Part 2

"What's left o' him," said Ephraim, rising, and shaking hands with his old friend.

"Well, you do look used up an' peaked."

"I've been sick."

"An' your hair is gray."

"It's the prison life done it."

"You've been through a good deal, I take it," in a tone of compassion.

"I don't want to think o' it any more if I can help it!" Ephraim exclaimed. "They didn't treat me so bad, but--oh, I thought it would take the soul out o' me!"

Davis shook his head sympathetically.

Ephraim's face sank on his breast for a moment. There were some questions he longed, yet dreaded, to ask. At last he plucked up courage.

"How--how is mother?"

"Purty well."

"'Lishy Cole is married, is he?"

"Yes; he married more 'n two years ago."

Of course he had expected that answer, but it caused his thin, worn face to twitch and contract with pain. He hastily picked up his stick.

"I--I'd better be gittin' on."

"Your ma's moved down to the Wood place," his neighbor called after him as he started up the road. "The Woods moved to Fannin County last year, you know."

"Is that so?" said Ephraim, but without halting again.

Married! Yes, why should they not marry? It was for that he had saved Elisha Cole. He had known it from the night of the dance, had clearly foreseen it all, that morning he stopped at Rock Creek--facing the awakening world and his own conscience. He had struggled for resignation during his prison life, but never had he been able to think of Armindy sitting by Elisha Cole's fireside--Elisha Cole's wife--without the fiercest pang of jealous anguish.

He sat down again, trembling with exhaustion, and bared his throbbing head to the cool breeze. He looked at his long, thin hands, stroked his face, feeling the hollows in his cheeks and under his eyes. He would never get back his youth and vigor again. It was well no woman loved him except his mother. She would not criticise his changed appearance, or care less for him on account of it.

It was dusk when he reached the old Wood cabin. The shutters had not been drawn over the small, square window in the chimney-corner, and he crept across the yard to look into the room, himself unseen. A low fire burned on the hearth; he could smell the bread baking before it, and the smoke of frying bacon filled the room. Then he saw his mother sitting at the corner of the hearth knitting, while another woman stooped over the fire. Suddenly she stood erect, and he caught his breath sharply, for it was Armindy Hudgins, Elisha Cole's wife, flushed, handsomer than ever. What did it mean? Had they taken his mother to live with them? He writhed at the thought. He leaned forward, for Armindy was speaking:

"Now I'll step to the spring for a pail o' water; then we'll have supper."

"I wish Eph'um was here to eat it with us. Do you think he'll ever come, Armindy?" she said wistfully.

"I know he will," said Armindy, firmly; but a shadow fell upon her face, and Ephraim could see that she looked older, more serious, than in former days. But what a fine, elastic step she had! what supple curves in her figure! His eyes dwelt upon her with admiration, with despair. He loved her as deeply as ever. She stepped out of the room and went away to the spring. He followed her, determined to find out the cause of her presence in his mother's house.

He vividly remembered that other night when they stood at the spring together, and raised his eyes to Brandreth's Peak, but the moon hung low in the west, a pale crescent, Armindy knelt by the spring, dipping up the water, when his shadow came between her and the faint moonlight. She glanced up, then sprang to her feet, half-frightened; the next moment she ran to him and fell weeping on his neck.

"Eph'um! Eph'um! I said you'd come! I've always said you'd come!"

He gathered her to him; then tried to push her away.

"Don't--I--where is 'Lishy?" he stammered.

"I don't know. What do you want to think o' him for, now?" she cried, looking at him with wet eyes, drawing his face down to hers.

"Ain't you 'Lishy's wife?"

She fell back a little.

"Did you think I'd marry him? I loved you, Eph'um--you."

"Is that the reason you 're here with my mother?"

"Yes; I've been with her nearly all the time."

"It was my fault the raiders come out to get 'Lishy, that night."

"I knew it when I heard how you saved him from them. Oh, don't hate me for makin' you suffer so! It seemed like fun then, but I've been paid back for it all."

He felt dazed. Armindy free, Armindy faithful, and loving, and humbly entreating him not to hate her! Life thrilled afresh through him.

"Who did 'Lishy Cole marry?" he inquired at last.

"How you keep thinkin' o' him!"

"I can afford to now."

"He married Sary Ann Wood."

