Chapter 3

Meanwhile the people in the valley were engaged in adjusting themselves to the changed condition of affairs. The war was over, but it had left some deep scars here and there, and those who had engaged in it gave their attention to healing these--a troublesome and interminable task, be it said, which by no means kept pace with the impatience of the victors, whipped into fury by the subtle but ignoble art of the politician. There was no lack of despair in the valley, but out of it all prosperity grew, and the promise of a most remarkable future. Behind the confusion of politics, of one sort and another, the spirit of Progress rose and shook her ambitious wings.

Something of all this must have made itself felt on the mountain, for one day Teague Poteet pushed his wide-brimmed wool hat from over his eyes, with an air of astonishment. Puss had just touched upon a very important matter.

"I reckon in reason," she said, "we oughter pack Sis off to school some'rs. She'll thes nat'ally spile here."

"Hain't you larnt her how to read an' write an' cipher?" asked Teague.

"I started in," said Mrs. Poteet, "but, Lord! I hain't more'n opened a book tell she know'd mor'n I dast to know ef I wuz gwine to die fer it. Hit'll take somebody lots smarter'n' stronger'n me."

Teague laughed, and then relapsed into seriousness. After a while he called Sis. The girl came running in, her dark eyes flashing, her black hair bewitchingly tangled, and her cheeks flushing with a colour hitherto unknown to the mountain.

"What now, pap?"

"I wuz thes a-thinkin' ef maybe you oughtn't to bresh up an' start to school down in Gullettsville."

"O pap!" the girl exclaimed, clapping her hands with delight. She was about to spring upon Teague and give him a severe hugging, when suddenly her arms dropped to her side, the flush died out of her face, and she flopped herself down upon a chair. Teague paid no attention to this.

"Yes, siree," he continued, as if pursuing a well-developed line of argument; "when a gal gits ez big ez you is, she hain't got no business to be a-gwine a-whoopin' an' a-hollerin' an' a-rantin' an' a-rompin' acrost the face er the yeth. The time's done come when they oughter be tuck up an' made a lady out'n; an' the nighest way is to sen' 'em to school. That's whar you a-gwine--down to Gullettsville to school."

"I shan't, an' I won't--I won't, I won't, I _won't!_" exclaimed Sis, clenching her hands and stamping her feet. "I'll die first."

Teague had never seen her so excited,

"Why, what's the matter, Sis?" he asked with unfeigned concern.

Sis gave him a withering look.

"Pap, do you reckon I'm fool enough to traipse down to Gullettsville an' mix with them people, wearin' cloze like these? Do you reckon I'm fool enough to make myself the laughin'-stock for them folks?"

Teague Poteet was not a learned man, but he was shrewd enough to see that the Mountain had a new problem to solve. He took down his rifle, whistled up his dogs, and tramped skyward. As he passed out through his horse-lot, a cap and worm of a whisky-still lying in the corner of the fence attracted his attention. He paused, and turned the apparatus over with his foot. It was old and somewhat battered.

"I'll thes about take you," said Teague, with a chuckle, "an' set up a calico-factory. I'll heat you up an' make you spin silk an' split it into ribbens."

It was a case of civilisation or no civilisation, and there is nothing more notorious in history--nothing more mysterious--than the fact that civilisation is not over-nice in the choice of her handmaidens. One day it is war, another it is slavery. Every step in the advancement of the human race has a paradox of some kind as a basis. In the case of Sis Poteet, it was whisky.

Teague got his still together and planted it in a nice cool place, where it could be reached only by a narrow footpath. He had set up a still immediately after the war, but it had been promptly broken up by the revenue officers. Upon this occasion, therefore, he made elaborate preparations to guard against surprise and detection, and these preparations bore considerable fruit in the way of illicit whisky; the ultimate result of which was that Sis went to school in Gullettsville, and became the belle of the town.

The breath of the mountain was heavily charged with whisky, and the Government got a whiff of it. Word went to Washington, and there was much writing and consulting by mail, and some telegraphing. The officials--marshal, deputy-marshals, and collector--were mostly men from a distance, brought hither on the tide of war, who had no personal interest in judging the situation. Naturally enough, the power with which they were invested was neither discreetly nor sympathetically exercised. They represented the Government, which, they were taught to believe by the small men above them, was still at war with every condition and belief in Georgia.

