Our Southern Highlanders Part 5

But somebody, thinking that dog-talk had gone far enough, produced a bottle of soothing-syrup that was too new to have paid tax. Then we discovered that there was musical talent, of a sort, in Little John. He cut a pigeon-wing, twirled around with an imaginary banjo, and sang in a quaint minor:

Did you _ever_ see the devil, With his _pitchfork_ and ladle, And his _old_ iron shovel, And his old gourd head?

O, I _will_ go to meetin', And I _will_ go to meetin', Yes, I _will_ go to meetin', In an old tin pan.

Other songs followed, with utter irrelevance--mere s.n.a.t.c.hes from "ballets" composed, mainly, by the mountaineers themselves, though some dated back to a long-forgotten age when the British ancestors of these Carolina woodsmen were battling with lance and long-bow. It was one of modern and local origin that John was singing when there came a diversion from without--

La-a-ay down, boys, Le's take a nap: Thar's goin' to be trouble In the c.u.mberland Gap--

Our ears were stunned by one sudden thundering crash. The roof rose visibly, as though pushed upward from within. In an instant we were blinded by moss and dried mud--the c.h.i.n.king blown from between the logs of our shabby cabin. Dred and Coaly cowered as though whipped, while "Doc's" little hound slunk away in the keen misery of fear. We men looked at each other with lowered eyelids and the grim smile that denotes readiness, though no special eagerness, for dissolution. Beyond the "gant-lot" we could hear trees and limbs popping like skirmishers in action.

Then that tidal wave of air swept by. The roof settled again with only a few shingles missing. We went to "redding up." Squalls broke against the mountainside, hither and yon, like the hammer of Thor testing the foundations of the earth. But they were below us. Here, on top, there was only the steady drive of a great surge of wind; and speech was possible once more.

"Fellers, you want to mark whut you dream about, to-night: hit'll sh.o.r.e come true to-morrow."

"Yes: but you mustn't tell whut yer dream was till the hunt's over, or it'll spile the charm."

There ensued a grave discussion of dream-lore, in which the illiterates of our party declared solemn faith. If one dreamt of blood, he would surely see blood the next day. Another lucky sign for a hunter was to dream of quarreling with a woman, for that meant a she-bear; it was favorable to dream of clear water, but muddy water meant trouble.

The wind died away. When we went out for a last observation of the weather we found the air so clear that the lights of Knoxville were plainly visible, in the north-north west, thirty-two miles in an air line. Not another light was to be seen on earth, although in some directions we could scan for nearly a hundred miles. The moon shone brightly. Things looked rather favorable for the morrow, after all.

"Brek-k-k-_fust_!"

I awoke to a knowledge that somebody had built a roaring fire and was stirring about. Between the cabin logs one looked out upon a starry sky and an almost pitch-dark world. What did that pottering vagabond mean by arousing us in the middle of the night? But I was hungry. Everybody half arose on elbows and blinked about. Then we got up, each after his fashion, except one scamp who resumed snoring.

"Whar's that brekfust you're yellin' about?"

"Hit's for you-uns to help _git_! I knowed I couldn't roust ye no other way. Here, you, go down to the spring and fetch water. Rustle out, boys; we've got to git a soon start if you want bear brains an' liver for supper."

The "soon start" tickled me into good humor.

Our dogs were curled together under the long bunk, having popped indoors as soon as the way was opened. Somebody trod on Coaly's tail. Coaly snapped Dred. Instantly there was action between the four. It is interesting to observe what two or three hundred pounds of dog can do to a ramshackle berth with a man on top of it. Poles and hay and ragged quilts flew in every direction. Sleepy Matt went down in the midst of the melee, swearing valiantly. I went out and hammered ice out of the wash-basin while Granville and John quelled the riot. Presently our frying-pans sputtered and the huge coffee-pot began to get up steam.

"Waal, who dreamt him a good dream?"

"I did," affirmed the writer. "I dreamt that I had an old colored woman by the throat and was choking dollars out of her mouth----"

"Good la!" exclaimed four men in chorus; "you hadn't orter a-told."

"Why? Wasn't that a lovely dream?"

"Hit means a she-bear, sh.o.r.e as a cap-shootin' gun; but you've done spiled it all by tellin'. Mebbe somebody'll git her to-day, but _you_ won't--your chanct is ruined."

So the reader will understand why, in this veracious narrative, I cannot relate any heroic exploits of my own in battling with Ursus Major. And so you, ambitious one, when you go into the Smokies after that long-lost bear, remember these two cardinal points of the Law:

(1) Dream that you are fighting some poor old colored woman. (That is easy: the victuals you get will fix up your dream, all right.) And--

(2) Keep your mouth shut about it.

There was still no sign of rose-color in the eastern sky when we sallied forth. The ground, to use a mountaineer's expression, was "all spewed up with frost." Rime crackled underfoot and our mustaches soon stiffened in the icy wind.

It was settled that Little John Cable and the hunchback Cope should take the dogs far down into Bone Valley and start the drive, leaving Granville, "Doc," Matt, and myself to picket the mountain. I was given a stand about half a mile east of the cabin, and had but a vague notion of where the others went.

By jinks, it was cold! I built a little fire between the b.u.t.tressing roots of a big mountain oak, but still my toes and fingers were numb.

