X.

When Jerry Binwell repaired to the sulphur spring that afternoon, there was no waiting figure amongst the rocks beside it. He paused at a little distance and glanced about with surprise. Then he slouched on toward the trysting place. In all the long avenues of the woods that seemed illumined by the clear amber tint of the dead leaves covering the ground, on which the dark boles of the trees stood out with startling distinctness, his roving eye encountered no living creature, except indeed a squirrel. It was perched upright upon the flat slab that almost hid the spring, eating a chestnut held between its deft paws; it scudded away, its curling tail waving as it ran up a tree hard by, and Binwell heard it chattering there afterward; more than once it dropped empty nutshells upon the man’s hat as he waited half-reclining among the rocks beside the spring. Time dawdled on; the sunshine adjusted itself to a new slant; it deepened to a richer tint; the shadows became pensive; the squirrel had fled long ago. Often Binwell lifted himself on his elbow and glanced about him, frowning surlily; but the vast woods were utterly solitary and very still this quiet day. Once a rustling sound caught his ear, and as he sprang up looking about hopefully for the boy, his motion alarmed some hogs that were roaming wild in the forest to fatten on the mast. They stood still, and fixed small sharp eyes intently upon him, then with an exclamatory and distrustful vociferation they ran off through the woods hardly less fleetly than deer. Jerry Binwell muttered his discontent, and glancing once more at the sky began to walk slowly about, keeping the spring in sight. Still no Skimpy came. The man’s face wore an expression both scornful and indignant as he paused at last.

The forest was remarkably free from undergrowth just here; the fiery besoms of the annual conflagrations destroyed the young and tender shoots, and left to the wilderness something of the aspect of a vast park. Only on one side, and that was where the ground sloped suddenly to the depths of a rugged ravine, an almost impenetrable jungle of laurel reached from the earth into the branches of the trees. Its ever-green leaves had a summer suggestion as the sun glanced upon them; none had changed, none had fallen. And yet, as he looked, he noted a thinning aspect, a sort of gap at a certain point in the massive wall of interlacing boughs, made, he fancied, when some lumbering bear tore a breach in search of winter quarters in those bosky securities. He was an idle man, and trifles were wont to while away his time. His momentary curiosity served to mitigate the tedium of waiting for Skimpy. He slowly strolled toward the gap amidst the foliage, wondering whether the animal had only lately passed, whether it was possible to come upon it in its lair and surprise it. He was near enough to lay his hand on the laurel leaves when he noticed there was a distinctly marked path threading its way through the tangle. He could not see the ground, but a furrow amongst the boughs indicated continual passing and repassing. For a few yards this was visible as he stood looking through the gap of bent and broken branches; then the rift among the leaves seemed to curve and he saw no further. Still meditating on the bear, he experienced some surprise when he observed in the marshy earth in the open space near where he stood the print of a man’s boot; not his own, as he was half-inclined to think at first. For as he held his foot above the track, he saw that the print in the moist earth was much broader, and that the man walked with a short pace, far different from his own long stride. The steps had not only gone into the laurel but had come thence; often, too, judging from the number and direction of the footprints.

“I wonder whar this path leads,” he said. “Somebody must be moonshinin’ hyar-abouts.”

He stood gazing down meditatively. The broad footprint was always the same, the step always the short measure indicating a slow and heavy man.

This suggested the idea of old Corbin. The retort, in the nature of a practical joke, played on the old codger at the store, had not altogether satisfied Binwell’s enmity; this, in fact, was, in a measure, reinforced by the surly silence and looks of aversion which had since been meted out to him throughout the community. It was more than curiosity which he now felt; it was a certain joy in secretly spying upon his enemy, and there was a merry sneer in his eyes as he began to push his way through the laurel. As the path curved, he saw the groove among the leaves anew before him, and he had but to follow its twists and turns. A long way it led him down the rugged descent, the laurel leaves almost closing over his head, the great forest trees rising high above the thicket, flinging their darkling shadows into the midst. He was chuckling to think what a time of it old Corbin must have had to get down. “An’ how in Kingdom Come did he ever git up ag’in?” he laughed.

