V.

RAMBLER, THE TRACK DOG, BEGINS HIS STORY.

The children thought that they had been treated somewhat impolitely by the Gray Pony, and so, as soon as they could find an opportunity, and when they thought he was in a good humor, they asked him why he walked away so abruptly and refused to tell them the reason Aaron went to the woods and what befell him when he got there.

“As for that,” the Gray Pony answered, “I know nothing of the matter of my own knowledge. It is all hearsay with me. The Son of Ben Ali can tell you. He knows. He was there.”

The children had to be content with this until they found an opportunity to talk with Aaron. He was very busy during the day, and sometimes at night, managing the affairs of the plantation, but he told them that whenever they saw a light in his cabin right after supper, he would have time to talk to them. This happened the next night. Drusilla saw the light, and told Sweetest Susan and Buster John it was there, and in a few minutes they were all in Aaron’s cabin.

They found him baking a hoecake and frying some bacon, and it smelt so good that Buster John’s mouth began to water, although he had just eaten his supper.

“Uncle Aaron,” he said, “I’ll give you two biscuits and a piece of ham for a piece of your hoecake and some of your meat.”

“Do so—do so,” answered Aaron.

“Bring four biscuits and two pieces of ham,” cried Sweetest Susan, as Buster John rushed out of the door. He returned in a little while with four biscuits, each sandwiched with a piece of ham. Whereupon Aaron turned over to the children all his hoecake and fried bacon, which they devoured with a relish which belongs to youth alone. This done, they gave Aaron to understand what they came for, and he, without any apology, explanation, or delay, such as a negro would have indulged in, and likewise without any humor, told his story. Perhaps there was no room for humor, but a negro would have found a place for it.

“I can’t tell you the story as the field hands could,” said Aaron. “They have a word for everything. What I know is that when I saw the little white boy crying about me, I was no longer the same man. Something swelled here”—touching his throat—“and something broke here”—striking his breast. “I had said to myself, be as cunning as a snake. My mind was made up to run away from the man that bought me, and follow the negro trader and strangle him in the night. He was a beast. I promised myself that he should live no more. The thoughts made me happy, and then I saw the white child, small and crippled, crying because his father had not bought me. I said, what is he to me? And then my hands shook and my knees trembled. Another man crept into my skin and looked out of my eyes. Not since my mother shook hands with me and told me good-by when I was a boy had I seen anybody crying for me. Then, I said, the man who gets me to-day will get a good bargain.

“In my mind there was but one thought—the child is my Little Master. The Gray Pony has told you what happened. It was to save the Little Master’s father that I threw the horseshoe. I thought the young man was killed, and I said, it is a pity! When I rode home with Mr. Gossett, I kept on saying it is a pity—a great pity; and when my new master asked me if I would treat him right, I smiled and told him I would do the best I could. And I did. I worked for him as hard as I ever worked for a man. But he never trusted me. He was always watching me.

“One night, just after sundown, he called me out of my hut—it was not a cabin—and said he wanted me to get in the one-horse wagon and take a bale of cotton to a neighbor’s house and sell it to him. At once I smelled trouble.

“‘But will the man buy it?’ I asked.

“The answer was: ‘He may; if he does, the money is yours. If not, no harm is done.’

“‘I am afraid of the patterrollers,’ said I.

“The answer was: ‘I’ll not be far away.’

“I had nothing else to do but go, but I knew there was trouble at the end of the road. I had seen negroes lashed for selling their masters’ things, and I had seen white men sent to jail for trading with negroes between two suns. I found out long afterward that Mr. Gossett’s neighbor had some land that he refused to sell. He was not very well off, but he held to his land and made poor crops. If he bought the cotton from me, Mr. Gossett could buy his land or put him in jail. But this was all dark to me then.

“I mounted the wagon—But wait! Rambler, the track dog, is here. He knows what happened. I will call him.”

