Chapter 10

His knock upon the door was answered by a sleepy "Who's that?" and the click of a gun's hammer. Von Rittenheim explained his identity, and Bud responded by opening the door an ungenerous crack. The Baron told his necessity,--how his sister-in-law had arrived unexpectedly, and would Mrs. Yarebrough be so good, so _very_ good, as to go back with him and see if she could make her comfortable, and spend the rest of the night there?

Bud shut the door, and Friedrich heard the sound of discussion. Kindness of heart and curiosity to see the strange lady triumphed over the claims of sleep, and Bud opened the door again to call through the crevice,--

"She'll go, Mr. Baron."

It was almost midnight when they reached the cabin, Friedrich and the whole Yarebrough family; for Sydney Melissa could not be left behind, and Bud had a curiosity of his own. Von Rittenheim spoke in German and the door was unlocked. He made a hasty explanation to Hilda concerning the number of his escort.

Melissa stared with all her eyes at the childish beauty before her.

"Oh, Mr. Baron," she cried, with sudden courage, "Ah'd like to take care of her, she's so little an' pretty. Ah don' min' hit a bit, Bud; truly Ah'm honin' to," in unconscious confession of her previous timidity. "You-all go long back with Bud, Mr. Baron, 'n Ah'll make her comfortable. Will ye have yo' trunk in here, ma'am?"

To Hilda's answer, "Yes, if you please," in faltering English, Melissa cried, in ecstasy,--

"Don' she speak pretty! Now, Bud, you tote in the lady's trunk, 'n then go. She's tired." And the usually timid country girl entered into her new _role_ of care-taker with extraordinary zest.

Friedrich approached his sister-in-law.

"Good-night," he said. "You will be quite safe. Have no fear."

She held out her hand to him. He hesitated a moment, and then took it in a brief clasp.

"Good-night," was all she said.

Declining Bud's offer of shelter, von Rittenheim bade him farewell, and strode into the darkness of the forest. Yarebrough looked after him, puzzled and disapproving.

"He ain' none so glad to see his sister-in-law," he pondered. "Ah wonner what hit all means."

Friedrich took no heed of his way beyond a numb feeling of pleasure when it grew steeper and rougher. He had left the trail long since, but he was stayed by no obstacle, was arrested by no barrier of Nature's make. A lizard asleep on a tiny ledge of rock, jutting from a cliff, scuttled away in fright as a man in sudden onslaught scaled its face. A pair of cotton-tails bobbed from one thicket to another in wildest terror as he came breaking through. A trout, floating in a rocky basin of the brook, fled with a dexterous flip of fin and tail to the protecting shelter of an overhanging root, as the placid pool was agitated by the passage of an enemy, following the course of the stream as the path of least resistance.

To all these sights and sounds Friedrich was blind and deaf. He spoke no word. It was as if he were deprived of every power but that of motion. He plunged on like a man of old pursued by the Erinyes.

Though he was unconscious of fatigue, the mad pace began to tell on him, and his muscles cried for quarter. At such times he rushed either to the right or left, going along the side of the mountain until he found an easier upward passage, but always ascending, never turning down the slope; always fleeing from the pursuing wretchedness; always subtly conscious of the futility of flight.

So mounts a small bird into the air, pursued by a hawk. Higher and higher he flies, straight up into the blue, hoping that the wind may blow him far beyond his pursuer's reach, believing that the light atmosphere that suffices to support his frail body may be too tenuous to uphold his heavier enemy. Hoping thus and believing; but realizing at last the unequal contests between their strengths, the failing of his own force, the fateful, certain, deadly approach of the antagonist whose power it is useless to oppose.

One above the other two shelves of rock arose, like two steps of a giant's staircase. Friedrich's exhausted body sank upon the moss of the upper, and the bracken and small shrubs closed over him, as if to shield him in their gentle embrace from the trouble that had driven him to their care. He lay on his back, staring with unseeing eyes at the tree-leaves far above his head, black against the sky's purple.

His mind seemed to be exhausted with his body. It moved with painful slowness, and groped vaguely after the things of memory.

Was it yesterday--when was it that he had seen Sydney moving about in the yellow firelight? Had he not--yes, he was sure he had--led her under the willow-trees and on to the old bridge, with the glistering glory under their feet, and the moon in splendor above them? And had she given him--no, of course not--but yes, what was this? He pressed to his lips the scrap of lace from his pocket. And there had been one splendid hour of hope and strength and courage--one hour when the past had fallen away from him and the future opened to his sight a not impassable avenue.