They were standing by the laurel thicket. She saw that his eyes were fixed on the flowers, and turned quickly away to take up the pail of water.

"I ain't danced the hoe-down since that night."

He broke off a spray of the flowers and fastened it in her hair.

*S'PHIRY ANN.*

The Standneges lived in a little sheltered cove upon the mountain-side, their house only a two-roomed cabin, with an entry separating the rooms, and low, ungainly chimneys at each end. Below it the Cartecay River lay like an amber ribbon in the green, fertile valley; above it towered majestic mountain heights, shrouded in silver mists or veiled in a blue haze. The Standneges were bred-and-born mountaineers, and had drifted into the little cove while Indian camp-fires were still glowing like stars in the valley of the Cartecay, and Indian wigwams dotting the river's banks. The house had a weather-beaten look, and the noble chestnut-oaks shading it had covered the roof with a fine green mold.

The kitchen, a heavy-looking, smoke-blackened structure with a puncheon floor, stood just in the rear of the house, and so situated that from the door one could look through the entry to the front gate and the mountain road beyond.

Mrs. Standnege sat in the kitchen door one morning with bottles and bean-bags scattered around her, "sortin'" out seed-beans. She was a woman not much beyond middle age, but lean and yellow, with faded eyes and scant dun-colored hair, time and toil and diet having robbed her of the last remnant of youth, without giving her a lovely old age. She was a good type of the average mountain woman, illiterate but independent, and contented with her scant homespun dress, her house, her beanbags.

A heavy old loom occupied one corner of the kitchen, and Polly, the eldest daughter, sat on the high bench before it, industriously weaving, while S'phiry Ann stood by the smoke-stained mantel, watching the pine she had laid on the fire burst into vivid flame. A bundle of clothes lay at her feet, surmounted by a round flat gourd, filled with brown jelly-like soap.

Polly was the eldest and she the youngest of eight children, but the others all lay safely and peacefully in the little neglected burial-ground at the foot of the mountain. She was unlike mother and sister. She had youth, she was supple and fair, her hair dark and abundant, her eyes gray and clear. She had the soft, drawling voice, but also a full share of the sturdy independence, of her race. The circumstances of her christening, Mrs. Standnege was rather fond of relating.

"Yes, S'phiry Ann is er oncommon name," she would say, not without a touch of complacency, "but her pap give it tu her. She was a month old to a day, when that travelin' preacher come through here an' held meetin' fer brother Dan'l on Sunday. He preached mos'ly about them liars droppin' dead at the 'postles' feet, an' Standnege came home all but persessed about it, an' nothin' ed do but he mus' name the baby S'phiry Ann instead er Sary Ann as we had thought. He 'lowed it sarved them onprincipled folks right to die, an' he wanted somethin' ter remin' him o' that sermont. Well, I ain't desputin' but it was right, but I tole Standnege then, an' I say so yit, that ef all the liars in the world war tuk outen it, thar wouldn't be many folks left."

S'phiry Ann had heard of the fate of the Sapphira figuring in sacred history; it had been deeply impressed on her mind in her tenderest years, and might possibly have left a good impression, for she grew up a singularly truthful, upright girl. Just now, as she leaned against the mantel and stared at the fire, her face wore an unwontedly grave expression.

"Folks as set themselves up ter be better'n they ekals air mighty apt tu git tuk down, S'phiry Ann," said her mother, evidently resuming a conversation dropped a short time before.

"But I ain't a-settin' up ter be better'n my ekals, ma," said S'phiry Ann, gently but defensively.

"It 'peared like nothin' else yiste'day when you so p'intedly walked away from Gabe Plummer at meetin', an' it the fust time you had seed him since comin' from yer aunt Thomas over in Boondtown settle*mint*. Thar ain't no call ter treat Gabe so."

"But ain't we hearn he's tuk up with them distillers on the mountains?" said the girl in a low tone, a deep flush overspreading her face.

"Yes, we hev hearn it, but what o' that? Many a gal has tuk jes' sech."

"An' glad to get 'em, too," snapped Polly sharply, stopping to tie up a broken thread.