Down in the valley they domineered with impunity, and one fine morning a posse, armed with carbines, rode up the mountain, laughing, talking, and rattling their gear as gaily as a detachment of cuirassiers parading under the protection of friendly guns. The mountain was inhospitable, for when they rode down again, a few hours afterward, three saddles were empty, and the survivors had a terrible story to tell of an attack from an unseen foe.

By the time the story of this fight with the illicit distillers reached Washington, the details were considerably enlarged. The commissioner was informed by the marshal that a detail of deputy-marshals had attempted to seize a still, and were driven back by an overpowering force. The correspondents at the Capital still further enlarged the details, and the affair finally went into history as "A New Phase of the Rebellion." This was the natural outgrowth of the confusion of that period; for how should the careless deputy-marshals, thinking only of the sectionalism that lit up the smouldering ruins of war, know that the Moonshiners were Union men and Republicans?

While the Government was endeavouring to invent some plan for the capture of the Moonshiners, Sis Poteet was growing lovelier every day. She was a great favourite with the teachers of the academy and with everybody. As a general thing, she avoided the public square when riding to and from the school, but it was hats off with all the men when she did go clattering down the street, and some of the romantic dry-goods clerks sent their sighs after her. Sighs are frequently very effective with school-girls, but those that followed Sis Poteet fell short and were wasted on the air; and she continued to ride from the mountain to the valley and from the valley to the mountain in profound ignorance of the daily sensation she created among the young men of Gullettsville, to whom her fine figure, her graceful ways, and her thrillingly beautiful face were the various manifestations of a wonderful revelation.

Naturally enough, the Government took no account of Sis Poteet. The commissioner at Washington conferred with the marshal for Georgia by mail, and begged him to exert himself to the utmost to break up the business of illicit distilling in the Hog Mountain Range. In view of an important election about to be held in some doubtful State in the North or West, the worthy commissioner at Washington even suggested the propriety of another armed raid, to be made up of deputy-marshals and a detachment of men from the Atlanta garrison. But the marshal for Georgia did not fall in with this suggestion. He was of the opinion that if a raid was to be made at all it should not be made blindly, and he fortified his opinion with such an array of facts and arguments that the Bureau finally left the whole matter to his discretion.

Early one morning, in the summer of 1879, a stranger on horseback rode up the straggling red road that formed the principal business thoroughfare of Gullettsville, and made his way toward the establishment known as the Gullettsville Hotel. The chief advertisement of the hotel was the lack of one. A tall worm-eaten post stood in front of the building, but the frame in which the sign had swung was empty. This post, with its empty frame, was as significant as the art of blazonry could have made it. At any rate, the stranger on horseback--a young man--pressed forward without hesitation. The proprietor himself, Squire Lemuel Pleasants, was standing upon the low piazza as the young man rode up. The squire wore neither coat nor hat. His thumbs were caught behind his suspenders, giving him an air of ease or of defiance, as one might choose to interpret, and his jaws were engaged in mashing into shape the first quid of the morning.

As the young man reined up his horse at the door, Squire Pleasants stepped briskly inside and pulled a string which communicated with a bell somewhere in the backyard.

"This is the Gullettsville Hotel, is it not?" the young man asked.

"Well, sir," responded the squire, rubbing his hands together, "sence you push me so clos't, I'll not deny that this here's the tavern. Some calls it the hotel, some calls it the Pleasants House, some one thing, an' some another, but as for me, I says to all, says I, 'Boys, it's a plain tavern.' In Fergeenia, sir, in my young days, they wa'n't nothin' better than a tavern. 'Light, sir, 'light," continued the hospitable squire, as a tow-headed stable-boy tumbled out at the door in response to the bell; "drap right down an' come in."

The young man followed the landlord into a bare little office, where he was given to understand in plain terms that people who stopped with Squire Pleasants were expected to make themselves completely at home. With a pen upon which the ink had been dry for many a day the young man inscribed his name on a thin and dirty register--"Philip Woodward, Clinton, Georgia;" whereupon the squire, with unnecessary and laborious formality, assigned Mr. Woodward to a room.

