Part 6

The melancholy-voiced store-keeper interrupted these amenities, not for the sake of peace,--white-winged angel,--but in the interests of Old Sledge. "Ef I hed a-knowed ez how ye two boys war a-goin' ter take ter quarrelin' an' a-fightin' round hyar, a-stiddier playin' of kyerds sensible-like, I wouldn't hev shet up shop so quick. I hed a good many little turns of work ter do, what I hev lef' ter play kyerds. An' ye two mought jow tergether some other day, it 'pears like ter me. Ye air a-wastin' more time a-jowin', Josiah, than Budd tuk up in comin' an' deer-huntin' tergether. Ye hev cut the lowest in the pack, so deal the kyerds, or give 'em ter them ez will."

The suggestion to resign the deal touched Josiah in a tender spot. He protested that he was only too willing to play,--that was all he wanted. "But ter be kep' a-waitin' hyar while Budd comes a-snakin' through the woods, an' a-stoppin' ter shoot wild varmints an' sech, an' then a-goin' home ter kerry 'em, an' then a-snakin' agin through the woods, an' a-gittin' hyar nigh on ter night-time,--that's what riles me."

"Waal, go 'long, now!" exclaimed Wray, fairly roused out of his imperturbability. "Deal them kyerds, an' stop a-talkin'. That thar tongue o' yourn will git cut out some o' these hyar days. It jes' goes like a grist-mill, an' it's enough ter make a man deef fur life."

Thus exhorted, Josiah dealt. In receiving their hands the players looked searchingly at every card, as if in doubtful recognition of an old acquaintance; but before the game was fairly begun another interruption occurred. One of the elderly men beside the fire rose and advanced upon the party.

"Thar is a word ez we hev laid off ter ax ye, Budd Wray, which will be axed twict,--wunst right hyar, an' wunst at the Jedgmint Day. War it ye ez interjuced this hyar coal o' fire from hell, that ye call Old Sledge, up hyar ter the Settlemint?"

The querist was a gaunt, forlorn-looking man, stoop-shouldered, and slow in his movements. There was, however, a distinct intimation of power in his lean, sinewy figure, and his face bore the scarlet scar of a wound torn by a furious fang, which, though healed long ago, was an ever-present reminder of a fierce encounter with a wild beast, in which he had come off victorious. The tones of his voice and the drift and rhetoric of his speech bespoke the loan of the circuit-rider.

The card-players looked up, less in surprise than exasperation, and Josiah Tait, fretfully anticipating Wray, spoke in reply: "No, he never. I fotched this hyar coal o' fire myself, an' ef ye don't look out an' stand back out'n the way it'll flare up an' singe ye. I larnt how ter play when I went down yander ter the Cross-Roads, an' I brung it ter the Settlemint myself."

There was a mingled glow of the pride of the innovator and the disdainful superiority of the iconoclast kindling within Josiah Tait as he claimed the patent for Old Sledge. The catechistic terrors of the Last Day had less reality for him than the present honor and glory appertaining to the traveled importer of a new game. The Judgment Day seemed imminent over his dodging head only when beholding the masterly scene-painting of the circuit-rider, and the fire and brimstone out of sight were out of mind.

"But ef ye air a-thinkin' of callin' me ter 'count fur sech," said Wray, nodding at the cards, "I'll hev ye ter know ez I kin stand up ter anything I does. I hev got no call ter be ashamed ov myself, an' I ain't afeard o' nuthin' an' nobody."

"Ye gin me ter onderstand, then, ez Josiah l'arned ye ter play?" asked the self-constituted grand inquisitor. "How come, then, Budd Wray, ez ye wins all the truck from Josiah, ef ye air jes' a-l'arnin'?"

There was an angry exclamation from Josiah, and Wray laughed out triumphantly. The walls caught the infrequent mirthful sound, and reverberated with a hollow repetition. From the dark forest just beyond the moon-flooded clearing the echo rang out. There was a subtle, weird influence in those exultant tones, rising and falling by fitful starts in that tangled, wooded desert; now loud and close at hand, now the faintest whisper of a sound. The men all turned their slow eyes toward the sombre shadows, so black beneath the silver moon, and then looked at each other.

"It's 'bout time fur me ter be a-startin'," said the old hunter. "Whenever I hear them critters a-laffin' that thar way in them woods I puts out fur home an' bars up the door, fur I hev hearn tell ez how the sperits air a-prowlin' round then, an' some mischief is a-happenin'."

