Part 2

“He ’pears ter hev toler’ble good sense now,” said Mink, striving against credulity.

“Yes, he hev spryed up powerful.”

“Waal,” said Mink, constrained by the fascination of the supernatural, “I hev hearn ez Carrick seen the Herder, too.”

“He did,” replied Doaks. “Arter a while—a week, mebbe—Rob kem up ter me an’ axed, ‘Whar’s them cattle a-bellerin’?’ I listened, but I never hearn nuthin’. We hed missed some steers arter Ike hed seen the Herder, an’ Rob war sorter ’feard they’d run down inter the cove. He jumped on a half-bruk clay-bank colt an’ rid off, thinkin’ the bellerin’ mought be them. Waal, time passed. I hed nuthin’ in partic’lar ter do: cattle war salted the day before. Time passed. I jes’ sot thar. I ’lowed I’d wait till Rob kem back, then I’d go a-huntin’. Time passed. I ’lowed I’d furgit how ter talk ef I warn’t herdin’ along o’ sech a sociable critter ez Rob, an’ I wondered ef I war by myself up on Thunderhead ef I’d hev ter talk ter myse’f a little. An’ ez I sot thar in the fog—’twar September then, an’ we war clouded ez a constancy—I said, jes’ like a fool, out loud, suddint, ’Howdy, sir!’ Waal, I never _did_ know what I seen ez I looked up; mought hev been the mist, mought hev been the devil. I _’lowed_ I seen a man on a horse gallopin’ off in the fog. Then I hearn a power o’ jouncin’ hoofs, an’ hyar kem Rob’s colt arearin’ an’ a-pawin’, skeered ter death mighty nigh, with all the hide scraped off’n his knees, an’ his shins barked bad. I seen he hed hed a fall; so I jumped up an’ run down a leetle piece along the trail, an’ thar war Rob lyin’ on the groun’, flunged over the colt’s head ez neat an’ nip! I run up ter him. I ’lowed he war hurt. He never answered a word I axed him. His eyes war stretched open bigger ’n enny eye I ever seen, an’ he said, ‘Ye hev viewed him too, Ben, I know it, fur ye’ve got the “harnt bleach.” I know the reason now,’ says Rob, ’ez he herds on Thunderhead,—’kase his bones warn’t all buried tergether, though we sarched nigh an’ we sarched fur.’”

“Did the Herder tell him that?” asked Mink, with a sudden accession of credulity.

“Naw, ye durned fool!” exclaimed Doaks, scandalized at the idea of this breach of spectral etiquette. “The Herder jes’ passed him like the wind, an’ the colt jes’ reared and flung Rob over his head.”

“Waal,” said Mink sturdily, “I b’lieve ’twar nuthin’ but somebody from the Car’liny side, ridin’ roun’ an’ tollin’ off cattle.”

“Mebbe,” said Doaks, non-committally. “Ye can’t prove nuthin’ by me. All I know is, Carrick seen his face, an’ he jes’ fell in a sorter stupor for a year an’ a day. I hev hearn o’ sech sperits ez can’t kill ye, but jes’ wither yer time, an’ mebbe this hyar Herder on Thunderhead be one o’ them.”

Neither spoke, for some moments. Both sat gazing fixedly at the massive mountain in the likeness of a cloud lowering aggressively over the mean altitudes of the range. What wrath of elements did it hold enchained? What bolts of heaven unhurled? What strange phenomena of being might lurk in those mystic vapors metamorphosed into the solidities of earth—this apostate cloud that asserted itself a mountain? The sky was clear about it now; the mists had all drifted over to Piomingo Bald, veiling the dwarfed forests.

Suddenly there was a vague shiver among them. Into the silence was projected the report of a rifle. The two men sprang to their feet, and looked at each other.

“Somebody a-huntin’, I reckon,” said Mink. He was beginning to laugh, a little shamefacedly.

“Listen!” said Doaks. “What’s that?”

The cattle were bellowing with affright in the stunted woods. The earth shook under their hoofs. A young bull came plunging out of the mists. He paused as he reached the bare slope, lifted his head, and looked back over his shoulder with great dilated eyes.

“What ails the cattle?” exclaimed Doaks, running down the slope. Mink hesitated for a moment, then followed.

The boles of the dwarfed trees stood shadowy here and there, growing still more indistinct further, and fading into the white opaque blankness of the vapor. So low were their summits that one could see the topmost boughs, despite the encompassing mist.