Aaron went to the door of his cabin, put his right hand to his mouth, and gave a musical halloo. The dogs were barking in another part of the lot, but they ceased instantly, as if listening. Then Watch, the catch dog, barked three times:—

“Who is it?”

Again Aaron gave the halloo, and this time it was answered by the quavering cry of a hound. Before the children learned the language of the animals, they would have said a dog was howling somewhere on the plantation, but now they knew that Rambler was saying:—

“I am c-o-m-i-n-g!”

In a few minutes he came running into the cabin, his hair damp with the dew. He looked rather sheepish, as the saying is, and crouched near Aaron, as if he expected to be scolded. Once upon a time Rambler had been a black-and-tan, but he was now old, and the gray hairs had well-nigh obliterated the tan, and were encroaching on the black. His muzzle was very gray, and his dew-claws had grown until they were nearly an inch and a half long. One of his long ears was split a little at the end, the result of a skirmish with old Mr. Raccoon. He kept his eyes averted from Aaron and the children and seemed to be both humble and uneasy. He was better satisfied when Aaron told him what was wanted. Indeed, he became very lively and went about the room picking up the scraps of bread the children had dropped on the floor. Aaron went to his little pine cupboard and got out a pone of corn bread that he had saved from the day before. Rambler took the bread in his mouth and then placed it gently on the floor. Gently wagging his tail, he looked up in Aaron’s face.

“Son of Ben Ali,” he said, “I am getting old, and, what with gnawing bones and killing cats and fighting coons, my teeth are bad. This bread is hard.”

Whereupon Aaron took the bread, crushed it in his hands, dropped it in an old tin platter, and placed it on the hearth.

“This would taste better, if it had ham gravy on it,” remarked Rambler, after saying “Thanky” with his tail; “yes, a good deal better, but I’ll not be choice.”

When he had finished the bread, he seated himself near the chimney corner and licked his chops carefully.

“You want to know about that trip the Son of Ben Ali made to sell the cotton. But I don’t even know how to begin. My tongue and my tail will be here talking and wagging, and my mind will be off in the woods hunting minks and coons and possums. You know how one thing leads to another. Well, if I get started I’ll get things upside down, as the rabbit does when he tries to run down hill.”

“When I started with the cotton,” suggested Aaron, “you made up your mind to go with me.”

“That’s so,” said Rambler. “I don’t know why. I knew well enough you weren’t going hunting. It was just a notion that seized me. I trotted along sometimes in front of the wagon and sometimes behind it. Before we had gone very far I happened to be in front of the wagon when a rabbit ran across the road. I dashed after it and bumped my head against a fence rail. It hurt so that I sat down by the roadside and waited for the pain to go away. The wagon went by and I concluded to go back home and go to bed in the shuckpen. I started back, but before I had gone far, I heard the clinking of bridle-reins and bits, and presently I saw two men on horseback.

“I stopped until they passed by. And then I saw that it was Old Grizzly and the overseer.”

“Old Grizzly!” cried Buster John. “Who was he?”

“That was the name the negroes had for Mr. Gossett,” Aaron explained.

[Illustration: A RABBIT DASHED ACROSS THE ROAD]

“Old Grizzly and the overseer,” Rambler continued, paying no attention to the interruption. “They were riding along after the wagon, but at some distance behind it. I says to myself, well, well! something is up. So, instead of going back home, I turned around and trotted along the road till I passed Old Grizzly and the overseer, and caught up with the wagon. I said to the Son of Ben Ali:—

“‘Get down and fix one of your wagon wheels, and see who comes behind you.’

“This he did, but when Old Grizzly and the overseer heard the Son of Ben Ali knocking on one of the wagon wheels with a rock, they stopped, and came no farther until after he drove on again. Then I knew, and the Son of Ben Ali knew, that Old Grizzly and the overseer were coming to see that orders were obeyed.