The moon cast level shadows as the great planet rolled towards the western hills. Friedrich fancied himself in Germany, far back in the long ago, when he was madly in love with Hilda. The story unfolded before him like a panorama of some one else's life. It was, indeed, he who had loved Hilda, but he felt not a flutter of the emotion now. _Now_ he knew what real love was. Yet this ardent, jealous lover was he, and she had jilted him for Maximilian. He went over again the old arguments in her behalf. Why shouldn't she prefer Max--gay, handsome old Max? He was nearer her age, and he had just had a legacy from his Aunt Brigitta, whose favorite he had been. Of course, that reason did not count. But he was gay and handsome and younger. Surely those three excuses were enough.

That wedding day! Should he ever forget it? He had thought to go away, but that would have been unkind to Max, and perhaps have put Hilda in a wrong light in the eyes of those who knew them. No, he was the head of the family. His duty was to sit through the wedding-breakfast which her aunt gave to the bride, and to preside at the feast that welcomed the pair to Schloss Rittenheim. Though the old love could not enter him again, the old torture came back poignantly.

After the feast was over and the guests had gone, he had found himself with her in a recessed window, looking down upon a carriage rolling away in the moonlight. He had taken her hands, and had compelled her gaze. She looked so fragile, so helpless, as he thought of his brother's carelessness and love of self, and he swore a solemn oath to stand ready to help her and to care for her, if ever need should be. Max, a little uncertain in speech and gait, had called her then, and Friedrich had ordered a horse, and had ridden recklessly into the forest--on and on and on.

For a whole month he had endured the torture of greeting her calmly every morning, and of lifting her tiny white hand to his lips every night, and then he had decided that there was no reason for such crucifixion, and he had come to America.

And in America he had met the princess--the splendid princess!

The moon sank behind the mountains, and with its disappearance Friedrich slept.

XVIII

Business Plans

Through the early morning's shifting mist--the haze that foretells a fine day--two men felt their way up the side of Buzzard Mountain. They followed no path,--indeed, there are few trails to follow,--but they climbed steadily on, as if they knew well their way, and as if speed were of importance.

With all their perseverance they could not cover much ground, for the ascent is sharp enough to clutch the lungs, and the mist covered for them a world of stumbling-blocks.

"H'm," grunted the leader, Pink Pressley. "They oughter be a black oak about here with a varmint hole in hit."

He stopped and peered about him through the gloom, while Bud, his companion, took the opportunity to lay his burden upon the ground while he wiped his forehead with a blue handkerchief. He made no response to his friend's remarks, but wore the air of one who does what he is bid, and follows where he is led. Pink swung himself into motion again.

"Ah reckon we ain' high enough, yet," he growled, and swore softly as he struck his foot against an unseen stone.

"Hang ye, don' do that," he cried, angrily, as he heard the breaking of a branch behind him. "Why don' ye blaze yo' way right along, or mark yo' path with a rope? Do you wan' the whole settle-_ment_ follerin' us up here?"

With praiseworthy discretion Bud still refrained from speech. A particularly steep bit of climbing silenced his companion as well. Yarebrough was the first to discover the landmark.

"Is that the black oak?" he asked.

"Where?"

He pointed above them and a little to the right, to a veteran whose side had been cut by hunters for the discomfiture of a 'coon or 'possum that had taken refuge within.

"Yep."

They climbed to it, and both men set their heavy loads upon the ground.

"Much further?" asked Bud.

"No, come on. Sun'll be up soon 'n we'll be late gettin' down."

Pressley pointed to the east, where a sort of inner glow seemed to illuminate the haze and make it thinner and more penetrable. They shouldered their packs and again Pink led the way. He advanced, now, with a certain care. From the tree he counted a hundred paces to the right, and called Bud's attention to the number.

"That brings ye to this hickory--see?--with a rock under hit. Now, then, straight up from this is the place we's after, twenty-five steps, about; but hit's hard to tell, hit's so steep."

He deposited his load upon a flat platform of rock, above which, at a height of a dozen feet, the bank overhung. Under the bank was a hole, not clear enough to be called a cave, nor of any great size. Bud sank down, gratefully, beside his leader, and scrutinized the place.

"Not overly large," he commented, "but Ah 'low hit 'll be right smart bigger when hit's cleaned out."

"Hit is," returned Pressley, laconically. He spoke with so much decision that Bud looked at him sharply.

"You-all ain' ever----?" He hesitated.

