The Guns of Bull Run Part 18

The little town had few lights in those days and the boy moved along in the dusk, until he came near the Capitol. There he saw the flame of lamps shining from several windows, and he knew that men were still at work, striving to draw a state into the arms of the North or the South. He paused a few minutes at the corner of the lawn and drew many long, deep breaths. The soreness was almost gone from his chest. The oil with which Samuel Jarvis had kneaded his bruises was certainly wonderful, and he hoped that "Aunt Suse," who got it from the Indians, would fill out her second hundred years.

He reached the hotel without meeting any one whom he knew, and went up the stairway to his room, where he found his father writing at a small desk. Colonel Kenton glanced at him, and noticed at once his change of costume.

"What does that clothing mean, Harry?" he asked. "It's jeans, and it doesn't fit."

"I know it's jeans, and I know it doesn't fit, but I was mighty glad to get it, as everything else I had on was soaked with water."

Colonel Kenton raised his eyebrows.

"I was hunting the bottom of the Kentucky River," continued Harry.

"Fall in?"

"No, thrown in."

Colonel Kenton raised his eyebrows higher than ever.

Harry sat down and told him the whole story, Colonel Kenton listening intently and rarely interrupting.

"It was great good fortune that the men on the raft came just at the right time," he said, when Harry had finished. "There are bad mountaineers and good mountaineers-Jarvis and his nephew represent one type and Skelly the other. Skelly hates us because we drove back his band when they attacked our house. In peaceful times we could have him hunted out and punished, but we cannot follow him into his mountains now. We shall be compelled to let this pa.s.s for the present, but as your life would not be safe here you must leave Frankfort, Harry."

"I can't go back to Pendleton," said the boy, "and stay there, doing nothing."

"I had no such purpose. I know that you are bound to be in active life, and I was already meditating a longer journey for you. Listen clearly to me, Harry. The fight here is about over, and we are going to fail. It is by the narrowest of margins, but still we will fail. We who are for the South know it with certainty. Kentucky will refuse to go out of the Union, and it is a great blow to us. I shall have to go back to Pendleton for a week or two and then I will take a command. But since you are bent upon service in the field, I want you to go to the East."

Harry's face flushed with pleasure. It was his dearest wish. Colonel Kenton, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, smiled.

"I fancied that you would be quite willing to go," he said. "I had a letter this morning from a man who likes you well, Colonel Leonidas Talbot. He is at Richmond and he says that President Davis, his cabinet, and all the equipment of a capital will arrive there about the last of the month. The enemy is ma.s.sing before Washington and also toward the West in the Maryland and Virginia mountains. A great battle is sure to be fought in the summer and he wants you on his staff. General Beauregard, whom you knew at Charleston, is to be in supreme command. Can you leave here in a day or two for Richmond?"

Harry's eyes were sparkling, and the flush was still in his face.

"I could go in an hour," he replied.

"Such an abrupt departure as that is not needed. Moreover the choice of a route is of great importance and requires thought. If you were to take one of the steamers up the Ohio, say to Wheeling, in West Virginia, you would almost surely fall into the hands of the Northern troops. The North also controls about all the railway connections there are between Kentucky and Virginia."

"Then I must ride across the mountains."

"These new friends of yours who saved you from the river, are they going to stay long in Frankfort?"

"Not more than a day or two, I think. I gathered from what Jarvis said that they were not willing to remain long where trouble was thick."

"How are their sympathies placed in this great division of our people?"

Harry laughed.

"I inferred," he replied, "from what Jarvis said that they intend to keep the peace. He intimated to me that the silence of the mountains was more welcome to him than the cause of either North or South."

Colonel Kenton smiled again.

"Perhaps he is wiser than the rest of us," he said, "but in any event, I think he is our man. He will sell his logs and pull back up the Kentucky in a small boat. I gather from what you say that he came down the most southerly fork of the Kentucky, which, in a general way, is the route you wish to take. You can go with him and his nephew until they reach their home in the mountains. Then you must take a horse, strike south into the old Wilderness Road, cross the ranges into Virginia and reach Richmond. Are you willing?"

He spoke as father to son, and also as man to man.

"I'm more than willing," replied Harry. "I don't think we could choose a better way. Jarvis and his nephew, I know, will be as true as steel, and I'd like that journey in the boat."

"Then it's settled, provided Jarvis and his nephew are willing. We'll see them before breakfast in the morning, and now I think you'd better go to sleep. A boy who was fished out of the Kentucky only an hour or two ago needs rest."

