonder of the people below. It
could be kindled only by human hands, and they would be eager to know
to whom the hands belonged.
In the morning the three soldiers crept out to the smoldering remains
of their fire, which was still sending up a thin wreath of smoke. On
the distant road through the valley they could see groups of tiny
people, evidently watching and wondering. They could come no nearer
than the bridgeless gorge, and so, weak as the soldiers were, after
making every effort to show themselves in the smoke, they made their
way to the head of the ladders and climbed down to the field below.
Philip stopped behind to run up the old flag on the pole; for, whatever
effect that emblem might have on their neighbors, they were determined
to stand by their colors. They found a few chestnuts and dried berries
in the old field, which they devoured with wolfish hunger as they crept
along toward the gorge.
They hoped to see human faces on the opposite bank when they arrived;
but there was no one there to meet them. They were not greatly
disappointed, for it was still early in the day, and the people had a
much longer journey to make from the valley. There was the same
old-time stillness on that part of the mountain: the tinkling brook in
the bottom of the gorge, and the soughing of the wind in the tops of
the tall pines on the other side. There were still some sticks of the
old bridge wedged in the top of the dead basswood--the bridge which had
served the old abolitionist in his lifetime, and the destruction of
which had served the purpose of the soldiers equally well.
The mild November sunshine lay bright on the faded landscape, and the
soldiers sat down on the dry grass to await the coming of their
deliverers. If one of the tall pines had been standing on their own
side of the gorge they would have used their last strength to cut it
down and fell it across the chasm. They had put on their old blue
overcoats, to make a decent appearance before the people when they
arrived; but hour after hour crept slowly by, and nobody came except
Tumbler, the bear, who had backed down the ladders and shambled across
the field to join them. By the sun it was past noon when he came, and
as he seated himself silently in the gloomy circle, he made but a sorry
addition to the anxious waiters. Why did no one come to their relief?
They knew that their fire had been seen where the presence of a human
being would be regarded as little less than a miracle by the dwellers
in the valley. What if they had accepted it as a miracle altogether,
and avoided the place accordingly? They were ignorant people, and
therefore superstitious; or else they were as cruel and heartless as
they were described in the "Weekly Emancipator."
The rustling wind in the tree-tops, and the occasional tapping of a
woodpecker in the forest beyond, became hateful sounds to their
impatient ears. Bromley, who was the strongest of the three, and the
more indignant that no one came to their relief, wandered back upon the
old field, where he found a few more chestnuts, which he divided
equally with his half-famished comrades. Every mouthful of food helped
to keep up their strength and courage, and now the slanting rays of the
afternoon sun reminded them that they must repeat their signal, and
that no time was to be lost in gathering wood for another fire. There
was still hope that relief would come before dark, and Philip was left
to watch with the bear, while Coleman and Bromley returned to the
plateau.
The postmaster in the Cove might be less superstitious, they thought,
or less hard-hearted than the people in the valley. If their strength
held out they would have two fires that night. No chance should be
neglected. As Coleman and Bromley dragged together a few dead limbs
upon the edge of the great boulder, they hoped that the postmaster had
found the remains of the telescope, as they knew he had found the army
blanket which fell from the balloon, so that when he saw their fire he
would connect it, in his mind, with the other objects which had come
down from the mountain.
It was after sunset when Philip and Tumbler appeared on the plateau.
No one had come even so far as the gorge; and Philip helped to carry
the last of their wood to the rocky point where the blackened embers of
the first fire lay in the thin ashes. Coleman and Philip remained to
kindle this beacon, while Bromley went to the Cove side with a lighted
torch and a bundle of fat pine-knots. When Bromley saw the first smoke
of the other fire across the ridge, no light had yet appeared in the
windows of the small post-office. Moreover, with his strong eyes he
was sure he saw some object moving along the road in the direction of
the office. He waited a little, waving his torch, and then he applied
it to the dry leaves and sticks at the base of the pile, which flashed
quickly into a blaze. Bromley was not content to move about in the
light replenishing his fire, but, as often as a fat pine-knot had
become enveloped in flame, he separated it from the pile and poked it
over the edge of the great smooth rock, to flare against the black
storm-stains as it fell, and perhaps to start a new fire in the Cove
bottom. A brisk east wind was blowing across the mountain, which
carried the smoke and sparks over the long roof of the post-office.
Bromley remained late at his work; but at last his strength and his
will-power yielded to the weakness that comes with hunger. An
overpowering drowsiness compelled him to leave the fire and go
stumbling over the hill to the house, where he found Coleman and Philip
already asleep.