The Young Mountaineers
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Charles Egbert Craddock >> The Young Mountaineers
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Amos Brierwood pondered for a few minutes. Then he sullenly demanded,--
"What's yer name?"
"It air Jeemes Coggin," quavered the little boy.
"Coggin, hey?" exclaimed Brierwood, with a new idea bringing back the
malicious twinkle to his eyes. He laughed as though mightily relieved,
and threw up his left hand and shook it exultingly.
The shadow on the dark wall of that maimed hand with only the stump of a
thumb was a weird, a horrible thing to the child. He had no idea that
his constant notice of it would stamp it in his memory, and that
something would come of this fact. He was glad when the shadow ceased to
writhe and twist upon the wall, and the man dropped his arm to his side
again.
"What's a-brewin', Amos?" asked the other, who had been watching
Brierwood curiously.
They whispered aside for a few moments, at first anxiously and then with
wild guffaws of satisfaction. When they approached the boy, their manner
had changed once more.
"Waal, I declar, bubby," said Brierwood agreeably, "this hyar fix ez ye
hev got inter air sateful fur true! It air enough ter sot enny boy on
the mounting cat-a-wampus. 'Twar a good thing ez we-uns happened ter kem
by hyar on our way from the tan-yard way down yander in the valley whar
we-uns hev been ter git paid up fur workin' thar some. We'll let ye out.
Who done yer this hyar trick?"
"Dunno--witches, I reckon!" cried poor Jim, bursting into tears.
"Witches!" the man exclaimed, "the woods air a-roamin' with 'em this
time o' the year; bein', ye see, ez they kem ter feed on the mast."
He chuckled as he said this, perhaps at the boy's evident terror,--for
Jim was sorrowfully superstitious,--perhaps because he had managed to
cut unnoticed a large fragment from the end of the comforter. This he
stuffed into his own pocket as he talked on about two witches, whom he
said he had met that afternoon under an oak-tree feeding on acorns.
"An' now, I kem ter remind myself that them witches war inquirin' round
'bout'n a boy--war his name Jeemes Coggin? Le''s see! That boy's name
_war_ Jeemes Coggin!"
While Jim stood breathlessly, intently listening, Brierwood had twisted
something into the folds of his comforter so dexterously that unless
this were untied it would not fall; it was a silk handkerchief of a
style never before seen in the mountains, and he had made a knot hard
and fast in one corner.
"Thar, now!" he exclaimed, holding up the fragment of knitted yarn, "I
hev tore yer comforter. Never mind, bubby, 'twar tore afore. But it'll
do ter wrop up this money-purse what b'longs ter yer dad. He lef' it
hid in the chinking o' the wall over yander close ter whar I war sittin'
when I fust kem in. I'll put it back thar, 'kase yer dad don't want
nobody ter know whar it air hid."
He strode across the room and concealed the empty pocket-book in the
chinking.
"Ef ye won't tell who teched it, I'll gin a good word fur ye ter them
witches what war inquirin' round fur ye ter-day."
Jim promised in hot haste, and then, the rain having ceased, he started
for home, but Brierwood stopped him at the door.
"Hold on thar, bub. I kem mighty nigh furgittin' ter let ye know ez I
seen yer brother Alf awhile back, an' he axed me ter git ye ter go by
Tom Brent's house, an' tell Tom ter meet him up the road a piece by that
thar big sulphur spring. Will ye gin Tom that message? Tell him Alf said
ter come quick."
Once more Jim promised.
The two men holding the lantern out in the porch watched him as he
pounded down the dark road, his tow hair sticking out of his tattered
black hat, the ends of his comforter flaunting in the breeze, and every
gesture showing the agitated haste of a witch-scared boy. Then they
looked at each other significantly, and laughed loud and long.
"He'll tell sech a crooked tale ter-morrer that Alf Coggin an' his dad
will see sights along o' that traveler's money!" said Brierwood,
gloating over his sharp management as he and his accomplice mounted
their horses and rode off in opposite directions.
When Jim reached Tom Brent's house, and knocked at the door, he was so
absorbed in his terrors that, as it opened, he said nothing for a
moment. He could see the family group within. Tom's father was placidly
smoking. His palsied "gran'dad" shook in his chair in the chimney-corner
as he told the wide-eyed boys big tales about the "Injuns" that harried
the early settlers in Tennessee.
"Tom," Jim said, glancing up at the big boy,--"Tom, thar's a witch
waitin' fur ye at the sulphur spring! Go thar, quick!"
"Not ef I knows what's good fur me!" protested Tom, with a great
horse-laugh. "What ails ye, boy? Ye talk like ye war teched in the
head!"