"Gabe Plummer is er oncommon steddy boy. He's er master hand at en'thing he wants ter do, an'--"

But S'phiry Ann did not linger to hear the full enumeration of her lover's virtues. Hastily balancing the bundle of clothes on her head, she took up the blazing torch, and hurried to the spring, a crystal-clear stream, running out of a ledge of rock, and slipping away through a dark ravine to the river. If she imagined she had escaped all reproaches for her reprehensible conduct the day before, it was a sad mistake. Hardly had the fire been kindled and the rusty iron kettle filled with water when a young man came treading heavily through the laurel thicket above the spring, leaped down the crag, and saluted her.

"Mornin', S'phiry Ann."

"Mornin', Gabe," she said, blushing vividly and busying herself piling unnecessary fuel on the fire.

He was a fine specimen of the mountaineer, lithe, well-made, toughened to hardy endurance, with tawny hair falling to his collar, and skin bronzed to a deep brown. He wore no coat, and his shirt was homespun, his nether garments of coarse brown jeans. He carried a gun, and a shot-bag and powder-horn were slung carelessly across his shoulders.

"I knowed you had a way er washin' on Monday, so I jest thought bein' as I was out a-huntin' I'd come roun'," he said, sitting down on the wash-bench, and laying the gun across his lap.

"You air welcome," she said, taking a tin pail and stepping to the spring to fill it.

"I wouldn't 'a' lowed so from yiste'day," darting a reproachful glance at her.

She made no reply.

"What made you do it, S'phiry Ann?" he exclaimed, no longer able to restrain himself. "I ain't desarved no sech; but if it was jes' ter tease me, why--"

She arose with the pail of water.

"No, it wasn't that," she said in a low tone, her eyes downcast, the color flickering uncertainly in her face.

"Then you didn't mean what was said that night a-comin' from the Dillin'ham gatherin'," he cried, turning a little pale. "Mebby it's somebody over in Boondtown settlement," a smoldering spark of jealousy flaming up.

"It's the 'stillery, Gabe," she said, and suddenly put down the pail to unburden her trembling hands. "You hadn't ought ter go inter it."

"But the crap last year made a plum' failure," he replied excusingly, his eyes shifting slightly under the light of hers. She was standing by the spring, against a background of dark green, a slanting sunbeam shifting its gold down through the overhanging pine on her dark, uncovered head, lighting up her earnest face, lending lustrous fire to her eyes. The scant cotton skirt and ill-fitting bodice she wore could not destroy the supple grace of her figure, molded for strength as well as beauty.

"The crap wusn't no excuse, an' if you mus' make whiskey up thar on the sly, I ain't no more tu say, an' I ain't no use fer ye."

"Yer mean it, S'phiry Ann?"

"I mean it, Gabe."

"Then you never keered," he cried with rising passion, "an' that half-way promise ter marry me was jest a lie ter fool me--nothin' but a lie, I'll make it if I please," bringing his down on the bench with a fierce blow.

"An' hide in the caves like a wild creetur, when the raiders air out on mountains?" she scornfully exclaimed.

His sunburned face flushed a dull red, he writhed under the cruel question.

"They ain't apt ter git me, that's certain," he muttered.

"You don't know that," more gently. "Think o' Al Hendries an' them Fletcher boys. They thought themselves too smart for the officers, but they wasn't. You know how they was caught arter lyin' out for weeks, a-takin' sleet an' rain an' all but starvin', an' tuk ter Atlanty an' put in jail, an' thar they staid a-pinin'. I staid 'long er Al's wife them days, for she was that skeery she hated ter see night come, an' I ain't forgot how she walked the floor a-wringin' her hands, or settin' bent over the fire a-dippin' snuff or a-smokin'--'twas all the comfort she had--an' the chilluns axin' for their pap, an' she not a-knowin' if he'd ever git back. Oh! 'twas turrible lonesome---plum' heart-breakin' to the poor creetur. Then one day, 'long in the spring, Al crep' in, all broke down an' no 'count. The life gave outen him, an' for a while he sot roun' an' tried ter pick up, but the cold an' the jail had their way, an' he died."

She poured out the brief but tragic story breathlessly, then paused, looked down, and then up again. "Gabe, I sez ter myself then, 'None o' that in your'n, S'phiry Ann, none o' that in your'n.'"

She raised the bucket and threw its contents into a tub.