"'T ain't nuthin' but Budd Wray a-laffin'," said the store-keeper reassuringly. "I hev hearn them thar rocks an' things a-answerin' back every minute in the day, when anybody hollers right loud."

"They don't laff, though, like they war a-laffin' jes' a while ago."

"No, they don't," admitted the store-keeper reluctantly; "but mebbe it air 'kase thar is nobody round hyar ez hev got much call ter laff."

He was unaware of the lurking melancholy in this speech, and it passed unnoticed by the others.

"It's this hyar a-foolin' along of Old Sledge an' sech ez calls the sperits up," said the old hunter. "An' ef ye knows what air good fur ye, ye'll light out from hyar an' go home. They air a-laffin' yit"--He interrupted himself, and glanced out of the door.

The faintest staccato laugh thrilled from among the leaves. And then all was silent, not even the bark of a dog nor a tremulous whisper of the night-wind.

The other elderly man, who had not yet spoken, rose from his seat by the fire. "I'm a-goin', too," he said. "I kem hyar ter the Settlemint," he added, turning upon the gamblers, "'kase I hev been called ter warn ye o' the wickedness o' yer ways, ez Jonah afore me war tole ter go up ter Nineveh ter warn the folks thar."

"Things turns out powerful cur'ous wunst in a while," retorted Wray. "He war swallowed by a whale arterward."

"'Kase he wouldn't do ez he war tole; but even thar Providence perfected him. He kem out'n the whale agin, what nobody kin do ez gits swallowed in the pit. They hev ter stay."

"It hain't me ez keeps up this hyar game," said Wray sullenly, but stung to a slight repentance by this allusion to the pit. "It air Josiah hyar ez is a-aimin' ter win back the truck he hev los'; an' so air Tom, hyar. I hev hed toler'ble luck along o' this Old Sledge, but they know, an' they hev got ter stand up ter it, ez I never axed none of 'em ter play. Ef they scorches tharselves with this hyar coal o' fire from hell, ez ye calls it, Josiah brung it, an' it air Tom an' him a-blowin' on it ez hev kep' it a-light."

"I ain't a-goin' ter quit," said Josiah Tait angrily, the loser's desperate eagerness pulsing hot and quick through his veins,--"I ain't a-goin' ter quit till I gits back that thar brindled heifer an' that thar gray mare out yander, what Budd air a-ridin', an' them thar two wagon-loads o' corn."

"We hev said our say, an' we air a-goin'," remarked one of the unheeded counselors.

"An' play on of yer kyerds!" cried Josiah to the others, in a louder, shriller voice than was his wont, as the two elderly men stepped out of the door. The woods caught the sound and gave it back in a higher key.

"S'pose we stops fur ter-night," suggested the store-keeper; "them thar rocks do sound sort 'n cur'ous now."

"I ain't a-goin' ter stop fur nuthin' an' nobody!" exclaimed Josiah, in a tremor of keen anxiety to be at the sport. "Dad-burn the sperits! Let 'em come in, an' I 'll deal 'em a hand. Thar! that trick is mine. Play ter this hyar queen o' trumps."

The royal lady was recklessly thrown upon the basket, with all her foes in ambush. Somehow, they did not present themselves. Tom was destitute, and Budd followed with the seven. Josiah again pocketed the trick with unction. This trifling success went disproportionately far in calming his agitation, and for a time he played more needfully. Tom Scruggs's caution made ample amends for his lack of experience. So slow was he, and so much time did he require for consideration, that more than once he roused his companions to wrath. The anxieties with which he was beset preponderated over the pleasure afforded by the sport, and the winning back of a half-bushel measure, which he had placed in jeopardy and lost, so satisfied this prudent soul that he announced at the end of the game that he would play no more for this evening. The others were welcome, though, to continue if they liked, and he would sit by and look on. He snuffed the blinking tallow dip, and reseated himself, an eager spectator of the play that followed.

Wray was a cool hand. Despite the awkward, unaccustomed clutch upon the cards and the doubtful recognition he bestowed on each as it fell upon the basket, he displayed an imperturbability and nerve that usually come only of long practice, and a singular pertinacity in pursuing the line of tactics he had marked out,--lying in wait and pouncing unerringly upon his prey in the nick of time. The brindled heifer's mother followed her offspring into his ownership; a yoke of oxen, a clay-bank filly, ten hogs,--every moment he was growing richer. But his success did not for an instant shake his stolid calm, quicken his blood, nor relax his vigilant attention; his exultation was held well in hand under the domination of a strong will and a settled purpose. Josiah Tait became almost maddened by these heavy losses; his hands trembled, his eager exclamations were incoherent, his dull eyes blazed at fever heat, and ever and anon the echo of his shrill, raised voice rang back from the untiring rocks.