“The house to which the Son of Ben Ali was carrying the cotton was not far. It was in the midst of a big grove of oak-trees. The trees were too big for the house, or the house was not fine enough for the trees, for they made everything so dark that, from the road, those who cannot see in the night would never know that a house was there.

“The Son of Ben Ali drove the wagon under the trees, waited until he could hear the clinking of bridles and bits, as Old Grizzly and the overseer rode up, and then he slipped around the house and went to the back door. I waited until I saw Old Grizzly and the overseer stop under one of the big oaks, and then I followed.

“The Son of Ben Ali knocked at the back door, which was soon opened by a negro woman, who asked him what he wanted. He told her, and then the man came to the door.

“‘What do you want?’ he asked.

“‘I want to see you,’ said the Son of Ben Ali. ‘I want to sell you a bale of cotton.’

“‘Who is your master?’ the man asked.

“‘Mr. Gossett,’ the Son of Ben Ali answered.

“‘What is your name?’

“‘They call me Aaron.’

“‘You are the boy he bought not long ago.’

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘Wait a moment.’ The man went into another room, and when he appeared again he had a shotgun in his hands. My hide is not very thick, and so I went under the steps. The man seemed to be mad. The Son of Ben Ali had some such idea, for he asked:—

“‘What are you going to do with the gun, sir?’

“‘Get the truth out of you.’

“‘A dead man will neither lie nor tell the truth,’ said the Son of Ben Ali. His voice sounded as if he might be laughing, but I was under the steps and couldn’t see.

“‘Is the cotton yours?’ the man asked.

“‘It is Mr. Gossett’s.’

“‘Why do you bring it here to-night?’

“‘I had my orders.’

“‘Oh, if I had the old scoundrel here!’ cried the man in a rage.

“‘If you talk loud, he’ll hear you,” said Aaron.

“The man understood at once. ‘Wait!’ he whispered. Then he slipped around the corner of the house. Suddenly I heard the gun go off, and it scared me so I couldn’t help but cry out. Some one else yelled, too — some one under the oaks in front, and then I heard the snorting and stamping of horses. The Son of Ben Ali stole off in the dark before the man returned, and I followed him, not knowing what had happened or what might happen.

“But I soon found out, and it was not as bad as it might have been. The shot the man fired had shattered one of the overseer’s arms. He was not hurt so badly but he could ride his horse, and he and Old Grizzly hurried home as fast as they could.

“After a while the Son of Ben Ali followed, but instead of riding in the wagon, he walked by the side of it, and I went ahead to see that the way was clear. The Son of Ben Ali knew that there was trouble in store for him, and he didn’t want Old Grizzly to get hold of him.”

“I don’t see why,” said Buster John.

“Why, Old Grizzly didn’t know but the Son of Ben Ali had gone to the man’s house and told him about the whole business. There was nobody else to tell the man, and if he knew that Old Grizzly and the overseer were waiting in the grove, of course he must have got the news from the Son of Ben Ali. But it happened that the overseer was so badly scared about his wounded arm that Old Grizzly had to go home and sit up with him, and this left the way clear for the Son of Ben Ali to take the mule and wagon and cotton where they belonged. He drove the wagon under the gin-shelter, unharnessed the mule and fed it, and then went to his hut and gathered up his belongings and took to the woods.”

“Then he was a runaway,” said Sweetest Susan. She looked at Aaron with new interest. She had often heard of runaways, but she had never seen one.

“Yes, he was a runaway,” Rambler answered, “and it was a long time before he was anything else. I didn’t bother my head about the Son of Ben Ali when he went to the woods, for I knew he was just as much at home there as I was. I stayed behind to see what would happen, and by staying I soon found out that I had made some trouble for myself.

“It was very curious, too, when you come to think about it. Old Grizzly behaved with so much meanness toward his negroes, half feeding and clothing them, and working them long after dark, that some of them were in the woods most of the time. Now, Old Grizzly’s son, George, was very fond of fox-hunting, and some of his friends sent me to him when I was quite young. My whole family have a great name for running foxes, so it is said, and Old Grizzly’s George wanted me to hunt foxes for him along with the other dogs. I didn’t need any teaching in that business, for the minute I smelled a fox, no matter at what hour of the day or night, I felt bound to hunt him up and run him down. I had that feeling as far back as I can remember.

