The Law of Hemlock Mountain

by Hugh Lundsford

  CHAPTER XX

  Over the ragged lands that lay on the "nigh side" of Hemlock Mountainbreathed a spirit of excitement and mighty hope. It had been two yearssince John Spurrier had left the field he had planned to develop, andin those years had come the transition of rebirth.

  Along muddy streets the hogs still wallowed, but now they were deeplyrutted by the teaming of ponderous oil gear, and one saw young men inpith helmets and pig-skin puttees; keen-faced engineers and oilprospectors drawn in by the challenge of wealth from the far trails ofMexico and the West. One heard the jargon of that single business andthe new vocabulary of its devotees. "Wild-catters" following surfaceindications or hunches were testing and well-driving. Gushers rewardedsome and "dry holes" and "dusters" disappointed others. Into themediaeval life of hills that had stood age-long unaltered and aloofcame the infusion of hot-blooded enterprise, the eager questing afterquick and miraculous wealth.

  In Lexington and Winchester oil exchanges carried the activity ofsmall bourses. In newspapers a new form of advertisement proclaimeditself.

  Oil was king. Oil and its by-product, gasoline, that the armies neededand that the thousands of engines on the earth and in the air sogreedily devoured.

  But over on the far side of the ridge men only fretted and chafed asyet. They had the oil under their feet, but for it there was nooutlet. Like a land without a seaport, they looked over at neighborsgrowing rich while they themselves still "hurted fer needcessities."

  American Oil and Gas had locked them in while it milked the other cow.It had its needed charters for piping both fields, but a man who waseither dead or somewhere across the world held the way barred in astalemate of controlled rights of way.

  Glory thought less about the wonderful things that were going forwardthan did others about her, because she had a broken heart. No letterscame from Spurrier, and the faith that she struggled to hold high likea banner nailed to the masthead of her life, hung drooping. In the endher colors had been struck.

  If John Spurrier returned in search of her now she would go intohiding from him, but it was most unlikely that he would return. He hadmarried her on impulse and under a pressure of excitement. He hadloved her passionately--but not with a strong enough fidelity to holdhim true--and now she believed he had turned back again to his oldidols. She was repudiated, and she ought to hate him with thebitterness of her mountain blood, yet in her heart's core, though shewould never forgive him and never return to him, she knew that shestill loved him and would always love him.

  She no longer feared that she would have hampered him in the societyof his more finished world. She had visited Helen Merriwell and hadcome to know that other world for herself. She found that the gentleblood in her veins could claim its own rights and respond graciously.Hers had been a submerged aristocracy, but it had come out of itschrysalis, bright-winged.

  Then one day something happened that turned Glory's little personalworld upside down and brought a readjustment of all its ideas.

  Sim Colby owned a little patch of land beside his homestead place,over cross the mountain, and he was among those who became rich. Hewas not so rich as local repute declared him, but rich enough to setstirring the avarice of an erstwhile friend, who owned no land atall.

  So ex-Private Severance came over to the deserter's house with ascheme conceived in envy and born of greed. He was bent on blackmail.

  When he first arrived, the talk ran along general lines, because"Blind Joe," the fiddler, was at the house, and the real object of thevisit was confidential. Blind Joe had also been an oil beneficiary,and he and Sim Colby had become partners in a fashion. During thatrelationship Blind Joe had told Sim some things that he told fewothers.

  But when Joe left and the pipes were lighted Severance settled himselfin a back-tilted chair and gazed reflectively at the crest of thetimber line.

  "You an' me's been partners for a right long spell, Bud Grant, ain'twe?"

  Colby started. The use of that discarded name brought back the pastwith its ghosts of fear. He had almost forgotten that once he had beenBud Grant, and a deserter from the army. It was all part of a bygoneand walled-in long ago. Though they were quite alone he lookedfurtively about him and spoke in a lowered voice:

  "Don't call me by thet name. Thar ain't no man but you knowserbout--what I used to be."

  "Thet's what I've been studyin' erbout. Nobody else but me."

  Severance sat silent for a while after that announcement, but therewas a meaning smile on his lips, and Colby paled a shade whiter.

  "_I_ reckon I kin trust ye; I always hev," he declared with a speciousconfidence.

  Severance nodded. "I was on guard duty an' I suffered ye ter escape,"he went reminiscently on. "I knows thet ye kilt Captain Comyn, an'I've done kept a close mouth all these years. Now ye're a rich man an'I'm a pore one. Hit looks like ter me ye owes me a debt an' ye'd oughtter do a leetle something for me."

  So that was it! Colby knew that if he yielded at all, this man'savarice and his importunities would feed on themselves increasinglyand endlessly. Yet he dared not refuse, so he sought to temporize.

