Читать книгу Sunlight Patch - Credo Fitch Harris - Страница 14

Table of Contents

A thoroughbred man, sitting a thoroughbred horse, with an articulation that makes them both seem molded into one piece of flesh, is a magnet for admiration; and when Uncle Zack saw both the Colonel and Bob gallop out through the trees, their heads up, their rifles swinging gracefully down, their mounts bristling with power and intelligence, his eyes sparkled and he took a deep breath of satisfaction.

Passing by the stable way, the riders entered a dirt road and held a course due east. Finally Colonel May broke the silence.

"Do you know where he lives?"

"Near about," Bob answered. "We won't have any trouble finding it."

"It's a pity the sheriff can't take this duty from us," the older man said. "It's a pity we have no system of law that will spare women from unpleasant notoriety under such conditions. Men of the South would be less quick to take matters into their own hands if they were assured that the occasional women who may suffer would be spared the further suffering of public embarrassment in open court."

"Yes," Bob assented, "but this is our only way, so far. Shall we kill him?"

"My mind is still in solution as to that," the Colonel gravely answered. "It has not yet crystallized. If he were not the poor half-wit he is, we would by all means. Under the circumstances, I hardly think we have the right. Yet, after all is said, he may be just the sort who should be put out of harm's way. However, the most we will do will be to frighten him out of the country;—unless he stands his ground."

"He'll doubtless do that, and open on us when we come in sight," Bob suggested. "Of course, he'll know what we're after."

"I think it likely," the Colonel replied. "Let me caution you against unnecessary risks."

Some two or three miles from Arden the dirt road sharply began its climb into the Knobs, and through this rough and wooded foothill country of the farther Cumberlands, scarred by cliffs and ravines, they rode in silence. At last Bob spoke.

"We're not far off. His shack is somewhere in here."

They were riding at a quick walk, alert, watching up each ravine for signs of habitation, when suddenly a man, rifle in hand, stepped out two hundred yards ahead of them. A lightning touch of rein and spur, and both horses had sprung instantly apart, while the two repeaters flew with exact precision to the riders' shoulders. To their surprise, however, the man raised his hand.

"What do you make of this?" the Colonel asked in a cautious tone, when they had recognized Dale advancing, instead of the expected Potter.

"Squirrel hunting," Bob answered. "He told Zack."

Dale came with the long stride peculiar to his people, the stride with which they cover thirty miles a day and think it no great walk.

"Good mawnin'," he called, in a drawling voice. "There's no game in these parts."

He advanced with perfect ease—the ease of a wild thing walking at will—and the smile that illumined his face made it almost handsome. Absorbed even as the Colonel and Bob were in their own mission, and surprised by this unexpected interruption, they exchanged glances at his rather correct form of speech. Several times the evening before Colonel May had been impressed by this, and had thought of it after getting into bed, determining then to speak of it in the morning. So, recurring to him now, he said in an undertone:

"That fellow knows how to talk well."

"He does, and he doesn't," Bob replied. "Jane and I were speaking of it last night. If you'll notice, when he gets excited, or much interested, he's like a typical mountaineer. Only when careful is it otherwise. He's a funny cuss, but, gee, Colonel, look at that power! I'll bet he can run a hundred miles without turning a hair!"

The figure was almost up to them.

"There isn't anything to shoot," he said again, with a meaning smile of confidence.

"What are you hunting, sir?" the Colonel asked, after a polite exchange of greetings.

Dale looked at them and chuckled. It was a sign of comradeship, of fellowship; the sort of chuckle in which two boys might indulge if, having entered a jam closet from opposite sides and each unknown to the other, they suddenly meet face to face.

"I'm huntin' the same sort of game you-all air, I reckon," he remarked, pushing back his hat. "But it's gone."

"Squirrels?"

The mountaineer regarded them with something pathetic in his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was tinged with disappointment.

"Last night," he said, "I thought ye war both my friends—'n' I war a-ready ter be yourn. Why do ye want ter lie ter me?"

A flush of anger spread over their faces, and the Colonel was framing a scorching retort, when Dale continued:

"No, hit hain't squir'ls; hit's that varmint Tusk Potter. I hain't afeerd ter tell. His shack's back thar;" jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "or, I'd ought ter say, what's left of hit's thar. He's gone."

"Did you kill him?" the Colonel asked, looking squarely into his eyes.

"That hain't jest a question one man ought ter be askin' of another man," he quickly answered. "But as hit turned out, I didn't kill him; 'n' I didn't mean ter. I kind of swore off killin' folks when I war a kid, 'n' hain't done hit much since. But I did mean ter run him outen the country, 'n' burn his cabin. If he'd ruther've stayed 'n' got kilt, that war his business."

By a common impulse the three started back, Dale leading them some half a mile when they dismounted and threaded their way along an obscure trail. This led up a deep ravine, through which trickled the South Fork of Blacksnake Creek, and eventually brought them out at a small clearing. In the center smouldered the ruins of a cabin, with a few fitful flames still spurting from the ashes and charred log ends.

"You've done well, Dale," the Colonel observed. "Bob, leave a notice for him here. He can read, I suppose?"

"He's been going to school for several months," Bob said, tearing off the back of an envelope and stooping to write.

Dale came close on tiptoe and watched this process over the young man's shoulder. He stood in an attitude of rapt attention and, as the pencil made stroke after stroke of the printed letters, his own finger traced each line in the air, as though he were memorizing their directions and positions. Only after the notice had been pressed on a sharpened stick and placed before the ruined threshold could he leave it. Turning to them he said in an awed voice:

"That's the fu'st writin' I ever seed! What does hit mean?"