"I went ter say ez Alf Coggin air thar waitin' fur ye," Jim began again,
nodding his slandered head with great solemnity, "an' tole me ter tell
ye ter kem thar quick."
He took no heed of the inaccuracy of the message; he was glancing
fearfully over his shoulder, and the next minute scuttled down the road
in a bee-line for home.
Tom hurried off briskly through the woods. "Waal, sir! I'm mighty nigh
crazed ter know what Alf Coggin kin want o' me; goin' coon-huntin',
mebbe," he speculated, as he drew within sight of an old
lightning-scathed tree which stood beside the sulphur spring and
stretched up, stark and white, in the dim light.
The clouds were blowing away from a densely instarred sky; the moon was
hardly more than a crescent and dipping low in the west, but he could
see the sombre outline of the opposite mountain, and the white mists
that shifted in a ghostly and elusive fashion along the summit. The
night was still, save for a late katydid, spared by the frost, and
piping shrilly.
He experienced a terrible shock of surprise when a sudden voice--a voice
he had never heard before--cried out sharply, "Hello there! Help! help!"
As he pressed tremulously forward, he beheld a sight which made him ask
himself if it were possible that Alf Coggin had sent for him to join in
some nefarious work which had ended in leaving a man--a stranger--bound
to the old lightning-scathed tree.
Even in the uncertain light Tom could see that he was pallid and
panting, evidently exhausted in some desperate struggle: there was blood
on his face, his clothes were torn, and by all odds he was the angriest
man that was ever waylaid and robbed.
"Ter-morrer he'll be jes' a-swoopin'!" thought Tom, tremulously untying
the complicated knots, and listening to his threats of vengeance on the
unknown robbers, "an' every critter on the mounting will git a clutch
from his claws."
And in fact, it was hardly daybreak before the constable of the
district, who lived hard by in the valley, was informed of all the
details of the affair, so far as known to Tom or the "Traveler,"--for
thus the mountaineers designated him, as if he were the only one in the
world.
By reason of the message which Jim had delivered, and its strange
result, they suspected the Coggins, and as they rode together to the
justice's house for a warrant, this suspicion received unexpected
confirmation in a rumor that they found afloat. Every man they met
stopped them to repeat the story that Coggin's boy had told somebody
that it was his father who had robbed the traveler, and hid the empty
pocket-book in the chinking of the church wall. No one knew who had set
this report in circulation, but a blacksmith said he heard it first from
a man named Brierwood, who had stopped at his shop to have his horse
shod.
It was still early when they reached Jim Coggin's home; the windows and
doors were open to let out the dust, for his mother was just beginning
to sweep. She had pushed aside the table, when her eyes suddenly
distended with surprise as they fell upon a silk handkerchief lying on
the floor beside it. The moment that she stooped and picked it up, the
strange gentleman stepped upon the porch, and through the open door he
saw it dangling from her hands.
He tapped the constable on the shoulder.
"That's my property!" he said tersely.
The officer stepped in instantly. "Good-mornin', Mrs. Coggin," he said
politely. "'T would pleasure me some ter git a glimpse o' that
handkercher."
"Air it your'n?" asked the woman wonderingly. "I jes' now fund it, an' I
war tried ter know who had drapped it hyar."
The officer, without a word, untied the knot which Amos Brierwood had
made in one corner, while the Coggins looked on in open-mouthed
amazement. It contained a five-dollar bill, and a bit of paper on which
some careless memoranda had been jotted down in handwriting which the
traveler claimed as his own.
It seemed a very plain case. Still, he got out of the sound of the
woman's sobs and cries as soon as he conveniently could, and sauntered
down the road, where the officer presently overtook him with Alf and his
father in custody.
"Whar be ye a-takin' of us now?" cried the elder, gaunt and haggard, and
with his long hair blowing in the breeze.
"Ter the church-house, whar yer boy says ye hev hid the traveler's
money-purse," said the officer.
"_My boy_!" exclaimed John Coggin, casting an astounded glance upon his
son.
Poor Alf was almost stunned. When they reached the church, and the men,
after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to save
trouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, he
could only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally he burst into
tears.
"Ax the t'other one--the leetle boy," suggested an old man in the crowd.
Alf's heart sank--sank like lead--when Jim, suddenly remembering the
promised "good word" to the witches, piped out, "I war tole not ter tell
who teched it,--'kase my dad didn't want nobody ter know 'twar hid
thar."
John Coggin's face was rigid and gray.
"The Lord hev forsook me!" he cried. "An' all my chillen hev turned
liars tergether."
Then he made a great effort to control himself.
