He did think of Molly. He saw her, all her life tramping back and forth from the spring to the house, solitary and lonely; he saw the cornfield in the bottom, where he had ploughed so many springs. He saw the faces of children and grandchildren, one by one. These things made him choke, but they had no effect upon his mind: that was made up. Life is good but it is not worth some things.
All these impressions ran through his mind, swiftly, independent of the element of time. As a matter of fact, there was not sufficient interval for connected thought. Ahead of him was an open place in the woods, a place strewn with flinty stones and arrowheads, with now and then a black and rounded boulder, rolled there by glaciers that had once moved over the face of the earth. This open spot, made barren by forces older than man himself, he had crossed in one last effort to make his trail difficult for the hound.
His eyes were fastened on it now. The sun, hot and brilliant since the pa.s.sing of the storms, blazed down upon it. On the other side the forest grew dense and high like a wall of green. And now out of this forest, into the ancient opening, came the hound.
Tom had never felt any grudge against the dog--he was only obeying a law of his nature, only running a trail. Fascinated, he watched the animal, oblivious for the moment of the significance of his presence. He had been running fast in the forest, but now on this flinty and difficult ground he slackened his pace and came on slowly, like a patient, methodical fellow who makes sure he"s right as he goes along. His nose, almost touching the ground, never left the trail.
In crossing the opening the old man"s foot had turned on a stone; he had staggered, and placed his hand against one of the black boulders for support. And now, when the hound came to this spot he stopped; he lifted his head and whiffed the rock the man had touched with his hand. Next, he reared up on the boulder and looked at its top. Then he came on, nose low once more, pendulous ears actually dragging on the ground, tail erect and now and then wagging stiffly as with joy.
While Tom still watched him he raised his muzzle; and there came from his throat a deep, musical, bell-like challenge that echoed loudly in the opening itself and more airily and sweetly between the ridge and the mountains beyond. In answer, from a mile behind, so Tom calculated, came a far more terrible sound--the wild, savage yells of two men, one wilder and more savage than the other.
The old man took a deep breath and his beard was thrust suddenly forward. But for the dog, those men would be helpless. But for the dog, he could turn now, and the woods would swallow him up. In a flash an inspiration was born, a conquering purpose such as must have entered the mind of prehistoric man. He waited, his eyes on the hound.
A dog is nearsighted at best, and Sheriff was old. When he was a short two hundred feet from the tree there came to his nose the smell, not of a trail itself, but of the man who made the trail. He stopped and lifted his head. A moment he stared. Then he raised his grizzled muzzle to the sky and poured out to high heaven the announcement that here in the woods at the end of the trail, standing beside a tree, was a man!
Then he started back, amazed, for this man, instead of climbing the tree, as all men did when he bayed them, was coming straight toward him.
His hand was outstretched, his eyes were blazing, and there was a smile on his face. "Old Whiskers!" he was saying. "Hush, now, hush! Hush!" The man had stooped down, his hand still extended. "Come here!" he commanded.
The great hound began to tremble. Those terrible eyes were looking deep into his. They were commanding him, they were pleading, too. He had seen them before, back there in the camp, and he had not forgotten.
He heard behind him another yell. He tried to look back, but the eyes held him. "No!" the man cried sternly--then, "Old boy--old Whiskers!" He began to pant; the bay he would have uttered died in his throat. Another yell and another, still he did not reply. His tail was tucked now. He was looking at the man wonderingly, beseechingly. His universe was changing, was centring in that man before him, that man who understood.
Again the yells, and now, beyond the opening behind, the faint crash of running footsteps. His hair rose on his back with rage. His world had turned about. Those were his enemies coming. All the loyalty of his dog"s soul had gone out to this man who understood, all his hatred to those who never had. He started to turn about. He would meet them in the opening. He would rush at them.
"No!" cried the man who understood.
When he looked at Tom once more the miracle of ages past had been repeated; the man saw in the eyes of the dog, trust, humility, undying devotion. His voice trembled for the first time.
"Old Whiskers," he said gently. "Old Gray Whiskers! Quick now!"
The pursuing guards never knew why the woods ahead of them grew suddenly silent, why the tree-bay of the bloodhound that had sounded once clear and unmistakable sounded no more, though as they ran they filled the morning with their yells. They did not see the great hound go trembling to the man. They did not see the old man for just a second catch the ma.s.sive head between his hands.