Gabe Plummer cast fiery glances at her, the spirit and firmness she displayed commanding his admiration, even while they filled him with rage against her. Yes, he knew Al Hendries's story; he distinctly remembered the fury of resentment his fate roused among his comrades, the threats breathed against the law, but he held himself superior to that unfortunate fellow, gifted with keener wits, a more subtile wariness. The stand S'phiry Ann had taken against him roused bitter resentment in his soul, but the fact that he loved her so strongly made him loath to leave her. A happy dream of one day having her in his home, pervading it with the sweetness of her presence, had been his close and faithful companion for years, comforting his lonely winter nights when the wind tore wildly over the mountains, and the rain beat upon his cabin roof, or giving additional glory to languorous summer noons, when the cloud-shadows seemed to lie motionless on the distant heights, and the sluggish river fed moisture to the heated valley.

What right had she to spoil this dream before it had become a reality? He could not trust himself to argue the matter with her then, but abruptly rose to his feet.

"We'll not say any more this mornin', though I do think a-settin' up Al Hendries's wife ag'in me is an onjestice. Me an' some o' the boys air comin' down ter ole man Whitaker's this evenin,' an' bein' agreeable I might step down to see you ag'in."

"Jest as ye please," she quietly replied; then with a tinge of color added, "Ef you'll go back ter the clearin' I'll do jest what I promised, Gabe."

But without saying whether he would or would not, Gabe shouldered his gun and went away.

S'phiry Ann had been very calm and decided throughout the interview, but the moment her lover had disappeared she sank trembling on the bench, her face hidden in her hands.

"Ef it hadn't 'a' be'n for thinkin' o' Al Hendries's wife I never could 'a' stood up ag'in him," she sighed faintly.

A squirrel springing nimbly from a laurel to a slender chesnut-tree paused on a swaying branch to look at her, and a bird fluttered softly in the sweet-gum above her. The sun slipped under a cloud, and when she rose to go about her work, the spring day had grown gray and dull. It sent a shiver through her, as she stared dejectedly at the overshadowed valley. She had little time, though, for idle indulgence--she must be at her washing; and presently when the clouds had drifted away, and the sunshine steeped the earth in its warmth again, her spirits rose, a song burst from her lips--an ancient hymn, old almost as the everlasting mountains around her.

The day waxed to full noon, then waned, and S'phiry Ann spread the clothes on the garden-fence and the grass to dry. There were other duties awaiting her. The geese must be driven up, the cows milked, and water brought from the spring for evening use. Then she would put on her clean cotton gown, and smooth the tangles out of her hair, before Gabe came in. It was all accomplished as she had planned, and at dusk she sat on the rear step of the entry taking a few minutes of well-earned rest. The light streamed out from the kitchen, falling across the clean, bare yard and sending shifting gleams up among the young leaves of the trees. On the kitchen step sat Eph, an orphan boy of twelve or thirteen the Standneges had adopted, whittling a hickory stick for a whistle, and at his side crouched a lean, ugly hound. S'phiry could see her father tilted back in a chair against the loom, talking to Jim Wise, a valley farmer who had come up to salt his cattle on the mountains, while her mother and sister passed back and forth, preparing supper. The voices of the men were raised, and presently she heard Wise say:

"The raiders air out ter-night, so I hearn comin' up the mountain. They air expectin' ter ketch up with things this time, bein' as somebody has been a-tellin',--it 'pears so, anyway."

S'phiry Ann pressed her hands together with a little gasp.

"The boys air got they years open," said Mr. Standnege with a slow smile, his half-shut eyes twinkling.

"But this is er onexpected move, an' they mayn't be a-lookin' fer it," persisted the other man.

"They air always a-ready an' a-lookin'. They ain't ter be tuk nappin'."

But the girl, listening with breathless attention, shivered, not sharing her father's easy confidence. She remembered that Gabe Plummer had said they were coming down to old man Whitaker's, and she knew that they were off guard. They would be caught, she thought, with a cold sensation around her heart; Gabe would be put in jail, and locked up, probably for months, and then come back with all the youth and strength gone from him. Even as these thoughts were passing through her mind, a sound fell on her ears, faint, far away, and yet to her, alert, keenly alive to the approach of danger, terribly significant. It was the steady tramp of iron-shod hoofs upon the road, and it approached from the valley. She sat motionless, but with fierce-beating heart, listening and feeling sure it was the enemy drawing near.

