He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizes upon those who stand on great heights,-an overwhelming impulse to plunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up to the sky.
And what were these words he was beginning to faintly remember? Had not the circuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow falls to the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in this suggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big blue sky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope.
He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worst should come,-was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrance the sparrow's fall.
He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancy when he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more and more distinct,-a shambling step, that curiously stopped at intervals and kicked the fallen leaves.
He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a sound issued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step came nearer. It would presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth a wild, hoarse cry.
The rocks reverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly there was an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on the verge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering off very fast indeed.
The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on an unimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his sudden cry.
"Stop, bubby!" he shouted; "stop a minute! It's Ethan Tynes that's callin' of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!"
The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boy demanded, "Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?"
"I'm down hyar on the ledge o' the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?"
"George Birt," promptly replied the little boy. "What air ye doin' down thar? I thought it war Satan a-callin' of me. I never seen nobody."
"I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an' I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother's house, an' tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climb up by."
Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with a celerity proportionate to the importance of the errand. On the contrary, the step was approaching the crag.
A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of the broken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair of sharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down on his stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, that he might not fling away his life in his curiosity.
"Did ye git it?" he asked, with bated breath.
"Git what?" demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient.
"The tur-r-key-what ye hev done been talkin' 'bout," said George Birt.
Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey. "Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off'n this hyar place,-I'm gittin' stiff sittin' still so long,-or the wind mought blow me off. The wind is blowin' toler'ble brief."
"Gobbler or hen?" asked George Birt eagerly.
"It air a hen," said Ethan. "But look-a-hyar, George, I'm a-waitin' on ye, an' ef I'd fall off'n this hyar place, I'd be ez dead ez a door-nail in a minute."
"Waal, I'm goin' now," said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. He raised himself from his recumbent position, and Ethan heard him shambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as he went.
Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of the cliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length,-for the mountain children are very careful of the precipices,-snaked along dexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red head cautiously, began to parley once more, trading on Ethan's necessities.
"Ef I go on this yerrand fur ye," he said, looking very sharp indeed, "will ye gimme one o' the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?"
He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The "whing" of the domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and is considered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birt aped the customs of his elders, regardless of sex,-a characteristic of very small boys.
"Oh, go 'long, bubby!" exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at the dilatoriness and indifference of his unique deliverer. "I'll give ye both o' the whings." He would have offered the turkey willingly, if "bubby" had seemed to crave it.
"Waal, I'm goin' now."
George Birt rose from the ground and started off briskly, exhilarated by the promise of both the "whings."
Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back. Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially a deliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan's gratitude would have been great enough to insure that small red head against a vigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was once more cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff.
"I kem back hyar ter tell ye," the doughty deliverer began, with an air of great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme relish, "that I can't go an' tell Pete 'bout'n the rope till I hev done kem back from the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece, with a bag o' corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill. My mother air a-settin' at home now a-waitin' fur that thar corn-meal ter bake dodgers with. An' I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war lent ter my dad las' week. An' I'm afeard ter walk about much with this hyar dime; I mought lose it, ye know. An' I can't go home 'thout the meal; I'll ketch it ef I do. But I'll tell Pete arter I git back from the mill."
"The mill!" echoed Ethan, aghast. "What air ye doin' on this side o' the mounting, ef ye air a-goin' ter the mill? This ain't the way ter the mill."
"I kem over hyar," said the little boy, still with much importance of manner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on his freckled face, "ter see 'bout'n a trap that I hev sot fur squir'ls. I'll see 'bout my trap, an' then I hev ter go ter the mill, 'kase my mother air a-settin' in our house now a-waitin' fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers. Then I'll tell Pete whar ye air, an' what ye said 'bout'n the rope. Ye must jes' wait fur me hyar."
Poor Ethan could do nothing else.
As the echo of the boy's shambling step died in the distance, a redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored to solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.
This idea buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fall into those dread depths beneath.
His patience at last began to give way. His heart was sinking. His messenger had been even more dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell of his danger?
The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and crimson clouds and an opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to the broken vines on the ledge.
And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and there were frowning masses of clouds overhead.
The shadow of the coming night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.
And now came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain ranges, a sombre rain-cloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing on the treetops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his head.
The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down tumultuously, not in columns, but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious brightness within,-too bright for human eyes.
He became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds.
The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was beginning to fail.
George Birt had indeed forgotten him,-forgotten even the promised "whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his trap, for his trap was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.
To sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as grotesque as the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history.
As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top of a large pincushion.
At home, he found the elders unreasonable,-as elders usually are considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for bed when small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement.
"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."
"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild tur-r-key's whings like he promised."
"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his friend.
"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."
"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for generosity.
"Waal,"-there was an expression of embarrassment on the important freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory manner,-"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings-I mean, he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened a-leetle-while-arter dinner-time."
"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.
