Heart of the Blue Ridge Part 19

CHAPTER XXII

The veteran gazed down at the sloping expanse of stone that curved to the sheer drop of the precipice. He was absolutely helpless in the face of the catastrophe he had witnessed. A man, a girl and a dog had gone to their death in this frightful place within the minute.

Already, the corpses were stewing in the Devil's Pot half-a-thousand feet below, he reflected grimly. There was nothing to be done for them now, or ever. He felt a whirl of nausea within him, but fought back the weakness. He shuddered, as he thought of the man behind him, lying senseless on the edge of the Slide. Was it Hodges whom he had seen plunge into the depths, or was it--Zeke? It was with fearful apprehension that he turned at last to learn as to which remained.

A little cry of relief escaped him, for at a glance he recognized Zeke. He sprang forward, and, in a moment, had a.s.sured himself that the young man was not dead, was not even seriously wounded. He guessed that a fall on the rocks had merely stunned. As best he could with one hand, he got out his pocket-flask, and finally managed to force a little of the liquor between the clenched teeth. Presently, it took effect. The color came back into Zeke's face, and he stirred, and groaned. Then he sat up, resting against the veteran's arm.

Before there was time for any interchange of words between the two, a shout aroused them to look toward the grove. They saw the marshal dashing down the slope. Close behind him ran Cyclone Brant. Uncle d.i.c.k lagged a little, the burden of years pressing too heavily at last. The three came swiftly and gathered about the two on the edge of the Slide. Dismay was writ large on their faces. The silence of the hound, Zeke stricken and alone with the veteran, aroused their suspicion of disaster.

"Where's Jack?" Brant demanded. His heart was in the question. The fate of the others was of less concern to him than that of the animal he loved.

Zeke answered, strongly enough, for now energy was flowing back into him.

"The hound went over," he said, regretfully. "I saw him. He slipped an' fell, an' was gone like a flash."

Brant turned away to hide his distress.

But in Zeke recollection welled. He clutched at the marshal, and drew himself to his feet, where, after an instant, he stood firmly. His eyes went searchingly over the barren surface of the Slide. They dilated. Fright lined his face--then, horror. He stared wildly, his gaze roving over all the mountain-top, once and again--and again. When words came, they were broken, surcharged with the horrid fear that was on him.

"Whar--whar is she--Tiny?"

His look went to the four men in turn, piteously pleading. Each of the three met the look and answered it by a shake of the head. But the veteran could not endure the anguish in the lover's eyes. His own dropped. He did not shake his head. Zeke strove for courage.

"Whar is she?" he demanded, at length. His voice was more composed now, but his eyes were flaming.

The veteran answered very softly, but without any attempt at evasion.

"I saw her go, Zeke--over the cliff. Thet little dawg o' your'n had a holt on her skirt. But he hadn't the heft to keep her from goin'. The dawg did the best he knew how. But 'twa'n't no use, an' he went, too.

I was too fur off to grab her. I reckon she fainted. She didn't scream, ner move none to save herself."

There was a little period of silence. These men were schooled to the concealment of deepest emotions. There was no frantic outburst from the bereaved lover, from the afflicted grandfather. There was not even comment or further questioning. Of what avail? The thing was done. The girl was lost forever, dead. But the other men looked away, lest they see the agony in Zeke's face.

Abruptly, the young man started walking down the slope. He wore shoes, and they slipped a little on the smooth stone. Straight down toward the brink he strode. The curve of the dome made every step more perilous. It was a natural, an irresistible impulse to look on the precise place where the loved one had perished, but it appeared as if he walked to his death. Indeed, his danger was grave, for he had forgotten the shoes he wore.... Or, perhaps, he did not care! Uncle d.i.c.k uttered an oath, and leaped in pursuit. It was only a matter of seconds to overtake the young man, seize him, turn him about and march him back with fierce expostulations that were a welcome vent to emotion.

Zeke obeyed readily, aware of his momentary folly. Then, as he rejoined the group, hate flared again. Memory of the fight was confused by the blow on his head. He questioned Seth Jones harshly, with a single word:

"Hodges?"

The veteran permitted himself a faint smile. The cruelty of the soldier, accustomed to violent deaths, was in it. There was, too, a curious smugness, a secret complacency.