The words had hardly escaped his lips before he emitted a husky cry of surprise: he had come suddenly to his journey’s end. In the midst of a clear patch of rocky ground, where even the sturdy laurel could not strike root, were scattered shavings and bits of wood, and stretching into the dense growth, so long they were, lay two staunch but slender poles upon the ground. They were joined by rungs, well fitted in a workman-like manner. It was in fact a great ladder, the like of which had never been seen in Tanglefoot Cove, and, indeed, rarely elsewhere. It might have reached from the river bank to the hollows of Keedon Bluffs! As Binwell gazed with starting eyes he noted that it was nearly completed—only a few rungs remained to be set in.

A sudden vibrating sound set all the stillness to jarring; he turned abruptly, his nerves tense, an oath between his teeth. It was too late for him to hide, to flee. He could only gaze in despair at Skimpy’s red head, his white wool hat set on the back of it, bobbing along through the laurel; his freckled, grinning face was bowed on Obadiah’s fiddle that wailed and complained beneath his sawing arm.

Perhaps it was the urgency of the moment that made Binwell bold and rallied his quick expedients. He did not even wonder how the boy had happened to discover him. Skimpy had descried him from a distance in the open woods, and had followed, bringing the fiddle according to their agreement. Binwell looked gravely at the boy and motioned to him to advance. The fiddle ceased to shiver beneath Skimpy’s inharmonious touch, and with his eyes stretched, and his mouth too, for that matter, he pressed on down to the spot. He could not restrain a wondering “Waal, sir!” when Binwell pointed to the ladder.

“Don’t say nuthin’, Skimp,” said Binwell. “Lay the fiddle an’ bow thar in the laurel; level em’ so ez they won’t fall; thar! Ye kin find ’em ag’in by that thar rock. Now take a-holt of that thar ladder, ’bout hyar; that’s the dinctum—an’ jes’ foller me.”

Skimpy recognized this as an odd proceeding, and yet he hardly felt warranted in questioning Jerry Binwell. He could not refuse his assistance in a mere matter of “toting”; he began to think that this service was the reason his friend had appointed this place of meeting on pretext of playing the fiddle. He did not definitely suspect anything worse than a scheme to get a little unrequited work from him. More especially were his doubts annulled by the quiet glance with which Jerry Binwell met his eager inquiring look.

“Yes, take a-holt right thar”—as if this was an answer to all that the boy was about to ask. Binwell himself had run swiftly ahead and had caught up the other extremity of the ladder. He went straight forward, breaking a path through the jungle by the aid of the ladder that he allowed to precede him by ten or twelve feet. He did not hesitate, although there was no rift here amongst the leaves to guide him. His manner was as assured as if he were following a definite route that he had traveled often. Skimpy had no doubt that he knew whither he was going through that trackless desert. Nevertheless Binwell now and then looked back over his shoulder at the sun, as if to make sure of the direction which he was taking. He did not care to notice the anxious freckled face, down the vista of the leaves, from which all jocundity had vanished. For Skimpy, although the best-natured of boys, began to rebel inwardly. He had a troublous consciousness that Jerry Binwell would not be safe to trust, and wondered that he could have so disregarded his father’s wish that he should not be brought into this association. It seemed odd to Skimpy that the danger should have manifested itself so close upon the heels of the warning. In common with many boys, he was apt to regard the elders as too cautious, too slow. He had not learned as yet that it is experience which has made them so. It was not merely mentally that he was ill at ease. His bare feet were beginning to burn, for they had now climbed long distances up the mountain slope amidst the laurel. The weight of the ladder asserted itself in every straining muscle, and yet he realized that his callow strength would hardly have enabled him to carry one end, were it not for the aid of the upholding boughs of the laurel, that would not suffer it to touch the ground, even when his grasp sometimes relaxed in spite of himself. He dreaded to think how he would fare when they should emerge into the open woods. “I won’t tote my e-end no furder,” he said to himself, still striving to look upon himself as a free agent.

