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A Knight of the Cumberland
by John Fox Jr.
September, 1995 [Etext #324]
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A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND
BY
JOHN FOX, JR.
CONTENTS
I. The Blight in the Hills
II. On the Wild Dog's Trail
III. The Auricular Talent of the Hon.Samuel Budd
IV. Close Quarters
V. Back to the Hills
VI. The Great Day
VII. At Last--The Tournament
VIII.The Knight Passes
A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND
I
THE BLIGHT IN THE HILLS
High noon of a crisp October day,
sunshine flooding the earth with
the warmth and light of old wine and,
going single-file up through the jagged
gap that the dripping of water has worn
down through the Cumberland Mountains
from crest to valley-level, a gray horse
and two big mules, a man and two young
girls. On the gray horse, I led the
tortuous way. After me came my small
sister--and after her and like her, mule-
back, rode the Blight--dressed as she
would be for a gallop in Central Park or
to ride a hunter in a horse show.
I was taking them, according to
promise, where the feet of other women than
mountaineers had never trod--beyond the
crest of the Big Black--to the waters of
the Cumberland--the lair of moonshiner
and feudsman, where is yet pocketed a
civilization that, elsewhere, is long ago
gone. This had been a pet dream of the
Blight's for a long time, and now the
dream was coming true. The Blight was
in the hills.
Nobody ever went to her mother's
house without asking to see her even when
she was a little thing with black hair,
merry face and black eyes. Both men and
women, with children of their own, have
told me that she was, perhaps, the most
fascinating child that ever lived. There
be some who claim that she has never
changed--and I am among them. She
began early, regardless of age, sex or
previous condition of servitude--she
continues recklessly as she began--and none
makes complaint. Thus was it in her own
world--thus it was when she came to
mine. On the way down from the North,
the conductor's voice changed from a
command to a request when he asked
for her ticket. The jacketed lord of the
dining-car saw her from afar and advanced
to show her to a seat--that she
might ride forward, sit next to a shaded
window and be free from the glare of the
sun on the other side. Two porters made
a rush for her bag when she got off the
car, and the proprietor of the little hotel
in the little town where we had to wait
several hours for the train into the mountains
gave her the bridal chamber for an
afternoon nap. From this little town to
``The Gap'' is the worst sixty-mile ride,
perhaps, in the world. She sat in a dirty
day-coach; the smoke rolled in at the
windows and doors; the cars shook and
swayed and lumbered around curves and
down and up gorges; there were about
her rough men, crying children, slatternly
women, tobacco juice, peanuts, popcorn
and apple cores, but dainty, serene and as
merry as ever, she sat through that ride
with a radiant smile, her keen black eyes
noting everything unlovely within and the
glory of hill, tree and chasm without.
Next morning at home, where we rise
early, no one was allowed to waken her
and she had breakfast in bed--for the
Blight's gentle tyranny was established on
sight and varied not at the Gap.
When she went down the street that
day everybody stared surreptitiously and
with perfect respect, as her dainty black
plumed figure passed; the post-office clerk
could barely bring himself to say that there
was no letter for her. The soda-fountain
boy nearly filled her glass with syrup before
he saw that he was not strictly minding
his own business; the clerk, when I
bought chocolate for her, unblushingly
added extra weight and, as we went back,
she met them both--Marston, the young
engineer from the North, crossing the
street and, at the same moment, a drunken
young tough with an infuriated face reeling
in a run around the corner ahead of
us as though he were being pursued.
Now we have a volunteer police guard
some forty strong at the Gap--and from
habit, I started for him, but the Blight
caught my arm tight. The young
engineer in three strides had reached the
curb-stone and all he sternly said was:
``Here! Here!''
The drunken youth wheeled and his
right hand shot toward his hip pocket.
The engineer was belted with a pistol, but
with one lightning movement and an
incredibly long reach, his right fist caught
the fellow's jaw so that he pitched
backward and collapsed like an empty bag.
Then the engineer caught sight of the
Blight's bewildered face, flushed, gripped
his hands in front of him and simply
stared. At last he saw me:
``Oh,'' he said, ``how do you do?''
and he turned to his prisoner, but the
panting sergeant and another policeman--
also a volunteer--were already lifting him
to his feet. I introduced the boy and the
Blight then, and for the first time in my
life I saw the Blight--shaken. Round-
eyed, she merely gazed at him.
``That was pretty well done,'' I said.
``Oh, he was drunk and I knew he
would be slow.'' Now something curious
happened. The dazed prisoner was on
his feet, and his captors were starting with
him to the calaboose when he seemed suddenly
to come to his senses.
``Jes wait a minute, will ye?'' he said
quietly, and his captors, thinking perhaps
that he wanted to say something to me,
stopped. The mountain youth turned a
strangely sobered face and fixed his blue
eyes on the engineer as though he were
searing every feature of that imperturbable
young man in his brain forever. It
was not a bad face, but the avenging
hatred in it was fearful. Then he, too,
saw the Blight, his face calmed magically
and he, too, stared at her, and turned away
with an oath checked at his lips. We went
on--the Blight thrilled, for she had heard
much of our volunteer force at the Gap
and had seen something already. Presently
I looked back. Prisoner and captors
were climbing the little hill toward the
calaboose and the mountain boy just then
turned his head and I could swear that his
eyes sought not the engineer, whom we
left at the corner, but, like the engineer,
he was looking at the Blight. Whereat I
did not wonder--particularly as to the
engineer. He had been in the mountains for
a long time and I knew what this vision
from home meant to him. He turned up
at the house quite early that night.
``I'm not on duty until eleven,'' he
said hesitantly, `` and I thought I'd----''
``Come right in.''
I asked him a few questions about
business and then I left him and the Blight
alone. When I came back she had a Gatling
gun of eager questions ranged on him
and--happy withal--he was squirming no
little. I followed him to the gate.
``Are you really going over into those
God-forsaken mountains?'' he asked.
``I thought I would.''
``And you are going to take HER?''
``And my sister.''
``Oh, I beg your pardon.'' He strode
away.
``Coming up by the mines?'' he called
back.
``Perhaps will you show us around?''
``I guess I will,'' he said emphatically,
and he went on to risk his neck on a ten-
mile ride along a mountain road in the
dark.
``I LIKE a man,'' said the Blight. ``I
like a MAN.''
Of course the Blight must see everything,
so she insisted on going to the police
court next morning for the trial of the
mountain boy. The boy was in the witness
chair when we got there, and the
Hon. Samuel Budd was his counsel. He
had volunteered to defend the prisoner, I
was soon told, and then I understood.
The November election was not far off and
the Hon. Samuel Budd was candidate for
legislature. More even, the boy's father
was a warm supporter of Mr. Budd and
the boy himself might perhaps render good
service in the cause when the time came--
as indeed he did. On one of the front
chairs sat the young engineer and it was
a question whether he or the prisoner saw
the Blight's black plumes first. The eyes
of both flashed toward her simultaneously,
the engineer colored perceptibly and
the mountain boy stopped short in speech
and his pallid face flushed with unmistakable
shame. Then he went on: ``He had
liquered up,'' he said, ``and had got tight
afore he knowed it and he didn't mean
no harm and had never been arrested
afore in his whole life.''
``Have you ever been drunk before?''
asked the prosecuting attorney severely.
The lad looked surprised.
``Co'se I have, but I ain't goin' to agin
--leastwise not in this here town.'' There
was a general laugh at this and the aged
mayor rapped loudly.
``That will do,'' said the attorney.
The lad stepped down, hitched his chair
slightly so that his back was to the Blight,
sank down in it until his head rested on
the back of the chair and crossed his legs.
The Hon. Samuel Budd arose and the
Blight looked at him with wonder. His
long yellow hair was parted in the middle
and brushed with plaster-like precision
behind two enormous ears, he wore spectacles,
gold-rimmed and with great staring
lenses, and his face was smooth and
ageless. He caressed his chin ruminatingly
and rolled his lips until they settled into a
fine resultant of wisdom, patience, toleration
and firmness. His manner was profound
and his voice oily and soothing.
``May it please your Honor--my young
friend frankly pleads guilty.'' He paused
as though the majesty of the law could ask
no more. ``He is a young man of naturally
high and somewhat--naturally, too,
no doubt--bibulous spirits. Homoepathically--
if inversely--the result was logical.
In the untrammelled life of the liberty-
breathing mountains, where the stern spirit
of law and order, of which your Honor is
the august symbol, does not prevail as it
does here--thanks to your Honor's wise
and just dispensations--the lad has, I
may say, naturally acquired a certain
recklessness of mood--indulgence which,
however easily condoned there, must here be
sternly rebuked. At the same time, he
knew not the conditions here, he became
exhilarated without malice, prepensey or
even, I may say, consciousness. He would
not have done as he has, if he had known
what he knows now, and, knowing, he will
not repeat the offence. I need say no
more. I plead simply that your Honor
will temper the justice that is only yours
with the mercy that is yours--only.''
His Honor was visibly affected and to
cover it--his methods being informal--he
said with sharp irrelevancy:
``Who bailed this young feller out last
night?'' The sergeant spoke:
``Why, Mr. Marston thar''--with
outstretched finger toward the young
engineer. The Blight's black eyes leaped
with exultant appreciation and the engineer
turned crimson. His Honor rolled his
quid around in his mouth once, and peered
over his glasses:
``I fine this young feller two dollars and
costs.'' The young fellow had turned
slowly in his chair and his blue eyes blazed
at the engineer with unappeasable hatred.
I doubt if he had heard his Honor's
voice.
``I want ye to know that I'm obleeged
to ye an' I ain't a-goin' to fergit it; but
if I'd a known hit was you I'd a stayed
in jail an' seen you in hell afore I'd a been
bounden to ye.''
``Ten dollars fer contempt of couht.''
The boy was hot now.
``Oh, fine and be--'' The Hon. Samuel
Budd had him by the shoulder, the boy
swallowed his voice and his starting tears
of rage, and after a whisper to his Honor,
the Hon. Samuel led him out. Outside,
the engineer laughed to the Blight:
``Pretty peppery, isn't he?'' but the
Blight said nothing, and later we saw the
youth on a gray horse crossing the bridge
and conducted by the Hon. Samuel Budd,
who stopped and waved him toward the
mountains. The boy went on and across
the plateau, the gray Gap swallowed him.
That night, at the post-office, the Hon.
Sam plucked me aside by the sleeve.
``I know Marston is agin me in this
race--but I'll do him a good turn just the
same. You tell him to watch out for that
young fellow. He's all right when he's
sober, but when he's drunk--well, over in
Kentucky, they call him the Wild Dog.''
Several days later we started out through
that same Gap. The glum stableman
looked at the Blight's girths three times,
and with my own eyes starting and my
heart in my mouth, I saw her pass behind
her sixteen-hand-high mule and give him a
friendly tap on the rump as she went by.
The beast gave an appreciative flop of one
ear and that was all. Had I done that,
any further benefit to me or mine would
be incorporated in the terms of an insurance
policy. So, stating this, I believe I
state the limit and can now go on to say
at last that it was because she seemed to
be loved by man and brute alike that a
big man of her own town, whose body,
big as it was, was yet too small for his
heart and from whose brain things went
off at queer angles, always christened her
perversely as--``The Blight.''
II
ON THE WILD DOG'S TRAIL
So up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher's
Creek and Little Looney, past
the mines where high on a ``tipple'' stood
the young engineer looking down at us,
and looking after the Blight as we passed
on into a dim rocky avenue walled on each
side with rhododendrons. I waved at him
and shook my head--we would see him
coming back. Beyond a deserted log-
cabin we turned up a spur of the mountain.
Around a clump of bushes we came on
a gray-bearded mountaineer holding his
horse by the bridle and from a covert high
above two more men appeared with
Winchesters. The Blight breathed forth an
awed whisper:
``Are they moonshiners?''
I nodded sagely, ``Most likely,'' and
the Blight was thrilled. They might have
been squirrel-hunters most innocent, but
the Blight had heard much talk of moonshine
stills and mountain feuds and the
men who run them and I took the risk of
denying her nothing. Up and up we went,
those two mules swaying from side to side
with a motion little short of elephantine
and, by and by, the Blight called out:
``You ride ahead and don't you DARE
look back.''
Accustomed to obeying the Blight's
orders, I rode ahead with eyes to the front.
Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly.
It was nothing--my little sister's mule had
gone near a steep cliff--perilously near, as
its rider thought, but I saw why I must not
look back; those two little girls were riding
astride on side-saddles, the booted little
right foot of each dangling stirrupless--a
posture quite decorous but ludicrous.
``Let us know if anybody comes,'' they
cried. A mountaineer descended into sight
around a loop of the path above.
``Change cars,'' I shouted.
They changed and, passing, were grave,
demure--then they changed again, and
thus we climbed.
