CHAPTER VIII

THE KIDNAPPING

“Why, she can’t be far away,” cried Carin, trembling in spite of herself. “I’m sure I can find her, Mrs. McBirney. Where’s Mr. Thompson? He’ll go with me back to the place where we were together. She came after us for a way, I know. I thought she followed the whole way, but the singing was just beginning, and I ran in the church, not noticing.”

“Of course we’ll find her, Mrs. McBirney,” Mr. Carson declared stoutly. “The child couldn’t get lost in a clearing like this.”

“Perhaps she lit out,” drawled a mountain woman who was standing near. “You can’t tell what a girl brought up to lead a wandering life might do. Tramps like that ain’t to be depended on to keep to roof and hearth.”

Mary McBirney turned toward the woman with flashing eyes.

“My Azalea wouldn’t do anything to make me trouble, ma’am,” she said. “She’s got a heart of gold. Something has happened—that’s the whole of it—something has happened.”

Carin had sped in search of Mr. Thompson, and having found him, the two set off in the woods in search of the dell. “Haystack’s” hair seemed to tower higher than ever, and his green felt cover was half off his violin, and dangled among the bushes as the two hastened through the wood. In Carin’s heart was the terrible thought of the rattlesnake. What if the mate to the one Mr. Thompson had killed had stung Azalea! But why, then, had she not cried out? It was past imagining. Mr. Thompson took Carin’s hand in his that they might go faster, and the two hastened on through the sun-flecked wood till they came to the beautiful hollow with the soft green grass. But they could see nothing of Azalea, and their calls and halloos brought no answer.

“We must try another tack,” said Mr. Thompson. “Something queer about this—something mighty queer.”

So all the neighbors seemed to think. The news that Azalea was missing had spread rapidly. It had overtaken the departing wagon-loads of neighbors, who returned to lend their assistance to their distressed neighbors. Parties ran out in all directions, scouring the woods, calling, peeping into the old well, and visiting the near-by houses. No one had seen or heard anything of the girl.

“You don’t think she’d go into hiding, sister McBirney,” inquired good old Elder Mills, with sympathy in his eye. “She didn’t seem like that sort of a girl, but she might have taken offense at something when no offense was meant. Young folks are like that, sometimes. I ran away from a good home twice when I was a boy, because my feelings were so precious tender. Great fools young folks are! And the worst of it is, they don’t all grow out of their folly when they get older.”

Mrs. McBirney stood there among her neighbors and cast her eye first on this group and then on that.

“I must say it clear and plain,” she said in her pleasant voice; “I trust that girl like I would my own son here. She loves me and I love her, and we’re heart to heart. She’s in some kind of trouble, and I reckon I know what it is.”

“What?” demanded twenty voices.

“Them show people has stole her. They said they would, and they waited till we was off the watch, and took their chance.”

“Why, ma,” said Thomas McBirney, “they’ve been gone weeks and weeks. They had about all they wanted of this community.”

“They must have come back then,” answered Mrs. McBirney with gentle obstinacy, “for they’ve gone and took my girl.”

The words faltered in her throat, and Jimmy, who was watching her, ran to her and slipped his arms about her. It was the first time that his mother had realized that he was not a little boy. She found in that moment of sorrow that by bowing her head, she could weep on his sturdy young shoulder, and that he seemed strong to comfort her.

Hi Kitchell drew near, his eyes shining in a face that was white beneath all his tan.

“Zalie didn’t run away,” he said in his rather gruff voice, which was changing from a boy’s to a man’s, and was now in his throat and now in his head. “You can’t make me think Zalie ran away. She wouldn’t do such a mean thing.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t, Hi,” broke in the soft tones of Mrs. Carson. “She was too kind and too happy. I think we’d better drive home, each going our proper way, watching out on every side for her, and get the sheriff to send word to all the towns round about. If the show people have taken her, it ought to be an easy matter to find her, for the show is bound to go to the towns.”

“Yes, yes,” broke in her husband. “Let’s do something! I can’t stand this waiting around, not knowing what may be happening to the poor child. Mr. Pickett tells me he’ll have every inch of woods for a radius of two miles around, searched by some of these young men. So we may leave that quite in his hands. But he thinks, and I think, that the child has been carried away. He said he heard the show people kept making their threats. They heard of the Singing, and judged that Azalea would be here and that it was their chance.”