This was the 25th of November, and we were at an alt.i.tude where sometimes frost forms in July. The other men were more thinly clad than I, and with not a st.i.tch of wool beyond their stockings; but they seemed to revel in the keen air. I wasted some pity on Cope, who had no underwear worthy of the name; but afterwards I learned that he would not have worn more clothes if they had been given him. Many a night my companions had slept out on the mountain without blanket or shelter, when the ground froze and every twig in the forest was coated with rime from the winter fog.

Away out yonder beyond the mighty bulk of Clingman Dome, which, black with spruce and balsam, looked like a vast bear rising to contemplate the northern world, there streaked the first faint, nebulous hint of dawn. Presently the big bear's head was tipped with a golden crown flashing against the scarlet fires of the firmament, and the earth awoke.

A rustling some hundred yards below me gave signal that the gray squirrels were on their way to water. Out of a tree overhead hopped a mountain "boomer" (red squirrel), and down he came, eyed me, and stopped. c.o.c.king his head to one side he challenged peremptorily: "Who are you? Stump? Stump? Not a stump. What the deuce!"

I moved my hand.

"Lawk--the booger-man! Run, run, run!"

Somewhere from the sky came a strange, half-human note, as of someone chiding: "_Wal_-lace, _Wal_-lace, _Wat_!" I could get no view for the trees. Then the voice flexibly changed to a deep-toned "Co-_logne_, Co-_logne_, Co-_logne_," that rang like a bell through the forest aisles.

Two names uttered distinctly from the air! Two scenes conjured in a breath, vivid but unrelated as in dreams: Wallace--an iron-bound Scottish coast; Cologne--tall spires, and cliffs along the Rhine! What magic had flashed such pictures upon a remote summit of the Smoky Mountains?

The weird speaker sailed into view--a raven. Forward it swept with great speed of ebon wings, fairly within gunshot for one teasing moment. Then, as if to mock my gaping stupor, it hurtled like a hawk far into the safe distance, whence it flung back loud screams of defiance and chuckles of derision.

As the morning drew on, I let the fire die to ashes and basked lazily in the sun. Not a sound had I heard from the dogs. My hoodoo was working malignly. Well, let it work. I was comfortable now, and that old bear could go to any other doom she preferred. It was pleasant enough to lie here alone in the forest and be free! Aye, it was good to be alive, and to be far, far away from the broken bottles and old tin cans of civilization.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "By and by up they came, carrying the Bear on a trimmed sapling"]

For many a league to the southward clouds covered all the valleys in billows of white, from which rose a hundred mountain tops, like islands in a tropic ocean. My fancy sailed among and beyond them, beyond the horizon's rim, even unto those far seas that I had sailed in my youth, to the old times and the old friends that I should never see again.

But a forenoon is long-drawn-out when one has breakfasted before dawn, and has nothing to do but sit motionless in the woods and watch and listen. I got to fingering my rifle trigger impatiently and wishing that a wild Thanksgiving gobbler might blunder into view. Squirrels made ceaseless chatter all around my stand. Large hawks shrilled by me within tempting range, whistling like spent bullets. A groundhog sat up on a log and whistled, too, after a manner of his own. He was so near that I could see his nose wiggle. A skunk waddled around for twenty minutes, and once came so close that I thought he would nibble my boot. I was among old mossy beeches, scaled with polyphori, and twisted into postures of torture by their battles with the storms. Below, among chestnuts and birches, I could hear the _t-wee, t-wee_ of "joree-birds"

(towhees), which winter in the valleys. Incessantly came the _chip-chip-cluck_ of ground squirrels, the saucy bark of the grays, and great chirruping among the "boomers," which had ceased swearing and were hard at work.

Far off on my left a rifle cracked. I p.r.i.c.ked up and listened intently, but there was never a yelp from a dog. Since it is a law of the chase to fire at nothing smaller than turkeys, lest big game be scared away, this shot might mean a gobbler. I knew that Matt Hyde could not, to save his soul, sit ten minutes on a stand without calling turkeys (and he _could_ call them, with his una.s.sisted mouth, better than anyone I ever heard perform with leaf or wing-bone or any other contrivance).

Thus the slow hours dragged along. I yearned mightily to stretch my legs. Finally, being certain that no drive would approach my stand that day, I ambled back to the hut and did a turn at dinner-getting. Things were smoking, and smelt good, by the time four of our men turned up, all of them dog-tired and disappointed, but stoical.

"That pup Coaly chased off atter a wildcat," blurted John. "We held the old dogs together and let him rip. Then Dred started a deer. It was that old buck that everybody's shot at, and missed, this three year back. I'd believe he's a hant if 't wasn't for his tracks--they're the biggest I ever seen. He must weigh two hunderd and fifty. But he's a foxy cuss.

Tuk right down the bed o' Desolation, up the left p.r.o.ng of Roaring Fork, right through the Devil's Race-path (how a deer can git through thar I don't see!), crossed at the Meadow Gap, went down Eagle Creek, and by now he's in the Little Tennessee. That buck, sh.o.r.ely to G.o.d, has wings!"

We were at table in the Carolina room when Matt Hyde appeared. Sure enough, he bore a turkey hen.

"I was callin' a gobbler when this fool thing showed up. I fired a shoot as she riz in the air, but only bruk her wing. She made off on her legs like the devil whoppin' out fire. I run, an' she run. Guess I run her half a mile through all-fired thickets. She piped '_Quit--quit_,' but I said, 'I'll see you in h.e.l.l afore I quit!' and the chase resumed.

Finally I knocked her over with a birch stob, and here we are."

Matt ruefully surveyed his almost denuded legs, evidence of his chase.

"Boys," said he, "I'm nigh breechless!"