All the cattle were in the wildest excitement, snorting and bellowing, and, with lowered horns, and tails in the air, they were making at full speed for the upper regions of the bald. Each, bursting out of the densities of the fog, separated from the others, seemed to give some individual expression of bovine rage. There might be heard, but not seen, an infuriated animal hard by, tearing up the ground.

“Waal, I never ’sperienced the like in my life off ’n Thunderhead!” exclaimed Doaks.

Mink said nothing; he sprang aside to avoid the headlong rush of a brute that shot out of the mist and into it again with the swift unreality of an apparition.

Then he spoke suddenly. “Ye never said he rid with a rifle.”

“Who?” asked Doaks, bewildered. He was in advance. He looked back over his shoulder. “Who?” he repeated.

“That thar Herder from Thunderhead.” said Mink.

“Ye dough-faced idjit,—what d’ ye mean?”

Mink pointed silently.

A few yards distant there was a rude barricade of felled trees, laid together after the zigzag manner of a rail fence. It was intended to prevent the cattle from running down a precipitous ravine which it overlooked. Close to it in the mist a cow was lying. There was no mistaking the attitude. The animal was dead. A carefully aimed rifle-ball had penetrated the eye, and buried itself in the brain.

II.

There was blood upon the ground. An awkward attempt had been made to cut the brute’s throat, and, this failing, the rifle had been called into use. Doaks walked up to the animal, and turned her head to look for the brass tag about her horns which would bear her owner’s mark. She wore no tag, and her hide had never known the branding-iron. His eye fell on a peculiar perforation in her ear.

“Mink,” he exclaimed, with a note of anguish, “this hyar critter’s _my cow_!”

Mink came up, his countenance adjusted to sympathy. He had little of the instinct of acquisition. He was almost incapable of any sentiment of that marvelous range of emotions which vibrate with such fineness of susceptibility to the alternations of gain and loss. He looked like an intelligent animal as he helped make sure of the herder’s mark.

“Ye hed sech a few head o’ stock o’ yer own, ennyways,” he observed, with a dolorous lack of tact.

“Oh, Lord A’mighty, none sca’cely,” exclaimed Doaks, feeling very poor. “I dunno how in this worl’ this hyar cow happened ter be singled out.”

“Mebbe he hed a gredge agin ye, too, ’bout them bones, bein’ ez ye herded on Thunderhead wunst,” suggested Mink.

“What bones?” demanded Doaks, amazed.

“Why, his’n,” said Mink, in a lowered voice.

“In the name o’ reason, Mink, what air ye a-drivin’ at?” cried Doaks, flustered and aghast.

“Why, the Herder, o’ course. Him ez skeered the cattle on Thunderhead. I ’lowed mebbe he hed a gredge agin you-uns, too.”

“How’d he kem over hyar?” demanded Doaks, with scorn, as if the harnt of a Herder were limited to the locality of Thunderhead. “It’s a deal mo’ likely ter be some livin’ man ez hev got a gredge agin ye fur yer minkish ways, an’ seein’ the critter hed no tag on, an’ warn’t branded nuther, killed her fur ye.”

Mink drew a long breath. “Waal, I hope so, the Lord knows. I’d settle him.” An essentially mundane courage was his, but a sturdy endowment as far as it went.

His imagination was of the pursuant order; it struck out no new trail, but, given a lead, it could follow with many an active expression of power. He accepted at once this suggestion, with a confidence as complete as if he had never credited the grudge of a ghostly herder.

“An’ I’ll be bound I kin tell ye jes’ who ’twar,” he said, stoutly, producing a corollary to the proposition he had adopted as his own. “’Twar that thar pop-eyed fool Peter Rood. I reckon ye hev noticed, ef one o’ them black-eyed, thick-set, big-headed men git made game of ’bout ennything, he’ll pay ye back some mean way. Stiddier skeerin’ me fur skeerin’ him, he kems hyar an’ shoots that cow.”

He thrust one hand in his leather belt, and turned his bold bright glance on his partner. As he stood at his full height, vigorous, erect, a touch of freakishness in his eyes, decision expressed in his clear-cut features, a certain activity suggested even in his motionless pose, it might have seemed that the revenge of shooting the cow was the more hopeful project.

Doaks, a philosopher in some sort, and reflective, could discriminate as to motives.

“Rood never done it fur that by itself. I don’t b’lieve he would hev done it _jes’_ fur that. But the way ez ye hev been performin’ sence ’bout Elviry Crosby air powerful aggervatin’. I hearn tell ez she hev turned Rood off, an’ won’t speak ter him, though the weddin’ day hed been set! I reckon he felt like payin’ ye back ennyhow it kem handy.”