"Used hit before? Not much! Ah ain' a plumb fool! But they's nothing like comin' from a fam'ly that's observin' an' contrivin'."

A smile of self-appreciation swept over his face.

"Ah've knowed about this place ever since Ah was fryin' size. In fact, mah father--well, never min' him. Only you'll fin' they's plenty o' room inside to stow away that rubbish an' all our little do-es beside."

"Whereaway's the water?"

"They's a spring over yonder a little bit."

Bud stared at the hole sullenly, and slowly scratched his head. Pressley, unlashing a mattock and shovel from his pack, did not notice him.

"Ah swear, Pink," broke out Yarebrough, in puzzled indecision, "Ah swear Ah donno's Ah like this business."

Pressley sneered.

"Don' talk so loud. Yo' rather late findin' hit out."

"No, Ah ain'. Ah ain' never been sho'."

"Sho' 'bout what?"

"Oh, Ah donno. Kin' o' hard to say. You-all don' think we'll get caught?"

"Not 'f you keep that big mouth o' yo's shut."

"Mr. Baron did."

"Mr. Baron's a fool. He trusted a stranger."

"Hit'll kin'er make ye uneasy 'bout talkin' to fellers on the road, won' hit?" said Bud, who was the most sociable man in the settlement.

"Hit'll sharpen yo' judg-_ment_. The way you-all go on now you ain' fur off Mr. Baron fo' never suspectin' nobody."

It was this very quality in Bud that was playing into Pink's hands. Yarebrough, however, felt properly rebuked.

"Ah ain' had yo' experience, ye know. Ah never see but one marshal to know him."

"When ye do see one, an' yo' sho', never forget him. Hit's the only way. Here, take this mattock 'n pull those small rocks out, 'n pile 'em on this crocus-sack so's they won' make any trash on this-yer platform."

Bud did as he was bid, and the men worked quietly and steadily for ten minutes.

"Here she is," Pink whispered, at last, and peered excitedly into the cavern.

It was, as he had said, not very large, but large enough.

"Now pick up that sack with me an' tote hit in here. We mus'n' leave anythin' roun'. Here, this corner 'll do. Now bring me in that pipe 'n the little keg. We c'n leave all the tools here _ex_-ceptin' our axes. Axes looks well 'f we meet anybody goin' down."

"H'm," grunted Yarebrough once more, and scratched his head again. He stepped out of the cave on to the platform that Nature's hand had laid. The brightening light indicated the approach of dawn, though the sun had not yet risen. The mist was not dispelled, but it had grown thinner, and trees at some distance down the mountain began to have individual shape through the veil of dry haze that inwrapped them. The air was cool and sweet. The birds were singing, though still sleepily, but one in a tree over his head burst into a glorious heralding of the morning. Bud thrust his hands into his pockets and whistled softly. Pink roused him roughly from his reverie.

"Come, boy, we gotter fix up this yer openin' somehow."

Bud answered irrelevantly:

"Ah wisht Ah was certain about M'lissy."

Pressley let fly the bush that he was bending across the mouth of the cave.

"What about her?" he asked, sharply.

"Oh, everythin'!"

Explanation was difficult to his slowness of thought.

"She'll be wonderin' what takes me away from home so much at night; an' Ah don' much like to leave her alone, neither."

"Cain' ye trust her?" jeered Pink, with an evil scowl, but Bud turned on him so fiercely that he added, hastily,--"to keep still if ye tell her?"

"Tell her? Tell M'lissy! Ah wouldn' tell her fo' a good deal! You-all don' know M'lissy."

"She'd jump ye, Ah reckon."

"No, Ah don' allow she'd say much. The way hit is, ye see, M'lissy,--hit's foolish 'f her,--but M'lissy kinder thinks Ah ain' a right bad feller, an' Ah sorter hate to disabuse her min' o' that opinion."

"She mus' know you-all drinks."

"Yes, Ah 'low she do."

"An' ye play craps."

"Oh, well, that ain' anythin'."

"An' ye fight chickens."

"Of co'se; everybody does that."

"'N you've killed paddidges befo' the law was off."

"Who hasn'?"

"If she knows all those things she sho' cain' think yo' a plumb angel."

"Ah don' s'pose she's lookin' fo' wings. All the same, Ah do hate to have her know Ah'm about to do this."

"Oh, this is all right. She don' know yo' in debt an' need the money."

"No, she don'."

"Would that worry her?"

"Ah reckon hit would, specially if----"

"If what?"

