Part 5

“I don’t know about emotions,” said Tim. “There’s forty of their wives and eighteen hundred niggers, and every Saturday night they has a fight an’ a batch on ’em gets killed, an’ I know it’s terrible expensive on labor. Most as bad as moonshine.”

“Have you got King Kelly, yet?” said Coe, in an undertone.

“Hush!” hissed Captain Healy, dramatically. Just then I noticed a file of peculiarly idle negroes sauntering down the “right of way;” they had passed us once or twice before, and appeared to have no occupation. “See anythin’ peculiar about them niggers?”

“They are very lazy,” said Coe.

“They look like minstrels,” said Miss Jeanie.

“By gracious!” cried Healy, slapping his thigh, “if she hasn’t hit it!” We looked at him inquiringly; he dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “Come up here,” and he started, dragging Mrs. Judge Pennoyer by one hand up the new gravel slope beside the line. Raoul followed, with Miss May; he had been very silent that morning; and I with Miss Jeanie. Her little foot was buried at once in the sliding gravel, over the dainty low shoe; I wanted to carry her up, had only propriety sanctioned it. At the top, Healy swept the horizon as if for spies; then bending over us, all in a close group, he said:

“Them ain’t real niggers--them’s United States revenue officers from New Orleans, under General McBride.”

“General McBride?”

“He’s in hidin’ in my hut. He wouldn’t black up. But them deputy-marshals thought it was a spree. We had to do it. Every Saturday the niggers are paid off--one dollar and fifty cents a day, nigh on to ten dollars apiece--an’ then King Kelly he’d come down from his stills in the mountain, with his men loaded with casks o’ pine-top, warranted to kill--an’ by sundown eighteen hundred niggers would be blind-drunk, an’ fit for shootin’. On last Sunday we lost sixty-two hands. An’ the head contractor, he swore nigh to lift yer ha’r off.”

“Sixty-two men killed?” cried Jeanie, in horror.

“Some killed, some wounded; but it tells on the contract just the same. Why, you could have heared ’em poppin’ all over camp.”

The Higginbothams had always been abolitionists; and I felt my ancestors turn in their complacent graves.

“Expect to get Kelly this time?” said Coe.

“Dunno, we’ll see at twelve o’clock, when they’re paid off. It’ll be quite a thing to see, all the same. But the ladies had better stay in their tent. An’ it’s eleven now, so I reckon we’ll go back to camp. See, there go the marshals.”

When we got back to camp Raoul received a telegram. He read it hastily, and crumpled it into his pocket; but, I thought, looked troubled.

Jeanie and I wandered down by the brook side before dinner, and afterward Raoul, Healy, Coe, and I sallied forth to “see the fun.” We were let into the chief commissary’s hut, the front of which, above a strong wooden bar, was open; and before it a great crowd of negroes, singing and dancing, and a hundred others, in a long queue, waiting for their pay. “You kin lie down on the floor ef they git to shootin’,” said General McBride, whom we found there smoking placidly in a cane-seated chair. “Those revolvers won’t carry through the boards.”

It was a curious spectacle, that line of coal-black, stalwart, “swamp” negroes; and then to watch the first human expression--in their case greed--impress their stolid features as they took their pay. Among the crowd we noticed many bearded, well-armed, flannel-shirted mountaineers; these we took to be the moonshiners; and near each one, but loitering as if to avoid attention, one of the made-up negroes; to us now obviously factitious. It was a wonder the moonshiners did not find them out, but that they were intent on other things.

“See, that’s King Kelly,” whispered General McBride. “That big fellow there with the slouched hat and rifle.” Having said this, I was surprised to hear him, when the last man had been paid off, get up and make a speech to the navvies, in which he congratulated them that the camp had at last been freed from that great pest, Kelly; and urged them to save their money and be abstemious. “I am General McBride, of New Orleans----”

“Three cheers for Gineral McBride, of New Orleans!” cried a big mulatto opposite, I thought at a sign from Healy. They were given, not very heartily.

“And I’ve come up to see those poisoners keep away.”

I had seen the man he said was Kelly start and look about him, as if for other enemies; then he stood still nervously, and fidgetted at his gun. Meanwhile the General made quite a speech, apparently thinking the opportunity too good a one to remain unimproved. He took every occasion to heap obloquy upon the head of Kelly, king of the moonshiners; and concluded by lamenting that that “poor white trash” would not dare to show his head in camp while even he, McBride, was there alone.