"I 'low yer wits are some shook up yit, bein' as how ye disremember,"

he remarked easily. "Ye trun Hodges over the cliff, Zeke, jest as ye went down. Hit were nip an' tuck atween ye, an' ye bested 'im." The kindly veteran believed the lie would be a life-long source of satisfaction to the lad, who had been so fearfully despoiled. Now, his belief was justified by the fierce pleasure that showed for a moment in Zeke's pain-drawn face.

"I kain't seem to remember," he said, perplexedly. "But I'm sh.o.r.e glad I killed him."

Then, again, silence fell. There could be no triumph really over the death of Hodges, because it had involved the destruction of Plutina as well. The five men stood about awkwardly. The solemnity of death lay like a pall over them. In the stress of suffering, Zeke had moved on from youth to the full stature of manhood. Uncle d.i.c.k had added a score of years to his apparent age. Brant grieved much, if less seriously. Only the veteran and the marshal had escaped personal loss, though they, too, mourned deeply. None ventured to suggest leaving the doomed spot. It seemed as if a sinister spell held them there, vaguely expectant, though wistful to flee.

Rather, perhaps, it was their sadness that made seem sinister a spell actually benignant. For, of a sudden, while they still stood mute, Brant raised a hand to command attention, and pointed toward the verge of the precipice.

"Hark!" he commanded.

They listened intently. Then, all heard a faint, tremulous, whimpering note, long drawn-out, querulously appealing. Zeke started and stared in the direction of the sound with an incredulous frown. Brant shook his head sorrowfully: it was not the voice of Jack. The others were merely bewildered by this unexpected development.

The whining continued, grew louder. Came a plaintive yelp. Out of the abyss was thrust a clinging paw, another. The squat face of the bull-terrier peered at them from over the top of the cliff. Next instant, the dog had scrambled safely on the Slide. It raced to Zeke with shrill cries of delight, leaped high to its master's breast, where it was caught and held closely. The slavering tongue lavished caresses. Zeke felt a warm glow of comfort in the creature's return.

Yet, it did but render more frightful the loss of that being so infinitely more precious. He hardly heard Uncle d.i.c.k speaking.

"Hit's dum curi's," the old man said, lowering on Seth Jones. "I thought as how ye said the pup was a-hangin' on to Tiny's dress."

"It was so," the veteran answered. "I 'low the dawg must 'a' let loose when hit got in the air."

"Hit's dum curi's," Uncle d.i.c.k repeated, and turned to regard the bull-terrier with bent brows.

Zeke himself put a term to the mystification that had gripped him as well as the others. He raised a hand to the dog's throat, to restrain the too eager demonstrations of affection. At the collar he felt something unaccustomed. He looked, idly enough, and saw that a leathern thong had been tied firmly in the ring. To the thong was attached a little leather bag. The things were strange to him, yet they moved him profoundly. He found himself trembling--why, he knew not.

He fumbled at the draw-strings of the pouch, loosened them. He thrust a finger within the opening, and touched something smooth and hard. It seemed to him that he already knew what this thing must be. He turned the bag upside down over his hand. In his palm lay a small coffee-colored piece of stone. It bore in darker shade the clear tracery of a cross. Zeke, looking down, saw the sacred symbol subtly effulgent, a holy promise of safety for her whom he loved. He lifted a radiant face to the others, who had crowded about with marveling exclamations.

"Hit's the fairy cross I give Tiny," Zeke cried. His voice was joyous now, though throbbing with anxiety. "She hain't dead. She's kotched somehow thar on the rocks. She kain't climb up. So, she sent the cross by Chubbie, to show she was alive. I'll go down fer her."

The listening group readily understood the wonder that had befallen.

Whatever her present peril, whatever her injuries, Plutina still lived. The blessed fact stirred them to joy and to orderly action.

"Ye kain't he'p Tiny none by fallin' into the Kittle yerself," Uncle d.i.c.k declared, with the voice of authority. "Jest hold yer hosses, an'

we'll he'p ye git 'er up safe an' sound. They's grape-vines 'nough in the grove. I suspicion she hain't so fer down. Mebby we could hear 'er if the wind wa'n't blowin' to the no'th."

