The Young Mountaineers

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When he first began this labor, he was, perhaps, the youngest striker
that ever wielded a sledge. Now, at eighteen, he had become expert at
the trade, and his muscles were admirably developed. He was tall and
robust, and he had never an ache nor an ill, except in his aching heart.
But his heart was sore, for in the shop he found oaths and harsh
treatment, and even at home these pursued him; while outside, desolation
was set like a seal on Poor Valley.

One drear autumnal afternoon, when the sky was dull, a dense white mist
overspread the valley. As Ike plodded up the steep mountain side, the
vapor followed him, creeping silently along the deep ravines and chasms,
till at length it overtook and enveloped him. Then only a few feet of
the familiar path remained visible.

Suddenly he stopped short and stared. A dim, distorted something was
peering at him from over the top of a big boulder. It was moving--it
nodded at him. Then he indistinctly recognized it as a tall, conical
hat. There seemed a sort of featureless face below it.

A thrill of fear crept through him. His hands grew cold and shook in his
pockets. He leaned forward, gazing intently into the thick fog.

An odd distortion crossed the vague, featureless face--like a leer,
perhaps. Once more the tall, conical hat nodded fantastically.

"Ef ye do that agin," cried Ike, in sudden anger, all his pluck coming
back with a rush, "I'll gin ye a lick ez will weld yer head an' the
boulder together!"

He lifted his clenched fist and shook it.

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed the man in the mist.

Ike cooled off abruptly. He had been kicked and cuffed half his life,
but he had never been laughed at. Ridicule tamed him. He was ashamed,
and he remembered that he had been afraid, for he had thought the man
was some "roamin' harnt."

"I dunno," said Ike sulkily, "ez ye hev got enny call ter pounce so
suddint out'n the fog, an' go ter noddin' that cur'ous way ter folks ez
can't half see ye."

"I never knowed afore," said the man in the mist, with mock apology in
his tone and in the fantastic gyrations of his nodding hat, "ez it air
you-uns ez owns this mounting." He looked derisively at Ike from head to
foot. "Ye air the biggest man in Tennessee, ain't ye?"

"Naw!" said Ike shortly, feeling painfully awkward, as an overgrown boy
is apt to do.

"Waal, from yer height, I mought hev thunk ye war that big Injun that
the old folks tells about," and the stranger broke suddenly into a
hoarse, quavering chant:--

"'A red man lived in Tennessee,
Mighty big Injun, sure!
He growed ez high ez the tallest tree,
An' he sez, sez he, "Big Injun, me!"
Mighty big Injun, sure!'"

"Waal, waal," in a pensive voice, "so ye ain't him? I'm powerful glad ye
tole me that, sonny, 'kase I mought hev got skeered hyar in the woods by
myself with that big Injun."

He laughed boisterously, and began to sing again:--

"'Settlers blazed out a road, ye see,
Mighty big Injun, sure!
He combed thar hair with a knife. Sez he,
"It's combed fur good! Big Injun, me!"
Mighty big Injun, sure!'"

He broke out laughing afresh, and Ike, abashed and indignant, was about
to pass on, when the man gayly balanced himself on one foot, as if he
were about to dance a grotesque jig, and held out at arm's length a big
silver coin.

It was a dollar. That meant a great deal to Ike, for he earned no money
he could call his own.

"Free an' enlightened citizen o' these Nunited States," the man
addressed him with mock solemnity, "I brung this dollar hyar fur
you-uns."

"What air ye layin' off fur me ter do?" asked Ike.

The man grew abruptly grave. "Jes' stable this hyar critter fur a night
an' day."

For the first time Ike became aware of a horse's flank, dimly seen on
the other side of the boulder.

"Ter-morrer night ride him up ter my house on the mounting. Ye hev hearn
tell o' me, hain't ye, Jedge? My name's Grig Beemy. Don't kem till
night, 'kase I won't be thar till then. I hev got ter stop
yander--yander"--he looked about uncertainly, "yander ter the sawmill
till then, 'kase I promised ter holp work thar some. I'll gin ye the
dollar now," he added liberally, as an extra inducement.

"I'll be powerful glad ter do that thar job fur a dollar," said Ike,
thinking, with a glow of self-gratulation, of the corn which he had
raised in his scanty leisure on his own little patch of ground, and
which he might use to feed the animal.

"But hold yer jaw 'bout'n it, boy. Yer stepdad wouldn't let the beastis
stay thar a minute ef he knowed it, 'kase--waal--'kase me an' him hev
hed words. Slip the beastis in on the sly. Pearce Tallam don't feed an'
tend ter his critters nohow. I hev hearn ez his boys do that job, so he
ain't like ter find it out. On the sly--that's the trade."