The revenue men had always looked upon the Standneges as peaceful, law-abiding citizens, and though no information had ever been obtained from them, the officers sometimes stopped with them, lounged in the entry, or sat at their board, partakers of their humble fare. Probably they intended stopping for supper. The girl devoutly hoped they would. The steady tramp grew louder, the hound pricked up his long ears, sniffed the air, then dashed around the house with a deep, hostile yelp. The next moment a party of horsemen halted before the gate. Her fears were realized.

The dog barked noisily, the men chaffed each other in a hilarious way, while the horses stamped and breathed loudly, and the quiet place seemed all at once vivified with fresh life. Standnege went out to the gate followed by his guest; Mrs. Standnege and Polly came to the door and peered out, and Eph hurriedly closed his knife and thrust the whistle into his pocket preparatory to following his elders. The officers would not dismount, though hospitably pressed to do so.

"'Light, 'light, an' come in; the wimmen folks air jest a-gettin' supper," said Standnege cordially.

"Business is too urgent. We are bound to capture our men to-night. Why, the whole gang are coming down out of their lair to old man Whitaker's to-night, so we have been informed, and we must be on hand to welcome them."

Eph crossed the yard, but when he would have stepped up to take a short cut through the entry, his hand was caught in another hand so cold it sent a shiver of terror over him.

"My--why, S'phiry Ann!" he sharply exclaimed.

"Hush!" she whispered, drawing him out of the light. "Will you go with me ter ole man Whitaker's, Eph?"

"This time o' night?"

"Yes, now."

"It's more'n a mile."

"We'll take the nigh cut through the woods."

"Dark as all git-out."

"I'm not afeerd; I'll go erlone then," she said with contempt.

"What air you up ter?--Good Lord! S'phiry Ann, do you think that could be done an' they a-ridin'?" suddenly understanding her purpose.

"Nothin' like tryin'," she replied, and glided like a shadow around the corner of the house.

The boy stared for a moment after her.

"Well, _I_ never!" he muttered, and followed on.

They ran through the orchard, an ill-kept, weedy place full of stunted apple-trees, across a freshly plowed field to the dense, black woods beyond. It was a clear night, the sky thickly set with stars, and low in the west a pale new moon hanging between two towering sentinel peaks, but the light could not penetrate to the narrow pathway S'phiry Ann had selected as the nearest route to Whitaker's. The awful solitude, the intense darkness, did not daunt her. She knew the way, her footing was sure, and she ran swiftly as a deer before the hunters, animated by one desire--to get to Whitaker's before the officers. It was a desperate chance. If her father detained them a few minutes longer--but if they hastened on--she caught her breath and quickened her own steps. Eph stumbled pantingly along behind her, divided between admiration at her fleetness and anger that he had been called on to take part in such a mad race.

In speaking of it afterward, he said:

"I never seed a creetur git over more ground in ez short a time sence that hound o' Mis' Beaseley's got pizened. It's a dispensin' er providence her neck wusn't broke, a-rushin' through them gullies an' up them banks, an' it so dark you mought 'a' fell plum' inter the bottomless pit an' not 'a' knowed it."

But S'phiry Ann had no consideration to spare to personal danger, as she broke through the underbrush and climbed stony, precipitous heights. Once an owl flew across her way, its outspread wings almost brushing her face, and with a terrified hoot sought a new hiding-place. The wind swept whisperingly through the forest, and a loosened stone rolled down and fell with a dull, hollow sound into the black depths of the ravine below them. Eph wished they had brought a torch, wished that he had not come, then struck out in a fresh heat, as he heard a mysterious rustling in the bushes behind him.

At last they emerged from the woods opposite Whitaker's, and S'phiry Ann leaned for a moment against the fence, panting, breathless, but exultant. She had won the race.

The house was only one forlorn old room, built of rough hewn logs, with a rickety shed in the rear. A small garden spot and the meager space inclosed with the house comprised all the open ground. Mountains rose darkly above it, and, below, the mountain road wound and twisted in its tortuous course, to the fair, open valley. At the back of the dwelling the ridge shelved abruptly off into a deep ravine, dark the brightest noonday--an abyss of blackness at night.