“One day, when I was very young, I was playing at hunting with the little negroes just to pass the time away. One would hold me, and another would go far out of sight and hide. I had to use my nose to find him, and I soon came to enjoy the fun. Once Old Grizzly himself saw us playing, and he seemed to be very much pleased with the way I followed the trail of the little negroes. He took part in it himself, holding me while one of the children ran through the pasture and down the branch, and around by the gin-screw back to the house. He did this many times, and seemed to be very much pleased with me. After a while, when I grew older, he made some of the large negroes run, but I never failed to find and bay them. I soon found out why Old Grizzly was so well pleased. One morning, one of the negroes was missing. He had run away some time during the night, having been promised a strapping for the next morning. Old Grizzly called me, and we went to the negro’s hut, where I was made to smell of his blanket and such of his belongings as he had failed to take with him. I knew at once what Old Grizzly wanted me to do, and I was more than willing to do it, for the negro happened to be one that had given me more kicks than scraps. I settled down to business at once. I ran for the hut, and circled around it. The scent was as plain to me as a track in the mud is to you. I followed it with no trouble at all, and Old Grizzly, having his horse ready, went along with me, keeping as close to me as he could. In an hour we had overtaken the negro, and Old Grizzly carried him back, making him walk before the horse all the way home.

[Illustration: OLD GRIZZLY BROUGHT HIM BACK]

“After that I had to look out for myself. The negroes treated me worse than ever. They were ready to kill me at any time, and I had to keep out of their way. This made it worse for the negroes. None of them could escape Old Grizzly by going to the woods. I had help, too, for some of the other hounds, seeing me made much of by the master and the overseer, joined me in my expeditions, and in a short while Old Grizzly had a pack of ‘nigger dogs,’ as he called us, that seemed to fill him with pride.

“This was going on when the Son of Ben Ali came—when he came and touched me and gave me the sign. And then I knew more than I had known before. After he came he was the first to go into the woods, as I have told you, and the next morning my trouble began.

“Old Grizzly was very mad when, at daylight, he sent for the Son of Ben Ali and found him gone. I slept under the house in a corner of the chimney stack, and I heard Old Grizzly when he came in from the overseer’s house. He bawled at the cook for not having breakfast ready, though it was not time, and then he came out, ripping and rearing, and sent the house-boy for the Son of Ben Ali. But the Son of Ben Ali was not to be found. This made matters worse. Old Grizzly called up my companions and myself, gave us a few bites of stale bread, had his horse saddled, and then carried us to the hut where the Son of Ben Ali had lived.

“I knew then what was going to happen. I ought to have known before, but it had never occurred to me. We were to run the Son of Ben Ali down so that Old Grizzly could capture him. This didn’t suit me at all, but I had to go. There was no way to get out of it.”

“Oh, I don’t see why!” cried Sweetest Susan.

“Me, nuther,” Drusilla chimed in.

“It is simple enough,” said Rambler, placing himself in a more comfortable position—he had been sitting on his haunches. “The other dogs would have gone whether I went or not. So I pretended I was very glad to go. I circled around the house, and ran over the scent twice so as to see what the other dogs would do. They ran over it, too, but I knew that one of them had a faint hint of it. He went back to it, and then”—

Here a spark from the pine knot that made a light in the cabin flew out near Rambler’s head, and suddenly burst into a shower of smaller sparks. Rambler dodged and jumped out of the way so quickly that the children laughed.

“You may think it is funny,” said Rambler, “and it may be, but I’ll not laugh until I see you with a hot spark in your ear.”

He settled himself again and resumed his story, but this time he kept one eye on the pine knot.