He called once or twice to Binwell, who feigned not to hear. His deafness suddenly vanished when Skimpy stopped and the ladder lay upon the interlacing laurel-boughs. “Whar be we-uns a-goin’ ter tote this hyar contrivance, ennyways?” the boy demanded.

“Jes’ a leetle furder, sonny,” said Jerry Binwell paternally, turning upon him a quiet face, immovable save for the industriously ruminant jaws, subduing a great quid of tobacco; he was apparently so unaware of any cause for suspicions that they were erased from Skimpy’s mind. He took up his end of the ladder again, thinking it probably belonged to Binwell, and thankful that he had put into words no intimation of his vague but uneasy doubts. He even hummed a song as he stumped along, willing enough to be cheerful if the adventure only signified a little work for no pay. “But I’d hev ruther not l’arn them chunes folks fiddle down in Persimmon Cove ef I hed knowed I hed ter skitter up the mounting this-a-way.”

For they were in truth near the summit, not ascending the great bald, but in a gap between two peaks. The laurel had given way to open woods, and Skimpy’s end of the ladder almost dragged. The trees, instead of the great forest kings on the mountain slopes below, were the stunted growths peculiar to the summit. They heard no call of herder, no tinkle of bell, for the cattle that found summer pasturage here had been rounded up and driven home to the farms in the “flat-woods.” The silence was intense; they saw no living creature save a buzzard circling high in the red skies of the sunset. Skimpy thought for a moment they were going down on the North Carolina side; he was about to protest; the way was indescribably rocky and tortuous; the night was coming on. Suddenly Binwell paused.

“Kem along, sonny; take the ladder in the middle an’ feed it out ter me.”

Skimpy, wondering, took the ladder in the middle, giving it a series of shoves toward Binwell, who suddenly lifted the end, and with one effort flung it from him—and out of the world, as it seemed to Skimpy.

He listened for a moment, hearing it crash among the tree-tops as it went falling down the precipice whence Binwell had thrown it. A moment after there was silence as intense as before. Then Binwell knelt on the verge and looked down the abyss. He raised a triumphant grinning face, and silently beckoned to Skimpy. The boy went forward and knelt too, to look over. At first he could see nothing but the shelving side of the mountain; the deep abyss gloomed with shadows, the richness of the autumnal colors sombre and tempered beneath the purple dusk. And then he discovered one end of the ladder, barely perceptible in the top of a pine-tree.

“It lodged ’mongst them pines,” said the jubilant Binwell. “It’s safe, summer or winter; nobody’ll find it but the birds or the squir’ls.”

Skimpy could no longer resist. “Air—air—it yourn?” he faltered, struggling with his instinct of politeness.

Binwell had risen to his feet; he was rubbing the earth off his hands—recklessly bedaubed when he had knelt down—and also from his trousers, nimbly raising first one knee, then the other, for the purpose. He was chuckling unpleasantly as he looked at the boy.

“Ever see folks fling thar own ladders off’n the bluffs, an’ land ’em ’mongst the tree-tops fur the birds ter roost in?”

Skimpy stared, and ruefully shook his head.

“Waal then! what ye talkin’ ’bout?” Binwell’s tone was cheerful, triumphant; a sinister triumph.

The dumfounded Skimpy faltered,—

“Whose war it, then?”

“Dunno edzac’ly,” cried the blithe Binwell.

“Waal, now, that ain’t fair!” protested Skimpy, indignantly. “I’m goin’ right down ter the Cove, and tell.”

“Naw, ye won’t! Naw, ye won’t!” exclaimed the undismayed Binwell. “Ef ye do, ye’ll git jailed quick’n never war seen.”

“I ain’t done nothin’,” cried Skimpy, recoiling.

“Ain’t ye! Tote a man’s ladder up the mounting, over ter the Carliny side, an’ tumble it down ’mongst the pine tops, whar he’d hev ter make another ter reach it. Mebbe the constable an’ old Greeps, ez be jestice o’ the peace, don’t ’low ez that’s suthin’, but I reckon they will!”

