CHAPTER XXVII

The volume of the singing out there and the flare of the ruddy torches, left no doubt as to the substantial strength of the force which had swept aside such legal technicalities as state jurisdiction.

When Bear Cat had trusted himself so recklessly on the threshold while the opposite door still stood open, the spectral figures with masked faces could have streamed in, wave on wave, to smother out any up-flaming spirit of resistance, but in doing that there would have been hand-to-hand conflict, in which the innocent must pay as heavy and ultimate a penalty as the guilty.

So Turner had withdrawn, and permitted the barring of the doors--though he knew that the structure had the solid strength of square-sawed oak and that the besieged scores were fully armed. Now from the outside he hammered on the massive panels with a rifle butt.

"Ef ye wants ter send a man out hyar ter parley with me," he shouted through the heavy barrier, "I gives ye my pledge that he kin go back safe. Ef ye don't see fit ter do thet, we've got ter believe thet ye're all one stripe, resistin' arrest, and we aims ter set this hell-house ter ther torch."

"Let me have five minutes ter study erbout hit," Towers gave answer, then he turned to the men inside. "Go upsta'rs, Tom," he directed swiftly, "an' look out. Let me know how many thar seems ter be of 'em."

Carmichael, peering out of dark windows above, saw against the snow, innumerable sable figures bulking formidably in the red flare of blazing pine fagots. Other torches burned with a menacing assurance of power beyond them along the road, and far up the distant slopes glittered reinforcements of scattered tongues of flame.

The figures nearest at hand stood steady with an ominous and spectral stillness, and their ghostliness was enhanced by the fitful torch-light in which the whole picture leaped and subsided with a phantom uncertainty of line and mass.

Black Tom came back and shook his head. "Hit hain't no manner of use," he announced. "We mout es well give up. I reckon we kin still come cl'ar in co'te."

But the old lion, whose jaws and fangs had always proved strong enough to crush, was of no mind to be caged now.

"Come cl'ar! Hell's blazes!" he roared with a livid face. "Don't ye see what's done come ter pass? He'll take these damn' outlaws over thar an' no jury won't dast ter cl'ar us. If we quits now we're done."

Towers leaped, with an astonishing agility to the counter of the bar and raised his clenched fists high above his head.

"Men!" he thundered, "hearken ter me! Don't make no mistake in thinkin' thet ef ye goes out thar, ye'll hev any mercy showed ye. This is ther finish fight betwixt all ther customs of yore blood--an' this damn' outlaw's new-fangled tyranny! He don't aim jest ter jail me an' Tom--he aims ter wipe out every mother's son thet's ever been a friend ter me.

"We've got solid walls around us now--but any man thet goes out thar, goes straight ter murder. Es fer me I don't aim ter be took alive--air ye of ther same mind? Will ye fight?"

His flaming utterance found credence in their befuddled minds. They could not conceive of merciful treatment from the man they had hounded and sought for months to murder from ambush. Inside at least they could die fighting, and nods of grim assent gave their answer.

"Ther stockade hain't no good now," Towers reminded them. "They're already inside hit, but from them upsta'r winders we kin still rake 'em severe an' plentiful whilst they're waitin' fer our answer. Let them winders be filled with men, but don't let no man shoot till he heers my pistol--then all tergether--an' give 'em unshirted hell."

So, answering the reprieve with deceit, the block house, which had, for a generation, been an infamous seat of power, remained silent until a pistol snapped out and then from every window leaped spiteful jets of powder lightning and the solid roar of a united volley. That was the answer and as a light clatter of sliding breech bolts followed the crescendo, its defenders went on shooting, more raggedly now, as fast as each man could work his repeater. A chorused bellow of defiance was hurled outward as they fired.

Yet from out there came no response of musketry and, after all, the deceitful effort to convert the period of parley into a paralyzing blow had failed. Few flambeaux had been blazing in the space between the stockade and the house itself, and the ponderous eight-foot wall of logs built to make the place a fortress had become a protection for the besiegers so that only a few scattered figures fell. Then, with amazing unanimity of action, the torches were thrust down and quenched in the snow.

But Bear Cat Stacy himself had remained flattened against the door, too close to be seen from any window, and at his feet was a can of kerosene.