“Look yar,” shouted Kelly, striding up to the bar of the tent when he had got through, “I’m the man you call King Kelly; an’ I’ve got four stills a-runnin’ within a bit an’ a screech of this yer camp; an’ I kin tell yer it’s deuced lucky yer white-faced, biled-shirted revenue officers stayed down to New Orleans.”

“And I,” said another, “I own a still myself; an’ it ain’t goin’ ter stop up fur no United States Government--though we’re mighty glad to see the Gineral, ez he comes here sociable and pleasant like.”

“And I,” “and I,” “and I;” and three more strode forward, and I noticed a pair of pseudo darkies get behind each one as he moved.

“What’ll yer take ter drink, Gineral?” said Kelly. Quick as a flash, every man had four stout arms about his neck, choking him, and the handcuffs on his wrists. Not a shot was fired; and Kelly and his gang were safely immured in an improvised guardhouse. The General sank back upon his cane-seated chair.

“A pretty job, gentlemen,” said he. “What _will_ you take to drink? None of their pine-top, though,” he added, with a laugh. “Yet, I don’t know as you can hardly blame ’em--corn’s mighty scarce up here.”

“May I trouble you, sir, with a few words in private?” The voice was serious, but familiar, and appertained to Mr. Hampton Raoul.

6.

“I HAVE appealed to you, sir,” said Raoul, when we had abandoned the still quiet camp for the solitude of the forest, “to demand that which every gentleman has the right to ask of every other.”

I feared the man had some notion of a duel, and his next words did not tend to relieve me. “I have long loved Miss Bruce.”

I must have appeared disquieted, for he hastened to add, “Miss May Bruce, I mean. But until yesterday I did not know my love was returned. We have now resolved on being married.”

I expressed my congratulations, but intimated that I did not yet see how my aid was necessary.

“We have resolved to make our bridal journey to the White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia. We shall be married upon arrival there, and I should esteem it a favor initial of a life-long friendship if you, sir, would consent to be best man. Moreover, your escort may prove necessary to Miss Jeanie to return.”

My escort! to Miss Jeanie! I was to travel with her four hundred miles--meantime her sister philandering with this young man--perhaps make a visit at a fashionable watering-place--give away her sister in matrimony--and then make the principal bridesmaid companion of my journey home! And this young Huguenot, _pour sauver la situation_, called me her escort. I looked at Raoul; his attitude was impassive and his manner still courteous; but evidently he thought there was something unchivalric even in my hesitation.

“I--has Miss Jeanie Bruce,” I hazarded, “yet been told of your plans?”

“Of course--and she approves them. She can hardly invite you herself to join her party; it might look forward, as you and she, necessarily, will be left much to yourselves.”

Absent-mindedly I twirled the ring on my finger, still there, that she had given me. Evidently, as a gentleman, in the eyes of him, of her, and of her sister, there was nothing else for me to do. “I must see Miss Bruce herself,” I gasped.

“Certainly,” said Raoul. “I had reckoned, sir, that such would be your course. I will meet you in front of the commissary’s tent at three. We start at four.” He stalked off, and left me under the live-oak tree.

It was two o’clock. I felt that I must see Miss Jeanie at once. Nothing could exceed the good-breeding of her greeting; but she evidently expected me to go. The calm of her gentle voice told me so. I found the two beautiful young girls in afternoon toilette of white muslin, half reclining under their open tent, fanning themselves. I think I would not have been so much in doubt had not Jeanie been so very pretty. Then, how hazard, in the presence of her sister, and of her own soft eyes, the fear that she might be committing an impropriety?

And it was with the greatest difficulty and an acute sense of my own brutality, that I did so. I began by congratulating Miss May, which evoked a lovable blush. “You know we have to start after dark and drive twenty miles to-night,” said she, “to a station on the Georgia road--we cannot return the same way; Mr. Raoul has some reason.”

“Do you think that we four ought to go off--ought to go off just like that?”

Miss Bruce looked at me, amazed. Jeanie tried to help her. “Do you not have wedding-journeys in the North?”

“Alone, I mean,” I ended, desperately.