"Look-a-hyar, Jim, ef ye hev got the truth in ye,--speak it! Ef ye know
whar I hev hid anything,--find it!"
Jim, infinitely important, and really understanding little of what was
going on, except that all these big men were looking at him, crossed the
room with as much stateliness as is compatible with a pair of baggy
brown jeans trousers, a plaid comforter tied between the shoulder-blades
in a big knot, a tow-head, and a tattered black hat; he slipped his
grimy paw in the chinking where Amos Brierwood had hid the pocket-book,
and drew it thence, with the prideful exclamation,--
"B'longs ter my dad!"
The officer held it up empty before the traveler,--he held up, too, the
bit of comforter in which it was folded, and pointed to the small boy's
shoulders. The gentleman turned away, thoroughly convinced. Alf and his
father looked from one to the other, in mute despair. They foresaw many
years of imprisonment for a crime which they had not committed.
The constable was hurrying his prisoners toward the door, when there was
a sudden stir on the outskirts of the crowd. Old Parson Payne was
pushing his way in, followed by a tall young man, who, in comparison
with the mountaineers, seemed wonderfully prosperous and well-clad, and
very fresh and breezy.
"You're all on the wrong track!" he cried.
And his story proved this, though it was simple enough.
He was sojourning in the mountains with some friends on a "camp-hunt,"
and the previous evening he had chanced to lose his way in the woods.
When night and the storm came on, he was perhaps five miles from camp.
He mistook the little "church-house" for a dwelling, and dismounting, he
hitched his horse in the laurel, intending to ask for shelter for the
night. As he stepped upon the porch, however, he caught a glimpse,
through the chinking, of the interior, and he perceived that the
building was a church. There were benches and a rude pulpit. The next
instant, his attention was riveted by the sight of two men, one of whom
had drawn a knife upon the other, quarreling over a roll of money. He
stood rooted to the spot in surprise. Gradually, he began to understand
the villainy afoot, for he overheard all that they said to each other,
and afterward to Jim. He saw one of the men cut the bit from the
comforter, wrap the pocket-book in it, and hide it away, and he
witnessed a dispute between them, which went on in dumb show behind the
boy's back, as to which of two bills should be knotted in the
handkerchief which they twisted into the comforter.
The constable was pressing him to describe the appearance of the
ruffians.
"Why," said the stranger, "one of them was long, and lank, and
loose-jointed, and had sandy hair, and"--He paused abruptly, cudgeling
his memory for something more distinctive, for this description would
apply to half the men in the room, and thus it would be impossible to
identify and capture the robbers.
"He hedn't no thumb sca'cely on his lef' hand," piped out Jim, holding
up his own grimy paw, and looking at it with squinting intensity as he
crooked it at the first joint, to imitate the maimed hand.
"No thumb!" exclaimed the constable excitedly. "Amos Brierwood fur a
thousand!"
Jim nodded his head intelligently, with sudden recollection. "That air
the name ez the chunky man gin him when they fust kem in."
And thus it was that when the Coggins were presently brought before the
justice, they were exonerated of all complicity in the crime for which
Brierwood and his accomplice were afterward arrested, tried, and
sentenced to the State Prison.
Jim doubts whether the promised "good word" was ever spoken on his
behalf to the witches, who were represented as making personal inquiries
about him, because he suspects that the two robbers were themselves the
only evil spirits roaming the woods that night.
ON A HIGHER LEVEL
As Jack Dunn stood in the door of his home on a great crag of Persimmon
Ridge and loaded his old rifle, his eyes rested upon a vast and imposing
array of mountains filling the landscape. All are heavily wooded, all
are alike, save that in one the long horizontal line of the summit is
broken by a sudden vertical ascent, and thence the mountain seems to
take up life on a higher level, for it sinks no more and passes out of
sight.
This abrupt rise is called "Elijah's Step,"--named, perhaps, in honor of
some neighboring farmer who first explored it; but the ignorant boy
believed that here the prophet had stepped into his waiting fiery
chariot.
He knew of no foreign lands,--no Syria, no Palestine. He had no dream of
the world that lay beyond those misty, azure hills. Indistinctly he had
caught the old story from the nasal drawl of the circuit-rider, and he
thought that here, among these wild Tennessee mountains, Elijah had
lived and had not died.
There came suddenly from the valley the baying of a pack of hounds in
full cry, and when the crags caught the sound and tossed it from
mountain to mountain, when more delicate echoes on a higher key rang out
from the deep ravines, there was a wonderful exhilaration in this sylvan
minstrelsy. The young fellow looked wistful as he heard it, then he
frowned heavily.