The glow from a match-end became first a slender filament of flame which widened to a greedy blanket as it lapped at the oil and spread crackling up the woodwork of the door's frame. Then, gathering a swift and mighty force, it laid a frenzied and roaring mantle of destruction upon the integrity of the walls themselves.

From inside came a chorused howl of bitter wrath and despair, and as Bear Cat turned and ran for it, crossing the space between door and stockade, he went through a hail of lead--and went with the old charm still holding him safe.

The Quarterhouse was strong enough to laugh at rifles, but to flame it was tinder-like food. The roar and crackle of its glutting soon drowned the howls of its imprisoned victims. Maddened with the thought that, having refused parley, their lives were forfeit unless they could cut their way out, they raved like dying maniacs. The glare reddened and inflamed the skies and sent out a rain of soaring sparks that was seen from many miles away.

The Virginia door was obliterated in a blanket of flame, but abruptly the Kentucky door vomited a stream of desperate men, running and shooting as they came. Then, for the first time, the cordon of rifles that held them in its grip gave voice.

Between the house-door and the stockade, figures fell, grotesque in the glare, and those that did not fall wheeled and rushed back within the blazing walls. But in there was an unendurable furnace. They shouted and raved, choking with the suffocation of foul smoke waves like the demoralized shapes of madmen in some lurid inferno.

Then standing at the one door which still afforded a chance of exit, Kinnard Towers for the last time raised his arms.

"Throw down yore guns, men, an' go out with yore hands up," he yelled, seeking to be heard above the din of conflagration. "Myself, I aims ter stay hyar!"

A few caught the words and plunged precipitately out, unarmed, with hands high in surrender; and others, seeing that they did not fall, followed with a sheep-like imitation--but some, already struggling with the asphyxiation that clawed at their throats, writhed uneasily on the floor--and then lay motionless.

Kinnard Towers, with a bitter despair in his eyes, and yet with the leonine glare of defiance unquenched, stood watching that final retreat. He saw that at the stockade gate, they were being passed out and put under guard. It was in his own mind, when he had been left quite alone to walk deliberately out, fighting until he fell.

About him the skies were red and angry. His death would come with a full and pyrotechnic illumination, seen of all men, and it would at least be said of him that he had never yielded.

So picking up a rifle from the floor, he deliberately examined its magazine and efficiency. After that he stepped out, paused on the doorstep, and fired defiantly at the open gate of the stockade.

There was a spatter of bullets against the walls at his back, but he stood uninjured and defiantly laughing. Without haste he walked forward. Then a tall figure, with masked face came running toward him and he leveled the rifle at its breast. But he was close to the gate now, and the man plunged in, in time to strike his barrel up and bear him to the ground.

Outside the stockade stood, herded, the prisoners, and at their front, the posse of deputies brooded over Kinnard Towers and Tom Carmichael, both shamefully hand-cuffed.

Bear Cat Stacy looked over his captives who, taking their cue from Towers himself, remained doggedly silent.

"You men," he said crisply, "all save these two kin go home now--but when ther co'te needs ye ye've got ter answer--an ye've got ter speak ther truth."

As they listened in surprised silence Turner's voice became sterner: "Ef ye lies ter ther High co'te thar's another co'te thet ye kain't lie ter. Now begone."

Then Bear Cat turned to the tall figure that had defeated Kinnard's determination to die uncaptured.

"We've done seed ther manner of yore fightin'," he said in the voice of one who would confer the accolade. "Now let's see what manner of face ye w'ars. I reckon we don't need ter go masked no longer, anyhow."

The mountaineer ripped off his hat and the black cloth which had covered his face--and Turner Stacy stood looking into the eyes of Lone Stacy, his father. For an instant he leaned forward incredulously, and his voice was strangely unsteady.

"How did ye git hyar," he demanded.

"They kept puttin' off my trial--ontil I reckon they wearied of hit," was the grave response. "Day before yistiddy ther jedge dismissed my case."

"But no man hain't nuver been with us afore without he was oath-bound--how did ye contrive hit?"

The old man smiled. "Dog Tate 'lowed I could take ther oath an' all ther rest of ther formalities in due time. He fixed me up an' brought me along. This hyar war a matter thet I was right interested in."

