The horses sprang back snorting and frightened; the officer"s, being a fine animal in prime condition, tried to bolt. Before he had him well in hand again, the man on the opposite brink had vanished. The sheriff"s suspicions were barely astir when a hallooing voice in the rear made itself heard, and a horseman, breathless with haste, his steed flecked with foam, rode up, indignant, flushed, and eager.
"Whyn"t ye wait for me, Sher"ff? Ye air all on the wrong track," he cried. "Royston McGurny be hid in the skellington"s tree. I glimpsed him thar myself, an" gin information."
The sheriff gazed down with averse and suspicious eyes. "What"s all this?" he said sternly. "Give an account of yourself."
"Me?" exclaimed the man in amazement. "Why, I"m Barton Smith, yer guide, that"s who. An" I"m good for five hundred dollars" reward."
But the sheriff called off the pursuit for the time, as he had no means of replacing the bridge or of crossing the chasm.
Meddlesome"s share in the escape was not detected, and for a while she had no incentive to the foolhardiness of boasting. But her prudence diminished when the reward for the apprehension of Royston McGurny was suddenly withdrawn. The confession of one of the distillers, dying of tuberculosis contracted in prison, who had himself fired the fatal shot, had established the alibi that McGurny claimed, and served to relieve him of all suspicion.
He eventually became a "herder" of cattle on the bald of the mountain and a farmer in a small way, and in these placid pursuits he found a contented existence. But, occasionally, a crony of his olden time would contrast the profits of this tame industry at a disadvantage with the quick and large returns of the "wild cat," when he would "confess and avoid."
"That"s true, that"s all true; but a man can"t holp it no ways in the world whenst he hev got a wife that is so out-an"-out meddlesome that she won"t let him run ag"in" the law, nohow he kin fix it."
HIS UNQUIET GHOST
The moon was high in the sky. The wind was laid. So silent was the vast stretch of mountain wilderness, aglint with the dew, that the tinkle of a rill far below in the black abyss seemed less a sound than an evidence of the pervasive quietude, since so slight a thing, so distant, could compa.s.s so keen a vibration. For an hour or more the three men who lurked in the shadow of a crag in the narrow mountain-pa.s.s, heard nothing else. When at last they caught the dull reverberation of a slow wheel and the occasional metallic clank of a tire against a stone, the vehicle was fully three miles distant by the winding road in the valley. Time lagged. Only by imperceptible degrees the sound of deliberate approach grew louder on the air as the interval of s.p.a.ce lessened. At length, above their ambush at the summit of the mountain"s brow the heads of horses came into view, distinct in the moonlight between the fibrous pines and the vast expanse of the sky above the valley. Even then there was renewed delay. The driver of the wagon paused to rest the team.
The three lurking men did not move; they scarcely ventured to breathe. Only when there was no retrograde possible, no chance of escape, when the vehicle was fairly on the steep declivity of the road, the precipice sheer on one side, the wall of the ridge rising perpendicularly on the other, did two of them, both revenue-raiders disguised as mountaineers, step forth from the shadow. The other, the informer, a genuine mountaineer, still skulked motionless in the darkness. The "revenuers," ascending the road, maintained a slow, lunging gait, as if they had toiled from far.
Their abrupt appearance had the effect of a galvanic shock to the man handling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet.
"G"evenin"," ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky voice affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a mimic, and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, this gift greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. "Ye"re haulin" late," he added, for the hour was close to midnight.
"Yes, stranger; haulin" late, from Eskaqua-a needcessity."
"What"s yer cargo?" asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive.
A sepulchral cadence was in the driver"s voice, and the disguised raiders noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved, throughout, a solemn silence. "What we-uns mus" all be one day, stranger-a corpus."
Browdie was stultified for a moment. Then, sustaining his a.s.sumed character, he said: "I hope it be n.o.body I know. I be fairly well acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be dead?"
There was palpably a moment"s hesitation before the spokesman replied: "Watt Wyatt; died day "fore yestiddy."
