CHAPTER VIII
THE FIGHT FOR A STATE
Colonel Kenton and Harry avoided Louisville, which was now in the handsof Northern sympathizers, and, travelling partly by rail and partly bystage, reached Frankfort early in May to attend the special session ofthe Legislature called by Governor Magoffin. Although the skirmishinghad taken place already along the edge of highland and lowland, thestate still sought to maintain its position of neutrality. There waswar within its borders, and yet no war. In feeling, it was Southern,and yet its judgment was with the Union. Thousands of ardent young menhad drifted southward to join the armies forming there, and thousands ofothers, equally ardent, had turned northward to join forces that wouldoppose those below. Harry, young as he was, recognized that his ownstate would be more fiercely divided than any other by the great strife.
But Federal and Confederate alike preserved the semblance of peace asthey gathered at Frankfort for the political struggle over the state.Colonel Kenton and his son took the train at a point about forty milesfrom the capital, and they found it crowded with public men goingfrom Louisville to Frankfort. It was the oldest railroad west of theAlleghanies, and among the first ever built. The coaches swung aroundcurves, and dust and particles flew in at the windows, but the speed wasa relief after the crawling of the stage and Harry stretched himselfluxuriously on the plush seat.
A tall man in civilian attire, holding himself very stiffly, despite theswinging and swaying of the train, rose from his seat, and came forwardto greet Colonel Kenton.
"George," he said, his voice quivering slightly, "you and I have foughttogether in many battles in Mexico and the West, but it is likely nowthat we shall fight other battles on this own soil of ours against eachother. But, George, let us be friends always, and let us pledge it hereand now."
The words might have seemed a little dramatic elsewhere, but not sounder the circumstances of time and place. Colonel Kenton's quickresponse came from the depths of a generous soul.
"John," he said as their two hands met in the grip of brothers of thecamp and field, "you and I may be on opposing sides, but we can never beenemies. John, this is my son, Harry. Harry, this is Major John Warrenof Mason County and the regular army of the United States; he does notthink as we do, but even at West Point he was a stubborn idiot. He andI were continually arguing, and he would never admit that he was alwayswrong. I never knew him to be right in anything except mathematics,and then he was never wrong."
Major Warren smiled and sat down by his old comrade.
"You've a fine boy there, George," he said, "and I suppose he probablytakes his opinions from his father, which is a great mistake. I thinkif I were to talk to him I could show him his, or rather your, error."
"Not by your system of mathematical reasoning, John. Your method iswell enough for the building of a fortress or calculating the range ofa gun. But it won't do for the actions of men. You allow nothing forfeeling, sentiment, association, propinquity, heredity, climate and,and--"
"Get a dictionary or a book of synonyms, George."
"Perhaps I should. I understand how we happen to differ. But I can'texplain it well. Well, maybe it will all blow over. The worries oftoday are often the jokes of tomorrow."
Major Warren shook his head.
"It may blow over," he said, "but it will be a mighty wind; it will blowa long time, and many things for which you and I care, George, will beblown away by it. When that great and terrible wind stops blowing,our country will be changed forever."
"Don't be so downcast, John, you are not dead yet," said Colonel Kenton,clapping his friend on the shoulder. "You've often seen big clouds goby without either wind or rain."
"How about that attack upon your house and you and your friends?The clouds had something in them then."
"Merely mountain outlaws taking advantage of unsettled conditions."
Harry had listened closely and he knew that his father was only givingvoice to his hopes, not to his beliefs. But as they ceased to talk ofthe great question, his attention wandered to the country through whichthey were passing. Spring was now deep and green in Kentucky. Theywere running through a land of deep, rich soil, with an outcrop ofwhite limestone showing here and there above the heavy green grass. Apeaceful country and prosperous. It seemed impossible that it shouldbe torn by war, by war between those who lived upon it.
Then the train left the grass lands, cut through a narrow but roughrange of hills, entered a gorge and stopped in Frankfort, the littlecapital, beside the deep and blue Kentucky.