"I 'lowed," Turner's voice fell to a more confidential note, "I 'lowed ye mout be right wrathful at all I've been doin' since ye went away. Ye used ter berate me fer not lovin' blockadin'."

There was a momentary silence. The bearded man, somewhat thinner and more bent than when he had gone away to prison, and the son with a face more matured by these weeks and months, stood gazing into each other's eyes. To the reserve of each, outspoken sentiment came hard and even now both felt an intangible barrier of diffidence.

Then Lone Stacy answered gruffly, but there was an unsteadiness of feeling under his laconic reply.

"I've done showed ye how wrathful I air. I'm tolable old--but I reckon I kin still l'arn."

* * * * *

Even when Kinnard Towers sat a prisoner in the courtroom which he had dominated, and heard Sam Carlyle, seeking to save his own neck by turning traitor, tell the lurid story of all his iniquities, an unbending doggedness characterized his attitude. As his eyes dwelt on the henchman who was swearing away his life, they burned so scornfully that the witness twisted and fidgeted and glanced sidewise with hangdog shame.

When the jury trooped in and stood lined solemnly before the bench, he gazed out of the window where the hills were beginning to soften their slaty monotone with a hint of tender green. He did not need to hear them respond to the droning inquiries of the clerk, because he had read the verdict in their faces long before.

But when they had, for greater security, removed him to the Louisville jail and had put him in that row of cells reserved for those whose lives are forfeit to the law, it is doubtful whether that masklike inexpressiveness truly mirrored an inward phlegm.

There was an electric lamp fixed against the iron bars of the death corridor, turned inward like a spot-light of shame which was never dimmed either day or night--and there was a warden who paced the place, never leaving him unwatched--and Kinnard Towers had lived in places where eagles breed and where the air is wild and bites the lungs with its tang of freedom.

* * * * *

It was June again--June full-bosomed and tuneful with the over-spilling melody of birds. Over the tall peaks arched a sky of such a pure and colorful blue that it, too, seemed to sing--and the little clouds that drifted placidly along were like the lazy sails of pleasure craft, floating in high currents. Along the dimmest and most distant ridges lay a violet mist that was all ash-of-dreams--but near at hand, whether on the upper levels of high hills or down in the shadowed recesses, where the small waters trickled, everything was color--color, bloom and song.

The rhododendron, which the mountaineer calls laurel, was abloom. The laurel, which is known in hill parlance as ivy, was gay with pink-hearted blossom. The mountain magnolia flaunted its great petals of waxen while and the wild rose nodded its frail face everywhere.

But these were details. Over the silver tinkle of happy little brooks was the low but infinite harping of the breeze, and over the glint of golden flecks on mossy rock, was the sweep of sunlight and shadow across the majesty of towering peaks and the league-wide spread of valleys.

The hills were all singing of summer and rebirth, but as Bear Cat Stacy went riding across them his eyes were brooding with the thought of dreams that had not come true.

Many of them had come true, he told himself, in their larger aspects--even though he found himself miserably unsatisfied. There was a large reward in the manner of men and women who paused in their tasks of "drappin' an' kiverin'" along the sloping cornfields to wave their hats or their hands at him and to shout cheery words.

Those simple folk looked upon him as one who had led them out of bondage to a wider freedom, instilling into them a spirit of enterprise.

One farmer halted his plow and came to the fence as Bear Cat was riding by.

"I heers tell," he began, "thet ther whole world, pretty nigh, air at war an' thet corn's goin' ter be wuth money enough, this crop, ter pay fer haulin' hit."

Stacy nodded. "I reckon that's right," he said.

"An' I heers thet, deespite all contrary accounts, ther railroad aims ter come in hyar--an' pay fa'r prices."

Turner smiled. "They had ter come round to it," he answered. "There are more tons of coal in Marlin county than there are dollars in Jefferson county, and Jefferson county is the richest in the state."

The farmer rested his fore-arms on the top rail of the fence and gazed at the young man on horseback.

"I reckon us folks are right-smart beholden ter ye, Bear Cat," he suggested diffidently. "With a chief like you, we'll see prosperity yit."

