Heart of the Blue Ridge Part 2

"Now, don't be plumb foolish," Zeke expostulated. "The varmint hain't hurt none--not a mite, ma'am."

"Beast!" the girl e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, concisely.

Zeke retorted with high indignation.

"I jest nacher'ly hain't a-goin' to stand still an' say 'Thank ye!'

while I'm bein' et up piecemeal by no dawg--specially one with a face like his'n."

He would have said more, but paused with mouth agape, eyes widening, his expression horror-stricken. For, just then, the bull-terrier snorted loudly, and unclosed its red eyes. The clenched jaws, too, relaxed. Thus released, the broad strip of jeans fluttered to the floor. Its movement caught Zeke's gaze. He recognized the cloth. The ghastly truth burst in his brain. In an agony of embarra.s.sment, he clasped his hands to that portion of his person so fearfully despoiled. Moved by his sudden silence, impressed perhaps by some subtle impact of this new and dreadful emotion on his part, the girl looked up. She, too, had noted subconsciously the fall of the cloth from the dog's jaws. Now as she saw the young man's face of fire and observed his peculiar posture, she understood. Her own crimson cheeks rivaled those of the afflicted one. She turned and bent low over her reviving pet. Her shoulders were shaking, Zeke was shuddering.

CHAPTER IV

The conventions of dress are sometimes pestilential. If any doubt this truth let him remember the nightmares wherein his nudity made torment.

And, while remembering the anguish such lack of clothing has occasioned in dreams, let him think with pity on the suffering of Zeke whose plight was real. It was in sooth, a predicament to strain the _savoir faire_ of the most polished courtier. Perhaps, the behavior of the mountaineer was as discreet as any permitted by the unfortunate circ.u.mstances, and could hardly have been improved on by the Admirable Crichton himself. He simply retained an immobile pose, facing the girl, with his whole soul concentrated in desire that the earth should split asunder to engulf him. The tide of his misery was at its flood, so that it grew no worse when some deck-hands thrust the forward doors open, and a policeman bounded into the cabin, drawn revolver in hand.

But the bull-terrier was to escape the fate unjustly inflicted on so many of its fellows. The girl, crouching over the dog, barred the policeman's purpose.

"Get away from him, miss," the officer directed. "He ain't safe, even if he's quiet. I know mad dogs. A bullet's the only medicine."

"Chub isn't mad in the least," the girl snapped; "though he's been through enough to make him crazy--and so have I. If you're so anxious to do your duty, officer," she added, bitterly, "why don't you arrest that horrid, hulking man over there?" She pointed a neatly gloved, accusing finger at the motionless Zeke, who was staring fixedly at the point where he hoped the abyss might yawn.

"What's he done?" the policeman inquired gruffly. He was miffed over this lost opportunity. The slayer of a mad dog is always mentioned as a hero in the newspapers.

The girl stood up. The dog, at the end of the leash, also stood up, and shook itself. It had, to all seeming, recovered fully. It regarded Zeke intently from its red eyes. But it did not growl. It was plain that the bull-terrier was thinking deeply, and that Zeke was the center around which thought revolved. But, if the dog did not growl, its mistress showed no lessening of hostility. She explained succinctly to the representative of the law:

"He a.s.saulted my dog--with his feet and his hands."

"And maybe he bit him, too!" the policeman suggested, with heavy sarcasm. He could not forgive this pretty girl for foiling his heroism.

The girl did not heed. Her white brow was wrinkled in a frown. She was recalling, with an effort, her somewhat meager knowledge of legal terms.

"I shall charge him with homicidal a.s.sault," she announced firmly.

"I hope you'll tell that to the sarge," the officer chuckled, his pique forgotten in appreciation of the girl's nave announcement.

"I'll take this chap to the station-house. You'll appear against him, miss?" The girl nodded emphatically. He turned on Zeke, frowning.

"Come on quiet, young feller, if you know what's good for ye." His practiced eye studied the young mountaineer's physique respectfully.

Zeke made no movement, nor answered nor lifted his eyes. The policeman attributed this demeanor to recalcitrancy. He put the revolver in his pocket, drew his club and took a step forward. Yet, he sensed something unfamiliar in the situation; the stiff posture of the arms and hands of the culprit attracted his attention. He felt vaguely that something of a painful nature was toward. He stopped short, puzzled, and spoke:

"What's the matter with ye, anyhow?" he demanded fiercely. "Hain't ye got any tongue?"

Then, at last, Zeke raised his eyes. They went first to the forward door, to make sure that the girl had vanished. There were only two mildly interested deck-hands in the cabin, beside the policeman, though soon the place would be filled with newly arriving pa.s.sengers.

He looked at the officer squarely, with despair in his expression:

"Hit ain't my tongue--hit's my pants!" he said huskily. "Hit's the seat of my pants. Hit's--hit's thar!" He nodded toward the strip of jeans left on the floor by the dog.

The policeman stared at the fragment of cloth, then his gaze returned appreciatively to the victim's hands. He threw his head back and bellowed with laughter, echoed raucously by the deck-hands. Zeke waited grimly until the merriment lessened a little.

"I hain't a-stirrin' nary a step to no jail-house," was his morose announcement, "unless somebody gits me some pants with a seat to 'em."

The policeman liked his ease too well to fight needlessly, and he had an idea that the thews and sinews of the boomer might make a good account of themselves. Moreover, he was by way of being a kindly soul, and he apprehended in a measure the young man's misery.