The single spectator of the game now and then, in the intervals of shuffling and dealing the cards, glanced over his shoulder at the dark trees whence the hidden mimic of the woods, with some strong suggestion of sinister intent, repeated the agitated tones. There was a silver line all along the summit of the foliage, along the roofs of the houses and the topmost rails of the fences; a sense of freshness and dew pervaded the air, and the grass was all a-sparkle. The shadows of the laurel about the door were beginning to fall on the step, every leaf distinctly defined in the moon's magical tracery. He knew without looking up that she had passed the meridian, and was swinging down the western sky.

"Boys," he said, in a husky under-tone,--he dared not speak aloud, for the mocker in the woods,--"boys, I reckon it's 'bout time we war a-quittin' o' this hyar a-playin' of Old Sledge; it's midnight an' past, an' Budd hev tolerable fur ter go."

The tallow dip, that had long been flickering near its end, suddenly went out, and the party suffered a partial eclipse. Josiah Tait dragged the inverted basket closer to the door and into the full brilliance of the moon, declaring that neither Wray nor he should leave the house till he had retrieved his misfortunes or lost every thing in the effort. The host, feeling that even hospitality has its limits, did not offer to light another expensive candle, but threw a quantity of pine-knots on the smouldering coals; presently a white blaze was streaming up the chimney, and in the mingled light of fire and moon the game went on.

"Ye oughter take keer, Josiah," remonstrated the sad-voiced store-keeper, as a deep groan and a deep curse emphasized the result of high, jack, and game for Wray, and low alone for Tait. "An' it's 'bout time ter quit."

"Dad-burn the luck!" exclaimed Josiah, in a hard, strained voice, "I ain't a-goin' ter leave this hyar spot till I hev won back them thar critters o' mine what he hev tuk. An' I kin do it,--I kin do it in one more game. I'll bet--I'll bet"--he paused in bewildered excitement; he had already lost to Wray everything available as a stake. There was a sudden unaccountable gleam of malice on the lucky winner's face; the quick glance flashed in the moonlight into the distended hot eyes of his antagonist. Wray laughed silently, and began to push his chair away from the basket.

"Stop! stop!" cried Josiah, hoarsely. "I hev got a house,--a house an' fifty acres, nigh about. I'll bet the house an' land agin what ye hev won from me,--them two cows, an' the brindled heifer, an' the gray mare, an' the clay-bank filly, an' them ten hogs, an' the yoke o' steers, an' the wagon, an' the corn,--them two loads o' corn: that will 'bout make it even, won't it?" He leaned forward eagerly as he asked the question.

"Look a-hyar, Josiah," exclaimed the store-keeper, aghast, "this hyar is a-goin' too fur! Hain't ye los' enough a'ready but ye must be a-puttin' up the house what shelters ye? Look at me, now: I ain't done los' nothin' but the half-bushel measure, an' I hev got it back agin. An' it air a blessin' that I _hev_ got it agin, for 'twould hev been mighty ill-convenient round hyar 'thout it."

"Will ye take it?" said Josiah, almost pleadingly, persistently addressing himself to Wray, regardless of the remonstrant host. "Will ye put up the critters agin the house an' land?"

Wray made a feint of hesitating. Then he signified his willingness by seating himself and beginning to deal the cards, saying before he looked at his hand, "That thar house an' land o' yourn agin the truck ez I hev won from ye?"

"Oh, Lord, boys, this _must_ be sinful!" remonstrated the proprietor of the cherished half-bushel measure, appalled by the magnitude of the interests involved.

"Hold yer jaw! hold yer jaw!" said Josiah Tait. "I kin hardly make out one kyerd from another while ye're a-preachin' away, same ez the rider! I done tole ye, Budd," turning again to Wray, "I'll put up the house an' land agin the truck. I'll git a deed writ fur ye in the mornin', ef ye win it," he added, hastily, thinking he detected uncertainty still lurking in the expression of Wray's face. "The court air a-goin' tar sit hyar ter-morrer, an' the lawyers from the valley towns will be hyar toler'ble soon, I reckon. An' I'll git ye a deed writ fust thing in the mornin'."