  "I reckon thar's right smart jestice in what ye says," he conceded,"but I don't know jest yit how I stands or how much money I'm wuth.Ye'll have ter give me a leetle time ter find out."

  But when Severance mounted his mule and rode away, Sim Colby gave himonly a short start and then hurried on foot through the hill tanglesby a short cut that would intercept his visitor's course.

  He knew that Severance would have to ride through the same gorge inwhich Sim had waylaid Spurrier, and he meant to get there first,rifle-armed.

  It was sunset when, quite unsuspecting of danger, at least for themoment, Severance turned his mule into the gorge. He was felicitatinghimself, since without an acre of land or a drop of oil he had"declared himself in" on another's wealth. His mule was a laggard inpace, and the rider did not urge him. He was content to amble.

  Back of the rock walls of the great cleft, the woods lay hushed anddense in the closing shadows. An owl quavered softly, and the wateramong the ferns whispered. All else was quiet.

  But from just a little way back, a figure hitched forward as it laybelly-down in the "laurel hell." It sighted a rifle and pressed afinger.

  The mule snorted and stopped dead with a flirt of ears and tail andwith no word, without even a groan, the rider toppled sidewise andslid from the saddle.

  The man back in the brush peered out. He noted how still the crumpledfigure lay between the feet of the patient, mouse-colored beast, thatswitched at flies with its tail. It lay twisted almost double with onearm bent beneath its chest.

  So Colby crept closer. It would be as well to haul the body back intothe tangle where it would not be so soon discovered, and to start thebeast along its way with a slap on the flank.

  But just as the assassin stooped, Severance's right hand darted outand, as it did so, there was a quick glint of blue steel, and threeinstantly successive reports.

  Colby staggered backward with a sense of betrayal and a horriblerealization of physical pain. His rifle dropped from a shattered handand jets of blood broke out through his rent clothing. Each of thosethree pistol balls had taken effect at a range so close that he hadbeen powder-burned. He knew he was mortally hurt, and that the otherwould soon be dead if he was not so already.

  Colby began crawling. He was mangled as if by an explosion, butinstinct drove him. Twice he fainted and recovered dim consciousnessand still dragged himself tediously along.

  * * * * *

  Glory was alone in her house. Her father, who had been living with herof late, had gone to the county seat overnight.

  The young woman sat in silence, and the sewing upon which she had beenbusied lay in her lap forgotten. In her eyes was the far-away look ofone who eats out one's heart in thoughts that can neither be solvednor banished.

  Then she heard a faint call. It was hardly more than a gasped whisper,and as she rose, startled, and went
to the door she saw striving toreach it a shape of terrible human wreckage.

  Sim Colby's clothes were almost torn from him and blood, dried brown,and blood freshly flowing, mingled their ugly smears upon him. Hislips were livid and his face gray.

  Glory ran to him with a horrified scream. She did not yet recognizehim, and he gasped out a plea for whisky.

  With the utmost effort of her young strength she got him in, andmanaged to straighten out the mutilated body with pillows under itshead.

  But after a little the stimulant brought a slight reviving, and hetalked in broken and disjointed phrases.

  "Hit war Severance," he mumbled. "I fought back--I reckon I kilt him,too."

  Glory gazed in bewildered alarm about the house. Brother Bud Hawkinswas at Uncle Jimmy Litchfield's place, and she must get medical help,though she feared that the wounded man would be dead before herreturn.

  When she came back with the preacher, who also "healed human bodiessome," Colby was still alive but near his passing.

  "Ef thar's aught on your conscience, Sim," said the old preachergently, "hit's time ter make yore peace with Almighty God, fer ye'regoin' ter stand afore him in an hour more. Air ye ready ter faceHim?"

  The dying man looked up, and above the weakness and the suffering thatfilled his eyes, showed a dominating expression of terror. If ever ahuman being needed to be shriven he thought it was himself.

  They had to bend close to catch his feeble syllables, as he said: "Gitpaper--write this down."

  The preacher obeyed, kneeling on the floor, and though the words werefew, their utterance required dragging minutes, punctuated with breaksof silence and gasping.

  "Hit warn't John Spurrier--thet kilt Captain Comyn back tha'r in thePhilippines.... I knows who done hit----" He broke off there, and thegirl closed her hands over her face. "I sought ter kill Spurrier--butI warn't with them--thet attackted him hyar--an' wounded ther woman."

  Once more a long hiatus interrupted the recital and then the mangledcreature went on: "Hit was ther oil folks thet deevised thet murderscheme."

  The preacher was busily writing the record of this death-bed statementand Glory stood pale and distraught.

  The words "oil people" were ringing in her ears. What connection couldSpurrier have had with them: what enmity could they have had for him?