"You seem powerful eager to know what'll worry M'lissy."

"If ye don' know what worries people ye cain' know how to help 'em." Pink was suavity itself. "If what?"

"Ah was goin' to say, specially 'f she knowed it was you-all Ah owed hit to."

"Lemme tell ye somethin' right now, Bud: M'lissy wouldn' fin' everybody clever 'nough to len' money to a no-'count feller like you. She better like me 'f she don'."

"She don' know hit, ye see. 'N she never shall 'f Ah c'n help hit."

Pressley grunted and seemed to reflect. Then he shook his head and muttered to himself.

"Hit might spoil the other."

"What ye say?" asked Bud.

"Nothin'. Ah'm studyin' 'bout fixin' a sort o' do' fo' here, so's the light won' shine out none when we-uns is workin'."

"Where's the smoke goin' to?"

"They's a split in that upper rock, fur back, we c'n run a bit o' pipe through. Leastways, they was when Ah was a kid."

"'N 's they ain' been no _con_-vulsion o' nature since that happy time, you 'low hit's still there."

"May be filled up; 'twan' overly big. But that's easy fixed."

"Say, Pink, don' you think we'd make any money--jus' as much money--'f we paid the tax, 'n could retail openly?"

"Paid the tax? Paid---- Fo' the Lawd's sakes! Pink Pressley payin' the gover'men' tax!"

He gave a great burst of laughter, which he quickly strangled, looking about suspiciously, and shook and shook with suppressed mirth. Bud stared at him seriously, and with some offence.

"Ah don' see nothin' e'er so ludicrous about that suggestion."

"Oh, Lawd!" Pink was rocking gently from side to side. "You don'? Jus' look yere, then. Have you-all got twenty-five dollars to pay the Federal gover'men' fo' this privilege? 'N fifty to pay the State? 'N fifty to pay the county? 'F you got a hundred 'n twenty-five dollars to spen' so free, Ah'd like to see hit!"

Bud rubbed his head and said nothing.

"'N who'd ye get to go on yo' bond? Mrs. Carroll 'n Miss Sydney, Ah s'pose! Oh, dear!"

Again he laughed, soundlessly.

"If ye go into hit so expensive, ye gotter have the plant to do a big business, 'n where'd ye get that? 'N ye'd have to get mo' co'n 'n you 'n me c'n make ourselves, 'n that'd mean ye gotter buy hit, or rent mo' lan' 'n hire niggers to work hit, 'n how'd ye pay fo' that?"

Bud listened gloomily, chewing the side of his finger.

"Them gover'men' fellers cain' make nothin'," went on Pink. "Firs' place they's co'n at fifty cen's a bushel. One bushel o' co'n makes about two gallons o' whisky; they's an _ex_-pense o' nigh twenty-five cen's a gallon to begin with. Then the gauger comes 'roun', 'n ye have to pay a tax on all he's smart enough to fin',--a dollar 'n ten cen's a gallon. They's a dollar 'n thirty-five cen's a gallon befo' the stuff's lef' yo' sto'house. 'N what payin' market c'n ye fin' fo' hit when any feller who wan's c'n get all the moonshine he needs fo' a dollar or a dollar 'n a quarter a gallon? Oh, Ah tell you, 'f ye wan' to make any money with a gover'men' still ye gotter have a switch-off that the gauger cain' fin. 'N 'f ye do that, ye might's well's, far's yo' morals is concerned, do hit all moonshine 'n save those ex-penses Ah listed fo' ye right now."

"Ah s'pose yo' right," assented Bud. "Blockadin's blockadin', whether ye do hit by moon or day. Do you-all 'low Calkins might inform on us?"

"Him's runs the still back o' Buck? Ah don' guess so. He knows Ah could tell the sto'keeper the whereabouts o' a pipe in his still-house that don' run into no sto'house. Oh, no, he won' inform on us."

"Ah hope not," said Bud, dismally. "Anyway, you-all better come on down now. Gimme that axe, will ye?"

"We gotter be right careful not to make no path comin' here. We better never come twict the same way."

Bud nodded his understanding.

"Come on," he urged. "Ah'm's empty 's a gun."