"Ye hearn him say it?" said Wray, turning to Tom Scruggs.

"I hearn him," was the reply.

And the game went on.

"I beg," said Josiah, piteously, after carefully surveying his hand.

"I ain't a-goin' ter deal ye nare 'nother kyerd," said Wray. "Ye kin take a pint fust."

The point was scored by the faithful looker-on in Josiah's favor. High, low, and game were made by Wray, jack being in the pack. Thus the score was three to one. In the next deal, the trump, a spade, was allowed by Wray to stand. He led the king. "I'm low, anyhow," said Josiah, in momentary exultation, as he played the deuce to it. Wray next led the ace whisking for the jack, and caught it.

"Dad-burn the rotten luck!" cried Josiah.

With the advantage of high and jack a foregone conclusion, Wray began to play warily for game. But despite his caution he lost the next trick. Josiah was in doubt how to follow up this advantage; after an anxious interval of cogitation he said, "I b'lieve I'll throw away fur a while," and laid that safe card, the five of diamonds, upon the basket. "Tom," he added, "put on some more o' them knots. I kin hardly tell what I'm a-doin' of. I hev got the shakes, an' somehow 'nother my eyes is cranky, and wobble so ez I can't see."

The white sheets of flame went whizzing merrily up the chimney, and the clear light fell full upon the basket as Wray laid upon the five the ten of diamonds.

"Lord! Josiah!" exclaimed Tom Scruggs, becoming wild, and even more ill judged than usual, beginning to feel as if he were assisting at his friend's obsequies, and to have a more decided conviction that this way of coming by house and land and cattle and goods was sinful. "Lord! Josiah! that thar kyerd he's done saved 'll count him ten fur game. Ye had better hev played that thar queen o' di'monds, an' dragged it out 'n him."

"Good Lord in heaven!" shrieked Josiah, in a frenzy at this unwarrantable disclosure.

"Lord in heaven!" rang loud from the depths of the dark woods. "Heaven!" softly vibrated the distant heights. The crags close at hand clanged back the sound, and the air was filled with repetitions of the word, growing fainter and fainter, till they might have seemed the echo of a whisper.

The men neither heard nor heeded. Tom Scruggs, although appreciating the depth of the infamy into which he had unwittingly plunged, was fully resolved to stand stoutly upon the defensive,--he even extended his hand to take down his gun, which was laid across a couple of nails on the wall.

"Hold on, Josiah,--hold on!" cried Wray, as Tait drew his knife. "Tom never went fur ter tell, an' I'll give ye a ten ter make it fair. Thar's the ten o' hearts; an' a ten is the mos' ez that thar critter of a queen could hev made out ter hev tuk, anyhow."

Josiah hesitated.

"That thar is the mos' ez she could hev done," said the store-keeper, smoothing over the results of his carelessness. "The jacks don't count but fur one apiece, so that thar ten is the mos' ez she could hev made out ter git, even ef I hedn't a-forgot an' tole Budd she war in yer hand."

Josiah was mollified by this very equitable proposal, and resuming his chair he went on with the play. The ten of hearts which he had thus secured was, however, of no great avail in counting for game. Wray had already high and jack, and game was added to these. The score therefore stood six to two in his favor.

The perennial faith of the gambler in the next turn of the wheel was strong in Josiah Tait. Despite his long run of bad luck, he was still animated by the feverish delusion that the gracious moment was surely close at hand when success would smile upon him. Wray, it was true, needed to score only one point to turn him out of house and land, homeless and penniless. He was confident it would never be scored. If he could make the four chances he would be even with his antagonist, and then he could win back in a single point all that he had lost. His face wore a haggard, eager expectation, and the agitation of the moment thrilled through every nerve. He watched with fiery eyes the dealing of the cards, and after hastily scrutinizing his hand he glanced with keen interest to see the trump turned. It was a knave, counting one for the dealer. There was a moment of intense silence; he seemed petrified as his eyes met the triumphant gaze of his opponent. The next instant he was at Wray's throat.

The shadows of the swaying figures reeled across the floor, marring the exquisite arabesque of moonshine and laurel leaves,--quick, hard panting, a deep oath, and spasmodic efforts on the part of each to draw a sharp knife prevented by the strong intertwining arms of the other.