While Bob repeated it the mountaineer's lips moved after him, as he tried carefully to fit each sentence to the pencil strokes. But from his deep breath of uncertainty at the end it appeared to bring him little satisfaction; and he was turning away when suddenly his frame stiffened and his hand touched Bob's shoulder.

To the east of them stood Snarly Knob, so called because of its serrated crest resembling a row of teeth from which the lips had been drawn back in an angry snarl. Half way up its almost perpendicular side a spur jutted into the air, and on this a figure stood. Only the hawk-like eyes of Dale could have seen the clenched fists raised high in a gesture of fury, eloquent of a flow of oaths which he knew were being hurled upon the trespassers in the clearing. The Colonel and Bob, following his steady gaze, saw and understood. Bob's face went white with anger, but the older man's held a troubled look. Dale's face told no story whatsoever.

"I wish he'd fall," Bob gritted his teeth. "He's just above the disappearing stream, Colonel!"

"What's the disappearin' stream?" Dale asked.

"It's a good sized creek that comes tearing down and tumbles into a sort of cave. Nobody knows where it comes out, and if it ever catches a man he's gone. The hole and suction is directly under that spur."

"Couldn't fetch 'im with one of them new-fangled guns of your'n, could ye?"

"Oh, no, Dale; that spur must be easily two miles."

"Come," said the Colonel, "let us go back. Our mission here is done, and now we must see that it remains well done. Dale, how did you find this place?"

"I came from the schoolhouse," he answered.

"You mean," Bob cried, "that you trailed him half a dozen miles?"

"Yep," he answered.

"You damned Indian," the young planter admiringly exclaimed; "that's the smoothest trick I ever saw!"

"'Tain't no trick," Dale simply replied. "I allers find folks that a-way, same as varmints do. Hit's Nature's way."

"Since we have come together this morning," the Colonel observed, smiling a frank compliment at Dale's woodcraft, "we may as well drop the bars, shake hands across the gap, and speak plainly one with the other. First, I want to thank you, sir, for your chivalry yesterday evening to Miss Jane—"

"What's chivalry?" the mountaineer interrupted.

"Chivalry? Why, bless my soul, sir," the old gentleman exclaimed, "chivalry, sir, chivalry is what we all have, sir!" He wiped his brow and stood in the path, planting himself firmly with a glare that defied contradiction.

"Chivalry, Dale," Bob said, not daring to laugh, "is the skeleton, or framework, on which gentlemen are built."

"Bones?" he asked, with a perplexed pucker between his eyes.

"Not bones, exactly," Bob smiled now. "And yet it is a sort of backbone, too, when you come to think of it."

"Bob, your ignorance is colossal, sir," the Colonel sternly looked at him. "Chivalry, Dale, is what we all have, and what prompted you to tackle that ruffian yesterday. The definition is quite simple, and of course you follow me. As I was saying, sir, we prefer to thank you now in behalf of Miss Jane, since any further reference to the matter will be unnecessary. You appreciate this?"

"What's appreciate?" he asked.

The old gentleman told him and, while his face still held a troubled look, he nodded as though understanding—not only the word, but the delicacy imposed on him.

"I don't want nobody ter thank me," he said. "I didn't do nothin' fer her!"

He said this quietly, so simply, that its peculiarity did not at once seem apparent, and before they had time to wonder at it, Dale, who now was leading, turned in the path and glared at them. His eyes were as stern as those of a wrathful god, and his lips as resolute as Thor.

"Do ye reckon I'd hev let that damned hound scare the teacher away, when I've jest now got hyar fer the big larnin'? If I hadn't stepped in, he'd a-tuck her ter his cabin; 'n' if I hadn't burned 'im out, he'd be likely ter stay 'round; 'n' as long as he'd be likely ter stay 'round, she'd be likely ter stay away from school. Then how'd I git my larnin'?" He gritted his teeth, and suddenly yelled at them: "I won't take no chances! I'll git the larnin', I tell ye! 'N' if one, or a hund'ed, tries ter come 'tween me 'n' hit—" He did not finish, but stood swaying from side to side with an overwhelming intensity of feeling.

Bob's inclination was to smile; not at what he said so much as at the grotesque figure he made while saying it. The long hair that had been flying back from his forehead as a lion might have tossed its shaggy mane, the homespun trousers tucked into wrinkled boots which were planted well apart as foundations for the swaying body, the antiquated rifle on which he leaned, all seemed to be the very antithesis of mental advancement.

The Colonel, on the other hand, had not been impressed by the clothes; or, at any rate, he had been more impressed by something which robbed them of their oddity. His observing eyes were fixed with growing interest on the purposeful face still thrust forward, and for a moment they were startled by something uncanny, something back of a normal human enthusiasm. It was only for a moment, only for a fleeting glimpse through the dilating pupils which shot defiance out at him; but in that moment he would have sworn that he had seen enthusiasm gone mad.

And yet, so brief had been the glimpse, that his conscious feeling was but of charm, inspired by the primal strength of this wild and unconquerable thing before him. The restive swaying of the body brought to the old gentleman's mind an incident he once had seen at a circus, when an elephant, fretted by its ankle chain, rocked from foot to foot in sullen disquiet. He pictured an ankle chain on this well made youth before him now, the ankle chain of ignorance, and a wave of pity made him resolve to be the means of breaking it.

"If that is what you want, Dale," he gently said, "you shall have it, all that you can store away." And he smiled at the flush of pleasure which followed his words. "I'll talk to you about it this afternoon," he added. "Let us now hurry; we must reach the horses."