Such a glory as was below, around and
above us; the air like champagne; the sunlight
rich and pouring like a flood on the
gold that the beeches had strewn in the
path, on the gold that the poplars still
shook high above and shimmering on the
royal scarlet of the maple and the sombre
russet of the oak. From far below us to far
above us a deep curving ravine was slashed
into the mountain side as by one stroke of
a gigantic scimitar. The darkness deep
down was lighted up with cool green,
interfused with liquid gold. Russet and
yellow splashed the mountain sides beyond
and high up the maples were in a shaking
blaze. The Blight's swift eyes took all in
and with indrawn breath she drank it all
deep down.
An hour by sun we were near the top,
which was bared of trees and turned into
rich farm-land covered with blue-grass.
Along these upland pastures, dotted with
grazing cattle, and across them we rode
toward the mountain wildernesses on the
other side, down into which a zigzag path
wriggles along the steep front of Benham's
spur. At the edge of the steep was a
cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer,
who looked like a brigand, answered my
hail. He ``mought'' keep us all night,
but he'd ``ruther not, as we could git a
place to stay down the spur.'' Could we
get down before dark? The mountaineer
lifted his eyes to where the sun was breaking
the horizon of the west into streaks
and splashes of yellow and crimson.
``Oh, yes, you can git thar afore
dark.''
Now I knew that the mountaineer's idea
of distance is vague--but he knows how
long it takes to get from one place to
another. So we started down--dropping at
once into thick dark woods, and as we
went looping down, the deeper was the
gloom. That sun had suddenly severed all
connection with the laws of gravity and
sunk, and it was all the darker because
the stars were not out. The path was
steep and coiled downward like a wounded
snake. In one place a tree had fallen
across it, and to reach the next coil of the
path below was dangerous. So I had the
girls dismount and I led the gray horse
down on his haunches. The mules refused
to follow, which was rather unusual. I
went back and from a safe distance in the
rear I belabored them down. They cared
neither for gray horse nor crooked path,
but turned of their own devilish wills
along the bushy mountain side. As I ran
after them the gray horse started calmly
on down and those two girls shrieked with
laughter--they knew no better. First one
way and then the other down the mountain
went those mules, with me after them,
through thick bushes, over logs, stumps
and bowlders and holes--crossing the path
a dozen times. What that path was there
for never occurred to those long-eared
half asses, whole fools, and by and by,
when the girls tried to shoo them down
they clambered around and above them
and struck the path back up the mountain.
The horse had gone down one way, the
mules up the other, and there was no
health in anything. The girls could not
go up--so there was nothing to do but go
down, which, hard as it was, was easier
than going up. The path was not visible
now. Once in a while I would stumble
from it and crash through the bushes to
the next coil below. Finally I went down,
sliding one foot ahead all the time--knowing
that when leaves rustled under that
foot I was on the point of going astray.
Sometimes I had to light a match to
make sure of the way, and thus the ridiculous
descent was made with those girls in
high spirits behind. Indeed, the darker,
rockier, steeper it got, the more they
shrieked from pure joy--but I was anything
than happy. It was dangerous. I
didn't know the cliffs and high rocks
we might skirt and an unlucky guidance
might land us in the creek-bed far down.
But the blessed stars came out, the moon
peered over a farther mountain and on
the last spur there was the gray horse
browsing in the path--and the sound of
running water not far below. Fortunately
on the gray horse were the saddle-bags of
the chattering infants who thought the
whole thing a mighty lark. We reached
the running water, struck a flock of geese
and knew, in consequence, that humanity
was somewhere near. A few turns of the
creek and a beacon light shone below.
The pales of a picket fence, the cheering
outlines of a log-cabin came in view and
at a peaked gate I shouted:
``Hello!''
You enter no mountaineer's yard without
that announcing cry. It was mediaeval,
the Blight said, positively--two lorn
damsels, a benighted knight partially stripped
of his armor by bush and sharp-edged
rock, a gray palfrey (she didn't mention
the impatient asses that had turned homeward)
and she wished I had a horn to
wind. I wanted a ``horn'' badly enough
--but it was not the kind men wind. By
and by we got a response:
``Hello!'' was the answer, as an opened
door let out into the yard a broad band of
light. Could we stay all night? The
voice replied that the owner would see
``Pap.'' ``Pap'' seemed willing, and the
boy opened the gate and into the house
went the Blight and the little sister.
Shortly, I followed.
There, all in one room, lighted by a
huge wood-fire, rafters above, puncheon
floor beneath--cane-bottomed chairs and
two beds the only furniture-``pap,''
barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-
corner with a pipe, strings of red pepper-
pods, beans and herbs hanging around and
above, a married daughter with a child at
her breast, two or three children with yellow
hair and bare feet all looking with
all their eyes at the two visitors who had
dropped upon them from another world.
The Blight's eyes were brighter than
usual--that was the only sign she gave
that she was not in her own drawing-
room. Apparently she saw nothing
strange or unusual even, but there was
really nothing that she did not see or hear
and absorb, as few others than the Blight
can.
Straightway, the old woman knocked
the ashes out of her pipe.
``I reckon you hain't had nothin' to
eat,'' she said and disappeared. The old
man asked questions, the young mother
rocked her baby on her knees, the children
got less shy and drew near the fireplace,
the Blight and the little sister exchanged
a furtive smile and the contrast of the
extremes in American civilization, as shown
in that little cabin, interested me mightily.
``Yer snack's ready,'' said the old
woman. The old man carried the chairs
into the kitchen, and when I followed the
girls were seated. The chairs were so low
that their chins came barely over their
plates, and demure and serious as they were
they surely looked most comical. There
was the usual bacon and corn-bread and
potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls
struggled with the rude fare nobly.
After supper I joined the old man and
the old woman with a pipe--exchanging
my tobacco for their long green with more
satisfaction probably to me than to them,
for the long green was good, and strong
and fragrant.
The old woman asked the Blight and
the little sister many questions and they, in
turn, showed great interest in the baby in
arms, whereat the eighteen-year-old mother
blushed and looked greatly pleased.
``You got mighty purty black eyes,''
said the old woman to the Blight, and not
to slight the little sister she added, `` An'
you got mighty purty teeth.''
The Blight showed hers in a radiant
smile and the old woman turned back to her.
``Oh, you've got both,'' she said and
she shook her head, as though she were
thinking of the damage they had done.
It was my time now--to ask questions.
They didn't have many amusements on
that creek, I discovered--and no dances.
Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and
there were corn-shuckings, house-raisings
and quilting-parties.
``Does anybody round here play the
banjo?''
``None o' my boys,'' said the old woman,
``but Tom Green's son down the creek
--he follers pickin' the banjo a leetle.''
``Follows pickin' ''--the Blight did not
miss that phrase.
``What do you foller fer a livin'?'' the
old man asked me suddenly.
``I write for a living.'' He thought a
while.
``Well, it must be purty fine to have a
good handwrite.'' This nearly dissolved
the Blight and the little sister, but they
held on heroically.
``Is there much fighting around here?''
I asked presently.
``Not much 'cept when one young feller
up the river gets to tearin' up things. I
heerd as how he was over to the Gap last
week--raisin' hell. He comes by here on
his way home.'' The Blight's eyes opened
wide--apparently we were on his trail.
It is not wise for a member of the police
guard at the Gap to show too much
curiosity about the lawless ones of the
hills, and I asked no questions.
``They calls him the Wild Dog over
here,'' he added, and then he yawned
cavernously.
I looked around with divining eye for
the sleeping arrangements soon to come,
which sometimes are embarrassing to
``furriners'' who are unable to grasp at
once the primitive unconsciousness of the
mountaineers and, in consequence, accept a
point of view natural to them because
enforced by architectural limitations and a
hospitality that turns no one seeking
shelter from any door. They were, however,
better prepared than I had hoped for.
They had a spare room on the porch and
just outside the door, and when the old
woman led the two girls to it, I followed
with their saddle-bags. The room was
about seven feet by six and was windowless.
``You'd better leave your door open a
little,'' I said, ``or you'll smother in
there.''
``Well,'' said the old woman, `` hit's all
right to leave the door open. Nothin's
goin' ter bother ye, but one o' my sons is
out a coon-huntin' and he mought come in,
not knowin' you're thar. But you jes'
holler an' he'll move on.'' She meant
precisely what she said and saw no humor
at all in such a possibility--but when the
door closed, I could hear those girls
stifling shrieks of laughter.
Literally, that night, I was a member
of the family. I had a bed to myself
(the following night I was not so fortunate)--
in one corner; behind the head of
mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law
and the baby had another in the other
corner, and the old man with the two boys
spread a pallet on the floor. That is the
invariable rule of courtesy with the
mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and
take to the floor himself, and, in passing,
let me say that never, in a long experience,
have I seen the slightest consciousness--
much less immodesty--in a mountain cabin
in my life. The same attitude on the part
of the visitors is taken for granted--any
other indeed holds mortal possibilities of
offence--so that if the visitor has common
sense, all embarrassment passes at once.
The door was closed, the fire blazed on
uncovered, the smothered talk and laughter
of the two girls ceased, the coon-hunter
came not and the night passed in peace.
It must have been near daybreak that I
was aroused by the old man leaving the
cabin and I heard voices and the sound of
horses' feet outside. When he came back
he was grinning.
``Hit's your mules.''
``Who found them?''
``The Wild Dog had 'em,'' he said.
III
THE AURICULAR TALENT OF THE
HON. SAMUEL BUDD
Behind us came the Hon. Samuel
Budd. Just when the sun was slitting
the east with a long streak of fire, the
Hon. Samuel was, with the jocund day,
standing tiptoe in his stirrups on the misty
mountain top and peering into the ravine
down which we had slid the night before,
and he grumbled no little when he saw
that he, too, must get off his horse and
slide down. The Hon. Samuel was ambitious,
Southern, and a lawyer. Without
saying, it goes that he was also a
politician. He was not a native of the
mountains, but he had cast his fortunes in the
highlands, and he was taking the first step
that he hoped would, before many years,
land him in the National Capitol. He
really knew little about the mountaineers,
even now, and he had never been among
his constituents on Devil's Fork, where he
was bound now. The campaign had so far
been full of humor and full of trials--not
the least of which sprang from the fact
that it was sorghum time. Everybody
through the mountains was making sorghum,
and every mountain child was eating molasses.
Now, as the world knows, the straightest
way to the heart of the honest voter is
through the women of the land, and the
straightest way to the heart of the women
is through the children of the land; and
one method of winning both, with rural
politicians, is to kiss the babies wide and
far. So as each infant, at sorghum time,
has a circle of green-brown stickiness about
his chubby lips, and as the Hon. Sam was
averse to ``long sweetenin' '' even in his
coffee, this particular political device just
now was no small trial to the Hon. Samuel
Budd. But in the language of one of his
firmest supporters Uncle Tommie Hendricks:
``The Hon. Sam done his duty, and he
done it damn well.''
The issue at stake was the site of the
new Court-House--two localities claiming
the right undisputed, because they were
the only two places in the county where
there was enough level land for the Court-
House to stand on. Let no man think this
a trivial issue. There had been a similar
one over on the Virginia side once, and
the opposing factions agreed to decide the
question by the ancient wager of battle,
fist and skull--two hundred men on each
side--and the women of the county with
difficulty prevented the fight. Just now,
Mr. Budd was on his way to ``The
Pocket''--the voting place of one faction
--where he had never been, where the
hostility against him was most bitter, and,
that day, he knew he was ``up against''
Waterloo, the crossing of the Rubicon,
holding the pass at Thermopylae, or any
other historical crisis in the history of
man. I was saddling the mules when the
cackling of geese in the creek announced
the coming of the Hon. Samuel Budd,
coming with his chin on his breast-deep
in thought. Still his eyes beamed cheerily,
he lifted his slouched hat gallantly to the
Blight and the little sister, and he would
wait for us to jog along with him. I told
him of our troubles, meanwhile. The
Wild Dog had restored our mules and
the Hon. Sam beamed:
``He's a wonder--where is he?''
``He never waited--even for thanks.''
Again the Hon. Sam beamed:
``Ah! just like him. He's gone ahead
to help me.''
``Well, how did he happen to be here?''
I asked.
``He's everywhere,'' said the Hon. Sam.
``How did he know the mules were
ours?''
``Easy. That boy knows everything.''
``Well, why did he bring them back
and then leave so mysteriously?''
The Hon. Sam silently pointed a finger
at the laughing Blight ahead, and I looked
incredulous.
``Just the same, that's another reason I
told you to warn Marston. He's already
got it in his head that Marston is his
rival.''
``Pshaw!'' I said--for it was too
ridiculous.
``All right,'' said the Hon. Sam placidly.
``Then why doesn't he want to see
her?''
``How do you know he ain't watchin'
her now, for all we know? Mark me,''
he added, ``you won't see him at the
speakin', but I'll bet fruit cake agin
gingerbread he'll be somewhere around.''
