A Knight of the Cumberland, Page 2

  II. ON THE WILD DOG'S TRAIL

  So up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher's Creek and Little Looney, pastthe mines where high on a "tipple" stood the young engineer looking downat us, and looking after the Blight as we passed on into a dim rockyavenue walled on each side with rhododendrons. I waved at him and shookmy head--we would see him coming back. Beyond a deserted log-cabin weturned up a spur of the mountain. Around a clump of bushes we came ona gray-bearded mountaineer holding his horse by the bridle and from acovert high above two more men appeared with Winchesters. The Blightbreathed forth an awed whisper:

  "Are they moonshiners?"

  I nodded sagely, "Most likely," and the Blight was thrilled. They mighthave been squirrel-hunters most innocent, but the Blight had heard muchtalk of moonshine stills and mountain feuds and the men who run themand I took the risk of denying her nothing. Up and up we went, thosetwo mules swaying from side to side with a motion little short ofelephantine 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 tothe front. Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly. It was nothing--mylittle sister's mule had gone near a steep cliff--perilously near, asits rider thought, but I saw why I must not look back; those two littlegirls were riding astride on side-saddles, the booted little right footof each dangling stirrupless--a posture quite decorous but ludicrous.

  "Let us know if anybody comes," they cried. A mountaineer descended intosight 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 beecheshad strewn in the path, on the gold that the poplars still shook highabove and shimmering on the royal scarlet of the maple and the sombrerusset of the oak. From far below us to far above us a deep curvingravine was slashed into the mountain side as by one stroke of a giganticscimitar. The darkness deep down was lighted up with cool green,interfused with liquid gold. Russet and yellow splashed the mountainsides beyond and high up the maples were in a shaking blaze. TheBlight's swift eyes took all in and with indrawn breath she drank it alldeep down.

  An hour by sun we were near the top, which was bared of trees andturned into rich farm-land covered with blue-grass. Along these uplandpastures, dotted with grazing cattle, and across them we rode toward themountain wildernesses on the other side, down into which a zigzag pathwriggles along the steep front of Benham's spur. At the edge of thesteep was a cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer, who looked likea 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 weget down before dark? The mountaineer lifted his eyes to where the sunwas breaking the horizon of the west into streaks and splashes of yellowand crimson.

  "Oh, yes, you can git thar afore dark."

  Now I knew that the mountaineer's idea of distance is vague--but heknows how long it takes to get from one place to another. So we starteddown--dropping at once into thick dark woods, and as we went loopingdown, the deeper was the gloom. That sun had suddenly severed allconnection with the laws of gravity and sunk, and it was all the darkerbecause the stars were not out. The path was steep and coiled downwardlike a wounded snake. In one place a tree had fallen across it, and toreach the next coil of the path below was dangerous. So I had thegirls dismount and I led the gray horse down on his haunches. The mulesrefused to follow, which was rather unusual. I went back and from a safedistance in the rear I belabored them down. They cared neither for grayhorse nor crooked path, but turned of their own devilish wills along thebushy mountain side. As I ran after them the gray horse started calmlyon 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 bowldersand holes--crossing the path a dozen times. What that path was there fornever occurred to those long-eared half asses, whole fools, and by andby, when the girls tried to shoo them down they clambered around andabove them and struck the path back up the mountain. The horse hadgone down one way, the mules up the other, and there was no health inanything. The girls could not go up--so there was nothing to do but godown, which, hard as it was, was easier than going up. The path was notvisible now. Once in a while I would stumble from it and crash throughthe bushes to the next coil below. Finally I went down, sliding one footahead all the time--knowing that when leaves rustled under that foot Iwas on the point of going astray. Sometimes I had to light a match tomake sure of the way, and thus the ridiculous descent was made withthose girls in high spirits behind. Indeed, the darker, rockier, steeperit got, the more they shrieked from pure joy--but I was anything thanhappy. It was dangerous. I didn't know the cliffs and high rocks wemight skirt and an unlucky guidance might land us in the creek-bed fardown. But the blessed stars came out, the moon peered over a farthermountain and on the last spur there was the gray horse browsing in thepath--and the sound of running water not far below. Fortunately on thegray horse were the saddle-bags of the chattering infants who thoughtthe whole thing a mighty lark. We reached the running water, struck aflock of geese and knew, in consequence, that humanity was somewherenear. A few turns of the creek and a beacon light shone below. The palesof a picket fence, the cheering outlines of a log-cabin came in view andat a peaked gate I shouted:

  "Hello!"

  You enter no mountaineer's yard without that announcing cry. It wasmediaeval, the Blight said, positively--two lorn damsels, a benightedknight partially stripped of his armor by bush and sharp-edged rock,a gray palfrey (she didn't mention the impatient asses that had turnedhomeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. I wanted a "horn" badlyenough--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 broadband of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the ownerwould see "Pap." "Pap" seemed willing, and the boy opened the gateand into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, Ifollowed.

  There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above,puncheon floor beneath--cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the onlyfurniture-"pap," barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner witha pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging aroundand above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or threechildren with yellow hair and bare feet all looking with all their eyesat the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. TheBlight's eyes were brighter than usual--that was the only sign she gavethat she was not in her own drawing-room. Apparently she saw nothingstrange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did notsee 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. Theold man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees,the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight andthe little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of theextremes 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 chairsinto the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairswere so low that their chins came barely over their plates, and demureand serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was theusual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girlsstruggled with the rude fare nobly.

  After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with apipe--exchanging my tobacco for their long green with more satisfactionprobably to me than to them, for the long green was good, and strong andfragrant.

  The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions andthey, in turn, showed great interest
in the baby in arms, whereat theeighteen-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 purtyteeth."

  The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and the old woman turned backto her.

  "Oh, you've got both," she said and she shook her head, as though shewere thinking of the damage they had done. It was my time now--to askquestions.

  They didn't have many amusements on that creek, I discovered--andno dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there werecorn-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 thecreek--he follers pickin' the banjo a leetle." "Follows pickin' "--theBlight 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 nearlydissolved 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' upthings. 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 openedwide--apparently we were on his trail. It is not wise for a member ofthe police guard at the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawlessones of the hills, and I asked no questions.

  "They calls him the Wild Dog over here," he added, and then he yawnedcavernously.

  I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon tocome, which sometimes are embarrassing to "furriners" who are unable tograsp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the mountaineers and, inconsequence, accept a point of view natural to them because enforced byarchitectural limitations and a hospitality that turns no one seekingshelter from any door. They were, however, better prepared than I hadhoped 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 theirsaddle-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 smotherin 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 atall in such a possibility--but when the door closed, I could hear thosegirls stifling shrieks of laughter.

  Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed tomyself (the following night I was not so fortunate)--in one corner;behind the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and thebaby had another in the other corner, and the old man with the two boysspread a pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesywith the mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take tothe floor himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in along experience, have I seen the slightest consciousness--much lessimmodesty--in a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on thepart of the visitors is taken for granted--any other indeed holds mortalpossibilities of offence--so that if the visitor has common sense, allembarrassment passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed onuncovered, the smothered talk and laughter of the two girls ceased, thecoon-hunter came not and the night passed in peace.

  It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old manleaving the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of horses' feetoutside. When he came back he was grinning.

  "Hit's your mules."

  "Who found them?"

  "The Wild Dog had 'em," he said.