"We don't have no chiefs here," declared the young man with a determined setting of his jaw. "We're all free and equal. The last chief was Kinnard Towers--and he's passed on."

"None-the-less, hit wouldn't amaze me none ter see ye git ter be the president of this hull world," declared the other with simple hero-worship. "Whar are ye ridin' ter?"

"I'm going over into Fletcher county to see that school there. I'm hopin' that we can have one like it over here."

The farmer nodded. "I reckon we kin manage hit," he affirmed.

Turner had heard much of that school to which Matthew Blakey had taken his three children--so much that all of it could hardly be true. Now he was going to see for himself.

But his thoughts, as he rode, were beyond his control and memories of Blossom crowded out the more impersonal things.

At last he came to a high backbone of ridge. From there he ought to be able to catch his first glimpse of the tract which the school had redeemed from overgrown raggedness into a model farm, but as yet the dense leafage along the way cut off the view of the valley.

Then he came to a more open space and reined in his horse, and as he looked out his eyes widened in astonishment.

Spreading below him, he saw such even and gracious spaces of cultivation as were elsewhere unknown to the hills.

Down there the fences were even and the fields smooth, but what astonished him most were the buildings. Clustered over a generous expanse of hill and valley, of field and garden all laid out as though some landscape gardener had made it a labor of love, were houses such as he had dreamed of--houses with dignity of line and proportion, with architectural beauty of design.

Everything, even at that distance, could be seen to be substantially designed for usefulness, and yet everything combined with that prime object of service the quality of art.

He was looking down on a tiny village, uncrowded and nestling on the varied levels of an undulating valley, and he counted out a dozen houses, recognizing some of them--the tiny hospital on its hill--the model dairies at one edge--the saw-mill sending out its fragrance--the dormitories with sleeping porches and the school-buildings themselves. This was what he had visioned--and yet he realized how cramped had been his dream as he urged his tired horse forward and listened to the whistle of a bob-white in the stubble.

"Ef Blossom could know that we're goin' ter have a school like this over there!" he breathed to himself. Then as he rode along the twisting descent of road, between park-like forest trees and masses of rhododendron, and dismounted before a large house he saw a broad porch with a concrete foundation, and easy chairs and tables littered with magazines and books. From the door came a lady, smiling to greet him. It was Miss Pendleton, the woman who from small beginnings had built here in the wilderness such an achievement, and as she came to the stairs she held out her hand.

"I've been greatly interested in your letters, Mr. Stacy," she said, "and I don't see why we can't repeat over there what we have done here. We have grown from very small beginnings--and now I want to show you around our premises--unless you are too tired."

With wonderment that grew, he followed her, and a swarm of happy-faced children went with them; children keen of eye and rosy of cheek, and when they had inspected together the buildings where the pupils were taught from books, and the dairies and gardens where they were taught by practice, the lady showed him into a log house as artistic and charming as a swiss chalet and said: "This will be your abiding place while you're here. I'll send one of the boys to see that you have everything you need--and later on I'll introduce you to a lady who is much interested in your plans for a school on Little Slippery and who can discuss the details."

Left alone on the porch of his "pole-house," Bear Cat sat gazing upward to the American flag that floated from a tall staff before his door, and as he did so a small boy with clear and intelligent eyes came and said: "I've done been named ter look atter ye."

In the young face was none of that somber shyness which shadows the faces of many mountain children. Turner put his hand on the boy's head. "Thank you, son," he said slowly. "Haven't I seen you before somewhar?"

The boy laughed. "I remembers _you_" he asserted. "I seed ye when my paw was fotchin' me an' my brother an' sister over hyar. I'm Matthew Blakey's boy."

"You had right-sore eyes then, didn't you?"

The child laughed. "I did then--but I hain't now." After a moment's pause he added with a note of pride: "See thet flag? Hit's ther American flag an' hit's my job ter put hit up every day at sun-up an' take hit down at sun-set. I aims ter show ye right now how I does hit."

Bear Cat met young women from Eastern colleges who had come here to aid in the work. In their presence he felt very uncouth and ignorant, but they did not suspect that inner admission. They saw a young man who reminded them of a bronze athlete, with clear and fearless eyes, touched with a dreamer's zeal, and in his manner they recognized a simple dignity and an inherent chivalry.

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