So we went on, the two girls leading
the way and the Hon. Sam now telling
his political troubles to me. Half a
mile down the road, a solitary horseman
stood waiting, and Mr. Budd gave a low
whistle.
``One o' my rivals,'' he said, from the
corner of his mouth.
``Mornin','' said the horseman; ``lemme
see you a minute.''
He made a movement to draw aside,
but the Hon. Samuel made a counter-
gesture of dissent.
``This gentleman is a friend of mine,''
he said firmly, but with great courtesy,
``and he can hear what you have to say
to me.''
The mountaineer rubbed one huge hand
over his stubbly chin, threw one of his
long legs over the pommel of his saddle,
and dangled a heavy cowhide shoe to and
fro.
``Would you mind tellin' me whut pay
a member of the House of Legislatur' gits
a day?''
The Hon. Sam looked surprised.
``I think about two dollars and a half.''
``An' his meals?''
``No!'' laughed Mr. Budd.
``Well, look-ee here, stranger. I'm a
pore man an' I've got a mortgage on my
farm. That money don't mean nothin' to
you--but if you'll draw out now an' I
win, I'll tell ye whut I'll do.'' He paused
as though to make sure that the sacrifice
was possible. ``I'll just give ye half of
that two dollars and a half a day, as shore
as you're a-settin' on that hoss, and you
won't hav' to hit a durn lick to earn it.''
I had not the heart to smile--nor did
the Hon. Samuel--so artless and simple
was the man and so pathetic his appeal.
``You see--you'll divide my vote, an'
ef we both run, ole Josh Barton'll git it
shore. Ef you git out o' the way, I can
lick him easy.''
Mr. Budd's answer was kind,
instructive, and uplifted.
``My friend,'' said he, ``I'm sorry, but
I cannot possibly accede to your request
for the following reasons: First, it would
not be fair to my constituents; secondly, it
would hardly be seeming to barter the
noble gift of the people to which we both
aspire; thirdly, you might lose with me
out of the way; and fourthly, I'm going
to win whether you are in the way or
not.''
The horseman slowly collapsed while
the Hon. Samuel was talking, and now he
threw the leg back, kicked for his stirrup
twice, spat once, and turned his horse's
head.
``I reckon you will, stranger,'' he said
sadly, ``with that gift o' gab o' yourn.''
He turned without another word or nod of
good-by and started back up the creek
whence he had come.
``One gone,'' said the Hon. Samuel
Budd grimly, ``and I swear I'm right
sorry for him.'' And so was I.
An hour later we struck the river, and
another hour upstream brought us to where
the contest of tongues was to come about.
No sylvan dell in Arcady could have
been lovelier than the spot. Above the
road, a big spring poured a clear little
stream over shining pebbles into the river;
above it the bushes hung thick with autumn
leaves, and above them stood yellow
beeches like pillars of pale fire. On both
sides of the road sat and squatted the
honest voters, sour-looking, disgruntled--a
distinctly hostile crowd. The Blight and
my little sister drew great and curious
attention as they sat on a bowlder above the
spring while I went with the Hon. Samuel
Budd under the guidance of Uncle Tommie
Hendricks, who introduced him right
and left. The Hon. Samuel was cheery,
but he was plainly nervous. There were
two lanky youths whose names, oddly
enough, were Budd. As they gave him
their huge paws in lifeless fashion, the
Hon. Samuel slapped one on the shoulder,
with the true democracy of the politician,
and said jocosely:
``Well, we Budds may not be what you
call great people, but, thank God, none
of us have ever been in the penitentiary,''
and he laughed loudly, thinking that he
had scored a great and jolly point. The
two young men looked exceedingly grave
and Uncle Tommie panic-stricken. He
plucked the Hon. Sam by the sleeve and
led him aside:
``I reckon you made a leetle mistake
thar. Them two fellers' daddy died in the
penitentiary last spring.'' The Hon. Sam
whistled mournfully, but he looked game
enough when his opponent rose to speak
--Uncle Josh Barton, who had short,
thick, upright hair, little sharp eyes, and a
rasping voice. Uncle Josh wasted no time:
``Feller-citizens,'' he shouted, ``this
man is a lawyer--he's a corporation
lawyer''; the fearful name--pronounced
``lie-yer''--rang through the crowd like a
trumpet, and like lightning the Hon. Sam
was on his feet.
``The man who says that is a liar,'' he
said calmly, `` and I demand your authority
for the statement. If you won't give
it--I shall hold you personally responsible,
sir.''
It was a strike home, and under the
flashing eyes that stared unwaveringly,
through the big goggles, Uncle Josh halted
and stammered and admitted that he
might have been misinformed.
``Then I advise you to be more careful,''
cautioned the Hon. Samuel sharply.
``Feller-citizens,'' said Uncle Josh, ``if
he ain't a corporation lawyer--who is this
man? Where did he come from? I have
been born and raised among you. You all
know me--do you know him? Whut's he
a-doin' now? He's a fine-haired furriner,
an' he's come down hyeh from the settlemints
to tell ye that you hain't got no man
in yo' own deestrict that's fittin' to
represent ye in the legislatur'. Look at him--
look at him! He's got FOUR eyes! Look
at his hair--hit's PARTED IN THE MIDDLE!''
There was a storm of laughter--Uncle
Josh had made good--and if the Hon.
Samuel could straightway have turned
bald-headed and sightless, he would have
been a happy man. He looked sick with
hopelessness, but Uncle Tommie
Hendricks, his mentor, was vigorously
whispering something in his ear, and gradually
his face cleared. Indeed, the Hon. Samuel
was smilingly confident when he rose.
Like his rival, he stood in the open road,
and the sun beat down on his parted yellow
hair, so that the eyes of all could
see, and the laughter was still running
round.
``Who is your Uncle Josh?'' he asked
with threatening mildness. ``I know I was
not born here, but, my friends, I couldn't
help that. And just as soon as I could
get away from where I was born, I came
here and,'' he paused with lips parted and
long finger outstretched, `` and--I--came
--because--I WANTED--to come--and NOT
because I HAD TO.''
Now it seems that Uncle Josh, too, was
not a native and that he had left home
early in life for his State's good and for his
own. Uncle Tommie had whispered this,
and the Hon. Samuel raised himself high
on both toes while the expectant crowd, on
the verge of a roar, waited--as did Uncle
Joshua, with a sickly smile.
``Why did your Uncle Josh come
among you? Because he was hoop-poled
away from home.'' Then came the roar--
and the Hon. Samuel had to quell it with
uplifted hand.
``And did your Uncle Joshua marry a
mountain wife? No I He didn't think
any of your mountain women were good
enough for him, so he slips down into the
settlemints and STEALS one. And now,
fellow-citizens, that is just what I'm here for
--I'm looking for a nice mountain girl,
and I'm going to have her.'' Again the
Hon. Samuel had to still the roar, and then
he went on quietly to show how they must
lose the Court-House site if they did not
send him to the legislature, and how, while
they might not get it if they did send him,
it was their only hope to send only him.
The crowd had grown somewhat hostile
again, and it was after one telling period,
when the Hon. Samuel stopped to mop his
brow, that a gigantic mountaineer rose in
the rear of the crowd:
``Talk on, stranger; you're talking
sense. I'll trust ye. You've got big
ears!''
Now the Hon. Samuel possessed a
primordial talent that is rather rare in these
physically degenerate days. He said nothing,
but stood quietly in the middle of the
road. The eyes of the crowd on either
side of the road began to bulge, the lips
of all opened with wonder, and a simultaneous
burst of laughter rose around the
Hon. Samuel Budd. A dozen men sprang
to their feet and rushed up to him--looking
at those remarkable ears, as they
gravely wagged to and fro. That settled
things, and as we left, the Hon. Sam was
having things his own way, and on the
edge of the crowd Uncle Tommie Hendricks
was shaking his head:
``I tell ye, boys, he ain't no jackass
even if he can flop his ears.''
At the river we started upstream, and
some impulse made me turn in my saddle
and look back. All the time I had had an
eye open for the young mountaineer whose
interest in us seemed to be so keen. And
now I saw, standing at the head of a gray
horse, on the edge of the crowd, a tall
figure with his hands on his hips and looking
after us. I couldn't be sure, but it
looked like the Wild Dog.
IV
CLOSE QUARTERS
Two hours up the river we struck
Buck. Buck was sitting on the
fence by the roadside, barefooted and hatless.
``How-dye-do?'' I said.
``Purty well,'' said Buck.
``Any fish in this river?''
``Several,'' said Buck. Now in mountain
speech, ``several'' means simply ``a
good many.''
``Any minnows in these branches?''
``I seed several in the branch back o'
our house.''
``How far away do you live?''
``Oh, 'bout one whoop an' a holler.'' If
he had spoken Greek the Blight could not
have been more puzzled. He meant he
lived as far as a man's voice would carry
with one yell and a holla.
``Will you help me catch some?''
Buck nodded.
``All right,'' I said, turning my horse up
to the fence. ``Get on behind.'' The
horse shied his hind quarters away, and I
pulled him back.
``Now, you can get on, if you'll be
quick.'' Buck sat still.
``Yes,'' he said imperturbably; ``but I
ain't quick.'' The two girls laughed
aloud, and Buck looked surprised.
Around a curving cornfield we went,
and through a meadow which Buck said
was a ``nigh cut.'' From the limb of a
tree that we passed hung a piece of wire
with an iron ring swinging at its upturned
end. A little farther was another tree and
another ring, and farther on another and
another.
``For heaven's sake, Buck, what are
these things?''
``Mart's a-gittin' ready fer a tourneyment.''
``A what?''
``That's whut Mart calls hit. He was
over to the Gap last Fourth o' July, an' he
says fellers over thar fix up like Kuklux and
go a-chargin' on hosses and takin' off them
rings with a ash-stick--`spear,' Mart
calls hit. He come back an' he says he's
a-goin' to win that ar tourneyment next
Fourth o' July. He's got the best hoss up
this river, and on Sundays him an' Dave
Branham goes a-chargin' along here a-picking
off these rings jus' a-flyin'; an' Mart
can do hit, I'm tellin' ye. Dave's mighty
good hisself, but he ain't nowhar 'longside
o' Mart.''
This was strange. I had told the Blight
about our Fourth of July, and how on the
Virginia side the ancient custom of the
tournament still survived. It was on the
last Fourth of July that she had meant to
come to the Gap. Truly civilization was
spreading throughout the hills.
``Who's Mart?''
``Mart's my brother,'' said little Buck.
``He was over to the Gap not long ago,
an' he come back mad as hops--'' He
stopped suddenly, and in such a way that
I turned my head, knowing that caution
had caught Buck.
``What about?''
``Oh, nothin','' said Buck carelessly;
``only he's been quar ever since. My sisters
says he's got a gal over thar, an'
he's a-pickin' off these rings more'n ever
now. He's going to win or bust a belly-
band.''
``Well, who's Dave Branham?''
Buck grinned. ``You jes axe my sister
Mollie. Thar she is.''
Before us was a white-framed house of
logs in the porch of which stood two stalwart,
good-looking girls. Could we stay
all night? We could--there was no
hesitation--and straight in we rode.
``Where's your father?'' Both girls
giggled, and one said, with frank unembarrassment:
``Pap's tight!'' That did not look
promising, but we had to stay just the
same. Buck helped me to unhitch the
mules, helped me also to catch minnows,
and in half an hour we started down the
river to try fishing before dark came.
Buck trotted along.
``Have you got a wagon, Buck?''
``What fer?''
``To bring the fish back.'' Buck was
not to be caught napping.
``We got that sled thar, but hit won't
be big enough,'' he said gravely. ``An'
our two-hoss wagon's out in the cornfield.
We'll have to string the fish, leave 'em in
the river and go fer 'em in the mornin'.''
``All right, Buck.'' The Blight was
greatly amused at Buck.
Two hundred yards down the road
stood his sisters over the figure of a man
outstretched in the road. Unashamed,
they smiled at us. The man in the road
was ``pap''--tight--and they were trying
to get him home.
We cast into a dark pool farther down
and fished most patiently; not a bite--not
a nibble.
``Are there any fish in here, Buck?''
``Dunno--used ter be.'' The shadows
deepened; we must go back to the house.
``Is there a dam below here, Buck?''
``Yes, thar's a dam about a half-mile
down the river.''
I was disgusted. No wonder there were
no bass in that pool.
``Why didn't you tell me that before?''
``You never axed me,'' said Buck placidly.
I began winding in my line.
``Ain't no bottom to that pool,'' said
Buck.
Now I never saw any rural community
where there was not a bottomless pool, and
I suddenly determined to shake one tradition
in at least one community. So I took
an extra fish-line, tied a stone to it, and
climbed into a canoe, Buck watching me,
but not asking a word.