"Can you dig up a pair of jumpers?" he asked the deck-hands. "You can have 'em back by calling at the station to-morrow."

In this manner, the difficulty was bridged. Clad in the dingy and dirty borrowed garment, the burning shame fell from Zeke, and he was once again his own man. Nevertheless, he avoided looking toward the piece of torn cloth lying on the floor, as he went out with the policeman. He only wished that he might with equal ease leave behind all memory of the lamentable episode.

Zeke's tractability increased the favorable impression already made on the officer by the mountaineer's wholesome face and modest, manly bearing. It was evident that this was no ordinary rake-h.e.l.ly boomer come to town. There was, too, the black bag to witness that the prisoner was an honest voyager. On the way to the station, the constable listened with unusual patience to Zeke's curt account of the misadventure, and the narrative was accepted as truth--the more readily by reason of some slight prejudice against the dog, which had failed as an exploiter of heroism. In consequence, the policeman grew friendly, and promised intercession in his captive's behalf. This was the more effective when, on arrival at the station-house, it was learned that the girl with the dog had not appeared. Nor was there sign of her after a period of waiting. The sergeant at the desk decided that there could be no occasion to hold the prisoner. But he frowned on the deadly weapon, which the usual search had revealed.

"'Twon't do for you to go totin' that cannon promiscuous," he declared. "You sh.o.r.e don't need a gun--you sh.o.r.e do need breeches.

What's the answer?... Hock the gun, and buy some pants."

Thus simply did an alert mind solve all difficulties of the situation.

So in the end, Zeke issued safely from his first bout with mischance and found himself well content, for his dress now was more like that of the men about him. The new trousers were full length, which the jeans had not been, and the creases down the legs were in the latest style. The salesman had so stated, and Zeke observed with huge satisfaction that the stiffness of the creases seemed to mark the quality of the various suits visible in the streets. And his own creases were of the most rigid! Zeke for the first time in his life, felt that warm thrill which characterizes any human integer, whether high or low, when conscious of being especially well dressed.

Followed an interval of loitering. The sights of the town formed an endless panorama of wonder to the lad's eager vision. Though he was a year past the age of man's estate, this was his first opportunity of beholding a town of any size, of seeing face to face things of which he had heard a little, had read more. His fresh, receptive mind scanned every detail with fierce concentration of interest, and registered a mult.i.tude of vivid impressions to be tenaciously retained in memory.

And ever with him, as he roamed the streets, went a tall slender girl, barefooted, garbed in homespun, with great dark brown eyes that looked tenderly on him from beneath the tumbled bronze ma.s.ses of her hair. No pa.s.ser-by saw her, but the mountaineer knew her constant presence, and with her held voiceless communion concerning all things that he beheld. His heart exulted proudly over the bewildering revelations of many women, both beautiful and marvelously clad in fine raiment--for this girl that walked with him was more radiantly fair than any other.

It was late afternoon when, finally, Zeke aroused himself to think of the necessities of his position. Then, after a hasty and economical meal at a lunch counter near the water-front, he made haste to the pier, where his attention was at once riveted on an Old Dominion Liner, which was just backing out into the river. He watched the great bulk, fascinated, while it turned, and moved away down the harbor, to vanish beyond Sewall's Point, on its way toward Hampton Roads.

Immediately afterward, his attention was attracted to a much smaller steamer, which drew in on the opposite side of the wharf. There chanced to be no one else near, and, as the boat slid into the slip, a man in the bow hurled a coil of rope toward Zeke, with an aim so accurate that it fell across Zeke's shoulder.

"Don't dodge it, you lubber!" the man roared, in answer to the mountaineer's instinctive movement. "Haul it in, an' make fast to the punchin'."

Zeke obeyed readily enough, hauled in the hawser, and made the loop fast over the piling. At the same moment, he saw two negroes, blacker from soot and grime than nature had made them, who leaped down from the deck, and scampered out of sight. He heard the captain in the pilot-house shouting down the tube.

"There go your----n.i.g.g.e.r stokers on the run."

Zeke could both see and hear the man in the engine-room, who vowed profanely that he would ship a pair of white men, to sail before ten that night. It seemed to the listener that the situation might develop to his advantage. When, presently, the captain descended to the dock, Zeke made bold to accost that red-faced and truculent-appearing person. Much to his surprise, his request for work met with an amiable reply. The captain verified what Zeke already knew, that the engineer had need of men, and bade the inquirer get aboard and offer himself.

In the engine-room, the harried chief scowled on the intruder.

"What the devil do you want?" he cried harshly.

But Zeke's purpose was too earnest to be put down by mere ungraciousness.

"Work," he replied with a smile.

Something in the applicant's aspect mitigated the engineer's asperity.

"Ever fire a boiler?" he questioned, more affably.

"Yes, an' no," Zeke answered; "not any real steam b'iler. But, when hit comes to keepin' a hick'ry fire under a copper kittle, an' not scorchin' the likker, wall, I 'lows as how I kin do hit. An' when it comes to makin' o' sorghum m'la.s.ses, I hain't never tuk off my hat to n.o.body yit. Fer the keepin' o' proper temp'rature folks says, I'm 'bout's good's anybody in Wilkes."

"Humph!--boomer," the engineer grunted, and there was silence for a moment. When next he spoke, his manner was kindly.