“We ought to have cared for her better,” moaned Ma McBirney. “Thomas, I blame myself for not looking after her better.”

“Well, Mary, you’ll have to do all the blaming yourself then, for nobody else will do it. We’ve set ourselves to war against the children of Satan, and they’ve been more wily than we took them to be. That’s all there is to it.”

A light rain had begun to fall and the glory of the day was quite gone as the people turned from the grove around Friendly Church and moved off along the six roads that debouched from that gathering place.

Carin looked sadly from the little window in the curtains of their surrey, and wondered what strange thing could be happening to her friend. Though several hours had passed since she was lost, and though at least two hundred persons had joined in the search for her, and she had not been found, still, Carin found it impossible to realize that anything could have happened to the laughing girl who had run with her through the woods to the green dell.

Usually Carin liked to ride in the rain. It was fun to cuddle down beneath the robes, in the dusk of the curtained carriage, and “play.” Carin knew how to play much more delightful things without toys than with them. She had only to begin pretending that she was a princess who was being stolen and carried into the desert; or that she was a missionary traveling over the Himalayas; or a pirate’s daughter, going to hide treasure; or any other of a hundred things, to have a beautiful time. One of her favorite “pretends” had been that about the stolen princess. But the story had come true in a way, and Carin found it was not nearly so amusing as she had thought it would be.

The rain grew heavier and the sky sulkier, and when they reached home, it was chilly and almost dark. To be sure the great house was lighted up, and a fire was burning in the living room, and a delicious supper was spread. But these things did not bring as much comfort as usual. Mrs. Carson had insisted that the McBirneys should not climb the mountain that night.

“You’ll only have to come down in the morning,” she said. “Spend the night with us. We’ll telephone the sheriff and get him up here; and we’ll telegraph all the surrounding towns, and you’ll be right here to help and advise.”

“But there’s the stock,” objected Thomas McBirney. “I can’t leave the poor dumb beasts hungering and thirsting.”

“Hi and me’ll look after them, pa,” said Jim. “You just let us take the horses, and we’ll ride up there and ’tend to things.”

“’Deed we will,” agreed Hi. “The only trouble is, I ought to be at the mill in the morning. They’ll be looking for me.”

Hi spoke as if the mill would shut down if he didn’t get there on time, and Mr. Carson couldn’t conceal a smile. He liked Hi’s important businesslike ways and his fashion of taking responsibility. So he answered gravely:

“Allow me to call up the manager of the mill the first thing in the morning, Hi, and apprise him of the situation. I may be able to get him at breakfast, so that he’ll know just what to expect before he reaches the office.”

It seemed a reasonable arrangement to Hi, and he hadn’t the faintest notion of the smiles of his elders. So, mounted on the bare backs of the McBirney horses, the boys set out to ride up the mountain in the rain. Each wore an old raincoat which Mr. Carson had fished up from somewhere about the house, and each carried a lantern.

“It certainly looks mighty lonely to me for them boys to start off up that mountain alone,” sighed Pa McBirney. “But I couldn’t endure it to think of the stock going unfed.”

“You don’t suppose those dreadful people will get after Hi, too, do you?” Carin whispered to her mother. Mrs. Carson started and looked troubled.

“I declare Carin, I don’t know. I’m all at sea. I’ve read of things like this, but nothing of the sort ever came into my life before, and I can’t more than half believe it.”

“That’s just the way I feel, mamma. There’s a ring at the doorbell. Perhaps it’s the sheriff.”

It was the sheriff, Mr. James Coulter, a heavy man with small eyes and a square jaw, and with him was Haystack Thompson.

“You’ll have to excuse me for coming along,” Haystack apologized. “But I’m in this hunt to stay. Life’s been lagging along pretty slow with me lately and now here something comes that looks to me like a man’s work, and I’ll be plumbasted, if I don’t want a hand in it.”

Thomas McBirney held out his hand.

“You always was one for adventures, Mr. Thompson,” he said, with emotion in his voice. “We’re grateful for your help.”

So they sat together, planning and scheming, till Carin fell asleep on the sofa, and the oil burned out of the lamps. The rain fell heavier and heavier and blew in gusts against the pane. And when Carin staggered up to bed with the help of Mammy Thula, it seemed to her as if all the pleasant things had stopped happening and only trouble was at hand.