Frankfort had only a few thousand inhabitants, but Harry found here muchof the feeling that he had seen in Nashville and Charleston, with animportant difference. There it was all Southern, or nearly so, but hereNorth struggled with South on terms that certainly were not worse thanequal.
Although the place was crowded, he and his father were lucky enough tosecure a room at the chief hotel, which was also the only one of anyimportance. The hotel itself swarmed with the opposing factions.Senator Culver and Judge Kendrick had a room together across the hallfrom theirs, and next to them four red hot sympathizers with the Unionslept on cots in one apartment. Further down the hall Harvey Whitridge,a state senator, huge of stature, much whiskered, and the proudpossessor of a voice that could be heard nearly a mile, occupied a roomwith Samuel Fowler, a tall, thin, quiet member of the Lower House.The two were staunch Unionists.
Everybody knew everybody else in this dissevered gathering. Nearlyeverybody was kin by blood to everybody else. In a state affectedlittle by immigration families were more or less related. If there wasto be a war it would be, so far as they were concerned, a war of cousinsagainst cousins.
Colonel Kenton and Harry had scarcely bathed their faces and set theirclothing to rights, when there was a sharp knock at the door and theColonel admitted Raymond Bertrand, the South Carolinian, dark ofcomplexion, volatile and wonderfully neat in apparel. He seemed at onceto Harry to be a messenger from that Charleston which he had liked,and in the life of which he had had a share. Bertrand shook hands withboth with great enthusiasm, but his eyes sparkled when he spoke to Harry.
"And you were there when they fired on Sumter!" he exclaimed. "And youhad a part in it! What a glorious day! What a glorious deed! And Ihad to be here in your cold state, trying to make these descendants ofstubborn Scotch and English see the right, and follow gladly in the pathof our beautiful star, South Carolina!"
"How goes the cause here, Bertrand?" asked Colonel Kenton, breaking inon his prose epic.
Bertrand shrugged his shoulders and his face expressed discontent.
"Not well," he replied, "not as well as I had hoped. There is stillsomething in the name of the Union that stirs the hearts of theKentuckians. They hesitate. I have worked, I have talked, I have usedall the arguments of our illustrious President, Mr. Davis, and of theother great men who have charge of Southern fortunes, and they stillhesitate. Their blood is not hot enough. They do not have the vision.They lack the fire and splendor of the South Carolinians!"
Harry felt a little heat, but Colonel Kenton was not disturbed at all bythe criticism.
"Perhaps you are right, Bertrand," he said thoughtfully. "WeKentuckians have the reputation of being very quick on the trigger,but we are conservative in big things. This is going to be a great war,a mighty great war, and I suppose our people feel like taking a goodlong look, and then another, equally as long, before they leap."
Bertrand, hot-blooded and impatient, bit his lip.
"It will not do! It will not do!" he exclaimed. "We must have thisstate. Virginia has gone out! Kentucky is her daughter! Then why doesnot she do the same?"
"You must give us time, Bertrand," said Colonel Kenton, still speakingslowly and thoughtfully. "We are not starting upon any summer holiday,and I can understand how the people here feel. I'm going with my peopleand I'm going to fire on the old flag, under which I've fought so often,but you needn't think it comes so easy. This thing
of choosing betweenthe sections is the hardest task that was ever set for a man."
Harry had never heard his father speak with more solemnity. Bertrandwas silent, overawed by the older man, but to the boy the words wereextremely impressive. His youthful temperament was sensitive toatmosphere. In Charleston he shared the fire, zeal and enthusiasm ofan impressionable people. They saw only one side and, for a while, hesaw only one side, too. Here in Frankfort the atmosphere was changed.They saw two sides and he saw two sides with them.
"But you need have no fear about us, Bertrand," continued ColonelKenton. "My heart is with the South, and so is my boy's. I thoughtthat Kentucky would go out of the Union without a fight, but since thereis to be a struggle we'll go through with it, and win it. Don't beafraid, the state will be with you yet."