Ike hesitated.

Once more the man teetered on one foot, and held out the coin
temptingly. But Ike's better instincts came to his aid.

"That barn b'longs ter Pearce Tallam. I puts nuthin' thar 'thout his
knowin' it. I ain't a fox, nur a mink, nur su'thin wild, ter go skulkin'
'bout on the sly."

Then he pressed hastily on out of temptation's way.

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed the man in the mist.

There was no mirth in the tones now; his laugh was a bitter gibe. As it
followed Ike, it reminded him that the man had not yet moved from beside
the boulder, or he would have heard the thud of the horse's hoofs.

He turned and glanced back. The opaque white mist was dense about him,
and he could see nothing. As he stood still, he heard a muttered oath,
and after a time the man cleared his throat in a rasping fashion, as if
the oath had stuck in it.

Ike understood at last. The man was waiting for somebody. And this was
strange, here in the thick fog on the bleak mountainside. But Ike said
to himself that it was no concern of his, and plodded steadily on, till
he reached a dark little log house, above which towered a flaring yellow
hickory tree.

Within, ranged on benches, were homespun-clad mountain children. A
high-shouldered, elderly man sat at a table near the deep fireplace,
where a huge backlog was smouldering. Through the cobwebbed window-panes
the mists looked in.

Ike did not speak as he stood on the threshold, but his greedy glance at
the scholars' books enlightened the pedagogue. "Do you want to come to
school?" he asked.

Then the boy's long-cherished grievance burst forth. "They hev tole me
ez how it air agin the law, bein' ez I lives out'n the _dee_stric'."

The teacher elevated his grizzled eyebrows, and Ike said, "I kem hyar
ter ax ye ef that be a true word. I 'lowed ez mebbe my dad tole me that
word jes' ter hender me, an' keep me at the forge. It riles me powerful
ter hev ter be an ignorunt all my days."

To a stranger, this reflection on his "dad" seemed unbecoming. The
teacher's sympathy ebbed. He looked severely at the boy's pale, anxious
face, as he coldly said that he could teach no pupils who resided
outside his school district, except out of regular school hours, and
with a charge for tuition.

Ike Hooden had no money. He nodded suddenly in farewell, the door
closed, and when the schoolmaster, in returning compassion, opened it
after him, and peered out into the impenetrable mist, the boy was
nowhere to be seen. He had taken his despair by the hand, and together
they went down, down into the depths of Poor Valley.

He stood so sorely in need of a little kindness that he felt grateful
for the friendly aspect of his stepbrother, whom he met just before he
reached the shop.

"'Pears like ye air toler'ble late a-gittin' home, Ike," said Jube. "I
done ye the favior ter feed the critters. I 'lowed ez ye would do ez
much fur me some day. I'll feed 'em agin in the mornin', ef ye'll forge
me three lenks ter my trace-chain ter-night, arter dad hev gone home."

Now this broad-faced, sandy-haired, undersized boy, who was two or three
years younger than Ike, and not strong enough for work at the anvil, was
a great tactician. It was his habit, in doing a favor, rigorously to
exact a set-off, and that night when the blacksmith had left the shop,
Jube slouched in.

The flare of the forge-fire illumined with a fitful flicker the dark
interior, showing the rod across the corner with its jingling weight of
horseshoes, a ploughshare on the ground, the barrel of water, the low
window, and casting upon the wall a grotesque shadow of Jube's dodging
figure as he began to ply the bellows.

Presently he left off, the panting roar ceased, the hot iron was laid on
the anvil, and his dodging image on the wall was replaced by an immense
shadow of Ike's big right arm as he raised it. The blows fell fast; the
sparks showered about. All the air was ajar with the resonant clamor of
the hammer, and the anvil sang and sang, shrill and clear. When the iron
was hammered cold, Jube broke the momentary silence.

"I hev got," he droned, as if he were reciting something made familiar
by repetition, "two roosters, 'leven hens, an' three pullets."

There was a long pause, and then he chanted, "One o' the roosters air a
Dominicky."

He walked over to the anvil and struck it with a small bit of metal
which he held concealed in his hand.

"I hev got two shoats, a bag o' dried peaches, two geese, an' I'm
tradin' with mam fur a gayn-der."

He quietly slipped the small bit of shining metal in his pocket.

"I hev got," he droned, waxing very impressive, "a red heifer."

Ike paused meditatively, his hammer in his hand. A new hope was dawning
within him. He knew what was meant by Jube, who often recited the list
of his possessions, seeking to rouse enough envy to induce Ike to
exchange for the "lay out" his interest in a certain gray mare.