XIX

Hilda

Pink roses and red swung to and fro in the sunshine as they climbed the Doctor's whitewashed porch. Big bees hummed their sleepy drone from the fragrant hearts of the flowers, and a humming-bird whirred busily in and out in search of the honeysuckle that he loved. Up-stairs Mrs. Morgan was darning stockings in the coolest room in the house,--a bedroom with a northern exposure. A white shirt-waist gave a puffy look to a body that could ill endure such appearance of enlargement, and a black belt accentuated the amplitude of girth that it encircled. The good lady sat in an armless rocking-chair, or rather _on_ it, for she was by no means contained therein, but bulged over and beyond at all points. Her feet, shod in heelless black slippers, above which puffed white stockings, rested upon a low footstool, and her widespread knees provided a generous lap for the support of her supply of socks and her implements,--her needle-book' and darning-gourd and balls of cotton. She had that look of comfort that fat people seem to radiate even when it is evident that physical annoyance is their own share.

Discomfort had no part in the picture that Mrs. Morgan presented, however, for a cool breeze gently ruffled her hair, and her eyes, when she lifted them from her work, rested contentedly on the fertile fields of the Doctor's farm, which were thriving, under Bob's management. She nodded with, pursed-up lips, as she wove her little lattices in heel and toe.

"He's doing better than ever Ah thought he would," she murmured. "Better, even, than Ah dared to hope,--thank God!"

Up and down, over and under, in and out went her needle.

"It's such a joy to Henry to have him so."

The scissors snipped a thread at the end of a darn, and a new hole displayed its ravage over the yellow surface of the gourd.

"It's been going on some months now, bless him! Ah'd like to know how he started in. Ah believe mahself it's Sydney."

The work sank into her lap for a space, while her shrewd eyes roamed over the fields, and sought Buck Mountain beyond, thrusting its topmost clump of chestnut-trees against the sky. She nodded to her thoughts as she picked up the unfinished sock.

"She's a wise mother who knows where her son ties his horse, and Ah confess Ah haven't always known, but it strikes me it's mostly the Oakwood hitching-post."

She smiled at her own sagacity.

"Not that Sydney'd have him. Though she might do a great deal worse, a great deal worse," she added, loyally. "But he cares for her enough to want to please her, and it takes the best to satisfy Sydney."

A step on the stairs outside made itself heard.

"Come in, dear. Ah was just thinking about you."

Bob flung his cap on the bed, sat down on a cricket beside his mother, and leaned his head against her shoulder.

"Tired, dear?"

"No, just hot. I've been over every field on the farm since breakfast."

"In all this sun!"

"Do you think it ought to cease to shine to shade your boy? There'll be a right smart crop this year."

"So your father was telling me yesterday."

"I've got better hands than usual."

"And they have a better overseer."

She let fall the stocking from her left hand and patted the shock of black hair resting on her shoulder. Silence fell between them--the embarrassment that comes from the broaching of a delicate subject.

"It's hard work," he sighed, and her mother-love knew that he did not refer to the management of the farm.

"We all have our dragons to fight, and yours is one of the hardest kind. Ah'm sure he's growing weaker, though."

"But he's still in the ring," groaned Bob, with a comical look, and they laughed in sympathy.

"I ought to have begun on him long years ago for your sake, ma dear, but--it wasn't you!" he blurted out, and hastened to kiss her, lest she be offended.

She could not help just a little sigh.

"It's what happens to most mothers, and we are thankful for the result, and put our vanity into our pocket."

"I don't want you to suppose that I'm such a puppy as to believe that she--you know who--cares for me--that way, you know. But I happened to think one day when--well, never mind what happened--I just thought that while she might never care anyway, she was dead sure not to if I went on being the kind of thing I was."

"True, dear, and even if she never did,"--how she longed to give him hope, as she had given him every toy he asked for in his baby days! But wisdom came to her now, and love gave her strength,--"even if she never did, the victory would still be a victory."

"And you'd care, anyway. Oh, mothers are good things! Do you mind my telling you-all this?"

He was sitting before her now, with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. She leaned forward and kissed him.

"You've given me the greatest happiness Ah've known for years, dear."

He pulled at the stockings in her lap.

"I don't think I've had much show lately, do you?"

"You mean----?"

"Oh, well, I reckon I don't mean anything. It's all in the game. There's father," as a cry of "O-oh, Sophy!" was heard below. "Sophy's up here in the north room, dad," he called, eliciting from his mother the expected--

"You impertinent boy!"

The Doctor came in, bringing with him an air of excitement that made Bob cry,--

"What's up?"

Mrs. Morgan laid down her half-darned sock in anticipation.

"You never can guess the latest development."

"Ah've no desire to, Henry. Ah'd rather hear it at once."

"Who do you think's come?"

"Where?"

"To the Neighborhood."