``Get in, Buck.''
Silently he got in and I pushed off--to
the centre.
``This the deepest part, Buck?''
``I reckon so.''
I dropped in the stone and the line
reeled out some fifty feet and began to coil
on the surface of the water.
``I guess that's on the bottom, isn't it,
Buck?''
Buck looked genuinely distressed; but
presently he brightened.
``Yes,'' he said, `` ef hit ain't on a turtle's back.''
Literally I threw up both hands and
back we trailed--fishless.
``Reckon you won't need that two-hoss
wagon,'' said Buck.
``No, Buck, I think not.'' Buck looked
at the Blight and gave himself the pleasure
of his first chuckle. A big crackling, cheerful
fire awaited us. Through the door I
could see, outstretched on a bed in the next
room, the limp figure of ``pap'' in alcoholic
sleep. The old mother, big, kind-
faced, explained--and there was a heaven
of kindness and charity in her drawling
voice.
``Dad didn' often git that a-way,'' she
said; ``but he'd been out a-huntin' hawgs
that mornin' and had met up with some
teamsters and gone to a political speakin'
and had tuk a dram or two of their mean
whiskey, and not havin' nothin' on his
stummick, hit had all gone to his head.
No, `pap' didn't git that a-way often, and
he'd be all right jes' as soon as he slept it
off a while.'' The old woman moved
about with a cane and the sympathetic
Blight merely looked a question at her.
``Yes, she'd fell down a year ago--and
had sort o' hurt herself--didn't do nothin',
though, 'cept break one hip,'' she added, in
her kind, patient old voice. Did many
people stop there? Oh, yes, sometimes fifteen
at a time--they ``never turned nobody
away.'' And she had a big family,
little Cindy and the two big girls and Buck
and Mart--who was out somewhere--and
the hired man, and yes--``Thar was another
boy, but he was fitified,'' said one
of the big sisters.
``I beg your pardon,'' said the
wondering Blight, but she knew that phrase
wouldn't do, so she added politely:
``What did you say?''
``Fitified--Tom has fits. He's in a
asylum in the settlements.''
``Tom come back once an' he was all
right,'' said the old mother; ``but he
worried so much over them gals workin' so
hard that it plum' throwed him off ag'in,
and we had to send him back.''
``Do you work pretty hard?'' I asked
presently. Then a story came that was full
of unconscious pathos, because there was
no hint of complaint--simply a plain
statement of daily life. They got up before
the men, in order to get breakfast ready;
then they went with the men into the fields
--those two girls--and worked like men.
At dark they got supper ready, and after
the men went to bed they worked on--
washing dishes and clearing up the kitchen.
They took it turn about getting supper,
and sometimes, one said, she was ``so
plumb tuckered out that she'd drap on the
bed and go to sleep ruther than eat her
own supper.'' No wonder poor Tom had
to go back to the asylum. All the
while the two girls stood by the fire
looking, politely but minutely, at the two
strange girls and their curious clothes and
their boots, and the way they dressed their
hair. Their hard life seemed to have hurt
them none--for both were the pictures of
health--whatever that phrase means.
After supper ``pap'' came in, perfectly
sober, with a big ruddy face, giant frame,
and twinkling gray eyes. He was the man
who had risen to speak his faith in the
Hon. Samuel Budd that day on the size of
the Hon. Samuel's ears. He, too, was
unashamed and, as he explained his plight
again, he did it with little apology.
``I seed ye at the speakin' to-day. That
man Budd is a good man. He done somethin'
fer a boy o' mine over at the Gap.''
Like little Buck, he, too, stopped short.
``He's a good man an' I'm a-goin' to help
him.''
Yes, he repeated, quite irrelevantly, it
was hunting hogs all day with nothing to
eat and only mean whiskey to drink.
Mart had not come in yet--he was
``workin' out'' now.
``He's the best worker in these
mountains,'' said the old woman; ``Mart works
too hard.''
The hired man appeared and joined us
at the fire. Bedtime came, and I whispered
jokingly to the Blight:
``I believe I'll ask that good-looking
one to `set up' with me.'' ``Settin' up''
is what courting is called in the hills. The
couple sit up in front of the fire after
everybody else has gone to bed. The man
puts his arm around the girl's neck and
whispers; then she puts her arm around his
neck and whispers--so that the rest may
not hear. This I had related to the Blight,
and now she withered me.
``You just do, now!''
I turned to the girl in question, whose
name was Mollie. ``Buck told me to ask
you who Dave Branham was.'' Mollie
wheeled, blushing and angry, but Buck had
darted cackling out the door. ``Oh,'' I
said, and I changed the subject. ``What
time do you get up?''
``Oh, 'bout crack o' day.'' I was tired,
and that was discouraging.
``Do you get up that early every morning?''
``No,'' was the quick answer; ``a
mornin' later.''
A morning later, Mollie got up, each
morning. The Blight laughed.
Pretty soon the two girls were taken into
the next room, which was a long one, with
one bed in one dark corner, one in the
other, and a third bed in the middle. The
feminine members of the family all followed
them out on the porch and watched
them brush their teeth, for they had never
seen tooth-brushes before. They watched
them prepare for bed--and I could hear
much giggling and comment and many
questions, all of which culminated, by and
by, in a chorus of shrieking laughter.
That climax, as I learned next morning,
was over the Blight's hot-water bag.
Never had their eyes rested on an article
of more wonder and humor than that
water bag.
By and by, the feminine members came
back and we sat around the fire. Still
Mart did not appear, though somebody
stepped into the kitchen, and from the
warning glance that Mollie gave Buck
when she left the room I guessed that the
newcomer was her lover Dave. Pretty
soon the old man yawned.
``Well, mammy, I reckon this stranger's
about ready to lay down, if you've got a
place fer him.''
``Git a light, Buck,'' said the old
woman. Buck got a light--a chimneyless,
smoking oil-lamp--and led me into the
same room where the Blight and my little
sister were. Their heads were covered
up, but the bed in the gloom of one corner
was shaking with their smothered laughter.
Buck pointed to the middle bed.
``I can get along without that light,
Buck,'' I said, and I must have been
rather haughty and abrupt, for a stifled
shriek came from under the bedclothes in
the corner and Buck disappeared swiftly.
Preparations for bed are simple in the
mountains--they were primitively simple
for me that night. Being in knickerbockers,
I merely took off my coat and
shoes. Presently somebody else stepped
into the room and the bed in the other
corner creaked. Silence for a while.
Then the door opened, and the head of the
old woman was thrust in.
``Mart!'' she said coaxingly; ``git up
thar now an' climb over inter bed with
that ar stranger.''
That was Mart at last, over in the
corner. Mart turned, grumbled, and, to my
great pleasure, swore that he wouldn't.
The old woman waited a moment.
``Mart,'' she said again with gentle
imperiousness, `` git up thar now, I tell ye
--you've got to sleep with that thar
stranger.''
She closed the door and with a snort
Mart piled into bed with me. I gave him
plenty of room and did not introduce
myself. A little more dark silence--the
shaking of the bed under the hilarity
of those astonished, bethrilled, but
thoroughly unfrightened young women in the
dark corner on my left ceased, and again
the door opened. This time it was the
hired man, and I saw that the trouble was
either that neither Mart nor Buck wanted
to sleep with the hired man or that neither
wanted to sleep with me. A long silence
and then the boy Buck slipped in. The
hired man delivered himself with the
intonation somewhat of a circuit rider.
``I've been a-watchin' that star thar,
through the winder. Sometimes hit moves,
then hit stands plum' still, an' ag'in hit gits
to pitchin'.'' The hired man must have
been touching up mean whiskey himself.
Meanwhile, Mart seemed to be having
spells of troubled slumber. He would
snore gently, accentuate said snore with a
sudden quiver of his body and then wake
up with a climacteric snort and start that
would shake the bed. This was repeated
several times, and I began to think of the
unfortunate Tom who was ``fitified.''
Mart seemed on the verge of a fit himself,
and I waited apprehensively for each
snorting climax to see if fits were a family
failing. They were not. Peace overcame
Mart and he slept deeply, but not I. The
hired man began to show symptoms. He
would roll and groan, dreaming of feuds,
_quorum pars magna fuit_, it seemed, and
of religious conversion, in which he feared
he was not so great. Twice he said aloud:
``An' I tell you thar wouldn't a one of
'em have said a word if I'd been killed
stone-dead.'' Twice he said it almost
weepingly, and now and then he would
groan appealingly:
``O Lawd, have mercy on my pore
soul!''
Fortunately those two tired girls slept--
I could hear their breathing--but sleep
there was little for me. Once the troubled
soul with the hoe got up and stumbled out
to the water-bucket on the porch to soothe
the fever or whatever it was that was
burning him, and after that he was quiet.
I awoke before day. The dim light at the
window showed an empty bed--Buck and
the hired man were gone. Mart was slipping
out of the side of my bed, but the
girls still slept on. I watched Mart, for
I guessed I might now see what, perhaps,
is the distinguishing trait of American
civilization down to its bed-rock, as you
find it through the West and in the Southern
hills--a chivalrous respect for women.
Mart thought I was asleep. Over in the
corner were two creatures the like of which
I supposed he had never seen and would
not see, since he came in too late the night
before, and was going away too early now
--and two angels straight from heaven
could not have stirred my curiosity any
more than they already must have stirred
his. But not once did Mart turn his eyes,
much less his face, toward the corner where
they were--not once, for I watched him
closely. And when he went out he sent
his little sister back for his shoes, which
the night-walking hired man had
accidentally kicked toward the foot of the
strangers' bed. In a minute I was out
after him, but he was gone. Behind me
the two girls opened their eyes on a room
that was empty save for them. Then the
Blight spoke (this I was told later).
``Dear,'' she said, ``have our room-
mates gone?''
Breakfast at dawn. The mountain girls
were ready to go to work. All looked
sorry to have us leave. They asked us to
come back again, and they meant it. We
said we would like to come back--and we
meant it--to see them--the kind old
mother, the pioneer-like old man, sturdy
little Buck, shy little Cindy, the elusive,
hard-working, unconsciously shivery Mart,
and the two big sisters. As we started
back up the river the sisters started for the
fields, and I thought of their stricken
brother in the settlements, who must have
been much like Mart.
Back up the Big Black Mountain we
toiled, and late in the afternoon we were
on the State line that runs the crest of the
Big Black. Right on top and bisected by
that State line sat a dingy little shack, and
there, with one leg thrown over the pommel
of his saddle, sat Marston, drinking
water from a gourd.
``I was coming over to meet you,'' he
said, smiling at the Blight, who, greatly
pleased, smiled back at him. The shack
was a ``blind Tiger'' where whiskey could
be sold to Kentuckians on the Virginia side
and to Virginians on the Kentucky side.
Hanging around were the slouching figures
of several moonshiners and the villainous
fellow who ran it.
``They are real ones all right,'' said
Marston. ``One of them killed a revenue
officer at that front door last week, and
was killed by the posse as he was trying
to escape out of the back window. That
house will be in ashes soon,'' he added.
And it was.
As we rode down the mountain we told
him about our trip and the people with
whom we had spent the night--and all the
time he was smiling curiously.
``Buck,'' he said. ``Oh, yes, I know
that little chap. Mart had him posted
down there on the river to toll you to his
house--to toll YOU,'' he added to the
Blight. He pulled in his horse suddenly,
turned and looked up toward the top of
the mountain.
``Ah, I thought so.'' We all looked
back. On the edge of the cliff, far upward,
on which the ``blind Tiger'' sat was
a gray horse, and on it was a man who,
motionless, was looking down at us.
``He's been following you all the way,''
said the engineer.
``Who's been following us?'' I asked.
``That's Mart up there--my friend and
yours,'' said Marston to the Blight. ``I'm
rather glad I didn't meet you on the other
side of the mountain--that's `the Wild
Dog.' '' The Blight looked incredulous, but
Marston knew the man and knew the horse.
So Mart--hard-working Mart--was
the Wild Dog, and he was content to do
the Blight all service without thanks,
merely for the privilege of secretly seeing
her face now and then; and yet he would
not look upon that face when she was a
guest under his roof and asleep.
Still, when we dropped behind the two
girls I gave Marston the Hon. Sam's
warning, and for a moment he looked
rather grave.
``Well,'' he said, smiling, ``if I'm
found in the road some day, you'll know
who did it.''
I shook my head. ``Oh, no; he isn't
that bad.''
``I don't know,'' said Marston.
The smoke of the young engineer's coke
ovens lay far below us and the Blight had
never seen a coke-plant before. It looked
like Hades even in the early dusk--the
snake-like coil of fiery ovens stretching up
the long, deep ravine, and the smoke-
streaked clouds of fire, trailing like a
yellow mist over them, with a fierce white
blast shooting up here and there when the
lid of an oven was raised, as though to add
fresh temperature to some particular male-
factor in some particular chamber of torment.