Now the mare really belonged to Ike, having come to him from his
paternal grandfather. This was all of value that the old man had left;
for the deserted log hut, rotting on another bleak waste farther down in
Poor Valley, was worth only a sigh for the home that it once
was,--worth, too, perhaps, the thanks of those it sheltered now, the rat
and the owl.

The mare had worked for Pearce Tallam in the plough, under the saddle,
and in the wagon all the years since. But one day, when the boy fell
into a rage,--for he, too, had a difficult temper,--and declared that
he would sell her and go forth from Poor Valley never to return, he was
met by the question, "Hain't the mare lived off'n my fields, an' hain't
I gin ye yer grub, an' clothes, an' the roof that kivers ye?"

Thus Pearce Tallam had disputed his right to sell the mare. But it had
more than once occurred to him that the blacksmith would not object to
Jube's buying her.

Hitherto Ike had not coveted Jube's variegated possessions. But now he
wanted money for schooling. It was true he could hardly turn these into
cash, for in this region farm produce of every description is received
at the country stores in exchange for powder, salt, and similar
necessities, and thus there is little need for money, and very little is
in circulation.

Still, Ike reflected that he might now and then get a small sum at the
store, or perhaps the schoolmaster might barter "l'arnin'" for the
heifer or the shoats.

His hesitation was not lost upon Jube, who offered a culminating
inducement to clinch the trade. He suddenly stood erect, teetered
fantastically on one foot, as if about to begin to dance, and held out a
glittering silver dollar.

The hammer fell from Ike's hands upon the anvil. "'Twar ye ez Grig
Beemy war a-waitin' fur thar on the mounting in the mist!" he cried out,
recognizing the man's odd gesture, which Jube had unconsciously
imitated.

Doubtless the dollar was offered to Jube afterward, exactly as it had
been offered to him. And Jube had taken it. The imitative monkey thrust
it hastily into his pocket, and came down from his fantastic toe, and
stood soberly enough on his two feet.

"Grig Beemy gin ye that thar dollar," said Ike.

Jube sullenly denied it. "He never, now!"

"His critter hev got no call ter be in dad's barn."

"His critter ain't hyar," protested Jube. "This dollar war gin me in
trade ter the settle_mint_."

Ike remembered the queer gesture. How could Jube have repeated it if he
had not seen it? He broke into a sarcastic laugh.

"That's how kem ye war so powerful 'commodatin' ez ter feed the
critters. Ye 'lowed ez I wouldn't see the strange beastis, an' then tell
dad. Foolin' me war a part o' yer trade, I reckon."

Jube made no reply.

"Ef ye war ez big ez me, or bigger, I'd thrash ye out'n yer boots fur
this trick. Ye don't want no lenks ter yer chain. Ye jes' want ter be
sure o' keepin' me out'n the barn. Waal--thar air yer lenks."

He caught up the tongs and held the links in the fire with one hand
while he worked the bellows with the other. Then he laid them red-hot
upon the anvil. His rapid blows crushed them to a shapeless mass. "And
now--thar they ain't."

Jube did not linger long. He was in terror lest Ike should tell his
father. But Ike did not think this was his duty. In fact, neither boy
imagined that the affair involved anything more serious than stabling a
horse without the knowledge of the owner of the shelter.

When Ike was alone a little later, an unaccustomed sound caused him to
glance toward the window.

Something outside was passing it. His position was such that he could
not see the object itself, but upon the perpendicular gray wall of the
crag close at hand, and distinctly defined in the yellow flare that
flickered out through the window from the fire of the forge, the
gigantic shadow of a horse's head glided by.

He understood in an instant that Jube had slipped the animal out of the
barn, and was hiding him in the misty woods, expecting that Ike would
acquaint his father with the facts. He had so managed that these facts
would seem lies, if Pearce Tallam should examine the premises and find
no horse there.

All the next day the white mist clung shroud-like to Poor Valley. The
shadows of evening were sifting through it, when Ike's mother went to
the shop, much perturbed because the cow had not come, and she could not
find Jube to send after her.

"Ike kin go, I reckon," said the blacksmith.

So Ike mounted his mare and set out through the thick white vapor. He
had divined the cause of Jube's absence, and experienced no surprise
when on the summit of the mountain he overtook him, riding the strange
horse, on his way to Beemy's house.

"I s'pose that critter air yourn, an' ye mus' hev bought him fur a pound
o' dried peaches, or sech, up thar ter the settle_mint_," sneered Ike.

Jube was about to reply, but he glanced back into the dense mist with a
changing expression.