They did not see the two turn and disappear, swiftly, silently, into the undergrowth that grew densely behind the open s.p.a.ce and the giant sycamore tree.
When, all out of breath, they reached the spot from whence had proceeded the solitary tree-bay, they looked about at vacant woods. Frantically they searched the undergrowth, shotguns ready, calling to each other in their excitement. Man and dog had vanished as if they had never been.
But Simmons did not believe in miracles. "The old devil killed the dog!"
he cried. "He had a knife about him. But where"s the blood and where"s the body?"
They hurried here and there as they glimpsed red spots, only to find a leaf killed by the sun and fallen before season, or a bush reddened by berries.
"We miscalculated the spot," swore Simmons. "It wasn"t here it happened."
And he sat down out of breath and leaned his burly back against the trunk of a giant sycamore tree.
The sun was dropping over the mountains when the two guards, empty-handed, got back to camp. The valleys lay in shadow, but far up in the enormous folds of the Tennessee mountains its last crimson rays shone on a bearded old man trudging along a narrow road toward the west.
He looked weary and footsore and his clothes were torn by briers. But his face was alight, as if with antic.i.p.ation of to-morrow. Now and then he spoke. And behind him a great, strange-looking, long-eared hound lifted his head, as if drinking in the sound of his voice.
X
THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BLACKBERRY PATCH
Something strange was going on down there in the woods behind the barn.
Little Tommy Earle was convinced of it as soon as he saw old Frank, Irish setter, come galloping across the cottonfields from that direction. For old Frank was excited, that was plain; and old Frank didn"t get excited for nothing.
Accordingly, Tommy dropped his wagon tongue, and watched the old boy round the barn, jump the lot fence, and run into the yard. His red silken ears were thrown back, his brown eyes were shining, and he was looking for somebody to tell his secret to.
"F"ank!" called the boy.
At the call the old fellow"s ears flattened and he threw up his head, then he came running straight to Tommy. There was an eager light in his eyes that said plain as words, "Come with me and I"ll show you something."
Tommy"s heart began to pound. From the kitchen window above his head came the flop-flop of a churn, accompanied by the wailing song of Aunt Cindy, the cook. Tommy glanced shrewdly up at this window from whence proceeded the melancholy refrain. He must not let Aunt Cindy see him leave the yard. That morning after breakfast his father and mother had driven off hurriedly in the car, following a telephone message from Greenville that said Aunt Janet, his mother"s sister, was sick in a hospital. His mother had told him she would be gone several days, and meanwhile he must do everything Aunt Cindy told him to do and nothing she did not tell him to do.
But Tommy had no doubt whatever what Aunt Cindy"s answer would be if he asked permission to leave the yard and follow Frank into the woods. She would put her foot down on it flat, and Aunt Cindy had a big foot.
Better leave right now, while the old woman was in the midst of her churning and her song.
"All right, F"ank," whispered Tommy.
They went by a circuitous route that placed first the garage, then the barn, between them and the kitchen window. Then they broke into a run across the cottonfield and entered the woods, Frank leading. They had not gone far when Tommy stopped--stopped suddenly. Ahead of him was an opening where the sun blazed down; and in the midst of this opening was a creature picking blackberries.
Its face, round and sunburned, was smeared with the red juice, as were its hands, with which it was reaching for more. It stopped eating when it discovered Tommy"s presence and looked steadily Tommy"s way. It was a boy about Tommy"s own size, a boy he had never seen before!
Under a white cloth hat Tommy"s eyes narrowed. What right did that boy have to come on his father"s place and pick blackberries? He didn"t have on any hat, either; his hair looked as if it had never been cut; his clothes were ragged. Ordinarily, Tommy rather admired these things, but now, taking in the whole appearance of the intruder, he glanced about quickly at some rocks that lay near-by, rocks the right size to throw.
But evidently the boy didn"t want to fight.
"Heh!" he said.
"Heh," said Tommy.
"What"s your name?"
"Tommy--what"s yours?"
"Joe."
A minute"s silence followed this exchange of essential information.
Tommy drew nearer Joe. Joe drew nearer Tommy.
"That your dog?"
"Yes--he"s my dog."