They talked a little longer and then Bertrand left. Harry politely heldthe door open for him, and, as he went down the hall, he saw him passWhitridge and Fowler. Contrary to the custom which still preserved theamenities they did not speak. Bertrand gave them a look of defiance.It seemed to Harry that he wanted to speak, but he pressed his lipsfirmly together, and, looking straight ahead of him, walked to thestairway, down which he disappeared. As Harry still stood in the opendoorway, Whitridge and Fowler approached.
"Can we come in?" Whitridge asked.
"Yes, Harvey," said Colonel Kenton over the boy's shoulder. "Both ofyou are welcome here at any time."
The two men entered and Harry gave them chairs. Whitridge's creakedbeneath him with his mighty weight.
"George," said the Senator pointedly but without animosity, "you andI have known each other a good many years, and we are eighth or tenthcousins, which counts for something in this state. Now, you have comehere to Frankfort to pull Kentucky out of the Union, and I've come topull so hard against you that you can't. You know it and I know it.All's square and above board, but why do you bring here that SouthCarolina Frenchman to meddle in the affairs of the good old state ofKentucky? Is it any business of his or of the other people down there?Can't we decide it ourselves? We're a big family here in Kentucky,and we oughtn't to bring strangers into the family council, even ifwe do have a disagreement. Besides, he represents the Knights of theGolden Circle, and what they are planning is plumb foolishness. Even ifyou are bound to go out and split up the Union, I'd think you wouldn'thave anything to do with the wholesale grabbing of Spanish-speakingterritories to the southward."
"There's a lot in what you say, Harvey," replied Colonel Kenton,speaking with the utmost good humor, "but I didn't bring Bertrand here;he came of his own accord. Besides, while I'm strong for the South,I think this Knights of the Golden Circle business is bad, just as youdo."
"I'm glad you've got that much sense left, George," said Whitridge."You army men never do know much about politics. It's easy to pull thewool over your eyes."
"Have you and Fowler come here for that purpose?" asked the colonel,smiling.
It was the preliminary to a long argument carried on without temper.Harry listened attentively, but as soon as it was over and Whitridge andFowler had gone, he tumbled into his bed and went to sleep.
He rose early the next morning, before his father in fact, as he waseager to see more of Frankfort, ate a solid breakfast almost alone,and went into the streets, where the first person he met was his owncousin and schoolmate, Dick Mason. The two boys started, looked firstat each other with hostile glances, which changed the next instant tolooks of pleasure and welcome, and then shook hands with power andheartiness. They could not be enemies. They were boys together again.
"Why, Dick," exclaimed Harry, "I thought you had gone east to save theUnion."
"So I have," replied Dick Mason, "but not as far east as you thought.We've got a big camp down in Garrard County, where the forces of theKentuckians who favor the Union are gathering. General Nelson commandsus. I suppose you've heard that you rebels are gathering on the otherside of Frankfort in Owen County under Humphrey Marshall?"
"Yes, Yank, I've heard it," replied Harry. "Now, what are you doing inFrankfort? What business have you got here?"
"Since you ask me a plain question I'll give you a plain answer,"replied Dick. "I'm here to scotch you rebels. You don't think youcan run away with a state like this, do you?"
"I don't know yet," replied Harry, "but we're going to try. Say, Dick,let's not talk about such things any more for a while. I want to seethis town and we can take a look at it together."
"The plan suits me," said Dick promptly. "Come on. I've been here twodays and I guess I can be guide."
"We'll take in the Capitol first," said Harry.
Dick led the way and Harry approached with awe and some curiosity theold building which was famous to him. Erected far back, when the statewas in its infancy, it still served well its purpose. He and Dickwalked together upon the lawns among the trees, but, as soon as thedoors were open, they went inside and entered with respect the roomin which the great men of their state, the Clays, the Marshalls, theBreckinridges, the Crittendens, the Hardins, and so many others hadbegun their careers. They were great men not to Kentucky alone, but tothe nation as well, and the hearts of the two boys throbbed with pride.They sat down in two of the desks where the members were to meet thenext day and fight over the question whether Kentucky was Northern orSouthern.