"Hesh up!" he said softly. "What's that?"

It was the regular beat of horses' hoofs, coming at a fair pace along
the road on the summit of the mountain. The riders were talking
excitedly.

"I tell ye, ef I could git a glimpse o' the man ez stole that thar
horse, it would go powerful hard with me not to let daylight through
him. I brung this hyar shootin'-iron along o' purpose. Waal, waal,
though, seein' ez ye air the sheriff, I'll hev ter leave it be ez
you-uns say. I wouldn't know the man from Adam; but ye can't miss the
critter,--big chestnut, with a star in his forehead, an'"--

Something strange had happened. At the sound of the voice the horse
pricked up his ears, turned short round in the road, and neighed
joyfully.

The boys looked at each other with white faces. They understood at last.
Jube was mounted on a stolen horse within a hundred yards of the
pursuing owner and the officers of the law. Could explanations--words,
mere words--clear him in the teeth of this fact?

"Drap out'n the saddle, turn the critter loose in the road, an' take ter
the woods," urged Ike.

"They'll sarch an' ketch me," quavered Jube.

He was frantic at the idea of being captured on the horse's back, but if
it should come to a race, he preferred trusting to the chestnut's four
legs rather than to his own two.

Ike hesitated. Jube had brought the difficulty all on himself, and
surely it was not incumbent on Ike to share the danger. But he was
swayed by a sudden uncontrollable impulse.

"Drap off'n the critter, turn him loose, an' I'll lope down the road a
piece, an' they'll foller me, in the mist."

He might have done a wiser thing. But it was a tough problem at best,
and he had only a moment in which to decide.

In that swift, confused second he saw Jube slide from the saddle and
disappear in the mist as if he had been caught up in the clouds. He
heard the horse's hoofs striking against the stones as he trotted off,
whinnying, to meet his master. There was a momentary clamor among the
men, and then with whip and spur they pressed on to capture the supposed
malefactor.

CHAPTER II

All at once it occurred to Ike, as he galloped down the road, that when
they overtook him, they would think that he was the thief, and that he
had been leading the horse. He had been so strong in his own innocence
that the possibility that they might suspect him had not before entered
his mind.

He had intended only to divert the pursuit from Jube, who, although free
from any great wrong-doing, was exposed to the most serious
misconstruction. The knowledge of the pursuers' revolvers had made this
a hard thing to do, but otherwise he had not thought of himself, nor of
what he should say when overtaken.

They would question him; he must answer. Would they believe his story?
Could he support it? Grig Beemy of course would deny it. And Jube--had
he not known how Jube could lie? Would he not fear that the truth might
somehow involve him with the horse-thief?

Ike, with despair in his heart, urged his mare to her utmost speed,
knowing now the danger he was in as a suspected horse-thief. Suddenly,
from among his pursuers, a tiny jet of flame flared out into the dense
gray atmosphere, something whizzed through the branches of the trees
above his head, and a sharp report jarred the mists.

Perhaps the officer fired into the air, merely to intimidate the
supposed criminal and induce him to surrender. But now the boy could not
stop. He had lost control of the mare. Frightened beyond measure by the
report of the pistol, she was in full run.

On she dashed, down sharp declivities, up steep ascents, and then away
and away, with a great burst of speed, along a level sandy stretch.

The black night was falling like a pall upon the white, shrouded day.
Ike knew less where he was than the mare did; he was trusting to her
instinct to carry him to her stable. More than once the low branches of
a tree struck him, almost tearing him from the saddle, but he clung
frantically to the mane of the frightened animal, and on and on she
swept, with the horsemen thundering behind.

He could hear nothing but their heavy, continuous tramp. He could see
nothing, until suddenly a dim, pure light was shining in front of him,
on his own level, it seemed. He stared at it with starting eyeballs. It
cleft the vapors,--they were falling away on either side,--and they
reflected it with an illusive, pearly shimmer.

In another moment he knew that he was nearing the abrupt precipice, for
that was the moon, riding like a silver boat upon a sea of mist, with a
glittering wake behind it, beyond the sharply serrated summit line of
the eastern hills.

He could no longer trust to the mare's instinct. He trusted to
appearances instead. He sawed away with all his might on the bit,
striving to wheel her around in the road.

She resisted, stumbled, then fell upon her knees among a wild confusion
of rotting logs and stones that rolled beneath her, as, snorting and
angry, she struggled again to her feet. Once more Ike pulled her to the
left.

There was a great displacement of earth, a frantic scramble, and
together they went over the cliff.