Skimpy was silent in acute dismay. Into what danger, what wrong-doing, had he not thrust himself by his disobedience! He looked at the grinning face, flushed by the fading remnant of the roseate sunset, feeling that he was in Binwell’s power, wondering what he should do, how he should be liberated from the toils spread for him.

“See now, Skimp,” said Binwell beguilingly, and the poor boy’s heart leaped up at the kindly tone, for he sought to put the best construction on Jerry Binwell’s intentions, if only to calm his own despair and distress. “I could jes’ take ye under my arm—so,” he tucked Skimpy’s head under his arm and lightly lifted him high off his feet—“an’ strong ez I be I could fling ye off’n that bluff half down that thar gorge; thar wouldn’t be enough o’ ye lef’ ter pick up on a shovel; an’ that would keep ye from tellin’ tales on me, I reckon.” He swung the boy perilously close to the edge of the precipice, then set him gently on his feet. “But I don’t want ter hurt ye, an’ I ain’t goin’ ter do it. I know ye air a plumb honer’ble, good sorter boy, an’ ain’t goin’ ter make a tale-tell o’ yerse’f, even if ye wouldn’t git jailed. I wouldn’t trest no boy I ever see but you-uns. I wouldn’t trest Ike Guyther fur nuthin’. I war goin’ ter tell you-uns all ’bout’n it ennyways, even ’fore I fund that thar ladder. An’ then ye kin jedge whether I be right or wrong.”

Skimpy, eager to be reassured, felt his heart lighten with the words. He strained his credulity to believe in Jerry Binwell. Surely he had not done so very wrong; there might be no harm in the man, after all. He drew a deep breath of relief, and then picked up his hat which had fallen from his head when Jerry Binwell was illustrating the terrible fate he might decree for the lad if he chose. The man was closely studying his face when their eyes met once more, but Binwell said simply that they had better go after Obadiah’s fiddle or night would overtake them before they found it.

He talked as they went.

“Ye see, Skimpy,” he said, “my tongue don’t lay holt nat’rally ter the words, kase I hev got some things ter tell ez I ain’t right proud on.”

He glanced down at the wondering, upturned face, with its eyes wide with anticipation, and its mouth opening as if to swallow, without the customary grain of salt, any big tale which might be told.

“Ye hearn old Corbin say, yander at the store that day, ez I run durin’ the War. An’ I h’isted him up on the beam fur shamin’ me ’fore all them folks. Waal, I oughtn’t ter done it, kase ’twar true—_jes’ one time_! I felt powerful ’shamed ter hear ’bout it ag’in—plumb bowed down.”

The crafty eyes scanning Skimpy’s ingenuous face saw that he was sympathetic.

“War ain’t a healthy bizness, nohow,” continued Jerry. “But thar air lots o’ men, ez run heap more’n me, ez don’t hev it fetched up ag’in ’em every day. Lots o’ runnin’ war done in the War—but folks nowadays ginerally talks ’bout thar fightin’. Some nimble fellers showed their heels in them times—folks ez live right hyar in the Cove. But I be the only one ez hev got ter hear ’bout it in these days. It’s kase I’m pore, Skimp. Ef I hed a good cabin an’ right smart cornfield, an’ consider’ble head o’ stock, ye wouldn’t hear ’bout my runnin’ that time.”

Cynicism is eminently infectious. Skimpy wagged his head significantly. “You wouldn’t indeed!” the gesture seemed to say.

“They don’t like me jes’ kase I’m pore. An’ kase I’m pore they call me shif’less. I hev hed a heap o’ trouble; sech truck ez I hed I war obleeged ter spen’ fur doctors’ ’tendance on my wife, ez war ailin’ always, an’ arter all she died at last.”

The unromantic Skimpy, meditating on the case, felt that at least the doctors’ bills were at an end.

“An’ now I be homeless, an’ a wanderer, an’ hev my leetle gal ter feed. Folks actially want ter take her away from me. Ef ’twarn’t fur her, them Guythers wouldn’t let me stay thar a day.”