Doaks drew a plug of tobacco from his pocket, wrenched off a fragment with his strong teeth, and, talking indistinctly as he chewed, continued, the anxiety of forecast blunting the actual pain of experience.

“Ef he keeps this hyar up, Mink,—ef it’s him, an’ he kems roun’ shootin’ at cattle agin,—he mought git some o’ the owners’ stock nex’ time, an’ they mought hold me ’sponsible. I dunno whether they could or no. I ’low he war ’quainted with this cow, an’ knowed her ter be yourn, an’ never drempt ez ye hed swopped her off ter me. I wisht ter Gawd the critter knew ye hed no cattle on the mounting, an’ ain’t ’sponsible ter the owners, ez ye never traded with them, but arter my contract war made ye jes’ went shares with me.”

He seated himself on the rude fence in an awkward attitude, his long legs dangling, and drew out a red cotton handkerchief with which he rubbed his corrugated brow as vigorously as if he could thus smooth out the pucker in his brain.

“Waal, waal! this mortal life!” he exclaimed, presently. “Satan won’t leave ye in peace. Ye may go an’ set yerse’f up on the bald of a mounting, herdin’ ’mongst the dumb ones, an’ the worl’ an’ the things o’ this life will kem a-cropin’ up on ye with a rifle, an’ ye be ’bleeged ter turn ’roun’ an’ cornsider how ye kin keep what ye hev got an’ how ye kin git mo’. I useter ’low ef I war a perfessin’ member, _this_ worl’ wouldn’t stick so in my craw; so I tuk cornsider’ble pains ter git religion, an’ mighty nigh wore out the mourners’ bench settin’ on it so constant, till I war actially feared the Lord would be pervoked ter see me in the front row o’ them convicted o’ sin at _every_ revival, and visit wrath on me. An’ I never got religion at last; though I feel nigher ter it on Piomingo Bald than ennywhar else, till Rood, or somebody, starts up like they hed a contract with Satan to be-devil me.”

Mink listened with a sort of affectionate ruefulness. Then he broke forth, suddenly, “Mebbe I mought see Rood ef I war ter go down ter Piomingo Cove, whar the boys be goin’ ter shoot fur beef this evenin’. An’ I kin let him know I don’t own no cattle up hyar, an’ hain’t got no trade with the owners, an’ ain’t ’sponsible ter nobody.”

There was a sudden expression of alarm in Doaks’s face. “Don’t ye let Rood know we suspicioned him, ’kase he _mought_ hev hed nuthin’ ter do with it.”

“Naw,” said Mink, with a diplomatic nod, “I’ll jes’ tell that whilst I’m a-spreadin’ the tale ’bout the cow.”

There was a short silence. Doaks still sat, with a pondering aspect, on the fence.

“Rood mought take his gredge out on you-uns some other way, Mink,” he suggested presently. He felt bound in conscience to present the contingency.

“I’m ekal ter him,” said Mink hardily.

In fact, Mink bore the most lightsome spirit down the mountain, scarcely to be expected in a man who goes to invite a more personal direction of the machinations of a feud. He would have dared far more to secure a respite from the loneliness of Piomingo Bald, to say nothing of the opportunity of mingling in the festivity of shooting for beef. He had not even a qualm of regret for the solitary herder whom he left standing at the fence, gazing down at him a trifle wistfully. He was out of sight presently, but Doaks heard the mare’s hoofs long after he had disappeared,—the more distinctly, because of the animal’s habit of striking her hind feet together.

The mists had lifted. It was a positive happiness to Mink to watch the forests expand, as he went down and down the rugged ways of the herders’ trail. There were taller trees on every hand; great beds of ferns, their fronds matted together, began to appear; impenetrable jungles of the laurel stretched all along the deep ravines. Now and then a flash of crimson rejoiced the sight; from far gleamed the red cones of the cucumber tree; the trumpet-flower blossomed in the darkling places; he marked the lustre of the partridge-berry by the wayside.

The earth was moist from the recent rains, as the narrow, slippery path, curving between a sheer declivity on one side and an almost perpendicular ascent on the other, might testify. His mare traveled it in a devil-may-care fashion, snatching as she went at leaves on the slope above, regardless that a false step would precipitate both herself and her rider into eternity. Noticing this breach of manners, Mink now and then gave a reckless jerk at the bit.

“Dad-burn ye! ye buzzard! A greedy body would ’low ye hed never hearn tell o’ nuthin’ ter eat afore in this worl’!”