There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of embarrassment. "Waal,"-the youngster balanced this word judicially,-"I forgot 'bout'n the tur-r-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar yit."
"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed Pete, appalled, and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that thar boy is ter put him on the fire fur a back-log."
Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the well, asked the crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two relative to locality, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.
The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.
When he had hitched his horse to a tree, and set out on foot to find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so intermittent that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.
"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to himself, in one of these eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all night."
The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more indubitably by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He called, but received no response.
"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as though the speaker had just awaked.
"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and flung it over the bluff.
At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to his feet.
He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath. Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over hand, up, and up, and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the crag.
And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'm a-thinkin'," said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyar mounting, from a b'ar ter a copper-head, that could hev got in sech a fix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes."
And Ethan was silent.
"What's this hyar thing at the e-end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as he began to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.
"It air the tur-r-key," said Ethan meekly.
"I tied her ter the e-end o' the rope afore I kem up."
"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.
And George, for duty performed, was remunerated with the two "whings," although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan whether or not he deserved them.
As Jack Dunn stood in the door of his home on a great crag of Persimmon Ridge and loaded his old rifle, his eyes rested upon a vast and imposing array of mountains filling the landscape. All are heavily wooded, all are alike, save that in one the long horizontal line of the summit is broken by a sudden vertical ascent, and thence the mountain seems to take up life on a higher level, for it sinks no more and passes out of sight.
This abrupt rise is called "Elijah's Step,"-named, perhaps, in honor of some neighboring farmer who first explored it; but the ignorant boy believed that here the prophet had stepped into his waiting fiery chariot.
He knew of no foreign lands,-no Syria, no Palestine. He had no dream of the world that lay beyond those misty, azure hills. Indistinctly he had caught the old story from the nasal drawl of the circuit-rider, and he thought that here, among these wild Tennessee mountains, Elijah had lived and had not died.
There came suddenly from the valley the baying of a pack of hounds in full cry, and when the crags caught the sound and tossed it from mountain to mountain, when more delicate echoes on a higher key rang out from the deep ravines, there was a wonderful exhilaration in this sylvan minstrelsy. The young fellow looked wistful as he heard it, then he frowned heavily.
"Them thar Saunders men hev gone off an' left me," he said reproachfully to some one within the log cabin. "Hyar I be kept a-choppin' wood an' a pullin' fodder till they hev hed time ter git up a deer. It 'pears ter me ez I mought hev been let ter put off that thar work till I war through huntin'."
He was a tall young fellow, with a frank, freckled face and auburn hair; stalwart, too. Judging from his appearance, he could chop wood and pull fodder to some purpose.
A heavy, middle-aged man emerged from the house, and stood regarding his son with grim disfavor. "An' who oughter chop wood an' pull fodder but ye, while my hand air sprained this way?" he demanded.
That hand had been sprained for many a long day,
but the boy made no reply; perhaps he knew its weight. He walked to the verge of the cliff, and gazed down at the tops of the trees in the valley far, far below.
The expanse of foliage was surging in the wind like the waves of the sea. From the unseen depths beneath there rose again the cry of the pack, inexpressibly stirring, and replete with woodland suggestions. All the echoes came out to meet it.
"I war promised ter go!" cried Jack bitterly.
"Waal," said his mother, from within the house, "'tain't no good nohow."
Her voice was calculated to throw oil upon the troubled waters,-low, languid, and full of pacifying intonations. She was a tall, thin woman, clad in a blue-checked homespun dress, and seated before a great hand-loom, as a lady sits before a piano or an organ. The creak of the treadle, and the thump, thump of the batten, punctuated, as it were, her consolatory disquisition.
Her son looked at her in great depression of spirit as she threw the shuttle back and forth with deft, practiced hands.
"Wild meat air a mighty savin'," she continued, with a housewifely afterthought. "I ain't denyin' that."
Thump, thump, went the batten.
"But ye needn't pester the life out'n yerself 'kase ye ain't a-runnin' the deer along o' them Saunders men. It 'pears like a powerful waste o' time, when ye kin take yer gun down ter the river enny evenin' late, jes' ez the deer air goin' ter drink, an' shoot ez big a buck ez ye hev got the grit ter git enny other way. Ye can't do nothin' with a buck but eat him, an' a-runnin' him all around the mounting don't make him no tenderer, ter my mind. I don't see no sense in huntin' 'cept ter git somethin' fitten ter eat."
This logic, enough to break a sportsman's heart, was not a panacea for the tedium of the day, spent in the tame occupation of pulling fodder, as the process of stripping the blades from the standing cornstalks is called.
But when the shadows were growing long, Jack took his rifle and set out for the profit and the pleasure of still-hunting. As he made his way through the dense woods, the metallic tones of a cow-bell jangled on the air,-melodious sound in the forest quiet, but it conjured up a scowl on the face of the young mountaineer.
The Young Mountaineers Page 4