  But out of the confusion of her thoughts another thing stood forthwith the sudden glare of revelation. This man might die before hefinished and if he could not tell all he knew, he must first tell thatwhich would clear her husband's name. Though that husband had turnedhis back on her, her duty to him in this matter must take precedenceover the rest.

  "Joe Givins--" began Colby once more in laborious syllables, butperemptorily the girl halted him.

  "Never mind Joe Givins just now," she commanded with as sharp afinality as though to her had been delegated the responsibility of hisjudgment. "You said you knew who killed Captain Comyn. Who was it?"

  The eyes in the wounded and stricken face gazed up at her in muteappeal as a sinner might look at a father confessor, pleading that hebe spared the bitterest dregs of his admission.

  Glory read that glance and her own delicate features hardened. Sheleaned forward.

  "I brought you in here and succored you," she asserted with asternness which she could not have commanded in her own behalf."You're going before Almighty God--and unless you answer thatquestion honestly--no prayers shall go with you for forgiveness."

  "Glory!" The name broke in shocked horror from the bearded lips of thepreacher. "Glory, the mercy of God hain't ter be interfered with bymortals. Ther man's dying!"

  Upon him the young woman wheeled with blazing eyes.

  "God calls on his servants for justice to the living as well as mercyto the dying," she declared. "Sim Colby, who killed Captain Comyn?"

  "I done hit," came the unwillingly wrung confession. "My real name'sGrant.... Severance aided me.... Thet's why I sought to kill Spurrier.I deemed he war a huntin' me down."

  "Now," ordered the young woman, "what about Joe Givins?"

  Again a long pause, then: "Blind Joe Givins--only he ain't no blinderthan me--read papers hyar--he diskivered thet Spurrier was atter oilrights--he tipped off ther oil folks--he war their spy all thertime--shammin' ter be blind----" There the speaker struggled tobreathe and let his head fall back with the utterance incomplete. Fiveminutes later he was dead.

  "Hit don't seem ter me," said Brother Hawkins a short time later,while Glory still stood in dazed and trance-like wonderment, "es efwhat he said kin be true. Why ef hit be, John Spurrier was aimin' terplunder us hyar all ther time! He was counselin' us ter sell out--an'he was buyin'. I kain't believe that."

  But Glory had drawn back to the wall of the room and into her eyes hadcome a new expression. The expression of one who must tear aside aveil and know the truth, and who dreads what that truth may be.

  She had said that justice, no less than mercy, was God's command laidupon mortals. She had, almost by the extremity of withholding fromColby his hope of salvation until he spoke, won from him thedeclaration which would give back to John Spurrier an unsmirched name.Once Spurrier had said that was his strongest wish in life. But nowjustice called again: this time justice to her own people and perhapsit meant the unveiling of duplicity in the man she had married.

  "Brother Hawkins," she declared in a low but fervent voice, "if it'snot true, it's a slander that I can't let stand. If it _is_ true, Imust undo the wrong he's sought to do--if I can. Please wait."

  Then she was tearing at the bit of paneling that gave access to thesecret cabinet, and poring over papers from a broken and rifled strongbox.

  There was the uncontrovertible record, clear writ, and at length herpale face came up resolutely.

  "I don't understand it all yet," she told the preacher. "But he wasbuying. He bought everything that's been sold this side the ridge. Hewas seeking to influence the legislature, too. I've got to talk to myfather."

  * * * * *

  It was the next night, when old Dyke Cappeze had ridden back from thecounty seat, that he sat under the lamp in the room where Sim Colbyhad died, and on the table before him were spread the papers that hadlain unread so long in John Spurrier's secret cabinet.

  Across from him sat Glory with her fingers spasmodically clutched andher eyes riveted on his face as he read and studied the documents,which at first he had been loath to inspect without the permission oftheir owner. He had been convinced, however, when Glory had told thestory of the dying confession and had appealed to him for counsel.

  "By what you tell me," the old lawyer had summarized at the end of herrecital, "you forced from this man his admission which cleared JohnSpurrier of the charge that's been hanging over him. You set out toserve him and refused to be turned aside when Colby balked.... Butthat confession didn't end there. It went on and besides clearing Jackin that respect it seems to have involved him in another way. Youcan't use a part of a confession and discard the balance. Perhaps wecan serve him as well as others best by going into the whole of theaffair."

  So now Glory interrupted by no word or question, despite her anxietyto understand and her hoping against hope for a verdict which shouldleave John Spurrier clean of record.

  But if she refrained from breaking in on the study that engrossed herfather and wrinkled his parchment-like forehead, she could not helpreading the expression of his eyes, the growing sternness andindignation of his stiffening lips--and of drawing the moral that whenhe spoke his words must be those of condemnation.

  The strident song of the katydids came in through the windows and themoon dropped behind the hill crests before Dyke Cappeze spoke, andBrother Hawkins, who was spending the night at that house, smokedalone on the porch, unwilling to intrude on the confidences that thesetwo might wish to exchange.