“Alone? Mrs. Judge Pennoyer is going.”

Mrs. Judge Pennoyer had all the elements of a true sport; and I went back to Raoul--(having had a long walk down the brook with Jeanie; her happiness in her sister’s prospects was quite charming)--an hour after the time fixed, less decided--I think there is some adventurous blood in the Higginbothams--and found the camp in a state of wild tumult. Raoul met me nervously.

“General McBride paroled Kelly and his gang,” said he, “and the moonshiners have come back from the mountains a hundred strong, and given the revenue officers twenty minutes to leave for New Orleans.”

“And are they going?” said I.

“They calculate, sir, to go,” answered Raoul, gravely. “The mule team will take them back to the head of the line, and there we have wired for a special to carry them back to Bagdad. I have decided it is best for us to go with them. The special train simplifies matters. I trust you have come to a decision?”

“I--I do not know,” said I.

“We certainly cannot leave them here in camp. Every nigger in it will be blind drunk before midnight, and they are fortifying the commissary’s store.”

“What on earth did McBride mean by paroling those ruffians,” I sighed. “It was beginning to be so pleasant.”

“It was an error of judgment. But it will be equally pleasant at White Sulphur.”

As we talked we had returned to the centre of the camp. There we found a picturesque scene. McBride and his men were seated in the glade of the live-oak forest, no longer disguised; around them stood or lounged some forty bearded mountaineers, all provided with long rifles. General McBride was sitting with King Kelly himself, amicably drinking his own “pine-top;” as we approached he rose to meet us and handed a telegram to Raoul, who cast his eyes over it and gave it to me, with the remark that it might assist my decision. It read:

“If cousins Miss Bruce are with you, detain them and escorts. Will wire parental authority to-morrow. “KIRK BRUCE.”

“I feel bound, sir, to ask you your intentions,” said McBride to Raoul.

“Miss May Bruce and I are to be married, sir.”

“In that case, sir,” said the General, “in the absence of parental authority I cannot, of course, interfere. Permit me to congratulate you.” They shook hands.

“And this Northern gentleman?”

“Goes with me, of course. And Mrs. Judge Pennoyer.”

“A most estimable lady. I knew her as a girl.”

“We thought of returning on your special.”

“An excellent idea. Particularly as I have an idea Mr. Bruce may pass us on Number Two. But stop--we have unluckily only one mule-team.”

“Is there no room?” I asked. For I, myself, was beginning to see the necessity of getting away--to White Sulphur or to Salem.

“Room enough--but you must remember we have nigh twenty miles through the woods. These gentlemen--” and the General waved his hand at the surrounding moonshiners--“will naturally take a few shots at us.”

We looked at one another in perplexity. The colloquy was interrupted by the appearance of Jeanie and May, in travelling dress again, but looking very charming, and Mrs. Judge Pennoyer. To her the situation was rapidly explained.

I have before remarked that Mrs. Pennoyer was a true sport. She rose immediately to the occasion, and desired to be introduced to King Kelly.

“Colonel Kelly,” said she, “these young ladies are travelling under my protection. One of them is engaged to be married to Mr. Raoul, and they are desirous of going to White Sulphur on their wedding journey. As there is only one wagon they must return with General McBride’s party. I trust the journey will be perfectly safe.”

Kelly scratched his head. “I can answer, of course, for these gentlemen here,” said he, “but some of my friends are out’n the mountain, and it may be difficult to notify them of the sitooation. Let me see your team,” he added, as if a bright idea struck him.

The General and Kelly walked off in the direction of the wagon. The ladies followed. Raoul, Healy, Coe, and I followed the ladies. The undisguised United States marshals followed us, and the moonshiners followed the marshals. It was a large wagon with high wooden sides, bound with iron, and was used for bringing supplies to camp. A team of six of the biggest mules--some fully eighteen hands high--was already being harnessed to it.

“Reckon you can fix the ladies safely,” said Kelly. “We are good shots on the mountain,” he added, significantly, to McBride.

“I see your idea,” said the General. “Bring some straw.”

The straw was brought and filled the bottom of the wagon. Upon this sat the three ladies. McBride, Coe, and Healy went on the high front seat; Raoul and I sat on the tail-board looking out behind; and the eight revenue officers disposed themselves, four on each side, sitting on the side-board with their legs hanging over. They had nothing but six-shooters, which, however, they displayed with some ostentation.

