The Call of the Cumberlands Part 33

"Come and git him."

But Hollman and Purvy, hypocritically clamoring for the sanct.i.ty of the law, made no effort to come and "git him." They knew that Spicer South's house was now a fortress, prepared for siege. They knew that every trail thither was picketed. Also, they knew a better way. This time, they had the color of the law on their side. The Circuit Judge, through the Sheriff, asked for troops, and troops came. Their tents dotted the river bank below the Hixon Bridge. A detail under a white flag went out after Tamarack Spicer. The militia Captain in command, who feared neither feudist nor death, was courteously received. He had brains, and he a.s.sured them that he acted under orders which could not be disobeyed. Unless they surrendered the prisoner, gatling guns would follow. If necessary they would be dragged behind ox-teams. Many militiamen might be killed, but for each of them the State had another.

If Spicer would surrender, the officer would guarantee him personal protection, and, if it seemed necessary, a change of venue would secure him trial in another circuit. For hours, the clan deliberated. For the soldiers they felt no enmity. For the young Captain they felt an instinctive liking. He was a man.

Old Spicer South, restored to an echo of his former robustness by the call of action, gave the clan's verdict.

"Hit hain't the co'te we're skeered of. Ef this boy goes ter town, he won't never git inter no co'te. He'll be murdered."

The officer held out his hand.

"As man to man," he said, "I pledge you my word that no one shall take him except by process of law. I'm not working for the Hollmans, or the Purvys. I know their breed,"

For a s.p.a.ce, old South looked into the soldier's eyes, and the soldier looked back.

"I'll take yore handshake on thet bargain," said the mountaineer, gravely. "Tam'rack," he added, in a voice of finality, "ye've got ter go."

The officer had meant what he said. He marched his prisoner into Hixon at the center of a hollow square, with muskets at the ready. And yet, as the boy pa.s.sed into the court-house yard, with a soldier rubbing elbows on each side, a cleanly aimed shot sounded from somewhere. The smokeless powder told no tale and with blue shirts and army hats circling him, Tamarack fell and died.

That afternoon, one of Hollman's henchmen was found lying in the road with his lifeless face in the water of the creek. The next day, as old Spicer South stood at the door of his cabin, a rifle barked from the hillside, and he fell, shot through the left shoulder by a bullet intended for his heart. All this while, the troops were helplessly camped at Hixon. They had power and inclination to go out and get men, but there was no man to get.

The Hollmans had used the soldiers as far as they wished; they had made them pull the chestnuts out of the fire and Tamarack Spicer out of his stronghold. They now refused to swear out additional warrants.

A detail had rushed into Hollman's store an instant after the shot which killed Tamarack was fired. Except for a woman buying a card of b.u.t.tons, and a fair-haired clerk waiting on her, they found the building empty.

Back beyond, the hills were impenetrable, and answered no questions.

CHAPTER XXIV

Old Spicer South would ten years ago have put a bandage on his wound and gone about his business, but now he tossed under his patchwork quilt, and Brother Spencer expressed grave doubts for his recovery.

With his counsel unavailable Wile McCager, by common consent, a.s.sumed something like the powers of a regent and took upon himself the duties to which Samson should have succeeded.

That a Hollman should have been able to elude the pickets and penetrate the heart of South territory to Spicer South's cabin, was both astounding and alarming. The war was on without question now, and there must be council. Wile McCager had sent out a summons for the family heads to meet that afternoon at his mill. It was Sat.u.r.day--"mill day"--and in accordance with ancient custom the lanes would be more traveled than usual.

Those men who came by the wagon road afforded no unusual spectacle, for behind each saddle sagged a sack of grain. Their faces bore no stamp of unwonted excitement, but every man balanced a rifle across his pommel. None the less, their purpose was grim, and their talk when they had gathered was to the point.

Old McCager, himself sorely perplexed, voiced the sentiment that the others had been too courteous to express. With Spicer South bed-ridden and Samson a renegade, they had no adequate leader. McCager was a solid man of intrepid courage and honesty, but grinding grist was his avocation, not strategy and tactics. The enemy had such masters of intrigue as Purvy and Judge Hollman.

Then, a lean sorrel mare came jogging into view, switching her fly- bitten tail, and on the mare's back, urging him with a long, leafy switch, sat a woman. Behind her sagged the two loaded ends of a corn- sack. She rode like the mountain women, facing much to the side, yet unlike them. Her arms did not flap. She did not b.u.mp gawkily up and down in her saddle. Her blue calico dress caught the sun at a distance, but her blue sunbonnet shaded and masked her face. She was lithe and slim, and her violet eyes were profoundly serious, and her lips were as resolutely set as Joan of Arc's might have been, for Sally Miller had come only ostensibly to have her corn ground to meal. She had really come to speak for the absent chief, and she knew that she would be met with derision. The years had sobered the girl, but her beauty had increased, though it was now of a chastened type, which gave her a strange and rather exalted refinement of expression.