At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face suddenly, with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested the attention of the "revenuers." This face was so individual that it was not likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look it had, and a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit some fantastic, fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of elusive meanings, not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man of the day, though perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation. His full gray eyes were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam; his long, fibrously floating brown hair was thrown backward; his receding chin was peculiarly delicate; and though his well-knit frame bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic grotesquery of garb and posture was cancelled by the deep shadow of a bough, and his delicate face showed isolated in the moonlight.
Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment. "Whar did he die at?" he then demanded at a venture.
"At his daddy"s house, fur sure. Whar else?" responded the driver. "I hev got what"s lef" of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make it ter Shiloh buryin"-ground "fore dark; but the road is middlin" heavy, an" "bout five mile" back Ben cast a shoe. The funeral warn"t over much "fore noon."
"Whyn"t they bury him in Eskaqua, whar he died?" persisted Browdie.
"Waal, they planned ter bury him alongside his mother an" gran"dad, what used ter live in Tanglefoot Cove. But we air wastin" time hyar, an" we hev got none ter spare. Gee, Ben! Git up, John!"
The wagon gave a lurch; the horses, holding back in bracing att.i.tudes far from the pole, went teetering down the steep slant, the locked wheel dragging heavily; the four men sat silent, two in slouching postures at the head of the coffin; the third, with the driver, was at its foot. It seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, in all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast expansions of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon.
"Is this bona-fide?" asked Browdie, with a questioning glance at the informer, who had at length crept forth.
"I dunno," sullenly responded the mountaineer. He had acquainted the two officers, who were of a posse of revenue-raiders hovering in the vicinity, with the mysterious circ.u.mstance that a freighted wagon now and then made a midnight transit across these lonely ranges. He himself had heard only occasionally in a wakeful hour the roll of heavy wheels, but he interpreted this as the secret transportation of brush whisky from the still to its market. He had thought to fix the transgression on an old enemy of his own, long suspected of moonshining; but he was acquainted with none of the youngsters on the wagon, at whom he had peered cautiously from behind the rocks. His actuating motive in giving information to the emissaries of the government had been the rancor of an old feud, and his detection meant certain death. He had not expected the revenue-raiders to be outnumbered by the supposed moonshiners, and he would not fight in the open. He had no sentiment of fealty to the law, and the officers glanced at each other in uncertainty.
"This evidently is not the wagon in question," said Browdie, disappointed.
"I"ll follow them a bit," volunteered Ronan, the younger and the more active of the two officers. "Seems to me they"ll bear watching."
Indeed, as the melancholy cortege fared down and down the steep road, dwindling in the sheeny distance, the covert and half-suppressed laughter of the sepulchral escort was of so keen a relish that it was well that the sc.r.a.ping of the locked wheel aided the distance to mask the incongruous sound.
"What ailed you-uns ter name me as the corpus, "Gene Barker?" demanded Walter Wyatt, when he had regained the capacity of coherent speech.
"Oh, I hed ter do suddint murder on somebody," declared the driver, all bluff and rea.s.sured and red-faced again, "an" I couldn"t think quick of n.o.body else. Besides, I belt a grudge ag"in" you fer not stuffin" mo" straw "twixt them jimmyjohns in the coffin-box."
"That"s a fac". Ye air too triflin" ter be let ter live, Watt," cried one of their comrades. "I hearn them jugs clash tergether in the coffin-box when "Gene checked the team up suddint, I tell you. An" them men sure "peared ter me powerful suspectin"."
"I hearn the clash of them jimmyjohns," chimed in the driver. "I really thunk my hour war come. Some informer must hev set them men ter spyin" round fer moonshine."
"Oh, surely n.o.body wouldn"t dare," urged one of the group, uneasily; for the ident.i.ty of an informer was masked in secrecy, and his fate, when discovered, was often gruesome.
"They couldn"t hev noticed the clash of them jimmyjohns, nohow," declared the negligent Watt, nonchalantly. "But namin" me fur the dead one! Supposin" they air revenuers fur true, an" hed somebody along, hid out in the bresh, ez war acquainted with me by sight--"
"Then they"d hev been skeered out"n thar boots, that"s all," interrupted the self-sufficient "Gene. "They would hev "lowed they hed viewed yer brazen ghost, bold ez bra.s.s, standin" at the head of yer own coffin-box."
"Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn"t acquainted with me," persisted Watt, with his unique sense of injury.
Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. "They would hev jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an" attendin" him ter his long home."
""Gene don"t keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt," one of the others suggested tactlessly, ""count o" Minta Elladine Riggs."
Eugene Barker"s off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity and his evident rancor as he declared: "I ain"t carin" fur sech ez Watt Wyatt. An" they do say in the cove that Minta Elladine Riggs hev gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin" kyerds, a-bettin" his money, drinkin" apple-jack, an" sech."
The newly const.i.tuted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if to retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of the coffin was the simulacrum of the figure of a man.
One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned a significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of a more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box.
The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed. The number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at least one of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the precipice and the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had gradually dwindled to a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and there washed out by recent rains, and one of these indentations might have afforded an active man access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had evidently kept abreast of them, speeding along in great leaps through the lush growth of huckleberry bushes, wild gra.s.ses, pawpaw thickets, silvered by the moon, all fringing the great forests that had given way on the shelving verge of the steeps where the road ran. Had he overheard their unguarded, significant words? Who could divine, so silent were the windless mountains, so deep a-dream the darksome woods, so spell-bound the mute and mystic moonlight?
The group maintained a cautious reticence now, each revolving the problematic disclosure of their secret, each canva.s.sing the question whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in mid-stream and stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, as the team manifested an inclination to drink in transit; and thence, as he stood thus perched, he gazed to and fro, the stretch of dark and l.u.s.trous ripples baffling all approach within ear-shot, the watering of the horses justifying the pause and cloaking its significance to any distant observer.
But the interval was indeed limited; the mental processes of such men are devoid of complexity, and their decisions prompt. They advanced few alternatives; their prime object was to be swiftly rid of the coffin and its inculpating contents, and with the "revenuer" so hard on their heels this might seem a troublous problem enough.
"Put it whar a coffin b"longs-in the churchyard," said Wyatt; for at a considerable distance beyond the rise of the opposite bank could be seen a barren clearing in which stood a gaunt, bare, little white frame building that served all the country-side for its infrequent religious services.
"We couldn"t dig a grave before that spy-ef he be a revenuer sure enough-could overhaul us," Eugene Barker objected.
"We could turn the yearth right smart, though," persisted Wyatt, for pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an aspect of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent.
Eugene Barker acceded to this view. "That"s the dinctum-dig a few jes fer a blind. We kin slip the coffin-box under the church-house "fore he gits in sight,-he"ll be feared ter follow too close,-an" leave it thar till the other boys kin wagon it ter the cross-roads" store ter-morrer night."
The horses, hitherto held to the sober gait of funeral travel, were now put to a speedy trot, unmindful of whatever impression of flight the pace might give to the revenue-raider in pursuit. The men were soon engrossed in their deceptive enterprise in the churchyard, plying pickax and shovel for dear life; now and again they paused to listen vainly for the sound of stealthy approach. They knew that there was the most precarious and primitive of foot-bridges across the deep stream, to traverse which would cost an unaccustomed wayfarer both time and pains; thus the interval was considerable before the resonance of rapid foot-falls gave token that their pursuer had found himself obliged to sprint smartly along the country road to keep any hope of ever again viewing the wagon which the intervening water-course had withdrawn from his sight. That this hope had grown tenuous was evident in his relinquishment of his former caution, for when they again caught a glimpse of him he was forging along in the middle of the road without any effort at concealment. But as the wagon appeared in the perspective, stationary, hitched to the hedge of the graveyard, he recurred to his previous methods. The four men still within the inclosure, now busied in shovelling the earth back again into the excavation they had so swiftly made, covertly watched him as he skulked into the shadow of the wayside. The little "church-house," with all its windows whitely aglare in the moonlight, reflected the pervasive sheen, and silent, spectral, remote, it seemed as if it might well harbor at times its ghastly neighbors from the quiet cemetery without, dimly ranging themselves once more in the shadowy ranks of its pews or grimly stalking down the drear and deserted aisles. The fact that the rising ground toward the rear of the building necessitated a series of steps at the entrance, enabled the officer to mask behind this tall flight his crouching approach, and thus he ensconced himself in the angle between the wall and the steps, and looked forth in fancied security.