“Colonel Kelly,” said Raoul, slipping down after he had taken his seat, “lend me one of your rifles--I want it very particularly” (I heard him add the name of “Kirk Bruce,” in the ear of that chief of moonshiners), “and I’ll send it back in Number Four to-morrow.”

“By G-- you shall have it, sir.” And Kelly gave him his own. “I like your spunk, sir; an’ if you’n Mrs. Raoul will come back here without them darned biled-shirted gov’en’m’nt men, I’ll give you a real good time.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” said Raoul. “Good-by--and fire high.”

We departed amid quite a cheer; lumbering out of the picturesque great camp some two hours before sunset, and as we passed the negroes’ quarters, heard already sounds of revelry beginning. We felt the girls were fairly safe between the double rampart of men. Still, the General thought they had perhaps better not sing (which they were fond of doing), so the long ride was rather silent. Raoul lay leaning back, talking in whispers with May Bruce, and I was left to do the same with Jeanie. Coming to the last long hill before the end of the line, one or two shots were fired; but they whistled in the tree-tops far above our heads. We found the “special” waiting for us, got into the one “directors’ car,” and started safely.

But when we got to the siding at Bear Creek, Raoul asked the conductor which train had the right of way. Learning that the special had, he beckoned to me, and, taking his rifle, went out upon the rear platform. I followed, wondering. Our train was running rather fast, the engine having suddenly started up after Raoul’s conversation with the conductor; I presume to him also Raoul had explained “the sitooation.” At Bear Creek the regular up-train stood side-tracked waiting for us. We rattled by, and on its rear platform, in the moonlight, I saw a tall frock-coated figure standing. I had hardly recognized it to be Kirk Bruce when Raoul threw up his rifle, and I saw a flash of fire from the platform of the side-tracked Mr. Bruce. The reports were quite simultaneous; but neither was hurt, for I saw Bruce leaning his head out of the shadow of the platform to look at us, while Raoul remarked, as we went back into the car, now jumping wildly on the down grade:

“He knew I was yere, and I knew he was thar. You’d hardly see worse rifle-practice in the North.”

There was a tinge of disgust in his voice, and he went out to smoke on the engine.

“Was it Cousin Kirk?” said May to me, breathlessly.

I nodded. Jeanie blushed.

7.

THE United States marshals from New Orleans had kept rather quiet throughout the journey; but as we approached the city of Bagdad their spirits rose. The momentary interest caused by Mr. Raoul’s and Cousin Kirk’s shots had subsided when they learned there was nothing national or professional in the affair. Amateur shooting was always poor. But May Bruce was considered with more attention; and when their “special” of a “shirt-tail” engine and a caboose backed up to the Bagdad platform, they all requested to be presented to her. General McBride performed the ceremony with much formality; including Mrs. Judge Pennoyer, upon whom, I could see, they looked with a reverence that only her years divided from admiration. Even Raoul came in for some passive applause; but I played, as I saw, a very second fiddle, which is why, perhaps, Miss Jeanie and I went off and took a walk, by moonlight, down through the ravine where I first met her.

We returned to find Mrs. Pennoyer slumbering peacefully on a settee; but Raoul was walking up and down nervously. The straight track stretched glistening away in the moonlight, but not a train nor engine was in sight.

“How long do you think it’ll take Mr. Bruce to get down back here?” says Raoul to me, nervously.

“Train Number Two doesn’t come back till to-morrow, they said.”

“I know; but the station man here tells me the engineer on Number Two married a cousin of Kirk Bruce’s brother-in-law. Our train doesn’t come along from Memphis until four in the morning. And there’s not an engine to be had in Bagdad.”

“There’s one,” said I; and I pointed to a distant shower of sparks above the forest. At the same moment the peculiar light rattle of a “wild” engine was audible.

“My God, sir, so it is!” answered Raoul. “And it’s on the line of the Tennessee River and Gulf.”

“Number Two?” I answered, grimly, for I was getting to understand the ways of the place. “What shall we do?”

“Do?” said Raoul; “why, get ready, of course. He may shoot before he stops the engine; lucky I’ve got a rifle. You go in and prepare the ladies.... This is my quar’l,” he added, impatiently, at my demur. “Besides you ain’t got only that girl’s pop-gun. Reckon you’ll have a chance later, likely.”