Very much the same sort of an idea was lying in the bottom of Ma McBirney’s mind, though she tried to answer cheerfully when her Thomas spoke to her, and she said her prayers as if she had perfect faith that they were to be answered. But the truth was, she was too worried just then to have much faith. She imagined the frightful things that might be happening to her poor Azalea, and she realized more than ever how dear the child had become to her, and how she loved her merry ways and her odd turns of mind, and her way of acting as if the world was hers. But, more than that—Oh, much more than that just at that particular moment, was her anxiety for her own James Stuart. What was her boy doing just then, she wondered. The rain was simply threshing against the pane, and she knew in what torrents it would pour down the mountain side, ripping new gulleys for itself and deepening the old ones. It was black as only night and cloud can make the world, and the horses would be wearied and fretted.

“I doubt we were right in letting those poor boys go up the mountain to-night, Thomas,” she said, just as the good Pa McBirney was sinking into slumber. “We might better have let the creatures go hungry for a while than to risk the lives of those boys.”

“Go to sleep, Mary,” commanded Mr. McBirney in a sleepy voice. “I’ve got to have my night’s rest.” And indeed, he seemed to be beginning it before he had finished his sentence, for the next moment above all the clamor and uproar of the gale, ma could hear his steady and wholesome snore.

But she lay awake, turning this way and that, creeping out of bed to look from the window, where nothing could be seen but this latter deluge, and then huddling in again, praying for the three wandering children.

And as a matter of fact, prayers could not come amiss for any of them that night. And really, her own freckled Jim needed them rather more than the two she had taken under her motherly wing. For James Stuart McBirney encountered that night one of the greatest dangers of his short but interesting career. The two drenched boys had urged their horses up the slippery mountain road, and the horses had plunged on, half blinded by the storm. The way had been difficult, but all had gone well enough till they came to the falls where Jim had, several weeks before, shown Hi his mill and dam. The fall was roaring down the mountain side, and the boys had no choice but to cross the swollen torrent as it foamed and writhed across the roadway. In fair weather this was a safe enough crossing, and Jim loved it beyond any words of his to say. He would pause here while his horse drank, and he himself would sit staring at the dream-like valley, thinking vague and happy thoughts. But to-night, as he was to learn, the great boulders that had been placed at the outer edge of the road had been carried away, and the black water was an enemy—the water which had so often been his playmate. Midstream, he felt his horse slipping.

“Mac!” he called sharply, slapping the animal encouragingly, “Mac! Pull up!”

But Mac, it seemed, could not pull up, though he tried desperately. His feet went out from under him, and he lay on his side, with the waters raging about him and bearing him toward that desperate edge. Once over that, they would drop sheer one hundred and fifty feet upon jagged rocks where the waters twisted and hissed like angry serpents. Fortunately, Mac had not gone down quickly, but after a struggle, and Jim had had time to free himself from the stirrups. He stood there in the flood now, with the frantic horse between him and that deadly fall. The bridle reins were still in his hands, and he held to them with the instinct of the born horseman, though what a slender boy could do with a frightened horse in a raging torrent, it is not easy to imagine. Jim felt both of them going, and said to himself: “One second more and I’ll let old Mac go and get out of this—if I can!” when suddenly the great body of the horse caught and held. Jim felt that the animal was bracing himself against something strong and firm, and he let go the reins to escape the plunging hoofs. But the next moment, freed from the horse’s sustaining back, he found himself swept from his feet and caught in the terrible swirl of the waters. Then, for the first time, he screamed “Hi! Hi!” though he knew there was small chance that Hi could hear him. And at that instant, a terrible thought flashed over his mind. What if Hi had not been able to cross the ford! What if he, too, had gone down!

“Hi! Hi!” shouted Jim in his throat. A thousand wicked voices of the storm answered him; the cruel hands of the flood clutched him. He swept on, closed his eyes, and in his terrified, dry little mind thought:

“I reckon that’s about all of me!”

And then, somehow, miraculously, he too was caught and held. True, the waters were pounding him, he was smothering with the spray, but at least he was not being tossed over the brink. He thrust out desperate hands and clutched the obstruction. It was a tree in full leaf, which had been swept from the upper fall and had somehow snarled there on the rocks. It was what had saved Mac, and at the end of a frightened, determined struggle, Jim, standing ankle deep, in the red mud of the road, knew that it had saved him too. And there, at his hand, trembling, but safe, was good old Mac.