Harry promptly went to bed, but sleep was long in coming. Their mission to Frankfort had failed, and action awaited his young footsteps. Virginia, the mother state of his own, was a mighty name to him, and men already believed the great war would be decided there. The mountains, too, with their wild forests and streams beckoned to him. The old, inherited blood within him made the great pulses leap. But he slept at last and dreamed of far-off things.

Harry and his father rose at the first silver shoot of dawn, and went quickly through the deserted street to a quiet cove in the Kentucky, where Samuel Jarvis had anch.o.r.ed his raft. It was a crisp morning, with a tang in the air that made life feel good. A thin curl of smoke was rising from the raft, showing that the man and his nephew were already up, and cooking in the little hut on the raft.

Harry stepped upon the logs and his father followed him. Jarvis was just pouring coffee from a tin pot into a tin cup, and Ike was turning over some strips of bacon in an iron skillet on an iron stove. Both of them, watchful like all mountaineers, had heard the visitors coming, but they did not look up until they were on the raft.

"Mornin'," called Jarvis cheerfully. "Look, Ike, it's the big fish that we hooked out of the river last night, an' he's got company."

"I want to thank you for saving my son's life," said the Colonel.

"I reckon, then, that you're Colonel George Kenton," said Jarvis. "Wa'al, you don't owe us no thanks. I'm of an inquirin' turn of mind, an' whenever I see a man or boy floatin' along in the river I always fish him out, just to see who an' what he is. My curiosity is pow'ful strong, colonel, an' it leads me to do a lot o' things that I wouldn't do if it wasn't fur it. Set an' take a bite with us. This air is nippin' an' it makes my teeth tremenjous sharp."

"We're with you," said the colonel, who was adaptable, and who saw at once that Jarvis was a man of high character. "It's cool on the river and that coffee will warm one up mighty well."

"It's fine coffee," said Jarvis proudly. "Aunt Suse taught me how to make it. She learned, when you didn't git coffee often, an' you had to make the most of it when you did git it."

"Who is Aunt Suse?"

"Aunt Susan, or Suse as we call her fur short, is back at home in the hills. She's a good hundred, colonel, an' two or three yars more to boot, I reckon, but as spry as a kitten. Full o' tales o' the early days an' the wild beasts an' the Injuns. She says you couldn't make up any story of them times that ain't beat by the truth. When she come up the Wilderness Road from Virginia in the Revolution she was already a young woman. She's knowed Dan'l Boone and Simon Kenton an' all them gran' old fellers. A tremenjous interestin' old lady is my Aunt Suse, colonel."

"I've no doubt of it, Mr. Jarvis." said Colonel Kenton, "but I don't think I can wait a second longer for a cup of that coffee of yours. It smells so good that if you don't give it to me I'll have to take it from you."

Jarvis grinned cheerfully. Harry saw that his father had already made a skillful appeal to the mountaineer's pride.

"Ike, you lunkhead," he said to his nephew, "I told the colonel to set, but we did'nt give him anythin' to set on. Pull up them blocks o' wood fur him an' his son. Now you'll take breakfast with us, won't you, colonel? The bacon an' the corn cakes are ready, too."

"Of course we will," said the colonel, "and gladly, too. It makes me young again to eat this way in the fresh air of a cool morning."

Samuel Jarvis shone as a host. The breakfast was served on a smooth stump put on board for that purpose. The coffee was admirable, and the bacon and thin corn cakes were cooked beautifully. Good b.u.t.ter was spread over the corn cakes, and Harry and his father were surprised at the number they ate. Ike, addressed by his uncle variously and collectively as "lunkhead," "nephew," and "Ike," served. He rarely spoke, but always grinned. Harry found later that while he had little use for his vocal organs he invariably enjoyed life.

"Colonel," said Jarvis, at about the tenth corn cake, "be you fellers down here a-goin' to fight?"

"I suppose we are, Mr. Jarvis!"

"An' is your son thar goin' right into the middle of it?"

"I can't keep him from it, Mr. Jarvis, but he isn't going to stay here in Kentucky. Other plans have been made for him. When are you going back up the Kentucky, Mr. Jarvis?"

"This raft was bargained fur before it started. All I've got to do is to turn it over to its new owners today, go to the bank an' get the money. Then me an' this lunkhead, Ike, my nephew, both bein' of an inquirin' mind, want to do some sight-seein', but I reckon we'll start back in about two days in the boat that you see tied to the stern of the raft."

"Would you take a pa.s.senger in the boat? It's a large one."