"Them thar Saunders men hev gone off an' left me," he said reproachfully
to some one within the log cabin. "Hyar I be kept a-choppin' wood an' a
pullin' fodder till they hev hed time ter git up a deer. It 'pears ter
me ez I mought hev been let ter put off that thar work till I war
through huntin'."
He was a tall young fellow, with a frank, freckled face and auburn hair;
stalwart, too. Judging from his appearance, he could chop wood and pull
fodder to some purpose.
A heavy, middle-aged man emerged from the house, and stood regarding his
son with grim disfavor. "An' who oughter chop wood an' pull fodder but
ye, while my hand air sprained this way?" he demanded.
That hand had been sprained for many a long day, but the boy made no
reply; perhaps he knew its weight. He walked to the verge of the cliff,
and gazed down at the tops of the trees in the valley far, far below.
The expanse of foliage was surging in the wind like the waves of the
sea. From the unseen depths beneath there rose again the cry of the
pack, inexpressibly stirring, and replete with woodland suggestions. All
the echoes came out to meet it.
"I war promised ter go!" cried Jack bitterly.
"Waal," said his mother, from within the house, "'tain't no good nohow."
Her voice was calculated to throw oil upon the troubled waters,--low,
languid, and full of pacifying intonations. She was a tall, thin woman,
clad in a blue-checked homespun dress, and seated before a great
hand-loom, as a lady sits before a piano or an organ. The creak of the
treadle, and the thump, thump of the batten, punctuated, as it were, her
consolatory disquisition.
Her son looked at her in great depression of spirit as she threw the
shuttle back and forth with deft, practiced hands.
"Wild meat air a mighty savin'," she continued, with a housewifely
afterthought. "I ain't denyin' that."
Thump, thump, went the batten.
"But ye needn't pester the life out'n yerself 'kase ye ain't a-runnin'
the deer along o' them Saunders men. It 'pears like a powerful waste o'
time, when ye kin take yer gun down ter the river enny evenin' late,
jes' ez the deer air goin' ter drink, an' shoot ez big a buck ez ye hev
got the grit ter git enny other way. Ye can't do nothin' with a buck but
eat him, an' a-runnin' him all around the mounting don't make him no
tenderer, ter my mind. I don't see no sense in huntin' 'cept ter git
somethin' fitten ter eat."
This logic, enough to break a sportsman's heart, was not a panacea for
the tedium of the day, spent in the tame occupation of pulling fodder,
as the process of stripping the blades from the standing cornstalks is
called.
But when the shadows were growing long, Jack took his rifle and set out
for the profit and the pleasure of still-hunting. As he made his way
through the dense woods, the metallic tones of a cow-bell jangled on the
air,--melodious sound in the forest quiet, but it conjured up a scowl on
the face of the young mountaineer.
"Everything on this hyar mounting hev got the twistin's ter-day!" he
exclaimed wrath-fully. "Hyar is our old red cow a-traipsing off ter Andy
Bailey's house, an' thar won't be a drap of milk for supper."
This was a serious matter, for in a region where coffee and tea are
almost unknown luxuries, and the evening meal consists of such
thirst-provoking articles as broiled venison, corn-dodgers, and sorghum,
one is apt to feel the need of some liquid milder than "apple-jack,"
and more toothsome than water, wherewith to wet one's whistle.
In common with everything else on the mountain, Jack, too, had the
"twistin's," and it was with a sour face that he began to drive the cow
homeward. After going some distance, however, he persuaded himself that
she would leave the beaten track no more until she reached the cabin. He
turned about, therefore, and retraced his way to the stream.
There had been heavy rains in the mountains, and it was far out of its
banks, rushing and foaming over great rocks, circling in swift
whirlpools, plunging in smooth, glassy sheets down sudden descents, and
maddening thence in tumultuous, yeasty billows.
An old mill, long disused and fallen into decay, stood upon the brink.
It was a painful suggestion of collapsed energies, despite its
picturesque drapery of vines. No human being could live there, but in
the doorway abruptly appeared a boy of seventeen, dressed, like Jack, in
an old brown jeans suit and a shapeless white hat.
Jack paused at a little distance up on the hill, and parleyed in a
stentorian voice with the boy in the mill.
"What's the reason ye air always tryin' ter toll off our old red muley
from our house?" he demanded angrily.
"I ain't never tried ter toll her off," said Andy Bailey. "She jes' kem
ter our house herself. I dunno ez I hev got enny call ter look arter
other folkses' stray cattle. Mind yer own cow."
"I hev got a mighty notion ter cut down that thar sapling,"--and Jack
pointed to a good-sized hickory-tree,--"an' wear it out on ye."