  Finally the lawyer folded the last paper and looked up.

  "Do you want the whole truth, little gal?" he inquired bluntly. "Howmuch do you still l
ove this man?"

  Glory flushed then paled.

  "I guess," she said and her words were very low and soft, "I'll lovehim so long as I live--though I hate myself for doing it. He weariedof me and forgot me--but I can't do likewise."

  Then her chin came up and her voice rang with a quiet finality.

  "But I want the truth ... the whole truth without any softening."

  "Then as I see it, it's simply this. A war was on between two groupsof financiers. American Oil and Gas had held a monopoly and maintaineda corrupt control in the legislature that stifled competition. That'swhy the other oil boom failed. The second group was trying to slip upon these corruptionists and gain the control by a campaign ofsurprise. Jack Spurrier appears to have been the ambassador of thatsecond group--and he seems to have failed."

  The wife nodded. Even yet she unconsciously held a brief for hisdefense.

  "So far as you've gone," she reminded her father, "you show him tohave been what is commonly called a 'practical business man'--but noworse than the men he fought."

  Cappeze bowed his head gravely and his next words came reluctantly."So far, yes. Of course he could have done none of the things he didhad he not first won the confidence of those poor ignorant folk thatare our neighbors and our friends. Of course it was because theybelieved in him and followed his counsel that they sold theirbirthrights to men with whom he pretended to have no connection--andyet who took their orders from him."

  "Then," Glory started, halted and leaned forward with her handsagainst her breast and her utterance was the monotone of a voiceforced to a hard question: "Then what I feared was true? He livedamong us and made friends of us--only to rob us?"

  "If by 'us' you mean the mountain people, I fear me that's preciselywhat he did. I can see no other explanation. Which ever of these twogroups won meant to exploit and plunder us."

  For a little she made no answer, but the delicate color of her cheekswas gone to an ivory whiteness and the violet eyes were hardening.

  "Perhaps we oughtn't to judge him too harshly for these things,"said the father comfortingly. "The scroll of my bitterness againsthim is already heavy enough and to spare. He has broken your heartand that's enough for me. As to the rest there are many so-calledhonorable gentlemen who are no more scrupulous. We demand cleanconduct here in these hills," a fierce bitterness came into hiswords, "but then we are ignorant, backwoods folk! There are manyintricate ins and outs to this business and I don't presume to speakwith absolute conclusiveness yet."

  Outside the katydids sang their prophecies of frost to come and anowl hooted. Glory Spurrier sat staring ahead of her and at last shesaid aloud, in that tone which one uses when a thought findsexpression, unconscious that it has been vocal: "So he won ourfaith--with his clear eyes and his honest smile--only to swindle androb us!"

  "My God, if I were a younger man," broke out the father passionately,rising from his chair and clenching the damaging papers in histalon-like fingers, "I'd learn the oil game. I'd take this informationand use it against both their gangs--and I believe I could force themboth to their knees."

  He paused and the momentary fire died out of his eyes.

  "I'm too old a dog for new tricks though," he added dejectedly, "andthere's no one else to do it."

  "How could it be done?" demanded Glory rousing herself from hertrance. "Between them they hold all the power, don't they?"

  "As far as I can make out," Cappeze explained with the interest of thelegalistic mind for tackling an abstruse problem, "Spurrier hadcompleted his arch as to one of his two purposes--all except itskeystone. He had yet to gain a passage way through Brother Hawkins'land. With that he would have held the completed right-of-way--andit's the only one. The other gang of pirates hold the ability to get acharter but no right of way over which to use it. Now the man whocould deliver Brother Hawkins' concession would have a key. He couldforce Spurrier's crowd to agree to almost anything, and withSpurrier's crowd he could wring a compromise from the others. BudHawkins is like the delegate at a convention who can break adeadlock. God knows I'd love to tackle it--but it's too late for me."

  Glory had come to her feet, and stood an incarnation of combat.

  "It's not too late for me," she said quietly. "Perhaps I'm too crudeto go into John Spurrier's world of cultivated people but I'm shrewdenough to go into his world of business!"

  "You!" exclaimed the father in astonishment, then after a moment aneager light slowly dawned in his eyes and he broke out vehemently: "ByGod in Heaven, girl, I believe you're the man for the job!"

  "Call Brother Hawkins in," commanded Glory. "We need his help."

  Before he reached the door old Cappeze turned on his heel.

  "Glory," he said, "we've need to move out of this house and go back tomy place. Here we're dwelling under a dishonest roof."

  "I'm going to leave it," she responded quickly, "but I'm going fartheraway than that. I'm going to study oil and I'm going to do it in theBluegrass lowlands."