Skimpy knew that this was true. Ike had confided so much to him of the family feeling on the matter.

“An’ now folks in the Cove air a-fixin’ ter drive me out’n it—me an’ little Rosamondy. They can’t set the law onto me, fur I never done nothin’ ag’in it—so they be a-goin’ ter laff me out’n it. Ye wanter know whose ladder that is?” he broke off with apparent irrelevance.

Skimpy nodded an eager assent.

“It’s old Corbin’s, I’ll be bound, an’ I’ll tell ye why I ’low sech; no man but him kin do sech a job. Waal, ye know what he wants it fur? He wants somebody ez be light an’ handy ter climb up Keedon Bluffs by it ter them hollows. An’ ye wanter know what fur? Ter git suthin’ ez air hid in one o’ ’em. An’ ye wanter know what that be?”

Skimpy’s face in the closing dusk might have been cut out of stone, so white and set it was—such a petrified expectancy upon it. The man’s eyes glittered as he held his own face nearer and spoke in a hissing whisper, albeit in the lonely wilderness none could hear his words.

“Some war maps, an’ orders in a box what a courier—thinkin’ he war a-goin’ ter be captured—hid thar; an’ he war killed afore ever he got ’em ag’in. An’ long o’ ’em air a letter a-tellin’ ’bout me a-runnin’ an’ a-orderin’ me ter be shot fur a deserter. An’ old Corbin, bearin’ a gredge ag’in me, air a-goin’ ter perduce ’em an’ fairly laff me out’n the Cove. An’ I ain’t got nowhar ter go.”

“He’s mighty mean!” cried Skimpy, his heart swelling with indignation.

“Waal, I wanter scotch his wheel!” exclaimed Binwell. “I don’t want him ter do it.”

“How kin ye purvent it?” said Skimpy, briskly. Surely there was no malice, no mischief on Binwell’s part in this. His spirits had risen to their normal high pitch.

“Waal, Skimp, I hev been a-studyin’ bout’n it. But till I fund that ladder—it air too long fur enny mortal place but Keedon Bluffs—an’ made sure o’ what he war a-doin’ of, I warn’t sati’fied in my mind. Ef ye’ll holp me—kase I be too bulky nowadays ter creep in one o’ them hollows—ef I’ll kerry ye down thar will ye snake in an’ git the box? Ye ’feared?”

For Skimpy had drawn back at this proposition. “Naw,” he faltered, but with an affirmative tendency. He saw Binwell’s teeth and eyes gleam through the dusk. This man _who ran_ was laughing at him for being afraid of the great heights of Keedon Bluffs, of the black abysses below!

“We hed better hev tuk the ladder ter climb by,” suggested Skimpy.

“An’ hev old Corbin come along the river bank an’ take it down whilst we war on it? I’m better’n enny ladder ye ever see, bein’ so strong. Feel my arm,” he held it out. “Shucks, boy! Fust time I ever see ye, ye war talkin’ ter Ike ’bout climbin’ down thar ’thout enny holp. But mebbe ef ye don’t want ter go, Ike will. I hain’t axed him yit. I’d ruther hev you-uns. But I reckon he ain’t _afeard_.”

In addition to Skimpy’s sympathy for the ostracized Binwell his terror of being considered a coward was very great. “Naw—I’ll go—I ain’t ’feared; but I be powerful oneasy an’ troubled bout’n that thar ladder.”

“Waal, arter we git the box—the papers air in it—we’ll go over to yon side o’ the mounting with a axe, an’ cut down the tree ez cotched the ladder, an’ tote it back whar we fund it.”

Skimpy’s objections vanished at the prospect of being able to undo soon the harm he had done. He hoped fervently that old Corbin would not miss his ladder before it was replaced.

“Hyar’s Obadiah’s fiddle!” exclaimed Binwell, who led the way while the boy followed through the laurel, grown quite dark now; and when they emerged into the open woods they beheld the stars glistening in the shallows of the branch, and many a pensive glimmer came through the bare boughs, and through the thinning leaves.