Here it was only, above these depths, that he might see the sky,—afar off, as was meet that it should be: he, the earthling, had no kinship with its austere infinities. The growths of the forest were now of incredible magnitude and magnificence. Up and up towered the massive boles, with a canopy of leaves so dense that all the firmament was effaced, and the sunshine trickling through had a white, tempered glister like the moonbeams. What infinite stretches of solitudes! What measureless mountain wilds! In these solemn spaces Silence herself walked unshod.

Yet stay! A crystalline vibration, a tinkling tremor, a voice smiting the air, so delicately attuned to all sylvan rhythms, with an accent so fine, so faint,—surely, some oread a-singing!

Nay—only the mountain torrent, dashing its fantastic cascades down its rocky channel, with a louder burst of minstrelsy and a flash of foam as its glittering swirl of translucent water revealed itself, the laurel and ferns crowding upon its banks and a cardinal flower reflected multiform in a deep and shadowy pool. A mossy log spanned it as foot-bridge, and then it slipped away into the forest, to spring out suddenly and cross the road again and again before it reached the base of the mountain. Mink reckoned the distance by its reappearances, in default of other means.

“Ye be a-travelin’ toler’ble smart this evenin’,” he observed to the mare. “Ye be mighty nigh ez glad ter git off’n that thar buzzard’s roost up yander ez I be, though I don’t crack my heels tergether ’bout it like you-uns do yourn.”

He did not follow the road into Eskaqua Cove when he reached the level ground. He struck off through one of the ridges that lie like a moulding about the base of the mountains, crossed another nameless barrier, then descended into Piomingo Cove. Sequestered, encompassed by the mountains, rugged of surface, veined with rock, its agricultural interest is hardly served by the conditions which enhance its picturesque aspect. The roofs of a few log cabins at long intervals peer out from among scanty orchards and fields. Tobacco flourishes down the sides of steep funnel-shaped depressions worked exclusively with the hoe, and suggesting acrobatic capacity as a co-requisite with industry to cultivate it. The woods make heavily into the cove, screening it from familiar knowledge of its hills and dales.

Mink, trotting along the red clay road, came suddenly upon the banks of the Scolacutta River, riotous with the late floods, fringed with the papaw and the ivy bush. Beyond its steely glint he could see the sun-flooded summit of Chilhowee, a bronze green, above the intermediate ranges: behind him was the Great Smoky, all unfamiliar viewed from an unaccustomed standpoint, massive, solemn, of dusky hue; white and amber clouds were slowly settling on the bald. There had been a shower among the mountains, and a great rainbow, showing now only green and rose and yellow, threw a splendid slant of translucent color on the purple slope. In such environment the little rickety wooden mill—with its dilapidated leaking race, with its motionless wheel moss-grown, with its tottering supports throbbing in the rush of the water which rose around them, with a loitering dozen or more mountaineers about the door—might seem a feeble expression of humanity. To Mink the scene was the acme of excitement and interest. His blood was quickening as he galloped up, his hair tossing under the wide brim of his hat, his stirrup-leathers adjusted to the full length of his leg according to the custom of the country, his rifle laid across the pommel of his saddle.

“Enny chance lef’ fur me?” he asked, as he reined in among the loungers.

This observation was received in some sort as a salutation.

“Hy’re, Mink,” said several voices at once. Other men merely glanced up, their eyes expressing languid interest.

“_Ye_ don’t want ter shoot, Mink,” said one, with a jocose manner. “Ye knowed all the chances would be sold by now. Ye hev jes’ kem ’kase ye hearn old Tobias Winkeye air out agin.”

Mink’s dark eyes seemed afire with some restless leaping light. His infectious laughter rang out. “Never s’picioned it,—so holp me Jiminy! _When?_”

“Ter-night. Ye keep powerful low,” with a cautionary wink.

“I reckon so,” promised Mink cordially.

A sullen remonstrance broke into these amenities.

“Waal, Jer’miah Price, I dunno ez ye hev enny call ter let all that out ter Mink Lorey.”

Pete Rood, who delivered this reproof, was not an ill-looking fellow naturally, but his black eyes wore a lowering, disaffected expression. His swarthy square-jawed face indicated a temperament which might be difficult to excite to any keen emotion, and was incapable of nice discrimination; but which promised, when once aroused, great tenacity of purpose. He wore a suit of gray jeans, loosely fitting, giving his heavy figure additional breadth. He carried his hands in his pockets, and lounged about, throwing an occasional word over his shoulder with a jerky incidental manner.