The descent was not absolutely sheer. At the distance of twelve or
fourteen feet below, a great bulging shelf of rock projected. They fell
upon this. The boy had instantly loosed his hold of the reins, and
slipped away from the prostrate animal. The mare, quieted only for a
moment by the shock, sprang to her feet, the stones slipped beneath her,
and she went headlong over the precipice into the dreary depths of Poor
Valley.

The pursuers heard the heavy thud when she struck the ground far below.
They paused at the verge of the crag, and talked in eager, excited
tones. They did not see the boy, as he sat cowering close to the cliff
on the ledge below.

Ike listened in great trepidation to what they were saying; he
experienced infinite surprise when presently one of them mentioned Grig
Beemy's name.

[Illustration: TOGETHER THEY WENT OVER THE CLIFF]

So they knew who had stolen the horse! It was little consolation to Ike,
with his mare lying dead at the foot of the cliff, to reflect that if he
had had the courage to face the emergency, and rely upon his innocence,
his story would only have confirmed their knowledge of the facts.

Although the master of the horse did not know the thief "from Adam,"
Beemy had been seen with the animal and recognized by others, who,
accompanying the sheriff and the owner, had traced him for two days
through many wily doublings in the mountain fastnesses.

They now concluded to press on to Beemy's house. Ike knew they would
find him there waiting for Jube and the horse. Beemy had feared that he
would be followed, and this was the reason that he had desired to rid
himself of the animal for a day and night, until he could make sure and
feel more secure.

As the horsemen swept round the curve, Ike remembered how close was the
road to the cliff. If he had only given the mare her head, she would
have carried him safely around it. But there she lay dead, way down in
Poor Valley, and he had lost all he owned in the world.

Night had come, and in the dense darkness he did not dare to move. Only
a step away was the edge of the precipice, over which the mare had
slipped, and he could not tell how dangerous was the bluff he must climb
to regain the summit. He felt he must lie here till dawn.

He was badly jarred by his fall. Time dragged by wearily, and his
bruises pained him. He knew at length that all the world slept,--all but
himself and some distant ravening wolf, whose fierce howl ever and anon
set the mists to shivering in Poor Valley where he prowled. This
blood-curdling sound and his bitter thoughts were but sorry company.

After a long time he fell asleep. Fortunately, he did not stir. When he
regained consciousness and a sense of danger, he found still around him
that dense white vapor, through which the pale, drear day was slowly
dawning. Above his head was swinging in the mist a cluster of
fox-grapes, with the rime upon them, and higher still he saw a quivering
red leaf.

It was the leaf of a starveling tree, growing out of a cleft where there
was so little earth that it seemed to draw its sustenance from the rock.
It was a scraggy, stunted thing, but it was well for him that it had
struck root there, for its branches brushed the solid, smooth face of
the cliff, which he could not have surmounted but for them and the
grape-vine that had fallen over from the summit and entangled itself
among them.

As he climbed the tree, he felt it quake over the abysses, which the
mists still veiled. He had a sense of elation and achievement when he
gained the top, and it followed him home. There it suddenly deserted
him.

He found Pearce Tallam in a frenzy of rage at the discovery, which he
had made through Jube's confession, that a stolen horse had been stabled
on his premises. Despite his tyranny and his fierce, rude temper, he
was an honest man and of fair repute. Although he realized that neither
boy knew that the animal had been stolen, he gave Jube a lesson which he
remembered for many a long day, and Ike also came in for his share of
this muscular tuition.

For in the midst of the criminations and recriminations, the violent
blacksmith caught up a horseshoe and flung it across the shop, striking
Ike with a force that almost stunned him. He was a man in strength, and
it was hard for him not to return the blow; but he only walked out of
the shop, declaring that he would stay for no more blows.

"Cl'ar out, then!" called out Pearce Tallam after him. "I don't keer ef
ye goes fur good."

He met, at the door of the dwelling, a plaintive reproach from his
mother. "'Count o' ye not tellin' on Jube, he mought hev been tuk up fur
a horse-thief. I dunno what I'd hev done 'thout him," she added, "'long
o' raisin' the young tur-r-keys, an' goslin's, an' deedies, an' sech; he
hev been a mighty holp ter me. He air more of a son ter me than my own
boy."

She did not mean this, but she had said it once half in jest, half in
reproach, and then it became a formula of complaint whenever Ike
displeased her.

Now he was sore and sensitive. "Take him fur yer son, then!" he cried.
"I'm a-goin' out'n Pore Valley, ef I starves fur it. I shows my face
hyar no more."

As he shouldered his gun and strode out, he noted the light of the
forge-fire quivering on the mist, but he little thought it was the last
fire that Pearce Tallam would ever kindle there.

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