Judging from appearance, the United States Marshal for Georgia had not gone astray in selecting Woodward to carry out the delicate mission of arranging for a successful raid upon Hog Mountain. Lacking any distinguishing trait of refinement or culture, his composure suggested the possession of that necessary information which is the result of contact with the world and its inhabitants. He had that large air of ease and tranquillity which is born of association, and which represents one of the prime elements of the curious quality we call personal magnetism. He was ready-witted, and full of the spirit of adventure. He was the owner of the title to a land-lot somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hog Mountain, and this land-lot was all that remained of an inheritance that had been swept away by the war. There was a tradition--perhaps only a rumour--among the Woodwards that the Hog Mountain land-lot covered a vein of gold, and to investigate this was a part of the young man's business in Gullettsville; entirely subordinate, however, to his desire to earn the salary attached to his position.

The presence of a stranger at the hospitable tavern of Squire Pleasants attracted the attention of the old and young men of leisure, and the most of them gathered upon the long narrow piazza to discuss the matter. Uncle Jimmy Wright, the sage of the village, had inspected the name in the register and approved of it. He had heard of it before, and he proceeded to give a long and rambling account of whole generations of Woodwards. Jake Cohen, a pedlar, who with marevelous tact had fitted himself to the conditions of life and society in the moutains, and who was supposed to have some sort of connection with the traffice in "blockade" whisky, gravely inquired of Squire Pleasants if the new-comer had left any message for him.

Doubtless the squire, or some one else, would have attempted a facetious reply to Mr. Watson; but just then a tall, gaunt, grey-haired, grizzly-bearded man stepped upon the piazza, and saluted the little gathering with an awkward wave of the hand. The not unkindly expression of his face was curiously heightened (or deepened) by the alertness of his eyes, which had the quizzical restlessness we sometimes see in the eyes of birds or animals. It was Teague Poteet, and the greetings he received were of the most effusive character.

"Howdy, boys, howdy!" he said in response to the chorus. "They hain't airy one er you gents kin split up a twenty-dollar chunk er greenbacks, is they?"

Tip Watson made a pretence of falling in a chair and fainting, but he immediately recovered, and said in a sepulchral whisper--

"Ef you find anybody dead, an' they ain't got no twenty-dollar bill on their person, don't come a-knockin' at my door. Lord!" he continued, "look at Cohen's upper lip a-trimblin'. He wants to take that bill out somewheres an' hang it on a clothesline."

"Ow!" exclaimed Cohen, "yoost lizzen at date man! Date Teep Vatsen, he so foony as allt tern utter peoples put tergetter. Vait, Teague, vait! I chanche date pill right avay, terreckerly."

But Teague was absorbed in some information which Squire Pleasants was giving him.

"He don't favour the gang," the squire was saying with emphasis, "an' I'll be boun' he ain't much mixed up wi' 'em. He's another cut. Oh, they ain't a-foolin' me this season of the year," he continued, as Teague Poteet shook his head doubtfully; "he ain't mustered out'n my mind yit, not by a dad-blamed sight. I'm jest a-tellin' of you; he looks spry, an' he ain't no sneak--I'll swar to that on the stan'."

"Well, I tell you, square," responded Teague, dryly, "I hain't never seed people too flirty to pester yuther folks; an' I reckon you ain't nuther, is you?"

"No," said Squire Pleasants, his experience appealed to instead of his judgment; "no, I ain't, that's a fact; but some folks youer bleege to take on trus'."

Further comment on the part of Poteet and the others was arrested by the appearance of Woodward, who came out of his room, walked rapidly down the narrow hallway, and out upon the piazza. He was bare-headed, his bands were full of papers, and he had the air of a man of business. The younger men who had gathered around Squire Pleasants and Teague Poteet fell back loungingly as Woodward came forward with just the faintest perplexed smile.

"Judge Pleasants," he said, "I'm terribly mixed up, and I'll have to ask you to unmix me."