“Why not tell Mink?” exclaimed Jerry Price, a long, lank fellow, far too tall and slim for symmetry, and whose knees had a sort of premonitory crook in them, as if he were about to shut up, after the manner of a clasp-knife, into comfortable and convenient portability. His head was frankly red. His freckles stood out plainly for all they were worth; and, regarded as freckles, they were of striking value. A ragged red beard hung down on his unbleached cotton shirt. Physically, he had not a trait to commend him; but a certain subtle magnetism, that inborn fitness as a leader of men, hung upon his gestures, vibrated in his words, constrained acquiescence in his rude logic. “Ain’t Mink always been along of we-uns?” he added.

Mink dismounted slowly and hitched his mare to the limb of a dogwood tree hard by. Then, leaning upon his rifle, he drawled, “’Pears like everybody’s gittin’ sot agin me these days. I dunno who ’twar, but this very mornin’ somebody kem up on Piomingo Bald an’ shot a cow ez used ter b’long ter me.”

He raised his eyes suddenly. Rood had lounged off a few steps with an idle gait, swaying from side to side, his hands still in his pockets. But there was tenseness in the pose of his half-turned head. He was listening.

“Hed ye done traded her off?” asked Price, interested. “Gimme a chaw o’ terbacco.”

“Ain’t got none. Pete, can’t ye gin this hyar destitute cuss a chaw o’ terbacco?”

Rood could not choose but turn his face, while he held out his plug. The crafty Mink scanned it, as he leaned his own sun-burned cheek upon the muzzle of the long rifle on which he lazily supported his weight.

“Naw, Jerry, ’twarn’t my cow. I can’t keep nuthin’ long enough ter lose it; I hed traded her off to Ben Doaks.”

There was no mistaking the patent disappointment on Rood’s face. One with far less sharp intelligence than Mink possessed might have descried that hot look in his eyes, as if they burned,—that vacillating glance which could fix on naught about him. The surprise of the moment deterred him from observing Mink, whose air of unconsciousness afterward afforded no ground for suspicion or fear.

Rood pocketed his plug, and presently slouched off toward the tree where the marksmen were preparing for the shooting-match.

Now and then there flitted to the door of the mill the figure of a stripling, all dusted with flour and meal, and with a torn white hat on his head. He wore ragged jeans trousers of an indeterminate hue, and an unbleached cotton shirt. When the men were strolling about, he slunk into the duskiness within. But when they were all intent upon the projected trial of skill, he crept shyly to the door, and looked out with a singularly blank, inexpressive gaze.

“Hy’re ye, Tad!” called out Mink gayly.

The young fellow stood for an instant staring; then, with a wide, foolish grin of recognition, disappeared among the shadows within.

“Let the idjit be, Mink,” said old Griff, the miller, querulously,—“let him be.”

He was a man of sixty years, perhaps, and bending beneath their weight. His white beard was like a patriarch’s, and his long hair hung down to meet it. He had a parchment-like skin, corrugated, and seeming darker for the contrast with his hair and beard. Beneath his bushy white eyebrows, restless, irritable eyes peered out. He was barefooted, as was the boy, and his poverty showed further in the patches on his brown jeans clothes.

“Naw, I won’t,” said Mink irreverently. “I want ter see what Tad does when he skeets off an’ hides that-a-way.”

He pressed into the mill, and the old man looked after him and cursed him in his beard. He swore with every breath he drew.

“Go on, ye dad-burned fool—go on ter damnation! Ever sence that thar sneakin’ Mink hev been roun’ hyar,” he continued, addressing Price, “Tad ’pears weaker ’n ever. I can’t ’bide ter keep Tad in the house. He gits into one o’ his r-uproarious takin’s, an’ it looks like hell couldn’t hold him,—skeers the chill’n mighty nigh ter death. Yes, sir! my gran’chil’n. Daddy war shot by the revenuers, mammy died o’ the lung complaint, an’ the old man’s got ’em all ter take keer of—ten o’ ’em. An’ my nevy Tad, too, ez war born lackin’. An’ ev’y one of ’em’s got a stommick like a rat-hole—ye can’t fill it up. Yes, sir! The Lord somehows hev got his hand out in takin’ keer o’ me an’ mine, an’ he can’t git it in agin.”

“Waal, they holps ye mightily, plowin’ an’ sech, don’t they,—the biggest ones; an’ one o’ the gals kin cook, that thar spry one, ’bout fifteen year old; I’m a-goin’ ter wait fur her,—beats all the grown ones in the cove fur looks,” said the specious Jerry Price. “An’ they air all mighty good chill’n, ain’t they? Oughter be. Good stock.”

“Naw, sir; naw, sir!” the old man replied, so precipitately that his iterative mutter had the effect of interruption. “Durries’ meanes’ chill’n I ever see. Ripenin’ fur hell! Scandalous mean chill’n.”