Humanity about was joyous, however.
Laughter and banter and song came
from the cabins that lined the big ravine
and the little ravines opening into it. A
banjo tinkled at the entrance of ``Possum
Trot,'' sacred to the darkies. We moved
toward it. On the stoop sat an ecstatic
picker and in the dust shuffled three
pickaninnies--one boy and two girls--the
youngest not five years old. The crowd
that was gathered about them gave way
respectfully as we drew near; the little
darkies showed their white teeth in jolly
grins, and their feet shook the dust in
happy competition. I showered a few
coins for the Blight and on we went--into
the mouth of the many-peaked Gap. The
night train was coming in and everybody
had a smile of welcome for the Blight--
post-office assistant, drug clerk, soda-water
boy, telegraph operator, hostler, who came
for the mules--and when tired, but happy,
she slipped from her saddle to the ground,
she then and there gave me what she
usually reserves for Christmas morning,
and that, too, while Marston was looking
on. Over her shoulder I smiled at him.
That night Marston and the Blight sat
under the vines on the porch until the late
moon rose over Wallens Ridge, and, when
bedtime came, the Blight said impatiently
that she did not want to go home. She
had to go, however, next day, but on the
next Fourth of July she would surely come
again; and, as the young engineer mounted
his horse and set his face toward Black
Mountain, I knew that until that day, for
him, a blight would still be in the hills.
V
BACK TO THE HILLS
Winter drew a gray veil over the
mountains, wove into it tiny
jewels of frost and turned it many times
into a mask of snow, before spring broke
again among them and in Marston's
impatient heart. No spring had ever been
like that to him. The coming of young
leaves and flowers and bird-song meant but
one joy for the hills to him--the Blight
was coming back to them. All those weary
waiting months he had clung grimly to his
work. He must have heard from her
sometimes, else I think he would have gone
to her; but I knew the Blight's pen was
reluctant and casual for anybody, and,
moreover, she was having a strenuous winter at
home. That he knew as well, for he took
one paper, at least, that he might simply
read her name. He saw accounts of her
many social doings as well, and ate his
heart out as lovers have done for all time
gone and will do for all time to come.
I, too, was away all winter, but I got
back a month before the Blight, to learn
much of interest that had come about.
The Hon. Samuel Budd had ear-wagged
himself into the legislature, had moved
that Court-House, and was going to be
State Senator. The Wild Dog had confined
his reckless career to his own hills
through the winter, but when spring came,
migratory-like, he began to take frequent
wing to the Gap. So far, he and Marston
had never come into personal conflict,
though Marston kept ever ready for him,
and several times they had met in the road,
eyed each other in passing and made no
hipward gesture at all. But then Marston
had never met him when the Wild Dog was
drunk--and when sober, I took it that the
one act of kindness from the engineer
always stayed his hand. But the Police
Guard at the Gap saw him quite often--
and to it he was a fearful and elusive
nuisance. He seemed to be staying
somewhere within a radius of ten miles, for
every night or two he would circle about
the town, yelling and firing his pistol, and
when we chased him, escaping through the
Gap or up the valley or down in Lee.
Many plans were laid to catch him, but all
failed, and finally he came in one day and
gave himself up and paid his fines. Afterward
I recalled that the time of this
gracious surrender to law and order was
but little subsequent to one morning when
a woman who brought butter and eggs to
my little sister casually asked when that
``purty slim little gal with the snappin'
black eyes was a-comin' back.'' And the
little sister, pleased with the remembrance,
had said cordially that she was coming
soon.
Thereafter the Wild Dog was in town
every day, and he behaved well until one
Saturday he got drunk again, and this
time, by a peculiar chance, it was Marston
again who leaped on him, wrenched his
pistol away, and put him in the calaboose.
Again he paid his fine, promptly visited a
``blind Tiger,'' came back to town, emptied
another pistol at Marston on sight and fled
for the hills.
The enraged guard chased him for two
days and from that day the Wild Dog was
a marked man. The Guard wanted many
men, but if they could have had their
choice they would have picked out of the
world of malefactors that same Wild Dog.
Why all this should have thrown the
Hon. Samuel Budd into such gloom I could
not understand--except that the Wild Dog
had been so loyal a henchman to him in
politics, but later I learned a better reason,
that threatened to cost the Hon. Sam much
more than the fines that, as I later learned,
he had been paying for his mountain
friend.
Meanwhile, the Blight was coming from
her Northern home through the green lowlands
of Jersey, the fat pastures of Maryland,
and, as the white dresses of schoolgirls
and the shining faces of darkies thickened
at the stations, she knew that she was
getting southward. All the way she was
known and welcomed, and next morning
she awoke with the keen air of the distant
mountains in her nostrils and an expectant
light in her happy eyes. At least the light
was there when she stepped daintily from
the dusty train and it leaped a little, I
fancied, when Marston, bronzed and flushed,
held out his sunburnt hand. Like a convent
girl she babbled questions to the little
sister as the dummy puffed along and she
bubbled like wine over the midsummer
glory of the hills. And well she might, for
the glory of the mountains, full-leafed,
shrouded in evening shadows, blue-veiled
in the distance, was unspeakable, and
through the Gap the sun was sending his
last rays as though he, too, meant to take a
peep at her before he started around the
world to welcome her next day. And she
must know everything at once. The
anniversary of the Great Day on which all men
were pronounced free and equal was only
ten days distant and preparations were
going on. There would be a big crowd of
mountaineers and there would be sports
of all kinds, and games, but the tournament
was to be the feature of the day.
``A tournament?'' ``Yes, a tournament,''
repeated the little sister, and Marston was
going to ride and the mean thing would
not tell what mediaeval name he meant to
take. And the Hon. Sam Budd--did the
Blight remember him? (Indeed, she did)
--had a ``dark horse,'' and he had bet
heavily that his dark horse would win
the tournament--whereat the little sister
looked at Marston and at the Blight and
smiled disdainfully. And the Wild Dog--
DID she remember him? I checked the
sister here with a glance, for Marston
looked uncomfortable and the Blight saw
me do it, and on the point of saying
something she checked herself, and her face, I
thought, paled a little.
That night I learned why--when she
came in from the porch after Marston was
gone. I saw she had wormed enough of
the story out of him to worry her, for her
face this time was distinctly pale. I would
tell her no more than she knew, however,
and then she said she was sure she had seen
the Wild Dog herself that afternoon,
sitting on his horse in the bushes near a
station in Wildcat Valley. She was sure
that he saw her, and his face had
frightened her. I knew her fright was for
Marston and not for herself, so I laughed
at her fears. She was mistaken--Wild
Dog was an outlaw now and he would not
dare appear at the Gap, and there was no
chance that he could harm her or Marston.
And yet I was uneasy.
It must have been a happy ten days for
those two young people. Every afternoon
Marston would come in from the mines
and they would go off horseback together,
over ground that I well knew--for I had
been all over it myself--up through the
gray-peaked rhododendron-bordered Gap
with the swirling water below them and the
gray rock high above where another such
foolish lover lost his life, climbing to get
a flower for his sweetheart, or down the
winding dirt road into Lee, or up through
the beech woods behind Imboden Hill, or
climbing the spur of Morris's Farm to
watch the sunset over the majestic Big
Black Mountains, where the Wild Dog
lived, and back through the fragrant, cool,
moonlit woods. He was doing his best,
Marston was, and he was having trouble
--as every man should. And that trouble
I knew even better than he, for I had once
known a Southern girl who was so tender
of heart that she could refuse no man who
really loved her she accepted him and
sent him to her father, who did all of her
refusing for her. And I knew no man
would know that he had won the Blight
until he had her at the altar and the priestly
hand of benediction was above her head.
Of such kind was the Blight. Every
night when they came in I could read the
story of the day, always in his face and
sometimes in hers; and it was a series of
ups and downs that must have wrung the
boy's heart bloodless. Still I was in good
hope for him, until the crisis came on the
night before the Fourth. The quarrel was
as plain as though typewritten on the face
of each. Marston would not come in that
night and the Blight went dinnerless to bed
and cried herself to sleep. She told the
little sister that she had seen the Wild Dog
again peering through the bushes, and that
she was frightened. That was her
explanation--but I guessed a better one.
VI
THE GREAT DAY
It was a day to make glad the heart of
slave or freeman. The earth was cool
from a night-long rain, and a gentle breeze
fanned coolness from the north all day
long. The clouds were snow-white, tumbling,
ever-moving, and between them the
sky showed blue and deep. Grass, leaf,
weed and flower were in the richness that
comes to the green things of the earth just
before that full tide of summer whose
foam is drifting thistle down. The air was
clear and the mountains seemed to have
brushed the haze from their faces and
drawn nearer that they, too, might better
see the doings of that day.
From the four winds of heaven, that
morning, came the brave and the free. Up
from Lee, down from Little Stone Gap,
and from over in Scott, came the valley-
farmers--horseback, in buggies, hacks,
two-horse wagons, with wives, mothers,
sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses,
flowered hats, and many ribbons, and
with dinner-baskets stuffed with good
things to eat--old ham, young chicken,
angel-cake and blackberry wine--to be
spread in the sunless shade of great
poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow
and Wildcat Valley and from up the
slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came
smaller tillers of the soil--as yet but
faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings
of the outer world; while from beyond
High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land,
and through the Gap, came the mountaineer
in the primitive simplicity of home
spun and cowhide, wide-brimmed hat and
poke-bonnet, quaint speech, and slouching
gait. Through the Gap he came in two
streams--the Virginians from Crab Orchard
and Wise and Dickinson, the Kentuckians
from Letcher and feudal Harlan,
beyond the Big Black--and not a man
carried a weapon in sight, for the stern
spirit of that Police Guard at the Gap
was respected wide and far. Into the
town, which sits on a plateau some twenty
feet above the level of the two rivers that
all but encircle it, they poured, hitching
their horses in the strip of woods that runs
through the heart of the place, and broad
ens into a primeval park that, fan-like,
opens on the oval level field where all
things happen on the Fourth of July.
About the street they loitered--lovers hand
in hand--eating fruit and candy and drinking
soda-water, or sat on the curb-stone,
mothers with babies at their breasts and
toddling children clinging close--all
waiting for the celebration to begin.
It was a great day for the Hon. Samuel
Budd. With a cheery smile and beaming
goggles, he moved among his constituents,
joking with yokels, saying nice things to
mothers, paying gallantries to girls, and
chucking babies under the chin. He felt
popular and he was--so popular that he
had begun to see himself with prophetic eye
in a congressional seat at no distant day;
and yet, withal, he was not wholly happy.
``Do you know,'' he said, ``them fellers
I made bets with in the tournament got together
this morning and decided, all of 'em,
that they wouldn't let me off? Jerusalem,
it's most five hundred dollars!'' And,
looking the picture of dismay, he told me
his dilemma.
It seems that his ``dark horse'' was
none other than the Wild Dog, who had
been practising at home for this tournament
for nearly a year; and now that the
Wild Dog was an outlaw, he, of course,
wouldn't and couldn't come to the Gap.
And said the Hon. Sam Budd:
``Them fellers says I bet I'd BRING IN a
dark horse who would win this tournament,
and if I don't BRING him in, I lose just the
same as though I had brought him in and
he hadn't won. An' I reckon they've got
me.''
``I guess they have.''
``It would have been like pickin' money
off a blackberry-bush, for I was goin' to let
the Wild Dog have that black horse o'
mine--the steadiest and fastest runner in
this country--and my, how that fellow can
pick off the rings! He's been a-practising
for a year, and I believe he could run the
point o' that spear of his through a lady's
finger-ring.''
``You'd better get somebody else.''
``Ah--that's it. The Wild Dog sent
word he'd send over another feller, named
Dave Branham, who has been practising
with him, who's just as good, he says, as he
is. I'm looking for him at twelve o'clock,
an' I'm goin' to take him down an' see
what he can do on that black horse o' mine.
But if he's no good, I lose five hundred,
all right,'' and he sloped away to his duties.
For it was the Hon. Sam who was master
of ceremonies that day. He was due now
to read the Declaration of Independence in
a poplar grove to all who would listen; he
was to act as umpire at the championship
base-ball game in the afternoon, and he
was to give the ``Charge'' to the assembled
knights before the tournament.
At ten o'clock the games began--and I
took the Blight and the little sister down
to the ``grandstand''--several tiers of
backless benches with leaves for a canopy
and the river singing through rhododendrons
behind. There was jumping broad
and high, and a 100-yard dash and hurdling
and throwing the hammer, which the
Blight said were not interesting--they
were too much like college sports--and she
wanted to see the base-ball game and the
tournament. And yet Marston was in
them all--dogged and resistless--his teeth
set and his eyes anywhere but lifted toward
the Blight, who secretly proud, as I believed,
but openly defiant, mentioned not
his name even when he lost, which was
twice only.