The squire cleared his throat, adjusted his spectacles, and straightened himself in his chair. The title of Judge, and the easy air of deference with which it was bestowed, gave him an entirely new idea of his own importance. He frowned judicially as he laid his hand upon the papers.

"Well, sir," said he, "I'm gittin' ole, an' I reckon I ain't much nohow; I'm sorter like the grey colt that tried to climb in the shuck-pen--I'm weak, but willin'. Ef you'll jest whirl in an' make indication whar'in I can he'p, I'll do the best I kin."

"I've come up here to look after a lot of land," said Woodward. "It is described here as lot No. 18, 376th district, Georgia Militia, part of land lot No. 11, in Tugaloo, formerly Towaliga County. Here is a plat of Hog Mountain, but somehow I can't locate the lot."

The squire took the papers and began to examine them with painful particularity.

"That 'ar lot," said Teague Poteet, after a while, "is the ole Mathis lot. The line runs right acrost my simblin' patch, an' backs up ag'in' my hoss-stable."

"Tooby shore--tooby shore!" exclaimed the squire. "Tut-tut! What am I doin'? My mind is drappin' loose like seed-ticks from a shumake bush. Tooby shore, it's the Mathis lot. Mr. Wooderd, Mr. Poteet--Mr. Poteet, Mr. Wooderd; lem me make you interduced, gents."

Mr. Woodward shook hands gracefully and cordially--Poteet awkwardly and a trifle suspiciously.

"It seems to me, Mr. Poteet," said Woodward, "that I have teen your name in the papers somewhere."

"Likely," replied Poteet; "they uv bin a mighty sight er printin' gwino on sence the war, so I've heern tell. Ef you'd a drappod in at Atlanty, you mought er seed my name mixt up in a warrant."

"How is that?" Woodward asked.

"Bekaze I bin a-bossin' my own affa'rs."

Poteet had straightened himself up, and he looked at Woodward with a steadiness which the other did not misunderstand. It was a look which said, "If you've got that warrant in your pocket, it won't be safe to pull it out in these diggm's."

Squire Pleasants recognised the challenge that made itself heard in Teague Poteet's voice.

"Yes, yes," he said, in a cheerful tone, "our folks is seen some mighty quare doin's sence the war; but times is a-gittin' a long ways better now."

"Better, hell!" exclaimed Sid Parmalee.

What he would have said further no one can know, for the voluminous voice of Cohen broke in--

"Tlook ow-ut, t'ere, Sid! tlook ow-ut! t'at pad man kedge you!"

This remarkable admonition was received with a shout of laughter. Good-humour was restored, and it was increased when Woodward, shortly afterward, drinking with the boys at Nix's saloon, called for three fingers of Mountain Dew, and washed it down with the statement that it tasted just as nice as liquor that had been stamped by the Government. In short, Woodward displayed such tact, and entered with such heartiness into the spirit of the people around him, that he disarmed the trained suspicions of a naturally suspicious community. Perhaps this statement should be qualified. Undoubtedly the marshal, could he have made a personal inspection of Woodward and his surroundings, would have praised his subordinate's tact. The truth is, while he had disarmed their suspicions, he had failed utterly to gain their confidence.

With a general as well as a particular interest in the direction of Hog Mountain, it was natural that Deputy-Marshal Woodward should meet or overtake Miss Poteet as she rode back and forth between Gullettsville and the grey notch in the mountain known as Poteet's. It was natural, too, that he should take advantage of the social informalities of the section and make her acquaintance. It was an acquaintance in which Woodward, and, presumably, the young lady herself, became very much interested; so that the spectacle of this attractive couple galloping along together over the red road that connected the valley with the mountain came to be a familiar one. And its effect upon those who paused to take note of it was not greatly different from the effect of such spectacles in other sections. Some looked wise and shook their heads sorrowfully; some smiled and looked kindly, and sent all manner of good wishes after the young people. But whether they galloped down the mountain in the fresh hours of the morning, or rambled up its dark slope in the dusk of the evening, neither Woodward nor Sis Poteet gave a thought to the predictions of spite, or to the prophecies of friendliness.

