Cardigan Part 34

"Join us and welcome," he said, briefly. "It's safer than going alone.

Our friend, Mr. Sheriff Butler, will be watching for us, and we mustn't keep the gentleman on tenter-hooks too long, eh, Cade?"

"Certainly not," said Cade; and we moved off due west, Mount leading, then Shemuel the peddler, then I, the Weasel trotting furtively in the rear.

At times the little peddler twisted his greasy neck to look back at me with an inscrutable expression that puzzled me; but he said nothing, so I only scowled at him, meaning to imply my disgust at his treachery. However, as we strung out through the forest, I quickened my pace and came up beside him, saying, "It was not very wise of you, Shemuel; the next time you come to our house you get no permit to peddle."

"Ach!" he said, spreading his fingers in deprecation, "don'd speag aboud it, Mr. Cardigan. Sir William he has giff me so many permids mitout a shilling to pay. Oh, sir, he iss a grand gendleman, Sir William, ain't he?"

"What made you betray my name and quality then, Shemuel?" I asked, curiously.

His small eyes sought mine, then dropped meekly, as he plodded on in silence. Nor could I get another word from him; so I fell back into my place, with a glance at the sun, which was still shining directly in my face.

"The Fort Pitt trail lies west by south," I suggested, over my shoulder, to the Weasel.

"There's a shorter cut to Cresap," he replied, cunningly.

"Shorter than the Pitt trail?" I asked, astonished.

"Shorter because healthier," he returned. And, answering my puzzled smile, he added, "A long life on a long trail, but there's ever a shorter cut to the gibbet!"

Mount, who had fallen back beside us, grinned at me and rubbed his nose.

"Butler will be sitting up like a bereaved catamount in the Pitt trail for us," he said. "I've no powder to waste on him and his crew.

However, Mr. Cardigan, if you want to take a long shot, now's your chance to mark their hides."

He took me by the arm and led me cautiously a few rods to the left, then crouched down and parted the bushes with his hand. We were kneeling on the very edge of a precipice which I never should have seen, and over which I certainly should have walked had I been here alone. Deep down below us the Ohio flowed, a dark, slow stream, with jutting rocks on the eastern bank and a long flat sand-spit on the west.

At the point of this spit a man was standing, leaning on a rifle. It was not Butler.

"There's another fellow on that rock," whispered Mount, pointing.

"Butler will be watching the slope below our camp."

"Let him watch it," observed the Weasel; "we'll be with Cresap by moon-rise!"

"You can take a safe shot from here," smiled Mount, looking around at me; "but it's too far to go for the scalp."

I shook my head, shuddering, and we resumed our march, filing away into the west in perfect silence until the sun stood in mid-heaven and the heated air under the great pines drove us to the nearest water, which I had been sniffing for some time past.

Resting there to drink, I looked curiously at my three companions.

Such a company I had never beheld. There was the notorious Mount, a giant in stringy buckskins, with a paw like a bear and a smooth, boyish face cut by the single, heavy crease of a scar below the right eye. With his regular features and indolent movements, he appeared to me like some overgrown village oaf, too stupid to work, too lazy to try.

Beside him squatted the little Jew, toes turned in, dirty thumbs joined pensively, musing in his red beard. His boots had left the foreign mark which I had seen the day before in the trail; the Weasel's moccasins were those of Albany make.

I examined the Weasel. Such a shrunken, serene, placid little creature, all hunting-shirt and cap, with two finely chiselled flat ears, which perhaps gave him that alert allure, as though eternally listening to some sound behind his back.

But the mouths of these three men were curiously well made, bespeaking a certain honesty which I began to believe they perhaps possessed after all. Even Shemuel's mouth, under his thin, red beard, was not the mouth of treachery, though the lips were shrewd enough, G.o.d wot!

"Well," cried Mount suddenly, "what do you think of us?"

Somewhat embarra.s.sed, I replied politely, but Mount shook his head.

"You were thinking, what a row of gallows-birds for an honest man to flock with! Eh? Oh, don't deny it. You can't hurt my feelings, but you might hurt the Weasel's--eh, Cade?"

"I have sensitive feelings," said the Weasel dryly.

"I think you all stood by me when I was in distress," said I. "I ask no more of my friends than that."

"Well, you're a good lad," said Mount, getting to his feet and patting my shoulder as he pa.s.sed me.

"Give him something to wreck his life and he'd make a rare ranger,"

observed the Weasel.

"Cade was in love," explained Mount soberly; "weren't you Cade?"

The weazened little man nodded his head and looked up at me sentimentally.

"Yes," went on Mount, "Cade was in love and got married. His wife ran away somewheres--didn't she Cade?"

Again the little creature nodded, looking soberly at me for sympathy.

"And then," continued Mount, "he just hunted around till he found me, and we went to h.e.l.l together--didn't we, Cade, old friend?"

Two large tears stole down the Weasel's seamy cheeks. He rubbed them off with his smoky fists, leaving smears beside his nose.

"She took our baby, too," he sniffed; "you forgot that, Jack."

"So I did, so I did," said Mount, pityingly. "Come on, friends, the sun's sliding galley west, and it's a longer road to the devil than Boston preachers tell you. Come, Shemmy, old chuck, hoist that pretty nose up on both feet! Now, Mr. Cardigan!"

We marched on heavily, bearing southwest, descending the great slope of mountain and table-land which was but a vast roof, shedding a thousand streams into the slow Ohio, now curving out below us, red as blood in the kindling coals of sunset.

The river seemed but a mile distant, so clear was the air in the mountains, but we journeyed on, hour after hour, until the big yellow moon floated above the hills, and the river faded into the blue shadows of a splendid night.

Mount had thrown aside all caution now. He strode on ahead, singing a swinging air with full-chested lungs:

"Come, all you Tryon County men, And never be dismayed, But trust in the Lord, And He will be your aid!"

And one by one we all took up the stirring song, singing cheerily as we marched in file, till the dark forest rang back word for word.

And I do remember Shemuel, his thumbs in his arm-pits, and cap over one eye, singing right l.u.s.tily and footing it proudly beside Mount.

Suddenly a light twinkled on the edge of a clearing, then another broke out like a star in the bush, and soon all about us cabin-windows gleamed brightly and we were marching down a broad road, full of stones and stumps, and lined on either side by cultivated land and cabins enclosed in little stockades.

"Shoulder arms! Right wheel!" cried Mount; and we filed between two block-houses, and across a short bridge, and halted, grounding arms under the shadow of a squatty fort built with enormous logs.

The sentry had called out the guard, and the corporal in charge came up to us, lifting his lanthorn. He greeted Mount cheerfully, nodding and smiling at Renard also.

"Who the devil is this he-goat with red whiskers?" he demanded, illuminating Shemuel's cheerful features.