"I ain't afeard. Come on!" said Andy impudently, protected by his
innocence, and the fact of being the smaller of the two.
There was a pause. "Hev ye been a-huntin'?" asked Jack, beginning to be
mollified by the rare luxury of youthful and congenial companionship;
for this was a scantily settled region, and boys were few.
Andy nodded assent.
Jack walked down into the rickety mill, and stood leaning against the
rotten old hopper. "What did ye git?" he said, looking about for the
game.
"Waal," drawled Andy, with much hesitation, "I hain't been started out
long." He turned from the door and faced his companion rather
sheepishly.
"I hopes ye ain't been poppin' off that rifle o' your'n along that
deer-path down in the hollow, an' a-skeerin' off all the wild critters,"
said Jack Dunn, with sudden apprehension. "Ef I war ez pore a shot ez ye
air, I'd go a-huntin' with a bean-pole instead of a gun, an' leave the
game ter them that kin shoot it."
Andy was of a mercurial and nervous temperament, and this fact perhaps
may account for the anomaly of a mountain-boy who was a poor shot. Andy
was the scoff of Persimmon Ridge.
"I hev seen many a gal who could shoot ez well ez ye kin,--better,"
continued Jack jeeringly. "But law! I needn't kerry my heavy bones down
thar in the hollow expectin' ter git a deer ter-day. They air all off in
the woods a-smellin' the powder ye hev been wastin'."
Andy was pleased to change the subject. "It 'pears ter me that that thar
water air a-scuttlin' along toler'ble fast," he said, turning his eyes
to the little window through which the stream could be seen.
It _was_ running fast, and with a tremendous force. One could obtain
some idea of the speed and impetus of the current from the swift
vehemence with which logs and branches shot past, half hidden in foam.
The water looked black with this white contrast. Here and there a great,
grim rock projected sharply above the surface. In the normal condition
of the stream, these were its overhanging banks, but now, submerged,
they gave to its flow the character of rapids.
The old mill, its wooden supports submerged too, trembled and throbbed
with the throbbing water. As Jack looked toward the window, his eyes
were suddenly distended, his cheek paled, and he sprang to the door
with a frightened exclamation.
Too late! the immense hole of a fallen tree, shooting down the channel
with the force and velocity of a great projectile, struck the tottering
supports of the crazy, rotting building.
It careened, and quivered in every fibre; there was a crash of falling
timbers, then a mighty wrench, and the two boys, clinging to the
window-frame, were driving with the wreck down the river.
The old mill thundered against the submerged rocks, and at every
concussion the timbers fell. It whirled around and around in eddying
pools. Where the water was clear, and smooth, and deep, it shot along
with great rapidity.
The convulsively clinging boys looked down upon the black current, with
its sharp, treacherous, half-seen rocks and ponderous driftwood. The
wild idea of plunging into the tumult and trying to swim to the bank
faded as they looked. Here in the crazy building there might be a
chance. In that frightful swirl there lurked only a grim certainty.
The house had swung along in the middle of the stream; now its course
was veering slightly to the left. This could be seen through the window
and the interstices of the half-fallen timbers.
The boys were caged, as it were; the doorway was filled with the heavy
debris, and the only possibility of escape was through that little
window. It was so small that only one could pass through at a
time,--only one could be saved.
Jack had seen the chance from far up the stream. There was a stretch of
smooth water close in to the bank, on which was a low-hanging
beech-tree,--he might catch the branches.
They were approaching the spot with great rapidity. Only one could go.
He himself had discovered the opportunity,--it was his own.
Life was sweet,--so sweet! He could not give it up; he could not now
take thought for his friend. He could only hope with a frenzied
eagerness that Andy had not seen the possibility of deliverance.
In another moment Andy lifted himself into the window. A whirlpool
caught the wreck, and there it eddied in dizzying circles. It was not
yet too late. Jack could tear the smaller, weaker fellow away with one
strong hand, and take the only chance for escape. The shattered mill was
dashing through the smoother waters now; the great beech-tree was
hanging over their heads; an inexplicable, overpowering impulse mastered
in an instant Jack's temptation.
"Ketch the branches, Andy!" he cried wildly.
His friend was gone, and he was whirling off alone on those cruel,
frantic waters. In the midst of the torrent he was going down, and down,
and down the mountain.
Now and then he had a fleeting glimpse of the distant ranges. There was
"Elijah's Step," glorified in the sunset, purple and splendid, with red
and gold clouds flaming above it. To his untutored imagination they
looked like the fiery chariot again awaiting the prophet.
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