It was very early. Besides themselves there was nobody about but thecaretaker. They were sitting in the House and the room was still warmedin winter by great stoves, but they were not needed now, as the windowswere open and the fresh breeze of a grass-scented May morning blew inand tumbled the hair of the two youths of the same blood who sat side byside, close friends of their school days again, but who would soon befacing each other across red fields.
The wind which blew so pleasantly on Harry's forehead reminded him ofthat other wind which had blown so often upon his face at Charleston.But it was not heavy and languorous here. It did not have the lazyperfumes of the breezes that floated up from the warm shores of theGulf. It was sharp and penetrating. It whipped the blood like thetouch of frost. It stirred to action. His cousin's emotions wereevidently much like his own.
"Harry," said Dick, "I never thought that Kentucky would be fightingagainst Kentucky, that Pendleton would be fighting against Pendleton."
Harry was about to reply when his attention was attracted by a heavyfootstep. A third person had entered the chamber of the House, and hestood for a while in the aisle, looking curiously about him. Harry sawthe man before the stranger saw him and with an instinctive shudderhe recognized Bill Skelly. There he stood, huge, black, hairy, andlowering, two heavy pistols shown openly in his belt.
The boys were sitting low in the desks and it was a little while beforeSkelly noticed them. His attitude was that of triumph, that of one whoexpects great spoils, like that of a buccaneer who finds his profit introubled times, preying upon friend and foe alike. Presently he caughtsight of the two boys. But his gaze fastened on Harry, and a savageglint appeared in his eyes. Then he strode down the wide aisle andstood near them. But he looked at Harry alone.
"You are Colonel Kenton's son?" he said.
"I am," replied Harry, meeting his fierce stare boldly, "the same whomyou tried to murder on the way to Winton, the same who helped to holdour house against you and your gang of assassins."
Skelly's dark face grew darker as the black blood leaped to his veryeyes. But he choked down his passion. The mountaineer was not lackingin cunning.
"Your father and his friends killed some of my men," he said. "I ain'there now to argy with you about the rights an' wrongs of it, but I wantto tell you that all the people of the mountains are up for the Union.With them from the lowlands that are the same way, we'll chase yourebels, Jeff Davis and all, clean into the Gulf of Mexico."
Harry deliberately turned his head away, and stared out of a windowat the green of lawns and trees. Skelly filled him with abhorrence.He felt as if he were in the presence of a creeping
panther, and hewould have nothing more to say to him. Skelly looked at him for a fewminutes longer, drew himself together in the manner of a savage wildbeast about to spring, but relaxed the next moment, laughed softly,and strode out of the chamber.
"That's one of your men," said Harry. "I hope you're proud of him."
"All the mountain people are for us," replied Dick judicially, "and wecan't help it if some of the rascals are on our side. You're likely tohave men just as bad on yours. I heard about the attack he made uponUncle George's house, but it was war, I suppose, and this which we havehere in Frankfort is only an armed truce. You can't do anything."
"I suppose not. Do you know how long he has been here?"
"He arrived at Camp Dick Robinson only two or three days ago, and Isuppose he has taken the first chance to come in and have a look at thecapital."
"With the idea of looting it later on."
Dick laughed.
"Don't be bitter, Harry," he said. "It's going to be a fair fight."
"Well, I hope so, here in this little town as well as on the greaterfield of the country. Are you staying long in Frankfort, Dick?"
"Only today. I'm going back tomorrow to Camp Dick Robinson."
"Well, don't you make friends with that fellow Skelly, even if he is onthe same side you are."
"I won't, Harry, have no fear of that."
The two went together to the hotel, and found Colonel Kenton atbreakfast. He welcomed his nephew with great affection, and made himsit by him until he had finished his breakfast. While he was drinkinghis coffee Harry told him of Skelly's presence. The Colonel frowned,but merely uttered three words about him.
"We'll watch him," he said.
Then the three went out and saw the little town grow into life andseethe with the heat of the spirit. Although actual skirmishing hadtaken place already in the state there was no violence here, except ofspeech. All the members of the House and Senate were gathered, andso far as Harry could observe the Southerners were in the majority.Others thought so, too. Bertrand was sanguine. His eyes burned withthe fire of enthusiasm, lighting up his olive face.