Wile McCager came to the mill door, as she rode up, and lifted the sack from her horse.

"Howdy, Sally?" he greeted.

"Tol'able, thank ye," said Sally. "I'm goin' ter get off."

As she entered the great half-lighted room, where the mill stones creaked on their c.u.mbersome shafts, the hum of discussion sank to silence. The place was brown with age and dirt, and powdered with a coa.r.s.e dusting of meal. The girl nodded to the mountaineers gathered in conclave, then, turning to the miller she announced:

"I'm going to send for Samson."

The statement was at first met with dead silence, then came a rumble of indignant dissent, but for that the girl was prepared, as she was prepared for the contemptuous laughter which followed.

"I reckon if Samson was here," she said, dryly, "you all wouldn't think it was quite so funny."

Old Caleb Wiley spat through his bristling beard, and his voice was a quavering rumble.

"What we wants is a man. We hain't got no use fer no traitors thet's too almighty d.a.m.n busy doin' fancy work ter stand by their kith an' kin."

"That's a lie!" said the girl, scornfully. "There's just one man living that's smart enough to match Jesse Purvy--an' that one man is Samson. Samson's got the right to lead the Souths, and he's going to do it--ef he wants to."

"Sally," Wile McCager spoke, soothingly, "don't go gittin' mad. Caleb talks hasty. We knows ye used ter be Samson's gal, an' we hain't aimin'

ter hurt yore feelin's. But Samson's done left the mountings. I reckon ef he wanted ter come back, he'd a-come afore now. Let him stay whar he's at."

"Whar is he at?" demanded old Caleb Wiley, in a truculent voice.

"That's his business," Sally flashed back, "but I know. All I want to tell you is this. Don't you make a move till I have time to get word to him. I tell you, he's got to have his say."

"I reckon we hain't a-goin' ter wait," sneered Caleb, "fer a feller thet won't let hit be known whar he's a-sojournin' at. Ef ye air so sh.o.r.e of him, why won't ye tell us whar he is now?"

"That's my business, too." Sally's voice was resolute. "I've got a letter here--it'll take two days to get to Samson. It'll take him two or three days more to get here. You've got to wait a week."

"Sally," the temporary chieftain spoke still in a patient, humoring sort of voice, as to a tempestuous child, "thar hain't no place ter mail a letter nigher then Hixon. No South can't ride inter Hixon, an'

ride out again. The mail-carrier won't be down this way fer two days yit."

"I'm not askin' any South to ride into Hixon. I recollect another time when Samson was the only one that would do that," she answered, still scornfully. "I didn't come here to ask favors. I came to give orders-- for him. A train leaves soon in the morning. My letter's goin' on that train."

"Who's goin' ter take hit ter town fer ye?"

"I'm goin' to take it for myself." Her reply was given as a matter of course.

"That wouldn't hardly be safe, Sally," the miller demurred; "this hain't no time fer a gal ter be galavantin' around by herself in the night time. Hit's a-comin' up ter storm, an' ye've got thirty miles ter ride, an' thirty-five back ter yore house."

"I'm not scared," she replied. "I'm goin' an' I'm warnin' you now, if you do anything that Samson don't like, you'll have to answer to him, when he comes." She turned, walking very erect and dauntless to her sorrel mare, and disappeared at a gallop.

"I reckon," said Wile McCager, breaking the silence at last, "hit don't make no great dif'rence. He won't hardly come, nohow." Then, he added: "But thet boy is smart."

Samson's return from Europe, after a year's study, was in the nature of a moderate triumph. With the art sponsorship of George Lescott, and the social sponsorship of Adrienne, he found that orders for portraits, from those who could pay munificently, seemed to seek him. He was tasting the novelty of being lionized.

That summer, Mrs. Lescott opened her house on Long Island early, and the life there was full of the sort of gaiety that comes to pleasant places when young men in flannels and girls in soft summery gowns and tanned cheeks are playing wholesomely, and singing tunefully, and making love--not too seriously.

Samson, tremendously busy these days in a new studio of his own, had run over for a week. Horton was, of course, of the party, and George Lescott was doing the honors as host. Besides these, all of whom regarded themselves as members of the family, there was a group of even younger folk, and the broad halls and terraces and tennis courts rang all day long with their laughter, and the floors trembled at night under the rhythmical tread of their dancing.

Off across the lawns and woodlands stretched the blue, sail-flecked waters of the Sound, and on the next hill rose the tile roofs and cream -white walls of the country club.