``Pretty good, isn't he?'' I said.
``Who?'' she said indifferently.
``Oh, nobody,'' I said, turning to smile,
but not turning quickly enough.
``What's the matter with you?'' asked
the Blight sharply.
``Nothing, nothing at all,'' I said, and
straightway the Blight thought she wanted
to go home. The thunder of the Declaration
was still rumbling in the poplar grove.
``That's the Hon. Sam Budd,'' I said.
``Don't you want to hear him?''
``I don't care who it is and I don't
want to hear him and I think you are
hateful.''
Ah, dear me, it was more serious than I
thought. There were tears in her eyes, and
I led the Blight and the little sister home--
conscience-stricken and humbled. Still I
would find that young jackanapes of an
engineer and let him know that anybody who
made the Blight unhappy must deal with
me. I would take him by the neck and
pound some sense into him. I found him
lofty, uncommunicative, perfectly alien to
any consciousness that I could have any
knowledge of what was going or any right
to poke my nose into anybody's business--
and I did nothing except go back to lunch
--to find the Blight upstairs and the little
sister indignant with me.
``You just let them alone,'' she said severely.
``Let who alone?'' I said, lapsing into
the speech of childhood.
``You--just--let--them--alone,'' she
repeated.
``I've already made up my mind to
that.''
``Well, then!'' she said, with an air of
satisfaction, but why I don't know.
I went back to the poplar grove. The
Declaration was over and the crowd was
gone, but there was the Hon. Samuel
Budd, mopping his brow with one hand,
slapping his thigh with the other, and all
but executing a pigeon-wing on the turf.
He turned goggles on me that literally
shone triumph.
``He's come--Dave Branham's come!''
he said. ``He's better than the Wild Dog.
I've been trying him on the black horse
and, Lord, how he can take them rings off!
Ha, won't I get into them fellows who
wouldn't let me off this morning! Oh, yes,
I agreed to bring in a dark horse, and I'll
bring him in all right. That five hundred
is in my clothes now. You see that point
yonder? Well, there's a hollow there and
bushes all around. That's where I'm going
to dress him. I've got his clothes all
right and a name for him. This thing
is a-goin' to come off accordin' to Hoyle,
Ivanhoe, Four-Quarters-of-Beef, and all
them mediaeval fellows. Just watch me!''
I began to get newly interested, for that
knight's name I suddenly recalled. Little
Buck, the Wild Dog's brother, had
mentioned him, when we were over in the
Kentucky hills, as practising with the Wild
Dog--as being ``mighty good, but nowhar
'longside o' Mart.'' So the Hon. Sam
might have a good substitute, after all, and
being a devoted disciple of Sir Walter, I
knew his knight would rival, in splendor,
at least, any that rode with King Arthur
in days of old.
The Blight was very quiet at lunch, as
was the little sister, and my effort to be
jocose was a lamentable failure. So I gave
news.
``The Hon. Sam has a substitute.'' No
curiosity and no question.
``Who--did you say? Why, Dave
Branham, a friend of the Wild Dog.
Don't you remember Buck telling us about
him?'' No answer. ``Well, I do--and,
by the way, I saw Buck and one of the big
sisters just a while ago. Her name is
Mollie. Dave Branham, you will recall, is
her sweetheart. The other big sister had
to stay at home with her mother and little
Cindy, who's sick. Of course, I didn't ask
them about Mart--the Wild Dog. They
knew I knew and they wouldn't have liked
it. The Wild Dog's around, I understand,
but he won't dare show his face. Every
policeman in town is on the lookout for
him.'' I thought the Blight's face showed
a signal of relief.
``I'm going to play short-stop,'' I added.
``Oh!'' said the Blight, with a smile,
but the little sister said with some scorn:
``You!''
``I'll show you,'' I said, and I told the
Blight about base-ball at the Gap. We
had introduced base-ball into the region
and the valley boys and mountain boys,
being swift runners, throwing like a rifle
shot from constant practice with stones,
and being hard as nails, caught the game
quickly and with great ease. We beat them
all the time at first, but now they were
beginning to beat us. We had a league
now, and this was the championship game
for the pennant.
``It was right funny the first time we
beat a native team. Of course, we got
together and cheered 'em. They thought we
were cheering ourselves, so they got red in
the face, rushed together and whooped it
up for themselves for about half an hour.''
The Blight almost laughed.
``We used to have to carry our guns
around with us at first when we went to
other places, and we came near having
several fights.''
``Oh!'' said the Blight excitedly. ``Do
you think there might be a fight this afternoon?''
``Don't know,'' I said, shaking my head.
``It's pretty hard for eighteen people to
fight when nine of them are policemen and
there are forty more around. Still the
crowd might take a hand.''
This, I saw, quite thrilled the Blight and
she was in good spirits when we started out.
``Marston doesn't pitch this afternoon,''
I said to the little sister. ``He plays first
base. He's saving himself for the
tournament. He's done too much already.''
The Blight merely turned her head while I
was speaking. ``And the Hon. Sam will
not act as umpire. He wants to save his
voice--and his head.''
The seats in the ``grandstand'' were in
the sun now, so I left the girls in a
deserted band-stand that stood on stilts under
trees on the southern side of the field, and
on a line midway between third base and
the position of short-stop. Now there is
no enthusiasm in any sport that equals the
excitement aroused by a rural base-ball
game and I never saw the enthusiasm of
that game outdone except by the excitement
of the tournament that followed that afternoon.
The game was close and Marston
and I assuredly were stars--Marston one
of the first magnitude. ``Goose-egg'' on
one side matched ``goose-egg'' on the
other until the end of the fifth inning, when
the engineer knocked a home-run. Spectators
threw their hats into the trees, yelled
themselves hoarse, and I saw several old
mountaineers who understood no more of
base-ball than of the lost _digamma_ in Greek
going wild with the general contagion.
During these innings I had ``assisted'' in
two doubles and had fired in three ``daisy
cutters'' to first myself in spite of the
guying I got from the opposing rooters.
``Four-eyes'' they called me on account of
my spectacles until a new nickname came
at the last half of the ninth inning,
when we were in the field with the score
four to three in our favor. It was then
that a small, fat boy with a paper megaphone
longer than he was waddled out
almost to first base and levelling his
trumpet at me, thundered out in a sudden
silence:
``Hello, Foxy Grandpa!'' That was
too much. I got rattled, and when there
were three men on bases and two out, a
swift grounder came to me, I fell--catching
it--and threw wildly to first from my
knees. I heard shouts of horror, anger,
and distress from everywhere and my own
heart stopped beating--I had lost the
game--and then Marston leaped in the
air--surely it must have been four feet--
caught the ball with his left hand and
dropped back on the bag. The sound of
his foot on it and the runner's was almost
simultaneous, but the umpire said Marston's
was there first. Then bedlam! One
of my brothers was umpire and the captain
of the other team walked threateningly
out toward him, followed by two of
his men with base-ball bats. As I started
off myself towards them I saw, with the
corner of my eye, another brother of mine
start in a run from the left field, and I
wondered why a third, who was scoring,
sat perfectly still in his chair, particularly
as a well-known, red-headed tough from
one of the mines who had been officiously
antagonistic ran toward the pitcher's box
directly in front of him. Instantly a dozen
of the guard sprang toward it, some man
pulled his pistol, a billy cracked straightway
on his head, and in a few minutes
order was restored. And still the brother
scoring hadn't moved from his chair, and
I spoke to him hotly.
``Keep your shirt on,'' he said easily,
lifting his score-card with his left hand and
showing his right clinched about his pistol
under it.
``I was just waiting for that red-head to
make a move. I guess I'd have got him
first.''
I walked back to the Blight and the
little sister and both of them looked very
serious and frightened.
``I don't think I want to see a real fight,
after all,'' said the Blight. ``Not this
afternoon.''
It was a little singular and prophetic,
but just as the words left her lips one of
the Police Guard handed me a piece of
paper.
``Somebody in the crowd must have
dropped it in my pocket,'' he said. On the
paper were scrawled these words:
``_Look out for the Wild Dog!_''
I sent the paper to Marston.
VII
AT LAST--THE TOURNAMENT
At last--the tournament!
Ever afterward the Hon. Samuel
Budd called it ``The Gentle and
Joyous Passage of Arms--not of Ashby--
but of the Gap, by-suh!'' The Hon.
Samuel had arranged it as nearly after Sir
Walter as possible. And a sudden leap it
was from the most modern of games to a
game most ancient.
No knights of old ever jousted on a
lovelier field than the green little valley toward
which the Hon. Sam waved one big hand.
It was level, shorn of weeds, elliptical
in shape, and bound in by trees that ran
in a semicircle around the bank of the river,
shut in the southern border, and ran back
to the northern extremity in a primeval
little forest that wood-thrushes, even then,
were making musical--all of it shut in by
a wall of living green, save for one narrow
space through which the knights were to
enter. In front waved Wallens' leafy
ridge and behind rose the Cumberland
Range shouldering itself spur by spur, into
the coming sunset and crashing eastward
into the mighty bulk of Powell's Mountain,
which loomed southward from the
head of the valley--all nodding sunny
plumes of chestnut.
The Hon. Sam had seen us coming from
afar apparently, had come forward to meet
us, and he was in high spirits.
``I am Prince John and Waldemar and
all the rest of 'em this day,'' he said, ``and
`it is thus,' '' quoting Sir Walter, ``that
we set the dutiful example of loyalty to the
Queen of Love and Beauty, and are ourselves
her guide to the throne which she
must this day occupy.'' And so saying,
the Hon. Sam marshalled the Blight to a
seat of honor next his own.
``And how do you know she is going to
be the Queen of Love and Beauty?'' asked
the little sister. The Hon. Sam winked at
me.
``Well, this tournament lies between
two gallant knights. One will make her
the Queen of his own accord, if he wins,
and if the other wins, he's got to, or I'll
break his head. I've given orders.'' And
the Hon. Sam looked about right and left
on the people who were his that day.
``Observe the nobles and ladies,'' he
said, still following Sir Walter, and waving
at the towns-people and visitors in the
rude grandstand. ``Observe the yeomanry
and spectators of a better degree
than the mere vulgar''--waving at the
crowd on either side of the stand--``and
the promiscuous multitude down the river
banks and over the woods and clinging to
the tree-tops and to yon telegraph-pole.
And there is my herald''--pointing to the
cornetist of the local band--``and wait--
by my halidom--please just wait until you
see my knight on that black charger o'
mine.''
The Blight and the little sister were
convulsed and the Hon. Sam went on:
``Look at my men-at-arms''--the
volunteer policemen with bulging hip-pockets,
dangling billies and gleaming shields of
office--``and at my refreshment tents behind''
--where peanuts and pink lemonade
were keeping the multitude busy--``and
my attendants''--colored gentlemen with
sponges and water-buckets--``the armorers
and farriers haven't come yet. But my
knight--I got his clothes in New York--
just wait--Love of Ladies and Glory to
the Brave!'' Just then there was a
commotion on the free seats on one side of
the grandstand. A darky starting, in all
ignorance, to mount them was stopped and
jostled none too good-naturedly back to the
ground.
``And see,'' mused the Hon. Sam, ``in
lieu of the dog of an unbeliever we have a
dark analogy in that son of Ham.''
The little sister plucked me by the sleeve
and pointed toward the entrance. Outside
and leaning on the fence were Mollie, the
big sister, and little Buck. Straightway I
got up and started for them. They hung
back, but I persuaded them to come, and
I led them to seats two tiers below the
Blight--who, with my little sister, rose
smiling to greet them and shake hands--
much to the wonder of the nobles and
ladies close about, for Mollie was in brave
and dazzling array, blushing fiercely, and
little Buck looked as though he would die
of such conspicuousness. No embarrassing
questions were asked about Mart or
Dave Branham, but I noticed that Mollie
had purple and crimson ribbons clinched
in one brown hand. The purpose of
them was plain, and I whispered to the
Blight:
``She's going to pin them on Dave's
lance.'' The Hon. Sam heard me.
``Not on your life,'' he said
emphatically. ``I ain't takin' chances,'' and he
nodded toward the Blight. ``She's got to
win, no matter who loses.'' He rose to his
feet suddenly.
``Glory to the Brave--they're comin'!
Toot that horn, son,'' he said; ``they're
comin','' and the band burst into
discordant sounds that would have made the
``wild barbaric music'' on the field of
Ashby sound like a lullaby. The Blight
stifled her laughter over that amazing
music with her handkerchief, and even the
Hon. Sam scowled.
``Gee!'' he said; ``it is pretty bad, isn't
it?''
``Here they come!''
The nobles and ladies on the
grandstand, the yeomanry and spectators of
better degree, and the promiscuous multitude
began to sway expectantly and over the hill
came the knights, single file, gorgeous in
velvets and in caps, with waving plumes
and with polished spears, vertical, resting
on the right stirrup foot and gleaming in
the sun.