It seemed strange to Jim that his throat could be so dry when his very skin was soaking and the heavens were emptying torrents all about him, but it was all he could do to shriek out: “Hi! Oh, Hi!”

No voice answered. “He’s gone,” sobbed Jim. “He’s gone over the fall! Oh, what shall I do?”

But just then above the road came a sharp voice in his ears.

“Shut up there, ninny! I’m here all right.”

“Where? Where?”

“Where you’ll step on me if you don’t watch out. I guess my arm’s broke, Jim. Nannie went down at the ford, but she got out and ran away from me. Piked for home, I guess. I hit something, and crawled out, and then I sort o’ went to sleep. One arm’s acting funny—it won’t work.”

“Oh, Hi,” cried Jim, “never mind if your arm is broke; that can be mended. But if you’d gone over—”

“No glue would mend me then,” answered Hi. He struggled to his feet, and the two boys went on in the darkness. They left Mac to plunge up the road as best suited him. Both had cast away their lanterns after the rain and wind had put out the light, and they tramped on in the blur of mist which told them that they were in the very heart of a cloud. Sometimes Hi could not keep back a groan, though he tried manfully.

“You just brace up, Hi, you hear?” said Jim with affectionate roughness. “You’re in luck to only break one bone. My goodness, what’s one bone when you’ve hundreds of ’em in your body?”

Hi set his strong white teeth together and trudged on. The way seemed like an endless bad dream. But finally he heard Jim say: “We’re here.” And they were. They were in the good dry cabin, and Hi had sunk on the settle while Jim lighted the lamps and lit the fire. That done, he went out to the horse shed and came back with the cheering news that both horses were in their stalls.

“And now,” he said, “let’s see what we can do about your arm. I know there’s arnica in the house.”

“Arnica!” cried Hi in anguished contempt. “Do you think rubbing will do _that_ any good?” He dangled the limp lower arm before Jim’s horrified gaze.

“No,” said a gruff voice, “rubbing won’t help it none, but setting will, and I’m the man to do it for you.”

The boys turned as quick as owls, and there, standing in the doorway was a tall, dripping man in homespun mountain clothes.

“Why, Buck Bab!” cried Jim, “Where did you come from?”

Hi’s eyes started from his head.

“Ain’t you the man that chased me with a gun the other night?” he asked.

Bab wrung the rain out of his hair and grinned at Hi.

“Maybe I am,” he said, “and maybe I ain’t. But one thing’s certain: I’m going to set that there arm of yours, son.” To Jim he said, “You go find me a shingle. Rip one off the house if you can’t do any other way, and I’ll take the liberty of tearing up one of your ma’s old sheets.” He bustled about the cabin getting everything in readiness, and then he came over to Hi, smiling curiously.

“’Twon’t be very bad,” he said almost tenderly. He stooped over him and seemed to tap him gently on the jaw somewhere below the ear. Jim couldn’t make out what was going on. Suddenly Hi seemed to be asleep, and he was making no objection at all as Buck Bab’s great hands busied themselves with drawing the broken arm from the coat and shirt that hampered them.

“What have you done, Buck Bab!” demanded Jim, thoroughly frightened. “What’s the matter with Hi?”

“Now, don’t worry, McBirney,” answered Bab gruffly. “I just fixed your friend so he wouldn’t be inconvenienced by what I’m about to do. He’s just taking a little nap to order. He’ll be all right in a minute or two, and by that time I’ll have his arm set as tight as a trap. You didn’t want to hear his hollering and crying, did you?”

“No—o,” said Jim doubtfully. He drew nearer to his friend and stood there ready to give any help that Bab should need.

In ten minutes it was all over. The arm was in place and held there safely with bandages and splints. Hi’s wet clothes had been dragged from him and he had been wrapped in a warm blanket. His eyes began to flutter and a sick look to come into his white face.

“Lie still,” growled Bab to him, “and think of nothing. And you, McBirney, I suppose you come up here to look after the stock. Well, get out that lantern and find the milk pails, and I’ll help you. After we’ve fixed up the animals, we’ll get some supper.”

“Well,” thought Jim to himself, as he obeyed the man, “who would believe it? I know pa wouldn’t, and I don’t believe ma would, though she always says there’s some good in everybody. Buck Bab a moonshiner, and not denying it! And yet here he is, helping me out! It seems like a night with a lot of queer dreams in it. Oh, my! Poor Zalie! Oh, Zalie, where can you be!”