They dared not take time for descent into the valley after rope.

Moreover, Uncle d.i.c.k was confident that his knots would hold securely the weight of a single person. With all speed, strands of vine were brought and spliced most carefully. In a surprisingly brief time, there were some seventy-five feet in readiness. More would be added, if this length should not suffice. When the rope was completed, an end was securely fastened about Zeke's body with knots that would neither tighten nor slip.

The young man had removed shoes and stockings, and now walked boldly down the sloping surface toward the brink. Behind him went Uncle d.i.c.k, who was to advance as far as his foothold should be secure. On the level above the Slide, the three other men held the rope, ready to pay it out, or to haul it in. Uncle d.i.c.k's duty was to save it, so far as might be, from being frayed on the rocks. It was to be let out to its full length, or until the lightened weight showed that Zeke had found support. It was to be pulled in, in the latter case, after three tugs on it by him. Zeke went boldly, it is true, but now, since he had appreciated Uncle d.i.c.k's warning, he went with painstaking carefulness as well. He realized that on his care might now depend the life of the girl he loved. So, he moved downward with increasing slowness, as the curve of the rock grew more p.r.o.nounced. At each step, he made sure that his feet still clung. Then, when still two yards from the edge, he found the footing too precarious for further walking, even with the rope. A glance over his shoulder showed that Uncle d.i.c.k had halted a rod above. He looked closely and saw that the brim of the cliff was smooth a little to the right. To save the rope as much as possible, he moved in this direction, Uncle d.i.c.k above making the like change.

Then, he seated himself on the rock and, while the men above paid out the vine, he went gently sliding downward toward the abyss.

Presently, his feet reached the brow of the cliff, pa.s.sed beyond it, hung in s.p.a.ce. The men watching from above, let the rope slide still more slowly. Now his middle was at the brink. He held to the rope with his right hand. With his left he fended himself from the cliff. He looked down. For an instant, accustomed though he was to the high places among the mountain crags, his senses reeled before the impression of unsubstantial vastness. Out beyond him was nothingness for what seemed endless distance. Straight below was the sheer wall of the precipice, with hardly a rift for five hundred feet. There a ledge showed dimly. Then, again, a half-thousand feet of vertical rocks to the valley.

But the vertigo pa.s.sed in that single instant. His vision cleared. And he saw her. He heard her, too, in the same moment. Here, the cliff was not quite perpendicular. She had slid, rather than fallen, to a resting place. She was not seriously injured. It was hardly a score of feet from the top of the cliff to the tiny shelf of rock on which she lay. This was less than a yard in width. A bit of pine shrub jutted from it courageously, held by its roots burrowing in secret fissures of the rock. A log, rolled down by some amus.e.m.e.nt-seeker on the crest, had lodged on the outer edge of the shelf. The miniature pine held one end of it; the other was wedged in a crack of the precipice. The log lay like a paling to the narrow shelf. Within that meager shelter, Plutina crouched. Beyond her the ledge narrowed, and ascended to where the cliff was broken. Thus the dog had mounted.

The girl's face was uplifted, pallid, with burning eyes fast on the lover who descended to her. Her expression showed rapture, but no surprise that this rescuer should be her beloved. The fairy crystal was competent to work any wonder. Zeke, spinning slowly with the twisting vine, thus swinging in the void between heaven and earth, felt, nevertheless, the thrill of pa.s.sionate adoration. She was even more beautiful than he remembered her.

The shelf, though narrowing, ran toward him. Soon, his feet touched it. At the relief from his weight, the rope was no longer paid out, though held taut. With its aid he traversed the ledge, and reached the shelf where the girl knelt. He knelt beside her, and, without a word, their lips met and clung. There, amid the perils of the precipice, they were in heaven.

For that matter, little speech pa.s.sed between them afterward. They needed none. Zeke adjusted the rope about her, kissed her, and gave the signal to haul away.

With his heart in his eyes, he watched the swaying form rise, and was inexpressibly relieved when he saw her clear the brim safely. There was a short interval. Then the rope came dangling down, and drew him back to safety. Again the lovers were in each other's arms. The terror and the agony were forgotten. The bliss remained.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Marshal Stone and Brant were to return together to North Wilkesboro'