The mountain girl was a surprise to Woodward. She had improved her few opportunities to the utmost. Such information as the Gullettsville Academy afforded she relished and absorbed, so that her education was thorough as far as it went. Neither her conversation nor her manners would have attracted special attention in a company of fairly bright young girls, but she formed a refreshing contrast to the social destitution of the mountain region.

Beyond this, her personality was certainly more attractive than that of most women, being based upon an independence which knew absolutely nothing of the thousand and one vexatious little aspirations that are essential to what is called social success. Unlike the typical American girl, whose sweetly severe portraits smile serenely at us from the canvas of contemporary fiction, Miss Poteet would have been far from equal to the task of meeting all the requirements of perfectly organised society; but she could scarcely have been placed in a position in which her natural brightness and vivacity would not have attracted attention.

At any rate, the indefinable charm of her presence, her piquancy, and her beauty, was a perpetual challenge to the admiration of Deputy-Marshal Woodward. It pursued him in his dreams, and made him uncomfortable in his waking hours, so much so, indeed, that his duties as a revenue officer, perplexing at best, became a burden to him.

In point of fact, this lively young lady was the unforeseen quantity in the problem which Woodward had been employed to solve; and, between his relations to the Government and his interest in Sis Poteet, he found himself involved in an awkward predicament. Perhaps the main features of this predicament, baldly presented, would have been more puzzling to the authorities at Washington than they were to Woodward; but it is fair to the young man to say that he did not mistake the fact that the Moonshiner had a daughter for an argument in favour of illicit distilling, albeit the temptation to do so gave him considerable anxiety.

In the midst of his perplexity, Deputy-Marshal Woodward concluded that it would be better for the Government, and better for his own peace of mind, if he allowed Sis Poteet to ride home without an escort; and for several days he left her severely alone, while he attended to his duties, as became a young fellow of fair business habits.

But one afternoon, as he sat on the piazza of the hotel nursing his confusion and discontent, Sis Poteet rode by. It was a tantalising vision, though a fleeting one. It seemed to be merely the flash of a red feather, the wave of a white hand, to which Woodward lifted his hat; but these were sufficient. The red feather nodded gaily to him, the white hand invited. His horse stood near, and in a few moments he was galloping toward the mountain with the Moonshiner's daughter.

When the night fell at Teague Poteet's on this particular evening, it found a fiddle going. The boys and girls of the mountain, to the number of a dozen or more, had gathered for a frolic--a frolic that shook the foundations of Poteet's castle, and aroused echoes familiar enough to the good souls who are fond of the cotillon in its primitive shape. The old folks who had accompanied the youngsters sat in the kitchen with Teague and his wife, and here Woodward also sat, listening with interest to the gossip of what seemed to be a remote era--the war and the period preceding it.

The activity of Sis Poteet found ample scope, and, whether lingering for a moment at her father's side like a bird poised in flight, or moving lightly through the figures of the cotillon, she never appeared to better advantage.

Toward midnight, when the frolic was at its height, an unexpected visitor announced himself. It was Uncle Jake Norris, who lived on the far side of the mountain. The fiddler waved his bow at Uncle Jake, and the boys and girls cried "Howdy," as the visitor stood beaming and smiling in the doorway. To these demonstrations Uncle Jake, "a chunk of a white man with a whole heart," as he described himself, made cordial response, and passed on into the kitchen. The good-humour of Mr. Norris was as prominent as his rotundity. When he was not laughing, he was ready to laugh. He seated himself, looked around at the company, and smiled.

"It's a long pull betwixt this an' Atlanty," he said after a while; "it is that, certain an' shore, an' I hain't smelt of the jug sence I lef ther'. Pull 'er out, Teague, pull 'er out."

The jug was forthcoming.

"Now, then," continued Uncle Jake, removing the corn-cob stopper, "this looks like home, sweet home, ez I may say. It does, certain an' shore. None to jine me? Well, well! Times change an' change, but the jug is company for one. So be it. Ez St. Paul says, cleave nigh unto that which is good. I'm foreswore not to feel lonesome tell I go to the gallows. Friends! you uv got my good wishes, one an' all!"

"What's a-gwine on?" asked Poteet.