"We'll win. We'll surely win!" he said. "This state which we need somuch will be out of the Union inside of two weeks."
But Senator Culver was more guarded in his opinion, or at least in theexpression of it.
"It's going to be a mighty hot fight," he said.
Harry and Dick together watched the convening of the Legislature,having chosen seats in the upper lobby of the House. Harry looked forSkelly, but not seeing him he inferred that the mountaineer's leave ofabsence was short and that he had gone back to camp.
Dick himself left the next morning for Camp Dick Robinson, and Harryshook his hand over and over again as he departed. The feeling betweenthe cousins was strong and it had been renewed by their meeting undersuch circumstances.
"I may go east," said Dick, as he mounted his horse. "The big thingsare going to happen there first."
Harry watched him as he rode away and he wondered when they would meetagain. Like Colonel Leonidas Talbot he felt now that this was going tobe a great war, wide in its sweep.
Harry returned to his hotel, very thoughtful. The second parting withhis cousin, who had been his playmate all his life, was painful, andhe realized that while he was wondering when and where they would meetagain it might never occur at all. He found his father and his friendsholding a close conference in his room at the hotel. Senator Culver,Mr. Bracken, Gardner, the editor, and others yet higher in the councilsof the Confederacy, were there. Bertrand sat in a corner, saying little,but watching everything with ardent, burning eyes.
Letters had come from the chief Southern leaders. There was one fromJefferson Davis, himself, another from the astute Benjamin, another fromToombs, bold and brusque as befitted his temperament, and yet more fromStephens and Slidell and Yancey and others. Colonel Kenton read themone by one to the twenty men who were crowded into the room. They wereappealing, insistent, urgent. Their tone might vary, but the tenor wasthe same. They must take Kentucky out of the Union and take her out atonce. In the West the line of attack upon the South would lead throughKentucky. But if the state threw in her fortunes with the South,the advance of Lincoln's troops would be blocked. The force of examplewould be immense, and a hundred thousand valiant Kentuckians couldeasily turn the scale in favor of the Confederacy.
Harry listened to them a long time, but growing tired at last, went outagain into the fresh air. Young though he was, he realized that it wasone thing for the Southern leaders to ask, but it was another thingfor the Kentuckians to deliver. He saw all about him the signs of apowerful opposition, and he saw, too, that these forces, scattered atfirst, were consolidating fast, presenting a formidable front.
The struggle began and it was waged for days in the picturesque oldCapitol. There was no violence, but feeling deepened. Men putrestraint upon their words, but their hearts behind them were full ofbitterness, bitterness on one side because the Northern sympathizerswere so stubborn, and bitterness on the other, because the Southernsympathizers showed the same stubbornness. Friends of a lifetime usedbut cold words to each other and saw widening between then, a gulf whichnone could cross. Supporters of either cause poured into the littlecapital. Tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon House and Senate.Members were compelled to strive with every kind of emotion or appeal,love of the Union, cool judgment in the midst of alarms, statepatriotism, kinship, and all the conflicting ties which pull at thosewho stand upon the border line on the eve of a great civil war. Andyet they could come to no decision. Day after day they fought back andforth over points of order and resolutions and the result was alwaysthe same. North and South were locked fast within the two rooms of onelittle Capitol.
They were rimmed around meanwhile by a fiery horizon that steadily camecloser and closer. The guns reducing Sumter had been a sufficientsignal. North and South were sharply arrayed against each other.The Southern volunteers, full of ardor and fire, continued to pour totheir standards. The North, larger and heavier, moved more slowly,but it moved. The whole land swayed under an intense agitation.The news of skirmishes along the border came, magnified and coloredin the telling. Men's minds were inflamed more every day.
When Harry had been in Frankfort about a week he received a letter fromSt. Clair, written from Richmond, urging him, if he could, to get anassignment to the East, and to come to that city, which was to be thepermanent capital of the South.