``A goodly array!'' murmured the
Hon. Sam.
A crowd of small boys gathered at the
fence below, and I observed the Hon.
Sam's pockets bulging with peanuts.
``Largesse!'' I suggested.
``Good!'' he said, and rising he
shouted:
``Largessy! largessy!'' scattering
peanuts by the handful among the scrambling
urchins.
Down wound the knights behind the
back stand of the base-ball field, and then,
single file, in front of the nobles and ladies,
before whom they drew up and faced,
saluting with inverted spears.
The Hon. Sam arose--his truncheon a
hickory stick--and in a stentorian voice
asked the names of the doughty knights
who were there to win glory for themselves
and the favor of fair women.
Not all will be mentioned, but among
them was the Knight of the Holston--
Athelstanic in build--in black stockings,
white negligee shirt, with Byronic collar,
and a broad crimson sash tied with a
bow at his right side. There was the
Knight of the Green Valley, in green
and gold, a green hat with a long white
plume, lace ruffles at his sleeves, and
buckles on dancing-pumps; a bonny fat
knight of Maxwelton Braes, in Highland
kilts and a plaid; and the Knight at
Large.
``He ought to be caged,'' murmured the
Hon. Sam; for the Knight at Large wore
plum-colored velvet, red base-ball stockings,
held in place with safety-pins, white
tennis shoes, and a very small hat with a
very long plume, and the dye was already
streaking his face. Marston was the last
--sitting easily on his iron gray.
``And your name, Sir Knight?''
``The Discarded,'' said Marston, with
steady eyes. I felt the Blight start at my
side and sidewise I saw that her face was
crimson.
The Hon. Sam sat down, muttering, for
he did not like Marston:
``Wenchless springal!''
Just then my attention was riveted on
Mollie and little Buck. Both had been
staring silently at the knights as though
they were apparitions, but when Marston
faced them I saw Buck clutch his sister's
arm suddenly and say something excitedly
in her ear. Then the mouths of both tightened
fiercely and their eyes seemed to be
darting lightning at the unconscious knight,
who suddenly saw them, recognized them,
and smiled past them at me. Again Buck
whispered, and from his lips I could make
out what he said:
``I wonder whar's Dave?'' but Mollie
did not answer.
``Which is yours, Mr. Budd?'' asked
the little sister. The Hon. Sam had
leaned back with his thumbs in the arm-
holes of his white waistcoat.
``He ain't come yet. I told him to come
last.''
The crowd waited and the knights
waited--so long that the Mayor rose in his
seat some twenty feet away and called out:
``Go ahead, Budd.''
``You jus' wait a minute--my man
ain't come yet,'' he said easily, but from
various places in the crowd came jeering
shouts from the men with whom he had
wagered and the Hon. Sam began to look
anxious.
``I wonder what is the matter?'' he
added in a lower tone. ``I dressed him
myself more than an hour ago and I told
him to come last, but I didn't mean for
him to wait till Christmas--ah!''
The Hon. Sam sank back in his seat
again. From somewhere had come suddenly
the blare of a solitary trumpet that
rang in echoes around the amphitheatre of
the hills and, a moment later, a dazzling
something shot into sight above the mound
that looked like a ball of fire, coming in
mid-air. The new knight wore a shining
helmet and the Hon. Sam chuckled at the
murmur that rose and then he sat up
suddenly. There was no face under
that helmet--the Hon. Sam's knight was
MASKED and the Hon. Sam slapped his
thigh with delight.
``Bully--bully! I never thought of it
--I never thought of it--bully!''
This was thrilling, indeed--but there
was more; the strange knight's body was
cased in a flexible suit of glistening mail,
his spear point, when he raised it on high,
shone like silver, and he came on like a
radiant star--on the Hon. Sam's charger,
white-bridled, with long mane and tail and
black from tip of nose to tip of that tail
as midnight. The Hon. Sam was certainly
doing it well. At a slow walk the stranger
drew alongside of Marston and turned his
spear point downward.
``Gawd!'' said an old darky. ``Ku-
klux done come again.'' And, indeed, it
looked like a Ku-klux mask, white,
dropping below the chin, and with eye-
holes through which gleamed two bright
fires.
The eyes of Buck and Mollie were
turned from Marston at last, and open-
mouthed they stared.
``Hit's the same hoss--hit's Dave!''
said Buck aloud.
``Well, my Lord!'' said Mollie simply.
The Hon. Sam rose again.
``And who is Sir Tardy Knight that
hither comes with masked face?'' he asked
courteously. He got no answer.
``What's your name, son?''
The white mask puffed at the wearer's
lips.
``The Knight of the Cumberland,'' was
the low, muffled reply.
``Make him take that thing off!''
shouted some one.
``What's he got it on fer?'' shouted
another.
``I don't know, friend,'' said the Hon.
Sam; ``but it is not my business nor prithee
thine; since by the laws of the tournament
a knight may ride masked for a specified
time or until a particular purpose is
achieved, that purpose being, I wot, victory
for himself and for me a handful of
byzants from thee.''
``Now, go ahead, Budd,'' called the
Mayor again. ``Are you going crazy?''
The Hon. Sam stretched out his arms
once to loosen them for gesture, thrust
his chest out, and uplifted his chin: ``Fair
ladies, nobles of the realm, and good
knights,'' he said sonorously, and he raised
one hand to his mouth and behind it spoke
aside to me:
``How's my voice--how's my voice?''
``Great!''
His question was genuine, for the mask
of humor had dropped and the man was
transformed. I knew his inner seriousness,
his oratorical command of good English,
and I knew the habit, not uncommon
among stump-speakers in the South, of
falling, through humor, carelessness, or for
the effect of flattering comradeship, into
all the lingual sins of rural speech; but I
was hardly prepared for the soaring flight
the Hon. Sam took now. He started with
one finger pointed heavenward:
``The knights are dust
And their good swords are rast;
Their souls are with the saints, we trust.
``Scepticism is but a harmless phantom
in these mighty hills. We BELIEVE that with
the saints is the GOOD knight's soul, and if,
in the radiant unknown, the eyes of those
who have gone before can pierce the little
shadow that lies between, we know that the
good knights of old look gladly down on
these good knights of to-day. For it is
good to be remembered. The tireless
struggle for name and fame since the sunrise
of history attests it; and the ancestry
worship in the East and the world-wide
hope of immortality show the fierce hunger
in the human soul that the memory of it
not only shall not perish from this earth,
but that, across the Great Divide, it shall
live on--neither forgetting nor forgotten.
You are here in memory of those good
knights to prove that the age of chivalry
is not gone; that though their good swords
are rust, the stainless soul of them still
illumines every harmless spear point before
me and makes it a torch that shall reveal,
in your own hearts still aflame, their
courage, their chivalry, their sense of
protection for the weak, and the honor in
which they held pure women, brave men,
and almighty God.
``The tournament, some say, goes back
to the walls of Troy. The form of it
passed with the windmills that Don
Quixote charged. It is with you to keep
the high spirit of it an ever-burning vestal
fire. It was a deadly play of old--it is a
harmless play to you this day. But the
prowess of the game is unchanged; for the
skill to strike those pendent rings is no less
than was the skill to strike armor-joint,
visor, or plumed crest. It was of old an
exercise for deadly combat on the field of
battle; it is no less an exercise now to you
for the field of life--for the quick eye, the
steady nerve, and the deft hand which shall
help you strike the mark at which, outside
these lists, you aim. And the crowning
triumph is still just what it was of old--
that to the victor the Rose of his world--
made by him the Queen of Love and
Beauty for us all--shall give her smile and
with her own hands place on his brow a
thornless crown.''
Perfect silence honored the Hon. Samuel
Budd. The Mayor was nodding vigorous
approval, the jeering ones kept still,
and when after the last deep-toned word
passed like music from his lips the silence
held sway for a little while before the
burst of applause came. Every knight had
straightened in his saddle and was looking
very grave. Marston's eyes never left the
speaker's face, except once, when they
turned with an unconscious appeal, I
thought, to the downcast face of Blight--
whereat the sympathetic little sister seemed
close to tears. The Knight of the
Cumberland shifted in his saddle as though he
did not quite understand what was going
on, and once Mollie, seeing the eyes
through the mask-holes fixed on her,
blushed furiously, and little Buck grinned
back a delighted recognition. The Hon.
Sam sat down, visibly affected by his own
eloquence; slowly he wiped his face and
then he rose again.
``Your colors, Sir Knights,'' he said,
with a commanding wave of his truncheon,
and one by one the knights spurred forward
and each held his lance into the
grandstand that some fair one might tie
thereon the colors he was to wear. Marston,
without looking at the Blight, held his
up to the little sister and the Blight
carelessly turned her face while the demure
sister was busy with her ribbons, but I noticed
that the little ear next to me was tingling
red for all her brave look of unconcern.
Only the Knight of the Cumberland sat
still.
``What!'' said the Hon. Sam, rising to
his feet, his eyes twinkling and his mask
of humor on again; ``sees this masked
springal''--the Hon. Sam seemed much
enamored of that ancient word--``no maid
so fair that he will not beg from her the
boon of colors gay that he may carry them
to victory and receive from her hands a
wreath therefor?'' Again the Knight of
the Cumberland seemed not to know that
the Hon. Sam's winged words were meant
for him, so the statesman translated them
into a mutual vernacular.
``Remember what I told you, son,'' he
said. ``Hold up yo' spear here to some
one of these gals jes' like the other fellows
are doin','' and as he sat down he tried
surreptitiously to indicate the Blight with
his index finger, but the knight failed to see
and the Blight's face was so indignant
and she rebuked him with such a knife-like
whisper that, humbled, the Hon. Sam collapsed
in his seat, muttering:
``The fool don't know you--he don't
know you.''
For the Knight of the Cumberland had
turned the black horse's head and was riding,
like Ivanhoe, in front of the nobles
and ladies, his eyes burning up at them
through the holes in his white mask.
Again he turned, his mask still uplifted, and
the behavior of the beauties there, as on
the field of Ashby, was no whit changed:
``Some blushed, some assumed an air of
pride and dignity, some looked straight
forward and essayed to seem utterly
unconscious of what was going on, some drew
back in alarm which was perhaps affected,
some endeavored to forbear smiling and
there were two or three who laughed
outright.'' Only none ``dropped a veil over
her charms'' and thus none incurred the
suspicion, as on that field of Ashby, that
she was ``a beauty of ten years' standing''
whose motive, gallant Sir Walter supposes
in defence, however, was doubtless ``a
surfeit of such vanities and a willingness
to give a fair chance to the rising beauties
of the age.'' But the most conscious of the
fair was Mollie below, whose face was
flushed and whose brown fingers were
nervously twisting the ribbons in her lap,
and I saw Buck nudge her and heard him
whisper:
``Dave ain't going to pick YOU out, I
tell ye. I heered Mr. Budd thar myself
tell him he HAD to pick out some other
gal.''
``You hush!'' said Mollie indignantly.
It looked as though the Knight of the
Cumberland had grown rebellious and
meant to choose whom he pleased, but on
his way back the Hon. Sam must have
given more surreptitious signs, for the
Knight of the Cumberland reined in before
the Blight and held up his lance to her.
Straightway the colors that were meant for
Marston fluttered from the Knight of the
Cumberland's spear. I saw Marston bite
his lips and I saw Mollie's face aflame with
fury and her eyes darting lightning--no
longer at Marston now, but at the Blight.
The mountain girl held nothing against the
city girl because of the Wild Dog's infatuation,
but that her own lover, no matter
what the Hon. Sam said, should give his
homage also to the Blight, in her own
presence, was too much. Mollie looked
around no more. Again the Hon. Sam
rose.
``Love of ladies,'' he shouted,
``splintering of lances! Stand forth, gallant
knights. Fair eyes look upon your deeds!
Toot again, son!''
Now just opposite the grandstand was a
post some ten feet high, with a small beam
projecting from the top toward the spectators.
From the end of this hung a wire,
the end of which was slightly upturned in
line with the course, and on the tip of this
wire a steel ring about an inch in diameter
hung lightly. Nearly forty yards below
this was a similar ring similarly arranged;
and at a similar distance below that was
still another, and at the blast from the
Hon. Sam's herald, the gallant knights
rode slowly, two by two, down the lists to
the western extremity--the Discarded
Knight and the Knight of the Cumberland,
stirrup to stirrup, riding last--where they
all drew up in line, some fifty yards beyond
the westernmost post. This distance
they took that full speed might be attained
before jousting at the first ring, since the
course--much over one hundred yards long
--must be covered in seven seconds or less,
which was no slow rate of speed. The
Hon. Sam arose again:
``The Knight of the Holston!''
Farther down the lists a herald took up
the same cry and the good knight of
Athelstanic build backed his steed from the line
and took his place at the head of the
course.