So I went in, and told the girls; and we woke up Mrs. Judge Pennoyer, who, I am bound to say, took it more calmly than might have been expected from a lady of her years. May was tearful; but Jeanie’s eyes were very bright. All this time the rattle of the engine was growing louder down the grade.

“Haven’t you kept that revolver I gave you?” said Jeanie to me.

I looked at her; and went out upon the platform just in time to see the engine dash up, and a strange figure jump out of the cab.

“It’s all right,” he cried; “drop your iron. I’ve got a message from King Kelly.” I observed the man had a blackened face and uncouth costume; he did not look like an engineer, though a negro fireman was on the smoking engine. The saturnine Raoul tore open the envelope, read the letter twice, and handed it to me with the nearest approach to a chuckle I had heard him give. I also read it, while the negro fireman opened half his head and laughed aloud.

“What will you take, sir?” I heard Raoul say; then, as the ladies, overcome by the curiosity this unexpected-silence caused, came out upon the platform, I heard him introducing the man of the charcoal face to each in turn.

The letter was as follows:

“---- RAOUL, ESQ.

“DEAR SIR: A gentleman have arrived here on Number Two, inkwiring for you, and I take him for to be a member of Mrs. Raoul’s family, so I got him and his ingineer here in Camp and reckon I kin hold him about till termorrer sundown.

“Yours trooly, “LUCIUS R. KELLY.”

8.

BEATI POSSIDENTES. I now saw that under the methods of Southern courtship the man who had got the lady had a great advantage. The Memphis express pulled up at four in the morning in front of a burning tar-barrel on the track, which Raoul had placed there as a hint to it to stop at Bagdad. How our story always got out so quickly, I don’t know; but two members of Congress from Mississippi turned out of the two end sections and were accommodated with shakedowns in the smoking compartment of the crowded Pullman, with Raoul and myself.

I did not sleep very well, and at seven in the morning got out at Chattanooga. What was my surprise at seeing Mrs. Judge Pennoyer also emerge, fully dressed, from the sleeping-car.

“You young people don’t want me,” said she, benevolently. “I should only be in the way. An’ I’m getting out here to take the day train on to Knoxville. If I got out thar, they might stop ye before the train pulled out again; now ye’ll all get by unbeknownst.”

What could I oppose to such strategy? Moreover, the young ladies were still in their berths. I could not leave Miss Jeanie to come back alone. I bowed; the train started; I got in it.

The sunlight broadened, but it was high noon and we had passed Knoxville before the two girls appeared, fresher than the June morning, and rosier, I am sure, than Raoul or I. With some trepidation I told them of Mrs. Pennoyer’s evasion.

“Dear Aunt Emily,” said May, “she has always been like a mother to me.” But Jeanie, I fancied, blushed; and that day talked to Raoul, while May was left to me.

The impending catastrophe made May very gentle and silent, but we now heard Jeanie and Mr. Raoul in speech of much light laughter at the other end of the car.

“I suppose,” said I, “they are laughing at the way Mr. Kirk Bruce’s pursuit has stopped in moonshine.”

Miss. May looked at me inquiringly. “Cousin Kirk was never attentive to me,” said she.

“He is attentive enough now,” I laughed; and she looked at me as if about to say something--but bit her red lips.

Jeanie certainly avoided me. When Raoul came back to talk to his fiancée, her sister made pretext of a headache and lay down. The train was not a quick one, and stopped long periods at several stations, during which Raoul was obviously nervous. His brow only cleared when we got to Bristol, Va., about sunset. Here we stopped an hour for supper, half of which we four devoted to a walk. The town consisted principally of a long straight street, lined by low two-story brick shops; the one-story shops had false fronts and presented an appearance of uniformity. Boots, saddles, guns, groceries, and drygoods were the articles they sold.

I had noticed that Raoul kept persistently on one side of the street, and when I started to cross over, to look at a particularly gorgeous embroidered Mexican saddle on the other side, he held me back.

“This street,” said he, “is the State line between Virginia and Tennessee. I think we had better keep on the Virginia side.”

“How odd,” said Jeanie, “to have a town divided against itself!”