The store-keeper, at a safe distance, remonstrated with both, to no purpose, and as the struggle could end only in freeing a murderous hand he rushed into the clearing, shouting the magical word "Fight!" with all the strength of his lungs. There was no immediate response, save that the affrighted rocks rang with the frenzied cry, and the motionless woods and the white moonlight seemed pervaded with myriads of strange, uncanny voices. Then a cautious shutter of a glassless window was opened, and through the narrow chink there fell a bar of red light, on which was clearly defined an inquiring head, like an inquisitively expressive silhouette. "They air a-fightin' yander ter the store, whar they air a-playin' of Old Sledge," said the master of the shanty, for the enlightenment of the curious within. And then he closed the shutter, and like the law-abiding citizen that he was betook himself to his broken rest. This was the only expression of interest elicited.

A dreadful anxiety was astir in the store-keeper's thoughts. One of the men would certainly be killed; but he cared not so much for the shedding of blood in the abstract as that the deed should be committed on his premises at the dead of night; and there might be such a concatenation of circumstances, through the malefactor's willful perversion of the facts, that suspicion would fall upon him. The first circuit court ever held in the new county would be in session to-morrow; and the terrors of the law, deadly to an unaccustomed mind, were close upon him. Finding no help from without, he rushed back into the store, determined to make one more appeal to the belligerents. "Budd," he cried, "I'll holp ye ter hold Josiah, ef ye'll promise ye won't tech him ter hurt. He air crazed, through a-losin' of his truck. Say ye won't tech him ter hurt, an' I'll holp ye ter hold him."

Josiah succumbed to their united efforts, and presently made no further show of resistance, but sank, still panting, into one of the chairs beside the inverted basket, and gazed blankly, with the eyes of a despairing, hunted creature, out at the sheen of the moonlight.

"I ain't a-wantin' ter hurt nobody," said Wray, in a surly tone. "I never axed him ter play kyerds, nor ter bet, nor nuthin'. He l'arned me hisself, an' ef I hed los' stiddier of him he would be a-thinkin' now ez it's all right."

"I'm a-goin' ter stand up ter what I done said, though," Josiah declared brokenly. "Ye needn't be afeard ez how I ain't a-goin' ter make my words true. Ef ye comes hyar at noon ter-morrer, ye'll git that thar deed, an' ye kin take the house an' land ez I an' my folks hev hed nigh on ter a hundred year. I ain't a-goin' ter fail o' my word, though."

He rose suddenly, and stepped out of the door. His footfalls sounded with a sullen thud in the utter quietude of the place; a long shadow thrown by the sinking moon dogged him noiselessly as he went, until he plunged into the depths of the woods, and their gloom absorbed both him and his silent pursuer.

A dank, sunless morning dawned upon the house in which Josiah Tait and his fathers had lived for nearly a hundred years: it was a humble log cabin nestled in the dense forest, about four miles from the Settlement. Fifty cleared acres, in an irregular shape, lay behind it; the cornstalks, sole remnant of the crop lost at Old Sledge, were still standing, their sickly yellow tint blanched by contrast with the dark brown of the tall weeds in a neighboring field, that had grown up after the harvested wheat, and flourished in the summer sun, and died under the first fall of the frost. A heavy moisture lay upon them at noon, this dreary autumnal day; a wet cloud hung in the tree-tops; here and there among its gray vapors, a scarlet bough flamed with sharply accented intensity. There was no far-reaching perspective in the long aisles of the woods; the all-pervading mist had enwrapped the world, and here, close at hand, were bronze-green trees, and there spectre-like outlines of boles and branches, dimly seen in the haze, and beyond an opaque, colorless curtain. From the chimney of the house the smoke rose slowly; the doors were closed, and not a creature was visible save ten hogs prowling about in front of the dwelling among the fallen acorns, pausing and looking up with that odd, porcine expression of mingled impudence and malignity as Budd Wray appeared suddenly in the mist and made his way to the cabin.

He knocked; there was a low-toned response. After hesitating a moment, he lifted the latch and went in. He was evidently unexpected; the two occupants of the room looked at him with startled eyes, in which, however, the momentary surprise was presently merged in an expression of bitter dislike. The elder, a faded, careworn woman of fifty, turned back without a word to her employment of washing clothes. The younger, a pretty girl of eighteen, looked hard at him with fast-filling blue eyes, and rising from her low chair beside the fire said, in a voice broken by grief and resentment, "Ef this hyar house air yourn, Budd Wray, I wants ter git out 'n it."