"We are here," he said, "looking the enemy in the face. Langdon and Iare in the same company and I see Colonel Talbot and Major St. Hilaireevery day. We are going to the front soon, and before the summer is outthere will be a big battle followed by our taking of Washington."
"But you must come, Harry, to Richmond and join us before we march.This is a fine town and all the celebrities are crowding in. You neversaw such confidence and enthusiasm. Virginia was slow in joining us,but, since she has joined, she is with us heart and soul. Troops arepouring in all the time. Cannon and wagons loaded with ammunition andsupplies are hurrying to the front. The Yankees are not threateningRichmond; we are threatening Washington. Be sure and get yourselftransferred to the East, Harry, where the great things are going tohappen. Friends are waiting for you here. Colonel Talbot and MajorSt. Hilaire have a lot of power and they will use it for you."
Harry was walking on the hills that look down on the Capitol, when heread the letter and its warm words made his pulses leap with pleasure.He felt now the pull of opposing magnets. He wanted to remain inFrankfort with his father and see the issue, and he also wanted to jointhose South Carolina comrades of his in the East, where the battlefronts now lowered so ominously.
He thought long over the letter, and, at last sat down by the monumentto the Kentucky volunteers who fell at the battle of Buena Vista.The pull of the East was gradually growing the stronger. He did notsee what he could do at Frankfort, and he wanted to be off there on theVirginia
fields where the bayonets would soon meet.
The curious feeling that war could not come here in his own landpersisted in Harry. It was late in the afternoon with the lower tip ofthe sun just hid behind the far hills and the landscape that he lookedupon was soft and beautiful. The green of spring was deep and tender.Everything rough or ugly was smoothed away by the first mellow touchof the advancing twilight. The hills were clothed in the same robe ofgreen that lay over the valleys, and through the center of the circleflowed the deep Kentucky, serene and blue.
While Harry's thoughts at that moment were on war, he really had nofeeling against anybody. It was all general and impersonal. Thereis something pure and noble about a boy who comes out of a good home,something lofty to which the man later looks back with pride, notbecause the boy was wise or powerful, but because his heart was good.
The twilight slowly darkened over green fields and blue river. But thenoble stone, with its sculptured lines, by the side of which Harry sat,seemed to grow whiter, despite the veil of dusk that was drooping softlyover it. The houses in the town below began to sink out of sight andlights appeared in their place.
Night came and found the boy still at his place. He could see only thetint of the blue river now, and the far hills were lost in the darkness.The chill of evening was coming on, and rising, he shook himself alittle. Then he followed a path down the steep hill and along the edgeof the river. But he paused, standing by the side of a great oak thatgrew at the Water's margin, and looked up the Kentucky.
Harry could see from the point where he stood no sign of human life.He heard only the murmur of deep waters as they flowed slowly andpeacefully by. The spirit of his great ancestor, the famous Henry Ware,who had been the sword of the border, was strong upon him. The Kentuckywas to him the most romantic of all rivers, clustered thick with thefacts and legends of the great days, when the first of the pioneerscame and built homes along its banks. It flowed out of mountains stillmysterious, and, for a few moments, Harry's thoughts floated from thestrife of the present to a time far back when the slightest noise in thecanebrake might mean to the hunter the coming of his quarry.
A faint musical sound, not more than the sigh of a stray breeze, camefrom a point far up the stream. He listened and the sound pleased him.The lone, weird note was in full accord with the night and his mood,and presently he knew it. It was some mountaineer on a raft singing aplaintive song of his own distant hills. Huge rafts launched on theheadwaters of the stream in the mountains in the eastern part of thestate came in great numbers down the river, but oftenest at this time ofthe year. Some stopped at Frankfort, and others went into the Ohio forthe cities down that stream.
Harry waited, while the song grew a little in volume, and, penned nowbetween high banks, gave back soft echoes. But the raft came veryslowly, only as fast as the current of the river. He thought he wouldsee a light as the men usually cooked and slept in a rude little hutbuilt in the center of the raft. But all was yet in darkness.