With his hickory truncheon the Hon.
Sam signed to his trumpeter to sound the
onset.
``Now, son!'' he said.
With the blare of the trumpet Athelstane
sprang from his place and came up
the course, his lance at rest; a tinkling
sound and the first ring slipped down the
knight's spear and when he swept past the
last post there was a clapping of hands, for
he held three rings triumphantly aloft.
And thus they came, one by one, until each
had run the course three times, the Discarded
jousting next to the last and the
Knight of the Cumberland, riding with a
reckless Cave, Adsum air, the very last. At
the second joust it was quite evident that
the victory lay between these two, as they
only had not lost a single ring, and when
the black horse thundered by, the Hon. Sam
shouted ``Brave lance!'' and jollied his
betting enemies, while Buck hugged himself
triumphantly and Mollie seemed temporarily
to lose her chagrin and anger in
pride of her lover, Dave. On the third
running the Knight of the Cumberland
excited a sensation by sitting upright,
waving his lance up and down between the
posts and lowering it only when the ring
was within a few feet of its point. His
recklessness cost him one ring, but as the
Discarded had lost one, they were still
tied, with eight rings to the credit of each,
for the first prize. Only four others were
left--the Knight of the Holston and the
Knight of the Green Valley tying with
seven rings for second prize, and the fat
Maxwelton Braes and the Knight at Large
tying with six rings for the third. The
crowd was eager now and the Hon. Sam
confident. On came the Knight at Large,
his face a rainbow, his plume wilted and
one red base-ball stocking slipped from its
moorings--two rings! On followed the fat
Maxwelton, his plaid streaming and his kilts
flapping about his fat legs--also two rings!
``Egad!'' quoth the Hon. Sam. ``Did
yon lusty trencherman of Annie Laurie's
but put a few more layers of goodly flesh
about his ribs, thereby projecting more his
frontal Falstaffian proportions, by my halidom,
he would have to joust tandem!''
On came Athelstane and the Knight of
the Green Valley, both with but two rings
to their credit, and on followed the
Discarded, riding easily, and the Knight of the
Cumberland again waving his lance between
the posts, each with three rings on
his spear. At the end the Knight at Large
stood third, Athelstane second, and the
Discarded and the Knight of the Cumberland
stood side by side at the head of the
course, still even, and now ready to end the
joust, for neither on the second trial had
missed a ring.
The excitement was intense now. Many
people seemed to know who the Knight of
the Cumberland was, for there were shouts
of ``Go it, Dave!'' from everywhere; the
rivalry of class had entered the contest and
now it was a conflict between native and
``furriner.'' The Hon. Sam was almost
beside himself with excitement; now and
then some man with whom he had made
a bet would shout jeeringly at him and the
Hon. Sam would shout back defiance. But
when the trumpet sounded he sat leaning
forward with his brow wrinkled and his
big hands clinched tight. Marston sped
up the course first--three rings--and there
was a chorus of applauding yells.
``His horse is gittin' tired,'' said the
Hon. Sam jubilantly, and the Blight's face,
I noticed, showed for the first time faint
traces of indignation. The Knight of the
Cumberland was taking no theatrical
chances now and he came through the
course with level spear and, with three
rings on it, he shot by like a thunderbolt.
``Hooray!'' shouted the Hon. Sam.
``Lord, what a horse!'' For the first time
the Blight, I observed, failed to applaud,
while Mollie was clapping her hands and
Buck was giving out shrill yells of
encouragement. At the next tilt the Hon.
Sam had his watch in his hand and when
he saw the Discarded digging in his spurs
he began to smile and he was looking at
his watch when the little tinkle in front told
him that the course was run.
``Did he get 'em all?''
``Yes, he got 'em all,'' mimicked the
Blight.
``Yes, an' he just did make it,'' chuckled
the Hon. Sam. The Discarded had
wheeled his horse aside from the course to
watch his antagonist. He looked pale and
tired--almost as tired as his foam-covered
steed--but his teeth were set and his face
was unmoved as the Knight of the
Cumberland came on like a demon, sweeping
off the last ring with a low, rasping oath
of satisfaction.
``I never seed Dave ride that-a-way
afore,'' said Mollie.
``Me, neither,'' chimed in Buck.
The nobles and ladies were waving
handkerchiefs, clapping hands, and shouting.
The spectators of better degree were
throwing up their hats and from every part
of the multitude the same hoarse shout of
encouragement rose:
``Go it, Dave! Hooray for Dave!''
while the boy on the telegraph-pole was
seen to clutch wildly at the crossbar on
which he sat--he had come near tumbling
from his perch.
The two knights rode slowly back to the
head of the lists, where the Discarded
was seen to dismount and tighten his
girth.
``He's tryin' to git time to rest,'' said
the Hon. Sam. ``Toot, son!''
``Shame!'' said the little sister and the
Blight both at once so severely that the
Hon. Sam quickly raised his hand.
``Hold on,'' he said, and with hand still
uplifted he waited till Marston was
mounted again. ``Now!''
The Discarded came on, using his spurs
with every jump, the red of his horse's
nostrils showing that far away, and he swept
on, spearing off the rings with deadly
accuracy and holding the three aloft, but
having no need to pull in his panting steed,
who stopped of his own accord. Up went
a roar, but the Hon. Sam, covertly glancing
at his watch, still smiled. That watch he
pulled out when the Knight of the Cumberland
started and he smiled still when
he heard the black horse's swift, rhythmic
beat and he looked up only when that
knight, shouting to his horse, moved his
lance up and down before coming to the
last ring and, with a dare-devil yell, swept
it from the wire.
``Tied--tied!'' was the shout; ``they've
got to try it again! they've got to try it
again!''
The Hon. Sam rose, with his watch in
one hand and stilling the tumult with the
other. Dead silence came at once.
``I fear me,'' he said, ``that the good
knight, the Discarded, has failed to make
the course in the time required by the laws
of the tournament.'' Bedlam broke loose
again and the Hon. Sam waited, still
gesturing for silence.
``Summon the time-keeper!'' he said.
The time-keeper appeared from the
middle of the field and nodded.
``Eight seconds!''
``The Knight of the Cumberland wins,''
said the Hon. Sam.
The little sister, unconscious of her own
sad face, nudged me to look at the Blight
--there were tears in her eyes.
Before the grandstand the knights
slowly drew up again. Marston's horse
was so lame and tired that he dismounted
and let a darky boy lead him under the
shade of the trees. But he stood on foot
among the other knights, his arms folded,
worn out and vanquished, but taking his
bitter medicine like a man. I thought
the Blight's eyes looked pityingly upon
him.
The Hon. Sam arose with a crown of
laurel leaves in his hand:
``You have fairly and gallantly won,
Sir Knight of the Cumberland, and it is
now your right to claim and receive from
the hands of the Queen of Love and
Beauty the chaplet of honor which your
skill has justly deserved. Advance, Sir
Knight of the Cumberland, and dismount!''
The Knight of the Cumberland made no
move nor sound.
``Get off yo' hoss, son,'' said the Hon.
Sam kindly, ``and get down on yo' knees
at the feet of them steps. This fair young
Queen is a-goin' to put this chaplet on your
shinin' brow. That horse'll stand.''
The Knight of the Cumberland, after a
moment's hesitation, threw his leg over the
saddle and came to the steps with a slouching
gait and looking about him right and
left. The Blight, blushing prettily, took
the chaplet and went down the steps to
meet him.
``Unmask!'' I shouted.
``Yes, son,'' said the Hon. Sam, ``take
that rag off.''
Then Mollie's voice, clear and loud,
startled the crowd. ``You better not,
Dave Branham, fer if you do and this
other gal puts that thing on you, you'll
never--'' What penalty she was going to
inflict, I don't know, for the Knight of the
Cumberland, half kneeling, sprang suddenly
to his feet and interrupted her.
``Wait a minute, will ye?'' he said almost
fiercely, and at the sound of his voice
Mollie rose to her feet and her face
blanched.
``Lord God!'' she said almost in
anguish, and then she dropped quickly to her
seat again.
The Knight of the Cumberland had
gone back to his horse as though to get
something from his saddle. Like lightning
he vaulted into the saddle, and as the black
horse sprang toward the opening tore his
mask from his face, turned in his stirrups,
and brandished his spear with a yell of
defiance, while a dozen voices shouted:
``The Wild Dog!'' Then was there
an uproar.
``Goddle mighty!'' shouted the Hon.
Sam. ``I didn't do it, I swear I didn't
know it. He's tricked me--he's tricked
me! Don't shoot--you might hit that
hoss!''
There was no doubt about the Hon.
Sam's innocence. Instead of turning over
an outlaw to the police, he had brought
him into the inner shrine of law and order
and he knew what a political asset for his
enemies that insult would be. And there
was no doubt of the innocence of Mollie
and Buck as they stood, Mollie wringing
her hands and Buck with open mouth and
startled face. There was no doubt about
the innocence of anybody other than Dave
Branham and the dare-devil Knight of the
Cumberland.
Marston had clutched at the Wild Dog's
bridle and missed and the outlaw struck
savagely at him with his spear. Nobody
dared to shoot because of the scattering
crowd, but every knight and every mounted
policeman took out after the outlaw and
the beating of hoofs pounded over the
little mound and toward Poplar Hill.
Marston ran to his horse at the upper end,
threw his saddle on, and hesitated--there
were enough after the Wild Dog and his
horse was blown. He listened to the yells
and sounds of the chase encircling Poplar
Hill. The outlaw was making for Lee.
All at once the yells and hoof-beats seemed
to sound nearer and Marston listened,
astonished. The Wild Dog had wheeled
and was coming back; he was going to
make for the Gap, where sure safety lay.
Marston buckled his girth and as he sprang
on his horse, unconsciously taking his spear
with him, the Wild Dog dashed from the
trees at the far end of the field. As
Marston started the Wild Dog saw him, pulled
something that flashed from under his coat
of mail, thrust it back again, and brandishing
his spear, he came, full speed and
yelling, up the middle of the field. It was
a strange thing to happen in these modern
days, but Marston was an officer of the
law and was between the Wild Dog and
the Ford and liberty through the Gap, into
the hills. The Wild Dog was an outlaw.
It was Marston's duty to take him.
The law does not prescribe with what
weapon the lawless shall be subdued, and
Marston's spear was the only weapon he
had. Moreover, the Wild Dog's yell was
a challenge that set his blood afire and
the girl both loved was looking on. The
crowd gathered the meaning of the joust--
the knights were crashing toward each
other with spears at rest. There were a
few surprised oaths from men, a few low
cries from women, and then dead silence
in which the sound of hoofs on the hard
turf was like thunder. The Blight's face
was white and the little sister was gripping
my arm with both hands. A third horseman
shot into view out of the woods at
tight angles, to stop them, and it seemed
that the three horses must crash together
in a heap. With a moan the Blight buried
her face on my shoulder. She shivered
when the muffled thud of body against
body and the splintering of wood rent the
air; a chorus of shrieks arose about her,
and when she lifted her frightened face
Marston, the Discarded, was limp on the
ground, his horse was staggering to his
feet, and the Wild Dog was galloping past
her, his helmet gleaming, his eyes ablaze,
his teeth set, the handle of his broken
spear clinched in his right hand, and blood
streaming down the shoulder of the black
horse. She heard the shots that were sent
after him, she heard him plunge into the
river, and then she saw and heard no
more.
VIII
THE KNIGHT PASSES
A telegram summoned the Blight
a home next day. Marston was in
bed with a ragged wound in the shoulder,
and I took her to tell him good-by. I left
the room for a few minutes, and when I
came back their hands were unclasping, and
for a Discarded Knight the engineer surely
wore a happy though pallid face.
That afternoon the train on which we
left the Gap was brought to a sudden halt
in Wildcat Valley by a piece of red flannel
tied to the end of a stick that was
planted midway the track. Across the
track, farther on, lay a heavy piece of
timber, and it was plain that somebody
meant that, just at that place, the train
must stop. The Blight and I were seated
on the rear platform and the Blight was
taking a last look at her beloved hills.
When the train started again, there was
a cracking of twigs overhead and a
shower of rhododendron leaves and
flowers dropped from the air at the feet
of the Blight. And when we pulled away
from the high-walled cut we saw, motionless
on a little mound, a black horse,
and on him, motionless, the Knight of the
Cumberland, the helmet on his head (that
the Blight might know who he was, no
doubt), and both hands clasping the
broken handle of his spear, which rested
across the pommel of his saddle. Impulsively
the Blight waved her hand to him
and I could not help waving my hat; but
he sat like a statue and, like a statue, sat
on, simply looking after us as we were
hurried along, until horse, broken shaft,
and shoulders sank out of sight. And thus
passed the Knight of the Cumberland with
the last gleam that struck his helmet,
spear-like, from the slanting sun.
THE END