The singer, however rude and unlettered a mountaineer he may have been,had a voice and ear, and Harry still listened with the keenest pleasureto the melodious note that came floating down the river. The spell wasupon him. His imagination became so vivid that it was not a mountaineersinging. He had gone back into another century. It was one of thegreat borderers, perhaps Boone himself, who was paddling his canoe uponthe stream, the name of which was danger. And Kenton, and Logan andHarrod and the others were abroad in the woods.
He was engrossed so deeply that he did not hear a heavy step behind him,nor did he see a huge bewhiskered figure in the path, holding a clubbedrifle. Yet he turned. It was perhaps the instinct inherited from hisgreat ancestor, who was said to have had a sixth sense. Whatever it mayhave been, he faced suddenly about, and saw Bill Skelly aiming at hima blow with the clubbed rifle, which would at once crush his skull andsend his body into the deep stream.
The same inherited instinct made him leap within the swing of the rifleand clutch at the mountaineer's throat. The heavy butt swished throughthe air, and the very force of the blow jerked the weapon from Skelly'shands. The next instant he was struggling for his life. Harry was apowerful youth, much stronger than many men, and, at that instant,the spirit and strength of his great ancestor were pouring into hisveins. The treacherous attempt upon his life filled him with rage.He was, in very truth, the forest runner of the earlier century, and hestrove with all his great might to slay his enemy.
Skelly, six feet two inches tall and two hundred pounds of muscle andsinew, struck the boy fiercely on the side of the head, but the terriblegrasp was still at his throat. He was the larger and the stronger,but the sudden leap upon him gave his younger and smaller antagonist anadvantage. He had a pistol in his belt, but with that throttling gripupon his throat he forgot it. The hunter had suddenly become thehunted. Filled with rage and venom he had expected an easy triumph, and,instead, he was now fighting for his life.
Skelly struck again and again at the boy, but Harry, with instinctivewisdom, pressed his head close to the man's chin, and Skelly's blowsat such short range lacked force behind them. All the while Harry'syouthful but powerful arms were pouring strength into the hands thatgrasped the man's throat. The mountaineer choked and gasped, and,changing his aim from the head, struck Harry again and again in thechest. Then he remembered to draw his pistol, but Harry, raising hisknee, struck him violently on the wrist. The pistol dropped to theground, and Skelly, in the fierce struggle, was unable to regain it.
Neither had uttered a cry. There was not a single shout for help.Skelly would not want to call attention, and Harry recalled afterwardthat in the tremendous tension of the moment the thought of it neveroccurred to him. He continued to press savagely upon Skelly's throat,while the mountaineer rained blows upon his chest, blows that wouldhave killed him had Skelly been able to get full purchase for his arms.He heard the heavy gasping breath of the man, and he saw the dark,hideous face close to his own. It was so hairy that it was like theface of some huge anthropoid, with the lips wrinkled back from strongand cruel white teeth.
It seemed to Harry in very truth that he was fighting a great wildbeast. His own breath came in short gasps, and at every expansion ofthe lungs a fierce pain shot through his whole body. A bloody foam roseto his lips. The savage pounding upon his chest was telling. He stillretained his grasp upon Skelly's throat, where his fingers were sunkinto the flesh, but it was only the grimmest kind of resolution thatenabled him to hold on.
Harry saw the fierce light in Skelly's eye turn to joy. The man foresawhis triumph, and he began to curse low, but fast and with savageunction. Harry felt himself weakening, and he made another mightyeffort to retain his hold, but the fingers still slipped, and, as Skellystruck him harder than ever in the chest, they flew loose entirely.
He knew that if Skelly had room for the full play of his arm that hewould be knocked senseless at the next blow, and to ward it off heseized the man by his huge chest, tripping at the same time with all hismight. The two fell, rolled over in their struggling, and then Harryfelt himself dropping from a height. The next moment the deep waters ofthe Kentucky closed over the two, still locked fast in a deadly combat,and the waves circled away in diminishing height from the spot wherethey had sunk.
The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve Page 9